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Like the Tide, 4/? templemarker August 10 2011, 05:45:49 UTC
All too soon Marcus heard the first drops of rain against the walls of the bothy, and stirred the pot while stretching out his sore muscles. No new-green centurion he, not any longer. As the time passed and the sun drew herself from the sky, Marcus checked at the realization Esca had not yet returned to him, to their shared porridge and warm-orange fire and the fine scent of thyme and sweat in the air. He turned, and didn't see Esca in the door way; Marcus went there himself to find his erstwhile companion.

There was Esca, not ten feed from their threshold, bare to the waist and unshod as the torrent broke over the land. He was drenched, the dark swathe of his hair plastered to his face, his ruddy, tanned skin almost shining with the last pale threads of daylight. Marcus could make out the lines of his tattoo in the half-light, as if it were some other-worldly brand. Something in Marcus ached, the twin thoughts of lust and fear sudden and unbidden. He doubted even now, in his rational mind, that Esca would be moved to leave him; but there was always the faint thought, caught in the night between waking and sleeping, that Esca might want something more than Marcus could give him. A land that wasn't his, a life of simple labor, a warm bed and a tended fire at the end of the day.

And that part was wholly subsumed beneath the rising tide of desire that came upon Marcus at the merest brush of Esca's eyes against his skin, the whisper of a loving word said in a teasing lilt. Ah, Esca, Marcus thought, gripping the frame of the threshold, I do not know if you make me more or less of a man for wanting you all of the time.

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