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Patroclus knew what it was like to exist under a constant state of fear. It had been so long and its presence so overwhelming that he couldn’t imagine life without it. All these years on these shores it felt like the red strings of fate were spinning around him, slowly choking him. He had truly believed it wouldn’t be like that. Before they left for Troy and after he had learnt of the prophecy, he had already decided that when Achilles meets his fate, he would follow right after. He believed that having decided that, there would be nothing for him to fear. And yet the dread is bitter in his mouth the fear evident at all times; in the way his hand would shake when he looked at Achilles’s peaceful face at night, in the way his breaths would come short, the air not filling his lungs as if infected whenever he was reminded of the prophecy. He would feel it in the way his hands would be as cold as a corpse’s even if Achilles was kissing him like a starved man. Every day that passes by does not feel real, it feels like stolen time, and the more time they steal, the more death follows. It is a horrible truth, that Achilles’s sole existence brings doom and destruction. It is a truth Patroclus does not want to accept.
“Your thoughts are so loud; I swear I can hear them sometimes.” Achilles murmurs half asleep as he is, his head on Patroclus’s chest.
“Go back to sleep.”
“I can’t, your thoughts are keeping me awake. Will you tell me what troubles you?”
Achilles’s eyes are worried as he lifts his head to look at him. Patroclus unconsciously holds him closer. He doesn’t want to speak it into existence, let it remain in that place full of fear his mind has conjured, the one he’s been living under all this time. It hadn’t always been like that. In the beginning perhaps it was, before they had realized how much time they could steal from the fates, but now it has come back tenfold, and it is choking him alive. He fears if he turns his head, he will see an hourglass filled with sand and there is almost no sand left on the top. They have used it all. There is no time, gods there is no time.
“Patroclus!”
Achilles says and he is snapped out of his spiraling thoughts. Achilles takes both his hands on his and his eyes are betraying his concern. He hadn’t realized his hands had started shaking again. They were shaking like a fish out of water and Patroclus could do nothing but look at them as the muscles spasmed again and again, as he felt them become colder by the second as they usually got.
Achilles was still trying to warm them up, his brows furrowed and expression grave. It has happened before, but most of the time when he feels the tremors coming or his breaths getting shorter, he finds an excuse and goes to be alone. Achilles continues to hold his hands and is now rubbing them together with his own, blowing small puffs of air into them to warm them up, that look of concern never leaving his face.
“This is not the first time this happens.” He says his voice seeming level, but he knows him well enough to hear the hint of fear.
Patroclus does not trust his voice to respond, his breaths have not been cut short again, but he fears to tempt fate by trying to speak. He does anyway.
“It is not something you should worry about.”
Achilles’s sharp gaze pierces him.
“You cannot ask me that. It happens more now, doesn’t it?”
Patroclus does not respond, there is no use denying it. He watches Achilles’s expression fall.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks desperately, and Achilles’s eyes make guilt spring inside him sharp like a blade.
“What could I possibly say?”
“What you are so afraid of for once, what makes your hands shake and your breaths short and snatches away your sleep. Don’t tell me you thought I hadn’t noticed.” He says offence evident in his tone.
Patroclus does not respond; he doesn’t even meet his gaze and Achilles’s eyes widen even more if that is possible before his scoffs, loud and exasperated.
“Gods you actually did think that.” He says eventually. “I let you hide it because I thought that it was what you needed. I thought that you would come to me when you were ready, the same way I seek you for any of my fears or problems.” “But I guess that’s not how you see it;” he says eyes starting to glisten. “You will never trust me with such things the way I trust you with them.” He continues and looks down, his gaze falling to the floor to hide his feelings.
Patroclus can do nothing but look at him and hurt even more.
“When did you find out?” he asks instead like the coward he is.
“About two months ago.” Achilles whispers. When it started then. He knew right away. He looks Achilles in the eyes now that his hands have quit shaking so badly, finally warm.
“I’m sorry”
Achilles’s eyes snap to his. “No don’t apologize.” He says desperately once again his eyes never leaving Patroclus’s face. “I don’t want your apologies; I would rather know what hurts you”
Patroclus feels a stab of anger course through him sharp as lightning and then gone in an instant.
“What do you think it is?” he says as he looks at Achilles, his gaze piercing once more.
Achilles looks away as if burned.
“Is it the war?” he starts his voice rising. “Is it the people you’ve killed?”
“No”
“Then tell me-“
“It’s you!” he shouts and it almost echoes in the tent they’ve lived a third of their lives in.
Achilles looks at him surprise and hurt evident in his gaze, trying to reign the tears in, to keep his voice from breaking.
“I don’t understand” Achilles whispers as Patroclus scoffs in fake amusement.
“It’s you! It’s always been you!” he cries “What will I do when I lose you?” “I’m terrified of the moment the prophecy will come to be. I’ve always been. But now it feels like there truly is no time left.”
Patroclus sees Achilles’s eyes start to glisten, watches as he tries still to keep the tears from falling.
“I’m sorry” he answers finally. “Leaving you to mourn me is my biggest regret from this choice of mine.” He says as he holds Patroclus’s hands, his eyes downcast.
“That’s your only regret?” Patroclus says and wrenches his hand from Achilles’s grip. “Truly? Not the life you’re throwing away!”
“I’m not! Don’t you see? Strangers thousands of years from now will whisper our names and honor us. Both of us! For our skills in battle, for the love we hold for each other. We will never fade away; we will never die. I promise” he says desperately and takes his hands once again in his own, as if to convince him. Patroclus thinks he looks like a child trying to convince their father that they saw a nymph in the woods.
He observes Achilles for what feels like an eternity. He truly does believe what he says. Even now he thinks it is worth it. Or perhaps he has simply convinced himself so. How else could he survive all these years of killing and war and nightmares without believing that he is giving his life for something bigger than his mortal existence.
But Patroclus knows Achilles in ways all those soldiers and kings who gaze at him like a god never could. In the light of day Achilles shines golden, the blood which stains his skin does not reach his soul. It is simply there and then it is washed away. He is a beacon in the battlefield, a god among men with skills so great one would be grateful for a chance to die by his hand. After all, who wouldn’t boast in the underworld among the fields of Elysium or the burning lands of Asphodel that they were sent there by none other than the Aristos Achaion. There is no death more honorable than one in battle, even more so when that death came from Achilles himself.
But all that is only in the light of day. When night arrives, dark and glorious, Achilles is not the best of the Greek anymore. No, under the cover of night, Achilles rests in Patroclus’s arms like a young boy in the throes of love. He plays the lyre while on his lap and his voice feels like velvet and falls like honey from his mouth. In the endless dark Achilles kisses him like a man starved and gazes at him like a priest devoted to their god would. And after the waves of passion have passed and they are both laying raw and vulnerable, their armors having been shed from their skin, it is then that sleep takes them in his gentle embrace. It is then that Achilles wakes up, his tears flowing like the waters his mother was born from, the men he’s killed having come to greet him, the prophecy he’s lived under for a third of his life feeling all too real, all too near. As he takes the golden-haired boy in his arms, it is there that he sees the hopelessness in his eyes, the one he hides under the light of day.
“You don’t believe that Achilles.” He whispers as his tears start to flow.
Achilles comes closer and catches his tears as if it’s a game, the one most children play when they are young; watching the two raindrops race against each other and see which one will be declared the victor. But there are no victors in war.
“One day, you will regret your choice.” He says finally. “I truly hope you won’t, because it would mean that something terrible has happened.”
Achilles looks at him then and he sees something in his eyes he has never seen before. Something that if Patroclus did not know him as intimately as his own soul, perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed. It is fear. It is such a dawning realization, that it hits Patroclus like a spear. But there is no mistaking it, Achilles is afraid and perhaps he has always been.
“We have time” Achilles tries to say but it comes out as no more than a strained whisper.
“It’s been almost ten years. When will it end?” Patroclus whispers in answering and cups Achilles’s face in his own hands, making him look in his eyes, painting him to memory.
Achilles does not respond once more. He does not want to admit it, he is never going to say it out loud Patroclus knows it. Still, he wishes it was otherwise. He wishes he would scream and shout I don’t want to die. He wishes he would let go and cry in Patroclus’s arms for days, until he has bathed him in his tears, until the whole world has heard how alive Achilles really is.
He wishes that afterwards he would take Patroclus’s hands in his own and declare loud and strong that he chooses life, that Hector need not die, that he does not care about the acclaim of strangers in the future. He wishes that they would abandon these shores and go home to Pythia but even as a thought it seems unreachable. They are never going back home. They will die here and not just because of Achilles’s choice. The fates are mothers to us all after all. He feels the echo of their weavings sometimes, their silky threads are spinning around his neck, he can feel them, dancing around his last breath. Take it he wants to say to them. You’ve taken everything else already. You’ll take him from me. You might as well kill me before I suffer the pain of his death.
He looks at Achilles and wills his tears to move back behind the cages of his eyes. He wants to weep for everything they have, everything they’ve lost, all they will lose. He does not blame him even if he should. He cannot. Especially not now, knowing that he will lose him not too long from now. He cannot be angry, not for his choice, or for his pride, or his hubris, not for anything. It all just ends up being swept away under the realization that he will die. How can he rage at him when at every moment he wishes to be swallowed up by his existence, to be buried in his arms so he will never have to suffer his death.
It is not fair. What sort of life would it be without him? Patroclus does not want to imagine it; cannot imagine it. When they were young Achilles glowed like the sun, his skills, his talent, his beauty, everything about him was so radiant that no one could resist admiring him even if from afar. Patroclus loved that light like he has never loved anything in his life. He loved the warmth it brought, loved the reassurance of a future by his side. What else could he ever want? Then the war came and the prophecy and suddenly Achilles’s warmth became sweltering. He wasn’t the sun anymore; he was an inferno that burned everything in its path. When had the change happened? He doesn’t remember. The only thing he knows is that somewhere along those ten years in the shores where gods and mortals meet under the chains of prophecies, Achilles’s love started to hurt. And what a tragedy that despite being burnt he could never pull away. What a heartbreak it is to love something destined to destroy you, to get swept up by the allure of the light like a moth to a flame before letting those flames swallow you whole.
“Oh Achilles, Achilles.” He cries and his tears fall as he weeps, he cannot keep them inside anymore, he cannot, he cannot.
He distantly hears sniffing amidst his own crying, but he is too far-gone in his anguish to care about anything outside his own suffering.
“You weep for me as if I am dead.” He hears Achilles’s voice broken and trembling. He feels him pulling Patroclus’s hands from his own face, that he had used as if to hide himself and then takes them again in his own. “Do not mourn me Patroclus. I’m not dead!” he says, his voice louder but still broken, soft too, as it usually is when taking to his lover.
Patroclus looks at him then and immediately regrets it when Achilles’s own teary face greets him, his green eyes dull and vulnerable.
“And when you are? What will I do then?’ he whispers.
Achilles grips his hands tighter, looks in his eyes with his piercing gaze.
“You will go back to Pythia. You wil- look at me.” he demands when Patroclus goes to slip away from his grasp and gaze. “You will raise my son and tell him about his father, and you will have sons of your ow- stop pulling away.” He says holding him tighter, speaking with more conviction. “You will live like a king, and you will comfort my father in his grief.” He continues but a sob breaks free this time, and he feels his breaths becoming tiring and more difficult to take. “And one da-” “One day when you are old, and your hair has turned white, and you have lived a happy life.” His breath hitches. “On that faraway day you will come to me, and I will see you again.” He cups Patroclus’s face, makes him look at him as he collects the tears with his palm as if they’re holy water. “I will wait for you I promise.” He says finally and does nothing for his own tears which haven’t stopped falling for some time now.
“How can you ask me that Achilles?” he answers, his voice tired and small and hopeless. He grips Achilles’s hand in his own, the one that is still cradling his face.
“Promise me, please.”
“No, no do not do this to me.” he cries as Achilles’s hand fall from his face. “Even you are not so cruel.”
“Please.” Achilles tries desperately.
“I’m begging you Achilles! Do not make me do that. If you’ve ever loved me if only for a second, then you will not chain me to that future.”
“If I’ve ever loved you? I’ve loved you all my life!”
‘Then let me follow you so we do not have to suffer away from each other. Please.” He begs like a starving man.
Achilles looks at him, at his anguish, at his tears. Patroclus sees his resolve breaking little by little. Perhaps he is even a bit comforted by the possibility of never having to live apart from each other, but then he imagines Patroclus lifeless, his body cold and white as death and his breath hitches in his throat.
“Do not ask me to choose.” He says finally. “I don’t want to know what you will do.” “If you are to do something like that after I die then I want to live in ignorance of it.” Gods, he cannot even say it.
“Alright” Patroclus reassures him seeing how pale Achilles has become. “We need not speak more of it love.” He says as he caresses Achilles’s wrist with his thumb, feeling the strong heartbeat underneath, loud and steady, as he takes comfort in its booming presence.
Achilles falls in his embrace then, and he can feel his warm tears wetting his skin, can feel his breath hitching every once in a while. Patroclus allows him to take all he needs from him, all the comfort, all the love, all his heart. It is his anyway. It beats in sync with his own, as it will be buried with his when the fateful day comes. Fear grips him, even at the thought of it, but he lets it pass this time. He lets it go and sees it leave their tent. It does not matter at all, not when Achilles is crying in his arms. He caresses his golden hair and pulls him impossibly close, as if to merge with him, as if they could finally become one. They are one soul already, why shouldn’t they be one body too?
After some time has passed and the tent is bathed in darkness, he feels that Achilles’s tears have stopped.
“I’m sorry.” Achilles whispers so silently that if they weren’t so impossibly close, he wouldn’t have heard him.
Patroclus kisses his forehead.