Chapter Text
The corridor outside Lecture Hall 4 still smelled faintly of chalk dust and the ghost of someone's aggressively microwaved instant noodles. Anaxa walked with his usual brisk, precise steps, coat unbuttoned, tablet tucked under one arm, and his lab ID swinging like a reluctant tagalong.
Trailing beside him, tiny sneakers practically skating across the tiles, was Hyacine—his immediate junior, his lab assistant, and the only person who could scold him while wearing sparkly unicorn pins and glittery pink sneakers.
“Anaxagoras,” she groaned, pressing a cold soda can against her forehead like it was holy, “if you test my nerves today, I will lie down on the floor and start wailing. My heat ended 48 hours ago. I have exactly three brain cells left, and they’re all screaming.”
“Then go back to the infirmary,” Anaxa muttered, rubbing at the strap of his eyepatch. “I’m not forcing you to be here.”
“You think I’m here for fun? No. I’m here because the last time I left you alone, you forgot to eat for two days, developed a caffeine twitch, and then accidentally spilt acid on your own shoe.”
“I ate,” he said blandly.
“You licked a sugar cube and called it dinner!”
“That’s still technically calories.”
Hyacine made a sound like a dying goat. “Please, I am begging you to ingest something that isn’t brewed or powdered. You’re going to collapse mid-lecture, and I’m going to have to roll you to the infirmary like a dry pancake.”
“I’m fine.”
Hyacine groaned. “Ugh, why are you so impossible? I’m literally in recovery mode. Everything smells like lint and sorrow. My brain is melting. Just. Eat. A. Snack.”
He tuned her out somewhere around “recovery mode.” Being an omega, Hyacine tended to run on emotional volume, especially post-heat, low-grade scent exhaustion, hormone spikes, and continuous exhaustion. Mentally, he made a note to ask Thalia to make some soup and drop it off at Hyacine’s dorm room.
Anaxa didn’t rise to the bait. He was too tired.
Besides, he was a beta. That came with certain perks. No cycles, no hormonal crashes, no scent ruts. No one tried to eat your face if you wore the wrong shampoo. Sure, the occasional alpha tried to muscle past you like you were furniture, but he’d take that over Hyacine’s bleary-eyed “If you are not senior Anaxa and test my patience, I will cry then punch you” mood any day. Honestly? A steal. He mentally patted himself on the back for being the biological equivalent of plain toast.
He was just about to tell Hyacine to take her heat hangover and redirect it elsewhere when something massive slammed into him from behind.
Anaxa had half a second to register the scent—ozone sharp as a lightning strike, rain-soaked cedar, and beneath it all, the lazy golden sweetness of maple syrup—before something warm, heavy, and horrifyingly enthusiastic slammed into him.
“SURPRISE!!”
Anaxa choked on air as his feet lifted off the ground. His tablet hit the floor with a clack, and two giant arms wrapped around his chest, yanking him off his feet like a toy crane claw winning a particularly unlucky prize.
And then they began to sway.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Anaxa flailed. “WHAT—PHAINON—PUT ME DOWN—”
“NEVER!” boomed the very tall idiot behind him. “I smelled grumpiness from two buildings away!”
Phainon, in all his six-foot-something alpha energy, had draped himself over Anaxa like an ecstatic great dane discovering hugs for the first time. His face was buried against Anaxa’s neck, his arms locked like steel bands around his ribs, and swayed both of them gently like some horrifyingly affectionate mobile coat rack. Anaxa's boots barely touched the floor as he dangled in place like a struggling gremlin.
“Phainon!” Anaxa barked, squirming. “Put me down this instant or I swear I’ll rearrange your teeth.”
“Nooo,” Phainon crooned, rubbing his cheek against the side of Anaxa’s head like an overly affectionate dryer sheet. “You smell all tired and frowny. Hug therapy is the only cure.”
Anaxa twisted, elbowing whatever ribs he could reach. “You’re an adult now. Try acting like it!”
“I am!! I am taking care of my best friend in the whole entire world!!! By giving him hugs to make him less frowny!”
Hyacine, now leaning against the wall like she’d just walked into her favourite soap opera, popped her soda open with a sigh. “You two are so adorable right now it’s physically hurting my post-heat brain.”
“Hyacine,” Anaxa gritted, “say one more word and I’m taking your name off the report.”
But Hyacine had already spotted the perfect opening—her eyes gleamed like polished sin.
“Hey Phainon~” she sing-songed.
Anaxa immediately panicked. “Don’t.”
“Did you know,” she continued sweetly, “that your favourite beta hasn’t eaten anything today?”
Phainon stilled.
Anaxa shut his eyes, already regretting his life choices.
“Or last night, for that matter,” she added brightly. “Unless caffeine counts as a balanced meal. And even then, it’s barely a breakfast.”
Phainon made a noise so offended it sounded like a betrayed golden retriever. “You skipped breakfast?! Anaxa! That’s illegal!”
“Stop talking.”
“That’s it,” Phainon declared. He released Anaxa—but only to grab his hand like a knight about to drag his emotionally constipated prince to safety. “Emergency snack mission. We’re going now.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You don’t have a choice! Big sister Thalia told me to take care of you!”
“That was when we were in primary. Let go of me!”
“No.”
“Phainon—”
“BYE HYACINE!” Phainon shouted over his shoulder. “I’LL SEE YOU IN 5TH HOUR!”
“Hyacine!” Anaxa called desperately. “You’re enabling him!”
Hyacine just raised her soda can in a lazy toast. “Bye~”
“I swear on every published journal—” Anaxa protested.
Phainon just beamed. “I’ll buy you soup and a sandwich and a cookie. You like cookies. You eat cookies when you’re sad. I think that applies when you are grumpy, too. You're grumpy now, so we're getting cookies.”
“Phainon—”
“Shhh. No more words. Only nutrition.”
The campus café wasn’t busy—yet. It was too early for lunch rush and too late for breakfast, which made it the perfect hiding place for people who’d been bodily dragged out of starvation by an overgrown alpha with boundary issues.
Anaxa sat at a small table near the windows, arms folded, coat shrugged halfway off his shoulders. Across from him, Phainon was fussing with a tray like it was an art installation: sandwich, soup, bottle of water, and—to Anaxa’s utter horror—a napkin with a little cartoon dog drawn on it.
“You doodled on the napkin?” Anaxa asked flatly.
Phainon grinned. “His name is Lunch Guardian. He’s here to supervise your bites.”
Anaxa picked up the napkin and very calmly tucked it under his tray, face unreadable. "You need help."
“I need you to eat that cookie,” Phainon said brightly, sliding the plate across the table with both hands like he was presenting a sacred offering.
Anaxa stared at it. A very specific cookie—soft, cinnamon-heavy, drizzled in just enough icing. His favourite.
Anaxa grumbled, but the cookie was already in his hand—warm, fragrant, and objectively perfect. Damn Phainon and his terrifyingly accurate bribes.
The cookie was good. Annoyingly so. He chewed slowly, pretending he hated every second of it even as warmth spread through his chest. Phainon looked like he’d just won the Olympics and gotten a pat on the head from God.
Anaxa blinked. He swore he could see a tail wagging behind Phainon. Not literally—obviously—but the sheer energy radiating off the taller boy was giving a golden retriever with rocket fuel.
“Stop beaming. You’ll blind someone,” Anaxa muttered between bites.
“I can’t help it!” Phainon grinned, grabbing another cookie and sliding it toward him. “You’re so cute when you sulk and chew at the same time. Like a very serious, overworked chipmunk.”
Anaxa gave him a flat stare, but accepted the second cookie anyway.
“So,” he said, deciding to change the subject before Phainon started trying to hand-feed him like a baby bird, “how’s the semester treating you so far?”
Phainon perked up immediately. “Ugh, it’s chaos already. Polyxia keeps falling asleep in class—again. Professor Caenis almost noticed, but Cas almost always wakes her up in time”
“And Mydeimos?”
“Oh my god, he tried to suplex me during homeroom because I stole a sip of his protein smoothie. One sip!” Phainon gestured wildly. “That man has protein powder in his soul.”
“That’s because you challenge him to arm wrestling mid-lecture.”
“That happened once,” Phainon huffed, then paused. “Okay, three times. But he started it!”
Anaxa raised an eyebrow. “And Hephaestion?”
“Oh, Hephae’s the best. He just sighs, fixes Mydei’s hoodie, gives him juice, and then watches us fight like he’s doing mental math. I think he might be silently judging us into better people.”
“Sounds accurate.”
“Oh! Also, Cyrene says hi. Actually—” Phainon crossed his arms and pouted dramatically, “she only wanted to know how you were doing.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. She was like, ‘Tell Anaxa I’m proud of him for getting that department grant,’ and ‘Don’t let him forget to eat,’ and ‘Did he get the package I sent with the new gloves?’ I swear I’m the sibling she forgot in the car seat.”
Anaxa bit back a smile. “She’s just worried about me.”
“She should worry about me!” Phainon cried, flopping forward onto the table. “I almost got trampled by the basketball club’s mascot. I am fragile.”
“You are six foot four.”
“And still emotionally bruised.”
Anaxa shook his head, hiding his smile behind his coffee. Phainon pouted again, but that tail—imaginary or not—was still wagging.
Phainon practically vibrated with joy as he watched Anaxa chew the last bite of his cookie, his lips twitching at the corners like he didn’t want to admit it was good. Phainon had seen that look before — the quiet surrender to something warm and sweet, like a sunrise melting through frost.
Yes. Victory.
And like any good hunter who’d cornered his prey with sugar and soft eyes, Phainon sprang up from the table with sudden purpose.
“I’m getting backup pastries!” he announced, already halfway to the counter. “Two for you, and… hmm. Maybe four for me. No — five.”
The barista barely had time to blink before he placed the order, tapping his card with practised speed and spinning back just in time to see Anaxa catching up to him with that long-suffering sigh that sounded like affection if you tilted your head just right.
“You don’t have to keep feeding me, you know,” Anaxa said, tucking his hair behind his ear with one gloved hand.
“I do, though,” Phainon said brightly, grabbing the pastry box like a prize. “You skipped breakfast. Again. That is a war crime.”
They walked together across the lawn, snow flurries catching in Anaxa’s dark coat and the ends of his hair. Phainon kept half a step behind, not because he needed to, but because it let him look. The curve of Anaxa’s shoulder, the faint flush still on his cheeks, the loose sway of his coat — all of it familiar, his.
At the steps of the science block, Anaxa paused, adjusting his bag. “Don’t you have class now?”
Phainon beamed. “I’ve got a whole three minutes before it starts.”
He wrapped his arms around Anaxa in a tight hug, his tall frame folding gently over the smaller man. For a moment, Anaxa stiffened — then melted, just a little, like he always did.
And that was when Phainon dipped his head, brushing against the collar of Anaxa’s coat — slow and subtle, like a stretch. Phainon’s nose brushed wool, then skin—just for a second, just enough to tuck his scent against Anaxa’s pulse point. A habit he’d never admit to. The scent of coffee and chalk dust and faint mint met his own, and he let himself linger there just a second longer than necessary.
"You're so weird," Anaxa muttered.
“You like my weird,” Phainon said, flashing a grin.
Before he could skip off, Anaxa reached into his coat and pulled out a small packet of lemon-drop candies. He held them up.
“Reward,” he said simply. “Now lean down.”
Phainon leaned down delighted, and Anaxa ruffled his hair, both hands mussing the thick white mess like he was petting a particularly stubborn cloud.
Phainon felt his brain momentarily go static.
Anaxa pulled away, cheeks faintly pink. “Go. You’ll be late.”
With a dazed smile and his hands still full of sugar and sunshine, Phainon finally turned and jogged off, tail wagging invisibly behind him all the way.