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“Oh, for that, you want Dei in special collections,” Tribbie tells him. She stretches her arm high above her head. “Real tall—” Stretches the same arm wide. “—and broad. Red-blonde hair.” She tugs a lock of her own red hair. “He braids this bit. Hard to miss.” She holds up four fingers. “Fourth floor.”
Phainon flashes her a grin, practically vibrating with excitement. “Thanks, Tribbie,” he says, patting his hand twice on the surface of her desk. “You’re the best.”
He peels away and hurries across the spacious foyer of the University of Castrum Kremnos’s main library. Light pours in from the domed glass ceiling, filters through a hanging installation of glittering prisms, and paints rainbows across the white marble floor. The main branch is his favorite of the campus’s myriad libraries with its glass walls and well-lit halls. There’s something wonderful and mysterious about the tight packed stacks of some of the older libraries on campus, but he loves the open feeling of this one, pouring light on ancient and obscure knowledge like some holy offering of wisdom to the masses.
He takes the stairs two at a time to the second floor and then rushes into a closing elevator. The doors catch, jolting open, and one of the two students already in the elevator rolls his eyes. Phainon replies with a smile and shrug, adjusting the fall of his backpack on his shoulder. When the elevator chimes for the fourth floor, he steps out into a small foyer. Across from the elevator is a single door, a sign on the front of it reading special collections, and Phainon’s fingers itch with excitement.
Pushing the door open, he steps into another lobby, warmly lit and filled with low, comfortable seating. A long reference desk occupies one wall, a bank of computers the opposite. Directly across from Phainon, a wall of glass doors opens into a reading room lined with shelves heavy with ancient books. He practically salivates. It’s not the Great Library of Castrum Kremnos’s special collections, but it’s a close second.
“If you drool on the books, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Phainon’s head whips around, and he finds himself confronted with arguably the most attractive man he’s ever laid eyes on. Tall, broad, with red-blonde hair, a braid hanging over one shoulder, leonine eyes, and an irritated expression that does strange things to Phainon’s libido.
“Dei?” he asks, stupidly, since it’s the only thing that pops into his head.
Irritation morphs into sheer disdain. “Mydeimos,” he says stiffly.
“Hi, yes, Mydeimos. Sorry. Got your name from Tribbie, and she said…” He gestures vaguely, releasing the door to let it swing shut behind him. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” He offers his hand. “Phainon.”
Mydeimos takes his hand, squeezes it once in the Kremnoan tradition, and releases him. “How can I help you, Phainon?” he asks with the tone of a man who’d clearly rather do anything but.
“Help me?” There isn’t a thought in his head.
Mydeimos’s expression is downright murderous, and that, too, does strange things to Phainon’s very confused libido. “You’re here for a book, I assume?”
Shit. Right. Books. “Yes. Yes, a book.” Phainon clears his throat, mortified by his own utter lack of composure. “I asked Tribbie if we had any digital copies of The Song of Khaslana, and she said the Stygian Codex is available. I’d like to see it.” When Mydeimos just looks at him, he adds, “If that’s okay, if I don’t have to make an appointment, or—”
“It needs to be removed from storage,” Mydeimos says. “And you’ll need your advisor to email us permission to release it.”
“Right. Of course.” He should’ve realized he’d need some kind of authorization, but he’d been so excited at just the prospect of seeing the much-vaunted Song. “I can… do that.”
Mydei snorts. “Then I’ll see you when you have.” He turns away, retreating behind the reference and information desk, and Phainon, with nothing else to do—except maybe contemplate what he’s into, or maybe that he needs to stop working so hard on his dissertation and take a Titansdamned nap—leaves to chase down Anaxagoras.
A week and several emotionally exhausting conversations with Anaxagoras later, he’s back in the historical special collection, except this time, he and Mydeimos are wearing gloves and Mydeimos is removing The Song of Khaslana from its careful packaging. To be fair, this isn’t technically the Song, it’s the Stygian Codex, meaning it’s missing several hundred lines contained in the original and penned by a completely different hand, but it’s close enough. The codex, quires of folded vellum stitched together, rasp against each other as Mydeimos carefully sets them on the cloth-covered table.
Phainon is vibrating out of his skin, and he can’t decide if it’s because Mydeimos is right next to him, sharing his air, or because he finally gets to touch the Song. He’s dreamed of this. Well. He’s dreamed of touching the original, but no one gets to touch the original, kept under lock and key at the Great Library. He’s also dreamed quite a few times about Mydeimos, but that’s neither here nor there and is certainly the end result of too many caffeine-fueled all nighters.
“Are you always this excited about ancient documents?” Mydeimos asks dryly.
“Aren’t you?” Phainon returns without thinking. He crowds Mydeimos out of his way, reaching for the first page of the codex. “This is nearly two thousand years old, and its existence confirms nearly the whole of the original Song.” His hands shake as he skims his finger over the ancient text, staggered by the enormity of what’s before him. “Someone copied the Song into this document, like some kind of prescience that we’d need it to confirm the Song’s veracity. That the Chrysos War happened. That it wasn’t just a myth. That men and women with golden blood once roamed the land with the powers of the Titans contained inside them. It boggles the mind.”
Mydeimos scoffs. “You believe all that? About the Chrysos Heirs?”
Phainon grins, looking up from the codex. “They were real and not just metaphors for man’s struggle against nature and disaster.”
“You’re in Seminary, then,” Mydeimos says.
Waving him off, Phainon returns to the codex. “History.” He turns another page and whistles low and soft. “Look.” Mydeimos crowds over his shoulder. “That’s a rendering of Khaslana, the Chrysos Heir who ended the war.”
“Allegedly,” Mydeimos drawls. Then, quieter, “Huh. You going to include that in your dissertation?”
“What?” Phainon asks, craning his neck to look at Mydeimos over his shoulder.
“That he looks like you.”
Phainon comes back the next day and the next day and the day after that, too, bringing with him thick dictionaries to help him translate the ancient language of the Stygian Codex. He pours over the marginalia, the little notes left by the monk or (more likely) the Chrysos Heir who wrote this copy. There’s plenty he needs to cross reference in the special collection, too, and Mydeimos is his not particularly willing but still able servant, fetching him the dusty tomes he needs both from the shelves throughout the room and from storage. The process is painful and laborious, and he finds himself hunched over the Stygian Codex until late in the evenings.
On his fourth night, he looks up from the codex to see darkness beyond the windows, and he realizes all at once that it’s ten to ten, and the library is about to close. “Shit,” he says, starting to rise.
Mydeimos is in the room with him before he’s fully standing. “Finished for the day?” he asks, sharp.
“I completely lost track of time,” Phainon says, carefully shuffling the vellum pages of the codex so that Mydeimos can pack it away for the night. “Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.”
“I’m here until ten anyway,” Mydeimos replies.
And then he has to close everything up and shut it all down. Phainon grimaces. “I hope you started packing up already.” Mydeimos’s lips twitch, and Phainon’s tension eases. “Good. That’s… that’s good. Listen, I’ll try to be better about packing up earlier.” He gestures to the rest of the empty room. “I’m the last one here.”
“It’s no bother.”
It certainly is. “Can I make it up to you?”
Mydeimos seals the codex into its case, but his hands falter. “That’s unnecessary.”
Phainon grins at him, leaning against the table. “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve been a huge inconvenience to you—” He ignores Mydeimos’s quiet chuckle. “—so let me get you dinner or something. Rick’s is still open.”
“Rick’s is a shithole for undergrads.”
Phainon’s grin grows wider. “Yeah, but it’s also the best pizza in town. Come on. Free food. A beer or two.” He’s wheedling, almost whining, but he doesn’t care. He’s been suffering Mydeimos’s extremely attractive but distant presence for the past few days, and he’d give at least one non-critical organ to take the man out to dinner.
Mydeimos gives him a long, measuring look before sighing. “Rick’s is mediocre pizza.”
“Best at the price point when you’re on a meager stipend, then,” Phainon says.
That earns him a small smile, barely there, more of a smirk, really, but it’s gorgeous and it makes his heart pound. “Fair enough. Let me lock this up and close the special collections. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
“Meet you in the lobby,” Phainon confirms.
Rick’s truly is a shithole. And because it’s a Thursday night, it’s also overrun with undergrads who are finally old enough to drink irresponsibly—and many who aren’t. Phainon and Mydeimos take up a table as far away from the cramped dance floor and the bathrooms as they can get.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Mydeimos says over the throbbing baseline of a techno song that was cool five years ago. “I could be at home, watching something.”
“You could be at home trawling through fifty streaming services, wondering why there’s nothing good to watch, before doomscrolling for two hours and then passing out,” Phainon corrects.
Mydeimos lifts a brow, but there’s that same little smirk on his face. Phainon’s right. Mydeimos just doesn’t want to admit it.
“What’re you thinking?” Phainon asks, flipping the menu over.
“That I’m hungry enough to eat an entire pizza by myself.”
Phainon nods, skimming the offerings even though he knows what he’s going to get already. Rick’s is one of those places where you find something safe and just repeatedly order that while praying that you aren’t playing roulette with the stomach flu. “Skipped lunch,” he says. “Could eat two.”
Snorting, Mydeimos tosses his menu on the table. “Is it a competition, then?”
Phainon grins at him, a little cheeky, a little cocky. “Do you want it to be?”
“I could eat you under the table.”
“Three pies a piece, then,” Phainon says.
“Can your stipend afford it?”
No. “I can manage.” He’ll have to eat ice soup for a few days at the end of the month, but he’ll live.
“Done, then,” Mydeimos says.
The waitress gives them a very wary look when they order six full-sized, fourteen-inch pizzas and two beers each. It’s a look that says, “please don’t throw up on my table,” which is fair and the real reason Phainon doesn’t suggest they race through their pizzas as soon as the pies arrive.
“What’s your thesis actually about?” Mydeimos asks abruptly as they each dig into their first slice.
Phainon lights up. “The differences between the five most notable, extant variations of The Song of Khaslana with a focus on what those differences can tell us about the scribe who penned them. My proposal is that most of the copies were made by living Chrysos Heirs,” he says.
“Or people who claimed to be Chrysos Heirs.”
Phainon shrugs. “Sure. Whether or not they really were is immaterial.”
“But you think they existed. Golden-blooded heroes who struck down the primordial gods and became Titans.”
Phainon tears into his second slice. “I do.” He gestures toward the ceiling. “We know the Titans are real. If they are, why not the Chrysos Heirs?” Mydeimos opens his mouth, but Phainon charges onward. “But for my thesis, the reality of them doesn’t matter. My focus is about authorship, but it hinges on singular readings. Minute differences between one manuscript and the next. Why did Cerydra choose that word, but Illia used this one? What does that tell us about their authorial intent? Why does it matter? That sort of thing.”
“Does it matter?” Mydeimos asks, and it’s not as challenging as it is curious.
Laughing, Phainon sets his slice down. “What, are you asking me to defend my thesis right now?”
“Can you?” Mydeimos asks mildly.
Phainon scratches his chin. “I’ve only been at it a month and a half, and I’ve only been with the Stygian Codex for, what, four days?” He shrugs. “I could try, but are you really that interested in singular readings?” Maybe Mydeimos is a little, he’s in special collections after all, but that covers a whole, broad host of categories that aren’t Phainon’s admittedly very specific niche research topic.
“Isn’t part of your job to make it interesting?”
“Ouch!” Phainon clutches at his chest with his free hand. “You wound me. But you. What about you, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious?” He doesn’t miss how Mydeimos’s brows slowly lift. “What keeps you haunting the special collections all day?”
Mydeimos looks startled, as if he wasn’t expecting Phainon to ask about him at all. “Library sciences,” he says. “Preservation of ephemera. Writings of Kremnoan scribes and warriors from the Imperial Period.” He pauses. Hesitates. “Diaries, mostly.”
Phainon’s eyes go wide. “That’s so interesting. So, like, keeping the word of the common man alive and well?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Mydeimos says, and there’s a little more excitement, a little more interest in his voice. He leans forward just the smallest amount. “We keep the works of scholars and scribes—” He makes a deferential gesture toward Phainon. “—and we value the classics. But if we really want to know about history, we need to look at everyday people. How they lived, what mattered to them, how they reacted to the world around them. Preserving their words is just as important as preserving the words of the great generals and kings and queens.”
Phainon nods emphatically as he swallows a bite of his pizza. “Right,” he agreed. “Otherwise, you end up with a real skewed picture of reality, especially if its only coming from those in power.”
A startled expression flickers over Mydeimos’s face. “I’m surprised you feel that way, given your thesis.”
“Nah, I mean, scholars and scribes are important, but so’s the common person’s voice. Arguably, they’re even more important,” Phainon says. “I can’t tell you how valuable the Aurelian Letters were to even forming my thesis, and those are just two sisters writing to each other about the Chrysos War. If people like you weren’t preserving that sort of thing, I’d be screwed.”
Mydeimos looks floored. “You’re right, of course,” he says, recovering.
“Who doesn’t think you’re doing important work?” Phainon asks.
Mydeimos grimaces. “My father.”
“Shit. Sorry. That’s… a lot.”
“And too much for a casual dinner,” Mydeimos says, returning to the pizza in his hand.
Yeah, that’s probably true. They’re barely even friends, though, shit, Phainon would like to be so much more than Mydeimos’s friend.
As they polish off their pizzas, they wander through topics far less fraught: the classes they’re teaching, their students, their advisors. Mydeimos offers his sympathies when Phainon mentions Anaxagoras by name, and Phainon offers his own when Mydeimos brings up Aglaea. Neither are known for their compassion.
In the end, they both leave the last three slices of their third pizza, opting to box them up when the waitress asks, and then they’re alone at the table with nothing to do and little to say, but Phainon doesn’t want the night to end. It’s pushing midnight. He has a class at noon. He should go the fuck to bed. But Mydeimos is there and he’s so handsome with his sleepy eyes, and Phainon is just tipsy enough to be a little bold.
“Wanna come back to my place?” he asks. He can always blame the question on the beer if Mydeimos gets on him for it.
Mydeimos studies him for a long moment. Phainon’s about to make his excuses when he says, “How far from campus are you?”
Excitement surges through him. “A ten-minute ride on the thirty-six.”
“Fine, then,” Mydeimos says.
Phainon’s back hits his apartment door. Mydeimos’s mouth is hot and slick on his, their bodies pressed together, no space between them. He sinks his hands into Mydeimos’s hair, holding their mouths together as his tongue slicks past Mydeimos’s lips, as he tastes the sweetness of tomato and the bite of their beer. He’d expected—not this. Not Mydeimos grabbing him by the hips, shoving him against the door, and devouring his mouth. He’d figured he’d have to do some coaxing, but, well, that’s not the case at all.
Mydeimos grinds into him with gasping breaths, hungrily suckling on his tongue, and Phainon’s fingers scratch lightly across his scalp. His cock is already half hard, and it’s not going to take long to get harder. Every night he falls into bed, he dreams about Mydeimos, about what the other man might taste like, feel like, and now he’s got him, and he might combust. No, he’s definitely going to combust. He’s going to come apart at the seams if he’s not careful, his infatuation burning out of control.
He grabs at Mydeimos’s shirt, yanking it free of his pants, pulling at the buttons and then the undershirt beneath. Mydeimos shrugs out of the button-up and pulls off the undershirt, leaving him naked from the waist up, and Phainon’s mouth goes dry.
Holy shit but Mydeimos is stacked. He’s ripped, covered in red tattoos that accent the cut of his muscles. He looks like one of those ancient Kremnoan warrior statues come to life, and all Phainon can think about is touching every inch of him. Is getting his mouth on every inch of him.
“Interesting,” Mydeimos says.
Phainon drags his gaze back to Mydeimos’s eyes knowing his own are a little wild and a lot glazed. “What?”
“Your appreciation. I wasn’t sure I’d be your type.”
Phainon drops his hands to Mydeimos’s waist and walks him backwards, pushing him onto the nearby table. “Mydeimos, you—”
“Mydei,” he says.
“Mydei?”
“If you’re going to fuck me—” And Phainon’s breath catches. “—then you might as well call me Mydei.”
The way that strings Phainon so tight borders on obscene. His cock is aching, now, hard in his pants and slick at the tip with precum. His underwear sticks to his skin, but he doesn’t give a damn. “Mydei,” he purrs, dropping his hands to the table, leaning in, caging him with his body, “you are just my type.” He surges forward, capturing Mydei’s mouth in another hungry kiss, and Mydei’s hands are on his hips, yanking as his shirt, too, and they have to part again for Phainon to discard it somewhere behind him on the floor.
This time, Mydei stares at him, sucking in a sharp breath. Heat burns in his golden eyes, and his lips curl in a surprised but pleased smile. “You’re not half bad yourself,” he says.
“Thanks?”
“At first, I couldn’t tell if you were a dumb jock who stumbled into a doctoral candidacy or a genuinely brilliant mind that won the genetic lottery,” Mydei drawls.
Phainon grins, leaning forward to mouth at the curve of his jaw. “Which one have you decided on?”
“Neither,” Mydei says, gasping as Phainon brings their hips together to grind against him once more. “You’re some bizarre amalgamation of both, and—” He groans as Phainon suckles down the side of his neck hard enough to leave a bruise, as Phainon works their cocks together through the heavy fabric of their jeans. “Fuck.”
“I’ll take it as a win,” Phainon says into the curve of Mydei’s neck, leaving biting kisses across his shoulder.
Mydei arches against him, and all at once, the heavy fabric of their pants turns into something frustrating instead of something tantalizing.
“This way,” Phainon says, pulling himself back and taking Mydei by the wrist. To his surprise, Mydei slips his hand into Phainon’s following Phainon across the tiny living space, scattered with books and printouts and notes—Phainon’s never been good at doing research digitally—to the bed he has tucked in the far corner.
Dropping Mydei’s hand, Phainon makes quick work of his pants, his underwear, kicking out of both before he sits on the edge of the bed. Mydei rakes his eyes down Phainon’s body, lingering on his hard cock, his eyes darkening with obvious hunger. He reaches for his own jeans, undoing the button, unzipping them, and Phainon’s mouth waters as he watches. Mydei’s cock is thick and long, arching against gravity, shining at the tip from precum, and Phainon wastes no time. As soon as Mydei has stepped out of the last of his clothes, Phainon’s hands are on his hips, guiding him closer.
His mouth presses against the cut of Mydei’s hip, the join of it, and Mydei groans from far above him. Long fingers sink into Phainon’s hair, combing through it as Phainon turns his mouth toward the base of Mydei’s cock. Hunger churns in his belly; Mydei’s cock looks delicious, and he wants his mouth wrapped around it, wants to feel Mydei’s hands pulling at his hair, wants to hear Mydei gasping and moaning for him. He wants to take Mydei apart, wants to turn all of Mydei’s apparent indifference into desperate, aching need.
He pulls his tongue up the length of Mydei’s cock, licking from base to tip, and Mydei’s hips jolt forward. His fingers tighten in Phainon’s hair, a faint tug that goes straight to Phainon’s own cock. Desire winds tighter and tighter against the base of his spine, throbbing in time to the heavy beating of his pulse.
Mydei tastes a little bitter, a little salty, and a lot like heat and desire. He tastes good, and Phainon licks over the head of his cock again, delighting once more in the way Mydei’s hips jerk and the spasm of his fingers against Phainon’s scalp. He tongues the head of Mydei’s cock until more precum drips from him, and then he laps that up, too, his tongue licking over Mydei’s slit in a slow back and forth.
He maps Mydei’s cock with his tongue, tracing the head of it and then down the shaft, holding it in place with his fingertips, letting them stroke lightly along Mydei’s length. He licks over the vein that runs down the underside of Mydei’s cock, his own aching at the sound of Mydei’s moans, and he reaches between his legs to take himself in hand as he parts his lips to take Mydei between them.
When he does, the sound Mydei makes is obscene, like he’s lost every sense of propriety, some kind of aching, snarling moan. His hands bury deeper in Phainon’s hair, nails raking across Phainon’s scalp. Fire burns down Phainon’s spine, settling low and sweet in his gut, stringing his own cock tighter. As he runs his fingers lightly up and down his cock, he takes Mydei into his mouth, groaning at the feel of him. Hot, big. He fills Phainon’s mouth in just the right way, stretching his lips and putting a pleasant strain on his jaw. Fuck, but he loves the way Mydei bows over him, the way Mydei’s body shudders and trembles, the way Mydei gasps, and he wants more of those sounds.
Sinking further down Mydei’s cock, Phainon wraps his lips tighter, hollows his cheeks, and sucks gently, sweetly.
A gust of breath punches out of Mydei, a low and aching moan.
Phainon sucks him deeper, holding him in his mouth, and then eases back. When he slides forward again, he takes Mydei further into his throat, and Mydei’s hands tremble against his head. He half expects Mydei to grab him and take what he wants, but Mydei is surprisingly pliant, letting Phainon take his time, letting Phainon ease further down inch by agonizing inch. He thumbs the head of his cock as he sucks around the length of Mydei’s, enjoying the heavy weight on his tongue and the way Mydei holds himself so carefully still.
More, more, Phainon takes more, so hungry to push Mydei to the very edge, and Mydei makes a sound distinctly like a whine when his cock pushes down the back of Phainon’s throat and Phainon’s nose brushes against his belly.
“Fuck,” Mydei breathes, straightening. “Fuck.”
It’s so satisfying to reduce a man like Mydei to coarse language; Phainon has the impression that Mydei who already speaks sparingly swears even more so.
Warm palms coast over his cheeks, and he lifts his eyes to find Mydei staring fixedly down at him, lips parted, chest heaving. That, too, is so satisfying: putting this dazed and hungry look on Mydei’s face. Mydei who is so composed, who isn’t indifferent but has certainly held Phainon at an almost disdainful distance. Now, Phainon has his cock in his mouth as he fists his own, and Mydei is anything but indifferent or disdainful. Wrapped in cool, midnight shadows, he’s flushed and panting, hot and needy.
Phainon quirks one brow, earning an amused snort, before closing his eyes and starting to work. He hollows his checks and sucks along Mydei’s cock, pulling back to flick the tip with his tongue before swallowing Mydei back down. He thumbs Mydei’s hipbone with his free hand, curving it around Mydei’s hip to grasp his ass and apply an encouraging pressure.
It takes a minute for Mydei to figure out what he wants, that he wants Mydei to fuck into his throat, but when he does, it’s so fucking good. Mydei’s hips roll slow and shallow, pushing his cock just that much deeper, and Phainon swallows around it, his own body singing with pleasure. Desire burns in his veins, bubbling like so much lava, molten and thick and wonderful. He strokes his cock in time to the rolls of Mydei’s hips, half drunk on the desire to fuck into Mydei’s body, imagining them coming together, the heat and tightness of him, and it’s enough to string him so tight that he nearly comes. He squeezes the base of his own cock, smothering a needy noise, doubting the sound goes unnoticed.
But Mydei doesn’t stop thrusting into his mouth, doesn’t stop moving. When Phainon squeezes his ass, he fucks deeper between Phainon’s lips, moves a little faster, and the friction of it, the slide of it, is so agonizingly good. Phainon aches, he burns, he wants to pull Mydei down onto the bed and get inside him, but not yet. No, not yet, not when he wants Mydei on the edge. It’s a hard game to play with someone he doesn’t know particularly well, especially when he’s half out of his mind with his own need, but he pulls himself back and sets both his hands on Mydei’s hips. His own cock aches from the sudden neglect, but he turns his attention wholly to Mydei—to the sounds he makes, the gasping breaths, and the way he moves. And when his rhythm falters, Phainon pulls back all at once.
Mydei groans. “What—?”
Phainon tugs him onto the bed, into his lap. “Not yet,” he says, loving the rasp in his voice, how well used he sounds. “Don’t want you coming yet.”
Groaning, Mydei presses himself against Phainon’s chest and reaches behind himself. He curves Phainon’s cock against the swell of his ass, grinding down against it, and they both moan. “Hurry up and fuck me then,” Mydei says, but it lacks bite.
With a laugh, Phainon wraps his arms around Mydei’s back, holding him as he rolls Mydei beneath him, pinning him down. He reaches for the nightstand, pulling open the drawer and fishing out his lube as he rocks against Mydei’s ass, as he rubs his stomach over Mydei’s cock. Mydei clutches at his shoulders, shuddering, gasping, bracing his feet against the bed to give himself leverage to work in counterrhythm to Phainon.
Keeping his attention on the lube in his hand is next to fucking impossible with Mydei writhing beneath him, but he’s gotta figure it out. Gotta manage himself.
He smears lube across his fingers and shifts to his knees, putting a regrettable space between him and the man beneath him. Mydei rakes his nails down Phainon’s arms and spreads his legs wide, arching his back in blatant offering.
“How used to this are you?” Phainon asks, rubbing his fingers across Mydei’s rim. It’s tight beneath his touch, but it won’t be for long.
Mydei shoots him an annoyed look. “Are we really about to have a conversation about past relationships?”
Phainon grins and shakes his head. “Just wanna know what you’re used to.”
Mydei turns his face to the side. “Plenty. I—” He closes his eyes. “I prefer to masturbate with a dildo.”
Oh, shit, that’s so fucking hot. The mental image of Mydei stroking himself while fucking a dildo into his ass is so—Phainon reels himself back, his blood hammering in his veins, his cock aching. The way he wants to see that, to watch that. “That’s—” He struggles for the right words. “That’s good to know.”
One of his fingers pushes gently into Mydei’s hole, and Mydei, proving he does, in fact, know what he’s doing, bears down and relaxes, his body swallowing Phainon to the first knuckle. He pushes deeper, turning his hand, crooking his finger, pressing against hot muscle until he finds Mydei’s prostate, and when he does, Mydei jerks halfway off the bed. His limbs twitch and spasm, his back arches, and it’s more erotic than anything Phainon’s ever seen before. He pulls his finger out in a long, slow stroke, dragging the pad of it over Mydei’s prostate, and then pushing it back in, slowly softening Mydei’s body until he can take a second finger.
He wraps his free hand around Mydei’s cock, stroking in time with the pumping of his fingers, and Mydei grabs at the headboard above him with one hand. “Fuck,” he mutters, his hips working with Phainon’s touch, his free hand driving into his hair. “That’s good.” He’s some combination of ecstatic and begrudging, but Phainon is delighted by the praise anyway, his own cock twitching with interest and leaking enough precum to drip down his skin and onto the bed.
Though he aches, though he wants desperately to touch himself or to get inside Mydei, one is more preferable than the other, and he keeps working his fingers into the tight heat of Mydei’s body. He spreads them wide, opening Mydei up, and strokes them over Mydei’s prostate until his back is bowing again, until his heels dig into the bed, until he chokes back desperate little whining noises.
That’s when Phainon knows it’s enough. He pulls his fingers out of Mydei’s body, grabs the lube again, and slicks his cock down. He’s so hard he hurts, his own touch too much. He can’t imagine how he’s going to maintain control when he sinks into Mydei’s body, which is a very immediate problem.
Shaking more than he’d like to admit, he presses his cock to Mydei’s hole, pushing it in slowly. He shudders, and Mydei moans, and the tight heat is so much. Phainon’s thoughts fizzle in his brain, ricocheting synaptic static, and desire burns him, scalds him, threatens to consume him and leave nothing behind but ash. Bracing himself over Mydei’s body, he eases deeper, deeper, and Mydei lifts his hips to take more of him, too. They come together in a languid roll, Phainon gripping Mydei’s hip with his freehand, and then he’s bottoming out, and he can’t even fucking breathe.
Mydei is so hot, so tight. He squeezes around Phainon’s cock, and Phainon gasps, resting his forehead against Mydei’s. Mydei keeps one hand on the headboard. The other wraps around Phainon’s shoulders, clutching at him.
“Move,” Mydei demands.
Phainon can’t move. If he moves, he’ll come. He needs a second—a minute, an hour—to get on top of the pleasure coursing through him, the pleasure that threatens to annihilate him and all his rational capacity. He’s not sure he’s ever going to be able to think again as Mydei’s nails bite into his shoulder, as Mydei arches beneath him, grinding his cock into Phainon’s stomach, as Mydei clenches around him so very deliberately, squeezing hard enough to make Phainon see stars.
“Would you just—”
“Give me a minute,” Phainon manages, turning his face to catch Mydei’s mouth in a hungry kiss. He fucks his tongue into Mydei’s mouth, licking deep, devouring him, shutting him up aside from the urgent noises that he makes at the back of his throat. Fuck, but those sounds are inflammatory, and Phainon finds himself moving, finds himself grinding hard into Mydei’s ass. On his forearms above Mydei’s body, he flexes his hips, driving just a little deeper, and the sound Mydei makes into his mouth is wicked, is obscene, is so good he can’t give it up.
He moves in slow, shallow thrusts, not trusting himself to do more, eking out what sensation he can, and it’s a sweet agony. Climbing on top of the pleasure is a monumental task, but he fights back his own mounting orgasm as he lifts his mouth from Mydei’s. Beneath him, Mydei is faintly flushed in the darkness, his lips full and bruised, his lashes laying across his cheeks. He’s beautiful.
“Phainon,” he says.
With a little laugh, Phainon pulls out almost to the tip, and then slams back in. Mydei’s nails rake down his back. Mydei’s back bows, he gasps ever so sweetly, and the pleasure once more threatens to drown Phainon. He gives up fighting it. He fucks hard into Mydei’s body, tangling his fingers in Mydei’s hair as he moves, as he drives deep, as he uses his cock to take Mydei apart piece by piece.
When they’re pressed together, he makes sure to rub himself across Mydei’s body, over his cock. When they’re apart, he tugs lightly on Mydei’s hair until Mydei’s head falls back and he groans long and low.
They’re both too keyed up to last too long—thank all the Titans. Mydei’s sounds grow increasingly urgent, desperate, and he sinks his fingers into the meat of Phainon’s ass to jerk him into every thrust. Phainon’s almost entirely out of his mind, rutting into Mydei’s body with a single-minded intensity. He can’t come, not yet, has to wait just—a little—longer—
Mydei’s body seizes beneath his, his thighs squeezing against Phainon’s hips. He moans as he comes, breathy and sweet, and his cock spills cum between them, over their chests and stomachs. The sweet spasms of his body are too much for Phainon, and he follows two thrusts later, grinding into Mydei’s ass as he comes, too, as ecstasy tears him apart and leaves him empty and hollow and panting.
Braced over Mydei, shaking from the force of his pleasure, he presses a kiss to Mydei’s slack lower lip. “Good?” he asks.
Mydei, his legs slipping back to the bed, lowers his arm over his face, hiding his eyes. “We forgot a condom,” he says.
“Oh.” They sure did. “Well. I’m clean?”
Mydei pulls his arm aside, glaring. “I am, too, but that was incredibly stupid of us both.”
With a lopsided grin, Phainon eases out of Mydei and collapses next to him. “What can I say? I excel at bringing out the stupid in—hey!” He chokes on the pillow Mydei shoves into his face, half smothering him.
“I’m taking a shower,” Mydei says, his weight rolling off the bed.
Climbing on top of the pillow with his elbow, Phainon sits up. “Can I watch?”
“HKS,” Mydei snaps back before disappearing into Phainon’s bathroom. Taking that as permission, Phainon follows him.
No transit is running by the time they get out of the shower, and while Mydei could call a car, he opts, to Phainon’s surprise, to throw himself back into the bed. “It’s late,” he says by way of explanation, and Phainon, secretly delighted, just shrugs and accepts this. He falls into bed next to Mydei and, exhausted from a long day and frankly mind-blowing sex, is asleep in minutes.
He wakes with the sun, as he always does, no alarm needed, and drags himself out of bed, bleary-eyed and blurry-minded. Staggering into the bathroom, he fumbles for the light, leaving the door open without really thinking about how it might bother the man still asleep in his bed. The light burns his eyes, and he squints into the mirror as he rubs his palm over his jaw. Fuck, but he needs to shave.
Mechanically, he splashes water on his face, soaking his skin. He doesn’t even bother with lather, his brain still not entirely awake, and just reaches for his razor. Drags it down one side of his jaw, staring blankly in the mirror.
“Phainon?”
His name startles him. The razor slides across his jaw, biting into his skin. He stares at himself in the mirror as blood wells on his face.
Before he can whirl around and catch the door to shut it, Mydei’s standing there, staring at him. Staring at his face. At the blood collecting on his skin.
“You’re bleeding,” Mydei says.
Phainon swallows hard. “Yeah.”
“You’re bleeding gold.”
And there on Mydei’s throat, where Phainon suckled a hickey, is a ring of gold.