Contour Lines
⟣ pairing. professor!qifrey x professor!reader
⟣ 3.6k words. modern magic!au, unestablished relationship, slightly suggestive kiss, likely ooc. Second-person omniscient POV. Not beta read.
⟣ note. my beloved friend @elysiumae is the progenitor of a modern magic school idea but was incredibly busy writing a masterpiece so I wanted to dedicate something just for her as a reward and also a gift for being such a sweet friend to me! to maemae, i tried my best to write in the style you said you enjoy and i hope you like it because this is technically a [redacted] gift <3
Qifrey is a diligent man.
He rises when the sun does—slowly as he cracks one eye open with a small groan matched by his mattress, attempting to hide the blanket of light through an arm thrown haphazardly over his face. Despite his protest, he will study runes into the evening hour after dedicating an even larger portion of his day to nurturing budding talents in mystical arts. He is far from the age of his students, now, with little ink spilled and the skin of his dominant hand long since hardened by stiff calluses.
This, too, is an indication of his assiduity. In his youth, Qifrey's professor had lectured him on the importance of the appendage, his own floating around in flourishing waves and fanatical movements regardless of Qifrey’s aloof demeanor. There is an undeniable care to be taken considering magic’s actualization within individually drawn mosaics of sigils, keystones, and rings. And, ironically so, Qifrey specializes in spells cast with water—the elemental sigil fixed at the glyph’s centre as there is no better way to avoid that of which you detest than learning of it so astutely that you may never touch it again.
However, there is something to be said about the purpose of knowing once it lies in want.
Your office is quiet at this time of day, only filled by the clack of keys as you review some report or prepare your lecture for tomorrow. Qifrey does not have a single clue. He’s too preoccupied by his attempts to remain in awareness, arms folded into a makeshift bed with your sweater as his cushion. It’s perfumed with the scent he watches you mist across your body every morning, aside from the underlying hint of laundry he shares on his own. The familiarity of it is perhaps why you offered it to him, hoping he would follow its comforting smell into a short and simple nap. Because you succeed, you have to shush them quietly.
“Don’t wake him,” you instruct. “If that’s all, don’t you have something to do—studying, partying, or getting into all sorts of trouble?”
The words are a chorus, repeated with an ease that almost worries you. Yet, you don’t spare him a glance; your students have become too observant. Too involved. Neither you nor Qifrey are ignorant to the rumours that have taken root, growing larger each day that someone finds one of you in the other’s presence. Initially, it had meant nothing. The professors here commonly share living quarters, whereas Qifrey is specifically partnered with you—his room adjoining yours. But, somehow, the years have done little in silencing the suggestion of there being more between the two of you.
A student from one of your advanced classes laughs, the sound melding into that of the others when the only combination made should be between sigils and glyphs with their minds swirling in ideas and their gazes cast towards books rather than a cacophony of delight.
“Will asking if you’re dating Professor Qifrey count as getting in trouble?”
Instinctively, you sigh, face falling as you sink into your chair with a creak. At this, you do take a peek, worried that it was enough to rouse him when the ability to wake at every frivolous noise was instilled within him years ago; years before you had met and he was still training little witches who hadn’t even participated in something as rudimentary as The Consent of the Crown—the first of the Pentacle of Proving, a series of qualifications existing from the days of old. And that one look upon him is sufficient in causing another hushed uproar as your students find joy in something you do not completely understand.
You would be unable to answer even if you wished to.
Qifrey wakes, anyway. “Am I missing all the fun?” he asks with a yawn he fails to suppress. “Something curious always seems to occur when I’m here.”
“If only you were awake to see them,” you muse.
With that, he chuckles, voice somewhat raspy from misuse and potentially lowered into a timbre designed to provoke you. “Would you not be partly at fault?” he proposes. “Seeing as you were so kind as to lend me your sweater.”
Someone forces down a squeal—you struggle to do the same with your embarrassment.
“Okay—” you drawl out. “My appointment times are nearly over and I feel like going home early today.” In an expression of finality, you lightly strike your palm against the desk as if in congratulations for all the work done.
“Together, then?” Qifrey suggests, although it is more so directed at your audience than you. He does not have to ask. It is normal to return to the residence hall together, which is why he always occupies the space beside you, choosing to wait until your work is finished when his classes end earlier than yours.
Once your students depart, you huff. “Must you rile them up?”
He must, and so, he retorts, “must you be so rigid? They’re merely having their fun.” Then, he taps the power button of your computer the instant you save the open file so that you can join him in flipping through a binder filled with notes. “Though we may standardize spells, a fragment of ourselves is always left within the drawings, particularly those we fuse together. Yours are complicated but simple—”
“How contradictory.”
Qifrey's smile becomes relatively pointed, an intentionally coltish thing. “They’re efficient—is what I mean to say—no wasted mark within your beautifully enclosed combination of glyphs. If I didn’t know any better, I would say your expertise would be beneficial in less archaic disciplines.” Elegant fingers move from parchment towards plastic and metal. “Programming is similar, isn’t it? To nested glyphs.”
“But it can’t compare to contraptions and watching spells come to life,” you retort, watching Qifrey’s touch skim over the length of your dormant ink wand, having traded it for the very thing you believe is lesser than magic. “Or watching Olruggio react to whatever I find funny.”
“You really do love driving him up the wall, don’t you?”
All you do is grin, and he responds with a short laugh, more breath than sound as he rests his head on a closed fist. The skin of his cheek caves out a depression for his hand, plush skin spilling over his knuckles. Then, with his free hand, he takes your ink wand within his grip; through thumb and forefinger first—a show of careful consideration for a tool that is essentially your lifeline, solely and meticulously designed for you to wield the blood of Silverwood Trees. With the amount of years you attribute to it, it is practically impossible to replace.
However, this is Qifrey and you are safe within his touch.
But he reaches over, urging it into your hand as if you are a child who does not know where to begin to hold a component let alone draw a rune. Dumbly, you stare at him, disbelieving when you, yourself, are just as experienced as him.
“What?” He asks, gaze curious as they flutter between your loose grip and your countenance. “Forgotten what an ink wand is, have you?”
“Do you believe me so daft when it's no different from holding a pen?” The tone taken is not a mordant one despite your question. You're entertained, really, when Qifrey is the sort to put on a little drama for simple pleasure, a mannerism he accrued under Beldaruit and, potentially, from a younger Olruggio. “Are you sure it’s my memory that’s failing and not yours?”
“Care to explain why you seem so surprised, then?”
It was the ease of his touch.
“No,” you answer, and listen to him chuckle prior to his indulgence of you.
Qifrey’s fingertips glide over the back of your hand as you grip the ink wand properly just to prove to him something he is aware you haven’t forgotten. He takes a straight path, his other fingers joining the journey so that they can eventually curl over your wrist, allowing you to feel the texture of his skin as he leaves a trail of warmth that is satisfied in a brief moment, ended by the squeeze of your forearm.
“Not only were you practicing Olruggio’s warmstone spell but Coco’s cold compress…” He doesn’t speak further from the observation, allowing you to share as you like; hoping it will be more.
“Tired of asking questions?” Standing, you make your way to the small sofa within the room, glancing over your shoulder as an indication for him to follow. And although you are the first to reach it, Qifrey sits before you do, awaiting your answer. “Stay still,” you say, draping a heavy quilt over his lap.
“I haven’t seen this before.”
“It’s a surprise I’ve been preparing,” you tell him while searching for a little contraption you finished a few days ago. Opening it up, you show him the mechanism. “This spell is the same as Olruggio’s warmstone glyph, and the other is nearly identical but focused on cooling.” Qifrey listens closely, hesitating only for a second after you tuck the contraption into a pouch you hid at the quilt’s centre and find his hand to place it atop a protrusion once it aligns. “When you press here,” you say as you do just that, “the ring to heat the blanket completes; and when you press the other, it disengages to activate the cooling ring instead. It’ll regulate the temperature for you, Qifrey.”
When you look up, you can’t quite identify his expression, while Qifrey does his best to maintain his composure, mouth curling into a small smile with an eye closed into a crescent—polite and nothing more.
“It’s a wonderful prototype. The quilt is soft and comfortable—the perfect weight—and I can feel how flawless the dispersion keystones are; the temperature distribution is steady and even.”
The praise comes easily from him. It always does. As a professor, Qifrey is attentive to his students’ progress and never fails to appropriately acknowledge any accomplishment with sweet words. The ones you receive, however, are over miniscule actions and habits that mean nothing to those outside the bubble you share. Qifrey praises you when you overcome a difficult scene within your literary hobbies. He praises you when you win against him in some goofy game or absurd bet. And Qifrey praises you even in times you are not privy to: with others, to students, and when you’re fast asleep on the couch in your living room.
“It would be useful for hospitals, I imagine,” he remarks, “and popular with children if not for anyone.” He grins, now, delighted in being the subject of your test.
Joining his side, you sink into the cushion with a huff. “It’s ‘perfect’ because I made it for you, Qifrey.” The admission is honest, and perhaps that’s why any confidence slowly dissipates the more you speak. “You struggle with anything lighter or heavier, and you already toss and turn from your headaches, so if the temperature wasn’t even, I was afraid it would make it harder to sleep, not easier.”
The quiet that follows is slightly unsettling.
Qifrey’s mouth descends to form a distinct line, contemplative at most. He isn’t foolish. Qifrey is aware that this is a likely result of your inability to watch him deal with carefully veiled exhaustion any longer. But this is beyond any model created to identify any flaws and perfect the contraption for public use. Considering who you are, you would have made it universal as it’s futile to do testing on a product merely dedicated to him alone, and this forces him to acknowledge the very fact.
“Thank you,” he finally says, hands clutching onto the warm fabric to extend its shelter to you. He is undeserving in savouring this on his own. “You didn’t have to do this,” he adds, yet he is convinced his voice is impossibly tender, something he cannot control when it concerns you, especially once you pay him such close attention.
But his own upon you is equally as unravelling; with a stare so gentle that they remind of you of wasted nights within the confines of your shared space and not within an office that you possess purely in name. Although, you suppose, even your home together belongs to the academy. There is nothing dedicated to you and him—only a falsity you do not have the courage to make true.
And because this can’t be anything different, you have little issue with the silence thereafter.
Honestly, you should really return—perhaps visit a market on the way back, too. Earlier this morning, Qifrey noted that you’re running out of matcha with his own stock of his favourite spices depleted, of which he would be unable to make the stew you enjoy without. It’s only when you’re finished making a list in your head that you realize he’s begun to fidget, fingers having found the top of your thigh to trace curves over your slacks.
“Is that your flower spell?” you ask.
Qifrey hums softly. “That it is.”
“It’s slightly different,” you note. Usually, he employs the spell like a parlor trick for newly initiated children who know barely anything about magic, mimicking a rose in twisted ribbons of water. However, this time, the floral sign is different; bunched together in a cluster. Your brow furrows. “What flower would that make?”
“Hydrangeas,” Qifrey simply answers without anything more being said. His voice doesn’t even raise into a pleased lilt nor take on a playful timbre despite the stutter in your chest. The jump in beat feels particularly heavy when his index finger continues drawing a long curving path. “Would you like to guess this next?” he asks, touch featherlight as it measures the length of your thigh, curling upwards once it reaches your knee. Upon completing the snake-like shape, you feel him outline two round circles and four triangles. A small laugh bubbles up.
“That’s just a brushbuddy.”
“Just a brushbuddy?” he echoes, brow arched in faux indignation. “The stray you feed will be devastated to hear that—I am, already, by your answer.”
Shifting closer to permit him easier access to use you as a canvas, you give him a trivial shove that he exaggerates in a wobbly sway before steadying once again. You roll your eyes as you question, “how was I supposed to know it was our little friend?”
He merely grants you a grin—defiant—and begins again.
Qifrey details something alike that of a flower; four petals in each cardinal direction—billowing surrounded by a series of collection and repetition keystones alongside a pattern of nested water and wind sigils. You don’t recognize it.
“What is that?”
“A spell one of my old students conjured up,” Qifrey explains, “it forms and maintains a cloud to create a bed you may dream in.”
“Wow,” you start, “is this your way of telling me I need some sleep?” He is not alone in remaining awake during the witching hour. If you can hear Qifrey partaking in late night personal studies or choosing to get ahead of whatever work he elects is significant enough to lose sleep over, then you are sure he can hear you the same. Nevertheless, there are times where you find him in the middle of making tea, and one thing leads to another before you’re unable to tear yourselves away from each other. “Is that what you want of me?”
This time, he does not reply, taking a few seconds to decide how far he wishes to take this. How far he wishes to go with you. “Perhaps…” He trails off, swallowing a tightness he wasn’t aware was present in light of the thought he’s begun to turn around in his head. You’re patient, anyway, mimicking him with your own scrawling circles that plunge into an arching tail, a peak, and a loop followed by another drop that the following letters must form his name. He’s correct, and it pushes him to decide. Qifrey leans into your touch, disrupting your repeated handwriting. “I wouldn't say that's what I desire the most.”
He wants you to ask, that much you are certain.
You do, thigh pressing into the side of his as you lean against his shoulder. “And what is it that you want from me?”
He responds, in kind, with an inviting tilt of his head, eye flicking from one feature of your face to another, refusing to linger too long. “Would you like to guess?”
“No,” you say, airy when you can’t help but watch his mouth form each word. “Not really, no.”
Qifrey doesn’t move any further. “Not even one attempt?” he inquires, goading you to try.
You're afraid of what he may say, and so, you repeat your refusal regardless of how strong the temptation is. So much so that you lose to it through touch, hand sliding across the expanse of fabric adorning your laps, cautious of whether or not he may pull away or, worse, run. Surprisingly, he remains in place, hand finding your arms as it skims over his side—under the quilt—to find his waist. You listen to his soft breaths, of which quicken as your hand splays over the stretch of his back, dipping into the curve of his spine as you tug him closer.
He shakes slightly, no matter how he permits you to touch him, but before you may confirm that there is no sort of overstepping where you’ve altered your relationship with no remedy in sight, Qifrey chuckles lowly. “Shall I show you?” he asks, bangs brushing against your forehead as he finds himself closing that distance, captivated by what has arisen between you.
Your breath is warm on his lips, each puff of air forcing himself to dwell on every subtle movement impossible to witness if he were farther away. And when your lips part, he nearly thinks you may kiss him, instinctively leaning into the motion as shame draws a path down his gut with the aborted sound of shock that leaves you.
It’s unexpected. This is no place for romantic folly; the door is unlocked, the curtains are drawn, and the window is open—had any passerby been filled with a nosy impulse to peer into your office, your position with him would be mistaken as amorous affection in spite of it not yet fulfilled. You want for it, nonetheless, and mutter his name quietly as your hand drifts up to his cheek.
He leans into your touch, surrendering himself to whatever desire you may have of him. Qifrey does not believe it wouldn’t be enjoyable when everything with you is—the quiet moments in the morning, the ruckus you get up to, the quips you partake in, and the tedious responsibilities you alleviate from the other’s shoulders; he would never do without them. Though there’s an unmistakable hesitation within you, a disparate quality from your forward advances that he decides that he will act if you won’t.
Qifrey’s fingers find your jaw first, gliding over the line to discover the softness of your face, cupping the side within hand and allowing his thumb to sweep over the curve of your mouth. At the feeling, you open, and he has to restrain himself from moving too fast as he lets the digit press into your bottom lip. You close your eyes with another more hushed whisper of his name.
The kiss is slow—clumsy—as he slants his mouth over yours, and it’s as if your body is drawn alight with Qifrey as warm under your hands as you feel. The quilt slides off your lap, falling to the floor in folded ribbons as you part and join together again and again, finding a manner of affection that suits the two of you. And his fingers intertwine with yours, each jut of knuckle digging into your skin as he tightens his hold when you trace your tongue over his lip, shy and uncertain.
But when he permits that open-mouthed kiss, you press into him, flattening as much of your body against his from where you’re seated, side by side, and he muffles a groan into your mouth. Swallowing it, you part shortly after to pull both yours and his glasses off your faces, quickly placing it atop the table so that you can deepen the affection and properly taste the tea on his tongue.
Neither of you are aware of how much time you spend like that—exchanging wet kisses with a tacky sound as you try to quiet your shared moans and the rumpled rustle of fabric through the inability to keep your hands off each other; a threshold crossed and never to be returned to.
In the next separation, Qifrey has to lick the saliva from his lips as he asks through shallow panting, “is that enough of an answer?”
“I suppose that’s fine,” you try to say with as much pose you can manage, but fail upon the slight squeak in your throat. Regardless, you finish your thought. “I may need another, Master Qifrey.”
A hitched breath leaves his mouth at the title, and his eye narrows into something significantly heavier through the exasperation he attempts to offer you. It worsens when you reach forward, goosebumps rising under your fingertips as you slide your hand around the delicate curve of his neck. The skin flushes a darker red.
Qifrey leans in again.