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It's unfair, cosmically so, that it's Torbek's hands that get to touch the pure hearted good that is that tabaxi. With palms softer than their past, and eyes sharper than any blade that's cut them open. Torbek's own claws, long and clumsy, scarred and shaking, wrapping around fragile labradorite, worn smooth by water, cracked from years of weathering.
Torbek doesn’t deserve it, him, neither of them do. Not the softness nor the kindness. With golden eyes that see them and see them. Frost looks at them–him, Torbek, with unmistakable preciousness. As though Frost himself is certain of his own clumsiness. Like the breaking of this, whatever it is that they have, could ever be his fault.
Torbek does not know how to handle good things. He will ruin this. He will ruin him. The Other knows this. The bumbling bugbear has never been good at much of anything, let alone this, let alone love. His grip is always wrong—too tight or too loose, never measured. He will overthink, worry the stone down to rubble, then dust, then nothing at all.
And where would that leave them?
If Torbek would just The Other do what he needed—
Despite everything, The Other has always known. There is no real other reason for him to be so driven for Torbek's destruction other than to prevent the inevitable heartbreak from breaking more than just Torbek's heart. That good things are temporary, that kindness is a prelude, that love is a blade that waits until you relax before it cuts. Not that Frost would do that to them, but it will happen regardless of anyone's best intentions. Better to spoil it early. Better to push, to test, to bruise before the world does it worse to them.
To Torbek. Who is so oblivious and naive despite his years of torment, that he would let every bone in his body, every atom of his soul dissipate before he rejected the kindness that he does not deserve in the first place.
And yet…
The Other watches Frost with something dangerously close to reverence. Not love, although perhaps he could call it that. Something colder and sharper than the tabaxi deserves. An awareness of how easily snuffed the candle of his soul could be. How catastrophic it would be if it were the same shaking hands of Torbeks to do it. The Other could treat Frost much better, keep this relationship alight while also protecting his host. Alas…
Torbek insists on this. Believes in this more than The Other has ever felt Torbek believe in anything, and so he will watch and wait. He will take over when things start to fall apart. Ready to tear it to shreds if that’s what it takes to keep the damage contained.
…
He traces the line of the tiger's jaw with Torbek's eyes, memorizing the softness, along with the pattern that follows his fur. He watches because all he has else to do is wait.
And he will.
He will wait.
…
They’re talking over the firepit, long after the other nuisances have gone to bed. Just Frost and Torbek in the low, patient flicker of flame. The night has thinned to embers and quiet, the kind that presses close rather than stretches wide. The Other is there too, of course. Unwanted. Uninvited. Unbothered. A voyeur to something delicate.
He knows his place, of course, he is no fool.
Torbek’s body leans in without thought, nothing except the attraction to the calm of Frost's voice. Towards the minimal space Frost takes up like the pull of gravity. The Other feels it all secondhand, feels the warmth of it all through a dishcloth. The hitch in Torbek's breath as Frost leans closer in a mirror of himself, the softness that curbs the pain in his body just at the sound of Frost's laughter. The way Torbek’s heart stutters, then settles, as though it has found a rhythm it trusts. Love, reciprocated, announces itself like this. Irritatingly steady.
The Other doesn’t trust it, but its not his prerogative this time.
It is strange, feeling it through Torbek when he isn’t even sure he’d ever felt it when he’d had a body of his own. Translated poorly but so very warmly. It does not bloom for The Other; it presses. A dull heat behind the ribs. A tension in the jaw. An urge to intervene. Torbek feels devotion. The Other feels exposed. He wants it all none-the-less.
Frost speaks more with Torbek now than The Other is sure he ever did with the krew, and Torbek listens like the words will be tested later, like he will need to review. It’d be cute if it weren’t him. Then again, The Other listens as well, cataloging tone, posture, intention. The tabaxi is gentle in ways that are inefficient. His pauses linger. His eyes soften instead of sharpening. He offers space when he could take control. This is affection. This is a deeply dangerous indulgence.
Torbek laughs, low and breathy, and the sound crawls through The Other like static. He feels the fondness swell, the stupid, reckless wanting to be closer. Torbek’s hand drifts nearer to Frost’s without touching. The Other notes the restraint. Note the fear. Notes the hope. Hope is the most concerning part.
They sit close enough that their warmth overlaps. Frost’s knee brushes Torbek’s. A casual thing. An accident, perhaps. Torbek freezes for half a second, then melts into it like it was always meant to happen. The Other feels the relief like a crack in a dam. He does not like it. Relief leads to trust. Trust leads to negligence.
The firelight catches Frost’s profile, gilds his fur, sharpens his eyes. The Other understands, dimly, why Torbek is undone by this. Why his hands shake. Why his thoughts spiral. Why the idea of loss coils so tightly around his spine. Frost is not loud. He is quiet, and good, and so much more than what their fate had originally planned for them.
The Other watches, patient and grim, as Torbek’s affection spills into the open air between them. He does not interfere, despite his desire to. Despite the urge to put his own hands on Frost. Not yet. He lets the moment exist. Let Torbek have this softness. Let Frost smile at him like nothing in the world is moments from breaking.
…
The Other gets control suddenly and on a whim.
No struggle this time, no tearing in the constant fight against Torbek's consciousness. The bugbear is asleep, deep and pliant, their body unguarded in the tender moments before dawn. The Other slips into place the way he always does when given the chance, precise and cold, aware of the borrowed nature of every sensation. He knows it will not last. Control never does. But for now, the world sharpens.
His vision steadies.
As it always is when he gains control, his vision isn’t the fractured, doubled thing he normally endured while Torbek stumbles around, peering out of shallow eyes like stained glass. It is clearer, singular, letting him take in the details he misses because Torbek never focuses long enough to see them. He sees through Torbek’s eyes, yes, but with his own intent behind them. His own focus. His own judgment.
Frost is asleep in his arms.
In Torbek’s arms, if one insists on being technical, but The Other does not. The distinction feels irrelevant when the weight is real, when Frost’s body fits so neatly against their side, curled in without hesitation or fear. His breathing is slow and even, warm puffs of air brushing against Torbek’s chest with every exhale. The Other feels the heat of him immediately. Pressed close enough that it bleeds through fur and muscle and bone.
Frost feels safe, and is sleeping beside him like he feels the same.
It almost pisses him off.
The Other lowers his gaze, cataloging details the way he always does. The gentle rise and fall of Frost’s shoulders. The way his ears twitch faintly even in sleep, responding to things only he can hear. The soft crease between his brows, smoothed out now that consciousness has loosened its grip. There is no tension in him. Nothing like the stiff way the tabaxi holds himself in the daylight.
His arms are wrapped around him instinctively, long and careful, curved to accommodate rather than restrain. The Other notes the precision of it. The unconscious adjustments Torbek has learned to make, avoiding pressure where Frost is fragile, where the canisters on his own back would ache if pressed too hard. The body remembers even when Torbek does not. Even if The Other has yet to notice it.
The warmth builds the longer The Other remains still. It pools low in the chest, spreads through the ribs. An almost painful thing. He understands, distantly, why Torbek craves this. Why he softens. Why his thoughts tangle and unravel around this single, sleeping presence.
Frost, even in sleep, is this rock of stability and comfort. Glowing in this dim light of the fire through the tent canvas.
This touch is dangerous, tempting. This touch draws him in similarly to how it must have drawn Torbek in. Inescapable.
This touch is dangerous.
The Other tightens the grip just slightly, testing. Frost stirs, nose pressing closer, a soft sound caught in his throat before he settles again.
Idiot, The Other thinks. Grimly.
He leans his head a fraction closer, studying Frost at a distance that feels intimate in a way he did not consent to. He could count the individual whiskers if he wanted. Trace the faint scars pale through fur, the things the world has already tried to take from him. It would be easy, at this moment, to imagine different outcomes. Different hands. Different choices.
The Other does not touch him beyond what Torbek already has. He will not leave evidence. Not this time. He wants to see this through.
Still, he memorizes the weight. The heat. The way Frost fits against them like he was designed to be there. He commits it all to the part of himself that waits patiently for things to go wrong.
And when control slips, when Torbek stirs and consciousness returns, The Other withdraws without ceremony, folding himself back into the dark corners of the mind. But he leaves with something new this time.
Understanding.