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Hector is dead, and now Achilles is not, staring with fury at his dead body, fury that feels like a boiling of a river. With the ichor of a god on his hands, he feels like he could eat the world raw once again, starting with Troy.
With his beloved dead, even the gods could see, his soul cracked open, and bled out his humanity. Patroclus, his love, his soul. A decade of war and blood, flesh in his teeth. His soft voice and hands gentling Achilles back down to the land of mortals. The cool, white linens and Patroclus’ warm body. Stoking the fire of his human, mortal heart. With those big, warm eyes looking into his, metallic, red blood pumped through his veins.
Now, not even Thetis, the whole of Greeks, could stop him. His mother wanted him so to become a god, a thing of legends. There was nothing, no one who could bring him back from the bursting cells and energy of infernal life.
Achilles did not stop, he did not tie Hectors body to his chariot, no. He became what everyone feared. In front of the god made gates of Troy, and in front of the Greeks, in front of the Trojans, and the Gods as an audience. He used his teeth, and his hands, and tore meat from bones, skin stretching like fat, and blood running like rain. He chewed, and swallowed.
The fury burned brighter, and brighter, and nothing was stopping it, his breaths came like thunder and the cracking of lightning. Loud and abrasive, animalistic. He stepped towards the gates of Troy.
Achilles left Hectors body there, half mangled, bones hollow, the marrow sucked free.
He could hear the screams of men behind him, colors of Troy littering the ground like ponds of rainwater. With footsteps like the breeze, and the power of a thousand armies, led the Greeks up to the gates. Another obstacle.
He thinks he can see it now, feels it, the craftsmanship of the gods, threading through and out of the wooden doors, and the stone walls.
The walls that his Patroclus climbed, and died at the foot of. The thought, fleeting as it was, burned through this mind like a fire, and Achilles burned more and more.
He climbed the walls then, no gods would stop him, he did not know, that his feet fit into the crevices that Patroclus’ did, as his hands felt for the minuscule ledges that Patroclus’ did.
There was no one waiting for him this time, no god to shame him, no one stopping him. With the ringing of battle already won below, all the Greeks waiting, them forgetting the atrocities their leaded committed, all high on the anticipation of a war yet won. They waited.
The gates did not open, only with his body as a weapon, he conquered Troy alone, like a tornado, like a army. Blood of the brave, and the blood of the innocent billowing behind Achilles like a cape, he advanced and the warm and cooling blood, and the soft bones and skin, did not stop him.
He felt like he was burning like the sun, he felt like he was singeing everything he touched, ashes like fingerprints left in smears. He no longer felt the stolen spears in hand, just death.
It seemed as if the Trojans burned and burned at the mere sight of Achilles. He burned the life out of everything he touched, and more.
Achilles stopped for a second, the Trojan palace towering above him, yet he felt he was looking down at it. He knew, if his love was here, they would do this together, but his love was not. He would destroy enough for Patroclus to hear it in the Underworld.
He felt something then, other than his fury, bright red hot, his utter love and devotion, but it did not calm him, it did not.
It filled his being, the mere tenacity of it, it filled him more than anything he had ever felt. Like all his memories of Patroclus, filling him at once, unending and unceasing. He screamed then, and the walls of the palace shook. His tears did not burn his skin, but melted the floor like ichor.
Everything in like life crescendoed around him, like the roar of waves in a storm, and the sound of a thousand lyres, and the ringing of Patroclus’ voice in his ears, he burned the life out of the palace.
Generations, fathers, mothers, sons and daughter, all burned. Years of history, and gold mere ash. His heartbreak and grief tainted the rubble around him like a sickness.
He screamed again, this time, rage and grief filled. Then commoners houses burned.
Another, pure, unaltered, love. The walls of Troy fell.
Eons could’ve passed, or just a moment. He thought he could’ve seen his mother, with an expression he had never seen, painting her face.
A breeze picked up.
He saw them, it could’ve been a mother, a wife, daughter, or a landscape, it could’ve just been a stirring of the winds.
He felt.
A fondness, a camaraderie. Eons of emotions and the warm embrace of pride. Then he felt more than he has ever felt.
Rose quartz caves, marble underfoot, owl-eyes, purple cloth, a fireplace, a heated-not breeze, lacquered sun warm wood, soft lips upon his, tasting like a beginning, beach sand, soft waves, a blood slick spear.
And then it was just, Patroclus, Patroclus, Patroclus, again and again and again. Forever and a second.
His body transcended mortality, the realm of Earth, he no longer had need for blood and muscle, or food and drink, or soft beds and warmth.
He felt like a stirring of war, fear and grief. He felt like the rage of armies. He felt like the air of a lyre playing, he felt like a soul reaching for another, and he felt like everything and nothing. All at once.
The uproars of Gods as music, emotions larger than the sky, solid, liquid energy, feeling like every aspect of life. Flying around him like a hug and push.
He opened his eyes once again, feet still planted in the rubble of Troy and his rage.
His body felt like bulky armor, and like his favorite tunic at once. Unfamiliar, familiarity. He blinked, and saw his mother.
There was that expression again, one he’s never seen. Almost like bright pride, and a mother’s love, with fear lining her face. He thinks she’s spoken. Her lips do not move. He tilts his head, and sees the flurry of water, and incandescent life. He sees his mother, the maternal cells of her body, and the selfishness of a god.
He knows then.
He needs only think, a mere gesture, and has his urn, the ashes of his beloved in his hands.
Patroclus feels continents away and right next to him. Yet he wants to feel closer.
Where is his loves voice? His warm body? His eyes? Where is the pulse he so loved kissing?
He knew, somewhere, his new body would not be enough, gods could not always act in selfishness, they couldn’t do everything.
But that fury, the fury that burned his mortal-hood from his soul, it is still there.
He thinks then, he could eat his world raw, he tips the urn back, and swallows his beloved whole. And thinks, Patroclus, Patroclus, Patroclus.
A sensation, like nothing before, he thinks it tasted like the Styx, burning up his nose. Or maybe it was figs, sweet, refreshing on his tongue. It tasted like every drop of his soul, every emotion he has ever felt, and the aftertaste of warm love.
Achilles then feels elation like never before, he felt he has reunited with his love after a thousand years.
His Patroclus, there.
His Patroclus looking at him with oh, so wide eyes. Surprise, then, tears. Tears that taste of joy, and a body that feels like a puzzle piece, fitting against Achilles.
“Achilles”
“Patroclus”
His loves voice tasted like the sweetest wine, the figs of Pelion.
His love smelled like green, green sprouting from the Earth, and warm oiled wood. Shining as his eyes.
His love felt warm, rushing, blood warm. Soft as the finest linens, softer yet than the finest silks.
His voice, like the rumbling of waves, and plucking of a lyre, he wants to fall asleep to, and wake to, for eternity.
And Patroclus, the most beautiful he’s ever seen, more than any God, and queen, and prince or princess. His big, brown eyes, richer than any fertile soil. His unruly hair, glossier than the gods ambrosia. His skin, it glows more than Helios himself. Achilles would write songs, sing to the heavens, his love, devotion. How he aches and burns for him, how he would move mountains, burn cities, fought till his feet bled. All for his love.
They’ve consumed each other, cells merging until they are indistinguishable from one another. Soul meeting soul, twining like a loom threading.
Achilles surrounds, consumes Patroclus. Souls bursting until nothing can tear them apart again, not pain, or fragile flesh. They are threads to one tapestry, they are legend carved into stone, they are one.
And so a new story begins.