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streets-in-paradise · 8 months

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Eternal Courtship - Achilles x (fem)Captive!Reader

Troy (2004) Oneshot

Requested by Anon

" hi dearr! Please a story of achilles, in which he falls in love with a woman in the middle of the war and shows his most sensitive side (in the achilles way)"

Abso-fucking-lutely!

I love this so much and hope I did your request justice. Like i told you in the answer of your ask, I got the idea of making her a captive because it's an easy way for them to meet in the middle of the war, but their dynamic is the opposite of the one he has with Briseis in the movie's canon.

Warnings: warrior x war captive romance with grumpy x sunshine vibes. It's implied that the war lasts a bit longer than in the movie, with a time gap happening between the arrival of the greeks/argument of Achilles and Agamemnon and the pacted combat of Paris and Menelaus. This fic is meant to take place in the course of that time gap.

Summary: The wrath of Achilles is a matter of grief for the greeks, but it comes like a ray of hope in your days as their captive. His absense on the battlefield is good news for your people at the other side of the wall, and a calming sign for you. Despite his countrymen are too focused on his pride as the major cause, you believe a warlord willing to risk so much for a simple slave girl is someone capable of performing noble acts.

Intrigued by the glimpses of that kindness he refuses to acknowledge, you approach him without fear and your guesses get confirmed. In your determination to prove that he has a heart, you fail to realize of your slow conquest of it, untill the proof you are looking for comes in the form of his passionate love.

Note: Inspired by a prompt by @creativepromptsforwriting

Prompt 9 - " Why do you always manage to persuade me with your charm? "

Tags: @thorsslxve

The greek army was marching, but the myrmidons had stayed. Their leader refused to take them to combat in protest for the humillation he suffered through the mistreatement of his stolen slave. Briseis, your companion in captivity, was dragged away to the tent of Agamemnon, and the things you have heard about that man were so vile that you feared for her fate more than yours. Her first master had given you to his cousin, a lad younger than you, and you would have never imagined he himself would bother that much for her. Still, he went as far as abstaining from fighting when she got taken away from him.

What happened on the tent of the mycenaean king was commented all over the camp. It was said that the angry myrmidon was about to kill the guards, fellow greeks on his side of the war, for that trojan girl he had just meet. In the language of men, Briseis wasn't different from a pile of gold. They spoke of insults on the honor of the invincible warrior being deprived of his reward as the cause of such mercieless reaction coming from his pride. Ríght after leaving the tent with evident frustration, Patroclus claimed his cousin was heartless for abandoning their countrymen over a distribution dispute. If captives were the issue, he was willing to give you back to him. After all, he didnt want a slave in the first place. You were the compensation he received for not being allowed to fight, a distraction Achilles wanted him to have so he won't insist on the matter.

Since he remained on his tent for the rest of the day, you were sent there as an unwanted present returned to its source. It was the first time you were going to be completely alone with Achilles, and you had a peculiar opinion on him.

To you, his recent actions couldn't be framed as a mere temper tantrum. For as much desperate as the greeks could be to get back his intervention on the war, all their defeats without him would be blamed on him. It was a huge risk for his reputation, that he took after nearly assasinating some fellow soldiers trying to protect a slave.

What the camp perceived as brutal selfishness were acts of great kindness in your perspective. The man you despised barely a few hours ago had won your respectfull admiration. Curiosity overcame any fears as you peeked inside his self reclusion shelter. Common sense would have suggested to approach with caution. Instead, you were standing there with a polite smile and a bowl of food.

He barely looked at you, too lost in hoarding anger.

" I'm not hungry. "

The dry treatment didn't stop you.

" A bit lonely, perhaps? " You sweetly inquirred. " Patroclus is worried for you, so he has decided to give you his present hoping to cheer you up over loosing Briseis. "

The explanation got him more interested in starting a conversation.

" Is that what he believes i'm all about? The reason of my rage? A toy the big bad king took from me and i can simply replace? " He mocked the presented assumption. " I promised that girl that I would keep her safe. I gave her my word, but Agamemnon spat on it. "

The response was fascinating, even better than what you imagined.

" I value your commitement to that promise, no other would have defended her as fiercely as you did. "

Achilles received the compliment with skepticism.

" You should have seen how repulsed she was by that. "

The warrior was pretending to be careless because he wanted to know your opinion. Used as he was to stumble with the hate of Briseis, your more docile attitude was hard to understand because you didn't seem scared enough to be pretending submission.

" I'm impressed, and quite confused. " You admitted as you took your first steps inside. " The destroyer of the temple didn't hesitate in spilling the blood of sacred servants, yet barely a few hours later he turned against his own kind to protect the last one standing. "

You paced arround the place seeking for a spot to leave your load, then passively invited him to check it by choosing one on his reach.

" Your countrymen think you are being recklessly selfish, but i believe otherwise. A man who risks so much for a war prisoner he just meet proves that he is more than the destruction he caused. "

The trusting bright in your eyes got him out of his absortion.

" I will have to break your childish illusions, girl : all i care about is glory. Agamemnon is denying me the recognition i deserve, breaking my pacts for me, and I can't allow it."

To that seriously delivered statement, all you did was releasing some light chuckles and proceed to deliver some sweet mockery.

" Sure, sir … Whatever you say. "

Never before a stranger had reacted to him in such a relaxed way. Hate would have been easier to deal with than your sweetness.

He had no weapons to fight it, only his sarcasm.

" Mind to explain what you find so amusing?"

You didn't mind to share your theory, impatient to see how he would react to it.

" Turns out you have a heart after all, and you are upset because i discovered it. "

Achilles gave you the cold look he would show for an enemy in a singular combat.

" I'm a ruthless killer, I would slaughter your entire family and feel nothing about it. "

The warning was completely effectiveless.

" You couldn't even handle my best friend to your king knowing he would be capable of raping her. " You reminded him. " And you gave me to your cousin already aware that he would respect me. "

Facts had spoken better than his words and he realized that your nice positivity wasn't foolishness.

" That doesn't change what i am, only tells you that I wouldn't hurt helpless women."

" And you think that's not important? In this war, particularly?" You recalled inmediately. " I heard other greeks cheering themselves up saying they would all sleep with the wife of a trojan to avenge Menelaus. If the spartan king lost control of his wife, then marriage as an institution is threatened. They need to kill Helen and rape as many trojan women as they can so the horror will keep their women at bay. "

Intrigued by the practical wisedown of your words, he tapped with his hands a spot for you to sit beside him. As you followed the command, you remembered the food served near him.

" Eat, I made it specially for you. "

Achilles looked at what appeared to be an exotic version of a lamb stew.

" Are you trying to win me over with trojan food? It's humanly impossible for you to be this kind after what I have done to you." He concluded his suspicious inspection. " What's the trick? Is it poisoned? Did you spat inside as you were making it? "

You were still looking at him so sweetly and he became even more disconcerted.

If he needed proof, you were more than willing of eating the food for him given all you had previously was the terrible dishes served for slaves.

" It lacks some of the proper spicing, but I worked hard on it, so i'm not going to let it go to waste. "

Your shocked master couldnt take his eyes off you, observing you eating as if you were back in your home.

" Is it good? "

" Could have been worse, at least I was given to a good man. " You commented on your situation instead of the dish. " One that would be willing to threaten his own countrymen and inmovilize his army if something wrong happens to me. "

The praise made him smirk.

" Lovely … Where do you find such niceness?"

You drank some of his own wine before replying.

" King Priam's philosophy is deeply based on the power of kindness. "

He stiffled a chuckle, fearing you may find his amusement insulting.

" He should reconsider the strategy, wars aren't won with kindness."

" No, but small gestures can make big differences. " You corrected him. " Look arround you : if Agamemnon wouldn't have proceeded with cruelty, he wouldn't have lost your support. It can also be said that the kind promise you did to Briseis has the potentiality to shift the course of the war. "

The myrmidon was speechless, understanding some logical reasoning behind the naive optimism.

" I'm still an enemy of Troy. "

To the dark reminder, you had yet another sweet comeback.

" We can still respect each other. "

Achilles didn't waited much to correct you.

" I believe respect is earned, not owed. "

For the first time in the talk he had trully managed to annoy you.

" Then you can accept that your infamous wrath has earned you my respects and eat your food. "

You got him under his same reasoning and he conceeded you the victory.

" Is there more of that for me to try? "

Achilles developed a clear verdict out of that first encounter. He did enjoy the food, but he liked you way more. Even when your mindsets and attitudes were completely opposite, the way you have choosen to work on that difference made him feel oddly good arround you. No accusations from a stance of moral superiority came from you. Instead, you were proving your higher morals with your everyday acts of mundane kindness. Sometimes he got the feeling that you weren't even really Interested in being the better person, since respect and reciprocity were more important to you than being ríght.

To be yelled at was way easier than adapting to your attentive behavior. Softness like yours was confusing, specially knowing it wasn't performative. You weren't a scared girl trying to appeal a master, those actions simply reflected who you were.

The mystery of how you kept clinging to you kindness in such an adverse context occupied his mind out of boredoom. His thought process constantly battled with the evidence of his everyday getting to know you, trying desperately to ignore he was at the edge of an infatuation.

Making him company wasn't a problem to you, since it was way more of a pleasant activity than doing slave chores on the camp. On good days, you would even manage to get him out of his tent for a walk on the beach at the hours that the ausence of all the other armies made the place more quiet.

Visiting Briseis was complicated even when Agamemnon wasn't near, but you managed to get news proving the protest had some effect. Her new master didn't lay hands on her and she confessed you she believed the man had no idea of what to do with her because he only took her to punish his political rival.

It would be a matter of time before you would reunite again and, once that would happen, you were planning to beg the myrmidon leader for your liberation. Your friend thought that keeping your hopes in that man so up was a mistake, but you were convinced that he could be willing to do the ríght thing. He was hard to deal with, but never cruel to any of you.

In your particular experience, you had no complains of his treatment. If you wouldn't be dressed in misserable clothes everytime you had to wash your only decent dress, you would be feeling as if you were getting to know a suitor that your parents had you promised to. It was a thought you often toyed with, a sort of secret fantasy making the shackles feel lighter.

With the only exception of his self naturalization of nudity, Achilles had behaved like a true gentleman and you were happy to reciprocate the good treatment. However, if he would protectively hold your hand during your incursions outside his tent, you would forget for an instant of the war going on and feel as if you were all alone in a process of eternal courtship.

For as much as he kept denying to have a caring heart, you were seeing it from a mile away. You understood he needed to keep the facade despite that was all it was. Appearances, his rougeness of warrior hidding his sweeter emotions. At the time most greeks were calling him heartless, blind to their suffering, he stopped making himself blind to the pain of the only ones in the camp they won't care about.

He turned his back against them, but showed you his heart.

Every night since you left the tent of Patroclus, the new routine with Achilles was having dinner together and sharing the límits of his tent to sleep. In the beggining, he allowed you to have your space and pick a corner to be away from him. That changed one rainy night, when the sound of thunder from outside made you seek shelter on him.

Achilles noticed inmediately how you approached in silence to snuggle against him like a scared child.

" Did your parents never told you that's just Zeus bringing his cheers to mortals? "

You looked up to face him, as if you were trying to justify yourself but couldn't come up with anything.

" They did, but that didn't change much … Thunder still frightens me. "

Darkness didn't hide from him the peculiar beauty of your pleading face and he simply couldn't resist it. Patience lead him to a good end and you were approaching him willingly. He felt you clinging to his firm body, using him for comfort in a sleepless night and begging with your eyes that he would let you in.

It was perfect, perhaps too perfect.

" Mind if we stay like this tonight?" In your cluelessness about his feelings, you finally asked. " The weather gets on my nerves. "

He dreamed of being so close to you, but would have cutted one of his hands before admitting such vulnerability.

" Why do you always manage to persuade me with your charm ? "

He got to hear more of your light chuckling thinking that, if he wouldn't be cautious about scaring you, he would have kissed you.

You started to relax arround him and that allowed you to explain yourself better.

" My uncle died in the sea, a bad storm wrecked the ship and very few survived to tell the story. Briseis' father was with him, loosing someone when we were so little brought us close and that's how we became friends … What I never told her is that I blamed myself for years because my father was meant to go in that travel too, but he had other business to attend in the city. "

The usually cheerfull tone of your voice turned sadly serious as you tried not to cry remembering that.

" Why did I got to have mine and she lost hers? Her uncle told us it was the will of the gods, … but it's all happening again. She is stucked with Agamemnon while i'm safe with you. "

He understood the reason of your guilt, but wasn't going to let you keep thinking on that.

" Lucky girl. " He purred in a raspy voice. " Do you like being with me? "

The crashing sounds outside made you grip him tighter and he rounded your waist with one arm. The poor garments you were wearing made it odd to the touch and he wished he would be feeling your skin instead. Following his sleeping habit, he was naked at least from the waist up, and he did noticed you developing a subtle curiosity for his body.

" You are nice. " Was your vague reply. " Patroclus was very dissapointed when we meet. "

It wasn't exactly what he was looking for, but he kept trying.

" Trust me, it wasn't your fault. You were a wonderfull gift, but my little cousin is the opposite of the mycenaean king. He wants to do all the work and doesn't care for the pay. I didn't let him fight that time, so being presented with a reward for doing nothing got him upset. "

You got his point, but cassually threw in another idea.

" Maybe i was too old for his taste. "

The moment stimulated him to share some of his own load in reciprocity for your previous confession.

" My father died in the battlefield and i'm doomed to share his fate, but I don't want that for him. "

You awkwardly moved your head so it would rest on his chest and he started playing with your hair. No word from you flowed within the action, fearing any interruption would have make him aware of his fallen mask.

" Had you ever felt so sure about what you want for your life, completely convinced of how you want it to be like, then one day everything changes and shakes every certainty you had? "

It was most likely he didn't think his words carefully, because that was literally your story.

" Well, while my friend became a priestess, I knew I wanted to be a wife. I told her I was not going to let our different paths separate us, so i have been asisting as a bystander in every religious ceremony she has been in. As a noblewoman, i was allowed to, so I did. "

He had a close idea of were the tale was going, but didn't dare to sarcastically interrupt it.

" Polydamas was heartbroken when he found out Briseis had choosen priesthood, so i reached to comfort him. I must have been very good in that, because he started seeking my company. Since them we had been flirting for a while and i told myself that was my call. He is a fine trojan warrior and a seer, a man of excellent reputation and a personal friend of Prince Hector … So, i believed my life was taking its course I was following his game untill courtship would lead to marriage. That was the life I had planned, untill one day your men invaded my friend's temple. "

You stopped for an instant, before the callout would get too obvious.

" Tell me about yours. What kind of perspective changer event is ruining your plans? "

Achilles felt relieved of not sensing the enthusiasm of an enamored girl in your description of that trojan noble you were mentioning. If he would have found out you were in love with someone else waiting for you at the other side of the wall, he would have felt a heartbreak for the first time on his life and he had no idea of how he would have reacted to that. He couldn't care less about the trojan possibly wanting you for a wife, as long as he felt you weren't convinced of wanting him.

" I found some light for my obscure existence. " He vaguely admitted you. " I stopped fighting and realized there is so much I gave away for it, so much i will never have, and maybe what I got from a lifetime of warrior isn't worthy … I wasted my life following the orders of that fool of a king. "

Your fingers were tracing the patterns of his muscles as if you seeked to relax him out of those troubled thoughts.

" I believe it's never too late to start over, if that's what you want. " You adviced. " Take me as example: i came to terms with the fact that I will never be the wife of some honorable warrior. I will never make my family proud, to them I will be a memory too painfull or to shamefull to keep alive ... And if by chance I return to them, i will become a load for my father's home, because no trojan will want to marry me knowing I have been the slave of a greek. "

Hearing you express disenchantment was very unusual, and it was killing him. He couldn't stand your sadness, feeling sure that he would have done anything to end it.

" You would have been the best wife a warrior could aspire to get. "

That kind praise meant a lot to you, so you moved up just a bit in order to give him a chaste kiss on the cheek.

Achilles smirked, ready to tease you despite he felt the gesture was very proper of you.

" You call that a kiss? Had Polydamas never give you a real one ? "

His provocation surprised you, but you weren't alarmed about it.

" Most trojan noblemen flirt keeping some decorum. " You attempted to explain. " Despite what the Insidious imagery of the war suggests, Paris is an exception to the courtship conduct of a trojan man. "

The myrmidon glanced at your lips, then deep into your eyes.

" If you let me, I can show you a glimpse of what you have been missing. " He seductively offered. " I will gift you a nice memory you can use to fight the fears. Instead of thinking of your dead uncle, or the guilt you felt, you will think of me everytime you will hear the sky cracking."

Your most inmediate response was a nervous smile.

" Would you do that for me? "

His mouth was dangerously close to yours and you parted your lips to let him in without a thought. The taste was wonderfull and with every instant of your pleased reception, his passion increased. You were at his mercy, almost completely lost to the new sensations and he knew he could have done with you whatever he wanted, but he didn't.

The trail of kisses had reached your neck when Achilles rolled on top of you. He was trying to stretch the fabric of your clothes, fighting for access to more skin without having to undress you ríght away. At that moment he got to hate your replacement wearing given in captivity as much as you did. There were no decent women clothes in the camp, so you got what his men could find for a slave. He despised it, that thing didn't make your beauty justice like your dress did. You deserved better, you weren't just a slave. Not anymore, and he haven't feel like that with you in a good while.

He was in love with you, and he haven't dare to say the words. In your quest to find his heart, you had taken ownership of it without realizing how deep you were reaching. The emotional intimacy and your adictive sweetness had won him over.

For him, that was as new as the physical contact was for you. He was paying close attention to your every reaction, surprised that you let him get as far when he sneaked his hands underneath your clothes. His caresses followed the sides of your curves and your closed eyes got open wide out of surprise, but you were still smiling under him.

It was the loveliest vision and he got enraptured by it.

" You are so beautifull … " He whispered softly. " Such lovely girl. "

You easily melted to his praise.

" Really? "

The sound of your voice calmed some of his overtaking passion. He remembered of how trusting you were of his softer side, how firmly you believed he was a good man despite of his war crimes.

For as much strenght as it would take from him, he needed to control himself for you. It was too early to claim you completely.

" You are the light shinning before my darkness. "

Achilles gave you a peck on the forehead and retired his hands from your body to caress both of your cheeks. With one more deep kiss, he prepared to cradle you in his arms for the rest of the night.

It was the most thoughtfull proof of love he could have given to you, but he didn't stop there.

Days later some traders from Lemnos had arrived to ressuply the greek army of various articles, but they were loaded of other items they meant to sell somewhere else on the way back home. From them Achilles got you a beautifull dress worthy of a lady, that he made you wear on the first dinner he shared with his men since his wrath was unleashed. You considered that telling stories and singing songs was little price to pay for such magnificent gift, but the experience showed you something else.

He kept you by his side the whole time, as an honorable warrior would while showing off his beloved wife.

#troy 2004 #troy #achilles x reader #brad pitt x reader #achilles #brad pitt

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