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Essek is the one feeling brave this time, when he tucks a bookmark into Caleb’s book and kisses him right on the mouth when Caleb turns to look at him. Caleb blinks, blue eyes caught off guard for once. Then he softens with all the ease in the world into a smile. Smugness suits him; happiness too.
“Did you want something?”
“Yes. I did, in fact.”
Essek is leaning forward on the sofa, keeping his chin high and proud and his lashes lowered. He’s a beginner at asking for touch—a beginner at even wanting it—and he is still reeling with the shock. How strange that it was easier for him to have sex that didn’t matter with people who didn’t matter, back in Rosohna, while he now finds his pulse choking him when he tries to find a way to kiss the man he loves without any good excuse. And even though Caleb and him have kissed on eight different occasions by now, they have not just survived a battle, and they have not just woken up, and they are not saying goodnight for the evening quite yet. Honestly, there is no reason why Essek should’ve been sitting here with a perfectly good book in his lap, and be unable to stop thinking about kissing.
“Did you perhaps,” Caleb puts his book away on the coffee table, “want to make out with me?”
“How bold of you to assume such a thing. Wanting to kiss my, ahhh—”
“Dear friend?” Caleb is definitely smug now.
“Is that what they call it in the Empire these days?”
“What would you call us?”
Essek runs through the many options in his mind. They are not partners through many lives, they are not legally bound spouses, but not leisure-lovers either. Technically they would be—
“ Uzhinnin , most likely.” He finds Caleb looking at him, more attentively than he expected. Wetting his suddenly dry lips, he explains, “It means…’new lovers, who plan on staying devoted.’”
Saying it out loud, he finds that even those statements feel quite presumptuous. They have not done anything more sexually intimate than kiss, and as for the future—
“Hmm. I like it.”
“Do you?” Essek distantly considers if he has Teleport prepared, in case Caleb retracts his opinion. (Of course, he has it prepared—he always has.)
“Yes. Yes . Now, come here,” Caleb says, and kisses him.
It’s good, as always. Caleb has this particular way of leaning in to kiss him, where he takes a hold of his chin with the utmost confidence, before putting a well-placed smooch right on Essek’s mouth. It’s chaste and it’s not , the noise of it so very kiss-like it makes the small of Essek’s back tingle with pleased embarrassment.
The second kiss follows, as it usually does, slower and more coaxing. As if Essek needs any convincing to let himself go pliant in Caleb’s arms, mouth opening to accept the third, deeper kiss. The one with tongue, and a different kind of noise to it. Caleb leans forward, the sofa creaking beneath them, and it is easy, so easy, to allow the movement to fell him like an old tree. The pillows are soft like moss beneath his back, Caleb’s weight so very heady when it settles over him. Essek slides his fingers deep into copper hair and pulls, eagerly nipping at Caleb’s bottom lip when he gasps. He is getting good at this, he thinks. He is finding the rhythm of enjoyment, of desire. Essek loses himself in their kisses, finding himself obsessed with the place where the texture of Caleb’s lip changes from softly crackled to suddenly slippery , all smooth like wet silk. He has to explore it with his tongue, over and over. Caleb pants for him, softly.
When Essek turns his head at last, allowing Caleb to catch his breath against his cheek, he feels wonderfully flushed with skin-on-skin contact. It prickles like static over his entire body.
“Mister Widogast. Has anyone ever told you that you are a wonderful kisser?” he huffs, more winded than he expected. He should have known better, really; none of Caleb’s kisses have left him sane.
He feels, hears , Caleb’s grin more than he sees it. “ Ja. ”
“Well, they were onto something,” Essek breathes. His hand still moves through Caleb’s hair; he is not sure which of them he is trying to soothe. His own heart gallops.
“And you, Shadowhand,” Caleb murmurs, dragging his nose over the softness of Essek’s cheek. “Has anyone ever told you that you are wonderful to kiss?”
“Hm…You may have the honor of being my first,” Essek replies, shooting for a seductive tone.
Caleb’s expression sombers a little when he pulls back, but it softens more. He takes Essek’s face steadily into his palms, both thumbs tracing a mirrored path on his cheeks. Then he bends down, bestowing wet smacks onto Essek’s nose, cheekbones, and temple. Essek scrunches up his face.
“Well, you are. Quite kissable,” Caleb declares. It is a little ridiculous.
“Really, now?” Essek says, arching a brow. He is fond, still. Caleb can likely see it by the corners of his mouth.
“You do not believe me? Have I not conveyed my enthusiasm well enough?”
“I think you are a flatterer and an irredeemable br— aah!— ”
Caleb is pressing a kiss right onto his left ear, the noise of it loud. Essek presses the back of his hand against his mouth just a second too late to muffle his little outburst—nasal and high-pitched and mortifying. Oh gods. What?
“Oh? Did you like that?” Caleb seems equally surprised as him.
“Yes, I did , in fact,” he wheezes, echoing himself from earlier with less snark than he’d really like. “Such silly questions you have today—”
“Such sensitive ears you have today,” Caleb retorts, and Essek opens his mouth to give him the speech about drow heritage and sensitivity differences, myth busting the fact that you cannot just bend any drow over and lick their ear and they will moan wantonly like in the novels.
But Caleb leans down again to take the lobe of his ear into his mouth, and every fiber of Essek’s body locks in place. He lies very still as he wonders a little about the imperceptible twists of fate that led him to this exact situation. It’s not fair, is it? It can’t possibly be.
Caleb’s mouth is—very warm. He knows this already; has put his tongue down that hot well, and has felt Caleb breathe raggedly into his own mouth in response. It feels different having that searing heat enclose a cooler part of his body.
Humming in interest, Caleb sucks, slowly. Oh, it’s nice. It’s very nice. The suction is replaced by the smooth edges of teeth, distinctly felt as they drag over the flesh. There is the slide of wet lips and then the clink of teeth on metal. Ever so lightly, Caleb tugs at the star pendant that dangles from the softest part of his lobe.
“ Hahhh —” Essek gapes, staring up at the wooden ceiling as he feels gravity flip deep within his belly. He blinks and wets his lips before he can speak again. “Light above. What are you doing to me?”
“Should I stop?” Caleb hovers right at the point where his breath on his skin feels like a tease. Swallowing, Essek tilts his head to the side, which is an answer in itself.
Baring your throat like a prey animal , a voice mutters in his mind. Begging for it like a slut.
Both feel like honeyed, wonderful things to allow himself to be, for now.
“ Bitte ,” he says clumsily, but it is worth it for the fire in Caleb’s eyes. It is worth it, when Caleb takes his chin in hand, holding it in place. It stretches Essek’s neck out, baring the full length of his ear.
He wonders what else Caleb could possibly come up with. What kind of things does the ragged farmer-turned-soldier do to the drow prince in that wretched smut novel he keeps around?
Caleb takes his damn time deciding, too. Holds him by the chin and looks him up and down consideringly—Essek can feel it, like the quiver in the air when someone is about to cast at you.
Finally, fucking finally, he leans down, pressing another easy kiss to his lobe. Thoughtfully, he flicks his tongue over the dip of the puncture. Essek’s belly flips obediently.
“Is that nice?”
Essek is too busy panting lightly to answer. Apparently satisfied with the response, Caleb delicately begins tracing the tip of his tongue up the long ridge of cartilage between the row of his piercings, all the way to the top. Then, down along the softer outermost edge, looping between the small hoops, making them clink-clink-clink together. It feels—
Essek’s had men press sloppy kisses on his ear before as they fucked him, but nothing like this; nothing like this.
Caleb’s hand comes up to cup the back of his ear, bending it slightly towards him.
“Do you like it when I play with your ear?” he murmurs. There is a rasp to his voice that wasn’t there before. He sounds aroused , and a touch amused.
“Hn,” Essek says. “Why are you so hot.”
Caleb laughs low in delight. Essek can feel the breaths from his nose, tickling his skin like the crackle in the air before a lighting storm. They are both breathing heavier; he can feel it where their chests are pressed together, their rhythms uneven. The weight of Caleb’s body is pressing him into some deeper state of himself, like those glass pearl blankets some drow like to meditate under.
“All for you, baby,” Caleb says lightly, as if this is some joke. As if he’s not unmaking Essek with his every explorative touch.
Caleb’s fingers have begun playing gently with the silver chains hanging from his ear, creating the most delicate rustle of sensation. It tickles like starlight down the back of his neck. He shivers.
“Stop teasing,” he manages to say, back arching slightly.
“I’m not,” Caleb protests. “I simply like taking my time with you.”
His fingers continue their slow, nonsensical paths. Light, he really is acting like this small, strange body part of Essek’s is something intriguing to explore. His ear, on display wherever he goes.
“There is so much—” Caleb drags the broad, square pad of his index finger down the divot behind Essek’s ear. “—to figure out.”
His thumb traces along the swirls of cartilage, along each little piece of metal, like he is memorizing the pattern. As if he finds Essek’s jewelry—the way he chooses to adorn himself—to be something rich and fascinating to linger at.
“Is this really so interesting to you?” Essek whispers, struggling not to squirm—in sensation, in deep embarrassment, in more desire than he’d like to admit.
“Your pleasure… ” Oh gods , the way Caleb speaks to him. “…is of great interest to me.”
Essek has nothing to say to that. He tilts his head further, instead.
“Can I take this off?”
Caleb’s fingers have reached the metal cap at the tip of his ear.
“Yes,” Essek breathes. There is barely air in his lungs, his capillaries wrung dry—they buzz with sensation, instead.
With his clever fingers, Caleb figures out the mechanism; the places at the back where the friction backs can be pulled free, revealing the holes that pierce through cuff and cartilage. He hears the rustle of Caleb depositing the small metal pieces onto the nearby table.
The cuff slips off, baring skin. Very carefully, Caleb unclasps the chain from the cuff, letting it dangle from the connecting piercing by his lobe.
It is nonsensical. Essek takes his jewelry off whenever he bathes; it should not feel so special. He should not feel so impossibly bare like this.
Two calloused fingertips settle around the tip, stroking back and forth in small movements. There is a small pinch, experimental. Then, a broad lick with the flat of his tongue. It’s hot, wet, textured.
“Caleb . ” He can’t think, he can’t think.
“Hmm. I like making you shiver.”
The fingers behind his ear begin attempting to fold it a little, testing the give. From his intrigued little hum, it seems he finds it different from his expectations. A slow inhale of air, and then Caleb is kissing behind his ear, by the bump of bone there, beneath thin skin.
“You like this?”
His mouth brushes back and forth.
“Is this a good spot?”
The caress of his lips between the scrape of his beard, in that tucked-away spot—Essek has never—he has never felt so—
“ Caleb. ”
“Hm?”
Essek scrapes his fingers against the fine cotton of Caleb's shirt. He tries to squirm but Caleb's weight is pinning him down, a fact that makes his gut swoop, and oh—
“I—this. I might—”
“Can you come from this?”
Not so subtly, Caleb adjusts his position so that one of his legs is properly between Essek’s, bearing down on where Essek is aching for touch.
“I don’t know.” They both hear in the tone of his voice that it means I think so.
Caleb laughs, and it would be mortifying if not for the way he sounds proud, pleased, horny .
“I want you to,” Caleb says, “I want to see.”
He’s not lying—Essek can feel the responding press of Caleb’s desire against his thigh. It makes him almost dizzy with the impact of his want.
He did this to me, and I did this to him.
Caleb leans forward again—his broad thigh a shock-sweet press , his mouth skilled and eager to please. He keeps up these noisy, sucking kisses, pulling back enough between each one to let him feel the way his skin has grown damp. The rhythm is uneven—once and then twice, then a long smooch. Each kiss sears a line of heat down his neck, like a tendon beneath the skin of pure crackling pleasure, which connects through tissue into the depths of his gut.
“How does it feel?” Caleb pants in between the workings of his mouth, and it sounds filthy.
“Feels good—it feels so good,” he says—his voice unsteady, unpolished. It is perhaps the least well-articulated sentence he has ever uttered—do people truly say these things outside of romance novels and brothels?—but it makes Caleb groan and dive back in with renewed vigor.
A hand is on his forehead, holding him down; while the other by his jaw, angling it just right. A soothing thumb rubs over the fuzz of his undercut. All the sensations cascade down his touch-starved body; he trembles with it like a struck singing bowl.
He can’t see what Caleb is doing, so it takes him a moment to connect the noise to the wet, warm feeling—Caleb spitting right onto the skin behind the ear, before mouthing at the same spot greedily, as if this really was an intimate part of Essek. Beneath Caleb’s touch, it is .
A strangled “Hrrk—” is all he manages, as Caleb’s tongue works in tight circles against his sweet spot. He can feel himself starting to come, and his body wants to grind against the pressure—but Caleb is pinning him down and his hips can’t move, and it makes it all rush in very hard and very fast all of a sudden.
His whole body shakes with it, for a long time. Caleb stays on top of him, waiting patiently, watching with great attention.
“Like a bunny rabbit,” Caleb is murmuring in a voice of deep fascination, and Essek opens his eyes.
Ah. His ears must be twitching, then. It’s been a while since he came this hard. And to think it would be from such a thing—
“Shut your mouth. I have ruined nations,” he mumbles, with less severity than he intended. The entire right side of his head tingles with sensitivity, his face burns.
Caleb, the little shit, blows cool air on the damp spot on his neck.
“ Fuck— “ Essek breathes, the consonants clipped at the end, as his body surges up into shivers again.
“I like it when you swear,” Caleb smirks.
“I bet you do,” Essek pants.
Laughing, Caleb rests his head on Essek’s chest, catching his breath as well. He speaks very distinctly, even half-muffled into Essek’s blouse.
“I want you to know that was one of the hottest moments of my terrible life. And I did not even get to remove a single piece of your clothing.”
You removed my ear-cuff, Essek wants to say, no one has ever done that to me before.
He is rather pink-cheeked when Essek manages to un-cross his eyes and look at him. Caleb peeks back up at him.
“Well, I certainly enjoyed myself.” Essek’s smugness comes easier now.
“You are,” Caleb breathes, “incredibly attractive, Essek Thelyss. And I like you very much.”
I love you too, Essek thinks back. It’s no big sacrifice to hold back on those depths for now.
“Come here,” he laughs instead, pulling on Caleb’s hair.