Title: Chazouli Mou
Author: Amejisuto
Email: amejisuto_kagetsu@yahoo.com
Rating: PG13
Fandom: Xena: WP
Pairing: Ares/Joxer, mention of Cupid/Strife
Disclaimer: I am just borrowing the characters from Renaissance Pictures, and from the Greek Pantheon. I’ll put them back when I’m done.
Warning: None really.
Summary: Ares helps Joxer pull out of depression.
Status: Finished.
Series: This goes with Blessed by Lady Fortuna, sort of how Joxer got from being hurt to happy with Ares.
Archive: http://www.aresjoxercupidstrife.com/fiction.html
http://www.kyri.angels-oasis.net/ame.html
Website: http://www.livejournal.com/users/amejisuto/
Notes: Thanks ever so much to the wonderful Nashmaveric for the title. In case you’re wondering it means “My little fool” in Greek. Nash should know, she lives in Cyprus after all. Also thank you to the wonderful Kitty_Poker1 for the beta!
Chazouli Mou
Ares looked down at his favorite mortal and sighed. It was so fucking difficult to let humans make their own decisions. It was almost as bad as watching your children make mistakes and learn from them. But that was the price the Gods paid for allowing humans free will and knowledge and Ares couldn’t regret it, even if it had gotten Prometheus caged for eternity.
Zeus may like people following him blindly but Ares found it so much more satisfying when they followed because they
believed in and wanted to belong to Him, not because they had to.
But giving humans a choice led to crappy situations like this, with his two favorite humans. First there was Xena, who was once his greatest general and could have sat at his right hand. She had been bloodthirsty and aggressive and everything War could ever want. Yet her achievements had been her own; her desire for power had led her down a dark path, Ares had no need to guide her footsteps.
Now she had found redemption, thanks at first to his bastard of a half-brother and now the blond bard that followed her everywhere. What Xena didn’t realize was the same thing that made her so dangerous also could have been an asset. She rejected ruling over an army yet again, only to roam the countryside. Yet if she were to raise just a small army and train them to help people instead of hurt, she would be greater than she ever thought possible, and would be able to help more humans than she alone could.
Then there was Joxer. A more different sort of person from Xena couldn’t be found. In many, many ways he was still naďve, despite that he’d had a terrible home life. He had kept his ideals, and tried too hard to please people just for their approval.
In many ways the loss of Joxer had hurt him ten times as much as the loss of Xena. Not that he could ever let on to that fact; Gods were not supposed to be fond of less-than-perfect mortals.
Now he was stuck watching his mortal fall into depression. Joxer had a wound in his side that if he wanted to he could tend, albeit by straining.
The problem was that he didn’t want to help himself. He had finally lived up to his own dreams to be the hero and save the girl and he got stabbed in the back figuratively and stabbed in the side literally.
Then Ares felt it. The absolute devotion.
“Forgive me, my Lord Ares, for failing you…”
*****
“Why?”
Ares shook his head in frustration. It had been a week since he'd brought Joxer back to his temple with him and every morning it was the same thing. During the day Joxer usually just sat in the garden or in his room, or wandered the halls. If only the wounds to Joxer’s heart could be healed as easily as the ones to his body.
Each morning Ares gave him an honest answer, but never the same one. Today he tried one that he’d used before. Hopefully repetition would get through the mortal’s thick skull.
“Because you are mine again and I’m not about to lose my best worshipper to an infection. Now eat.” With a wave of his hand he provided breakfast, soft cheeses and fresh bread and some fruit, along with a pot of yogurt that Hestia made herself, flavored with honey made from her own apiary and fresh berries.
He was just lucky that his Aunt liked him. Even his Father had trouble getting her special dishes, and Hestia didn’t give out her recipes to anyone.
They ate in silence, Joxer’s eyes rarely leaving his plate. It was getting annoying. He wasn’t even looking around in awe or jumping in fear. Joxer just sat there, like a lump of clay. If this kept up he’d have to ask his son’s ex-wife to look at him, as much as he disliked her.
He had stopped trying to make small talk on day two, partially because Joxer just didn’t respond, and partially because he really didn’t think Joxer would appreciate what passed for small talk on Olympus. The account of different mortals' problems or Zeus’s latest conquest and how Hera had cursed her with a scaling skin condition probably wasn’t too amusing to a human. Well, not to a depressed human, at any rate.
Talk of family would be too…odd. Not that Cupid and ‘Dite didn’t know Joxer was here with Strife spending all his spare time in Cupid’s temple. But it probably would remind Joxer of what he had lost.
Strife was of a firm mind that sometimes you just had to wallow. Things just got into such a mess that you had to sit in it and take a good look at your life. Which Ares himself thought was absolute crap but it was worth a shot.
Finally the awkward meal was over and, after using his powers to clear away the dishes, Ares went to leave.
“Ares? Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Joxer.”
After he flashed out to his main temple in Thrace he allowed himself to smile. Maybe things would get better now. One could only hope.
*****
Another week had gone by and Ares was ready to pull his beard out. Joxer was getting better, but slowly. He’d talk a bit more, mostly to Strife or himself. He had bumped into Eris one day and had rendered her speechless by apologizing for getting in the way of such a beautiful lady.
His sister was used to having mortals run in fear or treat her with disgust rather than politeness. She had been complaining about keeping the mortal in the House of War before that, though, and had done a complete turn around, going so far as to threaten any god that didn’t like that Ares was keeping a “pet human” on Olympus with a good round of chaos and misfortune. She had even used swear words Ares himself never heard. He had been quite impressed.
Still the human did nothing but wander around and mope. He had thought about asking Bliss over but he was afraid that Joxer’s level of depression would be too much for the child and it was enough to deal with a depressed human, he didn’t need a crying four year old running around.
So he was falling back on what helped him whenever his anally retentive brother messed with one of his plans. Go and work even harder.
“Joxer, we need to talk.”
“Yes, Ares?”
Ares allowed the eye roll to show. They were in one of the many gardens on Olympus and he steered the mortal to a bench. Joxer looked and sounded as if he was being dragged to his execution. “Will you stop that! If I were going to kill you I would have done it a long time ago. All I want to do is offer you a job, so you can stop wandering around as if you were waiting for Thanatos to pay you a visit.”
For once he got a reaction from the mortal; Joxer’s eyes about fell out of his skull and Ares swallowed a chuckle. “A job? What can I do? I can’t fight, can’t even walk straight. I’m just a fool.”
“That’s exactly it. You must have noticed how people never paid attention to you Joxer. Why, you could probably still walk into King Iphicles’s throne room and no one would bat an eye. That makes you the perfect spy, and no one would ever think a former companion of Xena’s would ever be working for the God of War.”
Over the next few hours Ares explained his plans. Training for Joxer under Strife, his brothers, even Autolycus. Tools made by Hephestus himself. All so that Joxer can play the fool that others expect him to be and still be able to be an extra pair of eyes for Ares.
And the God of War watched as life came slowly back to those brown eyes. It took some time for Joxer to realize that he wasn't trying to play some sort of joke on him, that Ares actually wanted him. He couldn't help but feel victorious; after all, Strife’s theory of just letting him be was obviously wrong.
“Ares, can I ask you something else? Why won’t you be training me with any weapons or anything, why leave it to Strife?”
Ares closed his eyes and decided to once again tell the truth. If he lied now he might just send Joxer back into himself. Only problem was, he really didn’t even want to think the truth too loudly, much less say it.
So okay, he’d just show Joxer. After all, he was more a god of action than of words. He got right up in Joxer’s personal space, crowded him till Ares could almost count the hairs on his head and he watched as the mortal’s eyes dilated. “I’m not training you, Joxer, because it’s never a good idea to try to teach someone you’re personally involved with. That can cause dangerous mistakes that could get you killed and, as I’ve said before, I don’t want you dead.”
Slowly, making sure Joxer could see his intent, Ares pressed his lips against the mortal’s, licking at his mouth so that when Joxer gasped he could slip in and caress his palate, twine his tongue around Joxer’s and just
taste. Finally he pulled back. “Mmmm, strawberries and mint. You even taste sweet, Joxer.”
Joxer was flushed and panting. “You—you mean it? You and me?”
Ares wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him closer on the bench they were sharing. “I have many flaws, Joxer, but not meaning what I say is not one of them. I might lie to some people but I’ve never once lied to you since I brought you here.”
“So you like me, even though I’m a fool?”
“You may be a fool, Joxer, but you’re my little fool. Mine, got that?”
Joxer looked down at where Ares had his arms clamped around him passively. “For how long? I mean, you’re a god and I’m…”
“Mortal. There are ways around that, it just takes time. As for how long, well, I still feel possessive about the things I was given as a child and that’s been well over 5000 years ago. Once something is truly mine I don’t give it up, ever. Think you can handle that, Joxer?”
Joxer looked up and Ares saw the biggest smile on his face that he'd seen in all his time watching and waiting for the mortal to come back to him. “I think I can handle that just fine, Ares. In fact, I think I love the idea of being your fool, just as much as I love you.”