The guy who drove him here gave him a heads up a while ago, he'd be going home with a girl from the rowing team and it was up to Marcus to take care of the car. "Be careful if you drive home drunk, man," he said. "Don't get arrested." Marcus had nodded - he'd been in line for another drink and already leaning against a counter. Good to know Jeff had his back, Marcus thought a little bitterly. It's not like two of their better players hadn't already gotten suspended for the season for drunk driving. Marcus was taking up the slack, and between the extra hits and ballet, his body never stopped aching these days.
Luckily, he'd abandoned his coat in the pile beneath the coat tree by the front door, not the one underneath Esca's girlfriend. He snatches up the parka - overkill for the early October air. Marcus pauses on the front porch to get his bearings and peer out at the darkened yard.
There're a couple guys smoking over by the fence, and Marcus catches a skunky whiff of it from all the way up here on the porch, and he spots Esca headed toward them, white coat practically glowing in the moonlight. As Marcus watches, Esca leans against the fence beside them, and for a moment, disappointment grips Marcus. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but if Esca has friends here... but the way the guys' body language is going, they don't seem to know Esca. One of them passes Esca the joint and Esca tilts his face toward the sky as he takes a long drag, tip glowing bright and warm. He passes it, and after several of Marcus's heartbeats, Esca lets out a billowing cloud of smoke.
The guys say something and Esca shakes his head, says something in return. Sounds of sympathy filter over, one of the guys claps Esca's back and passes the joint back. Esca takes another hit, and as he's blowing out the smoke he turns his head and meets Marcus's gaze, as if he knew all along he was being watched. He nods his head for Marcus to come over, and Marcus does, only stumbling once as he performs the difficult task of pulling on his coat while heading down the stairs.
"Football guy, this is--" he gestures for the guys to offer their names.
The shorter of the guys snickers. "I am IT guy, and this is, uh, what do you wanna be?"
"The looove machine," says the guy holding the joint.
"Yeah, try fucked up German porn guy."
"Hey!" says German porn guy. "That was like, two clips. Anyway, so who are you," he asks Esca.
"He's Ballet guy," Marcus offers.
Esca glares at Marcus.
"No shit, man?" IT guy looks Esca up and down, and Esca's relaxed posture shifts to something defensive. Then IT guy and German porn guy nod slowly. IT guy says, "Right on. I bet the chicks love that you're all bendy and shit. Or, like, dudes. Or whatever. It's all good." He glances at German porn guy, "Except that second clip. I don't judge, but that's just wrong man. Two girls one cup is one thing, but--"
"But I mean, at least that wasn't--"
"Yeah," they dissolve in a mass of giggles. When IT guy catches his breath, he holds out the joint to Marcus. "You're cool, Football guy, here."
"Thanks man, but, you know, drug tests."
"Oh, *wow*," says German Porn guy. "I'm so sorry man. That sucks."
Marcus shrugs. "There's always off season."
Someone calls from the porch about a gravity bong, and the two smokers turn in unison. "Later, guys, here," IT guy passes the roach to Esca. "You look like you need it," then he's trotting after the other guy toward the house.
Esca watches them for a moment, then takes a long hit off the little stub, then he tosses it to the grass and grinds it out with his heel. Marcus just stands there watching him, swaying a little, and he asks quietly, "You okay?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah."
"My name's Marcus, by the way. Not football guy."
"Sorry, yeah. I'm just a little," he gestures at his head.
"It's okay. I get it. I don't expect you to remember me, you've probably--"
"I remember you," Esca says, looking up through his lashes. And for a long moment, Marcus's heart stops, because maybe. Then Esca goes down on one knee, and Marcus gasps. But Esca's no longer looking at Marcus, he's looking at the second floor of the house as he pulls a knife from his boot.
"Whoa," Marcus says as Esca rises. "Put that away."
"This doesn't concern you." Esca stares at the second floor window.
Marcus doesn't think, just reacts, lunging for Esca, getting a firm grip on his knife hand wrist and wrestling him into half-nelson on pretty much muscle memory alone. He squeezes hard enough to make Esca cry out as he drops the knife, and for several seconds, they strain against each other, locked in an embrace that Esca tries and fails to break. "It's not worth it," Marcus breathes into his ear. "She's not worth it, man, don't go there."
"Christ," Esca spits out. "Get off me." He slams his head back and Marcus narrowly avoids getting his jaw broken on the back of Esca's skull. "For fuck's sake, you ox, I wasn't going to stab the bitch." He stops struggling for a second.
"You're not going near her with that knife," Marcus says, firmly, because he's seen some good guys do some really stupid shit when they're fucked up and heartbroken. "You got that?"
"Who do you think you are? Who do you think *I* am?" He writhes and twists, nearly slips out of Marcus's grasp.
And Marcus could hold on, he could pin Esca to the ground, but the way Esca's lithe body keep sliding against his own, it's not doing his dick any favors. Or, it is, and that's the problem. He lets go of Esca with a small shove and fetches the knife from the ground before Esca can regain his balance. Then, he holds up both hands. "I don't know, all right. All I know's you're a little fucked up and that happened," he jerks a head at the house, "and then you pulled a knife."
"Give it back," Esca says, straightening his clothes. "Now."
"You gonna do something stupid?"
Esca is a good four or five inches and probably fifty pounds lighter than Marcus, but he steps up toe to toe, lifts his chin and if Marcus didn't have a good ten years of dealing with male posturing, he'd probably be cowed, because Esca is staring him down. Hard. It takes everything he's got not to step back, but he holds his ground and tightens his grip on the knife. Esca says evenly, "So what if I am? Who died and made you Batman?"
"Swear to me that you're not going back in there."
Esca rubs at his face, and groans into his hands. "I'm too damn high for this." Under his breath, he adds, "That was some serious--"
"Swear it!" Marcus demands.
"Fine. Yes, all right, I swear it. I'm done with her, done with party, and as soon as you give me back my father's knife, I'm done with you, you," he gestures confusingly at Marcus. "Muscle bound frat boy."
Marcus turns the knife and offers it to Esca, grip first. "I'm not in a frat. And just because I can't put my leg behind my head--"
"Are we done here?"
Marcus frowns. This is not going the way he meant it to go. Not that he had a good idea of what the hell he meant to happen when he came out here. "You went for a knife. What was I supposed to think?"
Esca narrows his eyes, then lifts the knife to his own throat, and before Marcus can do more than say, "Wait!", he's cutting through a leather cord around his neck. He flings the necklace to the ground, then drops to one knee again, tucking the knife back in his boot. Once he's pulled his pant leg back down again, he looks up at Marcus.
"Oh," Marcus says dumbly.
"Oh," Esca says. He rises once more and runs his hand through his shock of dirty blond hair, then shakes his head ruefully. "You planning on jumping me if I pull out a pack of fags?"
Marcus's eyes go wide. "'Scuse me?"
"Smokes. Cigarettes." Mockingly slow, he reaches into an inner pocket in his jacket and extracts a softsided pack of cigarettes whose warning label takes up much of the front. "Goddamnit," he says, shaking out broken cigarette after broken cigarette. Finally, after a few more curses that Marcus isn't convinced are all in English, he tears the filter off one and then extracts a Zippo from his (almost obscenely tight) jeans and lights it. After spitting out a bit of loose tobacco, he takes a long drag, and tips his head up toward the sky and slowly exhales. He stares at the moon through another drag, and when he looks back at Marcus again, Marcus is absolutely not transfixed by the line of his throat.
"You're still here," Esca says, but he doesn't sound pissed. Instead, it's almost... speculative.
[Note: there are some timing things I'm making up as I go along that might not line up, that'll get fixed if/when I ever finish this and clean it up for proper posting]
Marcus shrugs and tucks his hands in his pockets.
"*Why* are you still here? That is, why did you follow me outside? 've you got an overdeveloped sense of schadenfreude?" When Marcus doesn't answer, he says, "Schadenfreude. That means--"
"I know what schadenfreude means. I'm not stupid just because I'm a jock any more than you're gay just because you're a ballet dancer."
"Touche," Esca says. Then, after a moment, he adds, "That means--"
Marcus gives his shoulder a playful shove and he smiles. Marcus smiles back. "I don't know. You looked upset and I thought you could use someone to... I don't know. I'm a little drunk, and it's getting annoying in there."
"And apparently, you're the self-appointed white knight of this party, protecting any and all slags from their wicked, jealous boyfriends."
He can't help enjoying the things Esca's accent does with the words. "Slag," he imitates. Then he says, "You're not wicked. Just upset. Guys can do stupid shit when they're upset. It's better for everybody if someone stops them before it does to far. 'S just the right thing to do."
"I'm not upset."
"Oh really."
"I should say," Esca says, finishing his cigarette and starting a new one on the end of it. After wiping a little more loose tobacco from his lip, he says, "I'm not surprised. I told her, stupidly, that if she ever pulled this again, I was leaving her."
"Why stupid? That makes sense."
"Stupid because now I've got nowhere to stay, and I'll probably have to drop out of university. But I'm a man of my word." Esca rolls his head, stretching his neck, then laughs. "I should've at least kept the keys, so I could get my shit out of her apartment. Or at least slept there tonight so I can be well rested when I look for a bridge to live under tomorrow." He says the last bit to himself.
"You need somewhere to crash?"
Esca looks up. "Why, you know somewhere?"
"My place."
Esca eyes him dubiously. "This part of your plan to get me back to your frat lair and take advantage of me?"
"What? No! I'd never--"
"Relax. I'm kidding. Besides, I'm not exactly your type."
Still sullen, Marcus says, "What do you know about my type?"
Esca raises an eyebrow. "Touche. That means--"
Marcus gives his shoulder another shove, but he laughs while he does it.
Marcus is still too drunk to trust himself behind the wheel, so he gives the keys to Esca. "Give it half an hour," Esca says. "And I'll be good to drive." They sit in Marcus's housemate's car with the heater on and the radio playing some soft top 40. Marcus dozes almost immediately and wakes up to find Esca watching him.
"Mmph. What're you looking at?"
"Nothing," Esca says quickly. "I need directions."
Marcus taps the GPS box on the dash, programs in his house, then curls up again best he can in the seat and promptly falls back asleep. Then they're pulling in the long driveway and around the back, and Esca's undoing his buckle. "C'mon big guy, let's get you to bed."
"M'fine here."
"Yes, well, you offered me a bed, not a front seat. If I'd wanted to sleep in a car, I could have broken in to one."
"Really?" Marcus yawns as he spills out of the car and takes a tumble onto his hands and knees. He shouldn't have chugged that last cup of punch before he chased Esca outside, it's hitting him hard now. He should've paid closer attention to the bottles of Everclear on the counter.
"Product of my misspent youth," Esca says as he gets an arm under Marcus's and tugs at him.
"Really?"
"No, not really."
"Heh." Marcus lets Esca march him into the house, and when prompted, he points the way to his bedroom, which has an extra bed in it since the second of the aforementioned drunk driving suspensions. His roommate was only suspended from the team, not school, but his parents had sent him to rehab, so for the last month or so, Marcus'd had the room to himself. Esca hauls his legs up onto the bed when Marcus tries falling asleep with his feet still on the floor, and then he starts unlacing his boots.
"It's good, leave 'em."
"I'm not letting you sleep in your boots," Esca says firmly. After he wrestles them off, he gets Marcus's sweater off, working efficiently.
"Now who's taking advantage," Marcus murmurs when Esca starts unbuttoning his jeans.
"You've got mud all over your knees, I'm not letting you dirty up the nice sheets."
"Mmm, kidding. Ah! Cold hands, cold hands." After the jeans hit the floor, Esca grabs a throw from the foot of the bed and spreads it over Marcus. "Besides," Marcus says, "I'm not your type."
"That, and you'd probably beat the shit out of me if I touched your prick."
Several stupid come ons pop into Marcus's brain, but thank god, none of them actually make it to his tongue. Instead, he says, "Marcus Aquilla is nobody's rebound."
Esca just pats his chest, then his warm presence disappears from Marcus's side. "Night, football guy," he says quietly as he gets into the other bed.
Marcus wakes to the smell of pancakes and crawls out of bed in search of the source. In the kitchen, Esca's at the stove, barefoot, in his jeans and a sleeveless undershirt. But what catches Marcus's attention - aside from the arms that Esca's been hiding beneath long sleeved shirts during class - is the fact that their usually biohazard-level disaster area of a kitchen is clean. Drip drying dishes piled on a towel on one half of the table, counters wiped down, sink full of sudsy water and more dishesand from god knows where, Esca has rustled up enough ingredients to make pancakes. "Oh, hey," Esca says over his shoulder. "Morning."
"Wow," Marcus says, rubbing his eyes.
"I figured it was the least I could do, seeing as how generous you were with your hospitality."
"I hope you didn't use the milk in the fridge for those."
"Considering it was a solid and not a liquid, no, I popped round to the store up the street and got a few staples. The Bisquick was expired, but not by much."
The kitchen isn't exactly spotless, but it's cleaner than he can remember seeing it since he moved in. "You didn't have to do all this."
Esca shrugs and slides a few more pancakes onto the stack on a plate. "No trouble at all. Here." He sets a plate at the table then pours a couple glasses of milk and hands one to Marcus.
Marcus clinks their glasses and drinks, then sits and starts in on the pancakes. When he's halfway through, he looks up to find Esca pulling on his sweater from the night before. "You going somewhere?"
"I've got to go pick up my car, clear my things out of her place and figure out my next move. Thanks for the place to crash."
"Whoa, hold up," Marcus says, pushing his chair back with a loud scrape. "You got somewhere to stay?"
"I'll figure something out. Maybe," his shoulders sink, "I don't know. Maybe I'll swallow my pride and see if she'll take me back. I don't know."
"Don't do that."
"My work study job barely covers gas and food on good days. Scholarship covers tuition, but I haven't got a lot of options. I put all my savings into getting a car because she had the apartment covered, and now..."
"We've got a bed here," Marcus says. "All it's doing is holding up my laundry since Carl left."
Esca sticks his hands in his pockets. "I can't pay you rent."
Marcus waves a hand at him. "I was already planning on covering Carl's half of the room for the rest of the semester."
"I can't take your charity," Esca says, more firmly, and it doesn't sound like it's negotiable.
"But you could take hers?"
"That's different. We were sleeping together. You saying I could pay you back in trade?"
Marcus - like the idiot that he is - feels his face heat up when he catches on to exactly what Esca means. But he covers by waggling his eyebrows and saying, "You said it, not me."
"Tempting," Esca says dryly, "But I'll pass." Then his expression softens. "Seriously, though, I appreciate the offer, but I've got a... a certain code that I live by. I'll not be beholden to any man. I can't abide it. I don't expect you to understand. So thank you, and consider the light housekeeping my payment for last night's hospitality."
As Esca turns and heads for the door, Marcus's heart races. He feels like he's going to throw up and sure, part of that's probably the hangover, but it's also the fact that he really, really doesn't want to see Esca go. It makes no sense, because it's not like Marcus hasn't dealt with crushes before. He doesn't even really know this guy, but something fierce and deep in his gut is telling him a) avoid everclear punch at all costs but more importantly b) do not let this guy walk out the door.
Then, all at once, it hits him. "Wait. I've got a proposition."
Esca pauses. He's balancing on one leg, in the process of tugging one of his sneakers onto a sockless foot. "I thought we covered that already."
"Yeah, thanks, I don't really need your half-hearted blowjobs."
"Who says they'd be half-hearted?"
Marcus fights down that lovely mental image. "I do just fine in the getting laid department, believe or not. What I do need help with Is housework. We've tried making a schedule, but it never sticks. You're obviously good at it. What if you took care of the cleaning and I don't know, maybe the laundry, and we call it even."
Luckily, he'd abandoned his coat in the pile beneath the coat tree by the front door, not the one underneath Esca's girlfriend. He snatches up the parka - overkill for the early October air. Marcus pauses on the front porch to get his bearings and peer out at the darkened yard.
There're a couple guys smoking over by the fence, and Marcus catches a skunky whiff of it from all the way up here on the porch, and he spots Esca headed toward them, white coat practically glowing in the moonlight. As Marcus watches, Esca leans against the fence beside them, and for a moment, disappointment grips Marcus. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but if Esca has friends here... but the way the guys' body language is going, they don't seem to know Esca. One of them passes Esca the joint and Esca tilts his face toward the sky as he takes a long drag, tip glowing bright and warm. He passes it, and after several of Marcus's heartbeats, Esca lets out a billowing cloud of smoke.
The guys say something and Esca shakes his head, says something in return. Sounds of sympathy filter over, one of the guys claps Esca's back and passes the joint back. Esca takes another hit, and as he's blowing out the smoke he turns his head and meets Marcus's gaze, as if he knew all along he was being watched. He nods his head for Marcus to come over, and Marcus does, only stumbling once as he performs the difficult task of pulling on his coat while heading down the stairs.
"Football guy, this is--" he gestures for the guys to offer their names.
The shorter of the guys snickers. "I am IT guy, and this is, uh, what do you wanna be?"
"The looove machine," says the guy holding the joint.
"Yeah, try fucked up German porn guy."
"Hey!" says German porn guy. "That was like, two clips. Anyway, so who are you," he asks Esca.
"He's Ballet guy," Marcus offers.
Esca glares at Marcus.
"No shit, man?" IT guy looks Esca up and down, and Esca's relaxed posture shifts to something defensive. Then IT guy and German porn guy nod slowly. IT guy says, "Right on. I bet the chicks love that you're all bendy and shit. Or, like, dudes. Or whatever. It's all good." He glances at German porn guy, "Except that second clip. I don't judge, but that's just wrong man. Two girls one cup is one thing, but--"
"But I mean, at least that wasn't--"
"Yeah," they dissolve in a mass of giggles. When IT guy catches his breath, he holds out the joint to Marcus. "You're cool, Football guy, here."
"Thanks man, but, you know, drug tests."
"Oh, *wow*," says German Porn guy. "I'm so sorry man. That sucks."
Marcus shrugs. "There's always off season."
Someone calls from the porch about a gravity bong, and the two smokers turn in unison. "Later, guys, here," IT guy passes the roach to Esca. "You look like you need it," then he's trotting after the other guy toward the house.
Esca watches them for a moment, then takes a long hit off the little stub, then he tosses it to the grass and grinds it out with his heel. Marcus just stands there watching him, swaying a little, and he asks quietly, "You okay?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah."
"My name's Marcus, by the way. Not football guy."
"Sorry, yeah. I'm just a little," he gestures at his head.
"It's okay. I get it. I don't expect you to remember me, you've probably--"
"I remember you," Esca says, looking up through his lashes. And for a long moment, Marcus's heart stops, because maybe. Then Esca goes down on one knee, and Marcus gasps. But Esca's no longer looking at Marcus, he's looking at the second floor of the house as he pulls a knife from his boot.
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"This doesn't concern you." Esca stares at the second floor window.
Marcus doesn't think, just reacts, lunging for Esca, getting a firm grip on his knife hand wrist and wrestling him into half-nelson on pretty much muscle memory alone. He squeezes hard enough to make Esca cry out as he drops the knife, and for several seconds, they strain against each other, locked in an embrace that Esca tries and fails to break. "It's not worth it," Marcus breathes into his ear. "She's not worth it, man, don't go there."
"Christ," Esca spits out. "Get off me." He slams his head back and Marcus narrowly avoids getting his jaw broken on the back of Esca's skull. "For fuck's sake, you ox, I wasn't going to stab the bitch." He stops struggling for a second.
"You're not going near her with that knife," Marcus says, firmly, because he's seen some good guys do some really stupid shit when they're fucked up and heartbroken. "You got that?"
"Who do you think you are? Who do you think *I* am?" He writhes and twists, nearly slips out of Marcus's grasp.
And Marcus could hold on, he could pin Esca to the ground, but the way Esca's lithe body keep sliding against his own, it's not doing his dick any favors. Or, it is, and that's the problem. He lets go of Esca with a small shove and fetches the knife from the ground before Esca can regain his balance. Then, he holds up both hands. "I don't know, all right. All I know's you're a little fucked up and that happened," he jerks a head at the house, "and then you pulled a knife."
"Give it back," Esca says, straightening his clothes. "Now."
"You gonna do something stupid?"
Esca is a good four or five inches and probably fifty pounds lighter than Marcus, but he steps up toe to toe, lifts his chin and if Marcus didn't have a good ten years of dealing with male posturing, he'd probably be cowed, because Esca is staring him down. Hard. It takes everything he's got not to step back, but he holds his ground and tightens his grip on the knife. Esca says evenly, "So what if I am? Who died and made you Batman?"
"Swear to me that you're not going back in there."
Esca rubs at his face, and groans into his hands. "I'm too damn high for this." Under his breath, he adds, "That was some serious--"
"Swear it!" Marcus demands.
"Fine. Yes, all right, I swear it. I'm done with her, done with party, and as soon as you give me back my father's knife, I'm done with you, you," he gestures confusingly at Marcus. "Muscle bound frat boy."
Marcus turns the knife and offers it to Esca, grip first. "I'm not in a frat. And just because I can't put my leg behind my head--"
"Are we done here?"
Marcus frowns. This is not going the way he meant it to go. Not that he had a good idea of what the hell he meant to happen when he came out here. "You went for a knife. What was I supposed to think?"
Esca narrows his eyes, then lifts the knife to his own throat, and before Marcus can do more than say, "Wait!", he's cutting through a leather cord around his neck. He flings the necklace to the ground, then drops to one knee again, tucking the knife back in his boot. Once he's pulled his pant leg back down again, he looks up at Marcus.
"Oh," Marcus says dumbly.
"Oh," Esca says. He rises once more and runs his hand through his shock of dirty blond hair, then shakes his head ruefully. "You planning on jumping me if I pull out a pack of fags?"
Marcus's eyes go wide. "'Scuse me?"
"Smokes. Cigarettes." Mockingly slow, he reaches into an inner pocket in his jacket and extracts a softsided pack of cigarettes whose warning label takes up much of the front. "Goddamnit," he says, shaking out broken cigarette after broken cigarette. Finally, after a few more curses that Marcus isn't convinced are all in English, he tears the filter off one and then extracts a Zippo from his (almost obscenely tight) jeans and lights it. After spitting out a bit of loose tobacco, he takes a long drag, and tips his head up toward the sky and slowly exhales. He stares at the moon through another drag, and when he looks back at Marcus again, Marcus is absolutely not transfixed by the line of his throat.
"You're still here," Esca says, but he doesn't sound pissed. Instead, it's almost... speculative.
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eep, waiting for more!
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This is weirdly hot even with no sex yet.
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Marcus shrugs and tucks his hands in his pockets.
"*Why* are you still here? That is, why did you follow me outside? 've you got an overdeveloped sense of schadenfreude?" When Marcus doesn't answer, he says, "Schadenfreude. That means--"
"I know what schadenfreude means. I'm not stupid just because I'm a jock any more than you're gay just because you're a ballet dancer."
"Touche," Esca says. Then, after a moment, he adds, "That means--"
Marcus gives his shoulder a playful shove and he smiles. Marcus smiles back. "I don't know. You looked upset and I thought you could use someone to... I don't know. I'm a little drunk, and it's getting annoying in there."
"And apparently, you're the self-appointed white knight of this party, protecting any and all slags from their wicked, jealous boyfriends."
He can't help enjoying the things Esca's accent does with the words. "Slag," he imitates. Then he says, "You're not wicked. Just upset. Guys can do stupid shit when they're upset. It's better for everybody if someone stops them before it does to far. 'S just the right thing to do."
"I'm not upset."
"Oh really."
"I should say," Esca says, finishing his cigarette and starting a new one on the end of it. After wiping a little more loose tobacco from his lip, he says, "I'm not surprised. I told her, stupidly, that if she ever pulled this again, I was leaving her."
"Why stupid? That makes sense."
"Stupid because now I've got nowhere to stay, and I'll probably have to drop out of university. But I'm a man of my word." Esca rolls his head, stretching his neck, then laughs. "I should've at least kept the keys, so I could get my shit out of her apartment. Or at least slept there tonight so I can be well rested when I look for a bridge to live under tomorrow." He says the last bit to himself.
"You need somewhere to crash?"
Esca looks up. "Why, you know somewhere?"
"My place."
Esca eyes him dubiously. "This part of your plan to get me back to your frat lair and take advantage of me?"
"What? No! I'd never--"
"Relax. I'm kidding. Besides, I'm not exactly your type."
Still sullen, Marcus says, "What do you know about my type?"
Esca raises an eyebrow. "Touche. That means--"
Marcus gives his shoulder another shove, but he laughs while he does it.
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Marcus is still too drunk to trust himself behind the wheel, so he gives the keys to Esca. "Give it half an hour," Esca says. "And I'll be good to drive." They sit in Marcus's housemate's car with the heater on and the radio playing some soft top 40. Marcus dozes almost immediately and wakes up to find Esca watching him.
"Mmph. What're you looking at?"
"Nothing," Esca says quickly. "I need directions."
Marcus taps the GPS box on the dash, programs in his house, then curls up again best he can in the seat and promptly falls back asleep. Then they're pulling in the long driveway and around the back, and Esca's undoing his buckle. "C'mon big guy, let's get you to bed."
"M'fine here."
"Yes, well, you offered me a bed, not a front seat. If I'd wanted to sleep in a car, I could have broken in to one."
"Really?" Marcus yawns as he spills out of the car and takes a tumble onto his hands and knees. He shouldn't have chugged that last cup of punch before he chased Esca outside, it's hitting him hard now. He should've paid closer attention to the bottles of Everclear on the counter.
"Product of my misspent youth," Esca says as he gets an arm under Marcus's and tugs at him.
"Really?"
"No, not really."
"Heh." Marcus lets Esca march him into the house, and when prompted, he points the way to his bedroom, which has an extra bed in it since the second of the aforementioned drunk driving suspensions. His roommate was only suspended from the team, not school, but his parents had sent him to rehab, so for the last month or so, Marcus'd had the room to himself. Esca hauls his legs up onto the bed when Marcus tries falling asleep with his feet still on the floor, and then he starts unlacing his boots.
"It's good, leave 'em."
"I'm not letting you sleep in your boots," Esca says firmly. After he wrestles them off, he gets Marcus's sweater off, working efficiently.
"Now who's taking advantage," Marcus murmurs when Esca starts unbuttoning his jeans.
"You've got mud all over your knees, I'm not letting you dirty up the nice sheets."
"Mmm, kidding. Ah! Cold hands, cold hands." After the jeans hit the floor, Esca grabs a throw from the foot of the bed and spreads it over Marcus. "Besides," Marcus says, "I'm not your type."
"That, and you'd probably beat the shit out of me if I touched your prick."
Several stupid come ons pop into Marcus's brain, but thank god, none of them actually make it to his tongue. Instead, he says, "Marcus Aquilla is nobody's rebound."
Esca just pats his chest, then his warm presence disappears from Marcus's side. "Night, football guy," he says quietly as he gets into the other bed.
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Seriously I could sit here and refresh all day!
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"Wow," Marcus says, rubbing his eyes.
"I figured it was the least I could do, seeing as how generous you were with your hospitality."
"I hope you didn't use the milk in the fridge for those."
"Considering it was a solid and not a liquid, no, I popped round to the store up the street and got a few staples. The Bisquick was expired, but not by much."
The kitchen isn't exactly spotless, but it's cleaner than he can remember seeing it since he moved in. "You didn't have to do all this."
Esca shrugs and slides a few more pancakes onto the stack on a plate. "No trouble at all. Here." He sets a plate at the table then pours a couple glasses of milk and hands one to Marcus.
Marcus clinks their glasses and drinks, then sits and starts in on the pancakes. When he's halfway through, he looks up to find Esca pulling on his sweater from the night before. "You going somewhere?"
"I've got to go pick up my car, clear my things out of her place and figure out my next move. Thanks for the place to crash."
"Whoa, hold up," Marcus says, pushing his chair back with a loud scrape. "You got somewhere to stay?"
"I'll figure something out. Maybe," his shoulders sink, "I don't know. Maybe I'll swallow my pride and see if she'll take me back. I don't know."
"Don't do that."
"My work study job barely covers gas and food on good days. Scholarship covers tuition, but I haven't got a lot of options. I put all my savings into getting a car because she had the apartment covered, and now..."
"We've got a bed here," Marcus says. "All it's doing is holding up my laundry since Carl left."
Esca sticks his hands in his pockets. "I can't pay you rent."
Marcus waves a hand at him. "I was already planning on covering Carl's half of the room for the rest of the semester."
"I can't take your charity," Esca says, more firmly, and it doesn't sound like it's negotiable.
"But you could take hers?"
"That's different. We were sleeping together. You saying I could pay you back in trade?"
Marcus - like the idiot that he is - feels his face heat up when he catches on to exactly what Esca means. But he covers by waggling his eyebrows and saying, "You said it, not me."
"Tempting," Esca says dryly, "But I'll pass." Then his expression softens. "Seriously, though, I appreciate the offer, but I've got a... a certain code that I live by. I'll not be beholden to any man. I can't abide it. I don't expect you to understand. So thank you, and consider the light housekeeping my payment for last night's hospitality."
As Esca turns and heads for the door, Marcus's heart races. He feels like he's going to throw up and sure, part of that's probably the hangover, but it's also the fact that he really, really doesn't want to see Esca go. It makes no sense, because it's not like Marcus hasn't dealt with crushes before. He doesn't even really know this guy, but something fierce and deep in his gut is telling him a) avoid everclear punch at all costs but more importantly b) do not let this guy walk out the door.
Then, all at once, it hits him. "Wait. I've got a proposition."
Esca pauses. He's balancing on one leg, in the process of tugging one of his sneakers onto a sockless foot. "I thought we covered that already."
"Yeah, thanks, I don't really need your half-hearted blowjobs."
"Who says they'd be half-hearted?"
Marcus fights down that lovely mental image. "I do just fine in the getting laid department, believe or not. What I do need help with Is housework. We've tried making a schedule, but it never sticks. You're obviously good at it. What if you took care of the cleaning and I don't know, maybe the laundry, and we call it even."
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"Yeah, thanks, I don't really need your half-hearted blowjobs."
"Who says they'd be half-hearted?"
Marcus fights down that lovely mental image.
Don't fight that lovely image. Just let it come. :D
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how wonderful is this
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