That small shift. The squared heel of his palm following it, some downward twitch of the chin that narrows the accessibly broad angles of his face by degrees. But so long as they are facing one another more directly—
With his spare hand, Flint offers the little folded surgery kit back to him.
The kit is taken, turned over in his hand. A thin trickle of cold run-off releases from the frosted fabric, where the clasp of body heat on either side begins to melt it, although the magic mostly holds it fast, for now. Almost an eyebrow raise, from Marcus, for that answer.
Characteristic pause, thinking over Flint's statement, testing its truthfulness. He sets the kit aside, nearer his things.
"More than learning how to scrap better, or even use magic like that," he says, finally, "it all came more naturally because it was like the fight belonged to me now." Focus returned, gracelessly prying, but earnest rather than calculated. A conscious avoidance of that habit, also, to speak of 'us' and 'we'. No, just himself, here. "Having been denied it for so long."
There'd been struggle, resistance, maneuvering, but none of that is what he means.
If there is a familiar note in it, he isn't particularly surprised by it. There is a reason he is here in the South, still trudging away at this work even after the thing that has brought them to Riftwatch the begin with had slipped between the fingers. The scrap left behind begs to be made solid again, and there is opportunity through Kirkwall to see that accomplished. There are like minds there, he has reasoned. If aligned, there might be some possibility to give that thing some power again.
But it's one thing to hold that similarity in the head and another to have it laid out in so personal and plain and fashion, and all just because he asks. It's an odd blessing to be rendered by a Venatori blade.
"Given the mage alliance under the Inquisition's banner, the recall of the Order, the war, the work here," he says. There is something keen in the quality of his attention, but not impatient. The rasp of a whetstone on steel. "Does it feel as if you're being kept from it again?"
Prompted by the cold cloth or by the impulsive urge to solidify this little thread of apparent sincerity, his shifts his hand absently. Moves his thumb from frosted linen to warmer skin.
Having less than diplomatic tendencies doesn't make a person unaware of the time and place to try and say the right thing, in the manner it should be said in. A sort of anti-instinct, felt like a thorn beneath the skin that gets uncomfortably brushed against, and felt more keenly amongst those in Riftwatch than he has since the Circles themselves. Certainly, across from Flint, at his desk.
Knows it here, a momentary twinge, quieting as Marcus thinks. Then, the press of subtle contact aside from the linen.
"Yes," he says instead, giving up whatever obvious qualifications he might have included.
A breath in, deeper, a subtle way of feeling the pressure of Flint's hand. There's a difference between needing to haul back from the urge to commit violences against a perceived enemy during a ceasefire, and whatever it is he spent years doing alongside them prior to the rebellion, but it can chafe in a similar way.
But he came to Riftwatch for a reason. He knows Flint did too. There's enough that's been said, enough on public record, or collected as scraps from elusive conversations with the likes of Silver, for Marcus to know that much. Can imagine that Flint had meant it, when he had likewise said he can imagine.
He asks, "Is that shameful?" but it's a little wry, too. Corypheus, after all, is not unimportant, and Flint manages his wages in the task of fighting his forces.
His hand has also found a place to rest there, at the edge of Flint's knee, which in the scheme of subtle exchange thus far is—less.
There has been no flinch back from that chilling touching of magic. No muscle and sinew tension translated to Marcus's ribs through the lay of his palm and no real break in the rythmn of his study. But the hand that finds the edge of his knee pulls the eye. Here, in the closed atmosphere of the tent with the wind tugging intermittently at the canvas and the lantern placed so near to them, that small point of contact casts such a long shadow.
It's a brief acknowledgement, no more than a flicking glance, but even that barely there acknowledgement instantly reduces the space into something more malleable. More flexible. The difference between the limitations of something consciously divided being tested and something actively slipping beyond the margins.
When his attention slants back up—
"I would hope not," is dry, and not without some whiff of superiority, and not entirely self-serious either. "If none of us are thinking of what our tomorrow looks like, then there would seem to be very little point in making all this effort now."
Things Flint does not do: ignore it, or shift his knee to remove that near-weightless rest, or query Marcus on what he thinks he's doing, what he thinks this is. There is the sense of searching for it, in the next look between them.
"Mm. Rainy," Marcus says. On the subject of tomorrow.
His hand shifts. Thumb finding that sensitive dip against bony cap, following that line of muscle by an inch, an inch and a half, still light but assertive, still minor as far as contact goes, but he isn't unaware of the lack of pretense. Has he thought it through, the pros and cons of such a gesture when there is nowhere either of them can safely go, should it strike a wrong nerve?
Perhaps. But it's unguarded, his appraisal, plain and open. It wouldn't be so bad, to retreat back to their corners, speak of other kinds of tomorrow.
It sparks a hot bite of frustration and amusement. Both things flash freely in the lines of his face—a wrinkle in the cheek that pulls at his whiskers; a certain furrowing of the brow; this fucking guy—, and both pull taut under the intentional set of Marcus's thumb.
For a man who has managed very tidily to relegate his place in this to prompting questions and the almost entirely practical set of fingers, the answer that surfaces in Flint's face is transparent and bluntly intimate. Careful. There is a real appetite here. It's possible there is some great spread of teeth presently being held in check.
(If Flint is at all surprised by the sudden sharp pang of that hunger, then he is practiced with pretending otherwise.)
"And me made responsible for carrying both our packs, apparently."
In that first silent twinge of reaction, Marcus mirrors it with his more subtle nearly-smile, a self-satisfied curve at the corner of his mouth that slips past his own defenses. Slow to leave.
And its fading has little to do with what is read in Flint's expression. Nothing very reticent about his own intrigue, sharp in clear eyes, nothing all deferential in the way he breaks eye contact when his focus seems to trace a more intimate line down the slope of Flint's cheek, the warm bristle and whisker around his mouth, which says that next thing,
gaining a scoff out of Marcus, quiet in the intimate space they've found themselves in. "We'll see," muttered, focus flicked back up.
Flint's exhale is a heavy, bullish snort. When his spare hand at last moves, it's to catch broadly at Marcus's shoulder and hold him there while he—
Peels the damp ball of a shirtsleeve away from the wound. The blood has reduced itself to a slow ooze. Everything gleams pink from the bite of the wet cold or from the residual smear of blood. Satisfied (no, he isn't), he sets the shirt entirely aside and leans out to dredge his stolen kit closer. It reduces the points of contact between them to Marcus's hand and whatever more incidental alignments naturally occur from being sat so close together. He needs both hands to go rummaging through the unfamiliar bag.
All things being even, Marcus will need something to keep pressure on his side lest he undo all this work.
The shirtsleeve is peeled away, and Marcus reacts to the sensation of that with a tic of tension at his jaw, a pause in breathing. Gaze tipping up towards canvas over Flint's head as the other man breaks to move onto the next thing, stealing a deeper breath for himself under the sound of items rustling.
He lifts his elbow, a brief attempt to look at his injury for himself, but seeing more than the swooping tail end of it would take more twisting than he has inclination to attempt.
His hand is still where it is. Shifts in the natural course of movement, a warm sit of palm against the side of Flint's thigh. More than (over)confident projections as to his own viability when they finally move on from their campsite, there is also the impulse to chase impulse, interrupt the progression of medical administration by following Flint into that movement, a demand for a different kind of attention.
But he does not actually want to bleed everywhere, freshly stitched wound now singing through his nerves with the absence of pressure and ice. Its welcome is still murky, uncertain. So he sits, watches, a certain element of hemmed-in impatience in that stillness, assssment.
There's not much to the contents of the pack and he's already made himself familiar by unpacking and repacking it, so unearthing the bandage and the dead man's handkerchief doesn't require more than perfunctory rummaging. When Flint sways back, there is a muscle in his thigh that flexes under the points of Marcus's hand, but his attention doesn't return to it.
Instead, the handkerchief is folded. His belt knife is fetched up again, and so is the shirt, and with a pop of the blade and a subsequent jerking the fabric at the bottom of the long hem splits along its weft. Presumably he won't miss the bottom two inches of the shirt that's already in desperate need of boiling and mending. This too is folded, and joined behind the handkerchief to make a thick pad.
This part he absolutely has done before.
(The bandaging? Or allowing Marcus to put his hand on him while weighing on the man's patience?)
Both, maybe, given the expectant look Flint fixes him with once these pieces are assembled.
The sound of tearing fabric is loud and sharp in the small tent. Marcus has enough self-possession not to let objection express itself too clearly in his face, having at least in part made peace with a decent shirt ruined anyway.
Momentarily distracting, though.
So when Flint returns focus, Marcus' hand hasn't done much else, a comfortable conforming against the slope of muscle without progressing past it. Nothing interrupted, then, to lift it away, arms out further from his sides to help along the process.
A process he's not unfamiliar with either, a hand slipping down and across to help hold bandaging into place where it's tied. He could probably do this part himself, if not as adeptly.
So his palm returns to apply firm, unapologetic pressure over the handiwork of the stitching. The subsequent task of pinning the bandage end and passing the roll around Marcus is just fiddly enough to require some measure of actual intention for at least the first rounds. Nevermind the scuff of bloodied fingers, or the residual sheen of sweat, or the pin sharp awareness of the space on his thigh that had briefly entertained being touched.
It's methodical. The bandage is wrapped, the end is secured. He finds Marcus's shoulder, his thumb digs. It is obvious when it becomes a blatant invasion of space rather than operating under the pretense of workmanlike diligence.
Th first fidgety rounds are attended to, adjusting his breathing so that they won't slip. Tautness holds, and Marcus' help isn't needed. As the last windings are made, there is increasingly the sense from him of sitting and waiting, of keen awareness for where a knuckle is briefly folded between bandaging, smoothing it along to sit properly. The soothing pressure of the folded over pad of fabric against wound, as if that firm touch from perfunctory palm had been woven into it.
Wolfish regard throughout, anticipatory, an edge of humour returning to it. Still there, when Flint takes his shoulder, digging thumb eliciting a breath out.
"Mm," he says. Matter of perspective, as to what's over.
Shifts, breaching the murky stratus of remaining boundary with a levering forward, hand now a firmer, weightier clasp at Flint's thigh, blunt clawed and matter-of-fact and on the way to pressing his mouth to Flint's.
Flint allows Marcus to cover the distance. When he gets there, it's clear the some last vestige of patience has been eaten up by the effort. He is not blunt. He is not matter-of-fact. The hand that began at a shoulder has already moved to grasp at his neck, fingers wrapping hot across that line of grit and thumb pressed rough at the hinge of his jaw. The mouth that meets Marcus's is immediately demanding and opens readily with a welcoming growl.
In the narrow space of the tent, crowded by discarded armor and the lantern, and their traveling gear, and the low clearance of the strung canvas above their heads, it's very easy to understand the desire to consolidate that space further. To rasp a hot breath into his mouth instead of drawing back and catch hold of Marcus's forearm like he might dredge him closer.
Instead, Flint bullies his way further into Marcus's space. It's a pointed kind of jostling, spare hand reaching blindly to shove away whatever surrounding article threatens to be the most inconvenient.
There's a rough-edged sound from him, felt where Flint has his thumb pressed up near his jaw, trailing off as the kiss breaks. A slight bodily coil, like Marcus intends to pursue.
No need, as Flint pushes in closer. The pack he'd pulled over is what Flint's hand finds, pushed off into the rest of the tight space, leaving clear a stretch of bedroll. Marcus grunts but capitulates, while snaring a hand against Flint's shirt just at his waist, tugging it free of where waistband and belt kept it secure.
Ceding space in return of getting what he wants in this second, which is: a hand slipped up beneath Flint's tunic hem, rough palm and splayed fingers finding bare, warm skin, slipped up high to the ribs. This invasion drags the fabric along.
Fingertips, digging just so, then winding further, drawing an arm around the other man at the promise of closeness.
It's shockingly warm, that hand coursing in under the hem of his shirt. Prompts a rush of heated breath, ribs first expanding under the shape of fingers and then collapsing heavily in time to the encouraging hooking line of Marcus's arm.
Given even a modicum of distance, it seems entirely likely that Marcus will promptly find his way to some irritating remark, or look at him in a fashion that rankles. And maybe those things will convince him to divest himself of the fingers digging into skin and the rumble of sound under his own palm and the urge to set his teeth roughly at Marcus's mouth. But, fuck, if he isn't eager for to be touched in the meantime. So, in the good faith effort to avoid that inevitability for as long as is possible—
Using the broad span of his shoulders and the fingers that have crept up into the hair at the base of the other man's skull like a blunt instrument, Flint makes to force him back. Chases him with his mouth. If close is what they want, that's easily accomplished. Take, for example, how he seizes on Marcus's waistband in the process.
Marcus makes for Flint to use that force, but his back does meet the bedroll, gives a grunt and a scrape of bright eye contact that hooks in in before distance closes again. A vocal pant of a breath at the edge of that kiss, which he returns with a hungry rake of teeth.
His arm hooked around Flint's torso, up under his shirt, tightens. Soaking up that initial broad span of contact where their chests meet, the solidity of muscle; warmer, hotter, where tunic has lifted enough for skin to meet skin. All too eager for that closeness, and it isn't all to do with who they are or are not to each other.
He reaches both hands for Flint's shirt, now, just when he feels that grip at his waistband. Knows a dull, anticipatory pulse of want, fists flexing tighter. Doesn't stop himself from gathering fabric up as far as shoulders.
The low reply is pressed back into the corner of Marcus's mouth, something scolding in both the sound and the catch of teeth that pairs with it. Ask nicely, you shit, might be more effective were he slightly less ready about moving to answer further otherwise—swaying up that required distance so that, between the two of them, the tunic may be wrestled off and discarded somewhere other than on top of the lantern.
Stripped of the shirt, he is an unsurprising landscape of scars in the mostly forgiving light. An ugly puncture at the left shoulder; a slashed line very like Marcus's pair across his chest; a dark dappling at the side and too many small marks, and freckles, and some dash of ink to catalog completely in that brief obligation of space before Flint is bending back to him.
'Better?', he doesn't ask. In that heated, flush close space, Flint instead makes to press a hot kiss to the sharp angle of Marcus's jaw. To his throat, shockingly intimate.
There's nothing very chastised in Marcus' expression by the time that kiss lands (teeth catch just next to that by now familiar unfeeling tug of scarring that reaches his lip, on that side) and Flint shifts upwards—but also too keen edged for smugness in getting his way, hands helping in this task.
They land at Flint's chest once it's bared to him, nothing precise. Just broad, the slide up to the shoulder that palms over puncture wound, and the other around across ribs in time for Flint to shift back down. A grip settles against the back of Flint's neck while another snares at his belt, an anchoring that in the moment pulls them more flush together.
The tent provides not a lot of space for rolling around in, but there's the nudge of Marcus' knee that threatens it.
But then it is a shock, the feeling of a hot wet mouth against his throat, enough that the sound that leaves him isn't another growl or grunt but a more open-throated groan, chin tipping up and aside.
To say that being invited to pin Marcus to his bedroll (however temporary the state of affairs may be, according to that knee) hadn't been the point of his shifting over to jab at the gash in the man's side goes without saying. A moment ago even, he might have marked all this brisk, hungry scrabbling down to convenience. They are both here, and motivated, removed from the pretend formality of Riftwatch's very barely respectable chain of command, and evidently not so fed up with one another to find the prospect of doing something with the prickling interest aroused by incidental contact revolting. There are worse reasons for rolling around on the ground.
Whether this counts as one of those worse motivators is arguable: how well that noise Marcus makes catches at him, how directly it feeds the hot clench of anticipation beginning to twist low in answer to the hand at his belt and the thing in him that already takes pleasure in catching Marcus wrong footed. It turns out it can be remarkably satisfying to get a rise out of Rowntree.
So he kisses his neck again, lower. Sets teeth there to nip rough at tender skin. Marcus is already going to be a spectacular array of color in a few hours. May as well take direct responsibility for some of them.
The next breath out is likewise vocal, airier, somewhere between complaint and raw response for the grazing of teeth against his skin. More the latter, as the next reassertion of his grip on Flint is one that holds him right there, and himself right against.
And there's a world where that may last longer, early capitulation in favour of soaking up attention, of sliding into a tangle right here until they both feel that mutual need for more. It should, by rights, probably be this world. There is nothing not pleasant about that feeling, unyielding softness and sharper bite, the graze of beard against skin, even the sturdy weight of the other man on top of him. More pinned down by that kiss than anything else.
He goes to roll them anyway.
Waits until he feels Flint's mouth shift, maybe in search of more territory to mark up or to kiss him or to say something, and then an insistent push of his knee and hand. Opposite direction of the lantern, instinctively. He has experienced his share of fucking around in tents to know better, and under worse circumstances.
A following through on an urge that hadn't quite started fermenting since Flint had laid his hand down on his shoulder, and it had made him sigh, but feels like it's all a part of the same transaction.
Away from the lantern and toward the tent canvas, Flint's shoulder rasping a long line against it as they go. His grunt of complaint is negligible and might in fact have more to do with some uneven quality in the ground felt through the bedroll than it does for having had his attentions interrupted. Nevermind that he might have liked to have settled into that previously arrangement. To be all heavy over him, keenly aware of the pull of Marcus's breathing because of how it drags under his mouth and the pull of fingers keeping him drawn in tight as if gravity weren't doing the bulk of that work already.
But he isn't opposed to this. Or at least his hands aren't where they catch after Marcus's waist to dredge him more flush or more over him even in an effort that's at least partly unconscious. He is broad and not exactly unsuited to having the other man pressed in between his knees.
Less absent is the boot heel Flint hooks at Marcus's ankle and how it tightens the new arrangement and forms a kind of grapple in equal measures. Or the sprawl of fingers on both hands moving from waist to waistband to lower than that, fists closing at whatever give lives in the fabric.
"I won't stitch you closed a second time," is forewarning. Don't bleed on him.
Gravity and Flint's hands both work to settle him comfortably on top. Marcus has not given too much consideration to the way they compare, save that there have been moments when he is at least semi-consciously glad for his fraction of height during certain conversations. Aware, anyway, that Flint is built a little like the kind of brawler he
would still heckle in a tavern in the right mood, if that is the sort of night he was having, but would regret more keenly the next day.
Not large, just solid in a way he is himself rangier, and so does not mind resting the weight of himself on as Flint grips him, says that. Forewarning is a reminder, manifested as twinge up beneath the bandaging. A warm rumble of agreement from him, "Fair enough," very gracious, before he chases down a kiss. The arm on his good side is the one that stretches, elbow anchored up by Flint's shoulder.
Worth the ache, he reasons, as he lifts his hips some and slips his hand between them. Breaks the kiss in time for his fingers to seek out the shape of him beneath cloth, to palm over it.
Later, maybe, he will become aware of the draft reaching its cold fingers in under the edge of the tent canvas nearest his shoulder. Or the shape of the hard ground behind his shoulders. Or that this was all fucking stupid, actually. But here, it's gratifying—that long line Marcus draws down to kiss him. And he is ready to answer it, to resume that interrupted tempo of catching teeth and warm, panting breath. Starts to pursue him, even, as the kiss breaks back
and breathes out a low, thick sound in answer to being touched. Knuckles flexing against the space below the small of Marcus's back. Some sturdy cord of muscle tightens in his thighs.
A hand untangles its grip. By the time he is actually pressing up against Marcus's palm, Flint has secured a heavy hand at the back of his neck. Not kissing him, but close enough to be acquainted with the thick scar tissue hooking through the other man's face and the scrape of his unshaven cheek and to fill that space with the heated pull of breathing. And it is easy, actually, to think of this simply in terms of hands and sinew and weight and the compliant twitch of his cock and the tinge of cigarette smoke taste.
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no subject
With his spare hand, Flint offers the little folded surgery kit back to him.
"If you believe it matters."
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Characteristic pause, thinking over Flint's statement, testing its truthfulness. He sets the kit aside, nearer his things.
"More than learning how to scrap better, or even use magic like that," he says, finally, "it all came more naturally because it was like the fight belonged to me now." Focus returned, gracelessly prying, but earnest rather than calculated. A conscious avoidance of that habit, also, to speak of 'us' and 'we'. No, just himself, here. "Having been denied it for so long."
There'd been struggle, resistance, maneuvering, but none of that is what he means.
no subject
But it's one thing to hold that similarity in the head and another to have it laid out in so personal and plain and fashion, and all just because he asks. It's an odd blessing to be rendered by a Venatori blade.
"Given the mage alliance under the Inquisition's banner, the recall of the Order, the war, the work here," he says. There is something keen in the quality of his attention, but not impatient. The rasp of a whetstone on steel. "Does it feel as if you're being kept from it again?"
Prompted by the cold cloth or by the impulsive urge to solidify this little thread of apparent sincerity, his shifts his hand absently. Moves his thumb from frosted linen to warmer skin.
no subject
Knows it here, a momentary twinge, quieting as Marcus thinks. Then, the press of subtle contact aside from the linen.
"Yes," he says instead, giving up whatever obvious qualifications he might have included.
A breath in, deeper, a subtle way of feeling the pressure of Flint's hand. There's a difference between needing to haul back from the urge to commit violences against a perceived enemy during a ceasefire, and whatever it is he spent years doing alongside them prior to the rebellion, but it can chafe in a similar way.
But he came to Riftwatch for a reason. He knows Flint did too. There's enough that's been said, enough on public record, or collected as scraps from elusive conversations with the likes of Silver, for Marcus to know that much. Can imagine that Flint had meant it, when he had likewise said he can imagine.
He asks, "Is that shameful?" but it's a little wry, too. Corypheus, after all, is not unimportant, and Flint manages his wages in the task of fighting his forces.
His hand has also found a place to rest there, at the edge of Flint's knee, which in the scheme of subtle exchange thus far is—less.
no subject
It's a brief acknowledgement, no more than a flicking glance, but even that barely there acknowledgement instantly reduces the space into something more malleable. More flexible. The difference between the limitations of something consciously divided being tested and something actively slipping beyond the margins.
When his attention slants back up—
"I would hope not," is dry, and not without some whiff of superiority, and not entirely self-serious either. "If none of us are thinking of what our tomorrow looks like, then there would seem to be very little point in making all this effort now."
no subject
"Mm. Rainy," Marcus says. On the subject of tomorrow.
His hand shifts. Thumb finding that sensitive dip against bony cap, following that line of muscle by an inch, an inch and a half, still light but assertive, still minor as far as contact goes, but he isn't unaware of the lack of pretense. Has he thought it through, the pros and cons of such a gesture when there is nowhere either of them can safely go, should it strike a wrong nerve?
Perhaps. But it's unguarded, his appraisal, plain and open. It wouldn't be so bad, to retreat back to their corners, speak of other kinds of tomorrow.
no subject
It sparks a hot bite of frustration and amusement. Both things flash freely in the lines of his face—a wrinkle in the cheek that pulls at his whiskers; a certain furrowing of the brow; this fucking guy—, and both pull taut under the intentional set of Marcus's thumb.
For a man who has managed very tidily to relegate his place in this to prompting questions and the almost entirely practical set of fingers, the answer that surfaces in Flint's face is transparent and bluntly intimate. Careful. There is a real appetite here. It's possible there is some great spread of teeth presently being held in check.
(If Flint is at all surprised by the sudden sharp pang of that hunger, then he is practiced with pretending otherwise.)
"And me made responsible for carrying both our packs, apparently."
no subject
And its fading has little to do with what is read in Flint's expression. Nothing very reticent about his own intrigue, sharp in clear eyes, nothing all deferential in the way he breaks eye contact when his focus seems to trace a more intimate line down the slope of Flint's cheek, the warm bristle and whisker around his mouth, which says that next thing,
gaining a scoff out of Marcus, quiet in the intimate space they've found themselves in. "We'll see," muttered, focus flicked back up.
no subject
Flint's exhale is a heavy, bullish snort. When his spare hand at last moves, it's to catch broadly at Marcus's shoulder and hold him there while he—
Peels the damp ball of a shirtsleeve away from the wound. The blood has reduced itself to a slow ooze. Everything gleams pink from the bite of the wet cold or from the residual smear of blood. Satisfied (no, he isn't), he sets the shirt entirely aside and leans out to dredge his stolen kit closer. It reduces the points of contact between them to Marcus's hand and whatever more incidental alignments naturally occur from being sat so close together. He needs both hands to go rummaging through the unfamiliar bag.
All things being even, Marcus will need something to keep pressure on his side lest he undo all this work.
no subject
He lifts his elbow, a brief attempt to look at his injury for himself, but seeing more than the swooping tail end of it would take more twisting than he has inclination to attempt.
His hand is still where it is. Shifts in the natural course of movement, a warm sit of palm against the side of Flint's thigh. More than (over)confident projections as to his own viability when they finally move on from their campsite, there is also the impulse to chase impulse, interrupt the progression of medical administration by following Flint into that movement, a demand for a different kind of attention.
But he does not actually want to bleed everywhere, freshly stitched wound now singing through his nerves with the absence of pressure and ice. Its welcome is still murky, uncertain. So he sits, watches, a certain element of hemmed-in impatience in that stillness, assssment.
no subject
Instead, the handkerchief is folded. His belt knife is fetched up again, and so is the shirt, and with a pop of the blade and a subsequent jerking the fabric at the bottom of the long hem splits along its weft. Presumably he won't miss the bottom two inches of the shirt that's already in desperate need of boiling and mending. This too is folded, and joined behind the handkerchief to make a thick pad.
This part he absolutely has done before.
(The bandaging? Or allowing Marcus to put his hand on him while weighing on the man's patience?)
Both, maybe, given the expectant look Flint fixes him with once these pieces are assembled.
"Mind your elbow."
no subject
Momentarily distracting, though.
So when Flint returns focus, Marcus' hand hasn't done much else, a comfortable conforming against the slope of muscle without progressing past it. Nothing interrupted, then, to lift it away, arms out further from his sides to help along the process.
A process he's not unfamiliar with either, a hand slipping down and across to help hold bandaging into place where it's tied. He could probably do this part himself, if not as adeptly.
no subject
It's methodical. The bandage is wrapped, the end is secured. He finds Marcus's shoulder, his thumb digs. It is obvious when it becomes a blatant invasion of space rather than operating under the pretense of workmanlike diligence.
"Are we finished here?"
no subject
Wolfish regard throughout, anticipatory, an edge of humour returning to it. Still there, when Flint takes his shoulder, digging thumb eliciting a breath out.
"Mm," he says. Matter of perspective, as to what's over.
Shifts, breaching the murky stratus of remaining boundary with a levering forward, hand now a firmer, weightier clasp at Flint's thigh, blunt clawed and matter-of-fact and on the way to pressing his mouth to Flint's.
no subject
In the narrow space of the tent, crowded by discarded armor and the lantern, and their traveling gear, and the low clearance of the strung canvas above their heads, it's very easy to understand the desire to consolidate that space further. To rasp a hot breath into his mouth instead of drawing back and catch hold of Marcus's forearm like he might dredge him closer.
Instead, Flint bullies his way further into Marcus's space. It's a pointed kind of jostling, spare hand reaching blindly to shove away whatever surrounding article threatens to be the most inconvenient.
no subject
No need, as Flint pushes in closer. The pack he'd pulled over is what Flint's hand finds, pushed off into the rest of the tight space, leaving clear a stretch of bedroll. Marcus grunts but capitulates, while snaring a hand against Flint's shirt just at his waist, tugging it free of where waistband and belt kept it secure.
Ceding space in return of getting what he wants in this second, which is: a hand slipped up beneath Flint's tunic hem, rough palm and splayed fingers finding bare, warm skin, slipped up high to the ribs. This invasion drags the fabric along.
Fingertips, digging just so, then winding further, drawing an arm around the other man at the promise of closeness.
no subject
Given even a modicum of distance, it seems entirely likely that Marcus will promptly find his way to some irritating remark, or look at him in a fashion that rankles. And maybe those things will convince him to divest himself of the fingers digging into skin and the rumble of sound under his own palm and the urge to set his teeth roughly at Marcus's mouth. But, fuck, if he isn't eager for to be touched in the meantime. So, in the good faith effort to avoid that inevitability for as long as is possible—
Using the broad span of his shoulders and the fingers that have crept up into the hair at the base of the other man's skull like a blunt instrument, Flint makes to force him back. Chases him with his mouth. If close is what they want, that's easily accomplished. Take, for example, how he seizes on Marcus's waistband in the process.
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His arm hooked around Flint's torso, up under his shirt, tightens. Soaking up that initial broad span of contact where their chests meet, the solidity of muscle; warmer, hotter, where tunic has lifted enough for skin to meet skin. All too eager for that closeness, and it isn't all to do with who they are or are not to each other.
He reaches both hands for Flint's shirt, now, just when he feels that grip at his waistband. Knows a dull, anticipatory pulse of want, fists flexing tighter. Doesn't stop himself from gathering fabric up as far as shoulders.
"Off," against the bristle at Flint's jaw.
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Stripped of the shirt, he is an unsurprising landscape of scars in the mostly forgiving light. An ugly puncture at the left shoulder; a slashed line very like Marcus's pair across his chest; a dark dappling at the side and too many small marks, and freckles, and some dash of ink to catalog completely in that brief obligation of space before Flint is bending back to him.
'Better?', he doesn't ask. In that heated, flush close space, Flint instead makes to press a hot kiss to the sharp angle of Marcus's jaw. To his throat, shockingly intimate.
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They land at Flint's chest once it's bared to him, nothing precise. Just broad, the slide up to the shoulder that palms over puncture wound, and the other around across ribs in time for Flint to shift back down. A grip settles against the back of Flint's neck while another snares at his belt, an anchoring that in the moment pulls them more flush together.
The tent provides not a lot of space for rolling around in, but there's the nudge of Marcus' knee that threatens it.
But then it is a shock, the feeling of a hot wet mouth against his throat, enough that the sound that leaves him isn't another growl or grunt but a more open-throated groan, chin tipping up and aside.
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Whether this counts as one of those worse motivators is arguable: how well that noise Marcus makes catches at him, how directly it feeds the hot clench of anticipation beginning to twist low in answer to the hand at his belt and the thing in him that already takes pleasure in catching Marcus wrong footed. It turns out it can be remarkably satisfying to get a rise out of Rowntree.
So he kisses his neck again, lower. Sets teeth there to nip rough at tender skin. Marcus is already going to be a spectacular array of color in a few hours. May as well take direct responsibility for some of them.
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And there's a world where that may last longer, early capitulation in favour of soaking up attention, of sliding into a tangle right here until they both feel that mutual need for more. It should, by rights, probably be this world. There is nothing not pleasant about that feeling, unyielding softness and sharper bite, the graze of beard against skin, even the sturdy weight of the other man on top of him. More pinned down by that kiss than anything else.
He goes to roll them anyway.
Waits until he feels Flint's mouth shift, maybe in search of more territory to mark up or to kiss him or to say something, and then an insistent push of his knee and hand. Opposite direction of the lantern, instinctively. He has experienced his share of fucking around in tents to know better, and under worse circumstances.
A following through on an urge that hadn't quite started fermenting since Flint had laid his hand down on his shoulder, and it had made him sigh, but feels like it's all a part of the same transaction.
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But he isn't opposed to this. Or at least his hands aren't where they catch after Marcus's waist to dredge him more flush or more over him even in an effort that's at least partly unconscious. He is broad and not exactly unsuited to having the other man pressed in between his knees.
Less absent is the boot heel Flint hooks at Marcus's ankle and how it tightens the new arrangement and forms a kind of grapple in equal measures. Or the sprawl of fingers on both hands moving from waist to waistband to lower than that, fists closing at whatever give lives in the fabric.
"I won't stitch you closed a second time," is forewarning. Don't bleed on him.
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would still heckle in a tavern in the right mood, if that is the sort of night he was having, but would regret more keenly the next day.
Not large, just solid in a way he is himself rangier, and so does not mind resting the weight of himself on as Flint grips him, says that. Forewarning is a reminder, manifested as twinge up beneath the bandaging. A warm rumble of agreement from him, "Fair enough," very gracious, before he chases down a kiss. The arm on his good side is the one that stretches, elbow anchored up by Flint's shoulder.
Worth the ache, he reasons, as he lifts his hips some and slips his hand between them. Breaks the kiss in time for his fingers to seek out the shape of him beneath cloth, to palm over it.
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and breathes out a low, thick sound in answer to being touched. Knuckles flexing against the space below the small of Marcus's back. Some sturdy cord of muscle tightens in his thighs.
A hand untangles its grip. By the time he is actually pressing up against Marcus's palm, Flint has secured a heavy hand at the back of his neck. Not kissing him, but close enough to be acquainted with the thick scar tissue hooking through the other man's face and the scrape of his unshaven cheek and to fill that space with the heated pull of breathing. And it is easy, actually, to think of this simply in terms of hands and sinew and weight and the compliant twitch of his cock and the tinge of cigarette smoke taste.
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