[ Master Post ]
Title: Assing it Up – Chapter 28
Co-Conspirator: 
MaverikLoki
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: E (L3 N4 S4 V0 D0)
Warnings: Metaphorical swording, lines from bad Orlesian romance
Notes: Anton gets laid. Bran has regrets. Oh, so many regrets.
"Anton, this is your office. It doesn't even have a lock on the door. This is absurd." Cullen's protests were half-hearted, as Anton backed him into the edge of the desk with heated kisses.
"There are two sets of doors. And outside the second one, there's Bran. Nobody's getting in here," Anton reassured his husband, making quick work of a few buckles. "But, we're never home at the same time, any more, unless we're sleeping, and I miss you. I've got to remind myself I have a husband, and a terribly handsome one, and that I haven't just been pretending for the sake of the office."
"You are ridiculous," Cullen pointed out, surrendering to the fact that he was going to end up out of his armour, in the middle of the viscount's office. Being married to the viscount did not make that any less terrible of an idea, he was sure, but this seemed to be the way with them. Always in inappropriate places, at strange times. He'd gotten used to it, over the years, but it still made him nervous.
"And ridiculous is what you married," Anton replied. "That and ridiculously gorgeous, which we both know I also am. Or do you need reminding too?"
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to jog my memory."
There was quite a bit less to peel off Anton, and yet Cullen's skin met air first, his armour forming a gleaming pile on the rug. Anton always was deadly efficient when he needed to be.
"I suppose any protest I make now will sound hypocritical," Cullen said, finally tugging Anton's shirt over his head. He would never understand how Anton made these ridiculous Orlesian shirts look good, with all their embellishments and ruffles. But Cullen did know that he preferred those shirts in a rumpled pile next to his armour.
"Indeed," Anton hummed. "Best not to make them."
Cullen's next response was swallowed in a kiss.
Anton's hands were quick, sliding up under Cullen's shirt to caress the solid muscle of his chest, before whipping the shirt off and leaving it to join his own. "Mmm, I had forgotten how terribly handsome my husband was. My imagination wasn't giving me a quarter of this, and I have an exceptional imagination."
"As long as you're not imagining dragons, I think we're all right," Cullen murmured, pulling Anton in for another kiss.
Boots, Anton remembered, suddenly, and then discarded the thought. There was no sense in taking everything off, since they were just going to have to put it right back on. "Tell me, Commander," he purred, "will I be plundering your booty, this afternoon, or do you think your holy sword will get the better of me?"
Cullen turned bright red, laughing. "Those are both excellent ideas, but do we really have time for a duel?"
"Ah, then you will have to choose!" Anton crowed.
"I think it's your booty being plundered, today, because I still have to walk back to the Gallows, after this." Cullen rolled his eyes, a smile threatening the corners of his mouth, as he kneaded Anton's bare flesh.
"And I still have to sit in my office. Ah well, I made sure the chair was cushioned for a reason." Holding Cullen by his still-clothed hip, Anton ground forward, pressing him back into the desk. Smirking, he asked, "So, the Knight-Commander has the naughty viscount at his mercy. Whatever shall he do with him?"
Cullen knew there would come a day when he would stop thinking about Meredith and Dumar when Anton referred to them by their titles. And he was close, but there was still a moment of displacement.
"Oh, the viscount has been naughty, has he?" Cullen indulged his husband, pushing his hips back far enough to pull at their laces. "What dastardly deeds has he been up to then? Has he been making the Orlesians cry?"
"I've been making them weep great rivers behind their masks," Anton purred. "But I've always done that." His breath hitched as Cullen's hand found more bare flesh, cupping him inside his trousers.
"How dastardly of you! How dreadfully unseemly!" Cullen's hand squeezed and stroked, gently. "I shall have no choice but to spill all your secrets out across your desk, for anyone to see! Let them judge the doings of their viscount!"
"Shit, hang on." Anton leaned to the side and reached around Cullen to sweep together a pile of papers that he tucked under the cover of a law book. "I am absolutely not allowed to come on those. Sebastian would invade, for sure."
"Is he at it again?" Cullen asked, hand stilling until Anton pressed against it.
"It was rumoured he'd start a march toward us, next week, but my informant tells me he's decided to spend the money seeing to the needs of his city, instead. Nothing like public works to get in the way of an invasion." Anton laughed and nibbled at Cullen's collarbone. "I suppose I should be grateful to my sister. I can't imagine we'd have held him off this long if she didn't mean to marry that blithering cad. But, enough about things that are not your incredibly sexy body."
"Even if those things are yours?" Cullen asked, turning them around to press Anton against the desk.
"Oh, no, you're very definitely allowed to go on at length about that. And go on with length. And come in with length. These are all acceptable uses for my incredibly sexy body." Anton grinned at Cullen, entirely remorseless.
"Is that so?" Cullen asked, neglecting to roll his eyes at his ridiculous and ridiculously gorgeous husband. "Are there any other acceptable uses for your body that I should know about? Or perhaps preferable uses?" His hands ran over Anton's skin as he spoke, tracing lines and contours he knew so well. Except for that tension there, in his shoulder, which Cullen would blame on all the damn paperwork Anton now had to do. His shoulder had a matching knot, and Cullen regretted that this… 'meeting' would have to be quick, that he couldn't take his time working out all the stiffness his husband had to be feeling.
There was time, at least, to work out this other stiffness, Cullen decided as he gave Anton's length an encouraging squeeze.
"Oh, if we're discussing preferable uses," Anton said as Cullen helped him work his trousers down past his hips, "it's a shame I don't have my syrups. Though that might be more of a use for your body, since you make such a delectable dessert."
"Getting syrup on your paperwork might not be the best idea. Perhaps we should save that activity for home, where Mintaka can interrupt us and try to eat all the syrup on his own."
"I'm putting the dog in the yard, if we get the syrup out at home," Anton decided, untying the front of Cullen's trousers and sinking to his knees. "Remind me to get another bottle of oil in here," he said, wrapping his lips around Cullen's knob.
Gasping. Cullen leaned forward, catching himself on the edge of the desk. The position was awkward, but Anton's mouth was incredible. Anton's mouth was always incredible, but somehow moreso in awkward and dangerous situations, and Cullen wasn't sure if that said more about Anton or more about him. He was sure there was something he was supposed to say, though, other than 'please' and 'yes', but it had totally slipped his mind. Oil. Anton had said something about oil.
Which, after a moment of wholehearted devotion to Cullen's 'sword of mercy', Anton remembered he had in his boot. Always a tiny sachet of oil, in case of emergencies, like this one. Still, any excuse to lavish affection on any part of Cullen's body was worth the effort.
At first, Cullen was too focused on Anton's tongue to notice the sachet being slipped into his palm, a distraction Anton noticed, judging by the upward twitch of the corners of his lips. Then Cullen connected Anton's words to the object in his hand, only to be distracted again when cold air hit his knob. Oil. Anton. These were two things that went well together on such occasions.
Anton gave Cullen's knob a squeeze as he rose to his feet. "All right, Commander?" he asked, his smirk maddening.
"Wonderful, viscount." With an arm around his hips, Cullen hoisted Anton onto the desk, and Anton squeaked and laughed as Cullen attacked his throat. "Should I bring by some oil next time I 'visit'?" he asked before pulling back enough to tear open the sachet.
"Should I be concerned about what kind of oil it would be, if you're bringing it?" Anton teased, crossing his ankles behind Cullen's neck. "I mean, I'm not sure I need what you use on your armour in any more interesting places than it already ends up."
"That's horrifying. No." Cullen leaned down again and bumped his forehead against Anton's. "I am— I am not bringing machine oil for… this. Maybe a nice Tevinter olive oil, though. We can afford that, right?"
"Even with us picking up a third of the reconstruction. I promise you, we can afford the important things. We can always afford the important things. And if we can't afford imported oil, I'll just have to win it." Anton gasped and canted his hips as Cullen's fingers slid into him.
"The viscount, gambling for oil?" Cullen purred, taking his time to tease and stroke his insides. After all these years, he knew what Anton liked, and he knew what made Anton squirm. "Just so he can keep a bottle in his office? The scandal!"
"If the people of Kirkwall weren't expecting scandal, then they clearly voted for the wrong man," Anton said between shaky breaths. "Considering the runner-up was Varric, I think the people want scandal."
He let out a liquid sound, a shameless sound, loud enough to carry through the room, just to see the red flush to Cullen's cheeks. Fingers still moving, Cullen glanced back at the door, and Anton laughed.
"No one can hear us!" Anton assured him.
"Bran might."
"He's heard worse things." With a hand on his cheek, Anton turned Cullen's face back towards him and pulled him down into a lingering kiss. His breath hitched as Cullen's fingers crooked and stretched and slowly slid free.
"I'm sure I don't want to know," Cullen muttered against Anton's lips, as he lined himself up and dipped in teasingly.
Anton made a frustrated sound, heels digging uselessly into Cullen's shoulderblades. "And we're sure I'm the naughty one, today? This isn't a story of a wicked tease of a Knight-Commander who makes his poor lover beg for more?"
"Oh, if there's going to be begging, maybe I'll hold off." Cullen cackled and nipped at Anton's lips.
"Damn you," Anton swore, writhing and trying to push himself back against Cullen. "Oh, please, my darling dastard, my craven commander, impale me on that sword of yours!" This last was louder. In fact, Anton was almost certain that Bran could hear it. He'd apologise, later, but now was the time for fighting dirty.
A pink flush spread across Cullen's chest. "Craven!? You take that back, or I'll keep my sword to myself!"
"Why withhold your sword when you can sheathe it?" Anton countered. "Perhaps you are less craven and more cantankerous, Commander? Is that a c-word more to your liking?"
"I have another c-word right here," Cullen groused, dipping in deeper before pulling back, still determinedly teasing. Anton's growl of frustration made him smile. "And that sounded less like begging and more like commanding. And sassing."
"I cannot help my nature," Anton said, melodramatically. "But I do beg your forgiveness. And for your mighty c-word!"
Cullen snorted a laugh against Anton's skin, nipping at a collarbone and licking into the hollow of his throat. He wondered how he'd been fortunate enough to marry this fool.
"Well, since you ask so politely…" he said, finally pushing in but agonisingly slowly.
Anton panted and moaned, palming his own knob, as Cullen eased into him. He squirmed against the desk in ways he knew would make him look irresistibly good and threw in a few of those little desperate sounds that drove Cullen mad.
A thin trickle of sweat ran down Cullen's back. Anton was terribly appealing, of course, but there was something off… "Is that— Are you doing impressions of Jethann!?"
"What?" Anton blinked and sputtered. Jethann had taught him a few ways to present himself as a distraction — always a good thing to have on hand in certain sorts of situations, of course, but he hadn't thought Cullen, of all people, would notice. "Impressions of Jethann… Are you saying I look like prostitute? Your own husband?" Anton struggled to look entirely scandalised at the idea. "And what've you been doing looking so closely at Jethann?"
"No one has to look closely at Jethann. He could be behind a person and in the next room, and they'd still know just what he was doing!" Cullen protested, flush spreading down his chest. "And you — no, of course you don't look like a prostitute! That is… I mean…"
"Curses. I'll just have to try harder." Anton burst out laughing.
Cullen buried his own breathless cackles against Anton's chest. "You are ridiculous," he said again. "And is that the goal? To look like a prostitute?" He stopped the teasing there, realising any more could put him in hot water.
"I told you the viscount was naughty," Anton purred, running a finger down the bridge of Cullen's nose just to watch his face scrunch. "Don't worry. I'm worth more than all of Kirkwall could afford. I make an exception for you."
"Does that mean I get a discount?" Cullen countered, rocking into his husband again.
"Only on Marketday and holidays. Lucky you that today's Marketday."
"Lucky me," Cullen agreed with a breathless laugh, bending to kiss Anton, holding Anton's hips as he set up a rhythm. For a while, that was all he knew, the slide of skin against his, the heat of Anton wrapped around him, the aching sounds that spilled from Anton's lips.
The antechamber and two sets of closed doors muffled a lot of the sound from outside, but that was unmistakeably Aveline's voice, and she seemed to be getting short with Bran. Not that Anton cared, right then. Whatever she wanted could wait a moment or six.
Outside the second set of doors, Bran looked pained. "You could, I'm sure, force your way into his office, but I strongly advise against it, right now."
"He's going to see me," Aveline huffed. "And he's going to sign off on this. I've been trying to put it in his hands all week!"
"You'll want to wait for the Knight-Commander to take his leave, then." Bran crossed his arms, still blocking entrance to the antechamber.
"I don't care what Cullen wants! Cullen sees him every night!" Aveline roared, only to have the next sound in the hall be one from inside the viscount's office.
"Oh, Commander! No mercy! Strike me down with your sword!"
Aveline froze, disgust blooming across her face.
Bran's expression didn't change. "As I was saying, Captain…"
Aveline shoved the papers into Bran's chest. "Fine. I am not dealing with this. Make sure he sees it, or someone will end up on the business end of an actual sword."
Another sound filtered through the doors, and Aveline paused long enough to give those doors a withering look before storming off. Bran could still hear the echo of her boots as Anton made more pleas Bran was determined to forget. Dragon noises. Something about dragon noises, and Bran did not need to know. Instead, Bran neatened the papers, tucked them under his arm, and considered asking for a raise.
