Written to be yours

by historygeekkk

Summary:

(A modern AU of the The Song of Achilles/ the Iliad)Patroclus lives in his own world…unseen, unheard, a shadow among the brilliant in a world of polished faces and applause. Then an unexpected scholarship meets him with Achilles, a torch made of secrets and lies. Their worlds move in a delicate dance between light and dark, too similar to twilight and dawn. Something breathes beneath the surface, unspoken, wild, unnameable. How long can a secret remain hidden in a place where everyone is watching you and every smile is a mask? (This is just an AU I have based on the Iliad with my own ideas and modern adaptions.)

Notes:

First time writing a fanfic, English is not my first language, don’t judge

Chapter 1

“Some wounds are too deep to heal. Some lives are too broken to fix."

Patroclus had never known the taste of escape. There was no window in his life wide enough to let him slip away, no door strong enough to hold open for him. His existence was a small room, a corner, a cage. And yet, somewhere in the quiet of his days, he had learned to find comfort in the walls that locked him, because after all, they were all he had ever known.

His father was a ghost, a figure who came and went like the weather. Sometimes Patroclus would find him at the kitchen table, hunched over a paper, his brow furrowed in the intensity of something that didn’t concern Patroclus. And other times, his father was just… gone. Not dead. He just wasn’t there, did not speak much to him. When he did speak, it was always about things Patroclus didn’t care about. Work. Bills. The car.

And his mother? She used to be a mother. She used to cradle him to sleep with soft lullabies. But the woman who had once stroked his hair and whispered “I love you” in the quiet hours of the night had long since vanished. Now, she spent most of her days locked away in her room, muttering about things Patroclus didn’t understand, her eyes wide and empty. Sometimes she would appear in the hallway, face pale, hands shaking, and Patroclus would pretend not to notice the tremor in her voice when she called his name.

He had learned to avoid her then. To walk on tiptoes through the house, not wanting to disturb her fragile balance. Every day was an exercise in navigating the wreckage of their home, in choosing the safest path through the shards of glass no one had bothered to sweep up.

School wasn’t much better. He didn’t have friends. He didn’t need friends, he had told himself. It was easier this way. The less he expected from people, the less they could disappoint him. And still, there were the whispers. The sideways glances. The way the other kids, those lucky enough to have normal, functioning families, looked at him like he was a puzzle they couldn’t solve, a secret they couldn’t fathom. Patroclus had learned early on how to make himself invisible. To blend into the background, to walk quietly, to avoid their eyes.

It didn’t take long for him to realize that in a world full of noise, silence was a kind of a power. The less anyone saw him, the less anyone cared. And that was the only way to survive.

There were nights, though, when the silence felt suffocating. When the weight of it pressed down on him so heavily that it was hard to breathe. When his mother’s laughter, a thing long lost to him, ringed in his brain like a cruel joke. Those were the nights he found himself standing in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at the face of a boy he didn’t know. A face that seemed so far from who he had once been.

Sometimes, he would leave the house, just to get away from it all. He didn’t go far. Just to the park, or the small store at the end of the block, where the fluorescent lights talked in flashes and made him feel less alone. But he didn’t speak to anyone. Not even the people who knew his name. Because that was the thing about small towns, everyone knew everyone’s business, but nobody ever really saw you. Not unless you were the loudest, or the brightest, or the most broken.

It wasn’t that he wanted to die. He didn’t even know what dying would feel like, whether it would be an end or just another kind of silence. It was just that the idea of living, of staying in this house, in this body, in this broken skin, seemed like an impossibility. He didn’t know how to keep going, how to keep pretending.

And so, he kept breathing. Slowly. Quietly. Like a ghost.

And maybe that was all there was to it. Maybe this was his life now, a series of rooms and hallways, broken doors, and voices that did not speak anymore. The boy who had once believed in the possibility of escape had long since forgotten what it felt like to hope.

But hope, like everything else, was just another type of quietness. One that had long since died.

And Patroclus? He was still there. A boy who had learned how to disappear. A boy who had never really been seen.

Chapter 2

Notes:

Idk what I am doing anymore

The classroom was too bright. The kind of brightness that made everything feel exposed, like it had been peeled open and left under the sun to dry out. Patroclus sat at the back of the room, the edge of his desk wobbling slightly every time he leaned on it. He never told anyone about it. The desk had been like that for months. He liked it, in a way. It gave him something small to focus on while the world around him blurred into noise.

He wasn’t a good student. His grades floated somewhere between forgettable and failing. Teachers rarely said his name. He rarely gave them a reason to.

But there was one thing Patroclus did, always, he wrote.

Not assignments. Not really. Those he barely managed to finish. But in the margins of his notebooks, on the back pages of old worksheets, on crumpled scraps of lined paper, he wrote. Letters to no one. Essays about nothing in particular. Observations that he couldn’t speak out loud. His words lived in the shadows, like he did.

Today, the assignment left as homework had been to write a reflective essay. Something personal. “Something honest,” his English teacher, Mr. Alexandros, had said.

Patroclus had written his during lunch, hunched over the desk while the others laughed and threw fries at each other across the cafeteria. He didn’t look at what he was writing, just let the words spill out like water through a crack in the wall.

When school ended, he left the essay behind. Not on purpose. It was tucked between two books, the edges peeking out like a hand asking to be held.

Mr. Alexandros didn’t notice it until long after the students had gone. He was collecting papers, muttering about half-finished thoughts and bad grammar, when he saw it. The handwriting was rough, uneven. Almost like the paper had resisted the ink. But the words, once he began reading, were unlike anything he had ever seen from Patroclus.

"Sometimes I think grief is like a second skin. You don’t notice when it begins to grow over you, but one day you wake up and it’s the only thing you can feel. People say it gets better. They say you get stronger. But maybe what they mean is, you get quieter. You learn to carry the weight without making noise. You learn to smile while your insides burn."

It went on. A storm disguised as a story. A boy letting all the suffering of himself on the page.

Mr. Alexandros reread it three times before he folded it carefully, like it might crumble if he weren’t gentle enough.

…………..

The next day, Patroclus barely made it through first period before he was called to the front office. The secretary didn’t smile. She just handed him a pass and told him Mr. Alexandros wanted to see him.

His stomach twisted.

He knocked softly on the classroom door, and Mr. Alexandros looked up, startled like he’d forgotten he had summoned him.

“Patroclus,” he said, motioning him in. “Close the door, will you?”

The boy did as he was told, not meeting his teacher’s eyes.

Mr. Alexandros sat on the edge of his desk, holding the paper in his hands like it might vanish.

“You left this yesterday,” he said, and held it up. “I read it.”

Patroclus flinched. “It wasn’t finished.”

“It was more finished than anything I’ve seen from you.”

Silence settled between them. Heavy. Uneasy.

“I didn’t mean for anyone to read it,” Patroclus said finally.

“I know. But I did.” Mr. Alexandros’ voice was softer now. “And I think it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve read in a long time.”

Patroclus didn’t know what to say. His hands curled into fists at his sides.

“There’s a scholarship,” Mr. Alexandros continued, “for students who write about adversity. I think your essay belongs there.”

“No,” Patroclus said quickly. “It’s not… It’s just something I wrote. It’s not for anything.”

“It’s for you,” Mr. Alexandros said. “And maybe it’s time someone saw what you’ve been carrying.”

Patroclus wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or disappear.

But instead, he nodded, barely.

Mr. Alexandros smiled, not the wide kind teachers give when you get a question right. This one was quieter. Sadder.

“Think about it,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking.”

And Patroclus left the room, the echo of his words still lodged somewhere deep in his chest.

The walk home felt longer than usual.
Patroclus kept his eyes on the cracks in the pavement, counting them like they might lead him somewhere else.

Somewhere that wasn’t the peeling gray door of his house, or the shadows that waited just past it.

When he opened the door, the silence greeted him first. Not the peaceful kind. The other kind.

The kind that wrapped around your throat and whispered, don’t make a sound.

His father wasn’t home. He rarely was.

And his mother, he could hear her murmuring behind her closed bedroom door, her voice a low hum like static on a broken radio.

He slipped off his shoes, careful not to let them thud to the floor, and made his way to his room. The door closed with a soft click, sealing him back inside his small world.

The desk in the corner was chipped and uneven, the same one he’d had since he was ten. His notebooks were stacked in uneven piles, ink-stained and curling at the edges. He sat down, pulled a blank sheet from the middle, and stared at it for a long time.

His hand hovered over the page.

There was no prompt this time. No assignment.

Just a question that Mr. Alexandros hadn’t asked aloud:

What are you still carrying?

The silence buzzed around him. Familiar. Comfortable. Crushing.

Then slowly, almost without thinking, he began to write.

Essay – Second Draft
By Patroclus

When I was little, I used to think pain had a sound. I thought if you were hurting enough, someone would hear it. That if I screamed loud enough, inside, quietly, the way kids do when they don’t want to make trouble, someone would notice.

They didn’t.

I think people expect pain to look a certain way. Blood. Bruises. Fists through drywall. But that’s not always how it is. Sometimes pain is just a door you stop opening. A room you stop walking into. A voice you stop trusting.

Sometimes pain is your mother staring at the same wall for hours, blinking slow like she forgot what people are. Or your father reading a newspaper like it’s more alive than you. Sometimes pain is a house full of voices that say nothing that matters, and a heart too small to hold everything it feels.

I write because I don’t know how else to scream.

People always say, “Write what you know.” But I don’t know anything worth saying. I just know the shape of grief. The weight of silence. The way it feels to want to disappear, not because you want to die, but because you’re tired of pretending to be okay.

Maybe this isn’t what I was supposed to write. Maybe it’s too much. Maybe it’s not enough.

But it’s honest.

And maybe that counts for something.

By the time he stopped writing, the light outside had faded to a soft indigo. His fingers ached from gripping the pen too tightly. His shoulders felt heavy, like he’d been holding himself up for too long.

He looked down at the page. It didn’t feel like a scream, not exactly. But maybe it was the beginning of one.

He folded the paper carefully, smoothing the edges with slow fingers. Then he set it on top of his bag and stared at it for a long time.

Tomorrow, he would decide what to do with it.

Tonight, he had written it.

And that, for now, was enough.

Chapter 3

The next morning, the air tasted like metal.

Patroclus stood in front of the mirror, the essay folded twice and tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. He kept touching it, just to make sure it hadn’t disappeared overnight. Part of him hoped it had. That would’ve made it easier.

He didn’t look at himself for long. The face in the glass still felt like a stranger.

At school, everything moved the same way it always did. Blurred hallways. The screech of lockers. Laughter. He drifted through the first few periods like a ghost pressing up against the seams of a world that didn’t ask him to belong.

It wasn’t until English that he remembered why his chest felt like it was too full.
Mr. Alexandros was already at his desk when Patroclus walked in. He looked up, gave a nod, not the kind that said hello, but the kind that said I’m still here, and so are you.

Patroclus hesitated at the door, then walked up to the desk. No one noticed. They never did.

He didn’t say anything. Just pulled the folded page from his pocket and slid it forward like a secret.

Mr. Alexandros took it without a word. He glanced down at it, then back up at Patroclus.

“You said to think about it,” Patroclus said, barely above a whisper. “I thought about it.”

Mr. Alexandros gave a small nod, almost a smile, and tucked the paper into his folder.

“I’ll read it after class,” he said, quiet and calm. “I’ll let you know.”

Patroclus just nodded and walked back to his seat, the desk still wobbling under his arm. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to know if Mr. Alexandros was watching.

He didn’t think about it again.

Days blurred. Then weeks. There was no announcement. No message. No letter home. Life just kept going the way it always had, silent, slow, carefully navigated.

His mother had another bad spell. His father didn’t notice. The park down the street started blooming with flowers. Myostis…his dearest ones. He failed a math test. One of the other kids made a joke about his shoes falling apart. He didn’t react.

Whatever had been written in that letter, whatever Mr. Alexandros had done with it, he let it go.

That was how he survived. Letting things go before they had the chance to hurt.

It wasn’t until late March, two months later, that anything changed.

Second period. The loudspeaker cracked and buzzed, and then the secretary’s voice filled the room, bored and tinny.

“Patroclus Iason, to Room 103. Mr. Alexandros’s room.”

The entire class turned toward him. He didn’t move.

“Patroclus?” the teacher prompted gently.
He stood, slowly, confusion curling in his stomach. Something must’ve been wrong. He wasn’t late on assignments, not because he did them, but because no one noticed when he didn’t.

He knocked once on the classroom door.
Mr. Alexandros opened it himself, smiling. Not the sad kind. Not the forced one either. Something warmer.

“Come in,” he said.

Patroclus stepped inside. The door shut behind him.

“I wanted to tell you in person,” Mr. Alexandros said, crossing the room to his desk and picking up a thick envelope.

“They picked you. You won.”

Patroclus blinked.

“The scholarship,” Mr. Alexandros clarified. “Your essay. They read it. And they chose you.”

There was a long pause. Patroclus didn’t speak. His mouth had gone dry.

“I didn’t think—” he began, but the words stuck.

“I know,” Mr. Alexandros said. “But they did.”

He held out the envelope. Patroclus took it with both hands, like it might fall apart if he didn’t hold on tight enough.

“They included a letter,” Mr. Alexandros said. “The judges said it was one of the most honest, moving submissions they’ve received. Ever.”

Patroclus looked down at the envelope. His name was printed neatly on the front, in letters that looked too official to belong to someone like him.

“I didn’t even think I’d finish writing it,” he admitted.

“But you did,” Mr. Alexandros said. “You did. And I’m proud of you.”

Patroclus didn’t know what to do with that word, proud, given to him.

His fingers curled tighter around the envelope.

“Does this mean…” he trailed off.

“It means someone saw you,” Mr. Alexandros said gently. “It means you matter. And it means you’ve got a way out, if you want it.”

For the first time in what felt like years, Patroclus let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

He nodded once. Then again. And something like hope flickered, soft and fragile, behind his ribs.

That night, when he got home, he sat at his desk and opened the envelope with trembling hands. The letter inside was printed neatly, the kind of thing you frame if you believe in those things.

He didn’t cry.

But he smiled. Just a little.

Silence didn’t feel so heavy.

It felt like space.

It felt like a beginning.

Chapter 4

Notes:

This is a longer chapter but it may have typos cuz I wrote it at 3 AM and edited it while being rlly tired😭🙏

The envelope sat on his desk for three days before Patroclus opened it again. Not because he didn’t care, he did. More than he’d ever admit aloud, but because some small, sharp part of him was still afraid the words inside would vanish if he looked at them too closely.

But they didn’t.

The letter remained. The scholarship was real. And at the very bottom, in the neat, typed lines beneath the congratulations and official-sounding names, it said:

“As part of the awarded scholarship, the recipient will attend a full-summer writing residency at Phthia, a creative arts camp located in the Adirondack Mountains. Travel, lodging, and materials provided.”

Phthia.

A name that sounded like myth. A place from some distant, golden world where kids like him didn’t usually belong.

He read it five times. Then he went to the park and sat on the swings until his fingers went numb.

He didn’t tell anyone right away—not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know how. Good news didn’t grow roots in his house. It blew in, then blew out. Sometimes it came with strings. Sometimes it came with silence.

But eventually, he had to try.

………….

His father was at the kitchen table when Patroclus came in after school, the TV on low and a stack of unopened bills spread across the table like unpaid debts of a life too heavy to carry. A coffee cup sat cold by his elbow.

Patroclus stood in the doorway, the letter folded in his pocket like a secret.

“Dad?”

A grunt. Barely a sound. Just enough to register.

“I got something. From school.”

That got him half a glance.

“I won a scholarship,” Patroclus said, carefully. “For a writing camp. All summer.”

His father frowned, like he was trying to understand the words but they didn’t quite fit together.

“What kind of camp?”

“For writing and acting. It’s called Phthia. They’re paying for everything.”

A longer pause this time. His father looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“They’re really sending you away for the summer?”

“There’s a teacher who’s driving me there,” Patroclus said. “Mr. Alexandros.”

His father rubbed his face, leaned back in the chair with a sigh. “Well. If it’s paid for. And someone else is looking after you…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, and Patroclus didn’t wait around for him to.
…………
He packed four days early.

He only had one real bag, a backpack with a frayed strap and one zipper that stuck, but he filled it with everything that mattered.

His notebook. Three pencils. A library book on Greek myths he hadn’t returned. His mother’s old sweater. Mismatched socks. A photograph he didn’t like looking at but couldn’t leave behind.

He kept expecting someone to tell him there’d been a mistake. That he couldn’t go after all. But no one did.

And then the morning came.

Mr. Alexandros picked him up outside the school.

“You ready?” he asked, opening the trunk.
Patroclus nodded, trying not to squeeze the backpack too tightly.

They drove north, the buildings thinning, the trees thickening, the sky widening like it was letting out a breath. Patroclus had never left the city before. The road unrolled like a story he hadn’t been told yet.

Mr. Alexandros didn’t talk much. Patroclus liked that. The radio played soft instrumental music, the kind that didn’t ask anything of you. Every so often, Mr. Alexandros would point something out. A hawk. A patch of fog. A diner with a hand-painted sign that read: Pies, Propane & Poetry.

“You nervous?” he asked as the road wound into the mountains.

Patroclus shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Mr. Alexandros said. “You don’t have to know.”
……………
Phthia was hidden in the woods, tucked behind a curved gravel road and a wooden gate carved with the outline of a lyre. The cabins were painted in soft colors, misty green, dusky blue, pale gold, and each one bore a name from myth: Chimera, Griffin, Pegasus, Sphinx.

Patroclus was assigned to Cabin Chimera.
Other kids were already there, their parents unloading matching luggage from glossy SUVs. Their sneakers looked new. Their voices were loud, unafraid of echoing.

Patroclus stuck close to Mr. Alexandros as they checked in. He was handed a lanyard with his name on it, a map, and a key on a braided cord.

“I wish I could stay and see you settle in,” Mr. Alexandros said, crouching so they were eye level. “But the camp’s faculty only arrives next week. I’ve got to drive back tonight.”

Patroclus nodded, throat tight.

“But you’ll be okay. You know why?”

He shook his head.

“Because you’re supposed to be here,” Mr. Alexandros said, serious now. “You earned this.”

It was hard to believe. But Patroclus tried.
“Keep writing,” Mr. Alexandros added, straightening up. “And remember—stories don’t need to be loud to be strong.”

Then he was gone.
………….
Cabin Chimera already had four boys in it when Patroclus walked in. They turned when he opened the door.

He knew the look. The once over. The quick judgment. Their shirts were soft cotton, casually expensive. Their bags had initials stitched on the sides. Their haircuts had names.

The tallest one, nut coloured curls, a watch that probably cost more than Patroclus’s house rent, tilted his head.

“You’re late.”

Patroclus didn’t answer. He chose the last empty bunk and set his backpack down.
Another boy, shorter, with braces and a well practiced smirk, whispered something. The others laughed.

“Where are you from?” the curly haired boy asked, like it was a test.

“South.”

“You here for lit?”

Patroclus nodded.

“My mom runs a literary magazine,” the boy said, casually. “I’ve been published four times.”

Patroclus opened his notebook. Didn’t look up again.
…………….
The camp had a rhythm.

Breakfast in the lodge. Morning workshops under the big white tent. Lunch by the lake. Afternoons split between electives, poetry beneath the birches, modelling in the amphitheater, acting at the in built theatre and ballet in the hall next to the library. Evenings were for readings or open mic.

But even as the schedule filled the days, Patroclus always felt a half-step outside it.
The others spoke in polished phrases narrative pace, genre subversion, speculative realism. They named authors like they were friends. They handed each other books with tabs already in place.
Patroclus used pencil. He wrote in the margins. Small, slanted letters he never showed anyone.

Once, during workshop, the nut coloured haired boy read a piece about a billionaire’s son who saved New York with a pen made of stars. The others clapped.

When it was Patroclus’s turn, he read a story about a girl who planted grief like seeds and grew a tree so tall it broke the sky.

Ten seconds of silence.

Then someone mumbled, “Well. That was different.”

The instructor called it “strange and true.” Patroclus didn’t know if that meant anything.

He spent a lot of time alone, not by choice, but because it was easier. He walked the perimeter trail. Sat by the lake. Let the wind speak when he couldn’t.

But Mr. Alexandros had been right.

He wrote.

Every night, even when the bunks creaked and whispers rose like smoke around him, he wrote. In silence. In pencil. In the small square of light from the desk lamp.

One night, after another long day of being invisible, he finished a story. A boy with no voice who made the mountains listen. A boy who found power in his stillness. A boy who built a home out of shadows and never had to say thank you for it.
He didn’t show it to anyone.

But it was the first time he finished something without stopping.

And in the hush that followed, he didn’t feel invisible.

Just unseen, for now.

Chapter 5

The buzz started at breakfast.

“Did you hear?”

“He’s coming this week.”

“No way. Here? Like our camp?”

Patroclus didn’t look up from his bowl of oatmeal, but the whispers drifted down the lodge like smoke. Everyone was talking about it, half awe, half envy, all noise.
Achilles.

Even the name sounded like something with edges. Someone said he’d starred in a movie that broke box office records. Someone else swore he was the lead in a Netflix show that had just won a bunch of awards. “He did a world tour,” a girl in Cabin Sphinx said. “And Vogue did a whole feature on him.”

Patroclus stirred his oatmeal. Ate another spoonful. Tasted none of it.
He’d heard the name before. Achilles Pelides. Child star. Everyone knew him. They’d seen his face on billboards, his interviews on late-night TV. He was everywhere.

He was good.

But then again, a lot of things were good.
Patroclus spent the day as usual: walked the edge of the woods, scribbled in his notebook by the lake, skipped the elective on learning how to act in front of a camera because he didn’t care how characters delivered lines. He wrote a new paragraph about the tree-girl. In this version, her roots ran deeper than bones.

By dinner, the energy in the dining hall was electric.

“He’s here,” someone whispered, eyes wide.

Patroclus didn’t look toward the entrance right away. He finished chewing. Took a sip of lemonade.

Then, curiosity more than anything, he glanced up.

And yes.

There he was.

Achilles.

It wasn’t hard to guess. He stood out like a candle in a cave—tall, sun-shouldered, hair gold like the inside of a peach. He wore a blue hoodie and a canvas bag slung across his back like he wasn’t the reason the whole room had tilted.

People stared. Whispered. Smiled too wide.

Achilles didn’t seem to mind. He returned greetings with an easy nod, eyes bright, voice soft. Confident in a way that didn’t feel cruel. Just… known.

He passed Patroclus’s table without looking, laughing at something the camp director said. His voice, even just the sound of it in the din of the dining hall, seemed to carry further than everyone else’s. Patroclus looked back down at his tray. The lemonade had gone flat.

“Holy crap,” someone said from across the table. “He’s like… real.”

Patroclus didn’t answer.
He reached for his napkin. Folded it in half.
Again.

Cabin Griffin was buzzing by nightfall. One of the twins from Cabin Harpy said they’d seen Achilles’s room. Not a regular cabin, no bunkmates. He lived in the east wing of the main lodge, where the counselors stayed. Private room, private bathroom.

“His dad owns the camp,” someone said, passing a flashlight back and forth. “Like, actually owns it.”

“Peleus? The guy who made all those superhero movies?”

“The one who wrote Orpheus Rewind and Thalassa? Yeah. That’s him.”

“What about his mom?”

“Some model. Real strict. Doesn’t let him use social media.”

“Then how’s he famous?”

“Because he’s good.”

The last line landed like a stone in a quiet pond. Because he’s good.

Patroclus didn’t argue. He just lay on his bunk and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the lights to dim and the noise to die.
They didn’t.

Not for a long time.

The next morning, Achilles joined workshop like it was nothing.
No ceremony. No introductions. Just walked in, settled at a table with two empty chairs beside him, and pulled out a leather-bound notebook.

He had nice hands. Not the usual kind, not manicured or soft. Just… steady. Sure. The kind of hands that didn’t hesitate when they touched paper.

Patroclus watched from the opposite side of the room. He didn’t mean to, but it was hard not to. Achilles drew attention like gravity.

Ms. Redding called for warmups, ten minutes, free write. No structure. No rules. Patroclus bent over his page and let his pencil move, slow and small. He wrote about a girl with a storm in her throat, who couldn’t scream without breaking the sky.
When she called time, everyone read aloud, one by one.

Achilles didn’t.

He listened.

And nodded, like every word mattered.
When they broke for discussion, he said something about rhythm in prose. Voice. Perspective. His voice was quiet, but everyone leaned forward like it was thunder.

Patroclus didn’t join the conversation.
He didn’t need to. They had enough voices.

By midweek, a hierarchy had formed.
Achilles didn’t pick favorites, but people picked each other, trying to orbit closer. Some kids changed their electives just to be in the same sessions.

One girl started quoting his older interviews in conversation, hoping he’d notice. Another boy began dressing like him. Same hoodie. Same bag.

Cabin Griffin made a game of it at night,

“Who’s Achilles’s best friend today?”

Patroclus didn’t play.

He wrote.

One night, he filled four pages about a boy made of shadow who couldn’t touch the sun without losing his shape. The boy built a library underground, lit only by echoes.

He didn’t read it aloud.

He didn’t show anyone.

He just folded the pages into his notebook, tucked it under his pillow, and turned out the light.

One afternoon in week two, it rained.
Not a soft drizzle, but a proper storm, the kind that made the trees groan and the paths flood. Electives were moved indoors. The lodge smelled like wet shoes and cocoa powder.

Patroclus sat by the window in the reading room, notebook open. He was working on a line about silence, about the kind that felt like a bruise. He chewed on the end of his pencil, brows drawn.

There was a thump behind him.

A chair. Someone sitting.

He didn’t look.

The person didn’t speak.

For a second, it was just the sound of rain and breath and paper shifting.
Then another voice, across the room.

“Achilles!”

He didn’t turn.

Footsteps. Laughter. The thump of sneakers against tile.

The chair scraped back.
Gone.

Patroclus kept writing.

He didn’t know why his hands were shaking.

By the end of the third week, it was impossible to pretend nothing had changed.

The camp didn’t orbit the same anymore.
Everything revolved around Achilles, even if he didn’t ask it to. Even if he didn’t act like he wanted it.

He floated through days with the ease of someone who belonged. Who had always belonged.

Patroclus kept to the edges. He liked the shadows. They asked less of him.
One night, after lights-out, he walked down to the dock alone. The lake had turned to ink again. The sky above it wore stars like freckles.

He sat.

And he continued his work…

A girl who swallowed the sea to keep it safe. A boy who followed her footsteps through salt and time. A voice that grew teeth. A whisper that turned into fire.
He wrote and wrote and didn’t stop until the dawn started peeling the sky open.
When he stood, the world felt a little softer.

No one had seen him.

But that was okay.

He was still here.

Still real.

Chapter 6

Notes:

This chapter may have some mistakes cuz I have no patience to reread and check it 😔

The thing about golden boys, the real ones, is that they don’t need to try.
They just are.
And Achilles Pelides, by all accounts, was one of them.

“He used to be on that show, what was it called? The Lost Heir?” someone had asked in the breakfast line, staring at a half-empty bowl of oatmeal.
“Oh! I know! He was in that perfume ad!” another chimed in, her voice rising with the excitement of remembering. “The one with the white horse running through the ocean?”
“My cousin has a poster of him in her room,” someone else added. “She says his eyes don’t even look real.”

That was the thing. He didn’t look real. He wasn’t just the kind of handsome that could have belonged to anyone, he was otherworldly. That sharp, careless beauty that made people stop and think, Where does this come from?

They said he modeled for a winter wear brand when he was six. That he wore a crown in some indie film that won at Sundance. That his mother, didn’t let him eat sugar or touch his phone after sunset. That his father, a famous director, had written scripts that turned into movies that turned into trilogies that turned into entire franchises, even merchandise.

Now, he was here. At Phthia Camp.
The camp took in a certain kind of student, the children of actors and athletes and CEOs. Celebrities in the making or in the aftermath of it. It was a place for the privileged to build
themselves up, even higher. But Achilles? He wasn’t just a son of fame. He carried something different. A kind of inevitability, a quiet pull that made him magnetic without effort.

That’s what the girl from Chimera had said, her nose tilted slightly upward like even being allowed here was a kind of exclusivity in and of itself.

“Phthia takes celebrity kids, sure,” she said, in the most disaffected way possible. “But he’s technically on scholarship.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Nepotism scholarship, but still.”

Patroclus hadn’t cared.

He didn’t care that Achilles was here, didn’t care about the layers of his story that felt like some distant, glossy myth. It didn’t matter to him that people surrounded him like stars orbiting a planet.

He had his own orbit, and it had nothing to do with Achilles.

He didn’t join the group of eager voices that gathered around Achilles during free writing hour, hanging on his every word like moths around a campfire. He didn’t ask which electives he was taking. He didn’t even smile when he walked into lunch late, still tying the sleeves of his hoodie around his waist, sunlight catching his hair like it was contractually obligated to.

Instead, Patroclus kept his head down. He didn’t need to be part of it.

Time at Phthia had a way of folding in on itself, like someone had creased a map too many times and forgotten how it started.

Days passed with strange rhythm, moving in jagged arcs, pulled along by unseen forces, but Patroclus could never quite pin them down. They slipped through his fingers like mist.

Achilles, though? Achilles moved through the days like a tide, never hurried but always pulling forward, a current carrying him through the laughter and the gossip, the critiques and praises. In worldbuilding class, he talked about creating myth from memory, about stitching together fragments of the past into something new.

His voice had a kind of rhythm to it, as if it were used to being listened to. He didn’t sound like he was trying to impress anyone, because he didn’t have to. Even the teachers laughed more around him, somehow. They found it easy to be in his presence, to smile with him. He had that effect on people.

Someone once said he could play the lyre. Someone else said he swam laps every morning before breakfast, back and forth in the crystal-clear lake, before pulling himself out and reading poetry in French. He was the embodiment of effortless charm, an icon made flesh.

And Patroclus? Patroclus stayed where he always stayed, on the periphery. Silent. He didn’t speak to Achilles, didn’t approach him. Not out of bitterness, just… habit.

He liked being on the edges, in the quiet corners of things. He liked silence. He liked stories. Stories made sense. People didn’t.
Sometimes, though, during lectures or in between classes, Patroclus could feel Achilles behind him. Not close, but not far either. Once, when Patroclus had turned to sharpen his pencil, he caught a glimpse of the boy with golden hair bent over a notebook, scribbling furiously, his hand moving in rapid, precise strokes. He wrote like he was chasing something, something just out of reach. Patroclus understood that. That restless hunger to capture fleeting thoughts before they vanished again into the ether.

But he still didn’t talk to him.

The boys in Cabin Hydra were as bad as ever.
“You’re quiet,” one of them had said early on, eyes narrowed, like silence was a weapon Patroclus was wielding against them. “That mean you think you’re better than us?”
“No,” Patroclus had said simply, offering nothing else.
“Then what’s your deal?”
Patroclus didn’t answer. He didn’t owe them anything.

He just went to bed. And when he woke, the boys had moved on, mostly. They had better things to gossip about now, mainly, who Achilles would choose as his real friend. Not the sycophants who followed him everywhere, but the one he’d stay up late with. The one he’d sit next to during bonfire readings. The one who’d leave camp with a famous number in their contacts list.

“I think it’s gonna be Jason,” someone said. “They were laughing in the dining hall yesterday.”
“No way, man,” someone else argued. “I heard he spent all afternoon with Lucas near the pine grove.”
They analyzed his every movement like it was a prophecy being deciphered.

Patroclus didn’t care.
It didn’t matter.

He watched them from across the field during electives. Achilles standing a little apart from the crowd, sometimes, watching people in return. He always looked relaxed, like a sun-soaked stone in a lazy river. Effortless. Like the sun had grown him instead of burning him.

Then came Open Reading Night.

Every two weeks, the camp hosted a showcase where writers could share their work. A scene, a poem, or even just a paragraph. The room was always decorated with fairy lights, and the atmosphere was warm, filled with the smell of cocoa and the quiet hum of anticipation. There was always applause.

The good kind, the kind that wasn’t forced out of you by some teacher's hand but given freely, honestly.

Patroclus hadn’t signed up. He never did.
He sat in the back row, notebook in hand, half-hoping that someone would read something so beautiful it would make his ribs ache. He had a hunger for words, real words, not the glimmering, commercial nonsense the world threw around.

Achilles, of course, had signed up.

He walked to the front when his name was called, adjusting the mic like he’d done it a hundred times before, without a hint of hesitation. He wore a simple black T-shirt and a pair of Converse with streaks of paint on the soles. He looked like someone who belonged in every room he entered.

“I wrote this yesterday,” he said, his voice calm, measured, the kind of voice that didn’t need to be loud to command attention. “So if it sucks, just pretend it’s meant to be ironic.”

Laughter rippled through the room. The kind of laughter that softened the edges of everyone’s defenses.

Achilles read a piece about a boy who dreamed in color when the rest of the world turned grayscale. The boy could taste sound, could feel time move backward. He was always almost remembering something, but never quite enough to hold onto it.

It was strange and lyrical and raw, like someone had taken a handful of their own heart, cracked it open, and said, “Here. Take a look.” The words felt alive, burning in their fragility, trying to make sense of things that could never fully be explained.
When it was over, the room clapped. Loud. Honest.

Achilles didn’t bow. He just smiled, a soft curve of his lips, and nodded before returning to his seat.

He didn’t look at Patroclus.
Patroclus didn’t clap. Not out of spite. Just because his hands had gone still, frozen in a way that felt too heavy to move.

Later, as the night settled and the students wandered back toward their cabins in scattered clusters, still talking, still laughing, still caught in the fading energy of the night, Patroclus stayed behind for a few minutes. He cleaned up his cocoa cup slowly, methodically. He didn’t hurry.

As he walked past the fire pit, he saw Achilles sitting alone.

He nodded, and Achilles didn’t smile back. His gaze dropped to the marshmallow wrapper in his hands, his fingers absently tracing the edges, his mind somewhere else. The moment passed without fanfare, like two people sharing the same space but not really connecting.

Patroclus kept walking, the quiet of the night enveloping him. The stars stretched above, soft and scattered, the moon low against the trees. The air carried the sharp, clean scent of pine and earth, the kind of stillness that felt almost sacred.

He thought of the girl from his dream, the one buried beneath the soil, her heart beating like a second sun. And when everything was still, she woke. So did he.

As he settled into bed that night, the feeling of the dream lingered, like something he couldn’t quite hold onto but would never fully forget. The next morning, when he woke, the camp was still, and the noise felt a little farther away. He didn’t think about Achilles, not consciously anyway. The quiet was easier to exist in. Less complicated.

But in the back of his mind, the question stayed: What was it about Achilles that made everything feel both effortless and impossible at once?

Maybe, one day, he would understand. Or maybe, like the stars above the lake, it would always remain just out of reach.

Chapter 7

Patroclus couldn’t sleep.

He had tried. Really, he had. He’d turned onto his side, then onto his back, then curled up tight, hoping if he stayed still enough, his thoughts would follow. He’d listened to the creaking rafters above him, to the sighs and rustles of the other boys, to the distant chirr of crickets outside. But the quiet only made things louder inside his own head.

He blinked up at the ceiling and then the window on the other side of the room, watching the dark take on color, gray, then blue, then a kind of smoky black that shifted and flowed like it was breathing. Shapes started to appear in the grain of the wood above: faces, mostly. Some he knew. Some he didn’t.

The pressure behind his eyes built, heavy and aching. He pressed his fists into them until the world turned red.

He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t.

He just needed air.

Something wide enough to hold whatever this was inside him.

So he climbed out of bed.

The wooden floor bit cold through the soles of his socks. He moved quietly, careful not to wake the others. There was a sweatshirt near the end of his bed, he pulled it on, tugging the sleeves down past his wrists, and then eased the door open. It creaked, of course it did, but no one stirred.

Outside, the air met him like cool water. The night was wrapped around everything like a second skin, soft and hush-colored. The porch light buzzed overhead, casting a yellow circle that didn’t quite reach the stairs. Beyond that…shadow. Trees. A wind that didn’t rustle so much as breathe.

Patroclus didn’t decide where he was going.

His feet just moved, like the path had been waiting for him.

The gravel crunched under his steps, sharp and steady. He passed other cabins, all tucked in and sleeping, windows dark or softly glowing. A moth flung itself at a bulb and then vanished again, as if embarrassed to be seen.

The camp felt different at night. Looser. Like it stopped pretending. All the performance peeled away, the laughter too loud, the conversations edged with something competitive, the way people looked around the dining hall to see who was watching. Gone now. The world was just trees and stars and the quiet that lived in the cracks between them.

The lake appeared into sight.

Still and glassy, it waited beyond the trees. Silver pooled around the shore, and the dock stretched out like a finger pointing at the moon. The air smelled like water and pine needles. Like something old. Like something waiting.

And someone was already there.
A boy sat at the very end of the dock, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. He wasn’t moving, but he was humming, a soft, half-remembered tune that didn’t go anywhere but didn’t need to. The sound floated over the water like mist.

Patroclus stopped.

He didn’t need to see the boy’s face to know who it was.

Achilles.

Of course it was him.

Even here, even now, the air seemed to move around him differently. Not brighter, exactly. Just clearer, like he was a thing the world made space for.

Patroclus hesitated. This wasn’t his place. He should turn around. Walk back. No one would know he’d come out here at all.
But his feet didn’t listen.

He stayed frozen on the edge of the dock until the humming stopped.

“I hear you,” Achilles said, not turning.
His voice was soft. Not like the clipped, confident tone Patroclus had heard in workshop, or the easy, practiced charm he used at lunch. Just quiet. A voice in the dark.

Patroclus stepped back. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to….I didn’t think anyone would be here.”

Achilles turned his head slightly, enough to see him. His eyes caught the moonlight.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You can come sit.”
So Patroclus did.

He walked to the end of the dock and sat a few feet away, cross-legged. The boards were rough beneath his legs, worn smooth in places by time and water and weather. The lake lapped gently at the wooden posts below, soft and secretive.
Achilles didn’t speak, and neither did Patroclus.

They sat like that for a while, two shapes in the dark, breathing the same quiet.
Patroclus glanced sideways. Achilles’s hair caught the silver of the moon, golden even now. His sleeves were pushed up, and his bare feet dangled just above the water. He looked… smaller, somehow. Not like the boy who filled a room just by being in it.
He looked like someone who didn’t want to be seen too.

“What were you humming?” Patroclus asked.

Achilles didn’t look over. “A song my mom used to sing,” he said. “Greek. I don’t know what the words mean anymore. But it made me feel safe.”

Patroclus nodded slowly. “My mom used to sing to me too. Just little songs, before bed. I don’t remember the tunes. Only her voice.”

A pause.

Achilles nodded.

The crickets started up again, loud and full of rhythm. Somewhere, an owl called once, then went quiet. The wind whispered through the trees, a sound that felt older than words.

Patroclus drew a line on the dock with his finger. “Do you come out here a lot?”

“Only when it’s too loud inside,” Achilles said. “When my head won’t turn off.”

“Yeah,” Patroclus said. “Same.”
They were quiet again. But it was a different kind of quiet. Not the one that smothered you, but the one that made room. That let you breathe.

After a moment, Achilles leaned back on his hands and tilted his face toward the sky. “You’re Patroclus, right?”

Patroclus blinked. “Yeah.”

“I’ve heard people talk about you,” Achilles said. “In workshop. In line for lunch. They say you write weird stories.”

Patroclus winced. “That bad, huh?”

“No,” Achilles said, glancing at him. “They meant it in a good way. I think weird is good.”

Patroclus didn’t know what to say to that. His heart was beating faster than it should’ve been.

“You don’t talk much,” Achilles said. “But when you do, people listen.”

Patroclus shrugged. “I don’t like saying things just to say them.”

Achilles smiled slightly. “Me neither.”

They looked at each other then…really looked. Not a stare, not a glance. Just… seeing.

Patroclus asked, “Do you like it? All the attention?”

Achilles didn’t answer right away.

“Sometimes,” he said finally. “But it’s weird. It’s like… people already decided who I’m supposed to be. Like I’m just playing the part.”

Patroclus nodded slowly. “Like you’re in someone else’s story.”

Achilles looked at him. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Another silence, but it was the good kind again.

“I think it’s easier when people don’t want anything from you,” Achilles said.

Patroclus looked at him. “I don’t.”

Achilles smiled. Not the one he gave to adults or the one that made kids laugh in the dining hall. This one was quieter. Smaller. Real.

“I know,” he said.

They didn’t speak after that. Just sat.
The moon moved higher. The lake shifted softly. The world breathed around them.
Eventually, Achilles stood. “We should head back. Before they notice we’re gone.”

Patroclus nodded, though he didn’t want to move. “Yeah.”

Achilles offered a hand.

Patroclus hesitated. Then took it.

His palm was warm, steady.

They walked back together, not speaking, but close enough that their arms brushed once, then again.

At the edge of the cabins, Achilles asked, “Do you want to sit with me tomorrow? At breakfast?”

Patroclus looked at him.

He nodded. “Okay.”

Achilles gave him a small, crooked smile. “Cool.”

They split paths a few steps later. Achilles walked toward the lake house. Patroclus went back to his own cabin.

Inside, everything was the same. The other boys still slept. The ceiling was still there.

But the air wasn’t so heavy now.

Patroclus climbed back into bed and pulled the blanket over his shoulders.

This time, sleep didn’t fight him.

It found him gently, like water finds the shore.

Chapter 8

Notes:

This might be a happier chapter 😘

Patroclus woke slowly.

It was early, he could tell by the quality of the light, the faintest gold leaking in through the cabin blinds, the hush that still rested over the camp like the air before a bell rings. The world hadn’t started yet.
He blinked up at the ceiling and breathed in.

And for a moment, he wasn’t sure.
The night was there. The dock. The lake. The humming. The boy with golden hair who spoke in a voice too calm to be famous. Who knew his name.

It felt real.

Too real to be real.

He turned over onto his side and pressed his face into the cool part of the pillow. His heart was doing that thing again, soft flutter, not panic, not fear. Just the feeling of maybe.

Was it a dream?

It had to be.

Why would Achilles talk to him? Why would he remember Patroclus’s name? Why would he offer him a seat at breakfast?

The boys in Cabin Chimera began to stir. Blankets shifted. Someone groaned and pulled a pillow over their head. There was the rustle of a bag being opened, the squeak of someone stepping off the top bunk, the sleepy shuffle of feet against wooden floor.

Patroclus sat up slowly. His notebook was still under his pillow, folded open to the page he didn’t remember writing. Just a single line, scrawled across the top in his smallest, slanting letters:

“He knew my name.”

His breath caught.

He stared at the words for a long moment. Then closed the notebook and slipped it into his hoodie pocket.

Still, he didn’t believe it. Not really.
People like Achilles didn’t sit beside kids with secondhand shoes and a library sticker on their pencil case. They didn’t hum lullabies and make room on the dock like the night wasn’t a velvet curtain between their worlds.

By the time he joined the flow of campers heading toward the dining lodge, his chest felt hollow. Like he’d lost something he never truly had.

He moved through the breakfast line on instinct, grabbed toast, an apple, a bowl of dry cereal. Carried his tray to the back of the room like always, ready to eat fast and leave faster. He didn’t look toward the center tables. He didn’t want to. If Achilles was there, sitting with the poetry kids or the ones who already had agents, Patroclus didn’t want to see it.

He kept his eyes down.

The air inside the dining hall buzzed with chatter and chairs scraping. Plates clinked. Someone was laughing too loudly. The usual noise of a morning you had to survive.

And then…

“Patroclus!”

His name.

Clear. Soft. Warm.

His head snapped up.

Achilles was waving at him from one of the center tables, a bright grin spreading across his face like sunlight caught in a puddle.

He gestured with both hands, small, exaggerated movements, like hey, you, like come here, this seat is yours.

Patroclus blinked.

For a moment he couldn’t move.

Then, almost without meaning to, he did.
He walked toward the table.

Every step felt like it might vanish beneath him. Like he’d blink and be back in bed. Like someone would stop him, hey, not you, wrong kid, you’re in the way.

But no one did.

Achilles didn’t stop smiling.
The seat beside him was empty.
And waiting.

“Hey,” Achilles said when Patroclus finally sat down, still holding his tray like a shield. “You made it.”

“You… waved,” Patroclus said, voice quieter than he meant.

“Of course I waved,” Achilles said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You didn’t see me and I asked if we could eat breakfast together. If my memory is right you said yes.”

Patroclus ducked his head, trying not to smile too obviously. He placed his tray on the table, suddenly very aware of how dry his toast looked, how bruised the apple was.

Achilles didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t care.

“I thought I dreamed it,” Patroclus admitted.

Achilles grinned again. “Nope. I’m real. Sorry.”

Patroclus laughed, a small, startled sound that escaped before he could stop it. Achilles laughed too, soft and delighted, like the joke wasn’t funny so much as the moment was.

They started to eat. At first it was quiet, just chewing and sipping and tiny glances. But then.

“Do you like the eggs here?” Achilles asked.

“No,” Patroclus said flatly.

“Me neither. They taste like rubber bands.”

“Rubber bands with salt.”

“And sadness.”

That made Patroclus laugh again. This time it felt like a warm hiccup.

The conversation opened from there, like a gate gently creaking outward. Achilles asked him about his writing, what kind of stories he liked, where his ideas came from. Patroclus shrugged a lot. Said, “I don’t know,” a lot. But he told the truth, too: that he liked trees and monsters and endings that didn’t fix everything.

Achilles listened like it mattered.

He talked about screenplays and scripts and how he hated when adults tried to write kids who “talked like lawyers.” He said he liked dialogue best. “I like when words feel like they're bouncing.”

They passed a syrup packet back and forth without opening it. At one point, Achilles dipped his toast in his juice and pretended it was fancy soup.

Patroclus laughed so hard he had to hide his face in his sleeve.

They didn’t notice the other kids watching.
But they were.

Cabin Phoenix was whispering. Cabin Chimera had frozen mid-bite. Even the counselors exchanged looks.

Because Achilles never did this. He never chose anyone. Not for real. Not at breakfast. Not like this.

But Achilles didn’t seem to care. He sat beside Patroclus, elbows on the table, chin in hand, laughing at a joke about cereal mascots. And Patroclus didn’t notice them either. Because when someone looked at you like you were worth sitting beside, the world faded out for a while.

At one point, Patroclus realized he wasn’t shaking.

Not a little.

Not at all.

And that, that was new.

When breakfast ended, Achilles stood and waited for him. Just… waited. Like they were going the same way. Like it was normal.

Patroclus didn’t say much as they walked down the path together toward morning workshop. But his chest felt full, light in a way he hadn’t known was possible.

Achilles kicked a pinecone into the grass and said, “So I had this idea for a story, there’s a boy who finds a ghost in his shoes, but it only talks when he walks on pavement. Want to help me write it?”
Patroclus glanced at him.

“Yeah,” he said.

He meant it.

The morning air was cool but growing warmer by the minute, sunlight crawling over the gravel path like something slow and golden. Patroclus walked a little behind Achilles, not because he wanted to stay back, but because he still couldn’t quite believe it was real. That they were walking together. That he didn’t have to pretend to be on his way somewhere else.
Achilles didn’t seem to mind. He kept glancing back to make sure Patroclus was still beside him, or close enough. “What’s in for today?” he asked, squinting at the list of workshops pinned on the lodge wall.

“We’re in fiction with Miss Coates, right?”
Patroclus nodded.

Achilles made a small face. “She’s the one who gives out stickers when she likes a sentence.”

“I like the stickers,” Patroclus said quietly.
Achilles blinked at him, then grinned.

“Okay, yeah. They’re kind of awesome. Last week I got a purple one with a glitter star because she liked the way I described rain. It wasn’t even a good sentence. I just said it was ‘sad and watery.’”

Patroclus snorted. “That’s what rain is.”

“I know, right?”

They stepped into the circle of wooden benches beneath the big white tent, just before the bell rang, a triangle someone rang with way too much excitement.

Achilles slid onto the desk like he’d done it every day with Patroclus, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Patroclus followed, his notebook already open in his lap.

The morning passed in a way it never had before.

Miss Coates was her usual self, dramatic and kind and always a little out of breath, waving her hands while she talked about “narrative voice” and “evocative setting.” Normally, Patroclus would have sat back and tried not to get called on, but today, something was different.

Achilles whispered commentary through half the lecture, soft, funny things just loud enough for Patroclus to hear.

“She says ‘structure’ like it’s a magical incantation.”

“Should I write a story where the whole thing is one sentence? Do you think that’s edgy or annoying?”

“Tell me if I’m about to get assigned a partner. I need time to prepare emotionally.”

Patroclus tried not to laugh out loud, but he smiled so much his cheeks started to hurt.

When it came time to read out loud from their stories, Achilles nudged Patroclus. “You going to read today?”

“No,” Patroclus said, almost a whisper.

“That’s okay,” Achilles said, not even a little disappointed. “I’ll read mine if you want to draw pictures of dragons in the margins of your notebook while pretending to listen.”

“I don’t draw dragons,” Patroclus mumbled.

Achilles grinned. “Okay. Trees, then.”
Lunch came after, and the moment class ended, Achilles turned to him. “Let’s eat outside today. I found a tree yesterday that looks like it’s been waiting to be sat under for a thousand years.”

Patroclus nodded. It sounded like a story opening, and he liked that.

They filled their trays, grilled cheese, carrot sticks, slices of watermelon, and walked across the sun-warmed grass until they reached the tree Achilles had claimed. It really was a good one: tall, with thick roots curling like fingers into the earth, and leaves that made soft shushing sounds every time the wind passed.
They sat with their backs against the trunk, trays balanced on their knees. The shade was cool, and for the first time, Patroclus didn’t feel like he had to watch his hands or pick at his food just to look busy.

Achilles did most of the talking.

He didn’t seem to mind that Patroclus was quiet. He just filled the air like music in a car ride, something easy, something that made the silence less lonely.

He talked about the first time he’d ever been in front of a camera. “I was five,” he said, biting into his sandwich. “They made me wear this sweater with a bear on it. I hated it so much, I cried. My mom bribed me with ice cream. Two scoops.”

Patroclus listened, chewing slowly, watching how Achilles’s hands moved when he talked.

“And modeling is weird,” Achilles went on.

“Like, people just stare at you. Not like here. I mean really stare. They move your face with their hands, tell you to ‘look mysterious’ like that’s just a normal thing to know how to do.”

Patroclus tilted his head. “Can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Look mysterious?”

Achilles made a face, chin tilted up, eyes half-lidded, a little pout forming on his lips.
Patroclus burst out laughing. The sound surprised him more than Achilles. It just, escaped.

Achilles grinned. “Was that mysterious, or just sleepy?”

“Sleepy,” Patroclus said, still smiling.
They ate the rest of lunch slowly. Achilles picked the seeds out of his watermelon and lined them up on a leaf. Patroclus used his fork to draw little spirals in the dirt between tree roots.

They didn’t talk about writing. Not this time.

They talked about dreams, Achilles said he once had a dream where he turned into a bird, but only from the waist up, and Patroclus said he sometimes dreamed in colors that didn’t exist. Achilles said that was the coolest thing he’d ever heard.
Patroclus didn’t tell him everything. Not yet. Not about home. Not about the ache that sometimes lived in his ribs. But he didn’t have to.

It felt like Achilles understood anyway.
After a while, the sun shifted, and the tree’s shadow crept across their legs.
Achilles leaned back, resting his head against the bark. “This camp feels different now.”

“Why?” Patroclus asked without thinking, almost afraid to say it out loud.

Achilles looked at him. “Because I think I have a friend now” He smiled.

Patroclus looked down at his tray, then at the tree, then at Achilles.

“I think I do too.” he said.

And there was no need for big words.

Because that smile said more than any poem could.
I’m

Chapter 9

Notes:

I will be writing more since I have more free timeeeeee 😜😜

It started the way these things always do…quietly, with a few pointed glances, and then with words that grew sharper as the days passed.

“You’re sitting with him again?” one of the boys from Cabin Chimera asked on the third morning in a row. He didn’t say “Achilles,” but he didn’t have to. The way he wrinkled his nose when he said “him” was enough.

Patroclus didn’t answer. He just slid onto the bench beside Achilles, tray in his hands, trying not to notice the way a few kids watched from behind their juice cartons and cereal bowls.

By the fifth day, it wasn’t whispers anymore.

One afternoon, as Patroclus left fiction workshop a few steps behind Achilles, someone bumped into him in the hallway hard enough to knock his pencil case from his hand.

“Oh, sorry,” the boy muttered, eyes full of something that didn’t look like sorry at all. His friend snorted.

Patroclus knelt down silently and picked up his pencils one by one.

Achilles hadn’t seen it. He’d been ahead, talking to a counselor. Patroclus didn’t mention it. Not because he was afraid, but because it would feel like naming something that was already shrinking him.
The truth was, he didn’t understand it. He hadn’t done anything. He just… sat beside someone. Listened to him. Laughed with him.

And somehow that made him a target
It was like people saw Achilles as a prize, not a person. A prize Patroclus wasn’t allowed to win. But he wasn’t a prize? He was human overall.

That night, he ate dinner quickly and alone, the edge of his tray wet from spilled lemonade and the bottom of his stomach full of something sour.

He didn’t know Achilles had noticed.
He didn’t know Achilles had been noticing for days.

Until, walking back toward the cabins under a sky smeared with violet and pink, Achilles suddenly said, “Come to my place tonight.”

“What?”

“Sleepover,” Achilles said. “You. Me. Animal crackers. Writing stuff. I have a whole blanket fortress plan. It’s very serious.”

Patroclus blinked. “Can we even do that?”

Achilles grinned. “My dad owns the camp. You think they’ll stop me?”

Patroclus hesitated. “Won’t… won’t they be mad?”

“Who? The kids who already don’t like you? Who cares?” Achilles tugged his sleeve gently, the way someone might tug a kite string. “Please?”

Patroclus hesitated, then nodded.

Because the idea of not going, of going back to Chimera, of laying in his bunk and pretending not to hear the boys whispering as he fell asleep…that felt heavier than anything else.

—

Achilles’s cabin was farther from the others, tucked behind a small grove of trees that made it feel like a secret. The porch creaked when you stepped on it, and someone (take a wild guess) had hung seashells from the railing with bits of string.

Inside, the walls were covered with little things: postcards with strange stamps, hand-drawn comics taped beside the light switch, a calendar with joke doodles in each box. One shelf was entirely full of books with folded corners. Another had tiny clay creatures lined up like they were having a parade.

Achilles tossed his backpack into the corner and kicked his shoes off. “Ta-da,” he said, arms spread. “Home sweet treehouse.”

Patroclus stepped in carefully, like the floor might disappear.

There was a bed against the wall, messy but cozy, with a dark green quilt and at least five pillows. There was a small desk under the window, completely covered in notebooks, pencils, candy wrappers, and one jar of googly eyes.

“Is this all yours?” Patroclus asked.

“Yup. My mom helped decorate. I added the chaos.”

“It’s nice.”

“Thanks.” Achilles picked up a pair of socks from the floor and tossed them into a laundry basket. “I cleaned. For you.”

Patroclus smiled. “You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.” Achilles shrugged.

—

They started with snacks. Animal crackers and two kinds of potato chips, which Achilles said should count as “nutritionally diverse.” They sat cross legged on the floor, the quilt dragged down with them, their backs to the bedframe.

“Okay,” Achilles said, mouth full of cracker.
“Tonight’s rule: we only talk about cool stuff.”

“What’s cool stuff?”
“Things we like. Things that make us feel big inside. No mean stuff. No what-they-said stuff. Just… us.”

Patroclus nodded. He liked that.

So they talked. About characters they wanted to write. About stories they had only written the beginnings of. About moments they remembered without knowing why.

Achilles said, “Sometimes I imagine what it’d be like to live in a world where stories walk around like people. Like, you could go to a market and buy a new memory.”

Patroclus said, “Maybe the ones you want cost more.”

Achilles said, “Maybe the ones you don’t want are on sale.”

They laughed until their stomachs ached.
They moved to the bed eventually, sitting side by side against the wall, notebooks open between them. Patroclus wrote one line at a time. Achilles talked through his paragraphs, muttering aloud as he crossed words out with scribbles that filled half the page.

At one point, Patroclus read something out loud.

Achilles didn’t interrupt. He just listened, one hand curled around a stuffed turtle he said his cousin gave him.

When Patroclus stopped, Achilles whispered, “I want to live in that sentence.”

Patroclus flushed and ducked his head.

They read until their eyes got tired.

They turned off the lamp.

The stars above the bed glowed faintly. Little sticker stars, stuck to the wood paneled ceiling. Some of them were crooked. A few were missing corners.
But they glowed anyway.

“You can sleep here,” Achilles said while kicking away the blankets due to the dying heat. “I don’t snore. I do kick sometimes though. Not on purpose.”

Patroclus hesitated.

Achilles patted the space beside him.
So Patroclus climbed in, careful not to disturb the edge of the quilt. He lay stiff at first, his back to the wall, his heart doing that small, fluttery thing again.

“Goodnight,” Achilles said, voice already soft.

“…Goodnight.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was the kind that made space for breathing. The kind that wrapped around you like a blanket.

Patroclus didn’t know when he fell asleep.

But when he woke in the middle of the night, eyes barely open, Achilles was curled up beside him, face pressed into his shoulder, breath warm and steady.

And Patroclus didn’t move.

He lay there, eyes half closed, stars above them like tiny pieces of a story not finished yet.

And for the first time in a long time, he felt like he belonged in this story.

Chapter 10

Notes:

I spent all night to write this hope it makes sense 😭😭

It was a free day.

No workshops. No electives. No reading circles or timed prompts or feedback sessions. Just sun and time, and a whole camp of kids let loose to decide what to do with both.

Patroclus hadn’t known what free days were like until now. The first one, early in the summer, he’d stayed in the library alone and drawn in the margins of a book about bird migrations. The second, he’d walked the edge of the woods and written five short sentences about trees.

But this one?

This one was different.

Because this time, Achilles grabbed his hand right after breakfast and said, “Let’s go somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

And that was that.

They didn’t bring notebooks. Not on purpose. Achilles declared it a no writing day, a brain rest day, a day for jumping and running and doing very stupid things on purpose.

The sun was already climbing when they left the lodge, golden and soft and full of promise. The gravel crunched under their sneakers as they ran down the hill, away from the cabins, toward the clearing with the broken dock and the little bend in the lake where fewer kids went.

It wasn’t secret, exactly. Just overlooked. And for Patroclus, it might as well have been another world.

There was a stick pile near the edge of the trees, old branches, long and thin, mostly left there by the drama kids who used them for scene blocking and sword duels.
Achilles picked one up and swung it with a wild, exaggerated flourish.

“Halt!” he cried. “Who dares trespass upon the sacred grounds of King Achilles the Very Magnificent?”

Patroclus snorted. “That’s a long title.”
“It’s earned.”

He tossed Patroclus another stick. “En garde!”

It was silly. It was childish. It was perfect.
Patroclus swung the stick like he was in a movie. Achilles jumped back with a loud gasp, then dramatically “died” with a twirl and a loud oof into the grass.

“You didn’t even try,” Patroclus said, trying not to laugh.

“I did,” Achilles insisted, sitting up and brushing leaves from his hair. “You’re just too powerful. A silent warrior.”

They spent the next hour dueling in the shade. Achilles made up rules as they went: you could only block if you said a rhyme, or you lost if you laughed first, or if you stepped on a stick, it meant the ground was lava and you had to freeze.
They took turns winning and losing.

Patroclus never liked pretending to be better than anyone, but with Achilles, it wasn’t about winning. It was about the joy of play, the breathless laughter, the way their shadows jumped across the grass like they were dancing.

Eventually, sweaty and tired and smiling so hard their cheeks ached, they collapsed in the field.

“I can’t feel my arms,” Achilles groaned, his stick resting across his chest.

“Because I beat you,” Patroclus said.

Achilles turned his head to look at him, eyes sparkling. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“I know.” He grinned, and for a moment they just laid there, breathing in sync, staring up at the leaves rustling above them like green confetti.

And then Achilles sat up suddenly. “Lake?”
Patroclus raised an eyebrow. “We didn’t bring towels.”

“We’ll air dry. Come on, it’s summer. That’s what summer’s for.”

Patroclus hesitated for a second, then nodded. He liked the idea of the lake. He liked the idea of following wherever Achilles went.

The dock creaked under their weight as they walked toward the edge. It was old and half sunken on one side, and the wood was warped, bleached pale by years of sun and weather.

Achilles toed off his sneakers and socks
and set them in a neat pile on the dock.

“Last one in has to do the other’s laundry,” he announced.

Patroclus didn’t even have time to protest before Achilles ran and leapt off the edge, arms wide.

He hit the water with a splash that soaked half the dock.

Patroclus stood there for a second, blinking, shoes still on.

Achilles’s head popped up, hair plastered to his forehead. “Come on! It’s not cold!”

“That’s what liars say.”

“It’s not!”

Patroclus slowly pulled off his socks. “If I fall, it’s your fault.”

“You’re not going to fall.”

He took one step forward.

Then another.

And just as he crouched to step into the lake, Achilles grinned, waded closer, and tugged the edge of the dock just enough to make Patroclus lose his balance.

“Achilles!”

Splash.

Patroclus went in sideways, arms flailing.
He came up sputtering, soaked to the skin, hair dripping into his eyes. “You tricked me.”

Achilles was laughing so hard he nearly slipped under again.

Patroclus tried to look mad. Really. But he started laughing too. Big, startled giggles that bubbled out before he could stop them.

The water wasn’t even that cold.
They floated there, treading water and laughing so hard their stomachs hurt.

Achilles started trying to do handstands underwater, kicking his legs up and toppling back over every time. Patroclus tried once and got a nose full of lake.

They splashed and dunked each other and made terrible dolphin noises and named every floating stick a boat with a tragic backstory. They pretended to be sea monsters. Achilles gave himself a crown of pondweed and declared himself “Poseidon, King of Lake seaweed.”

Eventually they hauled themselves out, dripping and exhausted, onto the creaky dock. They laid in the sun, limbs sprawled, shirts clinging to their backs, water pooling in the grooves between boards.

“Best free day ever,” Achilles mumbled.
Patroclus hummed in agreement. His skin felt warm, not just from the sun but from something gentler too, something that lived in his chest now, full and golden.

Far off, they could hear the sounds of the other campers, laughter and yelling and the tinny bell that meant the snack table had opened.

But none of it felt close.

Here, on the dock, it was just the two of them.

The rumors hadn’t stopped.

They never really did.

Patroclus still caught kids whispering. Still noticed how some people looked at him like he’d stolen something that wasn’t his.

But it didn’t land the way it used to. Not with Achilles at his side, laughing, splashing, calling him “Shark Slayer of Thessaly”

They stayed until their clothes dried in patches and their hair curled under the sun.

And then, when the sun dipped low and the shadows stretched long, they walked back together, barefoot, tired, completely happy.

That night, back in Cabin Chimera, Patroclus wrote a story.

About two boys who didn’t need magic to be brave.

About water and light and laughter that sounded like freedom.

He didn’t show it to anyone.

But it didn’t matter.

Because Achilles would know what it meant.

Chapter 11

Notes:

Mwah I’m back y’all. Writing be getting to me lately. There are some explanations of Greek foods/saying at the end. Please excuse any grammar mistakes but I am not native Greek and mostly using an online dictionary and grammar book!

It started with a sock.

A single, muddy sock at the foot of Patroclus’s bunk.

He’d gone to brush his teeth that morning and returned to find it placed there,damp, crusted with grass, and balled up as if someone had kicked it around like a hacky sack before deciding it belonged to him.

He stared at it for a long moment.

Then, without a word, picked it up with two fingers and tossed it in the trash.

He didn’t say anything. Not to the boy across the room still pretending to be asleep. Not to the two others who exchanged silent, smug glances over half-made beds.

He’d seen their looks the past few days,those glancing, mean little flicks of the eyes. The way conversations always seemed to stop when he entered the cabin. How his towel had gone missing, how his notebook had been “accidentally” stepped on, how his nickname had somehow become Achilles’s shadow.

He didn’t ask why.

He already knew.

It was the same thing it always was. Quiet kids who got close to the wrong kind of bright.

It didn’t hurt the way it might’ve once. Not exactly. But it tugged on old parts of him, made his chest feel loose and hollow, like a drawer that had been pulled open too fast and never quite closed again.

He didn’t tell Achilles.

Not that morning.

Instead, he went to breakfast and sat beside him as usual. Achilles greeted him with a grin and a stolen muffin. Patroclus smiled, a real one, and took it without comment. But his fingers lingered on the paper wrapper longer than they needed to.

“You okay?” Achilles asked, voice low.

“Fine,” Patroclus said. Which wasn’t a lie. Not really. It just wasn’t the whole thing.

They walked together after, down the gravel path that curved toward the lake where the sun caught the ripples like spilled coins. The world was warm. Green. Safe, if you didn’t look too closely.

They had the afternoon free.

It should’ve felt light.

But something inside Patroclus felt heavier than usual. Not sharp. Just… thick. Like rain that hadn’t started falling yet.

Achilles noticed. He always did.

“You want to sit under the tree?”

Patroclus shrugged. “Let’s go to the rocks instead.”

So they did.

The rocks by the edge of the lake were smooth and flat, warmed by the morning sun. A few birds flicked through the reeds. Someone across the lake yelled something joyful, a splash following close behind.

They sat close.

For a while, they didn’t speak. Achilles took off his shoes and dipped his toes into the lake, humming something that sounded like a lullaby without words. Patroclus pulled his knees to his chest and stared at the far side of the water.

“I used to cook with my mom,” he said eventually. “Greek stuff. Not the fancy kind. Just the food that smelled good and filled the whole kitchen.”

Achilles glanced over. “Yeah?”

Patroclus nodded. “She made spanakopita* from scratch. And kolokithokeftedes*. Sometimes loukoumades* if we had time. I was in charge of the honey.”

Achilles blinked, then lit up. “Wait…me too! I mean, not the cooking part. My mom hates mess. But loukoumades? The ones with cinnamon and syrup?”

Patroclus smiled a little. “The very ones.”

Achilles grinned like someone had just handed him a secret.

“That’s so weird. I didn’t think anyone else here even knew what tiropita* was.”

“I do,” Patroclus said. “And I can make it better than most restaurants.”

Achilles tilted his head, mock-serious. “That’s a bold claim.”

“It’s true.”

“Alright,” Achilles said. “I’m inviting myself to your house next winter. I expect cheese pies and honey balls too. If you dare for the second one.”

Patroclus laughed.

Achilles smiled back.

Patroclus asked, “Do you speak Greek?”

“Some,” Achilles said. “Enough to understand her when she’s mad.”

He leaned back against the rock, head tilted toward the sky. Then, without warning, he said something in Greek. Softly. Like a thread of music curling in the air.

Patroclus blinked. “What was that?”

Achilles glanced at him, one brow raised. “You don’t know it?”

“I’m not fluent,” Patroclus admitted. “My dad was busy and my mom was Greek too but she didn’t teach me the language. Just the cooking.”

Achilles smiled. “That counts.”

“What did you say?”

Achilles looked away, toward the water. He dipped his fingers in it and watched the circles spread.

“O kosmos sou einai o agapimenos mou mythos*,” he said again, this time slower. “It means… your world is my favorite myth.”

Patroclus blinked. He didn’t respond. Just looked down at the water where Achilles’s fingers made the surface dance.

“You’re teasing me,” he said finally.

“I’m not,” Achilles said. “But it’s okay if you think I am.”

Patroclus flushed, glancing back at the ripples.

There was something gentle about it, that whole moment. Not heavy like the cabin. Not sharp like the kids in the hallway. Just two boys by a lake…

—
Later that day, during dinner, it happened again.

The boy from Chimera, Dean, Patroclus remembered, not because he ever introduced himself, but because his name was stitched on the inside of his towel, brushed past his tray and “accidentally” knocked over his cup of juice.

The plastic clattered, red liquid spilling across the table like a wound.

Patroclus stared at it. Then looked up, slow and steady.

Dean smirked.

Achilles froze.

The entire table watched.

Patroclus rose to his feet.

The juice soaked into his sandwich. His apple bobbed in the mess like a tiny boat.

Patroclus didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t scowl. Didn’t glare.

He tilted his head and said, calmly, “Wow. Must be hard. Tripping over your own ego like that.”

A few kids snorted. Even Dean’s friend looked surprised.

Patroclus grabbed a napkin and calmly started cleaning. “If you’re going to be a jerk, at least be creative. You’re not even funny.”

Dean flushed. His mouth opened. Closed. Then, like the coward all bullies secretly are, he turned and stalked off without another word.

Achilles stared, wide-eyed.

Patroclus sat back down.

Achilles leaned close. “That was amazing.”

“I don’t like getting my food wet,” Patroclus said with a shrug.

Achilles laughed.

And this time, Patroclus smiled too.

—
That night, they lay in bed again, side by side, not touching but close enough that their thoughts felt like they might spill into each other.

“Thanks,” Patroclus said, after a while.

“For what?”

“For letting me be quiet. For listening. For… everything.”

Achilles didn’t respond right away.

But then, softly, in the dark, he said,
“I like hearing your quiet. It’s louder than most people’s noise.”

And Patroclus didn’t know what to say.

So he didn’t say anything.

He just reached out, gently, and let the tips of their fingers touch.

Notes:

* Σπανακόπιτα (Spanakopita)
A savory pie made with phyllo dough, filled with spinach, feta cheese, onions, and herbs.
* Κολοκυθοκεφτέδες (Kolokithokeftedes)
Zucchini fritters made with grated zucchini, herbs (like mint or dill), and sometimes feta or other cheese.
* Λουκουμάδες (Loukoumades)
Fried dough balls soaked in honey syrup and often sprinkled with cinnamon and sometimes sesame seeds.
* Τυρόπιτα (Tiropita)
A savory cheese pie made with layers of phyllo dough filled mainly with feta cheese and eggs.
* Ο κόσμος σου είναι ο αγαπημένος μου μύθος.

Chapter 12

Notes:

NEW CHAPTER PEOPLEEEEE

She arrived in a silver car that gleamed like a drop of water at the edge of a leaf.

The tires crunched softly on the gravel, and Achilles, who’d been checking the road for the past half-hour, nearly dropped the peach he’d been eating.

“She's here,” he said, voice suddenly bright. “Come on!”

Patroclus looked up from his sketchbook, startled. “Who?”

“My mom,” Achilles called over his shoulder, already halfway down the porch steps. “Come meet her!”

Before Patroclus could decide if he was ready, he was running to keep up.

The car door opened, and a woman stepped out.

She was tall and elegant, her movements precise like lines in ink. Her hair was pulled back into a perfect twist, not a strand out of place. She wore dark glasses and a pale linen jacket that somehow hadn’t picked up a speck of camp dust. Around her neck, a thin gold chain caught the sun.
There was something about her—like still water that you knew ran deep.

“Mama!” Achilles called.

The transformation in him was immediate, like every muscle relaxed, like something behind his eyes softened all at once. He crossed the path to her in three long strides and threw his arms around her waist. Thetis accepted the hug with careful hands, one smoothing the top of his curls.

“You’re taller,” she said, quietly. Her voice was low and clear, like the first note of a cello. “And you smell like dirt.”

“I’ve been rolling down hills,” Achilles said proudly.

“Of course you have,” she murmured, with the faintest smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Patroclus stood back, unsure what to do. He had seen photographs of her once, Achilles had shown him, grinning, pointing to an old Vogue shoot on a magazine, but in person, she seemed less like a photo and more like someone pulled from myth. Like she should be carved into marble or painted in soft oils.

Achilles turned, still holding onto her wrist like a kid with something to show off.

“Mom, this is Patroclus. The Patroclus”

He said it like a gift.

Thetis looked at him.

Her sunglasses made it hard to read her expression, but her head tilted, just slightly, as if she were examining a piece of art from a distance.

“Hello,” she said.

Patroclus swallowed. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”

She nodded, but didn’t smile. Not exactly.
“Achilles, go grab me the water bottle from the car,” she said.

“I brought you one already—”

“The one in my bag,” she said gently.

Achilles opened his mouth to protest, then paused. “Oh. Right.”

He jogged off with a shrug, and Thetis turned back to Patroclus. The air seemed to change. Not colder. Just quieter.

“Walk with me,” she said.

She didn’t ask.

So he followed.

They moved along one of the shaded trails that cut behind the cabins, where the trees hung low and the light came in dappled and gold. The air smelled of sap and dust and something almost citrusy, maybe the wild mint that grew along the edges.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you,” she said after a few steps.

Patroclus glanced at her. “I hope it was mostly good.”

Her lips curled, almost invisibly. “He speaks of you often.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The silence that followed was not unkind.

“He says you’re kind,” she said. “That you’re quiet. Thoughtful. That you make him laugh.”

Patroclus gave a small shrug. “He makes it easy.”

They walked a little farther. A bird called in the distance. Somewhere, someone’s sandal slapped against the cabin stairs.

“You’re the first friend he’s written about,” she said.

Patroclus blinked. “He writes about me?”

She didn’t answer that. “He’s always drawn people in. Adults fawn. Children follow. Teachers exaggerate. But they see what they want. Not who he is.”

“And you think I’m the same?” he asked softly.

She stopped walking.

Turned to him.

“No,” she said.
There was something in the way she said it, like it was both a truth and a warning.

They resumed walking.

She continued walking. “He tells me you write. That your stories are… unusual.”

“I guess,” he murmured.

“There was one he particularly liked. Something about a girl who swallowed the sea.”

Patroclus blinked.

“You…he told you about that?”

“He recited nearly the whole thing,” Thetis said. “Something about how the sea grew too heavy inside her, but she learned how to hold it.”

Patroclus flushed. That had been a private one. A story he hadn’t shown anyone else. Just Achilles.

“I didn’t know he remembered that.”

“He remembers everything,” she said.
They kept walking.

“It’s a strange image,” she continued after a moment. “The girl and the sea. But it stayed with me. Why does she swallow it?”

Patroclus shrugged, kicking at a stone. “Because she loves it. And people were hurting it. So she thought… if she kept it inside her, maybe she could protect it.”

“And does she?”

“She tries.”

Thetis didn’t answer right away. They reached a bend in the path, where the trees thinned and the sunlight made patches on the earth like golden nets.

“He said he wants to help you publish it,” she said.

Patroclus blinked again. “What?”

Thetis nodded, slowly. “He said no one’s ever made him want to write something with them. Not until now.”

Patroclus looked away quickly. The leaves rustled overhead, and he focused on them. On the trembling shadows on the ground.

“He’s very full of feelings,” Thetis added, her voice a shade lighter. “Too many for this world sometimes.”

“I know,” Patroclus said.

And he did.

Thetis stopped walking again. They had reached the edge of a small overlook, where the woods sloped down to a pocket of tall grass and wildflowers. The wind moved in soft shimmers across the hill.

She looked at Patroclus again.

“You’re not what I expected,” she said.

He almost laughed. “People say that a lot.”

“But you’re exactly what he needs.”

That stunned him into silence.

“You don’t want anything from him,” she added. “You’re not jealous. You’re not using him for orbit. You’re… steady. That’s rare.”

Patroclus wasn’t sure what to say. His throat felt thick.

Thetis reached up and slowly removed her sunglasses. Her eyes were not hard, they were tired, maybec but soft around the edges. Blue-grey like an overcast sea.

“I won’t pretend I understand everything about his heart,” she said. “But I can see that you’ve become part of it.”

The wind brushed past them, and Patroclus could smell the summer on it, earth and salt and the memory of swimming.

“You have my thanks,” she added, quietly.
Patroclus blinked at her.

“For what?”

“For being kind to my son.”

They stood there for another few seconds, just the two of them and the wind.

Then she turned back toward the camp.

Her pace was slower now.

When they reappeared from the trail, Achilles jumped up from the bench where he’d been waiting. “Finally,” he said, mock dramatic. “I was starting to think you were giving him a mythological quest.”

“I thought about it,” Thetis said lightly.

Achilles looked between the two of them. “So? How’d he do?”

Thetis arched a brow. “I’ve had worse walks.”

Patroclus smiled.

Achilles grinned.

And behind her sunglasses, Thetis smiled too.

Chapter 13

Notes:

This chapter came later than the others but I have been busy. I also published my book (it’s not as good as this fanfic in my opinion but it’s an idea I had as a child and child me would’ve loved to see it published so it’s for her.) If anyone wants to check it out it’s called “Trails that lead to nowhere” by Tea M. G. on Kindle. Anyways let’s get back to our little cute babies. Lowkey this is my fav chapter so far.

Patroclus was lying on his stomach under the tree near Cabin Phoenix, sketching a sea monster with sad eyes in the margin of his notebook, when Achilles came running.

Not walking.

Not jogging.

Running.

He tripped a little over a root but didn’t seem to notice. His hair stuck to his forehead and his grin was so wide it looked like it might fall off the sides of his face.

“Patrocluuuus!”

Patroclus barely had time to close his notebook before Achilles skidded to a stop in front of him, arms behind his back.

“I made something.”

Patroclus blinked up at him. “What?”

Achilles rocked on his heels. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s dramatic, obviously.”

Patroclus stared at him a moment longer, then obediently shut his eyes.

He heard shuffling. A little puff of breath. Then a rustle as something was set in front of him.

“Okay,” Achilles said. “Open.”

Patroclus opened his eyes.

In the grass before him sat a small stuffed lion. It was obviously handmade, the stitches were clumsy in places, one ear drooped a little, and its tail was sewn on sideways…but it had a kind of crooked charm. Like it had been loved before it even existed.

Its button eyes looked up at him. Someone had sewn a tiny blue scrap of fabric around its neck like a scarf.

“I made it,” Achilles said proudly.

Patroclus blinked. “You… made this?”

“Uh-huh. Miss Coates let me use her felt. Don’t tell her I took the sparkly thread though, that was probably not technically allowed.”

He plopped down beside Patroclus, crossing his legs.

“He’s you,” Achilles added. “Well…not you you. But kind of. I wanted to make a creature that looked small and quiet but was secretly fierce. And then I thought, ‘Oh wait. That’s you.’ So. He’s a lion.”

Patroclus looked down at the lion again. He didn’t know what to say. The scarf was crooked. The tail looked like it belonged to a squirrel. One of the button eyes was slightly too big.

It was perfect.

He smiled, just a little. “Thank you.”

Achilles beamed. “You’re welcome. He doesn’t have a name yet. I figured you’d pick something good.”

Patroclus held the lion in his hands like it might fall apart if he wasn’t careful. He wasn’t used to getting gifts. Not ones like this. Ones someone had made just because they wanted to.

Achilles scooted a little closer, shoulder bumping his. “Also I wrote a little thing,” he added casually, like it wasn’t a big deal. “It’s not finished. But I wanted you to read it.”

He dug into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of notebook paper, which he handed over with a dramatic flourish. “It’s a beginning,” he said. “About a boy and his lion. But the lion talks and tells riddles. I figured you’d like that.”
Patroclus unfolded it carefully.

His throat tightened a little.

He didn’t know why.

It wasn’t sad.

It was just… kind.

Achilles leaned over to look at it with him, close enough that Patroclus could smell the faint scent of camp soap and lake water.

“Do you like it?”

Patroclus nodded. “It’s really good.”

“You can keep it, if you want.”

Patroclus stared at him. “But… it’s your story.”

“I can write another. I just wanted you to have this one.”

Patroclus didn’t quite know how to answer. So instead, he tucked the paper carefully between the pages of his notebook and hugged the lion to his chest.

Achilles grinned like that was better than a thank you.

After a pause, he flopped onto his back beside Patroclus, hands behind his head.

“You know,” he said, eyes on the clouds,
“when I grow up I want to live in a big house with a library that has one of those ladders on wheels. And I want my best friend to visit whenever they want. And we can still write stories and make stuffed animals and never wear real shoes.”

Patroclus looked at him. “Real shoes?”

“Like shiny ones. That squeak.”

“Why would we wear squeaky shoes?”

“Exactly. We won’t. We’ll wear socks. Or go barefoot. All the time.”

Patroclus smiled. “Sounds good.”

Achilles tilted his head toward him. “Will you come to my library house someday?”

Patroclus hesitated, then nodded. “If there’s toast.”

Achilles let out a triumphant whoop and sat up. “Deal. Toast and books and lions and no squeaky shoes. You and me forever.”

Patroclus’s heart gave a quiet thump.
He didn’t answer.

Not because he didn’t believe him.
But because part of him still wasn’t sure this was real. This kind of affection. This kind of brightness. He liked it too much. It felt like a dream you were afraid to name out loud.

But he smiled.

And that was enough for Achilles, who leaned over and threw an arm around his shoulder in a one armed hug so fast and fierce it nearly knocked Patroclus sideways.

Patroclus just laughed.

The sun warmed the grass. The lion sat between them like a tiny guardian. And even if Patroclus didn’t quite let himself believe it yet…he wanted to.

………..

The next morning, the air at camp crackled with excitement. Even the birds seemed louder, as if they’d caught wind of the plans.

“Field trip!” Miss Coates called, standing on a bench with her clipboard, her sun hat tipping sideways in the breeze. “Everyone grab your lunches, your water bottles, and your sense of adventure. We’re going to the sea!”

The sea.

Patroclus had never seen it up close before. Not really. He had drawn it, of course, over and over again, in pencil and charcoal and half dried markers. Always full of imagined creatures and impossible colors. But the real thing? It still felt like a dream.

Achilles found him near the canteen and immediately shoved a drawstring bag into his arms.

“I packed your stuff,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Well, I mean…I guessed what you’d want. I added your sketchbook, and your pencil case, and that granola bar you always pretend not to like but eat anyway.”

Patroclus blinked. “You…packed for me?”

Achilles grinned. “Obviously. What if you forgot and had to stay here like a tragic ghost? Wandering camp forever. Dying of boredom.”

Patroclus rolled his eyes, but there was a smile tugging at his mouth. He didn’t say thank you, but Achilles seemed to get it anyway.

They sat together on the bus, squeezed into a two person seat that really felt like one and a half. Achilles had his legs draped over Patroclus’s lap by the time they left the gravel driveway. Not in a big, dramatic way…just…like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Tell me a sea monster fact,” Achilles said.

Patroclus raised an eyebrow. “A real one?”

“No. A made up one.”

He thought for a moment. “Okay. Sea monsters don’t actually roar. They hum. Really low. Like whales. You can feel it in your chest if you're near them. It’s how they talk to each other across the ocean.”

Achilles tilted his head. “What do they talk about?”

“Loneliness,” Patroclus said, without thinking. Then, more gently… “And directions. Where the currents are kind. Where the storms are sleeping.”

Achilles looked at him for a long moment, something soft flickering in his eyes. Then he leaned back against the window and said, “You should write that down. That’s a good one.”

The bus rolled on.

They passed sunflower fields and sleepy towns, the kind with crooked mailboxes and lemonade signs drawn in crayon. Achilles made faces at cows. Patroclus sketched the shape of the road through the bus window, shading the clouds like soft spun cotton.

When the sea finally came into view, vast and glittering, like the sky had fallen and forgotten how to rise, it stole Patroclus’s breath.

The campers spilled out of the bus in a wave of squeals and stomping sandals. Patroclus stood still for a moment, letting the salty wind wrap around him, the sun warm his face. Somewhere nearby, a gull shrieked. The sand sparkled like crushed stars.

And then…

“Hey!”

Achilles was already running barefoot across the dunes, one shoe in his hand and his laugh caught in the wind like a kite tail.

He turned back, hair flaring in the sunlight, and called out, “Race you!”

Patroclus was staring.

He couldn’t help it.

Achilles was golden. Not just in the way the light touched him, but in the way he was. Like the universe had shaped him out of sunbeams and momentum. His grin, lopsided and pure. His eyes bright with something electric. The wind tousling his hair like it knew him.

And Patroclus…his breath caught.

Just for a second.

Something in his chest flickered, fluttered, bloomed.

He didn’t understand it. Not really. It didn’t feel like anything he had a name for. Just a quiet ache and a swelling warmth. Like the sea had risen a little inside him.

But Achilles had already turned and bolted toward the water, yelling something about “claiming land in the name of camp”

So Patroclus ran.

They spent the whole afternoon laughing so hard their ribs hurt. Achilles taught him how to skim stones, though Patroclus’s kept plunking into the tide like confused frogs. They collected shells shaped like commas and moons, Achilles crowning Patroclus with seaweed and declaring him “King of the Quiet Tides.”

They buried each other’s feet. They named a washed up jellyfish “Perseus.”

They made up a song about crabs that sounded suspiciously like a sea shanty and got stuck in everyone’s head.

When the sun began to sink, slow and molten, like it was dipping its toes in the ocean, Achilles lay on his back in the sand, hands folded behind his head, hair fanned out around him like a halo.

“Do you think the sea ever gets tired?” he asked, watching the sky turn honey gold.
Patroclus was sketching him. Light, loose lines. Noticing the way the shadows shaped his face. The curve of his smile. The wildness in him, barely tucked under the skin.

Patroclus didn’t answer the question.

He didn’t have to.

The bus ride back was quieter. Everyone sun warmed and salt crusted, half asleep and full of the kind of joy that hums under your skin like a secret.

Achilles talked for a while, his voice soft and trailing off between words. He was telling a story about a sea lion that stole someone’s sandwich when he yawned mid sentence and leaned against Patroclus’s shoulder like it was the obvious place to be.

Patroclus froze.

Then breathed.

Then relaxed into it.

Achilles's weight was warm. Familiar. His hair tickled against Patroclus’s neck. His breathing slowed.

The sky outside the window was indigo now. The kind of blue that felt endless.

Patroclus slowly opened his notebook again, careful not to jostle him. He turned to a fresh page. Picked up his pencil.
And he wrote.

“Once there was a golden boy.
He wasn’t made of gold, not really. But light lived in his skin and laughter lived in his bones, and when he smiled, it was like something in the world remembered how to glow.
He had a heart so big that the clouds could live in it and the soles of his feet were always dusty, and he believed in stories more than rules.
The boy didn’t know it, but everywhere he went, things softened.
Clouds drifted lower to hear him better. Trees leaned in. The sea lifted her hands to greet him.
And there was another boy, quiet and listening, who watched him and thought…
If he’s a story, I want to read him forever.”

The bus rumbled on.

The stars blinked into being, one by one.
Achilles slept on.

And Patroclus, heart full of salt and warmth and something blooming he still didn’t quite understand, wrote until the story felt like it had a pulse.

Until it felt like it could breathe.

Until it felt like his.

And the lion, sewn from crooked stitches and sparkly thread, nestled between them in the seat like a beginning…

Chapter 14

Notes:

NEW CHAPTER DROPPEDDDDDDD

It was too hot to think.

The kind of hot that made time stretch thin and heavy, like taffy melting in the palm. Every surface radiated warmth, stones, stairs, tree trunks each of them holding the sun’s memory and refusing to let it go. The grass had gone dry and yellow at the tips, and it sighed when you stepped on it, brittle as paper.

Even the insects had slowed down, their buzzing more like muttering now. The bees moved like they’d forgotten their schedules, hovering lazily between drooping flowers, half hearted in their flights. Down by the lake, the air shimmered so brightly it looked like someone had smeared the sky with glass. It was the sort of heat that made you want to stop mid thought and simply lie down, arms spread, and let the sun pour itself over you like syrup.

Camp Phthia was subdued, like the buildings and trees themselves were napping. Activities were cancelled. The lake was off limits. Paints and glue in the crafts cabin had already turned gummy by breakfast.

So, in the flickering shade of the mess hall, a decision had been made.

“No schedules,” Miss Coates had declared, her cheeks flushed and her gray curls frizzing slightly under the humidity. She fanned herself with a bent paper plate as she stood barefoot in the dirt. “Only sandals and sunscreen and snacks. Go do something joyful. Or lazy. Preferably both.”

Patroclus had escaped early, disappearing like a stone into the cool shadows under the back porch of the arts cabin, where the wood planks stayed shaded all day and a light breeze sometimes wandered through the columns. It was a forgotten spot, quiet, overlooked, just the way he liked it.

He sat with his legs crossed in the dirt, tucked beneath the porch beams. His notebook lay open on one knee, soft edged from weeks of wear. A stubby pencil was nestled between his fingers, its eraser chewed and wobbly. His lion, the small stuffed one Achilles had given him a week ago, rested beside him on its back, staring up at the underside of the cabin like it was studying the architecture. And in the crook of his leg, a plastic cup of lemonade sat half-full of cloudy melted ice.

Patroclus hadn’t written much. He’d been brainstorming lines, mostly. Thinking without thinking. Letting the warmth hum over his skin like background music.

That was when he heard footsteps.

Fast ones. Light and uncoordinated, like someone running too quickly for their own sandals.

And then...

“Guess what I did.”

The voice was unmistakable, bright and mischievous and full of whatever joy the rest of camp had melted away.

Patroclus didn’t even look up. “Did it involve rules being broken?”

He heard the dramatic creak of the porch boards as Achilles flopped down beside him like he’d fallen from the sky. Dust puffed into the air. His legs stretched out in front of him, long and tanned and a little bit scratched from who knew what.

“Define ‘rules,’” Achilles said, tugging something from his shorts pocket with a magician’s flourish. He held it up proudly: a slightly sticky, barely cold orange popsicle still wrapped in a crinkled sleeve.

“I helped in the kitchen. Technically. I stole popsicles. Technically.”

Patroclus raised one eyebrow, still not looking away from his sketchpad. “You helped…by stealing?”

“Balance,” Achilles said, unbothered. “The universe craves it.”

He thrust another popsicle toward Patroclus with a sort of noble generosity, as if bestowing an offering. The wrapper glistened in the heat. Patroclus hesitated only a moment, then accepted it.

“Thanks,” he murmured.

Achilles gave a shrug that said obviously.

“Figured the lion might want one too.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while, unwrapping and licking the sticky orange syrup from their thumbs. Their feet were bare, soles dusty. Around them, the camp seemed to sleep—just a few distant voices, some laughter from across the field, the whirring of insects too tired to buzz with energy.

A dragonfly hovered briefly above Achilles’s knee, then darted off toward the herb garden like it remembered something urgent.

Achilles leaned back on his palms and squinted up into the bright white sky.

“Do you think clouds get bored?”

Patroclus didn’t answer right away. He peeled another layer of sticky plastic from his popsicle, then said, “Of what?”

“Floating. Being clouds. Not having hands.”

That made Patroclus snort softly. “Maybe. Or maybe they’re so busy listening to people’s thoughts, they don’t have time to be bored.”

Achilles turned his head, grinning. “Wait...clouds eavesdrop?”

“Definitely,” Patroclus said, solemnly. “That’s why they hover.”

“Rude.”

“They don’t repeat things, though. They’re polite that way.”

Achilles let out a laugh so sudden and delighted it made a few birds in the trees flutter up in surprise. Then he stretched out fully on the porch, one arm flung over his eyes, the other curled under his head.

“Come here,” he said, without even looking.

Patroclus paused in mid-bite. “Why?”

“It’s Sun Day. You’re legally required to lounge. Come on. I’m cooler than the ground.”

He said it like it was a fact, like gravity, like something written in the camp handbook.

Patroclus rolled his eyes, but shifted. He lay back slowly beside Achilles, head resting just at the edge of Achilles’s shoulder. Their arms touched, skin warm and dry from the sun. Their elbows leaned on each other lightly. Nothing heavy.

The sky looked wider from here, open and full of moving shapes. One cloud looked like a hat. Another, maybe, a sleeping dog.

Achilles hummed something tuneless and soft under his breath. Patroclus closed his eyes, just for a moment. Everything buzzed gently around them the air, the ground, their breathing.

Then,

“I made you something else,” Achilles said suddenly.

Patroclus opened one eye, suspicious. “Already?”

“I’m prolific.”

He sat up, rummaged in his hoodie pocket, and pulled out something small and chaotic and shimmering slightly in the light.

A crown.

Made from pipe cleaners bent into uneven peaks, three half wilted wildflowers, and one googly eye glued to a bead that hung off one side like it had lost its way.

Patroclus blinked. “That’s…very regal.”

“I call it King of the Quiet Tides, second edition,” Achilles said proudly, and set it gently on Patroclus’s head. “Limited release. Extremely rare.”

The crown wobbled, dangerously off-center.

Patroclus didn’t move.

He could feel the googly eye shift slightly every time he breathed.

He started laughing.

“Do I look majestic?”

Achilles gave him a very serious once-over, thumb and forefinger to his chin. “Honestly? Devastating.”

They stayed like that a long time. The heat beginning to retreat a little. The shade deepening into something richer. They didn’t speak much. They didn’t have to. Patroclus wore the crown like it was a real one. Achilles kept giving names to the clouds “That one’s Gary. He’s having a hard time.”

Eventually, the sun began to slip down behind the trees, painting the trunks gold and orange.

The camp stirred.

A bell rang for dinner, soft and sleepy.

Achilles sat up with a stretch, spine cracking audibly.

He looked down at Patroclus and grinned. “You have marker on your nose.”

“I do not.”

“You do.”

Patroclus reached up and missed entirely.

“Here,” Achilles said, and leaned in, gently brushing his thumb over Patroclus’s nose.

Patroclus froze.

Not in panic.In a kind of wonder.

The touch was light, and warm, and without pressure. Like it had always belonged there.

“There,” Achilles said, pulling back. “Perfect.”

Patroclus looked away, a little breath caught somewhere in his throat. His fingers found the lion again and lifted it to his lap. Its fur was dusty, sun-warmed.

Achilles leaned close once more. “Still nameless?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Well, he needs something good. Something brave and funny and slightly lopsided.”

Patroclus smiled without looking. “Like you?”

Achilles blinked. Then, with surprising softness, “Like both of us.”

They didn’t speak after that.

The air turned cool around the edges. The porch sighed under them. The light grew gold, then lavender, then gray.

And when Patroclus finally stood, crown tilted slightly, lion tucked under one arm...he felt full of something wordless and glowing.

Not because anything big had happened.

But because it didn't need to.

Chapter 15

Notes:

I posted this rlly close after the other cuz it was written since the beginning of the fanfic lmao. I am also very bored chat. Summer be killing me.

The last day came quietly.

No fanfare. No fireworks. Just the usual breakfast, a little less noisy. A little more blinking against the morning light. A few more glances held too long.

Bags sat by doors. Cabin floors were swept half heartedly. Someone cried in the bathroom, muffled by the hand dryers.

Counselors went hoarse reminding everyone not to forget their water bottles.
Patroclus stood by the lake while the sun rose over it, arms folded. He didn’t want to say anything. The air felt too fragile. Too real. He kicked a small rock into the shallows and watched the ripples stretch.
Achilles found him like he always did.

They didn’t talk for a moment, just stared out across the water like they could stop time with their eyes.

“I don’t want to go,” Achilles said.

Patroclus didn’t say anything.

Achilles turned to him, voice softer now. “I really, really don’t want to go.”

Patroclus looked down at his shoes. “Me neither.”

Achilles sniffed, rubbing at his cheek like maybe something had gotten in his eye.

“My mom says it’s always like this. You meet someone and then, poof. That’s it. Summer’s gone.”

Patroclus felt that in his chest. Like the air had thinned a little.

Achilles stepped forward, fast. “But I don’t want this to be poof. I don’t want this to disappear.”

Patroclus looked up, startled by how close he’d gotten. His hair was messy. His shirt was wrinkled. He looked like a kid, not a legend. Not a name.

Just Achilles.

Achilles reached into his pocket, tugged out a small folded paper with scribbled numbers. “This is my house number. You can call. Ask for me. It’s the landline, not my mom’s cell. They don’t let me have one yet.”

Patroclus took it carefully. The numbers were a little smudged.

“And I told my dad,” Achilles said quickly. “I told him you have to come next summer too. That I’m not going unless you’re here.”

Patroclus blinked. “You really said that?”

Achilles nodded. “He said... he’d try. That he’d talk to the camp director about scholarships or stuff. He liked the idea of us writing something together.”

Patroclus’s fingers tightened around the note.

“Promise you’ll call?” Achilles asked.

“Yes.”

“You will?”

“I swear.”

Achilles smiled, but it looked a little like it was holding back something heavier. Then he did something Patroclus didn’t expect.
He hugged him.

Tight.

Achilles buried his face in Patroclus’s shoulder like he could stay there if he squeezed hard enough. Like maybe time would forget to pass.

Patroclus hugged him back.

It was warm. A little awkward. A lot real. He felt Achilles clutch at his clothes, a silent tear tracing down his cheek and falling onto the other’s shirt. Patroclus stroked his back, running his fingers softly through the honey locks.

When they finally pulled apart, neither of them could say anything for a second.
Achilles backed away slowly, toward the cluster of cars and waiting parents. His mother stood near the black car again, sunglasses perched like always. But even she didn’t rush him.

“I’ll be waiting,” Achilles said.

Patroclus nodded.

Then Achilles turned and ran, hair flying, bag bouncing on one shoulder. He didn’t look back.

Patroclus folded the number carefully and put it in his front pocket.

He touched it every five minutes on the bus ride home. Just to make sure it was still there.
—
September came like fog.

School started. The hallways smelled like bleach and pencil shavings. The classrooms felt too full and too loud. The cafeteria sounded nothing like the lodge, and no one talked about sentence rhythm or myth retellings or lake monsters that lived under the dock.

Patroclus walked quietly, kept to himself.
But once a week, sometimes more, he waited until the house grew quiet. Until his father’s footsteps faded into the back room, and the TV buzzed into background noise. He clutched the little lion to his chest and hid downstairs.

He’d sneak to the stairwell.

The dark part, near the banister.

Sit down cross legged.

And dial the number.

It always rang twice.

“Hello?” a voice said on the other end. A little out of breath, a little excited, like he’d been sitting by the phone all night.

“Hey,” Patroclus said.

“Patroclus!” Achilles’s voice lit up like a sparkler. “You called!”

“Of course I did.”

He could hear the grin, even without seeing it.

“Okay,” Achilles said, “first, my dad says he talked to the camp people. They said yes. You’re totally coming next summer. I begged, but I didn’t have to beg that hard. Apparently they were already impressed by your writing.”

Patroclus smiled so wide his cheeks ached.

“Second,” Achilles went on, “I started writing that story we talked about. The one with the ghost in the shoe thing? I changed it a little though. Now the ghost’s name is Louis and he only speaks French.”
Patroclus laughed.

They talked for hours.

About nothing. About everything. About Achilles’s school, which was too big and too polished. About the girl in Patroclus’s English class who liked to draw her notes with unicorns. About Thetis being annoyed Achilles left his socks on the piano again.
About missing each other.

About next summer.

Sometimes Patroclus would trace the banister with his toes, the phone cord curled around his elbow, and just listen to Achilles read from a new paragraph or tell him about a movie he hated. Other times, Patroclus would whisper tiny story seeds, and Achilles would say, “Yes! That! Write that!”

One time, it rained hard outside, and they stayed on the line until nearly midnight.

“You still there?” Achilles asked softly.

“Yeah.”

“You sound sleepy.”

“A little.”

There was a pause.

“I wish we lived closer,” Achilles said.

“Me too.”

Another pause. Then Achilles whispered, “Okay. Close your eyes. I’m going to hum the lake song.”

Patroclus didn’t even have to ask which one. He did what he was told, the phone warm against his cheek, the stairs creaking once under his knee.

And then came the tune, soft and clumsy, hummed over a fuzzy connection, but perfect in every way that mattered. The little lion stood against his chest as every night, as if he was holding a person instead of a toy….

Patroclus fell asleep that night with the phone still in his hand.

And he dreamed of sun warmed docks and water up to his knees. Of laughter like skipping stones.

Of a boy with golden hair waiting beside him.

Just like always.

Chapter 16

Notes:

My birthday is approaching so NEW CHAPTERRR (i cried while rereading this be aware)

October brought a kind of hush.
The leaves outside turned the color of flame, then fell without sound. The air smelled like woodsmoke and wet earth, like something retreating. Like something curling in.

At school, Patroclus kept his head down. He read more than he spoke. Teachers praised his essays but didn’t say much else. In the cafeteria, he sat at the end of a table with a book open in front of his tray.

But on Sundays, the world tilted.
——
The phone cord curled like a snake around Patroclus’s fingers as he sat at the bottom of the stairs, in the dark part between the living room and the kitchen where the bulb had long since died and no one had replaced it.

His knees were pulled up to his chest, and his socked toes shifted restlessly on the cool wood.

“Hello?” Achilles’ voice came through the receiver, just a little breathless, just a little loud.

Patroclus smiled, softly even though no one could see it. “Hi.”

There was a rustle on the other end, like Achilles had thrown himself down on a bed or onto a couch, and then he started talking, words tumbling over each other with all the force of a dam giving way.
He talked about his dog, the ridiculous, droopy eared thing named Alex who barked at the garden hose. He talked about school and how boring it was and how he kept doodling Patroclus’ name into the margins of his notebooks even though his classmate, teased him for it. He talked about how Thetis had actually smiled when he told her Patroclus had written a new story.

Patroclus barely spoke during those phone calls. He just listened and laughed sometimes, quiet little huffs that made Achilles pause and grin through the line. He always ended the call the same way:
“I miss you.”
“I’ll see you next summer,” Patroclus would reply.
And Achilles, always, always, would whisper giggling, “I’m counting the days.”
——
One afternoon, as the autumn’s leaves fell down, soft as ash onto the ground, Patroclus padded down the hallway in his socks. He held the small lion plushie in one hand, the one Achilles had given him. He didn’t carry it around like a baby would, but today he would really need its comfort.

He stopped outside a pale green door and knocked once.

No answer.

He opened it anyway.

The room was still and dim, the curtains pulled halfway shut. His mother sat in her armchair, eyes fixed on something far away or perhaps on nothing at all. Her hands lay limp in her lap, unmoving.

“Hi, Mama,” he said gently.

She blinked, once. Didn’t speak.

Patroclus crossed the room slowly, careful not to step on the creaky floorboard near her desk. He sat on the carpet, leaning his head against the arm of her chair. He could smell the lavender sachets she kept in the drawer beside her, the scent old and faded.

“I went to camp this summer,” he said after a pause. “You probably know. Dad might have told you. I won a scholarship…”

She didn’t look at him.

“I made a friend,” he continued. “His name is Achilles. He’s kind of... golden, you know? Loud. Brave. He says things like he means them.” Patroclus smiled, the memory of Achilles’s reckless confidence bringing warmth. “He’s the sort of person who doesn’t shy away from anything. He says things like ‘You are very brave, Patroclus, in your own quiet way,” even when I don’t feel brave at all.”

Still nothing.

Patroclus sighed softly, shifting on the floor. His fingers tightened on the plush lion in his lap, and he breathed in the familiar, comforting smell of the lavender.

"I don’t think I ever told you, but... Achilles’s mom is well, she’s a bit terrifying. Like the kind of woman who can silence a room with a look. But she likes me. She told me once that I see Achilles for who he really is. I think that’s why he likes me, you know? Because I don’t…because I can’t, lie to him."

His voice faltered. He swallowed, pushing his cheek closer to the chair’s fabric, as if trying to reach her in some way. "Achilles gives me too many gifts. All kinds of things I don’t know how to use. Like this lion," he added, lifting the toy so it could be within her sight. "Its ears are a bit stiched off and the smile is a bit off, but I keep it with me anyway."

The silence pressed in again, thick and heavy. Patroclus let his eyes drift to the shelves filled with old books and framed pictures of a life that no longer felt real. When he saw no reaction he pulled the little lion down to his chest again.

He cleared his throat.

"You used to make dinner, remember? Greek food. It was always the same, but it never got boring. Moussaka*. Spanakopita*. You’d hum when you cooked. That song, the one you used to sing when I was little…I can’t remember the name to..." He smiled softly at the memory of her voice, the warmth of their little kitchen, the smell of garlic and olive oil filling the air. "I always loved that song. It felt like the whole world was in it, even though we were just in that little kitchen, just you and me."

Patroclus bit his lip, his voice thickening as memories pressed harder. “And the stories. You always told me those ancient tales. About the gods and the monsters. I used to ask you a million questions, remember? I wanted to know everything. You’d tell me about heroes, like Theseus and Perseus, how they fought the Minotaur and slayed Medusa. But you’d always say, ‘Not all heroes have to be strong, my dear. Some of them are wise, or kind, or patient.’"

His throat tightened, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. The words he wanted to say felt like they were caught in his chest, lodged between memories of her and the silence that had settled into this house.
He took a shaky breath. "I... I wish you could see Achilles. I think you’d like him. He’d make you laugh. He would’ve asked you to tell him stories too. I think he’d like that. I... I’d tell him about you. And when I do, I’d feel proud."

Patroclus looked up at her face. It was still, unreadable. He waited. He had waited so many times.

But there was no change, no flicker of recognition or connection. Only the quiet hum of the world outside, the wind still howling.

His fingers gripped the lion tighter, and he stood, quietly.

“I think I’ll go now,” he whispered.
The door clicked softly as he left, the sound so small, so insignificant, but it felt like the weight of the whole house settling down on his shoulders.

He padded back down the hall. Back to the phone. Back to the stairs.

And when he dialed Achilles that evening, his voice was the same, warm, bright, golden through the wire.

Patroclus smiled again. It didn’t fix the ache. But it softened it.

Just a little.

Notes:

Moussaka (Μουσακάς): Layered eggplant and meat casserole with béchamel sauce.

Spanakopita (Σπανακόπιτα): Flaky pastry with spinach and feta filling.

(Please excuse any grammar mistakes!)

Chapter 17

Winter was long.
It seemed endless, drawn out in low skies and streets that blurred with cold drizzle.

The days blurred too, gray mornings bleeding into gray afternoons, into gray evenings that ate over the entire house.

The rooms felt emptier than they had in autumn, though nothing had changed, the same walls, the same chipped paint, the same father coming home late, the same locked doors.

What had changed was Patroclus, though he couldn’t have said how. He only knew the gray pressed down harder now. It settled into his chest because he had known something brighter, and now he missed it like air.

Once a week, the phone rang. Not for his father. Not for anyone else. For him.

Achilles’ voice came through the wire like sun slipping under the door.

He spoke fast, always a little breathless, like the words were tumbling out too quick to catch. He talked about everything, books he was reading, strange dreams he’d had, the way the sky looked in the mornings, what he’d eat and endless, endless other stuff.

“I read this story about a man who turned into a bird,” Achilles said once. “He just flew away, right out of his life.”

“What kind of bird?” Patroclus had asked, curled in the hallway with the phone clutched to his ear.

“A heron, I think. Or a crow. Wait…do herons even fly that far? I don’t know. But I liked the idea of it.”

Patroclus said nothing for a moment. “You wouldn’t fly away,” he said quietly.

Achilles was quiet too, just long enough to make Patroclus wonder if he’d heard.

Then… “No. Not from you.”

Sometimes Achilles talked about the next summer like it was already on its way.
“We should build something when we’re back at camp,” he said. “Like a raft. Or a treehouse. Or I don’t know, something stupid. It doesn’t even have to work.”

Patroclus smiled, though no one saw it. “I don’t think there are any trees big enough.”

“Then we’ll build it on the ground,” Achilles said. “A groundhouse. A fort. A whole kingdom, just for us.”

When the call ended, the silence left behind was worse than before. Patroclus would stand there for a moment longer, still holding the device against his ear, as if it might carry one last trace of Achilles….his laugh, his breath, anything.

The cord curled loosely around his fingers, and the hallway light buzzed above him, dull and tired.

School didn’t help.

Winter light made everything look washed out, the classrooms pale and smudged, the chalkboards dull, the floors stained gray with old snow. The other students moved through the weeks as if nothing had changed. Patroclus watched them from the sides, quiet at his desk, neat in his work.

He wasn’t sad. More like empty. Like something in him was turned the wrong direction.

One afternoon, as the bell rang and the room emptied, Mr. Alexandros stopped him.

“Patroclus,” he said, leaning against his desk. “I’ve been meaning to ask. How was your summer?”

Patroclus blinked. For a moment, he almost gave the usual answer, fine, but something in the teacher’s eyes made him pause. They were steady, open. Kind, without pushing.

“I… I went to camp,” he said at last, his voice unsure.

Mr. Alexandros tilted his head. “And? Did you like it?”

A pause. Then, slowly, Patroclus nodded.

“Yes.” He fiddled with the strap of his bag. “I met someone there.”

The teacher smiled, small and gentle. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.” Then, after a beat, “Sometimes one person is enough to make the whole season worth
remembering. I told you, you belonged there.”

Patroclus didn’t say anything. But his chest ached a little in a way that wasn’t entirely bad.

Spring came late, but it came.

One morning, walking home from school, he cut through the park where the snow had finally melted into patches. The air was still cool, but the trees were beginning to stretch themselves out again. The ground, had begun to breathe.

That’s when he saw them…clusters of forget-me-nots, myositis, blooming low in the grass. Their petals were a bright, blue, soft against the dull brown of the world around them.

Patroclus crouched beside them and gathered a few carefully. He held them gently all the way home, as if they might get destroyed if he squished them too much.

In the kitchen, he found an old vase, rinsed the dust from it, filled it with water. He placed the flowers inside and then the vase was put on his desk.

Every time he passed them, he paused, just for a second. They reminded him….

Of summer.
Of Achilles.
Of himself.

And as the days slowly warmed, he felt something swell in him again. A quiet, growing pull toward what was coming. Not toward school, or the sun, or even the break , but toward that space between the trees, that cabin that smelled of pine and was decorated with hand made stuff.

Toward long days and even longer evenings. Toward Achilles.

He didn’t count the days. But he knew how many were left.

He was waiting.

And he couldn’t wait to return to that place…the place he could call home.

Notes:

A THOUSAND HITS?! HOLY MOLY THANK YOU ALL! IT MEANS A LOT! Also I should rlly post those aesthetics, animation and edits I did for this fanfic.

Chapter 18

The weather started getting warmer.

The kids started playing outside longer.

The lessons were filled with excited whispers.

It looked like someone had taken a box of colours and painted over everything in Patroclus’ life. Now it felt vibrant. Shiny. Alive.

The trees started to bloom and grow again. The skies were more often then not a bright blue colour. There were often small, lazy clouds which a certain someone would call “Sleeping cotton candy”.

His usual routine hadn’t changed much. School. Home. Sleep. Repeat everyday.

But as spring was starting to catch the hand of summer his excitement began to show.

He could almost feel the warmth of the sun under the cabins’ shades. The feel of grass crunching under his sandals. The sound of the lake at night. The soft ripples against the shore….

But overall he could see…

A smile.

Two green sparks.

Hair woven by sunlight.

Someone that made his heart beat faster.

Every Sunday a bright voice came from the house phone, just for him.

And as the days started passing that voice grew more and more excited.

“We will build a sand castle at camp!” Achilles said, giggling through the wire.

“The sand is too sticky. And smells”. Patroclus whispered, smiling at the stairs.

“You’re right…well no sand castle! How about a…a…stone castle! With the small rocks and the pebbles by the shore!”

“That would fall” Patroclus shook his head.

“We will erase gravity then.”

He laughed. Achilles always had a way to pull out that side of him. The childish one. The hopeful one.

“I like the sound of your laughter. It is like that breeze that passes through a field of flowers…the one that makes you want to lay down and hear the whispers of nature. The one that makes you want to stay while the world runs.” Achilles chuckled through the phone cord.

Patroclus stopped for a moment. That was…something he hadn’t expected.

It was beautiful…unique…

It was just for him.

After a bit he answered

“Thank you…”

Achilles told him about the day the camp would start again, where the bus would be waiting, more and more stuff that Patroclus listened to half heartedly.

His mind was stuck on that one compliment.

The softness of it.

How much it had meant to him.

When they hung up, Achilles gave him a hug through the phone and Patroclus closed his eyes, already being able to feel the other’s touch. His smell. His voice. The beating of his heart…

When the line went dead he stood up and quietly went upstairs to his room.

It was dimmly lit by the starlight coming outside…

He sat at his desk and turned on the lamp. The myosotis flowers were still above his table on a vase. He changed them every other week when they wilted.

He touched one of the petals…

Felt a warm cheek under his fingers.

Smiled.

He took his notebook from the drawer and opened it…small stories, drawings, verses…he took his pencil and wrote:

“He saw me as a breeze. The one that caresses a field of flowers. The slow one that whispers the untold. The one that makes you want to stay”

He closed the notebook and laid in bed.

Sleep was merciful on him tonight.

He dreamed all night…of that smile.

——-

The days passed agonisingly slow.

Patroclus’ mind was only in one place.

And that wasn’t the upcoming exams.

The other kids at school were anxious, some using the library for the first time in their lives, some making impossible cheat methods and codes, some just plainly skipping school the days of tests.

The usual.

After those no one would be seen at school. Summer would have offically begun.

Patroclus churned through exams with little to no studying, getting some acceptable grades.

His mind was upon that undone suitcase at the corner.

He filled it up since the week before the so much awaited day.

His notebook which had a pressed myosotis against its pages, some clothes, a book or two, some more clothes, and of course the little lion.

He still hadn’t named him.

Nothing fitted the memory it held.

Maybe Achilles would help him.

He laid in bed and a smile passed his lips.

He smiled more often nowadays.

Felt warm.

Felt happy.

Had a reason to hope.

For a happier place.

When the day to leave for camp came Patroclus went over to his father.

“Dad…I’m going for camp again…”

“Alright son, I know. Behave well”

That was a short answer.

Patroclus wanted to say something. Anything. A lump formed on his throat instead.

He opened his mouth and whispered.

“Okay….Bye, then.”

He put on his shoes, swung his bag on his shoulder and went out of the door just as a small tear fell down his cheek. The bus station was close to his home, just a walk past the park.

Children were playing football or with frisbees at the park.

Laughter.

Smiles.

Something that Patroclus wished he could feel more often than once in a while.

He hurried through the park until reaching the bus station. He found Mr. Alexandros there.

“Patroclus! I was waiting for you!”

That surprised the boy.

“Why so sir?”

The teacher smiled.

“I had to make sure you get the right bus no? I knew you would come alone and I just wanted to make sure you would be alright. Can’t have my best student lost no?”

Best student. That was a big title. But Patroclus accepted it.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime kid”

They waited there in silence until the bus rolled down the alley. It was an orange one, Achilles would always joke that it looked like it was wearing a prisoner shirt, and it was filled already with kids.

It honked and stopped in front of them the doors opening. Patroclus looked up at Mr. Alexandros.

“I shall go now sir”

“Have a good summer kid”. He ruffled his hair. “Be good”

Patroclus gave him a smile. One of his true ones and went inside the bus.

It was chaos. Everyone was laughing, screaming, giggling, everything possible for a human. He walked through the cabin trying to make his way through the crowd of people and bags.

He recognised some faces. Ignored others.

He sat at the end at an empty seat by the window.

Seems like luck wanted to give him a hug today.

He sat down, his bag under his feet and gazed outside the window.

When the bus started moving he waved one last time to Mr. Alexandros who was outside and then leaned back and sighed.

He thought of camp.

Of that smile once more.

How stuff was going to change.

Or how it would remain the same…

Notes:

My lovely readers I have decided to bless you all once more with feeding you a NEW CHAPTER. And y’all will be done waiting cuz HERE COMES SUMMERRRRRRRRRRRR

Chapter 19

Notes:

IM WRITING FASTER THAN SONIC YALL MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The way to camp was long. Patroclus didn’t talk to anyone during the journey.

He was staring outside the window…lost.

Sometimes he would look down at the notebook he had pulled out of the bag and doodle something.

A weird cloud.

A sheep.

A big tree.

He thought of a short story. A tree that could cry. Its tears became stars.

He wrote between the lines and did small drawings.

He would show those to Achilles.

Achilles….

Would he be there?

Would he come later?

Would he not come at all?

What if the famous world took over his time? What if he had work before he could attend camp?

He was overthinking it all. Achilles wasn’t the type to shy away from promises.

He wasn’t the type to lie.

He would be there.

Patroclus leaned his head against the cool glass and closed his eyes. The cold reminded him of the water that filled the lake. The ripples and small tides that threw themselves around him anytime he jumped in. The splashes that flew around from the impact or that came from playful hands that wanted to push him under once more.

He could feel the drops running down his skin the way someone’s finger would trace the lines of water across his skin calling them ghosts’ touches.

Patroclus smiled. He opened his eyes looking at the hills that were growing and lowering with their ups and downs, like giant ice cream cones.

He saw the sun baked fields of flowers and thought of what awaited.

As he went out of his inner world he noticed the kids around.

Some were chattering, some were laughing. There was a gingerish girl two rows ahead of him, that had a mesmerising voice that made Patroclus think of the sirens from the myths.

Yet that reminded of a certain voice which liked to create songs for any simple thing.

He saw two girls next to himself who were whispering to one another and giggling.

A boy further was playing with a small tennis ball and his friend was talking something about rugby.

A girl was humming to the music coming from her headphones.

Another was playing with her doll, coming its hair and fixing its dress.

So many different people. So many different stories. So many unique colours to each’s personality.

Patroclus looked at his notebook and wrote:

“Humans are unique. Each one of us is not as the other. Yes we all live, see, hope and dream. Yes we all cry and laugh. Yes we all mourn and love but some suffer differently and some love differently. I never thought I would notice this. But I also thought that no one would see me. Maybe sadness is like a blanket. Sometimes you have to take it off to breathe. I don’t know how I understood that. Maybe it came after I found someone who taught me to find my smile once more”

He closed his notebook and placed it back in his backback. The driver announced that they were close to camp. The kids cheered.

Patroclus looked outside the window as the woods got denser. There were a few cars ahead and behind the bus. He tried to recognise them but couldn’t remember any familiar ones.

Before the bus even stopped, the cabin was filled with kids standing and moving around, some shouting, some screaming, some just wanting to make noise.

Patroclus stood seated until the bus stopped. He stood seated even when the doors opened and children rushed oustide pushing and pulling.

Saw each of them closely.

The redhead girl. The boy with the tennis ball. The two friends. The girl with headphones. The one with the doll.

Then he stood up. Walked slowly to the door and went outside.

It was chaos with all the cars stopping, parents yelling, kids hugging and crying.

He noticed some familiar faces but not the one he was searching for.

He walked through the people, slipping between the cars carefully.

The camp came to view. It was the same as he remembered. Nothing much had changed.

The main big house. The library. The cabins sleeping next to one snother at the left. The actors’ classes. The writing ones. The models’ stages. The music’s room.

The lake…It was calm. It seemed like it had fallen in a deep sleep. Snoring under the sun.

The trees were leaning and gossiping over it.

The rocks were placed in line at the far right like waiting to be counted.

Patroclus felt the scent of pine. The scent of sun baked grass. Familiar. Warm.

A squeal made him turn, panicked. It was a high pitched sound, too close to be avoided.

Something crashed against him with a crazy force, knocing the air right out of his lungs.

He fell to the ground with a loud OOF. If it had been anything but grass he would’ve broken a good one or two bones. His back screamed in pain. His backpack softened the impact though. He winced and opened his eyes to see what had thrown him down.

Only that…

It wasn’t a something.

He was met by a grinning face, shining eyes and a loud “You’re here!”

It was the smile that had danced on his dreams.

The same eyes that had chased away his memories….

Golden strands of hair fell over his face as the person smiled.

Achilles.

Not through a phone cord. Not from memories.

Here.

Alive.

Patroclus froze for a moment.

Achilles smiled widely and pulled him in a tight hug. Patroclus returned it.

“I missed you so so much!” Achilles said as he buried his face on the crook of the other’s neck.

Patroclus hid his face on the other’s sunny locks. He smelled of honey and grass.

“Me too…”

They stayed like that for a bit before Achilles pulled back and stood up dusting off the grass. He offered a hand to the other. Patroclus took it and stood up.

Achilles hugged him properly this time. Patroclus smiled.

“It was so boring without you…nobody understood the lake song at school and they looked at me weird when I spoke about the stories I had written” Achilles pouted.

“Some people are just shallow brained. Doesn’t mean you should be too” Patroclus patted his head, mock pretending he was a fussing mother.

Achilles laughed and pulled back to look at the other.

“Your hair is longer.” Patroclus observed.

“You’ve grown” The blonde grinned and pulled back.

He was slightly taller than Patroclus now, they both had grown during the time spent apart. Achilles hair reached his shoulders now. Someone had tied it in a half ponytail with a hair clip. It was messy from the impact.

Achilles spoke again:

“Your hair has gotten darker, like the roots of old trees. It curls a bit at the ends. And you’re slightly taller but still cannot reach me”. He grinned and winked.

Patroclus rolled his eyes. Achilles seemed satisfied by that.

He turned and waved at his mom who shook her head in disapproval at his messy hair but smiled softly. She was the same too. Regal, haunting, perfect in every way and yet with a sweetness hidden beneath like the treasures of the sea.

Achilles grabbed Patroclus’ hand and tugged him towards the cabins.

“Come on summer has just begun! We’re not gonna soak up in longing silence!”

Patroclus giggled and followed him.

This was a feeling he would not mind calling home.

Chapter 20

Notes:

Maybe I will take a few days of rest.

Summer had officially sprung its colours as the first days of camp started once more.

Everything seemed to had gotten an electrifying feeling that spread throughout the cabins like the roots of the old trees under the paths they traced above.

Patroclus first headed to leave his stuff at Cabin Chimera but Achilles dragged him the other side of the camp to his own cabin. The decorations’ paint had faded slightly but the scent and warmth was the same. They got inside and Achilles dropped his bag on his bed.

There was another bed now. On the other side from Achilles’. It had a few stickers on the wall and a drawer with smiley faces drawn on sticky paper and placed on each drawer’s side. Patroclus blinked.

“Is that…for me?” He looked at Achilles.

“Yes silly. You’re my roomate!” The blonde grinned.

Patroclus hesitated for a moment.

“Why would you make all of this? I would be find with the others.”

“Well…you’re my best friend. I would like you to stay here more often. We can write stories every night and do crafts together on afternoons! When I asked my father, he told me I could keep you here and I refused to take any help from him in placing and decorating stuff”

“Why?” Patroclus asked

“I wanted to make it special for you. I had to fix it with my own hands. I hope you like it. If you want, you can return to cabin Chimera though”

Patroclus smiled and shook his head.

“I like it way more here. Thank you…”

Achilles grinned and started unpacking things talking about some sort of adventure he had had when he fell off the stage during a modelling practice but Patroclus had heard that story before. He liked the other’s voice.

He opened his bag and fixed his clothes in the drawers and the big closet they shared. As Achilles was fixing the old curtains Patroclus opened his notebook and scribbled down.

“He fixed the cabin. He said he had to make it special just for me…he really does know how to surprise someone”

Achilles finished with the curtains letting the light in and Patroclus closed his notebook, taking out the little lion.

Achilles let a little squeal that the sight of it.

“You still have it?”

“Yeah of course”

“Have you given it a name?” Achilles tilted his head.

“Not yet. Thought you might help” Patroclus said the lion settling on his lap.

Achilles plopped sitting next to him. He scratched his chin thinking.

“I have no idea really” The boy admitted. “It’s too hot to think”

Patroclus chuckled. He was right.

“Let’s go out and have some fun. We can think of a name in the evening.” Achilles suggested.

Patroclus nodded and they both stood up rushing outside. The other kids were already playing around, some running, some mock fighting, some climbing up trees.

Achilles grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the shade of an unoccupied tree next to the lake. The water lapped softly against the sand and the small stones. Achilles took off his shoes and turned to the other.

“Come on let’s search for cool stones. We can decorate the cabin with them.”

Patroclus smiled and took off his shoes too. The water was cool around his feet, refreshing like the fresh breath of the morning breeze. The two boys searched for rocks, got sidetracked more than once finding funny seaweeds and naming them different silly names or splashing one another at any time the other wasn’t on guard.

The latter was more prominent. Achilles started the fight and Patroclus did not think of even trying to retreat. He splashed the other, the droplets like star kisses upon the other’s golden hair. At some point Achilles took off his clip pretending the accessory was an ocean monster and started chasing the other with it. Patroclus laughed and ran off as Achilles chased after him swiftly giggling.

As the sun started setting the two were both laying under the shade of the tree, breathless. Achilles let out a laugh and looked at the other.

“That was fun”

Patroclus nodded, his cheeks sore from smiling. Achilles pinched his cheek with the hair clip. Patroclus swatted his hand away.

The blonde grinned.

“You’re the only person who really gets me. I feel like myself…so alive when I am with you.” He said, so casually as if he could’ve been speaking about tea and cookies, but the words were sincere.

Patroclus hesitated for a moment…

Alive.

Himself.

He just smiled. Achilles stood up, his pockets heavy with small stones. Patroclus did so too. They took their shoes in one hand and walked to the dining room.

Other kids were already eating and chatting. The duo took a small space in the corner, half hidden, with the scent of pasta. They sat down close and snorted at one another’s jokes.

Achilles, golden as always, looked like dawn kissing the sand and caressing the sea, his smile like the ripples of the sea, his eyes like the endless mountains hidden in the light of his laugh. To Patroclus that was him. The highest point of the sky and the deepest dive of the sea.

And to Achilles, Patroclus was all that made the earth so unique. He was the ground that made everything and nothing, his hair like the very own trails of life, his laugh like the wind that hugged the trees. That was him. The ever-grieving land and the forever home.

Yet neither of them understood that yet.

——-

After dinner the pair trailed back to their cabin in silence, yet both smiling.

Reaching inside Achilles dropped his stones on top of his drawer. Patroclus placed hisnown by the window.

“Tomorrow we will colour them.” He said

“We have class tomorrow” Patroclus reminded

“After class”

“I’m in for it”

They both changed into their pyjamas and laid in bed. They looked at one another.

“Patroclus?” Achilles whispered

“Yeah?”

“Will we always be friends?” The question was too simple to hold that much weight. Patroclus didn’t answer right away. He clutched the lion a bit closer to his chest.

“I don’t know.” He admitted.

Achilles didn’t say anything for a bit.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“Why?”

“I thought I was alone. You proved me wrong.”

That stunned Patroclus for a moment. He had been lonely too?

“You have been alone too?”

Achilles smiled but it looked more like a dim sky as a storm passes than his sunlight one.

“Being admired doesn’t mean the world wants to be friends with me”

Patroclus looked down.

Two lonely boys. Met together. Found familiarity in one another…

Patroclus pushed his sheets off and stood up. Achilles was puzzled and sat up to look at the other better. The brunette walked over to the other and sat down next to him.

They stared at one another for a while before Patroclus leaned and hugged him. Tightly.

It was the first hug he had initiated into that.

It was Achilles’ turn to be shocked as the other held him close. That did not last for long before he returned the affection.

They sat like that for a while. The cabin was dim, starlight drawing shapes on the floor. Patroclus whispered:

“I promise that I will always find you. No matter how far or how much you won’t want me to I promise I will always be there as your friend. You won’t be alone again”

Achilles’ eyes closed, for the first time in a while with something stinging behind them. He replied:

“And I promise I will wait for you. I will wait a thousand years if it only meant we could talk again. You’re my closest friend ever.”

Patroclus smiled and pulled back a bit:

“Get back to sleep, sun pissed head, we have classes tomorrow.”

Achilles laughed and pushed the other off playfully.

“I hate you”

“Me too!” The brunette stuck his tongue out at the other grinning.

Achilles returned the gesture.

“Get off my bed or I will call the sea monster to eat you”

“I swear you are married to a sea monster by this point.”

“You bet” Achilles giggled.

Patroclus returned to his bed and chuckled. Achilles whispered:

“Good night mud face”

“Sleep tight sun piss” Patroclus retorted.

And soft sleep gave them a peaceful night. Soft dreams, childish hopes. They may be different from their peers but they had found one another.

That mattered.

For something.

For more than anything.

Chapter 21

The next morning Patroclus woke slowly, a ray of sunlight falling on his closed eyelids stirring him from sleep.

He opened his eyes lazily and turned the other side facing the wall. The sheets had tangeled against him making it too hot to stay awake. He grumbled and sat up, yawning.

At first his mind didn’t register the place he was in or what had happened last night. Then slowly the heavy dust of sleep wiped off his consciousness and he blinked looking around.

His eyes fell upon Achilles who was snoring on the other side of the room. The sheets were half thrown on the floor and he was sprawled on the bed like an awkward jellyfish. His mouth was open and his hair was messed up on the pillow.

Patroclus smiled. He got out of bed and silently walked to the window, opening the curtains a bit to peek outside.

The fields were quiet, the pathways empty. It must still be early morning. One thing Patroclus liked about camp was that classes were always after 12 PM at cool places with air conditioner and short enough to not lose your mind from the heat. Today they probably had creative writing to start the camp well.

After a quick round in the bathroom he got out to their room once more to maybe get dressed.

He heard a groan from the other side of the room and turned to see. Achilles was stirring and burying his face in the pillows. Patroclus tilted his head.

The blonde woke up groggily, mumbling something about orange juice and sat up in bed, his hair messier than a rat’s nest. He kept his eyes closed for a good few minutes before opening them. He looked around and stretched.

Patroclus chuckled.

“Good morning golden”

Achilles’ head snapped at Patroclus surprised by the voice.

“Patroclus! Morning!” He grinned.

“How did you sleep?” The brunette asked while sitting on his own bed.

“Well, I was dreaming that the lake was made out of orange juice. We had to drink it all or else it would flood the whole camp”

That made Patroclus laugh.

“That’s quite a dream”

“Yeahhhh. What’s the time?”

“Dunno”. Patrolcus looked at the clock on the wall. 9 AM. Late for school. Early for camp.

“9”

“Ughhh I want to go back to sleep but I’m too awake now” Achilles plopped back in bed dramatically.

“Come on we have to go eat breakfast. Maybe we snatch something good from the kitchens” Patroclus offered.

That seemed to appeal Achilles. He jumped out of bed and went to their closet to choose the clothes for the day. Achilles was simple wearing nothing expensive like the other kids did. He chose what was comfortable for him. Patroclus did the same.

After the blonde rushed a round on the bathroom he grabbed his comb and brushed through the tangles in his hair, wincing softly at the pulls. He tried to style his waves into something somehow presentable but ended up giving up.

Patroclus put on his shirt and walked over to him.

“Need some help?”

“God yes I do”

He smiled and sat brushing through the hair with his fingers. It was soft. Shiny. Beautiful.

His own was messy, the colour of earth’s soil, nothing as bright as the other’s. Or at least he thought so.

Achilles hummed a song while Patroclus tried different hairstyles on him. Braids, ponytails, up and down but nothing satisfied him.

He remembered his mother’s techniques the one she used on her long and beautiful wavy hair before she cut it so short. His hands stroked the blonde’s hair.

Patroclus grabbed two ties and caught up half of the other’s hair. He tied two small pigtails on each side. It was silly…but it looked great on the other.

Achilles took a small mirror from his drawer and looked at himself.

“Hey that’s such a cool idea! I like the style. Thank you”

Patroclus chuckled.

“You’re welcome.”

“Let’s go I’m starvinggg. I could eat a whole boar”

They stood up and made their way out of the cabin towards the dining hall. There were some other kids already there, who gave them side eye glances but none of them lingered enough to catch the attention of the pair.

They went to the cantine’s table and observed the food taking whatever they found delicious. Sitting near the edges, they ate in silence observing as kids came and went through the cantine like butterflies in a warm spring afternoon.

Achilles said something about his dream but Patroclus was too lost to register whatever words that left the other’s mouth.

They walked to their class in silence together and sat next to one another. As more voices filled the classroom everything became more awake, more noisy. Achilles showed him his new notebook with stickers and gave him a few to place on his own notebook. The smiley faces, grinned up at Patroclus.

Then the door opened and the coach walked inside. It was not one of their known teachers though. It was a tall man, with an olive complextion,sharp eyes, brown hair and a slight beard. He could be in his fourties by the way he walked, Patroclus estimated.

The kids fell in silence as the man placed his bag down on the table.

“Greetings students” his voice was rough yet loud and clear. “I am your new coach, Mr. Chiron. I am not here to be specific to any particular subject. I am here to find the talents of this camp and create a path for them. Each of you has a unique trait from the others and I am here to train that. I shall choose the ones who will be my own students but shall guide each one of you.”

Murmurs rose around the classroom and Patroclus looked at Achilles just shrugged. Mr. Chiron clapped his hand and the class went dead silent once more.

“Now before any of you get carried away I would like to see you all work. I have a specific theme I want everyone to talk about. Feelings. That’s all I will give. You have an hour to finish your assignment. You may go out or stay inside but each one of you shall hand in an essay done in an hour about this theme. If not, you are disqualified from being my student.” The man nodded and walked out of the classroom. The kids burst to chatter and most ran out.

Achilles stood up and looked at the other.

“You coming?”

Patroclus shook his head.

“I work better on my own”

Achilles shrugged and smiled.

“See you in an hour” And then he disappeared out of the door.

Patroclus was left alone. He liked that.

His pen tipped over the page as he thought. Feelings. Feelings…what were they to him?

His brain ran for a while before his hand moved before his mind fully registered it.

Feelings

Feelings are something weird. I do not understand them sometimes. They change like the weather.

I think that a feeling is that ache you have when you need a hug. I think it is those tears you cry when you’re lonely at night. I think it’s that trembling that wracks your body when you see your father pretend that you don’t exist.

They call that grief, sadness, anger. I think I have felt all of them. They’re different each time. Sometimes I want to break something. Sometimes I want to disappear from this world.

It hurts. Feeling hurts. And I do often hate it. I often wish I would have been born to not feel.

But then I would miss the other side of it.

I would miss the flutter you feel when someone smiles at you. I would miss the swelling of seeing that one person call your name. I would miss the comfort of sometimes being alone and yet not lonely.

I think they’re called happiness, love and peace. I do not want to miss those out. That’s why I cannot let feelings go.

To feel is human, and for as long as I am human I want to feel. The good and the bad. I want to learn from them.

Feelings for me are what shape how we behave and what we do in this world. They are what makes us live. They give us life. They are our soul, our essence and as much as they can hurt as much can they give.

I want to live this life as fully as I can.

Because I have felt the burden of suffering. I have felt the weight of not being able to scream. Those are feelings too. But I learned that they’re not the only ones.

It may not be the answer you’re looking for.

But it is the answer I found for my own self.

He ended the writing and the coach had entered the room and was observing him. Patroclus tilted his head. Mr. Chiron asked:

“Why aren’t you with the other kids?”

Patroclus didn’t give him the answer he did to Achilles. That would be too personal. Instead he said:

“I like the quiet”

The coach nodded. Patroclus looked once more at his essay, tugged the page off his notebook and then stood up placing it on Mr. Chiron’s desk. The man raised an eyebrow.

“It’s only been half an hour. You have time”

Patroclus shook his head.

“I do not think I will write more. Also if I keep it, I am just keeping my thoughts trapped for longer”

Mr. Chiron obviously didn’t expect that answer.

“What’s your name kid?”

“Patroclus” The boy answered.

“Patroclus…you’re an odd one”

“I’ve been told that before.” He admitted. He nodded in respect and walked out of the classroom, his bag over his shoulder. Achilles almost knocked him down at the door by rushing inside.

He said an apology checking over the other before placing an essay on Mr. Chiron’s desk smiling.

The coach shook his head and sighed.

“In a rush as always Mr. Pelides I see”

Achilles grinned.

“I’m done sir! Also my name is Achilles!”

Mr. Chiron shook his head and sighed.

“Run off you reckless child.”

Achilles waved and took Patroclus’ hand.

“Want to go ice cream hunting?”

Patroclus smiled.

“Sure”

Achilles ran out of the classroom pulling the other laughing behind himself.

Chiron observed the two for a moment then looked at their essays. What an odd pair.

——

After another half an hour had passed Chiron’s arms were filled with papers and bad handwriting. He sat on his desk and skimmed over them. Most of the kids had the same opinion on the theme. Not a bad thing. Just the usual. Feelings are what we feel. They’re many. Happiness, sadness.

Then he stopped upon two essays that sat together. He picked the first one, written in a rushed yet elegant handwriting.

“To talk about feelings is a hard topic.

If you asked me what are you feeling right now I would answer ‘Happiness’ even if I am crying. I have often been told to not show anyone apart of my mother and father of how I truly feel. Because emotions can be used against me somehow.

I think words are weapons. But only if they hit feelings they become dangerous. I’m afraid to feel. Or let’s be more clear I am afraid to let people use my emotions. I don’t trust easily.

I used to feel everything so deeply. I used to show everything. My anger, sadness and joy. It wasn’t that much encouraged. My mother always told me to not keep too much bottled up, but I can’t trust myself to feel without restraint.

It’s always either too much or too little.

Because of how much I experience everything. I care too much. Get angry too often. What if one day I lose something that I hold dear? How will my feelings make me react?

Happiness, sadness, madness they’re all the same inside if you think about it. All that makes the difference between each is how we react. When I’m happy I want to laugh with all my heart. When I’m sad I want to sink down to the soil and never resurface. But that would make my mother sad and I do not want that.

That leads me to think that feelings are things we share. If I am sad so is my friend. If I am happy so is he. So I think feeling anything is shared yet it’s a very personal experience too.

I do not get mad the same as my father. It’s complicated to explain. Emotions are an endless tangle of understanding and not understanding.

I just know they are dual. They work in us in different ways, giving us our uniqueness.

I do not like them because of how badly they fall upon me. I feel very lonely sometimes, a feeling everyone hates with a burning passion, even if I pretend it’s nothing. But I don’t know if I want everything gone because sometimes it’s pure happiness caused by someone who truly makes me feel good.

It’s funny isn’t it?

In the end I fall at the samd result that feelings are what make me myself and you yourself.

At least that is what I always thought.”

Chiron was taken aback from what was written for a moment. It was deep yes…but also very much individual as well as collective. He picked the other one. It had a neater handwriting, a different style.

“Feelings are something weird. I do not understand them sometimes. They change like the weather.

I think that a feeling is that ache you have when you need a hug. I think it is those tears you cry when you’re lonely at night. I think it’s that trembling that wracks your body when you see your father pretend that you don’t exist.

They call that grief, sadness, anger. I think I have felt all of them. They’re different each time. Sometimes I want to break something. Sometimes I want to disappear from this world.

It hurts. Feeling hurts. And I do often hate it. I often wish I would have been born to not feel.

But then I would miss the other side of it.

I would miss the flutter you feel when someone smiles at you. I would miss the swelling of seeing that one person call your name. I would miss the comfort of sometimes being alone and yet not lonely.

I think they’re called happiness, love and peace. I do not want to miss those out. That’s why I cannot let feelings go.

To feel is human, and for as long as I am human I want to feel. The good and the bad. I want to learn from them.

Feelings for me are what shape how we behave and what we do in this world. They are what makes us live. They give us life. They are our soul, our essence and as much as they can hurt as much can they give.

I want to live this life as fully as I can.

Because I have felt the burden of suffering. I have felt the weight of not being able to scream. Those are feelings too. But I learned that they’re not the only ones.

It may not be the answer you’re looking for.

But it is the answer I found for my own self.”

Chiron stopped. The essays were the two sides of the same page. One felt too deeply from the outside. The other from the inside. One was suffering from the outer world. The other from the inside world. They were so similar and yet so different. One refused to feel anything but what was usual. The other wanted to feel it all as much as it could hurt. He was shocked. Throughout all his long years of teaching he had never seen this.

This connection. This pain. This shared understanding.

None of the essays had a name like the writers had purposefully wanted to not be known. To not be confronted about their work.

But Chiron knew fairly well who they were.

————

Patroclus laid in the grass with Achilles by his side. They had sneaked two popsticles from the canteen and now were enjoying their free time. Achilles was grinning ear to ear content with himself.

“We should become spies. We’re great at taking stuff without getting caught”

“Ice cream spies?”

“Exactly! You’re a genius” He giggled.

Patroclus rolled his eyes and licked his own popstickle.

“What did you write in your essay” Achilles asked him suddenly.

“What I honestly thought” He answered shortly.

“Hm same.” The blonde fell silent before speaking once more. “My birthday is in some days.”

Patroclus turned to look at him “Wait really?”

“Mhm. June 6th. I’m a summer boy”. He stuck his tongue out.

“That was obvious.” Patroclus pinched his side. “Annoying sun piss”

“Hey! Stop calling me that” He pouted but smiled. “When is yours?”

“I will tell you when it is around. Fair deal for you not telling me”

“Oh shut up.” He scoffed and turned away from him. Patroclus chuckled and pulled one of his pigtails.

“Come on don’t be pissy. We can steal some cherries from the cherry tree later”

Achilles perked up forgetting his anger.

“Now you’re speaking my language! You bet”

Patroclus smiled.

Notes:

Y’all u rlly thought I would forget chiron or totally not mention Achilles’ works?

Chapter 22

Notes:

I AM BACK YALL MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

The next day Achilles and Patroclus were wandering around the lake, after classes ended, in the afternoon’s sun. Achilles had climbed one of the trees near it and was hanging upside down giggling with leaves in his hair.

Patroclus was grinning at him and poking his sides to make the other laugh more.

Chiron approached the two but none of them noticed him. He coughed and Achilles yelped, almost slipping off the branch before flipping to sit on it.

Patroclus looked over his shoulder at the coach and a slight red passed his cheeks.

“Mr. Chiron! Sorry we didn’t notice you” Achilles said sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.

The coach shook his head.

“Not a problem Achilles. I know how it is to be a child. Games are more important than poise and politeness.” None of the boys understood if it was a sarcastic or an honest statement.

The teacher cleared his throat once more.

“I have come to discuss an important matter with you two. If you could follow to class it would be ideal.”

Patroclus looked at Achilles who was climbing down the tree and trailed behind Chiron. Patroclus followed. It would be normal for someone asking for Achilles but for him? That was new.

Chiron led them to one of the writing classes and asked them to sit on the desk near the teacher’s one. He pulled out two different pieces of paper and held them in his hands. Their essays.

“I read this yesterday while checking the assignments and I have to say I was quite impressed. Achilles, your view on feelings is quite an honest one which I appreciate a lot. Your writing is impressive and truly outstanding.”

Achilles flushed pink but answered. “Sir I forgot to write my name in the essay. That may be not mine at all”

Chiron shook his head.

“Handwriting is someone’s personality. Sort of an accent. Unique. Yours match.” He turned the paper, the rushed handwriting proving that it was Achilles’ hand on that paper. The blonde looked down flustered.

Chiron looked at Patroclus.

“Patroclus, if I remember your name correctly, your essay may have been one of the most beautifully executed ones I’ve ever read especially for someone your age. You had shown your heart in it and while it was simple, it spoke volumes. It sincerely portrayed much of many people’s inner struggles”

Patroclus didn’t blush as much as Achilles but he nodded, smiling slightly.

“Thank you sir.”

Achilles gave him a small bump below the desk like saying ‘I’m so proud of you’

Chiron nodded back.

“Now the reason I called you two together is because these two essays are more similar than you may think. And not in a way that copies are. These two essays are, for me, the two sides of a coin. You two have finished the other’s thoughts.”

The boys looked at one another confused. Achilles spoke.

“What do you mean coach?”

“I mean that you two have threaded one another’s writings. Patroclus, you showed the need to feel, Achilles, you showed the fear to feel. Both of you could’ve worked together and still not make such intertwined works. They’re purely natural to your personalities, which I admit that seem in much contrast with one another too. I have not seen a thing like this ever”

The boys seemed shocked by this statement but Chiron continued before they could oppose:

“I would like to have both of you as my students. My study methods are in class as well as outside of it. You shall have paths to guide you through your passions and the basics of the world you want to live in. I have talked with Peleus of arrangements, and I just need the consent from both of you”

Achilles turned to Patroclus and they both nodded, not needing for words.

“We agree sir.”

Chiron nodded.

“Fairly well then. Lesson starts tomorrow at 12PM at the acting studio. You are excused”

The two stood up, waved and walked outside. They decided it was time for an early dinner. Rushing to the cantine, the boys stole whatever they found, eating quickly. The conversation with Chiron had certainly stirred quite a lot of inner thoughts for the both of them.

They returned to the cabin as the sun was setting but they felt tired to continue and play in the evening light. Sitting at the floor, they talked about stories.

A crying tree. A laughing cloud. Singing dirt.

A boy who danced with sunlight. A girl who sew tears into decorations.

Patroclus had leaned against Achilles’ shoulder as they doodled on the other’s notebook. They were stupid drawings, silly and dumb. Achilles played with the other’s hair with one hand. Patroclus decided he liked that.

“Your hair looks like chocolate” The blonde said bluntly. “And feels like sand put in line”

He laughed.

“How about chocolate sand for a story”

“That’s a good one write it down! Maybe the boy who dances with sunlight can move throughout the world finding magical places! Like a desert made out of chocolate!”

Patroclus nodded. Achilles smiled.

“You know, only with you I can talk about my stories. My mom listens to them but always asks about the details she didn’t hear and my dad forgets or loses the plot. But you listen…thank you”

He shook his head.

“For what? Being a good friend? Having fun?”

“Yeah. I never met someone like you”

“Neither did I. But I’m glad I did”

———-

Studying with Chiron was quite the odd experience. He was the type of teacher to intertwine everything. Nature with writing. Space with acting. Science with work.

Sometimes they were inside like a normal class, studying the theories then an hour later they would be studying outside all they had learned.

The forests that surrounded the camp were rich on anything a human may need. Patroclus discovered that herbs were quite something that interested him. The diversity and different uses of them attracted him.

Achilles was a great actor though. He could cry and laugh in the span of 5 seconds, controlling his emotions with an inner remote. Patroclus was not so bad himself which surprised both him and the other two. He had spent enough time observing how people behaved to know the body language of every emotion.

While Achilles was controlling of what he felt, Patroclus let it flow, that’s what Chiron had told them.

The boys didn’t understand it. Did not get what the teacher meant by “connection”. They just were who they were with one another.

That was everything for them.

—————
The beginning of June had caught the camp with excitement. Just a week had gone by fully when the birthday of someone pretty important rolled by.

Achilles didn’t seem to mind it much but the camp was in a fever. Kids seemed to want to impress the little star of the showbiz world with gifts and surprises.

That star spent the week playing in the grass with Patroclus and tripping off the stairs of the theatre stage at least once every two days.

When the morning of his birthday shone through the curtains of their cabin, Patroclus as always woke up first. He rubbed his eyes and sat up looking over at the other who was snoring with his face on the pillow.

Patroclus smiled. He had seen the other kids trying to grab Achilles’ attention. And had seen how Achilles talked to them. He wasn’t jealous. It would be stupid to be so. He just observed how the other acted differently. His smile was more glued than the teeth bared one he gave to him. He appreciated how the blonde had been honest to him. Anytime he could.

Patroclus stood up and tip toed to his bedside. He grinned mischievously and leaned down pinching the other’s cheek. Achilles groaned.

“Wake up sun piss. It’s your birthday”

The blonde mumbled something and fell back asleep. The other pinched his side.

“Wake up you big baby”

Achilles swatted his hand away.

“I will eat your whole cake before you do I swear on Perseus the jellyfish”

That seemed to get a snort from Achilles who turned opening his emerald eyes to grin at him.

“On Perseus the jellyfish? Really?”

Patroclus didn’t answer for a moment.

Or two…

He was looking at the other. His messy hair that fell over his face, his chubby cheeks, his green eyes which had been dipped in a golden glow. Those eyes…a sight that reminded him of last year, of the image his mind had burned, Achilles laughing at the beach, the sun hugging him like he was the rays itself. Now it was simplier, lazier. But totally a sight that would be carved on his mind.

“Yeah…really”

Achilles tilted his head and sat up.

“You’re lost”

“Just sleepy”

Achilles seemed to be pleased by that.

Patroclus stood up and rushed to the closet changing quickly.

The blonde raised an eyebrow confused.

“Why in such a hurry?”

“I have to be somewhere. Some work with Chiron. I’ll be back before dinner”

“But-“

But Patroclus was out the door before he could say anything. Achilles was left confused.

All day the blonde was dragged and tossed in all four directions possible. People wanting to get his attention, countless gifts were placed on his hands, his father had to save his life about a thousand times.

His mother came by too. She seemed happy today, but that could only slightly be seen at the way her eyes softened when she saw her son.

She gifted him a shell. But not any ordinary one. One of the rarest ones found in the world. A Conus Gloriamaris she called it. Glory of the sea cone. Something that would symbolise his greatness. His beauty. His glory.

“You’re meant for great things my little one” She stroked his hair. “But do not forget that rarity can be simple just as this shell.” Thetis touched the redish object with her finger. “Greatness, my love, is often misunderstood. The world will see your shine, but it is not meant for all to touch. The rarest things are best left hidden, kept away from the noise.” She paused and sighed. “You were born for a path few can walk, one that does not allow for others to share the burden of your glow. Others may come, but only you can carry what is destined for you."

She kissed his forehead and stroked his hair. ”In the end, you must remember…what is most valuable often stays in the shadows. What is valuable to you is only yours.”

Achilles nodded and looked down at the shell on his hand. His mother’s words were difficult to comprehend completely but he felt the pain behind them. He sighed.

“Thank you mama”

Thetis smiled. This time it looked almost identical to Achilles’ often smile, especially the one he gave to Patroclus.

“Anytime my dear. Now go play with the others. It’s your special day after all”

Achilles stopped for a beat.

“Have you seen Patroclus mama? He said he would back before dinner but I can’t find him anywhere”

Thetis frowned.

“Patroclus? No I haven’t seen him. Is everything okay with him?”

“He was alright this morning before I woke up. Then he just froze and ran off to seaweed knows where. ” The blonde pouted.

Thetis nodded.

“I’m sure he’ll back soon. He’s not the type to lie as far as I know him”

Achilles shrugged and held the seashell tighter on his hand.

“I hope.”

Chapter 23

Notes:

Guys school started 😢. I feel like Patroclus

Achilles sat by the lake as the sun started setting. He still hadn’t seen Patroclus anywhere and was starting to get worried. Evening had yet to come but his worry did not decrease. He had eaten the cake with some other kids but the conversations felt fickle. It wasn’t the same as with Patroclus.

He had saved some for him still though.

He hugged his knees to his chest and kept his mother’s shell on his hand looking at it.

He rarely felt lonely with how busy his life was. Modelling, school, reading, acting. Ever since he had met Patroclus, he always had someone to run to when he wanted to talk about anything.

But now he couldn’t find him…

And it was uncomfortable. To be alone…or maybe lonely

It’s like when you have a taste of freedom and you never want to let go of it again. But you have to return to the usual world.

Achilles stared at the water. He felt tired.

Stripped off energy.

He closed his eyes.

———
Patroclus had been walking around the forest for almost two hours now. He was looking high and low for something that could fit his search.

He should’ve thought about this sooner but he had been to distracted from classes and the days had gone by too quickly.

He was making excuses.

He hadn’t thought of a present for the other until this morning he was hit with the perfect idea.

But that had meant a long day of searching. And he had missed a lot of the other’s special day.

He felt bad.

But it would be worth it.

He thought that the idea of the present would be nice.

But it was hard to find exactly what he was looking for. He had stared at Achilles for hours and hours, knew the other’s face as a sculptor, knew his voice as a musician, knew his eyes as a painter…

He wanted to find something that was like him. Something that would be the right shape, the right shade. To find something that would be Achilles.

That proved to be a difficult task.

Achilles was quite a unique person, at least to him. He wasn’t a normal stone, an usual flower, a native herb. He was special. In both looks and spirits.

So Patroclus had spent all day searching. Searching for something to catch his eye. He tried not to get away much from the camp but the woods were deep.

As the day started to come close to sunset he groaned.

He was going to he late.

Patroclus started searching faster practically jogging at this point.

He found a spring near the western part of the forest. It shone like literal diamonds flew through it under the sun. He approached and crouched by the edge watching the clear water that ran cool.

He could feel the fresh air that surrounded the running surface. His eyes traced the rocks that created the spring’s shoes and floor.

Patroclus’ eyes stuck on one. It was a bright shade of earthy green. It had slightly golden spots from the wipe of the scrubbing water.

A pair of eyes crossed in his mind.

It was exactly what he had been thinking of. He crouched to the earth’s level, and tried to reach for it. The water was cool around his fingers like gloves made out of cold melting snow.

The flow seemed to be deeper than it looked. He kneeled and reached deeper but his fingers only grazed the stone.

Patroclus huffed, stretching his arm longer. His elbow touched the water and his other hand settled on the shallows of the water. Something sharp cut his inner palm but he didn’t pull back.

He winced and caught the stone. A grin passed his lips and he took it out.

It was exactly the colour he was looking for. What had grazed his hand was a small sharp piece of the stone which stuck out. It looked like seaglass but attached to a stone did not make much sense. Taking another stone, Patroclus slowly softened the edge with it. His palm dripped a few drops of blood that fell on the stone like tears falling from those green eyes.

The cut was a bit deeper than he thought. Patroclus wiped it quickly.

He had no bandages with him but he would cover the thing later.

He was already late.

Placing the stone on his small bag he ran to the entrance of the forest.

——-

He reached the main house as the sun was setting fully. He asked everyone around him where Achilles could be but all of them shrugged.

When he saw Thetis who was talking to Peleus, a pen on her hand, he approached. She turned and raised an eyebrow.

“Patroclus. A pleasure meeting you once more.”

“Likewise ma’am.” He nodded slightly towards Peleus who looked at Thetis.

Thetis looked at Patroclus.

“Why are you here little sir? Achilles has been looking for you. There has been no trace of you all day”

Patroclus looked down flushing slightly embarrassed.

“I was finding a gift for him. But now I cannot find him.”

She nodded.

“He was very upset to not see you around. I think he is by the lake.”

Patroclus nodded quickly.

“Thank you ma’am”

“Call me Thetis. Run off. He’s waiting for you.”

The boy smiled a bit and ran off.

Peleus tilted his head.

“Something tells me that boy is pretty important to our son. ”

“Is it your blindness or deafness which tells you that?”

“Very funny” He rolled his eyes.

—————
Patroclus rushed to the lake as the sun had almost gone down the mountains. The lanterns were slowly being lit shining the pathways in a gentle light that felt like summer was bottling up in a small glass container.

The body of water looked as a painted canvas under the soft light. Its ripples changed and twisted into an abstract work made by a lost hand that had forgotten it painted.

Patroclus looked around the trees until he saw a figure leaning against one of the trees. The bright hair caught his eyes. That could only be one person.

The boy approached him and almost said a “hello” before noticing the closed eyes and leaned head. Asleep.

Patroclus observed Achilles for a while longer before sitting next to him. His hand gently went to the other’s hair.

It felt like catching water. Or wind. Something fleeting. Soft. Heavenly…

His mind played their days together once more like a recording. The brightness, the laughter, the warmth…but also the quiet, the softeness, the closeness.

When he came last summer he had known many kinds of silence. Grief. Sadness. Loneliness. Pain. Numbness. And yet Achilles had managed to teach him a new one.

The type that grew slowly. But that didn’t hurt. Didn’t take. It grew. Softly…like a bloom in the spring.

The kind to have with only the right person. With the one who you could laugh, cry and push through every stone life threw at you.

Maybe it was what they called love.

For someone important.

“Hey goldie…wake up…” He whispered after a while lost.

Achilles mumbled and opened his eyes slowly. He turned and looked at Patroclus. A lazy smile passed his lips.

“You’re here.”

“I promised I would be”

Achilles leaned and placed his forehead on the other’s shoulder.

“Why were you gone?”

“I had to find something”

“Something for what?”

“A special day.”

“For who?”

“You.”

Achilles looked up.

“Idiot. You left me alone.”

“You had the entire camp”

“You know what I mean”

Patroclus smiled. So did Achilles.

“You sincerely are so lonely. Depending on only me?” Patroclus teased.

“Look who speaks” Achilles retorted.

They both laughed.

“Okay okay fair. Anyways I got you a present. Took me all day. And a lot of tripping.”

“If it isn’t some sort of giant diamond go away” Achilles joked.

“Don’t make me nervous”. Patroclus pouted but he reached to his bag and pulled out a thing covered by his hand.

Achilles pulled back and looked at his hand curiously.

Patroclus lifted it and placed his closed palm next to the side of the other’s face. He revealed the emerald stone and compared the colour to Achilles’ almond shaped eyes. The blonde tilted his head. The shades matched perfectly.

“It looks the same as your eyes…”

“You hit spot on huh?”

“I did”

Achilles smiled and took the stone from the other’s hand. His eyes shone once more in that ethereal glow. Or maybe it was just the lanterns’ light.

“It’s gorgeous…thank you.”

“You’re welcome…”. Patroclus smiled slightly.

“I’m still mad you spent all day away”

“I didn’t even get to eat cake that was the biggest loss” Patroclus sighed dramatically.

“Shut up I saved you some” Achilles pouted playfully.

“You did?”

“Duh dumbass. You’re my best friend”

Patroclus grinned.