Author's note: Hey all! Once again many thanks and many apologies. I knwo i am terrible at updating and I can only say I'm sorry. Here's the next installment so far and thank you for your ovewhelming patience!
Neither of them spoke or moved for a long time. Achilles still longed for the touch, feel and smell of the Prince but was suddenly doubting for the first time in his life whether he had the right to take what he wanted any more. He was almost afraid to lift his head and look into the Prince's face. They had done this, together. The most intimate embrace, the exposing of all to each other, two people that by all that was right should never have even seen each other, let alone like this. Achilles felt cold doubt and a fear unlike any other swamp him like a salty breaker.
Paris shifted beneath him and Achilles could no longer avoid looking at him. He lifted his head cautiously. Paris was so beautiful Achilles almost felt he would weep. The becoming flush was dying slowly along his cheekbones, his delicate breaths were slowing and his eyes were dark, tired but open and whole and in them Achilles could find no malice, fear or regret.
That was all Achilles needed. This could be all he had wanted it to be, a tiny moment in the ocean of time, a secret and glorious jewel laid away in a velvet purse amongst earthenware pots and stalks of stale barley.
They smiled at each other and somehow it was sweeter than all their passion and fire. It was all that needed to be said between them now.
It was almost two natural the way they shifted to lie in each other's arms amongst the furs. Paris buried his curly head against Achilles's chest and the Greek warrior gathered the prince to him tenderly. He had never thought about this part. He was glad this easy tenderness came so naturally.
He protectively drew a fur around them both and bathed in the warm air, beautifully still and silent. He could feel Paris's breathing drift into that of sleep and felt the youth's eyelashes still against his skin. As he ran his fingers slowly through the prince's soft and tousled hair, he wondered whether this was possibly setting itself up to be the warmest memory of all he would have when he drifted alone and cold in the underworld river. He was the tiniest bit unnerved at the suspicion that perhaps even if he achieved all he desired, glory, immortality, a legend to live through the ages so that people would talk of and write about him for age upon age, would this hour at twilight in a dusty tent on a war-torn beach with a beautiful stranger be the memory he pondered upon the most when he slunk drably among the rocks and death of Hades?
Although he hadn't planned to, Achilles succumbed to sleep.
The rustle of fabric brought him back from the warm, frothy dreams. The bed was suddenly too large and empty. He blinked blearily.
Paris stood at the end of his bed with his cloak close around him and his cowl low on his face. The guttering lamps flickered and coughed dark light into it's dark folds. He had fastened the brooch on the inside of the fabric this time. For a while they just blinked at each other warily.
"I have to go," Paris stammered. It was so hard to find what to say. In all likelihood neither would see the other again. Even more likely was that they'd both be dead within a week. It was a dark and heavy cloud to press around their stolen moment and was almost enough to dampen the remembered sweetness. Almost.
Achilles stood and came to the Prince. He drank in those eyes, knowing he would probably never see them again. He sipped at them as at a dark and heady liquor before dipping his head forward and planting one last warm and reverent kiss upon those young and honest lips.
Achilles felt his veins flicker with a heart-breaking joy as Paris slipped his lithe arms around him. Achilles held him close. Their kiss broke but the embrace did not. The fabric of the prince's clothes seemed far to course to have the honour of shrouding him.
To his shock and mild horror the Myrimidon Captain felt the tiniest prickle of tears in the corners of his eyes. He was aghast to the fact that he didn't know himself nearly as well as he thought.
The broke apart as stone is shattered against stormy rocks.
The locked gazes one more time and Achilles stared keenly at the Trojan's face. There was a sadness in the Prince's eyes that he didn't want to remember.
And in a second he was gone, like dust from a dream, blown away in the winds of waking. Achilles didn't fear him having trouble escaping. The air outside the tent was fully dark now, the blackest swallows of the night that would aid a small figure sliding through the shadows, intent on returning home.
Achilles shivered. He climbed back into bed. It didn't seem to want to warm him as much as it had before. He lay with his eyes open and refused to face the fact that the prince's departure made him ache this much.
TBC
