Fic first sentence: “Oh, but I do have ways of making you talk.”
“Oh, but I do have ways of making you talk,” Essek says - slurs, maybe, and he is really starting to regret that last glass of wine.
On the other end of the settee, Caleb’s eyebrows shoot up. “Is that so, Shadowhand?”
He doesn’t look to be particularly sober himself, his empty glass dangling from clever fingertips, and Essek can’t completely withold the way his face flushes hearing his title wrapped in exaggerated Zemnian severity. “I - I hear things,” he presses on. “The way the others tease you about - your ribs, was it? Your feet?”
Caleb blinks slowly - his face is flushed with drink to the point where Essek can’t really tell if he’s blushing, but he certainly doesn’t look displeased as he places his glass down with studious care and leans back, splaying his arms just wide enough to be considered an invitation. “And you think you could break me, with this?”
There’s no good reason to edge over into Caleb’s personal space and crowd his fingers up against reportedly ticklish ribs - and yet here Essek is, drunkenly navigating the foot of space between them and pulling his legs up beneath himself to fit more easily against Caleb’s side. “I certainly think it would be interesting to try, don’t - hhhm -”
Caleb looks innocently up from where he’s moved to catch Essek around his own ribcage - and then he smiles, and there’s nothing innocent there at all.
“Or perhaps,” he says, warm and dangerous, and Essek can practically feel his breath boiling in his chest, “we might see which one of us will break first, hmm?”
