Welcome to AresJoxerCupidStrife

Title: Bravery and Truth
Author: Corona
Rating: PG-15 For gruesome imagery
Archive: Want, ask, take, have.
Pairing: None
Warning: Some gruesome imagery, dark themes.
Disclaimer: I don't own anybody here. I never have done and I never will. I'm borrowing all of them for this story, I'll give them straight back afterwards.
Series: Sequel, if anyone likes this I'll finish it.
Summary: Joxer wallows and Ares snaps
Notes: Thank you Christine for reading this over and convincing me it was post worthy. Gratitude and thanks to her along with showers of chocolatey things.

Bravery, everyone made such a big deal out of it. Stand up to the people that hurt you, do the right thing, protect the innocent. Be courageous in the face of Death. People like Xena could live by these rules, people like Xena could make this life work. With the skill of armies and the body of a demigod.

For him it always came down to this though didn't it. It always came down to him laying on the floor, bleeding into the grass. What happened when everything you had wasn't good enough? When you were a snagged thread in the tapestry of life which refused to fit anywhere. When no matter how hard you tried you failed.

Joxer could see his hand very faintly, half buried in a patch of slowly reddening grass. He moved it, smearing bright red into the green. A hero would have gotten up by now, would already be on his feet. Joxer couldn't see how because it felt like he was dying. Pain came and went in nasty waves. It started in his head, wound through his chest, made his stomach roll then crept all along his arms. It would stop then, teasing him with a perfect moment of nothing. Then it would start again. It helped if he stopped breathing, because his chest felt like it was full of broken glass.

Xena and Gabrielle had already gone, chasing more troops from Tryuis army, trying to stop a war that had been brewing for centuries. He couldn't blame her for that. The men who'd been here had been unconscious after all. Surely even Joxer could handle three unconscious men. He closed his eyes for a minute against a particularly vicious ray of sunlight. Then stopped thinking when a wave of pain came again, for a few seconds after it passed his entire world centered on the cold sweat collected at the back of his neck. It was comforting in a way because it meant the wave had passed.

So what were you when you went into every fight knowing you were going to lose, knowing you were likely to be killed every day. Knowing you had to do it anyway, because there wasn't any other choice. When everything you'd ever wanted was denied to you because you just weren't good enough. You weren't a hero that was for sure, a fool maybe? How much harder was he supposed to try, how many more times was he supposed to go through this. What would it take?

To his intense relief the next wave of pain was a shadow of it's predecessors. He decided he should probably attempt to get up. It was either that or lay there forever. He pushed at the ground with tacky hands and managed to raise his head. His cheek had dried and the grass clung to it. He made a disgusted noise and brushed with a wrist, flakes of red fluttering down. The forest wobbled unpleasantly around him but he closed his eyes and pushed a little harder.

There were no trees close enough to cling to but by force of will he rolled himself over and slid his knees underneath him. He lifted an arm and wiped where blood had run sideways across his face. It stung which told him he'd been lying in the grass longer than he'd thought.

"Have you quite finished committing emotional suicide" Joxer looked up, the figure opposite him registered as a dark blur. The voice though, he didn't need to see to know that voice. Another kick in the teeth, no less painful for it's non physical nature. Ares slowly came into focus, face twisted in an expression of anger and disgust.

"What do you care?" he offered, the words came out thick and slightly slurred. His head hurt worse than when he was on the ground. He didn't care if he offended Ares. Once he would have done, once he wouldn't have even opened his mouth. Not through fear, for that reminded him too much of his father, but through sheer awe. The sort of reverence only a God could expect to receive.

Ares appeared to ignore his question.
"And bleeding all over your clothes" Ares didn't seem surprised, disgusted maybe but definitely not surprised. Joxer didn't have the energy to be disappointed, it wasn't worth it. Who better than your own God to come and kick you when you were down. Ares stalked closer, arms hanging loosely at his sides, sword sheathed at his hip. "Is that why you think I'm here, to mock you?" 'Why not' Joxer thought, his life was full of ample opportunities for mockery and amusement.

He scrubbed some more at his upper lip, winced. Waited in silence for Ares next words. Instead there came a short annoyed grunt.
"I've always known you thought sideways Joxer but I never figured you for stupid" Joxer said nothing, it was obvious Ares wasn't finished, and he'd continue whether Joxer wanted to hear it or not. He shuffled around in the grass. Not that he was much of a captive audience, even through the nausea he felt like he might fall asleep. He didn't think Ares would appreciate that.

"You just don't get it do you, it's not getting through your head" he heard Ares stop and make a sound sharp with disappointment. The anger was obvious, Joxer could feel it coming off of every word. "Why are you doing this?" he asked softly, though he was looking off to the left, staring away at something that couldn't crush him with a single expression.

"You're no good to me like this" Ares snapped and strode over, snagging Joxer's arm. For one brief second he thought Ares would tear it off. Then the world snapped into focus so quickly he closed his eyes with a groan. The stickiness at his face was gone and the pain in his head simply vanished, like it had never been. Joxer gasped, didn't have time to protest or give thanks as he was dragged almost brutally to his feet.
"Come with me"

Joxer, startled, tugged on the grip, which he knew with certainty he wasn't getting out of any time soon.

"What are you doing? Where are we going? Ares?"

"Shut up!" Joxer was shocked into silence by those simple words, said in such unrestrained fury that he was suddenly terrified. He had expected mockery, disgust, even pity. He'd never expected violence, he wasn't good enough to merit violence, you only attacked things which could threaten you, wasn't that right. He was pulled out of his thoughts when Ares hand clenched painfully.

"Ares?" and he knew how frightened he sounded. He was dragged almost bodily across the clearing and there was nothing he could do about it, even when the ground rippled under his feet. Sending new and different waves of dizziness through him. Then they were somewhere else.

It looked like Tartarus on earth. The ground was a deep bronze, where things that had never meant to live outside a body had been churned into the mud. Bodies in armour some of them whole some of them not, were thrown around like forgotten toys. Ares stopped and Joxer stopped with him. Standing in utter silence as he fought to take in what he was seeing. The aftermath of a battle, no, a war.

"What?" it felt blasphemous, speaking at all in this place. It felt horrible, like all the life had been leeched from the earth.

"This is what you wanted to see wasn't it?" Joxer jumped, looked up into the furious face beside him.

"What...no" he didn't understand, he didn't understand why he was here.

Ares started moving again, still tugging Joxer along as he fought not to look where he trod. A horrible sick feeling came to him again.

"You want to be a hero Joxer, I know someone who can teach you all about that!" the words were snarled and then suddenly he was pushed stumbling in the mud, hands hitting the surface of the soil then pulling away instantly at its slickness. Ares was right there behind him, shoving his head down.

All he saw was a jumble of white and red, steel shining in places. His eyes widened as he realised what he was seeing. He choked, a short whine echoing on the wind.

"Meet Danaris Joxer, he knows all about being a hero" Joxer, with the strength born of hysteria shoved Ares hand away and stumbled back in the mud. Ares whirled.

"He knows how to be brave" Ares gave a short bark of laughter.

"That's what bravery is isn't it Joxer, plunging in amongst odds you can't defeat to fight for the cause you believe in" Joxer landed in the mud with an unpleasant sound as Ares advanced.

"How can you be so stupid, how can any mortal be so stupid" Ares went down on one knee and Joxer watched in horror as one hand came forward and snatched the side of his face, yanked it sideways. He couldn't move out of the position and found himself staring at a pyre of burning soldiers.

"Why are you doing this" he breathed, because this all felt wrong, it felt like something sick.

Ares jerked his head back to face him.

"This is not war!" he spat

"This is carnage and slaughter, do you realise how useless this is" Ares voice cracked.

"Do you realise how many thousands of years of this I've had to watch" his other hand flashed up, fisting in Joxer's shirt.

"Don't you people ever learn!" Joxer could do nothing but stare, captured utterly by that broken voice. Cracking on every yell torn forth from a rapidly flexing throat. Veins in his temple strained, teeth grated against each other.

"You can't just win, you have to break, destroy and defile. Torture until there's nothing left of your enemies. People who are just the flipside of the same coin. It goes on and on and you never learn. You think heroes change anything. You think anyone remembers one man! How can you want this, how can anyone want to end up like this, strewn out for the crows, unremembered and unmourned." silence descended and Joxer found it more terrifying than the shouting.

Ares sat back on his heels, ignoring the mud which twisted and slid underneath him.

"You can't want this, you of all people" Joxer was shaking, every muscle he owned tense with terror. He had expected violence not to be shoved off a cliff into the true depths of horror. The hand released his shirt and trembled before falling from his chest.

Ares looked...Joxer couldn't find a word for it. Maybe there were no words, just that hollow empty feeling when those eyes looked at him. It was chillingly abrupt, how all the anger was just gone. They were left kneeling in the filth. A place where all the words in the world couldn't undo the horror, and speaking even one seemed a travesty.

He understood now, he understood what Tartarus was. It wasn't a place it was an emotion and Ares appeared to have been living it. Slowly, not knowing why just that it had to be done, he slid forward in the mud.

Ares tensed when he tentatively wrapped shaking arms around him. He didn't know what he expected, his mind was still too shocked to process what was happening but he knew despair, he could deal with despair. Ares head fell onto his shoulder, forehead sinking into the muscle. The tense shoulders shook once in utter silence. "Make it stop" he whispered.