Work Text:
The life of a Chrysos Heir is unendingly busy.
Not that Mydeimos has ever lived idly. If anything, he prefers the endless string of expeditions and rescue missions—the Holy City is so sore for help he’s hardly in Okhema for more than an Hour before Aglaea sends him off again, for one reason or another. It’s good for his men, too, to feel useful. Especially against Nikador’s kin. In the few days the Tribios insist he takes to recuperate every handful of weeks, Mydei becomes restless and irritable. He wakes and breaks his fast, checks in with the Kremnoan detachment in the lower rungs of the city. Sometimes in the Action Hour Mydei accompanies Castorice to the gardens, or Tribbie to the market. On the rarer days there are council meetings, his expected attendance belies a handful of scornful, wary looks from Okhema’s officials—and his own worsening temper, despite it all.
The Parting Hour is reserved for rest in Okhema, the heat of the eternal sun having baked the stones of the city to a dizzying mirage. Many use the time to sleep after the midday meal, or read, or paint, or drink.
Many, that is, but not all.
Phainon ducks around Mydei’s swing and launches forward, spearhead skittering over the stone in a sweeping arc. Mydei catches the haft with his own, pivoting in an attempt to knock it from Phainon’s grip. Not quite enough. The spear shakes, but Phainon’s grasp holds.
He’s slower than usual today. Too slow. The clack of their spear shafts have only sounded for an hour; Phainon can’t be flagging already. They've both long shed their shirts, down to only their boots and trousers. Mydei strikes again, Phainon’s arm lifting just quick enough to block him.
“Weak,” Mydei grits out, pressing his advantage until Phainon cedes and grants him ground, blocking without any opening to retaliate.
“Stop hesitating,” Mydei barks, knocking Phainon’s next jab aside one-handed.
Phainon’s brow knits, lips curling when he slides back even further, granting them both some needed breathing room. Their gazes lock, briefly, before Phainon drives his spear down, this time aimed at Mydei’s open shin.
On a sharper day, he’d know Mydei left himself vulnerable intentionally. But today Phainon takes the bait.
It takes little to knock him off balance—just the opportunity Mydei needs. Mydei bears down on him relentlessly, beating Phainon back until he bends, losing his footing. Their spears lock—Phainon flat on his ass, Mydei looming over him—neither of them strong enough to brute force their way into winning over the other. Mydei’s spear gives way to the pressure and slides, slamming to the floor a hand’s width from Phainon’s shoulder, trapping Phainon’s spear with it.
“Yield,” Mydei commands.
Phainon stares back at him, defiant.
Inscrutably, Phainon falls flat on his back, curling in, twisting his torso. The only warning Mydei receives is a blur of motion in his periphery before Phainon’s foot smacks, with a resounding thud, into his side.
It’s not nearly enough to topple Mydei over but it gets him to flinch, to waver for a split-second long enough for Phainon to swing his spear at Mydei’s ankle from the opposite side—swiping him clear off his feet. Mydei hits the floor in a quiet oof, wind half-knocked out of his lungs. A cough punches out of his chest, then another and another, the open ceiling of the sparring room glaring cheerily down at him. Mydei squeezes his eyes shut.
Coughing fit over, stillness falls over them for the first time in over an hour. Eventually, Phainon sits up to peer at him.
“That feint was…” Phainon leans hard on his spear, too winded to laugh properly. “…dirty.”
Mydei rolls onto his back, a hand at his aching stomach. He shuts his eyes, breathing through the twinge of pain with every inhale.
“You’re one…to talk.”
Phainon sprawls out beside him in short order, his breath just as, if not more, labored.
“You keep…neglecting your right flank and dropping your stance,” Mydei says without opening his eyes. “You can’t rely on tricks.”
“Give me…” Phainon says, between breaths. “…a little credit where it’s due. Spear work isn’t…really my thing.”
“So that gives you an excuse to fight like a scoundrel?”
“You weren’t…playing fair either, you know.”
Mydei grunts in naked derision but doesn’t disagree. “You think the titankin will? The black tide?”
“At least we can count on Nikador, right?”
Mydei says nothing, counting his own breaths in tandem to Phainon’s. After five or so he hauls himself up, trailing the blunt edge of the spear behind him. He feels Phainon’s gaze follow him. Mydei returns it to the rack by the wall, counting each practice shaft in his head when he says:
“Nikador may play fair, but they won’t be merciful, regardless of what weapon you wield.”
He turns to see Phainon sitting up in the center of the courtyard, clutching the spear like an elder would a cane.
“Well, it’s fortunate for us all I won’t be using one of these, then.” He taps the butt of the shaft against the floor, his smile rueful.
Mydei spares himself any more wasted breath and crosses to Phainon wordlessly, yanking the spear from his sweaty hands as Phainon laughs and returning it, too, to the rack. Phainon instantly reverts to splaying out prone and loose-limbed across the ground, as if Mydei cut all his strings. He hasn’t moved when Mydei comes back from the weapon rack, his hair a spill of moonlight over the black, inlaid stone, his eyes closed in apparent sleep. Mydei surveys him briefly; they hadn’t seen one another in almost a fortnight, and Phainon only just returned from his mission earlier that morning.
Phainon is the same as last Mydei saw him; no new bruises or cuts preparing to scar. He’s well. Slow—exhausted, maybe—but well. The knot that had slowly begun to tie itself in Mydei’s chest over the past few weeks loosens by a non-negligible degree.
He kicks Phainon’s leg, watching it bounce.
“Get up.”
“Mm…don’t wanna. Sit with me.”
Mydei watches him a beat longer, unable to procure any suitable reason to kick him again or to otherwise drag Phainon away. Mydei folds to sit a few paces away before lying beside him, the courtyard warm against his sweat-cooled back. Phainon shifts, his laugh obviously but poorly contained.
“That was easy.”
“Shut up,” Mydei mutters.
Quiet falls between them. The insects churr, muted in the greenery, the wind a gentle ruffle in the topmost leaves of the trees. The loudest is that of Mydei’s heartbeat, slowing from a hardened thud to a gentle roll. It’s only in moments like these that Mydei feels the peace in Okhema Aglaea’s so intent on keeping, enough to coax his eyes shut, to hold still and listen.
“Hey.”
Phainon breaks the silence, still panting, albeit lightly.
“What?”
When all that answers him is silence, Mydei pries his eyes open and turns his head to see why.
Phainon’s staring at him. Sweat darkens his hairline, his choker-less neck pale red with flush. It’s a look Mydei’s familiar with—intimately. His already warm face grows hot. He looks away.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“No need.” But drawn like the tide is to the land, Mydei cannot look away for long. “Your eyes are all but begging for it.”
With this, Phainon rolls closer, onto his front—the opposite of Mydei’s intended effect.
“I can beg with my mouth, too,” Phainon says, his smile crooking.
Mydei scoffs. “I’m aware.”
“I’ve heard I’m quite skilled.”
“At running your mouth maybe, sure.”
Mydei jumps as a hot, damp touch lands over his fingers. When he doesn’t immediately shy or pull away, Phainon slides his palm up Mydei’s wrist, then his forearm, his bicep, across the firm slope of his clavicle. They’re both slick with sweat from their uninterrupted exertion, still running high on the pleasure of a spar well-fought. To say Phainon’s touch doesn’t stir Mydei’s interest would be a poorly concealed lie—and hardly one Phainon’s inclined to believe.
“Don’t,” Mydei warns, but doesn’t stop Phainon from thumbing over the fine, light hair around his nipple. “It’s too hot. And you need a bath.”
Phainon snorts. “You know that goes for both of us. I’m not the one who sweats my weight in water here.”
“You’re not making a very compelling case for yourself right now.”
This, predictably, nudges Phainon back on track.
“Mydeimos,” he says, very seriously. “Would you permit me the honor to lie with you…” Two of Phainon’s fingers flick over his nipple, rolling indolently. “…today and every day?”
Mydei scowls.
“’Every day’? How hedonistic are you?”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t want to if we could?”
To that, Mydei has no response; only the increasing heat prickling into his face, the attention stirring low in his belly at Phainon’s touch. Phainon, for his own part, does a miserably poor job of hiding his grin. He fans his hand down Mydei’s chest to snake southward, trailing the defined rise of his abdomen, fingertips brushing the trail of darker hair leading below his pants.
Mydei finally nabs Phainon’s wandering hand, pinning it in place.
“One condition,” he says, low and quiet.
Phainon crawls forward on his unoccupied elbow—a decidedly lumbering and un-sexy move set, but it brings them close enough to touch, for Phainon’s cheek to rest on Mydei’s chest.
“Just one?”
Phainon nuzzles into him, chimera-like, his lips just shy of pressing to Mydei’s pectoral. Mydei’s pulse jumps in his throat. Phainon’s a penchant for provoking him in just about everything: in discussion, in spars, on the battlefield. At first, Mydei (foolishly) thought this badgering wouldn’t extend any further if they shared a sleeping mat.
“I’ve known you to be far more demanding, Your Highness.”
He was wrong. Very wrong.
“Whoever finishes first—” He reaches to brush a lock of hair from Phainon’s temple. “—loses.”
Phainon lifts a brow. “And the winner?”
Mydei drops his thumb to trace the groove beneath his nose, to press at the bow of his lip.
“Winner decides.” Mydei brings his eyes up to meet Phainon’s. “And our clothes stay on.”
“Mydei…” Phainon says, admonishingly. “Have you forgotten how to count?”
He ignores the insult to his intelligence. He’s too eager for what’s about to come now and doesn’t intend to ruin it with pointless bickering.
“That’s not a condition. It’s a rule.”
Mydei tilts up, one short stretch from Phainon’s mouth.
“’One remains appropriately dressed within the Chrysos Heirs' private sparring courtyard at all times,'” he recites, expressionless.
Phainon breaks into a smile and closes the gap.
He kisses Mydei back to the floor; his broad hands coming to rest at Mydei’s chest, skimming his shoulders. Phainon’s mouth opens for him readily, nibbling at his lip until Phainon presses forward and slings a leg over Mydei’s waist. It’s with undue pride that Mydei notes the swelling firmness already present in Phainon’s trousers.
The first drag of their clothed cocks together is an unfamiliar sensation—not unpleasant, obviously, because any stimulation is good stimulation if it comes from Phainon, but unusual. Mydei had only ever touched Phainon naked, had only touched himself that way, too. Phainon humps him lightly before settling his weight onto Mydei’s lap in earnest. His movement deepens. Mydei slides across the floor with each thrust until Phainon plants his hands. Mydei runs his touch over the lean, lithe muscles of Phainon’s back as they kiss.
He feels Phainon lift his hips and go for his laces. Mydei bats his hand away without breaking the kiss, speaking into it when Phainon refuses to back down.
“I said no.”
Phainon dives for his ear, pressing his tongue against the cartilage until Mydei flinches, shivering.
“You never said anything about touching.”
“I’m—” A shiver races up his spine. “—saying it now.”
Phainon rolls his hips down, the drag enough to draw a dribble from Mydei’s cock.
“I was only loosening it for you, for the space.” Another kiss to his earlobe. “I know you’ll need it.”
Mydei closes his eyes, focusing on the drag on Phainon’s shoulders beneath his fingertips, trying not to focus on the increasing tightness in his trousers.
“If you touch me, you lose.”
“You’re so particular today,” Phainon sighs.
“That do something for you?”
Phainon pulls back so they’re eye-to-eye, holding Mydei’s face.
“Actually? Maybe,” he says, matter-of-fact, before kissing and licking into Mydei’s mouth so insistently Mydei loses whatever his retort might’ve been.
What he was going to say hardly matters; Phainon sits up, wiping his spit-slick mouth and looking down at Mydei with half-lidded eyes—bluer than usual against his flushed skin.
“Alright,” he says. “Have it your way.”
Phainon tilts his hips forward so far his legs slot between Mydei’s lifted knees, and when he thrusts up Mydei feels the thick pulse of arousal thrum through him in earnest, constricting his throat, twinging in his abdomen. Phainon tests his thrust a handful more times before settling into a steady pace.
“Mydei,” Phainon calls him softly at first. “Mydei…”
By the third, it’s bitten out through a moan. Phainon’s hips stutter, his rut faltering. His grip on Mydei’s chest tightens. Through the daze of his own increasing arousal, Mydei darts his hand between them and squeezes at the damp bulge in Phainon’s pants. Phainon flinches, curling inwards to press a broken sound into Mydei’s neck.
“Don’t come.”
“Ah, c’mon…”
Phainon nuzzles into his throat, his kisses hot, open-mouthed, and sloppy.
“…Mydei…”
He thrusts as best he can into Mydei’s fingers, grinding Mydei’s knuckles down to stoke his own arousal with him.
“…we both know you’re the one at your limit.”
Mydei needs no further provocation. He flips Phainon onto his back, slinging over his hips in one fluid movement. Phainon goes easily. Whether he’s unprepared or preoccupied is anyone’s guess. Braced above him—red-faced and panting and solid as stone—Mydei wonders if it may be both.
Mydei lowers down so they’re chest-to-chest, his lips just shy of Phainon’s ear when he whispers:
“Think of me astride your cock.”
Phainon tenses. Mydei rolls his hips back slowly, dragging forward. Then he does it again and again, building to a steady, canting rhythm as Phainon did before. Mydei pushes onto his hands for better control, one planted at each of Phainon’s shoulders. Phainon hooks one burning hand beneath Mydei’s underarm, another settling at his thigh.
“It’s been so long…” Mydei swallows what little remains of his shame. “…since you fucked me, Deliverer. Do you remember what it feels like?”
Phainon gazes up at him hazily, out of breath, his mouth reddened.
“Yes,” he exhales.
“Speak clearly.”
Phainon angles his grip on Mydei’s thigh upwards, thumb digging into the dip of his hipbone. Mydei watches Phainon’s throat bob.
“On second thought—remind me?”
Mydei laughs once, heat licking down his spine. “Nice try.”
“Worth a shot,” Phainon huffs, wetting his lips.
Mydei tilts his hips forward, rounding his lower back to press his ass more firmly against Phainon’s cock. Like this, Mydei’s reminded of their previous encounter; both of them a little drunk, a little quick to finish. It’s different with their clothes on, but Mydei still feels Phainon’s cock thick and hard between his legs, the heat stifled by cloth but unmistakably there. Phainon nudges his hips up immediately, his palm stroking Mydei’s back as they move together.
“You feel so good, Mydei.” Phainon says, with satisfying strain. A tremor courses over Mydei’s spine, prickling and warm.
Phainon surges forward to claim his mouth without warning, kissing him until his lungs ache. Mydei’s more rational thoughts begin to fade before they can form, and he alternates between thrusting his hips down and swiveling around the firm rise of Phainon’s length without any rhyme or reason, unsure which he wants more: Phainon to fuck him or the other way around.
“Next time,” Phainon murmurs, breathing heavily against Mydei’s cheek. “We should do this properly…”
“How’s properly for you?” Mydei manages.
Phainon’s chest is scorching and damp against his.
“In bed or…” Mydei kisses him. “…in the bath.”
“I didn’t say where. I said how.”
Phainon swallows, the steady grind of his hips stuttering as he shifts under him.
“Hard and…fast. Like you want me.”
Mydei huffs a laugh—because it is comical, given their positions. “Like” Mydei wants him? As if they weren’t coupling at that very moment against Mydei’s judgment. As if Mydei could resist him. As if he ever truly tried.
“Don’t laugh...”
Phainon’s voice is small and petulant. Mydei smirks, rolling a nipple beneath his thumb before pinching it.
“You’re terrible at this.”
“Shut up,” Phainon exhales. Mydei palms Phainon’s chest, massaging his pectoral with the heel of his hand. “I’d like to hear you do better.”
Mydei slows his hips again, bringing his mouth to Phainon’s without sealing them in a kiss. He starts, hardly above a whisper:
“Next time, I wanna fuck you.”
Phainon makes a sound Mydei’s never heard before: a strangled, breathy whimper. It shoots straight to Mydei’s cock with alarming speed. He plants a half-assed kiss at Phainon’s jaw, working back to his ear, his groin so constricted it borders on distracting.
“I’ll take you right here. Tease you until you’re begging for my cock.”
“Yes…” Phainon sways a little in his arms, anchoring his hold around Mydei’s neck, in his hair. He might be nodding. “Alright, you’re better, I—concede.”
Mydei ignores the small rush of victory and presses on.
“You’ll look so good on your hands and knees for me, Deliverer. Maybe too good.”
Phainon breathes that same softened moan. Mydei rocks into him gently now.
“Might have to keep you like this forever.”
Phainon always responds well to the sparing praise he earns, but the sounds he makes now are so obscene Mydei has to stop rutting to ease some of the friction, resorting to rocking on his knees, just brushing them together. Phainon sounds like he’s already in this hypothetical next time, stuffed full with Mydei’s cock on the sparring room floor.
Mydei clenches his jaw, biting his inner cheek. If Phainon keeps this up, he’ll—
Without other options, Mydei clamps his palm over Phainon’s mouth. Phainon’s eyes fly open wide, his nose scrunched with the pressure of Mydei’s grip. Mydei lowers his hips so they press together again, attempting to steady his breath. He’s dangerously close.
Phainon breathes heavy and humid against his skin. He’s mesmerizing like this; his dilated pupils, brow sheened in sweat, flushed and wanting beneath Mydei’s hand. The thread of control Mydei holds over him is gossamer thin, a desire that only the other can reciprocate. Phainon is always careful not to break it.
He releases Phainon’s mouth to a wet gasp. Phainon’s brow draws in concentration, his face even redder than before. He breathes trembling breath after breath against Mydei’s mouth, but otherwise stays quiet. Mydei kisses his face: the corner of his nose, his shaking lower lip.
“You did well,” he says, quietly. Genuinely.
Phainon’s pulse kicks even higher, his grip tightening, his eyes holding onto Mydei’s when he blurts, as if alarmed:
“I’m gonna come.”
Mydei blinks down at him. “You’re—mmph—"
Phainon hurries to twist them back over, to thrust against Mydei as he pleases—but Mydei’s not about to go down without a fight. He doesn’t let Phainon topple him completely, at least; they land on their sides, each grabbing at the other to grind together anywhere they can. Phainon kisses as if he seeks to devour him, their arms tangling, the breath between them thin and hot. Mydei feels Phainon throbbing through his trousers now; he’d been truthful. Mydei can’t even claim otherwise—his own trousers are achingly tight, the first warnings of orgasm pulsing hard and fast to his cock. Even in the loosened confines, every drag of the layers between them is torturous.
But Mydei’s determined to be victorious this round.
He pins Phainon back by his shoulders, reclaiming his straddle over the darkened tent in Phainon’s trousers. Mydei sinks onto him as he would were his hole prepared to take him, nestling and grinding his hips down hard. Phainon shudders, gripping Mydei’s arms. Mydei can’t playact riding Phainon like this—but he knows of a few other ways to unravel him.
Mydei leans in again, inhaling deeply at the juncture of Phainon’s neck. Phainon’s scent is masculine and familiar; sweat, sex, and oil, the musk of the stables and the faint sweetness of honey. Mydei presses his lips into it. His tongue. His teeth. Phainon whispers something—his name—the vibration tingling against Mydei’s mouth.
“Mydei—hhk—”
He bites down, just shy of Phainon’s jawbone, and Phainon’s cock twitches against him.
“Slow down or I’m really…”
The half-finished sentence peters to a breathy groan.
Mydei unlatches his teeth. “Use your words.”
He feels Phainon swallow, voice raspy. “I’m gonna come if you—if you keep doing that.”
“What?” Mydei feigns impossible ignorance. “Giving up already?”
“Ah—” A closed-mouth shiver. “Yes. Yes, I give up, I yield, touch me,” Phainon murmurs, as if feverish. “I don’t care anymore just touch me, Mydei, I want you, so bad—"
Mydei sits back smiling, dives beneath the ruined seam of Phainon’s trousers, and strokes. He does a poor job of it in such a confined space, he’s sure, but Phainon doesn’t seem to care; Phainon’s whole body coils tight beneath him, head lolling back with a throaty moan, his hips jerking up into Mydei’s curling fingers. Phainon’s scorching hands move, unseeing but urgent, rubbing over Mydei’s thighs before rounding his waist and dipping lower.
Phainon comes in short, hot spurts into Mydei’s hand, squeezing Mydei’s ass hard enough to bruise. His arms curl in, tugging Mydei up to sit squarely on his chest.
The rise and fall of Phainon’s breath rocks him gently; it takes all Mydei has to keep his focus on the up-down of his hand on Phainon’s cock. But Mydei’s always possessed admirable control. Feeling him soften, Mydei extracts his hand from Phainon’s pants.
Mydei examines his ruined hand briefly, holding Phainon’s gaze when he licks a smear of cum from his index finger. He doesn’t love the taste, but the momentary bitterness is worth Phainon’s reaction—his heavy-lidded eyes, the quiet moan slipping from his lips, hitching in surprise. How he attempts to cover his face with a trembling hand. Mydei pulls his finger from his mouth with a slick squelch, wiping the rest on Phainon’s heaving chest.
“Now we’re even,” Mydei says, his voice damningly hoarse.
Phainon’s eyes flutter open, his smile soft and satisfied. He chuckles.
“Really? Feels more like my victory than yours.”
His gaze travels languidly down Mydei’s torso, lingering on the obvious swell still present in Mydei’s trousers, the mess they’ve both made of the black fabric. Mydei clenches his jaw. Damn. The look alone is almost enough to get him off.
Phainon’s eyes flick back up to his, bluer than Okhema’s eternally clear sky. Mydei’s so aroused his thighs twitch when he drags himself off Phainon’s chest, pushing backward until he’s sat on the sparring ring floor, one leg still slung over Phainon’s waist. He parts his knees. Phainon’s breathless face sits in perfect frame between his spread legs.
A few deep breaths later, heart pounding anew, Mydei says:
“I hear you have a skilled mouth.”
This time, Phainon doesn’t hesitate.