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Later, Caleb tells himself, he can blame it on residual sleepiness. It’s the middle of the night, six hours since he went to sleep, when Beau rouses him for his watch.
“Essek’s up anyway, you can like nerd out on watch,” she says, as she wriggles her way into the warm spot between Yasha and Caduceus and drops off to sleep like a baby with no worldly concerns.
Caleb rubs his eyes and squints at Essek, popping up a couple globules of light just to be able to see.
“Ah,” Essek starts, squinting a little himself at the sudden light hovering right next to his face.
“I cannot see in the dark,” Caleb says quietly, carefully shifting Veth off his ankles so he can sit next to Essek. He repositions the light so that it doesn’t shine directly into Essek’s eyes. “But the dome is opaque. Nothing outside will see it.”
“Very well then,” Essek says, awkwardly looking away before looking at him again.
They sit in silence for the better part of an hour, neither willing to break the silence. Things still aren’t comfortable yet, though they’re getting there, and it takes some time for Caleb’s brain to catch up with the wakefulness of his body. So perhaps it will be a lie to blame the sequence of events that follows on sleepiness, being mostly awake when it happens, but he’s due a lie or two of his own in this relationship.
He turns to Essek with the intention of expanding on the incident with his old teacher. What comes out of his mouth is not at all related to that. “You have freckles.”
Essek turns to him, violet eyes blinking in confusion. “What?”
“You have freckles,” Caleb repeats softly. They have been this close before, but Caleb has never before noticed the silver freckles scattered across Essek’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose, like unmapped constellations. His fingers twitch in his lap with the urge to touch them.
“I do not,” Essek says, touching his own face, his expression bordering on a pout. “I’m never in the...sun…”
“They are new,” Caleb concludes, watching Essek poke at his own cheeks as if he could feel the freckles just so. “I would not have noticed if we were not so close.”
Essek pauses, visibly considering whether he should move, and Caleb just traces little constellations across Essek’s nose in his mind.
“Well,” Essek says, straightening his shoulders. “You also have freckles.”
“I am a ginger,” Caleb snorts. “Freckles come with the territory.”
Essek mouths the word ‘ginger’ as if trying to divine its meaning in the way that Caleb has used it, his nose wrinkling as he thinks, and Caleb is consumed by the absurd desire to put his mouth on Essek’s face. It is not a new thought, by any means. Most often, he thinks about pressing his mouth to Essek’s mouth, but those are thoughts he has learned to restrain. Restraint fails him tonight.
“Humans with red hair often have freckles,” Caleb says helpfully.
“I see,” Essek says, and now they stare at each other below the gentle glow of the globule that’s hovering between them. “They suit you.”
“Yours are like stars,” Caleb says, and his hand has lifted without his permission, a finger gently tracing one of his imaginary constellations on Essek’s cheek before he can stop himself.
Essek’s cool skin warms under his touch, going a darker shade of purple than usual, delicate hands wringing in his lap. “Oh.”
“I’m sorry,” Caleb says, withdrawing his hand quickly.
“No, it’s… fine. I do not mind,” Essek says, looking down at his fidgeting hands and then up at Caleb again. “I am fine with you touching me.”
Something leaps inside of Caleb’s chest but whatever possessed his hand has abandoned him. “Perhaps when we are not on watch,” he murmurs.
“That would be agreeable.” Essek smiles, a small and nervous thing.
Caleb can do nothing but smile back, and a traitorous, optimistic part of him hopes that there will be a chance for it in the future. Perhaps even more than one.