Olives - Achilles x Patroclus

5. Blood

This was a mistake.

I slapped my flushed face with ice-cold water. Humiliated by a mortal? Who did this boy  think he was?

I took a breath and steadied myself. Though the remark itself was small, it was the face he made afterwards which stuck to me the most: his cloudy eyes narrowed, rosy lips parted to the side, his features half-smile, half-jeer - 

I was not used to feeling like this, as if my seat as demi-God were slightly askew. The water fell from my face, and when it dried, I headed to my father.

...

"No, Achilles. You're being unreasonable."

Father stood sternly in the same spot from this morning. 

"But Father, you don't understand. Patroclus is untameable - he disrespects my position of power and my title and teased me not an hour ago."

"Informing you of something in your teeth is not the same as disrespecting your title. Patroclus shall remain your companion. Let this be a lesson to making haste decisions at too young of an age."

I felt, quite literally, like conceding to madness.

Only Patroclus could make me endure such fury. Not only had he humiliated me, but caused my father to view me as an idiot. And now I was stuck with him by my side forever.

...

I found him buckling up his greaves on a rock by the pond. I myself felt at home in my armor, fresh out of combat practice, confidence surged with my every step. 

"Achilles."

My name came to me before I was ten paces from him. Nasty words rolled off my thoughts and were just as quickly swallowed. 

I caught sight of his blade before I noticed his gaze. Instinctively, I drew my own. 

"Achilles," he said again, stepping tentatively closer to me, his blade turned down, peaceful, his left arm raised, palm stretched out as if to calm a mad goat. But whatever self-restraint I felt before entering his vicinity was immediately extinguished as I remarked once again upon his half-smirking face, amused at the hatred and anger marked on my own.

Mocking me again - what a dull, poor decision. 

I lashed out with my blade. I charged at him, fully prepared and willing to kill him. I wanted to see him bleed and suffer in the humiliation he had caused me. I felt my face light up with red. I was no longer behaving humane.

Patroclus caught sight of this, and his leer turned into something completely different. His lack of effort in his trainings was clear, as he parried and blocked every single one of my strikes. My jabs had turned lazy with rage, and his calmness unnerved me so. He kept solely on the defensive, never once making an attempt to even hurt me. 

I grew frustrated at his inability to be hurt. Why was he so strong when he made himself time and time again look weak? With every thrust I sent he ducked, dodged and blocked to safety. The grass beneath swayed as we danced violently with our blades. 

At last, the august sun left its shelter amid the clouds and glinted off my bronze helmet. Patroclus' eyes left his parry, squinting from the sunlight. I lunged at him in his moment of blindness, my hatred, humiliation and disdain melding into something tangible. The silver of my blade sharply met the skin on his left bicep. Patroclus let out a small yelp, his eyes widening at the gash. A small horizontal cut appeared, strings of scarlet raindrops leaving his previously untainted skin and landing gracefully on the grass. His features contorted from pain, shock into fury in a matter of milliseconds. 

He dropped his sword, no longer needing to defend himself - mine had fallen to the ground as soon as the deed was done. He touched his finger to the trickling blood. It was barely surface-level, and was no where near fatal, yet I felt in that instant as if it might as well have been. He regarded me finally, and the rush of adrenaline I had felt so briefly was now marred. The betrayal and pain I had caused ricocheted off his pained eyes as he stood, agonised and silent.

Whatever Patroclus I thought I knew before was gone, and now I was left alone with a bleeding stranger. 

...