I’m Nas! This is a sneeze fetish blog on a good day and a collection of posts created due to my lack of impulse control on a subpar one. I’ve accepted that I live a loser fujoshi lifestyle and this blog reflects that.
I'm trying to put together a creative prompt event for snzblr specifically on @aprilshowersbringmayflowers27
⚘ Curiosity and exploration of sexuality are normal but this is an 18+ blog. Anyone seemingly underage attempting to interact with me will be blocked. Your birthday in your bio means nothing, I'd probably give a blank blog the benefit of the doubt over someone proudly claiming to be born in 2008.
⚘ I'm mainly just some fujo sneeze fetishist who fixates on whatever anime guy(s) appeal to me and that can be annoying. I try to tag things without the slashes so you can blacklist easily though.
⚘ I ask that you don’t reblog my stuff to non-kink blogs.
⚘ I'm into a number of fandoms including but not limited to: Witch Hat Atelier, JJK, Death Note, The Devil is a Part Timer, Mob Psycho, Life Lessons with Uramichi Onisan, Chainsaw Man, FMA, Trigun, BNHA, Cherry Magic. DMs are open to talk about any of these fandoms.
⚘ Most of my fics are on AO3 or under the tag #my writing. I don’t have an organizational system otherwise.
⚘ I'd love to make friends and talk about fandoms and fictional scenarios. My wavs are on my side blog @wildindigo222
⚘ I block pretty liberally. It’s 90% of the time nothing personal and more for my own comfort.
⚘ Below are the tags I use frequently: (I currently don’t use slashes or emojis as tags because my blog is non searchable)
Basically Gojo making a mess of herself on her and Geto's first date. Ty @wildindigo111 for writing this with me!
(2.2k words)
—
“You’re late. I was getting worried you were going to stand me up.”
Geto looks as naturally beautiful as always, hair half up, lips pursed as if she’s actually annoyed that Gojo hadn’t been on time yet again.
“I thought you knew me better than that,” she argues while scraping back the chair to take a seat.
“Mm, it’s more I was worried you’d forgotten.”
“What, do you want me to tell you that you’re all that I’ve been thinking about?” Gojo asks. “Isn’t that kind of needy?”
The candlelight dances over Geto’s face as she visibly decides whether to take the bait. Her hair is done up in a flawless bun as always, bangs freshly cut and hanging like silk over her brow. An arm’s length feels like too much distance, and Gojo regrets not requesting a booth so they could sit on the same side of the table. She follows Geto’s gaze to the waitress who sets a glass of something bubbly in front of her.
“Are you ready to order?”
Despite not opening the menu since arriving, Gojo nods, taking over and ordering for both of them to Geto’s visible amusement.
“What’s this?” Gojo asks, gesturing at the glass when the waitress leaves.
“Champagne.”
Gojo eyes it cautiously behind her sunglasses. She really shouldn’t indulge, given her usual reaction to alcohol—never mind factoring in how much she’d struggled to get ready in the first place. Even looking at the bubbles makes her nose itch, though it could also just be attributed to the new perfume she’d sprayed all over her neck before leaving.
She cringes thinking back on it. The perfume seemed perfect at the store. It coaxed a sneeze out of her but it was nothing compared to the other samples. She’d decided it was the least offensive of them all, smelled good, and honestly she just wanted to leave so she could stop sneezing considering all perfumes set her off to some degree anyway.
So after she had gotten all dolled up for the date she sprayed a generous amount over her neck. Five minutes later she was cursing under her breath and stumbling to the bathroom for toilet paper after she failed to find tissues. Her nose kept running and nothing would slow the sneezing down. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Mascara was running down her face and some had gotten under her nose after she had swiped at her eyes then rubbed her nose.
For once, she’d tried to arrive early only to have to redo her whole face. A tragedy.
She’d thought it was over, but the longer she sits here, the more she knows that to be false.
“Is something wrong?” Geto asks, “It’s not like you to be so quiet.”
Gojo shakes her head. “Nah, just hungry.” She lifts the glass by the stem and holds it out. “But anyway, cheers.”
“Oh, what are you toasting to?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Gojo scoffs. “To finally doing this. Aren’t you lucky?”
They clink glasses, and Gojo immediately regrets the small sip she takes when it makes her nose tingle. She should’ve seen that coming. She returns Geto’s smile, trying to ignore how the threat of her having another sneezing fit had gone up a level in urgency. She curses herself for not choosing waterproof mascara today, instead going for one that matched her natural lash color more. All of her makeup, really was in danger. The concealer she’d hastily put on had smeared off easily the first time, and she's sure now that she’s rubbed her nose red and raw that one swipe would be enough to reveal the ugly look it was sporting.
She’s stuck between deciding whether she should try to rub away the itch and risk that, or risk starting another sneezing fit. Once one breaks out, it’s near-impossible to contain any of the ones that follow, so her makeup is probably done for either way.
“Don’t tell me you’re drunk already.”
Gojo responds to the taunt with a scrunched up exaggerated scowl, nostrils twitching wildly as she tries to multitask. “Stop…” she protests, voice becoming breathier halfway through. “I can… handle one drink.”
“Sure you can.”
Gojo decides to let the banter simmer out. Talking felt risky before, now it would just be dumb. Her hand comes up halfway to rub at her nose that’s itching more by the second, but stops herself and awkwardly lets her hand fall back into her lap. Instead she inhales sharply through her nose. It’s less of an inhale and more of a sniffle, which surprises her. Gojo hopes Geto’s lack of comment meant the sound had been drowned out by the restaurant hum.
“You haven’t even told me I’m pretty yet. Bad manners,” the tickle eased enough that Gojo can talk enough to distract Geto from the war in her nose for a moment longer.
“I was under the impression you didn’t know what those were.” Geto takes a small sip. “But since you want to hear me sing your praises so bad. You look stunning. And you smell nice too. New perfume?”
The mention alone is enough to make her nose prickle forebodingly. She nods.
“Trying to impress someone?”
She scoffs. Her eyes are starting to water behind her sunglasses. The light tingling has transformed into sparks threatening to spread fire through her nose. “I don’t try. I just do.”
“Really now?”
Gojo rubs her nose and holds her breath until the urge passes. “Yeah.”
“You seem a little distracted.”
That’s an understatement. Gojo lets out a groan. “I guess. My nose is just really itchy.”
“Oh?”
Gojo squints like she’s trying to see something far in the distance. Now that she’s resigned to sneezing it won’t quite come. Her breath hitches teasingly and she has to take the napkin off her lap to stop her nose from leaking from the irritation. The strong floral scent floods her nose now that her wrists are centimeters away.
“Are you alright?” Geto prods.
“Yeah-hihh…I….hhh..juhhst…hehH-! Have to s-sneeze.”
Geto leans in a little closer. “Yeah? Is it stuck?”
Gojo nods. She turns away as her breath hitches once again.
“Hih? HEH-!” She holds her breath for a moment, then… nothing. “Ugh…”
“Aw, still can’t sneeze?” A smile is tugging at Geto’s lips as if she’s finding some sort of private amusement from observing her struggles. Her eyes, though half lidded now, are fixed on Gojo to observe her from the other end of the table.
Gojo wants to tell her to shut it but her breathing is too messed up and talking is too risky. She tries to groan instead but it comes out as a pathetic whine. Helplessly, Gojo’s nose quivers and through her blurry vision, swears Geto’s ears seem to have taken on a pink hue.
“Want me to help?”
“Whahh- what?”
Help? Gojo isn’t really in a position to refuse. Not that she knows how Geto could help or which way she intended to help her teeter, towards or against sneezing. Still, anything is better than this state of in-between, so she nods and seals her fate.
“Come here, baby.”
With the table between them, Geto leans forward and cups Gojo’s cheek to pull her closer, all the while taking care to ensure her hair doesn’t catch in the flames of the candle. Geto lets out a fond hum before gently running her finger across the bridge of Gojo’s nose, making it down to the tip.
“HEH-! Heh’tchu!” She barely has time to turn away as the first one hits. “Hih’tchiew! HAH’tchuu-! tchiew!”
“Bless you… poor thing.”
Gojo sniffles and fans her face. “Ugh. Thank you, I can’t believe that worked.”
“My pleasure.”
It’d felt surprisingly intimate, too, but she keeps that thought to herself. What had that look on Geto’s face been? Maybe a touch of sadism? Hm.
The itch is all but gone, but she doesn’t take the relief for granted. When the first course comes around, she feels herself relaxing back into the flow of conversation, save for the occasional need to sniffle. She really shouldn’t have worn that perfume.
Geto’s in the middle of telling a story about someone she met on her last mission when she can feel the tickle coming back with a vengeance. She puts her fork down to focus on rubbing it out. It causes a noticeable squelching sound as she grinds her palm against her nose, and she’s sure Geto must’ve noticed because she trails off.
“Still itchy?”
She nods. “Yeah, just ignore it. It’ll probably be like this all night.”
“Are you sick?”
“No, sniff, it’s just this dumb perfume.”
Geto’s ears flush pink once again. “Oh? Did you order it online or are you just a masochist?”
Gojo sniffles more aggressively. “Not funny. It’s a long story. At least appreciate my suffering.”
“I am.”
“It sure looks like it.” She raises an eyebrow, only for them to furrow together. In resignation, she cups the napkin back over her nose. “Ah…wait… hh-Hih-! hTSCHhiew! ihhtSHhiew! Jeez, it just—TSCHh-! It won’t stop.”
“Bless—”
“HAHTSSHh’eww!”
Even muffled against the cloth, it’s still resoundingly loud. Although it sounded and felt like a final sneeze, she can tell that it’s inevitably going to happen again by the way her nose continues to itch.
“Is that it?” Geto asks as if reading her mind.
She shrugs. “For now. I think.”
“That doesn’t sound very promising."
It’s not.
“You sure you’re okay?” Geto sounds a bit more genuine this time.
Gojo nods then smushes her nose upwards with the napkin a few times.
If the stain on the napkin is anything to go on, Gojo is sure most if not all of the makeup she’d put on her nose has smeared off by now. She probably looks a mess.
“I’m going to use the restroom, I’ll be right back,” she mumbles.
The restrooms are easy to find, and she’s glad it’s a single person stall. She balls up some toilet paper in her hands to properly blow her nose, which as she’d expected, looks horrible. Now she has no reason to hold back. She sniffs the inside of her wrist to goad it along, figuring eventually she’ll be desensitized enough to go back out there. The skin around her nostrils is puffy and sore and now when they flare it feels exceptionally rough.
At least she had the foresight to put some concealer in her purse.
“h’IEEshh! IhhhSHhhiew!”
She blows her nose again. The toilet paper feels brittle against her sensitive skin, and it’s all in vain when she feels her mouth go agape.
“hH’Ihhshh!”
She will have to wait a while before she reaches for the concealer since she knows it won’t just be a few sneezes. Her nose is already begging to let out more. She’s been in here too long already, but the last thing she wants is to continue sneezing all over in the middle of the restaurant.
She removes the wand from the bottle and begins trying to dab it onto her philtrum, then to her septum, then—
“hH’ISHH’oo!” —she turns into the direction of her shoulder to avoid spraying the mirror. “TSCHh!”
Now her nose is running and she has to take it all off again along with some of the sensitive skin that’s begun to peel. Somehow it looks even worse now. A wince escapes her as she keeps pawing at it. The smell is still prominent in her nose. Floral. Swirling around and mocking her. Her eyes start to squint as her nose twitches more.
“Heh’TSHu!”
They’re getting progressively messier. Scrunching her nose doesn’t help much but it’s better than prodding at her nose even more. She wets a paper towel and holds it over her nose, giving up on trying to cover up the redness for now in favor of giving herself some relief. It soothes the irritation for now. She runs her wrists under the water too, though it does nothing to get rid of the lingering smell.
She’s already been here too long, but she's no better off than she was when she’d come in. Her mascara is clumpy, her foundation patchy from rubbing away the mascara streaks and the disaster from her nose. There are distinct pink tracks down her nasal sills from how much her nose was running. She’s not exactly gunning to get back out there.
Still, she opens the door and heads back toward the table. She’s greeted by the sight of Geto sitting there with two to-go boxes. Gojo raises an eyebrow and asks if they’re leaving.
“Well judging how you looked when you abandoned me I thought this was for the best. Looking at you now I know I made the right decision.”
Gojo has the nerve to look offended by the remark.
“My nose is just a little angry right now. That doesn’t mean we have to leave.”
“It would make me very happy if we could leave.”
“Using my kindness against me.” Gojo pouts.
“What kindness?”
“Huh?” She rubs her nose only to accidentally provoke the itch. Of course. “I’m so hh-niyyh—KSHh! ihSHh’iew! dice.”
“Riiight.” Geto takes her hand and starts walking towards the door.
“Arend’t you gonnda bless mbe?”
“Oh I will. Actually, I’ll do you one better once we get home.”
Above is the calendar with hints towards what the prompts will be from April 15th – May 15th. This is intended to be an 18+ sneeze fetish creative event.
Each day will have prompts for fics, art, wavs, head-canons, whatever you feel like posting. You could post 1 thing all the way up to all 31. Or 0 lol.
Right now as of July 2026 we're playing a game where you submit guesses/suggestions that go with the above emoji to ultimately vote on the prompts that will be used for this event before they're finalized. If you feel inspired along the way please take whatever you want. The main goal is community connection and engagement.
I'll be using the hashtag #bringmayflowers27 for all event-related stuff.
they did not have mass public health knowledge in the witch hat atelier universe so qifrey canonically sneezes into his hands because he doesn’t know better, both hands clasped in front of his face, right into a closed fist, a loose hovering palm, in this essay i will
qifrey surprises olly with a fancy bottle of wine. Olly drinks too much, sneezes a lot, and it plays out in two different ways. not much plot stuff this is witch hat kitchen horny yearning after hours, mostly self-indulgent character study
heh.. didn’t think I’d be back with more so soon but well here we are ^_^ ok let me dish for a second. its pretty much impossible for me to imagine one singular night passing in the atelier where these fools aren’t wrought with incredibly sickening sexual/emotional tension!!!! this is witch hat kitchen horny yearning after hours….. i couldn’t stop thinking of olruggio having a sensitivity to wine that he under no circumstances lets dissuade him frm drinking it ^_^
then my head said… would it be better if qifrey (with the kink) was forced to bear witness to this, or if olly (with the kink) was forced to struggle?? Well. i wrote both to try to find out! you can choose your own sneeze-venture here and let me know which one of them you think S fetish looks better on….. thanks to you geniuses who paved the paths before me writing fetpov. truly life changing stuff I owe you everything
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
“Been holdin’ out on me, ‘ave you, Qifrey?” Olly’s voice lifts Qifrey up and blankets him with warmth as he settles onto the rug before him with a deep, contented sigh. The hour is late, and after a long stretch of late nights and lonesome dinners (to be expected during busy commission season), Qifrey feels starved for Olruggio’s evening company, grateful to have him here and eager to keep him for as long as he can manage to do so, means lying within reason.
Qifrey smiles, “Perhaps I have! I stumbled across it on my last trip to Kalhn with the girls, but I suppose I was waiting for some time that felt appropriate to surprise you!” Olruggio’s burned the candle at both ends this week on a tight deadline to finish and deliver a new contraption to a client. As of several clock marks ago when he returned from his delivery journey, he’s finished, and he’s home, and that’s a cause for celebration if there ever was to be one - for Qifrey, at least. After supper was eaten and the girls had scattered to their rooms for the evening, he presented Olruggio with a fine wooden box, laughing away all the protest that arose before he even removed the lid. Olruggio is not particularly choosy when it comes to his alcohol; bottom shelf Silvernectar would have done just the trick, but this bottle caught Qifrey’s eye (and something deep in the back of his throat) on his venture to secure Olruggio’s typical fare.
Olruggio picks up the bottle and examines it briefly, eyebrows stitching together a knot as he twists it in his hands. The bottle is covered in hundreds of tiny delicately gilded stars, spilling down the neck and over the shoulders of the bottle, wrapping it in light. Olruggio doesn’t ask what it cost, not that Qifrey would tell him if he did. Qifrey studies him as he studies the bottle, appreciating the lean expanse of his legs as they spread apart underneath his skirt, the silky flop of his hair as Olly’s head lolls in his direction. “This’s a bit highbrow for my tastes, love, but I suspect you know tha’ already.”
“Hm!” he smiles again, of course he knows, love, with a chuckle this time. “Well, I do hope you’ll enjoy it anyway!”
“By the stars, Qifrey… I’ll enjoy it.. only if you’ll be ‘aven some with me, though,” Olly says, though Qifrey was planning to all along. He procures a waiting pair of loop chalices from one hidden palm of his hand, the bottle is opened with little fanfare - a golden stopper, Qifrey? y’cant be serious - and they’re sharing their first sips together, equally delighted by the pleasant sweetness and gentle burn of the drink. Despite his rather delicate tolerance, Olruggio imbibes at a rate triple that of Qifrey, and a bright red flush quickly colors his cheeks to show for it. Qifrey, as if his focus could possibly be drawn elsewhere, notes that Olruggio’s not even managed through a full glass before he starts to sound distinctly congested, and as soon as he starts a second he begins to lose his composure completely.
With little warning, Olruggio draws his sleeve and pitches forward with a grating, ““hHRR’USHhhuih!” He’s not timely enough to catch the brunt of the sneeze; instead the dying firelight behind him bathes the aerosol release in a soft orange glow, a billion tiny dying stars glittering across his wrist. My... how radiant, is all Qifrey can think.
“guh, ‘scuse me,” Olly’s congested baritone strikes a chord that thrums a warm, pulsing heat all the way through Qifrey, settling down with a twitch between his legs. It feels like he’s being electrified, equal parts throbbing and aching and numb. He clears his throat before speaking in a vain effort to even out his voice-
“Bless you, Olly!” It still comes out breathy and stilted, breaking over Olruggio’s name.
“Thank’y, Qifrey,” Olruggio sighs, lifting his palm to his nose and swiping it sideways - obscenely, even more so as his name comes out of his mouth - snorting before lifting his glass to his lips and finally doing away with what’s left of his second glass. Qifrey wishes he could unsee the glistening streak it left on the back of his hand, wishes he could unharden the tightness swelling in his breeches, wishes he could unwind the knot tightening in his abdomen.
“S’metimes this fancy stuff gets t’me,” Olruggio says, chased by a heavy liquid sniffle that threatens to undo Qifrey entirely. His composure is winding the same downward slope as Olruggio’s, it seems.
Qifrey’s only had one glass and he already feels tipsy. Though he might normally be able to drink his friend under the table, tonight he feels flushed and dizzy, lightheaded. Drinking more is very unlikely to help anything at all, but he feels an urge to refresh his glass, to keep going until the raging wildfire can be blamed on something else, something innocuous, something simple, like the wine, like the radiating heat of the fireplace. Not like Olruggio hitching again, not like Olruggio fanning a hand in front of his face, not like Olruggio cradling his left elbow with his right hand and sneezing into it with a force only mildly blunted by the fabric.
“hhH’H’IDDJJSHHIiuu!! hhH’REhsCHUuihh!”
Olly is so close- he’s begun to lean forward without even realizing it, rapt in attention as the man’s lips part over another inhale. He pauses as it crests, and pitches forward into his sleeve again as it breaks.
“hhh..hHH’MPHSShieww!” This fit affords no visual display, all tucked away into the worn linen of Olruggio’s shirtsleeve, but Qifrey feels viscerally aware of their productivity all the same.
Olruggio draws his head back with a groan and a thick sniff; the firelight glints over the dampness concentrating above his cupid’s bow, the mustache hairs underneath his nostrils slickened with the residual mess. “Heh.. Bless me, since’y ain’t gonna,” Olruggio jeers, sniffling again, dragging the frilled cuff of his sleeve along the underside of his glowing nostrils, taking a moment to seesaw it back and forth.
Dear heavens. Qifrey’s blood reaches a boil underneath his skin. What should constitute a normal response to this? He’s been silent for too long, apparently. He’s uncertain if he’s still even breathing. He’s seen Olruggio sneeze many times before, unavoidable intertwined as their years have been, and the effect has always been a largely similar wrench in his gut, but there’s something about the way his inhibitions are dissolving, his guard is slipping, something about how beautiful he looks as the fire paints him orange and red, that propels Qifrey’s arousal forward exponentially and painfully. Maybe there’s something else about how desperately he wants all of the things he cannot have. He doesn’t know how much more he can take.
His voice pitches up as his far too delayed reply arrives: “Sorry- ahem,” he tries to laugh but just ends up choking on the words as they come out. “Bless you, Olly!” Olruggio levels Qifrey with a calculated look, but presses no matter in favor of attending to his nose.
“Are you alright, my friend? Not catching cold, I hope,” he says, forcing another laugh and lying through his teeth in his best attempt to sound detached from the outcome of the question. There’s a much more selfish, much less generous version of Qifrey who does, in fact, hope desperately for Olly to catch cold, for Olly to fall victim to some ultimately harmless ailment, to get to be the one to nurse him back to health. How cruel.
“Oh, no, m’fi-ihh-hn’NDSCHH!iuuh..” He turns his head to the side and the room glitters again, spray kissing his knees and dusting the rug as it dissolves in the space between them. He paws at his nose and Qifrey feels an acute pang of guilt for watching. For enjoying it so much. “M’fiiiiine... This fancy stuff jus' sorta gets t’me sometimes,” he says with a laugh that is also a huff, a noble and ultimately futile effort to catch his breath. "Doesn’t bother me though. Kinda feels good, actually.”
An admission like that is enough to turn Qifrey to stone. If his breath hadn’t left him fully before, it surely has now. His shock must be evident, but Olruggio does seem rather occupied with his nose, now pushing it around in irritated circles with the palm of his hand as he leans back, stretching himself across the mantle like the brushbuddy sprawls over a freshly drawn seal. Olly is always a sentimental drunk, but he’s so rarely this self-indulgent that Qifrey briefly wonders if he’s just imagining the whole thing. Could it be some sort of cruel trick, a smoke sculpture? An apparition in the shape of his oldest (his only) friend, set out to wrest from him every last dreg of his meager self-control?
“Could use a-hh– hH’IDD’djsSHhhuh!..ahh-a kerchief if y’ve got one, though,” he says, snuffling into his hand all the while, turning back into it with another “Hhh’RRSSchHuhhh!! eiiiIDJJSCHHhh..!” as if to emphasize his need.
Qifrey’s molten insides concentrate into a heady throb between his thighs, solidifying his apparently imminent ruin. He does indeed have one, and he holds it out to Olruggio with a wry smile, composure hanging on by a bare, bare thread.
"Here, please, take it..." Olruggio does, immediately bringing it to his nose and blowing into it, hard and wet.
Their domestic routine is wash, rinse, repeat for a reason; Qifrey’s got no choice but to keep it that way, no choice but to force the hand and play it regardless of a fixed inability to win. If he were going to walk away, give it all up, quit playing altogether, he’d have done so years ago. By now, the ache is comfortably familiar, a proxy for pleasure in the only twisted sense his conscience will allow for.
The bottle is barely half empty, but as Olruggio crumbles into another fit that breaks a record five, Qifrey considers cutting him off. For which of their sakes exactly, he’s not entirely sure.
"Olly, I-I don’t..quite know that you should drink any more of this...” His voice wavers as the words come out, his body betraying his own disbelief.
“Are y'kiddin? Y'got this special for me and y’think I’d leave ‘alf a bottle to waste? Just means you're the one who's gohho--otta’hHRRISchhuuuu!.. gotta’ pick up the slack.. hESSHhhuu!”
They’re directed into the handkerchief, but loosely, and Olruggio sends more stars flying across the room. Heavens. Great fucking heavens. Olly sniffles loudly, and blows his nose with a pathetic, incredible, beautiful groan.
Qifrey buzzes with an intensifying static electricity as Olruggio rises from his place on the floor, tops off his glass, and joins Qifrey on the couch. Being so near to Olly, so near to olly like this, is a heady rush, moreso than that of any drink. Qifrey's afraid of how much damage just one more glass could do. The guilt of it all is a wellspring in the back of his mind, flowing ever-eternal.
At least Olly seems to be enjoying himself. Stars, he must be out to drive Qifrey wild. Olruggio takes a long sip and levels Qifrey again. The effect is shockingly instant, and before his eyes, Olruggio is scrambling for the handkerchief, missing the mark by a mile.
He directs one over his shoulder, “hHRRSHIuhhh!” still patting around his person with little success. Being beside Olruggio means that Qifrey feels each and every sneeze as it tears through him, the secondhand impact muted through the cushions of the couch. The aftershock ripples through Qifrey all the same like a stone skipped across a lake; beat, beat, beat, beat. He’s painfully erect, stock still, scared to death of how close they are to touching. He’ll burst into flames. The static builds into complete white-hot noise and a fuzzy, aching need encompasses him from the inside out.
Olly bends over his lap with another “EIIDDSHHhuuH!” realizing the handkerchief is lying on the mantle, accidentally abandoned in favor of a refilled glass. He grabs for it in the hazy aftermath, sinking back into the couch with a groan that could only be categorized as profane.
“Qifrey, y-y’hhforgot t’bless me agaiiin…” Reaching through oblivion, Olly’s hand closes around his knee and squeezes hard. The static clears as Olruggio pitches forward with a sneeze so needy, so wet, so radiant, there’s him and there’s only him - hhh...hHHZiSSHHUhh! - Qifrey holds in a breath that stills every part of him. The ache reaches an unbearable pinnacle, a bright flush of pressure, a pounding in his heart, his head, his cock.
“hHDJzSSHhuuhh!” His hand tightens around his knee, tandem pressure applied with the force of the sneeze, enough to rock Qifrey forward along with him. Olly’s hand is so warm, so dangerously, dangerously close. It's too much. He'll finish. Untouched. Right here. Stranger things have surely happened. There’s nowhere for him to go and the privacy of their home suddenly feels suffocating.
Does he know what he's doing? Does he know how mad he's driving Qifrey? There’s no way he’s that oblivious to Qifrey’s intense and unmistakable bodily reaction, drunk or not. Qifrey still hasn’t moved or spoken, Olruggio’s hand on his leg being the only external stimuli his body is able to process. He chances a glance at Olruggio, a blessing on his parted lips, but he can only freeze as Olruggio’s eyes are already waiting to meet his, a lopsided, boyish grin spread across his lovely face. Beat, beat, beat, beat.
“Oh- Olly, I-” he falters over the words and can’t help feeling like he’s been caught red-handed in some act of obscenity. “Bless you..?” it comes out like a question, though he doesn’t really mean for it to. He supposes it’s apologetic enough, though not the least bit surreptitious. There's little of him Olruggio can’t root up if he tries. He knocks back what’s left of his drink, but it tastes acrid as it slides down his throat.
“Thank y’very much, Qifrey. Was startin’ t’get a mite worried there for my eternal soul..” Olruggio sniffles, resort to snorting when it’s not enough to do the trick. He folds the handkerchief in half and renders it useless with a heavy blow, though none of it’s enough to quite clear his head. Qifrey can hear the congestion coating his every word, his name, and he’s so close that he can feel Olly’s hot breath coast over his shoulder. Every part of him is taut, stretched thin like an elastic band, and he’s really, truly about to snap.
There’s no hope for a clean getaway. The damage has been done.
“Olly, I’m terribly sorry that the wine.. gave you so much trouble.” God, he feels so awkward. His neck is blistering, hot and dry with shame and guilt and longing and loathing. He’s bound to be leaking through his pants now; the words just won’t come. “Listen, I know there’s um.. There’s still a bit left, but I- I think I must really be getting to bed now.” He doesn’t even bother with an excuse, fat lot of good it'd do him, just tries to hide his erection the best he possibly can as he hurries out from under Olly’s grip and off the couch.
Olruggio takes the opportunity to lie back and stretch the length of the couch as soon as Qifrey leaves, already pulling down the blanket that rests over the back, preparing to sleep it off. He’s so damn smug. The grin hasn’t left his face. He knows. He knows. Whatever.
“S’alright, Qifrey, go on, g’night…” the words drip out stuffy and saccharine. “Guess I’ll just have t’finish it up on me own.. Thanks for the drink anyways. I enjoyed it.” Olly holds up his glass to Qifrey, a mock cheers that he mirrors with a wooden smile and nod - Goodnight, my friend - before he turns disappears up the steps.
Qifrey needn’t even rely on the memory; he finishes himself off to the echo of Olruggio’s sneezing, somehow reaching him from all the way downstairs. If Qifrey had to guess, he’s making them louder on purpose. Bastard. Love. Stars, it’ll likely be sometime before he tries to surprise Olruggio again. The devil you know, and all that.
qifrey surprises olly with a fancy bottle of wine. Olly drinks too much, sneezes a lot, and it plays out in two different ways. not much plot stuff this is witch hat kitchen horny yearning after hours, mostly self-indulgent character study
(2/2 qifrey pov)
contains: 18+ !! nothing super.. specific or detailed but nsfw vibes, masturbation, sneezing, wine sensitivity, fet!character pov
heh.. didn’t think I’d be back with more so soon but well here we are ^_^ ok let me dish for a second. its pretty much impossible for me to imagine one singular night passing in the atelier where these fools aren’t wrought with incredibly sickening sexual/emotional tension!!!! i couldn’t stop thinking of olruggio having a sensitivity to wine that he under no circumstances lets dissuade him frm drinking it ^_^
then my head said… would it be better if qifrey (with the kink) was forced to bear witness to this, or if olly (with the kink) was forced to struggle?? Well. i wrote both to try to find out! you can choose your own sneeze-venture here and let me know which one of them you think S fetish looks better on….. thanks to you geniuses who paved the path before me writing fetpov. truly life changing stuff n I owe you everything. xo
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Once he’s seen the last of Qifrey’s apprentices up the stairs to bed (sleep tight, Tetia! he calls up after her) Olruggio slinks back into the quiet kitchen of the slumbering atelier. He’s been away for a handful of nights to install and deliver a contraption to a client, but returned earlier this afternoon. Now that he’s home, free of responsibility if only for the very moment, Olruggio is in search of drink and the easy companionship of his oldest friend, an after-supper mission he’s oft known to embark on. Olruggio pauses in the doorway for a moment, watching Qifrey as he flits down the length of the counter, tidying up the small mess of leftovers and putting order to whatever he needs for the next morning’s meal. He clears his throat, trying and failing miserably to project an air of nonchalance.
“Sooooo…. did’ya bring me tha’ wine I asked for?” He brings one hand up to sheepishly scratch at the back of his head as he pushes his weight against the doorframe.
Qifrey startles at the sudden interruption, but softens quickly, warming at the sight of him.
“Ah, Olly! Indeed I did! Give me but a second- I’m almost done with the washing up.”
His word holds true as he finishes up quickly, swiveling around to face Olly with his hands clasped together and a charming smile lighting up his face only moments later. Olruggio loves when he gets giddy like this; so eager to share whatever he possibly can. He endlessly adores being on the receiving end of Qifrey’s generosity, loath to admit it though he might usually be. Qifrey strides to the pantry door and pulls down a thick black bag from one of the taller shelves inside. He clears his throat as he holds out the bag to Olruggio, mirroring the man’s sheepish expression from minutes before. Olruggio takes the bag from him hesitantly, all but glaring as he pulls a fine wooden box out of the bag. He stiffly slides the lid off of the box and blanches first at the velvet lined interior, a rich, deep purple, and again at the golden bottle lying inside.
“I’m sorry, it’s not-”
Olruggio protests before Qifrey has a chance to finish. “What’ve you gone’an got this for, Qifrey?! All I asked for was a bottle of Silvernectar!” he exclaims, wide-eyed, almost incredulous.
“.. quite what you asked for…” Qifrey finishes, even and amused, the slightest bit wry.
It is a Silvernectar elixir after all, Qifrey informs him, but its age is twice that of anything Olly would’ve reached for himself - it’s some sort of special honeytree hollow stock, limited edition, likes of that. Gah, Qifrey. Death o’me. The bottle is covered in hundreds of tiny delicately gilded stars, spilling down the neck and over the shoulders of the bottle, wrapping it in light. He doesn’t want to know, not in the slightest, how much Qifrey spent on this and he sure as hell doesn’t ask. Olruggio couldn’t drink it at all if he knew.
“..But, it caught my eye last time I traveled to Kalhn with Coco. I suppose it just made me think of you. And tonight seems as good a night as any to celebrate!”
The busier Olruggio’s schedule is, the more doting Qifrey tends to become, filling in the gaps in his sleeping and eating schedules and overriding Olruggio’s general neglect of his health by plying him with special treats targeted to whatever ailments spring up to trouble him. Headache, uneasy stomach, restless sleep; Qifrey’s got an elaborate concoction for it all. Olly never asks and Qifrey certainly never tells just how it is he always seems to know. Regardless, it’s become custom that a busy week in the workshop makes for a rather spoiled Olruggio and he’s long since given up protesting, relishing now the buttery feelings it greases his heart with. Qifrey’ll do as he pleases, Olruggio knows that much.
“Ahem- I do hope you enjoy it!”
“Well, by the stars, Qifrey… I’ll only enjoy it if you’ll be ‘aven some with me,” he scratches at the hair on his chin and a boyish grin stretches wide across his face, the butterflies in his belly charmed into a stir.
“Of course, my friend,” Qifrey says, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, and leaning close, a fleeting gesture as he wraps behind him to the other side of the kitchen. Olruggio’s breath starts at the touch, involuntarily, instinctively. He doesn’t flinch away, it’s the opposite, in fact; he turns into it, and feels the absence as profoundly as he feels the primitive need to feel it over and over and over again when Qifrey’s hand is gone as quickly as it came. Hm. “I’ll meet you by the fire - let me fetch us some glasses,” Qifrey says, turning on his heel and leaving Olruggio hovering in the doorframe.
Olruggio takes the cue and plods to the kitchen with the wine in tow. He feels like he’s floating, wondering if every night he spends with Qifrey is meant to burn him up more than the last. The space between them has begun to feel cavernous as of late, but Qifrey always seems to loop him back in, if only to hold him just at arm’s length. He supposes he could live to never close the distance and it would be alright, as long as it meant he got to be this close at all. But hell, does it smart, knowing that there’s so little he can do to bridge the expanse. He’s brought both box and bottle along with him and sits them on the far right edge of the couch while he takes the middle, forcing his own hand along with Qifrey’s. It’s easier to keep the distance when the girls are around, some proxy for his stilted affections, but he can never manage to keep the walls high enough when it’s dark and late and he and Qifrey are burning beside one another. Sometimes he doesn’t even try to make it easy to do so.
Qifrey follows behind him not long after he’s settled in, two loop chalices dangling from his middle and pointer fingers. He takes the seat available to Olly’s left and Olruggio bites the inside of his cheek as Qifrey condenses himself into the corner of the couch.
Olruggio gingerly picks up the bottle and runs his fingers over the indentations, observing the distorted portrait of his visage reflected back to him a hundred miniscule times over from inside each one as the glint of the firelight passes over them. Something heavy sticks in the back of his throat as he swallows. Wine is a weak point of his, in more ways than one.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to insist on your gettin’ the first pour, Qifrey,” Olruggio teases, trying to coax out the rising knot before it can fully take root. In lieu of a cork there’s a shiny metal stopper, and Olruggio twists it gently to open the bottle, filling first Qifrey’s loop chalice with a pour of the celebratory liquid, then his own. He swirls it around, inhaling the notes before he takes his first sip. He’s no snob and he’s certainly no connoisseur, but for Qifrey’s sake he’s decided to savor this.
He clinks his loop against Qifrey’s - cheers to another job well done, Olly! - and they lift the glasses to their lips in synchronicity. The first sip is rich and earthy, a heady sweetness coats Olruggio’s tongue and the walls of his throat as it washes down. Of course, it’s delicious. He takes another sip, swilling it over his tongue and swallowing roundly and slowly before telling Qifrey as much.
“Well done, Qifrey! A treat indeed…” Olly lauds, saccharine. He doesn’t even altogether mean to be, but once his first wall falls, the others are generally quick to follow. He clears his throat gently and lets his eyes meet Qifrey’s fully.
“Hm, yes… I agree!” Qifrey laughs - quietly, full and delighted, and a blush settles in hot over Olruggio’s cheeks. “I’m glad you like it, Olly.” Olruggio decides he won’t be the first to look away, and indeed, Qifrey is the first to fold, turning his eyes towards the cup in his hands. Olruggio clears his throat again, accidentally, instinctively, and whets his frayed nerve endings with another generous swig.
Olruggio knows he is taking up far too much space on the couch. He sinks in a little further on a fool’s errand to take up more, spreading his legs apart until one knee bumps against Qifrey’s. It’s not a shock to his system until Qifrey moves his leg away; again he feels a void gape open where the contact is lost. It makes his head spin, his stomach churn, though he’d have a difficult time putting words to why it’s so upsetting. He’s a loser at his own game yet again, it seems. The heat borne from such close proximity to Qifrey is nauseating, more intoxicating than the wine. His fortifications are crumbling quickly and he has to divert course lest he take a path that’s sure to ruin tonight, maybe even a few after. He’s not long for the night if he doesn’t make it off the couch soon. A move to sit on the rug is, though not incredibly surreptitious, effective enough to tamp down some of that unchecked heat. Nowhere to go but down. He turns his attention to his own glass now and tends quickly to what remains.
Olruggio thrusts his loop in Qifrey’s direction, hoping to be topped off, when he feels a delicate itch bloom across the bridge of his nose, flaring his nostrils with urgency. He redirects his head into the crook of his elbow and sneezes harshly, unrestrainedly, hardly enough forewarning to do anything else.
“hHRR’USHhhuih!hh! -‘scuse me,” he says with a softness that’s seemingly more distinct in the wake of the rough expulsion. He stifles the next one into silent submission, grinding his nose hard against the worn linen of his sleeve. Oh? Two? He’s in for it now.
“Goodness, bless you, Olly!”
Oh, hell - Olruggio hazards a sniff and it’s liqiud - damn, damn; he nods a silent thanks to Qifrey without looking him in the eyes, unable to risk any sort of that earlier contact as a sick heat begins to pool in his belly, dripping slowly down to his groin. Fucking hell, he feels it in his fingers and his toes and the tip of his dick. He’s suddenly incredibly lightheaded, it’s the heat and the embarrassment and the drink all at once and it’s too much-
So he holds his glass back out to Qifrey, and gets his refill without interruption this time. He clears his throat again and tries to ignore that the blush has begun to bleed down his neck. Tries not to keep sniffling, tortured by the moisture he feels persisting in his sinus cavities.
Olruggio hasn’t even started drinking from the fresh glass before he feels the need to sneeze return, much less delicate and much more insistent. This time, though, it comes with enough notice for him to batten down the hatches: two hands would be ideal, but he employs the use of the one he’s got free, bringing thumb and forefinger up to roughly pinch at the appendage. Olruggio takes care to angle himself away from Qifrey now, only tight, shaking shoulders visible as he snaps toward his lap with a nearly silent stifle and a not… as silent breathy exhale.
“HH’T’!tuhh…
hH’PT’!tuhh..” and another..
“N’KT!uhh…” andddd another. He strains with the effort of it, and he’s met with the packed resistance of congestion as he pitifully inhales in the aftermath.
“Oh, bless you again!” Qifrey’s voice is soft, lilting up at the end with a hint of concern. Fucking blasted fuck, something shrivels up and dies inside of Olruggio, reborn in an unrelenting current of arousal that splits him down the middle. Doesn’t he know he’d just as soon sneeze properly if he wanted to be blessed? Olruggio longs to say as much, as if he could say the words out loud, as if they’d deter Qifrey in the first place. As if what he wants is even for him to stop; the attention curdles his stomach like spoiled milk, lingers thick and latent between his legs.
“Are you alright, Olly? Not catching cold, I hope!” He says it so casually, so tenderly; the simple words out of his mouth are enough to send Olruggio’s heart plummeting into his stomach. He recalls the last time he caught cold - Qifrey’s cool hand ghosting his forehead, the taste of rocklodge ginger, tender ministrations and a heady desire to close the space, seeking, seeking… Gracious, it’s a good thing his back’s turned. The thought alone renders him painfully hard and he’s not sure how good a job he can do of hiding it in this state.
Blast it, is he drunk already? Some brew, he thinks. He gives into a timid sniffle, but it does little to clear the lingering itch or the nasal congestion beginning to fill up his head. He feels Qifrey’s eyes burning holes into the back of his head, and the sensation of being watched as he unravels sends a blistering curl of heat down through his belly again.
“Nohp, m’fine Qifrey,” Olruggio turns back around, one wrist returned to scrub at his nose, the other set to patting down his person in search of a handkerchief, without which the process of his coming undone is sure to magnify exponentially. “S’mtimes the fancier stuff eh… sorta gets to me,” he says, and the blush now feels more like a rash, itching and spreading as the shame pulses hard through his every vein.
Of course, the more apt truth is that every kind sort of gets to him, but he’s usually able to time his drinks in order to coax the histamine response into a few manageably stifled sneezes, a touch of congestion. That, and he goes to great lengths to relegate himself, drunk and alone, to the worst of it once Qifrey’s gone to sleep, all for the sake of avoiding the commentary being spurred on at this exact moment. It’s not too often that Qifrey drinks alongside him, after all. Olruggio aches for a modicum of control, he aches for Qifrey to investigate something else.
Qifrey, eternally conscientious of Olly's struggles as he is, produces a handkerchief from somewhere on his person and passes it to Olly. He’s making some lighthearted barb about Olly’s inability to tolerate the finer things in life being chronic, but it hangs in the air as another tentative sip ignites a desperate itch that sends Olruggio hurriedly ducking into the folds of the fabric.
“hh’Hi’DD’ntch! K’NXGt’chuhh!” They’re coming too quickly for him to stifle now, and he resents the apparent lack of authority he possesses over his bodily functions.
“Bless you, Olly, my goodness! So… it’s.. the wine?” he asks, and Olruggio feels a fresh swell in his pants from the outburst and the resulting concern that positively saturates Qifrey’s voice.
“hMPP’chhuh!” He pinches off another sneeze before assuring Qifrey that everything’s alright. “Yeah, yeah, but m’fine, m’fine - I…, I-” his voice is thick with congestion, consonants blunted, and it’s getting hard for him to hear himself keep talking. He turns again, this time to make reluctant use of the handkerchief. He doesn’t dare blow his nose, but he pinches and dabs at it in a futile effort to wick away the moisture that still threatens to escape.
“M’sorry Qifrey.. I promise ya m’enjoyin it..” And it’s true that he is, in wretched ways he could only dream of explaining to him. A watery sniff punctuates the end of his sentence, lending it less credibility.
“Oh, Olly, I don’t care about the wine… the last thing I want is for you to feel unwell at all-”
“Ahhh, it’s alriighhttt,” he drawls, nothing like a little false bravado for Olruggio of the torch. High time he start shoring up his defenses. He’s felt unwell from the second he saw that damned box. “...s’just a little… hem.. jus’ a little sneezin’,” he says, the word feeling incredibly like an obscenity as it leaves his lips. A glutton for punishment if there ever was one, when the mood strikes him. “Look, we’ve almost finished the bottle, anyhow.”
He knew better, he really did, and he always does, but he’ll sleep so much better after the raw ache of shame later licks him clean. After he comes into his hand, alone, desperately conjuring image after image of what Qifrey’s would feel like instead. Of Qifrey’s silken voice, ardent in his ear, instructing him to let go, there you go Olly, I’ve got you, let it out for me, darling. Oh, to forever be the locus of his concern -
He tents the handkerchief in his hands and folds into it, turning fully away from Qifrey this time. He’s wracked with a fit of sneezes - all stifled into utter silence and Qifrey still has the nerve to bless. He’s too far gone now for it to make any difference, so he chances the softest blow his nose can manage.
“Bless you, I- I’m not so sure you should have any more of this?” Qifrey says, like it’s a question, asking Olruggio if he’s ready to stop moreso than he’s telling him to. “It’s really alright if we don’t-”
“Ease up, Qifrey! One more glass won’t hurt…” the ragged congestion weighs down the beginnings and the ends of his words and seems to dull his point.
Olruggio has little doubt that it could hurt, would hurt, will hurt, does hurt, to keep unstitching himself at the seams, an ever-bleeding wound for Qifrey to attend to. The problem is that he needs it so desperately, that he wants nothing more than for it to burn, to sting, to throttle the breath from his lungs and rend him anew. So he keeps drinking until the bottle is empty, keeps sneezing until he can no longer stifle them, until all his composure is nothing more than a relic of the distant past, until the sweltering pressure of his erection is entirely untenable. He stumbles a little up the stairs to his tower after he and Qifrey part ways at the stairs - Bless you, Olly, do please, get some rest! - and before he knows it, he’s finished into the cradle of a square of linen from the mere memory of a blessing.
series tags: canon-compliant, no explicit spoilers but be careful if you aren’t caught up to chapter 93
sf tags: character with kink, common cold, fever, handkerchiefs, bless you complex
other tags: voyeurism, praise kink, jealousy/possessiveness, desperate pining, doctor stuff, in-universe sociopolitical issues mentioned, unreliable narrator lol
notes: shout out to all the horny people saying qifrey seems like he’d have some crossed wires aka giving me permission to bestow my fetish upon him <3
✵☆✧✵✧☆✵
Word spreads fast among witch society, especially in the Great Hall. The isolation and strict rules make them all bored and restless, which in turn makes them eager to exchange new information with disproportionate immediacy. The more mundane, the better.
This week’s symposium should be rich with opportunities for gossip, given the volume of attendees from across several continents eager to chatter about their collaborative efforts and innovations, not unlike a worse, restrictive version of Silver Eve held entirely underwater. But rather than anything relevant or consequential to the world of magic and all of its ongoing, upcoming changes, the hottest news gripping every witch under the sea is that Olruggio has caught a cold.
Which is really none of their business.
All it takes is an offhand mention at the start of the welcome banquet, an offhanded apology to one of his patrons and a warning not to get too close, and everyone he’s ever met is suddenly very interested in how Olruggio is feeling and how hard he must be working and whether they can get him anything for his throat or sinuses. They’d love that, wouldn’t they, thinks Qifrey each time Olruggio declines. Residents of the Hall are always trying their damndest to take a bite out of him.
It’s hard to watch even on a good day. Olruggio can’t seem to help engaging patiently, which means his trips and conversations take forever unless someone gives him an out. He’s lucky to take a few steps before some client or admirer approaches him to talk about some non-urgent personal trivia. Qifrey would go insane. He’s already going insane from his spot on the periphery, extenuating circumstances aside.
“Just a few days,” Olruggio is telling somebody who asks how long he’s been sick. He bows his head to cough into his fist, looking tired from so much of everyone patting and pulling and making him shout against his sore throat just to hear him shrink from their compliments and make small talk. “Somethin’ going around, I think. Assumed I could fight it off ’til after all this, but…”
Olruggio pauses. From too far away, Qifrey braces himself and watches Olruggio squint against the most devastating symptom of all.
“RGXZSHHHhuh…”
Because despite all of his suffering, Olruggio sounds so, so lovely when he does that.
As the stranger at the table begins to dote on Olruggio with concern and commentary, Qifrey struggles with forbidden arousal and the sad sympathetic fondness he’s used to feeling whenever Olruggio has to work through a cold. It’s all too much for him to feel at once, in public, out of his element when he can’t do a thing to help either of them.
“HGZTSHU!”
While Qifrey has contended with knowing he wouldn’t be able to interact with Olruggio’s sneezing every time, he’s still taken by the sight of him nearby: Olruggio with his arm bent and posture twisted, bashfully unable to control the means of which his cold displays itself. Nobody around him seems to mind at all; in fact, the person he’s talking to only moves closer to touch his arm and bless him again.
“You poor thing,” they’re saying as Olruggio, still bent away to the side, sniffles against his wrist. Did he even bring a handkerchief? Or has he already run out of clean ones? “Sounds like you could do with a good night’s sleep. And a hot drink made with… with, oh, what’s it called? The medical spire has those little herbs on hand sometimes, the white and green ones…?”
It’s millflower, and Qifrey has been serving its tea to Olruggio all week.
“Dunno. I’ll give it a mention if I stop by,” is Olruggio’s hoarse response, comparatively mellow and polite. “You’d do well to pick some up for yourself.”
“Oh, no, I have plenty! You know, we wouldn’t mind bringing some down to your rooms. You’re staying at the castle with your apprentices tonight, aren’t you?”
“They aren’t technically my apprentices. My friend, Qifrey…”
Qifrey takes his cue to tune the conversation out. He can’t handle hearing Olruggio talk about him while sounding stuffy and sweet like that, especially not to one of the many witches in the vicinity who would just love to devour him whole. It’s too much for Qifrey to think about, even privately, so it’s best he hears as little as possible.
He surfs through the blurry clusters of his peers standing in his path to the nearest open doorway, placidly excusing himself with an occasional modest wave at those he does remember. Only a moment goes by before he’s nearly escaped, and Qifrey is one step away before he receives an irresistible summons.
“Oi! Qifrey!” Olruggio is using what must be the last of his voice, just to call out to him. “Quit avoiding us, will you?”
How ridiculous to think he’d ever be able to sneak away from Olruggio.
Once Qifrey makes eye contact and smiles to confirm he’ll make his way back, Olruggio returns a satisfied nod and then bends down to cough. Even drained and subdued, his commanding friendliness manages to soar right into Qifrey’s center.
Olruggio is still getting his voice back when Qifrey gets there, not because it’s gone on for long but because he’d only been a couple tables away. Strange how even a pinch of despair can make such little space seem like treacherous expanses of land.
“Here, Olly.” The handkerchief Qifrey pulls from his pocket is still warm from his own body heat. He passes it to Olruggio before greeting his not-companion. “Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No, but I’ve heard plenty about you!” Unlike Olruggio, this person’s friendliness is shrill. Qifrey is careful not to wince as he takes a seat. “You live somewhere in the countryside, don’t you? You’re a teacher?”
An easy question that prompts a natural smile. “For a few years now. I’ve got four apprentices at the moment.”
“Yes, yes, Olruggio was telling me you’re very good with them.”
It’s not easy to concentrate with Olruggio making these little squeaky snuffling sounds and breathing through his mouth between them. Qifrey is about to fluster him in return with a comment about his kind words, but he devolves from distracted to speechless when Olruggio turns his way and sneezes clumsily beneath his sleeve.
“HAH’GZSHHiU!”
“Bless you,” Qifrey says with an immediate hand on Olruggio’s shoulder, steadying and reassuring, smoothing out a shiver as he recovers. “My goodness, Olly, your poor throat.”
The handkerchief is belatedly put to use as a shield and then as a mop, with Olruggio only straightening up once the thing has nearly gone translucent.
“I know, I know,” he mutters with a gruff swipe of cloth against the skin under his nose. “’S fine. Scuse me.”
“Cold’s got you good, hasn’t it, dear?” says his acquaintance, as though they’re stuck on the topic. How embarrassing, how sexy, how awful, terrible, delightful. Against Qifrey’s recommendation, Olruggio evades having to keep talking about it by calling over a server to top off his chalice with wine.
As the evening continues, Qifrey watches Olruggio’s symptoms progress upward in an inevitable quest to settle right in the middle of his face. That’s how it always goes for him, with chills and a sore throat leading to the congestion setting in for a day or so, and then all of the sneezing starts and compromises them both.
It looks like he’ll be in the thick of it tomorrow, when everything overlaps miserably. Qifrey won’t have a choice but to ride through it with him, collapsing within himself over and over, unable to desensitise himself to Olruggio no matter how much of him he experiences. He’s not sure if it’s worse that they’re together this time, or if he’d be better off not having to watch the swarm of strangers putting their hands all over Olruggio and asking him for a dance.
At Olruggio’s request, the two of them leave early. He never finishes his second glass of wine, complaining about it being a waste when he’s unable to taste it, but Qifrey sees it already starting to make his bright eyes heavy and his clever mind slow. It still takes quite a while for the two of them to escape the ballroom as he apologetically says his hellos and goodbyes.
They take the long way through the corridors to their rooms, and the comparatively fresh air, humid and salty as it is, perks Olruggio up enough to keep pace as he sobers up.
His company helps, but Qifrey can’t keep the dread from building in his chest as the reality of the week starts to set. He’d rather spend the night anywhere but the Great Hall, but there’s no getting around the schedule this time. Dust will gather and chores will pile up at home while he grits through the loneliness and lack of privacy that comes with an unpredictable environment full of people he vaguely knows and doesn’t particularly care for. From the first step through the windowway, he itches to turn right back around to the quiet of his own home, where he’s not surrounded by things that don’t make sense.
At least the girls don’t mind it here, so long as they’re together. Solace finds him when he and Olruggio step into the far end of the guest wing and pass by the set of rooms they’d dropped them off in earlier that afternoon.
“Pretty sure this is me,” Olruggio says with his thumb jutting toward the door just across from Coco and Agott’s. He points at the corner room next to it, then tosses a smooth, heavy key for Qifrey to catch. “And that one’s you, if you’d like it.”
“Oh.” Usually they keep those suites reserved, even when nobody’s staying in them. “Did you arrange this?”
“Yup. Nice ’n private.”
I love you, thinks Qifrey, but out loud he says, “That’s very thoughtful, Olly, thank you.”
“Yeah well,” replies Olruggio in a hurry, bristling, hand on his neck, “figured it’d be easier to sync up if we shared a wall.”
Qifrey doesn’t ask him how he managed it. More than likely, he had some sort of connection through work.
“The girls have a key too, just in case.” Olruggio busies himself with unlocking his own door, then freezes in place just before he turns the key. Qifrey tenses along with him, watching as Olruggio twists and leans away from him with a tremendous shudder. “HAHDTSHHiU!”
His body language is so urgent that it reads as protective, like he’s trying with all his might to keep his suffering to himself. But Olruggio’s heart radiates from his sleeve, always earnest whether he likes it or not.
“haAH’YZSHHHhhuh…! Ah, geez…”
How?
How on earth could anyone not fall in love with him?
“Bless you,” Qifrey says with a tempered smile, voice hushed, touching Olruggio only though his robes to guide him inside. “I’d like to get a look at your room, too, if you don’t mind.”
Qifrey finishes up with the lock and opens the door. Heat branches from his ear in a diagonal line downward toward his middle as he listens to Olruggio sniffling behind him.
Someone has already brought their things in for them. A bag of miscellaneous supplies, likely for demonstration, has been set up near the desk by Olruggio’s window, across from the wardrobe and bed. Qifrey notices a petite, rounded gift box sitting atop the bedside table, displayed neatly without its top to showcase the assortment of sweets and remedies inside.
“How nice,” says Qifrey as he picks up a bottle and turns it over in his hand. “Someone’s left you a get-well basket, Olly.”
“Hm?” Even the little hum sounds sore as it resonates through his nose. Olruggio hangs up his cloak and looks to see what’s the matter. “Ah. No use lyin’ to me, Qifrey, I know it creeps you out.”
“You say that as though I’m the one reacting strangely.”
“Just leave everything where it is. I’ll donate it or somethin’ when I get a chance.”
“Are you sure? This one is meant to help with sleep.” Qifrey sets another tincture aside, just herbs and water, nothing medicinal in a way that could get someone in trouble. “Could be worth a try, don’t you think?”
“Sounds more like you could use it, then. I’ve got a couple of things to touch up before tomorrow, so…”
“You’re joking.”
“Besides,” Olruggio adds, “the guy who sent it will probably ask how I liked his gifts, and it’s best if he thinks I was too busy working to take a look through them.”
Jealousy prickles in Qifrey’s hands as they search through the basket for any sort of card or label. “How do you know who it came from?”
“There’s this one guy who always sends stuff like that. Tries to personalise it by askin’ around.” Olruggio begins to unpack the nightclothes he’s brought, voice weary and sighing with the effort of moving about. “He sends things up to get me to thank him and then talks my ear off ’til I volunteer some advice, then he tries to put my name on his work like we collaborated. Rather he’d just send a letter, to be honest.”
“I see.” Qifrey only witnesses parts of Olruggio’s job from home, the parts that make sense for someone being paid to use his hands and mind to solve puzzles. He forgets how much of Olruggio’s work is social, figuring out games and having to dodge them without causing offense. “That sounds a bit sinister, trying to trick you like that.”
“Nah, just got a bit of a head on him is all. He means well.” Olruggio hangs up his cloak, then unloads a couple of handkerchiefs into the miniature washing barrel by the door. “Works mostly for a noble family up north, but he was an apprentice himself barely two years ago. Hey, I’m keepin’ this, by the way. I’ll wash it again after.”
“Oh. Right.” Qifrey sees Olruggio holding the handkerchief he lent him earlier. It strikes him at the core, numb and hot, pleasant and paralysing, reminding him to stay on his toes and hold his mask in place. “I’d assumed you would. You’re going to need it much more than I will.”
Heavens forbid Olruggio runs out of them and ends up a mess, inadvertently inviting someone else to help him out so intimately in a way that they wouldn’t even appreciate.
“For now, maybe.” He folds up Qifrey’s handkerchief and sets it on the table next to the manipulator’s set of gifts. “None of you lot’ve got any inkling of self-preservation.”
“No need for you to worry about me,” Qifrey says as a reminder to them both, then he sets the tincture back after all. “Please do get some sleep if you can, though. I’d feel a lot better seeing to it that you won’t be up at your desk all night.”
“What’s that?” Olruggio grins. “Gonna tuck me in, Qifrey?”
“Yes,” Qifrey answers, satisfied by the pink in Olruggio’s cheeks, “if I must.”
“Go,” grumbles Olruggio. “Get to your own quarters already, costin’ me a fortune…”
I love you, thinks Qifrey again, and he says nothing else this time. Like a tendril of smoke escaping the vent of a furnace, he peacefully waves himself out.
✵☆✧ ⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ ᯓ★
The first thing Qifrey learns when he finds Olruggio the next morning is that the walls had been soundproofed. He really does despise the Great Hall.
“Oh, Olly…” he says when they meet at the staircase near their breakfast spot, unable to sound anything but dismal as he soaks up the sight of his friend. “Did you even make it to bed at all?”
Olruggio hangs his head and rubs at the spot above his eyes, letting Qifrey stare at him as though he deserves to. The signs are all there; one glance at him would tell anyone he’s unwell, but the most miserable part is how put-together he looks otherwise. Neat hair, crisp clothes, clean skin, smelling like fancy soap and leather. It means he’s had to sacrifice even more rest for appearances alone. It also means he looks very classically and immediately handsome and sounds very terribly sick.
“I did try,” Olruggio promises, and then he says something unbelievable. “I even took out that sleep dropper you found, but it had me sneezing up a storm for a good hour afterward. You try to lie down properly after that.”
It takes all Qifrey has in him to keep from tumbling down the stairs. “It what?”
“I think it was some sort of aromatherapy,” complains Olruggio. “Point is, I had to give up eventually and take a head start on gettin’ ready instead. Good thing, too. Started up again when I was in the baths, but it was so early, nobody else’d even come down yet.”
What is Qifrey supposed to say to that? Where has his bloody head gone? That’s right, down south is where, and he needs to pick it back up fast.
Olruggio sighs because the conversation is normal to him, and then he gestures at his own face. “One to ten, Qifrey, how bad is it?”
Oh, don’t make me answer that…
They stop at a landing between floors. It’ll be a while before they have this much quiet, empty space again.
“You look like you’ve been working very hard,” Qifrey answers automatically, numbly, as he comes back to himself. He feels his mouth smiling gently and decides it’s fine. This would be easier if Olruggio wasn’t so cute. “And like you might have a fever coming on.”
Olruggio grabs Qifrey’s wrist when he’s halfway to checking his forehead. Qifrey feels Olruggio’s grip tighten as he wrenches to the side without letting go. “hhAH’EZSHuh!”
At least there’s nobody else around to hear him out in the open like this.
“And there’s…” Olruggio relaxes his grip, takes his own hand back and bends deeper at the waist as he turns away fully. “GZZXSHhhuh! …haATZSHHhhuh! …And there’s that, still. Doubt it’ll be stopping soon.”
“I know.” Qifrey pours the intensity of arousal into the natural sympathy in his voice as he watches Olruggio tend to himself with a handkerchief. “You sound awful, Olly, bless you.”
“Damn it. Maybe it’ll give some of the others more incentive to go easy on me,” says Olruggio quickly. Apparently he’s reached his sincerity threshold for the time being. That, or Qifrey’s attention is already making him shy. “I’m sure it’ll be fine after some tea. Think the girls’re up yet?”
They certainly are, and all four of them are waiting in the cafeteria with breakfast already gathered and arranged at a table large enough for six. No; a grouping of three smaller, circular tables pushed together into a triangle so they can all sit facing each other, just like at home. They’ve even arranged the tableware in their usual spots.
Meetings and classes start soon, so they rush through an exchange of plans and commentary. Qifrey’s dear apprentices embarrass Olruggio by setting his place at the table with an entire pot of tea made only for him, and he thanks them before drinking most of it while it's still too hot. Tetia insults him compassionately, comparing the parts of him that look particularly terrible to the parts that are polished for the event. According to Richeh, it’s worse than if he’d let himself go entirely, and according to Coco, that isn’t a very nice thing to say to a sick person. Agott asks to borrow whatever product he’s used in his hair.
Some of them share food, or they trade based on how they feel about the new recipes on their plates. Qifrey focused on cataloguing their preferences as they discover them, and the commotion of traveling witches bustling around them doesn’t seem so noisy.
The meal ends too soon because it ends at all, and then it’s off to meeting number one.
Only witches who have passed test number four and reached a high volume of public service acts were called to attend. The reasoning behind its qualifiers could be anything from proof that one could be trusted with confidential information to a focus on high achievement and good standing. The room is small and in a high tower, lined with multi-seated desks all facing a drawing board up front.
Of course, someone calls to Olruggio as soon as he steps through the door, eager to invite him to sit at their table. Olruggio gets to decline because of his cold, promising that this person will thank him for it when they wake up tomorrow still able to breathe through their nose. Hearing that from him is so erotic that it borders on overstimulating, and Qifrey follows him to a section in the back, where he can sit with the wall on his right side and Olruggio on his left.
“I’m his Watchful Eye,” Olruggio tells whoever it was, as soon as they ask why he’s not as concerned about passing any illness onto Qifrey. “Dunno if he’s got a choice in avoidin’ it like you do. Consider yourself lucky.”
Not everyone is so deterred by Olruggio’s warnings, unfortunately, or perhaps those who choose the seats surrounding him anyway have got perversions similar to Qifrey’s. It’s not so implausible when the state of him is so obvious and obscene.
Stop looking at him like that, Qifrey demands of the other guests silently, ridiculously, just as much as he demands it of himself despite finding it impossible not to stare. He doubts he’ll retain a thing from this morning’s session. Something about volcanic towns he’ll never get to see, and the types of contraptions their villagers are requesting to keep one another comfortable and safe in the case of eruption. It’s the kind of assignment Olruggio could design on his own, likely after talking to the villagers themselves as opposed to a third party team of witches with rewards on their minds.
But instead Olruggio is here, playing nice with them anyway, breathing through his mouth and making cute little clicking sounds by accident when he tries to swallow or clear his throat. His eyelids droop as he tries to stay awake, and every once in a while, he blinks particularly hard like something’s startled him. Soon enough he’s got a half-opened handkerchief in his lap, waiting as he squints forward with his expression vacant.
Like last night at the banquet, he doesn’t have anywhere safe to turn. Unlike last night at the banquet, there’s no real ambiance to decenter any of the noise he’s about to make. All he can do with the sneeze is try his best to smother it.
“MMPXTgh…!” Back up for air, then down again. “AAH’MMPTshhih!”
“Bless you,” murmurs Qifrey amidst the others doing the same. Olruggio doesn’t look at any of them, just ducks his head and waves a hand up to dismiss the attention.
He presses on his septum with the handkerchief, nostrils twitching dampness onto the fabric each time he sniffles, then he pinches and tugs downward as though he’s trying to drain out the irritation instead of blowing his nose in a quiet, well-mannered room.
It would make sense if it worked, but all of his fussing with it is only making the situation harder on him. Olruggio isn’t usually so careful about tempering himself.
“ha’EHZSHhhiu!”
He’s no good at it, either.
Just about everyone in the room is excited to say bless you to him this time, so Qifrey waits for them to have their fun before passing a new handkerchief over and receiving Olruggio’s thanks in the form of a brief, twitchy smile.
Olruggio waits until the moment has passed and the presenter has recaptured the spotlight, then slides an empty page from his notebook to the space on the table between them. He uses his left hand to write while keeping his eyes centered forward.
Let’s leave early
Qifrey makes eye contact to communicate his understanding, then writes his own message.
Would you prefer to step out first, or shall I take the lead? he writes back. As soon as Qifrey withdraws his hand, Olruggio hastily jots his response.
Me
They share another look to confirm. It’s brief; pressure builds behind Olruggio’s eyes before they snap shut for another sneeze.
“EHJZSHhhu!”
Even the speaker up front interrupts their own presentation to throw a prompt, pleasant bless you to him all the way in the back.
bless you! :) writes Qifrey as he watches Olruggio go pink. Beneath it, Olruggio doodles a caricature of himself, looks Qifrey in the eye once more, then scribbles on top of the middle of its face and writes Thanks
When he excuses himself from the room, Olruggio doesn’t bother making a show of it. He leaves all of his things on the table for an impression that he’s planning on coming back, and he holds off on making any significant noise on the other side of the door. Qifrey gathers Olruggio’s pen and notebook as the presentation shifts to a new section, holds still until a guest begins asking a question, then slips away on his own.
They used the same trick when cutting class back in the day, at least before their teachers caught on and began separating them. Whoever follows the other out of the lesson would wait a rough quarter mark first, then find his friend by taking two lefts through the hallway. The logistics worked regardless of the building they were stationed in, and they work now just the same.
Their meeting spot ends up being somewhere dark and empty. Olruggio is leaned up against a wall, easy to find by sound alone as he blows his nose. Qifrey is grateful at least one of them knows their way around, especially so because it doesn’t have to be him.
“Qifrey,” calls Olruggio hoarsely. The echo of his cough is starting to squeak a little in his chest.
“Olly. Seems you’ve forgotten a few things,” Qifrey says as he hands them over.
“Awful nice of you to bring them to me.” Olruggio takes his pages back, playing along. “Sorry for the trouble.”
I love you, Olly, thinks Qifrey, so much I can barely stand it.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asks out loud, because it’s the most he can manage.
“Well, no. That meeting pissed me off plenty.” Olruggio taps Qifrey on the arm and starts walking. “I know that island they were talkin’ about.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Or I guess I know of it, because nobody lives there.”
“Nobody lives there,” repeats Qifrey. That can’t be right, can it? “That meeting was focused on commission requests from the villagers.”
“Right, but they don’t exist. Some nobles are interested in buildin’ a village for themselves to holiday out there, but nobody nearby will help with it because of the volcano. It’s too dangerous.”
“They left out that first part, didn’t they,” agrees Qifrey sourly. “And do you think it would be possible to accomplish with magic?”
“Maybe. But I’ve got a feeling they’re using the village names to pose their project as a public service for witches, and if nobody bites, to get away with underpaying someone for work they didn’t consent to doin’ in the first place.”
“Sounds like something that happens often.”
“Yeah, plenty. Been tricked a few times myself, but some of my own clients are wise to it.”
“Of course.” It’s much easier for people on the surface to talk about goings on that actually matter, after all. “Do you think you’ll say anything this time?”
“If I do, it won’t be down here,” sighs Olruggio. They reach a point where the hallway splits, and he stretches his neck toward Qifrey. “Anyway, enough with that for now. You up for a snack?”
The cafeteria is much less crowded mid-morning, but that doesn’t mean they’re safe. Qifrey thinks for a foolish moment that they may get away with taking their food and sitting down unbothered. They’re halfway across when some irritating gentleman offers Olruggio a free set of sweet dumplings, which he ends up paying for and sharing with Qifrey anyway.
“Suppose I should say hi to Sinocia,” Olruggio says as he tucks himself into a chair near the back.
“Check the Medical Spire off your list, you mean?” Qifrey divides the plate in half and sets Olruggio’s portion down in front of him.
“Maybe get an exam so people stop askin’ about it,” Olruggio adds before taking a bite of his food. “Return that thing of medicine, too.”
“Already worn out by your admirers, Olly?”
Olruggio scoffs, rolls his eyes and ignores him. “Come with me. You could use some quiet, yourself.”
“At the Medical Spire...?”
“Got somewhere else to be?”
He doesn’t. Retreating to one’s own dwellings with a full schedule would raise questions and criticisms, which is the last thing their atelier needs.
Qifrey watches Olruggio wince as he swallows, and he takes the opportunity to move the spotlight. “How do you like those?”
Before answering, Olruggio holds his hand out flat, then tilts it side to side like a see-saw. “Fine. Nothin’ like I’m used to at home, though.”
“No?”
“Not even close.” Olruggio nods toward Qifrey’s plate. “Try some.”
Mid-bite, Qifrey realises Olruggio’s sense of taste has got to be gone completely, he’s so stopped up. The thought counts for something, so Qifrey doesn’t bother to mention it.
✵ ☆⋆｡⋆˚꩜｡‧ ᯓ★
The medical spire isn’t far, but certain parts of the Hall are full of staircases that take them up and down for no good reason other than to confuse everybody at best. Today it means even a short distance gives Olruggio trouble catching his breath by the time he’s knocking at the door.
The one who lets them in is Emile, the strapping doctor Sinocia likes. Good. She steps aside into an empty foyer, pats Olruggio on the back when he starts coughing, then takes them to the benches behind the curtain so they’ll have a place to sit.
Sinocia is there setting towels into a basin. She looks over her shoulder and sets her eyes on them, then smiles brightly and spins around.
“I was wondering when I’d see you two!” she says with a wink, tilting her head playfully. “Business or pleasure?”
Olruggio clears his throat. “How’ve you been, Sinocia?”
Qifrey recognises the joke. Witches aren’t allowed social visits with doctors.
“Oh, just fine over here. Busy, though,” Sinocia says. She brings him a glass of water, then hands one to Qifrey as well.
“Thank you,” Qifrey says, making conversation so Olruggio can drink. “You’ve had a lot of visitors, then.”
“Yes, mostly strangers coming in for… Well, for whatever it is happening out there this week. I won’t ask.” She starts to gather something from a cabinet. “Shame we really can’t see each other unless somebody is sick or hurt, isn’t it?”
Someone is supposed to reply in defence of the Pact, something along the lines of Perhaps, but it’s necessary, usually followed by a threatening silence to keep anyone from complaining about it again.
“Yeah,” Olruggio says, still a little breathless. He pulls a satchel from his robe. “If you’ve got some time now, I wanted to check if you might have any use for these.”
“Oh! Let me take a look. I’ll trade you.” Sinocia takes the satchel from him and hands over a tiny metal cup. “Drink that, please. You sound even worse than everybody has been saying.”
“What is it for?” asks Qifrey as Olruggio downs the medicine without so much as inspecting it.
“Just standard cold medicine. Cough, headache, fever, that sort of thing.” Sinocia takes the cup from Olruggio as he cringes with a dry little cough. “Sorry, dear. I know it’s bitter.”
Smoothly, she transitions their interaction into a quick physical exam, palpating the areas Olruggio has been struggling with before he’s even disclosed them. Throat, sinuses, forehead, and right beneath his ears. She takes a look at his eyes, checks his pulse, listens to him breathe. Every once in a while, she’ll hum something to herself or say “that’s not good!” or call him a sweet name out of sympathy. It’s clear she’s familiar with him, and it’s just as clear that he trusts her to treat him properly.
Qifrey likes Sinocia. Her disposition is cheerful and tranquil and her presence is steady; she’s always been kind and professional. It takes a special type of doctor to treat witches, not only in competence but in personality, too. They have to be okay with not knowing, with the relative isolation to their peers on the surface, and with the restrictions on communication between themselves and their patients. Sinocia has managed to be respectful of that without detaching herself, and she’s able to take care of Olruggio in all the ways Qifrey is locked away from.
At least somebody is doing it. And Sinocia hasn’t got an ulterior motive, no reason to care for titles or status. She hardly cares about anything aside from his company and his health. It would be nice for Olruggio to have someone like her for a friend, instead of someone like Qifrey who…
“IHGXSshu!”
…who cares about those things too, but can’t help the rest of his circumstances around Olruggio. Including his own body’s responses to something so… so…
“IHGXZSHHhu! ha–AEZSSHhiu!”
“Aw! Bless you. Oh, don’t worry about— here, honey, just use one of these.”
…so attractive. Sexy. Natural, naive, beyond his control. You’re terrible, Qifrey reassures himself, unable to look at anything but Olruggio, the breath building in his chest, brow taut and mouth open, moisture sparkling at the edges of his features.
“MPHZSHHhhih!”
“All right, you, enough with that,” Sinocia says warmly. “I know you don’t feel good, you don’t have to try and prove it to me. Can I take your temperature, or do you have to sneeze again?”
“Best hang on a few,” is Olruggio’s muggy answer.
“Blow your nose then, dear.” Sinocia gives Olruggio some privacy by looking to Qifrey next. “Usually he staves these things off until after all the work is over, right? I’m curious about what the deal is this time.”
Qifrey crosses his legs. “Afraid I couldn’t say.”
“Have you been well, Qifrey? And the girls? They were in great shape last time they came in. You must be taking good care of them.”
“Think it’s just the season,” interrupts Olruggio. He sniffs and beckons Sinocia back before she can ask how Qifrey has been taking care of him. “Go ahead, Sinocia, give me your worst.”
“Okay!”
Olruggio looks so darling with a thermometer in his mouth, pouting like he does, nose flushed pink from the influx of activity.
“Now, what do we have here…” While she waits, Sinocia has decided to look into the supplies Olruggio brought in. She begins to rifle through the bag without pouring anything onto the counter, holding up and then putting back its contents one by one. “Marktea, pastilles, fancy water, some aromatherapy…? Olruggio, where did these come from?”
“One of Olly’s clients,” answers Qifrey. “He’s supposedly well-meaning.”
Olruggio shifts like he wants to say something, so Qifrey holds his index finger vertically against his own lips.
“The brands in here are really expensive,” Sinocia says. “Ooh, and this one’s been opened already. You didn’t like it?”
The thermometer bounces as Olruggio makes a sound through the corner of his mouth.
“Laceweed oil!” Sinocia laughs. “No wonder you’ve been sneezing like that.”
What in the world does that mean? Is Qifrey even allowed to ask? The reminder of what he missed is going to make him dizzy all over again if he isn’t careful. He keeps his gaze off of Olruggio, just to be safe.
Sinocia closes the drawstrings on the satchel and sets it aside, then takes the thermometer from Olruggio and inspects the number with a frown. “You’re a little warm, but not too bad yet. I’ll give you some tranquileaf to take as needed, okay?”
“Thanks.”
“And this syrup in case your cough gets worse. And a poultice to help you breathe better; apply it before you to go bed.”
“Okay. Sure. Thanks.”
“And… I’ll have to give this back, too. I’m really sorry, I don’t think a hospital can accept something that costs so much.”
“So,” sighs Olruggio, “just take it home with you, then.”
“What?”
“Consider it a gift.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not against the rules, is it,” says Olruggio dryly as he stands up. “It’d be a big help, you know. Keeps me from havin’ to deal with the guy when he thinks I never received it. Probably wanted me to try returnin’ it to him so he’d get a chance to— …Ah. Sorry.”
“Sorry?” echoes Sinocia.
“Forgot where I was.” Olruggio rubs his neck and looks away. “You’d be doin’ me a favor takin’ it off my hands is all.”
Qifrey shrugs when Sinocia looks to him for explanation, so she shrugs easily and brightens right back up.
“If you insist! Thank you, Olruggio, that’s very generous.”
“Like I said. It’s mostly a favor to me. Share it with someone if you’d like, put the bounty to use.”
“Hmmm…” Sinocia’s eyes dart to Qifrey and then up at the ceiling as she taps her chin with one hand and places the other on her hip. “I know! I’ll accept your gift so you can do a favor for me too, and be a less troublesome patient.”
“Much easier said than done,” Qifrey reminds her.
“He’s one to talk,” Olruggio says. “At least I see a doctor when the time comes. I have to drag this guy by the scruff to get him to go at all. Lucky he’s usually too weak to fight me by then.”
I love you, thinks Qifrey. He watches Olruggio gather his prescriptions and tuck them away neatly, like a good patient does.
“Yes, I know,” Sinocia says. “So since I’ve got you both here already, I’m not letting you leave until you’ve slept a clockmark or two. It’ll be much worse on you, Qifrey, when you catch this cold because you haven’t been sleeping either, and then I’ll really have my hands full.”
“Whether that’s true or not,” Qifrey says, as though he wouldn’t love anything more, “I’m not sure we can get away with skipping just to have a nap.”
“Sure you can! Doctor’s orders,” declares Sinocia. “I’m sure whoever you’re standing up would be happy to meet in private later or relay necessary information to you some other way, right?”
“Up to you,” Olruggio adds. “I’m takin’ a cot either way.”
What else is Qifrey meant to do? He follows the both of them to a quiet space down a half-flight of stairs and clenches all the muscles he can access, feeling like a stone falling to the bottom of a water well and scraping the sides of it on the way. He mirrors Olruggio’s crooked smile, perches stiffly on a hard wooden chair and wonders how long he’ll pretend to sleep.
in the depths of the beginning of a hyperfixation so im grasping at straws here but okay listen. what i am surmising from this interaction (wha kitchen chap 38) is that
a) olly covers with a fist when he coughs and may also when he sneezes...
b) he also holds another hand to his chest while coughing for support which is very sexy
c) qifrey is immediate to his side to help him and make sure he is okay (he definitely has no regards for contagion when it comes to olly)
d) his hand reaching out to rub his back and it STAYS on his back even after he stops coughing
anyway i love my scrungles my emotionally attached husbands
Guys thank you so much for participating and getting excited about this with me even though it's so far away. My goal is to have fun and make friends and be creative and engage with the community.
🚘
Too Sneezy to Drive
Being Driven Home - Too Sick to Work
Having to Pull Over due to a Sneezing Fit that just. Won’t. Stop.
Sick on a Road Trip
Allergic to Something inside the Car and Can’t Stop Sneezing!
okay i swear this is my last witch hat post (of today anyway lol) but let me just. my thoughts.
a) qifrey turns away to hide his face when he feels vulnerable so maybe ....when he sneezes.... the thought of him whirling around and covering with his hand splayed in front of him is so
b) the snf sound effects??? so cute he definitely gets sniffly with a cold/allergies
c) he is denying in this despite it being So damn obvious what is happening so he is obviously deny deny deny even if he is very bad at it
d) "i may need a moment" i am going to commit war crimes at the thought of him saying this knowing he is going to sneeze
reference for the splayed hand cover. so fucking hot sorry. i am choosing to ignore that he only sneezed once because i know in my heart he is a double sneezer olruggio told me x
