Chapter Text
The hazy memory of that night in Troy—the sharp scent and lingering burn of mustard and pine, the tangled warmth of three brothers on a single crammed cot—felt like a cruel joke played by Pasithea in an attempt to ease his reality. Yet the gentle goddess’s attempt to soothe and give him some grace only served to torment Eurylochus more.
The transition from the warmth of the cabin to the biting reality of the Aegean was not a gentle awakening; it was a slow, agonizing realization of weight.
Eurylochus woke not to the smell of pine resin and mustard, but to the scent of brine, rotting wood, and the metallic tang of his own blood where he’d bitten his cheek in his sleep. There was no amber flickering lamplight or droning Trojan storm. There was only the silver, skeletal moon and the rhythmic slap of waves against the well weathered hull. He was no longer a man being cradled by brothers. He was a piece of cargo tucked into a corner of a cursed ship, his back pressed against the cold, weeping wall.
The large man stared at where water dribbled down the timber to pool on the ground where he lay. His tattered chiton was damp with the cold salt water. Eurylochus should move—perhaps on a different day he might have—he should find some place dry to lay instead. The thought sent a bitter sort of amusement through his chest, making his lungs hitch and seize with the effort of suppressing a morbid chuckle.
There was no dry place in the crew’s quarters. There hadn’t been in some time. The men were starting to complain about it again, amongst the list of their other woes. All reported to Eurylochus, all of them his problems to solve lest he question Odysseus’s grand plan.
He would have to talk to Straton about repairing the leaks.
But the mere thought of having to rise, give the command, gather the proper supplies, and then ensure that it was done properly was enough to exhaust him.
Eurylochus groaned, rolling from his side to his back, forcing his crusted eyes to open. Another coughing fit wracked through him, leaving him wheezing for breath and with a terrible ache in his skull. He stared at the underside of the deck planks, his eyes sunken and glassy. Every creak of the ship sounded like a bone snapping, piercing through the dense fog of his mind like an arrow and embedding into his skull.
The fever had returned, a persistent, low-burning ember that refused to be quenched. The sick tasted like copper and it felt as if he was trying to breathe underwater. It was almost as if the phantom of that old Trojan pneumonia had come back to finish what it started.
He tried to ignore the strange swell of acceptance that came with the idea of being claimed by something as trivial as a cough. It would be an insult to his honor and legacy to fall to an illness; to die on the grimy floor of a weathered vessel that was kept afloat with the blood of the innocent and the obsession of a man who knew no such thing as exhaustion.
Eurylochus didn’t think he would mind though, not really.
It was an odd thing, a shift that he couldn’t exactly place when it occurred. He just knew that at some point the scrambling madness in his mind had curdled and died and left a listless rot in its wake. An empty pit that looked at the sea and swallowed that primal fear he’d known since childhood and replaced it with a strange sense of familiarity—like looking at an old friend.
He knew it should have scared him. He had stopped one of the other men—Eleftherios, a stout man on his second wife and with three children waiting for him on Ithaca—from stepping off the port side just a few weeks ago who looked at the sea just like he did. Eurylochus had pulled him back by his torn chiton and lectured him about duty, family and loyalty before sending him to Perimedes to keep an eye on.
He would not lose a man to such an undignified death. He couldn’t. Eurylochus had no doubt that he would finally drown by the blood of his own men if he lost another.
Another fit of coughing pulled him from his thoughts and reminded him of his burning lungs and aching body. His joints protested any slight shift he made to make his patch of floor more comfortable. Eurylochus grimaced and held his breath as a spike of pain shot through his ribs—from the sickness or merciless floor, he didn’t know.
They had been on this wine-dark sea for two years now, and the world had shrunk to the size of a deck and the length of a spear. Likewise, much of the crew had withered with it, Eurylochus was no exception. He was thinner now; the legendary breadth of his shoulders had sharpened into jagged angles, though the corded muscle of his forearms remained—a grim necessity for a man who still had to haul lines when his King commanded.
Eurylochus’s eyes had drifted to the wooden wall without meaning to, and in the grain he swore he could see the face of Ctimine.
He looked away the moment he saw it, a small whine escaping his sore throat without him intending it to. In the relative darkness of the hold, Eurylochus reached out a mindless hand, his calloused fingers twitching instinctively toward the empty air beside him.
In the dream-shores of his delirium, he was looking for a sleeve to snag. He was looking for the soft, reassuring pressure of a man who smelled of wool and patience. For a moment he could have sworn he had heard him, a soft hum or a gentle laugh. He could feel the heat of another body next to him.
But his fingers only brushed the rough, salt-crusted wood of the warped floor.
Polites was gone.
He had been crushed under the weight of a mountain’s rage, leaving nothing but a silence that Eurylochus now had to fill alone. He missed Polites’s gentle hands and contagious smile; he missed the sound of his breath and the way he would hold Eurylochus in the dead of the night to hide him from his own mind.
In the absence of Polites the rift between brothers had become a chasm. There was no one to translate Eurylochus’s pragmatism into peace, and no one to soften Odysseus’s brilliant, jagged edges. No one to remind the King that men were made of flesh, not bronze.
And who was there to blame other than himself? For caving under the weight of his crew's demands and asking to stop. He should have known better than to test their luck, than to let Polites—a cripple—wander around an island and then expect him to be well enough to explore a cave. It should have been Eurylochus who was struck down, then perhaps the men would be back at their hearths.
Eurylochus groaned and shifted to face the wall again despite the protest between his ribs. He closed his heavy eyes again, hoping to return to the shores of Same or perhaps the arms of his brothers once more.
He never got the chance.
A heavy footfall vibrated through the deck. Eurylochus didn't need to see to know the gait. It was the stride of a man who had stopped walking like a king and started walking like a predator.
“Eurylochus.”
He didn’t look up. The large man knew what was waiting for him if he did. And he didn’t have the strength to look his captain in the eyes. Not anymore, not now. Perhaps if he remained still Odysseus would think him asleep—or dead—and move on.
"Eurylochus," Odysseus repeated, no longer a gracious whisper. His voice wasn't velvety. It was a whetstone. "The starboard-side oars are out of sync. Perimedes is trying, but he doesn't have your authority."
Eurylochus didn't reply. He couldn't. His tongue felt like a piece of dry leather in his mouth, and the idea of talking sent a throbbing ache through his throat. But he did turn to look at him, finally opening his glassy eyes to track his King. His breath stuttered on another cough at the movement, hitching painfully.
Odysseus didn't crouch. He stood over his second-in-command, his silhouette sharp against the light bleeding in from the entrance. The King of Ithaca looked less like a man and more like a bronze blade—honed too thin, ready to snap or shatter anything in its way. His eyes—once stormy but soulful—were now two pieces of flint, ready to strike a spark at the slightest friction.
Eurylochus didn’t argue, he had learned there was no point in it. Odysseus had gone deaf to any truth that didn't serve the voyage, and Eurylochus was tired of shouting into the storm.
Eurylochus swallowed, and blinked hard, finally bringing a hand up to rub the crust and sleep away. When he finally spoke his throat clicked in protest, voice cracking with abuse. "I... I will be up. Give me... a moment."
Odysseus’s jaw tightened. For a second, a flash of something flickered in his eyes—perhaps if Eurylochus’s mind still wasn’t stuck floating on some storm cloud of reality he may have been able to decipher it—but then suppressed it with the ruthlessness of a man who had seen the Underworld and realized that mercy was a ghost's currency. “I need you on your feet. The crew watches you. If you are laying under the deck we will make no progress.”
“I understand, Captain," Eurylochus croaked, still refusing to meet the other man’s eye. He tried to push himself up, his trembling arms shaking under the modest weight of his own frame. He made it halfway before a coughing fit seized him, racking his thin chest until he slumped back against the wood, gasping.
Eurylochus didn’t bother staying there for long, and when he pushed himself up again he managed to rise into a seated position.
The Captain watched the dismal display, his intense gaze sweeping over Eurylochus; eyeing the sharpness of his shoulders and the uneven rise and fall of his chest. If he had something to say he kept it to himself, his lips pressed thin and brows furrowed. He swallowed, fingers tapping at his sides and a frown tugging on his mouth.
“We are almost home, brother, then you can rest,” his voice had lowered, that edge of authority faltering for just a second and revealing something raw beneath it—something neither of them had ever been willing to address.
Odysseus paused for a moment, looking his second in command over one final time before he seemed satisfied. Without a word he turned on his heel and vanished back onto the deck, leaving a vacuum of cold air in his wake.
Eurylochus watched him go. Somehow the mustard from all those years ago had hurt less than watching the brother he loved fade into a beast wearing the carcass of a man. But the Captain was right, Eurylochus would get his much needed rest when he returned home.
This time he couldn’t stop his laugh, choking on the sound.
He knew he would never get to rest.