Chapter Text
The city was burning, and for years Paris had waited for it to happen.
Perhaps it was a morbid thing to wish for; he knew many would lose their lives fighting for the city, despite the reclaiming of it being righteous — and he supposed that’s why he was wishing for it. Because the current King was not who should be on the throne, and those who deserved it, who’d been driven out before they could even claim to be men, had been Paris’ oldest friends.
Well, friend. Agamemnon had never been fond of him.
Still, Paris was feeling enthralled by this change, and after the invading soldiers had passed by his father’s paddocks and fields without penetrating the fences, he found himself heading into the city itself. He knew it was foolish. He was no soldier, and could not even wield a sword very well; he was, however, not modest about his skill with the bow. But bows were not made for close combat, and there he was, headed straight through the fortified Lion Gate, now flung open for all to enter.
He was lucky the streets in the lower city, past the royal graves and cult centre, were mostly empty save the civilians left behind. They ran as Paris stepped through, as though this one unassuming shepherd wielding a bow was as frightening as the trained soldiers that’d marched through before him. Paris ignored how that twisted something uneasy in his stomach and continued on.
How long had it been since he’d been into the city? Weeks ago, surely, with the last Noumenia, when he drove his best white ram into the city. Maybe it was just the vague awareness that the Atreides were within these walls that was driving him forward, but he decided not to linger on that thought.
The palace itself was in good enough shape — Paris assumed they wished to retake it without destroying the whole structure — and was finally able to breathe easy when he saw other soldiers in the garb of another city cleaning their blades and relaxing. There were no more of Thyestes’ men here. So Paris sheathed the arrow that’d been notched in his bow the entire walk there into the quiver at his waist and slung his bow across his back.
There were voices, distantly. Voices he recognized, and Paris’ heart pattered quicker and quicker, drumming against his ribs like a bird in a cage. Like rabbit’s feet atop the earth. Like cattle running over rock.
“—will never feel like ours, brother, it is…”
“—How it is supposed to be, Menelaos! Get your head out of your ass and—”
“Get my head out of my ass? I’ll—!”
Before he could catch himself Paris tripped into the wall just past the propylon, into the forecourt, where those two familiar figures stood. Stood arguing, actually, and Paris had just interrupted rather loudly, quiver hitting the wall and rattling the dozen wooden arrows together. Neither of them were particularly tall, once he got a good look at them — fuck, they were turning to stare — but both were bearded, and muscular as young men ought to be. The one that was only slightly younger, with sweat-drenched, blood splattered skin, pale and freckled, auburn hair that reflected like firelight in the sun…
“No.” The man took a step forward, brother forgotten completely, argument fizzled to nothing. His beard was short, hardly grown in at all, but still he had one. “It cannot be. You’re— it’s— Paris?”
Paris had not realized how tightly his muscles had been clenching, how all the air in his lungs had just stopped moving altogether, until his name was spoken back at him. He let out an exhale that sounded almost like a sob, muscles unclenching, feeling almost as though his knees would buckle.
“Your highness,” he managed to croak out, watery smile straining against his lips. “I am— glad you have returned.”
Menelaos — this man was Menelaos, how could he be here — wasted no more time in running forward to nearly tackle Paris to the ground. The only reason they hadn’t gone tumbling down was because of the lurch Menelaos made back to pull Paris into an embrace, feeling so much more warm and encompassing than it ever had. His arms were large, muscular but soft as they relaxed, shoulders broadened, his beard scratching against Paris’ neck.
“I can hardly believe it,” Menelaos murmured into his hair, squeezing him again so Paris had to wonder if he’d snap his spine in two. “Gods, I had not let myself hope you’d be here, still. I’d have thought Linos would have fled, that you’d have…”
That you’d have been long gone, was left unsaid. Paris tightened his own grip around him.
“You really think the old bastard isn’t stubborn enough to stay?” Paris said, feeling laughter bubbling in his chest. “I asked exactly once and he said ‘I lived through the last King, I’ll live through this one.’”
Menelaos laughed into his hair again before parting, holding his shoulders as he studied Paris’ face. There was nothing so exciting there that warranted this expression, Paris knew; Menelaos had gone from a scared boy fleeing for his life to a kingly man, and Paris had gone from a shepherd boy to a slightly taller shepherding man.
“Enough,” Agamemnon groaned behind them, thick arms crossed over his even broader chest. “Idiots, both of you. Before you both start reminiscing, there are things to do, Menelaos. Let the herdsman go.”
Menelaos frowned before he even turned, one hand releasing Paris to face his brother. “The herdsman. Do you even hear yourself?”
“What I hear,” Agamemnon said, no pause, “is the sound of this shepherd boy leaving for his hovel.”
Paris could not, still, wipe the smile from his face. “I am glad to see you again, too, Agamemnon.”
Agamemnon’s expression did not change, eyes not even shifting to Paris as he said, “We shall see you at another time, Paris.”
He couldn’t even be upset at the dismissal. Not even as Menelaos lingered, as his hand was forced to release his shoulder, as he turned and walked back to his brother in the centre of the forecourt. Paris could not be upset at the older Atreides’ attitude towards him, because that is how it had always been. He could not be sad at how clearly emotional Menelaos had gotten to see him, because that is how it had always been.
Paris had never left Mycenae. Somehow, though, he felt as though he had just arrived home.
Linos was an old man. Paris meant that in no disrespect, only in truth, and as he walked back to the fields — to ‘his hovel’ as Agamemnon had said — he could not help but think about his father’s current state versus how he’d once been. Bedridden, he was, now at such an advanced age; not able to walk on his own, nor cook or feed or wash himself well enough, nor could he even recall what the day of the week it was most of the time.
Well, Paris had been a caretaker of animals his whole life. How different could it be for people?
Linos had used to be able to do his chores around the fields, had used to be able to walk about to drive the flocks, albeit with his crook used like a cane. Still, he’d already been old when he found Paris abandoned on the mountainside, nursed by a she-bear traveling from the coast with her cubs, carrying the bundled newborn in her mouth like a mother cat carried kittens. Paris had never asked what’d happened to that she-bear, but his father had taken him and carried him back through the fields in the pack on his back.
Hence his name. Paris had always been rather embarrassed by that.
He’d lost his wife by then, and his children had long since moved out to their own family’s homes, so he mostly nursed the babe with goats milk and soggy pieces of bread to eat. Sometimes, Linos told him once, the baby Paris would crawl out to the stalls to nurse with the lambs and kids — which he always followed up with joking about Paris being part-animal, grown only on the milk of goats and sheep and a bear.
Linos being old when he’d found Paris only ever meant that he was an extraordinarily independent child. By three he was crawling around after Linos into the fields; by four he could name every shepherd and guardian dog they had, and was walking with a much smaller crook of his own, just like father; by five, he was running small errands for his father, who’d even then been getting too old to continuously walk up the great hill into the city.
Paris remembered his first errand. Of course he did. He’d been five, sent into the city for the second day of the Thargelia, to bring a lamb as offering. Linos had gotten sick, and could not move other than from his bed to the table. Paris was, fortunately, not the youngest boy in the city’s procession, but he had been the only one without a parent or grandparent beside him. He’d clung to the lamb the entire way, who’d been bleating every other step, and when he’d made it to the altar where all the other little boys had set their offerings a priest took him aside, anointed him with oil, and took the lamb from him. Paris didn’t think he’d actually known what was done with the live offerings, so when the priest crooked the lamb’s head back while shouting the prayers and cut its throat, Paris had begun to scream and wail. An older boy pulled him out before he could disrupt the entire ceremony, an older boy from up on the raised platform in the temple beside the King, and Paris did not realize it was a prince until they were outside and the boy had given him some of his candied nuts to get him to calm.
“It is alright,” the boy had said, after Paris stopped crying and was only sniffling with a wobbly lip. “The lamb is wanted by Apollo as his offering, and it is going to feed him and clothe him in the softest wool.”
Paris didn’t know where the boy had heard that, but he was at the age where he believed anything someone older told him so he simply nodded and ate another nut. The boy took his hand and squeezed it, if only to get his attention, to meet his gaze.
“Oh!” Paris cried, when he looked up and saw the color of the boys hair, so unusual, and widened his eyes when the boy began to laugh.
“I get that a lot,” he admitted, hand raising to ruffle his own hair, tied back delicately behind bright green laurel-leaves, so complementary it mesmerized Paris for a moment. “I am Menelaos. What’s your name?”
Paris sniffed once, entirely having forgotten what he was crying about. “Paris. Are you— are you one of the princes?”
Menelaos nodded and chewed his lip. “Though you probably know my brother better. He’s louder and older and smarter and usually better than me at everything.”
Paris shrugged. “I’ve never seen him. Does he look like you?”
That was a funny way to phrase it, but still Menelaos knew what he meant. “His hair isn’t auburn, if that’s what you mean. It’s dark brown. But he’s my brother, so he looks like me.”
Paris wondered if he had seen the older prince but decided he didn’t remember. “Oh.”
Menelaos glanced behind them back into the temple, just as the noise within grew louder and the people within chanted. Paris shifted uneasily on his feet, so Menelaos squeezed his hand again and met his gaze.
“Do you think you can go inside again?” he asked, face bright. “I’ll stay with you, if you want.”
That was more than enough for Paris. He nodded, and Menelaos dragged him back inside. If he noticed Paris’ lip wobble and head turn away when the priest spread the entrails of the lamb over the altar, he didn’t say, and Paris couldn’t be more glad for that.
“Where’s your father?” Menelaos had asked, eventually, when some of the people began filing out of the temple. “It looked like you came here alone.”
Paris nodded. “He’s sick.”
A pause. One that made Paris glance over, and found Menelaos deep in thought, looking over Paris with deep brown eyes, the color of rich soil.
“I’ve not seen you before,” Menelaos added. “Do you live outside the walls?”
Paris nodded again. “Father is the head herdsman.”
Menelaos had to think about it. He must have known so much more than he wished to let on, but he said nothing, not even a question to deduce what he was likely thinking. Paris was mostly just tired. The walk up that hill with the lamb, then all the crying… he wanted nothing more than to lay down and nap. Next to father, if he let him. He probably wouldn’t let him.
“Would you…” Menelaos was saying, clearly struggling to get the words out, so Paris turned his wide bronze eyes up to him. “Next time you’re in the city, that is, would you— I’d like to see you again.”
Paris could not stop the broad smile that stretched across his face. “I will come to see you each and every time.”
The farmhouse was exceedingly quiet when he arrived back from reclaimed Mycenae. Those who’d fled the slaughter, who Paris had risked his life to protect, had waited for the fall of the loyalists to reenter their homes. By the time Paris returned, it had gotten dark and the only man still in the home was Linos.
Asleep, fortunately. Paris creaked the door open, already setting his bow and quiver down against the wall. The old man did not move in bed, but his head alone rolled over to creak open light eyes.
“Hello, pater,” Paris greeted, approaching the bed.
“Mm,” Linos hummed. “Eirenaios?”
Paris tried not to sigh outwardly and just sat on the side of Linos’ bed. “Not Eirenaios, pater. He lives with his wife and child now, remember?”
Linos eyes narrowed.
“I’m Paris, pater.” He had to keep that light smile on his face, had to keep smiling when Linos clearly had trouble recognizing him. “How are you feeling?”
His father stared a moment more before raising a knobby hand. Paris took it in his own. Linos curled his fingers between his, worn and thin and trembling ever so slightly. Paris remembered when he could hardly fit his hand into his father’s palm, when those old hands were strong and rough.
Gods. Why was he so fucking sentimental right now?
“I know your hands.” Lino’s’ eyes narrowed again, then rolled up to meet his son’s. “You’re Paris.”
Despite the handle he could usually have on his emotions, Paris felt tears prick his eyes. He didn’t know if Linos would be recognizing him today, and figured he’d come home to his father asleep, he’d wake, then shout that he’s hungry and eat in angry, confused silence before going back to sleep. So this was a very, very welcome surprise.
“That’s right,” Paris choked out. “I’m Paris.”
Linos stared blankly for a moment more before something shifted in his eyes and he sat back with a misty gaze. “I’m hungry. Are you here to make supper?”
And the moment was gone. Paris let his hand slip out of his father’s and stood, stretching his arms idly and turning to the hearth to avoid overthinking more.
“Stew will be ready very soon,” Paris said, and moved to the hearth to rekindle the fire that’d only now started to die down. Stew leftover from earlier that day, from lunch when he’d last stopped to feed the two of them, had been left in the cooking pot, and he set it back over the fire.
Perhaps it was his father’s deteriorating mind, perhaps it was his own sentimentality, perhaps it was the fact that the man he’d loved for his entire life had finally returned for good, but Paris sat down at supper that night feeling overwhelmingly, cripplingly alone.