Work Text:
“I have a commission for you.”
Qifrey’s voice floats up to Olruggio from the floor below. Were it anyone else, even one of the kids, Olruggio might have startled, but Qifrey’s always slotted into his perception easily. The pile of spells in front of him, the darkness outside the atelier, the herbal spices brightening the stale air – all these things clue him into what he should have realized some time ago. Midnight has come and gone. Qifrey must be checking up on him.
The part of his brain that never quiets can’t help but work the problem amidst this welcome distraction. The theater troupe commissioning him requested ‘spectacular,’ the noble sponsoring them ‘real fire,’ and now he must contend with how to make the vivid lightshow safe for everyone involved, not least of which the audience. His acknowledgement of Qifrey sits half-finished on his tongue as he pulls forward another paper and entertains if he can make a barrier of water thin and mobile enough to hold the flames without dousing them. They’d need an oxygen source –
Qifrey’s hand lands warm against his shoulder. For all Olruggio tracks, he may as well have teleported.
“Olly,” he reprimands, and Olruggio dutifully pulls himself back into the present. Qifrey sets down a plate of steaming curry in front of him, aromatic, and Olruggio’s stomach colludes with Qifrey’s gentle admonishment by rumbling loud enough for them both to hear.
“Qifrey,” he says back, to see the edges of Qifrey’s eyes crinkle, and then is one-upped immediately by Qifrey sliding into his lap, arms held loose around his neck.
The habitual flow of the evening vanishes, immediate and ruthless. Until now, this night could have been one of hundreds, a kaleidoscopic summary of the past decade of their humble lives. Olruggio’s perception sharpens, honed entirely to Qifrey’s pleasant solidity on his lap.
This is real, Olruggio thinks, which is followed, as ever, by Is this real?
Qifrey smiles at him, beatific.
“Did you hear me, Olruggio?” he asks.
“I –“ Olruggio begins and clears his throat against the strangled edge to his voice. Qifrey’s smile sharpens. “A commission. Don’t know why you couldn’t’ve left it to the morning.” His arms snake up, hesitant, to Qifrey’s back. He watches Qifrey’s face. The telltale signs of reluctance never appear.
Qifrey hums and shifts, trusting his weight to Olruggio and grabbing, again, the bowl of curry. He stirs it, once, twice, and then lifts a spoonful up to Olruggio’s lips, gaze focused and hungry. When Olruggio opens his mouth in a half-gasp, the spices burst, vibrant, against his tongue.
“A commission,” Qifrey says pleasantly, “by me.”
--
Olruggio prioritizes Qifrey’s project, of course. No need for the bastard to know that some of his other timelines fall behind. Olruggio knows, even if others need reminding, that Qifrey is the choice he makes for himself. Amusing, always, when people mistake that selfishness for the inverse.
The development takes nearly a month, and Olruggio surprises himself by his sustained arousal whenever he thinks about it. There’s something unbearably intimate about having this function in fulfilling Qifrey’s request, this simple obedience to Qifrey’s whims. The anticipation follows him, heady, through that intervening time. Yet, despite an uptick in awareness of his physical desires (and Qifrey’s reciprocal enthusiasm) the patterns of his days and nights stay much the same.
Indeed, these fundamental patterns of his life have persisted for far longer than Qifrey’s newfound freedom. How unbearable, how heart-wrenchingly sweet, for Qifrey to have set the foundations of Olruggio’s joy amidst his own torment. Olruggio reflects on that often, now – the careful love baked into the foundations of this home. Meals and art and teaching and long conversations and the beauty of the hills under the night sky.
If pushed to explain his current contentment, he might try something like this: he searched for a definition of love for many long years and then, at the end of that difficult road, found one.
Qifrey doesn’t ask after his progress, immediately becoming one of the finest clients Olruggio’s ever worked for. Olruggio, conversely, works twice as hard to fulfill his expectations. He sets the scene, too, arranges with Alaira to take the girls camping with Euini for a couple days and feels daringly optimistic about how much time that leaves them.
As they arrange the final details of the girls’ trip together, Qifrey’s eye follows him when he thinks he isn’t looking, slyly covetous. Olruggio hasn’t broken it to the man that he’s been tuned to that particular subterfuge of expression for years, but bearing the weight of that hungry gaze is vastly simplified when there’s the promise of fulfillment on the other side. He has a lot less lonely wanks at least.
Like a slow-simmering recipe, delectability proceeded by pleasant work, everything falls into place. They spend one last lovely morning with the girls, the excited overlapping chatter punctuated by minute half-smiles to each other. Richeh is quiet, the prolonged excitement at seeing Euini overwhelming her words. When Alaira and Euini do arrive she latches onto the kid immediately and starts a detailed monologue of updates. The dedicated passion in her voice leaves Olruggio nostalgically fond. These girls really are Qifrey’s daughters.
There passes another round of playful ruckus under the sweeping sky of the downs, but eventually the adults get all the kids pointed in the same direction. Alaira smirks at them, knowingly, before the little gaggle flies off.
And then, at last, Olruggio and Qifrey are alone.
--
Olruggio barely steps inside before Qifrey crowds him against the door, pinning his hips with thoughtless strength and mouthing at his jaw. “You – you’ve been driving me mad, Olly,” he murmurs, and bites him in the soft meat of his shoulder, hard. Olruggio grunts, inhales, and tangles his fingers into the fabric of Qifrey’s robes to steady himself against the sudden onslaught of sensation.
Qifrey’s hands are pushing up against him, his hips, his chest. One winds its way up to his throat, caressing the sensitive skin there and then loosely holding. No pressure, yet, but the weight of Qifrey’s fingers curled around his neck startles Olruggio with its erotic promise.
The hand stays curled as Qifrey kisses him, a sudden gentleness in the curve of his lips, the swipe of his tongue. He tastes of honey-apple, light and sweet, leftover from their breakfast. Both the ever-present tension in Olruggio’s body and the constant noise in his mind begin to seep away at this, the soft press of Qifrey’s lips against his own. When Qifrey eventually pulls away Olruggio hears an embarrassingly petulant whine emerge from the bottom of his throat. But all Qifrey does is hum, pleased, and push the pad of his ink-stained thumb across Olruggio’s cheek.
And then Qifrey is pushing him down and down, inexorable, until Olruggio is kneeling between Qifrey’s skirts and the door of his home, bracketed entirely. He peers up at Qifrey from below his fringe, and the bare possessiveness in the gaze that greets him knocks his breath away. He’d expected, somehow, that Qifrey would start this slowly. This unselfconscious greediness leaves Olruggio more untethered than it has any right to.
“Do stay here for me, won’t you?” Qifrey asks and Olruggio flatters himself to hear just a hint of his own stupefaction echoed in Qifrey’s voice.
“Aye,” he says, and lets his head fall back against the door, bearing his throat. He’s gratified to see Qifrey’s tongue dart across his lips. “It’s in the second drawer of my desk, to the right.” In a fit of daring, he adds, “Can you open it here?”
Qifrey’s hand comes down to ruffle his hair. There’s an indulgent amusement in his voice when he says, “Of course, Olly.”
And then Olruggio is left alone.
It’s in Qifrey’s absence, ironically, that Olruggio realizes how much the exchange affected him. There’s low heat in his gut, tight and aching. He’s hard, after just a few short minutes of necking and the debasement of being asked not to move from the entryway of his own home. He could press down on his tented cock, chase relief, but when he imagines Qifrey’s disappointment at finding that he’s done anything but what was asked of him – stay – he decides against it.
In any case, despite Qifrey’s seemingly unhurried pace, the witch returns quickly. He’s carrying with him a small wooden box, which he places on the ground in front of where Olruggio kneels.
“Open it,” he says, and then tuts when Olruggio dutifully reaches forward. “Don’t use your hands.”
Olruggio’s gaze snaps up to Qifrey’s. There’s an old intensity of expression there that he’s missed, desperately: serious with just a hint of sullen challenge. That look had faded over long years of distant smiles and this more than anything has Olruggio moving before he thinks, getting down on his elbows and using his tongue and teeth to carefully undo the latch. He doesn’t look away from Qifrey’s devouring gaze.
He tries to nudge the box open with his nose. When it starts to slide, Qifrey stops it with his boot. With that tolerant assistance the rest is easy. The box falls open before them.
Nestled in a bed of dark velvet, there’s a collar.
As a craftsman, Olruggio is viciously proud of this work. The base is simple; a strip of dark leather lined inside with a soft layer of fur. Following Qifrey’s only specification, he’s included an inlay of his heatless flame, a burning star that will rest at the divet of his throat. Around the rest, leather-worked impressions depict a panorama. The downs and the atelier under small, pinpricked stars. And at the back, worked into the latch, is a rune circle, able to be manipulated to Qifrey’s whims. On the first hinge, a copycat of Qifrey’s black ribbon will emerge. Olruggio’s lead.
Qifrey’s fingers slip under the leather and lift it up between them with painstaking reverence. “Olly,” he says, all coldness gone from his voice, stripped bare. “This is beautiful.” The pleasurable warmth from this simple praise curls, vibrant, in Olruggio’s chest.
Olruggio shifts back into an easy kneel. He smiles at Qifrey’s gorgeous hands, then again at his gorgeous face. Indeed, he’s not sure that he could wipe this grin from his face, just now. He says, “I’m good at what I do.”
“Yes,” Qifrey replies. “I knew. But yes. You are.”
Then Qifrey crouches down in front of him. There’s an unbearable affection, when he asks, “Can I put this on you, Olruggio?”
Olruggio says, “Please.” It comes out of him in one, desperate breath, travelling through time from their conversation a month ago, or perhaps from the entire past decade.
And finally, finally, he has the privilege of Qifrey looping a collar around his throat, pulling it closed. The weight settles, a gentle pressure. The lock clicks.
He’s gratified to hear Qifrey’s soft exhalation at the leash that billows outwards. “Oh, Olly,” he says, with wretched tenderness. There’s a moment where they both still, eyes meeting in their age-old silent conversation. Olruggio can’t help but smile a little wider, a little brighter, when he sees Qifrey process what he’s being given and why. Qifrey’s gaze burns in a ravenous response.
Then he stands, the lead wrapped twice around the palm of one hand, and says, disaffected, “Come.” He turns and begins to walk away.
He doesn’t look to see if Olruggio follows, and the moment of indecision where Olruggio can’t decide whether to stand or crawl is enough for the leash to go taut. Without looking behind him, Qifrey tuts again, and yanks.
Olruggio pitches forward, just managing to catch himself before he goes sprawling. One of his wrists twinges at the sudden weight. It’s so unexpected, so mean, that shame curls up Olruggio’s throat, embarrassment heightened by a vivid burst of arousal blooming through him. His cheeks flush. His dick twitches between his thighs and re-hardens. When he hurries to crawl after Qifrey, he can feel the bobbing weight of it.
As soon as the lead slackens, without so much as glancing at Olruggio, Qifrey keeps walking.
They don’t go far. Qifrey halts in the small sitting area, seats himself on the couch there. Olruggio, wanting to get it right this time, settles at his feet, and is rewarded by Qifrey’s long fingers cording once through his hair. The absentminded touch feels like a crackle of electricity all down his spine. Strange, unfair, that Olruggio is reduced so effortlessly.
But more than the embarrassment, he desperately wants to feel that touch again.
He’s aware of the collar every time he moves. Every time he breathes.
Qifrey shifts and then is piling his skirts around himself on the couch. He spreads his legs – Olruggio can’t help but track their shape, statuesque, the thin straps of Qifrey’s undershirt accentuating the subtle strength in his thighs – and then unbuttons the seam of his trousers and pulls out his cock.
Olruggio can feel saliva gathering like slobber in his mouth.
Qifrey’s voice is warm when he says, “Come here, Olly,” and Olruggio is pathetically grateful that he’s allowed this – to shuffle forward, lock his eyes on that elegant curve. The framing, the divet in Qifrey’s shirt and the straps on his thighs, is picturesque. As he settles between Qifrey’s knees, one hand comes up to squeeze at his jaw, hinging open his mouth, before slipping down to hold the front of his collar. The other, Olruggio sees, still holds his leash.
And then Qifrey moves and he’s being tugged forward. No choice but to keep open, widen his lips at the intrusion. Qifrey’s not a large man, but the weight of his dick in Olruggio’s mouth still feels obscene, stretching him. When he hallows out his cheeks, runs his tongue along the underside of Qifrey’s shaft, Qifrey hums, and then releases his collar to rap his knuckles lightly against Olruggio’s cheek. Olruggio freezes.
There’s a warning in Qifrey’s voice, a message, when he says, “Olruggio. Stay.”
And Olruggio understands, at last, the torment Qifrey has in store for him. He’s to be held here, a hole for Qifrey to fill, a good dog waiting patiently at his feet.
A long, low whine is emerging from somewhere deep within his soul.
Qifrey reaches over to the side table to pick up a book – a book! – and the shift has his cock bumping the back of Olruggio’s throat. He tries to be good, he tries, but the unexpected pressure has him coughing, spluttering. Water gathers in his eyes. He clutches at his skirts and tries very hard to breathe out of his nose. There’s a bit of drool dripping down his chin.
“Oh!” Qifrey says, and then his eyes sharpen. He smiles at Olruggio indulgently and caresses the drool away. “Ah,” he continues, “That was good, Olly. Good boy. Such a perfect cocksleeve. You keep me so warm.”
And then he settles back on the couch, legs spread wide, one hand on Olruggio’s leash and the other opening his book to the current page, leaving Olruggio to attempt to salvage what little dregs of his sanity remain.
His mouth won’t stop watering. The weight of Qifrey’s cock, even mostly soft, is constantly tricking his body into salivating more and more. It’s messy and undignified, moreso because when drool drips out of his mouth again, Qifrey ignores it. Olruggio has the slightly terrified impression that Qifrey is actually reading.
For the first few minutes, Olruggio is acutely aware of himself, the physical meat of his body. In the silence, his aches become louder. His neck twinges from its curl. His knees are going to bruise tomorrow. He’s too hot, nothing divested, layers of cloak and skirts and vestments getting sticky with sweat. And beyond all that – he’s achingly hard, cock tenting in his skirts. It isn’t fair that these discomforts and their embarrassment should only heighten his arousal, his desire to fulfill whatever is required of him.
As the minutes tick by with no change besides the occasional shift of position and the even more occasional murmur of praise, all of Olruggio’s perception slowly begins to hone instead to the task set before him. He’s always been single-minded in his goals. If this is what Qifrey requires of him, this is what he will do. He must.
With this fervor of purpose, everything else, at last, fades away. All that exists is the stretch of Olruggio’s lips, the salt on his tongue, the rustle of a page being turned. Even his thoughts, that ever-present deluge of observation, information, and commentary, quiet at last.
The silence in their absence is blissful. He finds himself sinking, little by little taking Qifrey deeper. He’s holding Qifrey’s most vulnerable parts within himself. He will remain their guard dog for however long he’s needed.
Longer, if he can get away with it.
Collared and owned, he unwinds.
Time slips.
--
He’s so far gone that he doesn’t realize, at first, that Qifrey’s begun to fuck his mouth, small little thrusts forward. It’s the noise, strangely enough, that clues him in, the squelching of Qifrey’s cock through the slobbery mess he’s made. At some point, Qifrey has put his book down. His eye on Olruggio now is full of a naked and consuming hunger.
Olruggio’s floating, but he knows his purpose, knows that he’s to heighten Qifrey’s pleasure. He laps at the cock in his mouth and then flattens his tongue against its base, slowly drags along his length. The noise that punches out of Qifrey is base and beautiful, a visceral expression of desire. Fingers cord through his hair, holding just on the short side of pain. The leash tugs him forward and he chokes at how deep Qifrey slips, then swallows desperately.
Qifrey leans over him, watches the intrusive in-and-out of his cock through Olruggio’s lips as he fucks him. His mouth parts, a little ‘o’ of feeling, and then – then he spits on Olruggio’s face.
The saliva drips, viscous, over his lips and beard and onto the base of Qifrey’s cock.
This humiliation is so visceral that Olruggio can feel his balls tightening, hear his own nonsensical moan, sloppy and wet, burbling up. Almost without thinking he is reaching towards his tented skirt. Any pressure, any change at all and he’s going to cu-
Qifrey jerks him backwards by his hair, off his cock. “Don’t. Don’t cum,” he demands, and so Olruggio squeezes his hands into fists and whines again, totally lost. All the last remaining pieces of his willpower are spent trying to pull him back from that edge, but he succeeds, somehow, gasping and wretched.
The hand in his hair slips to the back of his collar, caressing, before two dexterous fingers slide between leather and skin. Qifrey says, with casual cruelty, “Earn it. Suck me off.”
Anything. Anything to make Qifrey feel good, to do well. Anything to earn those ephemeral soft touches and sweet murmurs of praise. He would unmake himself here and be glad.
But as he leans forward the two fingers at the back of his collar tighten and hold him fast, just shy of the cockhead.
The tears gathered in his eyes begin to fall.
He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know until Qifrey says, “Don’t make me repeat myself, Olly,” and so Olruggio follows the only option left: pushes forward, choking himself against the held collar to swallow the tip of Qifrey’s cock in a wet, open-mouthed kiss. Qifrey’s answering moan fills the air around Olruggio like the satisfaction of a cooked meal after a long project. Yes, he thinks, yes this.
He can’t speak. He doubts Qifrey would want him to, so instead he gets to work slowly suffocating himself to suck Qifrey off. Qifrey’s steady strength holds him back, so he makes do with the air he has. Kisses the length of him, takes him into his mouth, stays until lightheadedness begins to overwhelm him. Only then does he retreat, and just long enough for the fingers to slacken and allow his broken, gulping gasps of air. As soon as he regains full vision, he goes back down.
Over, and over, and over.
Qifrey doesn’t warn him when he comes, just releases the collar and holds the back of Olruggio’s head so that he can’t pull away when the sticky saltiness fills up his mouth and bursts out the sides, dribbling all through his beard. He swallows as much of it as he can.
Qifrey bends over him in the aftermath, panting in quiet exertion.
In the floaty euphoria of success, Olruggio feels unmade, anointed. Tears stream down his cheeks. Cum and drool are splattered all through his beard. The collar rests against his throat.
He can’t find words, so just whines again and butts his head into Qifrey’s hand, helpless and begging.
He’s rewarded by Qifrey stroking his hair, pushing his sweaty bangs out of his eyes. He meets Olruggio’s gaze when he says, low and serious, “Alright, love. Come for me like a good dog,” in an unmistakable command.
Untouched, his orgasm crashes over him, spilling in his skirts. He can’t even bring himself to feel any lingering embarrassment, just sparks of ecstasy shooting through him, making him tremble, wave after wave. He’s groaning, the world blurring. Nothing exists beyond this moment and the pleasure bursting through his skin.
He’s unsure how long passes before he becomes aware of himself again, collapsed onto Qifrey’s thighs, sated. He feels strong fingers kneading the base of his scalp and basks in that simple contentment.
Qifrey says, with a low stupefaction, “That was the most gorgeous thing I think I’ve ever seen,” and Olruggio thought he’d reached the height of pleasure, passed through humiliation into some sort of apotheosis, but these words surpass even that in their sweetness. In this moment, he cannot doubt. Qifrey must speak true.
--
Afterwards, Qifrey washes Olruggio’s face and hair, helps him out of his skirts and braies, cleans up the sticky mess. He leaves the collar on, a steady weight at Olruggio’s throat, and lays him down on the couch with his head in his lap. He’s set out a bowl of grapes and chocolates, takes turns slipping those sweet morsels between Olruggio’s lips, stroking his neck until he swallows. Qifrey’s fingers linger everywhere they touch, warm.
Words seem unimaginable for quite some time, but when Qifrey says, with a hint of familiar distance, “I’m scared of how good it feels. When you unravel for me,” Olruggio makes a concentrated effort to return to himself.
“That’s-“ he’s hoarse. He grunts out the cottony feeling in his throat and tries again. “That’s my choice.” He turns into Qifrey, nuzzling at the inseam of his thigh and hip. Qifrey’s hand lands lightly on his hair.
There’s an underlying intensity to the way Qifrey responds, “Yes. It’s always been your choice,” and Olruggio understands. How could he not? He’s thought about this too, the long month with the soft leather beneath his fingertips, orchestrating his own undoing apropos of nothing but a mischievous smile and a few short words. There’s an indulgence, always, to dismantling himself on Qifrey’s altar.
Qifrey whispers, like admitting to a secret, like Olruggio doesn’t already know, “But I like it. Knowing that you’re mine. You’d do anything I asked of you, Olly. That’s – that’s too much power. It shouldn’t make me feel good. Especially after. After,” and then, with a slight hint of desperation, “Why did you stay?”
Whether he means after everything this past year, or in the long passage of time beforehand, Olruggio doesn’t know. The fuzziness to his perception, the decadency to being able to push his forehead into Qifrey’s hip, these safeties compel his honesty. Yet there’re entirely too many answers to that question. He must find what’s most important. Because I love you, though true, doesn’t seem to be what Qifrey needs.
It takes a heroic effort, but he manages, somehow, “Qifrey, you see me. Just me. Not what I can do. And you…you understand what I’m wanting, or…or care about, or see a future in. My entire life, and you’re the first person who did.” The only person who does, he thinks, sometimes. He sighs, wistful and true, “My first home.” He reaches out, searching, and the hand he’s looking for slots into his own. Qifrey’s eye above him is wide and very very blue.
The next bit seems odd to say, now, but perhaps all the more important. Olruggio says, “I can be a person, with you.”
All his imperfections, seen and loved.
He’s coming back to himself now, enough to continue, gruff, “You’d do anything I asked of you too, Qifrey. You have.” He shifts, head back against Qifrey’s thigh, to be able to look up at his face. He murmurs, gentle, “My devoted, Qifrey,” and he smiles.
Like a dam broken, Qifrey folds around him, clutches him close, and begins to cry. Even now, this scraped-raw vulnerability always catches in Olruggio’s chest. He recognizes the cathartic relief behind those tears, knows it as shared. He holds the freedom of this moment, decadently, within his heart.
They stay curled into each other for a very long time.