katabasis | [psl] dos rowdy boys

'Aye' is barely said, more of a shape in the next breath out than an articulated thing.

Scrapes a look over Flint, first, now that he has himself buried in the other man to the hilt. Soaks in the appealing terrain of bared chest, that distinctly attractive uninterrupted line from torso down naked hip to thigh, the drying evidence of where Marcus had gotten his mouth on him between fits of conversation, a streak of moisture where the leaking end of Flint's cock has shifted on his skin, all of these things he can admire while he still has sense to do so. The brightness of the room sparing him no detail.

Briefly entertains how they might do this where Marcus can enjoy all of that with more than just looking at it. Some other creative tangle. Strict instruction. Rope, maybe. How much pressure and particularity can they apply to this thing they have between them before it breaks? Why is it that when he's granted something, his impulse is to push past it for more?

It's only a flicker of forward thought before he is inevitably drawn back to the present: the unyielding tightness around his cock, the nudge of bootheels behind him, the hook that Flint's quiet coaxing has put in him. Adjusts his feet, slightly, the crumpled loop of his own trousers about the knees not so restricting that he can't.

Begins anew, longer strokes now that he has the sense of it, each terminating with that firm jolting impact before withdraw. Feels a thrill for it immediately, a grateful groan scraped out of him in the midst of this more demanding pace.

He'd determined, at some point, to do this quietly. To revel in the shifting of crumpled paper, prickling at the soft rasp of fabric and the friction of his shoulder on the hard surface of the table amidst some sharper pant and huff of breathing. Not so concerned with it to outright make the demand of Marcus, but aware (distantly) of the possibility of what might be heard in the corridor beyond that bolted door, and preferring to keep some measure of control over the whole arrangement. To be secret with it. To guard it to such a degree that only he (and Marcus, presumably, though they've discussed how it would be better if he didn't) can scrutinize it.

But that sound tumbling out of Marcus catches so sweetly against the ribs and in the ear. Puts Flint immediately to mind of having had him in his bed, and fucking those low wanting sounds out of him while his hand traveled the length of Marcus' back and shoulders. And how quiet they'd been that first time in spite of the instructive scrape of teeth and the scent of blood sticky in the air, and how irreplicable that seems (because it would require a certain degree of reserve he would dislike now that they've divested of the pretense).

It scrapes at something raw in him.grown tender under this new pace he's encouraged and Marcus has been pleased to set for him. Strikes a hitched cord in his breathing that comes out as a heavy groan, some formless sentiment of encouragement.

Does let himself slacken then, vulnerable in this position where his only leverage is the lay of his heels, and the heavy weight of his attention roving across Marcus' face and the working line of his shoulder left tantalizing obscure by his shirt, and what he might say as Marcus fucks hot into him.

In that flush space that likes to imagine itself as clear headed but isn't, it's easy to melt over into less formless praise—'Fuck, that's it,' and 'Make me come for you,' and other absurdities in low panting murmurs between this hard strike of skin—and to twist his wrist in Marcus' grip, fingers chasing after the fabric of his sleeve.

Edited 2023-05-30 16:46 (UTC)

It's a tight turn for Flint's wrist, but possible to achieve despite the steady weight bearing down, the increasingly rigid curl of his fingers. Marcus is sparing a little thought to being quiet—not silent, no, and if one were stood right by that heavy door and listened carefully, it probably wouldn't be so difficult to discern the activities happening behind it—but less so for the potential for bruising under his hands. At least, it would take some doing to determine the identity of the culprit, if Flint were to wear his sleeves rolled tomorrow.

Not that Marcus wishes to harm him, not anymore that he wishes to compromise him, but there is a certain amount of undoing occurring, an unravelling, that has those small, rusty vocalisations chase after exhales, has the tendons in his fingers creak.

That pace lessens for a moment in favour of sliding in deeply, pressing in tight enough that it could almost count as embrace. Not still, little grinding motions revelling in that nearness that both frustrate and relieve. By now, there is maybe a hair or two out of place from its neatly brushed arrangement, a warm flush crept up past shirt collar, but some inner settling that has eyeline steer sharper than it was a moment ago up the length of Flint. Hands resitting somewhere higher on Flint's forearms.

A languid motion, a glance down to chase the sight of longer withdraw, firm thrust back in, resuming those littler motions. Tempting to just give Flint everything he wants, him having given up control so sweetly, and maybe it's the fact they both know Marcus will, inevitably, that compels him to linger here, where it's warm and tight and teasing, where the pressing in of heels will do nothing for either of them.

That resetting—it isn't so far, but it slips the edge of the shirt sleeve out of his reach. There is something aching and thrilling both in being denied the scrap of a handhold. If the clamp on his wrist had been less severe, he might have managed to scuff his fingers in against the flexed tendons running in under Marcus' wrist. Might have coaxed his grip fractionally lower with it. Had wanted, maybe, to sway Marcus into grasping after his hand. But the frustration of uselessness, able only to return his hand to pressing against the table top, burns low in his belly. Makes his cock ache, pleased to be rebuffed. It's what he'd originally asked for. To be slightly pushed rather than entirely indulged.

Though he digs with his heels regardless, making as if he might find some effective angle of the hip by which to eke out some additional friction or depth out of this slower, fuller pace (though there's little of either to be had). Grinds out a quiet complaint of protest that's only half genuine. There is some jittering thrill to have Marcus cinched so close and to be so full of him, and to still be made to be dissatisfied. It implies future relief.

Attention keen and bright, hungrily chasing the angles Marcus paints over him—(admiring that flush up his neck that shows in the daylight, and the darker tint of his scarred face, and the curve of his neck and angle of his brow as he bows his head to watch how they can be made to fit together)—, Flint's voice rasps thickly in that not quite narrowed space between them: "Stay." Stop start. "Just a moment. You feel good in me."

Satisfying, in some rich, low way—the bullying in of Flint's heels to no effect, that noise of half-complaint, capitulation in the turn of his hands, and the innate sense that the frustration being evoked is not being badly received. He holds there, and then cuts loose a dry-sounding breathed out laugh. It is both natural and expected that Flint might turn what Marcus doing into a request of his own.

But Marcus nods anyway, a breathed out agreeing sound, because he does feel good in him, doesn't he, the comfortable squeeze and ache of it a shared thing that for now overrides that biting desire for friction. Just for a little bit.

Eases that some with a small starting motion, stilling again.

"I'm going to make you come while I fuck you," he says, that hint of breathlessness mixed in with characteristic quiet gravel-tone. "I'm not going to stop when you do." Mirrored points of contact, his thumbs sweep an affectionate, gentle arc where they lay against the inner of Flint's arms. "It'll be tempting, though. The way you look when you do."

Another small, pressing thrust of contact. "Maybe next time."

He's already flush with it, some natural predisposition toward going red cloaked under freckled, sun-worn skin. But he can feel a further heat bloom in his neck and face here. Twitching with arousal for the appealing shape of these promises, yes (next time), but hardly registering this reflexive jerk of arousal over the intense flare of satisfaction that has cracked open, high and unanticipated, in his chest.

The circle of his legs tighten about Marcus, though it accomplishes effectively nothing except for warm press of skin. There, a slanting hook tugging at the corner of Flint's mouth behind the strictly tamed bristle of fresh trimmed red whisker. He shouldn't laugh, but nearly does, and the brief flashing smile that does bolt across his face is pleased. Not in the low, thoroughly fucked way, or in the arrogant bearing of teeth sense. Rather, it finds all the wrinkles in Flint's face and is warm as crinkled paper in that dust speckled daylight for the instant it fully lives there.

"Mm," a thick throaty hum, curled at the edges with approval and the lingering glint of that genuine and simple pleasure sparked off something Marcus has said or done. "I'll tolerate it."

The sight of that smile, the almost laugh behind it, could nearly be mistaken as that second thing, and there is a twinged moment where Marcus might. A reflexive near-closing off in defense of the idea of being laughed at, and he supposes that's possible, that this thing they are sharing could suddenly curdle into something else with the wrong thing spoken, the wrong button pushed, a moment spent too long and lingering. But it's only that, managing not to properly flinch before he registers it as something warmer.

Present and simmering in that sound Flint makes, the welcoming, tightening circle of Flint's legs around his waist, the clear pulse of arousal thick in the blood. The searching quality of his own forward focus gentles. Trust re-settling, so when Flint says that, Marcus' mouth hooks into something nearer a smile.

Prick, it suggests, affectionately.

They could really use another little splash of oil, but his hands stay stubborn where they are, and by the time he begins moving again, the excess of it eases the path, just with that hint of friction. Fucks Flint in slower, luxurious slides, almost all the way out before pushing back in, knowing better now the way that feels, for Flint had done that to him and he'd liked it. Slowly, easing his way back up to those shorter, faster, harder motions.

Well, not too slowly. It's easy to fall back into that rhythm, the driving pulse of his own arousal demanding it, the promise of getting himself off from that quick friction. He can hold back from buckling, but not from working closer to it, and Flint can feel each impact for its earnest want.

That warm, buckled tight sensation in his chest refuses to abate even as Marcus works himself slowly back up to pace. Even as Flint allows the line of his spine to settle out and the cant of his chin to ride up, the pitch of his breathing swelling thick around the pleasure that comes sizzles up through the skin in answer to the push of Marcus cock and that thing riding up behind the ribs to the very base of his throat. He is aware of it tugging at him, that heady drunken feeling. Can feel it warm in his face and threatening to spill out of him in some further flash of teeth.

Instead, it finds an outlet in a heavy satisfied pant and the pattern of soft hitching breaths that follows after. The groans that ache in the same fashion as a good bruise. If there are marks left behind on wrists and forearms after this, he will find a secret thrill in them for as long as the shadows linger and the twinge lives in the joint as he signs his name to reports, and to orders, and all the miscellaneous papers that cross his desk and demand it.

In the mean time, he watches Marcus in intervals, catching glances and indulging in brief flickers of examination out from under heavy eyelids and pale eyelashes. It would be difficult, says that warm knot in his throat, to be more endeared to him than he is in this moment of earnest, wanting friction.

"Marcus," is more catching murmur than it is a proper naming. "Give me your hand."

His breath comes in heavy panting sighs, out of step with Flint's own hitched inhales but mingling anyway, this open room filled with their unmatched heavy breathing. Empty of some of the more open throated groans they might indulge in in Lowtown letting rooms, but it doesn't feel like restraint, exactly, no sense of concealing something from one another.

Impossible to do that in the light of day, the occasionally hooking snare of eye contact, the slick, muted sound of the thing they are doing. If the angles were better, he would kiss Flint here, soak up those hitched, grating sounds, chase down the lingering evidence of a smile and crush it possessively. It might almost be worth them both coming and being done with it so he can.

It is half of why Marcus doesn't hesitate when Flint asks this of him. Grand schemes of begging frittering apart, something too soft embering in the other man's tone to be resisted. He lifts his hand off forearm and curls fingers around Flint's cock. Judges that the sheen of oil is now too spare to be of much use, and has no interest in fussing with the pitcher. Just breaks what he's doing long enough to lower his head, some, and spit down into that grasp.

Closes it into a fist, a few errant tugs before picking back up with fucking. That, he'll make good on, focus returning to this hard sprint of motion, hand formed into a tight thing that Flint can fuck into.

Not so negligent as all that. Marcus isn't closing his eyes, isn't solely consumed with his own pleasure, instead watching that tangle of appendages and then back up to Flint's face, sharply interested. "Come on," he murmurs. "Give it to me. I want it."

He should raise his liberated hand from the tabletop and go grasping after some part of Marcus in return. An elbow. A shoulder. He might, at the very least, fold his arm and tangle fingers in the dark shirt fabric bunched in around his own neck and about his shoulders. A small handhold for himself, and not so much of a betrayal to this thing they're doing even if someone were petty enough to keep track. Instead, forearm loosed, he is diligent even as that filthy shock of spit is worked in across the aching, sensitive shape of his cock. A flex of muscle keeps his hand pressed flat to where it had been pinned while Marcus fucks the rest of the resolve out of him. Does it really count as having been restrained if the recipient is so very grateful for it?

Though, for all that he has felt that thick sense of himself cinched close at the bottom of the belly for what feels like since they began this, it takes a few moments of tight fist, and of being so hungrily filled, that demanding friction, and Marcus' handsomely warm instruction pooling over him to

—Fuck, it feels good to be touched and studied and wanted; a heavy flutter and clench of the pulse that he can feel against the shape of Marcus' hand as much as in his own throat. When he tilts his chin restlessly back down, attention cutting to watch the shape of Marcus' hand and the catch of their bodies together, it's impossible to say what of the wet gleam smeared over his cock has been the drooling precursor to his own release and what is the rubbed out flecks of Marcus' eager spit.

groan out, that knot of fondness in his throat tangling with the hot throb of debauched arousal that becomes the first clutch of orgasm. That thrilled contraction of muscle and tightening blood felt sharply against the hard catch of Marcus fucking roughly past it. With a winded curse that is all its hard bitten consonants and the color high in his face, he spills in thick, unfolding pulses from out of that goading fist up across the twitching plane of his naked belly.

His hand, the one Marcus still has set against Flint's arm, tightens harshly. An outlet of something while his other works Flint over, slippery and clutching and dedicated to seeing him off. Tears his focus off Flint's face to openly admire the lash of that heavy fluid across his skin, of having brought it about and wrung it from him.

Soon, Flint's obediently set arm is once again pinned down with a little squeeze of sticky fingers—good, this gesture seems to say. And this time, his palm maps closer against Flint's when Marcus leans there as he continues to fuck into him, as unrelenting as promised while Flint twitches through the last of it. Satisfaction heightening where he'd already enjoyed having the man pinned down under hands and cock, however willingly, and now to have it while Flint is still red-faced and gasping and dirty, for as long as Marcus needs him to be.

Which. Is not dreadfully long. That there is any more time spent in this state is a fact of will alone. A low sounding groan is briefly strangled in his throat at that first throb of warning, something like concentration knotted in his brow.

If pressed, he might say it's that he wishes Flint to become sensible to the moment too, wanting to feel the last dig of bootheels behind him or the curl of fingers or some quiet order or flattery or even just a last connecting scrap of eyeline, as if he needed any other reward than what an orgasm might do for him.

He doesn't get the bite of boot heels. Instead, a reactive tightening in Flint's chest has his shoulders rolling forward and a tight clench passing low through his belly—the kind of overtaxed flinch about that relentless fucking and the sound of Marcus edging close that is as good as it is too much. Feels, for a moment, like that euphoric high tide mark of orgasm might come up and smother him in spite of the part of him that is already becoming ordered and sensate.

Which of those things—the one that just wants to be driven down into that sharply humming sensation by Marcus' weight, or the one clawing back out from under it—motivates the rough grasp of fingers at Marcus' wrist and the heel of his palm, a handhold so clumsily oriented that it might not actually qualify. It's clinging to something either way.

Arguably there's something of that in scattered track of his attention too as it passes from where their bodies are tangled closest, to his spent cock and the proof of it, the loose neck of Marcus' shirt and the flush color at the underside of the jaw above it. He can't look at him like this except when they're hungrily touching one another, and the desire to examine is so sharp that is might actually sober him if not for that raw jolt passing through him with each hard catch of Marcus pressing in close between his thighs.

This is too much thinking; he must be aware already when he meets Marcus' eye, even if he doesn't feel or look it.

Just as clumsily, the way Marcus shifts his hand a little further down towards that grasp. Probably almost stamps it back down flat without really meaning it, but Flint's fingers can still curl and he can settle their palms together and that feels good to do, and important somehow, even as the narrowness of his desire focuses down, sharpens.

The serrated edge of his breathing is now the most prominent noise in the office, the small noises it hooks out of him. It is not the most quiet he's been, having managed some gritted teeth discretion in the back halls of the palatial Cumberland venue, but some reflexive effort made here amongst crinkled paper and officious furniture. The hand at Flint's arm turns as he meets Flint's eye, something more like holding on than holding down, a slight buckle in posture as the sand begins to shift out from under him.

The sharp breath in would normally come with some rough sound, but it only barely escapes him, punched out and then chest tight as he pushes in deep and holds there. Stop, and start, and stop again as he orgasm rakes through, makes the muscles through his arms and shoulders lash taut to bone. Maybe Flint can feel the pulse and ache and twitch that transpires unseen between them. Marcus certainly can.

Gentles all over, hands weakening but not leaving. Mastering his breathing, a shift of his hips having him tug free of Flint before he can think about it but not distancing himself any further. Scrapes his focus back up to Flint's face. Doesn't physically pull at him, but want is stamped plainly there and he hardly needs to.

The empty ache of Marcus' cock slipping free, the easing of the crushed tight grip of fingers, and the regulating catch of ragged edged breathing—some inverse echo of satisfaction marks the relenting of these things like the pale empty spaces left on plaster walls in the wake of hangings having been stripped from them. A kind of hollowed out space that indicates another thing by the shape of its absence. Satisfaction dimming down from the boil of orgasm, appetite slaked.

By degrees, at the very least.

Somewhere in there, the glaze over Flint's attention has peeled mostly back and is now only represented by a well exercised sense of heaviness about him. A slackening in the lay of his legs about Marcus, if not an outright unraveling. And for a moment while he measures his own breathing and mentally marks that well used, slick sensation low between his legs and it's remnant across his own belly, he just returns that focus. Watching, keen, like there is something there he would like to memorize for later reference.

Patiently then, evidently of the opinion that Marcus' hands no longer are in the business of restraining him, he lifts his nominally free hand from the table. Forearm flexing under the loosened grip over it, hand lifting to mirror that touch near Marcus' own elbow. Finding a soft grip over his shirt sleeve, sluggish and easy both. A gentle thumb. Curled fingers and bumping knuckles.

As for his other hand, Flint makes no effort to reorient or extract it.

Just a second to breathe, and then he should go and fetch some water, once he navigates the trapping tangle he's made of legs and trousers. Let Flint up from his back and the table. Just another second of this and that's what he will do.

A second longer, still. Marcus hand resting on Flint's settles more specifically than before, thumb tracking the curve of his palm in absent mirror of the application of the same against his arm. On that side, his hand turns, catching up under Flint's elbow, the tight fold of shirt sleeve over muscle. Don't underestimate my appetite, Flint had said.

So Marcus doesn't, and pulls at that arm, a request that is also an offer, to help Flint ease up to sit.

For just a moment, he's slow to answer to that pull on account of it requiring—

With a low exhale, Flint lets his heels slide the rest of the way slack. That Marcus isn't fully freed by it is reliant on the merits of that absurd trap he's put himself into the middle of. And mostly, because supportive and pulling grip or no, he is heavy and has been lying here for some minutes. Hauling himself upright necessitates turning his other hand over out of Marcus' fingers and planting it in order to lever up from the table.

Marcus remains planted where he is, standing near flush to table edge with Flint's knees apart on either side. The hand Flint has to abandon turns and rests on his hip, the other falling from elbow once Flint is settled to smooth along his side.

And he's kissed, of course. Barely time for spine to settle into upright column before Marcus tips his head to catch his mouth against Flint's, some small, contented sound hummed there. It isn't lost on him that even when they shared a whole bed in the privacy of these quarters, even if they'd laid together in loose contact and slept that way, there'd been some amount of detaching, stabilising, the permeable space between them that atomises at first contact slowly reconstituting itself.

It isn't conscious, the aim to delay that a little longer with kisses and affirming touches, but sought out regardless. A delay, too, to having to contend with tangled clothing and the feeling of gathered slickness in and around his groin and the slight film of sweat now layered between his shirt cloth and back, which, right now, are more satisfying sensations than anything else.

It would be disappointing, somehow, if he was sat up and didn't get Marcus' mouth in exchange for the trouble. Sat up there, his hands catch briefly after the sides of Marcus' shirt hanging with apparent heaviness about him. A gentle tug as if to nudger him closer, though the definition of that is somewhat muted stood as he is against the table's edge inside the clumsy circle of Flint's tangled ankles.

It's a brief touch, a fleeting kind of affirmation, whereas the kiss he trades back to Marcus is more content to linger. If his hands wander—catching up after the hem of his own shirt where it's been twisted up around his armpits and making to set the garment slightly more in the direction it's meant to lay in—, then it has nothing to do with his mouth. For longer than he might like to be if he were consciously measuring it, he is content to kiss him. To press his tongue lazily past Marcus' teeth, or to pull softly at his lower lip. Neither chaste, or entire lacking in the incidental edge of teeth. Just

unhurried.

Once the shirt has been set more or less to rights (it takes only a moment), his hands meander further. They catch absently at Marcus' wrists, but fail to recall any interest in peeling the hands which belong to them from his person.

Sensing that motion happening, guessing at its aim, Marcus minimally helps with reseating Flint's shirt about him, the hand at his side turning to welcome the hem before resettling, and by the time Flint's hands find his wrists, he's breathed something like amusement against the other man's mouth.

"Wasn't certain which direction we ought go in," he murmurs (and a similarity between being post-coital and a few cups deep would be the way his syllables tend to bump and fuse into each other, leaning into the lazier aspects of accent. To his ear, Flint always sounds well articulated, except when Marcus has managed to get him otherwise). Anyway, he means: undress or redress. He kisses Flint again while he's there, something sweet about it without letting go of that intimacy, a tasting pull of lip, some pressure behind it.

Nothing discouraging him, just that pending sensation in the way Flint has settled his hands.

A low thrum of a noise, warm against Marcus' mouth, sounds considering. Like it wouldn't be impossible to convince him to strip out of the boots and gaiters and the awkward snarl of his trousers in order to free Marcus rather than expecting him to figure out how to hoist his pants up and slither out of the circle of his legs otherwise.

Though:

"I could do with a drink first," has a wide margin of allowance constructed inside of it to allow for that knot lodged high in his chest that's yet to come unwound (and rather has nipped in a little tighter and closer under that amused slant and the slurred together edges of Marcus' speech). First, he says, knowing there is ground being ceded there. But his hands are still about Marcus' wrists. The door is still bolted; he's hardly snapping at the man's heels in an effort to steer him off.

"Mm."

That does sound like a nice transitional thing to share, the hummed sound from Marcus agreeable: he could use one as well. Glances back to where he's seen Flint keep his liquor, even as he says, "That's what I was intending to lead with," in looking back. "A drink." The satisfaction that has begun to sharpen his resting expression indicates that this suggested order of things is far from a complaint.

Speaking of order of things, he hedges backwards, backs of his legs hitting the high up tangle of cloth and leather immediately. Unphased, or at least determined, Marcus bows aside to grasp after his own trousers, tugging them up, one hand balancing on Flint's knee.

A balancing that remains there as he carefully navigates his feet over that bridge, waistband slung low but clear enough to make the movement possible.

Possible or not, it's a patently ridiculous pantomime. Flint may automatically tighten the muscle in his thigh in order to offer a more secure handhold off which to balance, but he also huffs out an exhale in the shape of a laugh as Marcus gets first one leg and then the other free.

Fuck's sake.

"Wait," he says when Marcus has successfully escaped.

Leaning slightly back, twisting slightly round, Flint takes his first cursory stock of the state of the table about him. The hastily shoved away sprawl of papers. A thick crease ground into a chart that hadn't been lucky enough to escape being crumpled. That there are no obvious stark flecks of his own fluids to be seen is a small mercy—and not what he's actually looking for. Instead, Flint seizes on the pewter cup with its collection of much rattled writing instruments. He upends it, sending pencils and bits of chalk and a cheap quill pen spilling over the table.

The cup is passed over to Marcus.

"I do my best to avoid entertaining." There might be a glass in the cabinet with those bottles of liquor, but good luck finding a one anywhere in the room outside of this one.

Two feet back on the floor, straightening up, there is a sidelong look tossed Flint's way for that half-laugh in the midst of arranging the waistband of his pants without bothering with the belt still set on the table. As if either of them can have said to comported themselves with any dignity in the past several minutes, it says, but doesn't rankle much more than that.

He does take that cup, though, inspecting the fine debris inside of chalk dust and the quill's molting, blowing at it to loosen before he shakes it emptier. "Why?" is barely chased with a glance. Somewhat innocently thoughtless for that, no further looks to sharpen the prod.

Instead, Marcus makes for the cabinet, given to inspecting the selection before he will opt for the one with the lowest line, taking it to mean it's a favourite.

Has he met most of the members of this company?, prompts the sideways look that dogs Marcus' heels.

He doesn't say that. Instead, he draws a knee up and makes to untangle the mess of trousers about the tops of his gaiters. Finding the seams of both layers and the button front, yanking them round and encouraging the fabric back up over his knees.

"I've a number of books to see to," he says. When he slips from the edge of the table, it's to draw the waist of both trousers and drawers into place though he bothers only to lace the inside layers and with a single perfunctory button on the other.

He doesn't actually remove himself fully from the table either—propped there with his boots on the ground and the hem of his untucked shirt long across the waist. Instead he circles one of his wrists with his other hand, an unconscious testing of the ache in it, as his attention follows Marcus. Marks the chosen bottle (some dark, north Antivan liquor that's sweet and panting bite both—an acquired taste typically acquired by those without much to begin with). Grunts a low note of approval.

"I'll bear that in mind."

The solitary glass is also taken, pinched between fingers with the cup of pewter, other hand wrangling the liquor bottle by the throat. Judges where Flint has set himself in his state of redress, scopes the other available corners of the room, and, naturally, the way none of it is arranged to permit much in the way of company, as suggested.

Very well. Marcus meanders on back, placing these objects down. Near without being immediately oppressive, only familiar, as he goes to distribute two fair helpings. Into the crystal, first, which is set down for Flint to take; the pewter he gives one last wiping out with the edge of his sleeve before filling it.

"Make account for your book reading," he continues, some small frond of amusement present once again. "And my early morning."

Surely there's a comfortable space that can be made, on the odd evening.

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