Disclaimer: Blah blah TribunearetheDEVILINCARNATE!cakes
Tyr prided himself on understanding the nuances.
Sex - like any other fundamental matter of life and death - was more often ruled by the need to react on the command of instinct, not conscious thought. It depended on your willingness to trust yourself and succumb to the imperative urging of your senses. To lunge. To seize. To wrestle, using your physical supremacy, demanding the capitulation that was yours by genetic right.
But no truly superior man could afford to ignore the need for the lyrical, the subtle touch of reflection and counterpoint.
That moment of leaning in too close, the unspoken breaching of the other's space. Your lips buzzing with the blood-race of anticipation, as you closed the distance, until only the faintest shimmer of air-molecules divided you from your goal...
The true survivor's strength lay in the mingling. Of blatant and subtle, action and thought, physical and cerebral.
Watching Harper working on the fried-out comm section of the Maru, Tyr had to wonder yet again how the small human had managed to get this far. Did Harper actually understand the concept of 'subtle'? A yard from Tyr's face, he hung cheerfully by his legs from the overhead bracing-strut, splicing circuits as his loose shirt flopped inside-out over most of his face. The exposed belly was taut and flat, and Tyr could see lean muscles contracting and flexing smoothly as Harper wriggled back and forward to get a better view of the charred section.
Nipples, too. Seldom exposed, small, a dark, flushed, port-wine red.
...erect? Curious. It didn't feel that cold in the Maru to Tyr.
Still, the boy was nothing if not reliably flashy. With a quick "Tada!" he pushed the panel housing back into place, and the cascade of diodes lighting up again told Tyr they were back in contact with the outside world.
And of course, Harper had to dismount like a circus performer, gripping the bar and coiling himself up, through and down in a supple, foot-perfect summersault. Not subtle at all. He squeezed past Tyr, muttering "Well hey, don't thank me all at once..." and Tyr was hit by the blast of fresh sweat and static sparks still caught in blond hair that seemed purposely styled to flip off the entire Universe.
Walking, talking, thoughtlessly obvious. Tyr watched Harper shimmy between the crew bunks and then crouch down, his back towards Tyr, to retrieve something from under one bed.
It wasn't just his shirt that was loose. The scruffy combat pants slid insolently down as Harper ducked forward.
Flashing his ass at Tyr without a care in the world. Slim hips, moon-pale skin, softly curving in and down. At least four inches of cleft showing.
So ridiculous. So ungoverned.
Tyr lunged.
Seized.
The wrestling didn't take too long either, mercifully.
And Harper turned out to be surprisingly ready to capitulate...