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5. the fifth
(and how it has begun to settle in)
The touch of fingers to his arm, gentle and firm, ought to be unfamiliar by now. It ought to make him startle. It does not; for time means little, nothing, to the certainty of Patroclus—to the sheer rightness of his presence, to the wholeness Achilles had come to forget. To the calm coming over waters that feel, so long have they roiled and bubbled and churned, that they have never been still. To the steadiness of his voice, patient after so long, unflinching and never unkind:
“It is something you will have to explain to me, eventually.”
Which is how Achilles knows this will not, like the previous few visits, be comfort found nestled in the crook of an elbow and the eerie light of Ixion above. Patroclus’ eyes are dark and sharp like a bird’s. He does not mind Achilles’ arm pressed tight against his where they sit flanked by their spears. Great Achilles. Cowardly Achilles! After ripping their souls apart he cannot bear not to be as close as he can be, revelling in an unearned gift . It should be up to Patroclus to decide, after everything Achilles had broken and broken again in wayward attempts to make amends. Up to Patroclus to decide if he wants Achilles close.
“I do,” Patroclus said.
“Explain,” Patroclus says.
Achilles does.
It goes like this:
It transpires that they would not have been together anyway. A drop in the stomach—Achilles shakes and Elysium shakes with him. He sits by the river. Patroclus is not here.
The shades do not speak. They chatter only. To him, about him, it’s all the same—only about things he has no love for, glories that sicken him to relive. So many questions Achilles doesn’t want to answer, pleas to recount stories he wants dearly to forget. Achilles stares into the Lethe. She will not answer him. It’s the Styx that holds his answers, more like, or the House she runs through.
“Erebus,” says Lord Hades, irritable. He answers Achilles’ impudent questions only because he is the most exalted of the lot, escorted personally out of this House and returned like a bedraggled stray cat.
“And then?” Why Erebus? He had died first; Achilles had outlived him.
“If I knew, Shade, would he be there?” says Hades, more irritable still. “Asphodel or Tartarus. We shall see how his sins measure up.”
Thereupon it becomes clear that Achilles has little to offer but fury and desperation, the former bound to serve him about as well as it did in life. Surely the Lord of the Underworld has no use for an instrument of war in a domain built for the aftermath of Achilles and not the like. But Hades peers down at him, curious.
“You would not see him,” he says.
“I would not anyway,” answers Achilles.
And there it is: for why not make the trade, if Patroclus were spared the sight of him regardless? The sole possession to his name is the glory that sent him here—its sacrifice, while not a worthy tribute, is both the least and the most he can do. Knowing, at least, that he could provide this single safety. They would not have been together anyway. It was a simple, practical calculation, Pat, there was nothing to lose anyway, for—
(“You,” says Patroclus, “are the greatest fool to ever have lived, Achilles Pelides,” well, I know, I know, I know.)
4. the fourth
(and how oblivion differs, for each of us)
It has been bothering him, Patroclus can tell. The important things, they’ve gone over. But something has been bothering him, something else, and there is so little to do so now—now that they are together, now that they’ve nothing more to lose, when breath is gone from them and company is never again to be revoked—so there is really only one thing it can be, and Achilles proves him right, as he is so wont to do.
"What happened after,” says Achilles, greatest of men, unable to form lips around simple sounds. “After?"
He’d watched his own blood smear across Achilles’ trembling hands, red on sun-kissed bronze. Watched, and reached—through him, across him, over him, and listened to him scream.
“After,” says Patroclus, and spares him the rest.
It goes like this:
It's strange, actually; only a vague memory, crouched in their tent with his own body feet away—beseeching Achilles as he slept uneasy and dispersing as he wept. Please. The golden urn, the one your mother gave you, do you remember? And let us not be apart, then.
You loved me. Do you still? Bloodless as he is and formless and unable to touch. I'll wait for you. It will be soon.
If Achilles remembers he does not show it; if he recalls the lunge he made for Patroclus when he was gibbering smoke he does not reveal it, but Patroclus remembers, and can scarcely forget. As strange and vague and burnt around the edges as the memory is, Achilles’ grief remains impressed upon his eternal soul. Branded harshly into the remnants of his identity, in the days before Achilles began to know mercy, in the days before there were no more days.
Of Erebus?—little, for it is a between-space in constant motion. Little, blessedly, for it is liminal and immortal and discomfiting. Of Elysium—confusion, and patience, and confusion, at first. Whys and why nots.
It will be soon. Surely, for it must be. It will be soon. Patroclus waits. The waiting is a blessing. Achilles must still live.
It will be soon. But it must have been, by now. Where is he? Time passes oddly, or doesn't, and Ixion is steady, and is it soon? Has it been soon? Already? But why, if it has been? Why, when his golden crown would be the jewel of Elysium? The Lethe tumbles by and carries with it nothing: no answers, no relief, eating memories, sparing none. Not a glimpse of the past, nor of truth, nor of dread made manifest. Has it been, yet?
(“I'm sorry,” says Achilles.
“What for,” says Patroclus, and Achilles, helpless, begins to count.)
3. like this
(and how long did you wait alone before you broke?)
So it goes: Forever? perhaps? or no time? and it did not matter at all, for there was nothing quite real in this Underworld Achilles had been escorted to rule. The air was so eerily still. Achilles, son of Thetis, of coastal Thessaly, could not quite stomach it. Still and stale and dead. Forever, or no time, for there was nothing quite real without Patroclus, and so little mattered.
Ixion dims and flares so faintly it might be his delirious imagination. The shades keep coming. He keeps cutting them down, and they keep coming. It must be Tartarus in disguise. For this is a Sisyphean hell like no other. Ten years of war, freed from the mortal coil, for more war, yet more war, and no challenge, but for the enduring savagery of having his heart gently, agonisingly ripped from his chest, near-Promethean, a seam of flesh at a time, again and again each day-or-night and nothing to eat it but the long and ceaseless hours alone.
—Achilles breaks off.
The past, the before, seemed almost easier to recount. The present, the now, the House and its trappings, the shades and the godlings, easier to share. The in-between, a torture, a punishment. Patroclus watches him hesitate and remembers what Achilles told him once, what Achilles tells him still: that Patroclus’ gaze is a balm to him, raw and flayed as he is. Stings. Soothes and still stings. Burns and heals and stings. Achilles recalled life to him: dust and grime in his scratches and Patroclus wiping it away with a quiet patience. Patience not, though, for Achilles squirming and complaining and wriggling away. Recalled the warm drop of exasperated laughter sinking into golden skin. Patroclus sees him remember, sees him flinch from Patroclus’ gaze and then return to it still the way he used to press his bruises.
“I don’t know,” Achilles tells him. “I don’t know how long it was.” A pause. Not yet, the looming presence of Lord Hades. Not yet, the deliberations of his contract. “I met Heracles.”
“How was he?”
Achilles laughs, or his body laughs, but his eyes don’t lose their tiredness. He closes them when Patroclus touches the shadowed skin beneath one, leans into Patroclus’ touch with a pained and desperate expression that says he shouldn’t feel it. Patroclus runs a thumb over his eyelid, keeps it closed.
“Large,” he says, finally. His voice is rough.
Patroclus hums thoughtfully. “I always knew I loved a poet,” he says. Achilles’ second laugh is as raw as the rest of him. Automatic, involuntary, true. Filled with affection he can’t contain anymore.
“What brought you to Lord Hades, at last?” Patroclus asks him.
Achilles’ eye opens and Patroclus sees the sea. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I had… to know. I kept… hoping.”
“For.”
“That you were avoiding me.” Barely audible. “That you simply hated me.”
Patroclus touches the line of his lip. It trembles. “Because…”
“The alternative… That you had died for me, and still…”
“That I would not find the glory you valued more than life? That I did not enjoy the paradise you so loathed?”
Achilles winces.
Patroclus kisses him. “As selfish as you ever were,” he says into Achilles’ mouth. “As petty, immature, short-sighted.”
“I know.”
“As foolish,” Patroclus says, and kisses him again. “As arrogant and self-centred.”
“I know, love.”
“Well, thank the gods it’s you,” says Patroclus, and Achilles says with a small smile, “Just the one to thank, I think.”
2. it goes
(and how togetherness is new, as it should not be)
Ill-advised, for so soon? Difficult to resist, after so long.
Achilles hesitates, and Patroclus pauses. Steady eyes meet his. Not accusing, only curious.
“I haven't—“ Achilles' voice sounds jerky, awkward, even to his own ears. “In a while. I may not... be...”
The sound of Patroclus' amusement washes over him like the sun-kissed tides of Phthia. A gentle hand touches his face. “You are a shade, Achilles,” Patroclus says, laughter in his voice. Wrapped in his warmth, the reminder of death turns to tenderness. “You are made of memory, not flesh.”
It's memory that draws Achilles to lean forward again before he's realised it. Patroclus' eyes fall closed at the touch of his lips; he gets to watch a smile crinkle at their corners before his own drift shut.
After:
Patroclus’ chest is warm and damp and sweet. Achilles rests with his forehead pressed to it. Their legs are tangled, curled sideways. Patroclus runs calloused fingers through Achilles’ wretchedly tangled hair, working out the snarls so gently Achilles can scarcely feel it. Patroclus is quiet. Achilles’ arms are so tight around his waist he could not move if he wished. He does not seem to wish.
Achilles cannot speak.
At last Patroclus appears satisfied with his hair. He continues to comb it out, purposeless now, and makes a little sound of acknowledgement of a job done. Just a breath, really. Something Achilles recognises only from time together.
Patroclus strokes the back of his head. His voice is quiet. “How have you been?”
Achilles presses his face closer to Patroclus’ chest. Escapes him by hiding in his arms. “You could scarcely be crueller,” he says. Quieter still than Patroclus, perhaps hoping he will not hear. “Than to show me so much kindness, right now.”
Patroclus’ hand does not still. “And so,” he says. Soft as Achilles remembered. “I ought to join your little crusade against yourself?” He is so warm. Smells of wood-smoke and bread the way he used to. Sweet like hay in the sun, earthy, like the horses he tended. Does he? Or is it memory? Or is that all they are? “Further your march of self-flagellation?” And bronze, but they all smelt of bronze. Blood and dust and sweat, but they all smelt of blood and dust and sweat. “And if it hurts me to do so, Achilles?” Achilles’ nose flattens sideways against Patroclus’ sternum.
“You’re right,” he says.
“Your answer, then.”
Achilles shifts back and Patroclus shifts with him as he always did. Accommodates his whims with an easy ripple of muscle. Without looking at his face, Achilles touches Patroclus’ throat, strokes a line down his chest to his heart.
“Well enough,” he says. “And… and you?”
There’s a little smile in Patroclus’ voice, the first in so long. “I can’t say I’ve much to complain of.”
“Pat…”
When Achilles finally musters the courage to look up, Patroclus is gazing down at him with so much… so much in his eyes that Achilles almost looks away to keep from burning. Patroclus touches his nose. “I’ve missed you,” he says.
“You shouldn’t.” The words slip out too quickly, but Patroclus just laughs. Humourless, dry, but so achingly familiar it spears Achilles through the stomach. He sits up, letting Achilles’ hold slip down to his waist, face pressed into his thigh.
“And you, of all people,” Patroclus says, almost fond, cuttingly derisive, “can berate one on doing what they should, I suppose.”
The laugh chokes out of Achilles so unexpectedly it hurts his throat.
“Come here,” Patroclus says, somewhat nonsensically, for Achilles is still nestled against him. Still, Achilles finds a way. He rises to sit with Patroclus, buries his face back into his neck. It is so much easier to face him when he does not have to face him. To just feel him, feel the warmth of his skin, breathe him in. Cowardly.
“I missed you too,” he says, muffled. “I missed you.”
Patroclus’ arms encircle his waist, dragging him closer. Achilles feels Patroclus’ breath, warm against his ear; the scrape of Patroclus’ beard on the side of his neck, the soft brush of Patroclus’ lower lip over his skin.
“I can feel you crying,” he murmurs.
Achilles blinks; yes, those are tears dripping from his nose. Running from the corners of his eyes straight into the dip of Patroclus’ collarbone. Smearing over his skin. “Ah…”
“I ought to wipe your tears. Only…” Patroclus’ voice breaks slightly for the first time. “You’ll forgive me, my Achilles,” he says softly. His arms tighten. “I don’t seem able to let go of you quite yet.”
1. achilles.
(and how...)
Achilles stops some paces away.
The shade’s head is bowed, his face turned away. The pale laurels on his crown are familiar. Achilles wore them once, before. He is hunched, draped over with fabrics not unlike Achilles’ own. The curve of his spine, ungraceful as he’s made it, is familiar. The breadth of his shoulders, the way he holds his hands clasped. The bandage on his bicep. He’d been wounded; it hadn’t yet healed when he’d left, nor would it ever be, it seemed. The bracer on his forearm. A bitter memento and an ironic one; he had died with his face to the sky .
The shade inclines his head. His hair, falling in waves, shadows his expression. This, too, is familiar. His beard. A little unkempt. The fine shape of his nose. The glint of dark eyes between dark locks.
Those eyes rove up him, taking their time. They hesitate on Achilles’ ankles; that’s right, the ugly white scar there is new to him. Up, over his skirts, over his arms. Taking in the bone-white grip he ’s taken on his spear. The sigil on his clasp that’s kept him away so long.
The breath leaves him when Patroclus ’ eyes find his own. Shuddering and deep, until it is all gone, what facsimile of it remained in his fleshless chest.
Achilles sinks to his knees. The spear falls away from his grasp. He’s just out of reach. Close enough to touch, if he tried. If he’d tried. Patroclus’ eyes are the only real thing in the world. The only thing once tying him to the earth. The only thing ever tying him to himself. Without anchor for so long, drifting, listless, aimless, formless, at once he must have a soul, for Patroclus must be gazing into something. At once he must be something, must be someone, for he feels, and therefore…
Here. Here. Steady and right in front of him, sharp in all their warm, inscrutable depths, the eyes that could cut him in two with a glance and make him whole with another, and Patroclus has not moved. His hands are still folded in his lap with a tightness in his wrist. Taut skin where his fingers press into the skin of his hands.
Achilles breathes and a wretched sound emerges. Tentative, with clutching hands. Achilles reaches and Patroclus reaches back.
Something breaks;
he tears at the air, latching onto whatever parts of Patroclus he can touch. Falls into him. Aeons without him. The feel of his skin is almost new.
Patroclus’ fingers find the nape of his neck and the curve of his shoulder. His strong, familiar touch is overwhelming, and still Achilles cannot look away from him. Their noses nudge together and still he cannot look away. Wondering, starving for each other. Everything he hasn’t said in an age. Achilles’ choked laugh sounds more like a sob. Breath mingling and the air is real again. Patroclus’ hand leaves his shoulder to stroke the side of his face, wondering and afraid, and afraid, and Achilles shakes everywhere they touch and more everywhere they don’t. It’s the most solid he’s felt in twenty lifetimes, the most of life he’s ever known.
It is a timid thing when at last their mouths touch. The barest brush and it ’s just a moment—hardly a kiss, nearly incidental, drunk more on proximity than touch, and still they cannot look away. Achilles hesitates, Patroclus draws back. Begging permission and still they cannot look away. Every uncertainty bubbling to the surface like a life breaching the Styx. So Achilles leans into him, more, more than he has a right to, beyond any ability to stop himself. If he can touch Patroclus one more time, he might believe he’s here; one more; just another time; just one more. Just…
Patroclus’ voice is cool and quiet, mercilessly kind. He might have heard it yesterday. Like a question, like an exhale, like he cannot believe it, and it means: is it you? and it means: how could you? and it means: do I live? again?
“Achilles,” he says.
0.
That was a new sound. Like a puff of light. No grinding of the door, this time.
Few visitors seek his little glade. Only the one, really. Yet the footsteps approaching are not so quick or frantic as he has come to expect. They pause often. And he waits, but—most damning of all—the pots are (so it seems) to remain intact this day or night.
So. He’s done it, then, that strange little prince.