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“I can do everything with my language, but not with my body. What I hide by my language, my body utters. I can deliberately mold my message, not my voice. By my voice, what it says, the other will recognize “that something is wrong with me.” I am a liar (by preterition), not an actor. My body is a stubborn child, my language is a very civilized adult…” A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, Roland Barthes
...
“I could fall in love with you.”
The unwarranted thought springs into Caleb’s mind as he releases Nott and Essek from his grasp, and he masks his guffaw behind the joy filling the room. He’s already reeling from their shared magical discovery, so a declaration of this degree completely spins him a new one. Nott- Veth, soon- is still cheering, and Essek is watching her spin around the lab with resigned pride, so Caleb takes a moment to address this realization.
Gods above, fall in love? Where did this come from?
Yes, Essek is distractingly beautiful. Yes, Essek is dangerously intelligent. These two facts are widely known. However, Essek is also a powerful government figure from a nation warring with Caleb’s home. He’s gorgeous and so far out of Caleb’s reach that it’s nearly laughable to think like this. Simple attraction between the two feels like a pipe dream to Caleb, and to suggest love? Ludacris.
Not to mention, Caleb has been with others like Essek before- his mind presents him with a slideshow of memories regarding Astrid and Eadwulf. The three carry that same beauty, the same wit and intelligence, the same danger. Caleb has danced this dance before, and the last time, it burnt him horribly.
So Caleb buries the thought like he’s buried everything else before; Hides it underneath years of guilt and repression, shoves it far into the corners of his mind until his temples begin to ache. And if Essek’s hesitant smile makes Caleb’s heart pound faster, he chalks it up to the adrenaline sparked by their shared work. If he feels a tingling thrum in the arm that was just thrown over his colleague's shoulder, he concludes that it’s just the sleeping nerves waking up.
To distract himself, Caleb scoops Nott up and begins to spin her around. Her small arms engulf his neck as he waltzes a few cycles around the study, pure mirth and glee replacing the small flood of shame and horror from his previous mental blunder. He holds her at an arm's length away and shakes her lightly, a grin splitting his face, as she just laughs and laughs and laughs.
…
“I could fall in love with you.”
Essek nearly balks as the words settle in his mind. He’s currently in a slight state of euphoria, his mind running loops around him as he watches Caleb dance Nott in circles. It’s definitely a dance, it has to be, with how precisely he’s moving. Wide, sweeping steps, miraculously managing to avoid the paper scattered across the floor. Caleb performs some intricate turn that leaves Nott laughing louder and Essek’s head dizzier. He takes their distracted moment of joy to think.
Love? Luxon’s light, love? Essek Thelyss, Shadowhand to the Bright Queen, dunamancy prodigy, has never even considered falling in love before. And to love Caleb Widogast? Bright, intelligent Widogast, far too human for his own good? Widogast, who completely uprooted Essek’s whole life as he presented a beacon in the Bright Queen’s court, covered in filth and slave’s garb? Essek manages to disguise his shocked laugh as humorous when said human dizzily drops to his knees in front of him.
“ Meine gott. ” The reverent awe in Caleb’s voice is almost too much.
The surprisingly strong hands grabbing Essek’s shoulders to shake him is almost too much.
The warmth that seeps into Essek’s very bones at the touch is almost too much.
“ Meine gott !” Caleb repeats, and his eyes gleam. “We work well together.” A heavy pause as Caleb points a finger. “We should explore other things.”
Essek can think of a few things.
“I can think of a few things.”
Fuck.
Both men pointedly ignore the smirk on Nott’s face. His head swims as he follows a joyous Caleb and Nott down the stairs, and he knows he’s fumbling through his conversation with the rest of the Nein. His mind skips over Fjord and Beau admitting that they rifled through his books, and he doesn’t even consider the oddity of Caduceus scolding him for locking his kitchen.
Love? Love? Luxon’s light, this is no longer funny.
…
“I could fall in love with you.”
A repeating thought, but a surprise nonetheless. Caleb currently holds Essek’s face in his hands, and his chest feels so heavy that he’s shocked that he hasn’t cracked through the wooden floor of the Ball-Eater and dropped to the bottom of the ocean. There are tears, real tears beginning to drop out of Essek’s unblinking eyes, and when they touch Caleb’s skin, they feel like scalding water.
Caleb lets go for his own good.
But he stays close. Jester scoots over to grab both of Essek’s hands, now taking the reins in consoling their… friend. Caleb’s eyes can’t help but catch the tremble in Essek’s shoulders, and how his hands shake so hard that Jester’s sleeves are rustling. He watches the low light catch the tears now falling into the drow’s lap and Caleb’s throat feels painfully tight. The air is still, stagnant, and impossibly silent. Caleb feels the need to sprint out of the room. He feels the need to claw his own skin off. His brain pounds in his skull.
Gods above, what have they gotten themselves into?
Uncovering Essek’s betrayal feels like a red-hot brand to the chest. He didn’t betray them directly, nor did he even betray them on purpose; But those facts don’t make it sting any less. No one expected this when they slipped into the tunnels beneath Rosohna- Most definitely not Essek. Caleb certainly didn’t expect to find his reflection living in the perpetual night.
Their similarities strike Caleb once again, the almost laughable way they mirror each other to a fault; Immeasurable guilt, looming fear, inconsolable regret. And a shared enemy in Trent Ikithon, of course, but it’s hard to not hate that man.
To fall in love with Essek after this? Of course it’s not impossible. Essek is so hard to not care for, especially after proving that he can make mistakes and have regrets. After all this, he deserves to know that he’s loved. But reluctance rears its ugly head, and Caleb buries the thought so deep that his temples ache once again. Essek has broken his trust once, who’s to say he won’t do it again? Selfishness is an awful beast to overcome.
Time and a place, Widogast.
…
“I could fall in love with you.”
Essek is already short of breath, and when this thought resurfaces in his head, he nearly chokes on nothing. Caleb’s hand is hot and heavy on Essek’s forearm, the words, “Time. It takes time.” still lingering in the air.
Months ago, Essek gloated by saying that time was his specialty.
Now? He is not so sure.
Essek forces himself to nod. He forces himself to watch Caleb nod back. He forces himself to watch the human wizard turn, slowly, and jog to catch up with his friends. He forces himself to breathe, in and out, as slow as he can possibly manage. And once his vision stops swimming, once he feels like he’s strong enough to take a step, he slinks back into his room and latches the door as quietly as he can.
A sob builds in Essek’s throat, but he swallows it. It feels like swallowing molten metal, settling impossibly hot and heavy in his very core, and he squeezes his eyes shut to avoid addressing his vertigo. His knees tremble and then buckle, sending him sliding to the wooden ground with his back scraping the door. His innards seem to twist and loop around each other, sending violent nausea up his spine. Thick panic crashes over him in waves until it subsides to a manageable ebb, and Essek feels like laughing at himself for trembling on his floor like this.
Of course he could still fall in love with Caleb after this. Caleb’s gravitational pull hasn’t changed, and after this show of kindness, it could have only increased. The empathy he’s been showing Essek is nearly sickening, and the mage wants to scream that he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve the worried glances and the furrowed brows. He doesn’t deserve the gentle voices and the promises of a second chance.
Essek stumbles to his feet, hissing at the creaking in his joints, and sinks into his chair. His arm still burns from the contact, and he absentmindedly rubs at his skin to clear the sensation. To love Caleb would be so selfish, but Essek has always been a selfish creature. Who is he to change so dramatically now?
…
“I think I love you.”
Oh. That’s a new one.
So new that Caleb’s Gravity Sinkhole misses the Aeoran Absorber by nearly six inches, and he’s left swallowing bile amid a battle. And where he misses, Essek hits, and fuck, the feeling increases tenfold. For such a sheltered wizard, Essek prevails so beautifully in a fight, and his elegant casting is surely the cause for such a development of Caleb’s feelings.
The battle ends nearly as fast as it began, and while the party advances forward, Caleb stumbles to the back of the group with a reeling mind. Mental cogs whirring, he replays every interaction with Essek that could’ve made this development. Was it on the ship? No, no surely not so long ago. After the bloodbath at Vergessen? Perhaps. At the time, Caleb had been far too ruined to even ponder how he felt about Essek. The only thing he knew was that he had to protect the other wizard in whatever way possible.
Maybe the feeling has been growing, festering like a sickly black mold coating Caleb’s chest cavity. He glances at the linked hands of Beau and Yasha, and then at the linked hands of Fjord and Jester.
Well, there’s certainly something in the air out here, something other than dust. Caleb clasps his hands in front of his chest and begins to twist them as he thinks and filters through every interaction he’s had that brought him here.
In love? With Essek Thelyss? What an odd development. He can almost hear Astrid and Wulf’s shared laughter over his foolishness- it took him far too long to realize he loved them, and this was before his mind had been muddied.
Gods. In love with Essek Thelyss?
Well, his magic is rather pretty. Perhaps this isn’t the worst thing.
And when Essek’s hands close around Caleb’s as he passes the other wizard a palmful of pearls, the feeling throbs. It throbs when Essek’s hand presses against the back of Caleb’s head to steer his vision to a dunamantic gem. It throbs when he watches Essek watch him, and when they circle each other through a Flight spell, he can feel it cracking out as he smiles.
Scheiße . Love?
…
“I think I love you.”
Essek wants to slap himself. Mid-battle? Fucking seriously? This is no time for revelations.
The very particles of the air hum with psychic energy, the ground itself is a hungry weapon, and Caleb is clawing against the fleshy surface beneath him in an attempt to free himself from the rubble pinning him to the floor. When Essek spots the other wizard, bleeding freely from his nose and heaving with overexertion, this thought is ripped from the back of Essek’s mind as he realizes that he needs to free Caleb.
Essek knows that his movement is more limited than usual. The sluggish feeling that plagues his body is foreign, and thus, he can tell that every action he takes must be fully meant. He ponders flinging another offensive spell at Lucien, but the mere thought of leaving Caleb trapped under that tower leaves a sick feeling in his stomach. He could use a spell to make it easier for Caleb to free himself, but Essek’s skin hungers for Caleb’s touch; A solid ally against his own, a reminder that he’s not alone in this hungry city.
So he steps forward and uses his words to get Caleb’s attention.
“They need you!” I need you. Unsaid, but known.
Caleb’s forearm is slick with blood, and Essek’s palms are slick with sweat, so the first pull does nothing and Caleb shouts in pain as the building shreds his legs further. Panic begins to scrabble at Essek’s throat as he makes up his mind. He will free Caleb.
The flow of possibility is becoming more familiar the longer Essek spends with the Nein. These fools- these beautiful fools seem to grip fate itself and steer it in whatever ways they want. And if Essek is truly going to be a member of the Mighty Nein, he must do just that. So, he reaches for his fragment of possibility, the Fortune’s Favor he’s been holding onto, and wrenches it just so.
Caleb’s legs are pulled out from under the rubble. He stands, albeit shakily, and the solid press of his forehead against Essek’s, the filthy hand certainly staining the back of Essek’s white hair, the minuscule puff of air against Essek’s face- they all make this worth it. This is a promise. The thought from earlier worms its way to the front of Essek’s mind once again, and for once, he lets it fester. Love like this could be nice.
“Let’s finish this,” Caleb murmurs, and Essek’s heart positively thrums. And when Caleb collapses, dead, the thrum turns into a scream, and Essek can only feel the selfish pounding in his own chest. And when Jester revives the man, blue hands sweeping shattered diamonds off of his coat, Essek wants to spill forth his guts. He wants to offer his very soul to whatever being brought Caleb back. Anything to keep this wizard with him. One last selfish wish.
When Caleb slings his arm around Essek’s shoulder, the skin under his cloak vibrates. He briefly recalls the same tingle from months ago, when Caleb had first touched him like this, and he lets himself laugh softly. How far they’ve both come.
…
“I think I love you.”
Watching Essek leave The Blooming Grove opens Caleb’s chest in a way he hasn’t felt for a long time. When he pulls Essek in for a hug, his skin smarts at the contact. Essek’s breath ghosts shakily over his collarbone, and Caleb’s hands desperately clench the fabric of the wizard’s cloak. His skull pounds, and it takes all of his strength to not collapse and pull Essek to the floor alongside him as he says his goodbye. It takes all of his strength to not grab Essek tighter, to refuse to let go, to keep him in his arms until they both rot into dust.
But there is business to be dealt with, and the shuffling of a contained Trent Ikithon in the corner is as loud as a scream. So Caleb lets go. The skin of his lips tingles, and when he gives a final look at Essek’s face, he can only see the patch of skin on the drow’s cheek that he kissed just seconds ago. It physically hurts to tear his eyes away.
“Don’t be a stranger.” Caleb can’t even recognize his own voice. His accent is the thickest it’s been in years, and it’s a miracle that Essek can even make out his words. And when the residual light of Essek’s teleport fades, Caleb still doesn’t collapse. Beau’s sturdy hand finds his shoulder, and when their eyes meet, he lets himself a moment of reprieve as he slips into an old headspace.
The dulling blur of dissociation hasn’t held Caleb like this for a while. He lets Beau guide him into the chair furthest from Ikithon. He lets Caduceus press a hot teacup into his hands. He lets Fjord and Yasha place their bulk in between him and his former teacher. He lets Jester humiliate the defeated mage in the corner. He lets Veth fuss over smears of blood on his face. And when Astrid and Eadwulf arrive, he lets them shoot him silent glances.
Here he is, surrounded by the only people on this planet that he’d want to be with, and his chest still aches for Essek.
Caleb feels desperate. He wishes he chased the drow down, wishes he impulsively kissed him in front of everyone. Part of his mind begs Jester to send to Essek, call him back, invite him to Rexxentrum and Nicodranas and anywhere else that Caleb cares to go. But his body doesn’t move; He simply white-knuckle grips the teacup in his hand until his shaking calms enough to stop sloshing tea all over the table.
To have Essek by his side someday would be a blessing. Caleb considers loving Essek, and when his mind doesn’t reel with rejection at the idea, he finally takes a sip of his tea. It’s no longer hot, but the taste is enough.
…
“I think I love you.”
The sunlight glints off of the snow in the Vermas Outpost and reflects off of Caleb, giving him an ethereal glow. The thought slips into Essek’s mind like an old friend, and for once, he doesn’t balk. Instead, he lets Caleb into his personal quarters, and they sit down to chat.
Caleb talks of the work he’s been doing in the Empire. His hands don’t wave excitedly like they normally do, and instead, they wring in front of his chest. When Caleb speaks of Ikithon’s fate, his fingers briefly scratch at the flesh beneath his coat sleeves, but Essek’s pinning stare halts that specific movement. Instead, Caleb’s hands move to twist and twist the hunk of amber hanging from his neck, and Essek lets his eyes drift back up to the details of Caleb’s face.
Essek speaks briefly of his work at the outpost. He admits to being bored, and after a scan of the room, he leans forward and admits that he misses the Nein. Caleb chuckles, softly tells Essek of their friends’ fates ( “Poor Jester, following Fjord onto that ship. Uk’otoa is ruthless.” ), and when the conversation lulls, a nervous air forms around the ginger wizard.
Essek expects the worst.
Who died? Someone had to die. Someone they both care for is dead.
No, that can’t be it, Caleb wouldn’t have held that back. Can they never see each other again? Is this Caleb coming to give him a soft goodbye? Certainly there’s a better way to do this. Certainly they would have killed Essek off in Aeor if it was their true intent.
Essek feels himself itching to mirror Caleb’s fidgeting until he finally speaks up.
“Would you care to return to Aeor with me?” Caleb swallows nervously and Essek tries not to track the movement of his throat. “It will be dangerous. We will not have any healers nor fighters.” He suddenly lets go of the amber like it’s burning him and he shakes his fingers out. Caleb can’t seem to sit still. “I am planning on sharing my findings with the Cobalt Soul.”
Essek doesn’t even need to think.
“I would like nothing more,” he says, and the grin that splits Caleb’s face is brighter than the sun glinting off of fresh snow.
To love Caleb? Perhaps that is something Essek would like more.
…
“I think I love you.”
The thought springs to Caleb’s mind as Essek, once again, tugs him from danger. This is quickly becoming a ritual: Caleb’s self-preservation escapes him, Essek worries for the both of them, and when Essek reaches in to save Caleb, Caleb’s mind sings. The dangerous depths of Aeor allow this ritual to present itself almost daily, and despite the new scars beginning to litter his body, Caleb doesn’t seem to mind.
Essek, however, does.
“Caleb, you are a genius, and yet you fight like a fool.” Essek’s exasperated sigh cuts through the silence of the ritual of cleaning up after a fight.
Caleb had apologized for not having the tower, and Essek had simply shaken his head, saying that any shelter Caleb provided them was a gift. Caleb loved the tower, but part of him always longed for the intimacy of the dome, so he tries not to feel too happy as he sets up the protective bubble.
“A fool? Certainly a seasoned adventurer can not fight too foolishly. If my memory isn’t failing me, I remember you praising me earlier for a well-placed Disintegrate.” Caleb begins to discard his coat, flesh sticky with his own blood, and roots through his pack to find fresh bandages. The wet gashes on his back throb, and he drops the roll of gauze with a grunt.
Essek is by his side immediately, scooping up the bandages and pushing Caleb to sit down. This has become a ritual as well: They both try to ignore the intimacy of cleaning wounds. Essek fiddles with finding the start of the roll as Caleb strips his undercoat and his shirt, graciously ignoring the way Caleb’s scarred and freckled shoulders are flush with pink heat.
The first time Essek had cleaned one of Caleb’s wounds, it had been a deep gash on his dominant arm. Caleb had kept half of his shirt on and he still managed to feel so nervous that he nearly threw up. Caleb is no stranger to nudity, and he feels no shame in showing his skin, but the fact that it’s Essek looking seems to change this. With each night he gets better, but having Essek pay such close attention to his body still causes his mind to reel.
“You are deflecting my true intent.” Essek empties a waterskin onto a clean cloth and begins to gently dab away drying blood. Caleb doesn’t flinch, and Essek thinks briefly of how much pain someone must endure until they can sit still whilst being hurt. “I know you fight well. You fight far better than I. You are strong.” Essek wipes at a particularly caked spot, and Caleb inhales sharply.
There. A reaction. That's an improvement.
“But when you lose the desire to protect yourself, you worry me.” Essek’s voice is barely above a whisper, and yet it’s the only thing Caleb could possibly hear.
“I apologize-” Caleb starts, but a ragged breath cuts his statement short. Essek pulls the rag away, gives him a moment to breathe, and lets him try again. “I apologize. I do not wish to bring you harm or stress. That…” Essek cleans the cloth with a cantrip and starts wiping again. “That is precisely why I throw myself into the fray. I do not wish to see you as the hurt one.”
Essek’s movements still for a brief moment. “You get hurt to protect me? Caleb, you fool, I am not afraid of bleeding. The gods know that I deserve to shed some blood.” Caleb’s loose ponytail ruffles from Essek’s sigh. He bites down on another apology.
With a final swipe, all of the accumulated red has cleared, and Essek mumbles out, “We are lucky that this isn’t too deep.” They’ve had to stitch wounds before, it’s not a new skill, but they’re constantly thankful when the opportunity to practice doesn’t arise. Caleb hears the other wizard rustle as he reaches for the bandages, and Caleb straightens his posture for Essek to properly wrap the wound.
A couple of weeks ago, Caleb had quietly explained that he enjoys the feeling of bandages compressing him. Essek was shakily cleaning the first injury that had marked Caleb’s chest on this adventure, and when it came to bandaging, he admitted that he wasn’t sure how to go about it. Caleb had grabbed the roll from Essek’s hesitant hands and had shown him how to wrap a torso just so.
“Doesn’t that feel suffocating?” Essek had asked, lip curled at the thought of the constriction. He obviously preferred the looseness of draping robes.
“ Nein ,” Caleb had murmured, brushing his hands across the wrappings with some kind of awe, “They are comforting. They are...” He thought for a moment. “They are grounding. I have a, um, habit of slipping away from myself. I, ah, forget the word in Common, but my mind leaves my body, so to speak.” His skin had started to itch as he began to speak of himself, and he reached to organize their first-aid kit in an attempt to keep his hands busy. “Sometimes I like to escape like that. Float away. Other times, it causes issues. When I’m all wrapped up it becomes… easier, I suppose, to crawl back into my body.”
Caleb had also explained how he occasionally misses the feeling of his arms being wrapped, and the admission came as a surprise to himself. He had shed the bandages once he revealed his past to the Nein and it had been so wonderfully freeing. Sometimes, though, his arms feel far too bare. The pressure seemed to quell some of the itch, and when he did scratch, the bandages acted as a protective barrier between his nails and his skin. Essek’s face had twisted in an odd way when Caleb said that and Caleb hurried to change the subject, assuming that he had finally managed to make Essek uncomfortable with his oddities. That assumption is why Essek’s next question shocks Caleb into silence.
“Would you like me to wrap your arms as well?” A loose rock skitters from the ever-creaking walls. Distant wind howls. Essek’s voice hangs heavy in the air and he scrambles to explain himself when he doesn’t hear Caleb answer.
“I know they aren’t injured, it’s just, you mentioned a while ago. You, ah, you like the, um, the feeling. I apologize if that’s a weird insinuation, I do not wish to overstep, I just want you to feel…” Essek trails off as Caleb’s head turns slowly. The elf’s ears are pinned to the side of his head in an expression of panic, and Caleb lets himself smile to assuage some of that fear.
A gentle, orange warmth blooms in Caleb’s chest. Essek wants him to be comfortable. Essek wants him to feel safe. Caleb fights to keep the true tenderness from flooding his face, but he’s mostly unsuccessful, and he can see some of his own softness reflecting in Essek’s worried eyes.
“That would be wonderful,” Caleb whispers, “Thank you, Essek.” And thus, Essek gets to work.
He holds Caleb’s arms with a gentleness that the limbs have never felt. Essek has seen the scars in passing glances; When the Nein had examined Caleb’s body for more red eyes, the mutilated flesh had rippled in the light of his dancing globules. Caleb can remember pushing his sleeves up as he studied with Essek months ago, and he can remember Essek’s eyes training on his forearms. Essek has never seen them so close before, and when he gets to see them in their full glory, he does not flinch nor shy away.
They share no words. Caleb is grateful for the silence, and Essek knows; He knows how hard it is to speak with such vulnerability, and he knows how hard it is to talk about. He knows where the marks came from, the horrors they carry, and how permanent they are. He does not know the full extent of Ikithon’s abuse, but he knows that the scars extend further than just the body.
His touch is almost sickeningly gentle. When Essek’s finger accidentally catches against a raised white line, he lightly presses his palm to the area as a silent apology, and Caleb nearly sobs.
How did Caleb earn such an act of kindness? How did he get so lucky ? What divine being placed Essek before him, told him he was allowed to see him, to touch him, to speak with him, to know him? What course of actions led him to this filthy, murderous ruin and paired him with the most beautiful man on the planet?
When Essek reaches Caleb’s biceps on both arms, he hesitates for a second, and then gently squeezes both of Caleb’s hands. It takes a moment, but Caleb squeezes back.
The human redresses slowly. His brain is still spinning, cycling over and over the miracle that is Essek’s presence. When he lays down to sleep, he lays closer to Essek than he ever has before. Essek doesn’t move away.
Caleb considers loving Essek, and the skin under his bandages blooms with warmth.
…
“I think I love you.”
The thought flows into Essek’s mind gently, making sure to move carefully as it derails him in the midst of his work.
Of course he might love Caleb. How could he not?
The two wizards are sprawled out on the floor of Caleb’s tower, surrounded by self-made walls of books and paper. They’re both hunched over the same book, bickering animatedly about the magical origins of a particular rune, and whether it’s dunamantic or transmutative in nature.
“It has to be transmutation,” Caleb taps thrice on his own spellbook and begins to leaf through the pages. “The left side of the rune is far too organic to be dunamantic. That stroke there,” He points to the Aeoran book, “matches this stroke in the Polymorph spell.” The human's finger swipes across the page as he zeroes in on a different part of the rune. “This stroke matches a stroke in Haste. The rest of the rune is a little sharper than usual, yes, but it is not as… geometric as dunamantic runes.”
Truth be told, Essek realized Caleb was right when he pointed to the left side of the rune. He had been distracted by the sharpness of the lines, equating the rigidity to dunamancy, but the slopes of transmutation were still there. Instead of admitting his fault, Essek leans forward and peers harder at the particular page, as if the answer would reveal itself under his gaze. Caleb launches into an even more animated explanation, and Essek lets his eyes drift up from the paper.
He watches Caleb speak. The hunch in the human’s shoulders vanishes nearly completely as he loses himself in his explanation, and he begins to take up more space than he usually allows. His hands wave wildly in front of him, switching from book to air to book to air, never settling on one location. His eyes look wild, gleaming with an unmatched vitality that screams, “This! This is my passion!”
Gods, what else is Essek to do but listen?
Essek’s mind flips through the details of Caleb Widogast like a pamphlet- a pamphlet so wonderful and treasured that it miraculously trumps Jester’s presentation of the Traveller. He thinks of how Caleb prefers to sleep on his left side, how he must smell any food or drink before tasting it, how he shakes excess energy out of his hands, how he can speak so passionately on the most mundane of topics, how his hair flickers around him like flames, how he wakes quickly in the mornings and falls asleep slow. He thinks of how lucky he is to know such small intimacies; favorite foods, favorite teas, favorite spells, and how Essek is so beyond willing to share himself, as well.
Caleb is a genius, a wildfire unmatched, and Essek simply feels lucky to hear his voice. He feels blessed- whether it be by Melora or the Luxon or whatever - to witness Caleb’s glory. And when Caleb begins to slowly lower his hands, eyebrows furrowing, Essek knows he’s been caught. And for once, finally, he feels no drowning shame in being discovered.
“You… you kopfschmerzen. ” Caleb jabs a finger in Essek’s direction. “You are just baiting me.”
It takes Essek a moment to realize that he’s grinning, and perhaps the warmth of the fire is doing something to his head, but he decides to have some fun.
“Well, some might call me a master baiter.”
The shocked laugh that leaves Caleb is worth the humiliation, Essek thinks, and then he also thinks that he would like to never forget the sound of Caleb’s laughter. They both know the joke is all Jester’s influence, but that doesn’t make it worth any less.
Essek considers loving Caleb, and he calmly realizes that the warmth in his chest is not from the crackling fireplace. If possible, he smiles wider. Tomorrow, they will venture back into the ruins and risk their lives like foolish wizards do. And Essek will happily do so, just to have Caleb by his side.
…
“I think I love you.
Yes. Yes, I think so.”
The thought comes to Caleb as Essek guides him to sit on the frozen floor of Aeor. They’re both wrecks, clothes tattered, and spells nearly tapped. Circling them are the bodies of many Aeoran horrors, a comfortable mixture of burnt and crushed, blood seeping into the cracks in the stone.
“Please, Essek,” Caleb’s voice is hoarse, “Let us move further away. I can put the dome up. We can rest.” His hands are trembling.
“Caleb, please,” Essek’s voice is also hoarse, but less so. “You need a moment. I need a moment. These corpses are not going to reanimate.” The drow gingerly sits next to his companion and waits a moment to speak again. “These are new beasts. One of them got into your head. It’s alright to need a moment.” And he slowly, carefully, as if handling porcelain, drapes an arm around Caleb’s shoulders.
It takes a moment for Caleb to register the touch, but once he does, his mind begins to race in a familiar way. Part of him screams; the contact is too much. Essek’s arm is pinning him to the earth, his clothes are touching him and the feeling is filthy , and the only thing Caleb can do to escape is to scream and claw and lash out. But he hears Essek breathing loudly next to him, deliberately, like he knows the race that’s whirling in Caleb’s head. So the human takes a moment to match the breathing, and soon, the red-hot feeling in his head fades. The touch smooths into a comfort, and eventually, the touch is an anchor.
Caleb doesn’t cry. He wants to, desperately, mind violated by the probing mental magics of the monsters. He can feel the tears welling in the back of his throat, but there’s a stone in the way, something holding them down and back until he knows he’s safe. They sit silently for a while longer, waiting until they’ve both stopped trembling enough to speak. Caleb sighs through his nose.
“I feel better. Danke, Essek. Let me put up the dome.” Caleb’s hands are still shaking, but he manages to clench them into fists. “Let me put up the dome,” he repeats, and when he looks up at Essek, the expression on the other wizard’s face is enough to dislodge the sobs climbing Caleb’s throat. Unguarded worry paints Essek’s features, and Caleb can’t help himself. He reaches up and uses his thumb to smooth the line between Essek’s brows.
“You will wrinkle if you frown so much. Let me put up the dome,” Caleb insists, and he lets his fingertips trail down the rest of Essek’s face and settle on his cheekbone. Normally the touch would be too much, but both men are in tatters, and Essek simply sighs and leans into Caleb’s hand.
“You do not stop for anything, Caleb Widogast.” Essek doesn’t pull his arm from Caleb’s shoulders, and instead, he helps the wizard stand. Together, they stagger as far as they can from the bodies, until Caleb’s keen eyes catch a hole in the wall that they can both fit into.
“There.” He points as best he can and then lets his wrist drop back to his side. “We will be a little cramped, but we will not be out in the open. The dome will act as a door. We have done this before, once, to hide from an angry roc.”
If Essek wasn’t bleeding freely from his head, he would probably interrogate Caleb about said roc, but all he can do is drag them in tandem to the opening. Crawling in proves a little difficult, but they eventually settle in the natural shelter with inches of space to spare. Caleb’s spellbook is spread on the ground before Essek has settled, and the ten minutes spent casting the dome are finished in a blink.
Caleb moves to begin their shared nightly ritual; sorting through their supplies, mending what can be mended, cleaning wounds, but Essek grabs onto Caleb’s hands to stop him.
“You are exhausted, Caleb.” Essek’s voice is hardly above a whisper, but it seems to echo in Caleb’s head. “Go to sleep. We will just have a late morning tomorrow.”
Sighing, Caleb leans back against the wall and turns his head to look at Essek. Their backs are both pressed against the stone, thighs brushing despite excess space on both of their sides, and Essek turns his head to look at Caleb at the same time. Caleb lets his head fall forward as gently as he can and he presses his forehead against Essek’s with a belated grumble.
“ Meine gott. I have never been more tired.” They sit like this for a moment, Caleb’s eyes closed so tightly that his eye sockets ache, and then he pulls away. Essek releases his hands. “You are tired as well.” Caleb begins to fidget with the edge of his sleeve; a nervous tic. “You should sleep instead of trancing. It will feel nice.”
“Sleep? Sleeping is far too vulnerable, we could-”
“ Ja, sleep. If something stumbles upon us, we are both dead. I do not like to say that but we are both extremely drained. Even if you trance fully and get all of your spells back, I will be a hindrance.” Caleb leans his head back against the wall and he doesn’t even need to look at Essek to know that the drow’s eyes are trained on the column of his throat. He swallows, partially for show. “I know you will refuse to let me die alone out here. Allow yourself some comfort. Sleep with me.”
Ah. Fuck.
The realization of what he said smacks into Caleb and he’s immediately sitting up straight, holding his hands out in front of him. In the low light, Caleb can’t see Essek’s face, but he doesn’t need to see to know that the drow’s cheeks are wine-dark with a blush.
“Forgive me, Essek, I did not mean to say that so crudely, it was a careless slip of the tongue. Sincerely, I apologize, es tut mir leid, I meant nothing ill-” It takes Caleb an embarrassingly long time to realize that Essek is laughing, too tired to even lift his hand to cover his mouth, and Caleb’s eyes can’t help but catch the fangs that glint in the darkness.
Essek silently laughs for far too long; So long that Caleb’s terror drops into exhausted hysterics, and soon, he’s laughing as well. Their arms are far too tired to reach up and stifle smiles, so they laugh openly, swaying dangerously close in their gleeful fit. Caleb’s eyes are fully closed as he laughs, so he fails to see Essek’s unguarded smile, but he’s not foolish enough to ever forget the prior glimpse that he had.
“It wasn’t funny! You are mocking me! Arschloch!” Caleb gasps and Essek’s forehead thuds to rest on Caleb’s shoulder.
“I do not understand,” Essek’s body continues to shake with silent mirth, “why this is so funny.” The drow huffs and presses his forehead harder into Caleb’s bone. “My whole body hurts. This is no longer as funny as it was, and yet I cannot stop laughing.”
“We are in hysterics. This is why you should sleep.” Caleb lets himself slide down the wall, Essek’s head following the downward path of his shoulder until they are both lying down, with Essek’s face smushed into the side of Caleb’s chest.
“You are going to suffocate. Lay normally.” Caleb begins to shift Essek- whose eyes have slid shut- until they’re both lying comfortably next to each other.
Essek mumbles something unintelligible and wiggles around until his legs are tangled with Caleb’s and his chest is pressed flush against Caleb’s right side. Caleb sighs, far too tired to ask his companion to repeat himself, and he rolls over onto his side to press his forehead against Essek’s once again.
His joints are going to sob in the morning. People are not built to sleep in cramped holes, but he deems this worth the pain. Essek is already asleep, steady breathing tickling his companions jaw, and it doesn’t take Caleb long to join him.
When they wake up, they’ll both be embarrassed and they’ll apologize for their respective “mistakes.” Essek’s ears will go hot as he apologizes for behaving so inappropriately, and Caleb’s cheekbones will turn red as he waves the apology away and places the blame on himself for being so careless. But for now, the two are safe and as comfortable as they can be, and Caleb’s mind positively swims.
To love Essek? What a blessing.
…
“I think I love you.
Yes. Love. That sounds right.”
The air in the tower’s library is warm, uncomfortably warm, and the words on the page in front of Essek are swimming. Even with Comprehend Languages the text feels foreign, and his head feels as if it’s going to split. No matter how tightly he squeezes his eyes shut the jabbing pain refuses to fade, and he shoves the book away with a huff. Caleb enters the room just in time to witness this fit of frustration.
“Essek? Are you alright?” Caleb’s voice is laden with worry and in his hands he grips a few more books. His hair is down for once, flowing over his shoulders, and it glows orange in the firelight. Essek’s skull pounds too hard for him to appreciate the sight.
“A headache. I just need a moment and I’ll be back to work.” The words feel too uncomfortable and thick in Essek’s mouth and he nearly chokes on them. Opening his eyes becomes too much and he presses his palms into his eye sockets, attempting to assuage the pain. He sits like that for a few moments and then some, seconds stretching into minutes as he struggles to ground himself.
After a while, Essek hears the sound of Caleb’s soft footsteps, and he feels a hand settle on his back.
“Essek, here, take this. I have a potion that Veth gifted me long ago. It will help.”
Essek groans and slowly, achingly pulls his hands from his eyes. He fumbles blindly for whatever Caleb is holding until he feels cold glass touch his lips, and with the murmured instruction to drink, Essek drinks.
The liquid tastes foul and Essek nearly spits it out, throat working against him, but he lets the medicine trickle down nonetheless and he wrinkles his nose once the bottle is pulled from his lips.
“Tastes awful,” He rasps, and Caleb chuckles.
“I told her to fix the flavor. She refused, of course, she told me that the bad taste is to distract from the pain.” Caleb’s hand is rubbing smooth circles across the plane of Essek’s back, and Essek can feel the heat radiating from the rest of the human's body nearby. He smells parchment and chamomile. “Are you distracted?”
Yes. Extremely, incredibly, impossibly distracted.
Essek can only huff in response as the potion seeps into him, quickly leaving him drowsy and teetering where he sits. He feels Caleb guide him to his feet and he stumbles blindly until his knees bump into what can only be a lounging chair.
“Lie down, schatz . Rest for a while. The work is going nowhere.” Essek complies, sinking into the delightfully soft cushions, warm and drowsy and safe.
It seems that the warmth doesn’t come only from the flickering fire a few feet away; instead, the warmth comes from deep within, centered on the spot between his shoulder blades where Caleb’s palm had been resting moments ago. What a wonderful thing, to be left so warm from a caring touch.
Essek tumbles into a black sleep, heavy as a stone, the most content he’s ever been.
When he awakens, he’s delighted to find that the splitting pain in his skull is gone. Instead resides a cloudy drowsiness that leads Essek to groan and stretch, so human-like, content to continue resting in this spot. Gods, he would have to thank Veth and Yeza for whatever was in that potion. Master chemists is a fitting title.
A few feet to his left there's a rustle, and Essek cracks open an eye just in time to watch Caleb’s head quickly turn in the opposite direction. The mage is sitting awkwardly on the floor, hunched over his own spellbook, scribbling something that is too far away for Essek to make out. An abandoned mug rests by his foot and a full inkpot sits by his knee. It appears that Caleb had set up shop on the floor right next to Essek, neglecting the health of his back to instead keep an eye on the drow. And with the blush creeping up the back of the human’s neck, it seems he was also neglecting his spellbook to instead stare at Essek.
“I caught you,” Essek slurs, “You are not as sneaky as you may think.” Essek’s vision blurs, and he has to squint his eyes to focus on the shape of Caleb.
“Do not pretend like you haven’t been caught before, Herr Thelyss.” Ah. A fair point. “How are you feeling? That potion will leave you drowsy for a bit longer, I’m afraid. You should rest more.”
Essek drapes an arm over his eyes and takes a moment to respond. “I do feel better. Praise Veth and Yeza.” He sighs heavily as the cocoon of drowsiness around him pulsates. “I am exhausted. Relaxed, though, the most I’ve ever been.”
“Good . I will get you some tea while you rest. I know you prefer chai,” Essek’s heart clenches in his chest, the pure intimacy of being known, “but I feel some chamomile will do you good right now.” Chamomile would do him good. Caleb moves to stand, and in his half-present state, Essek lets his heart make a decision. He reaches out and grabs blindly until he feels Caleb slip his wrist into his hand.
“Essek? Are you truly alright or-” “Come here. Lay with me.”
A thick silence fills the air once again, and Essek doesn’t need to see Caleb’s face to know that it’s currently flushed red. Essek tugs on the human's arm to pull him closer, and he feels Caleb resisting slightly. He quickly lets go and moves to sit up, worried that he overstepped, when he feels Caleb’s palms pushing him to lie back down.
“You are drugged, Essek. I do not wish to take any kind of advantage of you.” He can hear Caleb swallow nervously. “Please, rest more. I will have tea when you wake.”
“Caleb,” Essek says, and he fights against Caleb’s lean arms, “Caleb.”
“Essek.” Caleb’s arms have gone slack but his hands have not moved.
“I am not drugged. I am tired. I feel dead,” Caleb scoffs at Essek’s dramatics but lets him continue, “You are very comfortable. I have never met someone who runs so warm. For once, let us indulge. There will still be tea when we both wake up.” Essek pauses to consider. “Unless you are truly uncomfortable, then please, I sincerely apologize.” He slackens the grip he had on the other wizard.
“There is work to be done,” Caleb insists, but he doesn’t look as nervous as he did moments ago. In fact, there’s a soft smile creeping onto his face.
“There is always work to be done,” Essek murmurs, and he tentatively tugs once again on Caleb’s arm. This time, Caleb moves with the pull, and he collapses on top of the lounge with an oof . It takes them a moment to settle, and eventually they end up with Caleb sprawled out on top of Essek’s body, like a living weighted blanket. Caleb’s arms come to wrap around the drow’s torso as their legs tangle, and Essek lets his fingers slip into the human’s loose hair.
“If Jester could see us,” Essek mumbles into the top of Caleb’s head, “she would lose her mind.”
Essek feels Caleb laugh. “ Nein, nein, if Beauregard could see us… I can almost hear her voice now.” Caleb launches into an incredibly poor imitation of Beau’s accent, but he has her vocabulary nearly perfected. “ You fuckin’ creepy ass, weird ass wizards an’ your nerdy bullshit. Sleepin’ in a fuckin’ library like a bunch of losers. What do you mean I work at a fuckin’ library? When I do it, it’s dope as fuck.”
Essek huffs his laughter into Caleb’s hair, breathing in his perpetual smell of parchment and firewood, as he feels the thick confines of sleep reaching for him once more.
Truthfully, Gods be damned if any of their friends could see them now. Essek knows he could willingly withstand the embarrassment to hold this man as he is now; Utterly safe, ultimately comfortable, and brimming with gentle love. Essek presses the softest kiss to the top of Caleb’s hair, and he feels Caleb smile against his chest.
Love. It feels good to finally know it’s true.
…
“I love you.
How could I not?”
Currently, Essek and Caleb are both huddling in the sparse shade on a beach on Rumblecusp, watching their friends imbibe in the ebbing ocean and beating sun. They’re sprawled across the fine sand with a respectable distance between them, not pressed hip to hip like they’d like, but they’re close enough to chat and feel the presence of the other. They both sit with books in their hands, clad in simple swimwear, Essek finally comfortable enough with showing swaths of skin around their friends.
This environment fits neither of them, with Essek’s sun sensitivity coming from his species and Caleb’s coming from the paleness of his skin, and they’ve spent a couple of hours hiding from the oppressive heat. Caleb’s shoulders and cheeks are already hot from sunburn, after the briefest stint of using Cat’s Ire to scoop water on top of Fjord and fighting the sailor’s grip when he had tried to get his revenge, and Essek has been periodically glancing at the reddened flesh for the past hour.
Yes, an hour. Caleb has been counting.
When Caleb finally catches Essek’s eyes, the drow refuses to back down, and simply tilts his head at the burn, indicating a silent question. Caleb sets his book down in his lap and presses a finger against his freckled skin, watching the spot turn white and quickly fade back into red.
“Sunburnt,” Caleb explains, grinning at the unmasked fascination on Essek’s face, “happens when you spend too long in the sun.”
“Does it hurt?” Essek’s hand hovers over Caleb’s shoulder, and even from over twenty feet away, he knows Caduceus is watching them.
“It is not the worst right now. Sometimes it can hurt dreadfully. Skin can peel, blister if you are truly unlucky.” Essek wrinkles his nose and removes his hovering hand.
“Beau and Yasha are doomed. They’ve been out there far longer than you.” The drow furrows his brow, certainly thinking of potential blisters, and says, “They should be more careful.”
Caleb follows Essek’s eyes to where Beau and Yasha stand- together, of course, the women hardly stray from each other’s sides. Yasha holds Beau on her shoulders and the two laugh as they scrabble against Jester and Fjord in a chicken fight. Jester holds a panicked Fjord, who seems powerless against Beau’s strong arms, and Veth exuberantly referees from the beach. She seems excited to point out that Fjord is losing.
“Beauregard should be fine,” Caleb explains, “her complexion is far darker than mine. Yasha is doomed, perhaps, as her skin is even paler than mine. My cursed hair is what makes me so sensitive to the sun.”
Essek’s eyebrows shoot up. “Your hair? How does that factor in?” He reaches up and catches a loose strand between his fingers, forgetting their company, and he drops it like it burns when Beau loudly whistles.
Caleb doesn’t even look at her to flip her off and he revels in Jester’s boisterous laughter for a moment. “Red hair is… uncommon in humans. It is a genetic mutation. All sorts of myths surrounding it, saying we snatch souls or that we’re infernals trapped in the wrong body, but there’s nothing mystical about how sensitive we are to the sun.” Caleb gestures to himself and immediately regrets it when he feels Essek’s eyes raking down his figure. Suddenly he’s thankful for the red burn, as it’s capable of hiding his full-body blush. “The sun refuses to agree with us. While someone like Veth or Beauregard would simply get darker, and burn after quite a long time, we cook and freckle in record time.”
Essek hums and leans marginally closer to inspect Caleb’s skin, making a comment about said freckles, but Caleb’s blood is rushing loudly in his ears and he misses the remark entirely.
Gods above, does he know what he’s doing to me? The Nein will never let me live this down if they notice.
Thankfully, or unfortunately, Essek leans back and returns to his book with a hum. They sit in companionable silence until the sun sinks below the horizon and Essek summons his Dancing Lights, Caleb sneaking silent glances at his companion, occasionally catching violet eyes and looking away as quickly as they both can.
It appears that their dance stops for nothing.
Their friends slink from the water once fireflies dance in the air, Jester loudly complaining about her hunger and Beau begging Caduceus for a lesser restoration on her girlfriend. Veth trails behind Fjord with a small crab in her hand, stepping forward as softly as she can, until the critter latches onto the orc’s finger and he swears loudly.
“She’s fuckin’ cooked, man! Come on! Help her out!”
Caduceus smiles placidly, and Yasha reaches for Beau’s hand as she says, “Beau, baby, it’s fine. It’s my fault. I’ve dealt with worse.”
“You guys!” Jester wails and droops forward, clinging dramatically to Fjord’s arm, “I am seriously going to starve! I need food, like, now.”
“ Ow ! Veth! You motherfucker!”
Caleb grins and allows himself to bask in the brightness of his friends. For a moment, he feels his red-hot skin throb, and he slips into an older headspace; They are all the sun, and he was genetically wired to not fit them. His stomach drops for the slightest moment and he feels his grin falter.
How sinister of him to sneak into these beautiful people and force them to love him. He’s tricked them, tricked them all into trusting him, and it’s a matter of how long he can hold out until he harms them. How deep does the evil implanted in him run? How close is the inevitable day that they realize that he is nothing they have ever wanted? How sick is he to-
“Caleb?” Essek’s gentle voice breaks the violent train of thought. He feels gentle fingers brushing against his own, and Caleb breaks his staring contest with the sand to look at the wizard. “You went somewhere else.”
Caleb opens his mouth to apologize, but Essek gives him a pointed look, and he chooses to say a quiet “Thank you, mein freund. ” Thankfully, the rest of the Nein are still chattering animatedly around them, and Caleb drops to his knees in the sand to cast the tower.
Dinner is a whirlwind, and Caleb finds himself aching for silence. His skin throbs for the pressure of water surrounding him, and once the Nein scatter off to their respective rooms, he slinks out of the tower onto the darkened beach. He had already changed out of his swim clothes into loungewear, but he almost feels desperate for the sensation of the sea, so he strips naked and wades into the water.
The chill satiates the hot pain of his burn, and when he sinks beneath the surface, the full-body pressure alleviates the panic that has been growing under his skin all night.
Caleb understands that he will always have moments like this- wonderful days suddenly flipped into a numbing fear, a spiking panic. Occasionally he feels guilty over this habit; So selfish , a voice sickeningly close to Ikithon’s slurs, you can never just appreciate what you have.
He had chatted briefly with Beau about this when she had first noticed a smile suddenly drop from his face. He remembers her attempted comfort word-for-word: “ Yeah, of course you get like that, dude. You’re fucked up. But you’re not the only one. Yash feels the same, I think. She just tries to distract herself.” Veth had overheard and reassured him similarly, insisting that he’s not selfish for having his issues, and that the world is full of distractions.
Caleb takes their advice fully- he distracts himself. Once his lungs burn from extended submergence, he swims back to the surface, gulps air, and sinks back down to the sand. He repeats this over and over and over. He counts each second he can withstand, giving himself the goal of extending his record, and he watches the warped moon through the surface of the water. Slowly, the burn slips from beneath his skin into his lungs, and the cool around him drags him back into his body. Caleb lets himself float onto his back and bask in the moonlight- finally, he is back in his own body. There is only one thing that could make this better.
“Caleb?”
And there he is.
Essek sounds far away with the water plugging Caleb’s ears, but he knows he’s there. For a brief moment, Caleb considers not answering, but he could never willingly enforce that panic on Essek. So instead, he lets his feet touch down on the powdery sand, and pushes his dripping hair out of his face when he turns to see the drow. The water is high enough to cover his lower-half, but his scarred torso is on full display.
Essek stands on the beach in his pajamas, roughly thirty feet away, arms crossed over his chest. Caleb knows he can see him; Drow darkvision combined with the exceptionally clear water gives Essek quite the view, and Caleb knows the blush that paints his face without having to see it. If Caleb were someone else, perhaps he would have enough shame to cover up.
“ Hallo, Essek.” Caleb speaks when the other man can’t seem to continue.
“Yes. Hello.” Essek’s voice falters slightly, and Caleb can’t help but grin. He hasn’t had this effect on someone for a long time. “I went to chat with you in your quarters about the book you were reading earlier, but I couldn’t find you anywhere in the tower. I, ah, I got worried. When I saw you in the water I had thought you drowned.”
Caleb lets himself laugh. “No, no, I am alive. I just…” He trails off as the words escape him. He waves his hands in the air, exasperated that they can’t speak for him. “It is hard to explain. I needed the water. I will admit that I felt weird for a bit, and I knew the water would help me.”
Essek is silent for a long moment. If he were anybody else, Caleb would worry that he had said something odd, but he knows that Essek is pondering. The drow opens and closes his mouth a few times, adjusts the way he stands, and averts his eyes multiple times until he finally speaks.
“Turn around, please.”
Caleb complies. It doesn’t take long for him to hear the rustle of clothes, soft cursing in Undercommon as pants catch on a foot, and the splash of someone entering water behind him. There’s no way that Caleb can control his smile now- he grins like a fool.
Essek wades out next to him and softly says, “Hello.”
“ Hallo.”
The two wizards stand fully naked, waves lapping at their stomachs, basking in the moonlight, facing each other but strongly avoiding eye contact. Caleb’s heart pounds painfully in his chest, and Gods, he feels like a teenager again. What in the worlds had he done so long ago when this first happened? He remembers the hot embarrassment, the deliberate avoidance of eye contact, both Wulf and Astrid laughing at him when he slipped under the water to avoid conversation.
Caleb decides to regress.
He submerges fully, prudently refusing to look at the smooth expanse of Essek’s legs, and continues his previous game of testing his lungs. His hair floats around him and he’s grateful for the way it obscures his vision, blocking the distracting sight in front of him.
It doesn’t take Essek long to catch on- he submerges to his shoulders slowly, takes a long pause, and in this time Caleb resurfaces to catch his breath.
“You don’t have to go under,” Caleb says, trying not to feel embarrassed as he once again pushes his hair out of his eyes, “you don’t have to ruin your hair.”
Essek just shakes his head, trains his eyes on a rivulet of water trailing down Caleb’s bicep, and finally swings his eyes up to catch Caleb’s. Caleb feels his breath leave him as Essek grins dopily and drops below the surface of the water. He inhales and exhales a few times, laughing slightly manically to himself, before dropping his knees to join his companion.
Despite the clarity, it's hard for Caleb to make out the details of Essek in the night water. He sees the bright shock of his hair, suspended a few inches above it’s usual perch, and the dark expanse of Essek’s body, curled in to hide some parts of his flesh. Caleb mimics Essek’s position, knowing that the darkvision of a drow is dangerous in this situation, and he catches Essek’s glinting eyes through the water. Caleb lets himself grin, a few bubbles slipping through his teeth as he does so, and the acrid tang of saltwater fills his mouth.
Caleb can’t entirely tell if Essek’s looking at his eyes or other parts of him, but he finds that he doesn’t really mind. He lets himself stretch out underwater, and slowly, Essek moves as well. Caleb pointedly refuses to stare, even as he unfurls his legs and gives a delicious glimpse of a white happy trail, and the two sit in their dulled senses for minutes. Eventually, the wonderful muteness melts into the familiar burning in his lungs, and Essek reaches for the surface with Caleb in tow.
The two heave for a moment, and Caleb squeezes water out of his hair as he turns to ask a breathless question to Essek. He’s caught off guard as he turns to find Essek boring his eyes into him, and any prior thought vacates his mind entirely. The briny air suddenly feels as if Kord himself has blessed them with his electric presence.
“Caleb,” Essek breathes out, and Gods, that voice should be impossible, and he takes a tentative step closer. Caleb finds himself releasing his wet hair to stand straighter. He can hear Essek swallow.
“Caleb,” the drow repeats, and he takes another step. A drop of water flings itself from a curl plastered to Essek’s forehead. Caleb’s fingers twitch with the desire to move it.
“Caleb.” They have not broken eye contact, and with each small step that Essek takes, his hands raise. Eventually, the two are barely a foot apart, with Essek’s hands hovering over Caleb’s chest. Caleb’s heart is pounding so hard it’s miraculous that he can hear Essek’s next statement.
“Essek.”
“I would very much like to kiss you, if you’re amenable.”
“Please,” Caleb whispers, “please.”
The two crash together and it feels rather anticlimactic, as a lack of experience causes both parties to fumble. Caleb laughs against Essek’s mouth, and he can feel Essek scrunch his nose as he tries to tilt his head just so. It takes them both a moment- Essek’s hands hover over his skin until Caleb grabs them and places them on his face, and Caleb’s hands skirt over the soft plane of Essek’s skin until they settle on the back of his neck.
The first thing Caleb notes is that Essek is soft- his skin, his lips, his breaths, and even his tongue when Caleb grows brave enough to explore. The second thing he notes is that Essek truly can’t keep his hands still- gentle fingers drift from Caleb’s neck to his biceps, they jerk away from his forearms and settle on bony hips, they reach up and curl in red hair. Caleb lets out a positively filthy sound when Essek accidentally jerks on his hair, and he feels himself grow impossibly red.
“M’sorry,” Caleb pulls back half an inch to mumble, but Essek just grins devilishly and pulls his hair again. When Caleb’s mouth falls open in a gasp, Essek dives in this time, licking into the human's mouth with a fervor he’s only ever possessed whilst studying. And perhaps, in a way, he is studying- Caleb certainly is. Caleb memorizes the feeling of Essek’s teeth, and he notices that one of his bottom teeth is slightly crooked. What an intimate detail. He's certain no one else knows this secret of the pristine Shadowhand.
They pull back to breathe for a second, relishing the closeness, and Caleb’s whole body feels alight with a warm fire. Essek has a pale-knuckled grip on the back of his head, and the two are pressed so flush against each other that it’s impossible to ignore the growing heat between them.
“If you are interested,” Essek breathes, “I would like to take you to bed.” He gains a nervous air, and pulls a few inches away from Caleb. “Only if you are interested. Please, do not do anything if you don’t-”
Caleb cuts him off with another searing kiss, relishing the way Essek’s fangs catch on his lips, and he mumbles into Essek’s mouth, “I desperately want you to have your way with me.” Caleb can feel Essek shudder and he briefly feels proud. His pride doesn’t last long, as it’s soon replaced with a roiling gut as Essek drags his mouth down Caleb’s neck and sucks a pink mark onto his collarbone.
The two slosh back towards the beach, nearly falling into the water multiple times, refusing to break the long kiss they’ve latched into. When they reach their clothes, they fumble and curse as the cloth resists against their wet skin, and Essek drags a half-dressed Caleb through the tower’s door by his hand. They don’t touch much on the float up, both fearing that a friend of theirs could be stationed anywhere, but Essek’s hand strongly grips Caleb’s the entire trek to his room. Essek’s room is the closest, and once inside, Caleb turns on his heel and presses the drow up against the door.
He kisses his jaw, his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, the corners of his mouth, every inch of skin on Essek’s face as the drow forces Caleb’s half-buttoned shirt off of his shoulders. Essek’s hands find their way back into Caleb’s hair as the human pulls his light shirt off of him, and he lets Essek walk him backwards towards the bed. The backs of his knees hit the mattress with a thump, and Essek tumbles on top of him.
“I have wanted this,” Essek latches back onto Caleb’s throat, fangs scraping the tender skin, “For so long,” he leaves another mark just below Caleb’s jaw, “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He licks over the spot as Caleb rakes blunt nails down Essek’s back.
“You are beautiful. Beyond beautiful.” Essek pulls back to stare down at Caleb, and Caleb’s heart almost bursts out of his chest. For the first time in his life, he feels beautiful, and the way Essek stares down at him with reverent awe makes his skin tingle. He knows the look in Essek’s eyes. He knows the love without having to hear it.
He cups Essek’s cheeks as he pulls him up for another kiss. I love you. Another kiss. I love you. Another kiss. I love you.
Caleb’s heart has never felt so full. He’s never felt so light, so soft, so warm, so loved in his entire life.
This is where I was meant to be. With you.
Caleb loves Essek like it’s what he was born to do.
…
“ I love you.
I am beyond grateful for this.”
Essek’s skin has never felt so hot, his stomach never so tight, and his chest never so full. Caleb is sprawled out beneath him, hair spreading from his head like a warm halo, and Essek would be wrong to deny the divinity of this man.
He is the true piece of the Luxon. It is almost difficult to believe that he is not the party member with celestial blood.
Essek makes sure to kiss every inch of Caleb’s bruisable skin that he can reach. He sucks pink and red marks into the pale flesh; Love bites litter his neck, his chest, lower, and Caleb shifts beneath Essek’s mouth like a gift. He traces loping scars with his tongue, and skirts impossibly light fingers over freckled skin like he’s holding the soft petals of a flower.
Essek has never touched this much before, nor been touched, and he discovers that he quite likes it. Over 120 years of ignoring and dismissing the prospects of love like this, and as he finally indulges himself with Caleb's body, he can only think of how bright their future could be.
How bright their future is.
Essek can see it in Caleb’s eyes; At one point, through hooded eyelids, utter devotion leaks through. Both men know the other to not be so frivolous in bed partners- this means something to the both of them. He’s seen it in other moments, seeping through in the way Caleb treats him, and Essek doesn’t have to guess to know that this isn’t going to be something casual.
But the nagging paranoia within him has to ask. The two are sprawled out on Essek’s bed- Essek now knows why Caleb placed a bed in his room when he doesn’t even need to sleep- and both are breathing heavily. Essek prestidigitates the residual sweat and stickiness that coat them, and Caleb laughs at the slight tickle. His heart swells momentarily, but one of the beats is sour, and the question tumbles out before he can stop it.
“Is this just a one-time thing?” Essek mentally curses at how small his voice sounds.
Caleb rolls over onto his side and looks at Essek. His hair glows red in the low candlelight. Essek knows without looking that his eyebrows are furrowed, and he suppresses the desire to smooth the line between them.
“ Was? Essek, schatz, you-”
Essek can’t stop himself. “It is alright if it is. Well, okay, it’s not. I want you to be comfortable. I do not want to ask too much of you, and-”
“Essek, look at me-”
“-and I understand if a relationship is not what you want from me-”
“Essek, liebling , please look at me.”
Caleb raises a hand and gently turns Essek’s head until he’s facing the other man, and all of the roiling words spilling out of Essek halt.
Essek has never seen such a soft expression on Caleb’s face.
“Essek, you have to know that I have been enamored with you for quite some time. It is I who does not want to ask too much of you.”
“I just want you to be happy,” Essek confesses, and he quietly adds, “And selfishly, I want that happiness to include me.”
“It includes you.” Caleb’s voice loses the softness, and he sits up and pulls Essek with him. The human fiercely grips the drow’s fingers, and Essek is briefly reminded that this man has fought and killed demigods. “My happiness includes you. It has included you since you opened yourself up to us. It has included you for so long now, Essek, and there is no way that it could possibly stop including you.” Caleb leans forward and presses his forehead against Essek’s. Somehow, this feels more intimate than the sex they just had.
“You, Essek Thelyss, are part of my happiness. I will have you by my side in any way that you want to be.”
That answer is simple. “I want to be yours.”
“Then mine you are. And I, yours.”
Essek can’t help himself when he leans forward and peppers Caleb’s face with kisses, and when Caleb falls backwards giggling, Essek feels so wonderfully happy that he might be sick.
“You enjoy kissing. I am not going to be able to swim in front of the others for days with all of these bite marks,” Caleb says between laughter, and half-heartedly scrabbles to push Essek’s ticklish mouth off of him.
“I have denied myself the joy of kissing for over a century. I’m indulging,” Essek mumbles against his skin, and he presses a final kiss to Caleb’s forehead before leaning back and laying down on his side, “Not to mention, you are a very talented wizard-” Caleb scoffs “-Do not laugh, the truth is not funny, you are more than capable of disguising yourself.”
“What if I want to show them off?”
“Then why would you-” Ah. Caleb’s grinning. It was a joke. Essek belatedly smacks Caleb’s bicep with a disgruntled huff, and he shoves his face into Caleb’s chest to feel his rumbling laughter. “It’s not funny. You are not funny.” The hair on Caleb’s chest is far softer than he thought it would be.
“Humor is not one of my talents, then. However, a very beautiful and intelligent wizard told me that magic was.” Essek feels his cheeks heat.
“I suppose flattery is, as well,” he mumbles against Caleb’s skin, and Caleb responds by pulling him closer.
“Not flattery, schatz , simply the truth.”
For the third time ever, Essek falls asleep comfortably. For the third time ever, he falls asleep with his limbs tangled with Caleb’s. They had slept whilst touching in Aeor, and those moments had certainly held a kind of charge, but they were never as soothing or fulfilling at the bone-deep joy of being utterly entangled. He is warm, he is safe, and he is happy.
He is in love.
He is in love when they wake up, when Caleb cards his fingers through Essek’s unstyled hair and presses a soft kiss to the side of his mouth. He is in love when he watches Caleb’s back muscles as he stretches, and he’s in love when Caleb catches him and chastises him for staring. He is in love when he calls Caleb a hypocrite, and he’s in love when he instructs Caleb to sit on the floor in front of him so he can braid his hair out of his eyes.
He is in love when they catch each other’s eyes at breakfast, and he is in love when Jester flicks her eyes between them before gasping loudly.
“You guys ! Look at Cay-leb’s neck!” She points a sparkling nail in Caleb’s direction, and he pauses mid-drink as all of the attention swings towards him. He quickly slaps his neck in an attempt to cover the marks, but there’s far too many, and he’s blushing too much for Jester to be lying.
Beau stands up and leans across the table, and she gasps as well, exclaiming, “Holy fuck, dude, you look like you got fuckin’ attacked.”
“Didn’t he?” Veth snickers, and every eye swings towards Essek.
“Ah,” Essek wants to sink into the floor. He wants to bury his face in his hands. He knows his cheeks are turning plum-purple with a blush. His ears feel impossibly hot.
“Well,” Caleb croaks out, “I suppose I forgot to disguise myself.”
“Cay-leb, you don’t forget anything! Oh my Gods! It must’ve been really good.” She waggles her eyebrows and Caleb shoves his face into his hands. “How was it? Did you-” Fjord claps a hand over Jester’s mouth and quietly asks her to give them some privacy. He curses loudly when she bites him.
“I suppose I was, ah, too distracted to remember-”
“No, holy shit, fuck no,” Beau interrupts him, “Have fucking mercy. Spare the details.”
Caleb is about to retaliate, Essek sees him lift his face, but Veth beats him to it.
“Well, Caleb is very smart and very handsome, so I’m not surprised someone finds him attractive. However,” Veth turns in her seat and brandishes a steak knife at Essek, “If you ever hurt him I will castrate you! I am very good with many weapons, you won’t even see me coming, I’ll be hiding in your shadow-” Caleb tries desperately to shush her. Where he fails, Caduceus succeeds.
“Well, I’m happy for you, Mister Caleb, Mister Essek. You two are good for each other. It’s nice.” Fjord dips his head in agreement, and Yasha flashes a wide smile, head swiveling between the two of them.
Silence sweeps across the table, and both Caleb and Essek say a quiet, “Thank you” at the same time.
Essek clears his throat, and lifts his cup to his lips in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. He knows it fails, but he tries it anyway. “It will never be in my intentions to hurt Caleb.” I love him. “I care for him very much. I know he could kill me if he needed to- “Essek, I will not kill you!” “-and I trust him to handle himself responsibly in a relationship.” Gods, a relationship. Essek smiles into his cup.
“Yeah, well, just keep it in your rooms,” Beau grumbles, and Caleb calls her a hypocrite. She moves to lunge across the table at him, but Yasha quietly tells her that he’s correct, and she sits back down with a grumble.
Veth belatedly puts the steak knife down, and instead she points a finger at Essek, saying, “I’m happy for you. Thank you for making my Caleb happy.”
“Right.” This is far too much attention. Essek is grateful when Jester asks the group what they should do today.
Over the rim of his cup, he catches Caleb’s eyes, and Caleb mouths, “I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense,” Essek mouths back, and Caleb’s eyes crinkle shut when he smiles.
Essek loves Caleb. It comes to him as easily as a cantrip. It envelops him in a hug like an old friend. It warms his bones like a crackling fire. And to know that he loves him? To be allowed to love him?
Essek feels unworthy, but he is not going to deny himself the joy of this love.
…
Essek and Caleb are returning to Aeor, and they love each other.
Essek and Caleb are sleeping cuddled together in the dome, and they love each other.
Essek and Caleb are arguing over an open book, and they love each other.
Essek and Caleb are kissing fervently, said book long forgotten, and they love each other.
Essek and Caleb are quietly sipping tea, chai and peppermint, respectively, and they aren’t touching, but they’re close. A fireplace crackles nearby. Pages whisper against each other, and quills scratch as they make notes. Essek sets his quill down to watch his lover write, and he picks it back up when his mind blurts out another thing to make note of. Caleb mimics this ritual- Essek truly looks so lovely in the warm light.
“I love you,” Caleb says, and his heart speeds up noticeably. Should he not have said that? He truly couldn’t stop himself.
Essek looks up from his book. He’s smiling. Caleb knows what that smile means.
“I love you, too. I have loved you for a long time.”
Caleb's face flushes red. Essek will never tire of the human’s responsive skin. “That is good to know. I have loved you for a long time. I think I knew that you loved me, too.”
“Then why say it?” Essek quizzes.
“You know why. I just wanted you to hear it. I thought you might like it.”
“Well, you thought right. I did want to hear it. I enjoy hearing it. I love you.”
Caleb’s grin could split his face in half and he wouldn’t even care. “I love you.”
“I love you.” Essek abandons his book and quill and reaches across the open space for Caleb.
“I love you.” Caleb moves their teacups to a different table and he opens his arms wide for Essek to step into.
Caleb has held Essek many times before, and even after such a declaration, it feels no different. They love each other. They loved each other. They will continue to love each other. They didn’t need to say it to know it. They didn’t need to acknowledge it to be real
Tonight, they will love each other. Tomorrow, they will love each other. And the thought comes as easily as breathing.