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Caleb had thought that a trip to an herbalist’s shop had seemed like a perfectly innocuous prospect. Doing so while following Essek through the maze-like alleys and corridors of the Night Market had even seemed like a pleasant way to while away a chilly autumn afternoon.
Now, though? Now Essek is sprawled out on the divan in Caleb’s study, looking aggrieved and more than a little feverish.
Caleb has to admit: the day’s events have taken a bit of a turn.
****
Two hours earlier, Essek had shown up at the front door of the Xhorhaus with his usual lack of fanfare. He’d sent Jester a clipped message that morning, and shown up about sixty seconds before he’d said he would.
Caleb still is never quite sure where he stands with the man—but the recent willingness Essek has shown to let him into the world of his research has him more excited about his work than he’s been in years.
He’d spent a decade of nights studying stolen books by the light of the nubs of candles that other people chucked out with the rubbish. The sudden reversal in fortune that even the most tepid display of Essek’s interest in his academic work has brought is nothing short of dizzying. He used to struggle to beg his way into a library for a few hours. Now he finds himself being slowly granted access to a truly incredible caliber of work—and all of it is happening under the personal discretion of the man behind it all, the world’s leading expert on time and space.
So yes, when Essek Thelyss beckons, Caleb follows.
“This is… new,” Essek says as he shoots Caleb a sidelong glance.
“Hmm?” Caleb says, his mind returning to the purple afterlight of Rosohna’s eternal dusk, his eyes meeting those of the man beside them.
“The clothes,” Essek furnishes, like it should be the most obvious thing in the world.
“Ah. Yes.”
Essek shoots him another amused look. “I know you didn’t actually visit my tailor because it’s still all very generic, but I don’t see a single stain or piece of trailing thread.” He is usually quite restrained, but he’s having difficulty holding back his smile. “I have half a mind to ask you who you are and what you’ve done with my colleague.”
Caleb snorts. “This is Kingsley’s doing. He showed up at my study door with three different sets of clothes, would not tell me where he bought or stole them, and would not leave until I had tried them on and assured him I would wear them.”
“He’s… very… thoughtful?” Essek hazards, though his face suggests he is currently considering the prospect of having to rethink his wardrobe under duress and finding it rather unappealing.
“He is thoughtful for sticking to blue, brown and black,” Caleb mutters.
“It is a very necessary upgrade, Caleb,” Essek says with that mocking glint in his eyes. “I am very grateful he has done me the favor of styling you so that I can be seen in public with you without having permanent damage done to my sterling reputation.”
“Shadowhand,” Caleb reproaches, “you are too clever a man to kid yourself about such things. My presence is every bit as devastating to your reputation dressed like this as I am when wearing clothing better suited to the amount of trouble I habitually get myself into.”
“It’s always a non-zero amount, isn't it, Caleb?” Essek sighs, affecting a long-suffering expression. “Ah—here we are.” He gestures to a small, dark apothecary’s shop. “It is just a little place, but they have a curious rotation of suppliers. I always manage to find something new when I stop by.”
With a heedless wave of Essek’s fingers, the door drifts open for them. Caleb’s eyes linger just a moment on the graceful sweep of Essek’s delicate hand before he follows the man into the shadowed interior of the shop.
An elderly goblin is nodding off in a chair behind the till. They only briefly open their golden eyes to nod respectfully to the Shadowhand before returning to their nap. Caleb is accustomed enough to Rosohni establishments at this point; he does not fruitlessly wait to see if his eyes adjust to the dark, and instead just casts his dancing lights.
Caleb smiles when Essek drifts into the nearest narrow aisle of jars and decanters and mysterious dried hunks of plants and mushrooms of worrisome age and provenance. The man’s feet never touch the ground, but in the narrow confines of a shop full of components, he is as beholden as any other wizard to the need to touch each and every object of interest.
Just for the sake of feeling more refined than the preternaturally put-together drow for once, Caleb uses Mage Hand to delicately inspect the objects. “This is bizarre,” he murmurs, hovering a hulking shard of coral with a vaguely concerning gold glow to it.
“Rather lovely, though,” Essek whispers back, entranced. He flicks his wrist to rotate it slightly on his axis before letting it drift back to the shelf. “What do you imagine one does with this?” he asks as he alleviates the gravity around a jar full of gnarled black vines.
Caleb drifts an amber light down to inspect the jar more closely.
“I doubt they can be used for anything except strangling an unwitting labmate to death,” he says as he uses a finger to turn the jar—so that Essek can see the part of the vines that is twitching and constricting around a large cave cricket.
“Augh!” Essek exclaims, grimacing. He quickly puts it back with the unlucky cricket facing the back of the shelf.
Caleb has to laugh, and he is pleasantly surprised when Essek laughs as well. It’s a rare treat to see Essek crack a genuine smile. He has all kinds of pleasant, diplomatic expressions that telegraph interest and good will, but real smiles are few and far between. In the beginning, Jester was the only one who could make those little crinkles form at the corners of his eyes, or make the deep plum color of embarrassment come to his cheeks. Now that Caleb gets to see this side of him, he’s finding himself more and more fascinated by the man. Not just the power and prestige and access he represents, but the actual man behind the elaborate façade of disinterested beneficence.
Essek is airily leading Caleb along the aisle, briefly stopping here and there to inspect things. When Caleb doesn’t keep up to his satisfaction, he takes the incredibly obnoxious tactic of using a ripple in gravity to tug Caleb’s sole light source along with him.
Caleb has to dismiss the dancing lights and recast them to get them back under his control. “You are so very unpleasant to spend any sort of leisure time with,” the human says amicably.
“Likewise,” Essek replies.
****
Essek decides about half an hour into their lackadaisical perusal of the ancient component shop that he is, in fact, enjoying this. It’s an utter waste of an afternoon—which is something that Essek knows would ordinarily gall him to no end.
It’s the company he’s keeping that makes the difference, and he knows it. Essek has a theory that the unifying characteristic that unites the Nein is a peculiar duality they all share. They are all equal parts exquisitely dangerous and charmingly sentimental—and Caleb, of course, is the most scintillating example of that delicate balance between competing drives. The man’s mere existence is rotting Essek’s brain and spoiling his resolve, and he’s starting to find it altogether delightful.
They continue to talk on a variety of topics as they casually pick up handfuls and armfuls of various materials before invariably discarding the vast majority of the items in favor of some new prize. Eventually, though, certain objects become harder and harder to part with—and before Essek knows it, they’re truly making a spectacle of themselves. Using Caleb’s deceptively simple Mage Hand and Essek’s fluency with gravity, they draw an ungainly score of jars, specimens and packages along with them. The objects look like buoys being pulled along the surface of an unseen arcane current.
Essek will absolutely never admit it to anyone, but what transpires next is entirely his fault. He shouldn’t have been being cheeky and trying to tug Caleb’s lights out from his control again. The human had already mocked him for such childish behavior twice, but to be the one to make that rosy flush rise in Caleb’s cheeks, to be the one that makes Caleb Widogast stroppy—it’s just too much of a treat for him to pass up.
When Caleb succeeds at wresting the nearest orb back from his control without pausing to recast, he glares coldly at Essek like he just successfully Counterspelled a ninth level feat of dunamancy, and Essek bursts out laughing.
Essek would never lose control of objects under his gravitational pull. However, when Caleb jostles his shoulder—Zemnians apparently get a deep, perverse thrill from such trivial acts of rudeness—he bumps into a rickety shelf, and a pair of huge, ancient jars of fungus tumble from above.
Both Caleb and Essek have been playing around at the edge of their abilities for the better part of an hour for the sole purpose of showing off, and Essek has actually had to burn a ridiculous number of spell slots to keep up. So when the drow is the one who sees the objects falling, he can only gasp; there is nothing he can do to stop them. As though they are two idiotic schoolboys, Caleb doesn’t think to catch the objects. Instead, he casts Silence so that their perfidiousness will go unnoticed by the elderly shopkeeper.
In the blanket of arcane silence, Caleb is quick to gather his scarf around his mouth and nose as a thick swirl of dust and spores engulfs them. Essek belatedly covers his face with a voluminous sleeve, but by the time he does, he’s already in the grips of a horrible coughing fit. His lungs burn and his eyes water. He gives up trying to cover his face, and hurries to set down everything he can so that he can escape the aisle and the swirl of noxious dust.
Silence or no silence, no words need to be said. The two men hurriedly divest themselves of every object that they’re carrying, and beeline for the exit to the shop.
The pair staggers out, still coughing. Essek is sure he’s the color of a ripe plum and he’s praying his level of embarrassment will be misperceived as an effect of a coughing fit.
“Shadowhand,” Caleb snickers between coughs, grinning like a madman, “that was… that was… a unique miscarriage of dunamancy.”
“Please, let us go hide somewhere,” Essek groans. “Perhaps forever. I will never be able to show my face on this street again….”
Caleb hooks his hand into the crook of Essek’s elbow, tugging him along so that he has to follow where the human leads. If Essek had any breath to spare, he’s sure he’d gasp. It is not unwelcome, but it is a surprise to be sure. The easy, thoughtless physical contact is egregiously familiar. While there was a time when he was sure that the Nein’s lack of awareness of the exact nature of his role was the reason they were so physical with him, he knows Caleb knows who and what he is now.
Caleb doesn’t care. To him, I’m just another person.
“For the record,” Caleb says, dusting himself off half-heartedly, “I would like to state that this was entirely your fault, Herr Thelyss.”
Essek glowers. Caleb smiles and leads Essek along.
****
By the time Essek and Caleb have arrived in the overgrown, hideously tasteless front yard of the Xhorhaus, Essek is trying to fight a rising tide of panic. He wills himself to look composed, even though he’s in a cold sweat. He is no longer coughing, but he feels hot all over, and his heart is in his throat. He realizes Caleb has stopped in front of him and that he’s turned to face him.
The man is wearing that calculating expression he has when he is thinking over a complex and worrisome problem, the expression that invariably leaves Essek’s whole being in knots. “You need to come inside,” Caleb says flatly.
“I am going straight home,” Essek blurts out, failing spectacularly at keeping his fear from his tone.
There is a flash of warning in Caleb's eyes. “Essek. Either you come in and sit down for a few minutes where two very kind and very discreet clerics will be coming home to sleep tonight, or I go straight to find Uraya and Verin and anyone else who will—"
“You wouldn’t dare,” Essek snarls.
Caleb actually withdraws a half-step.
Essek blanches. “I’m so sorry,” he says quickly. “I—I didn’t mean to say that. I’m sorry.”
“This is just some trivial toxidrome you are dealing with,” Caleb says firmly, though he looks deeply worried. “You will be fine, I am sure of it. Just… please humor me, and please come inside. I cannot leave you like this.”
“I—I don’t know if I can handle having so many people around right now,” Essek admits.
“Ah,” Caleb says, like this is the most ordinary possible neurosis to profess in the front yard of the ersatz embassy of a hostile foreign nation at four o’clock in the afternoon. “Yes, one moment. I know they all went far afield to scrounge up ingredients—as in, several teleportation circles away. So, let me just…” and he is fiddling around with that little copper wire of his.
After about twenty seconds of muttered messages, Caleb sighs in relief. “It is nearly abandoned in there,” he says. “The only person who is at home is Dairon. They have laughed at our predicament and say they will come up from the basement if and only if one of us dies.”
Essek groans and lets Caleb lead him inside. He’s incredibly grateful the man doesn’t try to touch his arm again; he’s fairly certain that’s all it would take to make him bolt for the hills.
He obediently follows Caleb through the now-familiar corridors and up a flight of stairs to the privacy of Caleb’s study.
“Sit,” Caleb says as he takes off his heavy scarf and coat, tossing them thoughtlessly on the divan. “Let me get us something to drink. I feel like that stuff is still choking me with every damned breath.”
Just like that, Caleb has left Essek to his own devices in the mercifully quiet confines of his study.
Essek draws a deep, centering breath. After idly walking to stand at the empty fireplace, he decides he will positively roast alive if he does what Caleb habitually does on a cold day and lights it. Instead, he divests himself of his own cloak, and—he stops, looking down at it like a fucking idiot. The mere sensation of the wool of the cloak stroking along his skin was like a flint being struck.
Like he is holding a dangerous fuzzy animal instead of his own familiar cloak, Essek carefully, gingerly sets down his cloak on top of Caleb’s discarded things. Moving like the entire room is constructed from various deadly arcane trigger mechanisms, Essek carefully, slowly lowers himself to sit on the divan. He folds his hands in his lap, and tries to think calm thoughts.
****
When Caleb re-enters his study with a couple of mugs, he finds Essek sitting on the divan, looking vaguely ill.
“How are you?” Caleb asks, his voice coming out strained.
“I am… I believe I am equilibrating somewhat. Everything is just… a bit much right now.”
“We did not even think to get a sample of that damned stuff,” Caleb laments, shaking his head in frustration. He comes to sit beside Essek and hands the man his mug.
“Thank gods—ice water,” Essek says gratefully. “I was terrified you were coming back with something warm; I’m positively burning up.” He quickly gulps down half the mug before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
His lips are full and wet, and his pupils are huge. Caleb quickly flushes scarlet and looks away as he sips his own water.
“You feel this too, right?” Essek asks anxiously. “I know it isn’t actually this warm in here, but—"
“I am afraid I do,” Caleb mutters. He groans, and succumbs to the urgent need to kick off his boots and unbutton the first few buttons of his shirt before rucking up his sleeves to the elbows.
He sighs in relief. The cool air of the draft that invariably plagues this room is an incredible relief as it raises goosebumps on his skin.
“We are extremely intoxicated, I think,” Essek says in monotone.
Caleb snorts. “I mean, I would not say 'extremely.' If this is 'extremely intoxicated' in your book, you are lucky you were not traveling with us in our early days. There was about a week in Hupperdook that makes this look like half a glass of wine with dinner.”
Essek stares at him in genteel dismay. “That sounds completely ghastly."
Caleb finds the mental wherewithal to look up at Essek.
The man is unrepentantly staring at Caleb, looking for all the world like he’s trying to solve some sort of equation. “You're bright red, Caleb,” Essek says, frowning. “I mean, is this… normal? Is this a color you should be?”
“You are the color of an eggplant right now,” Caleb ripostes, glaring at him. “Is this a color you should be?”
“I don’t know what that is,” Essek asserts haughtily.
“Une aubergine,” Caleb clarifies in Marquesian.
“Then why didn’t you just say so?” Essek says, pretending he’s unbothered. “...That is within the gamut of the physiologic norm for drow, though.”
Caleb snorts. “This has been… this has been a very weird day,” he avers.
“Very,” Essek sighs.
The drow is fidgeting uncomfortably with his robes, a look of consternation creasing his delicate features. Caleb cannot claim he is a terribly emotionally intelligent person, but he is currently fairly certain that Essek is agonizing over the profound shame entailed by taking any one of about six basic measures to be slightly more comfortable. It’s rather cute.
“You do not have to sit there sweating in your silly mantle and half a dozen layers of clothing,” Caleb points out. “I know theoretically that there is a tunic and leggings underneath all of that, and Imperials do not have any issue seeing their friends wearing such things.”
“You are out of your mind,” Essek mutters with narrowed eyes.
Caleb chuckles at that. “What, do you think this is my entire plan? A year-long espionage campaign conducted for the sole purpose of seeing the spymaster of this realm in his shirtsleeves? Get over yourself.”
Essek lets out a breathy huff of a laugh. Caleb realizes with a jolt of anxiety that he’s half-hard just sitting a few feet away from this man fully clothed.
Oh, gods, why am I asking if he wants to take the mantle off? This is already entirely out of hand, and I’ve no idea how to get things back under control.
“Fuck it,” Essek groans, and then he is reaching up to undo the hooks and stays that secure the mantle in place.
Caleb has never actually seen Essek without some version of this garment. He is unable to look away as Essek effortlessly removes the surprisingly heavy thing and sets it out expertly on the arm of the couch.
“The gravity cantrip and the mantle,” Caleb says cheekily. “Is there anything else you do to seem bigger than you really are?”
Caleb is entirely expecting the man to bite back with some riposte. What he gets instead is the thrill of seeing that self-assured mask slip for a moment as Essek’s jaw drops. “You wretched creature,” the drow breathes.
They stare at each other for a drawn-out, perilous moment, a moment in which so many words pass between the two, unspoken.
Then Essek tears his eyes away. “Caleb,” he tenders seriously, “I get the sense that we are very nigh upon making fools of ourselves. I would suggest you lock the door so that we can at least do so without anyone else wandering in.”
Caleb’s eyes widen. “Ah. Are you… sure?” He doesn’t even know what he’s asking.
Essek rolls his eyes. “I am not sure about anything—save that I would prefer that our current predicament remain a shared mutual embarrassment that we will both take to our graves.”
Caleb laughs. Getting to his feet, he walks over to the door. He turns the lock and throws two basic wards on it—not enough to stop someone determined, but enough that his friends will get the message.
He turns to look at Essek from the doorway. It would be such an innocuous gesture in any ordinary circumstance, but in their current state, it feels predatory. Essek is frozen, doe-eyed, his fingers on the top button of his outer robes as he looks back at Caleb.
He’s so lovely like this. He’s always attractive—but when he loses that usual confident bluster it’s hard to tear my eyes away.
Moving with measured, silent strides, Caleb comes back over to the divan. He slips into his seat, leaning back and watching Essek. He takes a long moment to look the man up and down. “Are you going to take that off?” he whispers.
There is a suspended moment where their eyes are locked. Caleb forgets how to breathe. The only sound is the rush of his blood in his ears.
“You know what?” Essek murmurs. “Why not? I took off the mantle, and now you’ve thrown down the gauntlet.” He smirks. “Gods, I am out of my mind—and so are you, hm?”
“Apparently?” Caleb replies with a laugh.
Essek’s eyes deflect down to the safety of the patterned chintz upholstery that covers the divan between them. He uses precise movements to open up the top buttons of his robes.
Caleb watches in interest as a simple cream-colored silk shirt appears bit by bit. “Where did you get such an Imperial-styled shirt?” he asks.
“Well, I’ve had to spend a little time in Nicodranas recently, and needed more comfortable layers to put under the usual outfit expected of a man of my rank. Unlike some people, I’m not allergic to buying new things.”
“Allergic,” Caleb muses, “is a very rich thing to call a poor person who does not have enough clothes.”
“You aren’t poor,” Essek scoffs. “You have a home in the middle of Rosohna!”
“I have a home in the middle of Rosohna that you gave me,” Caleb says, eyes twinkling.
“Stop willfully misconstruing the Bright Queen’s favor as my own,” Essek contests.
Caleb isn’t listening. He’s raptly watching as the lower buttons of the robe part. Then Essek pauses, his hands unmoving as he clearly struggles with whatever social complexity divesting himself of this outer garment seems to entail. Caleb climbs easily to his feet, and goes to fetch one of the wooden hangers Kingsley had brought in with the clothes he’d gifted Caleb the other morning.
When he returns to stand before Essek, he holds out the hanger, expectant. Essek swallows hard. Slowly, a look of guilt on his flushed face, he slips the robe from his shoulders.
Caleb can’t breathe, he can’t speak, he can’t think. Why is the soft rustle of Essek’s clothing such a thrill? Why is the look of vulnerability in Essek’s eyes so exciting?
Caleb accepts the robe when Essek hands it to him, and busies himself with hanging it up. He steals one more glance at Essek, who looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. Even that seems inexorably attractive.
Caleb frowns. “...This stuff is getting to me,” he mutters. “I—I do not feel like myself.”
Essek actually looks immensely relieved at this pronouncement. “Oh, gods,” he says, “I’m glad it isn’t just me. I just keep thinking…” and he trails off, his color even darker.
Caleb doesn’t even know how to process that. He goes to hang up Essek’s lovely purple and gold robe, then goes over to the large trunk in the corner and starts heaping blankets and furs by the empty grate. He needs somewhere else to sit; being too close to Essek seems an untenable risk right now.
“This isn’t precisely my area of research,” Caleb puts forward, “but I have a few volumes that deal with the practicalities of toxins like these—"
“Were you planning on spending the night here?” Essek asks worriedly, gesturing to the pile of textiles Caleb is amassing.
“We might be stuck here for a while,” Caleb states, careful to keep his tone dispassionate. He leans down to the grate, and reduces the number of logs stacked there by two thirds before using his flame cantrip to light a crackling amber blaze.
“Why are you lighting a fire?” Essek groans. “It’s sweltering!”
“I understand that it feels sweltering,” Caleb asserts as he uses a poker to ensure the logs can’t catch too quickly, “but our bodies can get as cold as they do ordinarily and suffer the same consequences. If I do not light a fire, there is a terrible draft through the flue. I am unwilling to find out what will become of me in this town if I am responsible for the Shadowhand catching his death of cold.”
Essek snorts at the idea that he, great and powerful lord of this realm, favorite of the Bright Queen, has a physical body that can get sick.
What was I saying? Caleb thinks. Ah. Yes. He suddenly has to focus himself assiduously on setting out the furs and blankets to his satisfaction. You have to say this. You must, or anything that transpires from here will be a great deal worse than just embarrassing.
“What I must say next,” he advances, “is horribly unpleasant, but needs to be said.”
“I know what sort of toxin this is,” Essek replies in monotone. “Need we really put so fine a point on it?”
Caleb continues doggedly on. “Now, if we are lucky, it will wear off in twelve to forty-eight hours without us having to do anything—"
Essek makes a strangled, wordless sound of horror.
“—Or if we are unlucky, we will need a partner before the enchantment will leave us in peace.”
He hears Essek’s head thump against the back of the couch.
“Now, I am partially immunized against such things,” Caleb puts forth. “Please, please tell me that you have also had—"
Essek interjects, “You are partially immunized against such things... why? As a consequence of occupational risk, recreational enjoyment, or...?"
Caleb shoots him a dark look. “...As a consequence of my education, at the behest of my dearly departed former master. It was standard for us to be exposed to any common toxin that could leave us unduly impaired in the course of our fieldwork—"
“He—he put you through that?”
Caleb grimaces. “That sort of thing was the least of his insults,” he mutters, looking back into the flames.
“An insult,” Essek spits, “is a word or action intended to offend. That is… not an insult, and certainly not a thing you do to children, Caleb.”
“There were a lot of things like that which happened to us back then,” Caleb explains quietly.
There is a stretch of silence between the two men, neither of them quite looking at the other.
After a time, Caleb comes to settle beside Essek on the divan once more. Essek is looking down at his hands, which is probably for the best. Caleb can’t quite face the man, either. Being near Essek is difficult, a constant distraction. It’s just that sitting by himself is worse.
In favor of staring at all of the far more bothersome things about Essek’s person, Caleb finds his eyes fixed on the place where the man’s collar has folded itself over strangely in the course of him shedding his mantle and outer robe.
Essek lets out a long, slow breath. When he speaks, his voice is the barest whisper. “I think I’m losing my mind. I don’t know how I am supposed to last hours in this state.”
Caleb feels heat spike through him. It suddenly feels like his skin is too tight, like there isn’t enough air in the room.
He wants so badly to reach out and touch Essek that he could scream.
I remember deciding to sit somewhere else; why am I back here beside the man? I need to get a grip on myself.
Impulsively, he reaches out to refold the part of Essek’s collar that is vexing him. When his fingers brush the bare skin of the man’s neck beneath the cloth, Essek makes a helpless little sound, his wide eyes meeting Caleb’s in his shock. His ears have fallen forward in a submissive posture that Caleb has only ever seen elven ears take when a naughty child is being scolded in the street.
“Oh,” is what Caleb says softly, surprised. “That—that felt good, ja? Even that small touch?”
Essek nods, dumbstruck.
“May I ?” Caleb asks, cautiously reaching out again. “You can simply ask me to stop or pull away if it becomes too much.”
Essek takes a deep breath. Silently, he nods, his lashes falling closed.
“Good,” Caleb whispers. He is unsure if he is trying to soothe Essek or himself.
His fingers move slowly to the nape of the other man's neck, trailing down from his hairline to under the collar. He feels Essek shudder, feels the way goosebumps rise on his flesh. It suddenly feels as if they are in a universe comprising just the two of them.
Caleb scoots closer to Essek. He isn’t yet bold enough to press his side against the other man’s side, but he needs to see every bit as much as he needs to touch. His fingers lazily trace little fragments of somatic elements against the soft skin of the back of Essek’s neck, at times delving beneath the silk of the cream-colored collar.
Essek’s breathing has picked up. His lovely pale lashes are fanned out on his cheeks, fluttering sometimes as Caleb works to learn exactly what will make the man take those surprised breaths that make his heart skip a beat. Essek is ordinarily so difficult to parse, but the state he is in now has left the closed book of his inner workings open and unattended—and Caleb is nothing if not an avid reader.
It seems it is the moments when Caleb’s fingertips steal beneath Essek’s collar that provoke tantalizing glimpses of emotion to flit across his face before he manages to lock his expression down again. At one particular shift of Essek's body, one singular moment when one of his sharp incisors presses into his lip and he lets out a sigh, something in Caleb snaps. Still stroking Essek's skin, he reaches up with with his other hand and precisely, delicately grasps the top button of Essek’s shirt.
Essek’s eyes fly open and he gasps. Caleb meets his gaze with a fiery intensity. He draws the moment out, waiting to see if Essek is going to pull away or tell him off.
Essek says nothing. Instead, he watches Caleb like a rabbit in a trap, caught somewhere between terror and awe. It’s an expression Caleb would ordinarily be more apt to carefully examine before continuing—but right now he lacks the self control. Slowly, deliberately, he slips open the top button of Essek’s shirt. Essek draws a sharp breath—but he doesn’t pull away.
Can I? Caleb wonders. Can I keep going?
He parts the collar, taking a moment to stroke the skin he’s bared. His fingertips brush up and down, up and down—and then settle on the next button.
Essek is staring right at him, unwavering, meeting his challenge. They’re embroiled so utterly in their mutual fascination that looking away isn't even a possibility. Essek shifts slightly, as though he wants to press himself closer to Caleb but can’t find the courage.
Caleb slips the next button free, and now he’s bared enough of Essek’s skin to part the collar properly. He starts to stroke along his collarbone and dip his fingers into the scintillating declivities etched below, exploring the contours he finds with an ardent curiosity that borders on devotion. The feeling of Caleb’s touch under his clothes is what finally makes Essek release a sound which can only be described as a whimper. His fingers dig into Caleb’s knee.
Caleb can’t hold back the soft groan that this unambiguous gesture of desire draws from him. He steals a glance at the man’s lap and sees the undeniable evidence of his arousal. He scoots closer, pressing his thigh against Essek’s thigh.
“You make me want so many things, Essek,” Caleb whispers in his ear. “You make me want to take things I shouldn’t take.”
Essek closes his eyes and bites his lip. “I—" he begins, “I—I don’t know if that’s an accurate assessment, Caleb.”
Caleb’s whole body feels hot. He can’t stop exploring the gorgeous expanse of skin he’s exposed, moving now to stroke along the sensitive flesh of Essek’s throat. His touch drags a choked sound from Essek that makes Caleb’s cock throb where it sits neglected in his trousers.
Caleb runs teasing fingers lightly up and down Essek’s throat as he tries to decide where he’s going to kiss him first, how he’s going to get the loveliest sound from Essek’s lips using his own. When he remembers the way Essek reacted when he whispered in his ear, he smiles.
Too much jewelry, though, he thinks. I will need to do something about that first.
He reaches up with his unoccupied hand and deftly plucks the mithril cap from Essek’s ear. The gasp that Essek makes then, the way his whole body jerks—it’s incredible.
“Was that okay?” Caleb murmurs.
“Caleb, I—" Essek lets out a breathless, shocked laugh. “I cannot believe you. You are ridiculous.”
Caleb frowns, pulling back to see Essek’s face. “Was that the wrong thing to do?”
“Very much so,” Essek laughs, though he looks like he means nothing of the sort. Examining Caleb’s face now, he moves briefly through confusion to a look of realization. “Ah. Yes. You—you did not mean it that in the way in which I took it, of course.”
“Which way did you take it?” Caleb asks cautiously.
He hadn’t realized it was possible for Essek to flush a deeper shade of purple. Very softly, not quite meeting Caleb’s eyes, the drow elucidates, “A man’s jewelry is a sign of his submission to his wife and his mother, a sign of chastity and purity. It—ah—removing it is usually something reserved for… a wedding night.”
Caleb can’t help but grin, though he’s sure he’s turned quite red himself now. “Oh dear. I hope I do not need to pause our activities to go ask your mother for your hand in marriage.”
“Please do not do that,” Essek smirks, returning Caleb’s gaze mischievously. “I need you alive.”
“Do you now?” Caleb inquires, quirking an eyebrow. “May I continue, Essek?”
“Gods, yes,” Essek mutters.
Caleb delicately takes Essek’s chin between his finger and thumb. He regards the man for a moment, drinking in his expression, his uncharacteristic submissiveness in the setting of this strange interlude. Then he turns Essek's head, and presses a soft kiss to his ear.
“Oh,” is the sound that Essek makes.
Caleb likes that. He likes that quite a bit. Keeping Essek positioned just as he wants him, he presses a slightly louder kiss to his ear now, and he is rewarded when Essek’s whole body squirms at the sensation.
Elven ears, Caleb thinks, a sense of giddiness overcoming him. I had assumed the romance novels were rather overselling the whole matter—but perhaps in these odd circumstances, fiction might be closer to the truth.
He lets out a huff of breath into Essek’s ear before licking a wet stripe up from his earlobe right up to the pointed tip. Essek draws a huge gasp, his back arching. He’s suddenly pressed up as close to Caleb as he can get.
“Good?” Caleb whispers in his ear.
Essek gives the most minute nod. Caleb can feel his chest heaving, can feel the way he’s a little shaky now.
“More?” Caleb asks.
Another nod. Caleb presses a kiss to his ear, loud and slightly lewd, and then he pulls the lobe of it into his mouth. His teeth close on it ever-so-gently, clicking against the metal of the piercing there.
Essek lets out another delicious little, “Oh.”
Caleb sucks, sometimes letting his teeth close so he can tug on Essek’s flesh. He first focuses on the lobe before working his way up, carefully exploring the cartilage as he makes his way toward the pointed tip—the part of Essek that was supposed to stay covered, the part of him only Caleb gets to see.
“Has anyone ever done this to you before?” Caleb whispers to the man.
“Fuck off, Caleb,” Essek gasps.
“They haven’t, have they?” Caleb murmurs. “Gods, Essek.”
“I mean, not this,” Essek mutters. “I’ve bedded someone before, you upstart.”
The words hit Caleb hard, sending another bolt of arousal through him. He redoubles his efforts, nibbling on the sensitive cartilage delicately before pausing to blow on the wet skin. When Essek whimpers and squirms for him again, he pulls the point into his mouth and sucks.
“Fuck!” Essek exclaims, his whole body going rigid, and Caleb has to hold him still. “Oh, oh, dear holy Light, Caleb—"
Caleb’s mind has gone blank of everything except his monomaniacal focus on the man pressed up against him, the task he’s been given, the will to give Essek all his attention for as long as the man will let him.
He realizes as Essek presses closer, almost taking refuge in the warmth of his body, that he needs to remember that the man is a bit worse off than he is. With a clarity of mind that has so far eluded him, he recognizes the trust that this entire scenario has required the drow to place in him. Essek is so vulnerable like this, caught up in a lust that might not entirely be his own—and Caleb will need to care for him in this state.
Caleb gives Essek more of this sensation he clearly craves—soft lips, hot and tight around the tip of his ear; tongue lathing at the exquisitely sensitive point. Then he pulls off with a wet sucking sound and draws back slightly.
“Essek,” he says, and gods, he realizes he sounds rough already. “I do not want to take anything that is not mine to have. I—I do not know how much of this you would want if we were not as fucked up as we are right now. So I will need you to tell me what you want, how much you are willing to let me do.” He takes a breath. “There is a lot that I want right now—indeed, there has been a lot I have wanted for quite some time.”
There is a pause in Essek’s breathing, a moment in which Caleb feels his lust almost entirely subsumed by his complete humiliation at having let such a thing spill heedlessly from his lips.
Essek turns to look into his eyes. “Caleb,” he murmurs, “how are you so intelligent yet so stupid.” He lets his forehead fall against the other man’s. “I—I have practically thrown myself at you several times now—"
“When!?” Caleb sputters.
“I—shut up. Just shut up.” Essek is laughing now, breathy and hot against Caleb’s lips as he cradles his face in his hands. “Gods, you idiot, please just do whatever you’re willing to do with me, anything you want you can have—"
“I want to make you come,” Caleb blurts out.
“Then make me,” Essek whispers, a challenge.
Caleb feels like his whole body is on fire. He sweeps his hand up the inside of Essek’s thigh.
“Oh, fuck,” Essek gasps, instantly parting his legs to give Caleb room. His fingers are digging into Caleb’s knee hard enough that he must be leaving little pink marks there.
Caleb wants those marks. He wants to reduce Essek to the kind of state in which he won’t be able to hold back. He wants to kiss Essek, to make Essek break down and beg, to feel his thighs quake as he climaxes.
“Kätzchen,” Caleb whispers, lips brushing the man’s ear, “I want you to undress, then sit in my lap so I can touch you. Will you do that?”
Essek nods. He seems hesitant to relinquish Caleb’s touch, but he stands. The nimble, clever fingers Caleb has watched cast for so long begin to undo the buttons of his shirt. Caleb lets a long, shaky breath out as he watches hungrily. Every inch of skin Essek bares is a new revelation, another holy secret that Caleb gets to keep.
This time, when Essek gets to the last button he shrugs off the garment heedlessly, tossing it on the ground behind him with an uncharacteristic lack of regard for both modesty and neatness. His hand does hesitate at the lacing of his soft, heliotrope-hued leggings, but only for the briefest instant. He undoes the pants and slides them down over his slim hips, looking down as he does, bashful.
“Perfect,” Caleb breathes. “Come here—now.”
Essek is astride his thighs so quickly that Caleb has to take a surprised breath.
“Why haven’t we done this before?” Essek asks as he experimentally plays with Caleb’s spats before using them to tug their bodies closer together.
“Because you are a sexually repressed priss?” Caleb teases.
“You are unbelievable,” Essek purrs. “Now, Caleb? Really? Insults now?”
Caleb can’t handle that voice. He can’t handle much of anything when Essek is so close, when he can feel the man’s warmth on his skin, his hardness pressed against him. He strokes his hands possessively up Essek's thighs before exploring the soft curves of his buttocks, kneading the flesh there. Caleb uses using his control over the smaller man to grind Essek down against his still-clothed cock.
“You know,” Caleb murmurs as he rolls his hips up against Essek, “I know you’re normally more authoritative—and for the record, I am ordinarily happy with any role I find myself in when I am in bed, including being dominated. I think in this case it is clear you obviously got the higher dose of this toxin.”
“Either that, or I’ve had a long-standing problematic fantasy about a rogue Volstrucker pinning me down and taking what he wants from me,” Essek breathes.
“For the love of all gods, Essek,” Caleb groans. “You will kill me if you continue to speak this way—and what will you do then?" He presses wet, open-mouthed kisses to the smooth violet skin of the man’s chest and neck as he reaches out for his coat where it sits on the other end of the divan. His fingers rummage automatically through the familiar folds until he finds the pocket with the sweet oil he keeps around for when Jester invariably forgets her own component pouch and needs to cast Suggestion.
“Why do you keep that around?” Essek says, looking at the bottle of oil with a mischievous smirk.
“For two very good reasons, apparently,” Caleb says, grinning up at him.
“Give me that,” Essek mutters, snatching it from him. He uncorks it, and the faint smell of cinnamon wafts up. “...If this burns when I put it on my skin I will cast Teleport straight back to my tower and leave you to find someone else to fuck.”
“I assure you with complete confidence that it will not burn,” Caleb says with a puckish smile.
“Which you know purely from academic research, I am sure,” is Essek's droll reply.
Essek drips some oil in his palm before he corks the bottle and drops it on the divan beside him. He lets himself fall forward to rest against Caleb as he reaches behind himself, and the reality of exactly how far this tryst is going to go hits Caleb like a blow. It’s so overwhelming that he is momentarily rendered mute and daft. His hands grip Essek’s hips a bit too hard as he gazes up at the man in awe.
Essek’s eyes are shut tight, his teeth digging into his lower lip. Caleb listens to the soft, wet sounds of Essek’s hand working behind him as rain begins to patter on the roof. He realizes it is getting dark. With a careless wave of his hand he lights a few candles that sit in a cluster on his desk across the room, then lights the rest of the logs in the hearth with a crackle.
“Hot,” Essek murmurs, lips curved in a soft smile.
“Was that a pun, Essek Thelyss?” Caleb laughs. “Do we need to stop? You seem to have lost your customary death grip on reality.”
“Fucking prick,” Essek mutters.
Caleb reaches behind the man now, his fingertips exploring the cleft between his cheeks. He is drawn inexorably to touch where he finds Essek’s fingers thrusting in and out, preparing himself.
For me. He’s doing this for me. “You want me to fuck you, ja?” Caleb asks. It comes out sounding raw.
“What gave it away?” Essek groans.
Caleb uses both his thumbs to spread Essek as he fucks himself with his fingers. The man moans softly, grinding his cock against Caleb’s belly like he can’t help himself.
Caleb lets go of him long enough to get the bottle of oil, get some on his fingers, then quickly cork it again. Now he uses his fingertips to delicately stroke from the small of Essek’s back down to where he again enjoys the thrill of feeling as Essek penetrates himself. He draws long, spine-tingling strokes and circles around his rim. Then on the next stroke, he slips in a finger alongside Essek’s own.
Essek’s back arches at the sensation and he gasps loudly. He quickly slips his fingers out, resting his sweat-slicked forehead against Caleb’s as he pants. His hands come to grip Caleb’s shoulders tightly as he cants his hips back, making it clear exactly what he’s asking for. Caleb goes back to just rubbing Essek and spreading him, wanting this to last, wanting to make him feel every bit of pleasure he can wring out of him.
“Please,” Essek whispers. “Please, Caleb.”
Caleb takes a deep breath, because he needs to ask for what he wants.
“Essek,” he whispers, “will you humor me and let me kiss you while I do this?”
Essek opens his eyes and stares at him in surprise. “Oh, yes,” he whispers. “I had just assumed you didn’t—ah, you hadn’t yet, so I thought….”
Caleb wants to get this part right, so he holds off a moment longer, taking in Essek’s face, trying to memorize everything he sees and feels and hears in this moment. He tightens the arm he has around Essek's waist, pulling him closer. When they are nose to nose, he pauses, licks his lips, and closes the last bit of distance.
It starts as a simple press of lips, sweet and chaste, but the moment Caleb gives Essek a flick of his tongue, he feels the shiver that goes through the man. Essek parts his lips, and Caleb deepens the kiss. Essek tastes like the licorice cosmetic that he’s used to make his lovely lips even softer. He pants into Caleb’s mouth as Caleb continues to finger him, teasing with a press of his fingers and then drawing back in a way that at last drags a frustrated sound from Essek.
Breaking their lips apart, Essek stutters, “C-caleb?” It’s just one little word, but it says all he means to.
“Shh, yes,” Caleb says, planting a gentle kiss on his lips. “I know what you need from me."
The word need seems to set off something in Essek, something that makes him grind his hips up against the man beneath him. “Please, Caleb,” he begs.
I could never say no to you.
Caleb’s eyes meet Essek’s as he begins to press inside him. He is able to start with two fingers, drinking it in when the man groans at the stretch. Essek’s hands come to tangle in Caleb’s hair, and Caleb continues to press deeper.
“Oh, oh,” Essek gasps. “Yes—gods—" Caleb feels the man’s thighs clench, feels the hands in his hair grow painfully tight as he fully sheathes his fingers in Essek. “Caleb,” is the word that tears itself from Essek’s throat then, and it’s perfect, it’s the best thing Caleb has ever heard.
“You have already given me so much more than I deserve,” the human says fervently.
“Idiot,” Essek mutters. “Idiot. Brilliant idiot. So close to the truth, and yet you still have it entirely upside-down.”
Caleb tightens his arm around Essek’s waist. Then he starts to thrust, pulling little choked noises and whines from Essek as the man twitches around his digits, trying to accept the intrusion.
Soon he has Essek where he wants him. He can feel the man’s physical reaction to every sensation he gives him, can feel his thighs tense with every shove of his fingers. Essek is trying to hold back the sounds he wants to make, but with every passing minute, it’s gotten harder and harder.
Caleb had rather fancied making Essek come like this before he’d undressed himself, but when Essek starts to release these keening sounds from deep in his throat, he realizes with a stunning immediacy that he can’t wait.
“Essek,” he says, and he withdraws his fingers.
Essek groans, needy, so turned on he can’t even form words and instead has to implore Caleb with his eyes.
How did I believe for a moment that a man this beautiful needs words to get his way?
“Undress me,” Caleb orders.
Essek stands up, his lithe body so effortlessly elegant, and then he sinks to his knees before Caleb. His shaky hands quickly open Caleb’s laces, and then he’s helping the human wriggle out of his breeches as Caleb hurries to make quick work of his shirt.
When Caleb is nude before him, he realizes Essek is staring. “Dear gods,” the elf says. “I—I mean, are all humans hung this way?”
Caleb laughs, flushing at the implication. “I am average,” he explains awkwardly.
“Such a way it is that I have chosen to die,” Essek mutters, leaning down to nuzzle his cheeks against Caleb’s parted thighs.
Caleb gently tangles fingers in Essek’s blond locks, pulling him back. “None of that,” he admonishes. “I want to be able to last more than thirty seconds inside you, if I may.” He smiles. “Ideally, I want to make you come as soon as I can. Maybe I can make you come twice this evening.”
Essek briefly looks down at the divan between Caleb’s thighs, suddenly abashed. “Ah. I am trying to figure out a way to say this adroitly." He pauses. "I suspect… I suspect that the natural philosophical way to explain this toxin’s evolution is likely fungal-animal dispersive mutualism, where, ah, the animal in question breathes in the spores, then disperses them in return for a powerful pheromonal stimulus to copulate. This is inherently meant to induce the sort of behavior that will create more of both types of commensal organism—"
Caleb tilts Essek’s chin up with his fingers, smiling devilishly. “Essek, my head is not getting very much blood right now; I am going to need you to state that more plainly.”
“I am trying to figure out how to say this without completely debasing myself,” Essek grumbles.
Caleb lets the silence stretch out before he whispers, “I want you to debase yourself.”
Essek swallows hard, looking down again. “Ah… based on how I feel right now,” he continues softly, “based on what I want and how desperately I want it—I think I need you to—to come inside me before I’ll be able to finish.”
Caleb blinks. “Oh,” he breathes. “...That—that is a very, very easy request to fulfill.” He suddenly thinks he’s going to die if he doesn’t get to fuck this man in the next ten seconds. “Come here. Now. On my lap—but face the other way. I want to be able to play with your cock as I fuck you.”
“Can you please try not to say things like that?” Essek groans, gazing up at him with a feverish intensity. “I might actually go mad.”
He rises to his feet. Caleb’s hands quickly find his hips, his touch rougher and more urgent than he means to be. The drow lets Caleb guide him to turn, then sinks down to straddle his thighs.
“You are gorgeous,” Caleb whispers as he plants a wet kiss on the man’s ear, making the curved point twitch and Essek's breath stutter.
Following the tutelage of Caleb’s hands, Essek rises up on his knees. Caleb guides his cockhead to the man’s opening, and feels slightly concerned at their relative proportions now that he’s holding him like this. “I hope I did enough to get you ready,” he says, and just to be sure he slips two fingers inside Essek. “You are still rather tight, are you sure—?"
“Yes!” Essek exclaims. “Dear gods!”
“Very well,” Caleb concedes. I am fooling myself if I think I’ve got the restraint to wait another second.
When Caleb starts to press his cock slowly into Essek’s incredible tightness, Essek makes a sound like he’s been struck.
“Caleb,” the man moans, needy and almost bratty. Caleb's keen mind immediately supplies that this one word is, in fact, the hottest thing he's ever heard.
The wriggles of Essek’s hips as he’s penetrated by a cock that’s much larger than what he’s likely used to are enough to make Caleb feel like an animal—but in no way enough to make him stop. The next sound that comes from Essek’s mouth is such a filthy, feral moan that something decompresses in Caleb’s mind. He gives in to this intoxicating feeling, this pull to take Essek as fast and as hard as he likes. He grips the man’s hips and starts to pull him down. He feels his cock head finally pop through the inner ring of muscle. Essek throws back his head as he takes a deep, shuddering breath, the muscles of his thighs suddenly taut.
“I am going to keep going,” Caleb says hurriedly, and that’s all the warning he’s got the strength to give before he can’t take it any longer. He yanks Essek’s hips all the way down into his lap.
Essek yelps so loudly that he immediately presses his hand over his own mouth in shock. He’s twitching around Caleb, chest heaving as he struggles to adjust to being filled. There is a drumbeat that is driving Caleb forward. Something deeply possessive in him flares to life. He wants to make Essek come with his cock buried inside him. He wants Essek to come in his hand crying out his name.
“Gods,” Caleb breathes, his arm tightening around Essek’s waist, because he wants him closer, he wants all of him. He wants to possess him.
You make me want to take things that I shouldn’t.
Somehow, through either an incredible force of will or some small boon granted by the toxin spurring both of them on, Essek’s body already seems to be relaxing. When he rests his back against Caleb’s chest with a groan, at last letting his full weight rest on Caleb’s thighs, it’s Caleb’s turn to whimper.
Essek lets his head fall back onto Caleb’s shoulder so he can steal a look at the man beneath him. “Oh, Caleb,” he sighs. “You are a fucking disaster, aren’t you?”
“Completely,” Caleb manages to eke out.
“Just fuck me already,” Essek groans. “I just—I need more, I need to get off, for the love of the Light and Lolth and the queen—"
At those words, Caleb can’t help himself; he wraps his arms around the man as tight as he can and begins to suck a mark onto his throat.
You make me want to keep things that aren’t mine.
Essek turns his head toward Caleb, his arm reaching back so he can tangle his fingers in the man’s hair. Then he pulls him into an urgent, artless kiss.
Caleb starts to roll his hips, and Essek moans helplessly into his mouth, his whole body quaking around Caleb as the human strokes his thighs. Caleb thinks that Essek must not realize the exact angle that he’s arranged their bodies in, because when he lifts the man’s hips the drow doesn’t even try to brace himself for what’s about to happen.
Caleb breaks their lips apart to watch the man’s face, then pulls him back down all at once, hitting the precise angle he means to. Essek shouts so loudly that Caleb has to clamp his hand over the man’s mouth.
“Shhh,” Caleb laughs against his ear, making him release a muffled moan. “Dairon might be resolved to ignore us, but the neighbors are going to start telling tales.”
The human lets his hand fall so that he can wrap a covetous arm under one of Essek’s arms and hook it over his opposite shoulder, completely taking control of his movements. Then he wraps his other hand around Essek’s cock and gets to work breaking the man into a million little pieces.
Oh, the minutes that transpire from there are a strung-out, glorious masterpiece, delight upon delight linked together like an unending string of dancing lights. Essek’s body starts to accept Caleb readily, and Caleb loses all compunction about moderation, doing precisely as he pleases with the man. It is incredible, feeling Essek shake and moan, feeling how he responds so effortlessly to every thrust and every caress. Every time Caleb moves his hips, guiding him up then pulling him back down, Essek releases these wordless sounds of pleasure that make Caleb wish this moment could just go on. He wishes he could skip back and start over and over and over again the way Essek sometimes coyly implies he will teach Caleb to do.
Soon, Essek’s whole body is taut as a bowstring—and finally he lets out a sound of frustration. “It—it feels so good,” he groans. “I just—I think—gods damn it, I really do think I need you to come first. This fucking toxin, damn it, this is such a debacle!”
Caleb feels a sudden jolt of desire. It’s such a strange, primal sort of prerogative: to focus entirely on finishing. He presses a kiss on Essek’s ear the way he knows will make the man tremble. “Can I fuck you a little harder?” he pants. He’s ragged, so very close to the edge.
“Yes,” Essek gasps. “Please, yes!"
Caleb pushes him back up and pulls him back down fast and hard. The next rough thrust sees Essek throw back his head, and Caleb lavishes kisses on his neck.
“Yes,” Essek moans. “Gods, yes, I feel like I could have come twice already. Just finish, you bastard!"
“I have never wanted anything more,” Caleb says against his skin, “than I want to make you come with me inside you.”
“Please,” Essek begs. “Please, Caleb, I’m so close, I’m so close!"
As he fucks Essek with rough, deep strokes, Caleb takes the man’s prick in hand in earnest. The sensation makes Essek keen and writhe on his cock.
“There you are,” Caleb tells him, barely able to speak. “Good. Just feel me. Just like that.”
Caleb hammers his hips upward as he bounces the drow up and down, feeling as Essek’s thighs tighten as his body quakes with pent-up need.
If Caleb is perfectly honest with himself, he’s thought about this—he's thought about this a lot. He’s thought about what it would feel like to fuck Essek, about what the man would look like and sound like when he was close—but this moment somehow puts his wildest fantasies to shame.
“I feel like you were made for me,” Caleb whispers in his ear.
Essek throws his head back once more, looking right into Caleb’s eyes. What he replies is, “I think I was.”
Caleb’s orgasm breaks over him and it feels like all the breath is knocked from his lungs. As he frantically shoves his cock up into Essek, he feels Essek tense as though his body had just been waiting for Caleb’s release. Essek cries out so loudly that Caleb's attempt to kiss him quiet proves useless. His whole body shakes, his muscles clenching involuntarily around Caleb as he spills into the other man’s hand, painting both of their thighs with his come.
Essek falls back against Caleb, his muscles going slack as he gasps like he was just underwater. Caleb has to catch him and hold him upright. There is an utterly sublime moment when Essek's body is still fluttering around his cock, when Caleb gets to feel exactly how hard he just made Essek come.
When he finds the strength, he eases Essek up just enough to let his cock slip from the man’s body with a wet sound, then settles him back down against his chest. He continues to hold the other man up as he presses kisses to Essek’s neck and whispers words to him in Zemnian, some filthy, some sweet. Essek is warm and pliant in his arms. His breath gradually comes back under his control, but he still doesn't try to move an inch. Caleb gently runs fingers through his hair and traces patterns on his thighs. His touch draws small, satisfied sounds from the drow, who seems consummately content to rest here with his back against Caleb's chest.
Eventually, Caleb realizes he is not only capable of letting Essek go, but that this is probably at some point going to be requested of him. He carefully loosens his grip on the man and shifts beneath him. Essek groans and lets himself spill over onto his back to rest on the divan. Looking up at Caleb through pale lashes, he does a haphazard job of casting to clean them both up.
Suddenly feeling the cramps in his legs, Caleb gets to his feet to stretch. He’d ordinarily feel a bit caught-out, finding himself naked in front of someone as absurdly attractive as Essek, but given what they just did that seems a little ridiculous.
As Caleb walks over to the fire to gather up a few of the blankets he’d abandoned there, Essek says, “I hope you do not mind if I rest a bit,” with a hint of amusement in his tone. “I fear I am in no fit state to be kicked out of your study just yet.”
“Kicked out?” Caleb says, turning to glare at the man. “You must be joking.” Coming back over to the divan, he throws a blanket over him, then climbs under it and coaxes Essek into his arms.
After a moment’s hesitation, Essek folds himself into Caleb’s touch, coming to rest against him like this is natural, like this is something they always do. He gives the most beautiful sigh against Caleb’s skin.
They lie that way for quite some time. Eventually, they both start to get cold. It is as sure a sign as either man could ask for that the poison’s effect is at last leaving them—and yet neither shifts away from the other. Instead, Essek only gets up long enough to go and fetch a couple of the furs from the trunk.
Lying back down, he pulls the warm pelts over them and settles back against Caleb’s chest. “I don’t ordinarily sleep much,” he yawns, “but I think I need to.”
“I do, too,” Caleb admits.
****
It is an awkward morning, to be sure—but not quite as untenable as Caleb’s worried mind had woken him up to needle him about several times in the night.
As Essek walks down the front walk of the Xhorhaus toward the vine-choked front gate, Caleb catches sight of one of his own clean shirts peeking out from under the collar of the man’s formal robes.
At the gate, Essek turns cautiously to look back at him. “Ah, Caleb,” he confides quietly, “I won’t mind in the slightest if you don’t ever want to go to that shop again. But if you did… I wouldn’t be against it.”
Caleb blinks at him in the morning light. “I think I will want to go back,” he replies, voice even. “Just tell me when, and I will be there.”
A flush briefly colors Essek’s cheeks before he schools his expression back to one of indifference. “Very well,” he pronounces. “Enjoy your morning, Mr. Widogast.”
He steps straight through the gate as though opening it is beneath his station, then disappears into thin air. Caleb stands there looking after him for far longer than he will ever admit. Then he turns, and finds every single denizen of the Xhorhaus peering out of the front door or one of the adjacent windows.
He covers his eyes with his hand and groans. Ignoring the tittering and excited conversation between his friends, Caleb shoulders his way through the throng.
As he’s opening the door to his study he hears Kingsley’s voice from the stairs, blurting out, “Wait, did they fuck?” followed by Yasha exclaiming, “Kingsley! Language!”
Caleb slams the door to his study and decides he is going into hiding for no less than a day and quite possibly forever.
Or at least until Essek tells him where he wants to meet.