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Knock knock knock.
“Mydei,” a voice called, following the polite gesture that meant to really only serve as a warning. If he wanted to be there until the last day of the world, then he’d consider waiting for the occupant within to actually invite him in. That man would actually die before he opened the door and greeted Phainon willingly. Once upon a time, before he figured out how to handle him, he would ask for entrance into the room. As time passed, however, he discovered that letting himself in didn’t have enough repercussions to thwart further attempts.
With no sound coming from the other side, he pushed the door open just enough to enter and close it behind him. Mydei could very well be asleep, after the events of those last few days. Despite his durable, unkillable body, he did feel fatigue and his injuries didn’t all snap back to healed and gone, instantly. Bad enough injuries could take a while to fully diminish. But to look at him…was always hard to tell.
From the door, Phainon could see his exposed back—unblemished, flawless. The only marks on him being the red lines etched into his skin like a decorative war cry. Not a soul would see the strong edges of muscle—flexing under relaxed, calm breathing—and believe that this very same form sustained devastating wounds, not even a day prior.
“What do you want, deliverer?” His low tone always carried further than one might expect. Despite facing away from him, the words reached him like a whisper directly in his ears.
“I hadn’t seen you in a while, and wanted to make sure you didn’t actually die the one time I wasn’t looking your way.”
“Don’t you worry, I’ll make absolutely certain that if a miracle truly occurs and I do drop dead, I’ll do it at your feet.”
“How courteous of you, haha. But I would rather you didn’t,” he stepped further into the room, yet still received no direct response from doing so. Mydei didn’t turn and look his way, nor stir at all. He didn’t take the first chance to chide him for the hard to hide weakness in his voice, despite his attempt to laugh it off. Phainon knew well enough how Mydei’s durability couldn’t be matched. But that didn’t stop him from almost losing his cool, watching him die in front of him in their struggle against Nikador.
In hindsight, joining him in his fight to stall time had better intentions than sense. Mydei could take hits that he and their foreign helper could not, then walk the damage off with little more than a foul expression and an enraged grunt. Not that Phainon himself wasn’t exceptionally skilled—Dan Heng as well—but they were painfully squishy bodied by comparison. He still felt the stiffness in his muscles being smacked down into the ground once or twice. If Mydei wasn’t so durable…
His fingers brushed along the muscles of his neck, down his back and traced along a shoulder blade. Before he considered the danger of his actions, he’d already knelt by the edge of the bed. If Mydei planned to sucker punch him, he’d likely have already done it, so he didn’t stop himself from pressing the flat of his palm over the space between his shoulders, at the base of his neck. Where a scar would be…no. That would not have been survivable, let alone a scar. That was an ugly, gaping wound for a brief moment before his body closed it and forced him to keep living through it.
The image of the sharp blade piercing all the way through, jutting out of his throat, burned in his mind. He hadn’t even been able to respond the way he knew he should. Only at the sound of Dan Heng’s sharp command of retreat—and subsequent spear intercepting the next strike—did Phainon snap to attention to drag Mydei’s body out of range so he could recover. How his head rolled in his hands, left long lasting tremors in Phainon’s fingers that hadn’t gone away, even numerous hours later. The thunderous roar of battle fell to his deaf ears in his scramble to pull him as far away from the danger zone as possible, while also trying to keep Mydei’s head as braced as possible so he could heal quickly.
Moments never felt so long.
In all his life he never felt that burn of holding his breath in wait, watching in anxiety, and considering even briefly that maybe he actually watched him really…
On the edge of that battlefield, when he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he sucked in a slow, wobbly breath and knelt down so he could pull Mydei to rest his back against his chest. He couldn’t bear to see his face and the way his eyes had a lifeless haze. A lifeless lack of focus that he witnessed the exact moment it occurred: when he took that blow so it would miss Phainon entirely. With his head straight and stabilized, he would recover quickly like he always did. Any moment, and Phainon expected him to jump up with some snarky quip, call him pathetic and throw himself right back in.
But those moments took forever.
Long enough that his crimson red blood began to darken to rusty brown on his hands and on Mydei’s face and shoulders…down his chest, where the red tattoos once again stood out, vibrant against blood that dried in the time it took for any signs of life to return after the devastating internal decapitation. In retrospect, he should have realized that Mydei’s body had already shown him that his return would be imminent. The fresh wound stopped gushing blood at a point, but his brain just didn’t see it in those moments. He saw someone important to him with a fatal wound, unmoving.
In the aftermath, he tried to make himself feel at least a little embarrassed for such a stricken response, but the sheer relief he felt to hear Mydei’s thick, gargling gasp in his full return, shunted out any possibility of feeling ridiculous for behaving the way he did over a man who he knew couldn't die.
But what if he did.
He didn’t.
But what if…
“Deliverer, are you going to answer me, or should I expect tears to start flowing down my back?”
“Sorry,” he snapped out of his daze, and out of every snapshot of that battle that lingered since. He knew he probably wouldn’t let it go for much longer. He would have to gaslight himself into believing his own candid thoughts were silly and he should let them go. The coping mechanism every warrior probably contended with to cover up the grief of failure.
If I had moved just a bit faster, that never would have happened…
“I asked you a question.”
Ah, now he did feel embarrassed. He let himself be dragged away so far that he didn’t hear Mydei speaking to him. He made a face that Mydei wouldn’t see, and lowered his head a little bit. “…Don’t suppose you would repeat that question…?”
“I won’t.”
“Awh, come on now. I’m just, a little tired. I wasn’t ignoring you.”
A deep exhale resembled an impatient sigh, “stop your groveling, and lay down, idiot.”
“Mydei—“ he started to protest, but finally Mydei rose enough to turn his head back and give him the hardest, narrow-eyed glare.
“I am not posing this as a question this time, Phainon,” he spoke sternly with full eye contact, using his actual name. Phainon withered nearly instantly and apparently very obviously; because in response, Mydei moved over to leave a space for Phainon behind him. No he didn’t turn over, but that was clearly just offering mercy. If Phainon had to crawl into his bed and face him, he might just expire and turn into dust.
Wordlessly, he lifted himself off his knees and on to the cot beside him, where he quickly succumbed to the innate need to wrap himself around this man who could very easily take care of himself, who didn’t need to be fretted over…who did not need this pathetic showcase of feeling he couldn’t just wash off. Phainon had much bigger things to agonize over, he knew. There was a whole ritual to be wringing his hands over. A whole fated life altering responsibility to consider.
But in the quiet of Mydei’s room, darkened by drawn curtains to block Kephale’s light, he only had space for Mydei: the thorny, prickly person who would rebuff him for looking at him wrong. Tribbie once described Mydei as rough and sharp on the outside, but a fluffy pillow on the inside. While not exactly true, Phainon could see where she could get that. His arms snaked around him, pulling him back against his chest after he settled into his spot. No resistance followed.
Silence left the room still, but comfortable, with just the sounds of their breathing. His hold on him didn’t slack any, but Mydei didn’t prompt him to let go either. If anything, those broad, bare shoulders loosened. He couldn’t see his face, but he could imagine his calmed expression with eyes closed. Without a single logical thought in his head, he nuzzled his mouth and nose into the curve of his neck, exposed to him when Mydei relaxed against him. He could easily find himself catching a fist for his brazen action, but instead felt him shift just a little in his direction. Not completely, he didn’t roll over; but Phainon found it suddenly much easier to nestle his face into the space where he could feel his strong pulse against his lips.
“I’m not going to admonish you,” Mydei’s voice left a soft vibration against his lips. “Even though you know as well as I do that I’ve weathered worse and walked away.”
Though he said he didn’t intend to admonish him, it sort of felt that way anyway. Just…polite. Well, polite as Mydei could be. Maybe admonishment was too strong, it served more as a reminder. Because in that moment, cradling his head on his shattered neck, he did forget.
Phainon closed his eyes, squeezing him. “Maybe, but a normal person doesn’t have their head half knocked off their shoulders and walk away either. It’s…not exactly common to witness such a thing with nonchalance… it’s…haha, not really even a common thing to witness with you. How often have you had devastating injuries in my presence, Mydei?” When the two of them took the battlefield together, they rarely came back with anything more severe than a few scratches.
“You’re just…a sentimental fool.” He lifted his upward facing arm back to roughly thread his fingers through Phainon’s hair, until his palm rested over his temple. The closest thing he’d get to returned affection at that moment. “Don’t you have bigger things to focus your energy on?”
“Nothing’s bigger in the world right now.” Though he hadn't intended to speak the words out loud, he did, and after he said them, he found he didn’t regret saying them. Even if Mydei’s fist closed and he pulled his hair in response.
“You’re—ridiculous…” He tugged, exhaling in a heavy sigh before he let go and instead held on to him instead, hand cradling his head. “…For as long as you’re too squishy to take the same hits I can, I will take them for you. If you don’t like seeing me die in front of you, then get out of the way.”
Though these gruff, sharp-edged words mocked him just a little, to Phainon, they meant everything. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again. I’ll just get better than you, take care of all the enemies so you don’t even have to leave the kitchen.”
He restrained a chuckle at the jolt he felt through Mydei in response.
“Excuse you—,” he finally rolled over to face him, winding his arm under Phainon’s shoulders so he could get him halfway into a headlock. His body turned to his side, with a leg pinned over him so he couldn’t escape, even if he wanted to. If it truly came down to it, a wrestling match between them would be quite a spectacle.
“I simply meant it as a compliment,” he smiled, face squished by a very strong forearm and bicep. He’d been in worse places for sure. “Everyone knows you enjoy cooking.”
“I regret not spoiling every meal you’ve ever had.”
“But Mydei, it’s always so fun to see how mad you are at me by how vile you make each dish for me.” The few times he has been graced with the same quality the rest of them received, he’d been genuinely impressed by his skill. He simply could never manage to behave himself enough to not earn the man’s ire. He read somewhere that maybe that’s just a Kremnoan’s form of flirting. Beat up the one you have fondness for and poison their food. Seemed quite reasonable. He chuckled, lifting his hands to bypass Mydei’s hold, framing his slightly flustered face with his hands. It never took much to get these responses.
To his surprise, holding his face that way, disarmed Mydei’s clutch on him. His arm unfurled and instead he braced himself on the cot, now leaning over Phainon from a partial sitting position. His expression lacked any anger, but something else indecipherable took its place. Something Phainon couldn’t understand here, but something softer than he usually received…something melancholy.
“Tomorrow may change everything, Deliverer…”
“I know. But tomorrow is for tomorrow’s problems.” His thumb caressed along his cheek. “So I hope you’ll get some rest instead of worrying about that. You can congratulate me when it’s all over.”
“As if.”
All he needed was a gentle pull to bring him down, chest to chest. He succumbed quickly, leaning an arm across Phainon’s collar so he could maintain eye contact despite their lying position. “Oh you’re acting tough, but I can see how tired you are, Mydei.”
“Get out of my room,” he growled, despite making no attempt to make him leave. Despite how Phainon’s face moved so close to his and how his hands cradled him. Despite the bold, bold decision to kiss a man who could choose to flip them both off the cot and punch him through all the walls of the building. His mouth was warm, sharing deep breaths with him to remind him that life still very much remained. He wanted it to continue to remain. He would kill a titan if he had to to see to it. If Nikador’s power could help him keep this body alive—keep this person’s warmth—then he would give it his damndest to see that trial through.
“Make me,” he murmured against lips that did not answer.
No more words had to be said. All he wanted was to feel this person’s living, breathing, body and remind himself if nothing else in the world mattered, something did. Someone. No matter what their future brought them, he would not ever allow himself to be weak enough to let that happen in his presence again. He would train himself and push himself through every trial required to become that shield.
But for that moment, he circled his arms tightly around him, skin to skin, and settled with him for the last dreamless sleep he might have for a while.