Achilles hands, once youthful and soft when he was a boy, now were calloused with time holding a spear and shield, coated with the blood of the son of Priam.

You were laid within a bed, covered with furs and blankets within their joint tent. Your blood did no long run through your veins, your skin slowly falling away for where it should become jointed to the earth.

“Patroclus,” Achilles spoke, his voice raw from shouting and pain as he presented you that of your murderer. Same as you. Dead. “Look at what I’ve brought—The Prince of Ilium is killed, slain, this war is near its end!”

You stood within the tent, but no longer yourself, merely a shade to watch and never interact nor change. Watching your lover’s descent.

Achilles’s green eyes shed with tears, crumbling to his knees as his hands found your own, blood no longer ran through their veins but he pressed his lips to your decaying knuckles as he had countless times before.

“Patroclus..” Was all that could seem to leave the son of Thetis’s throat. He had still denied you a pyre, he could not move on, could not bear to see you two part.

Your hands, though see through and unable to hold your lover anymore embraced him from behind. To him it was merely a breeze, the gods were cruel, were they not?

“Why.. it could have been that damned Agamemnon, or Paris, any of them—Why you? Why of all the good men.” Achilles whimpered, gripping your limp fingers tighter as he wallowed within his own agony.

What he would not give to die, to see you, to kiss you and bury himself into your neck. You were there, you could see him, but he could not see you.

“Achilles.” You whispered.

The son of Peleus jerked up, his back straightening as he glanced around with a panicked gaze as he searched for who spoke his name.