The kitchen has not known peace since the three of you stepped into it.

Smoke curls from the oven like a prophet bearing bad news. A half-shattered eggshell gleams on the floor like a relic from a better time. There's butter in Achilles' hair and a splotch of jam on the ceiling that no one dares to acknowledge. The recipe—an innocent little card scribbled in Patroclus’ elegant, methodical hand—has long since been abandoned, dusted over by flour and ambition.

You’re crouched near the counter, fingers slick with egg yolk, laughing too hard to care that your sleeve is now permanently stuck to a pool of honey. A smear of honey rides your wrist. There’s cinnamon on your collarbone. Achilles is barefoot and wild-eyed, shirt streaked with cocoa like he had fought it and experienced his one loss—Patroclus is elbow-deep in what was once meant to be dough and is now ambiguous.

“By the gods,” he muttered, casting a look of despair into the bowl. “This has no form. No function. No soul.”

Patroclus turned to Achilles, radiant even now.

“You were meant to fold it in,” he said, exasperated, but fond. “Not attack it like a beast.”

“It has spirit,” Achilles countered, reaching over your shoulder to flick water at him. “Which is more than I can say for those sad little biscuits you tried to pass off as dessert last week.”

“They were shortbread,” Patroclus snaps, straightening to his full height, the wooden spoon in his hand now wielded like a scepter. “And they were precise.”

Achilles leans in, eyes gleaming, teeth flashing in that way that means trouble’s coming. “They tasted like dust and regret.”

Before you could stop him, Patroclus lunges across the counter. The other ducked with a bark of laughter, spins, and slips—heel catching on the spilled flour, hand flailing.

“And now it is war!" Triumphant, Achilles declared, grabbed fistful of flour and hurled it.

You ducked instinctively. Patroclus does not. A fine white veil settled in his curls, over the slope of his nose, the curve of his jaw. He blinked once, slowly, then turned to you with the dry dignity of a man betrayed.

A frown.

“You’ll avenge me, won’t you?” he asks solemnly.