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They sit in silence, the world around them quiet, while the sun barely lingers above the horizon. They laugh about something—Olruggio forgets what the moment he catches Qifrey’s gaze, filled with tenderness. The laughter fades, but Qifrey keeps smiling at him, as though admiring the view. Olruggio almost makes a mistake and leans in.
Almost.
The memories of the last time he made that same mistake remains painfully sharp. Qifrey had pulled away and looked aside. His shoulders had tensed almost imperceptibly, and the sadness on his face had been hidden almost perfectly. Then Qifrey would make a joke or change the subject, and Olruggio would let him.
When he was younger, he remembers wanting to ask why Qifrey always looked so guilty, but he doesn't remember ever actually asking. Qifrey doesn’t want to break his heart, and Olruggio is grateful for that. Maybe a clear refusal would make things easier, but Olruggio doesn’t want things to be easier—he wants to be with Qifrey, no matter what.
So he presses his lips together and looks away, perhaps too abruptly. Sadness sharpens the edges of his thoughts over what Qifrey will never give him. Olruggio is happy, even when he wants more, so he doesn’t push, he backs down, and he isn’t going to jeopardize what they have. Their friendship is too precious—especially not now, after Qifrey has finally been freed from the curse, after they have found peace together, a home, and a family.
“The girls are strangely quiet,” he says with a laugh despite the tightness in his throat.
His gaze remains fixed on the atelier. The urge to raise his hands to his throat, to shield himself and hide, is difficult to suppress, but he keeps them folded in his lap, giving Qifrey no sign that anything is wrong.
Qifrey doesn’t answer immediately, and that’s all right—as long as the silence doesn’t stretch on for too long. The seconds drag by, nearly turning into minutes, until they force Olruggio to let go of his own worries.
“Qifrey?” Olruggio turns toward him, confused, frowning, unsure what exactly has happened.
And Qifrey looks devastated.
“Oh, Olly,” he says, his voice thick with emotion—the kind Olruggio has long since learned to ignore. It has become so familiar that it takes him a moment to recognize it now. So it comes as a surprise when Qifrey lifts a hand to his cheek, gently brushing his thumb across it.
Olruggio remembers what it is like to love Qifrey. It is in moments like these, when there is no oxygen left in his lungs, that he doesn't need to hold himself back, because any words would be nothing more than wind on his lips. He cannot let Qifrey hear them.
Holding his face, looking into his eyes, speaking with such tenderness and sincerity—what a cruel way to reject. Despair rises in his throat. Why now? Why, when Qifrey needs him most, needs him close, does he decide to give voice to what had always remained unspoken? Why does he have to put it into words? To Olruggio the dance they had shared was familiar, comfortable.
Olruggio is a weak and selfish man. Qifrey held his heart in his hands, tending to it with endless care, even though he had never asked to have it. Olruggio, on the other hand, had seized Qifrey’s heart by force and deliberately shattered it into a million pieces, breaking it in a way that could never truly be mended.
He had made Qifrey suffer through years—decades—of torment, placing responsibility into his hands, binding him with promises, forcing Qifrey to destroy the person he loved over and over again. Just to see one more day together, Olruggio had nearly condemned Qifrey to a life surrounded by nothing but pain and betrayal.
And no matter how long he knelt, no matter how desperately he begged for forgiveness, Qifrey had never forgiven him and never would, because Olruggio’s plan had succeeded so well that Qifrey still believes it had all been his own fault.
Olruggio is a weak and selfish man who wants to keep cherishing those feelings, who wants to keep resting his hand on Qifrey’s shoulder, leaning into his space, brushing their knees together, pretending the other doesn't understand how much more it means to him.
But he owes Qifrey. So Olruggio forces himself to speak.
“Qifrey, please, I—” He doesn’t look, can’t look, but Qifrey’s hand is still resting against his cheek, and Olruggio is a weak, weak man. So he covers it with his own and offers the truth “I understand. You don't—I really do understand. I won’t do anything. Just, please, don’t—I value our friendship, okay? More than any… anything else.”
The words come out weak and hoarse. It feels as though he might suffocate like this, confessing everything while Qifrey holds him, and perhaps for the first time he truly understands why Qifrey had needed to erase his memories so many times. It is like pressing on a bruise, running a finger over a fresh burn—it hurts, yet it draws you in, bringing a kind of relief that's probably not healthy.
Then Qifrey cups his face with both hands and gently guides him closer. He kisses Olruggio on the forehead, between his brows, and on the tip of his nose, each touch no more tangible than the brush of a butterfly. Slowly, deliberately, he stretches out the moment. Gathering the courage to look at him, Olruggio sees that Qifrey's expression has not changed. The same sorrow and pain still cling to his eyes.
Olruggio doesn't understand.
“Olly, I like you” Qifrey says with a faint smile, as though they were both sixteen again. Their faces are so close that Olruggio can feel the other's trembling breath.
His cheeks burn. His eyes are wide, his mouth left hanging open somewhere in the process. His hair is probably a mess too. He cannot imagine he looks particularly attractive right now, yet Qifrey gazes at him with admiration. He looks at him the way he looks at the stars.
“Oh,” it is the only reply he can find in his completely empty mind. Yet something inside his chest loosens—not quite relief, not quite happiness. A quiet finally echoes through his thoughts, and it frightens him that he has no idea where it came from.
Could it be... could it be something they had done before, something he had forgotten? But Qifrey would have told him, wouldn't he? The tree had been gone for quite some time now. Nothing was binding Qifrey any more.
Their faces are closer. Olruggio still cannot bring himself to step into the abyss, almost convinced that the face before him is nothing more than a cruel dream. So Qifrey pushing him.
He kisses him carefully, so lightly that it is almost imperceptible, and only when Olruggio returns it with the faintest response does the kiss become more insistent, more desperate. He can feel Qifrey's smile disrupting the kiss at its corner, while the hands holding his face grip him so tightly that it almost hurts. Olruggio cannot breathe, and Qifrey kisses him as though they have done that hundreds of times before, as though he has only been waiting for the chance to do it one more time.
They both need air, so when Olruggio pulls away, Qifrey doesn't realize the true reason why. Breathing heavily, Qifrey lets out a relieved laugh. His eyes are glassy, and he looks so happy.
Olruggio feels sick.
“That... wow,” he manages to choke out, unwilling to ruin this for Qifrey, not when he's looking at him as though Olruggio had hung the sun in the sky. His hands wander over Olruggio's face, his neck, his shoulders, as though making sure this moment is real, committing every curve to memory.
“Couldn't say better,” Qifrey teases, smiling so broadly, Olruggio hates the relief written across his face. As though everything has fallen back into the way it was always meant to be. As though this isn't something new at all, but something old finally returning to its rightful place.
“Olly?”
The question is nothing more than his name, yet Olruggio feels as though he has been caught doing something terrible. His hands are trembling, and he can't bring himself to keep looking at Qifrey once the other notices.
The half-smile he forces onto his face is so thoroughly laced with falsehood that he isn't even sure who he's trying to convince. He hasn't had to smile like this at Qifrey in a very long time—not when something this important was at stake. Maybe he'd forgotten how to lie properly. Or maybe Qifrey had simply learned to see through all his layers.
Olruggio never had the chance to see through Qifrey's layers, did he? Every memory had been taken from him, and now, at this moment, he is the only one left exposed.
“Olly? What's wrong?”
“This— would it be too presumptuous of me to say that I feel like—” The words leave him on an exhale, followed by a quiet, ironic laugh. “like we've done this before?”
Please, lie to me, he begs silently. Please, tell me I'm wrong. Turn it into a joke. Qifrey had lied to him so well for so many years. What was one more small lie now?
But he had promised Qifrey that he would never have to lie again. Promises like that never carry the same weight as they do later, when they come back to rest upon you.
He feels Qifrey freeze. Olruggio takes Qifrey’s hands from his shoulders, holding them in his own. They are weak, yielding.
“Olly, I...” The first words on stage. They do not bring friends.
“It’s okay, really, I understand.”
And Olruggio really does understand. He understands that this is his own fault. That he is the one who forced Qifrey to kill those versions of him—the ones who held him gently, the ones who kissed him back.
But it hurts. For all the moments when he cut off his own hope, hated his own feelings, because he could not see that they had been returned.
Olruggio forced Qifrey to kill him when they had their very first kiss. He will never know the relief of being met with affection, of having his feelings returned without panic staining the moment.
Qifrey will forever remain the only one who remembers, and all of this is Olruggio’s own fault.
“I am sorry”
And there it is—Qifrey is still the one asking for forgiveness, as though it wasn’t Olruggio who did this to him.
So Olruggio forces to pull himself together, and the smile that appears is gentler. But it would be easier to strike himself in the face than to look at Qifrey when he raises his eyes.
The other man is a knot of guilt and grief, and Olruggio keeps his smile in place, unsure whether his words will not stumble. He reaches up and holds Qifrey’s cheek, copying what the other had done, and watches as Qifrey leans into it, closing his eyes, as though this is something completely natural to him.
Had Olruggio done this before? Was there some version of himself brave enough, unburdened by gentle refusals, who had reached for Qifrey and pulled him closer? Did there exist a version of him whose hands did not tremble, whose heart raced only in anticipation?
How many times had those quiet, gently closed doors been just as heavy for Qifrey as they had been for Olruggio? How much of Olruggio remained if his memories had been taken away piece by piece? Would he ever become someone whom Qifrey remembers him to be?
“There is nothing to apologize for,” Olruggio says, and it seems to only make things worse, because Qifrey hunches in on himself and pulls his hands toward his chest as though he wants to hide. But Olruggio keeps holding his face, making him lift his gaze from the ground.
“You have nothing to apologize for, Qifrey. A couple of memories are almost nothing. We can always make new ones!”
Qifrey inhales sharply. Olruggio may no longer be a child-genius, but it isn’t difficult to understand that he has said these words before.
How many times had he held Qifrey’s face in his hands? How many times had he looked into those eyes and made Qifrey erase pieces of what they had shared? How many times had he forced Qifrey to keep living, pretending as though nothing had happened?
The only thing Olruggio wants right now is to beg Qifrey to forgive him, to hold his hands and plead until his voice turns hoarse. He wants Qifrey to hate him, to be angry with him. He wants Qifrey to stop looking at him as though he is seeing a ghost.
He wants to promise that he will never leave. But he has already left so many times that the promise would mean nothing.
This isn’t about him, Olruggio reminds himself. It was never about him. All of this will only make Qifrey feel worse.
“Come on, what’s with that face?”
He runs his fingers through Qifrey’s hair, giving it a slight tug, trying to bring some energy back between them. Qifrey blinks. He frowns, as though he can see right through Olruggio, as if he noticed something before Olruggio did. He reaches toward his hand, and only then does Olruggio realize that he truly cannot do this any more.
Only then does his body and mind fail him. Only then do they betray him, slipping away, sinking deep beneath the snow. Only then does he stop seeing the light.
Somewhere far away, he realizes that he is shaking, that his breathing has become uneven, and that his hands are reaching for his throat, trying to offer himself the comfort he does not deserve.
Olruggio cannot look at Qifrey and know that, because of that damned tree, so many moments they shared were taken away from them. That Qifrey will have to carry those memories alone. The beautiful moments they should have protected with their lives and hung on the walls as treasures have become stones weighing him down instead.
Of course, he can tell him about them. But it will only be a story.
A story in which the Olruggio who was allowed to experience those moments disappeared forever, killed by the gentle hands he himself placed the weapon into.
He hates his own anger, the resentment that has rotted inside him and spoiled the first moment he will remember. Because now this is their first moment.
And Qifrey touches his shoulder and leans closer. The way they have done so many times as friends, with only Qifrey knowing just how many times Olruggio cannot remember.
Did Olruggio ever liked this? Was it once natural for him to lean closer in return? Did he take Qifrey’s hand? Did he kiss him again? Did he wait to see what Qifrey would do? How many times after this had Qifrey been forced to sit there alone, after the moments they had shared?
How many times had Qifrey been left sitting with the body of the person he loved, waiting for someone else to wake up?
“...lly? Olly?”
Qifrey must have been calling his name for some time already.
He feels himself flinch away from the other’s touch, the urge to pull away, to tear off his own skin just so he does not have to feel the way it burns. He hates the way he recoils from Qifrey, creating distance between them, because he cannot bear having him this close—not when the understanding of what he has done to Qifrey all this time finally settles over him.
How ironic, isn’t it? The moment he could never even have hoped for is placed before him on a silver platter, and he is the one who pushes it away.
“Olruggio” Full name? Qifrey must truly be desperate.“You... hey, hey, come on, breathe.”
And from Qifrey’s panic, Olruggio understands — this is the first time Qifrey has seen him fall into a panic this severe.
It makes sense. The Olruggio of the past either did not know that his memories were being erased, or he expected it to happen again very soon. The Olruggio of the present has to live with the consequences of his own actions and choices.
He has to wake up knowing that so much has been taken from him. He has to build a relationship where one of them already knows how to exist within it, while the other has to keep the person beside him and wonder, ask himself whether Qifrey is tired of the same gestures, the same movements, the same words. Whether Qifrey misses someone he once was. Someone he could have been.
This moment is a first for both of them, Qifrey does not know what to do with his hands, with his words. And even though this is not the first time Olruggio has dealt with something like this alone, having someone beside him is a terrible new experience. The realization — the fact that this moment is truly the first time for both of them— is what brings him relief, it makes him feel sick.
But only when Qifrey stops trying to come closer, only when his words remain at a distance, can Olruggio finally take his first full breath, following Qifrey’s instructions. The first. The second. He is cold, but Qifrey’s voice cuts through the noise in his head.
It isn’t strange that Qifrey helps only from afar, Olruggio realizes with detached understanding. When they were younger, Qifrey had never been good at comforting, so it had always been up to Olruggio to tell him what he needed. And when they grew older, he limited every such moment himself. He didn’t want Qifrey to feel uncomfortable, and Qifrey, even when he noticed, would leave him alone. He never insisted. They were both afraid of getting too close.
“I’m sorry, I just—” he says the first thing the moment his lungs stop trying to kill him again.
“There is nothing to apologize for.” Qifrey echoes his own words back to him, and although Olruggio has a dozen objections, he keeps them to himself.
Qifrey's back is straight, his hands folded in front of him, like a child who is about to be scolded. Exhaling, Olruggio takes Qifrey’s hand and looks only at it.
Qifrey allows him to, and doesn't move closer. Taking a breath as though he wants to say something, Qifrey remains silent and still. And Olruggio, running his calloused fingers over Qifrey’s long, delicate ones, is grateful.
They sit like that for long enough that the remnants of panic and guilt retreat into the background. Long enough for breathing to become an unconscious motion again, for his heart to stop racing like a frightened rabbit.
Long enough for Olruggio to feel shame begin to rise, and cover his face with one of his hand.
“Well, this is embarrassing,” he says irritably, now that his mind is a little clearer and his thoughts are not quite so dramatic.
And Qifrey laughs.
“It’s nothing,” he finally replies weakly, and Olruggio risks looking up. A gentle, sorrowful smile rests on Qifrey’s face.
“This is your fault, you know?” Olruggio says it, and he does not let the shock spread across Qifrey’s face for more than a second before he abruptly realizes how terribly he phrased it. Like an idiot. “You threw yourself at me! Of course I panicked!”
“I— threw?”Qifrey’s face turns adorably red. His shoulders jump, shock on his face, the guilt disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
“Yes, threw!” Olruggio repeats it firmly. He looks away, staring anywhere but at Qifrey, ignoring how his own face burns.“Warn the guy next time!”
Embarrassment wraps around Olruggio like a blanket when he realizes his own words—next time. But he does not take the words back, only holds Qifrey’s hand tighter, hoping that he has not ruined anything in a way that cannot be undone.
Qifrey stays silent. Olruggio can hear him trying to put a sentence together, he is just failing.
A second passes.
“Okay.” Finally, he hears Qifrey’s slightly strained voice. “Next... next time I’ll warn you.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
Qifrey squeezes his hand in response.