31_days | [21st December][The Iliad] In Troy

Title: In Troy
Day/Theme: 21st December/"This place that was no place"
Series: The Iliad
Character/Pairing: Achilles/Patroclus
Rating: PG-13/12
Words: 200

The sand in Troy is harsh, biting stuff that gets into everything; their clothing, their hair, their bedding. Patroclus tries to brush it off their blankets but he can still feel the roughness scraping his skin as Achilles takes him on them. His skin is almost raw by the time they lie down together, sated.

The sun in Troy is glaring and brutal and it beats down on their heads with a terrible intensity. Patroclus closes his eyes but he can see Achilles’s glow through his lids, fiercer and more powerful than even the sky. The heat burns through his body, set alight by Achilles’s passionate quest for fame.

The fighting in Troy is as futile and pointless as it was when they landed, the walls as high and as impenetrable as ever. A thousand ships brought the Achaeans here; they will need fewer to take them home. Patroclus will be among those dead and burnt on the shores, for Achilles will die out here and no god could be cruel enough to allow Patroclus to survive him long. Sometimes in the silence of night, Achilles’s glory dimmed, he grips his lover’s body and wishes that it were not so.