#Achilles/Patroclus | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

johaerys-writes · 2 years ago

Note

I have come to clasp your knees in supplication.

*deep breath*

Menelaus succeeds at saving Pat from Hector and drags his ass back to camp like in all the renaissance sculptures but he’s super injured and #traumatized. So achilles come screeching out of his tent and does some #angst. He’s literally so angry but also eaten alive with guilt. But he’s gotta keep it together because Pat needs his love because of #hurt/comfort and the #wounds are so serious he needs much #protectiveness.

Will you do this for me? I implore you by the cute, teeny tiny feet of Hera.

Thank you so much for sending this prompt! This has been sitting in my inbox for so long, I hope you like what I did with it <3

Words: ~2,700, angst, hurt/comfort

Achilles restlessly paces the camp. Hours pass as the sun dips towards the west, its light choked by the indigo death-roes of the sweltering day.

Patroclus, before he’d ridden away to battle, had vowed to return soon. Achilles waits for him.

He spots the polished gold of his own chariot in the distance. The horses kick up a cloud of dust as Automedon pulls taut their reins, as soon as they’re in view of the Myrmidon camp.

Something’s not right.

Achilles can tell right away. He’s always had keen senses, that animal instinct that warns one of a storm when not a cloud can be seen on the horizon, of a fire when neither smoke nor flame is present. There’s something in the air; he can see it plain as day.

He crosses the camp in a few quick strides. Automedon hops off the chariot to meet him. He is pale, his eyes hollow beneath the shadows of his helmet.

“My lord—”

“Where is Patroclus?” Achilles asks. The man peers at him wordlessly, until Achilles grabs him by the shoulders. “Where is he?”

The man’s lips part uselessly, for no sound comes out. Before Achilles has the chance to shake the answer out of him, the clatter of another chariot distracts him. It is Menelaus, riding swiftly into the camp. He is holding something. Someone.

Achilles’ blood runs cold.

The chariot is drawn to a stop. Menelaus descends, slow and encumbered under the weight of the body he’s holding. The limbs are mangled, bloody, the curly hair stiff with sweat and mud.

“Hector,” Menelaus says breathlessly, his neck and arms shiny with sweat and blood. “He— got to him. I only barely managed to whisk him away. Ajax kept the Trojans off for as long as he could and held the battle while I ran.” He glances down at Patroclus’ limp form in his arms. He is almost unrecognisable, his once smooth olive skin now a mixture of browns and reds as deep and dark as grapes crushed for wine.

“The armour,” Menelaus says mournfully. “I couldn’t save the armour. They’d already taken most of it.”

But Achilles isn’t listening. The words touch his ears but do not register as words: they’re merely sounds, lost in the threads that keep unravelling around him, the threads that stitch Achilles’ world together.

Patroclus, a bloody heap, is laid at his feet.

He doesn’t realise his knees have buckled until he crashes on the packed earth. A scream tears its way out of his throat; then another, and another. He cradles Patroclus in his arms, his body warm and pulsing as the blood that’s rushing out of his many wounds.

I did this, Achilles thinks, choked by his own breath. I did this to you.

Hands descend upon him, try to pull him away. He grabs at someone’s wrist on instinct and pulls its owner down to the ground with him. It is Automedon, his trusted charioteer, who has driven Achilles to hundreds of battles and returned him to camp after each one. Returning him, safe and sound, to Patroclus.

Achilles squeezes the man’s wrist until the bones creak beneath his fingers, blind through the tears. “I ordered you to bring him back to me unharmed.”

Automedon only peers at him, guilty and wordless, waiting for whatever punishment Achilles sees fit.

The anger is quickly replaced by worry when Patroclus heaves a pained breath. Achilles lets the man go, then turns all of his attention to Patroclus. He lifts him off of the ground gently, afraid to injure him further.

“Bring me vinegar and warm water,” he tells whoever is following him towards his tent. “Bandages and needles and horse tail hair. Then leave me with him.”

“My lord, we should call the healers—”

“Leave me.” He barks the order without even turning his head as he lays Patroclus down on the bed.

Through the haze of tears and anguish, all Achilles can see is the dirt that clings onto Patroclus’ face, his neck, his arm, the blood that keeps oozing sluggishly from the gush in the centre of his chest.

It’s like Achilles’ heart has been torn out of his chest and trampled into the dust, like Patroclus was.

When everything he asked for is brought to him, he doesn’t waste a moment. He orders the door of his tent to be sealed shut, to be left in peace. His focus is singular and absolute.

It’s been months since he’s had to use the skills he learned at Chiron’s side. He pours water and vinegar on Patroclus wounds to clean them, then starts meticulously picking out every speck of dust, every sliver of metal from the crushed remains of the armour. He sprinkles dried yarrow root to stem the bleeding, then stitches the torn skin back together. His fingers work ceaselessly to undo the damage that’s been done, to mend it. After the larger wounds have been taken care of, with a damp cloth he cleans the smaller ones, all the cuts and the scratches and the bruises, the scraped palms of Patroclus’ hands and his torn fingers. Each of them he cleans tenderly, careful not to cause him any pain, any more than he has to.

Achilles does not know how much time has passed when the last of Patroclus’ wounds have been bound. With the clean water that he has left in the bowl, he brushes a wet sponge through Patroclus’ curls, wipes the dried blood and dirt from his cheeks and brow, revealing the lovely features, calm and tensionless as if in sleep.

When Achilles finally sets the healing implements aside, his hands tremble with weariness. He lies down on the bed they’ve shared for years and curls up in a ball beside Patroclus. He lets the tears come, lets them fall.

Don’t leave me, he whispers into the crook of Patroclus’ neck, breathing in his familiar scent through the astringent smell of strong vinegar and the thick sweetness of the crushed yarrow flowers. Don’t leave me here.

Patroclus’ eyelids do not stir; only his ribs expand slightly with each shallow, laboured breath.

Consciousness is a blur of pain when Patroclus crawls from the murky bottoms up to the surface.

His throat is parched. Each breath hurts, and his body feels cold.

It takes him a moment to realise what it is that dragged him out of that heavy stupor. He’s in his tent, he knows this, the tent he shares with Achilles. He can tell by the colour of the light around him, the smell of the bed beneath him, the feel of the furs against his skin. The air is thick, stale.

There’s a body beside him. A head bent over him, hands clasping his own. A cascade of golden hair on his stomach, but he can’t feel the soft strands on his skin for all the bandages that cover it. Achilles’ shoulders quake, and Patroclus thinks he can make out the quiet, sniffling sobs he tries to stifle.

His hand, when Patroclus raises it, is heavy as tempered iron. He touches Achilles’ head.

“It's alright,” he mumbles. The words an unintelligible slur through his cracked lips, but his need to comfort Achilles in his distress pushes him to try again. “It’s alright, love.”

Achilles lifts his face to look at him. His cheeks gleam with tears, old and new. He must have been crying for hours, Patroclus thinks, for days, his eyes as red as they are green. It’s like Patroclus is gazing at him through water, or a veil of thin gauze; he can’t make out the high cheekbones, the drawn eyebrows, the curl of the lip. He tries to speak again — don’t cry, dear heart, dry your eyes— but the air sticks to his throat, and he coughs weakly, painfully.

“Shh, don’t speak,” Achilles urges. He disappears for a moment, then a cup is pressed to his lips. The liquid is pleasantly warm, and it tastes bitter when it hits his tongue. Dried yarrow and linden flower, Patroclus registers dimly, as he swallows a mouthful, then another. Achilles gently, as if he’s cradling an injured bird, lays down Patroclus’ head on the pillow.

“What happened?” Patroclus asks, after he’s caught his breath. Even this slight movement has agony shooting through every limb, every fibre.

Achilles simply stares at him. “You don’t remember?” When Patroclus doesn’t respond for a long moment, more tears start coursing down Achilles’ cheeks.

“You almost died, Patroclus,” Achilles says in a trembling voice. He sounds hoarse, exhausted. He must have been by Patroclus’ bedside for days; Patroclus has never seen him in such a state. “Hector’s spear missed your heart only by a hair. Had it not been for Menelaus and Ajax to drag you away…”

The battlefield flashes before Patroclus’ eyes. A bright light searing his eyes; then the arrows, the swords, the spears. The dying clamour of horses and men all around him, then Hector. There was no pain, not really; this, Patroclus remembers. Only this depthless feeling of loss, of desolation; the knowledge that he would never see Achilles again. The sudden realisation that it was Patroclus, after all, that sealed both of their fates.

Such cruel games the gods play.

“When I sent you out into battle, in my own armour, I never thought it would be Hector you’d be challenging,” Achilles continues. “You were to strike fear into the hearts of the Trojans, drive them back towards their walls, then come back to me. I told you to come back to me. I told you—”

Achilles’ mouth sets in a hard line, but it isn’t cruelty or pride that makes his tone sharp and essential like the edge of a knife. It is fear. That bone deep fear that Patroclus can feel in his own marrow. “Patroclus, how could you do this to me?”

How could he, indeed. Patroclus has no ready answer. He only remembers Troy’s walls, high and impenetrable like the gates of Hades. He remembers gazing at them from the chariot, and thinking how easy it would be to storm the city now that the men are off fighting, their blood high with battle lust. How easy it would be to simply end the war, so that they could leave those gods-forsaken plains behind, along with the prophecies that circle them like carrion birds. With their ships heavy with gold and slaves and Troy’s treasures, the Achaeans would all return to the kingdoms satisfied— not even greedy Agamemnon would say no to this. Achilles would return to Phthia, and spend the rest of his days ruling over the lands his father left him, until his skin was as leathery and his hair as golden-grey as Peleus’ must be now.

A life of obscurity, Thetis had said, an eternity of their names forgotten, but would that be so bad? If this senseless war was finally over, if they both could finally live, would that be so terrible a fate?

What childish fancies those thoughts seem to him now. He turns his head away, unable to meet Achilles' red, tired eyes. All this time, he’d been silently begging and pleading with whatever higher power there is to let him stay by Achilles’ side, for a little while longer, for as long as he could. And yet it was he, in the end, who threw himself into the glowing embers, praying only that Achilles wouldn’t be caught in the flames.

And yet, it never occurred to him that by doing so, he’d be condemning Achilles to the same life Patroclus had been dreading. A lifetime alone.

“I just wanted it to be over,” he whispers, regret welling up inside him like the dark banks of an overflowing river. “I wanted it all to be over.”

Achilles stares at him for a moment in disbelief, then pushes himself up to his feet and starts pacing across the tent. He rakes his fingers through his hair; the usually lustrous locks are now tangled and messy, as if Achilles hasn’t combed them in days.

“You promised me. You promised that after I was — gone—” he pauses for a heartbeat on the word, “that you would perform the burial rites for me. You, and no one else. And that if my son was still living, you would take him from Scyros and return to Phthia with him, and show him all my property, my bondsmen, the kingdom he is to inherit — for Peleus would surely be an old man by then, or struck by grief upon tidings of my death. You promised—”

“Do you really think I’d have the strength to make it to the end of this war with you gone?” Patroclus whispers. There are tears in his eyes, he realises distantly; the breathless, bitter chuckle that leaves his lips is dry and brittle like autumn leaves. “Philtatos, you know me better than this.”

He doesn’t need to look back at Achilles to know the pain that crosses his beautiful features. He stands motionless for a long moment, silent and distant, as if gazing at Patroclus across a great gulf. His footsteps are silent on the fur rug— then, Achilles’ warm forehead touches Patroclus’. He leans over him, trembling, and kisses his cheeks, his eyes, his lips. Patroclus can do nothing but push through the lingering haze of pain and exhaustion, clawing at the edges, to stay with him. To stay.

“Never go far from me,” Achilles pleads quietly, solemnly into their kiss. “Not even for a day. Not even for a moment. Do you hear me, Patroclus?”

His fingers are soft when they trace Patroclus’ cheek, the stubble that has grown there over the days he’s spent unconscious. There is persistent demand in the way he touches him, that still cutting edge of desperation.

“Don’t leave me behind.”

"I won't," Patroclus murmurs, and though every part of him hurts, he still lifts his arms to hold Achilles, to pull him close, to let him curl against him and take whatever comfort he needs from his battered body.

He brings Achilles hand to his lips and kisses the sword-calloused palm of it, sealing the promise he's given him time and again:

Always. Together always, in life, in death, in oblivion and dust and the dark tears in the fabric of remembrance. Always, the two of them despite the world.

The light wanes, and still they lie there, drifting in and out of troubled sleep, and for once Patroclus dares to dream of a distant future.

The fires burn high today, smoke billowing over Troy’s battlefields. Mount Ida's peaks shimmer in the distance, the great city’s walls barely visible beneath it.

From atop the deck of their ship, Patroclus gazes at the place that has been his home for ten years. The Achaean camp and the dark ships dragged up the beach as far as they eye can see, and all the Greeks, people amongst them that Patroclus came to know as friends, small figures milling restlessly like ants.

The life he led in the shadow of a war that tore the world they knew asunder.

Agamemnon had come again, pleading with Achilles to fight in the war, bearing rich gifts. Achilles had denied each one, and had bided his time long enough until Patroclus could stand on his own two feet and survive the long journey back to Phthia.

"My lord," Automedon says behind them. Achilles turns to look at him, his features hard with determination. "The wind is favourable. The men are ready."

"Lower the sails," Achilles commands. He sets his hand on Patroclus' shoulder as the beach gets further and further from them with each beat of the oars. They both watch, hidden in the great shadows that the Myrmidon sails cast upon them.

They both know they're leaving the Achaeans there to die.

Though it stings to leave them all behind, friend and foe; though he knows Achilles' name might be tarnished by it before it is forgotten for good, Patroclus can't bring himself to regret this.

"Think Peleus will be glad to see us?" Achilles whispers in his ear. "Or will he turns us away like defectors?"

Patroclus smiles, because the answer, for once, is easy.

"He must already be preparing the welcoming feast. Thetis will have surely told him."

Achilles grins, and against the backdrop of the soot-grey sky and wine-dark sea he's bright like a young flame. He winds his arm around Patroclus' waist and holds him close as the great walls of Troy become but a white-yellow speck in the distance.

"Let the winds take us home, then."

Thank you so much for reading! Like and reblog if you enjoyed this— it really means a lot :)

#patrochilles #the song of achilles #tsoa #the iliad #hades game #achilles x patroclus #patroclus x achilles #achilles/patroclus #achilles #patroclus #johaerys writes

163 notes · View notes

viscountessevie · 1 year ago

Text

Intro To Dark Olympus by Katee Robert

Welcome to my little review series of Katee Robert' Dark Olympus series! This is in lead up to the latest instalment of the series, Cruel Seduction. I also just felt like taking a trip down the Greek mythology retellings lane.

A general summary of the series: It's set in a modern day city called Olympus with mortals versions of the Greek myth characters. Their power comes in the form of being rich, famous and powerful. It's fairly political in nature and each sector of the city is ruled by The Thirteen - the main thirteen Olympians we're familiar with in the original mythology.

I think what struck me about this series is that it was a hot romance take on myths I loved growing up so much. Katee also has pretty fresh interpretations of the characters and the stories themselves while still keeping true to the beats of the original myths.

So far there are 5 books in the series (including the prequel!) I have enjoyed the first three books in the series, can't wait to reread two of them for these reviews and start on the last two leading up to Cruel Seduction.

Here's an overview and the couples of each book [I'll update this list with links to my reviews here once I post them]:

Prequel: Stone Heart [Medusa & Calypso]

In the city of Olympus, people hardly dare to say Medusa's name aloud. She is Athena's agent, the one she sends when she wants someone to disappear. Medusa owes her life to Athena, and if staining her hands with blood is the only way to repay her debt, it's a small price to pay. Until Athena sends him to find Calypso, the mistress of wealthy politician Odysseus. Calypso has done nothing worthy of a death sentence, and her conflicting feelings only worsen when Medusa first sees the woman behind the name. Calypso is beautiful, cunning and above all ready to do anything to save her life, including seducing her potential assassin. But what begins as a ploy to escape quickly turns into a real attraction. Because Medusa is not the cold killer that rumours suggest, and Calypso is much more complex than it seems... Book 1: Neon Gods [Hades & Persephone]

Society darling Persephone Dimitriou plans to flee the ultra-modern city of Olympus and start over far from the backstabbing politics of the Thirteen Houses. But all that’s ripped away when her mother ambushes her with an engagement to Zeus, the dangerous power behind their glittering city’s dark facade.

With no options left, Persephone flees to the forbidden undercity and makes a devil’s bargain with a man she once believed a myth... a man who awakens her to a world she never knew existed.

Hades has spent his life in the shadows, and he has no intention of stepping into the light. But when he finds that Persephone can offer a little slice of the revenge he’s spent years craving, it’s all the excuse he needs to help her—for a price. Yet every breathless night spent tangled together has given Hades a taste for Persephone, and he’ll go to war with Olympus itself to keep her close… Book 2: Electric Idol [Psyche & Eros]

In the ultra-modern city of Olympus, there's always a price to pay. Psyche knew she'd have to face Aphrodite's ire eventually, but she never expected her literal heart to be at stake...or for Aphrodite's gorgeous son to be the one ordered to strike the killing blow.

Eros has no problem shedding blood. But when it comes time to take out his latest target, he can't do it. Confused by his reaction to Psyche, he does the only thing he can think of to keep her safe: he marries her. Psyche vows to make Eros's life a living hell until they find a way out of this mess. But as lines blur and loyalties shift, she realizes he might take her heart after all...and she's not sure she can survive the loss. Book 3: Wicked Beauty [Helen, Patroclus & Achilles]

In Olympus, you either have the power to rule...or you are ruled. Achilles Kallis may have been born with nothing, but as a child he vowed he would claw his way into the poisonous city's inner circle. Now that a coveted role has opened to anyone with the strength to claim it, he and his partner, Patroclus Fotos, plan to compete and double their odds of winning.

Neither expect infamous beauty Helen Kasios to be part of the prize...or for the complicated fire that burns the moment she looks their way.

Zeus may have decided Helen is his to give to away, but she has her own plans. She enters into the competition as a middle finger to the meddling Thirteen rulers, effectively vying for her own hand in marriage. Unfortunately, there are those who would rather see her dead than lead the city. The only people she can trust are the ones she can't keep her hands off—Achilles and Patroclus. But can she really believe they have her best interests at heart when every stolen kiss is a battlefield? Book 4: Radiant Sin [Cassandra & Apollo]

There's nowhere more dangerous than Olympus...and no one more captivating than its golden god: Apollo. Keeper of secrets, master of his shining realm...and the only man I am powerless to deny.

As a disgraced member of a fallen house, Cassandra Gataki has seen firsthand what comes from trusting the venomous Thirteen. But when the maddeningly gorgeous and kind Apollo asks her to go undercover as his plus-one at a week-long party hosted by a dangerous new power player…Cassandra reluctantly agrees to have his back.

On one condition: when it's all over, and Apollo has the ammunition he needs to protect Olympus, she and her sister will be allowed to leave. For good.

Apollo may be the city's official spymaster, but it's his ability to inspire others that keeps him at the top. Despite what the rest of Olympus says, there's no one he trusts more than Cassandra. Yet even as their fake relationship takes a wicked turn for the scaldingly hot, a very real danger surfaces… threatening not only Cassandra and Apollo, but the very heart of Olympus itself.

I can't wait to dig in and let you all know what I think and why yall should read this series if you love romance and Greek myths!

#Dark Olympus #Katee Robert #Greek Mythology #Greek Mythology retellings #Hades/Persephone #Psyche/Eros #Medusa/Calypso #Achilles/Patroclus #Helen/Achilles/Patroclus #Cassandra/Apollo #Romance Blogging

6 notes · View notes