Verin tips his head back with Essek's guiding. He looks up at his brother, beseeching and broken. He does not know how to make this right. He doesn't know what to do with this new information in the light of everything else. But Essek is right; Verin would rather know, whatever else he might feel. Better to know than be surprised.
He closes his eyes as Essek kisses him and a wet hand reaches up to lightly touch his brother's cheek. He's forgotten Essek's gown, too, and if his brother doesn't care then neither does Verin. He tips his head back further in a brief but still futile effort to deepen the kiss. This is not the best position for that, and it is better not to try much harder.
He sighs when they part and he tips his head forward again.
Verin's fingers are wet when they brush Essek's face. Water drips down his cheek, down his chin as their lips part, almost like tears. He imagines so, at least. Essek hasn't cried in a very long time.
There is the ugly possessive urge to drag his brother's head back and kiss him again--he could have lost him today, the only person in the world who matters, who is his--but the angle really is poor. He returns to Verin's hair instead, the scratch of his fingers through it methodical but gentle, practiced. He's done this more times than he can count.
They're quiet for a time. Essek washes the blood from his brother's pale hair, using a wide-toothed comb to work his own favorite shampoo through it. The silky black slip he's wearing becomes entirely soaked. At last, he gives a quiet instruction: "Rinse it out, please."
Verin sinks into the quiet between them as Essek works, bringing comfort through touch that is so familiar and yet Verin has not had this experience in a long time. His eyes remain closed, and he is unsure if he wants to sleep or just lose himself for a little while in the simplicity of it all: the warmth of the water, the caress of his brother's fingers or the comb, and the sound of Essek's breathing. He could have lost this forever.
At some point during Essek's tender care, Verin shifts to wrap one arm around Essek's leg. He goes no further, but even that offers him some comfort. He can feel the wet silk against his back, and for a moment he's quietly amused that Essek doffed all his layers only to get this one wet.
He opens his eyes again briefly when he hears the command - even with that gentle please, Verin doesn't hear it as a request - and then does as he's told. Verin rinses his hair thoroughly, his fingers following the same paths as Essek's had. Only when he's certain the soap is all washed out does he sit up again. He sinks back against Essek where his brother sits behind him. Verin turns his head to brush a kiss to Essek's knee.
"I should get out," he says quietly. The water won't go cold, not with a wizard for a brother, but if Verin is going to linger anywhere, he'd rather a bed or comfortable couch. "Do you have a robe I can use?"
Verin will not fit in anything Essek owns, but he swears he left clothes here at some point.
Verin clings to him for comfort, for support, and as he always has, Essek allows it. He stifles the shiver that would have worked its way down his spine at the brush of lips against the inside of his knee, and instead strokes his fingers through his brother's hair one more time.
"Of course. In your room," he says. "Dry off and I will fetch it for you."
Essek extracts himself from both his brother and the tub. His slip drips onto the floor as he stands. Carefully, he pulls it up over his head, dropping it with a slap of wet fabric on stone and sweeping his ruffled hair back into place. The smalls he wears beneath sit low on his hips, fine and partly sheer, black with a pattern of embroidery almost resembling feathers. By the door to the bathroom he retrieves one of his own robes and slips it over his shoulders, belting the wide sash tight around his narrow waist. This garment is even more diaphanous, dark but airy, with long trailing lace sleeves. Most notably, however, it is also quite short, brushing the tops of Essek's thighs as he pads barefoot and bare-legged back out into his bedroom.
It can't hurt, he thinks, to remind Verin of what he has been missing.
Verin's room--the only guest bedroom with a dedicated occupant--is one floor down in this tower, but it is closer to Essek's than any other. He finds the robe he was thinking of hanging where he left it the last time Verin stayed with him. It's a long, soft imported linen dyed in a geometric pattern of black and midnight blue, made for comfort with roomy sleeves and a generous allowance for broad shoulders. Essek had it made for him years ago. As he brings it back upstairs now, he considers that he may have worn it more often than Verin has. It has been one of the few comforts he's allowed himself when he misses his brother.
"Verin?" he calls when he returns. "I have it here." He holds the robe open, as if he intends to help Verin into it himself.
Verin lets go of Essek so that his brother can move without compromising his balance. He thinks little of it until he hears the heavy, wet slap of fabric hitting the tile floor. He looks then, seeing his brother in just his smalls crossing the bathroom to retrieve a robe for himself. One that is far shorter than... anything Verin can recall seeing Essek in.
He can't help but think Essek chose that particular one on purpose.
He lets go of a heavy breath and sinks down into the water up to his shoulders, lingering there for a little while longer before he makes himself get out. Verin is finishing drying himself by the time Essek returns, carrying a familiar robe. He knows he didn't take it with him on purpose the last time he was here, thinking that it would feel like a promise to return. Or, at the very least, a symbol of his comfort in his brother's home.
Unbidden, Verin's gaze flicks to Essek's bare legs as he moves closer, but only for a moment. It's clear what Essek wants as he holds the robe out and Verin doesn't resist the help. The fabric is soft, fine against his skin and so completely incongruous with everything that has happened to him in the past day. It feels like none of this should be real. He doesn't know why he feels so conflicted that it is.
Essek drapes the robe over his brother's broad shoulders, then ties it closed when he turns around again, knowing that perhaps he is being slightly overbearing in his care, but it is out of love--which he cannot say is true for much else in his life. His hands come to rest on Verin's chest, and he leaves them there as he looks up at him. He is a finely built man, his younger brother. Essek sometimes notices this objectively about other men, an observation as impersonal as any other--but it is different with Verin. Everything is.
His hands slide up until he is holding his brother's face between them, drawing him down for a chaste kiss.
"It is the least I can do," he murmurs after, brushing his thumb back and forth along Verin's cheek. "You should rest. I'll lay with you."
He moves to his bed and turns down the coverlet before getting himself, laying back against the pillows. Though he is still wearing his robe, it doesn't conceal much, especially while he is laying down. Slipping between the sheets, Essek opens his arms. "Come."
Verin leans down as Essek draws him in for a kiss. His brother has always been able to move him with the lightest touch; he is one of the few (possibly only) people that Verin yields to almost without hesitation. He would not be a Taskhand if he were seen as too pliable. But it has always been different with Essek.
He follows his brother after that tender caress and a small smile tugs at his mouth when Essek turns down the bed. And if his attention lingers on his brother's bare legs, Verin thinks he can be forgiven: he hasn't seen them in quite some time. He doesn't hesitate to join Essek when he is given the invitation. Verin slips into the bed, sore and stiff but better than he was when he arrived in Rosohna.
In the soft, familiar bed, Verin can't quite resist the urge to kiss Essek's temple. He breathes in the scent of him, more vivid than the faded remnants on a scarf he may have taken with him the last time he saw Essek. He wants to thank his brother again, and again, but he thinks he has said it enough. Or he's said it enough that Essek will gently chide him for doing it yet again.
That affection given, Verin relaxes into the pillows and immediately turns his head so that he is still looking at Essek.
"There was a moment," he murmurs, "a long, terrible moment when I thought this was gone."
The kiss to his temple brings a satisfied curl to Essek's lips. It's short lived, however, as Verin confesses how afraid he was that he'd lost this--and it is easy to infer that he could so easily have been one of the dead there in Bazzoxan. Unlike Essek, Verin is consecuted. It is a near certainty that his soul would return during Essek's lifetime. But it would be years, and it would be different. It wouldn't be this.
Essek tucks strands of his brother's loose damp hair back behind his ear. He'll brush and braid it for him again after he rests.
"I worried the same," he admits quietly. "From the moment we heard about the attack until I saw you stride into the throne room. I had to trust that you were strong enough to return to me." And he was. Of course he was. Verin is a powerful, skilled echo knight and a capable commander. Even with what he was asked to do--
His simmering anger threatens to boil over again. Fools and cowards, all of them, and Verin had paid dearly for it.
"Let me hold you," Essek says, the same tone of gentle command he's been using with Verin for a century. He lifts his arm for his brother to move closer, to wrap around him and stroke his hair when he lays his head down against his shoulder.
Had the beacon been too far away when Verin fell - like it was for so many who were left behind - then even his soul would be lost forever, consecuted or not. Verin tries not to linger on the events that didn't happen; he tries harder not to fall into the guilt of everything that did.
The gentle authority in Essek's voice when he speaks again is a comfort. He doesn't have to think, only do. He turns more toward his brother and rests against him, head on Essek's shoulder. Verin can feel the warmth of his skin through the sheer robe he wears and the familiar scent of Essek's cologne doesn't escape him. It's been so very long since he has been in this place.
Verin closes his eyes as Essek's fingers stroke into his hair, offering tenderness that Verin has not been privy to since last he was in Rosohna. Tenderness that he knows Essek does not share with most - perhaps any - others. Even here in his brother's bed it is difficult to close his mind to the sounds of chaos, pain, and fear. The hopelessness of a position lost, the desperation of those trying to survive. The scent of blood and earth and sulfur.
He takes a deeper breath to steady himself, until the only things he can smell are the mingling scents of lavender, osmanthus, jasmine, cedarwood, and white musk clinging to Essek's skin.
Verin has always responded well to his authority when he is caring but firm. Today is no different, and Essek is grateful for the ways in which his brother is predictable, perhaps known only to him. Verin's head comes to rest against his shoulder, his eyes slip closed, and Essek's darkly painted lips press affectionately to his brow. In addition to the scent of his perfume clinging to his skin, he is still wearing a full face of makeup from court today.
It's been a long time since they were last able to do this, and it is a shame that these are the circumstances leading to this reunion. They don't see each other nearly as much as they should. The time they get to spend in his home together, in his bed, is even less. Essek's desire to protect his younger brother from his own machinations is in direct conflict with how much he misses him.
Combing his fingers slowly, soothingly through Verin's hair, Essek attempts to quell the restless buzz of excess energy he can practically feel radiating from his stronger, broader body. He must be exhausted, yet he hasn't yet crashed. His mind is still whirring, replaying, reminding him of what he'd survived and witnessed today.
Essek clasps him wordlessly closer. He feels his toes brush the edge of Verin's robe and slips his foot beneath to slide his bare legs against Verin's. Should he need to do anything more to help him relax, he has plenty of options for distraction.
Verin's breath catches quietly when he feels Essek's legs against his, bare skin a sudden reminder that his brother is so exposed. He tries to relax as delicate and clever fingers brush through his hair, a gesture that has brought him so much comfort over the years.
"Essek..." He speaks his brother's name and it is neither a question nor a plea, but some strange place in the middle. A question he does not know how to ask, a plea hoping for his brother's intuitive understanding. Verin pushes himself up onto his elbow so that he can look down at Essek, searching his beautifully made up face. He knows that he's had the privilege of very few to see the Shadowhand without his armor, but as they've grown he's realized that Essek's armor goes deeper than it once did.
"I missed you," he confesses quietly, words that he's spoken already but that bear repeating. His fingers, calloused and rough but still elegant, brush against Essek's hair.
For all that his tone is one of uncertainty, Essek is familiar with what Verin is seeking from him. He understands what his brother needs, but cannot ask him for. This is far from the first time.
"I miss you always, dearest one," he whispers, a tender and true affirmation as he cradles Verin's handsome face between his graceful hands again, looking up at him from the now even shorter distance between them. But there is more beneath those words that he cannot say, that wasn't there years upon years ago. It hurts. Verin was once his confidante, the one person he could admit anything to. Yet now he is hiding so much even from his brother.
It's better that way, he tells himself. Should he ever be discovered, Verin will be safer if he knows nothing.
This time, the way his legs slip around and between Verin's is blatantly suggestive, the slide of bare skin slow and sensual. His toes trail up the back of one calf while their thighs slot together. With fingers curled around the sharp line of his jaw, Essek draws his brother into an equally heady kiss, parting his painted lips and tracing his tongue along Verin's. Heat flickers to life in his belly, desire he hasn't felt since the last time they were together this way.
"It's been so long, Verin," he sighs between one kiss and the next. All these years, and Essek still hasn't taken another lover. Rather than bed a man he would have to feign interest in, he waits for these moments. They don't happen nearly often enough to sate the longing he feels for connection, intimacy, pleasure. "I need you," he implores.
Verin lets himself break, then. Not in the way that's probably coming, but he lets go of something he's been holding back since the Lucid Bastion when Essek kisses him that way. They have shared so much and Verin wants to remind himself that he hasn't lost everything. His lips part at the touch of Essek's tongue and Verin moves until he's fully over his brother, intent on properly getting between his thighs.
He's taken lovers in Bazzoxan but he's never felt for anyone what he still feels for Essek. He's cared for people he's taken to bed and maintained friendships with several, easy relationships with clear expectations. At no point has Verin ever offered love or exclusivity. Regardless of what his partners may have wanted, it isn't difficult for anyone to understand that mindset in a place like that. He has missed the ease he feels with Essek and he knows he can be vulnerable here. They have always kept each other safe. They have always shared intimacy that Verin has never offered anyone else.
"Too long," he whispers between kisses. "I should have come."
They both had their reasons, but in hindsight they feel like pitiful excuses when their bond is so close. Verin strokes his fingers into Essek's hair, tipping his head back as he deepens the kiss. If Essek needs him, Verin could never refuse him.
It is a known fact across the whole of Rosohna that the Shadowhand is the hands-off sort. That's what it's called in polite company, at least. When the man himself and anyone who might report back to him are supposedly out of earshot, he's more likely to be called frigid.
Apparently it's a shame, according to many. Even setting aside the power he holds (the youngest Shadowhand in history!) and how appealing a target he makes (the youngest Shadowhand in history), he's very easy on the eyes. He has the willowy, androgynous build that tends to be associated with classical elven beauty, with delicate features and fine-boned hands and striking violet eyes. Yet he hides his slightness under voluminous robes and billowing cloaks, hides his narrow shoulders beneath the sharp curves of his mantle--all the more enticing, then, to catch a glimpse of a long, slender leg or arm as he goes about his business. Essek Thelyss turns heads. The fact that he keeps himself closed off to everyone, untouchable, aloof as a cat, only means that there are plenty who'd betray the crown itself to be welcomed into his personal space. It's calculated.
The thing about cats is that despite their reputation, they are needy little things. As effortlessly as he gives the impression to the contrary, Essek has his needs. Picky as he is, there is only a single man who can meet them.
If anyone knew who, that would be gossip fodder for a decade. A good secret to have on hand; compromising enough to account for shifty behavior, but far less dire than treason. These things happen with some frequency among the dens, where consecution can sometimes result in unusual permutations of standard relationships. Still, this sort of closeness between siblings is the sort of thing one is expected to grow out of by their age. But they are both considered young--first lives, only partly into their second centuries. Such youthful foolishness would lead to general finger wagging and some embarassment for the den, but they wouldn't get worse than a slap on the wrist.
Still, Essek would prefer it not come to that. Having to be even more discreet while pretending to distance themselves would be a real pain. Especially when he finally has a reason to keep Verin close at hand.
They kiss, and Essek spreads his legs as he whimpers encouragingly against Verin's mouth. He buries his hands in his brother's long, loose hair as Verin's fingers comb through his own--much shorter, but the motion still sends a frission of excitement down his spine.
"You are not going anywhere now," Essek declares in a low, fierce whisper. "You are mine. I am keeping you."
When they kiss again, deeper, he sucks on Verin's tongue, scrapes his lower lip with his sharp teeth. His lip color may or may not be holding up. Barely needing to lift from the bed, his thighs find a natural position squeezing Verin's waist. Everything about the way Essek draws his brother in is deeply, unabashedly possessive.
When Verin's window for going through anamnesis fully passed and it became known that Den Thelyss had not one, but two new souls for the first time in centuries, Verin felt that he and Essek were closer than ever. They alone would live their lives, with no memories or past glories to stand on, no ties save those they built. And the tightest tie of all has ever been between them.
Verin feels a tremble deep in his chest when Essek whispers that he is going to keep him. That Verin is his. What more does he need when that is true? Especially now, when so much of the life he's built is shattered and scattered across the Barbed Fields, when he knows that those he has put his faith in have utterly abandoned reason and any sense of compassion for those that serve them. The institutions he has served his entire life have failed to do what he believed they were meant to.
But Essek is here, holding him with a sharply possessive tone that has always made Verin feel like he could keep going. If Essek is here, in his life, then there is still light in it. Verin has been his nearly since birth. Why should any of that have changed as they grew older and closer?
He meets the next kiss, slick and sharp as Essek bites his lip. Verin reaches down to catch a bare thigh and gives a firm roll of his hips, as if Essek needed any reminder of the strength in his brother's body.
"I have always been yours," he whispers as heat suffuses his body, pooling low between his hips.
Essek's breathing is rapidly growing shallow as arousal sweeps through him in an irresistible tide, hitching at the strength of Verin's grip on his thigh. Their bodies grind together in this moment, Verin's hips rolling down against his while his thighs tighten around his waist, but there is also the decades of history between them that this moment is built upon, an addiction that only grows more potent with time. He can feel the stiffening heat of Verin's erection, and Essek's entire body tingles and throbs like a numb limb finally thawing out.
"I know," Essek whispers. The silky lilt of his voice manages to be both soothing and provocative as their lips brush and his fingers twist firmly into his brother's hair. "I know you have, my love."
He drags his other hand down from Verin's jaw, down his throat to where his robe parts over his sturdy chest. He slips it inside to feel the warmth of his bare skin, the thump of his heart beneath, slipping his robe open as he goes.
"I remember how sweet you used to be for me when we both still lived at the main house," he whispers. "How you would sneak into my bed already hard from thinking of me, and I would have to cover your mouth while I rode you or sucked you or you'd have woken the whole wing." Before Verin had anyone else. Before he left to live in the barracks and learned to be quiet. Before Essek was granted these towers. Darkened lips curling, he teases, "You were so needy sometimes, little brother. Perhaps I spoiled you a bit. You knew that I would always take care of you if you told me how much you loved me."
Verin breathes in sharply as Essek's fingers curl in his hair, another hand soon pressed to his chest. He closes his eyes, momentarily lost in the memories that Essek recounts. Verin can still remember the pressure of Essek's hand against his mouth and the scent of the perfume he favored then. He always wore some on his wrists. Over the years the scents have changed, but the habit has not.
"I would have loved you anyway," he murmurs, meeting his brother's gaze. He dearly wants Essek to hear and believe that: Verin loves him for no other reason than that he is Essek. That is how Verin has always loved him. And maybe Essek did spoil him, but he cannot regret it.
His hand strokes over Essek's thigh and just feeling his brother's soft, warm skin beneath his palm is enough to make him burn with desire. Verin presses another firm kiss to Essek's lips before coaxing them apart for a better taste.
"There is no need for me to be quiet now," he says, voice lower and warmer.
Essek's towers are his own, and Verin didn't notice any other occupants - no students, no supplicants, no secretaries - on their way through. Granted, he hadn't been inclined to look particularly hard for anything when Essek brought him here from the Lucid Bastion. Verin shifts, releasing Essek's thigh long enough to slip his arm out of the sleeve of his robe. He leaves it to hang and his hand runs up Essek's thigh until he finds the hem of his brother's smalls. His fingers curl and he drags them down as far as he can, very aware that he'll have to move if he wants to get them off properly. But it's the gesture that's important for now.
From anyone else, he could never believe those words so easily. But with his brother, he's never doubted it. Maybe that is the reason--or at least part of the reason--he has only ever wanted Verin this way.
He makes a soft, wanting noise against Verin's mouth when he kisses him again, which becomes a throatier moan as his tongue sweeps past his lips. The more Verin kisses him, touches him, presses him down into his bed with less clothing between them, the wilder Essek feels.
"No. This is my home. We are alone here," he confirms breathlessly, violet eyes intent and growing darker as his pupils expand. The perfectly applied dark purple paint on his lips has started to smudge at the edges of his mouth. "I want to hear you."
Both hands slide down as Verin slips one arm free from his robe, nails raking lightly down his bared chest more for sensation than pain. He's so beautiful with his pale hair falling all around his handsome face, his broad shoulders, his strong arms and scarred chest--his rough hands stroking up Essek's soft, untouched legs until they reach his smalls and slide them halfway down his thighs. Essek shivers as the delicate silk catches against and then rubs over the sensitive head of his very hard cock, leaving him aroused and exposed in a way that makes him absolutely dizzy with desire. He visibly struggles with the urge to either cover himself with a robe too short and disheveled and sheer, or spread his legs wider, neither of which he can currently accomplish.
"How will you have me tonight, Verin?" he coaxes, sultry with an underlying edge of almost reckless urgency. "Tell me."
Verin's chest still feels heavy with loss, his mind too full with thoughts of what he should have done. Above all of it is the sharp, urgent desire to remind himself that he is still alive with the one person who he would stay alive for. The raw lines Essek leaves behind on his chest make him shiver, as does the way his brother seems torn between giving himself over to his own desires and hiding from them. It's that urgency that Verin knows is there that excites him more. How restless Essek can be, how demanding, when he is finally given what he wants.
He would argue that Essek is even more demanding when he has what he wants.
His fingers tighten in Essek's hair and Verin kisses him again as he gives another firm thrust of his hips, dragging his heavy, full cock against the place where Essek's hip meets his thigh. Light, he has missed everything about Essek, including the places where his body is softer than Verin's.
"In every way you'll let me," he whispers as his lips brush across Essek's cheek to his ear. He can feel the familiar jewelry beneath his lips, but he is far more interested in the bare spaces he finds. His brother is always so covered; no one sees him the way Verin does.
"Let me feel you beneath me first," he says, still soft and for Essek alone. Verin lifts his head so that he can see Essek's face. He can't imagine Essek agreeing to something he doesn't want - even for him - but he wants to be sure all the same.
Essek feels pinned in the most wonderful way. He squirms uselessly under his brother, testing what little leeway he has as Verin presses him down to kiss him and rock against him. The line of his cock is heavy and hot against the very sensitive skin at the crease of his thigh, nestled between a sharp hip bone and the much more plush shape of his thigh. Also mere inches from his own cock, and equally close to the even softer curve of his ass.
Verin is heavy and strong, and if Essek did not want to be beneath him he could reverse gravity with little more than a succinct gesture. But he does. In fact, it is exactly where he wants to be, legs pathetically bound by his own half pulled down smalls and unable to budge more than an inch or two in any way without the aid of dunamancy. Verin's warm lips and hot breath find his ear in a bright frission of sensation, and as it tingles down his spine, he whines and writhes uselessly. It's delicious.
"Yes," he agrees in a breathless whisper, sharp with certainty. His fingers flex, curling into fists against his brother's chest. It's a gesture that could crush a man if accompanied by the right words and intent. His skin feels hot everywhere, and he knows his face must be deeply flushed as Verin looks down at him. Their eyes meet, and Essek licks his slightly smeared lips as his heart skips in his chest.
It certainly isn't only for Verin's sake, this agreement--Essek craves it just as much. But surely Verin must know that his doting older brother would let him have him in every way he might want him.
In a haze of heat and need, Verin moves. For all that he is bigger than Essek, he is still fast, having honed his dexterity along with all of his other martial skills. That shows itself now in the quick but firm way he uses his grip on Essek's thigh to roll his brother onto his side, deftly avoiding being kicked in the process. Verin grabs the hip of his brother's smalls and twists, effectively forcing Essek's legs together and trapping them that way. It's likely that he's also ruining the garment in the process, but he will replace it if he needs to.
"I have missed you," he whispers, knowing that it has already been said and repeating it anyway. He will say it until he no longer feels it. He kisses Essek again as he rubs the wet head of his cock against the backs of his brother's thighs. He knows where the oil is and it wouldn't be difficult to reach for it now, but he doesn't want to spare a hand to do it.
"At night I would think of you here in your soft bed and wonder if you thought of me." His voice is heavy but still soft, and it would be tender if not for the way that Verin is rutting against the soft curve of his brother's ass. He doesn't begrudge Essek the comfort of Rosohna, especially when he knows that it has not always been comfortable for his brother here. Even if Essek's rise was meteoric, Verin knows better than to think it was easy.
Essek is hardly concerned about ruined smalls. It barely even occurs to him beyond the brief flash of humiliation at being trapped like this that Essek would never admit to finding arousing, though he clearly does if he's permitting it. Now on his side with his thighs forced tight together, his pulse is pounding so hard he can hear the thrum of blood in his ears.
Grasping the sheets, he makes a weak noise against Verin's mouth as he feels his hard cock leaving a wet trail of precome against the backs of his thighs. His blush deepens, if that is possible. Light, when his brother gets into these moods, all his years of intimate experience with Verin seem to evaporate at once, leaving Essek flustered, embarrassingly eager, but utterly devoid of his usual easy authority. He's utterly wrong-footed--but at least he is with the only person who could possibly make him enjoy that.
His brother grinds against him, and Essek's brow knits up as he bites his lower lip, a sharp eyetooth catching and holding. He swallows hard, trying to collect his thoughts enough to respond. Overheated as he is, words are suddenly as ephemeral as steam. His own erection is nestled nicely against his legs, and if he just shifted his hips a little, he's sure he could generate some friction for himself. But he doesn't know if he wants to appear quite so desperate as that just yet, even if he's quickly beginning to feel that way.
He thinks Verin is probably going to fuck his thighs anyway, which he'd half expected since he chose this particular robe. He's always had a thing for his legs.
"Constantly," he admits finally, dangling that tantalizing morsel of an image in front of his brother with the few words he can currently muster. "I've missed you too."
"Get us oil, my dearest one," he murmurs against Essek's ear. Whether by cantrip or more conventional means, they're going to need it.
Verin keeps his brother's smalls twisted around his hand, apparently intent on keeping him like this for a little while at least. Heat suffuses him and Verin sighs, nuzzling into Essek's soft hair. He doesn't mean to be rough, but he wouldn't let it escape like this if he had even an inkling that Essek didn't like it. No, he's very certain that his brother's gasping and writhing beneath him is because Verin has surprised him. It doesn't happen often. He hopes Essek will forgive him for taking advantage since it has.
He shifts his weight back onto his knees so that he has another hand free. He's more gentle as he pulls Essek's robe out of the way - not off, but down to expose a slender shoulder. He leans down to kiss it, far more reverent than the way he's indulging himself with rutting against Essek's thighs. Verin hadn't known what he was going to do until he did it, but being intuitive serves him well.
"Whoever might have warmed my bed in Bazzoxan, I could never love them as I love you."
Maybe it's cruel to mention them, to risk making Essek jealous. Verin's breath catches quietly and he focuses on the way his body feels rather than the fleeting thought of past lovers, some of whom may no longer be alive. Essek is warm and vibrant and living and here beneath him, whispering that he has missed Verin. What else could possibly matter in this moment?
When reminded, Essek gets the oil, feeling a little silly that it had slipped his mind in the first place. A flick of his fingers and a tug at gravity opens the correct drawer in the nearby night table, and the bottle floats through the air with his direction, the amount inside tellingly half used.
It is good that such a simple task requires little concentration, because Verin lavishes him with attention that makes Essek gasp and sigh, nuzzling close and slipping his robe from his shoulder to kiss sensually along the revealed skin. Both are in direct contrast to the rough, crude way he's handling him, pinning him in place and rutting against his thighs. But Light, Essek is enjoying every bit of this--even including the immediate flare of jealousy, which serves to enhance everything else he's feeling.
Essek prefers not to hear about his brother's other lovers. He knows that they exist, and that is all he cares to know. He is a selfish creature by nature, and he would keep his brother to himself if he could. But he would hate to forbid Verin from anything that makes him happy, especially in Bazzoxan. And he is vindicated in knowing at least that what Verin says now is true--he's never loved any of them as he loves Essek.
Still, he snarls, "Do not talk about them in my bed." Verin likes it when he bares his teeth, when he gets jealous and possessive and bossy. He must. Why else would he bring it up as frequently as he does?
The crystal bottle nudges Verin's arm somewhat impatiently where it hovers in the air. He can get to using it now, however he intends to. Essek is into this assertiveness--this play at dominance, even. In the strict context of Verin's desire, he likes that he's been overpowered.
"Forgive me," he murmurs, sweet and soothing. He shouldn't enjoy the way Essek bares his teeth so much, but it feels good to be reminded that he has not be forgotten here. The half-empty bottle of oil is just as telling.
Verin is tempted to tell Essek to use the oil on himself. He has his lithe brother pinned down with his smalls holding his legs closed, the least Verin can do is this. He trusts the bottle to stay where it is as he opens it with his free hand and tips it enough to spill a generous amount into his palm. He leans over Essek again, kissing and then gently biting his shoulder. The pressure is light, only to give him the sensation rather than pain.
His slick hand slips inelegantly between Essek's thighs, spreading oil there generously. Impatient, Verin's cock soon follows. He pushes into the tight space there with a heavy exhale, the relief of the warmth not as good as being buried inside Essek, but he'll get there.
"You have been using this often, I see. How long has it been?" A crude thing to ask, maybe, but the reason should be clear enough as Verin's oiled fingertips slide between Essek's cheeks to rub gently over his hole. Light, he has missed every inch of his brother, and Verin intends to make that clear. "How long since you last filled yourself and thought of me, dearest heart?"
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He closes his eyes as Essek kisses him and a wet hand reaches up to lightly touch his brother's cheek. He's forgotten Essek's gown, too, and if his brother doesn't care then neither does Verin. He tips his head back further in a brief but still futile effort to deepen the kiss. This is not the best position for that, and it is better not to try much harder.
He sighs when they part and he tips his head forward again.
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There is the ugly possessive urge to drag his brother's head back and kiss him again--he could have lost him today, the only person in the world who matters, who is his--but the angle really is poor. He returns to Verin's hair instead, the scratch of his fingers through it methodical but gentle, practiced. He's done this more times than he can count.
They're quiet for a time. Essek washes the blood from his brother's pale hair, using a wide-toothed comb to work his own favorite shampoo through it. The silky black slip he's wearing becomes entirely soaked. At last, he gives a quiet instruction: "Rinse it out, please."
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At some point during Essek's tender care, Verin shifts to wrap one arm around Essek's leg. He goes no further, but even that offers him some comfort. He can feel the wet silk against his back, and for a moment he's quietly amused that Essek doffed all his layers only to get this one wet.
He opens his eyes again briefly when he hears the command - even with that gentle please, Verin doesn't hear it as a request - and then does as he's told. Verin rinses his hair thoroughly, his fingers following the same paths as Essek's had. Only when he's certain the soap is all washed out does he sit up again. He sinks back against Essek where his brother sits behind him. Verin turns his head to brush a kiss to Essek's knee.
"I should get out," he says quietly. The water won't go cold, not with a wizard for a brother, but if Verin is going to linger anywhere, he'd rather a bed or comfortable couch. "Do you have a robe I can use?"
Verin will not fit in anything Essek owns, but he swears he left clothes here at some point.
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"Of course. In your room," he says. "Dry off and I will fetch it for you."
Essek extracts himself from both his brother and the tub. His slip drips onto the floor as he stands. Carefully, he pulls it up over his head, dropping it with a slap of wet fabric on stone and sweeping his ruffled hair back into place. The smalls he wears beneath sit low on his hips, fine and partly sheer, black with a pattern of embroidery almost resembling feathers. By the door to the bathroom he retrieves one of his own robes and slips it over his shoulders, belting the wide sash tight around his narrow waist. This garment is even more diaphanous, dark but airy, with long trailing lace sleeves. Most notably, however, it is also quite short, brushing the tops of Essek's thighs as he pads barefoot and bare-legged back out into his bedroom.
It can't hurt, he thinks, to remind Verin of what he has been missing.
Verin's room--the only guest bedroom with a dedicated occupant--is one floor down in this tower, but it is closer to Essek's than any other. He finds the robe he was thinking of hanging where he left it the last time Verin stayed with him. It's a long, soft imported linen dyed in a geometric pattern of black and midnight blue, made for comfort with roomy sleeves and a generous allowance for broad shoulders. Essek had it made for him years ago. As he brings it back upstairs now, he considers that he may have worn it more often than Verin has. It has been one of the few comforts he's allowed himself when he misses his brother.
"Verin?" he calls when he returns. "I have it here." He holds the robe open, as if he intends to help Verin into it himself.
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He can't help but think Essek chose that particular one on purpose.
He lets go of a heavy breath and sinks down into the water up to his shoulders, lingering there for a little while longer before he makes himself get out. Verin is finishing drying himself by the time Essek returns, carrying a familiar robe. He knows he didn't take it with him on purpose the last time he was here, thinking that it would feel like a promise to return. Or, at the very least, a symbol of his comfort in his brother's home.
Unbidden, Verin's gaze flicks to Essek's bare legs as he moves closer, but only for a moment. It's clear what Essek wants as he holds the robe out and Verin doesn't resist the help. The fabric is soft, fine against his skin and so completely incongruous with everything that has happened to him in the past day. It feels like none of this should be real. He doesn't know why he feels so conflicted that it is.
"Thank you," he says quietly.
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His hands slide up until he is holding his brother's face between them, drawing him down for a chaste kiss.
"It is the least I can do," he murmurs after, brushing his thumb back and forth along Verin's cheek. "You should rest. I'll lay with you."
He moves to his bed and turns down the coverlet before getting himself, laying back against the pillows. Though he is still wearing his robe, it doesn't conceal much, especially while he is laying down. Slipping between the sheets, Essek opens his arms. "Come."
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He follows his brother after that tender caress and a small smile tugs at his mouth when Essek turns down the bed. And if his attention lingers on his brother's bare legs, Verin thinks he can be forgiven: he hasn't seen them in quite some time. He doesn't hesitate to join Essek when he is given the invitation. Verin slips into the bed, sore and stiff but better than he was when he arrived in Rosohna.
In the soft, familiar bed, Verin can't quite resist the urge to kiss Essek's temple. He breathes in the scent of him, more vivid than the faded remnants on a scarf he may have taken with him the last time he saw Essek. He wants to thank his brother again, and again, but he thinks he has said it enough. Or he's said it enough that Essek will gently chide him for doing it yet again.
That affection given, Verin relaxes into the pillows and immediately turns his head so that he is still looking at Essek.
"There was a moment," he murmurs, "a long, terrible moment when I thought this was gone."
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Essek tucks strands of his brother's loose damp hair back behind his ear. He'll brush and braid it for him again after he rests.
"I worried the same," he admits quietly. "From the moment we heard about the attack until I saw you stride into the throne room. I had to trust that you were strong enough to return to me." And he was. Of course he was. Verin is a powerful, skilled echo knight and a capable commander. Even with what he was asked to do--
His simmering anger threatens to boil over again. Fools and cowards, all of them, and Verin had paid dearly for it.
"Let me hold you," Essek says, the same tone of gentle command he's been using with Verin for a century. He lifts his arm for his brother to move closer, to wrap around him and stroke his hair when he lays his head down against his shoulder.
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The gentle authority in Essek's voice when he speaks again is a comfort. He doesn't have to think, only do. He turns more toward his brother and rests against him, head on Essek's shoulder. Verin can feel the warmth of his skin through the sheer robe he wears and the familiar scent of Essek's cologne doesn't escape him. It's been so very long since he has been in this place.
Verin closes his eyes as Essek's fingers stroke into his hair, offering tenderness that Verin has not been privy to since last he was in Rosohna. Tenderness that he knows Essek does not share with most - perhaps any - others. Even here in his brother's bed it is difficult to close his mind to the sounds of chaos, pain, and fear. The hopelessness of a position lost, the desperation of those trying to survive. The scent of blood and earth and sulfur.
He takes a deeper breath to steady himself, until the only things he can smell are the mingling scents of lavender, osmanthus, jasmine, cedarwood, and white musk clinging to Essek's skin.
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It's been a long time since they were last able to do this, and it is a shame that these are the circumstances leading to this reunion. They don't see each other nearly as much as they should. The time they get to spend in his home together, in his bed, is even less. Essek's desire to protect his younger brother from his own machinations is in direct conflict with how much he misses him.
Combing his fingers slowly, soothingly through Verin's hair, Essek attempts to quell the restless buzz of excess energy he can practically feel radiating from his stronger, broader body. He must be exhausted, yet he hasn't yet crashed. His mind is still whirring, replaying, reminding him of what he'd survived and witnessed today.
Essek clasps him wordlessly closer. He feels his toes brush the edge of Verin's robe and slips his foot beneath to slide his bare legs against Verin's. Should he need to do anything more to help him relax, he has plenty of options for distraction.
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"Essek..." He speaks his brother's name and it is neither a question nor a plea, but some strange place in the middle. A question he does not know how to ask, a plea hoping for his brother's intuitive understanding. Verin pushes himself up onto his elbow so that he can look down at Essek, searching his beautifully made up face. He knows that he's had the privilege of very few to see the Shadowhand without his armor, but as they've grown he's realized that Essek's armor goes deeper than it once did.
"I missed you," he confesses quietly, words that he's spoken already but that bear repeating. His fingers, calloused and rough but still elegant, brush against Essek's hair.
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"I miss you always, dearest one," he whispers, a tender and true affirmation as he cradles Verin's handsome face between his graceful hands again, looking up at him from the now even shorter distance between them. But there is more beneath those words that he cannot say, that wasn't there years upon years ago. It hurts. Verin was once his confidante, the one person he could admit anything to. Yet now he is hiding so much even from his brother.
It's better that way, he tells himself. Should he ever be discovered, Verin will be safer if he knows nothing.
This time, the way his legs slip around and between Verin's is blatantly suggestive, the slide of bare skin slow and sensual. His toes trail up the back of one calf while their thighs slot together. With fingers curled around the sharp line of his jaw, Essek draws his brother into an equally heady kiss, parting his painted lips and tracing his tongue along Verin's. Heat flickers to life in his belly, desire he hasn't felt since the last time they were together this way.
"It's been so long, Verin," he sighs between one kiss and the next. All these years, and Essek still hasn't taken another lover. Rather than bed a man he would have to feign interest in, he waits for these moments. They don't happen nearly often enough to sate the longing he feels for connection, intimacy, pleasure. "I need you," he implores.
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He's taken lovers in Bazzoxan but he's never felt for anyone what he still feels for Essek. He's cared for people he's taken to bed and maintained friendships with several, easy relationships with clear expectations. At no point has Verin ever offered love or exclusivity. Regardless of what his partners may have wanted, it isn't difficult for anyone to understand that mindset in a place like that. He has missed the ease he feels with Essek and he knows he can be vulnerable here. They have always kept each other safe. They have always shared intimacy that Verin has never offered anyone else.
"Too long," he whispers between kisses. "I should have come."
They both had their reasons, but in hindsight they feel like pitiful excuses when their bond is so close. Verin strokes his fingers into Essek's hair, tipping his head back as he deepens the kiss. If Essek needs him, Verin could never refuse him.
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Apparently it's a shame, according to many. Even setting aside the power he holds (the youngest Shadowhand in history!) and how appealing a target he makes (the youngest Shadowhand in history), he's very easy on the eyes. He has the willowy, androgynous build that tends to be associated with classical elven beauty, with delicate features and fine-boned hands and striking violet eyes. Yet he hides his slightness under voluminous robes and billowing cloaks, hides his narrow shoulders beneath the sharp curves of his mantle--all the more enticing, then, to catch a glimpse of a long, slender leg or arm as he goes about his business. Essek Thelyss turns heads. The fact that he keeps himself closed off to everyone, untouchable, aloof as a cat, only means that there are plenty who'd betray the crown itself to be welcomed into his personal space. It's calculated.
The thing about cats is that despite their reputation, they are needy little things. As effortlessly as he gives the impression to the contrary, Essek has his needs. Picky as he is, there is only a single man who can meet them.
If anyone knew who, that would be gossip fodder for a decade. A good secret to have on hand; compromising enough to account for shifty behavior, but far less dire than treason. These things happen with some frequency among the dens, where consecution can sometimes result in unusual permutations of standard relationships. Still, this sort of closeness between siblings is the sort of thing one is expected to grow out of by their age. But they are both considered young--first lives, only partly into their second centuries. Such youthful foolishness would lead to general finger wagging and some embarassment for the den, but they wouldn't get worse than a slap on the wrist.
Still, Essek would prefer it not come to that. Having to be even more discreet while pretending to distance themselves would be a real pain. Especially when he finally has a reason to keep Verin close at hand.
They kiss, and Essek spreads his legs as he whimpers encouragingly against Verin's mouth. He buries his hands in his brother's long, loose hair as Verin's fingers comb through his own--much shorter, but the motion still sends a frission of excitement down his spine.
"You are not going anywhere now," Essek declares in a low, fierce whisper. "You are mine. I am keeping you."
When they kiss again, deeper, he sucks on Verin's tongue, scrapes his lower lip with his sharp teeth. His lip color may or may not be holding up. Barely needing to lift from the bed, his thighs find a natural position squeezing Verin's waist. Everything about the way Essek draws his brother in is deeply, unabashedly possessive.
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Verin feels a tremble deep in his chest when Essek whispers that he is going to keep him. That Verin is his. What more does he need when that is true? Especially now, when so much of the life he's built is shattered and scattered across the Barbed Fields, when he knows that those he has put his faith in have utterly abandoned reason and any sense of compassion for those that serve them. The institutions he has served his entire life have failed to do what he believed they were meant to.
But Essek is here, holding him with a sharply possessive tone that has always made Verin feel like he could keep going. If Essek is here, in his life, then there is still light in it. Verin has been his nearly since birth. Why should any of that have changed as they grew older and closer?
He meets the next kiss, slick and sharp as Essek bites his lip. Verin reaches down to catch a bare thigh and gives a firm roll of his hips, as if Essek needed any reminder of the strength in his brother's body.
"I have always been yours," he whispers as heat suffuses his body, pooling low between his hips.
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"I know," Essek whispers. The silky lilt of his voice manages to be both soothing and provocative as their lips brush and his fingers twist firmly into his brother's hair. "I know you have, my love."
He drags his other hand down from Verin's jaw, down his throat to where his robe parts over his sturdy chest. He slips it inside to feel the warmth of his bare skin, the thump of his heart beneath, slipping his robe open as he goes.
"I remember how sweet you used to be for me when we both still lived at the main house," he whispers. "How you would sneak into my bed already hard from thinking of me, and I would have to cover your mouth while I rode you or sucked you or you'd have woken the whole wing." Before Verin had anyone else. Before he left to live in the barracks and learned to be quiet. Before Essek was granted these towers. Darkened lips curling, he teases, "You were so needy sometimes, little brother. Perhaps I spoiled you a bit. You knew that I would always take care of you if you told me how much you loved me."
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"I would have loved you anyway," he murmurs, meeting his brother's gaze. He dearly wants Essek to hear and believe that: Verin loves him for no other reason than that he is Essek. That is how Verin has always loved him. And maybe Essek did spoil him, but he cannot regret it.
His hand strokes over Essek's thigh and just feeling his brother's soft, warm skin beneath his palm is enough to make him burn with desire. Verin presses another firm kiss to Essek's lips before coaxing them apart for a better taste.
"There is no need for me to be quiet now," he says, voice lower and warmer.
Essek's towers are his own, and Verin didn't notice any other occupants - no students, no supplicants, no secretaries - on their way through. Granted, he hadn't been inclined to look particularly hard for anything when Essek brought him here from the Lucid Bastion. Verin shifts, releasing Essek's thigh long enough to slip his arm out of the sleeve of his robe. He leaves it to hang and his hand runs up Essek's thigh until he finds the hem of his brother's smalls. His fingers curl and he drags them down as far as he can, very aware that he'll have to move if he wants to get them off properly. But it's the gesture that's important for now.
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He makes a soft, wanting noise against Verin's mouth when he kisses him again, which becomes a throatier moan as his tongue sweeps past his lips. The more Verin kisses him, touches him, presses him down into his bed with less clothing between them, the wilder Essek feels.
"No. This is my home. We are alone here," he confirms breathlessly, violet eyes intent and growing darker as his pupils expand. The perfectly applied dark purple paint on his lips has started to smudge at the edges of his mouth. "I want to hear you."
Both hands slide down as Verin slips one arm free from his robe, nails raking lightly down his bared chest more for sensation than pain. He's so beautiful with his pale hair falling all around his handsome face, his broad shoulders, his strong arms and scarred chest--his rough hands stroking up Essek's soft, untouched legs until they reach his smalls and slide them halfway down his thighs. Essek shivers as the delicate silk catches against and then rubs over the sensitive head of his very hard cock, leaving him aroused and exposed in a way that makes him absolutely dizzy with desire. He visibly struggles with the urge to either cover himself with a robe too short and disheveled and sheer, or spread his legs wider, neither of which he can currently accomplish.
"How will you have me tonight, Verin?" he coaxes, sultry with an underlying edge of almost reckless urgency. "Tell me."
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He would argue that Essek is even more demanding when he has what he wants.
His fingers tighten in Essek's hair and Verin kisses him again as he gives another firm thrust of his hips, dragging his heavy, full cock against the place where Essek's hip meets his thigh. Light, he has missed everything about Essek, including the places where his body is softer than Verin's.
"In every way you'll let me," he whispers as his lips brush across Essek's cheek to his ear. He can feel the familiar jewelry beneath his lips, but he is far more interested in the bare spaces he finds. His brother is always so covered; no one sees him the way Verin does.
"Let me feel you beneath me first," he says, still soft and for Essek alone. Verin lifts his head so that he can see Essek's face. He can't imagine Essek agreeing to something he doesn't want - even for him - but he wants to be sure all the same.
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Verin is heavy and strong, and if Essek did not want to be beneath him he could reverse gravity with little more than a succinct gesture. But he does. In fact, it is exactly where he wants to be, legs pathetically bound by his own half pulled down smalls and unable to budge more than an inch or two in any way without the aid of dunamancy. Verin's warm lips and hot breath find his ear in a bright frission of sensation, and as it tingles down his spine, he whines and writhes uselessly. It's delicious.
"Yes," he agrees in a breathless whisper, sharp with certainty. His fingers flex, curling into fists against his brother's chest. It's a gesture that could crush a man if accompanied by the right words and intent. His skin feels hot everywhere, and he knows his face must be deeply flushed as Verin looks down at him. Their eyes meet, and Essek licks his slightly smeared lips as his heart skips in his chest.
It certainly isn't only for Verin's sake, this agreement--Essek craves it just as much. But surely Verin must know that his doting older brother would let him have him in every way he might want him.
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"I have missed you," he whispers, knowing that it has already been said and repeating it anyway. He will say it until he no longer feels it. He kisses Essek again as he rubs the wet head of his cock against the backs of his brother's thighs. He knows where the oil is and it wouldn't be difficult to reach for it now, but he doesn't want to spare a hand to do it.
"At night I would think of you here in your soft bed and wonder if you thought of me." His voice is heavy but still soft, and it would be tender if not for the way that Verin is rutting against the soft curve of his brother's ass. He doesn't begrudge Essek the comfort of Rosohna, especially when he knows that it has not always been comfortable for his brother here. Even if Essek's rise was meteoric, Verin knows better than to think it was easy.
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Grasping the sheets, he makes a weak noise against Verin's mouth as he feels his hard cock leaving a wet trail of precome against the backs of his thighs. His blush deepens, if that is possible. Light, when his brother gets into these moods, all his years of intimate experience with Verin seem to evaporate at once, leaving Essek flustered, embarrassingly eager, but utterly devoid of his usual easy authority. He's utterly wrong-footed--but at least he is with the only person who could possibly make him enjoy that.
His brother grinds against him, and Essek's brow knits up as he bites his lower lip, a sharp eyetooth catching and holding. He swallows hard, trying to collect his thoughts enough to respond. Overheated as he is, words are suddenly as ephemeral as steam. His own erection is nestled nicely against his legs, and if he just shifted his hips a little, he's sure he could generate some friction for himself. But he doesn't know if he wants to appear quite so desperate as that just yet, even if he's quickly beginning to feel that way.
He thinks Verin is probably going to fuck his thighs anyway, which he'd half expected since he chose this particular robe. He's always had a thing for his legs.
"Constantly," he admits finally, dangling that tantalizing morsel of an image in front of his brother with the few words he can currently muster. "I've missed you too."
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Verin keeps his brother's smalls twisted around his hand, apparently intent on keeping him like this for a little while at least. Heat suffuses him and Verin sighs, nuzzling into Essek's soft hair. He doesn't mean to be rough, but he wouldn't let it escape like this if he had even an inkling that Essek didn't like it. No, he's very certain that his brother's gasping and writhing beneath him is because Verin has surprised him. It doesn't happen often. He hopes Essek will forgive him for taking advantage since it has.
He shifts his weight back onto his knees so that he has another hand free. He's more gentle as he pulls Essek's robe out of the way - not off, but down to expose a slender shoulder. He leans down to kiss it, far more reverent than the way he's indulging himself with rutting against Essek's thighs. Verin hadn't known what he was going to do until he did it, but being intuitive serves him well.
"Whoever might have warmed my bed in Bazzoxan, I could never love them as I love you."
Maybe it's cruel to mention them, to risk making Essek jealous. Verin's breath catches quietly and he focuses on the way his body feels rather than the fleeting thought of past lovers, some of whom may no longer be alive. Essek is warm and vibrant and living and here beneath him, whispering that he has missed Verin. What else could possibly matter in this moment?
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It is good that such a simple task requires little concentration, because Verin lavishes him with attention that makes Essek gasp and sigh, nuzzling close and slipping his robe from his shoulder to kiss sensually along the revealed skin. Both are in direct contrast to the rough, crude way he's handling him, pinning him in place and rutting against his thighs. But Light, Essek is enjoying every bit of this--even including the immediate flare of jealousy, which serves to enhance everything else he's feeling.
Essek prefers not to hear about his brother's other lovers. He knows that they exist, and that is all he cares to know. He is a selfish creature by nature, and he would keep his brother to himself if he could. But he would hate to forbid Verin from anything that makes him happy, especially in Bazzoxan. And he is vindicated in knowing at least that what Verin says now is true--he's never loved any of them as he loves Essek.
Still, he snarls, "Do not talk about them in my bed." Verin likes it when he bares his teeth, when he gets jealous and possessive and bossy. He must. Why else would he bring it up as frequently as he does?
The crystal bottle nudges Verin's arm somewhat impatiently where it hovers in the air. He can get to using it now, however he intends to. Essek is into this assertiveness--this play at dominance, even. In the strict context of Verin's desire, he likes that he's been overpowered.
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Verin is tempted to tell Essek to use the oil on himself. He has his lithe brother pinned down with his smalls holding his legs closed, the least Verin can do is this. He trusts the bottle to stay where it is as he opens it with his free hand and tips it enough to spill a generous amount into his palm. He leans over Essek again, kissing and then gently biting his shoulder. The pressure is light, only to give him the sensation rather than pain.
His slick hand slips inelegantly between Essek's thighs, spreading oil there generously. Impatient, Verin's cock soon follows. He pushes into the tight space there with a heavy exhale, the relief of the warmth not as good as being buried inside Essek, but he'll get there.
"You have been using this often, I see. How long has it been?" A crude thing to ask, maybe, but the reason should be clear enough as Verin's oiled fingertips slide between Essek's cheeks to rub gently over his hole. Light, he has missed every inch of his brother, and Verin intends to make that clear. "How long since you last filled yourself and thought of me, dearest heart?"
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