Chapter Text
International Reducing CO2 Emissions Day. Before the email from his PR team last week, Achilles had never heard of it. Even this morning, braving the freezing cold to walk to his nearest bus stop, his car and the heating system within abandoned to his building’s parking lot, he wonders if they might have made it up. Some kind of elaborate office prank to test the limits of the CEO’s patience.
He prefers to think, though, that if the whole thing had come from the minds of his extremely well-paid PR team, they would have come up with something a little snappier. Or at least something with a workable acronym. IRCED Achilles thinks with distaste, shaking his head.
If you took out the R, it could be ICED. Apt, considering how his nose, the only exposed part of his whole body, feels out here in the brisk January air. Like it might fall off any minute, just snap like an icicle off a roof. His face is so numb that he probably wouldn’t even feel it. He entertains himself briefly with the mental image of walking into the office without a nose. The PR team would probably love it. The media release almost writes itself.
Phthia CEO selflessly gives up his own nose to promote more sustainable lifestyles
Not to mention the looming torment of a night without running the heating in his apartment. At least, thanks to work, health, and safety standards, he can expect a small respite in the office building. Although International CO2 Emissions Day seems a dangerously ambiguous message to send out into the world, given the climate crisis and all.
Lurching and graceless, the bus arrives, generously saving him from a nose-less future.
The guy Achilles sits next to looks to be asleep, face tucked so far down into his jacket that the only visible part of him is the dark flop of curls tumbling out from the edges of his beanie. It’s the breathing that gives his unconsciousness away: slow and even, heavy.
Achilles isn’t bothered at first. In fact, he’s quite grateful to have avoided the dread small talk element that comes with braving public transport. But with the first stop that the bus passes by after picking him up, he registers the thought set to torment him for the next several minutes. Sleeping men can’t tell when it’s time to get off the bus.
It’s at that moment, in the midst of Achilles’ crisis of indecision over whether to wake the man next to him or trust that he has some kind of system in place for himself, that it happens. The bus turns. With a little too much verve, it seems, since it sends the sleeping man swaying away from his lean against the window to press against Achilles’ side.
Achilles freezes, looking down with wide eyes. The change in position has liberated the man’s face from the prison of his jacket, leaving every inch of it free for Achilles to look at. Every achingly beautiful and impossibly angelic inch.
The face resting on Achilles’ shoulder looks like that of a Greek statue, carved to perfection. But no Greek statue could ever capture the undeniable sweetness of this man. No pale marble could hope to hold his warmth.
Just like that, all of Achilles’ options fly out the window. Thoughts of waking the man from his sleep, or pushing him back to lean against the window once more, drop dead in Achilles’ brain, falling limp from the sky like frozen birds. There could be no greater sin in this world than waking this gorgeous creature that, in some unbelievably gracious act, one that Achilles can never hope to deserve, has chosen him to rest upon.
The warmth seeping across his side from where his body presses against the sleeping man’s, the tickling brush of soft curls on the underside of Achilles’ jaw. These are things that he will not let go of by choice.
It’s fortunate then, for the sleeping man, that he has an actual system in place to wake himself up in time for his stop. Achilles flinches when the phone alarm blares, having exactly half a second to realise how creepy he’s been for the last… however long it’s been. Hopefully, he hasn’t missed his own stop.
Then the man is jerking awake, separating from Achilles and switching the alarm off in one hasty movement.
Achilles sits stiffly, awkwardly, cheeks flushing as he waits for the reprimand, the reproach. But the man seems perfectly at ease, relaxing back against the window to watch the streets pass by. Two stops later, with the barest of cursory glances and a half smile of thanks when Achilles gets up to let him past, he gets off the bus.
The next day, Achilles’ feet carry him away from the building parking lot and through the streets to the nearest bus stop again. He stands, gloved hands shoved deep into his pockets and waits.
Except today is not International Reducing CO2 Emissions Day, which, gladly, did turn out to be a real thing. He is also no longer contemplating the grim reality of losing his nose.
Today, he is thinking only of a peaceful, angelic face and warm pressure against his side. He is also balancing these thoughts against the undeniable creepiness of catching a bus just for a chance to snuggle with a stranger while they’re in a state of unconsciousness.
It’s only as the bus is arriving that it occurs to him to worry that the sleeping man might not be on it today. That he might only take that route weekly, and Achilles will have to pass an entire week before getting a chance to sit next to him again. Or worse, that he’d only caught that bus as a one-off. Possibly for International Reducing CO2 Emissions Day, in which case Achilles would have to wait a whole year.
He steps onto the bus just as this last thought occurs to him and is thankfully spared the agony of dwelling on the fact that he is apparently willing to suffer an entire year on the bus for the chance to see this stranger again. Because there he is. Same seat, same jacket, same curls peeking through warm layers, same even breaths.
Achilles has to suppress a very real urge to skip down the aisle to take the seat next to the sleeping man. He waits eagerly for the sharp turn and the blissful minutes it promises to help him steal.
The sleeping man is on the bus every single morning. And, for the next several days, so is Achilles. Well, weekdays, at least. Some line in Achilles’ head has been drawn to say that extending his new habit into the weekend would be a step too far. Something about turning right back around to go home after he’s had his morning rendezvous with a man that doesn’t know he exists, or that they have a morning rendezvous, sits a little too much on the stalkerish side.
He can’t be sure why he does it. Maybe a need for physical contact that he’d never been aware of until now. Aside from shaking hands with colleagues and the occasional cool pat on the back from his parents, Achilles doesn’t get much of that in his day-to-day. A normal person might take that as a sign to start dating. Apparently, Achilles prefers to lurk around unconscious strangers on the bus. You learn something new about yourself every day.
So far, to Achilles’ ongoing relief, the man hasn’t caught on. His alarm seems to jolt him awake so suddenly that he manages to jerk away from Achilles before waking enough to register that he’s touching another person. Whether he’s noticed yet that he’s regularly waking up to the exact same person sitting next to him and finds it strange remains unknown.
Achilles tends to spend most of the precious moments of the man’s sleep staring in silent awe. Sometimes he contemplates what it might be like to wake the man up and allow himself the unmitigated privilege of learning his voice, hearing his name, his story, his interests. He imagines wooing the man between bus stops, eventually taking him out on dates, one day getting to hold him while he sleeps in a real bed.
But something always holds him back. It’s obvious that there must be very real reasons for the man to always be so tired. It takes a certain level of exhaustion to be willing to sleep on a bus surrounded by strangers, and the heavy bags that rest under the man’s eyes speak of it strongly.
Stealing these seemingly rare moments of rest from the man feels too selfish an act.
Except that today, the bus is running ahead of schedule, and, by extension, ahead of the stranger’s alarm. And if Achilles doesn’t do something, he’s going to miss his stop.
It feels blasphemous, raising his hand to the man’s shoulder, akin to what one might expect to feel when preparing to reject a divine gift. Taking a last glance over that gorgeous face, held in a place of calm and relaxation by sleep, Achilles thinks that feeling is fitting. Drawing the strength to follow through from the stranger’s warmth, Achilles forces his fingers to press down against the padding of the man’s jacket. He holds his breath.
A quiet hum that travels from the man’s jaw and throat right into Achilles’ chest. Long lashes that flutter lazily against dark cheeks. The stranger shifts a little, one hand coming up to grip at Achilles’ jacket as he nuzzles into it.
And if Achilles could freeze time right then and there, he probably would. He would live in this moment, with this sleepy angel of a man pressed against him forever and be hopelessly, pathetically grateful for it. But he can’t freeze time, and the bus is drawing closer to the man’s stop.
Part of him wants to trace fingers across the man’s face, slow and careful, learning every part of it and sending a gentle invitation to consciousness. With no small amount of concern for his own less-than-socially-acceptable urges, he smothers that part of himself in favour of squeezing the man’s shoulder again, giving a gentle shake this time.
“Hey,” he says, in a soft voice he’s never heard himself use before, but can’t be surprised by. That voice belongs here, he knows intrinsically. It belongs to this man. “Sorry to wake you. I think your stop’s coming up.”
Nothing, not three weeks sitting next to this guy on a bus, not three years, or even three millennia, could prepare Achilles for the impossible, heart-stopping beauty of the dark, sleepy eyes that blink slowly up at him. All at once, his world narrows down into soft, welcoming brown. A feeling of coming home washes over him, so real he thinks he could touch it, sink into it.
It’s not until those eyes widen and draw away from him that he realises he had actually been sinking down, his face tilting closer and closer as if drawn by a new gravity, crowding into the man’s space. Achilles silently curses himself, desperately trying to think how long he might’ve been staring before the man pulled away. Definitely too long. So much for not presenting as creepy.
The man stares at Achilles, all traces of sleep gone from his face now, eyes wide, horrified. Achilles is struck dumb by those eyes, finding himself incapable of anything more than impotent panic caught beneath them. Helplessly, he stares back, marvelling at how the most impossibly perfect face in the entire world has somehow managed to make itself even more so.
Say something, he pleads with himself silently. Explain. Apologise. Anything.
“I’m so sorry.”
For one desperate, grateful moment, Achilles almost believes that the words had come from him, that some surviving, rational part of his brain had fought to the surface to produce them. But that voice, low and comforting like crackling flame, but at the same time smooth, almost seeming to melt into the space between them. Whatever tenuous grasp on coherent thought Achilles had, until that moment, held dissolves into a thousand grains of dust and scatters to the wind.
How much time has he spent these weeks on this bus, in his office, in his bed, imagining this man’s eyes, his voice. Every possible colour, a hundred different accents and pitches. But this, everything about it, the individual elements and how they work together, is so much more. Perfect. Right.
And then, as if trying to undo Achilles completely, a dark, almost indistinguishable blush steals up into the man’s cheeks.
“I’m usually really good about sticking to the window. God, how long was I like that? I’m so freaking sorry.”
Caught in the current of that voice, it takes longer than it should for Achilles to realise the man is, somehow, incomprehensibly, apologising to him.
“Hey, no, no, no, it’s okay, really,” Achilles rushes to assure the man.
“No, it’s really not.” The man presses a hand over his face, shaking his head with a groan. “How is it humanly possible for someone to be this much of a goddamn mess?”
Achilles’ fingers flex in his lap, aching to reach for the man’s wrist and pull his hand away, possibly draw him into a hug. Unfortunately, he can’t do any of that.
Fully aware that he’s about to detonate any chances he might have with this man, but equally conscious that he would have to be the biggest asshole in the world to let him shoulder the blame for this interaction, Achilles forces himself to confess.
“Who’s the bigger mess? The guy that falls asleep on the bus or the one that lets that guy sleep on his shoulder because he thinks he’s cute?”
Cute is an understatement to an almost comical degree. But, somehow, Achilles doesn’t think the adjectives gorgeous, divine, exquisite, or breathtaking will do him any favours here.
The man lets his hand drop from his face, lips parting slightly in shock.
“You-“ he blinks at Achilles, seeming thankfully more stunned than angry. For now, at least.
The bus stops, both of them tipping forward slightly with the abrupt loss of motion. Achilles stands up out of his seat to let the man out.
“This is your stop, right?”
The man snaps into action, grabbing his bag and pushing out of the seat and into the aisle. He pauses briefly when he steps up next to Achilles, giving him a look somewhere between hassled and quizzical. Achilles feels a pang of sympathy. This interaction has been chaotic enough for him fully awake. He imagines that to this poor man, who two minutes ago had been fully unconscious, the whole thing must feel like some kind of fever dream.
“How did you-“ The man breaks off mid-question with a shake of his head, abruptly turning and hurrying off the bus.
Unlike previous days, when he’d gotten straight off and started walking rapidly to whatever destination had him out of bed and in the city every morning, he stops on the path, watching as the bus continues its journey down the street. Long after those dark eyes disappear from sight and all throughout the day, Achilles can still see them on the back of his lids.
Perfectly normal and acceptable reasons for catching the bus: saving money, reducing traffic congestion, and shrinking your carbon footprint. Achilles recites this list to himself as he steps up onto the bus the next morning, hoping that in doing so now, he will be better able to avoid spilling alarming truths in ten seconds’ time.
Confirming both his fears and his hopes, warm, soulful eyes meet his when he steps into the aisle. Terrifyingly, they seem just as capable of turning every thought in his head to incomprehensible mush as they had yesterday. Achilles sucks in a bolstering breath as he moves towards them.
He pauses at the empty seat next to the man. “Do you mind?”
The question comes out as a kind of dry rasp. Because, in what can only be either a divine blessing or punishment, the man is only wearing a black undershirt on his top half. This means a whole lot of toned muscle and dark, gorgeous skin on display that has spent every other day hidden beneath soft, squishy layers.
Fuck me, Achilles thinks. And means it.
“Please.” The man smiles, wide and full-faced and heart-stopping. It’s dangerous, that smile, addictive. “I was hoping to see you on here again today.”
Probably so he can call you out for being a creep, the last bastion of rational thought in Achilles’ brain tries to tell every other part as they all light up like party sparklers.
“I catch the bus to shrink my carbon footprint,” Achilles blurts as he sits down, immediately considering biting off his own tongue. The list was supposed to make him sound less crazy, not more.
The man glances up from where he’s stooped down to shuffle through the bag between his feet.
“Aren’t you cold?” Achilles asks quickly, before the man is forced to come up with a response to that.
“That was kind of the idea, actually,” the man answers, returning his attention to the bag. He pulls out a travel mug and a plastic container, handing both to Achilles. “Wanted to stay awake so I could give you these.”
Achilles stares down at the offerings.
“Apology coffee and thank you red velvet cookie,” the man supplies. “I guessed your order. I have kind of a knack, being a barista and all. But let me know if I got it wrong, and I’ll bring you something different tomorrow.”
“You didn’t have-“
“I wanted to.”
The man smiles, his entire face lighting with the warmth of it, and Achilles’ brain stops working altogether.
The smile wavers.
“Unless… You don’t like coffee?”
“No,” Achilles hastens to assure the man, marshalling his goo brain to the task. “I love coffee. Thank you.”
To illustrate his point, he brings the travel mug to his lips, taking a long sip. Hot, life-giving liquid rolls down his throat, carrying with it the underlying taste of cinnamon and honey and dragging a very real moan out of him. Achilles is pleasantly surprised to realise that he doesn’t need to fake his enthusiasm for the beverage, savouring the taste as he takes another sip.
“Expect to see me at your coffee shop every damn morning,” he says.
“No need.” The man’s eyes glimmer. “I’m happy to provide this caffeine on wheels service for the foreseeable.”
Achilles brings the travel mug to his mouth again. “You’re a god.”
“No,” the man laughs, the single most perfect sound Achilles has ever heard. “Just Patroclus.”
“Patroclus,” Achilles says, letting the name roll across his tongue and finding it ambrosial, even better than the coffee he’s been given. “I’m Achilles.”
Patroclus is a barista. He’s also a baker, a personal trainer, and, on Fridays and Saturdays, a bouncer.
The bags under his eyes are permanent fixtures, and, living two hours away from any of these jobs, he spends more time on public transport per day than most would in a week.
He loves dogs and dreams of one day having the time and space to look after one. When he was eleven, he taught himself to whittle and sliced his hand open so badly he needed stitches, but had been most upset about the stain his blood left on the wooden heart he’d carved for his mother. He has a secret love of Hallmark movies.
All of this, Achilles learns on mornings spent selfishly collecting Patroclus’ yawns and hoarding all the words that come between them for himself. With every lurching stop and start of that bus, he feels himself falling a little deeper.
But it’s not until the first morning he shows up at Patroclus’ house with a town car and driver and firm intentions of never setting foot on public transport ever again that the gravity of Patroclus takes him over completely. It’s that smile. That warm, beautiful smile that looks like home and feels like every glory the world has to offer beneath Achilles’ lips.
Perfect and shining. That is the way Achilles will always remember the moment he learned the most important thing about Patroclus. He is everything. And Achilles will give everything, do everything, be everything, if only to see that smile again.
Including, apparently, meeting Patroclus’ mother.
“I said to pick your favourite,” Patroclus huffs, fondness playing at the corners of his mouth as he eyes the multiple bags from Barnes & Noble perched on the seat across from them.
Achilles shifts nervously, fingers flexing with the anxious urge to go through each of the bags again to reassure himself that their contents haven’t disappeared, or all transformed into 23 copies of the same book since he last checked.
“What if she doesn’t like my favourite?”
Patroclus snorts. “What if the floor collapses beneath the weight of all these books and she drops down into the centre of the earth, never to be seen again?”
Achilles gives his boyfriend a flat look, struggling to hold it when Patroclus takes his hand with a light squeeze and failing altogether when he kisses his cheek.
“She’s going to love you,” Patroclus murmurs, voice barely rising over the low hum of the car. His lips quirk, a teasing spark dancing through dark eyes. “Just like someone else I know.”
Achilles arches a brow. “Someone else, hmm?”
“You know who I’m talking about,” Patroclus insists. “Constant bedhead, caffeine problem, spends every spare second ogling your ass.”
With reverent fingers, Achilles tugs lightly at the rogue curl that always sticks out from the left side of Patroclus’ head and leans forward, brushing lips over the shell of his lover’s ear in a light kiss.
“I think I know the one,” he says. “Eyes so warm you wish you could melt into them and stay forever, and a kinder heart than the world deserves?”
“Nah.” Patroclus grins. “Must be thinking of different people.”
The car stops, the quiet hum of the engine cutting out.
“Come on,” Patroclus says, unbuckling his seatbelt.
He’s excited. Because he loves his mother. And because it’s hard for him to get time off work to visit her.
Achilles has spoken at international conferences, dominated high-powered boardrooms, and played for audiences of thousands. All this he’s done, and never has he known stakes like this or the wracking nerves that accompany them.
Until now, success has always been a foregone conclusion. Part of every day. Wake up. Brush teeth. Claim victory. On and on and on, as simple as that.
But today, for the first time in his life, Achilles has a reason to fear failure.
He reaches for the bags, only for Patroclus to catch his wrist.
“Pick one. Only one.”
Mournfully, Achilles pulls the only book he’d selected from his own shelf that morning from the nearest bag. The worn copy of The Neverending Story feels small and inadequate in his hands as he follows Patroclus out of the car.
He’s not sure what he’d been expecting of the care facility, but the brightness takes him by surprise. Sun that Achilles has never seen exist anywhere else in the city at this time of year flows in through big windows and refracts off the cheerful smiles worn by the staff.
The rec room is big and humming with quiet chatter when they enter, the scent of chocolate chip cookies welcoming them as they step through the door. Achilles doesn’t need Patroclus’ subtle nod to identify Philomela. Who else could she be, that woman in the corner by the window with wide dark eyes and kindness set into every gentle feature of her face?
She watches as they approach, a soft, absent sort of smile playing across her lips for her son. The eyes that had at first reminded Achilles so much of Patroclus’ reveal their difference now in the fuzzy distance that sits over them, holding them separate from the world.
Achilles stands awkwardly as Patroclus pulls his mother into a hug, noting the careful way he holds her, as though she might shatter beneath a careless touch. Quiet words pass between them, and those faraway eyes find Achilles, something like curiosity stirring in their depths.
Patroclus turns, holding out a hand, and Achilles steps forward to take it, grounding himself in the contact.
“Hello,” he says, throat dry. Patroclus squeezes his hand. “I’m Achilles. I love your son.” His eyes widen at his own words, the lunacy of them in this situation, but also their rightness. He thinks that if he had a choice, he would introduce himself in the context of his feelings for Patroclus for the rest of his life. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
Patroclus huffs lightly at Achilles’ side, amused. But, for once, Achilles isn’t looking at his lover, watching for Philomela’s response with bated breath as her eyes wander over him in a drifting, unhurried sort of way that leaves him feeling exposed. Like every part of himself that he has ever held secret has been found and laid out for this woman’s examination.
She reaches for his hand. The one not clasped in Patroclus’ and pulls it towards herself, gently removing the book from his grasp and placing it on a side table.
“I thought Achilles could take a turn reading to you today,” Patroclus tells her. “He brought his favourite.”
“My, uh,” Achilles hesitates as Philomela turns his hand over, mapping the shapes of his fingers with her own, “my nanny used to read it to me.”
Maintaining her grip on Achilles’ hand, Philomela stands, leading him away from the window and deeper into the room. Achilles casts a nervous glance over his shoulder towards Patroclus, searching for support and receiving only a shrug and a mouthed, “Just go with it.”
A piano sits in the centre of the room, a fine layer of dust settled over its glossy surface and sheet music forming a haphazard pile on the small side table next to it. This is where Philomela leads him, placing a hand on his shoulder to guide him to sit.
The tight knot of anxiety unfurls a little in Achilles’ chest as his body shifts automatically into a posture that comes as easily to him as breathing. This he can do.
Ignoring the music on the stand, some marked-up preliminary version of Moonlight Sonata, he plays from memory, a cheerful, trickling piece reminiscent of Spring that he’d learned backwards and forwards for his last exam almost ten years ago. The music rings out clear and confident from beneath his fingers, filling the room.
A sharp breath from beside him draws his arttention. Philomela stands at his side as close as she can manage without touching him, eyes fixed hungrily upon the dancing keys. Behind her, Patroclus watches with that soft, warm smile that Achilles has sworn his life to.
People drift around them as the afternoon passes, bringing requests and smiling faces. Philomela keeps watching with that same rapt expression as though wishing to absorb the music inside of herself and hold it forever. But it’s Patroclus that Achilles plays for as the afternoon light shifts across the room, lengthening the shadows, and more and more people trickle away, visiting hours coming to a close. For that smile and the rare glimpse of peace that Achilles catches sitting beneath it.
“Thank you,” Patroclus says as they walk out of reception. “You have no idea what that meant to me.”
Heart burning in his chest with the power of a small sun, Achilles drops an arm over Patroclus’ shoulders, pulling his lover against his side.
“You have no idea what you mean to me, Patroclus. I would do anything for you.”
He relishes the feel of lips pulled tight in a smile against his skin as Patroclus tucks his face into his neck.
“Sap,” he says, the word coming out somewhat muffled.
“Proud to be,” Achilles retorts, smoothing a hand over Patroclus’ curls.
It’s almost a crime when Automedon pulls up in the town car in front of them, and they have to separate to climb in.
“So you think she liked me?” Achilles asks, entirely unashamed of the naked desperation showing through in his voice.
Patroclus kisses his cheek. “She loved you,” he promises. “Just like I said she would.”
Achilles beams, using the excuse of a corner to shift closer across the seat to Patroclus, pressing their sides together.
“It’s a great facility,” he remarks. “Good atmosphere, kind people.”
Patroclus hums, gazing out the window.
Achilles hesitates over his next question a little too long to pull off the casual air he’s hoping for. “Is it expensive?”
This earns him Patroclus’ full attention, the skin between his brows furrowing slightly as the walls that Achilles is growing increasingly familiar with come up.
“I guess. Manageable though.”
“Maybe,” Achilles hesitates, fortifying himself against the rejection painted clear across Patroclus’ face. “Maybe that’s something I could help with.”
“Or maybe,” Patroclus says, “that’s something you don’t have to worry about. You do more than enough for me already, Achilles.”
Achilles slumps back in the seat. “I don’t see how that can be true. You hardly let me do anything for you.”
Lips twitching at the corners, Patroclus shakes his head. “We are literally sitting in the town car you gave me and being driven by the full-time chauffeur you assigned to take me wherever I want to go, whenever I want to go.”
“The bare minimum,” Achilles complains. “Please, just let me do something. Rent, credit card, I’d even take a phone bill at this point.”
Patroclus’ eyes take on a playful edge, smile now stretching full across his face, an unfair distraction.
“You want to do something for me?” he asks.
Achilles nods. “Anything. Please.”
Patroclus taps a finger to his mouth. “Kiss?”
It’s a no-good, dirty tactic. And Achilles falls right into it.