The question already snags something, if not unexpectedly. A thing they'd brushed against already. Its direct nature permits a chance at a pause before Marcus still might have spoken without much thought—
And then the whistle, the elf, the interaction.
Through which he sits quietly, an air of confusion tamped down reflexively lowkey until a basic grasp of the premise settles. He's turned his focus back to his ale by the time the woman grants him a final look and moves off, lifting it once she has to drink from it deeply. It functions, perhaps, as a reminder. He remembers wondering if Flint ever does anything purposelessly, and that purpose is ever opaque.
Even something as simple as securing a table and an idle thing like a conversation to occupy him while he waits for something else entirely.
As he was saying, with the approximate ease he might with a mage sitting across from him, and not his commanding officer.
Marcus sets his tankard back down. There is no great adjustment to his answer, anyway, despite this brief churn of perspective, as he says, "I wished to help," simply.
Considers the crowded tavern. Maybe if he had walked in here with his staff, there'd been a problem. Perhaps, after enough years with the Circles in rubble, the majority sentiment would have allowed him to take his table with minimal issue. Depends on the hour, the building, his own disposition. It remains a question, regardless, as to what amount of southern Thedas he has access to at any given time.
"Not under the Inquisition's banner," Marcus says, looking back to Flint, raising cigarette again. A twitch of an eyebrow raise. "You all had less Templars when I first arrived."
A turn of the hand there on the table top. Something something beggars can't be choosers, or maybe What can you do, or, or, or. Not dismissive exactly—some shadow of understanding in the thing which motivates the objection—, and also uninterested in justifying any so-called Templar's presence. Bitches, right?
If this were a meaningful attempt to pitch the installation of company policy barring the inclusion of Templars among their ranks—
Well, Marcus might do it over cheap ale in a shitty overcrowded tavern, but it does not appear to be the agenda today. Ash tapped again over the side of the table before moving his hand in time for a stranger to brush by, stepping over embers and knocking their table just a little.
"And more mages," he adds. "I knew I'd have friends here. Still do," is, perhaps, an answer as to why he remains, despite these tidal shifts.
The table rattles, warm ale shivering in their respective cups and swirling round inside the bottle. Close by, that woman laughs again. It's a distinctive, crowing sound—sharp as the smoke produced by the cigarette is warm where it clings at the air above their heads and dissipates only lazily.
"I trust they're grateful to have you to hand," is far too broad and general to count as a compliment, particularly when so closely set with this question of Templars and punctuated as it is by Flint pausing to drink from his cup.
Nevermind the strange, unexpected prick of irritation it breeds in him—briefly sharp, briefly resentful of something that he can't name in the split second during which it surfaces. Only that it is there, sour on the tongue until it's washed away by watery drink. He wets his lips reflexively after.
So there is something prying and speculative in Marcus' study across the table—not that a sideways remark from Commander Flint is foreign to his experience of the man, but normally more interpretable. The close-to-finished cigarette is rotated between his knuckles again, letting it idly burn. Decides to speak plainly, then.
Why not. "Riftwatch is the first time I've been with a mix of kinds," evenly, focus now direct and set. Some spark of desire to convey meaning, though his tone is pitched much the same as before, quietly gravelled, and characteristically serious. "Not only passing through, but living and working. In the Gallows, no less. Aye, assuring, to know there would be some who would be grateful.
"Or just welcoming," a little dismissively, picking up his cup, focus fraying some. "I'm sure you were hopeful for the same."
He meets that study, and it isn't without effect—some fine, bristling sensation prickling at the back of his sweating neck in the dense air of the crowded tavern. A faint lowering of the brow. Looking at Rowntree, meeting Marcus' eye, is not a hook he intends to be irritated by. Yet here is the barb at his lip even as the point of the other man's attention crumbles slightly.
He drains his cup. At this pace, they might be done with the rest of the bottle quickly, and he may be on his way.
"No," he says, sounding like the period at the end of a sentence. "I wasn't. I can't say that's ever been a consideration."
Marcus' cup is still fairly full when it's set down, measuring the quality of Flint's tone, the finality of it.
Flicks a look downwards, noting the lightness of his cup. So, this time it's Marcus that reaches for the centre of the table, and takes the vessel by the base of its neck, and insists it across the space. Topping him up with a neat slosh, then withdrawing. Judging what remains in the bottle, and replacing the sip he'd taken from his cup with a splash.
"A trap that could be exploited to put something valuable to right. But that has little bearing on our present circumstances," he says, hand with its rings settling flat on the surface of the table near the base of the tankard. "It was the Inquisition then, and the thing we came to see protected is no longer pertinent to the state of the war."
And if its spirit is, Kirkwall remains a hostile place. It is best to remember that. If what they'd wanted was something familiar, they would have simply made for Estwatch.
That woman is laughing again.
"How fares your side" he asks, abrupt. "I'd meant to ask after it."
There is the minorest of hesitations when Marcus lifts his cigarette for the last drag—not for anything Flint says, but a darting glance in the direction of that laugh, an emergent flicker of very ordinary irritation for the noise itself. Has to wonder if the gaggle of warm bodies surrounding its source finds it equally charming.
Back to Flint. Absorbs this correction, considers pressing in the evaluative consideration that settles on him, sharp and curious both. Lets out a sigh of smoke, and gently places the burning end of the finished cigarette against the table, which is decorated in similar burns, scratches, scrapes. "Mm."
I'd meant to, something funny in that.
"The healer that saw to me hadn't any compliments to pass along," Marcus says, a little slow to match the rhythm of conversation change, but gets there. "Which I thought that was ungenerous."
He brushes the crumpled cigarette remains aside, the smear of ash.
"But it's just a mark. The rest underneath fares fine."
The drum of his first two fingers on the tabletop in response to this critique has a dismissive quality to it. Noted; he'll make certain to brush up his mending before next being stranded in the field with an obligation to stitch up the various bleeding wounds of his companions.
That this redirection, blatant as it is, sticks in any capacity is so moderately miraculous that he has serious doubts as to its longevity without encouragement.
"You should inform said healer that a matched set is usually worth more."
Ashy smear on his palm is next transferred against the edge of his own knee beneath the table, a negligent brush. A sharper breath at that.
"I might have noted how well it was tested."
If Marcus is speaking of the how well the stitches stayed during the following days of continued travel, then there probably wouldn't be that specific edge of eye contact or the curl at his mouth of self-satisfaction for an amusing turn of phrase just after it as he brings up his cup to drink.
The flash it produces is distinctive—a brief, bristling flex of irritation followed almost instantly by some reset in the line of his brow. The look of a man who is intentionally putting slack into a response where none naturally occurs.
"If you were looking to preserve me from a few choices words, I doubt that likely to have done it," he remarks in place of Fuck off, you smug shit.
Lifting his own cup, there is some soft scrape beneath and between them as, under the table, Flint draws back his outstretched leg. The heel of a boot scraping over the dusty stone floor of the narrow public house. He's finished his business here. It's possible he has other places to be this evening.
There's probably something unhelpful in feeling a curl of satisfaction for that particular twinge of irritation he marks in Flint's brow, voice. Not sharp, that feeling. More familiar than that. It's why there's a cracking open of nearly-smile into nearlier-smile, briefly sharp toothed behind raised tankard.
Alert, then, to the scrape of boot heel, the fine signs of a meeting concluding. There is still a decent mouthful and a half in his cup, and the bottle is empty. Small tethers tug, unasked questions, curiousities—
"Are we finished here?" is what he says, more impulse than thought.
We is a generous assessment says the look lobbed across the narrow table in response. There is more than a mouthful and a half in his cup, but that doesn't stop Flint from draining it directly. It's set aside with a clink of metal against the tabletop, against the body of the bottle.
"You mentioned not intending to stay long."
And if he is obligated to listen to further crowing from the laughing party nearby, he may find himself growing irritated despite the heavy envelope against his side.
The look shot his way is accepted, maintained, placidly brazen in his watching of Flint drain his cup and put it aside. On cue, the cackle from the corner, and an unrelated eruption of noise from yet another table, an aggressive clamour of male laughter. The air between them has cleared of Marcus' cigarette, leaving behind the close, sour scent of the crowded tavern as he breathes in.
"Aye," he agrees. "We should go somewhere else."
It is both a challenge and not. If Flint does not want his company, Marcus has no doubts he'll be told so. And maybe, in the narrow space of a tent some week or so ago, Marcus might have sooner bled than make his needs known. Want is different.
Flint's punched bark of a scoff stings the air it hangs on—the audacity of this bitch. Two dozen shark eyes, hungry to be relieved of the demand to loiter on foot by the availability of a chair—pass subtly in their direction as he scrapes to his feet.
Having never made himself more comfortable there opposite Marcus, he has nothing further to gather. No coat to shuck back into, nothing produced from a pocket and set on the table. It's easy for Flint to abandon the table in favor of cutting a path through the thick air of the tavern. It will be hot and humid outside of it, but at least it will be less crowded.
Marcus doesn't stand as Flint does, the man halfway clear of the building before he goes to raise his tankard. Only mostly drains it, careless with the last sip's worth that he leaves at the bottom of the cup, a brief grimace flashing across his face as he stands. Collects his coat from the back of the chair, scrapes his copper cigarette case off the table. Moves to follow.
And it's easy, following, scoff and all. The sting of it, and all. He can imagine and anticipate revenge in the meanwhile.
It is easier still to breathe on the street. The air, the noise, all dispersed into the larger arteries of the street. There is a kind of relief in stepping out, adjusting the sit of his coat on his shoulders, case pocketed, prepared to dog heels or otherwise.
Ducking under the low lintel of the basement taphouse's threshold and out into the muggy clutch of the evening, he'd been aware of the some impulse toward indecision disguised as pettiness. There is a particular merchant sailing captain somewhere in Kirkwall presently, and he would like to track this person down and press them for information before their ship slips anchor; and there is the ferry slip, to which he might take a circuitous enough path that arriving there might serve to successfully annoy and frustrate his prospective tail. It had warranted some pause of consideration there on the last step to reach street level. The appearance, maybe, of lingering long enough for Rowntree to extract himself from the tavern.
And then they're off, seemingly unhurried over pace if not direction—the dockyards, the merchant captain(, the six dozen places between where a room can be discreetly let for cheap). It wouldn't be the worst thing to broker that meeting with appearance of a mage to heel. Maybe if Marcus had had his staff to hand in order to make the picture obvious, they might have made it to whatever common house that crew is posted in.
Instead, somewhere in the rat's nest of streets between points a and b, Flint cuts from what qualifies as the main thoroughfare to a narrower alley perfect for being mugged in. That a boarding house door makes an appearance there and not a knife probably constitutes as a minor miracle. That the room they're afforded isn't in dire straights is a major one, though the itch that has set itself under his collar like the pressure of a hand or the scratchy cling of sweat doesn't afford him the patience to appreciate either. The door has hardly been bolted before he is stripping out of his coat.
Walking with Marcus at a leisurely pace through Lowtown is not so different to a hike through the wilderness or presiding over a shared campfire, in that he is not compelled to speak unless spoken to. Moves in comfortable silence just by him, attention flicked here and there. Conversation replaced by the shared rhythm of footfall against dirt and cracked flagstone, the click of a slightly loose buckle near the ankle.
Trust, or faith, in a chosen destination of their shared liking, even as their path narrows into the skinny vein of alleyway, abruptly alone where it corners out from view of the main road. He had not entertained too many vivid thoughts back there in the tavern. There is one now, of harsh exposed brick, boot heels scuffing close over the city grit. Fleeting.
Dog metaphors aside, of something trotting happily along without knowing quite where, there is also something more distinctly wolfish for his own sense of anticipation, and the thump of his boots on stairs just behind Flint as they move through the boarding house.
The room has a warmth to it that reminds him of the tavern, but none of the noise. Marcus latches the door.
Removing his coat would be a good idea. What he does instead is step directly into Flint's space by the time the garment is at the other man's elbows, reaching a grasp for it that snakes between arm and ribs to help shuck it further down by an inch or so, only arguably helpful in the way the fabric bunches, resists.
Then, the initiation of contact, a kiss that is assumptive of something picked back up, a now, where were we.
The arrogance of the thing should rankle; he's indulged Rowntree in this. The least he could do is be a little less reckless in its handling. There are important papers in his pocket, and the insinuation of hands is less constructive and more tangling. But there is something in the grasping and the restriction about the elbows and the hot room and the hotter press of mouths that pricks sharper than irritation does. The rake of nails over that itch, abruptly satisfied and abruptly more hungry all at once. An insistent clutch in the belly; an untempered flare of the pulse.
He has not been thinking of this. He has not been thinking of wanting to be wrestled down, or being made to bear up under Marcus' weight. He's not been thinking of studying the back of Marcus' neck as they'd traipsed down through stony foothills—carefully recording the slant of shoulders and the whatever corresponding bow of the neck and head was demanded by the uneven terrain, certain he'd have no interest to look again once they'd crossed into the lowlands and reached the road.
Where were they? Here, says the bullish way Flint presses into him and the immediacy with which he invites the kiss to deepen. For a short, instructive measure, he's in no hurry to rid himself of the snarl of sleeves.
A minor push met with give, or arrogance met with further indulgence, means a most insistent application of pressure. Flint insists himself in closer and the grasp Marcus has on his coat just twists, a crumpling of waxed linen that bites beneath Flint's elbows. His other hand finds a place at the other man's ribcage, a grasp on shirt fabric that gathers enough to start the tug of it out from waistline.
Not with intent, not yet. Marcus' focus is elsewhere. The room they have bought has a bed, something more generously proportioned than a strip of bedroll, although they will have to test its comfort—
But also this, standing, is new. A creak of floorboard as Flint presses to him, creates an abruptly intimate mapping together of clothed bodies without that weight of gravity, and Marcus can use that one small fraction of greater height to his advantage in opening Flint's mouth beneath his own. Bitter beer and recently smoked cigarette makes for a sharper note to a barely familiar experience.
There is no being a little less reckless, and the teeth behind the kiss could feel possessive, or selfish in its hunger, or peremptory in a characteristic way that he is not often with the Commander but might be in his dealings with most others. Or it could be done with the knowledge of how it feels, what sparks, when on the receiving end.
The shirt is released, hand raising up, palm warm against Flint's neck, fingertips spayed up the base of shaven skull and thumb nudged up under edge of jaw.
The sound he makes given the thumb's encouragement is as muggy and warm as the room is, impatient and prowling after that edge of teeth in the way a restless body might go looking purposefully for a fight. He jostles closer. Which doesn't particularly mean anything when closer doesn't exist, except maybe in the strict sense of how they're aligned; except, like the restrictive tangle of coat sleeves, in the fact that there's nothing really enforcing it other than wanting it.
For a short measure. It's sharply evident when the balance between impatience and the heated appeal of being caught slides in the other direction. A twist of the shoulder and a wrench of the elbow. A thick wrist turning frees the arm.
The course his hand charts is direct. Insinuates between them to latch at Marcus' belt. The yank at the buckle is more emphasis than it is productive. Nothing is undone. And it's a different kind of restriction when Flint turns his hand and makes to press rough fingertips under the waistband of Marcus' trousers, blunt in that exceedingly narrow space that doesn't quite permit anything more.
But by all means, if Rowntree would prefer to fuck around with all his clothes still on—
Flint feeling his own coat come loose off his other wrist with a final jerk of fabric should suggest otherwise. As will the warm pulse in his breathing at belt tug, the press of fingers under the too restrictive circle of belted waistband that stops short.
There is still the lingering potential for a kiss, mouths close, and only just enough room for a scrape of eye contact and the random synapse firing of noticing that Flint's eyes (how romantic) are greener than he thought. Marcus' hands leave Flint so he can get his own coat off, finally, a dismissive flick that sends the garment to the floor that might have been at some point swept in its history. Hands return, gripping shirt, and mouth pressed to mouth, clumsier. He drags free cloth from Flint's waistband.
They're going to have to figure out their boots eventually.
But for now, Marcus keeps Flint here in the circle of his arms, with a hand that feels its way down past and over waistband, the other smoothing up over bare skin beneath fabric, the path of his spine. A jostling step forward designed to muscle them both further into the room.
Keenly aware of the tripping hazard his coat's become, he's slow to be driven—a hand bracing at Marcus' shoulder, knuckles at his waist turning to press, and neither particularly interested in pushing back hard enough to either stop him or break off the hurried, inelegant catch of mouths and teeth. He kicks the coat (and its pocket full of furtive intelligence reports) away. If he cedes ground then—and he does—, he drags Marcus with him more or less by the belt. Or by the hot draw of breath across his mouth, or the fist closed round Marcus' shirt collar while he staggers up against the palm at his back.
The room is small, warns creaking floorboards. They'll clip into the edge of the bed if they're not careful.
—Isn't a hazard he's much concerned with as he pulls the hem of Marcus' shirt free and makes to gather it up, hand over fist, in an effort to fully strip him of it. And though it makes little sense to be louder here in this little room than in a tent far removed from everything, he is. Breath thick, a hitch of sound for grappling hands and hip. Marcus' is so warm in the sticky heat of the room.
"Are you sucking my cock, or do I have to show you how that's meant to go?"
It is pleasing, this clumsy dance. There's no smirk or half-cocked smile out of Marcus to convey this, but it's evident in eager kisses, the pinch of the way his fingers curl against bare flesh and rough cloth, the small vocalisations at that more insistent tug of his belt. The relief of his own urgency met with the same in kind, the same bristled impatience.
The shirt comes off, and Marcus releases his grasping to help it along. No blood and grime, bandaging or fresh wounds. At some point, Flint will see or find with his fingers the end of the stripe of a closed scar at his side and the way it ends in a fishhook shape stamped into skin, just out of easy reach of Marcus' own fingertips.
It means, too, that Flint says that, and hasn't yet anchored his hands back onto Marcus, and so Marcus places his own hands on Flint's chest and shoves.
Not away. Not violently, in spite of the spark of irritation that catches, feeds heat with more heat. The bed is right there, catching on the backs of legs, frame shuddering into the wall under the abrupt distribution of weight. Marcus does not tip into Flint where he is has been forced into a sit.
Considers, then drops down instead, a knee settling on the floor. Hooks a hand up Flint's ankle, the other addressing the buckles that latch there.
"Is that what you want?" lacks the same pettiness as the shove moments ago. "To show me?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
And then the whistle, the elf, the interaction.
Through which he sits quietly, an air of confusion tamped down reflexively lowkey until a basic grasp of the premise settles. He's turned his focus back to his ale by the time the woman grants him a final look and moves off, lifting it once she has to drink from it deeply. It functions, perhaps, as a reminder. He remembers wondering if Flint ever does anything purposelessly, and that purpose is ever opaque.
Even something as simple as securing a table and an idle thing like a conversation to occupy him while he waits for something else entirely.
As he was saying, with the approximate ease he might with a mage sitting across from him, and not his commanding officer.
Marcus sets his tankard back down. There is no great adjustment to his answer, anyway, despite this brief churn of perspective, as he says, "I wished to help," simply.
Considers the crowded tavern. Maybe if he had walked in here with his staff, there'd been a problem. Perhaps, after enough years with the Circles in rubble, the majority sentiment would have allowed him to take his table with minimal issue. Depends on the hour, the building, his own disposition. It remains a question, regardless, as to what amount of southern Thedas he has access to at any given time.
"Not under the Inquisition's banner," Marcus says, looking back to Flint, raising cigarette again. A twitch of an eyebrow raise. "You all had less Templars when I first arrived."
Zero, actually, as far as anyone knew.
no subject
"That's generous."
no subject
Well, Marcus might do it over cheap ale in a shitty overcrowded tavern, but it does not appear to be the agenda today. Ash tapped again over the side of the table before moving his hand in time for a stranger to brush by, stepping over embers and knocking their table just a little.
"And more mages," he adds. "I knew I'd have friends here. Still do," is, perhaps, an answer as to why he remains, despite these tidal shifts.
no subject
"I trust they're grateful to have you to hand," is far too broad and general to count as a compliment, particularly when so closely set with this question of Templars and punctuated as it is by Flint pausing to drink from his cup.
Nevermind the strange, unexpected prick of irritation it breeds in him—briefly sharp, briefly resentful of something that he can't name in the split second during which it surfaces. Only that it is there, sour on the tongue until it's washed away by watery drink. He wets his lips reflexively after.
no subject
So there is something prying and speculative in Marcus' study across the table—not that a sideways remark from Commander Flint is foreign to his experience of the man, but normally more interpretable. The close-to-finished cigarette is rotated between his knuckles again, letting it idly burn. Decides to speak plainly, then.
Why not. "Riftwatch is the first time I've been with a mix of kinds," evenly, focus now direct and set. Some spark of desire to convey meaning, though his tone is pitched much the same as before, quietly gravelled, and characteristically serious. "Not only passing through, but living and working. In the Gallows, no less. Aye, assuring, to know there would be some who would be grateful.
"Or just welcoming," a little dismissively, picking up his cup, focus fraying some. "I'm sure you were hopeful for the same."
no subject
He drains his cup. At this pace, they might be done with the rest of the bottle quickly, and he may be on his way.
"No," he says, sounding like the period at the end of a sentence. "I wasn't. I can't say that's ever been a consideration."
no subject
Flicks a look downwards, noting the lightness of his cup. So, this time it's Marcus that reaches for the centre of the table, and takes the vessel by the base of its neck, and insists it across the space. Topping him up with a neat slosh, then withdrawing. Judging what remains in the bottle, and replacing the sip he'd taken from his cup with a splash.
"Then who did you hope to find, if not friends?"
no subject
And if its spirit is, Kirkwall remains a hostile place. It is best to remember that. If what they'd wanted was something familiar, they would have simply made for Estwatch.
That woman is laughing again.
"How fares your side" he asks, abrupt. "I'd meant to ask after it."
no subject
Back to Flint. Absorbs this correction, considers pressing in the evaluative consideration that settles on him, sharp and curious both. Lets out a sigh of smoke, and gently places the burning end of the finished cigarette against the table, which is decorated in similar burns, scratches, scrapes. "Mm."
I'd meant to, something funny in that.
"The healer that saw to me hadn't any compliments to pass along," Marcus says, a little slow to match the rhythm of conversation change, but gets there. "Which I thought that was ungenerous."
He brushes the crumpled cigarette remains aside, the smear of ash.
"But it's just a mark. The rest underneath fares fine."
no subject
That this redirection, blatant as it is, sticks in any capacity is so moderately miraculous that he has serious doubts as to its longevity without encouragement.
"You should inform said healer that a matched set is usually worth more."
no subject
"I might have noted how well it was tested."
If Marcus is speaking of the how well the stitches stayed during the following days of continued travel, then there probably wouldn't be that specific edge of eye contact or the curl at his mouth of self-satisfaction for an amusing turn of phrase just after it as he brings up his cup to drink.
Brief, that. A spark off steel, on its own.
no subject
"If you were looking to preserve me from a few choices words, I doubt that likely to have done it," he remarks in place of Fuck off, you smug shit.
Lifting his own cup, there is some soft scrape beneath and between them as, under the table, Flint draws back his outstretched leg. The heel of a boot scraping over the dusty stone floor of the narrow public house. He's finished his business here. It's possible he has other places to be this evening.
no subject
Alert, then, to the scrape of boot heel, the fine signs of a meeting concluding. There is still a decent mouthful and a half in his cup, and the bottle is empty. Small tethers tug, unasked questions, curiousities—
"Are we finished here?" is what he says, more impulse than thought.
no subject
"You mentioned not intending to stay long."
And if he is obligated to listen to further crowing from the laughing party nearby, he may find himself growing irritated despite the heavy envelope against his side.
no subject
"Aye," he agrees. "We should go somewhere else."
It is both a challenge and not. If Flint does not want his company, Marcus has no doubts he'll be told so. And maybe, in the narrow space of a tent some week or so ago, Marcus might have sooner bled than make his needs known. Want is different.
no subject
Having never made himself more comfortable there opposite Marcus, he has nothing further to gather. No coat to shuck back into, nothing produced from a pocket and set on the table. It's easy for Flint to abandon the table in favor of cutting a path through the thick air of the tavern. It will be hot and humid outside of it, but at least it will be less crowded.
(Is not, none of it, a refusal.)
no subject
And it's easy, following, scoff and all. The sting of it, and all. He can imagine and anticipate revenge in the meanwhile.
It is easier still to breathe on the street. The air, the noise, all dispersed into the larger arteries of the street. There is a kind of relief in stepping out, adjusting the sit of his coat on his shoulders, case pocketed, prepared to dog heels or otherwise.
no subject
And then they're off, seemingly unhurried over pace if not direction—the dockyards, the merchant captain(, the six dozen places between where a room can be discreetly let for cheap). It wouldn't be the worst thing to broker that meeting with appearance of a mage to heel. Maybe if Marcus had had his staff to hand in order to make the picture obvious, they might have made it to whatever common house that crew is posted in.
Instead, somewhere in the rat's nest of streets between points a and b, Flint cuts from what qualifies as the main thoroughfare to a narrower alley perfect for being mugged in. That a boarding house door makes an appearance there and not a knife probably constitutes as a minor miracle. That the room they're afforded isn't in dire straights is a major one, though the itch that has set itself under his collar like the pressure of a hand or the scratchy cling of sweat doesn't afford him the patience to appreciate either. The door has hardly been bolted before he is stripping out of his coat.
no subject
Trust, or faith, in a chosen destination of their shared liking, even as their path narrows into the skinny vein of alleyway, abruptly alone where it corners out from view of the main road. He had not entertained too many vivid thoughts back there in the tavern. There is one now, of harsh exposed brick, boot heels scuffing close over the city grit. Fleeting.
Dog metaphors aside, of something trotting happily along without knowing quite where, there is also something more distinctly wolfish for his own sense of anticipation, and the thump of his boots on stairs just behind Flint as they move through the boarding house.
The room has a warmth to it that reminds him of the tavern, but none of the noise. Marcus latches the door.
Removing his coat would be a good idea. What he does instead is step directly into Flint's space by the time the garment is at the other man's elbows, reaching a grasp for it that snakes between arm and ribs to help shuck it further down by an inch or so, only arguably helpful in the way the fabric bunches, resists.
Then, the initiation of contact, a kiss that is assumptive of something picked back up, a now, where were we.
no subject
He has not been thinking of this. He has not been thinking of wanting to be wrestled down, or being made to bear up under Marcus' weight. He's not been thinking of studying the back of Marcus' neck as they'd traipsed down through stony foothills—carefully recording the slant of shoulders and the whatever corresponding bow of the neck and head was demanded by the uneven terrain, certain he'd have no interest to look again once they'd crossed into the lowlands and reached the road.
Where were they? Here, says the bullish way Flint presses into him and the immediacy with which he invites the kiss to deepen. For a short, instructive measure, he's in no hurry to rid himself of the snarl of sleeves.
no subject
Not with intent, not yet. Marcus' focus is elsewhere. The room they have bought has a bed, something more generously proportioned than a strip of bedroll, although they will have to test its comfort—
But also this, standing, is new. A creak of floorboard as Flint presses to him, creates an abruptly intimate mapping together of clothed bodies without that weight of gravity, and Marcus can use that one small fraction of greater height to his advantage in opening Flint's mouth beneath his own. Bitter beer and recently smoked cigarette makes for a sharper note to a barely familiar experience.
There is no being a little less reckless, and the teeth behind the kiss could feel possessive, or selfish in its hunger, or peremptory in a characteristic way that he is not often with the Commander but might be in his dealings with most others. Or it could be done with the knowledge of how it feels, what sparks, when on the receiving end.
The shirt is released, hand raising up, palm warm against Flint's neck, fingertips spayed up the base of shaven skull and thumb nudged up under edge of jaw.
no subject
For a short measure. It's sharply evident when the balance between impatience and the heated appeal of being caught slides in the other direction. A twist of the shoulder and a wrench of the elbow. A thick wrist turning frees the arm.
The course his hand charts is direct. Insinuates between them to latch at Marcus' belt. The yank at the buckle is more emphasis than it is productive. Nothing is undone. And it's a different kind of restriction when Flint turns his hand and makes to press rough fingertips under the waistband of Marcus' trousers, blunt in that exceedingly narrow space that doesn't quite permit anything more.
But by all means, if Rowntree would prefer to fuck around with all his clothes still on—
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There is still the lingering potential for a kiss, mouths close, and only just enough room for a scrape of eye contact and the random synapse firing of noticing that Flint's eyes (how romantic) are greener than he thought. Marcus' hands leave Flint so he can get his own coat off, finally, a dismissive flick that sends the garment to the floor that might have been at some point swept in its history. Hands return, gripping shirt, and mouth pressed to mouth, clumsier. He drags free cloth from Flint's waistband.
They're going to have to figure out their boots eventually.
But for now, Marcus keeps Flint here in the circle of his arms, with a hand that feels its way down past and over waistband, the other smoothing up over bare skin beneath fabric, the path of his spine. A jostling step forward designed to muscle them both further into the room.
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The room is small, warns creaking floorboards. They'll clip into the edge of the bed if they're not careful.
—Isn't a hazard he's much concerned with as he pulls the hem of Marcus' shirt free and makes to gather it up, hand over fist, in an effort to fully strip him of it. And though it makes little sense to be louder here in this little room than in a tent far removed from everything, he is. Breath thick, a hitch of sound for grappling hands and hip. Marcus' is so warm in the sticky heat of the room.
"Are you sucking my cock, or do I have to show you how that's meant to go?"
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The shirt comes off, and Marcus releases his grasping to help it along. No blood and grime, bandaging or fresh wounds. At some point, Flint will see or find with his fingers the end of the stripe of a closed scar at his side and the way it ends in a fishhook shape stamped into skin, just out of easy reach of Marcus' own fingertips.
It means, too, that Flint says that, and hasn't yet anchored his hands back onto Marcus, and so Marcus places his own hands on Flint's chest and shoves.
Not away. Not violently, in spite of the spark of irritation that catches, feeds heat with more heat. The bed is right there, catching on the backs of legs, frame shuddering into the wall under the abrupt distribution of weight. Marcus does not tip into Flint where he is has been forced into a sit.
Considers, then drops down instead, a knee settling on the floor. Hooks a hand up Flint's ankle, the other addressing the buckles that latch there.
"Is that what you want?" lacks the same pettiness as the shove moments ago. "To show me?"
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wow a horny icon that finally feels appropriate
thanks @ whoever directed that episode
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🎀