Summary: Tuffnur tries to seduce Eret. It doesn't quite go as planned.
Eret shivered as he waited outside the armory in the dark and frigid night air. He was fast growing irritated; Tuffnut said he would be here about twenty minutes ago. The only thing that kept him there, other than the fact he'd been trying to get the oblivious fool's attention for weeks, was intrigue at the enigma that was Tuffnut Thorston. The boy had gone from not even noticing Eret's existence to insisting he was going to 'blow Eret's mind' tonight.
The armory was what they agreed upon for a meeting place, since apparently ( in Tuff's own words) the presence of weaponry turned the boy into a weapon himself. 'The world's most deadly weapon' in fact, which wasn't exactly an enticing or comfortable thing to hear when referring to a tryst. But it certainly was amusing. Eret had tried very valiantly not to laugh and only mostly succeeded. Maybe his mirth had scared the boy off? That or this was nothing more than a prank.
Eret was relieved to notice a slight blond figure creeping over the top of the hill. He'd decided to show up after all, then.
"Sorry," Tuff panted, half an hour after the appointed time. "You would not believe how hard it is to shake Fishlegs when he wants to bond with his 'future brother-in-law'."
Did that let Tuff off the hook? Hell no. "Fishlegs, eh? So that's what you were doing all this time. Took you a while."
Tuff punched his arm. "I'm gonna pretend I have no idea what you're alluding to because I don't need the mental image." He preceded him inside the dark building. "Come on, I got plans for you." Exasperated and a little curious, Eret followed him inside.
"I hope whatever you're planning was worth waiting for you out in the cold."
"Yeah, it will be," Tuff said distractedly. He was looking anywhere but directly at Eret. He took a breath as though gathering his nerve. Then he turned around and sprung at Eret violently.
Years of dragon-trapping and dodging blasts of fire and plasma meant that Eret simply stepped aside and let Tuffnut crash into a stand of crossbows, sending them all swinging and clattering wildly. Tuff had fallen into an undignified cursing heap and sat up dizzily, righting his helmet..
"What was that?" Eret asked, once all the noise died down.
"You weren't supposed to move!" Tuff hissed back, hand over his bleeding mouth. He'd apparently accidentally made out with the wooden bar instead of Eret. The former trapper stared at him a moment, then burst out laughing.
"When you say 'deadly weapon', does that actually mean none of your lovers survive the night?" he managed, wiping his eyes.
"Shut up! It would have worked if … if you'd just stayed still!" Tuff snapped. He scowled, then looked away, humiliated. "It's what Astrid told me to do."
"Astrid?! She told you to do this?"
"No, not exactly. Well, she told me I needed to be aggressive." Tuffnut could not look at him, and Eret stopped laughing, feeling bad. "She said I needed to go after you and I've never felt this way about a guy, so I asked her what she would do and she said she'd just … go for it and kiss him. I couldn't exactly do it in front of everyone. S-So I asked you to meet me here. I thought the weapons would give me courage or something." Tuff bit his lip in the way Eret had always found adorable.
"Do you know why I agreed to meet you?" Eret asked. Tuff looked at him finally, surprised the man was still there and hadn't just walked out. "I met you because I'm interested already. I like you. Thought you'd finally noticed."
Tuff's face was unreadable in the dark, but Eret knew it was reddening. "Heh. So, I didn't have to make an idiot out of myself to get your attention?"
"No. You already had it."
Eret reached down and lifted him up to his feet before pulling Tuff into a hard kiss. He punctuated it with a meaningful nibble on Tuff's bloody lip. "Ow."
"Sorry."
"Nah. I kind of like it," Tuff grinned. "If we do this again, I probably won't tackle you. Or at least I won't miss."
Eret just laughed and kissed him again.