not my characters or rivalries. short and "blunt and cold"
"I need you." Oliver says quietly when they are both silent for almost hours next to each other, Oliver on his smooth stomach and Flint on his rough back. Marcus pretends to be asleep. He's never seen the sunrise and this up and out and in and back and here and there thing is making him tired all the time.
Showing no signs of life, Oliver asks if he's heard him.
Marcus remembers several things before thinking of answering.
He remembers that he and Oliver, for one, have never held hands. And never will. They'll never be together, because even if Marcus may have told him that one time that he loved him, it was only because, well, Oliver's mouth was on his cock and he was lost and warm and his head was tipped so far back at that angle, and things just spill out like that.
Even if he meant it, which he couldn't have, Marcus only loves in a possessive, rude and overbearing way. He'd outshine Oliver the best he could even though he was so much duller, so much less than him. And Oliver would let him. Every time.
He thinks the worst part could be that he'll never feel guilty for it. Not once. Oliver will let him stretch and bend and break him, again and again, until one of them gets sick or bored of it- or, until Marcus gets bored with it. Because Wood uses reasoning and logic and, oh, affection or something golden and useless like that to sort things out, and Marcus is blunt and cold.
He imagines the fights they could have, oh- they'd be talked about. The bruises would be much more forgiving than the insults. And no matter how much he'd rip apart those little slivers of Wood, he'd come back to him, apologizing even, for not having come back sooner. It was the curious thing about little heroes, Wood especially. Maybe he thought he could change Marcus, wear away his callous temperament like the tide, kiss him into a world where your family always offers love and your friends are not solely for competition or bragging rights. The thing was, Marcus knew that no matter how much wearing away Oliver did, there was nothing soft left underneath.
Instead, when Oliver leaned up on his elbows and asked a third time, eyes wide and waiting, Well?
He doesn't waste the energy to lean up and look at him. "No, you don't."
Marcus rolls onto his side.