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The post-battle adrenaline never fails to make Mydei restless and twitchy, all his senses still honed to a lethal point—this could go for up to hours after the last foe crumples to the ground, before the heat in his blood subsides.
It doesn’t help that the enemies this time were all small fry, no more of a threat than the training dummies in their sparring yards. Aglaea must’ve seen him pacing the hallways in agitation that morning and decided that sending him on pest control duty was a more productive activity than having him scare the guards and servants with his deathly glares.
For some reason, she sent Phainon with him as well—possibly to chaperone him. Maybe that white-haired bastard even volunteered to come himself, who knows.
In the aftermath of the titankin cleanup, the two find themselves amongst the nearby ruins to catch a break. Behind him, Phainon dusts off the debris from his coat then looks up, and smiles. “How many?”
Mydei feels his temper flare.
“Eighty-three,” he replies roughly.
“Then it’s settled,” Phainon declares matter-of-factly. “This time, I won.”
“You stole a number of my kills,” Mydei hisses, “Do not act like you didn’t trail behind me at the start, only to deal the finishing blows under my nose!"
“It’s a valid tactic, isn’t it? We agreed from the very beginning that there are no rules, only kill counts.” Phainon straightens up and stares Mydei down, his expression so confidently, impeccably controlled. But there are things that give away his true thoughts—the hint of amusement in his words, the slight tilt of his head. Other things remain constant, like the way he always pitches his voice in a particular way or how his eyes seem to bore straight into the souls of those who are lucky enough to catch his gaze.
Mydei wants nothing more than to tear off that perfect, impassive, opaque mask and embrace the snowstorm that lies beneath.
“Tch,” he walks up to the white-haired man and grabs a handful of his shirt, dragging Phainon towards him until their breaths mingle. “Who said you’re the one to keep the score?”
“That’s rich coming from someone who loses interest in counting beyond twenty,” Phainon grins cheekily—and for a moment, Mydei catches a glimpse of that young, innocent boy from sunkissed memories and days far bygone.
“You—!” Mydei grits out, expression turning pained for a second before he pushes Phainon away, looking at the setting sun, then at the ruins around them. Anywhere but that achingly familiar smile, one he had been infatuated with back then as an equally naive kid, the two of them sparring in the gardens with sticks they found beneath the olive trees.
“Hey,” Phainon calls out, pausing in between, “if you’re not happy with it, how about we settle the score a different way, then?”
Mydei inhales through his nose, casting his gaze at the hero. They both know that his silence is as good as an agreement. Phainon doesn’t flinch when his blue eyes meet scorching gold; only staring back searchingly.
A beat of silence.
“So,” Mydei finally grits out, “what are you proposing?”
The other man stares at him wordlessly for another second, his arms crossed, expression indecipherable. Then, he lazily slides his gaze downwards, over the hill of Mydei’s chest, tracing the lines of his torso, until finally—
“...”
Somehow, Mydei’s beginning to recognise where this is going.
Phainon smiles slightly, as if he knew something that Mydei didn’t. “Up for a spar?”
“Spar my ass,” Mydei grits back, even though, admittedly, a part of him is eager to know what's coming. Phainon has always been like that, suggesting the most inane things that, somehow, Mydei always seems to end up going along with. “You’re plotting something detestable in that pretty head of yours again, aren’t you?”
Laughing, Phainon shrugs off his outer coat and begins to undo his pauldron strap. “Looks like my acting still needs some work if you’re able to see past it,” he says without an ounce of shame.
Amber eyes watch intently as the white-haired man sheds the rest of his outerwear, until finally only leaving his inner brown vest and pants. It feels strange to see Phainon without his long flowing coat. Lacking it, he seems less imposing, less gravitational. As if he were just a common man with an attractive visage; someone Mydei might sneak a glance at on the streets then soon forget. But it's the movements etched into the lines of his body and the clockwork of his irises that speak to a fated, yet foolish sort of greatness.
“Come here,” he coos.
“I am not some stupid pet to order around as you please,” Mydei mutters, yet follows anyway. Phainon smiles when a tattooed hand grabs his arm and pushes him backwards against an old ruin wall, sliding down against it until they’re both on the floor, staring intently at each other.
As if knowing exactly how to press the other man’s buttons, Phainon arcs his neck to let his collar fall away, revealing more of that choker wound around his neck, and a portion of his golden sun tattoo—if Mydei were a less civilised man, he would’ve torn the rest of the stupid vest off already so Phainon would have to travel back to the city half-naked, forced to experience being mortifyingly exposed to the prying public eye for once.
Or so Mydei tells himself.
…On second thought, actually, he doesn’t want that.
“You’re thinking,” Phainon says. “Careful your head doesn’t explode.”
…Fuck it, Mydei decides.
“Insufferable brat,” he growls, his fingers curling in harder around Phainon’s shoulder, to the point where Phainon grimaces as he's dragged onto the ground. “Maybe I need to teach you some humility and put you in your rightful place, you shitty hero.”
Phainon cracks a sly smile, and it’s infuriating just how perfectly his mouth curves upwards, how his eyes moon slightly, the way his hair splays out across the ground like a silvery halo, marred by ash and dirt and blood. Like dragging coal across frosted glass, Mydei wants to do nothing more than to ruin him.
“Then do it,” Phainon breathes out, tilting his head back, his thinned glacial eyes locks into Mydei’s own.
A challenge. Or a directive.
Mydei finds that he has no power to refuse, for surely a saviour's will must supersede even a crown prince. With a snarl, he lifts away the collar, brings his mouth down to drag his teeth against the pale curve of Phainon’s throat, feeling the shallow bump of the Adam's apple against his bottom teeth, briefly catching the edge of his choker—that damned choker—with his teeth and letting it snap back against the skin.
Phainon shudders beneath him, jerking upwards slightly, his mouth falling open from the proximity and unfamiliar touches. His hands come up to grab Mydei’s biceps but the latter can’t tell if it’s to steady himself or restrain the man on top of him.
Either way, Mydei pays no mind as he swipes his tongue against the hollow at the base of Phainon’s neck, where the quivering airway recedes behind the clavicle bones.
“...!”
Phainon gasps. Trembles. Mydei stills, savouring that minute reaction as if he could taste Phainon’s very flesh through that tender patch of skin stretched across the most fragile point of his body, so seemingly fragile that Mydei, if he wanted to, could snap it apart like prey.
They both know they’re skirting dangerous territory now—the rest of the Heirs are acutely aware that as a vessel, Phainon’s body must be kept pristine and pious, ready to accept the divine powers once time comes. It’s why Hyacine always frets about sending Phainon for a checkup after battles or even particularly rough training skirmishes. To have weakness present on the divine vessel is akin to finding a crack through one’s precious heirloom vase.
Mydei had never cared for all that—he likes to think he knows Phainon’s body best. He’s seen the man raise his greatsword as easily as a feather, train from sunrise to sunset, even the way he stretches before they spar, showing peeks of an unmarred torso as his training robes rode upwards. More than anyone else, Mydei knows what that body is capable of withstanding when pushed to the limits, especially in the heat of battle.
And that’s why he’s so angry right now. Phainon knows his worth, as does Mydei know his own.
Mydei lifts his head and whispers next to Phainon’s ear, “At the end of today’s battle, when you threw yourself in front of me to take that blow… you knew what would happen, right?”
“You and I both know it’d be a scratch at best,” Phainon replies. “I didn’t take you for one to care about the state of my being like everyone else does.”
“That’s not it,” the warrior growls, scraping his sharp canines against the hero’s jugular, feeling a shiver run through the body beneath him. “Didn’t you know?” he presses his hand into the dip below Phainon’s hip, feeling the smooth skin against his calloused fingers. The other man is, for once, warm underneath his hands; so sacredly alive. “Sacrificial self-righteous bastards like you… piss me off more than anything.”
He slots his mouth against the curved flesh at the side of Phainon’s neck.
Phainon’s eyes widen. “...Mydei—”
Then he sinks his teeth in, biting down with enough force to bruise, making sure to mark the man exactly where everyone can see. Punishment be damned; if Mydei is to be heir to the crown, then it’s only right that he has the right to take what he deserves. If he so desires, he’ll grip the sun and force it down to the earth, claiming it as his domain for all to witness. Then he’ll strip away that brilliant shell and reveal its cold, dead core for himself to keep.
For if Mydeimos is to be the Undying, then the ideals he strives for must be equally as untainted as eternity itself. For only by being forged in the flames of war, could he ever hope to withstand the intensity of the sun.
Phainon burns under him, writhing and trembling, and Mydei knows for sure that if the other man had not wanted this, he’d already be thrown into the nearest wall and have had his arms broken. But Phainon only tilts his head further back, bares more of himself to be taken like a good, willing sacrifice.
Pushing his tongue against the skin rewards Mydei with a satisfying twitch and an aborted breath, and it only serves to tempt him further. Phainon tastes like soft musk, sunlight, and the slightest edge of salt. If he moves upwards until his nose tickles the strands of white hair, he can pick out the remnants of mint-coconut scented lye soap, and white floral perfume oil lingering against the skin. It’s almost all too much, and Mydei has to drag himself away before he gets all up in Phainon’s hair like a besotted mutt.
“...Hey, look at me.”
Phainon does, and Mydei’s breath quickens.
Gods, he’s so out of it.
Mydei drags a thumb from his cheekbone, down the pad of his cheeks, hooks his thumb inside Phainon’s mouth, pressing against the soft mucosa and pulling back to reveal more of the man’s straight, white teeth. There’s a flush across his cheeks and drool pooling around his tongue and a trace of wetness around his eyes, and Mydei sincerely wonders how in the Titans' name is the prophesied saviour hero of Amphoreus already so far gone with just some bites on the skin and a finger in his mouth.
“Fuck, I’ve barely done anything you’re already like this,” Mydei breathes. The premise of it all nauseates him—he and Phainon only ever indulge in each other like this out in the secluded areas of the battlefield, the gossip would be absolutely scandalous if word spread within the city that two of the most feared titan slayers were carrying out such sinful acts in the wake of battle, still stained with fresh blood.
Mydei grins shakily, feeling his rationality slip by the second. “Be good and open up. Let me see all of you.”
Without a second of hesitation, Phainon opens his mouth wider, even going the extra mile to let his tongue fall forward, wet silvery strands of saliva suspended between teeth, lips, and Mydei’s hand.
The scene is debauched enough that Mydei has to take a second to savor it, and then he wastes not a single second more shoving Phainon’s head down towards his pelvis, freeing his cock from its confines and sliding the tip against Phainon’s soft, thin, wet lips, scraping it against his teeth, and finally feeding it into his mouth.
Kephales' tits, he cusses in his mind. No matter how many times they’ve done this in the past, he’ll never get used to the feeling of Phainon around him, wet and warm and so, so slick with saliva that it dribbles down the length of Mydei’s shaft.
Mydei groans, throwing his head back. Each time Phainon hums or moans quietly around his cock it sends waves of honey-sweet pleasure crawling up his spine.
His fingers find purchase in those silvery-white locks, already messing up the bird’s nest that the servants try so hard to tame each morning. When he grips the roots hard enough to hurt, Phainon whines like the pain is the only thing that can keep him grounded; like it’s something that saves him.
“I’m going to move,” Mydei grits out. “If you can’t breathe, then kick me, punch me, whatever… just don’t bite or I’ll kill you.”
He’s not even sure if Phainon heard what he said—the white-haired man is shivering with need as he holds Mydei’s thick member in his mouth, not quite yet in his throat but sitting heavy on the tongue.
Mydei decides to draw back a little, just to test the waters. Phainon moans low and guttural when the tip leaves his lips, sliding forward to wetly press his lips against Mydei’s cock in a pale imitation of worship. The visual is so profanely shocking that Mydei yanks his head back down onto his cock in a bid not to mentally explode.
Unbelievable, he thinks fervently. This man is going to be his undoing one day.
“Uohk… Ggnh…!” Phainon slurs, and Mydei’s blood burns at the thought of his rival finally losing all semblance of humility, ceding his perfectly crafted heroic persona to reveal such debauchery, letting loose all these filthy sounds for every ghost across the battlefield to hear.
“Gods, this is what you truly are, isn’t it?” he snarls, snapping his hips forward until he feels his dick curving down the warm, wet passage of Phainon’s throat. “A sacred vessel for simply anyone to take as they please. A holy whore. Isn’t that right, Deliverer?"
At those words, Phainon’s eyes come into focus again, and Mydei admires the glassy look in that normally piercing gaze. “Mrhh…!”
With a growl, Mydei snaps his hips forward, sheathing himself to the hilt and watching Phainon’s eyes snap upwards in ecstasy as his entire body surrenders to being used and filled, as Mydei comes down his trembling throat, his grip tightening and hips stuttering.
They stay connected like that for a few seconds more, Mydei breathing heavily as Phainon’s jaw strains around the long length of cock whilst he’s still not permitted to move. Mydei can still faintly feel a pulse thumping through the flesh of his throat, and the sudden realization that Phainon’s beating lifeline is within immediate vicinity to where Mydei was filthily fucking his throat like a toy is devastatingly intoxicating.
With a wet pop, Mydei yanks Phainon off his length. The latter’s face is flushed and a little blotchy from where Mydei grabbed it, strings of silvery saliva and come falling away from his spit-slicked lips.
“Damn it,” he huffs, jerking the hero’s head upwards to earn him a low moan, as if Phainon got off from being treated like nothing more than a used rag.
Phainon rushes upwards to smash his mouth against Mydei’s, taking advantage of the latter’s surprise to slip his tongue past Mydei’s lips and tangle them together. The taste is horribly bitter and musky all at once—belatedly, Mydei realises he’s tasting his own come from Phainon’s mouth. In any other case he would’ve sprung away and promptly upheaved his lunch. But Phainon lets out a soft, wanton gasp between them, and Mydei decides to wrangle his gag reflex under control for the time being.
After everything so far, he supposes he’ll be kind enough to grant Phainon this small victory.
Phainon moves to straddle the other man’s thigh, before his hand ghosts across Mydei’s torso and takes a handful of his chest muscle, rubbing firm lines across the red tattoo. When the touch grazes over his nipple, Mydei jolts and lets out a hiss. The sensation is new, foreign, but it doesn’t feel bad, especially with the temperature difference between the clamminess of Phainon’s hand and Mydei’s burning warmth.
“Guh…”
Mydei pulls away, panting. “Fuck. When did you learn how to whore yourself out like this, Deliverer?"
Wordlessly, Phainon dives forward again and scrapes his top lip against Mydei’s cheekbone, tracing the line of his tattoo until he reaches the ear, warm soft breaths tickling his sideburns. Kephale's fucking left tit. In another life, the saviour hero of Amphoreus may as well have been the most expensive courtesan in the realm.
Almost subconsciously, one of his hands find Phainon’s exposed chest, dragging over the collarbones as if mapping out the planes of his body, before settling at the base of his throat. He feels Phainon’s breath hitch.
Mydei swallows, throat dry. He tightens his hold.
The effect is almost instant. Phainon’s whole body goes slack over him as Mydei digs his fingers into the skin, just beneath the ring of the choker and any token efforts to get away are only met with a tighter grip because Mydei knows—he can see it in those blue eyes—that Phainon, flushed all over, needs nothing more than this.
It’s not just about the act itself. Phainon, so pliant and willing, trusts him enough to place his mortality in Mydei’s control for him to play with so carelessly like this. As if he were worth nothing more than a throwaway scrap of cloth rather than a divine vessel appointed by prophecy. Even in the fiercest battles where he throws himself at the enemy with abandon—despite making it out alive every time, Mydei’s still unsure why at times the man seems to show such blatant disregard for his own safety.
“You know,” he begins, “I never imagined you to be a masochist. But you really are full of surprises, aren’t you? I bet you wouldn’t even mind if someone saw you like this right now, squirming and spreading your legs for me.”
As if to prove his point, he presses a knee between Phainon’s thighs.
“Kuh…”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you? Having an audience watch you take cock like a whore,” Mydei sneers, “I could bring you into the military barracks for a night. Or we could invite Anaxa next time—I’ve witnessed the way he hones onto you when you train shirtless, like he would slit the throat of anyone else that dares to look at you in the same way.”
He releases Phainon’s throat to let the man gasp for air, watching him cough and wheeze as he touches his own neck, covering it as if shielding himself from Mydei’s burning gaze.
“Cough, then… that means you'd better watch your back too,” Phainon mutters as soon as he’s able to talk again, rubbing at where bruises are already starting to form in a ring around his throat, just above his choker. “And going for weak spots isn’t a good look for you, Mydei.”
“Oh Deliverer,” Mydei laughs, “You can act tough all you want. I could break you in half if I so desired.”
He wastes no time at all undoing Phainon’s belts and pants, sliding them off to reveal strong, pale legs, the flesh and muscle sinking inwards tantalisingly when he grips the base of his thigh. There’s a mole located at the inside of his right leg where the muscle curves in towards the pelvis, and Mydei wonders if he would be the only one to ever see such an inconspicuous feature at such an obscene angle.
Terrible, absolutely terrible. Everything about this man makes Mydei want to devour him.
He slides his gaze upwards, towards Phainon’s half-masted cock.
“...You’re wet,” he mutters. “Did you seriously get off from taking my length?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t come though,” Phainon coughs again, voice strained and gravelly, “you finished too early.”
The nerve. “Fuck, you’re absolutely wrong in the head,” Mydei mutters. “Learning how to please yourself from having anything shoved down your throat.” A disbelieving grin stretches across his face. “Do you know how you look right now?”
“Terrible, I know. And even then I still have you beat,” Phainon replies nonchalantly, twisting open the vial of healing oil—Mydei stares at how his chest muscles bunch up tantalisingly between his arms—before drizzling a generous amount all over his fingers. “You’ve been slacking on your stamina training, haven’t you?”
“That mouth of yours is always so obnoxious. Gods— fuck, that reeks.”
Phainon sighs. “I’ll tell Hyacine to make the next batch of oils strawberry scented just for you.”
“That’s not the problem,” Mydei growls, grabbing the oil and dousing his own right hand with it, resigning himself to smelling like medicinal herbs for a week.
“Then what are you? A housecat allergic to fragrance?” Phainon shoots back, and Mydei snarls only to prove his point.
“So what if I am?!”
Phainon opens his mouth to quip back, but before the words even make it out of his mouth, Mydei’s already dug a finger past his rim, sliding it steadily in and out to coat the walls with oil. It forces a choked noise past his lips instead, as he spreads his muscular thighs around Mydei’s in a bid to open himself up further.
Seeing Phainon’s pupils blow out, brain short-circuiting as soon as he takes something—possibly anything—inside him sends Mydei riding a dangerous train of thought. It makes him heady with power, knowing he can have so much control over the other man by simply knowing where to touch in order to turn him into a mindless cockslut.
One finger soon turns to two, and quickly into three before Mydei’s impatience gets the better of him. With Phainon spreading his legs so prettily right there, it was hard to justify wasting any more time. He lines his cock up and presses in, and Phainon opens for him as easily as if he was made for it.
“...!”
When the last inch of him is seated into that warm, almost honey-syrupy heat, it takes every ounce of control Mydei has in himself to simply not fuck the consciousness out of them both.
So far, the healing oil is doing wonders in alleviating the pain and tears that usually comes with rushing into the act after such hurried preparation. In fact, if the thing didn’t reek of damp herbs and pickle brine, Mydei would even consider carrying around a bottle himself.
With that thought in mind, he grabs a handful of Phainon’s ass, drags his cock out slowly, then slams it back in. It earns him a choked-off moan and a shiver, and soon enough he’s pistoning his cock in and out of that warm hole.
“Uh… ah, h-huh, wait,” Phainon claws at Mydei’s chest for purchase, twisting to look at where Mydei’s other hand has found the small of his back, tracing an index finger down into the cleft of his ass and stopping at the rim where the two of them are joined. “What…?”
Wordlessly, Mydei presses his finger against the rim, feeling where Phainon is stretched hot and tight around his member. It earns him a jolt from the latter when he gently pries open a passage to slowly sink into, inch by inch.
“Stop, Mydei, no—” Phainon gasps, shuddering from being opened up further than he could imagine; Mydei’s fingers are by no means dainty and thin, “fuck, I’ll break…!”
“A little more,” Mydei murmurs, sinking down to the second knuckle where he slides another finger in alongside the first. The stretch is intense, and he’s never been so glad for the stupid, stinking healing oil for enabling him to do this right now.
“Feels strange,” Phainon whimpers, sounding like he could shatter at any moment.
Three knuckles, now. The thought of stretching Phainon wide enough to be able to fit two cocks inside him causes something to flare in Mydei’s gut. He’s not sure if it’s arousal or possessiveness. Maybe both.
To test the possibility out, he tries to scissor his fingers. It’s tight at first and earns him a disbelieving half-glare from the white-haired man, but after a few more attempts Phainon visibly tries to relax and that helps loosen his fluttering rim to the point where Mydei can almost sandwich his cock between his index and middle finger.
“Look how loose you’ve become,” Mydei comments, thrusting a little and feeling slightly weirded out from how his fingers can feel the slide of his dick in and out. Phainon spasms when Mydei digs in a little more, lightly scraping against a part of him that has him desperately trying to suppress his whines. Each fucked-out little sound sends Mydei’s head spinning with arousal.
“Fu—uck," he mutters with as much composure he can muster, which is frankly close to none at all. He yanks his fingers out (for otherwise he’d be tempted to shove his whole fist in) and wrestles them both into a new position where Phainon lays splayed out underneath him, breath held in anticipation as Mydei grips one thigh in each hand, and pushes his legs up enough to almost fold him in half.
“This position…” Phainon grimaces. His face twitches when Mydei pulls out slightly and pumps back in, testing the angle of where they’re connected together and then shifting so that his dick scrapes against the sensitive wall where he can press against that small rounded protrusion—
“...?! Oh—!”
As if struck by lightning, Phainon arches off the ground, his entire body taut and trembling, as if ready to snap apart. Mydei suppresses a pained grunt when the hero’s arms tighten around his neck. It wouldn’t be a far stretch to say that with those arms, Phainon could really break his neck in this position if he wasn’t careful.
But nevertheless, it does something to Mydei, seeing his rival trapped under him, almost equal in size to him and yet seeming so, so small in that moment, as if a single touch too forceful would break him apart. His eyes are half-lidded and pupils blown out—a thin, shivering circle of burning blue—seemingly staring into nothing, as that heated flush spreads down from his cheeks to his neck and clavicles. There’s a line of drool leaking from his lips, slick with saliva and cum.
Mydei has never witnessed a sight more worth worshipping. He can hardly hold back from snapping his hips, running his cock along the length of Phainon’s walls and pulling a wet sob from that wrecked throat.
Every inch of skin that comes in contact between them burns, and it’s that sort of indelible pain-pleasure that lets Mydei know that Phainon is here and that he’s alive, and not somewhere a million miles away into the horizon; somewhere beyond that golden dawn that Mydei constantly finds reflected in Phainon’s eyes, and knows that that is the one place he will never be able to reach.
“Gods, uh, ah, y-yes— fuck,” Phainon twitches, slowly losing his composure entirely, his face going slack and back arching and words slurring into incoherency as Mydei fucks his brain out through his ears. “Ruin me…!”
And that does it for Mydei. It activates something so primal and ferocious inside him that he finds the side of Phainon’s neck again—this time right against the golden sun tattoo—and bites down to break the skin.
Phainon scrambles and claws against Mydei’s back, desperate for something to ground him as he’s staked and claimed like he was born for it, as if he’s wasted by being propped on a hero’s mantle, and instead deserves to be on his back forever.
“Fuck, fuck,” Mydei forces out, tasting blood when Phainon anchors his fingers in hard enough to draw pinpricks of red across his back. It hurts, but it’s a different sort of pain from when he sustains injuries in the heat of war; this pain speaks to something far more primal and obsessive than the adrenal rush of battle. It resonates with a deep-seated desire to conquer something that he knows he is entirely unworthy of.
“M—uhh—! Mydei, shit, oh,” Phainon moans, so so fucking filthy and needy, it puts all the courtesans in the city to shame.
With a growl, Mydei kisses up the length of the other man’s neck until they end up tangled in another kiss. He kisses Phainon like he’s fighting a losing war, drenched in blood and high-strung with desperation. Each twist of tongues and aborted breath leaves him lightheaded with need as he continues to piston steadily, and he almost loses himself in their synced movements until he’s not even sure where he ends and Phainon begins.
A string of scarlet rapidly falls away between them when they part—and Mydei must look beastly right now, with a mouth tasting of iron and come, with more of it dripping down his chin. Phainon’s eyes finally find their focus on him again, and the sight is enough to have him clench down hard on Mydei’s cock, trembling and whining through his orgasm as his face goes slack from the sheer intensity of it, coming all over his stomach.
And it’s almost enough to tip Mydei off the edge, but not yet. Not yet. Almost, almost almost.
With a heavy gasp he suddenly stills, cock still embedded deep inside his rival. Phainon’s post-orgasm daze quickly turns into desperation when Mydei grabs his spent cock in hand, thumbing over the sensitive tip while slowly grinding into him again with short, aborted thrusts.
“W-wait,” Phainon gasps shakily, “I’m still—” a thrust, “nnh…! Stop—”
“A-admit that you lost, and then I’ll release you,” Mydei pants, grinding his palm roughly against Phainon’s cock, “Say it!”
“I… lost,” Phainon slurs, his whole body trembling like he’d been shocked by a live wire. “I lost! Hurry up and come already… guh, please—!”
And there it is, those sweet, sweet words that Mydei had been waiting to hear all this time. He growls and hilts himself in as deep as possible, and only takes a second more for him to seize up and release inside, his mind whiting out for a second as he finally hits his peak. Phainon, too, moans and convulses weakly one last time when he feels Mydei come inside of him, hot, heavy, and aching.
“...”
Coming down from his high, Mydei shifts, feeling the heavy rhythmic breathing of the body beneath him, and slowly matches it with his own. For a few long minutes it almost feels like their souls are intertwined. Phainon uses the last of his strength to push the other man off of him and straightens his legs out again with a sore groan. Reluctantly, Mydei pulls out, and the squelching sound of his dick popping past the rim is enough to make his ears burn with post-coital embarrassment. For a moment, he feels like an inexperienced teenager again having his first fling back then with the girl he’d met at the local town forum. Her eyes were also a similar shade of blue.
Phainon rolls over to face him, and in all senses of the word he looks absolutely terrible—eyes barely open, dust on his face, hair messed up, cheeks blotchy, lips dry and slightly cracked at the corners from being stretched a little too wide.
Mydei thinks it’s perfect.
It’s at that moment he decides: if the gods won’t take him, then he'll be the one to do it. He’ll fill Phainon to the brim, carve out a space just for himself in Phainon’s heart. And maybe one day when they’re free from the life of titan-slaying they could even disappear together; no one will know that he was Mydeimos the Undying, the lost crown prince of a fallen Castrum Kremnos, nor that he was responsible for the blood and destruction ever-present on the battlegrounds of yore. Phainon would be freed from the shackles of a hero, and they could even claim a small piece of land on the outskirts of Okhema, till farmland together, and when night falls they would return to their shared home to rest.
But those days seem so far away that, for now, Mydei can only bury his head into that bird's nest of white hair and breathe in deeply, neither of them saying a word.
After some time like this, Phainon pipes up tiredly, “Get off. You’re sticky.”
“Too bad. I'm not moving,” Mydei grumbles back. Phainon brings his leg up and connects it with Mydei’s groin. “Ow, fuck!”
“You reek of sweat.”
“As do you, bastard.” Mydei heaves himself upright, wincing at the soreness in his balls from where they met Phainon’s kneecap. “If you despise the feeling so much, then go wipe yourself down.”
Phainon’s tired smile takes on its lethal teasing edge again. “And weren’t you so determined to fuck me until I couldn’t move? Look at me now. You’ve made good on your promise, didn’t you?”
“...”
With a resigned grumble, Mydei ends up fishing around his clothes for the old raggedly handkerchief he usually keeps around to wipe away the blood of his enemies, and gets to work cleaning things up.
“...Ow.”
“The great, glorious, infallible hero of the whole wide world can’t even handle a few bite wounds?” Mydei rolls his eyes. “Spare me.”
“Watch me shove my sword up your rear and see how much better you handle that,” Phainon retorts halfheartedly, swatting Mydei’s hand away to take over the duty of applying the healing oil to the wounds on his neck and chest. The strong herbal smell combined with the smoke from the meagre campfire they’ve lit up for light makes the latter scrunch his nose up, moving to sit further away to avoid the terrible olfactory assault.
After storing the remaining oil away into his cloak, Phainon sighs. “Let’s head back to the city in the morning. I need some time to rest and let the wounds fade.”
“Tch.” Mydei sniffs, clearly unhappy. “What's the issue? Your marks of claim are none of anyone else's business, much less the meddlers with their teleslates—"
“Mydeimos,” Phainon says pointedly, and Mydei winces slightly, looking away.
“...Fine.”
“It’ll be better for Aglaea to see me return in slightly better form than bruised and limping, caused by… acts done outside of battle, no less,” Phainon grimaces. The last time they returned with bruises on both their faces after a squabble, Aglaea had assigned Phainon three attendants to bathe and tend to his wounds, whilst she condemned Mydei to being the Heirs’ resident errand boy for a month.
They sit in silence for a few moments, listening to the faint whistle of wind weaving through the ruins, until eventually Mydei pipes up again.
“Phainon.”
The man in question turns his head.
Mydei stares back at him intently, his face set into hard lines as he slowly tells him, “If Castrum Kremnos is ever saved, and its might restored to its former glory, then I want you to become my chief advisor."
Phainon blinks.
Then huffs out a laugh, feeling something warm spread inside his chest. “Idiot. Frankly, I’m not great at politics, and I'm pretty sure you only know how to pulverise titan-kin heads after so many years on the frontlines. I think Amphoreus is going to be doomed if it had two rockheads like you and me running the show.”
“Tch.” Mydei folds his arms in that petulant way that Phainon always laughs at. “Then I'll simply appoint Anaxa to be the second advisor.”
“Then what’s the point of me being there?” Phainon retorts. “Am I just going to stand beside you during all the fancy ceremonies and look pretty?” Like a trophy wife. Or a war prize, he thinks amusedly.
To Mydei’s credit, he actually looks like he’s giving it some thought.
“Correct,” he says with a rare, teasing grin. Phainon sighs, the sound laced with exasperated affection.
“And what exactly are you going to do after you take the crown?” He asks. “The people of Kremnos surely can't go back to the same way of life as before. It's going to be a long time before we can all go back to how it was before the black tide descended."
Truly, if there are no more believers in a god, if there are no more worshippers of a king, then surely there is no more meaning behind a title than a simple moniker given to any common person. When the sun in the sky is nothing more than a false projection, the only thing that keeps it suspended is the peoples’ belief in its necessity for life.
Phainon is only a normal man, and yet he had already been saddled with a responsibility far beyond the comprehension of common citizens. To be a saviour, a Deliverer, is simply a title bestowed, and it's up to his actions and his fate to give meaning to those words.
Whilst Mydei begins to lecture him on the sacred commandments detailing the duties of royalty, as established by the first rulers of Kremnos, Phainon uses the opportunity to trace his profile into memory; the wild lion-mane locks, the single braid he meticulously styles every morning, the sharp, hollowed lines of his face, the tattoo running down from his right eye.
A familiar sight. And one that will be eternally fleeting.
He turns his gaze to look out past the ruins, into the dark, fragile night.
Something about the stars in the night sky never seems to look real. Maybe it’s the way the constellations seem to shift with each new glance, or the way it appears unchangingly cloudless, as if painted unto reality from a snapshot of distant memories.
Like a swinging pendulum, or a spinning mirror, Amphoreus had long been seized by forces of eternity; destined to stagnate in loops of fate. In this sense, there is little meaning for the Heirs’ existence at all. Even the bygone ‘crown’ that Mydei spends his candid days pondering over is nothing more than an abandoning wisp of sunlight, fading into the final hours before night.
Phainon closes his eyes.
“You’ve got that strange look on your face again,” Mydei mutters from the side. Phainon cracks his eyes open again, and catches those dawnlight eyes with his own. Even after all these years, that feline gaze is still the same in the way it catches the light like a torch set aflame. And sometimes, in the rarest and quietest of moments, he finds Mydei staring at him as if Phainon is the answer to his strife; like he is the point where all light converges.
“Come here,” Phainon smiles, patting the empty space next to him, “I’m cold.”
If Mydei had noticed obvious deflection, then he doesn't question it.
“You’re always cold,” he grumbles, getting up from his spot, “your hands feel like a corpse’s everytime I touch them. I would even think that you were a block of ice in your previous life.”
Phainon laughs again, the sound bright and pure. “Perhaps. But it doesn’t matter, for I now have a personal heater at my every beck and call.”
Mydei groans as he sits down, and the sound is not unlike an old man settling into a hard wooden chair. “You're truly irredeemably delusional if you still consider me as anyone's errand boy. Especially yours.”
“I still remember all those inane things that Cipher made you do, like bringing her breakfast in bed,” Phainon grins, and Mydei punches him gently in the arm for it. They trade a few unserious blows before Phainon sighs and flops over Mydei’s side like a wet mop. In return, the warrior huffs in resignation and crosses his arms, letting the other do as he pleases.
Eventually, the campfire dies out, and Phainon watches as the last few embers quietly flicker out of existence. Feeling at ease, he leans his head onto the curve of Mydei’s shoulder, listening to the faint sound of his heartbeat.
“...You’re so warm,” he breathes. “Just like how I remember.”
“...”
Wordlessly, Mydei leans his head on top of Phainon’s, and that little reciprocal gesture of affection says more between them than words could ever convey.
It’s moments like this that remind Phainon how to feel human, rather than as a mere symbol of distant hope, raised into the sky like a flag of resistance. For he had long emptied his being of all meagre wants and desires in pursuit of a singular ending, like a moth pursuing a flame in chase of a purpose greater than itself, condemned to a fate of quiet self destruction.
Mydei shifts beside him.
“Phainon,” he pauses, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain for once, as if revealing some deep fear buried within the ashes of his mind, “when the day comes when the coreflames are all assembled, and the prophecy is to be fulfilled… what exactly is going to happen to us?”
The world would be saved, and we would be finally free to spend our days in peace and prosperity, is what Phainon wants to tell him, you could help rebuild Kremnos and start your life anew.
And yet, like every other time the question was asked, he can never seem to bring himself to speak those foolish hopes aloud.
Overhead, a shooting star descends as it traces a white-hot antitail, blazing new celestial tracks towards the infinite boundary curve of the horizon. Like the quivering of trees before a storm, or a stirring in shallow depths, the world silently turns towards its new patrons, as if reverberating around a drop of water in a still pond.
“I’m not sure either,” Phainon replies truthfully as he settles against Mydei’s shoulder, watching the empty stars above, “...but we’ve got an eternity to wait and see.”
(Like a film tape rewinding ad infinitum: to prosper in dawn, and perish in dusk. So much sorrow in such little time—
—such is a flame-chaser’s life paradigm.)