Fic: Mixing Drinks (AE), Daniel/Marc, NC-17
Title: Mixing Drinks
Author: Corona
Fandom: Ugly Betty
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Daniel/Marc
Disclaimer: In no way mine or anything to do with me. I own nothing.
Summary: Alcohol, high fashion and conversation
Notes: Set after episode 1.15. This is the significantly slashier version. The tame one can be found here.
Daniel had taken considerable quantities of alcohol and a glass and his horrible spiraling family drama and he'd made a nest at the back of the Mode closet. A nest of skirts and hats, and floor length gowns, like some sort of giant bird with high taste, some sort of couture magpie. Well he said 'made' a nest, they'd mostly just sort of been there when he'd...added himself to the space. Like he'd invaded the nest of another bird, a prettier bird, that accessorised.
Either way he's currently sprawled in the middle of it.
He is not hiding, he's just indisposed himself while he considers his position. He's at the office, technically, he's in the office in the grand scheme of things, if the word 'office' is taken to mean the whole general working area. It's just stretching the term a little bit.
He's not going back upstairs until...until everything is just a little bit less-he shakes his empty glass because he can't think of a good descriptive term for his life at the minute. He keeps filling his glass slightly too full and then has trouble drinking it, he has an awful feeling it makes him look a lot like his mother.
Ten feet away someone moves a rack and Daniel nearly chokes on his drink, stops moving completely.
If it's Christina he suspects he's in serious trouble, he suspects she'll chase him out jabbing him with needles and yelling at him in a way that is angry and no longer entirely intelligible.
He briefly contemplates whether a full grown man can fit convincingly under a dozen designer gowns, a couple dozen skirts, a selection of terrifying jackets and thirty odd ugly hats. He decides it's probably unworkable, and also cowardly and ridiculous.
He pushes one of the racks out of the way with the end of his shoe.
It's not Christina, it's Marc, looking just as colorful as Daniel's nest, though considerably tidier, rifling about like some sort of random clothes thief.
Though knowing Marc there is absolutely nothing random about it. He's looking just as paranoid as Daniel had been feeling a second ago.
"She's not here." He provides helpfully.
Marc nearly ends up in the rack. Which is entirely too amusing for several very long seconds.
When he does straighten, and bat clothes out of his face, he looks, if anything, more surprised.
"Daniel?" Marc gives him a look, as if he'd briefly mistaken him for...giant burrowing fashion vermin of some sort perhaps?
He wanders over to his nest like some sort of two legged gazelle.
"What are you doing in here?" He gives Daniel's currently accommodation a pointed look. "Everyone's looking for you," he adds.
"Did Wilhelmina send you?" Because it's a given that Wilhelmina sends him everywhere; or, at the very least, knows where he is at all times.
"Wilhelmina doesn't have to send people looking for you, she just has someone follow Betty." A wave of fingers suggests this is a point that should have been obvious. Daniel doesn't want to think about Betty at the moment because he's still feeling guilty that he's hiding from her to-no not hiding, indisposed.
"So, umm, you've been upstairs?" He tries a different take and gets a wildly suspicious look for it.
"Daniel are you hiding?"
"No," Daniel says, maybe a little too quickly, and clearly he's not believed because he's getting the 'eyebrows of disbelief.' "Is it awful?"
"Umm, I'm fairly certain our definitions of awful are drastically different."
"So is it awful?"
"Oh it's so far beyond awful that people are still occasionally stopping to stare." Daniel drains what's left in his glass. Marc takes the opportunity to prod at Daniel's nest of high fashion with the edge of his shoe.
"Do you have any idea what you're sitting on?" Daniel holds up something shiny, with buttons and laces.
"I'm fairly sure 'this' is expensive, and there's a shoe somewhere that keeps poking me that I can't find." A fractional shake of the head suggests Daniel is doomed, possibly to some wilderness where people were forced to wear the skin of bears and make shoes out of bark.
"Correction, that was expensive." Which is probably true since it doesn't quite look as tidy as it had a moment ago. There was a button hanging off of it.
"Christina is definitely going to be mad about that." He stuffs it under something brocade-y and red, which he's already put sticky wine fingerprints all over.
"I thought you were Christina." Daniel tells him.
"Where is she anyway?" Daniel shrugs, affects an air that he doesn't care, even though should Christina reappear he suspects he'll probably try and hide in a cupboard
"She wasn't here when I got here, she's...out, she must be out."
"No doubt doing devious Scottish things."
"Or sewing something." Daniel adds helpfully. "I'm fairly certain that if she finds me here among her material and things I will feel her displeasure."
"You will feel, not only her displeasure, you will feel her needles." Marc offers, which is horribly close to what Daniel had been picturing in his head.
"Well it's a good job I have all this alcohol then." Daniel waves a hand, manages to knock over an empty bottle.
"Are you actually making Betty ferry random alcohol to you in the closet?"
"I brought these with me." Daniel hugs one of them protectively. "You didn't see her did you? Because...well if Christina's not here she probably won't come here."
"You're hiding from Betty too, well that is interesting," Daniel waves his glass at Marc's interest, which isn't entirely empty but he's at the wrong angle for alcohol flinging.
"Betty will be disapproving, she'll disapprove, she'll be disappointed and she'll absolutely have already worked out the sensible mature thing to do all perfectly laid down and sensible."
Daniel looked at Marc through his glass, and it seemed a universal law that everyone looked weird like that.
"I'm not so much with the sensible right now."
"Uh huh, I've noticed that." Marc toes something with a shoe that clanks, and Daniel suspects he's trying to read the labels. Daniel leans forward far enough to have a look himself, because he can't honestly remember much of what he has been drinking, he's spilling again and Marc's saying something about mistreatment of fashion and how he's going to become a booze ridden corpse that Daniel completely misses because one of his bottles has gotten lost inside the sleeve of a jacket.
"I'm not intending to stay here forever." He says when he's finally straight again, and for some reason, holding three bottles.
"Good for you."
Marc waves a hand, and it's an odd gesture, halfway between encouragement and some sort of attempt to move him by telekinesis.
Daniel grabs the hand, mostly to stop it doing it.
"I'm not going back upstairs. I can't go back upstairs...the world may very well implode if I even think about it. Because everywhere I turn there are... disasters that keep happening! The love of my life humiliating me on national television, my brother that's now my sister, my father being in jail..."
Marc tugs, ever so slightly at his hand, but Daniel has not finished making his point and after a strange, complicated noise, he lets him keep it.
"And alcohol is no longer helping...at least not this kind." Daniel peers into his drink, which is emptier than when he'd last looked, he's been spilling while he talks.
"Maybe one of those little drinks you put metal balls in and then set on fire?" He fishes beside him for the other bottle, the one he's been saving, the one that he suspects is probably even intimidating to really old bottles of scotch. The one he found in his mother's wardrobe.
He gives Marc his hand back, digs about until he finds the bottle under something blue and slinky with a halter neck.
"Do you know what those are called?" Because he thinks Marc is a font of all sorts of strange knowledge.
"Not really no." The hand is waving again and this time Daniel grabs it and tugs sharply, because he's sick of looking up and spilling his drink everywhere while he does it.
Marc clearly is not expecting the invitation because it's really easy to drag him down into his nest of skirts and hats and floor length gowns.
Which are now sort of...spotted with more than a few trails of his interesting drink. Also, a bit more squashed, because Daniel hadn't anticipated having to share his collection.
Marc can even sprawl in a pile of clothes tidily...Daniel has to wonder how he learned that because Daniel is incapable of even lying down without looking like he's just fallen over.
"I know you're Wilhelmina's...evil assistant," Marc makes an agreeable noise. "Helping her in her evil plans for world domination." Daniel gestures with his glass, which luckily the alcohol hasn't manage to eat through yet. "But I don't care, have a drink." He proffers his newly refilled glass
Marc sniffs it, then sways away.
"Oh my god what is that?"
"I'm not sure, I found it in my mother's wardrobe...behind some luggage...in a brown bag...under some old hats. I figured if she went to that much trouble to hide it then it had to be good."
"And is it?" Marc looks genuinely curious.
"God no, it tastes like...formaldehyde or something." Daniel takes another drink anyway.
"Though, god if I drink much more of this I'll be keeled over in my throne of high fashion, mumbling incoherently and occasionally making wounded animal noises."
"Wouldn't it be more high drama if you keeled over the desk in your office?"
"Technically I'm at the office, I'm near the office, I'm within the general 'office' vicinity." Daniel dragged his phone out of his pocket.
"I have my phone in case of emergencies...more emergencies than there currently are...extra emergencies."
"You're not actually answering it though are you?" Marc guessed, Daniel looked at the phone.
"No," he said honestly. "Would you?"
"God no," Marc says sharply and then gives him a dirty look for conversational cheating.
Daniel waves his glass around, and Marc very carefully pushes his arm until he's waving it somewhere away from him.
"I mean I can't honestly believe that something worse will happen, I'm not sure there is much worse that could happen right?"
"If there's an earthquake you could be crushed by a sewing machine," clearly Marc is good at the whole apocalyptic cynicism that Daniel is currently trying to avoid.
"Death by sewing machine?" Daniel contemplates briefly. "God, could I really get that unlucky." He pours more embalming fluid into his glass.
"They'd be horrible puns about me for years...I'd be dead and people would make fun of me," he stops pouring when his fingers get wet. "Which would be worse than the whole-." Daniel looks at Marc and stops talking.
"What? What?" Marc pokes him with one sharp, pale finger. "Tell me."
"I shouldn't tell you." Daniel frowns, pulls a shoe out from under him. "There it is...and ow it's sharp- I shouldn't tell you because you'll tell Wilhelmina. You are the eyes and ears of Wilhelmina." Marc's expression is briefly disgusted, it slides into something curious a second later.
"You should tell me anyway." Marc decides, both hands pressed together.
"Then you and Wilhelmina will just use my misery to plot together, to plot my horrible downfall...possibly flying monkeys will be involved."
"Flying monkeys will probably not be involved, though if you finish drinking that...whatever that is I'm not making any promises."
"But if I'm going to tell you we need more drinks, I need more drinks. You need a drink too. Because I refuse to drink alone at-" He looks at his watch. "Nearly lunchtime while blurting out horrible embarrassing secrets."
"Oh Fine," Marc says tartly. "What do you have that doesn't evaporate on contact with human skin?" Daniel reaches behind him, pulls out a random bottle which he dumps in Marc's lap.
"Though I only have one glass, so unless you want to drink it out of a shoe?"
"Really no-" Marc lifts one of the shoes out of their nest. "And definitely not one of these shoes." He lifts the bottle out of his lap and gives it a filthy look.
"It's easy, you just introduce your mouth to the bottle and pour." Daniel tells him helpfully.
"Well excuse me for being wary about drinking something you found in a wardrobe." Daniel laughs and gestures with his own bottle.
"No, this is the one from the wardrobe, that one, that one came free in a basket, I have no idea who from, there was green paper, with little round things on it...can you make wine out of peas?"
"God I hope not." Marc is looking at his bottle like there is a vague possibility that the contents are made from some sort of horrible vegetable concoction. Daniel waits until he's actually resigned himself to drinking it.
"I'm having a problem with breasts," he says simply.
Marc does the most beautifully ungraceful thing Daniel has ever seen him do. He chokes on a mouthful of wine.
Daniel helpfully smacks him on the back, which seems to make everything worse, and now there is coughing and scowling, both at the same time miraculously, until there...isn't.
Marc has probably succeeded in making a making a bigger mess than all of Daniel's drunken gesturing already had. He will not laugh, we won't. He starts up where he left off.
"Every woman I see with breasts is now my brother! Do you have any idea what that's like?"
"I'm going to have to say...no." Marc says carefully. Daniel shifts about in the clothing, not entirely sure if he's even sober enough at the minute to explain this without it all coming off as just the slightest bit crazy.
"I will admit that I did once, or maybe twice, ok a few times, entertain thoughts about my sisters breasts. But I didn't know she was my sister then, because Alex never had breasts, not his own...I'm not saying he owned anyone else's breasts. But that's not important, there was a woman in the elevator this morning and she had truly exceptional breasts and-"
"Please stop saying breasts." Marc sounds thoroughly disturbed.
"They're fairly central to the whole theme." Daniel explains. "Without them there really wouldn't be a theme."
"Well this is turning into a fun afternoon, forced to drink things made of peas and listen to you talk about breasts."
"It's only fair if I make you suffer, you are spying for Wilhelmina after all." Daniel thinks about it for a minute. "It could get worse...I could sing."
"You wouldn't."
"They'll probably be sad, mournful songs, they'd probably also be wildly out of tune." Marc steals his glass when he's not looking, he's holding it in slim fingers looking disapproving and just generally absolutely Marc.
"There will be no singing." Marc says simply, and when Daniel reaches for his glass it sways away again and Daniel thinks that maybe trying to grab it would just get them both wet and disheveled and probably wouldn't be of the good at all.
"I shall try and restrain myself from singing." He waves a hand, which is very slowly filled again. "How are assistants so efficient? How do you always know what to do and exactly when to do it. Because I think I could use some of that, some of that efficiency, without my whole life collapsing down around my ears."
Daniel shakes his head, waves his glass, but not too close, not close enough to have it stolen again.
"But I wasn't doing so bad, I wasn't...it wasn't a...hideous car crash of incompetence was it?" The corner of Marc's eye twitches.
"Was I?" There's a vague noise which might, just might, be something in the negative. It's ambiguous but Daniel is going to take whatever he can get.
"I don't see why people always have to expect the worst of us, have come to expect that we're...sinister in some way. It's not like we're the Manson family, we don't have a torture chamber in our basement, we've never eaten anyone, at least I hope we've never eaten anyone. We've never done anything crazy and Roman like make people into..." He stretches for a word.
"Wine?" Marc suggests.
Then the phrase 'People Wine' is trotting through Daniel's head and he's wondering how you'd Market something like that and he's laughing and it's not even funny and he's spilling his formaldehyde everywhere and Marc has utterly failed in his bid not to be splashed, which apparently is even more hilarious, because it was his fault for suggesting 'People Wine in the first place.
Marc helpfully holds his drink while he collects himself. He really was a very good assistant when he wasn't trying to destroy you in all sorts of sinister and creative ways.
"Anyway, back to the breasts."
"Must we?" Marc gives him his drink back.
"Yes."
"I'm compelled to point out that I have no opinions about breasts whatsoever."
"It's not just breasts, I think it's tall women too." The tallest girl Daniel has ever slept with, Angelina, had been a model and six foot three. she'd gone on forever, taken up the whole bed with arms and legs and miles of skin, and fantastic breasts.
His brother now had breasts, fantastic breasts. Daniel has a horrible feeling he's just said that out loud because Marc is watching him wearing an expression that suggests he's insane, more insane, drunk and insane.
"I'm not drunk and insane." Daniel protests.
Marc pulls a face, holds up forefinger and thumb, ever so slightly apart.
"No, not even a little bit," he's very tempted to pour the 'wine made of peas' all over him when he's not looking.
He looks at him sideways and Marc's mouth, from this angle, is curved and smooth and ever shifting.
"Just don't date any tall women with breasts." Marc pulls the most amazing facial expression and Daniel couldn't describe it if he tried.
Marc has a facial expression for absolutely everything. Daniel's vaguely jealous about this because he's pretty sure he only owns four; smiling, confused, surprised and angry. Everything else is sort of just a smoosh of all of them.
It's disturbing that he might have the wrong type of face.
He might ask Betty next time he sees her...the next time he sees her and there aren't also any emergencies, or apocalypses or general awkwardness involving breasts.
'Do I have the wrong type of face?' He'll say.
'For what?' Betty will ask and she'll be wearing her 'slightly confused but determined to be helpful' face.
'Expressions, looking at people.' Because Daniel can never be eloquent when he's worrying about something. She'll do the eyeball thing when asked that, the 'you sound a little mental but I'm going to smile in a minute and attempt to support you anyway.'
'No Daniel, you have a nice face, your face is fine.' She'll say, because she's Betty.
If he asks Marc if he has the wrong type of face he has no idea what answer he'll get.
Talking of hands there is one waving in front of his face.
"Where did you go? This isn't really formaldehyde is it? Because you will die." Marc looks tempted to steal his glass again so Daniel switches it into the other hand, notices there is very little left in it and tries to find his bottle of drain-cleaning, brain dissolving, ethanol.
There's a strong possibility it's melted it's way through the floor.
"Even my mother wouldn't drink-no scratch that she probably would." There's no label, so there's little point looking at it, he does anyway.
"I think I would have died already. " He has another go at trying to fathom the mysteries of the bottle, though the gesture is rather more enthusiastic than he intended. Marc has to steal the bottle before he sloshes miscellaneous alcohol all over his nest and either Marc has fantastic reflexes or Daniel is way, way drunker than he thought.
He slithers sideways until he can balance against Marc's shoulder, sends a hand into the pile to find whatever the hell is stabbing him in the arm. It turns out to be the twin of the shoe that was trying to wound him earlier.
There's a long warm length of arm crushed against his own and his throne of high fashion is turning into some sort of fabric quicksand into which he is fast disappearing. To add to that he's put his elbow through an ugly hat, and he suspects that's not a good thing.
"Where is Wilhelmina anyway? I wouldn't have thought she'd stray far while the opportunity to crush me into the dirt was hanging in the balance."
"Oh you know, the usual, lunching, furthering her plans for world domination. I'm sure she'll be back to crush you later."
"Meanwhile you're behind enemy lines, cavorting with the enemy." The bottle Marc is holding clanks sharply against Daniel's glass.
"Collaborating," he says thinly. "I'm fairly sure it's collaborating."
"I think I'm sinking." Daniel says simply, though a better phrase might be disappearing, because his throne of high fashion has eaten most of his leg and is now making a start of the rest of him.
He loses his formaldehyde while trying to escape, which is annoying since he'd managed to hang onto it for pretty much everything else.
"My shoe is in your drink." Marc sounds absolutely scandalised, and he's pouting and quite clearly blaming Daniel. "If it starts to dissolve-." Daniel is in no great shape himself so he wraps a hand round the bottle Marc is holding, that may or may not contain wine made of peas, and tries to pull himself upright.
There turns out to be a certain dynamic to escaping from quicksand made of clothes, and this is clearly not it, because mostly they both just end up more entangled, Daniel's leg has disappeared entirely and the bottle, the bottle full of peas is now rolling across the floor spilling everywhere and dragging a hat along with it, and Daniel is laughing, and still sinking.
He's fairly certain he's trying to kneel on a bottle, which is not working, and getting off of it means leaning all the way into Marc, until their cheeks slide together, and his waist is narrow and slinky under Daniel's hands. Which would usually be a perfect excuse to at least attempt something forward, but circumstances are a bit different. It's a whole lot of difference, with differences, the most obvious being...well obvious, and there is a significant lack of breasts, which granted is actually a point in his favor at the minute.
Daniel thinks that maybe he is cavorting with the enemy after all.
He lifts a hand, catches the line of Marc's jaw and pulls his head round, and it's far too easy to just kiss him.
It isn't really that different at all.
It turns out the wine he'd given Marc doesn't taste like peas after all. It's sharp and vibrant and it clings in the way only very good wine does.
When he does slide away the expression Marc is wearing is one he's never seen before.
"That was interesting," Daniel tells him, and he's not sure if knowing this is better or worse than looking at his sisters breasts.
"Ok," Marc says in a slow, careful voice. "I think you might have had just a touch too much to drink."
"No," Daniel decides. "I think I've had about exactly the right amount." Though granted it appears that he's not going to have anymore because now his bottle has disappeared. It's not the one he was kneeling on, and it's not the one containing 'wine that doesn't taste like peas after all because that's rolled off to god knows where.
"Where's my drink?"
"I haven't the faintest idea but you probably shouldn't have any more I think the embalming fluid has gotten into your brain."
"Like it could do anything worse to my brain." Marc looks untidy, and Daniel doesn't think he's ever seen Marc look untidy, it's interesting, hell it's more than interesting. He's struck by the urge to maybe ruffle him a bit more. No that's a lie, ruffle isn't quite the word he's looking for, he doesn't want to say debauch because it sounds so mediaeval...he doesn't have any other good words in his vocabulary though.
Daniel goes to gesture with his bottle and remembers he's not holding it anymore.
"I'm imbibing large quatities of alcohol and attempting to seduce the employees, isn't that what everyone thinks I do anyway...isn't that what I actually do always do come to think of it."
"With one significant difference."
"It's only one," Daniel protests.
"But it is significant," Marc says pointedly.
"What I'm not allowed to be adventurous too?" Marc sighs, like Daniel's idea of the word 'adventurous' involved underwater escapism and sharp instruments. "I want to kiss you again," he tries instead.
"Oh god," Marc says and his voice is choked somewhere between disbelief and arousal, both of which Daniel can work with.
Daniel wraps his hands round Marc's waist and pulls until there is no question of whether either of them is interested or not. Which is distracting in entirely new ways. Distracting enough that Daniel forgets entirely what there were talking about.
"What was I saying?" Marc shakes his head in a vague sort of way. "Well you're no help." Daniel is curious to see if Marc will let him mess up his hair, he slides a hand into it, and Marc's makes a noise which Daniel thinks he would quite like to taste.
"I refuse to take advantage of you while you're mentally impaired." Marc says pointedly, though he seems unwilling to pull out of Daniel's grip.
"Hey!" Daniel protests again. "And also, if there's any advantages being taken it should really be me doing it."
"If you're even capable of-." Daniel stops the fall of words with his mouth, and their second kiss is harder and not perfectly aligned, making it awkward and slippery. But this, god this Daniel knows how to do he's good at this, he's really good at this, good enough that Marc stops protesting, wraps a hand round Daniel's tie and pulls. until they're pressed together and half-twisted in his throne of high fashion, one of Daniel's arms round Marc's waist and he's very quickly learning that it isn't quite the same when another man kisses you back, everything is deeper, stronger. They don't let you get away with things...and apparently they tried to get away with things right back.
Which was surprisingly delicious if he was pushed on the subject. Maybe Daniel is going to be taken advantage of after all. It's not an unpleasant thought, he hasn't been taken advantage of in far too long. Still it might be better to make some sort of attempt to regain the upper hand. He slides away, one of his hands still curved round the back of Marc's neck, thumb digging under a soft curl of hair.
Marc still looks breathless and surprised, beautifully conflicted, only now he can't keep his eyes off of Daniel's mouth. It seems only fair to....
There's a hand on the back of his neck, dragging him closer, pulling him all the way in, until Daniel is no longer leaning over but sprawled half on top of Marc.
Marc's hand slides up his hair, tilting his head, and they're kissing with open mouths, one of Daniel's legs has slid between Marc's pressed up tightly enough that every flex and shift provokes a dual shiver.
Marc wears his pants tight, really tight, but when Daniel drags his shirt out of them there's a breath of a gap, jumping shut on every exhale. It's a completely different curve to a woman's but he lays a hand on it anyway, uses the other to liberate waistcoat buttons from their holes.
"What are you doing?" Marc's voice has dropped into something that's all breath and tension.
"I would have thought that would be obvious, mostly obvious." Daniel's hand slides up under Marc's shirt and he's impossibly smooth all the way up, smooth and flat and it's different and interesting, which makes him murmur surprise against the edge of Marc's throat.
In fact it tempts him into pulling his hands back down and unsnapping Marc's belt, and the sharp inhale he gets for it is something he's heard a thousand times before, but this is deeper, and the hand that curls round his forearm is almost as strong as his own.
It doesn't try and stop him though, not even when he tugs the belt out of a loop and makes a very obvious effort to open pants which... are, apparently, bewilderingly impossible to open and Daniel can't help the slightly hysterical laughter against the sleek skin of his stomach.
"You have pants that don't open...my god your clothes are made by elves or something aren't they?" Marc shifts up onto an elbow, looks at him in a way that's obviously designed to make him feel like a total idiot. Marc is very good with his facial expressions, so it mostly works.
Daniel feigns bewilderment, which isn't hard he does it a lot after all, and lays his fingers on the fabric.
"I could just pull I suppose?" This gets a response, Marc smacks his hands out of the way in one sharp movement.
"Don't you dare." Long fingers untangle the complicated waistband in one twist and it's too tempting not to push Marc's hands out of the way and Daniel is laughing again, mouth pressed against bare skin, fingers sliding along the curve of Marc's hipbones. It's easy to pull now, easy to slide the waistband down, the backs of his fingers trailing across skin that twitches under them.
Everything is expensive and complicated, and soft, Daniel is briefly distracted by where exactly Marc buys his underwear, because it's light, and slinky and strange. He tests the softness of Marc's hipbones against the silk he's edged down over them.
Daniel knows if he attempts what he is seriously considering then they will be ruined, utterly ruined. He pushes his fingers in the top of those amazing slidy shorts and drags them down. The bottle slips out of Marc's hand and hits the floor, rolls away.
This Daniel isn't quite so sure how to do, and everything is very different from this angle. It can't be that hard though, girls did it all the time and men had generally bigger mouths so...it should be easy surely?
Certainly not difficult enough to stop him trying at least. He pushes Marc's shirt up just a little further, far enough that he can see the curving breadth of his stomach, and shifts down between his legs.
It's easy to lean in, to slide his hands round the pale curves of Marc's hipbones and to lay the edge of his mouth against his cock and it's both softer and smoother than he expected.
"Fuck, Daniel," Marc's voice has gone breathless and low in his throat, and it breaks when Daniel's mouth slides down him.
It's a very new sensation, warm and crowded and it's only strange in the way it is, apparently, rather more arousing and far more intense than Daniel thought it would be. If he had, at times, thought he might, maybe, have been a bit of a slut. It was nothing compared to this, and he's fairly certain that if Marc did want to tangle a hand in his hair and pull then there would be no complaining from him...unattractive whimpering maybe, but no complaining.
Every thrust is heavy and awkward in his mouth. Until Marc's searching hand finds Daniel's, drags it up and curls it round the base of his cock.
Daniel attempts to aknowledge that this is indeed very helpful, but just manages some sort of random mumbling noise. Judging by the narrow hand that snaps tight in his hair mumbling is good, mumbling is very good.
Daniel's hand is already a slippery wet mess and though he's tempted to he's fairly sure he shouldn't attempt anything impressive. He knows exactly what he likes but it's turning out to be far easier in theory than in practice. Everything is heavy and awkward in a way he has no experience with. Though judging by the breathless, cracked, noises he's managing to pull out of Marc on every slide he's not doing too badly.
Marc's hand is a warm, smooth brace on the side of his face, thumb moving over the line of his jaw in short stilted little twitches. They're almost perfectly in time with the ragged little gasps he's making, and it's more than encouragement, it sounds like he's falling apart and it spurs Daniel into pushing just a little harder, into putting his slippery wet hand to better use.
There's a sharp, sudden breath and Marc's hand slides into his hair; closes and tugs gently but pointedly.
"Daniel," what started as a warning becomes something completely different when Daniel slides down as far as he can.
Fabric tears in the random pile of clothing, and Marc's shoe kicks something which skids across the floor in a series of harsh 'clanks.'
"Oh god," it seemed Marc could hit a baritone after all, and suddenly Daniel's mouth is wetter and slicker than it had been before.
Daniel swallows, because it's only polite, he was brought up to be polite. The nails that drag over his scalp, digging through his hair in long lines, before closing round an untidy collection of strands suggest politeness and porn are not so far apart.
Marc is making short fractured noises that sound wounded, breathing short and harsh and broken every time he swallows, and his skin is warm and twitching under Daniel's fingers. He sounds absolutely wrecked and that is something Daniel has to investigate, he leans up on his elbows. Marc's normally pale cheeks are shaded pink, mouth open, wet, and breathing hard. Daniel is feeling accomplished...and smug, definitely smug.
He drags himself up the open waistcoat and unbuttoned shirt, and he can't resist kissing the relaxed curve of his mouth, he gets a weak little noise for it, then a slightly deeper one.
"Oh god," Marc says quietly. Daniel wonders if he should maybe shake him a little, he rises up onto his knees.
"Marc do you want-."
There's a long hand in his belt, using it to drag him back and then shoving him down in the middle of his nest. Which is now more of a riotous explosion of color.
Marc opens Daniel's belt one handed, uses the other to tug his shirt up out of the way.
"Do you have any idea? Any idea what-." He stops his own sentence, leans far enough to kiss Daniel sharply, before one quick yank sends Daniel's entire belt skittering across the floor. Marc has absolutely no trouble with his pants, which are clearly less complicated and not made by elves, and every slide of Marc's fingers across his stomach makes his cock jump in a way that is far, far past begging, and probably obvious, shamefully obvious. It certainly becomes obvious when Marc's hand slides over the front of his pants and lays over his cock in a way that is half tease and half intent.
"When you're not insane you're so having me fired." Marc says roughly, and Daniel loves the way his hair looks when it's debauched. Loves the way his lower lip looks like he's been biting it, and god he caused that, he's really good, way better than he thought.
"And you know I don't care in the slightest; this is, without doubt, worth getting fired for." Long fingers tug his pants down and Marc slithers down his body like someone removed his spine.
There is no hesitation just one long wet slide and Daniel's exhale falls into pieces. Marc doesn't need a hand, and this is clearly something he's good at, filthily, obscenely good at.
It's rougher and hotter than any amount of dubiously legal Russian models and Daniel's pretty sure he's making noises a cheap prostitute would be ashamed of, which doesn't necessarily mean he can stop them.
His hands are tangled in Marc's complicated hair before he can stop himself, and he has to force his fingers to let go, to slide down the curve that is the back of Marc's neck and he can feel everything, can feel the slide and shift through his fingers and he really, really wants to watch but if he looks he might actually die.
He looks anyway.
Oh god
It's like high fashion porn, high fashion gay porn...and he is going to come embarrassingly hard.
***
Daniel is laying on something very soft, he has a disturbing feeling that it's fake fur. It also occurs to him that he's just had sex on top of thousands of dollars worth of clothes.
He's feeling strangely, recklessly, unconcerned about it. He's also feeling perhaps just a little bit gay. He reasons that if his brother is allowed to be a girl then this is only fair.
They've knocked over his drink and there's a trail and splashes of it all the way over to the racks.
Which someone will notice, and possibly follow, though if anyone was going to notice it probably would have been a few minutes ago, when he was screa- making a lot of noise.
Marc is still sprawled half over his thigh, breath curling over the bare skin of his stomach. Daniel is a little surprised by how much that doesn't bother him. In fact his hand is still sliding over the back of his neck and Marc is making cat noises.
His phone rings, and Marc slides a hand into his pocket and drags it out, thrusts it up Daniel's chest.
"Answer it," he says simply. Daniel sighs and plucks it out of his hand.
The screen cheerfully tells him it's Betty, again, Daniel is amazed she hasn't started calling the hospitals yet, and she's going to be really, really mad in a way that isn't mad at all but is in fact incredibly disappointed.
He opens it anyway.
Author: Corona
Fandom: Ugly Betty
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Daniel/Marc
Disclaimer: In no way mine or anything to do with me. I own nothing.
Summary: Alcohol, high fashion and conversation
Notes: Set after episode 1.15. This is the significantly slashier version. The tame one can be found here.
Daniel had taken considerable quantities of alcohol and a glass and his horrible spiraling family drama and he'd made a nest at the back of the Mode closet. A nest of skirts and hats, and floor length gowns, like some sort of giant bird with high taste, some sort of couture magpie. Well he said 'made' a nest, they'd mostly just sort of been there when he'd...added himself to the space. Like he'd invaded the nest of another bird, a prettier bird, that accessorised.
Either way he's currently sprawled in the middle of it.
He is not hiding, he's just indisposed himself while he considers his position. He's at the office, technically, he's in the office in the grand scheme of things, if the word 'office' is taken to mean the whole general working area. It's just stretching the term a little bit.
He's not going back upstairs until...until everything is just a little bit less-he shakes his empty glass because he can't think of a good descriptive term for his life at the minute. He keeps filling his glass slightly too full and then has trouble drinking it, he has an awful feeling it makes him look a lot like his mother.
Ten feet away someone moves a rack and Daniel nearly chokes on his drink, stops moving completely.
If it's Christina he suspects he's in serious trouble, he suspects she'll chase him out jabbing him with needles and yelling at him in a way that is angry and no longer entirely intelligible.
He briefly contemplates whether a full grown man can fit convincingly under a dozen designer gowns, a couple dozen skirts, a selection of terrifying jackets and thirty odd ugly hats. He decides it's probably unworkable, and also cowardly and ridiculous.
He pushes one of the racks out of the way with the end of his shoe.
It's not Christina, it's Marc, looking just as colorful as Daniel's nest, though considerably tidier, rifling about like some sort of random clothes thief.
Though knowing Marc there is absolutely nothing random about it. He's looking just as paranoid as Daniel had been feeling a second ago.
"She's not here." He provides helpfully.
Marc nearly ends up in the rack. Which is entirely too amusing for several very long seconds.
When he does straighten, and bat clothes out of his face, he looks, if anything, more surprised.
"Daniel?" Marc gives him a look, as if he'd briefly mistaken him for...giant burrowing fashion vermin of some sort perhaps?
He wanders over to his nest like some sort of two legged gazelle.
"What are you doing in here?" He gives Daniel's currently accommodation a pointed look. "Everyone's looking for you," he adds.
"Did Wilhelmina send you?" Because it's a given that Wilhelmina sends him everywhere; or, at the very least, knows where he is at all times.
"Wilhelmina doesn't have to send people looking for you, she just has someone follow Betty." A wave of fingers suggests this is a point that should have been obvious. Daniel doesn't want to think about Betty at the moment because he's still feeling guilty that he's hiding from her to-no not hiding, indisposed.
"So, umm, you've been upstairs?" He tries a different take and gets a wildly suspicious look for it.
"Daniel are you hiding?"
"No," Daniel says, maybe a little too quickly, and clearly he's not believed because he's getting the 'eyebrows of disbelief.' "Is it awful?"
"Umm, I'm fairly certain our definitions of awful are drastically different."
"So is it awful?"
"Oh it's so far beyond awful that people are still occasionally stopping to stare." Daniel drains what's left in his glass. Marc takes the opportunity to prod at Daniel's nest of high fashion with the edge of his shoe.
"Do you have any idea what you're sitting on?" Daniel holds up something shiny, with buttons and laces.
"I'm fairly sure 'this' is expensive, and there's a shoe somewhere that keeps poking me that I can't find." A fractional shake of the head suggests Daniel is doomed, possibly to some wilderness where people were forced to wear the skin of bears and make shoes out of bark.
"Correction, that was expensive." Which is probably true since it doesn't quite look as tidy as it had a moment ago. There was a button hanging off of it.
"Christina is definitely going to be mad about that." He stuffs it under something brocade-y and red, which he's already put sticky wine fingerprints all over.
"I thought you were Christina." Daniel tells him.
"Where is she anyway?" Daniel shrugs, affects an air that he doesn't care, even though should Christina reappear he suspects he'll probably try and hide in a cupboard
"She wasn't here when I got here, she's...out, she must be out."
"No doubt doing devious Scottish things."
"Or sewing something." Daniel adds helpfully. "I'm fairly certain that if she finds me here among her material and things I will feel her displeasure."
"You will feel, not only her displeasure, you will feel her needles." Marc offers, which is horribly close to what Daniel had been picturing in his head.
"Well it's a good job I have all this alcohol then." Daniel waves a hand, manages to knock over an empty bottle.
"Are you actually making Betty ferry random alcohol to you in the closet?"
"I brought these with me." Daniel hugs one of them protectively. "You didn't see her did you? Because...well if Christina's not here she probably won't come here."
"You're hiding from Betty too, well that is interesting," Daniel waves his glass at Marc's interest, which isn't entirely empty but he's at the wrong angle for alcohol flinging.
"Betty will be disapproving, she'll disapprove, she'll be disappointed and she'll absolutely have already worked out the sensible mature thing to do all perfectly laid down and sensible."
Daniel looked at Marc through his glass, and it seemed a universal law that everyone looked weird like that.
"I'm not so much with the sensible right now."
"Uh huh, I've noticed that." Marc toes something with a shoe that clanks, and Daniel suspects he's trying to read the labels. Daniel leans forward far enough to have a look himself, because he can't honestly remember much of what he has been drinking, he's spilling again and Marc's saying something about mistreatment of fashion and how he's going to become a booze ridden corpse that Daniel completely misses because one of his bottles has gotten lost inside the sleeve of a jacket.
"I'm not intending to stay here forever." He says when he's finally straight again, and for some reason, holding three bottles.
"Good for you."
Marc waves a hand, and it's an odd gesture, halfway between encouragement and some sort of attempt to move him by telekinesis.
Daniel grabs the hand, mostly to stop it doing it.
"I'm not going back upstairs. I can't go back upstairs...the world may very well implode if I even think about it. Because everywhere I turn there are... disasters that keep happening! The love of my life humiliating me on national television, my brother that's now my sister, my father being in jail..."
Marc tugs, ever so slightly at his hand, but Daniel has not finished making his point and after a strange, complicated noise, he lets him keep it.
"And alcohol is no longer helping...at least not this kind." Daniel peers into his drink, which is emptier than when he'd last looked, he's been spilling while he talks.
"Maybe one of those little drinks you put metal balls in and then set on fire?" He fishes beside him for the other bottle, the one he's been saving, the one that he suspects is probably even intimidating to really old bottles of scotch. The one he found in his mother's wardrobe.
He gives Marc his hand back, digs about until he finds the bottle under something blue and slinky with a halter neck.
"Do you know what those are called?" Because he thinks Marc is a font of all sorts of strange knowledge.
"Not really no." The hand is waving again and this time Daniel grabs it and tugs sharply, because he's sick of looking up and spilling his drink everywhere while he does it.
Marc clearly is not expecting the invitation because it's really easy to drag him down into his nest of skirts and hats and floor length gowns.
Which are now sort of...spotted with more than a few trails of his interesting drink. Also, a bit more squashed, because Daniel hadn't anticipated having to share his collection.
Marc can even sprawl in a pile of clothes tidily...Daniel has to wonder how he learned that because Daniel is incapable of even lying down without looking like he's just fallen over.
"I know you're Wilhelmina's...evil assistant," Marc makes an agreeable noise. "Helping her in her evil plans for world domination." Daniel gestures with his glass, which luckily the alcohol hasn't manage to eat through yet. "But I don't care, have a drink." He proffers his newly refilled glass
Marc sniffs it, then sways away.
"Oh my god what is that?"
"I'm not sure, I found it in my mother's wardrobe...behind some luggage...in a brown bag...under some old hats. I figured if she went to that much trouble to hide it then it had to be good."
"And is it?" Marc looks genuinely curious.
"God no, it tastes like...formaldehyde or something." Daniel takes another drink anyway.
"Though, god if I drink much more of this I'll be keeled over in my throne of high fashion, mumbling incoherently and occasionally making wounded animal noises."
"Wouldn't it be more high drama if you keeled over the desk in your office?"
"Technically I'm at the office, I'm near the office, I'm within the general 'office' vicinity." Daniel dragged his phone out of his pocket.
"I have my phone in case of emergencies...more emergencies than there currently are...extra emergencies."
"You're not actually answering it though are you?" Marc guessed, Daniel looked at the phone.
"No," he said honestly. "Would you?"
"God no," Marc says sharply and then gives him a dirty look for conversational cheating.
Daniel waves his glass around, and Marc very carefully pushes his arm until he's waving it somewhere away from him.
"I mean I can't honestly believe that something worse will happen, I'm not sure there is much worse that could happen right?"
"If there's an earthquake you could be crushed by a sewing machine," clearly Marc is good at the whole apocalyptic cynicism that Daniel is currently trying to avoid.
"Death by sewing machine?" Daniel contemplates briefly. "God, could I really get that unlucky." He pours more embalming fluid into his glass.
"They'd be horrible puns about me for years...I'd be dead and people would make fun of me," he stops pouring when his fingers get wet. "Which would be worse than the whole-." Daniel looks at Marc and stops talking.
"What? What?" Marc pokes him with one sharp, pale finger. "Tell me."
"I shouldn't tell you." Daniel frowns, pulls a shoe out from under him. "There it is...and ow it's sharp- I shouldn't tell you because you'll tell Wilhelmina. You are the eyes and ears of Wilhelmina." Marc's expression is briefly disgusted, it slides into something curious a second later.
"You should tell me anyway." Marc decides, both hands pressed together.
"Then you and Wilhelmina will just use my misery to plot together, to plot my horrible downfall...possibly flying monkeys will be involved."
"Flying monkeys will probably not be involved, though if you finish drinking that...whatever that is I'm not making any promises."
"But if I'm going to tell you we need more drinks, I need more drinks. You need a drink too. Because I refuse to drink alone at-" He looks at his watch. "Nearly lunchtime while blurting out horrible embarrassing secrets."
"Oh Fine," Marc says tartly. "What do you have that doesn't evaporate on contact with human skin?" Daniel reaches behind him, pulls out a random bottle which he dumps in Marc's lap.
"Though I only have one glass, so unless you want to drink it out of a shoe?"
"Really no-" Marc lifts one of the shoes out of their nest. "And definitely not one of these shoes." He lifts the bottle out of his lap and gives it a filthy look.
"It's easy, you just introduce your mouth to the bottle and pour." Daniel tells him helpfully.
"Well excuse me for being wary about drinking something you found in a wardrobe." Daniel laughs and gestures with his own bottle.
"No, this is the one from the wardrobe, that one, that one came free in a basket, I have no idea who from, there was green paper, with little round things on it...can you make wine out of peas?"
"God I hope not." Marc is looking at his bottle like there is a vague possibility that the contents are made from some sort of horrible vegetable concoction. Daniel waits until he's actually resigned himself to drinking it.
"I'm having a problem with breasts," he says simply.
Marc does the most beautifully ungraceful thing Daniel has ever seen him do. He chokes on a mouthful of wine.
Daniel helpfully smacks him on the back, which seems to make everything worse, and now there is coughing and scowling, both at the same time miraculously, until there...isn't.
Marc has probably succeeded in making a making a bigger mess than all of Daniel's drunken gesturing already had. He will not laugh, we won't. He starts up where he left off.
"Every woman I see with breasts is now my brother! Do you have any idea what that's like?"
"I'm going to have to say...no." Marc says carefully. Daniel shifts about in the clothing, not entirely sure if he's even sober enough at the minute to explain this without it all coming off as just the slightest bit crazy.
"I will admit that I did once, or maybe twice, ok a few times, entertain thoughts about my sisters breasts. But I didn't know she was my sister then, because Alex never had breasts, not his own...I'm not saying he owned anyone else's breasts. But that's not important, there was a woman in the elevator this morning and she had truly exceptional breasts and-"
"Please stop saying breasts." Marc sounds thoroughly disturbed.
"They're fairly central to the whole theme." Daniel explains. "Without them there really wouldn't be a theme."
"Well this is turning into a fun afternoon, forced to drink things made of peas and listen to you talk about breasts."
"It's only fair if I make you suffer, you are spying for Wilhelmina after all." Daniel thinks about it for a minute. "It could get worse...I could sing."
"You wouldn't."
"They'll probably be sad, mournful songs, they'd probably also be wildly out of tune." Marc steals his glass when he's not looking, he's holding it in slim fingers looking disapproving and just generally absolutely Marc.
"There will be no singing." Marc says simply, and when Daniel reaches for his glass it sways away again and Daniel thinks that maybe trying to grab it would just get them both wet and disheveled and probably wouldn't be of the good at all.
"I shall try and restrain myself from singing." He waves a hand, which is very slowly filled again. "How are assistants so efficient? How do you always know what to do and exactly when to do it. Because I think I could use some of that, some of that efficiency, without my whole life collapsing down around my ears."
Daniel shakes his head, waves his glass, but not too close, not close enough to have it stolen again.
"But I wasn't doing so bad, I wasn't...it wasn't a...hideous car crash of incompetence was it?" The corner of Marc's eye twitches.
"Was I?" There's a vague noise which might, just might, be something in the negative. It's ambiguous but Daniel is going to take whatever he can get.
"I don't see why people always have to expect the worst of us, have come to expect that we're...sinister in some way. It's not like we're the Manson family, we don't have a torture chamber in our basement, we've never eaten anyone, at least I hope we've never eaten anyone. We've never done anything crazy and Roman like make people into..." He stretches for a word.
"Wine?" Marc suggests.
Then the phrase 'People Wine' is trotting through Daniel's head and he's wondering how you'd Market something like that and he's laughing and it's not even funny and he's spilling his formaldehyde everywhere and Marc has utterly failed in his bid not to be splashed, which apparently is even more hilarious, because it was his fault for suggesting 'People Wine in the first place.
Marc helpfully holds his drink while he collects himself. He really was a very good assistant when he wasn't trying to destroy you in all sorts of sinister and creative ways.
"Anyway, back to the breasts."
"Must we?" Marc gives him his drink back.
"Yes."
"I'm compelled to point out that I have no opinions about breasts whatsoever."
"It's not just breasts, I think it's tall women too." The tallest girl Daniel has ever slept with, Angelina, had been a model and six foot three. she'd gone on forever, taken up the whole bed with arms and legs and miles of skin, and fantastic breasts.
His brother now had breasts, fantastic breasts. Daniel has a horrible feeling he's just said that out loud because Marc is watching him wearing an expression that suggests he's insane, more insane, drunk and insane.
"I'm not drunk and insane." Daniel protests.
Marc pulls a face, holds up forefinger and thumb, ever so slightly apart.
"No, not even a little bit," he's very tempted to pour the 'wine made of peas' all over him when he's not looking.
He looks at him sideways and Marc's mouth, from this angle, is curved and smooth and ever shifting.
"Just don't date any tall women with breasts." Marc pulls the most amazing facial expression and Daniel couldn't describe it if he tried.
Marc has a facial expression for absolutely everything. Daniel's vaguely jealous about this because he's pretty sure he only owns four; smiling, confused, surprised and angry. Everything else is sort of just a smoosh of all of them.
It's disturbing that he might have the wrong type of face.
He might ask Betty next time he sees her...the next time he sees her and there aren't also any emergencies, or apocalypses or general awkwardness involving breasts.
'Do I have the wrong type of face?' He'll say.
'For what?' Betty will ask and she'll be wearing her 'slightly confused but determined to be helpful' face.
'Expressions, looking at people.' Because Daniel can never be eloquent when he's worrying about something. She'll do the eyeball thing when asked that, the 'you sound a little mental but I'm going to smile in a minute and attempt to support you anyway.'
'No Daniel, you have a nice face, your face is fine.' She'll say, because she's Betty.
If he asks Marc if he has the wrong type of face he has no idea what answer he'll get.
Talking of hands there is one waving in front of his face.
"Where did you go? This isn't really formaldehyde is it? Because you will die." Marc looks tempted to steal his glass again so Daniel switches it into the other hand, notices there is very little left in it and tries to find his bottle of drain-cleaning, brain dissolving, ethanol.
There's a strong possibility it's melted it's way through the floor.
"Even my mother wouldn't drink-no scratch that she probably would." There's no label, so there's little point looking at it, he does anyway.
"I think I would have died already. " He has another go at trying to fathom the mysteries of the bottle, though the gesture is rather more enthusiastic than he intended. Marc has to steal the bottle before he sloshes miscellaneous alcohol all over his nest and either Marc has fantastic reflexes or Daniel is way, way drunker than he thought.
He slithers sideways until he can balance against Marc's shoulder, sends a hand into the pile to find whatever the hell is stabbing him in the arm. It turns out to be the twin of the shoe that was trying to wound him earlier.
There's a long warm length of arm crushed against his own and his throne of high fashion is turning into some sort of fabric quicksand into which he is fast disappearing. To add to that he's put his elbow through an ugly hat, and he suspects that's not a good thing.
"Where is Wilhelmina anyway? I wouldn't have thought she'd stray far while the opportunity to crush me into the dirt was hanging in the balance."
"Oh you know, the usual, lunching, furthering her plans for world domination. I'm sure she'll be back to crush you later."
"Meanwhile you're behind enemy lines, cavorting with the enemy." The bottle Marc is holding clanks sharply against Daniel's glass.
"Collaborating," he says thinly. "I'm fairly sure it's collaborating."
"I think I'm sinking." Daniel says simply, though a better phrase might be disappearing, because his throne of high fashion has eaten most of his leg and is now making a start of the rest of him.
He loses his formaldehyde while trying to escape, which is annoying since he'd managed to hang onto it for pretty much everything else.
"My shoe is in your drink." Marc sounds absolutely scandalised, and he's pouting and quite clearly blaming Daniel. "If it starts to dissolve-." Daniel is in no great shape himself so he wraps a hand round the bottle Marc is holding, that may or may not contain wine made of peas, and tries to pull himself upright.
There turns out to be a certain dynamic to escaping from quicksand made of clothes, and this is clearly not it, because mostly they both just end up more entangled, Daniel's leg has disappeared entirely and the bottle, the bottle full of peas is now rolling across the floor spilling everywhere and dragging a hat along with it, and Daniel is laughing, and still sinking.
He's fairly certain he's trying to kneel on a bottle, which is not working, and getting off of it means leaning all the way into Marc, until their cheeks slide together, and his waist is narrow and slinky under Daniel's hands. Which would usually be a perfect excuse to at least attempt something forward, but circumstances are a bit different. It's a whole lot of difference, with differences, the most obvious being...well obvious, and there is a significant lack of breasts, which granted is actually a point in his favor at the minute.
Daniel thinks that maybe he is cavorting with the enemy after all.
He lifts a hand, catches the line of Marc's jaw and pulls his head round, and it's far too easy to just kiss him.
It isn't really that different at all.
It turns out the wine he'd given Marc doesn't taste like peas after all. It's sharp and vibrant and it clings in the way only very good wine does.
When he does slide away the expression Marc is wearing is one he's never seen before.
"That was interesting," Daniel tells him, and he's not sure if knowing this is better or worse than looking at his sisters breasts.
"Ok," Marc says in a slow, careful voice. "I think you might have had just a touch too much to drink."
"No," Daniel decides. "I think I've had about exactly the right amount." Though granted it appears that he's not going to have anymore because now his bottle has disappeared. It's not the one he was kneeling on, and it's not the one containing 'wine that doesn't taste like peas after all because that's rolled off to god knows where.
"Where's my drink?"
"I haven't the faintest idea but you probably shouldn't have any more I think the embalming fluid has gotten into your brain."
"Like it could do anything worse to my brain." Marc looks untidy, and Daniel doesn't think he's ever seen Marc look untidy, it's interesting, hell it's more than interesting. He's struck by the urge to maybe ruffle him a bit more. No that's a lie, ruffle isn't quite the word he's looking for, he doesn't want to say debauch because it sounds so mediaeval...he doesn't have any other good words in his vocabulary though.
Daniel goes to gesture with his bottle and remembers he's not holding it anymore.
"I'm imbibing large quatities of alcohol and attempting to seduce the employees, isn't that what everyone thinks I do anyway...isn't that what I actually do always do come to think of it."
"With one significant difference."
"It's only one," Daniel protests.
"But it is significant," Marc says pointedly.
"What I'm not allowed to be adventurous too?" Marc sighs, like Daniel's idea of the word 'adventurous' involved underwater escapism and sharp instruments. "I want to kiss you again," he tries instead.
"Oh god," Marc says and his voice is choked somewhere between disbelief and arousal, both of which Daniel can work with.
Daniel wraps his hands round Marc's waist and pulls until there is no question of whether either of them is interested or not. Which is distracting in entirely new ways. Distracting enough that Daniel forgets entirely what there were talking about.
"What was I saying?" Marc shakes his head in a vague sort of way. "Well you're no help." Daniel is curious to see if Marc will let him mess up his hair, he slides a hand into it, and Marc's makes a noise which Daniel thinks he would quite like to taste.
"I refuse to take advantage of you while you're mentally impaired." Marc says pointedly, though he seems unwilling to pull out of Daniel's grip.
"Hey!" Daniel protests again. "And also, if there's any advantages being taken it should really be me doing it."
"If you're even capable of-." Daniel stops the fall of words with his mouth, and their second kiss is harder and not perfectly aligned, making it awkward and slippery. But this, god this Daniel knows how to do he's good at this, he's really good at this, good enough that Marc stops protesting, wraps a hand round Daniel's tie and pulls. until they're pressed together and half-twisted in his throne of high fashion, one of Daniel's arms round Marc's waist and he's very quickly learning that it isn't quite the same when another man kisses you back, everything is deeper, stronger. They don't let you get away with things...and apparently they tried to get away with things right back.
Which was surprisingly delicious if he was pushed on the subject. Maybe Daniel is going to be taken advantage of after all. It's not an unpleasant thought, he hasn't been taken advantage of in far too long. Still it might be better to make some sort of attempt to regain the upper hand. He slides away, one of his hands still curved round the back of Marc's neck, thumb digging under a soft curl of hair.
Marc still looks breathless and surprised, beautifully conflicted, only now he can't keep his eyes off of Daniel's mouth. It seems only fair to....
There's a hand on the back of his neck, dragging him closer, pulling him all the way in, until Daniel is no longer leaning over but sprawled half on top of Marc.
Marc's hand slides up his hair, tilting his head, and they're kissing with open mouths, one of Daniel's legs has slid between Marc's pressed up tightly enough that every flex and shift provokes a dual shiver.
Marc wears his pants tight, really tight, but when Daniel drags his shirt out of them there's a breath of a gap, jumping shut on every exhale. It's a completely different curve to a woman's but he lays a hand on it anyway, uses the other to liberate waistcoat buttons from their holes.
"What are you doing?" Marc's voice has dropped into something that's all breath and tension.
"I would have thought that would be obvious, mostly obvious." Daniel's hand slides up under Marc's shirt and he's impossibly smooth all the way up, smooth and flat and it's different and interesting, which makes him murmur surprise against the edge of Marc's throat.
In fact it tempts him into pulling his hands back down and unsnapping Marc's belt, and the sharp inhale he gets for it is something he's heard a thousand times before, but this is deeper, and the hand that curls round his forearm is almost as strong as his own.
It doesn't try and stop him though, not even when he tugs the belt out of a loop and makes a very obvious effort to open pants which... are, apparently, bewilderingly impossible to open and Daniel can't help the slightly hysterical laughter against the sleek skin of his stomach.
"You have pants that don't open...my god your clothes are made by elves or something aren't they?" Marc shifts up onto an elbow, looks at him in a way that's obviously designed to make him feel like a total idiot. Marc is very good with his facial expressions, so it mostly works.
Daniel feigns bewilderment, which isn't hard he does it a lot after all, and lays his fingers on the fabric.
"I could just pull I suppose?" This gets a response, Marc smacks his hands out of the way in one sharp movement.
"Don't you dare." Long fingers untangle the complicated waistband in one twist and it's too tempting not to push Marc's hands out of the way and Daniel is laughing again, mouth pressed against bare skin, fingers sliding along the curve of Marc's hipbones. It's easy to pull now, easy to slide the waistband down, the backs of his fingers trailing across skin that twitches under them.
Everything is expensive and complicated, and soft, Daniel is briefly distracted by where exactly Marc buys his underwear, because it's light, and slinky and strange. He tests the softness of Marc's hipbones against the silk he's edged down over them.
Daniel knows if he attempts what he is seriously considering then they will be ruined, utterly ruined. He pushes his fingers in the top of those amazing slidy shorts and drags them down. The bottle slips out of Marc's hand and hits the floor, rolls away.
This Daniel isn't quite so sure how to do, and everything is very different from this angle. It can't be that hard though, girls did it all the time and men had generally bigger mouths so...it should be easy surely?
Certainly not difficult enough to stop him trying at least. He pushes Marc's shirt up just a little further, far enough that he can see the curving breadth of his stomach, and shifts down between his legs.
It's easy to lean in, to slide his hands round the pale curves of Marc's hipbones and to lay the edge of his mouth against his cock and it's both softer and smoother than he expected.
"Fuck, Daniel," Marc's voice has gone breathless and low in his throat, and it breaks when Daniel's mouth slides down him.
It's a very new sensation, warm and crowded and it's only strange in the way it is, apparently, rather more arousing and far more intense than Daniel thought it would be. If he had, at times, thought he might, maybe, have been a bit of a slut. It was nothing compared to this, and he's fairly certain that if Marc did want to tangle a hand in his hair and pull then there would be no complaining from him...unattractive whimpering maybe, but no complaining.
Every thrust is heavy and awkward in his mouth. Until Marc's searching hand finds Daniel's, drags it up and curls it round the base of his cock.
Daniel attempts to aknowledge that this is indeed very helpful, but just manages some sort of random mumbling noise. Judging by the narrow hand that snaps tight in his hair mumbling is good, mumbling is very good.
Daniel's hand is already a slippery wet mess and though he's tempted to he's fairly sure he shouldn't attempt anything impressive. He knows exactly what he likes but it's turning out to be far easier in theory than in practice. Everything is heavy and awkward in a way he has no experience with. Though judging by the breathless, cracked, noises he's managing to pull out of Marc on every slide he's not doing too badly.
Marc's hand is a warm, smooth brace on the side of his face, thumb moving over the line of his jaw in short stilted little twitches. They're almost perfectly in time with the ragged little gasps he's making, and it's more than encouragement, it sounds like he's falling apart and it spurs Daniel into pushing just a little harder, into putting his slippery wet hand to better use.
There's a sharp, sudden breath and Marc's hand slides into his hair; closes and tugs gently but pointedly.
"Daniel," what started as a warning becomes something completely different when Daniel slides down as far as he can.
Fabric tears in the random pile of clothing, and Marc's shoe kicks something which skids across the floor in a series of harsh 'clanks.'
"Oh god," it seemed Marc could hit a baritone after all, and suddenly Daniel's mouth is wetter and slicker than it had been before.
Daniel swallows, because it's only polite, he was brought up to be polite. The nails that drag over his scalp, digging through his hair in long lines, before closing round an untidy collection of strands suggest politeness and porn are not so far apart.
Marc is making short fractured noises that sound wounded, breathing short and harsh and broken every time he swallows, and his skin is warm and twitching under Daniel's fingers. He sounds absolutely wrecked and that is something Daniel has to investigate, he leans up on his elbows. Marc's normally pale cheeks are shaded pink, mouth open, wet, and breathing hard. Daniel is feeling accomplished...and smug, definitely smug.
He drags himself up the open waistcoat and unbuttoned shirt, and he can't resist kissing the relaxed curve of his mouth, he gets a weak little noise for it, then a slightly deeper one.
"Oh god," Marc says quietly. Daniel wonders if he should maybe shake him a little, he rises up onto his knees.
"Marc do you want-."
There's a long hand in his belt, using it to drag him back and then shoving him down in the middle of his nest. Which is now more of a riotous explosion of color.
Marc opens Daniel's belt one handed, uses the other to tug his shirt up out of the way.
"Do you have any idea? Any idea what-." He stops his own sentence, leans far enough to kiss Daniel sharply, before one quick yank sends Daniel's entire belt skittering across the floor. Marc has absolutely no trouble with his pants, which are clearly less complicated and not made by elves, and every slide of Marc's fingers across his stomach makes his cock jump in a way that is far, far past begging, and probably obvious, shamefully obvious. It certainly becomes obvious when Marc's hand slides over the front of his pants and lays over his cock in a way that is half tease and half intent.
"When you're not insane you're so having me fired." Marc says roughly, and Daniel loves the way his hair looks when it's debauched. Loves the way his lower lip looks like he's been biting it, and god he caused that, he's really good, way better than he thought.
"And you know I don't care in the slightest; this is, without doubt, worth getting fired for." Long fingers tug his pants down and Marc slithers down his body like someone removed his spine.
There is no hesitation just one long wet slide and Daniel's exhale falls into pieces. Marc doesn't need a hand, and this is clearly something he's good at, filthily, obscenely good at.
It's rougher and hotter than any amount of dubiously legal Russian models and Daniel's pretty sure he's making noises a cheap prostitute would be ashamed of, which doesn't necessarily mean he can stop them.
His hands are tangled in Marc's complicated hair before he can stop himself, and he has to force his fingers to let go, to slide down the curve that is the back of Marc's neck and he can feel everything, can feel the slide and shift through his fingers and he really, really wants to watch but if he looks he might actually die.
He looks anyway.
Oh god
It's like high fashion porn, high fashion gay porn...and he is going to come embarrassingly hard.
***
Daniel is laying on something very soft, he has a disturbing feeling that it's fake fur. It also occurs to him that he's just had sex on top of thousands of dollars worth of clothes.
He's feeling strangely, recklessly, unconcerned about it. He's also feeling perhaps just a little bit gay. He reasons that if his brother is allowed to be a girl then this is only fair.
They've knocked over his drink and there's a trail and splashes of it all the way over to the racks.
Which someone will notice, and possibly follow, though if anyone was going to notice it probably would have been a few minutes ago, when he was screa- making a lot of noise.
Marc is still sprawled half over his thigh, breath curling over the bare skin of his stomach. Daniel is a little surprised by how much that doesn't bother him. In fact his hand is still sliding over the back of his neck and Marc is making cat noises.
His phone rings, and Marc slides a hand into his pocket and drags it out, thrusts it up Daniel's chest.
"Answer it," he says simply. Daniel sighs and plucks it out of his hand.
The screen cheerfully tells him it's Betty, again, Daniel is amazed she hasn't started calling the hospitals yet, and she's going to be really, really mad in a way that isn't mad at all but is in fact incredibly disappointed.
He opens it anyway.