A Rogue Disaster Duo

The rogue didn’t flinch.  One corner of his lips lifted in a smirk, an eyebrow cocked.  He lifted his chin, defiantly held Tobias’ glare.

Tobias’ turquoise, kohl-lined eyes narrowed; blonde hair drifted over his cheek, carried by the calm breeze.  Favian didn’t need to look at Tobias’ mouth to know it was twisted in a dangerous snarl.  

The Inquisitor was coiled like a cobra, the tension between them so thick that a flick of his dagger could have cut the air.  

Favian’s half-smile widened a little, as he allowed his gaze to slide down Tobias’ rugged features.  He was no more afraid of the Inquisitor and his dagger than he would be of a wounded cat hissing and lashing out with teeth and claw.  The man’s instincts were honed to pulling a blade as easily as most people would swat a fly.

Once, the genuine threat of danger from the unpredictable assassin was the thrill.  Now it was something else.  Something more.

Still, the crotch of Favian’s form-hugging leather trousers was becoming uncomfortably tight.

“Alright,” he said into the sliver of humid air between them, his voice almost a purr, lips barely moving.  “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Good.”

There was something endearing in Tobias’ pouty insistence that he didn’t need any help.  There was a lot that was fiercely attractive about the intensity of his glare and the way his brow pulled together in a scowl.

Favian reached up, placed two fingertips against Tobias’ wrist, and gently pushed his hand and the dagger away from his chin.  Tobias’ eyes flashed in annoyance.

“Asshole.”

Favian chuckled.  “Guilty as charged.  But I’m an asshole with a bandage and some salve, and no wish to have to explain to Cassandra why I let the Inquisitor wander around the woods with an open wound.”  

Tobias paused.  He sighed, flipped his knife and slid it back into his belt.

In that same instant, Favian’s own knife was in his hand and pointing at Tobias.  The Inquisitor blinked in surprise.

“The fuck?”

Favian gave a flick of his knife towards a rock at the side of the path where they’d been ambushed by bandits.  

“Sit.”

Tobias snorted a laugh.  “Cutting me would defeat your objective, wouldn’t it?”

“It’d give me another wound to stitch.  I’d still call that a win.  Sit the fuck down, Inquisitor.”

The tilt of Tobias’ head then was remarkably like a curious cat.  But, even to Favian’s surprise, he backed up and sat down on the rock.

Favian stood just in front of him.  On a whim, he held his knife to Tobias’ throat, just beneath his jaw.  Just to see how he’d react.  The smirk on the Inquisitor’s lips told him that Tobias didn’t fear Favian anymore than Favian feared him.  

At least, they didn’t fear each other for their knives.

Favian knelt in front of Tobias and sliced open the torn and blood-soaked sleeve of his jacket, sucking a breath through his teeth at the sight of the wound as he gently peeled the fabric back from where it had stuck to the skin.  It was deep.

“That’ll take more than some salve,” he muttered.  Alongside the bandage and pot of salve, he pulled a pack of thread and a needle from his belt pouch.  Setting them on the ground, he took his hip flask from its carefully concealed pouch.

“How much shit have you got on you?” Tobias muttered, faintly bemused.

“Only what I need.  This will sting a bit.”

He held Tobias’ wrist tightly as he poured a drop of alcohol onto the wound.

“Fuck!”

“Told you.  Here.”  Favian handed Tobias the flask; the Inquisitor glared at him as he shot back the spirit, then grimaced.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Moonshine.  It’s shit, but the effect is potent.  Enjoy.  And shut up.”

Tobias took a breath to speak, but exhaled it with little more than a hum.

Favian hesitated.  He would have to take off his gloves to be able to work with the precision he needed.  He flicked a glance up at Tobias, half hoping that he wouldn’t see; but of course Tobias was watching intently.

He pulled off his gloves.  Clenched his badly scarred right hand into a fist.  Took a deep breath.  Another glance up saw no change to Tobias’ expression.

The two of them had been… well, intimate wasn’t quite the right word for their rough and fleeting trysts; usually involving Favian pressed up against a wall with their cocks in his hand, or on his knees with Tobias’ cock in his throat.  Yet somehow, he’d managed to keep this from him.  The shame of it lingered.

But that didn’t matter here and now, and if the sight of his disfigurement changed how Tobias saw him, then so be it.  What did it even matter?  Nothing they did was out of a like for each other anyway, only a dangerous but irresistible attraction.

Tobias remained silent and remarkably still as Favian worked to clean the wound and stitch it as best as he could.  Which, all told, wasn’t very well, and he had to use his dagger to cut the ends of the far from neat stitches.  But the wound was closed, and it was clean.

When it was done, Favian sat back on his heels and flicked back a lock of red hair that had escaped his low ponytail.  Without looking at Tobias, he cleared his throat and picked up his gloves.

“There.  Make sure you see a healer when you get back to Skyhold, get it stitched properly, or it’ll scar.”

“I don’t mind a scar.”

Tobias took hold of Favian’s right hand and turned it palm up.  Favian held his breath and swallowed thickly as Tobias looked at the burn scars covering most of his palm and the back of his hand up to his wrist.  There was no disgust in his eyes, Favian noted with some surprise; Tobias seemed almost thoughtful.

Without a word, Tobias released Favian’s hand.  He quickly put his supplies back in his belt pouch before shoving his hands into his gloves.  As he pulled the rust-red leather taut around his fingers, Tobias’ finger was suddenly curled under his chin, tilting his head up.

In a voice that was low and gruff, awkward somehow, he said,

“Thank you.”

Turquoise eyes turned down to Favian’s lips.  He leaned ever so slightly closer.  Favian chuckled.

“That’s remarkably polite of you.  The blood loss must be worse than I thought.”

“Ha fucking ha.”

His lips parted ever so slightly.  It was a moment before Favian realised his lips had parted too.  A spark of irresistible attraction shot between them like static, pulling them closer.  Favian felt his eyelids flutter as the other man’s breath ghosted over his skin.

And then that old feeling rose up, one he could not name but one that came between them time and again. For all else that they would do, never that. Never a kiss. Too close, too intimate, too nice.

He almost gave in.  He needed it.

But he couldn’t.  He didn’t deserve nice, and he couldn’t let Tobias get too close.

And so he rose up on his knees, hooked his hand around the back of Tobias’ neck, and pulled him in to run his teeth along his jaw.  Tobias grunted in surprise, a grunt that turned into a soft groan as Favian nipped at the soft skin of his throat.

A bite, another, another, pulled to his feet and dragged off the path to be pushed up against a tree, cock held in a leather grip, intense and rough and quick, spilling over into a gloved hand, and how apt that was, he mused, as he closed his eyes and slid a little ways down the tree in relief.  

Tobias pulled Favian’s ear lobe between his teeth.  He paused, as if he might murmur something into Favian’s ear.  And then he stepped back.  The moment had passed.  

The wound would heal.  But the scars ran deep.