I wish to weep with him. I want to hold him as he does my weight. I want nothing more than to feel his warmth upon my fingers. Just once more. That is all I ask.
I sit by him, cold and blue, my spirit hoping to touch what was once mine. I feel nothing but ice as I watch him clasp onto the grey hand that has slipped from the bed, Achilles’ fingers pink with life and blood. My name passes through his lips like an elegy, soft and pleading. I am here. Oh, here I stay. I tell him fruitlessly. I wish he would rest. I wish he would eat.
He grips my hand for hours, the great warrior clinging to my fingers like a babe. Still I sit by him, my fingers never once touching his golden curls. I whisper words of sleep in his ear, praying to Hypnos that he would listen to a phantom’s prayer. I pray that he allow what Apollo has denied. Perhaps in the dark the gods will let me touch him. The light I so loved has forsaken me.
The god comes to Achilles after days of unrest. I wish to scream at him. How dare he wait so long? The god looks at me with horrid white eyes and I am given my answer. Grief. The god’s bony hands hover where Achilles’ and I’s are joined. He speaks. He gives me hope. He gives me all that I had hoped for. I take the skeletal hand offered to me greedily.
Achilles blinks at me, his green eyes red-rimmed with everlasting sorrow. I can touch him here. I can speak.
Achilles, I say and I watch him shiver. Oh, it has been forever. Achilles, I say again. No, there is a greater reason for my words. You sleep and forget me, my love. Achilles’ eyes widen in pain. He dares not move. He fears I will disappear.
I cannot blink in fear that I will wake and you’ll be gone, he tells me with all the sadness in his heart.
It is as it should be. You neglect me now I’m dead, as you never did when I was alive. Hasten my funeral, and let me pass Hades’ Gate.
Patroclus, he denies, Patroclus. His voice is full of apology and want. I want this too. I want to touch him.
The spirits keep me out, I tell him in full honesty. They will not let me join them beyond the river, but leave me wandering in vain this side of the yawning Gate. Clasp my hand, I beg you, for once you’ve given me to the fire, I shall not return. Achilles shakes his head, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Why? Why, when you are finally here, do you ask such things? I have given him to you. I have done my part in this. I wait for the death they promised me, dear heart. Achilles takes an unsure step towards me. I remain still. I will give you anything. I will see to it all, just as you wish. Please, please. His voice begs me, pleading to the god that holds him. Come to me now. Let me hold you. Let me touch you. He reaches his hands out to me as my tears begin to fall.
You foolish boy, I scold tiredly. The only gift I ever wished for will never come to pass. Now I can only pray that our ashes will be as one in an urn of gold. He nods at every word, inching ever closer. He stands before me now, our bodies inches apart. I imagine that it is his breath that I feel upon my cold skin. He reaches for me then. He screams when I vanish, words of love still spilling from my lips.
His screams are worse when he wakes. They are as horrid as the day I died. I hate myself for my greediness. It was just a second, but I felt him again. He touched me.
My Achilles weeps loudly and pulls my corpse from the bed, holding me tightly to his chest. There is an underlying smile throughout his pain—hope. “Something of us survives,” He whispers against gray skin. “In the House of Hades I am able to touch you. Oh, Patroclus. Patroclus.” Achilles looks around the blackened tent, and my shade flickers in the night as I feel his green eyes pass over me. He knows that I am here; that I have always been.
“Wait for me,” he pleads into the night and I press my lips against his own, all knowing that I am not touching him. It does not matter. Soon I will be. Soon we will be together again, as one.