Archive of Our Own ^beta

The assassination attempts really got irritating after a while. 

Being a person of interest of certain high echelons of both the Empire and the Dynasty, Essek had expected a few, but this was ludicrous. For a man who had not officially been added to the wanted list by either ruling faction, he really ought not to have two in one week. And frankly, it was the unsportsmanlike conduct that annoyed him more than the frequency. 'Unsportsmanlike conduct' was how he would have phrased it, if he needed to be charming about it. ‘I wish they would stop trying to kill me mid-trance, so that I could more easily kill them first, and not have to waste high-level magic and/or healing potions,’ was more accurate. 

This most recent one had left him with a dagger between two of his lower ribs. Said dagger was now on the ground in a pool of Essek’s blood, sitting beside two empty potion bottles, the contents of which were effectively keeping Essek’s lung working and unpunctured. The bleeding, though, was still happening, and he’d die just as easily from blood loss as he would a hole in his vital organs. It would only be slower, now, thanks to the potions' curative properties. 

He needed somewhere safe, somewhere no one would find him, where he could lay low and rest for a while before some other bastard with some other dagger came after him. (This particular bastard was now lying on the ground, their face and midsection both looking like the pulp of one of those dark red oranges you could get in Nicodranas.) 

He could not risk going to Caleb, or to any of his friends that lived in a large city. The latest assassin had spat something into a sending stone right before Essek fired the final round of magic missiles, so there were clearly more where that came from. Uthodern, or even the Blooming Grove were less dangerous but still known quantities to the people who made it their mission to rid the world of Essek Thelyss. 

He had no more time for his mind to float between ideas. Pressure on the wound was only doing so much, and he’d have to let go for a brief moment to cast his Teleport. If he waited, he was going to pass out casting.  

He was going with his final, very stupid idea. 

He cast, leaving behind a dagger, a dead man, and some chipped glass bottles. 

— — — 

The first thing Essek smelled when the teleport faded was salt spray, and the first thing he felt was hard wood beneath his knees, which was pitching and rolling in a way that did not allow Essek the dignity of standing back up. 

At least he was on a ship. 

Someone shouted, wordless, and swung down from the rigging into Essek’s line of sight. His vision was blurry, but he caught a lot of purple. Horns. A tail. So it was the right ship. 

“Oh. Good,” Essek said, “I was somewhat concerned I might land myself in the middle of the ocean.” The blithe tone he was going for sort of faltered around the wheeze of a recently-healed lung. 

“What the bloody hell are you doing, popping in here to die on my deck unannounced?”

He probably wasn’t going to die. “If I simply say it’s a long story, will you keep me from bleeding out?”

“Of course I’m not gonna let you bleed out, you pitiful bastard. The captain would flay me alive. And then Jester would resurrect me so he could do it all over again. Come on, work with me.” 

Essek did not think this estimation of Fjord and Jester's reactions was accurate. The Mighty Nein had gone through a great deal of effort to keep this man alive. A goddess had been involved. They wouldn't just kill him. 

Essek wanted to say this, but instead, he went for the fastest way to end a conversation, short of casting Silence. 

He passed out in the arms of one Kingsley Tealeaf. 

— — — 

Essek woke up slightly nauseated, which meant none of this had been a blood-loss-induced hallucination. He was actually aboard a ship, and the weather was quite bad. If the movement of the vessel wasn’t enough to indicate the condition they were sailing through, the sound of rain spattering against windows was. 

He tried to sit up, and found himself terribly unsteady. When he fell back against the pillows, he groaned, and his stirring and his noises attracted attention. Quick, sharp footsteps tapped over the floor of the cabin. 

“Easy, easy.” Kingsley reached for Essek, easing him into a sitting position. “Go slow. You took a bad hit, friend.” 

Essek blinked until Kingsley's face wasn't so blurry. “It wasn’t that bad,” he complained, letting Kingsley prop him up against several pillows. His affection for colorful things may not have been so clear in his wardrobe, but it showed here. His cabin was mismatched and cluttered with goods of all sorts, most of them ill-gotten, if Essek spared a guess. He hadn’t gotten to know Kingsley well over their week’s stay in the blooming grove, but one of his cloaks had been misappropriated by a certain purple tiefling before that week ended. 

“It absolutely was. Whatever they stabbed you with was just—ugh—“ Kingsley tossed his head in put-upon drama, “—so very poisoned. We’ve a healer aboard, believe it or not, but a restoration of that level is a bit beyond the spell components Jester had on hand.”

“Oh.” This was more than what Essek had suspected he was saddling them with. Perhaps he should have gone to the Blooming Grove. But the ship was safer, ever-moving. “Have I been asleep for long?”

“In and out of consciousness for two days and then some,” Kingsley said. He picked up a waterskin, which must have been enchanted, because it was refreshingly cool when he lifted it to Essek’s lips. “Slowly, there. Jester had been in to see to you, but I’d be surprised if you remembered.” 

Essek gave him his best present approximation of a withering glare. He knew to go slowly when he was recovering from illness or injury and he did not need to be instructed so. Not that it wasn’t tempting to drink in great long gulps. 

“Good. That’ll be here if you need it,” Kingsley said, tipping some of the water onto a cloth before capping it and setting it onto the inlaid shelf at the foot of the bed. 

He reached forward and Essek flinched before realizing Kingsley was just dabbing at his temples with the damp cloth. He didn’t realize how much of a headache he’d had until some gentle effort was made to relieve it. He allowed Kingsley to continue, letting his eyes fall closed. When he ran his tongue over his lower lip, he found the skin cracked, probably due to poor hydration and ocean air. 

“I’m sorry," Essek said. 

“For?” Kingsley hooked his foot around the leg of a chair to yank it over so that he could sit at Essek's bedside. 

“Showing up unannounced like that, stealing your bed and then making you and your crew play nursemaid,” Essek said. "Obviously." 

“Obviously, I couldn’t give a flying fuck. Someone wrecked your…” he made a vague gesture in Essek’s direction, “everything, we’re friends, we’ll patch you up. I don’t mind taking care of you. Do you want some soup? I’m getting you some soup.”

Essek was not going to protest some soup. 

It was good. Spicy, which Essek liked, thickened with coconut milk, which told him they'd been somewhere tropical recently and possibly still were. Mostly potatoes and onions, since they held up well over long weeks of travel. Essek avoided the onions, worrying about them on his sour stomach. 

Kingsley puttered around the cabin while Essek ate, apparently doing whatever business Kingsley got up to when nobody was around. A lot of sorting through storage trunks that were tied to the walls to keep them from sliding across the cabin floor. He eventually came back with a bundle of cloth in his hands, which he traded Essek for the now mostly-empty bowl, a few pieces of onion left in the little amount of broth he hadn't been able to spoon out. 

Kingsley sat back down and shrugged at the bowl before scooping out the onions and eating them. "So. Figured that would fit you okay and you wouldn't mind the color." 

Essek was still dressed in his own clothing, which was looking less bloody (someone on this crew knew a cleaning spell, at least) but no less torn. A pity. He'd liked the shirt and the tunic both. The coat was perhaps salvageable if the stitching could be hidden. "Thank you," he said. The shirt was black, and looked like it would be a little too loose for his tastes, but there would be nothing fitted to him here, of course. 

"How much does it hurt to move?" Kingsley asked. "Do you need some help getting into that?" 

Moving his hands from the elbows to eat had been no trouble, but raising his arms pulled directly on the wound, which felt like it was emanating a pulse of white-hot pain from the center of the puncture through the rest of his torso. An aftereffect of the poison, he supposed. He frowned. 

"I regret to admit I will require assistance." 

"I don't mind," Kingsley said. "Just tell me how this thing unfastens, I don't know anything about Xhorhasian clothing." 

Essek undid the clasps himself, and let Kingsley remove his clothing layer by layer, pulling his tunic down and leaving it on the pillows beneath him, and then easing his shirt and his undershirt over his head and off his arms. He found that beneath his clothing, he was bandaged. 

"Am I still bleeding?" 

"No, but there's a poultice of some kind they tried on you to help ease the effects of the poison. The bandage is just to keep it from getting all over the inside of your clothes." Kingsley looked at the new shirt Essek was going to borrow, and decided to unbutton it all the way and pull it on him like a jacket rather than trying to put it over his head. 

Essek could have buttoned it back up. Kingsley did it for him without question. 

He was very unused to just one layer of clothing, particularly on his top half. Even when he was dressed down, as per his usual these days, it was always a fitted undershirt, then a loose undershirt, then a tunic, and finally a coat. One simple layer of linen made Kingsley's hand feel much too warm when he ran it down Essek's shoulder. 

"You look beat," he said. "You know you can go back to sleep, right?" 

Drow shouldn't need to sleep. But the poison. Of course. "I do not wish to take your bed," he said.

"That's a good point. Budge over, they'll need me up there to relieve the crew when the storm dies out." 

"You're going to…sleep here with me?" 

"Why wouldn't I?" 

Essek… did not rightly know. "I am not exactly accustomed to sharing, I suppose," he said. 

"It's a good thing you're too sleepy to care about that, then, huh?" 

He was. He really fucking was. 

Essek fell asleep thinking about the way the Mighty Nein packed themselves together inside Caleb's magical bubble, all softly snoring in one knot of tangled bodies, which Essek himself had curled anxiously on the outside of. Jester, of course, had immediately decided Essek was to be her teddy bear for the night, and so he endured an evening of interrupted trancing, dealing with the most physical contact he'd had in years. It was both uncomfortable, and so lovely he'd wanted to weep. 

Kingsley wasn't handsy like that. He slept with his back to Essek. But he was also a tiefling, which meant he was a line of pure heat against Essek's body, and that warmth, coupled with a full belly for the first time in days, let Essek truly rest in a way he once thought he would never need to again. 

— — — 

When Essek woke, Kingsley was gone. He stood, and found himself still unsteady, needing to lean heavily against the wall as the pain in his side ached all the way down to his leg. 

“Essek! Oh my god! Are you okay?” This wasn’t Kingsley, but Jester, who had apparently been well-camouflaged in a pile of pillows. She rushed to him with her arms out, but by the time she reached Essek, he had steadied himself with his levitation cantrip. The pain lingered, but the worry of collapsing did not. 

“Jester,” Essek said, relieved to see her. “I was surprised to see Kingsley and not you, earlier.”

“I was helping with the storm and stuff,” Jester said, taking one of Essek’s hands in hers. “The Wildmother usually has us covered for this kind of thing, but a little Shape Water doesn’t, like, hurt or anything. Anyway, what happened to you?”

“Oh, the usual,” Essek joked. “Assassination attempt in the middle of the night, poisoned dagger to the ribs. I figured the Nein Heroez was safer than Vurmas.”

Despite his light tone, her face was set in worry. “Has this happened a lot since you and Caleb got back from Aeor?”

“Off and on,” Essek admitted. “My mistake this time was going back to Roshona for some of my books.” He longed for Caleb’s eidetic memory sometimes. “I didn’t spend the night in my tower, of course, but it was enough to alert someone to my presence.” 

“Well,” Jester said, “you can stay with us as long as you like, and if anyone tries to kill you again, I’ll kick their ass.” 

“My thanks,” Essek said, giving her a weak but present smile. “It would be very difficult to go back and forth between here and anywhere else, really.” He would have to Send to Caleb and let him know he wouldn’t be by for some time. Certainly his friend would not worry about him if he was aboard the Nein. 

“Are you feeling okay enough for me to take you on a tour of the ship?” Jester asked. 

“If you don’t mind the hovering. Has much changed since last I was here?” Essek had stopped by a few months ago, when they were docked in Nicodranis, and, disguised as an indistinctive half-elf, had seen the vessel the Mighty Nein had apparently sailed out of a volcanic cavern on Rumblecusp, after a dragon-turtle made driftwood of the Ball Eater. 

“Oh, tons!” Jester chirped. “Come on, let me show you!” Her gait was as bouncy as ever, but she wasn’t moving at quite her usual pace as she slid open the door to Kingsley’s cabin and made her way down the narrow hall. This must have been a conscious decision, to let Essek follow slowly.

She chattered all the while, telling Essek which cabin belonged to which crew member (“they all have their own rooms,” she had explained, “it helps to keep people from getting into arguments over roommate stuff, plus you can decorate however you want!”)

When they emerged above deck, Essek immediately squinted and shaded his eyes with his hand (his right—the left was still held gingerly, as moving anything on that side of his body disturbed his injury). It wasn’t full sun outside, but the light filtering through the blanket of gray clouds was enough to make his eyes water. He wished briefly for the dark glasses he wore to protect himself from the harsh reflection of the sun off the snow at Vurmas. 

“Oh! Essek, over here, in the shade,” Jester said, leading him to the side where the sails cast shadows. He floated behind her up the ladder to the upper deck, where Fjord was at the wheel, with Kingsley standing observant beside him and their tortle navigator peering off the side of the boat with a spyglass. 

Both Fjord and Kingsley looked up when they heard Jester call hello to them, Fjord giving her an indulgent smile before he even managed to catch sight of Essek. 

“Good to see you up and about!” Fjord called, his voice strong and confident as ever at the helm of his ship. “How are you feeling?”

Essek made a noncommittal gesture. “I have been better,” he said. “It is good to see you. And I commend you for navigating through that storm last night.”

“The Wildmother sees us through most of the squalls,” Fjord said, although Essek wondered if he was simply being modest. “Kingsley hasn’t been giving you too much grief, has he?”

“I’ve been a proper host, I have!” Kingsley protested, dropping his attentive stance to fold his arms across his chest. “Essek, tell him. I didn’t even cuddle him like a teddy bear, since I knew it’d hurt.”

“He did not,” Essek said. 

“You can always stay in our cabin if he’s bugging you, Essek,” Jester said. 

Essek had already seen the shape of a bruise left by someone with sharp little tiefling teeth on Fjord’s collarbone. He did not think he would enjoy a stay in their cabin. “No, it’s quite alright. I’m sorry to intrude on your room, Kingsley, if there’s somewhere else…?”

“All the rooms are full right now,” Jester said. 

Kingsley waved off any of Essek’s concerns. “Oh, I don’t mind. Once your sleep schedule gets sorted, I can switch to night shifts, so we can trade off.” 

“Once I have recovered, I can trance rather than sleeping. I won’t need to encroach on your bed any longer.” 

“Speaking of,” Kingsley said, his tail shifting to keep his balance on the deck. “Are you feeling alright? You’re still holding yourself stiff.” He came closer, reached out as if to touch Essek, and then stopped short. 

“Hands off, if you please,” Essek said, just as he heard the navigator (Orly, that was it) call that he’d spotted land. 

Following this, Orly finagled the horrible contraption of an instrument he operated into working form, and blew on the pipes until everyone aboard was alerted and Essek developed a headache. It was, he supposed, a tiny bit musical. It was mostly horrible. 

Once it had quieted and they could speak again, Fjord said, “Essek, if there are people after you, I recommend you go belowdecks while we’re docked. Kingsley, you stay with the ship and with Essek.”

Kingsley made a groan of complaint. “You know I’d been wanting to see the island—“

“No argument,” Fjord said. “I need somebody here to keep him safe. You’ll have Marius aboard, too.”

“Great,” Kingsley said, cocking his head in a way that made Essek certain he was rolling his eyes even though he was turned to Fjord. “What a help that will be.”

“Kingsley,” Fjord said, the expression on his face brooking no argument. 

“Aye, captain.” Kingsley patted Essek on the shoulder as he walked past. “Head below deck, Thelyss, we’ll be making ready for land.” 

Essek, honestly, was happy to leave the light of day behind and go back to Kingsley’s cabin. 

— — —

“It’s not you, of course, it’s just that I like to go ashore whenever we’re ashore. Meeting new people, seeing new things, you know, it’s—“

“Kingsley,” Essek said, “I am not offended. I need to cast a Sending, though, so if you could give me a moment of quiet, please.”

Kingsley just closed his mouth and gave Essek a nod. 

Essek formed the familiar somatics, cast the spell, and then said, “Caleb: regrettably, I’m unable to meet this week. Was ambushed in Roshona, but I’m safe, aboard the Nien Heroez . Jester, Fjord, and Kingsley say hello.”

He wasn’t actually relaying a message on Jester or Fjord’s behalf, but Kingsley mouthed ‘tell him hi’ when Essek started talking to Caleb and he thought he should confer all their greetings. 

The response began with a soft gasp. “Scheiße. Were you injured? Please stay safe, my dear friend, I don’t know what I would do without you.” 

Essek cast again. “I was, but I have been patched up since and I am recovering. I will let you know when it’s safe to visit you again.”

“I hope to hear good things soon, then. Stay safe, and give the others my love.” 

“What did he say?” Kingsley asked. “I have got to know what made you smile like that.”

“Nothing,” Essek said, schooling his face to neutrality. “He just told me to stay safe, and to give you all his love.”

“Aw. Tell him I send hugs and kisses when you call on him next.” Kingsley clapped both hands onto his knees and then stood. “I,” he announced, “am going to see what bullshit Marius is up to. I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner.” 

Essek would not be relaying anyone’s hugs and kisses to Caleb via Sending. They could do that themselves. 

— — —

That night, it was just the three of them in the ship’s large mess hall. Marius, it turned out, was not a bad chef, and with enough spices and extra things thrown in, the basic sort of porridge that Jester had conjured was on the better side of edible. 

Kingsley sat straight on top of the table with his legs crossed. Essek wondered if he did this every night, or only when the captain and crew were away. He poured them all wine, which was starting to taste like vinegar, and Marius refused to drink his. 

“More for me, then,” Kingsley said, snatching his glass and downing it in one.” 

“You really were meant to be a pirate,” Marius said, leaning his chin on his hand. “You’re good at all the pirate things.” 

“If by that, you mean drinking, stabbing fools, and taking things that aren’t mine, then yes, I’m a model pirate,” Kingsley said. 

“And seducing hapless sailor boys?” Marius said, tilting his head just a little. Oh. He was trying to flirt. Essek wondered if perhaps he should leave. 

Kingsley did not seem to notice the suggestiveness in Marius’ tone. “Is that a common thing?” 

“Was for the Captain, when we had Avantika aboard.” 

“Huh. Well, I must be good at that. Whatever I’ve got going, generally seems to work for everybody.”

“Certainly does for me,” Marius said, leaning a bit closer to him. 

“I’ve told you time and again, Marius, I’m just not into blonds. Well. Maybe. Essek, are you considered blond?” 

“I… suppose so?” He was not brunet. 

Kingsley turned back to Marius. “Then it’s just a you problem. Essek’s…” He whistled again, a sharp high-to-low. As far as Essek knew, Kingsley was calling him exceedingly attractive. He rolled his eyes. 

“Well, yeah, you can’t compare me to Essek,” Marius said. 

"Very funny," Essek sighed, and finished his cup of wine. 

"On a different note, because I'm done talking about how much Marius wants to fuck me," Kingsley said, which sure was a way of introducing a topic of conversation, "what's the deal with those calls you're making to Mister Widogast?" 

"Caleb? I Send to him often, as I try to see him regularly and I'm not in the habit of popping in unannounced unless the situation is dire," Essek said. "We're in the process of collecting our findings from Aeor and writing everything out for posterity." 

"Ah." Kingsley nodded, as if understanding perfectly, and then said, "Aeor. That must have been fun. The two of you, in that chilly old ruin, uncovering magical secrets." He got a sort of faraway look, as if he was imagining an exciting journey. Essek didn’t think he’d like to be in Aeor with Kingsley. Ordinarily, he couldn’t be less like Lucien, so there was little to compare, but in that place, the familiarity might be a bit frightening. 

"There were… certainly some discoveries made that could warrant a lifetime's study," Essek said. He couldn't keep a smile off his face as he thought about the electric force that was the two of them both focused on their passion and their craft, driven to record everything they could, to uncover the secrets this ghost of a civilization provided. 

"Gods. I'll bet that really does it for you two, huh? How did he do it? Was it like—" and here, Kingsley repositioned himself to sit directly in front of Essek, putting his feet on either side of Essek's chair and his hands on either side of Essek's face. "Oh, Essek, you're just too smart and handsome, I can't resist you any longer—" 

Oh. Essek now understood the dreamy look to be something else. 

"No." He pushed his chair back, breaking contact with Kingsley's hands. "It wasn't like that. It's not like that, between the two of us." 

Kingsley's feet were still on his chair, but he dropped them, letting them swing back out of Essek’s personal space. "Oh. I really thought—never mind." 

"Aeor made us confront some of the most difficult parts of our own selfish desires and painful pasts," Essek said. "It was not a romantic getaway." 

"I shouldn’t have implied that,” Kingsley said. “I just figured you two were together, and that was where it happened.”

“We are not, and it did not,” Essek said, accustomed now to the familiar pang that struck his heart when he thought on his affections for Caleb. 

Marius finally piped up again. "It's alright, Kingsley, it's what I'd do if I was stuck in a ruin with Caleb Widogast." Essek remembered Marius had probably spent as much time with Caleb as Essek had. "Have you heard him talk? Like, really heard him talk? One time, he spent twenty minutes describing how to read a map to me, and I didn't remember a word of it. His voice makes all the hair on your neck stand up. It's gorgeous." 

“Marius, you really need to settle down,” Kingsley said. 

Essek knew what he was talking about. All too well, actually. 

He pretended he did not. 

— — —

Their trip into port concluded, and with the stop came a refresh of supplies, which meant fresh produce and enough rum that the ship got absolutely wild at night. Essek had recovered enough to be out and about but not enough to drink heavily or to deal with drunk people, so he spent most nights in Kingsley cabin. 

Naturally, Essek was never without his books. He had to limit the number of them he kept on his person, because only so much would fit in the Wristpocket, but there was enough material for him to spend his nights reading, mostly pre-Calamity research done by other scholars. He was also in possession of his journal from Aeor. Eventually, if he and Caleb wanted to publish their findings, they’d need to compile everything, so Essek spent plenty of time outlining for that endeavor as well. They clearly had enough for a book, perhaps two volumes. They would need a good editor. Essek himself was prone to verbosity when it came to magical studies, and Caleb even more so. 

Kingsley came back late that first night after port, still drunk, and collapsed onto his bed before he seemed to realize that Essek was even in his room, tucked into a corner with a lot of pillows. Essek was glad he’d chosen a different place to sit, else he might have ended up with a tiefling full-body collapsing on him. 

“Sleeping on the floor, Thelyss?” he asked. 

“I am well enough to trance rather than sleeping,” Essek said. “I do not need to take your bed any longer.”

“Can’t be as comfortable trancing on the floor, either, though,” Kingsley said. He kicked his boots off and then rolled himself to the far end of the bed. “Come here, whenever you decide to rest.” He patted the free half. 

Essek had only shared a bed when he was very small, and not yet able to trance. It wasn’t out of necessity—he and Verin were inseparable and refused to sleep unless they could share a bed. 

He considered ignoring the offer and just trancing on the floor. The pillows were fairly comfortable. But Kingsley’s breathing was slow, and even, and it might be nice, Essek thought, to listen to him while he slept. 

He took one of the pillows with him, so he could prop himself into a sitting position rather than lying side-by-side with Kingsley. Essek’s trance was spent undisturbed and quiet. If Kingsley had slept at all like Jester, grabbing onto whoever was next to him and rolling around in his sleep, Essek would have made other arrangements for the following night, but he was still. So still Essek almost worried. 

But his back rose and fell, and his gentle breathing filled the room until morning. 

When Essek got into bed beside him again the following night, Kingsley didn’t say anything, but he did give Essek a sharp, knowing smile. 

— — — 

“I feel I should be doing something in this place,” Essek confessed, out on the deck at dusk one evening, watching Kingsley dart around the rigging with Fjord as they pulled the sails in. 

“You are doing something,” Jester said, “you’re keeping yourself safe. And you’re working on all the stuff you and Caleb found, right?”

“Yes, but I meant… something to help the ship. You have accepted my presence here, for which I am very grateful, and I fear I’ve done little to return that enormous favor.” 

“Well,” she said, “you would probably be good at helping Orly, you’re the same kind of nerd Caleb is, so I think you’d like it.”

“Navigation?” 

Jester hopped up onto the rail of the ship, watching the setting sun. “Yeah! Following the stars and stuff.”

Maps, courses, tiny, technical details. It did sound like it was within Essek’s skill set. “I would like to try that, I think,” he said. “I cannot promise I will be good at it—“

“Orly isn’t gonna care about that,” Jester laughed. “You don’t have to be perfect right away, Essek. You just have to try.”

He leaned his elbows on the rail next to her. “I admit, I am unaccustomed to expecting less than perfection from my first attempt at anything.” 

She sighed, leaning against him. “That’s because you’re a genius. It’s a difficult calling.” 

“Oh yes, deeply challenging,” Essek said. “The others will never understand our woes.” 

They heard some spirited cursing from behind them, followed by, “no, I said I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Ouch. I’m fine!” 

Essek turned his head to find that Kingsley had somehow fallen directly onto the deck. Not from any height, but he still had to pick himself up and dust off. 

“King definitely won’t understand,” Jester said. 

Kingsley’s boots thumped across the deck. “Are you arseholes talking about me?” He threw an arm around Essek’s shoulders. He was uncomfortably damp. 

Essek delicately stepped out of his grasp and around to Jester’s other side. “When you’re less sweaty, please,” he said. 

“Suit yourself.” Kingsley sighed and leaned against Jester instead. She didn’t seem quite so bothered. 

Essek watched the sun set, and thought of Xhorhas. How many years had he gone in total darkness, viewing this light as completely unnecessary? Broad daylight still stung his eyes, of course, but the haze of sunset dulled the spectrum of light just enough that he could watch it pleasantly, standing beside someone he loved, wondering if perhaps the flowers that bloomed in full sun had the right idea. 

— — — 

Working with Orly was easier than Essek expected. The Nein Heroez’ navigator clearly knew what he was doing, and he explained the process to Essek like it wasn’t the first time he’d taught somebody.

As Orly neatly finished his explanation on the basics of plotting courses for the ship, Essek asked whether he was accustomed to taking on students. 

“Mmmm-hm,” he drawled, “taught the captain’s friend, the uh… uh, the Zemnian fella.” 

“Caleb Widogast?” Now he was beginning to understand why Jester was so certain he’d take to wayfinding. 

“Yeah, that’s his name. And of course, there’s Tealeaf.”

“This doesn’t seem like Kingsley’s idea of fun,” Essek said, having only known him to sit still when he was dead asleep. 

Orly unrolled another star chart onto the table he used for all his work. “He’s like that with everybody. M…making a nuisance of himself, but at least he works hard. Wants to know everything about everything.” His long claws smoothed out the edges of the map, where there was delicately illustrated scrollwork that Essek had to assume was Orly’s own doing, for how closely it resembled the tattoos across Jester’s collarbones. “But the way to get good at your work on a ship is to learn one job well before you move on to another.”

This better suited how Essek preferred to learn, anyway. “I agree,” he said. 

“M…m…mister Tealeaf will figure it out eventually,” Orly said. “But you could m…maybe try giving him a poke in the right direction.” He jabbed one claw against Essek’s arm to demonstrate. 

“Mr. Skiffback, if you think Kingsley will listen to me, I fear you would be mistaken,” Essek said. 

Orly only hummed, then continued to describe how he was plotting their current course. 

— — —

After the first week and a half of Essek sharing Kingsley’s bed, he had become accustomed to a silent, completely unmoving bed partner. This changed one night, as the Nein Heroez coasted over smooth seas beneath Catha’s full light. 

Essek was just coming out of his trance when he heard Kingsley start to shuffle around, and found he'd turned so he was lying almost flat on his belly. Essek sat up, looking at him in the dark, wondering if he was dreaming, and if he, like Caleb, suffered from nightmares. He recalled a few nights in Aeor, waking Caleb up from dreams that made him scream and sob and lose his breath. 

Kingsley groaned, his tail twitching and shifting under the blankets, his arms winding tighter around the pillow he was clutching like a stuffed toy. His breathing came heavier now, fretful little whimpers in his throat. It certainly wasn't as terrible as what Caleb went through, but it had the hallmarks of a bad dream. His head was turned to the side, away from Essek, but as Essek leaned over, he could see furrowed brows and his eyes rapidly moving beneath closed lids. 

When Kingsley fussed again, a soft cry that sounded pained, Essek made up his mind to wake him. He set a hand on Kingsley's temple, brushing back the short fall of his hair. 

"Kingsley. You're only dreaming, wake up." 

His breathing hitched, his eyes fluttered, and he squirmed again on the bed. Still asleep. 

"Kingsley." Essek shook his shoulder, then gently tapped the back of his hand against Kingsley's cheek. "Come on, wake up. It's just me." 

This time, his eyes opened. His tail thumped against Essek's leg a couple of times underneath the blankets. 

In a soft, confused voice, Kingsley said, "Essek?" 

"I am sorry to wake you." Essek squeezed his shoulder. "It sounded like you were having a bad dream." 

"Oh." Kingsley rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye. "No, not a bad—mm. It was a good dream." 

Essek had to admit, he'd never seen anyone respond that way to a good dream. "My apologies, then. Go back to sleep, it's early yet." 

"Oh, nah. No apologies. It wasn't exactly the kind of good dream that's appropriate to have in front of somebody." He sucked in a quick breath, then rolled more fully onto his stomach, his head turning to face Essek. He rubbed his cheek, pressed his thumb against his jaw. "Damn." 

Ah. Not having been a frequent issue for Essek, he sometimes forgot that dreams often took on a sexual nature. "Well. That's. Good, I suppose. That you had a nice dream." 

"Hmm. Thinking of it… well, it wasn't really a dream, I don't think." He lifted his hand to prop up his chin, looking lazily at Essek. "A memory, more like." 

"From when you were… Mollymauk?" Essek knew Kingsley got touchy about this sometimes. During their week in the Blooming grove, he'd snapped at the others a few times for pushing him on it. But here, in a sleep-soft glow, his face was nothing but open. 

"Yeah." He gave a little yawn, which made Essek yawn, too. "Apparently, Mollymauk had more game than I give him credit for. Who knew." 

The Nein knew, probably. "Well, you are very handsome,” Essek said. 

"More to it than that, pretty boy," Kingsley said. "Especially when somebody won't fall for just anyone. If my memory is to be believed…" he licked his lower lip. The tip of his tongue was bifurcated. "He landed Widogast." 

Essek had not known this. 

He had known Caleb was interested in Jester, before she and Fjord starting seeing one another, but every person fell in love with Jester Lavorre at least a little bit. Essek practically had, and he was thoroughly homosexual. Of course it stood to reason that Caleb wouldn't talk about his relationship with a companion who had passed away, and when things with Lucien were stirred up, it was probably too strange to even think about. There was no reason for him to have told Essek, and still, Essek felt oddly like he’d been left out. 

"You weren't aware," Kingsley gathered. 

"That is not the sort of thing Caleb and I talk about." Caleb certainly did not know that Essek had never taken a lover. Essek did not know who Caleb had been with before the Mighty Nein.

"I think they just slept together the once," Kingsley said. 'They,' like the man in Caleb's bed hadn't been him. "Or at least, I only remembered the once. Who knows, maybe more'll come back to me. It was nice. They were drunk. But I remembered, mm. I remembered riding him, and I remembered he's big." 

Essek pressed his knees together more firmly, taken several more steps aback by Kingsley outright detailing Mollymauk's sexual encounters with Essek's closest friend. The only friend, Essek also noted, he'd ever had his own desires for. 

"Am I saying too much?" Kingsley asked. 

"No," Essek said. "I just… Don't quite know how to respond." 

Kingsley's hand passed over Essek's knee and down his shin. Under the blankets, his palm was hot through the thin fabric of Essek's borrowed sleep pants. It came to rest on Essek's bare ankle, calloused fingers on fine bone and thin skin. "You know, it's funny. Jester and Fjord say they can never tell when you're blushing. I think it's pretty easy.” His thumb circled the bone of Essek’s ankle. “This is what gets you hot under the collar, then, Hot Boy? Just a handful of words about Caleb Widogast's big dick?" 

He was certainly hot somewhere. Essek deliberately controlled his breathing but his exhale shook anyway. He thought about the toys he kept in his Wristpocket. He liked big. He didn't think he'd ever felt himself so distinctively, purposefully, immediately get wet. 

"I… would rather you not talk about our friend like that when he is not around," Essek said. It felt like a lie, somehow. A small, disturbing part of himself wanted Kingsley to keep going, to describe in lurid detail exactly how Caleb had fucked him. How he might fuck Essek. Light. His body was not usually this out of control. He'd never understood why anyone would claim they needed sex until he was hit with this absolute curse of a desire. 

"Sure. I'll save the talk about fuckin' him 'til he's in the room to defend himself, I suppose," Kingsley decided. "Going back to sleep, Essek. 'Night." He gave Essek’s leg another squeeze before letting go, rolling back to his usual sleeping position, facing away from Essek. 

Essek ran component lists in his head until his mind decided to even out and forget how much he wanted one man in particular. 

Maybe two men. 

— — — 

Although it happened rarely, Essek’s libido had been known to make itself an inconvenience. Usually, if he ignored it long enough, his desires would cool off, and he could return to pretending they had never existed. When he’d been driven to distraction by Caleb’s close proximity in Aeor, there was always the mission to focus on, and Caleb’s serious personality begged Essek’s own focus and intensity. 

Here, there was no such focus. Aside from his training with Orly , Essek had no particular duty, and when he did try to give his attention to his write-up of his Aeorian research, there were distractions aplenty. Such as: Kingsley coming below-deck soaking wet, his white linen shirt plastered transparent against his violet skin, his tattoos showing through the sodden excuse for a garment. 

“You are going to drip on my notes,” Essek said, which only prompted him to strip. 

“It’s coming down out there,” Kingsley said, laying his clothes flat across the trunk in the corner of his cabin. “We’re stopped for the night, and the wind isn’t bad, so the sea’s not choppy, it’s just pouring buckets. Visibility’s shite.” He wrung his shirt out in a basin before flopping it over a line he’d strung up. “I could use a wash, so it’s fine by me. Marius looks like a soggy wet rat, though.” 

Despite the weather and the fact that he was shivering, Kingsley looked delighted with his position. He tucked a blanket around his waist and plopped down next to Essek, likely because there was very little room to sit otherwise. 

“I hope it lets up before sunrise,” Essek said. He’d hate to go all the way to the map room in a downpour. One walk across the deck and he, too, would look like a wet rat. 

“I’m certain it will,” Kingsley said. “Sorry, am I interrupting you? Figured you were making use of my night shift to get some work done.”

“Mm. Not terribly so,” Essek said. 

In point of fact, he had not been intending on working on his research at all tonight. When he found out Kingsley was taking a night shift, he had jokingly said it would be good to have a night of research without a big purple distraction. He’d actually been planning on masturbating. 

He did so infrequently enough that he was only now realizing what an undertaking just getting himself off would be aboard this particular ship with the potential disruption of this particular roommate. Were Essek the sort of person who could just stick his hand down his trousers whenever he felt the urge and be done in minutes, it would be no problem whatsoever, but for Essek, these things were more of an event. 

He may not have ever had a partner but Essek knew damn well what he liked, and he knew just as well what it took to get him to finish. And he knew, above all, that he did not want Kingsley wandering into the room while Essek had several inches of one of his custom-made toys shoved in him. Hence, waiting for a night shift. 

And instead of what he’d been planning for the night, he had a nude Kingsley cuddled up next to him, whining that Essek ought to share his blankets because he was warm and Kingsley was all cold and wet from the rain. Despite these complaints, Kingsley, running at tiefling temperatures, was hot against Essek. 

Essek resolved himself not to shift in his seat. He was aroused, not by Kingsley’s presence, but because he had been working himself up to it all evening. 

Kingsley set his chin on Essek’s shoulder, and when he said, “what are you reading?” his breath was warm against Essek’s neck. Suddenly the fight to keep himself still and steady was more difficult. Perhaps Kingsley’s presence did have something to do with it all. That was new. 

Essek cleared his throat. “I’m cross-referencing my notes with literature on pre-Calamity history.” Or at least, that was what he would have been doing, were he actually focused at all on the page before him. 

Kingsley hummed. Then he turned his face into Essek’s neck. “You smell nice.” 

Essek could feel the heat in his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “It’s the clothes,” he said. “Jester painted them for me, and for some reason they smell like strawberries.” They were a surprisingly good amalgamation of his personal style and practical wear for a sea voyage along the islands—layered, but lightly so, in shades of grey and violet. 

“Strawberries,” Kingsley said, taking another deep inhale. “That’s what it is.” 

“Do stop sniffing me, Tealeaf.” 

“But you smell so good. I could eat you.” He opened his mouth, nipping just the tiniest bit on the round of Essek’s shoulder. Through three layers of clothing, it didn’t feel like much, but it was still Kingsley biting him. 

Essek, acting completely on reflex, smacked Kingsley in the head with the book. 

“Ow!”

“You cannot just bite people.”

“It was affectionate!” Kingsley rubbed the spot on his forehead where the book had connected. 

“It was uncalled for!” Essek snapped. His heart was pounding like he’d just been running for his life. 

“You know, if you weren’t blushing like that, I’d be ever so hurt by your rejection,” Kingsley said. 

Essek rolled his eyes and made a show of brushing off his shoulder where Kingsley had bitten him. 

“You can bite me back?”

Essek pretended to consider it for a moment. Then he leaned in, nose-to-nose with Kingsley. “No.”

Kingsley leaned back, tossing his head in a dramatic show of pique. “Fine. I’m going to bed. Offer still stands.”

“I do not think I will be taking you up on that,” Essek replied, turning back to his book, still entirely unable to concentrate. 

— — —

When yet another attempt at acquiring some time alone was foiled by Kingsley popping into the cabin for a midday nap, Essek decided something must be done. It would be embarrassing, certainly, but his libido refused to be otherwise tamed and Kingsley refused to keep to a timely schedule, so a direct conversation was his only remaining resort. 

“I would like to know when in your schedule there is  an hour of time you are guaranteed to be away from the cabin,” Essek said the following morning. He had chosen (wisely, in his opinion) not to ask right before bed, because then he would have to trance beside the man after whatever awkward conversation fell out. 

“Why’s that?” Kingsley asked, as anticipated. 

“I need some time alone. It’s… of a personal nature.” This would keep any normal person from asking more, but unfortunately, Kingsley was Mighty Nein through and through. 

“Oh? Are you bringing a friend back to our quarters?” Kingsley raised his eyebrows suggestively. “You have got to tell me who it is. That’s my only condition.” 

“I am not.” Essek hated this. “It is… only me.”

“For an hour? How many times are you planning to get off? This is for getting off, yes?”

He’d likely only use half that time, but he was absolutely not going to risk Kingsley returning before he was done. “ Fine, yes, that is what it is for. Yes, for an hour. And just the once.” 

Kingsley cocked his head to the side, examining Essek. 

“You know that you and I are different,” Essek said. “It’s a bit more involved. I can’t just—it takes some time. That is all.” They had all swum naked in the spring at the Blooming Grove. Granted, Essek had only done so once, when he was very drunk one night, because they found Veth’s never-ending flask and Essek discovered he liked her taste in whiskey. It was enough that Kingsley knew what Essek’s body looked like. Besides, he had helped Essek change his shirt and could extrapolate. 

“Sure, I’ll give you time. Tonight? After supper?” Kingsley suggested. “And then if you do the same for me the following, I’d be obliged.” 

“Of course,” Essek said, almost surprised it was as easy as that. No teasing, only a single question. “I’ll be sure to spell the sheets clean afterward.” 

“Alrighty then,” Kingsley said. “I’ll be getting to work. See you around.” 

This was either the best idea Essek had so far on this ship, or the worst. But most of Essek’s brilliance was equally prone to disaster. 

At the very least, he was so distracted all day, Orly started asking him if he might have heat stroke. He made Essek drink some water. Essek replied that he did not have heat stroke, he was simply preoccupied, and Orly bobbed his head in understanding. 

“The sea gets to you like that, some days,” he said. 

It was not the sea at all that was getting to Essek, but he appreciated the opportunity to change the subject. 

At the tail end of dinner, Kingsley stole Jester’s chair while she was up, and leaned in so he could talk close to Essek’s ear. “Still have your plans for tonight?”

“Of course.” 

“Good. I’ll see you in an hour, then. You might want to dash before Jester gets back to tell you another story.”

Too true. “Thank you,” Essek said, standing quietly to make his way to the door. 

“Sure. Have fun,” Kingsley said, giving him a grin that was altogether more salacious than need be. 

Essek, having learned well from Beauregard, pointed his middle finger in Kingsley’s direction before slipping out the door and making his way down the hall to the crew cabins. 

The door did not lock, in case of a shipwreck, but Essek had a strange urge to barricade it. He ignored this, and took off his coat. 

Normally, when Essek tended to himself, it was a slow build. He didn’t simply strip and get his hands on himself. He had to work his way to even deciding he was interested in masturbating. 

Normally, Essek hadn’t spent two weeks in the company of Kingsley Tealeaf, who, it seemed, inspired lust in him that Essek thought was altogether dormant. He remembered feelings like this rising when he was alone with Caleb in Aeor—Kingsley may have joked about Essek making love to him in that icy ruin, but Light, had Essek wanted to. It had been easier, there, to ignore. They rested in the tower, in two different bedrooms, or in the dome, in bedrolls on either side of a campfire. 

Now, Essek spent every night in a bed that smelled like Kingsley. He had never noticed that before, but naked between the sheets, all he could smell was fresh earth and sea salt and the spice of the sandalwood oil Kingsley wore in his hair. He cupped himself through his trousers and found he was so loath to remove his hand, he nearly didn’t bother undoing them. 

Being attracted to people was so damned inconvenient. 

Essek pulled away the distraction of his own hand, and cast to access his Wristpocket. 

He pulled out the small wooden case, and opened it to find his toys, as usual, resting in their own silk-lined compartments. He’d had both for years, purchased from a very discreet shop in Roshona. One was glass, slightly thicker and more curved, and enchanted to change temperature at his command. The other was metal, slimmer and straighter, but with a pronounced swell at the head, enchanted to vibrate. In a third compartment, there was a small glass jar full of an unscented oil, but Essek had already gotten his hand between his legs tonight. He knew he was not going to need any lubricant. 

It had been a long time since he’d had anything inside him, so the glass toy was going to be more difficult to manage, but the enchantment on it was too good to consider the alternate option. Essek cast his first cleaning spell of the night on his hands—it was incredible how life at sea managed to get so much dirt under one’s nails—and finally gave in to his body’s urge to be filled. 

He never liked the feeling of his fingers inside himself even when he was keeping his nails short enough to manage it. It made his wrist ache, after too long, and his fingers weren’t long enough to reach anything he really needed them to. He also wasn’t always overfond of feeling the texture of his own insides, but tonight, he was beyond small levels of annoyances, his desire too powerful to allow for anything that was making his cunt feel good to otherwise annoy him. 

Still, he probably hadn’t fingered himself long enough by the time he started trying to fit the head of the toy in. He knew he could take this—during a particularly lusty period around the turn of his first century he’d done so damn near every night—but the pressure was too intense, too fast. His body refused to relax. 

He rubbed his cock with his free hand, distracting him from the sensation. If he just breathed, just let himself open up…

Perhaps, he thought, the coolness of the glass was something to do with it. The somatics to activate the enchantments on his toys were meant to be performed with one finger, so that he could easily change them while he was touching himself. It was easy enough to flick his thumb upward and turn the cold glass warm, a gentle heat that just barely outdid his own body temperature. 

The pleasantness of that warmth and of his free hand on his cock was enough to relax his entrance, and the rest of the toy slid into him with no resistance, until it sat fully inside, his palm pressed against the gently flared base. This was what he had needed. That self satisfied feeling of fullness, of something splitting him open. He let his knees fall open as wide as they could, and turned his head into the pillow, just breathing and letting himself feel fucked. 

Normally, when he played with this one, he turned the temperature up and down intermittently, leaving his senses constantly in flux. The chilliness of its lower registers was always a shock to his system, practically freezing against the heat of his arousal. It made him gasp and squirm, his body overcome with sensation. 

Tonight, he ignored that function. Tonight, it was all heat. He slowly increased the temperature as he began to slide the toy in and out. It was warm in his hand, at the base, but it was hottest at the very tip, which was angled perfectly to hit him in his favorite spot. As his cunt relaxed and his slickness coated the shaft, he could move faster, fuck himself harder. If it weren’t for the waves and the creaking of the boat, Essek imagined all he’d hear would be the wet sounds of him fucking himself and his quick, thin breaths. 

When he hit the maximum temperature threshold, he wondered if this would match the heat of a tiefling’s cock inside him. Kingsley was already warm to the touch—

No. 

He couldn’t let himself think about Kingsley. He tried to picture some other tiefling, just as bold and just as fiery, but his mind’s eye kept fading all lavender. 

Too fucked-out to focus on multiple tasks, he alternated rubbing his cock and fucking himself as fast and as hard as his wrist would allow. It felt hotter inside him whenever his cunt involuntarily clenched down, the quick spasms preceding his orgasm already flooding him with a sense of accomplishment. He liked that he could make himself feel this good, that he knew his body well enough to follow its signals. 

In particular, he knew he would want to push the toy all the way inside him just before he came, so that he had something to squeeze around, so that he could feel fucked and full and—

He turned his head into the pillow to quiet himself as he cried out once, sharp and thin, his fingertips working over his cock and bringing him all the way through it, until it was nearly too much. 

When he inhaled again, he realized he had buried his face in Kingsley’s pillow. Everything smelled like him, like he was right here. Essek allowed himself a brief moment of insanity and nuzzled into the pillowcase just a little. 

Then, he went about cleanup. 

The toys and then Essek’s body and then the sheets were spelled clean, and he dressed in fresh underwear, his trousers, and his undershirt, not really of a mind to care about the lack of layers. 

Essek smoothed out the sheets and blankets, and then picked up his book, sitting on the bed to continue reading, and finding he had much more of a mind for it than he had the previous night. 

— — —

There was a knock on the door approximately two hours after Essek had left dinner. 

“Kingsley?” Essek called. 

“Who else?” 

“You can come in, you don’t need to knock.” He turned a page, intending to look intensely focused so that perhaps Kingsley would not ask him any uncomfortable questions about how his evening went. 

The door opened and Kingsley stepped through, shucking off his coat and depositing it in a heap on the pile of pillows. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to knock first,” he said, giving Essek a smile that was downright lascivious. “How was your evening?”

Essek, who had mentally rehearsed an answer for the most likely questions, said, “it was fine.” 

“I truly hope you’re underexaggerating. I would endeavor for more than ‘fine’, my dear.” Kingsley unlaced and removed his boots, then climbed into bed. This meant he had to climb over Essek, who sat on the outer edge of the bed so that when his trance was up, he could get out without disturbing Kingsley. 

He settled heavily against Essek’s side, rubbing his cheek against Essek’s shoulder like a cat might. It had never occurred to Essek, until he’d brought himself off while thinking of Kingsley, that they had to sleep very close to one another.

“Are you drunk?” Essek asked. 

“Yeah, Jester was making these fancy drinks with pineapple and coconut—I found you can put a lot of rum in them and they taste incredible. Want me to get you one?” 

“That’s not necessary, thank you,” Essek said. “Just go to sleep.”

“Fine, fine. You look good tonight, by the way.” 

Essek pinched the open half of the book a little harder between his thumb and forefinger. “Ah. Thank you?”

“You just look relaxed. Satisfied. And it’s nice on you. Goodnight, Essek.”

He bid Kingsley goodnight, wondering how ‘relaxed and self satisfied’ was going to look on Kingsley’s face tomorrow. 

— — — 

He never exactly got to see Kingsley in the same state of post-masturbatory quiet Essek himself had been caught in. Essek had preoccupied himself with an evening lesson on reading the stars from Orly, and by the time he made his way to bed, Kingsley had left for the night shift he’d volunteered himself for. 

The room was empty, and although Essek never really did these things two nights in a row, he considered getting his toys back out. 

No. The way fate swung for him, he would almost definitely be caught. He began his trance instead. 

Essek was alert by the time Kingsley returned, and faceplanted directly into the bed, sprawled across Essek. 

“Why can you not get into bed like a normal person or else ask me to move before you do this?” Essek said. 

Kingsley only said, “ngh.” 

“Was it a long night?”

“I was working with Marius, so, yes.” Kingsley sat up, intending to rearrange himself but holding himself still for a moment. “That man. He wants in my pants so badly. I’m terribly alluring, just so sexy I can’t even be allowed to do my job in peace. Can I lay down on you, please?”

“What?” Essek said, honestly thrown by that last bit. 

Kingsley sighed, and thought a moment before explaining himself. “Marius was fooling about, but he got me in trouble with the captain, and now I’m not allowed to come into port again. So now I’m very upset, and I have decided I’m not too proud to admit I’d like a cuddle. So I’m asking you for a cuddle.” 

It was still low on the scale of things that made sense, but it was about what Essek would have expected from Kingsley. “Alright,” he said. “But I am going to have to get up shortly. Not everyone is taking night shifts.”

“You’re a peach.” Kingsley pressed a swift kiss to Essek’s cheek, then grabbed his pillow and plopped it down on Essek’s midsection, so that he could lie his head there without digging the horns into Essek’s person. 

Essek shifted so Kingsley could lay on his stomach, at somewhat of a diagonal across Essek’s lower torso and legs. One of his hands snuck into the gap behind Essek’s lower back and the other one rested innocently but very presently between Essek’s legs. 

“Will you pet my hair?” he asked, his voice muffled into the pillow he was laying on. 

This was all very silly. Kingsley was behaving a bit like an injured puppy, sad eyes and all. How he managed that with eyes the color of hellfire, Essek was not sure. He pet Kingsley’s hair. It was a bit oily from too many days without a wash. The texture wasn’t altogether pleasant, but the way Kingsley’s tail swooped back and forth in happy flicks made up for it. 

When Essek scratched just slightly at the back of his head, Kingsley groaned with obvious relish, and Essek imagined him making that noise in a very different context earlier that night in this same bed. His hand slipped over to Essek’s thigh and gave him a firm squeeze in thanks.  

Essek moved his touch curiously to the base of Kingsley’s horns, which was apparently just as good, because he hugged tighter around Essek’s waist and nuzzled into the touch like he was perhaps an enormous cat instead of a sad puppy. The hand on Essek’s thigh rubbed slowly back and forth. Kingsley had asked that Essek take care of him, but he was just as active in touching Essek, keeping his movements lazy and comfortable. Essek was near a century and a half, and yet he’d never just relaxed and touched somebody like this. 

As if he’d actually listened to Essek’s warnings, Kingsley rolled to the side and let him up after a while. 

“Thank you,” he said, as Essek ran his fingers through his hair one last time before getting up. 

“You are welcome,” Essek said. 

As he lifted his hand, Kingsley grabbed it and briefly squeezed. 

— — —

Essek suggested Kingsley talk to Fjord, or even Jester, about the verdict, but Kingsley admitted no, it was his fault, actually, because Marius was the one flirting but Kingsley was the one who put him in a headlock. So he had actually deserved the punishment. 

The punishment involved him and Essek remaining alone on the ship for three days, ostensibly guarding it, although small island ports with little traffic weren’t really a hub for thieves. 

It had been two days since Kingsley getting in trouble resulted in Essek spending an evening cuddling him, and they had spent at least some time similarly on the intervening nights. The evening just before they docked, Essek had spent his entire trance laying with his head on Kingsley’s chest. 

“Is it strange that we do this?” Essek asked the following morning, referring to the fact that, upon waking and finding Essek reading in bed beside him, Kingsley had put his head in his lap. 

“I don’t know,” Kingsley said. “I’ve not really been a person long enough to be sure of a lot of social customs. Probably, yes. But I’m comfortable as is. Are you?”

“Surprisingly so.”

One of Kingsley’s hands traced down Essek’s thigh, cupping the underside of his knee. “Why surprising?” 

Essek closed his book, but left his thumb in place as a marker. With his other hand, he found the place at the base of Kingsley’s horns where he liked to be touched. “I am not often close with people, that is all. I haven’t ever been close with someone in this way. Perhaps it is so easy because you have little experience with social custom. I have no need to fear a bad reaction.” 

Kingsley had only hummed, and drifted again. 

Being alone on the ship didn’t mean they spent all day together. Essek, of course, was cooped up belowdecks, but Orly had allowed him to take some of the maps and star charts to study. He had brought them to the mess hall, as going into the map room required Essek to pass across the deck, which meant he could be spotted. Of course the odds were low, but his anxiety wasn’t. 

Kingsley hated being cooped up, and Essek presumed he was sitting in the crow’s nest all day, looking jealously out at the island. 

He met Essek for dinner, and, in absence of the rest of the crew to spend a rowdy evening with, they made a pair of the cocktails Kingsley was so enamored with and took them back to their cabin rather than lingering in the mess. 

“You know, with everyone else away, I could sleep somewhere else tonight. To allow you some time to yourself,” Essek suggested. Kingsley was sitting on the bed with Essek in front of him on the floor, and he had his legs framing Essek’s shoulders and a hand stroking his hair. 

“And who would cuddle me?” Kingsley asked. “I’ll take you, thanks. Unless that was a clever way of insinuating that you want some time alone to get yourself off again.” 

“It was not,” said Essek, though he had been thinking about it. 

“I’m curious,” Kingsley said, “what do you do? You just looked so relaxed afterward, clearly you’re doing something better than I am.” 

Had Essek not put so much rum in his cocktail, he may not have given Kingsley an answer. Instead, he said, “I have toys.”

“Toys? Toys? How the fuck’ve I not seen them around the place, then?” 

Essek rolled his eyes. “I don’t leave them lying about.”

In a motion so confident he surprised himself with it, Essek produced the box from his Wristpocket. 

Kingsley leaned over him, his hand already reaching for the box before he thought to ask, “can I have a look?”

Essek pretended to think. “I’m not sure I ought to allow that.” 

“Please?” Kingsley put his arm around Essek’s shoulders, practically melting onto him. “Please, please? I promise to be gentle.”

Just so Kingsley would not remark on how deeply that comment made Essek flush, Essek handed over the box. 

Kingsley set the box on the bed to open it, and Essek turned slightly, curious about his reaction. He gently ran his fingertips over the toys, not removing either from their silk padding. Essek realized he was going to have to think about Kingsley touching his toys every time he used them from now on. 

“These are pretty,” Kingsley said. “They look more like works of art than like dicks.” 

He couldn’t help but feel a little pride at Kingsley’s admiration. The shop Essek had patronized did sell many models that looked like realistic cocks of all sorts, but he didn’t like the idea of anything resembling a disembodied organ. “I have good taste,” he said. 

“So you do.” Kingsley removed the jar, tipping it back and forth. In the coolness of Essek’s miniature pocket dimension, the oil became solid. “What’s this?”

“It’s oil,” Essek said. He took another drink. His head spun a bit, watching Kingsley examine his lubricant. 

“What’s it for?”

“If you need to ask, you probably shouldn’t be playing with those at all,” Essek said. 

“You caught me. I know exactly what it’s for,” Kingsley said. “I just wanted to hear you say you keep lube on your person at all times.” 

This was a curiosity to Essek. “How… how broad is your understanding of sex?” He knew very well that Kingsley had memory of at least one of Molly’s sexual encounters, but nothing beyond that.  

“Quite broad, actually,” Kingsley said, taking each toy out in turn, tilting them back and forth between his hands. “That’s the problem. The knowledge is there, but no specifics. Of course, I remember certain things from Mollymauk, but… I’ve never been with anyone. I suppose, technically, I’m a virgin. Isn’t that something?” 

Essek shrugged. “So am I.” He leaned his chin atop Kingsley’s knee and watched his long fingers play with Essek’s metal toy. 

“Are you—do you not do that with people?” Kingsley asked. “Uh, Caduceus, he doesn’t—I tried flirting with him once, and Jester told me I was heading in the wrong direction. Are you like that, maybe?”

“No,” Essek said. “I just… it takes more, hm. Comfort with someone. And there’s a certain sort of desire that—well, I have only felt very seldom.” 

“Huh.” Kingsley put the toy away, and leaned back on one hand. He cupped Essek’s cheek with his other, lifting his face just a little. Essek was aware, suddenly, of how very compromising their current position was. Although Kingsley was seated so far back on the bed his knees just barely hooked around it, Essek was still knelt between his legs. “Who is it, then? Who managed to catch your discerning eye?”

Essek didn't move, didn’t speak. His eyes left Kingsley’s, then met them again. 

“It has to be one of the Mighty Nein, right? Jester, maybe?” Kingsley suggested. When Essek continued not to respond, Kingsley made a sharp little noise of realization. “Oh. Unless you really have got it bad for Widogast.” 

Essek dropped his gaze, leaning into Kingsley’s touch just a little. 

“Oh, darling. If he doesn’t want you, he’s insane. Come here.” 

Essek wasn’t quite sure where Kingsley wanted him to go, but he stood, and then let Kingsley pull him astride his lap, and then gather him into his arms. Kingsley tilted his head to the side, mindful of his horns, and gave Essek a nice place in his shoulder to bury his face. 

Essek confessed. “I’m in love with him.” He’d never admitted it aloud before. 

“Is he aware?”

Essek’s hands curled into stubborn fists in Kingsley’s shirt. “Of course he is not. I’m a coward about these things.” 

“You might try being up-front about it,” Kingsley suggested, not without gentleness. “For example, I was planning, at some point this weekend, to tell you I find you incredibly attractive, and to ask what you might think about letting me watch you play with these.” He tapped his fingers on the box, then went back to rubbing Essek’s back. 

Essek leaned back so quickly he almost scraped himself on one of Kingsley’s horns. “Watch me…?”

“Yeah, why the hell not? I… can’t actually tell whether I want to fuck you—or anyone—but I can tell you I haven’t stopped thinking about you doing yourself in my bed.” Kingsley’s fingertips and his eyes traced Essek’s collarbones. “Of course, that’s all moot, given you’re in love with Widogast.”

“Why would that be?” Essek asked, only slowly remembering monogamy as a way of being. “Oh. Right. I am accustomed to a culture where it is common to have more than one lover. The Kryn live multiple lifetimes—it is complicated how we entwine ourselves with those souls who surround us.”

“Is that a pretty way of saying you’d like to fool around with me tonight, or am I reading things entirely wrong?” Kingsley asked. 

Essek felt his nose wrinkle. “I cannot understand why you would be interested in watching me do that,” he said. 

Kingsley leaned back, until he was laying flat on the bed, looking up at Essek. “Fair’s fair. You could watch me touch myself, too.” 

“It doesn’t… need to be only watching. I said I feel attraction occasionally,” Essek said. He let his fingertips gently run over Kingsley’s chest and belly. “You are another such occasion.” 

Kingsley’s hand caught his before it went lower than his waist. “I really mean it—I’m not sure whether I want you to touch me. I… the memories of liking sex are there, but that was another soul. I’m still working out what this one enjoys.”

“I’m still working that out, myself,” Essek said softly. “Come. I’ll show you.”

It was easier, they both decided, to undress prior to getting into bed, so they wouldn’t need to wiggle out of their clothing. When they settled down, they lay side by side, Essek on Kingsley’s half of the bed for once, with Kingsley blocking him from the rest of the world beyond this bed. 

“Take it slow, darlin’.” Kingsley said. “I want to see all of this. Are you alright with me talking to you, or should I shut up?” 

“You may tell me whatever you like,” Essek said. “You don’t seem to be very proficient in keeping quiet anyhow.”

Kingsley laughed, then reached out with one hand, halting before he would touch Essek. “May I? Just wanted to keep petting you.” 

Essek thought for a moment. Any time he’d experienced it, that sort of touch from Kingsley had always been a comfort. This was a strange circumstance in which to need comfort, but he found he wanted it anyhow. “You may.” 

Kingsley’s hand stroked from his hairline back. In this quiet room, his boisterous voice was dropped to a low rumble. “You look lovely laid out for me like this. Even if it was only this, I think I’d enjoy myself.”

“It is not going to be only this,” said Essek, who had found himself so aroused it was difficult to keep his hands still. The attention, if anything, was more stimulating. 

He picked his smaller toy, wanting something easy, and perhaps not wanting to give away the fact that he had a toy he could set to approximately Kingsley’s body temperature. As usual, he felt himself before putting the toy in—once again, he was going to need no additional lubricant. He watched Kingsley’s face, watched his attention drift down Essek’s body and land between his legs. 

Kingsley’s thumb made a slow circle at Essek’s temple. “Are you waiting on my say-so to put it in, or are you just teasing yourself?” His accent got thicker when he was aroused. 

Essek raised one knee to open himself a little wider, and he heard Kingsley breathe in sharp and felt him breathe out heavily. 

“C’mon, Essek, I wanna see you fuck your—hm. What words do you like?”

“What?” Essek asked, pressing the cold metal against his hot, slick skin, teasing it up the seam of himself and around his cock. 

Kingsley shifted a little in the bed. “You know, some men like yourself, they don’t want to use anything feminine to refer to their bodies.”

“Oh.” Words didn’t have gender in his native language, and there was nothing particularly masculine or feminine about the way that Essek referred to himself, save for the occasions where he would call himself a man as opposed to a woman. “There is a different word in Undercommon, but in Common, it’s ‘cunt’.” 

There was a quick rhythmic thumping that Essek recognized as Kingsley’s tail wagging. “Fuck, I like hearing you say the naughty words,” he muttered. 

“But for here,” Essek said, with an indicative flick of his thumb, “the word I use would probably translate to ‘cock’.” 

“Also incredible. Okay. Please carry on. Sorry for interrupting, I just need to know how to dirty talk you right if I’m doing it at all.” 

Essek shivered, and leaned his head against Kingsley’s shoulder as he pushed the tip of the toy into himself. 

The shape of this one meant it popped in easily and the weight of it kept it in place once it was inside him. 

“What does it feel like?” Kingsley asked. 

“I am not quite sure how I’m meant to describe that,” Essek said, continuing to push until the toy was seated fully inside him. “It is unique.” 

“Yeah, I suppose a metal dick in your cunt just feels like a metal dick in your cunt,” Kingsley said. “Gods, how do you fit the big one in there?”

“It isn’t that big,” Essek said, starting to move and shift the toy. 

“Yeah, but it’s rigid, it’s not like. Well.” He gestures down at his own cock. Essek had not realized before now that it was hard. “It hasn’t got any give.” 

“It does not hurt, if that’s what you are asking,” Essek said. “Besides, I—I tend to like the feeling of… fullness.”

“Oh,” Kingsley said, taking a deep breath. “Essek, are you still alright with me getting my hands on myself while you do this?”

“More than,” Essek said. 

“Can I borrow some of your fancy oil?” 

“Yes. Get it yourself, though.” Essek did have one free hand, but he didn’t much like the idea of splitting his attention. 

Kingsley had to reach over him to pluck the jar of oil out of his case. As he did, his hand brushed over Essek’s arm, right where the muscles in his forearm stood out while he curled his hand like this to fuck himself. It was a simple touch, but it made Essek’s hips want to rise off the bed so he could rock into it. 

Kingsley undid the lid and scooped out a bit of the oil, rubbing it between his palms to make it liquid again before reaching down. Now, it was Essek’s turn to watch as Kingsley wrapped his hand around his cock and pulled, bringing a bead of wetness to the tip. His cock was as long as Essek’s larger toy, but thinner, and it tapered to a slim head. All Essek could think was how easily it could slide inside him. How all the ridges along it would feel, as opposed to the smoothness of glass and metal. He rubbed at his own cock absently while he watched Kingsley play with himself. 

This, it seemed, sparked a chain reaction. Essek touching himself turned Kingsley on, and so he moved faster, which aroused Essek even further. Enough that he wanted more than what he was giving himself. 

“Kingsley,” he said. “Do you want to see what’s special about this one?”

“Mm?”

“My toys are enchanted,” he said, grinning as the secret he shared made Kingsley’s mouth drop open. “See?” He performed the simple somatic and the toy started at a low-level vibration, the head already perfectly placed against the anterior wall of his cunt. He ground it a bit firmer against that spot. 

“Holy shit, the things you wizards think of.” Kingsley shook his head. “I won’t even ask what that feels like, I already know you can’t describe it.” 

“Well. That, you can feel.” Essek briefly slid the toy out of himself, keeping the vibrations at the same level, and pressed it to Kingsley’s pelvis, right above his cock. This had the fascinating reaction of making his cock visibly jump, before he got a hand around it again. 

Essek, being a selfish creature, put it back inside himself after only a moment. Kingsley, he realized, was breathing hard after that demonstration, and his eyes were closed. 

“Are you alright?” Essek asked. 

“Do you realize what that did to me?” Kingsley asked. “You, touching me with that toy, that you just had inside you—that’s unbearably sexy. Essek.” There was no way to describe how Kingsley said his name other than ‘whining’. 

“I had not considered,” Essek admitted. “Was it wrong?”

“No, it was—it was perfect. Keep going, I want to see what you do when you’re in this bed alone.”

To show him that, Essek had to turn up the level of vibration on his toy. He rubbed at his cock quick and firm, with his middle finger, like he did when he was trying to get himself off fast—usually because he was afraid he’d lose the motivation to masturbate before he actually made his way to an orgasm. Tonight, he was frantic in his touches because the idea of Kingsley lying beside him, working himself to the same pleasure, was doing almost as much to get Essek off as the toy was. 

“Essek,” Kingsley said. “I can’t see—can I just go, maybe sit between your legs?” 

“Fine,” Essek agreed. 

He did not anticipate the added level of intimacy this would bring. He had to spread his legs wider for Kingsley to fit there, and Kingsley still sat in a sort of sprawl, almost perpendicular to Essek on the bed, but with his legs curled around so he was in a sort of semicircle around Essek’s lower half. He leaned on one hand while his other idly touched his cock. He’d positioned himself so Essek could still see that with full clarity. 

After a few moments, Kingsley dropped down to lean on his elbow instead of his hand. Even propped on one of the numerous cushions, it put his face very near to Essek’s crotch. This gave Essek no pause, no reason to slow down. Kingsley leaned his cheek against the inside of Essek’s knee and watched his hands move over his cunt with rapt attention. 

“I can smell you from here,” Kingsley said. His hand wound around Essek’s thigh. “I can’t stop thinking about how you’d feel around my cock. Shit-fuck—was that too much?”

Were Essek a little more present, he might have had a witty retort. He was not, and so he just blurted out, “last time I did this, I couldn’t stop imagining it was you.” 

He heard Kingsley suck in a breath through his teeth. He’d all but stopped stroking his cock—he was just holding it. “I want you,” he said, his breath hot against Essek’s knee. 

It did something unexpected to Essek. It also made his cunt absolutely throb. Had he ever felt desired like this? Had he ever wanted to be? 

He shut off the toy, tugged it out of himself. “Now?”

“Now?” Kingsley echoed, looking a little dazed. 

“Do you wish to fuck me,” Essek clarified, “right now.” 

Kingsley said something that Essek knew was Infernal but did not understand. From the cadence, he was swearing. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I’ll just as happily come in my hand, but fuck, of course I’d rather come in you. Can I? Is that—is it a problem?”

“No,” Essek said, possessing absolutely no patience to explain the enchantments that halted his body’s reproductive cycle. “It is not a problem. Yes, I am sure.”

“I haven’t even kissed you!” Kingsley said, and there were the puppy-dog eyes again. 

“Then kiss me now,” Essek told him. He cast quickly to clean his toy off before dropping it onto the bed. Then he sat up, grabbed one of Kingsley’s horns, and pulled him in. 

Kingsley may never have kissed anyone, but his body certainly remembered how. Essek had kissed a few people in his time, but none of them mattered now, not with a forked tongue sliding over his lower lip and a hand at the back of his neck in that gentle way Kingsley always held him while they cuddled. 

Kingsley overbalanced him (on purpose, the devil) and pushed Essek flat on his back, clambering over him in a hurry to kiss him again. One of his thighs wound up between Essek’s legs. Essek ground his cock against that firm muscle. 

His hands were hot. His mouth was hotter. His cock brushed against Essek’s thigh and it was just as warm as Essek’s other enchanted toy. Essek may have worked himself to a fever pitch already, but Kingsley was a tiefling. He was infernal fire against the cavern-cold of Essek’s natural body temperature. 

Essek wanted that heat inside him. He’d never been like this before, greedy for a fuck, panting for it. He was begging Kingsley with every sharp snap of his hips, every soft whine against his mouth, every tug on his horns. 

Still, he had to break the kiss to tell Kingsley to get on with it. “Please, just—I want you terribly.” 

“Yeah. Just—yeah. I promise I’ll give you what you need, sweet, just let me breathe a second.” Kingsley pressed his forehead against Essek’s sternum. The capped points of his horns rested against Essek’s chest, the metal feeling unnaturally cold compared to Kingsley’s heated skin. 

Essek found he, perhaps, needed a moment to breathe as well. 

Kingsley lifted his head, and his tongue wet his lower lip. “Okay. I have you, then.” He passed a hand over Essek’s hair. “You want me to do anything to get you ready for it?”

“Absolutely not. You know I took care of all the necessary foreplay very thoroughly, myself.” 

“Right. Yes. ‘Course.” Kingsley’s eyes met his, all that endless infernal red. This close, he could see the slight delineation between iris and pupil and sclera, even though all were the same color. “Gods, you’re so lovely, Essek. Can I really have this?”

“I am,” Essek said, his voice almost angry with desperation, “quite literally, begging for it.” 

Kingsley kissed him one last time, and then went about the slightly more complicated work of figuring how they were meant to fit together. 

Essek’s lower body wasn’t high enough to make it work correctly, he realized. Kingsley snatched up one of the pillows and helped fit it under Essek’s ass, helping with the angle and also making Essek feel distinctly like he was on display. Surprisingly, he found he did not mind that. It would be horribly embarrassing if anyone else was in the room, but it was just Kingsley, who had spent so long already looking at Essek like he was either a masterpiece or a feast laid out before him. 

The slim head of Kingsley’s cock fit easily into him, and, as suggested, his skin was so much softer than the toys Essek was used to. Those still had their own merits, but this was the stunning result of just the right cocktail of desire and sensuality, with a person Essek couldn’t help but be desperately attracted to. 

He settled his hands on Kingsley’s shoulders, and said, “keep going.” 

Though the head of his cock was thinner than Essek’s toys, the base was thicker than anything he’d ever taken. The stretch wasn’t painful in the slightest, Essek having prepared himself well for it—instead, it was intense, incredible pleasure. He wasn’t just split open for the sake of it, it was for Kingsley, who, if the look on his face was to be interpreted, felt just as good. 

“Move, please,” Essek said. “You can go as fast as you want, I can take it.”

“Can you, now?” Kingsley asked, just barely starting to rock his hips. 

“You’ve seen what I’m accustomed to,” Essek said. “I fuck myself hard with those things.” 

This, it seemed, was enough to convince Kingsley to pick up the pace. Alternatively, it may have just turned him on enough that he couldn’t help himself. 

“The shite you’re saying,” Kingsley breathed. “Didn’t think that pretty mouth could talk so dirty.”

“If I’m properly motivated, yes,” Essek said. He tried arching his back and using the angle of the pillow to push himself forward onto Kingsley’s cock when Kingsley pulled out. This worked, and it also had the effect of rubbing Essek’s cock up against Kingsley’s pelvis, and the sensation of that licking through him was enough to make him moan loudly enough that he’d consider a Silence spell if they weren’t alone on this ship. 

“If you like that, I can give you that,” Kingsley said, and this time, when he rocked forward into Essek, he rolled his hips in a dirty grind that rubbed against Essek’s cock. It wasn’t the kind of constant, precise pressure Essek normally used to get off, but it made him think of his first forays into exploring his own sexuality, of rubbing off against a pillow and wondering why the seam of his trousers felt so good against him. 

Kingsley continued with that rhythm now that he knew Essek liked it, getting a firm grip on Essek’s hips and using it to help angle him a little further downward than Essek would have expected was right for this. It had the result of rubbing the head of Kingsley’s cock against the spot that Essek liked to press the tip of his toys against. It also forced Essek to spread his legs wider around Kingsley’s thighs, which made him feel pleasantly debauched. 

Kingsley leaned in, leaving a hot line of kisses down Essek’s sternum. “Is it okay?” he asked. “My mouth on you here?” 

“You could put your mouth on me anywhere,” Essek said, which was absolutely an exaggeration and he’d have something to say about certain choices, but it at least expressed that he was alright with Kingsley mouthing at the softness of his chest, drawing sharp fangs along Essek’s skin. His hands followed his mouth, tight squeezes compressing one of the only places on Essek’s body he had a noticeable amount of fat. 

If Essek had worried about anything regarding sex being strange thanks to the particularities of his gender, it would have been this. But Kingsley seemed to be treating his body like he would any other man’s pectorals that he had a particular urge to bury his face in. The way he held Essek actually flattened him out a little, and there was nothing to dislike about big, warm palms over a sensitive part of his body. 

Eventually, though, things needed rearranging. 

Essek wasn’t going to be able to come from this alone—he liked being fucked but he knew it took some amount of attention to his cock—so he directed Kingsley to lean back enough that Essek could slide a hand between them and rub himself off. 

This resulted in yet another new and interesting sensation. Against his fingertips, Essek could feel Kingsley’s cock thrusting into him and drawing back out. 

“Are you gonna get yourself off on my cock?” Kingsley asked him, sounding winded from everything this was doing to him. 

“Yes,” Essek said. “I like… I like coming when there’s something inside me.”

“Fuck, Essek.”

“If I tell you when I’m close, will you push all the way in, as deep as you can, and fuck me like that?” Essek asked. 

“You’re gonna kill me,” Kingsley muttered. “Yes. Yes, Essek, I’d do just about anything you ask right now.” 

Essek’s free hand rested on Kingsley’s back, but the more he touched himself, the more his fingers curled and dug into Kingsley’s shoulder blade. Kingsley rocked into him at a steady rhythm, pressing his lips to Essek’s cheek and leaving them just there as he said, “you can’t imagine how good you feel right now. Every time your cunt squeezes around me— fuck, it’s gonna be hard to keep me from coming before you.” His hands were a vice on Essek’s hips. 

“Kingsley—I’m so—come here—“

Somehow, this jumble of words which made very little sense managed to translate to Kingsley, who pushed the full length of his cock into Essek to let him finish exactly how he liked. Essek’s thighs pressed tight around Kingsley’s hips and his hand drew away from his cock to let himself feel the hot, present pressure of Kingsley’s body against his in a slow, dirty grind. This was what made it different from every orgasm Essek had ever had before: the weight, the hands on him, the presence of another body. He could feel Kingsley’s ribs expand as he breathed at a different pace to Essek. Kingsley settled more of his weight onto Essek, crushing him close, letting him stir and rock and whine his way through it all. 

Essek came to his senses with red eyes meeting his. 

“You’re fuckin’ incredible.” Kingsley’s hands ran in slow paths all the way up and down Essek’s sides. “That was lovely.” 

Essek replied with a very coherent, “ngh.” 

“You make pretty sounds.” Kingsley kissed his way down Essek’s neck to his shoulder. 

“I made sounds?”

“Oh, yes. You’d probably best be glad nobody else is around.” Kingsley made a soft noise of effort and shifted his hips, pulling back and out of Essek’s body. 

It was… a wetter slide than Essek had expected. “Did you…?”

“What? Did I finish? Yes, ‘course.” Kingsley settled at Essek’s side, and helped him curl sideways off the pillow he’d been propped up on. “Do you want help getting cleaned up?”

“Oh, no, that’s taken care of easily enough.” Essek cast quickly and was no longer uncomfortably sticky. 

“Ah,” Kingsley said, sounding vaguely put out. “Essek, sweet. That was an offer to eat you out.”

Despite having previously thought there was no space for embarrassment after he’d had Kingsley’s cock in him, Essek found himself flushing. “I did not realize.”

“It’s no problem, I’ll just have to be more explicit with it, next I offer.” Kingsley’s hand settled at Essek’s lower back and pulled him until they were pressed tightly together again. “Besides, I think I’ll like the look on your face when I do.” 

— — — 

Essek found it was difficult to trance while naked and in Kingsley’s arms, so he’d had to get up and dress himself before coming back to bed. Kingsley curled around him and attached himself to Essek’s side like a barnacle to the hull of the boat, so Essek was glad all his books were quite literally at hand. 

Kingsley did not dress himself, and was curled completely nude under the covers. Given that there was nobody else on the boat, he allowed himself to wake slowly. 

“Good morning,” Essek said, resting a hand on Kingsley’s head. 

“Mornin’.” Kingsley nuzzled against his hip and ran his hand up Essek’s thigh.

“Would you like to get up?” Essek asked. 

“Mm. I want breakfast in bed.” 

Essek breathed a soft laugh and rolled his eyes. “And what makes you think I am going to provide that?”

Kingsley shifted the fabric of Essek’s shirt up slightly, so that he could kiss him where he’d been nuzzling. “Because,” he said, “I want to eat your pretty cunt for breakfast.” 

Essek had closed his book, but now, he dropped it straight off the side of the bed. Hopefully he didn’t dent the corners. “I—well. I would not be opposed to you trying, it’s only—I do not know I would be comfortable with reciprocating?”

“I’m pretty sure I can lick you and touch my cock at the same time,” Kingsley said. 

Essek swore, briefly, in Undercommon. “I take it, then, that you do not see all this as a one-time experiment.”

“Not really. It’s an ‘as many times as we want to’ experiment,” Kingsley said. “If you don’t want, you just say. Do you want?” 

It did not take Essek long to decide. “Do your worst, then.” 

“Excuse you,” said Kingsley, “I will do my very best.” 

He proved this, then, unequivocally. 

— — —

They spent the remaining two days of their solo stay aboard the Nein Heroez engaging in occasional experiments. Some went better than others. Essek, in particular, found there were many additional uses for his levitation cantrip. 

When the rest of the crew returned, Essek endeavored to pretend like he had been solely devoted to his studies this weekend, and that he had not been spending half his time having sex with Kingsley. 

This, however, was ruined by the fact that Kingsley was strutting around in a way that couldn’t have been more obvious if there was a magical glowing sign hovering his head. In fact, Essek could just see Jester conjuring something like that, reading, ‘this guy fucked Essek Thelyss four times!’

It was actually sort of sweet, how everyone was relieved to find Kingsley looking very happy after what should have been three days of him making himself miserable. Essek could have done without the attention on his end, but it was sadly unavoidable. Still, he retreated to their cabin after dinner rather than continuing to deal with Jester wiggling her eyebrows at him like that. 

Moments after Essek had undressed from his day wear, the door slid open. 

Essek checked over his shoulder, but was unsurprised to find that it was Kingsley. “You left earlier than expected.”

“You’re the one who left early,” Kingsley said, snaking his arms around Essek’s waist and leaning his chin on top of Essek’s head. “People being too much?”

“A bit,” Essek said. “I don’t exactly want to find out how much Marius hates me now.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. Now he’s just angling for a threesome.”

Essek knew Kingsley could feel him go rigid. “And you told him that was never happening, yes?”

“Mm-hm. Threesome are reserved—” Kingsley said, giving him a little squeeze. “—for handsome wizards named Caleb Widogast.”

Now, Essek had gone from anxious to flustered. He smacked Kingsley on the forearm. “Do not say these things to me.”

“And why not? It’s true.” 

He turned to face Kingsley. “But you’re only saying it to make me blush. I am going to go to Rexxentrum to see him in a few weeks, and I do not want to be thinking about the kind of nonsense you say.”

“Oh, Essek,” Kingsley sighed. “Good luck thinking of anything else.”

Essek thought he would mostly be concerned about making sure nobody recognized and tried to kill him.

— — — 

They docked in Nicodranis on a hot summer morning, and before he even came above deck, Essek had a disguise firmly in place. His usual go-to was a half-elf who somewhat resembled him, with a few features changed every time. This time, to fit in better with the sailors, it was close-cropped hair and suntanned skin, a few scars on his face and arms. 

The crew, by process of elimination, still recognized him. Marius approached him as they waited on a berth to clear for a ship the size of the Nein Heroez. 

"Are you actually coming ashore this time?" he asked. 

"Briefly," Essek said. "I am leaving for Rexxentrum, so I will not be spending any time with the crew."

"Pity. Jester wants to take us all to see her mother perform, and I hear that's a whole experience. Bet Kingsley wanted you to be his date." 

"He will have to contend himself with, ah, what's the expression?" Essek searched for a moment. "A rain check." 

Kingsley, currently, was darting around making ready for docking, almost snapping to Fjord's orders faster than their captain could dole them out. 

"I'm pleased for you two," Marius said. 

Essek suddenly remembered something about angling for a threesome. "Are you," he said, disbelief evident in his voice. 

Marius threw his head back and laughed. "Of course. I know by now that was a losing game on my part. I ought to apologize to you, though." 

"I believe you ought to apologize to him, not me," Essek said, nodding in Kingsley's direction. 

"Oh, trust me, I have done. I don’t know if he’s accepted it, exactly, but I’ve tried, at least.” 

That did explain why Kingsley was glaring at them. At Marius, more precisely. 

By the time Kingsley approached, Marius had gone off to finish some other duty aboard the ship, which was probably for the best. 

“What was that little arsehole up to?” Kingsley asked, putting an arm around Essek’s waist that felt a little more defensive than need be. 

“Apologizing,” Essek said. “You know, Jester says you don’t like him because he’s too similar to you.”

“Jester ought to know those are fighting words.” There was a grin on his face as he said it, though. He relaxed a little, leaning against Essek with what felt more like comfort than agitation. “Are you gonna be alright for three whole days in the big bad city where a Martinet wants your head on a plate?”

“I will. And if things go south, I’ve got a much easier method of returning here.” He was referring, of course, to the teleportation circle he had constructed in Kingsley’s cabin. Jester had assisted, which meant the circle was drawn with the exacting perfection of a practiced artistic hand, and also that it had a dick hidden in the runes. 

“You should give Caleb the circle,” Kingsley suggested, nudging Essek’s hip with his. “Tell him he can come visit us any time.”

Essek would not be doing that. “The circle is in our bedroom. Where our bed is. And where we do things, which one does in a bed.”

Kingsley made a semicircle around Essek until he had him pinned between the rail of the ship and his own body. “First off: our bed? Very cute. Secondly: exactly. I don’t think you’re picturing this right.” He leaned in, so that he was very close to Essek’s ear. “Imagine him just popping by while I’ve got you under me, begging for more.”

“You will be the death of me.” Essek did not deny this made him hot, though. “Back away, please, I was supposed to be Sending to him, which I cannot do with you breathing down my neck.” 

Kingsley took a polite two steps away, but continued to watch Essek as if he was imagining Caleb appearing in the room while he and Essek were caught in some kind of compromising act. 

Essek looked straight back at him, challenging, and said, “hello, Caleb. We are docking in Nicodranis, and I will arrive in Rexxentrum upon your word.”

Kingsley was blowing kisses at Essek, which of course, were meant to be conveyed. 

“Kingsley sends hugs and kisses. See you soon.” He raised an eyebrow at Kingsley, who looked very self-satisfied. 

“I am glad to hear you have arrived safely. I have returned home for the evening, so you may come whenever is convenient.”

“I will depart before we finish docking, then,” Essek replied. 

Kingsley had seen him make the somatic, knew he was casting again, but he replied instead of Caleb. “So soon?”

“Yes, Kingsley, I will miss you terribly as well,” Essek said, his exasperation somewhat false. “Come here.” 

Kingsley happily accepted his kiss, and then said, “was that last bit on the Sending, too?”

“It was not.” 

Kingsley clicked his tongue, looking almost disappointed. “Well, I suppose that just means you’ll have a fun surprise for him, won’t you?” He leaned a little more heavily against Essek. “Please come back soon. And don’t get stabbed again. And Send to me as often as you can.” 

It was all a bit much for the sort of unlabeled, unspecific relationship they shared. Essek, however, was happy to put his arms around Kingsley, also with a little more affection than such a relationship warranted. 

“And also, smack that skinny wizard on the ass for me.”

“Absolutely not.”