He has to climb off of Malik's lap to do it, which is its own small humiliation—he is clumsy, his knees are shaking, his hair is a mess, he nearly elbows Malik in the face trying to get himself turned around—and then he is flat on his back on the couch with his heart hammering out of his chest and Malik is looking at him, kneeling between his knees, and Malik's shirt is still open and hanging off one shoulder and his hair is loose and tumbling forward over his collarbones and Newt has never, in his life, seen anything as beautiful.
Malik reaches for the hem of Newt's shirt.
Newt flinches. Not away, exactly. Just—a small nervous twitch of his hands, a lift of his elbows, and Malik pauses immediately, and Newt has to swallow past the knot in his throat before he can nod.
"You're sure?" Malik says.
"Yes. I just—I have scars."
"I know."
"They—" Newt blinks. "You do?"
"I felt them. Earlier. I didn't—" Malik's mouth tilts. A small wry thing. "I didn't mention it. It didn't seem important."
"Oh."
Malik pulls the shirt up. Newt lifts his arms and lets him take it off, and he is bare from the waist up now and his chest is rising and falling too quickly and Malik is looking at him.
Just looking. Eyes moving over him. Over the small pink raised lines that run beneath his pectorals, the ones that have faded a lot in the last four years but have not, quite, disappeared, and Newt is holding his breath, and then Malik leans down and presses his mouth to the scar on the left side.
Newt's breath breaks.
It is a small kiss. A brief one. A hot dry press of Malik's lips to the pale raised line of scar tissue, and then Malik moves to the one on the right and does the same, and then he trails his mouth up between them, up the flat of Newt's sternum, and Newt's eyes are stinging and he doesn't know why, he doesn't know why—
"You are so beautiful," Malik says, against the skin over his heart.
"I'm not—"
"Newt."
His mouth snaps shut.
Malik works his way down. Slow, ruinously slow. He kisses along Newt's ribs, pausing where the faint purple bruise of last week's bookshelf incident has almost faded, and then down the flat of Newt's stomach, and Newt's hands have found Malik's hair and are threading through it without permission, and when Malik reaches the waistband of Newt's trousers he pauses and looks up.
"Okay?" Malik says.
"Yes."
Malik undoes the button. Pulls the zipper down. Hooks his fingers into the waistband of trousers and boxers alike and, when Newt lifts his hips, peels them off, all the way down his legs, and then Newt is naked on the couch with his face burning and his hands coming up to cover himself on instinct.
Malik catches his wrists.
"No," Malik says, softly. "Let me look."
"Malik—"
"Let me look at you."
Newt lets his hands fall away.
He is shaking. He feels it all over, fine and fast. The torches are burning blue and low at the edge of his peripheral vision and Malik is kneeling between his spread knees, fully clothed except for the open shirt, hair falling forward, and his eyes are moving over Newt with something so close to reverence that Newt has to shut his own eyes against it because he cannot bear to see his own nakedness reflected in that kind of looking.
Malik settles.
He does not rush. Newt can hear him shifting on the couch, can feel the dip and redistribute of weight as Malik lowers himself down onto his stomach between Newt's thighs, can feel both of Malik's hands slide, warm and proprietary, up the insides of his legs from knee to hip. Malik pushes Newt's thighs wider—wider, shameful-wide, the couch is not quite deep enough and one of Newt's knees ends up hooked over the back of it and the other pressed out against empty air—and Newt squeezes his eyes shut and thinks he might die.
"Newt."
