#*muse.

pretty and golden and used to getting what he wants.  his mother a goddess who adores him and his father a king who doesn’t need to adore him to give him anything he asks for.  his father’s servants too scared of thetis’ retribution to raise their voice at him.  even when patroclus had been a prince, the same as him, he had had more discipline.  menoetius had a stricter hand.  the people who served him knew that were patroclus deserving, his father wouldn’t condemn them for reprimanding him.

he resents ten-year-old achilles’ easy freedom.  if he killed a boy, his mother would bring down the house before she would allow him to be sent away.  patroclus had no such intervention.

“leave her alone,” says patroclus, when his little golden hand has tugged five too many times on the cook’s girdle.

achilles rounds on him, all wounded pride at the reprimand.  “i can do whatever i want,” he says indignantly.  “did i ask you here, patroclus?”

“if you had i would have said the same thing.”

“get out.”

“i won’t.”

i won’t was as good as make me to achilles, in those days.

 ii.

“i’ll race you to the top of the hill,” achilles tells him.  everything is a race with him.  everything is a game, or a competition.  patroclus loses every time.  at first it hurt him not to win.  now he accepts it as a fact of life.

sometimes, you lose.  the sword arm that can’t best achilles bests nearly everyone else.  there’s no more shame in failing to defeat him.

“no,” he says.

the look on achilles’ face at his refusal is probably a thing he got from his godly mother.  patroclus has heard thetis described as having the temper of the sea in a storm; her son imitates her with a look that would chill a grown man.  “what do you mean, no?”

“i mean no,” patroclus repeats, and when achilles looks over his shoulder to see if anyone else is hearing this insubordination---as he’d known he would---he takes off up the hill, giving himself a few seconds’ head start.

achilles beats him anyway.

it doesn’t matter.  he doesn’t play to win anymore; he plays because it’s fun.

iii.

the third day after they kiss for the first time, achilles asks him for a kiss and patroclus kisses his chin.

“no,” he says, “you know what i mean.”

patroclus bends towards him again and kisses the bridge of his nose.  “haven’t i kissed you?”

“patroclus,” achilles warns, and grabs him by the shoulder.

“yes?”

“stop.”

“all right,” he says, and pulls back, sitting back on his hands and smiling.

“---no, not like that!”

“you should be more clear.”

“how much clearer can i be than telling you to kiss me?”

patroclus twists forwards again and kisses his forehead.

achilles punches him in the arm.

iv.

patroclus wakes with his hand over achilles’ heart, his face pressed into the bend of his shoulder.  the beat beneath his fingers is steady, but not so slow as to make him think he has somehow miraculously woken first.

“patroclus?” he murmurs, and patroclus realizes achilles doesn’t know if he’s awake or not.

he decides to play along, and stays motionless, waiting for---

achilles sighs heavily, and he gives himself away instantly by grinning at the sound.

“good morning,” he says, knowing the jig is up.

“i’ve been awake for two hours.”  he can hear the frown in achilles’ voice, just as easily as he can see the line of his collarbone sliding into the notch below his throat.  he can imagine the stormy eyes perfectly, the thin pinched line of his brow.

“maybe they’ll write a tragedy about you,” he says.

v.

“you make a very pretty girl, achilles.”

he doesn’t mean it sarcastically.  the truth is that the prince of phthia, the leader of the myrmidons, is beautiful as a woman, the same as he is as a man.  achilles is beautiful, and like all other beauties, deadly.  the only difference now is that he wears his hair longer, tumbling down around his shoulders.  the rest of the illusion is just clothes and jewelry.  patroclus had recognized him almost at once, but had had the good sense to hold his tongue until clever odysseus gave it away.

he means the compliment entirely.

achilles makes a rude gesture at him anyway.

vi.

because they are at war and because patroclus is fully mortal, he sometimes bleeds for greece.  never much and never often, but even the best of warriors --- even the most vicious and battle-hungry myrmidons --- fall sometimes, or are felled.  the score across his bicep from the spear bleeds freely down patroclus’ arm, the red dripping from his fingertips, and achilles decides that this wound, which would be hardly a scratch if patroclus had had a mother to dip him in immortality, requires his full attention.

“you’re reckless, patroclus,” he says, tightening the bandage, patroclus thinks, with unnecessary vehemence.

“i was only following you, achilles.”

“you aren’t me!”

“i’m not.  i bleed; someday i’ll die.”  achilles tells him every morning: come back safely.  he doesn’t return the sentiment because he doesn’t want the unkeepable promise.  achilles would say yes and they would both know it wasn’t up to them; and he prefers a brutal unspoken truth to a comforting lie.  they’re different that way.  “i won’t stay in your tent and wait for you to come back every day to prevent that.”

achilles ties off the bandage and takes his chin between his fingers.  patroclus feels his own blood smearing his jaw.  “you make me angry enough when you’re breathing, patroclus.  let’s not find out how furious i’ll be when you aren’t.”

vii.

patroclus wakes up to achilles slipping into bed behind him, and blearily moves forward to make room, before he bumps into iphis and remembers her presence.  she stirs, slightly, and achilles’ hand finds his waist.

“the bed is full,” he says, and turns his head to look at achilles in the dark.

achilles is smiling, in good humour as he drops back to the floor of the tent. “are you replacing me, then?”

“i’m looking into the possibility.”

the fine, royal mouth grows thin.  achilles can start a joke, but he can’t bear to let patroclus finish it.  beside him, iphis turns over and presses her face into his chest.  “don’t look too hard.”

viii.

sparring has lost its charm for most in years of war, but achilles is born to fight and patroclus is born to let him.  his rule is: there is honour on the field of battle, but none when he and achilles are roughhousing in the surf.

achilles knocks him off balance with a hard, glancing blow.  he goes down on purpose and comes up with his foot hooked around one of his ankles.  he memorizes what few weak spots achilles has and exploits them mercilessly.  he still always loses.

“you don’t play fair,” achilles complains once, staring up at him from where he’s lying on the ground for a brief moment before he leaps up and wrestles him down into the water.  “do my men know that?”

patroclus draws him into a kiss and uses his distraction to get the high ground back, shoving a knee hard into his hip to slam him down into the sand.  “there is no fair with you, achilles.”

ix.

“briseis sounds more and more like you every day,” achilles tells him, ducking past him into the tent.

“oh?” patroclus says, continuing to clean his armour.  trojan blood washes off the metal easily enough, but sinks into the leather, if he leaves it on too long.

“she talks back now---do you know you’re the only person who does that?”

patroclus smiles at the sand, thinking of her dark eyes narrowed in reproach.  she may have only started talking back to achilles, but she certainly hasn’t been silent on the subject in their conversations for all this time.  “well, now i’m one of two.”

“if not for the love i bear you, patroclus, i’d have killed you a long time ago.”

“then how extraordinarily fortunate i am to be loved.”

x.

it’s been a good long time since he lost his temper with achilles --- years maybe, with so much practice under his belt to keep him calm.  so many dead greeks will do it.  the myrmidon camp standing still with the anger of the son of peleus parts silently as he makes his way to the tent.  every day he asks: the kings told me to tell you again that they need you.  will you come? and every day achilles says no.

“why are you crying?” achilles asks.

such a rage rises in his heart at the question, but of course it can never match the sort of anger that muses will sing about after the two of them are gone.