Chapter Text
Torbek doesn’t love bar hopping. Thinks he might have actually developed a hatred for it.
While not a new revelation, it has sharpened considerably since he’d started dating Frost. Once upon a time, when Torbek had felt alone even in a crowded room, tavern crawls had at least offered some level of comfort, a distraction: noise loud enough to drown both his own thoughts and the ever annoying thoughts of The Other, enough bodies moving that no one paid him any mind, enough chaos to keep his hands busy and his mind far away. The comfort in that had once been all he had.
Now, even the idea of it seemed tedious. After all, what was the purpose of spending time in a bar wasting away when he could spend that time staring longingly at the only person to have spared him kindness? The first to have taught him love? Why spend his time anywhere that Frost wasn't?
Alcohol in itself was a different problem. Torbek’s relationship with drinking is… tense. Strained and sour. He knows too well how easily one cup becomes three, how quickly warmth curdles into something meaner, duller, hungrier. He has been trying, with mixed grace and varying success, to keep distance between himself and that old hunger. Choosing an evening full of temptation and sticky floors feels less like leisure and more like volunteering to be haunted.
So, in all truth, when Mr.Kremy suggests a ‘night out on the town’, Torbek feels, well, a bit uncomfortable. He… doesn't want to do that.
“So!” Mr. Kremy announces, clapping his hands together hard enough to startle dust from the rafters, the other inn goers turning to look in minor annoyance at his volume. “We’re doin’ it proper tonight. Drinks, music, bad decisions, possibly theft if the mood takes us. I’d decided that maybe that's what we've been needing after all this stress.” Which, of course, just means that Mr.Kremy has particular plans for their resident genasi, and wanted an excuse to be all over him in public.
“Thought theft was every mood fer us,” Gricko mutters, petting Hootsie head under the table.
“It is when you do it,” Gideon says with a snort. “You’ve got no range.”
“I’ve got depth.”
“You’ve got fleas.”
Torbek is not listening anymore.
His excuse is already forming in real time, half-built and wobbly, like most things he says under pressure. Tired is good. Simple. Hard to argue with. Unless they ask why he is tired, in which case he has nothing. Existing, perhaps. Being large. Thinking too much. Back pain. Anything to get him out of this excursion.
Mr. Kremy points across the room with theatrical accusation. “Torbek, you’ve got body guard duty’. Need someone scary-lookin’ in case Gideon starts flirtin’ with married folk again.”
“How was I supposed ta know he was married?!”
“He had three wives with him.”
“They could’ve been cousins.”
“They were kissin’ him, Gid’.”
“Families are close in some places!”
“Torbek is very tiiiiiired,” Torbek blurts, cutting them off, louder than intended.
The room pauses.
Several heads turn toward him. Gideon squints suspiciously. Gricko raises one brow. Hootsie, from under a chair, chirrups in what feels like disbelief.
Mr. Kremy folds his arms. “Tired.”
“Yes,” Torbek says, committing now with the bravery of a man stepping onto cracking ice. “Very tired. Extremely. Perhaps the most tired Torbek has eeeeeeever beeeeen.” He's lying, of course, but he knows it would become true if he decided to go.
Frost snickers under his breath from the other side of the table.
“That so?” Gideon asks. “You were wrestlin’ a tree stump ten minutes ago.”
“Exhaaaaausting,” Torbek says immediately. “The tree was strooooong.”
Gricko snorts so hard he nearly chokes.
Mr. Kremy studies him, eyes narrowed with the kind of delight that means he already knows something and intends to be unbearable about it. “Right. Shame. Would’ve loved to see you out there.” A lie, a mean one even. Torbek doesn’t call him out on it.
Torbek nods solemnly. “Torbek will suffer privately instead.”
A laugh breaks around the room. Torbek risks a glance sideways before he can stop himself.
Frost has not said a word. He stands near the wall, composed as ever, face carefully arranged into neutrality so practiced it fools almost everyone. Almost.
But Torbek catches it anyway. The tiny drop in his shoulders. The loosening at the jaw. The faintest flick of his ears forward before they settle again. Relief, quick and quiet, crossing Frost’s face like sunlight through leaves before it is gone.
Something warm blooms in Torbek’s chest so suddenly it nearly topples him.
Frost tilts his head, just slightly. “I-I have no interest in shouting over drunk strangers all evening. I am afraid I will be staying behind as well.”
Staying behind, of course, is not unusual for the tabaxi. Frost does it often enough that no one remarks on it anymore. Taverns are loud, hot, crowded things full of too many voices and not enough exits. Frost has always preferred peace to headache. Normally, the krew would accept his refusal with a shrug and keep moving.
Normally.
Mr. Kremy’s eyes slide from Frost to Torbek, then back again. “Right,” he says slowly. “And tonight of all nights.”
“It is the same reason as any other night,” Frost replies crisply. “I dislike taverns. I dislike people.”
“That part checks out,” Gideon admits. “You look annoyed in one before we even get through the door.”
“I am annoyed now.”
Gricko barks a laugh. “Fair.” He jerks a thumb toward Torbek. “But big fella suddenly bein’ too tired at the same time? Bit funny, innit?”
“It is not funny,” Torbek says defensively. “Torbek is exhausted. Near death, maybe.”
Frost glances at him then, just for a second. There is a spark in his eyes, quick and bright, the kind that means he is trying not to laugh. Torbek nearly swoons where he stands.
Mr. Kremy folds his arms. “So. Frost always stays behind. Torbek suddenly wants to stay behind. Entirely unrelated events.”
“Yes,” Frost says immediately, lips flat.
“Yes,” Torbek says a beat later.
The timing condemns them both.
Gideon cackles loud enough to startle Hootsie under the table. Gricko has to brace himself against a chair. Even Mr. Kremy looks winded with delight.
Frost’s ears flatten. “You are all unbearable.”
“And yet,” Gideon says, wiping tears from his eyes. Torbek kind of wants to punch him.
Mr. Kremy gestures grandly toward the door. “Come on gentlemen. Leave these two to their perfectly ordinary, entirely separate evenings indoors.”
Torbek feels his face heat instantly.
Frost, somehow more rigid than before, says, “Kindly leave.”
The door to the inn shuts behind them with a solid thud that, visibly, causes tension to seep out of the other guests like smoke from a furnace. Their laughter and jesting echoes outside the building, mingling with the chaos from the people outside, that thins the further they get down the street. What remains is a privacy that is rare to the two of them, even in a crowded room.
Real privacy. No one negging them, no one shouting from another corner, no Gideon asking invasive questions, no Gricko being Gricko. Just the inn lobby, low candlelight, and Frost sat only a couple of seats away.
Torbek sits exactly where he is for a long moment, feeling more like furniture than a person, as the chatter from other guests resumes. Across from him, Frost swirls a glass, looking pointedly at the grain direction of the table. Counting, seemingly. If Torbek were anyone else, he wouldn’t have noticed, but as Frosts confidant, Torbek had grown very skilled at noticing the small tells of a person who prides himself on having none.
“Torbek thinks we maybe lied baaaadly…” He says as he stands from the table.
Frost follows after a moment, and stills with his hand on the handrail. His shoulders twitch once with what Torbek has learned was barely restrained laughter. When he turns, there is already a smile in the corner of the tabaxi’s lips/ Thin and unwilling, but real. Fond even. “No–we, we lied terribly. I had no idea we were capable of such bullshittery.” Frost admits, voice dry. “If either of us were required to survive by deception, we would be dead within the hour.” His ears flick once in remembered embarrassment. “Still, the others are fools in highly specialized ways. It may yet suffice.”
Torbek grins so hard it hurts his cheeks as he opens their inn bedroom door, stepping inside. “Torbek is glad Frost stayed back, Torbek reeaaaally didn’t want to go to the bar….” The words come out lighter than the feeling behind them. What he means is: I wanted you here. What he means is: the room changed the moment they left and you remained. What he means is too much, as usual, so he offers the smaller truth and hopes Frost hears the larger one tucked inside it.
A pause follows, small enough that another person might miss it. Frost never wastes pauses. They are where his real feelings tend to live. His gaze lifts to Torbek’s face and softens almost imperceptibly before sliding away again. “I am glad you did as well,” he says, quiet enough that the noise below nearly swallows it. The words are neat and controlled. The ears angled forward give him away entirely. Torbek’s chest goes hot all at once. “I really do hate tavern hopping.”
Frost turns fully now, whatever public composure he had been wearing set aside with the others’ coats. His shoulders lower. His tail makes one slow sweep behind him before settling near his ankles. He looks tired in the genuine sense, not sleepy but overstretched, the way he gets after too many voices and too much movement and too little room to think. Even so, when his eyes pass over Torbek, there is warmth there sharp enough to brighten the room. His brow lifts as he takes in Torbek’s current state.
“You look disheveled,” Frost tells, as if Torbek didn’t already know.
Torbek brightens instantly. “Thank you.”
“It was not praise.” Frost’s mouth twitches despite himself. He studies Torbek another moment, taking in the leaves caught in his fur, soot along one temple, and the general aura of a man recently assembled from woodland debris. Then he lifts one hand and crooks two fingers in a small commanding gesture that sends a ridiculous thrill through Torbek from head to heel. “Come here.”
Torbek goes so quickly he nearly catches his shin on the bedframe. His first step is eager, the second poorly judged, and the third saved only because Frost reaches out on instinct and catches him by the wrist before gravity can make a spectacle of them both. Frost’s grip is firm and warm, claws carefully sheathed, thumb pressing once against the pulse there before letting go. Torbek stares at the spot like he has been branded with something holy. Frost notices this too, and chooses the age old strategy of pretending he has not.
“Sit,” Frost says, nodding toward the edge of the bed. “If you insist on looming around me all evening, you may at least do it in one place.”
Torbek obeys immediately and with reverence, dropping onto the mattress with enough force to creak the frame. He straightens at once, hands on knees, posture so earnest it borders on devotional. Frost steps forward to stand between his knees, practical and unthinking in the motion, and Torbek’s brain leaves his body through the nearest window. Heart racing straight through his chest.
Frost is close enough now that Torbek can see the subtle shimmer of his fur in the candlelight and smell amber, cedar, and the clean cold scent that always seems to cling to him no matter the season.
“You have leaves in your hair,” Frost murmurs, leaning in to inspect the damage. “And ash. Were you fighting the fireplace as well, or did it attack unprovoked?” His voice is light with the joke.
His fingers begin to move through Torbek’s hair, separating strands, tugging free twigs, smoothing tangles with practiced efficiency. The touch is careful yet impersonal.
“Maaaaaaybeeeeee?” Torbek says weakly, because most of his mind is currently occupied with not making a scene and putting his hands on Frost too quickly.
“I see.” Frost’s voice goes dry with fond disapproval. “A difficult day, then. Perhaps I should not have let you out of my sight” He continues working through Torbek’s hair, nails barely grazing the scalp now and then in little accidental sparks that travel all the way down Torbek’s spine. The room narrows pleasantly around the sensation. His shoulders loosen by increments he did not know they could move.
Then Frost makes a small considering sound, cups the side of Torbek’s face to steady him, and leans down.
Torbek has just enough time to wonder what is happening before a warm rough stroke drags through his fur near the temple.
He jolts so hard the mattress squeals.
Frost freezes too, tongue withdrawn, ears shooting straight up in mutual alarm. For one long impossible second they stare at each other. Torbek’s eyes are huge. Frost’s expression is that of a man who deeply regrets remembering his own instincts in public.
“…Torbek apologizes,” Torbek says first, because someone has to say something.
“For what?” Frost asks, far too quickly. His voice is calm. His face is pink under the fur.
“For twitchiiing.” Torbek swallows. “Torbek wasn’t expecting iiiiit!”
Frost closes his eyes briefly. “I was cleaning you,” he says with the dignity of someone explaining weather patterns. “You’re untidy.”
“Frost licked Torbek!”
“Yes.” Frost opens one eye. “I am a tabaxi, we do this. It's how we groom.”
Torbek makes a strangled sound and has to brace both hands on the bed. “Torbek kneeeew that already. But hearing it now is not heeelping.”
A reluctant laugh escapes Frost before he can stop it, low and warm and startlingly soft. Some of his own embarrassment eases with it. “Hold still,” he says, quieter now. “Unless you dislike it.” There is a carefulness in the question that catches Torbek clean through. Beneath all the teasing and dryness, Frost still asks. Still checks. Still offers himself like something that might be refused.
Torbek’s answer is immediate and wrecked. “No. Torbek means yes. Torbek means continue immediately.”
Frost’s ears tip forward in pleased amusement. “You are impossible.” But he places one hand at the back of Torbek’s head, threads fingers gently into his hair, and resumes. This time the grooming is slower, deliberate. A rough warm pass near the temple, another through the hairline, then a pause while his fingers smooth the fur there. Each motion is intimate in a way Torbek had not been prepared for, practical instinct transformed by choice into tenderness.
Without meaning to, Torbek folds forward until his forehead rests lightly against Frost’s chest. He realizes what he has done only after the fact and starts to pull back in alarm. “Sorry, Torbek was just—”
Frost’s hand tightens gently at the back of his head. A command to stay put. The other settles at his shoulder, thumb stroking once through the fabric of his shirt. “It is fine,” he says, voice gone very soft. “You may remain there if you like.”
So Torbek does. He breathes in wool, skin, soap, candle smoke, and Frost beneath it all. Familiar now. Precious enough to frighten him if he thinks too hard about it. Above him, Frost continues to groom his hair in slow distracted passes, pausing now and then to smooth a tangle free with his fingers or scratch lightly behind one ear. The touch says many things Frost would never phrase aloud. I like caring for you. I notice when you are worn thin. Stay still and let me be kind.
After a long quiet stretch, Frost says into the top of his head, “When I first met you, I assumed you would be impossible to domesticate.” His tone is dry, but Torbek can hear the smile hiding inside it.
Torbek snorts against his shirt. “And now?”
“Now,” Frost replies, fingers pausing to scratch slowly at Torbek’s scalp until his eyes nearly roll back, “I believe you would climb directly into my lap if offered half an invitation.”
Torbek lifts his head enough to look up at him. “Is Torbek being invited?”
Frost’s entire face warms beneath the fur, a flush blooming from throat to ears. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.” He laughs.
Torbek grins and catches him gently by the waist, drawing him a fraction closer between his knees. Frost makes a surprised little sound but does not resist. If anything, he settles. Torbek’s thumbs rest at the line of his hips, careful and reverent.
“Too late,” Torbek murmurs. “Torbek heard it.”
Frost looks down at him then, truly looks, all the guarded sharpness absent from his expression. There is only affection there now, nerves, and the steady love he tries to ration but never manages to hide from Torbek for long. His hand leaves Torbek’s hair to cup his cheek instead, thumb brushing once through the fur there.
“You are very smug for someone covered in leaves.”
“And Frost likes hiiiiim anyway.”
“…Unfortunately.”
Torbek laughs low and warm, then turns his head and presses a kiss to the inside of Frost’s wrist. Wet and hot. The reaction is immediate. Frost shivers from shoulders to tail, breath catching audibly before he can stop it. His ears flick back in betrayed outrage.
In the brief, stunned pause that follows, Torbek feels something shift in him. Not urgency or panic like he’d typically experience after being bold, but a sudden, bright confidence that has nowhere to go but forward.
His hands slide up and down Frosts waist, large clawed hands covering the entire shape of him. Before Frost can get the time to register, Torbek lifts and pulls, the motion is decisive in a way Torbek rarely allows himself to be, like something in him has finally decided it is allowed to want what it wants.
Frost makes a small sound of surprise, more breath than voice, but he does not resist.
He lands easily between Torbek’s thighs on the bed, settling there with a controlled stumble that immediately gives way to stillness. Torbek’s hands remain at his waist, holding him in place without pressure, as if anchoring him is the most natural thing in the world.
Frost blinks once, slow. His ears remain angled back, but not fully defensive anymore. More startled than anything, like he is recalculating the entire situation from scratch now that he is suddenly being held instead of simply standing.
Frost laughs, a short snort of disbelief that immediately gives him away, his fur fluffed around his neck in a way that does not match his attempt at composure. “Eager are we?” he asks, voice tilted upward, teasing trying and only half succeeding at hiding the fact that he is also very aware of where he is sitting.
Torbek considers this with complete seriousness, head tilting slightly as his hands remain steady at Frost’s waist. His expression is open, unguarded, almost analytical in its sincerity.
“Yes,” he says at last, like it is the simplest answer in the world. “Frost is here. Why wouldn’t Torbek be?”
Frost’s ears twitch. His mouth opens as if to respond with something clever, something sharp, something that keeps him on familiar ground, but it does not quite make it out the way he intends. The teasing falters at the edges.
“…That is not what I meant,” he tries instead, but it comes out softer than he probably wanted.
Torbek hums again, unconcerned, and leans in just slightly, enough that Frost has to stay aware of him or risk losing the thread entirely. His thumbs continue their slow, absent motion at Frost’s sides, steady and patient, like he has nowhere else to be and no reason to move faster.
Hunger burns in Torbek's chest. “Frost is warm,” Torbek adds, as if continuing a report.
Frost huffs a breath, then laughs again, quieter this time, less defensive. His hands tighten just slightly on Torbek’s shoulders, not pushing away, not pulling closer either, just holding. His hands squeeze and pet the fur of Torbek's neck.
“I am not a blanket,” Frost jokes.
Torbek nods immediately. “No.” He continues with certainty. “Frost is muuuuuuch better.”
Frost goes very still for a beat, ears flicking backward again, but this time there is no outrage behind it. Just a flicker of something softer trying very hard not to be seen too clearly. His tail gives a small, betrayed movement behind him.
“…You are going to be the death of me,” he says, but there is no real heat in it. “I was supposed to be cleaning you.”
Torbek blinks slowly, inspecting the tabaxi in his arms with an observatory look that only Frost believes hes capable of. After a moment, his expression clears with certainty.
“Frost caaaaan still clean Torbek like this.” He offers, tugging Frost closer.
That earns him a breath of a laugh that Frost tries to hide and fails. His hands, still resting at Torbek’s shoulders, shift again, this time with intention rather than hesitation. Fingers comb through thick fur, slower now, more thorough, like he has decided that if he is going to lose this argument he might as well do it properly.
Frost starts again with a brief eyeroll, Torbek sits perfectly still for it, as if this is the most important task in the world, eyes half-lidded with a kind of quiet, growing contentment that spreads through him in warm, unspooling waves.
Frost pauses once, watching him for a moment too long, and then his restraint thins.
His head dips.
It is subtle at first, almost hesitant, like he is testing whether he is allowed to do this part, too, especially after Torbek's previous reactions. Then he leans in fully and presses a brief, deliberate lick into the fur at Torbek’s neck, smoothing it down in a way his hands cannot quite replicate. The motion is careful, familiar in a way that speaks of instinct more than thought, and immediately Torbek makes a sound that is somewhere between surprise and absolute surrender.
His hands tighten at Frost’s waist on instinct, not to restrain, but to hold on, like something inside him has decided this is now a thing that must not stop. He vaguely remembers he has to be careful of digging his claws into Frost's sides.
Frost stills for half a heartbeat, as if registering the reaction, then continues anyway, slower now, more deliberate. Another pass through Torbek’s fur, then another, each one followed by his hands returning to smooth and settle what he has already done. The rhythm becomes steady, grounding, and the tension that had been lingering in his shoulders finally starts to ease as he focuses entirely on Torbek rather than anything else.
Torbek, as Frost continues, gets hungrier and hungrier, claws twitching against frost sides, and a heat building brighter in his chest and stomach. Torbek sighs a pleased sound and clutches even tighter. Chest to chest.
Torbek wants to bleed into him and melt together.
Frost huffs a quiet sound against Torbek’s fur—something like agreement, something like disbelief—and keeps going anyway, slower now, like the act has quietly stopped being “grooming” and started being something else he is choosing to linger inside.
Torbek’s voice comes out soft a moment later, slightly distant, like it has drifted somewhere warmer than his thoughts.
“Frost is… very good at this,” he says again, like it is a fact he has only just properly understood.
Frost’s hands still buried in his fur ease out for the briefest second, as if he is reconsidering something, and when he leans back in it is not toward Torbek’s neck anymore—it is toward Torbek mouth. “I’ve done this before.”
The change is subtle at first. Frost’s mouth leaves the rhythm of grooming and hovers, just for a heartbeat, close enough that Torbek feels the pause more than he sees it. His breath catches slightly, not in alarm, but in anticipation he does not quite have words for.
Then Frost closes the distance. Quiet in a way that makes everything else in the room feel like it has stepped back politely.
The kiss lands soft at first, like Frost is still halfway between instinct and intention. Torbek freezes for a fraction of a second—just long enough to register it—and then his hands at Frost’s waist tighten instinctively, pulling him in without hesitation. Claws digging into the fabric of Frost’s robe.
Frost makes a small sound against him, not startled this time, just caught, and that is what breaks whatever restraint had been holding the moment in place.
The kiss deepens in slow increments, steadily unguarded. Frost’s hand slides properly into Torbek’s fur now, no longer grooming, just holding him there like an anchor, while Torbek leans into him with a kind of quiet certainty that feels almost too natural to question.
When they finally separate, it is only by a breath.
Frost stays close anyway, forehead nearly brushing Torbek’s, ears tilted back but not away.
Torbek makes a small, high, utterly unfiltered sound against Frost’s mouth—bright with surprise and delight—and then immediately looks like he has decided embarrassment is a problem for later. His hands tighten at Frost’s waist instead, steadying him as if that alone can explain everything happening between them.
Frost pauses, then, with the same careful composure that always feels like it is one step away from collapsing, he shifts.
He settles more fully into Torbek’s lap. Thighs on top of his own, pressed so close Torbek can feel it in his core.
Torbek goes very still.
Frost, who has only become more smug in the span of a heartbeat, tilts his head just slightly, ears flicking with quiet satisfaction. “Yes, Torbek?”
That calm does something deeply unfair to Torbek’s brain.
He makes a strangled sound that might have been words in another universe. His grip tightens without meaning to, then loosens again, like he is trying to figure out what part of reality he is supposed to be holding onto.
It's like he can suddenly feel everything at once. Frost's weight, his warmth, the tap of his tail against Torbek's shin–it curling around his calf. Arranged so close it feels the space between is negligible. Torbek becomes acutely aware of every point of contact between them, like his senses have all decided to speak at once and none of them are being particularly polite about it.
Frosts lips form into something somewhat pleased. “Is something wrong?”
His breath catches and his nails dig. “Torbek wasn't reeeeady!!”
Frost laughs. “Are you ever?” and grinds his hips down, just enough for Torbek to feel it.
The answer is no. Torbek is not.