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Olruggio’s sensitivities, as Qifrey has diligently catalogued over their years in domestic coexistence, are always waxing as the seasons change. Never really waning, no, just adjusting themselves as necessary to whatever flora and fauna seem to prove in abundance with the time and the weather. Each season bears its own fruits that itch at the back of his throat; the warm summertime prickle of mountain apple trees in full bloom, the winter spice of thornbark and pine, all the bright dust of fall in between. 

Spring runs him the most ragged, though, and leaves him rheumy-eyed and runny nosed, dripping into all of his sleeves and all of Qifrey’s handkerchiefs. It’s been some time, years now, but he still hasn’t quite acclimated to the open air of Naakiwan Downs; something about his northern sensibilities in perpetual disagreement with the sheer green of it all. It never helps matters that he has to - wants to, needs to - spend so much time outdoors, seeing to their duties in the neighboring villages as well as those in the garden that he longs to tend, precious time in the sun after so many dreary winter days holed up in his workshop, reminded too much of things he thought he’d long left behind in Ghodrey. Olly learns quickly how to cope: allergy tinctures from Kalhn to stave off the worst of it, long hot baths and cold wet rags for the attacks that batter their way through his first line defenses. Let the rest clear itself out, best he can.

Qifrey learns to cope in other ways. The kitchen window looks long over the plot of their land that holds the garden. Best view in the house on a day like today, where Olruggio has burdened himself with the task of clearing out the weeded undergrowth that’s sprung up anew in the wake of last week’s rainstorms. Qifrey can watch as long as he pleases under the helpful guise of washing dishes, forgoing his careful optimizations of the task to do it all by hand; drying them off very carefully, stacking plates and putting bowls away on the shelves, one by one by one. Perhaps he’ll set about lunch when the washing up is taken care of. So long as his station remains in front of the window for the duration of Olly’s performance. 

He’s been at it for something like a clock mark and a half now, which is always when his overall efficiency at the matter at hand tends to take a steep nosedive, and always when Qifrey opts to dial in. Spring is upon us, it seems, he muses, stilling before the sink as his friend is bent over with a sneeze that for all its soundlessness looks incredibly powerful. A grand release of the floodgates. Olly is not wearing a shirt- the sun ripples over the corded muscles of his back as he pitches to the side of the plant he’s weeding to sneeze again, a dazzling plume escaping into the air beside him. Qifrey can see the ghost of it dance in the midmorning light, even from the distance, and it sends a tight shiver down his spine. Silent, beautiful. He can’t hear a thing, but the pure obscenity of the visual display is enough to sear itself into a meaty part of his brain. Olly will be plenty loud enough when he makes his way inside, Qifrey knows. He taps open the vapor bubble and water skitters over the dishes sitting in the sink. 

Olly’s chest heaves as he stands up straight and raises a forearm to scrub ruthlessly at his nose, no doubt sending a fresh ripple of irritation through his sinuses as the gesture itself sheds a fine layer of dirt that evidently clung to him moments before. Olruggio turns, offering a full view of his side profile. The prominent downward slope of his nose, its uptick of irritation as he sniffles aggressively, the quick pulse of his abdomen as he inhales a hitching breath. He’s going to sneeze again, Qifrey can tell. It never takes long for the reaction to reach its fever pitch, and once it does there’s little else Olly can do but ride it out. Little else Qifrey can do but watch. A bug drawn to flame, a man staring straight into the sun. 

Qifrey has borne witness to these displays many times. As many times as he’s tried and failed to persuade Olly into letting him handle the garden work to avoid his body’s predictable allergic response, as many times as he’s finished himself to the sound of an unrelenting sneezing fit echoing through the halls of the atelier as Olruggio soaks it off in the bath. As many times as he’s coaxed Olly to sleep on the couch, cool cloth pressed to his itchy eyes, as many times as he’s made batches of cold millflower tea to clear his head the next morning. Clockwork. It’s something Qifrey has always been able to count on. The tedium of it all so expected, and yet so ever precious. The intimate sensuality of it all a knife that never seems to sharpen and an ache that never seems to dull. A wide, roiling expanse. Qifrey absentmindedly presses himself up against the edge of the countertop as a growing need to displace the heat rises in his stomach. 

Olruggio is crouched down now, elbows resting on his knees. He reaches into the hidden pockets beneath his skirt, presumably in search of a handkerchief, but he comes up with nothing. Desperation oft forces a man to resort to idiocy, and such is the case when Olruggio grabs the hem of his skirt and brings it to his face, dissolving into a fit that wracks him from the bottom up and throws his balance off-kilter. His palm is splayed wildly, desperately clutching the linen to his face as he rocks forward, shifting the mulch beneath his feet. The blunted echo of his punctuating groan makes its way up the hill, and Qifrey plunges his hands into the scalding, soapy water, desperate for the wet to keep the ugly thing twisting up his stomach at bay. It’s obvious to Qifrey that the makeshift handkerchief is causing him more harm than good, but Olly sets about abusing it further regardless. He’s blowing his nose into the black drape, he’s kneading aggressively at his eyes through the fabric, transferring all the delicate irritants it’s been collecting from his traipse through the garden in a proper faceful. 

Helpless. Qifrey finds himself incredibly endeared by the behavior, that Olruggio seems to treat every allergic reaction he has as the first, none the wiser to the immutable causes of his suffering. Rubbing his eyes after petting the local livestock and wondering why they’ve begun to itch, starting a fire and complaining about his nose having the nerve to run. He couldn’t be more perfect if he tried. Qifrey scrubs at a dish that’s long since been clean as Olruggio gears up to finish his job in the garden. 

It might be Qifrey’s favorite part of the whole affair, the part where he pretends like he’s still fit to finish the job, sneezing and sniffling and snorting and running the back of his hand underneath his nose all the while. He gathers what he’s cleared so far, returns the tools he’d used to their proper places, stumbling here and there with the effort of a particularly strong release. He’s carrying an armful of dead brush to their kindling stockpile when his head ducks rapidly once, twice, thrice. Four times. Qifrey doesn’t need to see his face to know that they’ve already begun to come much quicker than he can handle. Stars above, Olly. That’s the washing up done. 

Qifrey busies himself with lunch prep now, slicing chrysanthonions and fuzzbergines and minding his fingers best he can as his gaze drifts back out the window. Olly is rounding on the house now, his work as done as it is going to get today, and he cradles a basketful of leafy greens carefully in front of him as he sways with the force of another sneeze. Qifrey could hear that one. It sounded incredibly damp. His grip on the knife slips and his breath catches in his throat as he comes dangerously close to slicing his thumb. He takes a deep breath in a valiant effort to steady himself, but the stars have other plans. 

The door to the atelier opens, then slams shut, followed by an impossibly loud, “hhUH’DJZZSHHIuuuh!” in all its unmuffled glory. 

“Bless you!” Qifrey calls to him down the hallway, now that Olruggio floats somewhere within earshot. He responds with another sneeze, the wet reverberation sounding closer this time as Olly strides into the kitchen in a sweaty huff. He hasn’t bothered to cover himself up, so Qifrey sees the fine sheen of dirt and moisture he’s coated with up close as he sets down the basket he’s holding in a flurry of green.  After what he witnessed, he can only imagine that there’s much more covering him than sweat, and the thought makes his mouth dry. Makes him ache to touch him more. 

“Merrypatch,” he says, gesturing briskly to the table where the basket now sits. His voice is so pitifully stuffed up that Qifrey thinks it a wonder he got the word out at all, even if it sounded something more like berrypadge.

He doesn’t have a chance to thank him before Olly swivels away from him to sneeze into two hastily cupped hands. “eIId’SHHIUUhh! E’ISHhhh! iHDSshhuHH!” They come fast and spraying and Qifrey steels his core to keep his knees from buckling.

“Oh, bless you, Olly,” he tuts, and then there’s a wicked twinge in his heart, in the part that wishes he didn’t relish the beauty of his suffering as much as he does, as Olruggio lowers his hands with an exhausted sigh and a muggy sniff. 

“M’fucked,” is all he says, though Qifrey gathered that much about half a clock mark ago. 

“Have a bath? I’ll have lunch ready by the time you’re done.” He tucks a handkerchief into Olly’s hand and he thinks of pressing a kiss to the corner of one red, watery eye, then the other, then somewhere in between. He doesn’t, of course. 

“Righ’, thai-ahem!- thank y’Qifrey,” he clears his throat over the break in his voice and he’s off up the stairs before Qifrey can imagine where else he’d like to kiss him. The smell of his sweat and the rich earthen musk of the garden outside still seems to eclipse the room even after Olly is gone. He can hear him just as well, too, as he sniffles and groans up the stairwell, too far gone to keep any of the allergic misery at bay.

He was still grumbling as he went back to his work, a particularly fiddly contraption he was putting together with the Silver Eve procession in mind. He had already been growing tired before the interruption by Coco, having gotten precious little sleep over the past few days while he'd been working abroad and traveling, but now he found himself distracted too. His nose continued to tickle, no matter how much he swiped at it with the heel of his hand or the knob of his wrist, and after a few minutes of it he found himself teetering on the edge of a sneeze.

It was a relief when it finally crossed that invisible line, and he pushed back from his desk to catch the sneeze in the crook of his elbow. "hh'USHhoo!"

He froze there for a moment, waiting to see if a second was coming. When the sensation began to fade, he resurfaced, sniffling and blinking watering eyes.

If it had just been the single sneeze, he wouldn't have thought much of it, but several of them came upon him in the same manner over the next few hours, which was unusual enough outside of hayfever season that it gave him pause.

Maybe he was getting a cold. He'd just go to bed early (-er than usual) and hope he could sleep it off.

When the morning came and he felt fine again, he assumed that was what had happened. He'd been lucky, for once. Maybe he should start doing this (sleeping) more often.

He even went down to have a late breakfast with Qifrey and the girls, who he could hear chattering in the main room as he made his way over from his tower. Qifrey was working with Coco and Tetia on peeling some vegetables for a stew that Agott was poring over on the stove, while Richeh set about measuring out spices. The brushbuddy poked its head up from Richeh's shoulder when Olruggio entered the room and gave a cheerful "Pwee!~" in greeting, as if it was still appreciative of him drying it off the night before.

"Olly!" Qifrey said cheerfully. "Fancy seeing you up and about before noon."

"Yeah, yeah." Olruggio went over to dish up some of the sliced fruits left on the counter from the girls' breakfasts. "Got things to do, ya know."

The rest of the morning passed in quiet contentment, with the girls studying in their own workspaces and Qifrey puttering around collecting and setting herbs to dry in the kitchen. After Olruggio finished his breakfast, he decided to also bring his in-progress contraption down to the main room. He generally preferred to do his work in solitude, but Qifrey wasn't bothersome, and in fact Olruggio found that he did tend to get more work done when he was around. Something about the quiet familiarity of occupying the same space as Qifrey put him in the proper creative mindset.

However, after a few hours of work, he returned to the main room from a break to find that the brushbuddy had curled up on his draft signs, drawn no doubt to the drying conjuring ink. It was definitely cute, Olruggio thought as he approached the furry white creature curled into a cozy spiral, but it was still in the way.

"Go on now, get," he said gently, reaching out to nudge the brushbuddy with the back of his hand when it opened a sluggish eye. "Go find one of the girls."

It uncurled with a grumbly squeak and hopped from the table, then rippled across the floor towards Tetia and Richeh's rooms, where it knew it would be more welcome. Olruggio brushed some stray fur from his papers and got back to work.

Unfortunately his productivity was doomed to stay fractured, because a few minutes later, his nose began to itch again. It started as a tingle in the very tip, but as he sniffled and scrubbed at his nose with his finger with little luck, the tickle grew and spread until his sinuses were buzzing with it.

Finally, his nose had had enough, and he leaned away from his work to sneeze heavily towards his shoulder, elbow half-raised in anticipation. "hrUSHHhoo!"

But this one required a follow-up, he realized quickly, and he snapped towards his shoulder once more. "USHHieu!"

"Bless you!" Qifrey called from the kitchen.

Olruggio ignored him; Qifrey always seemed to find great pleasure in blessing him when he sneezed, but he knew better than to expect a response from Olruggio in return. But, frustratingly, it wasn't more than five minutes later when he had to sneeze again. He squeezed his eyes shut and brought his elbow to his face again expectantly.

"USHieu!"

"Bless you!"

"hih? — hh'USHieuhh!"

"…Bless you. Are you all right, Olly?"

Olruggio looked up, sniffling wetly, to see Qifrey poking his head around the doorjamb from the kitchen, a half-stripped bundle of sage in his hands.

"I feel fine," Olruggio protested, though a third sneeze had begun to creep up from the back of his thickening sinuses, and he knew he was going to require a handkerchief soon. "Just this blasted sneezing."

"Perhaps you're catching cold?" Qifrey offered with no absence of concern. "You have been traveling a lot lately and wearing yourself down."

"And have another trip coming up this evening," Olruggio said with an irritated cough. His throat did feel a bit off too, though it was more itchy than sore. It felt almost like the way he reacted to grass pollen, though it was the wrong season for it. He wasn't sure quite what was going on.

"I'm sure they'll understand if you can't make it," Qifrey said, though they both knew that wasn't necessarily true. Some of Olruggio's clients could be quite demanding.

Olruggio shrugged. "I'll be all right, no need to worry about me."

The symptoms persisted throughout the early afternoon, until he gave up on working and retreated to his tower to bathe. The steam and humid air helped clear the congestion that had begun to set in, and after he emerged and began to dress for his trip, he found he felt almost normal again.

A bit odd, but he wasn't going to complain about it.

And in a way that continued to be odd, his symptoms completely dissipated over the next few days while he worked with some townspeople in a village to the west. Perhaps it had just been a small cold and he'd gotten over it, he thought, mildly perplexed.

But then, to his consternation, they began again as soon as he returned to the atelier. He was chatting with the girls and Qifrey in the kitchen when the brushbuddy scaled him until it could perch happily on his shoulder, fluffed up and preening as it welcomed him home.

The urge to sneeze swept upon him like a gust of wind, and he took a hurried step back from Qifrey and leaned away for an itchy, irritated sneeze into his elbow. "hrr'USHoo!"

The brushbuddy squealed and clung more tightly to his shoulder with its little black feet, but a second, harsher sneeze dislodged it and sent it skittering across the floor to Coco, who scooped it into her arms, wide-eyed.

"Bless you!" She said, echoed by Agott and Tetia. Qifrey, oddly enough, said nothing at first. It wasn't until Olruggio had found a handkerchief to blow his suddenly running nose that he spoke up.

"Have you considered that you might be allergic to the brushbuddy, Olruggio?" He asked mildly. Tetia looked dismayed, and Coco looked down at the fluffy creature in her arms. "You said you weren't sneezing at all while you were away, and it started back up as soon as you came home."

Olruggio sniffled wetly. "It has been years since I've been around them," he admitted. "And I can't say I've ever lived with one before. It's possible."

"This is horrible!" Tetia cried. "Poor Master Olly!"

"Do we need to…get rid of it?" Coco asked in a tiny voice, her eyes wide as the brushbuddy tried to curl into the smallest ball possible, keening quietly.

"I can manage," Olruggio began to say at the same time as Qifrey said, "There is a medicine that should help with it. It's what you already take in the summer, for the grass pollen."

Ah yes. It tasted foul unless it was in the form of a tea heavily sweetened with honey, and Olruggio was rubbish at remembering to take it, but maybe…

He shrugged. "I can do that. There's no need to get rid of the creature."

"We can make sure to sweep up more often," Agott said quickly. Olruggio was briefly charmed; he hadn't thought that the girl had cared much for the brushbuddy. Perhaps she was speaking more out of concern for her friends than out of her own love for the beast. "We'll make sure the main rooms stay clear of fur."

The brushbuddy had wriggled up onto Coco's shoulder, where it was half-hidden in her hair, but when Olruggio locked eyes with it, it gave a soft "pweeee" that sounded almost apologetic. He rubbed the back of his neck, abashed.

"It'll be fine, girls," he said, and sniffled.

And it was, overall. Taking the tonic, he would occasionally get sniffly or sneeze a few times if the brushbuddy made its way into his tower — apologetic or not, it did seem to be particularly fond of his writing materials, and once or twice his bed — but the girls held up their end of the deal, and they all benefitted from having a stricter cleaning schedule in the atelier.

"They would have been quite sad, if they'd had to get rid of the brushbuddy," Qifrey said one day to Olruggio as they were washing up. Olruggio had sneezed as soon as he'd entered the kitchen — the cooking spices in the air, as like as not — and Qifrey had blessed him merrily as usual. "Thank you."

"And break their hearts?" Olruggio scoffed. "Please. I didn't want apprentices of my own, but that doesn't mean I'm a monster."

if he is caught he'll get a little red and excuse himself

snzing in general tends to aggravate his headaches but stifling makes it worse.. but he'd rather die than let people see him snz naturally i think

tends to stifle even when hes alone out of habit, but sometimes they sneak past him. natural sneeze is kind of, like sharp and itchy. "hH'tsch - 'tSCh!"

his sneeze is so soft and unassuming he really doesn't need to hold it in at all

usually blesses others. esp olruggio because he thinks its cute. also makes comments on him like My goodness i've been hearing you all morning ^_^"....

i don't think hes very prone to illness aside from headaches, but i think that he's very good at working through it when he is + usually hides it

hmm.... dander allergy. very mild but he can't put the brushbuddy too close to his face

also very sensitive physically, esp when about to / having a bad headache. sometimes the feeling of his glasses on his nose set him off

Olruggio

natural snz!!! doesn't really get the point of stifling i think and also he is terrible at it

tries to stifle sometimes with clients to seem formal and it just ends up soo much more desperate at the end

harsh + vocal but not overly so. very tired sounding especiallyyy when its spring and hes been doing it all day. kind of like a. "hH - 'rRSHh'uhh!"

sorry im a little rusty.. he gets very drawn out fits that drive him crazy because hes constantly stopping his work to snz and he cant focus

sneezes either into his elbow or shoulder. usually does the thing where he'll like take a full step back to sneeze. if hes alone he still does it out of habit ^_^ cute..

apologizes if he startles qif or the girls but generally doesn't acknowledge it. gets embarrassed when anybody says anything

awful awful pollen allergy. especially to tree pollen. walk with me. tends to hide away during the spring because hes a bit embarrassed so qif will be like oh don't mind him hes just a bit sensitive ^_^ and get smacked upside the head

his allergy sneezes are a bit more frequent and itchy than his general ones, but still spaced out and typically singles. a double or more is rare and a full on fit would leave him pantinggg..

paws at his noise alottt so its very red. gets those wrinkle lines along the bridge.