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sprnklersplashes · 20 hours ago

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five times telemachus sleeps in his parents' bed (ao3)

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Telemachus won’t even remember this. He is mere months old, and outside his palace his city is preparing for war. The kitchen table is weighted down by his father’s things, swords and daggers, a travelling cloak and provisions, stacks of paper for the letters he will write home. The air is heavy with grief for what it is to come, but Telemachus knows nothing about this. All he knows is that Father lifted him from his cradle and is taking him down the hall, pulling faces and babbling so that his little laugh fills the palace. He knows that his father loves him more than anything.

“Odysseus,” Penelope sighs. “You need to let him sleep in the crib. The midwife says he should learn to sleep on his own.”

“Let me have this.” He eases himself into the bed, shifting Telemachus from his hip to his stomach. “When I return he may not be in the crib anymore.”

“Odysseus-”

Telemachus babbles and reaches forward, fascinated by his father’s beard and oblivious to the admission he let slip. Odysseus kisses the boy’s tiny hand, his heart already aching. To think that he’s had so little time with his son, and now has to leave because…

It’s not your place to question, a voice whispers. He can’t tell if it’s himself or Athena.

To his side, the sheets rustle and Penelope’s head comes to rest on his shoulder, her leg slipping between and tangling with his. If he only could, he would stay in this moment forever. His boy on his belly, his love by his side. It’s why he cannot say no; if anyone touched either of them, Odysseus would make the world burn to get them back. There is no bliss like this.

“You be a good boy for your mama while I’m gone, all right?” he asks him. “And when I return, I’m going to teach you all manner of things. We’re going to go hunting and I’ll teach you to shoot and we’ll go sailing and oh, wait until Athena meets you properly. She will love you. She’s going to train you like she trained me.”

I did not agree to that her voice booms in his head, but for once he waves her off. Telemachus gurgles, kicking his feet with delight as he kisses him and that is all that matters.

They lie there for some time, sitting in tender silence, until Telemachus’ eyes begin to droop. He blinks and rubs them and sways like a tiny flower caught in the breeze. Odysseus lowers him slowly, so he lies flat against his chest. His heart beats against the tiny body; a special melody to lull him to sleep.

“I almost don’t want him to go sleep,” he whispers. “I don’t want him to close his eyes and wake up without me here.”

“I know.” Penelope runs her feather-light finger up Telemachus’ back. Unlike Odysseus, she doesn’t hide her anger. She might not speak it aloud, because she has common sense, but he can feel it coming from her. And hell has no fury like his wife scorned.

It is almost enough to make him stay.

Odysseus kisses her head. He doesn’t mention the tears running down her face, nor the ones gathering in his own eyes. Right now, he is here, and he has promised to return.

It will have to be enough.

It takes him a while to knock on the door. His cheeks burn, half-hidden behind his hands. Part of him wishes to run back to bed, to hide under the covers and pretend like nothing happened. But the palace is different at night, the corridors are longer and cast in shadow, and the silence is suffocating. Telemachus doesn’t know which steps he should take, if monsters lurk around the corners he passes so freely during the day.

“Tel? Sweet boy, why aren’t you in bed?”

Telemachus looks up. Mama stands over him, hair messy and eyes heavy. He opens his mouth, only to give nothing but a feeble croak. The words he has learned over the past four years desert him in less than a second.

Luckily, Mama knows. She lowers down until she is his height and in no time sees the soiled nightshirt. Telemachus whimpers, a feeling he can’t yet name gripping him, and before he knows it his face is screwing up and his whole body is hot and tears are running like rivers down his cheeks.

Mama pulls him close and lets him rest his head on her shoulder.

“It’s all right, sweet boy,” she tells him. “It happens. It happens, it’s all right. Let’s get you cleaned up now, mm?” She pats his back. “It’s all right.”

Telemachus keeps his head buried as they make their way to the washroom. The monsters don’t come after Mama, but he doesn’t want to look up in case one finds him and comes into his room later.

Fear strikes him, sharp and sudden, and his sobs build.

“It’s all right, Tel. Mama’s got you.”

In the washroom, she doesn’t bother calling for a servant. Instead, it’s her who washes his legs with warm water and soap that smells like honey. It is Mama who places his damp nightclothes in the basket and pulls fresh ones from the cupboard. It is Mama who wipes his tears and kisses his head and braves the monsters to walk back to their chambers. Telemachus wishes he could be like her, he could be brave and strong and walk back to his chambers alone, but he can’t. He doesn’t know how to be brave yet, and part of him worries he will never learn.

“Now, my boy,” Mama whispers. “Why don’t you sleep in my bed tonight, mm?” She smooths his hair away from his face. “Just in case there’s any more accidents.”

Telemachus nods, and when Mama wraps him in her covers and cuddles him, he forgets about the monsters outside.

Telemachus has never liked storms. Not when he was a child, not when he was a baby according to his mother, and certainly not at 10. The problem is, he is the man of the house until Father comes home, and the man of the house cannot be running away from storms. He cannot be huddled beneath his covers with his hands clamped over his ears because he does not like the thunder.

He should not be shrieking when the covers are pulled from his head by his mother.

“Telemachus,” she sighs. “What on Earth are you doing?”

“I was asleep,” he protests. He doesn’t know why he continues trying to lie to his mother, not when he has been caught out every time, but he does. One day it has to work, doesn’t it?

Mother sighs, sits on the bed, and rubs his back.

“Come and sleep in my room tonight.”

“No,” he says. “I-I’m fine. I can sleep on my own.”

“Tel-”

“I’m not scared,” he insists, just as another thunderclap booms overhead. Telemachus jumps before he can stop himself, and his mother’s reaction is equal parts concern for him and equal parts ‘I told you so’.

In response, Telemachus can just scowl, not even sure who he is angry with.

“Well, I am scared,” she says. Telemachus shakes his head; he knows Mother is not afraid of anything. “No Tel, I really am. I hate storms.” She shudders and whimpers as she peers outside the window. “And I keep thinking if only I had a big strong man in my rooms to keep me safe.”

“The guards are there,” he responds. But a smile tugs on his lips.

“Oh, them!” she scoffs. “They’re good, but I wish I had a proper hero to keep me safe until the storm passes.” She puffs out her cheeks and fixes Telemachus with her most pleading eyes. He buries his face in his pillow. “But, if I can’t have that, I shall have to return to my rooms.” She gets up. “Alone.” She steps towards the door. “Afraid.” Another step. Telemachus bites his lip to keep the giggles inside. “And sad-”

“Wait!” He jumps from the bed, breathless. “Maybe I should come with you. To keep you safe.”

“Oh Telemachus!” She touches her hand to her chest, eyes brighter than the stars. “You would do that for me?”

“Of course I would.” He strides up to her and takes her hand. “I am the man of the house now.”

Mother squeezes his hand, a slight hitch in her breath.

“Yes you are, my little prince.”

With a newfound energy, Telemachus surges into his mother’s room, wasting no time nestling in the blankets. Mother rolls her eyes as she discards her cloak and climbs in beside him, more grace any all the nymphs put together. She lets Telemachus have the whole other side of the bed and when she settles he grabs her hand, his heart thump-thump-thumping like a canon.

“Tell me a story. Please.”

“Which one?”

He pretends to think, but there is only ever one answer.

“One of Father’s,” he says. “Oh! Tell me the one about Athena’s magic boar!”

“You’ve heard that one fifty times, Telemachus.”

“Please,” he insists, bordering on whining. Definitely not how the man of the house behaves, but at present he is just a boy in his mother’s bedroom. So he can get away with it.

“All right,” she says. Telemachus grins and wriggles into her lap. Stroking his hair, his mother begins the story, of how his father was out exploring with a patrol when he came across a boar in the woods. His friends wanted to move on, but Father knew something was different about the boar, something in the way the fur glowed…

As Telemachus listens, Mother’s voice drowns out the storm outside. He fights the sleep taking over him until his Father becomes Athena’s warrior of the mind. Mother was right, he has heard this story so many times, but he never gets tired of it. To know his father is one of Athena’s chosen warriors, known throughout Greece. Powerful, clever, courageous.

Definitely not afraid of some wind.

He is fifteen when the suitors start arriving.

He doesn’t like them, and no, it’s not just because they aren’t his father. It’s not because they call him small, or that they sneer at him when his mother’s back is turned, or that despite him standing at his mother’s side they act like he’s not even there. It’s nothing he hasn’t faced before; he’s spent his life pretending he doesn’t hear the whispers, the constant comparisons to his father and how he is all the things Telemachus isn’t. He can handle it.

It’s the way they look at his mother. It’s the way they move close and closer and that Telemachus’ presence does nothing to deter them. Their hands on hers at dinner, their greedy eyes roaming everywhere except her face. It’s the way their teeth clench, when she tells them she hasn’t made a decision, that she is still weaving her shroud, that she has a duty to her son first. Impatience builds until their palace stinks of it and Telemachus can’t get them out of there fast enough. He watches his mother, his unshakeable, unbreakable mother, shudder whenever they leave. She sobs, silently, whenever she thinks Telemachus can’t see her. He begins to resent the dining hall, the front entrance, each plate and cup that they have touched.

The worst is what he hears when they think he’s not there.

“I’ll take that fucking shroud and strangle the bitch with it.”

“We’ll make her pathetic brat watch.”

“Him! I’ll hang the kid with his own innards if I could. String him up like the flower garland he is.”

“Do you think she’d beg if we did?” One of them asks giddily. “Maybe she’d let us have our way with her if her precious prince was in danger.”

Thankfully, Telemachus has learned not to scream. He forces his fear down, down, down, and by the time he can breathe again, his teeth are stained red.

He doesn’t tell his mother. But when she comes into her room to find him already there, she doesn’t make him leave. All she asks is he puts the sword beneath the bed.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself with it.”

He does, but he keeps the hilt towards him and a smaller dagger strapped to his leg.

If anyone wants to enter his mother’s rooms without permission, they will go through him first.

He can be just as deadly as they are.

The palace is quiet. Telemachus’ mind is anything but. He paces his room, afraid to lie down and close his eyes lest he sees it all again The hallways gushing blood, the tip of Antonius’ blade. Each man falling, one by one, as if torn down by an invisible wind.

Except it wasn’t wind or anything natural; it was his father. The space that sat vacant for twenty years is now filled and it is…. Everything. And incredibly, incredibly loud.

As minutes and hours go on, Telemachus finds he can’t take it anymore. Voices overlap in his head, the walls of his bedroom are pressing inwards and whether it’s a trick of his mind or something else, he doesn’t want to find out. So he slips out with a blanket around his shoulders, and tiptoes down the now-scrubbed corridors to his parents’ room.

He’s barely knocked on the door before Father answers.

“Son?”

Telemachus hesitates before slipping inside. The room isn’t as dark as he expected; a single lamp in the corner bathes it in a soft glow. Father is still awake, half propped up against the pillows with Mother asleep on his chest, her arm tight around his waist. Telemachus can’t shake the feeling that he’s interrupted something, even with Father beckoning him in. His eyes hold so much and he can’t help but wonder if he’s up for the same reason Telemachus is. That his thoughts were too loud to let him rest.

“What’s bothering you?”

Telemachus pulls on his sleeve, his breath shallow.

“I can’t sleep.”

Father smiles. Despite the heaviness in his eyes, it feels sincere. It’s a steady on his shoulder, a reminder to breathe, a warm embrace to keep him safe. A suggestion that maybe things will be fine.

“Come here,” he says softly. He hadn’t realised how much he needed to hear that.

Mother is pulled from sleep as Father shifts to make room for him. There’s a moment where she hasn’t realised the second person yet and she smiles up at Odysseus, completely free of lines and worry as if it’s 20 years ago again.

Telemachus feels blessed to have seen it.

“Tel?” she mumbles when she notices him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He slides into the space his father left and reaches across to squeeze her shoulder. “I’m all right. I just couldn’t sleep.”

Mother nods, an easy smile gracing her lips. Propped up on her elbow, she leans over and musses Telemachus’ hair, chuckling when he protests. Father laughs too, and Telemachus feels it against his body. Solid, warm, real. Here. Alive.

Mother settles back into the bed, pressing kisses to Father’s bare shoulder as she goes. Father grins and again, it’s like Telemachus is watching a scene from twenty years ago, from a world where nothing bad ever happened and he grew up whole. And maybe it’s the late hour talking, but for the first time, he has hope he can be.

Especially when Father kisses his head.

“Go to sleep, son,” he whispers. “I’ll be here when you wake.”

“I know,” he murmurs. He presses into his father’s side and sleeps soundly the entire night.

#epic the musical #epic #telemachus #odysseus #epic!odysseus #epic!telemachus #penelope of ithaca #epic!penelope #epic fanfic #idk about the ending but ohwell

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