Chapter Text
TO: Gym (W:L 248:246)
Are you free?
FROM: Gym (W:L 248:246)
Hmm :) depends
What’s in it for me?
TO: Gym (W:L 248:246)
Never mind.
FROM: Gym (W:L 248:246)
Noo wait
I was kidding
What do you need?
TO: Gym (248:246)
Come over?
FROM: Gym (W:L 248:246)
Be there in 15!
₍^. .^₎⟆
In reality, it took 19 minutes and 37 seconds for Phainon to show up at his door. Not that Mydei had been counting.
“Hey!” Phainon said as soon as the door swung open. He held up a plastic bag and gave it a shake, beaming. “Look, I stopped on the way to pick up—”
He was cut off into a startled yelp as Mydei yanked him inside, pushed him against the door, and kissed him hard enough for their teeth to clack together.
The door slammed shut with a bang so loud the walls seemed to vibrate. Phainon made a shocked, muffled noise against Mydei’s lips, still stiff in his surprise—but Mydei didn’t relent, deepening the kiss and licking into Phainon’s mouth with single-minded hunger, until he felt Phainon melt like wax over a flame and kiss him back.
The plastic bag thumped to the floor. Phainon’s hands came up to hesitantly grip Mydei’s waist, clenching tighter when Mydei’s teeth scraped his lip. Another noise escaped him as Mydei curled rough fingers into his hair. Then Mydei tilted his head, and their kiss turned open-mouthed and messy, deep enough that Mydei’s lungs burned.
A quick, hot thrum of satisfaction shot through him. This was what he’d wanted: the press of Phainon’s body against his own. The wet heat of Phainon’s mouth on his. How helplessly responsive he was, shivering when Mydei slid a warm hand up his shirt, breath catching as soon as Mydei pushed a knee between his legs. This was what Mydei had been thinking about all day, though he’d only admit it on pain of death—how he’d spent the last hour of his excruciating workday restless in his chair, watching the clock, counting down the minutes until he could walk out the door and send that inevitable text.
With a gasp, Phainon broke the kiss. For a moment, they just stared at each other, their heavy breaths filling the scant space between them.
“Well,” Phainon finally said. “Hello to you too?”
Unceremoniously, Mydei dropped to his knees.
Phainon’s eyes went saucer-wide as Mydei reached for his belt. If Mydei hadn’t been so set on his goal, he might’ve spared the thought to find it funny. “Mydei,” Phainon blurted, a half-panicked laugh edging into his voice, “what—”
“Stop talking.”
The laugh escaped, breathless and a little disbelieving. “What has gotten into you?”
“Shit day at work,” Mydei muttered, yanking at Phainon’s belt with a bit more aggression than necessary.
“So what am I? Designated stress relief?”
Mydei raised an eyebrow. Pointedly, he trailed his fingers down the front of Phainon’s jeans, where the fabric was already tenting, and felt more than saw the way Phainon jolted under his touch. “Are you complaining?”
Phainon swallowed. His throat bobbed. “No,” he admitted.
Satisfied, Mydei returned to Phainon’s belt. When it was out of the way, he reached up to gather his hair—it was growing out enough for him to make a mental note to cut it soon—and tugged it into a ponytail with the band around his wrist.
Above him, Phainon made a noise like he was dying. His head thumped back against the door. “Titans,” he mumbled to the ceiling, and then, just as Mydei’s fingers went for his zipper, said in a rush, “Ah, Mydei—wait.”
Mydei stilled and glanced up.
“It’s just, um…”
“Not in the mood?”
“No!” Phainon said, so vehemently that Mydei’s eyebrows flew up. He blushed. “No, it’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“I just… I didn’t get a chance to say hi to Fig Stew yet.”
Mydei stared up at him. A very long and somewhat loaded pause followed.
When it became clear that Phainon seemed to think this statement required no further elaboration, Mydei sat back and said, a little incredulously, “What?”
“I said I didn’t get a chance to say hi to—”
“No, I got that. I just wasn’t sure if I heard you right.”
“I brought him treats,” Phainon explained, beginning to sound awkward. He made a vague gesture towards the plastic bag crumpled by his shoe.
Mydei looked, if only because he was too baffled to do anything else. He hadn’t given more than a passing glance to the bag before—for obvious reasons—but now that it was before his eyes, he recognized the bright, cartoonish logo on the front as the one belonging to the grocery store down the block. He blinked then leaned closer. That was when he saw it: the shiny edge of expensive packaging, stamped with a circle of laurels around a golden paw print.
He knew that logo too. Very well, unfortunately. “Is that Garden of Life?”
“Well, of course,” Phainon said, somehow having the gall to sound offended. “You know as well as I do that that’s the only brand he’ll eat.”
“That’s not—” Mydei cut himself off. “This is why you were late?”
Phainon’s cheeks went pink. “You noticed? I thought I managed to cut it pretty close.”
Mydei decided not to mention the fact that he’d been, quite literally, staring at the digital clock on his TV the entire time while waiting for Phainon to show up. It’d been a mildly pathetic reenactment of what he’d done at the office. “You took a detour so you could buy fancy treats for my cat.”
“...Yes?”
“And that’s the first thing you want to do here? Feed them to him?”
“Um.” The attractive flush on Phainon’s face was darkening. He shifted where he was still leaning against Mydei’s door, fidgeting with the clasp of his undone belt, then said haltingly, “I didn’t want to wait in case I forgot, since, you know… I figured we’d be pretty busy. Later on.”
Despite himself, Mydei’s mouth twitched. “That seems presumptuous.”
“Presumptuous?” Phainon gave him an affronted look. “Says the man who pounced on me the second he opened the door.”
It was, admittedly, not a point Mydei was in any position to argue against. So instead, he tilted his head and studied Phainon, taking in the stiff lines of his limbs, the way his broad shoulders were framed by the oak door.
He was wearing his glasses, Mydei realized belatedly. That was new.
Mydei had gotten used to seeing the other man’s face bare of the thick black frames; Phainon wore contacts most days, and at the gym he tended to forgo them entirely. But now the glasses sat in front of his blue eyes and below messy, tousled bangs, as if the wind had raked its fingers through his hair the same way Mydei liked to. Mydei squinted. His eyes trailed further down, noting how rumpled Phainon’s t-shirt was beneath his jacket, the way the laces on one of his shoes were knotted higher than the other’s. He looked disheveled in an almost endearing way—as if he’d been in a terrible rush.
Something slid into place with a click in Mydei’s mind. He arched an eyebrow up at Phainon. “Says the man who ran all the way here.”
It’d only been a guess, but the way Phainon’s cheeks went impossibly redder let Mydei know it was a correct one. “That’s—beside the point.”
“Is it? Seems like someone was eager.”
“You don’t like it when I’m late,” Phainon protested. “And your texts made it sound urgent.”
“I texted you maybe five words.”
“Five urgent words.”
Mydei’s lips quirked, unable to resist the urge to tease. “Are you sure that wasn’t wishful thinking on your part?”
“I—you—” Phainon visibly gave up with a huff. He ran a hand over his forehead, sending his hair straight past messy and into hopeless territory, then said, “Are you going to allow me access to your cat or not? Please,” he added.
At the risk of sounding vulgar, there were more than a few things Mydei wanted to allow Phainon access to at that moment. His cat, who he nevertheless loved dearly, wouldn’t even have made the top ten.
But Mydei should’ve known to expect this. From the very moment this thing with Phainon had begun, he’d been witness to the other man’s strange, inexplicable connection to Mydei’s cat, by which he meant that Phainon had somehow become the only human being besides himself who Fig Stew treated with anything beyond grudging tolerance.
So all Mydei did was shut his eyes and spare one brief, incredulous moment to wonder if any other man he’d slept with—or any man on the planet at all, for that matter—would turn down oral sex in favour of feeding offensively overpriced treats to someone else’s pet.
“Mydei?” said the only man to have ever done so.
Mydei sighed. “He was napping last time I checked, but maybe he’s awake now. Fig Stew?” he called, turning in the general direction of his bedroom.
He waited. Nothing but silence answered him.
Mydei turned back and shrugged, half-expecting Phainon to wilt in disappointment. Instead, the man just raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Let me try.” Phainon cleared his throat, then said in a loud, cheerful voice, “Fig Stew!”
There is no way, Mydei thought. Surely not.
But evidently, he’d underestimated his cat’s capacity for betrayal, because this time there were only two and a half seconds of silence before Mydei heard the soft pattering of paws against carpet. A meow came from the hall. Then an orange shadow slinked into the entryway, brushing past Mydei’s ankles before affectionately butting its head against Phainon’s waiting hand.
Fig Stew was a Ragdoll mix—or at least, that was what Cipher, the only cat expert Mydei knew, had said the first time she’d seen him. This one has an unusually bright coat, she’d murmured thoughtfully, pale blue eyes roving over the pumpkin-coloured ball of fluff hiding under Mydei’s bed. You could make a killing entering him in cat shows, Little Lion! Those ambitions had then been soundly crushed when Fig Stew—who turned out to be a standoffish, largely coldhearted creature—hissed and bit at Cipher’s fingers close enough for her to yelp.
But Fig Stew, deceptively endearing name aside, wasn’t coldhearted towards everyone. He liked Mydei enough to cohabit with him, at the very least. And on occasion, he would be in a good enough mood to curl up in Mydei’s lap and allow his ears to be pet like most housecats. Fig Stew had just never adored anyone.
That is, until Mydei had made the fateful decision to sleep with the man in front of him now.
Phainon shot Mydei a pleased, triumphant look as Fig Stew’s head rubbed against his leg. He crouched lower to run gentle fingers along the cat’s fur. “Hey there, my favourite boy,” Phainon said softly. “How have you been?” He glanced back at Mydei, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Has your big bad owner been treating you well?”
“I haven’t been spoiling him, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mydei said, still processing the depth of Fig Stew’s betrayal.
“What a shame. Looks like the duty will have to fall to me, then.”
In a flourish, Phainon reached into the plastic bag by his side and pulled out the stupidly fancy Garden of Life pouch. He presented it to Fig Stew for appraisal. Fig Stew sniffed and, upon catching the scent of the only treat brand he didn’t turn his nose up at, meowed in approval.
“That’s right,” Phainon said. His smile was warm and playful as he carefully tore open the packaging. “At least someone knows to treat you right, hmm?”
Fig Stew purred, curling himself around Phainon’s ankle.
“What flavour are we in the mood for today? Tuna, maybe? Or—” Phainon laughed as Fig Stew gave an insistent headbutt to his shin. “Alright, alright, got it. Tuna it is.”
Another satisfied meow. Phainon went to rummage through the pouch with one hand, his other one coming up to scratch Fig Stew beneath the chin.
Watching them, the thought struck Mydei that perhaps he should’ve felt more offended. He was pent-up and horny and more than a little miffed at his own cat’s indifference towards himself. When he’d sent that text to Phainon, he’d had other things in mind—things that didn’t relate to the man’s frankly baffling ability to draw out Fig Stew’s affection; things that involved Phainon’s hands around his waist, his hot mouth on Mydei’s neck, the rough press of his fingers between Mydei’s thighs.
But despite that, Mydei couldn’t find it in himself to be all that annoyed. He leaned against the wall and huffed out an amused breath. Phainon’s face was bright as he watched Fig Stew lick at the treat in his hand, his blue eyes so soft, so sincere, that Mydei felt something syrupy-warm melt in his chest, like honey under sunlight.
Later, he would pull Phainon through the door of his bedroom. He’d watch those same blue eyes go midnight-dark with desire, feel the grip of those strong hands as they seared into Mydei’s skin. Later was when Mydei would get everything he’d been hungry for, when he’d hook his arms around Phainon’s neck and finally let himself fall into the familiar rhythm they’d learned.
But right then, Mydei could only look at that earnest softness in Phainon’s gaze and think, with a sort of resigned certainty, I’m doomed.
₍^. .^₎⟆
Mydei would like to say that it all began with the cat.
If it did begin with the cat, then the story to tell would’ve been simple. It would’ve started and ended at that one fateful day in his last year of university: the pouring rain and the cancelled classes and Mydei, damp and disgruntled, trudging back from a useless trip to the lecture hall.
At the gate to his building, Mydei ducked beneath the overhang and stopped to search for his keycard. Back then, his pockets tended to contain any number of random and inexplicable items, most of which were owed to the company he kept. Mydei pulled out one of Castorice’s butterfly hairclips. Then he pulled out a handful of coins from the arcade where Cipher worked part-time. Then he pulled out a crumpled library receipt, also courtesy of Castorice, from that time she’d asked him to check out a stack of books with deeply questionable titles that Mydei still tried his best not to think about.
Just as his fingers found the smooth edge of his keycard, one of the coins in his other hand slid out of his grasp. It fell to the ground and bounced once before rolling around the corner, just out of sight.
Mydei sighed. He stepped forward and stooped to reach for the coin. But then a movement caught his eye—the smallest flash of orange, all too bright against the bleak grey of the rain—and he stilled.
A pair of amber eyes blinked up at him.
For a moment, Mydei wondered if he was seeing things. But no: there was a cat huddled against the inner corner of the gate, a small, bedraggled thing with fur so wet it seemed plastered to its bones. Mydei stared and the cat stared back. Its gaze was alert and distrustful, its body shivering under the still-pattering rain. It looked cold, and miserable, and so skinny that it couldn’t have been anything but a stray.
“Hello,” Mydei said, then immediately felt a bit foolish.
The cat hissed at him. The sound was more pitiful than intimidating.
So Mydei made an impulsive decision: he bundled the cat up in his sports jacket and brought it home.
By home, he meant the dingy dorm he shared with his assigned roommate, a third-year photography major who spent more time at the studio than in bed, and by bundled up, he meant he’d spent the better part of thirty minutes coaxing the cat before finally succeeding using a half-eaten sandwich as bait. He’d carried the twitching, conspicuously hissy bundle all the way back to his bedroom. He’d named him Fig Stew. And then he’d called Cipher.
Okhema University didn’t allow any pets in the dorms. Mydei had spent his remaining time as a student alternating between hiding the cat from his roommate—who, thankfully, was too stoned most of the time to notice that they’d gained a third resident—and dropping him off with Cipher, who was more than happy to take him even after she’d been forced to accept that her cat-whispering skills, honed through years of volunteering at Okhema’s largest animal shelter, did not seem to work on Fig Stew. The former stray treated everyone with equal disdain, but tolerated Mydei with the kind of wary acceptance that one might offer a captor who was humane enough to feed you. It was a humbling experience for everyone involved. This hadn’t changed until well after graduation, when Fig Stew finally began warming up to Mydei after almost a full year of being fed and groomed and pampered.
So in a way, it did all begin with the cat. In truth, though, most of it had begun afterwards. Not necessarily in a way that was owed to the cat, but rather in a way where, without the presence of said cat, things might not have progressed to where they were now.
₍^. .^₎⟆
Mydei first felt the prickle on his neck when he stepped onto the treadmill. He’d only just slipped his headphones on when he recognized it: that distinct, telltale weight of another person’s gaze settling over his shoulders, heavy enough to give him pause.
It wasn't necessarily a sensation he was unused to. He’d been coming to this gym for about a year, after all, and he was more than aware that people tended to find his appearance intriguing, what with the tattoos, the tight clothing, and the muscles he worked hard to maintain. But it was near closing time now, and what Mydei could see of the gym around him was mostly deserted. Who would be ogling him at a time like this?
Mydei took a swig from his water bottle, hit the power button on the treadmill, and began his jog.
The prickle at his neck didn’t leave him. In fact, it only seemed to become more insistent. Mydei frowned. He turned down the pop music blaring through his headphones—Hyacine from work had downloaded no less than ten girl group albums to his phone, to which Mydei had gotten reluctantly addicted—then tilted his head a little, peering behind him using the mirrored wall to his front.
There. Over at the arm curl machines, a man was staring at him.
Mydei blinked. Their eyes met through the mirror. The man started, nearly fumbling his water bottle, then snapped his gaze away, a rosy blush painting his cheeks.
Cute, Mydei thought, almost offhandedly. He took the time to consider the man while he was still avoiding Mydei’s gaze: blue eyes, silvery-pale hair, and a strong, athletic build, the dark compression shirt he was wearing doing nothing to conceal the defined lines of his chest. He was very attractive and also completely unfamiliar. In the not insignificant amount of time that Mydei had spent at this gym, he’d never seen this man even once.
And he would remember him, Mydei thought, his eyes now roving over the man’s body, lingering on the way his arms flexed as he pulled the handles of the machine towards his shoulders. It wasn’t every day that he saw someone with a build that rivalled his own. Nor someone with eyes so blue they seemed fluorescent. And there was what looked like a unique tattoo on the side of his neck, too, something gold that almost shimmered beneath the gym lights—
Now it was the man’s turn to catch Mydei staring. When Mydei’s gaze lifted again, the man was looking right back, his eyes bright with something like curiosity.
Unwanted heat rushed to Mydei’s face. He jerked his eyes away and smacked the speed button on the treadmill until he was running instead of jogging.
Over the bubblegum pop still chirping merrily through his headphones, Mydei reminded himself that he was here to work out. What he was not here to do was ogle hot strangers—even if they’d been the one to ogle him first. He had less than an hour to finish his run and stretch before the gym closed for the night, and he didn’t intend to waste any of it on frivolous, non-exercise-related pastimes, such as appraising another man’s biceps or tracing the lines of a golden-bright tattoo.
This reminder worked for all of ten minutes, until Mydei caught a flash of movement to his right and glanced over.
He narrowly avoided stumbling over his feet. It was the attractive man who’d been staring.
Mydei watched, baffled, as the man placed his water bottle into the holder on the treadmill next to Mydei’s. The entire row of treadmills was unoccupied, on account of there barely being a single other soul in the gym, and yet the man appeared completely unmoved by this fact as he hit the start button. He caught Mydei’s gaze and offered him a friendly nod, as if they were old acquaintances.
Then, not-so-subtly, he leaned over in Mydei’s direction and squinted down.
Mydei stared at him, floored. Was this man trying to look down Mydei’s shirt? Because if he was—
The man squinted harder then pulled back. All too casually, he pressed the speed button on his treadmill, turning it up until he was running just as fast as Mydei.
It took Mydei a moment to realize what the man had done, but when he did, he had to stop his eyebrows from flying up. Mydei glanced down at the console on his own treadmill. It was set to 7.5, a nice, steady pace that was suited to an end-of-day run. He flicked his gaze to the right to check the man’s speed.
7.6.
Mydei blinked in disbelief. The man had deliberately looked at Mydei’s speed so he could set his own one level higher. Who did that? And more importantly, why?
He shot the man an incredulous look, wondering if he’d misread things, but no—the man caught his eye again and one corner of his mouth quirked up, subtle but no less amused.
Mydei’s eyes narrowed. Before he could think too much about it, he reached down and turned his own speed up to 8.0.
He would never quite know what had possessed him in that moment. Maybe it was the childish, competitive streak he hadn’t yet grown out of—the one that’d made Castorice and Cipher swear off playing board games with him back in university, the one that still occasionally inspired Cipher to mutter a good-natured get therapy under her breath. Or maybe it was the way the man had looked at Mydei, the quirk of his mouth, that barely-there gleam of something almost teasing in his eyes.
In any case, the man noticed. He adjusted his speed to 8.1. Mydei held back a glare then turned his up to 8.5. The man went to 8.6. And so on and so forth, until both of their treadmills were maxed out at 12 and they were full-on sprinting like a pair of exceedingly unprofessional athletes stuck in a championship race.
Mydei, unfortunately enough, had never been a sprinter; that fact became more and more clear as the minutes ticked by and he could feel himself begin to flag under the brutal pace he’d trapped them into. But even with sweat stinging his eyes and his breath burning in his lungs, he didn’t want to call it quits. Stopping before the man did would be akin to surrendering. And Mydei refused to surrender.
He gritted his teeth and pushed on.
Another few minutes passed. Mydei’s leg muscles were straining in protest. Distantly, he began to wonder if the other man was superhuman. Mydei blinked through his fatigue and stole a glance at him, catching a glimpse of the man’s broad, muscled shoulders as they moved, the sharp cut of his sweat-slick jaw—
Mydei’s next step was a near-stumble. Fuck.
Heart in his throat, he slammed the emergency stop button. The treadmill slowed and Mydei braced a hand on the console, panting.
When his pulse stopped thrumming in his ears, he looked up to see that the man had stopped too. He was leaning back against the handrail, drinking from his water bottle, his posture looking far too relaxed considering the breakneck speed they’d just been running at.
To Mydei’s gratification, though, the man looked no less exhausted than he felt. His light bangs were dark with sweat and his chest was heaving, a pink flush spreading up his neck to disappear under his hair. Unbidden, Mydei’s eyes followed that flush upwards, higher and higher, until once again, their gazes met.
Mydei wasn’t sure what he expected. For the man to gloat over his victory, perhaps. Or drop a pick-up line and wink like the lead in a bad rom-com. But the man did none of that, instead giving Mydei that friendly nod again before capping his bottle and turning.
Then he walked away. Mydei watched him disappear around the corner to the bathroom, mildly flabbergasted.
It was, without a doubt, the strangest encounter he’d ever had.
He let out a half-disbelieving snort and headed to the stretching area.
Only later, once he’d painstakingly finished his stretches and showered, did Mydei spare a moment to ponder where the man had come from. He was an unfamiliar face and didn’t look like he’d come with a friend. Mydei towelled off his hair, wondering if he’d simply missed the man on his previous visits. But he would’ve remembered someone like that, he thought, and with that build, the man didn’t seem new to exercise. He was athletic and clearly familiar with gym machines, and he was also—
Sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty changing room. Mydei stopped in his tracks. Before him was the man who’d baited him into that pointless race, his pale hair now clean and damp, his workout clothes swapped for jeans and a garishly bright hoodie, a pair of black glasses perched on his nose as he tapped at his phone.
“You,” Mydei said without entirely meaning to.
The man’s head jerked up. He saw Mydei and started, then glanced around the room as if there were anyone else Mydei could’ve been talking to. “Me?”
He had a nice voice, warm and not too deep. Mydei found himself wondering, for one nonsensical moment, if he knew how to sing.
“You’re new here.”
The man blinked. “Um. Yes.”
“I haven’t seen you at this gym before.”
“A-Ah, well.” The man appeared thoroughly caught off guard by this conversation. “I just moved to this city for work, so…”
“Hm.” Mydei stepped forward, pulling the towel from his hair, and watched the man’s eyes follow the movement. “Where do you work?”
“I… the Okhema History Museum. I’m an associate curator there.”
Mydei couldn’t help lifting an eyebrow in surprise.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” said the man, and smiled. It was a full smile now, bright and warm, nothing like the tiny, challenging one he’d given Mydei at the treadmills. He offered Mydei a hand. “I’m Phainon.”
Mydei took it. “Mydei,” he said.
“My-dei,” Phainon repeated, as if he was taking the time to taste the syllables on his tongue, and a traitorous bloom of heat crept up Mydei’s neck. “Nice to meet you.”
Phainon’s hand was as warm as his smile, his grip strong and firm. It was the grip of a steelworker or a sailor, not the grip Mydei would expect from someone who framed art and arranged old relics on shelves or whatever it was curators tended to do.
Mydei released his hand and they fell into silence. He used the lull in the conversation to study Phainon some more, eyes trailing down his face and the strong slope of his shoulders. That had been a tattoo on his neck after all—a simple golden sun, its glimmering points stretching towards the jut of his collarbone. Mydei’s gaze came up again to settle on Phainon’s blue eyes, then those thick black frames, and that was when the realization struck him.
“That’s why you were squinting.”
Phainon’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“At the treadmills,” Mydei said by way of explanation, not quite able to keep the accusing note out of his voice. “When you were checking my speed setting. You weren’t wearing your glasses then.”
“Oh. That,” Phainon said, looking a little sheepish. He shifted and put his phone down at his side. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”
Mydei snorted. “Hard not to.”
“You put on a good showing back there, though.”
Something about the words made Mydei’s eyes narrow, that pesky competitive spirit rearing up inside him again. “Don’t patronize me,” he snapped.
“Wha—I’m not! I’m just saying, you ran for longer than most people would’ve.”
“Is this something you do often, then? Provoke strangers into meaningless races?”
“Well… no. You would be the first.”
Mydei crossed his arms. “And to what,” he said dryly, “do I owe the honour?”
Phainon opened his mouth. Then he closed it. For a heartbeat, his gaze trailed from Mydei’s face to somewhere lower, then dragged itself up again as if through sheer force of will. That was, incidentally, what made Mydei realize that he was still clad in only a pair of sweatpants post-shower; that his chest was bare; and that the decision to cross his arms had caused his muscles to shift, making the shape of said chest rather obvious.
The stare was so blatant that he half-expected Phainon to apologize. But instead, Phainon’s blue eyes were molten-bright as he looked up at Mydei, and there was something almost devious in the curve of his smile when he said, “Can’t you take a guess?”
Mydei blinked down at him. His mouth went curiously dry.
“That’s forward of you,” he finally muttered.
“Is it?” That infuriating quirk to Phainon’s mouth was back, obvious even in the dim light. “Well, you’d think I’d have earned the right to be after our competition.”
“It was hardly a competition. I was an unwilling participant.”
“You seemed pretty willing up until you had to press the stop button.”
“The gym was about to close,” said Mydei, irritated, well aware that he sounded like a sore loser but unable to stop himself. “And you sprung this so-called competition on me with no warning. If we have a rematch, you won’t be so confident.”
But even as he said it, he wasn’t sure it was true. In that moment, sitting within Mydei’s shadow, Phainon seemed more at ease than he had any right to be. It was as if confidence was written in the lines of his limbs, stitched into his being as easily as breathing.
He grinned up at Mydei, an unspoken challenge in his eyes. “Is that an invitation?”
Mydei stared at him. A slow crawl of heat made its way through his veins.
And this, Mydei would later realize, had been the second time that night where he wasn’t sure what had possessed him. In the hush of the evening, with the air thick and tense between them, it’d seemed like the most natural thing in the world to reach down and drag Phainon’s face up. Phainon’s mouth was hot and soft and his kiss lit Mydei’s blood like a spark. There was hunger in the way he gripped Mydei’s waist, in the searing warmth of his hands when he pulled Mydei’s hips flush against his own.
Is that an invitation?
Mydei certainly hadn’t meant it as one, but it became one anyway. Half an hour later and they were in Mydei’s apartment, Phainon huffing out a breathless laugh as Mydei pinned him against the door, his lips on Phainon’s neck, Phainon’s knee between Mydei’s thighs.
“Is this—” Phainon bit down on a gasp as Mydei’s teeth found his sun tattoo. “—what being forward gets you?”
“You talk too much,” Mydei muttered. He pressed himself into Phainon’s body, fitting their hips together in a slow, rough grind, and felt the way Phainon’s breath shuddered out of him.
“Ah, okay. I just—”
A very distinct thump sounded from down the hall. Phainon stilled.
“Is someone else home?”
“No,” said Mydei impatiently. “I live alone.”
“Oh.” Phainon blinked. His eyes were dark and glassy, and he looked like he was trying very hard to piece his thoughts together. “Then—”
“It’s probably my cat.”
“Wait, you have a cat? What kind? What’s their name?”
The way Phainon’s face instantly brightened might’ve rather offended Mydei if he couldn’t feel Phainon’s interest pressing against his thigh. “His name is Fig Stew, and he hates everyone,” Mydei said, then reached down to cup the bulge in Phainon’s jeans. “Any more questions?”
Phainon’s hips bucked into Mydei’s palm. He swallowed hard.
“No.”
They took things to Mydei’s bed.
In the morning, Mydei woke to the same bed empty on the other side, his blankets rucked up around his waist. He squinted into the sunlight slanting through his curtains and winced. There was an insistent soreness in his lower back, a headache throbbing at his temple, and when he glanced down, he nearly blanched at the sight of the bite marks and bruises scattered all over his chest.
Memories from the night before came rushing back. Phainon scraping his teeth against Mydei’s nipple. Phainon’s hands burning Mydei’s skin as they dipped between Mydei’s thighs. The messy, greedy way Phainon had kissed him as he worked Mydei open, his tongue hot and wet, his fingers unrelenting—
“Titans,” Mydei muttered, and rolled out of bed.
Save for the wrinkled sheets, he couldn’t spot any sign of Phainon’s presence as he dressed himself. There was no rumpled clothing on the floor, no phone charging on the nightstand. Maybe he’d decided to leave the moment he woke up, Mydei reasoned, padding his way across the bedroom. It wasn’t as if he could fault the man for keeping a one-night-stand to one night.
Just as he reached for the doorknob, though, he paused. The door was cracked open, and through it Mydei thought he could hear faint noises coming from the living room—the sound of something rustling, then someone’s bright, muffled laugh.
Either Phainon was still here, or Cipher had picked his lock again. Mydei headed down the hall to find out which.
He got his answer when the crown of Phainon’s silver head came into view. The other man was crouched on the floor, half-turned away from Mydei, wearing only a white undershirt with his hoodie draped over his elbow. Mydei paused for a moment to take him in: the sunlight filtering through his hair, the black frames back on the bridge of his nose. Briefly, Mydei was struck by a memory of himself from last night, pulling Phainon’s glasses from his face before dragging him down for a kiss.
Then he rounded the corner and froze.
Fig Stew was sitting on the floor before Phainon.
Pure instinct, developed through years of caring for said cat, almost drove Mydei forward to yank Phainon back before Fig Stew could scratch him or try to bite his finger off or do any of the usual things he did when faced with a stranger. But Fig Stew wasn’t doing those things.
No—Fig Stew was purring. He was rubbing his head against the palm of Phainon’s hand, who was petting him with a soft, delighted smile on his face, his eyes alight as he watched Mydei’s cat give him the kind of affection that had taken Mydei months to coax out.
“You…” Mydei’s voice came out hesitant, disbelieving. “What are you doing?”
Phainon glanced up. “Mydei!” he said cheerfully. “Good morning. Look, I found your cat—or he found me, I guess.” He laughed as Fig Stew curled around his ankle, beseechingly looking up for more headpats. “This is the cat who you said hates everyone?”
Mydei stared at Fig Stew and wondered for one wild moment if he’d been possessed overnight by the soul of a kinder, more compassionate animal. “Yes.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re representing him very fairly,” said Phainon. “He’s adorable.”
“He’s… not normally like this.”
“Really? Must be my lucky day then.” Phainon reached out to scratch beneath Fig Stew’s chin, his voice almost a coo. “You think so too, don’t you, big guy?”
The sight was downright baffling: Mydei’s usually ill-tempered cat rubbing against the leg of his one-night-stand, purring up a storm. Mydei could do nothing but grasp for the only reasonable conclusion: “You have a cat too.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“Some other pet then?”
“No…”
“Any experience with animals at all?” Mydei asked, a bit incredulous.
Phainon blinked. “I fed my neighbour’s goldfish for a week when I was eight?”
Mydei looked to their feet, where Fig Stew was now winding between Phainon’s ankles in crystal-clear affection. Nikador, he thought, in slight disbelief. Tell me I didn’t somehow sleep with the only human in Amphoreus who my cat happens to like.
Fig Stew let out a very content, very much untroubled meow.
“What did you say his name was again?” asked Phainon, unaware of the bewilderment rolling through Mydei’s head. “Figs?”
“Fig Stew.”
Phainon’s lips twitched. “Like the dessert?”
“Yes,” said Mydei, managing to sound only a little defensive.
“Hey, I’m not judging! I think it fits. He seems very sweet.”
That was not a descriptor that Mydei had ever heard applied to Fig Stew. A bizarre thought struck him. “Did you rub catnip all over yourself in the changing room last night or something?”
Phainon looked thoroughly floored. “Why in the Titans’ name would I do that?”
This made Mydei realize that it was not a reasonable question. “Never mind. Forget it. It’s just—” He searched for a way to explain the all-consuming nature of Fig Stew’s typical apathy, and eventually settled on, “He never likes anyone. He only learned to like me a year after I took him in. But…”
“But he likes me,” Phainon said, half question, half observation.
“He certainly seems to.”
They both looked down at where Fig Stew was butting his head into Phainon’s hand for more pets. Phainon obliged by rubbing him behind the ears, then said thoughtfully, “Maybe it’s a fluke. This is the first time he’s seen me. Maybe he just likes the scent of the detergent I use or something.”
Mydei snorted. “I doubt it.”
“Well,” said Phainon, “if you really want to test that theory, you could give me your number.”
Five seconds of stunned silence passed before Phainon seemed to realize what he’d said. His ears tinged a deep pink, but he determinedly held Mydei’s gaze, those blue eyes unwavering as he waited for Mydei’s answer.
Mydei managed to clear his throat. “Is this—”
“It doesn’t have to be anything serious!” Phainon hurried to say. “I just mean—I had fun last night. I think you did, too.” His gaze dipped beneath Mydei’s neck, and Mydei realized, with a flash of heat, that Phainon was looking at the marks he’d sucked into Mydei’s skin. “And we’re going to see each other at the gym anyway. If you want, this could be more than a one-time-thing. But if you’d prefer it to stay that way, that’s fine too.”
He was still petting Fig Stew’s head as he said all of this. Mydei watched Fig Stew nearly vibrate with a purr and said, half-jokingly, “Are you sure you’re not asking just to gain access to my cat?”
One corner of Phainon’s mouth quirked up. “I can’t deny that it’d be part of the appeal.”
The meaning behind it was clear: the bulk of the appeal, in the end, was Mydei. Mydei looked at the man before him and considered the slightly hopeful tilt to his smile. Phainon was right, he conceded. Mydei did have a nice time last night. If he thought back, he could still recall just how good Phainon’s hands had felt on him, the desperate, shivery noise Phainon had made when he came—
He was getting off track. Mydei willed down his flush, then stretched a hand out before he could think better of it. “Fine,” he said. “Give me your phone.”
Phainon’s face lit up in such an obvious way that it brought Mydei’s flush right back.
When Mydei had finished entering his number, Phainon slipped his phone into his pocket and stood up. “Well, I’d better go now,” he said, smiling first at Mydei then at Fig Stew. He reached down for a final scratch to the cat’s chin. “Nice meeting you, Fig Stew. Be good for your dad, okay?”
Fig Stew meowed in assent. The meow turned forlorn when he realized Phainon was leaving. He followed Phainon to the door, tail brushing against Phainon’s jeans, meowing the whole way.
“Fig Stew,” Mydei said, vaguely embarrassed. “Stop that.”
As expected, his cat ignored him.
Phainon laughed as Fig Stew rubbed insistently against his leg. “I don’t mind. How can I when he’s this cute?” Even though he already had a hand on the doorknob, he bent down anyway, running his palm over Fig Stew’s bright orange coat. “Hey, come on. Don’t be upset. If your dad decides to call me, you’ll see me again, I promise.”
Something about the scene—Phainon’s soft smile, his fingers in Fig Stew’s fur, the morning sun catching in his pale hair—squeezed around Mydei’s chest so abruptly that he felt a little ill.
“Don’t get his hopes up,” he managed.
Phainon straightened and their eyes met. “I just have a good feeling about it,” he said as he pulled open Mydei’s door, that playful gleam back in his eyes again. “See you around, Mydei. We’ll have that rematch soon.”
The door swung shut. Not ten seconds later, Mydei’s phone pinged. An unknown number had texted him a smiley face followed by a single cat emoji.
Mydei looked down at Fig Stew, who was staring up at him accusingly as if he’d been the one to push Phainon out the door. He sighed.
“For the record, I’m blaming this on you,” Mydei told him, then hit the button to save Phainon’s number—and from then on, the rest was history.
₍^. .^₎⟆
When Mydei woke in the morning, the first thing he saw was that ridiculous Garden of Life pouch again, crumpled against his nightstand and looking significantly more empty. That idiot better not have fed half the bag to Fig Stew, was Mydei’s first bleary thought. He rolled over onto his back and blinked at the ceiling. I need breakfast, was his second.
Beside him, the bed was empty. Mydei didn’t think much of it as he dragged himself up and went to the door in his boxers, not bothering to get dressed. After months of this half arrangement, half friendship with Phainon, these morning-afters had become routine, and by now Mydei knew—even with his sleep-clouded mind—that there was only one place Phainon could be.
He came out into the living room and there Phainon was, murmuring to the bundle of orange in his lap.
Mydei stopped by the wall to watch. Phainon’s chest was bare, and he hadn’t made an effort to tame his bedhead in the least. His glasses were sliding down his nose as he spoke to Fig Stew in a soft, gentle voice, his legs crossed on Mydei’s couch, one hand stroking the fur on Fig Stew’s back. Mydei’s cat was purring so loudly that he could hear it from here. What he couldn’t hear was what Phainon was saying, but judging by the fond expression on his face, it was probably something sickeningly sweet that he would, under no circumstances, repeat in Mydei’s presence.
The whole scene was so intensely adorable that Mydei had the urge to bash his head into the wall. Nikador have mercy, he thought.
“You’re really going to spoil him,” was what he said out loud.
Phainon’s head snapped up. “Mydei! Good morning.”
“Morning.” Mydei made his way to the kitchen island by the couch, noticing with a kind of grudging amusement that Fig Stew didn’t even spare him a glance. He pulled open a cupboard and asked, “Breakfast?”
Phainon brightened. “Yes, please.”
“Go take a shower while I get started, then. Your hair’s a mess.”
It was the truth, but Mydei mostly said it because he suspected that if he had to look at Phainon cuddling his cat for a moment longer, he was going to begin suffering from mild heart palpitations. Thankfully, Phainon took the order in stride. “It can’t be that bad,” he protested, but he straightened anyway, gently displacing Fig Stew onto the couch.
Mydei glanced back. It was that bad. It was also, unfortunately, a better look than it had any right to be.
“Go,” he said, pointing down the hall with a spatula.
“Alright, fine, Your Highness. While I do that, though, you should go put some clothes on.”
Mydei looked down at himself and snorted. “It’s not anything you haven’t seen before.”
“Not the point,” Phainon called over his shoulder as he left. “I’m pretty sure that’s a safety hazard in the kitchen, Mydei!”
Mydei had to concede that he was right. He sighed, then watched as Fig Stew leaped down from the couch, letting out a belated meow of discontent at the loss of his human pillow. As was typical of him when Phainon was near, he only blinked up at Mydei with impassive eyes before padding away, in search of more interesting things than his actual, rightful owner.
For one illogical moment, Mydei wondered wryly if his cat knew what he was doing. That sense of impending doom Mydei had felt yesterday afternoon wasn’t a new development; instead, it was a near-constant itch at the back of his neck these days, whenever he gave in to the urge and invited Phainon over. Phainon in his apartment meant Phainon in his bed, and Phainon in his bed meant that, inevitably, he would end up with a lapful of Mydei’s very biased cat, smiling his soft smile and looking like the physical manifestation of a test to Mydei’s composure.
Mydei was sure that when this arrangement of theirs had begun, it had been casual. By all accounts, it was still casual. It was only that somewhere along the way, between witnessing Fig Stew’s unusual affection and Phainon’s reciprocation of that affection, things had gotten—muddled, on his end. Complicated in a frankly disconcerting way.
By which Mydei meant that if he had to watch Phainon snuggle up with his cat while shirtless one more time, there was a very real possibility that he was going to lose his mind.
He exhaled through his nose and cast the thoughts away. Breakfast, he reminded himself. And clothing.
Mydei reached out to straighten the cushions Fig Stew had nudged out of place. As he did, his gaze caught on Phainon’s abandoned shirt, draped over the back of the couch like an afterthought.
He picked it up. The fabric was well-worn and soft between his fingers. It was a nice shirt, dark green and simple and oversized. Mydei had the fleeting thought that it seemed like quite a tame article of clothing by Phainon’s standards, until, of course, he turned it over and saw the massive fuschia dinosaur printed across the back.
“What the fuck,” he muttered, then pulled it on anyway.
He’d just finished mixing the honeycake batter when footsteps came from down the hall. “That smells good,” Phainon called out, his voice drifting nearer as he turned the corner. “Are you testing a new recipe again?”
“Not this time,” Mydei said distractedly. “Just the usual honeycakes.”
“Well, I can’t complain. Your cooking’s always… really…”
He trailed off. Mydei paid it no mind at first, more focused on measuring out scoops of the batter. When four perfect circles were sizzling on the heated pan, though, he realized that the silence had stretched for longer than normal. He glanced back.
Phainon was still standing frozen in the hallway. Mydei frowned at him and said, “What?”
“Is that…” Phainon’s voice was odd, hesitant. “My shirt?”
“Obviously. You think I would own a shirt like this?”
“Why are you wearing my shirt?”
“You were the one who told me to put clothes on.”
“I said some clothes,” said Phainon, now sounding, for some reason, flustered beyond belief. “Not my clothes!”
“We’re more or less the same size,” Mydei pointed out. “I don’t see the problem.”
“That’s not…”
Phainon left his half-sentence hanging in the air again. He was looking at Mydei strangely, a little helplessly, his eyes jumping all over Mydei before tearing away then flicking right back, like he couldn’t stop himself. His hair was damp from the shower, his torso still bare above his rumpled jeans. He took a few halting steps forward and Mydei’s gaze fell to a plum-coloured mark on Phainon’s neck—one he knew would fit the shape of his own mouth.
Belatedly, Mydei realized the honeycakes were still sizzling. He turned and hastily flipped them over.
A touch to the back of his head made him start. “And this,” Phainon said from right behind Mydei, his voice quieter. “You put your hair up. Is this yours?”
Mydei knew Phainon meant the butterfly clip he’d used to gather his grown-out hair. “It’s Castorice’s. She has a thousand of these.”
“Your author friend?”
“Yes.”
Phainon breathed out a laugh. “I’ll have to read one of her books sometime.”
Mydei thought back to Castorice’s last book—which, along with most of her work, tended to be shelved squarely under the “steamy romance” section of the bookstore—and couldn’t hold back an amused snort. It turned into a startled huff of breath as Phainon’s fingers trailed down to his neck, dipping beneath his shirt collar, pressing into a patch of skin sore enough that Mydei could tell it’d been marked by Phainon’s teeth.
“What are you doing?”
Phainon’s sigh was a gust of air near Mydei’s ear. He hooked his chin over Mydei’s shoulder, making Mydei stiffen, then mumbled, “Do you know how you look right now?”
“Bothered?” Mydei suggested dryly. “In need of breakfast?”
“No.” Phainon’s hand slipped lower to graze Mydei's thigh, where the shirt fell just above the hem of his boxers.
Mydei opened his mouth to tell him off but stilled. This close, any semblance of distance between them had evaporated. He could feel Phainon’s breaths hitting his ear, the warmth of his body against Mydei’s own.
He could also feel a distinct hardness digging into his lower back.
Mydei turned and shot Phainon an incredulous look. “Really?”
Phainon’s face was flushed, his pupils already a little blown. He pressed his cheek into Mydei’s shoulder and said, his voice almost a whine, “I can’t help it.”
“You can’t? How insatiable are you?”
“You don’t get it. Your hair’s up, and you’re in my shirt—”
“This shirt is awful,” said Mydei, unimpressed. “How is it turning you on?”
Phainon sighed again, stirring a few loose strands of Mydei’s hair. “Mm, I don’t know. Because it’s you, maybe?”
The soft murmur of his voice—and the words themselves—sent a shiver of heat down Mydei’s spine, one that settled like a spark in his gut. Despite himself, his face warmed. He turned the stove down a little and flipped a honeycake again, determined not to let Phainon distract him.
Clearly, the man himself had other ideas. “Mydei,” Phainon whispered, nosing at the nape of his neck. “You smell good…”
“Pretty sure that’s the honeycakes.”
“No, it’s definitely you. And my shirt. You smell a bit like my cologne now.”
Mydei swallowed. His mouth had gone half-dry. “What are you, a dog?”
Another breathless laugh, this one so close to Mydei’s ear that he couldn’t suppress another shiver. He could feel the heat of Phainon’s body crowding against him, the slow slide of Phainon’s fingers up his shirt, brushing the skin at his waist.
Stubbornly, he flipped another honeycake. Then he felt it: the slight push of Phainon’s hips into his ass, a barely-there, almost unconscious grind.
Mydei’s breath caught. The thin fabric of his boxers did nothing to hamper the sensation. Even through Phainon’s jeans, the press of his erection was obvious, its weight solid against Mydei’s backside. Phainon rocked forward again, in time with a shaky exhale, and a throb of arousal jolted through Mydei so suddenly he felt lightheaded.
“Phainon,” he managed to grit out. “I am trying to cook.”
“Can’t it wait?” Phainon’s fingers curled around Mydei’s waist. He pressed a kiss to Mydei’s neck, lingering long enough for Mydei to feel the curve of his smile. “We have time.”
“I’m not going to burn a batch of honeycakes just because you can’t keep it in your pants.”
“Am I really distracting you that much—” Another grind, so slow and purposeful Mydei’s mind went hazy. “—Mydeimos?”
Mydei’s grip tightened around the spatula. It was an idiotic question, he thought. Phainon must have known the effect his touch had on Mydei, just how effective it would be at preventing him from producing an edible breakfast. But fraying self-control aside, Mydei wasn’t about to let Phainon fuck him on the kitchen counter. He had more dignity than that, at least.
It was that thought that led him to reach his hand up. “Pervert,” he muttered, tugging hard on a lock of Phainon’s hair. Phainon’s hips jerked in response and a whimper escaped him. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I—”
“Go take care of this yourself.”
A beat of silence. Then Phainon cleared his throat and stepped back, letting the cool air brush Mydei’s skin again. “Got it. Um. I’ll just—“
“No,” Mydei interrupted. He flicked off the stove and turned, crossing his arms against his chest and meeting Phainon’s eyes. Keeping his voice low, he said, “I meant take care of it now. On the couch. By yourself.”
Phainon blinked. “Mydei—”
“Go sit down, Phainon.”
Phainon kept blinking at him for what felt like a minute straight. Hesitantly, as if he was expecting Mydei to take the words back, he took a few steps away. His questioning gaze stayed on Mydei, and only when Mydei lifted an eyebrow did he keep going, settling gingerly on Mydei’s couch like it had a ticking bomb hidden between the cushions.
The shape of Phainon’s cock was obvious through his jeans. Mydei swallowed again. “Go on,” he said casually, keeping his voice neutral as he turned to face the couch.
Phainon faltered. “You’re serious.”
“Do I sound like I’m joking?”
The look on Phainon’s face said he’d been half-hoping Mydei was, but he obeyed, reaching a tentative hand down to his zipper. Mydei watched as Phainon undid his jeans and pushed them down. His underwear was a normal colour, thankfully—light grey briefs with a blue waistband. The fabric stretched over the bulge of his cock, and there was already a small damp spot there, dark against the cotton.
“Wait,” Mydei said when Phainon moved to take his underwear off. “Not yet.”
Phainon stared at him, a little baffled. “You just told me to—”
“You can still touch yourself like this, can’t you? Keep them on.”
For a moment, Mydei expected Phainon to ignore him. He wouldn’t have blamed the man. But instead, Phainon inhaled sharply and listened, sliding his fingers down his stomach. The second he laid a hand over his clothed cock, he made a soft noise. His blue eyes fell shut behind his glasses as he palmed himself through his underwear.
That easy, unexpected obedience sent another rush of heat through Mydei’s blood. “Good,” he murmured, trying to ignore the quickening beat of his heart. “Like that.”
Phainon’s hips lurched into his hand. He bit down on a moan.
Mydei huffed out a laugh. “What, so desperate already?”
Phainon’s eyes were half-lidded when he blinked them open again, and the flush on his face was darkening, spreading rosy colour down his collarbone. “You know I am,” he said weakly. “When it’s you.”
That made Mydei’s traitorous pulse skip. He shifted until he was leaning against the counter, keeping his gaze on Phainon. He could see the muscles in Phainon’s thighs flex as he spread his legs further, his hand moving against the thick swell of his cock, his chest starting to heave with his unsteady breaths.
The damp spot in his underwear had grown. Phainon pressed his knuckles to it and shuddered. “Mydei, come on. Can’t I—”
“Fine,” Mydei said, uncaring of how hoarse he sounded. “Take them off.”
Phainon didn’t hesitate. The briefs were nearly ripped away in his haste, and then he was wrapping a hand around himself with a sigh, still looking at Mydei with those dark, dazed eyes.
Mydei looked back, his mouth now desert-dry. Phainon was big—bigger than most of the men Mydei’d slept with in the past. His cock was curving up towards his stomach, flushed red and wet at the tip. Mydei’s pulse throbbed. He knew the way that cock felt inside him. He’d rocked back onto it just last night, letting the thick weight of it fill him up, shivering as it dragged against his walls—and now he was watching it jerk in Phainon’s own grip, precome pearling at the head as Phainon fisted himself.
When Mydei spoke again, his voice was a rasp. “Slower.”
Phainon’s gaze jolted up. “W-What?”
“You’re going too fast. Do it slower.”
A choked noise fell from Phainon’s mouth. “You have,” he said shakily, hand still moving, “to be kidding.”
“I’m not. Do you want to come or not?”
Phainon blinked at Mydei in a mix of disbelief and arousal. Then he bit his lip. His hand slowed, dragging up his shaft at a pace so languid Mydei knew it had to be near-torturous.
White-hot desire shot through Mydei, so sudden his fingers clenched. “Good,” he said, feeling more than a little heady with this newfound power, the realization of how easily he could make Phainon obey. “Keep going.”
Even from here, he could hear Phainon’s breath hitch. Still so slowly, he stroked himself, spreading wetness down his length.
Mydei exhaled. His own erection in his boxers was becoming harder to ignore. “Feels good?” he asked, eyes flicking to Phainon’s face.
Phainon laughed, a breathy, half-strangled sound. “It could feel better.”
“Fine. Go faster.”
Phainon’s eyes slipped shut again. The hand on his cock sped up, and he stifled a whimper in his throat. His teeth dug into his lower lip, white on dark pink, and he was leaking even more precome—Mydei could see the glisten of it at the head, no doubt aiding the wet glide of his fingers. In the quiet of the room, those small, slick noises seemed almost deafening.
Mydei let Phainon work his hand until his hips were jerking up in tiny, desperate motions, then asked, “Are you close?”
“I’m—” Phainon’s voice was strained. “Yes—”
“Then stop.”
Mydei hadn’t even intended the way the command came out: low, deliberate, level enough that it belied the desire simmering under his skin. Phainon’s shoulders flinched as if he’d been struck by electricity. Then, to Mydei’s astonishment, he obeyed once again, his hand tightening around the base of his cock before going still.
Phainon’s breathing came short and ragged. His eyes, when he looked up at Mydei, were so hazy he looked almost drunk.
“Mydei,” he pleaded, sounding thoroughly wrecked.
Mydei’s swallow went down thick.
“Good,” he said, a bit faintly. He cleared his throat. “Can you keep going without coming?”
Phainon squeezed himself and a moan punched out of his throat. “No,” he gasped, “I can’t, I really can’t—Mydei, please, I’m so close—”
Heat scorched through Mydei’s veins. He made a split-second decision. “Stay there,” he said roughly, then stepped forward, making his way towards the couch. Phainon’s eyes widened as Mydei came closer, and they went wider still when Mydei reached down and hooked his thumb into his own boxers, pulling them down then discarding them on the floor, his cock bare and heavy between his legs.
The moment Mydei climbed onto the couch to hover over him, Phainon’s hands came up to grip his waist. The other man’s pupils were coal-black and enormous, and his throat bobbed with a gulp when Mydei leaned closer.
“You’re so…”
“So what?” Mydei rasped, wrapping his fingers around Phainon’s cock.
Phainon nearly choked on a whimper. “Wait, wait,” he panted, digging his own fingers into Mydei’s hips, “Mydei, don’t—I’m going to—”
“You can hold on a little longer, can’t you?”
A full-body tremor wracked through Phainon as Mydei straddled him. “What are you doing,” he said weakly when Mydei guided his cock between his own thighs. “We don’t have…”
That made Mydei laugh, quiet and gravelly. “As if you’d last if I let you inside me.”
He saw Phainon’s mouth open—no doubt out of some ingrained instinct to argue, even now—but whatever words he’d prepared left him in a rush of breath as Mydei grinded down, slowly, letting Phainon’s cock drag against the cleft of his ass.
The glide was hot and wet, made slick by Phainon’s precome. Mydei couldn’t suppress a shiver as the hard heat of Phainon’s erection slid against his most sensitive parts, from his balls up to his perineum, until the head was just barely nudging against his hole. Even that ghost of pressure was enough to wash Mydei’s mind blank. He bit back a groan and rocked his hips forward, grinding harder, letting the friction sear down to his bones—
“Mydei,” Phainon gasped. His head dropped against Mydei’s shoulder. His breath was shuddering out of him, his grip around Mydei’s waist so tight Mydei knew there’d be bruises the next day.
More gently than he’d meant to, Mydei grasped Phainon’s chin, tilting his head up until their gazes met.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
Like he’d been doing all along, Phainon obeyed. He blinked up at Mydei, his entire face flushed rosy-dark, his eyes glazed and damp, his glasses on the verge of sliding off his nose. There was so much naked want in his gaze that it made Mydei, suddenly and inexplicably, almost embarrassed.
“Are you going to come?”
Phainon swallowed. “Can I?”
Mydei rocked down again, breath hitching when Phainon’s cock jerked between his legs. “Go ahead,” he said, not quite a command, then squeezed his thighs together, feeling Phainon pulse against him—
Phainon’s head snapped forward. With a muffled whine into Mydei’s shoulder, he came in thick spurts, rutting thoughtlessly against Mydei as he rode out his orgasm. Mydei’s gut clenched at the sensation of that wet warmth on his skin, Phainon’s softening cock dragging against his own—and then he was coming too, nearly untouched, making a mess all over his stomach and thighs.
His blood was buzzing in his ears when he caught his breath again. Dimly, he registered Phainon’s hands still clamped around his waist, fisting in the fabric of his own shirt.
Mydei reached down and fixed Phainon’s glasses for him. “Good?”
“Yeah,” Phainon said breathlessly. “I…” His eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at Mydei, a little dazed, almost awed. “What was that?”
Mydei lifted a brow. “That,” he said, leaning back, “was me indulging you.”
He shifted to move off the couch, wincing at the stickiness between his thighs, and went to retrieve a tissue on slightly wobbly legs. As he was wiping himself off, he glanced back to see Phainon watching him. Phainon’s gaze followed the motion of Mydei’s hand beneath his shirt, transfixed. Then he seemed to realize what he was doing. He blinked hard before looking away.
“What?” Mydei asked wryly, tossing the tissue into the trash. “Don’t tell me you want to go again?”
That prompted Phainon to slump into the couch and cover his face. “I think you’d better give me my shirt back before that happens,” he mumbled.
Mydei looked down at the shirt in question, then the small but conspicuous stains on its hem.
“Just take another. I’ll toss this one into the laundry basket.”
There was a pause. “What do you mean,” said Phainon, “take another?”
“I mean from my closet. You’ve left a few shirts here before.”
Phainon blinked at Mydei again through his fingers. “Wait—really?”
“They’re your shirts,” Mydei deadpanned. “How do you not know?” He peered down at the pan on the stove and was relieved to find that, despite their inappropriate interlude, the honeycakes still looked salvageable. He picked up the abandoned spatula on the counter and gave them a poke to make sure. They’d need warming up, but at least there’d be no reason to remake them.
He was so invested in the fate of his breakfast that it took him a moment to realize Phainon had gone quiet. Mydei looked up. Phainon was still half-collapsed on the couch, gazing at nothing in particular, with a smile pasted on his face that Mydei could only describe as silly.
Mydei quirked an eyebrow at him. “What are you smiling like that for?”
“Nothing,” Phainon said. He made a valiant attempt to flatten the line of his mouth but mostly failed. “It’s just that—whoa!”
A flash of orange leaped onto the couch. With exasperated amusement, Mydei watched as Phainon scrambled to accommodate Fig Stew on his lap, hurriedly buttoning his jeans as the cat settled onto his thighs with a pleased meow.
That amusement turned to mild dread when Phainon’s whole face softened, his now-clear blue eyes going warm and fond. “Hey, you,” he whispered to Fig Stew, ruffling a hand through the scruff of fur at his neck. “Back to bother us again?” When Fig Stew meowed—probably to convey that, as he had no intention of paying Mydei any mind, the use of us was inaccurate—Phainon laughed. He picked Fig Stew up until the cat was snug against his bare chest, then sneezed as fur tickled his nose.
In the cheerful morning light, the scene was like something pulled out of a romantic drama, dreamed up in a writer’s room to appeal to teenagers and old ladies and, unfortunately, Mydei. Phainon’s eyes under the sun looked like the gemstones Cipher collected, polished to a gleam.
“I’ll go grab that shirt for you,” Mydei said abruptly, and got the fuck out of there.
In the safety of his bedroom—far from cat-cuddling fuckbuddies, but not far enough from his own thumping heart—Mydei let out a slow breath. He dressed himself first, swapping Phainon’s shirt for one of his own, pulling on a pair of clean sweats. He carefully removed Castorice’s butterfly clip from his hair and placed it on his nightstand. Then he slid open his closet door.
There were more of Phainon’s clothes there than he’d expected. Mydei could see a pair of his basketball shorts tucked into an open drawer, a windbreaker he’d forgotten on Mydei’s couch just a week ago, and a single orange-and-blue sock in the corner that Mydei would never have bought for himself. Folded into a neat stack were all the shirts Phainon had left behind, kept beside a less neat pile of Mydei’s own clothes.
Mydei stared at those shirts for longer than he’d meant to. The colours, he noted distantly, were horrible. Most of the time, Phainon dressed like he was trying his best to make sure he’d be noticed from as far away as possible, as if his life depended on how many times he could make passersby do a double-take on the street.
But Mydei wasn’t thinking about that. As he ran his fingers over the crisp, laundered fabric and chose a shirt at random, he was thinking about himself: how he’d picked up Phainon’s forgotten clothes, washed them alongside his own, then folded and put them away in his closet so absentmindedly that it’d felt almost like habit.
“Mydei?” Phainon called from the living room. “Can I eat these honeycakes?”
Mydei shut his eyes. He closed the closet door.
“Wait for me,” he called back, and went to step out of his bedroom while wondering, not for the first time, just what his cat had gotten him into.