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A fire blazes in the hearth, large and roaring; Olruggio sits far too close to the flames, nursing his second bottle of the evening. He slumps a little further down against the couch, closer to the floor rug now, though his eyes remain keen, fixed upon the stairs to a darkened hallway.
He’s been here too long---waiting, brooding, stewing---and it’s taken its toll. It’s not even a cold night, the fire overstoked, and his clothes sit too heavily on his frame, suffocating. Now he’s pouring sweat, well on his way to pissed drunk, with a mighty big bone to pick with his one and only best friend. He scoffs, taking another large swig of wine. Well, what else is new?
It's not even that Qifrey has suddenly veered headlong into the task of professorship and taking the fifth test—something that Olruggio had never heard him express interest in until a few weeks prior. No it's… it's the shitting way he went about it.
It was a week or so ago, one of the rare times Olruggio made it to the kitchen by noon, mostly because he hadn’t yet gone to sleep. Retreating from the impossibly tangled issues with his current commission, he’d wagered that a break and some company might shake something loose. He’d been sat at the low table across from Qifrey, exhausted, bleary-eyed, half-sunk into the mug of thornbark tea Qifrey had fixed for him.
Then, as calmly measured as if he were reciting something, Qifrey announced: “I am making preparations to take on apprentices.”
Olruggio ceased his slurping all at once, head lifting slowly to blink over at the other a few times. “Er…” He rubbed the back of his head in idle confusion.
A light chuckle followed. “Well, an apprentice, to start.” Qifrey’s hands knitted together atop the table.
“You wanna… teach? Really?” he managed drowsily, unable to fully process the declaration. “Quite the undertakin’.”
Qifrey inclined his head just so. “I believe it could be good for me.” His gaze sat upon Olruggio, expectant and carefully neutral.
Olruggio hummed under his breath, the sound more of a sleepy rumble. Qifrey, a teacher? Hm. He swept his gaze over him thoughtfully. He had a welcoming demeanor when he so chose: a gentle voice and an insatiable, infectious curiosity, about anything and everything, really. Whereas Olruggio had specialized in contraption-making and spells that would help Unknowing communities, Qifrey had a hunger for learning of any sort, filling his mind anew after his previous life had been ripped from him. As a result, he’d gathered a sweeping breadth of knowledge, reading voraciously upon a variety of subjects.
The thought settled in. Qifrey, a teacher. A delayed joy trickled over Olruggio, thick and sweet as honeytree nectar. It would suit him. And it meant… that his friend was thinking forward, to the future, that he was making plans for himself within the atelier, discovering what he wanted, and how he wished to live amongst witch society. At last.
They were a few years removed from the Great Hall now, and still Qifrey had been… untethered, agitated at times, prone to bouts of silent melancholy. A bit purposeless, even. But this? Dedicating himself to a definitive goal, a calling. It was different, sure, but perhaps it would be good for him.
“A bit sudden,” Olruggio said slowly. He took another sip of his tea, then shrugged. “But, a’right, yeah. If that’s what y’want. Then m’happy for ya.” He tried to dredge up a sleepy smile, to show he meant it.
The sticky-warm feeling stretched for another lovely moment, before… Qifrey’s expression flashed with such unvarnished relief, his eye wide and darting from Olruggio to his hands and back. As if he’d gotten away with something. Like there was far more to this than a desire to try something new. Like there was something that he wasn’t telling Olruggio. Wasn’t that always the way of it, now?
His stomach dropped, a stone in a bottomless well, the joy souring as Qifrey offered him a small smile in return. It twitched nervously on his lips in a way only Olruggio would be able to notice.
Then, Qifrey stood, turning away to bustle about the kitchen. He changed the subject, chattering about unrelated topics, and their meal continued as if nothing strange had occurred. Olruggio grunted short replies, picking at his food, allowing Qifrey to gently admonish him to eat more. Like normal. Except… the nervousness persisted.
He half-wished he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t seen the glint of truth beneath the surface. Wished that he could leave it alone for once in his life.
But that’s not who he is.
It occurred to Olruggio—only after a few clockmarks conked out in what passed for rest these days—that Qifrey had planned it exactly like that. It began to rankle incessantly: The exchange. The way it was almost staged. The way Qifrey had waited until Olruggio was hazy and ill-prepared for a real conversation, and the way his expression had given him away so baldly.
Dropping the news upon Olruggio as unceremoniously as a bundle of wet laundry, right at a moment when he was at his most muzzy, exhausted from the day of work, barely conscious. So as to incur the least resistance. The least interrogation.
How spare the details, how scant the reasoning. How rehearsed. And how sudden it all was. Qifrey had never before mentioned apprentices or a desire to teach. Hells, he’d been unsociable his whole life, tetchy around others, misanthropic at the best of times. Fleeing the Great Hall for the countryside as soon as humanly possible, eschewing all company but Olruggio’s. (A fierce pride burned within him at that. It was a luxury, a privilege, to be allowed to know him. That mind, that presence, glistering bright as the sun upon snow crystals.)
And the delivery of it. Announced. Not discussed, nor negotiated, though they both lived within the atelier. He’d been informed.
This is what I have decided. You will follow along, as always.
And dammit all, he would, wouldn’t he?
His suspicion was piqued further when, overnight, Qifrey threw himself into preparations and study as if there were scalewolves snapping at his heels. It was a fervor previously reserved only for dragons and hunting for his missing memories. As if this new endeavor were life or death.
For days, Olruggio barely saw him. Occasional meals were left under warming spells beside his door or on the counter. No note, no invitation to dine together. Slinking about his own home, avoiding even the possibility of further scrutiny, his friend turned to a ghost. And wasn’t that a familiar sinking dread?
To anyone who didn’t know Qifrey well, the behavior would seem unremarkable. After all, there were always plausible errands or chores to be done, always something to keep him too busy to chat for longer than a moment or two before he’d be off again.
But Olruggio had known this man since he was a hissing, half-feral thing with no idea what the world was, because it had been stolen from him. When he was more wound than anything else, before he’d begrudgingly learned to trust Olruggio: a friendship he'd fought tooth and nail for, earned with his own blood drawn by sawbrush leaves.
A prickly creature with an anger and will to rival Olruggio’s own lived beneath the militantly polite mask. He knew that creature better than he knew himself. To him, these distant pleasantries and airy excuses were about as subtle as a herd of eldroxen stampeding through the foyer.
And sure, Qifrey had the convenient excuse of studying for the fifth test, to explain locking himself away in his room every night, stacks of books on pedagogy delivered from the Great Hall libraries. Nevermind that they'd always studied for tests together, heads bent over spellbooks and quires and draft upon draft, practically sharing the same chair. But that was a long time ago.
These days, he never knew which Qifrey he was going to get. He could shift so abruptly, a different person from morning to evening. Hell, at times, from breath to breath.
In the space of an encounter, he could go from warm and chatty, his smiles loose and real, to closed-off and almost sullen, reverted to the childhood habit of sucking his teeth. Then snapping again to a carefully composed pleasantness like armor atop some deep everpresent melancholy. Still other times, Qifrey would say these desperately sentimental things like it was nothing, Olruggio's entire face set ablaze, and then smooth over it, recoiling away like he didn't mean to let so much slip.
The worst, however, were the times he would stare silently, piercingly, at Olruggio when he thought he wasn’t paying attention, as if he meant to do something. It made the back of his neck prickle from the intense energy thrumming through the room, but the moment Olruggio tried to acknowledge it, there was the shift, the backpedal, yet again.
Truly, he’s the most bloody vexing person Olruggio has ever met. Well, at least he can say that life with Qifrey is never boring. The effort to make a jest of it, even in his own mind, falls flat, and he scowls into the darkness. Rather, the mixed signals have long begun to drive him to teeth-gritting frustration.
Sloshy and slurry, Olruggio lolls his head against the couch. He’s getting nowhere. Rummaging through his mind like a junk drawer, he tries to locate the exact shape of his anger, nebulous and abrupt as it feels.
At some unknowable juncture, a wedge was driven between them. The fact that Qifrey feels the need to hide from Olruggio can only mean he's lost his trust in some way. And since he doesn’t know what or why, he doesn’t know how to fix it. Doesn’t know what to change about himself, what deficiency to correct for. And Qifrey, damnable, closemouthed, secretive, will not clue him in.
So, Olruggio waits. He is as patient as he knows how to be. He will keep watch at the gates of Qifrey’s heart, holding a bullheaded vigil, for as long as it takes. But, regrettably, he waits poorly. He buries himself in work until his spells turn to ink-blotted scribbles, and then he drinks.
Pouring alcohol upon the seethe of his thoughts only makes them flare into these spikes of anger, bitterness, self-loathing, despair. Nearly as rash and quick-tempered as he was as a boy, despite attempts to quell that spitting fire. He sometimes feels helpless with anger. He burns and burns and eventually it will lick its way free. This is why he really shouldn't drink alone.
He huffs out a breath so heavy it could very well drag him to his grave, taking another swig of wine. Maybe he's got it wrong, too suspicious for his own good, judging Qifrey overly harshly. Fixating on something that simply isn’t there, in order to avoid the more obvious answer; to waylay the feelings beneath that revelation: that maybe there is no greater scheme to this apprentice business, and Qifrey truly does seek his calling. That his purpose simply lives elsewhere than with Olruggio.
A loud crackle sounds in the quiet. His eyes flick from the hallway back to the shifting flames of the hearth. Perhaps the blame is not all down to Qifrey and his strange moods. After all, it takes two to choreograph this debacle of a dance.
Olruggio is all rough edges these days. Sometimes he feels like a cliff face, the stone steadily eroded by an unrelenting tide of responsibilities, now pockmarked and crumbling. Fatigue writ into his very soul, weighing down every stitch of him. Eyeballs itching, limbs heavy, mind sluggish from long years of sleep deprivation. He can no longer recall a time when he wasn't bonedeep exhausted.
He works too much, probably. In sporadic, frenzied bursts at all hours of the night. But there's just so much to do, so many folk who need his help, who otherwise wouldn't have access to the ways magic can alleviate their suffering. His weariness pales in comparison to what could happen if he started to slack off.
And anyway, he doesn't sleep well. He's never slept well, to be honest. Not since the blizzard. He’d only found some measure of peace during the rare golden time when he and Qifrey were boys, their nights spent falling asleep in each other's bunks, having gotten distracted talking and drawing and reading and telling stories. Or camping out under the stars, bedrolls huddled close together to keep warm.
Feeling Qifrey close, the warm weight of his body, knowing exactly where he was, that he was safe… It would always send Olruggio right to sleep without night terrors, his racing thoughts quieted and replaced instead by the steady cadence of Qifrey’s gusting breaths. Before Qifrey began to recede like a tide, as mercurial as the element he so loathes.
He rakes a hand through his hair in agitation, caught out by his own churning thoughts. Maybe the real problem is that Olruggio has become too sensitive to any change. He’s been known to clutch too greedily, after all, to cling too tight, suffocating the other until… Well. The one wound carved deeper than all the rest:
One day, mid-restoration of the atelier, Qifrey up and left. He gave no explanation. (But Olruggio knew in his bones it was his fault.) Gone for months with little word. A few short letters arrived, now and then. Proof of life, as if he knew otherwise Olruggio would come tearing after him.
He’d stayed put, he’d worked, he’d… the time had gone by even stranger than usual, everything crackling, fuzzy, cold. Buried beneath layers of snow that he’d rather not dig out. It should bother him more the way he cannot remember his initial reaction, nor much of the time spent during Qifrey’s absence. Cut out like a hole in an ice sheet, peering down yielded nothing but silence and dark.
Then, one equally inauspicious day, Qifrey had returned: bedraggled, hollow-eyed, with a sword. It'd been… messy. A right mullock, really. Olruggio reduced to less of a witch and more broken crockery strewn across the atelier.
He doesn't remember half of that night, after Qifrey’s return. He's selfishly grateful for that. Embarrassed by his own overflow of emotion, the sickening dread and heartache and… In his defense, nobody has ever undone him quite like Qifrey. Blessedly, the other did not mention it the next morning. And things resumed, turned over like a fresh sheet of parchment.
...Frankly, he still hasn't fully processed the sword. Or how much broader his friend's shoulders are as a result of what seem like fairly rigorous drills. Or the way his gangly height had unfolded and filled out into a subtle yet undeniably solid strength, all lean muscle, his customary black undershirt now appearing painted on.
Olruggio breaks out into an even deeper flush, heat crawling over his neck. He pushes his sweaty fringe from his brow, senses drunken and swimming. But, that— that’s… a distraction. Irrelevant, really. Qifrey is and has always been beautiful, he just wasn't quite prepared for this dimension of it to make him so weak in the knees.
The point is… they picked right back up where they left off. Renovations kept them well-occupied for months. Covered in dust, ink, and spackle, laughter echoing through unfinished halls. There had been many good nights, camped out on the rug, eating their makeshift supper on the floor. Fully exhausted from the hard labor, too tired to even share a drink, passing out with their clothes still on.
He thought they'd struck a truce, after that. Settled into a routine, while if not entirely happy, at least predictable. Maybe it wasn't exactly what he'd pictured, sometimes, but it was a life with Qifrey. To be by his side each and every day. That's all Olruggio had ever wanted. It was better than he deserved.
They knew each other better than anyone, knew what pitfalls came along, what nightmares. The good and the bad, the ugly spots. He'd thought Qifrey had chosen. Their home, their life. He'd thought it was enough.
Olruggio should be used to the sickening mire of disappointment by now, but somehow it catches him by surprise. Each and every day he feels as if he is perched at a precipice, and if he says or does the wrong thing, a fatal misstep on unstable ground, Qifrey will disappear into the wind. He will leave again.
Why had Qifrey come back at all then? Olruggio jolts, sitting up straighter as the stray thought cleaves into him as surely as Qifrey’s damned fancy new sword. No, no, no, not that, he can’t, he doesn’t— He clutches at the collar of his shirt reflexively, twisting the fabric in his grip.
He barely survived it the first time, curled over in shame at his own helpless, pathetic anguish. From a distance, it was almost fascinating, the way he’d so quickly shrunk into himself, the way the misery had piled atop his head, implacable as a snowdrift, the sheet of ice freezing thick and fast. Any and all motivation flickering violently in the gale, nearly snuffed, if he is honest with himself. (He does try to be, in the times he can stand to meet his own eye in the mirror.)
It’s ironic, funny even, in a way. The moniker he has acquired. Of the Torch. As if the weight of his own darkness could be kept away so easily. A torch must first be lit to be of use, after all. And he is only half of a whole.
A flurry of movement in the dark of the hallway breaks him from his roiling thoughts. It is followed by the soft whisper of fabric upon the stairs. Ah-hah.
“Still just as shite at sneakin’ out as y’were when we were boys, eh?” The harsh tone is not entirely how Olruggio planned this. A hurled pyreball of an opener. Well. So much for patience.
The figure in the hallway freezes. Silent. Caught. “Ah– Good evening, Olly,” Qifrey calls back, still standing half in shadow. The room is dark but for the roaring hearth, casting silhouettes of flames which reach across the floor. He does not answer the question.
“So where are y’off to this time?” Olruggio takes a heavy pull from the bottle, leveling the full weight of his unimpressed stare at Qifrey. As often as he’d imagined this confrontation, he hadn’t fully accounted for how deeply angry he was beneath the hurt.
Too late to take it back now. Now that he has Qifrey before him, he can’t seem to let it go. Olruggio would be lying if he said he hadn’t staked out the living room tonight for this exact purpose, set up praying for an ambush. For them to have it out, finally.
Anything was better than this constant simmer of unease. A dragon egg crock let go too long and too hot. And Qifrey pulling his bloody vanishing act every night; sidestepping Olruggio as if the matter were closed just because he caught him off guard the first time. Really he ought to have a patent on the maneuver by now, as often as he’s tried it. He should also know better than that.
“I was simply going to the kitchen.” Qifrey descends the stairs, coming into view. The smile Olruggio hates slides into place right on cue. “You’ve been so busy lately, I thought I might make your favorite as a late dinner.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, have I now? And how would y’have noticed, hm? Been avoidin’ me like a plague.”
Qifrey’s face stays carefully pleasant, but for a minute flinch that Olruggio diligently tucks away into his cache of evidence. He opens his mouth to answer, but Olruggio beats him to it.
"Y'know, I've been thinkin’.” He scratches at his bristly cheek as he speaks, finding comfort in the texture. “It doesn't add up. Avoidin' me. Throwin' y'rself at this teaching business as if it's some last gasp. What aren't you tellin' me, Qifrey?"
"It's nothing,” Qifrey says lightly. “I've been quite busy, that's all. Preparing."
He snorts; it’s a touch too bitter. "D'you hold brainstormin' sessions to come up with the most surefire thing to piss me off?"
"I'm certain I don't know what you mean.”
He points at Qifrey. "Uh-huh. Yeah, exactly like that."
Qifrey lets out a heavy sigh. "Olruggio, you're drunk."
"And you're lyin' to my face. Go on, do it again. As if y'think I don't fuckin' notice." There’s a dangerous crack in his voice, his hands gesturing wildly. The anger wrapped around the shard of hurt like a shield of flame begins to gutter out.
“Must we discuss this right now?” Qifrey pleads, strained. “You’re exhausted, you’ve been drinking. Please, just—” A crack, finally. Qifrey showing his own fractures, as small as they may be. Olruggio digs his nails in and pulls.
“If not now, then when?” he shouts. He doesn’t mean to, but the anger flares back up, the flames warping into desperation. Olruggio bodily hoists himself standing with a hand on the couch, letting the wine bottle roll away, forgotten. He lurches across the short distance towards Qifrey, nearly stumbling over from a wave of sudden dizziness.
Qifrey still hovers at the foot of the stairs, having kept himself just outside of the threshold of the living room, as if not truly part of this discussion. At his persistent bloody remove.
“There’s always somethin’ else that demands your attention. Somethin’ more important.” Olruggio’s voice pitches and rolls with emotion that he cannot wrangle as his head throbs relentlessly. “Always some convenient excuse. Has been for years now. Dunno how I—” The words falter as he reaches Qifrey.
Close now, he extends a trembling hand to grasp the strap of Qifrey’s dress, fist clenching in the fabric. He wants to fucking shake him. Maybe a good old-fashioned scrap would get the truth from him. It worked well enough when they were children; might do them both some good, getting back to basic principles. Push him to the ground, get pushed back, bloody each other's noses until they make sense again.
And here he is, for once, so close, so touchable, in his grasp. If only… But before he can pull him closer, either to shake him or embrace him, Qifrey recoils. It’s small, contained, but just enough to be glaring.
Olruggio drops his hand, stumbling back a small step. Heart panging with the confirmation, the familiar hurt. “There. That.” He huffs out sharply. “Dunno how I missed it—” he repeats, scrubbing a rough hand through his own hair, tugging at the roots. “How long has it been like this, Qifrey?”
How long has he been living with an illusion of his best friend? How had he not noticed until right now? He knows they didn’t used to be like this. Not always. He remembers. Long golden days of exploring, gallivanting, of easy camaraderie and spell after glorious spell. It was a different kind of magic just to be together, to create together, out beneath the stars until dawn came again, exhausted, collapsing in a pile of youthful limbs.
But something broke, something vital. He remembers the time before, but somehow he’s forgotten when it broke. Or maybe it wasn’t so harsh and jarring, so definitive, maybe it was just… a slow unraveling, a skein of yarn run out. A fire smothered by the weight of everything he couldn’t fix, everything he couldn’t offer.
“Augh—” Olruggio groans, clutching his head as a bout of wooziness hits. His blood pounds in his ears like a drum. Ugh, far, far too much fuckin’ wine and wallowing. Never a good pair.
“Olly, are you all right? You—” Qifrey makes some aborted movement, taut with worry, hands fluttering just shy of touching.
"Stars, what am I still doin’ here?" Olruggio cuts over him in a vicious mutter. Finally giving voice to it. He feels so stupidly pathetic all of a sudden, spilling over, messy, unmoored. A pitifully loyal hound, grown shaggy and tired, but still moping, whining, grumbling at Qifrey's door.
Qifrey goes completely still, hands falling to his sides. Olruggio cannot bear to look at him, turning his face to stare at the floor.
He rubs the heels of his palms harshly over his tired eyes. His despicably soft heart, seeking to be bruised again and again, wanting exactly what it cannot have. What is he even clinging to? Hoping against hope, this terrible impatience masquerading as patience, yanking at Qifrey's skirts like some child expecting more than will ever be granted; Qifrey’s affections kept distant and mild, affections that clearly do not exist the same way as Olruggio's.
"I should jus’ leave ya alone,” he whispers raggedly. He keeps staring at a scuff on the floor as he says it. Now that it’s been broached, he can’t make himself stop. “I should know better, shoulda... Not held so tight but, dammit all, I couldn't help myself. M’greedy, stubborn, I— it's you, only you, I just—"
"Olruggio, stop, please—" Qifrey’s voice is raw. Strident. Filled with something dire that he doesn’t understand.
He peers up from beneath his fringe, hesitant. Qifrey looks about as scared as Olruggio feels, his hands clenched in his own skirts, tight and white-knuckled. It’s a cold comfort.
"Just answer me this. Do you—" Olruggio’s voice breaks, faltering. He swallows thickly. “Have I bullied m’way into your life? D’you… even want me here?"
"Yes," answers Qifrey, fierce, urgent, his eye large and distressed. "Olruggio, of course I want you here. I always want you by my side."
He says the part that Qifrey won't. "But you don't— Want what I want. Y’keep your distance. You keep things from me, there’s somethin’ else, it's—" He’s embarrassingly near tears now, welling up thick and fast, hands seeking fistfuls of his own shirt to self-soothe. "I can't ever get you back, can I?" It sounds too hollow, scraping up out of his throat. Too broken, too needy. But he’s unable to keep it locked down any longer.
"Olly, please— I— It’s not that." It is bare and desperate. Mouth trembling, Qifrey says nothing more. His hands twist together so violently that Olruggio worries he will hurt himself.
Those beautiful, elegant hands, the instruments of a true artist. Qifrey should be more careful with them. Olruggio aches to take them with his own, to soothe, to soften the hold, to untangle the deathgrip. If only he could just… hold him. Be held in return. The way it was when they were small, when it was so much simpler. A rough sob chokes out of him, then, a sound of pure misery breaking free.
Even through the blurriness of his tears, Qifrey looks so miserable, so afraid. As afraid and raw as the day Olly followed him into that sawbrush pit when they were kids. Moisture wells up in his eye, trembling at the water line. He’s biting his lip to absolute shreds.
Something doesn't align, doesn't match up. The terror, the trepidation, the way he freezes, held back, unable to speak. If only he could peel open Qifrey’s mind and peer into the depths, bear witness to the wends and whorls of his thoughts being created in real time. He could stare at the intricate layers hard enough to comprehend it all, and then he'd know what to do to help. To be useful. To be what Qifrey needs.
Against his better judgement, Olruggio reaches for him again, grasping him by the bicep. He’ll always reach for him. And, miracle of miracles, Qifrey lets him, lets him draw close enough to read every flinch and twist of his expression.
Olruggio sucks in a shaky breath, fighting the urge to collapse into Qifrey’s arms, to flee, hide his face in his chest, ashamed of the way he cannot stop crying. Instead, he keeps speaking, even though his voice shakes with grief: "D’you remember that day? At the lake?"
By the time he gets it out, quiet and croaking, he is somehow crying even harder, sniffling loud and graceless, a deluge after the dam has burst. Fuckin’ hell. He scrubs his sleeve roughly across his face.
“I remember,” Qifrey responds, very quietly, something sinking through his posture. His eye is so lovely, sky-blue and limned with tears, darting across Olruggio’s face. Even with the spectacles, he looks desperately young, desperately lost. “Of course I remember.”
They never did return, though they’d promised to do so. Olruggio remembers every moment of that adventure as vividly as a lightning flash: Qifrey's brilliant water dragons, the surprise of them, the joy. Teaching him to swim as best as he knew how despite the hulking monster of his fear. Holding him in the water, huddled together in the rain. How deliriously gratifying it was to fold him into his arms, to be trusted to keep him afloat.
They were almost one single entity in those days, entangled, inextricable. Days when Olruggio still had the privilege of Qifrey leaning on him, relying on him, asking him for help. He'd navigated so much of Qifrey by touch, grounding him in those moments of pure panic, yanking him back from the edge of despair.
One day, suddenly, it all stopped. The closeness and warmth, the habitual touch. Olruggio hadn't quite tracked when, but it must have been soon after that day with the impromptu swimming lessons. They'd gotten so busy studying for the third test, and Qifrey had done the Librarian's Trial right after.
And then... Was that when everything changed? His ribbon for Qifrey's tassel…
A strange feeling overtakes him, cold and grainy, if he focuses on it too long, the wondering when and how. It makes his head hurt even worse. He scrambles to find something solid amongst the quicksand.
After that… Qifrey had gone even more strange and distant. He claimed he was just stressed, anxious, preparing for the fourth test, eager to graduate and leave the ocean behind. His nights were spent in the library instead of traversing the peninsula. And Olruggio, too, had been in a frenzy, also preparing for the fourth test on top of one overly ambitious contraption idea after another, none of which seemed quite right, none of which seemed like they would improve the lives of the common folk.
Before he quite realized, a chasm had stretched between who they used to be and who they are now, some yawning maw that he doesn't know how to cross. He doesn't know how to get back to Qifrey. It feels as if he is staring down a near-impossible task, trying to hold a shaft of moonlight in his grasp, something that will always, always slip through his fingers.
For better or worse, that’s never stopped him before.
"Y'never did learn how to swim proper." Olruggio gives a weak, watery chuckle. “Could barely tread water.”
He hears Qifrey swallow, the dry click of his throat. “I thought I did quite well, considering,” he replies, clearly aiming for levity, but he sounds as hollowed out and defeated as Olruggio feels.
Olruggio fixates on it, this sliver of his best friend, the attempt at humor breaking something open further, a knife prying into a roaming scallop. “Where'd it all go to, Qifrey?” he presses, desperate, rasping. “Where'd you go? I miss you so much."
Qifrey inhales, harsh and shuddering. Every line of his body is tense and unmoving, as if he has become a statue. The sharp angles of his face rendered even sharper in the firelight, carved with anguish.
Olruggio gives into the earlier urge and shakes him by the arm, impatient, brusque, seeking some answer, some reasoning, anything. "Just tell me what I did, Qifrey! What did I do t’lose you?” he sobs. And there it is, this last, most shamefully wretched cry from the depths of his soul, cutting through him like a hot knife; it exhausts him almost to collapse.
Barely able to keep standing, Olruggio’s head falls to Qifrey’s shoulder. He burys his face there, sobbing hoarsely, the hot wetness smearing from his cheeks to the black fabric. His body succumbs to an exhausted shaking agony, pushed to emotional and physical extremes. Everything he usually keeps guarded behind lock and key rampaging violently over the threshold, the alcohol rendering it all the more dire. And Olruggio trampled beneath the weight of his own feelings that have been kept cooped up too long.
He sways in place, his weight surrendered to Qifrey. He’s so fucking tired, now that he’s said it, gotten it all out, the flames of anger doused by an ocean of misery.
Hands come up to steady him, almost compulsive, in a desperate, bruising hold upon his shoulders. Qifrey doesn’t always remember his own strength. A glint of hope in the torrent of despair, that strong grip tows him back ashore. “Olruggio,” utters Qifrey, hoarse and plaintive. Just that, just his name.
He peers up from beneath his sweat-matted fringe to find Qifrey wan and stricken, his mouth twisting with barely restrained feeling, swallowing back his own sobs. As if Olruggio's earlier words were vicious daggers that pierced him through. Gratifyingly, horribly, Olruggio takes comfort in seeing his same torment mirrored back, twinned.
With freshly-tempered conviction, he sets his jaw. Qifrey is under there somewhere, then. His rude, scruffy, magnificent, aggravating little Qifrey. The one who would flatly declare that Olly was full of utter shit, would clamp a hand over his mouth when he said something outlandishly stupid. He’s just been locked away, and Olruggio can find him, he knows it…
Tears and snot still streaming down his face, he reaches up to clasp Qifrey's nape fiercely, pulling him closer, down to Olruggio’s height. Then, he knocks his head solidly against Qifrey's own, harder than he should, hard enough to hurt. It’s the only thing he can think of.
Like they used to, like the liongoats with their kin. A secret code without the need for words. Knock, knock. I'm here. Are you?
Qifrey doesn't move for a long time, doesn't speak, breathing rough and shaky, every line of him strung with tension. Then, he very deliberately knocks his head back; the thud of skull against skull, bone upon bone, resounds dully through Olruggio’s aching head like the most immutably real thing in his life. Yes, I'm here.
He sucks in a shuddering gasp, a fresh wave of tears flowing down his cheeks. He pulls back a little to find Qifrey staring directly at him, close enough that their breaths mingle. His pale complexion has gone red and splotchy, tears tracking down his own face, mouth set in a stubborn line. A manic determination glints in his eye, a vein of pure iron.
In this moment, Qifrey is nearly indistinguishable from the boy he’d held in the water, the one spitting angry and desperately afraid, soaked through and shivering but so brave. So brave he inspired Olruggio to be brave, too. The boy he saved from the waves. His lodestone, always pulling him to home. His Qifrey.
Qifrey doesn't do anything else, just keeps staring fiercely at him, breathing as heavily as if he'd sprinted the whole length of the Downs.
Thank the stars. He's in there. He's in there. Olruggio has a surreal, prickling sense that he's... Trapped in there. By something unspeakable. Something Olruggio cannot help with.
But it's not over. He's still here. He's staying. No matter what ties may bind him, be it their home or Olruggio or the mantle of teaching, it doesn't matter. This can be enough.
Olruggio swallows hard, and then nods, sharp and definitive. Mouth firm with resolve, he rests his head back against Qifrey. "A'right, Qifrey,” he finally manages to rasp. “I understand. I got ya."
Qifrey exhales, sudden and tremulous. “Olly— I—” he says weakly. Then shakes his head abruptly, the soft down of his hair brushing against Olruggio’s brow.
"S'a’right. Gonna be fine,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and pressing his skull firmly against Qifrey’s, relishing the cool balm of his skin, a hand firm on his neck. It’s not quite as intimate as an embrace, nor as formal as the Clasp of the Covenant, but it’s something. “Ain’t goin' nowhere. M’sorry I said all’a that. Forget it, yeah?”
There is a long, tense pause. And then, Qifrey breathes out, “Thank you.” A fervent wisp of sound so faint he almost doesn’t hear it.
In response, Olruggio just squeezes the back of Qifrey’s neck once, twice, like a pulse.
It doesn’t matter which Qifrey stands before him. At the end of the day, they're all his Qifrey, aren’t they? In one form or another, the multitudes of the person he loves most in this life, hidden within infinite lockboxes. A maze, a puzzle that keeps Olruggio on his toes. Fortunately, he loves puzzles.
Olruggio would gladly spend his life navigating the dizzying twists and turns if only Qifrey would permit him. Would dedicate every ounce of his time to learning this mystery of a witch, and be overwhelmingly grateful for the privilege.
Even if Olruggio can only have him in these stolen moments, breaths snatched between the daily routine before the deluge floods back in, then so be it. Besides, what other choice is there? He could no more leave Qifrey’s side than he could make himself stop breathing.
He will trust Qifrey and the path he has set before them both. They’ll begin a new chapter: Qifrey will become a teacher and Olruggio will support him in whatever avenue he is allowed. He can learn new ways to wait, he’ll get better at it the more he practices.
They stand there for long moments, quietly sharing breath, sharing space. And while Qifrey doesn’t say anything more, does not move any closer than their brows resting against each other, he also does not pull away.