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Caleb Widogast doesn't remember exactly when it happens.
His memory is as perfect as it ever has been, of course. Not a waking moment passes that he doesn't remember in exacting detail and clarity, catalogued and processed and archived in his mind like the pages of every book he's ever read, recorded word for word in the library of his conjured Nein-Sided Tower. It isn't as if he's forgotten a single moment - could forget, even if he wanted to.
No, he thinks - to say he doesn't remember is mislabeling it, truly - he doesn't remember exactly when he falls in love with Essek Thelyss, because there is no single moment it happens. Rather, it is more akin to the movement of planetary bodies, the gravity of which Essek loves so dearly - the decaying orbit of a planet, drawn to a star over millions, billions of years, until they collide and become something greater - or perhaps the endless dance of binary stars in lockstep, a constant rather than a variable.
It happens slowly - has been happening slowly, since the very first day they met. A gentle touch to the forearm, meant to cajole, to soothe Essek's sharp temper; an impossible feat of strength to pull Caleb from the wreckage of a flesh-stone tower. A kiss pressed like a benediction to Essek's cheek before he departed the Blooming Grove. A declaration of intent - I will help you.
Caleb cannot be sure when their relationship changes. Cannot be sure, even, that it has changed. Perhaps the two of them have been heading here since that fateful evening aboard a ship in Nicodranas, when their similarities are cast into harsh, striking relief by the realization of what each of them have done.
The difference between us is thinner than a razor.
It is years before either of them makes a move, whether it be from summoning the courage to do so or the simple continuation of a relationship reaching the point it was always going to go. Essek is fretting over an arcane equation, the application of dunamantic somatics to a spell of a more traditional branch of transmutation - the risks of gravitational energies in relation to telekinetic properties already prone to going awry - when Caleb looks over at him, the drow's perfectly manicured nails worrying at his lip, and for once in his life cannot fathom a single reason why he should not kiss this man.
So he does.
He curls his fingers around Essek's wrist, pulling his hand gently away from its habitual fidgeting, and closes the distance between them. Perhaps he does not imagine that Essek leans in as well. He can't think about it at the moment - can't think of anything except the soft, plush give of Essek's lips, the way his mouth slots open to meet Caleb's without hesitation, as if the kiss is not a surprise but rather the next natural step of their relationship.
Perhaps it is.
Essek's equations lie forgotten on their shared workspace as his hands thread into Caleb's unruly red hair, already falling from its hastily-tied knot. Caleb draws him closer, closer, their knees knocking together awkwardly under the table. The world narrows to a series of points in space and time - his hand at Essek's waist. A sharp intake of breath. His tongue in Essek's mouth.
Seconds give way to minutes and Caleb can no longer be bothered to mark the passage of time. Essek clambers into his lap, lighter than a human but still heavier than Caleb might have guessed. Their outer layers are already long gone, coats shed at the entrance to the Tower. Caleb breaks away on a gasp as Essek tugs at his hair just enough to tilt his head back and blaze a burning trail of kisses down his throat.
"It has been - ah - quite some time, for me," Caleb manages, attempting to keep his hands on Essek's waist in case they are unwelcome elsewhere. That sentiment is quickly abandoned as Essek rocks forward and sensation rockets up Caleb's spine at the brush of their groins together.
"For me, as well," Essek says, letting Caleb guide his hips in a sinuous roll. "Is this -?"
It takes Caleb a moment to register the unfinished question, distracted as he is by the hot brand of Essek's cock against his own, even separated as they are by trousers and underclothes. "Ja," he answers belatedly, "this is gut, ich- I want -"
"Yes," Essek hisses, and captures his mouth again, and it is an embarrassingly short amount of time before Caleb seizes against him, brought to completion like a rutting teenager just from the lovely weight of Essek's ass and the stutter of his hips. The tension melts from him like his bones have suddenly liquefied, and he realizes too late that Essek is close behind him; the other man clutches Caleb close as he comes, his teeth finding purchase in Caleb's lip -
and the desk chair they are precariously balanced in tips over, depositing both of them in a crashing heap on the floor.
It happens so quickly and abruptly that once the initial shock (and minor pain) has faded, all Caleb can do is laugh. Essek makes an indignant noise against him, which of course only makes Caleb laugh harder.
"Not," Essek says finally, "the most graceful of... couplings." Despite his words, Caleb can feel him shaking with silent chuckles.
Caleb's grin widens. "Couplings," he echoes, not quite ready for complete sentences yet.
Essek kisses him again, a slow, languorous thing. Caleb luxuriates a few long moments in the feel of Essek against him before the mess in his trousers and the ache in his spine at the rough treatment make themselves known.
"We'll have to try again, then," he says finally.
"We have time," Essek agrees.
--
Despite Essek's declaration, it turns out the two of them have time only for a few more stolen kisses before Caleb is needed at Soltryce; between the Academy and the Cobalt Soul's ongoing struggle with the Assembly, his demand in the Empire has increased tenfold since his adventuring days. He leaves Essek with a lovebite the size of a hen's egg on his throat, and the promise to return before it has faded.
Of course, he fails to take into account Essek's dark complexion and apparently-excellent rate of healing. When they are finally able to meet again, some weeks later, Caleb is already making apologies as he walks in the door of Essek's latest hideaway - apologies which Essek quickly muffles. With his mouth. This time, they do manage to make it out of at least some of their clothes before bringing each other off with hands and bodies against the wall. Caleb's back will never be the same.
Their idle chatter after (pillow talk, as Caleb calls it, which for some reason makes Essek blush furiously violet) leads into discussion of Caleb's work, and the new theorems he is experimenting with, which leads them back to the study table they always seem to end up at during their visits.
And for some months, this is how their relationship continues - visits snatched between periods of business or the various issues across Wildemount that require their attention. Kisses snatched between long hours of study and arcane invention, the occasional fumbling press of bodies and hands and mouths, less important to both of them than the work they are doing, the plans they are making.
They do not say 'I love you.' By this point, Caleb thinks, it would be redundant anyway. 'Love' is not a specific or strong enough word to encompass what he feels for Essek, this man who understands him like no other person in his life has ever truly understood him. This man who, despite Caleb's initial misgivings, had thrown himself so completely into changing who he was, redeeming and forgiving himself, that Caleb was helpless but to do the same, pulled inexorably by the constant gravity that surrounds the former Shadowhand of the Kryn Dynasty. For all that Essek claims Caleb made him into a better man, Caleb cannot help but wonder if it is not the other way around. Or perhaps they are like the vines that curl around the trees of the Blooming Grove, made stronger intertwined than any one strand would be alone.
No, they do not say 'I love you.' They don't need to.
It is along these (startlingly sentimental) lines that Caleb's thoughts are straying now, even as he presses open-mouthed kisses along Essek's collarbone in the room of his Tower that he has come to think of as Their Room. What once was Caleb's own sparse bedroom has ben reworked to accommodate their quickly-evolving relationship - quickly-evolving in the sense that it now seems to involve a bed rather than the worktable, or a wall, or whatever surface they have availed themselves of in the newly-developed physical side to their relationship. So now there is a bed, large enough to comfortably sleep two, and a roaring fire in the hearth to keep Essek's cold-prone fingers and toes happy.
It is difficult, sometimes, to coax Essek out of his clothes entirely, some deep-seated sense of Kryn modesty baffling Caleb's complete lack thereof. He forgets, sometimes, that not all cultures of the world are as comfortable in their nudity as Zemnians, and Essek treats his fine clothing and jewelry like armor, keeping the rest of the world at bay. 'The rest of the world,' of course, does not include Caleb, who has managed to bare both of them to each other on this particular night. He is in the middle of sucking a long line of kisses down Essek's chest, with the intent of getting the other man's cock in his mouth, when Essek stops him abruptly with a tug on his hair.
It takes Caleb a moment to realize it is meant to stop him, rather than be an enticement - he's always loved having his hair pulled, and Essek knows it. Still, he looks up obligingly. "Alles gut?" he asks.
He knows Essek's Zemnian is limited, but this particular phrase is one he uses often. "Yes," Essek says. "I was just - if you are amenable, I would like. Erm."
It's rare to see his partner - his partner, the traitorous, dangerously romantic part of Caleb's heart insists - at a loss for words; Essek is usually so eloquent. Caleb slides up and kisses his heart-shaped mouth. "Anything," he says.
Essek swallows hard, and spends a few more long moments kissing him back. He rocks a bit to one side, and Caleb obliges him, rolling so that they are on their sides, their legs tangling. Essek slides a hand down Caleb's arm, always gentle across the scars that line his forearms, and takes his hand, guiding it around himself to the small of his back, then down lower.
Caleb squeezes at the flesh now in his hands; for a man who rarely walks, it's unfair how enticing Essek's ass is, he thinks. "Essek," he says quietly, knocking his forehead against the other man's. His fingers nudge against the place Essek has guided them. "You are sure?"
"Very sure," Essek says, and the tone of his voice is steady enough to brook no argument. "I bathed earlier, while you were studying, so... that is - if you would want -"
"Yes," Caleb says, too quickly. He flushes. "Although, you should know, I have never... been with anyone, in that way." Penetration was something he and Eadwulf had never gotten around to, in the scant time they'd been together - and though Astrid had always seemed intrigued by the notion, the two of them had only had sex in the more traditional way. Even those limited experiences seem a lifetime ago - because they were, Caleb thinks.
"I find myself... shall we say, out of my element, here. I wouldn't want to hurt you," he continues. He brings their hands, still joined, to his lips, pressing a kiss to Essek's slim fingers. "I'd never forgive myself, if I did."
"I'd never let you hurt me," Essek says.
Perhaps not in that way, a part of Caleb thinks - that pessimistic part of him that is always thinking about the future, about the difference in their lifespans, the knowledge that someday Caleb will break this man's heart, no matter how he tries not to. Caleb pushes that voice aside. "Show me," he says, instead. "Show me how."
Essek does. Painstakingly slow, careful, he guides Caleb's fingers inside him, spreads his lovely thighs around Caleb's waist, gasps encouragement against Caleb's chest. Long minutes of preparation seem to stretch into hours, the two of them caught up in the pleasure of each other's bodies, the elation of having time to come together like this, to learn each other. Caleb dedicates himself to the task with the single-minded focus of a student eager to learn, coaxing Essek open on his fingers while finally getting his mouth around Essek's cock like he'd originally intended. He wrings two orgasms from Essek in this way - the drow still in his youth, in his prime, unlike Caleb - before Essek tires of his endless patience and turns them over, straddling Caleb's hips.
"Now," he says, "no more waiting -"
"Yes," Caleb gasps, and then Essek is lining him up and Caleb is inside him in the next heartbeat, overwhelmed by heat and the exquisite clench of Essek's ass around his cock. Essek cries out at the involuntary jolt of Caleb's hips, a sound Caleb immediately thinks must be pain until Essek rocks his hips down harder, legs trembling, his cock achingly hard between them.
"Caleb - yes, you feel -"
"You like this," Caleb says, awestruck; Essek's head tips back and his back arches at the next thrust, tentative, as Caleb tests his reaction. "You - Essek, you -"
His words are lost as the two of them find a rhythm, Caleb's knees drawn up to support his partner atop him, Essek's hands braced on Caleb's knee and chest for balance. His body is one sinuous wave of motion, his chest beading with sweat as he takes his pleasure from Caleb's cock inside him and Caleb's hand on his cock. He is the most beautiful thing Caleb has ever seen. Caleb clings to what self-control he has, blindsided by the tight clutch of Essek's body.
Essek's cries must be echoing through the otherwise-empty Tower; it doesn't matter. The entirety of Exandria could be outside their door and Caleb would not notice. There is nothing in the world but the two of them, the pleasure of their bodies and the love they share.
"Caleb," Essek gasps, clutching at the hand already encircling his cock. "I - I'm so close, Caleb, please -"
"Anything," Caleb says. "Anything you want, Essek - you are so beautiful, I - fuck, Essek, yes, show me, gib es mir, Schatz - mein Geliebter, mein Herz-"
Essek pitches forward as he comes, striping Caleb's chest and his own stomach with his spend, collapsing into his own mess as Caleb's legs tremble and his hips quicken, finally feeling the edge within reach. "Yes," Essek slurs, and clenches down. "Come for me. My Caleb, my own. Come inside me -"
-and Caleb is helpless but to obey, clutching at Essek's ass as he empties himself inside, heat and pleasure spiking through his veins until he thinks it will hollow him out from within, until all that is left of him is the place Essek has made for himself in his heart.
It is a long time before he comes back to himself, Essek still pillowed atop him with his face buried in Caleb's chest, the sweat-slick skin of both of their bodies beginning to cool. Caleb reaches blindly for a sheet and tugs it up around them, unwilling to part from Essek just yet. He realizes, as the frantic pounding of his heart quiets, that Essek is murmuring something into his collarbone, low and soft words in Undercommon that Caleb never got around to learning. It doesn't matter that he doesn't understand the words, though; he knows their meaning, as surely as he had called out to Essek in his own mother tongue.
Treasure. My beloved. My heart.
He presses a kiss to Essek's hairline, the closest part of him that he can reach. Essek turns ever so slightly in his arms, tilting his face up, and they kiss properly, a slide of soft mouths and tongues that turns into the lazy press of simply open mouths, both of them too worn and spent to do more.
I love you, Caleb thinks, his last thought before sleep claims him. He doesn't say it, but he doesn't need to; it has always been this unspoken thing between him, the meaning of it too dear, to sacred to speak aloud.
Perhaps someday, it will fall unbidden from his lips, as inevitable and easy as their first kiss. The gravity of planets and stars, and stable orbits. Constants and variables. Time and space. Dunamancy and transmutation.
There are, after all, so many more things to learn.