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"Can I help?"
Max stops trying to reach the feathers that he can feel are out of place to look up into Cullen's earnest face. It was a shock to see him like this at first, stripped of his armor and clad in a simple tunic and breeches, but thankfully Max has grown used to it and can now look at him without staring like a besotted fool. Cullen has made himself perfectly clear, and the last thing that Max wants to do is make him uncomfortable.
Which is why it is probably a bad idea to allow him to help out with Max's grooming. Cullen has no idea what he's offering, what it means to Max to allow someone to even touch his wings, let alone running their fingers through he feathers to smooth them out. Especially someone that he still wants beyond all reason.
But the spot he can't reach really is annoying, and he doesn't like the way Cullen's expression shutters at his prolonged silence. They've both worked hard to dispel any awkwardness since Haven, and Max can't bear to be the reason it returns.
"Would you? There's a spot that's driving me utterly mad," he says, and Cullen's face brightens. Max looks away, swallowing, then turns his back to Cullen, presenting his wings for him, the only betrayal of his nerves their slight flutter, easily dismissed as settling. "Go on, then."
For long moments nothing happens, and then Max feels the first tentative touch; the tips of Cullen's fingers sliding against the feathers just under his shoulder, slipping between them to bump against the sensitive skin underneath.
"Oh," Cullen says. "They're soft."
Max huffs a laugh that's only slightly strangled. "I do take proper care of them, you know," he says. "Current situation excepted, I suppose."
"I wasn't trying to imply you didn't," Cullen says quickly, and Max doesn't have to look to know what expression is on his face - wide-eyed and slightly mortified as it always is whenever he senses he's mis-stepped - but he does anyway. Cullen is looking at his fingers as they gently straighten Max's feathers, and Max turns away again with a soft sigh.
"Oh, that's much better," he says, and if his voice comes out a little breathy he can't help it. It really does feel good to have his wings back in their proper order.
He half expects Cullen to stop, but he doesn't, just keeps sifting his fingers through the feathers, his touch almost unbearably gentle. It's soothing, and Max feels himself slumping forward, eyes sliding closed as the soft, steady motion of Cullen's hands lulls him towards sleep.
Then one of Cullen's fingernails scrapes against the base of a feather, and Max jerks, a gasp leaving his throat as his body jolts awake and he goes suddenly, blindingly hard.
"I'm sorry," Cullen pulls his hands away from Max's wings and oh, even that touch has Max clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes closed, biting his lips against the soft noise that wants to leave his mouth. "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to -"
"You didn't, it's fine," Max says, even though it really isn't. But Cullen sounds absolutely horrified, and Max can't let him think that he did anything wrong. He feels his face flush with embarrassment as he explains.
"You just hit a sensitive spot; it wasn't your fault." He shrugs and aims for a lighthearted laugh that doesn’t quite make it. "It's been a while since anyone else has touched them - I forgot what it's like." He can't look at Cullen - doesn't want to see if his face mirrors the mortification on his own. He's tried so damn hard to get them past his unwanted advances in Haven, and now it seems they've gone right back to that awkwardness.
He opens his mouth again - he never can help talking to cover uncomfortable situations - when he feels Cullen's hand return to his back, his wings, his fingers heading unerringly for that same spot. Max shudders, and this time the noise he makes can't be held back.
"Does that mean I should keep going?" Cullen says in a low voice, and the rasp in it nearly undoes Max then and there. His toes curl and it's all he can do not to push himself back into the sweet pressure along the base of his feathers, not to beg shamelessly for more. Yes, please, he thinks, and his lips part, the words nearly tumbling out, raw and needy.
But he catches himself at the last minute, because he knows what this is. The same thing it always is. He shuts his mouth and his body cools as he remembers:
Dangling over the balcony, crying and begging to be let back over as his cousins laugh. "Let him go, see if he flies!" His first real altercation with a Templar who hurt instead of helped, shock of pain as he plucks a feather from his wing. "I've been meaning to purchase a new quill, but I suppose this will do." Pretty girl with wide eyes and bouncing girls, reaching out with sticky fingers. "Mummy, can I pet it?" Her mother shrugging and glancing away. A boy with curious blue eyes that he'd thought he'd loved. "Let me come on them, yeah? Maker, they feel so good." The cold reaction the next morning, friends snickering behind their hands.
Max steels himself and pulls away from Cullen's questing fingers. "Thank you, Commander, but I believe I'm sorted." He pulls a shirt on with fingers that shake slightly and leaves the tent without glancing back. If he does, he knows he'll give in, say yes, anything, whatever you want, and he can't. Not with him. Not when he already knows exactly what Cullen truly needs him for - hasn't he said it enough? It isn't Max that he wants, that he cares about; it's the cursed mark in his hand.
He's always been a curiosity, and after the Anchor he became a tool as well. Both of those things have a shelf life, but at least he knows for sure just how long the second one will last.