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Of all the things Olruggio braced himself to endure once the chasm between them could be crossed, none were this.
"Qifrey," he says helplessly. It's all he can say, encased in the privacy of his tower, bathed in gentle torchlight, tormented by a man possessed with unyielding curiosity. A man he still cannot reach for, despite their proximity. But oh, Qifrey can reach for him. And he does. Without mercy. "That tickles."
"Shh." Qifrey hushes him with an air of irritable distraction, as if Olruggio has interrupted an important task.
Olruggio would laugh in response to the absurdity, but the sensation of cool hands working their way up under his shirt makes him groan instead. "You are tormenting me," he says as mildly as he can, painfully aware of how easy it is to summon Qifrey's deep-rooted shame.
"Oh." It is the distinct sound of Qifrey ignoring him. "Take this off, it's in the way." He pulls Olruggio's night shirt up and over his head, huffing impatiently as Olruggio's arms get briefly tangled in his generous sleeves. "Oh," he says again, with far more feeling, placing his hands flat against the rounds of Olruggio's chest. He rakes his fingertips through the hair there and palms the muscle until Olruggio's nipples harden and drag. "Olly…"
"Fuck, Qifrey," Olruggio manages.
When they're alone and the lights are low, Qifrey no longer bothers to wear his glasses. Without them, he is once more a wide-eyed boy braced for impact. Still as daring and hungry, but softened now by wonder.
Olruggio cannot do what his body wishes to do. He learned the hard way that he cannot carelessly throw his arms around Qifrey and draw him close. He cannot put his mouth on him. All he can do is submit to Qifrey's budding desire, even as his own sears within him, the kind of fever you never recover from.
"Can I?" Qifrey asks, hooking his thumbs into the waist of Olruggio's loose pants, surprisingly hesitant. These days, it's impossible to predict whether Qifrey will proceed thoughtlessly or tangle himself up in indecision. Not that Olruggio minds. This new life is not one he imagined they'd get to have.
A swell of emotion tightens Olruggio's chest. There is not enough space inside of him to hold the grief he carries for the time they've lost alongside the tremulous joy of a second chance. His voice is hoarse and his eyes sting with unshed tears when he says, "Yes." And then: "Please."
Qifrey's expression softens and his attention shifts to Olruggio's face, even as his gaze remains unfocused, earnestly meeting some point slightly to the left of Olruggio's eyes. "Oh, Olly," he says fondly.
"Stop that," Olruggio says, strained. He will not let sentimentality spoil the opportunity to let Qifrey explore him. He will not. "Keep going."
"Which is it?" Qifrey teases with a half-smile. He sinks to his knees slowly, taking Olruggio's sleep pants with him and helping him step out of one leg and then the other. His breath quickens. Without warning, he bites Olruggio's thigh. Hard.
"Fuck, fuck!" It takes all of the self-control Olruggio has cultivated over a decade of loving this man to keep from pulling his hair just as hard in retaliation. "Qifrey, for fuck's sake, warn a man."
"Sorry," Qifrey says unapologetically. He licks the bruise he made, holding onto the rounds of Olruggio's ass for balance. And then, with no preamble, he noses gently at Olruggio's balls, inhaling unselfconsciously and humming with pleasure, as if he has opened the oven to the scent of fresh-baked bread.
Olruggio drags his hands down his face. "Qifrey."
"Mm?" Qifrey responds, his mouth busy.
Stark naked in the middle of his workshop, all Olruggio can do is stand moderately still, watching his painfully rigid erection bob next to Qifrey's face. "I don't know what to do with my hands," he says, strained and striving for honesty. It's something they've both been struggling with, each equally keen on avoiding the way small truths can feel like tripped snares.
As he fears, a shadow of guilt passes over Qifrey's face. His breath hitches minutely. He's never been as good at hiding his discomfort as he thinks he is. "Olly," he starts, before swallowing back an apology that Olruggio is tired of hearing. Qifrey did not leave those scars there. He did not set those traps. But his heart insists on taking ownership of them.
"May I tell you what I want to do with my hands?" Olruggio asks softly, turning Qifrey's patient teaching methods back on him. Redirection. Inquiry.
"Oh." Qifrey's lips part with a sharp exhale. His eye shifts ever so slightly, desire returning to him like a darkening bruise. "Yes," he breathes, mouth agonizingly close to Olruggio's skin.
"Don't stop." It's a naked plea. In case Qifrey somehow cannot tell, he adds, "It feels good."
Qifrey smiles like a sunbeam stubbornly breaking through stormclouds. His fingertips dig into Olruggio's muscle. A small glint of wickedness flashes in his gaze as he looks up and licks a long, wet stripe along Olruggio's groin, following the line where the hair grows thicker and coarser. His cheek brushes against Olruggio's dick. "You were saying?"
Brat. "I want to touch your hair," Olruggio says, a rumble of want deepening his voice. Qifrey starts to say something, perhaps even give permission, but Olruggio interrupts him, continuing with more emphasis, "Ungently."
A visible shiver runs through Qifrey's body as he noses at the crease where Olruggio's dick meets his groin. He opens his mouth, not quite kissing, but rather accepting Olruggio's balls against his tongue, and breathes deeply. He is so beautiful when he's focused.
"I want to touch your throat, your bare throat, and feel your heartbeat there, and see what it does to you to be touched like that. I think about that a lot, Qifrey. Forgive me."
"I won't," Qifrey bites out, not unforgivingly, but rather with a refusal to accept the need for forgiveness. He nips at sensitive flesh, and smiles against it when Olruggio swears.
Recovering, only barely, Olruggio tucks his fingers into fists and puts his hands behind his back. "Qifrey, I want to hold you down and show you what this feels like. I want to make you understand just how badly I've wanted you." His voice thickens. Qifrey is licking the side of his dick now, frustrating little tastes that don't amount to nearly enough. And he's looking up, intent, listening with his entire being. "I want you to feel how it feels inside me, not always good, more like anger, I think, sometimes. Not at you, I don't think. Maybe at you. At me. I want to wrestle you to the ground like an animal. I've dreamed of that. But you always like it. You want it. You want me to do that."
"I want it," Qifrey echoes, a tremor of a sound. He's gone into himself, just a little, and Olruggio knows he's pushing too far. But what have they ever been but keepers of one another's precipitous edges.
"Look at me."
Qifrey chokes out a low sob against Olruggio's groin. "I can't."
"You can. You just did."
Qifrey looks up, lost, a tear running down his cheek. "I feel strange," he says in a small voice. He startles when Olruggio touches his mouth, and Olruggio fights to control a sharp intake of breath, certain now that Qifrey can see far less than he's been letting on.
Now that they're free-falling, there's no pulling back, so he slips two fingers into Qifrey's mouth to see what he'll do. Qifrey's tongue is warm and soft. His teeth are sharp, pinching as he sucks instinctively, drawing Olruggio in deeper and shuddering.
"That feels good," Olruggio says, low and soothing. "That's what I want, Qifrey. That's good."
Qifrey's eye flutters closed, his shoulders sagging with relief. Like Olruggio, he has always thrived when given a discrete task. His mouth vibrates around Olruggio's fingers, the softest little moan slipping from his throat.
Gently, carefully, Olruggio uses his fingers to direct Qifrey's mouth closer to the blunt head of his dick. He slips out of Qifrey's heat and eases his foreskin down. Hissing at the way it feels, he spreads Qifrey's spit across his reddened skin like he's teaching Qifrey what to do, showing him where his pretty mouth should go.
A blush kisses Qifrey's wet cheeks. His gaze is watery but unmistakably flirtatious when he looks up and tongues Olruggio's slit, serpentine and wicked. "Do you want this, Olly?"
No weather nor tide could change as fleetly as Qifrey's moods. "I want everything," Olruggio says roughly, a confession tortured out of him.
Muted triumph gleams in Qifrey's gaze. It's familiar. Nostalgic even; he made the same face every time he finally mastered a tricky spell as a novice. "Show me," he says sweetly. "Teach me how."
Ah. He's found a loophole, a way to be touched that dances around the lingering aversion to physical affection that continues to keep him at arm's length, comfort still out of reach despite all they've done, all they've fought for.
"You," Olruggio groans, exasperated and delighted. He doesn't wait for further invitation. Giving himself no time to question the wisdom of it, he slides his fingers into the softness of Qifrey's hair and cups the back of his head gently. He cannot recall the last time he touched Qifrey like this, but he's certain he was looking for an injury, Qifrey's pain a temporary safeguard against relief. "Breathe through your nose. Easy now. Start slow."
Qifrey mouths him and flinches, not with distress but evident surprise, his lips tightening into a smile as he licks hard at what must have been the taste of preseed. He has always seemed to feel and taste and smell and experience with more clarity than those around him. Of course it would extend to this.
"Deeper now, good. Bit by bit. Wet your tongue, love." At the soft endearment, Qifrey's eye widens and his teeth scrape skin. Olruggio's head swims with the rush of affecting Qifrey with his words as surely as he might with a touch. "That's good. Use your hand too. Get it slick. Oh, fuck, Qifrey, I won't last long."
He wants to last forever. He never wants to look away from the sight of Qifrey taking his dick, brow creased with determination, lips flushed and glossy. Despite Olruggio's best efforts to direct the pace, Qifrey soon finds a rhythm of his own, taking Olruggio deeper than he would have prompted him to. He's methodical, his eye drifting closed as if he's slipped into a blissful trance. His deft, tight grip wrings waves of overwhelming pleasure from Olruggio, and his clever tongue maps every sensitive place Olruggio has ever dreamed of him kissing. Every line of his lithe body broadcasts contentment.
Olruggio's desire and longing collide, his body chasing the edge of release while his heart tries to capture the specific texture of Qifrey's hair, the downiness of it, how his head is warm and solid and private and his, Qifrey is his in this moment. And Qifrey is happy.
He chokes on a sound that's meant to be warning, but spills before he can articulate anything. Qifrey's eye opens and he swallows, and then licks and suckles with renewed devotion, as if desperate to consume every drop of Olruggio's pleasure. When he finally pulls off, he's breathing harder than Olruggio realized, but there's no panicked edge to it, only the warm buzz of exertion and accomplishment.
He doesn't let go of Olruggio's over-sensitive dick. Olruggio's fingers twitch against Qifrey's scalp.
"I want to try again," Qifrey says thoughtfully.
Olruggio laughs shakily. "In good time. Release me, you menace. My knees are buckling." He reluctantly slides his fingers out of Qifrey's hair, knowing the window to pet him is closing.
"Oh." Qifrey opens his fingers and wipes his hand down his skirt, his flush deepening and his expression openly bashful. "Of course."
As soon as Qifrey lets go of him, Olruggio crumples to his knees and lets his body fold forward onto Qifrey's lap, not a grasping thing but one that must be grasped. And grasp him Qifrey does, gathering him in his arms as he has done unthinkingly in the past a handful of times Olruggio carefully committed to memory, always certain each would be the last.
"Are you all right?" Qifrey asks, rubbing his bare back briskly, as if Olruggio isn't aflame, as if he needs to be warmed. The question is so painfully sincere that Olruggio laughs helplessly. He has never been more content than in this moment, staring down not a terrible fall but an endless, rolling field. There's no path ahead, only the potential to clear one together.
"Yes," he says.