Very against type but I would really enjoy playin’ Phil in a production of Disney’s HERCULES

I’m down to one last hope and I hope it’s you
Though, kid, you’re not exactly a dream come true
I’ve trained enough turkeys
Who never came through
You’re my one last hope so you’ll have to do

I’ve been out to pasture pal, my ambition gone
Content to spend lazy days and to graze my lawn
But you need an advisor
A satyr, but wiser
A good merchandiser and whoa
There goes my ulcer

‘One Last Hope’ from Hercules but it’s a jaded woman singing to her lover about hoping her doesn’t let her down. The “graze my lawn” line takes on a new significance (🤭) but I think it could really work

Strawberry, though. It’s not as sweet. The flowers bloom curling and white, a patch of them wild at the base of the trees where he tends his herd. The berries red in dense green leaves. A phantom taste on the back of his tongue.

this line describing strawberry jam from an older fantasy story of mine <3

See Parts 1-4 for context. Set the morning after Part 4

Part 1  Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 

05:15. 

His alarm blared. Eyes stinging and dry, Herc sat up from a sleep that was barely a sleep. He had tossed and turned most of the night, fitful dreams chasing him around and around his head, the sheets ensnaring him as he tried to escape from his worries. 

05:30.

He brushed his teeth mechanically, staring at himself in the mirror. 

He was a capable man. He could do this, and he had people who believed in him. The dark rings under his eyes made him look pale, drawn, but he forced himself to smile at the reflection once he’d finished. 

You can do this, Herc, he told himself.

05:45. 

He filled the protein shaker bottle quietly at the kitchen tap, and grabbed his holdall. Out of the door as quietly as possible, he stepped out into the cold morning air. His breath clouded in front of him. 

There was barely a sign of life out there at this time of night. Even the birds hadn’t began to wake yet, with the pitch black outside. Hercules walked quickly, as he always tended to do, sipping protein shake as he went.

06:15.

Ok, he steeled himself as he stood in front of the door. He could do this. He could do this. 

He unlocked the door, and switched off the alarm. Which he had to change the code for, he reminded himself, trying to put it at the top of his to-do list for the day. 

His mouth was dry as he stared at Olympus Gym. His Olympus Gym. Ok, so what did he have to do again? There was a shiver of fear that ran through him, tightening his chest. But he clenched his fist. No. He wasn’t going to fall apart, not with people counting on him. 

It wasn’t like it was the first time he had opened up, even if as he ran through the check list in his head it felt heavier somehow. 

He locked the door behind him. 

Boot up the computer at the reception desk. 

Lights on in the main gym. 

Changing room lights on. Changing room heaters on. 

Air conditioning on. 

Back to log into the computer. 

Stow his things in the office, trying his best not to look around the empty shelves. 

06:30.

Radio and speakers on.

Unlock the door again. 

Flip the sign to open. 

“Morning Herc,” Brad grunted, from behind a thick scarf, as he entered the gym. 

“Morning Brad!” The brightness in Herc’s voice didn’t quite ring true, but if Brad noticed, he didn’t stop to turn it into anything. Besides, he had a yoga class to prep for. 

06:35. 

The door opened again, and one of the regulars entered, nodding to Herc as he held his gym card up to the scanner at the front desk. 

“Morning Jim,” Herc smiled at the guy, who as usual smiled back before he headed straight to the changing rooms. 

In a lot of ways it was just like any other morning at Olympus Gym. 

07:00.

Hercules stood in the foyer of the gym. A radio DJ was introducing the next song, over the sound of clinking weights and a rhythmic thud and hum of a treadmill. To his other side, Brad’s soothing voice filtered through the ajar door of the main studio, with the sound of yoga mats being laid out. 

Slowly, surely, a watery and crooked smile emerged onto Hercules’ face, without him even realising it. 

Set December, 2021.

TW: Depiction of a panic attack

“Well then,” Daniel stood in the doorway of the Olympus Gym for the final time, turning the keys over in his hands. The rest of the staff, those who had stayed to bid their boss a fond farewell, had already spilled out into the golden pool beneath the streetlight outside. Daniel turned to Hercules, who was holding back, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. 

“I guess this is it, young man.” He smiled fondly at his protégé. In this moment, the way his shoulders hunched up around his ears he looked just like the kid who had first walked in aged 17, not having the faintest clue what to do about using the gym, or how to pay for using it, who stumbled over his words and just wanted to know more. That young man had grown more than he could ever imagine within these walls. 

“I … I suppose so,” Hercules smiled, but his eyes darted to the keys in Daniel’s hands, then back to Daniel’s kind, reassuring eyes, and back to the keys. 

“You’re sure you won’t come to the pub with us? Have one to toast me off?” 

“I think I need to start sorting things out here…” He couldn’t bear to sit there and think more about the fact his rock was leaving, to watch the glances from the other staff wondering why on earth they now had to answer to this kid who knew nothing. 

“Ok,” Daniel nodded - he had expected that Herc would probably want to spend some time here on his own, “But just… promise me you’ll remember, you don’t have to work all of the time, ok kid?” 

“I… I promise,” Herc nodded, his eyes on the floor. 

“Oh c’m’ere,” the older man sighed, and embraced Hercules. He could feel the muscles in his back, taught like a bowstring, even as the younger man seemed to sag against him, relieved for anyone to take up the weight he was bearing. Daniel felt a twang of guilt. It was a lot for young shoulders. But he knew, even if Hercules didn’t yet, that he was going to be good at this, that his one last shot was the right one. 

Hercules’ breath caught in his throat at the sudden hug - he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged as a friend. He wanted to hold on and never let go, to cling to the stability and familiarity, but it couldn’t last. That, and the earth under his feet were going to shift soon. He could feel his heart thudding against Daniel’s chest, fast and flighty. 

Pulling back, Daniel held onto his arms, taking a long look at the young man. 

“You’re going to be amazing Hercules. I know it.”

What Hercules heard? They’re counting on you, Hercules. You can’t let them down. 

Then keys were being pressed into his hands. Daniel was turning, and it was all Hercules could do command his eyes to watch him go, as he slipped into the night. The whole pack of them then meandering off into the darkness, chattering loudly. 

Hercules let the door shut. He went to lock it, but his hands trembled. Once, twice, thrice he tried to get the key into the lock before it finally turned. He screwed up his eyes for a second, feeling suddenly cold, even though sweat was beading on his forehead. 

He turned. 

The gym was silent, unnaturally so. No music thumping from speakers, no clink of weights, no steady thrum of cardio machines, no chatter of people spilling from a yoga class. Just silence, and darkness. With only a handful of lights left on the walk back to the stairs seemed very long indeed, as if it was stretching out before him, determined that he never make it. 

He felt sick at the thought, but forced himself onwards. Gripping the keys tight in one hand like a lifeline, Hercules made his way upstairs. His footsteps echoed on the steps. 

He pushed open the office door with a hand that, try as he might, wouldn’t stop shaking. 

He swallowed, although his mouth was dry as a bone.

The breath caught in his throat again. He’d never seen it like this, stripped of all the personal items Daniel had accumulated over all his years running the gym. No photographs on the desk, no papers, no pens, no certificates on the wall. It looked so empty… All trace of him gone from the space.

Hot tears prickled in his eyes. His chest began to heave. Where was the air? His hands trembled, his knees turned to jelly. He couldn’t breath. Oh god he couldn’t breath. Stumbling, he planted his hands on the desk, before sinking to the floor with a thud. What was happening to him?

A ten-tonne weight was sitting on his chest. No matter how hard he fought he couldn’t get the air in. His whole body shook, wracked and paralysed with the feat that overtook him. Was he going to die here? Slumped on the floor of Daniel’s office?

The tears streamed from his eyes. He had already let them all down. He had already failed, and he hadn’t been in charge for ten minutes. The weight crushed down on his shoulders. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. 

He wasn’t ready, and now he was going to let Daniel down. Let them all down. Brad, and Laurel, and Ren, Merida, and Q, they were all relying on him now. He couldn’t be trusted with their precious lives in his hands. 

He sat, slumped over, trying to breath until his ribs began to ache. 

The tears began to dry. Still his hands shook as he opened his phone. 10:43. 

By the time he got home it would be gone 11. And then it would be less than seven hours before he had to be back here, to be starting a new day as a new boss, acting like everything was fine. Fraud, voices inside him whispered. You’re a fraud. Pretending to be the boss and to know how to make all of this work? Who did he think he was fooling. 

Set November 2021

TW: Slight hints at the symptoms of a panic attack

Hercules had his head in his hands. The gentle pressure of the heel of his palm on his temples was somehow removing the attention from the headache that had already felt like a vice slowly crushing him. It had been there for days now. 

In front of him lay a whole other headache. 

His laptop was open to a whole set of spreadsheets. Print-outs of documents seemed to have exploded all across the kitchen table and were strewn out in front of him in a system that only he could possibly understand. 

In his heart the decision had been so simple. From the moment Daniel had asked him, it had been gently whispering ‘Yes.’ Saying to him as he tried to sleep ‘you have to do this.’ Telling him ‘if not you, who?’ when he was trying to shower. The little voice that echoed ‘you can do this! this is what you’re supposed to do!’ and even infiltrated his head while he ran. Sometimes the voice sounded cold, even. ‘Think of all the people you’d be letting down if you said no.’

But his head was unsure. His head swam at the sight of the numbers, the commitment to the next decades of his life at least. He balked in the face of the information thrown at him by Dan’s business manager friend, visibly turning white. Those figures kept rolling over and over in his head, the pressure of it all. The idea that he would be the one responsible for everyone, that he might still let everyone down even if he did take over the gym! 

He removed a hand from his head, and rubbed at his chest. There was a strange tightness in his diaphragm. Had he over-strained an abdominal? Because something just felt like harder work than usual.

He didn’t even hear his roommate enter. The other man blinked in confusion as he found the kitchen full of light. Reeling slightly, he stared at Hercules. 

“Jesus mate, it’s 3:30 in the morning, what the hell are you doing up?”

Hercules stared back. Was it? Was it that late? He looked at the laptop screen. Huh. That number had simply faded into the background behind all those numbers telling him other things he didn’t know how to fully process. 

“Oh, uh. Couldn’t sleep. Good night, was it?” He asked. The other guy filled his glass at the sink and downed it in one. “Yeah, yeah pretty decent. I’m knackered though, gonna hit the sack-” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder and sloped out to bed, hoping against hope to somehow forestall the hangover that was coming.

Hercules returned to his numbers. He might never have been great at maths, but they just didn’t add up. The business loan was one thing, supposedly, the gym could handle that fine with its profits and he didn’t need to worry, he had been assured. Provided he didn’t run it into the ground. But no matter how you spun it, his life savings came nowhere close to the lump sum that the mortgage would require. And if he couldn’t provide that money, then he couldn’t get the money that would buy the gym from Daniel. If he couldn’t buy the gym, then someone else would and it risked everything they had worked for, to keep this gym for the community falling apart. There was that breathless feeling again. He heaved a heavy breath in, as if that would fix it somehow. He was going to have to see a physio if this didn’t let up, something was clearly wrong. 

Jaw clenched, he looked at his phone. There was another option, but it filled him with fear. They had offered! They had offered, he shouldn’t feel like this - the voice in his heart whispered, but it was drowned out. What kind of son made his parents give him their own money to sort himself out? One who couldn’t stand on his own two feet, one who was a burden, instead of providing for his family like he was supposed to. Some son that was, he scoffed derisively. 

And yet, in all his hours spent around the table no other solution seemed to present itself. There were people counting on him, the weight of it, crushing down on his shoulders. He had to choose. Did he spread that burden? Give it to the people whose burdens he was supposed to be taking away, as their only son? Sure he would find a way to pay them back but… what about their shop? What about if they needed the money suddenly for themselves, he couldn’t just give it back, not when he was wiping out his own savings to try and get past the threshold anyway. 

Stretching back in his chair, he could hear the pulse in his ears. He frowned, and checked his watch. 102 bpm? That was… that was way too high for simply sitting in a chair.  Was he getting sick? This was the last thing he needed, he had work in the morning and he really needed those hours now more than ever.

Maybe he just needed to sleep. Yeah, that would be it. 

He scraped the papers into a loose pile and shoved them into his laptop before he closed the lid and trudged back to his bedroom. 

He stubbed his toe on a dumbbell. Scrunching his face he felt tears springing into his eyes. Why the hell hadn’t he cleaned his stupid room! He snapped at himself. And why the hell was he crying about it it didn’t even hurt that much, why was he being such a stupid emotional idiot! He wanted to lash out, to try and take the frustration out on something. But his roommate was in bed in the room next door. 

So instead he simply lay down, not even wanting to change out of his joggers. 

“You can do this!” The voice in his heart whispered. 

“No you fucking can’t.” His head replied. 

“You don’t have a choice,” something else, a voice that sounded much heavier in his head, more like his own, chimed in. 

He heaved a deep breath in, against whatever it was in his chest that seemed to be fighting his breathing.

The cycle began again.

HUFFLEPUFF:

“To be a true hero, kid, is a dying art
Like paintin’ a masterpiece, it’s a work of heart
It takes more than sinew
Comes down to what’s in you
You have to continue to grow”

–David Zippel (Phil: Hercules: One Last Hope)

GRYFFINDOR:

“I’m down to one last shoot
And my last high note
Before that blasted Underworld
Gets my goat
My dreams are on you, kid
Go make ‘em come true
Climb that uphill slope
Keep pushing that envelope
You’re my one last hope
And, kid, it’s up to you”

–David Zippel (Phil: Hercules: One Last Hope)

SLYTHERIN:

“Demigods have faced the odds
And ended up a mockery
Don’t believe the stories
That you read on all the crockery”

–David Zippel (Phil: Hercules: One Last Hope)

So, ya wanna be a hero, kid?
Well, whoop-de-do!
I have been around the block before
With blockheads just like you

Each and everyone a disappointment
Pain for which there ain’t no ointment
So much for excuses
Though a kid of Zeus is
Asking me to jump into the fray
My answer is two words
OK
You win
Oh gods
Oy vay!

I’d given up hope that someone would come along
A fellow who’d ring the bell for once
Not the gong
The kind who wins trophies
Won’t settle for low fees
At least semi-pro fees
But no, I get the greenhorn

I’ve been out to pasture pal, my ambition gone
Content to spend lazy days and to graze my lawn
But you need an advisor
A satyr, but wiser
A good merchandiser
And oh!
There goes my ulcer!

I’m down to one last hope
And I hope it’s you
Though, kid, you’re not exactly
A dream come true
I’ve trained enough turkeys
Who never came through
You’re my one last hope
So you’ll have to do

Demigods have faced the odds
And ended up a mockery
Don’t believe the stories
That you read on all the crockery

To be a true hero, kid, is a dying art
Like painting a masterpiece, it’s a work of heart
It takes more than sinew
Comes down to what’s in you
You have to continue to grow
Now that’s more like it!

I’m down to one last shoot
And my last high note
Before that blasted Underworld
Gets my goat
My dreams are on you, kid
Go make ‘em come true
Climb that uphill slope
Keep pushing that envelope
You’re my one last hope
And, kid, it’s up to you

Listen Disney is a major corporation that’s really making grabby hands at every shiny new character rights they can get their hands on and they have a lot of faults that counteract the soundtrack creators, animators, and other artists’ hard work, but their worst fault was not giving the general public the ability to get ripped in 3 ½ minutes while Danny Devito sings about your progress in the background like what the fuck Walt

One last hope

The curtain closes
a stone on the table, a blood red complexion
a flickering candle on the table, a maroon tear
you once promised me until the end of time

Rest in peace

Ahahahahahahahahaha!!!! You’re funny Anon. I have at least six unfinished WIPs. If by some miracle I get them all done, I kind of want to write original stuff. If it’s any consolation, I’m not averse to writing outtakes or future takes — both smutty and fluffy — from some of my completed stories. Maybe a one shot here and there, I don’t know. I make no promises, but sometimes I’ll throw one together and share it with you if the urge is strong.

Disney + Songs (One Last Hope)

To be a true hero, kid, is a dying art
Like painting a masterpiece, it’s a work of heart

MARQUEZ JE VOUS EN PRIE

I wanted to try out a bit of singing and character voice. (As in, putting character into a voice. I’m not attempting his voice lol XD)

I was never meant to be. It was obvious. When I was born, I was born into a death sentence. A sentence of unfortunate tragedy that is my life. I am miserable, no one will listen to me. My parents don’t love me, our family is a lie. I can’t find happiness anymore. Not with myself. Not from mundane things. No one can help me. After my little project, I will end it all. No one will care. No one ever has. This is what it has to be. I’m sorry. I’m sorry my friends. I’m sorry everyone. It is better this way. For everyone. I can’t feel anymore. Everything is falling away from me. Life is killing me. I’m sorry.