no_sin_but | (no subject)

(no subject)

Marlowe has been many things, but one of the things that people forget is scholar. Student. Oh, yes, the boy wrote plays, but he was Kit Marlowe. He brawled, he snarked, he twisted people around with nothing but words until they believed in no God, he, hell, he even teamed up with another poet to kill a man on record.

But Marlowe, reading? Having a genuine love for words and text and the scent of leather and paper? People forget about that.

For a while, so did he.

Now he's free to indulge, and indulging he is; lying on the bed, eyes and mind intent on nothing but the page in front of him.

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Darren Nichols is not an uncertain man. Darren Nichols hasn't been uncertain about anything since he kissed Johnny Everett under the bleachers and the whole world clicked into one large, happy 'oh. so that's how it's supposed to work.'

But fuck, in the past week he's been rejected by Shakespeare, nearly sold to Satan, tossed around by said person like a ragdoll (and hiding the fact that he's moving gingerly because of it) and generally fucked around with. His perspective is a little warped. His feathers are, as they say, ruffled.

"About that."

"Mmmm?"

"Is it a problem?"

His fingers curl around a really, really old copy of the Hobbit. It has 'Happy Christmas Darren, love Dad' scrawled in the front.

"No."

"Exquisite."

He'd forgotten about this book, actually, it gets thumbed open. A receipt/bookmark falls out.

A lot of these books have strange bookmarks in them. Snapshots, gum wrappers, sticky notes, bits of string... whatever he had in his pockets, or on the table, usually.

"Well, as long as that is settled..."

Darren shrugs, feels a twinge in his shoulder, and smiles despite it.

"Are you wanting to start?"

"Darren, Darren, Darren. You hand me all these books and say that there are as mine...what do you think?

"I'll leave you to it, then."

He pauses,

"And when you're done with them, tuck them somewhere out of the way, or back into the box. We'll swap them out."

"...exactly how many books do you have?"

"I have rooms where the walls are just shelves, Marlowe. Three."

Darren never throws any of them out, is the problem.

"Three?"

"I'll show you."

Whenever he wants.

"Oh, you'd never get me out."

"It's my flat in Montreal. It's where I keep my base, you could say."

He travels out of it. With as many books as he has, and odds and ends, it only makes sense.

"Whenever you feel like a trip to Canada, mention."

"Oh, I will."

Never fear about that.

"Good."

He turns the book over in his hands, and comes to join him, on the other side of the bed.

He could stand to do some reading too.

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