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Perhaps it was the stifling heat that made the soldiers look so sinister. Patroclus watched them with a wary eye as they practiced marching in formation on a hill nearby.  He and Achilles had taken it upon themselves to explore the bustling encampments of soldiers all buzzing for war. Cookfires popped at their feet and so many people were speaking at once that Patroclus found he could get a slight bit dizzy within all the smoke and conversation that drifted in front of his face. So he told himself when he saw those soldiers that the familiarity of their armor was a trick of the light.

His steps faltered once his gaze found the missing piece in the wispy gaps in his memory. Their king, a proud commandant standing tall before them all, shouted drills and directed the men. This was a king that made sure to let others know he’d been a conqueror in his glory days. He was wrapped up in finery, and topped with a cloak that had a flashing gold trim despite the stifling heat. There were many kings here, and almost all dressed up in finery, but this king was the King of Opus. He had not thought of Menoitius in years. He’d had no reason to. He’d thought him dead by now, or maybe perhaps he had hoped it. Either way, Patroclus had not thought of his father in years.  

But he wasn’t dead. He was there, alive and barking out orders with all the strength in his voice of a man trying to reclaim that lost glory.

Patroclus forgot how to breathe. How many nights had he spent in his youth, fearful of the shadow in the corner that wore the same crown as his father? And why should he feel that paralyzing fear now, when this surely just had to be another walking nightmare?

Breathing came back to him quick enough when the sun disappeared from his view, and an even brighter image replaced it. Golden curls filled his sight, falling over the perfectly clear visage of Achilles.

“Patroclus?” Pat-ro-clus. “Are you ill?”

His brow furrowed. “What? No, I’m well.” Why would he think that? Patroclus readjusted his feet on the ground and found it solid beneath him, thankfully. He’d almost thought he was about to fall.

“You look ill,” Achilles told him.

“I don’t fall ill.” Patroclus gave him a gentle smile and cocked his head. “I look it? What does that mean?” It wasn’t curiosity that made him ask, but rather a need to see his lover grin and maybe rebuke him for teasing. Concern didn’t belong on his pretty face.

He could tell that Achilles was thrown off for just a second, before he regained his composure. “It means that you look as if you’ve been in the sun for too long. There’s sweat on your brow.” A cool hand touched his forehead and Patroclus leaned into it. He had to admit, it felt refreshing.

“Everyone has been in the sun for too long. It’s very hot here.” When had he closed his eyes?

In front of him, Achilles let out a sound that could have been laughter. The hand moved from his face and he was suddenly steered the other way. Turned away from the hill he’d been staring at. They started back towards their own tent, and it wasn’t even until they were halfway there that he realized they had moved.

His head was swimming. Achilles was behind him, not in front, and the sun beat down on the ground too bright in front of him. Patroclus squinted and let the gentle hands on his shoulders guide his way. “Not ill, hm?” a quiet voice murmured into his ear, “how are you feeling now?”

They were in their tent. When had they gotten here? “I feel… tired.” Not quite unwell. Just tired, and as if he hadn’t had any water in days. He stumbled on his way to their blankets, feet picking up dry dirt.

“Patroclus.” The humor had left Achilles’s voice now. He wished it would return, because Patroclus truly did not think he was ill. He didn’t feel ill, though he couldn’t say he would know what it felt like.  He only felt as if he’d been pulled out of a dream too quickly. Or a distant memory. A cool cloth touched his brow now, and a pair of fingers pressed against his lips. He kissed them and craned his head up. How had he managed to lie down? He could see Achilles now, sitting next to him, above him. “Get some rest,” he said, voice soft around hm.

“Don’t frown,” Patroclus pleaded. He brushed his own fingers over the pale wrist in front of his face. Their time together was precious. He wished that they could enjoy every second of it. He was rewarded with a smile. Achilles said no more, but he did agree to lie beside Patroclus at his behest. Maybe sleep really would do him well.

When he woke, Achilles seemed to have realized that he had no fever, for he was sprawled over Patroclus’s body like a second blanket. His face was tucked into his neck and Patroclus could feel the warm air of his breath ghosting over his skin. If he pretended that the hill hadn’t been real, he could enjoy their moment. The sun had started to set outside, and the baking heat had subsided. He brushed his fingers up and down the smooth skin of Achilles’s back and pretended.

There had been no hill. The soldiers upon it were dust, shaped into man. The king among them had been a trick of the heat. A glint of a rock had been the golden crown. Nothing had existed besides earthly dirt, and the images his mind conjured up within it. Like figures within the clouds.

The next time he saw his father was a banquet. Well, he didn’t quite see him. And there was no celebration here. It was a sacrifice. Livestock for the gods, in a desperate attempt to bring them the coveted wind to sail. The kings and their men had all gathered together once more, ready and rowdy for glory. Patroclus stuck close to Achilles’s side, uninterested in talking of riches and women to be won.

He ate mostly in silence, watching as Achilles conversed with the soldiers around them. They still liked to clamor for his attention and it reminded Patroclus of their childhood. Boys, all shouting for Achilles, wrestling over dinner tables for his attention. Now it was the same, just with grown men.

It was nothing new. Until the routine shattered, splintered into something entirely different. “Menoitius!” someone called, just far away enough that he thought he could have heard wrong.  

Who? Patroclus wasn’t sure who would call for his father, and he didn’t much care. The name alone made him freeze. The shout had come from behind him, so if he didn’t turn around he could pretend it wasn’t real. There would be no figure looming just a few feet away.

Patroclus stood abruptly. “I must excuse myself.”

No one was too disturbed, save only for Achilles. He turned to Patroclus immediately. “What? Are you sure?” His eyes raked over Patroclus, as if searching for a reason in one little look. He must not have found anything he could decipher, because he looked up at Patroclus with the question still in his frown.

“Yes.” He didn’t have to lie about that at least. He was very sure that he would like to leave. For Achilles’s sake he leaned in closer. No one else was bothering to pay him any mind, at least. “I just don’t wish to be here.”

Achilles’s beautiful, so perfectly sculpted face fell into a frown. Patroclus wished he could lean in just a little more and kiss it off. “You don’t have to-“

“I apologize.” A different voice boomed nearby. Once straight from his worst dreams. He startled, visibly enough that Achilles reached for him. He hurried away from the touch. “I’ll be in our- your tent, if you wish to find me.”

It wasn’t fair, really. Because Patroclus could slip away so easily while Achilles had to sit there and endure the clamoring all around him on his own. But he could not be at the banquet for one second more. Not while there were men calling out his father’s name and that man was returning their calls in his own voice. His hands shook at his sides. That hadn’t happened since he’d been a boy. Patroclus hurried his steps and found himself within the tent he and Achilles shared.

Not that it offered much in the way of protection, should someone come looking for him. Not that anyone would come looking for him in the first place. And none of it would matter in the end, because he had all the protection he needed in the form of Achilles.

Patroclus realized, after a moment, that he’d been walking in circles. His breath came in short gasps now too. It was for the best then, that he’d left, because he could hardly have made a scene like this in front of anyone else. Save only, of course, for one person.

He covered his mouth with a shaking hand and folded in on himself in a particularly dark corner. The dirt under him kicked up and crunched in the arid air. Patroclus felt oddly cool among it. That position was the one that Achilles found him in some time later when he returned on his own. For a brief moment Patroclus was able to enjoy just the sight of him, bright and reverently bathed in the light that was let in for a moment. As if the sun itself felt safe curling around his visage, tucking in against his skin and kissing his golden curls. Oh, how Patroclus wished he could satisfy himself just that way. That would be enough.

But it was his own fault that his mind couldn’t stop buzzing. Achilles must have heard it. He looked around, and the slight annoyance in his features melted away once they locked eyes. They were together again in seconds, for Achilles moved so fast Patroclus barely had time to process it before he was kneeling at his side.

“Patroclus?” A thumb landed on his cheek, brushing against the hand Patroclus still had held to his face. “What’s wrong?” They were so close for only a moment. Achilles quickly pulled back, his other hand brushing over Patroclus’s body in a hurried movement. “Has someone hurt you? Who was it?”

He looked so earnest in his concern that Patroclus had to finally force his voice out. “No.” He coughed, pulled his hand away slowly, rubbing it over his jaw. “No, I’m not hurt. I’m-”

“You are not okay.” Achilles gave him a small shake. “Don’t try and tell me you are.”

Caught before he could even say it. Patroclus nodded his head, just once. Just hard enough to let Achilles know he gave some acknowledgement. He did not want to say it, but by the gods, he owed it to Achilles…

“My father is here.”

There was a long, drawn out moment where Patroclus feared that Achilles had not even heard him. He cracked open an eye he didn’t realize he’d closed and watched as he was regarded with a quiet, encouraging nod. Achilles was waiting for him to go on. To explain more.

“My father is here. That’s why I had to leave. That’s why you thought I was ill so recently, I saw him then. And then tonight, I heard…” Gods, he had to swallow thickly. “I heard his voice.”

He saw the moment that Achilles realized. The spark that lit in his eyes. The way his nostrils flared suddenly, and how he looked off toward the side before he looked back at Patroclus. “What did he do to you?” He was not asking. He was demanding. The light from outside was getting dimmer still, second by second, and Achilles looked so lovely bathed in all the shadows.

Patroclus was seized by something worse than fear of his father. He reached out and took Achilles by his shoulders. “Please,” he whispered suddenly, “it was so long ago. Please forget it. It was nothing.”

Achilles stared at him, nearly looking up from where he still knelt next to Patroclus. His hand was still on his face, he realized, because his thumb was tracing slow arcs over the bone of his cheek. Warmth flooded him as Achilles leaned in closer. “You’re scared,” he whispered right back. How desperately Patroclus wished that he would forget that especially.

He didn’t even refute it. He pulled his shoulders up. “The feeling will pass.” It had before. He hadn’t been scared of his father in years. That was the benefit of being an orphan.

It wasn’t enough to satisfy Achilles, who insisted on knowing exactly why he was scared. Patroclus had never thought it would be particularly relevant before. In all their years together he’d been content with telling Achilles only the basics about his life before he’d arrived in Phthia. And Achilles had been content with listening to him tell the same stories over and over again. If he’d ever had questions that Patroclus didn’t want to answer, he’d never pressed for them.

Until now. He leaned in and looked up at Patroclus with his piercing, loving gaze. “Why are you scared?” he asked, so quietly.

Patroclus did not want to answer. He could see in those glossy eyes where this questioning would lead to. “We are going to war,” he all but whispered, “do you not understand that? War. Whatever fear he ignites in me is nothing. I was a stupid, lonely child, and he was just cruel in a way that only fathers can be.” His grip on Achilles was tight, fingers digging into the muscle on his shoulder. If he minded it, he did not say. “I have nothing to fear. I’m just being stupid.”

“You’re not,” Achilles said, and it sounded like he was nearly pleading. “You’re not. Let me show you. I’ll make him regret it all.” He spoke now with nothing but conviction, sounding like more man than boy. Like a god.

So why did he look so beaten? Patroclus shook his head quickly. “That was all a world away. I don’t- I will not let it haunt me now. I want to forget it, let me- let me forget it. All of it.”

“Patroclus-”

“I want to forget.” Before Achilles could respond, he closed the space between them and whispered against his lips, “I want to forget. Help me forget.”

If Achilles was shocked by his evasion, he did not show it. Which meant he wasn’t that surprised, not at all. He returned the kiss and acquiesced, and just for the night, Patroclus got his wish. A night without a haunting. There were no shadows in the corners with crowns. He could pretend that he was just a man with no father once more; as if it were that easy.

However, ease was not something Patroclus had earned. The third time he saw his father he felt once more that he was in a dream. He came over a hill in his own meandering exploration of Aulis. Achilles had been called into another discussion of warmongering, and Patroclus just had to take a break from it. The heat was not so bad today – he even enjoyed the sun in his hair. It would be just his luck then, that he should come upon a group of soldiers and a king commanding them. A king with a gleaming gold crown, and a gold trimmed cape,

Patroclus had never actually dreamt in his sleep. It had always been a dreamless, heavy thing that held him down, except for the nightmares. Those had been real. Always, the nightmares.

Menoitius noticed him at just the same time Patroclus’s wide eyes landed on him. They stood for a moment on opposite sides of the hill, before his father inclined his head and the small gesture beckoned him closer. Closer than he wanted to be. Still, Patroclus obeyed. Nightmares had this interesting way of drawing him in and keeping him wrapped tight in their cold, constricting grasp. He did not hesitate in the torturous walk forward. Towards the crown and the shadow underneath it.

Under their feet, the grass was thirsty for a drop of rain. To Patroclus it felt coarse and unwelcoming. It wanted him gone. Gone from this hill, gone from this cursed island. He wondered if his father felt the same. If he did, he didn’t show it. He seemed content to stand upon the cliff’s edge. Unafraid.

I will feel the same one day, Patroclus assured himself, when I have seen war. But I have not.

 His father had no fear. He stood and looked the same as he had all those years ago, shadowed in a great hall. There was silver in his hair now, in the thick beard on his face, and maybe his shoulders had lost some of the broad strength he’d had in middle age, but he looked like the same looming figure from Patroclus’s memories.

He did not step back, but he wanted to.

“So. This is what’s become of you.” Somehow, despite the open air around them, Patroclus felt like a child enclosed within that great hall once more.

He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “It is.” There was no need to lie. His father could see who he was.

The old man dismissed the men around him. They were alone before Patroclus could even think to form a protest against it. And why should he? He was grown now too, he should not fear his father. He did not even have a father anymore. He’d been orphaned long ago. What he feared did not even exist. Remember this, Patroclus.

He was being scrutinized and he knew the image he presented. He knew what his father knew him to be. Even if that had been long ago. Fool, Patroclus, he reprimanded himself, you are right where he wants you to be. Were they always supposed to end up here? His father’s gaze felt heavy. He did not look down, but his head felt even heavier. It was a challenge to keep his chin up. But he did it all the same. “Did you need something from me?”

Menoitious took a moment to respond. He let the question fester, and Patroclus felt as if he might start squirming if the silence went on a second longer.

“No.” Said as if it was obvious. As if he was an idiot for even asking. What could he offer his father? “I wanted to get a good look at you.” At this, Menoitious sneered.

“You have one,” he said quietly. He would not rise to this man’s attempt to anger him. Patroclus had grown, he had learned much. His throat felt tight. “I should leave now.”

“Back to your… boy?”

Patroclus didn’t move, despite his desperate need to. “Don’t talk of him like that.” His voice came out with a rasp of anger. Indignation. At least the lump in his throat didn’t feel as pervasive. He was wary of embracing this rage though. He’d seen what it had done before. He’d seen what it had done to his father.

In his memories, Menoitious was cold and distant and angry, but not as spiteful as he seemed to be now. The smile on his face nearly made Patroclus recoil. Maybe this truly was a nightmare.

“I haven’t said anything,” his father said, matter of fact.

Patroclus held in a sharp breath. “The way you said it, then. With disrespect. Achilles is Aristos Achaion and he will win you this war.” And a man such as this should not be talking of him like that. He had no place to mock from. He had a pitiful army behind him and a dying kingdom and no sons. But Patroclus did not say that part.

Menoitius’s laugh echoed around him. “I see a boy with no experience, who is followed around by a boy with only one kill to his name. It is the men who will win this war. Not the likes of you.”

Over the cliff’s edge, Patroclus could just make out the rocks at the bottom. They were clean. In his mind, he could see how they would look like any other rocks upon the ground splattered with blood. A boy’s, maybe. Or his own.  

“Achilles is nothing like me,” he defended.

Another drawn out pause. “I don’t think that’s true.”

Patroclus was no stupid child anymore. He knew his father’s insinuation. The double edge that the insult held. Patroclus had thought that perhaps he was beyond being baited like this, but few people had ever dared to insult Achilles before. Not in a way that he could get away with. Which was good, because Patroclus hadn’t realized he could still feel this sort of anger, born of helplessness and shame and indignation. “Don’t say that,” he repeated. His hands closed into fists at his sides.

“What will you do, if I dare to do it again?” His father mocked him once more. “Especially if it’s true. I’ve heard stories. Why is it that Achilles took so long to join the fight?”

Because this war will be his death. “He does not need to answer to you.” Patroclus’s anger bled into his voice. A grave mistake.

His father’s eyes lit up. It was the call to a fight. “You don’t dare to tell me what to do.” He stepped closer now. He was done playing games, it would seem. “You’re nothing now. Even less than the pathetic thing you were as a boy. You have no title, no family, only a coward for a companion.”

The strike took him by surprise. Perhaps because Patroclus had expected himself to be the first to be hit, not the first to do the hitting. Then again, he’d done it once before, hadn’t he? He landed an open-handed hit onto his father’s cheek. The same spot he’d often been hit as a child. He hoped it stung him just as much as it had always stung on his own face.

However, while Patroclus was a young man full of strength and vigor, he could not fully replicate the power a grown man could hold over striking a child. Menoitius recovered quickly. His father had a handful of his hair tight in his grip before Patroclus could even think of ducking away.

Or perhaps it was part of the shock at what he’d just done. He was still in a daze as his face was pulled close to his father’s. “You will pay for that,” he snarled, spitting venom all over him, “you’re nothing. You think you can strike a king?”

Patroclus regained his awareness and twisted his head in an attempt to struggle out of the hold. It hardly worked. He cried out in pain as the roots of his hair were tugged harder, and a strong hand clamped down on his jaw. “You were pathetic as a child and you’ve only become worse.” Fingers dug into his cheekbone. Patroclus thought that maybe his father would try to squeeze him to death. His fingers splayed out, cutting against his throat. “You will always be nothing. You should have learned your lesson earlier, but you’re as simple as your mother was.”

He saw his own corpse under his father’s hand, with the life strangled out of it. Patroclus couldn’t find the breath to respond, but he let out a choking cry and lifted his foot, crashing it into his father’s knee.

The old man stumbled, his hands slipped, and Patroclus found freedom for a moment. He took in a deep breath and tried to find distance between the two of them, but there was little room to go between his father and the cliffside behind him.

Menoitious stumbled once, then jerked forward. Patroclus recognized the movement and the way his hands came up to push out. He used the precious air he’d taken in to call out, unable to think of anything else to do. “Achilles!” he screamed, his hands digging into the coat on his father’s arm,” ‘Chilles!” His voice choked off once more as shock ran through him. His feet scrambled on stable ground, and then on the disappearing slope of the cliff’s edge as he was pushed over the side.

It was only the unrelenting grip he had on his father that kept him from falling into the rocks and water below. His fingers had to be leaving bruises with how hard he clung to life.

“I should have been rid of you when I had the chance!” Menoitious bellowed. His face was bright red with anger and exertion, a stark contrast to the white of his hair. Patroclus stared into it in his wild shock. His fingers scrabbled against heated cloth and he burned under the hatred in his father’s eyes. “I’ll finish it now. By the gods, I’ll finish what I should have started.”

Not now. They had so little time together. He and Achilles. They were supposed to carve out whatever they could get. He could not die now, not like this. This is not fair. The hands on him shook him once, disorienting him before something struck his face. Hard. A headbutt to the chin left Patroclus dazed and suddenly angrier and with blood pooling in his own mouth.

His father took the opportunity to push him harder, but still he did not let go. The blood in his mouth tasted like copper. He wondered if his father’s tasted the same, tasted just as bright and bitter as his own. They slipped on the edge together

If this is it, you will come with me. You will lose, the same as me.

His feet shifted, teetering on the edge for just a moment before he found himself thrown off of solid ground with one more vicious shove. Patroclus tightened his grip. We’ll go together.

Instead of tumbling over the edge though, Menoitius followed him back onto the solid ground almost as soon as he’d left it. He let go and stumbled with the sudden movement, but a hand on his own arm steadied him.

“Patroclus.” He was wrapped up in an embrace, tight, from his side. The arms around him were familiar. They held him firmly as he was guided back from the ledge, towards a safer distance. “Patroclus.”

Achilles sounded concerned. Patroclus blinked at the bright, churning waves of the ocean in front of them. His hand fell down to rest on top of one of the arms around his middle. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

He turned his head. Achilles’s face was right there next to him, creased with worry and what looked to be shock. He wanted to smile at him, and to assure him that everything was okay, but his body did not want to follow his instruction. He himself must have looked odd, gaping like a fish, because Achilles’s mouth turned into a frown, then hardened into a thin line. A dip in his brow appeared. Patroclus had never seen that before. Anger had invaded his own body, but he had never seen this in Achilles before.

Very few mortal souls had ever defied Achilles. Or denied him. There had been no reason to. Menoitius had found one.

Achilles’s eyes burned bright. If he had been on the other side of that stare Patroclus would have been terrified. He looked towards the object of Achilles’s actual ire. Menoitius had come onto steady ground with him, and now he looked on in shock.

Patroclus thought that he should be shaking with fear. Especially at Achilles’s promise of, “I will kill you.”

There was no hesitation. He had decided it, and so it would be. Sometimes, in these never-ending hot days, Patroclus was sure that the sun would envelope him and swallow him whole if it could. He would die, choking on a heat he could not even fully perceive. Achilles looked to be that sun now. He took a step forwards and Menoitius put his hands up, as if to protect himself from whatever Aristos Achaion would inflict upon him. It did him no good. Faster than Patroclus could see, he struck out.

A cry rang out as his father fell to the ground. Patroclus didn’t see Achilles snap the bone in his leg, but he heard it. He watched in a stunned stupor as he prowled around the prone form of his father and glared down at him. “Please!” The plea would fall on deaf ears. Achilles had no patience for the old man.

Patroclus could not comprehend what was happening fast enough. One second, he had been teetering on the edge of a cliff, the next had been on solid ground, and the third second was spent watching Achilles deliver a vicious blow to his father’s face.

Blood poured out of his nose. It ran down over his mouth, onto the ground, and over Achilles’s clenched fist. He no longer looked like that tall, threatening shadow. He just looked like any old king. His crown had slipped off and tumbled into the dirt next to him, and his cloak looked frayed under his shaking body. Patroclus watched it all in his own stunned silence. Achilles had not yet killed a man before. He was seconds from doing it now, all because of him. Blood would be spilled over rocks, dripping down the cliffside. All because of him. Could he truly let this happen to the man he loved most?

Before another blow could fall he darted forward. “Stop!” He stayed very clear of the cliff’s edge while he positioned himself between the prone form of his father and Achilles’s burning, all-encompassing rage. “Stop it! You can’t, you-” He could not catch his breath enough to form words. Behind him, his father struggled to do the same.

His hands shook as he placed them on Achilles’s arms and tried his best to push him away. Achilles did not budge, but he did stop his sudden assault. His eyes narrowed, a sharp gaze landing on Patroclus’s face.

“You’re not-”

“I’m not trying to defend him,” Patroclus cut in breathlessly. He could see what Achilles was fearful of. “But you can’t, you can’t just kill one of your fellow men at arms.”

There was a scuffle behind him. Menoitious trying to flee, no doubt. Patroclus heard him shuffle in the dirt a little. He must be so injured that he could hardly get very far in any sort of quick fashion.

“He tried to kill you.”

“He didn’t succeed.”

“He was about to.”

Patroclus could not argue against that. His feet hadn’t even been on the ground, in the end there. But he was still here, living. He pushed harder against Achilles’s biceps and pleaded with him to understand that fact. “He is no longer a threat. Now he’s just an old man, unarmed and unable to defend himself. Think of how it will stain your name if you kill him here. There will only be a dead man, and our story to tell it.”

A rasping wheeze sounded out behind him. “The boy knows what he’s talking about,” Menoitious reminded them both. Patroclus steadfastly refused to think about it. It was a nightmare, that was all.

Achilles stepped forward, pushing him back with a tight coil of restraint in his muscles. “Do not speak another word.” His voice cut through the air. But he spoke, instead of trying to land another blow. Patroclus saw the progress he was making.

“It is important to let this end here. You’ve got your blows in, and I’ve had mine. Let us walk away now.” Away from his father. From the past he apparently couldn’t escape. He could not spare the moment to think about it past an image of blood splattered over rock. “Please?” His voice came out breathless, so low that only Achilles who was inches away would be able to hear. He searched his face with his wide, pleading eyes, and noticed the moment in which the tide turned in Achilles’s gaze.

He locked his eyes on Patroclus’s and nodded, just slightly. “If that’s truly what you wish,” he murmured right back.

Was it? His father could be killed, and the nightmares would cease. Patroclus would never have to look over his shoulder for fear of his shadow again. But the cost for that… It was blood on rock.

“It’s what I wish,” he assured Achilles.

There was a moment of pause. He felt the muscles he held under his hands tense once more, then release. “Very well.”

A sigh would feel good if it was forced out of his chest right now. But Patroclus still found he couldn’t quite get enough air down his throat. Achilles’s hands wrapped round his own biceps, and he realized belatedly that he was being tugged away. Away from the cliff. Away from his father.

“We’ll just leave him there?” Menoitius was lying on the ground still, staring up at them – at Achilles – in terror. There was blood dripping down his nose and out of a cut on the top of his head. If Patroclus had to guess, he’d say some of the injures mirrored his own. Only maybe more severe. He was certain Menoitius wouldn’t be able to stand now, his leg most certainly had to be broken. Possibly beyond repair. Patroclus couldn’t be certain, and he found he truly couldn’t care enough. His own knee throbbed in pain now that the threat of imminent death had disappeared.

“Yes.” Achilles had moved him a few more paces away now. He spoke over Patroclus’s shoulder now, straight towards Menoitius, “you can crawl your own way back to your camp. Or one of your men will come looking for you, eventually.”

They would tell someone to find him in order to make good on that eventually, Patroclus assured himself as he followed Achilles without looking back. There would be no death by Achilles’s hand yet.

For now though, he would do well not to think about him. Just for a moment. Just for as long as it took them to make their way down the hill. They were well away from Menoitius when Patroclus realized just how close he had been to his own demise at the hands of his own father.

He stumbled, once, just through the grass, right before his legs gave out fully. He didn’t hit the ground though. He was caught by gentle hands. Slowly, they sank to the ground together.

“I have you,” Achilles assured him. “I have you.” Their foreheads pressed together. They were so close, yet Patroclus couldn’t feel as if it was enough. He couldn’t look anywhere but into Achilles’s eyes. What if he saw someone-? “I will always have you. I heard you, I heard you calling for me.”

Had he been any more aware and present in his situation, Patroclus may have felt a flush grow on his face. A (nearly) grown man calling out for his lover, at the threat of death? But what else would he think of, in the end? He closed his eyes and let himself melt into the sound of the reassuring voice. They were alone. Achilles was right there, and he hadn’t been thrown off of a cliff.

Patroclus sighed and his body molded against the one that held him. For a moment, he found his peace. Only for a moment. He brought in a sharp intake of breath and sat back on his heels quickly. With the slow bleed of adrenaline came the acknowledgement of the simmering anger he’d only just been held by. So much anger. He grabbed at Achilles and looked at him with wide, wild eyes. “I would have taken him with me,” he gasped out. “I thought- I planned, that if I went over-”

“But you didn’t.”

“If I went over, I thought that I should take him with me.” Didn’t Achilles understand? He nearly wanted to shake him at the confused gaze. “I would have killed him. My own father. I’m no better than him.” Patroclus shut his mouth because his voice cracked in a way that it hadn’t since they’d been boys.

Achilles still looked confounded. Didn’t he get it? Why didn’t he get it?

His thoughts were ground to a halt as he was wrapped up in another embrace. Arms circled his torso, and Achilles’s cheek pressed tight against his temple. “I would have killed him as well, if you’d let me,” he reminded Patroclus. His breath was hot on his ear, voice soft. “I would have beat the life out of him with my own, bare hands, if you’d let me.”

Despite himself, Patroclus felt a quiet laugh bubble its way up his throat. “I could never let you do anything.”

The only verbal response he got was a quiet hum, which he knew the tone of. Disagreement. The hold on him tightened for a moment, and he was brought impossibly closer as Achilles inhaled deeply.

“Patroclus.” Pat-ro-clus. “Philtatos.” A deep exhale. His body moved with it. His face was taken between two soft hands, cradling his cheeks with all the care in the world. It forced him to look Achilles in the eye. “My Patroclus. I know you, and I know you’re not him. You’re so much more.”

He could not move. Could not breathe again in the hot air.

“I said I have you. I meant it.”

And, well, it would be impossible not to melt at that. Not to believe it so wholly that all he could do was nod, and fall back into Achilles’s arms. So he did. He was not his father. He was only haunted by his father. There was a difference.

Those nightmares, all of the blood that had been following him since his childhood, it was all about to be eclipsed in war. A war he wanted no part of. A war in which he would not revel in the extinguishment of life. He would still be himself. He had to be, because Achilles would have him and he would have Achilles.

He could throw off the cloak with his father’s face and name and hatred, and he could still be himself. He was Patroclus.

When they eventually did stumble back to their tent together, limbs still locked, Achilles refused to pull a hand from his shoulder, or to let one completely leave his elbow. Patroclus reminded him gently that he was alright now, but he did not have the energy to insist too heartily. And, to be honest, he did not want to. There was no reason to separate now. Achilles sat him down and looked at each of his injuries individually, with the utmost of attention paid to the additional cuts and bruises he’d accumulated in all of the chaos. When he found the bruises from his own grasp – fingerprints pressed into Patroclus’s arm – he frowned. They locked eyes, and Patroclus picked up the hand that had saved him so he could kiss his fingers, and whisper a quiet, “thank you,” against his palm.

Between the quiet evening and the dark night and the fretting he found the time to remind a sentry to send a guard out looking for the King of Opus. Hopefully it would be one of the Myrmidons. Let it be a reminder to Menoitius that he lived only because of Achilles’s mercy. A better man than his father could ever hope to be.

They both pretended to sleep when the time came. Tangled up together, breath mingling with their faces inches apart. Neither wanted to break the silence. And perhaps it was what they needed, to simply exist next to one another.

Patroclus thought, eventually, that he should succumb to exhaustion brought on by the excitement of the day. His muscles still burned. His throat was hoarse, and his eyes felt like they’d been filled with sand. Alive. A steady heart beat against his ribs. It wasn’t his own. It might as well be though, because the person surrounding it had his whole heart owned. Patroclus reveled in the closeness. In the way that he could feel Achilles slowly drift off. He came back to sharply. Patroclus tilted his head up just enough to afford them both some room for breathing. “Wha’ happened?” He’d almost nearly been asleep himself, once the sunlight was just starting to creep in under the edges of the tent.

“It was just a dream,” Achilles whispered right into his ear. It startled him. It comforted him. “A terrible dream. It was about you.” Gentle hands held tight to him. Achilles shifted, rearranging their limbs and holding Patroclus even closer.

In his sluggish haze, Patroclus could only respond in kind. “I was terrible, in your dream?”

He felt a sharp inhale, followed by a drawn out exhale. “You could never be.” A hand traveled up his spine before smooth fingers trailed over his collarbone and up even more, brushing over his hair. “You weren’t there. That’s what was so terrible.”

When he’d been young he’d been terrorized by nightmares. Rightfully so, in Patroclus’s own opinion. He’d done something horrible. It only seemed fitting that he pay the price in his dreams. And maybe, even, with his father’s face haunting him.

But Achilles had done nothing to deserve such night terrors. He nuzzled in at his neck and reminded him of his presence with a tender kiss on his jaw. “I’m right here.” He said it with the same conviction that Achilles had promised him, I have you. “I’m here.” 

It was enough to calm them both. For now. There would be a day, eventually, when Achilles would not be there. His hold on the other had slackened, but now Patroclus tightened his arms ‘round his waist nearly as tight as he could. He curled in close and repeated his own promise. “I’m here.” And so are you, went unsaid. This would not last forever, but he would covet it for as long as he could. Peace like this did not come easily. Patroclus had learned that when he’d been young.