Chapter Text
The music from the lyres and cymbals drifted through the camp, mingling with the crackling of flames from the many bonfires that had been lit. The celebrations for Dionysus’ festival had been going on for most of the day and the night before, and the scent of incense and wine hung heavy in the air.
I had never before attended such a festival. It wasn’t celebrated this widely in Opus or Phthia, where I had grown up. The Dionysia was among the largest festivals in Athens, celebrated with days and nights filled with drink, dance and theatrical performances of all kinds. Here, in the Achaean’s camp, where people from the farthest reaches of Greece gathered, it had quickly become a tradition.
I had been in the healers’ tent for most of the day, and now the moon hung high over the dark sea. My fingers were red from scrubbing, my eyes were tired, and the pungent scent of astringent was thick in my nostrils. I was weary, but it was a pleasant sort of weariness. When I worked, my mind was free of thoughts, of worries. I focused only on the act of healing, on helping the wounded soldiers as best I could. A bloody skirmish earlier that day had filled the beds in the tent to bursting, yet no lives had been lost. Perhaps the Trojans had been as tired of bloodshed as the Greeks were on that chilly February afternoon.
“Your wound needs to be cleaned and dressed once a day,” I told the soldier I'd been tending to, securing the bandage around his arm. “And stay away from the thick of the fight, if you can help it. Sweat and dirt will only slow down the healing.”
He nodded and stood up, limping away. I brushed the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, letting out a soft sigh, just as Philomela, one of the healers’ assistants, approached me.
“It’s late, Patroclus,” she said. “You should join the celebrations, before they are over.”
I smiled at her. She was small in stature, with her wild curly hair bound in tight braids. She was one of Menelaus’ women, taken after an attack on one of the northern villages of Troy. She’d been brought to me one day with a cut on her thigh, her knees scraped, her eyes wide in panic and terror. I had been the first to treat her, and she had since regarded me with kindness and reserved affection. Menelaus was kind with his women, and he often let her join me while I worked, helping me, and I taught her what I knew.
“I don’t often join festivals like these,” I told her earnestly. “There's too much noise and commotion, and I am not a heavy drinker.”
“What about your prince?” she asked, her gaze darting away before settling on me again. “Achilles?”
The name was uttered quietly, almost apprehensively. It always stung, just a little, to know that the captives thought of Achilles with so much trepidation. His exploits had earned him something of a reputation, as I understood it: the Greeks revered him, while the Trojans feared the very mention of him. Philomela had visited our camp once or twice, and had seen that Achilles was quiet, almost gentle, when he wasn’t in his armour, yet a hint of disquiet was always there.
I shook my head, dipping my hands in the brass bowl that we used to clean ourselves. The water was cold and refreshing when I splashed it over my face and neck.
“Achilles does not much enjoy noisy gatherings like these either,” I said. “He... prefers being on his own these days.”
It had not always been so. Achilles relished the attention of others; he blossomed with it, and there was bound to be much of it if he joined in the celebration. His campaigns over the last couple of months had been met with overwhelming success, filling his men’s coffers with gold and riches and their camps with slaves. The leaders of the Achaeans would toast him and drink plenty of wine in his honour, the bards would sing of his achievements and his skill in battle until the early morning. Yet, boasting such as this was not always met with alacrity. There were many amongst the Danaans that envied Achilles the power of his station, and sneered at his reputation when they thought he was out of earshot.
Achilles was proud, and rarely paid attention to rumours and gossip. Yet, when he sometimes refused to grace Agamemnon’s lavish dinners with his presence, I could tell it was because the leader of the Greeks occasionally had trouble holding his tongue, especially after a few cups of wine. That was when the older man would gloat and boast, often blowing his own achievements out of proportion, in an effort to measure up to Achilles’ greatness, his promise of glory, the prophecy that had followed him since the moment of his birth, his reputation that only grew, day after day.
One does not need the blood of a goddess, he would say, his cheeks flushed from the drink, eyes gleaming, after recounting a story that was supposedly about a hero of old, if they have the favour of one. Would you not agree, Pelides?
Achilles pretended not to hear, not to know. He would smile at Agamemnon with all his teeth and toast him graciously, as Peleus had taught him, but he was still a man. He had learned to hide his true feelings from others, but I could still see how the whispers fuelled his frustration, how they turned him bitter, even when he insisted they did not.
Achilles was sharp and direct by nature; it troubled him when others were not. He wanted things to be simple and clear-cut, yet, here, they were anything but.
I sighed again, patting my hands dry on a linen towel. Philomela was by my side when we walked out of the tent, and into the festivities. The bonfires were burning high into the night, and from the lit braziers tendrils of incense smoke curled towards the stars. Soldiers and their women gathered around the heat, drinking and dancing to the rhythm of the music that the bands were tirelessly playing. Not a few were wearing animal furs, their faces darkened with soot, as was the custom.
No sooner had I walked out than someone grabbed me by the arm and thrust a cup of wine in my hands. I blinked up, startled, to see Diomedes grinning at me.
"Come," he said. "Drink. Celebrate with us."
I smiled politely and shook my head. "I really should be going back."
"What for?" Odysseus was quick to appear beside him, his usual easy smile ready on his lips. "You've been working all day. Everyone deserves a break, from time to time."
"That's right." Diomedes' wolfish grin got wider, his dark eyes sparkling. "All work and no play makes people dull, haven't you heard?"
Odysseus smiled encouragingly at me behind the rim of his own cup. "Have a drink with us. Just because he doesn't join us anymore doesn't mean you can't."
Of course he was referring to Achilles. It had not gone unnoticed that he had been avoiding gatherings such as these of late. I swallowed as I accepted the cup and reluctantly brought it to my lips. If my presence there could smooth those ruffled feathers, then a drink or two couldn't be that bad, could it?
The wine hit my tongue in a rush of heat, honey and spices. It warmed me as it glided down my throat, pushing the edges of my weariness away. I took another draught, letting its acidic sweetness jolt me awake.
My mild surprise must have been plain on my features, for Diomedes clapped me on the shoulder, chuckling knowingly. "That's it," he said, "that's a good lad. Now, drink up."
I didn't need further encouragement. The wine was unlike any I've ever tried; before long, I had drained my cup, and a servant had filled it to the brim again. The wild cadence of the drums and the flutes matched the beats of my heart, and I wasn't even thinking about my tired and aching limbs when Menelaus' arm wound around my shoulders, pulling me towards the writhing, undulating crowd.
In the smoke of the fires, in the heat of so many bodies moving close together, I forgot about my troubles, my worries. The edges of consciousness blurred, a mist that curled around me, rendering me indefinable. I closed my eyes and simply moved to the rhythm, blending into the crowd like a single petal amongst countless falling cherry blossoms, swirling with the wind.
In the depth of that mist, in the midst of that insubstantial territory, I saw him.
Achilles.
I saw him as he was once, years before, far away from the fires and blood of the war, from the intrigue, the whispers, the jealousy. I saw him running down the beach in Phthia, the pink undersides of his feet flickering. I saw the rich honey brown strands that hid in the depths of his golden hair, the wind that combed through them and brought them before his eyes when he turned to look at me. I saw him swimming in the stream in Pelion, the water running down his limbs in lazy swirls.
I could see him clearly in my mind's eye, as if he were there. I could see him laughing, singing, playing his lyre in the pale light of morning, golden and vibrant and carefree. And in him, I saw myself.
I opened my eyes as the beat of the music reached a wild crescendo, as the people cheered and sang at the top of their lungs. Cups were raised high up in the air, wine swirling, overflowing, spilling from its confines and mixing with the brown dirt underfoot. Menelaus was dancing with one of his women — Aristea, his favourite, the fabric of her colourful dress tangling at her ankles as he swirled her about. Her laughter was drowned out by the noise, fading away.
I took a deep breath to center my focus, and stepped back, away from the crowd. My heart was still beating fast, and the music was hypnotic, but I knew I had to return to my own camp before it got too late.
Odysseus and Diomedes were caught in the festivities as well, so no one noticed me slipping away. Only Philomela's eyes caught mine amidst the sea of bobbing heads, and pushed her way towards me. She was holding a bowl filled with the sweets that the slaves had made earlier that day for the festival, dried fruits stuffed with nuts and drenched with syrup.
"For you," she said, smiling warmly at me, "and your prince."
The music and noisy chatter from the festival had dulled to a hazy, distant thrum by the time I made my way back to our camp. I was still feeling lightheaded from the drink, breathless from dancing and weaving through the endless rows of tents and throngs of inebriated, laughing soldiers. My brow was damp with sweat despite the chilly night, and my pulse still thumped in my throat in a strange sort of anticipation, a restless hunger. I clutched the bowl close to my chest, and hurried on.
The soft, plaintive sounds of Achilles’ lyre reached me as soon as I caught sight of the Phthian banners, fluttering in the breeze at the edges of our encampment.
Achilles was sitting on a bench, my mother’s golden lyre nestled in his lap. His fingers ran over the strings languidly, plucking notes that were brighter than water from a babbling stream, sweeter than honey. In the fire’s trembling halo, he seemed ethereal, very nearly transparent, yet at the same time more vibrant than I had ever seen him, dispelling the darkness of the night beyond. His hair caught the amber light on the flames and reflected it in aureate strands, his skin shimmered like polished gold, the muscles of his arms rose and fell underneath it like waves with every movement.
Beautiful, my mind supplied, as it always did when I looked at him. I had been gazing upon him since I was a child; it still was not enough for me to get used to him, to the effortless grace of his presence, the perfect symmetry of his eyes, his lips. The festivities that had been raging for a day and a night may have well been for Dionysus, yet it was Achilles, right there before me, who looked like a god, one for whom people gathered on wintry nights like this, to drink and dance and fornicate in his honour.
Would people remember him with kindness, I wondered, many years from now?
His jade green eyes snapped up to mine, and the familiar heat rushed through me, brushing away my swirling, distracted thoughts.
He set the lyre beside him and stood up. “You stayed with the healers until late tonight,” he said.
“I did,” I replied simply, standing at the edge of the fire. The bowl with the sweets was still cradled in my chest. Achilles glanced at it curiously, then at me.
“Is there something amiss?” he asked.
Of course he could tell I was different, just by looking at me, without me having to say anything. He always understood so much more about me than he let on.
“I just like looking at you.”
Achilles tilted his head ever so slightly to the side in question, a tiny fox’s smile curling the edges of his lips. He stood up and paced towards me unhurriedly, his footsteps barely audible on the soft earth.
My pulse raced ever so slightly when his finger brushed carefully under my eye. “You’re flushed,” he said.
“I had some wine. At the festival.”
“Ah.” His finger travelled higher, tracing my cheekbone. “Your pupils are larger than usual. What did you do?”
“Nothing.” I smiled. “It’s so I can see you better.”
Achilles huffed a quiet laugh at that, his features softened by pleasure. He always liked it when I gazed at him, praised him. The sound of his laughter slithered down my spine like warmed honey.
I do not know what possessed me then. Perhaps it was the drink, or the moon that hung high above us like a silver coin, or the way the firelight danced in his eyes and caressed the side of his face, but I had to be alone with him.
I took his hand in mine, walking backwards towards our tent. I could not look away, nor did I want to.
“One of Menelaus’ women gave me these sweets,” I told him. “They’re for you.”
“Is that so?” he hummed, amused. He caught on the game I was playing instantly, by reflex. “Then I’ll be sure to try them.”
We stepped in the tent together, the leather flap closing soundlessly behind us. I set the bowl on the low table that stood in the center of the place that we had come to call home, ever since we’d come to Troy.
We stood opposite each other across the table, facing each other, our breaths the only sounds. I swallowed; I did not know why I was feeling so restless all of a sudden, like it was the first time we had found ourselves alone.
“Take your pick,” I said, gesturing at the bowl.
Achilles quirked a fair brow as he glanced down at them, like a lord perusing a lowly merchant’s stall. “I will not choose at random,” he replied in an artfully haughty tone. “You must choose for me. You are my therapon; I know you will choose well.” He was in a playful mood, smiling at me like a mischievous boy; I loved it when he got like this. I didn’t often get to see him like that anymore.
I picked up one of the sweets and brought it to my lips. My teeth sank in the supple flesh of a dried fig, the walnuts within it softened from the syrup. I chewed slowly, my eyes never leaving him.
“How is it?” he asked. “Is it good?”
I shook my head. “Not good enough for you, my prince.”
Achilles bit back a grin, eyes shining. “Go on, then. Try another.”
And so I did. I picked up the syrupy fruits slowly, one after another, watching him. Every time Achilles asked me how it was, I answered in the same fashion: “Not good enough for you, my prince.”
I tried one of every sweet in the bowl, until my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth with the sweetness. When I had finished my thorough examination, Achilles crossed his arms leisurely before his chest.
“So, what is your verdict?” he asked, smirking. “Which one amongst them is the sweetest for me?”
I licked my lips, sticky with honey and spices, as my heartbeat soared. I reached into the bowl and dipped two fingers in the syrup, then slowly, holding Achilles’ gaze, I lifted them to my neck, dragging them across my skin.
“I am, my prince.”
Achilles’ eyes flashed in the half dark. There was something feral about the way his gaze honed in on me; a hunter’s gleam. He circled the table, closing the distance between us in two well-measured strides. I could smell the sweet scent of his sweat as he leaned in close, and a deeper, muskier one; the smell of his arousal. I bit the inside of my lip as his arm wound around my waist, pulling me until I was flush against him.
“Then I shall have you,” he whispered in my ear.
I shivered when his tongue brushed the side of my neck, warm and slick, velvet smooth. My head tipped backwards and I clung to him, holding him tight against me. His skin was hot to the touch underneath the fabric of his chiton, hotter than my own. Achilles’ mouth traced the hollow of my throat, the line of my jaw, the curve of my chin, before brushing over my own.
“I believe,” he hummed, his tongue flicking over my bottom lip, “this, here, is the sweetest yet.” His hands were on the base of my spine, drawing me in, and I was helpless in his hold. “You chose well.”
A soft moan escaped me, my fingers sinking into Achilles’ fragrant strands while he kissed me until my breath was all but gone from me. I followed the line of his neck, his shoulder, undoing the golden clasps that held his chiton in place. I could feel the weight of his waking interest pressing up against my thigh, and I suddenly couldn’t bear the feeling of clothes between us, or anything else; it had to be just us.
I pushed the fabric down, caressing and kissing every inch of skin I uncovered. I looked up at him when I had sunk down on my knees before him, bare as he was, his form illuminated by the shifting light of the brazier. My pulse hummed in my ears as I let my gaze follow the muscled planes of his chest and stomach, the definition in his arms, the strength of his powerful legs. He was watching me, too, through eyelashes that gleamed like threads of gold.
“My sweet Patroclus,” he whispered, thumb brushing over my lips, and in his gaze that familiar fondness lingered, unchanged through the many years I’d known him.
This. This was how I liked him best. When he was naked before me, body and heart, looking at me like this, touching me like this. This was when I knew he was mine, and mine alone; the world could not take this from me. From us.
I leaned forward and wrapped my lips around him, taking him in my mouth. Achilles shivered underneath me, his lips falling open on a quiet moan. His emerald eyes were dark with wanting, bottomless, when he reached down and threaded his long fingers through my hair. I was caught, pinned under that gaze, magnetised.
“Achilles,” I breathed, kissing the smooth skin of his navel as I stroked him, breathing in the musk of his sweat, the scent that rose from him: sandalwood, pomegranate, almonds and earth.
His hold on the back of my head tightened. He pulled me up gently and nudged me towards our bed, and I followed, half stumbling over my own toes.
My back sank into the furs as Achilles climbed over me, hovering above me. His smile was half-obscured by the trembling shadows, framed by the curtain of golden hair that fell around his face. The scent of the oil he used wafted in the air when he opened the vial that lay beside our bed.
“There’s more I haven’t tried,” he said.
“Is there?” I whispered. I spread my thighs wider apart, sighing when I felt the pressure of his fingers between my legs.
“Yes.” He kissed and nipped his way down, glancing up at me mischievously every time his fingers and tongue drew more shivers from me. His breath was hot over me when he said, “I have saved the best for last.”
I laughed, but the edges of my laughter broke on a strained sob of pleasure. I could feel him everywhere, his hands wandering all over me, the heat of his mouth swallowing me whole. I closed my eyes and surrendered to him, to this blissful, blessed torture. I was helplessly drawn to him, in his hands a mere plaything. Like the lyre he played, I was but an instrument, his touches drawing sounds from me that were meant for his ears alone.
When my heart had been filled to bursting, just when I thought that I would unravel in his hands, he pulled back, climbing back up the length of me again. His cheeks were flushed and so were his lips, his length hard against my skin where it touched me.
I reached up and cupped the back of his neck, heart beating wildly in my chest. “Is there more you’d like to try?” I asked in a teasing whisper. “Or have you had enough?”
“Enough?” His laughter was husky, a tad breathless. He kissed me deeply, reaching for the oil once more. “I’ll never have enough, philtatos.”
I gasped softly when he pressed against me, opening me up. My arms and legs wound around him, as if by rote, clutching him hard, pulling him to me. We were flush against each other, our bodies locking perfectly like two pieces of a whole. There was no one else but him in the world; there was no room for anything else. Just my skin touching his skin, the smell of his hair and the sweetness of his mouth, his quiet sighs in the half dark, and this hunger: these endless wells of aching want that existed between us, this fire that burned eternal.
We moved and breathed in unison, the edges between us blurring once more, our bodies melting into one. I closed my eyes and lost myself in that heat, that pressure, the pleasure that built and built, yet it was still him that I saw behind my eyelids. Even when my gaze turned inward and I drifted, swimming in the deepest recesses of my mind, I could always find him there, waiting for me, his image crisp as if he were right before me. He was a part of me, as I was of him; there was no me without him.
Achilles buried his face in the crook of my neck as he thrust deeper, harder, more urgently. His brow was damp with sweat now, his fingers digging into the flesh of my thigh where he held me fast. I was pinned underneath him, legs spread open at either side of his powerful hips, my hands roaming over the taut muscles of his back. Muscles that I knew better than my own, lines and angles that I could trace in the dark, with my eyes closed.
“Patroclus,” Achilles said in a shuddering gasp against my throat as his thrusts got faster, more erratic. “Patroclus—”
Achilles often got impatient, chasing his finish like a lion locked on to a deer, yet I didn’t want this to end just yet. I didn’t want to lose this warm, melding feeling. I hugged him tightly and pushed him to the side, flipping us both around.
I pinned his wrists above his head and held his gaze as I rolled my hips slowly, sinking down on him.
Achilles looked up at me, flushed and panting, his skin glistening, his hair spread in lazy golden swirls about his head. I leaned down, pressing my forehead to his.
“The fastest of the Greeks,” I hummed, “in all things, it seems.”
Achilles laughed, the sound vibrating through me where we were connected. “A champion in all things, you mean.” He grinned wickedly, yet it wasn’t long before his laughter turned into breathless, shaky moans again, his length stiffening within me. My name poured forth from his mouth with every breath, over and over, kissing it onto my lips, whispering it over my flushed and warmed up skin.
Achilles had never told me that he loved me, and I had never told him. It was always understood between us, a truth as natural as breathing, buried deep beneath our skin and woven in our bones. Yet when he said my name like this — Patroclus, Pa-tro-clus — repeated it like a chant, like it was holy, I knew well what he meant.
And so did he.
“Achilles,” I whispered into his hair, threading my fingers through his. “Achilles,” I gasped when he bucked, arching underneath me. “Achilles,” I breathed, when I felt the warmth of his pleasure blossoming inside me, when he melted in my arms, when his eyelids fell over his eyes like the petals of a nightflower at dusk.
We lay like this for a long while, arms and legs tangled atop the furs. I held him tight, long after our breaths had eased and our heartbeats had found their natural rhythm. The music and voices from the festival drifted through the leather walls of our tent, mingled with the trill of the crickets, the hoot of distant night birds hidden in the trees. Though I knew where we were, what lay beyond the safe haven of our small home; though the weight of a long day of healing death was quick to return to my limbs, it did not quite stir the peace between us. I had him, like this, soft and pure and unblemished like the first time I’d seen him, the first time I’d kissed him, the first time I’d lain with him. No one could take this from me. From us.
“Patroclus,” Achilles sighed sleepily, nuzzling into the hollow of my throat, arms coming around me to hold me close.
Yes, I thought. I knew well what he meant, when he said my name like this.
“Achilles,” I whispered in return, and closed my eyes.