Chapter Text
Noise. That’s the first thing that truly captures Patroclus’s attention. There are people everywhere, running, pushing, shouting, laughing. They all merge into one in his eyes, each wearing the same identical uniform. Just the same as the one he wears.
Patroclus makes his way across the yard, keeping his head down. He’ll do anything to keep people from noticing him. He wants to blend in seamlessly. Hopefully nobody will bother him that way.
Inside, there are just as many people, but they’re quieter here, walking in more-or-less straight lines down either side of the corridor. Some stand by blocks of lockers, leaning casually up against them as they chat to their friends, heads bent in, keeping their voices low. He sees some of the girls look his way, and then quickly divert their eyes. He wonders if they’ve heard anything about him. Gossip in a high school travels faster than an email goes across the Internet.
There are no obvious directions in which he should be going, so he pulls out the map of the building he was given on his last visit to the school, before he was officially a student. He quickly pinpoints where he is – just outside one of the English classrooms – and works out which corridors he should go down to get to his maths lesson. He wished, wished, wished it wasn’t maths first.
Patroclus heads along a corridor to his left, noticing a group of boys his age a little further down. There are seven of them, all with dark hair apart from the boy in the centre of the group who is taller and has a head of golden curls. Patroclus drags his eyes up and down the boy’s figure, biting his lip as he realizes just how attractive he is.
As if he had heard Patroclus’s thoughts, the curly-haired boy turns around. Even from a few feet away, Patroclus can see the colour of his eyes; they’re blue, the kind of blue you’d see on a misty morning sea. And they twinkle, happy and bright. His lips are slightly parted so Patroclus can just see his front teeth. Then he smiles properly. A toothpaste advert sort of smile - bright and white and beautiful.
But he doesn’t say anything to Patroclus. He merely smiles for a moment and then he’s gone.
Patroclus almost loses his way to his class thinking about the boy. He wonders why he smiled at him that way. He seemed like the popular kind of boy, the one with all the friends who followed him around like he was some kind of god. He’s probably really good at sport, Patroclus thinks, nearly jumping out of his skin as he hears the bell ring for the beginning of first lesson.
He hurries straight to his classroom, arriving there a couple of minutes late. The teacher doesn’t criticize him, knowing that he’s new. But he does get some strange looks from his peers as he shuffles to the spare seat near the back of the class.
He looks around and immediately spots Golden Curls again. And he’s smiling at him. Again. Why does he keep doing that?
Patroclus unzips his backpack and rummages around to find his pencil case. His teacher puts a new exercise book on his desk and tells him to write his name on. He does.
P a t r o c l u s
Golden boy is looking at him. Patroclus looks away, his cheeks going rather hot. Fortunately, his light brown skin hides the blush.
After initially struggling, Patroclus manages to immerse himself into the lesson, forgetting about Golden boy for a while. But once the lesson comes to a close, he’s there again, that smile on his lips. Patroclus sees the name on the front of his book as he puts it into his black satchel.
A c h i l l e s
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Patroclus doesn’t see Achilles in his next lesson – English – or the one after that, which is Geography. But when Patroclus walks into the lunch hall, there he is, sitting on top of one of the tables, his friends gathered around him. He’s juggling something, and when Patroclus gets closer, he sees that the things he is tossing are figs. Why does he have figs for lunch? Patroclus wonders, taking a seat on an empty table. He takes out his lunch from his bag. It’s just cheese sandwiches, but its food and he’s hungry.
“Catch,” somebody says. He doesn’t look up, assuming the words aren’t directed at him. They never are, are they? But he hears it again.
“Hey, catch!”
He looks up just in time to see a fig come flying towards him. Quickly cupping his hands, he catches it, and then stares at it as if it had appeared there by magic.
“Come sit with us,” say Achilles, gesturing towards his own table. Patroclus doesn’t know what to say or to do. Why would the popular guy want him to come and sit with him for lunch?
Patroclus is at a loss. So he doesn’t do anything other than lower his head and continue to eat his sandwich, his fig placed on the tabletop.
Somebody sits down in the chair beside him. Patroclus knows that it’s him before even looking up. Golden Achilles smiles at him.
“Your name’s Patroclus, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Achilles.”
“I know,” Patroclus says, unsure if it’s a stupid reply to give or not.
“Do you like figs?” Achilles asks, reaching for the one he gave Achilles and begins to toss it up in the air, catching it with ease. Patroclus assumes that Achilles must play some kind of sport that involves throwing and catching. Baseball? Rugby? Basketball? Maybe all three and more.
He realises he hasn’t responded to Achilles’ question.
“I do, yeah.”
“Keep this one then,” Achilles says, catching it a final time before handing it to Patroclus.
They sit in silence for a moment as Patroclus looks at the fig in his cupped hands. Then he glances up at Achilles.
“You don’t have to sit with me,” he says.
Achilles looks confused. “Sorry?”
“I mean... you don’t have to sit with me because I’m the new guy or whatever. Your friends probably want to talk to you and... stuff.”
“They’re not really my friends.”
Patroclus doesn’t really know what to say to that.
“I mean, they’re great, but I don’t want to hang out with them every goddamn second,” Achilles elaborates.
“Oh,” is Patroclus’s reply.
Achilles edges a little closer to Patroclus.
“Want to hang out sometime this week?” he asks. Patroclus looks up at him with wide eyes.
“What-“
“You don’t have to. I mean, I just think it’d be cool if I could show you around the town and stuff, since you’re new here.” Achilles shrugs.
Patroclus bites the inside of his cheek. He can’t understand why somebody like Achilles would make such an effort to be his friend.
“Okay...”
“Yeah? Great! And you can come over to my place afterwards, if you like.”
Patroclus is so speechless that all he can do is nod.
Achilles puts his hand on Patroclus’s back for a moment. “Okay so, like, tomorrow night?”
Another nod from Patroclus.
“Great. Meet me at the gates after last lesson.”
Then he’s gone and Patroclus is left with his half finished sandwich and his fig, wondering exactly what just happened.