#patchillaus

[johaerys-writes]

Teamwork

Achilles/Patroclus/Menelaus | PWP | Fluff | Humor | 9k

Ten years after college, Patroclus and Achilles run into Menelaus, freshly dumped by Helen. They have some interesting suggestions for helping him get over his heartbreak.

Welcome to another case of mine and @baejax-the-great's slightly unhinged DM conversations somehow making it into fic form. This is a sequel to Baejax's Sweet Victory. Please enjoy <3

Read on AO3!

The Menelaus thing had always bothered Achilles, even if he pretended like he was completely over it. Ten years later, five of those years with zero contact with Menelaus whatsoever, yet still whenever his name gets mentioned, which isn’t all that often, Achilles will become keenly interested in the conversation, like a dog who just heard the word “treat.” 

He wants to know all the details. He wants to pretend like he doesn’t, but if no one asks the questions he has, he’ll carefully prevent the conversation from steering to something vaguely more relevant to their lives, asking the questions himself as if they’d just popped into his head and like he didn’t have fifteen follow-up questions on the tip of his tongue.

Patroclus doesn’t care—not about Achilles’ minor obsession with Menelaus, nor about Menelaus himself. He’d barely been friends with the man when he blew that up by drunkenly making out with him at a party and then very soberly making out with Achilles in front of him in a locked stairwell three days later. Whatever friendliness existed between them could not survive that, which was fine. Patroclus doesn’t have to be liked by everyone, probably.

The whole event should have been forgotten after a year, maybe two. Definitely after Menelaus graduated. Definitely after Achilles and Patroclus graduated and moved away and met new people. The resentment, the insecurity, the jealousy, all of that was reasonable for a year or two. But Achilles held on to… something. Not quite jealousy, not not-jealousy, but something. Menelaus was the only person Patroclus had ever kissed other than Achilles, until recent years anyway, and Achilles just couldn’t seem to forget that. All it took was a glance at someone with ginger hair, and Achilles was poking at the whole thing again with poorly feigned nonchalance.

The weird thing, the thing that Patroclus never mentioned to Achilles, is that despite the non-friendship between the three of them, it was possible Menelaus had kept an interest in them, too. He came back to campus a few times after graduation to watch some soccer games, and he continued avoiding the hell out of them which was fair enough, but then Automedon told him once that when Patroclus didn’t show up for a game because he was sick, Menelaus had asked around if the two of them had finally broken up.

“Finally.” That was a very specific way to phrase it.

But that was years ago. Sure, Ajax mentioned that Menelaus had asked about them the last time he saw him, but that’s just old college friends catching up. Probably. Ajax didn’t say the exact words Menelaus used to ask about them, but asking about old friends is normal. It’s been ten years. There just really wasn’t any reason for hard feelings over a couple of very ill-advised make-out sessions from a decade ago.

So, with that history, and with Achilles’ weirdness about Menelaus in mind, when Patroclus spots Menelaus scrolling on his phone and drinking alone at his own table at the bar closest to their house, a place he’s never seen him before and where Achilles has not yet arrived, Patroclus is intent on ignoring him and ambushing Achilles at the door and taking him elsewhere before he gets too weird about it. He thinks Menelaus would prefer that outcome.

He winds up being wrong about that.

On noticing Patroclus, Menelaus stands up with a smile on his face. His face is already a little flushed from the drink he’s having and the heat of the bar, and it’s framed by his wild ginger mane, just as Patroclus remembers it. His eyes are warm and bright like they always used to be, but that is where the similarities with his younger self end. The years they’ve spent apart have definitely been kind to Menelaus. He seems taller, his shoulders stronger and broader, the fabric of the shirt he’s wearing straining slightly against the muscles of his chest and his arms as he waves Patroclus over. His beard is thicker as well, and expertly groomed, and it’s simply unfair how good it looks on him. 

“Pat!” he calls out, gestures as big and friendly as ever, almost knocking over a waitress in his enthusiasm. “Come, join me.” 

Patroclus is just not the kind of person who knows how to get out of invitations like this. He knows that there are people who know how to say “No thank you, I’m busy, et cetera et cetera,” but he comes up blank. He hates to disappoint people.

He joins Menelaus at his table.

“I was waiting for my brother,” Menelaus says, “But he canceled last minute. Have a drink with me so I didn’t waste the trip.” Menelaus waves over a waitress as he talks. He’s drinking sangria, which, annoyingly, Patroclus really likes, and he orders a pitcher of it for them.

“Achilles is meant to be joining me,” Patroclus says, both a warning and an apology.

“The more the merrier,” Menelaus replies with a smile that seems a bit fragile. Maybe he needs the company, even if it’s two people he hated in college.

“It’s been a long time,” Patroclus says. “I thought you were off in LA living the fancy life? What brings you here?”

Everyone heard about their former teammate marrying one of the most famous models in the world. It sparked envy, hope for invitations to a higher class of party, and in Achilles, a small burst of insanity as he obsessed over whether Helen was prettier than he was—a nonsense question—and then whether Patroclus was prettier than Helen, another nonsense question but one with an obvious answer of no, and then whether Menelaus was prettier than Achilles in that he had somehow seduced both Patroclus and the most beautiful woman in the world, and Patroclus really stopped listening at that point.

“I’m sure you could seduce Helen if you wanted,” he’d said sort of absently. “Menelaus, too, probably.”

In hindsight, he probably should have paid more attention to that conversation.

“Change of scenery,” Menelaus replies, his smile weakening by the moment. The pitcher arrives, and Menelaus pours a glass for Patroclus before topping up his own. “Cheers,” he says, holding up his glass.

Patroclus hates what he does next, because he does not care, he does not want to care, he does not want to know, but he glances at Menelaus’s hand and sees that there is no wedding ring adorning it.

Doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people sitting alone in a bar in a city they don’t live in exuding an obviously fragile sense of cheer don’t wear wedding rings for one reason or another. Helen’s probably off working and Menelaus got bored and surprised his brother and now is here, making boring small talk with Patroclus about his job. Probably.

He does manage to kill the impulse to check his phone for the time. Achilles is late, but that could be a good thing. Patroclus can probably still get out of this. He can finish his one drink, thank Menelaus for it, and tell Achilles about this at home, where he can be weird and intense about it in private.

Except that Menelaus finishes his drink first, having peppered Patroclus with supremely boring questions regarding his residency, and the moment the glass is empty, his face falls entirely, his mask of forced jolliness cracking down the middle. His new expression of being near the brink of tears fits Menelaus’s face so comfortably that Patroclus wonders how he faked a smile in the first place.

“She left me,” he says, and Patroclus couldn’t possibly leave him alone in this condition, so he pours him another drink and nods his head sympathetically. “Ran off with some foreign guy. Didn’t tell me why. I can’t even serve her with divorce papers because I don’t know where she’s gone.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Patroclus replies. “Truly.”

And he is. Despite their history, Menelaus had always been very nice to Patroclus, comforting him during his brief breakup with Achilles. This is why, when Achilles walks in very late for their meet up, his sleek black coat dusted with snow and golden hair gorgeously disheveled and windswept, Patroclus has a hand rubbing Menelaus’s back as he pours his broken heart out, their pitcher of sangria mostly empty. 

A sense of dread, a little dampened and delayed by the wine and triple sec, comes over Patroclus as Achilles walks over to them, but Achilles smiles like he is thrilled to find Patroclus half-drunk with the man Achilles has imagined some rivalry with. He sits himself down on the other side of Menelaus, taking off his coat with a graceful, fluid motion and tossing it carelessly over the back of a chair. 

“What an incredible surprise,” Achilles says.

“Oh,” Menelaus sniffs, only now noticing him. “The two of you had plans. I should let you go.”

“Don’t be silly,” Achilles replies, waving the empty pitcher at the waitress. “I would love to have a drink with an old friend. How many have you had? I’ll catch up.”

Read the rest on Ao3!

[baejax-the-great]

My complete inability to concentrate combined with my utter childishness means I'm now working on the Patchillaus fic

[johaerys-writes]

Hello, I hope you're having a nice evening! Are u up for a wip Wednesday tmr? If u r, do you mind sharing us some tidbits? Thank you!!

Hello! And sorry for taking so long to respond to this!! I've been working on a fun little one shot with @baejax-the-great where Menelaus is heartbroken after his break up with Helen, and Patroclus and Achilles are just trying to cheer up an old friend (their intentions are very noble and very chaste fr fr):

Patroclus and Achilles' flat isn't how Menelaus had pictured it. He didn't expect it to be so cosy and inviting, with plush rugs, and cushions and fluffy throws over the couch and the armchairs, or the soft, warm light that the space is bathed in from the many vintage-looking lamps that seem to be in every corner of the house. More than anything, he didn't expect the large framed picture over the mantelpiece: a black and white photograph of Achilles in the nude, looking over his shoulder, his back and ass on display. 

His gorgeous, muscular back and his plump and sculpted ass. His hair drifts in the wind, a playful wave falling attractively over his eyes. 

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Achilles himself asks, appearing beside Menelaus with a drink in hand. "The photoshoot was Patroclus' gift to me for our fifth anniversary."

"You should see the picture we have framed in the bedroom," Patroclus laughs, taking off his shoes. 

Achilles laughs as well; low and sultry, the sound trickling down Menelaus' spine like warm honey. "Yes," he says. "You should." He doesn’t take his eyes off him as he sips on his drink. 

Menelaus huffs an awkward laugh, joining them. His skin feels like it's on fire, and he knows it must show on his face. His cheeks are naturally ruddy; he must look like a pomegranate by now. Achilles has always been handsome, devastatingly so, and more than a little cocky about it, but Menelaus thinks this is what had appealed to him from the very beginning; what he’d refused to acknowledge all the while he's known him. Patroclus, on the other hand, is softer, sweeter, so much more human and approachable— and the fact that his eyes are the deepest, warmest honey brown Menelaus has possibly ever seen has never helped matters. His skin prickles when Patroclus comes to stand at the other side of him, hand on the small of his back. 

It all seemed so much easier in the bar. Back there, Menelaus could pretend it was all in fun; perhaps just a casual romp between old friends. It's so much more real and solid here, now that he's in their home and standing between them, wanting both of them but not knowing how to reach. He has no idea how this sort of thing is done, and his inexperience after being with the same woman for years is only one part of it. 

Achilles tosses his drink back and takes Menelaus' hand. "Why don't I show you the bedroom?"

Turns out, Menelaus doesn't have to do much thinking. 

[baejax-the-great]

“Was this the ship that broke a thousand faces” 🤣 that is a hell of a prompt for patchillaus.

Honestly just a regular Tuesday for Achilles regardless