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Thinking back, Essek wasn’t sure why it took so long to realize what was happening.
For as smart as he was, how much time he spent reading people, to the point of it being an incomparable facet of his career…
The Nein made him blind to a lot of things, especially Caleb.
He was climbing out of Caleb’s bed, carefully pulling on layers that would be hidden underneath a disguise ( Seth , today, as he had promised to join Beauregard to one of the Cobalt Soul’s many libraries), but made him feel like himself.
He watched Caleb as he began to rouse from his sleep, stepping in front of the mirror to begin to comb his hair into place with a combination of his cone and Prestidigitation. It was getting longer, the tips of it now reaching his ear instead of curling around it. He’d maybe have Caleb trim it later, or Jester if she was going to be in town soon. He’d prefer an actual hairdresser, but that was a luxury he couldn’t dare. His magic and disguises could only stretch so far, and a haircut, on his actual hair?
Maybe some day.
“You are up early.” Caleb hadn’t actually lifted his head yet, probably only sensed the absence of his weight and heat in the bed. His brilliant mind filled in the rest of the blanks—barely awake and able to know what time it was, knowing the exact presence of Essek and the fact that it was missing.
It brought a smile to his face, even though Caleb hadn’t opened his eyes yet to see it. Smiling for himself, over such domestic matters, that was a novelty brought to him by the Nein and he treasured it.
It was nice, knowing the Nein. Having such simple things without question, and them being genuine, feeling good. There were things that he missed about the Dynasty, but Jester’s voice coming to his mind nightly, no care for what he was doing, and laughing harder when it was something he would have been embarrassed about mere months ago… It was far better than any sending from his Umavi, or the Bright Queen, or one of her associates.
He came to be excited by it, even. Enough to message her when he saw something he thought she might particularly like. Sending had always been an in-case-of-emergency spell before her…
“Essek?”
“Hmm?” He blinked his eyes a few times to clear the unrelated thoughts, coming to the side of the bed, putting in his earrings as he knelt down beside it. The floor was hard on his knees, but he wouldn’t stay on them for long, not without purpose.
“And fully dressed, too? Are you going somewhere? I thought Beauregard said that she was going to be joined by her apprentice today.” Caleb’s eyes were barely open now. Essek leaned forward to softly kiss his cheeks, shaking his head.
“I am going with Beauregard. We are taking a stop first. She saw a property not far from here that we may be able to buy under Seth’s name, if it works out.” The last few places Essek had looked at hadn’t worked out.
Beau blamed it on being picky (“Dude, you can’t have the Shadowhand’s taste,” he’d been told more than once, as though she still had any idea what his responsibilities in that role even were), Yasha smiled and nodded along when he ranted to her about them later.
He much preferred telling Yasha about them.
“Schatz,” Caleb murmured, voice still heavy with sleep. It was endearing, in the way that Essek hadn’t known someone who needed to sleep at all, let alone quite so deeply in a while. “Why are you even looking still?”
It was… a fair question. Beyond fair, considering that would imply that Essek was looking, that he wasn’t just accompanying various members of the Nein on their tasks, sneaking home to take the essentials, joining Caduceus or Yasha in their gardens, and then coming back to Caleb’s cottage, to curl up in his bed with whatever trashy romance novel Jester had most recently Sent to him about.
When was the last time he had looked for somewhere else to stay? At first, there were the logistical issues—Essek didn’t legally exist in the Empire, couldn’t legally exist in the Empire. Despite the Mighty Nein’s proclivity to picking up whatever stray crossed their path, it would be a bit… too suspicious for Essek to vanish from sight only for the Nein to have adopted a new elf.
But then he had his new identities, a few disguises, a few names, a few roles. A few ways to hide in plain sight, with Disguise Self and some carefully placed appearances.
Beauregard had a new mentee at the Cobalt Soul. Caleb had a new scholarly friend who would accompany him to libraries and his cottage. Essek couldn’t exist, but these people could.
These people had paperwork, submitted by some of the many people who owed the Nein (everyone owed the Nein, not that any of them would ever know). They were real, they could exist, but still…
Every night, he tumbled onto the couch, laughing with Caleb. Their lips connecting, and then their limbs, falling asleep in a tangle of bodies that made Essek wish he could bring himself to do more than trance, to feel the deep comfort Caleb seemed to.
Even when Caleb wasn’t home, it was the excuse of feeding whatever cat he had let inside, claiming they weren’t a permanent resident, no, he hadn’t decided to keep another. The books he left there.
Excuse after excuse, until he just stopped making them, only occasionally bringing up the fact that the plan was for him to find somewhere to live on his own.
“I am taking a rather lot of your space. I assumed you’d prefer I moved, eventually.” Essek kissed Caleb softly before standing up to go get the rest of his jewelry, but his wrist was grabbed.
He stopped, the cantrip to float not yet activated and even Caleb’s grasp easily suppressing his desire and ability to move that far without it.
“What are you talking about?”
That… was not the question Essek expected. That answer was obvious. His books in Caleb’s laboratory. His cane leaned against the doorframe from when he got home from a day when he couldn’t get away with floating, even disguised. His parasols, which Jester felt the need to add to nearly every time she came over. His sunhats, his gardening tools. Artifacts he’d taken from Aeor mixed with Caleb’s own. Dynasty traditions, scattered throughout the rooms even though he had no ties to his former home. His clothes taking up the entire closet and the majority of the dresser—as well as a guest space’s closet. His jewelry and makeup scattered across the surfaces in Caleb’s room. Less than ten people saw him as Essek Thelyss, and there was still so much. More, even, hidden in drawers or covered in Caleb’s own belongings.
This house had room for two, room for more than two, such was the nature of the Mighty Nein, but… it was meant to be Caleb’s. Essek was a guest.
As an answer, he simply held up a cup of brushes, tools that Caleb would never have on his own.
“Ja, I know.” Caleb laughed, sitting up more fully in the bed. “Why does that mean you should leave? There is room for us both, unless you have gone and gotten another closet’s worth of clothes. Then we may need to move some to the Tower.” Even this early, clouded with sleep, his eyes twinkled from the little bit of light leaking into the room.
Light, he was beautiful. Essek had never felt this way about anyone else in his life.
“I have taken up over half of your bookcases, too. The piles are growing.” Essek indicates his head toward the laboratory, where piles of books (hopefully with bookmarks, not laid for their spines to be destroyed, or, worse, with other books as bookmarks, as he’d found Caleb doing once) lay.
“And?”
“This is your house.”
Caleb stands, his height causing Essek to start his cantrip, so they can be eye to eye. His hands go to Caleb’s waist, and Caleb’s go to his cheeks, brushing back the longest curls of his hair.
“This is my home. That means it includes what makes me happy. Things or people. It’s by far time we both have that, don’t you think?”
The semantics of Common weren’t lost on him, though his nervousness at what Caleb was insinuating made him have to bite back a comment about those words being no different to him.
Home.
It had never meant anything to Essek. A tower sterile beyond his laboratory with spells and chalk and components scattered in a haphazard way he’d be embarrassed to show anyone else. A family he’d grown distant from almost a century ago. A religion and government he’d silently scorned by refusing their most sacred offer.
He had a lot of things he loved and missed about Rosohna, but the city had never been home until a house of eclectic adventurers with a giant, glittering tree moved in and asked him to dinner.
The stars of Rexxentrum were different, but…
They were home, in the way that Caleb meant. He felt at home with the Nein, with Caleb. In this house. Half the reasons he disliked so many of these properties weren’t pickiness of them not being fancy enough, they were of them not being his. Not belonging to the Nein. Those things would be picked up, dicks etched in the walls before he even had the chance to move his belongings, but…
Essek wet his lips with his tongue, gliding from Caleb only long enough to grab a Sending Stone from the vanity beside their bed.
“Beauregard. My apologies; change of plans. Come an hour later, and tell the property owner we will not be going. I’ve found something much better. ”
“Dude, fuck you, I totally owe Veth money now. You better be dressed and disguised when I get there, and tell Caleb he’s not coming. ”
He set the Sending Stone down, momentarily debating wasting a bit of energy to Send a joke that was undoubtedly the shadow of Jester’s influence on him, but decided otherwise.
Instead, he cupped Caleb’s face again and pulled him into a kiss, gliding back toward the bed.
“I only told her an hour.”
“We can do plenty in an hour. And you’ll be home again after.”