Chapter Text
“I have augmented the multipurpose room with padding and training dummies so that we can safely test your strength and I have gathered a number of items so that we can test how your awareness of sensory inputs has grown as well.” Caleb gestured to a table set off to one side of the large room.
It held tools for making noises both loud and soft, a blindfold, a basket of cotton balls and-- tucked behind the basket out of sight-- a number of bandages and other first aid supplies just in case. Caleb had obscured them on purpose. He still wasn’t sure where their relationship stood. Whether it would be acceptable to Essek to test not just how vampirism affected him, but the differing ways in which he could affect others. The initial hurdle was getting Essek to agree to the test in the first place. Biting him in a survival situation because it was their surest way out was one thing. Doing so while in the security of the tower ‘for science’ might be something else entirely.
Caleb remembered clearly that the three different places he had been bitten had provoked wildly different reactions from his body, but with all of the fouling factors of their changing situations at the time, he couldn’t say with certainty that it was just a result of the location of the bites. In order to be sure, they would have to test it. Already he was designing the experiment’s parameters in his mind. Already he was becoming distracted by his expectations of how it would feel to be bitten repeatedly.
He shook his head and tried to focus. Essek was still taking in the adjustments to the tower thoughtfully. They had both forgone most of their outer layers today in favor of lightweight mobility. Coats and cloaks, scarves and spellbooks had all been set aside for the unusual event of a test of physical strength. Without all of his layers, the drow looked smaller. Somehow he wasn’t any less intimidating. It was as though a part of Caleb’s animal instincts recognized in Essek something of the predator he was capable of being now.
When Essek’s eyes swung around to him, Caleb had to fight the urge to take a step backwards.
“Shall we get started?” he asked.
“Ah, ja, we should probably start with seeing just how hard you can hit.”
“Hit?” Essek’s brows went up. “I can’t say I have physically attacked something on purpose in a while.” He glanced doubtfully at the training dummy.
“It is just a place to start. I already know the results of the rest of the Nein hitting these same targets, so I have some baseline for comparison.”
Most of them, anyway. Caduceus and Veth had declined to participate. Fjord had taken a swing, then walked away rubbing his hand. Beau had pummeled it until it had gone flying. Jester had toppled it in one hit, prompting Caleb to reinforce the base. After Yasha’s turn he had had to replace the training dummy entirely. And have the cats sweep up the remains of the first one.
Essek stared at the dummy as though it were a new equation for him to unravel. Then he pulled back his arm.
“Wait!” Caleb called out.
Essek paused and looked back at him over his shoulder questioningly.
“Not like that. You’ll break your thumb.” Caleb took his hand, holding his breath as he did so in an attempt to calm his runaway heart. Essek’s violet eyes watched him carefully, but his expression gave nothing away. He unfolded Essek’s fingers, then refolded them with the thumb on the outside. “There.” He stepped back again.
Essek took a breath and swung at the dummy. The metal support beam snapped.
Caleb’s mouth dropped open in shock. Essek looked between his fist and the broken training dummy, eyes wide.
“Well, that is… unexpected.”
“Ja. I think you are a bit stronger than you used to be.”
They stood staring in silence for a moment before Essek sidled closer.
“Should we try again?”
“Ah, could you perhaps try a kick on the second one?” Caleb cleared his throat. He picked up a notebook from the table with his back turned to hide the blush he could feel climbing up his cheeks. He struggled to understand the sort of arcane or biological forces that might be at work to make Essek, slender and bookish as he was, as strong as Yasha. He also wondered at his own reaction to the elf’s newfound power.
Essek stepped over to the second dummy. He gave it a look and then kicked it in a way that was clearly intended to copy Beauregard’s style. Unfortunately he lacked her training, her stance and her pinpoint aim so he ended up hitting it with the wrong part of his foot in a move that, had Caleb tried it, would have scraped the enemy’s shin at best. The target still went flying.
Essek glanced back at Caleb over his shoulder, a surprised smile on his face, and caught Caleb staring at him. Caleb rushed him along to the next task.
They went through testing Essek’s hearing, with him wearing a blindfold and cotton balls in his ears (an image which Caleb would have to describe for Jester to draw later) and Caleb working through progressively quieter sounds. Then they tested his sight and found that he could read a book from the other side of the training room. Next they tried to test his darkvision.
With every iris on the tower open it was roughly 150 feet from the bottom floor to the top of the beacon room. Essek drifted to the top while Caleb arranged himself laying on one of the crash pads from the training area. Caleb put out all of the lights in the tower and began forming sigils for spells in the air in front of him without casting them. From above, Essek called out the spell names.
“Fortune’s Favor… Gravity Well… Polymorph… Oh, I don’t know that one.”
“Ah, right, that’s my Web of Fire spell. I can teach it to you if you like,” Caleb called back. “I think it’s safe to say that you can see a bit further than you could previously, under these conditions. We should move on to testing other things.”
There was no response.
“Essek?” he called a little more quietly. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He listened for movement, but heard nothing but his own breathing.
From bare inches away, Essek’s voice came out of the darkness.
“What did you have in mind?”
Caleb whipped around to face him, but of course couldn’t see anything. He tried to calm himself despite the sudden rush of adrenaline through his veins.
“Ah,” Stay on task Widogast. “I thought perhaps we should test your sense of smell. It has proved useful for us in the past.”
Essek hummed thoughtfully.
“I can’t say I paid much attention to my sense of smell before, but right now I can smell the bread the cats are baking in the kitchens, and the stew… something with sausage and sage in it I believe.” He paused before going on more tentatively, “and I can smell you. Your blood. I can smell the soap you use and your components, too. Your magic. But this close, being able to hear your heartbeat makes it hard not to notice the smell of blood first.”
Caleb shivered.
“Is it difficult being here with me like this?” he asked.
“It’s… distracting, but you don’t have to be worried. I have it under control.”
Caleb saw his opportunity and took it, forging ahead before he could second guess himself.
“I wasn’t worried. I was actually going to ask if you would be willing to test something else. I noticed that biting in different places seemed to produce different responses to the venom, and I wondered if we could catalogue the results more clearly in a controlled setting.”
Caleb was so glad for the darkness in that moment. Essek could see him clearly, but he didn’t have to meet those intelligent eyes as he made this suggestion.
“You are asking me to bite you?”
“Yes?”
“Repeatedly.”
“Just so we can determine if the venom is capable of different effects based on location.”
“Right. Of course. And not for any other reasons.” A sort of smug disbelief crept into Essek’s tone.
The pause that followed was long enough to make Caleb regret his decision to leave the lights down. It would have been helpful to get some sense of the drow’s expression.
Eventually Essek said in a speculative manner, “a test of how the… subject responds to venom, rather than a test of me. I suppose that would be wise, to know how bites might impact people in case we have need for me to feed on others in the future.”
“And also in case of needing to use it offensively. In order to debilitate rather than actually harm others.”
“I can’t say I like the idea of using it as such, but if it were a matter of life or death- It would be wise to know,” Essek agreed. “In order to gain a fuller understanding, we will need to test quite a few locations. In which case… I think you are wearing too much clothing.”
Caleb nearly choked on his own tongue.
“Ah, ja,” he managed to say. “Wouldn’t want anything in the way that might change our results. Wh- where would you like to start?”
“I think before we do any of this you should bring back some of the light. You have been staring over my shoulder for the past several minutes and it’s a bit unnerving.”
“Oh. Ja, I can do that.” With a thought, the lights in the training room rose to a dim sunrise glow.
Caleb blinked as his eyes adjusted and found Essek seated on the padding beside him, a faint hint of purple tinting the skin of his cheeks.
“There you are,” Caleb said, trying to summon a grin, but probably just looking nervous.
“Here I am,” Essek agreed. “Where did you want to start?”
Caleb thought for a moment.
“Perhaps we could initially try the places we have used before? It might be different when you are not starving and we are not in a survival situation.”
Essek huffed a laugh.
“When are we not in a survival situation? Alright, I believe your arm was first?”
Caleb rolled back his sleeve. He kept his eyes on the task despite not needing to. It was better than looking up into Essek’s eyes given the thoughts running through his mind. Finally he extended his left arm toward Essek.
The drow’s hands came up to support it. He met Caleb’s eyes and held that eye contact even as he bent his head over Caleb’s arm. He opened his mouth, giving the impression that he was about to press an open mouthed kiss to it. In the dim light Caleb saw his fangs extend and gleam. He never looked away even as he sank his fangs in.
Caleb felt like he was burning up. Heat pooled between his legs from the visual alone, but then he felt the cool trickle of the venom seeping in. Tingling pleasure spread from the connection point and up his arm. He gasped softly, but managed to keep most of his reactions under control. Essek’s eyes dropped closed at the sound. The pink tint in Caleb’s cheeks would have been a something of a giveaway otherwise.
As soon as he had begun, Essek withdrew his fangs and licked across the two small puncture wounds. His eyes stayed closed for a moment. His grip on Caleb’s arm unwaivering. Finally he took a slow breath and released Caleb from his grasp. When his eyes met Caleb’s again they were partially dilated. He licked over his teeth absentmindedly.
“Well?” he asked, “Any major changes?”
“It was perhaps a little less intense due to the situation. I… also have suspicions that the duration is a major component in how affected I am. Since the venom transfers throughout the… the feeding time, a longer duration might result in-”
“-a larger impact. I see.” Essek finished the thought. His eyes wandered as he considered things. Then he looked back at Caleb uncertainly. “Did you want to go on?”
“Ja, I am prepared to continue. Next was… here.” He tapped two fingers to the side of his neck.
Essek gave a small shiver. A hunger flared behind his eyes.
Caleb wondered whether it was because of blood or something else. He unbuttoned his collar and shrugged his shoulders free regardless. After a moment’s consideration he removed his shirt entirely. It was the only way to be sure it stayed blood free, but that wasn’t the only possible benefit. He knelt inches away from Essek and waited with his eyes down. When the drow made no move toward him, he looked up.
Wide violet eyes were roving his skin. Even as Essek licked his lips nervously, the points of his fangs were visible. Caleb took a deep breath and leaned forward. He brushed his hair off of one shoulder and tilted his head to the side offering. Finally Essek met his eyes. He looked ravenous.
Essek slid his hand into Caleb’s hair and pulled him in until Caleb had no choice but to sit astride his lap. He dragged the tip of his nose from behind Caleb’s ear to just above his shoulder then closed his lips over the vein there. He groaned softly, a sound which would not have been audible had they not been so close. Caleb wondered if Essek was just going to stay there, holding this position and refusing to bite him however much he might want it. The edge of pleasure from the first bite leant a tingling sensation to every touch.
“Please.” he breathed.
Essek’s fangs sank into the vein with another groan. His hips shifted slightly against Caleb.
Caleb could feel his blood pulsing out into Essek’s mouth. Venom poured into him. From the start he could feel that it was more effective than his arm had been. He couldn’t hold back his sigh of pleasure. He allowed himself to slump against Essek’s body as a gentle fog descended. He let his own hand run across Essek’s shoulders and into his hair. Without him fully intending to do so, his hips rocked. Essek gasped against his throat.
The drow drew his teeth out and licked the wounds closed, but this time he stayed, holding Caleb against him in his lap. They lingered, catching their breath.
After a while Essek gathered his wits enough to speak.
“Any new insights?”
“This… experiment confirmed my hypothesis that the intensity increases with the length of exposure, however I think that location is also important. We will have to add new locations for mapping purposes.”
“Of course. That seems reasonable,” Essek said, his breath still uneven.
“As I recall, there was one more location we needed to repeat.”
“Where?”
Caleb tapped his lips.
Essek stared at him. Then he wrapped the hand that wasn’t at Caleb’s back in his hair, tilted his head and kissed him.
He could have been rough. The situation would have suited it. Instead, he was gentle. His hands, which had just proved capable of punching through steel, moved in a smooth caress over Caleb’s skin. His tongue dragged over Caleb’s lower lip and pulled it seductively into his mouth. Only then did he bite down, a gentle pressure, just enough for his teeth to pierce skin. He held Caleb’s lip between his teeth for a moment, then ran his tongue across the pierced spots, letting them close. Then his tongue slipped carefully into Caleb’s mouth, giving him time to pull away. Instead Caleb returned the gesture with interest. He could taste the coppery flavor of his own blood, but it was hardly the first time. The way Essek moaned and pressed against him was well worth it. Caleb thought he could feel a line of pressure growing against his belly where they were pinned together.
The pulse of pleasure from his lip was slight compared to the last time, a fact which Caleb filed away for later. Essek pulled back from the kiss and let his forehead rest against Caleb’s.
“Where next?” His voice came out as a gasp.
Caleb thought for a moment, then raised one hand to tap two fingers to the right side of his chest.
With a single nod, Essek lowered his lips to Caleb’s chest. He kept his eyes on Caleb’s face as he bit directly over his nipple. Caleb gasped. He tried to catalogue all of the sensations. Twin lines of fire seemed to be arcing up toward the recent bite on his neck and down toward his hips, which jerked. The room seemed so far away. He whimpered and curled inward. Essek withdrew, licking the bite shut.
He kept his eyes closed for a bit. Essek’s arms felt like unyielding iron bars holding Caleb in place, but he didn’t mind. Caleb closed the distance between them a bit to press his nose into Essek’s hair. It took a few minutes before Essek asked again.
“Where else?”
Caleb slipped backward off of his lap, wishing he didn’t have to. Time to take a risk. Awash in a sea of pleasure from the effects of the venom, it felt like a very small risk. He tapped the inside of his left thigh.
Essek’s eyebrows shot up. Caleb met his gaze as evenly as he could. Essek gave a slow nod. Caleb unbuttoned his trousers and slid them off. Without the thick layer of fabric, the evidence of his arousal was clear. He leaned back on a section of the floor pads that were piled high and bent his legs at the knees. Essek’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Then he crawled across the space and lowered his mouth to Caleb’s bare inner thigh. They paused for a beat, then Essek sank his teeth in.
Caleb groaned. He could tell right away that this location was more intense. He struggled not to buck up against Essek’s mouth.
As if sensing his difficulty, Essek’s hands wrapped around his hips and held him in place. For a long moment, far longer than in any of the previous locations, he lingered. Caleb could feel the flow of cool venom tickling through his veins. As pleasure built in his core his back arched. He couldn’t help the way he cried out.
“Ah, please! Don’t stop.”
His cock twitched against his stomach, the tip dripping precome over him. Essek held him securely, sucking at the puncture wounds and making pleased little noises into his leg. He withdrew and lapped the wounds shut.
Caleb watched with half-lidded eyes as Essek licked the stray drops of blood off his lips and teeth. Their eyes met. Essek’s eyes were more black than violet. He reached a shaky hand toward Caleb's undergarments.
“Can I?”
“Please,” Caleb agreed feverishly.
Essek didn’t waste time. He jerked the waistband down and out of the way just enough to wrap his lips around the damp tip of Caleb’s cock. They moaned together at how good it felt.
Caleb’s hands ran through Essek’s short hair, more to feel his motion than to control it.
Essek kept one hand on Caleb’s hips alternating between stroking him and holding him in place so that he didn’t thrust upward too hard. He released Caleb’s cock from his mouth with a pop and slowly nuzzled his way up his chest. Finally, Caleb was able to put his arms around Essek and draw him in.
“I can hear your heart beating so quickly,” Essek whispered in his ear. “With your blood so close to the surface there it’s intoxicating. It’s like I could get drunk off of you.”
“You’re welcome to try,” Caleb replied with laughter in his voice, his hands beginning to work down the clasps of Essek’s tunic of their own accord. It seemed like the right thing to do to his venom-addled brain. Essek didn’t comment, but tilted his head out of the way to give Caleb’s hands better access.
“I don’t want to risk taking too much.”
Essek’s hands roved over Caleb’s skin too. He frowned at the little bruises on Caleb’s neck and stroked long red strands out of the way before pressing soft, fang-free kisses behind his ear. He shrugged out of his tunic when the last clasp came free and turned to allow Caleb’s hands to continue undressing him.
Caleb fought his way through the soft lilac clouds that filled his mind to shove Essek gently onto his back and push the rest of his clothes off. He kicked out of his own underwear before sliding a leg over his hips. A thought drifted by and he latched on. He took one of Essek’s arms and kissed up from his wrist to his shoulder.
Essek shivered as Caleb placed a sucking kiss at the drow’s throat. As he pulled back, their eyes met.
“Trying it out for yourself?” Essek asked. He was probably trying to sound conversational, but his ragged breathing and the way his eyes were dilated belied his tone.
“It’s only fair. Although, I admit that not having your teeth does put me at a disadvantage.” He was surprised he managed to put together so coherent a sentence from the fizzing, sparking mess that his brain had become.
Caleb stared at Essek’s smiling mouth, free of his usual levels of self-consciousness. The drow’s fangs still stood out, gleaming temptingly in the rosy glow of the tower. Caleb didn’t resist. He closed his lips over Essek’s and sucked gently. When he felt a hand on the back of his head pulling him closer, he went with it. A single fang nicked his lip, but this time Essek didn’t pull away.
Caleb’s lips tingled. All of the places he’d been bitten throbbed with pleasurable ache in sympathy with his mouth. He gave a high whine and pressed his body to Essek’s. When Essek finally put and end to the kiss, Caleb scrabbled at him with weak hands trying to hold him close.
“Nein,” he murmured, “don’t go. Want you.”
“I’m not going far. I just need to know how you want me.”
Caleb struggled to find two functional brain cells to rub together. Finally he came up with a suitable answer.
“Take me.”
Essek’s eyes, dilated with arousal and bloodlust though they were, examined Caleb’s face carefully for any sign that his desire was less than sincere. Seemingly satisfied with what he found, he opened his wristpocket and produced a small glass vial. He did not quite meet Caleb’s gaze as he uncorked it and coated the fingers of one hand with its contents.
Was it Caleb’s imagination that made Essek’s cheeks look a slightly darker purple or perhaps the lighting?
Essek hitched one of Caleb’s thighs higher on his waist before reaching behind him to press a deft finger at his entrance. Caleb didn’t see what happened next, because he buried his face in Essek’s shoulder. It was so much. It was too much. He was so relaxed from the venom that there was no pain or difficulty in opening him up, just pure scorching pleasure. He clung to Essek and just let himself feel. There was no thought, certainly no words, just the cool tingle of venom dancing through his veins punctuated by shocks of pleasure as Essek found just the right spot.
Once he found it, he returned to it again and again.
Essek’s hand withdrew and resettled Caleb over top of him, guiding Caleb’s hips down and back. He pressed in in one long, slow stroke, prompting a cry from Caleb. For a moment they held there, fully pressed together, revelling in the pleasure that spiralled out from their connection. Then Essek began to move.
An explosion of pleasure radiated out with every thrust. Adrift as he was in pure feeling, Caleb let himself be moved easily, his body pliant in Essek’s grip. Shaky gasps, moans and whines dropped unrestrained from his lips. The effects of the venom caused pleasure in one place to spark and spread like wildfire into the rest of his body. Even the tips of his toes tingled with it.
He felt the ache of pleasure building in him. He arched his back to make room for all of it, and Essek practically growled in response to the way it made Caleb tense around him. One of Essek’s hands found its way between them and squeezed Caleb’s cock in one harsh stroke after another. A writhing wave of tension flowed through Caleb. It was as if every muscle in his body tensed and then released at once.
He gripped Essek’s shoulders tightly as pleasure shot through him. He gave a long wordless moan, completely at the mercy of his body’s reactions until finally the buffeting waves of pleasure receded, leaving him at ease in a sea of cool, lightly tingling fog.
He settled, comfortable and limp against Essek, even as the drow continued to fuck him in sharp desperate strokes. Caleb realized distantly that he must be getting close. It occurred to him that he wanted Essek to feel good too, so he helped things along by mouthing along Essek’s slender shoulders and up his throat. He held on gently and nibbled one long ear.
Under him, Essek hissed and pulled Caleb’s body down sharply once more before holding him tightly against his hips. Inside him, Caleb felt the pulse and heat of Essek coming and groaned in satisfaction. Finally they slumped together into a messy, sticky pile of limbs, lungs still gasping to catch up from the exertion. To Caleb, that felt good too.
Awareness trickled back in over time. The effects of the venom faded from near oblivion to a gentle softening of the sharp edges of the world. Just as Caleb began to consider whether it would be a good idea to get cleaned up, Essek’s voice reached him from out of sight above his head.
“Well, what are the conclusion we can draw from this experiment, Mr. Widogast?”
Caleb sighed and stretched carefully.
“Hmm, inconclusive. Further testing is required.” He paused and then added, “after a nap.”
Essek laughed.