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The first time Patroclus hears poetry, it flows like rivers from Achilles’ mouth.
It is not that he hasn’t heard poetry before — he’s listened to orators, heard tales woven by storytellers who entertain the masses at gatherings — but poetry is a lifeless thing until he hears it from Achilles. Suddenly it is no longer just words but a thing that breathes, gasps, sucking the air out of their shared room. Patroclus is helpless to do anything but feed it with a heaving chest.
Achilles pays no attention to his sudden bewitchment. He is hunched over a clay tablet at the table, curls spilling over his face, his lips forming around the words. “... Everyone hates him, you see. Take care, take care, / Or even now he’ll be weaving new snares for your heart.”
Patroclus clears his throat, letting his presence be known. Achilles lifts his eyes slowly, not the least surprised to see his companion there. Shifting the clay tablet to the center of the table, he gestures to the seat beside him.
Achilles rests his chin on his palm, smiling lazily. “Come, read with me. I get bored practicing on my own.”
Involuntarily Patroclus stiffens, eying the tablet. It’s safer than looking at Achilles, who can read Patroclus far too well for his comfort. “I cannot.”
“You have something else to be doing, then?” The petulant tone hides a secret message only for Patroclus — What is more important than spending time with me?
“No,” Patrcolus admits, lifting his eyes and stubbornly refusing to look away as he adds, “I cannot read.”
“You don’t know how to read?” Achilles asks, fixing Patroclus with that collected look that reveals nothing. No judgment or derision, not so obviously. Never from him , Patroclus thinks. It gives him the courage to continue speaking.
“I had barely started schooling before being exiled here, and my father never saw the point in prioritizing skills he thought I could not learn.” Distantly he hears his father’s voice enumerating his many failures, the many arts and talents Patroclus had been deemed unworthy of. Unblessed, overlooked by the gods. Achilles frowns deeply, glancing down to the clay tablet then back to Patroclus. He nods to himself, decisive.
“Then I’ll teach you. Come on,” Achilles says again, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, and who is Patroclus to deny him this?
They sit side by side, knees knocking together as they crowd the tablet. The symbols run in neat lines that Achilles smears away with wet fingers, smoothing out the surface until it is clear. He picks up a stylus and begins carving out icon after icon, clearly enunciating each sound and encouraging Patroclus to recite back to him, until their voices blend together into an unending echo.
~*~*~*~
This becomes their routine - every evening before they sleep Achilles drills Patroclus on the intricacies of the writing system, quizzing him until Patroclus dreams in symbols instead of pictures. Sometimes Achilles will write a short line of a few words or sounds, praising Patroclus every time he successfully reads it. Such praise alights a craving in him for more, more, more —
Then Achilles presents Patroclus with more than just a handful of symbols. Patroclus stares down at the lines etched in the clay tablet, row upon row, and his brow furrows in confusion. There’s many words here he hasn’t learned yet. Achilles smiles knowingly.
“Don’t look so put-out, Patroclus,” he soothes. “I thought this would be far more informational than spelling practice.”
“What is this?” Patroclus asks, narrowing his eyes. He tries to read the first line, but can only catch every other word. Hope. Pray… Praying? That’s the sun, then —
“Beyond all hope, I prayed those timeless / days we spent might be made twice as long.” Achilles’ voice drifts over them as he traces his finger lightly across the lines, careful not to smudge the symbols. Patroclus watches Achilles’ face instead of his hands. He’s aglow in the last of the sunlight, the shadows catching his profile to perfectly highlight the planes of his face, like chiseled marble. Patroclus looks away quickly when Achilles almost catches his stare. These moments happen more often as their days pass together.
“It’s beautiful,” Patroclus murmurs.
“It is, isn’t it?” Achilles says, sounding delighted at Patroclus’s agreement. “There are some stories that sound better in poetry. Listen —”
And then he’s off reading another, and Patroclus acts the proper student this time and follows along. At Achilles’ prompting he attempts to read a verse himself, stumbling over his own tongue. Achilles whispers each unknown word in his ear. This does nothing to help with Patroclus’s ability to form words, but he would never dare tell Achilles to stop. They go back and forth like this, trading lines and verses with each other, like a conversation.
“Someone, I tell you, will…” Patroclus trails off.
“Remember,” Achilles prompts softly, resting his chin on Patroclus’s shoulder.
Patroclus nods, trying the line again. “Someone, I tell you, will remember us, / even in another time.”
“I hope so.” Achilles sighs. “One could only hope to reach such immortality.”
Patroclus thinks this is strange coming from him, a demi-god, the golden child, the one to be beloved and revered by all… but he tilts his head and catches Achilles staring at him , for once, eyes dark in the fading light. Achilles lingers for a moment before pulling away, leaning back in his chair as if nothing had even happened.
That night Patroclus dreams of Achilles’ name and his, etched side-by-side, on a weathered tablet. Everlasting. Their legacy. He’s forgotten their epic by time he wakes.
~*~*~*~
Within their first few months on Pelion, Chiron gifts them each some rolls of papyrus and a quill.
“Achilles told me you were learning to read,” Chiron says by way of explanation. “A good skill to have, and it was not hard to haggle with a merchant for them.”
As with everything, Chiron is a patient teacher as he shows them how to mix ink for the quill. He burns down wood into a charcoal he then grinds down, mixing with water and tree gum until it is the consistency of oil. He demonstrates how the ink clings to the end of the quill until it is deposited on the papyrus. Achilles watches as Patroclus hesitantly scribbles down what he remembers from months past, broken words and miscellaneous characters in a small corner of the scroll. Patroclus is not eager to waste the papyrus, but Achilles applauds what he manages to recall, encouraging him to add a few extra words to show off.
That evening Patroclus hunches over the scroll as Achilles plays his mother’s lyre, the melody hauntingly melancholic. The quill scratches a steady rhythm beneath it. Patroclus waits until Achilles finishes the tune before asking, “How was that word written? ‘Remember’?”
Achilles sets aside the lyre, coming over to glance down at the scroll. His eyebrows shoot up once he deciphers the words, delight dancing in his eyes. “Are these the poems we practiced?”
“I don’t want to forget them,” Patroclus admits, heat racing across his cheeks.
“You should try writing your own,” Achilles says even as he leans over, plucking the quill from his hand and writing the requested word on the scroll. “It’s a waste to only repeat the words of others.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” Patroclus admits.
“Ah, you need a muse — someone to alight your heart so you have no choice but to sing their praises,” Achilles teases. “I feel confident you’ll find that thing that inspires you.”
Patroclus watches Achilles’ back as he walks back to the lyre, watches his long fingers pluck out another melody. Limber legs stretching down to strong feet, the sun-kissed sheen of his skin. Golden curls, such an overused phrase, but they are bright and rich as he is —
Patroclus stares at Achilles, blank scroll useless in hand, until the embers of the fire burn too low for him to see anything.
~*~*~*~
“What are you writing?”
Patroclus jumps, smearing the ink across the papyrus scroll. It is early in Lycomedes’ palace, and Achilles has come to fetch him for spear training. It does things to his chest every time he sees Achilles in his disguise, softened by the dress and make up and oiled curls. The visage is only enhanced by the playful look on Achilles’ face as he looks at the scroll laid out before Patroclus.
Patroclus curses himself for losing sight of the sun’s passing as he tries to shuffle the scroll out of sight.
“Is that the one Chiron gifted you?” Achilles asks, approaching unbidden. “I lost all of mine when I came here. Let me see.”
“Wait, don’t —”
Patroclus could never hope to move faster than Achilles. He snatches the scroll and dances away with it, holding it well out of Patroclus’s reach. He tilts his face up to it, squinting at the chicken-scratch lines with a bemused smile. The smile slips slightly as his brain catches up with what his eyes see. Patroclus grips his hands in tight fists to hide his trembling.
“Give it back, Achilles,” he murmurs. “Please.”
Achilles slowly lowers the scroll, holding it more delicately. “Who wrote this?”
“Me.”
“Your words?”
“You told me I should try writing my own.” Patroclus tilts his chin up. He will not let Achilles’ teasing weather him, even if his heart beats faster with the admission. Achilles stares down at the scroll in his hands, face unreadable, lips parted until —
“Shall I call it a blessing or a curse? Aphrodite / has sent me visions of us, of you, / of your hair, mouth, spirit, everything / and I am unmade by your glory.”
It’s terrifying to hear his own fumbling words spoken back to him, but Patroclus bears it for the gift of Achilles’ voice. It has always been perfectly articulate, yet somehow it’s obtained a shakiness Patroclus has never heard. When Achilles finishes he sighs out, breathless. Slowly, painfully slowly, Achilles rolls the scroll up and holds it out to Patroclus. His cheeks are redder than the blush decorating them. Patroclus accepts it back, certain his face is equally flushed.
“I would like to hear the rest one day,” Achilles says as he hands back the scroll. I’d like to hear them from you, in your voice, with your words.
Patroclus nods. “One day,” he promises, clutching the scroll to his chest, the second most precious thing he has.
~*~*~*~
In their tent on the edges of Troy, Patroclus cards his fingers through Achilles’ hair and whispers soft words to him. It is a pale imitation of old habits, of huddling together in their room and letting the sound of the ocean and each other send them to sleep. Patroclus knows his voice is far rougher than the sea, far rougher than it was as a child, but Achilles leans back into his arms as if basking in the shallows.
“Tell me another one,” Achilles demands quietly, eyes shut. Patroclus runs a thumb over the lines in his forehead.
“They aren’t any good. I don’t know why you continue to insist on listening.”
“I enjoy them. Does anything else matter?” Achilles asks, and Patroclus cannot bring himself to argue. They have so few pleasures these days. He digs in his memory through the years, to an old papyrus scroll long since lost in the journey to these shores.
Patroclus shuts his own eyes, focusing on the old words behind his eyelids. “He who holds the sun in his hands / burns bright, yet it consumes him / for trying to hold such beautiful things.”
“...Is there more?”
“I never wrote more. That one was unfinished.”
Achilles makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, pressing his lips to Patroclus’s neck before lifting himself. His calluses rub against Patroclus’s cheeks as he grips his face, pressing their foreheads together. Patroclus opens his eyes, surprised to find Achilles gazing upon him with a gentleness he hasn’t seen in years. It makes him look younger, less war-worn. He looks like the boy Patroclus fell in love with, his truest self.
“You,” he breathes into the space between them, “are allowed beautiful things. When this war is over I will drown you in them.”
“You cannot make that promise.” Patroclus tries and fails to sound disaffected. He is overwhelmed and he is distant; he is here in the moment and he is far, far away. The lingering threat of Achilles’ prophecy — if you go to Troy, you will not return — hangs between them, venomous.
Achilles strokes his cheek with his thumb. As if reading his thoughts, he whispers, “You should write my eulogy. Mother would be furious, but you are the only one I would entrust it to.”
“If I am in a position to do so,” Patroclus shuts his eyes again, unwilling to look at Achilles as they speak of such morose topics. “Who’s to say you die before me? I am only mortal, what if — ”
“Stop.” Achilles’ fierceness silences him. “Do not speak like that. I could not bear seeing any harm come to you. Please do not ask me to imagine it.”
Patroclus wants to tear at his hair, fling Achilles from his chest, and run into the night. He wants to yell himself hoarse. Do you see how I feel when you say such things? Do you know how I ache knowing I will leave here without you? The words bubble up, sticking in his throat until he swallows them down. Instead he gathers Achilles in his arms, crushing him to his chest, opening his eyes to stare blankly at the roof of their tent.
They do not speak of death or poetry again. One is too pervasive to be worthy of discussion. The other has no place on a battlefield.
~*~*~*~
In the end, there are no eulogies, no sweet words. No iconography that can encapsulate the emotions felt in those final days. There are only bloodied bodies and reckless deeds that tell a story far more astonishing and far more ugly than any clay tablet could hope to document.
~*~*~*~
Their shared house sits in Elysium, assembled as a labor of love and born from the eternal gift of time. They can carve away at it until it is perfect, the kind of secret place they always wished they could run away to. The first full night they spend in it is full of fumbling and grabbing and laughter between teasing words and warm kisses. They make dinner together for the joy of brushing past each other, domestic in a way they never dreamed they’d be allowed.
There are no wars and no Thetis to steal Achilles away. There are no dismissive fathers and abandoned wives and expectations of greatness. There is only them, Achilles and Patroclus, and the whole of eternity before them.
Before Achilles can extinguish the candles for bed, Patroclus stops him with a kiss to his hands. “Lie in bed, love. I have something I’ve needed to give you.”
“A gift?” Achilles asks softly, a little teasing smile on his lips. “You didn’t need to. Getting into bed with me is as good as any material good, I promise.”
Patroclus rolls his eyes fondly as he digs through his clothes trunk in the corner. Once he finds what he’s looking for he hesitates to turn around. He almost feels Achilles’ gaze boring holes into his back, heated and endlessly patient as Patroclus steadies his resolve. Patroclus pulls in a deep, steadying breath, and turns to present the scroll to Achilles.
Achilles is stunned to silence for only a moment. “Is that —?”
“I found it on the shores of the Lethe,” Patroclus says, sitting beside his lover. “I threw the damned thing back in at first, but it just washed ashore again the next day. I don’t know why I kept it. I suppose maybe I hoped… “
He shrugs, holding the scroll out to Achilles. Achilles gently pushes the scroll back to him, curling his hand over Patroclus’s.
“Read them to me?” he asks, begs, eyes bright in the candlelight. He lays down, resting his head in Patroclus’s lap, gazing up at him as if he was the one staring at the sun. There are no words for the depths of his adoration, and it shakes Patroclus to the core.
He keeps the feeling with him as he opens the scroll, draws a deep breath, and begins reading.