[ it's hard to focus with koby's hands in his hair and how heavy his whole body feels soaking in the heat and under the gentle care of another. it's been so long - the last time anyone touched him in a bath, washed him, was his arrival at the palace. he'd been scrubbed raw, cleaned, plucked, picked at and presented like a prize horse for the taking.

this is all different, of course, and he closes his eyes on command, not that it's hard to. he sighs deeply, so much of his tension leaving his body as koby's hands work, and he hums, amused, at the little tug. ]

Mm, a shower? No. But keep doing that and I'm not sure we'll leave this tub. Which would be a shame because then I really couldn't do much about getting you cleaned up.

[ there's the implication that he likes the hair pulling (oh, he does), and the implication of course that he would like to spend time with his head and newly washed hair pressed between koby's thighs (he very much wants this). but for the moment he settles, breathing evening out a little as koby works, as he settles against the boy in the heat of the back, skin on skin.

it's wildly intimate - and he's had softer encounters with his port stops throughout his life. tender barmaids and sweet pageboys, the ones who know how much it means to be cared for on a rough sea. the ones who travel and know that a tiny fleck of humanity goes such a long way. but this feels like much more - let me take care of you, koby said, and quentin believes him. how can he not with his open, wide eyes and his quick reactions, his kneejerk snipping. ]

You're good at this.

[ the wine may be hitting now, too, making him pliant and lazy, his head tipping back and a hand skirting the line of koby's leg beneath him. thank goodness the tubs are big. ]