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Armoured fingers ghost along golden cracks that expose rivers of gleaming ichor flowing underneath.
Phainon’s body sears Mydei’s skin, even through his gauntlets, but he pays the pain little mind, more focused on the wounds marring his lover’s form.
They had been separated for quite some time before the Flame-Chase’s end. The god-king had forgotten many sensations during his long battle against the black tide, but he had clung tightly to his memories of Phainon—memories of his smiles, his warmth, the sheen of his pearly skin, the contour of his muscles, all a reflection of his vitality.
Now, the body he knew so well is ashen and broken, speaking silently of an eternity of torment, even though its owner attempts to veil the weight of that suffering behind a distant gaze.
“...Mydei. You shouldn’t…”
Phainon speaks quietly, not receptive to Mydei’s touch as he usually is, but not shying away from it either—even though his words imply that he should. Just another indication that he yearns for Mydei, just as Mydei yearns for him.
The god-king doesn’t pull his hand away, gently running his fingers along another crack in Phainon’s body, as if trying to banish the pain with love.
“Do they hurt?” he asks. He’s not looking at Phainon’s face, but he feels him shaking his head.
“...Not really,” Phainon replies after a moment of silence. “Not anymore.”
It’s not an answer that brings Mydei any comfort. His palm slowly splays across the largest wound, lingering in place, and he feels Phainon tensing under his touch.
“Mydei, you shouldn’t,” he says again. “You’ll get hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Mydei replies easily.
“I know you’re lying, Mydeimos. Did you think that just because my appearance has changed, I no longer remember anything about you?”
“...Ha.” Mydei laughs softly, briefly. His lover may have ushered in the dawn and become Amphoreus' sun, but some things will never change, it seems. That, at least, reassures him. “Then surely you remember me telling you that we Kremnoans bathe in the boiling waters we use to temper our swords and spears? This is nothing to me.”
It’s more painful watching you distance yourself like this.
It had been strange, wrong even, to see Phainon become so subdued, curbing his normally overflowing, unconditional love for everyone and everything around him so he would not bring them to harm. He is their hero, and yet he treats himself like a scourge upon all things. Perhaps that’s the most painful thing of all.
After all, Phainon had just confirmed that only his appearance had changed. Everything else…is exactly the same. He is a man turned god, an entity of destruction bearing that same soft, fragile heart beneath the wrathful sorrow—a heart that aches so, precisely because it is the most human of all.
Mydei slowly withdraws, raising himself up, but only so he can cup Phainon’s cheek instead. Golden eyes stare at him, framed by paler gold still, rather than the azure and white he’s so used to—so different, and yet completely the same, because though Phainon tries to keep his expression muted, he will never be able to conceal the totality of his emotions. Not when he loves with his entire being.
Not when he can’t even conceal the tears that fail to fall, evaporating into steam.
“You know what I am, don’t you?” Phainon whispers, trying to disguise the tremor in his voice. He’s only partially successful.
“I do,” Mydei says. “I don’t care.”
“I’ll bring destruction to you. Not because I want to, but because it’s all I can do.”
“I just told you that I don’t care, HKS.”
He is not one to make empty promises, and so to illustrate his point, Mydei pulls Phainon into a tight embrace, and Phainon’s breath hitches in his throat. His body burns Mydei’s, triggering an endless clash of destruction and rebirth, skin continuously smoldering away and then stitching itself back together. Agony upon agony, but Mydei is numb to it—
—because the pain of not being able to hold Phainon is so much worse.
“For you,” Mydei murmurs more softly, his arms tightening more still. “I would die 10,000 more times, without hesitation.”
He feels Phainon taking a shaking breath in his arms, and he wills him to return the embrace. It’s clear that Phainon struggles against the temptation, not wanting to bring more pain to his beloved, but he’s unable to resist Mydei’s affections for much longer. Slowly, he, too, raises his arms, his fingers curling into the fabric of Mydei’s clothing, holding on as if the god-king will simply slip away and vanish if he lets go.
“...Can’t you live for me instead?” Phainon asks quietly, as if to suppress the anguish and loneliness in his voice. “Don’t leave me alone again.”
Mydei smiles. The facade has crumbled. Now Phainon is starting to sound more like the man he knows.
“Then you must promise me that you will live for me as well,” he says. “After all… Now that I have returned to your side, I don’t intend to leave.”
He feels the tension finally ebbing away from Phainon’s shoulders, feels his lover leaning into his hold and closing his eyes. For a moment, he seems to forget all the changes that plague him, that plague both of them. For a moment, it’s almost like Mydei and Phainon have returned to their halcyon days in Okhema, when the threat of the black tide seemed so much farther away, when their time with each other was abundant.
“...Okay. I promise, Mydei.”