Archive of Our Own ^beta

Phainon could die happily like this.

With his Teacher’s pretty, bony fingers wrapped tight around his neck, squeezing down on his spasming trachea. Anaxa looks so beautiful atop him, enticing in a most grotesque display, adored with a trembling, manic smile fixed on his face.

Phainon would want to die like this. With Anaxa’s trimmed nails biting into his jugular, stealing the last of air stuck in his windpipe, and with Anaxa’s knee slotted in between his legs, pressed against his shameless aching arousal. To die like that, coming untouched at the same time as Anaxa swallows the last breath from his lips. 

Once in his life, Phainon had a chance to overhear that death is akin to an ultimate climax–and really, he couldn’t think of a better scenario to see if those words held some truth on his own.

Unfortunately, Phainon doesn’t die. 

Anaxa’s firm grip on his neck loosens a fraction before it becomes lax, giving up entirely. Much-needed air fills Phainon’s depleted lungs in mouthfuls as he coughs and wheezes through all of his sudden, greedy breaths. His dimmed sight clears up again, save for the trickle of instinctual tears running down his face.

A beat of dreaded silence. Anaxa stares at him, his dainty fingers twitching an inch from Phainon’s bruised neck as if unused to letting go of it so soon. Teacher can be like that–silent and thoughtful, just before deciding to creep up on him in ways Phainon wouldn’t ever think himself to be able to predict.

Yet. It’s nice. So nice of Anaxa to be a little breathless too, his paper-white skin gaining a flushed hue with a bit of sweat beading on his temple, dealing with a similar bothersome problem, a debauched want that presses right against Phainon’s as their tangled bodies fit together in a roundabout embrace. 

“Teacher,” Phainon hiccups a little, his thin voice hoarse and strained at the edges. He grasps Anaxa’s wrists and pulls them closer until fingertips touch the tender skin of his throat. “don’t stop.”

“No.” The simplest of denials. It would be if not for how dilated Anaxa’s pupils are now, how his fingers trace the blooming hand-shaped bruises before cradling Phainon’s face, thumbing his welling up tears. “It’s too late for that.”

Too late. Phainon smiles, although a bit wrecked, not quite sane enough. Too late, Teacher had said, denied that impulse brewing between them. When did it become so? 

Has Anaxa ever contemplated doing it before? Thought of how Phainon would look dead, which method would leave Phainon the prettiest, most special piece amidst Anaxa’s collection? To carve in his signature runes on Phainon’s scarred skin or to gouge out his eye as a keepsake? 

Sometimes or oftentimes, Phainon wishes those little punctures Anaxa’s nails leave within his flesh would scar so he could walk around with a part of Anaxa etched onto his skin. So that rather than the violence others left on him, there would be something dear to him etched deeper than those insignificant scars. And so that in the end, while having his battered up body lowered into a grave, Phainon would belong to just one person unbeknownst to all.

“Is it?” Perhaps it is a bit unbecoming of him. There is nothing reminiscent of societal norms Phainon needs to uphold when near his Teacher, but even he finds it too desperate–craning his neck to lean into Anaxa’s touch, subtly humping Anaxa’s knee to keep the smoldering desire running hot in their veins. “What if I want it?”

“...Ah. That’s what it’s about.” Anaxa sighs, almost languid, unhurried. Uneven, unkept bangs frame his face and shadow his one uncovered eye like a horror-esque painting. Slowly, he leans closer too, presses his lips to Phainon’s cheek, and licks along the teardrop mark, lingering in a caress near Phainon’s fluttering lashes. 

Soft, warm breath fanning against his half-lidded eye, making Phainon slip it shut. “I can’t kill you, Phainon.”

“You can.” Phainon whispers back, resignation leaking thick through his words. “You just don’t want to anymore.”

*

Anaxagoras makes death look beautiful.

There is something paradoxical about the statement. Phainon is aware. However, no matter the concerning number of times he is witness to it, the sight never ceases to amaze him.

Teacher allows him to watch. Each step of the entire ordeal, each decision, and its artistic precision. It could appear wrongly easy, how, without fail, oblivious men flock to Anaxa, down bitter drinks one after another until their steps wobble and touches linger. Unassuming smiles tug at Anaxa’s lips, although far from the ones Phainon likes seeing the most–much more honest, crazed when pointed at him.

Simple conversations, a bit of coquettish giggles before someone ends up wrapping their arm around Anaxa’s shoulder or waist and asking to step outside. Phainon follows, less because of being a lookout and more of his nature as a territorial mutt who can bring himself to tolerate the foreign scent of cheap cologne stuck to Anaxa’s skin, if but to see the bloodied aftermath.

It’s like a choreographed dance. Anaxa leads its opening, wraps some naive man around his finger, and meets no resistance when he leads him into an obsolete alley, pushes at broad shoulders, and traps between himself a wall. Neither ending ever disappointed Phainon, whether it is Anaxa’s hands that wrap around brittle throats and snap necks, or if he slices them open–it is never unsightly.

Deliberate, thoughtful. The infamous to his name runes and constellations etched with a sharpened scalpel on flesh or the blood-illuminated stars carved within the victim’s chest. It was beautiful, an honest effort in bringing intricate death. Sick, moist, and pale skin gained unobtainable allure, blood accented the red and whitish layers of bared flesh. 

Phainon liked to watch. 

Euphoria bubbled in his guts, wild butterflies scattered in his stomach until nausea tipped him off. It never failed to make him a bit dizzy, a bit wanting of unreasonable things.

There was a hint of honest danger in participating. Phainon did not fear the idea of being spotted or discovered–he had vowed unbreakable trust in Anaxa’s skill and his entire person.  Although…

Anaxa was an unstable person. 

Unpredictable at times, bordering on manic. He would mutter names under his breath through strained breaths or laughter, names that Phainon did not know or had heard of before.  Teacher would press gloved fingers into wounds, pick at lowered lids, and have them pried open to slither his digits inside and coax out the round eye just to squeeze it to bits in a fisted hand.

And at certain times, he would turn to Phainon and do nothing but stare. For a few fleeting seconds, not more than a few minutes at most.

Yet. Phainon still liked to watch.

The thin but tugging thread of danger kept him close and wanting, tied inseparably to Anaxa. 

After all… if Phainon let his thoughts run their favourite course, it wasn’t all that hard to imagine himself in the victims’ place.

The pale skin of his throat growing red under Anaxa’s unrelenting hands. The white strands of hair dipped in red from his spilled blood. The pale blue of his eyes growing distant, dimmed as he took in Anaxa’s face for the last time. Phainon long since decided there could not be a better death than the one brought by his Teacher.

Each time he watched, it felt like witnessing another one of his possible deaths. It just happened that all of Anaxa’s victims looked exactly the same. Just like Phainon did.

*

Phainon could be described as a tamed, domesticated street animal. Coaxed out like one–wounded and with little trust to stare–taken straight off the streets.

His Teacher is kind. On the first night Anaxa took him in, he washed Phainon clean, bathed off the dirt clung to Phainon’s ashen skin, and even attempted to get rid of the unseen metaphorical one. Scrubbed until pale skin turned a little red, scratched pleasant lines in Phainon’s scalp, and massaged in scented shampoo that had Phainon’s nose itch. 

When Anaxa lowered him underwater to wash off the product from tangled strands of hair, pinpricks like needles bit through Phainon’s spine, and air seemed to dissipate from his lungs. Fear–the kind that had him clutching at the bathtub until his knuckles whitened and his shoulders shook. 

Nothing happened. Anaxa let go of the back of his neck a few prolonged seconds later, drained the tub of water, and wrapped a towel around Phainon’s waist. Wordless save for the soft sound of his breath and Phainon’s short, hitched one.

His Teacher is too kind. In the rather cramped and run-down (quite too small for two people) apartment, he let Phainon wander around as he prepared a simple meal. Anaxa’s clothes still fit him then, as malnourished and scrawny Phainon used to be as a teen, so he would dress in nothing but those. The persistent mint-like scent clung to the shirts Anaxa wore, and Phainon liked to breathe it in until the smell of blood dissipated from his mind.

He ate in silence as Anaxa toweled off his hair. It was a simple toast, but Phainon hadn’t eaten one since early childhood. Even then, his parents would make much thinner slices from the cheapest bread that they could barely afford. Anaxa gave him seconds, shrugged like it didn’t matter when Phainon stared at it warily.

The delicate, soothing motion of hands untangling his hair stopped. Brief and short-lasting. When Anaxa spoke for the first time since he found him, Phainon’s shoulders tensed.

“Have you ever killed someone?”

The answer should be simple. Yet in the silence of such an unusual place and such an unusual pair of people, it was nothing of the sort.

Has he ever done it? 

“I don’t know.”

Nothing happened. There was a simple silence following Phainon’s quietly whispered words, broken with a soft, unhurried sigh as Anaxa resumed towelling his hair dry.

“That’s okay.”

*

There are times when Phainon wakes up to startling sights.

His Teacher in loose sleepwear, minted hair a unkept mess that shadows his face in the middle of the night. Hands at his sides, twitching, scratching as his shoulders shake. Sometimes Phainon thinks it is not he that Anaxa sees on his own couch.

Fear is a constant within Phainon’s life. It never quite leaves, slithering somewhere at the edges of his nerves or palpitating heart. Although it never dimmed to be an ignorable response, fear became somewhat of a thrilling stir in his stomach and a sweatdropped flush to his cheeks–a whiff of mint alone had Phainon’s shoulders tensing as if Anaxa’s presence was the one commanding the feeling.

It was hard not to succumb to death’s calling when it was his Teacher’s cold hands reaching out with killing intent.

Phainon’s breath caught in his throat, a shiver travelled the length of his spine as their hands made skinship–his hold weak around Anaxa’s bony wrist, suspended between them both.

Teacher was never warm. His pulse weak, fluttering in slow thumps. He could be the Death personified–a hunting ghost-like presence that robbed of last breath and weaved life around its finger. 

“Teacher,” Phainon whispers, quiet as if not to startle, his hand lowering to instead intertwine their fingers, his own warmth seeping into the icy skin of Anaxa’s unmoving palm. “It’s me.”

A shift in rigid posture, a soft and sluggish blink. Then a labored breath before Anaxa squeezes his hand back. A bit too tight for comfort. Like he needs to confirm it’s there. That it’s his. 

“... Phainon?”

“Yes.” Who else? Who could Anaxa expect within his apartment, at whom could he look so, with bloodshot eyes and shaking hands that begged to kill? “It’s me.”

Anaxa regards him for a quiet, contemplative moment. His look wanders through Phainon’s still-immature face, to the remains of sleep clung to his pale lashes, then it trails to where their hands meet, fit in a close hold. 

There’s still a fearful flutter somewhere deeper in Phainon’s heart. 

Afraid. Like the time he woke up with Anaxa straddling him, Anaxa’s unforgiving hands fit snug around his throat. Or the time he woke up to see Anaxa in the corner of the room, curled into himself on the floor, the familiar scalpel clutched in his hands as it dug into his own skin. Afraid, afraid, and afraid but wanting–

“... It’s late. You should sleep.” Phainon forces his voice not to waver in the middle of the haphazard sentence. Anaxa continues to stare.

The couch dips, the old mattress creaking. 

“.. Ah.” 

Anaxa is… surprisingly lighter than Phainon thought he would.

It takes significant strength to choke life out of men twice one’s size, even if alcohol-stumped as most of them are. Yet with Anaxa settling atop him, his knee resting on the mattress before his entire weight follows, the cramped space pulling them flush, Phainon realizes how frail Anaxa is.

He’s not weak… but like with something seemingly delicate and so deceitful in its nature, it’s almost too easy to be fooled. The rapid beating of Phainon’s heart accelerates to the point it’s futile to think Anaxa wouldn’t feel it against him in this close proximity.

“Phainon.” Anaxa’s lips brush his throat, words soft as feathers making Phainon swallow as he wills his growing excitement to wind down. Here, where below his skin, arteries pump blood that rushes in the wrong places, Anaxa places his head on his chest, his mint hair spilling down. “Sleep.”

Anaxa’s breathing evens out after a few minutes. His lashes rest, shadowing cheekbones. His hand still lies there, interlaced with Phainon’s.

… It’s warm.

Phainon doesn’t get a wink of sleep until the sunrise.

*

Phainon didn’t like his scars.

There were a few of them. Three scattered through his torso, one above his forearm and one sliced clean through the sun-shaped birthmark on the side of his neck. Not something that could fade. Anaxa seemed interested in them. 

He would prod them with his slender fingers, trace along their whitened tissue. Never had he asked about the reason behind them, although Phainon felt like Anaxa would be able to figure it out on his own. There weren’t a lot of questions between them. Answers seemed to appear on their own.

So it didn’t take long before Anaxa approached him, took his idle time to look through the scarred line on Phainon’s arm before asking in a questioning hum. “You like pretty things, no? I could turn this into something more pleasant.”

Pretty. Anaxa’s work was far more than that. Beautiful, breathtaking–there were not enough words to describe the surface of feelings that squeezed Phainon’s chest whenever he watched it so maddeningly close to be able to smell the thick scent of metallic blood. 

Phainon nodded, a missable flush warming his face. “Please.”

A blink. Then a small, amused smile. Turns out, Phainon didn’t need to wait. Perhaps Teacher predicted that he would become skittish or too nervous with too much time on his hands to rethink it otherwise. 

Short work of rolling up his sleeve, then wet gauze doused in disinfectant swept through the skin of his arm. When Anaxa brought his scalpel close to his skin, Phainon’s heart thrashed. Not quite in fear, not quite in excitement. He felt like he could die from the overwhelming feeling of it crashing down on him like a brittle house of cards.

“Keep still.” Anaxa pinned his shaking wrist to the table. Phainon’s pulse fluttered like the unwell thing it often is. 

Short, hot feeling of incision. It stung in an uncomfortable sort of pain, then ached after the blade left his skin for the momentary break. Anaxa wiped off the excess blood, wet the rag with more disinfectant which felt torturous in comparison to the cuts left on Phainon’s arm. 

It hurt less and less with each slit marring his skin, then numbed to a throbbing ache spreading through his entire arm. Phainon felt a bit lightheaded, although it could be from the shameful rush of blood towards south. 

“It’s different to do it on a breathing person.” Anaxa held up Phainon’s arm, tilting it to observe at different angles. His expression shifted, faint but missable satisfaction, a quiver to his smile and dilation of pupils. “Mhn.. It’ll scar well.”

It was once an unsavory memento, no more than an unsightly wound from a street fight Phainon fought under a cold, moon-illuminated night in a crowded abandoned building turned into a place for those sorts of events. A scar acquired from blood-shrouded survival, a life-or-death kind of struggle, now adorned with precise lines forming a star-like shape. 

The technique was similar to the constellation stars Anaxa carved into the skin of the dead. Phainon often thought of how those markings would look sprawled out on his skin. Yet this was not the same. Instead, it seemed… more intimate… more… personal.

Lifting his gaze towards his Teacher, Phainon stares a little expectantly, his rapid heartbeat noticeable where Anaxa’s fingers encircle his wrist. “... What is it?”

“A compass rose,” Anaxa tells him, words from his lips sacred. “Aside from its original use, it’s also meant to represent guidance and finding one’s way.”

In a nerve-teasing slide, Anaxa gathers a newly-formed trickle of blood from one of Phainon’s cuts with his fingertip, bringing it to his lips, now glistening in a reddened hue as he licks off the ichor, not once averting his gaze, meeting Phainon’s intent look head-on. 

The hold Anaxa has on him is enough to bruise and cut off the blood flow from Phainon’s palm. Phainon’s heart lurches against his ribcage–thump, thump, thump–and even though instinct screams at him to run, Phainon leans an inch closer, stutters a faint breath underneath the piercing stare.

“Teacher.. would you…” voicing it scrapes his throat raw. Phainon thinks he wouldn’t mind having Anaxa slit it for him. Drink free straight from his arteries. “...ah.. would you.. do more?”

Soft, indulgent words. Whispered a breath’s width from his trembling lips. “Maybe.”

What a grotesque and romantic promise. Anaxa really is the only guiding star Phainon could ever need.

*

Phainon stares at the retractable knife in his hand, observing its bright sheen of red sliding in mute drip-drops to the pavement.

His chest rises and falls in short, adrenaline-fueled breaths. He had done it. His once-in-a-lifetime coming-of-age ritual. The blade almost slips out of his grasp, fisted hand shaking. Blood had splattered across his face, drenched the front of his dark hoodie. As the man crumbled to the ground, Phainon hadn’t moved since.

He stares at it. At the now-corpse. Did he succeed? The clean slit-through wound, weeping red on the concrete. Is it beautiful? Graceful and effortless like Anaxa’s work is? 

There is a slow sound of approaching steps. Phainon can’t bring himself to look up towards the source of it.

Death was not meant to be beautiful. For all the times Phainon had seen it, it never appeared so until he met his Teacher. If he were to fail miserably after all those patient years of teachings Anaxa bestowed upon him… if he were to make an ugly mess of someone–leave an mangled, unsightly sight not worthy of sacrifice–he would prove himself an irredeemable disappointment.

The sound of steps quiets down. Here… next to him. Phainon doesn’t look. 

Is it beautiful? He can’t even bring himself to speak.

Mangled like his parents’ corpses, like his dying sister’s face. Unsightly. Viscera spilled out, faces twisted in horror. Littered with stab wounds, oozing blood, and inner liquids. Repulsive. Glazed-over eyes fixed on the ceiling, bloodshot and widened in permanent pain.  Hideous. His Father’s slit open throat, flesh and muscle pulled taut as he choked on blood. Ugly. His Mother’s bare for all to see ribcage, her bone-punctured lungs. His late sister, the loving and gentle Cyrene… whatever was left of her…

…Ugly, wrong, disgusting. So so ugly, making Phainon so fucking sick.

“Phainon. It’s okay.” His Teacher’s delicate voice, string-pulling words that webbed in soothing comfort. Phainon turns, trembling like a frightened child, lost and utterly alone. Gently, Anaxa reaches out to cradle his face, wiping the splatters of blood with a handkerchief, and Phainon leans into it on baser instinct. “... It’s okay.”

Anaxa is never cruel to him. Caring, perhaps understanding. Death issued under him is a sacred art, a privilege Phainon would like to succumb to at once. 

The truth is fragile. Phainon doesn’t want to die an ugly, unsightly death–not like the frozen bodies scattered throughout streets during winter, not like the junkies in clubs’ dingy bathrooms, not like his parents, killed over ████████.

Phainon asks, voice on the verge of breaking. “Did I do well?”

“Yes.” It eases Phainon’s devastated heart a bit. Anaxa never lies to him, never spares him honest words that hurt with their sharpness, enough to sever life from his veins. “You did well, Phainon. Let’s go home.”

If it were the last Phainon gets to experience, he wouldn't mind it at all–Anaxa holding his hand with care as if it were fragile, leading Phainon to what both of them consider the safest place in the world.

The man Phainon killed hadn’t looked like all of Anaxa’s victims at all.

*

Locks click in place behind him. Phainon moves to first dispose of the bloodied nitrile gloves, hands shaking and clumsy in his attempt. Thrash thrown and disposed of into the bin, he steps out of his shoes next, kicks them closer to the shoe mat. Anaxa reaches for his upper clothes, wordless.

The old wooden floor tiles creak under his steps, the door to the bathroom squeaks in its hinges. The clinical white color of the walls and ceiling is peeling off to reveal its inner yellowish insides. Phainon feels a little sick in the cramped, oppressive space of it all.  

Anaxa sidesteps him to run the water. Cold, then a little warm. Phainon likes his baths scalding hot, as the high temperature keeps him warmer for most of the night. Anaxa’s cramped apartment was never too welcoming with its permanent cold breeze seething inside. Staring into it, the water’s languid surface reflects his unsure, tired face. Phainon’s hands fidget with his belt buckle before allowing his lower clothing to pool at his feet. Without the previous adrenaline, it gets even colder now–metaphorically naked, too exposed.

As Phainon dips inside the filled bathtub, the water’s mirage breaks. It sloshes around, reddens into a faint pinkish color as blood washes off his skin, some of it overflowing and seeping into the rugged carpet. Phainon draws his knees to his chest and rests his hands around them, curling onto himself for brief peace.

Unbroken silence. Perhaps Teacher will leave to give him space to think. A minute-long respite to sort out the mess of his thoughts, arm himself with words that will hurt to leave his choked-up throat. Phainon closes his eyes and lets darkness envelop his sight for a quiet while.

Almost inaudible steps. A rustle of… fabric. Then the lukewarm water splashes frightened again under additional weight settling in. 

Startled, Phainon blinks through the confusion. Anaxa rests at the other side of the too-small bathtub–his pale skin uncovered and appearance appearing near-vulnerable, soft foam and murky color of water saving him the least of modesty.

Their knees touch, legs bump into each other as Anaxa shifts into a more comfortable position in the cramped space. It’s a tad warmer now. Phainon’s heart flips, growing bolder with its ample beats rattling inside his chest.

After a minute that felt like an hour, Anaxa exhales. “What did it feel like?”

Extinguishing a blazing flame that is life, putting to rest a fragile human existence. Is it to for once be the one deciding one’s unjust fate, instead of the opposite, or is it mere artistic ideation and output of a grotesque mind? It is not the first time Phainon questions his Teacher’s secret motive. 

“... I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” A soft exhalation–a breathy sigh, a comforting repeat of the only words capable of granting Phainon’s worries rest. 

Anaxa looks serene, almost at peace in such an obscure setting. His fair complexation glows under the flickering lights of the decrepit bathroom, the sharpness of his two-toned eye accented with the sleep-deprived shadows. He is, after all, the prettiest Death Phainon had ever seen.

“How about you, Teacher?” Although it resounds bold, Phainon thinks himself afraid. Throat dry and parched, voice shying from confidence. Fear had become too close-held to get rid of it now. “What is it like?”

“To me?” A contemplative hum. An idle buzz of the lamplight above, weaving a one-of-a-kind sort of melody. Anaxa tilts his head to the side, and his loose mint hair dips underneath the water’s surface. “... I suppose I feel alive.”

Alive.

Is that how it is? For the river of death to bring life anew, to enshroud in prickling warmth instead of cold nothingness. In the throes of committing the unthinkable, Teacher could appear near-mad, although that had never deterred Phainon from wanting to see more. To long for death is to embrace it, become one with fear.

“Teacher—that time back then… you didn’t… kill me.” Years had passed, rattled with misfortune and unbearable, fragile feelings. Years in which Phainon let go of the past, whilst Anaxa seemed to cling to it. “...Why?”

“ Why?” Anaxa echoes, smiles in a thin, resigned line, tugging at his lips. Emboldened, Phainon shifts closer, the least noticeable inch nearer his Teacher. A bit of water spills from the overfilled edges of the bathtub. “I can admit as much. I don’t know.”

“...But Teacher… all those people from before. All of them look like m–”

“Phainon.” The curt call of his name stops him, shushes and disperses the erratic thoughts spilling from his lips, undue. “... is death truly what you wish for?”

Pink-hued water sloshes around, its coldness caressing their limbs that seem to tangle, bodies instinctively gravitating towards warmth to share it, seeking out closeness. Anaxa allows Phainon this scarce vulnerability to blossom like a late winter’s snowdrop, gathers Phainon’s trembling hands in his and moves them to cup his face, leaning into the leftover warmth Phainon carries. 

“Tell me,” Anaxa’s skin is like ice, the wet droplets of water dripping from his drenched hair as if he were melting underneath the scrutiny of the newly set sun. “Phainon, what is that you desire so?”

Death? Beauty in death? Hands to close around his throat? Someone to hold him as he bleeds out on pure white sheets? 

…Anaxa? 

“... Sorry. I don’t know.” And still, as if submerged in the waters of life and death, waves crushing against the brittle shores, Anaxa lets Phainon impossibly closer, guides his unsure hand to hook under the medical eyepatch that shields the side of Anaxa’s ghostly face. “Teacher… I… “

I don’t know. I don’t know. Peeling the fabric aside, Phainon’s fingertips hover short of touching the revealed empty place. Hollowed out eyesocket, a scar running through the lowered eyelid. Please tell me the answer, Teacher.

“That’s okay.” Amidst the shared space–bodies pulled flush, pinkish water of neither of their blood spilling, mirrors fogged and carpet drenched–a breath is loud enough to echo in endless repetition. It’s okay. He’s okay. With his Teacher, Phainon will always be okay. “After all, a blank slate holds infinite potential.”

Teacher is cold, too cold this close to him. Such frigid words whispered with unwavering conviction and bone-deep feelings, a brush from Phainon’s lips. Even Anaxa’s breath is unimaginably cold for something straight from his insides–lukewarm at best, like their broken AC in the living room. Would the fleshy inside of Teacher’s hollowed-out eyesocket be this icy-cold, too? 

“Teacher,” That desperate plea Phainon breathes into Anaxa’s lips, bitten in fragile worry and moist with ichor. “In our next lives… could you teach me all over again?”

Their lips brush–once, twice. Sizzling hot the shared air is, flesh infusing with flesh. Phainon’s held close, so so close it would drive a lesser man mad. 

Anaxa’s lithe hands loop around his neck, keep Phainon lightheaded and buzzing with innate want as his lips are pried open and given in, pliant. Boiling hot arousal must’ve spilled over then–how Anaxa’s touches descend down Phainon’s spine, linger at the scar that goes through the jutting out outline of his ribs. 

Like that, Phainon can feel it. The ravaging, destructive want swirling in his coiled guts, the mutual excitement that could make him die right here. Grinding his hips down lets Phainon hear the guttural sound Anaxa slips in between his licking kisses, their tongues wormed like parasites living off each other.

“In each life,” a string of spit snaps the last of their connection as Anaxa draws back, panting, and with lively flushed cheeks. “let’s cross paths at least once before we part.”

The water should’ve gone cold at this point, but Phainon still feels unbearable hotness within each nerve ending in his body as if set aflame. There’s a rush of chilling respite in the crook of Anaxa’s bare neck, the familiar lulling scent of peppermint that alone could drown in the entirety of Phainon’s drowsy consciousness. 

His heart pounds like on its tragic deathbed as Phainon runs his hands across Anaxa’s chest–maps out each bone and dip in flesh–crosses the dangerously indulgent line of Anaxa’s prominent hipbones and settles around his half-filled cock, twitching in his hand. In tandem with the encompassing touch, Anaxa swallows, and his hands pull Phainon towards him again, lips parted to take him apart.

Ah, he could die. Suffocated, somehow loved, with teeth shredding his lips to blood. Phainon whines, a rather pathetic sound, a metallic taste spreading through his palate as Anaxa swipes his tongue across the bite. It’s a little more than just shallow, but Phainon doesn’t mind. Instead, he pushes at Anaxa’s shoulder and raises his hips over the swollen cock in his hand, swallowing the hissed out sound Anaxa makes into his mouth when the tip of his cock catches on Phainon’s hole. 

“Phainon,” A raw, delirious whisper, drowned under the onslaught of sensations. “... Hah. Here?”

It’s like slotting into the right place for the first time in his life. Warm and stuffy like in a mother’s womb, cold and wet like when washed in the calming waves of Styx. 

“Sorry,” Phainon gasps, greediness wallowing in the pit in his stomach. Oh, he wants it, wanted it for so long. Anaxa, his bruising hold, his loving gaze burning holes into him. If it were plausible, Phainon wouldn’t mind staying intertwined like this forever. “... I just.. I just wanted… always,–”

Spiced sweetness, Anaxa tastes like, his lips cold just like his hands framing Phainon’s neck. The press at his windpipe has Phainon reaching down to palm himself, smearing arousal mixed with bloodied water along his aching length as he forces their hips flush, near-shaking from the strain to keep himself upright at the overwhelming sensation of being filled. 

It’s death in the sweetest form. His Teacher’s hands squeezing tighter around his throat, creating black dots in his vision, making his rigid pulse ring in his ears. Phainon moans or wheezes or perhaps does some deranged combination of both—leaning into the biting touch, pushing and grinding down on Anaxa’s cock, holding onto his shoulders with a faltering hold. 

“Ahn.. T.. teacher,” could it be it? Death at the tips of his fingers, its taste a saccharine delicacy. Phainon wouldn’t be able to rid himself of the ghost-touch of Anaxa’s gentle hands even after death washes his clean of sin.  “.. ple..ase, T…te.. ach…e r..” 

If he were to die here, Anaxa would keep him beautiful. Saw him open like a wrapped gift and take out then-useless organs, keep them preserved in liquid like sacred keepsakes. Stuff him like a life-sized doll to keep warm at night and clean off the beginnings of rot and unfortunate decay. Take his teeth, then his eyes, sew or glue those places shut like funeral homes do. Phainon would never be ugly in death with Anaxa as his guide to the afterlife.

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. And it feels good, too good–his insides clamping down at each desperate thrust, cold sweat drenching the hairs at his nape as he moves, stutters, and paws at Anaxa’s wrists in an instinctual life-or-death struggle.

“Ah, mhn–T..t...teacher–” those delicate, murderous hands, thumbs circling his adam’s apple as trimmed nails scrape his skin raw. Phainon sucks in a trembling breath, dried throat spasming in pain. 

“Don’t keep it in. I want to see.” Anaxa murmurs against him, a bit mirthful as he licks off a tear that Phainon hadn’t noticed falling and wetting his red-flushed face–and he can feel… the phantom-like smile ghosting atop his Teacher’s lips. 

Sparks of pleasure pierce Phainon’s spine as he bucks into each thrust aimed at that mind-numbing spot inside him, defensive tears gather in the corner of his eyes, trailing a salty path down his face–wet and flushed with boiling blood underneath skin, hiccuping on begging sobs. Small, breathless Please’s. Anaxa appraises him so, soft and adoring, like a painter gazes at their greatest piece of art. 

“Your eyes,” Anaxa whispers, something airless without intent, and he looks as affected if not more, bubbling pleasure pinching his features in such lovely strain, erotic-grotesque with how his nails puncture flesh to blood. “... I had ..always liked them.”

“You can–ah, mn–take.. th..em–” and how romantic it is, cold water enveloping him like a corpse, internal warmth burning him alive. Such an embrace makes Phainon feel faint, a step from gracing the shore of the other side. He half-coughs, half-begs, forms the simplest plea to leave behind himself, “Take, ah, everything..–I love.. you, Anaxa–”

He’s held, anchored with desirous want, Anaxa leaning close until their tipped-off breaths become one, lips meeting. Phainon arches his back, spine bent and neck near-crushed, scalding arousal reaching its impending peak as he sinks down to the base of Anaxa’s length, his insides tightening in tandem with the climax that nails him back to fruitless life. 

The brutally loving hold over Phainon’s bruised throat falters to nothing but a tingling aftertaste of pain before he can pass out. Haste, Phainon limps into Anaxa with his strings cut off, gasping hurried breaths, stuffy air filling his lungs anew. Everything goes still for a few uncountable minutes.

And then. A lingering kiss is placed atop his aching, sweaty temple. Cold, far more than the dirtied water shielding their ruined bodies. “... I must apologize. That wish… I can't fulfill it, Phainon.”

Phainon smiles, still a little breathless as he answers. “That’s okay.”

*

Late into the night, Phainon huddles up on the familiar couch with a myriad of blankets to keep him warm. All the windows are closed, but Anaxa’s one-person apartment never fails to enshroud him in brisk cold. A bit like the man himself.

Although… this time there’s a significant difference. 

His Teacher sits there next to him, a simple nightgown hanging off his frame like the pensive air in the room hadn’t seeped into him to the bone. 

He’s pale and ghost-like in the shimmering light of the muted TV, but there’s noticeable livefulness to his features—a deep, vulnerable softness to his gaze or the slight nervousness to his hands.

There’s a plushie between them, a dromas-shaped worn-out little thing that must’ve seen more than Phainon throughout his entire life. It’s not off-putting, rather humanizing, a simple childish thing that somehow fits between unusual people. His Teacher’s look is drawn to it as if it were to grow functional legs and run at a moment's notice, but the same can be said of how he looks at Phainon at times. As if the once-boy and now-man he housed for years were to disappear, lest he keep him there with that pointed stare of his.

Well, Phainon isn’t going anywhere. So as to convey this somehow, he scoots up closer until the plushie is squeezed funnily between them. Anaxa’s eye twitches, and a stupid smile grows on Phainon’s lips.

There was never a need for questions between them. Phainon had been content to live off scraps of information about Anaxa’s life and, in turn, let Anaxa figure out his past on his own. 

There was no need to open up sewn wounds. And still. Anaxa speaks up, hushed but not discreet. Just for Phainon alone to hear.

“That thing,” he wavers there, not quite hesitating but rather thinking of something that could be sacred to him, “My sister made it. For me.”

Sister. 

Anaxa has… a sister?

Someone he’s more than likely close with, a part of a close-knit family. A sister… perhaps an older one?  It’s not like Phainon would know, but it seems to fit somehow in his mind. After all, he had a sister too.

Family… Phainon doesn’t think of it much these days.

Of his caring and loving mother who, when bathing the dirt off him, held him underwater until his lungs burned and nails left scratches on the porcelain covering of the bathtub. Of his understanding and honest father who beat him bloodied and half-dead when he thought to stand up for his sister.

Phainon doesn’t think about them much. Doesn’t think about his sister… his beautiful and delicate sister… Cyrene, whose loving embrace felt suffocating at times…

Through the mess of those thoughts, a grounding touch reaches him past the fog settled through his mind. Phainon blinks, staring at Anaxa’s hand that squeezes his thigh. He trails up, meets Anaxa’s gaze, and focuses on that understanding softness he hadn’t felt Anaxa give him before.

“... She’s dead.” Oh. “She was murdered a long time ago. I watched her die as she shielded me from the same fate.”

Dead. In such circumstances, too. Different from the corpses Phainon saw his parents be reduced to.  To what he left them with to rot in that life he let go of.

“Don’t look at me with such obvious pity.” Anaxa graces him with a smile and similarly sharp laughter, world-ending and devastating, but so close to Phainon’s heart it could very well be the one running in his bloodstream. “I still have you, don’t I?”

Phainon closes his hand around Anaxa’s, lacing their fingers like those star-crossed lovers do in the long-forgotten movie, muted in the background. “I wouldn’t want anything else.”

*

On the anniversary of his sister’s death, there are no mournful celebrations held in her memory.

Anaxagoras had never trusted those to be enough to carry on his regret of her unfair passing. If he could, he would give measured part of his remaining life to see her anew. He thought it plausible when he gouged out his eye in the morgue whilst kneeling beside her body, praying for salvation to the higher Gods.

She would not be returned to him–cruel as those Gods’ wills are, so the least he could still do with his feeble excuse for a life was to avenge her.

Each time after Anaxagoras ventures out to kill, he comes back shivering but smiling, limping through his childhood apartment to cradle the one last picture of her he had framed and hidden from the world. He would continue to age and mature as she remained a fleeting glimpse stuck in the glass-shielded photograph–her hands on his younger self’s shoulders, her mint-colored hair spilling down her narrow shoulders, the bright smile blinding.

Anaxagoras does not know the name of the man he seeks out to kill in some attempt at regaining her soul’s deserved rest.

He knows, however, that the man carried a knife with a crescent moon carved into its handle, and how his whitish hair spilled underneath the dark hood over his head as he leered over his sister’s corpse. It would be one to see a murderous glint of satisfaction or some unexplainable madness in his expression… but Anaxagoras had seen none. Instead, lightless blue eyes blankly washed in indifference stabbed him with the same agonizing terror his sister must have felt in her last moments.

These days, that deplorable man whom Anaxagoras knows nothing about appears to be haunting him whenever he goes.

In the mornings, Anaxa wakes up to find him at the edge of his bed, sitting on the dusty rug like a domesticated mutt waiting for its owner to rise from slumber. In the afternoons, Anaxa eats a one-course meal with him, stares at his back when he washes their dishes just to think of possible weak spots to strike. In the evenings, Anaxa leaves with him in tow to find another victim in the endless chase of life and death. At nights, Anaxa looks at him and his peaceful sleeping face and tries to accept that this is not the man responsible for her death.

Because Phainon stares at Anaxa like a man enamored, stricken with a cupid’s arrow that makes patching up his wounded heart impossible. He calls Anaxa a teacher, clings to words that pull him from the righteous path in life, refuses to leave Anaxa alone even under the constant threat on his life. 

And… his eyes are clear of that haunting indifference, shining like the brightest sun to ever set above Anaxa’s life.

It could be so, Anaxa thinks at times—nonexistent Gods favouring tragicomedy as to force him into such a sorry plight. His sister’s killer lookalike clung to him like a jealous lover. A perfect victim of his rotten heart.