Marcus replies with a grumbled sound of acknowledgement, also against Flint's mouth and in a stubbornly firmer press of a kiss.
But in the interests of ending it rather than starting something new. He can feel the physical instinct in himself to respond to what is now the familiar sensation of kissing Flint, the beginning sparks of something that he doesn't have the energy to do more with. He could linger here and let that ember up into frustration, but he withdraws before it can properly catch.
Settles. The hand on Flint's arm shifts to lay against his chest, close without being all the way on top of the other man. His hand rotates on his wrist, and the flames in the lanterns shake, flare, extinguish, cooler shadows immediately flooding in, almost pitch blackness save for what little bit of silver struggles in through the edges of curtains from the knife-edge of the moon.
Permitted the cover silvery dark, mouth smarting from the shape of Marcus' kiss, he allows himself some reorientation of limbs. A grunt of something like apology as he twist his arm out from being trapped them and institutes it out under Marcus's pillow instead; his off hand settling across his abdomen, somehow below the dull warmth of the arm across him; a cursory twist of knees and hips until he finds a space that is comfortable beside and about another warm body.
(Academically, he knows the last time he slept so near to someone. But knowing and remembering are different things, and it's possible that he's out of practice.)
But eventually, he settles. Gives, with a heavy exhale, into the space and decides that he isn't dissatisfied with any sharp elbow or sweaty brush of skin. He can sacrifice the end of his reading for some other night, though the green bound book is there at the side table. And he can not chase after the fringe of conversation, though the desire to lingers even here in the dark.
It's late. And though Marcus will find no sympathy from him when, in a few hours from now, when Flint makes to rouse the man out of his bed—not quite pathetic or warm enough, it will seem—, on this side of things, Flint can eventually manage the courtesy of being content with the line of their bodies adjacent to one another. All these odd bits of overlapping weight and touching and not touching. The soft rasp of fabric and bed clothes. The low murmur of an exhale.
Liable to fall sleep in just about whatever position is demanded of him, at this point, Marcus is accommodating of shifting around until stillness settles, and they find themselves in something like a loose embrace, with space enough between them that the whole arrangement isn't untenably hot in this warmer season.
They could have slept back to back and there'd be a comfort in it. To share a space, and listen to the breathing of another, something that reaches far back towards a shared bedroom with a high window, and then memories of a larger chamber and a row of beds, and the ragged edges left behind when both of those things were abruptly taken away, and it's nothing he thinks of now but nevertheless informs the slackening of muscle and peaceful sink into unconsciousness that is deeply, richly more pleasurable than the kind that occurs without those sense-memories.
But also, more present, it's nice to catch his palm against bare, warm skin, the faint tickle of fingertips curling before soothing it, resting in place. The smell of bedclothes that is unique to Flint, and beneath the slowly fading invasion of smoke, that of parchment, leather, lantern oil. Nudging a knee forward and letting the press of it against thigh create a sharply warm point of contact, the bristle of hair and drying water and sweat.
Come the morning, or pre-morning, Marcus will certainly make a play for pity, but not for long. By the time he finishes dressing by the window and wordlessly moves off to collect his armor, he exits the quarters immediately after, accidentally leaving behind a vambrace on the chest at the foot of the bed.
But here and now, there is an instinct to press much closer, to map their chests together and tuck a thigh between legs, to breathe in against the other man's neck and demand to be grasped at. The heaviness of sleep, like an anchor plunged into water, rescues them both from whatever that might entail.
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no subject
But in the interests of ending it rather than starting something new. He can feel the physical instinct in himself to respond to what is now the familiar sensation of kissing Flint, the beginning sparks of something that he doesn't have the energy to do more with. He could linger here and let that ember up into frustration, but he withdraws before it can properly catch.
Settles. The hand on Flint's arm shifts to lay against his chest, close without being all the way on top of the other man. His hand rotates on his wrist, and the flames in the lanterns shake, flare, extinguish, cooler shadows immediately flooding in, almost pitch blackness save for what little bit of silver struggles in through the edges of curtains from the knife-edge of the moon.
no subject
(Academically, he knows the last time he slept so near to someone. But knowing and remembering are different things, and it's possible that he's out of practice.)
But eventually, he settles. Gives, with a heavy exhale, into the space and decides that he isn't dissatisfied with any sharp elbow or sweaty brush of skin. He can sacrifice the end of his reading for some other night, though the green bound book is there at the side table. And he can not chase after the fringe of conversation, though the desire to lingers even here in the dark.
It's late. And though Marcus will find no sympathy from him when, in a few hours from now, when Flint makes to rouse the man out of his bed—not quite pathetic or warm enough, it will seem—, on this side of things, Flint can eventually manage the courtesy of being content with the line of their bodies adjacent to one another. All these odd bits of overlapping weight and touching and not touching. The soft rasp of fabric and bed clothes. The low murmur of an exhale.
no subject
They could have slept back to back and there'd be a comfort in it. To share a space, and listen to the breathing of another, something that reaches far back towards a shared bedroom with a high window, and then memories of a larger chamber and a row of beds, and the ragged edges left behind when both of those things were abruptly taken away, and it's nothing he thinks of now but nevertheless informs the slackening of muscle and peaceful sink into unconsciousness that is deeply, richly more pleasurable than the kind that occurs without those sense-memories.
But also, more present, it's nice to catch his palm against bare, warm skin, the faint tickle of fingertips curling before soothing it, resting in place. The smell of bedclothes that is unique to Flint, and beneath the slowly fading invasion of smoke, that of parchment, leather, lantern oil. Nudging a knee forward and letting the press of it against thigh create a sharply warm point of contact, the bristle of hair and drying water and sweat.
Come the morning, or pre-morning, Marcus will certainly make a play for pity, but not for long. By the time he finishes dressing by the window and wordlessly moves off to collect his armor, he exits the quarters immediately after, accidentally leaving behind a vambrace on the chest at the foot of the bed.
But here and now, there is an instinct to press much closer, to map their chests together and tuck a thigh between legs, to breathe in against the other man's neck and demand to be grasped at. The heaviness of sleep, like an anchor plunged into water, rescues them both from whatever that might entail.