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.
There's a thrill for all these myriad responses, a corkscrew of heat low in him at the sound Flint makes by his ear, the rasp of warm breath past scarred cheek. The points of contact, at the back of his neck and then low past his waist, the hook of an ankle trapping his leg. And that lifting up, the responsive stiffness through fabric, telling him what is already apparent.
Marcus ducks his head, mouth grazing against Flint's shoulder. His teeth catch against freckled skin, a sharper bite that is soothed by the open-mouth kiss that follow. Vocalised hum of satisfaction at—who knows, the taste of him, the sound of him, or maybe how his cock feels beneath his hand.
Because for a moment, all that hand does is rub Flint through his pants, and then his touch refines. Palm pressed in warm, fingers stroking, Marcus lifting his head again to watch what he can of Flint's expression.
Hair half-fallen out from the neat bundle of his ponytail since the last grab, strands now finding places to stick where sweat hadn't had a chance to dry off of his face from suturing. Eyes darker, here, in the low golden light, than the usual shrill blue. Desire to push Flint around a little replaced with something more intent in his expression.
It hooks low in him, that look. Burns warm along the line from his bare teeth-caught shoulder all the way down into Marcus's attentive hand. In that narrowed space, Flint returns the electric, fixed quality of that study with his own. The point of his focus is considerably sharper than the scrape of his dirty nails at the nape of Marcus's neck is. It is good—to watch and be watched, the thick beat of his pulse and the slower more methodical press that answers the stroke of Marcus's hand. It threatens to become a real rhythm, tethered firmly by this naked, shared pull of intent that passes between them in the barely there space separating them.
The cant of his breathing scrapes thick and slanting. It rasps warm at but not against Marcus's mouth, a cousin to sound of the tent canvas being jostled and fabric under fingers. Lingers there in that magnetic pulling space for what feels like a long time and none at while Marcus coaxes him to straining.
Eventually, compelled by that dark thing forming a heavy shadow in his face, Flint makes with a firm square hand at his neck to pull Marcus back into a kiss. There are no sharp teeth. Instead, with a breath out that is more groan than it isn't, Flint kisses him very open. Presses his tongue hot into his mouth and fingers up into half undone hair.
It's easy, how Marcus goes to and meets the kiss. A sound that smothers between them as Flint plunders past his lips, and he opens to it, arousal like a warm shiver as he answers in kind. Softer than bite back, filthier. The hand that isn't doing much of anything but resting up against the bedroll on the end of bracing arm, silently forms a fist.
His other hand has found a pattern to what its doing, the long sliding strokes that encourage Flint into those shifts, coax out of him those rasping sounds. Slow to break from it, simmering in exchange of kiss, the lighter tug of Flint's fingers in his hair and that feeling of friction under his palm.
Finally breaks, though, but only because there is a tug, a jangle of leather and metal as Marcus blindly tugs at the fastenings of Flint's belt. Clumsy for the angle but not uselessly, but betraying perhaps a little eagerness after all that languid heat.
It is obvious when the low rasping sounds he is making becomes, Wait. A grunt of protest or caution. A tip down of the chin that definitively breaks that line of contact between them in favor of what passes as a exasperated look (for the buckle, not for the man over him) as Flint slips his hand from grasping at Marcus's waist to between them.
There's a trick to the belt's catch. Or it sticks slightly and protests against an unfamiliar hand. But he knows the right angle or the right direction to twist in for it to pop the heavy buckle free, his hand and Marcus's an affair of blindly jostling knuckles. The bump of wrists. The metal clank of the belt buckle's tongue bouncing off the main body of the fastening. The deft pull on a string of lacing. Buttons.
And then, blunt fingertips bumping at Marcus's wrist. And then, nevermind that it's counterproductive in the narrow space afforded them, the impulsive turn of the hand to mirror feeling at Marcus through his pants—a pressed palm, some brief exploratory squeeze of fingers, and a pleased hiss of a breath for all of it near to the corner of Marcus's mouth again.
Marcus' help with the belt situation withdraws once the belt opens, and Flint sets upon drawstrings and buttons. Not far. His palm finds a place to be low on the other man's belly, palm flat and gentle and fingers questing already past the line of loosening fabric, brushing over where hair runs coarser and skin, tenderer.
Doesn't dive in too deeply before Flint turns his own hand. That initial press earns a hitch in Marcus' next breath. Tension, subtle, pulling up from where his knees brace against bedroll between Flint's, up the backs of his thighs and along his spine. Felt, easily, through the layers, taut fabric. There is a way in which being on top does not necessarily mean you're not pinned in place, weight balanced on different points for want of not collapsing down.
Another fluttered breath against Flint's jaw before he pushes his hand down into the hotter, more humid space beneath fabric, caught between them, skimming first over hot, hardened flesh to drag fabric down and out of the way with brisk motions.
He lacks as much of a certain plan of action as he did when he first touched Flint's knee, and now is no different, which doesn't stop him. Wrist twists, tugging Flint's cock out into the space between them, fingers curling around.
The firm heat of direct contact is a pleasurable shock to the senses—sharp, and grounding. Motivating in the way a point of focus can be. It prompts a hot hiss of breath. A reflexive massage at the shape of Marcus through fabric. A turn of the temple that means to threaten Marcus's mouth again with his own. And there is a way in which this might be giving everything away. Though there in that narrow barely there space between them, Flint's eye glints dark with satisfaction.
Soon, maybe, he will address the fastenings left between them and mirror that twisting wrist to draw him out and set their cocks together where the heat can develop past punctuating between them. He might willingly commit a hand to that work. But first—
"Marcus," sits thick on the tongue. "Show me you don't require direction."
There's anticipation for it, for Flint to open his pants and mirror him in kind. It seems like the rhythm of this thing they are doing, of an action made and then followed, matched, heightened. Marcus can fondle Flint, quietly satisfied for the intimacy of having him held so, and enjoy the edge of impatience he feels for the less direct shape of fingers fanned against fabric, and breathe deep and heavy.
Flint speaks his first name, which is rare enough to hear, and then also spoken in such a tone that it hooks in, draws focus. It encourages the flush of arousal that comes at the rest, so immediate that the near-scoffing release of breath comes late, if sincere.
Maybe he should kiss him, bitey again and silencing, condescending prick that he is, and there's a sharpness to close evaluation that almost warns of it.
Instead, between them, Marcus' hand moves. A skimming stroke of his palm up along Flint's length, trapping cock to his body for a moment, palm curved over the blunt head of it, the trace moisture gathered there. His body shifts just a little off-centre, hip and thigh nudging Flint's legs open that bit wider as a result, and then removes his hand, bringing it up.
Rather than touch Flint somewhere else, Marcus directs his hand to his own mouth, and there he runs his tongue along his palm in (somehow) (relatively) polite licks, a deliberate distribution of saliva that clings a little thicker, slipperier, than sweat and ambient moisture.
Then reaching down and grasping Flint's cock, drawing it into his fist, a more articulate and now slicker grasp in a stroke from root and up.
He should have bitten him. It might have slightly reduced the egotism that lurks in the satisfied shape Flint's body makes in response to the stroke of Marcus' fingers; the low murmuring note from out of his chest that sounds more like praise than it does reflexive desire. There. Good. Maker forbid Marcus have proved immune to being steered.
As a reward for being obstinate enough to be biddable, Flint makes little continued effort at being coy. The fastenings of Marcus' pants may stay put, but the lay and squeeze of fingers and the motion in the heel of Flint's hand act with a blatant disregard for that measure of separation. There is nothing particularly reticent about the flex of calf and thigh, or the clench of muscle as he presses up after the friction of spit slick fingers.
It's a different kind of wrestling match. Less nudging of knees. Less threat of weight. Less taut. Instead, imposed rhythm; his spare hand falling away to grope after the leverage afforded by the ground under them; the rasp of the tent canvas catching at shoulder and knee as he moves. He is not going to twist Marcus back over, pin him roughly down against the edge of the bedroll between his thighs and gather their cocks up together in his fist to show him how it's meant to go. But he will press back into that narrow space, and he will use his teeth in the way that Marcus nearly did—a sharp nip, followed promptly by a more conciliatory application of tongue and the warm, rough note of Flint's breathing.
Better, it says. This is all considerably more useful.
The flex and grasp of Flint's fingers gets a groan out of Marcus, tight-sounding in his throat, unbidden until it's repeated against the other man's mouth. No bite in return, but his hand does clench that little bit firmer on its way to another stroke, palm sliding along the length of him and the curl of his fingers keeping him close.
Frustration, though, serrated at the edge of satisfaction, desire. Flint's hand ignores the limits of cloth pulled tight across but they're limits Marcus feels keenly, where the hotter and more precise application of a hand (like his own, there, curled into a fist) is dulled. And a broader frustration, of what more they could do were they not confined to a tent, to the bedroll beneath them, to saliva and grasping hands.
None of which prevents him from once, twice, pushing his hips down against Flint's palm, in that claustrophobic space between them.
A few moments of this before Marcus twists out of the current kiss with a growled out breath. A prickle of exposure as he pushes himself someways up and off, hand leaving Flint's cock to grasp at his own belt buckle. Space between them, even those few inches, kneeling up and over still. There, the reddened mark where Flint's mouth had worked low on his throat, and traces of dirt, fingerprints of blood.
On his part, Marcus maintains some eye contact, something wry in the tip of his brow. Fuck off.
It might be his cock thinking it, but it's incredible how much more appealing Rowntree is given the benefit of hair rucked out of order, a mark painted into the skin, and a swollen lip. Blood and dirt and the stark shapes of old scars, and how lurid the presence of the latter makes the mark on the man's face. It will be difficult to look at him tomorrow or the day after as they are traipsing across the valley and not see the mark written on Marcus' face and think of the ones that he'd looked at here in this tent.
The drawn sharp frustration bordering on hunger in the man's isn't novel, but those are. Given the vantage of a little added distance to take in their full effect might almost make up for no longer being touched.
Almost. He is considerably less polite about spitting into his palm and taking over the work Marcus has abandoned. The ring on his small finger clips against an exposed button. The metallic click it produces clearly marks the fluctuating set of the pace—some series of quick tugs, slowing as Marcus' belt comes undone with a telltale clank. As Flint's thighs give wider, and calves with their buckled gaiters press close.
"Tell me when it's too much for your side," isn't polite either. His chin has raised by a proud degree and there is some flash of teeth behind whiskers that isn't not a smile, albeit wolfish and sharp. "I'll put you on your back then."
He's never thought very deeply on how the timbre of Flint's voice might make him feel, save that when slanted in a certain way, has a habit of being deeply aggravating; a deeper friction than whatever words it might be delivering at the time. Marcus finds it to be so now, and differently. Now the sound of it feels like the texture of rough bristle against his throat or the rake of teeth against his mouth, those sensations translated and imbued into impolite words, taunting him.
(He's going to be very sorry about his side, tomorrow. That was always going to be true, but perhaps sorrier now, where even as he favours the side that doesn't have a wound raked through it, muscles work when they should not be to keep himself steady or moving. Each twinge is minor enough not to distract him, but represent future layers of ache that await.
Still.) Marcus sits up, hands returned to himself to shuck his trousers further past his hips and partway down his thighs, out of the way. Grips himself, fulfilling his own impulse for that particular sensation, a growled hum of satisfaction before he climbs back over.
"Aye?" he queries, almost distracted. The finangling that is aligning their hips, hand opening to curl fingers around both his own and Flint's cock, to nudge open the man's hand. Breathing still tense in his chest, strained. "Should I ask nicely when I do?"
His hand, at least, is amenable. Content to be shifted to permit the curl of Marcus' fingers about them, it strays up to touch brief and restless at where their blunt heads are laid together. A thumb tracing at sensitive skin, pushing through slick burgeoning there while the drawing of breath rasps thick in Flint's chest. It would be easy to be obsessed with this sensation of sensitive skin on sensitive skin. Were they arranged just slightly differently or the light of the lantern more friendly to it, he might find himself compelled to study exactly how they look together.
"If you would." A low, scraping answer. Reflexive as the twitch of muscle in his abdomen or the flexing scuff of boot heels. He doesn't push up against Marcus, but there is something purposeful in the restraint that is very like if he had. Instead, he turns his hand—abandons control of how they align entirely so he may insinuate his hand down into the hotly claustrophobic space preserved by the overlapping of thighs to touch the rest of Marcus, a gentle fondling of delicate skin.
"Find some room for a please, and I wouldn't be opposed," is less reflexive.
In general, Marcus doesn't laugh much, to the point where casual acquaintances might assume he never does. The sound he makes now is close to it, a dry rasp of a breath out, more texture than vocalisation.
Which is as much to do with everything else that's happening as it is ingrained reticence. Taken with the feeling of warm skin against warm skin, of the clammy intimacy in and of itself. It's here that Flint's pace-setting manages to get its hooks in, words spoken clearly and hand exploratory. Hungry impatience doesn't go away, just strains against it, caught between meeting Flint's restraint with a demonstration of his own, and the need to pursue more.
But for a moment, Marcus holds them there, the edge of his thumb stroking up along Flint's cock in what can only barely be counted as teasing, given context. The nudging forwards of his hips both presses at Flint's reaching hand and starts the action of sliding their cocks together within his grasp.
And the voice thing is going to be a problem, the next time they're fully dressed and in the context of the Gallows, but that does feel like a world away.
That first real and purposeful shift of skin on skin prompts a pleasant coursing of blood in the ears, draws a heavy exhale through the nose, and a soft press and stroke of thumb and fingertips that is more reward than it is meant to goad. What may fall more easily into that latter category is the relaxing line of Flint's heretofore braced arm. How he shifts it, not to turn sharp or to grasp after the contact, but to tuck his wrist in under the nape of his neck and pillow his head from the hard ground against his forearm.
There he settles. Not at ease or idle—here, a responsive twitching of muscle; a line of tension in the lay of his thighs and the slow, methodical jump of sinew in his wrist that promises something more of his hand—but something keen and vividly expectant in the lines of him. Calloused fingertips grasping absently at the nape of his own neck. An elbow rasping against the tent's canvas.
This too, an implicit challenge: well, Rowntree. You have him. Now what are you going to do with him?
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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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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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Marcus ducks his head, mouth grazing against Flint's shoulder. His teeth catch against freckled skin, a sharper bite that is soothed by the open-mouth kiss that follow. Vocalised hum of satisfaction at—who knows, the taste of him, the sound of him, or maybe how his cock feels beneath his hand.
Because for a moment, all that hand does is rub Flint through his pants, and then his touch refines. Palm pressed in warm, fingers stroking, Marcus lifting his head again to watch what he can of Flint's expression.
Hair half-fallen out from the neat bundle of his ponytail since the last grab, strands now finding places to stick where sweat hadn't had a chance to dry off of his face from suturing. Eyes darker, here, in the low golden light, than the usual shrill blue. Desire to push Flint around a little replaced with something more intent in his expression.
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The cant of his breathing scrapes thick and slanting. It rasps warm at but not against Marcus's mouth, a cousin to sound of the tent canvas being jostled and fabric under fingers. Lingers there in that magnetic pulling space for what feels like a long time and none at while Marcus coaxes him to straining.
Eventually, compelled by that dark thing forming a heavy shadow in his face, Flint makes with a firm square hand at his neck to pull Marcus back into a kiss. There are no sharp teeth. Instead, with a breath out that is more groan than it isn't, Flint kisses him very open. Presses his tongue hot into his mouth and fingers up into half undone hair.
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His other hand has found a pattern to what its doing, the long sliding strokes that encourage Flint into those shifts, coax out of him those rasping sounds. Slow to break from it, simmering in exchange of kiss, the lighter tug of Flint's fingers in his hair and that feeling of friction under his palm.
Finally breaks, though, but only because there is a tug, a jangle of leather and metal as Marcus blindly tugs at the fastenings of Flint's belt. Clumsy for the angle but not uselessly, but betraying perhaps a little eagerness after all that languid heat.
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There's a trick to the belt's catch. Or it sticks slightly and protests against an unfamiliar hand. But he knows the right angle or the right direction to twist in for it to pop the heavy buckle free, his hand and Marcus's an affair of blindly jostling knuckles. The bump of wrists. The metal clank of the belt buckle's tongue bouncing off the main body of the fastening. The deft pull on a string of lacing. Buttons.
And then, blunt fingertips bumping at Marcus's wrist. And then, nevermind that it's counterproductive in the narrow space afforded them, the impulsive turn of the hand to mirror feeling at Marcus through his pants—a pressed palm, some brief exploratory squeeze of fingers, and a pleased hiss of a breath for all of it near to the corner of Marcus's mouth again.
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Doesn't dive in too deeply before Flint turns his own hand. That initial press earns a hitch in Marcus' next breath. Tension, subtle, pulling up from where his knees brace against bedroll between Flint's, up the backs of his thighs and along his spine. Felt, easily, through the layers, taut fabric. There is a way in which being on top does not necessarily mean you're not pinned in place, weight balanced on different points for want of not collapsing down.
Another fluttered breath against Flint's jaw before he pushes his hand down into the hotter, more humid space beneath fabric, caught between them, skimming first over hot, hardened flesh to drag fabric down and out of the way with brisk motions.
He lacks as much of a certain plan of action as he did when he first touched Flint's knee, and now is no different, which doesn't stop him. Wrist twists, tugging Flint's cock out into the space between them, fingers curling around.
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Soon, maybe, he will address the fastenings left between them and mirror that twisting wrist to draw him out and set their cocks together where the heat can develop past punctuating between them. He might willingly commit a hand to that work. But first—
"Marcus," sits thick on the tongue. "Show me you don't require direction."
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Flint speaks his first name, which is rare enough to hear, and then also spoken in such a tone that it hooks in, draws focus. It encourages the flush of arousal that comes at the rest, so immediate that the near-scoffing release of breath comes late, if sincere.
Maybe he should kiss him, bitey again and silencing, condescending prick that he is, and there's a sharpness to close evaluation that almost warns of it.
Instead, between them, Marcus' hand moves. A skimming stroke of his palm up along Flint's length, trapping cock to his body for a moment, palm curved over the blunt head of it, the trace moisture gathered there. His body shifts just a little off-centre, hip and thigh nudging Flint's legs open that bit wider as a result, and then removes his hand, bringing it up.
Rather than touch Flint somewhere else, Marcus directs his hand to his own mouth, and there he runs his tongue along his palm in (somehow) (relatively) polite licks, a deliberate distribution of saliva that clings a little thicker, slipperier, than sweat and ambient moisture.
Then reaching down and grasping Flint's cock, drawing it into his fist, a more articulate and now slicker grasp in a stroke from root and up.
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As a reward for being obstinate enough to be biddable, Flint makes little continued effort at being coy. The fastenings of Marcus' pants may stay put, but the lay and squeeze of fingers and the motion in the heel of Flint's hand act with a blatant disregard for that measure of separation. There is nothing particularly reticent about the flex of calf and thigh, or the clench of muscle as he presses up after the friction of spit slick fingers.
It's a different kind of wrestling match. Less nudging of knees. Less threat of weight. Less taut. Instead, imposed rhythm; his spare hand falling away to grope after the leverage afforded by the ground under them; the rasp of the tent canvas catching at shoulder and knee as he moves. He is not going to twist Marcus back over, pin him roughly down against the edge of the bedroll between his thighs and gather their cocks up together in his fist to show him how it's meant to go. But he will press back into that narrow space, and he will use his teeth in the way that Marcus nearly did—a sharp nip, followed promptly by a more conciliatory application of tongue and the warm, rough note of Flint's breathing.
Better, it says. This is all considerably more useful.
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Frustration, though, serrated at the edge of satisfaction, desire. Flint's hand ignores the limits of cloth pulled tight across but they're limits Marcus feels keenly, where the hotter and more precise application of a hand (like his own, there, curled into a fist) is dulled. And a broader frustration, of what more they could do were they not confined to a tent, to the bedroll beneath them, to saliva and grasping hands.
None of which prevents him from once, twice, pushing his hips down against Flint's palm, in that claustrophobic space between them.
A few moments of this before Marcus twists out of the current kiss with a growled out breath. A prickle of exposure as he pushes himself someways up and off, hand leaving Flint's cock to grasp at his own belt buckle. Space between them, even those few inches, kneeling up and over still. There, the reddened mark where Flint's mouth had worked low on his throat, and traces of dirt, fingerprints of blood.
On his part, Marcus maintains some eye contact, something wry in the tip of his brow. Fuck off.
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The drawn sharp frustration bordering on hunger in the man's isn't novel, but those are. Given the vantage of a little added distance to take in their full effect might almost make up for no longer being touched.
Almost. He is considerably less polite about spitting into his palm and taking over the work Marcus has abandoned. The ring on his small finger clips against an exposed button. The metallic click it produces clearly marks the fluctuating set of the pace—some series of quick tugs, slowing as Marcus' belt comes undone with a telltale clank. As Flint's thighs give wider, and calves with their buckled gaiters press close.
"Tell me when it's too much for your side," isn't polite either. His chin has raised by a proud degree and there is some flash of teeth behind whiskers that isn't not a smile, albeit wolfish and sharp. "I'll put you on your back then."
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(He's going to be very sorry about his side, tomorrow. That was always going to be true, but perhaps sorrier now, where even as he favours the side that doesn't have a wound raked through it, muscles work when they should not be to keep himself steady or moving. Each twinge is minor enough not to distract him, but represent future layers of ache that await.
Still.) Marcus sits up, hands returned to himself to shuck his trousers further past his hips and partway down his thighs, out of the way. Grips himself, fulfilling his own impulse for that particular sensation, a growled hum of satisfaction before he climbs back over.
"Aye?" he queries, almost distracted. The finangling that is aligning their hips, hand opening to curl fingers around both his own and Flint's cock, to nudge open the man's hand. Breathing still tense in his chest, strained. "Should I ask nicely when I do?"
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"If you would." A low, scraping answer. Reflexive as the twitch of muscle in his abdomen or the flexing scuff of boot heels. He doesn't push up against Marcus, but there is something purposeful in the restraint that is very like if he had. Instead, he turns his hand—abandons control of how they align entirely so he may insinuate his hand down into the hotly claustrophobic space preserved by the overlapping of thighs to touch the rest of Marcus, a gentle fondling of delicate skin.
"Find some room for a please, and I wouldn't be opposed," is less reflexive.
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Which is as much to do with everything else that's happening as it is ingrained reticence. Taken with the feeling of warm skin against warm skin, of the clammy intimacy in and of itself. It's here that Flint's pace-setting manages to get its hooks in, words spoken clearly and hand exploratory. Hungry impatience doesn't go away, just strains against it, caught between meeting Flint's restraint with a demonstration of his own, and the need to pursue more.
But for a moment, Marcus holds them there, the edge of his thumb stroking up along Flint's cock in what can only barely be counted as teasing, given context. The nudging forwards of his hips both presses at Flint's reaching hand and starts the action of sliding their cocks together within his grasp.
And the voice thing is going to be a problem, the next time they're fully dressed and in the context of the Gallows, but that does feel like a world away.
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There he settles. Not at ease or idle—here, a responsive twitching of muscle; a line of tension in the lay of his thighs and the slow, methodical jump of sinew in his wrist that promises something more of his hand—but something keen and vividly expectant in the lines of him. Calloused fingertips grasping absently at the nape of his own neck. An elbow rasping against the tent's canvas.
This too, an implicit challenge: well, Rowntree. You have him. Now what are you going to do with him?
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