𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐈𝐓'𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄
SYNOPSIS: a final conversation with your husband- ANAXAGORAS and the lingering promises that remain.
NOTES: anaxa has one of my fav character designs. also i kept misspelling his name every sentence omg. no wonder people just call him anaxa. might by my fav piece too ngl
extra ノ gn reader . established relationship . angst . spoilers for the latest story quest .
SOMEHOW YOU KNEW YOUR HUSBAND- ANAXAGORAS- would not be coming home tonight.
Call it intuition, a feeling, years worth of careful observation which finally led to this.
Even now- with his body next to you, eye shut in peaceful repose- you know the scene before you is liminal. It is a space of waiting: taut with anticipation, bursting at its seams, ready to unravel the moment your fingertips graze his cold cheek.
Your husband is gradually retracting. His body cold, skin pale, hands inexplicably dry and stiff. He is a corpse experiencing rigor mortis. A dead man exuding the fiery remnants of life.
In Okhema the sun never sets. But your body tells you it’s dawn. Early hours. Quiet awakening. How? Because Anaxa is lying next to you, breathing slowly, as if he is milking each sip of air.
“Mm?” he hums, his one eye still stitched close. His eyelashes quivering slightly.
You curl in, bringing your body closer, attempting to share the warmth he can’t keep, “It’s funny, you know.”
Anaxa shifts, accommodating your body with his, “What is?”
His voice is flat, and you smile; pressing your lips together to suppress a childish giggle.
“How you let me call you Anaxa instead of Anaxagoras”
Now his eye flutter open, dawns reflects in his iris, “Didn’t you say ‘Anaxagoras’ was too long?” sighing, he then rubs his temples. An act you’ve seen him perform more often now.
“Well yes, I did,” you pause, eyes flickering towards his hand, “But—”
Your hand slides up his wrists, interlocking with his fingers and the lines of red you could trace by heart. You shiver slightly, he notices.
“Anaxa is meant for you to say,” his fingers curl inwards, pulling your hand into a tight embrace. He squeezes it. The force is firm enough to reassure, not warm. “There, happy now?”
You retract your hand and smile, “I am fully satisfied.”
How could be satisfied? How could you be content with your decisions? Could you live on memory and his fleeting cologne? Does it not ache to feel him slip, to see the regret lingering within his iris, the tentative curl of his hands through your hair?
Yet, you allow it. There are no defeated sighs, no objections or hasty pleas. Just you and him, lying together like yesterday. As if tomorrow was just another promise to keep. Another hour spent reading, walking, talking.
Have the Chrysos Heirs ever been a selfish? Do they dream of absconding, of abandoning their divine role?
Anaxa may be a variant, a strange vagabond compared to the rest of Okhema- maybe even all of Amphoreus. A blasphemer. The great performer. A man who refuses to believe in the ancient prophecies.
But golden blood still thrums in his veins. At the core of his wicked being, he’d still fuse himself with the Titans core flame. He’d still take his stand in the limelight. He’d still give it all up.
A voice in the back of your head says it includes you too.
Anaxa reaches for your cheeks, his countenance firm, grave with devotion, "As much as I admire that mind of yours..." he stops, letting his words hang in the air, fermenting, "You make too many assumptions."
"Assumption?" you mutter, incredulous.
Anaxa blinks then sighs. He returns to your face and in knowing, he wraps his hand across the back of your head, pulling you into his chest. Magnetic and swift like the wings of a bird tucking treasure. He shields you from eternal light, bringing you into the sheltered darkness of his chest- the one place where an inkling of warmth remains.
Anaxa does not stir. In fact, he draws you closer, clasping onto his drifting soul through you.
"No," he states, firm and unwavering. Relentless in nature just as he is.
Anaxa, your husband, breathes into your ear, pulling you impossibly closer. He attempts to bridge that gap, to fill the widening chasm that he wedged between the two of you.
"I'm not leaving you," he breathes, releasing the truth from the cavern of his lungs, "I'm merely-"
You don't tilt your head up, you don't pursue that curiosity. You hear it instead: your husband's reverberating voice. The way it skims across each individual vertebrae. It unnerved you when you first met him, somehow it still does- but in different ways. Gentler ways. Ways that rest underneath the skin.
"Anaxa," you call, cutting through his sentence.
"The Titans, this prophecy," he seethes, "Means nothing to me."
"And I know you don't believe me. After all I've done, what I've put you through. My restless pursuit-"
"It means nothing. It does- it truly does."
"Titans can't you see?" Anaxa pulls back, detaching himself. Now his one eyes locks into your two. He peers into them, ripping past the sheen veil of liquid salt which rest on your bottom eyelid. Past the clear lens of your cornea. Past your optic nerve.
He darts straight into your soul: into the vessel he's studied for decades. Into the only being he tided himself to- that even the prophecy, the Chrysos Heirs, his life's work- fades into the background. Trivial.
Fate and destiny did not tie onto Anaxa- he bluntly refused, even if it is true.
"You're right, I am leaving you."
You sink, Anaxa gazes deeper.
"But only for the meantime."
Your eyebrows furrow, "The meantime?"
"Yes," he sighs, rubbing your cheek with his thumb. He breaks into a smile, utterly brilliant, "A temporary predicament, that is all."
"Besides," he adds, gazing momentarily at his gleaming wedding ring, "What kind of spouse would I be?"
WHEN ANXA RAISED HIS HANDS, SURRENDERING THE COREFLAME OF REASON, his one eye kept sight of his wedding ring.
When his lips curled into a wicked smile, he caught a glimpse of your face. The scrunch of your nose when you’re caught between a difficult passage of text. He saw you by the kitchen counter, your hands busy with food and laughter. Anaxa saw you. No “what ifs” or alternate versions— just you. The you in bed currently, or perhaps the you by the markets. Maybe even the you who leans on the balcony, counting the number of dromas.
Anaxa did not feel peace when his body wilted away; drifting into golden dust.
He felt impatient, slightly vexed.
And somewhere, tucked away from eternal light, you sigh and heave. Knees to chest, wrestling with the wild torrent of brilliancy you called your husband— Anaxagoras.
Because it seems to you- with all of Anaxa’s blunt promises and unsaid devotion- you’d lose him for just a little while. Enough so that when you'd finally have him back, he'd no longer be so cold.
