Achilles thinks about dying often.
"Of course we won't really die," he reasons. "We'll be legend. We won't grow old."
Because these are his favourite words you take this opportunity to laugh at him. "And why is that?" you ask. "What makes us so special?"
He gives you a withering look. "Destiny," he replies which is his way of saying that he doesn't know either.
You are not sure how to reply to this. You are not sure that this is a conversation for today. And when he has you against a wall and his hands are moving between your legs Death is not really something you want to think about.
You oblige him because you feel like it. Sometimes you don't, sometimes you feel more like fighting and this is one of the reasons you get on so well. It was a mutual respect that drew you together combined with a ruthless curiosity; you marvelled at his potential to be an asshole and he your ability to call him on it. It isn't always easy; he is never over-excited to accept that he might be wrong but you can always dodge a fist. Sometimes you tell him he is wrong even when he isn't, just so that one might fly out.
It isn't losing if you let him.
You let him. Your pulse quickens to the rhythm of his movements and you gasp on every upwards stroke. He is still talking to you, burying his words matter-of-factly into the curve of your neck.
"The old ones say that every time a man reaches his pleasure Aphrodite kills him and gives him new life," his teeth scrape against your skin "If you think about it, you have already died a thousand times."
"Achilles," you say. "Achilles you're thinking of octopi."
If this is dying, you think as his lips close on a fresh bruise on your shoulder, if this is dying you can see why people go to war. You can see why people kill if it gives them that squirm of pleasure you get every time Achilles' head snaps back with the force of your punch, revealing the startling, supple whiteness of his throat and he falls into the dust at your feet. But somehow you do not think it is the same. Or perhaps you tell yourself so to hide the fact that you are a masochist.
His breaths become shallower. It almost sounds like he is in pain. There is a fine line, he says. A line that only men like you and he can dare to cross. "We walk with giants Patroclus," he tells you gleefully. "And when we are gone they will match our footsteps."
You wonder if all this talk of death is doing anything for him.
He arches his back and his mouth falls open. You are not sure when the change happened and the fights started to take on new meaning. You remember one time where you were wrestling on the beach and your skin became too slippery with bloody and sweat to grip. His hands licked your back and your thighs, your knuckles raw and gritty with sand as you clung to each other like bulls in heat. He knocked you down so hard you saw stars on his shoulder and could taste blood at the back of your throat, like bronze from a kiln. And he bent over you with lips swollen into a pout, petals of purple and blue blossoming in the corner of his mouth and he caressed your face, your jaw with his fingertips. And for the first time that day you winced because this was a very different kind of pain.
You think you cried. You hope you didn't.
Strands of hair slip from behind his ears and cling to the sweet, rosy dampness of his skin. You like him best like this, when his hips are bucking into yours and his mind is such a blur that for once he can think of nothing to say. The light falls into his eyes, green flecked with the gold of divinity and you are reminded once again that you are not like him. You have mentioned this to him before and he brushes it away, saying the only difference between you is the hailing of your mothers. He says your minds are alike and your souls are one and that divine blood means nothing to a man who just wants what all men want, only more. You will ride together, fight together, kill and die for the same cause because after all, what else is more worth dying for than immortality?
Love, you might say. But you don't and you never will. If he wants to think that you want nothing more than to die for glory then let him. You are not so stupid as to tell him otherwise. You are not so stupid as to let him know that you do not welcome death, that you fear it because you are weak and mortal and finite while he is everlasting and golden.
You do not tell him that you don't want to die.
His mouth claims yours and your head slams back against the wall, lurching into him as you come. You feel him shudder and then his whole body becomes loose as you fall against him, your head on his shoulder. He holds you and kisses you until you stop shaking as it drips down your knees like blood. "One thousand and one," he says and grins.
It occurs to you, briefly, that the reason he lets you cling to him like this is because he thinks that you are the same. You wonder if he would still hold you if he knew that, if asked the same question, your choice would have been different.
Go and die. Stay and live.
You will go but not for glory. You will go for him and you know that this makes you a coward. But as long as he still sees you and as long as you can be with him it will be enough.
Because Achilles does not fear Death. If anything, Death should fear him.
and if a double decker bus
crashes into us
to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.
and if a ten tonne truck
kills the both of us
to die by your side, well
the pleasure the privilege is mine.