Ayeong⋆˚꩜｡

—

It was morning. The sun was streaming through the window over the kitchen counter, and Qifrey, shirt collar braided and robe skirt comfortably around his waist, was drinking his morning tea. They hadn’t had that much wine last night (Olly was still able to make it all the way to his room), so Qifrey had made enough tea for Olly as well, figuring he’d be up sometime soon and a little grumpy but not too worse for wear.

“Good morning,” Qifrey said, not looking up, when he heard Olly’s footsteps approaching from the hall.

“’Mornin’,” Olly said through a sleepy yawn, dropping as much as possible from the greeting while still having it be somewhat recognizable. He definitely needed some tea to help him wake up.

“I took the liberty of making a cup for you as well,” Qifrey said, moving the cup of tea closer to the edge of the table. “It’s right he-“ he started, finally looking up, and the word died in his throat instantly.

It’s morning. Sun is streaming through the window, hitting Olly as he grimaced a little in the light in offense, and stretched out one arm to the side as he yawned into his other hand.

And his shirt (if you could even call it a shirt, it was more like a sheer drape with no closures) gaped open over his chest, showing off his chest hair and opening even more as it went down, ending barely above his small waist and bellybutton. Qifrey’s eye followed it down the path of warm sunlit skin until it was met with the black embroidered band of the matching (sheer!) pants, set so low on Olly’s hips that he could see the enticing v-shaped curves of his hip bones.

Qifrey swallowed. It felt like a deafening sound, but Olly was too busy squinting in offense at the sun to notice. The action landed in the pit of Qifrey’s stomach with what felt like a back of bricks as he kept looking and realized that no, the pants weren’t exactly see-through like the shirt, in part because they were pleated at the waistband and layered.

But you didn’t need to flex your imagination much, either.

It’s morning, and Olly came out of his room wearing a certifiable seduction garment that Qifrey didn’t even know existed outside of outlandish fairy tales about princesses and sultans and clever concubines who easily outsmart their captors.

No wonder they did, since no one who saw someone in these clothes would have access to their full logical, rational brain.

Olly looks at the cup on the edge of the table and blinks, then smiles just a little despite his morning grumpiness. “Oh, for me?”

Qifrey swallowed again. Olly must have heard it that time. He made himself look up and away from the waistband of the offending harem pants (how aptly named), and tried to speak. “Y-yes,” he said, then coughed a little too conspicuously. “I figured you might like some.”

Olly nodded, still seemingly unaware of the absolute panic he’s caused in Qifrey’s mind, which could not draw two thoughts together for long enough to express them because there was constantly something new on this outfit to look at. “Thanks.” He took the cup and walked over to the counter, leaning back against it like he does sometimes, sunlight streaming in from the side now and illuminating him.

Even less imagination required. Qifrey’s eye glanced down and his cheeks immediately heated up, and he brought his own tea hurriedly up for a sip to try and hide it.

It was morning.

—

Qifrey was staring.

It took Olruggio a moment to realize why. For a second he worried he had something on the front of his sleep shirt, but then he looked down and remembered, oh, no, there is no front to this sleep shirt.

So Qifrey was just staring at…him.

Olruggio closed his eyes and drank his tea. He remembered, vaguely, choosing this sleep set very intentionally the night before. Between a few glasses of wine, he remembered Qifrey’s neck, long, inviting, uncovered. He’d probably done quite a bit of staring himself, last night.

The fabric this set was made of was smooth, silky soft, and somewhat see-through. He had only worn it a few times, and found it felt luxurious to sleep in and even more comfortable to walk around in as he woke up, but felt too self-conscious to wear it around anyone else who hadn’t already seen him intimately naked.

So why was he so set on wearing it around Qifrey, this morning?

He opened his eyes and caught Qifrey, staring at his chest intently, and then giving the slightest of jumps as a startle when his gaze snapped up to Olruggio’s face. Qifrey’s cheeks were clearly pink.

Ah, so that was the reason. Apparently last-night-Olruggio had decided it was finally time to bring out the big guns.

“New clothes?” Qifrey tried to ask casually, but it came out rather strained, and he obviously tried to cover for it by drinking out of his cup.

Maybe this is the final nail in the coffin, and Olruggio will soon be pulled in for a passionate morning kiss that will finally not only confirm but release this thing they’ve been dancing around for so many years. “Not really, just don’t usually wear ‘em outside of my room.”

“Ah,” Qifrey said, and took another sip. His cheeks got redder. “So you’ve had these for a while, then?”

Olruggio shrugged, taking another drink of his tea. “They were a gift from a patron a few years back.” With the sun streaming down on him like it is, he doubted even the additional pleating at his waistband was enough to fully cover everything under his pants. Qifrey was concentrating on staring at his cup now.

“But you don’t wear them outside of your room,” he repeated, structured like a question but it didn’t seem to ask Olruggio for an answer.

“Not usually,” Olruggio said. “The top doesn’t close, it feels a bit…”

“Indecent?” Qifrey offered, and then hurriedly took a sip again.

Olruggio raised an eyebrow. “Luxurious, was what I was gonna say.”

“Oh.”

—

Luxurious. The real luxury would be being able to touch Olly while he’s wearing that. Running fingertips lightly over that expanse of warm skin, the soft fabric of the top falling over the back of Qifrey’s hand. Which is softer, he wondered, the skin right above Olly’s bellybutton or the clearly expensive silk that was currently just lightly grazing it.

He felt his cheeks get even warmer, somehow, and hurried to pretend to drink a bit of his tea to hide his surely strawberry red face.

“Certainly looks quite elegant,” he muttered into his cup.

Olly moved, and Qifrey decided his safest course of action was to look literally anywhere else. He chose the wall right in front of him as Olly approached the table to fill his cup with more tea. “Yeah, I wasn’t too sure about all this fancy stuff,” he said casually. He reached forward and Qifrey could see, couldn’t avoid seeing, the way the top’s hem fell alluringly, invitingly from his arm. Reminding Qifrey that it wasn’t quite long enough to actually reach the start of the waistband for the pants. “But this feels pretty soft. Looks expensive. Seems a waste to not use it.”

“Seems a waste to just sleep in it,” Qifrey said quietly.

“What?” Olly said, with a bit of a grin. “Can’t hear you if you mutter like that, it’s too early.”

“Yes, it is quite early,” Qifrey repeated, latching onto this reminder. “You should probably finish getting dressed, we have some errands to run before the girls get back from Jujy’s.”

“What, you don’t think I can go out like this?”

—

For a moment, it looked like Qifrey was about to faint.

Then it looked like Qifrey was about to punch him.

Then Qifrey glanced down at his lips and Olruggio thought for sure he was about to kiss him.

Olruggio couldn’t help but make the joke. He was already here, was already wearing the outfit, knew that it was practically (technically, not actually) see-through in all the ways that mattered. And seeing Qifrey’s face go through the 5 stages of grief as he struggled with how to react to this obvious baiting was part of the fun.

If only he knew how easy Olruggio would be to bargain with. He wouldn’t even have to try. Olruggio would give him anything he asked. Accept anything he gave.

But the bargaining ended and there was a note of sadness in his eye as he blinked and shook his head slightly.

“You’re joking,” he said accusingly.

Olruggio laughed, because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “’Course I am.”

Equilibrium, again. The scales were thrown off, just for a moment, but they’re back in their comfortable tug of war where neither of them will take that first leap of faith, leave themselves exposed, give themselves to the painful option of possibly being rejected, outright.

The uncertainty was better. Olruggio told himself that, had to believe that.

“Imagine me leavin’ the house in this!”

“You’d get mobbed,” Qifrey said with a nod, his blush still present.

Was it truly uncertainty, now? Couldn’t he jump, and trust that Qifrey would catch him in this, too? He saw the way Qifrey looked at him. He knew when he was wanted.

So why wasn’t Qifrey reaching out, still?

“Doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” Olruggio agreed. Qifrey sipped his tea.

“Like I said, indecent.”

Olruggio waited another second. It felt like a full minute. It felt like ten minutes, holding his breath and waiting for something else. Something more.

When nothing came, he set his empty teacup down and shrugged in a way he hoped came off as casual.

“I won’t wear it out of the room again, if it bothers you that much.”

“It doesn’t - that’s not -“ Qifrey started, and then sighed. “Wear whatever you like, Olly, this is your house too.” He looked over now, and his eye was back to normal, that gentle veneer of kind smiles covering a well of unbearable sadness that Olruggio had spent years trying to chip away at. “It suits you very well,” he said softly with a level of honest sincerity that was rare.

Olruggio blushed, then waved the compliment away hurriedly. “Yeah, well, give me a few minutes and I’ll put on a real shirt.”

—

Qifrey watched Olly leave in a hurry, scared off by a genuine compliment like he usually was.

Well, Qifrey watched Olly’s ass in those pants, confident Olly wasn’t about to turn around and see that Qifrey’s face by now was positively crimson.

“Right,” he said to himself once Olly had disappeared from view. “Right, well. Right.” He swayed in place a little, and then reached for Olly’s cup and brought both cups and the teapot over to the sink.

“Right,” he said to himself again, washing everything vigorously and trying very hard to think of anything else.

Maybe he needed to go jump in a big, cold lake. Could he do that and then get back before Olly changed? Probably not.

He settled for splashing some cold water on his face, to maybe help get his blushing under control. He wiped his face off with a towel, ran a hand distractedly through his hair, and gripped the side of the counter until his knuckles turned white.

“Right,” he said again, and forced himself to turn around and continue with his morning.

—

It’s a few years before Qifrey can actually let himself take the leap of faith and confess. Can reach out and touch Olly, can caress his face as he whispers the many “I love you”s he’d stored up. Before they can lie in Qifrey’s bed together freely.

“Do you still have that sleep set?” Qifrey asked, a little timid in Olly’s arms.

Olly looked over and kissed his forehead. “The indecent one?”

“The frankly obscenely suggestive one, yes.”

Olly chuckled, and Qifrey could feel the laughter through his chest. He had his head resting on Olly, one hand protectively over Olly’s heart. “Yeah, I have it. Do you want me to wear it?”

Qifrey turned his face up to look at Olly. “Desperately,” he confessed, and kissed him.

—

It’s a good outfit, Olruggio knew.

Definitely wasted just as pajamas.

And he was certainly not sleeping in it now.

Took a few extra years, but he finally got his revenge for that stupid shirt collar.