Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Title: A Kick in the Head
Author: Moonloon (Vesper)
Rating: Oh, there might be some NC17 at some point
Pairing: Mainly C/S, some A/J
Summary: Cupid's POV, stuff with Strife
A/N: This has been sitting on my HD for almost a year. I sent it to
one of the list sibs a while ago for some input, but I'm buggered if
I can remember who it was, or what they said. *shrug*
It had been a total bitch of day. First Bliss had woken me up by
jumping on my morning wood. Hard. Then I discovered that his cat
had peed on my bow, warping the shit out of it and just to make my
day complete, when I went to shoot this months 'super-charged lovers'
I found Zeus doing the monster pump with the previously virginal
female half of the combo.
While her intended watched through the window in horror.
I needed a break. Somewhere quiet and peaceful with no hyperactive
Godlings, no cats and definitely no horny grandparents.
My favourite chill-out place is a tiny corner of Hera's garden. It's
so far away from everything that no one really goes there. It's a
sort of semi-wilderness: there's a pond filled with non-ornamental
fish and little green frogs, a big mess of wildflowers and a nice
comfortable mossy bank that's ideal for lying on and contemplating
while you pick out cloud shapes.
I swore quietly when I got there though. Sitting hunched over on a
rock, looking into the water was my cousin Strife. Now, don't get me
wrong, it wasn't that I disliked Strife, I even cried a bit when he
died, it was just that this was my special place and I didn't want to
share.
I couldn't decide whether or not to leave but Strife, without turning
around, said, "Hi Cupe, tough day?"
"Uh yeah." I sat down and watched the frogs hopping about for a
bit. "You?"
"Uh huh." Strife turned around and I saw that one eye was swollen
shut.
"Tartarus! What happened to you?"
"Unc got mad 'cause I messed with one of his followers." Strife
looked so miserable I got that pesky urge to cheer him up. Bliss
sort of rubs off on you like that.
"Why would Dad do that?" I asked, "He doesn't usually mind you
sleeping with his followers does he?"
Strife scowled, "I wasn't sex messing. Is that all you think about?"
"Uh well, God of Love y'know."
"It wasn't fair. Pure souls don't come around very often and when
they do how many do you think build me a shrine? One so far thanks.
And then his stupid warlord father dedicates him to Ares! I mean
Ares!"
"Um," I said, a horrible suspicion entered my head, but Strife kept
on going.
"It's not like I tried to steal him away or anything. Unc probably
got a lot more energy from all the praying. I just got some too from
all the mishaps he caused. He built me a shrine Cupe, with his own
hands, when he was six! All I did was make him a bit clumsy and give
him an accident-prone nature."
"We're talking about Joxer aren't we?"
Strife blinked, "Uh yeah, how'd you know that?"
"You're really lucky Dad is still all mushy about you returning from
the dead. If he wasn't you'd have got worse than a black eye."
"Why?"
"Strife, you live in the Halls of War and you don't *know*?"
Strife's good eye narrowed. "Enlighten me."
"Dad's been in love with the guy since Joxer was like thirteen or
something."
"Well I didn't know. How was I supposed to know? It's not like I
have love radar or anything like some people. Hell, I don't even
know what love feels like. I thought that tracer Ares put on him was
because he hung out with Xena."
I was a little shocked that Strife had never been in love. I made a
mental note to find someone nice and shoot her for him. "No, he did
that so he could watch Joxer whenever he wanted."
"Uh, then why hasn't he ever done anything about it?"
"He wanted Joxer to have a normal mortal life for a few years before
he moved in on him. He was waiting until Joxer turned twenty-five, I
think. Then Jox went and fell for that blonde twit of Xena's."
Strife blushed, "Oh. Uh oh. Shit."
"Well, its not like that's your fault, is it?"
"Uh, well..."
"What! How?" I'm pretty sure I did that unattractive red
spluttering thing I do when I'm surprised, because Strife started to
do the manic giggle that freaks everyone out. Pulling myself
together I said, "Mom and I both checked for love signatures. There
weren't any."
"Ah, that was one of my better moments." Strife was still snickering
slightly. "I modified one of your arrows..."
"You stole one of my arrows?!" I was yelling by now and Strife sort
of cringed back. I hate when he does that: he just looks so pathetic
and helpless. Come to think of it though, that's probably why he
does it. I don't know about anyone else but I always feel like shit
for being mean to little helpless things. Anyway it worked and I
calmed down. "Strife, what did you do?"
"Ah, I just mucked it about enough that the love part was still there
but the love signature was displaced with the mischief one. It
worked good too, even Unc didn't pick up on it when he found out
about the other stuff." Strife looked panicked for a moment, "You
aren't going to tell him are you?"
I thought about it for a moment. "No, Dad really hates it when
people mess with Joxer. You should have seen what he did to Mom
after that whole bell thing."
"I think that's when Ares started to realise Jox had some Godly
influence on him; no one is *that* different from their true self."
"I guess you have to fix it now huh?" I asked.
"I'm not sure I can. Ares said I had to do it without it looking
like a God was involved. I suppose I could take bits off gradually
but I don't know how to get the love stuff off."
I sighed, sometimes it's a real pain to be such a nice guy. "I'll
help with that bit." Suddenly Strife smiled. A *real* smile. A
big, happy, beautiful smile. I remember thinking 'Wow!' and getting
a little dizzy at that point.
Amazing how these things happen, isn't it?
The first thing was to check on Joxer. It was pretty late so when we
found him, so he and the girls were making camp. Well, Xena and
Gabrielle were making camp. Joxer was making a mess.
"Ow! Joxer!" Gabrielle howled as he dropped an empty stewpot on her
foot. Joxer apologised and flipped open a bedroll, which caused a
breeze to blow ashes in Xena's face.
"Joxer!" Xena was looking dangerous.
Joxer apologised again and tripped over a stone, his helmet flew off
and into Gabrielle.
Strife was sitting next to me in a tree, snickering and glowing
slightly. "I'm really going to miss this, the energy I get from him
alone is almost as much as I get from everyone else put together."
"Really?" I was a bit surprised.
"Yeah, I have no temples, no one ever dedicates their kids to me. I
can count my adult followers without taking my shoes off. And none
of them are pure souls."
"But what about the children?" I asked, thinking back to that
morning and Bliss's antics. And his cat's.
"Oh kids are great, but they don't have the focus of adults. They'll
do a bit of mischief and half an hour later they've forgotten it.
They don't really *pray* for it." Strife sighed, "That was another
one of the reasons Jox was so special."
We got distracted for a moment, because Joxer had lost his helmet and
Gabrielle had offered to help him look for it and blundered into a
patch of stinging nettles. Oh boy, can that girl scream!
By the time Strife and I stopped giggling Xena had coated Gabrielle's
legs with salve and they'd turned in for the night. We sat and
waited for Xena to go to sleep; she's a bit tricky about sensing when
Gods are about.
It was really nice sitting in that tree; Strife's arm and hip
touching mine, as we talked about nothing much. Eventually though we
heard Xena snoring and headed down to get a closer look at Joxer.
I'd never noticed before how light Strife is on his feet. It's like
he was designed for sneaky midnight tippy toeing about. He had a
fond smile on his face as he sat down next to Joxer and patted the
mortal on the head.
Okay... 'Feeling dizzy when he smiled at me'? Check.
'Happy fuzzy feelings from just sitting together'? Check
'Noticing how he moved'? Check.
'Jealously about something that was almost entirely innocent'? Check.
I was one boner away from love. Well, technically I *am* love, but
you know what I mean.
I shook my head and studied Joxer. Now I knew what to look for I
could see the artificial love spell quite clearly. It was one of my
slightly warped submissive ones for the S/M crowd. They were
supposed to come in pairs and I hoped to Tartarus Strife hadn't used
the dom half on anyone. The masochist arrow explained why he was so
hot for Gabrielle: the more of a bitch she was the better he liked
it, and she is one hell of a bitch.
I tried to remove the spell but it wouldn't budge. You know why:
what one god does another cannot undo. The thing was, Strife just
didn't have the knowledge to do it. I looked over and there was
Strife looking pouty.
*Pouty!*
And I suddenly had proof of love making my clothing a little tighter
in the crotch.
I cleared my throat, "What?"
"It's going to take too long to fix. If we want no one to notice."
"What?"
"Well, I made him short-sighted. I scrambled his inner ear, I did
stuff to his joints and changed his mental body-image. This is just
going to take too long."
I was puzzled. "You have a time limit?"
"Um yes. Sorry, I forgot to say. Ares wants him back by the time
that war finishes over near Sparta."
"And that will be...?"
"A month tops."
I groaned. "Great."
"Hmmm. I'll need to think about this." Strife sat down and chewed
his lower lip. I wondered what his reaction would be if I crawled
over and did it for him.
Y'know, wearing leather may look sexy but the damn stuff has no
*give* to it.
Strife obviously didn't want to do his thinking in the Halls of War
so I took him back to my place. I made a few delicate passes over
supper and pointed out where my bedroom was twice but he wasn't
biting. You have no idea how frustrating it is trying to work out
whether someone is just oblivious or trying to tactfully give you the
brush off. Strife is really hard to read too, I'm still not sure if
that's because he was dead or because he had such a bad childhood.
His shields are huge and almost impossible to get through.
I didn't want to push anything so instead of spending the night with
Mr Right I got to spend it with Mr Right Hand. With Strife sleeping,
probably naked, in the next room manual relief was as satisfying as
eating salad when you can smell bacon frying. I didn't sleep much,
which is why I came up with The Plan.
Ah, The Plan, a masterful piece of work if I say so myself. Doubly
impressive when you consider that most of my blood was in the *other*
head that night.
Strife is so cute first thing in the morning. He's really not a
morning person; he stumbled up to the breakfast table with his hair
actually lying flat in places with this sleepy dazed look on his
face. If Bliss hadn't been sitting there feeding his cat raisins I'd
have grabbed Strife, bent him over the table and had him right there,
next to the porridge.
Y'know that testosterone rush that all men get first thing in the
morning? That's me, I'm in charge of that. I am the God of Morning
Wood. Mom may be the tops for all the hand-holding and moonlit
proposals but early morning sleepy sex? That's me. And it has side
effects. I'm just glad Strife wasn't awake enough to notice me
gibbering brainlessly about whatever it was I was gibbering about.
Peaches I think
Anyway, I eventually got myself under control and zapped Bliss off to
play with the muses before Strife woke up enough to realise that he
was receiving power via all the little things that kids do when they
don't think they're getting enough attention. The cat went too:
raisins weren't the only things he'd been feeding it and I really
didn't want to leave a cat in digestive distress all alone in a white
temple.
"I have a Plan." I said as soon as Bliss had gone.
Strife blinked sleepily, "K."
"Do you want to hear it?"
A pause, "K."
"We hit Joxer on the head really hard and when he wakes up he's all
healed." I sat back and smiled, rather smugly I afraid, but I
deserved it! It was a great Plan.
"Uhm, Jox gets hit really hard on the head three or four times a
day. I think they'll get suspicious if he wakes up with balance and
20/20 vision after 18 years of waking up clumsy."
"We can hit him really, really hard."
"Ah, Cupe... you are remembering that this is Unc's favourite
mortal? I don't know about you but caving his skull in will probably
bring Ares down on us like five tons of lava."
"We could warn Dad that we're doing something and he shouldn't get
worried."
Strife looked a little more awake now, "That might be better coming
from you: when I say 'don't worry' to Ares he usually gets that pulse
in his temple and tries to lock me up for 'the safety of the
universe'."
"Good point." I said, hoping that the war over in Sparta had calmed
Dad down a little.
~
*BLAM*
I have no idea why I was suddenly lying in the mud staring at the sky
with my ears ringing. I hadn't even said anything yet. I sat up and
saw Dad scowling.
"Oh. Cupid. I wasn't expecting you. What are you doing here?"
I got up and cleaned myself off with a thought. No apology, I noted,
which was annoying, but Ares never apologises. Never admits he's
wrong either. A mean little part of me hoped Joxer would turn him
down if Strife and I ever got the spell off.
"I came to warn you that Strife and I will be hitting Joxer on the
head later today. Don't freak: we're fixing him."
"By hitting him in the head? Don't you think he's been hit in the
head enough already?"
"This'll be the last time, we drop a house or a tree on him, he's
unconscious for a couple of days and we work out all the mess."
I saw Dad open his mouth to say something and then just stop and
glare at me.
"And what's *your* interest in this?"
"Uh." I was suddenly wondering if there would be anything left of
Strife if Dad found out about the arrow and panicked. I don't panic
well; I said the first thing that came into my head. "I'm trying to
get into his pants."
Fortunately, although that wasn't the answer to Dad's question, it
*was* the truth. Dad can always tell if I'm lying. He looked a
little surprised for a moment and then did something that shocked the
Tartarus out of me.
"He's still very fragile about being dead. If you hurt him I'll pull
your feathers out one by one."
"Uh, aren't you the same person who threw a fireball in Strife's face
yesterday?"
He had the grace to look a little ashamed. "Is he okay?"
"A little subdued, he only giggled once. You really should have told
him Joxer was off-limits."
Ares scowled at me. "Oh yes, it's so very helpful to tell people
exactly where your weaknesses are."
I decided not to argue: for a tough guy, Ares is a bit paranoid
sometimes. "So, anyway... you just want the Strife stuff lifted? No
arro."
"NO!"
Definitely time to leave.
~
Strife was pacing up and down when I got back. If you watch
carefully you can see a little butt-wriggling when he walks. I was
watching his butt *very* carefully. Of course, he's a very mobile
person, not someone who can sit still for long. Flexible too, which
is a very distracting thought when you have a mortal needing a quick
blow to the head.
"Okay, Ares is fine about Joxer. Apart from flattening me in the mud
and wanting to know why I was involved, he seemed pretty calm about
the whole thing."
Strife gave me a funny look as I grinned at him. "So why are you
being so helpful? You seemed pretty pissed off about me stealing
your arrow. I keep waiting for the axe to drop."
I managed to stop myself from running my fingers through his hair,
and gave him a comradely pat on the shoulder. "It's fun." I lied.
Well, it wasn't exactly a lie: it was fun, but not for the reasons he
probably thought.
Strife giggled and a really evil expression crossed his face. "So
when we bean Jox, can we get Gabrielle too?"
tbc