Archive of Our Own

Now

Day 7

They had once more agreed on restraint last night. After the closeness, their shared body heat, their conversation, this was what they had settled on. Restraint had lasted exactly three heartbeats today. Now Mydei’s blade sang against his in the morning light, and Phainon found himself counting again—strikes, parries, the droplets of sweat that caught like jewels in the red ink spiraling down Mydei’s arms. The sun made his tattoos look alive, shifting and breathing with each movement, and Phainon wondered absently if this was what madness felt like. Seven days of this dance, and he still couldn’t look away.

“Yield,” Mydei said, not even breathing hard, which was frankly insulting considering Phainon was practically gasping.

“You first,” Phainon managed, deflecting a strike that would have opened his ribs if he’d been a half-second slower.

Mydei’s mouth quirked—not quite a smile, but close enough to count as a victory. It was the same expression he’d worn yesterday when Phainon had nearly had him pinned, the same one from the day before when they’d both hit the ground at exactly the same moment and lay there staring at each other like they’d forgotten what they were fighting about.

Which, if Phainon was being honest, they might have.

Phainon had told himself the flutter in his chest was the adrenaline from the fight. He’d been lying to himself quite a lot lately.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Then

Day 1

“First to fall yields for the day,” Phainon said, because he was an optimist and genuinely believed this would be over quickly. The morning sun was gentle then, promising rather than punishing, and the assembled soldiers looked on with the eager anticipation of men about to witness something legendary.

“No lethal blows,” Mydei added, which should have been obvious but apparently needed stating. His voice carried that particular edge it seemed to get when he was being deliberately reasonable.

“Water breaks every two hours,” Phainon continued, already mentally calculating how long this might take. A few hours, surely. Maybe half a day if Mydei was feeling particularly stubborn.

“Agreed.”

“And we’ll need somewhere to rest. There’s a tent—” Phainon gestured toward the canvas structure that had been erected at what he optimistically assumed would be a safe distance from their fighting ground.

“One tent?” Mydei’s eyebrow lifted in that particular way that suggested Phainon was either brilliant or completely insane. The question lingered in the air between them, loaded with implications neither was quite ready to examine.

“For efficiency,” Phainon said, a little too quickly, a little too defensively. “Someone needs to keep watch. The corruption doesn’t sleep just because we’re tired of fighting each other.” The explanation had sounded reasonable in his head. Out loud, it sounded like exactly what it was—a transparent excuse to spend more time in close quarters with a man who already occupied far too much of his thoughts since the very moment he had laid eyes on him.

Mydei studied him for a long moment, those golden eyes unreadable. There was something calculating in his gaze, like he was working through a complex equation where Phainon was one of the variables. “Fine,” he said finally, and somehow that single word felt like both a concession and a challenge.

“Excellent,” Phainon said, drawing his blade with perhaps more flourish than necessary. “Shall we begin?”

“After you, Deliverer.”

The first clash was tentative, almost polite—both of them taking each other’s measure, testing reflexes and reach. It lasted exactly until Mydei nearly took Phainon’s head off with a strike that was anything but restrained.

“I thought we agreed on restraint,” Phainon gasped, diving sideways and feeling the wind from Mydei’s blade against his cheek.

“We did,” Mydei replied, pressing his advantage with a combination that forced Phainon into a desperate backpedal. “I’m showing restraint. You’re still breathing.”

And that, Phainon realized with the first genuine spike of adrenaline, was when he understood exactly what he’d gotten himself into.

Begrudgingly, they settled in the tent at night. Neither would admit to needing their own space because that would have meant conceding weakness. So they lay in their bedrolls, close enough to hear each other’s breathing, and stared across the dim light for longer than was socially acceptable. Phainon broke the silence with some pointed remark, just sharp enough to make Mydei roll his eyes in that particular way that sent sparks through Phainon’s chest, though he pretended otherwise. When he finally drifted off, his mind was quiet for a change. Blissfully quiet, except for the memory of that look and the anticipation of what tomorrow might bring.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Day 2

By the second day, they found their rhythm, and it was nothing like what Phainon had expected.

Attack, parry, riposte—each exchange a conversation in steel, but also something more. Every time Phainon made a particularly clever feint, Mydei would counter with something that shouldn’t have been possible but somehow was, and there was something almost like appreciation in his eyes when he did it. As if he was saying: Yes, that was good. Show me more. Those taunts were affecting him more the longer they fought. 

The watching soldiers started taking bets by midmorning, coins changing hands every time one of them gained an advantage. Someone even brought chairs, as if they were settling in for a proper show. Phainon caught snippets of whispered odds, and it was both irritating and faintly flattering to know their every move was under scrutiny. Wagers were being shouted from the back row, odds calculated on parchment, and Phainon could swear someone was sketching caricatures of them mid-swing. 

“You’re drawing quite the audience,” Phainon observed during their first water break, watching a group of Kremnoans argue enthusiastically about odds and probabilities.

“So are you.” Mydei was cleaning his blade with movements so economical they bordered on art, each stroke of the cloth precise and purposeful. “Though I suspect they’re betting against you.”

“How flattering. And here I thought I was making a good impression.”

“You are.” The admission slipped out before Mydei could stop it. Phainon caught the way his shoulders tensed immediately after, as if he was surprised by his own honesty. The sunlight caught in the damp strands of his hair, and Phainon had to look away quickly before his staring betrayed him.

“Careful, Mydeimos. Someone might think you’re developing a fondness for me.”

“Someone would be mistaken.” But there was no heat in the denial, and when Mydei looked at him, there was something warm in those golden eyes that made Phainon’s pulse quicken.

“Of course they would be,” Phainon agreed, taking a longer drink of water than necessary. He caught Mydei’s gaze tracking the movement of his throat and filed that information away for later consideration.

 “After all, what could possibly be appealing about a man who just attempted to disarm you with a flourish that had absolutely no tactical value?”

“Nothing at all,” Mydei said, but his mouth fought a smile. “Though I have to admit, I’m always expecting your flourishes now, Deliverer.”

The way Mydei said his title—half mockery, half something else entirely that made heat pool low in Phainon’s stomach—was becoming a problem. A very specific, very distracting problem that Phainon was trying very hard not to think about.

“Then I’ll have to be more creative,” Phainon said, setting down his water skin and picking up his blade again. “I can’t have you getting bored, my friend.”

“Trust me,” Mydei said, falling back into his fighting stance with fluid grace, “boredom is not something I associate with you.”

The second round of the day was more intense than the first, both of them settling into the kind of flow that came from genuine challenge. Phainon found himself pushing harder, taking risks he wouldn’t normally take, just to see that flash of approval in Mydei’s eyes when he managed something particularly clever.

It was dangerous thinking, and he knew it.

Day two ended with both their weapons on the ground and both of them flat on their backs, staring at the sky while Phainon’s heart hammered against his ribs. Dust clung to their clothes, their breaths came harsh and uneven, and the tie was as infuriating as it was exhilarating. A perfect stalemate, which satisfied no one and thrilled everyone placing wagers.

“This is ridiculous,” Phainon muttered, not moving an inch.

“Completely,” Mydei agreed, equally motionless.

Neither of them bothered to rise. They just lay there in the dirt outside Okhema’s city gates, breathing hard and pretending they couldn’t feel the charged air between them, the way their silence carried more weight than any clash of blades.

“Same time tomorrow?” Phainon asked eventually.

“Obviously.”

Phainon smiled up at the fading light, already anticipating it.

That night in the tent, Phainon tried for conversation, unwilling to endure silence with someone so palpably present. Mydei grunted at first, but then, unexpectedly, offered a fragment of himself, speaking a little about his days before he and the Kremnoans had reached Okhema. They didn’t exchange many words, but it was enough. The start of something. Something that left Phainon smiling faintly as his eyes finally fluttered shut.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Day 3

The third day brought spectators.

Not just the soldiers who had taken to following their progress with the dedication of devoted scholars, but civilians from both Okhema and the Kremnoan delegation. Someone set up a small market stall selling refreshments, as if their fight was a festival attraction.

“We’re becoming quite the entertainment,” Phainon observed, nodding toward a group of children who were watching with wide-eyed fascination.

“Speak for yourself,” Mydei replied, but Phainon had caught him explaining technique to one of the Kremnoan soldiers earlier, so his pretense of indifference wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Oh, I am. Look at that man in the front row. He’s probably composing sonnets about your footwork already.” Phainon tilted his head, words tumbling faster now. “Can’t blame him, really. You do have a certain poetic intensity when you fight. He’s clearly smitten with your dramatic combat aesthetic.“

“My what?”

“The way you move. Very… intense. Commanding. I can see why he’d be impressed.” Phainon was testing the waters with that observation, curious to see how Mydei would react to the suggestion that a man might find him attractive.

The way Mydei went very still was answer enough.

“You think too much about things that don’t matter,” Mydei said, but there had been something uncertain in his voice, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted the conversation to continue or end.

“Do I? I think observation is one of my better qualities. For instance, I’ve observed that you always favor your left side when you’re tired, and that you have a tell when you’re about to attempt something particularly aggressive.”

“I do not have a tell.”

“You do. Your breathing changes, just slightly. And you get this look—” Phainon demonstrated, letting his expression go sharp and focused in a way that was probably a terrible imitation but made his point.

“That’s not—” Mydei started to protest, then stopped, studying Phainon’s face with new interest. “You’ve been watching me that closely?”

It was a dangerous question, one that could lead them into territory neither was prepared for. Phainon opened his mouth to deflect, to make a joke, to do what he always did when conversations ventured too close to honesty.

Instead, he said, “Yes.”

The word hung between them for a long moment, honest and unguarded and absolutely terrifying. Mydei’s expression shifted through several emotions too quickly for Phainon to track, settling finally on something that looked almost like wonder.

“Deliverer…”

“My lords! Are we here to fight or to chat like old women at market?”

The interruption came from one of the watching soldiers, and both of them turned toward the voice with expressions that probably would have made the man reconsider his word choice if he’d been paying attention.

“Right,” Phainon said, clearing his throat and raising his blade. “Where were we?”

The rest of day three was different. More focused, more intense, as if their moment of honesty had stripped away some layer of pretense that had been keeping them at arm’s length. Every exchange felt weighted with meaning, every near-miss charged with possibility.

When they finally called it for the day—another tie, another round of frustrated betting—Phainon felt like he’d run for hours with his heart on the outside of his chest.

“Water?” Mydei asked, already reaching for one of the skins.

“Please.”

As Mydei handed it over, their fingers brushed, and Phainon felt that small contact like a spark jumping between them. From the way Mydei had gone very still, he’d felt it too.

“Mydei,” Phainon began, not even sure what words he was reaching for, only that silence felt unbearable.

“Tomorrow,” Mydei said quietly. Not like an ending, but like a vow.

“Tomorrow,” Phainon echoed.

Later, in the hush of their tent, Phainon closed his eyes with the faintest smile. Even through the veil of sleep, he swore he could still feel Mydei’s gaze like always. Steady, searching, unwilling to let him go.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Days 4 and 5

The first crack in Mydei’s carefully maintained composure came when Phainon split a knuckle against his guard—a clumsy mistake that sent blood spattering across the dirt and made several spectators wince in sympathy.

Mydei called the break before Phainon could, which was either mercy or strategy, and Phainon wasn‘t been sure which he preferred.

“Hmph. Let me see.” Mydei’s voice was carefully neutral as he examined Phainon’s hand, but his touch was gentle enough to make Phainon’s breath catch. Those calloused fingers, so precise with a blade, were unexpectedly tender when they traced the torn skin.

“It’s nothing,” Phainon said, though the cut was deeper than he’d like to admit and the blood was flowing freely enough to be genuinely concerning.

“It’s bleeding,” Mydei said with the kind of patience he usually reserved for people who were being deliberately obtuse. “And it needs to be cleaned.”

Without another word, he tore a strip from his own shirt—his own shirt, not some spare cloth or bandage, but the fine fabric other soldiers wore beneath additional armor—and began cleaning the wound with efficient, practiced movements.

“You don’t have to—” Phainon started.

“Yes, I do.” The firmness in Mydei’s voice left no room no argument. “Infection will slow your healing, and I prefer my opponents at full strength.”

It was a reasonable explanation, perfectly logical and entirely unconvincing. The way Mydei’s thumb brushed across Phainon’s wrist as he worked, the careful attention he paid to ensuring the bandage was secure—these were not the actions of someone concerned purely with maintaining competitive balance.

“These markings,” Phainon said quietly, nodding toward the markings that were all over Mydei’s upper body. At this distance and in this moment of quiet, he could see them clearly for the first time—intricate patterns that seemed to tell stories in a language he didn’t understand. “Do they hurt?”

Mydei went very still, his hands pausing in their work. For a moment, Phainon thought he wouldn’t answer, thought he’d pushed too far too fast.

“No,” Mydei said finally. “Those markings are not the source of my pain.”

“But they meant something. Mean something.”

Another pause, longer this time. Phainon was acutely aware of their position—Mydei’s hands still wrapped around his wrist, their faces close enough that he could see the sun-shaped pupils in those unusual eyes.

“Pain should be transformed into strength,” Mydei said at last, his voice soft enough that the watching crowd couldn’t overhear. “Not forgotten. Transformed.” His fingers lingered on Phainon’s wrist, thumb brushing the pulse point in a way that might have been accidental but felt entirely deliberate. “Those who don’t honor their dead aren’t worthy to live.”

The weight of grief in those words hit Phainon like a physical blow. He wanted to ask more—about the dead Mydei carried, about the pain he’d transformed into the deadly precision of his fighting—but something in his expression warned against pushing further.

Instead, Phainon noticed the small cloth bag tied to Mydei’s belt, the one that sometimes gave off the scent of something sweet and sharp when the wind was right.

“Pomegranates?” he guessed.

The corner of Mydei’s mouth twitched, the closest thing to a genuine smile Phainon had seen from him. “You notice everything.”

“Only the interesting things.”

“Is that what I am?” The question had been asked casually, but there had been something vulnerable beneath it, as if Mydei genuinely wanted to know the answer. “Interesting?”

The question hung between them like a blade balanced on its edge. Phainon opened his mouth to deflect, to joke, to do what he always did when conversations ventured too close to dangerous territory.

Instead, he looked directly into those golden eyes and said, “You’re the most interesting thing I’ve encountered in years. Maybe even...” He stopped himself before he could say too much. 

Mydei’s sharp intake of breath was barely audible, but Phainon was close enough to hear it. Close enough to see the way his pupils dilated slightly, the way his grip on Phainon’s wrist tightened just enough to be noticeable.

“Phainon—”

“My lords, if you’re quite finished with your medical consultation?” The interruption had come from one of the soldiers, polite but pointed. “The afternoon session?”

Mydei released Phainon’s wrist like it had burned him, stepping back with perhaps more haste than necessary. “Of course,” he said, his voice carefully controlled again. “Ready, Deliverer?”

But something had changed between them in that moment, something that made the rest of the afternoon’s fighting feel like a different conversation entirely. Every strike, every parry, every moment when they circled each other was charged with the knowledge that they were both thinking about more than swordwork.

Day five brought rain. Not enough to cancel their session, but enough to make the ground treacherous and their movements more careful. The audience thinned considerably, leaving only the most dedicated observers huddled under makeshift shelters.

“Slippery,” Phainon observed after nearly losing his footing on a particularly aggressive advance.

“Careful footing,” Mydei agreed, but there was something almost predatory in the way he said it, like he was considering whether the changed conditions might work to his advantage.

They fought more cautiously that day, each of them hyper-aware of the need to avoid genuine injury on the wet ground. But somehow, the forced proximity made everything more intense rather than less. Every time they closed distance, every moment when they were near enough to see each other’s breath in the cool air, felt like a small electric shock.

It was during one of these close exchanges that Mydei backed Phainon toward the edge of their fighting space, close enough to one of the support ropes of their tent that Phainon felt the canvas brush against his shoulder.

“Yield,” Mydei said, his blade at Phainon’s throat, but his voice was rough in a way that had nothing to do with exertion.

“Make me,” Phainon replied, which was possibly the least wise thing he could have said given their position, but wisdom had been in short supply lately where Mydei was concerned.

For a moment, they stood frozen like that—Mydei’s blade against Phainon’s throat, Phainon’s back against the tent, their faces close enough that Phainon could count Mydei’s eyelashes. The rain drummed against the canvas behind him, and everything else faded to background noise.

“Phainon,” Mydei said, and his name sounded different in that voice, weighted with things neither of them was ready to say.

“Yes?”

But before Mydei could answer, a particularly loud crash of thunder broke the moment, and they both stepped back as if waking from a dream.

“We should…” Mydei started.

“Yes,” Phainon agreed, though neither of them moved immediately.

“The tent,” Mydei clarified. “Until the storm passes.”

“Right. The tent.”

They ducked inside, dripping and breathless, pretending that whatever had just passed between them was perfectly normal. But as Phainon wrung out his sleeves, he realized the air between them still crackled, no less dangerous than lightning.

It was the same tent they’d shared before, yet everything about it felt different now—smaller, warmer, charged. Clothes clung, skin chilled, breath quickening, and the only reasonable choice was to strip before the cold set in. For warriors used to blades and blood, it felt like an entirely different kind of battle.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Day 6

The storm didn’t pass. It grew wilder, blackening the sky and rattling the canvas with thunder that seemed to mock them outright. By the time they secured the tent, they were both soaked through and shivering, their so-called endurance humbled by nature’s indifference. And still the rain hammered down, relentless, as though intent on keeping them trapped together for hours.

“Your teeth are chattering,” Mydei observed, which was rich coming from someone whose lips had gone slightly blue around the edges.

“Yours aren’t much better,” Phainon replied, trying to wring water from his shirt with hands that weren’t entirely steady. The tent felt impossibly small with both of them in it, barely large enough for two bedrolls with a narrow strip of space between them.

They’d huddled on opposite sides at first, listening to rain drum against the canvas and trying to pretend this wasn’t the most intimate they’d ever been. Which was saying something, considering they’d been fighting each other for six days straight.

“We should get out of these wet clothes,” Mydei said after a particularly violent shiver, then seemed to realize how that sounded. “I mean—separately. For warmth. To prevent illness.”

“Of course,” Phainon agreed, fighting a smile at Mydei’s uncharacteristic fumbling with words. “Purely practical.”

They turned away from each other with exaggerated courtesy, the kind of elaborate politeness that only highlighted how aware they both were of the situation. Phainon peeled off his wet shirt, hyperconscious of every small sound. The rustle of fabric, Mydei’s carefully controlled breathing, the soft thud of boots being removed.

They spent the better part of the day trading banter, the kind that started sharp but softened as the hours stretched on. By afternoon it had eased into something quieter, a conversation that meandered without urgency. It was pleasant, Phainon realized—surprisingly so. The storm outside kept them trapped, its relentless drum against the canvas reminding them they couldn’t leave even if they wanted to. And for once, neither of them seemed in a hurry to try.

When they finally settled onto their respective bedrolls, wearing only their smallclothes and carefully not looking at each other, the air in the tent felt thick enough to cut.

“Can’t sleep?” Mydei asked when he caught Phainon shifting for the dozenth time.

“Your breathing is too loud.”

“My breathing?” There was genuine surprise in Mydei’s voice, as if the idea that he could be distracting simply by existing was foreign to him.

“It’s…” Phainon paused, searching for words that wouldn’t reveal too much. “Distracting.”

Mydei went quiet then, so quiet that Phainon was almost convinced himself he had fallen asleep. The silence stretched on, filled only with the sound of rain and the occasional rumble of thunder, until Phainon started to relax despite himself.

“Is that what you call it when your mind won’t stop racing?” Mydei asked suddenly. “Loud?”

Phainon turned toward him in the darkness, though he couldn’t make out more than the vague shape of him on the other bedroll. “What do you call it?”

“Too much.” A pause, heavy with consideration. “You think very loudly, Phainon.”

Something about the way Mydei had said his name—not Deliverer, not with any hint of mockery, just his name spoken soft and careful in the darkness—made Phainon’s chest tight with unnamed emotion.

“I could be quieter,” Phainon offered, though he wasn‘t sure how to accomplish that when his thoughts seemed to be growing louder by the hour, all of them centering on the man lying just an arm’s length away.

“Could you?” It sounded like a challenge, but felt like an invitation.

“I could try.” Phainon shifted again, this time deliberately, turning fully onto his side to face Mydei’s silhouette. “What would help?”

“I don’t know,” Mydei admitted, and there was something vulnerable in the confession. “Usually when things get too loud, I fight. Or I find somewhere completely empty and wait for it to pass.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m in a very small tent with a man who won’t stop thinking at me.”

Despite everything—the tension, the confusion, the way his heart was beating too fast—Phainon laughed. A soft sound, barely more than a breath, but genuine. “Thinking at you?”

“You do,” Mydei said with absolute certainty. “I can feel it. All those thoughts spinning around in your head, and half of them are about—” He stopped abruptly, as if realizing where that sentence was heading.

“About what?” Phainon pressed, because suddenly he needed to know what Mydei thought he was thinking about.

Silence. Then, so quietly Phainon almost missed it, Mydei muttered, “About me.”

The admission hung between them like a held breath. Phainon felt his pulse spike, heat flooding through him despite the cool air. Because Mydei was right—half his thoughts lately had been about him, and the other half had been about trying not to think about him, which was essentially the same thing.

“Yes,” Phainon said, because there didn’t seem to be any point in denying it. “They are.”

Another long pause, filled with the sound of rain and the weight of honesty neither of them had been prepared for.

“That’s what I thought,” Mydei said eventually.

“Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know.” Mydei shifted on his bedroll, and Phainon caught a glimpse of movement in the darkness. “Usually when people think about me, it’s because they want something. Protection, or justice, or…” He trailed off.

“Or?”

“Or they’re afraid of me.”

The quiet pain in those words did something to Phainon. He pushed himself up on his elbow, suddenly urgent with the need to correct this fundamental misunderstanding.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said firmly.

“No?” Mydei sounded genuinely curious, as if this was a novel concept worth exploring.

“No, not at all. You’re…” Phainon paused, trying to find words for something he’d never attempted to articulate before. “You’re careful. With your strength, with your words. Even when you’re angry, you’re controlled. That’s not frightening. It’s remarkable.”

“Careful,” Mydei repeated, like he was testing the word.

“And considerate. And unexpectedly gentle when you think no one is watching.” Phainon was gaining confidence now, words flowing easier as he let himself say things he’d been observing for days. “The way you tend injuries, the way you make sure everyone has water during breaks, the way you notice when someone is struggling and quietly adjust things to help them…”

“You’re imagining things.”

“Am I? Yesterday you moved that loose stone out of the practice area because you noticed one of the younger soldiers nearly tripping over it. You didn’t make a show of it, didn’t even mention it. You just fixed it.”

Mydei was quiet for a long moment. “You see things others miss,” he said finally.

“I see you,” Phainon replied, echoing his words from their earlier conversation. “And you’re not something to be afraid of. You’re something to be—” He caught himself before the word slipped out, but it was too late.

“To be what?”

Phainon closed his eyes, though it didn’t make any difference in the darkness. “Admired,” he said, which was true but not the whole truth.

“Phainon.” Mydei’s voice was carefully controlled, but Phainon caught the slight roughness underneath. “You’re making this complicated.”

“Everything worthwhile is complicated.”

“Is that what this is?” The question was asked so quietly Phainon almost missed it. “Worthwhile?”

The question deserved consideration, deserved honesty. Phainon thought about the last six days. The way Mydei made him laugh even when they were fighting each other, the careful gentleness of his hands when he’d tended Phainon’s injuries, the way he listened when Phainon talked, really listened, like his thoughts mattered.

“Yes,” he said with complete certainty. “I think it is.”

The silence that followed was different. Not awkward or heavy, but full of possibility. Phainon was acutely aware of every small sound: Mydei’s breathing, the rain against the canvas, the soft rustle of fabric as one of them shifted position.

“The bandage,” Mydei said suddenly. “Your hand. We should check it.”

It was a transparent excuse, and they both knew it. The bandage was fine, the cut was healing well, and there was no practical reason to examine it in the dark. But Phainon found himself saying, “If you think it’s necessary,” anyway.

Mydei sat up, reaching across the narrow space between their bedrolls. “Give me your hand.”

In the darkness, the simple act of extending his hand toward Mydei felt monumental. When Mydei’s fingers closed around his wrist, warm and sure despite the dim conditions, Phainon stopped breathing entirely.

“I can’t see anything,” Mydei admitted, but his thumb was tracing gentle circles over Phainon’s pulse point, and his grip was careful but secure.

“It feels fine,” Phainon managed, though ‘fine’ was probably not the word for the way his entire nervous system lit up at the contact.

“Good.” But Mydei didn‘t let go. Instead, he shifted closer, close enough that Phainon was able to make out the shape of his face in the darkness. “Phainon.”

“Yes?”

“I need you to understand something.”

Phainon’s heart started hammering against his ribs. “What?”

“This is not something I’m used to.”

“What do you mean?”

Mydei was quiet for so long that Phainon started to think he wouldn’t answer. When Mydei finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“I don’t let people close. It’s not safe. For them or for me.”

“Mydei—”

“But you’re already close.” Mydei’s grip on his wrist tightened slightly, as if he was anchoring himself. “And I don’t know what to do about that.”

The admission was devastating in its honesty, and Phainon felt something crack open in his chest. He shifted closer, until their knees were almost touching, until he was able to see the shape of Mydei’s mouth in the dim light filtering through the canvas.

“You don’t have to do anything about it,” he said quietly. “Just don’t pull away.”

For a moment, they stayed like that. Mydei’s hand around his wrist, their faces close enough that Phainon was able to feel the warmth of his breath, the air between them charged with possibility.

“You‘re freezing. I can hear your teeth chattering again,” Mydei remarked, his voice carrying the same taunting edge he used in battle.

“You must be talking about yourself.”

“We should probably share body heat, or we’ll be useless tomorrow.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Phainon needed a moment to process the words.

“You? Me? What?”

“Just come here already.”

Before he could react, Mydei hooked a hand behind his shoulder and hauled him close. The strength was familiar, but the hold was not—it was steady, encompassing, almost protective. Heat radiated off Mydei’s bare skin, sinking into him until it felt lodged in his very core, a fierce counterpoint to the biting cold.

Phainon shifted instinctively, fitting his legs between Mydei’s. The move earned a low grunt, more startled than displeased.

“What are you doing, Deliverer?”

“Warming myself up, obviously. I thought that was the point of this predicament.”

“Only you would call cuddling a predicament.”

“Cuddling? Is that what we’re doing?”

“I thought that was fairly obvious.”

Phainon huffed, half-laugh, half-breathless. “Mydei, you keep surprising me.”

“Likewise.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it pulsed. Mydei’s breath was hot against the side of his throat, uneven enough to raise goosebumps. One rough fingertip began to draw idle circles on Phainon’s arm, deliberate but strangely gentle. Every touch sent a faint tremor along his nerves.

Phainon’s chest tightened. He wanted to pull away, to reclaim distance, yet the thought of losing this impossible warmth was unbearable. His fingers lingered on Mydei’s back, anchoring himself.

“I like this,” Phainon admitted, quieter than he intended. His words trembled, his breath trembling with them.

“Sparring with you is a welcome change,” Mydei muttered, his gravelly voice vibrating against his skin.

“I wasn’t talking about the fight this time,” Phainon said, and the truth of it made his pulse race.

There was a hum in response, low and resonant. Mydei’s breath ghosted over his neck, tickling, burning. For a fleeting second, the world narrowed to nothing but warmth, pressure, and the steady thrum of another heartbeat pressed to his own.

When Mydei mumbled something about tangible light, Phainon’s grip only tightened, as though the weight of it all might undo him otherwise.

“Me neither.”

Then thunder crashed overhead, violent enough to shake the tent, and the moment scattered like leaves in the wind. Mydei released him and settled back onto his bedroll, leaving Phainon aching with the loss of contact.

“We should sleep,” Mydei said, his voice carefully neutral again.

“Yes,” Phainon agreed, though sleep had been the furthest thing from his mind.

But somehow, listening to the rain and Mydei’s steady breathing, he eventually drifted off. And if he’d dreamed about warm hands and gentle touches and conversations that ended differently, well, that was nobody’s business but his own.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Now

Day 7

The morning had come to quickly, and yet, they fell back into their rhythm quickly. Blades singing and sweat in sunlight and the increasingly obvious fact that neither of them wanted this to end.

“You’re holding back,” Phainon accused, because Mydei was and it was starting to annoy him.

“So are you.”

Fair point. Phainon had had at least three openings that he could have exploited, and instead he’d found himself admiring the way Mydei’s hair caught the light or the precise economy of his movements.

“What exactly are we doing here, Mydei?”

Mydei disengaged, stepping back just far enough that Phainon could see his face clearly. There had been dark circles under his eyes, evidence that he’d slept as poorly as Phainon had, and something almost vulnerable in his expression.

“What do you think we’re doing?”

It wasn’t really a question. It was a test, maybe, or an invitation to honesty Phainon wasn’t sure he was ready for.

Before he could answer, Mydei’s attack came fast and brutal, all the restraint they’d been practicing suddenly abandoned. Phainon barely got his guard up in time, stumbled backward, felt his heel catch on uneven ground.

They went down together, a tangle of limbs and steel that resolved with Phainon flat on his back and Mydei braced above him, close enough that Phainon could count his eyelashes. Close enough that when Mydei breathed, Phainon felt it against his lips.

“This,” Mydei said quietly, “is what we’re doing.”

Time stretched like honey. Mydei’s weight settled more fully against him, solid and warm and absolutely perfect. Phainon could feel Mydei’s heart beating against his chest, could see the exact moment his gaze dropped to Phainon’s mouth.

“Mydei—”

“Place your bets here! Crown Prince’s got him pinned!”

The voice cut through the moment like a blade, and suddenly they were back in the world where other people existed and had opinions about their business. Mydei rolled off him with a grace that should be illegal, and Phainon was left staring at the sky while his entire body thrummed with want and frustration.

“That didn’t count,” Phainon said to the clouds.

“Didn’t it?”

Phainon turned his head to find Mydei watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read—heat and confusion and something that might have been regret.

“We were interrupted.”

“We were.” Mydei stood, offered him a hand up. “Shall we continue?”

The question felt loaded with about seventeen different meanings, none of which Phainon was prepared to examine too closely.

“Always,” he said, and took Mydei’s hand.

When they settled for the night, neither of them mentioned how they found the other’s gaze immediately. Instead of turning away like they had in the beginning, they huddled closer. This time, Phainon made the first move, brushing a strand of Mydei’s hair aside. Mydei gave him that look again—challenging, probing, heated. Here, in the intimacy of the tent, it felt different.

Phainon cleared his throat, awkward now that the memory of yesterday replayed in his mind. Had they really spent the entire day in this space? Somehow, it felt like another lifetime. He still remembered Mydei’s touch vividly, yearned for it in ways that terrified him. Nobody had ever held him like that before, and he wasn’t ready to let it go.

“Mydei,” Phainon muttered, biting his lip.

“Hmm?” Mydei’s usual nonchalant sound fluttered with something else now.

“May I?” The question came quiet, nervous—not a feeling Phainon allowed himself often.

“I thought my open arms were telling enough. We clearly need to work on our conversation. People already comment on our bickering, you know.”

Phainon settled against Mydei’s chest like the day before, but Mydei made a low sound in the back of his throat and shifted them, drawing Phainon against him from behind instead. The new position was almost worse. Warmer, closer, leaving Phainon with no way to hide how much he wanted this.

“I like our banter. It feels refreshing to talk the way I think,” Phainon said absently, his cheek brushing Mydei’s collarbone.

“What an honor,” Mydei mocked, though the dryness in his voice was softened by the way his hand wandered across Phainon’s stomach and chest, unthinking and natural.

“Natural order,” Phainon whispered, leaning back into the embrace. His fingertips traced the markings along Mydei’s body, finally doing what he had wanted since the moment he first saw the Crown Prince outside Okhema’s gates. Mydei made a sound—not his usual grunt, but something softer. A laugh, short and unexpected.

Phainon’s breath caught.

“You’re the first one who ever did that,” Mydei said, voice rough with exhaustion and something more.

For a moment, Phainon could only stare, stunned by the admission. Then he whispered against Mydei’s skin, “Good. I was the first to stand my ground against the mighty Crown Prince. It’s only natural this applies everywhere else.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Mydei muttered, but his arms tightened around him. Neither of them would mention the night come morning, but Phainon preferred it that way. Some things belonged only to the dark, not to the spectacle of daylight.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Days 8 and 9

Something fundamental shifted after the almost-kiss and their intimate cuddling. They were still fighting, still dancing around each other with steel and strategy, but the conversations in their tent changed. Deeper. More honest. As if their moment of near-contact had burned away some layer of pretense that had been keeping them at arm’s length.

“Why do you do it?” Phainon asked on the eighth night, when they were both too tired to maintain their usual careful distance and had ended up sitting closer together than strictly necessary. “Carry so much weight for people who only know your name and skills?”

Mydei was quiet for so long that Phainon thought he wouldn’t answer. He’d been cleaning his blade with those precise, economical movements that Phainon had grown to find oddly soothing, but now his hands had stilled.

“Because I can bear it,” he said finally. “Because the alternative is watching others try and fail.”

“That’s not an answer. That’s a role description. A duty.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?”

“No.” Phainon shifted, turning to face him more fully in the lamp-lit tent. “Your role is to be strong. Your choice is to be kind. There’s a difference.”

Mydei looked at him then, really looked, as if he was seeing something unexpected. “You think I’m kind?”

“I think you’re the kindest person I’ve ever met,” Phainon said without hesitation. “You just hide it behind necessity and pragmatism.”

“That’s…” Mydei paused, seeming to struggle with the concept. “I don’t think of myself that way.”

“How do you think of yourself?”

Another long silence. Mydei set aside his blade, giving Phainon his full attention. “As someone who does what needs to be done. Nothing more.”

“And what about what you want to do?”

“Want doesn’t enter into it.”

“Doesn’t it?” Phainon leaned forward slightly, drawn by the rare vulnerability in Mydei’s expression. “Not ever?”

“I…” Mydei’s gaze flicked to Phainon’s mouth, then away. “Recently, yes. There are things I want that have nothing to do with duty or necessity.”

“Such as?”

The question hung between them, dangerous and electric. Phainon could see the exact moment Mydei decided not to answer directly, could watch him retreat behind careful control.

“You see things others miss,” Mydei said instead, deflecting with characteristic precision.

“I see you,” Phainon replied, letting him have the deflection for now but filing away the admission for later consideration.

“Deliverer.” Mydei’s voice was careful, controlled. “You make things complicated again.”

“Everything worthwhile is complicated. You told me that once.”

“I did not. You—”

“Not in words, maybe. But in the way you fight, the way you think, the way you care about things so deeply you have to transform the pain into something useful rather than let it destroy you.” Phainon paused, studying Mydei’s face in the lamplight. “Nothing simple could be worth all this effort.”

“Is that what you think this is? Effort?”

“Isn’t it?” Phainon smiled, soft and honest. “The best kind. The kind that matters.”

Mydei was looking at him with an expression that was equal parts wonder and terror, as if Phainon had just said something that reordered his understanding of the world.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I think it is.”

On the ninth day, Mydei returned the favor with an observation that cut straight to the heart of things Phainon thought he’d kept carefully hidden.

“You diminish yourself,” he said after Phainon had made some self-deprecating joke about his combat form, his voice carrying the same matter-of-fact certainty he used for obvious truths. “You make yourself smaller so others feel safer approaching you.”

The accusation—because that’s what it was, really—hurt more than a knive‘s cut, accurate and devastating in its simplicity.

“That’s not—”

“I see what you’re hiding.” Mydei’s voice was soft but implacable. “The sharp edges you file down, the cleverness you wrap in charm so it doesn’t cut. You think if you’re too much yourself, people will stop loving you. Or rather, that they will not love you at all. The real you.”

Phainon felt something cold settle in his stomach. “And what if that's exactly what happens?”

“Then they were never worthy of what you offered.” Mydei shifted closer, close enough that Phainon could see fire in his eyes. “But some of us prefer the sharp edges. Some of us want to see what you look like when you stop performing.”

“Mydei—”

“You don’t have to be less with me,” Mydei said quietly. “You never did. Never will.”

It was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to him, delivered with such quiet conviction that Phainon felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He’d spent so long making himself palatable, digestible, safe for public consumption, that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be seen completely and accepted anyway.

“I don’t know how to be anything else,” he admitted.

“Then learn,” Mydei said simply. And Phainon could have sworn he had heard With me in those two words. 

Phainon spent the rest of the day trying not to think about what it meant that Mydei saw him so clearly and chose to stay anyway. Trying not to think about the possibility that maybe, for the first time in his life, he didn’t have to choose between being loved and being himself.

In their tent, they moved deliberately. Mydei watched him in a way that wasn’t just battle-sharp. It was heated, yes, but raw too. He nodded once, then beckoned him closer. When Phainon made a show of it, Mydei rolled his eyes—but the look in them was impossibly soft.

Afterwards, Phainon couldn’t recall who had made the first move. It didn’t matter. They ended up hugging, really hugging, breathing each other in, hands fumbling at layers of clothing. Even here, pressed close, they still fought for dominance in every shift of weight, every stubborn refusal to yield.

When they finally stilled on the ground, Phainon tugged Mydei’s head to rest on his chest. It felt strange, almost dangerous, having the invincible warrior under his mercy. Mydei didn’t comment—he simply caught Phainon’s arm and laid it over himself, deliberate, claiming.

“You tired me out, Deliverer. My people will think they’ve been left with a weak leader.”

“Aren’t you immortal?” Phainon asked, still trying to grasp the whispers he’d heard.

“What has that to do with our fight?” Mydei countered, sounding genuinely curious. Then, softer, he said, “Nobody’s ever fought me like this.” The admission landed heavy. One Mydei wouldn’t have made under any other circumstance.

“Nothing,” Phainon said lightly, though the truth curled deeper. “I was just wondering how it feels.”

“Like a curse.” Mydei’s voice roughened. “One I have to turn into something meaningful every day.”

“Hmm.”

“What? Not philosophical enough for the golden hero?”

“Don’t call me that,” Phainon said, surprised to hear himself set the boundary so plainly.

“Alright, then.” Mydei shifted, and suddenly his mouth brushed against Phainon’s bare skin. “Still sparkling, though.”

“What did you just say?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Why not?” Phainon teased. “I like listening to your voice.”

“You read too much poetry,” Mydei muttered, his mouth wandering further—more breath than kiss, more feather than touch, and yet Phainon burned.

“Recently, I only wish to write poetry,” Phainon confessed, tugging Mydei’s head up to face him. “What does that say about me?”

“That you’ve gained a new perception of your surroundings,” Mydei said. A pause followed, then, he mumbled, “And excellent taste.”

Phainon smirked faintly. “I also have a skilled tongue and practiced hands.”

“Should serve you well.” Mydei settled back against his chest, holding him closer this time. They didn’t go further. Not yet. Neither of them ready to break the fragile balance. But in the dark, they talked, voices low, and Phainon thought he could live in this tent forever.

☀︎☀︎☀︎

Day 10

Dawn broke gray and soft, painting everything in shades of silver and possibility. They faced each other across the familiar distance, weapons ready, and Phainon realized he didn’t want this to end.

Not the fighting, necessarily, though that had been more engaging than anything he’d done in years. But this—whatever had been building between them over ten impossible days—felt too precious to lose to the demands of schedules and duty.

“Same rules?” Phainon asked, though they both knew the rules had changed so fundamentally that the question was almost meaningless.

“Same rules,” Mydei confirmed, but there was something different in his voice, softer and more certain than it had been since this all started.

They fought differently that morning. Not with less intensity, but with a new quality that was hard to define. Like a conversation they were finally ready to have, or a dance they’d been learning the steps to without realizing it.

When their blades locked, Phainon leaned into the pressure and whispered, “What happens when this is over?”

“We find out,” Mydei said, and disengaged so smoothly that Phainon nearly overbalanced.

The fight stretched on, beautiful and brutal and entirely pointless. They weren’t trying to win anymore. They were trying to say something they didn’t have words for. Every strike, every parry, every moment when they circled each other was charged with the knowledge that this was ending, that whatever came next would be different.

Finally, as the sun climbed higher and the heat became unbearable, they stepped back in perfect unison.

“Draw?” Phainon suggested.

“Draw,” Mydei agreed.

They lowered their weapons, and suddenly they were just two men standing in the dirt, breathing hard and looking at each other like they were seeing something new. The watching crowd began to disperse, disappointed by the anticlimactic ending but satisfied that they’d witnessed something legendary, even if they couldn’t quite define what.

“Same time tomorrow?” Phainon asked, because he couldn’t help himself.

“We leave at first light.”

“It will be unusual to fall asleep without you,” Phainon said without thinking.

Mydei raised an eyebrow. “Miss me already?” 

“Oh, I should be delighted to finally sleep in peace again,“ Phainon said lightheartedly, but his heart ached at the thought of sleeping alone now that he had gotten used to sleeping soundly. “You snore like a dying beast.” 

“At least I sleep, unlike you, counting the cracks in the canvas. And throwing your thoughts at me.“

“I thought you liked my thoughts,“ Phainon said. “You will probably start searching for that thrill the whole night once I’m gone.“ He was clearly crossing a line here, but he couldn‘t stop himself.

“Who knows,“ Mydei said. And then he smirked. 

“Then tonight.“ The words slipped out before Phainon could stop them, bold and honest and absolutely terrifying. Mydei studied his face, looking for something Phainon hoped he found.

“Tonight,” Mydei agreed, and Phainon’s heart did something complicated in his chest.

He pulled the small cloth bag from his belt—the one he’d been saving for a special occasion that he’d finally decided had arrived. The pomegranate seeds were perfect, ruby-red and gleaming with juice that stained his fingertips when he poured them into his palm.

“For the winner,” he said, offering them to Mydei.

“I thought it was a draw.”

“It was.” Phainon selected one perfect seed, placed it on his tongue. The taste exploded across his senses—sweet and sharp and complex, like everything he’d discovered about Mydei over these ten impossible days. “But I’m feeling generous.”

Mydei took the bag, but instead of eating immediately, he watched Phainon with that intense focus he’d grown to crave. “Deliverer.”

“Mydei.”

“This was never about winning.”

“No,” Phainon agreed, and didn’t bother to hide his smile. “It wasn’t.”

When Mydei finally took a seed for himself, Phainon didn’t look away. He wanted to memorize this—the way Mydei’s lips curved around the fruit, the way the juice stained them dark, the way his eyes never left Phainon’s.

“What was it about?” Mydei asked quietly.

Phainon considered the question, thought about everything that had passed between them—the growing tension, the careful conversations, the moments when they’d been close enough to count each other’s heartbeats.

“Finding someone who could keep up,” he said finally.

“And did you?”

Phainon smiled, sweet pomegranate juice on his lips and ten days of possibility stretched out behind them like a map of unexplored territory.

“Ask me tonight,” Phainon said.

The pomegranate juice on his thumb was sticky and sweet. He didn’t lick it off. Not yet.

Some things were worth savoring.

Some things made life worthwhile.