Taught with mirth (not wars) to suit

[gwenchan]

Fandom: Homer's Iliad

Characters: Achilles, Patroclus, Automedon, Antilochus

Pairing: Achilles/Patroclus

Tag: Missing moment, slice of life, fluff
Prompt: Felicità

Tonight sweet-smiling Aphrodite has wrapped Patroclus in her golden net, tightly, like the dolphin caught alongside the other fish.

He regrets nothing. Leaning his cheek in the warm cradle of his palm, suppressing a little yawn, he adjusts his seating, uncrossing his legs before they become all pins-and-needles, and looks across the tent. There he is, the cause of his current demise, glowing brightly in the dying firelight and laughing at one of Antilochus' witty jokes.

The kid, still a child on the cusp of boyhood but already fighting on the battlefield, isn’t one of their own and their tight-knitted group; but Achilles likes him, said he'd have more fun with people closer to his age instead of listening to his father's umpteenth anecdote.

Patroclus can't exactly disagree. Besides, Antilochus' joke was indeed a good one.

Achilles cackles, completely wasted, so hard his whole body shakes, the cup he is still somehow holding sloshing wine all over his chiton. Tears roll down  his cheeks, pink from the fire and the alcohol. Once nested neatly among his golden curls, the impromptu laurel crown they had intertwined for him has slid askew on his forehead. His shaky attempt to fix it does little.

Bright eyed, he turns toward Automedon, sitting at his left, grabs both his cheeks and smacks an enthusiastic kiss right on his mouth. The charioteer turns so red it could rival with the wine.

Laying leisurely next to Phoenix, Patroclus feels only a bit jealous, just a tiny bit. And in love. Oh, he's so much in love.

Meanwhile, Achilles has draped himself over Menesthius, basically sitting in his nephew’s lap.

Glancing up at Phoenix, Patroclus guesses it has come the time to call the night off, before the aristos achaion does something he may regret tomorrow, once sober.

" 'uppose we better go," he says to the group at large, patting his thighs once before standing up on just slightly wobbly feet.

"Yes," Antilochus echoes, "it's getting late. I should go back to my father."

Achilles snorts, a funny sound in between a sigh and the tail of a laughter. He giggles as Patroclus wraps an arm around his lean waist for support. With their legs intertwining, they make a poor copy of those multi-limbed creatures that once roamed the young Earth

And Achilles is one of those people whose limbs stop working when he gets really, really drunk. Blessed be the gods, as Patroclus doesn’t dare to imagine the chaos if wine made Achilles more hyperactive than what he already is.

He’d rather have to carry him around, a dead weight slung over his shoulder and back, unable to string two words together without breaking into a new giggle. In the years, it has become Patroclus' favourite sound in the whole world, a reminder there is something besides the war.

Their tent isn’t too distant, a fact Patroclus doesn’t miss to thank while he steers Achilles away from a group of soldiers busy chatting. Achilles waves enthusiastically at them. They reciprocate the greeting with a short, amused nod of their heads before returning to their business; no need for them to worry, their prince is in good hands and by tomorrow he’d be lucid and in top shape, ready for another glorious day on the battlefield.

But it isn’t a warrior the man Patroclus is now convincing to sit down on the edge of their pallet, an operation previewing some gentle wrestling and an unexpected amount of sloppy kisses. He’s only a boy, the same who would challenge him to impromptu races on the slopes of Mount Pelion and win every single time. “If I’d let you win, it wouldn’t be fair!”

“Here, love, drink,” Patroclus says, holding  a cup of fresh water from the pitcher they keep nearby for the night. He has to help Achilles to drink and some water still sputters on his chest. With a little, amused laugh, Patroclus shakes his head, the way a patient father would do with an undisciplined child. 

“You know, you better not have awoken anything in Automedon,” he teases a reprimand bending to unbuckle his sandals. By how Achilles’ fingers fumble, he’ll have to help him with that as well.

“Even if I have?” Achilles mutters, voice thick and slurry, “he’s cute. It’d be a nice addition.”

“I’ll pretend it’s the wine talking."

Even if Automedon is indeed quite pretty and truth be told Patroclus wouldn’t refuse in advance the idea of sometimes welcoming him in their bed if Achilles wished so. Still, he’d rather keep his companion all for himself. 

After one, almost two years of war, he had just started to come to terms with what happened in Scyros and Achilles’ sincere affection to princess Deidamia. He remembers the conversation that happened on the ship soon after, when Patroclus had asked him if he loved the princess and Achilles had told him he did. Not like he loved him, he had said. He’d never be able to love anyone the same way; but he loved his wife as well. 

At the time, Patroclus had found comfort in knowing Deidamia away while he would get to spend the war next to Achilles. 

Sure, it wasn’t like the other didn’t sometimes have a slave warming his bed, and Patroclus too wasn’t all so above the practice. He didn’t care for those, knew Achilles considered them as little more than faceless tools for his physical pleasure. 

Automedon, however, is different, like Deidamia had been. Still, it was probably just the alcohol talking and he is indeed bandaging his head before even having broken it. In any case, he considers while pulling off his chiton for the night, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

That’s when a muffle cry calls his attention. Upon turning, he can’t suppress his laughter.

Swift Achilles, best of the Greeks, the terror of the Trojans, has managed to get stuck in his own tunic. 

“Phew, thanks! That would be a very undignified death,” he grins at his own joke. Patroclus rolls his eyes. “Exactly how many cups did you have when I wasn’t looking?”

Achilles pouts. “Dunno. Ten, I think. It was a good wine.”

Part of the spoil from one of the latest sack, divided equally between the generals who has joined the raid.

”And you barely watered it down,” Patroclus points out. 

“It would have been a waste.”

That and the fact Achilles has been refusing to water down his wine since Agamennon let slip a comment about how only children don’t drink their wine pure. Achilles would sooner bite his tongue off than admit it, but being one of the youngest among the generals weighs on him and not little.

“Still, I’m hoping next time the honour of deciding to mix the wine falls on someone else.”

“Like you?” Achilles gives him a light slap on the arm. 

“Could be an idea. Scoot over.”

He doesn’t wait for Achilles to move, pressing into his space till eventually, huffing, the other complies. In the darkness his eyes are hazy but wide open, staring at Patroclus with that gaze that always seems to look right into his very soul. The first one who had truly looked at him, all those years ago, and pulled him out of darkness. He thinks about what handful Achilles, eyelids slipping close and drooling on his chest, sometimes, most often, can be.

Quickly thanking the gods for granting them another day, he wouldn’t have it any other way.