Chapter Text
Something is growing inside of Qifrey.
It started as a feeling, easy to brush aside. A slithering in his gut when dark blue eyes met his. A tightening around his ribcage at every accidental brush of skin against his fingertips. A fluttering bloom at every soft, warm chuckle.
But the roots don’t stay so gentle for long.
He’s not quite a teenager yet when he starts to feel warmth for the first time. There’s recollection of the sensation from the bits and pieces of memory that he still has, but ever since coming to the Great Hall, all he’s felt was dampness in his bones. It’s suffocated him the moment that he arrived, and he’s been drowning in it since.
But—in spite of Qifrey’s best efforts and the discomfort writhing beneath his skin—he’s managed to make a friend.
Olruggio is the embodiment of warmth, even though he comes from a land that’s so cold. Being in his presence is like sitting at a hearth after a long day trekking through the snow, fingers and toes tingling as they regain sensation. Qifrey learned how to smile again because of him. He wants to keep smiling with him, for him.
Qifrey can’t help but bask in it every moment he can. He rests his head on their table in the dining hall, watching as Olruggio rambles about his latest ideas for spells, musing about how they could best help people. They haven’t known each other for too long, but it’s long enough for Qifrey to come to expect this of him. The goodness in him radiates.
And Qifrey… He wants.
He wants to spend today and the next day and every tomorrow afterward just like this. He wants to remain by Olruggio’s side and feel this presence comforting the eternal ache in his bones forever. He shouldn’t want it. He’s broken and crumbling and he knows that his obsession with the brimmed caps is already worrying Olruggio, and he doesn’t plan to stop. He won’t.
Yet this feeling still burbles up inside of him, rising and rising until it threatens to break the surface. Words threaten to escape from him, ones that can’t be taken back. Ones that, selfishly, he never wants to have to take back. Because he’s seen how Olruggio lights up when Qifrey enters a room, even if he shouldn’t. Qifrey knows that he’s not alone in this feeling.
And so it grows and grows and grows, pressing against his lips—until it tightens, a sharp pain reverberating through his body.
Qifrey pushes away from the table, curling into himself as he slams against the floor and gasps, trying to get air into his crowded lungs. Something’s in there, slithering and tightening in his chest, digging like roots and scraping like bark. Something pushes against his eye socket, pressing through and growing, slowly but surely.
He knows this feeling. It was supposed to be discomfort at the thought of someone actually wanting to be around him, and not just that, but keep him close. After all, he’s felt it to a lesser degree with Beldaruit as well. Surely he was just adjusting to this new life. That was the reasonable explanation.
But no. Of course it couldn’t be that simple.
Olruggio’s voice breaks through the wall of pain, though Qifrey can’t make out any words. It’s little comfort. Just as Qifrey wanted and almost let himself have this—the first thing he’s ever wanted that made him feel any sort of joy—he’s lost it. Because there’s no way this can be anything but death. It’s burning in his veins, tearing through his body, and he can’t even see Olruggio’s face one last time. He can’t say goodbye to Beldaruit.
He has so many regrets, and he’s such a terrible person for not telling the few people that he has that he loves them. He deserves misery. Maybe he deserves to die.
The thought lands like a rock in his gut, frigid and sharp and… strangely like a balm. The thing growing inside of him slows as the despair threatens to take him, and shrinks back even more when panic and confusion rise up beside it. He tugs that awful feeling closer, clings to it as the growth inside of him flees, retreats from his eye socket and back into his skull.
“Qifrey!” Olruggio’s words finally make it through to him, a hand on Qifrey’s cheek, and he turns toward him like a moth to a flame—
Until the thing inside of him twitches, and he cringes away from Olruggio’s touch.
Of course Olruggio notices, pulling away and letting him have his space. It stings to have the space, and smarts even more to feel almost grateful for it.
Because it makes the thing in Qifrey still completely.
“I’m alright,” Qifrey chokes out, a complete lie and they both know it.
“Sure. You were just writhing on the floor like you were dying and now you’re totally fine.” Olruggio snorts. “Where does it hurt? Can you walk?”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Even though it’s the truth this time, he knows Olruggio believes it even less. “It’s passed.”
And it really has. Qifrey begins to push himself up with shaking arms, trying not to pay any attention to the warm comfort of the hand that lands on his shoulder to support him. Because the moment he does…
Olruggio snorts again. “You’re not getting out of a visit to see a doctor. The only question is whether you can walk, or if I’m gonna have to haul you to the Medical Spire on my back. Which is it?”
Qifrey manages to shift his legs to a position where they’re just sturdy enough to support him, still unsteady as a fawn taking its first steps, but pointedly ignoring the palm offered in support.
He’d give anything to be able to accept help of any kind. Not because he particularly wants it, though. He probably would have refused it anyway, if he had the choice.
No, he wants it because he knows he can’t have it.
And maybe it’s a good thing, to feel so bitter. He’s not sure exactly what happened, but he doesn’t want it happening again. Any nice thoughts in his head feel prickly and dangerous right now.
“Fine, be stubborn.” Olruggio still wraps an arm around Qifrey’s middle, supporting him despite everything.
Qifrey swallows the acrid fear that rises in him at the touch. But there’s no pain. The tension of what could happen still keeps him stiff and cumbersome to walk with, but of course Olruggio doesn’t abandon him. Even if that would probably be for the best.
He should have walked away a long time ago. Qifrey is broken, a shard of glass cutting into the palm of anyone who dares to pick him up. He’s had to be, after all that he’s endured up until this point. He refuses to be put into a situation like that again, or to let anyone else suffer how he has.
But now he has to keep suffering, doesn’t he? Because he’s not allowed to have any happiness.
How fitting for someone like him.