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Sometimes, in the night, in the corners of the day, all the time really…
Sometimes Qifrey wished his best friend would not remind him how much he loved to create. Worse than that, how much he needed to create.
It was bad enough that Olly had crowned himself president of the “Stars Above, Qifrey, You Need to Eat to Live” Club. It was worse that he’d patiently taught Qifrey to cook. Actually, even worse was that he didn’t teach his best friend to cook—Qifrey apparently knew and never measured anything. Never needed to when the taste of the spice he needed was already in his mouth.
This was an especially glaring oversight when compared to some of the witches of the so-called “Great Tower,” who could set pasta on fire before the water boiled. Indeed, Qifrey had a nasty story about a day when he was finally showering, and four of them decided to make tacos. Standing out in the sleet above the tower (curse underwater fire escapes) wearing nothing but a towel (and Olruggio’s cloak) had only intensified his hatred of being wet.
If anything, it was infuriating to watch Olruggio try to jot down Qifrey’s recipes, as if the measurements mattered. The recipe was ready when it was ready. There was no measurement, no consideration, nothing except a vision of what he wanted to taste when it was over. And the worst part was, Olruggio always recreated them correctly.
No, he supposed, the worst part was not that. The worst part was Olruggio outsmarting him. Olly had tricked him into eating by making him in charge of everyone’s meals. By convincing him that he had to be a good example for his students. By making him bring Olruggio food on busy days, as though their roles were reversed.
“Qifray,” he would always say with a sublimated sparkle, “Ain’t ya think it’ll taste better if we eat it together?”
Okay, maybe the worst part was actually that he was right. Or that Qifrey was so easy to trick—he knew the system and still let Olruggio pull him in every time. Let him fill the emptiness that had been there since the seed was removed.
If it was a game they were playing, it was like he was blindfolded, and Olruggio was secretly moving pieces around the board, without even trying to hide the tapping. And yet, he didn’t want to open his eye. He didn’t want to remove that plausible deniability that… yes, I do need this.
I need you to want me. To keep me alive despite my constant attempts to leave. Remind me what it’s like to stay.
Maybe the worst part was, Olly never left. Never failed to fill his anxious silences with companionship. Never blamed him for wiping his memory (even if it was Olruggio’s idea). Never asked him what it was like to wake up drowning the very first time. Never stopped waiting for… whatever this was. Never let him starve.
It made everything taste like a curse Qifrey had chosen. It was a spoonful of honey loquat1—sweet, unpleasant, sticky, and healing. Something that would make him better, if he could just suffer through swallowing it now.
It was terrifying to be wanted.
In some sense, Olruggio knew that things would never be “better.”
Oh, sure, the Qifrey he knew wouldn’t be turning into a tree. That was nice. And all the Qifreys he’d forgotten had slotted themselves nicely into his subconscious. (Okay, maybe not the scary one, the one that could look into anyone’s eyes and lie. That one still scared him, but it always had.) And maybe he did steal a few more glances now that he knew it was safe, that Qifrey wouldn’t break just under the weight a few extra photons2. (As if those particles didn’t become weightless just bouncing off him.)
But the boy that came out of the coffin that day was still there. He still didn’t seem to… accept anything. To want to live, even if they were at peace. (For now, for now, for now.)
He supposed that he never wanted Qifrey to change. Olruggio only wanted his own thoughts to change. To either accept his best friend, as he was, or to reach out and fix whatever wasn’t there. But…
You can’t change who you are. You can only change what you do with it.
Qifrey was sick.
Not that he hadn’t always been sick, but more sick than ever. It was another case of his body giving out, and taking his mind with it.
There was something especially sad about having him clinging to you. Having him cough and have chills even as you tried to soothe him. Olruggio tried to push it out of mind, tried to reassure him for the hundredth time that he had survived death, he’d survived being a tree, and by the stars, he could survive an infection.
But there was nothing right about having to force-feed him stew and rub his back every sunrise until he could keep it down. Nothing right about grinding medicine into his favorite tea. There was truly nothing right about a world where his best friend would grasp out for “Olly,” in that desperate tone, something he hadn’t done since they were children.
There was nothing right about leaving him alone to teach his students (his daughters), a responsibility Olruggio tried to take seriously even as his mind wandered back up to the overheated bed.
He would survive. But “Olly” might not.
It was a quiet thing. A change in the air perhaps. Or maybe just that Qifrey felt he had new responsibilities. Or perhaps a very slow relaxation into the shape Qifrey always wanted to be.
Qifrey wasn’t always in his bed when sleep finally overtook Olruggio. Wasn’t always lying on his side, so his good eye was always able to see him. (The dimmer his sight got, the more Olruggio worried.) But when he was, he never failed to pull the other witch into a nest of deep sleep.
Qifrey’s arms were around him, holding him just a bit too tightly. Even though he was just that bit taller, he always folded himself down into Olly’s arms, his head tucked under his scruffy chin. He always looked so peaceful, like the child Olruggio felt like he’d never gotten to meet.
But whatever it was, it pulled Olruggio closer to changing. Changing what he didn’t understand. Changin’ all the same.
Maybe it wasn’t terrifying to jump from this particular cliff. Or maybe he was just used to jumping hand-in-hand with Olly. Even when he’d cried after slipping into a shallow creek, Olruggio had patiently dried his hair and held him until the rain stopped.
It was so easy. There wasn’t anything to be afraid of when he finally pushed his mouth against Olruggio’s, deep under the covers of their bed. (Bad enough that the girls knew where to find him. Worse that they assumed he’d always been like this.) Olly was following his lead, like always. Gentle, slow, exploring what it would be like to be vulnerable without a tree to protect him.
“Olly,” he said after a few minutes’ silence. “Why are you still here?”
“Nowhere else to go, I ‘spose.” Olruggio knew what he meant. He was just being difficult.
“No, Olly, I mean…” he sighed. “Forget it.”
“I’m here because it’s warm, it’s my room, and more importantly, because I said I’d follow you everywhere. And that’s what I do every day.”
Even with his best friend’s eyes closed, even with his own eyesight fading, Qifrey could see a twinkle behind Olruggio’s eyelids. “Now, do you want melon toast or eggs in the morning?”
“I am not letting you anywhere near my food, Olly. You’d probably poison it.”
The gentle laughter that followed trickled out like sparks from a warm campfire. He curled back into his best friend’s sleeping form.
This was where he was safe.
1 Honey loquat is a truly evil invention. Made more evil by the fact it works return to text ↩
2 Consider this a sort of physicist joke. The Yukawa Potential isn’t real, and it can’t hurt you. return to text ↩