“What?” Zelli whispered back, trembling as he tried to be still. “What can I give you?” He brushed more half-kisses over Tahlen’s sweet mouth and put his palm to the side of his face. He pushed on Tahlen’s bruised shoulder and kissed Tahlen’s throat when he caught the sound Tahlen tried to hide from him. “Tell me.” Zelli shifted forward and sighed when both of Tahlen’s arms came around him. “You want to please me, is that it?” Tahlen had to know Zelli wanted that. But if he didn’t, if he wanted to hear it, Zelli gave it to him with more shallow kisses. “Then do it, Tahlen. Please me.”
Tahlen turned again and lifted Zelli easily, moving him forward until Zelli’s elbows were on the edge of the bath and his knees were on the seat. It was cold there with Zelli’s skin so hot he must be red all over. He thought Tahlen was going to fuck him until he felt Tahlen’s breath, warm on intimate places. Zelli squirmed and then held himself still.
If he had Tahlen’s backside in front of him, he’d probably bite into it like an apple. But Tahlen was not like him. Tahlen ran light touches in all the places his breath had gone, and when Zelli squirmed again, replaced his hands with his mouth.
Zelli hadn’t realized mouths could go there. He cried out, then dropped his head to blush and pant into the wet rock. Tahlen spread him open and used what must be his tongue to put more aches in Zelli instead of relieving them. Not that Zelli complained. He couldn’t manage a word. He did not even have the strength to take one hand to stroke himself. He shuddered and pushed back and Tahlen answered with fingers as well as tongue.
Zelli’s legs began to shake. He should have been cold and was not, not at all.
“Tahlen,” he stuttered finally when he could no longer bear it. “Please.”
Tahlen took a firmer hold of him, then withdrew his fingers so he could wrap that hand around Zelli’s cock.
Zelli finished within moments, trembling and falling into his own spill the moment Tahlen slowed his strokes and eased back.
Zelli considered asking why Tahlen hadn’t fucked him, but Tahlen slowly pulled him into the water, which was just warm enough to still feel pleasant though not for much longer, and washed Zelli’s chest and stomach for him with some of Zelli’s soap. He asked a question of his own, soft above Zelli’s ear.
“Do you know how it feels to get to take care of you?” Tahlen asked a second question a moment after the first. “Do you know yet what you are?”
Zelli gave the smallest possible shake of his head. He still hadn’t determined what Tahlen was and that was far more interesting. “Everyone takes care of me. I’m useless.”
Tahlen held him closer. “You fuss over everyone here, even the ones in awe of you who can barely manage a word. It was strange, then baffling, and then a thorn buried deep under my skin; why should you be this way? Now, you let me take care of you and I….”
Zelli waited but Tahlen didn’t go on, so he turned around, ensuring first that Tahlen’s arms would stay around him. Tahlen was tense.
Zelli wanted to be as soothing to him as milk and honey on stinging skin. “You’re going to get cold with your hair wet. Let’s go to the fire in the other room. I can ask for tea or more food, if you need some.”
Tahlen closed his eyes as if pained. “Zelli.”
“It pleases you to help me onto Lemon Blossom, or to show off your body to me like you did just now, or to ask for biscuits you think I might like?” Zelli guessed. “As it pleases you to make me spill even when I haven’t touched you in return?”
Tahlen opened his eyes. He exhaled, then gave a short nod.
Zelli considered this as calmly as he could with his heart racing. “And to allow me to…. To be my chew-toy?” He didn’t understand, but he wanted Tahlen to be pleased and he liked all those things Tahlen had done. “And when I take care of you?”
Tahlen’s exhale this time was shaky. “I wasn’t expecting it. I should have. Yes, I like that too, in much the same way.”
“Well,” Zelli said, out of breath, “I will think about that while I dry your hair before the fire. And perhaps mine, since someone dragged me into his bath with him.”
Tahlen made a noise in his throat but nodded again.
“It seemed playful,” Zelli considered the dunking out loud. “I wouldn’t have expected you to do it or for me to like it. Though I did like it, very much.” He suddenly felt like smiling, so he did, and enjoyed watching Tahlen’s careful blankness melt into a small smile of his own.
“Come on then,” Zelli ordered at last, curious, and Tahlen lifted Zelli gently to the edge of the tub and then pushed himself up from the water.
Zelli got to his feet and took Tahlen’s hand, ignoring Tahlen’s look of surprise. He led him to the table for oils and combs, then to gather towels, before returning to his bedroom and a place in front of the fire.
“You’re a very good chew-toy,” Zelli observed later, cross-legged on the rug in front of the fire as they both dried their hair.
Tahlenlaughed, quiet chuckles into Zelli’s neck that made Zelli feel as if he had won something. He’d never won anything, since no one would ever compete with him, but he imagined it made one feel like he did in that moment: alight and smug.
Still, he hadn’t been trying to make Tahlen laugh. He’d been trying to give him more compliments, because even though Tahlen must be used to receiving them, he responded to each one from Zelli with a look more bright than stern, or a sigh, or by closing his eyes as if basking in warmth.
Hewas, if Zelli had understood Tahlen’s short explanation.
“It feels like the bath,” Tahlen had told him, eyes shut while Zelli combed his hair for him. “And each time, the feeling is stronger.”
“Is it something to do with the fae?” Zelli had worried over that. He didn’t see what else could make Tahlen feel like he was floating in warm water except some fae interference.
