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All things considered—the way it starts is an accident.
Phainon’s neck is tacky with sweat, grass tickling at his skin, skin prickled warm from the false morning of the Dawn Device, chest heaving with his strangled breath from prior exertion, arm straining beneath the armored knee keeping him stationary; butterfly pinned through the thorax, gleaming golden.
His wooden sword is tossed several feet aside, near blending into the dirt and uprooted grass from their scuffle. It’s hot.
The exhale through Phainon’s nose is shaky, a warm rough puff as he strains his head to look up, feeling the dig of leather into the back of his neck with the movement. Heart thundering in his chest, a pounding so heavy within the cavity he can hear it racketing in his ears, surging through his veins. Blistering heat, smoldering in its intensity.
There’s a shift against the front of his neck, blissful chill, knife tip edge of the finger guards of Mydei’s gauntlet brushing against the curve of his jaw, flexing tight against his choker. Phainon’s next inhale is sharp, throat bobbing, a sudden parchedness to his tongue and throat as his eyes focus on the curl of Mydei’s mouth, his ears straining at the pleased timbre of his chuckle, a heat low in his belly, smoking high as Phainon traces the drip of bead of sweat down the valley of Mydei’s cheek and down, down, down to the fall of his chin until Phainon feels it pool down onto his own skin.
A thirst rips through him with such force, it feels as if he’s made of forge fire, throat burning from the coals waiting to be quenched by forgiving, molding water.
It’s the first time he’s ended up this way during one of their spars.
Not having lost — it’s always up in the air about who will, ultimately, end up with a win in their pocket — but laid out on his back like this, the heavy weight of one of Mydei’s knees pressed unwavering as a bulwark against his arm, the other digging into the dirt by Phainon’s hip.
Perched over him. A lion lazing about above its soon-to-be kill. His body is warm, an inferno above Phainon’s body despite the mere inches between them, the Dawn Device shadowing the mountains and valleys of his muscle for Phainon to take in beneath his shadow.
Mydei’s laughter is a rough thing, joyous in his victory, a low baritone that brushes hot against Phainon’s skin. His grip around Phainon’s choker tightens, bodily lifting him until their foreheads brush. Breath mingling, skin slick with sweat and teeth bared in a smile; sometimes Phainon wonders if they’re sharp enough to cut by themselves, would slice through his skin as easily as a feasting beast, if he in turn could bury his own teeth into the bared, vulnerable space of Mydei’s neck. Tear a chunk out of him to hold between his teeth, a vicious hunger that chases him the way a starving hound stalks a rabbit.
(Now, though. Now he debates on shifting just a bit. Chin lifting a little higher, free hand coming up to settle at the divot of Mydei’s hip, fingers digging in like knives. Thinks of the consequences of that would-be action — the snarl that would wrench its way across Mydei’s features a scathing scoundrel leaving his lips, blistering in intensity as he bristles at the touch, the assumption, the want laid so bare before him, a feast proffered upon silver platter. Heart peeled from his very chest still beating and vulnerable, pretty as a pomegranate though perhaps, not nearly as sweet.
Phainon’s self-inflicted wound; his hands sitting gentle on the hilt of his own knife, sliding desire neatly through his own ribs, skin rippling viridescent gold and weeping through the break of his bones, slick squelch of the pit of his heart.
To offer that which he loves and that which he fears all at once. Unquenchable thirst in the face of this man. A desire so ravenous he can devour anything freely offered and still be starving; a treacherous wanting thing.
An image so vastly different from what everyone expects of him. If he can’t fix this then he simply has to stand it.)
This — the tug, the pull, the proximity, being forced into Mydeimos’ space, being welcomed into it of his own volition — waters something ravenous within his chest, a chasm of endless hunger from the corners of his soul, wanting, wanting, wanting; self-immolation, heady and sweet. Altogether new in its form.
A closeness between them not initiated by him. His head feels dizzy, breath a little stilted, Mydei’s hand so close to his neck, directing him, allowing him. Ah. That seed of desire.
“What was it you were saying about this being the day you lay me out on the ground, huh, deliverer?” There’s no denying the sharp cut of mockery to the words, the tone, but just as swiftly is an undercurrent of fondness, an ease to Mydei that so few people seem to really see, to understand. “Always so much bark for such little bite.” Mydei says, and Phainon feels a laugh bundle free from his chest unbidden.
A hyena, a scoundrel, fond-scathing-toying deliverer, a beast that sits hungry and wanting, something vicious and lovely and yet dearly wanted, seen as an equal, worthy; Phainon thinks he’d be anything at all that he could be if it would let him orbit in Mydei’s space.
Such a funny thing, how poorly he’d thought they’d get along in the beginning. A stoic and closed off man is what he once assumed Mydeimos of Castrum Kremnos would be. A foolish thought in hindsight.
Mydei is many things — awkward if well meaning, quiet and prone to ruminating about his own problems over ever bringing them to light to anyone else, blunt, even a tad hot headed when he’s in the throes of enjoyment, but cruel or brutish has never been Mydeimos’ way.
Still. A slight is a slight regardless of the playfulness to it. Even as the metal of Mydei’s gauntlet digs further into the soft skin beneath his chin Phainon eases closer, uncaring of the additional weight against his arm, until he can fit his mouth around the column of Mydei’s neck. Invincible, undying Mydeimos, so careful about who he lets close, letting him close his teeth around one of the least protected parts of one’s body.
Soft flesh, a rushing pulse, a symphony to Phainon’s ears. It would be so easy, sometimes, to take advantage of the things Mydei actually lets him do. Sometimes, Phainon almost falters. His voracity hitting an all time high. A serpentine lapse of control slithers deep into his core slowly untethering his hold inch by inch until Phainon feels that beast of hunger lift its head, test the chains of its surrender, its self-built cage for imperfection.
This is one such time.
He should keep it as just a phantom press of the imprints of his teeth against Mydei’s neck. Laugh it off as pure fun. Coax the two of them into a journey to the baths.
His teeth press, little by little — a morsel found that if he surged forward for to enjoy he could crush between his molars — against the soft, barebellied offering before him with reverence that borders on prayer until he can feel the give, the real imprint, claim, mark of his presence on Mydei’s skin. Instinct and desire entwined. To bite is also to touch in a way, isn’t it?
There are fingers curled in the collar of his coat threatening to wrench him away from Mydei’s being. “Phainon,” it’s a growling roll of his name, a low warning that sends heat down Phainon’s spine, mouth curling at the edge as he curls his fingers around the edge of Mydei’s pauldron, a wrestle of who can keep who where. “I thought such tactics were beneath you.” It’s a scoff, and Phainon can feel the formation of the words beneath his teeth, almost against his tongue, all as it accompanies a twitch to Mydei’s posture, a shift to the stabilization of his leg from an all too fleeting moment of weakness.
With a bridge of his hips that has Mydei tipping forward the most difficult part of reversing the pin is the brief pocket of space he has to give Mydei’s neck to do it.
A dog giving up its well loved and well worn bone. If only for a moment.
His arm shifts, muscles protesting the stretch and strain as Phainon moves the curl of his hands from Mydei’s pauldron to the back of his neck in this scrunched positioning, fingers squeezing at the junctures just below his ears. There’s a grunt from Mydei at the reversal, armor heavy and body heavier for it as Phainon lays all his weight into him, taking the opportunity to better slot himself below Mydei’s chin, mouth finding a home around the ball of his throat. A wishful hope for bruises to flower there in his absence, a coy greed that might impress Zagreus with his intent.
He breathes in deep here, sweat and dirt and something sweet here that clings distinctly to the other man. Ensorcelling himself with it, tucks it neat into his memory and wonders, briefly, if his own body smell will converge with Mydei’s own. An animal thing.
Phainon’s swallow is a heavy thing, parched as he is with the very thing that could soothe his ache just beneath him. The effort it takes to keep the dredges of drool from dripping from the corners of his mouth to stain along Mydei’s skin is laughable in its refrain. He wants so terribly much.
With a sharp exhale and a forceful squeeze to Mydei’s neck to keep the other man from squirming, his hissed now who’s the one playing around? does nothing but set a burn low in Phainon’s stomach. For the moment Phainon is grateful for his bangs, an obfuscating curtain that allows him to peek up at Mydei’s expression without Tantalon’s judgement to find him.
He’s red. Skin flushed hot under his mouth, certainly, but there’s a flush flowering from cheek to cheek from their mutual exertion. Mydei’s expression is pinched in what Phainon can only assume is a concoction of confusion-rage-annoyance as if Phainon’s mouth has done unto him the sweetest of violence, a gentle subjugation. Even his ears are bloodrushed, the skin taking up the hue of the heart nestled safe and secure and so out of reach of Phainon’s teeth. He could take it if he really wanted to — wanted to try, could stomach it and keep it whole.
But he doesn’t. Doesn’t dare cross the unsaid and unknown line in the sand of his own partitioning. This is enough. This allowed closeness under the guise of fighting, of playing.
It’s with a harsh, heaving pant against Mydei’s neck when he shifts just enough to slide his mouth from the perch it's found, low laughter escaping him as he dares to instead bury his face into the welcoming slot of Mydei’s shoulder. Can feel the other man’s fingers digging deep into his clothing, looming at fragile skin at his back, knows Mydei has once forced his entire hand through someone’s chest and shivers at the thought of it happening to him. A rippling tidal wave.
Can still feel the cold burn of the fingers trapped between him just at his neck, still corded tightly around his choker. Wonders — just what would it take for Mydei to change the way he holds his hand.
“What was it you were saying Mydeimos?” The words form with sly ease against the bare portion of Mydei’s skin, and Phainon feels his heart rush at the annoyed exhale of Mydei’s breath, the strangled hks from his mouth. “That I have such little bite?” It’s an almost cooing mockery of the words thrown at him, warm from his tongue and puffed into Mydei’s sweat slick skin. Resists the urge to drag his tongue. He knows Mydei can feel the slow curl of his mouth against his skin, tightens his grip at the back of his neck when Mydei growls something at him, an attempted thrash beneath him. Slots the two of them closer, Phainon between his legs, Mydei attempting to find an inch to squeeze away to kick him.
He closes his eyes. The exhale this time is softer, slacked and easing with the proximity; he at least knows when to stop pushing his luck physically. “It seems even a formidable man such as you still has things he can learn.” The laugh he lets out as he rises earns him a drag of metal down his back in a warning he’s learned is tied to Mydei disliking the idea of someone looking down on him. Weakness wouldn’t be tolerated in the detachment, not with the way his people idolize him. Now above the other man, Phainon gives a playful snap of his teeth, fire licking through his skin as he catches Mydei’s eyes dilated, his mouth going a little slack with disbelief. “Know this Mydeimos — even the goodest dog can still bite if he decides to.”
“Hah,” it’s more of a bite of sound than anything else, a rushing exhale as Mydei huffs at him. A playful kind of disdain, a blunt delivery that Phainon has long learned to look past. “You really are comparable to a hyena using such laughable actions. Scavenging at whatever you can reach because you couldn’t stand your rightful loss this round.”
His laughter this time is twinkling, a warm burst of sound as Phainon shakes his head. “Hardly my friend — merely showing that the battle is never over until one has gotten in a devastating blow. Isn’t that what you told me once? There is no shame in ruthlessness?” His smile curves to show off his teeth, words honey-dipped; “It seems to me, Mydeimos, that today it was you that was merely playing around.”
Perhaps Mydei had been the ones to say such at some point, but Phainon is quite sure that Mydei in turn had heard it from Krateros before parroting it somewhere else. A lesson passed down, now used to tease in what is in reality a friendly spar. All while existing as a lesson that neither of them believe in. Mydei as he’s come to learns detests mindless slaughter, bloodshed, bygone glory without any real standing; engraved upon the psyche but not followed.
“You say such nonsensical things as if there will ever be another opportunity to put yourself at my neck.” It’s a languid kind of confidence that Mydei says it with, as he curls his hand tight in the fabric of Phainon’s coat to finally, finally wrench him away. Phainon misses the heat of him as he allows himself to roll to the side, laid out on the grass next to him, head tilted to look at Mydei, even ground. “You’re too merciful to use such tactics to their best results.”
“Really?” There’s a bit of challenge to it as Phainon pushes himself up to lay on his arm, chin propped up in his hand. There’s an upturn to Mydei’s mouth, an interest in return to his bite. He imagines himself reaching out with his other hand to brush the hair from Mydei’s face, letting his hand rest there, after, on the slope of his cheek. “Rather cocky for the man that already let it happen once, no?”
Mydei is steel eyed as he smirks. “Mere luck — even you, on occasion, can be granted with it.”
“Well,” Phainon starts, laughter thick in his throat. “I do hope you won’t act like a sore loser when I catch you between my teeth once more Mydei.”
“A fantasy fit to only occur in your dreams deliverer,” Mydei huffs out but there’s something warm to it, Phainon would dare venture to say something fond to the baritone of it as he rises to stand. When he reaches to pull Phainon up by his arm there’s an ease to him, an unspoken shedding of their encounter as something only for fun; a return to the daily dynamic without any grudge or leftover aggression unearned. “Come — today we’ll treat it as a draw. Your coin purse will only feel the weight of half of today’s meal.”
“Oh, how generous of you,” Phainon says, mirth thick on his tongue. “For once you’re deigning not to rob me blind, hmm?”
“If you see enjoying the spoils of one’s victory as robbing you blind then you should prioritize winning over complaining.”
“Then for tomorrow’s round you had best not complain when it’s a win under my belt.”
Mydei’s answering hum is low and considering as he starts to tread the well worn path out towards the market, head tilted in acknowledgment. “We’ll see what the dawn brings deliverer. There’s still plenty of time to empty your purse.”
Time has taught Phainon patience, albeit a little at a time over the years. As a boy his impatience got him into quite a bit of trouble with his antics, his whims carrying him wherever he wished in his home town until it crumbled away. A childish allowance.
As a young man his patience has been tempered the same way a blade is forged; it was beat into him by his own inadequacies and failures, a need to be more than he was, pushed along by his loss and his wish, a festering wound of hate he was never sure would be closed as his new journey began with his fellow Chrysos Heirs.
His greatest teacher in patience is not time nor his own growth, however. Instead he has to give credence to another individual entirely. The other heirs have helped in their own ways — Aglaea treats them all as sacred cogs in a wheel fitting them in place where they fit best, Tribbie for as small as they are they’re still the most learned of them all offering moments of respite and view of what really matters at the end of the day. A reminder of there being a tomorrow. And yet.
And yet like most things his greatest pursuant of growth comes in the form of Mydeimos. Patience in coaxing the other man from his close-lipped replies, patience in knowing best when to seek him out, patience in understanding another person.
All of it culminating in the long wait a predator endures in hunger to ensure they won’t let their prey escape. His near daily romps to seek Mydei out to drag him to the baths is expected at this point during Action Hour. It’s the best way to ensure Mydei has someone to look out for him—to know that at the end of the day any and all reaches of the black tide have been washed away in golden, gleaming waters.
A slow game. A kind of slow con is how Mydei might see it—underhanded, scoundrel-like, without honor in his taking advantage of their routine to prove a point.
It’s been — seconds, minutes, hours, days since that particular spar when Phainon indulged in the allowance of space Mydei allowed him to crowd. There’d been a motley collection of small black-blue reminders of Phainon’s presence on Mydei’s neck the next morning for their spar. Phainon’s carefully planned out patience had nearly snapped, drawn thread thin right then and there.
But as the years have shown him—patience is a virtue worth having; a worthy balance to his gluttonous sin, bottomless desire; snap the sinew, rip in with hands and teeth.
Action hour is when the baths are the emptiest, both for the public and for their own private area. A quietude typically unknown to Okhema. The water is warm today, steaming, white puffs of heat leeching into the air and flushing the skin.
At this time Mydei unfurls, a hidden softness to him bearing fruit, ripe, sweet, sickeningly vulnerable; peach-skin fragile calling to the callous hunger of his hands, body always ready for violence and deciding against it, choosing to cradle, to cultivate, to sit in the rumination of trust that Mydei has willingly and willfully chosen to place in him.
Has chosen to place his trust in Phainon’s character, a confidant out of him that will not think him weak for wanting, for supplication of gentleness, for seeing him at his most deliberately human.
“Annoying,” Mydei says, eyes slipping closed and lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. It’s a low rumble, a word without any heat, only a slow slur of syllables as he feels Phainon’s gaze on him. “Get on with it or leave it.”
He’s already entrenched halfway in the water, skin bare and on display to the night air, uncaring or unknowing of Phainon’s gaze tracing along the valley and peaks of his back. Even as his skin tints pink from the heat, the vibrance of his markings don’t ebb, standing out stark against his skin. For a moment, perched as he is at the bath’s edge, legs cradling the points of Mydei’s shoulders, Phainon wonders if Mydei would flinch if he let his hands wander away from their assigned task under the guise of curiosity.
He’s supposed to be tying up Mydei’s hair for him before he sinks fully into the water. A fussy boy, an endearingly childish quality to him, that he doesn’t like his hair to get wet.
“Leave it?” Phainon asks with a disbelieving laugh as he indulges in carding his fingers through the ends of Mydei’s hair, feels something squeeze, death-knell warning in his chest, at the way Mydei lets out a soft sigh from his nose, a relaxation to his body as he leans against the wall and the cradle of Phainon’s body. “You’ll grumble the whole way back if I just leave it. I just—want to do something new this time.”
It had felt like a blasphemous benediction when Mydei had thrown a corded thing of leather at him so many days ago and muttered it’s easier to get right if someone else does it, an olive branch of a kind, an admittance of rarely given trust.
“Different seems to be taking quite a while,” Mydei says, a low grumble, chest rising and falling in an easy in-out, in-out. An eye peels up, head tilting to look at him curiously. “You lost it didn’t you?”
“No. No, I have it!” With a huff Phainon lets the cord dangle from the tips of his fingers. “Such little faith in me Mydei, it’s like you want to hurt my feelings.”
“Then hurry up.”
“Getting lonely?” Phainon can’t help but push, a teasing lilt that spreads from his words to the tilt of his head as he looks down at Mydei. There’s a scoff, a muttered at this point I’d take the peace and quiet as Phainon allows an indulgent trace of his fingers along the slope of Mydei’s shoulders, nails scraping at his skin as he gathers the loose unruly strands at the base of his neck. It’s thick, the color of the trees of his home town and a beating longing fills his chest as he works it between his fingers.
Home. Such a funny thing. He hasn’t had his home in years and yet somehow, with his idiosyncrasies, his coloring, the very way he carries himself—Mydeimos, crown prince of Castrum Kremnos makes him feel as if he’s home.
Hair collected into one hand Phainon falls into the familiar routine of working the tie around it to keep it up away from the water. There’s another sigh as Mydei registered the weight off his neck, more of his body weight pressing into the curve of Phainon’s calf. His neck is red, blood rushing to the surface from the heat, open to Phainon’s wanting.
He lets his fingers trail. Down, down, down the side of Mydei’s neck the pads of his fingers dragging at the skin of his shoulders as he only hums in acknowledgement to the huff of annoyance-tinged-fondness of; “What are you doing?” There’s no tension as Phainon skates a nail over the marks slithering their way down Mydei’s back, only a rising of the hair at the back of Mydei’s back, a ripple of goosebumps, a shiver against his thigh. A grumbled, sleep heavy grouse; “Always bothering me. That’s your only hobby, isn’t it?”
It’s a tired kind of question, a lazy confidence in Phainon’s character that Mydei lets him continue at all. An assumption of playfulness, a lion letting a puppy nip at its paws knowing it can slam it away with one swing of a paw.
“Something like that.” Phainon admits, laugh low in his throat and eyes drinking in the easy way Mydei rolls his shoulders after his fingers pass trailing up, up, up to curls his fingers around the soft curve of Mydei’s jaw to tip his head forward. “You’re just so easy to bother Mydei—you can’t begrudge me my fun can you? Look how often I have to try and keep you in line.”
There’s a snort. “In line?” Mydei questions. “When have you ever been able to put me in any place I don’t want to be.”
Phainon hums, a long held note as he considers how to answer, looms closer to the heat of Mydei’s body, spine bending as he presses his lips to the back of Mydei’s neck, words spoken into his skin. “When you lose,” it’s a quiet murmur against goosebump prickled skin. Against the tips of his fingers he can feel a muscle twitch in Mydei’s jaw, and feels the harsh exhale through his nose. Careful, careful, careful to keep from breaking peach-skin, Phainon drags his canines along the column of Mydei’s neck. “What was it you said a few days ago?” He teases, breathing hot and leaving a wet patch at the dip where Mydei’s neck meets his spine. “That there’ll never again be an opportunity where I get my mouth at your neck?”
There are fingers digging into the meat of Phainon’s arm, followed by pinpricks of pain, thin lines of gold flowing down to join the golden waters. There’s a strangled noise in the back of Mydei’s throat that licks a fire down Phainon’s spine, molten heat in his belly, beast straining against its chain. “It’s like you want to court death.” For as steady as it comes out, Phainon feels the warble of it in Mydei’s throat, the shake of the air in the words. A catch to it that makes him want to sink his teeth further into his skin, blood thick as honey on his tongue, ambrosia sucked free from Mydei’s marrow.
He smiles, mouth pressing firmly to the base of Mydei’s neck, pressing his teeth in tight and sharp until he feels Mydei’s nails dig in so deeply to his flesh it feels as if he will anchor himself there in Phainon’s flesh. His own words are strangled in pain, a gasping hot push of blood dripping downwards, air combusting in his lungs. “Don’t be a sore loser, Mydeimos,” Phainon says, a pant heavy from his mouth as he looks at blossoming pin pricks of blood on the back of Mydei’s neck, a caress of his fingers to Mydei’s jaw as he separates, rolling from the edge of the bath to the balls of his feet. “I’m just enjoying the spoil of my victory,” he parrots, a vicious glee to it as Mydei snarls in the bath, body turning to follow after him.
Mydei might threaten to put him in the ground for this but he’ll have to catch Phainon first. Licking at his teeth Phainon takes off, feeling the honey-brew of Mydei’s blood sit heavy on his tongue.