Archive of Our Own

He’d met Qifrey their freshman year, in October, by offering the cute boy in his art lecture an umbrella. The cute boy had nodded, thanked him, and introduced himself as Qifrey. Olruggio had smiled and introduced himself, asked if Qifrey was taking the class for GE or his major. 

“My major,” Qifrey’d said. “I’m double majoring, Art and physics.”

“Wait, no way,” Olruggio had said. “Me too— art and aeronautical engineering.”

Qifrey had smiled at him, and reached up to adjust his glasses, and then they had stepped out of the building and he’d grimaced and said “I hate the rain.”

Olruggio had no real opinion of the rain. 

They hadn’t roomed together that first year— had been in the same area though, two buildings apart, and had been almost inseparable anyways. They walked together to Art, originally under the guise of sharing an umbrella, but kept it up even after, with no guise but the pleasantry of each other’s company. Olruggio’s roommate had been a guy named Utowin, who was pre-law and there on a pole-vaulting scholarship— he’d asked, once, if Olruggio wanted to go with him to a frat party, if he wanted to bring his boyfriend—

“My. What?” Olruggio had said.

“That guy with the white hair you hang out with all the time?”

“I’m not dating Qifrey— and that’s not a funny joke, anyways.”

“Oh, dude, my bad! I just assumed— I’m bi, the Knights are pretty chill about it— you can still invite him, if you want—“

Olruggio had, actually ended up asking Qifrey, emphasizing that he did not want to go to a frat party alone, and that his roommate would make him (Utowin was weirdly and unduly concerned with Olruggio’s ‘lack of social life’), and Qifrey ended up going— Olruggio had gone in joggers and a sweatshirt, and Qifrey had worn a spiked leather jacket and holofoil skirt, and an eyepatch— like some sort of space pirate-assassin. They’d hung out in the corner almost the whole time— the frat leader had met them at the door, with pronoun patches, and in the time it took them to get to their corner Qifrey had been hit on three times, and Olruggio had been asked five times what he was supposed to be (it was a halloween party, not that Utowin had said anything to him), and then they’d left after an hour, and gotten french fries instead.

Qifrey had said, rather grumpily, “I didn’t even get to punch anyone— I’m not allowed to get in ‘altercations’ on campus anymore—“ he made little finger quotes with fries— “And I really wanted to hit someone— did I tell you what the lecturer in lit said today? Because holy fuck —“

They’d coordinated their schedules for spring semester, as much as they could, which ended up being for art and math— Olruggio was in honors physics, and Qifrey was not, because Qifrey, wisely, valued his gpa and free time. Second year they’d gotten an apartment, with a pair of their art friends— or, really, their friend Alaira and her friend, whom Alaira swore blue existed, though Olruggio had never seen her. 

It wasn’t that Qifrey became less beautiful the longer Olruggio knew him: it was more that Qifrey became a different kind of beautiful. He was beautiful at three am in sweats, and he was beautiful in class, and he was beautiful ranting about movies while leaning on Olruggio’s arm. Olruggio wanted to look at him forever. Olruggio wanted to hold his hand. 

Qifrey glanced across the room towards him, and smiled, and it was devastating. The light was coming in low through the window, and catching brilliant warm gold in his hair and over his cheek. His eye was brilliant candle-heart blue. “What?”

“What,” said Olruggio back, a brilliant rejoinder. 

“You were looking at me,” Qifrey said. “Is my hair sticking up or something?”

“Uh. Uh, no. You look— fine.” That was smooth. “It’s this… question, for class.”

“Oh?” Qifrey said, and slid off his bed, padded across the room, gentle and graceful as a cat. “Here, let me see— for physics?”

“Uh,” Olruggio said, and tabbed away from a romance novel, discreetly, and onto the homework assignment. “Yeah. It’s— fine, I’ve got it; it’s just— bleh.”

“Hmm,” Qifrey said, and plopped himself uninvited onto Olruggio’s bed, propping his head in his arms. His shirt rode up a little. Olruggio wasn’t paying attention to that. “Want to get out of here?”

Yes. The intensity of this surprised him. It wasn’t that he disliked his homework— he liked it as much as one really could— but it paled in comparison to doing anything with Qifrey. “Yeah—“ he said, and then had to say it again, because his voice was being odd. “Yeah, sure. Where?”

Qifrey shrugged. “Dunno. Bookstore? Park? We could try to find that cat at the library. Or just, like, walk around. I’m sure something is happening. Statistically.”

“Okay,” Olruggio said. and Qifrey looked up at him from the bed, smiling, and— well. It was fine and normal to have a crush on your best friend, especially when probably half the art department also had a crush on said best friend, because that just proved you had good taste, and also he moved like he’d switched out half his bones for grace. It was fine and normal in a completely platonic— almost completely platonic— way to be struck with how much you cared for your best friend when he was stretched out next to you on your bed and grinning at you like the sun.

One of the known hazards of sharing your apartment with your unconscionably hot best friend was that you were going to see him unclothed at some point. When your best friend was Qifrey, who thought that skin-tight thermal turtlenecks and long, practically sheer skirts were acceptable common-area clothing choices, you were, essentially, (figuratively) fucked. 

Or so Olrugio had thought. Utowin, in particular, had been almost allergic to shirts: he would be wearing one, and then you would turn around again, and he would not be. Olruggio had worried (more than necessary) that Qifrey would be the same. 

He wasn’t. Olruggio did not have to deal with surprise shirtlessness, or any shirtlessness at all. Qifrey would wear the sort of half-invisible things that could only nominally be called a shirt, but would not hang out shirtless, which was both better and worse to deal with. 

Upon thinking about it, Olruggio had never, actually, seen him not covered from mid-neck to elbows, even if what he was covered by was diaphanous and barely worthy of being called fabric.

Olruggio left it alone. If it was that important to Qifrey, he wasn’t going to butt in, and if Qifrey wanted to talk about it, he would. He tried (very hard) not to think too much about it. 

It worked, until about early december, when Qifrey arrived home sopping wet, announced this arrival with a prodigious amount of swearing, and took off for the bathroom at such a pace he almost left skid marks. Olruggio watched him go from his position on the couch, where he was doing grammar edits on a paper and also kicking the radiator so it worked. The apartment was kind of shit overall, in that only the sink in the kitchen really worked, and you had to kick the radiator every half-hour or so, and Alaira had found a leak in the bathroom over the towel cabinet that they were all avoiding until finals season was over and they had a chance to really look into it. 

The shower banged to life with its usual clamour of pipes, and then the sound of Qifrey cursing it out further, which Olruggio ignored in favor of his paper. It was due really very soon, and it wasn't like Qifrey cursing out the shower was an uncommon occurrence, so Olruggio could tune him out. Qifrey hated water, like a cat.

“Hey, Oru?” Qifrey called. His voice was slightly distorted by the bathroom walls. 

“Yeah, ‘sup?” Olurggio called back, and flipped a page.

“Uh. Would you mind. Um. Grabbing me a towel?” 

“Sure, coming.” Olrugio headed into their room, pulled Qifrey’s towel off his dresser, and knocked on the door.

It opened, slowly, and Qifrey’s arm snaked around. His eye was very blue in the crack between the door and the jamb, and his hair was plastered wet to his forehead. “Thanks,” Qifrey said, quietly, and a droplet of water rolled out of his hair and down his cheek.

“Er. No problem,” Olruggio said, face warm from the steam (and absolutely nothing else) and Qifrey smiled at him, and then disappeared back around the door. He cleared his throat. “Uh. Need anything else?”

“Nah.” Qifrey’s voice was muffled, by more than just the door, and Olruggio definitely did not think about that at all. He retreated to the couch. “Hey, do you know if the girls are home?”

“No idea,” Olruggio said. “Why?”

“I’m behind on laundry and Alaira chewed me out the last time I left wet shit in the bathroom, but I’m not fucking dragging this downstairs.” The bathroom door opened, and footsteps passed behind him. Olrugio was not paying attention.

“I think you’re good,” he said.

“Good,” said Qifrey, and shut himself into the bedroom. “Hey, do you mind if I wear one of your shirts?”

“Whatever,” Olruggio said. “They’ll be too big for you, anyways.” 

“Great, thanks.”

Olruggio looked down at his paper. “There should still be some soup in the fridge, Alaira and I went out last night while you were in chem.”

“Nice.” Qifrey, instead of going and getting the soup, flopped down on the couch and draped himself over Olruggio, and then pulled the couch blanket over both of them. “Scoot over, I’m cold.”

“Fuck you,” Olruggio said, and scooted, and moved his leg so Qifrey could lean closer. Qifrey, obligingly, did so, and put his head on Olruggio’s shoulder. 

“What’s on your arm?” It looked like a long string, or a hair. “Here, hang on, let me just—“ he raised a hand to brush it away. 

“Scar,” Qifrey said. “Don’t worry about it, it’s old.”

He sat up a bit, pushed the neckline down his shoulder. The scar coiled over his upper arm and across his chest, intersecting with a web of others. A thicker scar traced the line of his collarbone, and another tracked up the side of his neck. All of them were so old they were silvery. “From the car accident I was in as a kid. Broke my collarbone pretty bad. From when I lost the eye.”

“Oh,” said Olruggio. His hand was still hovering over Qifrey’s shoulder. Qifrey leaned forwards. His hand connected, and Qifrey didn’t move back, but leaned into the touch, and Olruggio traced the scar into the hollow of his shoulder. He could feel Qifrey’s heartbeat under his fingers. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” Qifrey murmured. “A little, in the rain. I don’t show it off much because people are weird about it or they have questions.”

“Sorry,” Olruggio whispered.

“I don’t mind if it’s you,” Qifrey whispered back, which meant a thing— meant so much of a thing that it was suddenly almost awkward to keep his hand on Qifrey’s skin. He wanted to say something back, something that would mean as much, but Olruggio hadn’t ever been good at talking. 

“Okay,” Oruggio whispered, instead, and moved his hand. Qifrey pulled the neckline so it would sit right again, as much as it ever sat right, and leaned back into Olruggio’s side. Olruggio pulled the blanket closer over them both.

He did not actually mean to fall asleep, and really shouldn’t’ve anyways (he had so much work to do ) but he woke up to the smell of soup— his soup— in the microwave, and Qifrey was still lying on him, also asleep, and therefore not eating soup. 

Olrugio looked over the coffee table at the soup-eater in question. Alaira smirked at him, and ate another spoonful of his soup . 

“That’s my soup,” he said, quietly, but not without fervor. 

“It’s good soup,” said Alaira. She knew he wouldn’t get up. She knew he couldn’t get up. 

“I know.” That was the point. “Fuck off.”

Qifrey twitched, and grumbled into Olruggio’s neck. Olruggio tugged the blanket over him more. When he looked back up, Alaira looked like she was laughing at him. 

“You have good taste,” she said. 

“Shut up,” he said. “Give me back my soup.”

She didn’t. 

It was on one of their two-am boba tea runs, sitting out in the crisp dark together, under neon lights, that Olruggio realized what it meant. They were only two blocks away from the apartment, but it was so late that it felt like they had fallen into a different reality, bifurcated into pink and green and blue lights and impenetrable shadows. Qifrey was wearing the giant cream sweater he bought too big on purpose, and the neckline slouched down his shoulder, revealing his omnipresent turtleneck, and the cuffs covered his hands almost entirely, with only his fingertips sticking out, clutching his tea— jasmine milk and lychee jelly. He gets the same thing every time they come, but so does Olruggio, except Olrugio gets Thai milk and boba. Qifrey liked to tease him for being boring, and every time he did, Olrugio would tease him back for being pretentious.

Qifrey catches him staring, and smiles at him, soft. Everything about him looks soft: he’s backlit by the neon lights, making his hair opalescent. 

“Whatcha thinking about, Oru?” 

How I’m in love with you, Olruggio thinks, and then does not say that , thank god . “Huh what,” he says, instead, which is not better. However, it isn’t confessing his love for his best friend at a twenty-four hour boba shop at two in the morning, so it’s not apocalyptical. 

“What are you thinking about?” Qifrey asks, again. “I’m thinking about stomatophores. Siphonophores. The ocean… strings. And bees. Do you think the ocean is sentient in a way we cannot conceive or measure?”

“Uhhhh,” says Olruggio, still reeling a little from— not falling in love exactly, but more looking up and realizing. Turning around to see he’s crossed the point of no return, light crossing the schwarzschild radius, falling and falling and falling. “Like. What do you mean? I do think there are things that are unquantifiably sentient, yeah.”

Qifrey sucked on his tea, thinking, and then set it down and launched into a borderline-incoherent argument on why, specifically, he thought the ocean could probably be a giant brain. Olruggio makes the right noises at the right places— he doesn’t know anything real about biology, and Qifrey doesn’t either, apart from what sounds like a wikipedia binge and a neurology documentary, and probably also Jules Verne, but neither of them really care. 

“Maybe on Europa,” Olruggio said, when they were walking back, which distracted Qifrey so thoroughly he almost threw away his phone instead of his boba cup. 

Nothing really changed, after that. If he was honest with himself, he’d been in love with Qifrey for a while. He didn’t tell him, of course: he had crossed the schwarzchild radius. Not even light could escape. 

It was fine, actually. Everyone had always said things about how being in love with your best friend was a torment, but Olruggio didn’t understand that at all. He spent all his time with the guy he loved, and so what if they were just— talking, or sitting next to each other, or some shit. It was better than being somewhere without Qifrey. 

So it’s another year, almost, before anything else happens, so long he almost forgets, sometimes. And then he would look over at Qifrey, or Qifrey would laugh, or he would find a sticky note on a tupperware in the fridge, with too many smiley faces on it, and he’d be struck, again, with a fondness so deep it felt almost debilitating, and he would understand why people talked about love like it was lightning, like it was fire: because it was. 

Qifrey was the youngest of them, of their group, technically: his official birthday was in november, but he’d told Olruggio once that he didn’t actually know the real date, and it had been picked sort of at random for his papers. Nevertheless, he was the last of all of them to hit drinking age, legally. 

Alaira had suggested going out together to a bar or something. Qifrey had reminded her that she was the only one who actually liked dealing with other people, and made a counteroffer of box wine and shitty movies.

They ended up doing box wine and shitty movies. Technically, they had a television in the flat, but it was blocked by furniture. None of it was particularly heavy, but all of it was covered in things, and therefore irritating to move. Also, out of all of them, only Alaira did any sort of regular exercise. 

It was horrible, really, that having even this sort of shitty little party involved cleaning up, which was always the worst part of any party. Qifrey and Alaira’s roommate (whose name turned out to be Josia) had fucked off to the little kitchen, which left Olruggio to help Alaira move furniture. 

“If you’re going to whine so much, just take off your hoodie,” Alaira said. Despite how it was Literally November, Alaira was wearing a tank top, which was actually a smart move because lifting shit made you really warm. 

“Fine, just let me set this shit down,” Olruggio said, and then immediately got his face stuck in the neck because he’d forgotten he was wearing glasses, since he didn’t usually. Alaira laughed at him. 

Olruggio untangled himself, threw the hoodie at the couch, and flipped her off. He was putting his shirt back where it was supposed to be (i.e. not around his armpits) when something crashed in the area of the kitchen. He glanced over: Qifrey was standing in the middle of what appeared to have been a bowl of popcorn, staring at Olruggio, his face bright red.

“Shut up ,” Olruggio said, and turned back to help Alaira pick up the chair.

“I am. Going to get the wine.” Qifrey announced. “Alaira I’m taking the car.”

“You fucker, at least pick up the popcorn,” Josie said.

They started out with Alien, not for any particular reason, but Olruggio had said that he had to be a lot drunker before he could deal with certain blatant abuses of astrophysics, and Alaira had mused that Sigourney Weaver was really very badass in it. The couch only barely fit all four of them, and blankets, and popcorn and wine: Alaira was half sitting in Josie’s lap, and halfway through the second movie Qifrey had leaned back against Olruggio and thrown his feet over the arm of the couch.

“That the fuck is not how spacetime works,” He said, and gestured with his wineglass, almost spilling it. The wineglasses were rainbow plastic, a novelty Alaira had picked up last june, howling with laughter even though none of them could legally drink.

“Shhhhh, shhh,” Josie said.

Olruggio smiled around the rim of his glass and pushed Qifrey’s hair away from his mouth.

By the end of the third movie, Alaira was solidly asleep, and Josie was too, probably, or would be soon, and both of them had gone to bed. Josie’d picked Alaira up and carried her to their room. Qifrey was giggling-drunk, and Olruggio had reached the part of drunk where shutting up was a foreign concept. He was talking, saying something about the movie, but he wasn’t even sure what he was saying. It was making Qifrey laugh, though, so that was okay. That was good. 

“This movie is so— so dumb,” Qifrey said. 

“Yeah,” Olruggio said. “I think Alaira and Josie left to sleep.”

“We should be quiet, then,” Qifrey said, and then giggled. 

“Yeah,” Olruggio said. Qifrey put a hand over his mouth, and then laughed. 

“Your beard is weird. Haha. You have, like, the engineer beard, like, like, like Iron man. It’s so funny. All the engineering boys have it.” Qifrey dragged his hand down Olruggio’s face, for show. 

“Now you’re the one talking,” Olruggio said. “Shhh.”

“Shhh,” said Qifrey, back, and put his hand over Olruggio’s mouth again. “Shhhh!”

Olrugio licked his hand. 

Qifrey didn’t move his hand away, but his eye was wide and dark. “Oru—Oru.” He was serious, all of the sudden. 

“Hffwhat,” Olruggio whispered, around his hand. 

“Can I— can I kiss you?”

“Move your hand first,” Olruggio said. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” said Qifrey, and laughed, and moved his hand. “Really?”

“Why wouldn’t you,” said Olruggio, who had forgotten the wonderfully long list of reasons why not. Qifrey had asked. He thought he would do anything, if Qifrey asked. 

“I don’t know if you wanted to,” Qifrey said. 

“Stupid,” said Olruggio. “I always want to.”

And then Qifrey was kissing him. 

It was a forest fire. It was swimming in the ocean when a wave hit. It was standing in the astronomy building next to the telescope and turning the dials and seeing the whole universe come into focus. It was Huygens discovering the rings of Saturn. It was the invention of the rocket. It was a supernova, feeling so much that everything exploded into light.

It was Qifrey’s mouth on his mouth, and Qifrey’s hands on his face, tasting like popcorn and chocolate and shitty box wine. It was his hands in Qifrey’s hair, and Qifrey biting at his lip, and Qifrey laughing, Qifrey saying, “Fuck, fuck, let me put the wine down— Oru, haha, shh.”

It was Qifrey leaning away and patting his face with a hand, and Olruggio kissing his palm, and Qifrey gasping and almost dropping the wine glasses and Olruggio saying shh, shhh. It was blankets and Qifrey and Qifrey’s skin, warm under his hands, his mouth, his mouth on Qifrey’s neck until he was sure to have left a mark, fingers clumsy with wine on the buttons of Qifrey’s shirt until Qifrey got tired and took off both his shirt and his turtleneck in one fluid movement, and then kissed him hard, on the mouth, with teeth. It was Qifrey’s hand up his shirt, and Qifrey’s laughter, and his mouth on the bare expanse of Qifrey’s neck and Qifrey gasping that his beard tickled. 

It was Qifrey tracing his jaw with his tongue, and biting his way down his neck to the hollow of his throat while Olruggio said things like yes and more and please, Qifrey, and Qifrey tugging at his shirt until Olruggio took it off and they were both shirtless. It was Qifrey’s hands in his hair and Qifrey’s mouth on his chest and Qifrey rolling them over until they fell on the floor tangled in a morass of blankets. It was Qifrey smiling up at him from the floor and his mouth red and eye bright, and it was Qifrey saying “This is such a bad idea,” breathless, and then saying back “I know,” and Qifrey saying they should go to bed.

It was Qifrey in his bed, and Qifrey’s hands, and Qifrey’s hair spread across his pillow like solid moonlight, and using his hands to trace down Qifrey’s chest, and Qifrey saying “Oru— Oru, you don’t have to,” and “I know what I look like— I know it’s not—“ and kissing Qifrey to shut him up, and then kissing down the web of scars until Qifrey pulled him back up to kiss. It was kissing Qifrey until they were too tired and then just laying next to him, and falling asleep and thinking it was everything he’d ever wanted.

It was waking up alone.

Olruggio’s head hurt. Qifrey was not in his bed. Qifrey was not in his own bed. Qifrey was not even in the room.

Olruggio pressed a hand against one of the bruises on his neck, in the mirror on the back of the door. He’d thought, last night, maybe: maybe Qifrey would stay. 

He hadn’t.

Olruggio put a shirt on.

Qifrey was sitting on the kitchen counter, holding a mug— coffee. He held out another mug to Olruggio.

“Thanks,” Olruggio said.

Qifrey hummed. He was wearing his turtleneck again, and looked almost like usual, except for the hickey just under his jaw that the fabric wasn’t able to cover. Olruggio remembered putting it there.

Olruggio leaned against the counter so he didn’t have to look. “Do you want to talk about it?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Qifrey glance at him.

“Not particularly,” Qifrey said. “Do you?”

“We probably should,” Olruggio said. “Just— so we know where we stand.” So I know if you want to do it again , he meant, because it was probably the best kiss I’ve ever had and also I’m in love with you . But he couldn’t just— say that. 

“We were drunk,” Qifrey said, voice flat— too flat. “It doesn’t mean anything, and it won’t happen again.”

Olruggio remembered Qifrey standing, embarrassed, in the middle of a dropped bowl of popcorn, not even a day ago. That was how he felt: like he had lost his grip, and dropped something, except instead of a cheap ceramic bowl full of popcorn, it was something irreparably precious— a sculpture, a chandelier, a Chihuly, maybe. “Okay,” he said, and took another sip of coffee. It was really good. He was very proud of how level his voice was while standing in the ruins of the best friendship he’d ever known. 

“I know you don’t— I know you feel… differently, about me, than…” Qifrey gestured. It was not a particularly revealing gesture, but he thought he got the gist.

“We— we’re still friends, yeah?”

“Yeah— yes, of course! Oru, I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t stop being your friend over something like this.” Qifrey looks at him, very seriously. “This is— nothing, comparatively. We didn’t even…” He trailed off. Olrugio could fill that one in.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, and put the writhe of emotions he felt about it down deep until it wasn’t in his throat anymore. “I wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t want to, or you wanted to avoid me about it. For— for a while.”

“I wouldn’t,” Qifrey said. “What if we just— forgot about it? We could go back to normal.”

“That sounds good.” Olruggio said, and didn’t say that even with the wine he thought he would never be able to forget. He opened the fridge for something else to do, and then closed it because there wasn’t really any breakfast food in there. “Hey, do you want to get donuts or something?”

“Sounds good,” Qifrey said. “Let me get Alaira.”

Olruggio drained his coffee and tried, very hard, not to think of anything at all. 

They stayed friends. They didn’t make out again.

But it wasn’t like Olruggio could just— stop being in love with him. It turned out that they were half right: being in love with your best friend was a torment, but only after you knew what your best friend’s mouth felt like on yours, what his skin felt like under your lips. Only after you knew what it might be like to have him want you back, and find out that you were horribly, terrifyingly wrong. 

Olruggio pretended that they’d applied for the same postgrad programs out of coincidence, and similar majors. He pretended he didn’t remember what kissing him felt like. 

He didn’t bother to pretend what he felt was platonic anymore. 

And anyways, it didn’t last. 

It took months for his pillow to stop smelling like wine and Qifrey’s shampoo. 

The beginning of the end happened at an Art party, thrown for really no reason at all but supposedly the campus gallery opening. It was fine. Alaira was in her element. Olruggio definitely recognized at least some of these people, but probably could not have put a name to a single face. 

That might have been because of how close Qifrey was standing, though. And how he was wearing something that barely counted as a shirt: thin, sheer, somewhat shimmery. If Olruggio looked to the left and somewhat down, he would see a rosy shadow that was Qifrey’s right nipple (and then have to violently suppress the memory of licking that nipple, and the impulse to do it again) and so he was just… not doing that. 

“Olruggio! Hey, so glad you could make it!”

Olruggio turned and saw a person coming toward them. He has had many conversations with them. He has shared a studio with them at least ten times in the last two years.  He remembered the pronouns, the boyfriend, the oil paintings of moths— and not the name. “Uh, I’m glad to be invited,”

“Kay,” Qifrey hissed. 

“—Kay.”

“Are you in the exhibition this month?” Kay asked. 

“Er, no, not this month. Is yours?”

“No, haha. Oh well.”

“I’m going to go grab a drink,” said Qifrey, who was in the exhibition and dreaded bringing it up. “Olruggio, want me to fetch you something?”

“Uh, sure?”

“Oh, good idea. Babe, can you fetch me a glass of something too?”

Qifrey and the boyfriend went off together in search of alcohol, and abandoned Olruggio with Kay. 

“So,” they said, suddenly suspiciously conspiratory. “Any advice on that front?”

“Any… what?” He really had no clue what they were talking about. As opposed to faking it to get out of a conversation. He hoped it was obvious. 

“Romantic advice? I’m thinking of proposing to Will soon, I don’t know how to— how’d you do it?”

Olruggio stared. “I’m single?”

This appeared to be a bit of a bombshell for Kay. “Oh shit, sorry,” they said. “I didn’t know. Was it recent?”

“I haven’t broken up with anyone? I haven’t even—“ Not since the horrible not-exactly-hookup with— oh. “Kay, I’m not dating Qifrey. I haven’t ever dated Qifrey.”

They were staring at him. This was the worst thing he had ever experienced. “You’re kidding me.”

“Hundred percent serious,” Olruggio said, like it didn’t scrape on the way out. 

“Is he an idiot ? Is he straight? Or aro, or something? Is it a qpr?”

“Pretty sure all of that’s a no,” Olruggio said, and tried to pretend this wasn’t the most excruciating conversation he had had in… months. 

“You haven’t been dating him, ever? Not even since he showed up at three in the morning with extra non-cadmium cad red and giant cookies. At three am. To the studio.”

“It’s not like he went out and bought new cad red, it was his— besides, the cookie place is on the way from the apartment. He gets it, he’s an artist.”

Kay put their face in their hands. “I— oh my god.”

“I can’t believe you thought we were dating,” Olruggio said, because apparently he couldn’t control his mouth. 

“Everyone who has ever shared a studio with either of you thinks you’re dating,” Kay said, their face still in their hands. “Are you straight? Aro? Just not interested?”

“Uh, no?” Olruggio said, and tried to keep his head from literally exploding. “Why would they think that? Why would anyone think that?”

“He literally, just now,” Kay says, in the sepulchral tones of a dead man, “went and got you a drink at a house party without being asked. That is peak dating. Every time you are in the studio past midnight— either of you— the other brings cookies and boba. I have personally witnessed this happen more than once . I watched him give you his jacket to wear one time.” 

Olruggio remembered that. That one had been really nice, but also not romantically inclined, because Qifrey had forgotten he was using charcoal and worn the giant white sweater. “None of those are romantic things.”

“I don’t know how to explain to you that it’s, like, the vibe with which things are done rather than the action that makes them romantic— hey babe.”

Kay accepted their drink and a kiss from their boyfriend. Olruggio, hoping he wasn’t blushing too hard, just accepted his drink. From Qifrey. Who wasn’t his boyfriend. 

“So, you guys are going on—“

Kay made a cutting-throat gesture. 

“Going on to post-grad, yeah? Nice,” Will continued. “Where’re you thinking of applying?”

That set Qifrey off— Olruggio had exactly two requirements for post-grad, one of which was good aeronautics program and the other near Qifrey , which meant he did not have to pay attention and could, instead, think about things like how the entire art department thought they were dating. Distantly, he wondered whether the physics department had the same idea. Based on the fact that he didn’t act differently around the physics department ( several instances of fetching or being fetched from the physics library immediately come to mind) he thought it was likely. 

Kay had thought it was obvious— how he felt for Qifrey. Did Qifrey know? Was it also obvious to him?

…Almost certainly.

He had made, in that horrible and unforgettable discussion, sort of an obvious point to say that he did not feel the same way Olruggio did, which implied he knew how Olruggio felt. Obviously, he didn’t feel the same. Probably he hardly even remembered it. 

Probably. 

But. 

Here was a thing: in the three years Olruggio had known him, Qifrey had not ever once gone on a date. Or, he’d gone on dates at the beginning: Olruggio had seen him in coffeeshops across from other boys , whom he was never introduced to, or were mentioned to him, who never visited their flat. 

Here was another thing: in the past three years, Olruggio’s hadn’t gone on any dates either. 

The closest thing he’d been on to a date— in literal years— was two am boba tea with Qifrey. Going out for takeout with Alaira didn’t count because a, takeout, b, he was gay, and c, Alaira had a girlfriend. 

So it stood to reason that two am boba tea was also the closest thing Qifrey had been on to a date. 

What was dating, anyways? If it was just, like, positive emotional commitment, hanging out together, and attraction, with possible additions of presents, physical contact, and going out to eat, then Olruggio had technically been dating Qifrey for the better part of two years. 

If Qifrey was also attracted to him, of course. 

He thought— maybe. You wouldn’t ask to kiss someone you weren’t attracted to, and Qifrey had asked him. Probably also didn’t kiss like that— definitely didn’t moan like that — if you weren’t enjoying it. 

So it’s safe to assume Qifrey liked kissing him. Or that  he was drunk and horny enough from not going on a single date in over two years that it didn’t matter. 

And there was another thing: Qifrey hadn’t brought up Olruggio being in love with him since the disastrous morning-after talk. It could be that he took forgetting it literally, and is taking pity on Olruggio. Or. 

Or it could be that Qifrey didn’t know, and was referring to differing feelings in the other direction, which is a thought so groundbreaking it takes Olruggio some time to process. 

“Are you… okay?” Alaira asked, since he had (foolishly) chosen to process on the couch. 

“Yes fine,” Olruggio said, and did not ask back if Qifrey was in love with him. 

He figured it was about a fifty-fifty chance. 

Olruggio did not ask Alaira if Qifrey was in love with him. He asked Qifrey directly, probably far too blatantly. 

“I thought we had agreed to forget that night,” Qifrey said. Which. Well. 

Olruggio tried not to hope. 

“What night,” Olruggio said. “I’m talking about how the entire art department thinks we’re dating. Are we?”

He was ten feet away, which was really way too far. Hypotenuse-wise, across the room.

“Not to my knowledge,” Qifrey said. “Not if you don’t want to be.”

He failed at not hoping. 

“I want to be,” Olruggio said. “Dating you.”

Olruggio had never understood the phrase pregnant pause, but he did now. Like a bubble, getting ready to pop. It filled the room. 

Qifrey was staring at him. 

“Oru,” Qifrey said. “Do you— mean that?”

“Yeah.”

“I… also. Want to date you.”

“Good,” said Olruggio. He felt somewhat faint. He was also suddenly much closer to Qifrey. “Can I kiss you?”

“ Yes ,” Qifrey said, and dragged him up onto the bed. 

Kissing Qifrey sober was completely different from kissing Qifrey drunk. Sober-Qifrey kissed like he was going to die if his tongue was not in Olruggio’s mouth, and bit, and put his hands what seemed like everywhere at once. It was fair: Olruggio also felt like he was going to die if he couldn’t touch every single inch of Qifrey at once. 

Slightly after, when it was not quite as imminently urgent for them to be connected at the mouth, Olruggio said, “So, are we remembering now? Your birthday?” 

“Okay, sure,” said Qifrey. “But it doesn’t count.” His eye was a light ring of blue around the pupil, and his mouth was red and wet. Olruggio leaned forward and kissed him again. 

“You know, I meant everything I said that night.”

“Bullshit,” Qifrey whispered. 

“Not the morning. At night.”

“Such as?”

“I think you’re the most attractive guy I’ve ever met.”

Qifrey flipped them, pointedly, so that his seeing eye was buried in the sheets. Olruggio traced his fingers over the cheek underneath the prosthetic. 

“Oru.” 

“Yeah?”

“I have one eye and I’m missing half the skin on my shoulder.”

“So?” Olruggio leaned in, kissed his mouth, then the outside corner of the prosthetic. Qifrey shuddered. “You’re… I’m shitty at speeches and stuff, but you’re Qifrey, and you’re brilliant and amazing and I love you, and I don’t care what you look like but I do think you’re hot. The most hot. All of you.” Qifrey stared at him. Qifrey specifically moved the blankets around so he could stare at him. “…What?”

“You. Love me.”

“Were we. Not doing that yet?” He could try to take it back. “I thought. Since we’ve been kind of dating for— You could pretend it was platonic if you want. I also love you in like a platonic way.”

“I’m in love with you,” Qifrey said. “Also. However you want. Both.”

“Oh,” said Olruggio. “Thanks.”

There was a long and horrible pause. 

Qifrey started laughing. 

“Shut up— shut the fuck up—“

“You said thanks ,” Qifrey cackled. 

“Shut up, shut all the way up, oh my god, you know I’m bad at talking. It seemed polite, I don’t know!”

“It seemed polite .” 

“I hate you.”

“You don’t. ”

“Yeah. I don’t.”