Work Text:
Olruggio only realizes that he’s nodding off when a soft finger presses an indent into his cheek. He startles awake with a grunt, flinching at the crick in his neck. All the movement disturbs the coffee cup Olruggio didn’t remember ever picking up and it spills over the side in a large wave, splashing against his dark wash jeans with a disheartening splish.
“Shit!” He quickly sets the room-temperature drink (leftover from the night before, Olruggio notes) onto the counter and stands up from his work stool. There’s a verbal wince from beside him.
“Oopsies…sorry about that, boss!” Atuarto scratches his cheek and shoots him a sheepish smile. He scrambles for some shoved-aside napkins from yesterday's take-out dinner excursion. “I was trying to keep your face from falling into your cup but…well, it ended up on you anyways, sorry about that. Again.”
Olruggio plucks the napkins from his coworker and shrugs his worries off. Honestly, it’s the waste of coffee that haunts Olruggio. Nothing he’s not used to seeing unfortunately, both when it comes to himself and others.
One of Olruggio’s inventions, a swirling coffee machine that resembles a vapor bubble, sits in a nook built into the wall. It’s the most popular item of his, especially since they offer samples. Olruggio swears the shop now serves as a half-cafe.
“Was bound to happen either way,” Olruggio assures him. “And I’d rather it on my pants than up my nose, so thank you.”
Atuarto rolls his eyes and crosses his arms as he watches Olruggio try to pat the caffeine drenched denim dry. “Can’t even let me apologize…you’re welcome though. What have you been working on that’s kept you up at night this time? I don’t think we’ve gotten any commissions as of late.”
“Ah, well.” Olruggio pushes back from the bench and rolls his shoulder to loosen the knot that’s settling there. He’s been hunched over his mock-ups since yesterday and his body groans like old wood on a creaking ship. “Some of the lower shelves are barren and I wanted to fill them.”
Atuarto leans over and glances down at Olruggio’s blueprints. “With…toys? I don’t think many children come here, Olruggio. Do you think these would sell?”
Shrugging, Olruggio begins picking up the stray tools he’s left on his bench. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Atuarto comments, fond but exasperated. “I only meant your work deserves a little pay back, you know?”
Olruggio resists the urge to fire back a worn out argument— I don’t care if it does; he cradles it in the back of his mouth and shushes it down. Atuarto is a good friend and has been for the better part of two years now. He’d been the one to encourage Olruggio to open up his own shop for his magical inventions, insisting that they were of much better value than what they’d previously sold for.
Any depreciation of Olruggio’s work ends with a scowl and pinched response. He doesn’t like that expression, nor does he like when Atuarto’s words become clipped, cold in his defense over Olruggio. He appreciates the sentiment greatly but he’d rather avoid that confrontation altogether.
“Yeah, yeah,” Olruggio grumbles instead. “What time is it?”
Olruggio brushes the dust off his sleeve then swipes at a clean apron hanging on the wall so he can trade out the grimier one he has on for it. This one is a nice forest green with a little fire logo on the pocket, much too nice for him to use while in his workshop. Right before he puts it on, he pauses and redirects his course for some spare clothes he keeps tucked in a small cubby hidden under some ink-stained papers.
“Almost 9, I think. Shop is fully ready for opening!”
Olruggio rushes to change in a nearby bathroom. While he’s changing he shouts, “Did you get the—”
“The sylph shoe display is up and running better than ever!” Atuarto chirps happily, muffled slightly by the door. “Very glad we decided to size it down. A floating figurine with tiny shoes is much cuter than just floating shoes, in my opinion.”
“It should be, it was your idea.” Olruggio tugs on a different set of jeans and an old v-neck t-shirt—too tight around the shoulders, hence its use as a spare. His hand has already found the toiletries bag from the cabinet beneath the sink before his shirt is fully on. “Did that one glowstone by the coffee set up right itself or is it still flickering?”
“Hm, I didn’t check it but I’ll do that right now!”
Atuarto pads away, and that gives a long enough interruption to the conversation for Olruggio to brush his teeth and freshen himself up. With a quick bang detangling with his fingers, he’s ready to go and out the door.
Atuarto almost runs into him. “Oh! Whoopsies. It’s still flickering.”
Olruggio nods. “Thanks, I’ll handle it.”
Thankfully it’s an easy fix, and Olruggio’s contraption is working perfectly well within hardly any time at all. He wipes his forehead with his sleeve and nestles the stone into between the others, testing it with a small amount of pressure from his palms. Without meaning to, a smile tugs at his lips as he traces the smoothed edges of the stone. He watches the light awaken and stretch out in wispy limbs towards him.
Magic, he knows, can be beautiful. It thrums and pulses through the very bones of this shop, and Olruggio hopes it’s strong enough to reach through the shoe soles of those who enter, to make them a part of the magic too. He wants people to feel that. Olruggio wants to erase any space for fear by padding his magic with warmth, so others can touch it, squeeze it like a zealously loved teddy bear. He…
“Oh!” A voice peeps up behind him. For the second time that day, Olruggio jumps out of his skin. “Goodness, I’m dreadfully sorry! I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Olruggio shakes his head automatically. “You didn’t mean to. It’s fine.”
He moves to wipe his palms off, hesitates, then moves to wipe any stray dirt onto his pants. As he does so, he chances a glance up at the person who interrupted his spiraling thoughts. The person is tall with white strands of hair curling around his head in a disorderly manner, parted to one side to fall over his right eye. However, his left eye is such a vibrant blue it pierces through Olruggio.
He offers out his hand to Olruggio with a kind smile that brightens his whole face. “Hello.”
Olruggio accepts it, air swirling around in his lungs as if it had no place to go, and he swears that for a split second the point of contact emitted the same warm shine as the stones beneath them. He blinks and then it’s gone. The stranger glows all the same.
“Hi,” Olruggio responds.
In one swift movement, the stranger pulls him to his feet, still grinning at him. He’s slightly taller than Olruggio and very close in proximity. “Are you alright?”
Olruggio’s mouth dries out a bit as he tries his best to lean away. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just fixing some things up before customers get here. Did you…want some coffee?”
The stranger tilts his head, then trails his gaze sideways to the contraption beside them. He lets out a little noise of interest, delighted. “I didn’t notice! It’s very beautiful…did you make this?”
“I did,” Olruggio states, a nagging bit of self-consciousness splintering into his chest.
He nods in understanding and hums. Their hands are still clasped between them. “I see! Was one of these glowstones giving you trouble? On the floor? I’ve found that sometimes little pebbles or dirt interfere with the glyphs so ones that get stepped on a lot need to be cleaned more often.”
Olruggio raises a brow and their hands finally separate. “You’re a witch then, I take it?”
The stranger’s eye sparkles with something akin to mischief. “I suppose that’s a fair assessment. I teach magic, though I’m a little new at it. The teaching, that is.”
Olruggio steps back, glancing around the shop as he heads behind the counter. He isn’t entirely sure what he could offer a teacher who has access to magical tools Olruggio can only dream of having. Most of them are self-sufficient enough on their own. “Well, what brings you here, teach?” he eventually asks.
“Ah!” The other man’s shoulders straighten as if he himself just remembered what he was doing. “It’s nothing for me, it's for my…student? Mentee? Daughter? I’m not entirely sure what to call her or what she is to me, honestly. My Coco, I guess, is the most appropriate. She’s in need of some sylph shoes.”
A hum from Olruggio. “I see…and your Coco. What size is she? Does she have a color she wants?”
Olruggio scratches down Coco’s shoe size after the stranger recites it to him. “I think she’d like brown shoes. What do you think? She has green hair and goldish eyes, and really likes to wear a plain smock or her uniform.”
“Brown or black is the safest bet,” Olruggio responds dryly. He’s beginning to wonder why this person hadn’t gone to the sylph shoe cobbler a block or so down. Olruggio won’t complain about getting to talk to someone so pretty and excitable though. The other’s energy is infectious.
“Yes, of course! She’ll love anything but I say we go with the brown for now.” He grins and grins and it already hurts for Olruggio to blink on tired eyes but he has to do so repeatedly to make sure this man’s brightness doesn’t burn his retinas.
“Let me look in storage. Help yourself to something to drink.”
Olruggio takes off before he has a chance to respond. Atuarto stands a little off to the side in the backroom, arms crossed, a lopsided smile tugging at his lips. A blink, then two, then three before Olruggio lets out a breath.
“Where are you going there?” Atuarto struggles to keep the laughter from his voice.
“Storage room,” Olruggio states.
“The one that…” one of the onslaught of chuckles escapes through. “The one we don’t have?”
“...yeah.”
Atuarto breaks down into full laughter and Olruggio’s entire face flushes. The shop works on an on-demand basis to go along with the commissions that Olruggio receives. Yes, they have a few extras of some of the particularly difficult contraptions, but mostly, Olruggio will make whatever the customer wants while they’re in the shop.
His little shit of a coworker/employee leans in as if to tell Olruggio a secret. “You think he’s cute.”
Olruggio desperately wishes he could say how wrong he is.
“It’s alright,” Atuarto continues. “You have decent taste. For the most part.”
“Thanks?” Olruggio doesn’t really think it’s a compliment.
Atuarto blows a raspberry at him and sighs. “I’ll stay back here so I don’t make you more nervous than you already are. Go on ahead.”
This is…such a weird conversation to be having right now but okay. Alright. Olruggio is out of the breakroom like a bullet from a barrel. “So, we don’t have any in that size,” Olruggio tells the other man, who treats him to his rapt attention, this time with a small to-go cup held in his hands. Olruggio continues, “I can recommend the best cobbler I know…or I could make them.”
“You could?” The man blinks at him. “Are…are you sure? I really don’t mean for it to be a hassle for you if you—”
Olruggio shakes his head. “I don’t mind.” And he doesn’t. He kind of really wants to interact with this person more.
“You’re so kind.” The words are simple, nothing life changing, and yet the sincere happiness overtaking his face captivates Olruggio as if he were hexed. “I could go to the cobbler but well…since I’m already here! I’ve seen your shop a lot on my walks, and I’ve always wanted to come.”
A pleasant sentiment, though one they don’t always get. The storefront isn’t exactly picturesque (though Olruggio refuses to let it become too dirty either) and it doesn’t draw the gaze by any usual standards. “I’m glad you’ve stopped by then.”
He smiles again. Olruggio thinks he sees a dimple on one of his cheeks. “Me too! It’s nice to see you.”
Olruggio gives a questioning hum and suddenly a blush crawls over Qifrey’s cheeks like pink watercolor spreading across a canvas. “I’ve…technically seen you before? Through your window?”
“You…” Olruggio’s brain starts and stops over and over, the dots never connecting. “Saw me through the window?” Olruggio repeats.
The other man visibly winces, pale pink progressing to red. “Hehe…yeah, I did. In passing! I haven’t been watching you. But you…yes. I don’t know. You seemed. Nice. Maybe more than nice but something more…” He struggles for words for a moment, floundering and refusing to meet Olruggio’s gaze. “I figured that if the magic you sold was anything like what you seemed, then it was worth looking into? I’m not sure how to explain it, sorry.”
Olruggio is, in a word, dumbfounded. He’s…never thought of himself that way. Let alone that he could give off that energy so strongly it could be felt beyond a window pane, that it could spill into the streets. If this person weren’t so honest about it, he would fully believe that he’s being pranked in some old, juvenile, middle-school way. However, the stranger looks like he’s said the simplest thing in the world.
“Oh,” is all Olruggio can get out.
“Was…oh goodness, I’m—”
“My name is Olruggio.” He throws it out into the open on a whim. He doesn’t know what he’s doing really but the other’s wide, curious eye is on him, very intent, and he can’t bring himself to want to take it back.
“I’m Qifrey,” he says back.
A very nice name, Olruggio almost responds. “Thank you,” he says instead.
A laugh bubbles out of Qifrey, a very pretty sound that Olruggio wants to press close to his chest and let ring in the dead spaces like a bell. “What are you thanking me for?”
“Your service.” Olruggio shrugs a bit helplessly. “The compliments. For deciding to step in.”
Qifrey smiles down at his feet. “All more than deserved, I assure you. And…I hope to provide more? Once I return for the sylph shoes?”
“Or sooner.”
Qifrey blinks at him, face completely blank. “Or…yes, I could come back sooner. When will the shoes be done?”
“It’ll take about a week.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow then.”
Olruggio is the one who laughs this time and Qifrey looks more than a little delighted at that fact. “Alright.”
“Okay.”
Olruggio is sure to go home early that night. To wash off two days worth of work and sleep a full 10 hours. He’s also early to come and open up the shop.
Qifrey is already waiting by the door when he arrives.