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He remembers the game.
Boys scuffling over dice, a bet. Acting the parts of the grown men they longed to be, too soon.
He does not expect the blood - his fist raised in fury - the other boy's hair haloed and growing dark like wine spilled in libation across the ground.
It touches his knees, his hands - staring in growing horror - the realisation of a life taken and the consequences of men settling about his too young shoulders.
A voice then.
"Patroclus-! My son, what has occurred?"
His father, stern but concerned, grasping at his wooden limbs, heedless of small bloody hands as they stain his robes. A hand on his dark curls, the large, calloused palm clasping his cheek, unconsciously checking for damage - the worry of a parent that could have stumbled upon this scene in the reverse, visible in the heavy lines of his face.
"Come. Come away now. We must make ready."
He wonders silently 'Ready for what?', but his father is already manoeuvring his small, boneless frame away, clutched to his broad side and sheltered in the heavy drape of his embroidered chlamys.
This at least is familiar.
When he can feel his hands again, he clutches to the fall of fabric about his father's waist and the arm about him holds tighter - steadying him against the tremors and tears that come unbidden.
He's ferried into the shade of their home and there is furtive talk, the rush of bodies responding to orders, heading the way they came and moving past, into the rooms beyond.
As it turns out, 'make ready' means to leave.
Exile for a Prince, but so too for his father - the idea of sending his only son away, simply unfathomable.
There is no fanfare.
They leave quietly, like shades in the night, riding swift and alone and he feels infinitely small between the cavern of his father's arms as the ground of Opus is lost before their horse's hooves.
Time passes.
Their arrival in Phthia is as clandestine as their departure, met in the courtyard by a man he will come to know as its King.
The two men clasp arms, embrace. His fathers renown as an Argonaut is well known and so to is Peleus - they greet each other in friendship and steady words - each a King in his own right, but here at least, comrades first.
They are bid to rest, tomorrow there will be formalities and a refuge from which reparations in Opus can be made complete, but for now, supper and sleep.
Later, he remembers the moment his fate in life is sealed.
Peleus greets them formally in his hall, a pantomime of their meeting the night previous, all there for the faces of his officials and the people of the house, but his eyes are caught by another.
The men and women around them speak and he’s only vaguely aware of his fathers hands heavy and protective on his shoulders, encouraging, as all are introduced.
“Ah, young Patroclus surely your father has told you of my son, Achilles?”
Peleus, warm and in good humour, arm steadying Achilles about his shoulders even as the boy in question seems ready to twist out of his skin in excitement.
Achilles .
The name rings in his mind, finally attaching to the face and smile that’s been growing with unhindered delight at the sight of him. This golden boy is Achilles? Oh, he is done for.
“There are scant years between you both, but I believe you will offer him good council, hm?”
His father leaning down and close, smile white against the thick curl of his beard, before nudging him forward, meeting the eyes of Peleus above their heads. Something unspoken but nostalgic passes between the two men and he remembers catching that look, curious, before he’s again arrested by the gaze of the boy before him.
Achilles needs no encouragement from his father, striding forward to take his hand and as their eyes meet - for the first time in weeks - he feels the weight of the men they are not yet grown to, fall away. They are simply two boys, elated at the idea of a play mate and from that moment, they are inseparable.
Their days are filled with sunlight and sea spray, tethered at the hand or wrist at Achilles insistence. They tell stories and roam the beaches and hillsides, either alone or with a gaggle of the other boys taken in by Peleus. No part of the palace, no tree or rock is unknown to them - no secret untold.
He remembers racing along the sand, Achilles three spear lengths ahead and his lungs burning with the effort of keeping pace. Their sun touched prince cutting through the tide of boys that chase his wake and he, still small but growing strong, exerting everything to be Achilles' second.
He remembers the race won, Achilles turning with arms thrown wide in his triumph only to catch him about the waist and heave him up in a spin, crowing his name “Patroclus! You did it, we beat them all!” as the other boys barrel into them with hoots and hollers.
One, two, three extra bodies join his weight before the combination brings their Prince down and they are all of them a mess of wrestling limbs and hapless laughter, surely made drunk by the freedom and salted air.
Another evening, not so dissimilar, their chasing and games are interrupted by a most unearthly call of song. He watches as Achilles head turns as if tugged by a string and the sudden scramble of bodies to follow him up onto the rocks, an outcrop as close to the depths without wet feet as all of them can get.
There are figures there and many of the boys shrink away in fright ‘sea nymphs! we'll be born away!’ but all he hears is Achilles breathlessly happy greeting ’mother!’ and oh it is.
Thetis sits amongst the ebb of waves, resplendent, shadowed by the steadily setting sun and greets her golden child warmly as Achilles reaches for her from his perch. Her sisters’ laughter is like the babbling of a brook, like the call of gulls and he and the other boys hesitate, thinking such a moment too intimate, until the maidens turn their laughter on them and Achilles reaches for his hand.
He remembers being drawn in close to his side, fingers locked together to placate his fear and he stares down as Thetis regards him ‘Don't look away - she wishes to know you ’. Know him? his heart shrinks at the thought, but still he meets her dark eyes, made brave by the press of Achilles at his side.
He feels her regard everywhere - like a hand touching his hair, his face, tapping his chest so that she would know the heart of this boy her son is so taken with - he feels it even though her hands stay to sweep eddies in the surf. Finally, her shark teeth break the surface of her smile, though not unkindly. He's not exactly found wanting, simply irrelevant - a mortal of no consequence to her, but dear enough to Achilles that she will not reject or meddle - simply acknowledge in the way one does a shadow of a great presence.
He doesn't feel slighted, just relieved - he's not earned the ire of a god today - and clearly Thetis is pleased enough with her child's company that they are rewarded, bid to stay and hear their song.
To think of it now still brings him to tears. Unearthly voices, weaving melodies and notes so foreign to a mortal ear as to stop the heart in wonder and oh, not just Thetis and her sisters but his Achilles . Known for his sweet voice already, but here with the other half of his sea blessed blood, the divinity of him shines through and he and the other boys are rapt in their attention.
Fear leaves them and they lounge amongst the rocky outcrop, cradled by the song as much as the stones. This is how sailors go to their deaths, he thinks, and looking at Achilles in the fading light and still, as the moon begins to catch in his hair and the night breeze cools the burn of summer from their skin, he thinks perhaps it is not so grave a way to fall.
They grow together, until Peleus deems them ready for the training of his own youth. Fear of separation is overridden by bewilderment at being found worthy to share in this gift and to Pelion they go.
Great Chiron is indomitable but kind. He’s spent his lifetime training young hearts and he greets them amicably - firm in the few rules that govern his territory - but steady and calm in his approach, well versed in the boisterousness of young mortals.
Achilles takes to him immediately, flourishing under the direct guidance where all others had feared he would rebel and it is not long before combat is worked into their lessons.
He remembers Achilles enthusiasm and his own hesitance.
"I am not so sure that I wish to know such ways as war"
A large hand as dark as his own reaches out to settle in his curls, by now grown long, something like sympathy crossing the great centaurs face.
"As I, dear lad, do not relish in the teaching of it, but hear me. A great many I have shown the gentler arts and skills of practical use - many of them god touched and a paragon in those things martial - yet most have gone too soon in misery to Hades.
You have the hands of a healer, but you are no child born of the gods. So I swear this now to guard your mortal heart: when your time with me is at its end, by the stars, you will know to fight like one."
It is said with the weight of all oaths and though Achilles grins, delight plain in his face at the prospect of them learning together, Chiron's great hand presses it's apology to the side of his head.
Would that he could be saved from such war making, it says, would that Chiron could keep them both here in this bough of safety, but that is not the way of mortal men. So he will send them forth fearsome and ready in the hope that the fight at least will not take them.
And so he learns.
Set against each other, he is honed quickly. Spear and blade, shield and rock, Chiron leaves nothing to chance - though it is not all struggle.
Many days are filled with song.
Lyre and flute, the sweet timber of Achilles voice turning rich with their growing maturity, playing counter to Chiron's hearty baritone.
He joins them with the clear notes of his now favoured instrument, his voice never given much for song.
They fish and hunt, race through the trees and up the steep slopes, bodies made strong and minds sharp as every moment spells an opportunity to learn.
Chiron guides them with warmth, encouraging them in art as much combat, in healing as with those tasks considered beneath two high born lads.
They thirst for the simple rituals of existing and not a single moment is felt wasted, especially those quiet spells in which they are free to love.
Chiron makes no comment, nor judgment, taking his rests and walks as he may and he remembers being thankful for that. Giddy with unspoken permission to fall into each other's arms in solitude, their great mentor looking on with warm indulgence as the years turn them brave enough to steal kisses even in front of his presence.
The lack of shame in their love, follows them through the years after, once more in the company of mortal men and he wonders if that too was by unspoken design? The last gift Master Chiron could give them to steady their hearts in light of a fate he had no doubt already discerned.
It pains him greatly, but still he remembers the freedom of touch - their hands seeking each other out to settle at waists, in curls - Achilles palm heavy on the back of his neck as their foreheads touch before battle, somehow more intimate than a brush of their mouths could be as the adrenaline takes hold.
At Troy, their antics receive little comment besides the lewd talk of men kept too long from their wives. At best, laughter and jeering from their own men - the Myrmidons long since familiar with their bond and fearsomely loyal to their prince regardless - and at worse, well. It becomes difficult to sneer about men that deal such death on the battlefield, few brave enough to question a demi-god and fewer still willing to risk the skilled hands of a healer turning them away.
Respect doesn't so much fall in their laps as is handed over willingly by those that see the men that they are.
It is what makes Agamemnon's slight and Achilles fury so much harder to reconcile and the removal of Briseis from their lives almost impossible to bear.
He remembers rage that matched his love, remembers the vicious delight in lazing about their tent, keeping each other entertained as the war waged on without them - the surety of vain lads with a point to prove - their men safe, the defences holding.
Until they don't.
Until there is fire and warring closer to the shore than it's ever been in all the years spent at the water's edge and his heart is cold in his chest.
Already he has dwelled too long on those heated words, thought too long on what exactly else could have swayed the other half of his soul to action.
His mind shies away but still it’s there, throat burning closed with frustration before finally striking on a compromise.
The weight of new armour tight to his chest, the portrait of Thetis clasped in gold over his heart. Achilles hands smoothing the fabric over his shoulders, the tremor there caught in his own, brought to his lips.
The promise.
Just enough to keep them clear of the ships, then to leave this wretched place with their men intact, the will of the fates be damned.
He remembers the crush of Achilles lips against his own, even under the pall of anger and frustration, the strength of their love, making it impossible to part with nothing less.
Such foolish lads, so sure of themselves, so sure in the circumvention of the prophecy hanging over them. Never in their wildest dreams did they think that he would die first.
And so he remembers the fall.
The sun gods meddlesome veil, ripped from his mind, much like the armour from his body, revealing his tender mortal heart and the true depth of their folly.
Pierced front and back but still struggling, still fighting to the last and though the shock of recognition across Hektor’s features is a cold comfort, he still finds the strength to spit venom.
Biting off curses around bloody teeth - only through the gods had he been stopped ‘you were merely third of many’ - the pair of them men with finite time, yet someone has to go first.
The din of battle throbbing with the stagger of his struggling pulse, life blood on his hands, fleeing his body much as all the sense in his head had during the charge. Voices roar nearby, shouts of his name, but the concern is distant.
He remembers the thought: So this is it?
Neither quick nor kind and It’s only then, as the world dims, that he thinks of Achilles.
Such fools we are. Forgive me, beloved.
Then?
Silence.
Calm.
The shroud of death falling over the world, muffling all as if underwater and he but a shade.
Words are difficult to make out, but he sees the muddied reflections, watches Menelaus and Ajax the both fight viciously over his fallen corse and there's an ache in the place his heart should be.
Tethered as he is to that mortal form, he can do nothing but follow, mute in his own mourning until
Until.
The sound cuts through the water weight about his ears, that of a wounded animal, a howl to shake the very gods and for a moment he muses it is his dogs - the scent of their master souring in their noses and inchoate in their grief - but the truth, oh the truth is that much harder to bear
It is his Achilles.
He watches, frozen in agony as that fair voice cuts the tide, ravaged with grief, bowed to his knees to tear at his hair and at the dirt beneath them as their comrades bear his body back to camp.
It is the most terribly acute pain, to reach out and be unable to comfort, to watch his heart reach for the blade at his hip and be wrestled by four others, staying his hand.
He remembers it is not the last time they must do so.
Odysseus and Diomedes sharing a look as they hold his beloved between them and he remembers vividly the wonder at the meaning there. Do they think of their wives or each other? For if there were any other pair at camp as inseparable as Achilles and himself, it would be they - often the subject of jest - Diomedes too indomitable and Odysseus too cunning to fall to a Trojan blade. But if the gods could see fit to rip him from Achilles embrace, what hope for them? What hope for any of them?
They clasp forearms over Achilles heaving back, tears blending with sweat and dirt and he wants to feel vindicated in their fear, but all he feels is the agony of not being able to offer the man between them the same comfort. He watches as they bend their heads close in inaudible talk - Two dark, one gold - as they gentle Achilles down from a ledge they themselves are not sure they could return from.
It feels like a lifetime before they can convince Achilles to move ‘Up you get, lad - we can’t leave him like this, let us help’ , to let others close without growling and keening an inhuman warning, but finally his beloved relents.
He remembers being washed. His body gentled between many hands, all of which he trusted with his life and now so his death, as they clean away the marks of battle to anoint and wrap his now ashen skin.
Tears touch the faces of every man and he is thankful for this at least - Achilles is not a stranger in his grief, he is not alone in the touching of his hair or the kissing of his hands and cheeks.
He thinks then that the pyre will be built, that the rites he had repeated for so many others, that he had prepared to carry out for Achilles, would be said and he would be free to accept the chill hand of the Keres, but he had not been prepared for his heart's grief.
Achilles bore him away, back to their tent and would entertain no others but for his mother who, called from the seafoam depths did her son the only kindness she could.
His body is anointed with Ambrosia and she plies her sweet boy with the same, leaving his cheeks stained in salt water streaks ‘you will need your strength for the time to come’ before she leaves him to his mourning.
For days Achilles weeps and howls, only Briseis permitted close, begging him to eat, to drink, throwing herself on his sword arm until the third time in as many days, when the crack of her fury makes contact with Achilles cheek.
Her curses split the quiet, ‘Damn the pride of men, the fates were meant to take you first!’ her own sorrow clutched about her like a shroud as she looms, making his god blessed beloved seem diminished.
She storms away with the weapon in hand, heedless of his own reaching for her, leaving them in the gloom, except he at least is not alone.
A pale haired youth, adorned in the regalia of his godhood watches, placid but not unkind and when he speaks, his voice is steady and light but for the resonance of his power.
"His soul calls to me, but there are many that yet wish him to stay. I regret that I am not here for you son of Menoetius."
Ah.
"My lord Thanatos"
Thanatos inclines his head, silver hair spilling from his hood to float in coils about his waist and there is nothing more to say except perhaps..
"Would that I could pray to your brother. Achilles might sleep yet and I could plead with the sense he has left.."
His eyes do not leave the golden head of his beloved as he speaks and so he does not see Thanatos tilt his own head as if listening. He does, however, feel something in the space change and hear a dreamy reply.
"You called?"
Starlit curls and gentle eyes, Lord Hypnos floats beside his brother, the twins anchored at their fine boned hands and he falls to his knees before them both, numb with gratitude.
"Lord Hypnos. My Lord Thanatos you did not have to-"
He's silenced with the press of a finger to Hypnos' lips, bid to hush.
"He's not slept in days, it will be easier now than the other nights - it's what I do you know?"
The young lord's smile is broad and sweet, the pair of them cherubic and it strikes him that now, so many of the poems make sense.
There's hesitation in Thanatos loosening his grip, his hand shifting to grasp his brother's cloak instead, as if worried to lose him in this space between, but Hypnos doesn't miss a beat. Lifting his hands to weave power, he links arms with his twin at the same time and gently tows them both closer to Achilles bent form.
"Sleep in sunlight and sea spray, son of Peleus.."
The web of pale light settles around Achilles like a finely woven shawl and his broad back finally bows to sleep - his cheek pressed above the absent beat of a dearly missed heart.
"Go to him, son of Menoetius. Our time for now is done."
Thanatos addresses him, gesturing effortlessly with a scythe too large for such a youth and he can see there the threads that keep him here glowing with the green light of Ixion.
When he looks up the twins are gone.
"Achilles, my heart.."
A hand pressed to his golden curls as if to rouse him from a noontide nap but the texture is absent beneath his fingers.
"Hear me. You must let me go to the pyre, release me to Hades and bid our comrades promise the same oath I swore to you - wherever they bury us, let our bones rest together - the fate's design be damned.."
Achilles moves, eyelids fighting the drag of Hypnos' power, but he is sluggish and sleep slow, a sob catching his reply
"Patroclus-! Beloved, I can't, without you- we never planned for this.."
"No, love we did not, but swear it to me- please, you must."
He can feel the moment hang like a soap bubble, feel Achilles fight to move, to reach for him
"I am undone without you, Pat, please"
"Achilles, swear it-"
"Anything, I swear, but please, don't go--"
His heart wrestles with the tide of exhaustion, hands grasping to catch and embrace him once more but he is a phantom in this space, their limbs passing without contact and Achilles slumps once more under the whim of sleep.
After, he drifts.
He hears the clamour of battle, the fearful talk about their own camp - a massacre, the river choked with Trojan dead they say - but he is tethered to his body in their tent and sees nothing of the fight, only the aftermath.
Diomedes staggering, exhausted, Odysseus always his blood soaked shadow on the battlefield - quick as a wraith - catching him under the arm and taking both their weight. They share the same shaken, ashen look as all their soldiers and his soul quakes to think at what has disturbed them so even if he knows - of course he knows.
Achilles.
Every night he returns, blood drenched and hollow to clasp his cold memory and every night feels like an eternity. These moments of agonising clarity aside, the world passes simply in strange eddies of colour and sound until he hears the call:
Hektor has fallen.
Only then, finally
finally
Is his body set upon the pyre.
Achilles is more shadow than man, thread pulled over taught, long due to feel fate's edge but still present enough to lead their comrades in the rites and he blushes to watch.
Offering, after offering - throats cut, the wine mixed, even his dear grieving hounds sent gently to where he'll rest by Achilles trusted hand - and all around the cries of those he knew in life.
Simple soldier that he is, mourned like a king around the ever hungry burn of the fire until finally,
He is free.
The light of Ixion flares again briefly as his ties are cut and again he drifts.
Eventually, the Keres come to ferry his shade away and he's aware of the weight of coin against his tongue as they lead him to the river. The boatman is as imposing as every tale they have, suffused with lurid vapour as he is, but there's no cruelty to him - only inevitability and the weight of payment fades almost immediately at his arrival.
Charon touches the brim of his hat in deference to the Keres - those gathered embodying the eerie beauty the twins will no doubt grow into in the way godlings do - and he's seated and adrift with a dozen other souls without pause or delay.
Erebus is a vast thing and he remembers being lost to it for a time.
Shades lose their form, becoming amorphous, drifting things, fading in and out amongst pools of lamp light. It is both silent and impossibly loud, the occupation of the space conveying a pressure of almost sound.
He remembers praying that judgement is granted soon, feeling the unknowable passage of time, wearing away at his very being.
It is during this time between, that he remembers the roar.
It’s an echoing, primal thing, trailing high into a keen, into an agony of sound that shuffles nervously through the gathered shades. They huddle together as the foundations tremble and he wonders, what could shake the very bedrock of Hades?
Eventually, there is calm.
They drift together once more like lost things, until they do not and he awakens to gentle green and the burble of a river at his back.
Elysium then, for him? He remembers the confusion then the elation - surely if he has been granted paradise then Achilles-- well, this was to be his fated prize, no?
He remembers the search.
Untold time exploring the realm, listening, asking, haunting the arena for news for signs of his beloved, but none have seen fleet footed Achilles.
It’s as if he never existed at all.
He returns to the glade, questioning every piece of his memory. Surely it could not be a dream? See here, the scar at his stomach, the ill fitting cuirass - signs of his demise, of the man he stood for, the man he loved - even in anger - with every piece of him.
He remembers the agony.
Time, constant and unending. Only the Lethe at his back and eternity at his feet, but what is the gift of eternity without the love to share it?
The grief hollows him and the Lethe, the Lethe tumbles on.
He pulls memories around him like a shroud, both injured and comforted by them in equal degree and in his desperation, he prays to the only god he’s seen with his own eyes. They are afforded a small stiped and from the offerings he mixes milk and honey, spills it across the ground with shaking limbs and sobs, throat caught around the benediction.
Anything, anything for a reprieve, for a shelter against the constant ache and by some miracle, he’s answered.
He remembers those starlit curls, that same serene smile, older now, but not by much. Lord Hypnos draws close, as if to share a secret and points toward the river, pressing the cup back into his hands.
“Drink, Son of Menoetius.”
Heart seizing at the thought of more loss he has the gall to argue, panicked.
“Anything-- Anything but that, my lord.”
Hypnos smiles sweetly, infinitely understanding and takes no insult.
“ Drink and sleep. Only sleep, I promise.”
Hypnos taps the cup in his hands, ringing a note from the gold and it glows briefly, before extinguishing. He remembers nodding, still uncertain, fearful, receives a gentle kiss to the forehead in response and it’s as if he becomes a man possessed. Scrambling for the shore, dipping the cup into the milk white water, before he casts one last nervous look back and drinks.
Lord Hypnos is gone before the cup can hit the ground and he slumps immediately, knowing only the ecstasy of peace.
Time bleeds together, shades pass through and he drinks and he remembers, but the pain stays blessedly distant. Movement becomes a ponderous chore, so he sits and he stays and time continues to pass.
Every now and then he is greeted, remembers shades that perhaps knew him in life, but no faces stay in his memory for long, spilling together, dreamlike as he drifts.
At one point, someone draws close to his repose, addresses him, drops a kiss onto his curls and apologises and he wonders, whatever for? They linger for a moment and he remembers a smell, like well worn leather and resin, feels hands in his own, calloused asymmetrically and thinks perhaps he knows their name.
Odysseus?
No...no, it couldn’t be, not these hands of an old man.
The shade is gone before he can summon the strength to lift his head.
Eventually, the cup begins to lose its influence or perhaps there is only so long a mere shade can draw from a source of godly power and he casts it petulantly into the Lethe the day it finally gives out.
Alone with his feelings, with his memories once more, he simply exists in solitude.
Until he doesn’t.
Prince Zagreus is nothing but an annoyance, another restless shade passing through, except this one keeps coming back. He remembers his own bitterness at the gentle inquiries, the unshakable optimism - too time worn and weary to share in it - and acting out accordingly. He’s venomous those first few encounters, cards held close to his chest as he’s reminded of another sunny, fatally optimistic boy and resents Zagreus for every inch of it.
Still, the prince, for that is what he is (the irony is not lost on him), persists.
Little trinkets, bottled libation, a new source to dull the pain, to conjure what it is to feel alive again, left at his feet. Ever enduring, ever hopeful , insistent on his companionship, his name, his story, until he’s finally worn down enough to try.
And is he ever grateful that he did.
The revelation of the bracer - a twin to his own - of the spear, of the lad’s mentor--
Achilles.
His Achilles.
A servant to a king once more and on his behalf? It’s unthinkable.
But it’s true.
It’s enough, perhaps, to stay present for. Love sick fool that he still is, his battered heart swelling to something solid in his chest once more at the mere idea, gaining a gravity he had all but lost in the time since his death.
More time passes, but now it’s fraught with an anticipation he is desperate to quell. The gods have never been kind to them, why would now be any different? No matter what promises this sweet godling makes, luck has never been theirs.
He is being set up for yet another fall, he is sure of it.
So assured in his pessimism is he, that he doesn’t look up at the sound of movement beyond the glade - assuming another visit from the prince - but the footfalls, that cadence. He looks up and is immediately frozen in place.
Impossible.
Simply and utterly impossible .
He doesn't dare let himself hope, but it's there, burning like a spear point in his chest, flooding his lungs and a shade has no need for breath but he finds himself choked for it all the same.
Achilles .
Oh and it is - there, cresting the bridge - but who is this? His love, but there is age to his face and a dullness to his hair that he has no memory of. Something at his mouth and eyes, reminiscent of kind Peleus and is this what it means when it's said the soul projects as is truly felt?
He cannot reconcile the feeling - always having felt far too young to carry the burdens set upon their shoulders. But then, when he had died, it had been with all the heady assurance of his prime, made reckless by the touch of the gods and though their separation has worn him tired, the mere thought of Achilles - under the stars or touched by sea surf - has surly kept him frozen in time, as if his own image alone could conjure his beloved.
He is here, he is here, Achilles, Achilles, Achilles .
The mantra of his dear name, turned to gold in his mind as they reach out - scramble for each other, limbs turned to steel as they embrace as if to break the other. Cheeks wet with relief, the trembling touch of lips merely a spark in the face of how it feels to be pressed against the other half of his soul.
Achilles arms are tight about his waist and he reaches to dash away tears from that sweet face. Palms sweeping flat over salt skin, through his hair and it's as if he's brushing away the centuries, the wounds left by such ruin - not wiped clean, but weeping injury, giving way to golden scars. He feels Achilles do the same - the need for reassurance through touch - feels the heavy pall of exhaustion fall from his soul and here, don't they fit so perfectly against each other as they always have? The satisfaction of a shattered amphora finding it's missing pieces.
Achilles presses into the touch and his smile pulls wide like the flash of sharks teeth and it's as if he is brushing the tarnish from him - revealing not the boy he fell for, but the man that clasped him close every night at Troy.
In his dreams, this moment had been suffused with dialogue. Apologies, regrets, perhaps even the sparks of anger, their mouths overflowing and spilling between them like a libation cup. But here, now, in each other's arms he is struck mute by the sweet weight of peace and the same feeling is echoed back - Achilles brow brushed smooth with relief - enough to bring them both weakly to their knees, there in the glade.
The Lethe murmurs and they fold together, around each other like a well worn himation - Achilles cradled inescapably in the shelter of his arms - unable to touch each other in enough places at once. This is what he had clung to, what he couldn’t stand to forget. Pressed knee to chest, their legs tangled, chlamys pooling in a nested shelter about them and hands free to grasp, to kiss.
Achilles holds his face like a precious thing, devotion plain in the tender light of his eyes - the tears still sliding freely down his cheeks - and how could he have doubted for a moment, this dear man of his? He kisses the inside curve of each wrist, lips catching over well worn leather and vulnerable skin, the prayer of his name finally working past the silence of his lips.
“Achilles, my Achilles, my heart --”
He kisses the ragged sob of reply from Achilles mouth, catching the remorse, the hurt of forgiveness on his tongue and pushes it back where it belongs. He would devour all the ache between them if he could - like a hound over a bone, he has always been a devil when there’s a point to prove - surging forward like a flood before Achilles can become a pyre to his own grief.
To kiss as if those last month at Troy had never happened would be a disservice to the suffering between then and now, negligent to the growth he can feel in Achilles soul and to the damage of solitude to his own. But to kiss like he acknowledges it all and just doesn’t care? That this reunion eclipses all else, that they will heal each other, that he forgives Achilles wholly, without further reparation? He can feel the relief shake through the both of them, feel the stubbornness of the dear, sweet fool beneath him - even now trying to silently argue - and pins him still to press the point home.
“I love you, I love you, hear me beloved--”
Hands in Achilles hair, crowding him, insistent, kissing him weak - mouths bruised and slick - devotion pitted against the knot of self hatred until it doesn’t so much as untangle but relent. He kisses victory from that sweet mouth in the aftermath - the war not won, but defences in ruin - until sobs give way only to his name, falling from Achilles lips like offerings as they share unsteady breaths.
They settle, tangle further. The Lethe murmurs and he presses his ear to the conjure of Achilles heartbeat in his breast, commits the cadence once more to memory as hands gentle through his hair. Kisses pressed to his crown, tears drying on cheeks and butterflies alight on their repose - resting still enough to be a marble devotion to the embrace of lovers. The thought makes him burn sweetly, holding on a little more fiercely, if only to feel Achilles’ arm squeeze around him in return, in something so much more than a memory.
Time means little. They stay wrapped together until it feels natural to sit instead - heads bent close, legs draped together - Achilles playing with his hands as they each find their voice again to speak as quietly as the river at their back.
They talk of the pact, of Zagreus, of the gods that reside in the house and those shades that have passed through this glade. They linger rarely on topics that are still raw, sharing kisses to sooth over golden scars that are too freshly healed.
Achilles must soon return to his post. He can feel it in the tension of his body, the way his tongue works over the sets of sharper teeth in his mouth - little tells of anxiety that echo in his own frame - and neither wish to leave the other in distress.
“But you will return to me.” It’s not a question.
The tension eases, Achilles restlessness winding into the dimple of his smile, tight with fondness at the side of his mouth.
“I will. Now and always, my love.”
The certainty pulls his smile wide, so genuine it hurts after so long without a reason to. Achilles looks at him like his heart has melted in his chest and leans in to kiss the grin from his mouth, feeling it against his own as they tumble back against the grass.
Laughter rings off the Lethe, bright joy echoing back as they wrestle like boys, like they’re full of spring fever after too long cooped up over winter. When Achilles finally draws away, it’s not with reluctance, the promise of ‘soon’ bright in his eyes and he leaves breathless, still with laughter on his lips and looking scandalously rumpled - much to his satisfaction.
Alone once more, Patroclus falls back into the crush of sweet grass, heaving with an impassioned sigh and smiles.
‘To the future’ he thinks.