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Midnight Delights was an established tradition long before Qifrey jokingly bestowed the moniker. The two huddled together at the soup pot as apprentices, learning the virtues of following a recipe, a dense sky of stars far above them. They’d had so much fun that time slipped away.
Olly, look.
An uncharacteristically bright smile came to Qifrey’s lips as he gazed upon the sky. As a boy, he was not as immediately giving with his joy and affection as the man he became. Olruggio had pushed, pulled, coaxed, and bargained every inch of peace and friendship he could wrangle out of Qifrey. The end result was a powerful, intuitive connection that spanned decades and what little distance they sometimes allowed when only absolutely necessary.
In losing track of time, they had already defied curfew several times over. They reasoned they wouldn’t get in more trouble if they lingered together under the stars a bit longer as their wonderfully tasty, if perfectly mundane, soup to the recipe cooled in the pot.
That was the first time, but there were innumerable times since—different kitchens, different recipes, different reasons they really ought to go to bed, but always the same company. Both had developed into accomplished chefs—though Olruggio felt like he was still always a step behind Qifrey, who was masterfully creative with his culinary art.
Though it was rarely explicitly planned, the tradition was old enough that Olruggio rarely even thought twice about it, save for when the girls had uncovered their unscrupulous late-night snacking (...and drinking) and began to call out their master’s hypocrisy. For a while, Midnight Delights were put on hold. But that hold had barely lasted a week before Qifrey was back to preparing treats for Olruggio to help him get through his work, help him get to sleep on a restless night, satisfy a sweet tooth under the stars, or make use of an overripe mountain apple for a delightful wine that went down too easily between the two of them.
So on a hot summer evening when Olruggio was lulled to sleep by the heat, he woke in a panic when some niggling part of his brain reminded him that he was potentially missing out on the Midnight Delights tradition. He had only meant to lie down for a moment and Qifrey had commented several times during dinner that he looked half-dead after pressing toward a deadline, but now it was nearly one in the morning. He launched himself out of bed unceremoniously, taking the stairs he rarely bothered with due to his bare feet, and stumbled out his bedroom door without bothering to change.
He was not in his usual attire. The evening was much too warm for that. The stone building had baked in the sun like a brick oven during the day. While he assumed the girls’ rooms, which had beds that were partially subterranean, remained cool, his bed arranged in front of the window of his tower was pre-heated well enough to bake cookies. He had dressed himself in sleepwear that was given to him as a gift for providing some magical assistance. The top was a shawl of sheer, dark, soft fabric with a patterned design around the collar. The bottoms were wide-legged sheer pants that dragged slightly on the floor around his heels and were secured under his navel with a patterned band. It left his front bare from throat to lower abdomen and kept him from overheating at night.
As he suspected, a bit of lamp-light glowed from the kitchen and he could hear the soft sound of a utensil on a ceramic dish. He descended the half-flight of stairs into the kitchen to see that Qifrey sat alone at the table, still mostly dressed though his cap sat upon the chair beside him and he had shrugged off the shoulders of his robe as he often did before cooking. Behind him was the evidence of baking—a bag of flour still out, some soiled measuring cups and mixing spoons, a bowl that still held some fresh whipped cream though it appeared to have mostly been scraped out. On the table in front of him was the result of his labor—a cream pie with one slice removed. On Qifrey’s plate was the slice with several bites already taken.
“Sorry I’m late,” Olruggio said gruffly, dropping into the chair beside Qifrey. His voice had that gravelly quality having just woken up from sleep and feeling unpracticed in the art of talking.
“We didn’t set an appointment,” Qifrey teased softly as he stood up from his chair. “Let me serve you a slice.” He went to the cupboard to retrieve a plate and spoon which he set in front of Olruggio. He leaned over his shoulder, the skin-hugging fabric of his top over his stomach brushing the soft shawl over Olruggio’s shoulder, to carve a piece for Olruggio.
Qifrey lingered there, the warmth of him bleeding too easily through Olruggio’s thin clothing. He could feel Qifrey’s breath expanding his diaphragm and abdomen. “...How large would you like it?” He didn’t move other than to motion to different sized slices over the pie tin.
Olruggio noticed that this close, the smell of vanilla, sugar, and butter was mixing pleasantly with the scent of the detergent Qifrey used to launder his clothing and his soap. It made him immediately self-conscious that he probably smelled like sweat and unbrushed teeth. But if he did, Qifrey wasn’t moving. “Whatever you gave yourself is fine.”
Qifrey cut the slice and put it on Olruggio’s plate. A moment later, Olruggio was flooded with disappointment when Qifrey’s warmth retreated… which made absolutely no damn sense, he had been trying to escape the heat all day. But back in his seat, Qifrey was looking at Olruggio intently, waiting for him to try the pie. He knew that sparkle in his eyes well—he was looking for approval and praise like he’d even take the compliment once given.
Olruggio cut into the pie with the spoon, the cream slicing through easily and the flaky, buttery crust all but crumbling beneath the slightest provocation. The first bite was bliss, the heavenly cream melted in his mouth and the crust added just a hint of savory flavor to balance the sweetness. He took a second small bite, savoring it appropriately as he had the first, but the next two were ravenous, generous scoops devoured whole practically without chewing.
A bright laugh escaped Qifrey. “My friend, you’re going to choke. Let me get you tea.” He stood from his chair again to get two mugs and the tea kettle. He deposited the mugs on the table, filling each in turn with the kettle, once more leaning in closely to Olruggio. His smile had mysteriously faded from his face, and though his scarred eye was closer to Olruggio, he could swear that Qifrey’s remaining eye was not looking at the kettle but was scanning down Olruggio’s chest and stomach.
“Thank you,” Olruggio said softly, the words sounding strange to his own ears.
Qifrey placed the kettle on a trivet on the table and went back to sitting in his chair. He didn’t return to his pie right away. Olruggio looked up at him, ready to give his review of the pie to hopefully signal to Qifrey that he could resume eating, to realize that he hadn’t imagined things. Qifrey’s eye was traveling over his throat, clavicle, and down his chest toward his abdomen. Olruggio could almost feel a phantom brush of a soft touch accompanying the gaze that raised gooseflesh on his arms and caused the muscles of his abdomen to tighten. Qifrey did not appear to be self-conscious about looking at him this way; he was making no effort to hide it, so Olruggio was almost certainly over-thinking it.
Qifrey reached for his mug, taking a contemplative sip that seemed to stretch the silence further between them. The warm drink brought a bit of color to his cheeks and his neck that disappeared down into his multi-layered woven collar. He lifted his head again to meet Olruggio’s eyes. “Well?”
“Hm?”
“The pie, Olly.” The lightness came back to his expression and his voice.
“Oh, delicious.” Olruggio only felt a little bit of shame for having nearly polished off the piece in four bites when he could see Qifrey had been taking his time to savor the pie. Well, there was a whole pie and just two of them, so he guessed he could have as many servings as he liked. Just as Qifrey was lifting his mug to his lips for another sip of tea, he added, “Always did love a good cream pie.”
Qifrey spat the tea back into the mug which he slammed down on the table with a deafening clunk in the otherwise quiet midnight kitchen. After a couple of indignant sputters he broke out into a peal of hopeless laughter, covering his glasses with one hand. As soon as Olruggio played his words back in his own mind, he joined in. What started as a deep belly laugh eventually became breathless wheezes as Qifrey’s humor was so contagious they both found themselves wiping tears of mirth from their eyes.
When the laughter finally died down into more manageable rumbling chuckles, with it came a more comfortable silence. Qifrey leaned one elbow on the table, resting his cheek into his hand. He had a bright, easy smile on his face and his hand had landed fondly on Olruggio’s knee beneath the table. Their feet aligned, Olruggio’s bare foot pressed against the side of Qifrey’s sock and the stirrup of his pant leg.
“We’re going to wake the girls with all this ruckus,” Qifrey lamented. A mischievous twinkle sparkled in his eye. “And there isn’t enough cream to go around with how hungry you are for it.”
“Mercy, please.” Olruggio held up his hands. He wasn’t sure he would survive another round of explosive laughter if Qifrey got that going. “What are you, twelve?”
“I seem to recall you laughing with me,” Qifrey teased. He lifted his face from his hand and took up his spoon in his non-dominant hand so he could have another bite of pie without moving his hand from Olruggio’s knee. With his attention elsewhere, Olruggio felt a warm smile come to his lips and he rested his hand over Qifrey’s. That seemed to capture his friend’s attention again, who went still with the spoon still in his mouth before withdrawing it slowly.
“Olly?” Qifrey looked at him quizzically. With no short supply of humor, Olruggio realized that Qifrey had at least partially missed his mouth and had smeared cream at the corner of his lips.
He lifted his hand to his own cheek, making a brushing motion. “You got a bit of cream on you.”
Qifrey finally took his hand away from Olruggio’s knee to brush the cream away with his thumb. His thumb disappeared between his lips, his tongue licking down his skin to wipe away the cream in a motion that Olruggio could not help but think was absolutely obscene.
He quickly corrected the thought that it had been absolutely innocent when the truly obscene thing happened—his thumb still at his lips, Qifrey made eye contact through heavy lashes and made a soft, “mm” noise as he savored the cream. That—that was obscene.
That was obscene, tantalizing, stupid, beautiful, nefarious, innocent, soft… all the things Qifrey himself was distilled into one little motion. Olruggio found himself as ravenous as the pie had made him, wanting more of whatever had possessed Qifrey in that moment.
He dipped his pointer finger into the pie still in the tin, scooping up a generous dollop of cream. Qifrey began to protest, “At least finish what is on your plate before going for more cr…eam.” All the air left his chest, his lips ending the word slightly parted as Olruggio smeared the cream on the corner of his lips. He sat frozen in the chair, eye wide and the flush of his cheeks deepening. “...Olly.”
“Changed my mind,” Olruggio murmured. His voice once again felt low and coarse, though this time not from sleep. He fought around a solid mass in his throat that had wandered up from somewhere deep in his stomach, through a tight passage in his chest, and now threatened to strangle him. “You made the food, I should clean up the mess.”
“Are you going to clean this up?” Qifrey's breath came shallow, his gaze darting between Olruggio’s eyes, lips, and then down to his throat, tracing the angle of his jaw and the stubble that had formed around his beard since he last shaved and trimmed. His chin then tilted slightly up, deliberately looking back into Olruggio’s eyes.
“Would only be proper of me, eh?” Olruggio leaned forward in his chair, lifting his hand again as though to brush away the cream, but his hand kept moving, slipping into Qifrey’s hair behind his ear and securing around the back of his head. He found himself swept up in Qifrey’s tide as his lips brushed over the corner of Qifrey’s mouth. He tasted the cream and felt the faintest warm brush of the soft skin of Qifrey’s lips.
Olruggio sat back to survey the destruction he had wrought. Qifrey stared at him wide-eyed, completely motionless. He found himself silently staring back. Twenty-some years of these late-night cooking rendezvous, countless thousands of hours talking practically nonstop about everything on their minds, and the one thing that seemed to have rendered them both entirely mute was a bit of cream and what barely constituted a kiss.
Qifrey lifted his hand to the corner of his mouth, his fingers catching a bit of remaining cream. His voice held a hollow sort of wonder. “You missed.” His fingers slid down his lower lip before his hand dropped away again. “Quite badly.”
“No, didn’t manage it all,” Olruggio agreed, already contemplating if he was brave enough to come closer and make another pass. But he didn’t have to think for long.
Qifrey slid to the edge of his chair so their knees were pressed together. His hand rested over the fabric of Olruggio’s shawl on his chest for balance and he leaned in to touch their lips together just as softly and briefly as Olruggio had.
Olruggio had the insane thought that Qifrey hadn’t actually managed to guide Olruggio’s lips over the cream, either. “You missed, too,” he murmured before his brain could catch up to the fact that Qifrey had, in fact, kissed him.
“Ah, it’s that whole depth perception thing—one eye, you know.” Qifrey joked breathlessly, remaining leaned forward toward Olruggio. His breath carried the lingering remnants of cream and the honey and milk he had used to sweeten his tea. “Perhaps I should try again?”
Olruggio recognized he stood at the edge of the cliff with one foot dangling perilously above empty sky and a choice to make. No sylph boots could save him from what came next. But damn it all if he wasn’t willing to throw himself into the abyss. “Practice makes perfect,” he said finally, surprised at the conviction in his own voice.
Qifrey kissed him again, another small touch of his lips. Then another. Then another where Olruggio could feel the smile that was spreading on his face through the contact.
His hand found Qifrey’s waist, lifting him physically away from the chair so he awkwardly hovered above Olruggio’s lap.
Another, this one longer.
Qifrey's fingers caught hold of the edge of Olruggio’s shawl. Then stopped. Olruggio could feel Qifrey rubbing small circles between his thumb and two fingers with the cloth between. He pulled back toward the chair so he could look down at what Qifrey was doing. “Are you feeling my clothes?” he asked incredulously.
A tiny guilty smile came to Qifrey’s face. “You told me they were extremely soft.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve worn them,” Olruggio said, thinking that there had been plenty of times that Qifrey had seen him dressed like this and then immediately banishing the thought because it also implied there were plenty of times Qifrey had looked at him like he was a Midnight Delight himself without him noticing.
“I’ve never touched them before.”
Something about the words landed differently than either was prepared for. Olruggio looked down at Qifrey’s hand, back to his face still hovering close to his, and replied distantly, “No, I suppose you haven’t.”
They let the reality of that thought settle between them silently, both unmoving again. As though seeking silent permission. Qifrey moved his fingers, this time displacing the shawl to spread his hand over the bare skin of Olruggio’s ribs. Olruggio inhaled sharply, which stopped Qifrey mid-motion.
“Is this alright?”
“Aye.”
The hand drifted down the skin over his ribcage, around his waist, and slid back over the ridge of muscle alongside his spine. The thin fabric of the sleepwear could offer no resistance, giving way easily as Qifrey pulled himself closer, now leaning over Olruggio. Olruggio tilted his head fully back to kiss Qifrey again from a severe angle.
And apparently that was the second foot off the cliff.
Qifrey’s arm around him tightened, encouraging him to his feet. He came willingly, now digging both hands into Qifrey’s hair and tugging him close as though he could crawl inside his skin if he kissed him deeply enough. The full weight of Olruggio’s body pressing into Qifrey’s moved them back a couple of paces until Qifrey’s legs bumped harshly into the chair he had been occupying which rocked and fell backward.
Bang.
They sprang apart, Qifrey tripping on the chair that had just fallen. They looked at it, looked at each other, and began laughing anew. Olruggio found himself spiraling between the insanity of it all, the mirth, and the feeling of Qifrey’s body on his. Laughing was dizzying. He surrendered to the madness, though, and swallowed Qifrey’s laughter with a hungry kiss.
Qifrey's smile against his mouth had been distraction enough, but when Olruggio captured his lower lip with his teeth, the quiet sound Qifrey made erased every remaining rational thought in his mind. Qifrey’s hands frantically moved over Olruggio’s bare skin under the shawl as though searching for something, his fingers flexing and digging into warm skin to find purchase. Olruggio secured one arm around his waist, walking them back until he felt Qifrey collide with the kitchen counter. He rested his free hand on the counter so they both didn’t fall.
Qifrey’s body slouched downward, giving Olruggio a rare height advantage on him. Qifrey’s hands came off of Olruggio’s body, craning behind himself to support himself against the counter, inadvertently knocking over the bowl of remaining cream with a loud clang and knocking a mixing spoon off the counter with an accompanying clack on the floor and sending a splatter of cream shooting across the floor.
Olruggio murmured, “Careful, you’re making a mess of the kitchen.”
“You’re kissing me into furniture.”
But when Olruggio peppered Qifrey’s face and jaw with a flurry of little kisses, the objection was quickly dropped. He clasped his hands on either side of Qifrey’s hipbones, pulling him away from the counter and pressing them tightly together once more. This brought Qifrey back to his full height and encouraged his hands back under the frankly meaninglessly minimal bit of clothing Olruggio wore to settle his hands over his chest. Content he wasn’t going anywhere, Olruggio moved one hand to trace up the curve of his neck, over his jaw, across his cheek and into his hair when he realized the cream was still there.
He pulled away enough to look. Qifrey was flushed and breathless, glasses askew, with a ridiculous smear of cream that had somehow survived Olruggio’s devouring on his face.
Olruggio couldn’t help but laugh.
“What?”
“Still got cream on your face.”
“And whose fault is that?” Qifrey demanded, far too breathless to manage indignance. He lifted his hand to wipe it away, but Olruggio stopped him with a gentle hand on his wrist.
Qifrey stopped, his expression going from confusion to annoyance as he watched Olruggio reach behind himself to the table where he ran his finger once more through the topping of the cream pie to come away with a generous dollop which, predictably, he deposited on Qifrey’s face.
“Olly you are getting cream all over my face,” he mumbled, but Olruggio could hear in his voice that any annoyance had fled and he was now suppressing laughter.
“Thought I might have seconds,” Olruggio told him slyly.
He kissed the bit of remaining cream from the edge of Qifrey’s mouth. Then he kissed away the new streak of cream from Qifrey’s cheek. It was gratifying the way Qifrey’s breath caught under the touch. Emboldened, Olruggio continued downward, pressing kisses along the curve of Qifrey’s jaw.
“Olly…”
His nose brushed Qifrey’s jaw and Qifrey obligingly tilted his head back. His lips met the soft skin under his jaw, along his throat, before meeting the high fabric of his shirt. It brought into sharp relief just how much of a problem clothes were going to be.
Olruggio felt the hands dig into his hair before his gaze was forced up to meet Qifrey’s eye. There was nothing in his expression except naked desire, a well of hunger so deep Olruggio wondered if one would even hear a splash. He pulled their faces back together, exploring Olruggio’s mouth with his tongue deeply, searchingly.
This time it was Qifrey who pushed Olruggio backward a couple of steps until his legs collided with the table. Olruggio’s hands went to Qifrey’s throat to unlace his ridiculous collar, pulling the straps apart until they hung loosely and exposed his throat and collarbone. Olruggio traced his thumb down Qifrey’s throat over the bump of his Adam's apple and into the dip between his collarbones.
“Master Qifrey?”
Qifrey launched himself off Olruggio so abruptly that it shook the table and sent one of the spoons clattering to the floor. Qifrey’s elbow hit the mixing bowl again, this time capsizing it and leaving it upside down on the counter with a shimmering clang as it settled face-down.
Coco stood at the entrance to the kitchen in her simple night clothes, hair mussed with sleep.
Silence blanketed the kitchen. Olruggio was still leaned backwards into the table, frozen in the moment. Qifrey's back was to the counter, his throat exposed and cheeks scarlet.
“Coco!” Qifrey nearly shouted, and far too abruptly at that. “Hello.”
The girl startled, a fist clenching over her heart. “Hi, Master Qifrey! Master Olly!”
Olruggio closed his eyes. Brilliant, Qifrey, spectacularly clandestine of you.
A blinding, saccharine smile lit up Qifrey’s face, dimpling his cheeks and crinkling his eye. His voice was pitched higher than sounded natural. “What are you doing up at this hour, dear, it must be after one in the morning.”
Coco wrung her hands together in front of her dress anxiously. “I wasn’t able to sleep,” she explained. “I was hoping I might be able to have some tea or warm milk.”
“Of course!” Qifrey said.
“Absolutely,” Olruggio said in chorus.
They exchanged a glance—one of them would have to make the beverage. Olruggio lost. Qifrey was already at the counter and was quick to go about steaming the milk, leaving Olruggio in the middle of the crime scene with their pre-teen student blearily surveying the scene. Blessedly, Qifrey began to do what he always did when he cooked, describing his thought process and filling the void. “Willowgrape tea for sleep and recovery after an exhausting day,” he absentmindedly narrated. “Some steamed milk and honey for a bit of sweetness and comfort.”
Olruggio meanwhile was schooling his breathing, attempting to casually sit back in his seat with his pie in front of him. His was the spoon that had become dislodged, but it felt dangerous to get back up to retrieve a new spoon given he would have to pass closely by Qifrey. He lifted his mug of tea that he had not yet been able to enjoy, wishing Qifrey had put spirits in it, and drank deeply.
“Oh!” Coco’s voice brightened in that way it did when she discovered something she found lovely or exciting. She came over to the table, leaning forward to inspect the pie. “You had your Midnight Delights!”
It was Olruggio’s turn to spit tea back into the mug. “No!” he choked.
“Yes,” the master of betrayal, Qifrey, said at the same moment.
Coco sat in one of the free chairs at the table. Her eyes drifted between the pie on the table, Olruggio’s plate, and then up to Olruggio’s face. There was no denying that wide-eyed curiosity, Olruggio had learned that lesson well before, and this moment was no different.
“I mean, yes,” Olruggio corrected. If Qifrey could summon teacher mode, so could he.
“What sort of treat is it?” Coco asked.
“I had a hankering for a cream pie,” Qifrey explained because presumably the universe had a personal vendetta against Olruggio.
Olruggio made a strangled noise, trying to mask it with another drink of his tea rather unsuccessfully. He knew what was coming moments before it happened because he saw concern cross Coco’s features.
“Master Olruggio, are you alright?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Olruggio could see that Qifrey’s shoulders had seized up, shuddering with barely controlled laughter. “All right,” he confirmed.
“Did Brushbuddy do this?” she asked, motioning to the chaos they had unleashed on the cooking space. “I hope he didn’t cause too much trouble…”
“No, nothing to worry about, that was us,” Olruggio answered honestly.
Qifrey nearly dropped the kettle. He spun around to face Olruggio, a new layer of panic settling over his features. “I got cream on myself,” he explained. “Olly was helping me clean up.”
“Well I was also getting cream on you,” Olruggio admitted and immediately wished he could reverse time at a minimum of a few seconds but possibly far enough to prevent his own birth and every event that led to this moment when whatever brain worm was whispering in his mind possessed him to be so honest.
Coco’s concern morphed into confusion but Olruggio recognized the worried set of her brow that she wore whenever she thought Qifrey might be in distress. “Why were you getting cream on him?”
And that was when Olruggio witnessed the exact moment Qifrey’s teacher persona crumbled and his subsequent desperate attempt to right the ship’s course. “He was teasing me.” Quickly, he added, “and then helping me clean up.”
All three took a moment to sit in the mess that Olruggio allegedly had been cleaning. Whatever the kitchen must have looked like before Olruggio’s alleged attempt at cleaning, Qifrey’s construction of the truth suggested a hurricane had swept through it, taking every utensil and dish along for the ride.
“Oh, that’s… very kind, Master Olly.” Coco smiled, seeming to be satisfied with that answer.
“Very thoughtful,” Qifrey agreed. His shoulders relaxed visibly—he must have thought they had avoided catastrophe—and he turned back to the task in front of him, pouring the tea and milk and then stirring in a bit of honey. He added a little sprinkle of a cinnamon sugar blend on top; he always was putting in those little flourishes for the girls to make each meal special.
Qifrey leaned over the table to pass Coco her mug of tea when a new problem presented itself. There was really no surreptitious way to right his chair that had been a victim of their enthusiasm earlier.
But Coco didn’t seem to notice. “Thank you, Master Qifrey!” She wrapped both of her hands around the mug, breathing in the steam with a relaxed smile on her face. She cautiously blew on the tea then took a small sip. Immediately she lit up like a firework, giving a dazzling smile to her teachers. “It’s delicious.”
That seemed to finally genuinely disarm Qifrey, a bit of normalcy restored. He was able to right the chair they’d knocked over with something resembling his usual composure and took his seat again beside Olruggio. “It is the best thing for an over-active mind. I’m glad you like it.”
Olruggio also relaxed. In the comfortable quiet that followed, he could feel a pressure building in his chest again, but this time it was a sweet, longing ache. Any person with eyesight could attest to Qifrey’s physical beauty, but Olruggio knew he was fortunate to see Qifrey’s true beauty in hundreds of little moments like this one when his kindness shone through. A new desperate urge arose—this time to touch Qifrey’s face, to kiss him tenderly, to shower him in gentle words and assure him how deeply loved he was.
By everyone, of course. Everyone loved Qifrey.
“Did you finish your Midnight Delights?” Coco asked, cupping her mug close to her chest.
Olruggio stopped breathing. The flush returned full-force to Qifrey’s face and neck, extra conspicuous with his collar hanging open. He stumbled over his response. “Not quite. The kitchen needed attending.”
“We were interrupted,” Olruggio added. Qifrey shot him a look.
“Oh…” Coco pondered this over her tea, staring into it for answers to all life’s questions. Olruggio sincerely hoped she would share whatever wisdom the tea imparted on her. “There’s still a lot left—were you going to finish together?”
Finish.
Absent any intelligent thought, Olruggio de facto deferred to Qifrey to respond.
“Probably,” Qifrey confirmed, settling his hand on Olruggio’s shoulder. It was only a hand on his shoulder, warm through the thin cloth of his nightclothes, but Olruggio felt the touch all the way down to his toes for the promise it carried with it.
“You should take it up to Master Olly’s workshop, then,” Coco suggested brightly, blissfully unaware of the jolt the thought sent through Olruggio. With the mess they had made in the kitchen, it didn’t take much to imagine Qifrey on his desk, Qifrey against a wall, Qifrey under him pressed into the pillows… And one quick look at Qifrey’s face told him that his mind had taken the same turn. Olruggio felt the fingers on his shoulder tighten ever so slightly. “You know how Tetia and Richeh get about your Midnight Delights—don’t want them walking in on you.”
Olruggio silently planned to stand up, walk to the ocean, walk into the ocean, and keep walking until he drowned. He could not have been more grateful that Qifrey somehow found words to respond. “No, we can’t have that, can we? Don’t want to set a bad example!” Qifrey’s voice was growing in pitch and volume as he spoke. Again.
Coco looked alarmed, shaking her head violently. “No, Master Qifrey—I don’t think that. I know how important it is to you,” she assured him sincerely. “If it was just about sneaking little snacks, you would include all of us, you always take care of us. You do this for you, right?”
Olruggio replayed words spoken late one night, two and a half bottles in, when Qifrey was reassuring anxiety Olruggio didn’t even know had settled into him.
I’m here because I want to be. And I’m having a wonderful time.
Coco be damned, Olruggio lifted his hand to rest over Qifrey’s, relishing in the genuine, relaxed smile that had finally returned to his face. Olruggio curled his fingers to wrap them around Qifrey’s hand, awash with pride in this incredible man who was raising this equally incredible young lady to mirror his bottomless kindness. Olruggio wasn’t always sure where he fit in this life Qifrey had constructed for himself, but he was certain that he fit. And suddenly certain that there was room to redefine that fit.
“Yes,” Qifrey answered so long after Coco made the statement that Olruggio had nearly lost track of the conversation. “I hope you’ll allow your master his delights.”
“Always!” Coco beamed. She lifted the mug with both hands. “Thank you, I feel much better now. I think I’ll try to get back to sleep.”
“Do rest well,” Qifrey replied. He watched Coco get to her feet and start to head out of the kitchen, an inescapable warmth radiating from his smile. Olruggio’s eyes were fixed on that smile, finding it uncomfortably contagious.
Just before she took the stairs to her room, Coco turned back to them. Her last parting shot was, “Enjoy your cream pie!”
She was not there to witness the hard-earned calm immediately collapse. Olruggio could only pray she didn’t hear them burst into the wild giggles of twelve-year-old boys discovering dick jokes.
The humor was fueled in equal parts stress and relief; consequently the laughter took an embarrassingly long time to subside. Qifrey was half folded over the table by the end of it, forehead pressed to his arm and shoulders trembling with helpless aftershocks. Olruggio had given up trying to remain discreet around the third time Qifrey rasped cream pie into his sleeve, sending them both into a new round of hysterics. Olruggio’s cheeks and stomach ached for it.
Qifrey lifted his head, his cheeks a soft pink and tears shining in his eye with mirth. Meeting eyes nearly sent them over the edge again. Olruggio had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from dissolving back into giggles and he could see Qifrey fighting the same battle with pursed lips. Their hands were still joined together, resting on the table between them. Olruggio found his eyes drifting away from Qifrey’s face to focus on the familiar touch which felt infinitely more intimate than it might have just yesterday.
Laughter had left Olruggio pleasantly breathless, but his next breath caught in his throat for an entirely different reason. Qifrey shifted his thumb, stroking the pad of his thumb over Olruggio’s knuckles. Olruggio raised his eyes curiously to find Qifrey was watching him.
Plummeting off the cliff face-first, Olruggio asked, “Probably?”
Qifrey’s expression changed almost imperceptibly. The warmth remained, but something darker surfaced from the depths below—something that reminded Olruggio of Qifrey pressed backwards into the kitchen counter, Olruggio’s fingers unlacing his collar.
“I didn’t mean to presume,” Qifrey explained, studying Olruggio’s face intently.
Olruggio’s heart gave a heavy thump. “Don’t let me stop you.”
The words hung suspended between them for a few painful breaths while Qifrey simply stared at them. Then he withdrew his hand. Olruggio had just enough time to mourn the loss and start to wonder if he had pushed too far before Qifrey snatched up a handful of the ridiculous, translucent shawl,
The kiss landed on laughing lips, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
Qifrey’s mouth moved with none of the careful experimentation of before. Olruggio immediately understood that the interruption had cooled nothing, extinguished nothing. If anything, sitting together for the unplanned pause, unable to act on the desire simmering between them while every innocent word out of Coco’s mouth reminded him of what she had nearly seen, had fanned the urgency from an ember to an inferno.
Olruggio caught Qifrey’s face between his hands and poured that urgency into kissing him. Their teeth nearly knocked together as tongues and lips tangled and fought for dominance. When Olruggio sucked Qifrey’s lower lip between his own lips, Qifrey made that sound again—the one from before.
Oh. That sound. One of Olruggio’s knees curled up slightly to offset his growing discomfort between his legs. He chased the sound desperately, wrapping his arms around Qifrey and pulling them bodily together in search of more of those wonderful little noises.
In his impatience to pull Qifrey close, they dislodged the chair which made a horrible scraping sound of wood on stone across the floor. The sound was conspicuously loud in the now silent atelier.
Both froze. Listened.
After a few beats of that silence, Qifrey whispered, “Workshop.”
“Workshop,” Olruggio agreed.
They moved with the solemn urgency of men evacuating a burning building, abandoning the pie and the kitchen mess that looked like a tiny, localized tornado had blown through. Olruggio gripped Qifrey’s hand, pulling him up the stairs behind him.
They made it six steps. Qifrey tugged Olruggio backwards.
“Wha-”
Qifrey answered by kissing him.
“Oh for the love of-” he started to say, but his complaint died against Qifrey’s mouth. He backed Qifrey into the wall beside the staircase, earning a breathless little laugh that transformed into a low moan and a seeking rock of his hips when Olruggio kissed beneath his jaw.
“Olly… Please.”
“Stop stopping then,” Olruggio grumbled into his throat.
They made it considerably fewer steps the next time.
By the time they finally successfully got upstairs, whatever dignity they still possessed had been abandoned somewhere between the kitchen and the workshop along with the shawl of Olruggio’s nightclothes. Qifrey’s hair was wild and he was desperately trying to straighten his glasses with his free hand. “The couch would be closer," Qifrey reasoned.
“Workshop,” Olruggio insisted. He added, “Coco told us to.”
Qifrey stopped dead. Olruggio looked back in time to see him break. Olruggio barely managed to smother the laugh under another kiss before he woke the whole damn atelier.
By some miracle, they stumbled into the workshop. Olruggio managed the latch, walking Qifrey backwards through the door first. Olruggio stepped away only to shut the door behind them. Qifrey was watching him with that bright, breathless smile, Olruggio suspected, was going to ruin his life.
With the door shut behind them, neither of them moved immediately. Olruggio’s fingers still sat on the latch of the door and had captured Qifrey’s attention.
Another one of those cliff moments, Olruggio realized. The first kiss could be blamed on impulse. The next few, curiosity. Everything that followed, with an extraordinary commitment to dishonesty, might be dismissed as getting carried away. This could not.
Olruggio turned the lock with a definitive click.
Something in Qifrey’s expression became beautifully undone. “Olly,” he breathed.
Olruggio crossed the room to him before he could finish the thought, capturing him against the wall and making good on their promises.
Coco slipped back into the room as quietly as she could manage, still firmly gripping the warm mug of sweet willowgrape tea. The drink warmed her to her soul, much like the man who prepared it for her—it tasted like friendship, kindness, and a gentle embrace. If she let her mind linger too long on it, it conjured images of another adult who had given her everything, but the draw of the tea was lulling her away from dark thoughts and toward slumber.
A small flame sprang to life from a palm quire, illuminating dark eyes. Coco gasped, taking a step back, but quickly Agott’s familiar features came into view with her curls hanging messily about her forehead and a deep wrinkle etched into her forehead. “Oh! Agott! I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“Where were you?” Agott moved the small flame closer to Coco, examining her. The demand carried enough worry underneath that Coco couldn’t help but smile fondly. She had a peculiar way of showing it, but Agott really was a kind friend.
“I couldn’t sleep, I went downstairs to get some warm milk—but Master Qifrey was there and he made me willowgrape tea with milk and honey—it’s just lovely.” Coco extended the mug toward Agott. “Would you like to try?”
“No,” Agott said hastily, withdrawing a half-step. A blush dusted her cheeks beautifully, like a perfect application of makeup or a healthy glow from sunshine. She looked outside to estimate the time. “Master Qifrey was awake?”
“Yes, Master Olruggio, too.” It wasn’t so unusual for Olruggio to be up late, as Coco understood it. She supposed she was not so different when she got an idea in her head, drawing until her candles burned out to get a seal just right. “They were having their Midnight Delights.”
This seemed to explain enough for Agott. She took up a seat at her work desk, setting the little flame beside her to continue to give them enough light to see one another. Coco carefully set her mug down at her own workspace and turned on her cushion to face Agott.
“They were having cream pie,” Coco explained. “But I don’t know if Master Olly had gotten any yet.”
Agott’s shoulders went tense. “Any… pie.” She clarified.
Coco barreled on, thinking back to the scene. They both had looked so spirited, even if it truly did look like Brushbuddy had made a mess of things in the kitchen. And even though she had interrupted them, they had both still been so kind to make her tea and see her off to bed. “They were making a terrible mess, though. There was cream everywhere.”
“The kitchen?” Agott asked.
“No, mostly all over Master Qifrey.” Agott’s brow furrowed deeper. But Coco continued, bringing her mug back to her lips, “He got cream on his face. Master Olly put it there.”
There was a pause. Coco enjoyed how the drink filled her inside and out with warmth and comfort, eliciting a gentle yawn after drinking. Agott’s blush had spread and she had turned her head to the side, her palm covering her mouth as though she might feel sick.
Coco reached a hand toward her. “Agott…”
“So, Master Qifrey was covered with cream that Master Olruggio put there.” Agott confirmed. She fixed Coco with a startlingly intense look, whatever emotion that had just passed over her abandoned for scrutiny. Usually this look came right before Agott told Coco how fundamentally flawed her thinking was.
“Master Olly was teasing him,” Coco explained. She couldn’t understand why Agott looked pained by this explanation. “They stopped when I came in.”
Agott’s eyes widened. “Stopped what?”
“I’m not sure. They were leaning on the table.” She tried to remember what she saw right when she walked in, but the lighting in the kitchen was only the dim glow of evening firelight and Olruggio’s body had mostly blocked Qifrey from view. “They didn’t get to finish, though. Master Qifrey said they hadn’t quite finished and Master Olly said they were interrupted—I know that was my fault, but they were so kind about it. I thought they should go to Master Olly’s workshop so they wouldn’t be interrupted again.”
Agott sat with that information, staring so intently at the small fire she might extinguish it from force of will alone. Her hand came up to her face again and she leaned the weight of her upper body against her elbow, folding partially over her desk. She looked very weary—Coco felt extra bad that she had woken her and made her worry with how tired she looked.
“Master Qifrey seemed embarrassed,” she continued.
“About Midnight Delights?” Agott asked quietly, speaking into her hand.
“I think because we’re not supposed to know. Remember how Tetia teased them about their late-night snacks?” Tetia had been quite insistent that they stayed up late having custard pudding together and didn’t share any with the girls. Coco looked down into her tea, tiny reflected flickers of firelight dancing across the surface. “But he is always cooking for us. He cooks what we like or things he thinks we’ll like. So I told him it was alright if Midnight Delights was something he did because he liked it.”
“That was…” Agott began, trailing off after the second word. She turned further from Coco, now fully facing her desk. “That was really thoughtful of you.”
Being praised by Agott always made Coco feel warm to her core. She couldn’t help but beam brightly at the other girl’s back, even if Agott couldn’t see it.
They sat in the comfortable silence that followed the compliment; the only sound was Coco sipping on the tea which was pulling her under until it was too much to fight the draw of her bed. “Agott?” she asked sleepily.
“Hm?”
“Do you think they saved any cream pie for us?”
Agott extinguished the flame with a quick motion. “Go to sleep, Coco.”
Agott wondered if Coco had dreamt the whole thing. The kitchen was immaculate. Not clean in the ordinary sense—Qifrey did keep things orderly—but there was no evidence anyone had occupied the room after supper at all. Or possibly ever. The dishes were put away, the counters gleamed, the floor had been freshly mopped, and the table shone from a recent polish. If it weren’t for the tea she had been sipping the night before, there would be no evidence remaining of any late-night snacks, tea, or… delights.
Agott ground her teeth—the absolute last thing she wanted to think about was Master Qifrey and Master Olruggio having a late-night rendezvous involving cream all over Qifrey’s face.
“Good morning, Agott.” Qifrey was at the stove, cracking eggs into a skillet with Brushbuddy mimicking the motion with tiny paws on his shoulder. He was dressed, his clothing looked freshly laundered and pressed, his hair was as neatly settled as it ever got, and even his face had the glow of being recently washed and moisturized. He turned toward her with an easy smile. “You’re up early. Did you sleep well?”
“Yes.” She had not.
“Wonderful.” Qifrey had the lyrical sound to his voice that usually preceded excited ramblings about magic that his apprentices may or may not have actually been listening to. He hummed something under his breath as he returned to his work.
“Did you sleep well, Master Qifrey?”
Qifrey’s hand briefly paused on the utensil he was using to toss potatoes. “Oh,” he said, “well enough.”
Agott frankly didn’t believe him. Coco had fallen asleep almost immediately thanks to the willowgrape tea, but Agott had lain awake staring into the darkness desperately trying not to reconstruct the scene Coco described to her.
She took her usual seat at the table. Thankfully she did not have to wait long for Coco, Tetia, and Richeh to join and for the breakfast routine to settle into something reassuringly normal. Coco offered to help cook, but ended up at the table with Brushbuddy, keeping him out of trouble. Tetia whined that she was starving right up until the plate was set in front of her on the table, when her demeanor quickly flipped to exuberant gratitude. Richeh asked a thousand questions about what Qifrey had made before she decided she would have some.
Once more Agott had nearly convinced herself this was all just a contrivance of Coco’s imagination until Olruggio walked in. The girls fell silent, all eyes fixing on him. It wasn’t unusual for Olruggio to sleep right through breakfast—enough so that it was an event when he showed up.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs. “What?” he grumbled sleepily. “It smells good down here.”
“Master Olly!” Coco beamed. “You came to breakfast!”
“You never come to breakfast,” Richeh observed.
Agott looked back over to the stove. Qifrey seemed to be very pointedly not looking at Olruggio.
“Aye,” Olruggio said, stifling a yawn with one hand. His hair was a mess. He looked like he had dressed himself halfway through the process of waking up and had been wildly unsuccessful in both those endeavors. He hadn’t tended his beard in a couple days, so the stubble on his jaw and neck was starting to come in thicker.
“Are you hungry? Master Qifrey made lots of tasty food,” Coco said, resting her utensils on the side of her plate.
“He made too much,” Richeh said.
“There’s no such thing,” Tetia argued cheerfully.
Olruggio appeared not to hear any of them. His eyes drifted to the stove and settled on Qifrey and his face visibly relaxed. “Nah.” Olruggio shuffled into the kitchen, barely lifting his feet. Qifrey finally turned away from the stove to look at him.
“You’re not hungry?” Tetia asked, sounding genuinely perplexed by the concept.
Olruggio pulled out his chair at the table, taking his seat. He always sat in the one to Qifrey’s right. He rested his elbow on the table and his face in his hand. “Woke up and Qifrey wasn’t there.”
Qifrey’s hand stopped halfway to the teapot.
“So I came to find him,” Olruggio continued with another yawn.
Qifrey seized the teapot, pouring Olruggio a generous mug. “Have some thornbark tea, Olly—that should chase away the sleep in your eyes.”
Olruggio looked down at the tea he had been offered at the same moment Agott looked back down to her plate. There was no denying it now. Coco had seen exactly what Agott thought she saw. Stars, Agott did not want to think about her master and his Watchful Eye doing… Well, whatever it was adults did. Kissing and… no. She didn’t even want to imagine it.
Regardless of what was going through his head, Olruggio dutifully drank. Qifrey’s shoulders, which had been held taut, relaxed as he watched Olruggio sip the tea.
“What did you need Master Qifrey for, Master Olly?” Coco asked sweetly. “Something with magic?”
“Hm?” Olruggio looked confused. He stroked his overgrown beard with one hand.
“You said you came downstairs to find him,” Tetia supplied.
“I did,” Olruggio agreed.
“So did you need him?” Tetia asked.
“For magic,” Agott blurted out, latching on to the plausible excuse Coco had so helpfully supplied. “A new contraption, perhaps?”
Tetia squealed, turning to clasp Coco’s hands. “Do you think it’s like those lovely stones he made that help us sleep?”
Coco’s eyes widened and she gripped back, just as enthusiastically. “Oh, I hope so!”
“He must be so tired because he was up all night working on it!” Tetia declared.
“Oh, no, nothing like that.” Coco laughed quietly. Agott realized a moment too late what she was about to reveal. “He and Master Qifrey were up late having their Midnight Delights!”
Qifrey almost missed his chair sitting down, catching himself on the edge of the table and lowering himself into the seat. Olruggio’s hand shot out to catch Qifrey under one arm, helping to steady him as he sat. Agott watched them make eye contact and Olruggio’s hand fell away from Qifrey’s elbow but it suspiciously seemed to disappear under the table near Qifrey’s leg.
“Midnight Delights,” Tetia whined. “I thought you told us you weren’t going to be doing that anymore and that snacking late isn’t good for you!”
“I want custard pudding,” Richeh murmured.
“Oh, it was cream pie, this time,” Coco supplied. Then, if her little remorseful wince was anything to go by, she seemed to realize her mistake.
“Cream pie!” Tetia pouted. “Is there any left, Master Qifrey?”
Agott suspected she witnessed something truly remarkable and worthy of being documented permanently in the history books—the exact moment a person’s soul departed from their body.
Olruggio answered before Qifrey could get a word in. “None, I had it all.”
Ah, no, Agott had been wrong. That was the moment Qifrey ascended to the stars.
“Oh,” Tetia said with a pout. And blessedly, that was the end of it.
Gradually, the kitchen settled back into the familiar rhythm of breakfast. But with the chaos settled, nothing stood between Agott and what had now become painfully obvious to her.
Olruggio had claimed not to be hungry, but Qifrey had prepared him a plate anyway. Olruggio ate contentedly, praising the soft scramble of the eggs and the fresh herbs on the potatoes. When Olruggio finished his tea, Qifrey noticed it was empty and refilled it in the middle of answering one of Richeh's questions.
Agott had seen them behave like this hundreds of times.
“Thanks,” Olruggio murmured when Qifrey returned the teapot to the table.
“Feeling more awake?”
“Unfortunately.”
Qifrey laughed. It was a small sound, nothing like the strangely bright performance he'd been giving when Agott first came downstairs.
Olruggio smiled into his tea.
Agott looked away. Somehow the moment felt too intimate to be seen by others.
Breakfast continued pleasantly after that. Tetia told them about something she wanted to try that afternoon. Richeh disagreed with some part of her plan. Coco attempted to reconcile the two positions. Brushbuddy danced between the occupants of the kitchen looking for treats until Qifrey put a stop to it with one of his most terrifying, smiling scoldings of the poor little worm.
Olruggio pushed his chair back, coming to a stand. The tea had done nothing for the dark circles under his eyes, but he at least seemed alert. “Suppose I should get some work done.” He gathered up his plate, mug, and utensils to take to the sink. Qifrey reached for the dishes when he passed, but Olruggio deftly moved them out of reach. “You've cooked enough. I'll wash them.”
“It's two dishes,” Qifrey argued but Olruggio stubbornly moved the dishes even further from his reach. Qifrey's mouth pulled into a small smile.
When he had finished with the dishes, Olruggio dried his hands, exchanged some unremarkable parting words with the girls, and started toward the stairs. At the first step, he glanced back.
Qifrey was already looking at him. Neither said a word, but held each other’s gaze, something silent passing between them. Olruggio continued upstairs.
Qifrey was also now getting to his feet, gathering the girls' dishes and the serving plates that had been used for breakfast. The other three girls seemed to be completely oblivious to what was playing out in front of them, still excitedly discussing a new spell they had all been working on together. So only Agott saw when Qifrey paused in the middle of stacking the dishes to look over toward the stairs.
Agott sighed. Apparently this was her problem now.
“We should practice independently today,” Agott said. “Our drawing,” she clarified a moment later. “Together as a group.”
Richeh considered this. “If we practice together, is it independent?”
“Independent from Master Qifrey,” Agott quickly corrected.
“What?” Qifrey turned back to the table, his expression unreadable as he watched the apparent mutiny in the atelier.
Coco brightened. “We could work on our seals from yesterday!”
“Yes,” Agott said immediately. “That.”
“Oh, can we work outside?” Tetia asked. “It’s beautiful outside and it gets too hot inside in the afternoon.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Coco agreed. Agott could have kissed her. Or not.
“Well…” Qifrey said finally, slowly rolling his hands through the towel he was using to dry them. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. I could make you some lunches and we can -”
“You don’t have to supervise us,” Agott interrupted. “We’re perfectly capable of practicing on our own.”
“Agott’s right,” Coco agreed. “We can make lunch, too. You should do something for yourself, Master Qifrey.”
Coco. Agott closed her eyes. Apparently subtlety was a thing of fools and cowards.
“Perhaps I will,” Qifrey agreed finally. He looked at Agott, a small, sheepish smile coming to his face. He really did not cope well with others fussing over him. “Thank you, Agott.” She felt heat rise to her cheeks. “You’re such a diligent student.”
The first light of the morning before the sun crested the horizon was nearly the exact shade of Olruggio’s eyes. Qifrey had lain in darkness listening to Olruggio sleep soundly and let his mind wander. His hand had rested on the bare skin of Olruggio’s side, making long, sweeping motions from his ribs down over his hip and back while Olruggio slept.
It couldn’t last forever.
As the first strip of golden light bled over the edge of the horizon, Qifrey carefully disentangled himself from the bedding, careful not to disturb Olruggio’s slumber. Olruggio ran hot at night, so there was no blanket, just a thin sheet and a pile of square pillows, most of which had been thrown to the floor to make way for their bodies that collided with the force of the ocean crashing into the shore.
Qifrey sat on the edge of the bed with his bare back to the window and looked down at his hands. Without his glasses, they blurred and doubled in his vision. A strange sense of comfort enveloped him when the familiar anxiety rose like bile into his throat, burning through his core. The clock was still ticking. This wouldn’t last forever.
He picked up his glasses from where they had been discarded by the bed and settled them on the bridge of his nose. There was work to be done if he were to unmake the mess they left hours before: dishes, cleaning, unmaking the mess that was Qifrey himself.
Come morning, he thought the urgency might have dissipated. All it took was one look back at Olruggio to know this wasn’t true. His dark hair was unkempt and he was rather unattractively drooling on his pillow. Qifrey couldn’t help a smile. He reached down to tuck one of the longer strands of dark hair behind Olruggio’s ear and leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek. He could feel Olruggio’s stubble brush his chin—a little sensation so painfully specific to those kisses with Olruggio that he never wanted to let it go.
“Sleep well,” Qifrey told him softly. “I’ll take care of everything.” He always did.
When it inevitably happened again—when Olruggio learned the truth and Qifrey could stop lying, when his anxieties fled him and peace could take root—he’d take care of everything again. Olruggio would choose sacrifice, he always chose sacrifice, and Qifrey would give him the warmest smile he could manage when he woke and didn’t remember the ghosts that walked beside them.
He threw himself into undoing the previous night. He cleaned himself, his clothing, Olruggio’s clothing, the additional mess they’d made in the workshop, the mess they’d left in the kitchen, the remains of the pie, and kept going even when it had all been reset. He preemptively erased all traces of their life from the kitchen, caught in a whirlwind of his own hyperfocus.
Brushbuddy mimicked his sweeping, flailing its tiny front legs in sweeping motions. Oddly, that snapped him out of his cleaning spree. He wasn’t sure that brushbuddies were sentient creatures, but this one in particular seemed to at the very least understand him well and be willing to keep his secrets. Perhaps that was why it had become so attached to Coco, a girl it seemed was destined to walk his path. He would do anything to prevent that.
“You’re right,” he told Brushbuddy softly. “It’s time for breakfast, isn’t it?”
Breakfast was both wonderfully chaotic and absolutely harrowing. A desperately underslept Olruggio had been blessed with loose lips and the combination of his honesty and Coco’s candor had nearly spilled everything he had worked so hard to clean all over the table. He found an unlikely ally in Agott. He suspected that while all the girls were in their pre-teens, Agott was just slightly more worldly and wise when it came to matters of the heart and had unfortunately seen right through them. Thinking back to his own days as an apprentice, he could only imagine how horribly scarring it would be to have his master and another mentor suddenly reveal they had become physically intimate…
…Of course that was in part because his specific master was Beldaruit.
Agott had rallied the girls behind the idea that they should do some self-directed studying outside the Atelier and manage their own food. Qifrey had been quickly sidelined as they assembled their lunch, but still he lingered to ensure that the building was not set on fire. It would not be the first or last time. He lingered in the kitchen to watch their bobbing hats disappear into the distance as they followed the trail down to where they were going to practice and picnic.
Qifrey’s soft footsteps on stone were the only sound in the Atelier. He could only assume Olruggio had fallen asleep the moment the tea had worn off given how tired he was and how little sleep he’d had. He was surprised to find that Olruggio had left the door to his workshop open—normally it was closed with an uninviting message warning against unwanted intrusion under no uncertain terms.
Olruggio sat at his desk, absently twirling his pen every couple of seconds. He stared at the parchment in front of him which didn’t look like it had a single magic symbol on it, but rather absentminded doodles. Ah, so he wasn’t working, after all.
“Olly,” Qifrey said softly, stepping into the workshop.
Olruggio leaned back, tilting his head backward and looking at Qifrey. His appearance was still a preserved snapshot of the previous night with a bit more clothing standing between the two of them and a slightly darker shade of his eye bags.
“The girls are outside studying,” Qifrey said, stepping closer to the desk. His eyes drifted down to the parchment, startled to see that what he thought was some absentminded doodle was nothing of the sort.
He immediately recognized the angles of his own face without his glasses, the collar of his clothes undone, a blush sketched in over his cheeks. The Qifrey of the sketch looked at once willing and hungry, like an animal lying in wait for the right moment to pounce. Qifrey found himself so lost in staring at it that he nearly missed Olruggio’s hand sliding up his hip onto his waist where it rested near his belt between his cloak and robe. “This is…” Qifrey began.
“You,” Olruggio confirmed. “Turns out when I tried my usual brainstorming method of just drawing the first thing that came to mind it’s just… you.” He motioned across his desk with the hand that held the pen, illuminating for Qifrey the bundle of crumpled parchments scattered across the desk.
Were they all him?
Qifrey reached with uncertain fingers to unravel one of the crumpled papers and smoothed it across the desk. Another sketch, this one less complete, of Qifrey’s profile marred by one dark lens of his glasses. “Olly…”
Olruggio sighed heavily. “Guess you know all my secrets now.”
Lightning struck Qifrey’s heart.
All my secrets.
No. Qifrey wouldn’t let that happen. Not if it meant losing last night. Not if it meant losing forever.
“Nonsense,” Qifrey said lightly, brushing his fingers reassuringly through Olruggio’s hair. His heart was anything but light, charred and smoking in the crater of his stomach. “I’m sure we still have more surprises than we are prepared for in store for us.”
“I hope so.” Olruggio smiled fondly at him and Qifrey wanted to argue. He did not want Qifrey’s surprises and he absolutely did not want what came from knowing them. But then there were surprises like the lunatic laughter that came from being up too late and having their minds in the gutter or just how limiting Olruggio’s very skin had been when Qifrey wished to wrap them together firmly enough that their souls touched. Like a city with no guards and the drawbridge down, he had prayed for an invasion and in turn rallied his troops to conquer Olruggio.
Now he was reaping the spoils. He heard Coco’s words in his mind again—he could allow himself this. He could do something because he wanted it. Fear and uncertainty, the natural anxiety of being human but also of carrying an unknowable curse, were enough to prolong this moment just a little longer.
What a funny thing it was that being accepted by Olruggio was all it took to bring about his end.
So let me die a thousand deaths, he thought, unwillingly disengaging from Olruggio. Olruggio made a confused little noise of protest, but quickly understood why Qifrey had moved away.
The door needed to be locked.