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There’s a still-unbelievable softness underneath Qifrey when he wakes, one arm tucked into his chest and the other tingling beneath an unknown pressure, gasping for circulation. No light slips into the room, but he feels well-rested anyway, comfortable and warm in the dark in a way that makes him instantly tense. A reflex. There’s a sound from beside him.
“Y’okay?”
Olly. Half-asleep. Audibly concerned but even more audibly exhausted. The mysterious weight that is currently cutting off blood flow to his arm. Qifrey exhales and attempts to consciously lower his shoulders from his ears. He rubs at his eye with his free hand, blinking at the blurry shapes around the workshop.
It’s been three days since he had the silverwood burned out of him. Three days since Olruggio had carried him back to their atelier on shaking legs. Three days since Richeh had pressed a crystal to the still-burning skin around his eye-less socket, soothing like a balm while holding his shivering hand.
Since then, Coco and Tetia have made him a cake. The latter brings brushbuddy in to curl around his tremulous wrist while the former hums folk songs from her village, voice soft and impressively in-tune. Agott comes in to see him every four hours, like clockwork, otherwise locking herself away to carve ceaselessly into his glasses. He’s already told her that a complete degradation of his sight was expected, would be a small price to pay, but she’s insistent. She brings updates every time she crawls into his—Olly’s—bed, fitting the frames to his nose with an optimistic half-smile, letting Olly ruffle her hair while he advises her on tool choices.
Olly doesn’t leave his side for more than a few minutes at a time.
He’d sat on Qifrey’s bed for the first time three days ago, grimacing through watery eyes.
“Now what is this?”
Qifrey had laughed from beside him, curling in on himself on top of the false mattress, the ridges of the stone beneath digging into his shoulders with their familiar bite, his chest simmering. He’d felt very far away.
“It’s just a mat,” he’d whispered. “It can’t…can’t make me comfortable. The rest of the bed is a projected visual. Like that mask you made.”
Olly had picked him back up and deposited him promptly onto the plush duvet of the bed in his workshop.
They’ve spoken in hushed tones about their tassels, about the Tower of Tomes, about forgotten promises. They’d discussed it all before finishing the spell that would singe the branches, on the off-chance that none of it would work, or that it would work too well to spare any living flesh. Olly had held his face in terrified hands and tilted their foreheads together, pressing a dry kiss to his mouth before wiping his cheeks with ink-stained fingertips and closing the circle.
But they haven’t spoken about it since. Not about the spell still drawn under the flap of Qifrey’s cap, or about what remains missing, or about how Olly had sobbed through that first night, unable to sleep and holding onto Qifrey like a rocking boat. They haven’t spoken about what any of it means for them, for the atelier, or about what happens now.
Qifrey squints, trying to make out any of Olruggio’s features from across the bed, flinching slightly when he feels gentle fingers brush along his hairline. He realizes that he still hasn’t answered Olly’s question.
“Yes,” he nods, voice hoarser than he expected it to sound. For all of the water that his apprentices have been forcing him to drink, he hasn’t been speaking much. Olruggio’s face is suddenly close enough to begin to decipher, but he’s wrapped up into a tight hug before he can get a good enough look.
His body tenses against his will, anxiety crawling up his throat as the warmth envelops him. Olly can’t understand, not really, but he feels fingers press between his shoulder blades, rubbing in a circle until some of his muscles unclench. The absence of his right eye twitches, but doesn’t ache. He rests his head on Olly’s shoulder and takes a deep breath, smelling smoke and ink.
Olly shifts, holding him closer, and Qifrey tries to catalogue all of the places they touch, reminding himself that the contact is no longer dangerous. Olly’s nose is slotted against his temple, fingers having moved from between his shoulders to the base of his head. There’s a slight tickle where the hair on his chin brushes against Qifrey’s cheek. The other arm is wrapped loosely around his middle, squeezing against his tunic. Their legs aren’t exactly tangled, but he can feel Olruggio’s calf against his own, a bony knee against his thigh, and the press of something warm and firm against his hip. His own body is an unfortunate mirror, the hour still early and the closeness still unfamiliar.
His first instinct is to dig his fingernails into his palms. One of his hands, still asleep, refuses to react to the impulse, but the other twitches. He can feel himself tensing again. His stomach rolls in a way that might be pleasant, and he squeezes his eye shut so hard that he sees stars.
“Breathe, Qifrey. You can relax.”
Olruggio sounds unfazed, only as anxious as the first time he’d checked in. He doesn’t pull away, carding his fingers through some of the hair that’s plastered with sweat to the back of Qifrey’s scalp. There’s nothing untoward about the touch. Qifrey shifts, biting his tongue hard, waiting to taste iron. The pain blossoms out only slightly. There’s still roaring in his ears.
Olly extricates his face, moving his hand from Qifrey’s hair to his shoulder, applying gentle pressure. Fingers move hesitantly to trace underneath brittle eyelashes, but he still hasn’t separated their lower halves, brows furrowed in concern. His voice is quiet.
“Are you okay? Does your eye hurt?”
Qifrey hears a sound from his throat that he didn’t know he was capable of making. He can hear the distant, too-close sound of Olly sucking in a breath.
He doesn’t think that he can pinpoint the first moment he felt lust. Not exactly, anyway. His time as Beldaruit’s apprentice is predominantly defined by fear and hatred in his memory, visions of drowning alongside the scratch of pen to paper, sneaking out at every opportunity. Olly, always there, cracking jokes and smuggling sweet bread through windowways. An annoyance who had morphed into a friend, morphing again at some point into something as necessary as a limb. Olruggio stayed close, always turning his head to make sure Qifrey was following, or checking in from across a room.
He remembers Olly’s face from the Tower clearly. Frightened, resolute, smiling while he’d cried. Qifrey had wrapped the new ribbon of his cap fiercely around his shaking hand until they’d returned to the Great Hall. He’d scratched his fingernails into his thighs until he bled and fell asleep with his arms wrapped around his cap. This is most of what he remembers. He wasn’t allowed a timeline of adolescence.
But lust must have happened at some point, inevitably. He remembers being caught sneaking out years later—his escape thwarted by two other apprentices, having stolen one of his hideouts to use as a place to kiss and touch in the dark. He’d been angrier and more flustered than he’d wanted to be when he reported the news back to Olruggio, trying to focus completely on the fact that the route had been compromised.
Olly had just flushed and laughed it off, shrugging.
“I mean, I’m not surprised,” he’d said, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s a really good spot for it.”
Qifrey remembers freezing, his brain supplying images quicker than he’d consented to. The two of them, returning to the Great Hall after a night of searching the land beyond, on the hunt for a plot of their own. Curling up into the dark corner that they’d scoped out themselves, pressing their lips together in the way that the other apprentices had. His apprehenders had had their hands under each other’s robes. What would that be like?
Quickly, Olly had backpeddled, his ears visibly burning. “I mean—any hiding spot would be! I didn’t mean that we—”
Qifrey had already fled. He was very good at that.
Olruggio was back to normal the next day, seemingly content to pretend that the previous night had never happened, but Qifrey remembers it reorienting the remainder of their time in the Great Hall. He’d stop in the middle of drawing a sigil to watch Olly work, watching his fingers grip his pen or twist metal around some new contraption. He’d stare at how Olly’s back worked under his tunic while in the air, twisting around himself to reach for some paper. It had burned, in a nice way. He stole glances whenever he could, at Olly’s forearms and lips and shoulders and calves, tucked away and kept to himself.
Occasionally, he’d aim for a covert look and find Olly already staring at him, chin resting on his hand and a drowsy, faraway look in his eyes. At first, he’d startle, embarrassed at being caught out, but eventually, he began laughing about it. Sometimes, he’d raise his eyebrows in question, pulling a face or sticking out his tongue. Sometimes, he’d just smile, shaking his head at himself. On one particularly drunken evening, his gaze had flickered, unsteady, and he’d licked his lips.
Wiping Olly’s memory didn’t make the looks go away. A sick part of Qifrey hoped that it would—that, one day, Olruggio would wake up without memory of the Silverwood, and with it, gone would be the glances. Qifrey would be able to cook a meal without catching Olly’s wandering eye over a pot of soup, or put Richeh to bed without looking up to find Olruggio staring at him, eyes soft and slightly pained.
Of all of his feelings for Olruggio, lust has been easier than others to force into a dusty box, burying it underneath soil and ink. It’s easier to look away from his hands as he works than it is to stray completely out of his orbit. He can remove himself from Olly’s workshop when he starts to shed his layers for bed, but he can’t bring himself to leave the room when he starts laughing.
That said, there’ve been slip ups.
When they were seventeen, Olly had paused while they wrestled over a bottle of sparkling wine stolen from Beldaruit. He’d sat up straighter in Qifrey’s lap and shifted slightly, his eyes flashing with something confident. It was gorgeous. When he’d leaned down to make a move, Qifrey had smashed the bottle in an attempt at distraction. It worked.
After a few weeks of hunting across the peninsula in his early twenties, functionally off-the-grid, he’d returned to Kalhn to find Olruggio on his third day without sleep, working himself into oblivion. On Qifrey’s return, Olly had clung to him with a frenzied, sleep-deprived grip and nuzzled into his hair until he passed out. In his half-asleep state, the two of them squeezed onto a chaise, he’d pressed uncoordinated kisses to the side of Qifrey’s neck between huffs of breath. Qifrey had taken a freezing cold shower and tugged on his own hair until his scalp burned.
Qifrey plays back the first night in their atelier at least once a week, like pressing on a bruise to remember that it still aches. They’d barely unpacked anything at that point, their home an empty cavern in comparison to what they’d eventually turn it into. A bottle of wine had been split between them, abandoned on the rug-less floor, and another was opened.
They’d exhausted all of their usual conversation options, giddy about the future and too drunk to formulate new debate topics. Olly had sprawled out on the floor with his head on the seat of their singular armchair. Qifrey had openly stared at him. He was beginning to let the hair on his face grow in. It looked soft. Summer was beginning to warm the walls, and they’d had the windows open.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Olly had groaned.
“Looking at you like what?”
“Ya know what.”
“Do I?”
Qifrey had known that he was being stupid, goading him. But the alcohol made any whisper of danger feel far away, his chest lighter with every glance around the living room. Their living room. He’d laughed, sipping from the bottle and meeting Olly’s eyes again. He’d let his gaze roll lazily from Olly’s face to his socked feet, smiling to himself at the place where his belt dipped in against his waist.
“Stop,” Olruggio had pouted, snatching the bottle back, curling around it possessively. “You’re bein’ mean.”
Qifrey had followed the bottle, sliding across the floor in a way that could not have been very graceful. Olly had watched anyway, seemingly enraptured, blinking slowly when Qifrey seated himself against the base of the armchair.
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like you want to kiss me,” Olly had swallowed, refusing to look away. “You’re awful at hiding it when you’re drunk.”
Qifrey’s head had felt fuzzy. He hadn’t been that drunk in years—hasn’t been that drunk since. He can’t remember ever feeling as happy, either. “I do want to kiss you.”
Olly had leaned in slowly, furrowing his brows as he got closer. “Usually—” He hiccuped. “You usually flinch when I get about…here.”
Qifrey had grabbed him by the excess fabric of his shirt and pressed their mouths together, swallowing Olly’s sound of genuine shock. He’d felt the insistent wrap of arms around his middle, Olly taking very little time to get with the program, and the hair on his arms had stood on end. A voice from the back of his head—sober, terrified, urgent—screamed to keep the tension high, so he’d deepened the kiss as quickly as he could, running his hands down the front of Olly’s shirt and attempting to tug it out of his skirts.
Olly had paused. He’d pulled Qifrey’s frantic hands from his belt with one hand and tangled their fingers. He’d held Qifrey’s cheek in his palm and tried desperately to slow them down. He’d separated their lips for just long enough to brush their noses. The stem behind Qifrey’s hair had throbbed, expanding and contracting.
“I want you,” he’d said, grabbing some of Olly’s hair into his hand, escaping his sightline by pressing his mouth to Olly’s jaw, dragging his teeth across the skin.
Olly had whimpered, and Qifrey still doesn’t know if it was the result of arousal or disappointment. When he’d been brave enough to make eye contact again, Olly had been looking up at him with red cheeks and something anguished in his gaze. It’s going to be like this or nothing at all.
Qifrey had thought that it would be okay. This was painful for Olly—to have him like this. He was hurting him. This would make the guilt sink even deeper, denying him—them—of anything even remotely soft.
But it hadn’t worked. At some point, before they’d even gotten all of their clothes off, something became too gentle. Olly had pressed too sweet of a kiss to his exposed shoulder or dragged a hand up his thigh with too much reverence or stroked his hair with too kind of fingers. Qifrey’s tried to forget the quiet words whispered into his chest as Olly had pulled him easily into his lap, stilted confessions and praise replaced with concern as Qifrey had pressed his palm to his eye socket. There was no way to stop it—it had expanded out through his fingers within minutes.
“You have to,” Olruggio had said, after, face wet with tears. He’d held Qifrey’s cap in one hand, the other palm pressed to where flesh met wood along his paralyzed arm.
“I forgive you,” he’d added, pressing a kiss to Qifrey’s temple. His breath had still smelled like wine, but his eyes had been sober before they closed.
Qifrey had sobbed himself hoarse while Olruggio slept, wanting desperately to rip at the floorboards with his bare hands, to bleed until their new home could be built on a foundation of woodcruor. Instead, he had cleaned up the living room on shaking legs. He’d splashed water on his face and stared blankly at his gaunt features in the mirror. He’d had patches of gentle irritation along his neck and cheeks from Olly’s beard, so he’d scrubbed roughly at the rest of his face until it matched. He’d conjured something soft for Olly to sleep on, kissed his palm, and fled.
When he’d returned the next day, Olly had been unfazed by the note he’d left about leaving to pick up pantry staples.
“I was so hungover this morning,” he’d laughed, cringing at the bright sunlight coming in through the window. “Must’ve slept on my hand, too. I’ve got a little bruise under my jaw. We’re too old to get drunk and pass out on the floor again, okay?”
Qifrey had smiled and nodded.
That had been the worst of the slip ups, though it hadn’t been the last. Lust was standard to overcome, but it was difficult to avoid. When desperate, he could wrap a hand around himself to scratch the itch, but the danger of daydreams in the afterglow were rarely worth risking.
He’d fallen into sleeping with strangers almost accidentally. Frustrated and antsy after a night of catching up with Alaira, a handsome witch had bought him a drink, then two, and then tipsily manhandled him into his carriage. The angle had been wrong, it had burned, and the man’s weight had verged on being truly uncomfortable. But Qifrey had finished, unsatisfactorily, and the itch had been abated without any pain underneath his eyelid.
When he’d returned to the atelier that night, Olly had been awake and tinkering away at a contraption. Olruggio had glanced at him, taking in the distressed state of his robes, his mussed hair, and the marks on the side of his neck. He’d looked as if Qifrey had slapped him across the face.
It felt like being dunked in ice water. The lingering physical ache of the encounter coupled with Olly’s stricken face, watching him hide the tightness in his throat by making a joke about Qifrey getting lucky, was as powerful as a kick to the stomach. It had killed his libido for over a month.
Eventually, nameless and faceless men became too much of a risk. Qifrey’d learned what he liked, and sometimes his body would work faster than his brain. He’d seek out short men with gruff voices, just to get too close to danger when they’d brush a stubbled chin against the back of his neck or get a hand around him with calloused fingers. He’d return home with leaves sprouting behind his hair, only dissipating when Olly could register where he’d been, giving one of his hollow laughs and slinking off to hide in his workshop.
He’d punished himself for sleeping with the Olruggio clones by fucking Easthies instead.
That one hadn’t been accidental at all. It was as if the two of them had planned it—co-written a farce and gone through its motions. They’d make eye contact at some local spot, snap at each other after clearly-false pleasantries, and then drag themselves into the nearest private space for what felt like mutual punishment. It was a welcome reprieve from the physical discomfort of the strangers—Easthies preferred to receive and seemed to genuinely enjoy it—but the experiences were typically more miserable than his trysts with the random men of Kalhn.
Easthies talked, insufferable and unending, from start to finish. He’d critique Qifrey’s speed, dither over positioning, and mutter about having to get himself off. Once, Qifrey had tried to place a palm over Easthies’ mouth, more practical than erotic, and he’d been bitten. In the aftermath, they’d sit with the weight of their mutually disappointing orgasms for approximately three minutes before redressing and parting ways with nothing more than a nod.
Qifrey hadn’t intended for Olly to ever find out about it. It was an occasional thing, only arising as needs must, and occurring less frequently as they got older. It was bleak enough as a concept that it didn’t require rubbing salt in the wound.
But they’d been drinking together one night after putting Agott to bed, lounging comfortably in the living room in a configuration not unlike their first night in the atelier. Qifrey had been tense, the room too cozy and the sofa too warm underneath him. Olruggio had been tipsily sprawled beside him and wondering aloud about Easthies’ social life, huffy about an earlier consultation he’d had interrupted by the Knights Moralis performing contraption inspections. He’d bemoaned Easthies’ uptight attitude and speculated about him needing to get laid.
“Doesn’t help,” Qifrey had shrugged, injecting as much certainty into his words as he could. He’d laughed too much tonight. His empty eye socket was twinging.
It had taken Olly a second to catch up, scrambling to sit up as the statement registered. He’d mastered schooling his features by then, the jealousy and hurt barely reaching his eyes before he was cackling himself off of the sofa, pressing for details. Qifrey had given them freely, Olruggio slightly mollified by Easthies’ status as a subpar lover, and they’d laughed through the stories, but the overwhelming sense of comfort and safety had been successfully extinguished from the room. Olly had brought him a glass of water before he’d gone to bed, smiling tiredly, but with even worse posture than usual. He could read Olly’s thoughts clearly on his face as he’d cleaned up their glasses. Anyone but me, huh?
He was never outwardly bitter. It would’ve been easier if he was.
In all, he’d grown as accustomed to associating lust with dread and fear as he had any feeling of content. The impulse lived in a different place, but the immediate physiological response would be the same. Tactile comfort was as dangerous to relax into as genuine physical pleasure.
Olly still has a hand on his cheek, his thumb rubbing gently along his hollow under-eye. Qifrey doesn’t even realize that Olruggio's still speaking, wrenched out of his thoughts by the repetition of his name, his voice sounding more and more concerned.
“Qifrey. Are you in pain?”
“I—I don’t know.” His chest hurts and his head is swimming. He could’ve been lost in his own brain for seconds or hours.
As if Olly can feel the tightness in his own heart, he moves his hand from Qifrey’s face to his sternum, pressing gently. His other arm is still wrapped around his middle.
“You’re not supposed to hold your breath like that,” he grumbles, pulling him impossibly closer. “It’s just gonna make you more tense. You need to breathe out.”
Horrifyingly, the memories of awful encounters with strangers and wiping Olly’s memory haven’t done enough to calm his body from the effects of their current proximity. Olly tangles their legs together properly as he rubs at his chest and Qifrey whines at the friction, his muscles tensing again without his permission.
Olly huffs, still sounding fretful. “You need to tell me where it actually h—”
Qifrey must roll his hips or squeeze his legs together or make some other sound, because Olly suddenly freezes, cutting himself off. He recovers so quickly that Qifrey feels his throat get tight. He can almost hear the click of Olruggio locking whatever he’s feeling away so that he can focus on everyone else’s wellbeing again.
“Ya scared me,” he mumbles, laughing a little. “I thought there was somethin’ seriously wrong. Just actually breathe. It’ll go away.”
Olly gestures for Qifrey to rest his head back onto his shoulder, to hug him again, but Qifrey just blinks, squinting to make out as much of his face as he possibly can. Olly’s cheeks and the tips of his ears are red, that much he can see. He wishes he could make out Olly’s pupils, but his eyes are just a blurry puddle of deep blue.
He presses himself closer to Olly instead, letting his hands move from his shoulders to the warm skin of his arms, radiating even through the fabric of his shirt. He isn’t wearing his belt, so Qifrey can feel the softness of his chest and stomach against his torso. His skirt does nothing to subdue the heat of where he presses against Qifrey’s bare navel, nor to properly disguise the dampness. When Qifrey shifts, Olly makes the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard in his life, somewhere between a grunt and a moan.
“Sorry,” he coughs, pulling away slightly. “Just ignore it.”
It’s terrifying to be this close, his mind setting off alarm bells warning of imminent threat. But there’s no pain behind his eye this time, no reason for his body’s fear, and Qifrey desperately wants to rip it out by the root.
Instead, he reaches out to hold Olly’s face in his hands, awkward and stiff, and kisses him softly, only pulling away to brush their noses together and revel in the way Olly’s lower body chases him.
There’s something in Olly’s face when he pulls away from the kiss, the recognition or familiarity of memories half-smashed back together. Qifrey can’t tell if the expression is hard to read because of his failing eyesight or because it’s so complicated.
“Have we—before…” There’s nothing complicated about his voice. He sounds broken.
“No,” Qifrey says, firmly. He strokes his fingers through Olly’s hair, fighting the impulse to save his own flesh. He presses a kiss to the center of his forehead, rubs his knuckles against the scratchy hair of his cheek. “Once—almost. But no.”
Olly exhales, pressing a kiss to the corner of Qifrey’s mouth.
“Thank you,” he whispers, as if he has anything to be grateful for.
Qifrey kisses him again, no less soft but a lot less shallow, and Olly pushes his nightshirt up even further to grab at his waist. It’s desperate and frantic, but not rough or rushed. It doesn’t feel like last time. Olly situates their hips so that they can rock themselves together and Qifrey whimpers into his hair, pleasure shooting up his spine. Olly does that moan-grunt thing again, louder this time, and they pause in their rutting to blink at each other and then burst into laughter.
The door.
Olly is quick out of his bed to secure the locks, and Qifrey has done enough conversing in secret that the sigil to muffle sound is muscle memory, scribbled onto Olruggio’s palm quire and taking to the air around them. When they find each other again under the duvet, some of the frenetic energy has dissipated, and Olly pulls his nightshirt up and off with a gentleness that makes Qifrey tense against his will.
Somehow, Olly seems to understand. He moves his hands away so that Qifrey can catch his breath, clumsily getting himself out of his own clothes with a laugh that Qifrey is actually able to return. It feels fun.
Olly’s laughter abates when Qifrey kisses him again, attempting to connect their bare hips as they tangle their legs back together. He hesitates slightly, face flushed. “Just—fair warning, I’ve never…”
Qifrey’s throat tightens, his fingers brushing even more tenderly along Olruggio’s neck and through the soft hair on his chest. The distress must show on his face, because Olly backtracks.
“Stop lookin’ at me like that!” he pouts, and there’s enough humor in his voice that Qifrey feels composed enough to look up from his chest to meet his eye. “I wasn’t—it wasn’t like I was just sittin’ around waiting. I had work to do! Just…never got around to it.”
Qifrey can hear all the words Olly doesn’t say, a language he’s been speaking for decades, but he smiles anyway, because Olly has a wry grin on his face, a hand on his waist, and is hard against his hip.
“I’ve never…been able to do what I really want,” he says in response, trying to mimic Olly’s self-deprecating grin. “So we’re in the same boat.”
Olruggio’s smirk softens into a nervous smile as he presses their foreheads together, and he rolls his hips hesitantly. “What do you want?”
“Just this, I think,” Qifrey whispers, and he means it.
Olly’s hesitance disappears after that, as if it had never existed at all. He pulls Qifrey in with a dizzying confidence and a fine-tuned knowledge of his own preferences. Qifrey’s brain rockets through images of Olly spread out on this very bed, years of fantasizing through trial and error, hands all over his own body. He groans into Olruggio’s ear and gets his jaw sucked in return, their bodies still moving in a slow grind.
For all of Qifrey’s sexual experience, he’s never been able to think very much about what he likes. He’s only had sex to curb frustration, for physical release and a clearer head. This is nothing like that. Currently, his only sexual preference is that Olruggio is present.
Olly grabs at his hip and rocks against his pelvis. He paws at Qifrey’s ass and coaxes them into different rhythms. Olly sneaks a hand between their bodies and presses them together, moving his hand only slightly. He watches in awe as Olly finishes like that, quite quickly, thrusting into the space between his thumb and the head of Qifrey’s cock. He grunts into Qifrey’s neck and then sighs into his mouth when Qifrey kisses him weakly, overwhelmed and still trying to decipher what feels best.
Olly recovers remarkably fast, pressing a kiss to Qifrey’s temple and grabbing at his hips again.
“You like this one,” he murmurs, shifting Qifrey against his thigh. His voice is rough but soft, and Qifrey exhales, letting him lead. The last few minutes have been a blurry haze of pleasure, but he has no doubt that Olly has been laser-focused.
He eases Qifrey’s hips into a faster rhythm against the muscle of his thigh, applying slight pressure where he can and slicking his way with his own release. Qifrey barely has time to think about whether or not he likes it before he’s coming against Olruggio’s thigh and stomach, making some kind of keening noise against his shoulder. He can feel himself shaking, but Olly is still holding him while he rides it out, whispering something gentle into his ear.
When he finally regains control of his faculties, he can feel Olruggio smiling against his cheek, rubbing his back. His muscles feel like liquid and his brain is a hazy cloud inside of his head. He blinks, attempting to press a kiss to Olly’s mouth. He misses and hits his nostril instead.
Olly’s laugh is bright and warm. “Good?”
“I love you,” Qifrey whispers, voice hoarse. It’s not the first time he’s said it, but his heart feels like it’s going to explode if he doesn’t verbalize it again now.
Olly laughs again, kissing his lips twice. “You’re a real blushing bride cliche right now.”
Qifrey snorts, tucking his head under Olly’s chin and trying with all of his might to curl underneath his skin. He feels Olly’s fingers in his hair again, a kiss pressed to his scalp and his previous words repeated into his hairline.
They get up a little while later, Olly insisting they clean up and change the sheets, knowing that breakfast is around the corner. He tucks Qifrey back into bed afterward, refusing to believe that his still-shaking legs are orgasm-related, and offers a compromise of a weekend picnic. The day progresses slowly from his perch against the pillows, but when night falls, he doesn’t feel as antsy.
When Olruggio crawls back under the blankets that evening, blueprints in hand to review before bed, Qifrey rests his head on his shoulder. When Olly drops a kiss against his cheek, Qifrey exhales. And when Olly pulls him closer, Qifrey isn’t tense at all.