There are kind of an absurd number and variety of rooms, including at least one with windows suitable for flying out of and a bed that can fit a ten-foot-tall person for some reason.

He wants that one.

This is unsurprising. Lacey picks one nearby.

Yeah he's gonna flop in his enormous bed and sleep now.

Makes sense. Lacey decides to do the full tour, because it makes sense to know more about the place they'll be staying for the indefinite future. She can tell Serafin anything actually interesting about it.

And then...eventually she goes to sleep in her own room, for now. She doesn't know if he wants company right now, he was awfully tired.

In the morning he leaves his room via that convenient window and overflies the grounds as a medium-sized dragon.

Erik is running laps around the building; he looks up and nods in acknowledgement.

The dragon follows his course for a few wingbeats and then veers away.

At which point he is downwind of Erik and might notice that he doesn't just smell of Erik.

...heh. Yeah, that's not a big surprise.

A little while later Lacey, having finished breakfast, comes to knock on his door. There is no answer so she knocks more loudly. There is still no answer, so she opens the door and comes in anyway, to find it empty and the windows open. She heads over, leans out, spots the dragon, and waves cheerfully.

He swoops in the window, shifting on the wing in a way that looks both strangely beautiful and very dangerous, lands neatly on his feet in human form, and hugs her.

Hug. "Nice. Of course, you've had lots of practice. I wonder if the eggheads'll think of anything for you to train on. I wouldn't bet much on it."

"It does seem unlikely."

"They could think of something weird and outside-the-box but useful! They've got me picking locks by filling 'em and jinking the tumblers manually and seeing if I can make functional wings out of blood."

"Ooh, I want you to have functional wings."

Giggle. "Last time I saw Hank he was muttering about aerodynamics; given the givens the optimal shape wouldn't necessarily particularly resemble a bat's or a bird's, apparently. I have more materials constraints and less form constraints."

"Sounds like fun." He kisses her.

She kisses back. She smiles at him. ...Her smile fades slightly.

"Mm?"

Sigh. "We need to talk. Ideally we would have talked about this before we publicly decided to be in a capital-R Relationship but it's not that big a deal but it probably shouldn't wait much longer."

He blinks at her.

"So you haven't done anything wrong, but--the fact that when we met you were all 'hey I rape people' and I was all 'you can't rape me if I consent' means that I've had this sort of--attitude of pre-emptive consent most of this time, and, like, I did consent, I initiated a bunch of it, this has not been a problem, but when I said 'hey I want to set this boundary here' you said 'you're lucky I have similar preferences' which kind of really did not help--but. Anyway. It has been fine so far but it will not continue to be fine forever. If we're going to make this work in the long term I need you to promise that if I say no--whether it's 'no I don't want to have sex tonight' or 'no that particular sex act does not appeal I am probably never going to want to do it'--you'll respect that, because if you don't I'm eventually going to get to a point where I can't have sex with you without wondering if I'm doing it because I prefer it to not having sex with you or because I prefer it to physically fighting you off and I don't want that. I--I like you a lot, and I care about you, but affection is not a magic pill that makes potential relationship problems irrelevant."

He listens to this whole speech, getting increasingly confused as it goes on; and then he stands there blinking for a few seconds, and then he says, "—I think I'm in love with you."

"That is really great but my point about affection not being a panacea stands."