Promises and Prophecies

Author's Note (9/27/2010): I wrote this story six years ago for the "Greek Love" Livejournal, which is dedicated to the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus. (If anyone is an Achilles/Pat fan and has not been to visit "Greek Love," I encourage you to do so.) Real life, of course, moved on at its usual dizzying rate, and I fell out of involvement in A/P fandom. But I've gotten back into it again recently, and so decided to post "Promises and Prophecies" on here as a prequel to the new Achilles/Patroclus story that I'm working on now.

"Promises and Prophecies" was where my brain went from the discussion on "Greek Love" of what might have been Achilles and Patroclus' first time.

Although most of my ideas about these guys come from the Iliad, I decided to include the famous Achilles cross-dressing story - not because it's in the Iliad, which it isn't, but because it was just too fun for me to leave out!

In this version, A & P are indeed cousins, but they are NOT the guys in the very disappointing film Troy.Achilles' mother Thetis is actually a sea goddess, not just Julie Christie; at the moment she's basically separated from Achilles' dad and lives with her father in a palace under the sea, but she does still visit her mortal family pretty regularly (particularly when lots of stressful stuff is going on). And, a year or so before this story, in response to a disturbing prophecy, Thetis convinced her son to go into hiding disguised as a girl, so that he would not have to join in an expedition setting forth against Troy ...

I don't own any of the characters or situations of Homer's Iliad, of any other ancient authors, or of the legends of the Trojan War. Wish I did. Not making any money off them, either. Sigh! Oh, and I'm using the spellings of A & P's names from Richmond Lattimore's translation of the Iliad, which is what I read way back in freshman year of college, when I first fell in love with the beautiful tragic romance that is Achilles and Patroclus. Naturally, as everyone should have gathered by now, this is a tale of a sexual relationship between two men, and so if that is something which offends you, you definitely should not read any further.

Promises and Prophecies: An Iliad Fan Fiction

I told myself I should not be surprised to see that he had aged. It was nearly a year since I had seen him last, since the black-sailed flagship of Peleus pulled away from the Skyros docks.

I smiled as I thought of that last distant view I'd had of him, standing with the rest of the womenfolk on the roof of Lycomedes' palace. I remembered seeing him wave – perhaps a touch too enthusiastically for a well-brought up girl, but not by all that much. I had waved back at him, as I stood there on the deck by his father's side.

As I waved, I'd wondered if Achilleus could see me – and how long it would be before I saw him again.

Now he was home, clad once more as the son and heir of Peleus instead of the lovely-haired maid who had left us a year ago. He lay stretched out on his front across his bed, his chin propped on his hands. His gaze was distant, lost in thought.

It struck me that his face was thinner; he had lost the last of the puppy-fat of the little boy I remembered. I caught myself staring – only a little – at the muscles of his arms, and I thought that if anyone had ever felt his arms, his disguise would not have lasted for a moment.

His disguise didn't last, I reminded myself. At least it didn't last for Lycomedes' daughter.

"My mother says it's going to be a boy," he said suddenly, his voice holding both enthusiasm and awe.

"That's wonderful," I said. I meant it, though I still was marveling at his news, three days now since he'd revealed it to his parents and me. Sometimes, in spite of all, I still thought of him as my ten-year-old cousin, bragging of how well he'd out-run all the other boys in the races, or wheedling me into showing him again every spear-fighting trick I had ever learned from my tutors. It seemed impossible that my little cousin would soon be a father – impossible, until I looked at him.

Sometimes it seemed as though nothing had changed, that this was just the same as a thousand other nights we'd spent talking of the future, Achilleus lying sprawled across his bed and me sitting on the floor beside it. Sometimes it seemed nothing had changed, and then I thought of him as the promised husband of Deidamia of Skyros, and the warrior of prophecy without whom the high-hearted Achaians refused to sail against Troy of the great walls.

"You ought to get a son," Achilleus said now, with such a serious tone that I had to laugh at him.

"What, tonight?" I inquired. "You think I can just sire a son on command?"

"No, I mean it," he went on eagerly, sitting up on the bed. "My son and yours ought to grow up together. Deidamia's got some really pretty handmaidens; we can see if there's one you like when we visit."

I slumped down and let my head fall back on the edge of the bed, staring up at the blue and gold painted porpoises swimming across the ceiling. "I assure you," I said, "I'm not suffering any lack of handmaidens. We've got plenty here for me to choose from."

"Well, you shouldn't let it wait too long. Your first child might be a girl, after all, and, well, I don't want to leave it to chance. I don't want my son to be too much older than yours."

"A few years won't matter," I told him. "I don't think we need to panic about it yet."

He scowled, with the same sulking look he'd always had when he didn't get his way. "Well, just don't put it off," he ordered.

I sought about for a means of changing the subject. "What's Deidamia like?" I asked.

Achilleus' gaze dropped. He started to pick at some loose bits of thread in the purple coverlet. "She's pretty," he said, not looking at me. "She's beautiful." He smiled a little, shyly, glanced over at me for an instant and then looked down again. "She's a good swimmer," he added, speaking that praise with a good deal more enthusiasm than had sounded in his voice when he spoke of her looks.

I speculated if it were through some encounter while swimming that she had discovered his identity, but I did not ask.

"You'll like her," said Achilleus, with a determination that made me wonder if he were trying to convince himself as well as me.

I thought of the voyages ahead of us: to Skyros to complete the negotiations for Achilleus and Deidamia's marriage, and then to join the Achaian fleet at Aulis. Again my heart trembled as it did every time I thought of the goddess Thetis' prophecies.

"Achilleus," I said, "you don't have to go."

He looked at me in frowning surprise. "Yes, I do. It's my fault. I'm not going to let Father go negotiate with Lycomedes without me being there to stand up to what I've done."

"I don't mean that, I mean the war. You still don't have to go. We can go to Skyros, arrange the marriage, and then just come back home. You don't have to be in this war, it's stupid, it's got nothing to do with us. If the bronze-armored Achaians think they can't win it without one certain warrior, then they're not good enough to win anyway and we shouldn't bother with them."

My cousin bit his lip and said, "Well, but the prophecy may be true."

I thought, Achilleus, only you could really believe you'll be more important to the entire course of a war than hundreds of thousands of warriors.

"It may," I snapped. "Your mother's prophecy may be, too. Why should you go to this war where you're certain to die, just to salve the Atreides' pride?"

He corrected, "Almost certain to die."

I jumped to my feet. "All right, then, almost certain to die! You're fifteen years old, Achilleus, and you're about to have a son! This is not the right time to go flinging your life away!"

"When is the right time?" he shot back. "We all die. What does it matter if it's sooner or it's later?"

"You really are still a child, aren't you? What do you know about death? Or anything else? You may change your mind about it, you know, when you're actually dying."

"Maybe. If I do, I'll be sure to let you know."

I sighed and took a couple of steps toward the door. Then I stopped and looked back at him.

He'd stood up, and he had such a saddened, disappointed look on his face that my anger faded like mist.
"Are you leaving?" he asked.

I ought to, I thought. But who knew how many chances I might have to talk with him, in these days and months ahead? At Skyros, I supposed, he'd be spending most of his time with Deidamia and the new in-laws. And then there would be Aulis, and the war.

"No," I said, with another sigh. I walked back and sat down again in my usual place on the floor, against the bed. This time Achilleus sat down on the floor beside me.

We looked at each other cautiously, both uncertain of what might prove safe topics of conversation. I managed to smile at him, and was rewarded by his smile in return. I looked away from him then, my gaze wandering around the room until it lit on the two large brass-bound chests that still stood against one wall.

That was one thing I could think to ask him about – not a safe topic at all, perhaps, but one that I could no longer hold back from mentioning.

"Did you bring all your girl's clothes home with you?"

"Of course," he said, and when I grinned at that he hurried on defensively, "Well, they're all borrowed from my mother's Nereids, aren't they? I couldn't just throw them away."

"Of course not. So what was it like, being a girl?"

"Boring," he said emphatically. "Very, very boring." He grinned then suddenly and added, "And I'm absolutely terrible at weaving."

"You're joking. And here I was just going to ask you to do up a nice little tapestry for me."

"Trust me, the horses would weave you a better tapestry than I would."

I told myself I really should not ask the next question I wanted to, but that did not stop me from asking. "So – will you try on one of your outfits for me?"

His eyes widened, and he turned a wary look on me. "Why?"

"I want to see what you looked like. I spent the whole year wondering about what kind of a girl you'd be – and how stupid the people of Skyros must be if they couldn't tell that sweet little Pyrrha was a boy."

He was grinning again now, though he was also starting to blush. "You know what I looked like. You went to Skyros with us. And you were here the first time Mother got me dressed up in all that stuff."

"Yes, and I was laughing so hard, I couldn't look at you."

He patted at his hair and made a pouting little rosebud of his mouth. "Well, that's your fault, then," he said. "You missed out on a sight of surpassing loveliness."

"Then show me. I beg you, do not let me live any longer without this sight."

"Fine." Achilleus stood up swiftly and strode toward the chests, yanking his tunic off over his head as he walked. He threw his tunic at me and commanded, "Don't watch."

I caught the tunic and tossed it on the bed, then obediently I turned my gaze again to the porpoises on the ceiling. "Whatever you say, My Lady," I said.

He muttered, "I am going to kill you for this."

I thought again, I really ought to leave. I should never have asked him to do this. But I did not move.

Before long a voice spoke that I half recognized and half did not. "All right, you can look."

He had not tried to lighten his voice at all in pitch; he only spoke quietly, in a demure almost-whisper that was so very unlike the voice of my cousin and friend. I stood up and turned to look at him, and I think that I gasped.

He'd put on a dress and draperies of a filmy pale green, like the ocean waves from which his mother and her Nereids rose to visit us. The cut of the draperies was cunningly arranged to conceal the shape of his chest – and to camouflage his decidedly un-girl-like arms that I had wondered about earlier – but somehow the fabric did not overwhelm his slender figure. His golden hair peeped out from under a long, sheer length of that same ocean-green cloth, and I suddenly caught myself imagining running my hands through that beautiful hair. And imagining a good many other things that I did not want to admit.

"Well?" he demanded, in that unfamiliar soft voice of his. "How stupid are the people of Skyros?"

I heard myself laugh, an awkward little laugh that sounded very close to panic. "That's really frightening," I told him. "You look – beautiful."

He grinned and suddenly spoke in his own voice again. "Do you want me to put on the make-up, too? I've gotten a lot better at it. I don't usually need a handmaiden to help me with it any more."

"No," I said. "No, I do not want you to put on the make-up. You're scary enough as it is."

Achilleus crossed to me. He did not make any ridiculous attempt to mimic the movements of a woman, but he still somehow managed to walk with a delicate timidity that made me ask myself if this were still my cousin at all. Standing entirely too close to me, he stared straight into me and asked quietly, "So do I look like a girl?"

"No," I lied, trying desperately to retain some humor in the conversation. "Your neck's too big for a girl's. I told you that when you were first trying these outfits on."

With a wide-eyed innocent gaze, he said, "My neck's not the only thing that's too big for a girl. But after all," he went on, with a teasing little smile, "my face is so stunningly beautiful, no one was looking at my neck."

"Of course." I smiled uncomfortably and wished that I could just run from the room. "You know," I said, "we won't have to fight this war at all. We can just take you to Troy and give you to Prince Paris. Once he's seen you, he'll forget all about Helen of Sparta."

"Forget it," he whispered, studying me with a gaze that made me more uncomfortable than ever. "Paris can't have me."

My mouth was horribly dry. I swallowed and somehow managed to say, "Achilleus, I ought to leave."

Achilleus put one hand on my arm. I flinched at his touch.

"Patroklos," he asked, "why did you ask me to put this on?"

"I don't know," I lied again.

He murmured, "Don't you?"

It seemed the most difficult thing I had ever done, just to reach out and touch his arm. I felt the strength of his arm beneath my grasp, but it also seemed that he was trembling.

I whispered, "I'm afraid."

"So am I," he whispered back. "Why are you afraid?"

I told myself that I could not say it, must not say it. Then I did. I said, "I'm afraid because I want to kiss you."

His gaze did not waver from me. He answered, "You know the only way out of fear is to do the thing you're afraid of."

My hand was trembling terribly as I ran my fingers across his cheekbone and down onto his mouth. His lips felt impossibly, wondrously soft, and as I touched them he gently smiled.

His warm breath on my fingers felt like the touch of a god, as he whispered, "Don't be afraid."

Part of my mind was still asking questions, even through the fire of the gods that enveloped me. It was asking why I had waited so long to do this, as I raked my hands through his glorious golden hair, as I took his head between my hands and pressed my mouth to his. It was asking how his body, so close against mine through the fragile barrier of cloth, could feel so much the same as it had in a thousand wrestling matches and joking fights, and yet feel so entirely different from ever before.

I do not think that Achilleus and I tore the Nereid handmaid's garments as we stripped them from him, but if we did not it was due only to an immortal's magic in the weave. Gone was the last trace of his maiden's timidity as he pulled my tunic off me. Gone too was my last doubt of whether we should be doing this as I beheld his slim, strong, godlike form, as he stood back for an instant to gaze at me.

Then he was against me again, our hands digging into each other's arms, mouths open on each other, in each other. We fell onto the bed, our bodies straining frantically together. Very distantly I noticed that we'd only barely avoided knocking over the table by the bed with the lamp burning upon it, but as we had avoided it I could not bring myself to care. The room about us seemed too hot for me to catch my breath, even with the window standing open and the ocean breezes racing across our skin. That same distant portion of my mind noticed, for the first time that night, the steady crashing of the waves, mingled now with our gasps and cries and our desperate murmurs of each other's names.

It could not last long, yet in its own way it was a glorious eternity before I felt him shuddering against me, and felt my own climax reaching out to claim me. He cried out in that pain that yet is not pain, and I gasped and tried to clutch him even tighter to me. The hot dampness now trapped between us anointed both of us as though to promise that we need never be farther apart than this.

Achilleus held on to me for a long time, half gasping and half sobbing against my chest. I kept hold of him as well, stroking his sweat-soaked hair and over and over whispering his name. When at last his breathing calmed, I managed to free one arm enough to reach over and pick up the lamp, and blow it out.

The cold moonlight took the lamplight's place. I watched as the moonlight played over his skin, and I thought that it was not only Selene's light that made him seem so alabaster pale.

"You're paler than you used to be," I whispered to him.

"Of course I am," was his laughing murmur. "Pyrrha's disguise wouldn't have lasted very long if I'd been in the habit of running around in the nude."

He pulled a little away from me, enough to prop himself up on one elbow and smile down at me. "Are you happy?" he asked, so quietly that I could scarcely hear him.

I smiled back. I reached up to trace once more the lines of his cheekbones and his mouth, marveling again at the feel of him. I told him, "I've wanted to do that for so long. For – for so very long."

He moved close to me again, the warmth of him a tender respite against the first whispered chill of the drying dampness on my skin. He breathed, "Patroklos – I was thinking of you all the time I was with Deidamia. All the time."

I rather wished he had not mentioned her, but I did not say so. I said, "I thought of you all the time you were away."

He clutched tighter to me, as he told me, "I won't go away again."

It was a while before we spoke again, as we held each other and I began once more stroking his hair. At last I said, "Achilleus, you do not have to be in this war."

Very quietly he answered, "I think I do."

"You do not. Why do you think so? You didn't think so a year ago. You were as much against it as any of us, when you went to Skyros."

He was silent for so long that I started to wonder if he had fallen asleep. Then he said, "My son. He … shouldn't have to grow up hearing how the strong-greaved Achaians lost a war because his father was afraid to go."

I gave what I thought should be an unanswerable argument, "He shouldn't have to grow up never knowing his father, either. Anyway – if you don't go, maybe none of them will. And everyone will be a lot better off."

"It's not that simple," he objected. "You know about my mother's prophecies."

I pulled myself away from him and sat up. "Of course I know about them," I snapped. "Which is why I say that you cannot go."

"I have to," he answered desperately, sitting up now as well.

"What do you mean, you have to? Why?"

"She said if I don't go, I'll have a long life but when I'm dead, no one will remember me. And if I go, I'll win glory and be remembered forever."

"So what?" I snarled. "Your glory will be little enough damned comfort to us who are left when you're dead."

"But we'll see each other again in the Underworld," he said, looking helplessly surprised at my anger. "Someday."

"That won't make it hurt any less while we're waiting." I laughed and shook my head. "Poor Deidamia!"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean? Some pretty little idiot of a boy hero gets her with child, and then he just runs away and gets himself killed! And the only thing her son will ever know of his father is his damned, stupid glory!"

Achilleus looked as though he still could not understand why I was angry. "But you'll be a father to him. You'll be there for him when I can't be. Won't you?"

I groaned and stood up from the bed, shivering from something more than the chill. "Oh gods, Achilleus," I muttered. I clutched my arms around my chest and prayed that I would not cry.

He followed me. Timidly he reached to me and barely touched my arm. "You will be there for him, won't you?" he repeated. "You'll teach him, and train him, and – and you'll tell him about me?"

"Oh, gods," I groaned again. I wheeled toward him, wanting to strike him across the face for his forlorn, pleading, uncomprehending look. "What do you want me to tell him?" I demanded. "That his father was a fool who loved glory more than he loved his own son? Or his wife, or his parents? Or – or me?"

Achilleus winced at that and for a moment his gaze dropped from mine. But it seemed there was only one aspect of this discussion that he cared about.

He looked at me again, and he said, "But you will be there for him, Patroklos. Tell me that you will be there."

I was nearly weeping, and I hated him for bringing me to that, and for making me say this. "Damn it. Yes. All right. I will be there for him. If I have to be. But I shouldn't have to be there, Achilleus. You should be there for him. You."

He smiled shakily and he said in a very small voice, "Well, but, after all – Mother only said I'll probably die, if I go."

I sighed and thought that I did not know whether to kiss him, or strangle him. My little cousin was as infuriating as ever.

"Yes," I said, "and she said that if you die there it will be shortly after the death of Prince Hektor, Breaker of Horses. What do you want me to do, go to Troy and hire myself out as Hektor's bodyguard, so I can keep the two of you alive?"

Achilleus gave a little grin. "That's a good idea. Maybe we both should do that. I'd like to see Odysseus' face when he finds out I'm fighting for Troy."

"Achilleus, this is not funny."

"Well, it is," he said. "A little bit, it is."

"No, it is not." I glared at him, cursing him in my thoughts for the smile on his lips, and the way the moonlight gleamed on him, and his beautiful, pleading eyes.

I said, "Thank you for the charming evening, cousin. I ought to go to my room. You need your sleep, so you can dream of your glory."

He drew close to me, and took my hand in his. "Don't leave," he whispered.

"Why shouldn't I?"

He breathed, "Because we are both alive tonight." He brought his lips to mine, brushing over them in a kiss like a summer's breeze. He had both his hands on my arms now, but the rest of his body was only near enough to mine that we almost touched – almost, but not quite.

"Fine," I sighed. "Now you're using your wiles on me to turn aside my wrath?"

He smiled. "Why not? It's how Mother always dealt with Father."

"Oh, well, if it's good enough for a goddess, who am I to turn up my nose at it?"

I decidedly did not want to give up my anger with him. But it was difficult to keep that in mind, now that he was kissing me, and tickling me, and starting to touch a particular portion of my person.

"I'm not as young as you," I protested, laughing, through our kisses. "And I'm not half god. We mortals tend to get tired – oh, gods," I gasped, as my body gave the lie to my words. As his hand urged my flesh to renewed life, I could resist no longer and took hold of him as well.

Between kisses and through his increasingly ragged breaths, he murmured to me, "Why do you want me to live to grow old, anyway? Do you think you'd still love me when I'm as old as Nestor?"

"Why not? Of course I'd still love you. When you're as old as Nestor, I'll be three years older than Nestor. So I don't think – oh, gods, Achilleus – I don't think that will be a problem."

He gave a mock shudder at that, then gasped as I shifted my hold on him. He whispered into my mouth, "Now, that is a good argument for dying young."

"Why? Don't you think it'll be fun to be as old as Nestor? We could – oh – oh, my gods, you're killing me – we could talk from dawn to sunset about how much better things were when we were young, when men were men and heroes yet walked the earth and great deeds were wrought before breakfast and – oh – Achilleus, don't stop – and out of respect for our age, no one would tell us to shut up."

We tumbled to the bed once more, laughing and gasping, clutching at each other's backs while our other hands moved faster and faster. I wanted to argue with him still, I wanted to plead with him never to die, never to leave me. But I could no longer speak, save only to groan and to cry out his name.

This time I climaxed first, shouting his name again. He followed me a moment later, spasming against me, and through the fiery haze in my mind, I smiled to hear him shout my name as well.

I managed, some time later, to get hold of the coverlet and wipe us off a bit, but my movements were hampered by Achilleus having fallen asleep with his head on my chest. Or I thought that he had fallen asleep, until he whispered, "Do you love me?"

"You idiot," I murmured. "I already said that I love you."

"You said you'd love me when I'm as old as Nestor. What about now?"

"Yes. I love you, Achilleus. I love you now and always."

"That's good," he said sleepily. "I love you too. Now and always."

He fell asleep swiftly and easily, as he had always done. His breathing came soft and even, like a child's.

I lay awake hours more, holding him and watching the changing patterns of the moonlight.

And as I held him, I prayed. I prayed that for once, Fate would turn her face aside. That somehow, some way, we could go to this war, and we could both come home alive.