Welcome to Gaia! ::

“I don’t fuss-” It was immensely necessary for him to speak over the bumbling man. Because if he started going, Malik was just as likely to blather off on a tangent as Naarhiji was. And likely to make just as much sense. If he wanted to hear so much huffing and whining and grumbling, then by the dark goddess, Naar could give that to him. And so long as they were both trying to make a point, he might as well make it so neither of them got anywhere-

Except Malikai’s fingers were on his neck, tracing a smooth, slow path up, brushing the lobe of his ear, skimming his jaw, and Naarhiji stilled with impatient expectancy. Surely three words made enough of an argument that he could sacrifice the rest of his denials to the abyss and not lose much of anything over it. He could save the breath for something more important, more rewarding.

Naar leaned into Malik, heedless of the sway he’d been wary of not long ago, perched forward on his toes and tipped his head back. He hummed out a long, high, unintentionally pitiful sound in the instant before Malikai’s lips touched his.

He was still a stupid man. And he still tasted like however many pints of bitter poison he’d swallowed. But it seemed strangely reasonable and incredibly necessary to swipe his tongue out and taste more of it.

He didn’t think Malikai minded.

And because he seemed just inviting enough, Naar’s hands slid up, over Malik’s shoulders, and followed the collar of his uniform down to the first button at his throat. It was fair, the younger man decided, letting his thumb rub a circle over the brass nub. It was very fair. He was already a sheer strip of cloth away from being nude, himself, so what did one- his fingers slipped between the gap in the fabric, flicking open the first and gliding down to the next- two, three…

He splayed his digits under the coat, tracing his index finger down the ridge between Malik’s pecs. In the hesitance created by… whatever unimportant issue the soldier was experiencing, Naar glanced back at his own hand. And then pulled back as if the cloth beneath it had offended him.

It had. It had offended him.

He opened his mouth to say so, or perhaps demand retribution in the form of a slow, sensual strip, because hmm, Malikai thought he had reason to blush before. But the bird was muttering something unintelligible, and Naar had to draw his attention back to it.

Naarhiji twiddled with the next button, rolling it loosely between his fingers until it wiggled free. He kept his gaze down, idly toying with the trail the bits of brass created. “So… so lay with me,” he suggested - not quite a question - as he collected Malik’s hand in his and inched hesitantly backward, enough that the backs of his knees collided with the end, and he tipped over onto it.

“You want to- Hmm… That’s what you want, right?”