Work Text:
It’s the way Achilles holds him, gentle and warm like the gold of his hair that the sun seems to mimic.
Those green eyes that see nothing but him, filled with reverent and appreciative love.
Patroclus has a weak heart, he sees greatness in the way Achilles walks, but cannot bear to part with his warm hands and warmer still heart.
He knows that with time those hands of his will no longer be tender, those eyes will harden in the face of bloodshed.
He knows it is for the best, Achilles has a gift that cannot go to waste, a destiny that he cannot stop. Achilles is not his alone, he will become a god, and Patroclus wonders if that same cold look in his mother’s eyes will one day reach him too?
Nonetheless, Patroclus finds it impossible to conjure these worries when faced with the intensity of Achilles’ affection, ever-increasing as the days go by. He will stand as he always has, though he is weak and by no means a warrior he will hold Achilles during the day just as he does at night.
It’s the way Patroclus forgives him, letting him lay against his very soul to rest.
He is half-god and a weapon but he dreams of the seas and the rose quartz cave with Chiron, those quiet days where he’d been free, free to hold Patroclus flush against himself.
Touch him as he’d been yearning ever since they’d grown up. His olive skin and almond eyes, kind and gentle, strong and silent. A tree trunk with its swaying branches and he its leaves.
It’s the way Patroclus never regarded him as a person truly out of his reach.
Surrounded by the strange stares of the young men his father had fostered.
Delicately deconstructed over and over again in the mind of his mother’s eye. Those nights at the ocean's shore leaving him cold and yet loved, it hurt and he did not want to think about the way his mother prickled his tender heart like a beautiful rose.
Achilles stares at the horizon, head nestled against the crook of Patroclus’ neck, he finds that he cannot tear his gaze away from the ebony hues the sun inflicts upon Patroclus. He finds more and more that becoming a star up in the sky wouldn’t be so bad if he could shine his light upon Patroclus eternally.
And Patroclus? He stands, unmoving against the weight of a blooming half god and pities the day this moment will blur in his mind.
Golden strands brush against his collar, Patroclus will take what he can.