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Tartaglia was warm.
Gloriously warm.
The kind of warmth that seeped into his bones, a lazy, golden heat that came not just from the dying fire across the room, but from the weight of blankets tucked over his limbs, the softness of the sheets beneath him, and the way everything smelled like Dottore.
Cologne, faint but stubborn. A trace of his shampoo. Something sharp and chemical and impossibly him.
The embers in the fireplace had dwindled to a soft orange glow, flickering shadows across the walls and tinting the bedroom in hues of gold and copper. It was the kind of light that made everything look slow and soft, like the whole room had exhaled and gone still.
Tartaglia had eaten far too much cake. Drunk just enough wine. Laughed until his cheeks ached. And now he was full, content, marinated in affection and something dangerously close to bliss. His limbs were heavy, his breathing slow, and the pillow beneath his cheek was cool on one side, warm on the other. The bed cradled him. The quiet held him.
He was spoiled. Rotten, really. And married.
To a lunatic. A beautiful, arrogant, insufferable lunatic with boundary issues and a genius IQ.
But gods, he loved him.
Tartaglia smiled into the darkness, eyelids growing heavier with each breath. He was just starting to drift, floating somewhere hazy and warm, when he felt it—
The faintest rustle.
He was just starting to drift, his breathing deep and even muscles loose, thoughts hazy, when the blanket rustled. Something shifted at the edge of the bed, weight dipping low. Tartaglia didn’t even open his eyes.
“…Don’t,” he mumbled.
A beat. Then, the unmistakable sound of a giggle. That evil little giggle.
“Don’t what?” came the reply, already too close.
“You’re crawling under the blanket. Again.”
“No I’m not,” Dottore lied with the smooth confidence of a man halfway between Tartaglia’s legs.
A cold hand slid along his inner thigh.
“Zandik—”
“It’s for science.”
He didn't open his eyes. Just sighed. Loudly.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?” came the entirely fake, innocent voice of one il Dottore.
Tartaglia cracked one eye open. He didn’t need to look to know his husband was already halfway down the bed, head under the covers like a mole with an advanced degree in mischief. A cold, gloved hand slid along his inner thigh.
“You’re trying to blow me while I’m asleep,” Tartaglia accused flatly.
“Incorrect,” Dottore replied, unrepentant. “You’re not fully asleep, though that wouldn't change much. I’m simply… celebrating. It’s still technically your birthday in Snezhnaya Standard Time.”
“You just want an excuse to suck my dick.”
“I’m a loving spouse.”
“You’re a menace in heat.”
Another hand joined the first, gloved fingers trying to be sly as they snuck higher. Tartaglia groaned, eyes still closed, and grabbed a pillow to throw over his face.
“And yet you still married me,” Dottore replied smugly, nosing under the waistband of Tartaglia’s sleep pants.
“Zandik, I swear to the Tsaritsa—” Tartaglia groaned, grabbing a pillow and throwing it blindly at the vague Dottore-shaped lump under the blankets.
A moment later, a gloved hand slid higher. Tartaglia whined.
In retaliation he reached down under the blanket, found Dottore’s head, and slid his fingers into his hair, scratching his scalp in lazy circles.
Instant KO.
Dottore froze. The exact moment the switch flipped from devious imp to purring cat he melted instantly.
There was a long pause, and then he exhaled a long, whiny breath, collapsing fully against Tartaglia’s stomach like all his schemes had been yanked from his body with one gentle pet.
“I was gonna be slutty,” Dottore mumbled into his navel, voice thoroughly wrecked with betrayal. “I had a plan.”
“And now you’re being gently petted like a prize gremlin,” Tartaglia replied, triumphant. “Tragic.”
“Unbelievable betrayal,” Dottore muttered, though he made no move to escape. In fact, he snuggled in closer, nose buried against the soft dip of Tartaglia’s lower stomach, gloved hands curled in the blankets like a sulking cat loaf.
Tartaglia smiled to himself, drowsy and smug. His fingers dragged through Dottore’s hair in slow, sleepy circles, soothing and rhythmic. It was fine and messy and soft at the ends, just like the man it belonged to.
“You’re such a brat,” Tartaglia whispered fondly.
“You don’t know how much I suffer.”
“Poor little meow meow.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m a dangerous man. I have a doctorate. Several.”
“Mmhm. Sure, kitty.”
Dottore let out one final, dramatic groan — the kind that suggested he’d been fatally wronged, perhaps poisoned, and slumped against Tartaglia’s stomach like a soggy, grumbling cat.
But after a moment of quiet scalp scritches and Tartaglia’s smug, sleepy hums, Dottore began to shift again.
A cold nose nudged against Tartaglia’s ribs, then collarbone, and finally, after a rustle of blankets and the sound of Dottore muttering something about “this betrayal will be documented,” he was properly face-to-face.
Barely lit by the soft ember glow, Dottore looked petulant and flushed, hair mussed from where Tartaglia’s fingers had carded through it. His gloves were gone tossed who knows where, and his hands were blessedly warm as they slid under the blanket and looped around Tartaglia’s waist.
“Fine,” he said, like it physically pained him. “Cuddles now. Lewdness tomorrow. Under protest.”
Tartaglia cracked one eye open and smiled, lazy and crooked. “You’re lucky I love you.”
“I should be the one saying that. You denied me birthday sex. I have rights.”
“You got head scritches.”
“I would have preferred a different kind of head.”
Tartaglia snorted and pressed his cold toes into Dottore’s shins in retaliation. Dottore yelped and kicked, and for a brief, half-hearted second they wrestled like blanket-wrapped gremlins before settling again, tangled up, limbs and sighs and heat shared between them.
Eventually, Dottore stilled with his face tucked into Tartaglia’s throat and a thigh slung over his husband’s hips like a very possessive scarf. Tartaglia’s fingers found his hair again, brushing gently.
“You wound me.”
“You tried to blow me while I was half asleep.”
“For love,” Dottore muttered, nuzzling in closer.
Tartaglia kissed the top of his head.
And just like that, the war was over.
Silence settled in the room once more, warm and deep and peaceful. The fire ticked softly across the room. The blankets cocooned them like a private fortress. Dottore breathed deep against his neck, body finally relaxed, fingers loosely fanned against his lower back.
Tartaglia let out a breath, sinking into the quiet.
His hand kept moving through that unruly hair. Just warmth. Hair. Skin. The weight of a man he loved clinging to him like he’d never let go.
His husband. His weirdo. His very ridiculous man.
Best birthday ever.