Work Text:
Light streams in through the window. It hits Telemachus almost directly in the eyes, hot against where it lands on his skin. Telemachus doesn’t move away though, the blankets feel light a thousand pounds of weight over his body, it’s nice though. His body feels safe and secure swaddled in these blankets. His mind, another story, shame swirls around his head like leaves in a storm, which in turns makes his stomach clench with anxiety. Or maybe that’s the hunger from skipping breakfast. It's all the same at this point.
He can hear the noise of a busy palace, the sweep of brooms against the floor, scent of soap and fresh flowers, the laughter of servants. Usually the noise brings a soft smile to his lips, how beautiful it is to live in a place where laughter is no longer hidden. But not for him. Not yet despite his best efforts.
Memories of the suitors, their arrogant laughter ringing in his ears long after they are gone, rattle his head and chest. Their glares and violent fists feel like they’re following him. It isn’t fair.
Telemachus lets his eyes slide shut. He’s not necessarily tired, he wouldn’t fall asleep even though it sounds like a godsent relief. The noise in the halls softens, as the servants move down to another hall to continue cleaning. He frowns, he was enjoying having their noises to follow. Now it’s back to hearing Melanthius’s cruel threats in his ears, Antinous’s fist colliding with his nose, Eurymachus’s laughter when Telemachus begged for mercy.
He buries his face in a pillow as hot tears prick his eyes. Stop crying. He tells himself. You are the prince, you aren’t a baby. He forces the tears down, although the action makes his throat burn. He wishes Argos was still here, the dog always knew what to do when Telemachus was like this. He misses the dog licking tears off his cheeks, even though Telemachus pushed him away every single time because of stinky dog breath.
His door creaks open, so quietly he wonders if he actually heard it or if he’s actually losing it. His grandfather lost his mind, maybe Telemachus would join him.
“Tele,” His mother’s voice whispers. So, not going crazy after all. “I thought you’d be up.” Her tone isn’t confused, mostly just full of gentle concern. This isn't the first time this has happened.
He shakes his head into his pillow, tongue unmoving. She steps forward, feeling his forehead, humming when it’s not hot with fever. She then reaches up and closes the blasted curtain. Telemachus feels his shoulders relax at that.
She sits on the edge of his bed. “Do you want me to go?”
He doesn’t answer for a long time but she doesn’t rush him. Gods know they’re both too stubborn for that. Besides, she’s used to waiting at this point.
“You can stay.” He finally rasps. The words are thick on his tongue, feeling slurred. She hums and nods.
“I’ll be back in a moment.” She says, standing and leaving. With her absence, he feels impossibly lonely. But before he works himself into a panic about that, she returns with a cup and a small basket of her embroidery. “Do you want a sip of water?” She asks, a pleading tone. He shakes his head again and she sighs but doesn’t argue. She settles into the chair near his bed, eyes looking him over with concern.
The chair was made by his father, before he went to war, before Telemachus was born. According to his mother, his father used to sit in this chair, watching over a sleeping Telemachus for hours when his leg hurt too much to stand. Five year old Telemachus had wanted to keep it when they redid his room to fit a growing boy.
His mother sets to work on her project. “I don’t have much time to work on crafts like this.” She hums, more to herself.
“M’sorry.” Telemachus mumbles. “You have actual work, don’t you?”
She sighs. “Don’t apologize, my light. Your father can handle it, it’s probably good for him anyways.” She says, like she hasn’t been as attached to his father as his father was to her.
Telemachus watches her work, watches as she pulls blues and browns through the frame. At first it’s just a bunch of jumbled colors but slowly it comes together. An owl, in Telemachus’s favorite shade of blue. She finishes it off, smiling as she presents it to him. He runs his fingers against the textured material, feeling a weak smile cross his lips.
She sets the embroidery onto his desk. “How are you feeling?” She asks, running a hand through his hair. He shrugs.
“Like my bones are made of iron.”
She laughs a little at that. “Good, it means you can’t pull away when I do this.” She leans forward, her fingers grazing through his hair like she did when he was a small child and clambered into her bed when thunder woke him up and made him cower. Her fingertips as gentle as they were with Argos when he got very old.
She’s right, he doesn’t pull away, but not because he can’t. The action is soothing, it anchors him back into his own body. She’s good at that, being an anchor.
His door creaks open and Telemachus sees his father shuffle into the room. He looks nervous, like he’s interrupting something so sacred. Maybe to him, he is. He’s told Telemachus how many times their names were like a prayer on his lips.
“More than prayers to the gods?” Telemachus had asked the first time his father told him that, teasingly.
“Yes.” Odysseus responded, completely serious.
Telemachus hadn’t understood. He still doesn’t really understand. The gods are so… big, so important. And he’s just a kid who can’t leave his bed because why? He’s scared of dead men?
At first, Telemachus had been afraid of his father. Odysseus was always larger-than-life, a hero the bards sang of, someone untouched by weaknesses or doubts. When Odysseus returned, Telemachus had expected the bloodshed, the screams for mercy and the lack of it, he wasn’t taken aback by the red eyes and shouting, even though it did make his hands shake while holding his spear.
What he hadn’t expected was the softness. The gentle hug while his hands were still wet with blood. His stuttered apologies when he realized he got blood on Telemachus’s new armor. Odysseus wasn’t the indomitable figure Telemachus had imagined. He was just a man: vulnerable, unsure, and a little out of his depth.
“How are you doing?” Odysseus asks, voice quiet. Penelope motions for him to come in and he obeys, shutting the door behind him and stepping into the room. There’s not another chair, so he leans against the desk near Penelope.
Telemachus wonders if this is what it would have been like to have two attentive, happy parents. Is this what being ill would have been like? Two hovering parents, instead of the cycle of servants coming in and out with food while his mother tried to run the country by herself. The thought hurts. He squeezes his eyes shut, the tears he wasn’t allowing to fall threatening to spill and though he is no longer a child, he feels smaller, lost, as if the years of his youth never really ended.
“Oh, Telemachus.” She hums, her hands are still gentle. “I’m sorry, my lovely boy.” He sniffles and pushes all those feelings down. He has no doubts that they loved him, that they were proud of him. They tell him almost every day. They understand the things he had to suffer, things he wouldn’t let reach his mother. But would they be able to see the parts that crumble like sandcastles from the pressure of it all? Would they look at him differently? Would they doubt his ability to rule? His father had become king at thirteen, Telemachus was almost twenty-one and he didn’t think he’d be able to handle it.
“Get out of your head, son.” His father says, voice warm. “It’ll do no good.”
“I can’t.” Telemachus whispers. “I thought I’d be stronger when… they… were gone. I thought it would get better.”
His mother cups his cheek. “It has gotten better.” She whispers. “I used to think…” She trails off, swallowing hard. “I thought you used to fight with them so much because you didn’t want to be here.” The words hurt. They make him feel like the worst son in the whole world. He had no idea that she thought that. He must look panicked because she hushes him immediately.
“I wouldn’t have left you with them.” He croaks, clasping her wrist in his almost frantically. “I promise, mama. I would never.”
His mother must have once told his father about this fear, because although he looks pained, he doesn’t look astonished. Instead, his father comes closer, kneeling on the side of Telemachus’s bed, like he’s going to tell him a bedtime story and tuck him in.
“Killing them removed the threat.” He says, voice creaky. “But it wouldn’t fix anything that was broken.” Telemachus thinks of the window in the throne room, the one the ones broke months before Odysseus’s return but his mother never bothered to fix, because it kept the suitors out during the winter months.
Is that how they saw him? As that broken window? He doesn’t have that much time to swell on that, because his father continues talking. “And no bards sing about this part.” He clasps Telemachus’s hand in his rougher one so tightly. “They don’t talk about how hard it is to keep going without drowning under the weight of it all. No one sees the glory in that.”
“We do.” His mother cuts in. His father nods in agreement. “We all have our days where it’s hard.” Telemachus thinks of the nights his father doesn’t sleep, where he paces the halls muttering like a madman. He thinks of the days his mother does nothing but stare at an empty loom.
For a moment, there was silence. Telemachus sits up, his limbs still heavy but determination outweighing the misery of it all. He wraps his arms around his parents as tears escape his eyes and drip onto their chitons. He realizes after a moemnt that they’re matching, his mother’s dark blue peplos and his father’s chiton of the same color. It draws a startled laugh from his throat and he pulls away, leaning against the wall for support. “You two are sickeningly in love.” He manages to tease, wiping his tears away with the neckline of his chiton.
They look at each other and laugh. Penelope sits beside him, on the bed, motioning for Odysseus to do the same. Telemachus is in the middle, having never felt more secure in his life.
“We used to always match, the three of us. When you were a baby.” His mother pinches his cheek like she always does when she talks about him as a baby. “Everyone used to make fun of us, but we didn’t care.”
His father laughs. “Ctimene was the worst of them all. She was a bully.” He smiles softly. It’s nice to see a smile on his father’s face instead of pain when he talks about his younger sister. “And then she fell in love and guess what she did?”
Telemachus groans. “I will never be like that when I am in love.”
“Yes you will.” She sing-songs. “You will be head over heels for whoever you fall in love with and your father and I will tease you and tease you. And we will convince your love to join us in teasing you.”
“You’re a cruel mother.” He grumbles, playfully shoving her away. He turns to his father, who is watching the two of them so tenderly, like he’s watching something holy and Telemachus understands that this is. He doesn’t want his father to be an outsider to it all, so he turns to him. “Will you let her insult your heir like this?”
An amused smile spreads across his father’s face. “I wouldn’t dare insult my wife.” Penelope laughs triumphantly and Telemachus allows his shoulders to relax.
When the three of them are brought dinner later on, Telemachus is tucked between his parents, a smile on his face as they argue about the pedantics of their love story. He laughs as Penelope swats at Odysseus for daring to suggest that he fell in love first. “We fell in love at the exact same time.” She insists. “At that dinner for Helen and Menelaus.”
“That was not the first time I knew I loved you.” His father insists.
“No, it was the first time you were in love.” His mother argues.
He rolls his eyes. “You were not in my head. You don’t know that.”
“I know you better than you know yourself.”
Telemachus pokes his head up. “Mama, if you spill your soup on my bed, I’m going to be upset.”
“If I spill soup on your bed, it’ll be because I dumped it on your stupid father’s head.” She grumbles, but steadies her bowl nonetheless.
Telemachus doesn’t get into the middle of their argument. He allows himself to take in the warm and the playful banter. The joy in his mother’s eyes, the amusement of his father’s brow, the smile on his own face, is like a healing salve over his wounds.