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Time is one of Caleb’s specialties. It’s both a blessing and a curse to be so acutely aware of it passing, unable to forget a single moment (even if he wishes he could forget some things, even if the things he’s managed to forget loom large and heavy in his mind anyways). But he has far more pleasant memories these days than awful ones, and the weight of them is a comfort on his shoulders. It’s not often, these days, that he thinks of his flawless recounting of every past second as anything other than a gift.
Yes, time is a specialty of his, even more so than it’s a specialty of Essek’s, the name of his companion warm and comfortable in his mouth where for so long it had lain awkward and cold. Speaking of Essek. That specialty is how Caleb knows it’s been exactly three months, eleven days, eighteen hours, and twenty-seven minutes since he returned to the Dynasty’s outpost in the cold northern winds near Aeor, after the Mighty Nein peacefully disbanded to pursue quieter, more personal interests. It had taken Caleb a few days to gather his courage and ask Essek to abandon his duty and life and return to the ruins of Aeor at Caleb’s side. It had taken Essek exactly seventeen breathless seconds to agree, with a quiet “Just let me pack” and flushed purple cheeks, eyelet fangs flashing beneath a smile.
(Not that Caleb had been counting.)
More importantly, his specialty in time is why Caleb knows it’s been exactly twenty-four minutes and sixteen seconds since the two of them curled up on a couch in the library of his Nine-Sided Tower. They shared a couch now, which was quite the thought. Long past are the days when Essek perched on chair arms and table edges, uncertain and stiff – twenty-four minutes and nineteen seconds, now. Four minutes since Essek’s ears had begun to droop with tiredness, his hands growing lax around his book as he fought against the warmth and comfort of his cushions. Three minutes and thirty-two seconds since his head fell onto Caleb’s shoulder, and Caleb became acutely aware of all the places the two of them touched.
Essek’s breath tickles Caleb’s neck when he exhales, his weight a solid block against Caleb’s right side. This isn’t the first time they’ve touched, not even the first time he’s seen Essek sleep. Aeor has been filled with slowly growing and ever more casual affection – a hand grasped in desperation turning into excitement, an arm draped around Essek’s shoulders reciprocated by Essek’s hand shyly resting on Caleb’s lower back. Exhaustion often had them collapsing into couches and chairs and beds unheeding of the other’s presence and mere inches from each other’s fingertips. But Essek regularly wakes before Caleb, and they’ve never slept like this before, with Essek tucked against Caleb’s side like he belongs there and softer than Caleb’s ever seen him. Essek has never been so close for so long, both of them keeping an unspoken distance between them until this single, stretched out moment.
(Seven minutes and counting, Caleb’s brain helpfully supplies.)
So sue Caleb if he takes the chance to stare. He looks down at Essek’s face, inches from his own even if turned slightly away in sleep, and begins the process of committing it to memory. The sweep of Essek’s eyelashes against his cheeks aren’t white, like Caleb thought they were, but rather a pale silver-gray. A stray lash rests on his cheekbone, just above a paint brush splatter of dull, barely there freckles. Caleb hadn’t realized Essek had freckles. He reaches to gently brush the eyelash away and freezes as Essek shifts, mumbling something incoherent in Undercommon. He isn’t sure what he would do if Essek woke now, with Caleb’s hand pressed against his cheek and body close enough to feel the curve of each other’s ribs as they breathe. A sort of terror rushes through Caleb as he thinks of how intimately they’re sitting despite the innocence of it, and imagines Essek’s reaction. But he isn’t sure what Essek would do either, and his heartbeat quickens as Caleb hesitates, caught between anxiety and excitement, hand still gently resting on Essek’s cheek.
I could kiss him like this. The thought comes to him unbidden and startling in its want. But is that what Essek would want? No, of course not. And Caleb’s side is starting to cramp from holding himself so still, so he forces himself to relax, taking a deep breath as slowly and steadily as possible. If he tries hard enough, perhaps he can force the thought out of him on a heavy exhale.
But it’s stubborn, lingering now that it’s entered his mind. I could kiss him , Caleb thinks again. But would he kiss back? Or would Essek recoil, shocked and disgusted? The thought that Essek could want Caleb is so far from possibility that Caleb can’t afford to dwell on it. Time is Caleb’s specialty. Alternate Realities are far more Essek’s purview, and even then, why would the drow even now draped in regal silks and silver earrings choose a generally scruffy human with years of baggage – and who was only gathering more? The way Essek sighs and melts even further into Caleb makes his heart ache. The drow looks comfortable, obviously trusting Caleb to keep him warm and upright as sleep wipes lines of exhaustion from beneath his eyes. That’s enough for Caleb. It has to be enough, because he’s not likely to get more.
Essek won’t be angry if he wakes, Caleb decides. Maybe quietly embarrassed, but safe – though it will likely be some time before he stirs, considering how tired they both are. It’s already been twelve minutes. What’s fifteen more? An hour? The entire night, if he can have it?
Caleb is selfish enough to admit he wants this, even if only to himself. He craves these few stolen moments, both more than he deserves and less than he desperately wants, and Caleb can’t help but hope for the impossible. That time would stop its forward march. Or, even better but even less likely, that Essek would want to stay with him.
So instead of shaking Essek’s shoulder and leading him sleepily to a proper bed, after which he would need to leave for his own cold rooms, Caleb just wraps an arm around the smaller drow. Essek falls those last few inches into Caleb’s chest, his nose brushing Caleb’s collarbone, and makes a low, formless sound of protest before settling. His hand reaches out to fist in Caleb’s shirt, right over Caleb’s heart. The redhead freezes. Did he finally cross the line? Are these twenty minutes all he gets? Panic seizes his throat.
Stop, he thinks, breathe in, two three four five. Breathe out, two three four five. Again. Caleb exhales softly, slowly. Again. Until he regains his composure, Caleb counts. Essek doesn’t move. Breathe in. Caleb concentrates on relaxing his shoulders, and air comes a little easier as he reaches for his book. He can read a little longer while Essek sleeps, at least until the cats call them for dinner – until the tiredness eases from his friend’s spine. It would do him good to have a distraction, and if the cats see him smiling a bit wider than usual when they come, well. They won’t have anyone to tell.
Essek is warm. A little warmer than he should be, but it’s a nice kind of warmth – one that surrounds him and turns the chill of Aeor into a nebulous and distant thing. There’s a heavy weight across his stomach that Essek assumes must be a cat, and though it’s a little uncomfortable Essek is too tired and the couch too soft for him to have any real complaints or even open his eyes to face the firelight. With a muffled groan he turns away from the fire to curl further into the warmth beneath him. It smells like Caleb, he realizes, as his nose brushes cloth. Something like wood ash and the gently herbal soap the human wizard favors, the kind that reminds Essek of incense and Caleb of his mother’s hands. Essek loves that smell. Even in his slightly muddled state, it seems odd to have that scent so clear in the air, in the soft cloth he’s burrowed into that suddenly turns rough as Essek turns his cheek. The couch is moving slightly – no, breathing, rising and falling in a steady and familiar rhythm, firmer than he’d originally thought. Essek stills, his own breath suddenly catching as he finally opens his eyes to stare at Caleb’s throat.
Essek’s face is resting on Caleb’s shoulder, half pressed against the collar of his coat and the unshaved stubble on his cheek. The rest of his body is draped halfway across the human’s and curled around him. No, into him.
Caleb’s signature scarf has fallen to expose his collarbone as he lightly snores, a book dangling from his hands and moments from falling. His arm is the weight across Essek’s waist, holding Essek firmly against his chest, and his hair has worked its way free of its usual ponytail to splay across the couch pillows. It shines a bright, golden orange in the firelight, almost as brilliant as the flames themselves. Dark circles mar the skin beneath his eyes, an old scar puckering the line of his nose, and he is beautiful. He’s gorgeous, and Essek is clinging to him with mussed hair and wrinkled robes, one leg thrown shamelessly over Caleb’s in an almost possessive claiming of space. There’s a wet spot on Caleb’s shoulder where Essek must have drooled, and Essek flushes hot with embarrassment. He must have fallen asleep first, since his last memory is of staring at the fire, Caleb beside him and most definitely awake.
At what point had Essek tipped into Caleb’s side? When had his sleeping body decided Caleb’s arm made a better pillow than the actual cushions (and then, apparently, Caleb’s chest)? And most importantly, had Caleb been awake when it happened?
If his friend had already drifted off, unaware of Essek’s transgressions, then there was nothing more to wonder. Both of them had been exhausted and must have simply given in to the natural call of sleep. Though, sleep wasn’t exactly natural to Essek. Years of stress and politics and his own foolish decisions had left Essek too tense to sleep anywhere he didn’t feel completely safe and comfortable – and said foolish past decisions meant there were very few places indeed he was able to relax enough for anything more than trancing. That line of thought was neither here nor there, though. Because. If Caleb had been awake.
If Caleb had been awake. If Essek had fallen into him and, rather than (reasonably) wake him for a journey into proper sleep in a proper bed, or even just tilt him in the opposite direction, Caleb had chosen to let Essek stay? Had perhaps pulled Essek closer, wrapped an arm over him to keep him from falling out of his embrace?
Now that was a completely different situation.
Essek knows gravity and its manipulations better than any other living wizard, but the thought of Caleb holding him flips his stomach like the worst sort of Gravity Well gone wrong. Sometimes it still baffles Essek that Caleb can even look at him, let alone ask for his company and insights on this journey through Aeor, share his discoveries, treat his wounds, allow him to fall asleep with his weight on Caleb’s hip – Caleb stirs, and Essek forces himself to relax. He doesn’t close his eyes, fully, instead keeping them open just a sliver to watch the human’s face with bated breath.
If he holds himself still enough, perhaps Caleb will think him still asleep. Perhaps then, Essek could get some answers to all the questions he still finds himself too much of a coward to voice aloud – the most pressing of which, why? But Caleb only shifts to lie more on his back, the book finally falling from his fingers. Without a second thought, Essek flicks his wrist and Mage Hand catches it, lowering it silently to the floor. Only once Mage Hand disappears does Essek realize he’s lost his best chance of leaving the situation easily. The thud could have plausibly woken them both, letting Essek jump away with dignity. But…he doesn’t want Caleb to wake. Doesn’t want to end the moment between them so abruptly. And now he has the choice of carefully unwrapping from Caleb’s hold, hoping the other wizard wouldn’t notice…or giving in to the growing desire to simply lay his head on Caleb’s shoulder and go back to rest.
Propriety demands Essek get up this very second, fix his hair and tunic into something vaguely suitable, and pretend this whole ‘nap’ thing had never happened. His mother would be scandalized – and the thought of Dierta’s shocked face makes Essek suppress a quick laugh. Imagine, a son of Den Thelyss, legs tangled with some unconsecuted Empire human, before courtship of any kind! If he even still was a son of Den Thelyss. Essek blushes as he looks down at said tangling, and then stops as his thoughts catch up to him. Because. There has been courtship, hasn’t there? Perhaps not anything official or following Rosohnan standards, but all the steps were being followed. Invitations to spend time together. Small exchanges of gifts – books, spell components, a stone bought only because it matched the shade of Caleb’s eyes and a ribbon the color of Essek’s hair. Touches, chaste but frequent. Much of that could be chalked up to Caleb being friendly, a mix of fondness and cultural differences.
But I reciprocated , Essek realizes. I am continuing to reciprocate, every moment that I linger in his arms . Now that he’s thinking about it, Essek’s feelings are slapping him in the face, and Essek is here in Caleb’s arms , and he has no idea how Caleb feels –
Screw propriety , Essek thinks. This is what he wants, and he refuses to be ashamed of what he feels for Caleb. The brilliant, beautiful man lying beside him. He settles back against Caleb’s chest, returning the loose hug firmly. Even If Caleb doesn’t return his feelings, even if he isn’t aware of the fact that he’s been stupidly, perfectly courting Essek for months. That’s okay. That has to be okay. Because Essek would take anything Caleb gives him, and he’s been a fool himself to be so oblivious to his own heart for so long. But….he can wait a little longer to ask. Risk management is always a skill Essek has prided himself in, and losing what Caleb has given in any degree is too much of a risk to even consider.
He can stay like this a while longer, at least until Caleb seems better rested, and the cats call them for supper. It will be any moment now, Essek is sure, although Caleb has always been better at telling time than him. It’s his specialty. There’s nothing wrong with waiting until then, and perhaps a little past it. And no one is there to see his tiny, positively silly smile as Essek tucks his chin into Caleb’s chest and closes his eyes. No one at all.