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“I found something you might like!”
Essek turns and waits for his eyes to adjust to the light of Caleb’s magical orbs, still a bit too bright for his liking even after Caleb has adjusted them almost to the point where he’s at risk of straining his own eyes too much.
The other wizard is holding up a stack of withered research notes, yellow with age and water damage.
“What is this?”
Caleb only smiles at him enigmatically. Even before Essek takes the papers he can recognize the familiar swirls and overlapping loops of visualized Dunamantic equations.
Ah.
Yes, he will definitely like this.
“Thank you,” he says genuinely.
Caleb, still smiling, returns to where he’s digging through the contents of a collapsed bookshelf.
Essek flips through the notes: mostly they’re nothing he hasn’t seen before -- talk on manipulating possibility itself, the dangers of altering the flow of time, anecdotes of the gruesome fates of some careless researcher who tried, blah-blah-blah… But the thought that someone was working on this a millennium ago makes something twinge in Essek’s chest, a level of excitement rare for him.
The notes mention that Aeorians were working on ways of containing that power, packaging endless possibilities like sandwiches to be consumed later, and what if that means --
But the notes get too smudged by that point and not even magic can help him decipher how they did that -- that is if they found a solution at all.
“So was it what I think it was?” Caleb asks. “Oh, Scheiße -- Watch out!”
Essek ducks and slinks out of the way of some dark shape lunging at him out of nowhere, the creature’s foot-long talons screeching on the marble floors as it skids to a stop and prepares for another strike. It has more eyes and clawed limbs than he bothers to count.
“ Shit -- ”
Caleb hits it with a bolt of fire, and the creature hisses and growls, and turns its attention to him.
“Run!” Essek shouts because the thing is massive and they’ve spent too many spells on reading the books, and why do they always do this --
“You run, I’ll hold it off,” Caleb smirks and positions his hands for a Dunamantic spell that’s all too complicated for the occasion -- except he executes it perfectly, of course, he fucking does, the creature’s blood-curdling shrieks reverberating around the room as it’s flung through the air and several of its limbs implode on themselves. Show-off.
And as mad as he is right now, Essek can’t help but appreciate these glimpses of a confident, charismatic wizard Caleb could have been -- should have been -- will be again.
But they need to fucking run.
The creature is shaking what must be its head, and Essek casts a spell to slow it down.
“We can come back here tomorrow,” he reasons as the spell takes hold. Caleb is stuffing stacks of books he didn’t get to read into his bag.
He grabs Caleb by the elbow nudging him towards the closest exit.
They run through the library space and out into a winding hallway they’ve taken earlier. They’re quick and quiet, and they got a head start, and yet, despite all of that, Essek can hear the creature’s claws hit the floor and it’s keeping pace.
“Extinguish your orbs,” he hisses. “I think it hunts by sight.”
“I --” Caleb starts, no doubt planning to explain redundantly how he can’t see in the dark.
“Hold on to me,” Essek takes Caleb’s hand, slender fingers entwining with his own.
“Oh, okay,” the other man murmurs, a playfulness to his voice that Essek has only heard a couple of times before.
With a smile, Caleb lets his orbs flicker out.
“Now let’s go find some place to set up your tower.” Essek feels a nod against his shoulder more than sees it as Caleb presses improperly close. It’s justified by the terrain here being too precarious for hand-holding to suffice, and so when Caleb grabs onto Essek’s robes with his right hand while looping his left arm around his waist, Essek says nothing and presses a pearl to his forehead giving him a chance to glimpse into alternate timelines in case he trips in the dark or a loose rock gives way under his foot.
They make their way down what little remains of a staircase on the side of a gigantic cavern halfway back to the better-explored part of the Genesis ward, Caleb pressed snugly to Essek’s side. And if he seems to press closer than is necessary given the circumstances -- he’s not incapacitated , and the fluorescent lichen that grows here gives off enough light that even a human would be able to make out shapes on occasion -- well, Essek is more than happy to politely tolerate it, a hand on the small of the man’s back. Caleb is not exactly parsimonious with his touches, quite on the contrary, but still, Essek cherishes every moment of such closeness.
Ironically, it’s Essek who ends up tripping, his foot catching a bent metal spoke where he’s levitating not quite high enough off the ground. Darkvision only helps when you actually look where you’re going, it turns out.
He casts a spell with a flick of his wrist and they’re gliding safely instead of tumbling down the razor-sharp debris of the ancient city, but the rocks he unsettled send echoes bouncing around the cavern, the cacophony loud enough to make even the laziest of unspeakable abominations crawl out of their hiding holes to tear the clumsy trespassers apart.
Essek finds a crevice that would be unreachable for anything that can’t crawl on walls, which would significantly limit the number of monsters they would have to fight potentially, and flies them there.
“Sorry about that,” he mumbles into Caleb’s clavicle as they land. The hole is five feet deep at most and barely two feet wide, so they still end up squeezed together.
“It’s not the worst place to be in.”
Essek hums in agreement. It really isn’t, objectively, and subjectively, it might be very close to being the best place, not that Essek has put enough thought to parse why he thinks that exactly --
Caleb cranes his neck and touches his lips to Essek’s.
Essek gasps, like an idiot, into the kiss because yes, it is obviously a kiss . It takes all his willpower to relax every single muscle in his body that has gone tense like he’s been hit by a particularly nasty lightning spell.
Startled, he parts his lips but Caleb has already moved away. His upper lip twitches as he runs a hand over his face and through his hair, a self-conscious gesture he must have forgotten Essek can see in the darkness.
For some reason, it stings -- to have caused this expression on him.
The thing is, Essek has noticed before that the Mighty Nein are very free with their physical affection. Kisses and hugs, high fives, hands clasped on shoulders, playful jabs and tickles, and curling around each other in sleep are as normal for them as breathing. They’re a bit more reserved around him, probably after the several times he shied away from their touch out of habit, but they’ve slipped up and included him in their hugs multiple times, and he has every touch memorized and cataloged in that part of his brain that he refers to when loneliness becomes too oppressive.
But this feels different.
This feels like something special, unlike what intimacy between friends he’s experienced and witnessed before.
He’s not sure what to make of it and he chokes on a laugh at the thought. Essek Thelyss, the illustrious Shadowhand of the Kryn Dynasty, a wizard almost unmatched in his power, the instigator of the biggest war this continent has seen in the last few decades, rendered speechless and as purple as a beet by a peck on the lips.
“I can make the tower here,” Caleb mumbles as if to fill the silence with something, anything, and squeezes past him deeper into the crevice.
Essek stares at his back. He tracks the movement of long, clever fingers as they trace glyphs in the air, and wishes he knew how to fix this.
He wishes he’d used one spell less and could turn back time right now, or do anything, literally fucking anything.
If he thinks about it, he has experienced many things for the first time since he met the Mighty Nein:
- the first time he was scared shitless someone would, probably entirely without planning to, reveal his role in the disappearance of the Beacons to the Bright Queen;
- the first time someone suggested the aloof and unapproachable Shadowhand get into a hot tub with seven other people like it could actually happen;
- the first time someone asked how he was doing, over and over and over, at the most ridiculous times of day, and seemed to genuinely be interested in his answers;
- the first time he was worried about other people’s wellbeing, the first time he felt anything for other people really;
- the first time he considered, no, really considered the consequences of his actions, not just for the Mighty Nein but for all of those thousands of casualties of the war he viewed as a faceless statistic before… They were all someone’s husband, he realized, or mother, or neighbor, or friend. For the first time, Essek felt that he understood the weight and the value of that kind of connection.
And then came the first time bitter regret burned at his lungs like acid, the horror at realizing he destroyed the most wonderful thing in his life before he even had it blocking his airway -- and the first time he actually dared to hope for redemption when those same chapped lips touched his forehead.
When the Mighty Nein found him in Eiselcross, loud and friendly like he’d done nothing wrong, like they hadn’t last parted with him confessing treason, their trust and protectiveness stifling, it was the first time he knew he would give his life for a greater cause if it came to it.
And Caleb… Well, Caleb has been several firsts of his own. What started as trying to figure out how smart he actually is and how much he knows out of self-preservation quickly turned into genuine fascination, which in turn devolved into a warm and messy coil of emotions Essek had never experienced before and wouldn’t dare name. They fluttered and twisted in his chest insistently, demanding he seek out Caleb’s company long past his welcome, hoping, yearning, aching for something he doesn’t know what. Caleb was first to show him kindness, even when the rest of the Nein were reasonably apprehensive -- driven, no doubt, by his own sordid history that Essek is yet to learn the extent of but kind nonetheless.
And today, Caleb kissed him on the lips, and as unfamiliar as he is with Empire traditions, Essek knows that it means the same thing there as it does to him.
The viscous cold that coalesces in his heart at having ruined his first kiss , and not just with anyone but with this impossible, beautiful man is also a first and Essek hates it. And more importantly, he fucking hates himself.
Frozen, as if slowed by a spell, he waits for Caleb to finish the tower and follows him inside without a word.
They take off their fur-lined cloaks in maddening silence and sit opposite each other on one end of the long dining table like they always do, but today the few feet of distance are suddenly an impassable chasm.
The amber cats dash around bringing out food and drinks but even they seem to sense that something is off and retreat quietly as soon as they’re done, tails hanging low.
It goes on for way too long.
“I’m sorry if I misunderstood…” Caleb finally starts, voice quiet and measured. He is looking at his plate of half-finished meat, potatoes, and the mushroom-shaped Empire greens that Essek is sure are not considered edible anywhere else like it has gravely offended him.
“What?” Essek responds too quickly.
“The kiss. That was… I misinterpreted the situation and I apologize.”
“I…” Essek takes a deep breath. His magic is all but depleted for the day, so he has to get it right on the first try. “I didn’t mean to give the impression that I, well --”
“Ja, we can pretend it never happened,” Caleb is quick to offer.
“No, I,” Essek interjects carefully, but insistently. “I didn’t mean to give the impression that the kiss wasn’t welcome,” he enunciates.
Caleb’s head shoots up, eyes wide.
Essek looks at him with an expression he hopes explains everything he doesn’t know how to voice.
“You simply startled me,” he elaborates when Caleb, rather predictably, doesn’t read his mind. “I’ve… I don’t…” His tongue lies heavy and unwieldy like a slab of granite in his mouth and he finds himself mumbling pathetically, “I’m a bit out of practice. You see, it’s not exactly a thing that I’ve done in a… Ever.”
“Is it a cultural thing?” Caleb asks, ever so respectfully. “I’m sorry I…” He waves a hand, “overstepped?”
Essek suppresses the urge to teleport to some distant corner of Tal’Dorei or even farther and never speak to anyone ever again and instead faces Caleb because while he continues to be Exandria’s biggest coward this is something he does not want to screw up.
“No, it’s not a cultural thing,” he states, levelly. It would have been so much easier to say that yes, that’s how all drow are, that he wasn’t as much of a reclusive weirdo in Rosohna as he is everywhere else. Essek even suspects Caleb gave him an easy out on purpose, but he’s learned his lessons about where lying gets him, hasn’t he. “I’ve simply never done anything of the sort because I never had the inclination or saw a reason to, I suppose.”
“Oh.”
“Before I met you, that is.”
A smile blooms on Caleb’s face, small but radiant it reaches all the way up to his deep blue eyes.
“And so I’m a bit…” Essek waves his hands about in a gesture that comes out too frantic to be noncommittal. “Out of my depth, you could say.”
Caleb seems to think for a second, a series of emotions flitting over his face.
“So…” He finally draws out, leaning in, a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Would you like to give it another go?”
“Yes. Yes, I would very much like that,” Essek says as fast as he can without stuttering like a complete idiot.
“Then let’s go,” Caleb stands up and offers a hand, his food forgotten entirely.
Essek takes the hand.
Caleb leads Essek, who stays quiet and breathing evenly even as he’s panicking in his head, to the sitting room. There’s already a tray with a teapot, two teacups, and pastries on the low table in front of the fireplace.
Any amount of time Essek spends walking with his own feet is too much walking and so he happily plops down on the settee closest to the fireplace. Caleb joins him, their hands still clasped together. Caleb’s thumb is tracing circles over the back of his palm.
The lights grow dimmer.
Essek takes a deep, calm breath. He can do this. He’s dreamed about this moment for a while, hasn’t he.
“Essek, relax,” Caleb says quietly. “I’m not going to bite you… Unless you’re into that?”
Essek must make a face because Caleb laughs the tiniest of laughs and says:
“Okay, I won’t do that then.”
Essek nods solemnly.
“Hey, if you’d rather we do something else, if this is too much, we can…” He trails off.
“No. Please go on. I won’t get distracted again.”
Caleb leans in, slower than would make sense. He’s giving him time to pull away, Essek realizes. And it is tempting.
Essek doesn’t pull away.
Kissing has never seemed appealing to him. In fact, he used to wonder who the hell came up with this activity and why. Sex he understands -- both from the practical standpoint and in the sense that it is biologically designed to be pleasurable, but smacking lips together and moving them around? Exchanging bodily fluids for no fucking reason? Just sitting there like an idiot while someone is pressed too close with their stupid moist lips making gross noises? No, thanks.
And Caleb’s lips are indeed wet, and they’re chapped from the cold weather and his habit of biting them when in thought, and his stubble that’s bordering on a full beard is so coarse on Essek’s skin he will probably be sore from it later, and yet -- he minds none of that. In fact, Essek suspects he might get addicted to it if whatever this is continues. He has no more questions about why kissing exists.
Caleb cups Essek’s face, his touch feather-light, and guides him to angle his head just a little. Blunt human teeth scrape across his lower lip. He’s going slow, slower than he seems to want to -- Essek can feel him still himself several times, breath hitching, fingers ghosting over the short hair at Essek’s nape. Caleb is touching him like Essek is some fragile, precious thing and not one of the most powerful individuals on either side of the Ashkeeper Peaks. Or perhaps like he’s a skittish stray animal he’s trying to pet.
And for whatever reason, neither comparison seems as demeaning as it would have been any other time.
In fact, Essek does feel a lot like a feral cat figuring out how to purr, as he brings his hands up to Caleb’s collar and shifts closer. He is a very graceful individual usually, but not when he ends up tangled in his own mantle as he struggles to climb into Caleb’s lap.
Yes, definitely a feral cat.
With some help -- a lot of help, actually, calloused fingers covering his own -- Essek undoes the clasps holding his mantle, letting it pool behind him on the settee. Left in his thin silk tunic, he now feels the refreshing chill of the room on his skin, the warmth of the fireplace and, more importantly, the warmth of Caleb’s hands as he runs them over his shoulders.
Caleb’s right hand comes to rest between his shoulder blades and his left returns Essek’s cheek as he breaks the kiss. His pupils are blown wide when he opens his eyes, the black almost completely overtaking the blue so reminiscent of his homeland’s clear daytime skies.
“How was that?” He asks, his thumb caressing the shell of Essek’s ear, sliding over the length of it. He’s searching his face with a tenderness that might incinerate him on the spot.
“I’ll… need more data to come to a definitive conclusion.”
That earns him a fond chuckle and a peck on the tip of his nose. He’ll need to find out what else can elicit that reaction and then never stop doing those things.
“I think I can provide some.”
“You don’t find it weird?” Essek dares ask. It’s very childish and undignified but he also just needed help getting his mantle off so he might as well accept that dignity is not his thing tonight. “That I’ve…”
Caleb shrugs.
“I assumed you would like to take things slow. You guys live for hundreds of years, the time we’ve known each other is nothing compared to that…” Then he seems to think for a second. “But you’ve really never met someone you… liked?”
“...”
“I’m not judging.”
It doesn’t feel like it.
“I just feel very special,” Caleb says.
“You are.”
Caleb smiles. Essek has always known he’s handsome, in that rugged way that humans can be, ever since he saw him from across the throne room, a splash of warmth against the muted greens and grays. But at that moment, his head spins from the proximity to that smile which might very well be the most beautiful thing in the world.
“What do you like, do you know?” Caleb asks, hands resting on Essek’s elbows, eyes trailing lower before he snaps them back up. Their faces are very close.
“You.”
Caleb chuckles.
“I mean, more specifically, Schatz.”
“Hmm,” Essek searches his brain for an answer he knows isn’t there. “I would love to find out.”
“Okay, I can work with that.”
As if to prove he has much more to show Essek, Caleb takes his hand again and kisses his knuckles, his lower lip dragging over the dips between them. Then he kisses the back of his palm, and the inside of his wrist carefully moving the cuff of his tunic out of the way. Essek suppresses a gasp but there is nothing he can do about the full-body shudder. Was he always that sensitive?
Caleb moves on to his other hand. Essek watches him, transfixed, until he can’t take it anymore and leans in to kiss his lips again, free hand tangling in his hair.
Caleb makes a noise in his throat -- deep, startled, delicious -- and opens his mouth obediently.
Essek mimics what Caleb did when he kissed Essek, tries some new things -- like running his tongue over Caleb’s lower lip -- noting what makes his breath hitch and his fingers flex where they’re still clasped around Essek’s wrist. Soon, Caleb is shifting under him, leaning in, shaky breaths turning into needy little gasps.
Essek tugs at Caleb’s lower lip with his teeth. He presses his tongue inside experimentally, which earns him an aborted moan somewhere deep in Caleb’s throat. Eagerly, almost frantically, Caleb reciprocates, slipping his tongue past Essek’s lips.
Essek gasps, and if he thought he was being undignified before, the sound that escapes him now is practically a squeak.
And that’s apparently the kind of person he is now. He squeaks when a handsome human wizard kisses him with tongue and doesn’t mind at all. Him from just half a year ago would have scoffed at the thought.
Essek attempts to regain at least a semblance of control and runs his thumb over the folds of a small, rounded ear. Caleb angles his head, baring his throat.
Now that he’s discovered that kissing is not as bizarre as he thought when attempted with the right partner, Essek wonders what other activities he’s heard people enjoy might be better than they seem. He should at least try to find out. He knows that the neck is a sensitive area, especially that part under the ear, so he starts by kissing there.
“Ah,” Caleb gasps, arching his back into Essek’s touch. His hands trail lower to grasp at his waist -- the motion brings them closer, Essek fully in Caleb’s lap, their thighs and torsos flush together, and that’s more physical contact that Essek has had in his life if you ignore the few altercations with the elements of the living city of Cognouza, which should never be mentioned in the same breath as this. Nope.
And if Essek thought he’d hate the contact, he’s proven wrong again -- which should stop being news to him at this point, really.
Essek mouths at Caleb’s neck, searching for more spots that can elicit those breathless little grunts, as he cards his fingers through Caleb’s silk-soft hair, first hints of silver shining among the vivid auburn on his temples.
Finally out of breath, Essek pulls back to appraise his work. Caleb is looking up at him with what can only be described as reverence, half-lidded eyes agleam, incandescent and, dare Essek think so, full of lust. Strands of hair that got out of the messed-up ponytail frame his face accentuating his cheekbones. His thin, usually pale lips are glossy and red, parted slightly, and he shudders when Essek runs a finger over them.
Essek can’t help but smirk. He’s always been a fast learner when he sets his mind to it, after all.
“You’re…”
Essek quirks an eyebrow.
“You continue to be full of surprises, liebling .”
Essek doesn’t need to cast Tongues to know what that word means. There’s a reason why he’s been learning Zemnian in secret. And there’s something to the way Caleb says that nickname compels Essek to kiss him again.
Caleb hums, pleased and perhaps impressed, in response, his hands settling over Essek’s hips, a comforting, grounding pressure -- and a suggestion of something more in the circles that his thumb draws right under his hipbone, bunching up the thin fabric with each stroke.
Oh, they have so much more to explore and this might just become Essek’s second favorite field of study.