Chapter Text
The eight year in Troy, before everything was to come crashing down. Falling, we would soon be falling, both of us. And we knew it. Me after him. And we intended to make the most before the inevitable happened.
With the day almost over, Achilles was playing his lyre, and his face shone in the sunset. Like the sun was drowning, and it was Achilles who took its place.
"Do you think about the gods sometimes ?" Achilles asked me all of a sudden. "Our gods ?"
"Don't we all have to, all the time ?" And it was true. Everything we did, every sacrifice, every offering, it was always so that no god was displeased, none of them were disrespected.
"No I meant, do you really trust them ?"
"What do you mean ?"
"I feel like I do not get any kind of assurance, rather it's just an obligation- to worship, some sort of a deal."
"It is what it is, I guess."
"How should we actually feel about a god, did you ever think ?"
I admit, I had never thought about it. Rather, it had never been something to sweat over- we did what we were supposed to do.
"I have not."
"I think reverence comes first. Recognition and respect for the person. After that comes devotion. Love will happen somewhere along the way."
"Gods are not people and love is open to doubt."
"How do you worship something you do not love, do you really feel they are worthy- "
"I do not understand your questions. Why now ?" I feared he would overstep in his questions, question something not meant to be even thought, let alone spoken aloud.
Our gods were merciful, they had been sheltering us through all these years. All of them, even those who did not pick our side, had been good to Achilles, and by means, good to me.
"I do not feel it." Achilles stopped playing the lyre. "I think they do not matter to me as much as they should."
"I do not get it."
"Gods are supposed to be worshipped. Trusted, revered."
"Yes, and ?"
"I don't feel they deserve that."
"Stop it." I turned my face so he would stop talking. Before something irrevocable came out, and we became more damned than what we already were.
Achilles reached with his fingers to turn my face around. "I do whatever it takes to keep them satisfied, but it feels- they feel like less sometimes, not enough. I cannot put my whole trust in them."
There was a dark cloud growing in my chest, steadily getting bigger with every word he spoke. An open invitation, they would take it as a challenge. They would show him, in numerous ways, how they would be enough to bring him- all of us- to his knees. And I did not want him to find that out.
"You are overthinking."
"Like I'm putting them on a pedestal, but someone else should be on it." Achilles continued, despite my tone.
"Like who, then ?" I gave up, exasperated.
He flashed me a smile, and took my hand in his. "You."
It was silent for a while after that.
It could not be. He couldn't be saying that to me, he couldn't be saying it like he actually was convinced, like he actually meant it.
"No."
"Yes. Patroclus I have spent years memorising every curve, every turn in your body. I have passed a thousand nights laying awake, admiring the hell out of your entire being. I have been held by you, touched by you and if that warm glow radiating from your chest isn't divine, I don't know what is."
"I am unworthy, broken." I said. I knew he loved me, like I did. Like I was his soul, as he was mine.
But loving me did not, could not, hide the flaws that I had already accepted long ago. An exiled prince, an abomination. Not a god. A companion, a shadow. Not a god. A hero now, in ways. Healer, friend, a leader of sorts. That still did not make me a god, it never would.
"You make me whole." Achilles played with my fingers, eyes downcast. "I can never see anyone else in your place."
"Please stop." I closed my eyes.
"I would rather wither by your feet, serve you till the sun shines, than to bow before any other altar."
I let out a very shaky breath.
"I am not scared, Patroclus. And really, what are they going to do, kill me ?" He let out a harsh laugh. "How much time do you think we have left, and who is to be blamed for that ?"
I had no answer to give. Achilles' face darkened, and for a moment it seemed to rival the glaring sky with grey clouds looming over our heads.
Achilles continued," We don't owe them anything, we are doomed and they are not and they would never understand why we do things the way we do."
He turns to face me completely, "And everything I do, it'll always be for you." This time he held his gaze.
I reached out for him, and we joined up in an embrace that had always felt right, somewhere I had and would always fit in.
"You look like all my gods too, Achilles." And from the soft sigh he let out, I knew I was at the right altar.