Welcome to AresJoxerCupidStrife

Title: Psyche
Author: Shamenka
Pairing: C and S (still not together)
Rating: 15+ maybe nc-17 for language?
Warning: Deals with the fall out over the death of a premature child.
Archive: The lists and me - anyone else just ask.
Feedback: Most welcome.

Summary: Things are moving faster than Cupid realised.

Psyche
by Shamenka

Cupid was at his usual post, up against the tree, watching. Doing all he
filled his days with, watching his real love with their lost child. Into this
normal tableau came a new and entirely unexpected player. His former wife,
Psyche.

Her hesitant steps towards the pair sitting on the grass, playing with a
brightly coloured ball spoke of her own pain at being there. It screamed her
own agony from the highest point of Olympus so high above. And was another
cause for the winged Love God to wallow in his ever deepening guilt.

Then he heard them talk. His Strife, his Psyche, his utter amazement.

"Strife?" Psyche's timorous voice questioned the dark haired God as she
lifted a trembling hand to touch his shoulder.

"What do you want?" Strife's voice was harsh as Cupid watched him turning to
glare at the woman that had single handedly ruined his entire life.

"I want to apologise." Psyche whispered, her resolve dissolving almost as
fast as she could get the words out.

"Oh, and what, pray tell, do you wish to apologise for? Being born? Living?"
Sarcasm dripped from every syllable of every word Strife uttered, and his
unbearable pain went right along with it.

"For not having the guts to sort my own life out sooner..." The look of
surprise on her face when Strife interrupted her almost teased a smile onto
Cupid's face.

"And I care why exactly? If you want to flagellate yourself, be my guest, go
forth and whip up a storm. Just don't do it anywhere near me or my child."
From his hiding place Cupid could feel the rage and hate emanating from
Strife. "Hey, I know, you can go home and do it in front of your kid! Go home
and whip yourself there, bitch, and while you're there you can pretend real
hard that I give a fuck how screwed up your brat gets in the process." Strife
picked up the half alive soul of his daughter and walked away from Psyche, at
least he tried to.

She was determined to make things as right as they could be for this
distraught God, and for her estranged husband. She ran ahead and forced
Strife to stop walking.

"Listen, just listen that's all I'm asking of you. Let me explain. Please?"
She begged him to hear her out.

"Oh, you beg me. That's rich. What good did begging do me? Or Serenity? If I
beg now will you fuck off and leave me alone?" Strife managed a shrug that
seemed to involve every muscle in his body without disturbing Serenity as she
cuddled into him. Even Psyche could see that the child was terrified of her.

"I never meant to hurt anyone! All I wanted was my freedom. I don't expect
you to understand what it's like to be born a mortal woman.." Again Strife
interrupted her rambling explanation.

"No different than being born a God. Except without the powers that is. I had
my entire destiny woven in the great tapestry even before I was conceived. At
least the Fates wait until you mortals are actually born before setting the
pattern of your lives in place. Hey, there now, don't you feel better?
Knowing you had more freedom of choice in who you loved than I ever had?
You've had more of a life than my baby ever had, bitch, so don't come poor
little me... I won't believe you!" He tried to step around her, to get away
from her at almost all costs. That teleporting would cost Serenity what
little half life she had was the only thing that kept him on the same plane
of existence as the bitch before him.

"My father was going to hold an auction. I was to be fucked by the highest
bidder. Certainly wouldn't call it being made love to! I had no choice but to
grab freedom while I could, to take whatever opportunity showed itself. And
no, I didn't care if that chance was Hercules or Cupid, I just grabbed and
held on for dear life!" it was entirely the wrong thing to say, she only
realised after the damned words had left her mouth.

"And because of your cheap tartish grasping hands steeling my Mate away from
me, my daughter died! So that's your apology is it? Hey thanks for letting me
make sure your baby died, I'm so free now. Bought with her blood, her pain
and her oh so pitifully brief existence! Fuck off! And when you get there,
die!"

Cupid hadn't realised that bit, that his presence at Strife's side could have
saved their daughter. It twisted his gut even more. Made any reconciliation
with his beloved seem even more of a far distant hope than ever before.

"No.." Psyche's voice was little more than a whisper. "Please, you have to be
lying. Oh, no... please no. Not that. Oh sweet mercy not that. My freedom
could never have been worth that price. Surely?" And she looked at him and
saw her wishes were just dust in the wind. Useless and ultimately
destructive.

"I never said it was, did I?" Strife sneered at her.

"And I never claimed it was!" She rallied to defend herself, even though her
body language showed that the guilt of her crime would haunt her forever. "If
I had even the slightest inkling that my actions would cause anyone harm, let
alone a baby her life, then I never would have arranged for Cupid to trip up
like he did. I'd have settled for Hercules, anything. I'd not have cost you
your child. But... even Cupid didn't know to be with you... or he would have
been at your side, not at my bedroom window gazing in!"

"I didn't know until it was too late. God's don't have the same clues that
say look at me I'm pregnant. Not like you females, Goddesses or otherwise.
Say, if you're that sorry, why don't you go home, kill your son and let him
exist down here for ever? He can keep his sister company! Maybe then I'd feel
that things were a little more evened out, eh? What, no immediate rush to go
home and share in my grief?" Strife took advantage of Psyche's silence and
shock to step around her one more time. "Somehow I didn't think you'd see
things my way.." As he moved passed her his Godly senses were at their
extreme limit, looking for her next move. It was then that he really lost
control of his temper.

"So, you're carrying another kid. Well, it's all coming out now, isn't it?
That's the real reason you're here. Not for any namby pamby apology or
begging my forgiveness. It was to gloat! Go ahead, say it, you know you
really and truly want to. Look at me Strife, I'm pregnant again and you
couldn't even manage it properly once! Look at me, giving your Mate yet
another child! You mortals have to be useful for something and I suppose
being Cupid's spunk bucket is as good a use for a cunt like yours as any.
Okay, I'm despondent, I'm not about to come back to Olympus this side of
eternity so fuck off, mission accomplished!" He balanced Serenity on one
shoulder and shoved Psyche out of his path, not caring if she fell, not
caring if her child was put at risk.

"It's not Cupid's child. I'm not with him anymore." She spoke softly yet
clearly. "That's part of why I'm here. I have no claims on Cupid, he and I
are no longer together. And yes, I am carrying a child, my soul's mate's
child. It will be your sister or brother... I want to make things right for
you, between you and Cupid. Please, Strife, please.."

"Please, Strife... is that all you can say? And you think I'd welcome a
sibling out of your festering cunt? So who fathered it? You seem to know more
about my parentage than I do? So who is the lucky God to get to come in you
this time? Who you fuckin' this time, huh?"

From his vantage point Cupid looked at the slump of Psyche's shoulders as she
faced whatever acid Strife could vent at her this time. He almost felt sorry
for her, almost.

"I'm not fucking any God. I'm finally in real love and I love Eris, your
mother. She misses you so much, please Strife, believe me I never, ever meant
you to suffer in any way. Least of all like this." Psyche tried to reach out
to the God that would become her stepson once she and her soul's mate became
one.

"Hey, I've got an idea!" Strife almost looked gleeful as he faced his
mother's fuck partner once more. "Why don't you go into labour, like now, and
I won't go get my bitch of a mother and you can lose her litter of puppies,
like she let me lose my child? Hmm? No? Pity, it'd make me laugh!" Strife
glared at the former mortal before him. "And don't tell me you left your
first little bastard in my sick fuck of a mother's tender care?" He seemed to
be lost in thought for a moment. "Did he have wings?"

"What do you mean did?" Psyche didn't want to hear Strife's next words, but
couldn't deny her need to listen either.

"Hey, she's your fuck bunny, I'd have thought you knew all her filthy little
secrets. Like who fucked her and made me? Like how she hated wings so fucking
much she cut mine off before I ever learned to walk, let alone fly!" He
screamed at her, pain and horror washing off him and swamping her fragile
mental shields.

"Bliss?!" Psyche screamed in dread and flashed out of the Underworld finally
leaving Strife alone.

In his panic Cupid almost flashed out too until he remembered and blushed
deeply in his chagrin. Strife never had wings. Only children born of his
father's line had optional wings. Propelled forwards to finally speak to his
true Mate and to defend his former love.

"That wasn't very nice." He cursed his own stupidity at his first words to
Strife since he had brought Psyche to Olympus. He cursed his own inability to
learn from Psyche's performance.

"And she deserves nice why exactly? Fuck off Cupid, go fight my bitch of a
mother for your fuck buddy and leave us alone! Like you did for all of the
last four years!" Strife started walking around Cupid, heading for his
Underworld home with his daughter.

Cupid looked at his feet and saw the brightly coloured ball Strife and
Serenity had been playing with, gingerly, he stooped down to pick it up.
Knowing full well that Serenity and Strife's emotions would be locked up in a
favourite toy. There was so much love between them, it almost seemed there
was no room in their existence for anyone else.

"Please, Strife, I didn't know. If I had, I'd have been there. What did you
mean when you said your mother let you lose our baby?" Cupid tossed the ball
from hand to hand, listening to the gentle ting-a-ling as the bell inside
rocked back and forth.

"She was supposed to go for you. Said she did, but you didn't want to come
back. Too busy watching that bitch you brought back." Strife held out a hand
to Cupid. "My child's ball, if you don't mind!"

The ball was handed over with a sad smile and a cascade of tears.

"Can I see her? Touch her? Our daughter..." Cupid's voice held such hope,
then his face contorted in rage. "You damned mother never came near me!" His
rage now had a focus, Eris. "For your information the first time I knew we
had lost a child was two weeks ago and I've been watching you two ever
since!" He took a deep breath and looked Strife straight in his eyes. "And I
didn't even know you'd been returned to life the very instant you died!
Didn't anyone think I had the right to know?"

"What rights? You gave up all rights over me and mine the first time you
fucked that bitch of yours!" Strife's face screwed up in a rage he had held
inside himself for all the years Cupid had been with Psyche.

"And I began to get over my infatuation with loving her the second I saw my
father carrying your dead body back to Olympus. But we had a son together, so
for him I stayed and continued with my life with her. After all I had no real
reason not to stay with her, my true Mate was dead and staying that way, as
far as I knew anyway. Every damned morning I wake with your name on my lips,
and only her to hear it! But I promised her that I would not desert either
her or our son until she found her own soul's mate. Which she only recently
has. So don't get on your high horse with me! Neither of us is entirely to
blame here. Other than your mother, she's so deep in the shit that she should
try learning ta' swim!" Cupid drew in a shuddering breath trying to calm
himself before he got into a blazing row with his true Mate as the first
words they had shared in four years.

"So why didn't you come here to see me? If you had something to say you could
have come here and said it. You didn't ergo you obviously had nothing worth
saying to me!" Strife snarled. Serenity was asleep against his shoulder, he
certainly didn't want to wake her.

"Because if I had come here and you were as dead as I thought you were I'd
never have returned to Olympus and I had made her a promise I'd help her find
her soul's mate. Although why she picked your mother I don't know!"

Serenity woke, the voices snarling back and forwards around and around her
woke her in a state of fear. Like all children woken suddenly in alarm, she
cried.

"Oh sweet Gods of Life she's absolutely beautiful. Got your eyes. Got your
fingers. Your lips. My wings..." His litany of his daughter's perfections was
interrupted when his father arrived, giggling hysterically.

"Cupid!" The sight of his son with his nephew sobered the War God almost
instantly. He turned away frrom Cupid quite deliberatley, and faced Strife,
giggling again. "Whatever you said to Psyche wasn't said soon enough! She's
in the middle of a blazing row with your mother." He hugged his nephew and
grand daughter for a second or two. Then realised just what his son was
finally doing there. Trying to make up with Strife. "Gimme my grand daughter
and if anyone asks where I am, I'm legitimately baby-sitting ok?" He reached
over and lifted Serenity. "Hiya sweety!"

Serenity's smile was a delight to see, she so obviously loved her grandfather.

"Bye." And Ares walked away before either Cupid or Strife could say a word
against his actions.

"Can we talk? Please?" Cupid took Strife's hands in his and let his feelings
fill his true Mate.

"I don't know. I've not talked of these things since Serenity di.." And he
couldn't finish. Four years of closely guarded pain and hurt exploded out of
him.

There was little else Cupid could do, or even wanted to, so he held his Mate
close as the tears fell unchecked. From both of them. It didn't heal all
their hurts, but it gave them a starting point to go on from.