Work Text:
It was after the fourth yawn that Essek Thelyss realised his human compatriot was tiring past the point of usefulness. He watched in silence as the Zemnian wizard rubbed his eyes and blinked blearily at the scroll fragment in front of him, oblivious to the Drow’s regard. Essek cleared his throat gently.
“My friend, it is clear you are well past the point of exhaustion,” he said gently, laying his dark hands on the human’s wrist.
Caleb Widogast, ex-Empire wizard and hero of the Dynasty lifted his sapphire eyes to look up at him. “Uh, ja... but we are making such progress,” he protested weakly.
“And we will make more come the morrow. I too am tiring,” he lied, to soften the blow to Caleb’s ego. “You need not go too far: my guest room is just down the corridor, and I am happy to have you stay again.”
Caleb considered the options, but knew he would only be wasting precious energy if he bamfed home, only to return at the crack of what passed for dawn in Rosohna, eager to continue the fascinating work they had begun. "Ja, of course, you are right."
Essek watched out of the corner of his eye as he gathered up some of the scraps of parchment they had been using to work out elements of the difficult spell they were attempting to engineer, and banked them neatly in a pile, next to the ink and chalks. “There, and we will get a start as soon as we’ve broken our fast.”
Caleb nodded with a heavy sigh, and rose to his feet. “Thank you, again for your hospitality, Essek.” He followed the pale-haired Drow down the hall to his guest quarters, a comfortable, if sparsely appointed suite of rooms, usually used by his brother, but occasionally by a visiting student, or an acquaintance visiting the city for the first time. It was not the first time Caleb had used the rooms, as he understood the unspoken offer that when their work took them late into the night, Caleb would have a place to rest.
It was a comfortable set of rooms, a small study and a fairly roomy bed chamber, pristine and clean, paneled in warm wood and well-rugged over the stone floors. The chairs in the study were deeply upholstered in a calming blue and green motif, the carved occasional tables exquisitely made. Essek’s tastes had clearly been shaped as one of the Triad Dens, to appreciate all that was fine, old and beautifully crafted. The glass-fronted bookshelves held a few volumes of casual interest, and if he had not been so tired, Caleb would gladly have cracked one to read himself to sleep.
At the inner door of the chambers, Caleb again expressed his thanks with his usual myriad of tiny expressions, wide blue eyes soft and huge in the dim candlelight. With a small smile, Essek nodded his acceptance of the Zemnian wizard’s thanks, and left him to his necessary rest, doing his utmost to keep his thoughts on platonic matters to mute the suddenly thunderous beating of his heart.
He closed off their workroom as he made his way up the tower steps to his study: belying what he had said to Caleb, he was not yet in need of a meditative rest, but he did not want to continue to work alone on the enchantment they had been unravelling together. He cherished these few rare collaborative moments with Caleb’s brilliant mind and imaginative gifts. Instead he picked up a tome off the stack he had been reading, and settled into the deeply upholstered, wide chaise he preferred for this activity. He was less than an hour into a fascinating account of the Arcana Pansophical’s affairs in the previous century when a small movement at the door of his study caught his eye.
He looked up from the beautifully illuminated pages to see the familiar ginger shape of Caleb’s feline familiar peeking around the corner at him. There was a small, questioning cat noise, “Mrrw?”
Essek smiled. He had occasionally wondered what a familiar did when not under the direct influence of their master. It seemed he was about to find out. Setting his book down briefly, he raised a graceful hand and rubbed his fingers together to make a tiny noise of invitation. “Come here, puss puss.”
“Mrew!” The feline obliged, first rubbing his triangular head against Essek’s hand, and then bounding lightly onto the settee beside him. Essek reached his face down to bump his nose against the cat’s, as he had seen Caleb do, numerous times. The cat rubbed the sides of his whiskers against Essek’s cheeks, first one side then the other, making small mews of approval. The faint scent of the cat’s coat was a softness of slow burning embers, the warm glow of perfumed amber, and the ineffable Faewilde, and Essek could not stop a smile from curving his lips. No wonder he had seen Caleb bury his face in the cat's fur and inhale deeply!
He stroked the cat carefully, enjoying the long velvet softness of his ginger coat, and the sleek musculature under it. The cat put his paws up to Essek’s shoulder, and began to knead, claws pulling on the fine spider silk of Essek’s robe. “Oh, no no, not there,” he said as he gently disengaged the claws and lowered his paws back to upholstery at his side.
He reached for his book again as the cat began to curl up, perched on the Drow’s hip, just in reach of his hand. A quiet, content purr rumbled out of the feline, as he curled his tail around himself and settled into a contented sleep. Enjoying the new sensations, Essek continued to let his free hand brush lightly along the cat’s head and back as he read. Eventually the purring stopped.
He did not know when he noticed that the texture of the hairs under his hand changed, but when he looked down it was to see a familiar, auburn haired wizard, head pillowed on Essek’s rather bony hip, and body curled up behind the Drow’s legs, fast asleep.
He initially stopped stroking Caleb’s sleeping head, but as he did not want to alarm him into wakefulness, he allowed himself the smallest stroke, then a gentle exploration. Out of its tie, Caleb’s hair fell into unruly waves, soft and fine under Essek’s wondering hand. His breathing stayed deep and even, and Essek continued to touch, book sliding closed now, forgotten.
He let his fingers follow the noble curve of the other man’s skull, down to his ear, then along his jawline, then back up to start again on the russet silk of his hair. Plying his fingers into the sleekness of his locks, Essek lost himself to cherishing these small but vital sensations, to the purity of the tactile input he received with every small movement of his hand.
Reclining there, finally laying a reverent hand on the man he had found himself doomed to care about more deeply than any other, yet crossed by every circumstance, every possible bar to their finding what each could possibly be to the other... Essek found himself barely breathing, not wanting to think; to weigh or consider; to do anything but feel.
It had taken Caleb’s changing himself into a familiar’s form to finally allow that intimacy both of them clearly craved. Filled with unnameable emotion, Essek’s heart had the strangest sensation: a kind of a sweet, hollow ache, like a bell that had been rung.