Archive of Our Own

Khaslana’s wings are sensitive. This is a fact he has known since they first sprouted out of his back with a burst of blazing heat. It makes them useful for maneuvering and for combat, but they’re vulnerable. And at worst, a liability.

They’re big, too. Impossible to miss. It was only a matter of time before someone’s curiosity got the best of them.

The thing is, as Khaslana gradually integrated into the Chrysos Heirs and naturally gravitated towards Phainon as they grew closer– which was no easy feat, considering how reticent Khaslana was at the start; unsure how to make friends with the faces of people he has slaughtered in the past, unsure how to let people in anymore, Phainon helped. Because of course he did– he noticed a few things about himself.

Notably, how being around Phainon put him at ease in a way he was hard-pressed to find before. 

And how his body started reacting accordingly.

It started fairly innocent, with that sense of ease. Then the heat inside of him would jump in temperature when Phainon was around or when their shoulders happened to brush, akin to a racing heart. It was damning. 

And then Khaslana’s wings started reacting.

That was when he knew he was off the deep end. His mind and body were utterly taken by Phainon and everything he is. Khaslana had to take care to keep his wings still and closed at all times around Phainon, because they would try to unfurl as if reaching for him. Would twitch toward his warmth, longing and beseeching, hoping for even a glimpse of his kind hands.

Moreover, they would betray his excitement when spotting Phainon in a crowd, or any time he entered a room. Coming to life with a small, happy flutter that Khaslana was quick to suppress. At just the sight of him. 

That his wings have the audacity to be so transparent with his emotions is horrifying, and frankly, a complete betrayal.

Mydeimos caught this happening once and scoffed with a smirk: “Like a dog’s tail.” Khaslana had given him a mighty glare, embarrassment consuming him. And then he slapped him across the chest with the end of his wing.

Regardless of what Khaslana’s wings think, what they seem to convey that he wants, they’re sensitive. A caress could undo him if caught off guard. Especially from Phainon, whose heat sinks straight through to Khaslana’s battered, scarred soul. So he’s careful. Conceals the emotions behind familiar walls. Keeps his fondness close but the yearning hidden.

He aches for the touch, but will never seek it out. He doesn’t dare ask for more than what he’s given; Phainon’s eyes on him alone are enough. His smiles the most precious gift.

Khaslana can tell himself that until he starts to believe it, but in the end, he still wants it. Still wants Phainon to know him in a way nobody else does– to finally be made aware of that trust, the care that he keeps cradled close to his rotten heart. The love.

Months pass like this, and it never fades. Khaslana wants with a breadth that leaves him breathless.

Phainon has been staring at Khaslana for a while now. 

Which technically isn’t that strange in and of itself. The only issue is that Khaslana has counted a couple hundred seconds by now, but Phainon hasn’t said a thing. It’s gotten to the point where it’s beginning to grate slightly on Khaslana’s nerves, having Phainon scrutinizing him so intensely. 

Like he’s trying to figure Khaslana out. Like there’s a burning question he needs answered and the key to it is somewhere within him.

It doesn’t… bother Khaslana necessarily, but it’s a weight that burns. A weight of which he is constantly aware of the longer it goes on, prickling at his scalp.

It’s dangerous, having Phainon’s gaze upon him for such a long time– his attention. Unusual. It almost makes him want to fidget.

Typically, if something’s on Phainon’s mind that involves Khaslana, he’ll be straightforward and just ask. He doesn’t shy away from his curiosity, and has a natural confidence about him that Khaslana knows has come from crafted ease and much practice. And if he doesn’t speak his mind, then Khaslana has mastered the strategy of staring at Phainon until he gets nervous and cracks.

But this time is different. Phainon doesn’t seem troubled, just… lost in thought. His face is devoid of any emotion, a purposeful apathy, and his body language is neutral, if not a bit closed off; arms crossed, shoulders stiff. Whatever he’s thinking about is of such importance that he hasn’t bothered keeping up appearances.

And also, the slate he’s supposed to be reading is limp in one hand, evidently unfinished. 

They’ve been sent to The Grove on a “collect information and clear threats” mission. Obviously, the clearing threats part they barely batted an eye at, but now they’re searching for specific information in the many slates and novels here. The undamaged ones, at least.

It’s a bit different from a typical Flame-Chase-type assignment, but it’s not like every single day is a day they go out and slay a Titan. Besides, they’re still recovering from a particularly brutal battle. Aglaea suggested something not so high stakes. 

Phainon had not dared question their leader’s judgement, and Khaslana was secretly relieved that Phainon was being forced to take it easy.

With a silent huff, Khaslana shifts his mid-air position to a comfortable cross-legged sit, that way he can rest the slate he is actually reading like they intended on his legs. His wings twitch as they settle with him, a brief rush of displaced air curling through the flared feathers.

In such an open area with only the two of them, Khaslana has less hesitance to let his wings free. Phainon’s presence is a balm as much as it’s a spark along Khaslana’s nerves. He knows better than anyone how well Phainon can cover his back if necessary. 

But the wings have been behaving so far. Perhaps it is in his calm focus that the unruly things have decided to obey, or perhaps Khaslana has been concealing their reactions for so long that it simply comes naturally.

He wonders if Phainon has noticed or not.

Nonetheless, Khaslana figures he’ll let Phainon work his issues out with himself if he's yet to speak up, maybe for a couple hundred more seconds, and if he still hasn’t spoken nor looked away by then, Khaslana will say something.

Khaslana reads, and keeps the count going in the back of his head. Behind his back, his wings are in a loose fold, relaxed and idle.

He gets to two hundred and fifty and Phainon still hasn’t moved a muscle. He's breathing, and blinking, but the loudest sound remains to be the eerie yet comforting deep heartbeat resounding throughout The Grove library.

So be it. Khaslana shall intervene.

With a sigh, Khaslana lowers his slate and uncrosses his legs to stand, gracefully tilting one to angle himself at Phainon. He tucks his wings behind him so they don’t smack into the bookshelf as they adjust.

“Alright,” he says, and watches Phainon blink at the sudden eye contact. Just how lost in his head was he? “What is it?”

Phainon merely tilts his head, but his shoulders do finally relax. “What do you mean?”

Khaslana slowly raises his brow. Levels Phainon with the blandest look he can muster.

This time, unlike every other, Phainon does not fold. Hm. His walls are up. 

Curious.

“You have been wordlessly staring at me for…” Khaslana pauses briefly, counts back. “About eight minutes.” He points to the slate loosely held in Phainon’s fingers. “Did you finish?”

He watches Phainon buffer for a moment, his arms falling and staring at the slate like he forgot it was there. He proceeds to visibly scramble for an excuse.

“Ah, no– well… I- I was just–”

Okay. Khaslana holds his hand up and Phainon’s blabbering mouth clicks shut. “If it's so boring, pick a new one.” 

Phainon stares, bug-eyed. Khaslana continues before he can conjure up a response. “Obviously, you’re distracted. So, what’s on your mind?”

“…Ah,” says Phainon, and nothing else. He looks a bit like a lost dromas, wide-eyed and floundering. 

To give Phainon time to actually use his brain, Khaslana mentally saves his place in his unfinished slate and turns to deposit it back on its shelf. While his back is turned, Phainon’s footsteps approach closer. They were already standing fairly close, just a dozen meters apart, but apparently whatever Phainon wants to say must be said directly between them. Even though they’re already alone.

There’s a tingling building in Khaslana’s nape as he becomes more and more aware of Phainon’s approaching presence– as it starts to invade the space he’s spent the last few months carefully placing between them. It threatens the stability he has constructed; the mindful calm, and the agreement with his wings to behave.

Khaslana peers over his shoulder at Phainon to watch his advance. He has to shift his right wing lower down on his back to have him fully in his sight.

That is when Khaslana catches Phainon’s gaze stuck to the appendage. He looks rather focused, or perhaps entranced by it.

There’s a rising feeling of anticipation gathering beneath Khaslana’s chest, where his golden blood burns brightest. He dares not get his hopes up, but… Phainon’s apparent specific interest in his wings lingers in the forefront of his mind as he studies him. 

It’s nothing but a handful of breaths that passes between them, but Khaslana takes everything in, curious, hesitantly hopeful.

Phainon freezes when Khaslana turns back around with a graceful swish of his wings. They’re close enough to where Phainon has to tilt his head up to maintain eye contact. Khaslana's eyes dart down to gauge the distance. About two meters.

And… Phainon’s arm is raised, fingers outstretched like he was reaching for something, held up in the space between them. Khaslana stares at it until it twitches with realization and drops back down.

Bizarre. The hope grows, transforms into something that threatens to spill into all the longing Khaslana’s kept bottled up. It warms his core, has his shoulder blades tensing in order to prevent his excited feathers from ruffling in response.

Slow, controlled breaths. Keep your wings still.

His hopes hardly matter. So regardless of them, Khaslana won’t assume. Phainon’s behavior is a possible cause for concern; what’s more important right now is figuring that out.

Khaslana’s eyes narrow. Phainon is still silent, his expression tight around the edges. He aims to be blunt this time. "Is there a reason you’re being so strange?”

Phainon swallows. His gaze darts over Khaslana’s shoulders, the left and then the right. The wings again. The tingling sensation buzzing softly at the back of Khaslana’s head spreads to his upper back. He feels how his wings wish to flutter into the feeling, to expand in a pleased flap, but he doesn’t let them. He tenses further, hands twitching into loose fists.

It’s not like this is the first time Phainon has seen his wings like this, far from it. Even though Khaslana has been careful to control their freedom as a precaution, it irritates them to be scrunched up for too long, so he has to let them relax and unfold eventually.

Even without the reasons of possible emotional transparency, he prefers to keep them tucked to his back or around his torso when out of combat, so they’re less cumbersome to walk around with. 

Especially in the times where Khaslana is simply walking through Mamoreal Market or the baths, he folds them fully into his back– a small price of discomfort to pay for convenience. It also garners less attention, when his conspicuous body already receives enough looks as it is.

That said, it has been months since they’ve been in such a relaxed state around Phainon, what with Khaslana’s emotional “complications.” Perhaps he noticed after all. Perhaps he’s worried that Khaslana is pulling away from him, or that he doesn’t trust him anymore.

A brief stab of guilt throbs at Khaslana’s temples, followed by faint worry. It’s not Phainon he doesn’t trust, it’s himself.  

Well, maybe it’s not something so dramatic, but Khaslana knows how wholeheartedly Phainon cares for all of his companions.

Finally, Phainon speaks. His voice is awkward into the relative silence. “It’s just–” He palms the back of his neck. “Your wings.”

Well, yes, Khaslana thinks, frowning. That’s the crux of every problem he has right now. What about them?

“What about them?”

“Well…” Phainon seems to go through the Kephalean effort of pulling his eyes from said wings to maintain eye contact. “I’m just curious, you know?”

No, Khaslana doesn’t know. He says as much. Unfortunately, mind reading is not a power his ascension gave him.

Phainon hesitates. His jaw works like he’s searching for the words, and all of this is so… baffling to Khaslana. Since when has Phainon tiptoed around him? Around anyone? Since when has Phainon not known what to say?

“You won’t offend me by asking questions,” Khaslana tells him, a little bit of that bewilderment bleeding into his tone. Behind it is a surge of hopefulness he isn’t able to squash down in time. It’s a pipe dream, but there’s always a possibility that Phainon’s curiosity includes touch… right?

Phainon nods. Nods some more. “Right. Well. They just fascinate me. Are they even connected to your body?” He looks like he has many more questions to ask, but stops himself after just one, cradling his chin and knuckle pressing to his lips as a way to silence himself.

Right, so. Semantics questions. Amidst the faint disappointment filling Khaslana’s chest is a gentle curl of warmth from Phainon’s interest. Though it warms his golden blood, Khaslana carefully controls his expression. 

He doesn’t bother looking at his own wings to check Phainon’s inquiry, because that would be ridiculous. Obviously they’re not. 

“No.” Khaslana frowns. “You’re asking that now?” After knowing each other for this long?

Phainon’s hand leaves his chin to make a vague gesture. “An introductory question,” he explains. Khaslana’s brow twitches. “Then, if they’re not connected, how do you move them?”

That, however, makes Khaslana pause. He can’t really describe it, he just… well… does. They're part of him, of course he can move them. What use would they have otherwise?

Khaslana’s not sure how to explain that in a way that makes sense to someone else, so he opts instead to say, a bit lost, “I… just do.”

Phainon doesn’t look put off by the lackluster answer, at the least. “So, do they have feeling? If someone touched them, would you feel it?”

Khaslana’s shoulders twitch back. His wings tuck in tight, quick and instinctual. Feeling? Lately it seems like all they do is feel. Khaslana briefly entertains the idea of responding with, you don’t know the half of it. 

He doesn’t. “Well, I wouldn't be able to move them if they didn’t.” A quick breath. “And yes. I would.”

“Hm,” says Phainon, and steps through the remaining distance between them. Khaslana makes to back up, caught off guard, but then Phainon sidesteps him, and walks a little half circle until he’s at his back.

To get a closer look? Khaslana supposes he’ll allow it. The pulse of his molten blood thuds in his veins, and he fights the instinctual rise of his hackles. He trusts Phainon. He does. His back is safe with him.

With a silent, slow breath, Khaslana relaxes. Flexes his wings a bit, spreads and flattens them out to half their maximum wingspan so that Phainon can properly see. A not insignificant part of him preens at getting such close attention from Phainon.

“Wow, they really aren’t connected,” comes Phainon’s voice, closer than Khaslana expected. Then, in an awed whisper, “Fascinating…”

Already Khaslana is heating up at the praise and the soft, lilting wonder in Phainon’s voice. Having him at his back like this outside of combat is new, different. Intimate. There’s no touch but still, Phainon’s attention is a caress, a warmth that’s almost physical as it travels from wing tip to wing tip.

A tingle of unease suddenly zips down Khaslana’s spine, striking through the current of warmth that was building up like water to a flame.

With a jerk of his head, he looks to the library entrance, ears straining for sounds of the Black Tide. His breath catches in his chest, hackles raising with his guard. The tenseness in his back climbs to his shoulders, has his wings stiffened and fanned out at the ready.

A few seconds pass, and… there’s nothing. It's peaceful. Khaslana relaxes minutely.

“Can I touch them?”

Phainon’s voice seems to echo in Khaslana’s brain, slightly muffled, low and coaxing.

Distracted, focused elsewhere, Khaslana absently voices an affirmative. Exhales quietly.

No danger. Then, why…?

His eyes widen. Wait. 

Khaslana sucks in a breath. “Wait–”

It’s too late. Curious fingers gently stroke the base of his left wing. That previously doused fire slingshots back to life inside of him with a vengeance.

Every muscle in Khaslana’s body locks up tight at once. His wing immediately twitches beneath the touch, cautious as it is, a small and uncontrollable jerk of sensitivity. Khaslana ruthlessly suppresses the instinctual urge to smack the hand away. It’s Phainon, just Phainon. Khaslana doesn’t want to hurt him.

And still, he can’t help the small shocked noise that leaves him, barely audible.

Phainon makes a low, intrigued sound, and adds two more of his fingers. Increases the pressure to something more confident. With every digit but his thumb, he starts at the sharp tip of the base and slides up and outwards. His thumb passes light and ticklish just below it.

Heat floods Khaslana’s face and every centimeter of him, a hot flash that simmers to boil with the molten gold inside of him.

A great shudder wracks through his wing from base to tip, a wave that follows in the wake of Phainon’s palm. It shakes itself out, the shiny feathers ruffling against each other, and ricochets all the way until it returns to Khaslana’s back and shivers through the rest of him. A bright, quaking warmth begins to pool in his chest.

Oh.

The yearning kept simmering close to the burning core of him explodes. From the depths of his core, Khaslana keens silently.

Phainon’s fingertips are callused from sword-wielding but no less gentle, a dichotomy that Khaslana is already addicted to, and as they slide along the smooth surface beneath them, it feels like a direct caress to the very core of him. A long, languid pulse of heat from the point of contact outwards.

Tucked behind clenched teeth, Khaslana moans, low and shaky, untethered and already weak for it. 

It’s better than he had ever hoped. Infinitely better than any of the times Khaslana has touched his own wings, even as something so small. Perhaps he was more touch-starved than he thought.

Or perhaps it’s entirely due to Phainon.

It’s like… like someone submerged Khaslana in steaming hot water until his hard outer shell was stripped away, and then started pressing in all of his most sensitive spots, spreading the heat to every corner of him. Cool breath on your nape, a finger teased down your spine, Phainon’s touch to his wing shivers all the way to where his gut clenches and his chest stutters.

Khaslana pants and shudders beneath the sensation, unable to stop his wing from twitching into the exploratory touch, seeking more. The careful control he has over himself starts slipping, melting away beneath Phainon’s fingers– beneath his gentle, stirring touch.

Either Phainon hasn’t noticed the immediate reaction or he doesn’t care, because he continues on like nothing has happened. Like he isn’t stroking Khaslana's wing right now. 

As if he isn’t singlehandedly stuffing Khaslana’s brain with cotton, turning him hot and fuzzy. Granted, Khaslana didn’t tell him exactly what having his wings touched feels like, but he thinks if Phainon continues, he'll soon find out.

Phainon carefully palms the flared edges of one of Khaslana’s feathers and rubs back and forth along the ridges, wondrous. His hand is warm, and the fabric of his glove is like scratching a years-long itch. It coaxes another shiver.

And another. And then it doesn’t stop. A fine tremor starts up throughout Khaslana's body, burning hot like a live wire. It's bliss– careful walls shattered, coaxed apart unintentionally. His toes start tingling.

All he can think, through the blood roaring in his veins and pounding in his ears, is: Finally.

His next moan is louder and longer, more obvious this time. A tinge of desperation that bears far too much of Khaslana’s yearning wrapped within it. He manages to keep it trapped behind his lips, but it warbles from his throat all the same.

Phainon doesn’t stop. Sounding flippant and distracted, he asks, “What part’s the most sensitive?” Before he even gets a response, his hand slides back down closer to the base. “Here?”

Khaslana can’t answer, too busy trying to stop himself from moaning right into the open air. He wants to say, Yes, and, Please don’t stop. He whines instead.

Phainon keeps exploring, whispering little occasional awed sounds as he goes, like he could do this for hours. Either heedless or uncaring of how Khaslana is reacting. Or perhaps, Khaslana’s melting brain suggests, he’s doing it because of the reactions.

He doesn’t quite have the faculties to immediately deny the prospect like he typically would.

Phainon’s hand pets up across the top, stroking down the length of what he can reach like he’s petting a dromas’ neck. A smooth, gentle slide across the shiny surface. It’s lightly dragged nails across Khaslana’s skin, metaphorical goosebumps rising and a tingling surging through his scalp.

It shivers down his spine with a spike of heat. His cheeks are aflame, his shoulders twitching backwards then forwards, unsure what to do in the face of so much sensation.

Khaslana whimpers shakily, surrenders himself to the pleasure of Phainon’s fondling, and soaks up each second of contact like he needs it to live.

Phainon’s fingers are careful as they traverse Khaslana’s wing and send showers of golden electricity down his spine. Appreciating. Khaslana preens beneath it at the same time his nerves twitch and spasm at such direct, unending contact. A terribly addictive combination. His blood bubbles and sizzles, presses up against the underside of his skin with a heat that only keeps growing.

And then Phainon suddenly brushes against an extra sensitive part, the underside of a ridge near the base, and presses into it. Khaslana’s wing jolts hard this time, enough to move Phainon’s hand and briefly break contact. Khaslana doesn’t even register it. Can’t, beyond the sudden sharp ringing that explodes inside his ears. 

“Ah!” It's like being zapped right at the apex of a nerve, a knee-jerk response that quickly fades from shock to buzzing pleasure. His hands spasm into fists.

Khaslana’s balance staggers, losing a few centimeters in the air before he reflexively catches himself. Feverish warmth blooms through him anew. The steadily climbing heat from his blood spreads out into his wings from the inside out, seeping through the cracks in his back and glowing a subtle, golden-orange.

“You okay?” Phainon asks. As if to soothe, he slowly lays his hand back atop the obsidian feathers, just a careful, grounding pressure.

Khaslana’s still tingling from that weak spot being touched so suddenly, little prickles of warmth washing across his skin in hazy ripples.

“Mmph…” is all he manages.

Phainon pets lightly at him for a bit like he’s petting the flank of an animal, and while Khaslana can tell it’s meant to settle him, it only exacerbates the issue, the flush filling his face burning so hot and bright he’s starting to feel dizzy.

“It’s different from what I expected,” Phainon mentions offhandedly into the silence, like he’s making casual conversation, and Khaslana feels out of his mind. There is simply no way he hasn’t noticed just what he’s doing to Khaslana.

Case in point, Khaslana is currently unable to make conversation. He’s fairly certain if he tried to speak it would devolve into breathy pants and whimpers. And he’s barely holding himself up as it is.

Phainon resumes his exploration, fanning his fingers out and brushing downwards, catching repeatedly against the edges and ridges, until he reaches the ends of the wing. From there, he drags his hand from base to feather as he makes his way back upwards– back and forth and back again, sending repetitive and unending waves of bright-hot tingling heat to Khaslana’s core.

It’s possible that every gash in his body is leaking the broiling heat from inside of him, seeking an escape as he feels like he’s being cooked alive. The heat of fury, of Destruction, that he is used to. This is its very own beast, something entirely new and therefore made all the more dizzying. And it tingles everywhere, pins and needles of pleasure cascading down his spine all the way to his fingertips.

At this point, Khaslana knows his attempts at muffling himself have been pathetic at best, and utterly useless at worst. From his sounds and reactions alone Phainon must know what he’s doing. Surely he doesn’t think this is such a casual happenstance. That Khaslana would let anybody do this, would submit to such a revealing situation and do so willingly.

No; in Khaslana’s head, there is only one single person who he would allow this from. Because as much as this touch incapacitates him, he still has his instincts. Instincts that say anyone else would be halfway across the room if they dared attempt to touch his wings. But Phainon… Khaslana’s dear Phainon… submission comes easily. 

Whether or not Phainon is conscious of it matters little. Khaslana is weak for it, for him, in a way that terrifies him.

But for right now, Khaslana’s lips part around breathy sounds from deep in his chest, and he trembles from head to toe.

Phainon’s thumb strokes, up and down and back and forth along the edges of Khaslana’s feathers, the tip of his thumb pressing lightly into their frayed ends and sending mini shocks of lightning bolting down the nerves. The sounds of them rubbing together as they flick to and fro are like clinks of metal, just barely audible over the heaving of Khaslana’s breath.

Phainon pinches the tip of a feather and inspects the texture beneath his thumb, gently maneuvering it beneath his intent gaze.

A moan trips its way out of Khaslana’s throat, unintelligible words following it, and this time it’s unmuffled. Loud like a gunshot between them, even over the pounding pulse consuming Khaslana’s body. Simultaneous humiliated and pleased warmth redoubles its efforts on burning his face from the inside out. 

Khaslana’s hand slaps to his mouth, eyes fluttering shut and a desperate furrow to his brow. Dear Titans. If he had the strength left, he would smack Phainon away with his other wing– just to preserve any of his remaining dignity, to keep hidden the enormity of his want, the breathtaking reality of it– but he’s rendered a pile of shivery mush instead.

And there’s a… perhaps quite large part of him that doesn’t want this to stop. Even if he’s vulnerable, even if it terrifies him.

It feels good. Very good.

Speaking of the other wing, Phainon spontaneously decides it also deserves attention, and his clothes rustle as he presumably shuffles back. Khaslana hardly has time to prepare before his other hand makes contact and strokes along it with no hesitance to speak of, the same as the first one had: from base to the curvy, glowing edges of a nearby feather. 

“Oh–” It’s too much. “Shit.” 

Two points of direct stimulation, akin to a warm, constant press on a tender muscle, or perhaps a scratch to the scalp that never ends– tingling and tingling down Khaslana’s spine.

“They’re glowing,” remarks Phainon. “Do they glow when they’re rubbed?” His tone is mild, perhaps purposefully so, but Khaslana is in no state of mind to analyze the lilt to it.

Having stated his theory aloud, Phainon immediately puts it to the test, both thumbs picking a spot near the base– the sensation of his palms sliding down at the same time makes Khaslana’s eyes roll back– and rubbing in little circles.

That’s…

His coherency shatters at his feet and dies a fiery, flaming death.

Into his palm, Khaslana lets loose a series of moans, each more high-pitched than the last. “Ph-Phai– nnh! Hold o- ahn–“

Oh, Titans, this is becoming humiliating.

His shivers turn into a trembling that wracks his whole frame. His skin, his blood, his pulse, all of him buzzes. It's like a caress to an open nerve that sends bright sparks exploding behind his lids, thumbs pressed to his weakest points. 

It starts at the center of his back and spreads outwards, a relentless warmth that ripples in endless waves and pools somewhere deep inside of him. Behind his ribs, it surges, collects with it the tangled mess of Khaslana’s yearning and burns it to sickly sweet ashes. 

He can taste it on his tongue.

Even his wings are trembling and twitching; Khaslana has no doubt that they’re glowing a bright gold, growing in power the longer Phainon keeps touching them. Hell, his entire body is probably glowing at this point, the tight reign he keeps on his power at all times knocked loose with the breath from his chest, each press and rub and pet another chip at his walls. His breath rebounds hotly against his makeshift muzzle like it’s coming from the very depths of him, and his face is so hot it’s tingling.

This is bad. Khaslana’s teetering dangerously close to an edge he might not be able to come back from. 

Another few rubs, another litany of embarrassing moans. Khaslana's doing his best to just keep floating in place and not go crashing bonelessly to the floor. He can feel how his wings are in a constant state of jerking in response to the sensations, instinctively trying to close to escape them whilst simultaneously pushing further into the blissful feeling. He’s lost control.

He has to stop this. For both of them. Khaslana’s eyes struggle open, heavy and hazy.

“Phainon,” he gasps out. His back arches in a futile attempt to escape, to put distance between them. Phainon just follows him, persistent and relentless. He has to know what he’s doing.

Khaslana hears a shaky exhale from behind him. 

Oh. He knows. It’s on purpose.

Firmer this time but still weaker than he wants, Khaslana repeats himself. “Phainon, stop- stop that!” The end of his words dissolve into a pathetic whimper.

Phainon hums, sounding breezy and unaffected. Except, when he speaks, it’s a breathless murmur, his voice raspy. “But it feels good, doesn’t it?”

He increases the pressure, caresses the rest of his fingertips along the sharp edge. Khaslana whines loud and shaky through his teeth. His entire body burns up, fierce and throbbing. With a jolt, the sharp tips of his fingers dig into his armored palm, a muffled scrape of gold against gold.

He can feel his wings heating up rapidly right alongside the rest of him, approaching something dangerous as they glow, and glow, and glow. Khaslana knows, once they get to a certain brightness– a certain temperature… Well, he definitely doesn’t want Phainon to be touching him when that happens.

Stilted, trying to string together coherency, Khaslana manages, “It… burns…”

The touch immediately vanishes. The loss of it is as much a relief as it is a constriction around Khaslana’s lungs. Wait, no. Don’t leave. Come back. His wings stretch futilely backwards; Phainon’s already moving.

“It burns?!” Frantic and horrified, Phainon scrambles back to Khaslana’s front. “I was hurting you?! Why didn’t you say something!?”

The touch is gone, but the warmth remains, sensation still singing through Khaslana’s nerves, spreading through his veins in waves of blissful heat. He’s left trembling, chest heaving, twitching with the aftershocks. It’s hard to focus, to pull the scattered parts of his brain back together into coherency, but he still shakes his head.

He needs Phainon to understand, to wipe that look off his face.

Khaslana’s palm is damp, and whether it’s from his breath or even possibly drool hardly matters, because Phainon looks like he’s about to self destruct in front of him– hands still hovering, flitting about as if he wants to help but doesn’t know how to, eyes wide and guilty, darting across Khaslana’s face.

Khaslana pushes through the blissed out fog, clings desperately onto his sanity. Lidded eyes, flushed face and all, Khaslana lowers his palm. His lips are slightly numb and slick with spit, but he still tries to explain.

“No, it… if you kept going… would’ve burned you.” Khaslana tucks his wings in close to his back in an attempt to recover faster, choking back a pleasured little hum that wants to leave him as the action sends them shuddering all the way to the feathered tips like a good stretch.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

Phainon’s relieved sigh moves his entire body. His palm raises to press against his heart, and his next inhale is shaky. “Titans, don’t scare me like that.” 

Khaslana’s still wrangling his coherency together, marinating in the euphoria of Phainon touched my wings. He touched them and did it on purpose. He heard my reactions and kept going anyway. I love him.

Maybe it wasn’t the most ideal situation for it to have happened in, but Khaslana finds it hard to care. He wants more, all of it, everywhere. Wants Phainon’s hands pressing into his skin next, carding fingers through his hair, warmth seeping into his hurt.

He’s gotten a taste of absolution and that yawning chasm inside of him is already starving for it.

Phainon’s cheeks are faintly red, his chest moving a bit fast. He’s watching Khaslana carefully, like he still doesn’t quite believe he wasn’t hurting him. Ah, Phainon. That’s how you are. You love so hard it destroys, don’t you? But you wish it didn’t.

We are one in the same.

Instead of apologizing or perhaps explaining further, Khaslana blinks lethargically, unfurls and shakes his wings out, and drops to his feet. 

Phainon startles, immediately worried. “What– Khaslana? Are you okay?”

“Mm,” is all Khaslana says, and steps into Phainon’s space with one movement. Without any of his typical hesitance, he presses their chests together and noses right into his collar. Turns his face to tuck it into his neck and nose at his tattoo, where he’s warmest and sweetest.

Indulgent, drunk on endorphins, Khaslana allows himself to be selfish. If only for this moment.

Phainon jolts, shoulders hitching with surprise, but he relaxes when Khaslana sighs into him. Then, his arms come up, very slowly and carefully to avoid the wings, and wrap around Khaslana's back. He seems a bit confused, but all too happy to receive the rare affection.

Phainon hums, palms sliding up Khaslana’s skin, ticklish. He presses in, a gentle pressure settling Khaslana’s nerves. Fitting him back into his skin. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Mm,” Khaslana repeats, fighting every instinct crawling along his bones and blaring alarms in his mind urging him away. They’re more muffled than usual, drowned out by the pleasant haze that’s still swimming around in his brain. “I’m okay.”

He breathes Phainon in; the faint scent of sweat beneath the sharp tang of metal and leather, and slightly overtop of that, a crisp and refreshing hint of grass on a breeze. Khaslana sinks into it. Thinks, serenely, I love you.

The lull hangs between them. Khaslana takes the opportunity to spread his wings out, fluttering his feathers into the cool air to get the temperature back to normal. Tiny waves of tingles spread out to their tips, working through the recent assault on their nerves. Beneath his ear is the faint thudding of Phainon’s pulse, slightly elevated. His skin is soft.

“You’re warm,” Phainon murmurs into Khaslana's hair, a smile in his voice. Khaslana gets distracted by the vibration from his throat and the hum of it through their chests. 

“...It's your fault,” he eventually says back.

“Sorry,” Phainon says, a bit too happily to sound genuinely apologetic. “Your wings are very pretty.”

Khaslana’s breath stalls in his chest. Pretty?  

His next exhale is shaky, and rebounds against Phainon’s skin right back onto his face, pooling more heat in his cheeks that immediately spreads to his ears. He blinks unseeing eyes, feels the slight twitch of Phainon’s chin in response to the ticklish sensation.

The ache in Khaslana that had melted away under Phainon’s curious hands returns with startling clarity and throbs something fierce; pangs like an old wound, a scar torn anew. His previous lethargy is chased away in the face of the sensation of the ground being opened beneath his feet. His throat tightens.

Pretty. Phainon thinks his wings are pretty. 

Ah. Khaslana’s chest hurts. I love him.

Khaslana helplessly turns his face in, hiding, eyes squeezing shut. Inhales unevenly around the shrapnels of longing shredding his flesh and stabbing through him, choking the air from his lungs. 

A different kind of heat from the one earlier diffuses throughout his entire body, builds between each of his ribs and strangles him speechless.

Oh, how Khaslana yearns.

Around the enormity of every surging emotion, Khaslana cannot respond. So he does not.

Instead, a silence settles between them, in which Phainon’s words echo within Khaslana’s mind in endlessly repeating cycles, over and over. With it, a broken record: Pretty? Pretty? Phainon thinks my wings are… pretty?

Khaslana finally raises his limp arms to return the embrace, almost absentmindedly. His hands find the back of Phainon’s coat and immediately grab desperate fistfulls of the fabric, stretching it taut across his broad back. 

He squeezes, and squeezes, until the tips of his fingers start to burn, until he thinks his gauntlet might tear straight through it.

Phainon notices, because of course he does. Concerned, low and kind, he asks, “Khaslana?”

“I–” Khaslana chokes. Halts. Phainon’s chest rises and falls calmly against his own, and his hands are steady against Khaslana’s back. 

He doesn’t even know where to start with his words. How to get them past the lump in his throat and the ache in his lungs. So, he doesn’t. Instead, he lets his wings do it for him.

They stretch out, flap, the whoosh of displaced air that gets swept aside fluttering the ends of their coattails. They’re cool to the touch. Khaslana clings on, steadies himself the best he can, and wraps his wings around Phainon. 

The feathered tips reach the tops of Phainon’s thighs, and Khaslana uses them as a secondary set of arms where his own cannot; tucks them right up against Phainon’s body and squeezes him in even closer. An insane part of him wants to mold them together into one being. Crawl into the safety of Phainon’s ribcage and stay there forever.

He wants to belong beside Phainon’s heart.

Phainon makes a low, confused sound in his throat, but doesn’t question any further.

Khaslana’s wings are big enough to cocoon them both. Streaks of golden light shine through the uneven gaps, but the low thump of the library heartbeat along with rustles of leaves and creaking of wood all get muffled. It is within this self-made sanctuary that Khaslana gathers himself to speak.

His voice is rough and low, but steady. “My wings… are sensitive.”

Quietly, “Eh?” Phainon clears his throat. “What?”

Khaslana continues as if Phainon hadn’t spoken. “You touching them is…” Here, he falters, swallows, unsure how much of himself to bear. 

Phainon pulse thumps on, and on, and his breaths are soft next to Khaslana’s ear. Warm in his arms and in the cradle of his wings. Khaslana’s fists loosen their death grip, and his arms slide further upwards– a proper return embrace. His hands settle just below Phainon’s raised collar, fingertips brushing against the embroidered pattern there.

What has he to lose?

Miraculously, Phainon doesn’t interrupt in the pause. Perhaps he senses that Khaslana needs to gather his thoughts.

Finally, he continues, “…important. To me.” Khaslana wonders if maybe this conversation is better to have face to face. But at the same time, he’s unsure if he could look Phainon in the eyes and say this. Bear his heart and soul at the same time, when both are irreparable.

“They’re an extension of my emotions. Of the deepest parts of me.” Khaslana’s lips press together until they bleed white. Phainon gently nudges his head against Khaslana’s, a wordless show of support. The tightness in Khaslana’s chest loosens. 

He exhales, slow and measured. “My vulnerabilities, my truths. They’re honest when I’m not. Sometimes I can’t control how they react, and that’s a liability. It reveals too much, and I can’t allow that.”

He pulls his face slightly from the safety of Phainon’s neck, if only so that he can speak easier, clearer. “Which sounds… ridiculous, saying it out loud–” Phainon’s head shakes. Not at all, he silently says. “–but, ah… I’ve always wanted you to touch them. To… see that– to see me. And know that I trust you.”

Khaslana’s shoulders hike up to his ears. Titans, he’s bad at this. His wings respond in kind, curling inwards, twitching with discomfort. Typically, they would be hiding his face from view, but they’re currently wrapped around Phainon, and that’s not something Khaslana wants to let go of.

“And that I…” love you. Faintly, Khaslana hears Phainon’s pulse pick up. Courage fails him. “…Well. I’m sure you know.”

There’s a pause after Khaslana finishes. He lets it hang, stretch out, fingers twitching. 

“You’re more honest than you think, Khaslana,” Phainon says, his voice low and careful. Before Khaslana can wonder just what exactly he means by that, Phainon continues. “Thank you for trusting me, I’m honored.”

A tinge of melancholy colors his voice. “And… I’m sorry.”

That, out of everything, makes Khaslana pull back. His wings follow, retreating but still keeping Phainon in a light hold. Frowning, bewildered, he meets Phainon’s gaze and is struck breathless by the quiet sorrow in his eyes. The frown melts from his face.

Still, he manages, “Why?”

Phainon’s smile is small and sad. “For not noticing sooner. Or doing something about it.” He looks away, and his hands slide from Khaslana’s back to his waist. “I had thought maybe something was bothering you, when you started to pull away a bit… but I wasn’t sure how to approach you– if it was even possibly my fault.”

With a startled blink and an aching stab to his chest, Khaslana remembers his thoughts from earlier. It seems he was right, Phainon was worried about Khaslana’s distance. That he was even blaming himself is a sinking weight in Khaslana’s gut.

“My wings were giving me away,” Khaslana hurries to explain. “Because my emotions began to spread to them. It was too revealing, so I had to control it. That wasn’t your fault. I’ve always trusted you.” 

Phainon nods, subdued, like he doesn’t quite believe him. Phainon’s heart is such a tender, beautiful thing; it’s Khaslana’s sincere wish to cherish it and its soft light. 

You haven’t a single clue, Khaslana muses, stuck in the deep aqua of Phainon’s downturned eyes, the depths of my adoration for you.

A sharp inhale. “Phainon? Look at me, please?”

Phainon is quick to obey. His thumbs start rubbing, back and forth, tracing the jagged lines of the purple corruption cutting through Khaslana’s pale skin. 

Khaslana allows his arms to fall away into a loose hold around Phainon’s middle, but keeps his wings wrapped snug where they are.

He looks right into Phainon’s eyes and finally says, “I love you.” It’s such an inexorable truth in Khaslana’s heart that, even after all that time of concealing his emotions, it’s easy to say. A breath. “I need you to understand that.”

Phainon stops blinking. And possibly also breathing.

Well. Khaslana can’t stop now, can he.

“It consumes me. Strips me to the basest version of myself and leaves me floundering.” Phainon’s eyes just keep getting wider and wider, with every new word. “I… don’t know what to do with that. 

“It makes me long for what I can’t have, for what is just out of my reach… and for what I know I will never receive.” 

He doesn’t say, This yearning has swallowed me whole, and there’s a permanent scar deeper than any gash on my body where every memory I’ve had with you resides. In past lives and in this one.

He doesn’t say, I’ve known you for so long, and loved you in every life.

He doesn’t have to. Instead, he repeats, helplessly: “I love you, Phainon. I have loved you. Your touch is… my salvation.” A wry mimicry of a smile twists Khaslana’s lips and falls just as quickly. “At the end of the day… it’s selfish: my heart.”

Phainon’s stunned silence hangs between them. His thumbs have frozen, but his grip has tightened. Trickles of regret start pricking at Khaslana’s scalp, shame not far behind, but he holds steady, lets the constant warmth in his chest bleed into his expression. They’re… way too close.

Khaslana’s wings press into Phainon’s back, perhaps to urge him into motion, perhaps to pull him closer despite his thoughts, Khaslana isn’t entirely sure. He didn’t put much thought into the movement. They’re honest when I’m not. 

“You…” Phainon finally croaks. His eyes are wide, cheeks pink. “Me…? You love– me?” Again, with more emphasis: “Love?”

Khaslana nods. Clears his throat, feeling his own cheeks start to heat. Fights to maintain eye contact.

“Wait, hold on.” Phainon’s tone does a complete one-eighty, and he gives a little shake of his head. His hands fly up Khaslana’s body and settle on each side of his neck. Vehement, brow furrowed, he says, “You, are a ridiculous man. ‘I know I will never receive’? Khaslana–” All at once, his expression crumples. Khaslana’s getting whiplash.

With twisted brows, Phainon stresses, “I would give you anything.”

I know, Khaslana thinks, that’s the problem. You’d give anyone anything. And for it, I love you endlessly.

Phainon tenderly presses their foreheads together. Khaslana’s wings curl with surprise. They overlap each other, crossing at Phainon’s lower back to tighten the embrace further. A crooked smile breaks through Phainon’s contorted expression, out of place with those somber eyes but gorgeous all the same.

“All you had to do was ask.” He shakes his head. Shifts his thumbs, gently presses them into the vulnerable dips in Khaslana’s throat. Khaslana swallows roughly against them. “All you have to do is ask.”

Is it really that easy? It can’t be.

Khaslana’s longing restricts him. His memories bind him with chains. His love has nowhere to go and that’s how it has always been. So that he may watch Phainon from the ground as he streaks through the sky, blazing like a meteorite, is all he could wish for.

“Some days,” Khaslana whispers, voice breaking under the weight of his honesty, “all I can think about is your touch.”

Khaslana reaches inside his chest, and pulls out the weakest, ugliest parts of him for Phainon to hold. Unsurprisingly, he cradles them with callused, gentle palms, and soothes the ache to nothing.

Phainon cups his cheek, his eyes a tender bruise, melting Khaslana from the inside out. He never stood a chance– not that he ever resisted Phainon’s pull in the first place.

“You have it,” Phainon breathes, thumb caressing his warmed skin. “You have me.”

Khaslana’s chest cracks wide open.

He kisses him. It’s all he can do. 

Phainon’s reciprocation comes immediately if not gently, and he sighs softly when Khaslana’s fingers tangle in his hair. 

Khaslana’s wings drag Phainon’s body the rest of the miniscule way in, until they’re touching lips to toes. They hold him there, secure and needy, and for once Khaslana lets it happen. Lets go of the instinctual control he’s been keeping up for the past months and just… allows himself to feel.

Phainon kisses him slow and deliberate, cradles both sides of his face and never lets him go far. His lips are slightly chapped, bitten from stress, and fit perfectly against Khaslana’s own. Khaslana’s entire body fills with a euphoric tingling, something that shudders all the way to where his wings curl, protective and honest. It’s an inverse of earlier, when Phainon’s touch originated from his wings and then spread to the rest of him. 

Now, Phainon removes one hand to tenderly push back Khaslana’s bangs, and then it continues on its way; unhurried, mapping out features as it goes, it slides across Khaslana’s jaw, down to his collarbones, the cracks in his chest, the gash slicing through his right pec– it explores, and drags with it an overwhelming warmth that’s making Khaslana lightheaded.

Phainon’s slow with it, in the same way he’s slow with their kiss, like he’s savoring having Khaslana in his arms like this. Their lips move in sync, two bodies separated by time but brought together by love. Khaslana shudders from it all, vulnerable and exposed. 

He’s never felt so safe.

The warmth in him swells to unfathomable heights, balloons bright and suffocating in his lungs, but it’s a suffocation that’s healing him. That drives away the thorns and the daggers and all the poison, sucked away by Phainon’s gentle touch and gentle kiss. Khaslana melts, full-body, falling into Phainon who catches him before they even stumble. 

Khaslana cradles his nape and the back of his head, props his elbows over his shoulders, and pours everything he can into the next meeting of their lips. Phainon’s breath shakes, a small moan swallowed up between them. His hand grips Khaslana’s waist again, digging his fingers in for purchase. The other slides back up to his jaw, but it’s passive, just resting there.

Khaslana presses eagerly into the feeling, licking across the seam of Phainon’s lips. Phainon whimpers, bitten-off, and then whimpers louder when Khaslana’s tongue invades his mouth. 

He swallows that one, too. And every subsequent noise Phainon proceeds to make. Slowly, gradually, it heats up, Khaslana’s own stilted sounds joining the mix as Phainon’s hand shifts from his cheek to his neck, then his shoulder. He grips there, trying to steady himself against Khaslana’s increasing enthusiasm.

Khaslana loses himself in the push and pull of it all, in the swelling heat between them, and in Phainon’s little reedy noises that start getting more and more frequent. 

It’s this distraction that has him jumping almost out of his skin when one of his twisted feathers is gripped halfway up the base. It’s not rough, and not painful, but just tight enough to send a jolt of white-hot sensation bolting through the nerves. For Khaslana to release a shocked sound and jerk back from Phainon’s hold.

“S-sorry,” Phainon pants, eyes glazed over slightly, dazed. He releases Khaslana’s wing. They were wrapped so tightly around Phainon that he only had to reach a little past his ribs to grab at one, apparently. “Was that too rough?”

Khaslana’s not much more coherent himself, every inch of him hot with a haze he can’t blink away. He eases his tight, possessive hold on Phainon, relaxing until his arms drape over Phainon’s shoulders instead. “Mm… No.”

Phainon sighs, returns his arm from its awkward angle and wraps them loosely around Khaslana’s waist. He’s always holding him there… is that his favorite spot or something?

Phainon leans in and kisses beneath Khaslana’s eyes in apology, even though he said the grab didn’t hurt. Not that Khaslana’s complaining, but… he’s feeling dizzy. And it still won’t go away.

Phainon kisses his nose, then his forehead. Khaslana’s brain might be steaming in his skull. 

Too much touch, Khaslana wheezes in his mind, still reeling from everything, belatedly soaking in every kiss and caress from Phainon, even as his head dips and his nose tucks into Phainon’s neck again. I’m going to die.

He steadies himself there for a moment, and Phainon allows him the time to hide, to breathe in his comforting scent and calm down. His thumbs rub absently in the patch of open skin at the very base of Khaslana’s spine. It’s slightly ticklish but grounding all the same. 

Little by little, Khaslana’s head clears back up.

“The wing touching did feel good, by the way,” Khaslana mutters. He omits from saying specifically how good it felt.

Phainon gives a little happy, acknowledging hum, sounding far too pleased with himself. Khaslana’s so endeared by him he doesn’t know what to do with it– with the feeling building in his chest.

And so, to offset the mushy, sappy overwhelm, Khaslana takes a deep breath, and bites right at the junction of Phainon’s neck and shoulder.

He jolts in surprise, an aborted yelp leaving him. “Did you just–?!” Khaslana soothes it with his tongue. “–bite me?”

“No.” Over Phainon’s noise of disbelief, Khaslana calmly says, “I love you.” Overjoyed at how freeing it feels to say.

Phainon’s response is a tad delayed, slightly flustered. “You can’t just say that to get away with being a menace.”

Khaslana pulls back. “It’s working, though.”

A pause. Khaslana wings finally release Phainon from their grip– slow and reluctant like a needy lover– and return to their typical place atop his back. He stretches them out until they shiver with it, metallic feathers quivering and settling back in place. A small, satisfied sound rumbles in the back of his throat. 

Phainon pecks him in his silence. Clearly an answer of its own. Khaslana struggles not to smile.

“Have I told you that I like your wings?” Phainon says, apropos of nothing. Changing the topic; Khaslana graciously allows it.

“Have you?” Khaslana parrots back. “You just went and started stroking them.”

They properly separate whilst they banter, and Khaslana watches as Phainon straightens out his coat and runs strong fingers through his disheveled hair. All his white and blue and golds amidst the browns and greens of their surroundings… He’s so goddamn handsome.

“You told me I could touch your wings, you know,” Phainon says, eyes creasing. “Earlier.”

“…I was distracted,” Khaslana mutters, a bit lost in the boyish shine to Phainon’s eye. Which isn’t even an excuse. He was.

Phainon’s chuckle drips honeyed warmth straight to Khaslana’s core. It’s a nice sound. Then, suddenly, he stands ramrod straight, eyes wide like he just remembered something extremely important.

Sure enough, “Wait!”

Khaslana blinks at him. “What…?”

Phainon even goes so far as to facepalm, his hand slapping his forehead. Khaslana’s brows raise.

“I can’t believe I–” He whips around, grabs Khaslana by the fabric at his hips, and reels him in for a kiss. Flustered, confused, Khaslana can do nothing but let himself be manhandled into it.

It’s chaste, casual, over before Khaslana even processes what’s happening.

Phainon keeps him there after he pulls away, and grins. “I love you too.” He leans in, smile widening into something vaguely mischievous. “Lots.”

Oh. “Oh.” Khaslana was so distracted by literally everything that happened after his confession that he never realized Phainon didn’t say it back. He had figured the other heartfelt declarations and egregious kissing spoke for itself.

Either way, Khaslana softens. The fondness in his chest turns molten, blooms with the love he’s kept under lock and key for so long that’s free at last.

Finally, finally, he smiles. Gentle, warm, and unfettered. His wings give a happy little flap right alongside it, and for the first time in months, Khaslana doesn’t have to suppress it.

Phainon lights up at the sight, perking like an excited puppy. His hold loosens until it falls away and Khaslana takes the opportunity to turn away from the blindingly golden aura radiating from his big, shiny eyes. 

He wills the heat in his cheeks to abate as he steadies himself into the air with a soft shift of balance. Phainon’s footsteps catch up easily, matching his gaitless hover.

Phainon scratches his head as they head for the exit. It’s as they’re halfway back the way they came that he speaks up. “Weren’t we supposed to be collecting information?”

Khaslana freezes. Turns, slowly, to Phainon. Looks down. Phainon looks up.

“…Aglaea’s going to kill us.”

Then, at the same time: “Oh no.”