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Winter teases at the borders of Autumn when Qifrey confides in Olruggio for the tenth time.
The atelier is quiet and the patter, patter, patter of rain against the windows is all that accompanies Qifrey as he brews tea in the kitchen. On nights like these, he allows himself to sit with his thoughts. He takes the kettle off the stove before it can whistle, and begins the soothing routine of steeping his blend of choice; Ceylon and honey.
"Is there a cup to spare?" Olruggio raps knuckles gently on the kitchen door, ajar, as he comes in. His hair is handsomely tousled and his sleeping clothes are loose on his frame. He brings a small pile of papers with him—project drafts for his patrons, no doubt, and their orders for new magical contraptions. Olruggio's innovation knows no bounds, and Qifrey is more than aware he's made a good amount of gold from it.
How normal things seem now after Silver Eve's passing and all that came with it.
"For the friendly beggar? Always." Qifrey allows himself to smile, a soft thing. Thin branches prickle, pressing against his ribs, and curling around the bone; it's a nauseating feeling, when the Silverwood seed begins to bloom inside him, hair-thin tendrils feeding off of affection and his very blood. He forces himself to clasp his mug of tea tighter, letting hot ceramic burn his palms. The seed retreats back into itself ever so slightly.
"Just whiteblack, please." Olruggio lets papers rest on the table and takes a seat, hugging his robes tightly around himself to chase away the chill. The weather is foul, and the cold seeps into the house, despite the fireplace still burning bright in the living room, and snugstones tucked into beds. His fingertips are stained with ink, and he taps them on the table as he returns to flipping through papers.
Qifrey finds tea leaves, and steeps them. He leans over the stove, and lets steam wash over his face, warming the frost-nipped tip of his nose. He breathes. Waits for discomfort to retreat entirely.
How he wishes these moments alone with Olruggio weren't the reason for such pain. How he wishes love—unspoken as it still is between them—could be softer and easier to utter into the safety of nighttime.
"You've been doing that a lot lately." Olruggio says softly, looking up.
Qifrey's laugh is a light, exhaled thing. "Doing what?" He sets Olruggio's mug down on the table, and sits across from him.
"Pretending." Olruggio's gaze is steady. He holds no accusation in his tone, and Qifrey's heart aches. He knows that look. He knows where Olruggio's thoughts will take him. Ever observant, is he. "You take your time doing things you usually don't. You hold things tighter, too," he adds, tipping his chin to Qifrey's mug, still held in a white-knuckled grip.
"It's not easy to pretend, Olruggio." Qifrey sips on his tea, and lets it burn his tongue. Pins and needles prickle to life along the roof of his mouth. The sweetness of honey chases the hurt away, if only a little, but still, blessedly so.
"You're in pain." Olruggio reluctantly takes a drink from his own mug. He's more careful than Qifrey. He blows along the surface, letting steam retreat, and sips when it's cooled down. "That's not an easy thing to hide."
"I can't seem to fool you, can I, old friend?" Qifrey sighs, a heavy thing, releasing the weight of the world with it. "You want me to tell you why." He sets his cup down and leans over the table, interlacing fingers, and resting his chin upon his hands. "Since our return, you've wanted to know."
"When you spoke to Coco at the Spire," Olruggio starts, "I felt something had happened. I just…" he shakes his head. "I felt there was something you were keeping from me."
Secrets had run rife in the height of Silver Eve's happenings—some of those secrets will never reach Olruggio's ears, even now.
"Custas is the catalyst of this, I fear." Qifrey's laugh sounds hollow, even to himself. "His nature is much like mine. Do you remember those legs of his? How do you think the Brimmed Caps could accomplish such a thing?"
"A spell of convergence and growth embedded into the skin?"
"A good guess." Qifrey swallows thickly, before clearing his throat. "The Brimmed Caps planted Silverwood Sprouts within him; it's the reason the legs they fashioned for him bent so easily to his will at first. I…" A shudder of pain rolls through him, and he flinches. He sucks in a sharp breath and tenses, waiting for it to pass. "When one feels truly loved and at peace, the Silverwood will take root and grow."
"And what of your secrets?"
"Custas and I are very much the same." With shaking hands, Qifrey slips glasses off his nose. He feels naked—bared in soul rather than flesh. The furl of leaves spilling from where his right eye once was shifts, and he holds his glasses tighter as he braces for it.
Every time he has shared this with Olruggio, the relief of it has posed a threat to his surroundings. This time, though, guilt overrides relief, and he clings to that feeling.
"The Silverwood…" Olruggio reaches across the table and brushes hair from Qifrey's face. Fingertips graze over leaves sprouting from spindly branches, trembling. "Why couldn't you tell me?"
And there is the hurt. There is the determination Qifrey has come to know so well with every pass of this same scene from Olruggio.
"I have told you. Many, many times."
The shock of the admission falls between them, a terrible gong sounded in the hopes of awakening a larger creature of secrecy now roused to bring truths to light.
"And I am unwell." Qifrey can't look away from Olruggio. He stays fixed on those blue eyes, now dark with despair. For a brief moment, he thinks Olruggio remembers. But then that flicker of recognition is gone. "This seed; it rests inside me, wholly." Qifrey ghosts his fingertips over his heart, and rests them by the base of his throat. "A parasitic experiment of the Brimmed Caps. They thought they could turn me…" Nausea curls tight in Qifrey's belly and he swallows thickly. Olruggio moves to stand, to help, but Qifrey waves him down. "When I was found, I was near death. They wished to make me a vessel for their work."
"Beldaruit knows." Hurt laces Olruggio's words—he is the last to know the truth, at least, this time. In years past, when they were young boys, still learning beneath their Masters, Qifrey had confided in Olruggio first.
Qifrey has always sought out Olruggio first.
And Olruggio had been the one to request his mind be wiped clean for the sake of Qifrey's well-being all those years ago.
"You're telling me to take this secret to the grave. I think that's a lot more cruel than having to lose a memory or two." Olruggio begins to draw upon his palmquire, determined. "That kind of pain is better off in your hands, Qifrey."
Now, Olruggio reaches across the table, palm upturned and seeking. Qifrey takes Olruggio's hand in his, and the air within him leaves in a single breath, shuddering with grief. Olruggio squeezes his hand tightly, and runs his thumb over knuckles, his touch calloused from years of handiwork.
"You have known. Many times before this, I have told you. I have cried upon your shoulder. I have wept." Qifrey forces confession from his tongue. Suddenly, the honey on his palate is biting and far too sweet. The sugar burns. "And I have taken the memory of this very conversation from you, without fail. This time won't be any different. You never protest."
Oh, how Qifrey wishes he knew why he was the one deemed worthy enough of such love from Olruggio; such devotion and sacrifice.
"You'll live knowing you erased my memory. You'll be the one to handle the anxiety that comes with hiding the truth from everyone around you." Olruggio's smile, so full of hope, breaks Qifrey's heart. He can't breathe. He can't, he can't, he can't— "From now on, we won't just be friends. We'll be partners in pain. So swear to me you won't die!"
"I've felt for a while now that you've taken parts of me." Olruggio is far from accusing. His eyes are sad, and dulled to dark storms looming over a once bright blue sea, as if coming to a terrible, unavoidable realization. "Parts of my mind, but—"
"I've never had a choice—"
"You might, just…" Olruggio swallows thickly and lets his gaze fall to the table, where their hands rest, clasped tightly together. His throat works, and when he finds Qifrey's gaze again, there is something else alongside sadness there. Is that hope? "You can give me time. This time around, may we have time? Please, Qifrey?"
"For what?" Qifrey's heart fills his chest, and then closes his throat, the thrum of blood filling his ears. He can hardly breathe.
"Qifrey, you…" Olruggio sucks a steadying breath through his teeth, and lifts Qifrey's hand, pressing lips to the back. He closes his eyes, and speaks, words exhaled against skin. "You may take everything from me, but one thing."
"Your soul? Your self?" Qifrey means to joke, but it comes out broken and hollow; a tree struck by lightning and scorched so fiercely that nothing is left within it, and it's good for nothing but a greedy hearth in winter.
"Love." The word comes with a soft kiss left to Qifrey's wrist. When Qifrey doesn't move—how can he?—Olruggio's lips grace fingertips, and another kiss is left to his palm. "You cannot take love from me, and it is the one thing I'll give you. It's the one thing I haven't forgotten—you kept it there, a seed of it's own."
The Silverwood seed shudders within Qifrey, and his stomach drops. He takes his hand back, as if scalded. He casts his gaze down in shame, clasping hands tight, letting nails dig into skin.
"It's been years." Qifrey's breath hitches. He doesn't cry, but his eye burns, tears unshed. "It's been years since you've said that to me."
"I remember that." Olruggio's smile is sad. "In Ezrest, just after Silver Eve."
"We drank far too much Silvernectar," Qifrey adds. The pain abates, mercifully so, and he sits up a little straighter. "Perhaps it was a mistake."
"The fresh flush? Definitely. It tasted terrible. We knew no better, and didn't think a heavier, aged blend would have been more palatable." Olruggio grimaces at the memory. They'd both felt ill to their stomachs the next morning. "But you've never been a mistake."
"We were young," Qifrey echoes, as if it were a mistake to feel love when so wet behind the ears. "Perhaps we know better now."
—
Foolish and drunk in fresh adulthood, they stumble through a small alleyway some ways away from their vendor—this Silver Eve is one of Olruggio's first opportunities to sell his goods. Even without the prospect of money to urge them along, being beyond the Great Hall is what makes Qifrey feel free, and he doesn't want to go back.
They decide to celebrate.
"Qifrey." Olruggio shifts aside as Qifrey sits down heavily on the stairs next to him. This alleyway is narrow and, from where they are, they can look out over the rest of the city below, sprawling and winding, a maze of its own.
"Olruggio." Qifrey's lips tip up in a lazy, drunken smile, and he leans into Olruggio's side, close enough to smell the day on him; the sweetness of the wine they've had too much of, and the bright scent of ink from a day of preparing contraptions for the common folk to purchase. "You look tired."
"Really now?" Olruggio's laugh is more of an inelegant snort. He brushes hair from Qifrey's face, careful to not knock his glasses off. "When am I not tired?"
"It's been a long four days."
"It has." Olruggio doesn't argue for once.
The wind whispers past them, and Qifrey shivers. They're close enough for him to feel the warmth of Olruggio's body beneath their cloaks—they hadn't prepared for such a rainy Silver Eve, and their winter cloaks are stowed away in their rooms, waiting for colder months.
"We should head back before they send a search party after us." Olruggio moves to get up, but Qifrey catches him before he can stand on uneven feet.
"Stay a while, why don't you?" Qifrey pats the cold stone floor. "The stars are out, and the skies have cleared. By the time we are home, the rain will have started again. We should enjoy this while it lasts."
And so they do.
They talk of their futures, tongues tripping over the simplest of words. They finish their second bottle of Silvernectar, and shuffle until their backs are against the wall, and their legs are sprawled over the stairs. Olruggio sits above Qifrey, and he leans down, trying to fix his hat. Olruggio's hand slips from beneath him, and he loses his grip, falling forward.
It's a mess, really—their first kiss isn't something filled with romance nor is it particularly planned. Qifrey catches Olruggio before he goes tumbling down the stairs, and they share air, laughing, belly-deep; enough to ache and lose breath.
"We shouldn't," Qifrey murmurs. Something aching and tender hooks onto his ribcage, and pulls down. It hurts, but it isn't aching enough compared to the desire in his belly. Not yet, at least.
How many nights has Qifrey tried to find pleasure, with Olruggio's name taking shape on his tongue? How many more nights has Qifrey curled in on himself, a cavity in his chest, as silverseed takes root in his lungs, and steals his air?
Despair is a well known friend—it has followed him through adolescence, and through early adulthood.
Will he let the Brimmed Caps take love from him as well?
Qifrey decides to be brave. Instead of pushing Olruggio away, he swallows a greedy lap of pain, pulsing at his temples, in favour of the bright shudder of desire as it washes over him.
Olruggio kisses with greed. His tongue traces the backs of teeth and seeks, tasting wine from Qifrey's lips. Qifrey sighs. He doesn't remember when Olruggio reaches up to cup his face. He doesn't remember Olruggio's lips wandering to the corner of his mouth, and then down, to trace the line of his throat—it's all a drunken blur, and it's beautiful.
"Olruggio." Qifrey breathes out his name as a prayer. As something fragile and weighted with reverence. "Please, I—"
"You could have me." Olruggio's voice is deep, grated, and resonates as he speaks. His lips brush against the soft skin of Olruggio's throat, mouthing at the flutter of his pulse. "You know this."
"I do."
"But you can't, can you?"
Qifrey's heart drops into his gut, and cold washes over him, colder than the dreary weather.
"Olly—"
"You don't have to tell me." Olruggio sits up. He makes space between them first, and it feels as if a cavern has opened up, waiting to swallow Qifrey whole. Olruggio's eyes are sad; blown with desire, yes, but also deeply grieved. "Something is wrong, and you don't need to tell me. Not yet. But one day, promise you will?"
"I…" Qifrey swallows thickly, and turns his gaze to the city below. There are so many lives touched by magic tonight, and so many who marvel at the glory of everything it can do.
How many are aware of its harm?
"I promise."
It is a sweet thing—to make a promise is to fulfil a wish, and this one is tender.
A fortnight after Silver Eve is when Qifrey tells Olruggio for the fifth time.
He waits two days before passing the memory-erasure spell over Olruggio's mind.
He swears it'll be the last time.
It never is.
But the seed stills. Qifrey can breathe easier with despair as his companion.
This grief will be enough for now.
—
They move to the living room, and sit before the fire, where the crackle of wood and thick stone walls keep their voices well-hidden from the girls as they sleep.
Qifrey tells Olruggio everything, just as he has before. The truth now spills from his lips, and he can't seem to stop until he is done—a river given permission to overflow—and tears burn at his waterline. His tea tastes of little beyond bitter salt.
The relief of confession is just as painful, but, for now, Qifrey brushes it aside in favour of clasping Olruggio's hands tightly, until his knuckles turn white. And Olruggio says nothing; he watches Qifrey as he speaks, and he presses the backs of those hands to his lips, waiting. There is hurt in Olruggio's silence, yes, but there is also a deep sense of regret.
In every time before this, of all the reasons Olruggio has to be angry with Qifrey, he is nothing more than regretful over having no means to help him.
What a fixer Olruggio has always been.
"You told me I wouldn't have to lie anymore, Olruggio."
"You're right, I did, but," Olruggio waves the spell, page tossed in the wind, "think of it as telling lies only a friend would make."
"I've never meant to keep this a secret, but to confess and find peace and pleasure is what this magic thrives upon," Qifrey starts. Warmth slips beneath his skin as Olruggio holds his hands tighter. There is such stability in that grip, and it's just as comforting as any hug. Somehow, it is more intimate than a kiss. "Olly…" Qifrey lets tears fall. He bows his head, shame curdling in his gut. "I don't know what to do."
"We do nothing." Olruggio's voice is deep, and his breath coasts, warm, over Qifrey's fingertips. "For now, we wait. We think."
"I have had much time to think. We need the Brimmed Caps, but I cannot—" Qifrey tries to pull away, but Olruggio stops him. "I cannot do that to the girls. This is our home."
"And you're part of this home, aren't you?" Olruggio leans closer. Qifrey's breath catches, but he doesn't move this time, nor try to flee. "Qifrey, you cannot do it all alone."
"I can't." Tension bleeds from Qifrey's body. He goes slack in Olruggio's hold.
For the first time in months, he allows himself to cry. He waits for the seed to quiver, and feed off of relief, but instead, he feels nothing.
Let these tears be ones of sadness and guilt, then, if that is what his heart is to make of it all.
Olruggio's arms are strong, coming around Qifrey's shoulders to draw him closer. Qifrey can't find it within himself to apologize for whetting Olruggio's sleeping shirt with tears as he rests his cheek on a shoulder. Olruggio smells of smoke from the fireplace, tea and honeytree soap—this is home. Olruggio is home.
Qifrey has been so fearful of hurt that he'd forgotten where to find safety. Even if it is fleeting.
"Love." Qifrey turns his face to the softness of Olruggio's neck. His breath presses over skin and Olruggio still beneath him. "Did you mean it?"
"I do." Olruggio brings a hand to card fingers—well-worked fingers that are capable of doing so much, and crafting such beauty—through soft, white hair. "But you have no obligation to return it. My heart is my own."
My heart is yours, Qifrey longs to say, but branches creep up the curves of his spine, and slip into his veins, threatening.
Instead, he bridges the gap that sits between them, and takes Olruggio's mouth. This kiss is far from soft, and far from how their first was—it is borne of teeth and tongues and shuttered breaths. Qifrey pours love into the way he sinks fingers into Olruggio's hair and pulls him in.
The fireplace dwindles, light dying, as wood is feasted on until diminished to glimmering coals. Cold seeps in and it ushers them both to Olruggio's rooms.
"I don't want to forget this," Qifrey murmurs against Olruggio's lips. The door clicks shut and their hands seek each other in the safety of privacy. Glowstones light up beneath them, guiding the way to a small corner, laden with pillows and blankets on a low mattress.
"Let love be a burden then," Olruggio says as he gets to his knees before Qifrey. He lets his robes fall as he presses a kiss to Qifrey's knee, pushing sleeping pants up. His eyes shimmer with their own tears. "I'll have to let go of tonight once it has passed. Let the guilt of it be your anchor."
You will uncover my secret again and again. Each time you will respond with disbelief, then anguish, then you will show me grace. You will comfort me, and forgive me for deceiving you.
This time, though, Olruggio loves Qifrey.
Their kisses are sullied with salt as they make love—each touch is followed by the warmth of Olruggio's magic. His room is cosy yet cluttered, and the blankets smell of him. Aching desire is taken into hands and the warmth of Olruggio's mouth, and Qifrey finds orgasm with Olruggio's name shaped upon his lips.
The mattress is soft beneath Qifrey and he arches into the line of Olruggio's body, wanting more, as clothes are shed. Oil is cold as it trickles down skin, and Olruggio's fingers are gentle, working Qifrey open. The burn of accommodation as Olruggio eases inside him is perfect, and Qifrey holds into that discomfort, even as pleasure skitters through him, pinpricks of sensation.
"Oh, Qifrey." The breathless way Olruggio says his name, gasped into the soft base of his throat, is sinful.
Olruggio is perfect, carving a space for himself inside Qifrey. Qifrey's breaths come ragged and fast, and he clings to the sheets beneath him as they chase the heat of orgasm. This is different from the pleasure Qifrey has teased at finding from his own hand—the fear of finding relief kept him from pushing such indulgences to a true end, but now? He digs heels into Olruggio's lower back and meets each rock of his hips, feeling how open he is made.
Something shifts in Qifrey as Olruggio lifts one of his legs, letting a calf rest on his shoulder. The angle changes, and a shudder of pleasure rocks through Qifrey, so, so agonizingly sweet as Olruggio eases into him again, brushing over tender muscle deep inside.
"Olly, I—" Qifrey chokes on a hushed moan, eye falling shut as Olruggio brings his hips flush to ass, fully seated. Olruggio finds Qifrey's length, fingers teasing over the head, slick with prerelease, to aid in the soft pace he sets, stroking him.
"There you are." Olruggio's breaths come shorter and his hips falter. The turn of his wrist is intoxicating as he brings Qifrey over the edge. Qifrey comes, desire a knife dragged through him, as he spills between them, white across his belly. "All of you."
All of you is mine to witness, Olruggio seems to say as he takes hold of Qifrey's hips, and loses himself to the softness of his body. Qifrey has never seen him so abandoned to sense, and he takes in how flushed Olruggio's skin is, complexion dewed from exertion.
It's not long after that he finds his end, warmth filling Qifrey. It's a foreign feeling; to be opened so tenderly and intimately, and feel so full.
An ugly sob tears itself from Qifrey's throat as thin branches creep up his shoulder. Muscle spasms and it steals his breath—it was an unexpected shot of pain, and he despises himself for thinking this moment could be left to linger longer.
How foolish he was to think there was room for selfishness, just this once.
"You're all right, I'm here." Olruggio is gentle, bringing them to lay on their sides. Qifrey mourns emptiness as Olruggio leaves his body, but kisses journeying down the sweat-slick length of his neck are a distraction enough from the hollow pit that yawns wide in his chest.
They say little after—their hearts bleed upon the floor enough in the wake of what must come next. Warm water washes away acts of love. Soft, blushed marks remain upon necks and in the crooks of hips.
An excuse will need to be made of them, yes, but as morning cradles the sun in gentle hands, he finds himself too tired to think of it.
You will offer me the same path back every time, and I will take it, adding to my mess of sins.