Chapter Text
Qifrey knew what he'd see if he looked up.
He had seen it countless times before — this kind man's elation. His happiness shining so brightly that it washed away all signs of fatigue. He'd look younger, happy, giddy.
His Olruggio.
A perfect picture.
It ached not to look.
Ached.
Qifrey exhaled a shuddering breath into the small space between them, the sweetness of Olly's kiss still lingering in this perfect, soap-bubble moment.
It was due to burst any minute. And then heartache. And tears. And the horrid agony of roots that would twist in the space behind Qifrey's eyes and in his heart.
But Qifrey was only a man. And he had never once managed not to look.
And he looked.
And to his surprise there were tears in Olly's eyes.
"This is not our first kiss, is it?" Olly asked, the light behind his eyes dimming with each moment Qifrey's face remained grim.
The words hung between them, growing slowly — pressing, choking — until it was too hard to breathe. To blink. To move.
"No," Qifrey said in a small voice, feeling again like the child he was when they first met.
The moment burst.
Olly took a step back, as if staying close hurt, as if the closeness they had shared a short moment ago was now tainted. And Qifrey reasoned that it was. As were so many of their beautiful moments, because of the cursed brim-hats — stealing his past, his present, his future.
"I started noticing them," Olruggio said, shaking Qifrey from his bitter reveries. "The holes in my memory." His eyes were grim. "So many moments that I was so sure I had finally gained the courage to — to—" his voice faltered, and with it Qifrey's heart.
"Have I told you that I loved you?"
The pain in Qifrey's head mounted slowly, the urge to cry growing fast.
"Countless times," the witch admitted miserably, knowing that anything but the truth would never suffice.
"What?" Olruggio looked stricken.
"Countless — but I — I—" Qifrey faltered at the rising horror in Olruggio's eyes. But the truth clawed its way from under a numb tongue and a dry mouth. "I love you back. I always answer — I love you too. Countless times — forever and always—"
"Then why?" Olruggio burst, taking a sharp step forward, hands clutching at Qifrey's shoulders as if it were the only thing holding him in place. "Why not let me remember? Why would you let me believe I had never had the courage — for years!" His voice rose angrily, hands tightening over Qifrey's shoulders. "Years of thinking I was too much of a coward to tell you that I love you."
"Because you beg me to!" Qifrey shouted and, finally, he too grabbed Olruggio. He saw the moment crystallize in Olly's eyes, his anger turning to shock. Qifrey's hands tightened in his white shirt.
"You beg me to make you forget. It always ends like that — even when I say I won't have it, when I beg you to leave me, when I beg you to—"
His voice caught.
In his mind, he saw the picture of what he had asked for, again and again.
The empty spot in their garden.
A tall, silvery tree standing over the ocean, watching the girls' room, shading Olruggio's window. His boughs would shield the little home, his bark would cast silvery reflections over the white plaster. His leaves would rustle in the wind.
Maybe he'd be content.
Maybe Olly would sit in his shade.
"Beg me to what?" Olruggio asked hoarsely.
"To find me a nice place to put down my roots."
Olly let go as if he had been burned.
"No."
"We've actually discussed this before—"
"Don't you dare!" Olruggio shouted, pointing at Qifrey before running his hand through his hair. His eyes were red, his mouth grim.
"Is it Silverleaf?" Olruggio asked.
His voice had gone very quiet. The anger had not left — Qifrey could still see it in the set of his jaw, the rigidity of his shoulders — but something else had moved in alongside it. Something worse than anger.
"Yes."
Olruggio was silent for a moment. His eyes moved across Qifrey's face with that particular focused attention — the one that had always undone him — as if he were reading something written there in very small letters.
"Is that why you knew how — with the boy? Custas?"
"I'm afraid so."
Another silence.
Longer this time.
Qifrey watched Olruggio work through it — watched the connections form and settle, one after another, each one visibly costing him something.
"Have you ever—" He stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. "Have you ever actually taken root?"
At this, Qifrey couldn't help but catch Olruggio's eyes. His voice was gentle when he admitted:
"Every time you told me you loved me."
Olruggio's face did something complicated and painful. He looked away.
"And every time I told you I loved you back," Qifrey added quietly.
The silence that followed was different from the others. It had weight to it — the air very still, as if any movement might make something real that they were not yet ready to face.
Then Olruggio's eyes dropped.
To Qifrey's feet.
To the floor beneath them — as if dreading what he might see — roots pushing through shoe leather, curling into the grain of the kitchen floor, beginning quietly and without permission to make themselves at home.
The teacup shook in Olruggio's hand as he set it down. He did it slowly, the tea still steaming. His eyes were glazed — Qifrey doubted he had even tasted the strong black tea he had brewed.
Maybe it was for the best.
This shocked detachment.
Maybe now he'd be able to hold off his roots a little longer.
It would have been bizarre to watch Olruggio so still, if Qifrey hadn't done so on numerous occasions. He wished to put his hand over Olly's, to convey somehow that he was fine. This was fine.
It was.
But he didn't think he'd sound as convincing as he wished, so he remained silent.
A part of him raged that magic could do nothing but hurt them now. No idea came to his head that could wipe the hurt from Olly's face without leaving them both strangers.
If he could, he'd draw a sigil over Olly's heart, trace it right over his hairy chest with his finger, jealously leave a reminder that he was loved.
Fiercely.
That Olly had never been a coward, but the kindest, most courageous man Qifrey knew. Who else would never give up on him? Confess his feelings, over and over, for the very first time.
But that was forbidden. Blasphemous. It would have seemed unfair if Qifrey hadn't suffered the effects of that blasphemy himself.
He never ever wished to hurt Olly again.
Other than the hurt he was doing now.
Qifrey watched the tea go cold. Olruggio sat across from him with his hands folded on the table, looking at nothing, the glazed quality of shock still soft around his eyes. The kitchen held them both without comment.
It was Olruggio who moved first — not toward him, but to the window, standing with his back to the room. Qifrey watched his shoulders rise and fall.
This was the moment it would happen.
He knew the shape of it — had lived its every version.
They would find their way to each other, the way water finds low ground. There would be contact, and then grief, and the grief would do what it always did: crest, and break, and leave him clean enough to cry properly. And the tears would do their work, mixed with the ink, and by morning, Olruggio would wake remembering nothing that came after supper.
Except.
Qifrey waited for the grief to crest.
It didn't.
He sat in the chair and felt — nothing. Just a deep, hollow nothing.
He should have been greedy with what remained. Should have been counting the moments — Olly's lips against his, dark hair soft between his fingers, his warmth still present, still here. Worth cherishing. Worth every cost.
The thought of it being taken away should have sent pain through him.
It didn't.
A name for it came up in his mind, unbidden. Exhaustion. It had eaten through everything else.
His eyes were on Olruggio's back, tracking the measured movement of his breathing as he mastered his emotions.
He pressed his fingers to his eyes and tried to find it, the particular sorrow that always came, the one that felt like loss because it was, every single time — and found only a dull, flat ache.
He cried anyway. He had to.
Qifrey mixed them with the ink regardless.
He drew the sigil anyway.
Olruggio let him, standing very still, looking at him.
"I'm sorry," Qifrey said, rising slowly from his seat, the ink drying on his fingers as he clutched the heated sigil.
"I know," Olruggio said softly, "me too."
He was close enough now to see the exhaustion mirrored in Olruggio's eyes. Close enough to see the disappointment of an evening he had thought would be different — perhaps of a life that'd be kinder —
Olruggio closed the distance, as if he saw the hesitation in the tight set of Qifrey's shoulders — in the way his hands shook.
He leaned close and imitated the thing that had started this whole whirlwind of an evening — and brushed a soft, lingering kiss on Qifrey's lips.
It was everything to Qifrey — painfully brief, endlessly soft, solemn, heartbreaking and final.
Would it be their last?
It should have been. Time and time again it should have been.
The kiss should have shattered when Qifrey pressed the sigil against Olruggio's chest — against the hummingbird beat of his heart. Instead, it lingered, and lingered, and all Qifrey could do was wait.
Until Olly's breathing slowed.
Until his face smoothed.
Until the afternoon left him the way color leaves a room at dusk — gradually, then completely.
The sigil, spent, fell to the ground.
Qifrey cleaned the ink from his fingers, helped lay the sleeping man in his room and did not look too closely at the work he had done.
He went to bed.
He did not sleep.
It was two more months before Olly kissed him again.
Confessed, again.
It went the way it always went. Except that afterward, drawing the sigil, Qifrey noticed Olruggio's hands wouldn't quite relax. Even in the loosening that always came with forgetting — that particular softening around the eyes, the shoulders dropping — something remained taut. A small thing.
Qifrey told himself it was nothing.
It happened again a month after that.
This time, waking the next morning, Olruggio stood in the kitchen doorway for a long moment before coming in. Just stood there, looking at the table, a small vertical line between his brows. Then he shook his head slightly and put the kettle on.
He didn't mention it.
He wouldn't. He had nothing to mention.
But Qifrey watched him from the doorway and felt, for the first time, something that was not dread.
Something closer to fear.
Qifrey grew increasingly more anxious at each caught glance. A slow brush of a calloused hand over his shoulders. A kind comment, a moment of vulnerability.
He knew it was coming. The confession. He feared Olly could see it reflected in his eyes — the cruel bit of longing, of anticipation.
Qifrey craved it — the moment they could kiss, the moment he'd be allowed to touch as he longed to. He yearned to throw caution to the wind.
Who would bear the burden?
His well-being was ever a thing to sacrifice for just another night where he could love Olly with all his heart.
He'd gather his man close, clutch him to his chest, count the seconds they were allowed to have, give it everything he had.
Until there was nothing left.
And he was finally spent.
Instead, he slowly, cruelly eroded.
It was hard to eat with a ball of hot shame lodged in his stomach, hard to sleep when all he could think about was the inevitable moment he'd have to hurt Olly again. To be apart. To lie.
He knew he was nearing his breaking point when his girls noticed.
It was impossible not to notice when he entered Coco and Agott's room, only for the girls to fall completely and abruptly silent.
Then it happened again at noon, when he entered the kitchen, and what he thought was pleasant lunch conversation fell suddenly silent.
Qifrey could barely remember what he had eaten. Everything tasted oddly bland after Olruggio elected to sit away from him for what felt like the first time in years.
That silence followed him all across the house, wrapping around him when his feet took him unconsciously to Olruggio's room.
For the first time that he could remember, the door was closed, and the sign — that stupid sign — mocked him in bolded letters.
'Those who knock will be cursed.'
Qifrey's smile was bitter; he already was.
He hesitated on the step, hand hovering over the handle. The girls were studying in their room, the house had settled into the customary calm of the afternoon, and Qifrey hadn't seen Olruggio since lunch.
When he thought about it, the witch had not lingered in the kitchen, had not brandished a wine bottle or lounged in front of the fireplace in a while. The armchair sat empty, its familiar dent unoccupied.
He'd finish his meal, help with the girls, and vanish into his room at the first opportune moment.
Consumed with work, he had said.
Avoiding him, Qifrey had felt.
After a moment's hesitation Qifrey's hand settled at his side, and he left.