Chapter Text
Caleb still hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s doing, but it seems he’s doing it well. Essek arches his hip and moans when Caleb pulls out of him then follows Caleb’s hand as he guides one of Essek’s legs over his lap to sprawl out next to him. Essek keeps his feet flat on the mattress, knees up and slightly parted, his thighs still violently trembling. Here is where Caleb is lost—sex he knows, maybe not well, but well enough. He clings to the spell that had backfired so dramatically.
“Did that—help?” he asks, hating how his nerves sing through his voice.
Essek’s head lulls to face him. He smiles at Caleb, dazed and so very soft, and says, “I’ve never felt better.”
“Gut,” Caleb replies, even though he still can’t believe that Essek would want him of all people. The drow is a century older than him, sure, but still incredibly young for his kind and Caleb is—jaded and wrinkled and scarred. Half a year ago, he wasn’t even clean on a regular basis, yet this delicate, pretty, absolutely brillant being lies there next to him, nude, filled with Caleb’s release and looking utterly content with it. Caleb clears his throat and looks away, sorting out how to make a clean departure.
“I swear to all that’s good and holy, Caleb Widogast, if I have to insist one more time that I’ve been pining horribly after you for far too long, I’ll beat you upside the head with whatever is most readily available.”
Caleb laughs a little, nervous, but not because he believes Essek. He should, because as soon as he sits up and says, “I should let you rest,” Essek hits him quite hard in the side of the head with one of his many pillows.
“I would rest easier if you were here,” Essek says, “just in case I have another bout of… whatever that was.”
He has a touch of haughtiness about him again, less nervous and uncomfortable now that they’ve been intimate and the curse has eased. He’s still colored softly and in the candlelight he looks phenomenal, propped up on his elbows, skin glistening with sweat and seed, flushed and pleased. How could Caleb say no?
“Just in case,” Caleb agrees and Essek smiles.
xx
Essek cleans himself up, grumbling all the while about the mess Caleb made of him, but does not hesitate to engage in similar activities, the curse fading bit by bit each time they couple. Essek divests Caleb of his clothing not long after their first encounter, dragging him in to lay nude against his shoulder, combing through Caleb’s hair.
Caleb dozes off and on, waking to soft kisses and wandering hands more than once, the drow needing far less rest than him. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it, didn’t enjoy Essek’s eagerness, his want to learn, to return the favour paid to him. Even though Caleb protests, Essek insists on pleasuring him with a single minded determinedness that, honestly, Caleb should have expected.
It’s nice. It’s more than nice; Essek slots against him so neatly, wants him so badly, and so kindly too. It’s more than Caleb had ever thought he’d have, at least not until the Nein.
In the morning, Essek helps him redress, presdigitation having cleaned his come soaked clothes. He’s dressed himself, neatly tailored robes chosen with a particular stiff collar to hide the mottled bruising on his shoulder. Levitating again, he’s also the perfect height to lean in and kiss Caleb full on the mouth, hands smoothing over the straps of his book holster.
“You’re going to get questions,” he murmurs, touching Caleb’s neck where Essek’s dressing mirror had shown worse bruises than the ones he had left.
“I will get questions regardless,” Caleb murmurs back, kissing Essek again.
“I’d help with it if I could.”
“That is not where your talents lie,” Caleb says, shrugging, “And besides, it’s early yet. I may be able to avoid the worst of it.”
He is not so lucky. The chimes ring as he opens the door, finding Jester popping out of the archway to the kitchen in her nightclothes, leaning against it with a mock innocent smile.
“So,” she sings, “how’s Essek?”