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“No,” Qifrey breathed, sucking air between his lips shudderingly.
No?
Olruggio’s hands stilled where his fingertips just brushed against the small exposed triangle of Qifrey’s stomach where his shirt did not quite meet up with his trousers. They shared the same breath, his lips hovering just above Qifrey’s, and from this close he couldn’t even focus on the single visible blue eye partially obscured under messy white hair.
He sat back further, his eyes naturally drifting downward to confirm that he hadn’t completely misread the moment - the laced front panel of Qifrey’s pants was not doing much to obscure his pleasure. Given the space to breathe, his breaths were coming in shuddery gasps that sent a jolt through Olruggio and pooled warmth low in his stomach.
Surely I didn’t misunderstand, Olruggio thought, a grim expression forming under his perpetually half-groomed beard. He tried to walk himself step-by-step through everything that had happened since he woke up.
His first mistake was to wake up. Though the room was blessedly quiet and there was no sunlight coming through his window, his head throbbed from his hangover. Or… or maybe he was still drunk. He groaned, lifting one hand to rest over his forehead as though he could squeeze the contents of his skull back inside to stop the pain.
“I see your newest contraption works marvelously,” came a good-natured voice from somewhere down in Olruggio’s workspace. It was then that he realized the source of the low light in the room were the glowing tiles that met each of Qifrey’s steps below. Qifrey floated silently up the second level of Olruggio’s room using his sylph boots and came into Olruggio’s field of vision.
His eye had always reminded Olruggio of the ocean. Calm at times, violent and stormy at others, but always endless and unknowable. Right now it was full of the warmth Qifrey had once reserved only for Olruggio, but seemed to be giving to just about everyone these days. Maybe Olruggio should have been jealous, but… he was relieved.
“The girls?” Olruggio’s voice came in a gravelly growl no thanks to whatever copious amount of alcohol he had consumed. He had to test the product, after all. His Endless Wine Decanter was bound to please his patron.
“Asleep.” Qifrey settled on the bed beside Olruggio’s feet so he could face him. His head tilted as he smiled fondly, causing the ribbon on his hat (Olruggio’s ribbon, mind), to slide down his shoulder and arm. “Thankfully they are quite capable of putting themselves to bed unsupervised.”
Olruggio didn’t miss the cold edge that cut its way into the fondness in Qifrey’s voice. He had been left in charge of the girls while Qifrey made a trip into town. Normally Qifrey took the girls with him, which of course made Olruggio immediately suspicious of Qifrey’s intentions, but when even Coco was not allowed to accompany him, Olruggio found his hands tied to argue with his childhood friend.
Before he could figure out the best way to defend himself, Qifrey added, “For the best, I suppose. It just so happens I picked up a miracle hangover cure in town.”
They both knew there was no such thing, but Qifrey produced what looked like a waterskin which he draped over Olruggio’s forehead. The relief was immediate, the headache finally receding as the cold compress numbed him. “This is Coco’s magic,” he said quietly, recognizing immediately the clumsy but effective invention by Qifrey’s apprentice.
“So it is,” Qifrey agreed. His hand remained near Olruggio’s face, his fingers brushing hair away from his eyes absently. The eye behind his single spectacle seemed to drift away, unfocused and gazing somewhere far beyond Olruggio.
Possessed by some foreign impulse (perhaps he really was still drunk), Olruggio found himself lifting his hand to link his fingers together with Qifrey’s, immediately rewarded as Qifrey snapped back into the moment. Olruggio pulled the hand to his lips, brushing a gentle kiss over his knuckles, his nose brushing the too-long ends of Qifrey’s sleeves. He was struck by the familiarity of the sensation - Qifrey’s hand was cool in his, the smell of ink lingering on his skin and clothes. He was sure he had never held Qifrey’s hand like this before.
“You’re always so sweet on me,” Olruggio joked, letting his head fully settle back into the pillow, finally committing to the idea that he was, in fact, still drunk.
“Sweet to,” Qifrey corrected softly, bowing his head so his hair obscured his eyes fully. “You mean ‘sweet to’ me.”
“Potato, potato,” Olruggio said with a dismissive wave.
Qifrey muttered something that might have been, “not really,” and settled the fingers of one hand to his temple. The kindness in Qifrey’s eyes sank into the depths of whatever mood had captured his mind, and Olruggio found himself fixating on the way Qifrey’s pulse seemed to leap against the skin of his neck under the high neckline of his shirt.
Well there was no ignoring that. With a grunt of complaint, Olruggio pushed himself up to sit. The cold compress fell to his lap with a soft “splat” but it held its shape. Probably not Coco’s then - she was a bright apprentice, for sure, but no witch bent the water to his will like Qifrey did. “Alright. I know you’re not pleased with me about leaving the girls unsupervised… maybe I got a bit too deep into my research.”
A startled laugh came from Qifrey’s lips and his hand moved to cover his eyes. “Oh, Olly, you think that’s… no, no I’m not terribly pleased with you, but I do know my girls are more than capable of keeping safe.” His lips pulled into one of his easy, teasing smiles. “You silly drunkard.”
“Oi,” Olruggio protested, but he was cut short by Qifrey touching a finger to his lips to quiet him. The hand lingered at his lips for a moment too long, far too long really, so long that Olruggio wasn’t sure it was really lingering anymore. His heart gave a dull, heavy thud that suggested serious arrhythmia or possibly something much more life-threatening.
Was it… an invitation?
The room spun, nearly taking Olruggio with it as his heart plodded along insistently at its new sluggish, pounding cadence. It wasn’t like it would be the first flirtation or the first bit of forward touching, especially since Qifrey had settled into his atelier and his new role as a teacher. The relative domesticity they experienced out under the rural stars had unburied all manner of dormant desires that crept around the outskirts of his brain hunting him like the prey he was.
Stars, but why tonight when he was potentially still drunk? He had spent so many stupid, lonely hours imagining what Qifrey’s lips would feel like against his, if they would be cool and soft as the skin of his hands, that it felt like an absolute travesty to not honor that once-in-a-lifetime first-chance moment with more dignity than nursing a headache, wine drunk, and stumbling to make words in the face of this man he orbited like the moon around the planet.
In his imagination, it had always been him. Obviously. Olruggio had always been the one to act first, to push their relationship forward, so why would he not also be the one to finally swallow whatever stupid anxiety that kept him from kissing Qifrey and make the first move? But reality did have a rather impressive way of upending his daydreams magnificently. Their lips met because Qifrey moved in to close the distance. There was no magic, no glow, no warmth, no earth shattering, soul rending moment of truth, just the pleasant soft touch of lips against his own that threw a switch in Olruggio’s brain.
Two things happened at once. Olruggio felt a clap of thunder in his mind as the headache exploded in a shower of stars. Heedless of the staggering escalation in pain, Olruggio’s hand dove into Qifrey’s hair, knocking his hat from his head and locking his face in close. Whatever lead Qifrey had originally meant to take was immediately surrendered to Olruggio.
We’ve done this before, he thought wildly.
In my dreams, he countered himself.
But evidence presented itself in the familiar feel of the slope of Qifrey’s back, the curve of his side, and where his clothing bunched at his hips. His touch elicited small murmurs of appreciation against Olruggio’s lips, flooding his pounding head with visions of soft, fair skin under his calloused hands.
His hands acted on his imagination, finding purchase under the skin-hugging top and wiggling under the cloth to touch Qifrey’s skin. Then… “no.”
Olruggio’s hand drifted back to his own hair, pressing in to contain the pounding in his head that felt like it might liquify his brain and suck it out of his ears. The room was far too quiet, now - the only sound he could hear was the rush of the blood in his ears and the gasps of Qifrey’s breathing. He felt the way his own very loose pants had become uncomfortably snug and with no short amount of shame, he pulled one of the throw pillows to his lap.
Had he pushed too far? Had Qifrey not kissed him?
“Olly,” Qifrey said softly. He looked up to meet the unknowable ocean - Qifrey’s expression was gentle, but his eye was distant, dark, and sad. So very sad. “I’m sorry. I should know better.” He said it as though he was a child remembering the rule he had just broken, confessing to being naughty.
“Huh?” It was all the eloquence Olruggio could muster, given the state of his thoughts.
Qifrey half-turned, retrieving his hat off the bed behind him and setting it in his lap. He ran the fingers of one hand over the long ribbon, staring at it so intently it might catch fire.
As the silence stretched, Olruggio reached out a hand to touch Qifrey’s arm and said, “No harm done, old friend. Not like I didn’t like-” He was cut off as Qifrey’s hand shot up to smack his hand away. He found himself suddenly on the receiving end of a wild stare, somewhere between cornered panther and injured fox. “Qifrey…”
“Don’t. Don’t - you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Qifrey’s hands gripped his hat once more, wrinkling the fabric around the bottom edge. His teeth clenched together, the muscles of his jaw tightening, so when he spoke he seemed to fight his own body to do so. “I don’t know how many more times I can do this.”
This time Olruggio said nothing - what was there to say? He hadn’t the faintest idea what Qifrey was on about.
Qifrey’s thumb fiddled with the small snap on the front of his hat. Resignation snuck into his voice when he finally spoke again. “You are my brightest star.”
A brisk movement and then… eternity.
Qifrey patted Olruggio’s cheek with the knuckles of his hand, dismissing the moment of déjà vu when their skin touched. Olruggio’s skin was warm, whether from the natural heat he always seemed to carry within or the sunbeam that spilled across his face. Olruggio’s eyes fluttered open, immediately closing and squinting again against the sun, only honoring Qifrey with a brief moment of their cut gem color.
Qifrey shut his hand into a loose fist to keep from reaching out again, his eyes wandering the morning stubble around Olruggio’s beard that continued onto his neck and over his Adam's apple. A shame, really, that any patron would ask him to present as clean-shaven. Qifrey could still feel the coarse scrape of Olruggio’s whiskers on his chin and upper lip, the memory enough to send him deep into his thoughts.
“Ugh,” Olruggio groaned. His hand found the cold compress, lifting it from his forehead. “This is Coco’s magic.”
“So it is,” Qifrey said hollowly, all too aware of the echo in the room.
“When’d you get home, anyway? You been looking after me all night, have you?” Olruggio said with a teasing grin. “You’re always so sweet on me.”
“Sweet to,” Qifrey half-heartedly corrected. After all, Olruggio wasn’t wrong. And besides, he knew what would come next. What would always come next. No matter how many “first” kisses they had, what always, and forever, had to come next.
Predictably, Olruggio joked, “Potato, potato.”