Chapter Text
He finds Caleb in the library, sitting in the chair that he’s come to favor during his visits, a book casually spread out over his lap. By the edges of the cover Essek recognizes it as a new mathematical text he had set aside for Caleb — had that been only last week that he had been so excited to discuss it? Caleb’s face is fixed and the blood cleaned off — with water, not prestidigitation, as there are still bloodstains on his shirt. Just as in the kitchen, the brazenness with which Caleb continues to make himself at home is instantly taunting to Essek, as no doubt it is meant to be. He moves into the center of the room, to the carpet, stopping five feet or so off from Caleb, before clearing his throat. Essek waits the long, slow moments it takes for Caleb to cast his eyes up towards him before speaking.
“Perhaps I failed to make myself clear. I want you out of my house.”
Caleb mirrors Essek’s own expression back at him. “Perhaps I failed to make myself clear: I don't want to leave.” He turns back to his book.
Essek crosses the space between them and grabs Caleb’s wrist, pinning it to the chair. “I can make you.”
“Can you? And suffer no consequences?” He sounds as impatient with repeating himself as Essek is with hearing him do so.
“How long will you continue to hold my life over my head?” It was a terrifying threat, the first time, and if he takes the time to stew on it, it gets terrifying again, but right now all Essek can see are in-betweens. Is it worth it for Caleb to kill him if he knocks a tooth from his mouth? Slices off a finger? Brands him with a burning-hot hand? If Essek hurts himself, or the child Caleb spoke of getting on him?
How much pain can he inflict? How much is he willing to suffer?
“Would you rather die than have me here?” Caleb says, conversationally, not looking up.
When it comes down to it, the problem is that Essek would very much like to live. He would like to be left alone to his reading and his thinking and not have anyone get in his way, and he would like to do that uninterrupted for the next half-millennium at least. Caleb is a thorn but…on the grand scale of things, he is a rather short-lived thorn.
“Because I don't think you would,” Caleb continues. “I think you're enjoying yourself.”
“What.”
“You have this entire house and all you care about is me in one room of it.” He shakes his head and again returns his attention to his book, paying no attention to Essek’s grip on his arm.
“You — you truly believe I am seeking your company?” Essek knows it’s bait, he knows it is, but for the life of him he cannot let it pass. “You imagine the sight of you alone doesn't fill me with sick horror?”
“I think if I made my hand a perch, I would not even need to beckon to see you sit on it.” He brings the thumb and fingers of his restrained hand together, in such a way that leaves no doubt as to how he would have Essek sitting on his hand.
Essek bares his teeth. “How dare you —”
Caleb raises his tone and cuts Essek off. “Has the slick reached your thighs yet or do you still comfort yourself with the hope that being a rigid cunt will somehow make you impossible to master?”
Essek snarls and grabs Caleb’s other arm, knocking the book in his hand to the floor. For a moment he has both of Caleb's wrists pinned, but then Caleb stands, bucking Essek's grip and throwing him backwards. He staggers a moment but then Caleb grabs him by a handful of his robe, pulling Essek so that they are nose to nose.
“Why else pick a fight you know you won't win?” Caleb hisses.
“Because I want. You. Out!” Essek snaps, trying to push himself away from Caleb. Caleb grabs him by the scalp, pulling his hair so tight it's painful, and Essek cries out in pain.
“Last night you wanted me in.” He pushes his mouth gently to the bite he left on Essek's neck, kissing softly around it in contrast to the sharp hold he retains on Essek's hair.
“Last night I didn't know what you were capable of." This close to Caleb's neck, there's no escaping his fiery scent, mixed with old sweat and that alpha musk that's meant to lure Essek in, to comfort the rapid rhythm of an omega's heartbeat.
“No alpha could have kept their hands off you,” Caleb says. “You were so ready to spread your legs for me, moaning like the little slut that you are —”
Essek drops his cantrip and throws the entirety of his weight at Caleb, and they end up on the floor in a heap. He can't resist that smell any longer and he buries his face in Caleb's neck, ignoring the pain of hairs ripping out of his scalp as he bites down hard. The sharp tang of blood only makes him sink his teeth in deeper, trying to make as much of an impression as he can before Caleb’s inevitable retaliation.
When Caleb does wrench his hand in Essek’s hair again and pull him off, though, his expression is not one of anger but of clear and unfettered desire. Essek barely has a moment to register before Caleb’s lips crash into his, kissing him with urgent passion, licking blood from his mouth. It’s so infectious that Essek kisses back, in a way that's different from all the kisses they traded in their stolen evenings and afternoons this spring; it’s so sincere it feels raw.
If circumstances had allowed…if he had ever been able to be honest with Caleb without hurting him, if Caleb had not taken his betrayal so deeply as to need to hurt him with it…there might have been many kisses like this. This one feels fleeting while their lips are still touching, a mouthful of sweet wine from a broken bottle.
Eventually, though, they do pull back from each other. Essek’s eyes land on the wound he’s left on Caleb’s neck, bruises already darkening the pale skin underneath the blood. Slowly, he turns his face back up to Caleb, trying to read in his expression if he had glimpsed the same missed paths Essek had. The wavering look he had seen at the breakfast table is back, a look almost bordering on regret.
“It’s powerful, isn’t it?” Caleb says, in the tone Essek has heard him use to talk about a new spell. “Claiming someone. I thought it was another thing the smutty books exaggerated, but when I look at you now…” His hand goes to Essek’s neck, to stroke the mark.
“It hurt.” Essek feels himself split into two halves, each thinking itself the more pragmatic: one says to run for what Caleb did last night, the other says that if he does not have Caleb, what friend does he have?
“I wanted it to.” Caleb’s thumb swipes across Essek’s throat, his fingers still on the bite mark, and his hand is now splayed so that he could choke Essek if he applied any pressure. Essek grabs his wrist, but he holds firm. “I still want to hurt you.”
Essek makes sure he is holding Caleb’s gaze before he enunciates his reply, “I have never, ever wanted to hurt someone like I want to hurt you right now.”
“Good,” Caleb says, holding Essek steady as he moves in to kiss him again. This kiss has teeth, literally, Caleb nipping hard over the split he’d left yesterday. Essek gives as good as he gets, digging his teeth into the inside of Caleb’s lip until he tastes blood. He takes one last moment to open his eyes, to look past the side of Caleb’s head and consider the number of steps it would take him to stagger to the door. Not that far, all things considered. But his head feels foggy, his legs comfortably weighted to the carpet beneath them.
Essek closes his eyes. He’s not going anywhere.
He shrugs the robe off before Caleb can do anything to mess up the fastenings, its use as armor already moot. Freed of the weight, he gets his hands up Caleb’s shirt and gouges his nails down the already-scarred skin of his back, feeling blood warm and wet underneath his fingertips. Caleb slowly scrapes his teeth down Essek’s sternum, undoing the front of his shirt, and Essek cries out when he applies the same treatment to his nipples. He pushes Caleb down on the ground, straddling him. Essek is not surprised that Caleb’s cock is already growing hard, but he is surprised to find that when it presses up against his own leg, he recoils as though it were cold steel. In the matter of seconds where Essek is distracted, Caleb pushes back.
Essek’s head knocks hard against the floor when he lands on the carpet, and he holds himself still for a moment, waiting for the pain to die down. Caleb doesn’t seem to notice, or at least he doesn’t stop what he’s doing. He spreads Essek’s thighs apart with his hands, thumbs pressing into the fabric over Essek’s cunt, rubbing circles into it.
Caleb is going to fuck him again, and Essek’s known that since he kissed him, or since he walked in the room, or since he was bent over the sink and realized Caleb was still in his house. He all but said that he would, after all, and Caleb Widogast may be a liar but he does not make threats idly. If he leaves after this, it will be worth it. If he doesn’t leave after this, perhaps at least Essek’s body will be sated this time. Perhaps next time he will be stronger.
Right now he is undeniably aroused, brought low by some cocktail of the mating bites and the aftereffects of his heat and whatever twisted thing the lust and infatuation between them has become. His pants are feeling tight against his cock, his underclothes growing damp with slick under Caleb’s ministrations. Essek feels his own breath catch in his throat, and Caleb smiles as he leans down to replace his thumbs with his mouth against Essek’s still-clothed groin. Caleb inhales deeply and audibly, his nose pressing to the underside of Essek’s cock, groaning as he does so.
“Gods…you even smell like you’re mine.”
Essek's mouth has forgotten how to form words, but that doesn't seem to matter as Caleb touches him, mouths at him, even licking his cock through the fabric. He’s so keyed up that the layers separating skin from skin hardly matter at all. Essek wrenches a hand in Caleb’s hair, keeping his face pressed to him, though Caleb doesn’t seem to need the encouragement. He wraps his lips around the head of Essek's cock, the cloth in between grown damp with saliva and precome. He's not even looking at Essek’s face, he seems to be single-mindedly focused on consuming the taste and the smell of him.
Essek grinds himself against Caleb's face, too far gone for shame to even factor into his decisions. He can feel himself getting close and that's all he needs right now, just physical release. Caleb returns one of his hands to Essek's cunt, teasing along the opening in the way he knows Essek likes.
It only takes about another minute for that release to overtake Essek, and he whines through it, nearly sobbing as his cock twitches and his cunt throbs, clenching down on nothing.
“There,” Caleb murmurs, nuzzling along Essek’s hip bone and up the side of his belly. His hands unfasten Essek’s trousers and begin to slide them off. Essek feels frozen on the precipice of action, as though if he moves a single muscle he won’t be able to stop himself from trying to get away from Caleb. He's not even sure if he could run, but the thought keeps him still. “There, there.”
When Essek's legs are bare, Caleb's hands return, hot against Essek’s skin. Caleb strokes Essek's softening, oversensitive cock until he cries out, and then slides further down. He hooks three fingers into Essek with no preamble, and Essek is so wet that the pain is more or less negligible. He breathes long, slow, ragged breaths as Caleb's fingers probe and stretch and prepare him, almost unbearably gently. He can hear Caleb undoing his own belt with his other hand.
He feels Caleb's fingers slip out of him and Essek picks his head up just enough to watch him rub that same hand over his newly-freed cock, slicking himself up. Caleb lifts up one of Essek's legs in each arm, positioning himself between them and moving Essek to be at a more agreeable angle. As he enters him, he brings his face back down to Essek’s throat, still breathing him in.
Caleb is slower to build up a pace than he was last night, gradually easing himself in further and further. It feels worse, and Essek can only assume it’s meant to. Every spot Caleb hits inside him is oversensitive and bruised, each thrust lighting his nerves on fire anew.
Essek wants to make himself a doll, limp and inert. He wants to be dead weight, an ongoing accusation — let Caleb mete out his punishment and know every inch of satisfaction he takes is not a fight he’s winning but a violation he is repeating. And he is, it is a violation. It makes Essek’s throat burn with climbing misery, not despite but because of the way his thighs still tremble, the way something eager clenches low in his stomach as Caleb taps deep. He’s velveted steel, implacable against Essek’s tender, private, interior skin, already abused and singing for more because Caleb’s slow, thoughtful fucking is not enough. It’s not enough and it’s nauseating, maddening. If he would only pin Essek to the ground and take what he wants, glut himself on Essek’s unresisting body until his knot swells, it wouldn’t matter if some part of Essek thrills at it. The thought alone makes his legs spasm, clamping around Caleb’s hips and dragging him in, heels at his backside, a clumsy, reflexive hunching that makes his chest heave with shame.
“Ask me for it,” Caleb growls into his neck.
“For what?” He surprises himself with the flatness of his voice. He keeps his eyes averted, staring sightless at the grate of his own fireplace. Some rational part of him has held on long enough that he knows to be guarded; after all, what could Caleb possibly care about what Essek wants now?
“How you want it.” Caleb pulls out, agonizingly slow. “How you need it.”
“Fuck you.” It’s far from Essek’s most erudite response, but he’ll be damned before he begs, even if he knows both may be inevitable.
Caleb nuzzles his face into one of Essek’s ears. “You know I hate guessing.”
It dredges up a memory: Caleb kneeling in front of Essek at his desk, fingers wrapped around Essek’s cock, a happy gleam in his eye, his mouth so close that each breath sends a shiver up Essek’s spine. Don’t make me guess, liebling, tell me what feels good. They’d ended up fucking on the desk, and Caleb had insisted on stacking all their notes neatly to the side first; a slow, gentle tease.
Had that been real? Or had Caleb dreamed even then of taking Essek like this, of having him all but helpless underneath him? Of shattering his boundaries, his trust so completely and savoring it?
“Then don’t guess.” Essek can have his pride in this, if nothing else. “Don’t play with your fucking food.”
“Faster?” Caleb’s thrusts go rough and rapid for a blissful stretch of seconds, sweat beading on his neck. Essek's body clamors for it, a moan falling out of his mouth. “Or slower?” Caleb’s pace becomes tantalizing, slower than it seems possible for him to maintain. He sinks into Essek all the way to the root, to the swelling knot, all by half-inches.
“Stop it.”
“You want me to stop?” Caleb freezes, half-in and half-out, and Essek gives a frustrated whine.
“Stop teasing.” Frustration bubbles up Essek’s arms, and he finds in them the strength to lift his hands to Caleb’s neck, to wrap them tight. They do not quite span it, but that doesn’t stop him from letting all that anger pool in his fingers, curling tight with impotent rage. He gives a single, firm squeeze. “Do what you came here for.”
Caleb leans into his chokehold like an embrace, heedless of Essek's thumbs against his windpipe. Indeed, he inhales a short breath, and a beatific smile spreads over his face, as though he is enjoying it. “I suppose that will have to do,” he gasps. And he begins to fuck Essek like he means it.
It’s still painful, it’s still a violation, but comparatively (and oh, what a chilling baseline for comparison that is) it’s a relief. It’s a relief to go limp in the arms of his (colleague, student, lover, rapist), a victory for Essek to let his body, his enemy, take over. His cunt all but welcomes Caleb in, hungry for his knot, his seed. Caleb peppers kisses down Essek’s throat, over his face, and Essek lets him, receding further and further into his own head.
It’s still not enough to entirely avoid the sickening feeling of Caleb spending inside of him, or the horrible, contented groan he gives as he does so. He slips an arm underneath Essek’s back, none too gentle with him as he lowers them both onto their sides, but still looking at him with that possessive fondness.
“Satisfied?” Essek asks, wondering just how much more he would sacrifice to get that smug look off of Caleb’s face.
“Very.” He moves in to kiss Essek on the mouth, but Essek turns away. Caleb kisses his cheek instead, sloppy, warm. “Are you?”
“If you are waiting for my will and my wits to be entirely subverted by my hormones, you will be doing so for a very long time.”
“A pity, that. There's so much to be learned from one's baser nature.”
“You would know.”
Caleb gives a bitter little half-chuckle, but then he falls silent. His eyes are still fixed on Essek, but they begin to drift half-closed. Combined with his hand stroking along Essek’s side, it’s almost a mockery of post-coital relaxation. Like he’s pretending they’re still real lovers. Like he hasn’t just been treating Essek as a field to be sown. Does he not want to talk, or is he deliberately making Essek draw words out of him?
“Tell me, do you intend to be my jailer for the rest of your natural life?” Essek matches his tone to the pillow-talk atmosphere Caleb seems to be trying to will into existence. “Or will there come a time when you think I've learned my lesson about the mages I trust?”
“If you still think this is about trust, I think we have a long future ahead of us.”
“What is this, then? Loyalty? Morals? There may not be as much blood on your hands as there is on mine, but I no longer think that’s for lack of trying.”
“You can hardly claim ignorance of the concept of penance.”
Essek cocks an eyebrow. “In my experience, penance is willingly given.”
“Is there no contrition in you yet? If you wanted me dead, I think I would be dead.”
“I don’t believe in suffering to repay suffering. A child would only be another innocent for us to damage.”
“You don’t think you will be capable of encouraging healthy growth?” The future tense pushing up against his conditional does not escape Essek. “Of loving something?”
“I could have loved you,” he says, flatly, grim satisfaction in the way Caleb’s features freeze, looking for a lie. He reaches up a hand to push a lock of red hair behind Caleb’s ear. “I think I did.”
Caleb’s lips part, but no sound emerges.
How little they know of each other. Caleb wears his heritage in his accent, his trauma in the hunch of his shoulders, his thirst for magic and power spilling from his pockets. But the particulars? His family, his friends before the Mighty Nein? The pancakes this morning were the first time Caleb had ever cooked for him. Essek himself has in turn offered as little of his history as he could to gain Caleb’s trust. He’s never even told him about Verin. And now everything that he learns about Caleb from this point forward will be intelligence gathered to use against an enemy.
Caleb turns his head, looking past Essek at that same cold fireplace. For a moment, Essek wonders if he might give him that same silent treatment until they’re able to separate — but then Caleb looks back to him, his face settled into something studious, examining Essek like a bug on a board. He strokes his hand up one of Essek’s ears, fingering each piercing as he does so.
“And where will I find you next?”
He hadn’t even been thinking about Caleb having seen his preparations to leave. Perhaps he didn’t, perhaps it’s simply a test — “Where do you expect me to go?”
“There's a half-packed trunk of clothes too warm for a Rosohnan summer in your bedroom.” Damn. “Where are you planning to run off to?”
“Not running. Just…getting out of the way for a bit.” Essek sighs, winces. Despite his body's best efforts to make the experience enticing, it really is uncomfortable to have been knotted twice in twelve hours, stretched around Caleb’s cock and bloated with his seed. “You are not the only ones capable of putting two and two together.”
“Where?”
“North. Eiselcross. I have accepted a post there.” It’s easier to tell the truth right now, until Essek can fully test the limits of what Caleb will do to keep him under his thumb.
“North,” Caleb repeats. “I shall have to come see you there, then.”
Essek thinks of a frigid wasteland that kills the badly prepared with weather alone, of beasts hardened and honed to survive in such a landscape, of an entire outpost at his command. Of bloodied, faceless bodies in the snow.
“I hope you do.”