The Kindest Thing
Ao3 link here!
**Spoilers from late in the manga, anime viewers be careful!**
There is a spell that makes a stretch of time repeat itself. An indefinite loop, not so much preserving time as buying it, delaying a problem until you have what you need to handle it. Qifrey has learned that you don't need to cast that spell to be trapped in time.
It has been several weeks since he, once again, erased the memory of the man he loves. And every day—or with luck, every other—Olruggio finds him again. The same conversation, different each time. He wants to know what kind of person Qifrey is now. Why he abandoned his students to chase an old vendetta in the middle of danger. If he cares.
The idea alone that Olruggio, of anyone on earth, is doubting his character, that's hard enough to handle. But having these debates every day is wearing him down in the cruelest way. Even when they don't end up in screaming. Even when they go well. It's taking pieces of him...just as it steals pieces of Olruggio, too. The guilt. The guilt and hope and love, it's...a new wound every time. It's difficult to hide the stress. His smile stretches thinner each day, he forgets things, he loses sleep. He often comes to in the middle of ordinary moments to find his students staring at him, curious and scared, wondering why he hadn't been answering their questions for the past few minutes.
Qifrey thinks he might be losing his mind.
But the worst part, the part that makes him think he is going mad, is that he is starting to adjust to this routine. To expect and prepare to have this conversation once more. To enjoy it, much like the scaled wolf enjoys tearing open its own skin in the friction against its lover whose scales will not fall off.
That might be reversed. Qifrey won't shed his armor, and thus, Olruggio is the one who bleeds.
Except when he doesn't. Except on the occasions when Qifrey lets him in, accepts his hope, places his own heart into Olruggio's skillfull hands for safekeeping so that he himself can not have access to crush it. Those nights...that is what ascension must feel like. Sometimes, Qifrey doesn't erase it afterwards. Sometimes he lets himself indulge in one night where he can pretend. He confides in the person he trusts most in the world. And Olruggio promises to him that, no matter who in the world Qifrey makes an enemy of, he will always protect him. For one night, the sky's kindest, most radiant star shines its gentle light on his face.
In the morning, before Olruggio wakes, Qifrey rolls over in a bed of withered leaves and stares at his sleeping face until the sun comes to put an end to the happy dream. By the time Olruggio comes out for breakfast, his memory again has vanished, and if Qifrey hurries, he isn't even crying anymore when he turns around to tell him good morning.
Mostly the talk happens after dinner, but sometimes it can ambush him. Olruggio finds him when he is alone. Qifrey tries to avoid that by making sure he is not often alone, but that's no longer viable, as his students are beginning to notice his odd behavior piling up. Sometimes he tries to appear too busy to talk, but Olruggio is...well.
He does not give up.
Throughout their long friendship, that has always been Qifrey's favorite thing about Olruggio. His unceasing, unrelenting, indomitable need to offer kindness. Even to those who do not deserve it.
Even to those that have grown to resent it.
Even to him.
Qifrey sits on the hilltop outside in the meadow, watching the sun turn red, and wonders when this time-repeating spell is going to run out.
Perhaps tonight. He feels it could be tonight.
-----------------
Qifrey is losing his mind.
Maybe he always has been.
Olruggio has known him many years, and thus he has become well acquainted with the dark shape that lurks over his shoulder, hides behind his beautiful smile.The thing is, he thought it had settled down. When Qifrey told him he was taking on apprentices, Olruggio remembers keenly how it felt, how the light touched him then, the relief that made him weak. Finally, he thought. Finally, hope has come. You don't take on apprentices if you don't think you have a future.
You don't raise children if you're wiling to die.
That's what he thought, and maybe that was true, until Coco.
He doesn't blame her; how could he. It isn't her fault at all. It's just that having a connection to the Brimcaps has sent Qifrey back into the tailspin he'd barely managed to pull out of. That's Qifrey's failure.
It's easy to want to be angry with him. Furious. But would that help save him? No. So Olruggio puts it under a lid, locks it in a box, but it always breaks out. He can't go on with it. He wonders how he's even gone this far. It's been a few weeks since they returned from the Great Hall. Qifrey's injuries have mostly healed, externally, at least. It's something inside his head that bleeds now.
If Qifrey is losing his mind, Olruggio's is scrambled into a proper fucking mess.
He loses time. He wakes in places he hadn't remembered going to. He has the vague impression of having had a dream he can't remember, but the feeling of it lingers like a scent too old to track. And he still, to his own confusion, has not confronted Qifrey about why on earth he did what he did during the girls' second test.
Support...he should support him. But how can he, when he can't think straight, when he asks Qifrey if anything strange has happened and gets that eerie smile and is told not to worry. That everything is well. That he thinks too much.
The suspicion formed in him like a sand grain fated to become a pearl, black and solid, nestled deep in the soft tissue where it grows and grows and it hurts more and more. Something that would explain it all, if it were true. But it couldn't be. It wasn't. He dismissed it immediately. It dislodged and entered his bloodstream, patient and deadly and headed straight for his heart. And here it is, now, so large and misshapen that it has caught in some artery where he can't ignore it any longer.
Qifrey has been erasing his memory.
------------------------
He's there, when Olruggio seeks him out, as he thought. Olruggio isn't sure why he knew to look here. Unless. One more miniscule piece of evidence, right? He can't even tell if this fits the puzzle, or if he's cramming it into place because he already has this idea in his head. He feels crazy. Qifrey makes him crazy.
When he gets to the top of the hill, he stands several feet behind him, watching his soft face in the light of the evening. The longer he looks, the more he loses conviction. This is why it's so dangerous for him to look at Qifrey. It saps all his strength away. It makes him want to preserve the veneer, not to break the stained glass and see what it conceals. It is dangerous to love Qifrey.
"Are you here to talk?" Qifrey asks, without looking at him. "...I don't think we should, tonight."
Olruggio darkens. "What?"
"It wouldn't be wise."
Qifrey stands up, takes one more look at the sunset, then turns toward the house. Without a word, he begins to walk past. And Olruggio must choose whether to let him.
Maybe he should. Maybe Qifrey is right, it isn't wise to approach this when he's so upset. Qifrey has asked him not to cross a boundary, and he ought to respect that. But if what he suspects is true, they are far beyond the idea of respecting boundaries, aren't they?
Perhaps the kinder thing would be to listen. To leave him alone. He ought to drop this ridiculous conspiracy of his and get over himself already. Kind, that's what Qifrey calls him. Is that because his kindness is convenient for him?
He has run out.
Olruggio's hand shoots out and grabs Qifrey's arm. "You are going to leave some day," he accuses. "No matter who it hurts. No matter who loves you. One day, you'll make a choice. And I...don't believe it will be me anymore. It's not that I don't matter to you. Just that revenge matters more."
Qifrey looks at him with a sorrow that strikes sparks into the oil. Olruggio ignites.
He practically throws him, as if scalded, and Qifrey stumbles back a step.
"Why does it matter more than me!?"
Qifrey stares at him, stunned and heartbroken.
"Olruggio. Please, don't..."
He grinds his palms into his eyes and growls. "Have I not been worthy of your trust?" he mutters brokenly. "Have I...have I not loved you well enough?"
He hears Qifrey's breath stutter.
"...I am sorry." Gentle hands pry his hands away from his eyes. Qifrey holds onto them, eyes down, rubbing his thumb across the back of his hand. "Please don't say such things about yourself. I have never treated your heart the way you deserve. The only one between us who has not been worthy is me."
Olruggio pulls away, because he knows he is about to give up, and he still has more to say. He shoves Qifrey back a step. "My heart is one matter," he growls. "It's fine to break that. But those girls...those little girls! Will you not think of them?"
"...Every day. Every moment, I think of them."
"And when your moments run out? What then will they do?" Qifrey's jaw sets, his fists turning white. "Where will they go? Little Riche, passed off to another master who will shove her into a mold, break her shape until it fits. What do I tell Tetia when she asks me why you didn't care about them enough to stay? Will you send Agott back to those jackals she calls family? Will you simply leave it to me to make sure the light in Coco's eyes doesn't get snuffed out by the Knights!?"
He isn't even sure Qifrey is listening to a word of this anymore. His eye is glazed over. He might as well be a hundred miles away. He lifts his hands to his hat and slowly takes it off, but he won't even look at him, and he won't speak to him, and Olruggio can't take this wretched silence one moment more.
"How dare you..." he growls. He thinks of the moment a repetition spell runs out, cracked glass at its final break. Eventually you just want it to shatter. "How dare you make people need you if you intend to take yourself away from them!"
Qifrey's hat hits the ground.
"Enough!"
That shout seems to echo in the heavy air. Qifrey clutches his head, bent nearly double with shortness of breath. The look in his eye chills as much as it burns, a lunacy that was never supposed to break the surface tension. "I don't know... what you expect of me."
He lifts his face, and Olruggio takes one step back. No one... No one, and nothing, in this world, can scare him like Qifrey can. God. The face he wears. Madness.
"You have always been the goodness of us both," he bites. "So please. Give me a better path if you have one. Do you? Olruggio! Since you're so much wiser, you tell me! What else am I supposed to do?!"
Olruggio is speechless in the face of this beast. Here is the part of Qifrey he has ever chased but never seen, only sensed, glimpsed around corners and scented in shadows. He never thought far enough ahead...about what he'd do when he finally saw what it looked like.
"You think I want to fight? All alone?" he is screaming, a voice that can sing like spring breeze now roaring in hysteria. "You think I don't spend every night desperate for a future!? Dreaming to watch them grow up? To have you by my side for a perfect life of peace and happiness until we're both grey! If I could have that...if it was possible, wouldn't I? I can't, Olruggio, don't you see that!?"
"But Qifrey, why? Just...just tell me what's happening to you for goddsakes!"
"I can't tell you, I can't give you the choice! You would die with me if I let you choose!"
Tears break as he reaches for Qifrey, who backs up like a cornered creature, a dog who doesn't want to bite.
"Stop it," he begs. "Stop reaching out to me! Stop asking me! I don't know what to tell you! What do you..." He falls. He curls into a ball on the grass, arms shielding his head. "What do you all want from me?!"
Olruggio crumbles. On hands and knees he crawls to him, dragging himself across the jagged shards of their hearts that litter the ground, a pilgrimage, a supplicant. He grasps at the robes of his god and begs for lenity.
"Qifrey. Qifrey, Qifrey," he prays. "Forgive me. Forgive me, please. Stop...make it stop..."
Qifrey wails and his hands shoot out to grab him by the throat. Olruggio is a willing sacrifice. He offers no resistance as he is drawn into a desperate embrace. There is one hand clawing the back of his neck, the other blindly grasping for purchase in his hair. "Anything is what they do." Qifrey is gasping, drowning. "I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do—"
"Stop!" Olruggio enfolds him. He cradles Qifrey to his chest, as though it helps at all, as though his arms alone could protect him from anything. Qifrey makes a terrible, miserable sound that rends Olruggio to ribbons, like hearing a fox die. He shushes him softly, strokes his hair, kisses any part of him he can find. "Enough," he sobs, "I won't ask anything more of you. It's alright, love. I won't do this to you again."
"I want...what you're asking for, don't you see, more than anything, but—"
"I see. I understand. I'll stop." He buries his face in Qifrey's hair, shoulders hitching with choppy breath. "I'm sorry. I only... I want to make it easier, not worse. I am here for you no matter what it looks like. Whatever you need."
"Your kindness, my love, will kill me."
"I won't. I swear it. Please, let me stay, I won't hurt you—"
"You can't help it!"
"I can! I can," he sobs, clinging to smoke. "Please. If you erase me this time I'll only come back again, but...if you let me stay..."
"Olruggio, please!"
"Let me remember this, so we won't end up here again."
Silence, save for quiet weeping.
"...How many times?"
"I. I don't know."
"More than five?" Qifrey nods into his shoulder. "Ten?"
Qifrey's hold tightens, fists balled up in Olruggio's cloak. His voice shakes with terrible shame. "Many more."
"Let this be the last. Let me remember. I don't want to hurt you again...please."
"I...we always do, Olruggio...we..."
"Not always. Right?"
It is quite a while before Qifrey answers, "No. Not always." His voice sounds like it comes from a corpse. Flat, and breathless, and dead.
"Not even most of the time."
"No."
"Most of the time, you make me glad I stayed alive."
"...Most of the time," Qifrey breathes, "you make me wish I could."
The sun has abandoned them. Qifrey shivers like something that has lost too much blood. Olruggio covers them both in his cloak, holding him tightly like a walnut inside a shell. They lie there until Qifrey stops weeping. He loses count of how many times Qifrey says he is sorry, of the mad ramblings and scraps of misplaced words when he wakes briefly from the fitful half-sleep that wants to claim him.
Olruggio gathers him into his arms and carries him away. Qifrey is in no shape to resist. Olruggio isn't even sure he knows where he is anymore. But Olruggio knows. He is safe, and protected, within his arms, where he will remain, until the last of him slips away.
