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It was a while before Achilles even realized he had fallen asleep. It was all the same, really, since Patroclus died, an unending stream of grief and pain, punctured occasionally by numbness that was somehow sharp. He half-dreamed while awake anyway, convinced that the body in his arms, preserved from rot and rigor mortis by some god or another, would open its eyes again at any moment. When this happened he would hold him tighter so that maybe he could give him heat and breath and once again Patroclus could live.
In this dreamworld, Patroclus did not breathe or grow warm, but he did move. His face scrunched, as though annoyed, and in life the muscles in his back would have tensed, but this was not life, not anymore, and Patroclus was no longer animated by his lovely, minute movements. Instead, he lifted an arm, made his hand a claw, removed Achilles’s own arm from his body and sat up, peeling away from him, with all the grace of a dog dropping a stick on someone’s lap. It was shocking that Achilles was no cooler for Patroclus’s absence.
Patroclus’s face looked to the floor and he was still. Completely still.
“Leave it to you to make my death all about yourself.”
It was his voice, his accent, but the intonation was flat. There was an attempt at a wider range of pitch in the word “yourself,” but it was forced and heavy, when before his death the correct words and tone came so easily to Patroclus.
(He had spent years practicing, Achilles knew, to seem so natural.)
Achilles should have felt angry, indignant, at such an accusation—had he in his whole adult life never done anything but love and honor him? And after Patroclus’s death ensure every Greek and Trojan be reminded of the depth of his grief, to be reminded of the worthiness of the man that had been lost to him—but there was no room for more feeling. It would be like singing as a crowd of lyre players hit every note behind him, a distinct melody lost in the larger noise.
Achilles sputtered. “I— you—“ and sat for a moment, chewing on what he wanted to say, before he spat out “I sent you to die!”
Patroclus smiled. “I died just fine on my own, thanks.” He lifted an arm as if to touch his stomach, the wound that finally took his life, but seemed to think better of it. “I do now think that, in a way, I was born to die, or that I was exiled so this could happen, but it was still my choice to go out. I was always going to go out, even if you tried to stop me.”
Achilles was speechless. Patroclus finally, finally looked at him. His eyes were still dead, and he looked away when he registered the horror on Achilles’s face.
“And I think that sometimes you do forget that I was also born a prince, my father was also aboard the Argo, that I have a sea nymph for a grandmother and that my house was also fathered by the lord of all gods. I still thought of my own kleos too, sometimes.”
Kleos, the honor and renown that allow a man to live beyond his time. Achilles was the one who chose to die for it but it was in Patroclus’s own name. It was unspoken between them that Patroclus might live and find renown outside of Achilles’s own shadow. Not anymore.
He smiled at golden memories. “It took me years to realize how hard it must have been for you to come to Phthia, how you had to hide it from me.”
“You made it easy.”
He could have meant many things by that, and Achilles figured he meant them all.
“You killed a son of Zeus.”
Patroclus’s smile was almost unconscious, it almost didn’t look like it had been tugged up as if by hooks. “I killed a son of Zeus,” he repeated. “I wish I could tell that boy I would do that.”
Patroclus continued. “I was out there on my own, for the first time, and I killed a son of Zeus, and a god told me back off, and I did, but only for a bit, and then he killed me.” A strained motion of the finger indicated the corner of their tent, to where Hector’s body still lay. “I killed myself, and also you.”
“And to think my father told me to watch over you,” Patroclus continued.
Achilles snorted. “We killed each other.” He leaned ever so slightly, as if to take Patroclus again in his arms.
All at once, Patroclus changed. Before he was his body and only his body, and now he seemed to be without incarnation of any kind. His form was transparent and fuzzy around the edges, as insubstantial as a reflection In the water. He let off a choked laugh that became a sob and dissolved into tears, truly dissolved as his image became more diaphanous.
If he still had to breathe, he would not have sobbed for so long. But this was the closest to life Achilles had seen him. The grace, the warmth, the friendliness—he felt their people did not know how to speak of such a man as Patroclus, who existed so much in small movements, in glances, that those gave him life. And now everything he was could dissipate at any moment.
“Achilles,” sobbed Patroclus, “I love you so much and wish I could stay. I want to stay.” Patroclus looked at him and was again himself, “I told you I would be with you through the end and I meant it. But I can’t remain, I am so sorry I have to leave you. It’s too bright; I squint in the light and I look down and I can’t even see myself.”
They allowed themselves a moment to look at each other. He was lovely as always, but it had only been in the last few months that something akin to maturity had tugged at the edge of his mouth and eyes. It suited him but he would never grow into it. Still, the overall effect was one of youth, yet another life in its prime destroyed by this war, only special because Patroclus had been special to Achilles.
“Bury me, please,” Patroclus said. It was odd to see something incorporeal ask for the burning of a body; he wanted nothing more to do with the broken thing.
His eyes were again watery, and the effect spreading elsewhere. He was growing fainter, and did not have long. “Tomorrow your mother will come with an urn, one big enough for two,” he said as Achilles noticed that the whites of his eyes were as bright as ever. “I want us to share it,” Patroclus finished weakly, as if his last request would ever possibly be denied by him.
“Of course,” Achilles said. He reached for his hand but Patroclus pulled it back, and held it in front of him, hesitating. He placed it on his lap. Achilles wondered if another god was involved in the delivery of the urn. Poseidon had taken Patroclus as a lover soon after he put on his chiton, and had spoiled him extravagantly ever since. But Olympians as a rule wanted little to do with the dead, however much they loved them in life.
(And deep in his bones Achilles knew Patroclus chose a life with him, not just once but again and again. He could have left, one day with the god, another day to win a kingdom of his own, a final one to leave Achilles and the Myrmidons to burn, but he never did. It must baffle a deathless one that someone would choose anything but life.)
Patroclus’s locks hung heavy as if wet; he was being tugged down.
“I’m scared, Achilles.”
“Don’t be, Patroclus. Think of how many men you sent down to Hades. Are you more fearful than them?”
Patroclus laughed at this. Achilles at that moment vowed that Patroclus’s journey would not be alone. Patroclus looked at him, suspecting something, but dropped it.
“If Sarpedon can handle it…” Patroclus said.
They sat.
The room around them changed, disappearing entirely. Achilles no longer questioned it; he did not know if it was a dream or not, or if he or Patroclus had control over it, or even if it was Patroclus with him at all, and he did not care. He blinked and they were on the beach, the shores of Troy, the cause of his misery but also the only place where they could have lived beside each other as they had, lived life together as they wanted. He sensed rather than saw that the distant greenery looked more like Pelion than the woods of Anatolia.
This was where Patroclus wanted to spend his last moments on earth.
Dawn broke out over the ocean’s horizon, as it used to do in Phthia whose beach faced East. Its light blended with Patroclus completely, overtaking him slowly, and Achilles could no longer stop himself and reached out to Patroclus to hold him. Thrice he tried, and thrice the essence of Patroclus retreated.
Patroclus had one thing to say before he was gone.
“I am waiting.”
Achilles shook himself awake. It was just before dawn, and Patroclus’s body was still in his arms. Before Achilles would have said a god was preserving the body but now Patroclus was stiff, as bodies were hours after death. The smell of rot would follow soon.
Achilles pulled himself away from the corpse to go to the tent flap, knowing what he would find outside. He peered across the beach and at first the scene was empty, but he blinked as a distant wave came in and he saw a glint of gold. Achilles looked to the horizon and knew today would be the day of the funeral.