Sequel

This would have been up several hours ago... had I not spent three hours trying to fix my bloody internet connection.

I enjoyed this and as I was writing the scene I realised how very much I want a bath damn it. All the fixings! Maybe next week or something.

Read, Review and enjoy.




Rel watched Muan stand in the center of the apartment, moving just slightly, this way and that, considering which way to move to. The Sidhe seemed too caught up in deciding what to go to first to actually touch anything. Rel had managed to pull Muan away for lunch, but the Sidhe immediately went back to the middle of the floor, looking around.

The tension built with every passing second. Rel sighed and watched Muan twitch about, annoyed, upset and uncertain how to proceed. The man finally gave up and went to the bathroom. He ran a bath for himself and, upon investigation found candles, oils, bubble bath, lotions, bath salts and other odds and ends for a bath.

Rel tossed a bath bomb into the tub, dumped a bit of bubble bath into the running water and collected a towel, a change of clothing and a face cloth. By the time the tub was half full, Rel decided he wanted candles. So he pulled them out and lit them, placing them about the bathtub before he shut the overhead light off.

It was.

He sighed out and stripped out of his clothing lazily. Rel stood naked beside the tub as it finished filling. His breath came out and he felt some of the tension go out of his body.

He hadn’t realised he was so tense.

Rel shut off the taps and slipped into the hot water. He moaned at the feel of the water and the smell of the bath bomb. Juniper. Possibly holly underneath it all. Enough to relax him and raise his temperature. Rel groaned and slid deeper into the large tub, the water came to his neck and his toes didn’t pop out the other end. A nice big tub.

That might be just big enough for a Sidhe like Hohi.

Rel dunked the face cloth into the water, wrung it out and draped it over his face. He set his head on the bathtub rim, sighing into the cloth over his face. He heard a sound, small, like a foot scuffing on the floor. Rel pulled the facecloth off of his face and glanced slowly at the door.

Muan stood in the doorway, head cocked to the side as his eyes roved over the candles and the darkened bathroom, the tub and even Rel’s discarded clothing.

“Lel?” Muan murmured, approaching the bathtub.

The Sidhe bent over the tub, making certain to keep his body away from the water, and sniffed at the air. Confusion played over Muan’s face. The Sidhe bent and scooped up some of the bubbles. A sniff. A nose poking the bubbles. A mouth opening and the bubbles were stuffed into Muan’s mouth. As the Sidhe’s mouth closed, Rel saw the disgusted, shocked look of someone who had just swallowed a bunch of soap.

Muan’s face screwed up and the Sidhe tried to drop the bubbles from his mouth, even though the iridescent bubbles had already popped.

Muan whined. Rel laughed, despite himself. The man wiped at his mouth with a wet hand and ended up grinning foolishly at Muan. The Sidhe sat on the floor cross legged and began licking his own hands, using the salt to get rid of the taste of the soap.

Despite the soap, Muan only whined the once. Rel closed his eyes and let the hot water work away at his tense muscles. Relaxing in the bath was such a strange concept suddenly. After so long of taking prison showers, there he was in a tub with all the … he couldn’t recall the word he wanted.

That was alright, though. Because it meant he was relaxing.

Words were the first to go. To switch from words to the concept of thinking without words. Love was not love, love was existence. To carry on an entire conversation with nothing but the implication of thoughts was the highest form of philosophical thought. Drift through the small thoughts, slide through the complex methodologies of the real world.

Drifting through thought.

Something touched him.

Rel shot up in the tub. Muan’s hand was by his ankle, the Sidhe yanked up his hand, tub plug in hand, and exclaimed excitedly. The Sidhe held it out to Rel as if it were a prize.

The water was cold. Rel must have drifted off. Muan handed Rel the plug and Rel considered his hands as the water drained from the tub. He was wrinkly. Really, really wrinkly. Rel sighed and stood in the tub. Muan immediately held out the towel and looked away.

When had Muan figured that out? Or. Was it just something Muan would have liked, and thus was doing it to Rel in hopes that Rel would like it as well? To be pulled into an embrace as a towel was wrapped around a freshly cleaned body. Rel melted into Muan’s arms and the Sidhe let him lean like that, against Muan, before pushing him away and patting him dry. He dressed without Muan’s help and shuffled the towel and facecloth to the laundry basket before moving to the living area.

Muan followed close behind and poked Rel before the Sidhe moved to the plants and looked expectantly at Rel. Muan wanted Rel to show the kind of interest that Muan had shown in the bathtub.

Which was odd, but at the same time, made sense in an odd kind of Sidhe courtship kind of way. Muan would likely enjoy a bath, if the Sidhe could ever be convinced into the tub. And Rel might enjoy the plants if he actually put effort into it, if he could do as he pleased with the plants instead of having to deal with someone else’s nagging, whining bullshit.

Rel moved to the plants and looked at Muan and then at a plant as if asking what to do. Muan pressed two fingers into the soil and looked at Rel before poking at the soil once more. Rel did as Muan did, poked at the soil of the plant. It had been watered recently. Rel gave his head a shake.

Muan shrugged and moved on, testing the soil here and there. Eating a leaf and a strip of bark, chewing an entire vine in another place. Rel ate what was offered to him without hesitation. Or. Tried, in some cases. The bitterness of leaf or flower in a few cases was too much and Rel spat them out before he had chewed more than twice.

The Sidhe played for several hours amongst the plants and Rel followed along behind, helping the Sidhe shift a plant here or there. Some were pushed into the light, some were moved out of the light. Muan looked over the plants once they were done and made a sound at the back of his throat before shuffling to the nest. The Sidhe crawled into the nest with a groan.

Rel stepped back from the plants and looked over them. In amongst the chaos, three spiralling arms were moving from a center mass. Perhaps it was just his eyes, perhaps his head was just making connections that weren’t there. His mind was just trying to make sense of what he saw, to put understanding to the unknown.

Or perhaps Muan had begun forming Illuva’s pattern of strength from the plants.

Rel shook his head and dismissed it entirely. There was no way that Muan, a Sidhe from a farm, a Sidhe who had never been in contact with other Sidhe, would know the strength pattern of Illuva. The patterns had only emerged in recent years, announced by the Illuen after they had meditated for six years on the symbols and meanings of Illuva’s pure thoughts.

He closed his eyes for a moment and wondered what the Illuen would say if they knew.


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