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Sun rays kissed the open field Olruggio and Qifrey were standing on. Dew still graced the grass and tall trees lining the property, partially obscuring the rolling fields beyond. Empty land as far as the eye could see surrounded them. Olruggio shivered in the spring chill of it all, gathering his cloak closer to himself.
"Are you sure about this?"
Qifrey, sitting on his heels to inspect the soil, looked up and blinked. "Did you have a better location in mind? You should’ve said so earlier."
"That wasn’t what I meant and you know it. Are you sure about leaving the Great Hall?"
Qifrey got up, cleaning his hands on a cloth as he went. He looked ethereal in the morning sun, his white hair glowing in the soft light and an expression on his face as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. "Of course I am. My master was stifling enough and you know what I think of witch society as a whole."
Olruggio had to fight the urge to kiss his lying mouth.
It was a smart thing to say. It invited people to cut him off, to stop him from saying things they didn’t want to hear. Shut that blasphemous trap of his, Olruggio had heard more than one master say through the years. But Olruggio has been with Qifrey for too long, and was too close to him, for it to work in truth.
He just watched his friend until Qifrey averted his eyes and went back to inspecting the soil.
Neither of them said anything.
Not Olruggio, either to cut him off or tell Qifrey to cut the crap, or Qifrey, to acknowledge the fact that he knew that Olruggio knew.
That was how this worked between them.
Qifrey was hiding something underneath all the bluster. He wasn’t completely honest, even if what he said truly was something he believed in. Qifrey, Olruggio knew, was very good at lying by saying the most truthful things in the world.
He wondered if that should hurt more than it did.
"I’m thinking we build the house here, at the back of the property," Qifrey said in the end, breaking the silence.
And Olruggio just nodded and pushed his sleeves back to get to work.
They use magic liberally during the process of course, but there are some parts of building a house — of building an Atelier, specifically — that just require good old craftsmanship.
"What would you have done if I’d refused to be your watchful eye?" Olruggio asked as he watched Qifrey dither about before setting down the other end of the column. "Also, go two inches to the left or the house will start sagging in no time. The foundations are the most important part of any building, they need to be correctly laid."
"You wouldn’t have refused," Qifrey huffed, picking up his end of the column again, all too charming with his overrobes and hat stripped off for today’s allotment of hard labor. He was red — either from the exertion of carrying all the materials, or because he didn’t protect his delicate, milk-white skin again. Olruggio really ought to invent something easier to slap on him than sunscreen for that. He kept forgetting.
"There is no version of you that is you that wouldn’t have gone with."
Olruggio inclined his head. It was true enough. He, too, doesn’t think he’d recognize a version of himself that would not want to walk side by side with Qifrey always. "But you must have planned for it."
Qifrey planned for everything at all times.
"Of course," Qifrey shrugged and then winced as the movement jostled the column. "Though that plan mostly just descended into more ideas on how to convince you than what I would actually do if you refused completely. Am I in the right spot yet?"
"One more step— no, take half a step back. Yes, that’s perfect." Olruggio couldn’t help but smile.
Qifrey beamed back and promptly put the column down.
…A few centimeters off-target, of course, but Olruggio would deal with it.
When Olruggio had told Qifrey’s master that he was going to become his former apprentice’s Watchful Eye, Beldaruit had simply replied, "I think you watch him enough already."
Not "That is a fool’s errand," or "Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?" or even "The Knights Moralis will never allow it.", though surely all of that was implied.
Beldaruit had looked at Olruggio and simply said, "I think you watch him enough already."
And Olruggio had said, "Not enough. Never enough." Because he thinks he was born to watch him, and he never wanted to see the back of him. Because he carried this foolish love like a heart on his sleeve, visible to anyone who cared to look.
He was betting on the Knights Moralis not to look.
Beldaruit had leaned back in his chair, sighed, and nodded. "Take care of him, please."
He hadn’t asked Olruggio to keep him out of trouble. He knew all too well that if Qifrey was in the thick of it, Olruggio would be as well.
Olruggio nodded. "I suppose you’ll be telling him the same?"
"Whenever am I not." But there had been a smile on his face as he said it, so Olruggio supposed Qifrey’s master had not given up on them just yet.
With no one but themselves as witnesses, the house started taking shape. The walls, then the first floor, then the second, then the roof. Then the attached building, which would become Olruggio’s workspace and an extra attachment for the kitchen. Finally it stood, a skeleton of a building but a building nonetheless. The whole thing was a little lopsided, but honestly, Olruggio was pretty sure that Qifrey loved the atelier all the more for it.
It was time for the amenities and finishing it up inside, now.
Qifrey was, not unexpectedly, wildly useful for making sure the water supply worked properly. All that water magic had to come in somewhere. Qifrey looked wildly joyful as he did it, the same he did whenever he saw what wondrous magics his hand wrought. "Olly! Come look!"
Olruggio did. The pipes were nice and straight, and when he went to check the faucet, the water ran as it should. "It’ll pass the inspections."
Qifrey pouted. "You could say good job!"
Olruggio gave him a look, barely resisting shoving him over. "Who’s supposed to become a teacher here? That kid will arrive soon and here you are, acting like a child yourself."
Qifrey fluttered his lashes. "You like me like this."
Unapologetically, Olruggio shrugged. "I do."
For a second, all pretense fell from Qifrey’s face, his lips parting just a little, and they just looked at each other, full eye contact. Time stood still. Olruggio felt breathless.
Then Qifrey broke eye contact, and the moment was broken like a wave crashing against a rock, Olruggio still moving towards him like the sea being pulled along by the gravity of the moon.
"I should finish up the connection upstairs," Qifrey said, eye suddenly unreadable again behind his spectacles, and his steps as he left were so measured it would have been less obvious he was running away if he had hurried.
Olruggio, in a kitchen empty of anything but a counter with a sink in it, in a house they had built together, stared after him, and then had to close his eyes lest he start to cry.
Qifrey couldn’t, he knew. This was not the first time, after all, that something like this had happened. Olruggio so often felt like the tide, pushed and pulled about. Attracted and then rejected. Wanted but never held close.
His breathing was uneven. Slowly, he sat down on the cold kitchen tiles, his back against the counter, and curled into himself. It felt stupid. Dramatic, even. But below that was a hurt, but above all, the shame of having been left here, deep and uncomfortable in his belly.
It’d fade, he knew, that feeling. It had before.
But for tonight, he’d let himself be sad about it.
"Do you think she’ll like it?"
The bedroom up in the eaves of the main building was small, but the perfect size for a growing child and there was plenty of room for sharing too, should Qifrey take on more apprentices. For now, though, there was but a singular bed in it, and Qifrey was hovering over it, his fingers fluttering nervously over the headboard he’d carved himself for his very first apprentice. The lines curved gracefully, as beautiful as if he’d done it with his pens instead of a carving knife. There were nicks in his fingers still from his first attempts.
It was almost funny, watching him like this, and Olruggio had to keep himself from chuckling. It felt exciting to get to watch Qifrey grow into this. Olruggio wouldn’t have thought so when they were children but… he thought Qifrey would be a good teacher, in a way so few witches were.
This was a choice to Qifrey, instead of just an expectation, a box to be checked off on a list. He had looked at little Agott and wanted to be her guardian, her protector, the person to watch her grow. Her teacher.
"Do you think she’ll like it?"
It was a genuine question, coming from a genuine place, but also a distraction. A hey, I hope I didn’t hurt you last night? Even though Qifrey knew he did. No such words would ever actually cross his lips, of course. Acting as if nothing had happened afterwards was the status quo, and the status quo never changed. Not with Qifrey. Not where it mattered.
But Qifrey would come back, and ask another question. Qifrey would come back and reach for Olruggio again. Qifrey would come back and Olruggio — Olruggio would take him back, too, because what they had was more important than what had happened last night, than what happened every time.
He didn’t know what crossing that last boundary in their so obviously lifelong commitment to each other would cost Qifrey, but the answer wasn’t really the point, was it?
He thinks back on standing in the field that very first day, not a single bit of this house they built together yet in sight, and of Qifrey lying with the truth. Of the fact that he still doesn’t quite know why Qifrey is fleeing the Great Hall, though he has many reasons to do it indeed. That he still doesn’t know why Qifrey wouldn’t tell Olruggio.
…It doesn’t matter why, in the end. They’re here and they’re happy, and even if there are always questions Qifrey won’t answer, even if that last boundary stands between them even as it seems they both want to break it… they are together, which is all Olruggio has ever really wanted.
They’re building something new, and if that will bring Olruggio some peace and quiet and time with Qifrey, then he’s all for it.
"Do you think she’ll like it?"
"I do."
Qifrey looked relieved and Olruggio… he knew that was, once again, a sign of Qifrey’s care. It only made him surer of his answer, said clearly and with affection, like one might at an altar for the right person at the right time.
Olruggio knew he had the right person, if not yet the right time.
That said, as he quietly entwined his fingers with Qifrey’s, on top of that headboard he’d carved himself for his new apprentice, Olruggio wondered if the atelier would remain quiet for much longer.
Who knew what apprentices might bring with them.