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It feels like an eternity before they are allowed to leave, in the days that follow after the disaster that was the Silver Eve – swallowed up by investigations and cross examinations and cross cross examinations, even with Beldaruit pushing back for their sake – Qifrey is grateful, even when livid as he is with the elderly witch for deceiving Coco. Then again there were reconstruction efforts (entirely voluntary) and medical attention (entirely involuntary and decidedly non-optional, no matter how much Coco and Olruggio protested) to see to, besides.
He is tired.
They part ways with everyone: Beldaruit who has his sagely duties, Riliphin who stays by his teacher's side; the prince (who Tetia knows, apparently. What even?) back to his castle; Hiehart and Jujy, returning to the Assembly under the Medical Spire’s care; Sinocia, Ermile and the rest scattered to their various hospitals; Tartah, and Mr. Nolnoa who was moving to Kalhn’s medical facility along with him so as to remain by Tartah's side; his and Coco's friend, and his father – the duo whom Qifrey cannot even think of right now without old aches flaring up once more.
All he wants is to return home.
There is relief flooding in, right down to the tips of his toes, as they all pass the gate window’s threshold one by one, subdued though their return might be. Even Tetia cannot muster up the energy for cheer this time around.
Regardless, they are home, and home is safe. Qifrey wouldn't mind growing roots in place of feet, if it meant never being sundered from this place again. (And that is a comforting thought, far more than he'd have ever imagined, even as it makes concern twist in his stomach.)
This is no time to be indulging in daydreams, however – night has already fallen over the atelier, and there is work yet to be done.
It's better if Oru were to stay over in this side of the atelier for at least a few days instead of his isolated tower, it cannot help but feel a little too far away, for all that it is separated by but a bridge. They could set up the spare mattress by the fireplace, and Qifrey could sleep on the couch for the time, keep an eye on him. He already sleeps there more than he does in his actual bed as is, and who is he even kidding? It's not like he is going to get any sleep like this.
There is a hand on his shoulder, cutting through his haphazard thoughts – Olruggio. He looks concerned. Really, who should be worrying about whom?
The girls haven't moved an inch, he realizes. Rooted in their spots, lingering in the room instead of heading to bed. To their separate, lonely quarters.
Qifrey finds out that he has not the heart to send them to their rooms.
“Would you – ” he says, fingers brushing across the hand on his shoulder for courage. “Would all of you rather prefer to sleep here tonight?”
The girls all look at each other at this, hesitating, shuffling on their heels, whispering amongst themselves. Then – “I think we'll like that,” whispers Coco at last. Qifrey silently nods, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He cannot stand to look at her face.
“It's almost like a sleepover!” says Tetia, placing her hands on Coco's shoulders. Her uncertain smile is a far cry from her usual brand of enthusiasm, and yet it is enough to light up the entire room. Coco smiles right back.
They get to work right away after that – stripping the beds of sheets and quilts and mattresses, pillows and blankets. Even more pillows from all the workstations as well, along with all the spare blankets stashed around the atelier. Everything comes along astonishingly fast – four people make lighter work. (Coco and Oru have been delegated to arranging the hoard of stuff they carry downstairs, and not for their lack of opposition. Four people make a stubborn team.)
It still isn't enough to quell the tension prickling under everyone's skins.
At one point Qifrey returns with blankets in his hands, to the tail end of an incredibly one sided argument – between Olruggio and Tetia, of all people.
“ – It's fine,” Olruggio is calmly saying, hands raised in platitude, seated cross-legged on the floor.
“No, it's not fine!” shouts Tetia, stomping her foot. “It's not fine at all! I told you to leave it alone, I told you it's heavy, I told you I'd do it!” When was the last time she was this angry? “I told you not to move it, so why did you?”
If Qifrey were to guess, this is probably about the mattress that's been dragged halfway across the floor to align with the rest of them.
As the remnants of Tetia's anger echo through the room, everyone else lingers in an uncomfortable, deadly silence, shocked by the situation. Even Brushbug skimpers nervously around Coco's shoulders.
“You always do this!” she continues, slightly out of breath now. “You always tell us to get enough sleep, to not overwork, and yet you always shut yourself off inside your room. You won't sleep, you won't take a break – You want Coco to rest properly, but you won't rest yourself, even though you fainted in the middle of the darn field!”
This is what forces the floodgates open, in the end. Qifrey finds himself a witness to the sight of horror blooming on Olruggio's face as Tetia bursts into tears.
“Y-you just fainted out of n-nowhere,” she sobs. “Do- do you have any idea how sc-scary that was?”
“Come on, Tetia,” Agott whispers, the first one at her sister apprentice's side as her cries send her spiraling into hiccups. “Come on, it’s alright now, no need to cry. It's- it's alright – ” she insists, but Tetia's tears prove to be contagious. Her lip wobbles, and even as she stubbornly bites it down, her own eyes well up regardless. Furious, she wipes the tears away on the back of her hand. “It's- ”
“Come here,” Olruggio softly cuts in, recovered from the shock, holding his arms open in offer. Tetia practically flings herself down into his arms, sobbing. But even in her grief she remembers to be careful, hands fiercely clinging only to Olruggio's shirt to not hurt him even by accident.
He beckons the rest of them over – Agott, who awkwardly hovers before them, hesitating before she shuffles over to embrace his other side. Coco and Riché standing in the sidelines – Coco hugs him from behind, Riché squishing herself in right next to Agott. Brushbug, hanging down from Coco's neck, nuzzles his face.
In response to the girls' tears, Olruggio offers no justifications, nor any consolations. Only gently whispered comfort, and sincere, heartfelt apologies – as much as Oru disliked being open or upfront about his emotions, he hates the girls' hurt even more. Quietly he hushes their sobs, pats all heads and rubs all shoulders and backs that he can reach. Holds them close.
Something about the sight hurts Qifrey's chest – in a good way. This is good, he tells himself, hugging the blankets close to his chest. Reminds himself. This is good, it is for the best.
(Then why does he feel so cold?)
“It's been a really long day,” Olruggio whispers when the last sobs have died out. “It's been a whole lotta long days.” He pats Tetia's head one last time. “Let's rest for now, alright?”
This is fine.
(Why does every breath feel like a knife twisting in his heart?)
Qifrey quietly drops the blankets into the abundant pile – he supposes they've gathered enough already.
Surprisingly, Tetia swaps her spot next to Olruggio with Agott, all on her own – she's too much of a restless sleeper to risk being next to their injured mentor. She instead settles into a spot between Agott and Coco, with Riché flanking Olruggio's left (now that was a girl who wouldn't budge for an earthquake). She truly is a considerate child. From her own marginally distant place, Riché hovers, brows drawn close in concern for her. Coco embraces Tetia, and Agott cautiously places a hand on her shoulder.
They're all good children.
This is good.
While everyone is busy getting settled for the night, Qifrey quietly steps back, planning to sneak away from their sight – this is not a moment he should be intruding on.
“Where do you think you're going?” Olruggio, ever vigilant, asks, no – demands, his eyes sharp. The girls all turn to look at him as well, their gazes confused and questioning.
“I'll be right back,” he lies, a nervous smile that feels fake as rubber stretching on his face. “The atelier is hardly going to manage getting back to running shape all by itself now, is it?”
Even as Olruggio's eyes narrow, he doesn't call Qifrey out, only looking at him with a familiar, weary resignation. The one that makes his face look unbelievably aged. Now, Qifrey just needs to leave –
Something tugs at his skirts.
“Can't you stay?” Coco asks, earnest, glistening eyes looking right into his, and – her face. The swelling has gone down, and thank goodness she didn't lose her eye, but her cheek is still a patchworked myriad of colour, bruising like blurry splotches of paint mixed together. It makes for a dizzying sight. Sinocia said that means it's healing. He cannot bear to look at it.
How exactly is he meant to pull away from her grip otherwise? To walk away from them?
He screws his eye shut. He can't –
He sinks to the floor, hesitantly sitting at the very far end, the edge of the mattress, barely tethered – until Tetia gets up and moves over to his other side, bringing him closer to the heart of the group.
They really are good kids, all of them. What can he do but accept defeat?
Discarded cloaks pile up on the couch, and shoes have already cluttered the doorstep ever since their return. The fire crackles merrily in the hearth. Seven figures lie down for the night, surrounded by extensive piles of pillows.
Riché curls up into a tight coil like she often does when taking a nap – she and Brushbug, three spots over near Coco's head, make two of a kind.
Olruggio lays on his back, the only one to do so. Perhaps Qifrey should be taking a page out of his book so that he won’t have to worry about Tetia feeling left out, but sleeping on his back is something he has never quite managed to accomplish. Besides, it doesn’t seem like Tetia herself particularly minds, considering the way she is readily using him as a substitute for a hug pillow. Coco and Agott both face their respective professors, backs turned to each other. It is an arrangement reasonable enough.
When it comes to actually sleeping though, it feels… awkward, to say at the least. Personally, Qifrey isn't used to sharing such space with this many people. Once he had managed to scrape past the line for a barely acceptable margin of health in his youth, and past further still the one for juvenile attitudes, he had started considering having to sleep next to Beldaruit as the highest possible degree of insult. Beyond that point, he hasn't ever slept beside anyone other than Olruggio, with the sole exception of Alaira during old sleepovers.
He finds himself lost, not knowing what to do.
He isn't alone in this, either – everyone else seems just as restless. Behind him he can feel Tetia constantly shift around, and Coco keeps switching between laying on her side or back – she even tries to sleep on her stomach, once, though that endeavour is quite quickly abandoned. At one point Agott actually shoots up and shrieks out loud when Coco's toes unexpectedly brush against her shin, apparently because of how cold her foot is – which in turn makes Riché, who was on the verge of falling asleep, rather grumpy. And then Agott takes offense at Olruggio’s suppressed chuckling. And so on.
It's a disaster, really. And truly, Qifrey does prefer the liveliness over the former stony silence that the girls are too young for, but when everyone settles down, it isn't something he would call unwelcome.
Everyone but the two of them, that is – Coco is still awake. This is roughly the fifth time either one of them has sneakily peeked an eye open to find the other still up.
Qifrey clears his throat as Coco shuffles guiltily, but no words come out – he wonders why. It's not like hypocrisy has stopped him from giving advice that his students needed before.
It sure is awkward.
“Er…” mumbles Coco, “Can you…”
Can he what? Her vaguely pointing at him clears absolutely nothing.
“Um…” her face scrunches up with a familiar determination, and she grabs and tugs at his arm until he unpins it from underneath himself – oh. He stretches his arm out for her to use as a pillow.
Plopping onto his forearm, she smiles wide enough to warp the shape of her injury, eyes closed and curling up into a fetal position to sleep.
...Has this always been what a child's weight felt like?
Regardless, he can hardly shift around and ruin his apprentice's best efforts at sleeping, now, can he? That would be rather irresponsible.
He reaches out his hand but stops at the last moment, coming back to his senses. Drawing it close to his chest instead, Qifrey cautiously breathes in, heartbeat ringing oh so loudly in his ears. Then out. In again. Over and over.
Sleep does grace him that night, despite his unwavering belief otherwise, easy and unexpectedly merciful.
Awakening on the other hand remains the usual affair, so precisely in line with his expectations that the previous night might as well never have happened – waking up on his side, to hands neatly tucked together by the wrist, legs curling in, tangled in a blanket that he kicked down, the burden of all his weight on one shoulder. A world too blurry to comprehend.
...But that's not entirely true now, is it? Coco clings to his right arm, holding it in a vise grip. Tetia might have let go of his back, but her legs are now haphazardly sprawled on top of him. The bridge of his nose stings a little where the glasses he didn't remove dig in.
He rises as far as his slumbering apprentices allow, squinting, the first order of business to make sure Coco's posture isn't accidentally aggravating the bruise – it isn't. Then, carefully twisting around (a lot) to make sure Tetia hasn't rolled off the mattress to half lie on the floor – it's almost a talent, the way she has managed to avoid that fate, still peacefully snoozing, her untied hair spread around like a liongoat’s mane.
Then he turns around – and meets blue. Olruggio, wide awake, lifts his free hand in acknowledgement, bandages peeking through loose sleeves. Free hand, because the other one is currently pinned under Agott's head. Oh dear. Fleetingly, Qifrey also notices Coco's foot clearly sticking out and touching Agott, with no visible protest. On the other side, Riché has uncurled enough to cling to Oru's shirt. Oh dear.
What an adorable sight they make.
‘Hey sleepyhead,’ Olruggio mouths more than says. Qifrey, not yet awake enough to form a response, mutely stares at his almost hazy figure.
Agott stirs in the midst of their non-conversation, half asleep still as she hoarsely whispers out a questioning “...Professor?” while blearily turning her head around – bobbing as unsteadily as an owlkitten.
“Isn't going anywhere,” Olruggio easily reassures. “Go back to sleep.”
Agott is quick to listen – to believe, without even having managed to actually see Qifrey herself. Such is the weight of a professor's words.
And oh, she is definitely more asleep than awake, because she actually snuggles closer to Olruggio. Snuggles. An awake Agott would never. Oh, his heart–
Olruggio keeps looking at him with expectant eyes. ‘Well, lie right back down,’ his look seems to say. ‘You wouldn't possibly make liars out of us in front of your apprentice, will ya?’ Right until Qifrey settles down.
He doesn't have to get up this early, after all. The day is still young, light just barely filtering into the room, everything lazily bathed in warm pinks. Just a little longer – he can stay just a little bit longer.
‘They want me to stay – even after everything that happened…’ he realizes. And – oh dear, everything is blurring together again. He quietly swipes at his eye. ‘They really aren't going to let me leave, are they?’
“Can you believe it, Foon-foon?” he muses, lazily petting the sleepy brushbug with a single finger. He hardly can. Brushbug drowsily squeaks in protest of the name – business as usual.
Oh, how good it feels to be home.
He carefully pats Coco's head, hand brushing over strands of golden green, before closing his weary eye.
How fortunate it is to be wanted and welcomed there.