thingpuncher | OPEN / OVERFLOW.

"Babe in the woods. Jesus. Is that — yeah, I don't think that's flattering, darling." But Marcus is laughing, hands at Midnighter's hips. Usually — insofar as there's a usually — he's constantly on guard against appearing particularly inexperienced. It's too complicated, and it's too much not what people want. He doesn't lie, but he certainly doesn't advertise. He doesn't make jokes about it. Until now, apparently.

Turns out he just needed a portal, maybe. Maybe everything about Midnighter is bizarre enough that Marcus can't really be bothered being coy about something as tedious as a lack of experience.

"God, you're lovely," he murmurs, appreciating the show with a slow, dirty kind of smile before he slots his body against Midnighter's. That's new, a whole new sensation with the water slicking up their skin — another first, he hasn't done this in a shower before. His hips roll forwards, hand slides down between them. "Can I...?" Fingers slipping through the rough trail of hair beneath Midnighter's navel.

"Fuck, God, yes." Why would you even ask? But Midnighter can guess, now that he's caught that tiny hint of insecurity, and he wonders if it's like- no, no, he wouldn't call himself insecure, it's just that he worries.

He worries about things that separate him from other people, and he wonders if being a priest (or having been one, as Marcus had adamantly pointed out as though Midnighter had been teasing him and wasn't just generally ignorant that a priest was something you could stop being, like an Olympic athlete or a murderous freak) separates you from people, too. He doesn't know enough about religion to guess, but he remembers the shock on his friend's faces when he'd mentioned, off hand and not particularly paying attention, that he'd fucked a priest. He'd figured that was some kind of accolade, like sleeping with a firefighter or a JLA member, but... he thinks he gets it now.

"Priests- they don't have sex, do they?" He says it with genuine curiosity, the thought clearly never having occurred to him before. And then he realizes that's probably not a wise thing to say when someone's hand is about to wrap around your cock, and goes awkwardly still.

"I mean, I hadn't- Shit." He closes his eyes, hangs his head. "I didn't know that."

Marcus has just wrapped his fingers about him, just started to feel him out — and then Midnighter comes out with priests don't have sex and he freezes along with him.

"You didn't know that."

Awkward in kind, stiff and suddenly uncomfortable, he takes his hand off Midnighter's cock, puts it — he doesn't know where to put it. He plants it on Midnighter's chest before he can think better of it. "What did you think I — yeah. No. It's not — don't panic, I ain't a total blushing virgin, just." It's a near thing. It's a really near thing. It feels that way, anyway. He sighs, says, "I thought you knew. Wasn't trying to keep it from you. Jesus — sorry. Should've...should've explained."

"All the priests in the homeless shelters were married, so I thought-" He shrugs one shoulder, head turned to the side to avoid Marcus' gaze. Yeah, he fucked this one up. He's usually more circumspect, he just gets excited when he figures something out, some missing piece that explained the situation, the feeling of rightness that comes with it when he finally understands the world around him just that tiny bit better.

Apparently it's enough that he just muttered a word that always makes sure you don't get laid. Homeless. He's not ashamed, but he generally goes for euphemisms if he can help it, simply because it puts other people at ease. Shit, shit, he really fucked this one up.

He'll be damned if he lets that insecurity shine through, though. Instead, he forces himself to look back at Marcus, forces the rigidity out of his shoulders. The smile on his face is easy. "Don't worry about it," he says. "My fuckup, not yours. Don't know things. Doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother you."

Midnighter opts to leave out whether he's talking about his lack of memories or Marcus' lack of experience.

"Yeah. What was it, Salvation Army? Different sort of priests," Marcus sighs, "different rules. Those ones are pricks, actually." Talking, as usual, to buy himself time — now that the conversation's taken this turn, he feels jarred out of rhythm. Can't quite settle back into their easy back-and-forth. His hands slide up over Midnighter's chest, settling close to him. That's better, he can do that, can breathe and relax better like that. He leans their foreheads together.

"You can ask," he murmurs. "You can ask, whatever doesn't make sense. I never shut up, might as well put it to good use. Probably bore you to tears. But you can ask." He rubs the back of his knuckles against Midnighter's cheek. "Didn't know you were on the streets." That's sounds like he's gawking, so he winces, explains: "Ain't had a fixed abode in...uh, since I was in my twenties, I guess." Jesus, he thinks, that's more than half his life he's spent drifting, then. No, not drifting. Travelling, working. "It's a choice, these days." He leaves the it wasn't always out. Messy, that, and obvious. He shrugs, not sure why he's saying it, just that it would be strange to leave it.

They're going to waste it. The water, yeah, but also the moment. Things were good until he fucked it up. The idea wedges under his skin like shrapnel or a hollowpoint, and he can't get it out of his mind. He fucked it up, of course he did, it was good, and then he spooked him.

In a rare moment of instinct, Midnighter moves quickly to catch Marcus in a kiss, fast and deep, biting at his lip before he lets go. "Fuck the past," It's the most romantic thing he can think to say, and that's genuine. Midnighter likes romance, is half the problem in his life lately. He pulls Marcus closer for another heavy kiss. "I want you now."

It's the kind of shit that would sweep Midnighter off his feet, that's for damn sure. His plan is to overwhelm Marcus until he can't think about how strange and inexplicable and unsexy Midnighter is.

The kiss is too quick, the sudden attempt to swing back around to sex too jarring. Marcus' heart swoops and he can't tell if it's romance or an oncoming anxiety attack. "You — hey," he says, snappish, stark, decidedly still on his feet. He plants his hands on his chest again, again pushing to indicate what he wants rather than to actually move Midnighter around.

"Don't. Don't say stuff like that to distract me, it ain't — you don't need to. Don't need to do that."

I want you now, God — he's been bored in a lot of motels, read a lot of left-behind paperbacks with lurid covers. Fuck the past, I want you now — no one says that. Right? At the very least, no one would say it to him, not in seriousness, not genuinely. Midnighter's throwing up a smokescreen, and fuck it, he can hide all he wants, but not behind that. Not behind grand romantic bullshit, because Marcus — Marcus wants that far too much.

He fucked it up again, fuck, fuck. He's not sure where he slipped up. That kind of shit works pretty often? He's left blinking in open confusion, and more hideous embarrassment rises up in him, and all he can think is you're wasting it.

But it's already gone, isn't it? Time to stop pretending.

He reaches over to turn the shower's nozzle, and the spray of water sags before stopping completely. They're left wet and stuffed into a box slightly too small for two grown men while the showerhead dribbles on echoing metal.

"What'd I do?" It's maybe a little more openly vulnerable than he likes, but when he's fucked up this consistently, he always figures his partners deserve the benefit of his doubts.

"Just — " God. Here's the guilt, familiar, stabbing up under his ribcage: he should just shut up and enjoy it, he should just take what he can get, shouldn't ask for more.

Marcus shakes his head, steps back. "You don't need to flatter me into — it's fine. I put my fucking foot in it, that's all. It happens. You don't need to lay it on thick out of — secondhand embarrassment, or." Or pity. He gestures sharply, eyes avoiding Midnighter's "Or whatever. Alright?"

Talking isn't helping, he realises suddenly. It usually helps. Now he's just winding himself up further, frustrated and unable to think clearly.

Midnighter stares, and then there's a feeling that isn't remotely new. Ah, guilt, a constant since Andrew, since before Andrew.

"I wasn't trying to-" He looks down, hair hanging off his scalp in wet streaks. When he looks back up, his face is nothing but raw determination. "I don't do that shit. Fucking-" He'll say the word, then. He thinks he could almost hear it. "I don't do pity. We're all freaks. Who the fuck would I be to judge you."

He realizes that he's started to loom. Old habit. He's a creature of violence, but this is a bad look. Midnighter takes a step back, folds his arms, turns his head away; it's more of a pout than he wants it to be, more than he realizes.

"You didn't do anything wrong. Fucking a robot, remember?" And then he does look back to Marcus, and it's with that same sharp smile, but something in his eyes is less cunning and more self-effacing. "Bad programming."

"So you meant — " Marcus cuts himself off, folding his arms and gripping tight. It's cold without the water, goosebumps prickling on his skin. He's still wearing his boxers, soaked through and clinging uncomfortably. He feels ridiculous. But that expression on Midnighter's face, pure deliberate determination — that makes him pause, makes him stop. He's not sure he's ever seen someone put so much visible effort into offering him reassurance.

He sighs, unlaces his arms, and reaches carefully to push Midnighter's wet hair back off his forehead. "My programming ain't so great either. Reckon this one is between us." But he doesn't want to linger on whose fault it is. Gentle, still careful, his thumb tracks Midnighter's brow, his right cheekbone. "Everything else in my life, I know how to do. Everything else in my life I'm very bloody good at, maybe the best, have been for years. I'm...I ain't good at not being good at things." He's not quite apologising — doesn't want to get into a spiral of sorrys. But he wants Midnighter to know where he's coming from. Can't say why, only that he does. He steps back, but it's with a jerk of his head, beckoning. "C'mon. I'm cold. Bed?"

"Yeah, I know that feeling. Only programmed for one thing," he says with a low sigh. He pecks a kiss to the side of Marcus' mouth, and an unsteady smile returns to his face. They've settled back into something good, he thinks. Maybe understanding is better than anything else.

He's never been with someone he immediately empathises with so much. Not since- he doesn't want to think about that right now. Focus on the good.

"Still gotta scrub the blood off. I'll be out soon. Warm you up, huh?"

Small kiss, quiet agreement, understanding: Marcus closes his eyes, tries not to melt too easy, but it's pointless. He smiles. "Yeah. Alright. My hero."

And a little space, that's good too. He gets out of the shower, skins off his underwear and snags a towel. It's strange to have company: usually he's alone in motel rooms like this. The noise of another person moving around makes it seem almost homely, even if the room is really anything but.

He's not sure what to do. It's probably not alright to just listen and get sappy about having Midnighter in his space. He sits down, tugs at the string that holds the St Benedict's medal about his wrist, fidgets with it, and promptly has to get up again to start pacing. Breathe. God, if he could just stop being so jumpy. It's mortifying.

If Marcus is watching, he'll notice the light under the bathroom door as Midnighter opened a portal to his apartment and threw his shit through it. There are a few smears of purple on the floor, which Midnighter, having no clue about cleaning services, diligently wiped up with a towel and folded neatly in a corner.

So maybe he's nervous, too.

Midnighter wanders out not much later, a few spare butterfly band-aids patched over various scratches on his face and collar. A towel covers his waist, cutting off a scattering of bruises all along his chest and sides. He's clean, though, no more purple ooze, and his smile, while jagged and sharp, is increasingly more genuine. He flops down in the bed, regardless of where Marcus is. He looks up, curious.

"What's on your wrist? Is that an ex-priest thing, too?" Marcus said he could ask, and he wants things to settle back into comfort, and he's starting to get the sense that Marcus talks to alleviate stress. The opposite of Midnighter, but he can run with it. He can run with most things.

Marcus is over by the window, but he's attentive the moment Midnighter comes out of the bathroom, smiles at the bedsprings complain noisily under his weight. "Yeah. Kind of."

He comes over, comes to sit beside him — shows him the medal. It's a small, tarnished metal circle, not particularly eye-catching, with the figure of a bearded, halo'ed man on one side and a cross with lettering on the back. "St Benedict's medal. It's like a...charm, I guess, you can think of it that way. Protection against demons."

Midnighter touches it very gently, looking it over, committing it to memory. He did the same for Andrew's obsession with Greek mythology, for Jason's love of pop art, for all the alcohol in Al's Masse. He likes knowing the things that people he likes like.

"Saints are good people," he says, because he knows that much. It's from the idiom-- you're a saint. He never knew that was a religion thing. He figured it was just a general word for 'good'.

"I ended up back on Earth when I was... seventeen, probably. No memory of anything. I don't know where I'm from or who my parents are. 'Nother alien abduction. Anyway, when I escaped, I learned a lot by watching, but I never got close to the religious stuff. Some of the shelters were run by priests, and they'd make me pray to get shit which, fuck, I didn't mind, but they thought I was mocking them when I did it wrong or didn't know who Jesus was, so I mostly started avoiding those ones. Not really needing to eat or sleep helped."

He says it all gently, softly. Marcus can probably fill in the blanks, anyway. He senses a tenderness between them, and he wants to let it grow, even if it doesn't grow hot and sharp with lust. He likes this man, regardless of what they do or don't in bed.

The explanation of Midnighter's early life makes Marcus frown, but he holds himself back, recognising he's not being asked for poor yous. Instead he nods, slow. "Yeah. I hate that crap. Holding food and shelter back until someone pays lipservice to God, that ain't right."

He leans into him a bit, surprised by how careful he is with the medal. It makes him smile, makes his heart pick up. Not in a bad way. "I mostly just — wander. When I was younger, I ran away a few times, from a few different places." He offers it in the spirit of a trade: tit for tat.

Midnighter not needing to eat, not needing to sleep, that reminds him of something. Marcus pinches his lower lip between his teeth a moment, remembering how as a younger man he'd prayed for that sort of thing. He'd had this fantasy where after an exorcism he wouldn't stumble and wind down like a broken toy, like he always does; he'd dream of just carrying on, miracle after miracle after miracle and maybe at a certain point he'd never have to stay still ever again. No more resting, no more sleeping, no more feeling, no more wasting time. Being a person was too cluttered and complicated: he'd asked, over and over, to be better than that. Less flawed, less human. God had never answered him, and now Marcus knows it was for good reason.

He wonders how Midnighter gets a bit of peace. If he ever gets a bit of peace. He settles in closer and murmurs, "Seen you eat. You ever, I dunno, sleep for fun?"

"Didn't bother me. Didn't know what praying was. Now, that's lipservice." He shrugs, trying to lighten the mood and show his lack of offense.

He wants to ask why Marcus ran away-- having a home always seemed nice, even if Andrew's was awful and Matt's was fake and Jason's is apparently full of people who want him to get a 'real job'-- but he recognizes a change of subject when he sees one. He follows along

"Sometimes. I need to sleep to heal, y'know. If I get fucked up enough, I can be out for days, and I can get tired and shit. But it's like anything, if you're not tired, you don't sleep, and it so happens I get tired at an extremely reduced rate compared to real people; can go months without it. Used to pretend to sleep when I was in hostels and shit, y'know, to blend in. Got old fast. But dreaming's nice."

He speaks while running a thumb over the edge of Marcus' metal in a steady, reverent pattern. He doesn't understand how it feels to put so much faith in something you can't see, but that makes it more fascinating, more real, when he sees it in others.

Midnighter’s earnest attention to the medal has Marcus pressing a smile into his shoulder, turning his hand up to twine their fingers together. “Not tired? What’s that?” Dumb joke, teeth a bit too much on show. He thinks he’s hilarious, whatever. He leans back, urges Midnighter to come lie down with him.

Compared to real people, Midnighter says, offhand as anything. It makes Marcus’ heart positively crumble. He wants to grab him and fuss over him with don’t say that, you’re just fine, you’re a person, being very bloody weird doesn’t disqualify you, no one should say you ain’t, stop it. He swallows that down and settles for a wry smile as he tugs him down with him. “C’mere, darling. You feel pretty real.”

"Darling, huh?" Midnighter lets himself be pushed around, lazy in contentment and the idle satisfaction of having eased over that particular rough patch. They're both weird. He can live with that. "You wanna make sure about that? Feel around, just to double check."

"Darling," Marcus agrees happily, doubling down. "Said what I said. And yeah, lemme just — mmhmm." Down, down, down. He settles on his side facing Midnighter, hooks their ankles together and runs a hand up and down the other man's side. He likes how solid Midnighter is, but what he likes even more is how happy he is to be touched, how he accepts and invites and shows off. Marcus' fingers skim the edge of the towel a few times before he slides his fingertips beneath to feel out the jut of Midnighter's hip.

"Yeah," he says, faux-solemn. "So, I ain't a doctor or anything, don't take this as an official diagnosis, but — yeah, you seem pretty real. If I had money, I'd bet on it."

Midnighter hisses when fingertips grace the fold of his towel, his hips canting up just slightly. It is for show, but Midnighter's never had shame about his wants. He turns on the bed, moving closer, pulling Marcus further into his orbit. Putting his hands on Marcus' ass. "Better make it a thorough inspection."

That gets Marcus' straight face cracking. He laughs right up against Midnighter's neck, a warm rush of air: "I'm beginning to think you don't know what a doctor does, either." He topples them like they're tussling so that he's atop Midnighter, fingers of one hand gripping his thigh, the other bracing beside his head, and then he settles so that he can kiss him: means to keep it sweet, careful, doesn't quite manage it. It turns long, rolls deeper as his hips dip, push — but that's not great, the towels are damp and chafing, so he laughs to break the kiss and, after a moment of hesitation he unwinds the towel from Midnighter's hips. Careful, pleased — slow because this is new, yes, but also slow because he doesn't want to rush it. There's a pleasure in drawing it out.

"You're a bloody...bloody flirt." Fond, happy, a bit breathless. "You, uh, you wanna know what I thought, when you stepped through that portal?" Since he's already embarrassed himself, and in an unpleasant, close-to-the-bone way, he might as well keep sharing, spill some sweeter private thoughts to smooth things over.

"I know how sexy doctors work," he says with a grin. Marcus is smiling, laughing? That's all that matters, especially after his earlier fuckup. "I've watched lots of internet videos for extensive research- hey, why are you the only one that gets a show?" He paws at Marcus' hips, the towel there, but won't pull it off without permission.

But then he senses the vulnerability in Marcus' voice, and that's always a precious thing, when people trust Midnighter-- the killer, the sociopath, the fighting robot-- enough to bear their throat. He listens, attentive, eyes wide. "Alien abduction? 'M sorry if I spooked you."

"Nah." He sees that attention in Midnighter's eyes, likes it, but shakes his head. Nudges the tips of their noses together a moment. "No, not that. Didn't scare me. Not for longer than a second, anyway, not proper-scared. I know proper-scared." His hand slides to where Midnighter is tugging questioningly at his towel, guides him to pull it away: here, it's fine, go for it. If he keeps talking while he does it it's easier.

"No. I mean, you look fucking terrifying in that get-up and that alien stuff smells awful, but. Wasn't scared, wasn't put off. Once it clicked, I thought — oh, right, work clothes. And it's flattering that he's covered in blood, cos what does that mean? Means he's come right over. Not a second to lose." The towel falls to the side, and he settles low against Midnighter again, mouth coming to his jaw. Kissing between words, between little playful scrapes of his teeth. "So that's a story, I guess, about — my priorities. And how glad I am that you're here."

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fuckin. the corniest exchange ever. love it.

two men who only know how romance works from watching movies.........

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