The Corruption of Colt Jackson Ch. 08

There are clothes in his closet that don't belong to him. When he'd opened the closet after a bad day of work, Colt had found that half of his closet is filled with Marc's clothing. Further inspection shows that his bureau and a few of the drawers in the bathroom have been reorganized and filled with Marc's things as well. He's fine with that, he supposes. It means Marc will be here even more. Maybe it even means that Marc is moving in.

Maybe he should be upset that he wasn't consulted, but he doesn't have the brain power or the energy for it right now.

Colt will be here more often as well. He was fired from the library today.

His boss's excuse was that they were overstaffed, but the man had let Colt work a full day before dropping the gauntlet and that doesn't sit well with him. On top of that, he got the feeling that there was something his boss wasn't saying. Maybe he noticed Colt had been drunk at work that one day. Maybe...

Whatever. It happened.

It was sudden and unexpected and now Colt has to find another source of income. His cut from playing with the Drunk Wizards isn't enough to live off of.

Colt changes clothes and plops down on his bed, just laying there looking at the ceiling. When he'd gone into work today he'd never imagined that it would be his last day. He knows he was damn lucky to get that job. Most of the library employees have degrees of some sort. Colt has nothing but a love of books. His job prospects now are probably not as fitting for him as the library had been. He'd do whatever it takes though, just like he's always done. He'll figure it out.

He wants to tell someone about it and the only person he thinks of is Marc. Colt grabs his phone and texts him.

Colt: I was fired from the library today.

Marc: They say why?

Colt: Overstaffed. But they haven't hired anyone new in a long time. I don't know, it was confusing.

Marc: Fuck them. I'll be home later.

When he hears the rumble of Marc's car pull up, Colt is in the kitchen cooking dinner. He hears Marc come into the house. Out of his periphery he sees Marc enter the kitchen. He feels one of Marc's arms circle around his waist and pull him back against him. Colt leans back against the other man.

"You alright?" Marc asks, kissing the back of Colt's neck through his wayward locks.

Colt shrugs. "I guess if they were overstaffed, I'm the one without a degree... makes sense."

"Like I said, fuck them. You don't need them."

"I don't need them, but I liked them." Colt answers. "I'll find another job."

"Nah. Give it some time. There's no hurry." The embrace from behind tightens a bit. "I got this. I got you. I got us. Alright? I'll take care of you."

"I... I need to work, not be taken care of."

"Not right now, you don't, Vanilla. Take some time to breathe and do what you wanna do with the band. I'll take care of everything else."

It would be strange not to work. Colt's first job had been throwing news papers into yards when he'd been in junior high. He'd worked every day since then. His dad used to take his money, saying that Colt owed him. Colt was in his junior year of high school when he got smart and started hiding some of his money, a little at a time, until he left after he got his high school diploma. He didn't go to his graduation. No one cared one way or the other. The day his diploma arrived in the mail, he got his stash of money and left without a word. Colt worked odd jobs all the way across the country until he'd wound up here and started building a life. It's a long way from Texas to Jersey.

"I'll just look around without committing to anything yet, alright?"

There's a moment of silence while Marc considers that before he answers. "Alright."

**

"Can't believe you've never done this before." Marc says, watching Colt in profile. "Or maybe I can cause you're so damn vanilla. Never even a cigarette?"

Colt laughs and shakes his head where it's rested on Marc's thigh. They're lounged on the couch and Marc puts the joint to Colt's lips again. Colt takes another drag, the latest of many, and holds it in as Marc has instructed him to do. When he exhales he coughs a bit.

"Not even a cigarette. I'm so vanilla." Even though he's never experienced it until this evening, Colt knows that he's very high right now. The world has mellowed to a wonderfully blurry haze where nothing matters anymore and everything is funny.

"It's not even hardcore drugs. It's just pot." Marc's fingertips gently trace the outline of Colt's features. Colt closes his eyes and just lets himself feel the touch. "You're so damn cute, Vanilla."

Colt smirks. "I don't think it's very manly to be called cute."

"What do you want me to call you?"

"I don't know... handsome. Sexy. You're handsome and sexy. Am I those things?"

Marc is grinning that lopsided grin at Colt when he opens his eyes. "Yeah, you're those things. You're also cute."

Fingers thread their way through Colt's hair. It feels good. Colt loves it when Marc finger-combs his hair and he decides to tell him so. "Your fingers are the best comb."

Marc laughs at him. "What? Say that again."

"I said your fingers comb good." Colt realizes that that sentence isn't correct either. He doesn't care. "I like it."

"I'll remember that."

They lay there in silence for a long time, Colt looking up at Marc and trying to figure out the look on his face. No one's ever looked at him like that before, with absolute adoration, he thinks. The realization that someone likes him that much is profound, and he doesn't think it's the pot making him see and feel things.

"Have you ever been in love?" He asks.

"I thought I had."

"I don't understand."

"Whatever that was it isn't this. This is..." Marc thinks over the words a moment and then nods, twisting one of Colt's locks of hair around his index finger. "This is love."

Colt's stomach twists in a knot of nerves. Marc seems to notice and he puts the blunt to Colt's lips again. After another drag, Colt says, "I'm scared of love."

"Why?"

"My dad said I love you to my mom. I don't want..."

"I get it."

"Do you?"

"Yeah. You don't have to say anything else."

Colt feels a smile tug at the corners of his lips and he settles back into being relaxed again. Being high feels good. Not overthinking things feels good.

"I like you a lot though. I like right now... this moment." His fingertips slide down Marc's abdomen over the shirt he's wearing. "I like this."

He turns to his side and lifts the hem of Marc's shirt, craning his neck to try to peek up at Marc's abs under his shirt.

Marc laughs. "What are you doing? You're high as fuck right now, Vanilla, and I love it."

"I'm trying to see your abs. I know you have them." Colt says, joining in with Marc's laughter. "I wanna see them."

"So do what you gotta do to see them."

There's a challenge in those words and Colt only hesitates a moment before he pushes himself up. He pauses, waiting for the room to catch up with his upright position. Then he moves to straddle Marc, his knees pressing into the old couch cushions on either side of Marc's hips. Colt starts to tug at Marc's shirt, making a mess of it until they're both laughing and Marc helps him get the shirt off.

Colt sets the shirt aside and leans back, sitting on Marc's knees as he takes in the sight before him. Yes, Marc definitely works out, regularly. His fingertips reach out to trace biceps and triceps, up to Marc's collarbones and down to pronounced pectorals and lower to well defined abs.

Colt isn't a wilting flower. He's not a small guy by any means, but Marc makes him look downright dainty.

He's never let himself look at and touch Marc like this. Right now he doesn't think twice about it. Marc said they belong to each other. That means he can touch, right?

"Enjoying yourself?"

Marc's voice brings Colt's gaze back up to meet brown eyes. "You're very pretty."

Marc barks a laugh. "Oh so cute isn't manly but pretty is?"

That makes laughter bubble up inside Colt again as he nods. "I called you pretty."

"I called you cute." Marc fists the neckline of Colt's tee and pulls. "Come here."

Colt is easily pulled in for the kiss Marc is offering him. The kiss is easy. This moment is easy. Everything with Marc is easy right now. Given all the complications leading up to now, Colt can appreciate easy.

On some level Colt had needed this, to separate himself from the complications. Marc seems to have known that Colt needed this.

It's been a week without the work at the library and Colt has been climbing the walls. He's been looking online for job opportunities. He's been out pounding the pavement a few times but nothing has panned out yet. Marc keeps telling him that it's just been a week and to give it time, but Colt wants to work. He wants to be useful. He wants to contribute to his own life, and he supposes Marc's as well since they now seem to be sharing a space.

Today Marc came home with cans of paint and paint brushes, drop cloths and painters tape. He wants Colt to paint the living room. Colt knows that Marc is just trying to give him something to keep him busy. Even so, he's grateful for a project to start on sometime soon.

Marc also came home with a baggie full of weed, which he proceeded to roll and then talk Colt into smoking. After some back and forth, Colt ceded to Marc as he seems to be doing more and more easily as time passes. That's how he landed in his current status of 'high as fuck'.

Whatever he is right now, it's easy to kiss Marc and let Marc kiss him in return. When Marc tugs at his shirt, Colt lifts his arms up and lets the other man pull it off. His hands land back on Marc's brown skin that he vaguely notes is littered with scars of different sizes and shapes. He isn't interested in that right now though, he's interested in feeling the tight muscles in Marc's arms and tasting over the stubble on Marc's jawline, down his neck. He's interested in slipping down off of Marc's lap and flicking his tongue over one taut nipple, teasing it between teeth and lips and then doing the same to the other. He's interested in the way Marc slouches down and spreads his legs a bit and the way it invites Colt's kisses down over hard earned abs. Marc doesn't have much body hair, but there's a thin dusting that starts below his navel and disappears beneath his waistband.

That's where Colt's kisses end and he looks up at Marc to see the other man watching him. Marc pushes his fingers back through Colt's hair and brushes his knuckles over the scruff at Colt's cheek. He re-lights the joint and then leans up to put it to Colt's lips and Colt dutifully smokes.

"You don't have to if you don't want to." Marc says. "But I kinda have a feeling you want to."

Marc doesn't have to say the words for Colt to know what he's talking about. The position he's in is perfect for it and he only belatedly realizes that. Does he want to? He doesn't know. He doesn't want to think right now.

He doesn't think about how his palm slips to Marc's crotch to fondle him over his jeans. Marc is already hard and Colt has a moment to accept that he did that to him, Colt made Marc's body react that way and he likes it.

Colt doesn't ask as he pops the button and pulls the zipper on Marc's jeans. Marc grins lopsidedly at him and nods encouragingly. Colt hooks his fingers in the waistband of Marc's jeans and briefs and pulls when Marc lifts his hips. There's a moment of absolute silliness as Colt fumbles to get them all the way off. He sobers a bit when he looks back up to see Marc sitting there on his couch completely naked. Even Marc's thighs and calves are thick, pure muscle.

Marc Fiarri is so damn sexy right now and Colt doesn't even try to filter his own acknowledgment of that fact. His palm slides up one muscled thigh. "You're mine?"

"Yeah, Vanilla. I'm yours. And you're mine, yeah?"

Colt nods. "I'm yours."

These spoken words are fact, no labels or definitions that Colt isn't ready for.

His lips find the inside of Marc's knee and he kisses. He kisses his way up his thigh and only briefly hesitates before he experimentally licks at the tip of Marc's cock. It tastes salty and sexy. He can do this. He's had it done to him enough to know what should feel good. For awhile he just tastes with his tongue, the tip, around the head, along the underside of him and around that too. Marc doesn't push him and lets him get there at his own pace. Colt is thankful for that.

When he finally takes him in his mouth, Marc is already having to take deep, steadying breaths. Colt splays one palm on Marc's abdomen to feel each rise and fall, each inhale and exhale. Marc's hand rests over that hand, their fingers lacing together. Colt wraps his other hand around the base of Marc's length and begins to lick and suck. It's sloppy at first, his having to figure out a rhythm and become accustomed to the feel of having Marc in his mouth like this.

Colt knows that he's doing it right when Marc finally speaks. "Just like that, Colt. Just like that. You're a natural, baby. That's perfect."

Colt doesn't know if it's perfect, but he feels almost like he's just finished a show and he's floating above everything and everyone. Only this time Marc is right there with him, keeping him steady and safe. Whatever this is, perfect or not, he belongs to Marc and Marc is his and it's going to be okay because Marc Fiarri won't ever let him fall no matter how high they go.