#finally found a minute to make a proper promo 🙌

[johaerys-writes]

Chapter 21: First Love/Late Spring

Read on AO3 | Read from the beginning

The flickering lights of passing cars from the street below cast trembling shadows on the ceiling. The neighbours from the flat above are stomping loudly to and fro, their conversations muffled and distant. They must be having a party, or some sort of gathering. Patroclus twiddles his thumbs as he listens, his hands resting on his stomach.  

“I think I should go,” he says.

Chryseis is polite enough to bring forth an objection or two, but Patroclus knows her well enough to tell that they’re half-hearted. She probably wants him out as much as Patroclus wants to be out. It was a mistake agreeing to stay here anyway—something that Chryseis is possibly also realising now.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep here?” she asks him as he rolls out of bed and puts on his sweater and his jeans. The only items of clothing he managed to take off before it became clear to both of them that not much else was going to be happening between them that night. “I have to leave early in the morning, but I’ll be quiet; I won’t wake you.”

“It’s fine,” he says, forcing a smile. “I have to feed Laika, anyway. Usually Achilles does it, but I forgot he’s out tonight, so… I’d better get back there. She’ll be tearing down the walls soon, if she hasn’t already.”

It’s nothing more than a polite lie, and not a very good one at that, but Chryseis seems eager enough to accept it. Patroclus will gladly take the blame for all of this, if it means getting out of it a minute sooner, and leaving her in peace. She escorts him to the door, looking vaguely uncomfortable as she stands there, watching him. As if she’s waiting for something… Patroclus has no idea what. 

“Well, then,” he says. “Goodnight. And thanks—for… everything.” He hesitates for a moment before he leans down and gives her a kiss; on the cheek, this time. “Talk to you soon?”

She smiles at that, but it’s still a touch guarded and tense. “Yes. Goodnight.”

There’s a light drizzle when Patroclus steps out onto the street. He pulls up his hoodie and shrinks beneath it, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t mind that it’s cold and rainy and that he didn’t bring an umbrella with him. He barely pays any attention to his surroundings at all, getting lost in his ruminations as he walks. 

The dull ache that he woke up with in the morning has never left, and it’s getting worse now, pounding at his temples. A sour feeling is curdling inside him; he’s relieved to have left Chryseis’ flat, just as he dreads going back to his own. He doesn’t even want to think about what will happen in the morning—even if Achilles doesn’t completely hate him right now, which doesn’t seem probable, Patroclus will still have to face the consequences of whatever happened with Chryseis tonight, which can’t be good. Things will never quite be the same between them—it will be too awkward to be alone with her. 

If she even wants to see him again after this. Patroclus would understand if she doesn’t. He wouldn’t really want to see himself either; not while he’s…. like this. 

He doesn’t rightly know what he thought would happen when he agreed to go to bed with Chryseis—rather, what he was hoping would happen if he went to bed with her. That she would be a pleasant distraction? That he would fall in love with her? That it would make his feelings for Achilles go away, or that it would help him forget he ever had them? The notion is laughable to him; worse, it makes him feel wretched that he dragged poor Chryseis into all of this mess. Even if sleeping with her did actually manage to make any one of those things come to pass, Patroclus doubts it would ever mend whatever’s broken between Achilles and himself. 

And this is what it was all about, isn’t it? Something to take his mind off all the shattered bits, a quick fix for something… irreparable. He hasn’t wanted to admit it to himself—he still doesn’t want to admit it to himself—but perhaps he’s too far gone. They’re both too far gone. 

One thing is certain: if Briseis hears about all this, he will certainly never hear the end of it. 

Read the rest on AO3