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1.
It was during a meeting with the other heirs.
A standard meeting: Aglaea leading with poise, her voice smooth and commanding as the others contributed their own bits and pieces in murmurs and affirmations. The room was stately and sun-drenched, the tall windows casting bright beams across the marble floor. Phainon sat near the head of the long table, a breath away from Aglaea’s perfectly manicured fingers that waved in the air like a conductor orchestrating something far more elegant than war strategy.
He nodded when appropriate, fingers rhythmically tapping his thigh, his eyes only half-focused on the current speaker. He was present in body, but his thoughts clouded like mist over a still lake.
That was until Mydei stood.
And suddenly, the fog lifted.
Gold filled his vision.
Phainon blinked, his breath catching just a little too audibly. Mydei’s voice carried across the room. Measured, confident, laced with a kind of ease that no prince should be allowed to have. His posture was straight, his red cloak catching the sunlight just right. But it was golden eyes — his eyes — that tore through Phainon like a sunbeam through frost. They were not merely golden, not something mundane like metal or coin. They shimmered like sunlight filtered through smoke, like the first light after a twenty-year night. Like something alive.
Daylight. That was the word that came to mind. Not royalty. Not beauty. Daylight.
Phainon blinked and looked away. His heart stuttered with the unfamiliar feeling. Later, when reviewing the mission notes, he realized he remembered absolutely nothing from the meeting, only the sharp burn of Mydei’s gaze, and the way it had etched itself into his mind like a brand.
2.
The sparring grounds thrummed with heat, metal, and something else. Something bright.
Wood met metal. Gauntlets clashed against blades. There was rhythm in the chaos, Phainon striking with fierce precision, Mydei answering with rough elegance. Theirs was no longer training. This was a conversation in motion, a story only they could write, a dance only they remembered how to lead. It was in the way they moved, in how no blow was ever truly meant to wound, only to test. To tease, to prod.
Then Mydei surged forward.
Phainon barely had time to parry, his wooden sword letting out a crack under the impact. They locked together like puzzle pieces, bodies pressed too close, faces a breath apart. The tension coiled between them like a snake, its hissing sounding like a whisper compared to Phainon’s heart. It thundered in his chest, wild and utterly uncooperative. Mydei’s breath ghosted over his cheek, his skin warm and damp with sweat, glistening like dew over polished stone.
Phainon’s blue eyes flicked up. He couldn’t help it.
And there it was again.
Golden eyes, bright as flame-kissed amber, glowing like coals stoked by wind. They were alive with mirth and joy, that half-cocked smirk tugging at Mydei’s lips like he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe he did.
Phainon faltered.
It was barely half a second of hesitation, the smallest stagger in an otherwise perfect song. But of course, Mydei noticed. He grinned. Crystals began to form at his fingertips as he slid away, effortlessly graceful.
The match ended soon after. A draw, he would say technically to anyone who asked. But Phainon remains long after, alone in the fading light, rubies still clinging to his skin like reminders. He held one up to the setting sun and watched how it refracted the light, spilling the rays all around him in a kaleidoscope of colour.
It reminded him of warmth.
3.
Mydei was injured.
Not mortally, immortals didn’t stay broken. The blow had been clean and deliberate, driven straight through him by a black tide beast with too many eyes and too much malice. Even immortality had its limits. He was advised to rest.
Phainon barely felt his feet hit the ground, barely registering the blur of metal walls whipping past him as he raced down the corridors. His breath came in sharp, uneven bursts. When the news reached him alongside the other heirs, his mind switched to autopilot. Though their urgent calls echoed behind him, he didn't pause, he just ran.
The medbay was quiet, its sterile glow somehow gentler at this hour. Mydei lay sprawled on the crisp sheets, wrapped from upper chest to waist in layers of gauze that can be seen peeking out the white robes he donned. He looked like a painting, softened by the edges of pain, but still undeniably himself. His limbs twitched with an urge to move, but he admittedly feared Hyacine's lecture. His strawberry blonde hair clung to his skin, damp from sweat from unspoken jolts of pain.
When blue meets golden, his mouth curls into a sharp, practiced smirk.
“You here to lecture me?” he grinned, voice low and teasing.
Although Phainon didn’t reply, his heart stung with relief. He simply sat, quietly, and reached for Mydei’s hand. His fingers curled gently around the other’s palm, warm and calloused. Familiar. He held it with a reverence that made the moment feel sacred.
Even in the sickbed, even dimmed by injury, Mydei’s eyes glowed like they were made of sunlight and sun. Golden, but not the sharp gleam of wealth or power. This gold was older, rooted in bone and soul. Like the steady light of a lantern refusing to die in a storm. He blinked slowly, eyes crinkling at the edges, his smirk softening.
Phainon stayed.
No words. No teasing this time. Just silence. Just the shared warmth of a hand held and a reluctance to part.
4.
Mydei wasn’t supposed to be there. Neither was Phainon.
And yet there he was, cross-legged on the cold floor of the archives, surrounded by ancient scrolls, dust and starlight. He was muttering to himself, something between poetry and history, in the fluid cadences of Kremnoan, as though he was weaving together the past back into shape with nothing but whispers and memory.
Phainon paused in the doorway, one hand clutching the brass handle, the other frozen mid-reach towards something long-forgotten.
He didn’t interrupt.
Mydei’s hair was tied back, his signature braid tied together, bathed in silver light from the window, his features softened by moonlight. His golden eyes shimmered, not with fire this time, but with something quieter. Gentler. Vulnerability.
It struck Phainon like a blow to the chest.
He wasn’t fighting. He wasn’t sparring. He wasn’t smirking or performing. He was simply existing. And in that stillness, Mydei looked more like royalty than he ever had. Not because of his title, but because of the quiet dignity in the way he occupied space, as though the moonlight itself bowed for him.
Mydei was whispering at the scroll his nose was buried in now, brow furrowed the way it always did when he’d done something dumb, or when he was being dragged off to the baths by Phainon again. The Deliverer bit back a grin. It was the same pouty scowl, all scrunched nose and quiet indignation, and seeing it here, of all places, in this quiet sea of parchment and starlight, made something warm flutter in Phainon’s chest.
He watched as Mydei repeated the line again under his breath, voice low and rhythmic, and then leaned forward to jot something down. As he did, his braid slipped forward over his shoulder, and promptly knocked over the ink pot beside him with a soft clink and a splatter. Mydei froze, then muttered a string of hushed Kremnoan curses that Phainon couldn’t quite decipher.
The ink was beginning to seep into one of the older scrolls, and Mydei scrambled to blot it with the edge of his cloak, completely missing the way his expression contorted between panic and embarrassment. Phainon had to press a hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh, heart tightening at how utterly human the Crown Prince looked in that moment. Messy, muttering, glowing faintly under the moonlight, and still the most beautiful thing in the room.
He lingered just a second longer, committing the sight to memory, then turned and padded quietly back into the hall, still smiling.
He couldn’t remember what he had come for, but the sight he left with was far more precious than any scripture.
5.
Steam curled gently in the air around their forms, silencing the world beyond the carved walls. The hero’s baths were silent at this hour, with only the soft ripple of water and the low echo of breath between the two. Phainon has seen the crown prince countless times, during meetings, on the battlefield, draped in the finest velvet and golden armour and expectation. But here, stripped of it all, was Mydeimos. He looked softer, human.
The two sat a few feet apart, stripped down to the waist and submerged in the warm, golden water. And if anyone asked Phainon, he would vehemently deny ever staring at the burgundy tattoos that littered Mydei’s body, much less fantasizing about how they might feel beneath his fingertips. He told himself it was idle curiosity, nothing more. A deep appreciation for ink and symmetry, for the way the designs seemed to move with every subtle shift of Mydei’s shoulders and spine. That’s all.
(But he was lying. At least to himself.)
The light from the lanterns danced along Mydei’s skin, catching in the lines of the tattoos, and Phainon’s gaze drifted again, only for a second. Only until Mydei shifted and the water rippled and broke the spell.
“Staring again?” Mydei said, eyes still closed, his tone teasing.
“Do you think I'm a brute?” Phainon’s reply came a little too quickly, too rehearsed.
“Mm,” Mydei hummed, finally turning his head. Those golden eyes narrowed with that same familiar challenge. “I should start charging you a fee at this point.”
Phainon smirked, trying to wrestle away the flush rising beneath his collarbone. “I’m only keeping an eye on the competition.”
“Of course you are,” Mydei replied, leaning back against the stone edge with maddening ease, his tattoos stretching just beneath the surface. “Though I’m starting to think the heat’s getting to you.”
It was. Just not the way Mydei thought.
Phainon met his gaze again, and in that moment, the rest of Mydei seemed to fall away and his heart stuttered to a stop. Those golden eyes were sharp, bright with mischief, but there was something else. Something quiet and curious behind the playful mask, like he was waiting to see if Phainon would do something reckless (like usual). The steam curled around his face, catching the faint shimmer of moisture along his lashes, and for a second, Phainon forgot how to breathe.
They were eyes that gleamed like sunlight caught in citrine. Eyes that had watched him across countless battlefields, across banquet halls and war rooms and stolen moments like this. Phainon had always thought gold was a cold metal — sharp, distant, untouchable. But in Mydei’s eyes, it burned warm. It burned real.
He looked away, heart pounding too loud in his ears. The heat was suffocating now, but not because of the water.
“I- I should go,” Phainon muttered, already rising, water cascading off his skin as he stepped out too quickly, almost slipping on the smooth stone. “I forgot something important. Somewhere else.”
Mydei blinked, turning around to face him and sitting up with a slightly furrowed brow. “You're running from an endurance match?”
“I’m not running,” Phainon called back, already halfway through the exit. “I’m strategically withdrawing. I admit defeat! You win!”
Mydei’s hearty laugh echoed through the bath chamber behind him, amused, confused, and just a little too knowing.
Phainon didn’t dare look back.
+1.
The war camp had gone still. Outside the command tents, wind stirred faintly through the trees, carrying with it the scent of ash and pine. The last patrols were making their rounds, their distant footsteps muffled against dirt and gravel. Inside, the fire burned low, casting amber light against canvas walls, its crackle the only sound in the hush that had settled over the room.
Phainon sat on the edge of the cot, undershirt peeled halfway down his arms and armour shed, bandages stretched tight across his ribs. The gash wasn’t deep, but it stung, a reminder of how recklessly he’d fought earlier that day, of how willing he was to throw himself forward when Mydei was out there beside him. Or maybe because he was. He hadn’t thought too hard about it. He never did in the moment.
Mydei had tended to the wound with care, but he was still murmuring about how he was immortal, and didn’t need anyone taking blows for him. Phainon didn’t pay it any mind. His fingers had worked quickly, but not indifferently. Phainon had felt the tenderness in every movement, from the firm press of gauze to the way his hand steadied Phainon’s side just a little longer than necessary after tying the final knot. It wasn’t the first time Mydei had patched him up. But it felt different now. He stayed sitting beside him, even after the work was done.
Neither of them had moved in some time.
The fire cast shadows that flickered across Mydei’s face, softening the edges that were usually drawn sharp with command and purpose. His eyes, that shining gold, held steady on Phainon with an unreadable calm that was starting to fray at the edges.
Phainon didn’t look away. He didn’t smirk, didn’t speak. Just looked.
Something shifted in Mydei’s gaze. He didn’t lean in, not yet, but the space between them felt like it was collapsing all the same. A quiet tension pulled tight around them, fraying slowly, thread by thread.
Phainon moved first. Barely. A brush of his fingers on the cot between them, palm turned up.
Mydei’s hand hovered for a second, then settled into his like it belonged there. Warm, certain, grounding.
The touch should’ve been enough. But it wasn’t. Not anymore.
Phainon’s eyes dropped to Mydei’s lips, parted just slightly. The slope of his throat. The faint flush beneath his skin from the warmth of the fire. Phainon could feel the weight of his gaze on him in return, slow and intentional, lingering where his shirt had slipped from his shoulder. There was a pause, long enough that he could have pulled away, long enough for one of them to speak.
Neither did.
He leaned in, not rushed, but not slowly either. His hand slid, certain against Mydeis jaw, thumb brushing just below his cheekbone. Mydei didn’t stop him. He turned into the touch with quiet, almost imperceptible relief, golden eyes half-lidded, breath hitching just enough to make the moment real.
Their foreheads touched first. A grounding motion that both were familiar with.
Then finally, their lips met.
Not desperate. Not hungry. Just slow. Reverent. Like they’d both imagined it a hundred times and didn’t want to mess it up now that it was real. Mydei’s hand rose to rest against Phainon’s chest, fingers brushing the edge of the bandages, careful not to press too hard. Still, Phainon swore he felt a shiver go down his spine.
A tilt of their heads deepened the kiss just slightly, the slow burn turning to something warmer, bolder. Phainon could feel Mydei exhale against him, and could feel the faint tremor in his hands as they found his waist. And yet, even with the air between them growing thinner, even with the fire painting their skin in gold, neither of them moved further.
Not yet.
But there was a promise there. In the way their lips lingered. In the way Mydei’s thumb swept once across the bare curve of Phainon’s hip. In the way Phainon leaned in again, resting their foreheads together, breathing in the same quiet space.
When they pulled apart, it was only by an inch. Close enough to feel the echo of it still between them.
Close enough to know neither of them would be sleeping alone tonight.
Phainon’s voice was barely audible. “…I’m not running away this time.”
Mydei’s mouth curled, almost into a smile. “I’m faster than you anyways.” He teased, a sculpted arm snaking around his waist again.
And neither of them said anything else.
They didn’t need to.