The Apprentice Assassin (Complete but editing) MxM

"Soup's up!" Thomas called out, wandering through the doorway that went to the hot tub. "I'll put the bowls on the table. So come get it when you're ready!" He continued as he put down the two large wooden bowls. 

"Well, I guess today is the day I may meet my maker then!" Alex replied, standing up and stretching his arms wide. "It's been a good few millennia!"  

"Please get dressed before you come over here though, I have no interest in seeing your soggy, pruney body  sagging in my direction!" Thomas remarked before looking at the wall. 

A chuckle echoed throughout the room. "Hey, if you want to throw me your towel I'll happily dry off and get dressed! Might take a while though, so you better lay in a position you're used to."

"No thank you!" Thomas replied tightening his towel. "You really need to go out and get another set of clothing. Better yet, go put on your assassin robe, and then let me wear something other than this tiny strip of cloth!" The room fell silent, and Thomas felt something change in the atmosphere between them. 

"I can't do that... I am not worthy of wearing such a robe." Alex replied with a painful sigh. "That robe is for assassins. I'm but a shriveled old man cowering in a hole. I'm not worthy of a title such as assassin."

"You're doing what you can to survive." Thomas argued as Alex's footsteps started towards him. "That doesn't make you a coward. You are the last of your order. As long as you live, the order survives. You're planning your next move on how to rebuild! If you were really a coward, you wouldn't have saved me back at the inn. Taking in a random stranger, and protecting him against circumstances beyond his control. That is not the action of a coward." 

"That's sweet of you to say, but I don't think you really understand what's going on here." Alex replied sitting down, his broad hair chest jiggling as he sat. Thomas sat down across from him, looking down at his food. "But let's not pity an old man, let's kill him and put em out of his misery with his own alchemical ingredient!" 

Thomas looked up at Alex, his eyes were dull. They were somehow devoid of any emotion. "I know it won't kill you. That's a fact, I used almost all of what you had in your soup before. Then put in a healthy dash of salt, it tasted pretty good after that. I let it simmer for another twenty minutes, and that made it even better!" "Thomas watched as Alex reached for the spoon that was leaning against the edge of the bowl and took a spoonful of it to his lips. Blowing the spoon lightly the steam was whisked away, but the steam began rising again. Taking the spoon to his lips, he drank the broth and put the spoon back down. "Well how is it? You don't look dead to me!" 

"I died a long time ago..." Alex said in a broken voice, "I'm just too much of a coward to join my masters in the afterlife." 

"Come now, don't talk about yourself like that!" Thomas answered in a comforting voice. "It's in our nature to want to live, beating yourself up over surviving is probably the worse thing you can do to yourself. Besides, if you had been dead I wouldn't have made it through the day! Let alone another!" He took a spoonful of the soup and ate it, enjoying the taste of the potatoes and carrots in the light brown broth.

 "Look I don't need your sympathy okay?" Alex scowled as he looked up at Thomas. "I saved your life for one reason, and one reason alone! I wanted to save my own life, not yours!" 

Thomas scoffed, "Why would helping a stranger with an old journal help you survive? It's cute that you are trying to hide that you wanted to help me, but you really shouldn't lie about such trivial things-"

"I didn't want to save you!" Alex spat, angrily throwing his spoon to the floor. "I saved the journal! That book has so many secrets in its pages. One of which was the recipe for my regeneration potion! I didn't need you, you just happened to have the journal! So I saved you," Thomas recoiled at the string of violent words unable to speak as he felt the words crash against him. "Look, you're attractive, sure and I would love to have you in my bed, but I didn't save you for a bedroom romp. I wanted that book so I could live!"