Xaxac sat on the edge of the tub sipping his coffee and watching Alex sink into the bath up to his shoulders.

“All my bad dreams are about water,” Xaxac said.

“Yeah?” Alex asked, “Maybe you drowned in a past life.”

“What’s a past life?” Xac asked.

“On the water continent,” Alex explained as he reached over the tile for one of the many bottles laid out there, “They say that souls can be reborn. That sometimes people live more than once.”

“Do I have a soul?” Xac asked, “Do humans have souls? I mean like… do animals have souls?”

“Yeah,” Alex said as if it was obvious, “Everythin that lives has a soul.”

He disappeared underwater to wet his hair, and Xac watched him, thinking about the snow falling around him, the ocean heating up with the chunks of the moon as they fell, and Agalon’s arms holding him down while his lungs burned.

Maybe he did drown, once.

But he wasn’t scared of water.

None of that had killed him.

Nothing had killed him, so far.

“Did Ky go out with Aggie?” Xaxac asked as Alex reemerged and worked the goo from the bottle into his hair.

“They went to go look at his fighters,” Alex explained, “I half thought they’d take you with um. Thought he usually did that.”

“Thesis’s glowing eyes, nobody tells me anything in this goddamn place!” Lorsan snarled, and Xaxac’s face shot in the direction of the sound, just in time to see Lorsan, wearing a robe and carrying a towel, turn on his heel and make his way right back out the door.

“Lorry, wait!” Xac implored, but it was too late, he was gone.

“Ew, why?” Alex asked, “Let’s take all the time we can away from him. Ky says that kid’s trouble.”

“Maybe he is,” Xac shrugged and finally slid into the water himself.

“Ky’s kid is grown,” Alex said as if it was a great relief, “I barely ever see her. She got married or something, I don’t know.”

“Aggie wants Lorry to get married,” Xac said, “But he doesn’t want anybody to have to put up with him.” He paused, in thought, then added, “When I was little, I kinda thought I might get married. Just… on account of it seemed like what everybody did.”

“You were a field slave before, right?” Alex asked, “They all get married. Make more little slaves to tend the fields. Over and over again. I’d rather die. I guess I will die, instead, eventually.”

He slid back under the water, and Xac admired him. He knew he should think that way too, and wished he could. Alex had to have had a family, at some point. But he didn’t mope; he didn’t even really seem to think about them.

Xaxac looked to the door and thought about how on the other side of the hall he could go through another door and into the dining room, then through another and into the storage room, and then into another and he would see his mother, see his sister. He thought that Alice was getting married, maybe had already gotten married. He thought that he was supposed to be an uncle, but he wouldn’t be, not really.

Four doors.

The house was made of doors.

Alex came up and the water stopped moving from his swishing. He moved back to the edge, picked up another bottle and worked it through his hair.

He didn’t look that different at all, really, without his makeup. He had good bones, and he had said that was important. But he was older without it, in a way that may not have been noticeable had Xac not been looking for it, but his face was structured like an adult. Alex wasn’t ‘damn near grown’, he was ‘grown’. And there was a difference. Xaxac thought that if he didn’t shave every day, he would probably have a beard as thick and curly as his hair. He thought it might look good on him; but it wouldn’t be cute.

“I ain’t cut my hair in two months,” Xac said as he pulled a strand out to it’s full length. His didn’t curl the way Alex’s did, but it was much poofier, and without styling it, as he always did in the morning, it stuck out from his head in all directions. It would completely deflate in the water.

“I ain’t cut my hair in like… two or three years?” Alex said, “I mean I cut it, cut the dead out, but I don’t cut it cut it, you know?”

This was a safe conversation.

This is what he had meant.

“Do you know what a corset is?” Xaxac asked, “That’s the only thing I know for sure I got. That lady, Ms Sakala, she asked if he was sure he wanted a corset and he told her ‘yeah’.”

“Oh, honey, that’ll look gorgeous,” Alex said as he soaped up a rag and began to wash himself, “But damn, that’s as hard to get off as the houseslave getup. That’s what the kids are wearin, the elven kids. Makes you have that silhouette, makes your shoulders look bigger with that itty bitty waist.”

“I think I seen that,” Xaxac said, “In the store window.”

This was a safe conversation.

He couldn’t tell Alex that his family waited for him behind four doors. They weren’t supposed to talk about that. He needed to stop looking at the door; he needed to start thinking about all the pretty things that were waiting for him upstairs after he washed himself off. He needed to think about how cute Alex was, glistening with the bathwater that ran down his body in streams, covered in the suds of the soap he was using, smelling like the roses on all the different bottles.

“So, um,” Xac said, after he had successfully thought of all the things he was supposed to, “Are we uh… you said we could… practice again.”

“Oh yeah,” Alex giggled, “I sure as hell did say that. I went outta order. Now I’m gonna have to wash off again.”

He dunked himself to rinse, and when he came up he threw his head back, letting his wet hair move in an arch over his head and down his back. It was beautiful.

He turned and smiled at Xac with the look in his eyes that Agalon sometimes got, and slowly made his way closer, until his wet, warm body pressed Xac against the tile wall of the tub. He braced himself with his arms on either side of Xac’s shoulders and slid into his lap, then kissed him, softly, first on the cheek, then the neck, where he snuggled closer, and Xaxac loved how heavy he felt, loved the closeness he brought with him, the sweet, gentle attention. So he took his face in both hands and cradled it, held him there to press a soft, needy kiss to his lips.

“Let’s get outta the tub though,” Alex whispered as if they were involved in some sort of playful conspiracy, “The water fucks up the lube.”

Xaxac nodded.

Xaxac was learning that sex made everything better. It was much, much easier not to think about all the things he wasn’t supposed to think about once they got started. The new position Alex wanted to try was also much easier to work with; he had spread a towel out on the tile and taken to his hands and knees, which was significantly easier to maneuver himself with, to work with. Easier for both of them.

It was one of those things that was easier the second time. And this time, Alex was as sober as he was, and much more amicable, more willing to give instructions and work with him. Xaxac didn’t feel as if he was providing a service, he felt as if they were friends doing something fun together, and it was a much better feeling. That dark cloud never tried to manifest, and he was overly aware of its absence.

“Harder!” Alex told him, with great enthusiasm, “Come on, ain’t rabbits supposed to be fast?”

“If I do that, I ain’t… it’s gonna be over pretty damn quick,” Xac laughed, “Is it a race now? Is that what we’re doin?”

“Well if we’re takin all goddamn day,” Alex giggled, “lube up again and jack me off. You know you’re washin me down after this, right? I done went through this whole thing-” he cut himself off to gasp, lost his balance, and fell from his hands to his elbows, and Xac smirked. He was figuring out what he was doing, and he did it again to see the reaction.

“Right there?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah you got it,” Alex said with more breath than words, “Yeah fine, whatever pace you want, you got it figured out.”

“Hey,” Xac said, knowing he was getting cocky without particularly caring, “did you know shifters heal? That we bounce back real quick? I bet I could actually cum and then just like… stay in here a minute and then go again.”

“That don’t… I don’t think that follows…” Alex said, “But full disclosure I didn’t really… like… my brain didn’t get a real good fix on what you said, just keep doin that.”

“It tracks,” Xac said, leaning over him to reach for the bottle, “I know what I’m about.”

“You young bucks think you know everything,” Alex laughed, and Xac laughed with him, because it wasn’t true in the slightest, and neither of them believed it, but it was one of those things that people said, and the untruthfulness of it made it hilarious.

Xac couldn’t keep up the pace he had set and work the bottle at the same time; he wasn’t coordinated enough yet, but felt that one day he may be, and as he poured the goop into his hand he realized he had made a terrible mistake. He looked back to the bottle to see that it had pictures of roses on it, not the text of the one he had meant to grab.

“Hello?” Alex said with annoyance creeping into his voice, “The hell’d you stop for?”

“On account of I’m a goddamn idiot,” Xaxac explained.

“That ain’t no reason to-”

“This is conditioner,” Xac said, “I grabbed the wrong… we got like five bottles layin around…”

“Oh, to jack me off with?” Alex asked, more as if he was intrigued than as if he was angry.

“Yeah,” Xac said.

“It’ll be fine, just use it then use the lube when it quits workin,” Alex said dismissively.

“Um… that don’t seem like… that don’t… track…” Xac said, “How do you know that?”

“Don’t argue with me,” Alex propped himself up on one elbow to turn and smile at him, “Pick that pace back up. I’m gettin bored down here.”

“I mean,” Xac shrugged, “It’s your dick.”

He wrapped his hand around the base of Alex’s cock, and as he began to move again he muttered, “Somebody really oughta be watchin us.”