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Olruggio cannot see where the tree ends and Qifrey begins.
It uses him. Parasite, he thinks, tracking where flesh becomes wood. It’s a twist, a mold, Qifrey's skin becomes bark as if transmuted, infected, repurposed. It bulges in thick cords that harden and bleach, dyed silver by the elbow and forearms rent open and apart. They crane over his head, up and out and forced to bear the leaves that crawl from their endings.
The branches in his eye socket are demure in comparison, almost shy. They sway in the lakeshore breeze, rustling so soft that they're drowned out by the creaking of roots that stretch through the earth at Olruggio’s feet.
He scrabbles away as one brushes the toe of his shoe. It isn’t Qifrey. They aren’t his roots. If they were, Olruggio would not be afraid.
When he looks up, Qifrey hangs in the space between the roots and the branches, body turned to gallows. His robes are torn where the trunk first broke from his spine. It must be painful, Olruggio thinks. It must be the worst kind of death.
His voice is steady, though, and so soft Olruggio nearly misses his words. “I’d rather let this tree take me,” he is saying, “than have to endure hurting you.”
“Ah,” Olruggio breathes. His own heart is choking him, wedged in his throat. “That’s—”
Stupid, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t want that. That’s the worst thing in the world, having to live while Qifrey dies.
He thinks selfish next, and then easy. Qifrey looks at peace. He’s given up, accepted death. A sad, teary smile rests on his face, and no remorse.
Olruggio has been here before. This will be the second time he has sat and watched as people die. And this time —
His breath catches. The world smears into nothing but silver and white and Olruggio himself, trapped in his skin with a stomach that twists so painfully he thinks he may vomit out his own heart.
Then it leaves him. Peace so true and final he may have stolen it directly from Qifrey's chest. It turns out that calling him stupid and selfish was unfair. Olruggio can be just as cruel.
He stands, then he sways. A step forward goes awry, feet tripping over branches, and Olruggio falls against Qifrey and his tree. The bark is smooth and cool beneath his palms, as pale as Qifrey’s gaze. This close, he can see that his friend is fading. He hadn't so much as twitched from the impact.
“Qifrey!” He calls. Again, louder, panicked, “Qifrey!”
The eye flickers. When Qifrey blinks, lethargic, a shade of blue darkens across the iris.
“Look at me,” Olruggio says. He puts a hand to Qifrey’s cheek. The eye shudders and drags, but it finds his gaze. Olruggio smiles, but his mouth is trembling. “This is important,” he stresses. “I think I know how to save you, Qifrey. I just need to know if you can see me.”
Another slow and sluggish blink, and then a motion so small it could barely be called a nod. Barely was enough. “I can,” Qifrey murmurs. “For now.”
“Good.” Olruggio’s voice cracks. He keeps his smile, even as his eyes sting. “Keep looking at me. Don’t turn away for even a second. I think I know how to take this peace from you for a long, long time.”
Qifrey doesn’t believe him. People say that Qifrey is hard to read, but it is only because they don’t know what to look for. There’s pity in his gaze, still resigned to his fate. He thinks that Olruggio is making a losing bet, but still he indulges him. His eye stays clear and steady.
Qifrey has been indulging him for a long time now. He's said that Olruggio could find better friends, but there is no one else who bends to his whims so easily. Once, precisely once, Olruggio forgot their plans. Qifrey had waited for him for hours outside the Great Hall until Olruggio came sprinting through a Windowway at 2 in the morning, still in pajamas and breathless and already shouting "Why didn't you leave?"
"You asked me to wait for you," Qifrey had said, like that was all that mattered, like he had ever been in a habit of doing what anyone asked of him. Was that really all it would take --- If Olruggio wanted Qifrey all to himself, for all of his life, did he just have to ask?
He'd found his answer today.
Olruggio says, “Qifrey,” because he is running out of chances. He says, “You told me once. You’re a weirdo and you wouldn't say it again no matter how many times I asked, but I never forgot about it. You told me that the Brimhats had taken your memory.”
He pronounces Brimhats loud and clear, pushes his thumb into Quifrey’s cheek and bites it with the nail . It’s the first true spark of interest Quifrey has shown — Olruggio can coax that into a burn.
“As much as I asked you about it, I was surprised and relieved that you never turned it back on me.” His smile, so large with the effort of existing, makes him squint, cages Qifrey in the dark of his lashes. “Qifrey, you’re my best friend, but you’re a little self-centered you know? All that time you assumed I just wanted to know more about you.”
“You…” Qifrey leans forward the scant few inches he can. “Then, why…? Have you met them, too?”
There’s a new intensity in his eye. Maybe this would be enough, but Olruggio needs more than a maybe. If he speaks, though, his smile will break, so Olruggio only nods. He tucks his whole hand against Qifrey's face and tries to memorize its shape.
Qifrey has grown into a beautiful young man. Even as Olruggio pruned his affection, learned not to touch or to stare or to reach for more than Qifrey ever wanted to give, he couldn’t stop seeing that. It was a kindness that Qifrey never let him hope.
He has nothing to lose, now. He can let go of the act. His lips press once to Quifrey’s cheek, then he steps away from the roots.
“Look at me,” he says again, snapping his fingers. He doesn’t have to see Qifrey’s expression this way, demanding his focus. “You’ve always had a kind of anger. You wanted to go out into the world so you could find the Brimhats and take your revenge, didn’t you? But you let that go at some point.”
Qifrey starts to speak, but hushes as Olruggio lifts a finger.
“It’s okay,” Olruggio says. “I’m going to give you your first lead. You’re looking at me?”
He doesn’t need to ask, and Qifrey doesn’t need to answer. There’s nothing in the world that could make him look away.
Olruggio touches his fingers to the base of his pointed cap. He bows, and then he pulls the smoke free.
It blooms in a swirling ring. This smoke is black, devouring light. At its edge, it spills, dripping between shards of amber like long tassels to hide his face. He's never had a use for it until now.
He’s thrown to the ground before he ever dares to raise his head.
The tree is extinguished. Qifrey kneels atop him, furious and beautiful and whole, fingers twisting in the front of Olruggio’s cloak as he bares his teeth through the thin air between them.
“This isn’t real,” Qifrey breathes. His lips peel. “You’re lying Olly.”
“Not anymore,” Olruggio promises. He never wants to look away. There is so much life in Qifrey’s wide, blue eye.
“You’re lying!” It’s a scream. It echoes on the lake to pierce his ears twice over. Qifrey shakes him, hoists him up to slam his back into the dirt a second time. “You’re lying! I’d rather die, Olly, so tell me the truth!”
It had worked. Qifrey will never know peace. He could weep with relief.
“I met the Brimhats in Ghodrey,” Olruggio confesses, breathless. “After the attack. They showed me how to save the survivors. Too large for cautery, but you could pause their bleeding in time. You could move them to a hospital in the blink of an eye. They counted the number that died from the bloodloss, not from the beast. They told me how many more people I could have saved if I had known what we call forbidden magic.”
“Shut up,” Qifrey whispered. “Stop smiling.”
“I have a seal burned into my back,” Olruggio beams. “I use illusions that trick the mind. Even if you touch it, you can’t feel it. No one talks about how easy it is to hide forbidden magic once you —”
Qifrey’s hands close around his throat. “I said stop!”
Instinct has Olruggio grasping at Qifrey’s wrists. His fingers tighten, squeezing an artery. Static erupts across his face. The blood can't get to his brain.
He can’t stop himself from fighting. He doesn’t want to die, but this isn’t the worst way to go. If Qifrey lives, at least he’ll have been useful.
Qifrey’s voice breaks through the muffle in his ear. Ragged, like he’s the one with hands around his neck, Quifrey seethes. “You took everything from me!” he rages. “My eye. My mind. My only fucking friend!”
Then he gasps. His body shudders, arching him lower over Olruggio’s body.
“I really have nothing,” he sobs. They are almost nose-to-nose, so Olruggio can see the tears streaming from his eye. They fall to his cheek below, as if they were his own. “I never had anything.”
No.
This isn’t right.
A new dread wells in Olruggio’s throat. He jerks, so abrupt that Qifrey couldn’t brace. He tumbles and Olruggio flips to his knees, gasping for breath.
So he can’t die. Qifrey will lay here in the dirt until he accepts his end and let the tree feed on them both.
He shoves up to his feet. Black spots dance in his vision, nausea wrenching in his core, but he stays upright. He blinks until he can see Qifrey, still on his back, still staring up at Olruggio with his glazed and hopeless eye.
“I’m the only lead you’ve got,” Olruggio reminds him. He takes his hat by the brim, lifting it to show his face. “Chase me, Qifrey.”
He waits until the tinder catches. In fury, the lifeline. Olruggio pulls a slip from his quire, a seal hidden among seals. He touches it to his chest, catching ink on his finger.
One last second to drink him in: Qifrey, alive, reborn with new purpose. His best friend. His heart.
Olruggio touches his sap-blackened finger to the page, and he flees.