Title: Wet
Author: Goddess Blue
Email: goddess.blue@gmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules the Legendary Journeys
Pairings: Ares/Joxer
Disclaimer: Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules the Legendary Journeys,
characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of Universal
Television Distribution Holdings LLC. They are used here for
entertainment purposes only.
Warning: Near death. Morbid thoughts and scenes. Very explicit sex.
Naughty language. Also, this is going to be smut that's just this
side of angsty. Tearful sex, or something, I think I heard it termed
once.
Status: Complete. Sequel to 'Hot'. 2nd in the 'Sacrificial' series.
Archive: Yes to AJCS, joxerotica, JoxerFic. Anyone else, please ask.
Website: http://www.geocities.com/nonexistent_virtually,
http://www.livejournal.com/users/goddess_blue,
http://www.fanfiction.net/~goddessblue
Notes: For Joey RZ who asked for more, and for Amejisuto, who squeed
in fangirly fashion when I shared my plans for what's turning into a
series on LiveJournal. This is for you. Please feel free to squee
again, it makes me turn pink and get hot. Sorry to cross-post!
Summary: After almost eleven years of watching Joxer teeter through
life, Ares gets an unexpected second chance and takes full advantage
of it. In a river.
- - -
Joxer had always imagined drowning would be more terrifying. He'd seen
someone get drowned before, an inept warrior in his father's troops
who must've pissed of Fortune something fierce because he'd drawn the
Warlord's anger at precisely the /wrong/ moment.
His father's victim had struggled wildly against the men who'd held
him face-down in the river. His arms had flown out and wiggled
around, and his legs had thrashed in the murky water. His whole body
had convulsed and his fingers had spasmed and encountered the nearest
surface--the arm of his father's most loyal captain--and /scratched/
deep rivulets of flesh from him.
The captain had grunted and his face had turned red and he'd pushed
more firmly on the dying soldier's shoulders.
Joxer had swallowed his vomit down and looked away to meet Jayce's
eyes. Jett only looked on from his other side, as if morbidly
fascinated.
The splashing slowed and there was a loud sucking sound as the body
expelled the last of its air, and his father had seemed pleased. The
troops had looked uneasy.
So Joxer had, of course, imagined that drowning would be more
terrifying than it actually was. As it turned out, drowning was quite
a calming experience.
He'd gotten in a fight on the trail that led out of Corinth and into
the harsh woodland, and had suffered a blow to the head. Then he'd
been robbed and left on the side of the road for the carrion.
Blood in his eyes, Joxer had stumbled to the banks of a nearby river,
blearily thinking to wash the stickiness from his vision. His fingers
were cold with the water, and his knees were heavy and pulling his
whole body into the bank, and he'd attempted to stand. He'd lost a lot
of blood, though, and maybe he'd been hit so hard that bits of his
mind had knocked loose to bump around and against each other because
the whole world went white and dark at the same time and he'd dizzily
fallen into the river.
Face first.
Disoriented, he'd begun to lift his head from the water and had tried
to take on fresh air too soon. He'd coughed water into his mouth.
Then he'd swallowed. Then he'd panicked and choked and his fingers
had scrambled at the murky, muddy grass that grew in the river.
This should have been terrifying, but all Joxer could really think was
how it just figured that the moment he first attempted to break away
from Xena and try to take care of /himself/, he was about to die.
This thought caused him to laugh, which had him taking on even /more/
water.
The following scenes ran through his head, though not necessarily in
this order or at this level of coherency: Wicked, dark, night winds
tickling at his bared skin and managing to tickle behind his eyes
somehow to make him tear. Hot, heavy, blistering days and sweat that
dripped off of him and down his skin, pulling sweet memories--Ares,
Lord--of a similar day too long gone. Fingers, the big kind that
belonged to someone whose very being embodied the hopes and fears of
Greece. Lord Ares. And itch along the slope of his ass, and itch
where it always itched when he thought of that day and his God and the
altar and its taste.
A flash of bright white light.
Hands on his upper arms, pulling him from the darkening recess of his
mind. Pulling him from the river of his thoughts.
The twist of his body and his mind floating everywhere and his eyes
staying squeezed so tightly shut.
Hands on his chest, pulling his armor off so easily, almost like it
had melted away or vanished. A hard shove and he was reverse
drowning, which turned out to be a bit more terrifying than the
regular kind.
He twisted around again to face down, spat up water and choked,
coughed, and sobbed into the sand.
Fingers, the big kind that belonged to /someone/, ghosted along his
suddenly naked back. Every inch of skin they touched was soothed and
heated and still dripping wet. With every firm pat, he could breathe
just a little better.
"Third time's the charm?"
Lord Ares.
He spluttered and coughed again, choking on his raspy words, "What?"
"You know." Ares nudged him lightly and then ran his fingers
comforting circles along his back, "You've dedicated yourself to me
twice already, and I've accepted. I really think that this is a bit
over the top, don't you?"
Joxer regained strength with every pass of Ares' gently rough hands
over his skin, and within moments was breathing as if he'd never
taken a trip face down in the water. Gods, he supposed, were that
way.
He turned back around and lay on his back on the muddy bank of the
river, staring up in fascination at Ares. "You're here."
"Of course I am, look." Ares grasped his chin and tilted his head
back, and Joxer got his first good look at the bank of the river. On
it, a hastily put together altar stood with an old, rusty sword
propped up against it. "When a mortal comes to a place of worship and
makes a sacrifice of him or herself, the patron God or Goddess of
said shrine has no higher obligation than to answer. In affirmative
or negative. In short, the bond between the worshipper and the
worshiped is stronger than any other bond made by man or God. It
breaks all other contracts, all... oaths."
"I didn't--" Joxer argued, but Ares quickly cut him short.
"Yes, you did. If you didn't, then you'd be deeper in this river,
drowning and dying from loss of blood. So, yes. You did."
Joxer swallowed, and then nodded, "All right. Why?"
Ares relaxed onto him, his heavy weight pressing Joxer into the
squishy mud and grass, their legs tangling in the shallow bank of the
river. He reached a hand up and combed his fingers through Joxer's
soppy brown hair and hemmed. "Why what?"
"Why me?"
"Come on, you're acting like this has never happened to you before." A
brief, shivering memory of Joxer's home temple in Corinth had Ares
grinning and leaning his face down into the cusp of his hand on
Joxer's face, mouth to Joxer's ear. Ares, it appeared, had a certain
disrespect for Joxer's personal space. "Try again. Why what?"
"Why... now?" Joxer's voice strained on the question, a little piece
of tense feeling in his heart breaking and smoothing out at the
confirmation that they'd once shared something he'd begun to think
was only a dream.
"Why now? I told you, Joxer. The bond between a worshiper and the
worshiped is stronger than any other bond made by man or God. I'm
currently bound by another oath, but I've been waiting for this
opportunity for eleven years. Let me taste you again," his voice had
turned hoarse at the last, and Joxer was hard at the sound of his
roughness. With every word that fell from Ares' mouth, a lip brushed
against the lobe of Joxer's ear and made him dizzy like the loss of
air had made him just minutes before.
"Oh, please, my Lord."
"Oh, I missed that. You forgot my favorite word--"
At Ares' complaint Joxer hissed out a passionate, "Yes!"
The hand buried in Joxer's hair clutched into the flesh of his skull
and yanked his head to the side and back, baring Joxer's neck. Ares
bit him, hard, and made him bleed. There was the sound of water
slowly being stirred, and soon Ares' wet fingers reached up to tend
the bite. He didn't heal it, he merely poured water over it and
watched as the blood mingled with the wetness and formed little
streams of pink down Joxer's neck and upper shoulder before dripping
into the grass.
"Do you like bleeding for me, Joxer?"
"Yes, my Lord," Joxer whispered, turning his head into Ares' dry hand
and kissing his God's palm.
"Eleven years, and you still taste like the perfect sacrifice. Your
blood still hums with it. Your prayers have always sang of it."
Joxer was drowning in Ares' words that flowed over him and his body
like water. He was breathing in Ares' scent; choking and spitting on
all the words he desperately wanted to offer up to him. Words like,
'I love you.' and, 'Where have you been?' and, 'Why are you back?'
Ares, being a God, heard them all anyway, and his head reared up. His
black, black eyes held Joxer's brown ones. The teasing, sensual
moment had cracked when Joxer had dared to think of something deeper
that he couldn't understand but felt all the same. Ares stared at
Joxer, into Joxer, for a long moment, and then settled both hands on
either side of Joxer's head and lowered his lips.
They paused less than an inch apart, less than a centimeter. Less than a breath.
Ares descended on him, widening his own lips as they met Joxer's,
pushing his lover's mouth open, sinking into him. Ares' tongue swiped
across Joxer's own. Ares' teeth bit down on Joxer's bottom lip and
pulled blood into tiny welts in the sensitive flesh.
Joxer's moan condemned them both.
Ares' arms closed around him, lifting him up a few empty inches above
the marshy ground and against his naked body... which meant that at
some point during their kiss Ares had flashed away his leathers.
Joxer's moan ended on a thankful sigh, as if being naked and next to
an equally naked Ares was the answer to all of his prayers. And it
probably was. He'd always told himself and his friends that he wanted
war in him, but only he knew that he meant it more in the physical
sense than the spiritual.
Every hair on Joxer's body was standing at attention, as if Ares'
touch had made him something more. Something weak and mindless that
yearned for his God. Some sacrifice of sanity. A worship.
Ares cut off his thoughts viciously with his lips, claiming Joxer's
again and pulling another moan from him. Joxer's fingers tangled now
in the grass, and his tongue tangled with Ares'.
This couldn't be happening, not eleven years after the fact. Not
eleven years after he'd sweat and bled his faith and devotion out for
Ares to taste. Eleven years was like a vast chasm of hopelessness
that stretched between them, and if Ares' kiss was to be believed
then that eleven years had been for nothing and they could have been
this fusion of sacrifice and God for... /eleven years/.
Ares groaned into his mouth and pulled reluctantly back.
Joxer had too many questions. "I can't answer them. Not now, maybe not
ever, but I need you to forget them for a little while. I don't have
enough /time./"
But Joxer couldn't shut his mind off, or stop himself from asking all
the questions that he shouldn't. He didn't want to push, because the
moment was delicate and if he pushed Ares might leave. Leave him.
Leave him here to drown without any faith at all. So Joxer didn't
want to push, but his questions wouldn't stop coming. Buffeting
against the edges of his mind so loudly that Ares couldn't help but
hear them. Joxer could barely stop them from tumbling out his lips
into the air between them and breaking everything.
"I'm... sorry."
Ares sighed and then smiled, shaking his head. "No, I'm sorry. You
have no idea. I... can't tell you what you need to hear, and I can't
even take the time to make you understand that..." Ares trailed off
and then his eyes slid closed and his head dropped into the curve of
Joxer's neck.
"I don't understand," Joxer whispered to Ares. Quiet because if he was
any louder then whatever they were hiding from would come and put a
stop to all of it.
Ares dropped a kiss where his lips were pressed against the beat of
Joxer's pulse. "Let's forget we know how to talk for a while, okay?"
Joxer nodded and turned his head slightly to kiss Ares' exposed
temple, breathing shakily out.
Ares lifted his face and kissed Joxer again, open mouthed and slick,
swallowing a moan that wasn't a word. Joxer's fingers scrabbled in
the grass again, and he shifted as if to move closer to Ares, and
they slid towards the water another inch with the force of it. Joxer's
strength had returned when they'd put away the words, and he was
using it now to get as close to his God as he possibly could.
Ares had been away and not touching him for /eleven years/.
The thought had Joxer pushing even further into Ares' embrace, pushing
Ares back onto his ass in the shallow water. Because he had to make
up for all eleven years, every wasted second of them, and he didn't
know if he had enough time to do it. So he wanted to do it fast.
Ares groaned when Joxer's fingers began to explore him. Before, the
first and last time they'd been together, Ares had been the one to do
all the touching. Joxer wasn't sure if this was going to last, or
even if it was real, but he knew that if he could just collect the
feel of Ares' skin and tie up the memories of /now/ like presents
just waiting to be unwrapped, he might not begin to forget the heat
again.
Where Ares' fingers were huge and calloused in all the perfectly right
places from dozens of battles over the years, Joxer's were softer.
His nails were bitten and sharp in places, and they scratched at
Ares' skin with every pass. It made him twitch and jerk and grab at
Joxer's hip in a vain attempt to regain the moment.
Joxer didn't fight him when Ares' toppled them sideways and half-into
the water, he only latched onto Ares tighter and grasped at Ares'
erection. His fingers wrapped around Ares' length and Ares swore and
thrust against him.
"Wanna touch you," Joxer whispered.
"No talking," Ares responded, but thrust into his fingers again.
Ares' own fingers reached down to hold Joxer and they both groaned and
brushed against each other. The water seeped around them, and with
every move they made towards or away from each other it followed
them.
Ares quickly became frustrated with their lack of connection and
grasped Joxer's wrists, pushing them into the muddy water and holding
Joxer down. Joxer whimpered until Ares pressed their bodies together,
head to foot. "/Yes./"
Ares grunted in agreement, and didn't call him out for talking.
The War God rolled them onto Joxer's back and shoved them deeper into
the water with his thrusts. The river lapped gently against Joxer's
chest with every movement they made, and eased the slide of their
bodies against each other. It may have made it too easy, because there
wasn't enough friction, wasn't enough Ares. There just wasn't enough,
and Joxer whimpered and fought to get his hands loose from Ares' grip.
"Wanna /touch/ you."
Ares growled, and then leaned down and bit lightly into the uninjured
side of Joxer's neck. Licked at the bite. "Talk again and I'll bite
you harder."
"Let go of my /hands/ so I can touch you!"
Ares bit him again, harder, and Joxer jerked against him deliciously.
Ares let go of his hands, and Joxer gripped at his God's waist; shoved
them more satisfyingly together. "Please, yes. Anything you want."
Ares licked at the wound, not healing it, and thrilled inwardly at the
sound of Joxer's begging. "I want you to stop. Talking."
"Okay--oh!"
Ares had moved his hand from where it had rested at the small of
Joxer's back, letting his fingers dip promisingly into the swell of
Joxer's ass. Pressed them deeper. Teased the place that no one ever
touched but Ares, not even Joxer. Guaranteed to shut Joxer up.
"Oh..."
Or at least stop him from talking, which was the point and rapidly
becoming the old point. The new point was even better than the old
point, because it involved sound still. Just no words. It involved
sound, and more touching, and it involved Ares digging his fingers
just a little more deeply, opening Joxer up.
Watching Joxer for eleven years had brought him here, to this moment
where he could touch Joxer again for a little while.
The water spilled around Ares' fingers, tickling at Joxer wickedly and
causing him to jerk against Ares' hand. Slipping Ares' fingers in more
deeply. Making Joxer groan and--
"Oh, Ares!"
--talk again, apparently. Ares pressed in until his knuckles met soft
flesh and the pads of his fingers searched inner silk until they
found--
"Ah! There! Touching me again... don't go away..."
Ares wasn't going /anywhere/. At least not right this moment, and
/never/ very far though Joxer didn't know it.
"Not going... just going to--" Ares grunted into Joxer's neck when
Joxer twisted back onto his hand and dug his own fingers into Ares'
arms.
"No! Oh," Joxer saw flashes of Godlight as Ares' fingers played games
with his sanity. "Yes."
"Going to get inside you."
"Oh, yes please..."
The 'yes'es were getting to Ares, making him lose his control and
thrust dizzily against Joxer when he meant to stay still and torture
his mortal slowly. So Ares kissed Joxer, deeply and with just a tinge
of blood on his tongue, in the vain hope that the 'yes'es would remain
unsaid but still deeply felt.
Joxer moaned into Ares' mouth and then panted and breathed in Ares' air.
Finally, Ares couldn't stand the separation any longer and he wedged
his leg in between Joxer's thighs to push them apart. Joxer tilted his
head to force their mouths more firmly together and slide their
tongues together.
Joxer tasted like everything Ares had never wanted and been given
anyway. Joxer tasted like the reason Ares was real.
Ares' fingers left Joxer, and Joxer had only a moment to felt woefully
cheated before his head wrenched back and his lips tore from Ares' and
he was shouting in pain.
And then moaning as all the pain went away and there was only Ares,
deep inside him again where he /belonged/.
"Sorry," Ares mumbled into his neck, tongue worrying at his bite mark,
"I forgot. It's been so long. Are you alright?"
"/Yes./" Joxer was more than alright, thanks to Ares' godhood. He was
dizzy and full and on the edge of tears. There was a sucking sound as
Ares drew back, and they stared at each other in consternation at the
out-of-placeness of that sound. The water was hugging them tightly,
touching more of them than they were touching each other, and Ares was
momentarily jealous of it. Jealous of the way it molded over Joxer and
left it's damp trace on every inch. Jealous of the way it got inside
of Joxer.
Ares growled and slammed into Joxer, who's head rolled back again just
as it was raising to try and capture Ares' mouth again. Joxer choked
and panted, and his fingers scrambled loosely in the river bed before
pulling wetly out of the river and sliding over Ares' back. Down it.
Gripping with all the strength he could muster in a silent prayer to
get Ares moving again.
Ares laughed and shoved into him again, and began a hard, taking rhythm.
The water lapped against them still, with every movement they made
against each other. Ares' hands trailed up Joxer's body, and his right
thumb brushed against Joxer's left nipple on it's way up. Joxer
twitched and groaned and his legs lifted and wrapped around Ares'
waist. Changing their angle. Changing /everything/.
Ares scrubbed his thumb against it more firmly and, within moments,
had Joxer babbling.
"Lord, please, /please/, anything. Yes, so much... Ares! Touching
me... hit my head on the way down... dreaming... so /good./"
Ares swallowed his words and Joxer's breath, thumb still scratching at
Joxer's nipple. Joxer tightened his legs and humped back against him,
and they bit at each other's mouths. Ares' left hand found it's way
into Joxer's hair and cupped at the mortal's face. His thumb scratched
and brushed against the soft skin of Joxer's cheek in the same motion
as his other scratched against Joxer's nipple.
Joxer moaned, and it tasted like a whole new moment, and Ares pushed
more strongly into him.
Joxer jerked against him, and groaned into his mouth, and came.
His muscles squeezed Ares tightly, and Ares bit down on Joxer's lip in
a tight growl, and tasted blood as he spent himself inside his mortal.
Joxer groaned, and his legs dropped from Ares' hips. For a moment, he
caught his breath before his head jerked up and he stared into Ares'
softened gaze. "Don't go."
Ares kissed him, and Joxer winced as his lip was pressed against his
teeth and he could taste his own blood.
"Never," Ares promised.
"Good, because I still have questions."
Ares kissed his again, and Joxer's lip tingled as it was healed.
"Remember, Joxer. I'll never go away."
And then there was a flash of Godlight, an emptiness inside of Joxer,
and a moment of lightness before the water rushed over him where Ares
had been flattening it out.
- - -
Ares sat naked in the water long after Joxer had pulled himself from
the bank and back into his armor. He watched as Joxer's fingers slid
numbly over the edge of the beaten metal. He watched Joxer stare off
into space, fingers drifting up to his neck to dance over the bite
marks Ares had left for this exact reason. To remind Joxer, for as
long as the bites lasted, that it had been real. He watched as Joxer
shut a little piece of himself down and straightened his shoulders
before heading past Ares' altar and back into the forest.
Fin