That hand has gentled by the time Flint has reached for it, gripped it. It doesn't take too much strain, in this configuration, for Marcus to lower himself and follow impulse, to press a kiss across the spread of the other man's knuckles.
Finally, that foot leaves the floor, and they've made it properly to bed. Marcus is close, hips angled to stay buried for the moment, coming to lay against him and fold Flint in, off his knees, down onto his side. Cinches an arm across his torso and presses his chest in tight against the other man's back, giving a satisfied grumble of sound. Sooner over later, Marcus knows, they will disentangle, they will not sleep here, they will not entertain the possibility of some kind of third round.
But this seems to be a good afternoon to get what one wants, and he wants this for a minute, face pressed close at an angle at the back of Flint's neck as he calms down, heart slowing.
It's the right direction to collapse in. For the moment, it is difficult to imagine what it would feel like to be fully apart from one another. Surely they've been touching one another for hours, give or take that spare moment required for Marcus to fetch the little brass oil pot. This drawing close, one expanse of bare sweating skin against the other, makes more sense than slipping free of each other would. Just like they are not, really, so interwoven that it would be impossible to make sense of his limbs, but for the moment it seems unimportant to be concerned with whose knee and heel overlaps whose thigh and calf, or how he is going to escape from the tangle of his trousers and boots in anything like a timely fashion.
Instead: A low grunt of acknowledgement, half for the simple pleasure of Marcus's voice rumbling there against his neck and back as it is for the this assessment. Yes. It was good.
"Wanting something looks good on you," he says, a hand shifting heavily to set loose jointed fingers at the joint of Marcus's elbow. Skimming idly to his wrist.
A breath pulls in, is let go of in a spread of warmth across the skin.
"Giving it to me looks good on you," a counter, and therefore innately playful for it, but Marcus presses the sentiment into place with a nudge of his chin. Hand turning at the wrist as if to receive Flint's, should it wander that far, but otherwise—
He should feel content. Bodily he does, wanting for nothing. And then that sense of hunger, of wanting, that Flint has in the past warned him against, and so when affection builds through the chest, between the bones, it burns. He can lay here and simmer in it, and it isn't unpleasant, especially given the intimate press of bodies, of sore muscles and more acute aches, easily twinged with even minute adjustments.
Eventually, "I've not been that way before with anyone," quietly.
His hand has wandered, a roaming shape that has shifted briefly into Marcus's—a thumb pressing idly into the center of the ready palm, passing over knuckles, and absently working non-existent tensions from the length of his fingers—before drifting away again. Skimming back along the length of his forearm, scuffing through comparatively fine arm hair, only for his grip to solidify there at Marcus's elbow. It's an unconsciously cataloging brand of touch. Marks various bends and the lax line of heretofore corded muscle, and how far his thumb and forefinger fit around the circumference of a forearm.
Then, this. If his hand hasn't already more or less stilled, it might here.
Joined as they are, and loathe to separate or to insinuate any real space between the presently flush points of bodies, there can hardly be any turning to look at Marcus directly. But the impulse is there, face tilting vaguely in that direction like a dog's ear pricking toward sound.
Thumb and forefinger tighten briefly at Marcus's forearm, then gentle—a kind of silent acknowledgement of this admission. Thinking, abruptly, of that apartment off the division office and that thing Marcus had said. You would tell me if I were being too selfish with you, had sounded very like expectation to his ear. Not a little filament crack on a careful surface. Not the question he might have pressed to Marcus.
Maybe he can turn after all. Not to face him obviously, but that quarter twist that wedges a shoulder closer.
That shoulder is met with a kiss brushed against the curve of it, Marcus lifting his head enough to do so. The arm folded clumsily beneath him now engaged, bent, pushing him up enough to meet Flint by that quarter twist, but keeping himself tucked in close. His other hand turning, resting against Flint's chest, where he'd begun to idly pattern out circles with his fingertips.
"No," he says. Something like a crooked smile in his tone when he adds, "More than I might've asked for, maybe." Almost certainly. Another nudge to the shoulder, less specific, murmuring there against warm skin, "But I wanted it all."
A penchant for rough hands and sharp directives and rules aside, something to it like a firm grasp working loose locked muscle. Of a thing made vulnerable and treated kindly. Difficult, though, to transmit the sentiment to words. The sensory muddle of it all, in this hazy aftermath, makes him feel like if he were to apply teeth to skin and bite down, it'd imprint the idea better than he could explain.
Doesn't, obviously. Keeps a firm hold of Flint, keeps attuned to some shift in tone or sentiment, in case it requires correction.
The silence Flint lapses into isn't the satisfied kind; rather, there is something in the continued slant of his profile and the shape of his hand steady at Marcus's elbow that suggests the turning of some mechanism. That he is observing and examining this statement, testing it against some invisible thing.
It's only a moment though, really. Maybe two. Absorbing the heat of him, the close press, the ache of overworked sinew, the flat of Marcus's palm, the part where they are still joined together. Then his hand shifts from elbow back to wrist, thumb circling absently against the edge of bone in the joint.
Marcus finds himself alert to that momentary silence, as opposed to the natural breathing space in a lazy conversation. But then it seems like it ends when Flint's hand wanders again. Marcus breathes out slow as the cuff of Flint's palm finds his wrist, this little point of attention under the gentle press of his thumb.
It's unexpected, the thing he says. Between all the wry you're welcomes, the frank exchanges and negotiations, demands. It is not as though they have never exchanged sincerities, but all the same—
Marcus turns his hand to collect Flint's, lacing their fingers together. At the same time, a press of his thigh to the back of Flint's heralds the next careful shift that allows them to disengage from one another. Stays close, as if to mitigate the usual sober horizon and self-awareness of mess, discomfort, twinges.
Not still, though. The arm folded over Flint draws him further onto his back, insists on it. It's so they can look at each other when Marcus says, "'Flint' isn't your real name," rather than mumbling it against his back. The subtle twinge of a smile, glint of canine between words. Only wolfish in that even predators aren't too proud not to calculate the worth and likelihood of stealing some last scrap of something. "Is James?"
There is that low ache in him for the parting, somehow made more prevalent by the delayed separation. But it's easily set aside; for there is that knot grown behind his ribs. Lying flat on his back under the rasp of Marcus's attention, he can feel it pressing up against the bone. Not painful just—
Present. A tight shape compared to admissions like ready bodies hungrily bent and murmured things said against still heated skin.
He looks back at him. Raises an idle hand and puts his thumb to the line of Marcus's mouth. Presses further, setting the pad of his thumb to the dull point of that wolf smile canine before it backs off. Hooks briefly at Marcus's cheek and then falls lazily away.
His mouth parts a little to that press, like he might well get distracted by it if Flint lingered there any longer. It does not, scuffs gentle against his face in a way he dimly (and not unpleasantly) remembers in the context of blood and ash and a night sky.
A small satisfied sound. Good. It wouldn't do to murmur it against pressed mouths or sigh it out at some point, compressed in Starkhaven vowels distinct from the broader way it might sit in someone else's mouth, and have it bear no further meaning than the alternative. Marcus' hand has found a resting place at the base of his neck, studies him there for a moment before fingers scuff over the bristly edge of his jaw.
Leans down that short distance to press a kiss against the other man's mouth. After all the stinging bites and scrapes, it's comparatively soft.
There is an impulse to set his teeth to that lower lip, though even he recognizes it for what it is—a deflective habit moreso than real desire. The tenderness, meanwhile, satisfies something in him that remains aching and hungry even here in this moment, desirous for gentle and more affectionate shapes.
The point being—
Sure. It's a fine enough kiss. Brief, half chaste even. All things considered, it asks for very little. And when it breaks, he says, "But I like when you call me Flint."
It is, Marcus thinks, the first of several kisses, where they can lay here and do that for a bit for as long as either of them will tolerate it. That the conversation is not done is not a surprise, but the content of it—
A slight tilt, to say it isn't expected. Marcus stays close there, comfortable in his lean, studying Flint's expression in quick, half-focused flickers. "You do," is a prompt. Not doubtful, particularly. He likes it, after all, when Flint calls him Rowntree (but there is something else to it, a more intimate name like a hand seeking out some sensitive thing, and he isn't sure he ever heard 'Marcus' in Flint's mouth until that one night in a tent).
Hand still there, the edge of his thumb laying some whiskers straight.
A low affirmative hum answers him, something tightening and then giving in fine points of flexion under the surface of Flint's face. It's as if he is examining his own reply as much as he is Marcus's attention on him; as if this is information he is working through aloud in this moment rather than something carefully considered and arranged in the head before it's ever given voice.
Flint isn't his real name, no. But then, maybe it is. It sounds real enough in Marcus's mouth—something that suits better than merely pretending it is just a thing he has pulled about the shoulders like a mantle.
His hand, lazy at Marcus's bicep, shifts. Thumb gently pressing and unpressing, setting and resetting. He says, "It's not often been used like you use it. It is particular to this."
It's a nice thought. Flattering. The gentle movement of that hand and application of pressure under thumb is soothing along his arm, and the minute shifts of Flint's expression have that finely subtle quality of being impulsive rather than carefully arranged.
And maybe it's not only true, but the only truth. Maybe it isn't a kind of trade, to replace one wanted thing with another prospect of potentially equal value. That Marcus is determining this in the brief silence that settles is not masked at all, though not outwardly querying so much as inwardly deciding. Then, his focus skims aside, and catches across Flint's shoulder as his hand shifts back down, resting flat on the chest.
"It suits you," is true, anyway. Broken off and sharp between the teeth. Fingertips finding the edges of familiar scarring, before covering it under palm in a gentle slide of contact.
The sound he makes is low, a hum up against the set of a palm. Maybe it does, the thing having set firmly about him. Surely if someone tried to peel it away now, it would take such a considerable measure of him along with it that whatever was left wouldn't be recognizable either. The thought sends a flicker of temper flushing through him, though it finds so little purchase in an overworked and satisfied body that it just sparks and dies, an ember of which he is barely cognizant.
Instead his hand moves up, fingers absently twisting bits of Marcus's loose dark hair between thumb and forefinger. Attention flicking about the man's face, set close enough that the natural impulse is to look at him in pieces.
A small turn of the finger wraps a portion of hair about it. He gives it the softest tug, curling finger gentle behind Marcus's ear, saying, "I used to wear my hair very like this."
The gentle tug stirs something similar to what a gentle squeeze about the forearm and wrist had, the light setting of fingers into shoulder. A rewriting, where nerve endings still prickle after and remember harsher treatment and harder hands, and the mildness that follows could nearly be maddening if he wasn't so sated, laying here. A finger curling about a piece in contrast to a driving fist.
It had felt good and this feels good, and Marcus is letting out a quiet and contented breath as Flint says that. Amusement is quick to crinkle about the eyes (or something simpler, pleased), and he lifts his head a little more, making room for imagining. Auburn. Kept neatly, he's sure.
A long time ago, he doesn't say. It doesn't feel so remote as all that.
"When I was in the service. It was longer than yours is now, as was the fashion in Minanter for naval men. And then shorter, for a time after." He uncurls his finger, setting it in a line low across Marcus's cheek. To here, it suggests. These are pointlessly casual touches, almost more tender for the appearance of thoughtlessness. Marcus's stubble rasps under the finger.
A wrinkle at the corner of Flint's mouth, formed there out of the red bristle of beard, precedes, "Too fucking hot off Seheron for queues."
(And only cunts wore their hair according to Imperium fashions in a place more or less made by spitting at it. But mostly the first point.)
A rumbled sound of amused understanding, and Marcus' hand has crept back up some. Skirting fingers along the edge of not-quite-hidden jawline, gently capturing a bit of bristle between thumb and curled knuckle, slipping free almost immediately. The faint tipping into the touch to his own face, otherwise leaving it alone.
"I used to wear mine down more," he says, maintaining that quiet, close tone of conversation. "Before. Then cut it all short for a time, after. And there was the beard."
His hand finds a place at the side of Flint's neck, comfortably settled. Another glancing over, the shifting of focus between details—the shape of that crooked smile beneath beard and where hard bone informs expression, and eyes greener for the natural light in the room.
It's easy to say, "I like this." This version of him. Maybe it's his.
"That's lucky," he says, the line of his forefinger easy against Marcus's check. As it seems he is unlikely to ever grow his hair long again, it would be a shame if the man didn't much care for its present arrangement.
With an easy turning, his finger pivots from Marcus's unscarred cheek to the other. Sets there quietly, a soft tracing of the line cut into his face by a Templar's tower shield. Had he tried wearing the beard been after that, or before? His fingertip slips down, following scar to jawline to the soft flesh under it. Pressing softly until the skin dimples, a gentle shadow against the callous of his thumb.
He might suggest that Flint receive his compliments a little more graciously, but then, where would be the fun in that. The mostly-mock exasperation writ into a tugging away of his eyeline is interrupted by that soft tracing, and realigns his focus once that path ends just under his jaw, and presses.
Regards him there across this short distance, and there is as little as Marcus might read between them as Flint might detect with his fingers set so.
"Aye," after not so long of a delay, one that manages not to sound like hesitance. "We do."
You know, if it's up to him. And there is no tension to him, not in the comfortable line of where their bodies are still touching or the sweep of his thumb against Flint's breastbone, or the study being made of him, the slant of humour that hadn't been completely ironed out by roving fingers. But there, beneath, a quiet pulse of that thing he feels like heat beneath the surface, up high in his chest.
A scuffing motion of a calloused thumb traces a rough edged line along the shape of Marcus's jaw. Across his chin. Sets tbere against the corner of his mouth, teasing absently after the suggestion of humor that lingers somewhere in the man's face as if it were a thing he could set his finger on and feel. There is a desire—even so well satisfied, these impulses persist—to watch that flex of amusement break fuller across Marcus's face from this close set vantage. He can feel it like the knot against the inside of his ribs, equally sharp, prickling at the sensation of Marcus's thumb meandering across the skin nearest it.
That the answer is unsurprising means very little. Marcus has been frank enough about his opinion. That this arrangement will be temporary, and has every possibility of souring in the coming weeks (should all the work presently in motion move in the direction Flint intends for it to) doesn't particularly change that—
"It does," he says. His study of Marcus's face is as careful at the set of his thumb is. It's true today, at the very least.
A quiet 'hm'—they are in agreement—and Marcus dips his head past the set of Flint's thumb, lowering that small distance to brush a kiss against his palm. It should be simple and obvious, this fact, and a little meagre as far as confessions of mutual affection go, and yet it feels like good dry kindling, fed to flame. He could stay warm off that a while, this concurrence, and the gentle application of Flint's fingers about his face. Like committing something to memory, and thus importance.
What Marcus knows of the future is they will fuck again, and share a bed, and trade more scraps of information in a way that may or may not unravel into proper conversation, and in so doing add depth and shade to their mutual renderings of one another, and he sees no reason for that not to continue.
It's with that in mind he asks Flint, "What do we do about that?" before a kiss is lain on the inner of his wrist.
The ease with which the matter is settled strikes him. It maybe shouldn't. They are often bitingly candid with one another, direct and brusque. But it does—the abrupt satisfaction of a disorganized thing being tidied and squared away, like the pin neat organization of a coiled cable. There is an immediate reduction in some prickling at the edge of his attention with that hum of assent, the warm press of Marcus's mouth at his palm. By the time he has migrated as far as kissing his wrist, Flint exhales. Relaxes some muscle between the shoulder blades he didn't know had pinched tight (and may yet do so again) to settle more fully into the mattress. A shift of a knee, some clinking of gaiter buckles and the rasp of clothes still tangled about his calves; small, absent motions to make himself more comfortable in a fashion that is marginally less temporary.
It's a good question. It probably doesn't need to be a particularly difficult one to answer.
"I think ordinarily that means we're meant to spend more time in each other's company, with or without the fucking." A certain flex of eyebrows suggests this is a very optional distinction, given how generally he is in favor it. With a last soft press against Marcus's lower lip, his hand slips idly to his neck. His shoulder, elbow sagging lazily to the mattress.
"You become enured to being irritated when the office gets in your way, and I tolerate the possibility that the Gallows might know any part of my business."
It doesn't sound particularly warm or affectionate, but also—maybe it does. Maybe it is.
In unconscious reflection, Marcus settles himself by those small degrees in return—a shifting about to ease the curve of his spine, an answering bend to the knee. More conscious, a mirrored twinge to his expression: optionality noted.
And perhaps it won't be for a lack of affection if they continue to be unable not to keep their hands to themselves. That it won't be a distraction from the ways in which they do not get along, to focus only on the ways they definitely do. It's a warming thing to idly reflect on, to be sure about, as Marcus' focus flicking back down to where his hand is resting, tracking an idle path lower down the bed of ribs.
Listening, judging by the small, mirthful breath out at Flint's continued hypothesising.
"Agreed," dry, focus returning to eye contact. "And if discretion keeps you from my own quarters, I'm going to leave some things of mine in yours." Now that Flint's shown his hand about the vain length he once kept his hair, he should know. "And," while he's at it, to the tune of a mild for fuck's sake, "some oil so as not to deprive your lanterns."
This is, too, by certain standards, warm and affectionate.
Reasonable, says the tilt of his head bobbing idly sideways in answer to both these points. But no good tactician simply accepts the terms as submitted, so a counter offer comes naturally.
"I'll keep oil and set aside some measure of space"—fourteen inches being the standard width of space allotted for any man on a ship, he doesn't say but only because Marcus wouldn't appreciate the specifics of the wit—"But you're to take responsibility for finding us rooms like this one when mine don't suit. I can't be striking you in the Gallows."
Is punctuated by a brief wrinkle pulling in his cheek, a quirk at the corner of the mouth behind auburn whiskers. A bite of humor underpinned by the fixed point of his attention on Marcus. He's funny. But also: no, really.
"I can do that," comes after the brief spread of a crooked smile, because Flint is funny, as is this conversation. Not just the subject matter and what neighbours might make of the sound of that particular act through the door, but negotiating the minor particulars so inconsequential that they might have done prior but then again, hadn't.
And so it feels consequential, and good. Eases something sharp in him, unlikely as it is that he will stop biting or leaving bruises when the mood strikes.
Perhaps he might continue it, something about the coins spent on these rooms and the liquor he drinks from Flint's cabinet being roughly square, a joke about the quality of either, and he considers it against the other thing he's considering, studying Flint's face. Says, "There isn't anyone else I want like this," gently, frankly. "If there's ever some another, for you, I'd want to know."
There, says the slight tip of his head. It's not so serious, his expression still mild, more challenge than ultimatum in the slant of his mouth.
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Finally, that foot leaves the floor, and they've made it properly to bed. Marcus is close, hips angled to stay buried for the moment, coming to lay against him and fold Flint in, off his knees, down onto his side. Cinches an arm across his torso and presses his chest in tight against the other man's back, giving a satisfied grumble of sound. Sooner over later, Marcus knows, they will disentangle, they will not sleep here, they will not entertain the possibility of some kind of third round.
But this seems to be a good afternoon to get what one wants, and he wants this for a minute, face pressed close at an angle at the back of Flint's neck as he calms down, heart slowing.
"That was good," murmured.
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Instead: A low grunt of acknowledgement, half for the simple pleasure of Marcus's voice rumbling there against his neck and back as it is for the this assessment. Yes. It was good.
"Wanting something looks good on you," he says, a hand shifting heavily to set loose jointed fingers at the joint of Marcus's elbow. Skimming idly to his wrist.
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"Giving it to me looks good on you," a counter, and therefore innately playful for it, but Marcus presses the sentiment into place with a nudge of his chin. Hand turning at the wrist as if to receive Flint's, should it wander that far, but otherwise—
He should feel content. Bodily he does, wanting for nothing. And then that sense of hunger, of wanting, that Flint has in the past warned him against, and so when affection builds through the chest, between the bones, it burns. He can lay here and simmer in it, and it isn't unpleasant, especially given the intimate press of bodies, of sore muscles and more acute aches, easily twinged with even minute adjustments.
Eventually, "I've not been that way before with anyone," quietly.
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Then, this. If his hand hasn't already more or less stilled, it might here.
Joined as they are, and loathe to separate or to insinuate any real space between the presently flush points of bodies, there can hardly be any turning to look at Marcus directly. But the impulse is there, face tilting vaguely in that direction like a dog's ear pricking toward sound.
Thumb and forefinger tighten briefly at Marcus's forearm, then gentle—a kind of silent acknowledgement of this admission. Thinking, abruptly, of that apartment off the division office and that thing Marcus had said. You would tell me if I were being too selfish with you, had sounded very like expectation to his ear. Not a little filament crack on a careful surface. Not the question he might have pressed to Marcus.
Maybe he can turn after all. Not to face him obviously, but that quarter twist that wedges a shoulder closer.
"Is it more than you wanted?"
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"No," he says. Something like a crooked smile in his tone when he adds, "More than I might've asked for, maybe." Almost certainly. Another nudge to the shoulder, less specific, murmuring there against warm skin, "But I wanted it all."
A penchant for rough hands and sharp directives and rules aside, something to it like a firm grasp working loose locked muscle. Of a thing made vulnerable and treated kindly. Difficult, though, to transmit the sentiment to words. The sensory muddle of it all, in this hazy aftermath, makes him feel like if he were to apply teeth to skin and bite down, it'd imprint the idea better than he could explain.
Doesn't, obviously. Keeps a firm hold of Flint, keeps attuned to some shift in tone or sentiment, in case it requires correction.
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It's only a moment though, really. Maybe two. Absorbing the heat of him, the close press, the ache of overworked sinew, the flat of Marcus's palm, the part where they are still joined together. Then his hand shifts from elbow back to wrist, thumb circling absently against the edge of bone in the joint.
"Thank you for trusting me with it."
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It's unexpected, the thing he says. Between all the wry you're welcomes, the frank exchanges and negotiations, demands. It is not as though they have never exchanged sincerities, but all the same—
Marcus turns his hand to collect Flint's, lacing their fingers together. At the same time, a press of his thigh to the back of Flint's heralds the next careful shift that allows them to disengage from one another. Stays close, as if to mitigate the usual sober horizon and self-awareness of mess, discomfort, twinges.
Not still, though. The arm folded over Flint draws him further onto his back, insists on it. It's so they can look at each other when Marcus says, "'Flint' isn't your real name," rather than mumbling it against his back. The subtle twinge of a smile, glint of canine between words. Only wolfish in that even predators aren't too proud not to calculate the worth and likelihood of stealing some last scrap of something. "Is James?"
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Present. A tight shape compared to admissions like ready bodies hungrily bent and murmured things said against still heated skin.
He looks back at him. Raises an idle hand and puts his thumb to the line of Marcus's mouth. Presses further, setting the pad of his thumb to the dull point of that wolf smile canine before it backs off. Hooks briefly at Marcus's cheek and then falls lazily away.
"It is."
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A small satisfied sound. Good. It wouldn't do to murmur it against pressed mouths or sigh it out at some point, compressed in Starkhaven vowels distinct from the broader way it might sit in someone else's mouth, and have it bear no further meaning than the alternative. Marcus' hand has found a resting place at the base of his neck, studies him there for a moment before fingers scuff over the bristly edge of his jaw.
Leans down that short distance to press a kiss against the other man's mouth. After all the stinging bites and scrapes, it's comparatively soft.
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The point being—
Sure. It's a fine enough kiss. Brief, half chaste even. All things considered, it asks for very little. And when it breaks, he says, "But I like when you call me Flint."
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A slight tilt, to say it isn't expected. Marcus stays close there, comfortable in his lean, studying Flint's expression in quick, half-focused flickers. "You do," is a prompt. Not doubtful, particularly. He likes it, after all, when Flint calls him Rowntree (but there is something else to it, a more intimate name like a hand seeking out some sensitive thing, and he isn't sure he ever heard 'Marcus' in Flint's mouth until that one night in a tent).
Hand still there, the edge of his thumb laying some whiskers straight.
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Flint isn't his real name, no. But then, maybe it is. It sounds real enough in Marcus's mouth—something that suits better than merely pretending it is just a thing he has pulled about the shoulders like a mantle.
His hand, lazy at Marcus's bicep, shifts. Thumb gently pressing and unpressing, setting and resetting. He says, "It's not often been used like you use it. It is particular to this."
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And maybe it's not only true, but the only truth. Maybe it isn't a kind of trade, to replace one wanted thing with another prospect of potentially equal value. That Marcus is determining this in the brief silence that settles is not masked at all, though not outwardly querying so much as inwardly deciding. Then, his focus skims aside, and catches across Flint's shoulder as his hand shifts back down, resting flat on the chest.
"It suits you," is true, anyway. Broken off and sharp between the teeth. Fingertips finding the edges of familiar scarring, before covering it under palm in a gentle slide of contact.
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Instead his hand moves up, fingers absently twisting bits of Marcus's loose dark hair between thumb and forefinger. Attention flicking about the man's face, set close enough that the natural impulse is to look at him in pieces.
A small turn of the finger wraps a portion of hair about it. He gives it the softest tug, curling finger gentle behind Marcus's ear, saying, "I used to wear my hair very like this."
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It had felt good and this feels good, and Marcus is letting out a quiet and contented breath as Flint says that. Amusement is quick to crinkle about the eyes (or something simpler, pleased), and he lifts his head a little more, making room for imagining. Auburn. Kept neatly, he's sure.
"When was that?"
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"When I was in the service. It was longer than yours is now, as was the fashion in Minanter for naval men. And then shorter, for a time after." He uncurls his finger, setting it in a line low across Marcus's cheek. To here, it suggests. These are pointlessly casual touches, almost more tender for the appearance of thoughtlessness. Marcus's stubble rasps under the finger.
A wrinkle at the corner of Flint's mouth, formed there out of the red bristle of beard, precedes, "Too fucking hot off Seheron for queues."
(And only cunts wore their hair according to Imperium fashions in a place more or less made by spitting at it. But mostly the first point.)
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"I used to wear mine down more," he says, maintaining that quiet, close tone of conversation. "Before. Then cut it all short for a time, after. And there was the beard."
His hand finds a place at the side of Flint's neck, comfortably settled. Another glancing over, the shifting of focus between details—the shape of that crooked smile beneath beard and where hard bone informs expression, and eyes greener for the natural light in the room.
It's easy to say, "I like this." This version of him. Maybe it's his.
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With an easy turning, his finger pivots from Marcus's unscarred cheek to the other. Sets there quietly, a soft tracing of the line cut into his face by a Templar's tower shield. Had he tried wearing the beard been after that, or before? His fingertip slips down, following scar to jawline to the soft flesh under it. Pressing softly until the skin dimples, a gentle shadow against the callous of his thumb.
"Do we like one another now?"
(It's not Satinalia yet.)
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Regards him there across this short distance, and there is as little as Marcus might read between them as Flint might detect with his fingers set so.
"Aye," after not so long of a delay, one that manages not to sound like hesitance. "We do."
You know, if it's up to him. And there is no tension to him, not in the comfortable line of where their bodies are still touching or the sweep of his thumb against Flint's breastbone, or the study being made of him, the slant of humour that hadn't been completely ironed out by roving fingers. But there, beneath, a quiet pulse of that thing he feels like heat beneath the surface, up high in his chest.
Marcus asks, "Does that sound true?"
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That the answer is unsurprising means very little. Marcus has been frank enough about his opinion. That this arrangement will be temporary, and has every possibility of souring in the coming weeks (should all the work presently in motion move in the direction Flint intends for it to) doesn't particularly change that—
"It does," he says. His study of Marcus's face is as careful at the set of his thumb is. It's true today, at the very least.
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What Marcus knows of the future is they will fuck again, and share a bed, and trade more scraps of information in a way that may or may not unravel into proper conversation, and in so doing add depth and shade to their mutual renderings of one another, and he sees no reason for that not to continue.
It's with that in mind he asks Flint, "What do we do about that?" before a kiss is lain on the inner of his wrist.
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It's a good question. It probably doesn't need to be a particularly difficult one to answer.
"I think ordinarily that means we're meant to spend more time in each other's company, with or without the fucking." A certain flex of eyebrows suggests this is a very optional distinction, given how generally he is in favor it. With a last soft press against Marcus's lower lip, his hand slips idly to his neck. His shoulder, elbow sagging lazily to the mattress.
"You become enured to being irritated when the office gets in your way, and I tolerate the possibility that the Gallows might know any part of my business."
It doesn't sound particularly warm or affectionate, but also—maybe it does. Maybe it is.
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And perhaps it won't be for a lack of affection if they continue to be unable not to keep their hands to themselves. That it won't be a distraction from the ways in which they do not get along, to focus only on the ways they definitely do. It's a warming thing to idly reflect on, to be sure about, as Marcus' focus flicking back down to where his hand is resting, tracking an idle path lower down the bed of ribs.
Listening, judging by the small, mirthful breath out at Flint's continued hypothesising.
"Agreed," dry, focus returning to eye contact. "And if discretion keeps you from my own quarters, I'm going to leave some things of mine in yours." Now that Flint's shown his hand about the vain length he once kept his hair, he should know. "And," while he's at it, to the tune of a mild for fuck's sake, "some oil so as not to deprive your lanterns."
This is, too, by certain standards, warm and affectionate.
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"I'll keep oil and set aside some measure of space"—fourteen inches being the standard width of space allotted for any man on a ship, he doesn't say but only because Marcus wouldn't appreciate the specifics of the wit—"But you're to take responsibility for finding us rooms like this one when mine don't suit. I can't be striking you in the Gallows."
Is punctuated by a brief wrinkle pulling in his cheek, a quirk at the corner of the mouth behind auburn whiskers. A bite of humor underpinned by the fixed point of his attention on Marcus. He's funny. But also: no, really.
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And so it feels consequential, and good. Eases something sharp in him, unlikely as it is that he will stop biting or leaving bruises when the mood strikes.
Perhaps he might continue it, something about the coins spent on these rooms and the liquor he drinks from Flint's cabinet being roughly square, a joke about the quality of either, and he considers it against the other thing he's considering, studying Flint's face. Says, "There isn't anyone else I want like this," gently, frankly. "If there's ever some another, for you, I'd want to know."
There, says the slight tip of his head. It's not so serious, his expression still mild, more challenge than ultimatum in the slant of his mouth.
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