Chapter Text
Olruggio isn't someone who cares much about physical contact. All things considered, he'd say he's indifferent to it. He doesn't mind when people stand too close, or give him a hug, or sling an arm over his shoulder… None of that bothers him at all. But he also doesn't seek it out excessively. If it feels natural, he initiates. If it doesn't, he simply ignores it, and that's fine.
To be honest, considering the years and years he's known Qifrey, he'd say his friend isn't fond of it either. At the beginning of their friendship, a certain distance was always necessary between them. If Olruggio sat next to him, Qifrey made sure to leave enough space for another person to fit between them. He never initiated a hug, and so many times when they accidentally touched, the other would jump back as if the contact had been an electric shock.
At first, since he was just a kid, it stung a little. But as he grew up and came to understand that people are simply different in what they accept or don't accept — especially considering what Qifrey went through as a child, and realizing that he was actually quite receptive to touch given the terrible life he'd had — Olruggio just shrugged and accepted that his friend was like that and went on with his life.
So imagine his surprise when that turned out not to be the case. Definitely not the case.
The first time it caught him off guard was right after Qifrey woke up from having his curse removed.
Truth be told, Olruggio simply didn't know what to do while he waited for him to come back to consciousness, considering one of the consequences from the tree removal was the total loss of the eye affected by it. Sure, Sinocia mentioned they should be grateful he didn't go completely blind, but still. It's an entire eye. Even though it had been that way since he was a child, he still lost something because of it.
All that anxiety translated into Olruggio's own body. As he sat by the bed, waiting for his friend to wake up, he couldn't stay still: he crossed and uncrossed his arms, got up to pace the room, sat down again, drummed his fingers against his own thigh. His knee bounced like it had a mind of its own. He couldn't stop any of it.
Because Qifrey needed him.
That was what he'd told himself, over and over, through every sleepless night in that awful chair. Qifrey needs me. I have to be here. I have to be the one with a clear head when he wakes up. He's going to be disoriented and in pain. He's obviously going to need someone who can think straight.
Olruggio was none of those things right now. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until he saw stars out of frustration with himself.
Be useful, he told himself. For once in your life, be useful to him.
But then the thought crept in, insidious and cold, slithering through the cracks in his resolve.
Does he? Does he really need you?
Olruggio's hands dropped to his lap. He stared at Qifrey's face — it was all he managed to do these days — and felt something twist in his chest.
His best friend had been suffering in silence for years while Olruggio sat right next to him, completely oblivious. Everything was happening right under his nose and he never noticed an inch of it.
You didn't notice, the voice in his head whispered. You never noticed. He never let you.
And that was the end of it, wasn't it? Qifrey had never needed him. Not really. Not in the way Olruggio had always assumed.
Does he need me? Olruggio thought again, and this time the question hit differently, because underneath it all was the real one — Do I need him to need me?
The realization made his blood run cold. What a selfish bastard he was. Too much for being his friend, huh.
He looked at Qifrey's face again, at the shallow rise and fall of his chest, the way his fingers were curled loosely against the sheets, the bruise-dark shadows under his remaining eye.
Qifrey's life has been nothing but trouble after trouble all this time, and Oruggio had been sitting here, in this chair, for days, thinking he was being helpful.
But what had he actually done?
In the end, the answer was so simple in its consistency that it was almost laughable.
Nothing.
Olruggio did nothing.
Maybe I'm the one who needs him, he thought, bitterly. Maybe I'm the one who needs someone to save. Maybe I'm the one who can't stand being useless. Maybe I've been telling myself this is about Qifrey because it's easier than admitting that I don't know who I am if I'm not taking care of someone.
He grimaced, his mind going into this dark spiral it was accustomed to, these days. Bu then—
Qifrey's fingers twitched.
Olruggio watched, barely breathing, as Qifrey's hand curled slightly against the sheet, his brows furrowing just a fraction. Finally, his lips parted just a little, and a sound escaped. It was a broken exhale, like someone surfacing from deep underwater.
He's waking up.
Olruggio's heart slammed against his ribs. His hands shook. His mind, which had been spinning in endless circles just moments ago, went completely, terrifyingly blank.
He needs you, he told himself, but the voice was weaker now. Less certain. He needs someone. Maybe not you specifically. Maybe not the way you want him to. But he needs someone, and you're here, and that has to count for something.
Does it? the other voice whispered back. Does it count for anything at all?
Qifrey's single eye opened.
It was hazy at first, unfocused, blinking slowly against the light. Olruggio watched as the pupil contracted, as Qifrey's gaze drifted across the ceiling, unseeing, before finally — finally — it found him.
Their eyes met and Olruggio forgot how to breathe, filled with nothing but pure, unfiltered relief.
You finally woke up, his heart seemed to say. You woke up, you woke up, you woke up.
"Qifrey," was all he managed to say, feeling breathless with his name alone. Instinctively, he grabbed Qifrey's right hand, which was resting on the bed, and squeezed.
"Olly?" Qifrey said, still disoriented, but nonetheless squeezing back. His remaining eye blinked a few times, trying to process what he was seeing. "What… what happened?"
Olruggio felt his throat tighten. He squeezed Qifrey's hand a little more, as if he needed that contact just as much as the other might need.
"The Silverwood," he began, his voice coming out more hesitant than he would have liked. He cleared his throat, trying to force out a feeling of confidence he was not really feeling at the moment. "We managed to remove it. Do you… do you remember?"
Qifrey furrowed his brow, his eye tracing Olruggio's face with a slowness that bordered on effort. For a moment, it looked like he was going to say something. But then his free hand slowly rose to his own face, his fingers feeling for the bandage covering the eye that was no longer there.
The silence that followed was deafening.
"Ah," he said, in a strangely hollow tone. "Ah. Right."
Olruggio felt as if he were the one lying there, having gone through all of that. Almost immediately he opened his mouth to speak but found himself at a loss for words. Everything he could think of seemed useless in that moment, and yet it was still breaking his heart to see his friend look so… empty.
Until he discovered something much, much worse.
As if none of what had happened mattered, Qifrey closed his remaining eye and furrowed his brows, pulling his lips upward in an attempt at a smile.
"It's fine, you don’t need to look at me like that," he said, his voice still rough, as if he were the one comforting Olruggio. As if he were the patient. "I already knew this could happen. It's part of it. Considering everything, we should be glad I’m alive at all."
His entire body went cold as he felt something break inside his chest, like an organ had been squeezed too hard. Qifrey was there, down an eye, smiling that fake smile, trying to minimize what had happened, and Olruggio couldn't—
"Don't say that," his voice came out rougher than he intended. Harsher.
Qifrey opened his eye, confused. The smile hesitated at the corner of his mouth.
"Olly?"
"Don't say this like it’s nothing," Olruggio repeated, and felt his face heat up, his eyes burning in a way he hated, the telltale of tears wanting to fall. "It's not fair. This isn't fair, Qifrey."
His vision started to blur. He blinked, and a stubborn tear rolled down his face. He wiped his arm across his eyes angrily, as if that could hide the fact that he was crying. He wasn’t a crier, goddamnit.
"You didn't deserve this," he continued, his voice trembling, speaking fast as if he needed to get it all out before he exploded. "You never deserved any of this. None of the terrible shit that happened to you. And I'm just sitting here like an idiot, unable to do anything, unable to turn back time, and you—"
He paused to breathe, but the breath came out wrong, hitched.
“Don’t pretend that everything is easy, like losing an eye is nothing, because I can’t say if you actually believe that crap or if you've just… gotten so used to being hurt that you can't even be sad for yourself anymore."
Qifrey opened his mouth. Closed it. His eye wavered, looking away from Olruggio's face for a second.
"Hey," he began, and his voice was different now. Less empty. More hesitant. "You don't have to be this upset over me. It’s fine, Olly. Really, I mean it."
Olruggio felt something snap inside him.
"Don't say that," he said, his voice low but firm, tears still streaming down. He wiped his face with the back of his hand in a frustrated attempt to pull himself together. "Don't say it’s fine, Qifrey, because it’s not. But you’ve always been like this, I don’t — argh — nevermind, if you can't feel that for yourself right now, I'll feel it for both of us. I'll be sad for you, I'll be angry at what they did to you, I'll want to set the world on fire for you, because someone has to feel it and you're clearly not letting yourself."
"Olly…"
"I hate this," Olruggio continued, his voice breaking again, but he didn't care anymore. The words came out jumbled, unfiltered, as if they'd been trapped for years and had finally found a gap. "I hate that you had to grow up like this. I hate that no one protected you. I hate that this curse made you suffer for so long. I hate that you lost your eye. I hate that you're here trying to comfort me when you just lost an eye, Qifrey. And I hate—" his voice failed—"I hate that I can't do anything to change any of it."
He stopped to breathe, panting, his chest aching.
"I just wish…" he tried, his voice finally breaking completely. "I wish things were different. That you didn't have to go through this. That…"
He couldn't finish, but he didn’t really need to, because in that moment, Qifrey moved.
Not slowly, the way someone still recovering should move. It was fast, almost desperate. He pulled Olruggio by the arm which was holding his hand with a strength that didn't match his condition, and Olruggio, caught off guard, was yanked forward, falling onto his chest.
Before he could protest, Qifrey's arms were already around him.
It was a strong hug, although a bit awkward. The angle was strange and Olruggio was half-hanging off the edge of the bed. But it was strong. Qifrey buried his face in Olruggio's shoulder, his fingers digging into the fabric of the tunic on his back, like he was afraid Olruggio might pull away.
"Don't be silly," Qifrey murmured into his shoulder, the words muffled but clear enough. "You have helped me so many times. In fact, you continue to help me. Every day. You don't even notice half the time. You just… do things that I doubt anyone else would ever bother with. I'm eternally grateful to have you in my life. I truly am."
Now that was becoming a tad too much. Olruggio could feel the heat on his cheeks. "You don't have to—"
"Oh, but I do." Qifrey pulled back just enough to look at him, and his remaining eye was bright, overbright. Determined. "I should be the one apologizing. Not you. Me. For everything."
"Qifrey—"
"No, listen to me. I'm sorry, Olruggio. I truly am. For hiding everything from you, and gods, for wiping your memory time and time again. I… I can't even understand how you can stand to look at me after everything I did to you."
Wiping your memory. Time and time again. Everything I did to you.
"You should, I don't know, leave? Curse me? Hate me?" Qifrey's voice cracked. "No one would fault you if you did. Least of all me."
Qifrey still held him, still gripping the fabric of his robe as if Olruggio might disappear if he let go. As if that weren't revealing enough. As if that weren't what Qifrey had done his whole life — saying one thing, but having a deep, desperate fear that it would happen, hoping with all his might that it would never come true.
Olruggio should probably be angry about that. Should probably pull back, demand answers, demand to know how many times and why and what else.
The world, however, works in mysterious ways, because it surprised even him how little he cared. All he could think about was how absolutely horrible those last moments without him by his side have been.
The bed where Qifrey had lain for months, pale and too still, where his breaths came up so shallow that Olruggio had to lean close just to make sure he was still alive, had to press his hand to Qifrey's pulse just to confirm it was there. The chair he'd pulled up beside it, the one that had ruined his back from sleeping in it night after night. The way he'd talked to Qifrey even though no one could say for sure if he could hear. The way he'd held his hand and pretended he wasn't completely and utterly terrified.
How he'd stared at that bandaged face and thought, This is it. This is how I lose him. One day I will come here and he will just… not be breathing anymore.
How many times had he come here waiting for the worst? How many times had he rehearsed how he would tell the girls that Qifrey would never, ever come back? How many times had he thought about what living without his best friend would be like?
And Qifrey was talking about memories being wiped. Who even cared about that when he had almost lost the most important person in the world to him for good?
"Qifrey, you don't get it," Olruggio started, taking his hands from where they were wrapped around Qifrey’s stomach, cupping his face so he could look straight at him. "I don't care about any of that. Really. You wiped my memories? We can just make new ones. It's not a problem. I… after everything — that's not the part that will haunt me," he finished softly.
Qifrey's eye widened. His lips parted, but no sound came out.
"So no," Olruggio continued, his breath hitching. "I don't care about the memories. I don't care what you took. I care that you're alive. I care that you're here. And if you ever—" He stopped, swallowed, forced the words out. "If you ever put me through that again, I swear Qifrey, I will bring you back from the dead just so I can kill you myself."
The words hung in the air, small and big all at once. Olruggio was still breathing hard, his chest heaving with emotion, his hands still cupping Qifrey's face, his thumbs resting against the sharp lines of his cheekbones. The bandage over Qifrey's missing eye was rough against his palm.
In truth, who cares about any of that? He's only happy that Qifrey is alive to even be mad at. Nobody knows better than him that sometimes, in this world, you never get the chance to see someone again. To be angry. To fight. To apologize. Never.
"So you won't leave?"
Qifrey's voice was so impossibly small, stripped of all the carefully constructed walls he'd spent years building. He didn't show his vulnerable side in front of people. In fact, Qifrey tried his best not to show any vulnerability at all in front of anyone, even people he loved. But he was standing there, right in front of him, unsure like a child.
A scared, exhausted child who had spent too long waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"I mean it." Qifrey's remaining eye was wide, vulnerable, searching Olruggio's face with an intensity that bordered on desperation. His fingers curled into the fabric of Olruggio's tunic again. "After all of that. You won't leave?"
"No," Olruggio answered, the word coming out steady despite everything. As if he had been waiting his entire life for this question, knowing exactly how he would answer. "No, I won't leave. As long as you don't want me to, that is."
Qifrey stared at him, eyes searching for the lie. And when he didn't find anything — because there had never been anything to search for in the first place—
Qifrey laughed.
It wasn't a pretty laugh by any means. It was wet and broken and a little bit delirious, like someone who had been holding their breath for so long they'd forgotten how to even breath in the first place. His shoulders shook with it, his fingers still curled tight in Olruggio's tunic, and his remaining eye was so bright it looked like it might spill over again at any second.
It was also the prettiest sound Olruggio might have heard in his life.
"Forever, then," Qifrey said. He tugged Olruggio closer, clumsy and desperate, and Olruggio let himself be pulled. "Forever, Olly. That's — that's how long. Forever."
Forever.
The word sat there, nestled comfortably right beside his heart, in Olruggio's chest. Warm and terrifying and right.
With that established, Qifrey started wrapping himself around him, and Olruggio was wrapping himself around Qifrey, and somehow they ended up tangled together on the narrow bed, limbs everywhere, neither of them willing to let go for even a second.
Olruggio hadn't realized how close they were until he felt Qifrey's breath against his lips — warm, a little unsteady. Their noses brushed. Their foreheads pressed together. Every inhale Olruggio took was filled with Qifrey, Qifrey, and he thought he would be all right if he never breathed anything else ever again.
Yes, he thought, a little deliriously, the word spinning through his mind like a dancer in a music box. Yes, we should always do this. I don't want to take another breath without mingling it with yours first.
They stayed like that for a long time.
Not talking, exactly. Not doing much of anything except existing in the same space, breathing the same air, sharing the same warmth. Olruggio's legs were half hanging off the bed and his neck was at an angle that was definitely going to hurt later, but he couldn't bring himself to move. Qifrey's fingers had gone slack against his back, no longer gripping, just — resting there. Palms flat against his shoulder blades like he was counting his heartbeats.
He could feel Qifrey's heartbeat against his own chest. Two rhythms, not quite synced, close enough that it didn't matter.
It was quiet. It was nice. He wouldn't have minded staying like that forever.
"You're going to crush me," Qifrey said eventually, his voice still rough but with something lighter underneath it now. Olruggio could feel the smile on his face from his voice alone. It was really, really nice. Happiness suited Qifrey. He should be full of joy more often. "You're heavier than you look."
"You're the one who pulled me on top of you," Olruggio mumbled into Qifrey's shoulder, not bothering to move. "This is your fault."
"I didn't think this through."
"I'm beginning to think you never do."
Qifrey huffed a laugh, and the sound vibrated through his chest, through Olruggio's chest. It struck him as odd that this might have been the most he had seen Qifrey laugh in a decade. "Rude."
"I'm not being rude if it's true."
Olruggio chuckled weakly, more out of relief than anything else. It was the kind of laugh that started in his chest and worked its way out before he could stop it. Qifrey's eye crinkled at the corner, watching him, and something in his expression softened into something Olruggio didn't have a name for.
They fell quiet again. Olruggio shifted slightly, just enough to ease the ache in his neck, and Qifrey's arms tightened around him reflexively. Like even that small movement was too much distance.
"Not going anywhere," Olruggio murmured.
"I know." But Qifrey didn't loosen his hold. "It's just…" He hesitated. "You don't have any idea how much I wanted to do this."
Olruggio blinked. Do what?
"What?"
"Hold you."
Olruggio's brain short-circuited, making the noise that Tetia's spells made when they went wrong and inevitably ended up in some kind of small explosion. Hold you. He couldn't believe Qifrey had just said that. Who the hell even says something so embarrassing out loud?
"Oh," Qifrey said, and his voice took on a note of genuine surprise. "You're really red."
Olruggio felt the blood drain from his face only to rush back twice as hot. "Can you not mention it?"
"I'm sorry, it's just — your face. It's—" Qifrey lifted one hand from Olruggio's back to gesture vaguely at his own face.
Yeah, this is enough for today. If they kept this up, Olruggio was going to die.
He settled for squeezing Qifrey's shoulder once before he started to push himself up, determined to go tell someone that Qifrey had finally woken up. There would be tests and a million other things to check. He should tell the girls, too. There were people who needed to know that Qifrey had finally opened his eye.
But—
But Qifrey made a sound.
It was small. Barely anything. A soft, breathy little mmph of protest, barely audible — the kind of noise Olruggio would expect from Brushbuddy when he tried to wake it up from a really nice nap on top of his shoulder. Entirely unfair.
Needless to say, his stupid body froze.
That wasn't—
He didn't just—
He absolutely just did that on purpose, the manipulative little—
Olruggio was a weak man. Old and definitely sleep-deprived, with everything hurting all over from having to sleep in that stupid chair for more evenings than he could count. And Qifrey had just made a sound like a disgruntled small animal.
Of course he didn't stand a chance.
Without a sound, he flopped down again immediately, all the resistance draining out of him in one pathetic exhale as he decided the entire world could wait a few more minutes. Or maybe a few more hours.
Qifrey's arms came back around him, slow and certain, and Olruggio felt something in his chest unclench that had been tight for so long he'd forgotten it was even there.
He could only hope this wouldn’t become a regular occurrence — otherwise, his heart would surely give out.