Poppy leaned further. "Just move so I can get a closer look-"
Branch snipped. "I CAN'T move, you're leaning weird!"
Poppy huffed and tossed Branch's hand back at him. "Just- hang on-"
She shifted and leaned further, but the angle still wasn't good. So she stretched one leg out, over Branch, and straddled his lap, plopping herself down just above his knees. "Look." She poked at his shoulder. "That must have sucked."
Poppy was not a fool. She was not naive. She knew full well that there were implications that came with sitting in somebody's lap.

Poppy justified this in the name of utility. Of conversation. Of just being pals, and how many of her friends has she sat on, really? Nearly all of them. So this was fine.
And maybe Branch would be on board. She didn't know. All these thoughts raced through her mind in the half second she'd taken to hitch her dress up the tiniest amount. For utility and comfort.
Resolutely, she kept her eyes on Branch's shoulder and poked it again. "What happened there?" She hoped that her unaffected air was enough to keep him from noticing the quaver in her voice.
She heard Branch swallow a lump in his throat, could see in her peripheral vision that he was shaken, could feel the nervousness rolling off of him. It was as though a smoke bomb had been tossed into his lap and the air between them was filling up with clouds of anxiety, choking both of them.
Poppy jabbed his shoulder, determined to pull him out of whatever mental spiral he was in and get the conversation back on track.
She had to look at him now, and it wasn't a disappointing sight. It never was. He looked flustered. Or terrified. It was diffiuclt to tell.
Branch's eyes flicked down at her arm, then back up to her face. His hands were held up stiffly at his shoulder height, as though he didn't know what to do with them.

He blinked several times and spoke, his voice quiet and cracking. "Road rash. Puffalo."
Poppy hmm'd quietly and, before her squirming stomach could convince her to not, leaned down and pressed a small kiss onto Branch's shoulder. His hands clenched and unclenched, but he stayed quiet.
She scooted closer and nudged his jaw with her hand, tilting his head back in order to get a better look at something.
"Here," she murmured, "an old cut. Let me just-" Poppy traced over a thin line that ran up the side of his neck, before leaning in and planting another kiss. Branch sucked in a shaky breath right by her ear, and Poppy scootched closer to him again.
She recalled the time she came and did this to him while he slept, how his breathing had felt on her face, how hot his skin had been- and for several weeks, she'd shamefully returned to that evening to relive the thrill of it all, but now-
Right now was so much more exciting. As it turns out, an awake Branch, whose responses aren't muted by sleep and alcohol, was much more animated under her. His face was more purple, he breathed harder, and there was the immeasurable satisfaction of knowing that he was letting her do this.
He was letting her do this.
More and more, Poppy became confident that she wouldn't be launched off his lap and sent dodging a barrage of jars as she fled the bunker.