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Olruggio remembers the cold, and remembers it well. It haunts him like a ghost, intangible but frigid. He almost expects to see his breath form visibly in the air, only to be surprised when it doesn’t.
I never really left that place, have I , he muses as he looks out the window, staring at nothing. I never left that fog.
Even now in the lull between commissions and his work, he felt the cold seep in, slowly freezing him from where he was, forcing him to walk it off to distract himself from it. The memories of that winter have a hold on him like icicles, and he risked a limb or two if he loitered and let them grow.
He’d lose everything if he let the cold consume him.
So he keeps moving. He keeps going even when his bones protest and his joints creak like squeaky hinges. He continues helping people through the spots in his vision and the deep weariness weighing him down. He keeps on going, and going, and going, because he’s terrified of what will happen when he stops.
He knows what will happen when he stops.
People die.
They freeze and shut down entirely.
Death’s touch kills whoever withstands the entirety of it.
So Olruggio warms and burns all through the day, and all through the night. He never stops burning, not even when he’s running on fumes, not even when there’s no fuel left, not even when he’s being doused.
This is the part that scorches him.
This is where his problem begins and lies.
He keeps a fire alive, alive, alive, only to accidentally smother it with his torrid desperation. His overbearing nurture kills, even when he doesn’t mean to; because what keeps a fire alive isn’t wood. Isn’t fuel.
It’s oxygen.
And there’s no room to breathe when you’re suffocating .
Olruggio knows all of this, has been reminded incessantly of this. But he keeps on going and going, because he doesn’t want to stop.
He’s reminded of the fallout at every break, whenever he wipes his forehead. Consequences linger around him like a wraith. So whenever he looks out upon the children he has begrudgingly called his own, he sees the frost's bite dangling above them.
Waiting.
He's reminded of their smiles, laughs, and magic in that moment; making him tremble at the thought of losing them. So Olruggio keeps burning if only to keep their passions alive.
Olruggio takes in a deep breath to calm his thoughts, and exhales slowly.
He's currently sitting on the old couch in his friend's atelier. A headache had put a wrench in his plans temporarily, so he’s distracting himself by watching Qifrey’s apprentices as they frolic together in swathes of Tetia’s magic. The fluff must've reminded his upturned brain of winter, which explains how his train of thought arrived here. He feels the sense of urgency melt away now though, watching them play. Especially when he observes Tetia’s magic as soft and delicate, unlike the unforgiving harshness of the snow.
It’s nice, and the tight knot in his chest loosens even more as he watches Agott flush when Coco leans in to smile brightly at her.
Riche is also wearing a rare smile on her face, Olruggio notes. She's enjoying the shapes she can make with the fluff in her hands. Meaning, she doesn't pay any mind when a gust blows her periwinkle hair sharply to the right, remaining steady and still like Olruggio in his seat.
A pink blur streaks through the white of the fluff. Tetia is almost gallivanting through her creation, hair flying behind her as she skips and leaps to her heart’s desire. If she knew how to, she would probably be cartwheeling instead, and he has to stifle a laugh at the mental image of Tetia substituting walking with cartwheeling.
All of this tells Olruggio that things are going to be ok, that he doesn’t have to keep burning now, but he knows he has to return to stoking those flames eventually. Just not now.
A chuckle to his right brings him out of his musings, and he turns to meet his best friend’s twinkling gaze. He’s beautiful like this, and Olruggio has to resist the impulsive urge to twirl them around before he embarrasses himself.
Qifrey smiles wider upon getting his friend’s attention, and he offers a cold compress for his forgotten headache, which returns almost spitefully.
“Thanks,” he murmurs softly, pressing the cold compress to his temple. The throbbing that Olruggio had forgotten about is vicious, almost taunting in how fast it returns once he was reminded of it. He suppresses a grimace and presses the compress closer, leaning his head back slightly and closing his eyes.
“The girls warded off my headache for so long, I forgot why I was sitting here in the first place,” he huffs, letting the corners of his mouth raise when he hears a small chortle that makes his heart skip a beat. He feels his cherished friend lean against him, partaking in his couch space, pressing them snug and warmly together.
“You say that like a proud father,” Qifrey teases affectionately. He’s playful even now, becoming almost like a second headache on top of Olruggio’s pre-existing one.
Olruggio shoves at him, flustered. “F-father?! S-since when have I—“
He’s abruptly cut off by a sharp cackle, so he raises the cold compress to shoot a halfhearted glare at his friend’s joy in his misery. His face and ears burn fiercely like his whole face was a snugstone, though he can't help but crack a smile at the lighthearted chuckles which further elevates the rosy feeling in his chest. His heart was melting devotedly at the cost of his pride.
Qifrey always had this effect on him, resulting in relentless teasing from both Alaira and Qifrey himself about his feelings for the latter. He was...very obvious about his crush when he was younger, heightened only by Alaira's meticulous jabs that made him consider setting himself on fire multiple times.
Her going away to fulfill her witch duties did little to extinguish the wildfire she had left Olruggio to manage. Because if Alaira was a wildfire, Qifrey was a heart attack.
“I’ll toast you so bad, Sinocia won’t even recognize you!” He crows, mimicking a younger Olruggio who couldn’t tell the difference between a joke and an accusation. He jabs a finger at Qifrey, who rests smugly unbothered by his light shove.
Qifrey’s eye lights up in recognition of the familiar taunt, and he settles his chin onto his interlaced hands, grinning widely in Olruggio’s direction.
“Oh?” he quips, raising a brow, "I thought water extinguished fires, not the other way around. Tell me, Olly. What gives you the confidence you can do such a thing?"
He inclines his head to peer curiously at Olruggio with a mischievous glint in his eye. He wanted to go the realistic route this time, huh?
Well. Two can play at that game.
Olruggio looks away, hurriedly putting the cold compress back over his eyes. "You're not even made of water, so what kind of ridiculous question is that!"
Or maybe not. He blames the headache which had faded into a weak thump thanks to the cold compress.
"Hmm..true. Doesn't mean I'm limited in using water, though. And you haven't answered my question."
Olruggio scratches his neck where it was warming up in an uncomfortably familiar heat. Curse Qifrey and his way with words.
"Since when did this turn into a 'what if' scenario?" Olruggio grumbles without any real heat. "I would draw fire as I usually would. Maybe boil the water you're using so it scorches you."
Qifrey hums thoughtfully. "But that can burn both of us, don't you think?"
He feels his best friend sidle closer to him, using his propped up arm as a headrest. Olruggio wants to melt.
Suddenly, he doesn't mind being trapped reliving his worst memories. It's better than this, surely. Hopefully.
"It would evaporate before it even hit me," he mutters, silently wishing his headache would come back so he'd have an excuse to leave the room. He doesn't need to see his friend's face to know he was triumphantly grinning.
"Not if we're together." Qifrey pokes his warm cheek, effectively tearing down all of Olruggio's defenses and leaving him sagging into the old couch pitifully.
"I used to win these, you know," he mumbles, taking off the cold compress so he could hide his flushed face in it. "You used to be so easy to rile up."
Qifrey laughs loudly, leaning on Olruggio's shoulder for stability as his body shakes with giggles.
He laughs loud enough to grab the attention of the girls who were still playing with Tetia's fluff. Olruggio only knows that without looking because of the pattering of their footsteps, which came before the chorus of what happened and why is professor Olly red.
He sinks his face further to avoid looking at them, silently agonizing in his humiliation. He hears the girls crowding and hounding Qifrey for answers, who hasn't been able to stop giggling and was struggling to get any words out.
He's still tightly bracing himself on his friend's overheated shoulder.
Somehow, in all of the chaos and pandemonium, Olruggio feels content like a summer night. The cold is long forgotten in the heat that warmed him where he sat, and it wasn't an uncomfortable heat, either. It's novel to him, but not uncomfortable like the icy dredges of ferocious memories. It's comforting in the way a hug is warm, like being covered under layers and layers of blankets.
He can't remember the last time he felt so warm.
I think I could get used to this.