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Agott was not, and never had been, stupid. As the first of Qifrey's apprentices, she'd known longer than any of them that waking in the middle of the night didn't necessarily mean going without being comforted— that stumbling into the kitchen tearful from a nightmare had about even odds of her master or the Watchful Eye or both already being there. She couldn't count on both hands the number of times she'd been consoled with a cup of marktea and a little snack before being tucked back into bed.
Of course, now that she was sixteen and practically an adult, she didn't need coddling in the middle of the night, even though her nightmares had changed in intensity from when she'd been a child; if she did wake sobbing or screaming, Coco was on the other side of their shared study, and like as not to come running to Agott without Agott seeking her out if she heard. Agott did the same for her— more often, because Coco's nightmares were worse and more frequent.
At any rate, it wasn't a nightmare that sent Agott into the kitchen on this night, but a study session leading up to her fourth test that went well past sunset and into the rising of the half-full moon. She wasn't anything but peckish this time, and she even knew what her objective was: there were still half a dozen glowrose tarts stashed in the icebox, and one of them was hers. That plus a cup of halftea was just the ticket to filling her grumbling tummy and settling her overstuffed mind enough to get some sleep.
The light spilling out of the kitchen came as no surprise to her. The murmuring voices, likewise expected: Qifrey's melodic voice, Olruggio's lower counterpoint in conversation. She heard laughter, and then its cessation, and turned into the kitchen expecting to see both men with a cup of something held to their lips.
Their lips were occupied, but not with anything to drink. Agott froze in the doorway at the sight of Qifrey leaning back against the counter by the window with his head tilted, Olruggio cupping his jaw in one gentle hand to kiss Qifrey. They've done this before, she thought to herself, not because she'd ever observed it but because the tender ease between them could only speak of experience. How long have they been doing this?
It was a silly question. Only since the painstaking removal of Qifrey's arboreal curse was he able to indulge in things like comfort and pleasure without fearing for his life. Every inhabitant of the atelier, plus the doctors of the Healing Spire, had been needed to carry out his rescue from what had plagued him for as long as he could remember; after he'd been let out of the spire, still weak and weary but no longer willing to be away from home, the first thing he'd done on arriving at the atelier had been to hug each of his apprentices, longer and tighter than he'd ever been able to do before, and then to hug his best friend for even longer.
Barely a season, then; it had been the last days of Snowend when he'd come home, and the passage stars would fall any night now. A small miracle if they'd gone all summer without being caught in their affections by any of the apprentices— though, if Richeh had seen, she never would tell; Tetia would have shared the gossip within clockticks, and Coco probably would have told Agott at least, Agott certainly would tell Coco what she'd observed, and—
She should, perhaps, stop observing, because Qifrey was sliding a hand into the open neck of Olruggio's shirt, and that whimper might have come from either of them, loud enough to hear clear across the room. Agott realized that her face was bright red, and that if she made any sound she'd be caught catching them.
No glowrose tart or tea tonight, she thought; there was a tin of dried fruit at her workspace, and the vapor bubble, and that would have to do for her snack. She tiptoed away from the kitchen and back into her study, wondering what exactly she was going to say to Coco about it— trying desperately not to think about if they were the ones kissing in the kitchen, Coco's back to the counter, Agott's hand on her cheek.