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“This ... isn't the first time we've had this conversation ... is it?”
Qifrey found his breath catching uncomfortably in his throat. Olruggio wasn’t looking at him; he was silent in that way where it was hard to tell if it was rage or despair.
This was … off-script. He’d never done this before. It was uncomfortable; it was always uncomfortable, every time, Qifrey hated doing this, but this was uncomfortable.
“... Why do you say that?”
Olruggio still didn’t look up, but he sighed, a sound older than his years.
The trees rustled around them. Qifrey’s stomach churned as it always did; it always felt far too much like an omen. He preferred these talks to happen in these settings, as a reminder of what was at stake if he let his resolve slip, but that didn’t mean that he was particularly fond of the feeling.
“... Your glasses.” Olruggio sounded hurt. Qifrey bit his lip. “The seal etched in your left lens. The strength of it. The kind of damage that that would be there to mitigate … it wouldn’t happen overnight. My guess as a layman is that … it would take years.”
Qifrey managed a small nod. With Olruggio’s head down, he wasn’t sure if he could see it, but it was honestly the closest he could muster to a ‘yes’ right now.
Olruggio clenched his fists so tightly that they shook. Qifrey imagined his heart in the palms; it didn’t feel that far away from the truth.
“... So … I should have noticed by now. So either I did notice, maybe multiple times, and I just don’t remember that I did … or …” The trembling got worse, and Olruggio’s breath hitched in a way that made Qifrey’s stomach lurch dangerously. “... or I honestly didn’t notice at all until now. And I’m just that much of a failure. As a Watchful Eye, and as a friend.”
“No!”
Olruggio’s eyes snapped up. He looked tired. He looked sad.
Sleeping birds awoke with a start and flew away in shock at the noise. The trees heaved. Qifrey’s lungs heaved with them.
Breathe … breathe … breathe …
“... No.” Even if Olruggio wouldn’t remember this soon, he couldn’t allow that thought to take any sort of root in him. He simply refused. “You noticed. You knew. I … can never hide anything from you for long. You’ve always been able to see right through me.”
Olruggio let out a stuttered exhale of relief. Qifrey fought to not be jealous of the feeling.
He was tired. Lords, he was so tired.
“... All those times I thought I’d just … dissociated from working myself too hard. Those blank spots in my memory … they were actually from you, weren’t they?”
… Despite himself, Qifrey found himself smiling. It didn’t feel right, but he did.
He hoped that Olruggio wouldn’t be angry. He hoped that he would be angry. Just once, he wanted him to be angry; it would make this easier, in a way.
“... Not all of them. You do work yourself too hard, Olly.”
Thankfully, disappointingly, he smiled too, a tiny and hollow thing.
“This isn’t funny, Qifrey.”
“I know it’s not.”
The trees rustled in the late night wind. They both stood in silence for a time, neither sure how to break it.
Olruggio was the one to take the first step. Quietly, almost shy, but still so resolute. It was nostalgic. It hurt.
“... You’re that determined to deal with this alone?”
At least Qifrey knew the answers here.
“Yes.”
“And I can’t convince you to change your mind?”
“You haven’t been able to make a dent in me yet. So I don’t fancy your chances now.”
Olruggio chuffed out something resembling a laugh and a ‘stubborn fool’ that was so disgustingly fond that it made every muscle in Qifrey’s body clench.
Fight. Fight, fight, fight. Don’t stop. You can’t stop. Not even for a moment.
“... Damn. Oh well. You can go ahead now, then.”
… Wh-
“What?”
Olruggio looked at him like he was an idiot, just for a second.
“You heard me. Go ahead. Go do … whatever your procedure here usually is. Take the memory and all that.”
Qifrey’s mouth felt dry. He could practically taste the wind.
“... You … aren’t going to try to stop me?”
Olruggio shrugged. “No point. If you’re not going to budge, we may as well just get it over with. I’m going to need to sleep sometime. I can’t exactly defend myself against you forever.”
‘Defend myself against you’.
That phrasing made Qifrey’s insides squirm in that familiar, loathsome paradox; comforting discomfort, safety and scum.
“I can only hope that you’re making the right choice. That you really can handle this on your own. That you really … don’t need me.”
… That’s not true.
There was nothing he could ever say or do to feel less unclean for all of this. So … he said nothing. He simply prepared the seal in silence, with a practiced precision and gentleness, as he felt Olruggio’s eyes bore into him but never had the courage to meet them.
Hate me. Please. At least once, give me that kindness, old friend.
“... Hey.”
With one stroke left to complete the seal, Olruggio spoke again.
Qifrey paused. He owed him that much. He owed him so much more than this.
Olruggio, dutifully still, swallowed and fumbled with his words, but Qifrey waited.
And then Olruggio just had to speak.
“... I love you.”
… The world shrank down to just the two of them. Qifrey’s heart pounded loudly against his ribcage, a frantic and desperate little thing begging to escape the confines of his flesh.
It was all that he could do to stay standing.
This … wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
“... What?”
Olruggio kept not looking at him, but Qifrey could see the blush on his cheeks.
“You heard me. Don’t make me say it again. I've probably said it before, but ... yeah.”
“... Even after all of this?”
“Even after all of this. Always. I’m just … sorry I’m not enough.”
… Qifrey felt sick. He felt like he was dying. He felt something wet trailing down his face; he told himself it was a sudden bout of rain.
He always hated rain.
His hands shook and he forced himself to speak, through a throat that felt like sand and acid.
He couldn’t leave it here. He just couldn’t.
“... You are. You are enough. You’re so much more than enough. You always have been, and you always will be. I-I-”
Cowardice nearly stayed his hand. Nearly. He rallied, gathering his breath and clenching his fist.
“I love you too.”
In the next second, Olruggio smiled a wobbly little smile.
In the next second, Qifrey finished the final stroke of the seal.
In the next second, Olruggio fell to the ground, unconscious.
… In the next second … something felt wrong.
Something felt very, very wrong.
Every muscle, every inch of him, inside and out, screamed in the fear and agony of being rearranged and mutilated, and he screamed with them, knees buckling and slamming him onto the ground.
And still, that stupid, damning death knell of a thought wouldn’t leave his mind.
He still loves me.
And something-
Burst.
Oddly, that part didn’t hurt. Maybe it was a part of the process, to try to make the victim remain calm enough in their final moments, he never knew.
But he knew that these were his final moments. There was no escaping this time.
He couldn’t see the stars anymore. He couldn’t see anything anymore.
All that was there was the heaving and groaning of growth. The rustling of the trees.
He cried for the first time in years. His tears tasted sweet rather than salty. Laughter joined the sobbing, weaving in and out in a mad dance at the end of the world.
He tried to panic harder. To make it stop on its own, to make it retreat, to let him cheat out just one more day as Master Qifrey. But his prayers fell on deaf ears. The damned plant had grown fat on his love over the years, just barely kept at bay, and fighting it now after the dam had broken was no less monumental than fighting time itself.
All he could do was wait. Wait while begging for forgiveness, from Olruggio, from the girls, from Master Beldaruit, from everyone who somehow cared about him and would have no idea what had happened here tonight.
It didn’t take long. It was one tiny mercy.
His thoughts grew slow and sticky. He felt the tree cover his body entirely as it grew, before he couldn’t feel anything at all. The sounds of the trees grew further and further away, muffled like diving underwater.
Like drowning.
But he wasn’t scared anymore. Delirium was coming too fast for that.
With what he imagined were the last moments that he could move his face, his expression melted into a lopsided smile that he knew Olruggio would say made him look like a fool.
He giggled like a drunk before sound left him entirely too.
He loves me … Olly loves me … my Olly loves me …
Thank you … for everything …
And for the first time in years, for the last time,
Qifrey
let
go.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Olruggio woke with the sounds of morning birds.
He groaned, working out the crick in his back, wondering why and how the hell he passed out in the middle of a random forest. His best guesses right now were either ‘ridiculously exhausted’ or ‘unfathomably drunk’, and given that he couldn’t remember the last … however long it was, either could work, really, his usual nonsense.
Yawning and stretching, he forced himself to stand, stumbling a little on his feet and leaning against a tree next to him.
He blinked his vision into focus before looking around to try and figure out just how lost he was.
And-
“... Well, I’ll be damned.”
It was rare to see a silverwood tree out at random like this. It stood out so starkly against the normal trees of the forest.
It looked healthy. Beautiful, really. He should report it to the Great Hall so they could sort out proper harvesting procedure.
“... Has this always been here, actually?”
He’d heard they could grow fast, but unless he’d just never paid attention here at all, this was his first time seeing how fast; damn, that was impressive-
“Master Olruggio!”
He was snapped out of his reverie immediately. Tetia was flying towards him, all wobbly in her panic.
She came first, by a large margin, before a Mildly Interesting Tree.
“What’s wrong?”
“Y-You and Master Qifrey didn’t come back last night, and we got worried. Everyone’s looking for you!”
… The two of them had left the atelier together?
That made sense, and also leaned Olruggio’s guess more towards ‘drunk’. It was rare that Qifrey got drunk with him, and he was slightly upset that he didn’t remember it. Although he hoped he didn’t do anything too embarrassing; maybe that was why Qifrey had already left.
… If he’d blurted out a confession before vomiting on Qifrey’s shoes and passing out or something, then oh dear lords, he was going to cringe himself underground.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Nope, no clue. He was gone when I woke up. I’ll help you look.”
Tetia nodded sharply, her eyes watering; Olruggio put his hand on her head and ruffled her hair, in the way that he knew she’d get mock-angry at him for later.
He’d be fine, Olruggio knew. But that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be giving him a Watchful Eye lecture for leaving his apprentices unsupervised overnight and causing them this much worry.
That was unusual for him, though. He wondered what was going on. Hopefully the stubborn fool would actually let him help, for once.
Hopefully he hadn’t done anything last night. Hopefully he could at least apologise if he had.
With that nervousness lining his exasperation, the two of them flew off.
“Master Qifrey, say something!” “Qifreeeeeey, you ass, where are you?!”
Leaving the rustling trees far behind them.