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.
His thumb, idle at Marcus' shoulder, shifts over to scuff absently after the ghost of red fingerprints left pressed into muscle cording up into his neck. It's a gentle touch—not entirely thoughtless, not entirely purposeful. A soft pressure, testing at the sensitivity of the mark. Whether it elicits a flinch or not; whether it darkens that look in Marcus's face, or causes that crooked smile he favors to flicker forward.
If there is a tendency toward possessiveness, it doesn't quite figure in this moment. It isn't a demand, only a tether. Turning a cable line about the arm to secure himself by.
"And you'll say when you've grown tired of me." He says it easily, without any sense of nipping at fingertips or bristling over the vulnerability of the prospect. They've agreed on this point already. "I'll be the first to know."
It's a sound that Flint gets, the gentle press of fingertips. A kind of contented, back of the throat sound, and a nerve-deep muscular tensing that relaxes as soon as it cinches up. A flicker of distraction, a nipping reminder of something he'd desired and gotten.
He might have simply requested Flint not pursue anyone else, for as long as this arrangement exists. But there's the potential to put strain on a thing not yet braced for it. And maybe room in his ego about how occupying he can make himself.
And when met with this next item, Marcus pulls in a long breath. Moves, closer, bent knee finding a place to rest against the mattress on the other side of Flint. Neither man is built delicate, and being comparable in density of muscle or height doesn't mean Flint won't feel it when Marcus finds a place on top of him, and he will have to put up more protest for that arm he'd had brought around to touch at his shoulder now gently but forcefully pushed back against the mattress beneath Marcus's in a half-pinning lean.
Here, above him, Marcus agrees by way of amendment: "If." And then kisses him, as if to somehow execute the contract.
He doesn't protest. Instead, his other hand shifts up from where it has lain idle to set fingertips at Marcus's hip. They fleet up along the shape of his side and the ladder of his ribs, thumb setting roughly in the vicinity of the hooked scar under Marcus's arm.
If, he says, and that burr-like ache crackles behind the ribs in answer, prickling and eager to sting. It is as demanding of attention as the set of Marcus's weight, as the warm kindling heat of the kiss, or as the muscle that flexes naturally with movement under the set of his thumb. A bitter bite, a low sensation that mingles poorly with the would-be thrill of satisfaction for these scraps they've had out of one a other and have arranged so neatly. Like oil and water sloshing in the belly, here is that hot desirous clench of relief and wanting, and here is that dulling part that refuses to feel anything at all because it seems to have been scraped down past the capacity for it.
It comes over him suddenly, that heavy pervasive loneliness—a fundamentally absurd reflex of the flesh in answer to being pinned and wanted. Yes, there are other people he wants like this. But they're dead, so what relevance does the point have to present negotiations?
So it's a firm kiss, exerting a pressure on himself as much as it is in agreement. That hand shifting to press Marcus to him, that kiss breaking and then followed by a more open one that is warm breath and the press of tongue. Good, it's says. Agreed. Look at how much he wants him that he can still make demands on his mouth.
Appreciative, the scraped sound against that full kiss, answering it with the parting of lips, the usual pliable acceptance before active response. Simmering, content, in mutual want.
The arm he has folded up and against the bed is kept in place but locked down when his hand finds Flint's, laces the fingers together, and distributes that lazy pressure there where they clasp. A long breath in can be felt under the lay of Flint's other hand, as if to bodily absorb this sense of satisfaction, allow it to eke into muscle, into bone, into chemistry that has a way of running quick and hot.
Marcus might cede that, sometimes, he can be selfish. That he had asked Flint, once, to caution him against this behaviour did not after all come from nowhere. A learned habit for demanding, for taking, for fiercely defending. But here is proof, too, that Flint perhaps feels the same, nor has that come from nowhere. Only stated plainly, and not just implied in moments of desperate need, or life and death, or having been coaxed towards it.
That, the selfish, demanding, entitled, undeserving thing in him can close its jaws around and be still. Even though, when the kiss breaks, he says, "I should just keep you here," but there is a warm humour to it, breathed along a kiss to the corner of Flint's mouth.
He's glad for that humor, though the shape of it sits on top of his skin rather than melting into and warming it. It is gratifying, or reassuring, or some combination of those things that Marcus should be in good spirits. Yes, keep him here. Or at least want to do that. The texture of that want, laughing and close, should be something he can hook fingernails into. Haul himself up by.
"One of many disappointments," he grumbles back against Marcus's mouth. If the tenor of the thing is rough and low then that's reasonable. He's tired. He doesn't want to go back to work. Just enough time has passed that the glum quality of post-orgasm come down has needled its way in under the skin.
He nips after Marcus's lower lip, chasing off both the wound down sensation threatening to become heavy in him and whatever easy, lazier kiss might naturally follow.
And finally disengaging, bare feet scuffing on the wooden floor, and a starting wipe down with the edge of the bedsheet before Marcus makes for where water has been set aside by the window. Indulges in some magic, a turn of his hand evoking a pattern of red-lit runes across the metal outside of the pitcher to warm the contents within, giving it a chance to properly rid them both of clinging oil. Something to it like making up for the rudeness of not letting Flint strip down properly, though he had, semi-consciously, minded his clothes.
After this, Marcus will return to the Gallows directly, and go to that small room allotted to him. There will be a solid stretch of hours in which he can sleep, and do so deeply, and then the sun will sink and he will take his meal in dining hall, and then walk the ramparts until the sun starts to suggest some colour to the night sky. And on and on.
It's all very routine, and has been since they began fucking around. Even additional aches and more marks than usual don't throw anything out of order, particularly. But there are differences. Intentions. He will, next time he ascends the stairs, do it with a freshly purchased bottle of cheap whiskey. He will have finished that book and choose another, if there's some lazy spare minutes the next morning. He will make some effort to disguise any manipulating the guard rota to selfish ends.
And, when they both emerge from this let house, Marcus will reach across the short space between them, touching Flint's wrist in friendly grasp, before they split off in different directions.
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no subject
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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
"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.)
no subject
"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.
no subject
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.)
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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.
no subject
If there is a tendency toward possessiveness, it doesn't quite figure in this moment. It isn't a demand, only a tether. Turning a cable line about the arm to secure himself by.
"And you'll say when you've grown tired of me." He says it easily, without any sense of nipping at fingertips or bristling over the vulnerability of the prospect. They've agreed on this point already. "I'll be the first to know."
no subject
He might have simply requested Flint not pursue anyone else, for as long as this arrangement exists. But there's the potential to put strain on a thing not yet braced for it. And maybe room in his ego about how occupying he can make himself.
And when met with this next item, Marcus pulls in a long breath. Moves, closer, bent knee finding a place to rest against the mattress on the other side of Flint. Neither man is built delicate, and being comparable in density of muscle or height doesn't mean Flint won't feel it when Marcus finds a place on top of him, and he will have to put up more protest for that arm he'd had brought around to touch at his shoulder now gently but forcefully pushed back against the mattress beneath Marcus's in a half-pinning lean.
Here, above him, Marcus agrees by way of amendment: "If." And then kisses him, as if to somehow execute the contract.
no subject
If, he says, and that burr-like ache crackles behind the ribs in answer, prickling and eager to sting. It is as demanding of attention as the set of Marcus's weight, as the warm kindling heat of the kiss, or as the muscle that flexes naturally with movement under the set of his thumb. A bitter bite, a low sensation that mingles poorly with the would-be thrill of satisfaction for these scraps they've had out of one a other and have arranged so neatly. Like oil and water sloshing in the belly, here is that hot desirous clench of relief and wanting, and here is that dulling part that refuses to feel anything at all because it seems to have been scraped down past the capacity for it.
It comes over him suddenly, that heavy pervasive loneliness—a fundamentally absurd reflex of the flesh in answer to being pinned and wanted. Yes, there are other people he wants like this. But they're dead, so what relevance does the point have to present negotiations?
So it's a firm kiss, exerting a pressure on himself as much as it is in agreement. That hand shifting to press Marcus to him, that kiss breaking and then followed by a more open one that is warm breath and the press of tongue. Good, it's says. Agreed. Look at how much he wants him that he can still make demands on his mouth.
no subject
The arm he has folded up and against the bed is kept in place but locked down when his hand finds Flint's, laces the fingers together, and distributes that lazy pressure there where they clasp. A long breath in can be felt under the lay of Flint's other hand, as if to bodily absorb this sense of satisfaction, allow it to eke into muscle, into bone, into chemistry that has a way of running quick and hot.
Marcus might cede that, sometimes, he can be selfish. That he had asked Flint, once, to caution him against this behaviour did not after all come from nowhere. A learned habit for demanding, for taking, for fiercely defending. But here is proof, too, that Flint perhaps feels the same, nor has that come from nowhere. Only stated plainly, and not just implied in moments of desperate need, or life and death, or having been coaxed towards it.
That, the selfish, demanding, entitled, undeserving thing in him can close its jaws around and be still. Even though, when the kiss breaks, he says, "I should just keep you here," but there is a warm humour to it, breathed along a kiss to the corner of Flint's mouth.
no subject
"One of many disappointments," he grumbles back against Marcus's mouth. If the tenor of the thing is rough and low then that's reasonable. He's tired. He doesn't want to go back to work. Just enough time has passed that the glum quality of post-orgasm come down has needled its way in under the skin.
He nips after Marcus's lower lip, chasing off both the wound down sensation threatening to become heavy in him and whatever easy, lazier kiss might naturally follow.
"Help me clean up instead."
no subject
And finally disengaging, bare feet scuffing on the wooden floor, and a starting wipe down with the edge of the bedsheet before Marcus makes for where water has been set aside by the window. Indulges in some magic, a turn of his hand evoking a pattern of red-lit runes across the metal outside of the pitcher to warm the contents within, giving it a chance to properly rid them both of clinging oil. Something to it like making up for the rudeness of not letting Flint strip down properly, though he had, semi-consciously, minded his clothes.
After this, Marcus will return to the Gallows directly, and go to that small room allotted to him. There will be a solid stretch of hours in which he can sleep, and do so deeply, and then the sun will sink and he will take his meal in dining hall, and then walk the ramparts until the sun starts to suggest some colour to the night sky. And on and on.
It's all very routine, and has been since they began fucking around. Even additional aches and more marks than usual don't throw anything out of order, particularly. But there are differences. Intentions. He will, next time he ascends the stairs, do it with a freshly purchased bottle of cheap whiskey. He will have finished that book and choose another, if there's some lazy spare minutes the next morning. He will make some effort to disguise any manipulating the guard rota to selfish ends.
And, when they both emerge from this let house, Marcus will reach across the short space between them, touching Flint's wrist in friendly grasp, before they split off in different directions.