Work Text:
Qifrey didn’t know if it was fair to call them daydreams if he was certain they could actually happen. See, take this:
Olruggio traveled quite a bit, yes? His dear friend was well-known and oft requested, and oft he went, grumbling as he stomped out the door. Qifrey always watched him go with a little smile. Olruggio’s complaints were real, no doubt. Qifrey knew he hated the unnecessary requests from dukes and kings, but he also knew what Olruggio looked like when he was genuinely upset, and it wasn’t the wet kitten snarling that he did as he stomped out the door.
That was not the daydream. That was fact. Olruggio traveled, and he complained when he did.
No, the daydream happened in the kitchens after dinner and all the girls had clattered up to bed but hadn’t yet clattered back out for whatever reason would inevitably call them back down that night. Qifrey would look out the window and feel wistful. He would imagine Olruggio coming home in that quiet moment. Sometimes he would imagine it was raining because he liked how Olruggio’s hair looked when it was wet, and he would imagine opening the door to him.
“Welcome home,” he would say to him, warm, his atelier warm behind him, and then Olruggio would step up close to him, warmer than everything else.
Qifrey knew that Olruggio didn’t like talking about emotions, so sometimes he would just imagine him smiling and holding Qifrey’s hips. But he also knew that Olruggio was kinder and loved deeper than he ever could, so sometimes he imagined him leaning in, their noses brushing, and whispering, “You are my home.”
He always imagined a kiss. He wondered what his lips would feel like. He wondered if his beard would be itchy. He thought about his own face, and flushed slightly at the thought of evidence, of his skin scrubbed pink around his mouth.
The reality was this:
Even when it rained, Olruggio never came home wet. His spells took care of that. And he also came home at all hours of the day—in the afternoon, when Qifrey was out with the girls on a hill practicing spells; right during the middle of dinner, greetings ringing out and chairs reshuffling so he can sit with them; late at night, quiet and creeping around so he didn’t wake anyone up.
And always, he met Qifrey’s eyes. It was the first thing he did. Qifrey loved catching him do it.
Olruggio stood like a guard on top of a tower, so stoic and tense Qifrey could very nearly see the armor and sword on him, and Olruggio’s eyes would scan. And then they’d spot him looking back. Olruggio wouldn’t always smile, but always he relaxed, the invisible armor melting away like a long exhale.
I’m home, his eyes said, and Qifrey could never stop his smile. Those moments were even more dangerous—he could see it even better then, Olruggio coming to him, touching his shoulder or waist or the small of his back, and kissing him easily.
Right now, they were working their way through a bottle of wine. This was also where daydreams and fantasies liked to hide, Olruggio on the other side of the table from him, the atelier dark and quiet and the girls as asleep as they ever were.
Qifrey smile as he sipped at his cup and Olruggio filled his own cup up. It was actually raining outside, but the both of them were dry. Instead, it cocooned, drops pattering on windows, the dark snug and warm around them.
Qifrey dragged his foot on the floor, knowing the Olruggio’s feet where right there and he could bump them. He could tap his toes against his, and it bubbled in him more intoxicating than the glass of wine he already had. “Do you have any trips planned?” he asked, relaxed in his chair, wanting to imagine the welcome home.
Olruggio snorted. “Planned? No.”
“But you might anyways.” Qifrey’s smile deepened and he let his foot rest against Olruggio’s.
Olruggio’s eyes met his. No matter how often this happened, Qifrey couldn’t stop the breath he took. “Do you want me to go?”
“No,” Qifrey said, and maybe he was a little drunker than he thought he was, because he continued, “But I like it when you come back.”
Something in Olruggio shifted. Maybe he moved a bit in his chair, maybe his mouth opened for half a second, but his eyes were all Qifrey could see in that moment: heated, watching, and looking into Qifrey like he knew him inside and out.
A long breath slid out through Qifrey’s lips and he wondered if Olruggio would be as hot to the touch as his magic.
The foot pressed back against his and Olruggio did not look away. “You don’t mind when I leave?” Olruggio asked, his voice soft in the quiet dark of their kitchen.
“That’s not what I said,” Qifrey said, and it felt like a promise, the touch between them, hidden beneath the table.
Olruggio’s eyes tracked over his face, and Qifrey knew what he was looking for. A confirmation, something that said yes, some combination of expression and memories and emotions that he could read as Qifrey saying you.
Qifrey knew he should smile, and smile in the silly teacher way. Make himself harmless and shatter the moment.
He could only stare back.
“You have to know,” Olruggio said, his voice soft and gentle, tender like his magic, his eyes searching.
Qifrey’s breath went short. He didn’t deserve this.
“I always come back to—“
“And besides,” Qifrey cut him off. “You’re never gone long.”
Olruggio’s mouth shut slowly and his eyes didn’t leave Qifrey’s face. There was no hurt on his face, no sign of rejection. After a moment, he nodded slowly. His foot pressed back against Qifrey’s in a reassuring gesture and retreated.
“I’m working on something new,” he said. “Inspired by what Coco did with her sails.”
Qifrey took the change in subject. “Oh? What is it?”
Olruggio pulled out his spell book. “I was thinking about how harsh this upcoming winter is going to be,” he started, and they both allowed themselves to be pulled into the conversation, leaning together over the table, half drunk and fiddling with the spells like they were apprentices all over again.
And maybe this was the cruelest part—that Olruggio knew just as well as him. His patience with Qifrey was more painful than anything else Qifrey had lived through.
This thing between them wouldn’t have survived with anyone but Olruggio. Either it would have lit itself aflame a long time ago and been ashes for even longer, or it would have rung itself out, sodden with disappointment and impatience.
Olruggio was too gentle with him, and it burned in Qifrey. Olruggio treated them like one of his contraptions. With diligence, a keen eye catching what pushed it too far and careful hands pulling it back into balance.
Here, he always seemed to say, I am here, I come home to you, I lay on the couch as you teach your apprentices, I cook your stews for you, I sit across the table from you, and you can love me however you please. You can love me like a wildfire, you can love me skittishly, you can never touch me, you can eat me alive.
Qifrey knew he could kiss him. He knew he could have been kissing him for years. He knew he could have been kissing him since they were both 16.
But Qifrey was not nearly as skilled when it came to maintaining the balance of their relationship. He didn’t know how to manage the swing of it, how much of himself he could give to Olruggio, if he was too much, if he poured like a waterfall, unending and torrential, if Olruggio would be able to breath around the torrent of all that Qifrey was.
He felt sometimes like he was a bottle tied to the ocean, thin glass and a sea inside, and he worried that if he started tipping over, he would flood himself and the atelier and that everything that made Olruggio Olruggio would dampen, useless as ink in water and that the only thing Olruggio would say is I love you.
So he did what he was good at, and he lied and he hid, and when that stopped working, he cast spells, and he tried to save Olruggio from drowning in the oncoming tide that Qifrey could feel swelling behind every breath.
Olruggio looked at him, sideways, over a scatter of papers and half-finished spells, and smiled at him like he could do this for the rest of his life.
Qifrey smiled back because he knew he had to. He knew he would remember this moment, and in small, weak moments, he would imagine leaning in. He would imagine the distance collapsing between them. He would imagine the tilt of their heads, the brush of their lips.
But that was a daydream, and this was the reality:
After what he had done, he could never kiss Olruggio.