Disney's Achilles Chapter 2: What Will Dad Say?, a hercules fanfic

Chapter II: What Will Dad Say?

The world outside the palace window was still, a peaceful Greek countryside hovering between night and day. Cattle in the pasture blinked their eyes open and looked to the sky. On a ranch with a stone farmhouse, atop a straw roof, a rooster crowed.

The rosy pink sky erupted with the gallops of celestial hoofs. From the west came a silvery-blue chariot drawn by two sheep. This was pleasant Selene, a large and matronly woman in a gown of navy nighttime. She waved at her companion, who was riding from the east.

The chariot of the day was drawn by Helios, her brother, with glowing lavender skin and a crown of sunbeams on his head. The fiery horses of the sun were previously drawn by Apollo, but the shining god of music and poetry recently had a family tragedy — he'd given the reigns to his son, Phaeton, but alas, the boy never took Driver's Ed — so he retired to his lyre and returned the chariot to Helios, the original sun god.

Inside the palace, the prince's brown eyes shot open. "Today's the day," he whispered. Achilles leapt out of bed, threw on his toga, and did his morning exercises with a fervor. "Today's the day!" he shouted, waving to Helios as his chariot flew overhead.

The world outside was bright and new with resolution. He'd never been so happy to make a decision — Achilles had tossed and turned for weeks, but now he was ready. He ran back up the hill to the palace's dining hall, where breakfast was being served.

"Good morning, Achilles!" one of the serving girls giggled. Her friend shushed her, but couldn't help smiling herself. He was sweaty, after all. "Would you like grapes?"

"Err, no, I'd rather — " He reached for a sausage.

"Would you like cheese?" They pushed a plate under his nose.

Achilles brushed her aside. "No, I want — "

"Would you like tea?" The girl had a cup freshly-brewed.

"Would you like me?" Giggles again.

"Meat." He shoved the sausage in his mouth. "I want meat."

Disappointed, the girls set the plates on the table and retreated to the kitchen. The palace was always crowded at meal times, and Achilles rarely had a moment alone with his father.

This morning, the king was conversing with another of his advisors, another king from a neighboring city-state, who had brought a young woman with olive skin and dark curls with him; his daughter, most likely. Achilles sat down and smiled at King Peleus.

"Hey, Dad?" He looked to the head of the table. "Can you and I — "

There was a man pouring goat's milk and a woman clearing his fruit tray. Peleus was speaking to the elderly man and ordering a servant to bring them sausage and eggs.

"Achilles." The king finally turned to his son. "Nice to finally see you."

"Err, yeah." A blush came over his bronze skin. "Sorry about — "

"I'll expect you to read the notes of the war meeting." Peleus slurped his milk and snapped his fingers for a servant to fill his guest's cup. "This is King Lycomedes, from the island of Skyros. You would know that if you had been present yesterday."

"Honored to meet you, your majesty." He bowed to Lycomedes, who beamed.

"What a polite young man! They'll be a fine match."

"Uh… thanks?" He laughed. "So Dad, can we — "

"Skyros is pledging its fleet to our cause. This alliance between our kingdoms will last long after we teach those Trojans a lesson. And what better way to secure that union — "

"Dad, I want to tell you something. Something important. Can we speak — "

"I'm speaking," Peleus stammered, "and you're interrupting." He slammed his cup on the table. "Now, as I was saying, a union between our kingdoms — "

"But this is something I've wanted to tell you for years, Dad."

"Achilles." He narrowed his eyes. "You are being rather rude this morning."

"So sorry, your highness! I think the prince woke up on the wrong side of the bed today!"

A young man had rushed up to the breakfast table and put his hands on Achilles' shoulders, stunning him silent. Patroclus pulled up a chair beside the prince, folding his hands to beg the king's forgiveness. "A thousand apologies, my king. He's been in a funny way lately — a queer way, honestly — by the gods, Achilles, where have your manners gone?"

The prince began to say something else, but Patroclus shoved a piece of bread in his mouth. "Don't chew with your mouth open!"

The breakfast table was silent for a change. The old kings gaped at each other, Patroclus gave a wide, toothy smile, and Achilles' cheeks were full of bread.

"Thank you, Pat. I wish my son had half your good sense."

The prince had been so set on getting his father's attention through the chaos of being served breakfast that he had barely paid attention to the young woman seated across from him.

She was around his age, a lovely girl all things considered. She wore a luxurious white dress, fit for a princess. She was silent; unlike Achilles, she was not allowed to speak freely.

"I'm glad you're here, Pat." He forgot to close his mouth while chewing. "This concerns him, father."

He swung an arm around him, but to his shock, Patroclus immediately let out a yawn and made a show of stretching his arms wide.

"Achilles," he said through gritted teeth. "Your dad. Has something. To tell you."

"Well, I have something to tell him." The prince tried to take his hand.

Patroclus jerked his hand away to scratch his neck, whistling innocently.

"Son," King Peleus's voice had risen an octave. "I'd like you to meet Princess Deidamia. We've arranged for the two of you to wed."

Patroclus let out a high-pitched laugh and punched Achilles's shoulder.

"But Dad, that's what I was going to tell you. I wanna marry — "

"At once! He got a glimpse of the princess yesterday, and he wants to marry at once!"

Achilles gave his friend an incredulous look. The king looked bewildered.

"My dear Pat, I know you are my son's best friend, but you cannot speak for him."

There was a stunned silence over the breakfast table, now that the servants had cleared out. The two kings were eating their meal as if nothing was the matter, while Achilles was gaping at his father, Patroclus was smiling awkwardly, and Princess Deidamia looked like she'd rather be anywhere but here. They all wondered who'd speak first.

"Father, I… I'm sure she's great, but I… I don't want to marry her."

The king patted his mouth clean with a folded napkin. "In the game of city-state politics, there are wants and needs. This situation does not qualify as a want, young man."

"Perhaps the prince requires time to think about it?" Patroclus offered.

Achilles shot him a look halfway between relief and incredulity, while Peleus just rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, we may continue this discussion this evening. We have a day's work ahead of us, preparing for battle. And don't think you can play hooky again today!"

The prince stood up from the table, shook his head, and whipped around to storm out of the room. "Achilles? You've hardly eaten breakfast," his father said irritably.

"I'm not hungry," the prince huffed. Patroclus rushed after him.

The twin temples on either side of the city-state of Phthia were often visited by the townsfolk. They prayed to Athena for guidance on craftsmanship; her temple was a place to clear one's mind and focus on wisdom. The opposite temple to Ares was usually filled with men and women doing military drills, exercising, praying to the brutal god for strength.

Today, both temples were devoid of devotees. The statue of Athena, with her helmet and Aegis shield, and the statue of Ares, with his axe and sword, both began to shake. Figures of light escaped from them, like ghosts leaving a possessed body. One blue and one red.

"What did I tell you, big sis?" Ares flew across the town. "He's all temper."

"That's half-sister to you." Athena met his challenge and drew her sword.

They met overhead in the middle of Phthia, clashing swords, axe meeting shield. Their battle was not a life-or-death match, merely a morning routine that kept them both on top of their game. "I will see to it that he acts on reason, not passion." Her sword sliced his cheek.

Ares growled as golden ichor, the blood of the immortals, spilled from his cut. "Reason? The boy doesn't have a reasonable bone in his body!" He swung back, axe grazing her arm.

Now they had matching wounds. Their battle dance took them higher and higher up the sky, flying through clouds until the city-state looked like pebbles and patchwork below.

"Shall we make it more interesting, then? Make a little wager?"

"Gambling is unwise. But my victory is assured, so it's hardly a gamble," Athena said cooly. "The prince will side with me. Name your wager, half-brother."

"Your Aegis shield against my battle axe. Do we have a deal?"

"Let's set the timeline — Achilles has until the end of the Trojan War. Agreed?"

"Agreed." The god of war sneered and sheathed his sword. The goddess of craft did the same, wiping the ichor from her arm. The gods healed quickly, and their wounds were already scabbed over. "Let's watch now, and see the path he chooses."

The gods flew to the town below, invisible to the mortals who passed through the marketplace and labored in the fields and herded the cattle. They could be visible whenever they wanted, but for now, their presence was unnoticed.

They settled at the top of the amphitheatre stage house, which was where philosophers gave lectures to the public and performers put on their best shows. There were many seats, arranged somewhat like a baseball field, with the stage in the center.

Nearby, Achilles was marching through the streets of Phthia, not paying attention to where he was going, not thinking at all. He knew Patroclus was behind him but he didn't stop to let his friend catch up. "Achy! Hey, Achy! Slow down, will you?"

Achilles was walking so fast that he didn't see a broken chariot wheel in the road and he tripped over it. "Agh!" he cried, falling flat on his face and hitting the gravel road. He felt stupid and didn't want Pat to see he'd injured himself.

Finally, Patroclus caught up to him. He offered a hand to help Achilles to his feet. "What were you thinking, trying to tell him?" Pat pulled him into a tight embrace and kissed him gently. "I wish we could marry, you fool, but you know he'll never allow it."

Achilles put his arms around Patroclus's waist and drew him closer. "Perhaps he will. There are many kings who have male lovers. Even Zeus has Ganymede."

He winced in pain, kneeling down to look at his feet. Achilles was hard to injure — they always joked that he had the toughest skin of any boy in Greece, for no matter what the world threw at him, Achy never bruised — but tripping over the broken wheel had left a nasty cut on his heel. It was bleeding, and strangely, the blood shimmered in the sun.

The boys either didn't notice the shimmer, or thought nothing of it. "Here, let me." Pat ran to a nearby shop to borrow a rag and a bowl of water. First he cleaned the wound, then he tied the rag around Achilles's heel. "That's so weird. I've never seen you injured."

Patroclus had studied the healing arts and was quite popular in the palace; employed as the king's healer-in-training, he was the person everyone went to for headaches, maladies, bruises, injuries, any ailment at all, Pat could help them.

When his injured heel was wrapped, he staggered back up. "Why did you stop me from telling Dad? Don't you want to marry me?"

"Of course I want to, but Achy… you're not a king yet. You're not Zeus. And you heard what the king said about the union between Phthia and Skyros." Pat sighed and kissed him again. "I heard it from the serving girls and had to stop you making a fool of yourself."

"Well, I'll be king one day, and then we can be together. Publicly."

"It may not be as easy as all that," Patroclus sighed. "Let's go back, huh?"

"You go," Achilles said. "I think I… I want to be alone right now.

Pat kissed him a third time and returned to the palace, leaving his dear friend in the market. After many years, he knew better than to spark Achilles's temper.

He ended up staying out in Phthia all day, eating lunch in the marketplace and running laps in the city's athletic court. He wouldn't go back to the palace yet, he couldn't, not while his father and his "fiancee" were still there.

Achilles had no grievance with the Princess Deidamia, but she wasn't Patroclus. He'd sooner dress in drag and do the hula than marry her.

Soon the chariots of the sun and the moon were again crossing paths, Helios flying west as he set for the day, and Selene flying east to bring quiet darkness to the Greek countryside. The nightingale sang sweet melodies under a navy-blue sky of endless stars. The satyrs in the forest stopped piping and went to bed with the wood nymphs they chased all day.

Achilles found himself in the amphitheatre; so often packed with crowds, now it lay empty. "When I was a little kid, a boy eight years of age," he sang, looking up at the heavens. "I told Dad a little lie, hiding my shame and rage."

The prince stood on the stone benches and walked along them like they were a tightrope. "Now, my mother's not around. Well, maybe that's okay," he said, putting one sandaled foot in front of the other. "Doesn't matter what you do, Mom loves you anyways." Then he jumped, landing forcefully on a lower bench.

Many years ago, Achilles had asked his father what happened to his mother, why she didn't live with them or if she was even alive. He would never answer him directly, saying something vague about her being a princess who died while giving birth to him, from a faraway kingdom, but somehow Achilles knew it was a lie. He had an odd memory of her. When he thought of his mom, he remembered being submerged in icy water. Then he felt like he was drowning, and he had to shut the memory out to breathe again.

"But tell me, what will Dad say?" He gazed at the night sky. His voice raised to a mournful cry. "What would — what will Dad say?"

Achilles wiped tears from his eyes. It had been years since he cried, but he couldn't help himself. "Will my father understand? Or think me less a man?" He sniffed and rubbed his eyes and nose. "So tell me, what will Dad say?"

With eyes still wet, he smiled half-heartedly and opened his arms wide, as if to embrace the audience that wasn't there. "I always get what I want because I'm brave and strong." He walked down the amphitheatre steps, like he was walking down the aisle. "Now I want to marry Pat. I love him. Is that wrong?" A vision of them standing at the altar came and went.

He couldn't believe how quickly it has vanished, the scene of them locking lips before a priestess of the gods — Was the vision a trick from the gods, or his imagination? Was it all in his head? — and it angered him. He scowled and growled, stomping down the aisle and jumping onto the stage. "I'm prince of this city-state! My word is next to law!"

Achilles suddenly turned, and then another trick vision: the amphitheatre was suddenly filled with crowds of people, sitting on every bench, staring at him as if he were the solo performer. "But letting my secret out, will it be rage or awe?"

He imagined the laughter of thousands of Phthian citizens. Then like the altar vision, the view of the full amphitheatre disappeared from his mind's eye.

The prince was left alone on stage, alone in the Ancient Greek stadium, alone with his quaking jaw and quivering fists. Tears had welled up again.

"So tell me, what will Dad say? What would — what will Dad say?" Achilles bowed his head. His wounded ankle suddenly throbbed and sent a bolt of pain throughout his body. Pain was a new sensation for him, since he'd never been injured before. He trembled onstage. "Will my father think me weak? Do I even dare speak?"

He cast his gaze to the heavens, to the million of stars in the inky night sky. To Mount Olympus, high above the mortal plane. "Oh, tell me, what will Dad say?"

Achilles stayed on the stage a long time, thinking like he'd never thought before, turning over how to say it, when to say it, and why even say it. He groaned and growled, suddenly leaping off the stage and letting his temper take charge. "What will Dad say?"

He couldn't stand patience. He would tell his father tonight, and damn the consequences.

The prince marched back through the city streets in the middle of the night, back up the hill that led to the palace, back through the hallways and corridors he knew so well. He knew every nook and cranny, and he was eager to leave it all behind. "What will Dad say?"

Then he was marching down the long hallway that led to his father's bed chamber. Servants tried to stop him soundlessly, to not wake the king, to not irritate the prince, but Achilles ignored them all. He slammed the doors open. "What will Dad say?"

King Peleus was in bed with one of the serving girls sleeping beside him. He shot up like there was an assassin come for him. "Achilles?" The king blinked and stared.

"Hey, Dad." The prince waved casually. "I'm gay."

"Aaagh!" His sword made a satisfying slicing sound as it tore the dummy apart. "Hurraaah!" He hacked the arms off, one by one, then the dummy's head.

Achilles turned to the next dummy, but for this one he discarded his sword and shield. The palace guards' training stadium had knives to cut you, spears to impale you, and it was advised to wear armor and carry your shield with you at all times.

But Achilles had never been cut, save that odd injury on his ankle, so he went shirtless and shieldless in the training stadium. He grabbed the dummy off its stand.

"Yaaaaaah!" The prince ripped it apart, limb from limb, until there was straw stuffing surrounding him on the ground. He threw the dummy to the ground and stomped it.

Then he grabbed his sword again and took to the wooden pillars, massive tree trunks that had been logged and transported and lined in a row. If you weren't careful, they could fall and crush you flat. Achilles hacked them with his sword.

Once again, the mystical dawn was casting her bright glow over the city-state of Phthia. The chariots of Selene and Helios were again making their run across the wide-open sky. The sheep bleated their greeting as they saw their friends, the horses of the sun, who neighed and nickered the greet the sleepy sheep. Brother and sister slapped hands as they crossed.

Once again, a rooster crowed from a farmhouse outside the city walls. As a new day dawned on the city-state, Achilles was screaming and crying and covered in sweat.

"Hyaaaaaaaaaah!" He kicked and kicked until the log pillar, whose base he had whittled down to barely a foot wide, came crashing down like a tree hitting the forest floor.

"Aaaagh!" He began hacking away the next pillar.

"Achilles," said a soft voice, a male voice, from behind him.

The prince whipped around and pointed his sword at the speaker, right under their throat. His eyes were bulging, breath heaving, sweat pouring. It took him three seconds to realize that he was pointing his sword at his beloved Patroclus.

"Achy." Pat's lower jaw quivered as he gently pushed the sword away.

The sword clanged as it hit the dirt. The prince embraced his dearest friend and kissed him and held him tight, sobbing and screaming at all the injustice of the world.

"I told you not to tell him," Pat said, heartbreak in his voice.

High above the stadium floor, where the two mortals could not see them, were the red and blue forms of another brother and sister god, but this wasn't Selene and Helios.

The blue woman was frowning, her face a little haughty below her feathered helmet, her arms around her favorite possession, the Aegis shield. The red man was scratching his beard absentmindedly, a smug grin on his face, his other hand clutching his battle axe.

"I told you before, I'll tell you again," Ares chuckled. "He's all temper."

"For now," Athena said. They watched the mortals embrace and cry together.

"What Will Dad Say?" by HeroicDisney

When I was a little kid,

A boy eight years of age,

I told Dad a little lie,

Hiding my shame and rage.

Now, my mother's not around.

Well, maybe that's okay.

Doesn't matter what you do,

Mom loves you anyways.

But tell me, what will Dad say?

What would — what will Dad say?

Will my father understand?

Or think me less a man?

So tell me, what will Dad say?

I always get what I want

Because I'm brave and strong.

Now I want to marry Pat.

I love him. Is that wrong?

I'm prince of this city-state!

My word is next to law!

But letting my secret out

Will it be rage or awe?

So tell me, what will Dad say?

What would — what will Dad say?

Will my father think me weak?

Do I even dare speak?

Oh, tell me, what will Dad say?

What will Dad say?

Hey Dad. I'm gay.