206
feel like getting confessional
the eagle (marcus/esca)
2,053 words. rated r. for the ninth_eagle fanmedia challege, using the bathtub picture prompt. this is mostly maurice with a little gosford park thrown in there for good measure.
i.
Esca has worked for Marcus’s uncle since both of them were children. Esca’s father had as well, Marcus has been told, but he died when Esca was small, along with Esca’s mother, and his two older brothers. Illness - but then, with the war over, there was little else to die from.
Esca was a solemn child, serious and quiet and fierce. Marcus watched him go about his duties, cleaning the windows and sweeping the porches. Weeding in the garden. Marcus was supposed to be learning his letters, but there were other things he’d much rather have been doing.
He still feels similarly.
ii.
It rains all through the hunt, a constant dreary drizzle that leaves Marcus soaked through his jacket and the shirt beneath. It is still raining, in fact, when he heads back inside, just slightly ahead of the rest of the party, leaving the dead grouse behind on the front porch for one of the servants to bring inside. The damp has made him chilly through and through, gooseflesh standing up on his arms and legs. He knows that he should wait for help, but he’s much too impatient, as usual, and begins to tear off his sodden clothing the moment he makes his way back to his rooms.
Marcus doesn’t mind a good hunt, and his uncle has more than a large enough estate to make such parties pleasant, but the rain has made Marcus dour, and not fit for company at all.
“Shall I draw you a bath, then, sir?” The voice in the doorway startles him, and Marcus looks up from the remains of the day’s clothing, cheeks flushed at being caught in such a state. It is none of his Uncle’s guests, however, so no matter. Only Esca.
“I didn’t hear you enter,” he says, like a fool, and Esca smiles - just a quirk of his lips in one corned of his mouth. He looks almost haughty, an expression not entirely befitting a person of his position, but Marcus says nothing to quell it. He doesn’t mind. He enjoys Esca’s small stature and often rude behavior.
“Sorry, sir,” Esca says, not evening attempting to look repentant. Marcus lets his shirt drop onto the floor next to his sodden jacket and watches Esca watch it. “I’ll knock next time,” Esca adds, turning his gaze back to Marcus. His eyes track up Marcus’s body, unabashed, and Marcus can see his pupils dilate, nearly eclipsing the ring of blue iris.
“See that you do,” Marcus says, voice fainter than he means it to be. He shakes his head. “That bath now, if you please?”
“Certainly, sir,” Esca says, and leaves as quietly as he’d entered.
iii.
Marcus, never one for sitting idle and not one for business, either, enters the army after finishing his schooling. Given his family, he should have gone directly to officer training, but he elects not to. He supposes it’s the books his Uncle bade him read, about the glory of war on the front lines. Of course, with no one much to fight anymore, the glory is as far away as ever once training is through. By then Marcus is in love with the service, so it doesn’t much matter.
He writes to his uncle from his posting in Scotland, and hears in return that all is well. Nothing much changes on his uncle’s estate. Marcus is cold, and wet, and spends much of his time bemoaning his fate with his comrades, but he truly couldn’t be happier. He hasn’t ever felt out of place, precisely, but he has never belonged anywhere the way that he does in the service.
The accident, such as it is, happens less than three years after boot camp. No enemy fire to speak of, but Marcus still saves two soldiers’ lives when a fire starts in the machine shop. The explosion could have been predicted, given then nature of the machines, but Marcus, even knowing, later, what his life would be like, would still make the decision to go in. Two lives are worth more than a leg full of shrapnel.
Marcus gets a commendation and an honorable discharge. That, and a half-lame leg, covered from hip joint to knee with twisted scar tissue.
It heals, but not easily. Marcus has nothing to do but watch it.
iv.
The water is hot by the time Marcus makes it to the bathroom. He won’t be winning races or beauty contests, but his leg will support him on a day of walking, even when there’s a hunt on. The rain makes him ache like an old, deep bruise, but it’s nothing compared with the pain as it was just after the accident.
Esca is still standing by the tub, expression blank, hands clasped behind his back. The water in the tub is steaming in the chill air, and Marcus is torn between asking Esca to leave while he strips off his trousers, and finding it too much bother.
The latter wins, though only because of the ache in Marcus’s leg, and Marcus’s hands only fumble a little with the buttons and ties on his trousers. He’s barefoot, and he leaves his trousers and pants on the floor. A maid will collect them later, he’s sure.
Esca is looking at him. Marcus can feel the weight of his gaze. Whether he’s staring at the scar tissue or at Marcus’s body, Marcus doesn’t know. He eases himself into the bath and allows himself a sigh of relief.
“Warm enough, sir?” Esca asks, tone light, as if speaking without having been spoken to first is a norm in the household.
Marcus snorts, an ungainly sort of noise, and sinks down further into the water. He lets his eyes slips shut, rubbing the heel of one hand over his scarred thigh, soothing the agitated muscle.
He’s begun to drift off when he feels soft hands in his hair, smoothing it away from his slightly sweaty forehead. He hums softly, knowing that he should protest, but unwilling to do so. Fingertips stroke over his forehead and cheeks, touching along his jaw. They scratch at his scalp, and Marcus groans.
“Esca,” he murmurs, almost a moan in the quiet of the bathroom.
“Mm?” Esca’s noise comes from the back of his throat, his fingers still stroking restlessly through Marcus’s hair and over his skin.
“You are once again taking liberties.” Marcus’s voice is mild; he doesn’t mean it as an honest chastisement. Esca doesn’t seem to take it as such, either, because he leans in so that he can let his hands wander further, brushing the tendons in Marcus’s neck with his thumbs and pushing his fingertips past the edge of the water, stroking over Marcus’s collarbones.
“So I am,” Esca says. “Would you have me stop?”
Marcus should. Marcus should want him to, but Marcus doesn’t, and Marcus has never been good at resisting his baser impulses. Esca makes a noise, half amusement and half something deeper - arousal, or need. Marcus shudders, and tilts his head back, the sides of his face brushing against the soft insides of Esca’s arms. He doesn’t speak, but it is clear enough permission, and Esca understands it wordlessly, leaning in and pressing his lips to Marcus’s forehead, his left cheekbone, the curve of his bottom lip. It is not precisely a kiss, upside-down and slightly off center, but it makes the muscles in Marcus’s stomach clench. Esca’s touch is feather-light and not nearly enough.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Marcus says. Again, he doesn’t say. His words brush Esca’s lips, and Esca’s breath shakes.
“I know,” Esca says. His fingernails dig into Marcus’s skin, and his mouth pushes against Marcus’s, his tongue and his teeth.
Marcus pulls back and lifts one hand out of the tub, wrapping it around Esca’s arm at the elbow, the water on his skin soaking Esca’s shirt. The soft sound Esca makes punches him in the stomach, pushing the air from his lungs.
“I - lock the door,” he says, voice hoarse and too quiet.
Esca’s reply is just as quiet. “I already have.”
v.
Marcus watches Esca sweep and polish and tidy. He doesn’t have anything better to do except sleep, given that he can barely walk to and from the loo by himself. He tells himself that’s why he watches so intently, but he also knows that he’s lying.
Marcus isn’t any better at lying to himself than he is at lying to those around him.
He is thinking about Esca’s legs, his strong calves and thighs, the curve of his arse in his work trousers. He’s thinking about fumbling in the dark during boot camp, suppressing his laughter against McKinley’s strong chest, mouthing his way across the expanse of slightly tacky skin, and tasting dried sweat and soap. He isn’t ashamed of the things that he’s done, but he wonders if maybe he should be.
Most would tell him yes, but he wonders about Esca.
“You’re staring.” Esca doesn’t bother to look up from his sweeping, and he doesn’t say sir. Marcus feels himself flush a deep scarlet, cheeks warm.
“There is little else to do, I find,” he says, managing to keep his voice even. Esca makes a doubting noise, pulling the dirt and debris from the last corner into his pile in the center of the floor. There are smears of dust on his pants, where he has wiped his hands on them. “Do you disbelieve me?” Marcus asks, finally, unable to help himself.
“I do,” Esca says, and then, belated, “sir.” He fetches the dustpan from where he’s left it sitting in the doorway, and continues his work.
“I - apologize if I’ve offended you,” Marcus says, then, and looks out the window. It’s raining, and his leg aches something fierce, even propped up as it is on a footstool.
“You haven’t, sir.” Esca’s voice isn’t sly or teasing or uncomfortable. He sounds frank, and Marcus looks at him sharply, surprised. Esca is still sweeping, unperturbed.
“What?”
“You haven’t offended me, sir,” Esca says, simply.
Marcus is poleaxed silent, for a long moment, trying not to ask, do you mean what I think you mean? or how long have you known? and unable to produce anything else.
“Meet me at the boathouse this evening,” Esca says, eventually, He’s swept his whole pile into the dustpan, and he’s moved to the doorway. He looks over his shoulder at Marcus, the long line of his throat distracting even in the half-light. “If you want.” His words are flippant, but his expression is not, eyes utterly seriously, mouth firm and unyielding. Marcus finds that he wants little else.
“I do,” he says, and swallows. “I will.”
vi.
The water is probably tepid by now, but Marcus doesn’t care, even though he knows he will need another rinse, once he gathers the strength to move, again. He is on his back on the tile floor, it having been warmed beneath his body as they moved together. Esca has pulled out, though Marcus can still feel the slick of Esca’s come between the cheeks of his arse, sliding down his thighs.
Esca is straddling his hips, both of them naked, pressed belly to belly, chest to chest. He’ll be sticky with Marcus’s come when he pulls away, but for now, he appears content to lie pressed close to Marcus. Their breath mingles, and Marcus is watching the flush fade from Esca’s cheeks up close.
Marcus can feel Esca’s heart beating, and his own heart beating, both of them in time, in the same rhythm. He imagines Esca’s blood pumping into his heart; he imagines that they are joined.
“I can’t stay much longer,” Esca says, regret in his voice. Marcus touches his hand to the sweaty small of Esca’s back.
“Come to me, then, tonight.” I would that we were never parted, he doesn’t say. Please, he doesn’t say.
Esca doesn’t speak again for a long time. Marcus listens to their hearts beating in sync, Esca’s skin slippery and perfect against his own.
“Tonight,” Esca says, and tucks his face into the crook of Marcus’s neck and jaw, teeth finding tender skin. And then, softer, with his face hidden there, “Marcus.”
Outside it is still raining, pattering against the glass. For now, Marcus is content.
the eagle (marcus/esca)
2,053 words. rated r. for the ninth_eagle fanmedia challege, using the bathtub picture prompt. this is mostly maurice with a little gosford park thrown in there for good measure.
i.
Esca has worked for Marcus’s uncle since both of them were children. Esca’s father had as well, Marcus has been told, but he died when Esca was small, along with Esca’s mother, and his two older brothers. Illness - but then, with the war over, there was little else to die from.
Esca was a solemn child, serious and quiet and fierce. Marcus watched him go about his duties, cleaning the windows and sweeping the porches. Weeding in the garden. Marcus was supposed to be learning his letters, but there were other things he’d much rather have been doing.
He still feels similarly.
ii.
It rains all through the hunt, a constant dreary drizzle that leaves Marcus soaked through his jacket and the shirt beneath. It is still raining, in fact, when he heads back inside, just slightly ahead of the rest of the party, leaving the dead grouse behind on the front porch for one of the servants to bring inside. The damp has made him chilly through and through, gooseflesh standing up on his arms and legs. He knows that he should wait for help, but he’s much too impatient, as usual, and begins to tear off his sodden clothing the moment he makes his way back to his rooms.
Marcus doesn’t mind a good hunt, and his uncle has more than a large enough estate to make such parties pleasant, but the rain has made Marcus dour, and not fit for company at all.
“Shall I draw you a bath, then, sir?” The voice in the doorway startles him, and Marcus looks up from the remains of the day’s clothing, cheeks flushed at being caught in such a state. It is none of his Uncle’s guests, however, so no matter. Only Esca.
“I didn’t hear you enter,” he says, like a fool, and Esca smiles - just a quirk of his lips in one corned of his mouth. He looks almost haughty, an expression not entirely befitting a person of his position, but Marcus says nothing to quell it. He doesn’t mind. He enjoys Esca’s small stature and often rude behavior.
“Sorry, sir,” Esca says, not evening attempting to look repentant. Marcus lets his shirt drop onto the floor next to his sodden jacket and watches Esca watch it. “I’ll knock next time,” Esca adds, turning his gaze back to Marcus. His eyes track up Marcus’s body, unabashed, and Marcus can see his pupils dilate, nearly eclipsing the ring of blue iris.
“See that you do,” Marcus says, voice fainter than he means it to be. He shakes his head. “That bath now, if you please?”
“Certainly, sir,” Esca says, and leaves as quietly as he’d entered.
iii.
Marcus, never one for sitting idle and not one for business, either, enters the army after finishing his schooling. Given his family, he should have gone directly to officer training, but he elects not to. He supposes it’s the books his Uncle bade him read, about the glory of war on the front lines. Of course, with no one much to fight anymore, the glory is as far away as ever once training is through. By then Marcus is in love with the service, so it doesn’t much matter.
He writes to his uncle from his posting in Scotland, and hears in return that all is well. Nothing much changes on his uncle’s estate. Marcus is cold, and wet, and spends much of his time bemoaning his fate with his comrades, but he truly couldn’t be happier. He hasn’t ever felt out of place, precisely, but he has never belonged anywhere the way that he does in the service.
The accident, such as it is, happens less than three years after boot camp. No enemy fire to speak of, but Marcus still saves two soldiers’ lives when a fire starts in the machine shop. The explosion could have been predicted, given then nature of the machines, but Marcus, even knowing, later, what his life would be like, would still make the decision to go in. Two lives are worth more than a leg full of shrapnel.
Marcus gets a commendation and an honorable discharge. That, and a half-lame leg, covered from hip joint to knee with twisted scar tissue.
It heals, but not easily. Marcus has nothing to do but watch it.
iv.
The water is hot by the time Marcus makes it to the bathroom. He won’t be winning races or beauty contests, but his leg will support him on a day of walking, even when there’s a hunt on. The rain makes him ache like an old, deep bruise, but it’s nothing compared with the pain as it was just after the accident.
Esca is still standing by the tub, expression blank, hands clasped behind his back. The water in the tub is steaming in the chill air, and Marcus is torn between asking Esca to leave while he strips off his trousers, and finding it too much bother.
The latter wins, though only because of the ache in Marcus’s leg, and Marcus’s hands only fumble a little with the buttons and ties on his trousers. He’s barefoot, and he leaves his trousers and pants on the floor. A maid will collect them later, he’s sure.
Esca is looking at him. Marcus can feel the weight of his gaze. Whether he’s staring at the scar tissue or at Marcus’s body, Marcus doesn’t know. He eases himself into the bath and allows himself a sigh of relief.
“Warm enough, sir?” Esca asks, tone light, as if speaking without having been spoken to first is a norm in the household.
Marcus snorts, an ungainly sort of noise, and sinks down further into the water. He lets his eyes slips shut, rubbing the heel of one hand over his scarred thigh, soothing the agitated muscle.
He’s begun to drift off when he feels soft hands in his hair, smoothing it away from his slightly sweaty forehead. He hums softly, knowing that he should protest, but unwilling to do so. Fingertips stroke over his forehead and cheeks, touching along his jaw. They scratch at his scalp, and Marcus groans.
“Esca,” he murmurs, almost a moan in the quiet of the bathroom.
“Mm?” Esca’s noise comes from the back of his throat, his fingers still stroking restlessly through Marcus’s hair and over his skin.
“You are once again taking liberties.” Marcus’s voice is mild; he doesn’t mean it as an honest chastisement. Esca doesn’t seem to take it as such, either, because he leans in so that he can let his hands wander further, brushing the tendons in Marcus’s neck with his thumbs and pushing his fingertips past the edge of the water, stroking over Marcus’s collarbones.
“So I am,” Esca says. “Would you have me stop?”
Marcus should. Marcus should want him to, but Marcus doesn’t, and Marcus has never been good at resisting his baser impulses. Esca makes a noise, half amusement and half something deeper - arousal, or need. Marcus shudders, and tilts his head back, the sides of his face brushing against the soft insides of Esca’s arms. He doesn’t speak, but it is clear enough permission, and Esca understands it wordlessly, leaning in and pressing his lips to Marcus’s forehead, his left cheekbone, the curve of his bottom lip. It is not precisely a kiss, upside-down and slightly off center, but it makes the muscles in Marcus’s stomach clench. Esca’s touch is feather-light and not nearly enough.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Marcus says. Again, he doesn’t say. His words brush Esca’s lips, and Esca’s breath shakes.
“I know,” Esca says. His fingernails dig into Marcus’s skin, and his mouth pushes against Marcus’s, his tongue and his teeth.
Marcus pulls back and lifts one hand out of the tub, wrapping it around Esca’s arm at the elbow, the water on his skin soaking Esca’s shirt. The soft sound Esca makes punches him in the stomach, pushing the air from his lungs.
“I - lock the door,” he says, voice hoarse and too quiet.
Esca’s reply is just as quiet. “I already have.”
v.
Marcus watches Esca sweep and polish and tidy. He doesn’t have anything better to do except sleep, given that he can barely walk to and from the loo by himself. He tells himself that’s why he watches so intently, but he also knows that he’s lying.
Marcus isn’t any better at lying to himself than he is at lying to those around him.
He is thinking about Esca’s legs, his strong calves and thighs, the curve of his arse in his work trousers. He’s thinking about fumbling in the dark during boot camp, suppressing his laughter against McKinley’s strong chest, mouthing his way across the expanse of slightly tacky skin, and tasting dried sweat and soap. He isn’t ashamed of the things that he’s done, but he wonders if maybe he should be.
Most would tell him yes, but he wonders about Esca.
“You’re staring.” Esca doesn’t bother to look up from his sweeping, and he doesn’t say sir. Marcus feels himself flush a deep scarlet, cheeks warm.
“There is little else to do, I find,” he says, managing to keep his voice even. Esca makes a doubting noise, pulling the dirt and debris from the last corner into his pile in the center of the floor. There are smears of dust on his pants, where he has wiped his hands on them. “Do you disbelieve me?” Marcus asks, finally, unable to help himself.
“I do,” Esca says, and then, belated, “sir.” He fetches the dustpan from where he’s left it sitting in the doorway, and continues his work.
“I - apologize if I’ve offended you,” Marcus says, then, and looks out the window. It’s raining, and his leg aches something fierce, even propped up as it is on a footstool.
“You haven’t, sir.” Esca’s voice isn’t sly or teasing or uncomfortable. He sounds frank, and Marcus looks at him sharply, surprised. Esca is still sweeping, unperturbed.
“What?”
“You haven’t offended me, sir,” Esca says, simply.
Marcus is poleaxed silent, for a long moment, trying not to ask, do you mean what I think you mean? or how long have you known? and unable to produce anything else.
“Meet me at the boathouse this evening,” Esca says, eventually, He’s swept his whole pile into the dustpan, and he’s moved to the doorway. He looks over his shoulder at Marcus, the long line of his throat distracting even in the half-light. “If you want.” His words are flippant, but his expression is not, eyes utterly seriously, mouth firm and unyielding. Marcus finds that he wants little else.
“I do,” he says, and swallows. “I will.”
vi.
The water is probably tepid by now, but Marcus doesn’t care, even though he knows he will need another rinse, once he gathers the strength to move, again. He is on his back on the tile floor, it having been warmed beneath his body as they moved together. Esca has pulled out, though Marcus can still feel the slick of Esca’s come between the cheeks of his arse, sliding down his thighs.
Esca is straddling his hips, both of them naked, pressed belly to belly, chest to chest. He’ll be sticky with Marcus’s come when he pulls away, but for now, he appears content to lie pressed close to Marcus. Their breath mingles, and Marcus is watching the flush fade from Esca’s cheeks up close.
Marcus can feel Esca’s heart beating, and his own heart beating, both of them in time, in the same rhythm. He imagines Esca’s blood pumping into his heart; he imagines that they are joined.
“I can’t stay much longer,” Esca says, regret in his voice. Marcus touches his hand to the sweaty small of Esca’s back.
“Come to me, then, tonight.” I would that we were never parted, he doesn’t say. Please, he doesn’t say.
Esca doesn’t speak again for a long time. Marcus listens to their hearts beating in sync, Esca’s skin slippery and perfect against his own.
“Tonight,” Esca says, and tucks his face into the crook of Marcus’s neck and jaw, teeth finding tender skin. And then, softer, with his face hidden there, “Marcus.”
Outside it is still raining, pattering against the glass. For now, Marcus is content.