Archive of Our Own

If someone asked Olruggio to describe Qifrey, the first image that would come to his mind would be that of a thread stretched to its absolute limit — so taut, so pale with strain, that just one pull slightly stronger than the gentlest breath would be enough to snap it in two, beyond any recognition of its original shape. Not a clean break, but a frayed, violent unraveling.

It’s a strange, almost cruel thing to think of his best friend that way. Olruggio knows this. He’s aware of how it sounds, how it might look to someone who only knows Qifrey the way most people do. But it’s the only image that feels true. Because the witch — the Qifrey who smiles all the time, who laughs at the right moments and tilts his head just so, the Qifrey who never once complains about anything, the Qifrey that explains the most complex concepts of magic to his apprentices with infinite calm, the Qifrey who spends hours in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, preparing warm, nourishing meals for everyone, who remembers exactly how Richeh likes her eggs and how Tetia takes her tea and that Agott cannot stand even the faintest hint of cinnamon — that same Qifrey presents himself to the world like someone standing at the edge of a forest, alone, already hearing the wolves breathe.

Not like prey, never like prey, but as someone who has decided, long ago, exactly which parts of himself he is willing to sacrifice for some cause only he knows about.

It’s not something you notice at first glance. It can’t be, that’s the entire point. You have to learn to see it. You have to want to learn. And Olruggio did. He learned. He spent years studying that face. A lifetime.

Enough to know that a smile on the witch’s face does not mean he is happy. Enough to know that his back, straight as a ruler, betrays every single attempt at casualness. A loose laugh can be just as rehearsed as a furrowed brow. The same hand that holds a pen so softly can grip a cup like a lifeline when he thinks no one is looking.

Qifrey, before he ever became a witch, learned to be human. And before being human, he learned to be an actor in a play whose script only he is aware of — a performance where the audience doesn’t even know they’re watching.

…But it wasn’t always that way.

Olruggio remembers the early days, the cramped shared spaces, the late-night arguments that meant something because they weren’t polite. He remembers when Qifrey’s anger used to look like anger, and his tiredness like tiredness, and his joy like something loud and alive and… He doesn’t know how or when things got so complicated.

They have been friends longer than they have been anything else — longer than witch and Watchful Eye, longer than adult and fellow adult, longer than whatever strange, unnamed thing now hangs between them like fog.

It had always been easy, talking to him. It had been the easiest thing in the world. But now, as he opened one door to Qifrey’s complicated headspace, thinking it would finally, finally, make him understand his best friend a little better, he discovered another one behind it.

And when he opened that one, there was another. And another. And another. It was doors all the way down. A corridor that never ended. A house with no last room.

After weeks, after months, after years or opening door after door — one grows tired. One stops pushing. One learns to stand in the hallway and listen instead of knocking. So Olruggio decided he would not force his friend to open them. He would not pick the locks or break the hinges. Instead, he would wait. He would sit outside the door with his back against the wood and wait for when his dearest one felt ready to turn the knob himself.

But what do you do when that never happens? When you wait for a knock that never comes, for a crack of light beneath the door that never appears? What do you do with all the love you built for someone who will not let you see the shape of the room they live in, someone who is always at an arm’s length?

And as much as it frustrates him — and it does, gods, it does, sometimes so badly that his hands shake around his tea cup, sometimes so badly that he has to leave the atelier in the middle of the night and walk until the sky starts to lighten, until his legs ache and his lungs burn and he can pretend the dread at the bottom of his stomach is just the cold — as much as it carves out a hollow place in his chest that he keeps trying to fill with other things, with work, with sleep, with the sound of the apprentices laughing in the next room, with anything at all, and nothing ever fits quite right — Olruggio also knows, with a certainty that feels less like faith and more like grief, that Qifrey wouldn't be Qifrey without that careful, maddening, heartbreaking distance.

So he welcomes it. Not happily — never happily, never without that small, quiet ache behind his ribs that he has learned to carry the way other people carry keys or coins, always there, barely noticed until it presses wrong — but wholly. He takes what he is given. He smiles when Qifrey smiles. He laughs when Qifrey laughs. He drinks his tea across the table from a man he has known for more than half his life and pretends he does not notice how carefully every word is placed, how every pause is measured, how the silence between them sometimes feels less like comfort and more like a door that has been deliberately, gently, locked from the other side.

He pretends it is fine to know only the surface of the person he decided to share his entire life with. He pretends that a drop of water is enough to him who wants the whole, overwhelming, terrifying ocean. Because at least he has that drop. At least he has this.

But then…

But then.

.

Olruggio of the Torch doesn't dream.

Or perhaps it's more accurate to say he rarely dreams. It's always been this way. Ever since he was a child running through the hallways of the Great Hall, sleep always took him straight to emptiness — no images, no stories, no voices.

It never bothered him, truly. He just assumed he slept too heavily (if Qifrey's teasing about him "sleeping like a rock" was true) and moved on with his life.

So imagine his surprise when—

They're standing side by side. Qifrey is explaining something that seems important, but his voice sounds distant, almost muffled, as if it is coming from the depths of the ocean. Deep in Olruggio's stomach, something heavy breaks loose. The more Qifrey talks, the more Olruggio feels the urge to run away, dread filling him oh so completely.

Then Qifrey takes off his hat.

It's a mundane gesture. Olruggio has seen him do it hundreds of times before. But for some reason, his blood runs cold.

A shiver runs down Olruggio's spine even before the fabric touches his head. The hat is freezing — colder than it should be, considering it was resting on Qifrey's head just moments ago.

Something fills Olruggio slowly.

It's not only the cold. It's the smell of snow. It's the heavy, muffled silence of a blizzard. It's the feeling of small fingers — too small — trying to gather wet twigs while the wind cuts across his cheeks.

He's never liked the cold.

It reminds him of how easy it was to get lost. Of how no one ever came looking. Of how he learned early on that he was never enough — never strong enough, never good enough — to stop bad things from happening. To save anyone.

His stomach twists.

"Qifrey," he manages to say, the voice coming out small, barely a whisper. It’s trembling, he realizes.

For a moment, Qifrey hesitates.

There's pain there, in those eyes that were always so calm, in those hands so careful. For a fraction of a second, Olruggio believes he'll see his friend again. That this was all some mistake. That what he fears won't happen.

But then the pain vanishes and what remains is ten times worse.

Qifrey's eyes gleam — something visceral and wrong there. They widen slowly, and Olruggio understands: the Qifrey he knew was already lost, long before the hat was pressed harder against his head.

"Qifrey, where the hell did you go?" he asks, thinking of the boy who used to light up like a struck match when he drew a perfect circle on the very first try — eyes wide, grin splitting his face, already reaching for Olruggio's sleeve to say did you see that, did you see? He's thinking of the witch who watched his apprentices with something soft and proud tucked into the corners of his smile, the way he'd ruffle their hair when they got it right, the way his voice would go gentle when they got it wrong. He's thinking of the Qifrey who stayed up late with him in the atelier, who passed him cups of tea without being asked, who fell asleep against his shoulder more times than—forget it.

He is thinking… he is thinking… is he even thinking?

Forget.

The thought cuts through him, demanding in its plea, except it isn't his thought, is it? It doesn't feel like his. It feels like something pressing in from outside, something cold and hungry and patient.

Forget it. Forget this. You don't need this. You don't need any of this.

And the worst part is—

Olruggio no longer remembers those memories clearly.

He forgets where they are, as if he'd never been there. He forgets the sky. He forgets the smell of grass. He forgets the face of his friend beside him. Olruggio tries so hard to hold onto it, tries to grip it with both hands, because it seems important, he should remember, but it's like trying to hold water.

Everything around him burns. The fear goes first. Then the hesitation. Then the doubt. He doesn't even notice them leaving — they just bleed out of him like water through cracks in a cup. And underneath them, deeper down, something else follows: the feeling of being betrayed. The sharp, ugly knowledge that Qifrey looked him in the eye and did this anyway.

It burns and burns and burns and it doesn’t stop burning.

Olruggio doesn't even understand what's happening to him anymore. The confusion should hurt, or at least register, but there's nothing left to register it. Just a quiet, spreading numbness. Like frost creeping across a window. Like snow burying a field.

He doesn't remember, but he should remember. He was supposed to be the one who remembered.

Olruggio stands there, his own hat pressed to his head, Qifrey somewhere beside him — or maybe not. Maybe Qifrey was never there. Maybe there was never a Grand Hall, never a boy with a perfect circle, never late nights in the atelier with cups of tea and tired laughter.

He doesn't remember and it’s — dark.

Olruggio blinks. Once. Twice. His head feels stuffed with cotton, heavy and wrong, almost as if it belongs to someone else. His hands are cold and his chest is hollow in a way he can't name.

"—ruggio? Olruggio?"

He turns his head too fast and the whole world spins.

"What happened?" Olruggio's voice comes out raw, scraped clean. He doesn't remember closing his eyes. He doesn't remember lying down. He doesn't remember anything after—

After—

(There was something. There was. A face that wasn't right—)

"Nothing," Qifrey replies, smiling. "You just must have been more tired from your last commission than you thought, to sleep like this out of nowhere, hm?"

It makes sense.

(Does it?)

But… that smile cracks Qifrey's face right down the middle.

It's fake.

It looks fake.

Fake, fake, fake.

"Are you alright?" Qifrey asks, tilting his head. The light catches his eye. It doesn't quite look like it used to. Or maybe it does.

"I..." Olruggio starts. Stops. His mouth is dry. His chest aches. He can't remember what he was going to say. He can't remember why his hands are shaking.

He can't remember a lot of things.

Qifrey reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from Olruggio's forehead. His fingers are warm. They shouldn't be cold, should they? No. Of course not. Why would they be cold?

"You should rest," Qifrey says softly. "You've earned it."

Olruggio wants to believe him.

He wants to close his eyes and let the numbness take him again. He wants to wake up tomorrow and not feel this clawing, scratching thing inside his ribs telling him something is wrong, wrong, wrong.

But it’s Qifrey. He shouldn’t be feeling this way around Qifrey, who would never hurt him on purpose. So he ignores that gnawing feeling inside of his stomach, and says, “Maybe you are right.”

And that is that.

.

Olruggio, who never used to dream, began having nightmares almost every night.

Strangely, every single one of them — even though they showed different moments of his life (sometimes he's a child, sometimes a teenager, most often when he's older) — always had two things in common.

First: Qifrey was always there. Second: his memory was always being erased.

He isn't a witch who believes in superstitions, despite the magical world they live in. But the more he dreams, the more desperate he becomes, because everything feels terrifyingly real. After all, some of the dreams have already repeated themselves. And what are the chances of dreaming the exact same thing over and over and over again?

Something is wrong. Something is deeply, inexplicably wrong.

And worse: for some reason, the more he interacts with his friend, the more frightened he becomes.

Small details he once ignored now scream in his mind. Qifrey, in certain moments, had seemed intimidating. Not through grand actions, there was never a violent gesture or an explicit threat, but through little things: a silent tilt of his head while Olruggio was talking to him, a smile that didn't reach his eyes when he asked something, a way of standing still, motionless, blocking the doorway of his room when he brought food in the middle of the night.

Qifrey has always been taller than Olruggio. Always. But now that height difference feels less like a physical trait and more like a position of power. When they're alone — and they live in the middle of nowhere, Olruggio reminds himself, there isn't a single person for miles and miles and miles — Qifrey's height seems to increase. He leans down slightly to speak to Olruggio, and his shadow covers the floor, covers the tools, covers everything.

He finds himself holding his breath more often. He catches himself stepping back without realizing it when Qifrey approaches. He notices how his shoulders tense when he hears footsteps behind him. And every time, a wave of guilt crashes over him immediately afterward, because this is Qifrey. His oldest friend. His Qifrey.

But the dreams won't stop. And the fear won't go away.

Until one night, a new thought rises from the depths of his mind like a thorn lodged in his throat:

If whatever I’m dreaming happened… Did he do the same thing to any of the girls? Would Qifrey go that far?

Some part of him knows the answer is no. His friend would never hurt any of them. He believes that. He wants to believe that.

But he used to believe the same thing about himself, and look where that belief has left him.

He feels horrible. Disgusted with himself. Because it's Qifrey. It's Qifrey. He would never, ever, hurt them.

(But he hurt you, didn't he?)

With a long, heavy sigh, Olruggio looks down at the curious brushbuddy curled around his neck. Somehow it's become a constant companion these days — a small, warm weight that snores softly and follows him from room to room like it knows he is troubled by something. The thing blinks up at him now, round eyes gleaming faintly in the dark, and tilts its head as if asking a question neither of them can put into words.

"This is going nowhere," Olruggio whispers to it. "I'll talk to him tomorrow."

The brushbuddy chirps softly, a sound that might mean agreement or might just mean go to sleep, you idiot.

"But first," he adds, standing up and already going to his bed, pulling the blanket up higher, "let's sleep."

He curls into a ball beneath the worn fabric, knees tucked to his chest like he used to do as a child. The mattress dips beneath him. The pillow smells like Qifrey's soap. He sighs.

Olruggio dreads tomorrow coming.

Not because he's afraid of the conversation itself — he's had bad discussions with Qifrey before, has yelled and sulked and thrown things and made up again over the years. No, he dreads tomorrow because tomorrow he'll have to look Qifrey in the eye and know, and once Olruggio knows for certain, once he stops suspecting and starts seeing, there's no going back.

Olruggio is not a man of faith. He never has been. He believes in what he can touch, what he can test, what he can take apart and put back together with his own two hands. He believes in the weight of a spell properly drawn, in the ache in his back after a long night of drawing symbol after symbol. But as he watches the faint stars through the window, scattered across the sky, he finds himself wishing — desperately, hopelessly, like a child praying to a god he stopped believing in years ago — to be wrong.

Please, he thinks. Please let me be wrong.

Because he quite likes his life. He likes waking up to the scent of food drifting from the kitchen before he's even fully opened his eyes. He likes the quiet mornings when Qifrey hums off-key while stirring something in a pot and pretends not to notice Olruggio approaching, still wrapped in his blanket. He likes feeling the brushbuddy's tiny snores vibrate against his neck, that soft rhythm that has become more familiar than his own heartbeat.

He likes carrying Tetia around on his shoulders while she shouts directions at him like a tiny general. He likes braiding Richeh's hair in the evenings, the way she goes completely still and peaceful under his hands, the way she says "Olruggio" in that flat voice of hers when he tugs too hard. He likes watching Agott wrestle with a new spell, the furious concentration on her face, the way she refuses to ask for help even when she clearly needs it — and the way she finally does ask, quiet and grudging, when she's exhausted every other option. He likes seeing Coco's eyes sparkle at everything, still, after everything she's been through, like magic is an endless string of wonders waiting to be discovered.

He likes the life he built with Qifrey. All of it. The tiny atelier with its drafty windows. The trinkets gathering dust on top of the wardrobe. He likes the way Qifrey leaves his tea half-finished on every surface. He likes the way they bicker. He likes the way they fall into silence together, comfortable and easy, two people who have known each other so long they don't need words anymore.

He likes all of it. So much it hurts to think about losing it.

But he doesn't know if he can stomach being around Qifrey if what he suspects is right. Worse even, if this ever extended to any of their girls.

The thought makes his stomach turn and makes him press his hand flat against his mouth like he might be sick. Because these girls are everything. They are bright and fierce and ridiculous and brave, and if Qifrey has done anything, anything at all, that would put them in danger, then Olruggio doesn't know who he is anymore. Doesn't know what side he would choose. Doesn't know if there would even be sides left to choose.

Please let me be wrong.

The brushbuddy snuffles against his jaw, small and warm.

Please do not let me be right about this, Qifrey. Just this once, let me be wrong.

.

The soft flame above the workbench flickered once, twice, then settled into a steady, warm glow. Olruggio had been in the middle of drawing a heating spell, mapping the flow through a series of linked sigils, when his workshop door creaked open without a knock.

He hadn’t looked up. He didn’t need to.

“Homework?” he asked, not glancing up from his work.

“Yes.” Qifrey’s voice was light, almost airy. “The library was too cold. And loud.”

Olruggio did look up then, one eyebrow raised. The library was never loud. But he caught the way Qifrey’s shoulders were set and decided not to press.

“Come here, then,” he merely said, shifting his own stool slightly to the left to make room.

Qifrey immediately dragged over a low stool, settling it just close enough that their elbows nearly touched, picking up his things to start to work. For a long, stretching minute, neither spoke.

The silence was not empty, with Qifrey’s pen scratching softly on the other side of the table, the silence felt like a blanket. Heavy in a comfortable way. A shared blanket, pulled up to both their chins.

Olruggio drew a careful circle, then a delicate symbol inside it. He didn’t realize he’d stopped moving until Qifrey’s voice broke through.

“What do you think you’ll do?”

Olruggio blinked, not quite understanding. “About what?”

“After.” Qifrey’s pen paused. He wasn’t looking at Olruggio, but staring at his own half-drawn circle. “When we’re done here. When we leave.”

Olruggio frowned. Leave. The word sat strangely in his chest, like a stone someone had dropped into a still pond. He turned it over in his mind. When we leave. Not if.

Where the hell would he even go?

“Why would I leave?”

Now Qifrey did look at him. A quick glance, sideways, and a smile appeared, one that didn’t reach his eyes quite right. “I mean, you won’t stay here forever, will you?”

Olruggio frowned, wanting to argue. He wanted to say, Why not? He wanted to say, This is where you are. But he looked at Qifrey’s too-straight shoulders again, at the way he held his body like he was bracing for a door to slam in his face, and realized with a dull, unpleasant twist that for him, it was a home. For Qifrey, it was just a place he happened to be.

“I don’t know,” Olruggio said finally, going back to whatever he was drawing, wanting this conversation to be over already, because to continue, would mean to ask a question, which sat heavy and hot at the back of his throat, pressing against his teeth, begging to be let out.

Will you leave?

No, no, that wasn’t quite right.

When will you leave?

That was the real question. Will you walk out that door one day and not look back, and will you expect me to follow, or will you expect me to stay?

He didn't say any of that. Instead, he drew another symbol, smaller this time, his hand steady even though his thoughts weren't.

Stay here, Olruggio thought, not daring to shape the words with his mouth. Stay here with me. Don’t leave.

Even though it had been a brief conversation, barely a handful of sentences, nothing that should have mattered, it burrowed under Olruggio's skin like a splinter. Fine at first. Almost invisible. Then the skin around it reddened, swelled, pulsed with a low, persistent ache that he couldn't ignore no matter how hard he tried.

For the next few weeks, he couldn't concentrate properly.

His spells came out lopsided. He mixed up two critical sigils on a heating array and nearly set a stack of reference books on fire. He forgot to eat until his hands started shaking over his table, and even then, he only noticed because he smeared a nearly perfect circle with a tremor he couldn't control. The flame above his desk seemed dimmer somehow, or maybe that was just his imagination — maybe he was the one who had gone dim, gone fuzzy at the edges.

He kept seeing Qifrey's face. That quick, sideways glance. That smile that didn't reach his eyes. You won't stay here forever, will you?

It was his master who finally pressed all his buttons about it.

She hadn't even meant to, probably. She had floated into his workshop unannounced and had immediately zeroed in on the disaster zone of his table.

"Damn kiddo," she said, drifting closer with her arms folded, "what happened? Spill."

And Olruggio, to his eternal shame, told her all about it, like a whiny child. He told her about the conversation and about how it had been weeks and he still couldn't stop thinking about it, and about how Qifrey was going to leave someday and Olruggio was going to be sitting here alone in this workshop like an idiot who hadn't seen it coming.

He might have used the word "abandoned." He regretted it immediately.

She listened without interrupting, which was unusual for her. She had waited until he had run out of words and was just sitting there, breathing hard, feeling utterly ridiculous.

"That child, hmm?" she said finally. Her voice was softer than he expected. “That boy sure did a number on you, didn't he?"

He didn’t really understand what she meant, but he didn’t have the chance to ask before she continued.

"Well. You already said it yourself. You can't keep him here if he doesn't want to stay."

"I know that." Olruggio dragged a hand down his face. "I know. I just—"

"Just what?"

He didn't have an answer. Or he did, but it was embarrassing. He couldn't just say: I just want him to want to stay. I just want to be enough of a reason. I just want to matter more than whatever is out there waiting for him.

She looked at him, before shaking her head.

"Let me tell you a story," she started. "About roots."

Olruggio looked up at her.

"I went to a city once," she continued, her gaze drifting to the flame above his workbench. "A big one. Stone and steel and cobblestones packed so tight you couldn't see the sky unless you stood in the middle of a square and craned your neck." She paused, letting him digest the information. "It was normal to see these little weeds push up through the cracks in the pavement. Just tiny things. Pale stems, thin leaves, flowers no bigger than your thumbnail if they flowered at all. They never grew very large because there wasn't room for them — their roots couldn't spread, couldn't breathe, couldn't reach the deep water. The soil underneath all that stone was thin and bitter, starved of rain and full of poison from years of wheels and boots and spilled things better left unnamed." She shook her head slowly. "They lived small. They lived weakly. And most people walking over them never even noticed they were there."

She stopped and looked at him kindly, then she reached out and ruffled his hair, her fingers cool and light against his scalp. He didn't pull away, not having the energy to pretend he didn't need the comfort.

“People are like this too, you know? Sometimes they have roots strong enough to break the cold floor, the buildings, to bear fruit. But sometimes… sometimes their seed hasn't sprouted properly yet. They're still reaching for the kind of soil that doesn't choke them. And if you put a seed like that in a city—" She spread her hands, empty. "It would live small and diseased. Or it wouldn't live at all."

Olruggio stared at her, and thought about how Qifrey's roots — if he had any at all — were somewhere else. Or nowhere. Or still curled up inside him like a seed waiting for rain that hadn't come yet.

"Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Olruggio nodded once. His throat was too tight for words.

He can’t be the one to force his friend to stay here, to let Qifrey grow ill, can he?

Back then, under his master’s kind gaze, he already knew how these things go. You can’t really make anyone stay, even if you really, really want to.

.

Today, he told himself. I will talk to him today.

The thought alone had made his stomach turn. What was he supposed to say? "Qifrey, I've been having nightmares about you erasing my memory. Any idea why that might be?" The words had sounded absurd even in his own head.

But the thought of the girls wouldn't leave him.

And so, he had found Qifrey in the living room, folding their laundry near the window, early enough for them to be the only ones awake. The morning light caught the edges of his hair, turning it silver-gold, and for a moment he had looked more like the man he had grown to love and less like the fearful witch he had learned to associate his face with nowadays.

"Olly," Qifrey had said, turning with that familiar smile. "You're up early. Did you sleep well?"

"Eh, more or less," Olruggio had said, which was technically true. He had slept. He had just also dreamed, and woken up, and dreamed again, and lain awake for an hour somewhere between midnight and dawn staring at the ceiling while the brushbuddy snored against his neck.

Qifrey hummed in acknowledgment, turning back to the clothes, folding a shirt with precise, efficient movements. He could probably do this with his eyes closed. He probably already had.

Olruggio had stood in the doorway for a moment longer than he should have, watching. Then, because standing and watching had felt too much like what he had been doing for years, he had crossed the room and picked up a towel from the pile.

"You don't have to help, Olly," Qifrey protested. "I'm almost done."

"I know," Olruggio had said, folding the towel in half, then in half again. "I want to."

They worked in silence. Qifrey had folded, Olruggio had stacked, their hands occasionally brushing against each other in the space between. Once, that would have meant something. Now Olruggio had noticed how carefully Qifrey had pulled his hands back. How he had left room. How the space between them had grown without either of them mentioning it.

When did that happen? he couldn’t help but wonder. When did we start giving each other room?

He had folded another towel. Stacked it. Reached for a white sheet.

"Qifrey."

"Hm?"

Olruggio's mouth went dry. His heart started doing something unpleasant in his chest — not racing exactly, but thudding, heavy and slow like it was trying to punch its way out of his ribs.

"I need to ask you something."

Qifrey's hands paused on a shirt. Just for a second. Then they resumed their work, smoothing out wrinkles that probably hadn't been there to begin with.

"You can ask me anything," he said, voice so warm and open, that Olruggio had wanted so badly to believe him. But how could he?

"Do you ever dream?"

"Dream?"

"Yeah. Nightmares." Olruggio kept his eyes on the laundry, anything but Qifrey's face. "I've been having them. Almost every night now."

He heard Qifrey exhale. Soft. Controlled.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Olly," his friend said. Olruggio wanted to believe it was genuine. "Do you want to talk about it? It may help."

There it was. The point of no return.

The girls, he had reminded himself. The girls.

"You," Olruggio started. His voice didn't shake. He was proud of that. "I dream about you. And..."

The room had grown very quiet. Outside, a bird had called. Qifrey hadn't moved.

"And…?" he finally prompted. His voice was still warm, but there had been something underneath it now. Something that had sounded, if Olruggio didn’t know any better, like caution.

He sighed, sounding like a defeated man. Maybe he was.

"Qifrey." Olruggio set down the sheet, reaching out to touch Qifrey's wrist. "Is there anything you have been hiding from me?"

The silence in the room stretched.

"Why would I hide anything from you, my dear friend?" Qifrey asked, but it sounded hollow. Maybe he already knew it was too late to play house now. "I don't know what you are talking about."

It was the first time Olruggio had ever heard him lie.

Not the first time Qifrey had lied — Olruggio knew that then, knew it in his bones, knew there had been hundreds of lies wrapped in smiles and tilted heads and cups of tea. But it was the first time he heard it. The first time the lie sounded like a lie.

"Okay," Olruggio said, and pulled his hand back. He picked up the sheet again. Folded it. "Okay."

He took a deep breath. If Qifrey was going to be a goddamn coward, he would have to be the courageous one instead.

"I want to know what you've been doing to me." He clenched the fabric of Agott's dress. She was going to be upset.

When no answer came, he pressed on.

"If… if you lie to me one more time, I'm gone, Qifrey. You will never see me again."

For a long, terrible second, neither of them had breathed.

"You're not going anywhere," Qifrey countered. His voice was soft, knowing. It was the voice he used with the apprentices when they'd had a nightmare — warm and steady and full of practiced reassurance. "You never do."

"Try me," Olruggio countered.

Qifrey tilted his head. For a moment he looked almost sad. Almost like the boy who used to fall asleep against Olruggio's shoulder after long nights of prolonged studying, exhausted but there, present in a way he hadn't been in years.

"You don't understand," Qifrey had said quietly. "What you're asking."

"Just say it." Olruggio's grip on Agott's dress tightened until his knuckles went white. Qifrey avoided his gaze like it would burn him if he looked, then, pondering, he closed them, as if the admission was too painful to even speak aloud.

"I'm going to tell you something," Qifrey started, his voice shaking, finally, after all those years of perfect control. "And when I'm done, you're going to hate me. And I—" He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I've accepted that. I accepted it a long time ago. But I need you to know that everything I did, I did because I couldn't—because I can't—"

"Qifrey." Olruggio's voice came out softer than he intended. Gentler. He didn’t want to be gentle. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to scream and throw things and demand answers. But Qifrey was falling apart in front of him, and some stupid, stubborn part of him still loved this man too much to watch him struggle. "Just tell me."

Qifrey took a deep breath, his hands turning white from the force with which they were gripping each other.

"Your dreams… they are real." Qifrey opened his eyes and looked at him before continuing. "What you are suspecting is true. I… I’ve been erasing your memories."

There, Olruggio thought. You found out what you wanted. Now what, you fool?

His heart was beating too rapidly. Breathing was starting to become a little difficult.

"How… how many times?"

Qifrey's jaw tightened. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" The words tore out of Olruggio, sharp and jagged.

"I don't know," he repeated finally. "I stopped counting after the first dozen."

The first dozen.

Olruggio's mind reeled, trying and failing to comprehend a number like that. Goddamnit Qifrey.

"The girls," Olruggio heard himself say. His voice wasn't his own. It was distant, muffled, like he was underwater. "Have you done it to them? Tetia? Richeh? Agott—"

"No."

The word cracked through the room like thunder. Qifrey's head snapped up with genuine, unguarded horror.

"Olruggio, no. Never. I would never—" Qifrey's voice broke. His hands were shaking. "They are children. They are my children. I would die before I ever—"

"Can you blame me for asking?" Olruggio interrupted. The words came out wounded, ragged, stripped of all pretense. "You've been doing this to me for years and I'm your friend. And—gods, I didn't even know. I couldn't even consent. So forgive me if I don't exactly trust your moral compass right now."

Qifrey looked like he had been slapped. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. No sound came out.

Olruggio's chest was tightening. His heart was hammering, rabbiting in his chest, and his hands — he looked down at his hands — they were trembling violently around Agott's dress. He dropped it. The fabric pooled on the floor between them like a white flag.

"Olly." Qifrey's voice cut through the roar in his ears. "Olly, you need to breathe. Look at me—"

Hands reached for him. Qifrey's hands. Reaching across the space between them with that familiar, gentle concern, the same way he had reached for Olruggio to erase his memories, apparently, dozens of times.

"Don't touch me."

The words came out as a gasp, but they stopped Qifrey cold. His hands froze mid-reach. His face crumpled for a second, before he schooled it back into something gentler. He pulled his hands back immediately.

"Okay," Qifrey said quietly. "Okay. I won't. I'm sorry. I'm right here. I won't touch you. But you need to breathe. Can you breathe with me? Just... in and out. Copy me."

Olruggio didn't want to copy him. He wanted to scream. He wanted to break something. He wanted to go back to yesterday, when the worst thing in his life was unrequited love and not... this.

But his lungs were burning, and Qifrey was taking slow, deliberate breaths across from him, and some stupid animal part of his brain remembered how to follow.

In. Hold. Out.

In. Hold. Out.

The room stopped spinning. The edges stopped fraying. Olruggio sagged against the couch and slid down slightly.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Olruggio lifted his head. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw.

"Now what?"

Qifrey closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were wet.

"Now," he said, and his voice was barely a whisper, he looked like a man swallowing glass. "I have to do it again."

Olruggio stared at him. A part of him had expected this, of course. "Of course you do, huh."

Qifrey nodded, hands anxiously closing and opening on top of his legs.

"I need to wipe everything you figured out from your memory." Qifrey's jaw worked, he took a shuddering breath and forced himself steady. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But this is how it has to be."

This is how it has to be.

Olruggio couldn't help it. He laughed at the absurdity. It was a quiet sound, filled with pain and years of hurt. Barely a small, defeated exhale.

"Alright," he said.

Two syllables. Simple. Final.

Qifrey blinked.

"Alright?" Qifrey repeated, as if he didn't understand the word.

Olruggio nodded. He didn't look at Qifrey, letting his gaze drop to the floor, zeroing in on Agott's poor dress — the one he had been clutching like a lifeline, now wrinkled beyond repair. She was going to be upset. Of all the things to worry about right then, that was what his brain latched onto.

"Just..." Olruggio's voice was rough. He cleared his throat. "Just let us finish the laundry first."

Olruggio reached for the dress, smoothing out the creases with trembling fingers.

"The girls will be up soon. They'll need their clothes. And I..." He paused. Swallowed. "I want to do this. Fold the laundry with you. One last time before I forget."

"Oh, Olly… I—" Qifrey started, his face stretching into a million different expressions before he shook his head and reached out for another piece of clothing.

They worked in silence, and Olruggio's thoughts drifted as he worked. They drifted to the years behind them — he thought about the weight of loving someone who wouldn't let you all the way in. The weight of standing at a door that will never, ever, open.

And he knew, with a certainty that settled into his bones like lead, that Qifrey wouldn't stay.

Not really. Not the way Olruggio needed him to. Qifrey would remain physically present — would share meals and missions and a roof — but he would always keep that final piece of himself locked away. He would always choose control over trust. He would always choose the spell over the truth.

But Olruggio would choose to be here. Always. Even though he knew Qifrey would never trust him completely. If at all.

He would wake up tomorrow and he would think everything was normal because he wouldn't know any better. And Qifrey would sit across from him and lie to his face and he would smile back because that was what he did. That was what he had always done.

The last piece of clothing sat between them — a small shirt of Tetia's, pale yellow with a rip in the sleeve that needed mending. Olruggio picked it up. Folded it carefully. Set it on the stack.

That boy sure did a number on you, didn't he?

Olruggio shook his head, not believing in the things he was willing to do for a man who didn't even trust him. Unfortunately, as it turns out, no love was fully requited. There was always one side that loved more, and that side, as Olruggio was learning, was the one who suffered the most in the end.

Qifrey's hands went still. He watched Olruggio with an expression that might have been grief or guilt or something in between.

"You surely know I love you by now, right?" Olruggio asked. He finally lifted his gaze, meeting Qifrey's eyes. There was no accusation in his voice. No anger. Just a tired, resigned certainty. "There's no way you don't."

Qifrey's mouth opened. His lips parted around words Olruggio could see forming.

"I—"

"Nevermind." Olruggio's voice interrupted him immediately. "I don't... I don't want to know."

If the answer was yes… If Qifrey knew. If Qifrey had always known, had always seen the way Olruggio looked at him, had always felt the weight of that love pressing against his carefully constructed walls, and still chose to do this — chose to erase and erase and erase, chose to reach into Olruggio's mind and pull out pieces of him—

That would be hard to digest.

Qifrey used to be kind. Used to be gentle. Used to be the man who took in four lost girls and gave them a home, who taught them with patience and praised their smallest victories, who tucked them into bed and read them stories.

Or perhaps... he was never like that. It was just Olruggio assigning meaning where there was no place for it.

"I'm ready," he admitted, defeated.

Qifrey's face crumpled as if he was the one losing something. As if he wasn't the one doing this. He raised his hand, fingers trembling near his hat.

"I'm sorry," Qifrey breathed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"No, you're not," Olruggio said, more kindly than he intended. "Do it."

Qifrey lifted the hat and settled it onto Olruggio's head, carefully.

Olruggio closed his eyes and thought, very clearly: I hope I don't love you tomorrow.

And then he forgot he ever thought about it at all.