counterpoint

i bruise to love you (wrap your skin around me too)

blurb: you would've followed him anywhere, even into war

→ my entry for emma (eykim28)'s twoset writer's greek au collection. my pairing: achilles & patroclus.

warnings: major character death, angst, vague sexual content

title from skin by josh record.

• • •

i: it's written in the tomes

you've known, ever since his eyes met your own, that you'd follow him anywhere.

(you will die for him. you do not know this yet, but you will.)

(if you could do so a thousand times, you'd do it again for him.)

ii: my heart broke at the sight of you

no one knows this, save for the gods who can hear—in the end, you do not regret killing clysonymus.

a game of dice, a fit of rage, and you've sealed your fate. your father takes you in the dark of night, flees with you to phthia like fugitives instead of royalty, for you were royalty once. your new home is glorious against the green and blue of the river spercheios: a far cry from the silver seas of opus that brought you up as you came of age.

rumors travel on swift feet, however, and even as you take your first step into the city of peleus, your reputation precedes you, and the people are afraid.

oh, the king welcomes you. his courtiers bid you good will and safety within the city's walls, but there are wolves amidst the sheep. you do not feel safe, but when have you ever? there is blood in the wind; one does not need to be an oracle to sense it.

it is here that you meet him.

edhilles, he is called. son of the king, son of the people; a veritable golden child with wide shoulders and a smile dripping with honey. looking at him makes your hands itch in a way it hasn't in a long time, not since you've stood over a lifeless corpse another life away from here.

"i hear you've blood on your hands," he greets you. "how does it feel?"

like i can swallow the earth whole, you do not say. your silence is a whole other answer entirely.

"you will make a good soldier," he smiles, a considering gleam in his eye, metal glint of a sword in the achaean sunshine.

"and you will make a good prince," you tell him.

"but i am," he tells you, and laughs and laughs and laughs. "but i am."

(perhaps this is why he takes such a liking to you when you first meet. he recognizes the bloodthirst in you, sees a mirror in your eyes that reflects his own.)

iii: war children

the war begins, though it takes years for you to see the forefront of it. the myrmidons are fierce and unflinchingly loyal, and they follow the golden prince as you follow him, and perhaps you become all the more accepting of death, for it is no shame to die amongst the courageous.

day after day, you lead the defense of the ships against the trojans and emerge victorious, time after time. in the quiet moments, edhilles beats you in a game of petteia once, then twice, then a hundred times more. for all his courage in battle and his skill with the sword, you love him most for his mind, and you would not have it any other way.

you've known him by many names, but now, they call him aristos achaion: the best of the greeks, and you think to yourself, that is absolutely right.

they laud you bretroclus the brave, the right hand of edhilles, strongest of defenders and highest of friends. he is the spear of war, you the sickle of death—let them all tremble before you.

iv: this and this and this

at night, you share a tent together. there are disapproving whispers, but this is war, after all: warmth freely given is warmth, no matter the body that provides.

at night, he holds you.

philtatos, he whispers to you, a love note passed between the nape of your neck and his front teeth. most beloved, most beloved. it echoes, shakes you like an earthquake or a thunderstorm, and perhaps you've been damned by all the fates combined, but you fell for a natural disaster.

this is a god-man underneath your fingers. zeus in his hands, poseidon in his gaze, hades in his wake. his mother a daughter of the sea, his father a king on a golden throne, and here you are, trying to hold all the sands of troy in your hands for him, trying to offer your flesh and blood at the altar of him—mortal, the non-ichor in your veins screams, mortal.

you dared to love a warrior, and this is your penance. you will watch him fight, and you might watch him fall.

but.

he holds you like something precious. like he is not a man on a battlefield: not a killer, not a murderer, not something born to be vicious. he loves you like all he's ever known is to be soft; you understand he only ever allows himself to be like this with you.

"if you should go," he tells you, "i shall follow you. even unto death."

"that is a silly thought," you tell him, but for once, you do not disagree. you would do the same thing, too.

v: take me down

deep down, you've always known this too: he may have your heart, but he must share you with the fight in your spine and the bloodlust in your soul. there is a war out there, beyond the confines of your tent, the heady mist of your lovemaking, and it cannot be ignored, least of all by you.

"let me fight in your name," you plead with him.

"go, but return to me," he acquiesces to you.

you don his armor, clothe yourself in his vestiges as he watches you from the cot, naked and shameless. he refuses to continue fighting, still, but through this, he will be with you in spirit. you kiss the sweet honeycomb of his mouth, and revel in the way his face shines like the sun.

(here, he is with you. here, he is happy.)

(he has not lost you yet.)

vi: here is where his lover lies

you fall to hector's sword, but even then, you can boast—it has taken the help of a demigod and apollo himself to kill you.

your golden man, your soul's other half; in his rage, he swears to burn the world to avenge you. in the wake of his final vow, every corner of the earth is no longer safe.

somewhere else, in the shade of hades' dark throne, a smile alights on your death-touched lips.

you cannot wait to see him again.

• • •

"in his tent, achilles

grieved with his whole being

and the gods saw

he was a man already dead, a victim

of the part that loved,

the part that was mortal."