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?
Flint shifts, positions himself so; Marcus braces over him. Annoyance is not what he feels, exactly, so much as an internal flex of resistance where he consciously doesn't bid Flint to stop fucking around and touch him better. It's the spare hand snared up between them that does something to alleviate this urge, anyway, thighs parting and pressing against Flint's in response, by a matter of fractions.
But also: he does have him, and he doesn't hate a challenge. Even with the show being made of it.
Slowly, the shifting backwards of his hips, the shift forwards. His hand, keeping them close, and a brief stroking over that gathers up moisture to draw back down and ease the way of it, by some small degree. Muscle, setting like concrete at that one shoulder holding him so, and tense up along the curve of his back and down his legs.
What Marcus is going to do with him is this, a languid kind of fucking into his own hand and sliding long against Flint's cock, knuckles against his belly.
No rings on his fingers, no jewelry anywhere. In the lantern light, in the growing burn of arousal cooled off and set back to simmering, his attention snags on that one pierced ear, above the blunt slope of Flint's throat. Tempts him, but for now stays here, with those inches of separation.
Lends sharp contrast to the heat of where they are touching. Here, stark and immediate, is the shape of fingers, and the unhurried slide of Marcus over him, and the close press of thighs warm despite the heavy waxed linen left separating them. It is easy to be very aware there of the eager twitch of muscle against the ridges of knuckles, and his own fingers pressing into the bristle of shorn scalp behind his ear. If it were warmer
(they would have less problems traveling in the rain tomorrow; or there would have been little reason to sequester themselves in this narrow tent to begin with and Marcus wouldn't presently be fucking against his cock)
he might have started to sweat already. As it is, that measure of distance gains weight and texture primarily for the huff of heavy breathing and the sharp edge of observation passing through it. By the shadow Marcus' shoulder casts and the slow motion of Flint's elbow as his hand makes to knead as sensitive skin lying lower than Marcus' fist. It renders a minor adjustment of the hip significant. Makes the turn of his hand to grip briefly at the inside of the other man's thigh into a sudden shock of contact, broad through five fingers and the width of his palm, even before Flint shifts his hand over to insinuate his thumb between them. He holds him there at the base, the flat of his palm low across dark hair. And that, less to check Marcus and more to feel the press and slide of his body in further detail.
Eventually, the sound he makes in that dense, narrow space while he studies the pull of Marcus' mouth is low, smug and impatient in equal parts. Satisfied and hungry. Speaks to the press of his hip that both thrills at the grip of fingers and isn't content with being used as a surface work against.
There's a shaky quality to Marcus' breathing, now. Still coming out of him heavy and rasping, but a little like there is some focus being spent from outright panting. There is something arresting about Flint in particular, as opposed to just any warm body at all, laying beneath him, shoulder raised in direct association of grasping him so intimately, and the warm bracket his legs make on either side.
And then the specificity of that hand, like it is doing only what it wants, more feeling than touching, and that too is arresting. The dull pressure of a carefully applied thumb gets a rough noise of Marcus, fingers squeezing, narrowing that passage by a small measure on the next slide backwards. There is not much grace in what his hand is doing, but it is instinctive, a mutual gratification of subtle squeezes, of the rub of thumb or the application of a fingertip that slips between them, presses at some sensitive spot beneath.
Flint turns his hip, which invites a firmer thrust back down from Marcus, less to wrestle him back flat against the bedroll (even if this is what occurs) and more to meet him. He has begun to sweat, the odd cool trickle that works down his side, past a shoulder.
Moves his bracing arm, grunts as his weight settles on the elbow next nearer to Flint's shoulder. Less space, more warmth and friction. Kisses him, messy and needing, muffling another noise there.
There is something in the harsh pull of Marcus' breathing and how it informs the rise and fall of his chest, and belly, and the expanse of skin under the flat of his palm that hooks in and tugs at some low, thickly clenching thing in him. Not satisfying, strictly, but a demand on the attention as potent as the rough answer he gets from the angle of Marcus' hip. The collapsing line of his arm. His mouth.
His mouth and the reckless quality of its kiss and the sound hidden in it is impossible not to savor. Sinew and muscle coil. Calves and thighs and the flexing line of his body all draw briefly closer and tighter, and fingers grope roughly at the base of his own skull. It's easy, when Marcus makes what he wants so obvious by all but asking for it, to reward him in kind with some heedless press of tongue and a groan of approval.
Say please, he'd said, and this feels not so different from it. It could legitimize the slip of his hand in that heated minimum of space between them and Flint bullying his way into gripping Marcus properly. How roughly he makes to nudge free the wrap of fingers so he might take over and stroke Marcus' cock in earnest without obstacle.
Clumsy, a little, the way Marcus releases them both as he feels Flint insist his hand into place. A panting breath stripes hot across Flint's jaw as soon as rough fingers curl around him.
Some amount of unravelling has happened. Not completely. Still some coil and tension bound up in muscle, intent in his movements as he pushes his hips down against Flint's, pushes his cock eagerly against the curl of his hand, the slide of stiff flesh pinned against the plane of the other man's abdomen. An appreciative tensing down the line of his body, neck to the base of his spine to the leverage of the tops of his feet pressing against the earth, in response to the way, in these subtle adjustments, Flint draws closer and tighter around him.
But now closer to the bright edge of this thing, suddenly, and each breath out now has a slight timbre to it, timed unconsciously with the way he moves against him. Brow curved tense, drawn. That kiss reignites, teeth dragging at Flint's lip as he moves his freed hand up to clasp onto Flint's raised arm, a grip that both pins it in place as well as holds on.
"Flint," murmured, between his mouth lifting from the other man's and then against the bristle at his throat, a general press of warm, damp contact.
There's something nearly compliant in the way his chin tip so readily up under the heat of Marcus' mouth, and the hand pinning his arm, and the weight of the friction riding between them, and the intimate sound of his name there on another man's tongue. If not for the confident driving stroke of his hand moving roughly between them, it might constitute as a kind of surrendering impulse. If Marcus weren't Marcus, maybe. Or, no—if this were a bed and not a padded bedroll on the hard ground and they weren't constrained by the limitations of a tent and spit and impatience and a line of stitches. It would be tempting then to make more of the cock presently pushing so eagerly into the tight shape of his fingers.
(It has been long time since he was wrestled onto his back and kissed so hungrily, and the wanting thing that sparks and pulls at him in response is very broad in its tastes.)
So instead, the touch of his hand with its ring bands worn fever warm acts equal parts demanding—stroking him first in brisk, unflinching pulls—and exploratory—gathering them both up and squeezing those blunt heads flush so that his thumb can smear the slick there equally between them and when Marcus fucks into his hand it ripples all the way through him—and selfish—breaking over to pull at himself with the same expectant hand.
It's restless, but not unfocused. Not teasing or testing him or merely taking pleasure from the intimate sliding points of contact while they breathe in heavy bursts and he twists to find Marcus' mouth again. His hand wraps around them again, a clever finger insinuated between rigid flesh to afford some definitive friction to them both. "Come on, Rowntree," is rough, the burr of an order thick in the throat.
The kiss-bite he leaves behind at Flint's throat is not focused enough to draw bruising blood to the surface, complex desire whittling down to simpler things. Overridden when Flint turns his head, demands a kiss, nothing in Marcus resistant to tipping his chin towards it in another round of hungry contact as he moves, groans, flexes his fingers in against bicep held to the bedroll.
There's a world where this thing they are doing is more frustrating than pleasurable, where he'd be almost too distracted by what they aren't doing to be this single-minded. But perhaps it's been a while since he's found someone who—
Well. Something about proclivities, perhaps, the demanding rake of teeth and tongue.
And then that, rough voiced semi-order, like a swift boot kick over the line. The ridge of knuckle against his cock, the rough friction of Flint's pant legs against hips, thighs.
Maybe, the one way that the Circles can also be like a ship is how one learns to be quiet when fucking around. Marcus wouldn't know, anyway, because being on ships is the worst. He isn't quiet, though. Nor is he loud, as he never is, but the shuddered, breathy gasp out of him (directed there at Flint's shoulder as his back curves, head bowing) isn't held at bay through habit or reflex, a rough groan following that initial spark of release as his whole body tenses, as he spills between them.
The hand at Flint's arm stiffly straightens out from the hard clutch of fingers.
The tension that draws up in him is so distinct that even if Marcus were quiet enough to suit the strict confines of any shared quarters, if there were no raw scrape in the tenor of his breathing or caught groan breathed out rough near the skin, he would recognize the edge of this before the first hot pulse strikes his belly. But that he isn't silent is so gratifying that it might be that more than the heat of his release, or the pleasure of the friction, or the satisfaction or demanding something from Marcus and having it done that dredges the answering pant out of him. Strikes at clenched shape of close like a hammer on red steel.
Pulse thick in his neck, bicep jumping under the release of fingers, he keeps his hand moving to wring the dregs of Marcus' climax from him. Smears the heavy slick of it over and between them. Can't help but to fuck himself repeatedly up against the mess of it with a tight coil of muscle and the scrape of boot heels. There's nothing languid in it; rewarding himself with the distinct pleasure of impatience and wanting something in a way that isn't easy to mistake.
So maybe it is long practice that keeps Flint constrained to the gutteral series of groans that are little more than punched out exhale. Or maybe there's only so much transparency that he's capable of, and it's all used by the curving line of his body under Marcus threatening to raise his shoulders from the bedroll and by the squeeze of fingers as he comes after him.
Marcus is still half in it as Flint bucks beneath him, momentary euphoria and spasming muscle. Still breathing heavy, the last lingering prickles of pleasure from where he'd been worked over in the moments after still warm under his skin. He doesn't give Flint room but does respond in muted ways, the cant of his hips responding to the short jerks of motion.
A word, not quite making it out between his teeth. Maybe Flint's name, again. Maybe a curse.
Stays close, either way, drinking in the feeling of taut muscle and motion, the rise and fall of harsh breathing, the strain of response kept wrangled in the barrel of the other man's chest. Grunts at the feeling of flexing fingers, and even in the ashy leavings of his climax, feels a distinct embering at the sensation of Flint coming against him.
Then, Maker, he is in a world of pain. All at once, ache and sharper punishment beneath the strained padding at his side all clock back into his notice. He doesn't think he pulled any stitches (he hopes) but the next breath that leaves him is a rasp of a laugh, self-deprecating.
Still laying heavy on top of Flint. There'll come a moment when they will shuffle back into respective dynamic, and do it dirty and half-naked and kiss-swollen, and maybe it's already here. Marcus, uncaring, lifts his hand from Flint's arm to direct him into a kiss before the last of his rough breathing steadies.
The crooked rasp of that laugh glances off him, sliding out from between them nearly unregistered. More occupying: the senseless buzz in his ear, and how warm Marcus' weight is, and the urge to continue to stroke himself through the prickling after effects in that barely there space between them. When guided, Flint is still drawn halfway taut and perfectly ready to indulge that kiss.
Then, he does groan—a low rattling exhale fed roughly into Marcus' mouth while wired tight muscle goes slowly slack. Hand slipping to flatten between in the mess between them. Heels sliding, knees giving, thighs sprawling in that way that is thoughtlessly open in its accommodation.
(Not tomorrow, when the rain does prove out and there is no use traveling very far from this camp even if Marcus weren't knocked every shade of black and blue, but the day after when the bleak weather has cleared and they find themselves moving down out of the foothills and into the valley below them. Flint will attribute his sore shoulders and neck from sleeping on the ground, and will bow his head to pick out a footpath through the rock slope and there will be faint dark spots formed from his own fingers dug in around the back of his neck.)
It takes some effort to unravel his arm from behind his head. It takes less to catch Marcus behind the ear and keep kissing him. Once or twice, formless—
"You're bleeding on me." He doesn't actually know that's true.
Flint's question is met with a third kiss, lazy and something dismissive in the half-growled sound that presses there. Hand splayed against the other man's throat and head tipped according to the catch up high on his own. Cooling off, slowly, laying here, dense and warm. Long seconds later, a break.
Marcus shifts aside, hip finding bedroll, a careful untangling of limbs as the absence of his weight must feel a little like a vise being let out. Rather than settle in against Flint's side, as something bonedeep calls for him to do, mess and all, he moves at a roll to sit up. Lifts an elbow to check for bleeding, satisfied that there is nothing there, and sets about removing his boots to better accommodate shucking his legs free of the tangle of his clothing.
The absence of heavy breathing, heart beats, underscored by a fresh lashing of rain against the canvas.
Companionably, his hip still presses against Flint's, an amount of assumptive weight. Otherwise, they are where they started, almost, the broad span of Marcus' back to him as he loosens buckles.
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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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But also: he does have him, and he doesn't hate a challenge. Even with the show being made of it.
Slowly, the shifting backwards of his hips, the shift forwards. His hand, keeping them close, and a brief stroking over that gathers up moisture to draw back down and ease the way of it, by some small degree. Muscle, setting like concrete at that one shoulder holding him so, and tense up along the curve of his back and down his legs.
What Marcus is going to do with him is this, a languid kind of fucking into his own hand and sliding long against Flint's cock, knuckles against his belly.
No rings on his fingers, no jewelry anywhere. In the lantern light, in the growing burn of arousal cooled off and set back to simmering, his attention snags on that one pierced ear, above the blunt slope of Flint's throat. Tempts him, but for now stays here, with those inches of separation.
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Lends sharp contrast to the heat of where they are touching. Here, stark and immediate, is the shape of fingers, and the unhurried slide of Marcus over him, and the close press of thighs warm despite the heavy waxed linen left separating them. It is easy to be very aware there of the eager twitch of muscle against the ridges of knuckles, and his own fingers pressing into the bristle of shorn scalp behind his ear. If it were warmer
(they would have less problems traveling in the rain tomorrow; or there would have been little reason to sequester themselves in this narrow tent to begin with and Marcus wouldn't presently be fucking against his cock)
he might have started to sweat already. As it is, that measure of distance gains weight and texture primarily for the huff of heavy breathing and the sharp edge of observation passing through it. By the shadow Marcus' shoulder casts and the slow motion of Flint's elbow as his hand makes to knead as sensitive skin lying lower than Marcus' fist. It renders a minor adjustment of the hip significant. Makes the turn of his hand to grip briefly at the inside of the other man's thigh into a sudden shock of contact, broad through five fingers and the width of his palm, even before Flint shifts his hand over to insinuate his thumb between them. He holds him there at the base, the flat of his palm low across dark hair. And that, less to check Marcus and more to feel the press and slide of his body in further detail.
Eventually, the sound he makes in that dense, narrow space while he studies the pull of Marcus' mouth is low, smug and impatient in equal parts. Satisfied and hungry. Speaks to the press of his hip that both thrills at the grip of fingers and isn't content with being used as a surface work against.
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And then the specificity of that hand, like it is doing only what it wants, more feeling than touching, and that too is arresting. The dull pressure of a carefully applied thumb gets a rough noise of Marcus, fingers squeezing, narrowing that passage by a small measure on the next slide backwards. There is not much grace in what his hand is doing, but it is instinctive, a mutual gratification of subtle squeezes, of the rub of thumb or the application of a fingertip that slips between them, presses at some sensitive spot beneath.
Flint turns his hip, which invites a firmer thrust back down from Marcus, less to wrestle him back flat against the bedroll (even if this is what occurs) and more to meet him. He has begun to sweat, the odd cool trickle that works down his side, past a shoulder.
Moves his bracing arm, grunts as his weight settles on the elbow next nearer to Flint's shoulder. Less space, more warmth and friction. Kisses him, messy and needing, muffling another noise there.
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His mouth and the reckless quality of its kiss and the sound hidden in it is impossible not to savor. Sinew and muscle coil. Calves and thighs and the flexing line of his body all draw briefly closer and tighter, and fingers grope roughly at the base of his own skull. It's easy, when Marcus makes what he wants so obvious by all but asking for it, to reward him in kind with some heedless press of tongue and a groan of approval.
Say please, he'd said, and this feels not so different from it. It could legitimize the slip of his hand in that heated minimum of space between them and Flint bullying his way into gripping Marcus properly. How roughly he makes to nudge free the wrap of fingers so he might take over and stroke Marcus' cock in earnest without obstacle.
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Some amount of unravelling has happened. Not completely. Still some coil and tension bound up in muscle, intent in his movements as he pushes his hips down against Flint's, pushes his cock eagerly against the curl of his hand, the slide of stiff flesh pinned against the plane of the other man's abdomen. An appreciative tensing down the line of his body, neck to the base of his spine to the leverage of the tops of his feet pressing against the earth, in response to the way, in these subtle adjustments, Flint draws closer and tighter around him.
But now closer to the bright edge of this thing, suddenly, and each breath out now has a slight timbre to it, timed unconsciously with the way he moves against him. Brow curved tense, drawn. That kiss reignites, teeth dragging at Flint's lip as he moves his freed hand up to clasp onto Flint's raised arm, a grip that both pins it in place as well as holds on.
"Flint," murmured, between his mouth lifting from the other man's and then against the bristle at his throat, a general press of warm, damp contact.
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(It has been long time since he was wrestled onto his back and kissed so hungrily, and the wanting thing that sparks and pulls at him in response is very broad in its tastes.)
So instead, the touch of his hand with its ring bands worn fever warm acts equal parts demanding—stroking him first in brisk, unflinching pulls—and exploratory—gathering them both up and squeezing those blunt heads flush so that his thumb can smear the slick there equally between them and when Marcus fucks into his hand it ripples all the way through him—and selfish—breaking over to pull at himself with the same expectant hand.
It's restless, but not unfocused. Not teasing or testing him or merely taking pleasure from the intimate sliding points of contact while they breathe in heavy bursts and he twists to find Marcus' mouth again. His hand wraps around them again, a clever finger insinuated between rigid flesh to afford some definitive friction to them both. "Come on, Rowntree," is rough, the burr of an order thick in the throat.
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There's a world where this thing they are doing is more frustrating than pleasurable, where he'd be almost too distracted by what they aren't doing to be this single-minded. But perhaps it's been a while since he's found someone who—
Well. Something about proclivities, perhaps, the demanding rake of teeth and tongue.
And then that, rough voiced semi-order, like a swift boot kick over the line. The ridge of knuckle against his cock, the rough friction of Flint's pant legs against hips, thighs.
Maybe, the one way that the Circles can also be like a ship is how one learns to be quiet when fucking around. Marcus wouldn't know, anyway, because being on ships is the worst. He isn't quiet, though. Nor is he loud, as he never is, but the shuddered, breathy gasp out of him (directed there at Flint's shoulder as his back curves, head bowing) isn't held at bay through habit or reflex, a rough groan following that initial spark of release as his whole body tenses, as he spills between them.
The hand at Flint's arm stiffly straightens out from the hard clutch of fingers.
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Pulse thick in his neck, bicep jumping under the release of fingers, he keeps his hand moving to wring the dregs of Marcus' climax from him. Smears the heavy slick of it over and between them. Can't help but to fuck himself repeatedly up against the mess of it with a tight coil of muscle and the scrape of boot heels. There's nothing languid in it; rewarding himself with the distinct pleasure of impatience and wanting something in a way that isn't easy to mistake.
So maybe it is long practice that keeps Flint constrained to the gutteral series of groans that are little more than punched out exhale. Or maybe there's only so much transparency that he's capable of, and it's all used by the curving line of his body under Marcus threatening to raise his shoulders from the bedroll and by the squeeze of fingers as he comes after him.
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A word, not quite making it out between his teeth. Maybe Flint's name, again. Maybe a curse.
Stays close, either way, drinking in the feeling of taut muscle and motion, the rise and fall of harsh breathing, the strain of response kept wrangled in the barrel of the other man's chest. Grunts at the feeling of flexing fingers, and even in the ashy leavings of his climax, feels a distinct embering at the sensation of Flint coming against him.
Then, Maker, he is in a world of pain. All at once, ache and sharper punishment beneath the strained padding at his side all clock back into his notice. He doesn't think he pulled any stitches (he hopes) but the next breath that leaves him is a rasp of a laugh, self-deprecating.
Still laying heavy on top of Flint. There'll come a moment when they will shuffle back into respective dynamic, and do it dirty and half-naked and kiss-swollen, and maybe it's already here. Marcus, uncaring, lifts his hand from Flint's arm to direct him into a kiss before the last of his rough breathing steadies.
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Then, he does groan—a low rattling exhale fed roughly into Marcus' mouth while wired tight muscle goes slowly slack. Hand slipping to flatten between in the mess between them. Heels sliding, knees giving, thighs sprawling in that way that is thoughtlessly open in its accommodation.
(Not tomorrow, when the rain does prove out and there is no use traveling very far from this camp even if Marcus weren't knocked every shade of black and blue, but the day after when the bleak weather has cleared and they find themselves moving down out of the foothills and into the valley below them. Flint will attribute his sore shoulders and neck from sleeping on the ground, and will bow his head to pick out a footpath through the rock slope and there will be faint dark spots formed from his own fingers dug in around the back of his neck.)
It takes some effort to unravel his arm from behind his head. It takes less to catch Marcus behind the ear and keep kissing him. Once or twice, formless—
"You're bleeding on me." He doesn't actually know that's true.
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Marcus shifts aside, hip finding bedroll, a careful untangling of limbs as the absence of his weight must feel a little like a vise being let out. Rather than settle in against Flint's side, as something bonedeep calls for him to do, mess and all, he moves at a roll to sit up. Lifts an elbow to check for bleeding, satisfied that there is nothing there, and sets about removing his boots to better accommodate shucking his legs free of the tangle of his clothing.
The absence of heavy breathing, heart beats, underscored by a fresh lashing of rain against the canvas.
Companionably, his hip still presses against Flint's, an amount of assumptive weight. Otherwise, they are where they started, almost, the broad span of Marcus' back to him as he loosens buckles.
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