#they're just gonna go be cute roommates and hide in port damali and lay low for a while! everything's fine!

[essektheylyss]

How about a "wearing their lover’s clothes" one, though going out of intent here: mayhaps Essek wearing something of Caleb's because Essek's wardrobe is a little oh-so-conspicious? 👀

this turned into a bit of Fjord friendship but I could not imagine you would mind lol.

This bedroom of the building Fjord has rented for them all to lay low for a while is smaller even than the one he had occupied at the outpost, and a far cry from the cool, dim room of his own now-empty home, but the ocean breeze that meanders lazily through the open balcony doors makes the summer’s heat almost bearable, and the linen curtains that it catches on shade the room from the harshest of the morning sun.

“You should change,” comes the whisper at his back, as he peers through the curtain into the narrow side street below, as bare arms snake around his waist, and he leans back into Caleb’s chest, humming softly and letting his eyes close for a moment.

“Into what? I have nothing here besides what I had with me in Aeor, and none of it is suited for the Menagerie Coast.” He has already shed his fur-lined cloak and mantle, and Caleb fumbles with the clasp of his outer robe, leaving him only in his base layer, and he is reminded again of how different the Coast is from where he has just left, where even one layer of wool is too warm.

“Jester is already planning a shopping trip, but you cannot wear this.” He tugs at the thick sweater that Essek still has not shed. He has abandoned a lot today, and he is not excited to lay himself wholly bare here, a final rejection of everything he has just left.

While he retains the clothing he wore before their hasty and unannounced teleport out of the outpost, he can pretend like maybe if he cast a spell, he could return, that things would be the way they were, even though he knows it’s not true.

Caleb’s arms wrap tighter around him, and he shivers as lips press into his hair. He has to wonder how a part of him can even consider that the way things were was preferable to this.

He pulls the sweater over his head and drops it with the other lined, heavy clothes he has shed. “And what do you propose I wear instead?” he asks, crossing his arms over his now bare chest and turning to face Caleb, who raises an eyebrow.

“Well, I thought you may want to borrow something of mine.”

Essek slouches just a bit to stare up at him, emphasizing the sizable height difference between them. “I don’t think your clothes will fit.”

“My shirts will be a bit large, but they’ll be fine.”

“I can’t exactly forgo trousers.”

“No, I suppose not.” Caleb grins wickedly, and Essek momentarily considers kissing him to wipe the smirk off his face. “I bet I know someone who could alter a pair of pants, though.” He pulls a copper wire from his pocket and speaks into it. “Fjord, we could use some assistance, if you have sewing supplies somewhere in your tool kit easily accessible.”

Essek blinks. “Fjord?”

“Of course.” Caleb lets go of him and turns to the bed to rummage through his things, unceremoniously dumped there an hour earlier by Fjord himself as he had distributed the contents of their recently-retrieved bag of holding. “He says he’ll be right up.” He holds up some well-worn brown trousers, and offers them to Essek. “How about these?”

“Anything is fine.”

Caleb grins again at his resigned voice as a knock echoes on the door, and Fjord pokes his head inside. He raises an eyebrow as his eyes find Essek, taking a seat on a chest at the end of the bed, and Caleb, still sorting through clothing, both shirtless. “Can I help you? Tell me you have a favor to ask that will get me out of this shopping trip.”

Essek barks a laugh. “It is quite optimistic of you to think your girlfriend will allow that.”

“Essek has nothing to wear, so I thought I’d lend him something of mine, but he is of course, ah—“

“Short,” Essek offers, deadpan, and Fjord laughs this time.

“Well, you’ll have to put the pants on for me to fit them, but yes, I can make that happen.”

He sits on the edge of the bed and unfolds a small leather-wrapped sewing kit, setting pins on the nightstand as Essek awkwardly shuffles to Caleb, where he is at least somewhat out of Fjord’s view as he changes. The pants that Caleb offered are at least six inches too long, and a bit large in the waist, but admittedly less ill-fitted than he’d expected.

Fjord beckons him over and pins the hem, and Essek stands perfectly still for several minutes in silence. He is familiar with getting fitted for clothing, but he is not particularly comfortable when it’s a friend doing the fitting.

“This is the quick and dirty method, and you are, somehow, not nearly as disproportionately skinny as your boyfriend, so I’m not going to bother much with the waist,” he says. Essek flushes further at that, and Caleb coughs behind him. “It will be a bit of a shit job, but it’ll work well enough for an afternoon. If you are attached to this pair of pants for whatever reason, I can do it properly tomorrow, but Jester threatened to start baking if she does not get out of this building within an hour, and then the entire day will be lost.”

“Is there anything here to bake with?”

“Yeza and Veth already returned with their groceries, so I imagine she will go knocking for some flour soon enough.” Fjord pulls back. “Okay, you can take them off now.”

Glad of the warmth, Essek flushes and strips the pinned trousers carefully to avoid getting stabbed. He puts his own pants back on in the meantime, even with as hot as they are, and Fjord gets to work.

“Where did you learn to sew?” he asks, taking a seat on the bed and helping Caleb organize the pile there, keeping an eye on Fjord’s deft stitching.

“Fjord was a sailor,” Caleb pipes up, but Fjord shakes his head, barely glancing up.

“It was certainly a useful skill on a ship, kept me in the good graces of whatever crew I happened to be a part of, but I learned to sew at the orphanage. Otherwise I wasn’t going to have much in the way of clothes, as fast as I grew as a child.”

“Orphanage?” Essek blinks. “I don’t think I knew that.”

“No, I don’t believe you did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not something I speak of often. It’s not far from here, actually.” He speaks around a few pins in his mouth easily. “Caleb, these are very worn out. They’re going to need a patch on the knee soon enough.”

“Ah, yes, they are… they’re the first pair I stole after I escaped.”

Fjord raises an eye at the pair of them, landing on Essek, who fidgets again.

Caleb changes the subject by tossing a thin linen shirt to Essek. It buttons halfway down, without much in the way of a collar, and he pulls it over his head. Already it’s an improvement over the wool he has abandoned on the floor, and he stands to collect it and fold it and tuck it away in the chest, where he wonders if he will need it again. Already it feels like a shoddy disguise, a costume he put on trying to be someone.

Wearing Caleb’s clothes, it doesn’t feel like he has quite settled into someone else, but it’s a step closer to someone he wants to be, without all the constraints of the life he has shed.

What little he carries by way of possessions put away in the small closet, which Essek imagines they will later magick to accommodate a bit more space, Caleb settles beside him on the bed and fixes one button that has not been pulled all the way through.

“You look good in my clothes,” he comments softly, and Fjord makes a derisive retching sound in his throat without looking up.

“If you want my assistance, please wait until I have finished and left, thank you. I’ve third wheeled Beau and Yasha too many damn times—“

“Alright,” Caleb says, laughing. The heat of this city in midsummer is stupefying, and the shift in weather—in life, really—has been quite a lot for just one day. Essek rests his head in Caleb’s lap, fingers threading through his hair, and exhales.

“How long do you think that’ll take?” he asks, his voice already thick with sleep, and Fjord glances at him.

“Maybe another half an hour,” he says, and if he wants to make another teasing comment, he hides it well.

“Okay,” he yawns. He weaves his hands around Caleb’s shin, and lets his eyes close. They have time, of course. He can rest for a few minutes while Fjord completes this sewing, while Caleb combs through his hair, while the breeze from outside pulls the fear from him with every new breath. “Wake me then.”