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He breathes the sun. Whispers of warmth fan across my skin, spread vespertine glow against my neck, and I trace his spine with fluttering hands. Dappled sunlight traces the edges of the far rose quartz wall, stakes a speckled claim across his skin. Outside, the world beckons, though I care not when the bronze of my skin is softened by his gold.
He shifts, the air ever so much sweeter as he presses closer. "Patroclus," he murmurs, his lips a tantalising caress against the skin that covers my pulse, my heart, and I settle my hands against his waist.
"Achilles."
He lifts his head, silken hair drapes itself in elegant tendrils — so true does the ichor in his veins run that I might witness a god framed in gold — and he peers at me through stardust lashes. Achilles smiles, plush petal lips parted just so, and this is what spring bloom is lauded to be. A hand — one of a sculptor; blessed with an easy grace that is as natural to him as it is enrapturing — curls itself against the contour of my cheek, lifts my gaze from his lips to his eyes.
"Good morning," he greets quietly, to me alone.
"Truly, it is." For his eyes are glistened with every nuance of green that should tread this mortal plane and that of Elysium when he leans to rest his weight on an elbow, and light catches. Even through a languid haze of sleep, they are clear. Intense, like the ocean, but soft, like the water of the stream as it flows kindly over our skin.
Warmth from his fingers glide to the shell of my ear, the purpled mark nestled behind it, the nape of my neck, before they rest in the midst of my hair. His smile widens, and I do not resist the urge to reflect it. "Why do you look at me so?"
My cheeks warm, whether they be from his words or the soft crinkles around his eyes I do not seek to question it, and I rest a palm against his chest. "Does it displease you?"
Achilles shakes his head, pulls his hand from my hair, and twines our fingers together. His thumb delicately, deliberately strokes over mine, and he pulls them to his lips. Once, twice, thrice, he grazes light kisses against the knuckles. The warmth spreads from my face, rushes forth like a flood as it swells within me. I huff out a breath, and he nuzzles his nose against my palm.
"If it should cause you to smile like that, I have no qualm."
"Achilles." I do not know what else to say when his eyes regard me with such reverence that I might let myself believe that I too am born of divinity, the smallest hope that I may be worthy of his love. Both of his hands surround mine as if in prayer, callused skin doing little to belie the tenderness with which he holds me. Absently, he traces my pulse where it thrums vibrantly beneath the surface; were I not one who loved him more than my heart could count by its beat, the sound would resound as all in my mind. As it is, it is his voice — low, with a smoothness found only in the finest silks, and a rich timbre that rumbles comfortingly where our chests pressed together — that draws me.
"Simply curious." He replies quietly in the little space that separates us; the brink where our breaths become one blurs as I lean closer to him. He says this as if he were not the heir of a great king, the son of the goddess of the sea, a prophesied warrior. As if gold did not adorn the lashes that surrounded the great wonders of his eyes, as if weapons could not only be as beautiful and swift and graceful as in his sure grasp.
However it may be that he does not recognise that I am in perpetual awe of even his breath against my cheek, that he considers me worthy of his intimacy and affection, I do not credit the gods. This is Achilles' own regard; his own humility.
"You," I raise myself up, meet my lips against his, feel the caress of his bottom lip against my own, and relish in the sweetness of his taste, "are the sole bearer of my soul, my heart, and still I would give you more if you should ask me so."
He does not say anything as the passage of time stretches beyond us, leaves us untouched and undisturbed as we eternalise this moment together. An enigmatic look passes over him before it is gone, replaced by a coy smile that is faint yet no less radiant than Apollo and all the light that he so may wish to combine.
Unhesitatingly, Achilles places a hand to my chin, draws me in once more. His lips, unerringly supple even upon awakening, are firm as he presses closer, unabashed in his affection. His tongue glides slowly to tease at the seal of my lips, a sensuous feeling that prickles the hairs at my nape at the quiet sound he makes. Slow, chaste, and still all the more breathtaking, he pulls away. My lips tingle, pliantly drawn into a smile when he does not stray too far, forehead rested against mine.
"As mine are yours, philtatos." He strokes gently at my flanks, and I close my eyes.
Once, when he'd been asleep, I'd thought about how powerful his hands were. Not in the sense that they could wield weapons as if they were extensions of themselves, or that he could playfully pluck at the strings of my mother's lyre and produce a sweeter song than the birds that Chiron taught us of could ever desire to mimic.
Powerful, in the sense that he could bring ground to my wandering thoughts with his hand in mine. Powerful, in that he could settle my heart with a single touch to my collarbone. Powerful, in that he could silence my doubts with a broad stroke of his fingers across my cheek. Powerful, in that he could make me feel one with him when he cradles me into his arms with a hold that bridges the line between passionate and tender. So powerful are his hands that he can so effortlessly draw me forth, reach to me across the vast distance between mortal and god.
"Patroclus," he breathes, lips close enough to catch against mine as they move, and once again with his powerful, powerful hands, he brings me from my thoughts to greet the fondness of his eyes. "Where are you?"
I lift my hands from where they lay by my side, lacing our fingers together as they rest upon my hip.
"Here," I say, "I am here."
Here, with him. Here, where even the gods would not be able to deprive us of each other. Here, together. Here, as one.
And this, love, this is what it means to be one. Perhaps not in body; like our legs, twined together, pressed skin against skin in heat so that we might melt — meld — our spirits, our souls together. No. But to share breath, to share mind, to share heart. This is love; this is to be one. This and this and this.