Chapter Text
“The Silverwood operation was a success!" Sinocia's excited announcement echoed through the infirmary. Qifrey, still confined to the hospital bed, answered with a groan.
Against every convention, witches and physicians had worked side by side. Magic and medicine, once thought taboo, had succeeded where neither could alone.
The recovery was slow but steady—and, thanks to his girls and one particularly stubborn flame witch, never lonely.
Weeks passed.
Qifrey regained his strength. The atelier settled back into its familiar rhythm. Lessons resumed. Commissions piled up. Olruggio complained about the workload. The apprentices laughed as though nothing extraordinary had happened. Meals shared around a warm table.
Everything, it seemed, had returned to normal.
Which was precisely the problem.
Why wasn't Olruggio confessing?
Qifrey had thought he was making it rather obvious.
His touches lingered longer than necessary. He prepared special midnight snacks for one particularly overworked star. He'd begun using endearments that, by any reasonable standard, were reserved for significant others.
Honestly, he'd even started hugging him.
That alone should have been enough to cause Olruggio to short-circuit.
For years, Qifrey's body had instinctively recoiled from prolonged contact. Even the briefest embrace had once been difficult to bear. Now he was willingly wrapping his arms around Olruggio whenever the opportunity arose.
And what did he receive in return?
A warm laugh.
A hug back.
Sometimes an affectionate pat on the shoulder that stayed for moments too long.
No realization. No flustered confession. No desperate declaration of long-suppressed feelings.
Nothing.
Qifrey was beginning to take it personally.
"...Am I somehow unattractive?"
The thought was so absurd it nearly made him scoff.
He'd never particularly cared about his appearance beyond looking presentable, but he wasn't oblivious either. Throughout the years, there had been more than enough lingering glances, awkward confessions, and admirers for him to know that wasn't the issue.
He caught his reflection in his teacup.
"...No."
That couldn't be it.
Which left only one logical conclusion.
His gaze drifted across the workshop to Olruggio, who was happily eating the midnight snack Qifrey had made specifically for him, completely unaware of the emotional crisis unfolding a few feet away.
"...Is he truly this dense?"
Now, Olruggio was an intelligent man.
A genius, some would say, even a prodigy of flame. A witch so accomplished he'd earned himself a moniker: Olruggio of the Torch.
An admittedly rather impressive one.
Unfortunately, all that intelligence evaporated the moment the subject became one specific white-haired witch.
Years of carefully maintained boundaries had conditioned him into a very particular mindset. Qifrey hadn't been able to reciprocate affection before, so Olruggio had quietly settled into the strange little space between friendship and romance, that comfortable, dangerous limbo where neither of them had to risk saying anything aloud.
To Olruggio, this was enough.
They shared meals. They worked together. They visited each other at unreasonable hours. They trusted one another with their lives.
Surely, if Qifrey wanted something more...
Well.
He would say so.
Besides, why would Olruggio risk capsizing the carefully built ship of domesticity they'd spent years constructing? Better to treasure what he already had than reach for something he wasn't certain he was allowed to want.
Which meant every one of Qifrey's increasingly blatant attempts sailed straight over his head.
He accepted the midnight snacks with a grateful smile.
He returned every hug without a second thought.
He smiled whenever Qifrey called him "dear" or "love," even a rather risque “darling,” assuming they were simply new habits Qifrey had picked up after everything they'd been through.
How nice.
How comforting.
How completely, catastrophically platonic.
Qifrey stared at him from across the workshop.
No.
This would not do.
Now, the other colorful residents of the atelier had become the unfortunate captive audience to whatever strange courtship ritual their masters had unknowingly devised. Honestly, it was exhausting. It didn't take a genius to see that their masters were hopelessly in love with each other. Anyone with functioning eyes could tell. What was baffling, however, was that over the past few weeks, there had been a noticeable shift, albeit only in one direction.
Master Qifrey had declared war on subtlety.
Master Olruggio had somehow become even denser.
Concerned for the future of the household—and rapidly losing their sanity in the process—the girls had begun documenting each incident.
The report was officially titled:
"Every Time Master Qifrey Serves Himself on a Silver Platter and Master Olruggio Somehow Becomes Denser Than a Black Hole."
The title was still a work in progress…