Archive of Our Own

i. A Promise

In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious that something was wrong.

Qifrey was good at keeping secrets, true, but Olruggio was just as good at sniffing them out. He’d always liked to think that was the reason why Qifrey kept him around for so long. After all, he's found that most people with secrets don’t actually want to keep them. It's just that telling them is the hard part.

But then, they went and settled into a routine, built their atelier, even took the girls under their wings. Olruggio had worried a little at first, because of the newness of it all, but Qifrey seemed happy, and so he’d dared to think that maybe things might stay that way forever. Happy, quiet, peaceful. Like they were finally ready to build a life together.

The papers scattered across Qifrey's desk seemed to imply otherwise.

"I noticed you were up late," Olruggio says, in acknowledgement of the footsteps behind him. "Brought you some tea."

Qifrey’s hand is shaking a little when he takes the teacup. He doesn’t say anything right away, but Olruggio doesn’t mind, because he isn’t sure how he’d respond anyway. They just stare at the desk like that, dead silent, while Olruggio scans the papers. Even in these simple drafts, every circle is drawn with an effortless symmetry that makes the strangeness of the sigils at their center all the more stark: creeping and organic, grasping arms reaching into black.

"It's a memory spell," Qifrey says eventually.

Olruggio hesitates, carefully trimming the anger and worry away from his words before he speaks. It wouldn’t take a genius to extrapolate the spell's purpose.

"I can see that."

Qifrey sets the teacup down on his desk before he slumps into the chair, and despite his frustration, Olruggio feels a pang at the tired slouch to his friend’s shoulders. All the little clues are falling into place now, the late nights and hollowed cheekbones and hands that won't stop trembling. It’s exactly the sort of thing he should’ve noticed as a Watchful Eye.

Exactly the sort of thing he would’ve noticed years ago, and then he had to go and get complacent.

"It’s a clever design," Olruggio admits after a moment, bending over the desk beside Qifrey to take a closer look at the seals. "It wouldn’t do you well to forget the Brimmed Caps entirely, not if you want to be a teacher. Simply targeting the memories that most trouble you… that should allow you to retain any basic knowledge you need. All you’d lose is its personal significance. It’s just the kind of roundabout solution I’d expect from you."

Qifrey flinches as if he’s been hit, wincing in guilt.

"Be honest with me, Olly."

"I am."

While it’s not necessarily untrue, they both know that it’s easier for Olruggio to speak to spells than to people.

"...I imagined how this conversation would go," Qifrey says, leaning against Olruggio in what’s become a habitual gesture of comfort between them. "A hundred times, at least. Maybe a thousand. I always figured it would be something like this. But I hoped you’d be angry."

"Don’t treat me like some softie," Olruggio says, only dimly aware of the irony as he wraps his arm around Qifrey’s shoulders. "And don't get me wrong, this is reckless and stupid. I understand the temptation, but I'd think that you of all people would know better than to go muddling around with memory spells."

Apparently he’s said something wrong, because Qifrey pulls himself away suddenly, hunching his shoulders as if he's been wounded.

"How could you say something like that?"

"Because it’s true. I’m not insulting the quality of your work, but–"

"It’s not the same," Qifrey spits. "I was a child then, it wasn’t something I chose."

"That's not what I meant. I'm just-I'm scared for you, Qifrey," Olruggio admits brokenly. "We know so little about forbidden magic, and you don’t tell me anything. I know you saw things in the Tower of Tomes, but as far as I’m aware, there’s no precedent for this. What was I supposed to do if it went wrong? If not-If not yourself, then think of your apprentices."

"You think I haven’t?" Qifrey clenches the fabric of his robes in his fists, his voice cracking. "If it was only the two of us, we could just do what we’ve always done."

Qifrey’s voice softens, no doubt recalling the same memories that Olruggio is: cold, quiet nights spent traipsing through the thickets and mud of Thristas, Qifrey’s smaller hand clasped tightly around his own.

Olruggio takes a deep breath and turns to rest his back against the desk.

"And this is your solution?" he asks. "There’s nothing else that can put your mind at ease?"

"You can fix it," Qifrey says quietly, gaze fixed on his hands as he worries at a loose thread on his sleeve. "If something goes wrong. You can fix it."

Olruggio hesitates, then, resigned, gestures to the desk behind himself. "You should add the sign for sleep."

"What?" Qifrey asks, finally turning those hazy blue eyes up to look at Olruggio.

"Sleep," he repeats, finding himself thankful for his billowing sleeves. They hide his clenched fists, the half-moons his nails are surely leaving in his palms by now. "It’ll be less disorienting that way. And who knows, maybe you’ll get a full night’s rest for once."

"...I’ll consider that," Qifrey says, then, with overwhelming sincerity, "Thank you."

Any other night, Olruggio would have read the smile Qifrey gives him as sadness, or guilt, or maybe something of both. But it could have been tiredness.

"Well," Olruggio says, pulling away from the desk. "I’ll leave you to it. But promise you’ll come to me if you need help. This isn’t the kind of spell you can try twice."

He doesn’t quite process what Qifrey says in response as he leaves, shutting the door softly behind himself. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. Qifrey would never ask anyone for help of his own accord. It’s why they work so well together: because Olruggio has never needed to be told.

It’s late at night, peak work hours for him, but once he’s back in his own atelier, even candlelight seems so bright that it gives him a piercing headache. So he retires early, opens the windows and pulls the blankets up to his chin as he listens to crickets humming in the grass outside.

Sometime past midnight, he wakes suddenly to a flickering shadow at his bedside. Before he’s even able to snap fully awake, the figure leans over him. Silver hair in the soft moonlight, a smile that’s sad but still familiar.

"It’s okay," Qifrey says gently as Olruggio allows himself to relax back into his pillow. "The spell. I wanted to tell you that it’s finished. And that… I’m sorry for lying to you."

There can’t be any harm in reaching up to brush Qifrey’s hair from his eyes, not when Olruggio isn’t going to remember it in the morning anyway. So he does, and he lets himself get one good look at Qifrey’s face, smiling reassuringly, heavy with the kind of pain that only comes from love.

Qifrey leans into Olruggio's hand and closes his eyes for a moment, his expression settling into something closer to peace. It’s marvelous, how even now, they’re comforted by each other. A reassurance that nothing can get between them. Not guilt. Not even forgetting.

"I knew," Olruggio promises.

ii. A Gift

It’s not that Olruggio was following Qifrey.

Not exactly, at least. He’s not sure where it all started, really. The books were the most obvious clue: old tomes on ancient history left out in the open, Brimmed Caps and forbidden spells and medical magic, a cry for help more than anything. But there were the trips, too, longer and more frequent with every passing month. Even before that, he’d noticed Qifrey’s temperament souring whenever the girls weren’t around.

So when he checked the dials on the Windowway after Qifrey’s latest disappearance, it wasn’t stalking really. Just checking for confirmation that an old door truly had been reopened.

A part of Olruggio wishes that, just this once, Qifrey had been telling the truth. It would have been simpler that way. He could’ve let it rest, brushed all the other signs off as coincidence.

But nobody really likes keeping secrets from the ones they love. Least of all Qifrey.

So when all his suspicions are confirmed, when it’s gone too far to ignore, Olruggio does the only thing that he can do: sit outside the Windowway, and wait. It takes hours, long enough that Olruggio’s drifting off by the time Qifrey emerges from the portal, but as soon as they see each other, Qifrey’s lunging toward him, haloed by mist and knobbly trees.

The fight doesn’t last long.

Qifrey goes in like a beast at first, grasping and clawing at Olruggio’s face with a shred of paper, but as soon as Olruggio shoves at his chest, enough to get an arms length of distance between them, it’s like all the fight goes out of him. As if he suspected the element of surprise to be on his side, or perhaps more likely, for Olruggio to go down without a fight.

"Wait," Olruggio pants out the word through stinging lungs as he spreads his palms open wide, a demonstration that he bears no quills or inkpots. "...Wait. Please. Just talk to me."

"Why?" Qifrey asks, sideyeing Olruggio as he tucks the scrap of paper back underneath his sleeve.

Olruggio doesn’t need to ask for clarification; they know each other better than that. A simple question for a simple answer.

"Because I trust you."

"I don’t deserve that, Olly," Qifrey says. Yet he accepts it nonetheless, slouching back against the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees.

"Who does?" Olruggio surprises himself with his own earnestness.

Qifrey laughs softly under his breath, more a gentle exhalation of air than anything. "Some Watchful Eye you are."

"I’m your friend first. Always have been."

"That’s exactly what I mean." Qifrey lifts his spectacles to rub at the bridge of his nose, his exhaustion apparent in the stiff and slow way he moves. "One of us needs to be the responsible one."

"Are you trying to put this on me?" Olruggio arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t raise his voice. Personal offense isn’t enough cause to escalate things even further. "They’re your apprentices, Qifrey."

Qifrey sighs, resigned. "I know. I’m sorry."

Olruggio waits for a moment, checking for sufficient remorse in Qifrey’s expression, before he nods and settles on the floor across from him.

"Tell me about it. We’ll figure it out, like we always do."

"Like we always do," Qifrey repeats glumly, and for a moment, Olruggio could swear that he caught a flicker of guilt in his friend’s eyes, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. "...They’re trying to take my sight, Olly. The Brimmed Caps. They're..."

Olruggio’s heart drops, remembering when Qifrey first arrived in the Great Hall. His spells were always lopsided, off-balanced by his poor depth perception. For the Brims to take his sight altogether, after he fought so hard, after they spent so long tracking down the first and got nowhere, feels too cruel.

"How long?"

"A few months, maybe, since my vision started to fade. Less since I put the pieces together."

"Well, where do we start?" Olruggio asks, ready to go marching back into Thristas right that moment if Qifrey asks him to. "What’re your leads?"

"I don’t have any."

He’s never heard Qifrey sound so broken before.

"We’ll go back to the Tower of Tomes," Olruggio proposes, mind moving too fast to catch the desperation in his own voice. "There’s got to be something you missed. Or–or we can leave the girls in Kalhn for a little while, comb Thristas together. We’ll cover more ground between the two–"

"Stop," Qifrey says sharply. "Olly. Just–stop."

And so he does. Just sits there and watches as Qifrey buries his face in his hands, shoulders shaking, until he pulls himself together enough to speak.

"You can’t help me this time."

"Why?" Olruggio shouts, only dimly aware of the fact that the girls are sleeping downstairs. "We’ve done it before! What makes this any different? Am I not–"

"It’s not that," Qifrey says, sliding closer to Olruggio until they’re pressed up against each other side to side, Qifrey’s head on his shoulder. " I want your help, Olly. That’s why I need you here. Safe ."

Olruggio takes a deep breath, then another, feels Qifrey’s reassuring weight against him.

"I don’t understand."

Qifrey doesn’t respond right away. Instead, he takes Olruggio’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together to reassuringly stroke his thumb across the back of Olruggio’s palm. They stay there like that for a while, quiet, before Qifrey finally breaks the silence.

"I like this. The way things are now. No matter how troubled I feel, I always have our little family to come back to."

Olruggio’s breath catches in his throat at the word family .

"But I can’t have it," Qifrey continues. "Not if you’re always chasing me and worrying about me and trying to put things right. I just need to know that... if they do take my sight from me, if they use my body for something horrible, at least I tried. You understand? I’m not trying to push you out again. I’m telling you what I need, and that’s for–it’s this . Coming home to you. Knowing that none of it will ever change."

He squeezes Olruggio’s hand, a gesture of reassurance as much as it is of possessiveness, and Olruggio thinks that he understands.

"The paper?"

"A memory spell." Qifrey stares down at their clasped hands, thinking. "Modified from the one the Knights Moralis use. You helped me design it."

Olruggio breathes in shakily as Qifrey continues to stroke his hand, keeping him tethered to earth.

"How many times?"

"Not many," Qifrey says hesitantly, then, "this is the third."

For a brief moment, Olruggio wonders whether there’s something wrong with him, because his reaction to that answer probably shouldn’t be wounded pride. Still, if it's been months, shouldn't he have caught on sooner? More often?

"How’d you manage it last time?" Olruggio asks curiously.

Qifrey gives him an odd look. "What do you mean?"

"You didn’t seem ready for me to put up a fight. Did I just let you cast it, all those times?"

"This is the first time you’ve confronted me," Qifrey admits. "Before, I just waited until you were already asleep."

There’s a tightness to his jaw suggesting that he has more to say, or that he wants to say, so Olruggio waits.

"Of course I wasn’t ready for a fight," Qifrey says eventually, his voice choked. "You’re… my truest friend, Olly. It was easier, at first, because you helped me. But I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to feel like I’m hurting you."

"Hm," is all that Olruggio can manage at first.

It’s the kind of time where he probably ought to check in on his feelings. Anger, or betrayal, or loss. Those would all be reasonable reactions, the kinds that a normal person might expect to feel at such a confession.

But he’s never been a normal person, has he? He wouldn’t have lasted this long if he was, not after all the times that Qifrey tried to push him away, all the secrets and the lies. For better or for worse, he loves Qifrey. He’s the kind of person who can love Qifrey.

His pride is going to be the death of him someday. But he's never been able to deny that it feels good, to be good at something. And more than anything, even magic, Olruggio knows loyalty. Knows that no matter what else happens or where their lives lead them, loving someone can't be a sin.

"Give me your hat," Olruggio demands. "And the spell, too."

Qifrey only hesitates for a moment before handing them over. He watches with mixed curiosity and concern as Olruggio pulls the pin from its face, allowing the triangular brim of linen to fall and reveal the stiff sea-green fabric underneath. 

"You couldn’t take me in a fight if you wanted to," Olruggio says lightly as he copies the seal onto the fabric. "With or without magic. But we shouldn’t fight, anyway."

He risks a glance up at Qifrey’s face, and smiles to himself when he finds what he’d hoped to see. No guilt. Just gratefulness and the hint of a laugh.

"Here," he says, passing the hat back to Qifrey with the ring unfinished. "You’ll want to retrace that in waterproof ink at some point."

"Why–"

"It’s innocuous," Olruggio explains. "That move you pulled with the loose paper would only work if I was sleeping or wasted, and you can't count on me being unconscious every time I'm on the verge of figuring you out. I might think it strange if you tried to put your hat on me, if you weren’t tricky about it, but I wouldn’t recognize it as a spell right away."

"Smart," Qifrey acknowledges, eyeing the spell. "You don’t give yourself enough credit, though. I’d still need ink to complete the circle."

"Ah, but that’s the real trick," Olruggio says, flipping over the scrap of paper to scratch out a new spell on its blank side. "I’ve been working on this for a while. Tiny beads of ink that can be popped open, for subtle casting in front of outsiders."

He glances anxiously at Qifrey’s face as he slides the design over for his approval.

"Mount it on the head of the pin, and it would only take one movement to trigger the spell. No need for a pen, either."

Qifrey holds the scrap up to catch the light from the stairwell, shining through both spells at once.

"You’re too good to me, Olly."

"What can I say?" Olruggio grins, butting him with his shoulder. "It’s just my altruistic nature."

When they fall quiet, it doesn’t feel as comfortable as last time. Eventually Qifrey lets his hand drop back to his lap, fingers fretting at the edges of the paper. Olruggio waits until it’s worn thin and rough before he breaks the silence.

"I’m not going to make it this easy next time. Probably."

"I know," Qifrey says, sniffling a little.

Olruggio respectfully leans his head back against the wall to stare at the ceiling as Qifrey wipes something from his eyes. Dust, probably.

Another sniffle, and then, "Are you ready?"

"When you are."

They turn to face each other, so close that their noses are almost touching. Qifrey bites his lip and leans forward, cupping Olruggio’s cheek with one hand as he removes his hat and gently sets it on the floor beside them with the other.

When Olruggio took Qifrey's hat, it had been a practical suggestion. He hadn’t considered how important witches’ caps were, how often they wore them–enough to become extensions of their bodies. Maybe if he had, he could have prepared himself for how intimate it would feel when Qifrey replaced Olruggio’s cap with his own.

On some level, he wishes that he could bashfully hide his flushed face as Qifrey pulls away, searching his pockets for a pen, but the alternative seems worse. If he can’t keep these memories, he should at least get to savor them.

"Hey, Qifrey."

Qifrey hesitates, his pen hovering just above Olruggio’s forehead.

"What is it?"

Olruggio bites at his thumbnail, second guessing himself now that he’s faced with the prospect of an answer. If there’s one thing he’s learned after all these years, it’s that most of the time, one is better off left in the dark. The sharing of secrets only ever lightens the teller’s burden.

If only it weren’t for his damned curiosity.

"Has it changed me?"

Qifrey skims a hand across his cheek reassuringly, and Olruggio can see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he considers his answer.

"Nothing could change you, old friend."

There’s no point in pressing for the truth. Not when they’ve been a unit for so long that Olruggio can read the shifts in Qifrey’s expressions like keystones.

Olruggio closes his eyes, feeling the warmth of Qifrey’s body as he leans in closer to complete the seal. Sometimes he wishes that his words spoke as strongly as his spells. Maybe then he could say what he wants to, before he forgets it again.

Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you. Always, unchangingly.

But then, if there’s one thing he can be thankful for, it’s that he and Qifrey are alike in that way: they’ve never needed truth to understand each other.

iii. A Confession

It’s not that the two of them have never been close before.

In fact, there was a time that they were more often touching than not. Their hands clasped as they wandered the corridors of the Great Hall, their bodies huddled for warmth in the mists of Thristas, Qifrey crawling into Olruggio’s bed late at night to hide from the nightmares. They never felt reason to be shy in front of each other.

But then, they got older. Things changed.

It's not that the two of them have never been close before. Just that it's been so long, and Olruggio doesn't remember it feeling like this before.

Qifrey’s gaze weighs heavy on Olruggio’s shoulder as he draws. It’s already intimate enough to watch another witch at work, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to leave Olruggio feeling so flustered. No–the problem is the way that Qifrey’s running his hand through his hair, absentmindedly curling a black strand around his index finger.

The strangest part of all, is that after so long thinking that he’s got Qifrey all figured out, this is new .

"Olly," Qifrey hums, his breath brushing the back of Olruggio’s neck. "It’s late. You should get some rest."

Olruggio bends further over his desk, so close that he’s practically mashing his face into the spell he’s working on. Anything to hide the frantic blush that’s no doubt rising in his cheeks.

"You’re talkin’ like we’re a married couple," he grumbles. "Let me work."

"But aren’t we?" Qifrey muses. "Something like it, at least. Partners."

Olruggio’s hand spasms, a sudden tension that sends his pen flying from his hand.

"What’re you talking about?" he asks.

Every instinct in his body is screaming at him to turn around, to move , but his head is so full of fuzz he can’t bring himself to do anything but stare at his pen as it teeters half-on, half-off the edge of the desk.

Qifrey responds by wrapping his arms around Olruggio’s shoulders, pressing closer until his chest is pressed close against Olruggio’s back. A simple gesture, not unfamiliar, but this time it brings a gentle warmth, radiating out from where Qifrey’s body meets his own.

He hadn’t realized how tired he was until now.

"You can play the unfeeling capitalist all you want, but it’s not going to stop me from thanking you properly."

"Oh–" Olruggio says a little dumbly, processing a moment too late that the sense of overwhelming comfort wasn’t just Qifrey, as he’d thought. "The Snugstone."

"What else?" Qifrey laughs. "Last night was the best I’ve slept in months."

"I’m glad. Now if you’d please–"

"I’m not sure if you understood me correctly," Qifrey says, dropping his voice to a murmur. "A gift that kind deserves something in exchange, don’t you think?"

Any trace of relaxation from the Snugstone goes fleeing from Olruggio’s body at the way Qifrey’s breath tickles his ear. He’s afraid of how close Qifrey is, of the implications of what he’s saying paired with this strange new behavior, but most of all, scared of the inevitable disappointment.

"What did you have in mind?" he asks breathily.

"Anything I can give to you."

Olruggio’s heart skips a beat.

Anything ?

As if he knows exactly what Olruggio’s thinking, Qifrey releases a soft huff of amusement and nips at his earlobe before repeating, "anything."

For a while, neither of them says anything. Qifrey just waits, hanging around Olruggio’s shoulders as he stares at the papers in front of him. Ink, paper, hundreds of sigils that he’s no longer capable of making sense of.

All that he knows is what he wants. What he’s wanted for years.

"Olly," Qifrey whispers, tugging away, dragging one hand across Olruggio’s shoulders as he moves to kneel beside the chair. His eyelashes flutter as he looks up, eye as clear blue as a mountain spring. "Tell me what you want."

It should be obvious what Olruggio is supposed to do. He’s dreamed of this moment for long enough. The moment is right, and for the first time, it’s clear that Qifrey wants it as badly as he does. But somehow he still can’t bring himself to say a word to the man who called him partner .

A part of Olruggio expects Qifrey–always so flighty and unsettled–to give up and leave after a moment has passed. For anger, embarrassment, or disappointment. But none comes. He just waits. Like he knows what Olruggio wants to ask as well as he knows that it’s not something he can say, not easily.

"Qifrey," Olruggio says, his voice hoarse, testing the sound of the familiar name on his lips as much as anything. And it works; the panic subsides, replaced by warmth and reassurance.

He was a fool to think there would ever be a time when Qifrey couldn’t surprise him anymore.

"Qifrey," he says again, then shifts in his seat so that he’s facing Qifrey, still kneeling on the floor beside him. "I want you to–I mean, I–can I kiss you?"

It’s like the words flip a switch, sending Qifrey springing back to his feet. His knees part as he settles on Olruggio’s lap, their faces suddenly alarmingly close, and a smile traces his lips as he presses his forehead against Olruggio’s.

"You didn't have to ask. But I like that you did."

He leans closer, then, and instinctively Olruggio wraps his arms around Qifrey’s hips, holding him stable. Warmth from the Snugstone between them fills Olruggio’s chest as they pull each other closer, moving slowly, savoring every moment, until their lips touch for the very first time. 

It’s a fleeting kiss, but precious, the kind that makes Olruggio wish that magic was good for more than just erasing memories. Qifrey kisses him with a tenderness that leaves him breathless, every parting of his lips a promise of always .

When they pull away, Qifrey takes his slack jaw between his thumb and pointer finger, holding Olruggio’s gaze in a long, appraising stare.

"Why'd it take us so long?"

Olruggio gulps. "Because–I didn’t know you wanted it as much as I did."

"Hm," Qifrey says, gently lifting Olruggio’s chin as he leans closer. "But you’ve always been so good at knowing what I needed."

"Th-there were always mixed signals." Olruggio barely manages to gasp the words out, too overwhelmed to keep a steady train of thought and too enchanted to pull away. "I thought–maybe you were unsure."

"I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life," Qifrey murmurs, then suddenly pulls back just far enough to smile at Olruggio. "Maybe you aren’t so sure. Or maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought."

It’s a strange kind of expression. He knows the teasing tilt to Qifrey’s grin, the way he lifts his chin a little when he wants to remind Olruggio which of them has always been the braver of the two. But the look in his eyes is stranger, more complicated.

Sadder than Olruggio would expect, if Qifrey were really so self-assured as he's acting.

So he answers wordlessly, bridging the gap between them as swiftly as Qifrey opened it.

When their lips meet for the second time, it’s so natural that it feels practiced. Qifrey’s hands flutter to brace Olruggio’s cheeks, his lips soft and plush, his spectacles pressing cold against the bridge of Olruggio’s nose.

The most beautiful thing about kissing Qifrey, Olruggio thinks, is to feel instead of see. The moment that his smile shifts from defensive teasing to something soft and relaxed becomes something for Olruggio to experience, not just witness, stubbornness giving way to pliancy.

Olruggio isn’t sure how long they spend pressed together like that, minutes or hours. At some point, he tangles his hands in Qifrey’s hair, sending his hat toppling onto the desk. At some point, the sun rises, pink light spilling through the windows.

At some point, they aren’t kissing, just holding each other, Qifrey’s head nested in the crook of Olruggio’s neck.

"I wish that I would keep you like this," Olruggio finds himself saying unthinkingly. "Forever. At least until the sun sets."

Qifrey drags in a shaky breath and lifts his head to look up at Olruggio, that sad expression back in his eyes, like he’s already missing him.

"Why can't you?"

Olruggio laughs softly, presses a kiss against Qifrey's forehead. "As if you'd ever let me."

Qifrey smiles and nestles closer. "Maybe not. But it's a nice dream, isn't it?"

"Mm hmm," Olruggio responds, letting his eyes drift shut, feeling Qifrey's gentle breath against his neck as the birds outside start to sing. And for a moment, he lets himself dream.

"Olly," Qifrey mumbles sleepily. "I have something I need to tell you."

Olruggio opens his mouth, startled, but Qifrey presses a finger against his lips reassuringly as he reaches for his hat with the other hand.

"It’s a good thing."

All that Olruggio can do is watch with pure worship as Qifrey places the hat on his head. He leans closer, a curtain of white fluttering down between their eyes as their lips brush together again and Qifrey whispers into his mouth, breathy and impatient.

"I’m in love with you, Olly. Until the sun sets. Forever. However long you'll have me. I love you."