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There's a heavy feeling in Essek's throat that carries down into his stomach, like a hot ball of lead, weighing him in his seat as he checks his grade. Seventy-eight percent on his essay on bark composition in reference to elk trees around different lakes. It was a boring essay, one that he wrote while curled against Caleb's side over the course of two hours, something that he is intensely regretting now, as it feels like Hell is trying to pull his heart down and Heaven is trying to lift him up and out of his seat.
"Are you okay, man?" Comes from the seat beside him, and he turns to face Beau. He doesn't quite feel like he tells his body to do that, it more so does it itself. Her dark brows are pinched together and she's glaring at him, which is most-likely her 'concerned' face, knowing Beau.
"Ah, yes, I just, ah, had a thought. Yes. Yes, I am fine." Essek stutters out, his head feeling like cotton, his tongue heavy in his mouth.
"Your thinking face makes you look constipated."
"Thank you, Beauregard, that's nice to hear." Essek snarks. She's probably the last person he wants to discuss feelings with.
"Whatever, dude." Beau waves a dark hand at him, dismissively, but he doesn't miss the gentle look he gives her. It's infuriating, even if it is a kind thing to see from Beau.
-
He sits through Dendrology 204 with his speech-to-text on instead of taking notes, something he's never done before. Jester suggested it, and said it's how she takes all of her notes, but her current gpa does imply that that may not be the best decision. However, when Essek's fingers touch the keys of his laptop, ready to take in information, the feeling of writing something down wrong, the wave of fear that curls in his stomach at having another poor mark makes it hard for him to focus on the lecture. He spends the entire lecture staring at the space between the Smartboard and the wall clock.
The best way to make oneself feel better during a shitty day is coffee, Essek reminds himself, heading off to the Humanities building. There are cafeterias all around campus, but the buzz of the Subway ovens is distracting and the low jabbering of other students frustrates him to no end. The Humanities building has it's own Dunkin Donuts on the main floor, pushed aside between an indoor fountain and the small open space some art classes take place. It's far more common for Essek to come here than he'd like to admit, as the halfling man behind the counter is already getting his iced coffee started when he walks up to the till.
He sits at one of the tables, thankfully the area is quiet, the only other patrons are two women who are bent over laptops, each tapping away furiously. Essek takes a slow sip of his coffee, but the taste feels wrong in his mouth, heavy and sandy as it slips down his throat. Eating when anxious has never been his strong suit. He tries to rationalize with himself - one bad grade, a grade that isn't even that bad, in comparison , to what many other students achieved on his essay, will not send his life crumbling down. Besides, he's not going to become a dendrologist, he's taking the class because of a budding curiosity and Caduceus inviting him to join the gardening committee.
Essek does what he can to distract himself. He sends an email to Verin, asking about his post, how he's doing, if the girl he was with during their last talk has stuck around. He plugs his headphones in and watches a few TikTok videos Jester has sent him, mostly just of cats doing weird things, before he moves on to work on his electromagnetism class. His usual ambition seems to have burnt out in a cloud of worry and stress and before he knows it, he's back to watching cat videos and downing too much coffee for a Thursday afternoon.
But still, the situation persists. He can't change the essay now. He must, as Fjord would say, take the 'L' and move on.
-
It's harder than it should be to move on. Caleb and Essek don't get that much alone time, both being dedicated students of their fields, TAs for 200s level classes, and living in a communal home with a batch of the most chaotic people Essek has ever known. They make the best of it when everyone is out, like tonight, with Beau and Yasha on a date, Jester staying late in the studio, Mollymauk at rehearsal, Veth and Caduceus shopping, and Fjord at a swim team meet, the house is theirs.
Caleb is a handsome man, this is an indisputable truth, but lit under the dim kitchen lights, he looks downright heavenly. He's cooking tonight, a hearty Zemnian potato stew for the cold weather, and Essek would love nothing more than to watch the flexing of his lover's forearms as he, with incredible precision, dices vegetables, but alas. Essek is reading directly from his textbook, his body perched on the small bit of unused counter space, his legs dangling off. His back is sore, and the fuzziness he's carried with him since Dendrology hasn't made it any easier for him to walk throughout the day, especially after leaving his folding cane on the floor of the lecture hall and forgetting about it until he reached Dunkin Donuts.
Caleb adds some of the vegetables to the pot, but not all of them, his keen mind remembering which vegetables take longer, even after all this time. He wipes his hands on a tea-towel before gently placing both of them on Essek's knees, looking up at the drow. Essek smiles, eyes barely leaving the page. It's nice to have Caleb look up at him, given their height difference.
"Shatz?" Comes Caleb's voice, a little apprehensive. His strong thumbs begin to travel up just a few inches and dig into the softer flesh on the outside of Essek's thighs, kneading into the soft flesh there. It does take away some of the stiffness from Essek's body.
"Yes?"
"Have, ah, has something happened?" Caleb asks, gently pushing the textbook down onto Essek's lap. Finally, Essek looks at the human's face. His brows are curved, his thin lips chapped and red, like he's been gnawing on the bottom lip again.
"Why would you think that?"
"You have been very quiet tonight, and I was worried that, um, I may have upset you?" Oh. Essek's still not used to being around people, having his mood shown to others and having it reflected, distorted, back at him in other people's reactions. He loves the Nein, loves them more than he's loved anyone, but their openness with emotions is something that is entirely alien and hard to get used to. Essek releases his hold on the textbook, noting now that he must have been holding the pages so tight as to actually curve them, and gently takes Caleb's face in his hands.
Caleb's cheeks are warm, flushed and rosy, with the scruff from the last few days already a soft poke on Essek's palms. His crooked nose is also pinked, and his bright eyes are full of curiosity.
"No, no, nothing of the sort. I am not, and I believe that I could not be, upset with you." Essek promises, sighing. He leans forward, his back creaking in protest, to rest his forehead against Caleb's.
"You are alright, though?" Caleb's hands run up his legs to hold his hips. When they're like this, forehead pressed to forehead, Essek can hear every soft sound that comes from Caleb's mouth as he tries to wrap Common around a tongue born for Zemnian.
"I have felt rather off all day." Essek admits, letting one hand stroke through Caleb's long hair.
"Ja, Beauregard had mentioned something of the sort. That you were odd in tree class."
"Dendrology, Widogast. And yes, I, er, got a poor mark and have been distracted all day."
"Ja, ja, tree class. What was the mark you were given?'
"I was given a seventy-eight on one of my essays." Essek says, curling in on himself slightly. It's hard to admit this to Caleb, genius Caleb. His partner pulls away but does not go far, just enough to look him in the eyes without going cross-eyed.
"Seventy-eight has you feeling like shit?"
"Well, yes."
"Essek, schatz, you have been sour all day from a mark that is actually very good?" Caleb's fingers begin running comforting circles into his sides.
"But it isn't, it's average at best, and not enough to make a good impression on the professor and it's not high enough to contribute any help to my gpa, it actually does bring it down a good bit and-" Essek begins to ramble, something he had never done before making friends with this odd group, and Caleb cuts him off by holding his hand up.
"Essek, you are not a tree major. This is a class you are taking for fun, to enjoy. You did not even take the intro class, you just threw yourself into the two hundred levels. If you are not enjoying it, you could drop it. And if you are enjoying it, one essay that you deem unsatisfactory will not ruin your educational pursuits. You know this." Caleb reasons, nodding slowly.
"Yes, but..."
"But, what?"
"If I'm not in the top percent of the class, is it worth being there?" Essek wrings his hands the same way his mother would wring his neck if she knew he wasn't the smartest person in the room.
Caleb sighs and turns the burner down on the stew, then places the glass lid on. Essek watches with an unidentifiable sense of satisfaction to see the glass quickly be overtaken by steam and condensation. Caleb nudges his hip with his hand, silently asking Essek to scooch over. He does so, letting Caleb crawl up on the counter. Their kitchen counters are not high by any standard, and with Caleb being as tall as he is, he should have no problem, but the man really has no tact, so he pulls himself up on his stomach like a beached whale, then flips over and slides back to join Essek.
"Did I ever tell you about the year I took pottery?" Caleb asks, looking at his worn hands.
"No."
"It was Jester's suggestion coming into university. I took it in my first semester, right before you transferred over. I was very, very bad at it. I did not grow up making beautiful things with my hands, I grew up shoveling pig shit and reading any book I could. I had the same feelings, if I am going to be bad, why would I do it. But then Jester told me that the reason you take a class is to learn, not to prove anything to your teacher or peers or yourself, but to learn. She told me that you have to be very, very bad at something to become very, very good at something. Of course, I took four hours a week of pottery, so I was not very good when the class ended, but I did make a little Frumpkin out of clay." He cracks a small, crooked smile.
"I have this overwhelming urge to be the best, the smartest, to compete with those who do not want competition."
"I know, liebling, it is why we had trouble both being in Modern Physics together." Caleb says, and Essek ducks his head, bumping it playfully into Caleb's shoulder.
"I do enjoy learning about trees, though."
"And you know so much more about trees now than you did before you took the class."
"Indeed, I do."
The weight is not lifted off his shoulders, but his heart feels like it can finally rest again, in his chest, as Caleb drops a kiss to the crown of his head and goes back to stir his pot. Essek looks down at the textbook once before shutting it and sliding it down to the very end of the counter. He turns to face Caleb, and indulges himself in staring at this display of intimacy, of love. They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Essek breaks it.
"How bad was the Frumpkin?"
"Was?"
"The clay Frumpkin you made?"
"Oh, very bad. If you are so inclined to see it, I can show you later."
"I could go see it now?" Essek says, motioning to the floor. Caleb's blush returns and he flips some of his hair off of his shoulder, encroaching into Essek's space again.
"Well, I do keep it in my bedroom, so I was hoping to join you later." Caleb's voice is low, almost husky in a way that makes Essek's long ears twitch.
"I do think we could let that stew sit for a while, if we wanted to go now?" Essek teases, and Caleb meets him in the middle for a kiss, pale hands wrapping around Essek, one holding the base of his neck, the other straying down, down, down-
The comfortable silence is broken by the rest of their asshole friends spilling through the front door. Essek takes his textbook back in his hands, but only pretends to read this time. The view is so much better.