Work Text:
The Month of Reaping brought the harvest season to Aedes Elysiae. The wheat scattered in the Month of Cultivation absorbed the abundant light from the Month of Everday and, by the Month of Reaping, sat ripe like a golden sea swaying in the wind that offered the briefest reprieve from the harsh sun as Phainon worked the fields.
It was reminiscent of a past that he had revisited many times over; as the dark shadow looming over the inevitable end of peaceful days and the one to claw himself from the ashes of a home burned away to nothing but memory. The routine of village life hadn’t changed since he was a boy: the villagers flocked together in the early hours of morning, when the sun brought light without an oppressive heat, and shared food and liquor to make the coming day of hard labour more bearable.
The main difference that spoke of the present than the past was the scythe in his hands. Out of the many blades he had wielded, until one melded into an eroded extension of his corroded body, a scythe was rarely one of them. He had been too young back then to take one in hand for more than a few swings without exhausting himself, let alone fell wheat with the same ease he would come to fell his enemies and former allies.
Now that he was taller and broader, having shed the trailing ends of his youth in his time away from home, it was his responsibility to swing the blade low to the earth and sever the wheat stalks while Hieronymus followed behind, gathering and tying them into sheaves so they could be arranged into shooks to dry beneath the sun.
It was an arduous process that required many hands to make light work so Phainon had taken a leave of absence from Okhema—not that there was much work for him to do in the small, tranquil eternity promised by the Eternal Page, waiting to turn towards the next page of tomorrow—and returned to his hometown for the first time since Amphoreus had been impressed upon the pages of a book that saved them from oblivion.
“You’re slowing down,” a voice called from beside him, low with effort and a taunt. “Exhausted already?”
In the time it had taken the sun to rise higher and blaze down upon them, their combined efforts had cut deep into the wheat fields. The others were left far behind by a pace of heavy swings, made light by their sturdy frames, that outstripped even Aedes Elysiae’s most experienced farmers.
Yet Phainon chuckled and nearly knocked the woven straw hat from his head as he swiped at his brow with his bare forearm. “You think so little of me, Mydei?”
Scythe in hand and sun hat shadowing his bright hair and eyes, Mydei swung a smooth but powerful arc through the wheat with the same precision he knocked a sparring partner’s feet from under them. “How else am I supposed to take your actions? You’ve fallen three steps behind.”
He hadn’t noticed his pace slow but he measured the distance between their opened paths. About three steps. Maybe two if he pushed it.
“You’re exaggerating.” Phainon’s scythe fell in another controlled sweep. “I would say it’s closer to two steps. Maybe one and a half.”
Mydei snorted but wasn’t distracted from his steady pace, carrying his momentum back and forth with each swing, step, swing while Phainon had to recover his own. He was surprisingly good at this. At this point, he was certain Mydei qualified as an expert in every weapon known on Amphoreus and the scythe was just another blade—almost a kind of spear if he squinted: a sharp metal edge at the end of a pole—but he hadn’t expected Mydei to be so familiar with farmwork.
He was a warrior and a prince, a demigod and a king, who belonged in smoky battlefields and vast wildlands, in bustling cities and elaborate council chambers. Not in a corner of the world where the boundless sea met a small wheat farming village.
There was dirt smeared along his cheek and wheat tangled in his equally golden hair but Mydei didn’t merely endure this task Phainon had invited him on without much thought: a small smile played along the corner of his lips as he worked the land. It was almost a trick of the sunlight and shadow, mimicking the subtle expressions that were always so difficult to grasp from Mydei’s stoic demeanour as effective as any shield at deflecting Phainon’s hopes to see beyond the armour, but the smile remained no matter how Phainon searched for the fault line that would give the trick away.
The same as all other tasks Mydei had faced with the determination to overcome, he committed himself to felling the wheat with an unwavering diligence and accuracy that wrinkled his nose and sweaty brow in concentration. Only once they reached the end of their designated section and they rested in the shade of an autumnal tree did his demeanour relax with the satisfaction of a job well done.
Phainon waved a water skin at him and he took it with a terse nod before bringing it to his lips. Phainon rested his cheek against his knuckles and watched the strong arch of Mydei’s neck as he tipped his head back and his throat bobbed around each swallow.
He made quite a sight with the sun hat tied loosely at the back of his head and fallen from his dishevelled hair, skin reddened from exertion and sun as it glistened with perspiration that made his stark markings glow against his short white chiton. He was bare of weapons and armour that distinguished him as a warrior amongst the ordinary citizens he moved through like a lion in a flock of sheep he had chosen to protect from slaughter. Even his heavy jewellery that denoted his status as a prince sat abandoned in his parents’ home for the day, from his earring to his armlet and striking necklace.
“So,” Phainon began as Mydei passed back the water skin and he swirled it with a loose wrist, “does your skin burn or simply shrug off the sun’s glares like any other wound?”
Mydei glanced at his reddened shoulders left exposed by his chiton. “It should heal on its own.”
Phainon slowly sipped his water lest the refreshing taste trigger the urge to gulp it down so fast it left himbsick like he was still a feckless child. “Should?”
The sunlight through the leaves dappled his face, his chiton, and every swathe of bare skin as he leaned against the tree trunk at his back and gazed through swaying branches.
He shrugged. “Who knows what’s changed.”
So nonchalant and unbothered about an immortality, a body tempered by death until it became too much for even the Hand of Shadow to grasp, that had been his crux and salvation many times over. That should have lasted him many more encounters if only he had kept that weakness silent or entrusted it to anyone else. But for that distant possibility to have become reality, he would have been someone other than Mydei who had met someone other than Phainon.
Phainon took another long sip, watching the sunlight illuminate Mydei’s eyes and shift like it did over the wheat when it swayed in the gentle breeze. Such vivid golds and reds had stunned him upon their many first meetings because they reminded him of this, excavating from his heart the image of home’s sturdy trees that marked the seasons with verdant greens and reds above the abundant fields as resplendent as any precious gold. As though Aedes Elysiae was made to be Mydei’s home too.
“How fortunate for you. Me on the other hand, I burn a bit too easily for someone who grew up in these fields. My shoulders and nose become spotted by the sun.”
Although, maybe that had changed. He had blazed brighter and hotter for far longer than any sun. The fury of innumerable Coreflames had charred him from the inside out in a slow cremation that began at the heart and spread outwards to devour him in the unquenchable, insatiable fires of Destruction. In a flawed vessel cracked open and crumbling with every step on his endless journey, the sun overhead was as meaningless as the rest of the world that existed to be prolonged, destroyed and remade by him as something that no longer belonged.
Yet he had been returned to the flawless being of before. Before everything. His skin no longer pulled and flaked and tore so, perhaps, it was capable of being burnt by something other than himself. Somehow, it made him breathe a quiet laugh through his nose and bump his head back against the rough tree bark. Where his skin met the short sleeves of his tunic had already begun to itch.
“I look forward to seeing that,” Mydei said with a bemused quirk to his lip, skimming from Phainon’s face to his ears and shoulders.
“Don’t sound so eager to see me suffer. I might get the wrong idea,” he retorted.
“That would be down to your own faults rather than my actions.”
Phainon placed a hand to his chest like a heartbroken maiden upon the theatre stage. “You wound me. You truly have no love for me at all.”
Mydei clicked his tongue. “Now you resort to slander.”
A hand struck too fast for Phainon to dodge but, rather than smack the dishonest words from his mouth, it looped around the back of his nape and tugged him downwards. Inwards. Closer as they swayed together and Mydei pulled Phainon into a kiss.
Despite the long hours in the sun, Mydei’s lips were still soft where they gently moved against Phainon’s own left dry and cracked. For the first time in the long eternity Phainon had known him and been permitted close enough to smell him, touch and taste him, there was no metal in the scant air between them. Just the warm, ripe earth. It was everywhere. When he grasped Mydei’s bare shoulder to keep them close. When he dragged his tongue along the seam of Mydei’s mouth. When they parted just enough to tip their foreheads together and breathe.
Phainon kept his eyes closed, their noses brushing together. “Is that your ploy to silence me?”
“If it was, it clearly wasn’t very effective,” Mydei retorted but even the imitation of a sharp edge had been dulled, softened by the warmth simmering between them, drifting from the sun above and rising from the earth below. “Perhaps the next attempt will be.”
“Perhaps.”
Another kiss. Another and another. Shared in the seemingly endless wheatfields, hands still raw from the scythe when he cupped Mydei’s cheeks and dry lips splitting from the autumn heat and pressure of Mydei’s mouth moving lazily against him. Phainon tasted the earth, the salt of sweat and the fish that had accompanied their bread that morning, the sweetness of the apples that had been their mid-morning snack. But he ensured they didn’t go any further.
Unfortunately they couldn't remain idle in each other’s company forever. There was always more work to be done in a farming village and they were the fittest for the majority of the tasks, from reaping today’s harvest to threshing the harvest from a few days ago that had been left to dry. Beside the hearty midday meal when the sun truly scorched, they were kept occupied from sunrise to sunset.
Yet, once the night brought rest to the day’s activities, Phainon was still unable to settle. His muscles ached with exhaustion from hard labour more taxing than the most arduous training regimens and sparring sessions. His stomach was full from the light dinner Audata had prepared for them. His skin was warm and damp from their small but steaming bath.
Rather than sleep in his childhood home that was limited to the living quarters and a storage room, his parents had spent his many months away constructing a small home off the main house in preparation for his return. They likely hadn't expected him to bring company on his first visit home but he and Mydei had camped in tighter quarters. The one room was large enough to store their belongings and lay out two sleeping cots by the small fire—unlit since the summer nights were warm enough without it, especially with the two of them side-by-side—where Mydei knelt to fluff the pillows his parents had provided them.
He had packed one sleeping chiton that could be considered decent and immediately forgone it once he realised they would be resting in private. His preferred chiton was near scandalous in length, both at the bottom hem and the neckline, and Phainon had questioned in the past why Mydei bothered to wear it at all.
Although he followed Kremnoan’s laxity towards clothing and Okhema’s citizens were overly familiar with the sight of his bare torso, he scarcely ever appeared truly exposed for his lack of modesty. His skin and blatant confidence were armour enough. But, in his sleeping garments and his hair completely loose around his shoulders, he appeared soft. Like a graze of Phainon’s fingertips would be enough for him to disappear into steam, into ash, into starlight beyond his grasp.
“Mydei,” he said and he hummed in acknowledgement but kept fussing over the bedding for the third night in a row. “Want to go on a walk?”
That drew his eye, heavy with fatigue and quiet contentment but keenly aware when they scrutinised Phainon’s expression. He didn’t know what face he was making but he let Mydei see it anyway while he awaited an answer.
Mydei shrugged. “Let’s go.”
Another benefit of their small, separate residence was the freedom to come and go. It wasn’t one they had used much until now—there weren’t many places to go nor time to do so when they were busy with the working day. The entire village rose and slumbered at the same hours to prepare—but it was nice not to trouble his parents nor Snowy when they slipped on their sandals and headed out into the tall fields.
Mydei didn’t question where they were going. He simply held Phainon’s hands and wandered with him through the wheat and beneath the stars.
“I used to hide here,” Phainon explained as he sat down on a hilltop overlooking the village darkened for slumber. He sheepishly chuckled and scratched his cheek, “when I didn’t want to work.”
Mydei laughed with a shake of his head and allowed himself to be led down into the wheat stalks. “A little late for that.”
He laughed again, so free and easy it was like he had never forgotten how to make such a sound. “Not if we hide out here until tomorrow evening.”
The night sky was clear of clouds warning of an oncoming storm and the wind was warm. They had slept in thin tents lashed with rain and the hard floors of dilapidated temples; this was closer to the luxuries of a plush kline and silk blankets than the unfortunate turns of their expeditions. Besides, any difficulties were irrelevant under such a beautiful view.
Amphoreus’ moons and stars were so bright, like the most dazzling wishes that had finally reached beyond the sky and been heard in the heart of the hero that could make them come true.
“You’re too pious to shirk your responsibilities,” Mydei seriously rebutted his suggestion given in jest.
Phainon hummed and rolled his head towards his companion, Mydei’s hands threaded behind his head turned skywards. The starlight dipped beneath the surface of his skin, his eyes, and swirled them through with cool hues that, the same as the dappled sunlight and low firelight, dulled the edges of his proud features.
“And what about you? I didn’t take you for someone so familiar with this type of work.”
Mydei’s nose wrinkled and moonlight pooled in the creases. “Don’t make it sound indecent.”
“My mistake,” he airily replied and Mydei loosed a look from the corner of his eye that was almost a glare if he bothered to add any heat to his judgement.
“What’s so shocking about it?” he said. “Life can’t survive without sustenance, much less thrive.”
Phainon rolled onto his side, balancing half upright on his arm to gaze down at Mydei without masking his surprise “So you are familiar with farm life.”
From birth to death, Kremnos organised around battle, war, Strife and its citizens weren’t permitted to pursue occupations outside of the military. They had to rely on conquest, hunting and gathering, and tribute paid by non-citizens in its territories.
“There were occasions I worked the earth.” He closed his eyes in reminiscence, breathing memories into the autumn air. “When a plague rendered a cluster of farming villages without sufficient manpower to guarantee a decent harvest Kremnos deployed its warriors to make up the shortfall. In exile, trading labour for food or other supplies was a crucial part of our survival.”
He had never considered it that way. For some reason, Mydei had been above this kind of ordinary toil; his efforts were better reserved for the blood and dust of the battlefield rather than the farmlands. Yet Mydei, the young filial prince and the prince in exile, had tilled the earth, sown its seeds and reaped its harvest. Perhaps they had been similar ages when they first picked up a scythe.
“Do you enjoy it?”
“It’s satisfying work. I have no complaints.”
A young Mydei, raised as the son of a farmer instead of a king—he probably would have enjoyed that. A peaceful life where people endeavoured to thrive alongside the earth rather than take from others in bloodshed and glory. Would Mydei have looked beyond the fields and forests and longed for a life of more, of swords and battles, of honour and riches, of monsters and heroes, or would he have been content to live and die by the seasons that didn’t signal the ebb and flow of war but merely the currents and crops?
If Mydei had been here would Phainon have been content too? Or would he have been enamoured with the wider world and dragged Mydei along with him? Would they have spent their days playing in the wheatfields and their nights lying in them to make wishes for peace or for glory?
Not that it mattered much anymore.
“So you don’t think your time would have been better spent in Castrum Kremnos or Okhema or even the Grove?” Phainon asked with boldness rather than the timidity that threatened to make his question quake.
After all, he had only asked Mydei to accompany him home on a whim. A mistake really. He had mentioned he would be away from their usual haunts for a while and, when asked where he was off to, he had mentioned that the seasonal hues of his hometown reminded him of Mydei, if he ever wished to see them. Mydei had accepted his not-quite-invitation and left to pack some belongings before Phainon could even comprehend what had happened.
Mydei peeked an eye open and a smile crooked his lips. “I have no regrets.”
Phainon smiled and it felt too small for the joy that made his heart swell so high it almost soared away from him. “I’m glad.”
Even if he belonged in Okhema, or even Castrum Kremnos or some far away corner of the universe, a part of his heart would always belong to Aedes Elysiae. The place that had made and remade him; let him dream of heroes and happy endings. Of course Mydei slotted into that space in the way Phainon had desired so secretly it was hidden from even his own distorted view of himself and never wished for.
He leaned down and watched Mydei’s eyes crease at the unmistakable move, hand grasping Phainon’s wrist, as he closed the distance for a kiss. Something slow and sweet that spoke of how happy Phainon was that Mydei was here, and was met with Mydei’s own joy in turn.
But the angle of Phainon half-propped up and Mydei reclined flat on the ground was an awkward bend. He stretched a hand over Mydei’s far shoulder and shifted his weight onto his elbows and it was better as Mydei’s hand skimmed up his forearm to grasp his shoulder. Yet they still craned their necks to align their lips, so he threw a leg over Mydei’s waist and only realised his mistake when their fronts rubbed together.
The shock of sensation lurched them apart.
Heat burst across Phainon’s cheeks, warmer than hours under the relentless sun. “S-sorry.”
“Save your apologies,” Mydei said, stern despite the colour at the tips of his ears, exposed by his disheveled hair spread around him, blending with the wheat stalks.
He nodded and his shadow bobbed across Mydei’s high forehead revealed by his swept bangs. “All right. I’ll just…”
He moved to extricate himself but Mydei’s hand on his shoulder tightened and another grasped his arm about to push away from the earth. The pleased glow upon his features had dimmed and the shrewd edge had returned, bringing suspicion with it.
“We’ve laid together many times in the past,” Mydei said bluntly.
Phainon chuckled and hoped the mirth covered his nerves that came from Mydei striking with unerring precision. “And there’s a much more comfortable cot for us to lay in at home,” he responded obtusely.
Mydei’s hand left his arm to pinch his chin, fingers bare but they may as well have been razor sharp as he was forced to meet Mydei’s gaze, focused and intent; the face of a warrior seeking his enemy’s weakness. “The look of the fool doesn’t suit you. No matter how many times you choose to wear it.”
Mydei had always been one of his weaknesses.
His mouth parted; soundless before it closed again without spewing any of his foolish diversions. “So you noticed.”
Mydei stared, unimpressed. “It’s hard to miss your refusal to go as far as heavy petting. It’s a bold change from your past enthusiasm.”
It had always been difficult to keep his hands off Mydei once he realised they were allowed to be on him. For the sake of their reputations, he rarely crossed the boundaries of public indecency but, once they fell into bed with each other, his time management skills certainly suffered.
“Well…” The heat spread down his neck into his chest, heart flustered and showing poorly on his face that, despite his best efforts, never managed to hide much from Mydei. He laughed again and it was even more pitiful than before. “Do you… want to?”
”Yes,” Mydei answered at once, free from Phainon’s hesitation. “And you?”
He startled at a question with such an obvious answer yet Mydei’s expression was genuine, puzzled but sincere in the face of a difficult problem he wanted to solve. Phainon vigorously nodded. “Yes. Yes. Of course.”
That was never up for debate. Although, considering his behaviour in the many months since the Eternal Page was written into its liminal existence, and them along with it, it wasn’t the outrageous question it would have been in any of the lifetimes that had passed before this one.
“Then where does this restraint—” Mydei’s nose wrinkled at the word he had, admittedly for good reason, never before associated with Phainon’s sexual proclivities directed at Mydei, “—come from?”
It was a question Phainon didn’t have a good answer to and he ducked his head, averting his eye down and away, but Mydei’s hold tightened on his chin and pulled him back into a gaze seeking to understand. Even after so long, so many first encounters and tangled emotions and resolutions that continued to sit heavy in his chest where innumerable suns threatened to burn away at them, he still didn’t know what was worth seeing.
Everything was a mess in there: his head that had been cracked open to let his thoughts drifted away from him in wisps of smoke, his heart gouged open to harbour nothing but hatred and Destruction, his body that still didn’t feel like his own but a vessel for something he had tried and failed to burn away into ashes. Phainon was a mess and he always had been, yet Mydei wanted to take the amiable mask of someone unknowable but lovable for it and peer at the knots, twists and frayed ends underneath.
“I…” The words lodged in his throat, a misshapen, protruding lump that refused to be swallowed nor spoken.
The hand on his chin skimmed up his cheek, taking his bangs and tucking them behind his ear, as tender as Mydei beneath him. “Tell me.”
“You won't like my answer.”
“Is that for you to decide for me?”
Phainon shook his head, leaning into Mydei’s palm. “I just don’t deserve…”
This. Any of this. This peaceful existence waiting for the true dawn to arrive, languishing the days away in the wheatfields of a home he had brought to ruin. This relationship where he was permitted to hold Mydei, touch him and taste him in ways beyond lonely delusions and dreams. To have him like he hadn’t destroyed him every time without fail.
Mydei’s brows pinched and his lips pursed but his thumb caressed the swell of Phainon’s cheek with tenderness. “I’m not a prize to be won. There’s no honour, glory or riches that you earned. Everything I choose to give you is a gift. If you refuse it, don’t do so under the guise of being unworthy of something that is already yours.”
Heat prickled at Phainon’s eyes as he closed them, nuzzled against Mydei’s hand that continued its gentle touches, and laughed wetly. “Do you only have a way with words when I lose mine? That sounds like common theft to me.”
“Haikas,” Mydei said too gently to be a chastisement. “Then find the words to ask me again.”
He took a slow, shuddering breath and opened his damp eyes that blurred Mydei’s expression, yet he already knew the affection he would find—brighter than the stars, warmer than the rising sun—if only he dared to look. “Mydei, can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
It was salty with tears. They spilled from Phainon’s lashes and dripped down Mydei’s cheeks, wetting their lips that moved together, steady but soft: an apology that faded away as the kiss grew more heated. Yet it remained unhurried as Mydei’s fingers threaded through his hair and Phainon cupped his cheek and their remaining hands tangled together.
When their hips rolled into one another, he gasped into Mydei’s mouth but didn’t pull away. Instead, he bit his lip and rocked into the sensation that elicited another breathy noise before Mydei tugged him back in for a kiss. It was still languid, still sweet from fondness rather than the ripe desire that drove them to rut against each other.
Their garments were thin enough that he could feel Mydei’s heat, his hardness, through the fabric that hardly muted the sensation rising to build in the depths of his stomach. Too quick. Phainon’s hand clutched Mydei’s own as his hips swayed faster, harsher, chasing the sensation he had deprived them both of for so long.
He broke the kiss with a sharp inhale and Mydei lunged to take his lips between his teeth, biting as Phainon moaned and he grappled for Mydei’s hips, grabbing and slotting them even closer for the next thrust.
Their frantic rutting pushed the Mydei’s short chiton up, up, up his thighs but the hem caught on his erection, fabric stretching obscenely over the curve that Phainon could feel against the shapeless bulge in his loose trousers when he ground them together. So close to bare skin if only he shed his trousers and flung Mydei’s chiton up to his stomach. But that required them to part, even just for a moment.
The best he could do was squirm his hands upwards and in through the sides of Mydei’s chiton, hands cupping his defined chest. Mydei’s back arched into the touch and he groaned, wetness beading at the tip of his cock and soaking through the thin fabric, smearing a thin damp line across Phainon’s clothes.
He squeezed at the soft layer of fat until his fingers reached firm muscle and Mydei retaliated with blunt teeth in Phainon’s shoulders, vibrating with a noise that intensified as Phainon found his nipples and pinched. A muffled moan and a jerk of Mydei’s hips that was warmer, wetter, than before and Phainon curled into him, every bit of skin pressed flush, hearts beating together, as he finished with a broken keen.
That was all it had taken: some frotting in the fields like unruly adolescents. It was almost embarrassing. Yet, when Phainon lowered them to lie flat, they both laughed full of disbelief and empty of its weight, letting free airy sounds that were carried off by the wind and scattered like seeds over fertile fields.
Their noses grazed together, breaths mingled, and Phainon murmured, “Let’s go home.”
Mydei’s lip curled. “So soon? The walls are quite thin.”
“So you’re tempting me somewhere there are no walls at all?” Phainon retorted but it made some sense. There were no walls but also no people, certainly not his parents two thin walls away. “And what would we use to take the edge off?”
They both looked at each other, and then downwards.
“Do you think it will be enough?” Phainon asked.
“I can handle it,” Mydei replied, as confident as ever. “I can handle you.”
He breathed a thin laugh and left a chaste kiss on the bow of his mouth. “If you insist.”
The hot night air clung to Phainon’s skin, stickier now that he was warmer, heat sparking in his veins and coalescing as flames licking at his groin while he sat back on his knees. Also awfully sticky was his trousers, darkening on the surface where it grew wet from underneath and he cringed at the chaffing from his slight movements. Despite the gratification from the act, the aftermath was nothing but awkward and uncomfortable.
Mydei on the other hand…
“Are you planning to do anything other than stare?” Mydei scolded, scathing yet it was a flustered heat from the tips of his ears that coloured his words.
Phainon ghosted his fingertip over the knob of Mydei’s knee, curving around to his inner thigh and upwards through the white dripping down and accentuating the muscles. “Just savouring the view for a moment.”
What a view it was. His chiton was soaked through, turning the white fabric translucent where it stretched over Mydei’s softened cock, clinging wet to the skin so tight that the bulbous head, the slight curve to the shaft, even the prominent vein that ran alongside vibrant red markings were practically on full display. As eye-catching as the white mess running from beneath the short hem and down his thighs into the soil. It was a tantalising sight that hid just enough to entice Phainon into the type of lust that brought ruin.
But there was nothing to be ruined anymore. No journey to usurp gods and bring tomorrow. No lifetimes compounding upon lifetimes stalling a final, destructive end in wait of a true dawn. Here, they were two people as irrelevant to the fate of the world as two village boys, two simple farmers, who chose to indulge in each other under the stars—real or fake.
They were no better than inexperienced youths as Phainon scooped up Mydei’s prior release, tugged up his chiton, and tentatively circled the pink furl of muscle. These weren't exactly ideal circumstances—Mydei deserved a plush mattress, soft blankets, and proper oil softly scented in relaxing floral fragrances—but neither of them had the patience to wait for palace chambers in Castrum Kremnos nor resplendent homes in Okhema. Phainon had kept them waiting long enough, months on months, and neither of them wanted to wait any longer.
The last time they had walked side-by-side, they had toed the line between friends, comrades, confidants and more. But they had refused to cross it; too many responsibilities, too many consequences, and circumstances hadn’t pushed them over that boundary the way tragedy and serendipity had intervened many times in the past.
It had been so long, too long, yet Mydei’s body welcomed him. Warm and willing around his finger that slowly, so slowly, pressed its way inside. While Mydei was cloaked in garments of fire and blood, adorned himself in metal to rival his steel body, and his expression was often as unchanging as a marble bust, he was soft in the most surprising of places. His hands, his heart, and here.
Phainon gently crooked his finger and Mydei’s walls gave under the slight pressure, opening and relaxing as Phainon sunk his finger past the final knuckle, hand flush to Mydei’s perineum. Phainon glanced up from the sight and peered through his lashes, searching Mydei’s expression for any signs of discomfort. He was experienced in burying his pain and displeasure but Phainon had dedicated himself to learning how to excavate it from the depths for his eyes only.
So he curled his finger and saw the slight tremor in Mydei’s stomach, his controlled inhale edging on instability, his brows slightly pinched and knew what he had found. What he remembered so pristinely in his flawless memory.
“Here?” Phainon murmured and pressed again, just a little harder.
A quiet gasp left Mydei’s parted lips before he could grit his teeth and that was answer enough. Phainon pumped his finger out and slipped a second finger alongside the first as he pushed back in, Mydei tight around them for the moment it took his body to relax around the unexpected, enlarged intrusion.
Then Phainon scraped against Mydei’s prostrate and he tensed, clutching around Phainon’s fingers, stomach flexing and shoulders curling inwards with a muted noise from his bitten lips.
“Sensitive,” Phainon thoughtlessly murmured to himself. He leaned, curling over Mydei, somewhere between protective and possessive as he nuzzled into Mydei’s chest. “You’re so sensitive, Mydei.”
A body forged for Strife, tempered by war and restraint, but so weak to pleasure.
He scissored his fingers and twisted and Mydei’s lashes lowered, fluttering, as he groaned long and low.
“I don’t need this soft touch,” Mydei insisted with a scowl rendered powerless by the flush in his cheeks and his kiss-swollen lips.
“Maybe,” Phainon acquiesced into his collarbone and skimmed his mouth over Mydei’s chest, tracing the red mark to the sharp tip pointed right at Mydei’s heart, beating right against Phainon's lips. “But I want to give them to you.”
To be gentle. Slow. Soft.
Mydei stared at him, pupils wide and eyes dark but far closer to cosy nights than the frightening depths of a starless evernight, and understood him the way he always had. “All right.”
So Mydei watched with a gaze that melted the longer Phainon worked him open with two fingers, then three, letting him simmer in the heat of his mounting pleasure until gold became molten.
Once he was fully relaxed, Phainon withdrew his fingers and wrapped them around his cock, returned to hardness like Mydei’s own leaking across his stomach and bunched chiton. He stroked himself a few times out of habit more than purpose, as though he had the oil to ease his entry.
The slide was dry and Phainon’s hips paused as the heat enveloping him spasmed, clenching so tight his head dropped between his shoulders and he unleashed a strangled moan. It almost drowned out Mydei beneath him, eyes half-lidded and panting hard through his parted mouth that Phainon descended on with teeth and tongue.
Their tongues slid together as mapped Mydei’s taste, his teeth, his upper palate. A messy and wet distraction from Phainon nudging his way deeper and deeper inside while Mydei opened up for him until their hips bumped together. They parted with a slick sound echoed by Phainon’s moan and Mydei’s grunt.
“Mydei, Mydei, Mydei,” he repeated his name over and over again, mindless and needy but Mydei looped his arms around his neck.
“I’m here,” he said. “You have me. As I have you.”
And he pulled Phainon down for another kiss. Still messy but it was part of the indulgence. Slow and messy, gentle and messy, when they had always needed to be so put together because they weren’t allowed to break.
Now that he was sheathed to the hilt, had Mydei so unbelievably and incomparably tight around him, walls fluttering with his racing heart, his desperation dulled. Phainon slowly withdrew his hips until the tip teased at Mydei’s rim and patiently pressed back inside, savouring the warm embrace that gradually welcomed him bit by bit.
The tension in his stomach coiled tighter with each gentle rock of his hips that met the unhurried sway of Mydei’s body. It was steady, building upon itself and growing but never overwhelming as the pleasure mingled with his blood as seamlessly as air. He needed it, he couldn't survive in its absence, but he knew he would never be without it. All he could feel was Mydei, taste him, smell him, see him with his eyes closed and his hands keeping Phainon so close it was like nothing would ever part them again. Not death. Not fate written in electrical signals and metal wiring.
He rose onto his knees a little, shifting the angle, and a moan broke free from Mydei’s reddened mouth.
“There?” Phainon asked, breathless, and testily rocked into him.
His lips thinned, muffling another sound as Phainon thrust into his prostate with a practiced precision. But this, everything, had never felt so new in this body reforged from the broken remains, the splintered kindling, of the form that had carried him so far before crumbling to ash.
He was sensitive to every little reaction Mydei gave him and Mydei was the same, neck arched and mouth open around a moan and nails digging into Phainon’s back like he never wanted to be apart again. Vulnerable and exposed but not weak for it so long as they were together.
Tremors wracked his thighs, legs unsteady and struggling to maintain his easy movements, and his hands quivered as he grasped Mydei’s arms thrown around his shoulders. He had harboured millions of suns inside him, seared and charred by each and every one that he added in drops of radiant sunlight to the raging fury in his chest, but now he felt warm. Sticky and sweaty in the humid night air but it was the heat of passion rather than hatred, fanned with every harsh huff of breath when they pulled away from one another, sharing air and the lust ignited in their lungs without burning themselves nor each other. It was comfortable. Safe.
He was all too aware of the confines of his body and where it melded with Mydei’s own, beautifully flushed from his cheeks down to his bared throat and glistening with sweat all over. Phainon mouthed at his jaw, adding his own splotches of colour there and feeling Mydei’s groan vibrate alongside his fluttering pulse.
“Close,” he whined and sweat ran down his forehead, stinging his eyes that opened wide and pleading, almost as apologetic as beseeching. “I’m close.”
All the heat, of hedonism and pleasure, had suffused throughout his body down to his fingertips and was on the cusp of cascading back into his core and coalescing into ecstasy.
But Mydei’s hands slip to grasp his own, tattoos along the back of his hand thrumming a muted red as he threaded their fingers together so sweetly. “Wait for me.”
Phainon shuddered but nodded with a deliberate thrust aimed at his prostate. He ground against it and Mydei clenched around him, squeezing out another high moan from Phainon’s parched throat. His every thrust was made precise by the knowledge he had collected through near endless lifetimes. He knew Mydei: the lines and curves of his steel body made soft with the right stimulation, his strengths and his weaknesses, his stoicism that masked a tender heart overflowing with fondness that, miraculously, he chose time and time again to give to Phainon.
The pleasure hadn’t been enough to overwhelm him but, now, all Phainon could do was tense against the release ready to sweep him away and he descended on Mydei for another kiss. A thank you for something Mydei would never accept gratitude for. A reciprocation that Phainon had longed to give him and finally felt if not worthy then able to share.
Phainon thrust to the hilt, languidly circled his hips, Mydei’s nails stung at his hands as he grasped him tight but he clutched around Phainon’s cock even tighter. Phainon trembled on the cusp of falling apart. He squeezed Mydei’s hands again, knuckles white and fingers aching as much as his core holding all the pieces of him together through sheer force of will.
”Please, Mydei,” he rasped. “Please please please. Let me come. Let me feel you, Mydei. I—”
He choked on a whine as Mydei clenched around him and his hips faltered, trying to plunge deeper by unruly force even as their hips ground together. Mydei’s face was a mess of sweat and saliva, flushed a near feverish red, eyes so dark and hazy only a thin ring of gold remained but it was enough to ensnare him in molten amber, in sweet honey. His swollen lips curled into a small, lopsided smile that creased his eyes and Phainon’s heart stuttered.
Mydei bumped their foreheads together. “Come for me, Phainon.”
Just like that, the last of his self-control crumbled away. His lashes fluttered and his head dropped to the crook of Mydei’s neck where red flashed on the other side of his closed eyelids. He moaned, long and thin, as he came in a flash of heat. It swelled high, breaking over his head and knocking him off balance like a cresting wave on the summer sea that he stood upon the shore to welcome with open arms.
He barely had the presence of mind to open his eyes, gazing through the narrow slits at Mydei’s head tossed back, pretty mouth agape, eyes rolled back and tattoos pulsing a radiant red while he spilled, hot and tacky, between them.
It smeared against Phainon’s stomach as he collapsed over him, panting and nuzzling into his neck still alight with a sluggish pulse of red light. They were too hot to stick so close together but Mydei’s fingers unfurled from his own to drag down his wrists up to his shoulders.
Strong fingers massaged between his shoulder blades, digging into the muscles that had grown knotted from the last few days of work. He had every intention of ignoring it but Mydei’s fingers knew exactly where to push and prod and he relaxed against Mydei’s chest with a content sigh.
“There’s a river nearby. I used to splash around in it as a kid. We can wash off there,” Phainon suggested. Then they could head home and rest. They had another long day ahead of them.
Mydei massaged up his neck and dryly asked, “With or without the splashing?”
Phainon playfully hummed, watching the shadows of wheat stalks bend and sway around them and envisaged Mydei’s hair dark with water. “I haven’t decided yet.”
A harmless swat landed on the back of his head and knocked a laugh from him that quickly fell silent beneath the night wind through the wheat.
“Thank you,” Phainon whispered, so quiet perhaps Mydei hadn’t heard him. Except Mydei’s fingers stilled around his nape. “For coming with me.”
Mydei’s hand ran into his hair, cupping the back of his head and massaging deep circles into his scalp. “Let’s come back another time.”
“Yeah,” he breathed and blamed the slight wobble on Mydei’s talented hands reaching through his skull to scatter the thoughts Phainon could never quite get rid of on his own. “It’s pretty in the winter. When the snow’s covered everything.”
“Then we’ll return as soon as the first snow falls.”
A cold, blank canvas awaiting the arrival of a warm spring where life could finally flourish.