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Odysseus was my first and only friend when I was just a boy. My brothers grew tired of me easily, I was too easy to trick, they said. I spent more than one afternoon entangled in a trap they had devised, luring me into its clutches with the promise of a honey cake. They soon learned that there were only so many times they could do this before it grew tiresome, and their cruel interest turned to a nameless gutter boy. Thus I slipped away more and more often, through the alleys that ran parallel to the wide dusty streets of Alalcomenae and up towards the shining walls of the palace and Odysseus. Nobody missed me. Perhaps they did not care enough.
Those sun-filled days alongside the boy prince, I remember those most clearly. He did not mock my naivety, but admired my friendliness. He was equal parts philosophical and boisterous, and our afternoons could be spent yelping in the crashing waves of the coves or dangling out of the apple trees, talking of nothing in particular. Our conversations would sometimes turn to politics and his face would darken, one of the only times I ever saw him angry. That was my adolescence, when I was not out in the bay on my father's fishing boat or haggling prices down with the crotchety old market sellers. All my memories are drenched in light, with one constant.
His face.
Odysseus's face wet with sea spray, tilted to the sky as he cried with laughter. Odysseus's face arranged in a soft smile as he slept beneath the low hanging boughs, a warm glow dappling across his sun-dark skin. Odysseus's face as his dark eyes looked into mine, wild with the promise of adventure. Sometimes I would dream about reaching out to touch his cheek, tracing the pad of my thumb across his chiselled cheekbones. Then I'd blink, and the vision would be gone in an instant, leaving me with a dumbfounded expression on my face and Odysseus throwing me a teasing grin, asking who was on my mind. And always I would shrug and laugh, and the moment would be forgotten in favour of some other conversation.
***
As the seasons changed and changed again, so did we with them. Odysseus grew tall and strong, his face framed by a beard that he did his best to shave. Gone were the days when we could play in our coves without being bothered. Now he was recognised as the Prince Laertides, and treated as such by the people. I was simply the son of a fisherman, there were a thousand boys exactly like me who occupied the streets all over Ithaca. Though he swore we would always be friends, that was the moment I began to feel the great divide between us. Where he would be regaled with hospitality I would be given second looks, people would whisper behind their hands with fierce glances at me. Is this really the company our future king keeps?
One day he came to our meeting spot under the grove of apple trees with a flushed grin on his face, hair uncharacteristically neat. He looked as if he had something to tell me, practically radiating with excitement. I swung myself up into the branches of the tree, patting the branch next to me with an expectant grin. He shook his head, and I noticed something more odd still. He wasn't wearing the usual old tattered robes but cloth woven of the finest threads, delicate designs etched in gold swimming across its surface.
"Polites, you'll never guess what I have just done." The look on his face excited and unnerved me. He didn't wait for an answer before continuing, "I am now engaged to the princess of Sparta, Penelope! And it wasn't easy I had to best her father in a race, and I'm sure I've told you stories of how good a runner King Icarius is... What's wrong?" I had not cared to hide the crestfallen expression on my face until he drew attention to it, and now I flashed him a gritted grin.
"Nothing at all. I'm happy for you, she seems like a good woman. You will make a good pair."
"Thank you." His moon-bright grin brought a genuine smile to my face, but it did nothing to dull the ache in my heart. It was a feeling akin to grief, though I had not lost anything. Odysseus's marriage would not take him away from me, so why was I so sad?
I pondered this question as I lay in the dark that night, moon glittering off the ocean outside my window. Odysseus's face floated in my mind, always smiling, always happy. The face I had known my whole life, I had watched him grow alongside me. And perhaps, somewhere along the way, my feelings for him had grown too great to be platonic. When I thought of him now a shower of butterflies exploded in my chest, drumming at my stomach. My cheeks began to burn. It was wrong to be thinking of him in this way, another man and my best friend. More to the point, he was betrothed. I couldn't love him even though I so desperately wanted to. But he isn't married yet. I pushed the needling voice away, and slept.
Our relationship was never the same after that. It didn't sour, far from it, but there was a noticeable rift between us that I had not felt quite so keenly before. It was not only that he was betrothed, his father was growing old and frail. Now all the duties that were once held by him fell to my friend, which tore him away from our daily meetings more often than I would like. I grieved the loss of our old friendship privately but to his face I was the same as I had always been, bright faced and sparkly eyed. My front of enthusiasm began to wear thin as his wedding approached however, and all he spoke of was his "dearest Penelope." I held no ill will towards the woman, Odysseus painted a picture of a charming and intelligent lady who took no nonsense from any man, and I had warmed to his description immediately. But the constant talk of wedding preparations, gifts and outfits was beginning to bore me, and I expressed that to him as we tossed an apple to and fro under the twisted branches of the orchard.
He laughed and a flush bloomed across my face, "I'm sorry, I forget that nobody wants to hear of my romantic escapades." He feigned sorrow, and I elbowed him playfully.
"That's not what I meant and you know it."
"Even still, I know you must be tired of it. I know!" He leapt to his feet, the apple falling to the ground with a thunk, "What do you say to some festivities tonight? Penelope is busy with preparations for her proaulia tomorrow, so we have all the night to ourselves. I know where the finest spirits are kept in the palace."
I brightened, hopping down from my perch up in the highest branches, "Of course I'll be there." Joy flickered in his gaze like a candle as I turned to go, "Forgive me, I've got to leave now. I wish we could have more time together, but duty calls. Not all of us are so fortunate to be born into royalty you know." I grazed my finger over the tip of his nose, shivering as electric tension crackled under my touch, "Until tonight."
***
The wine was already flowing when I arrived, treading oily rain across the marble floors as I made my way towards him. He greeted me with a friendly tilt of the glass, dark liquid sloshing around inside his chalice, "Come, sit, drink! This may be one of the last nights we have in only each other's company. The wedding fast approaches."
There it was again at the mention of his impending union, the strange twisting in my gut. It was happy and sad, hopeful for his future and yet mourning something I had lost. And yet I couldn't think of anything I could lose. Odysseus would still be a dear companion to me, nothing in the world could stop our meetings in the orchard, our gleeful sunsets on the hidden coves that lay far below us now. But there would never be that chance of something more that I had entertained on lonely nights... Those were fools thoughts. I brushed them away, and drank.
The wine flowed freely as our tongues loosened and the talk unravelled, laughter tangling the thread of wisdom as we drank. At some point we found ourselves beneath a pavilion in the moon-washed gardens, Selene's light dimmed somewhat with the promise of an approaching storm. We fell silent in unison, both of us without any more insightful things to say nor wit to share. I still remember the way he looked at me that moment before I changed both our lives, the cold moonlight reflecting off the pool beneath us and charging his gaze with lightning-like brilliance. And his smile, it quirked up at one side as his goblet dangled lazily from his hand, as if he were daring me somehow. So I accepted.
It was not delicate or beautiful, the way our lips met. Raw emotion surged beneath my skin, all my longing escaping in a great outpouring of physicality. My hand cradled his head as we leaned against a pillar; I was dimly aware of the clanking of his wine on the steps. He was everything in that moment, he was all I could feel, think, love. This was not love, it was lust and greed but it felt so perfect to have him in my grasp at last. His strong, tanned arms wrapped around me, pinning me to the cold stone. We did not stop, we could not stop. All my hunger was finally being satiated by a feast. Cold rain lashed my face and now we were in the grass and he was laughing giddily against my skin, still holding me tight. He was off my face and above me now, leaning up on his elbows to peer into my eyes. I reached up, my movements wine-dull, to take his face in my hand. Those eyes, bright eyes. Laughing eyes, the last I remember of that night.
The rest of the night and the morning was all an alcohol-induced haze. I awoke in the grass with Odysseus still sleeping beside me, lips upturned in a peaceful grin. I was too cowardly to stay and face what I had just done, and it seemed that he did not wish to seek me out. I went to the orchard, clambering into a tree and swinging from its branches with trepidation in my heart. Though I waited far longer than I should have, until the sun was past its peak in the sky, he did not appear. It only confirmed what I had feared all along, he did not want to see me after last night under the pavilion. He would have to see me at his wedding though, and the thought made my stomach twist into knots. With my drunken lapse in judgement I had just lost my dearest friend.
***
He caught my eye as he stepped into the room where Penelope and her family were already waiting. It was the briefest of looks but there was clear turmoil in his gaze. I quickly dropped my gaze but suddenly he was in front of me, pulling me into a side-room and leaning against the door. For one wild moment my heart lurched in my chest and a million fanciful possibilities of what he wanted to do ran through my head. The expression on his face told a different story to the one I'd hoped for though.
"Polites." The few feet between us might as well have been an ocean, "About last night... I'm sorry."
"No, I am." My interruption seemed to startle him, "What I did was... was reckless, and idiotic. I never should have done it, I know that. I'm sorry that I thought we could be something we can never be. And I know you love Penelope, and I'm happy for you now. I just hope we can be friends again. Like we were."
"I hope so too." There was that smile again, one corner of his mouth quirking up, "I'm glad to have your blessing of our marriage Polites. It really means a lot to me."
Suddenly he was gone and I was alone in the room, the door swinging gently on its hinges with cheering and laughter emanating from the other side. I imagined him going to Penelope, planting a tender kiss on her cheek as she smiled. And me, still here in the darkened room, too scared to step into the future. I took a step towards the door, allowing the light from the courtyard to fall across my face. I knew it would hurt, but I couldn't live in a state of stasis forever. I had to change. I had to be hurt. I had to grow.
Odysseus and Penelope both smiled as I walked towards them both, offering my congratulations and blessing. A part of me cried out for the loss of my friend, my first love, but a bigger part saw the way he looked at her as if she were the most special being on the earth. I could see that I had never stood a chance against this goddess of a woman. Odysseus's heart had always belonged to her. I had just had the fortune to steal it for a few precious minutes. But this was where he belonged, and where I belonged.
OOC: How do you end fics lol