Work Text:
“I like your tunic.”
Olruggio snaps out of his dreary half-consciousness to see the white glow of a goddess leaning against the doorway to his room. Bewildered, he rubs his eyes; when his vision clears, he realizes it’s Qifrey. Oh… Suppressing a yawn, he glances at the time. How long was I out?
Just a couple clockmarks; nothing he can’t catch up on if he burns the midnight oil tonight. He just hopes the girls won’t be hearing about his less-than-healthy behavior any time soon. Having not quite caught Qifrey’s earlier statement, he grunts, voice raspy: “Hey. Do you need help with something?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
In his bleary state, he misses the flirtation in Qifrey’s murmur. He’s long since stopped bothering to ask why his partner randomly barges into his workroom (you’d think that as a teacher, he has more things to do). Instead he stretches, cat-like, spine popping. His back stings with heat, likely sunburned from being in the same spot next to the window for too long. He shifts away from the light; at the same time, Qifrey's gaze shifts toward his chest as he flaps his translucent tunic to cool himself down. The cream-tinted chiffon falls down his shoulders in lustrous waves, exposing much of his front torso.
Qifrey walks over to his Watchful Eye and subtly slides a hand over Olruggio’s shoulder, feeling the buttery smooth fabric, to which Olruggio glances up absentmindedly but otherwise doesn’t respond.
Pieces of parchment lay scattered across the wooden table, all charred to varying degrees. Most of them have illegible notes scribbled in the margins, and a couple even carry little doodles of pointed caps and brushbugs. Qifrey hums affectionately. Every witch’s workspace is a reflection of their personality, and Olruggio’s is no exception– a mess of controlled chaos that hides a deeper layer of warmth and brilliance.
When Olruggio looks up from his pen, Qifrey is reaching across the table, trying to inspect something of interest. “Hey,” he gasps. He shuffles the papers in an attempt to hide them. “These are my first drafts. They’re rubbish.”
“Dear me, rubbish?” His curiosity aroused, Qifrey snatches the spell before it gets taken away. “It couldn’t possibly that bad coming from you, Olruggio of the Torch.”
Olruggio is painfully aware of how easy he is to ragebait taunt. His shouts are ignored as Qifrey inspects the seal, tracing its lines with his long fingers. “Goodness, is this a water sculpture?” He deftly dodges any attempts to retrieve it.
“Stoppit!!” Olruggio’s ears are tinged a peachy red, palm grazing Qifrey’s arm. He adds, pleadingly, “Please don’t close the ring.” Qifrey's eye gleams with amusement as he dances around the table, always just an inch out of reach.
“Excellent idea.” His knuckles brush Olruggio’s as he steals his pen, soft meeting rough in one oddly electrifying moment of contact. It bewilders Olruggio for long enough to allow the ring to be closed.
Water rises from the air around them and swirls in intricate patterns, flitting around Qifrey in crystalline drops. When it settles above the parchment, it solidifies into a thin, lithe shape.
“What’s this–?” begins Qifrey, but he realizes the truth before he needs an answer. The water sculpture clearly depicts fluffy hair, round spectacles and a turtleneck paired with sweeping robes– a perfect, watery reflection of him.
A soft gasp escapes his lips. Olruggio can guess which memories from their boyhood are resurfacing in his mind; ones of sitting soaked in his dorm room at the Great Hall, watching blobby, half-formed sculptures gallop around their heads, triumphant when they did manage to create coherent shapes. Years later, he is proud to say that his craft has significantly improved. After hours of tweaking it, not only does the sculpture capture his partner’s physical characteristics, it screams Qifrey in the way the sculpture carries itself– the delicate arch of the neck, the way his eyes flit upwards ever so slightly, the curve of his lips.
Qifrey's eyes glimmer, finding himself in awe of how detailed, how painstakingly fashioned the spell is, even coming from a proficient commissioner. And the way his body curves in all the right places… well, it’s… flattering. A blush creeps up his cheeks. He sees this beauty in me? He looks over at Olruggio, who is bent over the table. Somehow his crimson flush is as visible as a red glowstone, even though he’s buried his face in his hands.
Olruggio inhales. “I…” He fights to come up with a normal excuse, but the truth spills out, as it always does. “I was going to give it to you for your birthday. But I guess the surprise is spoiled now.” Though disappointed, his eyes still tremble hopefully, wondering what the recipient thinks of the spell.
You ridiculous man, thinks Qifrey, and despite being a water witch, his chest burns. He walks behind Olruggio and gives him a back hug, resting his chin on his head.
“Thank you,” he whispers. All the words he cannot express channel themselves into the little squeeze he gives him.
“It’s nothing,” says Olruggio gruffly, but he still leans into the embrace a little bit. Asking for more. Qifrey only barely manages to suppress the urge to turn Olruggio around and throw himself into him. Or scream, or run, or frolick, or punch something, or vent his emotion in any number of similarly embarrassing ways.
Instead, Qifrey boldly noses his way to Olruggio’s neck, breathing in the milky scent of lingering sleep. His lip grazes Olruggio’s ear as he breathes, “Thank you.”
Olruggio’s shock surpasses the point of flinching. It causes him to freeze like a deer in lamplight. A spicy-sweet sensation drips pleasurably down his spine only to be outwardly expressed in an almost feverish bout of heat. Fire witch, indeed. Proving it’s not just his imagination, Qifrey places his hand on Olruggio’s forehead.
“Goodness, you’re like a heater,” he murmurs, concern knitting its way into his eyebrows.
“And you feel like ice,” Olruggio mumbles.
Without missing a beat— indeed, far too smoothly— Qifrey responds, “Perfect,” before losing all control, grabbing him by the shoulders, turning him 180 degrees and shoving Olruggio onto the floor. Olruggio grunts with the impact, disoriented.
“Wh–?!”
When he looks up, he finds Qifrey’s gaze searching him hungrily. He reaches forward, but when he cups Olruggio’s face it’s with an unexpected gentleness, like he was caressing a newly blossomed flower. His long fingers trace Olruggio’s jawline, feeling his scratchy goatee. The intensity in Qifrey’s eyes, sparking with the climax of an emotion the two of them have refused to name for 20 years, catches Olruggio so off guard that he doesn’t know how to resist what happens next.
“Uh– Qifrey–”
Not quite understanding what’s going on, Olruggio struggles to back up but ends up on his elbows, looking up helplessly at his friend. Qifrey senses he’s overstepped a boundary and backs away a little, hesitating only when Olruggio’s heavy-lidded eyes blink dreamily. The motion is ridiculous; straight out of a fairytale. The star stares, mesmerized, spellbound by the silverwood youth. But he can’t help it, for oh, how beautiful he is.
Some part of Olruggio, knocking at the back of his mind, knows he shouldn’t. He has a duty, an obligation that must be fulfilled. But that voice is muffled by the other parts of him, which completely melt away under Qifrey’s gaze. He feels himself falling into something deeper than sleep.
And so he doesn’t say anything when Qifrey hesitantly leans his weight on top of him, or when he presses soft lips to his forehead, or when he takes him to the bed and lay the two of them down on top of the covers.
“Do you feel better now?” Qifrey's nose bumps against his.
“Mm…”
The commissions are long-forgotten. How had they gotten here? Things had escalated ridiculously fast…
The two of them shift toward each other at the same time, pressing closer, meeting each other in the middle.
“Better,” he grunts.
Qifrey smiles, taking this as permission to slip his hand under Olruggio’s tunic. He runs his fingers up the muscles on his back, giving Olruggio full body shivers.
“I really should be getting back to work,” he mumbles, though he doesn’t want to admit it himself.
Qifrey feels a familiar instinct tug at the leash on his heart, like an owner pulling back an overexcited dog. It tells him not to ask for too much, not to take too much, not to push too hard.
Fuck all that, he thinks. He presses his lips fervently to Olruggio’s. “Stay,” he breathes. “Stay here and be mine.”
Olruggio has never agreed to something so fast. “Okay.”