Chapter Text
First days are hardly grounds to judge new experiences by. First days are more often than not terrible. First days imply new people and new surroundings, new things to think of and routines to learn. First days, Patroclus finds, come and they go. And second days are usually a better determiner.
If Patroclus is honest, the first day at his new high school is not exactly a first day. It is only a first day for him. That already makes it several times harder than it would have been had he started with everyone else. Already, people know where their classes are, they know the people to sit with, they know the places to avoid. And Patroclus doesn’t. He filters through the masses against the current and seeks for his locker.
His locker, at least, is clean and seemingly undamaged, yet the space around is overcrowded by a mass of students whose numbers exceed the lockers in this section. Patroclus shoulders through, apologies abounding and voice almost too soft to hear, and reaches finally to open it. The swarm of students watch him but nothing more - obviously it’s not a welcoming party - and Patroclus is all too happy to dump his things and get right back out of the eye of the storm.
Patroclus’ reputation precedes him, like the whisper of water against the shore that preludes the wave. Gazes turn away though he doesn’t catch them watching, fragments of words that can be pieced together well enough to know their shape. For so many students, he is alone, singularly alone.
And if he’s honest, he’s also lost.
“Excuse me -”
The cool-eyed girl to whom he offered his schedule passes by, lips parting in alarm.
“I’m trying to find -”
With a snort, a broad-shouldered boy with ginger hair continues on.
“I don’t know where -”
His schedule, now crumpled in his fist, is plucked away, and he spins to regard the curly-haired girl who grasps it now in contemplation. “You want the sciences wing,” she tells him.
Patroclus blinks, teeth against his top lip before he lets out a breath and nods.
“Thank you.”
“That part of the school is a nightmare to navigate. They started renovating it, then the school cut funding and built a sport stadium instead. Of course. So now it’s a labyrinth of old and new and ridiculous.” She hands the paper back and works her hand through her dark hair. Patroclus just blinks again, taking in the quick words and amused tone. Strangely, nothing at all malicious in it, perhaps a test of some kind he doesn’t know how to prepare for.
People are terrible to understand, Patroclus prefers books for a reason. They have patience to allow you to make sense of them on your own.
“Thanks,” he breathes.
She draws her bottom lip between her teeth and lets it slide slowly free again as her brows furrow. “You have no idea where it is, do you.”
“No,” he sighs, and her laugh sparks bright enough to startle him.
“Come on,” she says. “My next one’s that way, too.”
Patroclus keeps pace beside her as she lifts her chin and strides into the crowd. Hands set to the strap of her overstuffed messenger bag, she takes him in with a glance and doesn’t seem to find him wanting, or at least not needful of the same suspicions already catching like brushfire among the kindling of bored students. “What’s your name?”
“Patroclus,” he answers.
“Briseis,” she responds, before leaning close to him and dropping her voice. “Mind the jocks. Sick joke putting the sciences next to the changing rooms.”
They circle around the same band of boys as before, who pay them no notice, and she pivots into a much quieter hallway with a grin, white teeth broad and bright against dark skin, a little gap between the two at front. Patroclus finds himself responding in kind.
“Third door on the right,” she tells him.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t say much do you?” Briseis laughs, and Patroclus finds his cheeks warming with the words. There it goes, the first possible acquaintance that he had not scared off by newness alone.
“I don’t often have much to say.”
“Wish more people thought that way,” she sighs, shrugging her bag higher up her shoulder and giving him a smile again. “Too many people have nothing to say and spend a long time making sure they’re loudly heard saying nothing.” She tilts her head towards the door and flips a curl out of her eyes. “Have a good class, Patroclus.”
He opens his mouth to say thank you - again - and changes his mind, just nodding instead.
Within, the class is rather empty, perhaps other are having similar troubles finding the room or perhaps due to this being already most of the way through the term, the class has culled out the students who stood no chance in it from the beginning. Patroclus makes his way to a stool by the window, far enough out of the way should anyone choose to see him at all, and in a corner, not taking up space that others could sit in.
He’s glad that he kept up with his studies during his suspension. Already the class is advanced beyond where he was before, but not so far ahead that the terms and theories are unfamiliar to him. Had he let himself slip, had he accepted it all as pointless as it felt, he’d be drowning in a deluge of organic chemistry. As it is, he leaves the class gasping for air, head scarcely above water.
It’s still early in the day as the bell rings, and he checks his schedule again.
Only due to the proximity of other students does Patroclus manage to keep his groan in check.
At least he’s close.
Skidding his sneakers, laces loose, against the floor he heads to the changing rooms. Around him voices echo raucous and bright off the tile floors and metal lockers, lit by the sun rising toward midday through small windows above. It’s immediately apparent who is there for the all-but-remedial phys ed and who’s there for more. Along the newest lockers, tall boys stand lean, long legs and narrow waists, in various stages of undress. Hairless chests become taut stomachs, become muscular thighs beneath royal blue satin running shorts.
Patroclus wishes he had tripped on his laces coming over. Despite how he can normally get by in the shadows of high school, gym is a place where no shadows exist. Gym is a place you get cast into a spotlight of teasing and cruelty by those who happened to be born slimmer, lither, faster than you.
Patroclus takes his clothes to change in the stall, closing and locking the door behind him. He doesn’t need more hell than he’ll already get in a few moments when they all get let loose into the gymnasium and the preening beauties that know their skill will find the weakest to pick on.
He misses suspension. At least there he didn’t have to keep up with sport.
By the time he leaves, there are very few people left in the locker room, and he finds a place to hang his bag before trudging out the door and into the gym.
“Outside!”
The teacher’s voice rings loud and a few groans lift to meet it. Patroclus is careful to keep his quiet, but he shares the sentiment. What they’ll be made to do - conditioning, football, jogging - hardly matters so much as they’re being made to do it outside of the sanctity of air conditioning, and in front of the long-legged boys who cross their way, laughing, towards the track. Its ochre path reflects heat like water, silvery.
Maybe he can fake sick. Blame the sun, blame the heat. Blame the stress of a first day back after too long away from the rigors of the academic environment. The list grows longer as they’re instructed to take up javelins and shot puts and carry them towards the field. They can’t use the track since the team is practicing, but they can damn well work on field events.
“Don’t have to be able to run quick to throw a shotput,” their teacher confides, patting Patroclus’ back with enough enthusiasm that he drops the heavy ball altogether.
He supposes it could be worse. They could be made to train with the team.
The boys lined up behind Patroclus to take their turn with the shotput seem to care about the sport as much as he does, thankfully, and no one is hounding him to hurry, to try harder. Patroclus tosses the thing as best he can, not even reaching the first marker line, and takes his place at the back of the line before the teacher can notice and move to help him practice his skill.
The sun beats down and will only get worse. At least, Patroclus assumes, the showers here work well enough to not have the school reeking of sweat for the rest of the day. He has a free period after this, he can check his schedule and attempt to find his classes again without bothering any poor passersby.
He directs his eyes to the track as a few of the boys rush past on it, the one in the lead - a beautiful boy with sepia skin and unusually golden hair - raises his arms as though he won a race and effortlessly falls into a cartwheel before turning to the other boys he raced with. Patroclus feels his heart beat a little faster. That is the kind of boy who rarely has vision good enough for the shadows, that is the kind of boy you do not want to be spotlighted by at all.
Patroclus could watch him running for as long as his energy lasted, but he would give anything to never come face to face with the god of the racetrack.
Even jogging backwards, he puts to pace the other boys on the team, but it isn’t with a maliciousness - to the contrary, his laugh shines as rich as his curls. Only when one of his teammates finds a second wind does he turn to keep alongside him again. He makes it look easy.
He makes it look effortless.
Slender calves stretch to the elegant tendons of his heels, feet scarcely touching the ground. He keeps pace alongside his friend, he laughs as if he’s at a saunter, until he’s off again until he reaches the start. Grasping his foot from over his shoulders, he stretches.
Patroclus’ cheeks burn, scalded by envy.
He turns back to the shot put, and fueled purely by frustration, he makes it nearly to the second marker. The teacher claps, Patroclus’ eyes widen.
He looks.
The bright-haired, brown-skinned boy meets his gaze with even curiosity, like a grazing deer uplifting its head towards a distant sound.
Patroclus shoves his hands down against the hem of his shorts and tugs those down as he makes his way to the back of the line again, head ducked and cheeks scarlet. He didn’t need to do that. He doesn’t need to do it again. Eventually, the period will be over. Eventually he will be safe in his shadows again.
Patroclus watches the beautiful runner take to the track again and exhales. He was but a blip on the radar of someone who runs in the sun. He’s glad it passed before he could get used to it.
He takes two more turns with the shot put before they’re forced to move to javelin, and he immediately brings a hand to his wrist to rub it, faking pain, hunching his shoulders and grimacing as though he aches all over. He knows the teacher sees right through it. He knows he makes a rather pathetic picture trying so hard to not do this, as he will have to regardless. The school is known for its athletics, his father had made sure of it.
Of course.
“Ten minutes!” The head coach’s voice seems to ring and carry with no effort at all, and the boys on the track wave to show they heard before continuing with their practice. High knees now, for one lap, then longer strides, then heels to thighs. Patroclus could think of no worse horror than track training.
He’s running backwards again, turned to face the other boys and chat. Their faces are scarlet with the exertion, whereas beneath his red-brown cheeks he merely rosies to a warm pink. It’s unfair. It’s savagely unfair. He’s hardly broken a sweat, the sheen instead a bronzy glow -
“Come in!” calls the coach, and the boy stops. The other runners groan with relief, bent doubled over, hands on their knees. But with a crooked grin, wide over white teeth, the boy trots nearer to the coach, within earshot of the other class. The lesser class. Patroclus squints as the team comes near.
“If we’ve got any hope of taking this meet -” the coach begins, but with a loud laugh, claps the boy’s shoulder. “Who the hell am I kidding? Of course we do. But we need accountability. We need to hold each other up to the expectations set by you being on this team.”
“Not just waiting around for me to do it,” teases the boy, to sputters and laughter.
He grins, and yet there is still no malice there, there is pride but not at the expense of others. It’s fascinating, and the more Patroclus thinks about it the more he realizes he cannot think about it, shouldn’t, anymore. He has no chance of making the meet, he doesn’t want to. He is here because his schedule put him here. If all goes well enough he will pass the class at a scrape and have his other grades hold him afloat.
He doesn’t need to think about the blonde before them all like a statue of a god.
It’s a little hard to do when amber eyes settle on him again, a lingering curiosity as tangible as fingers. Patroclus’ teacher - the assistant coach - asks them to pack up the gear, and he moves quickly to do so.
“So you’re going to pick a partner -”
Groans from the track team, as Patroclus seeks out the javelins dumped nearby to fit them back into their bag.
“- and this will be the person who pushes you, who you push, who keeps you accountable. Achilles,” the coach says, and Patroclus drops the javelins with a clatter.
He knows his name, and he’s never heard it before. Like a piano could never make the music of a violin, like a rose could never smell like lavender, never could that boy be called anything but -
“Achilles,” his coach says again, as the boy blinks towards him. “Choose first.”
A beat, a breath, and a grin.
“Him,” Achilles says. “I choose him.”
The javelins clatter to the ground again and the field rings with the silence after. Patroclus doesn’t want to turn around for fear of seeing who Achilles has chosen as his partner. He knows anyway, he knows and he needs the breath to say no, to excuse himself, hell, to even just be sick on the field so he immediately dispels the idea that he would be anything but a good partner in this.
He turns and shakes his head.
“I’m -”
“He’s not even on the team,” one of the boys near Achilles says, laughing and shoving Achilles when his friends shove against him.
“He doesn’t have to be,” Achilles shrugs. “We were asked to choose a partner, not a track buddy. I choose him.”
Patroclus just shakes his head again and brings a hand to his hair to tug it from his face, back over his eyes, behind his ear - anything to divert attention from himself. All it does is keep attention on him more acutely.
“Okay, yeah,” he finally manages. “Sure.”
The track coach narrows his eyes a little, looking between the two, especially at Achilles. Guileless eyes blink wide in response, as the coach asks, “What name should I put down, then?”
A challenge. Achilles squints again. He glances to Patroclus, a dreadful sort of amusement in his wide smile even as Patroclus’ belly flips inward on itself. Without knowing why, without having any rational explanation for it, but acting on instinct alone, Patroclus sets his hand to his belly and taps it twice.
“Pat,” Achilles declares, lifting his chin. “Put down Pat, Coach Chiron.”
Patroclus blinks, lips parting, closing, he swallows and shrugs, nods, just closes his eyes and agrees. Pat is fine. Pat won’t be on the list much longer when Achilles realizes Pat can’t do anything but drop javelins. His strength isn’t in sports, it never has been. Nor in being social with people of the class of…
Him.
“Pat, then,” the coach says, scribbling the name down and giving him a rueful look over the clipboard. “You have your work cut out for you. He’s stubborn as hell.”
Patroclus says nothing, eyeing Achilles as the beautiful boy stretches, pleased with himself and the murmuring commotion around him. Arms above his head, shirt riding up over his belly, Achilles preens, responding, “And?”
“Best shot we’ve got at beating Troy,” Coach Chiron admits, before waving a hand towards the beaming boy. “Go on, then. Get to class. I’ll see you out here after last period.”
“And Pat,” Achilles insists.
“And Pat.”
“I can’t.” The words are hardly heard by the coach who already moves to the next boy to give him leave to choose his partner. Patroclus swallows and looks at Achilles instead, shrugging and crossing his arms over his chest as the boy comes nearer and stands before him, thumbs hooked in the waistband of his running shorts.
“You can’t?”
“I have other activities.”
“There are no clubs on after school on Mondays,” Achilles points out, and Patroclus has a sudden urge to shove him.
“This isn’t at school.”
“What is it?”
“Not track,” Patroclus replies, feeling his cheeks flush bright before he swallows and lifts his eyes to meet the amber ones that look at him. “It’s -”
Achilles sucks his bottom lip, full and flush, and holds it between his teeth. His brows lift, but any answer Patroclus could hope to supply him with - which is to say, make up on the spot - withers before it blooms when Achilles studies him from so close. He lets his eyes drift over warm copper skin, the dark flecks of freckles scattered beneath his eyes. Attention seeking like fingers, he runs his gaze over Patroclus’ hair, as richly black as Achilles’ is spun gold.
“Doesn’t sound very important if you can’t remember it,” Achilles says.
Patroclus’ breath leaves him all at once. The bell rings for the end of period, and he lifts a hand, mute still, and lets it drop again. Bending to quickly gather the javelins, he doesn’t bother to stuff them in the bag, carrying them against his chest instead.
“Come on,” Achilles laughs, settling into easy stride beside him. “Don’t be angry with me. You’re not, are you? You shouldn’t be. We’ll have fun. You’re new, aren’t you? Where did you come from?”
So many questions, all at once. Patroclus finds himself laughing because, in truth, what else can he do? Achilles' confidence is contagious, and Patroclus can do little more than shrug the javelins closer to his chest and attempt a reply.
"Baffled."
"Baffled?"
"I'm not angry," Patroclus clarifies. "I'm baffled. Why you chose me when I'm obviously far from an athlete."
"Because you don’t want pushing and I don't need it," Achilles replies with a grin, turning to walk in step but backwards as they make their way back to the gym for Patroclus to drop off the javelins. "You won't be in the meet because you don't want to be. I'll win the meet regardless of who my companion is in getting there. And I'd rather take the time to get to know someone new."
"Than?"
"Do you always talk so much?" Achilles laughs, and Patroclus feels his cheeks heat again as his lips turn in a smile.
"Do you always ask so many questions?"
With the same keen awareness as before, Achilles’ gaze sharpens and his grin widens. “Does it bother you that I do?”
“Would you care if it did?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Are you this way with everyone?”
Achilles stops, as Patroclus piques a brow. Smooth, slender arms spread into the doorway as Achilles leans a little closer, animated as a reed in the wind, ceaseless in his movements.
“No.”
Patroclus feels his cheeks burn hot beneath the close attention, held breathless for an instant before he ducks beneath Achilles’ arm to set the javelins messily back in place. At least there’s that, an early victory before Achilles shows him up at every turn. A friend, perhaps - maybe - at least until rumor catches up to them both. He gathers his clothes as Achilles watches rapt, and as he makes his way to shower to wash and change, his embarrassment darkens.
He can’t change in front of him, he won’t. Especially not when Achilles peels off his sleeveless shirt without a thought, hairless chest shining sleek with a sheen of sweat.
He can’t look, he won’t. Especially when the other boys’ voices call to Achilles as they return from the track, approaching in a wave of youthful exuberance
Neither does he want to go. And neither does Achilles look away from him.
“Patroclus,” he says. “My name is Patroclus.”
“Not Pat,” Achilles answers, eyes very wide then, and very grave. “Patroclus. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
The word is sweet as spun sugar when he speaks it, but Patroclus shakes his head. "It's okay, it doesn't matter -"
"It's your name."
"Your guess was very good. Good enough. For the list, I mean."
"It was a good clue," Achilles counters, but he still looks strangely concerned, almost comically so, if Patroclus couldn't see just how genuine he was being. "I'll ask coach to change it."
"Don't worry, it's -" More voices, closer, and Patroclus clutches his clothes and bag. "It's fine, Achilles, honestly."
A blink, a softness in the other boy’s gaze, and Patroclus could melt in it, like butter in the sun. He is radiant, damn him.
"Say my name again," Achilles asks him, and Patroclus opens his mouth to deny him, perhaps to obey without knowing why, but other voices call his name loud enough already, three boys in the changing room now, besides them, and Patroclus just turns and locks himself in a shower stall before he blushes so dark he glows with it.
He lingers in quiet, stuffing his clothes out of the way and switching the shower on belatedly, to give some rationale as to why he’s hiding. He listens, and among the wave of voices that break against him in boyish calamity, he notes that Achilles is quiet. Patroclus grins, suddenly, biting into his lip, and he rests his head against the shower wall.
Eventually Achilles joins into the chaos, laughing and teasing, still strangely quiet but responsive. Patroclus washes himself down from the sweat brought to his skin more by the golden-haired, russet-skinned boy than by any sort of athletics. He washes away too his own sudden smile, letting it slip free.
Why would Achilles do such a thing? It seems like a prank, a cruel joke, but not at any moment in him did Patroclus see cruelty. He pushes back when the other boys do but not with any savagery. He doesn’t need it. Achilles knows his own worth, writ over every striation of lean muscle and skill, caught in the dimples that form when he smiles.
Then why this?
Why Patroclus?
He shuts the shower off and towels down, tugging on his y-fronts and gathering up his other things to clear away from the steam. He just won’t go. It’s that easy. There are plenty of exits from the sprawling school that don’t involve passing by the track, and it’s not as though he’s being held to this by anyone but -
“Achilles,” he gasps, nearly dropping his things when he sees the boy still sitting on the bench beside the lockers, washed and dressed and waiting. His curls drip dark spots onto his shirt, a plain white thing that hangs well-worn and loose across one shoulder. “Why are you still here?”
“I wanted to wait for you,” he reasons.
Patroclus blinks at him, entirely taken aback, clothes still somehow miraculously clutched to his body keeping him at least a little covered. His dignity all but gone in front of this boy, he just stands dumbfounded, before something shifts him to move and he drops his things to the nearest bench that isn’t Achilles’ and begins to dress.
“You didn’t have to -”
“I didn’t. I wanted to,” Achilles reminds him with a smile, hands curled against the bench. He rests his cheek against his shoulder and watches the boy next to him struggle to get his legs, shower-clumsy, into his pants. Patroclus doesn’t feel much better when his pants are buttoned and zipped. He feels undressed by Achilles’ eyes in a way that is much more flattering than it is repulsive.
It’s not at all repulsive.
It feels remarkably good to be looked at, for a change.
He knows he’s blushing as he continues to dress.
“You’ll be late for class.”
“So will you.”
“I have a fr-” Patroclus looks up and then looks away. Now regardless of anything else, Achilles will know that. Whatever time Patroclus had wanted to spend curled up alone in the library will be gone, to instead… he doesn’t even know. Run more, maybe. “I have an easy Monday,” he amends.
Achilles’ grin says enough, but it’s hardly helped when he adds, “I wish I did.”
He stands as Patroclus takes up his bag, hoisting his own and snaring his letter jacket beneath his arm. When he averts his eyes, Patroclus misses it, but the stolen glances back betray Achilles’ motive to only look away when he feels the younger boy’s discomfort. They move in tandem steps towards the door, matched strides made rhythmic but for the discordant drip of Achilles’ still-wet hair against the floor behind.
His body is leonine, long and powerful. Beside Patroclus, Achilles is an overwhelming presence, the echoes of his performance on the field still playing behind Patroclus’ eyes. There is a burst of laughter from outside the door, and Patroclus stops.
“You’re going to be late,” he says again.
“Probably.”
“You’ll get in trouble,” Patroclus insists, shaking his head. “You’ll get me in trouble. I don’t -” Another joke scatters boys’ voices into peals of amusement beyond the door. “If this is a prank, it isn’t funny. Nor is it challenging. Pulling one over on the new boy? You can do better.”
Achilles’ lips part, but before he can say anything else lovely or charming or unfairly perfect, Patroclus turns and goes.
---
It makes immediate sense, after a rather stressful free period spent not only finding the library but looking over his shoulder the entire time just in case someone had followed to laugh at him about what happened in gym, why Patroclus’ locker had been so crowded that morning.
Because it wasn’t his locker that was crowded.
Achilles closes his own carefully, book under one arm, and gives Patroclus an apologetic look when he tries to get to his own to pry it open.
It’s no longer a prank, Patroclus thinks, this is a cosmic joke. He isn’t lucky, he has never been lucky, so this can be nothing but ill-intended surely. He finds that he can’t not smile at Achilles though, as he leans against his locker and waits, again, for Patroclus to gather his things for his next class. When Patroclus sets off, so does Achilles, and with quiet sighs from the girls and displeased murmurs from the boys, the crowd filters into the corridor proper.
They walk, and Achilles follows, for a change, saying nothing and smiling softly every time Patroclus looks at him. Outside in the quad he finally gives up, with a deep sigh and furrowed brow.
“I don’t know where my next class is,” Patroclus admits.
Achilles offers out his hand, and after a moment wherein Patroclus nearly sets his hand against it in reflexive response, he hands Achilles his schedule instead.
“Of course you don’t,” Achilles snorts. “It’s ridiculous to expect that you would. This way,” he says, setting off as Patroclus hurries to catch up. “I should talk to the administrators -”
“Why?”
“Because it’s unfair.”
“I can find them, honestly -”
“I know that,” Achilles says, eyes wide. “I don’t doubt that at all. But why put you the through the ringer like that? Here,” he says, taking a turn. “They should at least give you a map.”
Achilles stops, suddenly, and Patroclus turns a slow circle. There are no classroom doors here, and when he comes face to face with Achilles again, the older boy grins.
“I’ll be your map.”
“You have class!”
“Easily excused in favor of helping someone new.”
Patroclus blinks at him before throwing his arms out in a shrug, helpless and amused all at once. He laughs, brings a hand to his face. So this is what it must be like, he thinks, to be popular and revered. The ability to skip class without repercussion, doting fans and friends galore, the freedom to do anything at all, knowing no one will be disappointed.
Patroclus takes a breath and looks up again, schooling his expression into something softer.
“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment. “About… before. When I - it wasn’t fair.”
Achilles gestures the apology away, just a curve of his wrist and a fanning of fingers and all is forgiven, easily and without effort. He leans closer, then, just a little, a scheming sort of glint in his eyes. “You know what you could do to make up for it, however entirely unnecessary that is,” he murmurs, conspiratorial.
Patroclus closes his eyes. It does nothing to alleviate the vertigo that unsettles the ground beneath his feet, nor the movement of the fine curls of hair beside his ear when Achilles whispers.
“Come to the track with me while I practice today.”
With a curt laugh, Patroclus blinks wide, meeting dark brown eyes draped with garlands of gold curls. “And?”
“No and,” Achilles insists, handing back Patroclus’ schedule and lifting his palms outward. “I’d like the company. Someone to talk to -”
“When you’re supposed to be running.”
“I can do more than one thing at a time,” Achilles says, nose wrinkling.
“I can’t run as fast as you to keep up,” Patroclus reminds him, and Achilles smiles wider. He offers no solution, for the moment, to this rather pertinent dilemma, and instead directs them on, down a few worn pathways and past standalone prefab classrooms. To his surprise, Patroclus is not the last to arrive to his class, students milling around every which way. He looks at Achilles.
“You won’t go to class?”
“I’ll go and get a note not to,” he says, shrugging and running a hand through his hair as it dries curly and wild. “And meet you here after, if you like.”
To Patroclus’ personal shame, he does like. He likes a lot. And he’s fairly sure the other boy knows.
“You don’t have to,” Patroclus tells him again, and with a grin, Achilles steps back.
“Out here in an hour, then.”