#patroclus.

Helen was granted Elysium, she is there somewhere and it does cross his mind to perhaps try wooing her now that they are older. In life he’d wanted to marry her simply for the status. She’d been too young when he and Pirithous had gathered her up the first time, she was meant to stay with his mother, have a happy life in Troezen until they were ready to marry. But even as a youth, he’d been more interested in doing whatever would get Pirithous’s attention. And his attention was kept with their adventures, with challenges.

If he were to ever step foot past the threshold of Helen’s door, it’d be to apologize profusely for the folly of a lovestruck boy.

So he set his sights on people he saw decently often. Wrestling with Odysseus got heated, combat felt more...There was a tension there that he couldn’t quite ignore and perhaps Achilles really was onto something.

Of course, being king of Athens, being a hero, he cannot have just anyone as a lover, he needs a challenge, he needs an equal.

And what bigger challenge than someone in love with themselves?

He doesn’t mean for it to happen, but it does.

People forget that Narcissus is a hunter, or perhaps they simply see him and are so taken by his appearance, that they do not think to fear him. But the moment that Theseus first lays eyes on him, he is perhaps a little afraid of him. He’s truly beautiful basking beside a pond, a basket of fruit beside him. It is ridiculous, he has fought many man, he has fought many beast, and yet there’s this apprehension coiled tight in his gut and he finds himself speechless.

Aside from rattling off his titles.

Which don’t seem to impress Narcissus in the slightest.

And so Theseus, ears burning just a little, hurries back to his training grounds and tells Asterius all about it. The beast seems to give just a solemn nod as he recounts the exploit and if he weren’t so embarrassed, he’d have gone to Achilles.

“I am a king, Asterius! And yet I looked at him and I felt like a boy again!” His companion nods again, arms crossed over his chest as Theseus paces the field. It’d been like looking at Pirithous again for the first time, Ariadne even and perhaps Achilles really is onto something, he is absolutely lonely but he refuses to acknowledge such a thing out loud. So instead he sighs and stops in his tracks before the minotaur.

“You will try again.” The beast says in his somber, thoughtful way.

So he does. Not once, not twice, but several times he approaches the most beautiful man he’s ever laid eyes upon without feeling like he is making any progress. Until one day one day Narcissus asks him if he’d like to go hunting and of course, he jumps at the chance to perhaps finally show off a little. It doesn’t quite go well the first time, but it doesn’t go...Terribly. It’s a lot of traipsing through the wood. Some days they don’t see anything, other days it’s a deer, a pheasant, a rabbit in a snare.

They talk on days when it seems they won’t find anything, though often Theseus just finds himself listening. It takes time, he wants to meet all of Narcissus’s stories about his life with tales of his own accomplishments, but he finds the other will not listen to his boasts. If he does, he doesn’t seem all that impressed and at first it is frustrating and then one day, it isn’t. He is a king, he brought democracy to Athens, he doesn’t need to boast, and he finds that he actually likes listening. There’s something about his voice that he finds just as pleasing as his face.

The first time Theseus kisses him, it is to shut him up. They are among the many flowers that surround Narcissus’s home, the ones named after him, and he doesn’t know if he does it because he’s been watching the other man’s lips move or if he wishes to get him to just stop talking.

Achilles and Patroclus had a fair point, he did need someone. But the hunter was often visited by another, and not just any other person, but Dionysus himself. It spoils something for a few days, when he first glimpses the two. Dionysus had stolen Ariadne from him and now he was in the home of the man who he had affection for. He waxes about the matter only to Asterius and when Achilles asks him how the impossible is going, he simply smiles and tells him that not everyone could find their Patroclus.

It isn’t a deterrent for long though, he’s a hero, he’s a king, and there’s many more kisses to be had. They have them, he stops wondering if the other man is simply entertaining him, it does not matter. It does not matter until he is back at home alone or with Asterius gazing out at the water and then Theseus thinks about Phaedra, about Hippolytus, Aegeus even. And when he is done thinking of them, when he is done mourning them for the day, sometimes he thinks of Athens, the kingdom he’d let down.

It never lasts, those moods. He is good at picturing his worries upon the shores and mentally watching the Aegean wash them away. He likes to think it’s both of his father’s telling him not to worry.

He doesn’t worry the first time he has Narcissus. The hunter’s house is full of mirrors, there is not a single room that their reflections aren’t watching them. And watch them they do as muscles ripple and lips collide again and again and again. Time is a funny thing in paradise, he does not know how long they go about such a dance and Theseus does not care. For he has the most beautiful man under him, sometimes over him, and it is hard not to get wrapped up in such a thing in what could be a matter of weeks, months, years even. He has never cared much for aesthetics, it’s a trivial thing, but seeing the two of them together is so pleasing and he thinks Narcissus thinks so, too.

Things change, Patroclus and the Spartan prince Hyacinth that is often with him leave Elysium, leaving Achilles alone. Theseus watches the world with him; they keep an eye on Corinth together or he views it through one of Narcissus’s many mirrors as they lounge amongst the flowers. They banter about it, about the gods, about magic, about how funny mortals dress nowadays and how unfortunate this whole thing must be.

But when his father comes to call upon him, the god of the sea himself, the thought of himself and the hunter, the phantom feeling of him coming undone under his hands, it isn’t enough to get him to stay. Theseus jumps at the chance to do right by Poseidon, but he makes a point to say goodbye to those he’s met in paradise.

First is Odyseuss, the man who is always up for a story, a tale of the sea, or his clever wife. It’s one last sparring match, one last story, and he wonders what the other hero would do in his shoes. If he would seek out his Penelope, if he would continue his adventures. But he does not ask, instead he goes to see Bellerophon, his brother. They talk and they drink and muse about their father, their many siblings. He promises to tell him tales of them if he meets any of them again.

It pains him to leave Achilles when his house is already nearly empty. Theseus still half expects to see Patroclus flanked by Hyacinth, but there is just aristos achaion. Much like Odyseuss, they spare a final time and Theseus promises to return to him, ensuring him that he will do right by Patroclus, even the Spartan prince he’s so fond of. They embrace the way men do, hands clapping at shoulders and he is on his way.

He is half expecting to be met with the sight of the god of wine, and yet it’s just Narcissus and his many mirrors. Somehow, he thinks that makes it worse, makes it harder. He tells him he is leaving, that he is going to Corinth to put a stop to all of the madness there, he thinks. That Poseidon himself had asked him to go.

What feels like the most important part, is that Theseus tells Narcissus he will miss him. With his hand upon his face, he tells him that he will miss him, that he’ll return triumphant. He’s a king, after all, he’s a hero, and he will do what heroes do. It is a fleeting moment, but wasn’t all time in Elysium fleeting? The kiss he gives the other man isn’t. It is perhaps firm and desperate and leaves him wanting. He leaves quickly, not because he doesn’t want to hear what the other man has to say (and he imagines it is a lot), but because Narcissus is perhaps the one who could convince him to stay.

It is just a way to pass the time, their tryst. Narcissus will still have Dionysus, he will still have whoever else comes to call upon him, and he will be just fine ‘living’ amongst his hall of mirrors. But even as Theseus tells himself this, he finds himself already missing the other.

When he goes to say goodbye to Asterius, the beast regards him the same way he always does. “You will return, Theseus.” Is what he tells him in that steady baritone. Not ‘King of Athens’, not ‘Son of Poseidon’, but he calls him by name. For he is his friend, and Theseus responds by embracing him the way men do.

Except as they part, the minotaur presses something into his palm. It’s a narcissus, colored gold, petals soft and familiar. It’s from the hunter’s own garden and something in his chest seizes at the sight of it.

“Do not forget us.” Asterius states, voice perhaps a little far away.