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He’s been leaning against the stove chimney in the Swamp watching you for a while when you finally notice his attention. You don’t immediately question him; his gaze isn’t unwelcome at all, but realizing he’s watching you gives you a flush of heat that you don’t acknowledge.
Instead, you let him watch you a bit longer as you turn the pages of the medical journal you’re reading, before idly raising an eyebrow. “Yes?” you murmur, without looking up at him.
“Nothing,” he says; such an obvious lie that you snort softly.
“You seem to be staring, Hawk,” you say, and flip another page with a soft whisper of paper on paper.
“True,” he agrees, easily.
You’re not actually reading now - you’re much more focusing on whatever game he’s playing with you. “Why?”
“Not why,” he corrects you. “What.”
The tone of his voice shoots a shiver down your spine that you don’t allow yourself to show, and you finally look up at him. “Okay, then, what?” You say, with a faint hint of a challenge in your voice.
A slow, and oddly quizzical smile comes across his face that starts a burning feeling in your chest. “The sternocleidomastoid muscle."
That wasn’t what you expected, and you blink in confusion for a moment. You put the journal down, and shift to sit on the edge of your bunk. “The sternocleidomastoid muscle,” you repeat slowly. That’s the muscle that runs down the side of your neck, the one that is used to turn or nod the head. You know the muscle he’s talking about, but you’re not sure why he’s talking about it.
“Yes,” he agrees. “It’s a very specific muscle that does a lot of very specific things, and is specifically worth paying attention to.”
You hum thoughtfully at the twisted sentence he’s laid out, and come to your feet to move in front of him. He doesn’t stop leaning against the stovepipe, but he does subtly straighten a little, leaning in towards you so infinitesimally that he may not have even noticed. “Something tells me you’re not speaking medically, Hawk. Why don’t you tell me what you’re really trying to say?”
Two can play, you think, so you slide a hand over his hip, and reel him in just a little closer. His eyes darken a little at the contact, and you smirk internally.
“Fine,” he tells you, his voice just a touch rougher than it was. “Non-medically speaking, I’ve been looking at that muscle in your neck.”
“Ye-es,” you draw out the word. “I got that part. Mind telling me more about the significance of that?”
His smile widens as he leans into your hand a little more. His next words are slow, and excruciatingly deliberate. “The significance is that I desperately want to bite you on the neck, Beej.”
Your breath sucks in between your teeth at his words, and you swallow hard, much to his obvious satisfaction. You pull him in against your chest and reply, “I can’t imagine what you’re waiting for.”