SUMMARY: When the Great Hall requires Qifrey to take on a co-teacher, he gets a little more than he was expecting.
CW: GN leaning reader but with a heavy focus on their ability to carry a child and one instance of the term 'mother', some spoilers from the manga, references to arousal and fantasies but no explicit sex, breeding/pregnancy kink, very little plot LOTS of yearning, mutual pining, kinda possessive & self destructive Qifrey 1-2 punch combo
It was a categorically bad idea. Catastrophically, even, given the circumstances of Qifrey’s life. There were four children already in his care. A league of rogue witches stalking his wards, ones who had already proven themselves capable of leaving him for dead- leaving anyone for dead, if it benefitted them in the slightest. Functionally, they may as well already have killed him. The remainder of what they’d done to him still lay in wait in his body, festering. Shaving his life away by degrees. It was enough that he had his little gaggle of apprentices to mind. It was enough pressure to keep them fed and clothed and content, it was enough to pester his friend and worry over his leads, to keep up with the rolling responsibilities of scheduling tests and tending to the needs of the nearby settlements, it was enough to scratch notes in the margins of his curriculum and try to stay abreast of the tide of constant, self-inflicted stress. It was enough even, to look after you.
You, impossible thing that you were. A co-teacher the Great Hall had insisted he bring on as the scope and complications of his atelier grew, he had expected to be inconvenienced by your presence at best, and completely derailed at worst. He had no need for any additional scrutiny in his life- Olruggio, begrudgingly lenient as he was, was bad enough. What Qifrey got in many ways was worse than he expected.
If you had any inclinations to pry into his business, he wouldn’t have known it. The problems only really started when he noticed just how badly he wanted to get into yours. You with your endless enthusiasm and loving nature, your diligent work ethic and your eagerness to spoil his girls, your shy offers to lighten his burden and always, always a soft promise of respite he could never fully allow himself to take. You devoted yourself to the atelier completely, and though you never opened all the way up, he got the distinct impression you would, if he would only ask you to. It was a measure of politeness, that boundary you kept between professional courtesy and friendship. The longer you’d stayed with the girls, with him, the less sure he was that he wanted you on the other side of it. He wanted to shatter that barrier some days, to take your hand in his and invite you into his life. You could belong there. It’s just that you really, really shouldn’t.
He contented himself with bustling over you like any other charge, though he knew you were more than capable of looking after yourself, and more often than not had to dodge your attempts to return the favor. No, it was better when it was him cutting the fruit for your tea, him goading you to take a break, him coaxing you to bed when the watery prelude of morning sunlight began pooling on the horizon. He hovered in your periphery, setting the frayed edges of your life right and allowing you to pick up just enough slack to keep you feeling useful, trying to convince himself it was enough. The problem was, you were always just so damned close, so soft and sweet and yielding. You melted into his attention so easily, took everything he had to offer with a gentle smile. You wore your kindness on your sleeve, but never put up a fuss when he had to draw his own lines to hold tight to the reins of his vital composure. If you were anything, you were tempting- as if the curves of your body were purpose built for him to sink himself into, an invitation to lose himself in the warmth of your skin and rest.
And perhaps more problematically, his cock found the urge to find out the extent of your body’s pliant accommodation just as compelling. It was a categorically bad idea. Catastrophically, even. But it didn’t stop him from twitching under his robes when he watched the soft pouch of your stomach rise and fall as you napped in the den on a lazy afternoon, uninvited images of you round and heavy with a part of him inside you rising from the surface of his control.
The thing was, it didn’t matter how bad the idea might have been- the heart wants what the heart wants after all, and to Qifrey’s enormous misfortune, his traitorous heart decided that it simply could not go on if he couldn’t have you to himself. Preferably pregnant, if he was honest with himself. Maybe even barefoot.
He’d had to confine himself for the better part of an evening the first time he thought of it, a few weeks into knowing you and still struggling to piece together what he was supposed to do. It was over an exhausted dinner, weary from a long day of coaching the girls on the finer points of repetition magic, that shattered the piece of him that could still believe his attraction to you was under check. It was a tiny moment- it should have been nothing. It should have been less than nothing, hardly a blip, but somehow you’d seeped into the cracks of him, and that one little moment might as well have torn him clean in two.
Tetia had been chatting along with you about something and gotten caught up in the moment, so engrossed in the conversation that the spoon missed its mark on the way to her mouth by a wide margin. A tiny moment. Insignificant. Nothing. Even with older girls, they're still just finding their footing, and accidents like this could happen anytime. But all it took was you wiping soup from the silly girl’s cheek, and your good natured laugh as Tetia cooed, promising that one day you’d make such a good mother. And that was it.
The speed he’d had to jolt away from the table was mortifying, your sweet concerned face doing nothing to soothe the embers flaring in his stomach as he hastened to make some plausible excuse to go. A headache. A long day. A bad night’s sleep. Anything but what was actually tormenting him, this sudden and viscous hard on from imagining you, spread out under him and carrying his child. Coy affection as you looked up at him from under your lashes, bust swollen and heavy, glowing. A mother.
He’d spent the rest of the night painfully hard, gritting his teeth as he willed the desire to simmer down, to leave him with his normal stressful body in his normal stressful life instead of this hell that cut into his composure like a wire pulled taut. And like any idiot in love, he hasn’t managed to be normal about it since.
It was embarrassing, it was foolish, but the thoughts refused to loosen their grip on him once they’d managed to take hold. Which is how he managed to find himself in this position again, staring at you over the rim of his glasses like an absolute freak and praying you had the good sense to keep your eyes on your work while you poured over a palm quire, noting signs of progress in the journal that you kept. It’s a sweet practice- you’re always looking for ways to encourage the girls, and you refused to offer platitudes or empty praise. The little book allows you to take your time and really notice each student’s progress. He jolts a little when you stretch, trying to look more invested in his own work than what was actually occupying his attention, namely imagining what you might look like bouncing on his cock in your second trimester. You wince as you try to roll out your neck, having been in the same position now for quite some time, and Qifrey clears his throat in the hope that he’ll manage something close to an even tone.
“That looks uncomfortable.” Mercifully, his voice holds steady. You look over to him with an embarrassed little smile, and he’s never been more angry that his visual acuity has begun to fade than when he notices the way your eyes scrunch up is starting to blur.
“Sorry. Must have gotten carried away. There’s always so much to catch up on, I have no idea how you managed this all by yourself for so long,” you laugh, rubbing at your shoulder absentmindedly. He didn’t, really- but that’s hardly the point. He’s fixated on the way your fingers are digging into the plush expanse of your skin.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” he hums. “Unless you’re apologizing to yourself- you’re likely to be sore in the morning, with how long you’ve been working.” Qifrey stands, coming to hover behind you. “You’ve done enough for now, you should put it down. I’ll put the kettle on.”
You sigh at the offer, your eyebrows drawing together tightly. “I should really finish my notes for Richeh first- she used a few new signs this week. I think she might be broadening her horizons a little bit.” You shake your head, tightening your grip on your pen. “I don’t want to miss it.”
He’s not sure what possesses him to do it. He’s cajoled you into bed before, brewed you tea and gotten you to rest, and he’s managed to do it all without breaching the little bubble of plausible respectability you share. But something about the way your poor face looks so haggard and pinched, or maybe something about just how obvious it was that you cared, has his hands moving before he can manage to get ahold of himself. You stiffen a little when his long fingers brush against the nape of your neck, frozen in place. You look uncertain as he maps your shoulder under the ghost of a touch, like you’re not quite sure what you should be doing. When he smooths his palms over the knotted muscles in your back though, the tension crumbles, and you relax into him with a quiet sigh. The sound burns into him like a brand. He kneads the muscle mutely, swallowing down the urge to press you against his body, loosen you from your worries and give you something to properly tire you out- this is enough. This could be enough.
“Put it down,” he insists. “You’ve done enough. Relax.”
You submit easily, compliant as always, letting your journal fall to the cushions below you. Your pen bounces and skitters to the floor, but he works his hands over the junction between your neck and the base of your skull, cupping your chin in one large palm, and it must be good enough, because you don’t seem to mind as it rolls out of reach and under the table. Your eyes droop, and he lets himself briefly indulge in the idea of kneeling between your knees, a swollen ankle in his lap as he massages your calf, you dozing off with his hand and yours cradling your stomach, the little flutter of a kick against his palm. It’s an idyllic picture, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to tear himself away from it when his dick starts to take notice. You are unbothered by his state of mind, for once absorbed in the simple pleasure of being touched, and he’s loath to break that for a silly fantasy.
“Thank you,” you breathe, boneless and leaning into his fingers like a lifeline. His chest constricts painfully, overwhelmed by the feeling of your skin, the scent of your soap as it rises from your hair, and the look of you so lax, so trusting…
“Whatever for?”
His voice does come out ragged now, lord help him, but he can’t help himself, can hardly keep himself afloat as he continues to sink into your flesh. He's less massaging now than greedily feeling you up, the boundaries of his roaming hands barely contained to the respectable realm of friendship. Colleagues might be right out at this point, but colleagues be damned when you’re melting for him like this- for his hands on you, and no one else’s. You don’t answer him, instead slowly tilting back your head until you can look up at him. The eye contact is a heady rush, blood pounding in his ears as you observe him in quiet contemplation. He hopes his ears aren’t as red as they feel- hopes you’re generous in your assumptions, if they are. You let the silence hang and his hands come to a pause, gently gripping your shoulders just to keep a piece of the moment intact.
Qifrey is nothing if not an enemy to his own happiness, though. He’s the one that breaks it in the end. It’s too much to bear, the weight of what he wants. He leaves you on the couch, waiting still, pulling away to turn toward the kitchen with a promise to come back with tea. His eye stings just a bit as the pot comes to a boil, and part of him hopes that you would stop waiting, board up whatever kindness you harbor for him and leave while you still could. At least have mercy on him for the night and go to bed, release him from the pleasure of your company if not for good, then for just long enough to right himself again. Before the both of you could be destroyed by his own lack of control. Bitterness sits uncomfortably with arousal in his stomach, and he shakes the both of them away as he pours water into your favorite mug. You’re still waiting for him when he comes back, and when you smile as he hands you your tea, he just can’t seem to convince himself that it’s for the worse.
"I dunno. It came out like 15 years before I was born."
You see Toji mentally doing the math as his gaze momentarily shifts upwards. He then rolls his eyes and scoffs. "It's a classic!"
You simply shrug.
"C'mon! Harrison Ford?" Toji asks in disbelief; an almost pained look on his face.
"Oh, Han Solo, right?"
"Yes!" he confirms with excitement.
"Indiana Jones?"
"Yes!"
"Yeah, I've seen Indiana Jones. The one with Shia LaBeouf."
Toji's face scrunches up in confusion. "Who?"
"Y'know, the one from Even Stevens."
Toji frowns and looks even more confused.
"Oh, and I've seen Star wars, too."
"You have?" Toji asks, eyebrow raised.
"Of course I have. Oscar Isaac is in it!"
Confusion is clearly written on Toji's face. Eyebrows furrowed. Slight pout. "Who the hell?"
You're quick to pull up a picture on your phone to show Toji. "See, he's cute!"
Toji snatches the phone from you to take a look. He eyes the picture suspiciously before looking back at you.
"You got an old man kink, dontcha?"
Your eyes widen and you let out a laugh that sounds more like a shriek. Toji's deadpan humor never fails to get you. When you settle down, you put a finger to your lips and wink. "Don't tell anyone though, okay?"
generally you shouldn't write run-on sentences because they get confusing and it doesn't give the reader a break. that doesn't apply to me though my run-on sentences are fun and understandable and they have a rhythm to it that makes you want to keep reading
