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The sitting room of Caleb’s quarters has easily become the most familiar room of the tower to Essek. Perhaps, he thinks, its partly because of how much time he now spends on its cushy couch, evening hours slipping away between pages of notes and covers of books, dotted with spell-scribing ink and water from the pitcher on the table. But then, then, of course, then there’s the fact that its Caleb that he spends those gossamer hours with, Caleb who sleeps in the room through the door or, more often now, loose across the opposite end of the couch while Essek trances with his head in his lap, fingers running through Caleb’s hair even as his mind rests and wanders through its own sunset-stained landscape. Caleb, who sits up with him as they pore over their latest Aeorian discovery, Caleb, whose smile Essek has memorised by sight, the smile that he secretly wants to taste more than anything.
Caleb, who currently is leaned almost atop Essek, one arm tucked close but the other flung across Essek’s lap next to his head, copper hair loose and freshly-washed. The window lets in only faint patterns of the tower’s simulated moonlight, nearly drowned in the golden dance of the fire burning low. Essek could be floating in the Astral Sea again as he sits back, mind long on its leash, making its way through the clouds of thoughts drifting in his head. Time feels like glass in this moment, twisted into an elegant shape he traces with one finger, not examining, but merely observing its butterfly wings as it drifts by.
He lets each thought of the day bubble by, occasionally reaching out to cradle one closer. The smile on Caleb’s face, so luminous in this shard of recollection, as Essek had stumbled through an excited explanation of one concept he had just pieced together. He feels the tactile memory of his hands flapping, a buzz in his fingers not dissimilar to the feeling of twisting a thread of magic out of the ether and into one’s control. Next comes a moment of adrenaline, of Caleb’s hand in his as they race through a fractured city street, holding back exhilirated laughter despite the fear of the moment borne of an ambling Aeorian creature stalking by. Again, there’s weight in Essek’s hands, the crystal memory of Caleb’s, though nothing can perfectly imitate the exact feeling of that unique presence. He feels the familiar wave in his stomach at the thought, like he’s dropped his cantrip only to find the fall is more than he expected.
It then occurs to Essek that the fall was more than he expected. The Nein, tumbling into his interlocked-chain of a life, a burst of blinding sunlight and a wave of laughter, the sweetness of honey on one’s tongue. Essek, climbing the steps to a fate cementing itself more firmly by the day, of knowledge and achievement and the inevitable plummet only to be torn asunder onto a track so entirely unfamiliar, so wondrously off-kilter. Whatever has been building in his chest has been building for as long as he can remember, but now, now Essek can pinpoint the moment the pot bubbled over to a kiss on a boat, to words that seared themselves across Essek’s lungs and changed the very air he breathed, to a group and a person that threw him into the tides of chaos and wonder and joy and-
That’s when it hits him. And when it hits him, he’s both knocked breathless and filled with the cleanest air he’s ever tasted. On his lap, Caleb turns over, rolling into the slight softness of Essek’s stomach and murmuring softly and it’s so obvious. Essek reels, mind spinning and swirling and glowing with the warmest light he’s ever felt because of course. He’s been treading this path for months now, been picking up speed and tumbling down steps and there at the bottom and the top is Caleb, Caleb caught up with him and pulling him along, Caleb with a story and a mind like he’s never seen before, Caleb with the face that he knows by heart and could identify in the deepest darkness, impenetrable by any spell or darkvision.
Because it sits in front of him now and Essek knows, knows with every fiber and fraction of his being that he loves Caleb. He loves the Nein and he loves this new life he’s been given but the way he loves Caleb feels like a natural extension of it all, a new facet different than anything he’s felt before, a simple addition of emotion that presents itself to him in a beam of sunlight that doesn’t hurt his eyes. And sure, he’s kissed people before, had partners that asked for sex and asked for a connection that he’s never really wanted to – been able to? – give before, but now it all seems so different . He knows Caleb better than anything and he knows so little about him. For all of Essek’s century of study, for all his power and capability, for all of everything he is, he now feels small against this simple fact and for that, for that he’s never been more glad. Whatever universe, whatever gods, whatever powers so much bigger than Essek that may exist, above any ancient knowledge, any immense power or world-shaking discovery, stacked against all that and more, Essek knows that he’d choose this moment above it all.
There will be time for sorting out what exactly he wants. There will be time for more lingering glances and almost-kisses and charged moments, but for now, for now, Essek is content to lean back and breathe it all in, the wood-smoke and cinnamon scent of Caleb, the crystal air in his lungs, the weight of everything he feels. This moment, this one, perfect, moment is more than enough.
Essek sleeps soon after entering a trance, slumping sideways and cuddling into Caleb. It’s deep into the morning before they wake.