Pallas wasn’t stupid. He had been married, had been in love, once. Had held someone so close that they slipped between his fingers like sand. He couldn’t bare to have that happen again.

Which is where he finds himself now, years and years later, in the private quarters of his flagship with a certain Penumbral monk sitting carelessly on his desk, legs crossed as if they were preparing to meditate.

“Do the guest rooms not suit you, Master Maude?” Pallas asks, he’s tugging his admiral coat off, it isn’t the first time he had done so in front of the other.

“They don’t, really, I prefer your room.”

Pallas would have rolled his eyes if he hadn’t been jumping out of his skin. Maude’s arms wrapped loosely a round his middle, chin resting on his shoulder as the monk nudged their nose against the soft skin on his neck. They were quiet as a whisper and gentle as silk and so much his antithesis that Pallas knew without doubt that the monk was teasing him.

“I don’t want to play your games tonight, Maude.” Pallas says tiredly, but he’s not pulling away.

“What games?” Maude asks, “Between you and me there are none.”

Pallas thinks of his work, his brother in law, his sister. He thinks of all the ways this could end poorly and what would happen if he made another mistake. Would he lose another eye? A limb maybe?

“You’re thinking too much about this.” Maude says, “You don’t need to think so hard about love.”

“And what if I don’t know how to love?” Pallas asks, bitterly, his face turning blotchy purple with shame. What was wrong with him?

Maude hums, Pallas can feel the moment their eyes open.

“Then let me show you.”