Chapter Text
Will Shakespeare didn’t hate people. Neither in general, nor in particular. He was a pacifist. He made friends with the ones he liked and avoided those whose worldview he disagreed with. Therefore, even the snottiest, most obnoxiously privileged I-am-the-Prince-of-Wales’-seventh-degree-nephew-dandiprat in Will’s direct surroundings at Cambridge University usually never got anything more than polite disinterest out of him.
But then, of course, there was Christopher Marlowe.
And Will hated Christopher Marlowe with a burning passion.
At first glance Marlowe was as clean-cut as they came: Rich, arrogant and an all-around bastard – which really didn’t set him apart from most of the other students. He bestowed his consideration exclusively on people who could further his future career, treated everybody else like particularly dense air and moved about the place like he owned it. Again, nothing really special there. But he had something about him that really ticked Will off.
And it had taken him an embarrassingly long while to figure out what exactly that something was. Three whole months, to be precise.
In the beginning he had suspected it to be the fact that Marlowe dressed like a Dorian-Grey-remake for the 21st century, with his silk suits and his flowy blond hair and his pouty lips, as if to say not only straight people must adore me. That was a reason to be angry at him, particularly for a not-so-secretly bi guy like Will, who hated to see somebody so shamelessly abuse the aesthetic of a society-changing movement he most likely didn’t even know existed. That interpretation of Will’s uncharacteristic disfavour had soon died, however, when he’d spotted Marlowe reading The Importance of Being Earnest during lunch break one day, eyebrows drawn together in concentration; which had, for some reason, made him like the guy even less.
Will’s next theory had circled around the fact that Marlowe had an intensely irritating circle of people around him at all times, there exclusively for making googly-eyes at him like a herd of brain-amputated sheep. Marlowe read some self-written poetry to them on occasion, and one time Will had actually listened in, hoping that whatever Marlowe was writing was so god-awful that the deeper parts of Will’s subconscious would finally decide that hating someone like him was really not worth wasting any intellectual prowess on. To Will’s chagrin, Marlowe’s writing had turned out to be quite solid. Better than solid, in fact; and the hatred had only grown stronger.
Later, rather than sooner, Will had figured that it wasn’t the herd of fan-people that pissed him off about Marlowe, either. Queens’ college had its fair share of little elite cliques with corresponding fandom movements, and none of that had ever bothered him.
In the end he had, quite desperately, asked his best friend Alice for her two cents. She had suggested that Will might simply be jealous of Marlowe’s looks, brains and talents like every other guy in college; and Will had gladly run with this theory for a while. Until, one day in American literature class, while zoning out of a dramatic reading of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, something in Will’s head had finally clicked into place:
Marlowe was not a vapid bloke.
He was clever, witty, talented and resourceful and seemed to genuinely like books and languages. And Will could actually see himself hanging out with this guy, under different circumstances. Meaning, under circumstances in which Marlowe was not an absolute prick, like every other average I’m-in-spot-159-for-succession-to-the-throne-pillock in this college. Marlowe had potential as a person, and he was wasting it. That was the problem.
Will had told Alice about his epiphany later, and her answer had, unsatisfyingly, consisted in a questioning tilt of her head and a “Why do you give a flying fuck about his so-called wasted potential? He’s not exactly your friend, in fact you actively dislike him, so why should that be any of your business? Just let him live, Willie-boy. He lets you live, too.”
“He treats all of us like we don’t exist.”
“Exactly. He lets us live.”
And that exchange still bugged Will to no end. Mostly because Alice was, of course, right. It was so unlike Will to be angry at somebody for living their life, even if it was a life he disagreed with. Why couldn’t he stop fixating on Marlowe so much?
Things came to a bit of a head a few days later when they had to choose topics for the essays they were going to write over the next six weeks, and Marlowe outright stole the one Will had been looking forward to tackling for ages. Will could have sworn he looked smug when his hand shot up just that fragment of a second earlier than Will’s, securing him Religious Themes in Oscar Wilde’s Poems, and leaving Will with The Symbolism Of Flowers in William Wordsworth’s Poetry.
Will allowed himself a look of disdain in Marlowe’s direction, right then. To his absolute shock, he found Marlowe looking back at him, one eyebrow raised.
***
“Let me repeat that: He raised an eyebrow at you after he got the essay he knew you wanted. And now you think he’s out to get you, so your hatred is finally justified?”
“Precisely!” Will looked at Alice with a triumphant expression. She took another piece of toast and started buttering it with a shake of her head.
“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.”
“How is it absurd? I was resting assured that he doesn’t even know I exist, and then he gives me that look after he took the Wilde-essay away from me. That’s no coincidence.”
“But did he know you wanted this essay that much?”
“For him not to know that, he would have had to be absent from class for the first half of this semester. Which he wasn’t.”
Alice sighed and looked up from her accurately buttered toast. “I still think you’re overanalysing things. Maybe he just really loves Oscar Wilde. Or, well, maybe he did want to be a dick. But for him to want to be a dick to you in particular? The reason eludes me.”
“Maybe he knows how much I don’t like him,” Will gave back, and took a spoonful of porridge. “And this is revenge.”
Alice rolled her eyes at him. “You’re such a drama queen.”
“Right there with the best of ‘em.” He smiled around his mouthful of porridge, and Alice snorted, trying hard to hide her amused expression.
That was when Richard slid in next to Will at the table with a gleam in his eye that spelled trouble.
“Morning, Will. Sister, dearest.”
“Brother, dearest.” Alice surveyed Richard poignantly. “What is it you’re dying to tell us? Cause I can see that there’s something.”
Richard grinned and produced two silvery paper straps, not too unlike those one might get upon entering a club, proving a paid entry fee.
“Walsingham is throwing a party at his house. Tonight.”
Thomas Walsingham was one of the few students at Cambridge who’d have to kill less than 30 people to become King of England. He had his own terrifyingly expensive house in Bateman Street and frequented the university buildings only for the sake of socialising. Will had seen him and Marlowe hang out with each other a few times, which almost made too much sense, really.
“There’s a party at Walsingham’s house every other week,” Alice said, unimpressed.
“Sure there is,” Richard said. “But for this one, I got you tickets.” He bowed forward on the table, whispering. “They say he has a champagne fountain and strippers.”
Will huffed. “Thank you, Richard, for bestowing this honour on us. But why would we go stand around in a room full of people we don’t have anything in common with?”
“Curiosity?” Richard suggested. “Oh, don’t be a spoilsport, Will. Molly and I are going, too. And why not at least take a look at the high society in their natural habitat. When will we ever get to do that again? And get hammered on their expenses?”
Will caught Alice’s gaze and made a silent plea with his eyes, but he saw that her brother’s speech was already having an effect.
“Well,” she said. “I mean, it sounds like it could be fun. If we don’t like it, we can leave early. And I do like champagne.” She smiled at Will. “Oh, come on. For once I actually agree with my brother: Why shouldn’t we do a high-society safari?”
“I’m going to regret this,” Will said.
“Sure you are! That’s the point!” Richard gave him a pat on the back. “Very good. Botanic Gardens, then. Ten pm. And dress accordingly!”
He was already sliding out of his sitting position when Alice stopped him.
“Richard, where exactly did you get these?” She pointed at the silvery paper straps. “We’re not going to get in trouble, because you stole them or something. Right?”
Richard clutched his chest in a dramatic gesture. “I would never!” He grinned. “Apparently about ten of Walsingham’s friends couldn’t make it tonight, so Marlowe passed their tickets to me. Said Thomas didn’t have better use for them, and I looked like I might enjoy a good party.”
“Marlowe?” Will said, incredulous. “Just like that?”
Richard smiled. “Yeah. Just like that.”
***
“Stop being so paranoid. They couldn’t use the tickets for themselves so they gave them to the masses. Nothing new about that.”
“I’m just saying. Have you seen The Riot Club?”
Alice rolled her eyes and kept pulling him along, behind Molly and Richard who were both in a brilliant mood, chatting away and not paying attention to them.
“What do you think is going to happen, Will? A public flogging of the lower classes? The Red Death? Just stop. Fussing. We’re fine. And thanks to Molly, we actually look the part.”
That, indeed, was true. Molly, Richard’s girlfriend, had a staggering and wonderful talent for pulling jewels out of haystacks. Or, to be more precise, for pulling first-class pieces of clothing out of unremarkable second-hand-shops. Since she was a passionate seamstress, too, she spent her free time modifying them into unique items, and Alice and Will had been lucky enough that she had offered to help them out with their dress choices for the evening.
Alice was wearing a short, deep-blue velvet dress with a shimmering, see-through stole Molly had found somewhere in her endless stacks of clothing; and Will had one of his few black suit jackets on, that Molly had swiftly modified with a row of glittering gems on one of the lapels, and a turquoise dress handkerchief in the breast pocket. It looked extravagant, and Will was surprised by how much he liked it.
“We do look the part,” he admitted, just when they reached Walsingham’s house. They could hear the roaring basses of the music even from across the street, and blue-pink light was flashing through the windows on the ground floor.
“The neighbours tolerate this every weekend?” Alice said, nervously looking at the other houses in the row, all quiet, dark windows.
“Of course they do, sweetie,” Molly retorted. “Walsingham’s father owns half the street. He forced everybody who complained out. Or so I’ve heard.”
“Way of making yourself likeable,” Will murmured.
“Let’s go!” Richard put an arm around Molly’s waist and pulled her along. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Off to the public flogging then,” Alice added, her tone somewhat less assured than just a few minutes ago, and Will took her hand and squeezed it.
“They’ll never take us alive,” he whispered, and Alice managed a smile.
***
Will needed air. Desperately. The heat and noise of about fifty dancing, talking, kissing people in every corner of the house was suffocating, and since Alice, Molly and Richard weren’t seeing sense, all of them deeply immersed in a conversation with some theology student called Rob, Will decided to go about it alone. He soon spotted a glass door, right behind the champagne fountain and the scantily-clad, dancing women next to it, that looked like it might be the pathway to a garden of some kind. To Will’s relief it opened without problem, leading him into a walled patch of grass with a small fountain at its centre, surrounded by flowerbeds and blooming bushes.
Stepping out, he was much too busy dragging the sweet, cool night air into his lungs to take note of the man sitting on the edge of the fountain.
“Have you already gotten started on Wordsworth?”
The glowing tip of a cigarette threw shadows on cheekbones that might just as well have been cut from marble and illuminated a hand with too many silver rings on it. Will froze.
“I must say, Oscar did write a whole lot about religion, but I don’t think it’s necessarily very…how do I phrase this…catholic.” Christopher Marlowe grinned around his cigarette in a dastardly manner. “Smoke?”
Oh, that was just Will’s luck. Great.
“I don’t.”
Marlowe frowned. “Liar. Come, have a cigarette.”
Will felt a slight discomfort in his stomach; precursors of the too-familiar anger associated with Marlowe’s presence.
“What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“I was merely offering you a cigarette.”
“No. You were gloating.”
Will hoped the sharp words might annoy Marlowe enough to insult him. They didn’t. He merely chuckled. “Maybe. A little. You really wanted that Wilde-essay, didn’t you?”
“I’m not going to talk to you about this.”
Will noticed that he should have underlined his sentence with something more final. Like, actually walking away, for example. Instead he was still standing around, unable to stop staring at Marlowe who was smoking his cigarette in the smuggest way possible.
“I’m getting the not-so-subtle impression that you don’t like me,” Marlowe finally said, conversationally.
“You would be right.”
“Would you care to tell me why?”
“Because you’re an arrogant pillock.”
Marlowe tilted his head, and Will could feel more words aching to break out of him, words that might finally crash through Marlowe’s collected façade and wipe that disinterested smirk right off his face.
“You just assume people should kiss your pompous arse, because you’re rich and good-looking and write solid poetry. You take things away from people, because you can, all the while bathing in your money and notoriety, thinking you’re better than everybody else. Basically, you’re behaving like any other ignorant, detestable, run-of-the-mill Cambridge prick.”
The smirk had, indeed, slipped off of Marlowe’s face, which gave Will a modicum of satisfaction; but what he didn’t see coming was Marlowe’s reply.
“I’m not the first, nor, by far, the last person at this school who fits that description. Why do you care so much?”
It was almost the same question Alice had asked Will only days earlier, but it caught him completely by surprise out of Marlowe’s mouth.
“Because you’re someone I could like, otherwise.”
The moment he’d spoken the sentence, Will felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on him. He hadn’t just said that. He really, really hadn’t just- Oh God.
He was waiting for laughter. He was waiting for ridicule. But Marlowe surprised him. His hand started making a slow tapping motion on the edge of the fountain, right next to him. An invitation. Will moved over, slowly and unsure of what he was doing.
As soon as he had sat down next to Marlowe on the stone basin he could feel eyes carefully looking him up and down. The smoke of Marlowe’s cigarette invaded his nose, and something else beneath it, too, spices, earth and alcohol. Is this what he smells like?
“Will Shakespeare,” Marlowe said, curious, and Will shuddered a little. He actually knew his name. Another surprise. “I thought you were one of those commie pseudo-intellectuals who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about and only get to go to Cambridge so Labour stays put.” Will was already about to open his mouth to object harshly, before Marlowe added: “That was, of course, before I read your poems.”
Will gaped. The fact that he wrote his own poetry was not common knowledge. Far from it, in fact. All his poems, novel-length-stories and plays were being posted anonymously on his blog, World = Stage, and nobody except Alice, Richard and Will’s mother (who had all been sworn to absolute secrecy) knew that that blog was his.
“How did you…?”
Marlowe exhaled smoke with a sly grin. “I won’t disclose my sources, so don’t ask.”
“But-“
“I could hardly believe they were yours, I must admit. But my informants are never wrong, and they were very clear on this one. You’re behind World = Stage.” Marlowe paused. “I love your work.” He said it matter-of-factly, without much emotion, like it was a given, like the fact that Christopher Marlowe, arrogant pillock par-excellence, liked Will’s poetry and wasn’t too proud to admit it was the most usual thing in the universe.
“You…liked my writing?” Will repeated, still thunderstruck.
Marlowe rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like a codfish out of the pond. You know you’re a great writer.” There was a small edge of defiance in Marlowe’s voice, and for a moment Will felt something almost close to fondness burgeoning inside him.
“The reason no man knows; let it suffice, what we behold is censured by our eyes. Where both deliberate, the love is slight: Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?” he quoted some of the lines he’d caught at Marlowe’s poetry reading.
The look on Marlowe’s face told Will that he’d taken him by surprise. He couldn’t stop a small smile from tugging at his lips.
“When I like a line, I usually remember it,” he explained. “And I liked yours.” In a fit of boldness, he added. “Do you actually believe it? What you wrote there?”
Marlowe huffed. “If we’re getting into the deep questions now, without actually having sorted the easy ones first, will you at least do me one favour and have a cigarette? I hate it when people don’t smoke around me. Makes me feel like that one, bitter, 38-year-old single woman at the fourth wedding in a row, silently praying for death.”
“You’re going to get it, sooner or later. Lung cancer or heart attack, take your pick.”
“Oh, please,” Marlowe said and handed Will a cigarette out of a silver-plated etui and a fancy lighter of the same material with an engraved C.K.M. on the cap. “You forgot strokes, mouth cancer, leukaemia and impotence as viable causes of death by smoking.”
“Impotence is not a cause of death.”
“It certainly is to me,” Marlowe gave back. “If that ever happens, give me a shotgun and I’ll finish the job myself.”
“Very Cobain. Missing the heroin, of course.”
“Heroin? That’s a brilliant idea. I’ll add it to the registry of my future vices.”
Will had finally lit his cigarette and dragged the smoke into his lungs, revelling in the rush of nicotine to his system. He hadn’t had one in far too long. The thought brought something to his mind.
“How did you know I smoke? On occasion, mind you.”
Marlowe blinked at him. “What?”
“You asked me to have a cigarette with you earlier and when I said I don’t smoke you called me a liar. How come?”
“Shot in the dark. Good one, though.” Marlowe sent Will a smile, a small one, but it looked honest, not tinged with sarcasm for once; and Will had to admit that Marlowe looked even more beautiful like this. Smiling.
“Now that I’m smoking…” he began, distracting himself from such unhelpful thoughts.
Marlowe sighed. “Yes. You asked me a difficult question. Listen, Will: A real artist creates beautiful things and puts nothing of his own life into them.”
“Are you quoting Velvet Goldmine at me?”
“Figures you’re one of the twenty people who’ve actually seen that film.” Another one of those miniscule smiles in Will’s direction. “I’m trying to follow the directive, though. I never write about myself, always about other people. And it just never works out. Some piece of me tends to get lodged somewhere, like an ugly big splinter of wood behind a fingernail. The rest of the world doesn’t see it, but I do. And it pisses me off.”
Will laughed. “Seriously? It pisses you off that you’re in your own poems? I know nobody who doesn’t put at least a bit of themselves into their stuff. It’s par for the course. It makes your writing quintessentially yours.”
“I couldn’t give half a fuck about quintessentially mine. I want my writing pure, unadulterated. Not filtered through the perspective of a jaded, twenty-four-year-old nicotine-addict with too much money and time on his hands. I want to be who I write, while I write them, whoever they are. They’re supposed to be transformative. That’s why I don’t want me in there. Do you see how frustrating it is, when you then look at your work and find that you’ve ended up with some abstraction of yourself, again? Drives me up the wall.”
Will lowered the hand holding his cigarette and started playing with the lighter that he was still clutching in the other, in search for a good answer.
“The people I write about always have parts of me in them. Different ones, in different compositions, but I can’t just – step out of my writing. It never really bothered me.”
“Of course it didn’t,” Marlowe retorted. “It wouldn’t bother me, either, if my writing was that fucking good.”
Will felt himself turn a little red. He had expected many things from this conversation, but being abundantly complimented by Marlowe certainly hadn’t been one of them.
“What inspires you, Will?”
“Hm?”
“Every writer has a pattern, we just don’t like to talk about it. When do you write your best stuff?” Marlowe’s eyes were gleaming with blatant interest.
“Could be any day of the week, to be honest. I get an idea in my head, I need to write it down. Maybe I’ve heard a particularly well-phrased sentence, caught an unfamiliar scent, listened to an interesting conversation. It just happens, really. Nothing special.”
“Nothing special?” Marlowe’s hand was a sudden presence on Will’s forearm, squeezing. “Are you crazy? Do you know how many artists would kill for that sort of inspiration? I, for one, have to work myself into an inspirational delirium before I’m getting anywhere.”
“Inspirational delirium?” Will inquired, trying to ignore the warmth of Marlowe’s hand that was insistently pressing through the sleeve of his suit jacket. It frightened him a little how normal it felt to have Marlowe touch him like this.
“Oh, the usual. Drugs, nicotine, alcohol, sex. It works on musicians, I figured it must work on me as well.”
“Seems to, going by your poetry. Even though I have to admit that it doesn’t exactly sound healthy.”
Marlowe dropped his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it with the heel of a very polished, very expensive-looking leather boot. His hand left Will’s arm in the process.
“We’re all dying anyway. And who needs health when you’ve got a reputation,” Marlowe quipped.
“Yeah, right. And Alice tells me I’m overly dramatic.” Will took another drag of his cigarette. “She clearly hasn’t met you.”
“Alice – are we talking about the blonde you’re hanging out with every day?”
“Alice Burbage, yes. You know her brother. Gave him tickets for tonight.”
Recognition flashed up in Marlowe’s eyes. “Richard! Of course. Lousy poker player, daft bastard and the least complicated person I know.” It didn’t sound like a compliment, but it wasn’t exactly an insult either – more like a factual description.
Marlowe pulled another cigarette out of his etui. “Are you sleeping with her?”
The question caught Will flat-footed.
“What?”
“I’m asking whether you’re having regular sexual intercourse with Alice Burbage. It’s a yes or no question, in case you were confused.” Marlowe’s face had taken on an almost obnoxiously self-satisfied expression.
“I…no…I – we were drunk, and it wasn’t… That’s personal!”
Marlowe made a pacifying gesture with his hands, and Will realised that he had gotten up without meaning to, the tell-tale heat of embarrassment in his face.
“Calm down. Drunk, best friends, a comfortable bed nearby; honestly, who hasn’t? Also, you were the one who started with the deep questions, so don’t you put that on me.”
“That was about writing. Two completely different things,” Will murmured and sat down again, sheepishly.
“Are they, though? I think sex and writing have a lot in common. Could you hand me my lighter for a second?” His gaze swept over Will’s upper body, then down to his hand in a seemingly casual manner and Will’s mouth went a little dry when he handed Marlowe the lighter he had forgotten he was still holding. This was not a turn he had seen this conversation take… But honestly, he hadn’t seen a great many things happening this evening. It might be better to content himself with the fact that he was caught in a conversation with an extremely unpredictable man, and just let it go.
“I’m dying to hear your deliberations,” he said with a sigh, while Marlowe clicked the lighter open.
“Of course you are.” He took the first drag of his fresh cigarette and let out the smoke with something akin to a purr. “With both sex and writing, when it’s good, you lose yourself in the act. And while you write with a pen on paper and a keyboard on computer pages, you also write with fingers and lips on another person. Sex can be an art, you know?”
Looking at Marlowe’s smoke-swirled form, the curling of his blond hair on the expensive fabric of his suit jacket, the wistful expression in his eyes and the sinful line of his mouth curving heavenwards, Will didn’t doubt it for a second.
That was when he noticed the scent of the smoke streaming from Marlowe’s cigarette, a lot stronger and sweeter than tobacco.
“Are you smoking marijuana?” he asked, unable to keep the touch of indignation from his voice.
Marlowe chuckled. “I’ve never heard anybody call it marijuana. Not even coppers.” He gave Will a heavy-lidded smile that made his knees grow a little weak. “I usually spike one or two of the cigarettes I carry. Keeps things interesting.”
Will looked down at his own cigarette. “You mean…this one could have been spiked as well?!”
“Relax. It’s not exactly Russian Roulette.”
Will got up, throwing the butt of his cigarette on the ground and stomping on it with more aggression than absolutely necessary.
“Leaving already?” Marlowe asked. “Don’t care for another cigarette? I’m happy to offer.”
Will huffed. “Well, what’s going to be in the next one? Crack cocaine? Methamphetamine?”
Marlowe rolled his eyes. He looked terrifyingly elegant, sitting there on the edge of the fountain in his dark red suit, thin legs crossed, face lit sparsely through the windows, blue eyes partially obscured by the smoke he was blowing out. “Do you think me that dense? I would never carry anything with me that could get me in genuine trouble.” Without warning he got up, and made two short steps towards Will, until he came to a halt right inside Will’s personal space. His face was too close and his warm breath reached the side of Will’s mouth, and Will knew he should move, but it felt like he had been hypnotised, unable to take his eyes away from Marlowe’s.
“Also, I hate crack, believe it or not. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.”
“You have?” Will said and it sounded a lot more timid than he would have liked it to.
“Of course. It’s in my cabinet, and the print says I’ve been on crack once. Everybody gets one these days. It’s the hip new thing.” Marlowe grinned and Will finally came to his senses, taking a measured step back.
“You are so full of shit, Marlowe.”
Marlowe spread his hands in an almost apologetic gesture. “Oh, please, call me Kit.”
“Only if you don’t call me Will. That’s reserved for my friends.”
“Pity. I’ll have to think of a different name for you then. Suggestions?”
“I should have gotten out of here ten minutes ago,” Will murmured, half to himself, turning towards the glass door he had come through.
“No, that’s a bit too long,” Marlowe retorted behind him. “I think I’ll go with William.”
Will sighed and turned back to him. “Fine. Call me William, if you must.”
“Very well, William. Do believe me, I would never have made you smoke anything you weren’t prepared for. I mark my special cigarettes with an X up on the filter. Smoking weed in study pauses can be very counterproductive. I like to avoid it.”
Will looked at him, blinking, while it sunk in how stupid he had been behaving for the past minute. “Well, you could have told me, before I drew any conclusions.” It sounded sulky more than defensive, and Will immediately felt his face heat up.
“If you’d let me,” Marlowe gave back, with surprisingly little venom. He was stepping towards Will yet again, but this time he stopped at a respectful distance, taking another pull from his cigarette.
Will swallowed. “At least…you could have been less vague.”
“Have you truly never smoked weed, William?” Marlowe asked, completely passing over Will’s embarrassment, which gave Will a chance to collect himself that he was very grateful for.
“Of course I have,” he finally answered. “I’m friends with Richard, have you already forgotten?”
That made Marlowe laugh out loud. “Oh, how unobservant of me. I’m officially asking, then: Do you want some?”
This was, most likely, a very, very bad idea. But Marlowe was looking directly at Will with no traces of dishonesty whatsoever in his clear blue gaze, and Will felt a small sting in his stomach, telling him that he might have been a little unfair towards Marlowe to begin with, judging him by what he thought he knew about him. He usually prided himself on his lack of prejudice, but it had completely failed him with Marlowe. Not once now, but twice.
“In fact…I could use some,” he said, and Marlowe whipped out his etui with a smile, the half smoked weed-cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, and started rummaging through its contents, obviously in search for an X on a filter.
“Mh. A shade early. I have only the one.” He closed the etui again. “Care to share?”
Marlowe removed the cigarette from his mouth and held it out towards Will, who took it without further consideration, following Marlowe back to the fountain and sitting down, before he took his first hit. The next few minutes went by in silence, cigarette passing between them, and after a while Will slowly felt the tension seep out of his muscles.
“I’m sorry for, you know…for taking you for…,” he began.
“Somebody who might drug you?”
“Yes. That.” Will was unsure whether to say it, but the words still bubbled over his lips, partially prompted by the spicy, sweet smoke in his system. “That was…unfair to assume. Even though there are a few other things I assumed about you that I was definitely right about, you’re in fact pompous and arrogant and capricious, and you can really fuck with people, if you want to, but you’re also kind of…not superficial and intelligent and you have very good hair, and-” Jesus fuck, stop fucking talking, you deranged idiot.
Silence fell for a moment.
“Capricious. That’s a wonderful word,” Marlowe finally said, exhaling smoke. “You’re well advised not to trust people who might drug you, William. Never hurts to be careful. And though I, myself, consider it reprehensible to resort to such practices…” He halted, and Will lifted his eyes to look at him, where he found him looking back with an intensity in his gaze that sent Will’s insides into a heated downward twirl. “…I’m not exactly known for my noble intentions, either,” Marlowe ended. His eyes swept over Will’s form, a lot less casually than before; and then he raised the cigarette he was holding and shot the glowing remains a rather critical look. “Almost gone.”
“You can have the rest,” Will said. His voice sounded weird to his own ears, throatier than he was used to, and he swallowed hard.
Marlowe smiled, somewhat wickedly. “I have a better idea. Breathe in.” Will didn’t understand immediately what he was on about, all his thoughts muddled by blue eyes and smoke and that smile, while Marlowe took the last drag from their shared cigarette. He bowed forward, his long, cool fingers a sudden presence at Will’s cheek, and Will’s stomach lurched, when the penny finally dropped. He opened his mouth against Marlowe’s like a reflex, breathing the smoke deep into his lungs, while their lips connected in an electric tangle, three-four-five seconds, Marlowe’s tongue a hot, sweeping presence at Will’s lower lip; and Will wanted more, wanted to kiss him, really kiss him, bite at his lip and leave marks on his pale, untarred neck, until he’d shiver and beg him for more.
But Will had to breathe out, sooner or later, smoke welling from between his lips, Marlowe’s touch leaving his cheek, and the moment was over.
And then Alice’s voice cut through the air like a hot knife.
“What the hell are you doing here? We were looking for you all over the house!”
Will’s heart sank rapidly. She was standing in the glass door, staring at him with a mix of shock and disgust in her eyes, and Marlowe gave a small, amused laugh.
“Smoking,” he said, like he was stating something very obvious. “It’s like breathing. Only more interesting.”
Alice huffed, and Marlowe got up. “I’ll leave you to it. Miss Burbage. William.” With a small flick of his wrist he threw something gleaming at Will, that landed in his lap. Marlowe’s silver lighter. “In case you need to light any more cigarettes tonight. I want it back, though. Tomorrow. You know where to find me.” He politely stepped around Alice in front of the door, ignoring her glare.
“See you, Kit,” Will said, on a whim, and though Marlowe didn’t turn around anymore, Will saw him stop for a second, inside the doorframe, before he left in the direction of the champagne fountain.