ViktoryBringer - You might be right there! Thanks so much, glad to hear I'm keeping them believable. Thank you for reading!
EnvyLuna - Thank you so, so much. I kind of feel character development and dialogue is sometimes more important than plot in a story so I especially try to focus on those aspects. Their relationship will continue changing and evolving but quite steadily so please stick with it! And thank you for such a lovely review!
soso22 - It is starting! (I've been waiting for it too, I cannot lie.) Thanks for the review :)
Warning: this whole first scene is stolen. Kudos if you can guess from where.
~eleven~
"Great," grinned Achilles and took up a stance.
Patroclus stared up at him, perplexed. "What, now?"
"Why not?" Achilles answered, cracking the joints in his neck and knuckles. "No time like the present."
Patroclus groaned and heaved himself to his feet. Achilles was bouncing up and down on his toes and shaking energy from his wrists, as if a sudden electrical current had shot its way through his limbs and was sparking now at his fingertips. Patroclus took his place opposite him, scratching the back of his neck self-consciously.
"So…what? You just want me to hit you?"
Achilles jumped, bringing his knees up to his chest. "That's right."
"Where?"
"What do you mean where, I don't know, anywhere."
"But, like, do you want me to make contact or are you going to block it or-"
"Gods' teeth man, do you have to have a fucking neurosis over everything?"
"No, I'm just thinking that-"
"-Well don't think," Achilles rolled his eyes. "Just do. Come on."
Patroclus scowled, drawing his fists in front of him unenthusiastically. Achilles cracked his neck one last time and assumed a loose position, still jumping slightly on the balls of his feet. Patroclus shook his head. "This is so fucking stupid."
Achilles nodded. "Yup."
His eyes were bright with manic excitement, his grin dug into the soft pads of his cheeks like an axe split. Patroclus could see the nervous energy pumping him like battery acid, could almost hear the electricity crackling in his veins. Don't think. Just do.
The punch collided with the cushioning flesh of abdomen and Patroclus was aware of his knuckles bending forward, curling into Achilles' lower torso inch by crooked inch. Achilles' stomach tightened as he braced himself, tense muscles hardening against the softness of tissue but he still went backwards, doubling over with a stifled grunt. Patroclus stood over him awkwardly. "Um…you okay?"
"Fine," Achilles wheezed. "Just…give me a second."
Patroclus nodded, unsure of whether to feel guilty or pleased with himself. He settled on ambivalent and started looking around him to check if anyone was watching. No one was and he found himself grateful. Achilles was exhaling deeply, his head between his legs. When he straightened up again Patroclus saw he was wincing.
"Good punch," he gasped.
"Sorry," grimaced Patroclus.
"No," he shook his head. "No it was perfect."
The rush of sailing limbs punctuated with the thump of Patroclus' diaphragm meant he didn't hear the last word. All he was aware of was the wind suddenly knocked out of him, white spots appearing at the corners of his vision as he grunted with surprise and pain. Achilles wiped his knuckles on the back of his thigh, surveying Patroclus with the appraising air of an artist viewing his work. "You good?" he asked.
Patroclus took a slow, steadying breath, trying to control the dull ache of his stomach. "Yeah," he replied.
"Excellent," said Achilles, and attacked again.
It soon became uncomfortably apparent to Patroclus that the only reason his first punch had made any contact was because Achilles had wanted it to. After that the match was very much one-sided with Achilles scoring hit after hit until all he could do was raise his elbows up to his face and hope very much that he would still be able to hold a sword after this, never mind join the home defence. Achilles was ceaseless and unyielding in his attack, yet his eyes were calculating and thoughtful. He was thinking as he fought, solving violent equations in his mind so that each move was perfectly planned, timed and executed. Yet at the same time he moved instinctively, like it was the wind carrying his body and he was little more than a leaf floating on it. Still each hit smacked like a hurricane and soon Patroclus found himself face down and spitting out fistfuls of sand, his ribs stinging with the impact of Achilles' crescendo.
"That was good," said Achilles, offering his hand to help him up. "You can do better though."
"Oh can I?" Patroclus took it, wincing as his whole left side protested.
"Yup," Achilles nodded. "Tomorrow morning, by first cock crow. Meet me on the training field."
Patroclus' eyes widened, aghast. "By first…by first…Are you serious? I have chores, I have…sleep-"
"Enough," Achilles cut across him. "First cock crow. If you're not here before then I'll be gone. You want to learn, you follow my rules. Or I'll drop you, simple as that. Understand?"
Patroclus glowered at him, thinking with a dull ache of his growing list of duties. "Understood," he replied reluctantly, then added "Maestro."
A flicker of amusement danced across Achilles face, settling on the wry twist of his smile. "Good," he said with a glint in his eye. "See you then. Don't be late."
And with that he turned and walked back across the sand whistling as he went, leaving Patroclus with aching ribs, a heavy weight in his stomach and wondering how, by Hades, he was going to get all this round Leptine.
oOo
"No."
"Oh come on," Patroclus protested. "You haven't even heard me out yet!"
"Don't need to," Leptine shrugged. "My name said in that way is all I need to know."
"I'm only asking for an hour," Patroclus pressed. "One, tiny little hour. Surely you can get someone to cover me for then."
"Oh yes, and any ideas who that might be?" Leptine huffed. "Which someone do you think is going to have to get up at Gods know when to carry out all your chores and their own so that you can throw things at squirrels?"
"Always with the squirrels," Patroclus rolled his eyes. "I told you. The wind blew my catapult off target."
"Of course," Leptine retorted. "Just like the wind dropped that battering ram off a cliff or the wind set the stables on fire. In fact never mind the home defence, from what I hear the wind sounds your biggest competition."
"Yes, well, this is it," said Patroclus defensively. "This is exactly why I need the extra training. So that none of these…accidents…happen again. During a particularly bad….storm."
Leptine raised her arms, gesturing before her. They were sitting on a stone bench overlooking the field which, previously overrun with strangling black-green stalks and stems, was now utterly weedless and shining with an afternoon of back-breaking work. "Look around," she said. "Storms enough out here. And there's a hurricane all set to hit the privies tomorrow morning."
"I'd kind of rather not."
"What, is real work not heroic enough for you, or something? Or is the pleasure of my company not enough of an incentive?"
"Well no offense, but as wondrous as your company is it's hardly going to make me famous is it?"
Leptine rolled her eyes but didn't say anything. Patroclus nudged a little nearer to see the look on her face. She was always hard to read, years of being a possession had taught her to guard her emotions jealously but it was the way she set her jaw that told him she was not happy. Patroclus felt a stab of guilt and put his arm around her waist.
"Joke," he said softly. "I'm joking."
"I know," replied Leptine loftily.
"I'm being a dick, aren't I?"
"Yes."
"Sorry," he said and Leptine turned to look at him, her face so lovely and sad and forgiving that Patroclus felt all over again like a terrible human being. She had a way of doing that, a way of making people ashamed of themselves with just a look and Patroclus found he had to lower his gaze to his feet if only to avoid that stabbing mercy.
"Forget it," he said. "I'm talking bullshit. Don't listen to me."
"No," Leptine shook her head, her brown hair fluttering in a melancholy way around her face. "No it's me. I'm sorry. It's your life, you do what you want. You have that right. I think I'm just so used to thinking of you as a slave that I forgot myself for a moment."
Patroclus looked at her in confusion. "What are you talking about?" he frowned. "It's not like that at all."
"Isn't it?" she asked glumly. "We're so close, you and I, that we forget we're not the same. When I look at you I don't think prince or master but Patroclus. And you, you don't see a slave or an inferior. You just see me, your friend. We've grown so used to each other that it's as if we were born of the same colour in the same land…of the same mother, even."
"But that's how it should be," Patroclus frowned. "Prince, master, slave, they're just words someone landed us with. They don't fit either of us, and they certainly don't define us. I'm the least likely prince to walk Gaia's green earth, just like no one in their right mind could ever label you an inferior."
"But people do," Leptine reminded him. "And just thinking like that is state sacrilege. I mean, I could be beaten and worse if anyone even heard me call you 'Patroclus'."
She looked down at her hands, blackened with dirt, against the coarse muddied wool of her skirt. A single tear rolled down her cheek and dropped onto her skin, clearing a patch of shining olive brown through the earth and Patroclus was so shocked for a moment that he just stared, his brain unable to process that she was crying, actually crying. Then something kicked in his head and he drew her into his arms, resting her cheek against his chest.
"I'm sorry," she said wetly. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been having these feelings lately…horrible feelings…and I can't sleep…"
"What feelings?" asked Patroclus, heart aching with concern as he held her.
"I don't know," she said. "I just feel like…soon…everything's going to change. Something's coming. A storm or a God…something dark…and when it hits us nothing will be the same again."
"A bad dream," he reassured her. "Nothing more."
Leptine shook her head. "I don't know if it is or if it isn't," she sighed. "I'm just scared…terrified, even, that whatever it is…it'll hurt us. What happens when your punishment is over and you're a prince again? Will you see me differently? Because I don't think I can bare it Patroclus,I just can't-"
"-Stop," said Patroclus. "Stop. Listen and understand. I don't care what country you come from, I don't care about the hailing of our mothers. You are my sister, Leptine, that's not going to change. Not now, not ever."
He felt her heat leave him as she raised her head, a tiny frown marking her brow. "Sister?" she murmured softly, her long lashes at their most veiled.
Patroclus nodded. Leptine watched him for a moment, searching his face for something until she sighed, apparently giving up. Then she lifted herself from his chest, eased smoothly out of his embrace and got off the bench. Patroclus watched her brush the mud from her skirts, sending dirty clouds into the warm air, feeling suddenly uncomfortable and sad. Then she turned back to look at him, flashing her sweet smile and all despondency was lifted, like the dust, into the air as she held out her hand.
"Come on," she said. "We'll compromise. I'll cover for you tomorrow if you take my afternoon shift. That way at least I'll have some time to catch up on sleep. And if Amyntor says anything we'll just say we switched because the weeding gave my hands blisters. How's that?"
Patroclus nodded ardently, taking her hand and shaking it. "Great," he replied, then added "Wait a second. What do blisters have to do with you not being able to take the afternoon shift?"
Leptine grinned and Patroclus thought he saw the stars of the east shining in her eyes. "Nothing at all of course," she said and, not for the first time that morning, Patroclus had the distinct feeling that she was telling rather less than the whole truth.
First cock crow came like a slap in the face. Patroclus opened one eye a sliver, raising his head a hair's breadth above the thin blanket. A draft of morning hair came whistling like cruel laughter through the cracks of the wall, stinging his exposed skin and pricking it with goose pimples as he pushed the covers reluctantly away from him and forced himself unsteadily to his feet. The slave quarters, always dimly lit were pitch black in the early darkness and Patroclus blinked blearily, wiping sleep from his eyes as he struggled to make out the door before setting about picking his way round the several sleeping bodies carpeting the floor.
"Watch it, arsehole!" hissed one not so somnolent slave, yanking his hand under a bundle of dirty covers as Patroclus missed his footing.
"Sorry," Patroclus whispered back, approaching the door warily and feeling a sense of mounting dread in his gut as he did so. This is so stupid, he chastised himself. So, so stupid. It's not too late. Turn around. Go back to bed now. Save whatever's left of your dignity.
But as persuasively sensible as the voice in his head was, Patroclus found himself strangely reluctant to return to the warm safety of his mattress. Despite the dark and the early hour and the cold air down his chiton he could not help but feel oddly anxious to see what the morning would bring, and as he snuck out gingerly onto the fields he wondered, with growing curiosity, what Achilles had in store for him.
He saw him almost immediately, a slender black silhouette standing out against the powdered lilac-blue of before dawn. He turned his head slightly as Patroclus approached, the gold of his hair dimmed to dusty brown in the dark as he nodded his greeting.
"You came," he stated.
"Don't sound so disappointed," Patroclus replied, shivering in the cold. "You should know by now there's no hope of me matching up to your expectations."
"On the contrary," said Achilles wryly. "You exceeded my expectations just by turning up."
He folded his arms across his chest, looking Patroclus up and down, his lip curled contemptuously. As Achilles' eyes passed over his slight, hunched form Patroclus became uncomfortably aware of how thin his chiton really was, provoking another involuntary shiver which had nothing to do with the cold. Whether Achilles noticed or not he didn't know, he just snapped his fingers suddenly and pointed towards the training field behind him.
"I marked a track out in limestone," he told him bluntly. "Run round it."
For a moment Patroclus, convinced the earliness of the hour had somehow affected his thought process, assumed he had him wrong. "You're joking."
Achilles shook his head. "People laugh at my jokes."
Patroclus squinted at the field. Sure enough there glowed the track, a perfect circle gleaming from the grass like a giant's mouth stretched open in silent laughter. He turned back resignedly. "How many times?"
Achilles shrugged. "Until I say stop," he replied and gestured for him to start. Feeling like a man heading to the gallows Patroclus walked over to the circle, his feet dragging like a noose around his neck. He took his place and Achilles raised his hand into the air, letting it hang there a moment for dramatic effect before bringing it down. His arm swung back pendulum style, a sword swing, and Patroclus started running.
The first few laps were easy. Patroclus paced himself steadily, remembering how he had run just about everywhere back in Opus, tearing across the countryside from boys with slingshots in need of entertainment, from angry farmers whose fields he had trespassed, from his drunken father still brandishing a bottle. He remembered how he had run from the dead boy, desperate to put as much distance between himself and the blood, spreading flood-like after him. He remembered and the memories pumped his legs like fuel round the track as Achilles stood, drumming out a beat with his foot.
But before long he began to tire. By fifth or sixth his legs had started up a protest, by the eighth they were burning. Achilles watched, silent unless he saw him begin to slow. Then he would call out constructive comments such as "Keep running" and "Don't stop" until Patroclus felt he was no longer running on energy but on pure loathing, an emotion which only intensified lap by lap until the fire in his calves and thighs begged to be put out.
Dawn came with rosy fingers, spilling orange light onto the field and still Achilles did not call an end. Patroclus ran on, his whole body aching and his brain screaming at him to stop, just stop, but he didn't, even when his knees began to buckle and sweat turned the cloth of his chiton see-through. He kept running, his chest feeling as though it were about to give up with every slap of his foot on the grass, his breaths coming out in dangerously high pitched wheezes.
Finally, when the third cock had shattered the sleepy silence and the sun beamed a new day across the sky Achilles called "That's enough". Within a second of the command Patroclus collapsed, twitching like an insect onto his back, ribs splintering against his lungs and face scrunched up in pain. Achilles loomed over him, observing him as though he were a vaguely interesting plant specimen.
"Twenty five," he announced. "An ok start. Tomorrow I want to see ten more than that."
Patroclus opened one eye. "Tomo…" he stuttered, his voice hoarse. "Tomorrow?"
Achilles nodded. "Tomorrow," he affirmed and yawned. "That's assuming you're still standing, of course. For now you can go. That's us done for the day."
His grin blocked out the sun, a demon out of hell with his face half his shadow and Patroclus, to whom every breath was like a knife between his ribs, wondered at how much hatred it was possible for one man to feel.
At least, he thought as he limped back to the palace, clutching his chest and wheezing like an ancient, I don't have morning chores to deal with. Thank the Gods for Leptine, sweet Leptine and her sweet, sweet compassion.
"Patroclus," said Loras, greeting him in the corridor. "I hear you're doing the afternoon shift."
Patroclus nodded, too tired to reply. "Right," said Loras. "You're on oiling. Phoinix wants his massage straight after dinner, no dawdling now, and remember to really get your hands in. Feel out the crevices. And maybe take a comb. For someone his age that guy is surprisingly resistant against hair loss. On everywhere except his head, that is."
"I…" Patroclus stuttered, his tongue incapable of forming words.
"And be sure to powder your palms," Loras continued. "Phoinix can't abide rough hands."
