Welcome to AresJoxerCupidStrife

Title: Cupid
Author: Shamenka
Rating: Nc - 13 plus for language mostly
Pairing: C/S... eventually - oh, and het warning bwahahaha!
Archive: the list and me - anyone else that wants it ask me first ok?
Feedback: Why, I'd love to know if it were worth the wait!
Synopsis: Four years before Serinity...

Dedication: For Loyde - because I promised him this months ago for his
birthday!

Cupid
by Shamenka

Slowly, he awoke, he stretched out, brushing one hand against his already
hungry erection and the other against the still sleeping form of his Mate.

At least he's quiet when he's asleep! Cupid thought to himself as he got out
of bed, ready for his fun filled day of fucking and frolicking. Ready to go
claim Psyche as his.

Strife groaned, a sound like a mortal pain was growing in his dreams.

Cupid bet himself that Psyche wouldn't be as clingy and whiny as Strife had
been these last few months. He turned his mind to his quarry and focused on
her location, as he marshalled his energies to take him to her delectable
side another God entered his private chamber. Right before a fist connected
to his face and punched him clean across the room!

"Dad! What did you do that for?" Cupid whined as he stood up, rubbing his
abused face and crossed over to face his irate father.

"You were about to head out and fuck that Psyche bitch, weren't you?" Ares
stood before his son, hands on hips, anger redolent in every line of his
being.

"So what? You've fucked you way round Greece before this so don't try telling
me you're more righteous than me!" Cupid stood toe to toe with his father and
expected the War God to back down in the face of his invincible logic.

"For fucks sake, stretch out your blasted God powers and see what the fuck is
going on under your bloody nose, for once! Get your face out of that sick
fuck's cunt and look to your family's own needs!" Ares could feel the seconds
ticking away, he could feel the life forces getting smaller and smaller.
"Mother! Apollo! Aesclepius!" Ares threw his head back and yelled on those he
thought might be able to help. Maybe this time, if they were called quicker,
then things might be different.

"What's all the yelli..." Strife no sooner woke up than he fainted, shocking
Cupid into actually looking at his Mate's well being for the first time in
weeks.

"Stree...?" Cupid was unsure what he was going to ask, only aware that his
Mate needed something from him.

"Look at him, look within him, what do you see?" as Ares spoke the three he
had called materialised and they too looked within the younger God lying over
the bed.

"A child... he is carrying a child?" Cupid looked at the pure soul with half
a mind filled with wonder. "Whose is it?" He asked his father, voiced filled
with polite curiosity.

"Yours, you sick little bastard!" Rage filled Ares once more as he watched
the rest of his family running around, trying to save Strife and Serenity:
again. "So much for your vows that you'd never let this happen again!"

"What vows?" Cupid was confused, his father was talking in riddles and his
Mate was pregnant with someone's kid. What did they expect him to do about
it? "What do you expect me to do about it? I don't love him! I love Psyche...
now, do whatever you must, but, hey, I must be going..."

That was enough for Ares and Hera, both drew out a significant proportion of
Cupid's power and fed it directly to Strife and the baby within.

"I take it my prayers failed, son, I hoped you'd not remember the pain of
those years." Hera looked grief stricken, she had so begged those that went
beyond even Gods to save her son this remembered pain and hurt.

Cupid collapsed in a heap at their feet, drained, not dangerously so, but
enough to stop him from going to Psyche right away.

"Keep him here, mother, keep him with Strife, for now. I'm going to see what
I can do about the Psyche situation. Break her feed to Cupid somehow!" Ares
leaned over and touched Strife's belly, giving his granddaughter some of his
own energy too. "Hold on, kiddo, just hold on..."

"Be quick, Ares, I don't think they have much time; they really need Cupid,
need him to want to help them." Hera stood beside the gods of healing, ready
to assist where ever she could.

Ares materialised outside a dilapidated inn and looked around himself, to see
who was there, who was doing what. To see where Hercules was. And that answer
was - right beside him. Hercules was love struck, that much was clear, he'd
been hit by one of Cupid's arrows and now fancied himself in love with the
bitch that was his half sister...

That gave Ares an idea. A very good one in fact. He slowly materialised
beside his half brother and let him see his arrival all the way.

"Hercules! Out without blondie, or is Iolaus dead again?" Ares smiled, "Never
mind, it's you I need to talk to. Tell me, did you know that Cupid was
married?" Ares looked into his lust crazed brother's eyes, watching him
slowly process what was being said to him.

"He is? I don't believe you! If Cupid were married we'd all know about it!"
Hercules' instinctive distrust of Ares was driving the love arrows effects
out of his system.

"Oh, I am, am I? Well, come with me then!" Ares grasped a hold of Hercules
and moved them both to Olympus before Hercules' resistance could stop them.
They rematerialised in Strife and Cupid's bedroom, obscured from everyone's
notice in a cloak of Ares' own power. "Well, watch, listen, learn!"

"What's going on?" Hercules asked, alarmed at the confusion around them.

Hera looked at Ares' location, she knew he was there, she could hear
Hercules' damnable squeal of a voice, she had a shrewd idea what her son was
trying to do.

"Cupid, awake!" She pushed Cupid's awareness until his eyes opened and he
started upright, away from Strife's still unconscious form.

"Why is he still out of it?" Cupid looked again at the life form within his
Mate's body. It was a girl, he could see that much now, he could read her oh
so faint energy trace and knew, finally, that this was indeed his child, his
Mate, his future, and they were slipping away from him. "Why aren't you
helping, why aren't you doing more?" He looked to his Grandmother for
answers.

"Why should we? You stated earlier that this was not your child, inferred
that you didn't care what happened to Strife? Maybe you were right? Why
should you care?" the contempt dripped from Hera's tongue at the startled
expression on Cupid's face.

The love God was livid, he was almost lost in his own rage.

"He is my Mate, my avowed Mate, and he is carrying our child! You have to
save them! Grandma' you have to help us..."

A wave of Ares' hand let Hercules and himself, and even his mother hear the
prayer echoing in Cupid's mind.

'Oh, Cupid, come love me, you wanted me yesterday, come save me today...' It
was Psyche's voice, and the all saw the effects it had on the arrow struck
Love God. It pulled him away from those that needed him most.

"I gotta go, got prayers to answer and all that... gotta fly!" He giggled
mindlessly at his own stupid joke.

"What about Strife and the baby?" Hera asked, a strong thread of desperation
sounding in her voice.

"Save them, then move them out of here before I get back, okay?" Cupid waved
a hand in the vague direction of the outside. "Look, I gotta split.." He
never finished that sentence, Hera dropped him, unconscious, to the floor
once more.

"See, Ares, she has too strong a hold on him, she had someone fire the arrow
at him, it wasn't an accident." Hera watched her son and his half brother
slowly materialise before her.

"I know. Is there anything we can do, directly, to help? Does Strife need
more energy? He can have all he needs.." Ares touched Strife yet again and
send a warm trickle of his own power to his nephew and granddaughter.

"If I could give my energy, I would. To save a baby's life... that's what's
important right now... not whose baby or whose Mate..." Hercules was
interrupted, gently for once.

"Alas, Hercules, whose baby and Mate is the entire crux of the matter. You
must remember that Strife is God of Mischief and adultery is a calculated act
of mischief. Every time Cupid thinks about Psyche, Strife and the child get
assailed by his thoughts of such mischief, and so they get continually
weaker... I fear we are loosing them both..." Hera sniffed inelegantly and
turned to face the unconscious God on the bed once more.

"How can I help?" Hercules wished with all his soul to help the baby live.

"You could put your desire to see the baby live into this crystal for a start
and get that stupid sod's attention off of that damned woman's prayers... in
other words, distract the silly cow!" Aesclepius handed Hercules a small
crystal and watched it fill with Hercules' life force and prayers.

"Distract her? I offered to marry her! Only she had bigger fish to fry, and a
marriage to break up!" He turned to Ares with a hard look in his eyes. "Ares,
take us back, I have someone to teach and a lesson she needs to learn!"

"Please, hurry!" Hera begged her son and stepson, she could feel the pair on
the bed getting weaker every moment that passed.

Once back in the mortal world, Hercules led Ares to the edge of the crowd
before Psyche's father's inn.

"We have to get past this lot first!" Hercules tapped the nearest lust crazed
man on the shoulder. "Excuse me, I have to get in there!"

"Fuck off, moron, you're not getting in there! You make your bid for the
bitch the same as the rest of us. They say she's as beautiful as Aphrodite
and a certified virgin to boot!"

"I have an idea..." Ares whispered to his brother. "Follow my lead!"

Ares appeared in a show of Godly power, thunder roared, lightening flashed,
smoke, from all the battlefields Greece had ever known, billowed around the
crowd.

"Certified fake I tell you!" Ares laughed, hands on hips, the most evil,
calculating chuckle roared out of the War God's throat.

"Ares, don't tell me you've deflowered a sweet innocent virgin?"

"Okay, I won't, happy now brother dearest? Anyway, you think the man she
calls daddy hasn't played with the goods?"

"Ares?" the blustering fool's voice quivered, "as in the War God Ares?"

"Do you know any others?" Hercules asked sweetly.

A panic set into the crowd and those not so brave fools that could and would,
fled the auction crowd. That left only a couple of men either too foolish to
realise the danger they were in, or too brave to care. Ares and Hercules soon
took care of them. Now there was nothing between them and the inn.

Once inside Ares got his first look, this time round, of the insipid tart
that was destroying his family. She was still nothing to write home about.
Nowhere near as pretty as Aphrodite, no matter what hype her so called father
put out about her.

"Oh, that's sooooo sweet Ar!" Dite popped in beside Ares and pouted at him
prettily.

"If it's so sweet then why are you allowing this mess to continue? Have you
checked up on Cupid, and especially Strife, lately?"

Aphrodite looked at her brother, at both of them, standing together, not
fighting. Heavy on the not fighting part! She turned her focus inwards and
surveyed her son's part of their home, and found the desperate situation
going on in there.

"What's wrong with lil' Mischief then?"

"He's pregnant, Cupid's rejecting him in favour of her, and he, Strife, and
the baby, are dying." Ares gave her the very barest facts, they didn't need
her trying to hide behind semantics. "She keeps reaching Cupid directly with
prayers to come rescue her, to carry her off, and love her, and what have
you, and since she arranged for Cupid to be shot with one of his own arrows;
it's destroying Strife!"

"Oh, she did, did she; she does, does she! Well, she won't be getting away
with that rubbish for much longer!" Aphrodite grabbed Hercules' arm and
marched him over to Psyche's side. "Here, Herc, you wanted to marry her, you
marry her!"

"But, what about my wife's memory? My own dead children...."

"Which wife, which set of kids? Look, if I get mother to perform this
wedding, any wedding she blesses is protected by the Gods even from the
Gods!" Ares called his mother to him, hoping it was safe for her to leave
Strife's side. He also giggled, inside his heart, at the sheer Mischief this
act was causing, given Hercules' puritanical views on fucking family members.

"Ares, you need me?" Hera arrived looking regal, the ultimate queen, which
she was.

"Bless the union of Hercules and Psyche, give their marriage your ultimate
protection; even from you!" Ares hoped she wouldn't mention Psyche's
parentage, in fact, he prayed she wouldn't mention it.

"Hercules, do you agree to take this woman as your wife for so long as either
of you so live?" Hera asked the hero.

Noble, heroic, railroaded into one specific action, Hercules nodded his head
and looked at the sweet innocent flower he saw Psyche as.

"Yes." He added.

"Psyche, do you agree to take this man, Hercules, my stepson, as your husband
for so long as either of you so live?"

Desperate to be out of there and her down trodden lifestyle, being the
Goddess blessed wife of a real live hero like Hercules was better even that
being the concubine of a God like Cupid. At least, with living on Earth,
folks would know it was she who was Hercules' wife!

"Yes, Lady Hera." Hera shook her head at the strumpet's antics, trying to
impress her by using her name like that!

"Hercules, noble and honourable, do you swear by my name to keep yourself
only to your wife, for as long as either of you live?"

"Yes!" Hercules clearly wasn't listening to the exact words that were being
spoken.

"Psyche, innocent of this Earth, do you swear by my name to keep yourself
only to your husband for as long as either of you live?"

"Yes, L..." Hera interrupted her sycophantic fawning

"In my name I declare this union sealed, by my words I bless this union, by
my hands I protect this union, let no one, man, woman, God or Goddess rip
asunder what I have so created. Who witnesses this act?"

"So witnessed, by I, Ares, Heir of Olympus!"

"So witnessed, by I, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love!"

"Go on then, Hercules, kiss your bride and go consummate this union.
Protected for as long as either of you lives!" Hera lifted Hercules by the
power of her mind and swept him into the desperate arms of his new wife.

Desperation courtesy of Aphrodite.

Neither Hercules nor Psyche wasted any time getting their union safe before
all the Gods and Goddess of Greece. Even before Cupid and his sick and
weakened Mate Strife.

On Olympus Cupid felt himself being freed from the hold Psyche's arrow had
had over him; his guilt over his treatment of his one true Mate threatened to
overwhelm him. Strife woke up, still pregnant, his child still alive with in
him, recalling, vaguely, something his Mate had said earlier. With Apollo and
Aesclepius' help, Strife started to leave the Halls of Love.

On Earth Aphrodite felt her son's heart begin to break.

"Ares, something's wrong with Cupid; his heart is breaking..."

Ares and Hera immediately returned to Cupid and Strife's chamber, with
Aphrodite following hot on their heals.

"What's going on?" Strife asked as the three senior Gods appeared before him.

"Come, child, let me explain!" Hera put a nurturing arm around Strife's
shoulders and drew him to one side. She talked, quite animatedly, for several
minutes, all the while Strife was starting to giggle. He looked over at Cupid
and laughed, he met his Uncle Ares' eyes and winked at him. He touched his
grand mother's forehead and eased her pain by breaking her half of the
marriage vows only Strife could rescind. Just like he was the only one who
could grant either Hercules or Psyche absolution from their marriage vows...
and why should he be in a rush to ever want to do that?

"Please, Strife, forgive me? I'll make any vow you can dream of, please
forgive me? I wasn't in my right mind, I'd neve willingly hurt you - nor our
baby! Gods above, we're having a baby! Oh, she's going to look so much like
you, she'll be beautiful. She... a daughter! Oh Gods, Oh Us, she'll be
beautiful and want to start dating one day...oh..., Us, she'll want to date
one of our relatives...." The shock and revulsion at that idea was so clear
to hear in Cupid's voice.

"If I give you forgiveness, what will you give me?" Strife asked, quite
seriously.

"The my heart and everything in it! Another child? Riches? Our own home away
from the Halls of Love? Whatever you want."

"Options one, two and four - what use do I have for mere trinkets, when I
have us?" Strife grinned at Cupid as he watched his Mate think through the
fact that he had, for now, been forgiven.

Cupid swung him into his arms and headed out on to Olympus to chose the best
place to build their new, family home.

"Hera..." The plaintive voice of Zeus resounded through the entire place.
He'd suddenly noticed his acts of betrayal only affected himself now. His
wife was no longer bound by their vows.

___________

Four years later:

Cupid was as large as a house; his Mate and their daughter were running
through the Halls of War, playing with Ares. Their son, Bliss, still too
small to run and play, was sleeping beside his throne as he watched the
others playing. He had had Bliss and had so enjoyed being pregnant that he
was doing it all again. Anyway, it was safer, as Cupid saw it, to not risk
Strife like that ever again. Once again he glanced at their sleeping son, he
smiled as he recalled how his dad and grandmother had insisted they they call
him Bliss. It fit the child, like Serenity mostly fitted that lively girl
running and screaming in her play. Maybe this third one, Peace, would live up
to her name too?

Their world had been quiet for sometime, Zeus no longer messed with other
women, he paid little attention to the everyday lives of the mortals. He
simply didn't have the time to spare, watching Hera took all the time he had
available. She didn't feel his adulterous intentions anymore, but, likewise,
he couldn't feel her intentions at all either. He had spent the last four
years trying, and failing, to get Hera to retake her vows with him. The only
thing holding Hera to Zeus as his wife was her continued desire to be his
wife. There were even several mortal souls wandering Hades' domain because
they smiled at his wife the wrong way. Or worse still, that poor man that
Hera had smiled at. He didn't know if Uncle Hades had ever found all the bits
to his soul even now!

Ares had successfully dealt with some Sumarian upstart God, Dahok or some
such. He'd also totally humiliated his former champion, Xena, on several
occasions no less, that she and her little noisy friend were in India, not
likely to return. She had even had the nerve to suggest she was Ares'
daughter! As if his dad would ever look at that insipid cow of a woman that
was Xena's mother, she was more Zeus' style, Ares liked his partners to have
a bit of life to them. Iolaus had teamed up with that Joxer fellow, Ares
watched over them, he'd promised Hercules he would before Uncle Hercules had
headed off for foreign parts.

Cupid smiled, rubbed his swollen belly and looked at his dad, and his Mate,
and their daughter once more. If his instincts were anywhere near right, then
his dad and that Joxer guy were set to be more than just God and follower,
and if that happened, well, Cupid was now keeping a track on his cousin
Autolycus - just in case Iolaus got lonely.

Hercules and Psyche had ended up in Eire and Persia, respectively, once they
discovered they were brother and sister. And since they both still had the
hots for each other, they had tried to put as much distance between each
other as humanly possible. He'd give them a decade or two to figure it out,
that such things didn't concern the Gods in any way; then he'd maybe sort
them out. After all, Hercules had saved his Mate, their daughter, their lives
together. And if he really and truly wanted Psyche, then there was no
accounting for taste...