Welcome to AresJoxerCupidStrife

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

Summary: He finally wakes up - too late, perhaps?

Serenity
by Shamenka

He hid in the shadows cast by the tree he leaned against, watching, waiting,
longing to be able to step out into the warmth of the Elysian sunshine and
join the family he only recently discovered was his.

And that very recent discovery was also his greatest shame.

He had never taken a single solitary moment to discover exactly why his
soul's mate had failed to keep what neither of them then knew would have been
their last date. The very next day he had taken an irrevocable step that had
ripped them apart, possibly forever. Now he was lost to know how to put it
all to rights. If he could.

It had been a scant handful of days since he had discovered that he had
fathered a beautiful daughter so many years before. Only, his daughter had
died soon after her far too premature birth. Without him knowing, or even
caring. The very next day he had brought home a mortal woman and declared her
the love of his life, his wife and had never seen his soul's mate alive from
that day until he had awakened from his private Tartarus the day that self
same former mortal finally moved out.

The memory of sending that hideously embarrassing scroll to his true love
announcing the birth of his first child, his boy, his Bliss would haunt him
forever. Creating an even deeper pit that was his love's nightmare. Had he
known, he told himself, he would never have boasted like that. Would never
have inflicted that ultimate pain on him. Would never have insulted their
Serenity.

As each word on that scroll rolled past his inner eye, the pain of each and
every cutting word filled him with the faintest echo of his beloved's crystal
sharp agony.

*It is with deepest delight that I, Cupid, God of Love and Psyche, my beloved
Consort inform you of the birth of my first child. Born to us this day a
beautiful boy, to be known as Bliss, God of Infatuation.

All gifts destined for Bliss may be left at the main Temple of Love, Olympus*

Was it any wonder they had received no gifts what so ever from the House of
War, the House of Medicine or even from Zeus and Hera? He hadn't wondered
why, merely went around bad mouthing them all as being jealous. What an
absolute joke! His research had told him that what he thought was avoidance
due to jealousy had been no more than a father grieving his lost daughter.
The Houses of War and Healing had spent that time of his so called greatest
triumph sitting by a tiny cold grave mourning the equally as tiny, cold body
nestled within. Praying to their own father that that grave didn't acquire
another inhabitant. His so mature response was to sulk noisily at any who
would listen.

But he hadn't known to grieve. He would have, if he had known. All it would
have taken was a scroll amending his, to announce that Bliss was in truth the
second child born to him. It would have been a cold and heartless way to do
it, to break the news, kind of exactly what he deserved for his cold and
heartless announcement.

But his beloved wasn't like that. He would never treat someone as coldly and
viciously as he did.

Not his Strife. No his Strife had gathered his pain close to his heart and
soul, as he always did, and didn't let him know what he had lost.

Then, of course, his love had died. Not the emotion that burned so deeply
within for his soul's mate, but Strife himself had died. Joining their
daughter in her grave, united together forever. Only, that hadn't been the
way of things either. Strife had remained dead only as long as it had taken
his soul to arrive before their Great Uncle Hades and be sent back to them.
Them being his family, his supporters. Them being Ares and Hera and Apollo
and even Hades. Them not being himself and Bliss and Psyche.

No, he hadn't seen Strife after that last brief sight of his dead body being
brought back to Olympus by Ares. He had felt his life ending, he simply
hadn't felt that same life returning. That new life hadn't belonged to him,
hadn't been part of his soul. It was that constantly missing part of him, of
his soul, that had ended the parody of a happy marriage. He had woken up one
morning with Strife's name on his lips, and it had never left them.

It had taken him a long time to piece together all that had happened to
Strife. No one gave him the answers, no one had given him a clue in which
direction to search. He had watched every moment of their last week together.
Their happy go lucky attitudes to their lives, their love, to each other.

And when he discovered what had happened, he mourned alone, broke his heart
alone, then went to Hades to ask for Strife's life to be returned. Only to be
told Strife already lived and that he wanted nothing to do with him, Bliss or
Psyche. He had all he wanted in the Underworld, no intrusion into his partial
existence with Serenity.

So here he was, standing in the shade of an Elysian tree, watching Strife
playing with their daughter's soul. All the while he tried to find the words,
to approach Strife and offer him the heart, body and soul that would allow
them to return Serenity to life.

What words would convince his Strife that he still loved him? What deeds?
Until he knew what to say, what to do, he would stand under his tree,
watching, alone, while Strife and Serenity played before him, unaware that he
truly loved them both.