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Qifrey is the kind of person to tuck his elbows in while cutting vegetables in the kitchen, and if Olruggio walks by a little too close, he pulls them in tighter. He will always comfort a child in need with his cloak or an embrace, but he folds his hands in his lap when Olruggio’s voice grows strained. And whenever he and Olly eat alone, Qifrey drags the chair away, the wood screeching against the floor until he finally sits down across from him.
He says he finds it easier to talk from that angle, but Qifrey crosses his ankles together when their feet brush, knees bending at the exact same angle, left over right. So easy. Almost too easy, even.
The distance doesn’t hurt, really. But it is noticeable. Especially when there used to be a white-haired loner who would kick Olruggio’s shins with pinpoint accuracy. Sometimes, there are glimpses of their old playfulness through a back-handed quip or two—Olruggio’s drinking habits being Qifrey’s favorite among them—but it isn’t the same. The word “missing” sticks to the tip of Olruggio’s tongue, but he shakes it off. He shouldn’t dwell on the past when the present is just as bright. It’s just… different. A dark, ink-stained line drawn and redrawn through all their years in this atelier.
And somewhere down the line, Olruggio’s touches become inventions.
He can craft up a seal or two to extend the table for “guests,” draw up snugstones for the girls, plus an extra one (for research purposes), and keep his stubborn hands working on a seal late at night rather than being anywhere else. A high-five or a pat on the back now and again is still on the table, but he never lingers for too long. Well, the fuzzy, tingling sensation dragging across his palm afterward begs to differ, but that’s from drawing too long without a break. He shoves any other thought into a faraway corner with his chronic back pain.
He couldn’t imagine a life without the atelier, the lessons, the late nights that turn into sleepovers where he “guards” the girl’s fort, or really, sleeps on the couch. But from there, he can see Qifrey laugh a little more freely, his turtleneck swapped out for something more loose. Olruggio has to work on a palm quire, though; otherwise, his hands get antsy.
Qifrey is simply not the type to be physically affectionate, unless it’s any other close friend, or the girls, or the one random witch he met while fixing his cap that he got really cozy with for those five excruciating clockmarks. Unfortunately, setting an abandoned building on fire isn’t the most mature thing to do, even if Olruggio could contain it. Besides, he shouldn’t let his magic become soured by things he can’t control.
So what if Qifrey runs cold during the summer? Or that his hands are much softer, even with all the callouses and inkstains? The point is, Olruggio shouldn’t dwell on it. Shouldn’t is a loose word, though, especially when these tiny, insignificant thoughts run rampant with him as he paces around the atelier late at night. He should be asleep by now, but each clock mark passing by is another reminder that Qifrey isn’t back from the Great Hall.
The girls are already in bed, no thanks to Mr. “I’ll be back by dinner time, Olly,” and he had to reassure them that their master would be back. As if Olruggio ever knew that. He doesn’t know how Qifrey stays so composed. Olruggio has half a mind to pull out all his hair and jump through the window-way himself.
He rests an ear against the girls’ doors, closing his eyes. A beat passes, then two, then three, and he finally exhales once he picks up on the soft snores on the other side. He stands still for a moment longer in case there’s any scratching on parchment, but for once, the girls are actually listening to him. That, or after waiting for so long, they couldn’t stay awake. Knowing how he was as a kid, he’ll put money on the latter.
Waking up to Olruggio scrounging about like a madman, or any form of an anxious-ruggio, for that matter, wouldn’t help their worries. Their master will be home soon enough, whether Qifrey likes it or not. Well, if Olruggio can find a guidance orb, that is. He yanks open drawers, deconstructs, then reconstructs every cabinet with a few chicken-scratch spells—he’ll fix it later—and even plucks the brushbuddy curled up in the kitchen to use as an ink detector. No luck. That, and every white hair strand he found ends up belonging to that fluffy fur ball, even in Qifrey’s room.
For such a tiny creature, it sure does shed a lot. He will have to create a contraption for that later. But, for now, he’ll settle for cursing the ever-loving caps out of the person who moved the guidance orb. Olruggio would be packing up for Ghodrey by now if Qifrey could hear his dirty mouth. He still swears under his breath, though; he isn’t that crass.
…
Okay, he is, but the girls don’t need ammunition this young.
It’s only after he pulls back the leftover blankets in the hearth that he finds it glistening in the firelight. Olruggio snatches the guidance orb into his bag along with an assortment of Qifrey’s things. The small knick-knacks and leftover inkwell will have to do. And even if they don’t work, Olruggio will scour every possible building at the bottom of the ocean.
He’ll have one long, chastising rant ahead of him, but Qifrey will buy more silvernectar wine at the end as an apology. No, make it two with how many stairs he’s going to have to climb up.
Olruggio shoves palm quires, his drying rings, bandages, a sleeping bag, and far too many emergency spells that he pulled out from the crammed space in the back of his drawer into one bulky satchel. Then finally, finally, he steps through the window-way.
Well, that’s what should have happened.
Olruggio slams into something solid, his foot slips, and he grapples for something, anything, before finding purchase on whatever is in front of him, and somehow brings them both down with one hard slap to the floor. Oh, his back is going to feel that tomorrow. So will his legs, thanks to whatever weight is pressing onto them. He groans into his palm. Did he turn the window-way seals the wrong way? He’s gone to the Great Hall so many times now, so how did he—
There’s a sharp intake of breath beside him. Worse, Olruggio tilts his head down and begins to realize that his hands are gripping someone’s cloak. Someone is on the floor with him. Here.
Olruggio gasps and shoots upright, his forehead knocks straight into Qifrey’s, and he collapses back onto the tiles. Not soft, or easy, no. Not when Lady Luck has a thing for anemic, alcoholic witches with a penchant for curling over a workstation for hours.
Yeah, tonight isn’t his night, it seems. “Oi!” Olruggio winces. “By the brimmed caps, Qifrey! Tell me when you’re goin’ to…” he stops. “Qifrey!?”
“Ngh…” Qifrey sits—well, really stumbles upright. “Olly…?”
The emergency bag crunches, and Olruggio takes a sharp, deep breath. There’s probably a broken bottle of ink in there now, but he’ll figure out how to clean it later. A whole list of misshapen whys, whats, hows, crash into him, then pull back like the tides. He could drop to his knees. He could go on a long-winded rant. All of this planning and rushing for Qifrey to show up out of nowhere adds far too many bullet points to Olruggio’s list of snarky remarks.
He opens his mouth to ask, but as they get off the floor and onto their feet, Qifrey immediately slumps into him.
“Qifrey!” Qifrey’s arm flops around his shoulders, slips, then he throws it harder–“Oi!” It slaps right against Olruggio’s back.
Did the fall hurt him this badly?
Olruggio yanks back Qifrey’s robes, pulls the skirts to the side, bunches them in his arms, checking again, and again, waiting for something to appear—blood, cuts, something—but he freezes, and drops the fabric. There aren’t any red stains. Or bruises. Or broken bones.
Is it sickness? Something internal?
Olruggio places a palm on his forehead, and while it’s warm, it’s not feverish. But it has to be bubbling up soon, or else how could he explain—
Qifrey clutches his hand. “I should have known you would be waiting…” he sways before regaining his footing, “of course, you would. Why would I expect anything different?”
Olruggio tries to check his temperature, but Qifrey tightens his grip. “At least let me check on you.”
“So that’s what you think this is?”
Oh, he could chastise Qifrey right now. He doesn’t, but it’s ripe and ready to happen. “What am I supposed to think? You’re never home late.”
“Ah…I do apologize for that.” He laughs. A bubbly, tired thing. “You know, the silvernectar wine you buy is much stronger than Beldaruit’s—I couldn’t have known—well, I should have if I was paying attention to my seemingly infinite glass.”
Olruggio breaks free of Qifrey’s grip and checks his temperature again, shrugging off the hand tugging at his wrist. “What are you goin’ on about?” It doesn’t help that the person who should be giving him answers is staring at him like he’s grown two heads.
Even with the minimal torchlight, there’s a flush on Qifrey’s cheeks exactly like the start of a cold. Qifrey pushes up his spectacles, and instead of fixing them, he skews them even further into some haphazard angle. Olruggio pushes them upright.
Since when did a cold involve rocking back and forth on one’s heels to stay balanced? Or such sloppy coordination. It’s almost like Qifrey’s—Olruggio immediately shakes off the thought. As if Qifrey drinks more than a glass or two, and even then, he would nurse it for hours. There has to be another reason, a sickness, an injury. Some forbidden magic during a scuffle with the Brimmed Caps.
Qifrey’s head plops onto his shoulder, and Olruggio stiffens. “How do you do this every Silver Eve?” he groans. “Every time I look up, the room is moving about.”
“Aye…well…” his voice trails off.
Brilliant. Just fantastically, horribly, terribly brilliant.
If one hand weren’t supporting the weight of a grown man, Olruggio would pinch the bridge of his nose. Qifrey doesn’t seem to notice or care. Of course, he doesn’t. He’s drunk. Drunk and on Olruggio’s shoulder. The worst part about this is now he knows there’s a secret stash of mountain apple hand lotion in the atelier, and the caramel-nuttiness is far too familiar to his grandfather’s pie.
He doesn’t even want to acknowledge the warm breath fanning on his neck.
Qifrey slumps into his side, and Olruggio pushes him back up with a firm, but clinical grip on his shoulder. “Come now, let’s get you to bed.”
“You’re not going to ask?”
“Your girls might,” he says. “I’ll think up a story in the mornin’, probably ‘bout you gettin’ lost somewhere.”
“You don’t–” his steps stutter as he walks forward, “you do too much for my sake.”
What else is he supposed to do? Let Qifrey slump onto the floor and stay there? Something warm bubbles up to the surface, but Olruggio waves it off. He won’t give the feeling a name if he can help it. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “Save your apology for my cellar.”
After a few attempts, he and Qifrey finally walk, or really stumble, up the steps. At least they’re mercifully short. It sure doesn’t feel like it, but imagining dragging Qifrey up all the stairs from the Great Hall to the surface helps a little.
Qifrey slumps this way, then that way, then finally lands somewhere on Olruggio’s arm or shoulder. He’ll lurch upright afterward, only to sway as he stands up and reset the whole cycle all over again. Olruggio has to support his shoulders to keep it from happening as often. It’s a good distraction from the cool fingers mindlessly toying with the hair at the nape of his neck.
To Qifrey’s credit, he somehow lugged a drunken Olruggio many times before. Not an easy feat by any means, especially when someone is ranting about a list of clients who should be chucked into a cooking pot and stewed for two years minimum. A bit much? Yes. Warranted? Absolutely.
Olruggio sighs. If this is how he acts while drunk, then he has a lot of apology wines ahead of him. He’ll remind himself to pass out somewhere without stairs next time.
Qifrey flops on the bed, after some stumbling and even more fumbling through the door. Thankfully, any protests about him unclasping his outer robes and “doing it himself” die the moment he struggles to pull off one. Though his shoulders wind up tighter and tighter the longer Olruggio unbuttons them.
Olruggio brushes Qifrey’s jaw, and he apologizes. He moves into Qifrey’s space and tries to lean back as soon as possible. Kneeling in front of the bed helps maintain some distance, but the air is heavy. Stuck. They’re far too close. Too intimate, when they shouldn’t be. Every time Olruggio shifts, even just a little, Qifrey’s eye darts away, his breathing shallows in some form of embarrassment or discomfort; it’s hard to tell. With how many accidental touches Olruggio tries to avoid—tries being the important verb here—his apologies are a knee-jerk reflex.
He pulls off the final few buttons, not missing how Qifrey swallows and looks away. “I’m almost done,” Olruggio says, slipping off the outer robes. He touches that, and only that, for sure this time.
“It’s quite all right,” Qifrey says, “I can do the rest from here.”
Right. Of course. As if Qifrey won’t give up, fall asleep in some splayed-out drunken mess, then have a bad neck the next morning. Olruggio quirks up an eyebrow. “If you can’t take off your robes, then how would you undo all of this?” He gestures to Qifrey’s elaborate turtleneck.
“I’ll just…” he crosses his arms, “I’ll manage.”
“Will you stop pullin’ that face? You’re the one who makes me breakfast after drinking too much. Why should this be any different?”
“Olly…”
He stops. “Oi, look at me.” Olruggio waits until he does, though Qifrey doesn’t hold eye contact for long. “You’re a ripe idiot, you are. All out of sorts and not thinkin’ straight. Course I’m goin’ to make sure I do this right.”
Qifrey shakes his head. “It’s too much—you’re too much.”
“I know, I know. You don’t want me here, I get it,” Olruggio sighs. He needs to keep the pang in his chest in check. “But I want to…” Make sure he’s okay? Give kindness or affection that isn’t a hand on someone’s shoulder? “I’m payin’ you back.” His face warms up a little. “For every time I passed out on the stairs.”
“No—never,” Qifrey grips the sheets, “I owe you—I will always owe you first. After everything I did, and have done…” he pauses, looking somewhere far, far away, “I can’t have this.”
“Well, I can’t leave you hangin’.” He knows that won’t put an end to it, but “I’ll be quick.”
He waits for a response or a quip back, but in the end, Qifrey sighs, then nods once. His flush is deeper now, probably from the leftover alcohol burning through his system. But what matters is Olruggio focusing on the task at hand.
If he could remove himself for Qifrey’s sake and use some form of spectral hands, he would. If Qifrey needs distance after this, he wouldn’t bat an eye, because Olruggio can’t lose Qifrey’s cooking in the morning or the little smiles—the genuine ones—that flicker for a moment whenever they finish a job well done.
The choice to be a Watchful Eye is an easy one, but so selfish nonetheless.
He peels back a turtleneck strap, and his thumb brushes against Qifrey’s neck. “Sorry—”
“Don’t,” Qifrey says. “Don’t apologize.” Then, he smiles. “Your hands are warm; they always are somehow.”
“Well, yours are soft for no good reason.” He pulls back another strap, keeping his eyes focused on the turtle neck. “Mine can’t have changed much from the Great Hall, can they?”
Qifrey shakes his head. “They’re rough. But they’re also tender, in a way. Your way.”
Olruggio hates the way his stomach flips. “You’re a sap while drunk, you know?”
“I mean it.”
“No,” he sighs, “No, you don’t.” There’s a hand that drags along his thumb before it twitches and pulls away entirely. So fast that Olruggio can’t tell if it was real. He looks up. “Do you want me to stop?”
Qifrey swallows, his Adam’s apple brushing against Olruggio’s fingers. Before now, Olruggio didn’t notice how low Qifrey’s flush ran, or the darkness to his eyes while staring at the hands curled around his neck. How his breath hitches every time Olruggio brushes against skin. “You drive me mad, Olly.”
Oh.
Oh no.
The looking away, the swallowing; that wasn’t out of discomfort, was it?
“You’re not makin’ sense,” Olruggio says. He should move his hands away, shut the door, but Qifrey chuckles, soft and low, and his body goes rigid.
“I always wondered how they would feel on me.”
“You’re drunk,” Olruggio says.
“I’m honest.” Qifrey smiles with that devious, practiced one of his. “When I can be.”
“And now is a good time?”
“There never is with you, even if I wanted it to be.” He splays Olruggio’s hands across his throat, sliding them across his pulse. It thrums with every inch of a spell that shouldn’t exist. And now, Olruggio is cursed with the knowledge that his hands belong here, trailing and curling the planes of Qifrey’s body. He shouldn’t know this. It should be forbidden. “Tell me, my dearest friend…” Qifrey leans forward, grazing his lips against the shell of Olruggio’s ear, “How would you love me?” And then, his breath turns hot and heavy. “How would you touch me?”
Olruggio’s breath hitches. He doesn’t look up. Can’t. Won’t. The image of Qifrey panting in bed, of moaning his name—he retracts his hands to cover his lap. He is sick and twisted for even imagining it in the first place. “You know I can’t answer that,” he croaks out. His voice is weak, even to himself.
“You’re too kind,” Qifrey says.
“You could have asked if I—” he shuts his eyes. “Not like this.”
“I can’t have you any other way,” he mutters. Olruggio only has time to wrench his hands away before Qifrey slips off the bed and straddles his thigh. He grinds down slow enough to follow the roll of his hips—to watch Olruggio choke back a groan. “Should I tell you my desires? My wants?” he smirks. As if he knows his deep, shuddering voice will take root in Olruggio’s mind. As if he knows every scenario Olruggio played and replayed while palming his skirts when no one else was around.
Olruggio grips Qifrey’s hips, stopping them dead. “I won’t let you.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“I know you.” He pushes Qifrey back, redrawing the line. “You don’t want this.”
A single laugh glides against Olruggio’s neck. “I couldn’t want anything more.”
“Qifrey,” he warns.
A finger runs the line of Olruggio’s jaw a moment longer, and then Qifrey stands. “Of course.” Sadness and regret slip in and out of his eyes, but, in the end, his expressions warp back into the smile he always wears. “I’m sorry.”
The loud chirping from the obnoxious amount of crickets outside fills the empty silence, while Olruggio waits there dumbly for a drunk man to suddenly become coherent and tell him to leave. He doesn’t, of course, he doesn’t. Even Olruggio can’t shake off the lump cinching his throat. So after a breath, moving his feet and shifting his weight, he stands up and turns to the door. The least he could do is make a half-decent breakfast for tomorrow.
Qifrey breaks the silence. “Please. Forget tonight, for me.”
Olruggio stops. Déjà vu flickers in the back of his mind, but as he leans forward to dip his pen, the ink slips off. He can’t draw the flame. Olruggio reaches out, his hand twitches, and drops to his side. He doesn’t know what Qifrey needs, what he wants anymore. In the end, he asks, “Do you need anythin’ else?” As if that would solve the world’s problems. His problems.
Qifrey doesn’t answer right away. Instead, his gaze trails down Olruggio’s robes before flicking back up. Then he smiles; the practiced kind. “I’ll be fine.”
“Then…” he turns back to the handle, creaking it slowly. “I’ll be off.”
Qifrey nods. “Goodnight, Olly.”
Olruggio waves, but doesn’t look back.
The click as the door closes echoes in his ears.
Rummaging for the sound-dampening seals doesn’t take long. He aligns them to his locked door and finishes off the seal with more than shaky hands. At least he didn’t have to draw them. He would be in a world of trouble if he had to do more than a few short, quick lines. His breaths tighten as his belt buckle clinks, then slides off his waist. By the time he sprawls across the pillows, his skirts lie crumpled on the tiles, and his trousers are somewhere between the hammock and his workstation. He couldn’t care less.
His fingers tremble for a moment. Thoughts and questions fly by, but this awful pool of lust kicks them away. The buzzing sensation from earlier still drags across his skin, and he follows their trail. From caressing his jaw to down his neck, and then, as he rolls his palm back and forth on his thigh, he sighs in relief. His hand curls the same as the name dripping from his mouth; slow and measured.
The drawer beside him sweeps open, the warmed vial inside covered beneath a layer of blueprints no one would ever think of touching. His fingers shake as he pops it open, and the oil drools down his cock. The warmth is so cloying. So inviting. He ruts into it and stifles a gasp by biting down on his fist. Even when he skims the head a few times, the pleasure builds too fast.
Qifrey would tease him like this, wouldn’t he? He would stroke him lightly, edging on too little friction just to push every button and nerve he could find until something shatters. Until he’s the one twitching against Olruggio’s thigh as he grinds down—panting, pleading to roll his hips more than once.
Would he beg hot and heavy against Olruggio’s ear? Would his back arch as he got close? Olruggio can imagine his deep flush, the sweat sticking to his hair. How his breathing would shudder and crumble from one hand curling around his neck. How Qifrey would whine for it.
Olruggio’s hips sputter as he works himself faster. His strokes become animalistic, desperate for something he can’t have. Forbidden magic etched into the tensing and shivering of his body’s betrayal. He pants into the pillow, Qifrey’s voice licking down his spine.
How would you touch me?
Olruggio tugs his hair, and with a twist of his wrist, he snaps. He moans Qifrey’s name while arching for the last bits of sinful, reverent friction wrenched from his thrusts. The pillow next to him swallows his voice as he comes, his hips rutting through the last broken sputters of his orgasm. He falls apart. Himself, the line, Qifrey’s “so-called” distance.
Qifrey, the mentor to four wonderful girls, rolled his hips while admitting he got off to the thought of him.
Olruggio throws an arm over his eyes, his panting easing into slow and controlled breaths.
Where would he even start?