Patrick Clark | Patroclus (borrowed_armor) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2012-06-16 06:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | briseis, patroclus |
WHO: Patroclus and Briseis
WHAT: After the rapey post
WHEN: Early Saturday morning
WHERE: Their apartment
WARNINGS: Rape talk
Since running home after his encounter with Peitho and Hermes, Patroclus had holed himself up in his living room with a bottle of whiskey though he wasn't really drinking it. Perhaps it was there was a weapon if he needed it.
He sat in the dark, his head resting on his knees. He was all over aches and regret when he heard footsteps approach. He didn't even bother looking up. "Hello?" he asked, sounding despondent.
Coffee felt like the only thing currently keeping Briseis going. Her dreams had grown more horrific in the last few days and sleep was simply not an option for more than an hour at a time.
She was coming out to make herself another one when she spotted Patroclus on the couch in the dark. "Pat?" she asked quietly, walking over and not wanting to wake up Deirdre with her voice. "What are you doing sitting here in the dark?"
Patroclus finally lifted his head, sure that looking on his beloved Briseis would be some kind of relief. His eyes seemed haunted and he frowned, unable to keep the horror out of his expression.
"I don't...know." Normally he would have asked her about her nightmares. He would have made coffee for her and sat with her, stroking her hair and watching over her in case she fell asleep again. Instead he could think of nothing but what he had endured at the hands of Peitho and Hermes.
Briseis frowned a little more deeply, coming over towards him. "Okay, getting a bit worried now," she admitted to him. "What's happened?"
How could he even begin to explain? Before he even tried, he moved away from her so she wouldn't touch him. "I was- Everything is so- I was at a bar and somehow I ended up at Peitho's apartment." He ran his fingers through his hair and he rubbed his eye tiredly.
Ah, Briseis understood. He'd cheated on Helen. For someone as unendingly loyal as Patroclus, that was a problem.
"I see," she said, her voice empty of judgement. Like she could talk.
"No. No, you don't." Patroclus wiped at his mouth with his hand and then he turned to face her, his legs tucked up under his body. "I couldn't make them stop, Bri."
She stopped then, trying to find out exactly what it was he was telling her. She was pretty sure but needed to be clear. "Pat," she said to him carefully. "Are you telling me that Peitho raped you?"
His expression of horror turned to one of shock. "No! Bri, I'm not a woman. She used her...powers to make me feel like I wanted it and I couldn't say anything. And Hermes was there too and at first she kept hold of me and I couldn't protest. Then she stopped. I don't know, maybe she liked the idea of seeing a warrior struggle."
"So they forced you," Briseis gently supplied. "They made you have sex with them against your will." She hated the way he talked about struggle. She didn't want to think of her Patroclus like that.
That, Patroclus would admit to. "Yes. It was like...a game to them. Peitho made Hermes hold me there. He's an Olympian, what could I do?! You can't tell anyone, Bri. I don't even know how I will tell Helen." Groaning, Pat put his hands over his face.
Briseis spent a lot of her spare time counselling rape victims but that didn't mean she always knew exactly what to say when it came right down to it. And those people she talked to were all women. Unlike Patroclus, however, Briseis was under no impression that what had happened to him wasn't rape because he wasn't a woman. All she could do was try and use the same things here as she would use with any other person she counselled.
"Anything you tell me won't leave this room," she promised him. "I won't tell anyone anything you don't want me to tell them, and I will listen to anything you want to say, either now or later. But, Patroclus, what happened was not your fault."
"Of course it is!" Patroclus said, his voice high-pitched and frantic. "I cheated on the woman I love and not with the man I love! Oh no. With two other people I didn't even want to be with. Not to mention that I am a warrior and I should never have been in that position to begin with! It's...so shameful!"
Briseis tone remained level and gentle. "Pat, just because you're strong and male, doesn't make it any less rape. There is nothing that you should feel ashamed about, because you've done nothing wrong. If you didn't want this and you made it clear you didn't want this, then that's rape. And while I'm not you and I can't understand exactly what you're feeling, the shame, the blaming of yourself, the denial: these are all common feelings that a lot of people feel when they've been violated like this."
All Pat's breath left his body in a rush and he stared at Briseis in silence for a moment before he asked, "you- you're telling me I was just raped?" His voice was uncharacteristically weak and soft. It made him feel sick to his stomach to think about.
"Yes," she said with a small nod, her expression sympathetic. "I'm sorry."
Patroclus let his eyes fall closed and he slumped back against the sofa, sliding down it until his chin was resting on his chest. This was something he had never worried about; something he hadn't even considered. He felt weak and violated and he didn't even know how to express it. He still felt it was his fault.
"If she had just kept me persuaded I was enjoying it- If Hermes hadn't interrupted. They were...kissing while they did that to me. She had him hold me for her and gods he is strong. Then she watched him while he-"
Patroclus grimaced. He was still in shock and rambling about what had happened to him to the person he trusted most in the world was really the only way he could process right now.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," Briseis assured him. "But anything you do want to say I'll hear it. I'm here for you, alright? I'm your friend and I love you and this wasn't your fault."
Patroclus turned his head to her, letting it sort of flop back against the back of the sofa. "That's all, really. She watched him while he held me down. Then they started fucking and kicked me out. Like what had just happened was nothing. I- You cannot tell anyone this. I kept trying to sort of...pretend it was Achilles. So it wouldn't be so horrible. But he was too...forceful. He wasn't concerned with me at all."
"Oh Pat," Briseis whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. "I'm so sorry. I hate them so much." She opened her eyes to look at him, shaking her head. "You didn't deserve this."
Unwilling to be so far away from Briseis any more, Patroclus inched closer to her, about to pull her in to cuddle when something horrible occurred to him and he stopped short.
"Bri-" he started, sounding haunted. "Back when- Back in the war is this how I made those women feel?" He had been a warrior and women were just his spoils and he had used them to sate his lust just as every other warrior had. Every warrior who wasn't Achilles. He had seen it as his dues. He never thought of himself as a bad man, rather a loyal and loving one. But if he had made even one person feel as terrible as he did now, then maybe he deserved what had happened to him.
Briseis really didn't want to answer that question right now, not when he looked so on edge already.
"That was a long time ago," she answered, only sort of answering it.
"Bri-" Patroclus knew she was holding back something. "Back then I was...I never even thought about how they would feel. I've never been put in that situation before. It was- It was awful."
"It is," Briseis agreed, not sure of what else she could tell him. "But it wasn't just you. It was an entire society built like that and I don't want you to feel guilty about the things you did then right now." He could look at that guilt and examine it properly later. Right now he should be focusing on himself.
"Gods I am such a bastard," Patroclus hissed. "Bri, did- After we were gone did they- Did it happen to you?" They should have been more careful. Should have taken more care not to die so recklessly so they could have kept her safe.
Briseis really really didn't want to answer that question right now either, even more than the other. She took a slow breath, using it to try and think of what to say that wasn't going to upset him. But the truth was that, yes, of course she'd been used by soldiers and generals and whoever else wanted her after Achilles was dead, just as she'd been used by others before he'd come into her life.
Eventually she said, "that's all in the past, and I'm here with you now."
Patroclus reached out for her hand. "I wish you would be straight with me," he whispered, but he knew what her evasion meant. "Oh, Bri." Quietly he pulled her into a hug. "I love you."
Briseis wrapped her arms around him, letting him control how long they stayed like this. As soon as he wanted to let go Briseis would move.
"I love you too," she told him. "God, I want to rip their heads off with my bare hands."
"I think trying would be unwise," Patroclus said dryly. He buried his face in her neck and relaxed, just slightly, for the first time that night. "Oh, Bri, I'm so sorry. I just didn't understand." And it was possible he still didn't, but he had insight now.
He pulled back, but held on to her hand. "I wasn't even at the bar for that. Of course I wasn't. That's not me. I was just...trying to avoid coming home. Idiot."
"It's okay," she promised him and kissed the top of his head softly. "Everything's going to be okay."
"You're not an idiot," she chide gently before asking, "why are you avoiding here?"
"Seems stupid now," he mumbled. Then he looked up at her, but he didn't drop her hand. "I know you slept with Achilles. He told me. And I guess I felt...betrayed that you didn't tell me."
Now it was Briseis' turn to feel guilty. "I'm sorry," she said with a deep frown, shaking her head lightly. "I didn't know how to tell you and the longer I left it...the harder it seemed." She squeezed his hand lightly.
"I had to hear it from Achilles.I was sitting there trying not to let on any hint of jealousy while trying to see if he was okay. I wish I had warning...but it all seems trite now. I'm not angry with you, Bri. I just didn't know what to say either." And then, because it was his default setting even having endured horrors, he asked, "are you alright?"
That was Patroclus: always asking after others, always the loyal follower of the stories. She almost smiled at it.
"I'm fine," she told him. "Feeling some murderous rage towards the Olympians and feeling like a terrible person over Achilles, but I'm more worried about you right now."