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Coco woke up with the sun. She luxuriated in the coziness of her bed for a moment, watching the morning light come through the window and dance across the walls of her room. Eventually, her stomach growled, prompting her to roll out of bed and start her day. She got dressed and silently crept out of her room, carefully shutting the door behind her to avoid disturbing Agott. She made her way down to the living room and found Tetia already there, lying on her stomach across the sofa, bare feet kicking in the air as she read a book.
“Good morning!” Coco greeted, choosing to plop down on a cushion left out on the rug from the day prior.
“Good morning, Coco!” Tetia returned. She slid a bookmark into place and closed her book. “How’d you sleep?”
“Great! How did you sleep?”
“Wonderfully!”
As two of the atelier’s earliest risers, Coco and Tetia often spent time together in the morning while the household’s other occupants slept in. The lack of noise coming from the kitchen made Coco aware that one of their fellow early risers remained conspicuously absent.
Coco’s stomach growled again. She crossed her arms over her stomach with a wince. “Is Master Qifrey awake yet?”
“Hmm, nope! I guess he’s sleeping in!”
“Oh,” Coco said. “Well, he deserves a break too, sometimes.”
“Mhm! Hey, have you finished that book yet?”
Coco flushed, hiding her face in her hands, hunger momentarily forgotten. “I don’t know how you read this stuff! I got to the part where they kissed and had to stop.”
“Nooo!” Tetia flailed dramatically, kicking her feet and waving her arms. “It’s so good! Keep going!”
Tetia launched into an eager explanation of the upcoming plot. Coco listened intently. It really did sound interesting! She just couldn’t understand how Tetia read so much romance without getting flustered at all. The sun crept higher in the sky as they spoke, and it was mid-morning by the time that Agott finally emerged.
“Good morning,” she greeted. She had gotten dressed, but clearly hadn’t looked in the mirror, because her hair remained wild and unkempt.
“Morning!” Tetia and Coco both returned, in unison.
Agott frowned, looking towards the kitchen. “Is there no breakfast yet? It’s fairly late.”
Richeh appeared at her shoulder, sleepily rubbing her eyes. “Is Master Qifrey sleeping in?”
“Seems that way!” Tetia told her. “Hey, Agott! You read the book I lent Coco, right? The one with the princess and the knight who is also a dragon?”
Agott’s face promptly turned a deep shade of red. She sat down on a cushion next to Coco, folding her legs underneath herself. “... Yes. So what?”
“Help me to convince her to keep going!”
Richeh pulled a blanket from the couch and cocooned herself in it, curling up on the rug with her face barely visible.
“Coco doesn’t have to read anything she doesn’t want to do,” Richeh interjected.
“That’s why we have to make her want to!” Tetia countered.
They sat around chatting for half a clockmark. Eventually, the grumbling of their stomachs grew too insistent to ignore, and they faded off into a quiet atmosphere of discontent. It was then that Coco realized how untidy a state the living room had been left in. A stack of materials and textbooks remained piled by the fireplace. Cushions and blankets lay scattered across the space instead of being returned neatly to the basket where they were meant to be stored. Even some of Tetia’s sketches lay scattered about where she had left them the day before.
Ordinarily, Master Qifrey tidied up the living room after Coco and her fellow apprentices retreated to their quarters for the night.
“Maybe he’s sick?” Tetia asked. “He’s never slept in like this before.”
“That is a possibility,” Agott said, putting a hand to her chin with a furrowed brow.
“Aw, now I’m worried!” Coco exclaimed. “Should we check on him?”
“One of us probably should,” Agott agreed.
Coco jumped to her feet. Richeh stood after her, albeit much slower, leaving her blanket cocoon in a pile on the floor to join the mess.
“Coco will go find Master Qifrey. Richeh will make breakfast,” Richeh declared.
“Ohhh that sounds fun! I’ll help you!” Tetia offered.
They both made their way down to the kitchen while Tetia excitedly suggested breakfast ideas.
Agott sighed as she watched them go. “I suppose I should make sure they don’t burn the kitchen down.” Privately, Coco thought that Agott was much more likely to burn the kitchen down than Tetia and Richeh—not that Agott was a bad cook! She just held a certain disinterest for it at times, which gave her a tendency to walk away from things that should not be left unattended. Coco kept this to herself as Agott turned to her. “If Master Qifrey is sick, go wake up Master Olruggio.”
Coco nodded. “Of course!”
With Agott’s approval fueling her, she made her way up the stairs to Master Qifrey’s room. She could count on one hand the amount of times she had been up here, and she stood outside the door for a moment, hesitating. She didn’t want to wake him if he was simply sleeping in—she knew that after everything, he most likely needed the rest. Still, she found it unlike him to leave them to fend for themselves without warning. He would want her to come to him.
When she lifted her hand and knocked, the door swung inwards at her touch; it had been left open a smidge, she realized.
“Master Qifrey?” she asked, keeping her voice low. She poked her head into his quarters. She noticed immediately that, not only was his bed empty, it was also perfectly made, as if no one had slept in it.
“Master Qifrey!” she called, raising her voice this time. No response. Master Qifrey was not here. She retreated, gently closing the door behind her. Then she turned and made her way back down the stairs and towards Master Olruggio’s workshop.
“If he’s gone, Master Olly should know where he is, right?” she asked herself, then immediately doubted her words. She knew Master Qifrey had a habit of being elusive. If he had disappeared without an explanation… well, it would be an even better reason to alert their Watchful Eye.
When she stopped at Olruggio’s door, she noticed it had also been left open—this she found less unusual, as he did have a tendency to leave it this way as an unvoiced invitation. She stepped inside and checked his hammock first to see if she could spot him asleep.
“Master Olly?” she asked. Once again, she got no response. From what she could see, his hammock sat visibly empty. She climbed the stairs to his loft only to find it unoccupied as well. Coco stepped off the edge of the loft and floated down with her sylph shoes, then slowly made her way to the door that led to Olruggio’s bedroom.
This was uncharted territory. She’d caught Master Olruggio sleeping loads of times—sprawled out on the couch, snoring on his hammock, even conked out at the dining table—but she’d never seen the inside of his bedroom. She shifted nervously, then raised her hand to knock.
“Master Olly?” she called. “Sorry to bother you, but I can’t find Master Qifrey!”
A moment passed. She heard some movement, which instantly made her feel relieved, then Olruggio’s muffled voice reached her through the door.
“Gimme a sec!” he called back. She heard him talking more—to himself, maybe—but she couldn’t make out what he said. The door swung open about halfway, and he leaned against the frame of it. He looked, not tired, but sleepy in the way a person did after just waking up. His hair stuck up on one side in a way that made Coco have to fight off giggles. He also had a blanket wrapped around himself all the way up to his neck, so that only his head poked out from the top of it. Coco found this a little odd; the oven in Olruggio’s workshop kept the space plenty warm, even with the rapidly dropping autumn temperatures.
“Oh, good morning, Master Olly!” she chirped.
“Mornin’,” he grunted. “What’s this ‘bout Qifrey being missing?”
Now, Coco hadn’t meant to be nosy—really, she hadn’t! But she had never gotten the chance to look at where Olruggio was meant to sleep, and her eyes automatically slid past him without any real conscious input from herself. She couldn’t make out much, but on his bed, peeking out of the covers at the base of a mound of pillows, she saw something white and fluffy.
Is that brushbuddy? she wondered. But no, the texture was all wrong. In fact, it looked an awful lot like Master Qifrey’s hair… maybe because it was Master Qifrey’s hair!
“Oh!” she exclaimed, feeling her face grow hot. Coco knew what it meant to catch an adult sleeping in another adult’s bed; she knew that it meant that they were together.
“What’s the matter?” Olruggio said, brow furrowing at her sudden fluster.
“I’m so sorry!” Coco exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to interrupt!”
Olruggio stared at her, momentarily confused. She watched as his face flooded with color as he realized what she had meant. He whipped around to look behind himself, then smacked his forehead in exasperation.
“Qifrey!” he hissed. “We can see half your damn head!”
Qifrey’s hair disappeared underneath the blanket.
“It’s too late for that now!”
“Um!” Coco said. “I’m just gonna… go! Yep! Glad you’re okay, Master Qifrey!”
“Yes, I’m quite alright,” Qifrey agreed from underneath the blanket, a strained note to his tone that made Coco realize that he was also embarrassed.
“Richeh and Tetia are making breakfast! If you guys, um, want any! Okaybye!”
Coco practically dashed away, face flaming as she fled back to her fellow apprentices.
Qifrey emerged from under the covers, wincing at the stormy look on Olruggio’s face. For a moment, neither of them said anything as the reality of the previous exchange sank in.
“Well,” Qifrey said, breaking the silence, “I suppose that was my fault.”
“You’re telling me,” Olruggio said with a scoff. He tossed the blanket wrapped around himself onto the bed, revealing his hairy bare chest and a myriad of bruises crawling all the way up to his neck. Last night had been one of those times where, despite pleasure feeling far from Qifrey’s reach, he’d gotten a bit carried away with all the kissing. The mattress dipped as Olruggio sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh. Qifrey pushed himself upright and draped himself over Olruggio’s back, pressing his lips to his shoulder.
“Sorry, dear,” he murmured, voice muffled by the warmth of Olruggio’s skin.
Olruggio huffed. “We were gonna need to talk to them anyway.”
Qifrey slid a hand up into the hair at the base of Olruggio’s skull. Olruggio groaned, tension draining from him, as Qifrey began to massage his neck. Qifrey immediately found multiple concerning knots.
“You’re right,” Qifrey agreed. For some reason, the notion sent a bout of nerves through him. He pushed the feeling to the side as best he could. The girls were old enough to handle such a discussion, and neither he nor Olruggio wished to sneak about their own home for the next few years. A conversation was long overdue.
“Did you have to leave marks so high up though?” Olruggio asked. “Not all of us wear high-collared shirts!”
Qifrey pressed a thumb into one of the bruises. Olruggio squirmed, hissing, before swatting his hand away.
“Don’t! You’ll get me worked up again!”
Qifrey snickered. “You weren’t complaining last night,” he pointed out.
“You know I won't," Oruggio said, shaking his head. “Now I need to find a damn shirt that can cover this up.”
“You should rework your cosmetic mask,” Qifrey mused, sprawling out on the bed as Olruggio stood to disappear into his closet. “Maybe a necklace or a scarf of some sort.”
Olruggio poked his head out of his closet, a flush high on his cheeks. “Or you can just have the decency to use me as a chew toy below the neck!”
“Hmm.” Qifrey rolled over to face him, smirking. “Are you saying that you can’t figure it out?"
“That’s—!” Olruggio stopped, a conflicted expression—showing that he knew Qifrey was goading him, but couldn’t quite resist—flashing across his face. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“I would never,” Qifrey agreed. “You’d much rather I put something else there, wouldn’t you?”
“You—!” Olruggio turned a brilliant and deeper shade of red, and ducked back into his closet without a word.
“Don’t you have that sweater with a high neck?” Qifrey called after him. “The dark blue one.”
Olruggio stuck his hand out of the closet to give Qifrey the finger. Qifrey laughed for a very long time.
They came down to the kitchen a short while later. The girls sat around the table, already eating their way through what seemed to be a frankly excessive amount of scrambled eggs and toast.
“Good morning everyone,” Qifrey greeted.
“Good morning!” A chorus of young voices returned.
“Morning,” Olruggio grunted, slipping into a stool at the unoccupied table.
“You look nice, Master Olly!” Tetia chirped. “That blue is so your color!”
Olruggio scratched at his neck with a grimace. This sweater lived in the back of his closet due to the unfortunate fact that it was horribly itchy.
“Thanks,” Olruggio said, charmingly awkward.
“Thank you for thanking me!” Tetia chirped.
“To add to the thanks,” Qifrey chimed in, amused, “thank you for breakfast, girls.” He served himself and Olruggio a plate.
“Richeh cooked,” Richeh announced, nibbling on a piece of toast.
“It looks delicious!” Qifrey told her, placing Olruggio’s plate on the table and sitting next to him.
“Thank you.”
A moment of lingering silence hung over the room as Qifrey and Olruggio began to eat, during which Qifrey had to pretend not to notice the curious stares of four teenage girls.
“... Are we really not going to talk about it?” Agott asked. Qifrey resisted the urge to wilt. He’d known that Coco would tell the others—he hadn’t expected anything else—but it was Agott’s response that he worried the most about. Such a relationship between the master of an atelier and its Watchful Eye was frowned upon, and Agott tended to prefer things to be handled by the book.
“We can talk about anything you like,” Qifrey responded, then took a completely calm and collected bite of scrambled eggs.
“Are Master Qifrey and Master Olly dating?” Tetia asked, a gleam in her eyes that told Qifrey she had already made her own assumptions in the matter and would not be swayed otherwise—likely influenced by the entire stacks of romance novels she made her way through.
“We’re…” Qifrey trailed off as he realized he had no idea how to describe it, brow furrowing. “Hm.”
Was dating the right word for it? Certainly, it held the definition that worked best for how Qifrey and Olruggio acted. They held hands, they kissed, they shared a bed most nights—which, on occasion, even led to some things Qifrey couldn’t fathom doing with anyone else.
And yet, something about the word did not quite fit.
“We’re partners,” Olruggio supplied when it became clear that Qifrey would not answer.
Qifrey jolted a little, shooting a grateful glance towards Olruggio.
“Okay, so that means you’re dating!” Tetia declared.
Qifrey decided to leave it at that. He did not need to get into the technicalities of his partnership with a thirteen-year-old—especially when they were unclear to even Qifrey himself.
“Congratulations! Um—assuming you weren’t always together?” Coco said. Her face turned red and she waved her hands, flustered. “Not that that’s any of my business!”
“Master Qifrey and Master Olly have always been like this,” Richeh pointed out, going for a second plateful of eggs. “I should have made bacon,” she added as an afterthought.
“It’s not surprising,” Agott agreed, finishing up her plate, seemingly entirely unbothered. “Well, congratulations. Is it alright if I work independently for today?”
Qifrey, desperately trying to ignore how hot his face had gotten, stuttered.
“I—Um—Yes, of course that’s fine.”
“Thank you, Master.” Agott got to her feet to wash her plate.
Thankfully, the topic of conversation shifted as Tetia pulled Coco into a conversation about dressmaking. Next to Qifrey, Olruggio had dissolved into a puddle of blue sweater and sheer embarrassment. Qifrey kicked his ankle under the table.
“Finish your eggs,” he hissed. Richeh had made those eggs, and not a bite would go wasted under Qifrey’s watch.
“In a minute,” Olruggio croaked. “I need to recover from that.”
The days passed, idyllic in a way that Qifrey had never thought would be possible for him. Not much about their routine changed—most of Qifrey’s time remained dedicated towards teaching four young brilliant minds, and they had yet to bring up the nature of their masters’ relationship again. At night, Olruggio and Qifrey reconvened as they always had. Usually, they kissed, though sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes, they did more than that, though usually they didn’t. Qifrey’s wants tended to ebb and flow, and as always, Olruggio loved him for what he was.
The familiarity of it all, despite the newfound territory, made it wonderfully easy.
During one of those nights where Olruggio’s presence felt like a heavy blanket on a summer’s day—comfortable and soft, but much too warm to cover himself with—Qifrey settled on the opposite end of the sofa. Ordinarily, Qifrey liked to lean up against him. Instead, he curled up with his back to the armrest and shoved his socked toes underneath Olruggio’s thigh.
Olruggio huffed a little, but he wordlessly settled a hand on Qifrey’s ankle, balancing his book with his other hand. Qifrey tipped his head against the back of the sofa and let his eye slide mostly shut, keeping it open just enough to study Olruggio, his profile lit up by the firelight.
They remained that way for a while. With no words exchanged, only the rustling of pages and the crackling of the fire accompanied them. As clockticks passed, the need for sleep became impossible to ignore. Qifrey’s blinks turned slow, then his eye slid shut and remained that way. His chin dipped towards his chest, and the motion awoke him with a jolt.
“You alright there?” Olruggio asked, voice pitched low and soft.
“Mmph.” Qifrey reached his arms over his head and stretched. “I’m falling asleep. Time for bed, I suppose.”
“It is late for you,” Olruggio noted as Qifrey got to his feet.
“It’s late for anyone. I trust that you’ll follow my example soon?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Olruggio said, waving a hand. “I’m guessin’ separate bedrooms tonight?”
That steady fondness for Olruggio that lived in Qifrey’s chest swelled to an overwhelming degree. How Olruggio had begun to recognize the shifts in Qifrey’s mercurial want for physical closeness, Qifrey did not know—Qifrey could hardly even recognize them himself.
Qifrey loved him so utterly.
Qifrey stepped towards him to card his fingers through his hair. Olruggio leaned into the touch with a satisfied little rumbling noise. Cute, Qifrey thought, and he had the brief thought of voicing it just to watch him blush.
“Yes,” Qifrey told him. “If that’s alright?”
“‘Course,” said Olruggio. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Qifrey dropped his hand and took a small step backwards. He meant to take his leave then, but the sight of Olruggio, wearing that patient and gentle expression, made a sudden burst of gratitude sweep through him.
“Thank you,” Qifrey blurted. It left him in a rush of breath.
“What for?” Olruggio asked.
Qifrey smiled. “For being you.”
Qifrey got to see him blush anyway—a fetching shade of red that stole across Olruggio’s cheeks.
“Don’t need to thank me for that.”
“I disagree.” Qifrey leaned over to press a quick kiss to the top of his head. His hair smelled of Qifrey’s own shampoo. “Goodnight, dear.”
“Goodnight,” Olruggio returned, looking both pleased and embarrassed at the show of affection.
“And put that book down soon.”
“Oh shove off,” Olruggio complained, which made Qifrey laugh all the way to his own bedroom.
These days, Qifrey’s bed only saw use about a third of the time—perhaps even less. Regardless, Olruggio had insisted on replacing his mattress and sheets for something more comfortable. Those first few nights, the newfound softness had ironically been uncomfortable; he’d tossed and turned relentlessly. Now, it felt like a part of Olruggio surrounded him even when he lay in bed alone. Qifrey drifted off easily, and his dreams were hazy, warm, and a comfort.
After that night, a few days passed without them seeing much of each other. Olruggio threw himself into a commission with an intensity that Qifrey hadn’t seen in months. Whenever Olruggio worked in this way, their sleep schedules misaligned so terribly that even if Qifrey sought out Olruggio’s bed, he would still find himself sleeping alone; thus, he kept to his own room. He did, however, continue showing up to Olruggio’s workshop to ply him with food and water. On the last night of this, after delivering a hearty dinner to Olruggio’s desk, Qifrey drifted past the loft and into Olruggio’s bedroom on a whim. He curled up in sheets that smelled of him, and woke to Olruggio slipping under the covers beside him.
Qifrey rolled over to give him more space. Into a pillow, he mumbled, “What time is it?”
Olruggio ran a hand through Qifrey’s mussed up hair. “Not morning yet. Go back to sleep, love.”
Qifrey hummed, and drifted off as Olruggio slung an arm over his middle and cuddled up close.
Late the next morning, Olruggio stumbled into the kitchen looking exhausted as Qifrey cleaned up after breakfast. The girls had already disappeared outside to make the most out of the pleasantly cool autumn day, so only the two of them occupied the space.
“You look like you hardly slept,” Qifrey chided. “Would you like breakfast?”
Olruggio sank into a stool at the table and buried his head in his arms.
“Not hungry,” he said, voice muffled. “Too tired.”
“You should eat something. Toast?”
“I guess.”
Qifrey picked up a piece of toast and began to slather it in jam. “I really wish you’d stop doing this to yourself.”
Olruggio lifted his head and rested his chin on one of his hands. “It’s hard to get motivation to work if the deadline isn’t right around the corner. Doesn’t feel real to me ‘til then. I finished up though, so now I have a bit of a break.”
Olruggio had been this way for as long as Qifrey could remember. No matter how much he tried to pace himself, he always ended up waiting until the last minute and working in short, intense bursts.
Qifrey set the plate in front of him. “Will you be going back to sleep then?”
“Probably not,” Olruggio said. He took a bite of the toast. Around his mouthful, he continued, “I’m tired, but I feel too awake. You know what I mean?”
“I do,” Qifrey said, leaning back against the counter to watch him eat.
With Qifrey’s tendency to sometimes keep to himself, he hadn’t felt Olruggio’s absence as keenly as he probably should have, given the nature of their relationship. In his mind, Olruggio was always there—merely through a door should Qifrey choose to go looking for him. However, he realized perhaps a bit belatedly that he had missed him. He hadn’t thought about why he’d felt compelled to lie down in Olruggio’s bed the night before, but watching him in this way—sleep-rumpled and visibly exhausted, with a smudge of jam on the corner of his lips—something slotted comfortably into place.
Perhaps, Qifrey had allowed the familiar distance to settle between them for a tad too long. He knew Olruggio would rarely, if ever, push for Qifrey’s company. If Qifrey lingered on the reasons behind the nature of this dynamic, familiar feelings of guilt would make themselves known. Instead, Qifrey turned his attention to the newfound urge to make it up to him.
Qifrey took the plate as Olruggio finished the last bite of his meager breakfast. Olruggio smiled, his eyes crinkling with his own affection.
“Thanks,” Olruggio said. “I’ll help you tidy up.”
“No need,” Qifrey responded, stepping towards the sink.
“I know,” Olruggio said, gathering up the rest of the dishes Qifrey had used to prepare breakfast. They worked in comfortable silence for a moment—Qifrey wiped down the counter and table as Olruggio piled dishes in the sink.
“If you’re not going to sleep, would you like to go into town today?” Qifrey asked, sketching out a spell to handle the dish washing with hardly a glance. “They’re holding the monthly farmer’s market. It’d be nice to get some fresh fruits and vegetables.”
“Sounds good,” Olruggio agreed, drawing up his own spell to dry the dishes. “Should we pack some lunch for the girls?”
Olruggio’s consideration of the girls never failed to make Qifrey feel nearly giddy with affection. He smiled down at the dishes, watching the spell do its work.
“I meant just the two of us,” Qifrey said, tone suffused with warmth. “We haven’t had a day with just us in so long. I had planned today as a self-study day already. We could have a date of sorts, if you’d like to call it that. We’ve never had a proper one of those.”
To Qifrey, this was a matter-of-fact statement; he hadn’t meant it in a particularly romantic fashion. Olruggio still flushed, and his pen wobbled uncharacteristically, so much so that he tore the page out from his palm quire with a curse.
“Don’t just say stuff like that!” he sputtered, quickly redrawing the spell. He ducked his head low to hide his face, but he couldn’t cover his reddening ears.
“Apologies.” Qifrey tried and failed to keep his amusement from his tone. Olruggio had always been so delightfully easy to fluster; lately, Qifrey kept managing it without even trying.
A rush of dry heat washed over him, standing so close to the dishes, as Olruggio closed the spell circle.
“Don’t act like you’re sorry when you’re not,” Olruggio grumbled. “But that does sound nice.”
Qifrey beamed, clapping his hands together. “Excellent! Shall we leave once we’re finished cleaning up?”
Olruggio, still blushing, agreed.
The temperature had thankfully dropped in the last couple of weeks, and the sun warmed their shoulders in a comfortable sort of way. This past summer had been nearly unbearably hot—neither he nor Olruggio handled the heat particularly well, though given Qifrey’s choice of clothing, this was partly his own fault.
The pleasant weather made their walk through the market rather enjoyable. Qifrey reached for Olruggio’s hand and laced their fingers together. People always watched witches closely, and Qifrey could feel their gazes like an itch between his shoulders. It came with a bizarre realization that he and Olruggio must look a certain way to them—he didn’t know how he felt about that, exactly, but he liked holding Olruggio’s hand too much to let go, even as their palms got sweaty and their grip turned slippery.
They were on their way back home, arms laden with bags of groceries, when a stall caught Olruggio’s eye. It must be a local jeweler—displayed were glittering pieces that gleamed as you walked by.
Neither Qifrey nor Olruggio tended towards jewelry, though they had gotten their ears pierced together in their teens. Olruggio, unfortunately, had let the holes close years ago, though he’d expressed wanting to repierce them recently. Qifrey maintained his with simple silver studs in his lobes and a silver hoop through his cartilage. On occasion, he switched them out for more impressive jewelry, or on a whim added a chain connecting the stud to the hoop, but usually he found the ones that dangled below his earlobes more of a hassle than they were worth; they often caught on things, and he found the sensation of them to be utterly distracting.
Olruggio seemed particularly drawn to a pair of silver hoop earrings with a dark blue gem dangling from them—the exact shade of Olruggio’s eyes. Qifrey did not understand what about them had pulled him in; the gemstone would suit him, but Olruggio had always tended towards gold jewelry.
“Caught your attention, did they?” The young woman behind the stall said to Olruggio.
“Aye.” Olruggio reached out and nudged one of the dangling gems with a finger. It swung at his touch, catching the light of the afternoon sun.
“For you?” she asked. “Or perhaps for your handsome boyfriend here?” She followed this with a wink in Qifrey’s direction.
It took Qifrey a moment to catch up to the conversation. He realized a bit belatedly that the boyfriend she had referenced was in fact himself. A prickle of discomfort had him correcting her before he even realized he had opened his mouth.
“Partner.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry! The blue would suit you perfectly, though. Is mister okay? Or do you prefer miss?”
Qifrey frowned, confused, before he realized that she’d thought the correction was due to the gendered nature of the term. His face began to heat, and he had the bizarre urge to duck behind Olruggio and hide—something that he hadn’t done since they were children.
“... Mister is fine.”
“Well, mister, if you’d like to try them on you can!”
“No, no, that’s quite alright—”
“I’ll take them,” Olruggio cut him off. He pulled out his wallet. “How much?”
When they finally made it home, the girls greeted them cheerfully. Qifrey asked them about their progress on some of their own personal projects while everyone in the house helped put away the groceries. Qifrey noticed Olruggio’s already scant energy beginning to wane—he nearly dozed off at the table while the rest of the household clattered about in the kitchen. He jumped a little when Qifrey placed a hand on his shoulder.
“M’awake,” he declared, rubbing his eyes.
Qifrey chuckled. “Not for long. I’m putting you to bed.”
Olruggio scoffed. “What am I? A child?”
“Goodnight, Master Olly!” Coco called, which started a chorus of goodnight wishes from the rest of the girls.
“The sun is still up,” Olruggio grumbled, but he allowed Qifrey to pull him along to his half of the atelier.
Once they got to Olruggio’s bedroom, he seemed much more alert—almost nervous. Qifrey got the sense that he wanted to say something; when Olruggio got like this, Qifrey found it best to simply wait. Qifrey tidied patiently while Olruggio worked up his courage, picking up discarded laundry and neatly stacking scraps of paper with half-finished sketches onto the nightstand. Olruggio watched him, loitering with an awkward air next to the bed.
Eventually, Olruggio reached a hand into his pocket and, with reddened cheeks, presented a jewelry box to him
“Obviously, I got these for you. I know you don’t tend to like the dangly ones, but…” He trailed off.
Qifrey took the small box reverently, feeling his own face grow warm. “They’re lovely, Olly. What’s the occasion?”
Olruggio rubbed the back of his neck. “I uh—well, a ring is probably too overt, and I know you don’t wear necklaces or bracelets often, so…”
Qifrey stared at him, stunned. Olruggio’s face grew impossibly redder.
“Don’t look at me like that! You don’t have to wear th—”
Qifrey covered his mouth with his hand. He thought of Olruggio in a pair of his own earrings, inlaid with a gem colored in a lighter shade of blue.
“Get your ears pierced again, please,” Qifrey demanded, before he could think such a thing to be unreasonable to say.
Olruggio’s eyes widened. “Okay,” he agreed into Qifrey’s palm. Qifrey dropped his hand.
With a delayed realization that insisting on a permanent body modification may be a step too far, Qifrey pivoted.
“Or, I’ll buy you a necklace. You’d wear one, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course,” Olruggio breathed.
“You should have told me that was the intent,” Qifrey chided, fumbling to remove his current earrings without a mirror. “I would’ve liked to return it when I had the chance.”
Olruggio buried his face in his hands. Qifrey paused, halfway through removing his second earring, as he felt the mood between them suddenly shift.
“Olly?” Qifrey asked. He set the earring he had managed to remove on top of the stack of sketches on the nightstand. Olruggio didn’t respond.
“Olruggio,” Qifrey said, voice soft yet firm. He grabbed onto Olruggio’s hands and gently tugged them away from his face. Olruggio’s mouth pressed into a thin line and he turned away, blinking rapidly as if he were trying his absolute hardest not to cry. “Oh dear. Come here. Sit.”
He guided Olruggio to his bed and they sat together. Olruggio sucked in a deep, shuddering breath.
“I’m fine,” he insisted before Qifrey could get a single word in.
“I see this,” Qifrey said in as dry of a tone that he could muster.
Olruggio swatted at his shoulder, but a smile broke through the clouds of his expression.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m just tired.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Qifrey rubbed a hand up and down Olruggio’s back. “Was it something that I said?”
Olruggio shook his head. “No, that’s not it.” He rubbed his face with a sigh. “I guess it was just overwhelming, all of a sudden. All of,” he gestured between the two of them, “this.”
“Ah,” Qifrey said. “Yes, I understand. Quite well in fact. But we are still us, are we not?”
“‘Course we are.”
“Precisely.”
Olruggio shook his head. “This is ridiculous.”
“Yes well, I’ve been much more bizarre about,” Qifrey copied Olruggio’s earlier gesture, “this.”
Olruggio snorted. “I don’t mind it.”
“Well I do.” Qifrey sighed, running an anxious hand through his hair. “I don’t like my response to how people look at us.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Olruggio said. He didn’t sound terribly disturbed by it. “That’s why I thought of the earrings instead of a ring.” Olruggio paused. “Did you wanna talk about it?”
Qifrey sighed. “It’s not something to worry about. Honestly.”
Olruggio raised an eyebrow. “And yet you are worrying. Clearly.”
“Well,” Qifrey said with a sniff, “the particulars of our relationship are no one’s business but our own.”
“Agreed.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
A beat of silence followed.
“It still bothers you,” Olruggio pointed out.
“Yes!” Qifrey burst. “It does!”
He stood up and began to pace, feet tracing a path on the worn rug. Olruggio watched him from his seat on the bed, a bemused expression on his face.
“I just know when people say things like that,” Qifrey said, “they make incorrect assumptions.”
Olruggio’s brow furrowed. “Say things like what?”
“Boyfriends. Dating. The like. People go on believing that we are a certain way that we are not.”
“So?” Olruggio asked.
“It’s—incorrect! It’s wrong! It is wrong!”
“Would you… prefer to try to explain it to others?”
At the thought, Qifrey visibly cringed, nose wrinkling. He shook his head vehemently.
“No it’s just—you know Alaira congratulated me the other day. In a letter. You know she never writes. She said, ‘Congratulations on you two finally kissing.’ Why did she even know that we kiss now?”
“Well, word spreads.”
“She didn’t congratulate me on removing the curse I’ve carried for decades!”
“I mean, maybe that was… assumed?”
“I just don’t understand. Everyone acts like we’ve fundamentally changed because sometimes I put my mouth on yours—”
“Well, it is different,” Olruggio interjected.
“—but we’ve been partners for years now!”
“Right.”
Qifrey stopped pacing. He wrung his hands. “... Haven’t we? I know we’re closer than we were before, but the ways that matter to me seem to matter little to everyone else.”
Olruggio sighed. “Qifrey, sit down. You’re wearing a hole into my rug.”
Qifrey sat. He tipped over to rest his head on Olruggio’s shoulder. Olruggio looped an arm around his waist and pulled him in closer.
“I would have worn the earrings before all this, you know,” Qifrey told him. “That is my point.”
Olruggio rested his cheek on Qifrey’s hair. “I know, love.”
“I probably would have needed to go for a swim in a freezing cold lake afterwards, but I would have.”
“Good thing I waited, then.”
“Indeed.”
Qifrey sucked in a breath. He wanted to explain why this bothered him so much. It felt imperative for Olruggio to understand; he must know that it was not due to a lack of love. He took a few clockticks to gather his thoughts.
“I spent so long being unable to make myself understood, Olly.”
Olruggio made a noise that sounded like grief. “I know.”
Qifrey picked at his nails anxiously. “I suppose it’s frustrating to think that this is just how I am. I am odd. I cannot feel things in the proper way. I cannot be understood, even if I voice it. What other people assume we are is just a reminder of all that I am not.”
At that, Olruggio pulled away. Qifrey mourned the loss, until Olruggio cupped his face in his hands and brought their gazes together.
“Qifrey, so what if we’re odd?”
Olruggio had used we. The tension in Qifrey began to unspool.
“I hate to break it to you,” Olruggio continued, “but we’ve always been odd.”
Qifrey laughed a little. “Have we?”
“Yes!” Olruggio smushed Qifrey’s cheeks. Qifrey batted his hands away with another short laugh. He placed his own hands down back in his lap and studied them, good humor fading as quickly as it had arrived.
“I have this fear that I’ve, oh I don’t know, manipulated you into this somehow. That if you hear it enough from others, you’ll also begin to make incorrect assumptions, and when you realize I cannot provide those things for you in that way, you’ll feel let down.”
“Qifrey, you have made it remarkably clear what you can or cannot feel.” Olruggio laid a hand over Qifrey’s, and the warmth of it felt like reassurance.
“How can I expect you to make sense of it all when I can’t even do so myself?”
Olruggio huffed. “These things never make sense, Qifrey. They’re feelings. You just, I dunno, feel them and live with them.”
“Ugh,” Qifrey groaned. “The horror.”
Olruggio snorted. The sound made Qifrey aware of this terrifying amount of fondness he carried, all of it now itching for somewhere to go. Qifrey bonked their heads together, which got a proper laugh from Olruggio.
“What’re you tryin’ to be? An owlcat?”
“Oh hush,” Qifrey said, once again tucking his head onto Olruggio’s shoulder. They remained that way for a while, Olruggio’s thumb rubbing soothing circles across the back of Qifrey’s hand. The onslaught of affection that had washed over Qifrey felt almost too much to bear. He struggled to sit with it, to not pull away as decades of learned instinct told him to do. He took a deep breath.
“You must know that I love you. No matter how I act, or how close to you I wish to be, I love you. Always.”
“I know,” Olruggio said, “you sap.”
Qifrey smiled. He turned his face into Olruggio’s neck. “You’re not going to say you love me too?”
“Don’t be difficult,” Olruggio complained, a strangled note to his voice. Oh, he was embarrassed. “You know that I love you too.”
Qifrey nosed at his neck, breathing in the scent of him. He knew there was one more thing he needed to say. He hated to bring up another issue, but it was best to nip this in the bud before it caused a proper problem. He pulled away, taking Olruggio’s hand into both of his. Olruggio, sensing Qifrey’s shift to a more serious tone, turned to face him.
Qifrey gave his hand a squeeze. “Olly, I need you to promise me that you will speak up if I’m not providing what you need.”
Olruggio made a noise of protest. He tried to pull away. Qifrey kept him in place.
“You won’t—”
“I will,” Qifrey cut him off. “I will because I cannot read your mind. I will because so much of what you need will not occur to me. I know you sometimes need affection in the same way that I sometimes need distance. You can ask me for it. I want you to.”
“What if…” Olruggio’s voice got uncharacteristically small. “What if my needs conflict with yours?”
Qifrey blew out a breath. “I would much rather you tell me regardless, and that we figure out a solution together.”
Olruggio said nothing.
“I am aware that you’re horrible at asking for things—“
Olruggio bristled. “Hey—“
“—but I’d feel much more assured in this, in us, if you’d agree to at least try.”
Olruggio’s brow furrowed. “When you say it like that, you know I can’t say no.”
“I know,” Qifrey said. He put a hand to Olruggio’s face and pulled it closer to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”
“Argh,” Olruggio responded, an aggravated and disgruntled sound that made Qifrey laugh. He turned and wrapped his arms around Qifrey’s middle and hauled them both backward to lay in the bed, feet still dangling off the edge.
“You’re a menace,” he grumbled, squeezing Qifrey tight.
“Am I?” Qifrey asked, squirming a bit in his grip.
“Yes!”
Olruggio swung a leg over Qifrey’s waist to straddle him. He leaned down. Qifrey, expecting him to go for a kiss, tilted his chin up and let his eye flutter shut. He squawked in surprise when Olruggio rubbed their faces together instead, prickly stubble scratching across Qifrey’s cheek. It turned into laughter as Olruggio jabbed his fingers into Qifrey’s ribs.
“Stop!” Qifrey gasped, shoving him away. Olruggio went easily, his own laughter joining Qifrey’s as he flopped over to lay on his back.
“That was revenge,” Olruggio declared.
Qifrey snickered. “For me being a menace?”
“Yep.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Pot. Kettle.”
Qifrey laughed. “Fair enough.”
He rolled on his side to face Olruggio. Olruggio mimicked the motion. He took a gentle hold of Olruggio’s chin, rubbing a thumb over his unkempt stubble.
“I had fun today,” he said.
“Me too,” Olruggio said, eyes sliding shut.
“I’d missed you,” Qifrey said. “I hadn’t even realized. Isn’t that bizarre?”
“Mmm,” Olruggio hums.
Qifrey moved his thumb to Olruggio’s lips, dragging it across them. Olruggio shivered.
“It’s been a few days,” Qifrey noted.
“Since what?” Olruggio whispered.
Qifrey leaned forward and brought their lips together. Olruggio exhaled a content little sigh through his nose. When Qifrey pulled back, Olruggio smiled.
“Since that,” Qifrey told him.
“Yeah. I missed that,” Olruggio mumbled. He looked halfway to falling asleep, blinking tiredly with a dopey grin on his face.
“Come on, get up,” Qifrey said, sitting up. “You shouldn’t sleep in your shoes, and I have no earthly idea how to get your socks off.”
“Yes you do,” Olruggio grumbled as Qifrey slid off the bed. “You’ve done it before.”
Qifrey took hold of Olruggio’s wrist and pulled him upright. Olruggio let the force of it tip him forward to bury his face in Qifrey’s stomach. Qifrey laughed, carding his hands through Olruggio’s hair.
“Olly.”
“I’m gonna sleep. Right here.”
Qifrey stepped back and Olruggio made a mournful little noise. “You need a bath. Your hair is all oily.”
“Ugh.”
“I’ll help you,” Qifrey offered.
Olruggio visibly perked up. Still, he said, “You don’t need to.”
Qifrey frowned. He cupped Olruggio’s cheek in a hand and guided his gaze upwards so their eyes met. He raised an eyebrow.
“Would you like me to?”
A blush bloomed across Olruggio’s cheeks. His eyes darted to the side.
“… Yes.”
“Then I will.” Qifrey leaned over to give him a short peck. Then he took hold of Olruggio’s hands to drag him to standing. “Up you get.”
Qifrey told Olruggio to remove his clothes as he went to fill up the bathtub. Olruggio complied sleepily, fumbling with the ties around his sleeves. Qifrey returned to help him lift his shirt over his head. He listed forward after he had stepped out of the rest of his clothes, forehead resting against Qifrey’s shoulder. Qifrey gently dislodged him, laughing lightly while doing so.
“I can’t get undressed like this. Go get in the water.”
Olruggio unstuck himself from Qifrey’s side, grumbling nonsensically as he stepped into the bathtub. Qifrey joined him moments later, taking a deep breath to shake off a hint of familiar anxiety as he dipped into the warm water. Olruggio returned to Qifrey as soon as he could, clingy in a way he rarely let himself be. Qifrey tucked him up against his front, wrapping his arms around Olruggio’s middle and holding him close.
“You don’t hafta soak with me,” Olruggio mumbled. “I know you don’t like it.”
Qifrey pressed a kiss to his temple. “It’s no trouble, dear. Not for a little while.”
Qifrey spent many years using this very same bathtub to create anxiety for himself. On the good days, on the days where branches began to grow and shift beneath his skin, he would fill this tub with icy water and dunk his head beneath the surface; he would force himself to remain that way until everything but his racing heart grew still.
It was hard to reconcile that experience with this one—with the scent of the fragranced soap that created bubbles across the surface of the water, with the feeling of Olruggio’s bare skin pressed against his own. Warm water shifted and rippled every time one of them moved. Olruggio grew more and more lax as the clockticks passed, until Qifrey’s arms around his waist became the only thing keeping him upright.
“Olly,” Qifrey murmured. “We still need to wash your hair.”
“You wash your hair,” Olruggio mumbled.
Qifrey laughed. “I can’t do that either if you fall asleep on me.”
Olruggio groaned, but he sat up enough that Qifrey could stand up out of the water. He shivered, grimacing at the feeling of water running down his skin in rivulets. He stepped out of the water, wrapped himself up in a bathrobe, and dragged a stool beside the bathtub.
“Dunk your head,” Qifrey instructed. Olruggio obeyed, emerging dripping wet and bedraggled in a way that made Qifrey smile. He halfheartedly attempted to cover it with his hand.
“What?” Olruggio asked.
“Nothing, nothing. Face away from me.”
The water splashed over the edge of the tub as Olruggio did so, droplets landing on Qifrey’s lap. Qifrey took the bar of shampoo and lathered it in his hands. He set it aside and began to work the suds into Olruggio’s dark hair. Olruggio made a sound that Qifrey normally heard under a very different set of circumstances as Qifrey massaged his scalp. Qifrey paused, eyebrows raising as he fought the urge to laugh. Olruggio stiffened. Qifrey watched his ears turn red.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I could hear you thinking it.”
Qifrey resumed washing Olruggio’s hair, and the tension immediately left him again. Amused and slightly fascinated, Qifrey kept at it long after he needed to, until his back began to protest being slightly hunched over and Olruggio had melted into something resembling the consistency of jelly.
“Feel good?” Qifrey asked.
“Mmph.”
“Come on. We need to rinse now.”
Qifrey turned on the faucet and guided Olruggio’s head under it. Afterwards, he got them both dried off and dressed. He herded an even sleepier Olruggio back to his bedroom and gently pushed him onto his mattress. He laughed as Olruggio let himself flop over the covers.
He leaned over and pushed Olruggio’s bangs out of his face. Olruggio’s very own link rings had ensured that his hair remained not even the slightest bit damp. Olruggio blinked up at him slowly.
“Goodnight, Olly,” Qifrey said.
Olruggio reached for Qifrey, hand fisting in his skirt. “Mm, stay.”
The request made something anxious in Qifrey finally settle. At the very least, Qifrey had gotten through to him enough for him to ask.
“I would,” Qifrey told him, feeling a little mournful at having to deny him, “but I have to make dinner for the girls.”
“Oh, right.” Olruggio released his grip on Qifrey’s skirt. “Come back, then?”
Qifrey pressed a kiss to Olruggio’s forehead. “Of course, dear. Always.”
On his way out, he remembered the earrings. Olruggio began to snore softly as Qifrey carefully put them on. The sensation of the gems dangling from his ears felt like much less of an irritant than he had remembered it being. In fact, as he stopped by a mirror to admire how they looked, he found that he liked them more than any other earrings he had ever worn.