AresJoxerCupidStrife - Corona

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20

Title: Naked 1/?
Author: Corona
Fandom: Xena
Rating: R (probably, with the nakedness)
Archive: Yes, want ask, take, have.
Pairing: C/S J/A
Warning: There will be naked people, some of them may be hiding but they'll
be naked.
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: Yep, there'll probably be some more, eventually, let me write it!
Summary: Several Gods becoming annoying, Zeus fixes it!

Zeus quill scratched carefully across the parchment. 'I almighty Zeus, do hereby decree...' What would come next? Zeus dipped his quill into the ink again and chuckled to himself. Very carefully he started to write, 'All firstborn shall be dedicated to me on their conception.' He twisted the quill between his fingers. Mortals probably didn't know what that meant yet. Sometimes it was hard to keep track. He scratched out conception and put 'birth.'

The scroll was whisked out from under his nose and he was left holding the quill in mid-air, it immediately dripped a little splodge onto the oak table.
"Ah!" Was about all he managed before Aphrodite and Athena swayed unstoppably into his field of vision. Aphrodite won because of the simple fact of there being more of her to sway.
"Ok I've had enough of her prudish, simpering little toadies. You have to do something about this!"

"She had priests outside my temple father, naked priests!" Athena looked positively furious.
"They weren't outside, they were walking past! They weren't doing anything apart from walking past and being extremely gorgeous. How could anyone complain." Athena glared at her, then glared at him.
"Naked father, completely naked, They must have had the entire bloody street gawking out of their windows." Aphrodite made a rude noise.
"She's just jealous, most of her priests she couldn't give away!"
"I'm worshipped by intellectuals Aphrodite, most of which are loathe to prance around like Satyrs in mating season!" The blonde budged her out of the way.
"Like Thenie's ever seen a Satyr in mating season. They threw mud at them, they threw mud at my priests and then chased them through the streets!" She emphasised this statement by slamming her tiny hands down on Zeus desk, jars rattled and wood creaked ominously.

"Which had nothing to do with me, obviously their sensibilities were offended by your little pornographic display."
"It wasn't pornographic in the slightest, it wasn't that kind of procession. It was about freedom and choice and-"
"Nudity?" Athena offered.
"No...yes, Hades why don't you get this you're five thousand years old!"

"I get it just fine, you think flaunting naked people who measure up to your standard of beauty makes you look good." Aphrodite whirled on Zeus.
"That is not true, you know that's not true!"
"Anyone who doesn't measure up is cast aside and deemed far too ugly to exist within your special and very unrealistic view of the world." Aphrodite bristled at her.
"So what's your world view Theni? People who're smart enough can be as ugly as they like because they'll never need to be naked?"

Athena made a rude face down her nose.
"No, if they're intellectually superior they may procreate, in the dark, briefly." Aphrodite's face wrinkled up in something close to absolute despair, then she gave up.
"Sometimes I seriously wonder about you."

Zeus looked from one to the other, scowled.
"Have you quite finished?" They at least had the grace to look slightly ashamed.
"I'm assuming you came here for some sort of reparations, not simply so the King of the Gods could provide you with an audience?" There was, at least, a respectful amount of foot shuffling.

"I should think so too, this argument in one form or another has been going on for centuries. I will make a decision at the next meeting and then I will hear no more about it, is that clear?" More foot shuffling.
"Yes Father."
"Yes." He found the parchment he'd been making his decrees on, positioned it back underneath his quill.
"Right now both of you go away!" He waved, twin flashes of light a second later left him alone again. He glared at the parchment, his last decree was all smeared, children, he was starting to think Chronos had the right idea.

***

He got to the meeting early, mostly because he liked to get everywhere before anyone else but also to consider what to do about the constant bickering. If it wasn't Aphrodite and Athena, it was Hera complaining that he didn't compliment her clothes anymore, or someone else complaining that they didn't want to be in their own House because the colours weren't interesting enough. People around here were always hiding things, concealing things from him, which wouldn't do at all.

Of course there was a simple enough solution to the entire mess, and good entertainment had becoming awfully rare in the last millennia or two. The only downside was that Hera would most likely have his balls, she could be quite frightening when she had good reason to be, part of being a king was knowing when not to piss off your chief advisor, especially when you'd married her.

He settled all his papers down, rearranged them a few times and watched absently as members of his family started to gravitate towards the table. There was the obligatory fight between Ares and Athena over the chair that came with built in weapons, and a brief glaring match between Aphrodite and Demeter over the one with the really comfy cushions. He cut off whatever else would have undoubtedly annoyed someone by clearing his throat.

"Right, shut up! Ares please take your hand off of Athena's throat. Athena remove your hand as well. Demeter sit in the other chair, it's perfectly comfortable." He cleared his throat again.
"Right can we at least manage to have a meeting today without declaring war on each other." He sent a brief bearded glare around the table.
"Ok, Item one..." Much paper shuffling, and someone decided it would be an appropriate time to cough. He glared at the offender.

"Item one, some idiot has gone and invented some sort of steam powered metal device that runs on wheels. Demeter has put in a motion to...let me see, 'have him killed in horrible sharp ways.'" He raised an eyebrow.

Ten minutes later everyone was shouting at one another.

A minute after that he brought his hand down on the table hard enough for everything to go flying up in the air.

"Shut up! All of you shut up this instant." Mouths shut, eyes swivelled in his direction. He glared at every offending body part.
"I've had enough, that's it, no more. All of you...children running around complaining about each other and hiding things from each other. Well I'm going to put a stop to that." He snatched one of Hermes pieces of paper, which he'd been happily doodling a tree on and pulled Apollo's quill out of his hand.
"I'm writing it down, so you can't all argue me out of it, ha!" Then he did write it down and his entire family was blinking at him uncertainly like he might possibly explode.

He sighed it with a flourish and then he and it disappeared in a flash of light.

The calm before the storm lasted roughly eleven seconds....



Naked 2/?

"What in the name of...Zeus was that all about." Ares offered, Apollo shrugged at him, Demeter was scowling, most everyone else looked bewildered, except Athena, who was currently occupying a place of superiority into which no one else had been invited.

Hera was sitting quite calmly, giving the impression that whatever had caused the mini outburst had nothing to do with her, for a change.

The first indication that whatever Zeus had been mumbling about was going to have some kind of immediate effect was announced firstly by a curious grunt from Eris and secondly by Demeter's slightly less restrained yelling.

"What is wrong with you now!" The voice belonged to Ares, who was used to yelling at people and if Demeter didn't like it she could stuff it. She turned an angry startled face on her nephew, then did something very odd, she went red. Which was possibly the most interesting thing she'd ever done.
"My-" She shut up, didn't finish her sentence, stopped talking altogether, which didn't seem like a good thing at all. He couldn't think of anything that was stop Demeter from voicing a perfectly good rant. He whirled on his sister for some sort of clarification. Eris was gazing down at herself in curiosity.

"Did someone just steal my shoe?" Apollo said quietly, his sister gave him a bewildered look and prodded a bare shoulder.
"You're missing a sleeve too." Ares frowned at his family. Did anyone have a sense of priority here?
"The bones in my corset have disappeared, I'm lacking a certain sense of uplift here." Eris finally snapped.

Apollo was too busy staring forlornly at his shoulder to leer.
"How could a sleeve vanish? Do we have magic clothes stealing pixies or something." Ares was rapidly realising he was sitting at the table bare-chested and he was almost certain he hadn't come in that way. The last time that something like this had happened it was because...

Ten heads swivelled in Aphrodite's direction.

Unsurprisingly she hadn't bothered to fold her dainty little arms even though she was also lacking in the wardrobe department. Ares wasn't in any mood to stare though.
"What did you do?"
Aphrodite defended herself with a small scowl.
"Hello, why are you all looking at me! I'm not the magic clothes fairy. Why would you think I have anything to do...with...uh." Her eyes flickered very briefly to Athena, who'd folded her arms the minute she saw what had happened to Aphrodite.
"Don't look at me! You're the one that put him up to this!" The Goddess of War spat through her teeth.
"If I'd known this would be his solution I would have let your rotten priests dance through the streets."

"What did you two do?" Hera asked very quietly, from slightly behind Apollo's shoulder. The God of the sun was keeping his eyes fixed somewhere straight ahead.
"What priests? What does she have to do with this!" Ares barked, also aware his mother was by now missing several pounds of feathers and one headdress.

"Aphrodite!" Artemis snapped, the Goddess of Love swung her head.
"It was her! Thenie was the one who wouldn't stop whining about how people shouldn't be allowed to be naked ever, all I said was that people shouldn't be ashamed to think they look good that way, even if they're like old or fat or ugly or whatever."
"So what, he's fixed it!" Ares yelled.
"He's going to steal our clothes and render us naked like little children who can't decide what to wear!" Aphrodite thumped her fists on the table, briefly distracting everyone.
"It's not my fault, I didn't expect him to go all early man on us! He was just muttering about people complaining and something about colours and stuff. How was I to know what he was going to decide, I just wanted Thenie to stop dissing my worshippers!"

"Oh dear." Apollo said very quietly, which provoked a mass head swing in his direction.
"I might have said something about how the Asphodelians were bringing all their creepy monochrome vibes upstairs." Hades perfected a narrow eyed glare and sent it straight at him.
"Something about grey being...life sucking." Artemis sucked air through her teeth.
"Oh I see, you thought we could all match so people's feelings didn't get hurt. All of us being a lovely-" She peered at her hand.
"Sort of beige colour."
"Well Hades is more sort of grey." Hermes said quietly. Ares thumped his head against the table.

"We'll be able to compare slightly better in a minute, at the rate are clothes are disappearing!" Athena said tightly.
"I for one am leaving before I'm rendered completely nude in front of you. I suggest one of you talk to Zeus, fix it, we can't exactly go wandering round like this can we." She stood up very hurriedly in her sensible blue underwear and just about managed to make a fast yet dignified exit.

"I for one am with her." Artemis said and stood slowly, arms already folded across her chest. A few seconds ago it had been just in case, but now she risked genuine embarrassment if she removed them.
"I sincerely doubt I will find any clothes in my wardrobe but I can live in hope on my way out. Please don't come and visit me until further notice, especially you Pol." She disappeared with a very muted flash, Demeter very quickly followed her, without even a parting scowl.

Hades cleared his throat.
"For once I have to agree with them. I have no great wish to remain here and have my clothes stolen bit by bit, and I suppose someone has to explain this mess to the lurkers amongst us, who will be none too happy at the removal of their camouflage." He disappeared in a rather less showy explosion of sulphur.

"How exactly am I suppose to work like this?" Eris pointed out quietly.
"I cannot strut around battlefields naked, people will laugh at me and I'll be forced to kill them." She picked at the last remaining bodice strap until it dissolved between her fingers.
"I'm not that happy sitting here naked around you guys, a bunch of mortals watching me swish around my temple, that's not gonna happen."

Hermes leant back in his chair.
"Don't look at me, I wasn't wearing much to start with." Ares glared at Aphrodite.
"That didn't seem like a compromising face Zeus was wearing to me." A quick look up had revealed Hera had already vanished. Apollo had relaxed in his chair, he looked tempted to put his feet up.

"Don't even attempt to look put out Pol, it's rarer to actually find you in clothes." The Sun God shrugged.
"What about the mortals? Are they all au natural as well?" Ares glared at Aphrodite.
"Surely Zeus wouldn't go that far."
"They won't be happy, they're very attached to their clothes."
"So was I." Eris grumbled.

"I suppose we should check." Hermes stood up. Eris grumbled and very reluctantly rose.
"If anyone looks at me, be prepared for a very sharp unpleasant experience."
"And we go invisible, lets not start a panic."
"Duh." Eris threw at him.
"Speak for yourself." Aphrodite muttered.

***



Something very strange was going on.

Cupid was gradually drip drying as he wandered round the bathroom. He'd put the towel down there, right there, on that piece of bench that was now curiously towel-less. Admittedly that wasn't all that odd, there were a dozen Gods he could name off the top of his head that liked to pinch things just for the amusement factor, and most of them were so good he wouldn't have had any idea they were there. Bliss being one of them. However, he got the impression more curious things were afoot.

A check of the cupboards confirmed that all the towels were missing, and a peek through to the ante-chamber revealed more curiousness. Someone had taken the curtains too. He stood there for a minute, then shrugged and went outside.

The corridor was curiously empty, like some mass exodus of Olympus had occurred while he was in the bath. That seemed highly unlikely. He couldn't think of anything that would tempt an entire population of Gods to all bang together and go anywhere.

"Helloooo." Oh well it was worth a shot. Unusual things were rare enough for him to stroll down a few of the corridors, not testing any doors just yet, just general strolling, he could reach his temple this way anyway.

It didn't take him that long to find someone. Hermes was lounged on one of the statues, scroll settled on the marble, quill speeding across the paper.
"I thought I'd wait for you, figured you'd come this way eventually." Cupid looked him up and down.
"Lose your skirt on a branch?" Hermes chuckled and shook his head.
"Nope, Zeus has been on the rampage, don't expect to find any clothes in your wardrobe, or curtains on the windows, and the bed linen will not come off the beds."

Ok this was interesting enough to stand there blinking for a second. The answer seemed fairly obvious but conformation would help.
"Everyone on Olympus is naked?"
"Bingo." Hermes waved an arm indicating his own state of undress.
"Hera? Hestia? Hecate?!"
"Naked, nude, undressed, without attire." Hermes said pointedly.
"And this happened how exactly?" The question got him an eyeballing, and a rather worrying smirk.
"You might wanna ask your Mom about that." Cupid groaned, that was typical,
Hera would be on the rampage and he so didn't wanna get caught in the crossfire.
"Where is she?"
"Vanished somewhere with your Dad and Eris, something about naked mortals, wasn't really listening."

Oh surprise it could actually get more complicated.
"Naked mortals?! Oh don't tell me, I can guess." Yet another shrug
"And Hera would be where?" Hermes shrugged.
"Buggered if I know." Cupid blinked, Hermes always knew where everyone was, that was the whole point of his job.
"What?" Hermes crossed his legs at the ankle, swung them.
"She's hiding, actually a lot of the Gods are, I tried to talk to Phobos but he's booby trapped his temple door, so watch out if you're having a wander."

Cupid leant against the wall, if Zeus had any sense he was probably hiding as well.
"So, when do we get our clothes back?" Another long shrug.
"I dunno, probably the minute Hera and Hecate discover where Zeus is and threaten to drill him a new orifice." Hermes shoved his finished scroll under his arm.
"That's it I'm done, gotta go." Cupid didn't even have time to say anything else, if he'd been inclined to, before Hermes was nothing but a very faint sonic echo.

"Well bye then." He grumbled and drifted back off down the corridor. Oh well being naked had never stopped him from working before, trouble was his Mom had disappeared, along with half his workload. It looked like he'd have to wait for her in her temple. Either that or hang around in Dad's. Of course there was a bigger problem he'd have to solve. Now he had absolutely nowhere to hang his bow.

***

"Gabrielle you're going to have to come out of the water eventually." This didn't seem likely, the bard was neck deep in the lake, teeth visibly chattering. Every so often she'd glare. Xena poked the rabbit that was slowly turning on it's spit.
"I can't believe you're being so calm about this!" Screeched the temporary mermaid.
"Our clothes, all of them, vanished! I'll bet this another one of Ares games." A splash of water went up.

"You said you wouldn't let the Gods play with you again, why aren't you screaming and hitting someone, that's what you're usually doing right about now!" Xena poked the rabbit some more, then swivelled it.
"Because I don't think this is a game, it feels more like revenge." Gabrielle attempted to throw weeds somewhere within hitting distance.
"Again, you're not hitting people because?"
"If it was just us I'd be very pissed indeed Gabrielle, but if you'd looked over the hill you'd have seen it's happening damn near everywhere. I'll bet there isn't a helmet or bolt of cloth in a hundred miles, which doesn't strike me as Ares style." Xena spun the bunny some more.

"You really should come out, you'll get hypothermia."
"What?!" Xena sighed.
"You'll get so cold you'll die."
"I don't care!" Gabrielle snapped back.
"I'm not budging on inch!"
"If, of course, the water snakes don't get you first."

There were a few curses and some random splashing which gradually got closer. Finally a bush in front of her on the bank rustled. Xena rolled her eyes at it, then stretched out on the log until her knees popped.

"Want so rabbit Joxer?" Xena offered to the tree a few feet to her left.
"Umm, that would be nice, could you just sort of throw it over."



"Can I at least have an arm to aim at?" Xena offered. There was a quiet rustle of foliage and one long arm slid somewhat reluctantly into view. It did make the throw a whole lot easier, and after some brief fumbling, the rabbit managed to stay in the hand.
"What about you Gabrielle? You want some?" There was an annoyed sounding rustle from the bush.
"No, I'm not hungry." Really it was like raising children.

"Joxer's promised to stay behind the tree, come sit by the fire at least."
"Someone might come by!" Xena rolled her eyes and grumbled to herself.
"Well then you can run and hide, or just slide behind me." The bush was silent, it seemed to be thinking.
"What if I hide behind you and there's bandits or something, you'll have to get up and fight them, I can't hide behind you while you're flipping and 'aaiiieing.'" Xena raised an eyebrow at the bush.
"I do not sound like that." The bush remained silent, she glanced at the tree but Joxer appeared commentless.

"I can't believe you're just sitting there with no clothes on." Gabrielle whined. Xena rolled her eyes.
"We've sat on the bank naked before, we've even dried off by the fire naked."
"Yes but there was always the opportunity of putting our clothes back on!" Gabrielle protested.
"And Joxer wasn't there!" Xena glanced at the tree. Fine Gabrielle could stay behind the bush.

Of course from a tactical standpoint she now had a new advantage. Men were not, in general, good at dodging, weaving and running naked. The swinging metal was also not conductive to an aggressive frame of mind. She peered down and prodded a few bits of herself.

She on the other hand had no dangling extremities, and was still taut enough to add the complication of more than one body part trying to think at once. Yes, she held tactical advantages, besides it was warm enough and there weren't any prickly roots nearby. She wasn't likely to be arrested, since any soldiers were liable to be naked as well. Curiously enough without the dirty armour and the idiotic helmets she may have to hit everyone and figure out if they were bad guys when they regained consciousness.

Talking of bad guys....

"I wondered when you'd show up." The bush near the bank quivered in silent rage, and Xena could have sworn that Joxer cursed. She looked up to discover a not entirely happy God of War, lounging against one of the trees, though luckily not that one.
"Are we fighting?" Ah he'd decided to get that out of the way first. She peered up at him.
"Considering how many prickly trees there are around here I think I'll do us both a favour and decline." Ares gave a sigh of relief and carefully sat down on the log next to her.
"I suppose you want to know what's going on."
"Don't trust him!" The bush supplied, Ares glared at it briefly, rubbed one of his feet against his shin.

"It seems Zeus has decided we put too much stock in what we wear rather than what we do or what we say." Xena raised an eyebrow.
"Don't tell me, someone didn't get the fashionable sandals for solstice and kicked up a fuss?" Ares glared at her.
"Zeus wrote a decree before we knew what he had planned and now he's vanished and left Greece and the Pantheon to-"
"Wander round naked."
"Pretty much."
"And the other Gods?"
"Are taking it pretty much as you would expect, some of them aren't really inconvenienced at all."
"Cupid, Aphrodite?" Ares glared and motioned to stop interrupting.
"And others-" She ignored it.
"Are having fits?" He rubbed grass off the other foot.

"If you hadn't stopped by and told me what was happening, you know I would have stormed to the nearest temple and pulled a Hercules."
"And because you're half-god your whining would have given me a headache." Ares supplied. He brushed bits of bark off his elbow in distaste.
"So I guess you intend to run off somewhere and try to fix this now...then later I suppose we'll fight." Xena prodded a bit of rabbit before eating it.
"Well we have gotten so good at it."

"It's the only thing you've ever understood Ares!" They both glared at the bush.
"Somehow she's less annoying when I know she's crouching behind a bush freezing her arse off."
"Be nice." Xena admonished.
"Where's the funny, noisy, thin one, I feel three of you?" Xena waved a hand.
"Joxer's behind the tree." Ares leant back and peered.
"Say hello Joxer." Xena added. A hand appeared, waved briefly.
"Umm, hello Ares."

"Well I can see they're all set to watch your back if anyone attacks." Joxer had the grace to rustle in an embarrassed fashion. Gabrielle remained behind her bush in silence.
"Joxer was going to sit behind the fire, Gabrielle threatened him with painful squelchy death if he dared." Ares raised an eyebrow.
"Is she offended in some way by naked men?"

"No! I just don't want people staring at me!" The bush protested, gave another rustle. Xena rolled her eyes.
"You do realise you're perfectly visible to anyone on the other side of the bank." Ares offered.

There was some brief panicked rustling, and the identifiable sound of someone trying desperately to climb inside of a bush.

"Oh for the love of Zeus." Xena muttered.
"And you wonder why I never used to have any friends." Ares grinned suddenly.
"You do realise I could snap her camouflage out of existence."
"Don't you dare, it'll take me hours to convince her to come with me, even then she'll probably want to hide under Argo." Xena glared at him.

"Don't you have a king of the Gods to find, or some naked soldiers to convince onto the battlefield." Ares ignored her.
"What about you Joxer? Since Gabrielle has declined an invitation to breakfast."
"Umm." Not the reply of a man who was convinced.
"There's rabbit left." Xena prodded, who to be honest was getting sick of conducting conversations via the local scenery.



There was a brief rustle, then a long sigh and a shape detached itself from
the bushes, shuffled around a few low hedges and came to a stop on the other
side of the fire. Joxer folded himself into a sit and made creative use of
his own knees. Wordlessly Xena proffered what was left of the rabbit. Joxer
managed to take it without burning his fingers in the flames or looking at
anything he shouldn't.

Ares was peering at him curiously, which was enough to unnerve anyone.
"What?" Xena decided she'd help before Joxer got any redder.
"Did you get a new Joxer?"
"No that's the same one." She offered helpfully.
"It doesn't look like him, I remember him being pointier."
"That would have been the helmet, it went the same way as the clothes,
though I can't figure why since it started life as some sort of
kitchenware." Joxer gave her a dirty look, but at least he wasn't going red
anymore.
"He seems less colourful too."
"He's naked, it's hard to clash with the scenery unless you have some sort
of rash." Xena prodded the dirt with her toes. This wouldn't be a good place
to camp if it rained heavily.

"So he's definitely the same Joxer?" Were they still on this?
"Yes Ares, that's Joxer." She waved a hand.
" Joxer, Ares, Ares Joxer. There now you're all introduced again."
"I don't think we were ever introduced to start with." Ares offered, he
opened his mouth to say something else, then seemed to think better of it.
Joxer, who seemed bewildered and more than a little anxious that he'd been
singled out for scrutiny was concentrating on his rabbit and had sunk so far
behind his knees he now vaguely resembled a large pale frog.

"So where are you all headed on your quest to end the nakedness." Put like
that it sounded silly, but then that was Ares all over.
"Well it wouldn't do any good to yell at Zeus, I could go find Hercules I
suppose." There was a moment of complete and utter silence. Joxer briefly
choked on something, Ares brushed some more grass off his foot, and Xena
pulled a face.
"I don't think he'll be much help." Ares offered finally.
"No, I don't think he will, he gets embarrassed when people ask him to take
his shirt off." Ares sniggered quietly.
"He doesn't get it from my side of the family."
"No I'll bet he doesn't. Iolaus would probably help." Which was true enough,
it wouldn't be the first time he'd legged it through the street naked.
"Hercules would starve." Ares pointed out helpfully. Xena fought a grin, and
lost, oh the mental images.
"You're not helping you know, go play with your toy soldiers."

Ares sighed and stood up.
"I really should, I'll come back though and see how you're all doing."
"You just want to taunt Gabrielle some more." She said quietly, Ares nodded.
"Oh yes, that as well."
"Well then we'll fight later."
"I expect we will, though now I'm tempted to go and see if my brother can
actually fight naked." Xena raised an eyebrow.
"You may scar him for life, he'd be no fun after that." A sigh more or less
decided it, then with a flash, Ares was gone.

Xena stretched out on the log again, brushed grass off one of her own feet.
Then after a moments hesitation put another rabbit on the spit, spent a
moment debating whether it was skinless or actually naked.

She looked up and raised an eyebrow at Joxer, who was fidgeting.
"Something bothering you Joxer?" He looked up, frowned, poked the dirt.
"Umm, is it just me, or was he sort of...nicer. Less er..."
"Confrontational?" Joxer blinked at her.
"Maybe?" Xena glanced at the empty space next to her.
"He always was easier to get along with naked." Joxer was still blinking,
though thankfully he didn't comment.
"But sooner or later, the clothes go back on."

"Umm hello! I'm still here, and getting kinda hungry." The bush supplied,
Xena tossed her an apple, a few seconds later crunching sounds emerged from
the foliage.



***


Cupid pulled the note off the door and glared at it.

Sweetie,
Totally busy making sure Greece doesn't spaz or take advantage of the brief
chill to misbehave. Don't wait for me, Mom.

Great, fabulous, brilliant, they'd pulled Olympus through War, Panic, Flood,
An Invasion of dead people and that humungous spill of love potion, throw
out a little collective nudity and suddenly everyone had issues, Zeus his
family was weird.

Right time to see if Dad was still down on earth, since his temple was right
up the hall. He turned the handle, and nearly broke his own nose. Well ok
the lock was new, Ares didn't usually bother locking it, booby traps were no
fun if people couldn't just walk in and out after all. He raised a hand,
knocked on the door, then knocked slightly louder.

"Who is it!?" Who the Tartarus did he think it was?
"Strife it's me!"
"What'dya want!" He blinked, ok this was getting impolite.
"It's me, why's the door locked?" There was a pause.
"Umm, looters?" Had the lunatic finally cracked? Looters in his father's
temple, they'd be lucky if they got away with all their arms and legs.
"I can promise without a doubt that I'm not planning to loot Dad's temple."
Another period of silence, Cupid tapped a foot, which was more slappy than
usual without his sandals.
"Er, fire hazard, new safety regulations." Ok insane and desperate.
"What are you doing in there?" When in doubt be suspicious, the other side
of the family was always up to something.
"Nothing!"
"Strife, open the damn door, now!" There was a pause, then the faintest
click of a lock and the squeal of bare feet across marble.



Cupid didn't know whether to be insulted or disturbed, finally settled for
taking it as just more of the weirdness that was Strife. He shoved the doors
open and made his way to what his father so lovingly referred to as 'The War
Room.' His father liked it because there were so many weapons on the wall it
sparkled, and if you got too close they had a tendency to fall off and
disembowel you.

Ares thought it was funny to entertain people in here, offer them little
cakes and make small talk while assorted sharp objects swung over their
heads, but you got used to your parents little quirks after a few centuries.

Of course he wasn't the only occupant, Strife was sitting in the chair
behind the table, impossibly large scroll held in front of him. Cupid knew
it was Strife because he could identify the erratic spikes of black hair,
and one very thin hand.
"Hello?" Because standing there in silence would be rude.
"Hello." Strife decided, and gave him one very brief glance over the top of
the scroll before disappearing.
"I expect you'll want to wait for Ares, he'll be coming, probably, in a
while." The scroll rustled. Cupid was tempted to ask if it actually had
anything on it, but something stopped himself from teasing. Instead he
stepped back and sank into one of the less dangerous chairs.

"Do you think he'll be long?" The scroll made a jittery sort of movement
which Cupid took to suggest Strife had just shrugged. He resisted the urge
to lift a hand and steal the thing. He'd had a short conversation with
Deimos on the way here, admittedly with Pain mostly concealed behind a
potted plant, which Cupid was almost certain he'd brought with him all the
way from the greenhouse. He'd stopped himself from suggesting that maybe it
would be a cleverer idea to simply hold the thing over his face. Tall,
skinny and sort of blonde could have been more than a handful of Gods he
knew.

Strife didn't look likely to offer him any refreshments, and it was bad
manners to make your own in someone else's temple so he was stuck sitting
there staring at faintly yellowing paper, which he suspected Strife could
see through because it would be a bit stupid if he couldn't. He settled for
eyeballing him, well as close as he could guess as to where Strife's
eyeballs actually were.

Apparently Strife had indeed been watching him.
"What?" Hello paranoia, did they have a God of Paranoia? Maybe Phobos could
sideline when he grew up, if he was a good godling. Cupid was deciding to
take the initiative, after all there were only so many times you could
ignore the blindingly obvious in one day.
"Why are you hid-concealed behind a very large scroll?" Strife caught the
brief hiccup in his sentence and the mass of parchment seemed politely
annoyed.

"Why do you think? Some of us aren't all that cut out for the draughty
life." There was probably a sharply canted eyebrow that went along with that
but he couldn't see it. Cupid frowned at him all the same.
"I'd think you'd find this all a laugh, Mischief and all that, naked people,
opportunity for chaos above and beyond the call of duty." He fought the urge
to tug the paper out of the way again.
"Not in the mood." Strife grumbled.
"Can I at least see your face?" The paper dropped as far as Strife's throat,
plenty far enough for that championship scowl to have maximum effect.

"I met little bro in the hallway, he's wandering round Olympus with a pot
plant." Strife didn't say anything.
"Phonos will only talk to people through the keyhole and forget about
Artemis or Athena answering their doorbells, it'd be nice to coax someone
other than Hermes or Apollo out far enough to have a conversation with." The
paper rustled, then very, very slowly, folded. There was the scrape of a
chair being pulled in. Cupid didn't say anything that might scare Strife
back behind the paper. Considering who it was he didn't say anything at all.
Instead he watched surprisingly skinny arms fold across Strife's chest
before thumping down on the table. He hadn't lost the glare but he had
gained a lovely twitch in the corner of his eye. Cupid eyed the paper that
had been set down.

"You can make clothes out of paper can't you?"
"No you can't, I've tried." Strife grumbled, there was the very faint sound
of one bare foot tapping under the table.
"Ah." Cupid stretched his legs out, slumped a little in the chair. Strife's
eyes didn't waver from his face, they could have been locked there with
quick drying cement.
"So any idea where Dad went?" A shrug seemed odd coming from Strife's bare
shoulders.
"So no idea when he'll be back." A head shaking 'no.' Cupid decided not to
make any 'charades' jokes.
"Have you seen anyone else?" Strife's teeth clicked, fingernails rapped on
the table in a brief flurry of motion. He couldn't remember whether he'd
ever seen Strife's hands out of gloves or not, odd that.

"Bacchus dropped by." Mischief offered between his teeth.
"Then he left." Instinct told Cupid to leave that one well alone, but
someone else who was willing to work like this needed to be put down on a
list or something.
"And he seems...fine? Wandering about and everything, with people and
suchlike." Strife's twitch appeared to be getting worse.
"I'm thinking he was maybe a little insensitive?" Which was a good way to
describe Bacchus, who'd quite happily knock someone out with a wine jug
while demonstrating the exact size and shape of whatever he was currently
screwing. Cupid could think of a dozen things Bacchus could have done to
make the nicest of men want to bludgeon him to death with a...potted plant.
The only thing Strife really hated was...being...laughed...at?

"When I get my clothes back, I'm going to hurt him in sharp and inventive
ways." Strife said through his teeth.

Oh yes, he'd definitely laughed.



Putting Bacchus aside for a moment, because he wasn't really helping here,
Cupid slouched forward until he could put his elbows on the desk. It was
clear his Dad wasn't coming back anytime soon, this brought up a whole
basketful of problems.
"So Dad's not gonna be here for a while, since he's currently doing Zeus
knows what, and Mom went off to...well I'm fairly certain she's just plonked
herself invisible somewhere with some snacks to enjoy the show. We might as
well make ourselves useful?" He added a hopeful expression, since rousing
speeches weren't really his thing.

Strife looked at him like he was mad.

"Strife the house of Healing cannot run Olympus by itself, Anteros is
absolutely no help whatsoever and Hermes is so damned busy I'm lucky if I
actually see him standing still. We're missing two and a half entire houses.
Hera's taken to blasting things on an hourly bases and the peacocks have
escaped and are now running amok! Trust me that is way scarier than it
actually sounds. Not to mention all the mortals, which if you haven't
noticed are naked as well because I'm fairly certain you've had to tone down
their desperate screaming as well. Stop being a bitch and help me!" Cupid
pushed back off of the desk, raised a finger and poked Strife in the chest.

"Do I have to come round there and drag you to your feet!" Strife slouched
sideways in the chair, a second later he had Cupid's finger clutched in one
long hand.
"Ow, ow...Strife OW!" His finger was released and he snatched it back into
his lap.
"That depends on whether you want your nose broken or not." Cupid gave up,
he slumped in the chair and banged his head on the desk.

Strife eyed him for a few silent minutes.

"Please?" Was mumbled vaguely out of the paperwork.
"No one knows how the doors into the great Hall work apart from Phonos and
Discord and the dogs won't stop whining and the Aphrodite fly traps are
pretty much trying to eating anyone who goes past. Ganeymede won't stop
laughing and there's no one left outside who's willing to give him a good
smack. I know you know how to do all this stuff, you're in with the tall,
dark and deadly crowd." Cupid paused to spit a corner of paper out of his
mouth.
"I know everyone thinks you're a bit insane but I'm sort of used to that."
Strife grunted.
"No offence."
"Oh none taken." Strife said tartly.
"Come on you're my cousin!" Cupid twisted until he could actually see
Strife's face.
"I need you to help me." Strife had both eyebrows hiked, then abruptly they
dropped into a sharp vee.

"Because Ares isn't here?" This was possibly a time to be tactical.
"No because you're you, Dad would be stomping around yelling at people and
he wouldn't do anything helpful at all." Cupid once again laid his face flat
on the desk, carefully not mentioning nakedness of any kind.
"Strife come on, I'll owe you huge!"
"You'll owe me the password to your Mom's potion room." Strife said quickly.
Cupid blinked, that could turn out to be very, very bad. Mind you he was
screwed either way.
"O...K..." He winced, then resumed his pleading expression. Strife sighed,
rolled his head back then let it rock forward again.

"Tartarus, stand up and turn around." Cupid raised an eyebrow. Strife
glared.
"Just do it." Cupid obediently pushed out of the chair and swivelled on his
feet, fought the urge to turn his head just a fraction, which meant he ended
up looking vaguely like one of those nodding birds.

A chair scraped backwards and there were several muttered curses, then very
faintly, feet on marble. Cupid tensed, but surprisingly found that nothing
horribly painful happened. In fact two hands settled on his shoulders and a
bare foot prodded the back of his calf.
"Ok walk." Cupid sniggered.
"You're kidding." Sharp fingers dug into his collarbone.
"Ow...ok not kidding, I'm walking." It sort of helped that they were almost
the same height, because tripping up would be awkward and definitely
wouldn't leave Strife in a good mood, and mentioning that he was technically
still hiding would almost certainly get him kicked.

Opening the door involved some interesting twisting but eventually they were
mostly out in the corridor. That meant one down four hundred and fifteen to
go. He didn't voice any of the things going round his head, just in case
Strife had worked out how to keep a knife somewhere on his naked person.
Some helpful voice in his head pointed out that technically now he was
Strife's naked person, which made him wonder if insanity was catching.



***

Gabrielle had finally decided, under threat of an angry Xena, to come out of the greenery and join them on the walk into the city. However she'd refused point blank to walk alongside them on the road, or ride Argo. Both Joxer and Xena had given the space where she was concealed a curious look. This didn't leave a great many options of travel. It would have been fine if they'd been bushes all along the road, or even a handy wood, but after half a mile or so they'd be walking through open country. Xena had given up and was packing, patience was one of her many skills after all and it made a change from all the uninteresting days that had gone before, new scenery and the like.

Joxer had put himself on the opposite side of Argo, which worked in two ways. He could help pack, which admittedly didn't take long since all the clothes had vanished, and there was no risk of a stray eyeballing that would get him thwapped with the reins. Though ok Xena hadn't done anything painful yet. Not that he'd really mind, since there was a difference between a quick painful smack round the ear and a repeated thumping with a big stick which wasn't even attempting to aim. Oh and the bruises very still very visibly dotted around his shoulders, fading from sort of purple to greenish brown.

So he was staying on this side of Argo and concentrating mostly on her ear as it flicked back and forth. Xena probably wouldn't mind him looking a bit, staring definitely not, but maybe just looking occasionally, like...well now, because she was jerking the reins to make sure they were tight.

Joxer concentrated on Argo's ear again, there was a fly crawling along it, but it was amazing what you noticed when you were intently not looking somewhere. The person in the background became some sort of blurry silhouette that you knew were there but you couldn't quite define any lines.

It became a lot clearer when the blurry silhouette flicked him on the nose.

"Greece to Joxer!"
"Ow...yes?" Xena leant over the saddle and raised an eyebrow at him.
"Joxer, bag, you're holding it."
"Ah." He offered it over Argo's back, then looked away when Xena put her foot in the stirrup and swung up.
"Where's Gabrielle? Is she coming yet?" They glanced at each other, then carefully swivelled their heads.

Gabrielle was indeed alive, and out of the foliage, she'd been down to the bank again, because she was coated from neck to toe in a thick coating of very fetching mud. She'd found her staff too, so Joxer found something else to look at while she joined them.

"What on earth...Gabrielle you do know that's going to bake dry." There was a brief 'pok' of wood hitting dirt.
"There's another river in a few miles, I'll put some more on."
"If you don't dehydrate or sweat it off before we get there, and that's going to get heavy." Xena pointed out, Joxer could hear the saddle creaking, which meant she was leaning over it, and probably gesturing in her 'Gabrielle, I love you but you're an idiot' pose.

"Well I had to be inventive, since everyone else seems to be perfectly happy getting a little closer to nature than was ever intended." Gabrielle was getting huffy, Joxer guessed this was an improvement from hysterical though.
"Who invented clothes?" He wondered aloud, something told him this had just earned him a dirty look from Gabrielle.
"Do you think it was the Gods?" Xena made a rude noise.
"I think 'a' God could have done, as soon as you put more than one in a room together they have to start voting and arguing and if that doesn't work, hitting each other." She was checking the bag he'd packed, so he watched that. It was safer than trying to sneak a look at Gabrielle, who'd moved round to Xena's side of Argo and was probably glaring at him.

"Don't be surprised if Ares turns up again Gabrielle, and you should know by now that if you tease him or called him a Warmongerer he's going to do something that you won't find amusing."
"You'd think a naked God of War would have better things to do." Gabrielle snapped.
"Like rape and pillage, and convert innocent people to his cause of bloody violence." Joxer picked at a loose bit of leather, while Xena squeak/turned in the saddle.
"He does have better things to do, mostly making sure his men stay in their lines so rape and pillage will be prevented." She nudged Argo forward.
"Though I'm sure he'll find time to come back and make bush jokes." Gabrielle went a lovely shade of pink, stuttered to keep up with them in her mud suit.
"Well you're the one that told me how to camouflage myself, I would have thought you'd maybe applaud my ingenuity when it came to concealing myself."

Personally Joxer thought the whole point of camouflaged hiding was that at some you had to jump out and go 'aargh', not stay in the bush until everyone forgot you'd gone in there in the first place. Xena was making agreeable noises which didn't in fact mean anything.
"So where are we going? I mean there's going to be people everywhere and most of them aren't going to be too happy, well not happy enough to talk to us, and you know when God things are involved they're never exactly welcoming to you and Hercules."

"Naked people rarely form mobs Gabrielle."
"Yes but what if a God did something to them, what if they've been made to think they're not naked, or made to think they were invisible, or made to think-" Xena shot up in the saddle.
"Gabrielle be quiet!"
"I was just saying th-"
"Shut up, I'm listening." There was a pause, then Xena twisted her head sideways.
"Bad guys?" Whispered Joxer, and tried to peer in all directions without getting hit by anything.

Then something occurred to him as well.
"Can I hear sheep?"
"I can hear sheep." Xena said flatly.
"I can't hear any sheep!" Gabrielle complained.
"And ok, why do we care?" Xena strained to listen while Gabrielle scowled at her back.
"Because the farms are too far away, they don't graze this far North. What does that tell you?" Gabrielle didn't look like she wanted to play so Joxer tried.
"Someone lost their flock?"
"So what? No lamb chops for them then?"

Xena shifted, kicked and then veered sideways picking up speed, leaving them alone.
Gabrielle smacked the ground and huffed.
"I hate that, I hate when she just flies off into nowhere on her instincts. I have instincts too, only obviously they're not tuned in to the mysteries of sheep." She was waving her arms and little bits of mud were flaking off of her, so Joxer decided to face the other way and see if he could spot any sheep.

"Ow!" Holding a hand over his head only got his fingers whacked.
"Hey, stop ignoring me!"
"I was looking away, you're...flaking."
"I should think so as well, don't look at me, in fact turn around and stand over there because I don't want to look at you either." She left her sentence pointless because she went and stood against one of the trees, staff held in front of her like some giant magic wand.
"I can tell if you're looking! Look over there, be helpful, look for sheep or something."

They were both distracted then by a sharp flash of light.

'Oh thank God.' Joxer thought to himself.



Part 9

The sound they were making was just...silly, especially in a room this
large. A sort of slapping noise, then a squeak every time Strife dragged him
to a stop and nudged him in a different direction. He wasn't going to point
it out, or snigger. He was now almost certain Strife had a knife somewhere,
the God of Mischief would in no circumstances stroll around naked without a
sharp and shiny way of defending himself. The question of where exactly he
was keeping it was making Cupid's head hurt. He could only think of a few
options, but then he'd have to be...more than a little twisted to keep
anything sharp either there or there.

"Oh there you are." A louder squeak and a long portion of flesh was briefly
pressed against one folded wing. He resolved not to mention it, or react in
any way. He wasn't surprised to find the God of Thieves and Messengers
floating in one of the doorways, flipping through scrolls at a rate of knots
which would have been considered impossible by anyone who couldn't fiddle
about with the intricacies of time.
"Hermes, I thought you were-" Hermes held up a hand, scribbled something
down, frowned, scribbled something else down.
"Right, ok since you've..." Hermes stopped inclined his head ever so
slightly.
"Is that...?" Cupid could hear teeth grinding together somewhere over his
left shoulder.
"Yes, yes it is."
"Hmm," Hermes expression suggested he didn't think that was going to be
helpful.
"So you'll be able to go into the some of the Destructive temples without
getting your head sliced off then?" Strife was tapping a foot. It was
surprisingly hard to talk to someone without giving into the strange need to
turn around and look them in the face. He wasn't entirely sure where this
had come from, since when not entirely solid none of them had faces as such.

"Possibly...probably." Hermes took that as perhaps as close to a 'yes' as he
was going to get. He dumped a long scroll into Cupid's hands.
"I've made a copy and left it for Ares but he's got his hands full at the
moment." Strife sniggered, Cupid rolled his eyes where he couldn't see.
"Someone is going to have to start opening some of the temples, or we're
going to have curls of destructive energy the like of which you've never
seen smashing them to bits." He sighed, made a swift hand movement and the
scrolls disappeared.
"You'd think the houses of Darkness and War would be pleased with all the
energy slamming around...but no, turns out they're all repressed." Hermes
sent a pointed look over Cupid's shoulder and Strife's fingers dug in hard
enough for Cupid to seriously consider trying to jam his heel down on a bare
foot. Only the suspicion that he'd get something equally painful in return
stopped him.
"I mean Asclepius doesn't like this at all but you don't see him letting it
interfere with his work." He didn't wait for a reply, which Cupid was
starting to suspect wasn't entirely rudeness. In fact he had a feeling that
Hermes was like a shark and that if he stopped moving he'd just...die.

"I'm not repressed." Strife grumbled. Cupid didn't wait to be steered in the
general direction of the Halls of Discord, he simply started walking,
leaving it up to Strife to either follow or trip over his own feet.
"I mean Zeus you know a thousand ways to kill someone, you can tell a
million weapons apart in the dark, mortals flee from you in terror and
yet...what? Some bizarre fear of the own body you chose?"
"We don't choose it, you nonce, we grow into it, and it usually fits badly."
Cupid scoffed.
"Mine fits fine, I've never once looked at it and though...urgh, or wondered
if I'd grow those few extra inches, or worried about what I looked like
sitting down." More fingernails in the shoulders.
"And why do you think that is hmm? D'ya think you got maybe a few
compliments as a child huh? Do you think there were more than a couple of
people who thought you were just the cutest thing since...puppies or
somesuch. Millions of mortals all expecting you to be...perfect, what the
hell do you think was gonna happen. The moment you hit a hundred your face
was guaranteed. A head on with Apollo's chariot ain't gonna change that."
Strife scoffed.
"Choose your own body my arse." Cupid was wrenched less than gently down a
side corridor.
"This way, Mom don't like people that come to front doors she tends to leave
nasty surprises for them."

"But-"
"But what? You think Proteus chose to be the knockout that he is?" Cupid
stopped, got a foot on his heel for it.
"That's not the way it works." He shook his head, Strife's forehead knocked
against it and he carried on with his tirade, slightly more tartly.
"Everybody in some respect becomes what they're expected to be, some more
than others." A burst of air against his neck. Strife pushed him into a walk
again.
"So lets just thank fucking Tartarus I'm only half screwed shall we." Cupid
suspected he knew what that meant, he also knew it was a subject Strife
didn't like people poking at.
"If I say something will you promise not to injure me in any way?"
"Depends, what is it." Cupid sighed shook his head.
"Never mind, look can you at least try and see how stupid this all is, I
mean everyone has probably seen everyone else naked more than once or
twice." Another snorting noise.
"Name one person that's seen Thenie naked and I'll go sit on the main
staircase. If you can name anyone who's also seen Phonos or Apate in
anything less than their underwear I'll stand there and dance." Now that was
just stupid, these were gods thousands of years old.
"Thousands," he found himself blurting.
"Thousands of years old, that's just stupid."
"Uh huh, is it now." Cupid stopped, abruptly, Strife's chin hit him
shoulder.
"That's ridiculous, we're gods, we don't need to wear clothes as armour. In
our most basic form we don't even have bodies to put clothes on." Cupid made
an abortive movement to swivel, got confused, managed to catch Strife's eye,
looking more than a little patient. Which was a look he'd never ever seen on
his cousin's face.
"You just see it differently. The people you hang around with think nothing
of wandering about minus their clothes, hell half of you don't even pay
attention you've become so used to it. You're-" Strife waved a vague hand
about.
"Wide open, everything's on show." The hand went back to Cupid's shoulder,
dug in hard.

"But us? We shut ourselves up so fucking tight that even we don't know how
to open anymore and the people we consider friends, well lets just say the
only thing we're interested in looking at is whether the smile goes all the
way to the eyes." Cupid blinked, he was still blinking when Strife raised a
hand and carefully twisted his head back to look the other way.
"Now chop chop sparkly cousin, since I'm helping you out of a genuine desire
not to see Olympus go to Tartarus." Cupid's feet very slowly started him
back along the corridoor. He had an awful lot to think about.



Part 10

One of the few times in his life that he was actually glad to see the God of
War was oddly coinciding with an episode of monumental nakedness. This
seemed in some way to aptly sum up the experience of following Xena around.
Nothing ever worked out halfway close to what you were expecting. Also if
anyone had ever asked him whether he'd thought Ares could look commanding
whilst also naked, he would have definitely said no. Though he didn't think
anyone would ever actually have asked him that, unless their mind worked in
really mysterious ways.

"Was that personal? Or just a general exclamation of worship?" Gabrielle
looked as if she wasn't sure whether to hit Ares with her staff, or possibly
hit Joxer with her staff or just make a break for the nearest bush. She
settled for trying to cover the bits of her that had been flaking most and
grumbling about perverted Gods who couldn't resist coming to leer at an
enemy's misfortune. Ares gave her a withering look, which she pretended
hadn't happened.

"Has she been like this the whole way?" Joxer risked a glance in her
direction, which he was probably going to pay for later.
"If I answer that she'll hit me...and if I don't answer she'll probably hit
me as well. I just can't decide which one will get me hit hardest."
"It's amazing how often she resorts to violence isn't it?" He couldn't
really answer that either, and he just knew it wouldn't be in his best
interests to admit she was fairly harmless when she was asleep.

"Where did Xena go anyway?"
"She rode after some sheep, apparently they weren't where they were supposed
to be, though I admit I wasn't seeing anything sinister in some lost sheep.
She's Xena though, so...I mean if she thinks there's something going on then
there probably is. I can't remember a time she was actually wrong. I'm more
or less certain she's never done anything stupid, because chasing sheep
who'd got lost just because everyone was naked well that would be...do you
think it matters if the sheep are naked? Oh oh maybe there are looters. Do
you think looters could be looking for clothes? Can you be a looter without
clothes? I mean don't bad guys have some costume or armour or something. Are
you just a thief if you have no clothes?" Ares had stopped looking at
Gabrielle at least, which she was probably grateful for.
"What?" Because the staring was quite disturbing.
"Your mind works in very strange ways." Joxer pressed his lips together.
"Sorry." He snuck a look at Gabrielle. Ares apparently noticed, because he
slung an arm around Joxer's shoulders and carefully steered him a little
further towards the open fields. That was very weird, and entirely because
of the nudity. He strove not to think about it. That way lay madness, and
also possibly embarrassment. He had way too much experience of that to
actively start seeking it out. He wasn't doing too badly on the 'not saying
anything stupid' front either, though Gabrielle would probably disagree. Now
her brain worked in really strange ways.

"Now look-" Ares stopped, swivelled his head sideways, Gabrielle was
carefully not looking or listening to the conversation but Ares apparently
didn't trust her. He steered Joxer a bit further away, though he swore he
could still feel her disapproval, boring holes into his back. He sort of
knew how she felt now when you were naked and you hoped no one was looking,
but they probably were.
"Are you listening? Or do I have to take us all the way over there?"
"What? No, sorry, no, I'm listening, honest." Ares frowned at him, he tried
to look helpful.
"You may look more sensible like this but you're really not are you?
Alright, from the beginning again then. Things are not quite as amusing as
they seem." Joxer wasn't sure if 'amusing' was the word he would have used.

"Things aren't quite dire yet, thanks to my son's bewildering desire to be
helpful. Though how in the name of Zeus he managed to get Strife to go
anywhere is a question that can wait. But the possibility of dire-ness to
come is still there, and I shall have to go and deal with a variety of
unpleasant tasks very shortly." Ares looked briefly very cross, but the arm
was still slung around his shoulder and escaping from a cross and naked God
seemed...rude, and also possibly sweaty.
"Usually when something like this happens we have an influx of demi-gods
banging together to help." A long sigh through his nose.
"Unfortunately the majority of them have...issues, that seem to involve
remaining in their clothes."
"Even Hercules?"
"Especially Hercules, and therefore Greece is slowly grinding to a
standstill." Joxer gave him a look, then wondered if it was going to get him
a painful smack. Instead he got another sigh.
"Yes, except for the naked looters, which Xena is dealing with."
"I suppose that will come as a surprise." They both went quiet for a moment,
considering it.
"A surprise, yes surprise is a good way of describing it." Ares conceded at
last.
"So er...?" Ares eyebrow suggested he could ask the question.
"What was it about the sheep exactly?"
"Haven't a clue." Joxer blinked, Ares pointed theatrically at himself.
"War God." He reminded. Joxer didn't even bother looking confused, it rarely
got him anywhere.

"So, are we following her?" Ares swivelled him back towards Gabrielle, who
carefully wasn't looking at either of them.
"You are, I have more important things to do, like trying to relieve some of
the pressure that's building."
"Huh?"
"Tell Xena not to stem it, tell her she has to let it ribbon up and down the
landscape or the whole thing will blow and...there'll be mess, it's hard to
explain to someone who's mortal. I'm not even sure she'll understand, but
she'll probably try. She usually does the right thing in her annoying way.
Oh and if you tell her I said that I will kill you."
"Uh huh."
"Don't tell her I said that either."
"Uh uh."
"Good." He eyed Joxer for a long scary minute, then grumbled something and
let him go.
"I'm going to trust you not to be useless here. If I turn up later and find
that you died and didn't give her the message..."
"I won't, I mean I will...I'll try very hard not to die. I usually do, I'm
still alive I suppose, which proves I have some experience." Joxer frowned,
Gods, it seemed, made him even stranger than he already was. But then Ares
vanished, and his shoulders were sort of sweaty and that was slightly
disturbing, and sooner or later he'd have to go back over to Gabrielle and
continue their discussion about why men didn't listen and he'd have to
pretend he was actually listening or she'd hit him.




Part 11

***

"Thump on the damn door Cupid!"
"I already did." He had, twice, and with all the enthusiasm of someone told
to whack a kitten. Then he'd complained that if he'd been human the side of
his hand would have been angry and red, and probably stinging...twice.
"No, you didn't, you teased it with the threat of thumping but never
actually worked up enough kinetic energy to make an impression in the many,
many inches of iron. Are you a God or what?" He blew a few random feathers
off of his chin, because that was really annoying. The one time they'd had
the audacity to flap in his face he'd considered biting one of them. He
wasn't a hundred percent sure how Cupid would react to that. Would he be
angry? Or upset? Or scared? He just didn't know him that well. Though he
definitely wouldn't be as helpful and he probably wouldn't be as willing to
let Strife steer him back and forth.
"Zeus is hitting stuff so hard for you, you fire imaginary steel bolts at
people for a calling, you'd think that would give you some idea." Cupid
apparently chose to ignore that.
"I thought you said there were booby traps? If there are booby traps
wouldn't it be not a good idea to go hammering on Discords doors?"
"Are we going to have discussions about everything? Because I didn't sign on
for vastly boring discussions on the various nasty things that could
happen...mostly to you."
"You're not immediately reassuring me that nasty things won't happen." The
biting was still an option, it was tempting too. He didn't think he'd ever
spent this long touching someone and not hit them at least once. But of
course there was a word for people who hit other people for no other reason
than they'd quite like to and he didn't think he was quite sociopathic just
yet.

"Oh for the love of-" Strife pushed a wing down with one hand, stretched
over Cupid's shoulder, trying to plaster as little of himself as possible up
his back, and thumped the door so hard it made a dull vibrating sound that
might possibly have had his eyes wobbling in their sockets. Maybe he was a
little tense after all. Cupid was very quiet for a long moment. Strife
suspected it wasn't the whole 'more skin' thing. He was Cupid after all,
that sort of thing didn't bother him. Or on the other hand he could have
been a little creeped out because it was him.
"You dented it," he pointed out finally, though his voice wasn't quite as
petulant as he was probably going for.
"It'll fix, we know she's not in there, but to answer your question she
hasn't bothered to put any traps up." Strife shifted Cupid sideways.
"Look over there for a minute, don't turn around."
"Why?"
"Because I want to get a good look through the keyhole."
"Er, ok." The 'why' was practically audible but all the grumbling about
stupid questions and idiot love gods had apparently paid off.
"And keep your damn wings still."
"Um, they do make a few involuntary motions sometimes you know. If I'm
stressed or angry or aroused."
"Then stop emoting in any way and find a pot plant to look out." No one
could find a pot plant arousing. Nope, hang on this was Olympus he could
think of a handful of gods that could under certain circumstances
contemplate whispering naughty things to one of Artemis spiky ferns. He was
related to weirdos, hmm, he suspected he was one of them.

He crouched, awkwardly, uncomfortably, tried not to crush his own balls. He
didn't really want to pull attention towards himself so he used one of his
earrings to make the lock think he was Discord. Which was a damn sight
harder than just picking the damn thing, mortals had it easy.
"Strife..."
"I never said you couldn't talk." Cupid seemed to think about it some more.
"Well if Zeus did this, and half of Olympus is...well either hiding
or...having a major spaz, is anyone looking for Zeus?" Strife didn't really
care, he didn't fix things, other people fixed things. He just did as he was
told and followed the big picture. Zeus would come back eventually, possibly
when Hera stopped promising to kill him. That was a tempting thought though.
A massive barney between the two of them, both slugging it out not pulling
any punches. Sure Zeus was more powerful but Hera fought dirty, she was
definitely a 'below the belt' type of goddess.

"Tartarus this doesn't even rank up all that high on the scale of weird shit
that has happened to Olympus over the years."
"That plague of monkeys was probably weirder." Cupid offered helpfully.
"Though of course if we'd had to fight them off naked it might have got
nasty." Strife stopped poking, tilted his head towards Cupid, then just as
quickly tilted it back again, considered thumping his head against the door
just for safety's sake.
"This probably isn't even weird for you." Strife gave him credit, he thought
about the question.
"The naked isn't weird no; the everyone else being naked was, briefly. Now
it's mostly the weird desertedness of most of Olympus. Everyone who doesn't
mind the odd wander whilst dressed in nothing but skin is trying to stop
panic spreading among the mortals."
"I'll give Discord credit, she'll find a way to do her job even if she has
to delegate and then afterwards kill everyone who saw her. Cupid frowned.
"Why wouldn't she just make them forget it?" Strife started poking again.
"Because she'd remember, and that's all that'd matter." The lock decided he
was master after all and gave with a strange throbbing noise. A swift elbow
had the door open, a little too quickly perhaps. It was either grab one of
Cupid's naked legs or end up sprawled gracelessly inside the back of
Discords temple.

The slap of flesh hitting marble piqued the God of Love's curiosity.
"Strife?"
"I'm fine, don't turn around." Cupid sighed.
"Can I make a point without you injuring me?"
"Is it about the nakedness?" A fairly long pause was followed by an
exasperated God noise.
"Never mind." Cupid's naked back looked marginally pissy, but there was also
a defeated sort of slouch to it, with a smattering of impatient vertebrae.
He was, as always, completely and utterly relaxed. It might have been the
wings that made him stand like that but it didn't even occur to him to
bother with being naked. Maybe it was another facet to Strife's assertion
that the God of Love had no bodily responses to perceived danger.

He put his hands back on Cupid's shoulders, pushed until the could follow
him into the temple.
"What are we looking for?" Now he sounded resigned. Strife wasn't going to
admit he wasn't quite sure, most of Olympus already thought he had the IQ of
cheese.
"Well first we're going to open the temples up. It'll make the corridors a
bit unstable but there won't be any big explosions. I assume Hades is
working out the House of Death, Sleep and Prophecy, he's shy but he's not
stupid. If that house went we'd all be looking for our teeth on the moon."
"And then?" Strife pulled a face that Cupid couldn't see.
"Then we check and see what Ares is doing, and then 'you' can check in on
Apollo." Because damn it if the bastard so much as smirked at him he'd make
him swallow his own eyeballs sun god or no.




Part 12

"I've never been in here you know." Cupid seemed to be restraining the urge
to touch stuff. Which was smarter than he probably realised.
"I'm not surprised, Mom doesn't really encourage visitors. Occasionally she
sticks them in a small box for a few weeks to learn the value of personal
space."
"That sounds twisted enough to be Discord." Actually that was her idea of a
joke, he suspected Cupid wouldn't be interested in hearing what she did when
she was really mad.
"When I was small she threatened to put me in a big cage, with a perch, and
half an apple jammed between the bars." Strife sniggered against his
shoulder.
"I didn't think it was funny at the time, I thought she meant it. I didn't
leave my temple for a week."
"That's because you were a big wuss when you were a kid." Strife pointed
out.
"All right, maybe I'll concede to that, but I'm not a total flake you know."
Strife was now absently drumming his fingers on Cupid's shoulders while they
navigated the debris that strewed the floor of Discords temple.
"Oh I know that, I remember the time you punched Aether for making fun of
Persephone's hair."
"You remember that?" One of his hands flicked a feather off the back of
Cupid's neck.
"Uh huh, though you made a total mess of it, at least you tried. Of course
then your mom dragged you out of the hall by your ear, which ruined your
manliness somewhat."
"I think I was only about sixty." Strife stuck his foot in a helmet, kicked
it up to his hand.
"I thought all the armour disappeared?" Cupid complained when he proffered
it over his shoulder.
"It's enhanced by Discords own power signature."
"It's a magic helmet?" Strife snorted.
"And you were just pointing out how you weren't a flake." Cupid reached a
hand up and took it, Strife let him.
"No, I mean if there were clothes that had some sort of power."
"Why would anyone do that to clothes?"
"Narcissus might." Strife leant on an elbow that was balanced on Cupid's
shoulder blade.
"Do you really think any of the House of War and Destruction would want to
put on anything that had been warming Narcissus?"
"I think...I think Phobos would rather set himself on fire."
"Hey you're learning."

"Well, well, what have we here? Looters?" The voice came before the body,
and managed to make Cupid's wings snap open. Strife had half a second to
consider pulling a weapon on his Uncle and then three seconds to try and
recover from being smacked in the face a hell of a lot harder than Cupid had
managed with the door.
"We're not looting." Cupid waved the helmet to demonstrate, then realised
that might not necessarily look good and tossed it to 'clang' against a
shield. Strife pointedly yanked on a wing, sending Cupid briefly off
balance, but it got the message across and he folded them both.
"Sorry Strife," Ares seemed to find this amusing. The only thing Strife
would have found amusing at this moment would be the sight of his Uncle
being chased by bees.
"Now you're the last person I expected to see wandering the halls." Cupid
seemed to think this was a good time to jump in, and Strife knew he was
probably going to say something stupid.
"He's here to help me, I said I'd owe him later." Strife resisted the urge
to try and strangle him from behind, because now Ares was giving him the
eyebrow that said he better have a really good explanation to that, and the
words 'pimping' had better not feature anywhere in it. But Cupid apparently
wasn't half as dense as people thought.
"Zeus not like that, and thanks for thinking I whore myself out without a
second thought Dad." Ares shrugged, waved his hand in a way that seemed to
encompass all of the House of Love.
"You're a strange lot." Cupid seemed unreasonably insulted by this.
"Dad-" Strife decided the best option was to shatter that conversation into
bits and start a new one.
"We were going to come looking for you later. We're gonna need some hints
about what to do up here while you're dealing with your rampaging hordes of
naked militia." Ares grimaced.
"Oh don't remind me. I've only got them calmed down for a moment by
encouraging them to show each other all their nastiest scars." On the whole
that wasn't a mental image Strife wanted.
"You'd think they'd all have enough in common but no, and I've left a
message for my errant daughter with...oddly enough he doesn't look as much
like himself as he normally does."
"Who?"
"Joxer." By some quirk of nature Cupid's expression perfectly mirrored
Strife's.
"Can we assume it wasn't an important message?" Ares frowned.
"I think she's doing something for Artemis at the minute, or possibly
Athena. I refuse to stick my foot in there or I'll lose it. Though why
they're hiding I have no idea, careful enough arrangement of their hair
deals with the parts they seem to most worry about. What on earth is that?"
Ares had found a contraption which, though it could probably be worn in no
way qualified as clothes.

"I'll thank you to not be skanking your way through my stuff." It was tugged
out of his hand by a grumpy Discord. She had indeed done something involving
thick plaits and a length of rope. Strife wasn't looking too hard, she was
his mother after all. Cupid wasn't looking either, but that might have had
something to do with the earlier conversation.
"Stuff it is as well, what is this exactly?"
"Never you mind."
"I think Phobos has one in red." Discord looked like she was considering
exactly how well leather would connect with godly arse.
"Only his has...attachments." Discord stopped considering, but her brother
had faster reflexes, and a touch more power. It appeared nudity made them
snappy when shoved in the same room.
"Don't push me, you have no idea the amount of...mental garbage I've had
projected at me today. The staring, the breathing, the disgusting fawning.
The obsession with my arse! I'm about on my last nerve so if you cheek me
again I am going to wrap this thing round someone's naked backside even if I
end up not turning my back on you for a century." Strife cleared his throat.
He got a finger pointed at him for his trouble.
"Don't even tempt me to stick you into the bargain as well, because you know
as well as I do it wouldn't be the first time. " Discord stopped, huffed,
waved the leather thing.
"What are you all doing in my temple anyway?" She seemed to want not only an
answer, but a good answer.

"I was looking for them," Ares waved a hand.
"Hermes is collecting everyone who hasn't pretended to drop off the end of
the earth. Aphrodite is trying her damndest to keep everyone calm, which is
no easy task. Apollo is trying to do three things which aren't his job, and
the only calm to be had is in a small field with a thin man who seems to
find this ordinary. Though I'll admit teasing Gabrielle is also fun."
"What?!" Discord gave up, shook her head.
"Never mind, I don't want to know, but there's a new plan." In one movement
she whipped an arm out and snagged an ear full of jewellery, pulled until
Strife had no choice but come out or lose an ear.





Part 13

He came out, very reluctantly; breaking his mothers arm would get him in so
much trouble.
"I considered that," Ares protested.
"Cupid would have bitched at me for being mean."
"Ow, what the Tartarus did you do that for?" Discord was unimpressed.
"Why?" The fingers tightened, and he knew for a fact that his mother was
sadistic enough to keep squeezing until the metal of his earrings started
bending.
"We've got Pol screwing about trying to keep an eye on Murder and Deceit
with a little Despair thrown in and it's giving him the biggest headache
since Zeus had Athena. Now you're going to act like you're actually a son of
mine and save your own issues for some quiet time later with a few random
mortals and a collection of shiny sharp objects. I seriously doubt you have
anything Birdboy hasn't seen before, Zeus he's a good thousand years old
after all." Discord swivelled in Ares direction, forcing Strife to do
something flexible to avoid having his ear tugged off again.

"Tell the damn boy Ares." The God of War shrugged, which did flattering
things to most of the muscles above his waist.
"Why when you make your point so beautifully." Discord fumed, dropped Strife
with not a little disgust.
"I can't believe most of us would rather make life difficult than get the
fucking job done." She flung a hand up, not entirely accidentally smacking
Strife on the bottom of the chin.
"So you're naked, big fucking deal. You probably picked the one God within
shooting range who would actually be nice about it and I bet you've been
giving him a hard time?" Ares sniggered, everyone else carefully ignored
Discord's unfortunate choice of words.

Abruptly she threw up her hands.
"Ok that's it, I've finished being nice, it's exhausting." She poked Strife
in the chest hard enough to make several ribs creak.
"The both of you are going to work up here. We just can't deal with both at
the moment. Aphrodite is about this close to wasted-" She held her fingers
up half an inch apart.
"Pol is an inch away from actually slitting someone's throat just to see
what it feels like. Bacchus is doing piss all, which Ares is very soon going
to kick various kinds of crap out of him for. The weather has gone all to
hell and I'll tell you something...mortals don't do well if it gets cold and
they have no clothes. Wet bodies that get struck by lightening don't tend to
be in any state to complain either." She stopped talking, snapped her
fingers.
"Stemming discord makes me cranky, so here's what you're going to do, and
you're not going to screw it up." She put a hand up, realised there was no
leather to make a fist in, settled for wrapping a hand round Strife's throat
instead. The other managed to snag a wing, and Cupid was so startled he
nearly fell on her. She tugged them both into snarling distance.

"First I want a bunch of stuff left in Hermes temple. Hestia's been feeding
him power but he's not quite as fast as he should be. After that I want you
to leave this for Deimos and Phobos-" She produced a metal box, thrust it at
Strife, who made a face.
"Phobos is exceptionally good at fucking puzzles so he can do this for us
and he won't even have to leave his home temple." Apparently there was no
further explanation for the box.
"Then you are both going to go to the Hall of Time. You're going to watch
the present for us." Cupid's eyes widened.
"But that's-" Discord must have done something painful to his wing in
response because he made an unpleasant noise and tried to squirm away.
"Quiet, I know that's a massive job that's why there's two of you and you
happen to be Gods. I want you to watch the waves, and every time there's a
spike or a dip of power we want to know about it." Ares had come to stand
next to her.
"What about A-"
"Oddly enough I think your daughter's going to handle that." Discord said
petulantly. Ares looked surprised.
"Was that where she went?" Discord pulled a face, shrugged, which suggested
she didn't care one way or the other.

Abruptly she straightened, cocked her head, listening to something only she
could hear.
"Zeus damn you not again! You useless pieces of-" She let both of them go
abruptly.
"I have to go, I've already spent too long screwing around up here." A long
fingernail jabbed a fraction in front of Strife's nose.
"Now do as you're told!" She vanished, but left the room smelling vaguely of
irate Goddess. Ares raised both eyebrows.
"It's amazing what she can get done when she takes charge." He said and
Strife was definitely going to ignore the leer that was drifting somewhere
on Ares face.
"But she isn't the only one who has to fly." He tossed the bag of scrolls
for Hermes at his son, who caught it less than graciously, before vanishing
himself.

Cupid eyed his new burden with an expression Strife couldn't give a name.
"Typical isn't it, one moment you're having a bath, the next you're saving
Olympus from certain doom." He retrieved a scroll, turned it this way and
that. He didn't open it though, so it was either locked or Cupid hadn't
inherited his mother's hysterical need to know absolutely every piece of
anyone else's business.
"I swear the universe is finding this all just far too hilarious. Figures
doesn't it, trust Cupid to get embroiled in a whole world of 'not going to
go there.'" He slung the bag's long strap over his shoulder, he didn't even
bother to try and cover anything with it. Though he did notice Cupid
studiously not looking at him. The strap was adjusted so it didn't bash
against his wing.
"She was right you know," Cupid said finally, in a flat cross voice that
Strife hadn't heard before, he didn't even have to ask what.
"Look I'll deliver the stuff ok? You can either meet me in the Hall or not.
If Dad comes back I'll think up something good." He would too, Strife knew
as much, which made him feel like even more of an utter bastard than he
actually was. He exhaled loudly.
"No, I'll come, you don't deserve to have me just bail on you, which is what
I'd been doing. 'Sides, how the fuck would I live that down huh?"
"Well it's not like I'll tell anyone."
"I'd know," Strife said pointedly. Cupid opened his mouth, then shut it
again; he was doing that a lot lately, rethinking what he was about to say.

Strife scratched under his hair.
"For the love of Zeus just look would you, get it over with." He watched
Cupid swallow.
"But if I look I'll have to make a comment, or you'll be paranoid all the
way to Hermes temple. I think I've worked that out about you by now. But of
course if I say something nice you'll think I'm lying, if I say anything
else you'll probably do something horribly painful to me."
"You keep saying that." Strife said with a frown.
"Do you think I have some secret agenda involving you and sharp
instruments?" Cupid waved a hand, shook his head.
"Ok maybe that's stereotyping, maybe that's Dad's influence."
"You think Ares has a secret agenda involving you and sharp instruments."
Cupid swivelled until he could glare at him, then very carefully his
eyes...drifted. Strife scratched under his hair again, resisted the urge to
tell him that was enough and could they please go now. Cupid was usually so
good at telling you exactly what he was thinking with his face muscles, but
at the minute he could have been one of his own statues. Strife had to move
or he'd do something randomly psychotic. He tossed Cupid the box, startling
him.
"Put that in your bag, " which he did without complaining. Strife rolled a
shoulder until it made cracking noises, though Cupid didn't know him well
enough to read anything into the gesture thank Zeus.
"Are we going or are we standing here all day staring at me?" Cupid shook
his head.
"I was waiting for you...unless you still want to-" he stopped talking,
shrugged, finally looked at Strife again.
"You look taller." Strife blinked, but apparently that was all he was
getting, because Cupid was already wandering off. Was that it? What was that
supposed to mean?




Part 14

***

This was very strange. Even more strange than she'd originally suspected.
She'd assumed the vast and scattered flock of sheep had come from one of the
hill farms. She'd expected a short frantic period of attacking looters then
a quiet period of her shaking them until they told her what was going on.
But the sheep hadn't come from upland. There were no farms there for a
start. There was a mill, some houses (that contained a few people and she
only knew this because of the breathing), and a few small temples. So the
sheep were a mystery. Not that she was disturbed at all by this. Xena had
seen stranger in her lifetime. In fact she'd probably seen strange enough to
cancel out whatever oddness this day had to offer. She wasn't doing too
badly so far. She was even feeling a little mellow, though why that should
be she didn't know.

She hadn't thought she was the sort of person that could be perfectly happy
wandering about with no clothes on. But then of course there were some
things you never knew until you tried. Admittedly there had been that one
annoying man, but she hadn't broken anything, just left a variation of foot
shaped bruises for him to remember her by. Argo didn't seem to mind her
being naked, perhaps animals didn't notice, perhaps they were more- she
frowned. Her inner monologue appeared to have turned into Gabrielle. She
shook her head, much as she loved Gabrielle that was a quick way to send her
mad, next thing she knew she'd be talking to trees and composing poetry.

She stopped; she wasn't a great expert at why and how sheep behaved the way
they did but she strongly suspected these ones weren't behaving like sheep.
They were neither herding together stupidly, nor getting tangled in fences,
things she vaguely assumed that sheep did. They blundered about, making
loud, strange noises, crashing into walls, falling over their own feet. All
very strange.
"But so what?" She muttered to herself. Well, it was either this or go back
and listen to Gabrielle and Joxer snipe at each other until she killed one
of them. Much as she would have enjoyed Gabrielle finding new and impossible
ways to cover herself...her inner monologue died in favour of a few images
which certainly didn't involve sheep. So she strode into the middle of one
of the smallest villages she's ever seen. Where apparently sheep now
outnumbered people by about fifty to one. One of then wandered across her
path, gave her the most miserable look she'd ever seen on a sheep and
attempted to eat the grass. A few moments later it fell on its head. With
some experience in these matters Xena headed for the nearest temple.

It was old, and the statue was weathered enough to look some giant had
chewed on it. It was probably a man though...Apollo? Zeus? At this stage it
was becoming hard to tell, but the doors opened easily enough so the people
of the tiny village apparently hadn't abandoned whoever the place belonged
to. She stepped inside, watched random waves of dust dance about in the air
she'd let in. She was more or less prepared for anything. Though what she
got came as something of a surprise.

One soldier, one naked soldier, dangling-no hanging would do better, hanging
from his feet. Looking very sorry for himself, streaked a little with dirt,
trying his best to swing round in the direction of the door. She liked him
even less when he turned around.
"Well well, what do we have here? An exceptionally well built lady who'd
just the right height," Xena shifted down until he could see her face. He
said something crude enough to make her eye twitch.

She broke his nose.

Perhaps the sheep had made her tenser than she thought. While he was
swaying, trying to swear, drooling unpleasantly she lifted her hands.
"Imagine a bodice, tan fading to black, interlocking metal about here and
here, skirt, fluted in seperate pieces...oh and a big shiny metal ring thing
about here."

The swaying man didn't know which to do first, apologise or beg for his
life. Xena didn't give him a chance, she smacked him in the nose again and
his eyeballs did a little dance while they decided whether or not to pass
out, then she perched on one of the long rows of seats and eyed him.
"Interesting collection of sheep outside." She was going to add the twitch
at the corner of his mouth to her mental collection
"Now I'm starting to suspect that they're not sheep at all. Because sheep
that don't even know how to be sheep, now that's a sorry state of affairs
isn't it. Sheep are about as mindless as you can get, sure they look cute
enough when they're born but they spend their entire adult lives walking
through their own shit and getting tangled in fences." Xena prodded him with
her sword, making him sway ever so slightly, he made an unpleasant noise.
"Not that the ones outside are any better, they're apparently still learning
to walk on four legs. Which begs the question of how many legs they used to
walk on before. I'm going to take a wild guess that it used to be two. I
just couldn't help but be curious, and now I've found you I don't have to be
curious anymore do I?"
"Could you possible let me down first. Everything's blurry, all the bloods
rushed to my head." Xena tapped the flat of her blade gently put pointedly
against the side of her foot.
"It could be rushing out of your head a lot faster."
"I mean it; things are swaying in and out. I don't feel well at all."
"If you vomit on my boots I'll make sure that swaying is the least of your
problems. Now tell me what exactly those sheep outside used to be. The
swaying soldier made pitiful noises.
"First company, Black Chariot division." Xena raised an eyebrow.
"The Wolverines? You're telling me that the two hundred or so sheep trying
to work out how to graze outside are the most feared group of Greek soldiers
ever put together?" Something was mumbled miserably.
"I didn't quite catch that." It wasn't repeated, leading her to suspect it
hadn't been polite.
"So which God did you manage to piss off enough to stick you in this mess?"
The swaying man shook his head, then groaned and seemed to regret it.
"I can't say." His dizzy eyes drifted towards the back of the temple, to the
small closed door.
"I think she's still here."
"She?" Now that she hadn't been expecting. She left the swaying man moaning
to himself and very carefully opened the small door.

It was dark, and none too warm, but it smelled clean enough. There were even
some cushions strewn about, and on several of the larger softer looking
ones, was a tall pale woman with long dark hair.
"I'm not even going to pretend to be surprised. The middle of nowhere is no
more secluded than the centre of a city for you is it. Sometimes I swear you
can teleport from place to place like us. It had to either be you or
Hercules. Though considering the circumstances..." the woman paused, sighed.
Xena had no idea who she was.
"And they say you don't need clothes for a sense of identity." The woman
said miserably, though since she had apparently turned two hundred of the
world's finest soldiers into sheep it wasn't too much of a stretch to assume
she was a Goddess. There were quite a few possibilities, she could narrow it
down to fiv. Though with her luck the wrong name would increase the number
of Gods who'd quite like to see her dead. The woman sighed, adjusted the
cushion she had held over her ribcage.

"Athena." She said flatly.
"There, I've saved you from strategising your way to a blood clot." Athena
eyed the cushion, eyed Xena standing without particular care with her hands
on her hips, rolled her eyes and tossed it away, though it seemed to cost
her a little of her calm.
"Well isn't this a large untidy mess my father has orchestrated." Xena
wasn't sure whether or not to sit down. Athena probably wasn't the hugging
type, and even if she were the nudity would probably just make it weird.
"It's certainly...awkward out there." Xena admitted. Athena tilted her head
slowly.
"I'm the Goddess of Wisdom and War and I'm hiding in a small temple in the
middle of nowhere surrounded by the most impressive warriors I've ever
managed to cultivate, who are temporarily sheep, just apparently because of
the way they looked at me. Oh and I suspect this is all my fault." She eyed
Xena and it was a cold hard look a thousand years too old for her face.
"How do you think I feel?"



Part 15


"How is this your fault?" Athena picked up another cushion, squashed it,
picked at it, then dropped it again.
"I may have overreacted during one of Aphrodite's parades." The cushion was
obviously still bothering her, it was punted off the pile.
"I may have complained loudly in an overly prudish manner to Zeus. But I had
no way of knowing that there were already problems between the Olympian
houses. I didn't know it would cause this!" Xena sat down on one of the
other cushions, legs folded under her. Athena seemed to have stopped having
trouble looking at her.
"I certainly had no way of knowing that Zeus would make such a ridiculous
decree, causing so much trouble. Making it so I couldn't even leave my
temple without someone staring...making comments, looking at me in ways they
had no business looking at me." One arm drifted almost absently across her
chest, then seemed to drop despondently.
"I'm a Goddess, and I feel ridiculous. Humanity and all their insecurities
appear to have infected us over the centuries." Another cushion was picked
up, squeezed angrily, tossed across the room, causing Xena to briefly wonder
how a Goddess whose breasts could do that should ever feel insecure. She
fervently hoped she hadn't heard that, luckily Athena still seemed stuck in
her own little angry moment. Though Xena suspected there was little she
could say that wouldn't get her glared at.

"And bloody Aphrodite is just getting on with it and trying to get
everything working. Doing everything I can't stand about her and exhausting
herself in the process, and I'm jealous again. That she can take everything
so calmly, that her utter lack of depth somehow makes her a better person
than me." Athena sounded utterly, honestly bewildered.
"Of course you don't lack depth and yet you can do it. I even know how
Discord is coping, putting her duties above everything else. But I can't run
on rage like her, Zeus knows how she does it without either exploding or
burning herself to a crisp. I suppose Discord is close enough to Chaos for
her to channel great slices of power like that." Athena spared a glance for
Xena, gave her the sort of expression which suggested that of course she
wouldn't understand, she was mortal. Why she couldn't transform that
self-importance into self-assurance Xena didn't know.
"I heard that you know." Athena said flatly, though she didn't seem inclined
to do anything horrible to her for it.
"It's a good enough question." Xena decided.
"You're a Goddess; you're naturally superior. Any mortal who does catch a
glimpse of you is going to be dead before you even have time enough to
properly worry about it. The Gods, well what's family without at least one
embarrassing naked incident, and there'll be centuries to get your own
back."
"You make it sound so simple, so typically mortal and uncomplicated." Though
a cushion was pushed in her direction which seemed an almost friendly
gesture.
"Well, half-mortal perhaps. I've often wondered if Demi-gods minds work in
completely mortal ways." She eyed Xena speculatively, as if tempted to take
her brain out and have a look.
"Well either way it's simple to me, but I suspect that anyone hiding through
this whole thing is going to lose more than a little respect." Athena's
mouth narrowed considerably, Xena shrugged.
"Just making an observation, and it'll probably be worse if things grind to
a halt."
"Or explode." The Goddess added absently, Xena blinked.
"That could happen?"
"If enough Gods have simply dropped their duties without warning yes." Xena
stole the cushion she'd been playing with.
"Then you have to get back upstairs. You're a powerful Goddess, you have to
get back to work." Athena raised an eyebrow at her.
"I have to?" Xena took a chance, looped an arm round her bicep and tugged
her to her feet.
"Yes, you're Athena so help you Zeus and I'm coming with you. If anyone so
much as smirks in your direction I'll smack them so hard they'll see stars."
The beginnings of a smile crept onto Athena's face.
"Oh will you now?"

***

"I wonder what she's doing?" Gabrielle had gotten something prickly in her
foot and was now leant against a tree trying to poke it out with a muddy
fingernail. It was quite a flattering picture, even with the muddy
decoration, and Joxer had found some shrubbery to watch, terrified that the
picture would seer itself across his brain for years to come. At least she
was talking to him again though.
"Well she either found some villagers to rescue or some looters to fight,
either way she'll probably have it wrapped up by the time we eventually get
there." Gabrielle licked her fingers, wiped away some dirt.
"Sometimes it just distracts her when she has an audience; not that she
isn't amazing even half distracted. I swear her instincts have absolutely
nothing to do with her brain. Like she visualises exactly what she wants her
body to do and it does it...like." Gabrielle had apparently lost her train
of thought.

"Do you think she'll bring back food?" Joxer's feet could have done with a
wash, though most of it was leaves and bits of twigs rather than mud.
"Probably, either the villagers will have given her something or she'll have
taken something off of the looters." He was still wondering about the
looters.
"I hope there'll be food, I haven't eaten since that apple." Joxer decided
not to mention how she hadn't come out to have some rabbit.
"You can have some of my chicken if you like." Gabrielle made a noise that
was half panic half anger and fell in the undergrowth. Ares was back,
lounged effortlessly on the log Joxer had put his bag on. He had his ankles
crossed in front of him and was carefully making his way through a plate of
chicken legs.
"It's very good." The sound of Gabrielle tromping off could be heard over
his voice, complaining about interruptions in the middle of moments of
peace.

"I don't know why she feels she has to wander off. I personally think I
happen to be ruggedly handsome, probably moreso naked." Ares offered Joxer a
piece of chicken, he couldn't think of a good reason not to accept it.
"I don't think it's the looking at you she's worried about. I think it's the
you looking at her. Or maybe it's the thought that you might use the whole
thing in some sinister way later when we all have our clothes back." Joxer
sat down on the same log, watched Ares toss tiny bones into the underbrush.
Gabrielle would be really cross if she got one of those in her foot.
"I did consider it, but sometimes she just makes it too easy." He decided to
share, tossed some more of his chicken Joxer's way.
"I'm taking a break, and beating the tar out of one of your relatives makes
you hungry for some reason." Joxer frowned.
"I thought Hercules-"
"No, no, not Hercules, we'll be lucky if this entire episode doesn't scar
him for life. No- what am I talking about, I'd quite like him scarred for
life. I can bring it up every time we fight; it'll be hilarious!" He laughed
to himself, leant back against the tree.

"No, I meant Bacchus, he was finding the whole thing very amusing, so I
threw him through a few walls, and I tell you those horns make big dents.
He's helping now."
"Oh, I guess it's pretty mad up there." Ares made scoffing noises around a
particularly large piece of chicken.
"Like you wouldn't believe, though Discord is improving the situation by
creatively using her own hair to both cover herself and strangle anyone who
doesn't move fast enough." Joxer raised an eyebrow.
"Oh it's most entertaining visually believe me." Joxer was going to take his
word for that.
"And also surprisingly erotic." Joxer covered the noise he probably would
have made by eating some chicken. He was certain that thinking about Discord
in any sort of pornographic way wasn't going to be good for his health. Ares
sniggered at him, leading him to suspect that he'd been reading his mind.

"This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion." A bone was tossed
into the undergrowth.
"Do you know how hard it is trying to be the God of War when the majority of
your soldiers are trying to avoid looking at each other?" Ares seemed
briefly annoyed that there was nowhere to wipe his fingers.
"I, of course, don't have a problem with the nudity. I'm perfectly capable
of breaking someone's neck in a gruesome way whether I have pants on or not.
While they, inevitably, are distracted. Of course it's much more difficult
to be commanding if you have an erection." He gave up, wiped his fingers on
his thighs.
"I've really never tried to be commanding with an erection." Joxer admitted,
and that may have been the weirdest thing he'd ever said in his life.
"You should try it some time, shout at a few people, order beer or
something. You'll probably find that people take you less seriously."
"I'd probably find that people arrest me." Joxer said honestly, which set
Ares off laughing, and it was kind of startling that he could make the God
of War fall off of a log like that. He was pretty sure no one else would
have been able to do that gracefully. He offered an arm though, and Ares
took it, though most of the chicken was now scattered about in the
undergrowth.
"I wonder why Gods don't come like you." Joxer pulled a face.
"I think there's probably a good reason. Though I am feeling sort of
useless, not that I don't always feel useless but oddly moreso now. I would
help, if I could, if I was in any way useful, you know." Ares smacked a hand
against his thigh and...by Zeus Ow...but he managed not to whimper, just
about.
"I think at this stage we need all the help we can get, in fact that's the
best idea I've had all day. You can come back with me."
"But what about Gabrie-" They vanished, leaving the forest empty but for the
forlorn, scattered chicken.




Part 16

***


"So what do you mean by taller anyway?" Cupid wasn't going to roll his eyes,
he really wasn't. Neither was he going to yell or say something sarcastic,
or fling himself over the railings. He eyed Strife where he'd perched on one
of the larger railings, one leg swinging, the other playing with something
sharp and shiny. He was evidently more relaxed naked if he had something
sharp...that he could possibly shove into someone's eye at a moments notice.
"Are we still on this?" He could practically sense Strife given him that
long suspicious look.
"You wanted something honest, I was honest ok. I resisted the universal urge
to try for a compliment owing to the fact that..." He stopped talking
abruptly, it was going to be his eye, he just knew it.
"What? Owing to the fact what? You can't just stop in the middle of a
sentence like that, it's rude!" Cupid's wings opened and shut with a slap,
and that was definitely an angry involuntary movement.
"Can we please just drop this? Your natural paranoia is making everything I
say sound suspicious, do you get that?"
"No, the fact that you're shifty and uncomfortable for the first time today
is making me suspicious." Which was fair he supposed, considering this was
the first time today that he'd actually 'felt' shifty and uncomfortable.

It was part of his job to make people feel more comfortable naked after all,
though granted that was normally in a situation where sex had been involved,
and if he brought up sex in any way he was sooo going to have to go to
Asclepius for a new eye. There were a few occasions that hadn't involved
sex, what they had involved was incredibly shy young people. None of them
had had the slightest inclination towards sharp objects. But they were here,
and he suspected they would be for a while, and it was going to take
concentration, not fidgeting and arguing and avoiding looking at each other.
Which meant he was going to have to poke his toes into the sea that was
Strife's paranoia and discomfort, and he just knew there were going to be
sharks in there, possibly they'd be mutant ones.

"I don't think we'll have to wander about anymore, that's gotta be a break
right." Strife eyed him over one pale shoulder, and he managed to make it
look way more threatening that it had any right to be. He had the oddest
notion that if anyone else had tried that while balanced like that it would
have come off...not that Strife couldn't...like that obviously...if you
liked...in a pale dangerous thin way. What the Tartarus had he been going on
about again?
"No, I'm serious, we won't meet anyone else. I know that was w...you know,
not on your 'to do' list." A slight swivel on the metal, a curve of flawless
spine, and the threatening look turned into something where glare was
definitely involved.

"I doubt I'll remember any of this, I mean periods where a lot of other
people are also naked are usually fairly memorable for me...this one not so
much though." Strife's eyes had gone very thin beneath his eyebrows, until
there was just a suggestion of slightly mad iris.
"I might remember the empty corridors, because you know that's new." It
wasn't working, none of it was working. In fact Strife had looked more
comfortable while Cupid was having his mad frustrated outbursts and not
being helpful or reassuring in any way.
"If it makes you feel any better you can stare at me." Because he didn't
mind, he really didn't, he was used to it and he'd run out of all his good
ideas. Though ok now Strife was looking at him like he'd just suggested they
eat the furniture or something.
"I should just stop talking shouldn't I?"
"If you're going to keep babbling like you have a brain injury then sure."
Strife offered, stuck a foot between the bars.

Cupid did shut up then, eyed the back of his head, well the side of his
head, until a eye swivelled sideways and then he managed to find one of the
mirrors to concentrate on. But that wasn't what was making him...strange. It
occurred to him, very slowly, that no one had ever avoided looking at him
before. That was sort of the point when you were the God of love, desire,
passion, people wanted you. They looked at you because you were young, and
beautiful. They looked at you because you were a God, or because touching
you was something they couldn't imagine living without. He'd even caught
Ares eyes sliding a couple of times, and it was not quite so creepy because
it was expected, and it wasn't as if his Dad was going to jump him. Even if
everyone else seemed to want to. Except, apparently, Strife.

"I think I have issues as well." Strife had, it seemed, been waiting for him
to say something else.
"Sure, everyone does, you just don't like to take them out and look at them.
It's what you get surrounding yourself with all those adoring minions."
"Don't you get minions?" Strife made a face.
"Minions? Sure I have nine, I think one of them's mad...ok that's generous,
four of them are mad. They don't do much adoring, though one of them did
once leave me a little rabbit skeleton. I think that's about as close to
adoring as they get." Cupid was one skeleton away from being sorry he'd
asked. He debated telling Strife what his issues were, but quickly reasoned
that wouldn't be such a good idea.
"Not that I don't appreciate the minions." Strife offered after a beat, then
his concentration shifted briefly while he tracked something in a mirror.

"Well bugger me." Cupid raised an eyebrow, just in time to watch earrings
jiggle in an embarrassed fashion.
"And I mean that in a purely exclamatory sense." He said tightly, and Cupid
wouldn't have got into eye-poking distance for all the ambrosia in the
world.
"Oh?"
"Athena just came back upstairs." For a moment he'd thought Strife was
kidding, but sure enough her power was sliding through her temple again.
"Now that's...maybe she found something to wear?"
"Maybe the stress of it sent her mad?" Cupid suggested, and oh wasn't that a
lovely thought. An insane War Goddess storming through the halls of Olympus.
"That would be bad, there'd probably be more blood." It was hard to watch
more than a thousand mirrors at once, especially when they sort of swirled
and twisted like they were melting, and sometimes they lied, but you could
sort of feel that as well.

"Why is Xena with her?" Which was strange enough for Strife to slide off of
his railing and come and look himself.
"She never did much care for self-preservation."
"Do you think Dad knows?" Strife's bare feet squeaked on the tiles as he
shifted close enough to lean over Cupid's arm.
"I'm gonna go with yes...shift." He did, obediently, and he was getting far
too used to doing everything Strife said. Then of course he had a large
expense of chilly flesh against his side, and a scowling Strife paying
absolutely no attention to him whatsoever, and that might have been the
reason his mouth decided to disconnect from his brain.
"Why don't you look at me?" Strife's head turned very slowly, but he didn't
look mad this time, he looked utterly bewildered. It was an amusing look for
him.
"What?" Cupid shook his head, had no idea why, but he'd quite like his brain
back now please.
"Nothing, it doesn't matter, just an...observation that's all. I
wasn't...never mind." But Strife was still watching him and the bewildered
look now included a raised eyebrow. He'd never have thought Strife thinking
was a bad thing. Then the flash of another God faded in and he rejoiced
silently at not having to carry on any of his current lines of thought.

"Oh thank Zeus!" He wouldn't have much cared who it was.
"You know, that's the third time today that people have been impossibly
happy to see me." Ares was looking unusually smug, and also he wasn't alone.
He had an oddly thin-looking Joxer next to him one pale hand clutched white
around his shoulder.
"Could you please say something before you do that, really, I mean not that
I don't appreciate it or anything but it's sort of whizzy, and then I'm
blind and whooosh, not the most...hmm, hello Cupid." He clamped his lips
together, eyes sliding sideways, but apparently he had a sense of
self-preservation because he didn't actually look at Strife, just waved a
vague hand.
"Strife."

"Great, more visitors." Strife grumbled, but without any homicidal
overtones."
"Be nice." Ares grumbled, and hiked himself onto a roomy piece of railing.
"Pull up a fourteen thousand year old chair." He gestured expansively to
Joxer, who looked over the railing, swallowed audibly and shook his head.
"I think you realise by now that if anyone is going to drop headlong into
the swirling chasm-like abyss it's gonna be me." He perched against it
instead. Ares slapped Cupid on the arm, hard enough to suggest that his
father was now in a jovial mood, still pain was probably good at this point,
it would probably distract him from being an idiot.




Part 17

***

"Seriously though, I've dealt with almost everything that had the vast
expanses of blood dappled countryside so charged up. Which, admittedly, was
a lot easier once Athena got up off her arse and started making stuff work."
Ares raised an eyebrow, glanced at Joxer.
"Probably not a good idea to tell her I said that." Joxer felt bewildered
enough to raise an eyebrow back.
"I'm still paying for a sentence that had the words 'frigid' and 'bitch'
arranged in it somewhere."
"To be honest I don't know how to arrange them in a nice way." Joxer
mumbled.
"Though ok I fight with my family and we aren't even divine so sure throwing
stuff at each other hurts, and the threatening to kill each other...well
that's a real worry. Not that I could call Jett a bitch. I'm fairly certain
he'd do something painful. Though ok I'll admit Jett can be a bitch but he'd
probably make me regret that if you told anyone so...please don't." Strife
was giving him an odd look, and even Cupid had the sort of smile you
reserved for children that didn't make any sense.

He risked a glance upwards, but luckily Ares was still smirking in that odd
way of his.
"Joxer's been helping." He said intently.
"And it's not like you've had anyone offer to help you, which proves my
superiority...my naked superiority as it happens."
"I'm not a God, I probably lose points for that." Joxer offered quietly,
because really he didn't want three Gods giving him funny looks.
"I did take off points for that." Ares decided.
"Oh?"
"Yes, but then I had to give them back when you went within forty feet of
Graegus with no pants on." Joxer blinked.
"You said he was harmless." Joxer said quietly.
"You said you had something in your foot and I should just go on ahead."
Cupid made a funny choking noise, Ares glared at him.
"You said it was fine...I need to sit down, hopefully where I can't fall in
the abyss. Oh Zeus you said he wasn't going to eat me." Ares pulled a face.
"I wouldn't have let him eat you permanently." Joxer waved a hand, managed
to 'thwap' Ares half in the face, which he wasn't going to apologise for
because they were still trying to work out if Ares had almost let him get
eaten or not.

"I'm not a God, I don't even know if that's a compliment. I don't think I'd
even want to be temporarily eaten, that would be nasty I'm fairly sure even
if it was temporary, and also would I remember, because if I remembered the
being eaten that has a certain...permanent-ness to it."
"You wouldn't have remembered."
"But you would have, then you'd look at me sometimes and see me being eaten
and that would just be gross." Ares looked...well Joxer wasn't going to go
so far as to say guilty, but it might have been close enough to stop
scowling at him.
"I was fairly certain he wouldn't have eaten you." Ares offered at last, as
a sort of 'God of War conciliatory gesture.' Joxer rolled his eyes, leant
against the railings. Strife cleared his throat, loudly, and Cupid seemed
more startled than anyone else, possibly because now everyone was looking at
Strife. But he didn't make a big deal out of it, which seemed to surprise
Cupid even more.

"So are we still needed here? Or has Athena settled most of it down. She has
pretty big boots after all."
"But she's coming in to a field already ground to exhaustion, you can watch
for a while just to be sure. Me and Joxer have taken care of most of the
larger temples."
"Mostly I commented on the furniture." Joxer admitted. Ares ignored him.
"We also managed to round up a few of the minor gods that hadn't decided
quite how repressed they were yet."
"He hit a few of them." Joxer added to the conversation, which oddly, made
Ares laugh.
"I did, and now they're helping, under pain of...well more pain."

"And I did actually get something in my foot I'll have you know, so we came
to harass you in one of the short moments when nothing cataclysmic was
happening." Joxer nodded, and he wasn't used to his hair bouncing with every
single one of his head motions.
"I'm just glad we finished with the crushing, whooshing thing that was
sucking stuff in."
"You visited Bacchus then?" Strife sounded impressed, Joxer sort of wasn't
surprised. Bacchus had been large and scary, and also mad, and also naked.
He was more than glad Ares had fought with him earlier, though still it had
been...difficult finding somewhere to look. Luckily it was Olympus and you
could sort of get away with finding pot plants and the like amazingly
interesting. At least until you were blinded by random flashes of light that
was. Which seemed to spew Gods out like no one's business around here, and
it was always sort of worrying when it happened...like right now for
instance.

It was without doubt, Discord, but he didn't get to see anything more than
the end of a long plait, because Ares wrapped a hand round his eyes, for
safety's sake. Which he hadn't been prepared for, so it was a bit of a shock
all told.
"Er...Ares?" A long quiet moment went by, which may or may not have involved
some weird god signalling that he wasn't familiar with, before the hand
relaxed a little, but didn't shift away.
"It's turning into a regular party up here isn't it?" The sound of small
bare feet on marble, getting further away, which had to be encouraging.
Discord didn't sound angry, and the room didn't seem all tense like anyone
was getting ready to do anything gruesome to anyone else. So now he had a
large, warm hand over his eyes, which smelled a lot like warm leather and
metal, though he suspected Ares hadn't been near either for hours.
Also...was this weird, because it sort of felt like it but he wasn't
entirely sure. Not weird in a strange and threatening way, but weird
in...well he didn't really like to say. He could pretend not to notice
though, he was really good at that.

It had to be good that she wasn't talking to him either though right? He was
going to assume she was also not looking at him. Or perhaps she was, perhaps
she was giving him murderous death glares where he couldn't see. That
thought wasn't comforting at all. Not that you could be sufficiently
comforted whilst naked in a room with Discord and the God of War's hand
slapped over your eyes.

"-and I couldn't believe it myself until they both appeared. Though Zeus
knows what they're doing now, though if it's porn related just forget I
asked because that's a nasty, nasty mental image..." More bare feet, and the
smack of flesh against flesh. Joxer was going to take a wild guess that
she'd just smacked someone, probably Strife.
"That was for the expression, and is it even possible? Doesn't it break some
laws of taste and decency?"
"We have laws of taste and decency?" Strife wanted to know, there was
another slap.
"I'm not kidding this is getting stupid. I may have to go downstairs and
start throwing people in the Styx until Hades gets his arse out and deals
with some of this mess." There was quiet for a long moment, then the hand
moved off of his face, letting in that super bright Olympus light and a
draft of cold air. He was going to assume Discord had vanished away, though
where and to do what he didn't really want to know. Joxer blinked, aware
that it probably made him look like some sort of startled monkey. Everyone
was pretty much where they'd been before, except now Strife had a big red
handprint on his shoulder blade, which for some bizarre reason Cupid
couldn't stop staring at.


*****



"Doesn't that...hurt?" Cupid said quietly, and it took Strife a minute to
stop looking at Ares grumbling softly at Joxer.
"Is it me or is that weird...what?"
"That?" Cupid's hand moved vaguely, as if he was afraid to touch something.
Strife craned his head over his shoulder, found the decorative little
handprint his mother had made.
"No, why?" Cupid very carefully moved his hand forward far enough to poke
it. Which, Strife decided, he was going to let him get away with.
"It looks like it does, because it stands out, because you're so pale."
Strife considered asking him if he'd hit his head. But then Cupid whipped
his hand back and appeared to shake himself into being normal again. Or
whatever constituted normal for him anyway.

Strife grabbed his chin, tilted his head across the room, to where Joxer was
now...ok apparently using one of Ares arms for balance while he picked bits
of tree off of his foot .
"Now is it just me, or is that weird." He leant out of the way of a wing.
"Um, ok yes that is sort of weird, when did that happen?"
"Possibly when we weren't looking."
"Before the nakedness," Cupid decided.
"Because you don't look sideways at someone you're sleeping with anyway,
well not unless-"
"All right I get the message." Strife complained, because he really didn't
want Cupid going off on a tangent that would involve a lot of unnecessary
naked people. Cupid exhaled loudly against his shoulder.
"No, I was just saying that there was no overt leering going on."
"Over there at least." Strife said tartly, Cupid shifted uncomfortably, but
didn't say anything. Which said in no uncertain terms that Cupid had been
eyeing more than his shoulder, and that was just...weird, and possibly
unhealthy. But then something happened that ranked right up on the 'weirdest
things to happen today' list he'd been making in his head.

Athena, utterly naked, and looking more than a little cross had appeared
just inside the oval. She was standing with her hands on her hips glaring at
her brother.
"With this sort of help I'm amazed anything ever gets done around here."
Standing just in front of her was Xena, looking more relaxed than she had a
right to. Strife would have given a lot to see her look just the slightest
bit uncomfortable, a glance, some kind of embarassed hand gesturing. But no,
she was as calm and annoying as ever. It did take them all a long moment to
decide where to look and what expression to have on their faces. Ok
admittedly it took Ares longer than most, and his eyes were wandering about
in a way that suggested a humorous comment was just begging to come out.
"Don't." Xena said flatly.
"Or I will have to hurt you." Ares raised an eyebrow, but closed his mouth
and swept a hand up the room.
"Welcome to the party Athena, you're looking well."

He got a sneer for his exaggerated politeness.
"I've been to better." Xena muttered something about finger food, which had
the corner of Athena's mouth curving just the tiniest bit and she seemed to
relax minutely. It went down on Strife's list as well.
"I'll admit I was late, but I've been neither sloppy nor inefficient. With a
little help from Xena, who is...more competent than I ever thought." She got
a raised eyebrow for that, which got Xena a little shrug. Strife shared a
look with Ares that would have had either woman seething had it been
intercepted. Joxer didn't seem surprised, or troubled. In fact he waved
slightly at Xena, who smiled, shook her head and waved back. Sort of a 'oh
we meet in the strangest of places' smile. Strife was so going to have to
pay more attention to what was going on in the future, he was certain of it.

"Well Sticks, it's nice to see someone slapped some sense into you." Discord
was back. She was talking to Athena of course and it seemed that somewhere
from flash to insult Ares forgot the hand. Strife did notice though that
Joxer was carefully looking at Xena, who didn't seem to mind. Unlike Athena,
because the look she had on her face at the moment seemed to consider
everyone worth at least one tirade.
"Unlike certain Goddesses I could mention I'm intelligent enough to weigh my
own emotional faults against the common good. I don't need violence to be
efficient."
"You'd be surprised how efficient violence can be." Ares supplied. Which got
him two very nasty looks from his sisters.
"What?" Athena's head swivelled back to Discord.
"All I'm saying is that discipline and order would have been more conductive
than pain and tension, one as you know is far more likely to snap than the
other."
"I had to work with what little I had. So lets just decide that it's your
mess and see about fixing it."
"My mess? You superior bitch you!"
"Discord! Can I at least get some idea of what you've managed?" Ares was
louder, or perhaps just less shreiky. Discord didn't look amenable to
stemming her very visible temper yet though.
"Why don't you ask her? She seems to think she knows everything!"

Oddly enough, it was Xena who wound a hand just below Athena's clenching
fist, and Strife knew for a fact that the Goddess of War wouldn't hesitate
to smack Discord in the mouth if she thought it necessary, and when his
mother got up again...well then he wasn't going to get pulled into trying to
wrench them apart, he'd probably get his head knocked off if he tried. Ares
definitely had more balls and less sense though, because he looked about
ready to grab two handfuls of hair and clonk their heads together.
"Can we not get into this when the possible fate of Olympus rests in the
balance hmm?" Discord looked as if she'd bite his fingers off if he tried.
"Tell that to princess ego over there, who'd quite happily whimper on about
how she knows best while the whole world cracked into pieces around her."

Joxer was looking confused, though he could also be looking in fear for his
life, he had a weird face that way.
"They don't get along." Strife explained. Joxer's head swivelled to look at
him.
"But they won't kill each other?" Strife shook his head.
"Nah, they might try for a while though."
"Ok." Xena had butted in now, and she was saying something that was patently
rubbish. Joxer surprised Strife by speaking.
"Um Xena, don't you think maybe the gods-"
"Joxer will you just shut up, I don't think you can help the discussion."
Xena said flatly. Joxer rolled his eyes as if he was more than used to the
treatment, but Ares didn't look happy.
"Never did get the hang of respect did you,"
"Well considering she's the freakish spawn of your over-active loins."
Athena said tartly.
"At least my loins have seen some action."
"Oh sexual insults? Like that's what I need? Always the last refuge of the
intellectually challenged."
"No, what you seem to need is a good shaking."
"If you so much as try it Ares I'll take your damn head off." Xena said
flatly. Athena didn't seem to mind the show of support.

"Can we please get back to the business at hand!" Cupid said flatly, Discord
looked ready to flatten him.
"Keep your wings out of this, or we'll see how well you flap with one
shoulder blade."
"Discord do not threaten my son!" Ares snapped out
"Then tell him to stop perving at mine!"
"Hey!" Xena tried to make herself heard.
"Is this stupidity actually getting us anywhere?"
"Says the mortal in the room." Strife grumbled, made a hand gesture that was
more than a little disturbing.
"Do that again," Athena said quietly.
"And I'll take your freakish head off."
"Athena!" Then the tension seemed to expand until it exploded, and everyone
in the room was shouting at once in varying degrees of anger and discomfort.

"Shut up all of you!" It was a roar of sound that drew every head in its
direction, and standing at the very end of the railing was Zeus himself.




Part 19

"Stop fighting this instant! Don't speak, don't even move!" No one did, they
didn't seem capable. It wasn't certain if it was a combination of shock,
fright or Godly powers.
"What do you think you're all doing? Or is Hera right, is this the sort of
family I've created. The sort of family I deserve." He sagged suddenly, and
it was frightening how it made him seem smaller.
"I simply don't have the words to tell you how disappointed I am in all of
you." He certainly looked disappointed. In fact the King of the Gods looked
old and grey and slightly bewildered.

"It was supposed to be a chance for you to connect, a chance to bring a
little harmony to Olympus. I was trying to get you to see each other in new
ways. To appreciate each others differences, and yet here you all are;
hiding, lying, wallowing in denial...and simply at each others throats." He
shook his head.
"With Olympus creaking on it's foundations, a Love Goddess who's as close to
slipping into a coma as a god can be and a God of Music and Light who's a
breath away from going on a mindless and hysterical rampage of bloody
violence. I can't help but feel altogether weary with the lot of you."
Athena and Ares both opened their mouths, but then shut them again when they
received a hard look.

"Look at you, a little naked rabble sniping and biting at each other. Look
how accomplished you've become in the face of adversity." He scowled.
"I expected better of War, both of you!" Athena looked frustrated.
"Better late than never? If you'd had it your way it would have been never!
Or you Ares? You've been treating the whole thing like some sort of amusing
social experiment." If anything had been within reach Zeus would have
thumped it.
"You're children...all of you."
"But we did try." Athena said, quietly but tartly.
"We tried to fix things."
"Fix things?" Zeus said, and it was clear he didn't want a reply to that
question.
"We held things together then." Ares offered, half angry and half
frustrated.
"Worked around those who wouldn't, did their own damn work for them half the
time! We even tried to calm the mortals down. Some of us didn't have
problems."
"Don't expect praise for self-confidence Ares, it's a little more
complicated than that." Ares threw up his hands, clenched his jaw, but
didn't say anymore.

"You've been treating this like a disease. You've been treating it like an
invading army. I absolutely will not be blamed for this when it was your own
refusal to evolve that's made such a mess of things." A long slow headshake.
"I was fully prepared to be proud of you, I really was. For you to find
things in common, but no, you're angrier and more bitter than even I
thought." Another headshake.
"So be it then, take from this experience vast reserves of shame and
discomfort, then wall it up inside. Tartarus knows you've become good at
that by now." Then, with no flash of light whatsoever, Zeus simply
disappeared.

It was quiet for a long moment. No one quite wanted to say anything, either
that or no one had a clue what to say. But no one was leaving.
"I'm now wearing a boot if anyone cares." Discord said flatly, Ares grunted.
"Yes so am I." Another long moment produced a slender blue boot for Athena
and one of Xena's armguards.
"So, it's over then?" Cupid didn't sound relieved or disappointed, just sort
of flat.
"Well, I now have pants again." Ares said, which could plainly be seen. Xena
was arranging the buckles on her outfit, but she didn't speak. Strife was
now only missing a sleeve. Athena had started to pat down her blue dress,
though from the strange look on her face Strife was going to take a wild
guess that she'd almost become comfortable without it. They all looked at
each other without saying anything. Though still no one disappeared.
"We should probably get back to work if everything's normal again." Cupid
said, and all of a sudden it was slightly weird that Strife could still see
his nipples, like he was cheating by still being half-naked.
"Yes we should." Athena agreed, and she looked sideways at Xena. Strife
exhaled sharply, decided he wasn't going to sit around here in this
manufactured uncomfortable silence.
"Well I have things to do as well, and I spend my entire life wondering when
someone's going to pop round and tell me I've screwed up. So this is nothing
much new to me. I'll catch you all later." He disappeared, much like Zeus
had.

Cupid, aware his hand had somehow managed to get halfway off his lap dropped
it, then checked to see if anyone had noticed. Apparently everyone had, but
they were politely ignoring it. Everyone had become very polite. It was the
most disturbing thing he'd ever been party too.
"We should go as well." Athena said quietly. Then cleared her throat.
"I should I mean, unless of course you'd like me to drop you somewhere
Xena." They stared at each other for a while.
"That would be good, if you would, thanks." Xena didn't look away. Athena
did though, nodding to Ares, Cupid and even Discord.
"Eris." Then they both vanished. Discord grunted.
"Much as I'd love to stay here and live in this atmosphere permanently...awh
screw it I don't need to explain myself to you-" She went as well.

Cupid eyed his father for a moment, then sighed.
"Yeah I know, I'm going to go and see if Mom's ok."
"What exactly-"
"Later, I'll deal with it later. I think I need another bath too." Then he
was gone as well, leaving Joxer and Ares, in the very large railed room,
Ares was frowning. Joxer ran a hand over his head, realised he could, but
didn't think it worth mentioning.

"I'm sorry if I got in the way or anything today." He said finally, because
Ares was way more imposing when he had clothes on.
"And I'm sorry if things don't work out." Ares grunted.
"You don't have to be sorry, we're gods. We can make far larger messes than
you could ever imagine." Joxer chewed a lip.
"So, do you think it would be possible to...maybe drop me where you got me
from? I mean unless you need me to do anything else." Ares blinked,
swivelled his head and looked at him for a long slightly scary moment.
Finally he nodded.
"Yes, sure." Joxer wavered, then folded his hands behind his back.
"Well it was...I want to say fun but it probably wasn't, owing to the
embarrassment and the long silence. But I did, sort of have fun. I liked
helping at least-" Joxer stopped long enough to kiss him sharply on the
cheek.
"So thank you for that because well people never include me in stuff
so..just thanks." He nodded, fidgeted, and Ares found himself nodding
vaguely along with him. Before he sent him back to the clearing like he'd
asked.

The room suddenly felt...sort of lonely.



Part 20

***

Cupid now had a certain amount of experience dealing with the other side of
his family. There was no reason he couldn't put it to good use. He thumped
on Strife's door hard enough for the hinges to flake. Of course if Strife
chose to ignore him he wasn't quite up to actually breaking in, he wasn't
entirely sure how Strife had managed that yesterday anyway. Dad would tell
him if he asked, but he'd want to know what it was for, and then he'd spend
the next few months...disapproving, and Dad could disapprove quite vocally
when he put his mind to it. Cupid didn't think he was quite ready for all
that yet. He shifted the package he held in his other hand, thumped again.

In most of the good scenarios that worked in his head the doors would open,
and he'd wander inside in varying degrees of healthy paranoia. Because
everything with skin had good reason to be afraid of sharp things right? The
one thing he actually hadn't made allowances for in his scenarios was this.
Strife had actually physically opened the door himself, and was leaning
against the frame, looking shorter and not quite as thin in the complicated
excuse for clothing that he always wore.

"Oh." Cupid said vaguely, because he'd sort of expected to be able to walk
in and at least leave the thing if Strife had been out. Strife raised an
eyebrow. Right he should probably say more, since he was the one that had
come, and...ok giving the thing would at least distract him from sort of
eyeballing Cupid in a not particularly friendly way.

"I er...brought you something." He said, handed the package over. Strife had
a choice of either taking it or dropping it, he took it. But he looked at it
as if it might explode all over him.
"You did?"
"Yes." Way too much nodding, but that couldn't be helped, he forced himself
to stop. He waved a hand vaguely, indicating that Strife should at least
open the thing, because he really did want to know if he'd got it right this
time. The hands moved, untangling knots and loops of fabric. Though Strife
did seem to be trying to keep one eye on him at the same time. Creepily he
seemed to be managing it.

He hoped it was shiny enough, and sharp enough. Though he'd requested it as
sharp and as shiny as was physically possible without making it some sort of
pan-dimensional super weapon. Strife was...very still though, staring at it
like it he wasn't sure what it was.
"Do you like it?" Strife opened and closed his mouth a couple of times but
nothing came out.
"I wouldn't know if it's good but I have three people telling me it goes
through bone like butter. Actually I don't know if that's good either." He
scratched the back of his neck.
"Why-?" Cupid shifted again.
"I was trying to figure out...the other half of... I mean you at least.
Flowers wouldn't have worked and I suspect you wouldn't eat anything anyone
else gave you, so..."

He gave up, stepped into Strife's personal space and tilted his chin up. The
God of Mischief still looked quite surprised a fraction of a second before
he kissed him. Because sometimes you just had to risk the knife in the eye.
He didn't get one, what he did get was a long second of blinking eyelashes,
and then a pale hand slid up into his hair, short nails digging in just
slightly, and...oh sweet Zeus yes.

***


"Gabrielle I'm sure she's just fixing some things, or helping...or
something. I'm sure she'll be back soon." Joxer obviously wasn't listening,
which wasn't surprising really, because he never listened, well alright, he
listened but he didn't actually understand, or take anything in.
"I know, obviously I know, she wouldn't stay away to just...dawdle, or have
a party. Of course she's doing something important, I mean of course." Joxer
was sitting on his log again, looking morose and confused. Confused was
pretty much a given but the rest? She'd give it another hour then attempt to
cheer him up, by force if necessary. Possibly hit him with her staff a few
times to at least make him do that goofy expression.

She shook her head, then scratched the back of her neck. She wasn't entirely
certain she'd managed to get all the mud off, it had dried pretty hard and
she'd left it on for a long time. That didn't mean she hadn't been impressed
at her own ingenuity. Who else would have managed a full body covering while
the Gods did random stupid things to the world. She suspected that was
partly due to her relationship with Xena. The ability to take things in
quickly. The ability to react to the unexpected, to not be phased no matter
how weird the world got, or how irate it made her.

Yes, that was the answer, perhaps that was what Joxer needed at the moment.
A reminder that they all thrived well in adversity and he should just accept
that there was little they could control of the world around them.
"Well Joxer at least this proves that we all thrive in adversity doesn't it.
No matter how much-"

"Ok, this isn't working." Gabrielle glared at the interruption.
"You again? What do you want now? Haven't we been tortured enough for one
week?" Ares ignored her though. In fact he marched over to Joxer and tugged
him up off of the log.
"It's not working." He said again. Joxer looked bewildered, Gabrielle forced
herself not to look the same.
"What's not working?" She snapped
"Don't you think you've annoyed Joxer enough?"
"No!" Ares snapped back, then thought about it.
"I didn't did I?" Joxer was left shaking his head vaguely.

"Because everyone's stopped talking to each other and it's all...tense and
polite, except for Athena who keeps smiling and hasn't thrown one bitch
fit." He frowned.
"That is quite possibly the most terrifying partnership I've ever
discovered. I suspect we may have to ban them from breeding." Gabrielle was
confused, Joxer had gone red, and she really hated not knowing what was
going on.
"But no one will talk about it, and it's stupid, and there's so much
tension." He waved his arms around.
"More than you could ever believe and I think I should just...do something
about it." Joxer was nodding now.
"Ok, what do you want from me, because I can't pretend I know how everything
works. I'd help though, I mean if you wanted someone to yell at, or...fetch
stuff. I probably couldn't think of any horrible ways to kill people
but...umm you probably know them all anyway." Ares was giving him a very odd
look now, and it must have been obvious because even Joxer noticed.
"Oh," he said, very quietly, and then...

Gabrielle dropped her staff.

They were kissing! Abruptly and with absolutely no warning, and not polite
kissing either, possibly it could have been described as drunken brothel
kissing. There might have been more than four hands involved, and Ares was
making a noise in his throat that was making Gabrielle's entire spine
vibrate.

She didn't seem to have any words left, though she did struggle for some,
she even opened and closed her mouth a few times for good measure. She
thought about pinching herself, but she was afraid to move. Not that they'd
notice, they seemed, not entirely concerned with her anymore. There was a
brief rip of fabric and Ares did something with his hands that was probably
illegal...then they vanished.

She blinked a few times.

"Hello..." She called vaguely, and wasn't surprised when her voice came out
scratchy.
"Why do I get the feeling no one ever tells me anything?" She complained to
the woods around her.



End


Thank you to everyone who's been enjoying this, and for giving me the
encouragement to finish it. I've had an absolute blast.

Corona

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