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Back in the days of Pelion, Achilles urged Patroclus to tell him stories whenever they found themselves in long stretches of lovers’ silence. The stories themselves did not capture his attention as much as the wry, gentle voice that fleshed them out, and though Patroclus was not a natural talker, he was fond of mimicking famed characters and adding quips along the way as he illustrated their plight. Achilles’ laughter was endlessly bright and indulged.
He tracked the ironic descent of Icarus from the skyline with his hand buried in the crown of Achilles’ sun-like hair, idly stroking the wild curls there. The first flight of freedom out of the labyrinth, the unstoppable curiosity of the boy, Daedalus’ alarmed cautions falling away as his son plunged into the maws of the sea below.
Achilles had frowned at that one. “That was his first time out of imprisonment. No wonder he was careless about straying too close to the sun, all that pent-up need to discover the world released in one flight.”
“I’ve always pitied Daedalus,” said Patroclus. “The cruel tricks that gods put mortals through. Freedom in exchange for his son’s death.”
“Don’t speak so harshly,” Achilles teased, swiping his thumb across Patroclus’ cheek. “Your tongue may very well put us in trouble one day. And besides, the recklessness of man can’t be blamed on the gods every time.”
“Poseidon cursed Pasiphaë to mate with the Cretan Bull, thus she gave birth to the Minotaur, thus Daedalus was obliged to build the labyrinth, thus he gave Ariadne the ball of thread to aide Theseus, thus he and Icarus were confined and punished. The gods dictate everything.”
“Pasiphaë was cursed because her husband, the oaf, refused to sacrifice Poseidon’s sacred bull,” Achilles responded immediately, and smirked as though he won. “And Daedalus gave the thread to Ariadne because he sought to help her; no god had ordered him to do so. His invention of wings was simply an act of survival, not divine manipulation. ”
He cornered Patroclus there. “The final decision is doled out by Olympus, though.”
Achilles shrugged, a perfect nonchalant gesture. “They need to believe they have a purpose, just as men do.”
“You speak as though your own mother isn’t a sea nymph. What would she say, to hear you dismiss their power?”
“You are speaking to a demigod. I should know better than you about the transactions between gods and mortals.” He sat up, and pulled Patroclus in for a warm, lingering kiss. Patroclus traced the emerging light hairs of stubble on Achilles’ jaw and hummed an exasperated, albeit lovesick sigh. “And nothing else besides my own desire has ever commanded my feelings towards you. No god is responsible for such stupid need.”
“Sweet talker,” Patroclus teased, leaning forward to bump his nose against Achilles’. “So why am I the one telling stories?”
“Because, my dear, you are much more understanding about these things.” Before Patroclus could reply, Achilles had pinned him back onto the dewy grass and the springtime terrain of wildflowers, his knees pressed on either side of Patroclus’ hips. “And I adore watching your mouth move.”
-
Long, hard weeks later, confined in the purgatory of war recruitments in Phthia, Patroclus reached for a story he kept folded in the dimmest corners of his imagination. He was fascinated by it the way one was by a gored wound. In the boyhood bed that hosted their return, he nestled his back against that steady, unyielding chest as Achilles traced constellations on his skin; every time he could name what each of them were, Achilles bit him on the shoulder.
Without preface, Patroclus whispered words into the still air. “Upon the Argonauts’ return to Iolcos, the witch-wife Medea lied to Pelias’ daughters that she may give their father the king back his youthful vigor if they sliced and diced him and put him in a cauldron.”
“I would do the same to my father, I think,” Achilles said.
“After the king quite predictably died, she and Jason were exiled to Corinth. Jason thrived there, finding favor with the king, breaking his vows to Medea by courting the princess, and ignoring their two sons. He does not acknowledge her help in taking the Golden Fleece, does not defend her when others scrutinize her otherness and demand that she leaves the city. Of her guidance, he only retorted that she should thank Aphrodite for making her fall in love with him in the first place.
To deliver his comeuppance, Medea gifted the princess, Jason’s new bride, with a cursed dress that stuck to her body and burned her to death as soon as she put it on. As soon as the king tried to save his daughter, he too was caught in the flames. Then, she delivered the final blow upon Jason’s legacy: the slaughter of her own children. By the time Jason learned of their murder, she was already gone, halfway across the sky in her grandfather the sun god’s dragon chariot.”
A pregnant pause, before Achilles leaned forward to tap his chin against Patroclus’ shoulder, his tone measured despite a note of teasing amusement. “Are you trying to warn me against something? A certain moral to this story I should beware of?”
“No, no,” Patroclus stammered. “Forget it, I don’t know why I brought it up.”
“I will never disregard you the way he did her, Patroclus. Never. To think otherwise is to not know me at all.”
The conviction in Achilles’ voice could tame the whole world, and Patroclus was no exception. “It is not you that I worry about. It is this—this narrative. Not often do people think of the epilogue of heroic returns, even though they define the arc of any man’s life. Jason died when a stern of the rotting Argo fell on him as he was sleeping beneath it, an old, forgotten, loveless man. It didn’t matter so much, in the end, that he won the Fleece.”
“Is that what you imagine I would be, loveless?” Achilles leaned over to search his eyes with a hardened gaze. “And where would you be if not by my side at the end of my days?”
“That is not the story I’m warning you about.” Gingerly, Patroclus rolled over so that they were facing each other.
“Oh, so there is a warning,” Achilles muttered. “Do enlighten me.”
“I guess it was my way of saying that battle and conquest are not all there is to a man’s legacy. There are other things—love, devotion, promises. But you already know this. And you will live to prove it.” As long as you don’t kill Hector, whispered the prophecy between them, a sneaky, traitorous ghost even in this warmth.
Something in his lover’s expression shifted into half-lit tenderness. As though shy, he pressed soft lips to Patroclus’ forehead, his cheeks, his chin, the bulb on his throat, then finally his mouth. “My own darling seer,” he grinned. “You and your stories. Trust me, I don’t need another hero’s example to be reminded of what my reason is.”
-
In bare and rocky Skyros, where time stood still at the edge of a cliff, Patroclus and Achilles spent even more hours than usual by the water. They speared and roasted fish over a makeshift fire, riddling swift footsteps on white sands. Sometimes the solitude was deceiving enough for Patroclus to imagine them as truly by themselves, set free from the noisy tides of the outside world. He was not the only one.
Despite the mortifying possibility of being spied on, Achilles had insisted that they make love on the beach that night with a boyish, playful sort of insistence he could not deny. After a few heated efforts of fumbling and rutting, they tumbled into a tangle of naked limbs, Achilles’ legs and arms thrown all over him in unceremonious craving. From a distance, they could be mistaken for one body, their heads tipped close together, unruly hair blurred into dark and light, young lust evidenced in rough sweat and sand.
“You are so beautiful,” Achilles was saying, scouring the tilted angles of Patroclus’ face with devouring eyes. “If my reflection could be improved upon, I think it would look like you. And even then.”
“How can I respond to such humility?”
A nip to his earlobe. “A story, my love. Surely what we did sparked some poetry in you.”
“Should I speak of Narcissus, that lover of his own mirrored self?” Patroclus smirked, and laughed when Achilles pretended to blanch away in indignation. He did not need to relay the events bit by bit; they were both familiar with the bones of the tale. “I wish that Echo could get what she wanted. Whenever I think of that story, her tragedy feels more pronounced, real. It bothers me.”
“Why would you keep thinking about something that bothers you?” With his brows furrowed in adorable concern, Patroclus was reminded of the little yet weighted ways in which he and his lover differed from each other.
“Because it bothers me.”
“But why should it? It’s quite straightforward to me. A lustful and lonely nymph, a disdainful pampered boy.”
“It’s not, though,” Patroclus argued. “They both struggle to exist as who they are. She wants reciprocity, connection. But her curse makes it impossible to achieve that. And Narcissus, he’s a tool of the gods. His beauty isolates him; nobody could love him beyond his looks, and to fall for his reflection because that is the first time he witnesses his own humanity is gut-wrenching.”
Achilles’ eyes are totally fixated on him, intense and lovely. Patroclus continued, “So when they each transform into flower and stone, they both retain their links to the physical world. They are not like the gods, with their repetitive cycles of love and lust, but remain mortal despite their transformations. They can’t truly escape their human instincts of desire and loneliness, since they need a connection to something larger to exist.”
He felt Achilles kiss him, fiercely, on his temple. “I love how you win every argument. My little poet.”
“So you changed your mind? About gods not having the most impact on the lives of mortals?”
Achilles paused from giving him another kiss. “We’re on the same side now. You just admitted that the love of mortals outlasts any whim of the gods.”
“Well, they both became voiceless objects at the end of the story,” Patroclus tried to argue, but already Achilles was scrambling onto his lap, distracting him with the rough, kneading, sand-covered texture of his hands, so utterly alive.