#pachilles

He feels him before he sees or hears him, arms around his waist, a breath pressing at the back of his neck. Feels him; strong arms, warm body, rapid heartbeat, gasps out a sobbing breath and turns to take his face in his hands, pressing close, feeling like a piece of his body that has been missing is falling back into a place, like the return of a lung that suddenly lets him breathe. 

"I'm sorry," Achilles says, "you were there, drifting, and I could have buried you, I'm sorry --" and Patroclus quiets him with his mouth the only way he knows, the only way he ever can, "I'm here now," he whispers, "and so are you," and he thinks Elysium is nothing compared to this.

"Hades," Achilles screams, bursting through the doors of the throne room of the underworld, ignoring the whispers of souls that say, no, this is not a place for dead heroes, ignoring everything but the erratic pounding of his own heart, pa-tro-c-lus, pa-tro-c-lus again and again and again, "what have you done with him, where have you hidden him," and it pounds on, on, on, pa-tro-c-lus, pa-tro-c-lus as Achilles screams, "you can't keep him from me."

"This is not my husband's doing," a voice says from the throne, gentle like spring rain; Achilles turns to see Persephone holding out her hands beseechingly, saying "they have not buried him, they have not written his name on the grave, and he cannot join you until they have."

His heart pounds on, pa-tro-c-lus, pa-tro-c-lus, and Persephone looks on sadly as he falls to his knees, thinking, this is my doing, I did not bury him while I could, and now I will never see him again.