katabasis | [psl] dos rowdy boys

"That follows." He doesn't tilt his head away from the brush of Marcus' thumb, though he does finish wiping his chin. "There's enough happening. I'd be surprised if anyone has any of their stories straight."

He doesn't know that he does. Too many moving pieces, no moment long enough in which to stop and arrange them for observation.

But if Marcus isn't here to make a report, then fuck standing here in the darkened office portion of these rooms. Nevermind the glance that flicka quick up the line of Marcus' arm and to his face, says nothing at all save that an assessment has been made. Then Flint does draw away, boot heels clunking heavily across the floor as he makes his way back to the lit slice cut into the wall by the half open door leading into the room beyond this one.

"Bolt the door," he says. "There's a bottle in here if you need a drink."

Marcus bolts the door.

He'd minded it some, that glance, curious about everything, including whatever inscrutable thoughts trail along the path of Flint's eyeline, the conclusions made. Which is in part why he says, "Aye," on the subject of whether he needs a drink, following along behind. Tracking the subtle shift in scent and temperature between one room and the other in contrast to the more jarring one of light and lack.

Shrugs out of his jacket as he crosses the threshold, folding it over with more care than the way he deposits it over the nearest and likeliest surface. Then, a look for this promised bottle and the necessary vessel.

"I wish I'd've been of any use," as he does so, more conversational than confessional, but not a lie either.

The room is warm thanks to a burning brazier which affordable the room most of its light and, if the nearby evidence is any indication, had heated the water currently filling Flint's basin. The bottle in question Flint catches up from the bedside table. With it comes a pewter cup which he first drains the dregs from before passing both to Marcus. Cheap rum by the smell of it, cloying in its sweetness.

"Luck of the draw," is not a consolation. It's just a fact. Marcus is a gambler. He knows how these things work.

With the assumption that Marcus will either make himself comfortable or he won't, Flint turns back toward the pedestal stand. He draws the cloth from his shoulder. Only for a fine, thread thin instant does he hesitate. Decides, bluntly, that he feels stupid with a half shaved face and that beats out the prickling sensation that comes from the reality of having Marcus in the room while he goes about this very dull business.

So: razor. Wet boar's brush through dry soap. Drawing loose his shirt's neck again. Annoying, actually, to start the whole process over.

"You should be grateful your brains are still between your ears."

The drink he pours for himself is on the generous side of a solitary helping. Once that's done, the bottle stoppered and set down, Marcus makes an assessment of the likeliest place to to sit, and chooses the end of the bed, boots still on the floor. He drinks a modest taste, and then a longer pull as if in answer to thing Flint says.

"I am," quiet, but he needn't be loud to be heard. Marks Flint arranging himself for a task normally conducted in some privacy. That Marcus lowers his focus to where he idles his hands, tracing the lip of the pewter cup with the edge of his thumbnail, is not really in respect of that. Listens, attuned to the sounds of brush bristles, water, the scrape of a razor over skin when it comes.

Attuned, also, to some inner clench of feeling, before he adds, "And that I was found when I was."

There is a rhythm to this. It slows a fraction here, razor's edge hovering over tender flesh for a split second before his hand continues its motion. The beat in which Flint doesn't respond then is so he can finish with this particular stretch of his face without talking and cutting himself. It is not a hesitation.

When the razor comes away and is rinsed in the basin, he says, "You're welcome."

He has spent the last days steeling himself against the guilt determined to worm it's way in. He should have looked sooner, it says, but that is ridiculous. He is not apologizing for putting Kirkwall over what had reasonably been the recovery of Marcus' corpse.

(Nevermind that an apology isn't what Marcus is asking for; he's almost certain.)

A soft scrape of honed metal against the basin's lip. Again, that gentle rasp of the razor on skin.

He'd been turning one fragment of memory over like a coin between his fingers, something before all of this. I want you to come find me, Flint had said, voice close to Marcus' ear even though he'd been several days ride away. Spoken in between directives on how Marcus might or might not touch himself, in the midst of the absurdity of finding a way to fuck while not even in the same room, meant to help bring him closer to that edge his own hand was working him towards.

It had been a pleasantly restless few days after, both keen to return to make Flint make good on his promise to him as well as comfortable in the knowledge that Flint would be anticipating his arrival. I'll put my hands on you then.

Marcus looks back up from his cup. A fragment of mirror offers him some view of Flint's face, but he settles his focus on the back of his head. Loose collar, slope of light. The taste of rum in his mouth, which he swallows around again before he says, "And that it was you," without dropping his focus.

Poor luck, he thinks. Had it been the first person he'd sent looking to do it, they'd have peeled Marcus off the Kirkwall pavement hours earlier. Saved them all some trouble, to say nothing of the low knot he'd carried around in his own belly during that interval. A knot that has not, despite having every reason to, particularly eased in the hours since finding Marcus miraculously not quite a corpse. Flint has chalked it up to the demands of the days. The lack of sleep. To the ache that had developed in his forearm and shoulder from being wrenched around on Monster's back. But it cinches a little tighter here in answer to that sentiment. So maybe not.

The razor slips off the edge of his cheek with the faintest ringing of the metal. He rinses it briskly, aware of a kind of self-consciousness prickling at the back of his neck. He is not at his best.

(It is possible that on hearing Marcus was no longer bound to a sick bed, that he'd some thought to sleep and a bath and a shave—a sort of theater where being in some sense presentable makes up for a number of sins; an impulse long made habitual by years pretending that a uniform and polished boots offsets the stink of being aship for months on end.)

"Your griffon did most of the work," he says, adjusting the mirror. If there is a flash of Marcus the reflection, then it's brief before Flint leans in to do the finicky work of tidying various edges. "But it was"—what?—"a relief to find you in one piece."

A glance cast back through the mirror's reflection. A slanting of the brow which says, More or less.

It would be sympathetic, if Marcus thought about it. Not so far apart from his own desire to present himself on his own two feet rather than groggily miserable on unwashed bedding, of having already made some effort to slot himself back into rotation, one guard shift under his belt. He'd remembered marking the amount of grey- and rust-stained water run off when he'd gotten around to washing up, managing not to dwell too much on what a horror he must have looked two basins ago. A little, though.

But he doesn't think about it. Instead, he watches what he can see of rinsing, of scraping the razor clean, the sound of metal against ceramic, sharp edges against skin, and the aroma of soap, and finds that he likes it.

Does catch that glance in the mirror, the corner of his mouth turning up.

"Aye, well," Marcus says, knowing something like the emotional equivalent of claws retracting from that glance alone. Their having extended to begin with less out of a prey drive and more out of the desire to give something a good and proper kneading. He adds, "My wardrobe begs to differ."

A low rumbled hum, something along the lines of Fair enough rendered wordless in deference to not taking a nick from the corner of his mouth, answers that. But after, dissatisfied with the result and straightening from it anyway, Flint gives the razor a rough rinse and adds, "Good excuse for a new one."

Captain Rowntree may not be the Gallows' most ostentatious clothes horse, but that hardly disqualifies him from the race in general.

The razor sniks closed into its case. A perfunctory rinsing away of soap, a drying of cheeks, and a squinting examination of the results follows. Some woody beard oil follows, a surreptitious scratching of fingernails against irritated cheeks. Fine, seems to be the assessment. In this light, at least.

Marcus answers with his own rumbled hum of sound. True.

He drinks as Flint finishes, down to half a sip left once an assessment has been made. A stiff helping of rum does its work quickly after a few days of picky eating and idleness, a pleasant warmth beneath the skin. Marcus tosses back the rest and then stands, moving that short distance where he'd set the bottle down.

"Here," he says as he pours a helping. If he'd had any foresight beyond impulse, he might have ferreted out a bottle of something from somewhere on his way up the stairs. Next time, perhaps. For now, he can offer the man his own liquor. "Have a drink with me."

He pulls the cloth from his shoulder, depositing it on the pedestal stand as he turns to accept the cup. His cheek stings a little from the scrape of the razor and the oil that has followed, and it is habit to run his fingertips across the smooth skin left behind or to tug absently at the edges of his beard as if to be certain they are where they should be.

A low murmur of thanks for the cup instead of some sharper, funnier thing. This doesn't count if you're trying for a do over for a shit night at a tap house, he could say and doesn't.

He knows what the rum tastes like. There is no need to sip carefully at it.

"How are you feeling?" is a better thing to say anyway.

Flint drinks, and Marcus gives his shaving job a brief zigzagging assessment with a flick of eyeline. It all looks neat, at least in this light.

"Better," he says, reinstating eye contact. "Good," is his revision, a tipping down of his chin meant to impress upon the other man the truth of this. He is better, good. Alive, and present. Nothing that need recall any past pain, nothing that requires distance. "Sober," is then added, punctuated with a tip of the bottle to top up Flint's last sip of rum. He shifts aside to set the bottle down without again stoppering it.

Ready to accept back the cup. Maybe there is something to this in the spirit of a do over, or maybe some quiet and semi-serious celebration in a shared drink, but he hadn't really had much of a plan for what happens after Flint opens his door to him. And so Marcus adds, "Foolish.

"You?"

He finds his ear pricked for the answer, ready to gauge whatever Marcus says more carefully than he might have guessed even as he'd been the one asking. Better is good. Good is better. Sober has him nipping a last taste from the cup, eye tracking the way Marcus moves as he sets the bottle aside, and foolish—

The huff of an exhale across the lip of the cup is rum warm and related to a laugh. Pleased with the unexpectedly candid quality of the thing. So in exchange, he trades Marcus the cup and offers, "Tired," with it.

It has a confessional quality, a glint of amusement snagged in at the margins. He's not meant to say that part out loud, it suggests. It would be bad for morale.

"Mm."

It's a sympathetic hum of sound, shaped by the interior of the cup as Marcus draws another deep sip of cheap rum. Some abstract thrum of guilt passes through him, as if maybe he'd have been able to alleviate enough of the work that Flint would have a different answer, if only he'd been ———, but it comes and it goes, dismissed.

'Foolish', he'd said, and what's the use of feeling that way without acting on it? He reaches out and collects Flint's hand, palm against palm and fingers resting on the inner of his wrist. Coaxing, encouraging Flint nearer rather than stepping into his space.

"I want to stay anyway," Marcus tells him.

It's warm, Marcus' palm and the lay of his fingers there at the heel of his hand and across the sinews and bones in his wrist. It prompts an automatic shifting of thumb and fingers, closing in. A rough scuff of a calloused finger pad along the underside of Marcus' wrist. He'd been cold the last time he'd touched him, coated in a fine layer of ash and grit and with all his powers drained free of him. This evidence of Better and Good is gathered into Flint's own fingers. Or, credit where it's due, he is successfully coaxed. Either way, he shifts in.

The hand that follows and finds its way to Marcus' shoulder is warm too, thumb encroaching up past the line of his collar to set at the underside of his jaw before the whole hand moves after it.

If he is stepping close, then his hand is moving to the back of Marcus' neck. He is drawing him closer, as if expanding to fit the space, and kissing him—not particularly sweetly, but gentle and unhurried over the warm gusting of a shared breath and the prickling of cheap dark liquor on Marcus' mouth. A less urgent version of the thing he'd pressed to Marcus' lips while they'd tasted of coppery blood. That's fine, it says. Stay then.

His hand circles Flint's wrist as he is kissed, tightening his hold as he tips his head that small fraction down to receive the gesture. A self-satisfied (or simply satisfied) breath moves through him, released gently. For the kiss, or the way it answers his not-quite-a-question, for the warmth of Flint's hand

which Marcus can feel better, now, in contrast to that other night where the probing of fingers or blunt warmth of palm that had felt like it was touching him a little through layers of wool. No, he can feel calluses and smooth skin, the discreet points of contact of individual fingers, the gentle pressure that encourages him in up at the back of his neck.

Marcus draws an arm around Flint in a slow squeeze of an embrace, as if relishing something. The pewter cup stays clasped between fingers, neglected. Kisses back, eager to initiate that secondary press of contact.

It doesn't particularly help that knot formed in his belly. Rather, the shape of Marcus' arm cinches it tighter and nearer and pulls it higher under the ribs where it might ache like tender bruise does. But this is hardly the first instance of warming to some pressure Marcus has applied. It only stings if his bristles. It's only a matter of letting himself want it.

Tonight, he does. For all the grit under his fingernails and the imperfect shave, it's good that Marcus is here in this room with the strength in his arm to draw him in. It is less like an indulgence, and hews closer to some kind of legitimate gratitude. Soothes over the thing in Flint most prone to balking. Apparently, he's going to be upset if Marcus Rowntree dies in some fiery standoff with Venatori. If that's true, then it seems stupid to pretend it won't just for the sake of pretending.

It's a slow, warm kiss in that narrowed space. Methodical, like checking that all the pins and buckles of a thing have been done up. A soft parting of lips, a gentle probing of tongue. No teeth at all and the heavy press of fingers cuffed at the nape of Marcus' neck. And when it breaks, as kisses are wont to do, it's with a low huff of breath. A grumbled rum tinged, "Ouch," that is at least partially overplayed as he twists his wrist to loosen the grip Marcus has on it. But he doesn't shift back from under the rasping of Marcus' coat sleeve, and the shape of Flint's other hand remains settled.

That hand loosens with a quiet grunt of sound out of Marcus, a reflexive apology that doesn't see him ease back or anything. Just settles his grasp a little looser, higher up near Flint's elbow, which makes for a good loose handhold anyway when he goes to insist a second kiss on the man's mouth.

Still gentle, still slow and warm. An enjoyment in the physical act of it as much as it conveys something. Tasting, feeling, the recent trace of alcohol and the texture bristle still damp and smoothed over from the towel. The last of that kiss brushes against the man's lip, which comes with it that first touch of teeth, a brief nip before the kiss breaks.

But doesn't stray far. Marcus' mouth brushes low on Flint's jaw and then the internal structures of the exchange collapse just a little, just enough for his chin to find a resting place on the other man's shoulder and the arm looped around him to anchor firmly, holding him there and against him.

That hand sliding to his elbow has made it easier too to catch his fingers in the stiff fabric of Marcus' coat, to secure a grip there at his side. Not so high as to actually press through to the pinched scar that he knows lurks across the ribs, but not so far so far removed as to be entirely divested from the sentiment of the thing. Here is the flat of his hand pressed tight to Marcus' side again and the shape of the man's breathing moving under it. And closer: across his neck and under the line of his arm where his hand is still fit to Marcus' nape. It is easy in that instinctive way to turn his face and press a little into the crook of Marcus' neck and shoulder where he smells like the night air the comes across the wall and the tang of tobacco smoke living thick in the fabric of his outer layers.

The sound of his own breathing seems loud in the close knit of this, rasping thick in the narrow space. He lingers there anyway for a few moments in that tight loop of the man's arm; and when he does draw back, it barely qualifies—the line of his body pressed flush, and only Flint's shoulders shifting so he might insinuate enough space into the equation in which to actually meet Marcus' eye.

"Sleep here," has a steady, expectant quality. Not really a question. Barely a request.

It's long enough. Not long enough. Marcus holds him and is held and regards with a kind of remote observation that sense of something burning brighter and brighter, high in his chest, higher. Enough to prickle behind his eyes but only that, the rest of him stone without smothering. He feels Flint move and takes a long breath in, relaxing his grasp just enough to answer that look.

He nods. The affirmative sound, more breath than words, is lost a little in the kiss he brush across Flint's mouth. A reason to stay there a moment longer, pressed in tightly, pairs of boots in close order together on floorboards too sturdy to creak beneath the shifts of weight of two rather than one.

It also makes for a compelling reason to disentangle, once that last kiss breaks.

Barely. But Marcus steps back, disengaging in parts—the leaning into, then his arm sliding back, then finally the hand at Flint's elbow—before lifting the cup to polish off the rum inside. His other hand travels to the edge of his coat to rid himself of less comfortable layers.

As if the possibility were somehow in doubt, though he knows it wasn't, something warms and aches behind the ribs and in the belly at that agreement. Comes prickling up under the shape of that last kiss and the close press of bodies. Teeters between satisfied and a hooked and scraping wanting sensation that only gleams sharper as they disentangle, his hand slipping from Marcus' neck. From his side.

There is a brief impulse when they come fully apart to reverse trajectory and insinuate a hand somewhere close on Marcus' person. Instead, he takes the emptied cup from him and draws back, pulse thick and heavy in his throat.

There is an order to this: the setting aside of the cup, stripping out of the boots he'd removed once already this evening, packing away the things left near the basin with the kind of thoughtless tidiness that speaks of long habit impressed by necessity. There is a cover for the brazier. Fitting it throws the room into the shadow of lamplight.

Undressing in this room, or shared rooms, usually sees a belt over there, a shirt slipped off the end of the bed, boots nudged somewhere unseen for later discovery. Not always, but frequent enough that it feels conscious, finding a place to drape his coat, sitting to unlace and unbuckle his boots and put them aside so that he won't trip over them at a later time.

The room is thrown into dimmer light and shadow once Marcus is standing again, tugging loose the tails of his shirt from his waistband. His skin prickles over, newly alcohol-warm when the air is pleasantly cool, gathering the fabric and tugging it up over his head, his shoulders. Just like the rest of him, healing magic and recovery has done its work—no new scars to boast, this time.

The shirt is tossed lightly over where his coat was put aside. Loosens his belt to start that too, though a sideways glance marks Flint's progress.

A few paces removed, Flint has achieved a similar state. The shirt already hanging loose about him has come up and over his head, and has been folded once over itself before being draped across the room's screen divider. A clanking of metal has evidently noted the unfastening of his own belt, this too laid aside. And, as Marcus' attention rises, he has already begun work on unbuttoning and unlacing his trousers with the intent of stripping down to soft cotten breeches.

Twisting in the shadow of the lamplight, his left forearm is lashed with bruising and a striping of fine speckled petechial rashing born from the hard snap and pull of that passenger's line. Given the givens, it had been too trivial an injury to bother with troubling any healer over but now days later in the daylight it has that ugly purpled and yellowing cast about it. Happily, the glow of the lamp is somewhat more flattering and it appears to give him no trouble when it comes to stepping out of the waxed linen trousers or his socks.

Still, he is very aware of the obvious mark of his foolishness as he makes to strip the rings from his fingers. Can feel the awareness of Marcus' attention prickling down the back of his neck (or maybe it's imagined, just a texture made tangible by the shared rasp of clothes being shed) (or maybe it's the lingering sensation of Marcus' arm looped close around him).

"Do you need anything to be comfortable?" he asks, ringings clicking softly against the metal shell shaped dish into which they're set. A different shirt. Another drink. Presumably Marcus hadn't actually come here with the intention to crawl into bed and actually use it for it's most basic purpose.

His eyeline has caught on that stripe of bruising, curious and considering it as he loosens and steps out of his trousers, leaving his drawers. None of what he's wearing has been worn for more than a few hours and none of the rain outside penetrated much more than his coat, so he shakes his head to the offer as folds the cloth over.

Marcus nods once, which is not a revision—a flicked glance to that arm. "What was that?"

Impossible to draw together a specific conclusion, but he can imagine that it was at least incurred that evening. Much of it is lost in the fog of both his shattered recollection as well as outright exclusion, and it's not quite tentative, fossicking out some piece of it.

Folded trousers tossed over the rest, and then he twists off a silver ring, this one set with a stone the colour of a blinded eye, and moves to find a place for it.

"Stupidity," has a low slant to it and is punctuated with a sidelong glance that suggests that must be true and not simple self deprecation. Nevermind that the catch of friction had probably saved him from losing hold of the line and being bucked straight off Monster's writhing back. It could have been done smarter, and wasn't.

"I took a turn with your tack line about it." He sets forefinger and thumb to wrist, absently circling round and scuffing the joint as his attention snags at Marcus' hip and shoulder and following after him unconsciously at first and then, when he realizes he is looking, with some intent.

Shaking his wrist free of his own grip, he turns his hands instead to removing the stud from his ear.

"You should check your harness stitching the next time you go up."

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