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“…not opposed to New Tuchanka’s reentry into the Initiative as a propriety colony– holy shit, does he, like, think this is seventeenth century Britain or something?” Mira groaned.
She looked up to glare at Liam.
He raised his hands defensively. “More like, uuhhh, whatever century Sur’kesh and Tuchanka– when was that anyway? Think I slept through most of Galactic History.”
Mira sighed and went back to glaring at her datapad. “None of our timelines make sense anymore anyways. Plus six hundred and all.”
He shifted and considered her. Last Flight of the Pyrrin played quietly on storage’s holoscreen, the century– well, millenia-old armor of the turian actors giving the long and poetic monologues a certain gravity. They sat on the couch, him on one end and her on the other; she at lengthwise with her calves propped on his lap. Decked in their sweats, they were pretty comfortably ensconced. They’d been mired in their own datapads, commenting occasionally (Verand sent her regards again, Tann sent his bullshit again), and mostly not really watching the vid.
But she was getting worked up about this new crisis, even though they all knew she could manage it just as well as all the other ones. Shit, what was Tann gonna do? Fly out here (leave the Nexus in the first place), and, what, yell at her? Ha!
Still, her face was getting all scrunched up like it did: round and short nose all flared, brows dug in and furrowed, and dark amber cheeks gone all chipmunk, puffy. Jeez. He was tempted to yank off her socks and tickle her feet.
Or.
Liam sat up and stretched to put down his datapad on a crate to the side. She looked up as her feet began to slide off his lap. He swiveled his body around to kneel up on the couch. He gave her a look.
“I’m coming over there to kiss you,” he told her.
Her brow shot up. And then it came back down. “What? No.”
He made a show of shifting his weight to all fours, crawling an inch. And he turbo-boosted his look, y’know, the one with the eyebrow thing and the smirk thing. Totally sexy. Panty-dropper, even.
“I’m coming over there,” he repeated.
Underneath him, her legs pulled up to tuck against her chest. She was trying to frown at him. God, she was so bad at it– damn, he loved that.
“No, you’re not,” Mira told him.
His sweats caught and slid against the, frankly, ancient synth fabric of his couch as he crawled forward another couple inches. His face was all menacing smirk.
“You’re not stopping this, it’s happening,” he informed her.
She shook her head furiously, biting her lip. She added a layer to her defenses by clutching her datapad against her tucked legs.
But he continued his siege, prowling forward, the great apex predator of the Tempest storage room. She watched him, absolutely failing at stifling her grin and sputtering with half-controlled giggles. When he reached her side of the couch, he leaned his chest lightly against her knees and her datapad. He stared down at her and smiled. She gained some command of her face and managed to frown back. But it looked painful, battling like it did with the dance in her dark eyes and the curve in her lips.
Liam– slowly, carefully– bent forward to bridge the gap between them. He lightly brushed his lips against the furrow between her brows, and it instantly melted away. Their mingled breath curled against their cheeks. His heart throbbed with fondness. When she leaned into him, he knew hers did too.
With the smallest of movements, he lifted his lips (staying only a feather-width away) and slid down to caress against that shallow bridge of her nose. Her eyes fluttered, at turns gazing at him and flitting closed.
And he pulled down to hover, his lips over hers. The closest thing to a kiss and yet the most painfully distant from it. She sighed warmly (synthetic mint and lemon water) over him, and they closed the gap– who had moved first mattered little. It was theirs and only complete with the both of them, and it made everything light and real and ephemeral and solid.
Liam drew back, and then, as she gazed up at him with her edges softened and his smile gentle–
He suddenly closed back in, and dragged his fully emergent, broad and flattened tongue up the side of her face.
“Psyche!” he shouted.
“Aaaeeeughh,” she wailed.
She pushed with her legs, and he fell back, laughing, into the couch. He was absolutely rolling with cackles.
“You jerk. You asshole,” she moaned, rubbing furiously at her face with her sweatshirt’s sleeve.
This just goaded him more, his laughter getting high-pitched and wheezy. Tears started to leak out of the corner of his eyes.
“I’m leaving,” she announced.
But he lunged for her as she pulled up into a kneel. She squawked as he got a bear-hold around her midsection.
“Nooo,” Liam gasped shrilly.
“Let go, you traitor!” Mira demanded.
And he kept giggling as they tussled, her wiggling as hard as she could to slither over the arm and down the side of the couch. He ended up with an armful of flailing footsies.
” Ooof–” Liam grunted, letting go of her.
Mira awkwardly ended up in a pile beside the sofa. She quickly popped up to see what had so quickly vanquished her opponent. Liam still knelt on the beat-up cushions, a hand cupped carefully around his jaw.
“Are you okay?” she instantly asked.
She stood and went to him. As her fingers pulled at his, trying to gently pry them away, he looked up at her with those big brown eyes of his.
And then he let her take his hand from his face.
And he smirked at her.
She just stood there for a moment, a little floored by his– jerky and conniving and– and horrible– jerkiness. And he just sat there, smirking at her, as he watched the kaleidoscope of expression flying across her face.
So she pushed at his shoulder, and smashed a kiss on his dumb grinning mouth.
“You’re the worst,” she told him, climbing into his lap.
His voice was a little rough. “Yeah?”
His arms snaked around her, fingers sliding underneath her sweatshirt. She sucked on his lip, tongue sweeping.
“A jerk,” she said.
“Mmhmm.”
Her fingers dug into the back of his neck, into his coarse curls.
“I hate you,” she whispered into his lips.
He smiled slowly. Brought her closer, tight against his chest and his warmth.
“I’m glad.”