⟣ 3.6k words. modern magic!au, unestablished relationship, slightly suggestive kiss, likely ooc. Second-person omniscient POV. Not beta read.
⟣ note. my beloved friend @elysiumae is the progenitor of a modern magic school idea but was incredibly busy writing a masterpiece so I wanted to dedicate something just for her as a reward and also a gift for being such a sweet friend to me! to maemae, i tried my best to write in the style you said you enjoy and i hope you like it because this is technically a [redacted] gift <3
Qifrey is a diligent man.
He rises when the sun does—slowly as he cracks one eye open with a small groan matched by his mattress, attempting to hide the blanket of light through an arm thrown haphazardly over his face. Despite his protest, he will study runes into the evening hour after dedicating an even larger portion of his day to nurturing budding talents in mystical arts. He is far from the age of his students, now, with little ink spilled and the skin of his dominant hand long since hardened by stiff calluses.
This, too, is an indication of his assiduity. In his youth, Qifrey's professor had lectured him on the importance of the appendage, his own floating around in flourishing waves and fanatical movements regardless of Qifrey’s aloof demeanor. There is an undeniable care to be taken considering magic’s actualization within individually drawn mosaics of sigils, keystones, and rings. And, ironically so, Qifrey specializes in spells cast with water—the elemental sigil fixed at the glyph’s centre as there is no better way to avoid that of which you detest than learning of it so astutely that you may never touch it again.
However, there is something to be said about the purpose of knowing once it lies in want.
Your office is quiet at this time of day, only filled by the clack of keys as you review some report or prepare your lecture for tomorrow. Qifrey does not have a single clue. He’s too preoccupied by his attempts to remain in awareness, arms folded into a makeshift bed with your sweater as his cushion. It’s perfumed with the scent he watches you mist across your body every morning, aside from the underlying hint of laundry he shares on his own. The familiarity of it is perhaps why you offered it to him, hoping he would follow its comforting smell into a short and simple nap. Because you succeed, you have to shush them quietly.
“Don’t wake him,” you instruct. “If that’s all, don’t you have something to do—studying, partying, or getting into all sorts of trouble?”
The words are a chorus, repeated with an ease that almost worries you. Yet, you don’t spare him a glance; your students have become too observant. Too involved. Neither you nor Qifrey are ignorant to the rumours that have taken root, growing larger each day that someone finds one of you in the other’s presence. Initially, it had meant nothing. The professors here commonly share living quarters, whereas Qifrey is specifically partnered with you—his room adjoining yours. But, somehow, the years have done little in silencing the suggestion of there being more between the two of you.
A student from one of your advanced classes laughs, the sound melding into that of the others when the only combination made should be between sigils and glyphs with their minds swirling in ideas and their gazes cast towards books rather than a cacophony of delight.
“Will asking if you’re dating Professor Qifrey count as getting in trouble?”
Instinctively, you sigh, face falling as you sink into your chair with a creak. At this, you do take a peek, worried that it was enough to rouse him when the ability to wake at every frivolous noise was instilled within him years ago; years before you had met and he was still training little witches who hadn’t even participated in something as rudimentary as The Consent of the Crown—the first of the Pentacle of Proving, a series of qualifications existing from the days of old. And that one look upon him is sufficient in causing another hushed uproar as your students find joy in something you do not completely understand.
You would be unable to answer even if you wished to.
Qifrey wakes, anyway. “Am I missing all the fun?” he asks with a yawn he fails to suppress. “Something curious always seems to occur when I’m here.”
“If only you were awake to see them,” you muse.
With that, he chuckles, voice somewhat raspy from misuse and potentially lowered into a timbre designed to provoke you. “Would you not be partly at fault?” he proposes. “Seeing as you were so kind as to lend me your sweater.”
Someone forces down a squeal—you struggle to do the same with your embarrassment.
“Okay—” you drawl out. “My appointment times are nearly over and I feel like going home early today.” In an expression of finality, you lightly strike your palm against the desk as if in congratulations for all the work done.
“Together, then?” Qifrey suggests, although it is more so directed at your audience than you. He does not have to ask. It is normal to return to the residence hall together, which is why he always occupies the space beside you, choosing to wait until your work is finished when his classes end earlier than yours.
Once your students depart, you huff. “Must you rile them up?”
He must, and so, he retorts, “must you be so rigid? They’re merely having their fun.” Then, he taps the power button of your computer the instant you save the open file so that you can join him in flipping through a binder filled with notes. “Though we may standardize spells, a fragment of ourselves is always left within the drawings, particularly those we fuse together. Yours are complicated but simple—”
“How contradictory.”
Qifrey's smile becomes relatively pointed, an intentionally coltish thing. “They’re efficient—is what I mean to say—no wasted mark within your beautifully enclosed combination of glyphs. If I didn’t know any better, I would say your expertise would be beneficial in less archaic disciplines.” Elegant fingers move from parchment towards plastic and metal. “Programming is similar, isn’t it? To nested glyphs.”
“But it can’t compare to contraptions and watching spells come to life,” you retort, watching Qifrey’s touch skim over the length of your dormant ink wand, having traded it for the very thing you believe is lesser than magic. “Or watching Olruggio react to whatever I find funny.”
“You really do love driving him up the wall, don’t you?”
All you do is grin, and he responds with a short laugh, more breath than sound as he rests his head on a closed fist. The skin of his cheek caves out a depression for his hand, plush skin spilling over his knuckles. Then, with his free hand, he takes your ink wand within his grip; through thumb and forefinger first—a show of careful consideration for a tool that is essentially your lifeline, solely and meticulously designed for you to wield the blood of Silverwood Trees. With the amount of years you attribute to it, it is practically impossible to replace.
However, this is Qifrey and you are safe within his touch.
But he reaches over, urging it into your hand as if you are a child who does not know where to begin to hold a component let alone draw a rune. Dumbly, you stare at him, disbelieving when you, yourself, are just as experienced as him.
“What?” He asks, gaze curious as they flutter between your loose grip and your countenance. “Forgotten what an ink wand is, have you?”
“Do you believe me so daft when it's no different from holding a pen?” The tone taken is not a mordant one despite your question. You're entertained, really, when Qifrey is the sort to put on a little drama for simple pleasure, a mannerism he accrued under Beldaruit and, potentially, from a younger Olruggio. “Are you sure it’s my memory that’s failing and not yours?”
“Care to explain why you seem so surprised, then?”
It was the ease of his touch.
“No,” you answer, and listen to him chuckle prior to his indulgence of you.
Qifrey’s fingertips glide over the back of your hand as you grip the ink wand properly just to prove to him something he is aware you haven’t forgotten. He takes a straight path, his other fingers joining the journey so that they can eventually curl over your wrist, allowing you to feel the texture of his skin as he leaves a trail of warmth that is satisfied in a brief moment, ended by the squeeze of your forearm.
“Not only were you practicing Olruggio’s warmstone spell but Coco’s cold compress…” He doesn’t speak further from the observation, allowing you to share as you like; hoping it will be more.
“Tired of asking questions?” Standing, you make your way to the small sofa within the room, glancing over your shoulder as an indication for him to follow. And although you are the first to reach it, Qifrey sits before you do, awaiting your answer. “Stay still,” you say, draping a heavy quilt over his lap.
“I haven’t seen this before.”
“It’s a surprise I’ve been preparing,” you tell him while searching for a little contraption you finished a few days ago. Opening it up, you show him the mechanism. “This spell is the same as Olruggio’s warmstone glyph, and the other is nearly identical but focused on cooling.” Qifrey listens closely, hesitating only for a second after you tuck the contraption into a pouch you hid at the quilt’s centre and find his hand to place it atop a protrusion once it aligns. “When you press here,” you say as you do just that, “the ring to heat the blanket completes; and when you press the other, it disengages to activate the cooling ring instead. It’ll regulate the temperature for you, Qifrey.”
When you look up, you can’t quite identify his expression, while Qifrey does his best to maintain his composure, mouth curling into a small smile with an eye closed into a crescent—polite and nothing more.
“It’s a wonderful prototype. The quilt is soft and comfortable—the perfect weight—and I can feel how flawless the dispersion keystones are; the temperature distribution is steady and even.”
The praise comes easily from him. It always does. As a professor, Qifrey is attentive to his students’ progress and never fails to appropriately acknowledge any accomplishment with sweet words. The ones you receive, however, are over miniscule actions and habits that mean nothing to those outside the bubble you share. Qifrey praises you when you overcome a difficult scene within your literary hobbies. He praises you when you win against him in some goofy game or absurd bet. And Qifrey praises you even in times you are not privy to: with others, to students, and when you’re fast asleep on the couch in your living room.
“It would be useful for hospitals, I imagine,” he remarks, “and popular with children if not for anyone.” He grins, now, delighted in being the subject of your test.
Joining his side, you sink into the cushion with a huff. “It’s ‘perfect’ because I made it for you, Qifrey.” The admission is honest, and perhaps that’s why any confidence slowly dissipates the more you speak. “You struggle with anything lighter or heavier, and you already toss and turn from your headaches, so if the temperature wasn’t even, I was afraid it would make it harder to sleep, not easier.”
The quiet that follows is slightly unsettling.
Qifrey’s mouth descends to form a distinct line, contemplative at most. He isn’t foolish. Qifrey is aware that this is a likely result of your inability to watch him deal with carefully veiled exhaustion any longer. But this is beyond any model created to identify any flaws and perfect the contraption for public use. Considering who you are, you would have made it universal as it’s futile to do testing on a product merely dedicated to him alone, and this forces him to acknowledge the very fact.
“Thank you,” he finally says, hands clutching onto the warm fabric to extend its shelter to you. He is undeserving in savouring this on his own. “You didn’t have to do this,” he adds, yet he is convinced his voice is impossibly tender, something he cannot control when it concerns you, especially once you pay him such close attention.
But his own upon you is equally as unravelling; with a stare so gentle that they remind of you of wasted nights within the confines of your shared space and not within an office that you possess purely in name. Although, you suppose, even your home together belongs to the academy. There is nothing dedicated to you and him—only a falsity you do not have the courage to make true.
And because this can’t be anything different, you have little issue with the silence thereafter.
Honestly, you should really return—perhaps visit a market on the way back, too. Earlier this morning, Qifrey noted that you’re running out of matcha with his own stock of his favourite spices depleted, of which he would be unable to make the stew you enjoy without. It’s only when you’re finished making a list in your head that you realize he’s begun to fidget, fingers having found the top of your thigh to trace curves over your slacks.
“Is that your flower spell?” you ask.
Qifrey hums softly. “That it is.”
“It’s slightly different,” you note. Usually, he employs the spell like a parlor trick for newly initiated children who know barely anything about magic, mimicking a rose in twisted ribbons of water. However, this time, the floral sign is different; bunched together in a cluster. Your brow furrows. “What flower would that make?”
“Hydrangeas,” Qifrey simply answers without anything more being said. His voice doesn’t even raise into a pleased lilt nor take on a playful timbre despite the stutter in your chest. The jump in beat feels particularly heavy when his index finger continues drawing a long curving path. “Would you like to guess this next?” he asks, touch featherlight as it measures the length of your thigh, curling upwards once it reaches your knee. Upon completing the snake-like shape, you feel him outline two round circles and four triangles. A small laugh bubbles up.
“That’s just a brushbuddy.”
“Just a brushbuddy?” he echoes, brow arched in faux indignation. “The stray you feed will be devastated to hear that—I am, already, by your answer.”
Shifting closer to permit him easier access to use you as a canvas, you give him a trivial shove that he exaggerates in a wobbly sway before steadying once again. You roll your eyes as you question, “how was I supposed to know it was our little friend?”
He merely grants you a grin—defiant—and begins again.
Qifrey details something alike that of a flower; four petals in each cardinal direction—billowing surrounded by a series of collection and repetition keystones alongside a pattern of nested water and wind sigils. You don’t recognize it.
“What is that?”
“A spell one of my old students conjured up,” Qifrey explains, “it forms and maintains a cloud to create a bed you may dream in.”
“Wow,” you start, “is this your way of telling me I need some sleep?” He is not alone in remaining awake during the witching hour. If you can hear Qifrey partaking in late night personal studies or choosing to get ahead of whatever work he elects is significant enough to lose sleep over, then you are sure he can hear you the same. Nevertheless, there are times where you find him in the middle of making tea, and one thing leads to another before you’re unable to tear yourselves away from each other. “Is that what you want of me?”
This time, he does not reply, taking a few seconds to decide how far he wishes to take this. How far he wishes to go with you. “Perhaps…” He trails off, swallowing a tightness he wasn’t aware was present in light of the thought he’s begun to turn around in his head. You’re patient, anyway, mimicking him with your own scrawling circles that plunge into an arching tail, a peak, and a loop followed by another drop that the following letters must form his name. He’s correct, and it pushes him to decide. Qifrey leans into your touch, disrupting your repeated handwriting. “I wouldn't say that's what I desire the most.”
He wants you to ask, that much you are certain.
You do, thigh pressing into the side of his as you lean against his shoulder. “And what is it that you want from me?”
He responds, in kind, with an inviting tilt of his head, eye flicking from one feature of your face to another, refusing to linger too long. “Would you like to guess?”
“No,” you say, airy when you can’t help but watch his mouth form each word. “Not really, no.”
Qifrey doesn’t move any further. “Not even one attempt?” he inquires, goading you to try.
You're afraid of what he may say, and so, you repeat your refusal regardless of how strong the temptation is. So much so that you lose to it through touch, hand sliding across the expanse of fabric adorning your laps, cautious of whether or not he may pull away or, worse, run. Surprisingly, he remains in place, hand finding your arms as it skims over his side—under the quilt—to find his waist. You listen to his soft breaths, of which quicken as your hand splays over the stretch of his back, dipping into the curve of his spine as you tug him closer.
He shakes slightly, no matter how he permits you to touch him, but before you may confirm that there is no sort of overstepping where you’ve altered your relationship with no remedy in sight, Qifrey chuckles lowly. “Shall I show you?” he asks, bangs brushing against your forehead as he finds himself closing that distance, captivated by what has arisen between you.
Your breath is warm on his lips, each puff of air forcing himself to dwell on every subtle movement impossible to witness if he were farther away. And when your lips part, he nearly thinks you may kiss him, instinctively leaning into the motion as shame draws a path down his gut with the aborted sound of shock that leaves you.
It’s unexpected. This is no place for romantic folly; the door is unlocked, the curtains are drawn, and the window is open—had any passerby been filled with a nosy impulse to peer into your office, your position with him would be mistaken as amorous affection in spite of it not yet fulfilled. You want for it, nonetheless, and mutter his name quietly as your hand drifts up to his cheek.
He leans into your touch, surrendering himself to whatever desire you may have of him. Qifrey does not believe it wouldn’t be enjoyable when everything with you is—the quiet moments in the morning, the ruckus you get up to, the quips you partake in, and the tedious responsibilities you alleviate from the other’s shoulders; he would never do without them. Though there’s an unmistakable hesitation within you, a disparate quality from your forward advances that he decides that he will act if you won’t.
Qifrey’s fingers find your jaw first, gliding over the line to discover the softness of your face, cupping the side within hand and allowing his thumb to sweep over the curve of your mouth. At the feeling, you open, and he has to restrain himself from moving too fast as he lets the digit press into your bottom lip. You close your eyes with another more hushed whisper of his name.
The kiss is slow—clumsy—as he slants his mouth over yours, and it’s as if your body is drawn alight with Qifrey as warm under your hands as you feel. The quilt slides off your lap, falling to the floor in folded ribbons as you part and join together again and again, finding a manner of affection that suits the two of you. And his fingers intertwine with yours, each jut of knuckle digging into your skin as he tightens his hold when you trace your tongue over his lip, shy and uncertain.
But when he permits that open-mouthed kiss, you press into him, flattening as much of your body against his from where you’re seated, side by side, and he muffles a groan into your mouth. Swallowing it, you part shortly after to pull both yours and his glasses off your faces, quickly placing it atop the table so that you can deepen the affection and properly taste the tea on his tongue.
Neither of you are aware of how much time you spend like that—exchanging wet kisses with a tacky sound as you try to quiet your shared moans and the rumpled rustle of fabric through the inability to keep your hands off each other; a threshold crossed and never to be returned to.
In the next separation, Qifrey has to lick the saliva from his lips as he asks through shallow panting, “is that enough of an answer?”
“I suppose that’s fine,” you try to say with as much pose you can manage, but fail upon the slight squeak in your throat. Regardless, you finish your thought. “I may need another, Master Qifrey.”
A hitched breath leaves his mouth at the title, and his eye narrows into something significantly heavier through the exasperation he attempts to offer you. It worsens when you reach forward, goosebumps rising under your fingertips as you slide your hand around the delicate curve of his neck. The skin flushes a darker red.
“Whoever claims beauty / lies in the eye / of the beholder
has forgotten the music / silk makes settling / across a bared
neck: skin never touched / so gently except / by a child
or a lover.
Rita Dove, “Scarf”
pairing. Phianon x gn!Reader
tags. modern!au; fluff; slightly suggestive; more than friends, less than lovers (not for long); a tiny bit messy but very much so idiots in love more than anything else; reader rambles because “what are we”; getting together; snowed in. Not beta read.
wc. 7.8k
note. To Maemae (@elysiumae) who I love being silly (insane about Phainon) with! I’m very grateful that you were one of the first friends I made on tumblr and I cannot imagine my time here without you <3 I saw that tag saying you want a Phainon to cuddle and share scarves with… I wonder what happens in this fic!
You’re in a grocery store and it feels like the world is falling apart.
Admittedly, this is fairly silly because, well, you’re in a grocery store that is completely fine and still standing. No one is running around in a panic, screaming and wailing while trying to grab what they can to survive whatever catastrophe you’re imagining. Each aisle remains upright and filled quite well in light of the holiday season, with special packing for chocolates that he likes to share with you, cereal that reminds him of his childhood, and sugar cookies that he always struggles to stop himself from eating one more of despite having already become addicted to them last year, the year before that, and even further from then.
He isn’t with you right now, arm looped around yours with his free hand holding a basket because he would never let you hold it—not because you can’t but because he believes it’s the polite thing to do. And because he isn’t with you, this means he didn’t text you this morning with a picture of the sunrise, a good morning, and a do you want to have dinner together tonight? My place or yours? So you didn’t drive each other to work, either, since only one of you needs a car if you would have gone grocery shopping together only to return to the same place, followed by cooking, movies, and cuddling. Really, things like this might be why he’s sillier than you because Phainon isn’t even your boyfriend so why does he ask you this every week? And why do you agree?
Anyways, you need some vegetables for your soup.
You're comparing tomatoes when your phone dings. It's Phainon. He's sent a cute text asking if you'd like to bet how long it'll take him to finish the same package of sugar cookies you’ve picked out. The answer would be one one night if he was sharing them with you. You would have put on a horror movie so you could startle him by sneaking your cold hands under his sweater because you can never help yourself when he always sprawls out against you with his tummy peeking through. Or, he would pick a slice-of-life and blame you for letting him do it because he's crying with his arms wrapped around you, pathetic and needy because he knows you’ll easily give into him. He’s right; no matter how cute, you think you love him so you'd kiss those tears away and he'd let you even when you have no idea where your relationship stands.
And now you're having a terrible time in the vegetable aisle because there are sugar cookies with light blue icing sitting in your basket, reminding you of Phainon’s eyes and the fact that he loves sugar cookies but not you because he isn’t here to—
“Starlight?”
You startle and almost drop the tomato you’re holding. There’s only one person who calls you that—a sappy pet name to match the equally sappy one you’ve gifted him—and you believe you could recognize his voice no matter the sound he made.
Immediately, he apologizes, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you.” You almost believe it would be easier to forgive him if he gave you a hug because he's wearing your favourite sweater of his; one that always feels so soft and smells like something uniquely him. “I was in the area,” he adds.
That's strange, so you say, “you live fifteen minutes away.”
“They didn’t have—” he cuts himself off, looking between the aisles on his right and left only to settle on a radish, which he picks up and waves around. “I needed this.”
“For what?” you ask. It’s evident he isn’t here for a radish and what you really want to hear is that he’s here for you.
He thinks to himself for a moment, staring at the vegetable. Then, he asks, “soup?” as if you should know.
“Phainon.”
“I lied,” he folds, aware that there is no fooling you of all people that saying his name is enough to convince him to tell you what he actually feels. “I missed you.”
“We’re in a grocery store,” you point out.
“Can I not miss you in a grocery store?” His head tilts with a difficult expression, as though he isn’t sure if you want him around with an answer like that. You do, you always do but it’s become harder and harder to pretend like everything is fine when it isn’t, which was exactly why you were alone amongst these aisles and missing him too.
“That’s not…” you trail off with a sigh, tightening your hold around the handle of the basket. This apparently brings his attention to it, so he takes it and slides it into the crook of his elbow like he always does whenever he is with you.
“When should I miss you if not always?” he asks, but you don't answer, afraid of how he would react if you tried to tell him that if he misses you so much, then the two of you should make it official. “I was hoping you'd answer my text and I could segue into spending time together if you wanted to.” He continues with a shrug, acting nonchalant despite how he fiddles with the radish in the way you know to be restless. “It's our usual night in, after all, so I ended up walking to your local grocer just so I would be ready to grab ingredients if you said yes, but you've been quiet lately and I didn’t want to bother you by asking outright.”
He's horrible for your heart, you decide; somehow making it more complicated than it needs to be in his consideration for you. So, you agree because you absolutely hate these nights without him too. “I guess we can meet at my apartment, then?”
“I don’t have my car,” he says meekly, returning the radish to the pile of vegetables.
“What do you mean you don’t have your car?” you bawk, “you walked here? It’s a fifteen minute drive from your place, Phainon!”
“Well, I needed to get the energy out. I was feeling a bit anxious…” he trails off, shifting from one foot to another and rebalancing his stance to find some way to settle how awkward he feels from your words. It’s impossibly cold out today, enough to be freezing that any sane individual would be bundled up, yet Phainon is missing a hat and you, a scarf.
“You’re anxious?” you repeat, knowing that it’s rare for him to share what troubles him so this must be serious. “What’s wrong? Did something happen back home or, maybe, did you take that bet with Cyrene and Hysilens knowing you may lose? You know you’re terrible on ice! You can barely keep yourself upright whenever you—why are you laughing?” You cross your arms with a pout as you lean towards him incredulously and huff, “you said you were anxious! Were you trying to get another rise out of me?”
Phainon is playful, and it’s partly why you're so confused. He's kind to everyone he meets—sweet, even—and he's respectful, which means he always knows what line to never cross, keeping others comfortable regardless of his quips and touchy tendencies. You thought it was friendly, at first, but then you noticed much of his behaviour was unique to you. An example of this is deliberately seeking out your affections, which you now assume this to be an instant of if he is capable of laughing despite his worries.
But he shakes his head and his expression tells you that he’s extremely content, as if he is a puppy who has been spoiled with treats and now nurses a full belly, ears drooped and tail flicking every few minutes. Or, perhaps it would be more fitting to compare him to a purring cat, but Phainon is nothing like Mydei and very much so Phainon. And this also means he is evasive as he answers, “no, I’m not anxious any longer so it doesn’t really matter.”
“But it does matter,” you say, because you also know that he frequently hides things from you not because he is secretive or dishonest, but because he hates letting you worry. At the same time, however, this always only makes you worry even more. “If you’re comfortable with it and want to talk it out, I’m always here. You know that, right?”
“I know,” he simply says.
“And you’re never trouble to me, no matter what’s happening in your life or even my own.” Remembering how you avoided him for two days—which is, not very long and really just normal when it comes to the whirlwind of existing, but you know it had been deliberate so that you could figure out your heart—you elaborate, “I may disappear for a little bit, but I’ll always come back.”
“And I'll wait for you.”
“Good.” You nod, more to yourself than anything at all.
And, for a moment, you stand there, while Phainon casts his gaze over the contents of your basket with a hum. “So,” he starts, “soup?”
“Yeah.”
Phainon moves beside you, taking the side you prefer him on so that he can loop his arm around yours before he tugs you to another aisle. Then, as you settle into your familiar pattern with him on a night like this, he says, “okay.”
The next few hours play out as they always do. It’s fun. It’s normal. It’s routine for every other Friday.
Phainon and you will cook dinner together. Sometimes you take the lead, and other times he does, but what remains the same is the kiss that happens every time you pass a bottle of spices to each other. Either you or him will hand it off, and the one who needs it says thank you and then subsequently shows that appreciation with a short peck.
When it happens again, you remind yourself that you aren’t dating, but you don’t stop it regardless. You don’t even think you're capable of it because you’d never not want to kiss him even if neither you nor Phainon questions the tradition.
Then, of course, you eat and you chat. And while you eat and chat, Phainon will sit across from you as your socked feet accidentally knock against his calf or vice versa, but it is, again, ordinary. It’s not playful flirting or some affection alike that of adolescents hiding their relationship from those around them. It's merely the casual sort of touch that happens when you're used to someone.
And because you are, Phainon is glued to your side on the couch, one arm tucked under your waist while the other slides across your belly so his hands can intertwine at your hip—or they are when his hand isn't stuck in the package of cookies. There's a blanket strewn across your laps and the heater is on despite how you wear a sweater, so it's terribly warm as Phainon is practically a furnace. You could say something about it but you won't, because if you did, the ache of being without him would be worse than anything else.
“I think I've eaten three cookies already and we’re only fifteen minutes into this movie,” Phainon informs you after swallowing a bite of a fourth.
“You do this every year,” you remind him, brushing a crumb away from his mouth only to yank your hand away when he pretends to nip your finger. You pinch his nose and then start counting the empty grooves in the package resting on top of your thighs as Phainon insists that it's easier to reach this way. “One, two… Yep, you have. Think you'll beat your record of how long it takes?”
“Don't say that,” he whines, only to snap off another chunk with his teeth.
Snatching what remains in his hands, you ask, “why not.”
Phainon watches you munch on the piece before taking another cookie to hold up to your mouth when you're ready. When you are, he smiles with a crinkle to his eye at the satisfaction of getting to feed you. “Because I'll want to beat it.”
“Good thing we’re sharing now so it won’t count,” you point out. But because you can’t stop yourself with the way he looks at you, you ruffle his hair, the strands soft between your fingers and smelling like his shampoo—all citrus and sunshine.
Phainon laughs and then glances at the television before focusing on you again, resting the side of his face against your bicep until the skin squishes as though he wants to be closer but simply can’t. “Do you remember what’s happening in the movie?”
“Nope,” you answer, adjusting your arm so that you can hook it around his shoulder, pulling him closer to you with little care of how the cookies slide across your lap and almost spill all over the blanket.
But Phainon only moves the package away, placing it on the table so he can take its place. He shifts and wiggles as he lays atop your thighs, so fussy that you can do nothing but laugh at how adorable he is as he nestles around you, facing away from the movie and towards you. When you cup his cheek, no one says a word and, eventually, you follow the silence into your dreams.
You wake sometime later, not even realizing that you and Phainon had fallen asleep. From here, you can’t reach your phone to check the time, especially with him still snoring softly. Your middle is warm with each buff of breath, him having turned completely to press his face into the soft fabric of your sweater.
You wonder how tired he had been to sleep this deeply yet still gone through the effort of seeking you out. But when you brush his bangs away to see his face more clearly and keep this quiet moment to yourself, a soft sound leaves Phainon’s throat before his face scrunches up and he rouses, bleary-eyed and incoherent as he tries to voice your name only to catch the word on a yawn.
“Good morning, sunshine,” you whisper, body curling on top of his so that all he can see is you.
“Good…” Phainon trails off, brows furrowing before he gaps and shoots up. Wanting to be a little more affectionate, you hadn’t expected that and aren’t able to pull away fast enough before his forehead knocks into yours with a low thunk. “Oh! I didn’t—Are you alright?” Phainon frets, hands cradling your face as he gently moves your head from side to side despite it only being a soft bump.
Laughing, you lean in and nuzzle your nose against his. “I’m fine, what about you?”
He nods and peers off to the side only for his shoulders to relax. “I thought it really was morning and I couldn’t believe I slept on you all night!”
“I wouldn’t mind,” you assure him. If Phainon can sacrifice his own comfort and make a terrible trek just for a chance to see you, you’re sure you can manage being sore for a little while so that he can rest. You want him to depend on you more, actually, preferably where you’re the first person he seeks out whenever something is wrong.
Phainon blinks, sheepishness finding him at the thought. Knowing him, he’s likely struggling with how much he would enjoy that against the very prospect you’re willing to face just for his sake. Just because of that, you try to kiss him but Phainon leaps from the couch with an exclamation, “it’s snowing!”
You follow after him as he rushes to your front door, swaddling yourself further in the blanket from the couch with how it feels strangely cold in the room. “It’s snowed almost everyday for the past week, sunshine,” you point out. “Tonight is no different.”
“But it is different,” he insists, unfurling you from the fabric, folding it, and then tossing it into the closet. Then, he rips his coat off the hanger so enthusiastically that you turn around with the intention of lying back down on the couch. Unfortunately for you, his arms snake around you, catching you where you stand. “And where do you think you’re going, starlight?”
“Back to safety,” you say, hands smoothing over the sleeves before grabbing hold of his wrists to release yourself.
He obeys only to spin you around, intertwining your fingers and squeezing tightly as if that would convince you when he insists, “we have to hurry.”
“Phainon.”
“It’s already snowing,” he whines, letting go of one hand just so you won’t move from this spot as he struggles to get your coat with the other. You assist him despite yourself and he smiles bright and wide. “Hurry—we have to hurry,” he repeats, helping you slip your arms through the sleeves. Once you start fixing your coat on your shoulders, he lowers to pull his boots over his feet.
“There’s no rush, Phainon!” you try to exclaim but a yawn catches you in the middle of your words as you find your own shoes.
Finished with tying his laces, he shoots upwards and places his hands on your shoulders to declare, “you hate me.”
“What?” you almost screech, stumbling as you hop on one foot, tugging your boot on as you try to watch his expression. He tries to muffle his laughter, but his face betrays him, and he knows this so he turns to face your closet again, looking for your hat and mittens. There’s a sound of a box falling followed by a tiny yelp.
Why doesn’t he just turn on the lights?
Instead, he repeats, “you hate me!” but his voice is muffled within the space of the nook and he almost tumbles over himself when your hand presses atop his back in an attempt to steady yourself when you move onto your next foot. You could, of course, do this with the wall, but Phainon is right here and you’ll do anything just to be close to him. And despite his declarations, he returns to you anyway, handing you your hat before dropping to his knees to help you with your shoes himself. His fingers work quickly, tucking your pants inside to keep the heat in and he looks up at you while he makes two bunny ears to form the knot when he double-checks, “is this okay? Comfortable and nothing feels tight?”
You agree with a nod, adjusting your hat until it covers your ears. “Thank you, Phainon.”
But because he’s so excited, he ignores your gratitude to insist again, "we have to hurry. Do you have your scarf? I can’t find it”
“No…” you trail off, guilty under his stare. “But!” you cut in before he can scold you, “it’s because it blew away when I went out with March, the twins, and Dan Heng two days ago.”
“Two days ago?” Phainon’s mouth turns into a frown. “Wasn’t that when we had a snowstorm?”
It was, but you had to see them when you realized that almost half a year has passed since you and Phainon started whatever this is. March advised you to just kiss him already but that was exactly the problem, so Stelle and Caelus began formulating some elaborate plan that you disassociated in the middle of while the five of you were standing outside. And because Dan Heng was having enough of the little winter wonderland photoshoot alongside the terrible advice, he told you to simply talk to Phainon, which means you spent all your time since then trying to figure out exactly how to do just that.
But you can’t tell Phainon this so you say, “March thought it would be a cool setting for some pictures.” Thinking the pun funny, you giggle a little but Phainon doesn’t follow suit so you stop with a pout.
He tries to scowl, actually, but it only looks like he’s pouting with you as he hooks his scarf over your shoulders and asks, “what if you got sick?”
“Says the one who walked all the way to the grocery store in my area for a radish he didn’t even buy!” you retort, whacking his hands away from the scarf.
“You were making soup!” he says, letting you pull his gloves over his hands.
“Oh! So you actually hate me,” you argue, returning his scarf to where it belongs to wrap it around his neck. Your fingers find the buttons of his trench coat, undoing the first so you can tuck the ends of the scarf inside and keep him warm. “You hate me because you couldn’t buy your radish.”
“I didn’t need the radish,” he laughs while he unwinds all your hard work just to offer you his scarf again. And before you can stop him, he grabs each end and uses it to tug you to him so that you end up stumbling into his chest.
“Then what did you need?” you say, tutting your chin up as he tucks the scarf into itself and pulls to tuck you in properly.
“An excuse to see you,” he answers, voice cheeky and playful to match the way he zips up your coat so fast that it nearly snags your chin. But when you peer up at him to complain, he’s looking at you with an expression you see so often from both him and within the romance movies the two of you like to watch so much.
Unfortunately, you weren’t able to decide how to properly talk to Phainon like Dan Heng told you to, so you avoid it again.
“This weather is terrible for a jacket like yours,” you remind him instead, knowing that the only way to clean his trench coat is by taking it to the dry cleaners of all places and there are a little over two more months left of winter that getting it cleaned now because of how horrible the weather is would be an unfortunate thing on his wallet!
Phainon flicks your forehead softly and before you can hiss, he’s already rubbing his thumb over the spot only to smooth his hand down the side of your cheek. The corner of his mouth twitches as his brows scrunch, trying to stop his laughter from bubbling up. And it seems he knows you realize this so he prevents you from grumbling at him again—which is partly for his own sake as you are always too cute to him—by saying, “it’ll be worth it, I promise.”
“Will it?” you challenge him.
“Yep!” He pops the sound, giving you a once-over with his eyes lingering on the way you look bundled up in his scarf before he opens the door.
And, for some reason, this terrible man doesn’t take the elevator to reach the bottom floor of your apartment, but the stairs. He takes two at a time, and you do your best to keep up, but Phainon’s height proves to be helpful in getting him just where he wants to go.
When he hits the landing, he turns and holds his arms out towards you with a goofy grin. You jump into him and let out a small oof as he catches you with a twirl that you’ll be embarrassed over if someone working security brings up the dangers of doing so.
It won’t matter, you suppose, because you only had two steps left so it was barely a jump and would they not also jump into the arms of someone like Phainon if the opportunity presented itself? You believe they would.
You also know that any chance of being scolded over this disappears when Phainon presses his mouth to yours.
The cold is biting at this time no matter how prepared the both of you are.
The rational part of you would rather be inside than out here; without even having to check the weather, you know that the temperature is well below freezing, the windchill terrible, and the amount of flurries falling from the sky tells you that there’s no chance this ends any time soon. Still, you can’t leave when he’s here—as happy as can be as he practically drags you towards the rising expanse of white.
“Be careful!” you call out, squeezing his hand in yours just so he’ll focus on you again.
He does when he looks over his shoulder and says, “of what?” He’s beaming with absolutely no worries on his mind, even less so when you’re here with him. But the answer does not come from you when he slips and brings you down with him.
Phainon twists, landing in a pile of snow that sinks with your combined weight like the puff of icing sugar that you fought over while baking together a week ago. You land on his chest because of course you do—he would rather you push him into the middle of an ice skating rink to fend for himself than let you get hurt.
The heat of him somehow seeps through his jacket as he holds you, and he smells more like laundry than his cologne, having faded throughout the day. Its scent is the same as the one that drifts up your nose every time you bury your face into his scarf, and the soft fabric of it makes you wish you could always be by his side or, even better, in his arms like this.
“I should have listened to you,” he sighs, overdramatic as his hands smooth up and down your back, ending at your hips only to tug you closer until there is no space between you. With your jackets on, there’s a lot of give to the embrace that Phainon has to wrap his arms around you even tighter to get you as close as he wants.
“Is this your way of telling me that I was right?” you ask, pushing up on your hands so you can look down at him properly. There’s a bit of snow on his nose, so you gently brush it away, but it’s not enough for you, leading you to nuzzle yours against his as if that would be enough to chase away his flush from the cold. “By squeezing me until I pop?” you continue.
“Should I say sorry in a different way?” Phainon’s head tilts, head disturbing the bed of white that he lays in, the ends of his hair vanishing within it. He’s grinning in that annoying way that you love; all confidence with only ruin in your path.
But it still hurts a little—the anxiety of not knowing if this is something definitive. You know Phainon, which is why you like him so much. You know what he likes and dislikes, you can recognize all his tells regardless of what emotion he shares or hides, and you know that he is nothing if not kind. He would never hurt you deliberately or string you along, and he definitely would never play with your feelings. Yet, it’s so hard to ask all the same—scary, especially, when you don’t want to lose him.
“Starlight,” Phainon mumbles, “why are you frowning?” One hand leaves your waist to cup your cheek, but there’s a bit of snow stuck to his glove so the frigid touch causes you to flinch. You lean into his palm anyway, wanting him to know that you could never naturally react that way to him. He realizes this so he pulls the fabric off his hand, and returns his touch to your cheek, warm and gentle.
“What are we, Phainon?” you ask, grazing your lips against the skin of his palm as if you could hide the way your mouth shapes the words. The dread that fills your gut is somehow worse than how cold everything feels.
Phainon only observes you, and you can see his eyes trace your features, but his hand never leaves your face, and his thumb continues to rub your cheek. “Does it matter so long as I’m with you?” he asks, and his voice is a low timbre when his eyes flick back to meet yours. His gaze is steady; a stark contrast with your own when you desperately want to look away.
“Of course it does!” you huff, trying to blink back tears when his words make your chest twist into knots. You don’t know if you could stay in this vague sort of relationship with him—you want to introduce Phainon as your boyfriend, you want to go on dates while wearing matching clothing no matter how ugly the colour combinations he picks, and you want to tell him you love him; you want everyone to know just how much.
“Don’t cry,” he practically begs, “please, don’t cry.” The words come out a bit breathless, as if all the air was sucked out of his lungs the moment he saw your lip tremble regardless of how sure you were that you wouldn’t tear up asking him—you promised yourself you wouldn’t even if he didn’t want to be with you.
Phainon’s hand moves to the back of your head while the other winds around your waist in a steadier, but no less tender, hold to bring you down next to him. And it’s not that cold even with your hat knocked askew because he makes sure your ear doesn’t touch snow, only the soft wool fabric of his coat over his bicep.
“Maybe we should go back inside,” he recommends. “Let’s warm up and talk about it properly.”
You try to steady your voice to say, “but we didn’t get to play in the snow.”
It’s silly, and because of it, Phainon laughs, but he sits up with you with a hand petting down your head. “Have you noticed that none of the streetlights are on?”
Looking around, you find that it is horribly dark out. It only feels brighter because of the way the snow reflects the light of the moon, and you’re lucky enough that there’s so much snow from the previous snowstorm and now that you can easily make out your surroundings.
“No way,” you start. “There’s a power outage?”
He hums in agreement and adds, “it looks like the storm is going to pick up and the roads will be bad too.”
It’s enough to calm yourself. No wonder it was so cold when you woke up, too, and Phainon must have noticed while he was rifling through your closet in the dark, followed by his avoidance of the elevator. At least, you realize, the security cameras wouldn’t have captured how you trapped Phainon in the stairwell for a minute or two just to steal a few kisses—ignoring how that reprieve only reminds you of the issue you’re currently having.
So, you and Phainon stand and dust the snow from each other's coats to make the trek back inside. Following the path from earlier, Phainon doesn’t let go of your hand as you take one step, a second, and another up the stairwell. And once you’ve returned to your apartment, you help each other out of your coats followed by your winter accessories.
When Phainon gets to his scarf, however, his hands linger as they unwind the fabric from your neck. He seems to hesitate for a moment, clearly wanting to pull you in again. You know it’s better to talk and figure everything out first but you lose your ability to make wise decisions with Phainon around.
Your fingers find his wrists as you lean upwards, and he immediately meets you halfway; the habit instinctual.
When you separate, it’s only to ask, “are we—you know—a ‘thing?’” It’s a terrible way to start, you admit, but after the kiss, it’s difficult to think of anything other than your desire for one more.
But Phainon, giddy with affection and more assured than you are, says, “I thought we already were.”
“Phainon, I’m serious,” you press.
He seems to understand this with how tense you seem, so unlike how you normally are when you’re with him. He asks, “do you want to be?” And his voice is much quieter, lacking any of his boyish charm and filled with something he only promises to you.
Throwing the words back at him, you say, “do you want to be?” You want to be on the same page for something as important as this, but Phainon is ever unchanging when he prioritizes you rather than simply meet your question with the answer you need to feel better.
Well, the reason for this is partly that paired with the fact that you are unaware that he also has the same anxiety you have.
Still, he takes a deep breath to prepare himself when he admits, “of course I do. I hate this ‘what are we’ thing we have going on.” Then, he grabs the blanket from the closet and then leads you back to the cough as he explains, “not because of you; never because of you, but it’s only good for Castorice’s fanfiction or that terrible romance movie we watched last week.” When he sits, his knee presses against yours as starts unfolding the blanket.
Assisting him, you adjust the fabric to properly cover the both of you and remind him, “you cried at the ending.”
“And you kissed my cheek to make me stop!” Phainon retaliates. Sinking into the coach, he lifts one arm so that you can settle into his side. Once he’s sure you’re comfortable, his hand falls to your shoulder and tugs you even closer so that he can look at you properly. It’s better to have conversations like this with proper eye contact, after all, and although sitting facing each other is enough, this lack of distance is not only your preference but his.
“That’s what I mean,” you say, “do you want to be my boyfriend, Phainon? You kissed me first when we went to see those sunflowers together in the summer, and we just…” you pause, frustrated with the lack of communication between the two of you as you wring your hands. He catches one of them to intertwine your fingers as you finish the thought. “We never talked about it after.”
“I didn’t know what you wanted,” Phainon explains, but his voice is meeker than you’ve ever heard it. He’s not looking at you anymore, equally as afraid of baring his heart to you. He even lets go of your hand, and it would have caused you to panic if not for him fixing his hold so that he can trace the lines in your hands.
“Why didn’t you ask?” you say, watching his finger dance across your palm and then back, repeating the motion again and again.
It’s nothing new, really. Phainon has always sought out your touch like a sunflower facing the sun, which is, in some way, ironic considering your little pet names for each other. And although you were upset with the ambiguity in his earlier words, you agree with him: so long as he’s with you, it doesn’t matter in the end.
Phainon doesn’t answer immediately, and when you think he will, he stops himself and thinks a little longer; composure fading the more he tries to decide how best to approach you with how he feels. Eventually, he settles with an admission that leaves him in a way that's quieter than before. “Becuase I was scared the answer wasn’t going to be me.”
You sigh out his name and your head shifts so you can look at him. He even looks away and his throat bobs as swallows down whatever he’s agonizing over, but he returns to you as always, even his expression is difficult, and even more because he’s distressed. Letting go of his hand, you bring it up to his cheek, trying to warm the cold skin there as you wonder, “why wouldn’t it be you?”
“I don’t know—there’s a lot of people who can make you happy,” he replies. Then, he lifts the blanket over both of your shoulders before his forehead drops to your shoulder just so you can’t see his face.
Wrapping your arms around him, you pull Phainon to you as you slide backwards until your body bounces softly against the cushion, but you never let go of him—you don’t think you ever want to. You try to tell him this when you say, “you make me happy.”
“There’s a lot of people who can make you happier,” he retorts. The words are practically self-sabotage, but you know he means this in their entirety; that if he could measure your joy, he would always want you happier somewhere else rather than whatever he believes he wouldn’t be able to provide.
It’s a difficult way to think, and you know many would struggle or even detest loving someone who doubts themself often by some form of insecurity. But you love him, and loving him is perhaps the least difficult thing you’ve ever done—maybe even more than breathing as the cliché goes. And although it’s foolish, you think you understand such clichés better because you paid less attention to the love stories filled with them and more to Phainon who you watched them with.
So, you tell him, “that’s impossible because they aren’t you.” You hold him tighter; squeeze him a bit longer as though the affection you have for him could leave you and enter him through the touch. “Are you telling me you just held it in? What about what you want?”
“Does it matter so long as I’m with you?” he repeats his previous answer with a warbled laugh, but all you hear is aching resignation. You can’t see him with his face tucked into your neck, but you can feel a few droplets wet your skin. He’s always been a crybaby when it comes to the cheesy romance movies he loves so, of course, he would be no different when it comes to his own little love story with you.
“It does,” you comfort him, fingers sliding through his hair just to pull him away to face you so you can wipe away his tears—so you can take care of him. “It always matters, especially if you’re with me.”
He laughs, a little rough and more in disbelief, but no less at ease. “What I really mean is: I was fine with not knowing what we were so long as you were with me.” The flush on Phainon’s cheeks deepens as he explains further, “as long as I was the only one you wanted to go grocery shopping with for dinner dates or watch bad movies with as an excuse to to hold hands, it didn’t matter as long as it was me you picked.”
He props himself up on one hand, and his other reaches out to take your hand so that he can press his lips to the back of. It’s chivalric and corny, but Phainon grasps this himself and turns playful, letting his teeth graze your skin as if he’ll bite down. Sometimes, you really do think he’s like your personal overgrown puppy, not realizing that it’s really because he has so much affection for you that he doesn’t know what to do with it.
“You’re silly,” you tell him.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you,” he corrects you.
“Really?” Tugging him back against the pillows, you hum, thinking to yourself even when you don’t need to figure it out because you’ve already known long before he kissed you in that field of sunflowers. “Because I love you too.”
“You must be silly like me, then,” Phainon says.
“Yeah?” you laugh, pressing your forehead against his.
“Can I have a kiss?” he asks instead, already leaning in so he can steal one from you.
You make a show of rolling your eyes, and Phainon responds by wiggling his fingers along your sides until you giggle. Instead of receiving a kiss from you, however, he decides to smear one to your cheek as a gift in exchange for your laughter.
When you calm down, you tease him, “that’s what you want?”
“When don’t I want one?” Phainon jests, but you both know that it’s less of a joke and more so an admission. You won’t say it—not now, anyway—but you always want one from him too.
“At least you’re aware,” you huff and your petulance matches your behaviour as you slide your hands under his sweater. At first, Phainon seems to encourage the touch, but then he feels how cold your skin is in comparison to his and he yelps. And this is followed by an effortless pout so you kiss him like he wants as an apology, knowing that he enjoys how selfishly you caress your hands across his waist—fair is fair, after all.
Neither of you are in a rush with the snow piling up outside, so you make sure to kiss him slowly, tilting your head to slot your slips together as you pull him firmly against you. Phainon is usually right; if the roads are dangerous, then that means you can’t drive him home and he will, fortunately, have to stay here with you. You don’t share this with him, but he seems to agree judging by the satisfied sound that leaves his throat when your tongue slides against his. And you know this because you actually haven’t kissed him like this before.
Usually, you exchange simple presses of your lips and a peck on the cheek or forehead; nothing deep and eager with you exploring his mouth to gain the pleasure of feeling his chest heave against yours. But now that you are, his arm is steady against your back; his hold firm so you can’t go too far despite being aware that there’s nothing either of you want more than each other right now.
Your fingers slide down the side of his waist, touch so light that you almost think you can feel him shiver, and you excuse the way his legs slip between yours to tangle together as him chasing the warmth of your body with no electricity to power your heater. For you, Phainon is hot enough—especially now that he’s thoroughly flushed—that you can confidently say that your affections are solely rooted in longing for him. You think he’d like to hear it too, so you pull away to take a deep breath despite nothing encouraging the separation in how a string of saliva connects your lips to his.
Immediately, Phainon’s hand cups your cheek, breaking the connection as his thumb traces the line of your mouth as he tries to guide you back to him. But your grin makes it difficult for him to get what he wants so his demand comes out as a whine when he says, “another.” Yet, you cannot deny how his voice affects you—rough and broken while lacking any of the politeness he usually has that he stares at your lips instead of your eyes; his desire very much clear.
“Greedy,” you say, the word grazing against his mouth just to tease him a bit more.
“But I’m your boyfriend, right?” he asks just to appeal to your affections. But you also know he says this just to make sure. The state of your relationship wasn’t said regardless of the understanding that you both now have of each other and the subsequent enthusiastic acceptance, so Phainon does look a bit hesitant as his gaze catches yours to properly ensure that this is what he is to you now.
“I want you to be,” you say, “is that what you want, Phainon?“ He nods with a breathless sort of agreement that you can’t stop yourself from continuing with some playful banter to drag out the moment and have him want more of you. “I guess I should give you another kiss, isn’t that right?”
He hums before leaning in after you made that intention clear. “We have nothing better to do when the power’s out.”
“We could sleep,” you suggest, despite being wide awake. Both of you took that small nap, so it’s only right that you stay up now, in exchange, ignoring how distracting Phainon’s hands are so distracting on your hips that sleeping is the last thing you want to do with him when he is snowed in with you.
“That’s boring,” he huffs, face scrunching up with the idea of doing anything other than being lovey-dovey now that you’re properly together.
Because you know him well, you peck him once—soft and quick, and try not to laugh when he almost complains when you pull away. Then, you challenge him as if there’s one thing you enjoy more than loving Phainon, it’s teasing him. “And kissing for a few minutes isn’t?”
“Are you saying it is?” The words come with a pinch to your cheek so you mimic him from earlier and try to nip his fingers. He only finds this cute, however, so he softly presses his lips to your forehead and hugs you tight.
You almost think that he’ll start rolling around with you in his arms—maybe even off the couch because that’s something silly Phainon would do—but he doesn’t so you don’t laugh that much and are able to say, although muffled into his chest, “I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it,” he argues, and his breath is warm on the top of your head when he presses his cheek to it. His chest rises and falls at a steadier pace, now, but you can still feel the way his heart races, still searching for you.
Phainon is impossible but you guess he’s yours, which means only you can debate him on something as insignificant as this. So, you say, “no, I didn’t,” and softly pinch his side as revenge from before. He doesn’t even react in the way you want, merely pulling away to look at you properly with a grin that lacks any of the worry that you found in him when this night started.
And his voice is confident and full of fondness, knowing this is a challenge that only you can fulfill when he dares you, “prove it.” The words make you laugh, and this appears to delight him as he follows after you with his own, much quieter as though he’s forcing it just to hear the joy in your own.
“How do you always get what you want?” you ask, fingers sliding up his spine until you can flatten your palm between his shoulderblades and pull him closer so your noses touch. You hope that you’ll only grow more and more familiar with him until you can map out every inch of skin the same way you know him remarkably well.
“Because you love me,” he declares, so matter-of-fact because there’s no use questioning what is simply the truth.
And because Phainon is right, you kiss him not just once, but a few more times after that.
"I love his good smell and his body that fits with mine as if they were made in the same body. [...] What is only pieces, doled out here and there to this boy and that boy, that made me like pieces of them, is all jammed together in [him]. So I don't want to look around any more: I don't need to look around for anything.
Sylvis Plath, from a diary entry featured in The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
pairing. Phainon x gn reader.
tags. modern!au, all fluff, a little suggestive (just a tiny mention), and a little romantic. Not beta read.
wc. 1.4k
note. To maemae (@elysiumae) who is incredibly kind to me: I thought the quote you reblogged was cute so I went ahead and found it in full and ended up writing this small little piece <3
The most tender love is found in the simplest things.
It's the sunshine that filters through the blinds and lights up his face in early mornings where it takes all your willpower to pull away from him. Sometimes, it's the colour of the bouquet of forget-me-nots you gift him on hard days, happy ones, and terribly uneventful periods because they remind you of his eyes. And, on nights like this, it's Phainon's inability to let you do anything on your own.
Ever so clingy, he insists on joining you on your midnight night snack run—you're specifically craving the ones from the little corner store and nothing in the cupboards will do—because he would never risk anything even when he knows you can handle yourself. If he were more honest, then he would say that he also likes holding your hand as you walk together. Fortunately, you know your boyfriend so well from your years together that words aren't needed; he has always been the type to swing your intertwined hands together, or tuck yours into the crook of his elbow or the safety of his pockets.
And because Phainon's tenderness is found in the mundanity of your life with him, he also likes to bump shoulders and hips just to grab your attention or catch you at your waist. Under a particularly pretty streetlight, he twirls you until you smile brighter than its glow, only to make you giggle when he asks you to do the same for him.
Phainon is fun; he always is, but his shenanigans do distract you from the purpose of this spontaneous trip. By the time you get your hands on the only thing that can satisfy your cravings, you're both out much later than you had intended to be.
"Phai," you tug on his sleeve, "isn't it kinda cold, now?"
"We've been out for awhile," he hums out thoughtfully. "Why? Are you cold?" Despite his concern, he has a silly grin on his face and his eyes crinkle—all sly but impossibly cute.
Phainon has always run warm, which is terrible in the summer months because he hates sleeping without your arms around him. Thankfully, it's not summer and, oh? Your apartment is still two blocks away? What a pity! It's a good thing that Phainon is here.
He shifts his hold on the plastic bags to grab the ends of his jacket and open it up, nice and wide. Sometimes, Phainon likes wearing more fitted ones considering his figure, but, for the most part, he gravitates towards this one as it has such soft lining that retains the heat of his body through and through.
"Come here, starlight." Phainon's expression gentles; although he takes each and every chance he can get to show you his affections, there is nothing he prioritizes more than your comfort and safety. Tonight, he decides that he cannot entertain the prospect of you freezing for even a short moment. "Let me warm you up before we get home, yeah?"
A part of you knows it's just an excuse and that your boyfriend knows this is a silly idea considering the walk isn't that long and you could just escape the cold by making a run for it, but you can see how much he adores you, and you wouldn't trade moments like this for anything else. In fact, you're greedy for more of them.
With a laugh, you tumble into him, arms sliding around his middle as your cheek meets the soft fabric of his sweater. "So sweet," you tease, and your voice lifts at the end of the compliment; not at all a joke despite how impish your expression is. It's just fact: Phainon is sweet. Being with him means knowing nothing other than saccharine affection that you don't believe you could ever go a day without.
It's found in the way he looks at you when you wake up with mussed hair and drool drying on the side of your mouth, but he always kisses you anyway. You see it before you go to bed and can barely keep your eyes open, but you want to tell him about one more anecdote from your day or hear him talk about the story behind the antique that arrived at the museum.
You even taste it every time he cooks for you. He always remembers that one ingredient to never use because it makes your face scrunch in displeasure, the spices that cause a satisfied sound to bubble up, and how to make your favourite dishes that remind you of your family or your friends because food is a language of attachment to the people you share it with.
There are times you think that Phainon is large because he holds so much love for all of them since they make you happy. For a similar reason, you know that Phainon is strong so that he never makes you worry. His shoulders are wide; he's proud of how sculpted his arms are; and you can feel each ridge of muscle through his clothes, especially when he flexes. But Phainon is small when he comes to you, seeking out your touch when he's sad or frustrated, yet is unable to express it—and it's okay because you understand him without words.
And Phainon is weak when you do understand him through every letter he strings together to express just how much he appreciates you. How much he loves you through laughter when you can barely understand him; through tears when he warbles out various complaints as if he wasn't the one to pick this drama rom-com for movie night (his reasoning? You let him pick it, so you kiss him as you throw the blame right back in his cute, tear-stained face); and through the blanket of pleasure when the only sound his mouth can form is your name.
In those moments, it's more evident that there is no body that fits with yours other than Phainon's. If soulmates are real, then this is proof. But if they aren't, then you will make sure that nothing can tear him away from you; whether it is in this life or the next, you will follow him.
Every morning, you will smell citrus no matter how strong the gasoline is from the cars littering the street—another world of their own with lives you'll never understand, going to work or someplace far away, but the only thing that matters is him. In the evenings, when he's freshly showered, washing away sweat and musk, the scent of something so soft and woody still lingers—on his skin, the sheets, and the hoodie you've stolen from him. You even smell it when he cooks because it's impossible not to when you wrap your arms around him from behind just to hear him giggle. It's there when he bumps into your side, unable to stay upright with how his stomach cramps with every joke that leaves your mouth; when you lean in close and kiss him, cooing into his temple that he's your big, soft crybaby; and especially when he fits himself between your legs, curled over you with laboured breaths and choked whines only for his head to tuck into your neck with his hair tickling your nose.
You hold him.
And because you hold him—because you refuse to remember a period of time where you never knew what it was like not to—you know his smell the same way you know how to breathe. It's effortless and you can do it without thinking, but the moment you think too much, it's as if you forget, and it makes you want to hold onto it for a little bit longer.
But you never have to do such a thing, because Phainon holds you. He always does.
"Warm yet?" He looks down at you and the only thing you see is love.
You laugh, pressing your nose to his chest, right over his heart, smelling citrus, wood, and—"Sunshine, I don't think I'm warm yet."
"You're right; you aren't." His hands smooth down your back as he presses a kiss to the top of your head, pretending that he was able to check your temperature just like that. "How silly of me to ask."
"So silly," you muse, voice coming out muffled.
Still, he hears you so he asks, "how should I make it up to you?"
"Hold me for a little longer."
And Phainon does, making sure to squeeze you extra tight because being in love is as simple as you foolishly tucked into his jacket, holding plastic bags filled to the brim with snacks that knock into the back of his knees under a streetlight on this impossibly ordinary night.
Although, if you were to ask Phainon, it isn’t work at all.
❧ pairing. phainon x f!reader
❧ 5.5k words of a self-ship coded gift. modern!au, intimate, slightly suggestive (mdni), a heated kiss.
❧ note. for my lovely friend @elysiumae who had a tiny bout of food poisoning. dear maemae, thank you for always being so sweet to me.
Phainon is home.
He does not enter as he commonly does; with an accidental slam in excitement that is promptly followed by apologetically content chuckles, glad to see you again. That is, when you’re here, finishing your work at home rather than at the office where he’ll catch the furiously familiar clack of keys as you chat with your friends or write your lovely stories in-between bouts of responsibility. On other days, he’s somehow always waiting for you just as you take your first steps out of the building—you have an inkling this punctuality is why he works later than usual when you don’t need him to fetch you—either a treat or a drink in hand to quench your appetite and uplift you, provided that exhaustion weighs on your shoulders. Now, however, Phainon is perhaps more sullen than you are.
There’s a frown on his face, dragging down his handsome features into a facsimile of that silly emoticon he repeatedly sent you when he had a moment to check up on the state of your affliction, of which he would do anything to chase away. He would even fall to his knees without changing into his pyjamas, the image of a besotted lover who can do nothing but keel over for the sake of who compels him so. A man like him—bright-eyed with a gaze as expansive as the sky and a smile filled with affection so deep it may never fill the fissures of the earth—only understands this through your laughter.
“What are you doing?” you ask with a tiny snort, hand reaching for him.
He leans into your touch, arms folded beside your bicep from where you’ve taken station upon the living room couch and he, the soft carpet decorated with a book you’ve abandoned, a box of chocolates that couldn’t fit on a coffee table filled with miscellaneous objects you’ve busied yourself with, and your slippers—his, actually, since you’ve missed him so sorely that even his presence in front of you is, nevertheless, lacking.
Phainon is too far away.
“Lamenting your stomach problems,” he answers, letting the words dissolve into a satisfied hum once he’s able to bunt his head into your palm.
Your touch descends further, cupping his cheek as you squish the pudgy skin in your hand alike the pillow you had done the same to in his absence. “So dramatic,” you snicker and lean in before he can glower further, lips meeting in a terse peck.
It happens, anyway, when his gluttony is as ravenous as an animal whose instinct is to adore you. The whine falls away just as he receives another, and again when he mumbles one more please twice over after the initial request failed once your quick fulfillment produced a smile that brought about a kiss that was mostly teeth and muted giggles. When you separate, Phainon’s eyes are near crescents, a gentle expression that you’ve observed over the years as something that appears solely with you.
“Is my sad Victorian lover finished with his sorrows?” you ask, ignoring the ache in your shoulder as you shift uncomfortably to release your other arm from your lateral leisure to cradle him in your hands and swing his face from side to side, babying him over his meager performance and unable to help yourself from it. Had you expressed such a sentiment, you are sure that Phainon would have only glowed, a sort of delight that brightens across the entirety of his being through the innate promise of it—no one else shall be its recipient.
His voice grows taught despite this, upset sweeping over his countenance in a pointed question that pops the bubble of happiness you share. “How is your stomach?” he prods, eyes flickering to the packaging empty of any sweets with resentful attention. “Do I want to know how many you ate?”
“Nope,” your chirp out, the sound final as you ruffle his hair before brushing your lips against his to placate any complaints.
He calls your name; peeved, slightly disappointed, and undeniably fond. “I can’t trust you after your sashimi comment,” he notifies you, recalling the texts you’ve exchanged throughout the day.
“And I meant it!” you say, wanting to see the momentary spike in your boyfriend’s vexation. But before he can scold you, you inhale loudly with a yawn, extending your arms and pointing your toes as far as you can, tensing your muscles before relaxing. Phainon gently pinches your side from where the hem of your shirt rides up; he apologies through a gentle caress and listens to you claim, “you already don’t trust me since you interrogated me in the first place.”
He huffs, tugging your clothes back over exposed skin and lightly patting it down in a job well done for ensuring a chill doesn’t befall you with how high the air conditioning is set. “Interrogated?” he echoes, straightening from how he had rested his chin atop his arms, closely watching your every action regardless of his push back and the lilt in his tone. “I’m not a detective, and—”
“I know you aren’t,” you interrupt with a roguish quip, “you’d be a pretty bad one—why ask when the evidence is right here?”
Phainon pinches your nose next, another tender reprimand that he, this time, does not amend. “So you admit it, then?”
Laughing, you pretend to nip at his finger when he pulls away. “Admit what?”
In response, he tugs on your cheek, first, to say, “that you ate them and shouldn’t have when you have food poisoning.” And as punishment, he leans in to mouth at the opposite cheek, following the intimate habit you share with a childish raspberry that ends with you wiping the resulting saliva over the front of his dress shirt.
It’s fine; it doesn’t matter—with the dawn tomorrow, there will be no tours to be had nor programs to train. It will only be Phainon struggling to pull away from your serene embrace when you have the entire day ahead to spend together, the hour or two that he dedicates to his morning exercise a dreadful idea especially now that you’re sick. You seem to care even less for it than he does, which distresses him plenty that the thought of tickling you passes his mind, and he almost entertains it after your justification of what you had played ignorant of, incapable of keeping up the charade as you rile him up according to your provocative pleasure.
“Did you think I would be able to resist the ones with special filling when you bought them specially for me?” you wonder listlessly, particularly indolent as Phainon has decided to splay a large hand over your stomach, stroking over cotton as if that would bring you some comfort.
“Are you forgetting how long it took for you to feel better last time?” He leans closer with the reminder, pressing his forehead to yours and nuzzling your noses together, careful not to bump your glasses askew. “Hmm?”
“How could I forget about my boyfriend taking care of me?” Your eyes narrow as the corners of your mouth lift into a smile that strikes an iron-hot warmth through his chest, melting into a dense, molten liquid that melds with the blood pooling into his face—Phainon cannot, embarrassingly so, do without your teasing and goading.
This close, you can feel the small, aborted puff of amused air he releases, and observe the pretty pink that has begun to bloom across the apples of his cheeks. The memory of that awful time floats over the both of you—the days passing with you in his embrace, of naps and sudden bathroom breaks where Phainon adopted the role of a puppy who must be with you as much as he can, knocking and pawing at the door in worry if you’re okay. But because you’re you, maybe that’s just always, proved by the weight that spreads across your abdomen, his hand pursuing the path across to curl over your waist to secure you in a warm hold.
“You’re lucky that mushroom soup didn’t get you,” he remarks after a moment, wanting to extend the quiet that settled between you.
It does not take you the same amount of time to say, “we didn’t have mush room in the fridge”; the jest comes instantaneously as you level him with a flat look, letting your eyes betray your expectant glee in his reaction.
Phainon tries to huff in exasperation, the sound breaking sharply like thin ice he plummets through, descending into a loud, dopey laugh; so loud that he covers an immense grin in shame, as if he’s been coldly shocked to awareness of how close you are that it must be startling. Yet, you’re smiling, and the sight of it triggers an influx of feeling.
There are so many platitudes that can be said about it; of devotion and desire, wanting and absence, and the depth of it all wherein Phainon loves you. He knows that. You know that. Cyrene, Hyacine, Mydei, Castorice, Cifera, and even a stranger who encounters the two of you on a date knows that. But Phainon also likes you.
Phainon liked you long before the intensity of love ever took root.
He liked seeing you interact with all your mutual friends, so much so that he took it upon himself to approach you speculating why you were so distant with him, exactly. And that was all it took to like you more—to speak to you about things the others would never know, parts of you and himself shared between personal moments of friendship that he was blind to. In his eventual understanding of ‘like’—to like your laughter, to like his own when you’re witty as you are now; to like the hazy sense of craving that filled him regardless of any restraint and especially when you looked at him; and to like you around, no matter where that had been—Phainon plainly encountered love.
He hopes that you will never fail to find him; he hopes he will never be too far.
Phainon’s fingers twirl around a lock of your hair, a link joining you to him. “I can’t go on a work trip without you doing something that’ll make me worry,” he frets, though that may be a result of who he naturally is.
Your fingers encompass the back of the hand resting on your abdomen, keeping him there. All your mischief disappears. “I think this means you shouldn’t go anywhere for a while.”
“You’re right,” he mumbles, leaning into your space, fingertips taking the path up the strands to cradle the back of your head. He kisses you, slow and ordinary. Although he’s playing along, his flush has darkened into a carmine, creeping up to the tips of his ears, remaining as susceptible to your flirtations as the first time and as weak to you even in your vivacious tricks. So, he agrees, “I should stay right here.”
“Then go shower so we can have dinner and cuddle,” you demand with the separation, feeling his happiness against your mouth.
He rolls his eyes. “Fine, fine… Whatever my girlfriend wants, she gets.”
Barking out a laugh, you push yourself up on the couch and he follows in unfurling himself from around you. Once you’re sat upright, you raise your arms, and because you do, Phainon stands so that he can pull you up. Or, so you thought, because he decides to steady an arm around your waist, the other scooping you up from underneath to lift you.
Your giggles continue with a yelp, “what are you doing?” yet you wrap yourself around him—arms around his shoulders, a hand tangling in his hair, and your legs hooking around his hips. “Phainon!” you grumble despite latching onto him, “you’re still wearing your work clothes,” and scrunch up your nose. “My clean pyjamas…”
He only believes you cute, but if he says that, he’s certain you’ll admonish him through a harsh pinch, yank, or—unsurprisingly—a bite.
Instead, he repeats what you’ve said only minutes ago, already on his way to do so. “I have to shower, right?” He cranes his head towards you to press his nose into your cheek with a happy trill. “I think I need help with my back.”
“Do you, now?” You turn to face him with an incredulous look that doesn’t fail to express your doubts. “I think we should make dumplings for dinner then—my reward for helping you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” you agree with a nod, “since I’m being so sweet.”
“How can I refuse getting so much time with you to myself?” he replies, aware of the reason and how lucky he is that you are willing to grant him as much attention as he desires, as endless as that is.
“If you can’t, then let’s hurry and shower—I’m hungry.”
Again, he laughs—he doesn’t seem to stop when you’re around—and Phainon also listens; there isn’t a time where he hasn’t, and maybe it comes easier when you have no qualms assisting him in shedding his clothes with an eager touch and an even eager mouth.
By the time your appetite is satisfied, it’s some unknown hour past midnight, having paid little focus when your attention is occupied with Phainon and keeping him awake longer than usual.
This is a typical occurrence; one that is so commonplace you feel no guilt in it. If you weren’t distracting him from the luxury of his dreams, he would be doing that himself, nagging you one way or another to please go to bed because you aren’t feeling too great but also in bewilderment over how you stay up so late, night after night with your excuses of naps falling on deaf ears. The likely reason for that is how they are sometimes taken when you work from home, grossly and criminally without him around to cling to. On other nights, Phainon appears sufficiently satisfied in curling around you and falling asleep to your occasional touch upon him, the sound of a keyboard, and your soft breaths and frustrated hums while writing.
Graciously, you’re all his tonight.
Phainon is rambling on about the history of a new exhibit he helped put up today, the timbre of his voice notably animated in spite of the yawns that intercept every few sentences and the tiny, bashful apologies he provides before continuing. You aren’t facing him, laid on your back with your ear turned towards him on his side, head pressed to your shoulder, and the manner in which he fits into your body is an adequate connection for him, it seems; a leg thrown over yours and his hand resting on your stomach to draw shapes and words over cotton—your name is what he enjoys writing the most. It’s unfortunately distracting.
“Phainon,” you call softly, halting his severe inclination for remorse. With his hummed acknowledgement, you explain, “that tickles,” and press a kiss into his fluffy hair, perfumed with your shampoo.
“I’ll be more careful,” he murmurs, ceasing the antsy fidgeting he was using to stay cognizant of whatever you’re up to—to ensure he does, you rotate to look at him and offer your arm as a pillow, curling the appendage upwards to play with his hair. He only looks sleepier, so you tug, sudden and slightly forceful—he savours this, you know—and hear a hushed, suppressed laugh that breaks through. “…make you something easy on your stomach in the morning. I shouldn’t have let you have that chili oil,” he murmurs, the words slowly becoming clearer as he shakes away his fatigue. “Maybe soup…”
His eyes close so you repeat the enticing yank of a small strand and notice the colour suffusing over his face. “Not mushroom soup, right?” you ask, using a miserable whine that you expect to help him reside in awareness, if only through your foolishness that contradicts whatever he may be feeling.
Phainon yawns your name, moving closer so the tips of your noses press and incidentally prevent you from continuing your playful affections, the awkward angle a difficult reach. “If you have mush room for chocolate, you have mush room for mushroom soup.”
“You’re so silly,” you say, and then ruin the moment with: “get your own joke.”
He ignores it to ask, “is it silly to want to take care of you?” with a voice thick with sugar, as deep and dark as toasted caramel whose sweetness is addicting yet absent of the cloying urge to be devoid of it. Better than any treat, his fervour for you is all that he is attentive of.
Your arm wraps around his shoulder, instead, with its inability to find his scalp, needing to chase after any feeling of him under your care and the resulting contentment in the unmistakable expression of bliss Phainon cannot hide. “Now you’re just cheesy,” you taunt, free hand meeting the side of his face to feel the flourishing warmth.
“That’s good, too,” he remarks, “since you like cheese.”
“Dork.”
Phainon's eyes open, instinctively more conscious to declare, “you like me.” Even in the dark, they draw you in so terribly, the colour murky in shadow and imitating the solemn significance in every purposeful profession of your bond.
Though it is inevitable that the variation in topic would impede his sedation, the statement would come just as easy had he been drowsy like earlier, before your continuous interference. There is a certainty that you would not turn away from him or decide, on some average, mundane day, that you no longer want him. The dread of it and being inadequate or existing as a mere ‘person’ and not identified wholly as yourselves and recognized as someone necessary in order to form a coalescence known as ‘you and Phainon,’ together, is one shared and abandoned.
There is only this: memories upon memories of university—of running and missing in near-intersecting lines, lingering in parallel paths and waiting for the other in wary wonder—in proof of staying and choice and the willful persistence until you were ready. And now, with what you’ve become, well after that period as students, Phainon would wait however long if, theoretically, this life were to repeat with even a minuscule difference of when you would meet or when you may accept and trust who he wanted to be to you. For all that he needs is to land in this soft place, here, next to you—living with you, day after day, as the minutes pass by and the seconds tick along where even a dozen lives of the same banal events and scenarios would never be enough to experience it all.
So, when Phainon tells you that you like him, all you respond with is, “mhm, no,” as the label is unfit to delineate the exact degree of it.
“What?” The word is quite pitiful; weak in its timbre and slightly high in tone when the rejection beguiles his caution.
You laugh, and apologize for the mean transformation of your teasing through a plain validation. “I think I love you.”
He frowns, anyway. “Only think?”
“Now you’re pushing it,” you say with a straight face that’s impossible to maintain, half-hearted in this and the ensuing intention. “I’m kidding… maybe.”
In response, Phainon folds himself over you, a blanket of warmth that blocks out any moonlight from the open curtains. He does not grant you his voice, the only sound within your shared bedroom the creek of the bedspring as he repositions after each movement, the mattress sinking with the weight of his hand braced upon the space next to your shoulder, steadying him so that he can look upon your face. He starts with a small smile—one that you reciprocate with scant difficulty when you’re currently proud of your relentless banter—and feel his against yours through a light grazing of lips. They don’t meet when Phainon giggles, wanting to earn your impatient huff as he tempts with you with balmy breaths that pass between you, convincing you to widen your mouth as if he intends to gift you with a deep kiss.
Maddeningly, he descends upon your neck, first, lips wet with his saliva in preparation to spoil you so, leaving a moist trail in patient kisses that dry so quickly that its chill has you longing for another, if only to have him sear himself properly in spaces barely marked by his fealty. When your breath catches, he feels it, and allows a matching sigh to escape his throat as he tilts your head to the side to reveal more of yourself to him. Phainon grins, thereafter, with the dull drag up your jaw, punctuated with a nip of teeth mimicked upon your mouth once he’s satisfied in warming your skin.
Your thumb rubs across his cheek, cradling his head as you lead him in appreciating you properly, no matter how he kisses the cupid’s bow of your mouth, an early apology for the soft bite to your upper lip, accepted and punished through a detachment. The displeased whimper you welcome from him vanishes into a series of desperate noises as your mouth meets the hollow of his throat, sucking the surface until it leaves a splotchy blush you’ll have to help him cover come Monday morning if it doesn’t fade by itself.
Phainon slants his mouth over yours again; so desperately that any thought of your ailment and how fervent his desire for you to—so plainly—sleep flees from his thoughts, replaced by the call of your touch, the taste of toothpaste mixed with the honeyed-water of your tongue, and a sensation that is purely good. It feels good to kiss you and kiss you and not stop, even if those kisses are lazy without any rush, and hindered from transfiguring into something more amorous. You, yourself, try not to think about what’s it’s like when he’s pressed to you like this: body between your legs and his weight against your chest, shortly alleviating the comforting strain by lifting off you and flattening his palm across your belly—to hold you down or put pressure over where you both cannot forget the feeling of him, thick and heavy as he fills the space deep under his touch.
You try not to copy Phainon too much, either—panting into his mouth through stuttered breaths induced by affections so persistent that a thin, gossamer strand of saliva maintains the link between you, snapping only when he finally speaks.
“Doesn’t feel like you ’maybe’ love me,” he says, and you wish he hadn’t. Yet he lingers above you, forgetting your feigned expression—miffed at his riposte—to caress your sides, squeezing every inch you’ve bestowed him permission with.
Still, you warn, “don’t get handsy—my tummy hurts,” despite your instigation of him and the heat that licks up your spine, accompanying the shallow ache that has no relation to what torments you so.
His expression turns wretched; immediately, you laugh.
“It’s not funny!” he whines, petulant though his tantrum comes to you through the descent down your body, his gaze never straying from yours.
Once he reaches your hips, his hold tightens upon them, an announcement of his desire to be closer, gently pushing up the shirt you’ve stolen from him to smooth his hand over your skin. There, he presses feather-light kisses over the surface before growing firmer once you begin to squirm at the ticklish feeling, careful not to upset more than your already difficult stomach, and avoid it being directed towards him.
Your fingers card through his hair, pushing back his bangs to reveal the forehead you feel a fierce need to employ his current tactics upon; to reciprocate his ardent affections. “I’m okay, really.”
“No, you’re not,” Phainon argues, tilting his head to press his ear to your abdomen to—absurdly enough—listen to the agitating grumble and churning of your gut as proof in being correct. “This is because you ate all those chocolates,” he decides, facing you with a stern look. “I’m putting you on a chocolate ban.”
You jut out a lip and widen your eyes, gradually lowering the edges of your mouth only to force a wobble. Phainon evades the sight by pressing his cheek into your tummy, directing his stare towards the side of your bedroom rather than your pleading.
"You’re putting me on a chocolate ban?" you repeat to confirm it; he knows what you’re doing—it’s not going to work. He doesn’t answer, so you continue. "Next you’re going to ban me from all the lemon squares in the fridge because they’re acidic."
He mumbles into your skin, breath warm, “technically, they could be…”
“My Phainon doesn’t love me anymore,” you cry, pretending to keel over as he had earlier—as much as you can, anyway, with you already lying down, which makes it all the more preposterous as all you manage is a slight thrashing of legs and flailing of arms, wary of hurting him.
He gasps, sitting up on his knees with boisterous laughter. “Take that back!” But something washes over his expression; giddy, devious, and—most of all—dangerous, regardless of the steady, pleasant caresses upon your body.
“Tickle me and I'll bite you,” you warn.
“What difference is there from what you already do?” Phainon’s grin widens. “Is that meant to deter me?”
Wordlessly, you whack him with a pillow.
“That’s new.”
And the words are enough to have you pulling away from him, cramming yourself into your side of the bed, so close to the edge that you debate slipping off in a melodramatic fall that you can’t conclude as a reason that would grant you that his charming glee or exacerbate his latent concerns. The potential misery in that is sufficient in dissuading you, deeming your sour silence ample in capturing his aptitude in appeasing you while obvious in facetiousness.
Drawn to you, Phainon’s arms slip around your waist, curling against your back with his breath fanning over your nape. “Forgive me?” he whispers into the skin, muffled by your hair. “What if the chocolate ban is only until you get better? And I’ll hunt down a special matcha flavour just for you—a reward for being so strong.”
He’s annoying, but you want to ask, when isn’t it just for you?; filled with affection that forces your shoulders to shake despite yourself; suppressing your giggles. It only has him tucking himself around you, eradicating any remaining distance so that the length of his abdomen settles against your back, whereas his hips curve around your own, wedging himself between your legs so his feet brush against your calves.
Phainon seems to forget that it's the summertime.
Since the first time you’ve ever touched—platonic and hesitant to be near someone as bright as him—you’ve immediately perceived the warmth he radiates. Normally, he is a bit better with this; happy with holding hands before bed to avoid muggy, sweat-slicked skin, but you suppose that if you are suffering, then he must embrace you. He sighs with the spot he’s taken behind you, inhaling the scent of your hair, matching his own, as the arm around your waist tucks against your stomach to pull you impossibly closer when there is no more space left to fill.
“Wake me up if your stomach hurts again,” he firmly instructs you, incapable of letting go of your conversation from yesterday.
“I was only joking,” you say, and are honest in the declaration. You wouldn’t want to subject him to a sight nor an experience in the escapades of expelling whatever it was that ruined your gut.
Still, he argues, “I’ll complain.”
You huff. “About not being allowed in?” He nods and you softly pinch the skin of his forearm. “I think you’d complain about the smell, actually.”
“You’re wrong,” Phainon mumbles with a fleeting yawn, and he wiggles against you, shaking the rising drowsiness from his body to convey his devoted obligation to care for you; one he’s freely taken upon himself and unwilling to give up. “I’ll complain more if you don’t let me make sure you’re okay, you know?”
It’s enough to render you silent, yet Phainon does not mind. He knows you’re still awake and listening—your natural bedtime is anywhere from two to three in the morning, maybe later if you’re up with your friends, and only earlier if you’re especially tired or he can tucker you out. And the scarcity of your voice is caused by your contemplation in what, exactly, you should say.
A thank you would be sufficient knowing him, and you would receive his sweet smile and the gentle dismissal of your appreciation. Phainon believes it part of his commitment to you, and the usual discussions of love would say this to be, in a way, correct. That with commitment there is a certain expectancy in behaviour and attention. To ‘tend’ to you like a gardener to a flower when Phainon is, truthfully, the sun that shines without thought—merely because it does and it can.
Phainon can take care of you; he doesn’t have to, but he does. And those discussions of love attempt to explain it and this through some sequential logic, of which is disparaging in the irrationality of it all. There is a man out there with white hair and blue eyes, maybe not as tall as he is but surely as kind. He could be as athletic as Phainon, or maybe he isn’t. He could also be a woman. But it’s Phainon you’re with—somehow it’s him.
It’s Phainon you love.
And there is no logic to what he wants to do. If one were to say that humans dislike the stench of bile and waste, then why should Phainon sit on the bathroom floor to watch you deal with it? The floor is disgusting, too, so he could stand, but that itself is strange—the vision of him awkwardly on his feet as you suffer. So, there is no point in determining what you should say or the proper way to reply when all you must do is ask.
“Phainon?” you call, his name perhaps an endearment on your tongue solely because it is his.
He responds with your own, apparently still awake. Apparently still waiting for you. “What is it?”
“Will you hold my hand if I do wake up?”
His chest rumbles against your back, laughter filling the night. It floats towards your ears from how near he is to them, and every other part of him finds you—his legs seem to fit better, and the rise and fall of his body syncs with yours. And, in proof of how he will always be where you need him, his hand leaves your stomach to find the back of yours.
His palm is large against it, eclipsing so much of it that your chest tightens within the safety in his touch. And between the crevices drawn from the mountain of your knuckles, Phainon fills each space, the tips of his fingers curling to reach the underside of your palm in a one-sided handhold. He tells you, without wavering when he lacks any fear in his heart, “I’d hold your hand if you went skydiving.”
Snorting, you wonder, “would you even let me do something that dangerous?”
He hums, the sound vibrating from where you’re pressed together. “If you really wanted to, maybe, but I have to come with you.”
“What if you’re scared and can’t do it?” you propose.
It doesn’t deter him. “I’ll do it because you’re there.”
“Sappy,” you coo, no matter how much that response pleases you.
Phainon simply says, "I won’t let you do anything alone,” and squeezes your hand—a tangible sort of declaration.
“Okay,” you answer, only to say his name again, catching his attention with it because you can. “Phainon.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
His lips are soft on the skin of your nape. “Glad you know now,” he jests, and wrecks the little moment with his next words. “Since we love each other so much, we should go to sleep and see if we can kiss in our dreams.”
“You’re so silly.”
Although he struggles, he has enough energy to say, “you already used that one.”
“Come up with a better one, then,” you argue and rock your body just to disturb him and keep him with you for a bit longer.
He chuckles, muffling the sound into your shoulder when he really should be sharing what’s so funny with you. But rather than anything humorous, all that he expresses is joy despite the confession having absolutely no relevance to your challenge of him. “I love you, too,” he admits with a tender vocalization of your name.
It’s late, anyway, and Phainon has already done his best to entertain you for this long, so you let it be. Really, you just like the ordinary sound of it all; a verity in always converging towards this single point. And when the sun rises in a few hours, you lie just a little, telling him you really did kiss him in your dreams so you can do it in reality and find yourself at the beginning of another day to experience everything—with him—all over again, right from the very start.
Even now, long past his departure—one he seldom takes without your company—you can still feel his presence all around you.
⟣ pairing. professor!qifrey x professor!reader
⟣ 3.7k words. modern magic!au (belonging to @elysiumae that I am writing very vaguely without her additional world-building), gift fic, sick fic, unestablished relationship, slightly suggestive, OOC. Not beta read.
⟣ note. posting here because this is a surprise and I couldn’t ask if you wanted it in your treasure box or your ao3 gifts, no matter how I like how ao3 explicitly states that it’s “for maemae” hehe. Anyways, please stop encountering situations™ </3
These days, sleep is a gift that provides a distraction to what ails you so.
Qifrey had warned you, prior to your outing, to be careful, while you passed it off as the usual pleasantries and well wishes you share upon each and every separation without the other’s protection. Neither of you need to do such a thing—you are ordinary colleagues turned housemates with a strange sort of companionship—but it happens, regardless. After mornings of curt and polite greetings within your inaugural cohabitation, the eventual communal lunches dissolved into evenings that you wished would never end. There is no doubt he shared the sentiment, too, as Qifrey continued to partake in some banal topic to keep you with him for another hour longer. Though you are averse to attribute his reasoning to a difficulty in finding proper rest when you, yourself, always want for another second with him.
Now, all you appear to do is sleep when it is one of the primary cures to a terrible thing such as the flu where even Qifrey prefers you lost in dreams rather than seized by his voice.
Yours leaves with a rasp, hoarse from underuse despite how softly you call his name; still, your throat is not as rough as earlier, and this is, perhaps, one indication of his lingering presence. Your bedroom is cool but not freezing—irrespective of the air conditioning set high through the heat of the summer—a result of the distinct moisture in the air, indicated by both the lack of dryness upon testing a cough and the stray brushbuddy flattened against your chest, forming a doughy puddle. Qifrey must have let them in to keep you company. And they must also be drawn to the glyphs within the contraption you’ve hid within the quilt, one you had incidentally gifted to Qifrey yet its found its way here, to you, in another suggestion of his care of you during your slumber.
Although you share the same laundry detergent, Qifrey’s scent permeates the fabric—faintly floral with a touch of sandalwood mixed with old parchment and ink. Admittedly, it’s what comforts you most of all through your malaise, not his enduring water spell; the weight of the quilt; nor the cup of tea he’s set upon the warming coaster, reminding you of one of the very first nights you spent together, hunched over your living room inscribing runes into rounded, wooden slabs using Olruggio’s Searneedle Wand after Qifrey assisted you in snatching it right from under his friend’s nose in hopes of luring him over to assist you in completing a nefarious contraption.
It worked in spite of disastrous results, yet it ultimately led you to discovering—as Qifrey has so aptly named them—Pom-Pom, who was so small at the time that they appeared to the two of you as a living cotton ball with a pair of giant, glossy eyes. They’re much longer now but just as fluffy, and Pom-Pom releases a tiny pwee as they come to awareness with your shifting before nuzzling under your chin and sliding off your shoulder to fall into a tangle of fur atop your pillows.
There’s more in comparison to earlier, smelling of Qifrey just as the quilt had, but it does not surprise you with the other changes to your bedroom. And as you sit up to take a sip of tea and wet your throat, you catch sight of a folded note with your name scrawled upon ivory in elegant handwriting and a plain notice of where he has disappeared to.
I left to pick up groceries. If you wake up prior to my return, do not hesitate to contact me for anything you need.
If your students were aware of this custom you share—of ensuring the other was aware of where they would be, who they are with, and what time they would return like a lover who cannot sit still without knowing their partner was safe—you are certain the rumours would intensify beyond the fervor that has already overcome both your students and his. After all, your feelings for the man experienced the same; impossible to prevent when he’s become so intertwined with your life.
Even then, you suppose, the line between fellow professors and friends had already been crossed.
The heated kisses from the day within your office did not venture further into anything more amorous, no matter how he had pushed you down on that couch, fingers under your blouse to paw at skin with your own drawing marks along his spine and up his shoulders, nails leaving blushing lines he had no qualms in receiving when every sting brought rise to—against your mouth—soft faltering moans expressed through grins. Luckily, no student sought you out nor were curious passersby brave enough to peek through your open windows. Still, any amount of fussing was not enough to mitigate your dishevelment and, especially, Qifrey’s, whose satisfaction was known to you in his frequent vocalizations with your increasingly persistent touch. Only those ignorant and oblivious would fail to understand what transpired between you wherein, from then on, every moment with him fell into a category of need rather than want.
With his absence, all you are capable of is tracing the curves of each letter as you imagine his hands and how he had sat down to inscribe such a delicate note dedicated to you, yet it isn’t enough to satisfy what rests deep in your chest. Qifrey said it himself—that you may ask so long as you need, so, you do, regardless of how you play pretend.
Qifrey
You: are you still at the grocery store? will you be home soon?
You: there’s something i want please
Qifrey: Not to worry, I’m at the last of my list so I can still fetch you what you want.
Qifrey: Are you feeling better after your nap? How is your throat?
You: my throat doesn’t hurt as much as before but my cough hasn’t gone away :(
You: i wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy
Qifrey: It’s a good thing you aren’t alone and I can take care of you.
Qifrey: What is it that you needed?
You: oh right
You’re typing…
You: i checked the pantry and we’re running out again…
You: i know it’s expensive but…
Qifrey: Matcha?
You: how’d you know? :>
Qifrey: I checked myself in case we missed anything when we made our grocery list.
Qifrey: So spoiled when it won’t cure your flu haha.
You’re typing…
Qifrey: Not to worry, I picked that nice brand you like.
You: the affordable one, right?
You: Qifrey.
Qifrey: You called?
You: technically i typed
Qifrey: And I read.
You: i’m going to bite you.
Qifrey: How scandalous!
You: ASKNFKASDG
You: you know what, i DON'T want it anymore
Qifrey: What a pity. It’s already in my cart and the aisle is too far away to return it.
Qifrey: I’m quite famished too, so I should hurry on home to you when I already have all the ingredients for supper.
Qifrey: No mushrooms, of course, seeing how you love to tempt your stomach.
Qifrey: We can’t have you sick with food poisoning again, can we?
You: do you have to remind me
Qifrey: Have you learned your lesson?
You: let me think
You: no BWAHAHAHA
Qifrey: You know, it’s somehow passed my mind.
Qifrey: I need to purchase a bundle of cilantro.
You: you hate me
Qifrey: Do I, now?
Qifrey: I think it’s quite the opposite, actually.
Qifrey: Now be good and don’t move a muscle or find yourself in anymore mischief.
You: or what
Qifrey: I’ll notify Olly of how you’ve acted against his recommendation and made the modifications to that contraption you’ve decided to torment him with.
You: oh
You: you know about that? AFKJDSAGLK
Qifrey: It wasn’t difficult to figure out when you were giggling to yourself so happily late last night.
You: and why were you watching me?
You: hmm? master qifrey? [Message read.]
Qifrey does not answer.
The reason for this is likely rooted in paying for groceries rather than anything else, but you cannot help yourself from searching for his contact, his name accompanying a simple portrait of him with flushed cheeks and a heavy-lidded gaze you had taken on a night he was tipsy. Qifrey is shy about it, yet it is dear to you as one of the first times he ever opened up.
One may believe that alcohol is simply a vice that loosens not only the mind but the body, lips more susceptible to sharing secrets normally held close to their chest, but Olruggio’s shock within passing conversation notified you of how rare Qifrey’s trust had been. That his tolerance for liquor was well-above others and that through inebriation, he succeeds in remaining cautious. But he had chosen, in that moment, to let you in beyond what others knew, and that is, perhaps, why you find yourself seeking him out at every chance and grabbing hold of whatever he may offer, stuck in his orbit and unable to break free from your romantic folly that listening to the dial tone is enough to garner your impatience.
He answers within a few rings, calling your name first before following it with a gentle hello. “Is everything alright? Did you need anything else?”
It is just like him to have your well-being at the forefront of his mind, forgoing the playful mood of yours that he is so familiar with now, of which he often finds himself at the mercy of when your glee is a willful exchange for being at your mercy. And all that is forgotten simply because your health has fallen where unease is an easy thing for him to drown within—worried that something must be wrong if you’ve chosen to call him rather than continue your chatting over text, revealing to you an urgent tenor whereby the faster he finishes speaking, the quicker you may request his aid, replacing his usual melodic lilt that persists through the static.
Your heart tugs, and because he will remain unaware, you find yourself turning coy. "Master Qifrey,” you say while withholding a cough, voice slightly raspy and closely resembling your former state within your office by his hand, breath catching from inflammation, now, instead of pleasure. “I—”
He hangs up; you cannot help your laughter, one so pretty to Qifrey that it’s a pity he cannot hear how it rings out so similarly to the gentle chime of your phone.
Qifrey
Qifrey: Must you torment me?
You: i don’t know what you’re talking about
You sent an image.
You: isn’t pompom adorable?
Qifrey: They are.
Qifrey: But I believe there is someone much lovelier with them.
Qifrey: Nothing to say now?
Qifrey: How cute of you.
The sun is still awake by the time you rouse with a gentle touch, the surface of the sky embracing powdery blues when it sets much later in the summer season, hiding the sight of marigold streaks that you quietly observe before your evening classes with Qifrey by your side. But nothing has changed, really, when he has returned to you.
“You’re finally awake,” he murmurs, somewhat surprised and hoping the repetitive touch upon your hair would continue to calm you through your slumber, wishing to watch you rest for a few minutes more. “Supper is finished and simmering—I hope you aren’t too cross with me for cooking without you.”
Qifrey makes an attempt to pull away, but your reach for him, fingers curling around his graceful wrist as you urge him to continue stroking your head—spoiled, just as he had previously referred to you as.
“Don’t stop,” you instruct, “and I won’t be upset.” He listens with a small huff, leaning closer from where he’s sat on the edge of your bed as he witnesses the smile slowly grow on your face. When your eyes open, he stifles the tenderness that unfurls in his chest, replaced by amusement. “Do I smell congee?”
“How perceptive of you. It’s chicken congee,” Qifrey confirms, hand following the slope of your head with his forearm bumping into Pom-Pom who screeches in annoyance as their tail is displaced from its position so that Qifrey can graze his fingers against the side of your neck. He apologizes to your stray friend, voice low as his eye sweeps over delicate skin. “It should be gentle on your throat.”
You try to say thank you, but fail once your breath catches when Qifrey’s desire wins over logic, lips descending upon your cheek to gift you with a brief kiss. Immediately, you whine, shoving at his shoulders. “You’ll catch it, Qifrey!”
“Nonsense,” he says through a soft chuckle, your silly thrashing forcing him to lose his balance from where his hand is braced next to your shoulder with his lips sliding to the sensitive underside of your jaw. He hums, satisfied with the situation you’ve brought about.
Your fingers find his waist, wiggling as he yelps and pulls away. “You’re right—you lack any,” you muse, miffed by the prospect of him falling ill as you have regardless of how you wish to welcome the affection.
Qifrey shakes his head and chooses to intertwine your hands together to cease your playful torture, pulling you to sit upright shortly after so that he can pass you a cup of warm tea, the same from earlier now refilled. “Is that so? Would you like to share why the package of lozenges are empty, then? When they are meant to last you for the next few days?”
You take a long sip, muffling a contemplative—yet ignorant—sound into the rim. “Not sure,” you say, matter-of-fact and lacking any suspicion.
After all, he already knows.
“You have a headache, don’t you?” Again, you busy yourself with drinking tea so he continues scolding you with a sigh. “Do I have to administer it myself, hmm?”
“And how will you do that?” you challenge. It would be terribly easy to hide some in your bag and sneak a taste between lectures you are determined to return to; and after years of living together with familiar periods of him watching over you, you are aware of every place he hides the honey lemon blessings that soothe your throat.
Qifrey’s head tilts as the corners of his lips lift. “I wonder,” he says, eye flicking to your mouth, suggestion clear—heat licks at your spine.
In the days that followed your office encounter, Qifrey has perhaps kissed every inch of skin on your cheek, your forehead, and, sometimes, your jaw in affectionate greetings, but never your mouth, as if doing so again would demand an answer as to who, exactly, you are to each other. There are moments, however, when one of you would lean in as if to partake in the affection before realization would strike, halting a scant distance away with warm breaths mingling together only to reluctantly pull away when its fulfillment would be a physical recollection preventing either of you from pretending that nothing has changed.
Still, you try.
“Anyway, I’m fine. I finished grading papers.”
Aware that he cannot argue and win, he arches a brow to suggest, “do I have to restrain you?”
“You—” Your breath catches with the words, any attempt to avoid what rests between you impossible when Qifrey has chosen to tempt you, again and again. Yet, you are not ready for it, especially in the state you are in that you choose humour rather than honesty. “You should take me on a date first,” you jest.
This time, all he does is offer you a tight smile and release your hand once he rises to his full height with your gaze following each movement. “Do your best to get better quickly, then, and I’ll accompany you wherever you like.” But before you can answer, he interrupts. “I’ll fetch you a bowl congee so you can have supper early and rest again.” The diversion is ordinary enough—natural with him already on his feet as Pom-Pom leaves your side to cling to his garments and crawl up his abdomen and onto his shoulder. Feeling your attention, Qifrey’s face faintly flushes nonetheless, and you only catch the beginnings of it as he turns his back to you to leave and do as he says.
And it does not take long for him to, after his return, deprive himself of your voice.
In your conversations over supper, you had made a joke you believed to be unremarkably funny—that you were taking a legal amount of cough syrup in comparison to blatantly ignoring the instructions of lozenges you enjoyed eating as if they were candy—while Qifrey surmised that to ensure you get better, he must see to it himself, disregarding any proclivities towards you and the foolish need to witness it himself, not trusting anyone else to succeed, not even you. The lingering weakness in your limbs remained, too, and what point is there in cooking you a warm meal if you may only spill it and be burned? There isn’t any, Qifrey reasoned, and also decided that you must be fed and dotted on by his hand.
His focus in this was, admittedly, quite cute; though, Qifrey also believed you endearing despite the headache you provide him with, of which he would endure—as he always does when something terrible befalls you—without question nor hesitation when it is so easy to fall into a pattern in fulfilling each of your tiny preferences in what food to eat, the flavour of medicine, the temperature of your bedroom, and whatever else he may provide as the sole person who would experience every ordinary second with you. Qifrey, in all his assiduity, is entirely aware of how you may interpret it, yet he cannot find it in himself to mind; to have you look upon him and view him as something more.
His students were adept enough to realize it before he had discovered the affection he held for you himself, and some part of him had hoped that their playful comments would nudge you towards it, and nudge you it had, with your fervent reciprocation. He’ll be kind to them today, especially, then, during his evening class.
“Are you leaving now?” you ask, stirring from where you’re tucked into his side atop his bed, sunken into blankets and pillows you’ve taken from your own room alongside his quilt. After you had your fill of supper, Qifrey scooped you up with an ease that no longer surprised you, a strength hidden and only employed through gentle attention. So, you swallowed down any embarrassment to request being taken to his bedroom instead of yours as every trace of him would be all that you need to find reprieve in his upcoming absence.
He easily obliged, falling into the cotton haven with you in his arms under the guise of keeping you warm, knowing you to be too drowsy to justify separation through the spread of sickness. Even if he had caught it, you would nurse him back to health without thought, equally as anxious as he is when something is wrong. And that may be why the rhythm of his heart is so soothing under your ear, a dull beat assuring you that so long as he is here, nothing worse will transpire.
“My apologies,” Qifrey murmurs, the words rumbling in his chest. “It wasn’t my intention to wake you.”
“You didn’t answer,” you weakly reply, voice lowering in disappointment for how brief this moment had been, no matter your complete awareness in how he couldn’t stay for long. “Do you have to leave now?”
Qifrey takes a moment to reply, wishing the answer was something different. “I do,” he says before smoothing a hand up and down your back in hopes of calming an abrupt coughing fit you fail to prevent.
“I’ll miss you.” He chuckles at that, causing your body to shake alongside his. “Nevermind,” you grumble, “I go through the trouble of talking when I shouldn’t and this is what I get.”
“My undivided care?”
“Undivided but not uninterrupted.” You yawn as Qifrey’s fingers tangle into your hair, drawing shapes against your scalp as he pulls you deeper into his embrace to tuck into your face against his neck, close enough to be enveloped in the scent of his cologne. You do not object, yet you have the energy to advise him, “remember to disinfect yourself before you leave or I’m telling Olly on you.”
“You wouldn’t.” Qifrey pretends to gasp though his voice doesn’t raise to match it, remaining quiet to avoid chasing away your building drowsiness. “In retaliation, I’ll make good on my threat to reveal your schemes to him.”
“I’ll spray you with a water like a cat.”
“You enjoy my company too much to do such a thing.”
“You’re right,” you mumble, voice trailing off as it becomes more difficult to remain within both wakefulness and reason. “I like you too much.”
“Sleep,” he whispers into your hair, “I stocked our kitchen with ingredients to bake lemon cake together, so you have to hurry and get better to enjoy it while we plan our date, alright?”
A muffled hum of agreement is all you can manage, and as you fall asleep, you vaguely register a soft pressure on your temple as the weight of his body leaves you. You want to tell him to stay and remain at your side, but you stay quiet, and you let him leave, dreaming about his kiss until you can feel it again once the dawn arrives with his voice low in your ear and his gentle touch upon your lips, finally certain that he is yours with his complete willingness to share everything—even a silly little flu—with you.
Sunflower preserved in resin and a multi-media scrapbook
4.2k word self-ship gift from Honey to Maemae, but the contents are provided by @elysiumae and Phainon. The sunflower, preserved from a bouquet provided by the couple, is only one of many exchanged throughout their time together. From photographs and printed screenshots to recipes and fragments of poetry, their love story, contained within the encased scrapbook, has been copied and exhibited on every surface of this room. Look at the far wall and you will be greeted by a map with various pins of their favourite spots and recommendations, while they would also be happy to hear that you've scanned the QR code provided to listen to a playlist they put together.
In the event that you visit at noon or around the end of the day, you may be lucky enough to meet Phainon on his break or before he goes home. If you choose to speak to him, be careful as he is always more than excited to do so and will talk to you for hours if you let him. Or, well, he would if he could; don't be discouraged if he eventually cuts the conversation short—he has someone to see, after all.
It’s long past midnight and your eyes are burning.
Whether you’re staring at a computer screen to satisfy the needs of this department or that, or completing one project after another, the press of a keyboard and the click of a mouse are something you can’t escape. Last week, you were too busy to write as much as you would have liked, and it seems the unending amount of work continued into the next. At least, Phainon was your reprieve, picking you up every day with a small treat that he would normally forbid you from before dinner (although, when you pout, he is always sure to relent).
He never fails to be sweeter than anything he could possibly provide you with—softer than cotton candy regardless of any muscle, and constantly attached to your side like sticky caramel. It’s almost surprising how intimidated you were of his popularity and energetic bouts of energy when he’s become a greater comfort than you could imagine. This is especially true on days like today when your brain is wrung dry no matter how hard you try to squeeze out one more sentence.
As usual, Phainon has somehow contorted his body around the shape you make in bed, even with your laptop sitting in your lap and your back against the headboard. He always tries his best to stay up as long as you do, whether you share the activities you partake in or not. Yet, he fell asleep first, unsurprisingly. Still, guilt creeps up your stomach since tonight is nothing like he would have preferred: your hand wasn’t lost in his hair when your thoughts were adrift in your head; you couldn’t chat with him between scenes because dialogue just wouldn’t flow on the page; and you couldn’t kiss him when your characters’ own affections appear so far away.
Really, your little writing slump makes it difficult to pay attention to anything else, Phainon included when your frustrations seem to lift you far off the ground, suspended in a bubble you can’t escape.
But it popped with a sigh, his body jolting from the sound just before he stirs, as if your distress is a call that reaches him in his dreams, enough to rouse him so that you don’t have to deal with it alone. His half-conscious state has him nudging his nose deeper into your hip, trying to be closer despite the lack of space left for him to fill, having pulled his pillow down just so he could throw an arm around your stomach while you spent your free time writing. Only, that was four hours ago, and Phainon should have woken up with you getting ready for bed before this instead of some deep-seated need to have your arms properly wrapped around him or vice versa—either works, in his opinion.
He has to stop the yawn that tries to escape just so he can mutter your name, and it’s enough to break you from whatever focus you’re in that your fingers leave plastic keys to pet the dishevelled mop of hair on his head. It’s an instinctive habit from how frequently he wants for affection, but he’s more concerned than anything else tonight. “You’re still awake?” his voice wavers slightly, groggy from how deeply he had been sleeping.
“I’m struggling a bit,” you admit with a light-hearted tone—a betrayal of how you really feel about how your writing session has gone and, knowing you, Phainon is sure you’ll make a joke afterwards. He isn’t wrong; you do, using a nasally voice to mimic a stereotypical ‘nerd,’ “I even made the font size smaller to feel smarter and more academic.”
Phainon huffs, sitting up to rest his cheek against your bicep and wrapping his arms around you. He looks a little like a worn-out plushie, but he would just say that it means he’s well-loved (he is). Your staring is obviously appreciated, as he just blinks at you, acting cute until you roll your eyes. Then, he finally points out, “that’s bad for your eyes.”
You snort. “That’s why I stopped—it started to hurt.”
“Dork,” he laughs and tries to soothe the label by squeezing you while attempting to press his cheek closer as if he could merge the two of you together. “If you’re struggling, maybe you should take a break and continue tomorrow,” he suggests, and squints to try and see how far you’ve gotten since his eyesight is as bad as yours. “Oh, that looks like good progress.”
While he sounds earnest, you still sigh, “you need your glasses.” Following this, you poke his nose. “It’s only five hundred words.”
“It’s not zero,” he retorts, “and even if it was zero, you have a good outline and that counts for something.” Then, he mouths at the skin of your arm, biting down in a soft reprimand because he’s sure you’ll push back against him. “You’ll struggle more if you force it. Don’t worry, okay?” Phainon assures you, aiming higher to kiss your cheek next. “You’ll finish it eventually, even if it feels like it’ll take forever.” His lips fall to your jaw, tracing down a line that feels more ticklish than anything. “Just take your time, babe.”
“But—” You want to tell him that you plan to work on it for a bit longer, yet he cuts you off the second the word leaves your mouth. When his lips meet yours, it’s a loud and exaggerated thing, accompanied by a mwah that he can barely form the sound of when the slight frown on your lips begets a grin on his own. He doesn’t enjoy your frustration, actually, but he finds you cute when you’re tired and so insistent on working hard on your hobbies despite spending your entire day labouring over your presentation at work. Most of all, he finds you admirable.
“Phai—” you try again after he pulls away, but he can tell from your expression that you aren’t done, so he gives you another silly kiss, pulling you into his arms so playfully that it almost borders on reckless. But because he’s so careful with you, he does stop the descent of your laptop before it hits the floor.
“Save your work and let’s go to bed, please?” Phainon asks while nuzzling his nose against yours, purposely acting cute again with pitiful eyes that are closer to his genuine need to get a good night’s rest when you’re also doing the same, rather than some form of manipulation to get you to take care of yourself. Even when you get up in the middle of the night—as quiet as can be, not one floorboard groaning nor any hinge creaking—you’ll meet Phainon half-way down the hall when you’re finished, with him wondering if everything is alright.
So, you do as he asks. You press save, log out, and set your laptop off to the side. You slip off your glasses and let Phainon drag you into his arms with your face smooshed to his chest. His embrace alone is enough to pry the tension from your body, as if you were stuck in a room with a window pried shut, one thing and another stressing you out when they just wouldn’t work the way you need them to, regardless of how much you love writing, too. And there he was, letting the sunlight in, always waiting and always ready to drag you out, even when he needs you as well.
Shifting, you crane your head up and your mouth grazes the skin of his neck as you speak, a small form of affection you like to share with him. “You don’t want me to hold you?”
The answer would normally be an easy thing seeing as he was clingy all day.
Phainon woke you up ten minutes before your alarm went off, saying that he’s ‘sorry for waking you up earlier, but King Taejong fell off his horse today so we have to cuddle because I’m sure he would have wanted someone to hug him after the historian immortalized it against his wishes.’ It was stupid, but he was half-asleep and you love him too much to want to do anything but stay in his arms and exchange kisses until you were both tardy.
This was somehow a good thing considering how busy you were—you would have gone stir crazy without the extra affection otherwise—and Phainon knew from how scarcely you messaged him despite his little quips throughout the day about celebrating the anniversary of such an event. So, he picked you up once evening struck, holding your hand all the way to the car in a trek that barely lasted five minutes. And the instant you arrived home, he engulfed you in a tight hug, telling you that he’d handle dinner so you could rest. You wanted to help, enjoying the little moments together, but he looked so worried you let him be since he promised you’d have a proper celebration together later in the week, regardless of that being one, two, or even three days late.
This concern carried over to now, hours later, after you found something else to tire yourself out with in spite of how much you enjoyed writing and how dear it is to you. So, Phainon says, “just cuddle with me again before we get ready tomorrow and I’ll be happy.” Then, there’s a gentle press to the top of your head followed by his murmur, “I want to hold you tonight.”
“Are you sure?” you ask, pulling away to look at him so he knows you’re serious. He took care of you when he could, and allowed you time to yourself, but Phainon is someone you’ve come to understand as the happiest not only when he can do something for you but needy in a way he’s afraid of, even more so in asking it of you when he believes your own wants take priority. And when you have traditions like this, he looks forward to your attention even more. “I don’t mind,” you remind him.
“I mind,” he insists. “I can tell you’re a little sleep deprived and I hate it.”
“Phainon...” you start, but he only tugs you back into his embrace.
In this position, your head isn’t on your pillow—resting on his bicep instead with his arm curled around you so that his hand can tangle into your hair. Phainon’s touch is gentle and hypnotizing, and you think he’s trying to lull you to sleep just so you’ll stop fussing over him so he can fuss over you. And his other arm doesn’t move, remaining a steady weight around your back, but unlike others who may feel like they're being pinned down, Phainon, to you, is a protective shield that stands between anything that could upset or hurt you, and in this case, stops you from putting yourself under more stress.
“It’s not going anywhere,” he whispers, “you have tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the day after that.” Every puff of air is warm against your head, and you can feel the rumble of each word pressed this close to his chest—it’s as equally as comforting as the steady rise and fall of his breath but not as much as when you can listen to his heartbeat. “Just focus on work for now and write when you’re ready. Let’s make kimbap after we get home tomorrow, and try to think about something you want to read in the meantime. You can sit in my lap, I’ll get you a matcha latte, and we can read it together to see if that’ll help you with your writing slump.”
You’re unsure if it’s because of exhaustion or Phainon, but your eyes sting from something that isn’t a screen for once. “Do you know I love you?” you warble out.
He laughs because he’s terrible, and he apologizes for doing it by holding you tighter. “Do you?” he retorts, trying to be cheeky as he ignores the yawn that ruins the attempt. “I couldn’t tell.”
“If you can’t, I just have to love you more,” you declare, kissing his neck just to show him you’ll do exactly that. If it was brighter in the room, you would have seen his skin start to flush, but Phainon wouldn’t be Phainon if he wasn’t easily flustered by your affection for him. So although you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
“I think that’s impossible when historians are already going to record the two of us as madly in love,” he objects without any callous intent. You’ve always been enough for him even when you make mistakes, feel like you’re lacking, or during jokes like these where you fight over who loves who more.
But you can’t help the curiosity since Phainon spends his days working at the museum when he isn’t with you or your friends, and ask, “what do you think they would say?”
He’s quiet for a few minutes that you nearly believe he’s fallen asleep—he’s broken his record in how late he can stay awake, but you suppose he got four hours of sleep in already. In actuality, he can only think of a serious answer when it concerns you. “Before I tell you, I want you to know that it’s not because I believe our relationship will end that way but because of the sentimentality behind the museum. We’re going to be together forever,” he states matter-of-factly before quickly adding, “if you want to be.”
Snuggling closer, you have to stifle your giggles. “Of course, I do.” And you tangle your legs together so he understands that he’s not allowed to go anywhere without you. “What’s it called since you have to give me this long warning?”
His voice turns weak when he tells you, “it’s Croatia’s Museum of Broken Relationships.” Immediately, you pinch his side and he whines, “it’s not like that.”
“I know,” you placate him, gifting him another kiss to his neck. “It’s about how the love was still there, right?”
He nods. “I saw this display of a single piece of steamed bread from an ‘old lady’ who lives on Jeju Island.”
“Just a piece of bread? Nothing else?” Exhibits can display a variety of objects and artifacts, some more novel and others very simple, yet you still want to know more when you have an inkling Phainon is about to embark on a monologue for you. “And she wasn’t named, either?”
“Nope,” Phainon confirms all your questions with an effortless answer. “Nothing else, but the placard said her husband was tired after two days without food. It was summer, and Jeju Island was invaded by soldiers who were taking all the men. Seeing the fear on his face, she ran to go buy a bag of bread and rushed back to throw it onto the truck.”
“Did she make it?” you ask.
“She did, but it pulled away as soon as she had. The placard was told from her personal account of the event rather than a third-person perspective, and she was heartbroken by not being able to tell him to share it with the other men.” Phainon clears his throat, as if regretting telling you such a sad piece of history before bed, but he decides to keep going. “She didn’t say until the end that this was during the 4.3 Incident on Jeju Island, and there was no comment on the political nature of the event, just that she had waited for him to come back but he never did—he was taken from her and their daughter.” Phainon rests his cheek on your head to ease the ache of his words and finally says, “I remember the last line the most: ‘I still wonder if the warmth of the bread had reached him.’”
The quote lingers between the two of you, and his hand continues to play with your hair while the other holds you tighter against his body. When he gets quiet like this, it’s sometimes hard to tell what he’s thinking, and it’s silly but you’re wondering if he’s wondering if his intentions appear contradictory.
But you wouldn’t be with him like this if you didn’t always do your best to understand him. “So…” you trail off. “Do you think historians would write something similar to that—where something as simple as steamed bread is love between me and you?”
The proposal causes him to pull away so he can face you to say, “I do. And I don’t think I could choose just one thing to display either, unless it was—maybe—a scrapbook of our years together.”
“That’s cute, but a little cliché,” you laugh, yet your expression is more delighted by the idea rather than any real contempt for something all couples do. For if it’s a cliché in the first place, then it’s because everyone thought it could mean something important, and especially unique to each and every person. There’s still a bit of doubt, though, and you question, “would anyone want to look at our love story through a scrapbook? Wouldn’t something else be more interesting?”
“It just has to be real, right?” Because he knows he is, Phainon leans in to kiss your forehead. “We could start with before we dated: in university where most of our photos together have us separated by Hyacine or even Mydei in the middle.”
“You’ll never let it go that I got closer to Mydei first, will you?” you jest, and watch his mouth turn into a pout.
“Shush,” he silences your teasing just to nip at your jaw to feign upset. “We’re planning our exhibit right now.”
You pinch his cheeks, pulling them in different directions only to squish them back together as you join him in imagining the little scrapbook you’d display. “Then, we could also ask Cyrene and Hyacine for screenshots of their text exchanges where they try to get us to spend more time together.” When his lips pucker, you peck him once, and then another time for good measure. “It would be nice to have everyone’s reactions.”
Phainon’s next sentence comes out muffled with your palms pressed to his face. “I’ll print out screenshots of Cyrene losing her mind trying to figure out if you liked me.” When you release him, he gently knocks his forehead against yours. “And we could write a blurb about how long it took for us to finally figure it out, from your perspective and mine. We could even dedicate a few pages to our favourite museum exhibits and our silly inside jokes, but I don't know if I want to share all of them with the world. Some of it should stay between me and you.”
When you make a sound of agreement, he continues, “I’d like to see it all side-by-side: dates of anniversaries, birthdays, traditions we have, and when we moved in together. We don't need grand gestures or some massively detailed statue—it's just every little moment we spend together. I see matcha at the grocery store and immediately wonder how much we still have at home. When I have a meeting at work about a new exhibit, I hope it's related to culture or war because they’re your favourite.” Then, there’s a pause, and his eyes seem to catch light in the dark. “It's how sunflowers make me think of how much I love you,” Phainon realizes with a sudden laugh, and a smile blooms on your face when the thought makes you just as happy. The sight of you like this has him asking something he already knows the answer to: “a single sunflower might be enough, too, don’t you think?”
“Phainon,” you try to say his name but your throat gets caught on how sincere his affection for you is—as clear as light and as constant as the Sun. When you think of Phainon in your life, it’s impossible to think of living the rest without him. “I’ll follow you wherever you go like the way a sunflower follows the Sun,” you declare with a shaky voice and an even shakier kiss.
Following your lead, Phainon confesses, “and I see you everyday, in everything around me, even when you're not around because I love you as easily as that woman who is reminded of her husband when she sees steamed bread.”
His eyes are glossy and you’re both too sleep deprived for this, so you ask, “are you trying to make me cry?” because when Phainon starts, it also makes your chest feel tender.
“No,” he says, but chokes on the syllable, knowing his lip wobbles and he’s even worse than you at keeping the tears at bay.
“You're doing a bad job then,” you scold him in a tone that is in no way stern when you can’t tell if he’s pouting or still crying, forcing the laughter to bubble up and clear the discomfort from watching him weep in the first place.
Phainon shifts the blame onto you instead. “If you went to sleep, this wouldn't have happened.”
“But then I wouldn't have heard it,” you argue, but the next thing you know, the world shifts with Phainon dragging you back into the safety of his embrace and ignoring your soft yelp. He turns abruptly, rolling around to disorient you because tonight has turned absolutely nonsensical from one thing after another except for the certainty of what you mean to each other.
He’s breathless by the time he’s done flailing the both of you about, and much too awake for how late it has become after his affectionate outburst. “I'm going to start begging you to go to bed soon,” he warns, and you can hear how he believes that this is your fault too.
Too tired from his antics—not yours—you ask, “will you wake me up ten minutes before our alarm?”
Phainon hums as he finds the blanket, lifting it only to let gravity help settle it over your legs. He’s attentive as he fusses over the pillows next, like a giant dog that’s closer to a puppy who sits at your feet with only love in his heart that even he doesn’t fully understand—without any pride or vanity, or knowing how your story will go, he only recognizes love in the way he learns it with you.
When you first slept over, he learned that your pillow has to be a very specific way, but it can be ignored if you rest your head on his arm or when you can’t move because he accidentally fell asleep on you first. So, he opens his arms and lets you get comfortable, holding you because you need it tonight, which means he has even more of a reason to want it, too. And the blanket you use has to be a certain weight—not too light that it feels like it’s barely there, as if it’s silk sliding off your skin, but not too heavy that you feel like it’s swallowing you whole and trapping you in your own body heat. But, just like your pillow, you find excuses just for him: if his arm feels too light while you're too cold, then Phainon is too far away for you to get the rest you need. And you fix this every time, tugging his body to fit against yours; unfamiliar with anyone else but him.
And all these adjustments almost makes you forget about your question with how sleep threatens to pull you into your dreams, but Phainon never forgets. “I'll wake you up half-an-hour earlier this time,” he whispers, ensuring he isn’t so loud that your drowsiness evades you, and very much aware of how his voice reveals the glee in getting to wake up to you tomorrow. He could do it hundreds, thousands, and millions of times and still feel the same way—there’s no reality where he could ever tire of it.
“So we can cuddle?” you ask, yet he grasps that it’s less of a question and just a demand. But you’re much quieter now, likely trying to stay awake for a second longer so you can hear his answer.
The demand is one he has no issue fulfilling; you had been shy before, and he only needs you to be greedy of him now. If Phainon could have it his way, he would be yours in his entirety with you insatiable and your love endless. So, he proposes, “and we’ll do whatever else you like too.”
It takes you a second, and he tries not to laugh when he feels your body relax only to jump slightly, fingers twitching against his chest just to fist at his sleepshirt; your tether to the waking world and him, but the latter isn’t needed because Phainon wishes to follow you into your dreams. “Promise?” you all but slur before relaxing again.
This time, you don’t need to hear it; you already know.
“I promise.”
note. an apology for that one piece I threatened you with that remains unfinished… and my prose sucks so bad because I was trying to write this before you woke up (I didn't make it haha) so I’m very sorry about that too. You seemed a little stressed about your fic, and I wanted to make you feel better, but it got out of hand. And, finally, I will apologize that my Maenon gift to you is, once again, related to sleeping—one day, I will write something else for you <3
i can't believe maemae hates me. i only have an endless ocean of love, dedicated to my dear friends, within my heart; but she absolutely destests me. can you believe it? i cannot even fathom the depth of this hatred.
just as i do with all my friends, i love maemae so much that i enjoy offering little gifts. i love her no matter wind or rain and neither the aversity of every sleepless night, but even this is too much.
how can i be accused of hating her? of hating such a sweet person who has only been so kind to me? how could i be told that i'm, and i quote, "out to get [her]," when every word i write and every action taken is one i endeavour out of complete appreciation?
sometimes, no amount of affection nor care will be enough to express the weight of someone's significance to you.
