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Caleb rubbed at a blooming bruise on his ribs as he scanned through the logbook in his lap. It was rather dense, and only legible through continuius castings of comprehend languages which made his vision swim with arcane energy. He was sitting hunched over himself in an armchair within the tower, leafing through the tome with his feet tucked under a blanket. Tea, brought by Mitzi nearly two hours ago sat cold and untouched on the coffee table between him and Essek.

Essek sits on an opposite arm chair, mirroring Caleb's posture as he reads the final pages of his own tome plucked from the Praesidis Ward during their expedition of the day. His left hand fiddles with the oblong pearls of his focus as he reads, and his right hand is positioned under his chin, with his thumb resting over his lips and against his nose.

Silence, spare the sound of pages turning and the occasional sniff or accented breath, stretches between them until the Aeorian text before him begins to swim into incomprehensibility once again. Caleb dips his fingers into his component pouch to recast the spell, wiping the residual soot and salt onto his pant leg.

Gently, Essek closes the book in his hand, setting it back on the table between them. His fingers dance over the remaining tomes, each one thick with dust and slightly damp with now-melted frost, finally choosing one of the thicker books. With a wave of his manicured fingers, arcane energy weaves itself around his head.

As he opens the book, a plume of dust rises from the pages, illuminated by the amber lights hanging around the tower's sitting room. Essek sniffs, waving his left hand through the somatics for prestidigitation as if it were second nature. The dust dissipates from the air and most of the page currently open, but the rest of the tome remains obscured in the slightly soggy dust. His hand returns to its position over his mouth.

Over the next few minutes, Caleb finds himself watching, enraptured, as Essek — unaware of his audience — sniffles and swipes at his nose while he reads. The sound grows increasingly wet as time goes on, an irritated tear slipping from his lashline and smudging his masterfully applied eyeliner. (Caleb had teased him a bit about it that very morning — only Essek would bother applying makeup while exploring the ruins of Aeor.)

Essek's breath hitches lightly, his eyes squeeze shut and his hands shift to clamp over his nose entirely. Essek twists away from the book, silencing two — no, three — sneezes into his hands. The sigh that follows is just barely audible, but evidently congested.

Heat coils in Caleb's gut as he watches Essek sniffle and wipe at his teary eyes. Caleb shifts slightly so his book is a bit further up against his thighs.

Vulnerability has always been, well, hot to Caleb. Whether it was himself being spread wide before Eadwulf and Astrid for them to have their way, or it was one of them beneath him, begging for release, that level of trust had always turned his intestines to putty.

Of course, this was nothing like the sex he had back then. Essek was fully clothed and several feet away, obliviously reading. To compare feels foolish, but somehow both situations invite the same sharp feelings of arousal in him.

After several more minutes of quiet reading, Essek's breath hitches again, a little more pronounced this time, as though it had taken him by surprise. He wrenches away from the book once more, his nose flushed purple between his fingers as he pinches off another pair of sneezes into near silence. He sniffles sharply and blinks, finally sparing a glance towards Caleb.

Oh, he had been caught staring.

"Gesundheit." Caleb feels a bit of heat rise in his cheeks as he speaks.

Essek sniffles again, pressing a knuckle against his septum.

"Apologies," A pointed canine peeks out from behind Essek's glossed lips before he ducks back towards his book to continue reading, his cheeks a darker shade of lavender.

The way his accent curled around the word sends another flare of heat to Caleb's groin.

It is difficult to focus on the logbook in his lap when each ever-increasingly stuffy intake of breath from the man across from him sends another wave of arousal through his lower half. Essek, for his part, has managed not to sneeze for the last several minutes now — though if the way his right hand continues to fiddle with his irritated nose is any indication, that is not likely to remain the case for much longer.

Caleb shifts, relieving some of the ever increasing pressure between his legs as Essek's breath hitches once more. He glances up just in time to see Essek's left hand stutter and fail to cast another prestidigitation, then both hands snap to pitch over his nose and—!

"hH'NGt-nGT'chh! hHieh—!" Essek blinks, eyes unfocused and rimmed with tears. He sniffles, then his breath continues to hitch desperately. "hH'EhTschhiuhh!"

Gods.

Caleb's cock twitched in time with each sound. He would need to revisit this moment once they left Aeor to unravel why exactly this elicits such a reaction from him. Essek was not even looking in his direction and he was already half hard. If he wasn't so distracted, he would probably feel rather embarrassed.

"Gesundheit." The word felt heavy on Caleb's tongue. It takes concerted effort to sound causal, as though this was not doing anything to him.

Essek's violet eyes snap up to Caleb's, tears clinging to his lower lashline. He scans Caleb's face, lingering slightly on Caleb's quirked lips before darting back towards his book. One hand comes to swipe at his nose while the other removes another cantrip's-worth of dust from the page.

"Thank you, my apologies." His response is punctuated by a noticeably wetter sniffle, and his knuckle presses against his septum.

A beat passes. Essek attempts to refocus on the book in his lap.

Caleb furrows his brows. "Are you…?"

What a masterfiul way to broach the subject, Widogast.

"Ah," He looks up at Caleb once again, knuckle still pressed against his twitching nose. "I am fine, it is j-juhh-! just a bit—hhiih-! hHhiihD'nGTchh!" He curses in his mother tongue under his breath. "Apologies, dhhusty."

Caleb bites back another blessing, not trusting his voice. His heart beats through his chest, sending dangerous waves of heat towards his cock. He swallows against his dry throat as Essek sniffles and runs a hand through his hair.

"You are allergic to dust, then?"

It was a bit silly; a wizard being allergic to dust. Their kind were avid bookworms by nature. What proper intellectual would not jump at the opportunity to unravel an ancient tome of magic that has not been touched in centuries? In that sense, dust was an occupational hazard for a wizard. Caleb himself had not been affected by it since he was young, and he hadn't met many people in his time adventuring that had much difficulty with it either — although, adventurers tended to be more hearty than the average folk, and given Essek's delicate upbringing, perhaps it was not so surprising he was a touch sensitive.

Essek shrugs, sniffling once again. "A bit, I s-suhHpposeh-!" Another throaty expletive. "hH-! hEhDT'scch! Gods, my apologies."

"Gesundheit." Caleb cannot look away, not even if he wanted to — and, to be clear, he does not want to — he is completely mesmerised by the image of allergic drow seated before him. "Perhaps I can bother the cats to clean these before we take to deciphering them?"

Mitzi enters not a moment later, busying herself with gathering the number of books strewn about the coffee table.

"Perhaps that is for the best." He chuckles, sniffling as he tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. As Mitzi grabs the final book, he smiles warmly at her, "Thank you, Ile'Mitzi."

"Was there anything of interest in your tomes?" Caleb asked, shifting a bit in his seat. His stomach swooped towards his toes as Essek's violet eyes locked onto his own, narrowed just slightly by the same warm expression he had aimed at the spectral cat.

"Ah, yhhes," Essek pressed a hand against his nose as his breath hitched, eyelids fluttering on their own accord, breaking the short-held charged gaze. "I think thhis one was from a hHih-! a hH- s-sorry, I- hHihD'Nxgt-NT'schh'iuh!"

"Gesund—" Caleb is cut off by Essek raising a finger. His breath is still hitching, face pinched in an expression of irritated desperation that was doing absolutely nothing to Caleb's groin right now. One manicured hand remained pressed against his nose which has now taken on a rather pretty purple flush.

"hhHehH'NgTcshH-! nD'TSchH'iuh!" Essek sniffles thickly. A tear falls as he blinks several times. His gaze falls onto Caleb after a moment, wide-eyed. The blush on his cheeks deepens and his hand stays firmly in place over his nose. "I am, um, I am going to—" He gestures upwards with his free hand, towards the bedchambers.

"Of course, ja." Caleb hopes he doesn't sound too breathless. "Go ahead, call the cats if you need anything."

"Thank you." Essek gives him a genuine smile before ducking and practically darting out of the study.