Chapter Text
Every day passed the doubt increased, as well as the concern: if it wasn’t real, he lost his most valuable possession! Polites’ headband…
Right now, that was only his second-most important problem. As well as not completing his duties because of the insomnia caused by everything: Polites, the storm, Poseidon, Polites, Ithaca, Polites, Polites…
His brain was just fried.
He picked up the sword and started cleaning it thoroughly. Memories of him and Polites fighting side to side like the tide rising on a full moon night.
Eurylochus was trying to sleep in his tent in one of those expeditions that Ody always planned. It seemed like he had a long night ahead of him.. The light of the moon bled softly through the slim fabric of the tent. He could hear neatly the sound of a faint rustling of leaves…and familiar footsteps.
A curly haired silhouette peeked at the opening of the tent.
–Hey… Wanna go practice sword fighting?
Who in their right minds would follow a person into the woods in the middle of the night?
–Fuck yeah.
Eurylochus would. Because he isn’t in his right mind. Not when Polites was around.
When they stepped out of the tent, the cold air hit them like a wooden horse. Polites ran a little further in order to get the swords and pass one to Eury.
-Hey, wake up!- Polites chirped as if they were on normal hours of the afternoon
-I’m awake…-Eurylochus protested with a dormant voice.-- hey! don’t–
he fumbled with the very much dangerous and heavy sword he throwed at him when he clearly wasn’t ready.
-Are you awake now?
-Get over here you little -
The moon and stars shun the night hand in hand with the Aries constellation as a fresh autumn breeze moved the trees around as if they were waves protesting at the sea wind. Polites finished setting up the the bonfire while the taller one stretched and cleared the the ground
-C’mon, show me what you got!
-Y’know what I don’t have? Sleep hours.- the taller man grunted, more as a complaint to the universe for not letting him sleep.
Polites giggled as to say ‘me too’ and suddenly he wasn’t so tired anymore.
Eury moved to position and the curly-haired boy took this as a sign to actually start, y’know, fighting??
–First blood?- the suggestion that came out more as a tease, was referring to the type of duel where the first person to release blood wins.
–Nah, why don’t we just warm up first?
–Coward! – Polites giggled
–I don’t want to break a leg or wake up the entire camp. Let’s just get to it. - Shortly after making that small addition, he quickly regretted it. He didn’t want to seem bossy.
–Pfft, whatever. We can warm up, but we’re doing it later.
Eurylochus sighed. Was he really that easy to convince?
It had been too long since they did something like this. And it showed; either of them had done something so freeing. They felt like little kids again: running, laughing with their minds empty. A dance so perfect and
The hours passed like grains of sand dropping in an hourglass, much like the ones shifting and eventually even stabbing their clothed feet, they were already doing Polites’ ‘challenge’. That man could be so violent sometimes. It was funny, you would never guess that from his personality. He is an Ares devotee and mentee after all.
The sleep-deprived men laughed and waved around their swords as if they even remotely knew what they were doing. They were young and innocent at the time, after all. Nothing could have warned or prepared for what destiny had planned for them.
–Eugh!- Polites shot his sword forward, but Eurylochus took a step back to dodge the move, and aimed his weapon to Polites’ hand in an attempt to disarm him. But, instead of touching the handle, the sword crossed the curly haired man’s hand, breaking out in a lot of blood .
-Fuck!- Polites exclaimed, his sword clattering to the ground being pushed by Eury’s one.
-Shit, sorry!- Eurylochus also released his weapon, running up quickly to help his best friend (?). A line of blood crossed Polites’ hand, and he noticed small spots of the red liquid on the fabric of the grip of the sword, still sprawled on the ground.
Wait…- Brown spots on the hilt of the sword suddenly came to notice of Eurylochus while he sharpened and prepared some weapons and the presence of his dead(?)-siren(?)-hallucination(?)-friend(?) felt stronger.
This was the sword they fought with that day.That day…
–Okay, all wrapped up.- Eurylochus announced, once he finished wrapping up his “friend”s’ hand, with somewhat a gentle touch compared to his usual hard grip on his sword or just shaking hands with whoever. That was… weird. But he didn’t hate it. Should he hate it?
–You didn’t have to nurse it up like that, Eury.-An extremely faint blush blossomed from Polites’ cheeks, almost unnoticeable, but Eurylochus did. How could he not?
–It’s all right, Polites.–Eurylochus’ ground threatened to crack at that little nickname, ‘Eury’; he hoped it wouldn’t stick.
The both men were sitting in a fallen trunk they found facing a little cliff that you could see the sea from. Banter came easy to them, and most of the time were too busy from work or training that they couldn’t really chat this calmly. Polites was telling this funny story but was interrupted by a large star rising from the edge of the horizon.
–Yeah, and uh…- Polites trailed off.
–What? –Eurylochus was just looking at the grass when he lifted his face to see Polites’. His features were all gold with his skin bathed in the light and his eyes were glittering and beautiful like aquamarines. Illuminated by the sun, Polites was even more gorgeous, if that was even possible.
Eurylochus finally looked up and- wow. Just wow. He was staring in awe at the beautiful, golden sunset when the man said in question turned his head to face him and they were close now, bumping knees and heat started to creep in Eurylochus’ face, when he thought he couldn’t handle more, that he was going to implode, wake up, something, Polites looked at his lips:
-Eurylochus–
Eurylochus leaned in, unconsciously, and before he could process anything, Polites was leaning in too. His thoughts flooded him over and over with warnings, with adrenaline, screaming at him to do something, but he was…mesmerized.
Their lips formed together gently. It wasn't anything wild, just two mouths colliding together. But it felt so much more. The kiss was warm and it smelt like young spirit and the ocean which compared to what their love was seemed so, so small. It was short, but oh, so, so long.
-...
-...
They stared at each other in utter surprise, not knowing anything, feeling like they just opened Pandora’s vault of something between them they could never reclose now
Polites opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he wanted to say something but his mind was genuinely blank from the kiss. Because they just kissed. But before either of them could process or value anything that just happened, they heard Ody’s tent being shaken. Shit, he was waking up. They just froze, they had probably less than 5 minutes to act like nothing just happened, like they were just talking or… anything really, but what they were really doing, really. They couldn’t explain it to themselves, much less to Odysseus or anyone in the crew.
-We really should go back to our tents.
The stars shun bright in contrast to the pitch black ocean, “go to sleep”, his mind echoed.
But his heart was in another place, his heart was cold and soaked. Soaked in the ocean, with its salt burning, with his memories and water alike: odorless (those flowers don’t smell like you anymore), colorless (from those vibrant memories all i can recall is grey) and dangerous (despite all my years sailing, you’re the only thing I found I can drown in.)