Chapter Text
TWO.
Qifrey wakes the next morning with a familiar ache settled behind his eye. He’s more annoyed by it than concerned. These aches come often enough that he has learned to wait them out, and most fade on their own within a few clock marks. He assumes this one will do the same.
By sunrise, the village is already stirring, and Qifrey is grateful to have work to occupy him. He and Olruggio begin with the rain-soaked lumber before turning to the smaller problems mentioned the night before — reinforcing weakened wards and checking the grain stores until they are satisfied everything will hold once the snow settles in.
They’re ready to be back on the road by midday. The ache is still there, a little more persistent now, but Qifrey ignores it as they gather their things and leave the village behind.
For this stretch of the journey, the wind is mild enough that they can use their soarboots without fighting against it. Their next stop lies west of the ruins of Romonon, and once they are airborne, the road unspools beneath them in long pale bends as the open plains gradually give way to rising hills. Olruggio keeps his attention trained below, watching for beast warding towers along the route and slowing whenever something looks as though it might need inspecting.
Qifrey finds it hard to be so attentive.
The ache behind his eye has sharpened steadily since they’ve left the village, and the daylight is beginning to bother him almost as much as the pain itself. Even through the glyph on his glasses, the sun ahead feels too bright, forcing him to squint whenever he looks towards the horizon. He keeps his gaze lowered when he can and hopes that they can reach the town soon, if only so he can spend a few hours somewhere dim.
As the town finally comes into view between the hills, Olruggio slows in the air.
Qifrey follows his gaze and spots a young man below, standing beside the road and waving both arms to catch their attention. He has to stop himself from grimacing as they descend. By the time his feet touch the ground, the ache behind his eye has sharpened enough that he closes it for a moment and lets Olruggio do the talking.
“Witches,” the man says, slightly breathless from the frantic waving. “There’s something wrong with the Spring of Eternity nearby. The water’s not been cleaning itself up.”
Qifrey opens his eye again with some reluctance. Springs of Eternity are complicated spells even when the problem is obvious, and there’s no telling how long it will take for them to find whatever has gone wrong. The thought of spending another few clock marks outside in the light makes him suppress a sigh.
Before he can say anything, Olruggio answers. “We have some important business in town first. We can take a look at the spring once we’re finished there.”
Qifrey turns towards him in surprise.
The young man’s disappointment is difficult to miss, though he nods readily enough. “All right. Just make sure you check it before you leave, please.”
“We will,” Olruggio assures him. “It’ll be fixed before we go.”
Only then does he glance at Qifrey. There is something knowing in the look, brief but unmistakable, and Qifrey realizes with a sinking sort of gratitude that Olruggio has noticed far more than he intended. “Let’s go,” he says.
Qifrey can do little more than nod before following him towards the town.
Olruggio wastes no time once they enter the walls of the town. He cuts through the streets with enough purpose that Qifrey quickly realizes where they are headed. They weave past market stalls and clusters of townspeople until the sign of an inn comes into view farther ahead. A few people turn to watch the witches pass, but mercifully, no one tries to stop them.
The inn is a stone building tucked between a bakery and a cloth merchant, its windows small and shaded beneath a sloping roof. Qifrey follows Olruggio inside and hears him begin speaking to the innkeeper, though the words blur together beneath the steady throbbing in his head. Even the sounds from outside seem to follow him inside as the children shout while chasing one another through the street.
He finds himself wishing, with increasing desperation, that everything would just quiet down.
These headaches have followed him for years, beginning around the same time the vision in his left eye first started to deteriorate after he left the Great Hall. Most are manageable, and it has been long enough since the last severe one that Qifrey had almost allowed himself to forget how quickly the pain can become overwhelming.
Now he can feel every beat of it behind his eye, and he is getting increasingly certain that if he does not lie down soon, his body will make the decision for him.
Olruggio has never seen him like this. More importantly, Qifrey has never told him how his vision has worsened, and he has no intention of explaining it now. Questions about the headaches would lead to questions about his eye, and those would only bring Olruggio closer to truths Qifrey has spent years keeping from him.
There is too much he cannot afford to explain.
He startles when a hand settles on his shoulder and jerks his eye open. He hadn’t even realized he had closed it again.
Olruggio stands in front of him, his expression drawn with obvious worry. Under any other circumstances, Qifrey would have been painfully aware of the hand still resting on him. It is the first time in years Olruggio has touched him, and even through several layers of clothing Qifrey can feel the warmth of his touch against his shoulder.
He ought to be thinking about what that warmth might do to him, but the Silverwood has robbed him even of that. There is only the pounding behind his eye and the effort it takes to remain upright.
“Can you walk?” Olruggio asks, and his tone makes it clear this is not the first time he has asked.
Qifrey blinks at him, trying to gather enough of himself to answer.
“Yes,” he rasps.
Olruggio looks unconvinced, but he does not argue. “Do you need a healer? We can take a windowway to the Great Hall and see Sinocia.”
Qifrey shakes his head and immediately regrets it when the movement sends another sharp throb through his skull. He flinches and shuts his eye again. “I just need to lie down, Olly.”
That seems to be enough for Olruggio. The hand on Qifrey’s shoulder slips lower, settling at the small of his back as he is guided towards the stairs. Qifrey concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other while they climb, breathing steadily through his clenched teeth. He barely registers the narrow hallway Olruggio leads him through once they reach the upper floor.
There is only the pain, and beneath it, the steady pressure of Olruggio’s hand against his back. For once, Qifrey does not think to pull away. He simply lets Olruggio guide him.
Once they reach their room, Olruggio moves him across the place before Qifrey can take in much of it and eases him down onto a bed that creaks beneath his weight. The moment his back hits the mattress, relief leaves him in a long breath. He hadn’t realized how much effort it was taking simply to remain upright until he no longer had to.
He feels Olruggio sit beside him more than he sees it. One hand remains on his shoulder from where Olruggio had steadied him onto the mattress, and for a few moments Qifrey is content to lie there with his eye closed and let the pain recede into something he can endure. Then, the hand moves.
Olruggio carefully slips Qifrey’s glasses from his face and sets them aside. Without them, Qifrey feels strangely exposed, but he’s too tired to protest. A moment later, Olruggio’s fingers brush lightly against the corner of his eye.
Qifrey stills at the touch and cracks his eye open. Olruggio is watching him closely, his expression difficult to read through the haze of pain. It takes Qifrey a moment to notice the dampness along his lashes and understand what Olruggio had been doing. He must have started tearing up without realizing it.
Olruggio lowers his voice to a whisper. “What do you need?”
Qifrey doesn’t have to think about it. “The blinds.”
The room is still far too bright, daylight spilling in through the open windows and pressing against the ache behind his eye. Olruggio nods and gets up without another word, moving around the room until each blind is drawn and the light thins into darkness.
Relief comes almost immediately. Qifrey lets out a slow breath and closes his eye again, concentrating on evening out his breathing while Olruggio continues moving somewhere nearby. A moment later, the mattress dips beside him.
Fingers brush lightly through the fringe at his forehead. Qifrey registers the touch, but he has no strength left to tense against it.
“Rest,” Olruggio whispers.
This time, Qifrey does. Sleep takes him almost at once.
When Qifrey wakes again, the pain has receded to a dull throb. It’s still there, heavy behind his eye, but distant enough that he can think around it.
Only then does he register how little he is wearing.
His furs and robes are gone, leaving him in his undershirt and trousers beneath the blankets, and warmth rises quickly into his face when he realizes Olruggio must have undressed him while he slept. The flush barely has time to settle before unease follows it. Qifrey has spent the past few weeks carefully avoiding even the smallest opportunities for touch, and somehow, in the space of a few hours, he had let Olruggio closer than he had allowed him since his return.
He had known from the moment Olruggio stepped back into his life that he would let him close again eventually. He just had not expected eventually to come so soon.
After a moment of laying there with his thoughts, he eases himself upright, moving carefully at first. To his relief, the change in position brings no rush of dizziness, and when he opens his eye, the low-lit room stays steady around him.
“You’re feeling better?”
The voice comes from the far corner, and Qifrey turns towards it. Olruggio sits there with a small pyreball burning in front of him, its muted glow catching only one side of his face while the other disappears into shadow. The light picks out the tired line beneath his eye and the uneven edge of his beard before falling across the palm quire in his hands. He appears to have been working while Qifrey slept, keeping the blinds drawn and the light low for his sake.
The consideration of it catches Qifrey off guard even though it should not. Olruggio has always been like this, attentive in ways so quiet that they are easy to miss until Qifrey finds himself on the receiving end of them. He has never known what to do with kindness he feels so undeserving of.
Qifrey nods. “I do.” After a moment, he adds, “Thank you.”
Olruggio rolls his eyes in response to that. “Are you hungry?”
The thought of food makes Qifrey’s stomach turn, and he shakes his head. “I don’t think I can keep anything down.”
Olruggio sighs, but he doesn’t press the issue. He closes his palm quire, gets to his feet, and crosses the room to sit beside Qifrey again. Reaching for the pitcher on the bedside table, he fills a glass and holds it out to him instead. “Then at least drink something.”
Qifrey accepts the glass, touched all over again by the concern in Olruggio’s voice, and drinks slowly. When it is empty, Olruggio takes it from him and sets it back on the bedside table.
“How long have you been getting these headaches?”
Qifrey worries at his lower lip, considering how much he can safely give away. In the end, he settles on the part of the truth least likely to invite more questions. “Since I left the Great Hall, more or less. I think they’re connected to my eye.”
He leaves it at that. Olruggio knows enough about the eye Qifrey has already lost to draw his own conclusion, and Qifrey does nothing to correct it. After a moment, Olruggio gives a small nod, apparently willing to accept the explanation.
Silence settles between them. Qifrey looks at him for a while before something else occurs to him. “How did you know?”
Olruggio raises an eyebrow in question.
“Earlier, with that man by the road,” Qifrey clarifies. “You told him we had business in town before I’d said anything. You already knew I was in pain.”
Olruggio lets out a breath and reaches up to scratch absently at his hair. “You’re a dumbass.”
Qifrey makes an affronted noise but Olruggio ignores it. “It might have been a few years but I will always understand you best.”
Something in Qifrey’s throat tightens at the words.
He’s heard them before. For one disorienting moment, the room seems to fall away and he is somewhere else entirely, with Olruggio standing in front of him after the Silverwood had broken through his skin. He had worn the same expression then, concern sharpened by exasperation, and had told Qifrey the same thing. I will always understand you best. The memory hits with enough force that his next breath catches.
He swallows against the sudden thickness in his throat and tears his gaze away, fixing it instead on his hands where they rest in his lap. His fingers curl uselessly against his palms. He wishes, absurdly and desperately, that Olruggio’s black ribbon were within reach, if only so he would have something familiar to hold on to.
“Qifrey?”
He does not look up immediately. He keeps his gaze fixed on his hands and takes a moment to steady himself, drawing in a slow breath until the memory loosens its grip. Then Olruggio’s hand enters his field of vision and settles over one of his own.
This time, there is no pain sharp enough to steal the sensation from him. Qifrey lets himself feel it for a moment, the familiar weight of Olruggio’s palm and the warmth of his skin against Qifrey’s colder fingers. Olruggio has always run warm. During their apprentice days, Qifrey had used that fact shamelessly as an excuse to crowd against him whenever the weather turned cold, insisting that it only made sense while Olruggio complained and made no real effort to move away.
The memory aches differently from the one before it. Qifrey lets the warmth of Olruggio’s hand settle over his for another moment before he finally looks up. The concern in Olruggio’s face is still there, softened now by something gentler, and Qifrey manages a small smile in return.
“Are we heading out to look at the Spring of Eternity soon?” he asks, making no real attempt to disguise the change of subject.
Olruggio doesn’t call him out on it. “You are staying here and resting. I am heading out to look at the Spring of Eternity.”
Qifrey blinks. “Olly—”
“I can handle the spring on my own,” Olruggio says. “You can focus on feeling better.”
“I do feel better.”
Olruggio gives him a long, unimpressed look. “I know you like being useful, but we still have a long way to go.” His hand remains over Qifrey’s as he speaks, warm and steady. “Once the snow starts falling, the road is only going to get worse. I’d rather you rest now than have you collapse again somewhere farther north where getting you help won’t be easy.”
Qifrey opens his mouth to argue, but very little comes to mind that Olruggio has not already accounted for. The ache behind his eye is quieter, but it has not disappeared, and even sitting upright has left him more tired than he wants to admit.
“Try to rest while I’m gone,” Olruggio adds, his expression softening. “I’ll bring you something to eat on my way back.”
Qifrey looks down at their joined hands. He dislikes how reasonable Olruggio is being almost as much as he dislikes how comforting it feels to have someone worry about him again.
“Fine,” he concedes quietly.
Olruggio gives Qifrey’s hand one last squeeze before standing and crossing back towards the door, gathering his things as he goes. Before leaving, he reaches towards the pyreball glyph and extinguishes it, and the room dips back into darkness.
Qifrey lowers himself back onto the bed, grateful for it almost immediately. Whatever sleep had done for the pain, his body still feels wrung out, and exhaustion catches up with him before he can think much further. He closes his eye and listens to Olruggio’s footsteps move down the hall and descend the stairs.
By the time the sound fades, Qifrey is already asleep.
Olruggio’s mouth is already on his.
One hand cups the back of Qifrey’s neck, fingers buried in his hair, while the other pulls him closer by the waist. Qifrey goes willingly, arms already around Olruggio’s back as he kisses him again with easy familiarity.
There is no hesitation between them. Olruggio tilts Qifrey’s face where he wants it, his thumb brushing over Qifrey’s cheek before his palm settles there. Qifrey leans into the warmth until Olruggio has to tighten an arm around his waist to steady him. A kiss lands at the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, and Qifrey turns after him until their lips meet again.
Everything narrows down to the heat of Olruggio’s mouth.
Qifrey melts against him, fingers curling into the fabric at his back as Olruggio gathers him closer. He tucks his face against the familiar curve of Olruggio’s neck, and a kiss presses into his hair. The hand at his waist drifts slowly up his back and down again, drawing a shudder from him.
“You went away,” Olruggio murmurs.
Qifrey lifts his head, and Olruggio’s fingers slip beneath his jaw to tilt his face up. “I came back.”
“I had to find you first.”
Qifrey smiles. “I knew you would.”
Olruggio’s expression softens. He draws Qifrey in again, and Qifrey follows so readily that their next kiss catches against a shared smile. His hands come up to cradle Olruggio’s face, thumbs passing over the roughness of his beard. Olruggio turns his head to press a kiss to one of his palms before pulling him close once more.
Qifrey wakes with that hand curled against his chest.
For several seconds, he lies without moving. Warmth still clings to him beneath the blankets, and the memory of Olruggio’s hands is vivid enough that he can almost feel them.
It has been years since he dreamed of him like this.
Qifrey sits up and drags a hand slowly down his face, his chest aching with a dull, familiar heaviness. Light still faintly seeps through the curtains, enough for him to tell that he cannot have been asleep for long. It must only just be beginning to turn to evening outside.
Olruggio hasn’t returned, and Qifrey is grateful for it. He has no idea how he is supposed to look him in the face with the dream still clinging to him and the phantom sensation of Olruggio’s mouth on his far too vivid to dismiss.
The last time Qifrey had dreamed of Olruggio like this, he had been travelling east.
In that dream, Olruggio had kissed him too, and somehow forgiveness had followed right after. His kinder dreams always seemed to offer him the same impossible mercy: Olruggio always found him, and when he did, there was no anger waiting for Qifrey, no hurt he had to answer for. He was simply welcomed back as though leaving had never cost either of them anything.
A bitter laugh slips out before he can stop it.
Of course they are dreams. Where else could he have something like that? Certainly not in this life.