Paint/Electric


The temperature had soared over the weekend, from touching on warm to pavement melting. Marco felt, much like his poor driveway, sticky with sweat and as if his skin was trying its best to itself burn off his flesh. Even at only ten in the morning. It was not a good feeling. However, with hot weather did come the more than pleasant side effect of Jean, his long term best friend and recently acquired boyfriend, feeling the need to strip off his t-shirts. All the time.

Marco was stretched out flat on top of the hammock at the shaded end of Jean's small garden, watching shamelessly from behind mirrored sunglasses as the young man lugged multiple drums of paint from inside the house out into the sunshine. A veritable storm of grunts and swearwords spilt from Jean's lips curved Marco's own into a wry smile as he contemplated helping his boyfriend, then decided that drooling over the way Jean's back and upper arm muscles flexed as he bent over to pick said paint cans up was a much more effective use of his time.

Jean had decided in a fit of spontaneity that his house "was boring as fuck and even goddamn peeling" and "needed to be brightened up", so had promptly dragged Marco into various home-ware stores attempting to find cheap house paint. When the four drums of a pale green paint had turned up in the corner of the garden section, under some broken tarpaulins and a net, Jean hadn't been able to resist the lure of low prices and bought them all. Frustrated at Jean for buying quite so much paint, Marco had left Jean to do all the work himself, and was perfectly happy watching from his hammock.

The drums were a considerable size, at least 2 foot high and just as wide. Marco spluttered with laughter as Jean wrenched the lid off each drum with a crowbar and was splattered every time with green paint all over his bare chest and legs. He didn't even flinch by the final drum. Instead, he just grinned at Marco and waved, instantly making Marco suspicious. But he just turned back to the brick wall, picking up the roller from the floor and dipping it into the first drum before beginning to paint. Marco relaxed.

Hours passed quickly, and the humidity in the air rose.

And rose.

And rose.

By three in the afternoon the temperature was almost unbearable for Marco, who had stripped down to his boxers the previous hour in an attempt to cool down. Jean was still painting in matching attire. He had done the whole wall, except for a small patch at the top which he found that no matter how much he stretched, he couldn't reach. The ladder was at its tallest point, he had opened out the roller pole as far as it opened and he was balanced on precarious tiptoes, roller just about held with his fingertips. All he needed was an extra inch or two. He knew exactly where he could find them, but asking Marco to move now would require a special kind of persuasion. Jean could do that kind.

"Heeeeeey, Marco babe," he drawled, "How're you doing down there? Feelin' okay?" He dropped the roller onto the grass below and slunk down the ladder, rolling his spine in a way he knew Marco loved as he did so.

Marco raised his eyebrows at the sight of Jean's shoulder blades tightening and stretching under the sun-kissed skin. "Fine, if a bit hot. Are you done yet?"

Jean reached the bottom of the ladder and leant on the side with one arm resting oh-so-casually above his head, the other playing with the waistband of his shorts. Still covered in tacky paint, he lowered his eyelids and smirked. "Babe, can't I have a break to appreciate the lovely weather with my gorgeous boyfriend?"

"You never answered my question." Marco looked over the rims of his sunglasses from where they had slipped a little down the bridge of his nose.

"And?"

"So, that's a no then, you aren't done."

Jean pouted, then pushed off the ladder and sauntered over to Marco, who had discarded his sunglasses and was looking more than a little red in the face. (It wasn't sunburn.) With green fingers, he brushed a path from Marco's bottom lip to the centre of his chest in a slow, suggestive motion, feeling the snag of his lip and the hitch in his breath when Jean flattened his palm and licked his own lips with a dry tongue. He peeled it off, smiling crookedly at the green mark left behind: a hand print brand that said, Jean's.

"Couldn't you help me?" Jean crooned, "I'll make it up to you, promise."

Marco swallowed. "Yeah... Yeah alright. I'll help."

On a sudden impulse, Jean lunged forward and kissed Marco with parted lips, eyes closed and hands flying up to grasp at his shoulders (he could feel the paint smearing across freckled skin and smiled into the kiss at the thought). Marco swore softly against his mouth and tugged on Jean's lower lip, sending a shock wave through to his core. They pulled apart and Jean's eyelids fluttered open, taking in the ardent hunger blazing through Marc's dark eyes with a mix of amusment and elation.

"Okay, yeah," he mused, "I'll give you a reason now instead. Alright with you?"

Marco huffed out a laugh and shot upright, dragging Jean across the grass towards the house.

"More than, Jean, more than."


AN - Day 2 of JeanMarco week. This one is... yeah. I like this one.