Chapter Text
They say birds preen their wings on a regular basis to straighten out any bent feathers and shed broken, unusable ones. They do this to help maintain balance while they're in the sky and fly through harsh wind currents.
Naturally, that rule also applied to all creatures with feathered wings. Caring for them is as important as eating a healthy meal three times a day, or getting a solid eight to nine hours of sleep. One can also compare it to an open wound– if you neglect it, the consequences you will suffer down the line will slowly become unbearable.
Unfortunately, one person seemed to have forgotten about that rule's existence.
“OW! Hey hey hey! I thought I said not to tug at my feathers so hard!”
“I'm trying my best here, you dumbass, but the state of your wing is giving me no choice but to pull them out with force!”
Mydei grumbled under his breath about Phainon’s lack of self-awareness as the man himself sighed, turning around and burying his head in his palm. His golden wing was twitching ever so slightly under his hand in pain, and while Mydei really was doing his absolute best not to aggravate the ache any further, he was finding that impossible to do with each passing minute.
Stupid, stupid man! If only he had said something earlier about this! How Phainon managed to go on this long was beyond him. Even if he wasn't in his World Bearer form, the pain was shared between both forms.
But since he wasn't often in said form in Okhema, the chances of someone noticing his wings were bent and crooked like a barbed wire were low. Plus, Mydei knows him well like the back of his hand. That previous battle took a toll on both of them after all…
He carefully plucked another feather and dropped it into the small bowl beside the bed, trying not to wince. The growing pile was starting to alarm him a little, and there was golden blood dripping slightly from the small scratches littered everywhere. However, Phainon’s onyx-colored wing, while cracked in some places, was slowly healing and solidifying, thanks to being made of obsidian. It was the golden one that needed the most attention.
At this moment, one may ask this: since Phainon was notorious for hiding his injuries, what prompted him to tell Mydei that he was in pain? Did something terrible happen? Perhaps the Kremnoan himself found out. Unfortunately, it is neither of those.
The man had complained one day during their spar that his back was aching like hell, and somehow Mydei managed to connect the dots.
“How were you able to hide this for a week?” Mydei asked as he straightened some slightly bent feathers. He gently raked his hand through the non-injured spots when the wing twitched again, this time a tad bit more violently. He could only imagine the amount of pain his partner was going through right now. “Your whole body is shaking under my fingers.”
Phainon huffed out a laugh. “I'm used to it at this point.” He sounded sad. “I know that sounds wrong, but it's the truth. The Destruction within my body is constant and violent. Over the years, it's gotten numb, so the pain is dulled out. My wings on the other hand are a different story. I… I really had no idea they were in such bad shape…”
He tilted his head back to look at Mydei. “You're right. I should have said something earlier about the pain, but Hyacine already has her hands full, and the Black Tide hasn't yet been fully erased. Traces of the code still linger, and it's gonna take me a while to erase them from existence. With all this and reassuring the citizens of Okhema that no more harm will come to them, my own needs come last.”
‘But they shouldn't,’ thought Mydei bitterly. He was aware of the amount of times Phainon had to do exactly that over and over again– to bear the searing heat and pain of forty million Coreflames while carrying the wishes of the Chrysos Heirs throughout each and every cycle. Mydei understood well that even now Phainon would neglect his own well-being to patch up the loose threads so that everyone could live peacefully. He was known to be self-sacrificing, so much so that Aglaea had to monitor him with her golden threads and scold him heavily later, just as a mother would her child.
(Though in hindsight, even if Aglaea wouldn’t admit it, she always saw Phainon as a small boy who was stripped of everything at such a young age, like how she saw Cipher as her daughter, whom she took in from the streets.)
He opened his mouth to say everything he had on his mind, but Phainon beat him to it. “I know what you’re going to tell me, and I don’t need the knowledge of a million cycles to read your mind. But I promise you, once the lingering issues are gone I’ll live for myself. I’ll do the things I want to do without having fate constantly breathing down my neck. Isn’t that why I spent so long collecting Coreflames and restarting the cycles and…and…”
Phainon trailed off, his gaze dropping to his folded, trembling hands. He didn’t finish the sentence, and he didn’t need to. Mydei already understood.
‘Stupid, stupid selfless man,’ he thought, turning Phainon around and lifting his chin with two fingers to look at him properly. Even after everyone accepted his apology without hesitation, the guilt still weighed him down. And who could blame him? He carried this weight alone and never once crumbled under all that pressure. After everything that damn Theoros put him through (if he were alive, Mydei would not hesitate to pound Lygus into scrap metal over and over again and melt him in the furnace chamber back at Castrum Kremnos), Phainon never once broke and carried on, giving them and the universe much-needed time.
Those indigo and gold eyes stayed fixed on the ground, shimmering with tears that evaporated almost instantly, with steam curling up where they touched. Phainon’s lips trembled, likely from the effort of holding back sobs. The cracks along his body widened and healed in tandem, golden shards occasionally sprouting from them. Mydei carefully avoided the sharp and jagged edges to pull him into a hug.
“It’ll all be fine soon,” Mydei murmured, gently running his palm along Phainon’s arm. He closed his eyes and held him tighter, his other hand coming to rest at the back of Phainon’s head. The molten heat stung in a few places, but he easily shrugged it off. “You may not feel it now, but soon everything will be ok. This time, you won’t have to run Dawnmaker through any of us. No more does the fate of the world hang in balance. I understand how you feel right now– your body is wired to destroy. It doesn’t know how to relax. I was like that too, when I was in the Sea of Souls. After I killed my father, everyone told me to rest, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to. All that kept running through my mind was to stay alert, for someone might sneak up and kill me from behind.
“Later on Krateros saw how much it was bothering me as I was leading the detachment and helped me work through it. I don’t know how he noticed– maybe because he knows me so well since I’m the son of his closest friend and the Queen, but later on, I was glad he did. I wasn’t planning on telling anyone at first. Just like you I thought it was my burden to bear…”
Mydei sighed. He was a fool for thinking he could shoulder it all on his own, just like how he fought all those monsters endlessly. It took a four-hour-long talk with Krateros about his nine-year exile and his own struggles for him to realize how much of a toll being alone had on both his physical and mental health. He had been betrayed by so many people he had called his comrades. Many attempts were made on his life, only for him to get back up and slice their traitorous heads off their body. Looking back at those moments, he wasn't particularly…proud of how he had acted. The Mydeimos of today would have condemned his past self's actions.
Desperation makes people do a lot of irrational things, and Mydei had been clinging tightly to whatever remained of his sanity after Hephaestion’s death. Even now, his heart still hurt knowing those five couldn't be here anymore while he could because he was a Chrysos Heir. Those who lost their lives were forever gone. It was unfair, and the Mydei of the past would have most definitely torn an entire city down with his bare hands.
But he wasn't that Mydei anymore. He now fought with precision and purpose instead of instinct and fear. The tactics and skills he had learnt have served him well, and thus he was able to lead the detachment without facing many issues. Without Krateros’ help– without the help of Ptolomy, Peucesta, Leonnius, Perdikkas, and Hephaestion, he wouldn’t have become the person he was today.
Phainon nodded. He pulled back just slightly, angling his onyx wing to curl around them both and hugged him again, sighing in content. The golden one, still twitching from pain, drooped low, its feathers trailing against the mattress. “I understand,” he said in a broken whisper. “You went through a shit ton as a child, and even more so as an adult. You definitely would have had those thoughts swarming your brain at some point.”
“Mm. Just like you right now,” he replied. “You need rest. You can’t bear the world if you don’t have the energy to do so.”
“I’m a God. I should have the energy to do so.”
“And I’m still a Demigod. Not a God, but even I have power as well, and I still falter if I don’t take care of myself. Self-care is important, you know.”
“It’s also extremely overrated.”
“Do you want me to bring in Cyrene and have her give you a lecture?”
Phainon gasped dramatically, eyes blown wide comically. “You wouldn't dare!"
“Oh?” Mydei shot him a smug smile. “I do, actually. I know she scares you to death. It's funny really, a God such as yourself with the power to annihilate planets and summon meteors is afraid of a girl with the power of Time and could potentially trap anyone in a specific space time dimension.”
“You see? You just said the reason why I'm scared of her.”
“Liar. The two of you were joined at the hip even before your ascension.”
“Ugh. She likes you more than me.”
“I'm likeable.”
“Now you're lying. You don’t even want people to like you, even now.”
“It isn’t my fault that that’s what the general populace believes.”
Phainon rolled his eyes. “Rightttt. I’m not gonna believe that,” he muttered, yawning before slumping even further into Mydei’s hold, resting his head under his chin. “But, coming back to everything we talked about before… I was right. You and I really are similar in so many ways, huh?” he said, laughing drily and sniffing. Mydei felt his lips quirk up. “Both of us held the hopes and wishes of the people and powered through every obstacle life threw at us.”
“Among other things,” Mydei replied. Phainon laughed, this time sounding more genuine. “But I’m being serious. You’re going to rest in between missions, and when things get rough, please tell someone. You’ve burdened yourself enough. It’s time for you to start letting go . Can you at least try?”
Phainon didn’t speak for a while, and to Mydei, that was ok. That was fine, because at least he hadn’t refused him outright. If the roles were reversed, he’d be taking his time processing everything too.
Time passed, and just as Mydei began to think Phainon had fallen asleep, he felt the faintest nod of the Deliverer's head. So faint, he brushed it off at first until those long lashes brushed themselves against his chest a few times. He held his breath.
“...Alright,” came out that tiny, broken whisper. “If you all think it’ll help, then fine. I…I will need reminding and I can’t guarantee I’ll be completely open…”
Mydei shook his head. “You’re making the effort. That’s all that matters now. We’ll figure out the rest later. I promise.”
“And you always do keep your promises,” replied Phainon, closing his eyes once more. “Now, can we talk about this later? You’re a really wonderful pillow right now, and my mind is telling me to shut down.”
The prince rolled his eyes. “Clingy now, aren’t we?”
“Shush,” Phainon muttered, yawning. “I know you like this. Seeing me not running or flying around doing stuff and instead resting. You can’t complain, dear prince.”
Mydei rolled his eyes. “Who says I am? And don’t fall asleep on me just yet, Deliverer. I still have a few feathers to fix. After that we can take a short nap before we spar. That is, only if you can.”
‘Mmm…’sure…”
“Phainon?”
“....Y…yeh……?”
“...You’re about to pass out right now, aren’t you?”
“.......zzzzzz……..”
“Nikador above-”
But he couldn't blame him now, could he?
Sighing quietly and resigning himself to his fate, Mydei gently laid Phainon down at the center of the bed, positioning him on his stomach so he wouldn’t accidentally injure his wing if he moved in his sleep. He rested the limb across his lap for good measure. He wasn’t tired anyway, so he figured he might as well keep watch and tend to the remaining feathers while he was at it.
He took one last glance at the World Bearer’s sleeping form, mouth slightly open and breathing steady, and got back to work, smiling to himself. He didn't even bother to shift back to his usual form, which was something he always did and was very adamant about, worried that his halo might constantly poke Mydei if he so much so minutely tilt his head to the side.
One random day, while the pair were sitting on a rooftop, the man suddenly confessed that he felt more like himself in his Emanator and not the omniscient being he was meant to be, nor the figure the people believed him to be. Part of the reason he stayed in that form only around Mydei and the other Heirs was because they still treated him the same way they always had– like the clumsy Deliverer who helped everyone with a smile on his face and a laugh that sounded like wind chimes caught in a summer breeze.
Mydei dropped the last few feathers into the bowl before deciding to stop, not wanting to risk waking Phainon by unintentionally plucking one from a nasty cut. And watching Phainon sleep was making him feel kind of tired too. The healing process, while slow for Phainon, was starting to take effect. The larger gashes were stitching themselves up and clotting. Most of the smaller cuts were gone, and the blood that matted some of the healthier feathers needed to be washed, and Mydei grabbed the wet cloth he had especially for this and gently dabbed at it. He wouldn’t be able to get it all off, but at least he could get the worst spots.
After about ten minutes of constant rinsing and cleaning and feeling somewhat satisfied with his work he set everything aside on the table and settled in properly, adjusting the wing so that it was lying completely flat on his lap. And right before he let the growing darkness swallow him whole, he leaned forward and placed a kiss on his temple.
“Sleep well, Khaslana,” he muttered before leaning back against the headboard and shutting his eyes and forming a plan for his Deliverer.