Archive of Our Own

“No holds barred?”

Khaslana watches the way Mydei eyes him warily from across the unnaturally empty sparring ground, gauntleted hand flexing around his practice spear. His golden eyes narrow as he takes in the relaxed way Khaslana stands opposite him, blue and white coat pristine and Dawnmaker resting loosely in his grasp - but Mydei doesn’t object right away. Khaslana just smiles at him, knowing that he can sense the difference in strength between who he is now and the “Deliverer” that Mydei is used to.

“That’s right,” Khaslana says, and he knows there is an exhausted rasp to his voice that Phainon does not have. He knows his tone is weighed down by the burden of millions of cycles and the futility of a fractured future. “Fight me with anything - everything - you have.”

“Fine,” Mydei says, and the fact that he still does not object - that he agrees - makes irrational hurt lance through Khaslana’s burning chest. Would Mydei ever agree if Phainon asked? Would he loose the full force of Strife upon Amphoreus’s boy hero?

Then Khaslana raises Dawnmaker, pointing the tip at Mydei as he has so, so many times before. His scent is tightly controlled, and only the faintest smell of burning wheat wafts across the sparring ground. A failed harvest, the promise of a starving, empty winter.

“When you’re ready,” he says. If his voice is soft, Mydei does not comment.

Mydei makes a little noise of acknowledgement. There is very little time between his scent flaring - the sharp smell of rust and heat, like the burn of a blade left out in the sun - and the thunderous crack of power as he throws the spear at Khaslana, coating it in red crystal spikes.

When Khaslana parries the spear with Dawnmaker, the red crystal keeps the momentum pressing down on him, flaring out and blocking his view of Mydei, crystalline cracking sounds echoing through the sparring grounds as he forces the attack back. As soon as he finds the right angle, Khaslana shifts to the side, swings Dawnmaker wide, and pushes the bolstered spear away as he blocks a strike from Mydei’s gauntlets.

Mydei has not turned himself into the Lance of Fury - not this time - but he still strikes with an intensity reserved for enemies.

Khaslana smiles. This is what he asked for, after all.

The eternal light of Okhema dims only slightly as the hours pass, and brightens just as subtly again.

The empty sparring ground is all but destroyed, not that there is anyone left to care. Mydei’s red crystal grows in spiked clusters, blooming like sharp flowers from where he tried to catch Khaslana in them. The ground is dusted red from all the shards Khaslana has broken, and long gouges in the ground are remnants from Khaslana’s return strikes.

But still, Khaslana stands before Mydei in the Deliverer’s garb, untransformed, unwilling to let the dance end. Mydei has not - and will not - comment on it. Khaslana knows this, just like how Mydei knows that Khaslana both is and isn’t his Phainon, like how he knows that Khaslana is silently begging him for more - more attention, more time, more of him.

Mydei lunges again, gauntlets outstretched and flickering with Strife’s power, and Khaslana blocks with the flat side of Dawnmaker. The shrill sound of metal against metal rings out as they collide, and Khaslana is suddenly struck with the thought that if he allowed it, they would push against each other like this forever. Forever, until he was forced to restart the cycle again, drive his sword through Mydei’s back, watch Mydei’s golden blood anoint Dawnmaker for the however-millionth time.

It’s futile.

Khaslana growls, then, desperate for Mydei to give him more. Not just the controlled combat that Mydei shows him like this, still collected and calculating underneath his shouts of exertion and wildly blooming red crystal - Khaslana wants something real. Raw. Desperate.

He is greedy, and lets his scent burst from him. The Phainon that Mydei knows is an alpha, too, and their scents are made from the same mold - but Khaslana’s is like a solar flare. Bright, blinding, blazing - too much, so heavy that it bears down on the sparring ground almost like it’s a physical weight falling from the sky.

Phainon’s scent is strong, but kept under wraps. Endless, burning dawn at the edge of the sky swaddled in soothing smells of gentle herbs and grasses, the light smell of the first snow, its strength kept as quiet as the rustle of a field mouse.

Khaslana’s is stronger. When he lets it burst out, he sees Mydei’s stance falter. Mydei has to respond in kind, or risk being overpowered, swept away by the tide.

When he does, Khaslana laughs, satisfied. The scent of another alpha posturing so strongly sends an instinctive prickle of discomfort through him, but his heart relishes in it. Did Mydei show this much of himself to the Phainon he knows? Was this Phainon ever privy to the flood of rising rust-scent, the heady smell of succulent fruits ripened in the sun, the sharp scent of salt and metal, the burn of embers left in a hearth?

The more Khaslana pushes Mydei, the more Mydei responds in kind. The soon-frantic strikes against each other are punctuated by flares of scents and instinctive growls and snarls, and it doesn’t take long at all for the sparring ground to turn into a roiling riptide of alpha posturing. They are alone, but if anyone else had been there, it would have been enough to make them sick.

The air is heavy and charged with pheromones, and Khaslana can’t help but feel his heart quicken and a flush of excitement flood his body.

It is when Mydei pushes forward, gauntlets locked against Dawnmaker, snarl so close to Khaslana’s face that he can feel their warm, heavy breaths mingle, that Khaslana suddenly craves something new. Something that is surely a bad idea - something that will only cause him pain in its wake, something that cannot soothe the hurts or fill in his missing pieces - but he lets his stance slacken.

Mydei - this Mydei, who does not see Khaslana as his precious Deliverer - takes the opportunity and surges forward to knock Khaslana to the ground. The world tilts and spins, and the dull pain of his fall reverberates through his body as Mydei knocks Dawnmaker away with a clang.

For a long moment, neither of them move. Mydei’s chest heaves with labored breaths in that tantalizing way of his, and his gaze is bright and sharp as he looks down at Khaslana. His weight is hot and heavy, and Khaslana can feel his erection brushing against his abdomen. Khaslana, too, can feel himself hard in his pants. After all that posturing, all of the adrenaline and exertion, it’s impossible to not be physically affected.

It’s impossible for Khaslana to not keep pushing Mydei for more. He bucks up in an attempt to get out from under Mydei, one hand clawing at the dirt below him for leverage and the other reaching up to fist Mydei’s chiton and try to throw him off.

Mydei hisses briefly from the stimulation to his cock, and then growls again, yanking Khaslana’s hand from his clothes and pinning it to the ground. When he speaks, his voice is rough with exertion and instinctive arousal from the fight and posturing. “Do you surrender?”

Khaslana laughs again. If only he could. “No,” he says, “you’ll have to try a little harder.”

Mydei stares at him for a long moment, the thoughtful expression on his face telling Khaslana that he knows exactly what Khaslana is actually asking. Make me submit.

“Show me what you’re hiding,” Mydei says, in response. When Khaslana doesn’t reply, his eyes narrow and he reaches down with his free hand to palm Khaslana through his clothes. The sudden touch sends a full-body shiver through him, pleasure racing up his spine as his hips cant upwards instinctively. At the exact same time, Mydei leans down and bites around Khaslana’s collar, teeth sinking into his sensitive skin just beside his scent gland, sparks of pain-pleasure sensation bursting from the bite.

“Show me,” Mydei growls again, closer to Khaslana’s ear. His scent bursts out again, and this time it is so close to Khaslana that his head is stuffed full of it, so much so that his vision blurs. Sunlight glinting off burnished gold, sweltering steam, the tang of sweet-sour fruits.

He remembers this scent. Khaslana remembers being bathed in it in some cycles - when he’s lucky. When Phainon is lucky. It smells like a respite, like all the times he’s had a home to return to in Mydei’s arms. Returning to their house in the everlasting light of Okhema, sharing pastries fresh from the oven, drawing the curtains closed and letting their blankets shelter them from the impending apocalypse every not-night. Instinctively, he wants to melt into those memories, into Mydei’s presence.

“So that’s it.”

When Khaslana blinks, dragging himself back to the present, he sees Mydei’s eyes roving over him slowly, curious and appreciative. It isn’t until Mydei lets go of his hand and moves to the side that he realizes - oh -

“Ah - !”

Gauntleted fingers gently skim Khaslana’s newly exposed wing, and even just the light touch sends bolts of sensation through him. The wing is so sensitive - and has it ever been touched? He can’t remember. Has Khaslana ever -

Instinctively, Khaslana’s wing twitches and jerks under Mydei’s touches and Mydei, without thinking, presses the wing down to stop it from hitting him in the face -

Pleasure bursts from the motion, heat coiling tightly in Khaslana’s core, his entire body jolting from it and a breathless moan ripping itself from his throat. Static takes over his vision for a long moment before he comes back to himself, panting and head spinning in aftershocks of pleasure. When he does, Mydei laughs quietly - not meanly, not really, but almost fond. Almost.

When Mydei moves his hand over Khaslana’s clothed cock again, he feels a distinct wetness. He came in his pants.

“Some things never change,” Mydei says, so quietly that Khaslana knows it wasn’t meant for him. His chest aches at the thought, but all he manages is a whimper.

As if remembering Khaslana's presence, Mydei shifts back and nudges Khaslana’s thighs apart until he can settle between them, casually tearing through Khaslana’s soiled pants and undergarments at the same time. In the haze of his orgasm, Khaslana feels limp; even though his alpha instincts scream at him when Mydei’s broad hands move to the underside of his thighs to spread his legs further, putting his cock and hole on full display. Khaslana shudders as Mydei pulls off a gauntlet, letting it drop to the floor with a clunk, and touches him with his bare hand.

Mydei’s hand skims Khaslana’s thigh briefly, and then lifts back up to his mouth. It is embarrassingly easy for him to dip his fingers into the warmth between Khaslana’s lips, slowly shoving in until Khaslana is drooling around them, unable to keep his saliva in, Mydei’s fingers exploring the velvet inside of his cheeks and playing with his tongue.

When he withdraws his hand, shining with spit and leaving Khaslana breathless and vision hazy from lack of air, his next touch lands back on his inner thigh.

Don’t let him, Khaslana’s instincts say, and he shudders a second time to prevent himself from moving. He is used to being in control - knowing how the cycles go, how the cycles will end, how to wield the millions of Coreflames that burn in his chest, being an alpha with no equal, now, not with all the power at his disposal - but he doesn’t want to.

He wants Mydei. He wants and wants and wants, and it’s a bad idea. It’s such a bad idea, because he knows that once he gets a taste of what he wants, the absence of it will hurt all the more, but he wants.

Mydei’s hand is wide and warm, his skin smooth and unblemished from his immortality that heals him back to pristine condition with every death. He slides his hand up Khaslana’s thigh, unhurried, and the closer it gets to his hole, the more Khaslana trembles with the effort of remaining still.

Unbidden, his scent snaps and roils, bitter burning bulrush, sour swaths of sun-doused wheat choking out the dawn at the edge of the world, prickly posturing and a wary warning. A low growl begins to rumble from somewhere deep in his chest, even as Khaslana chokes on a whine when Mydei’s thumb presses into the edge of his hole, slowly spreading his ass with his hand to see the way it clenches around nothing.

As soon as Mydei’s finger sinks in, the growl growing in Khaslana’s chest pitches up instinctively.

Mydei only glances up at him, growling in return, demanding submission, and when he doesn’t get it, his other hand reaches up and returns to Khaslana’s wing - hand closing around the sharp-edged feathers and immediately, Khaslana’s thoughts stutter to a stop and a fog of pure pleasure falls over him. He barely knows anything beyond Mydei; his hand groping his wing, every touch sending bolts of electric sensation through the sensitive appendage, shooting through every nerve down to the base and then zipping along his spine until it coils heat and arousal in his belly and his cock aches again. Mydei’s hand at his hole, inserting one finger and then another, spreading him open.

It is only when something hot and blunt nudges at his hole that Khaslana realizes that it’s Mydei’s cock. He blinks away the haze, trying to reorient himself around the incessant waves of pleasure every time Mydei runs his fingers along his wing, alternating pressure at random, making it impossible to know when Khaslana will be hit by sensation so strong he can’t help but jolt.

Mydei presses against him, cock nudging at his hole, hot and heavy, and that growl starts up again in Khaslana’s chest, even if he forces his legs to fall open. Instinctive apprehension twists in his chest, but he wants.

And when Mydei looks at him - Khaslana, with his tears clinging to his pale eyelashes, eyes unfocused through the haze of pleasure - he knows.

He knows, so he pushes in anyway.

Khaslana’s growl chokes off to a gasp as Mydei bottoms out, pushing all the way in steadily, not giving him time to adjust or think about it. Suddenly, he is so full - heat blooms in him, Mydei’s cock brushing against his prostate and making his vision white out from the sudden sensation. Khaslana’s leg kicks out automatically and he is so overwhelmed, and then his body finally relaxes, opening up to the alpha fucking into him -

“Mngh - ah - wait -”

And then a sense of urgency shoots through him. Khaslana tilts his hips up, tensing, and he whimpers - but he can’t stop it. It’s instinctive, every time Mydei thrusts into him, he feels his body open up to him a little more, relaxing further, his instincts submitting.

Wet warmth spreads out from his cock, onto his abdomen, and Khaslana sobs with relief as he loses control of his body, pissing in an instinctive gesture of total submission to Mydei.

The stream is caught between Khaslana and Mydei, hitting both of their torsos and dripping down Khaslana’s body. His scent is tinted with humiliation as he whimpers pitifully, shifting and beginning to struggle, wanting to reach down and cover himself, but Mydei huffs out a little laugh again and leans down, over Khaslana, blocking his movement.

Like this, Mydei has trapped Khaslana’s useless alpha cock between them, letting his body continue to submit and cover them both in warm piss. He leans in and laves his tongue over the bite mark he made around Khaslana’s collar, this time nudging the new, golden one of his other form out of the way. Khaslana shivers as Mydei’s tongue and teeth press against his scent gland, threatening to bite, but not giving him the satisfaction of a real mating bond. A feeling of loss rips through the haze of arousal.

“Mydei …” Khaslana whimpers, raising his hips in time with Mydei’s thrusts, chasing the heat and pleasure from Mydei’s cock. His thoughts of bad ideas and responsibility and consequences have been thoroughly fucked out of him, leaving only the buzz of consuming pleasure behind. “Please … Hah - I - ngh!”

Mydei shushes Khaslana with a biting kiss, tugging at his bottom lip before sealing their mouths together and pushing his tongue into Khaslana’s mouth. He kisses as if to devour, not to savor - hungry to swallow the words without wanting to know what they taste like.

Khaslana can do little more than whine open mouthed, trying to keep up with Mydei’s movements. His scent has flagged to just wisps of burning wheat smoke, drowned out by sweet and sour fruit, rust heavy on the wind, the sense of oppression and possession.

When Mydei’s thrusts begin to lose rhythm, anticipation coils in Khaslana’s core. Mydei’s breath comes fast and labored against Khaslana’s lips, and Kahslana can barely catch his breath. He is becoming light headed from lack of air and arousal both, feeling like nothing more than a flaming conduit for pleasure.

Mydei thrusts in deeply once more, groaning against Khaslana, chest pressed to his and reverberating with the sound, and suddenly Khaslana is filled with warmth as Mydei comes inside him.

Khaslana whimpers, a high, whiny sound as he feels full - more full than he did before - full of hot come and Mydei’s swelling knot and the scent of sun-soaked triumph, a battle won, a prize claimed, the final sheathing of a sword at war’s end. He is dizzy with pleasure, and Mydei thrusts in again, shallowly, as if dragging out his orgasm, and the press to Khaslana’s prostate is enough to tip him over the precipice.

His own orgasm crashes over him like a burning wave, so intense that the world spins around him, and Khaslana’s moan of Mydei’s name is swallowed by another biting kiss. He tries to open his eyes as his orgasm floods his body, but his vision is blurry with tears and all he sees is a smudge of warm reds and golds. Faintly, he feels warmth splatter against his stomach again as his cock adds his come to the wet mess he’s already made.

As the intense burst of pleasure fades to near-oversensitivity every time Mydei shifts, drawing out his aftershocks, Khaslana can’t help but whine one last time. His instincts no longer feel like they’re clawing their way out of his throat in a growl - instead, they are blessedly silent. He is free to simply lie there, boneless, as Mydei exhales heavily and leans back.

Mydei remains hovering over Khaslana, their noses just shy of brushing, and stares down at him. Like this, in the little space carved out between them, as their orgasms still hang heavy and warm between them, Mydei looks at Khaslana the way he used to. The way he did sometimes. The way Khaslana always hoped he would. Soft, gentle, affectionate. Trusting, open, and so, so confident that being by Khaslana’s side - being by Phainon’s side - is nothing less than a matter of course.

“Eternal victory,” Mydei whispers, suddenly. He closes his eyes and leans forward, pressing his forehead to Khaslana’s. Their noses do brush, then, and his breath ghosts warm over Khaslana’s face. The gesture is achingly gentle.

“You will find the dawn, Deliverer,” Mydei says, so softly that his voice might be nothing more than the sigh of the wind. But it can’t be - he is still so warm and real against Khaslana. Inside him. “When that time comes, I hope that you can greet the sunrise, too.”

“Mydei …” Khaslana feels his eyes sting with tears and all he manages is a breathless whisper in return. “Without you, I -”

“Shh,” Mydei says, against Khaslana’s lips. The sound is spoken softly, slowly, so gently. This time, he doesn’t bite. His lips are warm and velvet and taste like home. “It will be alright.”

Distantly, Khaslana hears the surging waves of crackling static approaching them. The Black Tide comes.

Before he can speak again, or move, or think anything else, Mydei kisses him so sweetly. It’s his welcome home kiss after a mission that took Phainon outside of Okhema. It’s the goodnight kiss to his Deliverer when he rests in their shared bed and sheds his hero’s mask.

Dark red, fractal static crashes over them from the periphery of Khaslana’s vision.

It’s the goodbye kiss Mydei gives as one final present to Khaslana.