Chapter Text
“Your scent smells good to me, too.” Mydei only catches Phainon’s words because they’re so close—his chest curled around Phainon’s back in his bed, arms circled around him as Mydei presses his nose against Phainon’s scent gland and breathes. “It smells like home.”
Mydei hums. His lips skim Phainon’s nape, tasting the sunshine on his tongue. The headache pounding against his temples has lessened to simple lightheadedness. His temperature has eased, and the tension pulling him taut has loosened to a simple tugging want. He curls tighter around Phainon, his rut calming the longer Phainon’s pressed against him.
“Before my ruts,” Phainon mutters, his hand laced with the one wrapped across his chest, “I would take your clothes from you.”
Mydei blinks, brows furrowing.
“You took my stuff?”
“I returned it to you after,” Phainon says dismissively. “Your scent just… smelled so familiar. It helped me get through the few days of my cycle to hoard your stuff.”
Mydei purses his lips.
“I like you wearing my scent,” he admits quietly. It settles something in his nerves to smother Phainon in his smell—a possessiveness that is only appeased by marking everything that’s his. “What was it you said earlier? ‘Anything with the slightest hint of something you like, you’ll hoard during your ruts. You’ll want to smother it with your own scent’?”
Phainon groans quietly. Mydei huffs, amused.
“Shut up,” he snarks. “You’re the one drowning me in your scent. It smells like a bakery here more than your room.”
“It’s overactive because of my rut.”
“Your rut isn’t causing you to scent me,” Phainon says. He shifts around, and Mydei unconsciously pulls him closer—unwilling to part even a few centimeters. Phainon’s smiling at him, eyes softened with contentment. “If anything, it should’ve caused you to kick me out.”
His fingers run through Mydei’s hair. Mydei’s eyes flutter shut, a low rumble starting from his chest. He tilts his head down, nosing Phainon’s cheek, then his jawline and down the line of his throat. His lips skim across Phainon’s scent gland, feeling as if he could taste the sweetness of Phainon’s happiness under the earthy scent of wheat fields and grassy plains.
Phainon’s fingers tighten in his hair, but he doesn’t tense—only tilting his head to allow Mydei more access. Mydei feels his rut flare, emanating heat at the unspoken trust. It aches like a bottomless pit—a need to smother the man until his scent is poisoned with Mydei’s always. He exhales across Phainon’s skin.
“I could tear your throat out, Deliverer,” he says, close enough that he’s almost mouthing around Phainon’s skin.
Phainon hums, the vibrations running down his throat.
“You won’t,” he murmurs, and Mydei feels the words more than hears them. He dips his nose down and presses his lips against his scent gland.
“I wasn’t going to kick you out,” Mydei admits. “Your scent helps the rut. And I’m terribly possessive of things I consider mine right now, Deliverer.”
“Yours?”
He nods, breathing in lungfuls of Phainon until he can imagine the two of them in a field with the sun out—its rays brushing against his skin like a warm caress. Mydei takes Phainon’s wrist and guides it down to his own scent gland.
When Phainon carefully rubs his wrist against his neck, Mydei sighs—pressing his face closer to Phainon. Drowsiness settles in his bones, Phainon’s wheat fields wrapping him like a blanket.
“Mine.”
Phainon’s hand stutters. He huffs.
“Only if you’re just mine too, Mydei,” he says. “It’s only fair.”
“Of course,” he mumbles. “Only I’m allowed to wear your scent like this.”
Phainon snorts softly.
“Only you,” he says.
Mydei smiles and lets himself drift, a rush of satisfaction spreading when—just before he sleeps—he feels Phainon’s hand cup his nape in his own show of selfish possession.