Pin-Striped Men in Mourning, Partners in the Dance; Who: Patroclus [patrocleia] and Briseis [spoil_of_war]; [Closed] What: Visiting Patroclus in the hospital after his surprise throwdown with Neoptolemus. Antics ensue. When: April 17th [Following THIS post.] Where: Mount Sinai of Queens (for the LULZ) Warning: N/A; Language use, maybe?
It hadn't been until Patroclus woke up in the hospital bed, attached to an annoyingly itchy IV needle and surrounded by machines that never ceased beeping, that he remembered just how he'd ended up in said bed in the first place.
Neoptolemus. He had been right to warn Achilles of how dangerous the taunting of his makeshift clone would be. Though he hadn't expected it to end up quite like this. He had been worried more for his friend's safety than his own, and the boy had blindsided him when he should have expected it.
Though if Achilles could have simply stopped to listen to reason instead of his own sense of pride that seemed to eclipse all else, he may not have had to expect either situation at all. At least when he had died the first time, albiet for Achilles' sake, he made the choice himself; he had walked into the fight with eyes open, defied orders by his own doing, and faced a god because he did not exercise caution.
But his fate had been his own. Not a side-effect of Achilles' son's lack of reasoning, compassion, or over-arching morality when it came to who to hit and when.
Of course he was angry. He might not have gone as far as to blame Achilles outright, but he was not going to take a simple apology or "Forgive me," as an answer. Not on his cousin's part. Not when the man should have known better, both in exercising simple reason, and having been through all of this before.
Things never really did change, did they?
Patroclus closed the phone he'd been using to send Briseis one-handed texts to let her know that no, he wasn't dead, and yes, she could in fact come see him. In fact, though he hadn't admitted it, he was more than happy to welcome company that wasn't someone he wanted to embrace, strangle, and scream at all simultaneously. He glanced around the room impatiently; the confinement was going to suffocate him if he wasn't careful, or if the morphine didn't decide to kick in.