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A musty, almost fungal taste coats the tongue. It’s decidedly more earthy than fruity, as one would have expected. The intoxicating liquid glistens in the dim candle light from around the room, a tall glass on a thin stem fogging up as steam elegantly circles it on the slow way up from a freshly filled bathtub.
The wine, gone from pale yellow to deeper golden shades with age, is almost like the eyes of the person opposite his side — almost, but not quite. The golden glint, mischievously fluid and metallic, is missing; just one thing robbing the drink of perfection.
In the alchemist’s eyes, the thin lines of irises surround wide dark pupils like halos, a meek barrier protecting the whites from spilling over. Shadows play on the ashen skin, threatening to overtake Nosramus’ features. They lower their head to a glass identical to his own, taking a sip, careful not to let the hair thrown over the bathtub wall behind them fall in the water. Their eyes, the warm and welcoming abyss doubled in its danger, don't leave his face.
Enki swallows his drink, watching as roseness takes a hold of his companion’s features. It must be the alcohol, or the heat from the water — or, perhaps, the curious kind of opium they shared beforehand.
“What are you thinking about?” Nosramus murmurs, rolling syllables on their tongue as it flicks between their teeth. Another danger. Perhaps an even bigger one than the dilated golden eyes. Probably not as big, though, as the scholar’s breasts, shining from the water droplets that rest on their shoulders before slipping and tracing their bosoms until pausing at the nipples and finally falling into the water that embraces both of their sluggish bodies.
“Theorizing,” Enki savors the word, licking his chipped lips. His chest slowly rises with shallow breaths, bare back pressed against the wooden walls of the bathtub. “We probably wouldn't be here if not for the drugs. I certainly would have minded this,” he makes a gesture with a hand, rounding the room — stone walls, robes thrown over one another on a chair, an opened bottle on the floor next to the bathtub, the two of them inside, warm relaxing water, — but aborts the motion halfway through, dropping the heavy limb in the water. “If not for those herbs of yours. What do you do to them? Yours are more potent than what they have in temples.”
Some of the splashed water lands on Nosramus’ chest, providing Enki with more sights of running droplets to behold. The alchemist shrugs, chugging down more wine, somehow equally nonchalant and elegant in the motion. It might be the mixture of the drink and herbs in his system, but the hairs above their upper lip seem puffier than usual, curling a little. Nosramus scratches at their slight mustache with the tip of a long nail.
“I have the blessing of the underground God,” they yawn, placing a delicate hand over their mouth. “Which we live inside of, my friend. There might be a connection. Call this… My working hypothesis.”
Enki nods, deep in thoughts. His leg, bent so that a knee is raised above the water, slips, and grazes the alchemist’s thigh, relaxing against the soft flesh hidden beneath the soapy surface with bubbles that reflect the wavering lights of candles surrounding them. He hopes his overgrown toenails don’t leave a mark.
“Sorry,” he blurts out, bending in his waist slightly to try and catch it before deciding against it when his back refuses to move past a point of a dry log, unbroken only until enough pressure is applied.
“No need,” Nosramus blinks slowly, finding his lost limb pressed against them. They lazily play with the short hair on it, drawing curved circles around the bone of his ankle. It tickles a little, of which Enki informs his slightly less serious research partner.
“You sensitive thing,” Nosramus chuckles, moving their fingers past the ankle and to the foot. He catches one of their fingers with his toes before the alchemist has a chance to tickle him. “Haha, would you look at that! I am trapped~”
Against his will, Enki chuckles at that, almost choking on the wine — but thankfully not all of it goes straight down his throat the wrong way, some leaving his mouth, trailing down his cleft chin. This only brings more giggles out of the alchemist.
“Adorable~” Nosramus drags out, putting their own glass aside to cup their cheek in, indeed, the kind of expression one gets when looking at a Moonless pup. One alchemist, that is; the dark priest in the room prides himself on not finding the freshly born beasts cute.
He can’t help but feel his face going a deeper shade of red at the remark, though.
“Stop your nonsense,” he tries to push weight into the words, but it still comes out rather pathetic. He furrows his expression, but by this point the alchemist’s slender fingers have escaped their captivity, and proceed to take a hold of his foot, feeling the scarred over hole of stigmata with their palm. The touch causes him to shudder slightly, and so he chugs down the rest on his wine before it has a chance to spill out of the glass.
“And whatever shall I do instead?” Nosramus innocently asks, eyeing his wine-covered chest from the last accident. Their finger circles the stigmata, lightly rubbing at it. This makes Enki feel lucky he has nothing in his mouth to spit out anymore. “Pray? Do you want me to pray to you, dear high dark priest?”
A hiccup prevents Enki from replying right away as he looks at his fellow highly educated scholar incredulously. He stutters before answering, “You don’t pray to priests. That’s blasphemy.”
An afterthought suggests the alchemist might be joking, but by the time it arrives, Enki is already giving in to the stress, his perception of it heightened by the substances in his blood. His hand, decorated by an ugly mark just under the palm in between wrist bones, rubs at a stray strand of hair, thankfully clean and more white than brown after the grime left it when the priest first used the bathtub in Nosramus’ laboratory.
The soft creases around the alchemist’s eyes appear more visible when they smile wider, reminding Enki of a spider’s web. Like a good insect, he tries to find something else to look at, and, not for the first time over the evening, lands his gaze upon his fellow scholar’s breasts. For their part, those look quite holy.
Enki doesn't manage to stop himself from finishing the last thought before it is already too late, and hides his face behind his hands, having nothing else to protect his dignity. How can he preach to the man in front of him while sinning himself?
“What’s wrong?” The water splashes in front of him before he remembers he used to hold a glass that now weighs down on his hip underwater, slowly tilting until its rim rests against the bathtub wall. How embarrassing. Enki can feel tears of shame forming in the corners of his eyes.
Mixing drugs and alcohol might have been a mistake. He gulps down a building up sob, feeling utterly pathetic in front of the alchemist’s breasts, now unable to look them in the eye.
“I’m in need to confess my sins,” he snivels. “I have been having impure thoughts.”
“Oh?” Nosramus puts a free hand over their chin, looking thoughtful. Then, when something clicks, their expression changes wildly.
Their smile spasms before Nosramus has a chance to hide it behind a palm, and after what looks like a heart attack to an untrained eye, sounds break put of them.
For what seems to be the first time in many centuries, the immortal laughs hysterically, shaking in the water as it ripples. Out of breath, Nosramus ends up wheezing and teary-eyed.
Despite being taken aback by the reaction, Enki reasons that at least now they are even, faces wet and reddish. Out of kindness that only breaches the deepest end of one’s heart when the world around goes up in steam and opium smoke, he asks if they would like some wine to ease the throb in their throat, but Nosramus refuses, arguing that they have had enough — perhaps somewhat more than a person their age would find reasonable, even. Watching as Nosramus coughs, Enki has no choice but to agree.
When Nosramus regains their composure, shoulders still slightly spasming from the intense laughter, they decidedly nod at him, suddenly reaching for something under water — but instead of any lost part of him, they grab something else. The pale hand resurfaces with the glass he lost in the bathtub earlier. “Okay,” they wheeze out, accidentally spilling the water from the glass on their chest before putting it away. The view is mesmerizing.
Enki blinks, put off by the simple reply, before vaguely remembering what they were talking about beforehand. A tear escapes his eye, mirrored by one running down Nosramus’ face. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Nosramus nods once again, somehow both more and less serious than the last time. “I used to be a priest. You can confess your sins to me.”
“Oh. Right,” Enki rubs at his eyes before looking up until the tears stop. One more still manages to leave a trace and hide in his hair. It curls up, heated up and wet from the steaming water in the bathtub.
“May the Old Gods, the Creators, aid you in confessing your sins.” Nosramus adds helpfully. The knowing smile on their face is a little distracting, as is the water moving against his members slightly with their every move.
“Right, right. I have been finding your,” Enki looks for a fitting word, “Chest, more appealing than an icon.”
“My chest?” Nosramus blinks, momentarily confused, a picture of a particular wooden box entering their mind.
“The,” Helplessly, Enki motions in front of his own middle. “Those.”
“Oh! The boobs.” Nosramus, seemingly surprised by the sight of the fleshy weights of skin and fat in front of them, pats one. The flesh bounces at their touch. “You had me there for a moment. Enki, may the Old Gods not aid you further.”
“Excuse me?” He asks, lost; confused enough to forget about crying, at least.
“I had not realized that one Sylvian’s attention might be entirely unnecessary for us,” Nosramus raises a finger, as if to prove a point. “Come here.”
He obeys, not seeing their point quite yet but nonetheless eager to find out.
When he awkwardly takes up space between their legs, Nosramus takes one of his hands into their own and lets the fingers lace together. Grounding both of them by simply being, the knot of crooked fingers rests on the edge of the bathtub.
Another one of his slouchy fists gets lifted up. Soft lips dance along his thin wrists and angular knuckles — he is all sharp like an edge of a ritual dagger. Yet, Nosramus’ way of affection makes him feel more like a crucifix that an Alll-merian servant would wear around their neck — either a dog collar or a noose, depending on who is bound to get sacrifices to Gro-Goroth that day — to kiss for a small blessing, and that makes him shiver ecstatically, feeling himself burning from the inside the same way Nosramus’ wet stature glistens in the candle light. The skin around his crooked nails reddens when Nosramus licks his open palm, pressing on the scar right in the middle of it with their slick tongue. The sensation makes the last dry hairs on the back of him head stand up.
As if they were revering him, Nosramus, definitely the strangest person in his life, cherishes his meager flesh. Lightly, they bite the base of Enki’s thumb. They make sure not to break the thin milky skin, interested in savoring the feel against their tongue rather than tasting blood. The teeth mark still lingers, deep red of a darker shade. Watching it bloom, observing it, Nosramus whispers something under their shallow breath before the skin clears out in flying seconds. The alchemist giggles shamelessly.
When their mouth is no longer occupied, Nosramus smiles at him, eye contact intensifying without a warning. The quirk of the full lips on earthly gray face is the same one Enki has the privilege of seeing every day, but this time something in him quivers at the sight of the teeth showing for just a short moment before disappearing, carefully hidden as to not scare — not him, Enki knows, but Nosramus themselves. Still, in an instant, his heart feels akin to a stone skipped across a pond before sinking to the dark murky depths where it would be snatched by a Salmonsnake.
Nosramus pulls him in, making his back rest on their soft chest, from which he flinches away at first when their skin touches his shoulder blades. First they kiss his vertebrae, then move on to pulling on the milky skin of his neck, and, leaving a wet trail in the wake of their lips anf teeth, proceed to lick his earlobe, softly biting into the edge of the flesh. Simultaneously, they jerk him off, arguing that having a boner is unhelpful. Their other hand plays with his nipple in the mean time. Enki, in turn, digs his crooked nails into their full thighs, leaving red bleeding lines and breaking his nails. When he is spent, they rest their face on his shoulder and lightly bite on it, drawing circles on the profoundly reddened skin with the sharp edge of their nail. When they notice his bleeding hands, Nosramus kisses them better, calling it that. The bleeding stops even without a spoken prayer to Sylvian, the residue of their act in the air, embracing the two.
Enki feels their penis harden against his lower back. He jerks them off. Nosramus guides his fingers with their hand, as since, according to the alchemist, he has most probably never seen boobs before, not knowing what to do with a cunt is expected. He curles his fingers inside of them, mindful of the crooked thin nails, long but soft from the lack of calcium, while stroking Nosramus until they cum and kissing them sloppy style. Then he rests on them, flushed face in their shoulder. The two stay like this for a while before finally deciding that’s enough of staying in cummy water, and the two pour freshly transmuted water on each other to get clean.
It takes them a while to sleep off the combined effect of alcohol and drugs.