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Fear and anxiety are a constant companion. The moment Qifrey opens his eye in the early morning after a scant few hours of stolen sleep the dread is already there, seeping into his veins and his bones, twisting together with roots that have sprouted and spread for as long as he's been breathing as far as he is aware. He aches, does nothing to ease that ache, and prepares the fake, forced and practiced smiles that look just shy of being real, of being genuine. Only if you'd known him deeply and truly might you be able to pin point just what about his gentle gaze and easy upturned lips feels off, wrong, like a casting seal drawn with an unsteady, unpracticed hand.
Qifrey can count on two fingers the people who that would apply to, and neither are in his bedroom right now.
Familiar guilt gnaws at him, and he cannot help but be grateful for it, allowing himself just a second longer to wallow. Perhaps if he makes himself miserable enough before he must rise for the day he won't have to worry as much later, letting the pit in his stomach settle uncomfortably and do much of the heavy lifting for keeping a certain Silverwood at bay.
Silverwood... that's right. The silverwood, it's-
It's gone. He'd forgotten.
Scrambling for his glasses, set aside haphazardly on his bedside table, Qifrey pushes them onto his nose, squinting as his vision focuses and he takes a minute to orient himself before he dares look out his small window if only to confirm. And, yes, on a hill not too far from the atelier grows a glorious Silverwood tree. His Silverwood.
Absently, he brings a hand up to cover the scar tissue over his right eye socket, the dread in his gut that he's woken up with every day for over half his life swirling instead into quiet disbelief. How long now has it been since Coco - brilliant witch that she was - came up with the plan and executed it? A month? Two? It still doesn't feel real. Doesn't feel real the way she'd gone behind his back to get the help of both Olruggio and Beldaruit, how they'd only told him the plan when it was too late to refuse. How much getting that wretced parasite out of him had hurt and the way he'd been bedridden and essentially in a coma for days afterward. Doesn't feel real the way he'd opened his eye, spotted his four apprentices in his room, huddled around Olly as the Watchful Eye appeared to be showing them some new glyph that Qifrey both couldn't see from his position laying in his bed nor without his glasses.
He'd sat up quietly then, without making a sound, not drawing attention away from the lesson, and, his guard down and disoriented, smiled softly againt his better judgement, allowing the soft, domesticity of the scene before him wash over him and warm his chest. And it was as he regained his bearings in that moment, as he was about to chide himself for indulging even a little, that Qifrey had realized he couldn't feel it. There was no tightening of roots around his lungs. No pain in his right socket as branches and leaves sprouted forth. And it was all he could do to raise a hand to his face, focus now off the warm scene before him and deliberately trained on the light blanket that rested across his lap.
He only realized he was crying when he saw a tear dampen the fabric.
"Master!" A voice said. Tetia? Or was it Coco? Qifrey hadn't been looking at them, his brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton and sounds came to his ears muffled, but he looked up, and the world came into sharp focus (well, as sharp of focus as it could have without his glasses on). His bedside had been swarmed the next second, small hands gripping the blanket, his own hand, as tears fell thick and snotty from many of the faces in front of him.
"You're awake!" Tetia for sure exclaimed, her voice wobbly and watery. "Oh, Master, we were so worried!" She cries, Richeh nods sagely next to her. She is not blubbering like her fellow apprentice, but her eyes are misty and red in a way that suggests she had been.
"Oi, don' crowd 'im now," comes Olruggio's deep voice from behind the four girls, but it's soft and not at all chastising. Qifrey's blurry vision had risen to meet him then, watching as the vague shape of him - all dark blue and black and warm - crossed the two steps between where he'd been sitting and the bed Qifrey occupies. He couldn't see his face clearly, but he'd been certain of the smile Olruggio would've been wearing, and the fact that he couldn't see it made him all the more glad for neglecting to put his glasses on just yet, for if he'd seen that expression he wasn't at all sure he would have been able to hold back the grief and relief that clings to his bones, to his throat.
"Sorry Master Olly," Tetia answers with a pout, climbing off the bed she'd at some point clambered onto. Qifrey gives her a thankful if weak smile.
"Um," a new voice says, quiet, timid and a little afraid, and Qifrey turned his gaze to where Coco stands, fiddling with something in her hands. Behind her, the blurry shape of Agott hovers, and Qifrey can imagine the brave face she's trying to keep together, carefully neutral or disinterested. A shield. It's the kind of thing he himself was so very familiar with, for he'd been doing much the same all his life.
With apparent trepidation, Coco holds something out to him, and Qifrey wordlessly reaches out to accept the proffered item. His glasses are cold to the touch, the metal lacking the warmth of having been worn. "Thank you, Coco," he says, putting them on and, when his vision was as clear as it was going to get, he smiled softly at her. "For everything. And I am... sorry for the heavy burden you've carried."
His mouth had felt dry with what he told himself at the time was disuse, but was likely also emotion. His chest had warmed as the girls quickly told him about the three days he had been asleep, how Olly was actually a good teacher ("not as good as you, though," Richeh muttered, her voice forever a deadpan snark. Qifrey didn't miss the slightly put off look his oldest friend sported after that comment) but how he wasn't as good of a cook, Tetia lamenting his meals and saying that the Witch Hat Pasta Agott had attempted to replicate needed a lot of improvement. Qifrey pretended not to notice the way Agott sputtered with embarrassment at the tease of her kitchen skills.
Not long after that, when Qifrey was beginning to feel himself deflate and his head was starting to pound in a way not too dissimilar to the migraines he sometimes got from bright lights, Olruggio herded the apprentices out of the room.
"Alright now, en'ough of that," he'd said, "I'm sure your Master Qifrey wants nothin' more'n to hear your chattering right now but why don't we let him rest, yeah?"
"But, Master Ollllllyyyyy!" Tetia protested, casting a nervous look between him, her peers and Qifrey himself, like she was worried he might get worse when no one was there to fill the silence with endless chatter. His chest felt warm with the concern. Instinctually, his brain refused to feel it for any longer than the second it took to register.
"I'll be alright, Tetia, thank you for your concern." Qifrey says, and when she hadn't thanked him back, he reached out a hand to ruffle her hair, ignoring just how heavy and unfamiliar his arm had felt. "I promise."
The assurance seemed to be effective, for it was enough to get her and the rest of her peers to exit his room and if he'd caught sight of Coco lingering at his door for a moment longer, lips pressed into a thin line and brows knit in worry, he didn't say anything, simply nodded as she got pulled along by Agott to join the others.
Olruggio closed the door behind them, but didn't yet face Qifrey. And, oh, how this moment of silence, both with so much to say to the other but no idea how or where to start scares him. Vulnerability is not a feeling that has every been safe for him. It came with branches and leaves and roots planted into bitter earth. It came with a seal to erase the memory of the single person most dear to his heart.
Actions taken to rid themselves of that fate feel like a dream. Qifrey leans back on his headboard, trying to process everything now that he isn't bombarded by well meaning - if a little enthusiastic - apprentices. He has a hand over his left eye, when he feels the bed dip next to him.
He peeks behind his fingers. Olruggio is looking right back at him, a swirl of emotion hidden behind slightly furrowed brows and barely pursed lips. Qifrey wants to look away, but he has always been weak to the man sitting beside him, and so he holds his gaze.
Eventually he cannot stand the silence anymore, the way it makes his guts churn and the way he - for some awful, inexplicable reason - feels his eye burning with the desire to cry. He does not cry just yet. Instead, voice cracking slightly, a little choked, a little breathless and quiet, he says "hello."
"Hey," Olruggio answers immediately, softly, a crinkle in the corners of his eyes and- oh, yes, here it comes. The guilt clutches Qifrey's chest at just the sound of his voice, gentle and assuring and, worst of all, relived. Not the barest trace of anger. Not a hint of disappointment. He does not deserve this. Does not feel worthy of the affection kindling behind his dearest friend's night sky gaze. And he's choking on it.
The realization is worse than suffocating, worse than drowning. He feels light, and it's wrong and it's unsafe and he is so scared that this is all some big hoax, that the Silverwood is still present within him, lulling him in to a false sense of security he has never been allowed to have before just to rip it away the moment he gets comfortable. His face is wet, sobs he had held back in front of the girls claw their way through him and he cannot breathe. A hand clutches at his neck, nails biting, begging to feel something that will ground him, that will promise he can live another day. Nails scrape at flesh, anything they can reach, as if a reflex, body trained to chase pain instead of safety.
Qifrey almost doesn't register the warm, calloused fingers pulling himself away from his neck until his hands now rest, caged and tightly contained between Olruggio's own, resting on the bed in the space between them. Qifrey clutches him back like a lifeline, like he is the only thing that exists and, should he let go, the world will collapse.
"You're safe here, Qifrey," Olruggio is saying, and his voice sounds distant, not as close as it should. He wants to believe those words, knows he can now, knows that they're not wrong, that he can sink into their meaning and drown in the sweetness. But his body cannot catch up to his brain.
More than twenty years, ever since he was assimilated into the Great Hall and perhaps before then, in those nebulous years that he cannot remember, that were stolen from him with uncaring cruelty, Qifrey has known to deny himself. Known the deprave himself. Before the Tower of Tomes, before he really knew the why of it all, he knew to pull back. He knew the danger. A lifetime of fear and guilt and anxiety horrifically metaphorically beaten into the very marrow of your bones does not come unravelling and fixing itself in mere moments. That would be too easy, and isn't it only fitting that even this, here and now, is not easy for Qifrey either?
Soft circles are carved into his knuckles, traced by Olruggio's calloused thumb. And it is a blessing he does not comment on the death grip Qifrey hold his hands in.
"...is this real?" He hears himself ask more than he recalls forming the words with his own mouth.
"It's real." Answers his star, his heart. And Qifrey collapses forward under the weight of the confirmation, willing himself to believe it. One of Olruggio's hands manages to detch itself from Qifrey's death grip and circles around him to now rub circles on his back. Endlessly patient. Endlessly kind. Qifrey does not feel deserving of any of this. "I promise It's real."
Qifrey just nods. Exhaustion catches him so off guard he doesn't really understand where it came from. He squeezes the hand in his grip again. It squeezes him right back.
"Olly, I'm so tired," he breathes, barely a whisper, barely even a breath. But Olruggio hears him. Of course he does.
"I know you are," his voice is soothing when he answers. Qifrey wants to crawl over to him, bury his face in his friend's lap, sleep for a century. "You've been carryin' such a heavy burden all on your own... well, mostly." And Qifrey laughs weakly, too exhausted to say anything in response. Too exhausted, also, to act on that silly impulse to cling to Olruggio's middle and make a comfy pillow out of him.
"What happened to..?" He asks, not sure if he really wants the answer. Maybe later, when his head is clearer and he has a little more distance from the immediate aftermath of it all.
"Complicated answer or simple answer?" Olruggio, perceptive as ever, asks. Qifrey thinks he might melt.
"Simple," he answers instead of melting.
"We put it somewhere else." Gently, Olruggio pushes on his hunched shoulders to get him to properly sit up, and when he does, he nods his head in the direction of Qifrey's window. Stomach clenched, a little afraid of what he might see, Qifrey follows his friend's gaze and cannot help but inhale sharply when he sees it. There, on a hill not too far, but not too close, sits a massive Silverwood tree.
"Is that-?" He asks, cutting himself off before he can actually speak it into existance. Just in case. Just in case.
"Aye," Olruggio answers softly, "that's your Silverwood."
The next few days Qifrey slowly regains the strength in his body. Surprisingly, when a parasitic tree has been growing its roots in your body for your whole life, your limbs struggle to work without the extra support. Who knew? He is not allowed in the kitchen for a while, Olruggio and his apprentices all insisting that he needs to rest, regain his strength. The thought is sweet, if a little unnecessary in Qifrey's opinion. It is not as if he's unaccustomed to working through pain.
No one is amused when he voices this thought, and he is summarily ushered to sit on the couch and wait for diner, brushbuddy curled and purring on his lap.
The care in which he is treated is unusual, and disconcerting, but if Qifrey finds himself indulging a little then who's going to blame him? He's allowed to indulge now.
Still, it is not easy to forget the way his brain is wired. In the here and now, as he looks at his Silverwood tree, standing centry outside, Qifrey has to remind himself that he's alive. He's safe. And he will not die for allowing himself the comfort of sanctuary.
He'd spoken to Coco the day after he woke, concerned with her pensive and almost apprehensive behavior. As if she thought he was going to be angry with her. And, it turned out, that was exactly what she'd feared.
"B-but I- I went behind your back!" She'd quietly, desperately, sobbed, clutching her dress to stop her hands from shaking. A move Qifrey knew all too well, and his heart broke seeing it mirrored in Coco now. She was like him, an outsider brought into this world she now calls hers, calls home. But, Qifrey has to admit, many of their similarities stop there. For Coco is endlessly kind, endlessly selfless in a way Qifrey has never been. That is a trait much more close to Olruggio. And maybe that's why Qifrey is so fond of the girl, because she reminds him of a younger, much more starry eyed version of his best friend.
"And ordinarily, that might not be the best," Qifrey had tied to sooth, "but these circumstances were far from ordinary, weren't they?" Weakly, she'd bobbed her head as a 'yes,' and Qifrey answered that with a gentle smile. "You saved me, Coco. I am endlessly grateful to you and your brilliant mind." She'd lunged at him after that, tackled him in a hug so warm Qifrey briefly feared he'd turn into a tree before his brain caught up again.
The conversation that day seemed to lift the weight from his newest apprentice's shoulders, she seemed lighter when he next spoke to her, when he next caught her studying at the hearth, leaning over Agott's book while the other girl pretended to be annoyed. He was glad.
Memory fresh on his mind, Qifrey took a breath in and out. Trying to ground himself in the now. In today. He pulls on his robes and makes his way toward the kitchen, glad of the early hour, only the faintest hint of dawn on the horizon. Plenty of time to prepare breakfast and make sure everything is ready for the day's lessons.
And the day goes well. If he falls back on old habits, forcing pleasant smiles without allowing the warmth of a moment, of a struggled upon spell suddenly finding success to truly reach him, no one says anything. A small mercy he is granted often these days.
Olruggio finds him after the girls have all gone to bed, cleaning up what's left of the day's mess with quiet care. He doesn't speak for a long moment, and Qifrey pretends, for just a few ticks, that he doesn't notice the gaze that follows him.
It's when he's nearly done arranging the pillows and throw blankets back into their places on the couch that Qifrey breaks the silence.
"Is there something I can help you with, or are you just planning on staring at me all evening?" He asks, a hint of a tease in his words. It's not dissimilar to things he's said in the past, poking fun at the mutually ambiguous nature their relationship formed, a throwaway comment that would swiftly be diverted the second Qifrey opened his mouth next. Redirect. Avoid. Lead him just enough and then shut him down. Let the guilt gnaw at his gut and the shame make a home inside his bones. Safer that way.
But that's not the way things have to be anymore.
"Was thinkin' about doin' just that, yeah," Olruggio responds. Easy. Soft and warm, a crinkle at the corners of his eyes when he smiles. Not his normal smile, something private. Just for the two of them. Qifrey feels his heart squeeze. By all the gods, he wants this so much. But he doesn't have the faintest clue what to do with that want. Doesn't know where to put it, how should it be stored? Locked in a drawer? Hanging open with the herbs?
Olruggio seems to sense his hesitation. He crosses the distance to where Qifrey stands by the couch in a few easy strides, slow. An opening, Qifrey realizes. He's giving him the time to back away, to run again. Qifrey swallows shallowly but he doesn't move.
"There's not much to look at," he states weakly, his voice dry. And Olruggio is a mere step away, enough distance to still allow the chance to run, but Qifrey doesn't want to. He wants to stay here, his eye trapped inside the depths of the boundless night sky that is Olruggio's own gaze.
He takes half a step forward. Tentative. A question he knows Olly will understand.
"Plenty enough for me," Olruggio answers, his voice equally as quiet as Qifrey's had been, but nowhere near as weak. Without breaking eye contact, his hand reaches out, brushes gingerly against Qifrey's own and laces their fingers together when Qifrey leans into the point of contact.
Qifrey feels 16 again in this moment. Still guilty as hell for allowing Olruggio's foolish plan. Mad that it works so well. But greatful he gets to escape the Great Hall with him, gets to sneak out to the outside world in the dead of night, look at stars instead of oppressive suffocating ocean. Brush shoulders when they walk side by side and feel his stomach flip and heart squeeze when hands brush accidentally, when gazes linger far too long. When deep blue eyes meet a single point of ice, dip lower on his face and rise again before turning away, ears tinted scarlet and rushing to change the subject.
"Surely you'll get bored eventually," Qifrey can't help but protest. It's in his nature.
"Haven't gotten bored in these last twenty years," Olruggio answers, voice measured. He brings their clasped hands close to his mouth and, oh the way Qifrey's stomach is doing flips right now is surely not a good thing.
He doesn't pull away. Roots himself to the ground... ah, metaphorically, of course. Poor choice of words.
The ghost of Olruggio's breath kisses Qifrey's knuckles and eye contact is suddenly too much. His gaze dips lower, just in time to catch the moment Olly really does kiss his knuckles. Immediately, a little startled and off kilter, his eye shoots back up to catch Olruggio's gaze. He has not looked away from his face like Qifrey did.
He isn't certain which of them moves first, but the next thing Qifrey is consciously aware of are his hands cupping Olly's face, Olruggio's own gripping his wrists and their mouths connected, fitted together as though they were made to be here, two halves of a whole.
It would be a lie to say this was their first kiss, but it is the first one that won't have to be stolen by a memory spell. the consequence of the poor decision making of youth and the awful burden given to a boy who had no way to know if he'd even deserved it. For a long time he thought he must have been terrible as a child. The tree was a cruel punishment for someone worthy of such justice.
He knows now that he did not deserve such a fate. Even if he doesn't remember a single thing from the time before he was 9, no child is so heinous to deserve bearing the weight of hosting a Silverwood tree. Even himself.
No, this is not their first kiss, but Qifrey will treat it as though it is. With a desperation of a man dying of thirst, he chases the warmth freely given to him and returned with equal ferocity - if not more. He gasps, a millisecond of air, before Olruggio's mouth once again captures his own, corralling him backward until the backs of his legs collide with the couch and he nearly collapses.
"C-careful, my star," Qifrey laughs, reluctantly breaking the spell over them so he can regain his balance, one hand leaving Olly's face to grip his shoulder. "We're going to fall."
"Your star?" Olruggio asks instead of responding to the gentle admonishment, his head tilted slightly with curiosity. Qifrey can only offer him a small smile. Not one of practiced composure. Real and raw and brimming with gentle love.
"Mn," he answers, lacing his arms around Olruggio's neck, forehead pillowed gently against forehead, sighing as Olruggio's own arms gently take hold of his waist. "My star. The sky's kindest and most radiant of all."
And Qifrey kisses him again. Just because he can. Because he wants to. Because he's always been selfish and all he wants is to take everything Olruggio is willing to give him.
Lucky for him, Olruggio would give him anything and everything he ever asked for.
How dangerous this feeling is. How freeing. And there's no longer any reason for him to hide from it.