Hendrik considered his options. He didn’t like the idea of looking foolish in front of Dagan; the man might have some interesting foibles himself, but he was capable and quick. A knot of dismay formed in Hen’s belly at the thought of appearing less capable and quick in front of him.
“It’s really not safe.” Dagan moved nearer still, so his chest and upper ribs emerged from the water, glistening. “There’s water all over the Heart Wood. You should at least learn how not to sink.”
Well, now Hen couldn’t get out of it without looking even more foolish. He sighed and ducked his shoulders beneath the surface, then leaned back into the water. The moment he lifted his feet off the squishy bottom, he went under. He came up sputtering.
Dagan closed the gap between them as quickly as a fish. “You’re tense. You have to relax into the water if you want to float. Here, I’ll show you.” He leaned back until only his face wasn’t submerged, arms out wide, and slowly, slowly his feet rose to the surface. His shorts billowed in the water, then wrapped tight about his hips as they broke the surface. “Like this.”
Hendrik cleared his throat, grateful that Dagan wasn’t watching him just then. He’d caught himself looking at Dagan more and more, over the last few days. He’d noticed from the first that Dagan was beautiful, as anyone with half-decent eyesight would. Maybe it had been the conversations about flirting that had changed things, or the one about the consequences of romantic relationships in fraught circumstances. Or perhaps it was just that after what felt like four years but had apparently been nearly four moons, Hendrik had found himself in the presence of another human, one who happened to be very attractive, and this had reminded his body how it used to react to that.
It didn’t feel bad or wrong, exactly. It was appreciation, pure and simple, and if Dagan had noticed, he certainly would’ve approved. Nothing would come of it, after all. And it wasn’t as if he’d never looked at a boy who wasn’t Kass, before. He and Kass had tried others before Jak, and often commented on passing men in the Tavern District, or even just walking through the streets of the High City.
But Hen had never taken part in this perfectly natural pastime on his own, before. Kass had always been there, encouraging him, arguing with him, insisting this one was hotter than that one no matter what Hen said. It felt…different without him. Again, not bad, just different in a way Hen wasn’t sure how to articulate.
Dagan floated, eyes closed as if in perfect rest, prick outlined in clingy, wet linen for all the world to see —well, no, actually, just for Hendrik. And if Hen had kept himself from ogling back at the Apricot winery and in the Mushroom settlement room, he could show as much respect here, now that he hoped he could count Dagan as a friend as well as a savior.
Hen dropped down into the water and took a deep breath, determined to try again. At least the water was chilly. That’d help. The surface stirred beside him, and Dagan rose up, but Hen concentrated on trying to be lighter. He leaned back, submerging his ears, then lifting his toes off the ground.
His ass sank like a stone. Kass used to say he had an ass like a granite-block wall and made it sound like a good thing. Now, Hen wasn’t so sure.
Dagan loomed over him, dark braid like a silken scarf over his shoulder. He smiled. “May I?”
Hen nodded and rubbed the wet from his eyes and nose before trying to lean back again. A touch at his lower back as Dagan found the right spot, then firmer pressure, lifting Hendrik’s lower half. Instinctively, Hendrik tensed before his mouth could drop below the surface.
Dagan’s hand flattened against his back, still lifting. “I’ve got you.” He settled his other hand against the center of Hen’s chest, using the pressure there and at his back to keep him from sitting up. “Just look up through the branches.”
Heart pounding in his ears, a sound magnified tenfold by the water rushing around them, Hen shot Dagan a look, but obeyed. Now, his face was staying out of the water, but his feet seemed to drag him down. He tried to lift them once more, and once more, his ass sank.
Dagan lifted him from beneath. “Relax your legs, sweetheart.”
Hen did, and wonder of wonders, they began to float toward the surface.
“Just let the water take them; don’t fight it. There you go.” Dagan’s voice swayed strangely, distorted by the water, but was somehow still encouraging. “Now your arms. Now your neck.”
With each new command, Hendrik bent himself to following it to the letter. Again, he seemed to float higher and higher in the water. Dagan took the hand off Hen’s chest but left the one at his back. He said, “Now your face.”
Hen darted another look his way, but Dagan only nodded at him. Hen fixed his gaze on the sky rather than the pretty face looming above him and took a deep breath. As he let it out, he let go of the tension that had built up in his jaw and brow.
“I’m going to take my hand away—”
Hendrik tightened up, and his ass immediately began to sink again. Dagan put one hand beneath his thigh now, the other returning to the small of his back. His hands were warmer, so much warmer than the water, and gentle. They looked gentle, or perhaps just finely made.
“Right, not yet, then,” Dagan said with a little chuckle.
It made Hen laugh too, stirring the water around them. He tried to relax again with mixed results, but Dagan held him afloat effortlessly. It was nice. Hen could stay like this for a long time and not mind at all.
Were his shorts above the water now, or plastered obscenely across his hips? Fuck. He twitched to look down and see, but Dagan pressed his thigh and back again insistently, saying, “You won’t drown in four feet of water while I’m here, I promise you that.”
Hendrik gave a little snort of laughter but tried to relax again. Except, now he was thinking about Dagan’s hands against his skin and his own prick floating to the surface, and that was not making relaxation particularly easy.
“Legs first, just like last time,” Dagan cooed. When Hen managed to let go control of his legs, he was rewarded with a murmured, “Beautiful. Now your arms, let them go. See how they bob upward naturally?”
They did, as a matter of fact, and it was surprisingly easy to maintain. If he could just stop thinking about—
“Is your back tense? Your shoulders?”
Hen took another deep breath, banishing all thoughts of anything related to bodies or skin or Dagan’s pretty hands, or attempting to, anyhow. Eventually, after struggling for a few seconds to find his old soldierly discipline, he managed.
“There you go. That’s it, darling. Perfect.”
There was something relaxing about Dagan’s voice, even from underwater. Hen closed his eyes with a little sigh. His knees broke the surface naturally, and he tried not to wonder what his shorts were doing, let alone his dick. His chest moved slowly, falling into the water and then rising, his belly keeping barely submerged.
“Don’t panic,” Dagan said quietly, “but you’re doing it.”
Hen struggled not to attempt to sit up again. Relax. Relax. Let it go. Let it all go. You can do this. “Am I?”
“I’m hardly touching you.”
No, he wasn’t. It was just the barest warmth against Hen’s thigh and back, now, skin separated from skin by half an inch of water, maybe less. He said, “Yeah. I guess not.”
Slowly, carefully, Dagan floated away from him. The water was cold all over now, and a flutter of disappointment tripped down Hendrik’s spine and into his belly. But the important thing was that he stayed buoyant, and Dagan said, “There you are. Floating. That wasn’t so hard.”
It was, though, because it was surrender. Dagan might not think of it as such, but to Hendrik, that’s what he was doing: surrendering to the water, refusing to fight it, letting it take him. And he had never been good at surrender.
Maybe it was time he learned. Time he learned a lot of things, apparently. Even if some of them hurt, this moment, suspended between water and sky, was proof that not all of them had to.
*
While Dagan swam laps around the lake, Hendrik took himself into the nearby forest, barefoot and dripping. He was used to being a few trees away from Dagan while relieving himself, but this was the first time he’d ventured any further than that. He made himself touch the trees, feeling the smooth or rough bark, wondering at just how much of it there was and just how beautiful it had become to him. Trees had been his only shelter for so long now, the only living things he could rely on for protection—before Dagan, anyhow. He wondered if there was a Prayer to the forest gods, and if it’d be blasphemy for him to say it in thanks, since he wasn’t of the Heart Wood. He’d have to ask Dagan.
