Chapter Text
The shower in their apartment makes this sound like the pipes are groaning. Sometimes the walls seem to shake with it. Rumbling plumbing, the scream of a loose washer in the faucet, and then the hiss of water running. These are the sounds Mydei wakes up to, too hot and swaddled in sheets that are due for a wash. He kicks them off and rolls onto his back, peeling his eyes open to stare at his hideous popcorn ceiling and listen to Phainon shower.
Four months into this life, he doesn’t know why he doesn’t regret it.
As he peels himself out of bed, Phainon starts to sing. His voice is thin and muffled through the walls; Mydei doesn’t recognize the song.
When he gets to the kitchen, he smells the remains of three charred eggs before he finds them in the trash. There’s a crusty pan left to soak in the sink, crumbs all over the counter, and a small puddle on the ground that Mydei steps in whilst trying to fill a glass of water. He curses and drops a towel, mopping it up with his foot, making a mental note to make Phainon come back and clean the kitchen properly.
Later, with a protein shake and two pieces of toast with honey butter, Mydei hears the bathroom door open, Phainon’s bedroom door shut. The pipes have stopped screaming. Mydei takes a sip. A little longer, the door clicks open again. Phainon comes out, dressed in black sweats and a polo, hair still wet and limply lying atop his head.
“Mydei,” he says, smiling a little. Something in his eyes isn’t right. “Good morning.”
Why do you seem sad? Mydei wonders. Out loud, he says, “What’s wrong with you?”
Phainon only blinks. “Nothing in particular,” he says, wetting his lips, shifting from foot to foot, bagel printed socks on scuffed faux hardwood laminate. “Listen, Mydei, I’m going to be gone for a week or so, visiting my sister. I’m almost done packing, so I’m—”
“Visiting your sister,” Mydei interrupts. “Since when? Are you flying?”
Now, he avoids eye contact, gaze tracing the pictures lining their walls, friends and family, inoffensive blue paint. “Driving,” he answers, lingering on a photo of himself and Cyrene, him in his graduation gown, her in a knee-length pink and white dress. They’re leaning into each other, and Phainon’s smile is big enough to split his face in half. The slightest twitch in his brows. “It was an impromptu decision, I’d have told you earlier if it was planned, of course. But I’m leaving in an hour and I—”
“She lives across the country,” Mydei reminds him. “It’s like a thirty hour drive. Were you planning on taking your car? Do you have somewhere booked to stop for the night? Are you even—”
“Okay!” Phainon says, holding up his hands. “I’m totally unprepared, I get it. It’ll suck, but I’ll sleep in the car. And you know Chartonus worked on it a little while ago; it’ll survive the trip. I’ll knock it out in two days, and—”
“You are not driving for fifteen hours each day, you idiot, you’ll—”
“Can you stop interrupting me?” His voice raises. His next exhale comes out shaky. Mydei goes quiet, a little shocked by his reaction and trying to hide it by leaning back on their brown, second hand upholstery couch, propping his chin on his hand, raising an eyebrow in expectation. Phainon continues, wet hair and all. “Have a little faith in me to not get myself killed, please. I’ll take breaks, and if I need to I’ll stop early. I’m not… I’m not that much of an idiot, okay?”
Mydei holds his gaze. After a breath, he sighs, makes this decision before he has time to decide if he’ll regret it or not. He will, but he won’t. Most things with Phainon are like that. “Alright,” he says. “Are you already packed? Give me a minute.”
“Give you—” Phainon blinks. “What?” And then he’s tailing Mydei back to his room like a stray dog in his stupid socks with his stupid face, and Mydei just—
“We’re taking my car; yours is going to get us killed,” he says, rolling his closet open and pulling down the duffle bag he has stuffed up there. It’s hot pink and nearly torn at one of the straps, but he’s had it since high school. A week long summer camp in the mountains with a couple dozen other boys. The first time he followed Phainon on some stupid journey.
And there he is, standing in the doorway, a hand on either side of the frame, brows slightly furrowed. He inhales, lips parting, and Mydei looks away in favor of pulling a few shirts off their hangers and tossing them onto his bed.
“Mydei,” Phainon says.
“Go finish your shit,” Mydei replies. A laugh or a puff of air. In his peripheral, Phainon leans his head against the doorframe.
“I can’t decide if I should be upset that you don’t think I can go on my own or flattered that you’d drop everything to come with.”
And yet, it still seems he doesn’t have a clue. This isn’t the first time Mydei has thrown everything else to the wind to follow him to the ends of the earth. It probably won’t be the last. “Not that second one,” he says, reaching for pants next. “Maybe I want to see Cyrene too.”
The pause between them stretches a little too long. When Mydei looks, Phainon’s expression is complicated. Still a little pinched until it softens and he sighs again. “Alright, if you’re sure,” he says. “It’ll be nice not to be the one driving the whole time at least.”
“I’m sure,” Mydei says, arms full of fabric. He shoos Phainon out.
△
In the next hour, Mydei packs, forces Phainon to clean the kitchen, argues quite a bit, and books a hotel for each night they’ll be driving because he has no interest in sleeping in his car after sitting in it for ten hours straight. Phainon sits cross-legged on the couch with a rolling carry-on in front of him and his phone open to a map by his thigh. There’s a sleeve of crackers in one of his hands and a can of spray cheese in the other. He’s dressed the same as he had been—that is to say terribly—and he’s clearly upset. Mydei pays him no heed as he draws a frowny face with angry eyebrows on a cracker.
“Did you pack your toothbrush?” he asks. Phainon makes a face, hair dried and sticking up atop his head.
“Yes, mom,” he says.
“Extra socks? A jacket in case it gets cold? Deodorant?”
“I’m not completely helpless, Mydeimos.” Phainon looks at him tiredly. Not annoyed, not quite, not really. It’s something else, like he’s pretending. Mydei exhales.
“Alright,” he says. “We can go whenever you’re ready.”
Phainon pushes the frowning cracker into his mouth and puts the cap back on the cheese. He brushes past as he gets up to put the food away, and then he rustles around in their tiny kitchen before he comes out with a paper grocery bag in arms. He sets it on the couch and disappears, skidding in his bagel socks down the hall. Mydei hooks a finger on the edge of the bag to pull it down. Chips, a box of protein bars, cookies, licorice, fruit leather… It’s stuffed with junk food for the ride. He slips into the kitchen himself to pack a cooler. As he zips it up, the floor creaks, and there’s Phainon leaning against the stove, a tote bag on his shoulder and gray slip on sneakers on his feet. The bagel socks peek out from under them.
“Let’s go,” he says coolly. One side of his collar sticks up.
Mydei straightens up, taking the cooler with him, filled to the brim with drinks and all the fresh fruit and veggies from the fridge that might go bad while they’re gone. He pauses in front of Phainon to fix his stupid polo, hearing his breath, nearly skimming his fingers over the sun tattoo he got in college, backing away before his face has a chance to heat. “Come on, then,” he says. “I bet you can’t carry all your shit in one trip.”
Phainon scoffs, and that’s how they end up stumbling down three flights of stairs with their arms full, all but racing each other, each of them almost tripping as they take their turns too fast. But Phainon has never made Mydei smart. He brings out his best and his worst. Weakness and strength. Fondness and frustration.
“I win,” Phainon pants as they stagger to Mydei’s butter yellow hatchback. His carry-on clacks as he sets it down, the snack bag on his hip crinkling as Mydei shifts his duffle to the same hand as the cooler to open the trunk.
“Win what?” Mydei asks, hefting the cooler into the car and shoving it into one corner to make room for the rest of their stuff.
“The bet,” Phainon answers.
Despite him, Mydei’s mouth twitches upward. “Where’s your phone?”
Bewildered, Phainon pats his pockets, comes up empty. “You’re kidding,” he says. “You did this?”
“You left it on the couch,” Mydei laughs. “I just didn’t say anything.” He puts his duffle in next. Phainon sets the snacks down and storms back to their apartment. Mydei just chuckles again as he finishes loading everything in the car, leaving the snacks and a couple of waters between the seats in the back so they won’t have to pull over to get to them.
He leans against the car as he waits for Phainon to come back. Listens to the wind sift through the trees and wonders what he’s doing, following Phainon at the drop of a hat again and again and again. He has the next two days off, but he sends a quick email to work saying there’s been an emergency and he’ll be out. An emergency. Laughable.
Phainon comes jogging down the creaking metal steps leading up to their landing, Phone in one hand, middle finger flipped up on the other. Mydei barks a laugh. “Get in, fucker,” he says, slipping around to the driver’s side. His car is hot from the sun and stinking of the lemon scented air freshener dangling from the rear view mirror. Phainon slides into the passenger seat. “We have to stop for gas,” Mydei tells him.
“Figured,” Phainon says. He buckles his seatbelt and digs around the center console until he finds the right cord. “I call aux.”
“Who won the bet?”
“You never set stakes, Mydei. That’s on you.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
△
Phainon has a strange taste in music. Kpop girl groups, old folk music, and musical soundtracks take the forefront. Most of it is bearable, some of it could even be considered good, and everything else—everything he plays for Mydei, that is—is the most god awful, ear splitting stuff known to man. He does it on purpose, obviously, gleefully tapping his foot and his fingers on the back of his phone in his lap. Mydei’s burnt orange aux cord connects it, spelling his doom. He takes a big inhale, palms sliding down the steering wheel, thumbnails digging into the leather, and merges onto the freeway.
One song passes, two, three. Phainon leans all the way back, head tipping against the seat like he’s trying to look through the sunroof. And then he lets out this little huff. A moment later, the song changes to something palatable, something Mydei may have mentioned liking at one point. Something soft, a girl with beautiful vocals and beautiful lyrics to match.
“You let me get away with too much,” Phainon tells him.
Mydei spares him a glance. The line of his jaw, choker, collar. Higher, one ice blue eye, white hair that stirs slightly in the breeze from the air conditioning. Mydei turns back to the road. “I find that the more I complain the worse it gets,” he says. “You like the reaction.”
A half laugh. “Figured me out,” Phainon says. His fingers are still tapping. His phone case, blue and orange in halves, a beach scene. “When you just sit there and suffer like that, I feel bad for you.”
Silence. Another verse, another chorus. Mydei gets over to pass a semi truck. “Why now?” he decides to ask. Cyrene is probably Phainon’s most important person. The only family he has left. They call every other week, text at least three times as often. He visits twice a year, but those trips are always planned months in advance. He’s never just up and gone like this.
Another glance, brief. Phainon’s lips part. Ahead, a car attempts to merge without signaling. He’s quiet for too long.
“I… missed her,” Phainon says. “I wanna see her while I can.”
Mydei chews on the inside of his cheek. He’s reminded of the way Phainon is overly wary of candles, a bit more frugal than he needs to be. “You’re not just going to up and go broke one day, Phainon.”
This too earns a laugh, though it shouldn’t. “That’s not something you can promise,” Phainon says, sardonic. “Not in this economy.”
It’s true. Neither of them lives paycheck to paycheck, but their bills seem to get a bit bigger every time they have to pay them. If something went south, it wouldn’t take long at all for Phainon to burn through his meager savings. Same for Mydei. “You have people you could fall back on,” he points out.
“Who, Cyrene?” Phainon asks. It comes out almost bitter. “Maybe an uncle I’ve only spoken to a couple of times?” The song fades out as it ends. It’s a handful of seconds before the next plays. A little softer, a little slower. A voice clear as glass and an acoustic guitar. As it would turn out, a song Mydei showed Phainon. “Can you imagine that? ‘Hey, you remember when I was this tall, right?” He waves his hand about level with his stomach. “‘But now that I’m this tall—’” He passes a hand over the top of his head. Mydei gives him half a glance and scoffs. “‘—I’m a bit strapped for cash. You think you could help a nephew out?’”
“You’re an idiot,” Mydei says. He checks his rear-view mirror. A flash of yellow. He checks a second time and reaches over to punch Phainon firm in the arm. “Slug bug.”
“Ow— what?” Phainon clutches his arm to his chest, then checks every which way in search of the car.
“Behind,” Mydei directs him. Phainon twists in his seat to look, and then laughs.
“God,” he says, settling back into his spot, still rubbing his arm like it hurts. Mydei didn’t even hit that hard. Phainon takes much worse from him when they spar and gets right back up after. He once chipped a tooth on the floor in high school because Mydei punched him so hard, only to keep fighting like it was nothing. “I haven’t seen one of those in forever.”
“Double points, then?” Mydei asks, making like he’s going to punch Phainon again. He gets a fist bump for his troubles, and then Phainon shoves his hand away.
“I hate you,” he says, but he’s smiling when Mydei checks. Silence falls between them. Just the sound of the road and the chorus of this song that they both like. Hours to go. Between the heat of the car and the uncomfortable feeling in his chest, Mydei starts to sweat.
A little longer, he tests his tongue against the points of his teeth. “I’d help out,” he says, clearing his throat. “If worse came to worst.”
Phainon’s fingernails against his phone case. He reaches for the drink he’d gotten from the gas station—lemonade, the kind in a glass bottle—and screws off the cap. “I appreciate that,” he says softly, just when Mydei is expecting another joke to punish him for trying to be serious. But this time, Phainon meets him in kind. “I would too, if it were you.”
Face warming, Mydei grunts. The lid clinks at Phainon returns it to the glass bottle. He puts it back in the cup holder and says, “But hopefully it never comes to that for either of us.”
△
Phainon goes quiet after a point. He leaves one of his more inoffensive playlists on shuffle and takes to leaning against the window, cheek propped on his fist, eyes shut, expression smooth.
He has an interesting sort of face. If he were an entirely different person who wore it, he could make himself look like an asshole just by breathing, or paint a convincing picture of the collected, stoic type. As it is, Phainon wears his heart on his sleeve. He feels so many things, so obviously. He reminds Mydei of a goddamned dog. He so rarely looks like this. Something just off from peaceful, a step too strained to be relaxed, somehow expressionless all the same. Mydei turns his gaze back to the road.
They’re three hours in at this point. His car has burned through a third of its gas tank. They’ve crossed the first of five state lines along the way. Phainon’s eyes are still closed.
One year, when Cyrene was spending the holidays with her partner at the time, Mydei took Phainon to his home so he wouldn’t be alone. On arrival, his mother had taken Phainon by the chin and tipped him this way and that, seeing how he’d grown up, how he’d lost the baby fat and the acne, how his hair was still unruly as ever, how he’d gotten that stupid sun tattooed on his neck. A strong placement, she’d said later, because the more a tattoo hurts the more worthy it’s wearer is to Mydei’s dying culture. He grew up beautiful, she’d said just to Mydei, because it wasn’t the first time she’d met Phainon, but it was the first time since he was an awkward teen coming over after school to play games.
Mydei still thinks about that. He shouldn’t, but he does. Glances at Phainon every now and then and remembers his chin in his mother’s hand. The panic in his eyes as he was helpless to do anything but comply with her scrutiny. His embarrassment and bewilderment later, tucked up in Mydei’s childhood bedroom, rubbing his own jaw, the tiny pinpricks of stubble there, because he can’t grow a beard but these tiny patches under his jaw always try anyway.
He remembers that, Phainon’s stupid expressive face, and he remembers his mother calling him beautiful. Over and over he hears it, until sometimes he looks at Phainon and wonders if she’s right.
An inhale, like the first upon waking, but he knows Phainon was never asleep. His fingers were still tapping to the beat. He struggles to sleep anywhere but a bed anyway, and even then, sometimes he’s lying awake for a long time before he gets anywhere close. Mydei has woken up too many times to the hollow sound of their faux hardwood as Phainon paces to have something to do with himself.
“Do you want to swap?” Phainon asks. “You’ve been driving for a while.” He flips his phone face up, clicks the power button to check the time. “Are you tired yet?”
“I guess my ass is getting numb,” Mydei concedes. His shoulder is aching too; old injury or unconscious tensing. He isn’t dumb enough to turn this into one of their competitions. He’ll fuck around with his safety, but not everyone else’s. “We can stop for lunch, and then you can take a turn.”
Phainon pulls up his maps and asks, “Where to, Your Highness?”
“Shut up,” Mydei tells him. “Somewhere cheap.”
△
Between the two of them, Mydei is the better driver. It isn’t that Phainon is bad, but he has a habit of taking turns too fast and getting confused by his own directions. He’s never been in a crash, and he’s never been more than five minutes late from taking the wrong route, but Mydei is better. He’s steady, calm, stable. Nothing on the road scares him. He never gets lost. Sometimes he makes Phainon a tired, aching sort of envious.
They stopped in the middle of nowhere for gas station pizza and a piss, and now they’re on the road again. Phainon is at the wheel, and he realizes after pressing on the brake and scaring himself with how sensitive it is, that this is the first time he’s ever driven Mydei’s car.
“Don’t crash it,” Mydei warns him. It isn’t a nice car by any means. Mydei bought it off a cousin in his last year of high school, but he’s taken good care of it since. It’s nicer than Phainon’s by a long shot. And yet, he didn’t even need to adjust the seat. All it means is that he and Mydei are the same height. For some strange reason, it gives him an odd, almost possessive feeling. It’s a goddamn car.
“No guarantees,” he laughs. “Just try to be nice to me while your life is in my hands.”
“Shut up.” Mydei takes the aux; his turn now that he’s in the passenger seat. He likes old rock and pop ballads, and doesn’t particularly care what language they come in. This first song he plays sounds like it might be in Chinese. “Try to kill me and you’ll just kill yourself too.”
“Maybe I’ll only crash on your side,” Phainon retorts.
A scoff. “And then the momentum will turn the car and your side will get hit too, dumbass.”
He hums, tapping the steering wheel. It’s leather, shiny and soft, part of it pocked with dents where Mydei usually rests his thumbs. He must dig his nail in as he drives. Phainon’s never noticed. “Not if I get the speed and the angle just right.”
“You know dogshit about physics, don’t give me that,” Mydei tells him, so he laughs again and gives up this line of conversation. There’s a hollow feeling in his stomach. Sticky like sap covered hands run through dirt. Earthworms and wheatgrass. The stink of old fire.
“I’d never kill you anyway,” Phainon jokes. Tries to joke; it comes out too sincere. He’ll make Mydei gag. To save it, he adds, “Who would pay the other half of my rent?”
“You know that conversation we had earlier about how I’d help if things went downhill for you financially?” Mydei asks him, scrolling absently through his phone. “I take it back, since it’s pretty obvious I’m being used.”
Fields and fields of nothing. A long, empty stretch of road. Phainon is going over a hundred miles an hour without realizing. He eases his foot off the gas. “Wasn’t it your car getting crashed in this scenario? Doesn’t that make you the broke one?”
“That would make me dead,” Mydei says. “And you as well. You’re just fucking dumb.”
Phainon laughs, then pretends to be offended. “I feel like you used to be nice to me.”
“And you’re wrong about that too.”
“Hah…” Phainon takes a breath. It comes out as a sigh. He’s still… he doesn’t know. He wants to see his sister.
“Phainon.” He must take too long to reply. Must show something in his face. Mydei hardly ever calls him by name. “You’ve been weird all day.”
“I know,” Phainon admits. That pit in his stomach. Like sand slipping through fingers. Rocks on the beach. He wishes he were better at pretending, but he’s not. He doesn’t want to be watched as he crumbles. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Mydei tells him. A lie. He’s probably worrying right now, but Phainon doesn’t have the words to make him stop. Not when he can’t figure out how to stop himself.
“I should’ve figured,” Phainon says. “You’ve never done nice things like that for me anyway.”
△
It’s a joke, and it’s funny because Mydei does loads of nice things for Phainon. Not with his words, rarely with his words, but he’s… very nice, actually. He drives Phainon home when he’s drunk. He cooks meals for him without being asked, he takes over chores when Phainon doesn’t feel well. Sometimes the things he says make it seem like he’s a bad friend, but his actions make it seem like “how can I make life easier for Phainon?” is a question that runs through his head daily.
He always asks if Phainon needs anything when he goes to the store and doesn’t ask to be repaid if he picks something up. He picks outfits when Phainon is going somewhere important, like a date or an interview or a party. He shares his own things—clothes, food, skincare, workout routines—and doesn’t act entitled to Phainon’s in return. He never asks for anything in return ever, really. Strange.
The rumble of the road. Mydei put rock on a few songs ago, but he plays it pretty quietly. They’re both starting to get sick of listening to so much music, but they’re barely halfway through their drive for today and it feels wrong to drive in silence. Mydei would probably disagree, but he’s better at focusing on one thing than Phainon will ever be. Phainon always needs background noise, movement, touch, something. He’s… A glance at Mydei. Why is he here?
He’s never tagged along on Phainon’s visits before. He hasn’t seen Cyrene since they were all in high school. And yet, here he is, donating his car, his paid leave, his time to the cause. He… Maybe he just wanted to get out for a while.
“Do you need to swap?” Mydei asks out of the blue.
Phainon kind of flinches. “What? No, it hasn’t even been two hours. You drove like three and a half.”
“You’re restless,” Mydei points out. Phainon’s free leg is bouncing, and it isn’t even in time with the music. He stills it. “This isn’t a competition, don’t be stupid. If you need to swap, we can swap.”
The road is straight and basically empty. Phainon has enough presence of mind to drive, he’s just… thinking. Overthinking. But he’s not distracted, not dangerous. “I’m fine, Mydeimos,” he says. “Just… have stuff on my mind.” Mydei just grunts, shifts in his seat to pull a leg under him. Phainon’s knee is bouncing again. “Seriously. Talk to me if you’re so worried. My brain is just going a mile a minute.”
A low hum. “What are you thinking about?”
Phainon opens his mouth. Exhales. Gets over to pass as he approaches a car going quite a bit slower than he is. “I don’t know,” he says, because saying you would be super weird. “I was kind of… wondering why you’re here.” That never ending pit in his stomach. The words of a phone call playing on repeat. Over and over. The mind is a prison. Stop thinking about it.
“That’s what has you chewing up the inside of your cheek?” Mydei asks. Phainon relaxes his jaw, not having noticed he was doing that. His tongue traces the sores he’s made. “I’m due for a vacation anyway. And even if I haven’t seen Cyrene in years, I know she’s cool. She’s your sister, idiot, why are you shitting your pants?”
“I—” His throat tightens. Helpless, Phainon swallows, clears it. “I’m not,” he says. “You’re really just coming along to see her?”
Mydei makes an indignant sound and pulls Phainon’s empty lemonade bottle out of the cup holder so he has something to brandish. His gaze could light something on fire. “Are you seriously asking if I have bad intentions with your sister? Your sister, Phainon?”
“No!” Phainon exclaims. “No, what the hell? Why is that even where your mind went? Maybe you really do— Ow!” Mydei pinches the meat of his upper arm and huffs, sitting back. The lemonade bottle clinks as he puts it back. Phainon lifts his other hand from the steering wheel to rub the spot. “What was that for?”
“Being an idiot,” Mydei answers. “Eyes on the road.”
Phainon turns back to the road, huffing. Still, a lump in his throat. “You suck and I hate you,” he says, anything but sincerely, and Mydei barks a laugh and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Sure,” he says. “That’s why we’re taking my car and splitting the costs of this trip. Because I suck and you hate me.”
“True,” Phainon says, nodding, trying to smile. He pulls the inside of his cheek between his teeth again, and it’s already sore. That fucking hollow feeling. A thistle in a flower garden. “Listen, Mydei. When we get there…” His words stumble to a halt. He wets his lips and takes too long to finish the thought.
“Cyrene probably doesn’t have room for me, does she? You know I can sleep pretty much anywhere, though. I don’t mind the couch.”
“No, that’s… Why would you be on the couch? You can just share with me. But that’s beside the point. I was trying to say that… well…”
“Yes?”
A lump in his throat. Insurmountable. Phainon swallows and his Adam’s apple rolls against his choker. “You’ll have to cook for us,” he says. “Cyrene’s just as hopeless in the kitchen as I am.”
Mydei laughs through his nose. In the corner of Phainon’s eye, his hair slips free from behind his ear, shines slightly in the sun as he shakes his head. “Why am I not surprised at all?”
△
They check into the hotel just past nine. It isn’t fancy or particularly nice, but it’s quiet, passably clean, and air conditioned. After all that driving, Phainon is glad to be anywhere but the inside of the car. Mydei was right about getting a hotel.
The room is tiny, with a little cubby in the wall by the entryway that houses a coffee maker and supplies to go with it, a bottle of water, and two glasses. Below that is a mini-fridge that he puts the dregs of a gas station cola in. Just past that, the bathroom, the rolling door to the closet. On the other side of the room is a desk with a single chair, and inside a little further is a dresser with a TV perched on top. Across from that, the bed. One, because it was a few hundred dollars cheaper than two. Phainon struggles out of his shoes as Mydei tosses his bag on the floor and pokes his head into the bathroom. Water runs as Phainon drops his shoes in the entryway, sighing as his feet can finally breathe.
“You can’t steal the soaps,” Mydei informs Phainon as he comes back out. “They’re mounted to the shower wall.”
Phainon rolls his bag next to Mydei’s and sits heavily on the bed. He rubs his thumb between his eyebrows, eyes slipping shut. “Hah,” he says, a bit weakly. “What a shame.”
“Do you have a headache?” Mydei asks, taking the other side of the bed like breathing. He’s closer to the window, Phainon the bathroom. It’s one of the only arguments they’ve never had to have.
“A bit,” Phainon admits. He can still hear the phantom of tires on the road. It feels like there’s cotton in his ears. He should’ve just taken the red-eye and flown. “The sun was in my eyes for a while.”
Mydei grunts and kicks off his shoes. When he sits, he pulls one leg up onto the bed, ankle under thigh. “Come on, then,” he says, and his jeans are a bit wide legged, riding up to show the black band of his sock, half an inch of his shin. Phainon sighs and leans back, resting his head in the dip there, legs hanging off the bed. His collar flips up in the process. Mydei fixes it for him for the second time that day, and then presses his small knuckles into Phainon’s temples, massaging a firm circle there.
As he does, Phainon looks up. The hotel light is a rather nauseating shade of yellow. It casts weird shadows on Mydei’s face, tipped down, expression neutral. Phainon has always thought that Mydei has a unique face. No one can assign him a celebrity doppelganger. Something about the set of his eyes, the bridge of his nose, the shape of his jaw. He’s a rare combination. Sometimes he wears makeup too, red eyeliner to match the red tattoos that cover most of his body. He’s… no one really looks like him.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to stare at me while I do this?” Mydei asks, folding a hand over Phainon’s eyes. He smells like hotel hand soap, and the thumb of one hand is rough and calloused from playing the guitar, same with the fingertips on the other. “It’s like you’re counting my nose hairs or something.”
Phainon laughs a little, reaches up to pull Mydei’s hand away. Maybe Phainon’s fingers are cold, but his wrist is warm, heart thrumming beneath his touch. “All clear,” he says, “I haven’t noticed any.”
Mydei chuckles. “Shut up,” he says, and pretends to poke Phainon’s eyes out until he laughs weakly and squeezes them closed. Behind them, his head throbs. He’s so tired, body heavy. He goes quiet as Mydei rubs a firm line from his temples to his hairline and traces it a few times, pausing to rub circles into pressure points. Even if it’s only temporary, the throb eases up as Mydei chases it away.
“You’re oily,” he comments after a while.
Phainon cracks his eyes open only to squint against the light. It burns red through his eyelids. “Shut up,” he parrots. “When am I not?”
“Wash your face, fucker,” Mydei tells him, but he still takes the care to do this right. Another nice thing he does for Phainon. He’ll sit down after hard workdays or stressful interactions and work the pain out from behind Phainon’s eyes. He says his mother did it for him as a kid, that she would pull him into her lap and massage his head while she told him stories and legends of the old Kremnoan warriors. People who built their culture on war. He’s shared some of those stories with Phainon too. Men and women who wore tattoos and braids in their hair, who fought side by side with someone as an act of love, who taught their children to fight as they learned to walk. He hadn’t taken kindly to Phainon comparing them to ancient Spartans. They weren’t violent, he’d say. They were protective. They showed love with their strength.
Mydei probably does too. He’s steady, calm, stable. Strong in a lot of ways. In body and in this. He makes a good rock. He’s been anchored as long as Phainon can remember.
“Wash your mouth, Mydeimos,” he says back. Mydei flicks him softly in the forehead.
“The light is in your eyes, isn’t it?” he asks when Phainon flinches.
“Yeah,” Phainon answers, so Mydei sighs and gently lifts his head to slide out from under him. He flicks the light off and turns on his bedside lamp instead. It’s a soft, dull glow. Still yellow, but it doesn’t hurt Phainon’s eyes so much. He pushes himself up so Mydei can settle back into place, fingers carding through hair as he pushes it out of Phainon’s face. They meet eyes, just for a moment, and Mydei looks almost as tired as Phainon feels. Still, “thanks,” Phainon tells him, that lump crawling back up his throat.
And Mydei shrugs it off like he always does, averting his gaze and clearing his throat. “Whatever,” he says, and probably goes red at the tips of his ears. Phainon can’t tell in this light. He chuckles, and silence falls between them like a blanket of ash.