Prompt 'before the first kiss' - Orufrey
This is an A4 sheet prompt written for the 'burning verses' experiment (read more here) to help the author get out of writer's block
Fandom: Witch Hat Atelier
Pairing/characters: Orufrey
Tags: postcanon, morning cuddles, yearning, Olruggio's POV, fluff
Context: they wake up together after Qifrey's curse is broken, Olruggio is wondering if they are ready to be intimate with each other, with no fear of harm (they are in this version)
Qifrey's face is so close that his breathing leaves traces on skin, from lips to neck — a path that is always exposed to everyone's eye yet hidden to anyone's touch, except for Qifrey's ghost in Olruggio's dreams. Olruggio keeps a distance between them because he wants Qifrey to decide when his body deserves to be found and explored — if ever.
Olruggio can never guess when Qifrey makes up his mind to commit an incredulous act, like making him believe there has never been a thin line between their bodies and souls. The line has always been the same length, starting from their lips, travelling to their shoulders when they bump in the kitchen, to their hands when a bottle of midnight indulgence is put aside, back to their eyes when Qifrey catches a thread of the stare that slips through Olruggio's hold. It is a thin line both of them have wished to cross, and they have probably smudged it a few times. For now, all Olruggio sees is blurry, from questions of how they erase this line to whether they need to at all. Is Olruggio dreaming again of the ways Qifrey's breathing will never take?
But Qifrey's in his arms, vulnerable, trusting his sleepiness to Olruggio's embrace. If he wished to run away, he would not let Olruggio caress him with sighs, gaze at his lips as if the line between them is nothing but a stripe of ash to wipe off — or set ablaze into a flicker that finally blinds them enough to never draw it again. Qifrey moves his head up, a feather-light exhale escaping his lips and kissing Olruggio's mouth. Olruggio dreams — he thinks — the fraction of a moment when Qifrey tries to reach closer but pulls back. This does feel like a dream, for the heat of Qifrey's body cannot be real. Olruggio cannot hold it knowing it is his to adore — with or without the line that can never be crossed.
It might be easier to know that Qifrey does not want Olruggio to kiss him. But the moment Qifrey looks him straight in the eye, Olruggio sees that the line had been washed away by Qifrey's tears when he was freed from his curse.
Their bodies and souls have no more lines to keep them from spilling into each other.
'Can I?' Olruggio speaks into his lips, melting from the cloud of warmth his words create, a small flame they start. Qifrey can still escape him and put the fire out instead of pushing them both into it. That's what he always does.
Qifrey smiles — burns Olruggio instead. A short huff escapes him, and his laugh is forever sealed in the cracks of Olruggio's lips. They are lying next to each other, cinders — completely gone but eternally warm.
Qifrey puts both of his hands on Olruggio's cheeks, and Olruggio does not wish to be anything else now but a tired body in his lover's arms.
'Yes,' Qifrey whispers with sweetness Olruggio has never tasted of him before — sugar of willowgrape wine matured in their cupboard for twenty years. It is enough to make him drunk from a single touch.
If this is a drunken dream, Olruggio wishes to sleep endlessly, then. If this is real — he pleads to never rest.
