Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sometimes it was possible to see the sternness of Shattershield even within his chambers, to see what it was that made the younger paladins so inclined to defer to him. The set of his brow during some discussion, the way that he squared his shoulders, that tightly focused look he cast down across the city as he regarded it from one or another window. It was almost as if there was the glint of armour about him, no matter what he was actually wearing.

And then sometimes, it was difficult to remember that at all, as he tried to pin Max to the bathroom wall with one hand and grab the bottle of oil from them with the other, without actually succeeding at either.

Both of them were laughing helplessly, which should have evened the odds, but it was much harder to hold someone still while both streaked with oil than it was to refuse to be held. What had only even started as a semi-serious attempt to apply oil to Shattershield's shoulders after bathing had deteriorated into the bottle being mostly empty and both of them being covered, Shattershield barely even bothering to feign annoyance. He tried once again to take the bottle and Max responded by swapping it to their other hand, putting it beyond his reach again, and laughing as he huffed.

“You... I will have to wash most of this back off,” he said, gesturing to himself. “You will have to wash most of that back off.”

Certainly where Max had managed to get it in their hair, it was going to be work for the soap to get it all out. But Shattershield was glittering in the sunlight, and even as he sighed and went for another grab around Max's hips they slipped free and darted around behind him, running one oiled hand right down his spine and teasing with their nails just at the base of it.

Shattershield jumped at the touch, and while Max was still giggling he lunged forwards and swept both arms around them, one around their thighs and one around their back to pick them off the floor and pin them securely to his chest. Max threw an arm around his shoulders out of instinct, stopping their writhing before the oil overcame even Shattershield's grip at a time when being released would be more like being dropped.

Smiling still, Shattershield gave a triumphant snort even as Max held the remnants of the bottle as far from him as they could. “I think even Dragon D'Or laundry would object to this much oil,” he said. “And you are a fire hazard at the moment.”

Max contemplated for a moment whether it would be worth pouring the rest of the oil over Shattershield as he held them, just to see what level of spluttering affront it would earn them, but there were probably better ways to tease him. They settled for adjusting the arm around his neck so they could press their chest tighter to him, digging their fingers into his skin.

“I am the fire hazard? I don't breathe flame when startled.” They had not yet actually managed to make him do so, for all that he had made warning of it over the months. It probably should not have seemed like a challenge, but the way he made it seem specific to being startlingly aroused had given it the air of one. “I am sure there are some of your newer paladins who are far worse.”

“Well, there is a less flammable alternative to that,” he nodded again to the bottle, and Max pointedly stretched their arm away from him again, “yes. But some of us would rather outgrow such phases.”

“Mm.” Putting aside all veils for their intentions, Max reached in and kissed Shattershield's throat, sucking their way down the side of his neck. “Maybe it would be better to return to the tub... we don't have to put water in it yet, after all...”

Shattershield gave a faint, questioning huff then, as Max licked at the underside of his jaw, a grunt of realisation.

“It would keep the oil contained,” Max added, tilting their hips towards him.

They fully expected, and frankly deserved, for him to point out that it was their fault the oil had gone everywhere in the first place. As it was, he tightened the muscles in the arm around their thighs, a reminder of his strength. "Keep you contained, you mean," he said, in a stern voice that was somewhat undercut by the rumble he gave when Max trailed their lips back down his throat with a soft, burring moan against his skin.

“Not sure that's possible,” said Max, smiling against his scales.

Shattershield snorted, and Max wondered whether it was a polite refusal as he let them slide back to the ground again. Their faltering smile returned and grew, however, as he climbed back into the wide wooden tub, sitting with his back to its wall, and looking up at them all but expectantly. They laughed as they climbed in after him.

“I do not know where you get half of your ideas,” he said, as they slid down into his lap, the first place they had realised how well they fit to him, far from the last. They set the oil on the shelf beside the tub. “But somehow most of them seem to go well.”

He ran a hand down their chest, down one thigh, touch strangely glossy beneath the oil. Max ran their hands over the muscles of his chest, not entirely sure that it was chance that there was a flicker of movement beneath their touch, then leaned in to put their mouth to his scales again.

He tasted of warmth, golden and sunlit, hand raised to graze his nails against the back of their neck as Max peered upwards to catch his gaze even with their tongue still tracing down his skin. The oil did not taste of much, the texture vaguely distracting at worst, as Max licked their way down his muscles and rocked their hips pointedly against his.

The touch of his fingers, sliding up between their thighs, was not the only acceptable response but was certainly one of them. Max moaned against Shattershield’s scales, somewhere between pleasure and annoyance as his fingers slid too easily over them. They tried to tilt their hips to bring his fingers closer to their clit, but simply slipped against his touch, until they grunted with frustration and glanced down at his hand.

“Max?” said Shattershield. Max felt him moving to crane his neck downwards. “Are you okay?”

“It’s my own fault,” they admitted, turning back up to face him. There was a faint furrow on his brow, and Max reached up to smooth it away. They couldn’t help smiling at the shiny smudge of oil that it left there. “Making it difficult to get much grip.”

Shattershield gave a non-committal rumble, which deepened towards a growl as Max pressed themselves to his chest, arm around his shoulders, and writhed against him. It did not have the edge that it usually did, the harder, rougher surface of his scales usually a faint simmer of friction across their body, but it let them press tighter to his body and still left their nipples dragging across his hide. The rock of their hips brushed against the base of his stomach, and they felt his breath hitch slightly and claws tighten against them; it had happened before, and they had wondered, but…

Watching for Shattershield’s reaction, Max shifted until they had their pubic bone pressed to the base of his stomach, the position aching slightly in their hips as they pressed their thighs wide around him.

“What–” he began, then Max rocked their hips right against him and he made a sort of choking sound. One hand grabbed at the side of the bathtub, claws of the other digging into their thigh until it stung as Max bit their lip, put their other hand behind them on his thigh to better support their weight, and with firm deliberation did it again.

The difference in the scales was not so great that they could feel it like this, and it was more a case of gauging where their hand would be and placing themselves accordingly. The hard muscle of him was the same as being astride his thigh, but the oil made the heat of him even more marked, and Max tightened both hands on him as they found a rolling rhythm of their hips.

Shattershield actually turned his head away, holding his breath for a long moment before letting it out in a sharp huff, but the heave of his breath and the hand on their thigh rocking with their movements spoke quite clearly. He closed his eyes for a moment, breath shuddering in time with the movement of Max’s hips, and gods, Max suspected that if they tilted in to him just a little more, just brought themselves round until they could grind their clit against him, it would not take all that long for them to come apart. Hot pressure swelled up through them, from their movement against him, and more still from the way that they felt him tense at what they were doing to him.

“You–” he grunted at another pass of their hips, and they felt the distinctive hot press of his cock against their skin. “You will be the death of me,” he finished, voice tight.

“Careful. I haven’t learned to cast revivify yet,” they teased, moving their hips in a circle against him.

With a growl, Shattershield released the side of the bath. Max was not expecting the speed of his movement, though, as in a blink he had hold of their hair, roughly, far more so than he usually was as he held their head back to open up their throat to him. His teeth were bruising-hard on their skin, the hot wave of his breath making them yelp even before they really felt the pain of the bite, and Max shivered in his hold even as the next movement of their hips rocked them against his cock in the same movement.

His hand shifted in their hair, breathing rough against them as his hand on their thigh encouraged their hips. His own hips moved slightly in return, rocking up into them in a silken, oiled touch. Max’s breath escaped them in a rush as they rolled their hips hard and he snarled against their skin, frustration twisted into the sound as Max arched their back to keep their pressure against his belly, away from his cock. Heat pounded in them even as they felt him drag in his breath, cooler air over their skin, then he released them to nuzzle into their hair, cheek against their temple.

“May you never take pity on me,” he murmured, the words clenching in their stomach.

Their body yearned for him, that much they could not deny, muscles trying to tighten on nothing, clit aching with the desire to be touched. Shattershield’s hand slid round along their thigh and down beneath their ass, his reach making it easy for his hand to slip up again to reach their clit as he hitched them against him.

“I can’t even be trusted with oil,” said Max breathlessly, adjusting their grip on his thigh even as they did so. “What makes you think I know mercy?”

He nipped at the skin beneath their ear, and they moaned as his fingertips teased at their clit then slid back down towards their entrance. His touch almost seemed to sear against skin already hot and tender beneath his fingers, and Max groaned as his fingers traced lightly, so achingly delicate, over their entrance and against the sensitive bridge of flesh behind it.

Though that, too, threw other ideas into sharper relief from where they had been collecting, barely-formed, over the months. There was no way that they had grown tired of him, no manner of his touch that did not still send shivers down their spine and heat between their thighs. It made it difficult sometimes to remember some idea that had come to them of how they next wanted him; it had been all very well to have their fantasies when away from Mistmire with little but their hand, but once they had him to wrap around, to bear to the bed, it was almost impossible to retain anything like a plan for what they were to do with him. Following waves of curiosity was easier.

But certain ideas had clung with them over time, and releasing Shattershield’s thigh Max reached to take hold of his wrist, reaching down the length of their back with only just enough distance to catch his wrist before it passed between their thighs.

Shattershield gave a questioning rumble, his tongue drawing tiny patterns on the side of their neck as his fingers stilled. With one more lingering pass of his tongue, he drew back, to where he could meet their eyes again.

“With this much oil already around,” said Max, drawing back his wrist a fraction so that his fingertips brushed other delicate skin, “there is something else that I’ve been meaning to try with you.”

His fingers twitched slightly against their skin, and Max shivered at the gentle brush against their rear entrance. They had always found themselves so wet for him that it had been impossible to tell how much it would help that his cock always met their hand damp and glistening, but they suspected it would not by itself be enough for what they had in mind. At least, not without rather more practice relaxing into his touch, and that thought provoked another clench of their muscles and another wave of heat in their cheeks.

“You – oh,” said Shattershield, surprise flashing across his features. He glanced down the front of Max’s body, a sharp gesture that Max doubted was even conscious, then up again. “So you’ve, hmm,” his words trailed off into a clearing of his throat.

“Well, not for a while,” Max admitted. Perhaps it had not been the most opportune of moments to ask, they supposed, or perhaps he already knew that he was not interested in it. Sliding their fingers into him had been a first for both of them at the same time, perhaps enough to stir curiosity on his side as well as on theirs. “It was an idle thought,” they added quickly, releasing his hand again. “If you don’t want–”

Shattershield cleared his throat again. Considering the difficulty he sometimes had in finding words – in Common – for sexual matters, Max knew better than to cut across what words or communication he did manage. They stilled in his arms, slackening their hold on his neck until it was more a gentle touch than an iron grip. “I… did not say that,” he said. Max refrained from pointing out that he had not really managed to say much at all. He paused for a moment, clearly choosing his words carefully. “As you have seen, dragonborn are… not like humans, so that… action is perhaps less readily apparent.”

Max had the feeling it would be a while before they suggested anything other than their fingers inside him. They nodded, making a vaguely encouraging sound.

Shattershield set his gaze on their shoulder, but at least it was not looking away entirely. He mumbled something in Draconic, then caught himself. “But that is not to say that… well. As you can attest, dragonborn are not the only residents of Mistmire, and…”

Oh. Max’s lips twitched into a smile again as Shattershield did his nod-and-mutter combination which encouraged them to fill in the rest of the sentence as they saw fit. “I mean, you know my curiosity,” they said, just enough of a tease to make him half-smile as well as he managed to meet their gaze again. “And though I’ve never tried with anyone so…” there probably would be a way to point out the size of him without resorting to being totally crude, but with the heat simmering under Max’s skin they could not quite find it. “I mean, we could give it a try. Slowly.”

It wasn’t exactly as if Max had their heart set on the act. But they had tried it before, enjoyed it; trying things with Shattershield tended to end up with Max enjoying them significantly more, and they wondered whether this would be the same.

Shattershield’s fingers shifted again, a gentle stroke over them, and even with the cooling effect of waiting to speak, every part of Max still felt heated and sensitive to his touch. They gasped at the first press of his fingertip against them, but then his claw pressed to their skin and they winced slightly.

He huffed, annoyance in the sound clearly aimed at himself from the way that he half-frowned again. “My apologies. It seems I am not able to… well.”

There was a note of disappointment in his voice, hidden though it was beneath apology and vague embarrassment. It had taken time, care, before he had been confident enough to use his claws on or around other delicate parts of them, and Max suspected the same could well be true here. But they also wanted him inside them, however that may be. They took the oil back from the shelf, uncorked it, and slicked their own fingers instead.

“I can handle that part,” they said, heart racing. As soon as Shattershield had also shown interest, there had been an air of a challenge about it, a thrill at the thought. Even when desperately turned on, they sometimes needed to move slowly to take him, to not be left whimpering and wordless immediately just from the taut stretch of his cock. They wondered how similar, how different, it would feel this way. With their other hand, they began tracing circles on the back of his neck again. “If you can think of anything else to do with your hands.”

Slowly, Shattershield raised one to their jaw, putting his thumb to their lower lip. Max smiled as they wrapped their lips around it, the movement easy. Shattershield’s eyes were burning as he watched Max run their tongue along his scales, wrapping around as best they could even if it would never be anything compared to the movement of his tongue.

They slipped one finger into their back passage easily, then a second, rocking down against their fingers until the tight intrusive feeling began to subside. Shattershield’s cock pressed against the curve of their ass, and there was a thrill to that as well, to knowing they were opening themselves up for his touch.

Shattershield’s other hand slipped down between their thighs again, from their front this time, and Max moaned as his fingers brushed over their clit. They bit gently at his thumb as he coaxed at their skin, either side of their hard clit but not quite close enough, desire licking upwards like flames from each igniting touch.

Parting their fingers took… well, a little less concentration. Took losing themselves in the almost hypnotic depths of his gaze, his thumb pressing harder to their lower lip as he slipped his fingers down to circle their entrance again. The heel of his hand still brushed past their clit, and with the touches all winding together Max moaned again about Shattershield’s thumb, pressed wider with their fingers, then drew back to form a triangle of three digits and slide them in again.

The thought of him inside them, a new way to feel the shapes of him, a new sensation to watch his response to, was pooling heat between their thighs. Shattershield must have felt it, unless the oil disguised how wet they were against his hand, the desperate yearning as they rocked between his hand and their own. They tried to breathe his name around the thumb pressed to their tongue, could not, had it spill out a soft moan as Shattershield watched, seemingly captivated, and Max’s breathing grew more ragged.

The anticipation was one thing. The sensation was another, the tingling feeling running from their touch, that pleasant fullness transposed, meeting some of the same walls even from different sides. At least the shape of him was in their favour, they knew, the head that usually eased them open likely to do the same now.

With one final flick of their tongue, they drew their mouth away from his thumb again, and licked their lips. “Are you ready, Arend?”

“I feel that I should be asking you that,” he said, little more than a whisper, as he raised his hand to run it through their hair again. “But I know you well enough to trust you.”

Gods help them, they had never stood a chance. Max felt warmth in their chest at the tone of his voice, the adoration in his gaze, and for a moment more firmly clasped the back of his neck. “I can still appreciate it,” they said softly. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

He huffed softly. “Yes, vethparijan.”

Something in their gut clenched at the gentleness of his words, or perhaps at the hot weight of his cock pressed against their skin. Max slipped their fingers free, feeling for a moment that same strange pang of emptiness that usually came from him withdrawing, then wrapped their hand around his cock instead. He growled low in his chest, fingers pausing for a moment in rubbing at their clit, as Max guided the head of his cock to them.

As they had suspected, the shape of him helped, and for them it was a welcome return of touch – and a searing heat – even as Shattershield hissed between his teeth and took tight hold of their thigh. The buzz of triumph started up in Max’s blood as they reached in to kiss his throat, mouthing along his scales, as they settled as far as was easy against him, just at the point where the ripples of his cock became a little too pronounced. They rocked against him, just a fraction at first to be sure that the oil had been enough, and had to catch their breath at the shape of him.

Because, gods. They could feel the ridged patterns that wrapped around his cock, waves of sensation and of pleasure with each one that slipped into them. Breathing out, they more deliberately pressed back against him, and felt another ridge of him against them as they took him in. It sent sparks up their spine, thighs aching with want and tension as Shattershield stroked their back, rumbling softly with just a hitch to his breath as Max took a breath and then rocked back against him again.

They had not been parted from him for any real length of time since they had come to Mistmire. Certainly not more than a day or two, when their watches clashed too badly or when Shattershield had specific demands on his time. Not long enough for their body to seem to half-forget him, as it had done in the weeks between their visits before, and even if from time to time they moved more slowly against him it was often less of a necessity these days. Max tried to recapture that feeling, that careful slow rocking against him meant not just for teasing him but for making things possible for them both.

“Still good?” said Shattershield as they paused, breathing roughly against his neck. His hand stilled against their spine for a moment, until they nodded with a murmur of agreement.

They rose, then fell deeper against him, another breath and another ridge of him as he pressed them open. His thighs were tense with coiled power beneath them, his breathing heavy beneath their hand on his chest, soft and warm against their hair.

He mumbled something in Draconic, nails grazing against their scalp as they rocked down against him. Max nipped at the base of his throat, then tilted their head to run their tongue round towards his shoulder.

“Very good,” they said softly. Shattershield’s hips twitched, and he grunted, but Max moaned at the drag of him against their walls, pressing their forehead to his scales. With their free hand they reached down to his forearm, half supporting themselves even as they stroked the inside of his forearm with their thumb. Again they pressed down against him, not even sure how much more of him there could be to take, making another soft sound against his throat. “Oh gods, Arend. I should have tried this earlier.” They laughed breathlessly, then rose and fell with slow deliberation, oil just enough to ease the movement, not so much as to take away the faint delicious friction of him against their skin. “You were always just too tempting to wait.”

He made an embarrassed sort of sound, which never failed to be endearing when them being naked in his arms did not manage by itself to have anything like such a flustering effect on them. Another rolling thrust of their hips against him, and then they pressed back against him one more time with a moan that turned sharp as they reached the root of him, the thick base almost too much to bear for a moment until they caught their breath, relaxed, and settled their hips properly against him.

“Damn it, Max.” The throaty sound of his voice sent a flutter through them, and their body tightened around him in a wave that made him growl in pleasure again. They pressed their mouth to his chest as they eased against him, murmuring against his scales as the heat of his touch swelled through them, warming the oil splashed on their skin even as the air made other stretches of it run cool.

Those words were usually some of the last coherent ones that he managed before giving in to growls and Draconic mutters, and the thought made Max chuckle softly again as Shattershield’s touch slipped back down to their hip. His hand moved with them as they took him in slow, steady movements, as they drew upright to where they could see him properly even if it meant having to draw away having pressed one last soft bite to his chest.

They ran their hand up past his eshrazani, up to stroke along his horns as their eyes traced along the lines of his face for as long as they could bear before his gaze locked on theirs. If the pleasure that was building up in them had been coming in waves of heat through their body, catching his gaze was like a flood. The captivated awe in his eyes as he looked at them was enough all by itself to make them tremble, still betraying that he experienced the same surges of confusion that they did sometimes, that this could have happened to them.

From time to time, just as they were drifting to sleep in his arms, or when they entered a room quietly and he did not notice them or look up from his desk to find them watching, it was as if they could barely breathe around the feelings for him swelling in their chest. The same sensation assailed them again as he gently brushed a stray drop of oil from their cheek, seeing everything so clear in his eyes and his expression and the way that his hands ran softly over their oil-streaked skin, as clear as any words.

Even if they had never hidden their relationship, it was not as if they tended to spell things out. And though Max would often catch Shattershield looking at them warmly, tenderly – and was not even ashamed of the fact that he had caught them doing the same – it was nothing compared to the way he was in private. His heart not just on his sleeve, but practically on his fingertips, offered to Max with every touch, however tender, however rough.

They kept their movements steady and gentle against him even as they rocked in his lap, even as he ran his hand through their hair again, only to pause and tut at what felt from the damp slap of their hair like a particular patch of oil. With their hips stable against him, Max was able to reach up with both hands to cup the end of his snout, and Shattershield murred as he let himself be drawn in to a kiss.

Max parted their lips to him, but his tongue took only a teasing brush against the lower until Max gave in to what he clearly wanted and ran their tongue against the roof of his mouth instead. They lot their tongue explore what it could reach, as careful against his sharp teeth as they were in their movement against him. The shape of his cock might have been helpful when it came to opening them up for him, but the ridges of him would not exactly suit riding him hard this way, like they could when they usually took him.

But moving steadily, rising and falling gently against him, made fire rush in them even as it kept time with the gentle movements of their tongue. The physical sensation was not the same as the usual feeling of him, tighter and more intense, their body clenching around him in longing waves. But the rush felt more intense as well, the sense of his power coiled beneath them, the aching knowledge of letting him into them in this new way.

Shattershield’s hand brushed down between their thighs again, and Max drew back with a sharp gasp before they lost control against his teeth. It was like a bolt up their spine, a sharp pulse of sensation running through them, and they had to steady themselves against Shattershield’s chest again as he paused for a moment, let them nod, before making further small, coaxing touches against them.

“Gods, Arend – yes. Not – no closer.” Their voice tightened even on the words, a moan sparking in their throat as he kept the motion just below their clit, the feeling still almost too much. Max rested their temple against Shattershield’s jaw, feeling the roughness in his breath as they shuddered against him and their hips jerked in place. “Please don’t stop.”

They managed the words in a breath, and then broke off with a sharp sound. Shattershield growled, fingers moving faster, as Max shifted to shallow firm thrusts against him, decisive motions of their hips to his. The moans on their lips broke apart as they moved, and Shattershield dropped his hand from their hair to support the small of their back again as they gasped and moaned against him.

He panted their name, fingers starting to shake as he stroked upwards against them. They made wordless sounds of encouragement, eager in their throat as they tried to match their pace to his fingers and was not even sure which one of them was increasing their speed against each other. Their thighs started to quake around him, breath torn from their chest, and they knew that they all but whimpered his name as they began to judder apart.

Shattershield’s hand steadied them, but they still had to brace themselves against him, eyes falling closed, as climax began to overtake them. It hit them in sharp, hard waves, desperate heat running through them until it seemed to swell beneath their skin, prickling down to their fingertips and pulsing through their blood. They could not even gather their breath enough to cry out, panting against him as pleasure crashed and crashed again through them, their hips tilting into his touch until his fingers were on their clit and light seemed to flash behind their eyelids as they fell apart and fell against him.

As it became too much, they gently pressed his hand back towards their thigh again, and dragged in their breath as they gathered fully that their forehead was against his shoulder again, their lips almost touching his scales. As a ripple of delayed pleasure ran through their muscles, they felt themselves tighten around him and his hips jerk up towards them, and reached down to palm the base of his stomach again. It was request as much as invitation for him to let go, and as Max began to move again, skin still flushed and tender but climax relaxing them around him, Shattershield gave a long, low growl and began to move with them in rolls of tension through his hips and thighs.

Max ran their tongue up his throat, still breathing fast, nipping at his throat as the hand circling against his scales turned firmer and more intent. His hand tightened on their thigh, claws against their skin, until they moaned again at the way the pain cut through the pleasure still suffusing them, sharp through the warm haze, pinning their attention back to him.

“Arend.” They nipped his jaw again, more pointedly, then gasped as the hand on their back slid right down to their ass and hitched them tighter against him. With a twitch of their thighs they rose, then sank back to the hilt of him, feeling his cock twitch as he huffed against their hair.

Tilting back their head to look up at him again, Max ground down against him. With a soft grunt, he pushed up his hips to meet them, hand now almost digging into their ass to pull them to him, and as Max deliberately pulled and held their muscles tight around him Shattershield gave a shaking groan and let his hips judder against them. He released their thigh to grab the edge of the bathtub, gasping as Max continued to massage at the base of his stomach, stroking down to wring his orgasm from him.

As his breath caught, some edge to the sound, Max let their hand still, splayed against the heat of his scales almost as if cradling him as they tilted their head to kiss the other side of his neck instead. He made a low, indistinct sound, wrapping his arm around their back and snorting as it slid through the oil and made him fumble his first attempt to hold them. With a grumble, he brought his other arm around as well, and Max let themselves be pulled almost uncomfortably tight to his chest. With the oil, they could have done even less than usual to resist it, but simply squirmed a hand up to his bicep and shifted to wrap more easily around him. At least his own heart was probably racing as much as theirs; they could feel, never mind hear, that his breath was just as ragged.

Finally, he moved to rub his jaw against their hair, then to uncoil from them enough to comb his nails through it. “Vethparijan,” he murmured, the sound a familiar rhythm these days where they felt it in his throat and chest, and they kissed the scales nearest to their lips even if they were not quite sure, at the angle, where they were on him.

They murmured against him, even as they felt his cock begin to soften and retract. It was a strange sensation, and Max caught their breath at the feeling of his ridges against them again. This time there was discomfort to it, and with a grunt Max shifted flexed their muscles to ease him from them again.

“Max?” Perhaps they were not as subtle as they thought, as Shattershield loosened his hold on them and they felt him peering downwards. “Are you okay?”

Max gave a sheepish chuckle, drawing upright again and tossing their hair back. Well, moving as if to do so; their hair had not grown out long enough yet that they really needed to, but it was a habit all the same. “The shape of you… changes things,” they said, looping an arm around his shoulders and settling to a more comfortable seated position again. He was frowning faintly, head cocked as he regarded them, clearly still concerned even if he was perhaps not sure how to put words around it. “Some parts are easier, some parts more difficult…” A shrug, then they reached to rub at the tip of his snout just below his teeth, making sure their smile was soft. “We can figure it out. And as I said,” they allowed themselves to shift in his lap as a twinge of discomfort did run through them, “it had been a while. I probably could have made it easier if I went a little slower with you…” they traced their fingers along the underside of his snout, down his throat and towards his chest.

Shattershield huffed. “You, impatient?” he said dryly. “I can’t imagine it.”

“Yes, it sounds terribly out of character.” Max let their hand come to rest on his chest, resisting the urge to let their smile broaden to a grin. “I can’t think what came over me.”

As soon as the words left their lips, the thought of a far dirtier joke sparked in their mind, and they bit their lip as they considered saying it aloud.

Shattershield eyed them. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “Whatever you’re thinking of saying, don’t you dare. I can see that look in your eyes.”

Max rolled their eyes fondly, and reached up to kiss the end of his snout. “Was it your vows that gave you the ability to read thoughts, then?”

“No, it is months of you,” he reached up to brush his thumb at their lower lip again, “and an increasing appreciation of your dirty mouth.”

The word appreciation gave him away, at least, and Max’s lips twitched towards a smile. It might have taken them both some months to realise that he enjoyed hearing things from them that would not have interested him on other tongues, but Max had stopped themselves from hurrying to take advantage of it. Only carefully, and when he indicated some interest, did they speak in more explicit words to him.

“Fine, be that way.” They ran their hand down his chest, then had to pause and shake some of the stray oil off their hand. It splattered onto the still-damp base of the bath. “I did get overenthusiastic about that, didn’t I?”

“Oh, now you realise?” said Shattershield. At least he sounded amused by the whole thing. Max looked down at themselves in turn, at the oil still visibly smeared across them and dripping from their elbows. “Luckily the stores do not keep track of how much oil each paladin gets through. They have more concerns with items of furniture being set on fire, that sort of thing.”

It did beat keeping receipts, Max had to admit.

“Or getting broken,” they teased. Shattershield gave them a look of deep and abiding patience, and they leaned in to press kisses along the line of his snout until they felt him give in and chuckle. His hand stroked their back. “Worth the second round of bathing?”

“You always are,” he said, and Max drew back to see him watching them with warmth in his gaze again. He nosed at their temple, at their hairline, then pulled back and wiped the side of his mouth with the back of his hand and with an unimpressed expression.

They snorted. “Are you sure?”

Shattershield paused, and Max suspected he was trying to look as if he were considering the answer but he could not hide his smile. “Believe it or not, yes. At least, when I do not have anywhere else to be today and have the time to bathe twice. Is that a fair compromise?”

“I believe so,” they said. As was a faint ache in their muscles in exchange for the languid warmth of climax, the ghostly lingering heat where his hands had touched their skin. If anything, they had been less rough than usual, Max’s shoulders and neck left barely touched and not at all bearing their usual scattering of marks. “At least you don’t have hair to get clean again.”

“You say as if I will not assist with yours.”

They smiled, and stroked their thumb against his chest. “Hmm. And what of my latest… experiment?” They did not mean for their voice to drop suggestively on the last word, could have all but sworn that it did it of his own accord. Just as part of his eternal effect on them, the low simmer of desire that the mere thought of him put beneath their skin without either of them having to do anything at all.

Whether it was the question or the tone that made Shattershield clear his throat and look down at their shoulder again, they could not say, but Max bit their lip to let him reach for whatever words he sought. “You certainly continue to… have more ideas than I,” he said, a flustered compliment. His hand adjusted against the small of their back. “And to be frank, I do not think there is one yet that has not, at least, been enjoyable to try.”

Max laughed, and kissed the side of his mouth with a lingering brush of their tongue. “I’ll have filth from your tongue yet,” they breathed against him.

From his huff, he was not at all perturbed by the threat. “I fear that may take you some time more. Now let me reach the taps for the water, before this oil begins to stick me to the wood.” The words only made Max laugh harder as they leaned back to let him reach for the taps and begin the work of adding water to the bathtub once again. It was answered by a stiffness in their legs, however, and as they squirmed sideways their muscles were as stiff as if they had been running.

“Gods. I need to walk this off.” They had plenty of the power to lay on hands still, but it was rather embarrassing to have to use it for cramped muscles. Let alone cramped muscles that were entirely their own fault for coaxing Shattershield into having sex in his bathtub again. A chance to begin the task of cleaning themselves up would also be appreciated before they saw to trying to get the excess oil off them both again.

Shattershield sat back up for long enough for them to slip upwards and perch for a moment on the side of the bath, their hips just below his shoulders. His eyes slid up and down them, and they caught his gaze lingering on their abdomen until he reached out to gently stroke their waist. Max smiled as he glanced up, his expression asking for some sort of permission even if they were not wholly sure what for. They nodded, and his eyes returned to their stomach as he leaned in, tilting his head to run his tongue side to side on their skin, hot enough to make them catch their breath even before he closed his teeth to their skin and bit until it just began to ache.

Max took a shaky breath. “Arend. Give me a moment before whatever you have planned.” He pulled away quickly, worry back in his gaze as he looked up, even as they stroked his cheek. “I need to stretch my legs properly. Once I have…” they bent down, catching him as he rose, coming in close enough to kiss but instead lingering just close enough that he must have felt their breath on his scales. They fell back to a murmur. “Then I’m yours to have your way with.”

They sat up again before he could catch them for a kiss, in time to see the surprise on his expression melt back to softness again. His claws gently traced their side, then he dropped his hand away and let them climb free of the tub.

Max glanced at the chair a couple of feet from the head of the tub. “At least our clothes stayed dry,” they added, as Shattershield reached for the taps. “That gives me one fewer excuse to keep you out of them.”

“You have never needed excuses,” said Shattershield. That, too, sounded like a compliment when it came from him. “Do not worry about starting with them now.”

Chapter Text

It turned out that it was truly, deeply strange to be in Mistmire without Shattershield being there.

Max would forget, for whole hours at a time, that he was gone with some of the other members of his Order to visit the next nearest paladins, but then they would think of something to say to him and would be reminded of it all. Even if it was only a few days, it was strange to wake up not just alone in a bed, but alone in a bed in Mistmire, a place they so deeply associated with him that even the golden colour of the walls brought him to mind.

But they knew the day that he was due to return, kept it in mind, and worked late the evening before so that they could be sure they had nothing to do, and nowhere to be, once he was back. All said, their first response when they heard some bell or other begin ringing, that evening, was to look around in confusion and worry, for a moment, that some attack had been started while several officers and a good dozen regular paladins were away.

Although looking around did involve hoisting themselves up to peer out of the trapdoor in the floor of the library stacks, however, since apparently nobody had considered when archiving paperwork that perhaps having a half-elf among their ranks might require access to older forms some day.

“That’s odd,” said Leoval, who at least had the grace to offer to help sort through his own old paperwork. He frowned in the direction of windows that Max could not see from where they stood. “Didn’t think they were due back until tomorrow.”

“The Neverholde delegation?” Max did not actually wait for a reply before hauling themselves out of the trapdoor, though. It was not as if there were any other groups of Dragon D’Or paladins that had travelled off anywhere. Their heart seemed to do a strange twist in their chest even as it sped up, an immediate twinge of fear that something had driven them back early alongside the eager hope that it was nothing more good fortune.

“Must be,” said Leoval, still peering towards the windows. He glanced back round at Max, and his smile took on a slightly knowing quality. “Go on, you should have finished hours ago. If my first papers are not among these,” he patted the last few bundles that Max had hauled out for him, “then they can wait a couple more days.”

It was not really as if Leoval would have to work hard to guess that Max would want to be there to meet Shattershield. Hell, he had been the one to provide them with the Draconic word for love which they had then offered to Shattershield, that summer, as a way to actually put words to their feelings. “Thank you,” they settled for, and as they left kept to a respectful – and respectable – pace until they were outside the doors of the library.

Then, of course, they bolted for the front gates. If they took the back stairs and ran – the training rings in the inner courtyard were empty at this time of the evening – it saved them time compared to the more sedate pace that would be needed through the halls, and they did not let up until they hit the steps from the inner courtyard to the outer, all but skidding to a halt on them at the sight of the returning party arrayed below.

There was no sign of trouble, the mood in the air one of relief and welcoming, and Max scanned the group until they caught sight of Shattershield standing beside a faintly shimmering warhorse, one hand on the very real bridle that lay against its celestial hide. They smiled, feeling tension leach from their shoulders, as he looked round and their eyes met.

Max began down the steps, but did not even reach the bottom before Shattershield crossed the flagstones and reached up to meet them, pulling them towards him while they were still a couple of steps up and leaving them on the tips of their toes but with their arms around his shoulders. He smelled of the road, that familiar dusty scent, but the heat of his arms around them and the low rumble in his chest were as true as ever.

Max closed their eyes and sank into his hold, with a relieved huff of laughter at the sight of them all well and whole, and him being so most of all.

“I missed you,” he said in soft Draconic against their shoulder. It sent a wave of warmth through them, and they made a faint noise which they knew he would recognise as agreement as they adjusted one of their hands to slip beneath his eshrazani, against the back of his neck.

Shattershield's breath caught a fraction, and Max hoped their hands were not too cold. He rubbed his eshrazani against their temple slightly, more a rocking of his jaw than anything too blatant, but just as Max was about to remind him in a murmur that they were in the very public courtyard he lowered his head altogether to nuzzle against the side of their neck. That was more blatant, and Max felt themselves begin to redden more from the exposed feeling of it than any sort of embarrassment.

If anything, they could not help a flutter of pride at the feeling of their arms around him, at the carelessness of the display on both their parts. Even if the whole damn Order had known since before Max even moved to the city – for that matter, even if Sergeant Towridge’s husband was greeting him back with an open-mouthed kiss not all that far away – it was still new enough that allowing something so public to be so normal was slightly tremulous in their chest.

As they tore their attention back from the crowd around them, reassured that nobody could care less about the display, they realised that Shattershield had settled into his low purr-like sound, faint below the hubbub and chatter and still easier to feel than it was than it was to hear. Max tucked their cheek down against him with a smile, squeezing for a moment around his unarmoured shoulders. He nosed against their skin, breath soft and warm, one hand rubbing against their back in firm strokes.

“I don't know if you need to report somewhere first...” said Max softly. The purring broke off as Shattershield grunted, then with a minute tilt of his head he nipped at the side of their throat.

Max managed not to gasp, but knew that they went redder. It was a little difficult to quite translate to dragonborn a kiss to the cheek or the corner of the mouth, but the reminder of his teeth after enough days for any bruise to fade from their body sent a jolt down their spine.

He might have felt the way their shoulders stiffened in his hold, as he glanced up with a flicker of concern only to take in their red cheeks and the bite of their lip. Max cleared their throat discreetly, and with one more momentary bow of his head to press his snout to their skin Shattershield began to peel upright. Mercifully, he did so slowly enough that Max could also prop themselves back upright, sliding their hands back down to his chest and rocking back in their heels to face him.

Gods, they had missed him. After half a year of visits that only lasted a handful of days, they had really not thought it could be that bad, but when they had been thinking they would be spoiled by the food and mattresses of Dragon D’Or they had rather missed just how spoiled they would be by Shattershield's daily presence, the knowledge that he would never be further than the city walls. It had not been long enough to hurt, though, just to be an annoyance, and part of them did wonder whether he might feel the same flutter of past desperation that they did, desire for him welling all the more intensely after being stifled for days.

Their hand still made a poor substitute for his touch, after all.

Whether it was that Shattershield caught the flicker downwards of their gaze, or whether he could simply see the heat that they did not quite manage to keep out of their expression, was hard to say. But certainly he raised his hand to his mouth as he gave a muted cough, and as entertaining as it was to fluster him this was a rather inappropriate moment to do so. Less fun than when they were alone, for that matter, as well.

“Do you need to?" said Max. Shattershield’s bewildered look made it clear that he had entirely forgotten what they had asked. “Need to report in anywhere, now that you're back?”

“Ah. No, they know that we have all returned. Just let me fetch my saddlebags.” He nodded back towards the patiently waiting horse. “And I will leave the removal of tack to the stables.”

Those who were not used to seeing the inside of a paladin order’s stables would probably find them bizarrely empty of actual mounts. Most of the space was always taken up with tack for magically-summoned steeds, celestial or fae or whatever they might be, the actual creatures returning to their homes to rest.

Turning, Shattershield crossed back to the warhorse still waiting for him, seemingly only noticing that Max had slipped down the steps after him as he paused at the beast’s side. He looked surprised for a moment, then smiled, and undid the buckles of the main bags before slinging them across his shoulder with a dulled metallic thud that suggested that a good chunk of his armour was in there.

Unlike their own mount and its usual deer form, which was all but on their eyeline, Max found themselves low enough to Shattershield’s horse that it had to bow its head a fraction to start sniffing at their hair, snuffling against the top of their head. As Shattershield went to remove further bags, they held out their hand pointedly, and Shattershield handed over the next pair of bags for them to shoulder before scooping up the last roll of his belongings. He patted the horse on the shoulder, also above Max’s head, and thanked it in Draconic before explaining that the stables would remove the tack. The horse huffed by way of acknowledgement, but Max would not at all blame it for waiting for the chatter and hubbub to die down before it attempted to pick its way in that direction.

Certainly Max would neither have waded into the throng, nor be intending to wade back out again, without Shattershield’s wake to move through. Even if he did not have quite such a height advantage among his own Order, his rank was enough to part the others, and a glance round let Max confirm that they were at least not the first people to be leaving the courtyard. Not that doing so could possibly have been as obvious as it felt, everyone surely glad to be back, but Shattershield’s touch had made Max painfully aware of their own skin, never mind of everything around them.

They were barely halfway up the stairs, though, before Shattershield’s hand was coming to rest on their back, hot through their shirt, making them pause and glance back to see desire burning in his gaze. Max paused at the almost electric thrill that it put down their spine, for a moment unable to take another step, only for Shattershield’s other hand to come up against their hips and push them to the curving wall of the stairwell, stone cold behind them. Standing two steps below put him barely at the same height as them, and he reached in to nuzzle at their neck, making them gasp.

“Arend,” it managed to come out almost scandalised as well as breathless, as he ran one hand up their waist and nipped at their throat. “What are you…”

He ran his tongue up their neck, breathing heavily against their skin, and their hand reached towards his chest, longing to touch him, before catching themselves.

Max swallowed. “This probably isn’t the best place,” they said. They glanced up the circling stairs, to where the next doorway was just visible, and gently put a hand to his shoulder to push him away again.

He made a low, disappointed sound in his throat, but let himself be pushed back again. The look in his eyes was even more than usual, desire for them verging on desperation, not even just uncaring about the rest of the world but forgetting that it was even there. The heat of it slid down their spine, prickling beneath their skin and reminding them just how much they wanted him, how much they had wanted him while he had not been away, and that however good thoughts of him might have been they were nothing compared to his touch. Max slid their hand into his before they pulled completely out of his grasp, distantly grateful that the corridor leading back to their chambers was empty but not really sure that they would have been able to bring themselves to care. No matter how clear it probably was, would probably be from their flushed cheeks alone never mind their determined stride, that they were dragging Shattershield back to their chambers with only one thing on either of their minds.

They managed to unlock the door on their first attempt, which was probably a good thing with Shattershield already tracing his claws down their back, and pulled him inside to shove the door closed behind him and put the saddlebags straight on the floor. He put down his own belongings with no less haste, then stooped and swept an arm around the back of Max’s knees, tugging them to his chest and lifting them up.

By now, they were expecting it, and put one hand on his shoulders to steady themselves as they stroked at his throat with the other. Shattershield nipped at the base of their neck, then upwards, teasing at the skin of their throat, as his free hand untucked their shirt and ran up their back. The rough, warm touch sent a welcome shiver down their spine, and he made his purring, rumbling sound as he ran his tongue back down their skin, lapping down to the lacing at the neck of their shirt and nosing it open as he went.

He took a step, and then their back bumped against the wall, and Max grunted from the suddenness of it and from the thud of his claws against their back. They went to ask whether his hand was okay, but just as they glanced down they saw Shattershield bite through the laces of their shirt, and for a moment they could not have managed words at all as he spat out the strips of leather and then was nipping at their skin again, barely above the fabric of their stay.

They ran a hand across his forehead, then along the line of his horns, and was about to bow their head to kiss his scales when they realised how dust-strewn he still was. The heat of him against their body made a shiver run through them, feeling his hard muscles flexing beneath their touch, as he rumbled eagerly against them.

Running to find him had not left them out of breath, but it had not much of his touch to tear it from them again, to leave them flushed and fighting the urge to squirm any more pointedly against him. They gave a reluctant huff even as Shattershield brought his hand around and up beneath their shirt, tugging free the laces of their short stay with searing brushes against their skin.

“Arend,” they said; he paused to look up at them, breathing roughly as well and with his mouth still slightly open. Gods, they did not much want to have to say this – this would be the time for prestidigitation, gods, just to let him shuck off the dust and grime of the road in seconds – but neither could they bring themselves to let him get dirt on the sheets just that morning, and he deserved to have their mouth on him in ways that were only going to be pleasant if he were clean first. “You… you need to bathe.”

“Surely it can wait–” he said softly, and honestly they wanted to say that it could. The bed could probably be… avoided, at least for a while… but their lips yearned to feel the heat of his hide, their tongue to run over the patterns of scales.

They made a soft sound of complaint of their own, pressing their lips together. It was its own sort of torture to have to be the one to delay them. Max shook their head, stroking his horns again, and had to swallow against their own arousal, the way that their body wanted to arch to his, before they could reply. “Afraid not. I want to taste you,” their hand slipped upwards to the line of his mouth, brushing against his teeth. “Not the road. At least we know I can fit in that bath as well.”

He grumbled, nosing back against the centre of their chest for a moment, tilting his head to rub his eshrazani against their shoulder, but then looking up. “Very well.” He huffed. “Oddly enough, I was warned of this aspect of… sharing my life with someone.”

The words made warmth flutter in their chest, but he had already set too much heat in them for them to entirely recede to behaving themselves. They smiled wickedly. “Being told you’d need to bathe before you got to the business of having your way with me?”

It broke through his look of adoring concentration enough for him to sigh, not quite managing to look disapproving when he could not hide his smile. “Really, Max… no.” He gave them the sternest look he could manage, as they grinned at him. “That I would be ordered to bathe even when I felt almost too tired to do so. Which, since I have done the same to you, is not unfair.”

That had not even been contentious between them, being frankly almost a relief to have the other insist they bathe when it would have felt so much easier to sleep still dirty and regret it in the morning. Max’s reminders to Shattershield that they did not have scales to protect their feet and that he would need to take more care in making sure his feet were clean had taken a little longer to sink in. In return, they had needed to learn Dragon D’Or’s expectations about order members cleaning their own quarters, and the other minutiae of living under the roof of a large, settled order.

“I didn’t think tiredness was on your mind,” they pressed a little further, rubbing their thumb against his scales.

Normally it might have sparked more grumbling, perhaps even a flustered response, but instead Shattershield nosed against their neck again, teasing flicks of his tongue up the centre of their throat until they could feel it hot against their skin as they swallowed again. With one more soft bite and a reluctant sound, he drew away again, then slipped his free hand around to Max’s back again and pulled them back to his chest.

“Unless I am much mistaken, it is not on yours either,” he remarked.

On that front, he had them, and Max almost went to kiss his scales before catching themselves and settling for running their touch the length of his mouth, back over his cheek and up to tease over his eshrazani. They were not wholly surprised when he turned, adjusted them slightly to one side of his body and hitched them up so that he could see past them, and proceeded to walk straight towards the stairs without bothering to set them down first. He had not done it before, but the ceilings were certainly tall enough, and he knew full well that they trusted him sufficiently for it.

Instead, Max peeled off their shirt, and Shattershield gave an appreciative rumble even as he started up the steps with them. They draped the fabric over his shoulder, following it up with removing their stay and laying that on him as well. His hand traced up their back, then his nails dragged down again, enough to sting just a little against their skin. If there had been any doubt about their thoughts on what Shattershield clearly had planned, their hard nipples would have given them away in an instant, especially since they were not far off Shattershield’s eyeline where he had Max against his shoulder. The bathroom had a door to the landing as well as one to their bedroom, and when Shattershield opened it Max ducked their head slightly, to be on the safe side. The last thing they wanted to do was have Shattershield distracted from his clear determination to have his way with them.

“Not that I’m complaining,” they said, as he finally began to let them slide down to the ground again. They pulled their clothes with them, and tossed them over the usual chair, then reached over and pointedly started to pull open his tunic, starting with the lowest toggles. “But what bought this on?”

Shattershield gave a questioning grunt, even as he made a start at the top of his tunic.

Max ran their hands up beneath, against the hot wall of his abdomen through his shirt, scratching lightly at his scales. “Even when I was only here a few days at a time, I wasn’t this intent… wait, or was I?” They frowned for a moment.

“Well,” said Shattershield dryly. “For one thing, I would not have tried to persuade you in the direction of a bath if you arrived when I was not on duty.”

Well, he did have a point there. Max affected a pout, even as Shattershield finished undoing his tunic and peeled it away. They did undo his belt for him, though, and knew full well that he would not believe such an expression for a moment. “For you, though, this is…” they tugged his belt open as he untucked his shirt and began to lift it off. It was not just the revealing of his chest that made them trail off, but certainly they did not miss the opportunity to drink in the sight of him all over again. Beneath his clothes, he might also have been more protected from the dust and dirt of travel, but they still suspected it would be better to wait until he was washed to kiss his scales as they yearned to.

He removed his shirt as well, threw it onto the chair, then paused and cupped their cheeks in both of his hands. His thumbs ran along their cheekbones, eyes burning into theirs. “But most of all… I have missed you. And while there were some things I could let my thoughts linger on…” he tilted his head, thumb slowing and pressing harder to their skin. “Others, I could not.”

“You know that I don’t mind it,” said Max, smile curling at the corner of their mouth again.

He huffed. “Not when all of us were sleeping in the same room.”

Oh. Oh. That did manage to sound more frustrating than what Max had faced, although they could not help a flicker of amusement that only a week or so away had been enough to clearly leave him so aflame for them. They tugged open the lacing of his underwear, then stepped back to concern themselves with the rest of their clothes, presuming that he would take the hint. “Sounds like there’s time to catch up on,” they said.

Shattershield made a low growling sound, and started to reach towards them again, then glanced down at his own remaining clothing and gave another, more irritated, huff. Max laughed as they finished stripping down, tossing their clothes in the general direction of the chair and kicking their boots aside before turning to start the water to fill the tub.

They were not at all surprised by the hand that landed on their hip, before they had even turned back around, but were caught a little more off-guard at the sound of Shattershield taking a knee behind them and the sudden heavy warmth of him against their back. He rumbled, nosing against their hair and then nipping along their shoulder in eager, breathless movements, tongue darting against their skin. It reminded them of the giddy relief each time they had returned to him throughout the first half of the year, the peaks of gorging on his touch that they had been willing to let go of in return for not having to face the long stretches of hunger for him.

One of his hands clasped at their hip, the other arm wrapping around their body to let his fingers trail hot down their chest. Max gripped the side of the tub, legs feeling weak for a moment at the sheer presence of him, wrapping them up in his heat as his tongue traced the back of their neck and his hand slipped sideways to brush the back of his fingers, and his claws, past their nipple. The touch was aching, and their breath shuddered as he began to knead at their chest, palm rough against their skin as the steam already rising from the water began to roll across them.

“I did mean bathing, not just entering the bathroom,” Max teased, but it was hard to make it sound like a protest as Shattershield moved to rolling their nipple between his fingers, teeth grazing over and over their skin. His other hand began to sneak down the line of their hip, headed between their thighs. “Arend.”

“I have missed all of you,” he said, soft and half-muttered against their shoulders. They knew to listen for his voice beneath their pounding heart, or it might have been hard to hear him. “How you look.” He bit at the side of their neck. “How you sound.” A harder bite, aching enough to bruise. “How you feel. How…”

Words failed him, but Max felt a rush of heat in their chest that had nothing to do with the steam as the tip of his tongue brushed momentarily against their skin and they heard the other, unspoken, senses. Senses he had listed before. His hand slipped round the back of their thighs, then up between them, and with a gasp Max leant harder on the edge of the tub and parted their legs for him as he breathed in deeply at the curve of their neck.

The gentlest brush of his touch between their thighs was enough to bring a groan of relief to their lips. He nuzzled against their shoulder, nibbling his way down, as his fingertips drew slow lines against them like he was rediscovering the shape of their skin. His other hand splayed against their chest, holding them in place as he dipped his mouth downwards, tongue at their shoulderblades, breath hot and damp against their skin. He rumbled as he shifted the hand between their thighs, fingers stroking up to their clit, already wet with them as he reached far enough to start to draw circles on their skin.

Max gasped his name as his touch settled firmly against them, heel of his hand offered up for them to grind against. With one of their hands still on the tub, they wrapped the other around his arm where it was curled across their chest, already feeling the heat and the tension that he put into them building like a wave between their thighs.

“I dreamed of you,” Shattershield murmured against their back, then ran his tongue along their spine between their shoulderblades. “But woke without you.”

It was hard to summon much of a response as he stroked circles around their clit, coaxing them higher and higher with each pass as their thighs began to tense and to tremble. “Your bed is too big for me,” they managed, breathlessly. They were used to the height of it by now, but without him it still felt too cold, too broad when they had to climb across it to rise again come morning. “Without you in it.”

They moaned as the heel of his hand rocked up against them, able to feel the flexing of his arm against their back as his muscles shifted. He bit their back softly, seemingly at random, and without seeing him they only had a moment’s warning from his hot breath before feeling the pressure of his teeth. The uncertainty made their skin tingle, aware of every inch as his tongue ran up their skin and picked out the stinging points where he had bitten. His fingers on their clit shifted to soft coaxing motions, two of his fingers in slightly irregular strokes that left their breath cracking beneath his touch.

As he reached up to nip the back of their throat again, he rolled his hand against them, and even braced against the bathtub Max rocked him place with him with a soft cry. They could feel Shattershield growing breathless, his hot scales brushing their back over the stinging marks of his teeth even as his claws dug into their chest to hold them against him.

“I missed you,” he said, in Draconic again, and Max tried to reply but could not even get his name out clearly as the pace of his fingers quickened, heel of his hand pressing up more firmly into them.

It could have been almost embarrassing how fast he could take them apart. But Max could not bring themselves to care, not as he licked into the curve of their spine to make them squirm, not with the heat of his hand cupping them and the familiar, certain movements of his fingers. Their hand tightened on the wood of the tub, moving more deliberately against his hand in a rhythm that sent rich heat rolling up their spine.

Shattershield made low sounds of encouragement, soft grunts against their back, and Max gave in to the heat trembling beneath their skin and spreading through their body. It rose through their chest like a breath, hot and raw in their throat as a half-whining sound escaped their lips, and at another increase in the pressure and the speed of his fingers they nodded and moaned. The steam of the bath sent sweat prickling across their skin, but it felt as if it was his touch beading pleasure across them, thighs starting to shake. He leaned into them, chest to their back, hand across their body holding their weight as they were tipped slightly forward with Shattershield curling around them.

They breathed his name, please, not even sure which language it managed to be as he bit harder to their skin and moved his hand in a rocking gesture, fingers each side of their clit, a narrow vee that sent sparks up their spine to explode behind their eyes in waves of heat. Were it not for his hands around them they might have fallen, legs threatening to buckle as they fell into shuddering climax, blank waves rolling through their thoughts as anything else gave way beneath the feel of him. His mouth on their skin, his claws pressing down over their heart, his hand between their thighs wet enough with them to slide with perfect friction against their skin.

Their own heartbeat pounded in their ear, ragged moans on their breath, but as the fog across their thoughts began to fade again they realised that Shattershield was growling softly against their shoulder, teeth painfully tight, hand still pressed firmly between their legs. Were it not for the trembling running through them, Max would have held wholly still, blood still pulsing in their veins and skin achingly sensitive. None more so than beneath his hand, flutters at their muscles still as they leaned back against him and dragged in their breath.

“Gods, Arend,” they said, then laughed breathlessly. “I’ve never known you be so impatient…”

He released their shoulder, muscle twinging at the touch, then ran his tongue across the skin. “I have been waiting for days to be back to you,” he said softly. “Is that not patience enough?”

They considered pointing out that they would have considered themselves just as impatient on some of their returns, but Shattershield was still stroking his knuckles gently down their chest, nuzzling again into the crook of their neck.

“I have missed the sound of my name.” His voice made them shiver again. “And saying yours.”

His hand slipped out from between their thighs, and even with the ever-present warmth of Mistmire the air felt colder against them. A wet touch to their hip, starting to turn them towards him as his tongue traced their neck again, and Max started to turn in his hold and raise their arms towards him when they remembered the running water and looked quickly back at the bath.

“H– hang on.” Their voice threatened to crack. “It’s going to be more of a distraction if the bath overflows.”

There was at least an edge of amusement to Shattershield’s huff, and his hand lingered on Max’s hip as they turned back to the bath. It was not as deep as they would usually have it, but certainly deep enough, especially for the both of them and especially when Max did not want any water being splashed out with unhelpful timing. They hastily turned off the taps again, running a hand down Shattershield’s arm.

“Come on. Let’s get the dust of the road off you.”

To their complete lack of surprise, Shattershield seemed much less interested in bathing and much more interested in running his hands down Max’s body through the water, in biting and lapping at their throat with a low, pleased thrum of sound in his throat the entire time. It was even harder to bring themselves to concentrate on running the cloth over his skin when he was the one running hands down their thighs, tugging their hips to his where they straddled him, nipping with excruciating delicacy at the curve of their earlobe.

Once they had managed to sweep the dust from his shoulders, though, they could press their lips to him with a moan, run their tongue across the texture of his scales and suck at the line of his collarbone. They guided his hands up to their hair, let him massage at their scalp and trace claws across their skin as they forced themselves to concentrate on his jaw and eshrazani, soapy cloth picking out each line of him and letting them feel all over again the shapes of his scales.

Their fingers slid along his jaw, and in a single fast move Shattershield had turned his head to catch them between his teeth. He ran his tongue through them, hot and slick as it writhed against their skin, and the feel of it went straight between their thighs as he his hand stroked down their forearm and his tongue stroked down their fingers.

They retaliated with a bite to his neck, enough for him to gasp, dipping the other hand with its cloth below the waterline. Shattershield released their hand with a choking, surprised sound as Max circled the base of his stomach, and they smirked against his skin and sucked hard at the same part of his neck.

“I don’t believe that part of me needs cleaning,” he said gruffly.

“Are you sure?” Max murmured against his throat, still smiling. They felt Shattershield growl, low in his chest, and pressed more firmly with the cloth against him, only for him to manoeuvre their hand aside and grip them about the waist. Max yelped as Shattershield lifted them from the water, sitting them on the narrow shelf to the rear of the bathtub as if they were no heavier than the sword he wielded. It was wide enough to perch on, but not really to sit, and Max grabbed at the edge of the tub with their wet back to the wall as Shattershield moved round to kneel between their thighs. “And I don’t think that part of me does either,” they replied.

He nipped their stomach, hands on their hips, then just above the crease of their thigh. Where he knelt held their knees apart, and there was no mistaking his intention even before he began to lap at their stomach with soft rumbling sounds. “However much you call me a cat,” he said, “my tongue does not count as bathing you.”

Laughter burst from them, even as Shattershield adjusted the angle of their hips on the wood to tilt them towards him once again. His tongue teased down the crease of their thigh. “I’m not sure this is the best – oh fuck–”

They did not get all the way through questioning how safe it was to hold them there before his tongue was on them. The hot water had left their skin flushed and sensitive, and they moaned and squirmed, pressing the balls of their feet against the base of the bathtub, as he ran his tongue along them.

“Arend.”

“I…” his words faltered for a moment, then he looked up and caught their eyes, expression something between warmth and nervousness. “I have missed the taste of you,” he said softly.

Heat suffused their chest, rising red in their cheeks and swelling with pride in their smile at hearing the words from him. They stroked released the edge of the tub to cup his cheeks. “It’s unfair of you to say that when I can’t reach to kiss you.”

There was a moment’s uncertainty still in his eyes before their words sunk in, and with a soft huff he knelt a little higher towards them. Max leaned forwards to kiss his snout, then parted their lips to flick their tongue against his scales in turn. He opened up his mouth to them as he knelt up, letting them trace his tongue with theirs as they brushed their fingers down his neck. They murmured against him, as he slipped his hot tongue between their lips in reply.

They bought one hand up to his eshrazani, firm on the back of his neck as they slid the other down his body again. Their fingers could find the patterns in his scales in an instant these days, and they gave firm strokes with their fingertips until they felt him shudder and his claws dug into their thighs again.

Max dipped their hand towards his cock, but before they could reach it Shattershield slid back down their body to settle between their thighs. They braced themselves against his shoulder as his nipped the inside of their thighs, curled his tongue against their skin, then nosed at the crook of their thigh with another huff of warm breath.

They could offer him anything, they knew, whisper the question in his ear of what he wanted of them. And though he found the words more difficult than the actions, he would opt almost always for this, hands on their thighs to hold them open to his mouth as his tongue explored their skin. Max cried out as his tongue slipped inside them, reaching to curl inside them against points he knew by heart.

Max’s toes curled against the tub, panting as Shattershield’s tongue thrust against them. They brought one hand up, blindly looking for something to wrap their hand around, and found the edge of the shelf against their palm. It was damp from steam as they clutched it, their breathing coming in rough waves that were almost in time with the rolling movement of his tongue, eyes falling closed.

“Please,” they said breathlessly, not even sure what they were asking him for. They were already wound tight with him, hot water and his wandering hands leaving them pulsing and their heart racing even before he slipped his tongue from them and upwards to circle against their clit. Firm flat movements, before he rolled it to bring the edges rippling against them, tip of his tongue coming up to flick in fast, insistent patterns. “Gods damn, Arend, how is your tongue allowed?”

They were pretty sure that he gave a muffled chuckle, movement of his tongue taking on a fluttering edge. He put his hand to one of their legs, and Max gripped the shelf tighter as he raised their leg up, shin to his shoulder, and once they had their balance there grazed his claws up the back of their thigh. His tongue returned to its firm movements as his fingers came to tease at their entrance, pads of his fingers brushing delicately against them.

They made sounds of encouragement, tightening their muscles against him, until with a vee of his tongue against their clit he slid one finger into them, curving up against their walls. As their back arched he followed with a second, pressing them open to his touch as his tongue shifted to softer coaxing movements again.

It was too much, the soaking heat of the water beneath their skin and the pressure of his tongue, his fingers pressing them open and, gods, the eager growl of his breath as he devoured them. It was that sound, the low timbre in his throat that seemed to reverberate up through him. But it burred not just on their skin but somehow in their bones, his ringing desire for them made so evident that it left them feeling as if they could not breathe, as if he was offering something back for each sense that he filled with them.

As if what he offered the whole damn time was not overwhelming enough.

The thoughts swirled raggedly through them as Shattershield stroked up with his fingers, other hand braced to hold their hip firmly in place as his tongue roved across their skin to leave their clit aching and their body tightening around them. Their thighs grew taut, shoulders pressing hard to the wall as their back arched and they cried out again, not even quite his name.

He buried his fingers in them, easy with their body’s ache for him, wet on their thighs even as the water on their skin began to dry. Max’s fingers pressed hard against his scales, a faint whine escaping them as he drew his tongue up, too slow even if it might not have been that slow at all, all the way from their entrance along their heated skin. They could feel that he was savouring them, and it was flattering, gods, it made their head spin, but it was not enough when they could feel themselves trembling on the edge again, only touches from falling apart to him.

They dragged in breaths of the steam-edged air, tilting their hips into his touch with a low moaning sound, whispered please again until he drew his tongue back up to oblige them. The tension in them broke apart in a wave that was almost terrible, tearing down their body like fire in their bones and sparks on their skin as his tongue moved faster against their clit even with their hips bucking up to him and desperate shudders running through them.

It was a relief that they did not have to worry about staying quiet. One less thing to concern them with, one less thing that could distract them from him even as they only managed low, cracked sounds, moaning for him more than crying out even as tongue drove them on, into a cool rush down their body and skin almost too sensitive, almost painful, beneath his touch.

Max tilted their hips away from Shattershield’s tongue, and he acknowledged it with a rumble, running his tongue up the crease of their thigh instead and nibbling at their hip. Still gasping for breath, Max stroked Shattershield’s forehead, down to let their fingers linger on his brow even as they carefully uncurled their grip on the shelf beside them. They opened their eyes, not entirely sure whether it was fragments of tears or drips of water from their hair that glittered on the edges of their vision, and looked down to see Shattershield slip his fingers from them, scales shining wet, and dip his head to let his tongue run along them and lick them clean.

They snatched in their breath, and Shattershield all but jumped, looking up wide-eyed as if he had been caught. At any time, the sight of it would have sent a bolt of arousal down their spine, but as it was it sent a visceral roll through Max that almost ached in its intensity. Still holding his gaze, they took their hand from his scales, ran it up between their own thighs to coat their fingers with their own wetness, then reached to touch their fingertips to the tip of his tongue where his mouth was still open a fraction.

For a moment, he hesitated, then with a low gruff sound he slipped his tongue up to slide over their fingers. Max watched with their heart in their throat, captivated, as he swept clean every inch of their skin, tongue wrapping around their fingers and dragging along in a hot, strong sweep. The shape of dragonborn mouths meant that he could not quite suck, but his tongue could curl right around their index finger, down to the tip curling and tickling at their knuckle. He licked back down again, leaving a cool wet streak in its wake as he took delicate hold of their wrist. His thumb brushed over the point of their pulse, tip of his tongue licking the final wet droplet from their fingertip.

“Good boy,” Max breathed, as Shattershield’s tongue wrapped around their middle finger.

They both paused. Max blinked, taking in the words they themselves had just said, as Shattershield unwound his tongue and looked up at them with a faint frown. They opened their mouth, realised they didn’t know what to say, and closed it again as they made a vague pointing gesture with the hand that he still had hold of.

“Uh,” they finally managed.

Shattershield’s expression managed to speak volumes in its subtle movements. The crease of his brow, the slightest cock of his head, eloquently questioning whether they had really just said that and what exactly they had meant by doing so.

“I have… never said that before,” said Max slowly.

They weren’t quite sure how Shattershield felt about the words, but as they looked a little longer at his uncertain expression they rather got the sense that he was not sure how he felt about them either. Their body was still pulsing with heat, but they felt their cheeks growing hotter as he regarded them in the heavy wake.

Shattershield cleared his throat carefully. “It has been… rather a long time since anyone has called me boy,” he said.

Max pressed their lips together at the temptation to laugh at the undercurrent of bemusement in his voice.

The words had just sort of… slipped out, really. Just watching the rapt look in his eyes and feeling the slide of his tongue against their skin, the next thing that they had known…

“Maybe we should, uh… I’ll not say that again,” said Max. Shattershield looked for a moment as if he were going to say something, then made a noncommittal rumbling sound instead. “We should probably get out of the water, though,” they added. “Before it gets too cold.”

They glanced down between their own thighs where he knelt, to see his cock hard beneath the water and flushed pink against his glittering scales. Max dragged their eyes slowly back upwards in time to see Shattershield lean across and pull loose the plug to let the water drain, before turning back to them. His eyes all but caressed their chest, and with a soft growl he leaned in to nip at their stomach again, hands kneading at their thighs as he lapped at their skin and the water slowly drained away.

His tongue dipped down, down, until he was slipping their folded leg free of his shoulder only to bite softly at the muscle there before licking a stripe along their thigh again.

“You call me a menace,” said Max, through soft laughter, as his tongue drifted high enough on their thigh to send an entirely different curl of sensation down their spine. “I’ll have to tie you down if you keep going like that. Come on, let me out of the bath, my rear end is going numb sitting like this.”

They trailed their hand through the water to finish rinsing it clean, then flicked drops against his nose. Shattershield pulled back with a snort, and Max sniggered at his vaguely affronted expression, before he splashed water against their leg by way of retaliation then reached up and took hold of their waist.

“Come here, then.”

They put their hands on his shoulders, taking their weight on their hands as much as letting him lift them off the side. They got their feet beneath them to stand up, bending to press one more kiss to the side of his snout, then with only the slightest of shaking in their legs climbed out of the tub. As they grabbed a towel, they heard Shattershield grunt and the sound of his claws on wood, then on stone, as he followed them out.

With how his attention had seemed all but stuck to them, Max fully expected the hands that came their way, and retaliated by thrusting a fresh towel into Shattershield’s grasp and dodging away into their bedroom. A glance confirmed that their windows were closed, which was still generally for the best when both of them seemed to have their blood running so hot, and they set about scrubbing themselves close to dry as quickly as they could manage.

Being slightly damp would not be too terrible for their sheets, but if they did not get at least most of the water out of their hair it would be murder on the pillows. Not that they could be bothered with spending too much time on it when the promise of his touch was still thrumming under their skin. Gods, it was so strange in the best of ways, the excitement of returning to him after time apart without the lingering weight of knowing they would have to leave again all too soon.

They glanced down at themselves, the faint marks beginning to appear on their thighs and stomach, and paid for the moment’s inattention as Shattershield wrapped his arms around them and lifted them up with a growl. Max yelped, linen slipping from their hands as Shattershield bit their shoulder with a deep rumble and a flick of his tongue back and forth between his teeth.

“Menace,” they repeated, breathlessly, even as their dangling legs against him brushed against the heat of his cock. Shattershield released the grip of his teeth to nuzzle beneath their ear again, carrying them over to the bed and letting them scramble onto it as they came in range. Breathlessly, Max turned to face him, raking the nails of one hand down his chest as with the other they reached to take hold of his shaft.

Shattershield gave a deeper, rougher growl, hips twitching slightly into Max’s hand as they kissed his chest again. The welcome heat and weight of him was a comfortable thrill down their spine. Max murmured into the kisses that they trailed across him, stroking the full length of his cock in slow, steady movements, fingers moving along the familiar ridges of him. For reply, Shattershield tangled his fingers in their hair, gently drawing them back with their lips still wetted and then bending to traced his snout down their jaw, down their throat, flicking with his tongue at the hollow of their collarbone before nipping at their skin again. This one was slower, like he was tasting their skin with the slow drag of movement, and then he began to move across their shoulder in slow, careful bites.

“What did you want next then, ervargus?” Max teased. Shattershield dragged his claws down their side with a guttural sound as the word of Draconic left their lips, hard enough to sting, and bit harder against them again. They squeezed his cock gently, just enough for his next bite to shudder against their shoulder before they heard him drag in his breath.

He nipped their throat, fast and sharp. “Let me on the bed,” he said. His voice was low, rough against their throat as he nuzzled against them, leaning in even as they shuffled back to give him room. He crawled onto the bed after them, teeth and tongue grazing at their throat as he continued to nip.

Max reached again for his cock, only for Shattershield to take their wrist and push it down towards the bed. They glanced down towards it with a coy smile, then looked up to ask what he intended only to be met with Shattershield’s mouth against their throat as he pushed them down onto the bed. They managed to sprawl back with one leg either side of him, then went to loop them around his waist only for him to put one hand down heavily on their hip as well.

He pinned them to the bed, rumbling again, as he made his way down their chest. His tongue wrapped around their nipple, hot against the cool evening air, drawing tight and then rippling against them as his hand stroked at their thigh again. By the time that he was tracing upwards with his fingertips, taking soft lingering bites against their chest and around their nipples, Max was shuddering with something between expectation and tenderness. Even the slightest touch against them threatened to be too much, skin desperately sensitive to the slightest graze of his scales.

They swore beneath their breath as his fingers swept the length of them again; they were already helplessly wet beneath them, already feeling shivers run through their muscles like the aftershocks still of the first climaxes he had drawn from them. It was not even as if they had particularly lacked for the attention of their own hand, though perhaps it could have been said that they were more likely to relieve their body’s pressure rather than to indulge in the slower, drawn-out pleasure that Shattershield enjoyed wreaking upon them if he could slow them down enough for it.

But Shattershield was unrelenting, fingers stroking lengths on their aching-hot skin, rumbling as his tongue wrapped around their nipple and drew its coiled lines against them. Max felt almost swollen with heat, his fingers sliding on their skin as he parted them. The air felt cold against them, and Max gasped; Shattershield responded with a nip to their chest and slipping his fingers down to tease at their entrance again.

“I’m glad I’m not working tomorrow,” said Max breathlessly. Shattershield slid his fingers back inside them, and they made a choked whining sound as he rolled his touch up into them, their muscles fluttering against the intruding touch. “I might need the time to recover from you.”

They cupped his jaw, tugging him upwards as they pushed up onto their elbow until they were close enough to kiss his snout. They ran their tongue along his scales, tilting their head to suck kisses to his snout, as he began to rock his hand against them, thrusts growing slowly deeper and more certain. Pleasure almost throbbed in them, and Max shuddered even as they brought their hips up to meet him, slipping their tongue into his mouth again.

This time when he rumbled, it ran through them as well, his tongue flicking shapes against the roof of their mouth. They felt his shoulder roll as his pressed his fingers to the hilt in them, touch curving against them and seeming to sear even through the heat he had stroked into them. They gasped around his tongue, and then he was drawing away to bite their throat again, harder and lingering, thumb brushing against their folds not precisely enough to reach their clit but enough to set them quaking again.

“Arend, you are…” they broke off with another moan as his teeth tightened a fraction, sending that buzz of almost-fear through them at the awareness of the power that he coiled around them. He released them with a breathy huff against their throat, then the mattress seemed to sway as he made his way down their body with laps of his tongue and nips of his teeth.

He pressed their thighs open again with one hand, running his tongue the length of them without the time for them to even realise he was about to, and they saw stars. They had meant to tell him that he was almost too much, too intense, that, gods, that they loved him and wanted him and ached for him but that as his tongue roved along their folds and over heated skin it was almost unbearable. Instead they clamped a hand to their mouth to catch their own breaking sounds.

It felt as if they were still in the immediate, too-sensitive wake of climax, every time as his tongue passed over them. He delved against the skin, firm pressure roaming across them as Max squirmed beneath him, against him, no longer even sure whether they were trying to move towards or away from the touch of his tongue. It felt as if liquid fire was pooling in them, coiling up their spine and pouring down their legs, as they found themselves panting and rocking their hips into the ready offering of his tongue.

His tongue rolled circles against their clit, and they half-whimpered as heat flushed through their body. They had their eyes tightly closed, seeing patterns on the inside of the lids as Shattershield worked his tongue at their clit in almost-aggressive patterns. His claws dug into their hip, their leg trembling uncontrollably below him as he caught them between the thrusting of his fingers and the patterns of his tongue.

They cried out against their hand as a tight bolt ran through them, muscles clenching hard around his touch. Shattershield growled against them, the sound reverberating through them, and it tore another peak of sound from them as their heart pounded in their chest and they bucked against his face.

Orgasm tore into them, and they brought their legs together so sharply that it seemed to catch even Shattershield by surprise. His eshrazani pressed into their skin as they lifted their hips to him, clamping their thighs about him as they shuddered and moaned beneath the insistent coaxing of his tongue.

As the fever of it broke, it became too much, and with a true whimper Max pulled away from Shattershield’s mouth, one hand to his forehead to prevent him from following them. They felt him look up, his panting breath tickling their thigh as they waited to be able to hear anything over the pounding in their ears.

He nosed against their inner thigh, his scales wet with them, and Max felt another shiver run through them. His fingers were still buried in them, enough that when their body tightening again on another echo of pleasure Max whined against their palm.

They gulped in air, then wiped their eyes with the back of their hand. “Arend, erghasbisj. Stop.”

He stilled, nose lightly touching their thigh, and they realised that they were still trembling. As Max tilted their hips away, he let his fingers slip from them, and they reached down to stroke his forehead, thumb tracing his scales, as they fought for breath.

“Are you okay?” said Shattershield, after a moment. He pushed himself up above them, looming up into their view in a wave of gold-clad muscle that drew a wordless squeak of sound from them. “Max?”

It was at least becoming easier to breathe, even if they still felt as if they were not quite on the ground. Max ran one hand down to his chest, managing to chuckle as they nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.” Relief flooded his features as he bowed his head to their shoulder. “You are just – you’re rather a lot tonight.” They licked their lips. “I wouldn’t have guessed that this – ah, no, don’t you dare!” they said, laughter falling from them even as they caught his hand creeping up the inside of their thigh again. Served them right for not being more clear, they supposed, as they craned their neck to look at him. “It seems you’ve found the point at which I need to recover.”

He made a muted, whining sound, well-buried in their shoulder and the rumpled sheets. Max pressed their fingers to his scales, still wanting him, but with their body demanding a reprieve from the pleasure assailing them. They could not say they’d had anyone manage that before.

A shiver ran through them as his teeth tightened on their shoulder again, as he fell close enough to them that with each breath their nipples grazed against his chest. Even with his hand nudged aside, Shattershield squeezed their thigh, nosing the crook of their neck again, and Max laughed breathlessly as they pushed at his shoulder.

“Gods, come on. On your back.” They gave a second shove, and with a grunt Shattershield released their neck to roll over onto his back with a soft thump against the mattress. Max sat up, running their eyes down his chest to drink in the sight of him, gaze only just landing on the flushed-pink skin of his cock when his hand wrapped around their waist and he tugged them towards him again. “Arend!”

They laughed, catching their hands on his chest and giving him the best stern, challenging look that they could manage. It was difficult to hold any sort of strict expression when he had his adoring, burning expression fixed on them, his gaze tracing across their face, down to their throat and chest where they could feel the bruises of his touch beginning to bloom, and erratically back again. His cock pressed against their thigh where they had fallen across him, his hands already wandering up their back.

“I will tie your hands to the bed,” they said, feeling themselves slip towards a smile. Shattershield gave an unconvinced huff, and Max raised their eyebrows, planting their hands more firmly against his chest. “Do you not believe me, ervargus?”

“I wouldn’t think you’d need anything more than your orders,” he said dryly.

He did have a point, but then again he was usually more inclined to actually follow what they said rather than trace one hand up their side as if he was going for their chest again. Max pushed his hand down, bit their lip in consideration, then turned decisively and climbed over him and off the bed.

They heard Shattershield give a confused grunt as they dropped to one knee beside the bed and reached underneath it. Most of what they had stored there was items that they rarely, if ever, needed, considering the bed was reasonable for them to reach beneath but too low for Shattershield to fit under. They grabbed their coil of rope from beneath and hauled it out, kneeling up and looking back to the bed just as Shattershield rolled over to peer down at them.

“What are you…” he trailed off as his eyes landed on the coil of rope in their hands, and his eyes widened almost comically as Max held it pointedly in front of him.

“I did warn you,” said Max. They climbed back up onto the bed again, straddling his thighs with the rope held between their two hands.

The words had been a joke when they first left their lips, the same as they had been when they had threatened him with it all those months before, but once again they saw the way that his breath hitched, and caught his eyes lingering. They unwound a loop, letting it stretch out between their hands, and wondered just what his muscles would look like pulling against the rope. The way that he restrained his own power, the tension it wound into his muscles, never failed to tighten in their stomach with the knowledge that he did it for them. The way he held back the thrusts of his hips when they rode him, the way that the muscles of his arms would tighten beneath their hands but his claws would barely graze their skin.

They felt their own breath quickening again, from the thought of feeling him restrained but also from the way that he was still eyeing the rope. Somewhere between fascination and nervousness, though whatever the mix it was not enough to dissuade the hard press of his cock against their thigh.

“That’s… not hempen rope,” Shattershield managed after a moment, words gruff and clipped.

“When you’re travelling long distance, weight matters,” said Max. “The silk is only half as heavy. Didn’t realise how it might look until after I’d bought it, but… it is less harsh on the hands.”

It was entirely true. Rope did turn out to be helpful a lot of the time, but carrying the full weight of the hemp was a pain and Max had figured that saving for the silk would be a good way to trim a little more weight from their pack. It wasn’t until after they had bought it, and earned a few pointed jokes, that they realised the silk was probably preferred for other things as well.

Their heart did not seem inclined to stop racing. They licked their lips. “Have you been tied up before, Arend?” they said, more quietly.

Shattershield was breathing a little fast, hands now very carefully still against the sheets. He gave a half-cough, shoulders rolling as he shifted, and met Max’s eyes for a moment before looking back to the rope again. “Not in this sort of situation,” he replied. “I must confess I’ve never… seen the appeal.”

There was a flicker of uncertainty in his voice, which Max suspected meant more that he’d never thought about it than anything else. And that, as was still not uncommon when Max suggested some sexual idea that he had not come across before, Shattershield was now thinking about it with great focus.

“Right now, it means I can get a break from your hands,” said Max, softening it with a smile and a teasing tone. Even if the feeling of straddling his thighs was leaving a faint ache in their hips, skin still throbbing from his touch. “And concentrate on the important business of having my way with you.”

They had thought, once, that such a phrase would get left behind with time. But it had lingered with them, meaning something more than just reaching for each other across the sheets or sliding into each other’s arms. Meaning more specifically that one of them was taking control, and had some deliberate intention of doing so.

Shattershield glanced from the rope to one of his hands, then very briefly up at the headboard above him. It was so fast, such a brief moment before he snapped his attention forwards again, that Max could not help but wonder whether he had not even intended to look.

“We could try,” they said, careful with the words. “Just… a loop, around your wrists. I know how to do it so it’s easy to get out of – just do the opposite of what the Inspectors Guild trains for taking someone into custody, really.” The flippant comment seemed to soften the tension that they could see starting to creep into his shoulders again. Max brought their hands down to rest against Shattershield’s stomach, splaying their fingers on his scales. “And then I can get back to touching you.”

To be fair, even if he wasn’t interested in the rope, they would be fine as long as long as he did not delve straight back between their thighs again. But they had seen the tentative spark there, the way that his eyes were following the rope as Max moved it. Shattershield seemed to be unable to quite manage a response, though, and Max was pretty certain that if he had wanted to refuse he would have been able to do so quite clearly by now.

Holding his gaze, they swapped the rope to one hand and slipped back to one side of him to crawl up alongside his body. Reaching his arms meant being almost at his shoulders, and they knew that they did not have it in themselves to even attempt to straddle his chest.

Their hands were shaking slightly with nerves as they tied the rope around the heavyset post, drew it down, and made a simple loop that would need Shattershield to actively pull on it to keep it tight. It was only as they looked away from the rope, finding Shattershield holding his hand carefully out to them and with something uncertain, almost tentative, in his gaze.

Max gently traced their fingers over the inside of his wrist, then leaned down to kiss his snout again, a gentle brush across his scales. He took a slightly unsteady breath, and Max kissed him a second time as they guided his hand up to the loop of rope and slipped it into place.

“If you pull down, it will stay tight,” said Max. “If you relax it will come loose. You still okay?”

Shattershield nodded, and Max shifted back so that they could kiss his mouth again, his tongue brushing softly against their lips as the tension of his shoulders shifted until he was drawing down against the rope but without the feel of nerves about it. They ran their fingers down his throat, teasing down the lines with their nails, and could have lost themselves into his touch again but for his other hand coming up against their shoulder again, a hot reminder of what they had intended.

They drew back, glanced down at his hand, then gave him another wry smile. “I know you better than to think you need both hands to cause trouble,” they said, and Shattershield huffed. Drawing back, Max glanced sideways but could see no elegant way to climb across him; they slid back down his body, climbing across his waist, but paused as they were about to move back up him again and ran their fingers feather-light along the line of his cock.

Shattershield jumped, and Max felt a little bad about laughing until he turned a dry look on them. If he was comfortable enough to do that, it made them feel much less nervous themselves, and they scooted back up to haul the rope round and set up the same loop on the other side.

They glanced at the pillows as they did so, then gestured for Shattershield to push up onto his elbows. He did so, with a curious grunt, as Max began pulling the pillows across to tuck behind him. “I don’t want your arms pulling upwards too much,” they said, pausing to kiss his shoulder as his shifting brought it nearer to him. “And I like seeing your face.”

Even the pillows were oversized in Dragon D’Or; Max had only fully realised the size of the bedlinen the first time that they had gone to change it themselves and almost drowned themselves in a sheet. They had still been cursing from underneath it as Shattershield entered the room to see what the sound was, and had been glad that he had been too much of a gentleman to laugh at the ridiculous sight they must have made as they extricated themselves. Shattershield did not resist as they tucked the pillows to prop him up, helping where he could with his free hand and occasionally grunting acknowledgement or agreement of the positioning of one until Max was ready to reach over and pick up the rope again.

He also did not restrain himself from reaching upwards to flick his tongue against their skin, not far from their nipple, and Max almost yelped at the sudden gesture before pulling back and giving him a pointed look of their own. It wasn’t going to be much use when they couldn’t help smiling, but they felt like they ought to at least attempt it.

As the rope settled around the second of his wrists, Shattershield shifted slightly against the pillows, and Max looked down along him with a hungry eye. The position of his arms only emphasised the sight of him, golden scales shimmering in the evening light, muscles of his chest in delicious profile as they skimmed their hand down them. Shattershield drew in a deep breath as Max bent to kiss his scales, letting their lips linger against his warmth then running the flat of their tongue against him. Their hand drifted down him, across his stomach, teasing to the muscle over his hip that they could feel twitch faintly beneath their touch.

They kissed along his chest, towards his side. It had taken some getting their head around that without sweat, without hair, the armpits of dragonborn were rather more like the backs of their knees, delicate and fine-scaled and just vulnerable enough to be sensitive to the touch. When Max nipped at the edge of Shattershield’s chest muscles, he hitched his breath again, and Max heard the subtle sounds of the rope as he must have pulled slightly against it.

In some ways, it was similar to the thrill that came from trusting him enough to let him lift them, enough to pin them down. A warm tremor running through them, swelling in their chest as they felt the rise and fall of Shattershield’s breath beneath their hand.

“Have you done this before?” said Shattershield, low and breathless.

Max drew up to look at him. “Once or twice,” they said. It had not really been anything more than this. “Nobody ever managed to do it to me.”

He chuckled. “Why does that not surprise me?”

They rolled their hand across his shoulder, then down the line of his armpit again, pressing firmly enough with their fingers for him to shift and squirm again. Shifting some of their weight to the hand still on Shattershield’s stomach, Max climbed down his body again, carefully straddling one of his thighs. “All good, Arend?”

“I believe so.” A rumble ran through him as Max rubbed circles with the heel of their hand against the base of his stomach. “This is… strange.”

“Maybe I should get back to something that we know,” said Max, smiling again. They drew their fingers down to the base of his cock, trailing around the base, and felt him shift beneath them.

Gods, they had missed the weight of him in their hands, the feel of his skin against their palm as they stroked up the length of his cock. Shattershield gave an unsteady growl, and Max put their hand on his hip and stroked again, a long firm drag all the way from the base of him up to run their thumb over the head. The tensing of his thigh beneath them shivered down their spine, but it was not too much in the way that his hands and his tongue had been.

Shifting lower on his thigh, they bent to kiss the curve of his hip, then down along the line of the muscle there, thumb running along the underside of his cock, over the familiar rippling pattern of him. They brought their mouth to the base of his cock, and he snarled; Max looked up to see the tensing of his arms against the rope, the rise and fall of his chest as he heaved a breath. Before they could meet his eyes though, he looked away, that air back about him again, that he would be blushing if he were capable of it.

He remained breathless, panting, as they mouthed their way up his cock, his familiar taste back on their tongue welcome after his time away. His hips gave a muted buck beneath them as they reached the tip of his cock, drawing circling patterns with their tongue across and beneath the head as they pumped their hand steadily against him again.

He said something in Draconic, voice already tense, then could manage nothing more than a growl as Max took the head of his cock into their mouth altogether.

With another grunt, he strained against the ropes again, and Max saw the muscles of the underside of his arms growing taut. If anything, they got the sense that he was using more of his power than he would usually dare, held back by rope instead of just his own self-restraint as Max sucked and lapped at each sensitive point of him that they had learned.

The angle was a little awkward, though, and they drew up with the intention of climbing between his thighs when their fingers brushed against the seam of his scales, now parted for his cock, and they realised just how much longer it had been since they had slid their fingers into him.

“There’s still that oil in the bedside table,” they said. It was perfectly easy to obtain, not even an eyelash batted – well, not that dragonborn had eyelashes – when Max was the one to pick up a bottle on Shattershield’s behalf. They had taken to keeping a separate bottle in the bedroom, easier to reach for and without leaving Shattershield quite so flustered whenever he reached for the bottle in the bathroom for some dry patch of scales. They ran their fingers along the seam, firmly enough to make their meaning clear. “Shall I get it?”

For a moment, Shattershield hesitated, and Max was about to set the question aside when he gave a sharp, curt nod. “Yes.”

Heat bloomed in their chest. Crawling up alongside him, Max took Shattershield’s jaw in both hands, bowing to kiss the top of his snout, up between his eyes, lips brushing over his brow. They murmured against his skin as their fingers trailed down to his eshrazani, stroking through them gently so as not to get too ticklish against him.

“Gods, I don’t get how you don’t see how attractive you are,” said Max, words tumbling from their lips as they took their turn to nuzzle against him. Shattershield made a faint, uncertain sound. They kissed his scales again, soft and lingering, as they ran their fingers down his neck. “You manage to be too beautiful,” they kissed him again, reaching blindly with their other hand for the bedside table and down to the drawer to tug it open, “and too handsome,” another kiss, “both at once. And you don’t see…”

They shook their head in place, fingers tracing his collarbone. Even now, Shattershield still always seemed politely baffled when Max tried to explain it to him, probably not helped that they found it so self-apparent that it left them struggling for words. The glitter of his skin, the controlled movements of his muscles, the surety of him that only added to the magnetic pull he seemed to manifest in them. The tug behind their ribs that had been there since before they had even allowed themselves to acknowledge it, as physical as the way that any mattress bowed beneath him to slide them closer.

They could just about reach down to one of the scars on his chest, the neat line from one of the blades he had taken during the attack from Liliana’s mercenaries on Dragon D’Or. “Every scar that you earn with your bravery,” they murmured, even as their hand closed around the bottle to retrieve it. Shattershield was still breathless beside them, and it was strange for him to not find words to brush theirs away but they were not inclined to miss the chance. “Every movement of your sword that writes itself into your muscle.”

“Max…” even the word trailed away.

They kissed their way back down his scales, down to the line of his mouth to nip at his jaw. “The way you command a room. You say that isn’t about how attractive you are,” they pushed upwards, to meet his eyes again. “But it is. It’s a part of you.” He was still giving them that slightly uncertain look, that almost-vulnerability as they stroked his brow. “And it’s all of you together that makes me want you.”

His muscles moved against the rope again, then he paused and fell back into them. “It feels strange to not touch you.”

“Not with your hands,” said Max, sliding the drawer closed again and drawing the bottle over to their side. They put it against their thigh to warm, and draped that arm to cradle around his head. “I still feel plenty of you,” they added as they bent down closer to him, chest against his shoulder, “against plenty of me.”

He tilted his head towards them, and Max caught the end of his snout in a kiss again. This time they held him there longer, running their tongue along the edge of his scales, teasing at the roof of his mouth, stroking their thumb down the line of his jaw again and again. Part of them still wished that they could kiss him more easily, or perhaps more thoroughly; they knew that they could tease only at the end of his mouth, could not devour them in a kiss as he could them. But they had both become much better at it, much better at knowing their limits and the limitations of his teeth, and they kissed him until they were both breathless and Max could feel their lips taking on that swollen, kiss-bitten edge.

They had not forgotten the bottle beside their thigh, and it was almost skin-warm as they pulled away from the kiss again, held themselves above him for a moment, then with a kiss and a bite to the muscle of his shoulder slipped down his body to kneel between his thighs. Shattershield breathed something in Draconic as Max kissed his thigh, his hip, quickly opening the bottle and slicking one hand with oil before corking it again.

They ran their dry hand over his scales again, up to brush against the base of his cock as he gave a low hiss that could have been relief or could have been building tension. They ran their tongue up the underside of him, over each bead and along each ridge, hand following up in one firm sweep until they could take him into their mouth once again.

Shattershield growled, sounding as if he were trying to restrain the sound, as Max gave slow firm sweeps of their tongue to the head of his cock and pumped their hand steadily about him. They brought their other hand up, slick with oil, slipping two fingers easily inside him to stroke the firm, damp skin.

It had not been until they had told him to address them like an initiate being given a biology lesson that he had really been able to talk frankly. Well, and until they had put some clothes on. Slipping their fingers down would bring them to his – well, he had used a Draconic word, but it amounted to anus – but upwards brought them to the base of his cock from the other side, and at just the right angle they could reach the sheath where his cock usually lay.

They turned their fingers upwards. The underside of his cock was firm, and they pressed up gently from beneath him, in a manner not unlike how he might coax against the inside of them. It was hard to say whether the circling of their fingers beneath his cock or the flicks of their tongue was responsible for Shattershield’s breathless burst of Draconic, the way that he tensed against the ropes. In any case, Max reached as deep as they could, knuckles oily as they brushed against his scales. Shattershield’s breath quickened, and Max let their hand around his shaft grow him until they caught a catch in his breath and stilled, hand around the base of him, tongue shifting slowly, slowly, against the underside of the head.

It was not as if he even steered them, when he had his hands tangled in their hair or against their cheek, but the absence of the touch still felt odd. The touch of his fingers or his claws was more like grounding himself to them, holding himself in place; he had said as such, and Max wondered whether he felt its absence. They could see that Shattershield had leaned his head back, almost panting for air, but he had not withdrawn his hands from their loops of rope and only the trembling tension in his thigh gave away how close he really was.

“Please, Max,” he said, in Draconic still. “Don’t stop.”

For a moment, his words startled them from movement altogether – so much more often, those words would be falling from their lips, and when he did say something to that point Shattershield was much more likely to sound tense and gruff, not breathless and desperate as the words now were. They raised their head, keeping their hand still at the base of his cock, but continued the slow massaging of the underside with their fingertips.

Shattershield’s cock twitched in their hand as they pressed a little more firmly. He made a breathless, wordless sound that went straight between their thighs, as they moved from circles to a gentle coaxing gesture that made his thighs tense beside them and his hips push upwards.

“Tell me, Arend,” they said, the words slipping out impulsively. He was far more likely to ask them what they wanted, but from time to time Max would ask, usually to have him show rather than tell his desires. But with his hands bound he would not be so able to, and they could not help wondering how he would respond as they continued the coaxing gestures against him. “What do you want?”

It took Shattershield several deep breaths, so long that Max was not entirely sure he was going to reply, before he managed even a grunt. “Your hand,” he said.

Max moved the hand on his shaft, easing just a couple of inches up and back again. “This one?”

A negative grunt, and when Max stilled that hand and let the fingers of the other slip deeper into him he gave a low groan. Their fingertips only reached the entrance of his sheath, but as they did so he shuddered and made another wordless sound. He had managed to explain that it was sensitive, about as much so as touch against his cock when Max had offered him the comparison, but they could not help wondering what exactly it felt like. Whether it was as they usually took him, those deep strokes against their inner walls, or whether it was a little more like when they dipped their fingers in oil to ready their back passage for him.

“More,” he said, voice cracking, and he had needed to be the one to teach Max that word as well. The first time they had said it to him, in bed, he had dug his claws into them painfully hard in his effort not to climax immediately, before proceeding to give them exactly what they had asked for.

It would be hard for anyone to draw comparisons, of course, let alone Shattershield with his carefully-chosen words, but the thought of how it might feel to him was enough to flush and to tingle beneath their skin. They withdrew their fingers, to a low groan, ran oil over them again before trying with the angle of their hand to give him something more as they felt the muscles of him moving against their skin. For all their spells, though, there was not exactly anything that they could do about the length of their fingers, and without knowing whether deeper might be just as sensitive as the entrance to the sheath…

Max paused as a thought occurred to them. They owned… well, it was not so blatant in design as to be called a wooden cock, but the shape of it was still suggestive enough, and not long after purchasing it they had realised that they could not exactly take it with them while they were travelling without risking some very embarrassing bag checks by some of the Orders they had to visit. It had remained in a box within a locked chest in their quarters back at the Inspectors Order, and they had all but forgotten they even owned it before they had the entire chest delivered to Mistmire still locked, and Shattershield had offered to help them unpack its contents.

They remembered watching his expression move from confusion, to realisation, to surprise, and as he had realised Max had seen him there was a moment of something before embarrassment set in and he hastily closed the box again. To be frank, they had thought if anything that he had been imagining them using it on themselves, and had been thinking of offering to do such in front of him even if it would never live up to his touch. Though now, with their fingers deep in him and his breath rough and wanting, they wondered…

“I can’t reach further with my fingers,” they said. “But there is the… wooden alternative.”

Part of them wondered whether, yet again, they were sounding like they knew what they were doing when they really weren’t so sure. At least these days Shattershield knew that he was Max’s only experience with dragonborn, that they could never have offered this to one before. On an instinctive level, at least, even if he was not really sounding as if he were in a place to be testing his memory.

“Do you remember–” they began.

“Yes.” The word came out low and clipped, but certain. Max wasn’t sure which question it was for, though, and waited. “Yes, I – I remember.”

“My fingers reach here.” They pressed upwards, firm but in a slow pulse, and he drew in his breath sharply. “But it should reach further, if you want to try.”

The rise and fall of his chest glittered in the light. “Vethparijan, how do you always have more ideas?” he said, with another shift of his arms and creak from the rope as he pulled against it again. “I just…”

For a moment, his words seemed to fail him again, head still leaning back against the pillow. Max released the hand around his cock to rub his hip, a slow warm gesture while they were not sure quite whether they should return with their mouth to finish him, or fetch the wooden shaft from its tucked-away storage space. “Arend?” They said softly.

“Akison.” The Draconic hissed through his teeth. They had not missed that he seemed to struggle more to voice his desires than he did, kept trying to encourage him. The creeping warmth of pride spread in their chest, alongside and opposite the bright nervous excitement of his agreement.

They slipped their fingers carefully from him, bent down, and kissed his hip. “Give me a moment to fetch it.”

Shattershield’s next breathed Draconic words had an edge of uncertainty again and gods, Max could have cradled him into another kiss just for agreeing to the idea, not just to humour them or because he did not object, but with actual desire rough-edged in his voice. But they were not sure they would want to stop kissing him, and they ached to see what it would be like, hoped that it would only please him more. They might have missed his touch, but more than that they had missed the feeling as he came apart for them, the sound of his breath and the shudder of his movement that they could somehow bring about in him.

If it had been less impulsive, perhaps they would have been better prepared, and would not have needed to twice climb down from the bed. But they had never really been one for planning, and it would not match the thrill of having him agree to, ask for, however he would define his own words, their unplanned suggestion.

The box had ended up back in the chest, along with various other items that they still considered to be in storage, but they had repacked it easily enough that they knew exactly where to reach for it. It certainly felt strange, crossing the room naked and with their hands shaking, wet between their thighs again and desperately aware of Shattershield with his wrists in rope behind them. But the thrilling sort of strange that had once come with seeing new cities and towns, even as they hastily dipped back into the bathroom – steam now largely cleared from the air – to wash the wooden shaft after it had been stored for so long.

By the time they returned to Shattershield, they felt more composed again, and climbed back beside him with more confidence than before. He still had not slipped his arms free, as they knew he so easily could. As Max sat beside his chest, he looked round, still uncertain and slightly wide-eyed in a way that made him look younger than his usual self-confidence and set shoulders did. Max bent to kiss his cheek, then down his throat, and he rumbled as they reached the curve of his shoulder and licked along the line of his collarbone.

They sat up again, stroking his cheek. “I won’t be offended if it doesn’t work out. Just be sure to tell me, okay?” They waited for him to nod before turning and crawling back down his body, settling between his thighs again and scratching gently with their nails against his hip. They had used the wooden shaft on themselves, of course, though they had never had the opportunity to use it on anyone else, and they were not exactly sure how was best to introduce it.

His cock was still hard, tilting up slightly towards his stomach. Max took gentle hold of him again, stroking up this time from the base of him to just teasingly below the head. Shattershield made a breathless sound, just needy enough to send a shiver down their spine, and Max realised faintly that their hands were no longer trembling as they uncorked the bottle again, propped the wooden shaft between their thighs, and slicked oil along its length.

They dipped their head to swirl their tongue around the head of his cock, taking him gently into their mouth again. The point of it was not anticipation or to keep him waiting, though, and they lined their fingers up with the tip of the wooden shaft to ease it between his scales, angled carefully upwards.

Shattershield said something in a desperate choking voice, something that had their name in it, but the only other clear word that they caught was please as his hips shifted up towards them. Max looked up to see the flex of his muscles again as he pulled against the ropes, the tension running all the way down to his chest where the light catching on his scales made outlines of his strength. Drawing back far enough to see what they were doing, Max used their fingers to lead the wood to the base of his sheath, the hollow formed in his body as his cock hardened, then drew them back to leave more room as they let the wooden shaft sink deeper into him.

It earned a breathless chuffing sound, cracking to a rough low moan. The shaft was plain in shape, designed to be at least slightly more subtle than carrying around a wooden cock, with a curve at the end that acted well enough as a sort of handle. Max’s breath caught in their throat as the shaft sank to their grasp in him, and gods, it should not have been such a surprise when doubtless the sheath was much the length of his cock and the wooden shaft was not that much longer than Max’s fingers. But still there was a giddying rush to it, kneeling over him with their fingers pressed to the heat of his scales, hearing him breath something that had the timbre of a curse and shiver beneath their touch as they put their other hand on his hip.

They knelt up, looking down at more than along of the line of his body, underside of his arms still trembling even as his breathing steadied again, and for a moment wondered if they should ask again, just one more time. But Shattershield had always been more telling with his body than with his words, and as he bent his knees just slightly beside them to put his feet flat to the sheets he rocked up a fraction into their touch.

“Okay,” said Max, to the unspoken question. “Okay. I’m here.”

They drew back, then eased the shaft against him again, still uncertain of the pressure they should use. Another low moan escaped him, and Max felt heat flush through them as his hips rose to meet their hand, as they watched the glittering wetness at the head of his cock drip down against his stomach.

Shattershield breathed their name, heavy with longing, and it jolted down their spine. Tightening their fingers on his hip, Max knelt up further, leaning over him to watch the sway of his breath and the twitch of his cock. They could feel the damp of sweat on their hand, even as they held firm to his side and began to work their hand against him in steady, rolling thrusts.

His hands tightened into fists, straining against the ropes again as he pulled down sharply against them. His thighs tensed either side of Max, and they reached up further to stroke his waist, breathing hard as they felt him moving with them and heard the pleasure in his breath.

“Gods, Arend,” they said. “Gods, look at you.”

He looked towards them with a low, uncertain grunt, mouth parted. Max leaned in to grind the wooden shaft to its depths against him, and saw his back arch up from the sheets with pleasure.

“I missed you so damn much,” they said. Their chest felt tight, heat building between their thighs without even needing to be touched. Though perhaps the tenderness from his earlier attention was still helping that along. “And most of all like this. The fact that I get to see you…” another thrust of their hand, more confident now. They knew that he could take it, see that he wanted it, hips rising to meet them and rough sounds of pleasure falling from his lips. “There’s no-one else I’d want like this.”

Their hand traced up from his hip to his stomach, feeling the movement of his muscles under their touch still as they found a steady rhythm with their hand against him. Heat was pulsing through them, and gods but they wanted to devour him whole, that same overwhelming desire that they had felt the first time they had even touched him. Yearning to feel him under their hands; they dragged their touch down his stomach, kneeling higher over him, until their hand reached his cock and wrapped around it again.

Shattershield’s head fell back again with a sharp sound as Max matched the rhythm of their hands together. Each stroke of his cock matched by a movement of the shaft, until he started to tremble again and he clenched his fists still tighter.

“Come on, Arend,” they said, voice softening slightly despite the trail of sounds falling from his tongue as they shifted the wooden shaft just a fraction, pressing a little more up into him, and he gave a soft rough cry of a sound that made heat flood through them. “I’d never even done this for a human, but you…”

As their hand brushed the head of his cock, they found it wetter again, and on the next stroked they brushed the tip of him with their thumb to feel him twitch into their hands. The muscles of his arms might as well have been carved from the same golden quartzite as the walls, those of his chest flexing even as they rose and fell with his ragged breaths. Somewhere in the sounds that he made, they caught their name, and they let the pace of their touch ride with him as they felt the wave of tension building through his body.

He turned his face towards one of his arms, snout pressed to muscle as he gave an almost-whimper. Wetness trickled down their fingers, and Max found themselves winding tight in time with him, their heart racing and gut swirling with heat as they took him.

The words were barely deliberate. “That’s it. You did so well to ask. Just look at you, fuck.” No doubt there were plenty out there who would not even try new things in the way that he was always willing to, let alone to ask for the touch of their hand when asking came with such difficulty much of the time. “And still you let me do this. Come on. Let go.”

He gave a moan that cut through their words, and as a shudder wracked his body they stilled the shaft deep within him and let their hand stroke firm and sure along his shaft. He came in ragged streaks across his own stomach, sound escaping him that was something like a groan, something like a sob. Heat poured through Max like stepping into sunlight, soft and full and engulfing as they felt him come utterly apart in their hands, felt him fall into his trust of them.

Even as the spill of him ceased, last drops running down their hand again, his cock still twitched as he half-thrust into their hold, heaving for breath as if he had been running the tide, throwing himself bodily into something. When his hips finally stilled, settling back against the sheets as his cock began to retract, Max slipped the wooden shaft carefully from him and climbed up alongside his chest. He still had his arms drawn tight, snout pressed to one arm, until they put one hand gently on his shoulder and went to even begin saying his name.

In a moment, Shattershield slipped his far arm back out of its rope, twisting towards them to pull them closer and tuck his head against them. The angle was far from ideal; he tugged them so that they were propped on one arm above him, his head in their lap with his brow against their hip and his snout lying across both thighs, buried against them as he rumbled something that did not even sound like it was an attempt at words.

Max brought their free hand round to stroke the back of his neck, making hushing sounds before they had even thought about what they were doing. “Arend?”

He made a soft, huffing sound against them.

“Arend. Ervargus.” They kissed his shoulder, the closest part to them, as a flutter of uncertainty started up in their chest. “Are you okay there?”

This time the grunt he made sounded vaguely like an agreement, even as he burrowed his head slightly further into their hold. Max frowned to themselves, glancing down at Shattershield, but he was no longer trembling – not as they remembered him doing after the fight against Liliana’s mercenaries where both of them had been scared to see the other injured – and his arm around them was firm but not uncomfortably tight.

“Okay,” said Max, more softly. They reached up to help slip his other wrist free of the rope as well, and were not in the least surprised when he wrapped that arm around them in turn, breath warm and damp against the skin of their hip.

To not have much in the way of words was certainly not unlike him, but… they were not quite so sure what to think of the way he was half-curled around them, even as they gently stroked his neck and let their own pulse stop racing, their breathing settle. Though perhaps it was not entirely unlike those times that he took them apart with particular effectiveness, those climaxes which left them boneless and weightless against him, sometimes even sending them drifting straight towards sleep. If so, they had not seem him this far gone before, more of a sense of presence usually about him, but he did not seem perturbed by it.

“I need to tidy up,” they said eventually, once their skin was cool and as Shattershield’s breathing had become so settled they were half afraid that he might already have fallen asleep against them. He made a faint sound of complaint, and they smiled. “No, I’m sorry, I do. Let me do that,” they added, with their smile quirking wider, “and you concentrate on warming up these sheets for me.”

They carefully drew one of his arms away from themselves, then the other, and as Shattershield looked somewhat blearily down at himself and the sheets they grabbed their nightshirt from beneath the pillows. It was not even that late, they had not even bothered with dinner, but Max could feel the weight of sleep pulling at them and it was pretty clear that Shattershield was in no condition to be getting up. They had eaten well at breakfast and lunch, in any case, and had not been doing physical enough work to be that hungry. More thirsty, throat feeling rough and voice coming out slightly hoarse, but there was water in the study downstairs that they could retrieve.

Usually, they would have at least considered using their mouth to clean Shattershield’s stomach, and probably to coax him into another round as well if they both still had the energy and interest. That was certainly not going to happen, though, and once they had caught one of his hands to press a kiss to the palm Max extricated themselves from the bed and slipped on the nightshirt.

They put the oil away again, brought a cloth – damp at one end, dry at the other – in from the bathroom to wipe clean his scales, and returned both the cloth and the wooden shaft to the bathroom again with slow, comfortable warmth spreading through their body and the sky outside gradually darkening further. They knew their quarters by heart these days, and did not need any light to fetch the jug of water and cups from downstairs, returning to find that Shattershield had sat up and was very carefully coiling up the rope again. He looked up as they entered, expression soft and longing in the dim evening light, and Max felt another of those moments when their chest almost ached with how much they loved him, and how grateful they were for the way that things had come about.

“Come here,” they said, as they set the water down on the table beside him. They drew him down to kiss the top of his snout, stroking his cheeks, and he swayed towards them a little more heavily than they expected. They just about managed to catch the weight of it, hushing sound springing to their lips again as they urged him back upright on the bed and slipped the rope out of his hands again.

“Ya ghalsbrisj wux,” he mumbled, bringing up a hand to run through their hair. The words were not entirely clear, but at least they were words at all, and Max felt themselves blushing even as they smiled for him again.

“Vur ya, wux,” they said. They pressed another fleeting kiss to his skin. “I brought some water upstairs. You should probably have some as well, and then we can get some sleep.” Whether it ended up being a couple of hours, or the whole night, they did not much mind.

Shattershield bent down a little further, until he nosed at their shoulder with a soft huffling sound, tongue delicately flicking against their skin. Max wrapped an arm around him, rubbing their cheek against his warmth and feeling him rumble gently, until he straightened up again and looked around for, they presumed, the water.

Their throat felt less rough by the time that they drank, at least, and Max put the pillows back as they had been while Shattershield finished off the rest of the water. They slipped down into the bed beside him, expecting him to pull them to his chest and tuck their head beneath his chin, but instead Shattershield rolled over and threw an arm across their waist. His head came to rest heavily on their shoulder, snout stretched across the centre of their chest, and he squirmed down to tuck himself beneath their arm instead. He was entirely too broad and too tall for it, and Max had to awkwardly shift for a moment before they were able to tuck one arm across his back, other one coming up to stroke the scales of the arm across them.

Shattershield rumbled, low and gentle, against their chest. He could only tuck part of his shoulder and chest across them, their feet against his thighs and his head beneath their chin. Shattershield nuzzled closer, wrapping his warmth around them, as his rumbling deepened to something that was close to a purr once again.

Between that and his haphazard draping, they were reminded once again of the cat that they teased him about being. There was a flicker of the thought to comment on it again, but they could not bring themselves to want to when he already looked to be half way to sleep again. Instead they settled for finding a comfortable position around him.

A wave of protectiveness swelled in them, strange as that was when he was already safe against them and even beyond the walls of the Citadel had far more experience as a paladin than they did. It was not the fearful protectiveness that they had felt before, though, and with him in their arms it melted into a feeling of comfort that reached deeper than their skin, burring with the pleased sounds from his throat.

Reaching across, they cracked open the window, letting the cool evening air roll in and bring with it the distant sounds of the city. Shattershield grunted softly, nothing more than recognition, and as Max brought their hand back reached up and interlaced his fingers with theirs without looking up. Max’s smile softened as they felt the wash of, gods, a wave of feeling for which they were still not totally sure they could find words. Draconic helped, at least a little, but even that did not seem to handle the strangeness of it all.

They kissed his brow, then lay back, and let themselves slip into sleep back in his arms, where it could feel right again.

They did not wake until first bells, light just starting at the window, and grimaced for a moment before realising that they felt better-rested than they had since… well, since Shattershield had been gone. With that thought, they opened their eyes and let their attention roll down their body to find him still wrapped across them as he had been the night before, sleeping despite the continuing sound of the bells.

Some time in the night, their fingers had come unlaced, and Shattershield’s arm was draped loosely across Max’s chest. They reached to stroke the scales of his forearm gently, running along the grain of them and past the scar that lingered there.

It was odd being up before him, truth be told, when there was not some specific reason for it. Usually both of them rose with the bells, or at least both stirred enough to exchange a few words before deciding whether or not to return to sleep. Seeing Shattershield still peacefully asleep was strange, but... pleasant. As the words occurred to them, Max smiled to themselves, and as Shattershield made a soft murring noise in his sleep they had to restrain a chuckle so as not to risk waking him.

As little as they wanted to admit that it was boring waiting for him to wake, though, there was an inescapable element to it while he had them pinned to the sheets with his weight. Getting loose would probably mean using one of the manoeuvres the Inspectors Guild had taught them for escaping holds, which were neither subtle nor without the risk of hurting him, and other than the creeping sense of time there was no real reason for them to need to move. They lay their head back, starting out with trying to work out where else in the stacks Leoval’s paperwork could possibly be but soon unable to concentrate and tilting their head to look back at Shattershield again.

The evening had been... memorable. Max felt heat in their chest even as they considered it again. Not so much the events in the bathroom, to be fair – that Shattershield had been the instigator had been marginally more unusual, but it was certainly not the first time they had ended up all over each other in that room and would doubtless not be the last. Even the determined aim of his mouth between their thighs was quite expected for him, and if anything they were flushed and proud at the fact that he had managed again to speak the words and tell them what it was that he wanted.

But something in the air had... shifted, once Max had settled the first loop of rope around his wrists. Not in his arousal, but in his certainty about things, the way he had looked to them not just with amused interest as to what they would do next but for some sort of guiding hand. And then the way he had given in to the pleasure, to the stroke of the shift inside him and whatever it must have felt like… Max had to glance aside, swallowing a rush of arousal at the memory. The openness, the intimate honesty of it all, still made their head spin even with its echoes.

As they were still gathering themselves, room just light enough for them to properly see, Shattershield stirred against them. He opened his eyes, grunted softly, and then closed them again with a very determined nuzzle into Max’s side and his eshrazani against their shoulder.

“Good morning to you too,” they said, softly enough that he could ignore it if he was still more asleep than awake.

He rubbed his eshrazani against them again. “Vethparijan,” he mumbled.

It was not quite a statement either way on whether he intended to wake, and Max continued to gently caress his arm. “Are you okay there?” they said, after a moment.

Shattershield grumbled. “Bright,” he said flatly.

Max’s brow furrowed as they looked down at him. Even with darkvision, it should not have been that light, but Shattershield went as if to tuck his head further behind them before huffing and settling back down again. “It's not much past dawn,” they replied. Paladins' vows offered them protection from disease, but all the same they put a hand to his forehead, checking that he was about the temperature that they would expect a dragonborn to be. “Nothing happened while you were away, did it?”

“No, I…” he trailed off with a hint of a groan, apparently just at the thought of a full sentence. "Last night has left me… tired.”

Even he sounded as if he were not entirely sure that was the right word. With a reluctant sound, Shattershield pulled himself up onto his forearm beside Max, reaching to brush his claws through their hair. Max took hold of his wrist, drawing his hand down until they could kiss his fingertips. The slight drawn frown of his brow relaxed, as they guided his hand back up again to let his claws pick out a gentle pattern against their scalp.

“Are you…” they glanced down his body, not entirely sure how to phrase their question without brushing up against flustering him. Perhaps avoiding the question element was for the best. “If you're a little… sore, I don't think that would be strange.” The wooden shift would not have been that much wider than their fingers, but was rounder, and any distance beyond that which their fingertips could reach would have been new for him.

At least the wood had been nowhere near approaching the size of his cock. Even now, it was a mercy how wet he could leave them, and there had been the odd occasion when they had reached for oil all the same, or had held off a little longer to tease with their hands and mouth and for him to inevitably reciprocate.

“Anything new can be like that,” they said.

Shattershield’s first glance was to his wrist, beside Max’s cheek, and without consciously deciding they flicked their eyes down his body again. They only caught themselves when their gaze was already half way back up him again. “I mean, yes, your wrists as well–” they began quickly, remembering the way the ropes had creaked as he had pulled against them, but he was already clearing his throat with a single rough cough and Max felt themselves redden.

“You–” He opened his mouth to speak at the same moment, getting no more than a syllable in before they both stopped again.

Max waited a couple of seconds, expecting him to continue, then when he did not went to speak again. But even as they did so, Shattershield once again tried, and for a second time they cut across each other.

They both froze, watching each other intently, then Max burst out laughing. “Gods damn it,” they managed. “You go first.”

Shattershield gave a minute smile. “I was simply going to say that – that I am fine, thank you. To both,” he added quickly.

“Good,” said Max. He still did not quite look comfortable, though, the slightest hint of a crease between his brows, and Max… was not sure what to say, or what to ask. “Is there… something I can do?” They tried, as the seconds drawing out became too much and Shattershield kept his eyes on their hair where he was toying with it.

Shattershield paused, then with a soft sigh dropped his gaze down to their shoulder. “Some of what you said was…” His frown deepened for a moment, and Max felt a twist of worry in their own chest as they tried to think what of their impulsive words could have been wrong, could have hidden some hurt beneath it. “Was strange to hear,” he settled on finally, which clarified nothing at all.

“Arend, I'm sorry if I said something wrong,” they said immediately, eyes on the side of his face as he looked away. “Please, if you let me know, I can...” He was already shaking his head, and worry spiked into fear. Max got their elbows under them, starting to push up and put from beneath him, as his hand stilled in their hair.

“No, it is – I do not know what to do with such compliments.”

Max fell still again. Shattershield made an uneasy grumbling sound, looking further down until he was all but hanging his head. Gently, Max rested one hand on his chest.

“Your words were…” he trailed off again, sighed again, and this time bowed his head to tuck his nose against the crook of Max's neck. They allowed themselves a look of confusion while he could not see, bringing their hand round to stroke the back of his neck instead. “It made me feel… wanted.”

Where he could not see them, Max frowned. They began to shape the question of whether he usually did not, but the tone of his voice was… not that. It was more uncertain, as he almost hid in their shoulder.

He rumbled. “That does not sound right.” With a grunt, he pushed himself back up onto his elbows above them, looking down with confusion and concern wound together in his face. “But as much as you are, you felt like… more, last night. I felt diminished,” he said, seeming to pick his words carefully. “But I did not mind it.”

Again, the pang in their chest. They still had their hand scooped around the back of his neck, scales hot beneath their touch. “Diminished?” they echoed.

“I am not quite sure how else to put it.” He was still frowning slightly, drawing circles with his claws through their hair. “It was – as if you had hold of me.  It was rather overwhelming.” With a rumble deep in his chest, he shifted, brushing his snout against the inside of their arm for a moment. “But I felt safe within it.”

“Is that good?” said Max, slowly. His words made something ache in their chest, similar to how it had felt waking up with him wrapped around them. The thought of making him feel that safe was… oddly tantalising, lingering on the tip of their tongue. “To feel that that.”

“Mm.” He nuzzled against their wrist. “Yes.”

“Okay. Good.” They caught the way that he hesitated at the word, and cocked their head, reaching for something that they could not quite wrap their thoughts around. “Arend?”

He cleared his throat. “You simply reminded me of something that you said last night. It does not matter.” He shifted to their side with a grunt. “Would you rather rise for breakfast, or stay here a while?”

Honestly, Max was not immediately sure; missing dinner certainly made them want breakfast, but equally Shattershield’s hot body around theirs was enough to give them other ideas. But they also did not miss him changing the subject, or the flustered edge to the sound that he made. “Something I said? What did… oh.” They bit their inside of their lip to not smile too broadly. “About you… being a good boy.”

It had been how intent he had been on the movement of his tongue, licking the taste of them from their fingers as he knelt between their thighs. Just the memory of the sight made them flush, feeling heat in their cheeks and spreading down their chest, and from Shattershield’s pause and glance down at their skin it did not go unnoticed.

“I mean, as I said,” he said, audibly flustered, “it has been a very long time since I have been called any sort of boy. It was… rather strange.”

“Strange doesn’t always mean unpleasant.” Not when both of them had said the opposite, over the months, trying to figure out what to make of each other. Max snaked a leg up over Shattershield’s hip, earning another wry glance from him, then reached over and tugged the window closed again. It was all but a declaration of their intentions, preventing any noise they might make from being overheard. “Is this your way of saying that you liked it, ervargus?”

Slowly, Shattershield looked up to meet their eyes. The fragment of uncertainty was there again, as Max brought a hand around to trace the line of his mouth. “Yes,” he breathed.

Max swallowed. “On your back,” they said softly.

For a split second, Shattershield hesitated, then he scooped a hand around their back, pulled them up to his chest, and rolled over onto his back while bringing them with him. They landed straddling his hips, hands to his chest, and tightened their thighs about him pointedly.

He propped himself up on one elbow, as Max leaned down to lightly kiss the end of his snout. For all the orgasms he had wrung through them the previous night, they had not ended up being able to have his cock inside them. They ran a hand down his chest to knead lightly at the base of his stomach, drawing a low gasp from him.

“Do I get to call you my good boy now, then?” they said, in an undertone still. Shattershield seemed to shiver beneath them, breath catching roughly as they felt the buck of his hips and reached down to cup the head of his cock. “When you are being so good, after all.”

“Why do you keep complimenting me?” he said.

“You keep talking about flaunting me,” they pointed out. Even if they were the novelty in this city, a paladin of a different order, they did not always understand why he came out with the words that he did. They shifted their hips to give themselves room to stroke his cock, drawing him out to his full length as they felt his breath growing increasingly unsteady against them.

“You are worth flaunting.”

Max shook their head, then pressed their forehead against his scales. “That’s how I see you. Why don’t you see it?”

He gave a rough, wordless growl as Max rocked their hips against him, his cock against the crease of their thigh as they cupped him to their skin. There was still a faint throb between their thighs from the previous night, but it was only a reminder of what he had done, of what they wanted of him now. Max kissed Shattershield’s scales as they shifted, rolling their hips, to tease themselves along his length.

The heat pooling between their thighs intensified, and they felt themselves growing wetter until the mingled slick touch against their hand almost made them moan. The ridges of Shattershield’s cock drew along their folds, over their clit as they tilted their hips to draw all the way along his skin.

“Your hands and your mouth were busy,” Max managed, then had to pause to moan as he pressed his hand to their back and the next drag of their hips was just right to light stars behind their eyes. They ran their other hand firmly over his eshrazani, leaning in as he rumbled, as they raised their hips to guide him into themselves. “But I missed your cock.”

Shattershield traced his claws down their back as they sank down against him, not all the way to the hilt in one sweep this time but deep enough to make them moan. Shattershield huffed against their shoulder, claws tightening into their skin until it stung, as they began to rise and fall against him in gradually deeper thrusts.

“Vorellim,” he murmured.

“Mistmire isn’t quite right without you,” they said. They kissed the scales on the top of his head, tongue flicking out to taste his skin. “Ervargus.” Another kiss. “Erghalsbisj.” Shattershield shivered as they continued to rock down against him, until their hips were flush to his and they could tighten their muscles around him to hear him growl. They could not help a wicked smile as they rubbed against his eshrazani. “How do I call you my good boy in Draconic?”

“I dare not tell you,” said Shattershield breathlessly.

Max laughed. “True. I probably couldn’t be trusted.”

They traced their still-wet hand across his stomach, then set it to the base to knead against him. This time Shattershield’s growl was lower, and he nipped at their shoulder, then bit down harder, as Max began to move against him in earnest.

There was so much that they had missed of him, in the past week. So many moments they had been wanting for his company. But this had undoubtedly been among them, not just the hot press of his cock and the way that they felt the shape of him all through themselves, but the sharp-clawed cradling touch of his hand to their back, and the way that he panted their name against the skin of their shoulder, between sounds that did not manage to become coherent words. The feel of their hand on the back of his neck and his coiled power underneath them as they rode him, body warming with their movement but igniting with his every touch against them.

“Gods,” he said, as they steadied their rhythm against him, rolling their hand into his sensitive scales in time with the beat of their hips. “Max, you are…” he caught himself with a throaty sound, as they pressed particularly firmly against him to feel the twitch of his cock inside them.

It was not as heady as the previous night, not as all-encompassing, but it was lighter and easier and still sent fire coursing down their spine as they ground down against him. Shattershield’s hand slid down to cup their ass, pulling them in against him, but as good as he felt it was not quite what Max’s body was aching for. Releasing the pressure from his stomach – he hissed softly – they took hold of his hand and guided it between their thighs, slowing their movements for a moment to be sure of the position of his claws.

He took the hint easily, eagerly, fingers brushing against their wet skin before settling against their clit. It was more Max’s movement that did the work, especially as they gripped the muscles of his arm and returned to riding him in steady, deep thrusts. But he angled his hand just right, offering up the scales of his fingers in firm lines against their clit, and they gasped and cried out softly as he found just the right pressure to make their legs threaten to shake.

“That’s it,” said Max, words coming out so tight that they were difficult to say. Shattershield nipped his way down their shoulder, pressure inconsistent as Max felt him judder and his hips jerk up against them again. But as his tongue swept back up towards their neck they could still turn and press their lips to his temple, digging their nails into him as they leaned into his touch. “Right there. Oh gods.” They could feel themselves on the precipice, muscles and attention growing taut around him, heat spreading through their body and wetness on their thighs and on Shattershield’s fingers.

He had said – admitted? – that he had liked the compliment on their tongue, as much as he had found himself liking when they told him what they wanted to do to him. Words that he would have found too crude from anyone else, instead an erotic promise as Max said them just for him.

“Good boy,” they breathed against his temple. It sent its own flurry of heat down them, which only redoubled as Shattershield gave a choked, whimpering sound against the base of their neck and they ground down as deep as they could against him. He matched the circling of their hips with his hand, sparks flooding through them as they tightened their thighs and their hands on him. A whine of pleasure escaped them, and they felt him tense. “Right there. Fuck, I’m so close.” If anything, he had only encouraged their words, drawn them on with his reactions and his eager arching into them. Gods, what had he said? Being held, that was it, being protected. They kissed him again. “I’ve got you. Let me feel you, Arend. Good boy.”

At the final, moaned words, Shattershield growled, biting down on their shoulder as he came with sharp movements of his hips. The claws of his free hand tightened in the bedsheets, and Max wrapped their arms tightly around him and clenched their muscles about his cock. His growl turned to a whine as they rocked their hips slightly, grinding down against him to draw out the last twitches of his cock as heat rushed through them.

They were still on the edge of their own climax, heat seeming to bristle on their skin, pulse in their veins. As Shattershield raised his head, still breathless, they kissed their way down his neck, biting at his collarbone.

He looked round at them, huffing, then moved his hand up their thigh to wrap around their hip. “Damn it, Max.”

A breathless laugh tore itself from their lips as he huffed out his usual words. Their legs were starting to tremble as his claws traced lightly back down their thigh, and Max whimpered as they felt his cock beginning to retract. “Knowledge is dangerous, ervargus,” they said breathlessly.

He ran his tongue up their throat, then drew back to held their eye. “You have too many weapons in your arsenal,” he said. He glanced down at their body, panting for breath and flushed, and before they could speak he rolled them back down to the bed once again.

“You’ve got some of your own,” they said breathlessly, breaking off into a yelp as his nipped their chest then flicked at their nipple with his tongue.

His hand slipped down between their thighs, and they moaned as he slid his fingers along their heated skin. Shattershield rumbled against their skin, lapping his way down their stomach and shifting their legs apart to lie between them.

“You don’t have to–” they began, but he was already running his tongue up the inside of their thigh, all but purring as his tongue dragged over their skin. It had to taste of both of them, and that knowledge alone pulsed in their veins even before he brought his tongue up against their folds, running firm and deep before curling up to circle against their clit. “Oh fuck. Arend, please…”

He answered with a firm rolling motion of his tongue, circling around and around against their clit as the growling sound in his throat reverberated against them. Max’s back arched as the heat spiked almost unbearably through them, and Shattershield tightened his hold on their hips as he worked his tongue against them, hot against the cool air, lilting and pulsing as they moaned his name and began to shake apart against his eager touch.

They fumbled down with one hand to rest it on the scales of his head, feeling the heat searing against their skin. He seemed to lean into it, pushing up against their palm even as his tongue pushed them higher, higher, suddenly crashing open again with a cry as the trembling of their legs gave way to full-body quakes, to fire in their blood and rushing in their ears. Orgasm crashed and crashed and crashed through them, until they were whimpering against their hand as they trembled beneath his mouth, movements of his tongue lulling back to gentle laps to their skin as his thumb stroked the inside of one thigh.

He must have felt the drop of their hips, as he looked up from them, to them, gods, Max barely even knew. Either way, they smiled at the warmth in his eyes, and with a soft, almost relieved-seeming sigh, he nuzzled against their stomach. It left a damp smear, and Max could not bring themselves to care. The bath the night before had been somewhat haphazard anyway.

“Come here,” they said softly, with a twitch of their head and a stroke of their thumb. Shattershield crawled back up them eagerly, making his purring rumble again as he nosed at their neck, licked the underside of their jaw, and finally settled alongside and above them to rub his jaw against their hair. Max melted into the heat of his body, wrapping their arms back around him and breathing in the scent of his skin as he encircled them. “Mmm. Ya ghalsbrisj wux.”

“Ya zyak ghalsbrisj wux,” he murmured against them.

He adjusted his weight, one hip against the bed but propping himself up on his elbows to hold his weight above them. They considered reaching upwards to kiss his scales, but the languid comfort filling their body made it feel like too much effort when they could bask in him like their own personal fireplace.

Shattershield tucked one arm up around their shoulder to comb his fingers through their hair again, and Max’s smile softened.

“You okay now, Arend?”

He rumbled, and gave a tiny lick to their forehead as they chuckled. “Yes, vethparijan. Even as you find new ways to conquer me. It is…” he paused again, and Max let him, bending one leg to wrap it up against his side. “I felt – more than safe. Protected.” His thumb brushed their temple. “It was nice to feel that somewhere other than the battlefield. From a danger not even there.”

If nothing else, it seemed that falling upon him had helped him to find some more words. His hand was brushing their cheek, and Max realised that they could turn to kiss it, nipping at the base of his thumb. They turned to face him again, and felt an ache in their chest at the love in his gaze. Sometimes they worried that they could ever express their feelings for him so simply. “Don’t worry,” they said. “It is only for these chambers.”

A huff. “Well, of that I am glad.”

“I will share you with the Order.” A teasing lilt crept into their voice. “But I need to keep some things for myself.”

Shattershield smiled as well, shifting to curl closer around them, then his expression faded to the slightest of frowns again. “You do not think it strange, then.”

It was not quite a question, and for that they were grateful. Max squirmed one arm up to wrap their arm around his. “I liked the feeling of… having you like that.” It was even easier to be patient with his trouble with words when they had their own moments of uncertainty. “Getting to see you like that.” They loved him as his captain self, of course, even wrapped up in tradition and duty as he was, but the deeper they got to see behind his walls the more that they found themselves falling for him again and again. Like there was a new part of him to adore, with each fragment of his armour that fell away.

Unfortunately, their stomach chose that time to rumble, and both of them started to laugh. Max brought both hands back to cover their face as Shattershield nuzzled their hair one more time before sitting up and extending a hand to pull them up as well.

“I’m sorry,” said Max flatly. They accepted the hand, his wrist familiar and hot against their palm as they clasped it to be drawn upwards. “I am not built to miss two meals in a row.”

“I think we will make the first breakfast if we are quick,” said Shattershield.

“If you keep your hands off me in the bathroom,” Max teased. Shattershield looked as if he was about to protest, then cleared his throat instead and looked aside guiltily. Chuckling again, Max leaned over and kissed his cheek, before swinging their legs over to the side of the bed. “I’ve not got any work to do today,” they added, as they slid to their feet. “I didn’t realise you’d be back last night, but I did plan to have you to myself today.”

“The Neverholde Order had some matter arise, and we left a day early,” Shattershield replied. Max paused for a moment to run their eyes over him again, seeming to glow in the early morning sunlight, then dragged their attention back to the conversation at hand. “But as a result, I… also have this day without a watch.” He gave a small nod down to their neck. “Would you rather I lay on hands, or use your own?”

Max raised a hand to their throat, finding it not just warm to the touch but still bearing the faint indentations of his teeth. “I’ll use my own. Should probably keep in practice for it. We should probably pick up our clothes from last night, as well,” they added as that memory surfaced.

Shattershield gave a snort of laughter as he followed them to the edge of the bed, across the rumpled sheets. “Certainly the ones I was travelling in.” He paused, sitting on the edge, to regard them. “I am glad to be back to you, Max.”

They darted back over, putting their hands on their shoulders and pressing a kiss to the side of his snout again. “You can’t escape me that easily,” they said. “And before you say it, yes, I know that you do not try. Even without me tying you down.”

He gave a soft chuckle, and Max smiled, and wrapped up a little more of him in their heart.

Chapter Text

Most mornings, if they were not supposed to be up with the first bells, it was easy enough to ignore them. Perhaps to murmur to each other, to adjust how they were curled around each other, but ultimately to settle back into sleep again. From time to time, though, the sheer feel of Shattershield beside them, the flex of muscle beneath his scales and the comfortable rumble in his throat as he ran a hand along their skin, was more than enough all by itself to rouse them. Or parts of them, at least.

Max pressed a lazy kiss to Shattershield's chest, dragging their lips over his scales, and ran a hand up his arm. His touch swept down their side, a sweep of warmth through their nightshirt, and they moaned softly at the stirring of their blood.

"I presume you are awake, vethparijan," murmured Shattershield, as Max shifted closer into his arms and nipped at his scales.

"Parts of me are," they replied. The room was too dim for them to see more than the faintest of outlines, their hands on him far more useful for knowing where he lay. They felt him nuzzle their hair, shifting his legs against theirs. "Perhaps not all."

He chuckled, voice still thick with sleep, and ran his hand down to their thigh. They gasped as his claws grazed the back of their leg, and sucked another kiss against him as they rocked their hips faintly into him.

"Parts enough?" he said, a gentle question, and they murmured something amounting to a yes. Shattershield gave a low rumble that burred against their lips, then his hand slipped round to tease along their inner thigh instead in a flurry of sparks down their spine. "Mm," his snout brushed their temple. "I cannot say the same."

With a stroke to his arm, Max drew back a fraction. "I can stop-" the words cracked as his hand drew higher, brushing against their folds so ghostly-light that save for the burning heat of his scales it might have been easy to miss.

"I can still feel you," he said, still softly and with his voice heavy with desire as well as sleep. From him, it was unguarded, and heat tightened in their chest and pulsed between their thighs as he worked his other arm beneath them and tugged them closer to his chest instead.

Max wondered, for a flickering second, whether it was the intoxicating feeling of being wanted by someone that he wanted in return. Certainly they felt that themselves, those heavy echoing waves of desire when Shattershield fixed some hungry dark-eyed look upon them or traced their body as if he could not learn it often enough. He was not usually the one whose body made the more... extensive demands, though.

Any thoughts they might have tried to stir from the fog of sleep, though, slipped away as Shattershield's fingers stroked more deliberately at their skin and they gave a shudder of growing anticipation. The weight of desire in the base of their stomach drew their attention inexorably to that hand, and they moaned softly as his fingers parted them, searing hot almost down to their entrance before sliding back up to coax beneath their clit.

"Arend-" the arm at their back wormed them closer, claws against their shoulderblade as he gave a rough, half-asleep sound of pleasure. They rocked their hips into his touch as his movements stayed slow, and bit against his chest as lightning seemed to flash down their spine.

There was no point in keeping their eyes open in the darkness, too little of him to see when there was much more to feel with their hands, their body, their mouth. They mapped his chest with their lips and tongue, scratching gently at his bicep with their free hand while the other was more tightly caught between them, breathing growing rougher as they met his coaxing fingertips with their rocking hips. As they sucked at his hide, Shattershield made his own soft sound of pleasure, and he shifted to wrap himself more thoroughly around them, leg coming up between theirs and softly moving them on the sheets.

The press of his thigh against theirs drew another soft groan from their lips, and Max drew back just far enough to look up at Shattershield in the pre-dawn shadow. They could not see his expression, but could feel the brush of his breath, hear the yearning edge to it.

"Roll back," they said, meaning for it to come out softer and less of an order than it did. The edge of a growl that Shattershield gave was one of pleasure, though, and he shifted round with Max still pulled against him in a fumbling, unsteady motion. Or at least it felt that way while he was the one setting their head spinning all over again. The disorientation of the darkness only seemed to let him surround them more.

The movement rucked up their nightshirt, and Max hitched it up fully around their waist as they adjusted themselves to more squarely straddle Shattershield's thigh. He made a gruff sound of recognition, then raised his knee to tilt them into him and scooped his hand around their ass to tug them closer again. It brought them down against the hard, muscled line of his hip, solid beneath them as they rolled their hips into a lazy grinding movement against him.

"This okay?" they breathed against his chest, settling themselves down onto their elbows and then against him once again.

"Akison," he rumbled.

They murmured gratitude as they pressed their mouth back to him again, one hand tracing the expanse of his chest as they nipped and sucked against his skin. One of his hands wound into their hair, thumb brushing a curl back from their temple, and as they gave him a heated look through the darkness they felt and heard his breath hitch beneath them. As they rolled their hips, they felt him match them with a tautening and release of the muscles of his hip, felt his claws against their back tugging them to him, and gave a shivering gasp as they found their angle against him.

The heat of him was just as searing this way, but the tough surface of his scales was more like his hand, less like his tongue or his cock. Their blood seemed to pound in their veins as they moved against him, slow aching circles of their hips that ground them down against his thigh and sent heat building through them in slow-building waves.

The hand from their hair slipped away, and they were about to say something about its loss when Shattershield brought his arm down their body and tilted his hand to them, fingers coming up to meet their clit as they rocked into him. Max gave a strangled gasp as with the slightest shift he seemed to bodily catch them, their whole body seeming to answer to the touch of his fingertips as fire seemed to streak up from his touch.

They pushed back up onto their forearms on his chest again, feeling slow heat soaking into the muscles of their stomach as they set one knee against the bed to give them leverage against him. When he rumbled again, lower, it seemed to shudder through their entire body, and they could not have concentrated even to kiss his scales with true intent as their belly clenched with want of him.

The roll of their body was less awkward this time, grinding against his thigh and into the touch of his hand. They could feel the heat in their belly turning brighter, pleasure tightening as their breathing grew more ragged in the dark. Gods, they were not sure what they could even look like to him, head bowed as another pulse of heat rushed through them, but his claws dug into their ass as he pulled them tight against him and there was no mistaking the rough edge to his breathing as they heard it against them, felt it beneath their hands where they pressed their fingertips tightly to him.

"I do not know how you have the energy for this," said Shattershield. His snout brushed their temple for a moment, a twitch of his fingers against them making them moan softly and formlessly against his scales. He groaned. "Vorellim..."

"You inspire me," they breathed back, pressing into his fingers with the next rolls of their hips until pleasure clenched so tightly that they almost bucked against him.

The hot press of his thigh against them, the flicker of tension in his muscles pulsing through them; they could feel their own wetness on their inner thighs as they moved against him, their body yearning for his touch. Gods, as they gasped in they could have sworn they could smell their own arousal over the scent of Shattershield's body, hearing and feeling and tasting him in the enveloping darkness. His fingers shifted faintly, complementing the movement of their hips, and they did their best to pour encouragement into the sounds that they made as pressure built along their spine, tightened in their thighs with each pulse of pleasure through them, Shattershield urging them on with small motions of his fingers against their clit and his hand cupping their ass to pull them in on each of their thrusts.

Max closed their eyes, even in the darkness, tremors in their arms and a sweet sharp ache between their thighs as he drew them to him, into him, through the fog of sleep still hazy around them and the darkness dulling the rest of the world. Beneath them, Shattershield gave another low purring rumble, drawn-out and seeming to burr right through them both. He made a gruff sound of encouragement against their hair, the same low growl he used to urge them on when they rode him, claimed him. It was the final straw, and with a sharp moan against Shattershield's chest Max let themselves fall into the wracking waves of orgasm that rushed through them.

Their hips juddered into his touch, away for a moment as pleasure throbbed too hard through them, then into him again as it broke through into sweet hot flares down their skin. Their hands curled into fists on his chest, and Max let cracked sounds fall from their lips to Shattershield's chest as they rode out their climax against his hand.

As the pleasure melted out into seeping warmth, they slowed and stilled against him, thighs still tight against him as they nuzzled to his chest. Faint echoes still throbbed through them, trembling down their limbs, hot between their thighs. Shattershield withdrew his hand from between them, paused, and Max fumbled down with the intention to use their nightshirt to wipe his fingers clean but he grunted and they felt him reach aside instead.

Oh, of course. It had seemed sensible before too long to put cloths in the drawer beside their bed, and Max blamed their forgetfulness on the early hour as much as the hazy heat spreading through them. The weight of sleep was tugging at them again, but that did not stop them from pushing up onto their hands above Shattershield, glimpsing the lines of him in the dim light and using them to aim a kiss to his snout.

"Are you sure you won't join me, ervargus?" they murmured, freeing a hand to run their fingers down his throat even as the cloth in his hand brushed their wet thighs. It sent a shiver down their spine, almost strange as much as pleasurable. "I can offer you my hand;" another light kiss; "my mouth;" a nip; "whatever you would ask..."

The hand that had been cupping their ass slid upwards along their spine, fingertips running up them fit to arch their back. Shattershield chuckled softly.

"My body is more interested in sleep, vorellim. But.. " His voice softened to barely a breath. "Perhaps later..."

He faced the evening shift, but that left them the later morning to themselves. And often to their bed, if truth be told, the feeling still thrilling and heated to call it ours. Max kissed his throat, lingering and letting it ease rather than stoke any flames, as he stroked their nightshirt back down again. They could not hide a smile at the gentleness of it all, not so much a care for modesty when he slept nude but, they suspected, some lingering desire to wrap them up and protect them in some ill-defined way.

"I can work with later," they said softly, and shifted their hips against him in a less-than-subtle, but not too overt, a fashion. His low rumble made it clear that it did not go unnoticed. "But even if you want to sleep... how would you have me?"

They summoned just enough to make the words sound teasing, even as their eyes were growing heavy and the warm comfort of him seemed to suffuse them.

Shattershield huffed, still sounding amused, and shifted beneath them like a rolling deck, wrapping his arms firmly around them and nestling back onto the pillows. "Right here is fine," he said.

Smiling, Max shifted in return to a position that did not require their muscles tensed to hold them in place. As much as they would doubtless laugh if Max were to slide sideways and fall off in their sleep, it was not something they particularly wanted this morning. Instead they arranged themselves against him, letting the weight of his arms and the way that they lay hold them in place. Even in the cooling soporific wake of climax, they felt and heard him fall asleep again first beneath them, breathing growing even and slow and body relaxing around them as he drifted back under. With just enough time left for a smile, and just enough thought left to promise to more than pay him back once they were both far more awake, Max let themselves slide back into sleep along with him, and left the rest of the citadel to its own devices. It was still worth savouring every hour, after all.

Chapter Text

It was, Max had to admit, entirely their fault. Shattershield had returned to his quarters for lunch, in time allowed him from between training the newest recruits to the Order, but had made it clear that he would not have the time to linger long even if it was Max’s day off.

They should not have taken it upon themselves to tease him, really, but it was still too fun and they were still too restless. And Shattershield had hardly seemed disinclined to allow them as they trailed their fingers down the inside of his wrist, teased their bare foot against the scales of his ankle, and finally put their empty bowls aside to sit on the table above him stroking his jaw as his hands came to rest against their thighs.

“I will be returning to my work before much longer,” he reminded them, even as they felt the faint press of his claws through the soft fabric of their trousers. Max smirked, leaning in to kiss his snout. He was warm with the sun as well as his own dragonborn heat, striking in those parts of his armour which he was still wearing even though he had shed some of the smaller pieces.

“Will be,” they echoed. “Not are. Not yet.”

“We have perhaps a quarter of the hour.” Shattershield’s voice was grave, but all the same his fingers stroked their thigh, enough to send a tremor of exciting down their spine. “Not enough for what you might be planning.”

“And what might I be planning, ervargus?”

They let their lips brush against his scales, tracing their fingers down to the side of his neck before slipping them beneath his eshrazani. The rumble that it drew from his chest sounded more marked, somehow, from within his armour.

Shattershield huffed. “I dare not risk giving you more ideas.”

To be fair, it was hardly as if they needed the encouragement. Max kissed the line of his mouth again, tongue darting against his scales, and even without the firm hold that Shattershield had on their thigh the way that he tilted into their touch was more than enough to give away how much he wanted them in return. A chuckle escaped them as his hand inched upwards, until his claws grazed through the linen of their shirt.

“You are a bad influence,” Shattershield murmured, just as he bowed his head to nuzzle at the base of their throat. His tongue flicked, hot, against their skin, and they answered with a gentle scratch of their nails to the back of his neck. “I will not be made late.”

“Then you’ll just leave me here with nothing to do but think of you?” they teased. It prompted another, lower growl, on the verge of a warning sound even as his claws pressed just a little harder. “Nothing but my own hand to keep me company?”

Shattershield’s hand tightened for a moment, claws digging into their skin with a stab of pain and an ache of desire, then he released them again as he gave a slow, drawn-out hiss of breath. “You are impossible,” he said, approval still warm in his words.

It probably served them right, though, as he slid the hand still on their leg upwards, thumb stroking up the inside of their thigh close enough to send a clench through their muscles and for their breath to catch. As Max went to lean further in to him, though, Shattershield drew upright, face almost schooled but with the slightest curl of a smile that gave him away.

“Besides, I thought that you were supposed to be checking that Celestial text for Wattson,” he added. “To see whether it is worth having it fully translated into Draconic.”

Max drew back far enough to give him what they hoped was a sufficiently unimpressed look for denying them the chance to keep up their game all the way to him having to return to his work. He was correct, after all; they had not expected that knowing Celestial would turn out to be quite such an unusual skill in Mistmire, but even Leoval had, as he put it, only about enough to know how to sort and appropriately shelve texts. They had contact with arcane magic users who could cast Comprehend Languages to assist them, but Max had been using the language for a good decade and it was not the first time they had offered to look over something for a member of Dragon D’Or.

“I mean, yes,” they said, “but you didn’t have to remind me of it yet.” With a faintly triumphant chuckle, Shattershield leaned in to nose their throat again, closing a small but lingering bite against their skin until they could not help a shudder in their breath. “When did I agree to let you retaliate?”

“Unfortunately, I believe that was a mutual presumption,” Shattershield replied, breath soft against their skin, then they felt his tongue flick against the sore spot at the base of their throat. Without a plan to leave their chambers, Max knew they would be free to run their fingers over the same spot during the afternoon, to remind themselves of his touch. Or to distract themselves with it. With a final, reluctant huff, Shattershield straightened up in his seat again and looked up them over. “But unfortunately, I really must return to my duties.”

“Very well.” Max leaned back on their hands, far enough for him to unwrap himself from them and carefully stand up once again. They wondered for a moment whether it would be too much to have one more moment of teasing, but it had never been said that subtlety was their strong suit. “I guess I’ll just have to plan what I’m going to do with you when you get back,” they said, letting their voice drop pointedly.

Not dignifying them with an answer, Shattershield got to his feet, gathered up his cloak from where it lay draped across the back of his chair, and made his way out of the room. Max made sure to let their gaze linger on him, pointedly, running their tongue across their lip with aching slowness until he was gone from the room entirely. A moment later, they heard him close the front door to their quarters behind him, and snorted with laughter.

It was simply too much fun to tease him.

Of course, in some things they were their own worst enemy. Even as they were trying to concentrate on reading the Celestial text, their fingers drifted back to the mark that Shattershield had left at the base of their throat, feeling a shiver down their spine at the memory of his touch. It was hard to keep their thoughts from his touch on their skin, the press of his teeth, the way that his muscles tensed between their thighs when he came.

It was their own fault. Their own words that had turned it from a probability to a promise, and left their thoughts to linger. They managed to read through the text well enough, and took the notes that they needed to, but by the time that the end of Shattershield’s shift came there was heat beneath their skin and eagerness plucking at their core.

They made their way downstairs to wait, leaning on the balustrade. They loosened the laces of their shirt, touch brushing once more against the developing bruise there. At least they had not been there to watch him sparring or teaching, they supposed; the sight of him would likely have been worse even than their imagination could have been. Though if they had managed to leave a flame lingering in him, as well, it might just have been worth it.

It was not at all long past the end of his shift that Shattershield returned, his key brusque in the door and his movements sharp as he let himself in and swirled to close it behind him again. Only then did he look up, gaze falling on Max already heated and longing.

“I missed you too,” they said.

“You,” said Shattershield, low and levelly, “are unspeakably distracting.”

“From half a citadel away?” Max tried not to smile, but could feel their lips twitching. “I was not even in sight of you.”

He bristled with attention, tension in his shoulders and in each line of his movement as he faced Max across the feet between them. A couple of steps up, they were about on an eye-height with him, and as his gaze bored into them Max felt heat spreading through them all over again.

“And yet,” Shattershield prowled closer to them, tapping against the stone of the floor, until he stood within an arm’s reach. Slowly, he raised one hand, skimming the tips of his claws up the back of their arm as he stared them down, “at no point this afternoon have I been able to stop thinking of you.”

Max swallowed. It was as if they could feel the heat radiating off Shattershield, reaching beneath their skin. Their fingers itched to touch him, until it was all but a physical effort to restrain themselves, but they could feel the intensity of his gaze against them as if it were a touch of his hand. “You think I’ve been doing any better?”

His claws grazed up, up, to ghost along the side of their neck. There was almost a warning in his eyes, almost a dare; as his thumb brushed Max’s jaw they considered for a moment nipping at his fingertips to see how quickly they could dissuade him of reservation. But the tension in him was palpable, and they could not entirely hide their smile as they saw him breathing deeply.

“You told me where you would be.” His voice dropped entirely to a growl, and Max felt a jolt run through them as they realised just how he thought they had been spending at least part of their afternoon. But tempting though it had been at times, thoughts of him were no match for his actual touch, and they had let themselves linger in the anticipation instead.

Their smile widened. “You didn’t think I’d wait for you, ervargus?”

His eyes, which had dipped down to the parted laces of their shirt, snapped back up again. The desire in the look made their knees feel weak.

“I really didn’t think you’d take me that seriously,” they admitted.

Shattershield paused, reading their expression, then gave a huff of laughter and shook his head. He snaked his left arm around their back and tugged them to him, dragging them up onto their toes as they caught his shoulders to steady themselves. The heat of his armour was not the same as the heat of his scales, but it was still enough of him to send a bolt of arousal down through them. His other hand ran through their hair, claws against their scalp as he gave them another heady, lingering look, then then with a tangible rumble he bowed his head to their shoulder again.

The stairs were enough to bring them closer to his reach, an equaliser almost as effective as their bed as Shattershield’s hand curled to a fist against the small of their back and his tongue ran across their skin. It was more than their idle daydreams could have offered, and Max moaned at the following press of his teeth. It seemed that all they had really succeeded in doing was make them both more eager for the evening.

Shattershield’s tongue followed up along the line of their throat, and Max gathered enough thoughts to begin undoing the buckles on his right vambrace. It made for a little bit of a tangle of limbs, but they had helped with his armour often enough that they did not need to see, which was a mercy as his teeth grazed their earlobe. They felt him shift at the same time as they heard the sound of moving metal; Shattershield raised one foot to the first step, leaning in to where Max could stand more easily without his support, just as they managed to undo the first of his vambraces.

His hand was hot on the back of their neck as he nipped his way back down their throat again. Placing the vambrace on the stairs somewhere behind them with a low clang, Max reached for the buckles of his pauldron, having learned that starting there made it easier to remove the rest of his arm plate in one go.

Gods, they wanted to touch him. Beneath the plate, the gambeson, the shirt, to feel his skin against them. Max could feel their breath growing unsteady as Shattershield’s mouth found their shoulder, tongue tracing curls against their bare skin as he nosed the linen aside, the cool touch of the air in its wake only making the effect stronger.

It had been something of an unusual morning that they had woken as early as they did without reaching for each other. Shattershield’s hopeful, protective desire to see the new recruits as soon as possible and to begin their training with the clearest head that he could had seen him taking to his shift early, leaving Max still abed as the sun rose. If they had known how thoroughly their words would have distracted him for the afternoon, they might have felt more guilty about it all, but Shattershield certainly did not seem to be genuinely annoyed.

Not as he released his grip on their shirt only to untuck it from their belt and slide his hand beneath, fingertips splayed against their skin. His hand trailed up as if looking for their short shift, but they had not bothered with it that day and there was only bare skin for him to find. Shattershield growled against their shoulder as he leaned further into them, nosing at their collarbone as they tried to get his armour loose.

Perhaps it was the socks that were to blame. Max felt their feet slip a fraction as Shattershield leant against them, and while their balance was generally good it was no match for his bulk. They tried to steady themselves, failed, and turned a backwards slip into abruptly sitting down on the stone steps, laughing breathlessly as they went.

“I may not have the grip for–” they began, only for Shattershield to follow them, dropping his knee to the step between their legs and leaning in and over them with an unreadable, though vaguely unimpressed, huff again. He braced one arm on the step beside them, and Max laughed as the other rucked up their shirt over their stomach to drag his claws across their abdomen. “I was not planning for this.”

“Really,” said Shattershield, voice still dry. He took hold of one of the laces of Max’s shirt in his teeth and pulled it gently open, slower and frankly more erotic than it had even been to once see him bite through them in haste of his desire. The brush of his warm breath against their skin was so giddying that they almost missed the way that his hand began to slide down their stomach again, towards their belt. “You expect me to believe that.”

They pulled at his pauldron again, and he raised his hand from them for long enough to slip his arm free of the plates and straps entirely and for Max to set it down beside them. “Bold of you to think I was capable of planning anything,” they said.

Shattershield chuckled, then nuzzled against the underside of their jaw again, and for all of the foolishness of tangling around each other on the stairs and still largely dressed and even armoured, Max could not help laughing. There was an absurdity about it all, yes, but a thrilling sense of being able to, of having their space and their privacy and so many of the uncertainties between them talked away that it was silly, inconsequential misunderstandings like this that remained.

They were just going to ask whether he intended to actually remove his armour before heading to the bedroom when he reached to cup his hand between their thighs. Even through their clothes, it made them gasp, made them sharply aware of how wet they already were beneath the fabric just from the lingering thought of him and the marked ardour of his return. Their hips arched into the heat of his hand without thought, their attention narrowing to his touch and words escaping them as Shattershield nipped their upper chest through their shirt.

He gave a low, resonant rumble, patently pleased at what he found, the slight shifting of his fingers against them sending heat rushing to Max’s cheeks. It was far from grinding against them, only the faintest rubbing of his fingertips and still dulled by fabric, but the drag of his touch against their folds was still enough to leave them breathless and aching beneath him. They wrapped a hand around the back of his neck to steady themselves, fingers slipping into his eshrazani to be wrapped in the warmth of his scales.

He had teased them before, gently, about their tendency to improvise. They had retorted that he kept up more than well enough. It had seemed to go quite a way at the time to reassuring him. Now, though, his fingers moved in a measured, familiar rocking motion against them, palm of his hand moving against their clit, pressure of his fingers enough to set heat spreading through them but nowhere near what their body yearned for.

“You don’t need to sound so smug,” they said, fighting to keep their breath steady as Shattershield pressed just a little more with his fingertips. Still too little, still just enough to remind them of how his touch could feel.

Sometimes they were not even sure how much of what he did was deliberate, knowing that a stray touch of his hand or a moment of their eyes lingering on him was enough to stoke the fires of their yearning and it was not even as if he needed to act at all. Now, though, as his mouth traced down towards their nipple through the linen and his hand pressed a fraction more pointedly against him, they could be sure that it was entirely intentional. Whether it was impulsive, or a more planned revenge after an afternoon of frustration and his own imagination, was a little harder to say.

Max moaned again as Shattershield’s tongue found their nipple, the fabric of their shirt feeling rough even with the damp heat of his tongue to drive it. Their gut clenched, hips rocking again against his hand, as they began to scratch in lulling, gentle waves at the back of his neck.

“Gods, Arend,” they breathed, tightening their other hand on his upper arm. “At least let me get you out of–”

There was a knock at the door, and they both froze. Shattershield still with his tongue at Max’s nipple, hand between their thighs.

“Captain Shattershield? You left your cloak in the training yard.”

Shattershield withdrew his tongue. “Bloody Chauncey,” he muttered to Max’s chest.

Max put a hand across their mouth, fighting the urge to start laughing as the full absurdity of the situation struck them. The stone stairs were digging into their back, their shirt pushed up and the first pieces of Shattershield’s removed armour around them as Shattershield leaned over them with his hand between their thighs. The annoyed look that he threw over his shoulder, irritation at the interruption clearly keeping at bay embarrassment for at least a short while longer, only made it more ridiculous as Shattershield sighed and then delicately began to peel himself upright again with a minimum of sound.

“One moment,” he said, more loudly.

Still fighting not to laugh, the urge only becoming stronger with time, Max sat up in turn and let their shirt fall loosely down again. They picked up the nearer, larger piece of armour, to have something in their hands and frankly to have something to hold in front of themselves. It was a merciful chance of birth that they did not have to worry about having an erection to hide, but they did at least put their knees back together where they sat in an attempt to not look too much like they had both been, well, acting in the manner that they had.

Shattershield cleared his throat and opened the door, looking entirely composed once again, as Chauncey proffered him the cloak with a beaming smile.

“Your cloak, captain,” he repeated.

Timing aside, there wasn’t really a justification for any annoyance, Max supposed. Even to them, Shattershield had managed to make his expression unreadable again. “Thank you, Chauncey,” he replied, taking hold of it with, Max had to note, his left hand. Given where his right had just been, it was probably for the best. There was a moment, in which Chauncey did not move. “Is there anything else?”

“No, sir,” said Chauncey, still cheerfully. He glanced past Shattershield and raised a hand in greeting. “Hi, Inspector Williams.”

For any member of Dragon D’Or who had even the lowest of officer ranks, Max was quite happy to be known as Williams, or as Max, but Shattershield had strongly suggested that they keep at least some level of formality with those who had yet to earn any rank. Those were generally the younger ones anyway, although Chauncey for all his age and years in the Order was still among them.

They raised a hand in greeting back, and hoped the state of their neck was not so obvious as it felt.

“Then thank you, Chauncey, and be on your way,” said Shattershield, just a fraction more short in his tone than usual, and as Chauncey actually turned to leave Shattershield closed the door behind him and very firmly locked the door again.

Max snorted.

Shattershield turned back to face them, cloak still in one hand, then paused and looked them over in a way that was marginally less heated but clearly no less distracted. He went as if to speak, paused, gestured vaguely at them with the hand that held the cloak, then shook his head and sighed. Max watched fondly, waiting for him to find whatever words were escaping him and still trying not to laugh aloud.

“It is… likely my imagination that you still look almost indecent,” he said finally. “Considering…”

They still had a suspicion that they knew what he meant. “You look the same in that armour,” they teased back, and saw him glance away for a moment as being flustered at least briefly caught up with him again. Grabbing his vambrace as well, Max stood up. “But it probably should go on its stand.”

Shattershield looked at the cloak he was holding, then back at the stairs, and Max was fairly sure they recognised his expression of asking himself where some idea had struck him from. They crossed to him, wrapped their hand in the fabric of his cloak, and tugged gently to draw him away from the door. They knew how many steps it was to the door to their shared office, where the stand for his armour stood, where the windows were still open to the early evening sunlight.

They released the cloak to allow Shattershield to hang it up, and with a flutter of anticipation made sure to close the windows just in case they still did not manage to make their way upstairs. They still ached to feel him, fingers twitching for the heat of his scales, lips longing to press against him.

By the time that they returned to assist him with his armour again, he had already removed that of his left arm as well, and with the buckles on his shoulders out of Max’s reach he saw to them himself while they concerned themselves with the ones lower down his torso. He slipped the armour into place on its stand before removing his chain as well, the sound glittering even as Max began to tease open the laces of his gambeson from the lowest upwards.

Once his hands were free again, however, they could not resist taking hold of one, pressing a kiss to the palm and then a second to the inside of his wrist where the scales seemed to be at their finest and they could feel the slightest movements as he proffered his hand to them. When they ran their tongue across his scales, they felt the low rumble that ran through him, and looked up through their lashes and the wayward curls of their hair to catch his eye as they sucked against his pulse.

“Do you intend to let me free of the rest of this armour?” said Shattershield, voice low.

Max smiled, lips curving against him, before raising their head again and slipping their fingers up beneath the cuff of his gambeson. “I think it’s in both our interests that I do,” they replied. Of all of Shattershield’s belongings that the pair of them had managed to see damaged, his armour at least had been spared

As Shattershield drew his hand away to begin untying the laces between his gambeson and the legs of his plate, Max released him and dropped down to begin undoing the buckles of his armour from the lowest and working upwards. The layering of plate for the legs of dragonborn was a little more complicated than that for humans, but the smiths working for Dragon D’Or were still skilled – from what Shattershield had said, the most experienced of them would have been involved in armouring even more dragonborn during the years of the war. The plates flowed like scales themselves, in impressively fluid lines that accounted for movement, but there had never not been a thrill to helping Shattershield pull them away to reveal the fabric of his trousers and the heat of his scales seeping through.

They pressed a kiss to his thigh as the plate was removed, running their fingers over the scars a few inches higher, then stood up and stepped back to let him put his armour on the stand without being any more of a distraction. The yearning for his touch rose and fell in waves, but never entirely ebbed, just retreating from desperation to a lingering draw of desire. Once his armour was safely stowed, though, and Shattershield began to undo his gambeson in fluid motions, Max stepped back in and ran their hand up his front beneath his clothes, pulling his shirt loose enough to run their hand across the scaled muscle of his abdomen and feel him, skin-to-skin.

There was an impatience in how Shattershield removed his gambeson, and Max did not comment but could not hide their smile at it. He cast it down onto the table, turning to fully face them with a sort of finality, a focus settling back into place around him, that sent a shiver down their spine.

With both hands, he cupped their jaw. The heat of his touch caught at their breath, the heat of his gaze at their attention, as his claws grazed at the skin behind their ears and one of his thumbs pressed against the centre of their lower lip. They parted their lips for him, letting just the tip of their tongue graze his thumb for a moment but allowing no more than a tease, and took hold of a fistful of his shirt from the inside to guide him once again.

It was pretty clear from the look in his eyes that he had no intention of drawing away from them again if it could be at all avoided. That if he was going to relocate them both upstairs, it was likely going to involve him picking Max up once again. But as his thumb pressed gently into the curve of their lip, rolling just enough that they could feel it against the inside of their mouth, enough that he must have felt it damp against his scales, they knew as well just how this room was laid out.

Max backed up again, undoing Shattershield’s belt with one hand and holding his shirt taut with the other, this time until their heel and then the small of their back found the wood of Shattershield’s desk.

Finally, he glanced away from their face, down behind them, and huffed as Max gave in and laughed. “It is closer,” they said.

Their first day in the quarters had not been the only time that the desk had found itself repurposed for quite a different use than it had been intended. Though mercifully it had not seen any further damage. Shattershield did not look at all surprised, only faintly amused, and when he took hold of Max’s shirt to draw it upwards they knew full well that he was taken with the idea.

They had to release his shirt to remove their own, air cool on their skin, the dampness of where his tongue had been still faintly tangible. By the time that their shirt was off, tossed to the far end of the desk, Shattershield was removing his own, and Max set about undoing their belt and the laces of their underwear beneath.

Even now, they fumbled with the knotted laces for just a moment as Shattershield pulled his shirt away to reveal in full the gleaming lines of his chest, the flexing muscles in his shoulders and arms. So close that they thought they could already feel the heat of his skin, that they could see the rise and fall of his breath and the way that his scales caught the light. As tantalising as the first glimpse of his bare chest had been, for months now allowed them but no less thrilling.

They pushed their remaining clothing down, around their knees, and Shattershield did not even need to ask what they intended as they put their hands back against the desk and lifted themselves backwards. His hands to their thighs may have been assistance, before turning smoothly into drawing their clothes down the rest of the way along their legs, catching their socks in passing, and baring them to him in one sweep. The rest of the clothes followed their shirt onto the desk, as Max adjusted their seat, and then Shattershield stepped tightly between their thighs, one hand sliding behind their back to support them or to draw them near, other combing through their hair and down their cheek as his eyes traced down their body in clear desire.

Max wrapped their legs around his hips, heels pressing to his back as the firm heat of his muscles, even through what clothes he retained, pressed to their inner thighs and sent pulses of desire running through them. They would rather have him bare as well, but at least what clothing remained on him would be easier to push aside.

They turned, intending to kiss his hand again, but Shattershield stroked down their side, over their chest and grazing their nipple just hard enough for them to catch their breath and for it to harden beneath his touch. Before they could find words to tease him further, he had slipped his hand back between their thighs, and rumbled low in his chest as his fingers stroked along the wetness of their skin.

“You have haunted me all afternoon,” he said, bending to nose at the side of their throat again. His tongue flicked against them hot-cold, but they were much more focused on his hand between them and the coaxing strokes of his fingers. Almost idle in his gentleness, ignoring Max’s clit in favour of slow light sweeps of his touch that almost seemed to scorch them all the same, but when his teeth closed on their shoulder at the same moment as his fingertips grazed their entrance it gave away just how deliberate it was.

Max tried to catch their moan, but only turned it into a short wordless sound. They laughed, reaching up to stroke the side of his neck. “You have haunted me all year,” they replied. Pointed out. Admitted. They were not even sure which, the words a relief to say for all that they would have been nervous if they had thought about them at all. Shattershield growled, fingertips pressing inside them for a moment in a pulse of pleasure that swelled through them, but then his touch withdrew as he shifted away a fraction.

“Let me kneel,” he said, still quietly and against their neck.

They knew without asking what he meant. Could not help but wonder if that was where his thoughts had strayed that afternoon, their taste a phantom on his tongue as much as his claws had drawn phantom lines on their skin. Max shivered, feeling a fresh clench of muscles between their thighs, a fresh pulse of desire down their spine.

“Sometimes you are a tease with your mouth,” they replied, a shadow of a warning in it. After hours of waiting – their own fault for teasing him at lunch, perhaps, but at least it had seemed to outdo itself for riling him up as well – they were not sure that they had the patience for one of the nights when Shattershield was intent on taking his time with them. Though they could appreciate the results, it was generally more his preference than theirs, and even then only on some occasions. More often, he was just as eager for them both to come together, to come apart, to fall upon each other repeatedly if once was not enough to sate them.

His snout brushed against their ear, their hair. “And if I promise… not to tease?”

The words were still a little careful, but the sound of them on his tongue was enough to tighten their throat. Max chuckled, hearing their own relief in it, as they loosened the hold of their legs around his hips. They kissed his jaw. “Then I could be persuaded.”

The loss of his touch, as he drew his hand away from between their legs, was enough to make them groan. Shattershield squeezed their thigh. “Then let me persuade you,” he said.

Gods, his words could make them tremble. It was him who most appreciated the filthy promises that Max would make him, the rather anatomical statements of what they intended to do. It was as if he did not realise that in his careful choice of words, he only managed to associate those words in turn with sexual desire, that it would take time before Max would be able to hear him say the word persuade and not immediately find themselves thinking of this.

One more time, they pressed their fingers to the back of his neck, then drew arcs around to stroke the side instead as they drew back to give him a look that was somewhere between agreement and challenge. Shattershield scanned their expression, then unwound his arm from behind their back as he shifted back and knelt down.

Max dropped to their back across his desk, still with a distant feeling that it was probably ludicrous just how little respect they both had for the intended uses of any of his furniture. At least the tidiness of Shattershield’s desk these days was likely not too much of a giveaway. The thought made them chuckle, cut off with a yelp as Shattershield took hold of their hips to adjust their position, drawing them to the edge of the desk with their legs about his shoulders.

Their own surprise drew a laugh from them. Shattershield had more strength and reach than he needed to be able to move them about on a whim, but it was much rarer than he actually did and it still caught them out at times. Mercifully, Shattershield ignored it, and the brush of his snout against their inner thigh was all the warning that Max had before his tongue was against them.

He certainly could not be accused of teasing. The first pass of his tongue was already firm, parting them to chase the heat beneath their skin and sending an immediate clench of heat through them. Max grabbed at his wrist, his hand still at their hip, and squeezed encouragement even as they had to catch their breath. Shattershield did not pause, his tongue roving against them, tracing their folds up to circle around their clit in firm, certain movements.

Not to tease, indeed. Max moaned as Shattershield’s tongue circled at their entrance, pressing inside just enough to giddy them with pleasure and sensation, then drawing back to focus on their clit again. A shiver ran down them, the cool of the air only making sharper the heat pulsing in their own body, the fire that seemed to erupt with the touch of Shattershield’s tongue as it curled and coaxed against them.

“Fuck,” they managed, and perhaps they should have tried for something more coherent but neither of them had ever seemed to care before. They rubbed his wrist. “This is – Arend–” his tongue stroked like a vee beneath their clit, and when they closed their eyes it was almost as if they were seeing stars. “Imagination can’t compare to you,” they managed.

The faintest shifting of his hands and wrists against their thighs as they fought not to writhe beneath him. The rumble of his breath. His back against their heels as their thighs ached with the tense urge to tighten about him. The sheer eagerness of his tongue against them, each movement of his tongue a lick of flame, moving into the rocking of their hips as they felt themselves winding tighter with perhaps unwarranted speed.

They would have to blame it on the afternoon spent waiting. Not just their own desperate eagerness for his touch, the intoxicating and unravelling effect he always had on them. They gasped his name as he shaped his tongue to them, the vee against their clit that he knew well enough tore the logic from their thoughts and the control from their limbs, leaving them starting to shake already beneath his touch.

A curse escaped them at a more pointed flick of his tongue, fingers tightening on his wrist, no more of him easily within reach. The piercing heat of him against the early evening air was like winding back the months again, a tangle of their time together, memories on their skin as Shattershield kept up the working of his tongue against them, stoking and stoking at their pleasure until they felt themselves winding so tightly that it was difficult to breathe.

Rumbling against them, he undid them. Stars flashed in their vision as the first shudders of release ran through their body, heat rushing through their muscles and pleasure through their bones. They moaned breathlessly, not able even to cry out as the air seemed to linger heated on their lips and they pressed their hips to Shattershield’s ready mouth as if chasing down every fragment of his touch.

Only as it ebbed again did they sag in his hold, panting, blinking open their eyes to focus on the ceiling above them again and feeling their knees waver. They stroked the scales of his wrist as Shattershield nipped gently at the inside of their thigh, high enough to make their breath catch again.

“Okay,” Max said, finding a smile. “Okay, that’s definitely not teasing.”

They felt Shattershield chuckle against them, snout brushing damp against their hip, then he slipped free of their legs again and they felt the heat of him recede, at least briefly, as with a grunt he stood upright again. Max pushed themselves back to a seated position, running their eyes down his chest to remind the lingering desire in them to outweigh the relaxation of their muscles. The promise of taking him apart in turn, and of feeling him inside them, certainly helped on that front as well. Shattershield paused only briefly to pull free the laces at his calves, then peeled off what remained of his clothing with a little more haste than was probably seemly, and just enough to make Max’s heart beat a little faster as he shoved it over with the rest of the fabric on the desk.

The scales of his snout were shining in two ways at once, his own scales and the wetness there, as he stepped close to the desk again and ran his hands down Max’s body with a low, eager growl. They wrapped their legs back around his hips, drawing themselves tight to him, steadying themselves with one hand against his bicep as with the other they reached straight for the base of his stomach.

“Arend.” They kissed his chest, then as he bowed his head to bite at their shoulder again gasped sharply. “Fuck. I guess I shouldn’t–” they began to knead their hand against his abdomen, feeling the flex of the muscles in his arm; “–tease you either.”

“I would appreciate,” Shattershield began to say, voice tight against their shoulder, then broke off with a faint snarl as Max shifted the position of their hand once again. “Vorellim,” he breathed.

Even without looking down, Max knew what it was that would have caught at his breath, and they let their hand slide down to wrap around his cock. Shattershield’s hips bucked against their hand, claws twitching against their back, as they stroked slowly along his length to savour the heat and the feeling of him again.

“You have teased me all afternoon,” Shattershield gathered himself enough to point out, and the words were so dry that Max burst out laughing once again. They had to drop their hand from his cock, pressing their touch to his stomach instead as they laughed against his chest. He huffed.

Max leaned back for a moment, far enough to look him properly in the eyes. “Does it at least help that I teased myself with that, as well?”

“It is noted,” he said, almost keeping a straight face. Max was too used to recognising the flicker of amusement, though, and grinned as they ran their hand down to return their attention to his cock. As they did so, Shattershield caught his breath, lowering his gaze for a moment as he swayed into their touch. “Max.”

“I’m not teasing now,” they said, pressing their heels more firmly against him. Shattershield put one hand to their back, hot touch splayed against their skin, and let Max guide them together until he was right at their entrance, smouldering heat against their eager skin. He eased them together more than thrust, nosing against Max’s shoulder with a low groan as they wrapped around him. Max adjusted their hips to his, lips lingering on his chest, running their freed hand around the side and the back of his neck.

Shattershield gave a low sound as he settled to the hilt in them, so full that it left them breathless, too full and too aching for motion both at once. But the stroke of his hand on their thigh was savouring, reverent, and Max held back the feverish pleas that were so tempting on their lips as Shattershield seemed to ground himself against them.

He murmured something against their shoulder, unintelligible but sounding like Draconic, before easing back only to draw their bodies together again. It was far slower than the determined pace of his tongue, but Max could hear the desire in Shattershield’s rough breathing as he brought them together, gently, almost rocking as he nipped at Max’s shoulder and stroked from their ribs down to their thigh.

“Ya falisj wux,” he breathed against them. For some time, Max had thought that it had meant I missed you, but that was not quite right; it was more like I longed for you or I thought of you. Its use was generally romantic, more than sexual, but the softness in Shattershield’s voice as he spoke was enough to make it clear that even now he meant it in such a way. The love that fed the hunger of their touch which only served to leave them falling deeper into love again. And with tenses in Draconic only a matter of suggestions, the immediacy and eternity of it blurred together into a daunting, captivating possibility.

Absurd, perhaps, to feel a swell of adoration from so few words, breathless and soft and spoken even as they fell upon each other desperate from only hours of time apart. But the desperation of it all was like returning to the months when they had only been able to steal days on each of Max’s visits, recaptured in a much less painful way.

They scratched gently at the scales of his neck, but it was tightening their inner muscles around him that made Shattershield growl deep in his chest and tighten his claws against their back as the movement of his hips built. Max let their breathless sounds of pleasure escape them, urging him on without even words, and reluctantly released his arm only so that they could brace one arm against the desk behind them and give themselves the leverage to meet the rhythm of his hips. Not all that markedly, but at least they could still match the rolls of their hips to his thrusts, his teeth only fleeting touches against their shoulder as he in turn let the tension of hours catch up with him.

“Show me what you’ve been thinking, ervargus,” they said, the words not quite level but clear enough. Shattershield growled against their shoulder, biting harder for a moment. Max honestly suspected that a fair amount of his fantasy would have been his mouth between their thighs, but as they pressed a moan to his skin, to let him feel as well as hear it, the hand on their back tightened once again. Almost painful, claws digging into them, as Max tilted their hips to him and with a lean of his body into them he shifted inside them.

They lost their breath in an instant, the new angle like setting of fireworks of pleasure, and half-cried out and clung to his neck both in the same instant. But there was a tight sound catching in Shattershield’s own ragged breath, tightening of his muscles tangible against their thighs, a faint stutter in the rhythm of his hips.

“Please, Arend,” they said, yearning to feel him unravel. They slipped into Draconic. “Please.”

It was not just the word, they knew, but the longing in their voice each time that would undo him. Sure enough, Shattershield gasped sharply, and with a few more hard thrusts that lit sparks at the base of their spine Max felt him climax, hips clutched tight to theirs and cock twitching inside them. They stroked the back of his neck, closing their eyes for a moment to savour the way that they could feel the tension leaching from him, the feel of him panting against their neck and the warm afterglow of his continuing touch.

The hand that had been on their thigh shifted, stroked gently at their hip, then slipped between their bodies. Max could still feel aching potential in their own core, unsure of whether Shattershield expected or intended to make use of the second of his cocks before they broke apart, but as his hand nudged down and his thumb brushed their clit they suspected that he at least did not plan to.

“You don’t have to–” they murmured, but Shattershield cut them off with a low, purr-like rumble. He delighted, in his own quieter way, at undoing them, and though Max would not pressure him they would certainly not turn down the offer of his hand when still half-tense around him.

They could feel how wet they were against his hand, how hard was their clit as he found an upwards, stroking pattern against them even as he began to withdraw. Max held themselves steady against him, but was grateful for his hand at their back, as he nipped and nipped again at their skin and coaxed them back into ragged breathing, into a shiver that tightened their thighs around him, into returning bright stars of pleasure as climax swept through them again. It ran through them in waves, as visceral as blows as heat flooded their body and settled through them, bone-deep and redolent.

By the time that Shattershield stilled his hand, Max caught themselves trembling slightly, and took a deep breath to gather themselves before shifting to sit less precipitously on the edge of the desk. Shattershield supported them with a hand to one thigh as they did so, then reached up to stroke their hair. The longing was still in his expression, but softened with climax, attention less sharp and more enveloping as Max stroked his jaw and down his throat.

He leaned in, eshrazani rubbing their temple, and Max laughed softly.

“Am I forgiven for my behaviour at lunch, then?” they teased, as they felt his claw undo the slightest tangle in their hair.

“Hm. I am not sure of that, yet,” Shattershield replied.

He did not even bother trying to hide his smile, though, as he drew back to face them and as Max kissed the tip of his snout gently. “You’ll have to let me know what I can do to make up for it, then,” Max suggested, trying to keep a straight face.

They need not have bothered; Shattershield laughed, leaning against their temple for a moment. “Vorellim, have mercy. I may not have patrolled today,” he drew back to regard them with what they suspected was as much dignity as he could muster in such a moment and with their legs still wrapped around his hips, “but it was not without exertion.”

“I mean, if you want to assume that’s what I meant…” they could not contain themselves, and grinned widely, before placing another gentle kiss against his scales. “It can be if you want. But it doesn’t have to be.”

Shattershield’s claws traced against their scalp as he pushed back their hair. He still looked as if he did not quite believe that had not been what they meant, which was too much of a reasonable guess for Max to in any way resent it even if it was not actually accurate this time. After a moment, he leaned in, nuzzling gently at their temple again, and they felt the flick of his tongue against their skin. “I believe first should be retrieving some clothes,” he said.

It was just reluctant enough for Max to laugh. They draped their arms loosely about his shoulders. “Only if you want to.”

“You are a distraction enough half a citadel away and fully dressed,” said Shattershield, more levelly. “Without clothes, you are impossible.”

They flicked their eyes down at his chest and back up again, pointedly, but knew that they did not need to make their point aloud. “Fine,” they said, after a moment, and Shattershield chuckled and gently untwined himself from them to step back from the desk. Max leaned over and grabbed their underwear out of the heap of clothes. “I guess it’ll be less tempting in winter, at least.”

Mistmire was mild, and the citadel seemed permanently warm even amidst it, but the corner where the Inspectors’ Guild quarters lay was less central than Shattershield’s quarters had been, the heat less intense.  Shattershield looked over at the clothing in turn, paused with a slow-spreading frown, then stepped away only to look over the edge of the desk and sigh pointedly. Max laughed as he bent down, grabbed whatever had fallen to the floor, and returned it back to the surface of the desk once again.

“Most of it stayed put,” said Max. It was better than they managed some days.

“I will be grateful for such mercies, then,” he said. Pausing, he looked over at the door with another of those self-questioning expressions, and Max found themselves tempted to laugh once again.

“Are you sure you aren’t the one with the list of surfaces?” they said.

Shattershield gave them a dry look. It did not make them any less amused. They understood entirely why he might accuse them of intending to have sex with him on every surface of their quarters, but the idea had genuinely not crossed their mind until he had raised it. He shook out his trousers again with a snap of his wrists.

The stairs were a new one, though. Not the most comfortable, but there had been a nonsensical thrill about it all. Sliding down from the desk, Max took hold of Shattershield’s hand and, as he humoured them to raise it to their lips, kissed his palm. “Let’s head upstairs,” they said. “There's still some time before dinner, after all.”

Chapter Text

Writing Max gets a lot more into headcanon territory than Shattershield does, but for both of them there's a certain amount of going back to fill in the basics.

Shattershield is one of the main characters to have picked up Johnny's Dad Energy, but I took as a more significant clue to his age that Corazón was initially convinced that he was Egbert's father (Andy confirmed on the podcast that Corazón, and indeed Andy, thought this) and that he was in a position on the Council by Legacy of Dragons. To that end, I put him in the ballpark of being fifty. As for his orientation, when I started writing for these two there was no canon indication (other than Andy declaring that he could see the Shattershield/Max chemistry; the confirmation that he was attracted to women would come later via Lady Fyengeh) but as I've been writing, he'd probably huff and grumble about labels but settle on saying that bisexual covered things well enough.

As for Max, they felt more like a peer to the Oxventurers in their appearances, so I guessed they were somewhere closer to thirty. They also only had Andy's shipping opinions to go by but I've been writing them as pansexual (gender doesn't matter) and maybe greyromantic/arospec given how developing romantic feelings for Shattershield completely knocked them sideways. Not that they had ever necessarily identified with such, just figuring it would happen at some point in the future if it was going to, but caught off-guard by the intensity of it when it did.

SFW Alphabet

A: Affection. Both Shattershield and Max have a pattern of being relatively reserved in public and affectionate in private, though with Shattershield both sides are more extreme. Once they made the choice to go public to the Oxventurers, the difference was noticeable in how they spoke to and looked at each other, and with some element of actually touching hands or pecked kisses in front of other people. In private, though, they both pour with affection - words, touch, gifts. Shattershield's love language tends towards physical touch and acts of service, while Max tends to physical touch and time together. 

B: Best friend. I think that we've seen some of how Shattershield would be as a friend based on how he treats Egbert - loyal, supportive, not afraid to acknowledge when someone has done something wrong but also not necessarily condemning a person entirely over their actions. His social circle is generally very entwined with the paladin order, so friendship is often an extension of colleagues he works better with, but Egbert has been gone for years and he clearly still feels some link, perhaps even some responsibility, there. Max, travelling for their job, probably has fewer longstanding friends and more brief acquaintances/vague friendships like they had with the Oxventurers. That changes with settling into Mistmire during my fics, of course, and they do still have friends in their home village where they are the visitor from the cities who returns with exciting stories and sometimes gifts for people. They're an easy friend to make, very forgiving of oddities and foibles, and happier with their socialising being friendship-based/optional rather than enforced proximity.

C: Cuddles. Max accuses Shattershield of being an overgrown cat for his propensity to cuddle, and even when the libido isn't hitting hard it's rare for him to be happier than when they're to be curled up together. It's obviously much easier for him to be the big spoon, but they can occasionally figure out a position that feels a little less uneven. He's a fountain of little touches as if he's checking they're there - gently touching their skin, brushing their hair, following the rise and fall of their breathing. So I guess that counts as actively cuddling, rather than being content with just lying still. Max doesn't actively yearn for cuddling as much as Shattershield does, but they certainly enjoy it, and the way that they get to experience his touch is an absolute positive to them. (Most of the time, at least. During the monthly-visits-then-leave pattern they longed for his touch more and more which did make them more cuddly.) Outside of their relationship, though, Shattershield is decidedly not the cuddling sort (the notion would probably shock other Order members), while Max would be open to cuddling with family members if they wanted, but not so much even with longstanding friends.

D: Domestic. Shattershield can keep himself reasonably fed even besides the Create Food and Water spell, can look after his own chambers, and generally has a base level of competence that could be expected from having lived by himself as an adult. He's also quite willing to do the work of it, which is sometimes a separate matter. However, he probably doesn't exactly excel at laundry, and certainly doesn't have the housekeeping/DIY competence that would otherwise be expected from his dad friend vibes. He has, after all, spent his whole adult life within a paladin order, and while he's far from the neediest he has become used to a certain level of staff availability. This sort of stable life was the closest he expected to come to domesticity, though he's had some idle daydreams before of something more permanent with someone. Max, however, grew up in a very normal family and would have been doing chores until they began their job, and has to be self-sufficient a fair amount of the time. They can cook reasonably well, probably with the occasional screw-up, clean, do laundry, fix their own things in an emergency (at least well enough to get to get to the next settlement) and have general life skills. They'd been fairly ambivalent about the idea of settling down - it hadn't felt right yet, but they supposed it might someday - but they couldn't see anyone being more important than their paladin vows and expected their future to be shaped around that.

E: Ending. Shattershield would be taking the quiet, respectful approach, even if circumstances might leave him privately devastated. I didn't intend to explore that in the post-Legacy of Dragons timeline, but ended up doing so. He'd rather give everyone the opportunity to maintain their dignity, and maintain his own, even in the face of losing someone. He also would have rather handled things in private conversation rather than the sort of public scene which I presumed must have occurred to lead to the folklore or historic record basis for The Marriage of Lady Fyengeh. I would also expect that what we saw of Shattershield's grumbling and comments that led the Oxventurers to figure out what had happened with Lady Fyengeh were at the extreme end of what he would be willing to actually express, aaaand on a Doylist level that happened in no small part so that Johnny could indicate that the love triangle had occurred. On Max's side, in any previous relationships they've been open about it not being very serious, and it's always ended in a friendly manner that time had just been moving on. Very 'no hard feelings'.  When it comes to each other - well, for one I have no intention of breaking them up in any of my fics, but they'd both be more willing to fight for the relationship which would mean trying to identify and address why rather than just ending things.

F: Fiance(e). Shattershield was, by his standards, ready to U-Haul after just a couple of weeks with Max, wanting to take them back to Mistmire to introduce them to the city. Within a couple of visits he bought a loveseat that they could share, and not long after he was giving Max a key to his rooms. Part of that was practicality, yes, but there was a level of willingness to do so that absolutely was being open to as much commitment as Max wanted. It doubtless helped a lot that Max already got the whole paladin thing, meaning that a certain number of medium-term or long-term questions didn't even need discussion there. As for Max, they'd always sort of figured settling down with someone was a possibility, but had never considered getting married to be a high priority. Neither of them see marriage as a required part of commitment, but let's just say that neither is opposed to the institution.

G: Gentle. For someone who has probably maxed out his strength scores, Shattershield is aware of just how gentle he needs to be at times, and follows through on it. Although he probably overdid it on his strength occasionally when first changed to a dragonborn, he's had plenty of years to get used to it and is no longer the one most likely to damage his own possessions. Emotionally, meanwhile, his gentleness comes more from uncertainty, a sort of tentative approach to things. Max, while they do have a certain paladin-appropriate level of restraint, is by comparison a bull in a china shop - they know that they aren't any sort of danger to Shattershield with their strength and kind of enjoy not having to show any physical restraint with him. They are also relatively emotionally tentative, though, which creates a feedback of gentle handling.

H: Hugs. In marked contrast to his cuddling tendencies, Shattershield is not a hugger. That more casual physical contact really isn't in him. Max, however, is certainly happy to hug family and friends, although generally this is for their friends back in their home village rather than work colleagues, and nobody from Dragon D'Or has reached that status with them.

I: I love you. Max made it about seven months before settling on using a word in Draconic because the Common Language word love felt strange after a lifetime of using it only with platonic and familial meanings. Shattershield had already been ready to say it for a couple of months at least, by that point, but felt it more important not to push Max or make them feel uncomfortable. In some sense, that seven months is a while, but in others it was fast when they had only spent around a month of actual days together. 

J: Jealousy. Neither of them have much issue in the way of jealousy - largely, they both trust each other enough that it isn't much of an issue. Shattershield is roundly unimpressed when Chauncey tries to ask Max on a date, sure, but that's more despairing and perhaps a little irritated at the feeling that they've been (it felt) resoundingly obvious about each other but some people haven't taken the hint. Max remains astounded that more people don't express interest in Shattershield; they're more likely to be frustrated if he starts failing to communicate than genuinely jealous of anyone or anything.

K: Kisses. Hard to kiss with that dragon mouth, but they're getting some practice in at it, and Max has the usual human set-up going on. Max likes getting their mouth everywhere on Shattershield, whether that's a chaste kiss or something more, especially where they can get the feel of his scales on their tongue. The dragonborn equivalent of a kiss would either be a nip of teeth - though that's definitely on the level of kissing with tongue - or a nuzzle with the frills/side of their jaw which is more neutral in nature. By those standards, Shattershield is also, in private, given to kissing, from delicate little nips to harder bites that compare to lingering kisses. He'll also rub his frills (for which I made up the word eshrazani) almost idly when Max is doing something else like reading or even just talking, which would be the equivalent of kissing them as they're doing something else. He loves the feeling of Max's lips - another human or at least mammalian detail that he doesn't get for himself - and his favourite place to nip in return is always the curve of their neck, just beneath the line of their hair. 

N: Night. I mean, see the above for the general positive reaction to any given opportunity for sex. However, in general Shattershield has once again gone from wanting to use his days in a practical manner to considering 'spending time with Max' not just a reasonable pastime but a relative priority. Whether that's idle talking, more serious discussion, or on days when they have energy to spare play-fighting around their rooms. After long shifts though, especially rainy ones, there are few better options than taking advantage of Mistmire citadel's excellent hot water systems for long, luxuriant baths.

O: Open. Shattershield doesn't think of himself as keeping secrets deliberately, but he has a level of reservation and a general tendency to not start blurting out information unless it seems relevant, so things tend to come out in bits and pieces from him. The things that are strictly secrets are generally to do with the Order's rules of secrecy, while with other things he just hasn't brought them up because he hasn't been asked. That means that even some months and several relationship milestones down, there are parts of his past that he still hasn't spoken about. Max's delays in talking about things, by contrast, are more likely to be things that they haven't figured out themselves - they're quite quick to say things to Shattershield once they realise that it's the case, such as with their confession of love.  They're an open book in comparison.

P: Patience. We've seen Shattershield dealing with both Egbert and the rest of the Oxventurers with great patience, especially considering they are adults and should know better, and it seems reasonable to extrapolate this to dealing with others as well. While he absolutely does have a prickly side, the Oxventurers struggled to make him rise to the bait even when they were deliberately goading him, and it's much more often frustration or annoyance that he'll linger in rather than progressing all of the way to anger. When it comes to relationships and Max specifically, he has been so patient as to be almost tentative, desperate not to push too hard and spoil things. Max also has reasonable patience, considering their job and once again, their dealings with the Oxventurers, but has a slightly shorter fuse than Shattershield and will be quicker to call bullshit on something. 

Q: Quizzes. Shattershield absolutely clings to details, or at least very much tries to. Moments, sights, feelings, words that Max has said. Things stay with him, linger. Of course, from his point of view it still manages to sound as if it isn't dirty, even when it is distinctly sexual things that he is committing to memory. On this one, at least, there is not so much difference between them; Max also holds on to moments and memories, savours and appreciates them. For a while, both of them were unsure about how long whatever this was would last, and as a result both were determined to make and keep memories of it; even once a more long-term relationship is unfolding, they are both still eager to hold on to things.

R: Remember. Shattershield's favourite memory is, quite easily, the moment of Max first saying Ya ghalsbisj wux. There was absolutely a moment of him thinking that he was hearing wrong, or that Max had perhaps misunderstood the words and did not mean to profess their love. Realising that they really were saying it, and deliberately, was a moment or relief and joy for him. Max might consider it more difficult to pick just one favourite memory, but if held to it would probably choose getting to move in with Shattershield, as it marked a culmination of both their developing relationship and of their fully moving into their life in Mistmire. Or - to admit privately and only to Shattershield or to themselves - that first, mad moment of their kissing Shattershield's hand and going from his uncertain gesture towards seduction to their caution-to-the-wind approach. 

S: Security. Shattershield is layers on layers of protectiveness - it's part of his nature as a paladin, as well as just part of his personality. If anything, he tempers it for Max, who is a paladin in their own right and much more able to protect themselves than many would be. He tends easily to the physically protective, as a martial class, but has enough emotional sensitivity to want to keep them from any hurt or harm on that front as well. He struggles a little with overprotectiveness as a result, whether it be getting angry at the Oxventurers for failing to protect Max in a fight, or doubting his own ability to make Max happy. He is not used to being protected himself, but deeply likes that Max makes him feel protected in any way. Max, meanwhile, has enough protectiveness to stand them in good stead as a paladin, but has a little more trust in most people to be able to handle themselves the majority of the time. The thing they most often have to protect Shattershield from tends to be his own doubts, but they're also not above forming a barrier between him and the Oxventurers, for example, when they are being particularly spirited. From many years of being annoyed with people who presume they need protecting just because they are human, or short, or somewhat unassuming as a paladin, they are okay with it from Shattershield because he is protective to everyone, and because from him it is caring rather than patronising.

T: Try. At the risk of making a wildly inappropriate quote: Maximum Effort. Shattershield is try, try, try, whether that's about life in general or this relationship in particular. He's been long devoted to his job, has given his life to it, and, well, he just generally doesn't do things by halves. From getting soap for humans as well as soap for dragonborn to hunting down scraps of downed-balloon-silk for what had been meant to be a six month anniversary gift (without calling it that, as he didn't want to make presumptions) he honestly enjoys putting in the effort. Max certainly does not do things by halves, though they are a little more impulsive and less inclined to planning things than Shattershield is, so the effort comes in as devotion and dedication in the moment and in being entirely focused on him.

U: Ugly. Shattershield can be overprotective, to the point of not necessarily listening or of assuming that someone is trying to hide their injuries or fears, and can be on the overbearing side. He also tends to fret, especially when it comes to his age and the potential for him to somehow 'fail' Max. This is the thing most likely to annoy Max, in the end. Max, for their part, can be impulsive, irreverent, and struggled to come to terms with their feelings to the extent that it caused difficulties for them both. They do not always entirely follow through on the consequences of their actions (Oh no! The consequences!) but that can sometimes have more negative outcomes - the monthly visits was a good trick to get them visiting, but wasn't sustainable long-term, and they didn't really conceptualise until later that it was hurting Shattershield to have weeks of simply not knowing where they were or when, exactly, they would be coming back.

V: Vanity. Despite the paladin charisma scores, neither of them has a tendency to be vain. Shattershield appreciates being a dragonborn for what it represents religiously, even if he is hardly averse to Max's predilection for him, while Max's charisma score tends to come out as stubbornness and strong-mindedness a lot of the time, even if they can be more than friendly enough in interacting with people.

W: Whole. Both of them were quite capable of feeling complete before the other was in the picture, although the relationship between them has probably somewhat affected that. It would certainly hurt for a while, would need time for grieving, but both of them are strong-willed enough that with time, they would be able to move on again. There was definitely a period of time, though, as they were falling deeper for each other but unable to spend any more time together, when it was hurting them both to keep being pulled apart.

X: Xtra. I have honestly had to build so much backstory for each of these guys that I could be here all day putting headcanons in here. In the Final Season, as we head back to Mistmire (tomorrow as I write this!) we may get some more backstory on the process by which Dragon D'Or members become dragonborn, but for my writing I've drawn heavily from 3.5e regarding the way in which dragonborn are created by a magical ritual. I made it so that much of Shattershield's life was tied to the Order, even nodding to a contentious relationship with his mother to further isolate him from the rest of the world or even the civilian life in the city. Max, meanwhile, was even more of a blank slate to work with, as most of what we knew was their job, their patience in chivvying Egbert around the trials, the speed with which they stepped in to make an offer regarding merch, and the fact that throughout Faire Trial they kept showing up with food in their hand. A lot of what I built was to give contrast to Shattershield, but also to give Max a sense of being a person very grounded in (Geth's version of) normality - family, backstory, home village and all.

Y: Yuck. Shattershield does not suffer fools gladly, although he has some tolerance for innocent ignorance, and has a patience for gossip only so far as it does not negatively impact other people's ability to do their jobs. We've had canon confirmation that he doesn't really drink, and it's not hard to picture him as finding most sorts of intoxication some level of distasteful. Max, on the other hand, dislikes overt rudeness, carelessness or laziness that get to the point of being neglectful, waste, and to be frank boredom. In partners, both of them would have similar hard boundaries on deceitfulness, disrespect, or narcissism/significant vanity.

Z: Zzz. After years of shifts, Shattershield is very good at taking the opportunity to sleep when he can, and rising with the bells when he must. He sleeps solidly, and has moved past the years that he faced nightmares. With Max in his life, he also cuddles like a cat. Max is a lighter sleeper and would at least prefer to keep to a more normal, regular sleep schedule, although sometimes that isn't possible, and can be somewhat more restless in their sleep. Sleeping on Shattershield seems to remove the urge to toss and turn, at least, although sometimes that may be thanks to a heavy, warm dragonborn arm being draped over them in the night.

NSFW Alphabet

A: Aftercare. Shattershield is, as always, a cuddler, focusing on being present. He likes talking, certainly in the context of a relationship rather than a hook up, and mostly just spending time together. The pair of them aren't particularly kinky - beyond the whole dragonborn thing and being fairly rough with each other - but when they are, it's Max who tends to be in the more dominant position, so its them who tends to need to do more aftercare proper. It's quite ad hoc, hardly planned - they just watch for, or ask, what Shattershield needs or wants in that moment. They do have a practical enough streak to acknowledge the importance of cleaning up, though, and are more likely to be the one to remember to do so.

B: Body part. Shattershield would probably be a little baffled by the question, but in the end his favourite thing about being a dragonborn is just being a dragonborn, the way that it represents his paladin devotion and echoes the form of the Gold Dragon to whom they are dedicated. His favourite part of Max is their hair, to play with, to comb, just to feel against him and especially against his hands. It's entirely other to dragonborn, especially one many years from being human himself, and he adores the way that it moves and shifts as well as much as he appreciates the physical grooming aspect of it. Max would probably say that their thighs are their favourite, at least to make Shattershield flustered, while their favourite part of him is undeniably his hands. The strength and carefulness that they represent, the way that he touches them, and the rather pivotal role that his hands played in that first day.

C: Cum. In 3.5e, where dragonborn were canonically made by ritual, they also become aro-ace and sterile in the transformative. We have indication that Egbert is neither aro nor ace, so I have discounted those but kept the sterility. While there may be ace individuals, it is not the entire race. As such, it felt appropriate that dragonborn are capable of some levels of normality in their relationships, and, well, it helped towards the monsterfucking that this whole series was supposed to be about in the first place. As such, dragonborn do come - both in the sense of orgasming, but also in the sense of ejaculating in the case of those with penises. So that's my excuse, other than just 'it's hotter'. Max, for their part, kind of gets off on the fact that they can get creampied to their heart's content with no risk of pregnancy, even if it does mean more cleanup is needed.

D: Dirty secret. Shattershield's idea of a dirty secret is probably - as Max got him to admit - that he had masturbated to the thought of them. As they hadn't exactly confirmed their relationship status at the time, he definitely felt a twinge of guilt about it, which Max would probably find sweetly amusing compared to them ruining their own orgasm with the realisation they were thinking about him and then having to process that fact. Max, for their part, has absolutely previously fucked somebody right before they went off to an order that came with vows of chastity. It's not against the letter of the law, as it was before, but it certainly felt like it went against the spirit of the law there.

E: Experience. Shattershield has had a few relationships - short-lived, but longer than mere hook-ups or flings - and has a baseline of experience, though its mainly that he pays attention to his partner's responses and works from that. So the basics, but done with dedication, as it were. Max has had more but shorter-lived relationships, some one-night stands, and doesn't necessarily think of themselves as experienced but just in natural possession of a dirty mind. They didn't know at all what they were doing with a dragonborn, though Shattershield will confirm that they certainly didn't act uncertain - more curious. 

F: Favorite position. Max on top, cowgirl position. This isn't even a hard one for either of them to answer - getting Shattershield to stop being flustered would be the tricky part.

G: Goofy. Shattershield is more serious by nature than Max, but both of them can certainly catch fits of the giggles at inappropriate moments. Max in particular can end up laughing at the look of surprise that Shattershield wears as a result of their laughter. Breaking out into laughter is rarer, but they are often fairly light-hearted, just delighted to wrap themselves up in each other; the times when they are darker and more serious are honestly rarer.

H: Hair. Shattershield gets an instant pass on this one by dint of being a dragonborn. Given the setting, and Max's casual approach to their appearance, they've got no interest in hair dye and most likely would just settle for a trim downstairs to prevent a length of hair that would get sweaty. (Also, Shattershield doesn't just appreciate the hair on their head, although that's the main focus of his affection. Body hair in general is novel to dragonborn.)

I: Intimacy. When it comes to each other, both of them are almost obnoxiously romantic, with sex absolutely an extension of intimacy. For Shattershield, I think this has always been the general sense of things, while Max has had flings that were just about the sex for both parties. The utter intimacy of their relationship as it has developed, though, has swept both of them up, though in some ways they're still figuring out what that means. 

J: Jack off. My, what a conversation to very quickly fluster Shattershield, despite Max by now having coaxed him to touch himself in front of them and then gotten off on it harder than they realised was going to happen. Shattershield doesn't not have a libido, and outside of an actual relationship would prefer masturbation to a sex-only hook-up, but still saw it as a practical matter rather than anything else. He admitted somewhat sheepishly to Max that in the months they were intermittently together, he would think of them when masturbating in the weeks between, which they honestly found sort of romantic as they knew it was a case of him being unable to not think of them. With not just their permission but basically their encouragement to do so, he was pretty relieved. Max, for their part, would probably have previously weighed masturbation vs a hook-up based on how much charisma effort they wanted to put into the evening, how tired they already were, and whether anyone was catching their eye; once Shattershield was in the picture, nobody else was able to even begin to get their attention, and any hook-ups stopped immediately. They didn't intend to start thinking of him, but still found themselves doing so, and didn't take long to realise that leaning into those thoughts was very effective. Even once they're living together, there are still times when they're separated for a few days, and once Max managed to broach the subject they both fairly eagerly agreed to thinking of each other when they did end up masturbating. 

K: Kink. Now, even before going into this relationship, Shattershield probably had the general concept that he particularly enjoyed giving oral, that he liked hair more than most would, and that (though not in as many words) he tends towards being a service top. Since Max, though, he's been introduced to liking being on the receiving end of dirty talk, being tied up, and being the one penetrated. Getting called "good boy" sent him into a bit of a spin. Max, for their part, knew that they were on the more forward and toppy side, and was probably aware that they had a bit of a competence kink. But the whole monsterfucking element, at least when it comes to dragonborn, probably caught them a bit more off guard - apparently they're into teeth, claws, and scales now, that's something to learn. More directly against their expectations would have been the fact that they really like how Shattershield is and the fact that he can pick them up, pin them down, or manhandle them; anyone else trying this would be looking for some short person righteous anger, but the way that Shattershield is so casual about it and doesn't connect it at all to Max's height, plus the way that he asked once Max expressed any uncertainty, has made them more comfortable with how much they enjoy it.

L: Location. Shattershield would try to insist on the bedroom, Max, but it would be unfair to say that he is not equally involved in their ongoing habit of having sex on whatever the nearest surface is, despite what that surface was actually designed for. He presumed that Max had a list to work through in their new chambers; Max then started to wonder if he had a list to work through. Nonetheless, if actually given time to think and to deliberately chose rather than give into his impulses, he will try to relocate them to the bed, and generally will try not to acknowledge that he really likes the thought of Max on a desk or table in a way that does mean something more to him than just making up for the promise that he made them of 'another time' when his leg was not injured. Max would admit without pause that they don't much care about the where, logistical issues notwithstanding, but they were very pleasantly surprised by Shattershield picking them up and being able to hold them quite effortlessly against a wall.

M: Motivation. Frankly, for both of them the motivation is just each other, and even Max has admitted that they do outrageous things to each other's libidos. They don't really need much more motivation than that.

N: No. Outside the whole dragonborn/human thing, and being enthusiastically rough, they're both on the more vanilla side. They're not ones for heavy kinks, for impact play, for humiliation that goes beyond flustering each other, for anything public or performative, or for even the thought of a threesome. Shattershield would absolutely not be able to keep his thoughts straight to roleplay and doesn't have it in him to act (Max would give it a try), while Max has at least once had to put a stop to Shattershield beginning to overstimulate them with just getting them off repeatedly. 

O: Oral. If Shattershield could register 'giving oral' as a job, there are probably times when he would consider it. He has admitted to Max that it lets him fill all of his senses with them, and he so very much enjoys giving pleasure that it's almost a no-brainer. Although the lack of lips on dragonborn is something of a limitation, the payoff is in the tongue - size, shape, and control - and in the range of sounds that dragonborn can make which rather beat just humming. Shattershield is rather more dedicated to following feedback - very much including non-verbal - rather than particularly knowing tricks and tips, but he has very much learned what works for Max and will lean into that knowledge. Max honestly enjoys both giving and receiving, though they'd probably admit that they're not actually the most skilled so much as Shattershield is rather sensitive to even the thought of their mouth. They certainly wouldn't attempt to deepthroat him even without the size of dragonborn genitals being ill-suited to it. But they are eager, enjoy themselves, and have enough of a playful, experimental streak to certainly mean that they don't let things get boring.

P: Pace. It honestly varies, though on the whole Shattershield has an upper limit of how fast he wants things to go, while Max has a lower limit on drawing things out, and they end up meeting in the middle. Being a certain level of slow, however, would take enough time in which they could just go for multiple rounds instead, and both of them will opt for that instead. 

Q: Quickie. See above: it fits more rounds into the same length of time. However, both of them enjoy getting the other off enough that it sometimes makes it difficult to actually stick to any plan of spending a short time having sex, and they both know it; true quickies are probably unlikely because they'd rather take longer on each other.

R: Risk. Shattershield is not a risk-taker by nature, and Max has reassured him that's okay; he's generally fine to follow familiar patterns and positions. He will, however, go along with the experiment whenever Max has come up with something that they want to try out, even if it's something as far out of his comfort zone as being tied up. For Max, it has to some extent been a pattern of experiment and discovery from the off, as they'd never been with a dragonborn before, unlike Shattershield who has definitely been with humans previously. Between trying to find out all the ways that they can both enjoy themselves, and having a dirtier mind, Max ends up certainly being the innovator, though more rarely an outright risk-taker.

S: Stamina. Paladins, man. Even without the Lay on Hands they have the stamina of professional athletes, auras that improve all saving rolls, and immunity to disease (which even beside the usual STI jokes would presumably also include potential issues like UTIs, BV, or thrush) - Lay on Hands is really just the icing on the cake of why it's easy for them to spend most of a day repeatedly having sex. The two dicks on dragonborn - alternating, styled after snake hemipenes in that sense - certainly doesn't hurt, though. Shattershield usually taps out first, but even then he's usually still quite happy to offer his hands or his mouth; Max is notably harder to wear out. For both of them, how long they last usually comes down to Max's patience rather than physical limitations.

T: Toys. The rope wasn't originally meant as a toy; fifty foot of rope (hempen or otherwise) really is just one of those things that every adventurer needs. Shattershield did not own toys, the idea of buying them probably something else that would mortify him; Max did have the advantage that they could buy something in one town and be at a different one by the next day, as well as being less easily embarrassed, but still ended up only owning one dildo and not carrying it with them after they realised it would not go unnoticed through a bag check at any given paladin order. Any toys they've used in the past have generally belonged to the other person, though Max has certainly been willing to give them a try given the opportunity. At some point, it is doubtless going to occur to Max that somewhere in Mistmire is going to be someone who sells dragonborn-penis-shaped dildos, that from Mistmire they might even be accurate, and that such an item would be rather appreciated when they and Shattershield are separated. Shattershield will draw the line at having it used on him, though, the idea of being penetrated with his own dick is just too odd for him. In terms of spells, paladin magic (other than Lay on Hands) is much less open to sexual abuse than the wizard spell list, which is probably for the best given Max's mind. What they'd do with a Mage Hand can only be feared (by Shattershield).

U: Unfair. Shattershield has a good poker face, but he isn't above a little bit of gentle verbal teasing from time to time. He tends to see it as promises to follow through on, though. Max is more prone to outright teasing, sometimes forgetting how literally Shattershield will take them. When it comes to during sex, Shattershield does not mean to tease when he is being slower, but Max sometimes interprets it as such, to his amusement. Max very rarely teases with their actions, largely considering it hypocritical, although they have the occasional playful moment that can result in a momentary tease. For the most part, though, Max will tease with words, and neither of them much intend to do so with actions but sometimes it sneaks in.

V: Volume. Both of them are glad they no longer have neighbours, let's put it that way. Even now that they are no longer dealing with a creaking bed to add to the noise, both of them can forget themselves and get noisy, and both of them enjoy doing that to the other (although Max would admit it more readily than Shattershield would). Max tends to be more vocal both in terms of sounds and in words specifically, and will try to remember to use Draconic to really get a rise out of Shattershield but doesn't always manage to; when Shattershield makes noise it tends to be less intentional, mutters or growls, and Max considers it something of a triumph when they fully get him to growl or even snarl. Sooner or later they'll get better control of themselves, of course, but for now at least it's fun to be able to make all the noise they want and not have to worry about it.

W: Wild card. Presuming this is meant to be sexual - Shattershield did have sex for the first time as a human, before offering himself to the ritual to become a dragonborn, just in case he was about to find out that it was somehow going to be that good that he wouldn't want to be changed. It was, frankly, underwhelming, because that's probably what happens when you have sex for the first time more out of curiosity of being human than particularly wanting a relationship with the other person. In years to come, he would find his naivety about it more embarrassing than the story itself, and remain friends with the other person even if they never spoke of it again. Max, disliking the idea of pregnancy to the verge of tokophobia, avoided sex with anyone with a penis until they knew the contraceptive ritual that came with becoming a paladin. (Drawn from the Book of Erotic Fantasy and other similar sex-related books that were put out, which took one look at games and figured that with that much magic flying around, someone was going to figure out contraception.)

X: X-ray. I think there's been plenty of fic from me to demonstrate exactly what's going on under the clothes! And in Shattershield's case, under the scales as well. I still find it fairly amusing that, in my first Oxventure fic, the Guild were deeply distracted by wondering what genitals Shattershield had, not particularly worrying about Max because Max was human which meant a more limited range of possibilities. (Also, I was devastated by Johnny arriving in the chat for the first episode of the Final Season to declare that almost all of the dragonborn genital talk had been entirely cut. Wholly understandable, of course, but still devastating.)

Y: Yearning. Shattershield is back to finding himself with the highest sex drive he has ever experienced, and still Max can out-libido him. If Max weren't the cause, he'd probably be concerned, but as it is he's fine with it as long as he can keep himself from distraction when he's actually supposed to be working. Once they hit the point of actually living together, it does at least allow for some stabilisation as they have more reliable access to each other, and it doesn't lead to the same drought-and-desperation patterns that would have them barely getting out of bed for days. The flip side of this may be that Shattershield is simply not used to keeping concentration while horny, which has doubtless led to him finding himself distracted in a way that he desperately hopes anyone around him would not be able to identify.

Z: Zzz. Once again: paladins. They're both more than capable of not falling asleep after the first round (or two), at least if they weren't planning to sleep even beforehand. While an orgasm can be the final straw for one or both of them to crash to sleep, it doesn't tend usually knock them out entirely. Only on those occasions when one of them has been quite deliberately trying to wear the other one out - Shattershield by seeing to it that Max orgasms multiple times, Max by deliberately intensifying the intimacy and the more emotional elements for Shattershield's benefit - do they usually manage to send the other to sleep by force of sex alone. Usually, it's just that the evening is a convenient time for them both!