do you ever just. think about how both achilles and patroclus expected to die before the other? achilles planned to die during the trojan war, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to see his son ever again. so he entrusted patroclus with doing everything for neoptolemus he wouldn’t have lived to do. he wished for patroclus to show neo the beautiful parts of achilles’ own home kingdom, and maybe even thought that patroclus would be a better father for neoptolemus.
patroclus ended up dying before achilles, who never even thought an early death for his beloved as an option. patroclus died because, for some reason, he defied achilles’ orders and scaled the walls of troy. this was reckless, yet one can’t help but wonder why the man often known as the only voice of reason achilles would genuinely hear would make such a decision. why else would he have directly disobeyed a reasonable order so willingly, unless he planned to die beforehand. what if he couldn’t bear to live without achilles so much that he found this opportunity to die, and seized it as soon as he could. he knew achilles would be devastated, but he also knew that achilles wouldn’t let himself live without his lover for too long either. hell, achilles tried to kill himself upon seeing patroclus’ corpse. no matter what, they’d be reunited in eternal paradise. patroclus just made the process easier on himself.
i think about this a lot