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Through the window in his bedroom, Qifrey has a picturesque view of the cool spring sunset inching slowly down the horizon.
The girls are asleep—more accurate, perhaps, to say the girls were sent to bed, which Qifrey knows well enough by now means little in relation to whether they’re sleeping—the hearths have dwindled to sparkling orange coals, and the rest of the cottage has darkened, save for one room.
And he is meant to be resting, certainly—he had been banished to his bedroom with the express direction, from the girls and from Olruggio—but it feels wrong to rest while his companion takes on the brunt of the housework, so he waits and watches instead.
After several long minutes, Qifrey sees the candlelight in the kitchen finally flicker out. A few moments later, there’s creaking as someone climbs the stairs, and then there’s a light knock at his bedroom door.
“Hey, you in there?” A formality of a question, because Olruggio opens the door regardless. “I know the chore chart is kind of your sacred business, but I’m gonna insist on some changes—what’re you doing?”
Qifrey’s black undershirt is half pulled over his head, bad arm twisted at an admittedly unnatural angle in an attempt to avoid further straining the joint. He feels his glasses crooked across his nose.
“Undressing for bed,” Qifrey says simply. Olruggio is looking at him with a look similar to the disdain he wears when a patron writes him with suggestions, or when one of the girls stays up too late and he finds them asleep on the floor with ink-stained fingers. “Although not anymore, since I apparently have company now.”
Olruggio rolls his eyes. “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says. “You’re going to hurt yourself again like that.”
“Your concern is most appreciated, old friend, but I assure you I’m healing nicely—”
“Qifrey, I’m serious.” Qifrey freezes. “I know you’re allergic to admitting when you need anything, but it’s just me.” Olruggio’s face flushes. “So, just, let me help, alright?”
Olruggio takes a step closer to Qifrey’s bed. “Olly…”
Olruggio sits, gingerly, on the edge of the bed next to him. One calloused hand finds the inside of Qifrey’s wrist. “Let me help,” he says. His usually gruff voice sounds out of place in the quiet, soft register he’s adopted. Qifrey’s gaze flits over his face. “Let me.”
“Well,” Qifrey says. It’s more whispered than he intends. Something in Olruggio’s face softens. “I suppose if you insist.”
Olruggio slides a bit closer to him, so their knees touch through fabric layers. His eyes are dark in the little bit of light coming in through the window still. The hand he has at Qifrey’s pulse point brushes one thumb back and forth over the inside of his wrist, and then he lifts his hands to Qifrey’s face.
“These first,” he says.
Olruggio—with two hands, frames pinched delicately between each thumb and forefinger, like he’s worried he’ll break something—removes his glasses from his nose. The world is a lot brighter, suddenly, sunlight pouring in through window like it’s midday instead of like dusk, and Olruggio doesn’t know— couldn’t know—how Qifrey’s iris sears as it does, but he shifts just slightly all the same, shoulder blocking an extra inch of encroaching light. He sets the glasses down on the windowsill, and so the remainder of the shirt is next. The sleeve Qifrey hasn’t managed to remove himself is bunched up over his shoulder; Olruggio maneuvers the worn black fabric down his arm with all the care and precision of a seal-drawing hand.
And then, the shirt is gone, and Qifrey is bare in front of him, empty eye socket warmed by the last of the evening sunlight, skin chilled by the fresh night breeze through the window.
“You’ve left me very exposed here,” Qifrey chuckles. Olruggio doesn’t grant him the relief of chuckling back. Instead, his gaze traces over Qifrey’s face, down the pale curve of his neck, over his chest and stomach. There’s a purpling bruise still blooming over the joint of his shoulder, stretched spider-legged down his arm; Olruggio lingers there for an extra moment. “I’m alright, Olly, honestly.”
“You worry about everyone else so much,” he says. His tone is scolding, but the touch of his fingertips to the bruise is so tender it might as well be Qifrey’s imagination. Qifrey laughs lightly. “Is it really that strange to think we would worry about you?”
“Perhaps not,” he concedes. “All the same, I can’t help but try to dissuade you.”
“Enough with all your nonsense,” Olruggio says. “For someone so smart, you can be really stupid.”
It’s not the first time Olruggio kisses him. Not anywhere near. It is the first time—in recent memory—that he’s hesitated so as he does. The press of his lips is soft, almost unsure. The hand he moves to Qifrey’s hip brushes over the skin so delicately it tickles, sending a whole body shiver down Qifrey’s spine to the very tips of his fingers, replacing the much less pleasant pinched-nerve tingle in his right arm for just a moment. When Qifrey inhales—less a gasp than a pleased exclamation—Olruggio immediately pulls back, eyes flickering worriedly over Qifrey’s face.
Qifrey chuckles. Olruggio’s brow furrows—half embarrassment, half frustration—as Qifrey leans in to place a kiss of reassurance to the corner of his lips.
“I’m not that fragile. It is just a sprain.”
Olruggio rolls his eyes. “You’re important to me, Qifrey. Sue me if I want to treat you gently.”
“A great sentimentalist you are, hmm?”
“Busted,” Olruggio says. His cheeks are flushed even more so than earlier. Qifrey brings a hand—the left hand, so Olruggio allows it—up over the redness coloring his face. “I always—I always want to treat you gently. I always want to help you. If you would stop forgetting that I would have much less reason to be angry with you.”
“I’m sorry, love,” Qifrey says.
“Cut that out,” says Olruggio, and kisses him again.
The transition from sitting next to Olruggio to lying under him is too easy. There’s his arm, and Olruggio’s watching him—hawklike even with his eyes mostly closed into each kiss—to ensure he doesn’t support his weight with it. Qifrey’s other hand is preoccupied in Olruggio’s hair, so there really isn’t much to be done when Olruggio puts a hand at the base of his spine and shifts over him, supporting the half-body weight Qifrey’s arm can’t as he gently lowers his back to the mattress. Qifrey pulls away a half inch to see his face better. Olruggio chuckles, a little shyly.
“Alright?” Olruggio says. Qifrey cranes his neck up for another kiss in lieu of answering. Olruggio meets him for it easily, just as soft as the first one again.
A cloud passes over the setting sun outside the window, and it’s much more difficult to avoid flinching at the ray of light that streaks through this time.
“Close the curtains, darling,” Qifrey says.
Olruggio hums against his lips. Even with eyes closed, Qifrey can feel his brow furrow. “I want to see you.”
“I want to have you,” Qifrey says. Olruggio freezes. Qifrey blinks his eyes open again—there’s an excuse, with how long they’ve been shut, to have such difficulty with the light—to see Olruggio’s whole face pinkened up to his ears. Qifrey laughs and presses a thumb to the furrow of Olruggio’s brow. “Light a candle if you must, dearest, please.”
“Yeah, uh—” Olruggio blinks at him. “Yeah, ok. Stay there.”
The light through the curtains is hazier, almost dreamlike. In a dream, Olruggio’s face would be offset in stark relief—the one illogical point of focus in an otherwise blurry invention of his mind—but it’s not a dream, so Olruggio is hazy and warm and blurry too.
In a dream, when Olruggio touched him, the pleasure of it would be far away, guilt-laced, a memory of a memory of a hope. In a dream, his kiss would be fleeting, and his gentle affection the same.
But Qifrey’s never been lucky enough for that kind of safety. Olruggio is hot and solid and real against him. Olruggio touches him and all his nerve endings go alight. Olruggio holds him, and everything makes sense, and it’s hard to remember why it can’t last.
“We should do this more,” Olruggio says, hand skimming down the length of Qifrey’s thigh to help him remove his pants, too. Qifrey allows himself to be rid of the fabric and then kisses him again. “Why don’t we do this more?”
“You think too much of the future, dearest, while I’m right here,” Qifrey teases, mostly because he knows it will make Olruggio chuckle and shake his head, and kiss him again. “Am I not enough just like this, love?”
“You talk too much,” Olruggio says. “God, you’re beautiful. Just shut up a little bit and let me take care of you, alright?”
Qifrey can’t watch—not with the lingering ache in his shoulder—so he can only blink up at the ceiling as Olruggio’s mouth trails down his chest, then stomach, then to the pale, tender skin of his thighs. Gentle, calloused hands draw Qifrey’s hips closer. Olruggio’s breath against him is hot when he chuckles, pleased, at Qifrey’s shaking exhale.
“You’re a horrible tease,” Qifrey says, voice thinner than he means it to be. Olruggio only chuckles that beautiful soft chuckle again, right at the bend where Qifrey’s hip meets his thigh.
“I’m savoring the present moment,” Olruggio says, punctuated by a delicate kiss, so close to where the tension builds in Qifrey’s gut. “That’s what you asked for, right?”
“Aren’t you meant to be taking care of me?”
“My motives are a little selfish, I’ll admit,” Olruggio says. Qifrey can’t see his face, but he can feel the trace of unshaven beard-stubble against his skin. He wants , desperately, to pull him back up, to card a hand through his hair, to cradle his cheek in one palm, to kiss each inch of his face until he’s recognizable by one touch of lips alone. He keeps his gaze on the ceiling instead. “I’m a multifaceted guy, y’know. I can do two things at once.”
“Yes, you’re very industrious,” Qifrey says, drily, and so Olruggio laughs for real. And because Olruggio is infectious, every part of him, and because Qifrey is a weaker man than circumstances allow, Qifrey laughs too.
“Shut up,” Olruggio says, without any weight at all. “Let me focus.”
And Qifrey has always known, from the moment he met him, that Olruggio was more than he could deserve. He’s not used to it, not exactly—because he could never grow accustomed to something so blindingly incandescent, no matter how near he remained—but perhaps it’s easier to anticipate. Olruggio is smarter, sweeter, kinder, more thoughtful, more attentive than Qifrey would ever be able to return to him, so perhaps it follows that the careful curl of his tongue, the gentle turn of his fingers, would be much the same. It allows him—however briefly, however ephemerally—to maintain some sense of composure in the face of such profound attention.
The thing that does him in, though, is this: the sight of Olruggio, hips grinding down into the bed, whole body shuddering with a soft groan, mouth and hands never wavering from their place even as his own bliss crests.
“Come here, darling,” Qifrey says, before his breath has even had time to return to his lungs. Olruggio crawls up the bed so his face is within reach once again. He smiles at him so tenderly. He combs a gentle hand through Qifrey’s hair. He kisses him once more, so careful and so adoring Qifrey’s certain he must be made of glass to deserve such treatment. He lays down on the pillow next to Qifrey’s, and watches him for another moment before he closes his eyes.
Qifrey can only watch—can’t touch, can’t speak, can’t do —so he watches, rapt and silent. His body buzzes all too pleasantly, from his head to the tips of his fingers.
“Love you,” Olruggio mumbles. Qifrey moves to brush his hair from his face before fresh grief spikes cold through his eye and his gut, and he withdraws while Olruggio’s eyes are still closed. “You have no idea how happy you make me, Qifrey, I don’t say it enough.”
And, well, at least if he cries now, there’s something to chalk it up to. Olruggio picks his head back up at the first sniffle that slips past Qifrey’s rapidly-crumbling defenses.
“Hey—”
Qifrey scrubs hastily at his face with the back of his hand. “I’m alright, darling, I’m fine—”
“Qifrey.” Olruggio sits up on his elbows. “Don’t give me that. What’s wrong?” Qifrey shakes his head. “Is it your arm? Something I said?”
“I’m sorry,” Qifrey sobs. Olruggio’s face shifts from concerned to firmly horrified as he does. “I’m sorry, love, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, hey.” Olruggio scoots closer to him. He’s warm, and his hands on Qifrey’s face are achingly gentle, and he makes Qifrey so happy , and so Qifrey sobs again. Olruggio brushes the tear from his face before it can dampen his cheek. “You’re not making any sense. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Qifrey inhales deeply, in an attempt to wrest back control of his lungs. Olruggio looks at him, the look on his face so tender it makes Qifrey’s chest ache and his eye burn. He brushes his hair from his face again. When he manages to catch Qifrey’s eye he smiles—just a gentle little twist of lips pinched in concern—and Qifrey feels something in himself crumble.
“I love you,” Qifrey says. He curls forward into Olruggio’s chest. Olruggio wraps him in his arms without hesitation. “I could live a thousand lifetimes and never deserve you, my friend.”
Olruggio tucks his chin on top of Qifrey’s head. “Qifrey, you’re scaring me. Talk to me, c’mon.”
Qifrey’s quiet for another minute. He breathes into Olruggio’s chest, breaths slowly evening, and although he can feel Olruggio waiting for him to speak, he doesn’t say anything, so Qifrey remains silent. Olruggio shifts, just so, so he can press a kiss to the crown of Qifrey’s head.
Qifrey’s never been any match for him, anyway.
“I want to—I want to be with you. I want to have you,” Qifrey says. “I want you to have me. I want it to be real.”
“You do have me. You always have me,” Olruggio says.
“Not—not truly. Not the way I want.”
Olruggio’s arm over him shifts, pulling him just a little closer.
“You know I care about you a lot more than the whole watchful eye thing, right?” Olruggio says. “If…if that’s what this is about, Qifrey, we can figure all that out.”
Qifrey ducks his head, just barely. “I could never ask that of you, dear friend.”
“You could,” Olruggio says simply. “You can.” And then, just barely quieter, “I wish that you would.”
Enough time passes that the warmth of the sun no longer flickers through the curtains. Olruggio is a horrible snorer when he sleeps, but he’s silent now. Something childish and weak in Qifrey wants to pretend to be asleep—although he’s sure Olruggio can feel the rapid flutter of his heart in his ribcage as clear as if it were exposed on his chest—as if that could prevent the inevitable.
“I have to…” Olruggio starts. Qifrey wraps himself more firmly around him for the last moment he’s allowed. “I have to be up early, tomorrow, so I should, ah…”
“Olly—”
“I don’t want to wake you,” he says. “I should. I should go.”
“You don’t have to,” Qifrey says. “You can stay, if you’d like. I wouldn’t mind even if you woke me.” Olruggio extricates himself even so. Qifrey reaches for him across the bed despite himself. “Please stay.”
“It’s ok, Qifrey,” Olruggio says. He clasps Qifrey’s extended hand between his palms, presses a lingering kiss to the back of his hand, eyes squeezed shut. When he finally lets go, his eyes are wetter. Qifrey’s sure he’ll crumble, as fragile as the skeleton of a decayed leaf, with Olruggio’s skin no longer against his. “I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast, ok?”
“Olly, please—”
Olruggio turns in the half-open doorway, and it’s the only thing to say.
“I love you,” Qifrey says. “Please understand how dearly I mean that, my friend.”
“I know,” Olruggio says, and smiles an awful, sad little smile. “I love you, too.”
He shuts the door behind himself as he goes. Qifrey is cold, even with the candlelight still flickering warmly on the windowsill.