Chapter Text
The silence of the common room is strangely comforting. As Pat works on the floor’s beginning-of-the-year bulletin board, he relishes in it. Normally he’d play music while he worked, but as this is his last chance at a little bit of peace before all of the freshman started moving in the next day, he wants to take advantage of it.
Pat sighs, looking down at his miserable attempt at making one of the school’s most recognizable buildings out of colored construction paper. He hadn’t realized that being an RA would involve so much arts and crafts.
Pulling out his phone, he types a quick text to his best friend and (thankfully) fellow RA, Briseis.
pat: i need your help
bri: are you still working on the bulletin board?
bri: we were supposed to have that done a few days ago
pat: that’s beside the point
pat: my skills with construction paper are very much lacking, to say the least
pat: please?
He watches the screen for a few moments before exhaling in defeat and putting his phone down. Briseis is probably busy preparing her floor for tomorrow. He resigns himself to finish cutting his sorry excuse for a building when the door to the common room swings open.
“Wow, you weren’t joking,” Briseis grins, looking down at the sprawl of paper and markers. “This is pretty bad.”
“Thanks,” Pat deadpans.
“Just being honest. What do you need me to do?”
He looks down again. “Is it bad if I say everything?”
Briseis rolls her eyes, but the playful smile on her face reveals that she isn’t actually all that mad. “What would you do without me, Pat?” She sits down across from him, grabbing construction paper and sketching out the building Pat had tried (and failed) to recreate. It becomes apparent rather quickly that Bri was much, much better at this than him.
“I don’t know. Probably die, or something.” She laughs at this as she reaches for the scissors.
It’s quiet again, with only the sound of Briseis cutting out the picture and Patroclus rustling through the papers. It’s all superficial info, really, reminders to get a head start on classes and speak with Pat if they had any issues.
“So,” Briseis says lightly, her eyes still on the paper in front of her, “you gonna get laid this year?”
Patroclus sputters, nearly choking on his own spit, as he looks up at his best friend with wide eyes. “Jesus, Bri, is this your attempt at making conversation?”
“Nice job at avoiding the question.”
“Thanks, I’m pretty good at avoiding things.”
She rolls her eyes again, finally setting down her scissors to look at him fully. “I know you think I’m joking, but I’m not. You were miserable last year, always so stressed about classes and whether or not you would get this job.” Briseis resumes her cutting, examining her work as she finished the construction paper building. “All I’m saying is getting your back blown out would probably do you some good.”
Pat snorts at this, snatching what she had just finished cutting out and beginning to paste it to another piece of paper. “Somehow I don’t think getting my—having—I don’t think that would solve all my problems,” he rushes out. Briseis was usually like this; she had much less shame than him, to put it lightly, and one of her favorite pastimes was taking an interest in Pat’s love life (or lack thereof).
She simply shrugs. “Maybe not all of them, but it might help. It would help you unwind, at least. Who knows, maybe there’ll be some cute freshmen tomorrow.”
“First, that would be incredibly inappropriate to try to—to—seduce one of my residents. It’s not exactly consensual when I have authority over them. Second, I doubt any of them would want to get with someone like me when the whole world is now their oyster.”
“God, you sound like you’re fifty, saying ‘seduce’ like that. Also, they could be living on another floor,” she points out. “I agree that it would be a little weird, but come on, Pat, you’re a nineteen-year-old RA, not their professor. You don’t hold that much power over them. But if it makes you that uncomfortable, I won’t push it. And I definitely won’t text you about any cute boys tomorrow.”
“…I mean, it doesn’t hurt anybody to know that they’re cute.”
Briseis only smiles knowingly at that, and they revert back to a comfortable silence. Perhaps this year wouldn’t be that bad, Pat thinks to himself. Sure, last year was stressful, but everyone’s first year is. He’s a little surer of himself now, both academically and personally. And, hey, maybe Briseis would finally get her wish, and Pat would be comfortable enough to put himself out there and, as she so bluntly put it, get his back blown out.
“Wait, why does it have to be me getting my back blown out? Maybe I’ll be the one blowing someone else’s back out.”
Briseis bursts into raucous laughter at that, and he can’t help but smile in return. Yeah, he has a good feeling about this year.
-
The next morning, he wakes up much earlier than he would’ve liked to. Pat’s on check-in duty, and while the freshmen wouldn’t start arriving until eight, he has to meet with the other RAs in the building to go over the day’s logistics.
By the time he arrives to the first-floor lounge, the rest of the RAs are already there. Thankfully, Briseis had saved him a seat, so he hurries to take it before they begin.
“Patroclus. How nice of you to finally join us,” a voice at the front of the room all but sneers. Agamemnon was the building’s head RA, being the only senior among them. He was huge, looming over the rest of them like a giant. For some reason, he had immediately taken a disliking to Pat, going as far to call him his full name (which he despised, since Agamemnon never said it correctly). “We can get started now.”
“You all know your assignments, yes?” He continues, to which they all nodded. Patroclus and another RA are on sign-in duty, while Briseis and a few others were tasked with helping the freshmen load up their belongings in carts outside. He definitely doesn’t envy her, since he would get to sit down most of the day while she would be standing out in the hot sun. “Make sure you’re watching the appliances they bring in. And they have to sign their emergency contact card when they pick up their key, so don’t forget that.” Agamemnon levels him with a piercing glare, and Pat has to fight to not to roll his eyes.
He zones out as Agamemnon answers some questions. He’d be glad when all of this hecticness was over, and he could settle in for the year. Of course, Pat’s looking forward to meeting his residents, but he’d rather do that naturally than having to plaster a strained smile on his face as he checked hundreds of freshmen in over the course of the next few days.
The movement of everyone around him startles Pat out of his reverie, and he quickly moves to get up. “Patroclus, a word, please.”
He stops in the doorway before turning around to face Agamemnon. “What’s up?”
“My brother, Menelaus, is on your floor this year. Unfortunately, it was deemed a conflict of interest to have him on mine. Keep an eye on him for me, okay?”
Pat blinks in surprise. He hadn’t thought Agamemnon was capable of anything even resembling compassion, but maybe family was an exception. “Uh, yeah. I’ll make sure he’s alright.”
“You misunderstand.” His gaze hardens as he looked at Pat. “If he fucks up, I want you to tell me so I can discipline him personally.”
All he can do is nod once before turning around and heading to the table set up in the lobby. He silently tells himself that for the sake of this kid, he would not be telling Agamemnon anything, even if Menelaus did something against the rules. The look in the older RA’s eyes was enough to tell him that whatever his younger brother did, it wasn’t worth the “discipline” that Agamemnon had planned.
-
The morning moves smoothly enough. Pat’s cheeks are starting to hurt a little from smiling so much, but they’d yet to run into any major problems, and lunchtime was quickly approaching.
There’s a slight lull in residents checking in, so he takes the time to stretch a little and pull out his phone, only to see a message from Bri that she had sent mere seconds ago.
bri: HOTTIE INCOMING
bri: I REPEAT, HOTTIE INCOMING
He looks down at his phone in bewilderment before snapping his head up at the sound of the door opening, just in time to see what was probably the most beautiful person that he’d ever laid eyes on.
He’s tall, with frustratingly perfect golden curls and flawless skin. There’s an easy smile on his face, like nothing in the world could really bother him, but his green eyes are sharp and observant as he walks into the lobby.
“Hey,” he says, still wearing that easy smile, though up close it seems more calculated than genuine. Pat could relate to that, at least, having worn a fake smile for most of the day—though there wasn’t much else about this boy he could relate to.
“Um, hi!” Real smooth there, Pat, he thinks to himself. “Welcome to Achaean Hall. I’m Pat.”
“Pat? Is that short for something?”
He swallows hard. It isn’t that he dislikes his name, per se, but more so that most people had a way of butchering it (sometimes intentionally, in the case of Agamemnon) despite Pat’s repeated correction. “Uh, yeah. Patroclus. It’s—it’s short for Patroclus.”
“Pa-tro-clus,” he repeats carefully, his stupidly perfect mouth forming around each syllable like it was the most important word he’d ever said. “I like it. Good to meet you, Patroclus.”
Pat feels like he might melt right then and there. “Thanks. It’s, uh, nice to meet you to, um…?”
“Achilles.”
“Achilles,” he echoes, though not as beautifully as Achilles had with his name. “Oh, uh, what’s the last name?”
“Pelides.”
Pat rifles through the stack of cards before procuring the card that said ‘Achilles Pelides’ in careful script that he immediately recognizes as his own. “Oh! Looks like you’re on my floor,” he says, internally cursing whatever powers that be for putting him in this situation. If he could barely form coherent sentences in front of Achilles, he can’t imagine what living on the same floor for an entire year would be like. “I guess we’ll be seeing more of each other, then.”
The blinding grin that graces Achilles’ face at that was almost enough to make him pause in his internal fist-shaking at God. Almost.
A figure behind him steps forward then, placing a gentle but worn hand on Achilles’ shoulder. Pat hadn’t even noticed him before—it seemed Achilles had a way of being so bright and bigger-than-life already that he took up the whole room. Jesus, get a grip, Pat quickly thought. You don’t even know him. “Well, don’t go too easy on Ace here, Pat,” the man (who Pat assumed was Achilles’ father) chuckles, now raising his hand to ruffle his son’s hair. “The kid’s pretty good at charming his way out of trouble. Though I might be partially to blame for that.”
Achilles merely smiles wider and ducks under his father’s hand. A pang goes through Pat’s stomach as he watches the fond interaction between father and son; his own dad had barely sent a nod his way when Pat had left for his second year. In that moment, he can’t decide whether he loved or hated Achilles and his seemingly perfect life.
Pat shakes his head lightly, both to ward off intrusive thoughts about his abysmal family life and to acknowledge the man’s statement. “Of course not. Well, this is—here’s your key. And if you could, um, fill out this card. It’s emergency contact information.” He hands over the card and key before finishing lamely, “In case anything, y’know, happens.”
Achilles nods and stoops down to fill out the card. His hair hangs down in a way that Pat could only describe as unfairly perfect (like everything about him, it seemed), until he stands up again and passes the card back.
“Perfect. Let me know if you need anything. I mean, I’ll be, you know, down here and everything. But later. When I’m—I’m done.” Yeah, Pat definitely hates him, if only for the fact that this near stranger could reduce him to mush with a smile and a carefully spoken Pa-tro-clus.
Achilles nods again in understanding before shouldering his stuff and moving toward the elevator with his father. As the elevator dings, he turns back to look at Pat, offering him a small smile that makes his insides feel a bit funny.
Pat is broken from his reverie by his phone lighting up on the table. He glances up, making sure no one else was coming in, and then quickly unlocks it to see another text from Briseis.
bri: so???
pat: i hate him