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Not blessed in life, not lucky, Yasha just is as she is.
Essek is interesting. He is prickly, and particular, and awkward. He knows a lot about a lot of things and likes to ramble what he thinks about this or that. He cares so much that he makes caring seem painful, like he pulled a muscle without stretching it first. Like Beau, barely, almost, or-. Closer to how Beau used to be before she learned to use her edges like steely feathers and pretty claws, if in a more formal mask: always so stubborn, and prideful, sharp-tongued, a fibber. And clumsy, and earnest, and he’s curious enough to love and to bleed.
Essek thinks a lot in his silences and talks to himself during them probably, because sometimes he says weird things afterwards without explaining how he got there. Maybe Yasha is just not made to get his routes all the way all the time. But she can understand weird. Peopling is hard, after all.
Maybe all that is why she’s not surprised now, standing as he floats, her head held level between his hands, him studying her like she’s one of his logic puzzles, his mouth pressed long like both grimace and grin.
Yasha sets hers into the second. Teeth bared, just to see what he does.
Nothing much, but his eyebrows pinch more. His thumbs stroke her cheeks exactly once.
Yasha has asked before if Essek is in love with her, and he has given her a pretty definite no. He has his thing about touching, though, and that’s what this was about. A test, is what he’d asked kind of shyly. They have learned it’s apparently not hurting him to hold her right now, and she keeps her hands to herself even so.
But he’s been staring. At her mouth. For minutes.
She finally teases, sure it will make him laugh instead of leave.
“You look like you want to kiss me.”
Essek blinks, still distant. His mouth somehow gets flatter.
Huh.
“I-.”
He scoffs.
Shakes his head.
“This is going to sound very strange.”
Holding in a laugh, Yasha scrunches her nose.
“Try me.”
“I think-.”
As if the air is too cold, Essek takes a stuttery breath.
He wets his lips. Meets her eyes.
Oh huh.
“Maybe I do?”
Oh, huh.
Strange. Yes.
Strange, okay. Okay.
Weird for weird, they’re not complete strangers to each other or love or conversations together like this. Yasha has other experiences too, her own happy memories to miss. A mean twist above her stomach gets green and mad at Caleb because he gets to keep his best friend. Well- now Essek is hers too, isn’t he? So then, Yasha wonders: to what end?
She laughs between Essek’s soft wizard hands.
“Why?”
He smiles.
She’s got him.
“I was um, curious. How it might be. I don’t… know, who else to ask.”
She’s got him.
Yasha nods.
“Go ahead.”
Essek is quick to kiss her if kissing is how he dives into cold lakes. His lips sealed and taut. His breath held and his eyes screwed shut. Being tense definitely doesn’t help. Yasha relaxes, breathes in to kiss back better, and finds that he smells fancy, sweet- definitely way too clean. Whether from soap or perfume or both, he tickles her nose plenty to notice but not enough to make her sneeze.
She’s not really sure where to go with this. Staying put and still, neither, it seems, is he.
Yasha leans away. Essek’s face gets darker and, so close, very hot. Only literally, which isn’t a surprise either. Handsome or not, Essek’s not really her type: spitfires itching to take the world by the throat and remake it into a shape like love. He’s the other way around, more like her in some ways: trying to fit himself into life, trying to learn what kindness actually means. Taught, Yasha misses her friend again.
Essek’s thumbs twitch. His ears, too.
“Could we, ah-?”
He huffs, warm and minty.
Yasha guesses.
“Again?”
A nod. Aha.
Yasha kisses Essek this time.
This time, he kisses her back.
Simply, plainly, no teeth, no tongue. Hardly any breath. But the way he starts to work his jaw, subtly, slowly, and precisely- it’s like she’s a practice dummy he’s afraid to break, which is dumb because that’s what they’re for and of the two of them, she can take a hard hit just fine.
Essek cups her jaw then. He’s not bad at this, really, even if he’s more reserved than the people she’s used to and known. Yasha sets her hands to his waist. Squeezes, because he’s small and it’s instinct, and Essek makes a soft sound against her, something hitched halfway between a whine and a sigh. Maybe he’s trying not to bruise himself. Yasha tries to be gentle, too.
She lets go. Essek leans away.
Not meeting her eyes, he nudges her forehead like a friendly kitty and then hugs her around her neck.
It’s quiet.
Essek talks to himself again.
Yasha rests her chin on his shoulder and waits.
Essek mumbles.
“I don’t know if I liked this.”
Hm.
Well- okay.
To be fair, neither does she.
“So it’s, um.”
Oh- why is her voice so little? Yasha makes it stronger.
“That was, different, then?”
Essek fumbles back, takes Yasha’s hands from her sides, holds them tight in his own to his chest.
“Yes, but. Not-. Not bad.”
To Essek, different is different. Different does not mean worse. Yasha tells herself like he’s told her. She mostly listens. The thought that he’s going to keep whatever else he’s learned for just Caleb does make the doubt kind of loud. Still, she’s happy he’s happy. He wants to be near her, still. So that’s nice. She can still hold onto that, so she smiles.
“I am happy to be not bad.”
Essek’s grin looks like a wince.
“Thank you. I’m sorry.”
“You smell like spicy tutti frutti.”
Essek flushes again, all funny and flustered. That’s much better than being apologetic over nothing.
He clears his throat.
“Blame the ah, the rain earlier. I needed a bath.”
“The rain was a bath.”
Essek wrinkles his nose. And then they laugh.
Yasha sits, pulls Essek down by the hand. Essek lets go of her hands long enough to stop floating and tuck himself under her arm.
He leans into her side as he settles, a tiny rumble in his voice.
“So, ah. How was your, day? Rain aside?”
“Fine- oh. Did you hear what Yeza was saying to Beau about the dunajuice he made?”
Essek’s ears perk. She’s got him.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, apparently- um. The- the, uh. The old stuff. That thing that we gave you.”
He presses the side of a finger to his mouth.
“Mm, yes, I recall.”
“Yeah. There was a- a dissolvent… super, something. Supersomething.”
“Superfluid?”
“No- almost? Maybe?”
“Supercritical.”
“Oh! Yeah, maybe that. And mixibility with thicks or topic stuff?”
“Really.”
“I think?”
Yasha chuckles.
“Why? What’s that mean?”
“I unfortunately didn’t have the time or means to do an intensive dive into its components before- well. Mn. Regardless- if the solvent was thixotropic at standard temperatures and supercritical upon the distillation of dunamis from the beacon, then that could indicate-. Ah….”
Essek quiets up like a poked snail.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter now, hm?”
Yasha bumps him.
“Well now I want to know. Alchemy’s just baking but different.”
“Mm, aha. Chemistry, alchemy, physics. Close enough cousins, I guess.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s….”
Essek squeezes her hand like he’s deciding to speak.
Yasha squeezes him right back.
“You see, if”-
She’s got him; Essek launches himself into a smart babble like Beau with her evidence boards.
Maybe blessed or maybe just lucky, Yasha contently listens along.