Work Text:
For a moment, Olruggio doesn’t process what he’s seeing, when he steps into Qifrey’s room.
Qifrey’s crying — not something Olruggio’s never seen before, but a terribly rare sight. Qifrey tends to fight it, when he does cry. Hunch into himself, sniffle, rub at his face. It’s terribly endearing.
But not now. Qifrey’s sitting up at his desk, spectacles off, his head tipped back, weeping openly from his one good eye. His hands aren’t occupied wiping away the tears but… catching them. Collecting the drops in a half-full bottle of ink. As Olruggio watches, Qifrey bites down on his trembling lip, barely stifling a sob.
Then, he opens his eye and — flinches.
“Sorry, sorry!” Olruggio flutters his hands reassuringly. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Forgot to knock.” He steps inside, pulls the door closed behind himself. “I don’t know any spells that call for ink mixed with tears, but hey. You’ve always been the one of us to unearth the strangest… things… hey-hey-hey, Qifrey—”
Qifrey’s set down the bottle, and his hands have come up to cover his face, not that it hides the way he’s crying harder now, his face crumpled in anguish, the tears dripping from his chin.
Olruiggo kneels next to Qifrey’s chair. “Hey,” he repeats. “I’m here.”
That was either the wrong or the right thing to say, because Qifrey seems to give way like a puppet with cut strings, folding into Olruggio’s waiting arms, face pressing hard into his shoulder. He sobs, voiceless, clings to Olruggio’s cloak.
“It’s okay,” Olruggio soothes. “Or if it’s not, it will be. We’ll figure it out. We always do, right?”
After a long moment of weeping, Qifrey nods against his shoulder. He hiccups, sighs, and slowly sits up, reaching out to cap the bottle of ink now mixed in with his tears. “Thank you, Olly. I… lost myself a moment there.”
Suddenly at a loss, a lump in his own throat, Olruggio reaches up and smudges a tear from Qifrey’s cheek. “Qifrey…”
Qifrey covers Olruggio’s hand with his and squeezes gently. “Olly,” he murmurs back. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Impossible ask,” Olruggio replies, catching a tear on his thumb. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m your watchful eye, it’s my job.”
Qifrey almost seems about to burst into tears again, but instead he just smiles, that achingly sweet thing that always makes Olruggio’s heart hurt.
“I suppose it is,” he says, and reaches for Olruggio in turn.