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Waves crash in the distance. The air smells faintly of brine and sand. Veers is on the verge of dozing, drifting gently toward a nap as the blue skin beneath his head rumbles in a light purr. He’s laying with his back to Thrawn’s chest, legs stretched out between Thrawn’s spread thighs. When he’d first laid down, Thrawn had given him that little eyebrow twitch that meant he thought Veers was being scandalously affectionate in public and that he was absolutely not allowed to stop. It amuses him to be considered the outrageously publicly demonstrative partner in the relationship for once.
But in general, it’s nice. The day is nice, he is pleasantly drowsy, and his position on Thrawn’s torso is exceedingly comfortable. Veers has never had a partner so willing to let him sprawl on top of them before. Usually they kick him off after a while on the grounds that he is too heavy or cutting off their circulation. If anything though, Thrawn always seems to relax under his weight and Veers has rapidly learned to find the slightly slower rhythm of the grand admiral’s heart and notably cooler body soothing.
Thrawn shifts under him and Veers makes a disgruntled grumble. It’s half slurred because he’s not really awake enough to articulate his displeasure properly. And then he’s torn, because the low laughter that shakes Thrawn’s chest is more movement but Thrawn’s laugh is so rare that every instance should be memorialized and treasured.
“Stop moving,” Veers says grumpily as another shift beneath his head heralds the pop of the sunscreen tube being opened.
“My apologies, Maximilian,” Thrawn says but there’s an edge of amusement in his tone that makes Veers doubt he’s that sorry. “Did I wake you?”
“Wasn’t quite asleep,” he says, pointedly leaning more of his weight on Thrawn.
Thrawn laughs again but obligingly stops moving. “You still have time yet for a nap.”
“Good,” he murmurs, already slipping back towards sleep. The senior officers of Death Squadron’s army contingent had held an intense and highly competitive surfing contest earlier in the afternoon at Major Roland’s suggestion. It had run three hours over, making Veers late to this particular gathering of senior officers, and had ended with Lamoure tackling Covell off his board. A peaceful little doze would be just the thing after all of that activity.
The next thirty seconds pass quietly beyond the cry of the gulls and the soft purr that has resumed beneath his ear. A fragile moment of serenity.
So very easily broken.
“Thrawn, I thought I told you to bring your significant other,” booms Motti from somewhere over Veers’s head.
Veers pointedly doesn’t move from his position sprawled out over Thrawn’s chest. He also doesn’t bother opening his eyes. The sun is warm and he feels comfortable. No use getting up when Motti will leave soon enough.
“I did bring my significant other,” Thrawn says easily, smoothing a hand over Veers’s shoulder. Clearly he’s decided if Motti won’t let Veers sleep, he might as well start moving. It’s not a decision Veers particularly approves of. He knows how to block out Motti’s voice when he has to. He could have fallen asleep even with Motti here.
Veers grumbles at the slight chill of the sunscreen being rubbed into his skin. “I told you I put on sunscreen before we left.”
Thrawn ignores this and continues applying the sunscreen down his biceps.
“Where are they then?” Motti demands and that. That demands Veers actually pay attention to this travesty of a conversation.
He cracks open an eye. “Does anything about this look platonic to you?”
Motti swaggers closer. Veers can see part of Motti’s imperial cog hip tattoo over the edge of his speedo. He fervently wishes he couldn’t see it. “Veers, I’ve seen you fall asleep on a conference table, multiple of your Colonels, and Needa.”
Veers considers and concludes that Motti, unfortunately, has a point. Kriff.
Thrawn’s fingers circle idly around a bite mark he’d left on Veers’s collarbone last night. Veers hums and leans back into Thrawn’s chest. It hides Motti’s hip tattoo but gives him a better view of the tattoos covering the admiral’s calves. The star wrapped knife Motti had gotten when Piett had named him “his kriffing annoying little brother” while very drunk is only half visible beneath the sand coating his skin.
“Him?” Motti asks and of all things, he sounds offended. “You picked Veers? I know there are slim pickings for men who won’t be weird about the alien thing but really? Veers?”
Bold words for a man with the initials of Tiaan Vivian Fyfe Jerjerrod tattooed on his inner thigh in the Jerjerrod family patented shade of plum.
Veers rolls his eyes. He fully intends to ignore the blowhard and go back to his nap but Thrawn says, “Maximilian is a true warrior, Conan Antonio, and I appreciate the things he can do with his blade-”
“Okay buddy,” Motti says, sounding as poleaxed by Thrawn’s statement as Veers feels. “I’m gonna cut you off right there.”
“Why?” And now Thrawn sounds confused and that’s worse. Does he even know that blade can be an innuendo in Basic? “His skill is unparalleled and his stamina is-”
“Sweetheart please,” Veers says, pained. Motti looks almost constipated and honestly, that’s the only good thing to have come out of this disaster.
“I don’t understand Lian,” Thrawn says. “Why should I not tell Conan why I love you so?”
“Because he thinks blade is an innuendo for-” And then Veers cuts himself off. Had Thrawn just told him I love you for the first time while they’re laying on a beach with Motti standing over them?
He pushes up and props himself up on an arm, turns to look at Thrawn. And something about his expression must clue Thrawn in.
“Surely you know Lian,” Thrawn says, sitting up. He brings a large hand up to Veers’s face. “I have told you before.”
“Not in any language I know,” Veers says, fighting the urge to lean into Thrawn’s palm. But even as he says it, he remembers a phrase murmured every so often into his hair after a night spent on the Chimera. “Ch’ah ch’acah vah,” he says slowly, knowing he’s mangling the pronunciation. Too stretched in his vowels probably, Thrawn is always telling him he makes the sounds oddly long. “That means I love you. Ch’ah ch’acah vah.”
Thrawn nods shallowly. There’s a vulnerable look in his eye.
“Ch’ah ch’acah vah,” Veers says again, looking Thrawn in the eye, trying to convey that he isn’t just parroting the phrase this time. That he means it, even if he hadn’t realized they were at the point in their relationship where they say it out loud.
Veers makes a vow to learn to pronounce the phrase properly. His efforts at learning Cheunh have so far been abysmal. He has no head for languages and had only struggled through the little bit of Ancient Denese he knows because it made his grandfather smile.
Just learning to say Mitth’raw’nuruodo had taken hours of extensive drilling on pronunciation by Jerjerrod and a temper fraying lesson on actually hearing the differences in sounds with Piett. This new sentence, ch’ah ch’acah vah, will likely take even longer. But he will learn the phrase properly if it kills him, so that he can see Thrawn smile like that, joyful and fond, every day. Though perhaps the fond part is due to what Thrawn has told him is a truly terrible accent in his Cheunh.
They lean into each other and Veers closes the gap, presses their lips together. He shifts closer as Thrawn slides an arm around his waist. Thrawn’s mouth is slightly cool and still tastes like pomegranate from the cocktail Jerjerrod had pushed into his hand earlier. He tilts his head to deepen the kiss.
Motti gags loudly behind Veers.
Veers jolts, almost slamming his forehead into Thrawn’s. He had honestly forgotten that Motti was there. The admiral had been uncharacteristically quiet during their… confessions. Now, after having thoroughly ruined the moment, Motti stands there on the sand in his mood killing tight purple speedo with his arms akimbo and a smirk on his face.
“I’m going to kill him,” Veers says, completely serious.
Thrawn knows it too. The arm around Veers's waist tightens, gently restraining. “He’s my friend Maximilian,” Thrawn says, shifting his legs so his muscular thighs are also holding Veers in place. “Please don’t kill him.”
“I’m not convinced,” Veers says. The legs around his waist flex in a ripple of functional blue muscle. The pressure is very pleasant. An excellent attempt at diversion on Thrawn's part, his lover knows full well how distracting he finds his legs. However, it's unfortunately very hard to be distracted from Motti's speedo at near eye level.
“Tiaan will avenge me,” says Motti confidently. “Oh look, he and Piett are coming back from the bar now.”
Veers has a vivid flashback to the last time Jerjerrod decided it was necessary to defend Motti’s honor. The mess had been extraordinary. Several reputations had been ruined and the champagne stains still hadn’t come entirely off the carpet yet. Moff Jantyne had been in literal tears. “I’m convinced.”
“I shall make it up to you later, Lian,” Thrawn says, kissing Veers’s temple. He's very careful to turn Veers away so that he no longer catches even so much as a glimpse of Motti.
“Oh?” Veers asks, attention caught. He lets Thrawn take more of his weight so that he can trace a hand over the sand coated skin of his spine. His hand dips toward the lower back and there's a faint shudder under his fingers.
Thrawn kisses under Veers’s ear. A second, lower down the neck. A suggestion of sharp teeth against his pulsepoint. “I thought we might-”
“TIAAN!” Motti bellows. “VEERS IS FLIRTING WITH THRAWN ON A PUBLIC BEACH!”
Thrawn pulls back as Jerjerrod scrambles over with drinks in hand, squawking about impropriety as though he is not also wearing a ridiculous speedo that barely qualifies as clothing. Piett trails after him and Veers can’t tell if the exasperation in his gaze is aimed at them or Motti.
Veers feels very vindicated when he catches sight of the vaguely murderous expression on Thrawn’s face.