Chapter Text
Qifrey comes back to himself slowly.
The blue of the sky sharpens in it’s contour against the clouds as his limbs unstiffen joint by joint until they feel wobbly as a newborn foal’s. The haze that envelops him is unfurling in writhing strands, flowing out through some unseen drain like bathwater. He sways in the wind, pliant in its soothing grasp and yet his flesh feels brittle and raw, puckering into gooseflesh as though his body had not felt the chill of a breeze in years.
“...sor…Professor?”
Qifrey blinks.
He is in a field. The sun is high painfully bright. It leaves spots in his vision that he tries to blink away, trying to make out four blotches of color around him. People? Four sea foam blue blurs-- his apprentices? Then one in black--Olly. Oh-
He goes to take a breath. He should say something, he needs too. There is something lodged in his throat. Qifrey’s knees fail him, they hit the dirt hard. He doubles over, stomach lurching, coughing, choking. There are hands on his back rubbing soothing circles. Whatever is in his throat dislodges itself and lands on the grass. Mindlessly he reaches for it, flinching at the brush of grass against his fingers, he takes the object in his hand. Its a silverwood seed.
“Professor Qifrey?” Coco’s voice? She sounds different. Less brightness in her tone then he’d come to be used to. “How are you feeling? Can you hear me?”
Qifrey lifts his head.
“What happened?” His voice is hoarse, ripping against the sides of his dry throat.
“A spell--to try and get the seed out.” she says, and Qifrey’s fingers curl around the object in question until it digs into his palm. “Do you still feel it?”
They were trying to save him? The thought warms his heart and he braces himself for the throbbing pain surely follows. None comes. He reaches for his missing eye with his empty hand and feels only the rough skin of scar tissue, no sprouting branches, no twisting roots.
“I think,” he starts, breath catching, “I think it’s gone.” He laughs. He wants to cry. It all comes out as more of an exhale. He feels lightheaded, like he’s dreaming, like he hasn’t quite woken up yet. He needs to catch himself, to steady himself.
The air is knocked out of him as something pastel pink crashes into him with a hug. Tetia. Before he manages to get his bearings Richeh joins, then Agott, and finally Coco. He goes stiff as a board in shock. Their grip is tight, bone crushing. Richeh’s fists are curled tight and Tetia’s head is buried in his shoulder. It’s suffocating as much as it is comforting. And it is comforting, so much as Qifrey lets himself breath the tension out of his limbs and wrap his arms around his apprentices in return. His arms don’t hold them as well as they should. No, that’s not what it is. He was always able to carry two of them, one in each arm. A realisation begins to twist inside of his gut.
Olruggio hasn’t joined their hug. He stands maybe ten feet away, Qifrey can’t quite tell. Olly is holding his weight is on the balls of his feet, as though he is about to step forward. His expression is vague but seems to be one of a person trying to speak, and there is a stiffness to his shoulders that Qifrey doesn’t know what to make of. He has rarely known Olruggio to freeze.
“You gotta let him breath,” Olly says. There is no firmness to his tone, but the girls listen, pulling away one by one. He notices finally, how Coco’s hair is longer, and how Agott has cut hers even shorter. How the baby fat has thinned on Richeh’s cheeks and how when Tetia stands she is nearly as tall as Olly.
“You’ve all grown so much,” Qifrey says. Then before the anxiety can build even more his gut, “How long…”
“Just over two years.” Agott says solemnly.
Two years.
It’s shorter than he’d expected.
Then again, he expected to be there forever. As oblivion wrapped him in the warmth of her embrace, he had been resolved to this fate; solaced in the vigil he would stand over his atelier for as long as it would remain there, just down the hill from his resting place.
But here he was awake, only two years later. Two whole years.
Qifrey slips into a soft smile. “You’ll have to catch me up,” he says, “Though perhaps that’s a conversation suited for inside. I think… I’d like to go home.”
The girls help him to his feet, Qifrey still feels unsteady; too light, it throws off his balance. They take his arms and hold him up as he stumbles forward, slowly but surely regaining his footing until his steps match the steady rhythm of his apprentice’s.
Qifrey can’t help but notice that Olruggio lags a few paces behind them. It’s not that Qifrey needs the extra hands to keep him balanced, but Olruggio hasn’t said a word to him since he’d awoken, at least not directly. Longing for Olly to be closer is an old feeling. One that had long nestled itself, ripe with despair, into the core of his being.
Olruggio finally approaches once they step through the doors of the Atelier. He squeezes past the girls, who all get a bit quiet, and takes Qifrey’s hand in his. It’s his drawing hand, the one holding the silverwood seed. He pries it from Qifrey’s grasp in the same motion that he walks away, grabs a jar from the kitchen shelf, drops the seed inside and places it firmly on the counter with the lid twisted tight.
Qifrey and the girls linger in the door only a moment longer, then Tetia lapses into story, pulling them all towards the living room. Olruggio doesn’t follow, not yet. Qifrey can just make out the shape of him, head hung, holding up his weight with palms resting on the counters edge.
They settle on the sofa, Coco and Tetia curled into Qifrey’s sides, Richeh and Agott on the floor leaning against his legs. Tetia’s story juts forward and backwards through time, and the others chime in now and again filling in details enough that Qifrey begins to weave together a picture of what he’s missed.
He bites back panic when he hears about the dangers they encountered. Swallows his worries when he notices them glossing over their severity. Silently collects all the things that could have gone wrong into a list in the back of his mind. Tries to be proud when he hears how they’ve all taken the third test. And Qifrey had missed it all.
Olly joins them between stories, he’d been watching from the doorframe for some time. He places a bowl of stew down in front of Qifrey “You’re probably hungry,” he says.
He steps away and sits down in an armchair before Qifrey can say anything back to thank him, not that Qifrey ever had in the past; Olruggio’s care has always been quiet acts of kindness and Qifrey was always too taken aback by the chill of roots to say anything in return. He still says nothing. Too stunned still by the loss of two years, a seeping chill setting into his bones and leaving him feeling like a wrung out cloth. Even after eating, he is tired. Eyelids heavy, he missed sunset. The lights of the room are starting to hurt his eye, he’ll need to find his glasses soon.
“Are you falling asleep Professor?” Tetia asks.
“No,” Qifrey lies.
“But Richeh has,” Agott says. Richeh’s head rests on Qifrey’s knee, it can’t be comfortable.
“I suppose I am getting a bit tired,” Qifrey mutters. He cards a hand through Tetia’s curls, the pace of her storytelling has slowed down, so have the interjections of the others. He’d be certain Coco was asleep from the way she’s leaned on his shoulder if he wern’t so familiar with her insomnia, though he could be wrong, two years is a long time.
“Your room should be just as you left it,” Olruggio says.
Qifrey nods, though he doesn’t know if he wants to be in his room, alone. He’d happily sleep here, he thinks. But the girls need rest in proper beds lest they wake with cricks in their necks, and Qifrey could do with getting away from noticing a new thing he’d missed every few seconds. So he wakes Richeh, and Coco, who had only been dozing, and he lets Olruggio pull him to his feet and usher them all up the stairs. The girls insist on walking him to his door, which is of no surprise.
It’s a strange sight. All of them standing on one side of the doorway and Qifrey on the other, as if they are expecting a long farewell. And he supposes it is a goodbye of sorts, if just for one night. It’s only fair. The last time he’d left them, it had hardly been a proper goodbye at all.
Qifrey closes the door. It’s the first time he’s been properly alone since waking up. It’s strange. His room is deathly quiet, and in the silence Qifrey can hear the faint patter of rain, a pervading constant in the back of his psyche, even though the night outside is clear.
His room is, as Olruggio said, just as he left it. Or so it looks. Qifrey is glad that he at least had the decency to fold his clothes before he’d let himself turn into a tree for two years. Half scrawled spells, notes, and open books still litter his desk. His chair is askew, his shelves unorganized. But his bed is not quite the same, neatly made with fresh sheets. There’s not a single spot of dust anywhere in the room, and he knows someone must have had the care to keep it that way, which is both comforting and disturbing at once. He hopes if anyone it was Olruggio who’d done it. Olruggio who knows enough about the mess that is Qifrey, which spills out in the privacy of his room. The girls already know so much, too much, more then they should about Qifrey’s issues. They should not have to know that they were not enough to make him truly happy. They should not have to know that they could not offer him enough stress to keep him alive either. And yet, the truths of his curse were, inevitably, something Qifrey never had a chance at protecting them from. Still he selfishly hopes they were spared the knowledge of the depth of the sins he sank to for it: the ready made memory sigils in the corner of his desk, and the bottle of tear infused ink at their side.
He tears the sigil apart with the ferocity of a rabid scalewolf and watches the pieces of it flutter to the floor, black and white like ashen snow. No need for it anymore, he thinks with biting rage. And then he regrets it. Because what if he was wrong. What if the silverwood wasn’t gone. He’d need the sigil on hand, he always does.
The ink bottle is still on his desk at least, and he’d memorised the sigil a long time ago, he could draw it without sight. This reassures him, and that makes him feel a bit sick. Qifrey lies back on his bed, head pounding with the sound of rain, curling his fists against the soft fresh sheets.
All those years he’d spent searching for a cure and they had done it in two. If only he’d held on a little longer. But he’d been so tired. And when comfort had come upon him, finally, with such warmth, he couldn’t bear to deny it. Now he gets to reap the consequence of his selfishness: milestones missed, spells he could not teach, problems he could not see his students work through, people he could not see them help, tears he could not comfort, wounds he could care for. He never got to watch them grow, he can only meet the people they have become in his absence.
Damn. Finally he’s been freely given the opportunity to enjoy his life, and he’s already squandering it with his penchant for melancholy. He should calm himself down. He’s allowed to do that, now more then he ever was before. Tea would be good, probably.
Qifrey pulls himself to his feet once again and heads downstairs towards the kitchen. The atelier is dark, good for Qifrey’s eye. Everyone else seems to have already gone to bed, or so he thinks, until he hears the hitch of breath before rounding the corner to the kitchen.
There is Olruggio, leaning against the counter and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Qifrey hesitates in the doorframe, suddenly hyperaware of the distance Olly has kept from him all day. Qifrey can’t help but wonder who it’s for. Their Apprentices? Respect, perhaps, for the distance Qifrey himself has kept all these years? Vengeance for it, though he doubts Olruggio could ever hate him enough for that, Qifrey’s life would have been easier if he could’ve. He can’t help but think about the tremor in Olruggio’s fingers as he pried the silverwood seed from Qifrey’s grasp. How Olruggio had not met his eye. The distance must be his fault, he knows that, it always is.
“Qifrey?”
Oh. He’d been caught staring.
“Sorry,” Qifrey said, “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just…”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Olruggio finished, “Yeah, I get it, me neither.” He wipes his eyes. Qifrey should ask about that, he really should.
“I was going to make tea,” Qifrey says, “Beast-Tail. Would you like some.”
Olruggio nods. He’s so dreadfully still.
Qifrey busies himself with readying tea, finding it nice to finally be doing something other than sitting, even if the kitchen is arranged a bit differently then he remembers. The pots are all practically still in the same places, and the vapor bubble is easy enough to find. Qifrey opens the cabinet he remembers having stored tea in and finds the box of tea’s missing, he knits his eyebrows, then checks another shelf, and another, squinting his eyes trying to remember what the box looked like. He really needs to find his glasses. Olruggio opens a drawer to Qifrey’s left and pulls out a box, he slides it towards Qifrey.
“Thank you,” Qifrey mutters. He slides the box the rest of the way across the counter. Olruggio’s fingers don't leave it until Qifrey’s pulled it away, they do not touch.
“Are you alright?” Olruggio asks, beating Qifrey to the chase of asking silly questions. “I figured you might be feeling a bit disoriented.”
“I’m alright,” Qifrey catches the lie immediately after it slips out, the light smile accompanying it. He bites his cheek, there was no need for it really. “A bit disoriented, yes, you’re right about that, but I’ll be alright I’m… happy to be back.” He’s finished with a truth at least, that has to be progress.
Olruggio doesn’t respond, Qifrey tries not to let that peeve him.
“How about you, how are you doing. I’ve only really heard it from the kids.” He winces at the blunt tone his own words.
“I’m fine.”
“Sorry, that was mean.”
“I missed you.”
The admission shouldn’t startle Qifrey as much as it does, fingers slipping on the flavor slips. Guilt, his fickle and familiar friend twinges in his gut. He picks the flavor slips off the counter and rolls his shoulders to try and relieve some of their tension. Olruggio’s eyes drill into his back.
“You didn’t lie to the girls earlier, did you,” Olruggio speaks carefully, “It’s really gone?”
“I think so… If it’s not I’ll let you know” He smiles mirthlessly, “Or I suppose we’ll find out the hard way.”
“Don’t say that,” Olruggio says, “We’ll figure it out. Whatever it takes, I promise.”
Something blooms in Qifrey’s chest. Not the silverwood. It is warm, and soft, and maybe this time he will not need to beat it back. Then he remembers the bottle of tear infused ink on his desk. The torn up sigil littering his floor that Olruggio surly knew about. And Qifrey feels a bit sick again with the confirmation that Olruggio would still gladly offer himself up again and again just to keep Qifrey alive, even now when he knows all that Qifrey has done, not that that ever mattered before.
The water boils. “I’m sorry.” Qifrey says.
“What for?”
Everything, Qifrey thinks as he pours water over the flavor slips. He pushes Olruggio's mug to him. Then Qifrey turns his face away so he cant see the way Olruggio is biting something back in the set of his stillness, he curls his hands around his own mug, letting the heat sting his fingers.
“You know, I was angry at you for a long time after.” Olruggio says. Qifrey’s glad he’s had years of practice to hide his flinch in the curl of his fingers against his mug. The heat is almost too much, his hands sting, he doesn't remove them. “It wasn’t even the memory erasure or the lying, I forgave you for that.”
“You shouldn’t,” Qifrey whispers. He can’t forgive himself.
“You don’t get to decide that.” Olruggio snaps.
He waits a minute for Olruggio to continue speaking, but he doesn’t. The fear residing deep in his gut itches a sour path up his throat. “Are you still angry with me?” he asks.
It takes a moment for Olruggio to respond. “No,” he says, “I don’t think so. I think I just hated your absence. You left such a gaping hole behind you Qifrey. Wasn’t easy to fill, never really managed to.”
He knows Olly took the fifth test, the girls told him. He knows he never wanted to. He spares a glance towards the stairwell, “You’ve done a good job with them.”
“I wasn’t just talking about the girls.”
Right. Of course. How could he ever forget that. He made a promise a long time ago didn’t he? A promise that he would never give up on himself. Guilt traces its chilled fingers up Qifrey’s spine, he swallows it down so it can’t taint his tone. It does anyway. “I’m sorry I left.” he says.
There’s a pause which lasts too long, where the heat of the mug is nearly too much, stinging against Qifrey’s hands, he does not remove them. Then, finally, Olruggio scoffs.
“Damn right.”
He hears Olruggio’s robes shift, and Qifrey knows enough about his mannerisms to know he’s rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s funny,” he says, “I don’t know if it’s really hit me yet that you're back. It’s a bit like seeing a ghost. It’s a lot.”
Qifrey risks turning his head, it been so easy not to look at him with Qifrey leaned forward on the counter and Olruggio leaned back on it. But at a certain point he can’t hide anymore. “If you need space,” Qifrey starts, “Or time to process. I can stay away, I dont-”
He’s cut off by a laugh. “I can’t believe I forgot how much of an idiot you are.” Olruggio says. Shaking his head at the floor, smiling. “Why the hell would I want that.”
Oh, Qifrey is an idiot isn’t he. He watches Olruggio wipe his face, rub the bridge of his nose. Was he crying again? No, Olruggio’s never been a cryer. His eyes water but he never lets the tears fall, and even that takes a lot. Qifrey hates the distance between them. It’s hardly even a meter.
“Do you want space, Qifrey?”
That’s the last thing he wants.
“No, I want-” Qifrey bites his cheek. Turns away again. What does he want? He’s allowed to want now. The thought hits him so hard he nearly chokes.
“Qifrey?”
His nerves spark. He feels a hand on his shoulder. Another joins his white knuckled grip on his teacup.
“You should probably let go of that thing before you put a crack in it,” Olruggio says. He pries his fingers between Qifrey’s hands and the porcelain. Qifrey loosens his grip on the cup, and on all his pins and needles of frayed nerve endings. He stands, Olruggio trails his hand down Qifrey’s arm.
“I’d like you to tell me what you want,” Olruggio says, “You don’t have to tell me now. I’d just like you to tell me.”
You, Qifrey thinks, I want you. Always you. Always. When he lifts his head he can see red around Olruggio's eyes, tear tracks. Qifrey wants nothing more than to wipe them away. To cradle his face in his hands and place kisses on his eyelids until the tears stop. But he is not allowed that privilege, so he settles for rapping his hand around Olruggio’s in return and leaning his head on his shoulder. Maybe that’s enough for now.
***
It’s so familiar, the two of them down stairs at too late an hour. They settle, sprawled across the couch, leaned against each other, and Qifrey can almost pretend that no time has passed at all. That it’s still those simple, easy nights where they’ve stayed up making some elaborate snack or drinking too much. It’s almost the same -- if not for the fact that Olruggio hasn’t let go of Qifrey’s hand, that Qifrey hasn’t let go of his either, and every minute or so Olruggio glances to the side to look at him. Yes, it’s almost the same.
Qifrey’s eye has long since slipped shut, feeling strained even in the dull light. He really needs to ask about his glasses, but that’s a problem for tomorrow. Right now, he can feel himself almost dozing. He thinks he could fall asleep here, with Olruggio’s head on his shoulder; It certainly wouldn't be the first time. The two of them would have terrible cricks in their necks when they woke, or if the girls woke them. Wouldn’t be the first time for that either, though it was never a good look.
Olruggio yawns.
“Seems like the tea did its job. We should probably go to bed, don’t you think?” Qifrey says, even as he does he dreads the thought of returning to the lonely dark of his room.
Olruggio hums, but pushes himself up nonetheless, dragging Qifrey along with him. They pick up their emptied tea cups and move them to the kitchen, those can be a problem for the morning. They pad up the stairs as quietly as they can to the hallway where their atelier’s split. Olruggio takes one step down it, leaving his hand behind, still intertwined with Qifrey’s, and then he stops.
“You know,” Olruggio says, “The girls really didn’t want to let you out of their sight earlier. I think they’re afraid that if they look away for even a moment you’ll be gone.”
“I can stay if you’d like.” Please, he thinks, Please ask me to stay.
Olruggio squeezes his hand, “I won’t force you to do that,” he says.
Qifrey swallows. His heart a hammer in his chest. He hopes Olly can’t feel how sweaty his hands are. “I’d like to.”
Olruggio nods, and leads Qifrey down the hall to his atelier. He’d taken down the those who knock shall be cursed sign at some point in the two years Qifrey had been gone. For some reason it bothers him, even if the thing had only ever been for show. Then the familiar warm smokey smell of Olruggio’s atelier hits him, tender and comforting as a hearth. The fact that Olruggio wants him here makes his heart swell so much it could suffocate him. It’s all too much the way Olruggio cares for him. He can’t take it. He can’t give it back.
As they strip down to their nightclothes Qifrey knows they will lay side by side as they have many times before. Chests bare, turned away from each other so they do not touch. He wonders if Olly would hold him if he asked. But Qifrey has already taken more of his fill then he deserves. He’s selfish for wanting more.
“I hate to ask,” Olruggio says, smoothing back the sheets. “I know your an early riser, but do me a favor and don’t leave before I wake up.”
Qifrey hates himself for the fact that Olruggio even felt the need to ask. “I won't," he says, pulling on a reassuring smile, “Promise.” He lays down curled on his side before he can catch if Olly thinks he’s lying or not. He isn’t. He thinks he isn’t.
Olruggio sighs and shifts, turns off the last lamp and Qifrey knows that if he was ever going to ask Olly for anything that moment is gone now, so Qifrey resigns himself to staring at the wall.
And still despite everything Qifrey can’t sleep. He figures he should have been able to now. Didn’t he deserve to sleep soundly after everything? Did he? He wants to, doesn’t that matter?
He lets himself drift, mind hazy, the sound of rain pattering in the back of his skull growing ever fainter, but never gone, not truly, it pools regret in the coffin he’s dug for himself. It must be well past midnight now. How many nights has he counted the hours until dawn? How many more?
Next to him, Olruggio jolts, he sits up suddenly, taking labored breaths, hands grasping for purchase against the sheets.
Qifrey pushes himself into a sitting position as well, placing a hand between Olruggio’s shoulder blades. It startles him again. He pulls away. “Qifrey?”
Qifrey hovers, hands still hung in the air. Moonlight through the window casts enough of a glow that he can see Olly shift in the shadows, his shoulders slumping back into their usual posture as he steadies his breath. “You’re alright,” Qifirey tells him, “Just a nightmare.”
“Just a nightmare,” Olruggio echoes. Then he reaches for Qifrey’s face, and it’s his turn to flinch as Olruggio brushes the bangs back from his right side. But he does not stop him, and Olruggio does not stop, he traces Qifrey’s cheek bone with his calloused fingers, cups them underneath his jaw and leaves them there, resting tenderly, feather light against his skin like if he tried to hold Qifrey with any more firmness it would make him shatter. It just might, his pulse pounds though his throat, he hopes Olruggio can’t feel it.
It’s not as though Olruggio has never seen his scar. Not as though he’d ever been unsettled by it. He doesn’t even know how much of it is visible in what dim moonlight falls over his face.
His thumb brushes gently against the jagged scar tissue, which makes Qifrey’s breath hitch. He covers Olruggio's hand with his own, before he starts drowning, feeling more naked then if he’d bared all his skin. Back on solid ground Olruggio's thumb brushes his scar again. “I dreamed it sprouted,” he says.
Qifrey guides Olruggio's hand away from his face, to his heart, kissing his knuckles on the way down. “I’m right here,” he tells him, “I’m alive. I’m not going anywhere.” He wets his lips, mouth dry, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Your heart’s beating fast,” Olruggio murmurs in lieu of an answer. Ever thinking about others wasn’t he. “Did I scare you? I woke you up didn’t I, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Qifrey smiles.
“Tough luck.” Olruggio says, “The people who love you will always worry for you.”
Love. Their boogeyman. He’s surprised Olly can throw the word around so freely, the two of them have never been able to before; not when Olruggio’s love had saved Qifrey, not when it was killing him, and not in any small part because Qifrey could never give it back, not properly, not in the way Olruggio deserves. His eyes sting.
“You’re too good to me,” Qifrey says.
“Don’t start.” Olruggio curls his hand around Qifrey’s thumb, and leans forward till their foreheads touch. Like he’s trying to enact the clasp of the covenant right there between them, Qifrey can only guess what promise he’s trying to make.
If he can work up the courage he can say something. He could close the distance between them. But he has never thought of himself as brave. Qifrey breaths in through his mouth, his flittering jaw, trying to take in as much of Olruggio’s breath as he can. Maybe, if he breaths in enough of it, there will be enough intrepidness in his lungs to say what he needs to.
But it’s Olruggio who moves first. Just enough for the bottom of their lips to brush. For Qifrey to meet him halfway. Such a gentile thing it is. And fleeting. Hardly long enough for Qifrey to tug Olruggio towards him, he can only follow as he pulls away, left leaning forward into open air with his mouth ajar.
It is not their first kiss.
“I dream of it too,” Qifrey amits, “Putting my roots down here. Right here.” He snakes a hand onto Olruggio’s thigh, clasping at the fabric of his nightclothes, punctuating his confession. “It’s not a nightmare, Isn’t that horrible?”
“No.” Olruggio says. He rests his head on Qifrey’s shoulder, kissing his collarbone, “it’s not.”