Marc can’t say Solomons is wrong, that he didn’t go in stupidly, blindly, in a way that makes him wonder what he mistook about the job. Was it that he blacked out and missed some key intelligence when Steven had the body? No, that’s impossible. If Steven knew that women and children were among the targets he would have heard it loud and clear at least a dozen times over. It doesn’t really surprise him that Solomons pinpoints that as the true reason Marc didn’t finish it, though it makes him wonder why Solomons thought he was the man for the job in the first place.
Regardless, Marc should have anticipated what the camp would be like, who he would find there. His world has been black and white for too long. Those who walk in the day, those who go undefended through the night, and the creatures that prey on them. Whatever else you could say about Khonshu, he’s never asked Marc to kill children.
He stands bleak and immovable in refusal, not even sure that he would give Solomons a contact after all, at least not without warning them what they were getting into. Marc is willing to be berated however long the man wants but when Solomons seizes him with a hand in his collar he reacts without thinking, grabbing his wrist and making to wrench it aside before the sudden sensation—the full-body, breathtaking jolt of awareness—slams into him and makes him stagger.
Marc knows it too, and so does Steven, blanching within him as the mark on the back of their neck flares to life. He feels suddenly as though Solomons is holding him up, as though Marc needs the grasp on his wrist to keep himself on his feet, staring into the other man’s eyes with his own gaze wide and dismayed. He’s never wanted a soulmate, fuck, he has a wife for God’s sake and that’s a mess enough as it is, but he’s never been able to bring himself to disbelieve the stories either. Not him, something within him thinks, and he’s not sure if it’s his own thought or Steven’s, but he’s in agreement with it. He doesn’t need this. Marc’s got enough voices clamoring in his head, enough claims and debts. His hand loosens and falls away from Solomons’ wrist when the man lets go of his collar, and Marc stands still for a moment as Solomons studies him, smoothing his shirt.
“Me neither.” It’s all he can think to say, and Marc turns, moving a couple of steps away and raising a hand instinctively to the back of his neck. He hates that that’s where the mark is, how discomforting and vulnerable it feels. He wonders what Khonshu will say. The thought of his god calms him a little. He and Steven already belong to someone, there isn’t room for anyone else in their weird little affair, and for once the thought is a reassurance.
“Look. This isn’t gonna work out for either of us, I can tell you that right now. It’ll be better if we forget about it.”
The statement is something of a boon, cutting through the unnecessary protests clamouring for attention in Alfie's head to rile up an age-old instinct to keep Marc exactly where he is. Brushing the man’s hand aside, Alfie clamps his own on the back of Marc’s neck and he grips it tightly as he says, “Yeah, none of that. Mine.” Surprised at himself, Alfie shrugs off the doubts living in the back of his thoughts and adds, “Pipe down on the nonsense, won't you? Finding a soulmate - well, that's meant to be a fucking mitzvah, isn’t it?”
Shaking Marc by the neck as if he’s a particularly unruly dog in need of reprimanding, Alfie thoughtfully rubs his knuckles on his shirt before he slips one of the rings off his fingers. It isn’t necessary for him to look at them for him to know which one to use, his mother may have had shit fucking luck with her own but her family propagated the importance of soulmates for generations before the Russians drove them out and it was her sister that once took the time to properly stress the need for ritual and intent to him, aware perhaps that he's too fucking likely to find himself gutting whichever poor creature is doomed to be tied to him. The ring is an obligation, she'd told him, and Alfie is surprised at how much he's retained of the conversation but that's how things tend to go, isn't it? The ring would have been his mother’s to give away if she’d been lucky enough to be born a man and he now slips it onto Marc’s finger as if he’s a fucking bride at the altar rather than an incredibly fucking mad hired gun that Alfie would be better off allowing to slip off into the fucking night.
Luckily he's a contrary fucking bastard, even concerning his own fucking interests.
He's more appreciative of Marc's physicality when he takes a longer look at him this time around. Not a boy - which Alfie is more than fucking glad for - and strong enough to withstand discomfort and pain, no doubt. The physical strength in the man only makes the wreckage of his mind more interesting, Alfie decides, trying to return to whatever fucking observation had set him to thinking of Marc as unravelling. If anything, he decides, the poor bastard has a fucking need for someone to get him outside his fucking head. “Open your trousers and push them to your knees, there's a good boy.” He breathes and thinks condescension to too large an extent to keep it from his voice. "Have you sucked much cock in your life, pet?"
The way he flinches from Solomons’ hand clamping on the back of his neck is too obvious. His reactions are out of his control, the awareness of the soul-bond assailing him still, like a current that’s torn him from shore and is dragging him under. “Take your hand off of me,” Marc says in a voice tightly leashed, thinking that if another moment passes with the man gripping him tightly over the searing mark and shaking him like a disobedient dog Marc will strike him. He doesn’t, though. Adrenaline rushes through him with nowhere to go, the word mine echoing in his head like a struck bell. Stop interfering, Steven. If you’re doing this, I swear to God—
It isn’t me, Steven insists, and there is something spiraling and frightened in the way he senses his other self, a discord adding to the chaos in Marc’s body and mind. He feels hot and strange, watching Solomons take a goddamned ring off of his finger and put it on his own, with an all-too-familiar feeling of being outside of his body. Except Marc is the one in control right now—isn’t he?
The symbolism of the ring on his finger feels like the jaws of a trap snapping shut. But it’s the longer look Solomons gives him that makes a shudder crawl down Marc’s spine, cold first and then hot. His breathing takes on a ragged edge as Marc stares back at the man and realizes that he hasn’t moved since Solomons put his hand on him, that even with everything in him in recoiling from the idea of a bond like this—he and Steven entirely in agreement, for once—he hasn’t even tried to get out of Solomons’ hold. The condescension in the man’s voice is laid on thick and incredulity twists into Marc at the words, into a snarl of fury, humiliation and a sickening edge of arousal.
Marc. No.
Shut up, Steven.
No, you can’t.
“Shut up,” Marc says again, furiously, realizing a moment later that he’s said it out loud. Fuck, what is he doing? He draws in a breath, trying to steady himself. “I’m trying to tell you, I already belong to someone. It’s not a soulmate, but it doesn’t matter.” Marc thinks for a moment about obeying, baring himself, going to his knees. Feeling nothing other than what the man tells him to feel and his grasp on his neck.
"Not a soulmate," Alfie repeats. "Well, right there is the fucking crux of it, ain't it, because, you see, unfortunately for that poor fucking someone a soulmate bond tends to trump all other fucking bonds."
Preposterously enough, Alfie's enjoying the sheer fucking insanity of the meeting - Christ, he thinks he's even intrigued by whatever fucking voices the man hears inside his head. It makes his words good-humoured and indulgent as he considers the unknown claim on Marc. "I suppose the lack of answer on your part means you'd rather be fucked dry," Alfie states. "That's all right, I'm not all that fond of having my cock sucked. After all, your mouth is really just another fucking hole waiting to be fucked, isn't it?" Part of him is tense with an eagerness to brutalize - not because Marc doesn't care to belong to him, exactly, his interest in hurting the man derives more from the obvious strength corded into the muscle in him than anything else. It has a great deal of appeal, that, the thought of hurting a man in a way he's incapable of being fully prepared to endure.
No, there isn't a fucking question of fucking Marc. Claiming the man demands that Alfie fuck him and he's conscious that settling his claim on Marc now - before the man has time to consider anything else - is the only way to do away with any chance Marc might have of evading Alfie's intent to own him. For all the numerous ways for a soulbond to be accepted, the majority of them tend to veer away from ownership, Alfie knows, the few that go anywhere close to it still stopping sharply short of any real show of force, but it only stands to reason that if it's in Alfie's nature to hurt and possess that it must be in his other half's nature to be owned and taken apart.
Still gripping Marc's neck, Alfie reaches around him to undo his trousers and he jerks them open to draw Marc's cock free, his hand slipping down to cradle Marc's balls and lift them free of that cage of fabric, too. Marc's skin is appealingly hot in his hand - the weight of his testicles heavy against his palm - and Alfie kneads them possessively before he finally lets them go. "If you beg for it, I'll reconsider taking your arse dry," he tells Marc almost fucking cheerfully before he jerks the man's trousers down past his hips. "Taking care of one's possessions has to be another fucking mitzvah, yeah?"
He uses the word to rile Marc up but a possession is more or less what Alfie is leaning towards making of the man. It suits him to own a rabid fucking dog like this one, after all, and if the pretty shudders Marc has been offering since Alfie gripped his neck are any fucking clue then he's sure it more than fucking suits Marc to be a used piece of chattel.
“It doesn’t trump this one.” But beneath the smothered anger in his voice Marc is aware of a creeping unease, the absence of Khonshu’s voice—his presence, his power—coming as an unpleasant, unwelcome surprise in the heat of the moment. He’d have expected the demented old god to be here by now, urging Marc to kill this asshole, flooding fury and vengeance into his veins until his eyes light up bright with them. Marc, what are you doing? Steven asks desperately and Marc knows he’s expected it too. They’re not meant to belong to any soul-bond, and if Marc had ever wanted a soulmate it wouldn’t be one like Solomons, who clearly intends to take his claim on Marc out in his flesh like he’s some sort of bridal sacrifice, and with great fucking relish too.
Terror grips in him at the words Alfie speaks so cheerfully about fucking him dry, but there’s a distance between him and the panic of pure emotion and Marc is certain the greater part of it isn’t his. He’s already compartmentalizing, some part of him calm and resolute about enduring what Solomons intends to do, since it seems his body won’t fight back, and then leaving it behind him just like he’s left everything else that hurt. He can’t, Marc, he can’t do this to you, you can’t let him hurt you, Steven is saying and Marc cuts him off, determined not to let him be a part of this.
Go away, right now. Go away, shut your eyes and go to sleep. You cannot handle this.
While he’s dealing with that he’s aware of Solomons still gripping him by the neck like he’s an animal to be held by the scruff as he reaches around him to undo his trousers, and then Solomons’ hand on his cock, jerking Marc out of his own head with a gasp. He shudders as the man cups his balls and kneads them, the edge of roughness an unwilling counterpoint to the cold shrinking sensation within him, his cock feeling heavy and hot. “You’re a real sick fuck, aren’t you?” he says to the other man, fury in the words, clenched between his teeth. Solomons offering to let him beg not to be fucked dry twist into him as he turns his head towards the man. “Why don't you shove your mitzvah up your ass instead?"
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-05-07 11:26 am (UTC)Regardless, Marc should have anticipated what the camp would be like, who he would find there. His world has been black and white for too long. Those who walk in the day, those who go undefended through the night, and the creatures that prey on them. Whatever else you could say about Khonshu, he’s never asked Marc to kill children.
He stands bleak and immovable in refusal, not even sure that he would give Solomons a contact after all, at least not without warning them what they were getting into. Marc is willing to be berated however long the man wants but when Solomons seizes him with a hand in his collar he reacts without thinking, grabbing his wrist and making to wrench it aside before the sudden sensation—the full-body, breathtaking jolt of awareness—slams into him and makes him stagger.
Marc knows it too, and so does Steven, blanching within him as the mark on the back of their neck flares to life. He feels suddenly as though Solomons is holding him up, as though Marc needs the grasp on his wrist to keep himself on his feet, staring into the other man’s eyes with his own gaze wide and dismayed. He’s never wanted a soulmate, fuck, he has a wife for God’s sake and that’s a mess enough as it is, but he’s never been able to bring himself to disbelieve the stories either. Not him, something within him thinks, and he’s not sure if it’s his own thought or Steven’s, but he’s in agreement with it. He doesn’t need this. Marc’s got enough voices clamoring in his head, enough claims and debts. His hand loosens and falls away from Solomons’ wrist when the man lets go of his collar, and Marc stands still for a moment as Solomons studies him, smoothing his shirt.
“Me neither.” It’s all he can think to say, and Marc turns, moving a couple of steps away and raising a hand instinctively to the back of his neck. He hates that that’s where the mark is, how discomforting and vulnerable it feels. He wonders what Khonshu will say. The thought of his god calms him a little. He and Steven already belong to someone, there isn’t room for anyone else in their weird little affair, and for once the thought is a reassurance.
“Look. This isn’t gonna work out for either of us, I can tell you that right now. It’ll be better if we forget about it.”
no subject
Date: 2022-05-07 08:31 pm (UTC)Shaking Marc by the neck as if he’s a particularly unruly dog in need of reprimanding, Alfie thoughtfully rubs his knuckles on his shirt before he slips one of the rings off his fingers. It isn’t necessary for him to look at them for him to know which one to use, his mother may have had shit fucking luck with her own but her family propagated the importance of soulmates for generations before the Russians drove them out and it was her sister that once took the time to properly stress the need for ritual and intent to him, aware perhaps that he's too fucking likely to find himself gutting whichever poor creature is doomed to be tied to him. The ring is an obligation, she'd told him, and Alfie is surprised at how much he's retained of the conversation but that's how things tend to go, isn't it? The ring would have been his mother’s to give away if she’d been lucky enough to be born a man and he now slips it onto Marc’s finger as if he’s a fucking bride at the altar rather than an incredibly fucking mad hired gun that Alfie would be better off allowing to slip off into the fucking night.
Luckily he's a contrary fucking bastard, even concerning his own fucking interests.
He's more appreciative of Marc's physicality when he takes a longer look at him this time around. Not a boy - which Alfie is more than fucking glad for - and strong enough to withstand discomfort and pain, no doubt. The physical strength in the man only makes the wreckage of his mind more interesting, Alfie decides, trying to return to whatever fucking observation had set him to thinking of Marc as unravelling. If anything, he decides, the poor bastard has a fucking need for someone to get him outside his fucking head. “Open your trousers and push them to your knees, there's a good boy.” He breathes and thinks condescension to too large an extent to keep it from his voice. "Have you sucked much cock in your life, pet?"
no subject
Date: 2022-05-07 09:18 pm (UTC)It isn’t me, Steven insists, and there is something spiraling and frightened in the way he senses his other self, a discord adding to the chaos in Marc’s body and mind. He feels hot and strange, watching Solomons take a goddamned ring off of his finger and put it on his own, with an all-too-familiar feeling of being outside of his body. Except Marc is the one in control right now—isn’t he?
The symbolism of the ring on his finger feels like the jaws of a trap snapping shut. But it’s the longer look Solomons gives him that makes a shudder crawl down Marc’s spine, cold first and then hot. His breathing takes on a ragged edge as Marc stares back at the man and realizes that he hasn’t moved since Solomons put his hand on him, that even with everything in him in recoiling from the idea of a bond like this—he and Steven entirely in agreement, for once—he hasn’t even tried to get out of Solomons’ hold. The condescension in the man’s voice is laid on thick and incredulity twists into Marc at the words, into a snarl of fury, humiliation and a sickening edge of arousal.
Marc. No.
Shut up, Steven.
No, you can’t.
“Shut up,” Marc says again, furiously, realizing a moment later that he’s said it out loud. Fuck, what is he doing? He draws in a breath, trying to steady himself. “I’m trying to tell you, I already belong to someone. It’s not a soulmate, but it doesn’t matter.” Marc thinks for a moment about obeying, baring himself, going to his knees. Feeling nothing other than what the man tells him to feel and his grasp on his neck.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-07 11:42 pm (UTC)Preposterously enough, Alfie's enjoying the sheer fucking insanity of the meeting - Christ, he thinks he's even intrigued by whatever fucking voices the man hears inside his head. It makes his words good-humoured and indulgent as he considers the unknown claim on Marc. "I suppose the lack of answer on your part means you'd rather be fucked dry," Alfie states. "That's all right, I'm not all that fond of having my cock sucked. After all, your mouth is really just another fucking hole waiting to be fucked, isn't it?" Part of him is tense with an eagerness to brutalize - not because Marc doesn't care to belong to him, exactly, his interest in hurting the man derives more from the obvious strength corded into the muscle in him than anything else. It has a great deal of appeal, that, the thought of hurting a man in a way he's incapable of being fully prepared to endure.
No, there isn't a fucking question of fucking Marc. Claiming the man demands that Alfie fuck him and he's conscious that settling his claim on Marc now - before the man has time to consider anything else - is the only way to do away with any chance Marc might have of evading Alfie's intent to own him. For all the numerous ways for a soulbond to be accepted, the majority of them tend to veer away from ownership, Alfie knows, the few that go anywhere close to it still stopping sharply short of any real show of force, but it only stands to reason that if it's in Alfie's nature to hurt and possess that it must be in his other half's nature to be owned and taken apart.
Still gripping Marc's neck, Alfie reaches around him to undo his trousers and he jerks them open to draw Marc's cock free, his hand slipping down to cradle Marc's balls and lift them free of that cage of fabric, too. Marc's skin is appealingly hot in his hand - the weight of his testicles heavy against his palm - and Alfie kneads them possessively before he finally lets them go. "If you beg for it, I'll reconsider taking your arse dry," he tells Marc almost fucking cheerfully before he jerks the man's trousers down past his hips. "Taking care of one's possessions has to be another fucking mitzvah, yeah?"
He uses the word to rile Marc up but a possession is more or less what Alfie is leaning towards making of the man. It suits him to own a rabid fucking dog like this one, after all, and if the pretty shudders Marc has been offering since Alfie gripped his neck are any fucking clue then he's sure it more than fucking suits Marc to be a used piece of chattel.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-08 12:33 am (UTC)Terror grips in him at the words Alfie speaks so cheerfully about fucking him dry, but there’s a distance between him and the panic of pure emotion and Marc is certain the greater part of it isn’t his. He’s already compartmentalizing, some part of him calm and resolute about enduring what Solomons intends to do, since it seems his body won’t fight back, and then leaving it behind him just like he’s left everything else that hurt. He can’t, Marc, he can’t do this to you, you can’t let him hurt you, Steven is saying and Marc cuts him off, determined not to let him be a part of this.
Go away, right now. Go away, shut your eyes and go to sleep. You cannot handle this.
While he’s dealing with that he’s aware of Solomons still gripping him by the neck like he’s an animal to be held by the scruff as he reaches around him to undo his trousers, and then Solomons’ hand on his cock, jerking Marc out of his own head with a gasp. He shudders as the man cups his balls and kneads them, the edge of roughness an unwilling counterpoint to the cold shrinking sensation within him, his cock feeling heavy and hot. “You’re a real sick fuck, aren’t you?” he says to the other man, fury in the words, clenched between his teeth. Solomons offering to let him beg not to be fucked dry twist into him as he turns his head towards the man. “Why don't you shove your mitzvah up your ass instead?"