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"I," Essek said, "have had a thought."
Caleb looked up from the book he was reading — an overwrought melodrama, but it was worth it for the smut — and found Essek looking studiously out one of the windows. "You've had a few of those, in your time," he said neutrally, mostly so he would get the expected frown and slight wrinkling of Essek's nose in his direction.
"A particular kind of thought," Essek said, with just the slightest note of pique.
He'd had a feeling. But Caleb's ears still perked up. "What kind of thought is that?"
"There is a. Mm. Spell," Essek said. "Tether Essence. I believe I showed it to you at one point. It is meant to tie two people together, so that effects on one reverberate between both."
"I remember," Caleb said. Essek just looked at him for a moment, and then huffed.
"You're impossible."
Caleb smiled at him. "Maybe I like hearing you say things."
"Is that so," Essek said. Caleb let his smile widen.
"I'm not sure what you're suggesting, Herr Thelyss," he said. "Please enlighten me."
Essek gave him a dirty look, but it didn't last. "I would expect my esteemed collaborator to be better able to follow my train of thought."
"I am but a humble wizard who can only bow to your superior experience," Caleb said. Essek's lips twitched.
"Perhaps not worthy of sharing in my ideas, then," he said loftily. Caleb bit his cheek and batted his eyelashes.
"However could I gain the esteem to be considered so worthy?"
Essek cracked and laughed. "Impossible," he repeated, and then said, "I am curious about alternative applications of the spell in question."
"What kind of alternative applications," Caleb said. Essek's eyes narrowed. He leaned back and cocked his head to one side.
"I'm curious how it would feel to a person thus tethered when the other orgasms," he said.
Caleb pressed his tongue to his teeth. "Interesting proposition," he said. Then leaned back and said, "I think I'd like to find out how you feel when someone's touching your cock."
He watched Essek's eyes widen, the way his lips parted, with satisfaction. Caleb stretched his legs, keeping his focus close on Essek's face. "You wouldn't want to let me touch you," he said. "It'd spoil the experiment. I'd just have to watch."
"And hold the spell," Essek said. And then added, with a quirk of his lips, "if you think you can."
"I think I can manage," Caleb said. "I can concentrate through a fair bit."
"I guess we'll see," Essek said. His eyes had gone dark and Caleb felt himself stirring already. He tried to look casual, unconcerned, but based on the amusement that flickered across Essek's face he was less than successful.
"We could make it a competition," Caleb said impulsively. Essek raised his eyebrows and Caleb said, "you win if you can make me lose concentration before you come. I win if I keep it."
"And the reward for the victor?" Essek asked. His tone was cool, aloof, but the intensity of his gaze belied it.
"Bragging rights aren't enough?" Caleb said lightly.
"No," Essek said. "I want something more tangible." He leaned back and crossed one ankle over his knee, thumb rubbing across his lower lip the way it did when he was thinking something through. Caleb's imagination was already whirring through overheated imaginings. He knew what Essek's clever hands felt like to him. He didn't know what they'd feel like to Essek.
He didn't know what Essek felt when Caleb touched him. What he felt when he came. It was a dizzying idea, that he could. He wondered how long Essek had been thinking about this. And what it would be like the other way around, watching Essek unravel untouched as Caleb got himself off and knowing he was feeling everything.
Caleb shifted, pants beginning to feel snug, and said, "if I win, I want you to cast it while I'm fucking you. If you win I'll finish you with my mouth." Essek's hand fell and his teeth caught at his lip, flashing just a hint of fang.
"That sounds a bit as though I win either way," he said, with just a faint hint of breathlessness.
"A good arrangement then, yes?" Caleb said with a grin. Essek's mouth opened very slightly and Caleb saw his tongue touch his teeth.
"I suppose so," he said.
"Well then," Caleb said, his heart thudding low in his belly. "No time like the present."
Essek blinked. "Now?"
"Why not," Caleb said. He pushed himself to his feet, though walking felt a little awkward, and made his way over to the components cabinet. "Are you doing something more important than valuable experimentive work?"
"No," Essek said after a beat. "I suppose not."
It took a bit of rummaging to find the small spool of platinum thread. Not a lot of it left, Caleb noted. This was a fairly expensive bit of play.
He wasn't going to change his mind now. He measured a length and cut it, wrapped it around his fingers and cast.
The feeling of the bond forming was familiar, the tether between them spinning into being. The experience itself…Caleb was — aware of Essek, acutely so, but he didn't actually feel his body as his own. Not exactly.
Experimentally, he reached down and pressed his hand to his cock. Just a brief pulse of pressure, enough to send a shock of pleasure through him, and he heard Essek take a sharp breath in.
"What did that feel like," Caleb asked, entirely failing to achieve nonchalance.
"It's — strange," Essek said, his voice breathy again. "Not like…touching myself. I know it's not me, but my, ah. My body feels it."
Caleb returned to the chair and sat down again, platinum thread still wrapped around his fingers, holding the spell. It would be nice to unlace his trousers, ease the tightness a little, but it seemed like it'd be admitting…not defeat, but more than he wanted to. A little discomfort would keep him under control. Maybe. "Feels it," he echoed. "I expect more precision from your observations, Herr Thelyss."
"I expect you to offer the observations," Essek said, but his throat worked. He seemed to be hesitating, and Caleb raised his eyebrows.
"What are you waiting for?" he asked lazily. "You're never going to break my concentration just sitting there. Show me how you touch yourself. Let me feel it."
Essek lifted his chin, which had the incidental effect of flashing his throat. "If you insist," he said, perfectly haughty, and shifted in his chair, leaning back and letting his legs fall open. Caleb watched him as he dropped one hand down to his thigh and brushed the backs of his fingers slowly up a line toward his groin. He tensed as they drew close only for Essek to pull them away, smirking.
"Tease," Caleb said.
"Mm," Essek said. He started unlacing his pants with one hand, slowly. "I don't see why I should hurry. I have an hour. Unless you think you can't last that long."
"I know you can't," Caleb said, and caught a faint flush at the tips of Essek's ears. "You made that challenge once and you were begging long before then." He saw the smooth movement of Essek's fingers stutter.
"Interesting," he said. "I remember you were just as desperate." His pants were only partially unlaced, but Essek slipped his hand into them, tantalizing white hair just visible for a moment before his view was blocked.
Then he felt it. A touch on his cock, like fingers just barely brushing against him. His body jumped but his hold on the spell didn't slip. He could see what Essek meant, that it wasn't exactly like masturbation or someone else's touch; it was different, distinct, but he did feel it. The tug of arousal that answered, too, and he wasn't sure if it was his or Essek's or both.
"Your observations, Professor Widogast," Essek said, a glint in his eyes.
"If this is how you treat yourself then I've been too generous," Caleb said. Essek laughed, though it sounded a little breathless.
"I told you I don't see why I should hurry," he said, but he withdrew his hand and was quicker about undoing the rest of the laces, leaving him at least partially exposed. Enough for Caleb to see his cock, plump but not fully hard, nested in white curls, just the shadow of his balls visible underneath. Caleb's breathing got heavier, his own cock giving a twitch as Essek took himself in hand, thumb sweeping lightly over the head. He felt it like the ghost of a touch; a strange thing, to feel someone else's sensation, not quite his own but almost.
"Any further thoughts?" Essek asked archly, the barest hitch in his voice, the slow circles he was drawing raising goosebumps on Caleb's arms.
"None yet," he said. Essek's lips curved and Caleb's fingers twitched. He dropped his eyes to watch Essek's cock fill under his hand, the lavender darkening. He wanted to touch. He imagined he could feel the silk-smooth texture of his skin against his palm, but it was probably more memory than real feeling.
Essek tipped his head back, his eyes half closing as he tightened his hand around the base of his cock. Caleb jerked again as he felt that squeeze, his own cock, already hard, twitching in his pants. "Fff-" he said, biting it off by sinking his teeth into his lip. He was pleased by the fact that his hold on the spell hadn't even flickered — he'd figured, given that he'd managed to keep his concentration when he could barely stand, that it'd be doable.
Though it occurred to him — as Essek's fingers squeezed again at the root of his cock, and Caleb felt it and knew how Essek felt when Caleb did that to him, and then about the fact that he was going to feel Essek come, and then that if Caleb came from this (a solid possibility) it would be functionally untouched — arousal might be more difficult than pain.
Essek let out a faint noise that made Caleb twitch again, then dropped his chin so he was looking at Caleb out of eyes darkened by pupil. "You should," he said, "consider taking notes."
"You've never had any criticisms," Caleb said.
"There's always room for improvement," Essek said.
Caleb used his free hand to flip Essek off. Essek laughed and slid his hand loosely up his length, the slide of his palm a sweet friction that made Caleb suck in a breath.
"Observations?" Essek said with studied innocence.
"I wonder if there is a threshold," Caleb managed to say, more steadily than he'd expected. "Some particular intensity of sensation at which the spell triggers. A certain level of physical response required."
"It's certainly possible," Essek said. His middle finger sketched a pattern on his shaft and Caleb didn't know if the shiver of pleasure up his spine was his or Essek's. It didn't really matter. "Which rune?"
Caleb blinked. "Ah," he said, because he had not been thinking about runes. "—do it again?"
"Pay attention," Essek said, but he repeated the motion, slower. Caleb watched him do it, the precise and graceful motion of Essek's fingers drawing runic marks on his cock, and shifted in a pointless attempt to try to ease the pressure on his own.
He inhaled, focused, and said, "fire."
"Very good," Essek murmured. "Fairly precise, then? Not just generalized sensation?" He was trying to sound collected but Caleb could hear the slight raggedness and more to the point could feel, increasingly, a sort of parallel arousal.
"I believe there is a threshold," Caleb said, his hips flexing unconsciously. "Unless you — just now got turned on."
"Not just now, no," Essek said, which was an answer Caleb hadn't really needed, not when he could see for himself. "You can. Mm. Feel that?"
"Yes," Caleb exhaled. He licked his lips, pulse thudding between his legs.
Essek's eyes half closed and after a moment he breathed, "oh, that's you, isn't it. I noticed…of course it goes both ways." He stroked himself slowly and Caleb felt him feel it, the ripple it sent through Essek's body, the answering shiver through Caleb's and the kick of his untouched cock, and the quiet sound Essek made probably as he felt Caleb's response through the tether—
Oh. This was a lot. An amplifying feedback loop of sensation.
Based on the color high in Essek's cheeks and the expression on his face, Caleb wasn't the only one finding the experience overwhelming. Essek's hips jerked and Caleb gasped at the sudden, rougher friction, his body giving a jolt and if he wasn't struggling to hold the spell yet…he might've been cockier than he should've been.
Essek licked his lips and said, "let me see what this is doing to you."
Caleb swallowed hard, shaped his mouth into a smile, and said, "are you asking me to show you my cock, Herr Thelyss?" He saw Essek jerk, felt the pulse of his arousal, distinct from his own but feeding it. "Are you already thinking about what it'll feel like when I'm inside you, fucking you, and you'll know exactly how you feel around me, how good it is—"
Essek hissed. "Caleb," he said, somewhere between protest and hunger. His hand was still but Caleb could feel the building ache of need. He was leaking into his underthings, could feel them starting to cling. His breathing harsh, pulse thudding, Caleb reached down, undoing his clothes with shaky urgency to expose himself. His fingers brushed the swollen shaft and he made an involuntary noise.
"Don't," Essek said, voice somehow both sharp and breathless. "Don't — touch yourself. If you're going to come then it's going to be because I make you." He looked debauched already, to Caleb's eyes. Flushed, eyes dark, lips parted and muscles taut. The deep purple of his cock contrasting against the lavender of his fingers, liquid glistening on the head.
Essek's wrist twisted with the next stroke and Caleb heard the quiet ah slip out of him, the shivering coil of pleasure at once satisfying and pressing for more. The urge to touch tugged under Caleb's navel — not himself, to touch Essek, replace his hand with his own and know what Essek felt when Caleb touched him.
He moved his hand to the arm of the chair and curled his fingers over it to resist the urge to palm his cock like a little pressure would steady him. His hold on the spell wobbled and he focused, steadied himself.
Essek pulled his hand away and licked his palm, eyes fixed directly on Caleb. He felt his cock jerk, pre-come spilling out of him, and bit the inside of his cheek.
"Still holding it?" Essek asked him. The teasing might have been more effective if his voice wasn't so rough.
"Oh, yes," Caleb said. "I'm feeling. Motivated."
Essek let out a breathless laugh and took himself in hand again. The cool damp of his palm felt like a shock, the slow curl of his fingers a sweet agony. He could see Essek trembling very slightly, holding back with what must be an effort of will. The ache of his want was making Caleb want to squirm.
"You're cruel to yourself," Caleb said, his voice thin. Essek swallowed with what looked like difficulty.
"I'm just — conducting thorough experimentation," he said. His hand squeezed with what felt more like a spasm than a conscious choice. Caleb's hips bucked into thin air. Essek moaned faintly and finally set something like a rhythm. His hand forming a tight channel that Essek started to fuck into, his control wavering, hips moving in jerky thrusts.
Caleb was strung tight, strung out, barely hanging on. He could feel his heart beating in his cock and kept having to scramble to maintain concentration. He almost lost it twice, once when Essek's thumb drew back his foreskin and pressed against the slit and once when he hit a nerve cluster with his fingertips, the shockwave of it electric up Caleb's spine. Essek threw his head back, gasping, and Caleb's eyes followed the line of his throat, imagined sucking a bruise into it and feeling its echo on his own neck.
Fuck. He wasn't going to be able to hang on. Not that it was a bad outcome, he couldn't say he'd mind going to his knees, pushing Essek's hand out of the way and swallowing him down, fuck, that wasn't helping. Close, he was close, no, Essek was close and pulling Caleb along with him. There was a wet spot on his shirt where his cock was continuously leaking, painfully hard. It felt like a single touch would make him come.
The need was so sharp it edged toward pain. Hard to tell who it belonged to. Caleb didn't know how he was still holding the spell.
"Essek," he said raggedly. "You need — I need you to come. So I can. With you, untouched."
"Oh," Essek said, very faintly, shuddered, and came.
It was a ricochet, like one of those little toys with the metal balls that bounced back and forth when they were knocked against each other. Essek's orgasm wrenching Caleb's out of him, Caleb's feeding into Essek's, amplifying his pleasure which amplified Caleb's, back and forth until it was too much, dizzying, almost painful. The spasms continued even after he was dry, wringing him like a wet rag.
It ebbed slowly and left him panting and shaking, tingling all over. Somewhere in there he'd lost concentration. His heart was pounding like a drum.
Looking over at Essek, he seemed dazed, his body limp and liquid. His breathing sounded harsh and loud, but then, so did Caleb's. He would've gotten up to go to him but he wasn't sure his legs would hold him yet.
"Huh," Essek said, after they'd just been staring at each other for a while.
"Satisfying results?" Caleb managed to say. Essek laughed weakly.
"Unexpectedly — intense. That isn't a complaint," he added, when Caleb started to frown. "I'm…impressed that you were able to. Mm. Stay focused."
"I expect you to do as well," Caleb said. "But maybe you'll need some practice. I don't mind trying more than once." His face felt hot enough already that maybe his blush didn't show. Essek's eyebrows furrowed slightly and Caleb said, "I won."
It visibly took a moment for Essek to remember. He really was scattered. A little purr of satisfaction rumbled through Caleb even though really he'd had barely anything to do with it. He saw the moment it clicked, though, in the slight widening of Essek's eyes and the catch of his breath. "Ah," he said. And then, "that's right. I did promise you — further experimention. Though I think I might need a minute."
Caleb made a noise. "A minute. You're overestimating me."
"At your leisure, Professor Widogast," Essek said, his voice still unsteady. He stirred, got up with what looked like an effort, and wobbled over to sit down on Caleb, very nearly curling up on top of him. He hissed at the rub of Essek's pants against his over-sensitive cock but didn't push him off.
"Like a cat," Caleb said.
"Pet me, then," Essek said languidly. Caleb huffed a laugh and freed one of his hands to scritch gently at the nape of Essek's neck, feeling the vibration of his satisfied hum.
"Truly an innovator in the field, Herr Thelyss," Caleb murmured. "The treatise you could write on novel uses of dunamancy."
Essek made a muffled noise. "Hmm. Title, 'Positive Potential: Inverse Mechanics of Tether Essence.'"
"Too dry," Caleb said. "Try 'Tethering Pleasure: The Other Essence'. you'll get more readers."
Essek burrowed his nose into Caleb's shoulder with a muffled laugh. "Oh, no," he said. "That's terrible."
"I could probably come up with worse," Caleb said.
"Horrible man," Essek said, but he sounded very, very fond.