Work Text:
Sticky Fingers
“A kiss that I kept under my vest
apart from everything but the heart in my chest”
Tindryst could see the warm glow of the mage-lights over the crest of the hill.
As a child, his mother had made him wait until sunset before taking him to the winter market. He’d pout about it all day, impatient and bored, but in the end she was right, of course: the winter market was beautiful at night.
He stopped at the top of the hill. Beside him, in a ragged grey coat at least a size too big for him, Dionys blinked down at the unfamiliar spectacle and uttered an audible, “Woah.”
The winter market transformed Sunsail Anchorage from a sleepy port into a bustling bazaar of open-air stalls, aglow with mage-lanterns, candles, and twinkling enchanted tinsel. Merchants came to the market from all over Quel’thalas, and some humans, too, even visited from Lordaeron. Some docked their boats and turned their decks into little shops or stages for musicians and dancers. Crowds milled about, shopping and laughing, filling their bellies with mulled wine and cider. Tindryst had visited the winter market nearly every year as long as he could remember, but the first sight of it always filled him with a warm, familiar wonder.
Dionys’ eyes gleamed. “Fuck’s that smell?”
Tindryst adjusted his goggles, sniffing the air. “Which smell?”
“Somethin’ sweet.”
He grinned. “It’s sugar, probably. Most of what you can get here is covered with sugar.”
It wasn’t the only smell, of course, but it was certainly the strongest. Most of the stalls in the market sold baked things – breads, sweets, cakes drizzled in chocolate and dusted with snowy sugar. He could smell the spiced cider, too, all cloves and honey, and the smoky musk of roasting meats. Tindryst’s stomach growled. Beside him, Dionys stuffed his hands into his pockets and tilted his head, thoughtful.
“You’ve really never been to one of these?” he asked Dionys. “There are smaller ones. One at the academy, I think, for the students. You never–?”
“It’s just a market, Tin,” Dion said, raising a slender red brow. “They just put fancy lights n’shit all over it. I’ve been to a fuckin’ market before.”
“Well – yeah – but the winter market is special. They only happen once a year.”
He didn’t know exactly why he felt compelled to over-explain it. A small anxiety nagged at him, telling Tindryst his excitement was childish, and that Dionys would find the winter market childish, too. He wrung his hands and gave Dion a little nudge with his shoulder. “Let’s just go, okay? You’ll see.”
Dionys stiffened a little at the contact, and he looked away from Tindryst to glance down the hill. He had been – different, lately. Since Anri’s promotion to lieutenant, and that evening at the cliff over Duskwither. Nestled next to the warm excitement about the winter market was a knot of worry that had twisted itself worse and worse over the weeks deep in his chest. Tindryst thought it was his fault, the thing that’d happened – and maybe he should’ve said something, or brought it up again, or asked if he’d made some kind of mistake – but overthinking it made his face feel hot and tangled his nerves like sparking wires.
“Alright, Tin,” Dion said. “But I’m gettin’ a drink.”
He moved ahead, sauntering down the path towards the market, the festive golden light caught in his hair like a halo of fire.
Tindryst chewed his lip and followed him.
They fell into the crowd. Tindryst did not typically like crowds, but the market bothered him less. It was a crowd he could get lost in, and there was so much to look at. A human merchant roasted an enormous boar on a spit, drapes of strung sausages hanging on butcher’s hooks at the front of his stall. An elven baker Tindryst recognized from eastern Eversong, his two sons at his side, displayed a proud arrangement of cakes and pies and pastries. Saltheril, of course, had a tasting tent at the end of one of the docks, where all of his winter wines turned the cheeks of his patrons rosy.
Dionys took a quick interest in the cider stall. It looked something like a bar, where two women in apple-red winter dresses filled mugs from barrels enchanted to keep their contents steaming hot.
“I’m gettin’ one,” he said, and slipped from Tindryst’s side.
Tindryst waited for him, still taking in the market’s sights. Nearby, another stall, modest in its décor, held a display of tiny carved sculptures, some wood and some stone. Tindryst stepped closer to inspect them. He became so distracted by an owl carved from some smooth white mineral, its gleaming eyes painted with gold leaf, that Tindryst didn’t hear Dionys come up beside him until the other man shoved a warm mug of cider into his hands.
“Got you one,” Dion announced, wearing a proud smirk. “It's got rum in it. Got the barkeep to add extra.”
“How?”
Dionys winked. “Charm.”
Tindryst wondered if he should thank the barkeeper or the rum itself for putting Dion in a better mood. Dionys’ gaze wandered to the little trinkets in the stall around them as Tindryst took a long breath of the cider’s warm steam. “I think the apples in this might’ve come from our orchard.”
“You sell them your apples?” Dion peered at him. “Apples they take and make into cider that y’buy back from ‘em?”
“Yeah.”
“Why not just make yer own cider?”
“We do, sometimes. But just for us. We don’t sell it.”
“Where’s yer family’s pretty winter stand, Northsun?” Dion half-teased, taking a swig from his cider. “Y’could fill it with apples. Sell ‘em and keep ‘em sold instead of buying ‘em back as juice.”
It made Tindryst smile, his belligerent refusal to understand money. He tasted the cider, too, and the sharp bite of the rum in the drink caught him off guard. He could taste it even beneath the strength of the spices and cloves. It’d go straight to his head on an empty stomach. Dionys had already downed half of his mug, and licked a long sip from his lips.
Tindryst felt his cheeks flush. He blamed the rum. One sip, and he could already feel it. “These are strong. We should – maybe eat first?”
“Eh! Later. C’mon, Tin. Lots more market this way.”
He tugged Tindryst by the jacket to lead him away. Tindryst felt the heavy knot he carried in his chest loosen just a little.
Dionys was having fun after all.
The swirl of the crowd swallowed them up again like the waters of a rushing river. A stall beside the cider bar sold wreaths woven from Lordaeron pine. A clothier sold heavy cloaks of lynx leather and gowns that glimmered with spun silk and supple satin. Tindryst watched a child put on a wool cap, delighted that her ears slipped through two holes exactly where they should.
One stall, though, caught his attention. Like Saltheril’s, though, it was more of a tent, four-sided and open on all sides and draped in the rose-and-gold heraldry of House Dawnheart, a very wealthy magister family almost anyone would recognize. Above the tent, an illusory cloud released a constant flurry of snow that dissipated the moment it touched the canvas beneath it.
Mages, of course, liked to show off.
The Dawnhearts’ tent, he knew, would be full of magical things, from basic arcane crystals to complex trinkets and constructs far beyond the things Tindryst and his mother could ever make. He’d spent hours there as a child, trying to figure out how even the smallest things worked.
Dionys noticed that Tin had drifted to a stop, craning his neck to see into the tent. He plucked his sleeve. “Looks fancy,” he said.
Tindryst smiled in sheepish apology. “Sorry. You’d probably find it boring.”
“Maybe,” Dion said, though the corner of his lips curled, tugged by a smirk. “But if there’s somethin’ in there y’want, just tell me, and I’ll get it for ya.”
“Get it for me? That’s – really nice of you, but you definitely can’t afford anything in there.”
He gave the slightest roll of his eyes, leaning closer to speak in a lowered voice. “M’not gonna pay for it, Tin.” The smirk at his lips became a wicked grin, and Dionys flashed something small and gleaming at his wrist.
Tindryst blinked down at the little owl carving.
“Dion!” he hissed, clapping his hand over Dion’s to hide the owl before anyone saw it. “You stole that!”
“Course I did,” Dionys said, bewildered. “I told you I’ve been to markets before–”
Mortified, Tindryst tugged Dionys by the hand out of the crowd and in between two busy stalls where he could be sure everyone was far too distracted to overhear them.
Dionys tugged his hand away, holding onto the little owl. “Don’t act suspicious or anything, Tin–”
“You can’t just take stuff here–”
“--sure I can. It’s easy. Used t’do it all the time. N’what are you so fuckin’ upset about? You took those crystals from those mages, didn’t you?”
“That was different,” Tindryst pressed a hand to his forehead. He gestured to Dion’s hand, where the redhead held the little owl in a tight fist. “The elf who made that isn’t some academy magister who doesn’t need the gold. He’s just some craftsman. Not everyone selling stuff here is rich.”
Dionys downed the rest of his cider, his cheeks pink.
Tindryst couldn’t help but ask. “You didn’t – steal that too, did you?”
“No,” Dion said, voice sour. “Paid for it. But that’s all the silver I brought with me.”
Of course it was. Dionys never kept much coin on him. Tindryst had found Dion’s money stuffed in corners of the dorm, under pillows, in bottles, under their little sink. An odd habit, but not one Tindryst had reason to question. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Well – you should put it back. If you picked it up that easily you can put it back that easily, too.”
“Fine,” Dionys grumbled. He looked at the ground. “I’ll fuckin’ put it back.”
Tindryst felt a pang to think that Dion might feel embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to give him a lecture. He adjusted his goggles and thought hard. “It’s – actually kind of amazing, though. How’d you grab it without me seeing you? I was standing right there.”
Dion looked back up at him. “It’s not hard. Not with crowds like this.”
“What do you mean?”
He rolled a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I lifted the owl while you were lookin’ at me, not my hand. Shopkeep was talkin’ to another customer. And I got plenty of pockets. Stealin’s only risky when people have a reason t’keep their eyes on you. That’s almost fuckin’ impossible in a place as busy as this.”
Tindryst thought back. Had he done it when he’d first taken that sip of cider? When Tindryst had been distracted by his…
“Y’just feel out the right moment, then swipe what yer goin’ for, and tuck it away,” Dion explained. “Here, just – hold out your hand.”
Tindryst did, and Dionys placed the little owl figurine on his palm.
“Now just hold it there for a sec. Look at me.”
Tindryst did that, too, and felt an odd urge to hold his breath, looking at Dion like that. Dionys peered at him intently, silent for a long moment, and Tindryst didn’t even see his hand move. He felt the faintest brush of Dion’s fingertips, and then the weight of the tiny owl was gone from his hand.
Dionys was fast. He turned the owl over in his fingertips, dexterous and nimble, then tossed it in the air and snatched it as it fell. Too damn fast. Tindryst watched, mesmerized.
“Easy,” Dionys said. “Anyone can do it. You could do it, if y’wanted.”
Tin chewed his lip, imagining himself plucking up the owl from its place in its stall and slipping it into a pocket. It was absurd. He’d never have the courage.
Dionys noticed the uncertainty in Tin’s expression, and his eyes lit up with a wicked idea. “Tin – I’ll put the owl back if you try liftin’ somethin’ from that fancy fuckin’ mage tent up ahead.”
Tindryst’s mouth fell open. “What? No!”
“There’s no way that one’s run by some starvin’ artist. It’s all crystals and shit. Like we took before. Except this time, we’ll do it right under their fuckin’ noses.”
“Dion–”
“C’mon, Tin! Just somethin’ tiny. A stupid little crystal, just one. Or a jar of some – magic fuckin’ dust, I don’t know. One of those metal sticks with runes all over it–”
“An enchanting rod–”
“Yeah! C’mon, Tin. Yer better with yer hands than y’think.” The innuendo made Tindryst’s cheeks feel hot. Dionys noticed, and instead of pressing the implication like he might’ve done before what happened at Duskwither cliff, he moved past it as quickly as he could, running a hand through the mess of his hair. “Just – live a little.”
Tindryst felt dizzy. He took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, alright, fine.”
Dionys’ grin lit up brighter than he’d seen it in weeks, all schemes and mischief. “Yes.”
“Something small,” Tindryst said immediately, determined to lay some kind of groundwork, some set of rules – with any luck, Dionys would not be able to break all of them. “Something – not worth much. Something where I can just say I forgot I was holding it, if–”
“Calm down, Tin,” Dion interrupted. “Yer not gonna get caught.”
“How do you know that?”
“‘Cause yer with me. And I’m lucky.” Dionys held the owl flat on his palm near his hip. “C’mon – give it a shot.”
Tindryst steadied himself, looking him in the eye, and this time, he did hold his breath. He swiped for the owl without looking down – clumsy, he thought, as his wrist brushed against Dion’s fingertips – but his hand came away with it clutched tight. He didn’t drop it.
“There y’go,” Dionys grinned. “Yer a natural, Tin.”
Tindryst was fairly certain that his mother had never actually liked the Dawnheart family.
He wondered if she’d laugh if he told her Dionys had goaded him into trying to steal something from them. Tindryst imagined her expression – somewhere between parental disappointment and vindictive glee – as he slipped through the crowd and into the cover of the enormous tent.
The tent practically hummed with magic. He could taste it in the air, thicker than the scent of sugar. Flames in glass orbs cast the space in a flickering natural light. Above him, hundreds of tiny glowing shards on strings twinkled like stars. White-petaled mageroyal flowers in silver vases decorated every table, fully bloomed and wet with evening dew.
Tindryst brushed past tables covered in magical supplies, crystals and spellbooks and and alchemy herbs, but looked with some curiosity at the truly fantastic collection of trinkets and constructs on display at the center of the stall. A ring of glowing green stones mimicked the look of the pine wreaths he’d seen in other stalls. Two tiny crystal dancers twirled in circles in a snowglobe. He watched a child tap a construct of crystal shards strung together like a pan flute. Each shard played a different note when touched. The child shrieked, delighted.
None of those things would fit in Tindryst’s pockets. He was grateful for them, though, because they held the crowd’s attention. Though he rubbed shoulders with other patrons, none of them paid him any mind.
Dionys, too, made himself an excellent distraction.
“I need a rod,” Dionys told the shopkeeper.
The annoyed-looking magister, possibly one of the Dawnheart family’s children assigned to the winter market to learn a lick of discipline, eyed Dion carefully. “An enchanting rod?”
“Yeah. A big one.”
“There are plenty over there,” the shopkeeper gestured to the other side of the tent.
“No, y’don’t understand,” Dionys said, feigning exasperation. “I need somethin’ bigger.”
The shopkeeper furrowed his brow. “Size doesn’t really matter. It’s the runes, the enchantment–”
Dionys shook his head, insistent. “I just like ‘em bigger, y’know?”
Tindryst could not believe him. He pressed his lips together to hide a smirk and a giggle. It was difficult for Tindryst himself to avoid being caught up in Dion’s distraction. He could’ve watched him forever –
–right, Tindryst thought. Dionys was helping him. He was meant to swipe something. Anything.
He thought back to the little pep talk Dion had given him outside the tent. Pick up a lot of stuff, he’d said, then put it back down. Eventually folks will stop noticing you pick stuff up at all. Testing his luck, Tindryst picked up a geode. He was surrounded by other patrons, but none of them reacted. He put it back down, his heart fluttering a little.
Maybe it was easy.
Tindryst picked up crystals. A spool of enchanted thread. A runemarked scroll that sparked at his touch.
Meanwhile, Dionys had the shopkeeper at the rack of enchanting rods. “This is all we have here. I suppose if you wanted something bigger made custom I could put in a request with Magister Dawnheart himself–”
“Oh? Y’think he’s got somethin’ big?”
He wondered how long Dionys could keep up the distraction, but the plan had never been to test Dion’s ability to keep someone talking about big rods. Tindryst would run out of time eventually. He had to pick something.
A small basket of crystals caught his eye.
They were all shades of frost blue, most the size of his palm and carved with little pictures. A snowflake. A dragonhawk. An elk. Tindryst recognized them as toys for mage children. They glowed when touched, and allowed a budding young mage to get used to the feeling of magic at their fingertips.
Simple things. Inexpensive. Replaceable. No one would blink if one just – disappeared.
“--I’m thinkin’ at least ten inches,” he heard Dionys say.
“That’s a little absurd–”
“It’s not. I’ve seen ‘em bigger.”
“Fine,” the shopkeeper conceded. “Follow me.”
Tindryst’s hand hovered over an ice-blue crystal etched with the stern face of a wolf. Its eyes stared up at him, gleaming.
At the edge of the market where they’d agreed to meet, Tindryst stuffed his hands into his pockets and waited, shifting his weight to keep himself warm. A cool breeze drifted in from the sea onto the docks. His breath turned to mist at his lips.
Dionys bounded up beside him, giggling fitfully.
Tindryst turned to him. “So – how’d you end that conversation?”
“He’s puttin’ in a special order for a twelve-inch rod,” Dionys snickered, delighted with himself. “I said I’d come by the shop on Quel’danas for it next week. Payment on delivery.”
“You’re awful.”
“Someone will buy it,” Dionys said, waving a hand. He looked at Tindryst expectantly. “So? Didja do it? What’s in yer pocket?”
Tindryst winced. He pulled his prize out of his pocket: a white mageroyal flower, its petals bent and drooping. He held it by the stem and presented it to Dionys, feeling like a failure. “I panicked,” he said. “I couldn’t do it. I just – took a flower from one of the vases and left. They’re just decoration. It doesn’t even count as stealing–”
He trailed off. Dionys did not seem to hear him at all. Tindryst realized too late exactly what he’d done: he’d pulled a flower from his pocket and offered it to Dion.
A flower.
Flustered, he dropped his hand to his side. “Sorry,” Tindryst said.
Dionys regained his composure and looked up at him. “Sorry?”
“For not being very good at this, I guess.”
“Y’stole a flower.”
Tindryst sighed. “Don’t make fun of me, Dion.”
“M’not!” Dion exclaimed, earnest. “Gotta start somewhere. Wanna try again?”
“No!” Tindryst blurted out, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.” When Dion deflated a little, a flicker of guilt in his eyes, Tindryst felt himself scrambling to lift his spirits again. “Can we just – explore the market, a little? And buy the stuff we want to take with us?”
Dionys crossed his arms, glancing off. “M’outta silver.”
“I’ll buy you something,” Tindryst said. “Food, first. Aren’t you hungry?”
He bristled. “Y’don’t gotta buy me stuff. I can just head back–”
“Don’t. Stay. I want you here. The whole reason I came here was to–” Tindryst stopped, biting his tongue. How stupid would it sound, if he said it out loud?
Dionys peered at him. “To what?”
Tindryst gestured uselessly and struggled to say it right. “To – have fun. But with you. Because things have been… a little weird. And I think it’s my fault. So I thought, if I brought you out here, it might… fix it, maybe.”
It did sound stupid. Really stupid.
Dionys frowned, opened his mouth once, and then closed it again.
Tindryst waited in agonized silence until he was certain another second of silence would kill him. “Dion, just – hold out your hand?”
Skeptical, Dionys did.
Tindryst looked him in the eye and placed the white flower in his palm. Dionys curled his fingers around it.
“Come on,” Tin said, and pulled him back towards the market.
They ate roast pheasant legs, holding them by the bone as they explored the market, and Tindryst watched Dionys’ eyes widen at the baker’s stall. Tindryst traded six silver for two rolled cinnamon buns the size of his fist, each drizzled with white glaze. Dionys ate it with his hands and licked his fingers clean. Then, when he wanted more cider, they bought two big mugs of the steaming stuff and sat at the edge of the docks to sip them.
The market’s crowds had thinned a bit behind them, its bustle now a gentle hum of activity. The water’s surface danced with the market’s vibrant color and the smile of the crescent moon. The bigger boats rocked gently in the distance, anchored and slumbering. Dionys leaned against a barrel, his half-empty mug at his side, as Tindryst finished telling him a story about his mother between sips of his own.
“--so it turns out, my mom’s sister was telling the thief hints on how to get into all of the other estates. That’s why mom’s family never got robbed, but all of their neighbors did. Nobody put it together until – well, my aunt ran away with the thief, eventually.”
Dion grinned wide. “I wanna meet her.”
“I’ve never actually met her,” Tindryst told him. “She and her wife are still wanted criminals in Quel’thalas, technically–”
Dionys popped a small chocolate into his mouth, and Tindryst balked.
Tindryst had not bought him any chocolates.
“Dion!” he exclaimed.
“Can’t help it,” Dion said, shrugging helplessly, showing Tindryst a tiny bag of the chocolates in his hand. “Bad habits.”
“Where’d you get those? I’ll go back and pay–”
Dionys grinned, and Tindryst realized immediately that he’d been had. “--calm th’fuck down, Tin, they were real cheap. I paid for ‘em.” He popped one into his mouth and grinned, his tongue flashing across his lips.
Tindryst realized with sudden vivid clarity how badly he wanted to kiss him.
He reached forward. Dionys assumed he was reaching for a chocolate and offered the bag, but Tindryst caught him by the wrist instead, holding him gently, shyly. Dionys blinked at him, his eyes fluttering to Tin’s lips and then back up again as he realized.
“Tin…?”
Tindryst leaned closer. His face burned. He could smell the sweet cider on Dion’s breath. “Can I–?”
Dion swallowed, but he didn’t pull back. “I didn’t think y’wanted–”
“I do,” Tin said. “You just – surprised me, before. Because I didn’t think you wanted – I didn’t think you even liked… this.”
Dionys winced. Tindryst hated it, that almost frightened look that whispered across his features like a ghost. Tindryst’s other hand abandoned the mug of cider at his side to cup Dion’s cheek, as if his touch could chase the look away. “Can I – try again?”
He nodded. Tindryst kissed him.
It was clumsier than he’d meant it. He felt his goggles bump against Dion’s forehead, and Dion made a small noise in his throat that Tin desperately hoped was a good noise – and his hope found an answer when he felt Dion’s hands curl into his hair beneath his ears. He shivered at the sensation of it, leaning into him, slipping his hands down from Dion’s face to his waist, pulling him closer. One kiss became two, then three, and Tindryst felt a nervous thrill rush up his spine when Dion’s tongue brushed against his–
– and then Dion pulled away, but their faces stayed close, like they had before at Duskwither cliff. This time, though, he didn’t see the same drowning fear in Dion’s eyes, but something else. Something timid and searching.
“Better?” Tindryst asked, stupidly.
Dionys whispered, “Y’tell me.”
“I think so,” Tindryst said, even more stupidly.
He tugged at Dion’s waist, pulling him in – but he felt something there, tucked into the pocket of his coat. Tindryst slipped his fingers into the pocket and withdrew the little white owl.
Tindryst groaned. “Dion–”
But Dionys kissed him again, harder and more insistent. He tasted like apples and cloves and made Tindryst feel dizzier than the rum in the cider. He let the stolen prize slip back into Dion’s pocket.
It could wait a little longer.