Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Anaxa… this is enough, right?”

Phainon’s uncertain question is met with a flat stare. The poker-faced scholar in question is holding up some kind of restraint fashioned from smooth metal and evidently high quality leather, and, not for the first time, Phainon has to reconsider just how far he’s willing to go to indulge his friend’s (decidedly) scientific endeavours.

“No,” Anaxa deadpans, loosening the buckle on the… Phainon can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be. A gag? “This is the most crucial part, trust me. Open up.”

“You said the same thing about the ropes,” he whines, shifting uncomfortably and feeling the silk ropes slide against the planes of his torso, down towards and around his thighs. He had almost gawked when Anaxa held up the neatly winded bundle of thin silk ropes to tie him with, understanding that silk, of all things, does not come cheap around this part of Amphoreus. It’d be better used in one of Aglaea’s stunning masterpiece gowns, rather than futilely restraining the savior hero of Amphoreus, whose sole objective right now is to not snap apart such valuable material with any sudden movements.

It’s much easier said than done. Phainon’s a man of large and sweeping motions, and no matter how elegantly he swings his greatsword in battle, it’s rare for him to need to be so aware of his minute actions for fear that one wrong snap of his wrist means a good chunk of Anaxa’s time, effort and funds is gone, just like that.

“They’re all crucial,” Anaxa sighs, “It’s the little details that are most important; they bring the results to fruition. Attention begets accuracy.”

Reluctantly, Phainon parts his mouth when Anaxa touches the cold metal of the ring gag against his bottom lip. It slots in and sits behind his teeth, and he would be lying if he says that it’s comfortable, because it’s not. The sides of the ring dig into the bone at either sides of his mouth, and Phainon can already tell he’s going to have a terribly sore jaw if he wears this thing for more than half an hour.

But at least for now, it’s tolerable. 

Phainon has tolerated a lot of things for Anaxa before; all sorts of training and experiments, under the justification of optimising Amphoreus’ divine vessel in their struggle against the black tide. Some of it, Phainon knows, is more to satisfy Anaxa’s personal curiosities than it is for the sake of any grander purpose. Despite what Mydei keeps trying to tell him, he finds that he never really minds—he trusts Anaxa to ultimately do what’s best for him, and for humanity as a whole.

“Comfortable?” Anaxa asks, one thin hand holding Phainon’s jaw, and Phainon nods, trying to crack a smile, but only managing to slightly squint his eyes instead. Anaxa nods in return. “Then, let’s proceed.”

With some coordination, Phainon is rolled onto his side, facing away from the other man. His eyes find the potted plant on the other side of the room, and it’s that which he focuses on as Anaxa pulls apart his muscled thighs, then the meat of his buttocks, and traces an oiled finger around the rim. and leaving the hairs on Phainon’s nape standing up from the sensation of it.

“I’m going to prepare you now,” Anaxa says. “Same rules as always. If it gets too much, break your bindings.”

I’ll try not to, Phainon replies in his mind, nodding his head against the linen sheets.

After a pause, Anaxa adds, as if reading his friend’s mind, “I won’t be mad.”

The finger breaches the rim with clinical accuracy, cold and slick, and Phainon can feel every knuckle as it digs in deeper, gently caressing his walls to coax a shallow moan out of him. Anaxa touches him like he knows Phainon’s body like the back of his hand. It wouldn’t even be surprising if he had all of Phainon’s weak points written down in an observation log somewhere, forever hidden away in the depths of his many drawers.

“Relax,” Anaxa murmurs. His other hand comes up to rub his hip in circular motions, as a second finger joins the first, easing past that trembling rim. 

“...Hff, uh,” Phainon strains against the sheets, resisting his reflexes to arch his back, but conscious about straining the ropes around his lower stomach and thighs. There’s already drool pooling in his mouth, even though he can angle his head with some effort to prevent it from leaking out, he wonders how long he’ll be able to keep it up.

The two fingers scissor him out, and something about the way he heaves and whimpers must sound pitiful enough that Anaxa leans over to press a kiss against his arm. It’s more of a mere press of lips against warming skin than anything overly affectionate, but for Phainon, it’s already more than enough to give him the courage he needs.

He closes his eyes, tries to even out his breaths, and relaxes enough to allow Anaxa to fit a third oiled finger in, stretching him open slowly and meticulously. And after Anaxa has deemed it enough, he withdraws without a single wasted movement, leaving Phainon feeling empty and strangely longing. 

“I’m putting it in now,” Anaxa tells him, and the hero swallows when he remembers, from an hour prior, Anaxa showing him exactly what ‘it’ was—a formidably long phallus fashioned from smoothened wood, adorned with detailed engravings, that slims down into a neck towards the base before flaring out again. It was gently curved upwards and thicker than his wrist, and sturdy enough that if Phainon ever tries, he could very well bludgeon a titan-kin to death with it. 

Not that he would, out of sheer principle alone.

Phainon’s breath hitches when the cold wood presses against his rim, before very slowly sinking in. The slide is strangely frictionless as it relentlessly spreads him apart with each inch he takes, wrenching feeble, breathless sounds out of him along the way.

Then, the head of the phallus scrapes against his prostate, and Phainon’s vision blanks out. 

“...?!”

He keens desperately, wide eyes still staring at that potted plant but no longer seeing it as white-hot pleasure shoots up his spine and directly into his brain. He wants to cry out, even considers snapping the rope—but then that sharp thrill recedes as quickly as it came. It settles into duller, constant waves of pleasure that wash over his disoriented mind as the remaining length of the toy is slowly fed into him, ruthlessly and mechanically stretching him open to his limits.

“That was a more extreme reaction that I expected,” Anaxa says from behind him. There’s an apologetic edge to his tone. “Sorry. Perhaps I should’ve prepared you more adequately.”

A hand comes up to lift Phainon’s pale, damp bangs out of his face, and Phainon relishes in that cool touch, his mind still reeling until the last of the phallus is slid into him, and his rim catches around the base to keep it inside—and then realisation hits him.

…Gods, he’s never taken anything this big before. 

Anaxa’s fingers card through his hair and begin to rub more circles onto his scalp. “Are you alright?”

It takes another few minutes before Phainon is confident enough to nod weakly. Then the hand leaves, and Phainon dares to twist his head into a more comfortable position, not moving too suddenly for the fear that it would amplify the feeling of the toy nestling between his organs.

“Then, I’ll be blindfolding you too.”

It’s all the warning he gets before a thick black cloth is placed over his eyes and tied behind his head, and without his sight, Phainon suddenly becomes acutely aware of every light touch, every ghosting breath that dances over his cold skin. Most of all, it gives so much more weight to the phallus inside him; a presence that he can’t escape from.

Anaxa is silent behind him except for the faint rustling of clothes. A finger touches against Phainon’s neck, sending a shiver down his spine as it traces the hill of the trapezius along the outline of the golden sun, over towards his back, dipping low and slow until it hits the base of his nape where that single finger becomes two, joined by a thumb that gently rubs over the bone at the base of the neck. 

One swipe. Two swipes. Three swipes. Like clockwork, his tense muscles unwind beneath that steady, rhythmic touch.

This, Phainon decides, feels much better than anything else Anaxa has done today. There is no practicality behind the action, only an unspoken reassurance that Phainon is doing well, just as he’s always done, and that Anaxa does all of this for Phainon’s sake. It’s almost reminiscent of their childhood days where they would sit together in silence, Anaxa’s book abandoned to the side as he holds Phainon’s hand in his own smaller, more delicate ones, tracing the palm lines and nascent calluses with such intrigue that Phainon had been surprised at the intensity in those usually blank eyes. 

“I almost forgot,” Anaxa pipes up again from behind him, and Phainon wants to snort in disbelief because Anaxa never forgets. The scholar doesn’t elaborate on whatever he’s referring to, but Phainon jerks when something wraps around his cock, constricting around it.

A cock ring. It serves as a reminder of Phainon having wholly ceded control over his own body as he lays helplessly, lightly trembling from the cool air against his bare skin.

It’s a thing of wonder—Phainon has cleaved his way through countless waves of tide-infected titan-kin, and slain divine forces by his very sword, yet the place that he finally loses his god-given might is right here, in the darkness of Anaxa’s bedroom, on Anaxa’s bed, where he becomes nothing but a rare, live specimen to be studied; to be kept and admired and loved, but only ever in secret.

But despite it all, he trusts Anaxa. That belief alone gives him all the strength he needs to endure the humiliation of lying prone and pliant like this. Especially when, in the eyes of the masses, he has always appeared to confidently hold his head high; triumphant and bathed in sunlight as he returns to bring news of victory from the frontlines.

Anaxa’s lithe hand brushes against his back one last time, and then it’s gone, and Phainon is left in the dark.

There’s a slight rustle, the sound of fabric brushing against each other, and a slide of papers. Phainon imagines Anaxa having picked up a book or report, seated behind his large oak desk, one hand propping his chin and the other holding his reading material, eyes lingering appraisingly over the hero’s bound body and the curve of his stuffed ass, before going back to his reading as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Then, silence.

They remain like this for some time. 

Ten minutes pass… or has it been twenty? Phainon can no longer keep track. His hole clenches and unclenches around the dildo, and there’s a low heat in the pit of his stomach akin to a simmering pot, slowly rising towards the boiling point. 

Faint footsteps echo outside from the hallway. They grow louder as they approach Anaxa’s door, and Phainon’s leg twitches. The likelihood is low, but if someone were to come in and see him now… 

The stray thought has him shivering slightly, and he releases a breath he didn’t even know he was holding when the steps pass right by the door and then recede faintly into the corridors. 

Another stretch of time passes. 

Anaxa turns a page. 

He’s reading much slower than he normally does, Phainon’s dulled mind realises belatedly. Maybe the material he’s studying is more complex than usual…? 

He replays the sound of crinkling paper in his mind over and over again, desperate to anchor his mind to something other than the toy in his ass and the ring around his member, which is slowly becoming torturously tight. The prolonged lack of vision and freedom of movement triggers something visceral inside him—like he’s a child all over again with rope bound around his wrists as he’s brought up to the edge of the divine pool filled with Kephales’ gleaming, golden blood, and the chief priest coldly stares down at him before grabbing his chin and pouring that blood from a chalice down his throat, the taste of it metallic and bitter and terrifying on his tongue, and something fixes around his neck while he gasps for air—

A sharp rapping at the door snaps him out of his trance. He lets out a small, pained noise whilst the scratch of Anaxa’s pen—when did he start writing?—stops.

“Open up. It’s Mydei!” comes a loud, but muffled voice from behind the door. 

Phainon feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Both of them stay utterly still as the handle rattles, followed by a disgruntled “I know you’re in there!”.

“...”

After five more sets of increasingly irritated knocks, Anaxa finally sighs. “I’ll need to get that. Otherwise, he’s not going to leave.” 

Phainon nods again, despite Anaxa not being able to see it. 

The lock unlatches, then the door creaks open. 

“Mydei, you’ll knock a hole into my door if you’d kept it up any longer,” Anaxa says, his voice drifting in from further away now. “What is it?”

“Aglaea requested these boxes of old material from the archives to be delivered to your quarters,” Mydei’s voice responds gruffly. “Let me in so I can set them down.”

“You can leave them where you are, and I’ll bring them in myself.” Anaxa says, his voice growing irritated. “I have some business to attend to.”

“What a joke. Your scrawny rear won’t be lifting all this back up once I set it down.”

“Listen to me, Mydei. It’s fine. Put them down where you are.”

“Move!”

“Mydeimos, you can’t—!”

Phainon shifts uncomfortably, sweat beading at his temples. Despite his nervousness, he finds himself clenching around the toy, adrenaline amplifying the tiny spark of pleasure that shoots up his spine. Mydei may be stubborn, but he’s got basic decency and respect for most people. Surely, surely, he won’t—

“Tch, it’s so dark in here, is this how you live, Anaxagoras? Like the heretic you are, hiding away from the— what the fuck?”

The sound of something heavy—likely the books—hits the floor, and it causes Phainon to twitch and gasp, his jaw tense and beads of sweat now rolling down across his forehead and over the bridge of his nose. The thought that Mydei can see him, bound and vulnerable like this, makes him dizzy with tension and anticipation. The high of being discovered, along with what must’ve been at least an hour of static stimulation pushes his mind towards the brink as his breathing quickens, his whole body feeling sensitive all over again.

One set of footsteps pads over closer to him, heavy yet uneven. Hesitant. Likely Mydei’s. It stops behind him, and is then followed by a lighter, more even set of steps. 

Mydei growls. “Anaxa, what the hell are you doing to him?” 

“Nothing for you to be concerned with,” Anaxa replies evenly. A pause. “Although, you’re welcome to join if you please.”

“...”

Phainon can’t begin to imagine the sort of expression Mydei is wearing right now, but all he knows is that Mydei hasn’t yet stormed off or tackled Anaxa to the ground, and that Phainon desperately needs someone to touch him right now. So in that moment, he does the only thing he could possibly do.

“Nngh…” he groans, shakily propping himself up onto his knees until he’s face down, ass up in the air, making a total whorish fool of himself as his plugged hole is bared out like a sacred offering, humiliation searing through his whole body like a wildfire.

There’s a sharp hitch of breath, and soon enough a hand rests atop his ass—large, warm —pausing as if entranced, before sliding inwards; slowly, scorchingly, almost reverent. 

The thumb stops at Phainon’s perineum. It presses into the thin skin, and the resulting spike of white-hot pleasure that shoots up through his guts is as shocking as it is addictive. 

“...!!”

Mydei growls, his voice dipping dangerously deep. “You enjoy this, Deliverer? Showing yourself off like some cheap alleyway slut?”

Phainon’s face burns from the use of his title, and his thighs tremble from exertion. No, he wants to protest, but the words die in the back of his throat as his mouth drools through the ring gag, and he knows the debauched sight he presents right now is more than enough of an answer.

“Take his blindfold off,” Anaxa says, his voice a little breathless.

“As if I’ll take orders from you,” Mydei grits out, but then the cloth lifts from Phainon’s eyes, and his vision comes back into focus, looking up to find a bulky silhouette, a mess of flame-tipped locks, and intense, feline amber eyes. 

Mydei looks down at him like he’s appraising his hard-won prey, anticipation and budding hunger in his gaze. It’s enough to make Phainon’s breath catch in his throat, with the way he feels laid out like a plate of raw meat in front of a lion’s den. 

Then the crown prince snaps his head towards the scholar, “What’s this thing in his mouth? He can’t even talk with it on.”

“That’s the point,” Anaxa sighs. He’s still fully clothed and covered in his usual garb, and despite their notable size difference, the contrast makes Phainon feel small and utterly powerless in comparison. “Lift his head up—”

“Stop telling me what to do.”

“—since I hardly have the strength to do anything with my ‘scrawny rear’, as you so aptly put it,” Anaxa retorts, clearly irritated now. The bite of his words has Phainon shivering; it’s rare that he hears this sort of tone from Anaxa, and in the instances where it’s directed towards him, it usually means that punishment is soon to follow. 

Phainon moans when he’s pulled up by his hair, the pain searing through the fog of his mind. Anaxa nods approvingly, as if seeing an experiment produce the results he expected, and turns to Mydei. “Use his mouth as you see fit.”

Blue eyes snap into focus when Mydei’s length unsheathes in front of Phainon, rapidly filling out in size and then it’s dragged along his cheek, overtaking his senses until he can almost taste it in his watering mouth.

“Needy for it, huh?” Mydei purrs, “I knew it. Despite everything you are, you were made to be just a whore.”

A shudder runs through Phainon’s arched back at those words, and his jaw is slack as Mydei’s cock is fed into his mouth. The latter hisses at the contrasting sensation of the cold metal ring with Phainon’s warm, wet tongue, pressing against the underside of his length. Mydei’s hand drags him forward, hesitating when he hits the back of Phainon’s mouth—but Phainon jerks his head forward to take the length over the hill of his tongue with damning ease, for Anaxa had long already trained the gag reflex out of him.

“Kuh…” Mydei pants, watching those reddened lips curve around his girth, and without another second of hesitation he begins to pump in and out, wringing out filthy sounds as he takes Phainon’s mouth without mercy, fingers tangled into messy white hair. 

Phainon’s jaw aches, choking every time he tries to breathe, until sparks fly in his vision and his legs are jelly as they collapse onto the bed. Like this, all of his senses are arrested by Mydei’s presence—his vision, his smell, his taste—like his purpose has been stripped away and redefined into being a toy that pleasures whoever owns him.

Mydei’s cock twitches in his mouth and his moans echo in Phainon’s ears like a mantra. When Phainon scrapes his teeth against the member, it rewards him with a tighter grip in his hair, and it has him keening and clenching as he writhes in his bindings, his own cock desperate for release.

With a growl, Mydei pulls out and finishes on his face, staining his cheeks with streaks of white, some of it landing on his tongue. Phainon shudders at the taste, hardly having the time to process the situation before he’s flipped onto his back, and then Anaxa comes into view again.

The scholar looks at him appraisingly, releasing the gag from the hero’s mouth. His teal-pink eyes linger intensely at the corner of Phainon’s mouth, and… 

Oh, Phainon realises. The gag. It must’ve left an imprint.

He moves his jaw tentatively, wincing at the slight cramp in his facial muscles. He wants to wipe the spit and come off his face. The ropes are also digging uncomfortably into his chest, so Phainon opens his mouth to ask if they can be untied, but Anaxa seems to have something else in mind as he places a hand over Phainon’s stomach, the red gem gleaming in the low light. 

He mutters something under his breath, and then Phainon jerks when the dildo inside him suddenly buzzes to life. 

“It vibrates?” he rasps, crying out and curling his toes when Anaxa uses his other hand to mercilessly twist it into his walls, and then drags it back out excruciatingly slowly, with clinically precise movements. “What—?”

Then Anaxa pushes it back in, and Phainon whines, throwing his head back. His whole body suddenly feels inexplicably hot, as if he’d been dropped into a steaming bathtub with no way to climb out. Each scrape of the damned thing against his prostate sends his mind reeling as he trembles and forces his moans back down his throat. This isn’t right, his body shouldn’t be so sensitive all of a sudden—

“A product of one of my experiments with the black tide,” Anaxa explains offhandedly. “I figured out how to catalyse movement and heat energy with a small amount of it, but not much else so far.”

Mydei looks at Anaxa with widened eyes. “You’ve lost your mind!” he spits. “The black tide isn’t something you can meddle with like this. Phainon, I’ll get it out of—”

“Wait,” Phainon chokes out, clenching down harshly when the dildo jumps in intensity, hammering against his insides, hot and heavy and thrumming as if it were alive, “wait! Please—!” 

Anaxa’s movements suddenly stop, and Phainon wants to sob. It’s all so much. Too much. He’s getting so, so close but he still can’t come, not with that awful ring around the base of his cock, and his stomach feels so desperately tight that he wants to beg Anaxa to take off the ring and keep fucking him with the toy until he can no longer form a single coherent thought. 

“Tell us what you desire, Phainon,” Anaxa’s smooth, comforting timbre drapes over his mind like silk, “Use your words.”

“I— uh, uhn,” he slurs out, tongue feeling thick in his throat, “Anaxa, please—!” 

A hand smooths back Phainon’s sweat-soaked hair again, and lips press against his feverish forehead. It’s a small comfort, but at the same time it feels like an oasis in a desert. Another hand traces over the tight lines of his torso, stretching across his abdomen but not quite pressing down on his stomach where surely there must be an outline from the toy protruding through.

“Use your words, Phainon,” Anaxa echoes. His movements with the phallus have slowed, but Phainon is already so, so needy, he thrusts his hips backwards to chase more of that addictive friction, mind blanking from the tidal energy resonating inside him.

“P-please let me come,” he finally sobs out, “Please touch me, take me!” 

He shakes like he’s going to crack open when the ring is finally taken off his cock, a hand wraps around his length and with another deep thrust he twitches as he comes, making an utter mess across his stomach as he heaves through the shuddering aftershocks. “Guh…!”

“Fuck,” Mydei pushes Anaxa towards the side before he pulls the toy out of Phainon’s slick, fluttering hole. “That’s enough!”

Anaxa sighs and retrieves the toy, looking at it thoughtfully. The phallic length of wood looks monstrously large when held by his slim hands, and Phainon flushes when he realises that that entire damned thing was really able to fit inside him.

“What,” he croaks, then coughs, “What did you do… to make it move?”

Anaxa wipes it down and stores it away, then turns back to his friend. “I resonated it with my powers, to activate the energy of the black tide which is stored in a purified, pre-fission state and channelled through a steady-release mechanism,” he explains. “This should’ve created a reciprocal amount of motion in line with established thermodynamic principles. But from what I could tell, the energy instead became amplified and outputted erratically, even though the conduction material and method of activation remained the same as my previous trials.”

“...I see,” says Phainon, blankly.

Mydei scratches his head.

“Given the only change this time is the surrounding medium, that means the most likely possibility is that it reacted erratically with the divine energy in your body,” Anaxa surmises, nodding to himself. 

At any other time, Phainon would be happy for what appears to be a new discovery, but right now he can’t even muster the strength to sit upright.

Not to mention, he really wants out of the ropes at this point, but he still doesn’t want to rip them apart. Partially because it’s Anaxa’s property and he wants to treat it with respect, and mostly because he has a feeling Anaxa will want to use it again on him in the foreseeable future. 

“So, you activated it while it was inside this guy, not understanding exactly how it would react?” Mydei scrunches his nose in disapproval. “Not to mention, you’re keeping a corrupted artifact in your possession, which surely you understand is punishable by death—”

“There were safety measures involved in the process of catalysing the energy. Also, I have Aglaea’s approval in writing,” Anaxa crosses his arms. “Did you not hear a word of what I said?”

A growl. "I just knew that treacherous research of yours was up to no good, encroaching forbidden knowledge like—”

Anaxa’s lips tighten. “Are you trying to miss the point deliberately, or are you just arguing for no reason?”

Mydei throws his hands up. “Well, perhaps I’m just stupid!”

“Congratulations on the riveting epiphany,” Phainon says, grimacing at the lingering soreness of his ass. “Can someone please untie me now?”

Two pairs of eyes turn to look at him. 

Suddenly, Phainon feels warm again when one of those gazes drags down his still-naked body.

“...Say, Anaxa, how about you shut that bothersome mouth of yours for once, and get out of my way,” Mydei mutters as he climbs onto the bed. “I’ve got other better things to worry about here.”

“I thank Cerces every day that I don’t have a muscle for my brain and think with my crotch,” Anaxa mutters, but makes no move to stop the other man.

“That was a bit harsh,” Phainon comments, but his eyes are locked onto the way the flame-haired man settles in front of him; eyes lidded and canine biting his lower lip. Fondness blooms in his chest. “Mydei’s admittedly not the most intellectually gifted, but he’s got lots of other respectable qualities.”

“You sound like my damn mother,” Mydei grumbles.

“I’m only backing you up where Anaxa is trying to hit you at your weakest,” he grins.

“Then,” amber eyes flick back up to meet blue orbs, “I’ll just have to show you where my strengths lie.”

Phainon laughs. “Corny.”

Mydei grunts as he reaches for Phainon’s chest, at the point where the ropes are stretched thinnest under the bulk of his pectorals. His hands are hot against Phainon’s skin, and it’s enough to leave him arching up slightly for more of that comforting warmth. He expects Mydei to reach up behind his neck to undo the knot there, but when the latter goes and directly rips the ropes on his chest, Phainon can only stare in shock. 

He looks at Anaxa, whose face is impassive as always. He looks back at Mydei.

“...That’s going to come out of your funds, you know.”

Mydei looks at the frayed silk in his hands, realisation washing over his face, and cusses. “Haikas. Fine, no matter. Spread your legs.”

“That chivalrous personality of yours is so charming, you know?” Phainon grins as he lazily sweeps one leg across the sheets, letting the other man’s eyes land on his reddened, stretched hole framed by loosened rope, “No wonder you have swathes of paparazzi following at your heels all the time.”

Anaxa nods. “I tried those honey cakes you promoted on the teleslate, they were good. You have an eye for quality delicacies, at least.” 

Mydei hisses, his ears going red as he climbs between Phainon’s legs. “Shut it, for gods’ sake!”

Phainon laughs before it’s choked off into a gasp as Mydei’s rough hand finds his spent cock, rubbing along its length with a thumb tracing around the head. He twitches when the other hand presses against his stomach, as if reminding him of how empty he feels inside. 

When he dares to look up again, suddenly there’s an unreadable expression in those sharp, golden eyes, and goosebumps break out across his skin as Mydei’s tongue slides against his lower lip, looking as if he’s preparing himself to feast.

“Mydei—” Phainon murmurs, before it’s cut off by a moan and the warrior’s tongue parting his lips, ruthlessly wrestling its way in to slide across the roof of his mouth, tangling wetly before moving deeper inside, like it wants to sink into his throat. He moans, eyes sliding upwards as arousal flares inside him again.

A small voice in the back of his mind tells him to run, for he’s going to be devoured like he’s just been dropped into a den of lions. But Mydei pushes against him and Phainon can only lean back in to accomodate, his hands balling into the sheets as the warrior grabs around his waist and ruts their aching lengths against each other, breaths mingling wetly. They break apart only when they’ve become desperate for air, mouths slick and panting and bitten-bruised. 

Mydei pulls Phainon’s legs further apart, grabs the bottle of oil from the bedside to slick himself up, before eagerly pushing into the latter’s loosened hole. 

“...! O-oh,” he moans, when Mydei angles his hips into his sweet spot in a well-practiced motion, and begins to move roughly into him. Soon enough, a hand finds Phainon’s neck, skimming along the line of his choker, and a single finger slides in between the leather and skin.

Mydei growls, pulling the fabric taut. “Can I take this thing off for once? Or does it have to be in my way?”

“You can’t,” Phainon says, grabbing at Mydei’s wrist but falters when Mydei thrusts into him as a warning. Phainon drags his nails down the length of Mydei’s forearm and leaves red lines behind, hoping that instead of words, his uncharacteristic actions might convince Mydei that the latter’s intentions are truly off limits.

Something seems to shift in Mydei’s expression as realisation sinks in. He raises his head to look at Phainon with disbelief; golden dawnlight eyes boring harshly into brilliant blue.

“...Do you want it off?” he asks again, slowly enunciating each word.

“You can’t,” Phainon echoes weakly. The weight of the leather digging into his skin is what shackles him and also grounds him—serving as a reminder of how powerlessly mortal he truly is; everything he’s already lost, and everything else that’s at stake if he fails to fulfil his fated duty.

“Tch,” Mydei’s hand leaves his throat. He looks angry for a moment, before Phainon can no longer see his face. 

Thin lips press just beneath his choker, before they make way for teeth to latch against skin, and Phainon gasps when Mydei fucks into him with slow, shallow thrusts, whilst carving a new collar of bruises and marks just below the existing choker. He grips onto Phainon as if he knows that the latter would disappear if he lets go. As if Phainon is a bird that has landed on the earth and forgotten how to fly, but in his essence can only, truly, belong to that deep, blue sky.

Mydei’s mouth stops over his adam’s apple, and rumbles, “Tell me; what are you?” 

Phainon’s breath hitches. “What?”

Mydei pauses, his body as heavy as it is warm. As if looking into the dark mouth of an ancient beast, Phainon feels compelled to answer. 

“A… Chrysos Heir by— by prophecy,” he replies, his mind spinning, “the divine vessel—”

“No, you’re not,” the warrior’s words are dangerous as his teeth catch against the skin across the trachea. Phainon gasps for breath. “What are you?”

“...Prey,” Phainon chokes out, a high whine unravelling from the back of his throat, “Your prey—!”

A smirk curves against his skin. “That’s right,” Mydei purrs, pleased, and bites another bright bruise onto the shivering column of his neck, before he starts fucking into Phainon with vigour. 

“..!!”

Overwhelmed, Phainon twitches and strains his head away to meet Anaxa’s visage instead. The scholar’s face is still carefully controlled, but there are little hints that give his arousal away—the dusting of red across his cheeks, his half-lidded eyes, the way he thickly swallows whenever Phainon lets out strings of lewd noises and begs Mydei to slow down, despite spreading his legs for more. 

It doesn’t take long at all for Phainon to approach his second climax, with Mydei whispering all sorts of filthy things in his ear. But when Anaxa pulls Phainon’s head back, Mydei stills his hips, as if wordlessly understanding Anaxa’s intentions when the scholar touches Phainon’s slack face.

“I have one more hypothesis I’d like to test,” Anaxa murmurs, “I hope you’ll stay with us.” 

The way he says it feels like there’s a deeper meaning to his words, but Phainon has no time to linger on it before he’s hoisted into an upright position, and Mydei’s cock breaches into him again to hit all his sweet spots at a new angle, and he’s so so so close again—

“Nngh, oh…!”

A hand finds Phainon’s length again, and all too soon it coaxes him to his second orgasm of the day—shaking harder than a leaf in a storm through the thick of it. 

Anaxa touches his leg. “You’re doing so well, Phainon.” 

The scholar gently coaxes his shaking thighs open again, and there’s a determined glint in those light-coloured eyes that always appears whenever he’s on the verge of a breakthrough.

“Hff, hah…” Phainon closes his eyes so he can focus on remembering how to breathe.

He’s so tired already—it feels like he’s just returned from three days and nights of fighting endless waves of corrupted titan-kin. Enough, he wants to say. He’s sore, sweaty, his muscles ache all over, and what’s left of the black tidal energy reacting within his body shoots constant sparks into his already-fried nerves, leaving him dazed and pliant.

“No more,” he mumbles, pushing back against the scholar’s smaller frame. “I-I can’t—”

“You can. Do it for us,” Anaxa tells him softly—

—and like a switch has been flipped, Phainon concedes; what little resistance left in his body draining away as he succumbs to that gentle voice.

“...Ah… gods,” he mumbles deliriously, as Anaxa raises his thigh up before Mydei wordlessly takes over to hold it in place. Then he’s being stretched out even further, his rim wrapping around a finger snug alongside Mydei’s cock and it’s unbelievable how it has him feeling so full yet so wanting—

“Fuck…!” He swears when Anaxa squeezes in a second and third finger. And Mydei has the gall to laugh at that, probably because the number of times Phainon has ever cussed in his life could be counted on a single hand. 

Anaxa scissors out gently, then slips his fingers out, and Phainon inhales. 

“Relax,” the smaller man soothes, as he gently pushes his length against the rim. “You can take it.”

Phainon can only nod shakily. Behind him, Mydei remains a solid, warm comfort, holding him open as Anaxa slowly slides inside.

If he were of a more rational mind he’d be impressed at how well Anaxa and Mydei coordinate when they try. But right now, all he can do is grit his teeth and focus on relaxing enough to let the smaller man fit messily inside him, both lengths pressing against one another as Phainon’s walls clench involuntarily, the sound of wet squelches and filthy grunts between the three of them almost too much for his sex-hazed mind to bear.

After what seems like forever, finally, finally Anaxa’s hips meet the curve of his ass, fully sheathed inside. Phainon quivers when Anaxa slides his hand over the mound of Phainon’s flushed chest, sinking into the muscle. His other hand is curled over the top of Phainon’s left thigh, forming a perfect cuff with Mydei’s iron grip just below. 

He leans in close to Phainon, warm breaths tickling his ear.

“Poor thing,” Anaxa murmurs, and the sound rings through Phainon’s ears, hypnotic. “So weak. Pathetic.”

Phainon gasps, head lolling backwards. Mydei’s cock thrusts deep into him again without any warning, choking a wretched moan out of him. 

It’s so hot, his high-strung brain barely registers. With the warm body behind him, the lithe fingers dragging across his chest, and the intense spikes of mind-numbing pleasure shooting up his spine, it feels so good that he might just melt away in his comrades’ hands. 

“A-ah…! Uh—”

Mydei starts to fuck into him with rough, even strokes, the vice grip he’s holding Phainon’s thighs in leave sore bruises that will take days to heal. Anaxa follows his rhythm, but settles for shorter, shallower motions to accommodate his relative lack of stamina.

Phainon stares at Anaxa’s face to ground himself, and surely he looks absolutely ruined right now, with come on his face, saliva leaking wantonly down his chin, expression fucked out, and a body painted with hickies—and yet Anaxa looks at him as if he’s something even a heretic can worship; like Phainon is the centre of the ever-revolving world.

The scholar takes Phainon’s slack tongue between his thumb and finger, and drool slides over his rings and down towards his sleeves. Then he kisses Phainon to swallow down his lewd moans as both their cocks take turns to run over his prostate again and again and again.

It’s too much. Phainon’s eyes roll back. He’s going to come again, but there hasn’t been enough time since his last orgasm and his body already feels like it’s going to reach the limit. His thoughts are haywire, his mind is running on raw instincts now, stripped down to its basest desires and pleasures, like his sanity is only holding on by a thread.

“U-uh…! Ah, guh, p-please,” he stutters, hardly able to form the words, “Anax—a, I want—!”

Mydei snarls, slamming his hips upwards so hard that Phainon lets out the most pathetic sound that he’s ever heard come out of his own mouth as bursts of light dance across his vision.

Something warm licks across his neck and then it sinks into his flesh, over an already-blooming bruise, and Phainon’s driven over the edge just like that—his mouth conquered and body marked like an animal and his hole stretched so, so far that he can truly take no more. He crashes into his third and final orgasm completely untouched; whimpering and shuddering violently between that suffocating double embrace, his mind wiped into a clean slate.

Mydei comes with a grunt almost immediately afterwards, too high-strung to hold out any longer. Anaxa finishes last, grimacing when he pulls out and sees the mess of come oozing out of Phainon’s hole. At this point, all Phainon can think about is how damn full he feels, how horribly numb his semen-covered thighs are, and that Mydei’s hair is annoyingly tickling his neck when he doesn’t even have the energy to scratch the itch.

Finally, a voice pops up.

“You broke him.”

“Pardon? Why do you make it sound like this was entirely my doing? You had a hand in this too, scholar.”

“No matter. Help me move him to the ensuite. I’ll clean him up, and you can change the sheets,” a pause, then a mutter; “I still couldn’t tell for sure if the introduction of extraneous material impacted on the reverberation factor of the energy residue… perhaps that’s something to test later.”

“Tch. You’re talking nonsense again.”

“Well, Mydeimos, perhaps it only sounds like nonsense to your ears, since it seems that you have no more of a brain in that skull of yours, than I have in my elbows.”

“...Son of a—” is the last thing Phainon hears, before his weary mind succumbs to slumber.

When Phainon slowly blinks awake, the first things he registers are that someone is talking, he’s been wrapped in a blanket, and that his ass feels like it had just survived a natural disaster.

“Sometimes, it seems like you say things just to be incomprehensible on purpose,” the voice—which he now recognises as Mydei’s—grumbles. “The way that you talk, it seriously gets on my nerves.”

“I don’t see why it should bother you so much,” Anaxa’s voice replies. “On the contrary, I respect your directness. I like the way you do your own thing, and aren't constrained by logic or structure.”

“...Somehow, I feel like you’re mocking me again.”

Phainon groans, turning his head so that it smushes into the pillow as he drags the blanket over his head. A small but notable ache has developed at his temples, and from experience he knows it’ll probably soon turn into a terrible migraine. 

Footsteps stop beside the bed. “Phainon.”

Anaxa, Phainon tries to echo jokingly, but the name is all but muffled into the pillow. The blanket is slowly coaxed off him and then he’s rolled over until he’s blearily blinking up at Anaxa’s face, which is tinged with worry. 

“Get up,” the latter says, and although his words are frank, the tone is gentle. “You need to rehydrate. There’s water on your bedside.”

“You look like shit,” Mydei supplements helpfully from the side. Phainon rolls his eyes and pushes himself into a sitting position, gratefully taking the offered water and begins to sip at it.

Silence.

Phainon between his friends, then at the spotless floor. “You guys cleaned the books up,” he remarks.

Mydei snorts. “I cleaned the books up, while this guy simply stood by and didn’t even move a finger to help. Tch… to think that a crown prince is made to stoop low enough to tidy the room of a dishonourable heretic.” But despite the complaints, he sounds vaguely proud. 

Anaxa quirks his visible eyebrow, and Phainon offhandedly realises he’ll never know if Anaxa is raising one or both brows. “Throw him a bone, won’t you, Phainon? He’s fishing for your compliments again.”

“Oi.”

Phainon laughs, sinking back into the pillows. They smell faintly of Anaxa’s scent: the biblichor of eldritch scripts, sprigs of rosemary, and a waft of rare incense. Subtle, but familiarly comforting. 

Even after all these years it seems like the three of them have hardly changed, bickering over small things like this. It brings him back to the days of when he’d spar and race through the marketplaces with Mydei, keeping a tally of who could win at being make-believe warriors. And when Phainon got tired of Mydei’s yelling and tantrums, he’d hang out with Anaxa under the giant tree next to the town archives, watching people walk by, whilst Anaxa sat with knees propped up and his nose stuck into a book as thick as his leg. Mydei would find the two of them together by the light of the false dawn, and proudly show them the candy he’d won from beating up some kid twice his size. He’d hold up his bloody knuckles as a medal of honour whilst Anaxa chastised him for picking needless fights.

…It’s only during sparse moments like these that Phainon can reminisce, and forget how crushingly heavy the burden on his shoulders feel.

Anaxa must catch the wistful look on his face at that moment, because he ignores Mydei’s grumbling to extend a hand onto Phainon’s shoulder, thumb drawing lines into his skin in that same reassuring way, before going to stroke his hair. Phainon blinks up at those bicoloured eyes.

Anaxa smiles gently. “You did well today.”

The white-haired man nudges his head into Anaxa’s hand cattishly, feeling warm from the praise, “Did you get the results you wanted?” he asks.

“I got everything I need,” Anaxa tells him. 

“Hey, you two lovebirds. I’m still here, you know,” Mydei sighs, and both of them stare as Kremnos’ heir to the crown, legendary titan-kin pulveriser extraordinaire, and one of Okhema City’s most beloved influencers to boot, flips Anaxa’s blankets back and slides into the bed without a second thought.

“...What are you doing?” Anaxa asks, as Mydei sneezes.

“Keeping him warm,” Mydei sniffs, “this idiot’s body temperature is always so low, I still can’t comprehend how he never seems to fall ill.”

Anaxa, for once, looks quite befuddled. “No, I mean… that’s my bed.”

Mydei presses into Phainon’s side as he glares daggers at the scholar. “Who gives a damn? We’ve touched our dicks together already, so that means your bed is also my bed now.” He sneezes again. “Kephales’ tits, your bedding reeks of dusty books.”

“And yours of pomegranate juice,” Phainon retorts. Mydei was right; the warmth of his unnaturally high body heat is a strange comfort, it’s almost like cuddling together with a vase of hot water.

Anaxa raises his brow again, but he seems mostly unsurprised at the fact that Phainon knows of such an incriminating detail. He’s still standing by the bedside with his arms crossed stoically, and Phainon laughs at his awkward figure. “Anaxagoras, take that stick out of your rear and get in here with us,” he says, reaching out and pulling in his friend by the arm.

“Huh?” Anaxa tries to fight against Phainon’s one-handed strength with both arms, and fails miserably as he falls towards the bed. “H-hey—!”

Mydei also laughs when the impact knocks the scholar’s mask askew, and not for the first time Phainon thinks the sound is actually quite endearing, when it’s not tainted by mockery or madness.

Outside, the sound of a bell echoes against the light of Kephales’ eternal false dawn, signalling to the citizens that the day is coming to an end. 

Tomorrow, Phainon will once again don his robes and greatsword before he steps into the sunlight, his perfectly crafted mask hiding something dark and soulless between the hollow space of his ribs. And then one day, he’ll have to live with the sight of betrayal across Anaxa and Mydei’s faces, as he rescinds what remains of his humanity in favour of fulfilling his divine duty—

(—and yet, despite the rest of the world being fated to go dark… he still wants to preserve that golden memory of the three of them together under the tree next to the archives, even if he knows he can never go back again.)

What keeps him tethered to the moment, now, when Anaxa pries opens his calloused palms to trace out lines of prophecy, and Mydei’s breath tickles his nape where the scent is most familiar, is the realisation that it’s him, his own heart, that has become different. Estranged.

Anaxa looks up at him, with that indecipherable, timeless gaze that always seems to strip Phainon down to the core.

“I have another research plan in the works,” he begins. “Would you like to be the main test subject again, for my sake?”

“...Yes,” Phainon says, smiling. “Always.”