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It starts, as many things do, with Qifrey taking a joke too seriously.
“See, this is what happens when you don’t rest,” Qifrey says, as he’s working the knots out of Olruggio’s left shoulder. Olruggio’s been locked up in his workshop for ages, and the poor thing feels like he’s made of iron. “You haven’t made it to dinner in a week.”
Olruggio shifts and sighs deeply. “You always save me something to eat anyway. Ah! That’s good. Wow.”
Qifrey presses harder into the indicated spot. Olruggio groans in a way that makes Qifrey blush a little. He clears his throat quickly to disguise the sudden unsteadiness in his hands. “I’m serious. What must I do to get you to rest?”
Olruggio laughs and leans his head on Qifrey’s shoulder. “You know me,” he says. “The only thing that’ll get me to bed is a shot of poison strong enough to knock me out.”
Qifrey pauses.
Strong enough to… knock him out…?
Olruggio blinks his eyes open, slow and endearingly sleepy. “Why’d you stop? Arthritis pain again?”
Qifrey doesn’t have arthritis. What he has is a mind full of poisonous plants and a tree growing in his fingers. “Yes,” he says anyway. “Just allow me a moment, please, and I’ll keep going.”
Olruggio makes a pleased noise and closes his eyes again. “I’ll wait as long as you need.”
Slowly, Qifrey resumes again. Over the years he’s tried everything to get Olruggio to rest: commissioning him new sleep-robes, brewing him herbal tea, drawing him baths with lavender petals—and that last one’s saying something, because Qifrey hates touching water. And yet for all his creativity, he’s had no success.
But poison.
Now there’s an idea.
***
Weirdly, the best resource on this topic is Coco. Everyone else Qifrey could ask was raised in witch society, where they’re not allowed to study medicine at all. But Coco, who grew up in the country making her own organic fabric dyes, and who spends her weekends dreaming up new potions with Tartah, is practically an encyclopedia on their local plants.
The only problem is—
“But that’ll kill someone,” Coco says, very innocently. She looks up at him with her big round eyes. “Master Qifrey, why do you wanna kill someone?”
She sounds so sincere. Qifrey speedruns the stages of grief in about four seconds and somehow manages to disguise it as a series of coughs. “Don’t be silly, Coco darling,” he says, once he’s done having his crisis. “I’ve never wanted to kill someone, and I’ve certainly never planned to harm others.”
“But you asked about henbane and belladonna. Poison.”
“To… help people.” To send his stubborn, self-sacrificing Watchful Eye to sleep, but she doesn’t need to know that. He’s pretty sure that if he said he was trying to poison Olruggio, Coco would cry and beg him to spare her poor Master Olly’s life. It would probably be a whole scene. Olruggio would never let him live it down.
“Hmm,” says Coco suspiciously. She narrows her eyes.
“To help people avoid them,” Qifrey quickly course-corrects. “If you teach me how to identify them, we’ll be much safer on picnics, won’t we?”
Coco visibly brightens. Keyword activated: picnic. “Oh, of course! Master Qifrey is so thoughtful. Yeah, if Tetia picks a belladonna fruit it’s all over for her. Okay, so belladonna is also called nightshade. Those are the ones with little fruits. Do not let Tetia eat those, unless they’re black nightshade and they’re fully ripe. Uh, they have oval leaves, usually in pairs. And the flowers are like purple bells. Wait—actually, I can just draw it! I think I remember the shape…”
Oh, she really does know her stuff. Qifrey leans over and watches her draw. She’s making a basic diagram: leaves, stem, flowers, fruit. “What parts of the plant are the most and least dangerous to consume?”
“All of it is poisonous… Oh, there’s some kinds of nightshade where the berries are edible, but only in the late summer. The leaves of those ones are still poisonous, but not as badly. The older leaves are worse.” Coco’s brow furrows. “Why?”
“Just curious,” Qifrey says lightly. “Mind telling me about henbane, too?”
Coco’s eyes light up. She launches into another description, and begins sketching again. This time the culprit is another plant: a tall, meandering weed with papery yellow flowers.
While she’s distracted, Qifrey brews his plan. Young leaves. Small doses. Mixed with other ingredients to induce sleep rather than hallucinations. Yes—that should do it. A poison strong enough to knock him out.
If Olruggio wants to be stubborn, this is what he’ll get.
***
Witches don’t actually work under the light of the full moon, most of the time. But Qifrey’s always had a sense of dramatic timing, so he decides that the full moon is the perfect time to put his plan into action.
He’s ready. The plants have been gathered. The leaves have been distilled. The tincture has been mixed with lavender and valerian root. All that remains is to determine its efficacy. Qifrey’s hesitant to test it on himself, but he’s even more hesitant to test it on Olruggio, so the night before the full moon he brews himself a cup of tea and plunks two drops in. He downs the whole thing.
Qifrey waits for a full six hours. No effect whatsoever. Around one in the morning he feels quite drowsy, and gets very excited about it. His poison’s working! Then he realizes how late it is, and remembers that’s the normal amount of drowsiness he feels late at night.
He wakes no worse for wear. Needless to say, even if it doesn’t have much effect, he’s at least confident that it won’t hurt Olruggio.
As such, Qifrey’s hopes for success are low when he puts a few drops of his nightshade concoction into Olruggio’s glass of wine. He brings both glasses into Olruggio’s workshop and announces his presence by yelling, “Olly! Come drink with me!”
Olruggio makes a disoriented sound. He peeks his head over the edge of the loft. “This early? Are you crazy?”
Qifrey looks up at him fondly. “Olly, it’s nine in the evening.”
Olruggio blinks.
“Have a drink with me,” Qifrey coaxes, putting on his kindest smile. Olruggio’s always been a little weak for him; it shouldn’t be too hard. “I want to relax.”
This does the trick. Olruggio sighs and lumbers downstairs like a bear. His steps are heavy with exhaustion, sleeplessness baked into his bones. “Yeah, yeah.” When he sits across from Qifrey, he groans in pain-relief-pain at the adjustment to his posture. “My back’s killing me these days. I miss being twenty.”
“Maybe if you got a full night of sleep every once in a while,” Qifrey says pointedly.
“And since when have you slept through a full night?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Qifrey says, crossing his arms. Inside his large sleeves, he covertly adds a small amount of poison into Olruggio’s glass. He counts the drops: one, two, three. “The girls wake me sometimes. What am I supposed to do about that? If they have nightmares, I simply must console them.”
“Coco isn’t having nightmares every night.”
“Rude! Richeh has nightmares too,” Qifrey sniffs dramatically. He makes a show of sliding the glass across the table to Olruggio. “Here. Let’s toast.”
Olruggio sighs in exasperation. “Sometimes I think you’re trying to make me an alcoholic. You know I’ve already got memory issues?” But he picks up the drink anyway, and raises it to Qifrey’s. Their glasses clink together.
Qifrey drinks deeply. Across from him, Olruggio does the same.
The minute it’s all down, Olruggio blinks several times. Then his eyes go glassy, like he’s seeing straight through Qifrey’s face to something behind him.
Qifrey frowns. It shouldn’t be doing this, at least not so fast. “Olly? Olly, are you quite alright?”
Olruggio visibly pulls himself back together. “I’m just fine. Peachy, even.”
Qifrey exhales in relief. “Lovely. Why don’t you tell me about your latest commission? I know you’re working on something for a non-magical noblewoman. A doorbell? Or was it a mat? Something to do with doors.”
“Entry arch,” Olruggio says. “To detect weapons and… Qifrey, is it hot in here?”
This plays into his plan perfectly, so he jumps on it. “It’s a bit drafty, actually. Would you like me to turn up the fire for you? I could fetch you a blanket. Something nice and comfortable, in case you felt like—”
Thunk.
Olruggio’s head hits the desk.
“—Resting,” Qifrey says slowly. “Olly? Hello?”
No response. Olruggio’s out cold. His face is flushed pink, and his pulse is quick, but a hand waved in front of his face gets no response. Likewise, when Qifrey shakes him by the shoulders he doesn’t stir even a little. He just makes a faint, sleepy noise of protest.
Qifrey stares at him. He’d tested it on himself, and it hadn’t had anywhere near this effect. Is Olruggio really just that tired…?
He plays back the events of the evening. Fetching the glasses, pouring the wine, putting the poison in one glass, bringing them to Olruggio’s place, poisoning the wine in his sleeve—
Wait.
He poisoned the wine twice.
Which means rather than the three drops Qifrey had intended to give him, he’s had six. Triple the dose Qifrey tested on himself.
“Shit,” Qifrey mutters under his breath. Unsure what to do with himself, he glances around the room. Desk—fire—blankets—bed—right, bed! Unceremoniously, he hoists Olruggio’s limp body over his shoulder and hauls him over to the bed. Olruggio’s face doesn’t so much as crinkle.
Once he’s in bed, Qifrey examines him again. He doesn’t know much about medicine, but Coco had described the symptoms of lethal nightshade poisoning, and he doesn’t seem to be fitting them. Yes, his pulse is fast, but not alarmingly so. And he’s barely even flushed! Most of all, his face is so peaceful, so gentle in his rest, that Qifrey can’t help feeling proud.
Qifrey tucks the blankets around him. He brushes Olruggio’s hair away from his face, and then, feeling a bit daring, he leans down to press a dry kiss to his forehead.
“Stubborn fool,” he whispers, sickeningly fond. “You should know I’ll never give up on you.”
***
Olruggio’s out for eighteen hours. Qifrey knows because he keeps frantically sending Brushbuddy into Olruggio’s room to check on him, and it keeps coming back and perching on Richeh’s shoulder to give its verdict.
“It says he’s still asleep,” Richeh says, with such confidence that Qifrey believes her wholeheartedly. Maybe she ought to teach a class on Brushbuddy translation.
Anyway, at the eighteen-hour mark, Olruggio finally stumbles into the living room.
“Master Olly!” says Tetia brightly. “Hello again!”
Agott is much less kind. “You look terrible,” she tells him, flat-out.
Olruggio blinks slowly. “Thanks.”
“You do,” Agott insists. “Did you get run over by a pegasus carriage or what?”
“No,” Olruggio says. He rubs his forehead. “At least I don’t think so. But you never know—my memory’s starting to go. Don’t be like me, girls.”
Agott nods very seriously, like this is life wisdom she will keep forever.
“Honestly,” Qifrey sighs, leaning in from the kitchen. He needs to see the effect of his botanical ventures for himself. “They could do much worse than being like you. After all, you’re the sole breadwinner of our atelier.”
Olruggio’s face goes pink. Is he still under the poison’s effect? “Ah, don’t say it like that, Qifrey. Makes me sound like—well.”
Qifrey smiles, bemused. “Like what?”
Olruggio groans and buries his face in his hands. “Never mind. Just let me cook myself something, I’m starving. What time’s it, anyway?”
“Mid-afternoon. We’re just about to have tea.”
Olruggio stares at him. “You’ve got to be kidding. I was asleep for three fourths of a day?”
“You clearly needed it,” Qifrey says, a little smugly.
“Don’t give me that. Needed it? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you putting concealer under your eyes lately.”
Qifrey stiffens. “I’ll have you know I’ve been sleeping just fine. In fact, I—”
Before he can finish, Olruggio reaches out and brushes his thumb against the delicate skin beneath his eye. Qifrey freezes. His thumb strokes just below Qifrey’s eye, and the rest of his hand cups his face gently, like he’s holding an intricate machine.
Qifrey’s whole body flushes hot.
“See,” says Olruggio. He strokes his thumb across the skin again, achingly delicate. “Your concealer’s coming off, right there.”
Qifrey stares at him. His vision feels blurrier than usual. Hmm.
Olruggio’s thumb stops moving. His pupils visibly dilate. He’s so close Qifrey can practically hear the workings of his mind. He wants—he wants—
“Tea,” Qifrey blurts. “I’m. Busy. Preparing tea.”
Abruptly, Olruggio flushes bright red to match. “Right,” he says, with a cough. “I’m—lunch. I’ll make myself some lunch.”
Qifrey busies himself doing nothing over the stove. As he stirs the pudding that’s already being stirred with magic, he thinks about the vial of poison in his bathroom.
He’d added approximately three drops, but he’d done it twice. So: six drops equals about eighteen hours, and has a very strong, almost immediate effect. Too much for the average tired day. But what about five drops? Four?
There’s only one way to find out.
***
“Come on, Olly. You’ve been up all night already.”
Olruggio is so absorbed in his project that he barely looks up. “Mm. I’ll eat soon. Just have to finish this.”
Rejected again. Qifrey’s tried almost every weapon in his arsenal, save for one. As a last resort, Qifrey leans against the door, puts on his most pitiful voice, and says, “Won’t you at least have some iced tea?”
The prospect of caffeine immediately makes Olruggio perk up. “Sure. Just put it down.”
Qifrey smiles. He places the drink on Olruggio’s desk. Joke’s on Olruggio for thinking he’d give him caffeinated tea; Qifrey’s made him an herbal rose tea with hibiscus, and of course his dose of poison. Five drops, this time.
“Give it a try,” Qifrey coaxes, sliding it closer. “I’m trying something new.”
Olruggio looks at him sideways. “New tea?”
“Mm. Let me know what you think.”
Olruggio takes a long sip. Another. Then he says, “Wow. Tastes good. You’re brilliant. I should… I should… Hmm. Hmmmm.”
And suddenly he’s swaying in his seat, and his face is flushing pink.
“Oh dear,” says Qifrey delightedly. “Let’s get you to bed!”
Olruggio is too poisoned to put up a protest. He sleeps through the remainder of the afternoon, and all the way into the morning. When he wakes he looks considerably better than last time, though he stumbles around for a while after waking up, like he’s still fighting off the effects.
Hm. The dose still isn’t quite right. Qifrey will have to try again.
***
“Master Qifrey,” says Coco, with starry eyes. “You really are amazing…!”
Tetia nods in emphatic agreement.
“Girls,” says Qifrey, a little embarrassed. “You’re too kind to me. It’s only soup.”
Well—he’s underselling it. The winter’s finally starting to melt off, and today the sun came out. To celebrate, he let the girls help him make cold buckwheat noodle soup with watermelon. Then, of course, he had to carve the watermelon rinds into soup bowls, spoon the noodles into the bowls in perfect spirals, and top each one with a series of geometrically pleasing cucumber and watermelon slices…
“Sooo beautiful,” Coco squeaks. Sometimes she talks like she thinks no one else in the room can hear her. Strange kid.
“The angle of the cucumber slice in this bowl is only eighty-seven degrees,” says Richeh. “I will adjust it to match the rest.” She moves the cucumber approximately half a millimeter.
“No, no, that offsets the noodles,” says Agott. She squints one eye closed, the one Qifrey doesn’t have anymore, and stares down her chopstick at the noodles. She directs the noodle back into place like she’s performing surgery. When she’s done, Coco claps.
Qifrey takes it back. All his kids are strange.
Like student, like master, says Beldaruit’s voice in his head. Qifrey, of course, ignores him. He’s very good at ignoring Beldaruit.
Richeh closes her eyes. “Beauty is not the true measure of food’s quality,” she says, like she’s delivering a sacred prophecy. “The true mark of success is the taste.”
Qifrey just smiles. “Go ahead, then!”
Richeh looks delighted. She reaches for one of the watermelon bowls.
“Oh! Not that one,” Qifrey says hastily. He tugs the bowl away from her and laughs awkwardly. “That’s Master Olly’s soup. You can’t eat that one.”
Richeh looks very sad. “Why not?”
Because he’s put poison in the broth. “Ah, it’s an adult thing,” Qifrey says, which is true. Kind of. “I made his soup a bit differently. Why don’t you have yours instead? I’ll serve you extra, if you’re feeling hungry.”
Evidently, this is enough consolation for Richeh. She eagerly presents her own bowl for him to fill with broth.
Qifrey sighs in relief. Crisis averted!
Once the girls are settled, he delivers Olruggio’s watermelon soup to his door. “Lunch time!” he announces, setting it down with a flourish. “Look how beautiful the soup is. Aren’t the girls just wonderful?”
Olruggio studies the bowl. When he looks up again, he’s smiling a little too fondly. “I think,” he says, “the girls are wonderful because they have a wonderful master.”
Qifrey laughs. “Flatterer.”
“Hm. Maybe,” says Olruggio, his smile growing. “Ah, Qifrey. I know you’re angry with me for missing dinner the past couple days. I’m trying to charm you into being nicer to me.”
“It won’t work,” says Qifrey, who is already thoroughly charmed, and has been for about twenty years now.
“I’ve got a bowl of soup in front of me that says otherwise.”
Qifrey bites down a smile. If he knew what was in the soup, maybe he wouldn’t be so quick to call it forgiveness. “Go on, then. Enjoy. Ah—but make sure you drink the broth last, alright?”
Olruggio looks a bit confused, but doesn’t protest. “Alright. Noodles first, broth last.”
“And the vegetables in between.”
Olruggio laughs. “Yes, yes—vegetables in between. Now go check on your apprentices; they’ve probably set fire to the house while you’ve been away.”
Qifrey gives him an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder. He goes back to the kitchen and eats lunch with the girls. He gives them the afternoon’s assignments and returns to Olruggio’s workshop, where he’s already sound asleep, empty bowl by his side.
He moves Olruggio to bed. Olruggio sleeps until morning, and when he shows up at breakfast the next day, he’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, talking incessantly about some breakthrough he’s had on his latest commission.
“And I slept like a rock,” says Olruggio incredulously. “Must have been the inspiration telling me it was coming, and I had to be ready.”
“Mm,” says Qifrey. He smiles and pours himself more tea. “I’m glad it worked.”
Yes: four drops is perfect.
***
Of course nothing good lasts forever, especially not for Qifrey. It all has to come crashing down sometime, and as it happens, ‘sometime’ is two weeks later.
It’s the night after Richeh’s birthday. The girls (mostly Tetia) had insisted on making a cake for her, so they’d spent the day baking: Tetia and Richeh making a reasonably-sized strawberry cake, Agott and Coco working on an ambitious four-layer monstrosity. Qifrey’s up late writing the last of the cleaning spells. His hands are starting to shake. If only he could—
A piece of paper from a palm quire flies in front of him. The last cake plate cleans itself off, sparkling.
Qifrey sighs in relief and turns around. “Ah. Thank you, Olly. I’ve just been rather…”
Olruggio crosses his arms. “Tired?”
His tone is off. Qifrey frowns and turns to face him. “Yes, I’ve been rather tired. It’s not so easy, keeping house with our apprentices.”
Olruggio must be in quite the mood; he doesn’t even take the bait of our apprentices. He just crosses his arms. “Qifrey, I know what you’ve been doing to me.”
Qifrey freezes.
Shit. He’s been through this before, and somehow it’s always just as bad. He’d thought, when he was younger, that it would eventually stop breaking him up so much. But with time his affection for Olruggio grew too, and thus it’s never been easy, not even once.
“Olly,” he says, his voice hollow. He’s done this too many times. “Before you argue, you must know it’s for our own good. Both of us, alright?”
“Both of us? Qifrey, how the hell does poisoning me help you?”
Qifrey blinks. “What?”
“Poisoning me. With the purple stuff in your bathroom. I don’t know how you got it, but whatever it is, it knocks me out good.”
“Oh! Oh, yes,” Qifrey says, too relieved to deny it. He’s not talking about the other thing, thank goodness. He’s just talking about— “Yes, I do that from time to time. Poisoning you.”
Olruggio stares at him in silence.
“To help you sleep,” Qifrey explains, suddenly feeling idiotic. “You don’t rest enough when you’re working on commissions. So I just… started intervening. Don’t worry! Coco told me about a non-lethal variety of nightshade. You shouldn’t experience long-term effects.”
“Nightshade.” Olruggio’s voice is faint, like he’s lightheaded. “You thought I wasn’t resting enough, so you spiked my drinks with nightshade?”
“…Yes.”
And Olruggio, sweet, darling Olruggio, just laughs.
It’s Qifrey’s turn to be baffled. “Aren’t you supposed to get angry with me? Isn’t this the part where you tell me you’ll never drink anything I give you again? No more wine together, no more iced tea, no more soup…”
Olruggio snaps. “The soup! You put it in the soup! Very clever. I couldn't figure out where that one was.”
Qifrey nearly drops the dish towel. “You’ve been keeping track?”
“Eh.” Olruggio shrugs. “Hard not to, when you keep feeling like you’ve been put in a flower press. Nightshade? Really, Qifrey, that’ll kill me.”
“It will not,” Qifrey says defensively. God knows he’d do just about anything to keep Olruggio alive. “Besides, I tested it on myself.”
“You did?”
And suddenly Qifrey’s the one at a disadvantage. He wrings the towel between his hands. “I did, yes.”
With a quiet click, Olruggio brings his rings together. The dishes are dry near-instantly. Feeling a little silly, Qifrey puts the towel down.
“You really are tired,” Olruggio says, gentler. “You know you can always ask me for my rings? I made them for you.” He takes Qifrey’s hand and turns his fingers over. Then, suddenly, he smiles.
Qifrey knows that expression means trouble. “What?” he asks anyway.
“You’re tired,” Olruggio repeats pointedly. Then he drags Qifrey by the hand, out of the kitchen and toward Qifrey’s quarters. Toward his… bathroom?
Oh. Oh.
Qifrey stumbles along behind him. “Olly! There’s really no need for this,” he says hastily. “I’m not a workaholic, not like you. So just—just let go, and I’ll go to bed right away!”
“And stay in bed?”
Qifrey is tellingly silent.
“That’s what I thought. Now—” Here he throws open Qifrey’s cabinet and finds the vial. He lifts it, imitating a toast. “Let’s have something to drink.”
Qifrey sighs deeply. “Olly, you can’t just poison me. That’s rude. Besides, you’re a much worse offender than I am.”
“Then we’ll play a game!” Olruggio drags him back into the bedroom and pulls out Qifrey’s two liquor glasses, kept on his nightstand for just such occasions. “How about this: I poison one of the glasses, and you have to guess which one it is.”
Qifrey frowns. “No.”
“And,” says Olruggio, holding up the second glass, “I’ll drink the other one.”
Qifrey hesitates.
“Think about it,” Olruggio says, just on the dignified edge of begging. “If you guess correctly, you can poison me at no cost to yourself.”
Qifrey sighs and takes a seat. “Four drops,” he concedes. “I don’t want to be asleep too long.” Besides, when he’d tested it on himself, it had virtually no effect. Maybe his tolerance is just better…!
“No problem,” says Olruggio brightly. He takes the opposite seat. “Let me pour the drinks.”
Qifrey turns around. Behind him, he hears the sound of liquor being poured, and then the uncapping of the vial. He inhales sharply.
So it’s really happening.
“Done,” says Olruggio, and Qifrey turns back around. “Guess which one I’ve put the poison in!”
He looks very pleased with himself. There’s one glass in front of each of them. Qifrey stares at them for a long while, but they’re visually identical. They smell the same, too. All he has to go on is which glass Olruggio’s given him, and which glass he’s given himself. “A mind game,” Qifrey says. “This would be very clever, from anyone but you.”
Olruggio looks intrigued. “Yeah?”
“Because I know,” says Qifrey, “that you would sooner die than hurt me.”
With that, he takes the glass in front of himself.
Olruggio’s grin widens.
Qifrey’s stomach swoops. Why’s he smiling? There’s no chance he’s put it in Qifrey’s glass and not his own; Olruggio would never, ever want to hurt him… But he’s so confident, and it’s probably Qifrey’s imagination, but perhaps his drink’s color is a bit off…
“Cheers,” says Olruggio.
Qifrey takes a breath. He and Olruggio drink in unison.
And then—
“Hmm,” says Qifrey. He blinks several times. “Oh, my.”
“Ah,” says Olruggio, in precisely the same tone. “That’s quite something.”
Qifrey’s glass clunks down to the table. He can’t remember how it got there. “Olly, dear. Would you mind… ah, helping me to bed?”
Olruggio makes a pained noise. “Don’t—say it like that. Makes me sound like…”
But he never finishes, because he’s already slumped forward on the table.
Qifrey stares at him. He stares at him some more. If he’s the one poisoned—and he’s certain that he is, because his mind is swimming and his limbs feel unsteady—then why on earth is Olruggio acting like this? It’s not possible, not unless Olruggio was… poisoned too…
Oh.
No chance. No chance.
“You bastard,” Qifrey mutters, hauling Olruggio’s limp body into his bed. It’s no easy feat; his hands are still shaking, and his legs are unsteady. If Olruggio was always going to poison both glasses, he could have at least moved them closer to the bed. They bump into the dresser, and Olruggio makes a groan in the back of his throat. “This is your own damn fault, Olly. Your own damn fault…”
The minute Qifrey makes it to his bed, it’s over. He doesn’t even have time to settle. He just collapses on top of Olruggio, and then they’re both out cold.
***
Qifrey wakes the next morning to sunlight in the window and banging on the door.
“Master! Are you okay?”
Qifrey sniffs. He clings tighter to his blanket. The bed is unusually warm and cozy. His limbs are heavy, and he’s so comfortable…
“Master Qifrey!!”
“M’fine,” Qifrey mumbles into the pillow. “Twenty more minutes…”
And then the pillow stirs.
Qifrey groans and pulls it closer. “Don’t move,” he instructs his pillow, like this will do anything. “Stay right there.”
“Mm,” says his pillow.
His pillow… talks? Qifrey blinks himself awake and looks down.
“Ah,” says Qifrey, embarrassed. It’s Olruggio. Of course it is.
“Mornin’,” says Olruggio, in that sleep-sugared voice he usually doesn’t let anyone hear. Both of their robes are a little undone, mussed from sleep. His hair is plastered across Qifrey’s pillow, and Qifrey’s legs are hanging off the side of his hip. Olruggio’s softer now that Qifrey’s feeding him three meals a day; he fits in his arms nicely.
“You’re extraordinarily handsome,” says Qifrey idly. “Have I told you that?”
Olruggio blushes down to his chest. “You can’t say these things. Makes me sound like…”
“Like what?” Qifrey asks, bewildered. “You keep saying that. I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about—”
“For god’s sake,” Olruggio groans. He throws a hand over his face. “Sole breadwinner? Help you to bed? Our apprentices? You make it sound like I’m your husband, Qifrey.”
Qifrey flushes hot. “Well,” he says, very eloquently. “Ah, that’s… You see…”
Luckily, Qifrey is spared from having to explain by the sound of his own door hitting the floor.
“MASTER QIFREY, WE’VE COME TO SAVE YOU,” says Coco, very bravely. Then she sees them in bed, still loose-robed in each other’s arms, and actually shrieks.
“Oh, good,” says Qifrey faintly.
Olruggio groans. “Too early for this,” he calls to the girls, who are all standing in the hall in front of Qifrey’s room. “Give us a minute or two to wake up, alright? Make yourselves some breakfast.”
“It’s five in the afternoon,” says Agott.
Qifrey blinks.
…It is?
***
“I swear I only put four drops,” Olruggio insists. “I put four drops in each glass. You said that was fine! Isn’t that the amount you usually use on me?”
“Well, sometimes more,” Qifrey admits, rubbing his forehead. “However, I’ll admit that was much nicer than I thought it’d be. I haven’t slept through the whole night in months, but last night I was so comfortable! It was really lovely.”
Olruggio suddenly looks a bit flustered. “That’s—not the poison, I think.”
Qifrey frowns. “What do you mean? Don’t you sleep quite restfully when I do it?”
“Yes and no,” Olruggio says. “I sleep like a rock, yes, but it doesn’t have any of that comfort you’re talking about. It just feels like no time’s passed at all. I think the comfort was… the environment.”
“The environment? I sleep in my own bed every night.”
Olruggio suddenly looks profoundly flustered.
At last it clicks for Qifrey too. “Ah. I slept better because you were there.”
They stand there quietly for a moment. Qifrey feels the blush creep down his neck, along his collarbones.
“Anyway,” says Olruggio at last. “Please, no more poisoning. I’ve had quite enough of that. Let me know when I need to call it a night, and I will.”
Qifrey frowns. “I thought you didn’t mind?”
Olruggio makes half a laugh through his nose. “You always misunderstand me. No—the poison’s irrelevant. It’s you I don’t mind.”
If the blush could spread any further, Qifrey’s confident that it would. As it is, all he can do is stand there, watching Olruggio retreat like nothing happened at all.
Just before he turns to leave, Olruggio glances back at him. “Qifrey? One more thing.”
Qifrey pulls himself together. “Yes?”
Olruggio smiles, just a little. “Next time you want to get me in your bed,” he says, “you need only ask.”
And then he’s gone.
Qifrey looks at himself in the mirror. His dark circles, the ones he would usually use concealer on, are fast-fading. Maybe his body knows just how well-rested he feels, and is determined to catch up as fast as possible. He looks… happier. More at peace.
Perhaps he’ll take Olruggio up on that offer, after all.