Sons of Sparta - A Story of the Spartans, Book 3
(inspired by the story 'Spartan' parts 1 through 4)
by argouru
Note: All credit for the creation of the Spartans and Amazons, as well as the Spartan mythos belongs to the author 'CF', to whom I owe special thanks for his allowing me to write about these incredible people.
WARNING: Portions of this installment of the series includes a section regarding mental illness.
Sam took the elevator back down to the second floor and followed the signs to the place the nurse upstairs had indicated. He arrived at the waiting room and was shocked to see Henry sitting there with his bowed head in his hands. His short hair was mussed from having run his hands through it repeatedly from stress. "Henry?" he asked in shock. "What are you doing here?" Henry looked up in shock at the sound of his siring father's voice.
Sam felt horrified at the drawn and pale look on his eldest son's face. There were deep bags under his eyes, his mouth was slack and he hadn't shaven in what looked like the last two weeks. He'd tried calling Henry with concern when his son had missed two family dinners in a row, but Henry would only say that he was sick and needed bed rest. To find his son here at the waiting room to the operations ward was both shocking and confusing to the older Spartan. He became only more confused at Henry's reaction.
"Dammit! He swore he wouldn't say anything!" Henry growled in muted fury.
"Who wouldn't say anything about what?" Sam asked, feeling annoyed that his son would talk to others, but not to him. Henry looked at his feet with a guilty expression. "Spill it, boy! What is going on here?" Henry looked up at his parent, unable to speak. "Henry... When did it happen?" Sam asked, looking grief-stricken.
"The day I answered the call outside the temple," the son said dully.
"Oh shit!" Sam breathed. "Well? What's going to happen? I mean it happened on company time, right? Are they going to cover the medical expenses at least? I mean they should, at any rate." Henry looked at his dad Sam with confusion, opening his mouth to speak, but Sam continued, pulling Henry into a fierce hug. "It\rquote s okay, Henry, we'll take care of you. You don't have to face this alone. Which one is it?"
"What?" Henry asked in shock and confusion.
"Well is it AIDS or SRV?" Sam asked, looking sad.
"DAD! I'm not sick!" Henry retorted, unable to believe that not one, but both of his dads would assume that he'd become infected.
"Have you looked in a mirror lately? You look like shit, Son!"
"Well fuck you too!" Henry retorted waspishly. "Son of a bitch! Why does everyone say that?"
"Well you do look like you're wasting away. When's the last time you ate or slept properly?"
"Not since that day," Henry replied tiredly.
"Well if you're not sick, then what is it? What's going on that has you this messed up?"
Henry sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hand. "I found my partner," he answered dully.
Sam stared at Henry with shock, unable to speak for several moments. "What?" he finally asked. "I thought you didn't want a partner. You're saying you found him anyways? You've always seemed to hate the idea of being bonded."
"I did... But to be honest, I'm not sure I want him now, either."
"Why not? Henry... Stop hiding from me, please? I'm your parent and I really need to know why you hate the idea of a partner bond so much. Please talk to me," he begged, his eyes moist.
Henry sighed. "You remember when I was suspended from school, then made that stupid crack about you not really being a Spartan because I thought you were siding with humans instead of your own son?"
"Yeah," Sam said slowly.
"The day Dad Daniel brought me over and I apologized to you... Before we came over, I saw the farewell video you made for me back when I was a baby."
Sam thought back and paled. "Oh shit! Henry, I-I never meant for you to see that! At least not after I transformed and got my life back!"
"I know," Henry said, staring at his feet. "But I'm glad I got the chance to see it. It helped me to understand why my words hurt you so much. But I watched the whole thing... Even the part where you assumed that Dad Daniel committed suicide after you would have died."
"Henry..." Sam said, lost for words and looking very sad.
"I started to think about that, about how Dad Daniel wouldn't be happy without you. Then I saw how attached Marcus and Jason are to each other and how they couldn't stand being apart for more than a few minutes at a time before Lord Apollo gave them the mind link... I also remember hearing about Great Granddad Mike killing himself in prison after his partner Bart died in the hospital. ...And I got scared. I didn't ever want to be like that. So dependent on another person that I couldn't bear to be without them and would become suicidal. I can't live like that, Dad! I can't ever be happy living that way! I'm not strong enough to go through something like that, even if Lord Apollo thinks otherwise."
"Henry... I understand. But just because you love someone that much doesn't mean that you can't find purpose in life after they're gone. I've heard of Spartans who outlived their partners and were still able to have a life. And it's not like you'd be all alone... You'll have us."
"I know... But the thought of loving someone that much terrifies me. But now I have a partner who won't even look at me and is apparently insane to boot!"
"What do you mean?" Sam asked weakly.
Henry sighed and told him. By the time he had finished, he was crying. Sam could only hold his son as the younger man sobbed against his chest, not knowing what else to do for him...
Apollo stood there, invisible and intangible, watching as the heavily sedated human laid there and recovered from the second round of surgery to repair the damage he had inflicted on himself. His nose had been reset and put into a brace, his left arm re-operated on as he had re-broken his arm and his right elbow stitched up and bandaged. He was now restrained to his bed with padded leather straps and there was a guard outside the door in case he tried to hurt himself again.
The god stared at the man sadly and wondered what, if anything, He could do for John. He had taken a liking to the man and saw the potential in him. John could be very happy and make Henry happy too if he could only love himself. In all his centuries, Apollo had never laid eyes on a man who hated himself so destructively as this. John wasn't insane as Henry feared, it was that his self-hatred was so powerful that he would try again and again to destroy himself until he finally succeeded.
Apollo had already interfered in the man's life once. He had watched as John had left the temple, feeling that there was nothing there for him as a black despair settled around his heart. Feeling a mixture of pity and fear, He had looked into the man's near future and saw that his life was about to end. Shocked, He followed the human outside and to the corner. Like someone watching a horror movie, He looked on as he watched the final moments of the man's life.
All John wanted in that moment was for his pain to end. The depth of that pain and the deep-seated belief in the man that he was unlovable and that there wasn't even one redeeming quality to him touched the immortal with the greatness of its pain. As the human strode out in front of the car, Apollo found Himself doing something He had sworn that He would never do... He interfered. By the time He decided to act, He was moving on instinct and pushed the human sideways, afraid of using too much force and thereby killing the mortal just as He was trying to save him. Unfortunately, He had used too little force and the man had still been struck by the car anyways. Apollo's only consolation was that the man would now live, should he choose to do so.
But He had underestimated the depth of John's pain and could only watch in mute horror and shock as the man inflicted further injury upon himself, hating his own existence with a fury that frightened even the god Himself. Now John was further injured and kept under guard to prevent him from harming himself further once again.
What do I do? Apollo wondered to Himself, biting His lip in an uncharacteristic display of uncertainty. He was powerless to help John overcome something like this and even if He were able to, He couldn't help the man without his permission. I couldn't heal him no matter how much I want to... Wait... Could it work? He wondered. But even if He could do it, We'd still need John's permission...
He moved to the human's side, reached towards his head and concentrated...
John stood there inside his own mind within the temple of Apollo, the statue of the god glaring down at him in an accusatory manner. He shrank back in fear. "Oh come on now," a man's voice said from beside him. John looked to see a man who looked identical to the statue standing naked beside him. "I don't look like that all the time." The man waved His hand, and John looked to see the expression on the statue change to a calm one of fierce pride and confidence. "There," the man said. "That's better."
"Who are you? Is this a dream?" John asked.
"If you'd feel more comfortable that way, then alright, let's call this a dream... John, you don't deserve to be like this. You deserve to be happy."
John looked down at the floor. "Then why does everyone want me to hate myself as much as they do?" he asked, starting to cry.
"Not everyone will love you, John. But not everyone will hate you either. You have a very warped way of looking at yourself. You don't have to live this way... Hating yourself all of the time. I think you deserve better than that."
"No I don't..." John answered sadly. "You don't know what I'm like."
"Oh yes I do," Apollo countered gently. "I know you better than you know yourself. You look at yourself through a warped mirror, but what you see is not the truth, John. You need a better mirror than the one you've been using. John... I know you hate being like this. What is it that you want out of life?"
"To stop hurting all the time," the human answered softly.
"But you're convinced that the only way that it can happen is for you to die?" John nodded. "What if there was another way?" Apollo pressed gently. "What if the pain could be taken away in another way, so that you could live and be happy? Would you be willing to try it?"
"That's not possible. I don't want to be locked away in some madhouse, being forced to take pills that don't work and talk to people who are only listening to me because they're being paid to do so."
"That's not what I mean," Apollo corrected calmly. "What if you could be cured of your depression? Would you be willing to try?"
"What if it doesn't work?"
Apollo shrugged. "We won't know unless we try."
"I hate being like this all the time," John sobbed. "I'm sick of always hurting and hating myself. I don't want to be like this anymore."
Apollo took the sobbing man into His arms and held him as he cried out his pain...
Tina, Ahmed and Joshua sat there watching the programme on the telly, trying to understand why people seemed to like this 'Plan Nine From Outer Space' so much. The scene playing was of a graveyard filled with fog as an old human man in a cape that he held up to cover the lower half of his face and a human woman with long black hair in a tight-fitting black dress walked among the headstones. The man bumped into one of them which poked out over one of the graves, making it move.
"Hey!" Tina protested. "That grave marker just wiggled!"
"I saw it too," Ahmed agreed, looking at the screen with a frown. "Shouldn't they have strapped it down or something?"
"Maybe that's why \endash this program is so awful," Joshua mused.
Tina rubbed His thigh soothingly, smiling and trying not to giggle at the slight tickling feeling deep inside as her immortal partner drank in her love for Him like a mortal man would imbibe in a refreshing beverage. She squeezed His knee lovingly to show her support and love for Him. Tina knew that Joshua was also doing this with Ahmed at the same time, but had not the slightest trace of jealousy at that. After all, Ahmed was as much Josh's partner as she was.
Unlike traditional bonded couples, Joshua Gabrielson had not one, but two partners, both of them being human and one of them was a girl. There were the rare Spartans like Joshua had been born as who were attracted to human women and were sexual with them until they found their male partners, but Josh was different. His partner bond was evenly split between Ahmed and Tina and the three had formed a cozy three-way partnerbond. Tina loved Josh with all her heart and felt not the slightest qualm about Him consuming her love for Him as she knew full well that love was Josh's form of nourishment now that He was an immortal god of healing. She was glad to share her partner with her best friend Ahmed, who was the other half of Josh's partner-bond. Tina and Ahmed were intimate, but only when they were with Josh who they worshipped as their god, thereby providing Him with the single most powerful form of sustenance He could receive.
Several years ago when Ahmed had been raped in school by a bully, he had been given a very nasty strain of HIV. Learning the truth, Josh had sacrificed His mortally despite the wishes of His father, Lord Apollo and became an immortal being of great power, then had immediately used His newfound powers of healing to cure Ahmed of his HIV. Further experimentation with the consent of His Uncle Andrew, curing the man's full-blown AIDS, had proved that Joshua was now a god of healing, with Tina and Ahmed serving as Joshua's priests in addition to being His partners. The pair were fully supportive of Josh's desire to heal anyone who needed it and couldn't be prouder of Him, much like His dads.
While the office they worked from was nice, they were beginning to consider the possibility of an actual temple of healing from which they could work. Now that they were full adults and had left secondary school, they were making plans to open a temple where Joshua could be truly worshipped as a god as well as to use His incredibly potent healing powers to help any who had need, such as those with conditions incurable by conventional medical methods. It would be supported by donations from any who wished to do so.
"Guys?" Joshua's mortal Spartan birth father Gabriel Michaelson asked from the doorway. His partner, Lord Apollo, stood beside him, looking at the trio with a serious expression. "Can we talk?"
Instinctively, Josh used his telepathy to look into His mortal father's mind and saw the issue for Himself. "You... Want Me to travel to America and heal someone?" He felt Ahmed and Tina's interest perk up at that.
"Yes, Son," Apollo said. "There's a very ill man who desperately needs Your help."
Josh looked to Gabe. "But you don't want Me to go," he said.
"It's almost half way 'round the bloody planet!" Gabriel said passionately. "You're too young and inexperienced to make such a journey!"
Josh looked into His Dad Apollo's mind, who sensed His son's silent inquiry and showed Him everything about the man. "I have to go, Dad Gabe," He answered, turning back to His mortal parent. "He needs me."
"But..." Gabe protested weakly.
Josh felt His mortal parent's fears, not just for the safety of the trio, but also the silent fear Gabe had begun to develop as well. Deep down inside, Gabriel had begun to doubt the strength of Apollo's commitment to him, as well as the love Josh had for him. It had begun a while after Joshua had shed His mortality in order to save Ahmed from his HIV infection. Gabe began to feel as though he wasn't needed any more and that feeling had begun to grow stronger slowly over time. The sad part was that nothing could be further from the truth. Josh loved His birth father very dearly and knew that His divine parent loved Gabe even more than He did. Gabe always tried to hide his growing fears, but when his partner and their sons were all telepathic, it was impossible for the family not to know.
Feeling His dad Gabe's sadness, Josh rose and went to hug him. "Dad Gabe, please don't be afraid. We'll come back, I promise."
Gabe suddenly felt guilty when he realized that Josh had picked up on his fears. "Sorry... I know it's silly of me, but I love you, Josh."
"Can I?" He asked.
"You don't need to ask, Son. Go ahead."
Josh hugged his dad Gabe and drank in the man's love for Him.
Tina and Ahmed rose and came over to join them. "It's alright," Ahmed told Gabe. "We'll hop the pond, heal this man, see a few sights while we're there and catch a quick flight back home," he said, looking as though he was trying hard to look enthusiastic. Joshua knew what the problem was... Ahmed hated heights, but was doing his best to ignore the problem if it meant helping someone in need.
"It'll be fun," Tina said with a smile. "Like being on a working holiday."
"I'd like to see that new temple of Dad Apollo's while we're there, too," Josh said with interest. "See how the Americans worship Him."
"I don't know," Gabe hedged.
"If Josh were omnipresent like Me," Apollo said, "I'd just take part of Him there with Me to heal the man. But since He isn't, He'll need His priests with Him and that means that they'll all have to fly there. I'll be along as well to watch over them all and keep them safe the entire time. If I can protect your dad James from a bullet, I can keep our boy and His priests safe."
"I know..." Gabe said. "Guess I'm being a bit silly."
"No you're not," Josh said. "We'll come home Dad Gabe... I promise."
Gabe hugged his son again and tried not to worry both for his son and for himself. "Well then, if you lot are travelling, we'd best get you all packed and ready," he said, changing subjects.
They all went into the trio's bedroom and began to pull out suitcases. Only Tina and Ahmed would need to pack. As a god, Joshua didn't need anything. He was even able to spin clothing out of His divine light, so had no need to pack anything. Instead, He helped His partners gather the things they would need for the trip to the US...