chapter 40 begins with Olruggio leading, forcing Qifrey to admit to concealing the truth and yet it ends with Qifrey reversing their roles, pushing away but only so far
warnings: this chapter contains themes of depression, loss, and violence. reader discretion is advised.
thirty-nine | forty | forty-one
Max kicked the front door open with the heel of his boot, muttering under his breath as he hauled in a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a half-finished espresso clutched in his other hand.
“Seriously, I’m gonna start mailing Logan his own damn knives if I find one more embedded in the goddamn stair rail,” he grumbled, stepping into the marble-floored foyer of the Circle’s mansion. “They’re throwing knives, not decorative art, psycho—”
The front door slammed hard behind him. He didn’t mean to do it — just had his hands full. Sauntering in with a backpack slung over one shoulder and a half-eaten protein bar in his hand, and the faint tang of gunpowder still in his hair from the range.
He flipped the light switch, the chandelier flickering on. Max stopped mid-step.
As the room illuminated, Lando’s figure apparated in one of the wingback chairs in the corner of the massive entryway, his frame half-swallowed by shadow. He’d been waiting there for hours, unmoving.
Max followed his gaze to where it was fixed on the floor. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that he was somehow entirely unaware that Max had entered the space at all. The leader appeared statuesque – still, silent. The only sound in the whole house was the low hum of the heating system and the way the lightbulbs buzzed faintly overhead
“…You scared the shit out of me,” he muttered, quieter now.
Lando looked up.
Max flinched, just slightly.
There was something wrong in the way his eyes didn’t focus. They weren’t bloodshot or wild — they were just quiet. Dead, in that way that meant something had been gnawing at him, slowly and constantly, until the bone showed.
“…Lando?”
The man before him didn’t answer – just blinked once. Max took a careful step forward. “You okay?”
Still, Lando didn’t move, didn’t blink.
“Okay. Cool,” Max said under his breath, reaching for the fridge again. “I’m just gonna—”
The glass shattered before he even saw Lando throw it.
It exploded against the wall behind him. Max ducked instinctively, pieces of it bouncing off the tile.
“What the fuck? Mate–”
“Where were you,” Lando hissed.
Max blinked. He wasn’t afraid, but even he wasn’t immune to the caution that had his heart speeding up in his chest. “The docks. Uh, cleanup from the Vos case.”
“I called.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“You didn’t answer.”
Max dropped his bag. “What’s going on?”
Lando stood.
“You told her.”
Max froze.
“You know I don’t use that name with her,” Lando said, voice still even. “You knew that.”
Max took a step back. “Wait—”
“You knew,” Lando repeated, louder now. “And you said it anyway.”
Max’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
Lando crossed the room in two strides. “I asked you one thing,” he seethed. “One fucking thing.”
“Lando—”
“She looked at me like I was a stranger.”
Max’s back hit the wall. “I didn’t mean to—”
“She looked at me like she was afraid I’d kill her.” Lando’s hands curled into fists. “Like I was someone she didn’t recognize. Like you killed whatever chance I had left!”
“I didn’t know she answered—”
And that was when Lando shoved him. Hard.
Max stumbled, didn’t fall. No words came from his mouth – he didn’t even lift his arms. It pissed Lando off.
Why won’t he defend himself?
So Lando shoved him again, harder this time. “Do you even get what you did?”
Max’s head jerked back from the force, but he stayed silent.
“You gave me away. You gave her every reason to– to hate me.”
Lando’s eyes searched for a reaction, desperate for something, anything. But Max’s face remained painfully neutral – his expression one of sympathy if anything.
That pushed him over the edge.
Lando threw a punch.
It hit squarely across Max’s jaw, knocking his head sideways — but Max didn’t retaliate. He didn’t even flinch.
So Lando hit him again. Harder.
This time Max staggered, but still didn’t raise a hand. Lando delivered another blow to the ribs now, sharp and fast and angry. Max grunted from the impact, doubling over slightly but still never moving away.
“Fight back!” Lando yelled. “For once in your life, fucking fight me back!”
Of course, Max didn’t.
Who the hell did he think he was?
“Hit me back!” Lando snapped. He punctuated his words with yet another shove.
Max didn’t.
Lando swung — an open-handed crack across Max’s jaw. The sound rang out in the room, echoing against the high ceilings. Max barely turned his head.
“Fucking do something!” Lando yelled, shoving him again. “You ruined it. You ruined everything.”
Max stood there and let Lando push, swing, throw his fists again and again until his chest was heaving, fury spitting from every part of him except his face — his face stayed blank, controlled, like he couldn’t afford to crack.
“She looked at me like she didn’ recognize me. Like I was somethin’ she regretted.”
Lando’s fists kept coming, now low, angry hits that never quite landed right, like he didn’t actually want to hurt his friend. Like he didn’t know what he wanted, but just that something had to break.
“I had her,” he said through clenched teeth. “I was safe there. I was fucking— normal.”
“She was going to find out one way or another,” Max finally spoke. There was no agitation in his voice, only a sad sort of acceptance. But still there was no regret.
Each hit landed in quick, precise succession, each motion borne of years of practice.
He didn’t realize when his eyes had gotten misty. “Shut the fuck up,” he spat. Then, quieter, he confessed, “I didn’t want you to be the reason she did.”
The next hit landed higher, somewhere near the collarbone. Max flinched but still didn’t raise a hand of his own.
Lando hated it.
“You don’t get it,” Lando hissed, barely breathing now. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose the only good thing left and realize you’re the one who ruined it.”
Sweat dripped from his brow, running along his brow bone and into his eyes. His chest breathed with every breath. “Why won’t you fucking fight me?” Lando snapped.
Max finally stepped forward, not to swing — but to wrap his arms around him.
Lando froze.
“What the fuck are you doin’—”
Max didn’t let go. The older boy only pulled Lando in tighter, arms solid around his back, anchoring him like the only thing keeping his brother from falling apart. “I’m sorry,” Max murmured into the embrace, just loud enough to be heard. “I’m sorry she found out like that. I’m sorry it hurts. I’m sorry you feel like this.”
It wasn’t some soft hug or some gentle embrace. He’d wrapped his arms tight around his best friend like he was anchoring a bomb about to go off.
Lando struggled—panicked, almost. His hands shoved Max back, his fists pressed against his chest, but Max didn’t let go. Lando thrashed then, resisting it — hands gripping the back of Max’s shirt like he couldn’t decide whether to shove him away or hold on for dear life.
Then, all at once, he sagged. His fists uncurled, his breath broke, and he just sank into Max’s chest.
The first sound punched out of him like he’d been holding it in for years. It wasn’t a sob, nothing nearly as clean. It was just broken air – a gasp that never made it to words.
His fists curled into Max’s shirt like a child’s, like a man clawing for something to hold onto before he drowned.
Max didn’t say anything else. He didn’t loosen his grip either. He just held Lando there, steady and quiet, while the boy who’d built an empire on blood and bones finally cracked apart in someone’s arms.
And all Lando could do was cry into Max’s shoulder, fists clenched in the back of his shirt, like if he held on hard enough, maybe this wouldn’t be real. Lando let himself grieve.
Not for the job.
Not for the reputation.
But for her — for the look in her eyes when she realized who he really was, and for the version of himself that could never exist again.
His friend offered him no empty platitudes, made no shallow efforts to fix it. Max didn’t say she’ll come back, or she loves you, or you’ll be okay.
Because any of that would’ve been a lie.
Lando stood there in the middle of his own house, in the arms of the only person left who knew what it meant to be both loved and feared — and for the first time in a very long time, he let someone hold the weight with him.
Even if only for a minute.
Lando didn’t remember how they got to the couch.
One second he was breaking apart in Max’s arms like glass on tile, and the next he was crumpled into the corner of the leather cushions, legs pulled up, face buried in his hands, his chest still shaking with the tail-end of sobs that had no words left in them.
Max sat beside him – not close enough to crowd him, just there like a weight keeping Lando tethered to the floor.
Lando didn’t cry often.
He knew how to punch a wall, knew how to stare into nothing for hours, how to work until his hands blistered just to keep the demons quiet. But crying? That was something other people did. Something weaker men did.
Max didn’t let go when Lando collapsed into him, hands clutched in the back of his shirt like a man going under. He didn’t let go even when the sobs turned ragged — the kind of sound Max had only ever heard once before, in that dark office after Daniel died.
He remembered that night too well — Lando drunk off his ass, hands shaking, gun cold and pressed against the side of his own head, whispering, “I tried. I really fucking tried. But it doesn’t work. None of it fucking works.”
Max had disarmed him without a word, yanked him off the chair, and stayed with him until dawn.
Just like that night, he sat with him. They had never been the type for overt friendship or long speeches or grand gestures. Max could only look at Lando, this unmovable force he’s seen rise through the ranks of Monte Carlo’s darkest empires. He watched over his friend like a guardian angel dressed in a black sweatshirt and washed jeans.
With both hands holding the side of Lando’s face, Max looked directly into his eyes, fixing him with a glare. He didn’t say I love you – they didn’t do that.
He’d said, “Do that again and I’ll kill you first.”
It meant the same thing.
The pendulum clock on the wall ticked softly, each tick beating monotonously through the empty of the grand living room. Minutes or hours ticked by, but Lando remained slouched on the floor, his back pressed against the wall and his head in his hands like it might all disappear if he didn’t look up. His breathing had steadied, but only barely. The hiccuping edge was still there, wrecked and uneven.
The sobs didn’t stop quickly.
They came in waves — deep, ugly, bone-shaking things that tore through Lando like his chest might cave in from the weight of them.
Max didn’t say a word through it.
He just held him, hands braced between Lando’s shoulder blades like he was keeping him stitched together by force. His shirt soaked through from tears and heat. But he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.
Not even when Lando finally sank to his knees, dragging Max down with him.
They stayed like that for what felt like hours — the mansion quiet around them.
Max knelt a few feet away, eventually getting up to rummage under the bar cabinet for something that wasn’t a bottle. He came back with a hand towel before disappearing into the kitchen.
When he returned, the cloth was warm.
He crouched down in front of Lando, still quiet, and gently pulled his hands away from his face. Lando didn’t fight him, though he did flinch at first — some ancient instinct to push away help –to handle it alone, to bury it deep and move on.
He didn’t say anything — just gently wiped Lando’s face, brushing the warm washcloth over his temple, jaw, the trail of tears that had dried on his cheek. The warmth of the hot water emanated from the fabric like a patch of summer sun, warming Lando’s skin with its lingering tendrils.
It was awkward and clumsy, but careful. Max had never been good at this kind of thing. He wasn’t the shoulder-to-cry-on guy. He didn’t have the gentle touch, didn’t know the right things to say, didn’t know how to make grief feel lighter.
But hell would freeze over before he left Lando like this.
So he did what he could.
“Sit still,” he muttered. “Don’t be a baby about it.”
Lando didn’t fight, didn’t speak. Just stared blankly ahead while Max knelt down in front of him and started wiping the salt tracks off his face. Gently, without making it weird.
There was something devastating about it — this man who’d snapped ribs without blinking now trembling like a kicked dog on his own leather sofa.
Max didn’t push, didn’t ask for the full story. Not when he already knew the shape of it.
She found out. She looked at him like he was a stranger.
And it broke him.
“Hurts,” Lando rasped eventually, voice thin and distant.
Max didn’t stop wiping. “I know.”
“She looked at me like I was something to run from.”
“You are,” Max said quietly, wringing out the cloth. “We both are. But we never were to her. That’s the difference.”
Lando’s mouth twisted like he might start crying again, but he didn’t. Not yet.
“Would’a told her. I was gonna tell her. I just… didn’t want to ruin it.”
“You didn’t ruin it,” Max said, standing. He grabbed the throw blanket from the side arm of the couch and tossed it over him. “I did.”
Lando didn’t argue.
Max ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath. “We’ll figure it out.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t need to. We’ll figure it the fuck out anyway.”
He helped Lando out of the leather jacket he still wore, peeled off his overpriced watch, tossed it aside. Instead, he got him a bottle of water and pushed it into his hands when Lando wouldn’t look at him.
“You’re gonna need that,” Max muttered.
Lando took it, and sipped silently. Max sat down beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
Max wrung out the cloth and pressed it to Lando’s jaw, wiping away the salt trails and blood where Lando had split his own lip on Max’s shoulder. He moved slowly, methodically — not like a soldier tending to a wound, but like a brother. A best friend. The only person who’d ever seen all of him and stayed anyway.
Lando didn’t look at him. Instead, he just stared past Max’s shoulder, those grey-green eyes far too hollow.
“She looked at me like I was a stranger,” he eventually murmured.
Max didn’t answer. He just kept wiping, moving to Lando’s temple, the corner of his mouth, the hollow of his throat.
“I thought if I could just keep it quiet, like, just long enough or somethin’— I could… fuck, I dunno. Be someone else? Be Liam, I s’pose.”
He laughed once. It was empty.
Max set the cloth down.
“You loved her,” he noted aloud, not like a question.
Lando’s voice cracked when he spoke again.
“She loved me too,” he whispered, a sinner in a confessional. “She trusted me.”
“She trusted Liam,” Max corrected, his tone far too gentle and patient for the dagger those words sent straight through wherever his heart used to be.
“Same fucking thing.”
“No,” Max insisted, more firmly now. “S’not. You made up a name and let her build a whole world around it. That world broke the second she found out you weren’t real.”
Lando flinched, like Max had finally struck him, the impact tangible.
Max sighed and sat beside him, arms resting on his knees. “But you were real,” he added. “That’s the messed-up part. You were real with her. Every minute you gave her? That was you, not some… persona. Don’t rewrite that part.”
“I can’t get her out of my head.”
Max nodded. “That’s how you know it’s real.”
Silence.
Lando didn’t respond. His breathing was shallow again, too fast. Max didn’t miss it. He turned, sudden and sharp. “Lando.”
No response.
Max grabbed his wrist with a sense of urgency. “Lando. Look at me.”
Those eyes — glassy, gone — finally met his.
“Don’t do that thing. Don’t disappear.”
Lando didn’t argue, but the way his jaw clenched said enough.
Max didn’t let go. He lowered his voice, steady and cold now. “I swear to God, if you pull the same shit you did after Daniel—”
Lando’s face twisted. “That was different.”
“Bullshit.” Max’s grip tightened. “You locked yourself in that office with a gun and a bottle. You think I’ve forgotten that?”
Lando looked away. Shame flashed across his face like a scar re-opening.
“You try that again,” Max warned, “and I swear I’ll fucking kill you myself. That Daniel shit? That gun-in-your-mouth bullshit? I swear to God, Lando, I’ll kill you myself. You hear me?”
Lando blinked at him, then gave a weak, almost-scoff of a nod.
Max leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together.
“I mean it,” Max insisted. “I’ll strangle you, bury your body, give a shitty eulogy and then cry about it for a week. Don’t test me.”
That got Lando’s attention.
He looked up, bloodshot eyes sharp with surprise. When he looked at Max, at the furrow of his brows and the intensity of his glare, all he could see was care.
Care that he didn’t deserve.
His voice was barely there. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
Max didn’t blink. “Do I look like I care?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “I already lost Daniel. I’m sure as hell not losing you.”
A beat.
Then Lando nodded, just once.
Max nodded, got up, reached over and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch, tossing it into Lando’s lap with a grunt.
“Now go to bed, dumbass. You look like shit.”
Lando gave a breath of a laugh — hollow, but real. Max stayed on the floor for a while longer, just in case, but didn’t say another word.
Once Lando’s eyelids fluttered shut, his body slumping into the mold of the sofa as it succumbed to the exhaustion of everything he’d been through, Max stood and pulled the blanket over him like he used to after night jobs when they were teenagers — before the titles, before the guns, before the blood.
Then he sat in the armchair across the room and stayed, just like always. Because sometimes loving someone — really loving someone — means holding their broken pieces until they can do it themselves again.
Even if it means bleeding a little in the process.
a/n: sorry for the extra long wait and a bit of a shorter chapter than we've been used to lately. hopefully you all still accept this as a thank you for all your patience while i was out.
not proofread, just wanted to get something out lol
hope you enjoyed <3
They stared at the pile of debris that used to be the mine entrance.
Everything was deafeningly silent.
Then Soap stepped forward. He collected two small pieces of weathered wood that had broken off of the pallets. He also picked up a battered hammer and sifted through the dirt for some usable nails.
He nailed the two pieces of wood together. When he was done, he shoved the pointed end into the ground a few feet away from the caved mine.
A messy headstone in the shape of a cross.
As Soap stepped back, he felt Ghost reach out towards him. But rather than try to link their hands together, he slipped the hammer out of Soap’s grasp. He took one of the nails that Soap offered to him and walked over to the cross. He crouched down and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.
Soap immediately recognized the folded-up piece of paper he unfurled. He laid the cross on the ground and lined up a nail along the top of the paper. With three precise hits, he pierced the wood, securely fastening the paper to the centre of the cross. He lifted it up and shoved it back into the ground.
The picture of Ghost’s family Soap had drawn for him all those months ago.
Ghost walked back to Soap’s side, and Soap laced their fingers together. They stood in silence.
**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.
