Patrick Clark | Patroclus (borrowed_armor) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2011-01-07 06:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | achilles, patroclus |
Who: Patroclus and Achilles
What: Please don't leave me
When: Thursday afternoon
Where: Achilles' apartment
Achilles was scaring Patroclus to his very core.
He knew it wasn't easy for Achilles to be here. To make amends for something that, at the very base, wasn't his fault. He knew seeing Pat had to hurt Achilles after what he had done. And being around Briseis was never easy for Achilles, especially not after Aphrodite's intervention.
Patroclus knew first-hand how very much Aphrodite's interventions could hurt.
To Patroclus, the only thing that mattered was keeping Achilles in the city. He wanted to work things out, not give up. He wanted his best friend to be by his side. He finally felt alive again, and even aside from his confusing feelings he had for Achilles, he knew his life was better with Achilles in it. He was nothing with Achilles. Literally. Bis story had always been one of a sidekick. He was a lieutenant. A companion. Without his general, his life had no meaning. And while Achilles probably had no frame of reference for understanding how that could feel and Patroclus didn't want to argue, he did want to see him he could talk sense into Achilles.
So he showed up at Achilles' door, like he had so many times before, and he knocked and he waited.
Achilles would always go after his own arc. His story was one in it's own without everyone else entwined, though they were the one's that caused his reactions and gave him meaning. Achilles stood on his own and instead of causing pain he'd rather just move on. It was what he did. Leave behind even those that mattered to stomp and make his own path. Achilles could never forge it any other way.
The city was making him listless. He was becoming dull with too much time on his hands and it was that very thing that had pushed him to Hybris in the first place. He was tired. Tired of the things that wouldn't change and the string that Briseis still had him clipped on. Achilles wasn't going to pine anymore, it was beneath him to be this way. He was not to be some lovesick puppy, he needed his own space.
So, when he heard the knock on the door he sighed heavily already agitated for he knew that on the other side was someone ready to find fault. He was done with the guilt, the pressure, of feeling less of the man he was because of something he'd allowed to happen. Patroclus, Briseis, none of them had a clue what that felt like and to have guilt rip him up inside from one day to the next. Most times he held no regret, but when it did it hit, it hit like a ton of bricks.
He opened the door just the same, turning his back on Patroclus as the door opened. "Did you come to beg, because I don't think I'm quite in the mood."
Patroclus' expression looked something like a kicked puppy then. "Achilles...no. I came to talk." It was the first time since having his jaw wired that he could talk.
He hadn't spoken to his brother in so long that Achilles had lost anything to say. His mind was focused and he wasn't about to change his mind because of a visit.
"So then talk," he instructed shutting the door behind him and walking back across the living room towards the kitchen for the tea he'd made. There were already a few things missing from his walls.
Patroclus looked around and he raised his eyebrows as he noticed the things missing from the walls. "Achilles," he said softly. "Why are you leaving?"
Achilles sighed, annoyance clearly in his tone before even speaking. He poured himself a cup of tea, as well as Patroclus. He may be in a pissed off mood but he wasn't about to be a terrible host.
Leaning against the kitchen counter he looked over the steaming cup of tea. "Because I've grown tired of this."
Patroclus followed his best friend into his kitchen, wondering if he was ever going to get a straight answer from Achilles. "Have you grown tired of me, Achilles?"
Achilles wouldn't answer that question. He couldn't. "I've grown tired of everything," he admitted softly setting his cup down against the counter top. "Of being strung along and held back. I've got to keep my eyes forward," it was what he always did. Press forward and don't feel bad about what you leave behind or it will eat you alive. It was already eating him alive inside, this was best for all of them.
"No you don't have to keep your eyes forward, you're supposed to keep your eyes here, Achilles. You...You broke my body and I'm finally healing and you're going to leave me? Achilles...please don't do this to me."
"And I gave you cause to be angry, yet here you are pleading like a little girl for me not to leave! " he yelled. He could feel it deep inside, that bubbling frustration at how this had turned into. Patroclus was supposed to be angry because he could do something with that. This left him in a state of uneasiness.
"I have to, if not for my sake but your own."
Patroclus was sick of being called a girl and he was sick of Achilles telling him what was good for him. He hadn't yelled at Achilles in a long time, but he was mad now.
"You have no right to choose what's best for me!" Patroclus yelled at him. "Is it just that you want to make me angry now because You want to be yelled at?! Fine, I'm yelling! Yes, seeing you stand above me, breaking my bones is the worst thing I can think of. Yes, you hurt me far worse than anyone else ever has, but what do you want me to say, Achilles! It wasn't your fault! Don't let fucking Hybris take you away from me too! She already made you break my body, do you want to let her make you break my heart too?"
Achilles grabbed his lieutenant's shirt at that remark, his teeth bared. "I want you angry! I want you to hate me because that's what I deserve!" he yelled back before releasing him. Achilles was beating himself up, which was far more obvious now than it may have been in months.
Patroclus had nearly choked on his tongue when Achilles had grabbed him. When his general released him, Patroclus backed up slowly, trying to keep himself out of Achilles' reach. "No!" he said, even through his fear. "No, Achilles, what you deserve is to let me go through my pain and be here for me! That is what you deserve! You deserve to finally be the kind of friend who maybe thinks about someone else for a fucking change! Once you asked me what I needed and I am telling you! If you want to me scream every fear and pain I have your way as well, I will. I'll let you know how much it hurts, but you have to be here to do that!"
Patroclus' words were having their effect, he was always the reason where Achilles could hardly see any. He'd spent years keeping himself going on adrenaline and the pump of war alone, this was learning.
"I've been on my own all these years, Patroclus." He spoke in a much softer voice now, still not at all relenting on his own grief. It seemed natural, that's how things worked between them. Achilles acted irrationally, Patroclus set it straight. His own hand rubbed against his chest over his heart, before sliding down the side of the cabinets and sitting on the floor.
"You, Briseis, I'm tired..." he was tired of pining for the girl. He was tired of causing Patroclus grief, tired of making himself dwell on it. As usual he was dramatizing the situation.
The moment Achilles lowered his voice, Patroclus did too. He went to sit beside Achilles, no longer afraid his General was going to break him nearly in two again. "We're all tired, Achilles," Patroclus admitted wearily. "But giving up won't help. It'll just make it worse. Talk to me. Achilles, talk to me about what you're feeling. I can talk back now. And I'll tell you how I feel. Which is much better for us than yelling, it really is."
So much Achilles had kept pent up inside during this trial. He had paid his dues and yet it wasn't enough. Zeus could easily have flicked him off into Hades if he'd wanted, and while the strong Achilles had been grateful, sometimes he wondered if it would had been easier to have been cast into darkness.
Achilles ran his hands through his hair before letting his arms rest upon his knees. "I'm not giving up," he snapped, "I'm restless." He knew above all else he'd never had been able to deal well with the mundane life even if he craved it sometimes. He needed something to do. With an empty house without Kismine, Patroclus taking up with Briseis now, everything felt so backwards.
Patroclus didn't mind being snapped at now since it seemed it was productive snapping. "Well what could make that better?" Patroclus asked gently. "Maybe working on a new movie would help?"
"I can't get my mind in order," he admitted. It was too quiet. Even going to visit his Vietnam veterans at the hospital had done nothing to re-inspire him. Achilles' own head was getting in his way, with everything that had gone down it was no surprise.
"I know no answer to that," that's why he'd wanted out of the city. It was stifling him. Suffocating. Patroclus had no idea what the ordeal in contrast to Briseis' arrow stricken love spell had done to him.
"Well let's work through it together," Patroclus suggested quietly. "Fuck knows my mind isn't in order either.
This was exhausting. Rubbing his hands over his sleepless eyes, Achilles relaxed against the cabinet wall, leaning his head back against the wood.
"You're determined I stay," he said looking over to Patroclus with a questioning brow. He turned his head after a while, mind obviously reeling back and forth on what he was going to do now.
"How's Briseis?" he finally asked softly.
"I am determined you stay," Patroclus said with a nod of his head. "Bri is doing okay. She took an out of state job for the first time since..." He just let that one lie. "She's alright."
"You're too demanding," Achilles said keeping his eyes away, his hand still rubbing through his blonde locks, running down his neck. "I'll consider it and nothing more. Don't press."
"Glad to hear." Though he wasn't, it was obvious in his tone. Briseis played him like a string on a fiddle. When she needed him he was there, but he wasn't what she wanted. What he wouldn't give for that to change. He'd proved himself better than that when really it wasn't necessary for him to prove himself at all.
He was too demanding?! Patroclus didn't argue, but he certainly didn't think he was more demanding than Achilles.
"Achilles," he said sadly. "What's on your mind?"
Achilles knew Patroclus wouldn't give up unless he was beaten, obviously that had proven true in the what he'd put them through a month ago.
"Nothing," he shook his head, hands flopping against his knees again as he stared off in front of them. They looked down at the thought of Briseis. "It's awkward now through no fault of my own, between me and Briseis." He'd kept himself off of her despite her throwing herself at his feet after Eros struck her so heavily. "I didn't touch her and yet I'm just Achilles to her. In name that's all I am to her. I'm not pining over her anymore. It is beneath me to be so frivolous about it."
"You handled yourself like a gentleman," Patroclus told him. He too had been struck by what he was pretty sure was one of Eros' arrows and he had run away from Achilles lest he do something he would be very sorry for later.
"I understand it's awkward, but it won't get less so by leaving. He'll only get pissed off. She does that rather well."
"That makes no difference how I reacted," he moved his elbow to sit on his knee, hand poised just over his mouth. Achilles knew better, he knew what kind of regret Briseis would feel if he'd taken advantage of that moment. What he'd feel for allowing himself to do that. "I couldn't do that to her, but my thoughts were not innocent. I by no means kept a guilt free mind." He looked to Patroclus seriously.
His eyes cast down from his cousin's. "It continues to remind me of that which I will never obtain."
Patroclus didn't want to offer Achilles false hope that wasn't his to offer, but he understood how it felt to want something and never obtain it.
"Achilles, she is not going to blame you for your thoughts. You cannot help those. It is your actions that matter. Do you really think you would be so much better off somewhere else, constantly wondering how she is? It will possess your mind, Achilles. Just...trust me. At least here, you know she is safe. You can be around her and you don't just have to wonder."
Achilles wouldn't have expected his cousin to lay out any cushioned explanation. He would have been offended otherwise.
"I have often thought her better off," he admitted, meeting Patroclus' eyes in all seriousness. "I have never brought her anything but sadness and hurt." He was being incredibly hard on himself, expectantly, as guilt Achilles took very seriously and heavily.
"Achilles, Briseis is not an idiot. She wouldn't love you if all you brought her was sadness and hurt. And if she didn't have feelings for you, the whammy that was put on her wouldn't have worked. I don't know what will happen, but I do know you bring her more than sadness."