Palm against palm, fingers curled around another, a thumb stroking across skin; It happens, it is very much real, their skin touching and soaking up each other's warmth - oh god, and the way Steven looks at him here? His gaze flicking back and forth between their subtle embrace of digits and his own eyes...?
Listen, Marc has done way less innocent stuff in his life. He'd been married once, for fucks sake - and that included getting real, real close and intimate with another person, going far beyond simple hand-holding. Yet this moment feels as if he's burning alive, so much more intense than it should; Perhaps it has to do with... well, with it happening between them - between Marc and Steven. Two men who once were so close on a level that no one else could ever reach, for them to now be here and... reach out again, once separated.
This is Steven, and Steven does things to Marc. Has done things to him many months ago. Years, even. Things that Marc dreamed about sometimes, things that he would've never considered to ever become real - perhaps they won't, still - but... this? It's already so much more than what his brain is able to handle, with his superpower being real and made of flesh and blood now, just for them to... do this. To reach out, to touch, to...
---No one holds hands in such a way when whatever they feel for one another is of platonic nature. No one. No-fucking-one. Sure, girls will sometimes hold hands with their best friends, but... even then, he assumes, there must be something more to their friendship, perhaps without them really knowing. Men, however? They don't. They never. They wouldn't consider this to be an option, wouldn't even get the idea to... try it. Not without any sort of intend behind the gesture, right?
So, Steven is... doing this with him. Allowing it. Going as far as caressing Marc's thumb with his own, licking his lip in the meanwhile - which, by the way, totally makes Marc's gaze focus on the action, on that soft mouth, the gentle curve of gorgeous lips - and even though Steven is rather innocent, he... isn't stupid. He knows that this is a rather bold step toward... something. That this is more than just a handshake, a platonic greeting or whatever. It is--- oh god, it is---
Steven rambles, as he tends to do, once the silence becomes too much to bear; The topic, however, is entirely different to what Marc had expected to hear and he swallows again, throat bobbing, his stare moving back up from that mouth to look at pretty eyes again instead.
Steven calls his hand soft. Warm. Real.
And Marc thinks he's going to fucking combust - on the spot.
---He instead gives Steven's hand a gentle squeeze, because it feels natural to do such. There is a bit of amusement bubbling up, somewhere at the back of his mind, but the intensity of everything else is overshadowing it.
"I-is it?" Stupid thing to ask right back, but Marc's brain has stopped being helpful here, he assumes. He clears his throat a bit awkwardly so, sheepish, before he nods briefly and looks back down at their hands. At the way their fingers curl around another, his own thumb starting to move and paint small circles against skin that is not his own.
Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god---
"Yours are... also very soft." Mhm, right. Marc is totally not making a fool out of himself here. "Very... very, uh... gentle. Warm as well. You've got... very warm hands. Yeah, you do. Very... comforting. Nice, actually. Very... ---nice."
