Welcome to AresJoxerCupidStrife

Title: Zeus
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: If truth hurts lies can hurt a whole lot more!

Zeus
by Shamenka

The King of the Gods sat down beside his grandson and the sleeping soul of his great granddaughter, quietly. He let the peace of their slumber wash over him and mask the chaos he could hear and feel flowing out of Strife's atrium. But things were now so precariously balanced on a razor edge that action had to be taken, action that he too had long delayed as much as any of them.

"Strife!" Zeus nudged his grandson's shoulder, pushing his own power into the sleeping young God. "Wake up, child." His power nudge was too strong and seeped through the link Strife shared with Serenity and wakened the sleeping child. The first sound of her distress wakened Strife however, which met Zeus' need anyway.

"Reny?" Strife reached for his daughter and encountered his grand father's arms when he did. "Gramps?" And he woke up a little more. "What's up? What's going on? The shit has ta' be floating pretty damned high for you ta' come slumming it down here!" He reached around Zeus and lifted his daughter into his arms just as he heard the commotion in his atrium. "What the fuck is going on here?" He headed for the raised voices, ignoring Zeus as he did so.

"Things are getting strained on Olympus and it all links back to you and Serenity here. It's time we did something about this situation, created some calm out of the chaos." Zeus held his hands up at shoulder level, open, palms outward in a gesture of submission.

"No!" Strife yelled at his grand father and headed for the voices he recognised as Ares and Cupid. "She is dead, you have no rights down here. You can't touch her soul. Leave us alone. Hades! Uncle Hades? Help us!" Strife screamed for his great uncle as he nestled his daughter closer and ran for his only other ally - his Uncle Ares. "Unc, ya' gotta' help us! Gramps is gunnin' for Reny's soul! He want's ta' do somethin' to her! Please don't let him touch her!" He ran over to the suddenly still and quiet pair of combatants in his atrium. The twin looks of horror and rage that were cast over his shoulders only made him realise his Grand Father was right behind him, within striking range of Serenity.

Cupid reached out, even before Ares could, and snagged his Mate and their daughter to push them both behind him. Making himself their daughter's shield, as he realised he always should have been. For a split second he wondered if there was any truth in the phrase never too late, then realised that he truly was four years too late. And despite there being no way Strife would ever let him into their lives as he so dearly wished to be, that didn't stop him from finally knowing what his duties were and where his loyalties lay. He produced his cross bow and an ugly puss coloured arrow firmly lodged in it.

"One step closer Grand Father, and you'll never get it up ever again - for anyone! Not even your own right hand!" And by the tight grip he had on the trigger mechanism Zeus could see his Grand Son meant every word of his warning.

Zeus halted in his tracks, hands still held up in a placatory manner.

"I mean no harm to either Strife or Serenity. I just want to put things back on an even keel. Chaos reigns supreme on Olympus right now and it all dates from you, Strife and little Serenity here. Time has long since arrived for us to put things and people where they ought to be!" Zeus smiled, the smile that had seduced a thousand mortal maidens failed utterly to convince three Olympians.

"The Void, he means the Void!" Ares moved to flank his son protecting Strife and Serenity's soul. "Lay one finger on her soul, physical or metaphysical, and you will never know peace again. I swear it!" Ares glared at his father and just as their stalemate seemed destined to stretch on into the far distant future, Hades, God of the Underworld showed up. Angry!

"Who's trying to put whom into the Void with out my express permission? Strife I heard your call, it felt desperate, what's wrong child?" The God of the Dead looked over to the hidden shape of his youngest Godly assistant and the bundled tight to his heart soul of Strife's dead child.

"Gramps want's to do something to Serenity because there's chaos on Olympus. He's gonna' take it, whatever it is, out on her 'cause she's tiny, and dead and he thinks I can't fight back!" Strife was almost in hysterics. It had taken Hades and Ares almost a year to get Strife out of this very same state after the young God first died and was returned to life. And his idiot brother had managed to set the young God back to square one almost immediately, without even trying!

"Zeus, I hope you have a damned good reason for being here in my realm, issuing threats you have no authority to back up into the bargain! Explain yourself - if you can!" Hades glared at his younger brother. Every line of tension telling Zeus that Hades had had it with his continual interference in his realm and that this was the very last time he'd even let him explain himself.

"First, I did not mention the Void. Nor did I threaten to put Serenity into the Void. I simply said it was time to put things to rights, to bring an end to the utter chaos on Olympus that is directly traceable to Serenity's birth and premature death. Damn it all, I have Eris running wild because Strife said something about her chopping wings off of babies. Psyche's left her, lost the baby she was carrying because she never should have come down here while carrying it, so she has been in a terrible state ever since she got back from visiting Strife here! Apollo and Hera are treating her, under loud and continual protests I might add. The Fates muttered about it being my mess and how I always knew what had to be done to fix it, then they vanished somewhere. Aphrodite is whining constantly that Cupid hasn't done a stroke of work for a couple of weeks now. Ares took off in the middle of preparing a war for this winter's cull... And I never mentioned throwing Serenity into the Void! Where do people get off accusing me of letting such horrors be inflicted on children, Gods or otherwise?" Zeus folded his arms and looked as if he were about to sulk, as well as challenge his audience to show proof of what he saw as their insupportable claims.

"Me, Egypt." Ares challenged his father to deny his involvement with his slavery to mortal Egyptians so many centuries ago.

"Son, that's long gone water under the bridge. We needed to do it, to make you strong, able to do your duty for Greece and our people!" Zeus sighed, the sound of deep frustration was perhaps not a good choice in the emotionally tense atmosphere. But no one ever asked Hades for his opinion, so he kept his own counsel yet again and watched the long over due showdown erupt before him.

"That's rubbish an' you know it!" The challenge did not come from Ares, it came from, of all people, Strife. It looked as if the God of War couldn't get a single word out past his fury strangled lips. "The truth is that you got your rocks off watching Egyptians buggering your kid! I know. I've seen you pictured in one of the mirrors in the Halls of Time. Watched you watching a scrying mirror all them years ago, getting your disgusting jollies as your son suffered and couldn't die like I did!"

"You watched my dad suffer? And you did nothing?" Cupid realigned his arrow with his Grand Father's heart and began to squeeze the trigger once more.

"You believe Strife? You believe what he says just like that?" Hades had felt the presence of the young Love God in his domain the last couple of weeks, but he hadn't realised that they had spoken, or that they had resolved their differences. Then he looked again and realised they hadn't. Cupid was simply going with his Mate's words, trying desperately to show him he loved and trusted him. He watched intently as Cupid turned to grace him with the most condescending look one God had ever given another God since the Titans had ruled the roost.

"He's my Mate!" He almost sneered at the elder God. Then he turned to face Zeus once more. "Justify yourself, if you can!"

"I... I... " Zeus grasped for the words, for a way to justify what Strife thought he had witnessed in the Hall of Time. "I will say this once, and once only, that I never, ever, even once got sexual gratification from the sight of my son's rape and degradation. I don't know what Strife was watching but it was not an image of me pleasuring myself as Ares suffered." He met Cupid's acid glare with his own calm expression and saw his Grand Son waver in his conviction and the arrow drooped slightly.

"Liar!" Strife snarled at him and concentrated hard for a second. One of the Hall of Times' many mirrors formed to one side of the atrium and when the image settled it was exactly as Strife had described it.

"What the fuck!" Ares' rage finally abated into a deeper, darker horror at the sight of his own Father, just as Strife had mentioned it, pleasuring himself as he, his own son, was systematically gang raped aeons ago.

"That's not true!" Zeus whispered, unable to understand how such a false image could be generated in the Halls of Time. It had never happened. He didn't recall such an incident ever happening. "Sweet mercy, that never happened!" The shock appeared genuine to his audience, but for once in his existence Zeus couldn't give a fuck for anyone's opinion. The image before them, damning as it was, was entirely faked and he couldn't begin to imagine the pain his Ares was suffering, believing its insidious lies. He could almost feel the pain and hate rolling out of the three younger Gods beside him. Let alone the hate and utter contempt that boiled within his brother's heart and soul. It must seem to Hades the very epitome of justification for the life long hatred he bore his younger brother. So his defence of him startled Zeus more so than it startled the others.

"It's not right. The image of Zeus is as he has looked this last five hundred years or so. He never looked like that during your slavery in Egypt. Ares, trust me, I have no desire to lie to protect my idiot of a brother, but your Father never performed that act to that image. No doubt he did pleasure himself before a scrying mirror, probably all the time he wasn't out fucking other women, but not in that way, to that image!" Hades called Hera, as Zeus' wife and Ares' Mother he felt she had to witness this falsehood. If for no other reason than she might be the one responsible for creating such a falsehood. Then again she might simply find it sickening, or funny. There was no knowing with Hera.

"Yes Hades?" She questioned her brother's summons, softly, until she saw the image on the mirror before them all. Then she took her son in her arms and laughed.

"Ares, child, he never performed that act before that image was created. But if he doesn't finally put things right for Serenity and Strife then that, and other images like it will appear in all the major temples throughout Greece." Hera grinned at her son as she released him. "I got fed up waiting and started to get creative in revenge. I think it was our dear Strife that once told me that revenge was a dish best served as a starter, never as a main course!"

"What's going on, Mother? You hate Strife, me, all of us from the House of War to be exact! So why would you construct such... such ugly lies to defend Stife?" Ares couldn't believe his Mother, he never had in the past and didn't see this a the moment to begin to believe in her; especially that she held even a fraction of an ounce of Mother Love for him, Strife or any of their family!

"I hate Zeus and his web of lies and deceits even more than I've ever hated you, my son. It took me some digging but I eventually uncovered exactly what had been going on with that thrice damned bitch Psyche and why your Father ratified Cupid's adulterous marriage so fast. He was helping yet another of his bastard half breeds to ascend to Olympus. Psyche is yet another of his bastard get!" She glared at her husband. Hate showing so clearly in her eyes. "He stopped Eris from going to Cupid. To this day Eris thinks she spoke to Cupid that morning, but she spoke to Zeus instead. He had at last found a fool proof way to bring another of his bastards into power as a Goddess, what did it matter who it hurt? So, Strife, you can stop blaming Cupid he truly didn't know until it was far too late. Years too late! And Cupid, you can stop blaming Eris, she didn't know any more than the rest of us that she hadn't actually spoken to you. All you are guilty of is betraying your avowed Mate in the arms of your adulterous whore of a wife. You knew all along that you had an avowed Mate but thought he'd sit by waiting for you to be bothered with him again. You really are your Grand Father's breed, aren't you?"

"I never thought it would hurt Strife or Serenity. I thought that once they'd been together a couple of weeks the arrow would wear off, Cupid would go back to Strife, everyone would be happy! Then we discovered that Strife was pregnant and losing the baby and I couldn't get out of the lies and half truths in time to save the child. I lied, yes, I admit it, but I lied to protect you from yet another of my despicable acts. Hera, my love, I know I don't show it, but I do love you and I do try so hard to protect you from my unforgivable acts against you. How did you know who Psyche was? When did you discover the truth?" Zeus looked at his wife, she refused to face him however and he was left looking at the ages old pain of betrayal etched in her face.

"Adultery is a crime against faithful marriage. And who, pray tell, is Goddess of Faithful Marriage? Every time you stick your cock into some woman's ... I feel the betrayal and defilement of my Godhood, you fool! It just took me some time to put her and that pain together this time." The look Hera levelled at her husband would have killed a mortal man. The laugh that accompanied it was filled with a Goddesses life time of pain and betrayal.

"Oh, come on Gramps, fuck sakes, Grand Mother Psychotic here would have known from the moment Psycho junior's mother went inta' labour. Your wife just happens to be one of the senior Goddesses dealing in childbirth, as well as marriage. And even if she's a bitch and her mother a whore, Psycho junior had to have been born in the conventional mortal manner. Squeezed out between the legs that never squeezed tight enough ta' keep you out!" The amount of raw anger Strife managed to get into his short speech quite impressed his small audience.

"I am not psychotic just very very angry, young Strife, but the rest is essentially true. And if you, one of the younger generations of Gods can figure it all out, maybe we should keep Zeus down here and let you be King of the Gods in his place. I suspect you could keep your word better than he ever could anyway!" Hera walked slowly around Strife's protective cordon of ex-Mate and adoptive parent to stand beside the young Mischief God. "Hello sweetness!" She let Serenity grab a finger and blew raspberries at the little Goddess soul.

"If it's his breach of oath your suffering from ya' could've just approached me in a professional manner, ya' know?" Strife shrugged and shook his head rather sadly at the Goddesses lack of fore thought. "Here, hold her!" He handed Serenity to Cupid, the nearest Godly arms he knew wouldn't harm his daughter, and turned to face Hera once more. "See, all it needs is this." And he touched her forehead with a feather light tap of his fingers and the instant relief in Hera's face spoke volumes to all around her.

It was as if an ages old pain had suddenly vanished and the substance of her soul made whole once more.

"What have you done!" The anguished yell came from Zeus' mouth. His eyes held a look of intense pain and loss, he shivered as if he had developed an instant fever.

"All I did was relieve Gran'ma' of her half of the vows." Strife retrieved his daughter from Cupid's arms, the winged Love God giving her up with obvious reluctance.

"Everyone just stop exercising their damned powers in my domain!" Hades' yell halted whatever Zeus' retaliation would have been in a sheepish shrug. "Now, Zeus, you said you had come to put things right, what was your intentions? How can you put everything right?"

"I want to reverse time to that morning. It was the solution the Fates themselves suggested four years ago, the only solution they offered me in fact. And to make sure that the same sorry tale doesn't repeat itself some of us will remember everything that happened the first time round." Zeus looked at the group of stunned faces before him and took it to mean they didn't agree with the Fate's solution. "I have no intention of letting Strife remember one second of his agony from this last four years. But this time Serenity will be saved, she'll be alive and that is of the utmost importance."

"So, other than making me forget who d'you want to remember this shit then?" Strife nuzzled his daughter, hope rising slowly that he could one day feel her heart beating, smell that longed for clean baby smell the mortal shades yabbered on about all the damned time. "Does this mean that he still fucks her then?"

"If he even tries it I'll break both his legs!" Ares snarled in his son's face.

"If I ever did try it second time around - I'd let you. I'd deserve it." Cupid met and held his Father's angry glance with a tired, pain filled one of his own.

Hera looked on as Ares looked away from his son, his own glance flicking back to her faked mirror and all the ugly lies and half truths surrounding his own long gone past that it had brought back to him like a festering war wound. She begged the Fates that they would let him forget this last four years, just as Strife must forget, that even Cupid had to forget a lot of those lost years too. She begged them that she would remember, so she could get Strife to free her from her vows of fidelity and loyalty to Zeus.

Freedom beckoned for all of them.

"As it has been cast, so shall it come to be!" As always the Fates indulged their strange passion for speaking in riddles.

"What?" Zeus faced the three Goddesses, obviously startled at their sudden arrival.

"It is time to journey in time. Four years is a lot of distance to restep, reweave. Hurry before it becomes an even harder task." The three once more spoke as one, they even tapped a foot in a synchronised dance of impatience.

"It is cast, it shall be.." Zeus nodded his consent and began to feed the three his power over time.

"It is cast, it shall be.." Hades added his power to assist the three in their incredible reweaving of the tapestry of life.

"It is cast, it shall be.." Hera fed more power to the group, making the spell stronger, beyond even Godly ability to amend once the threads of life were woven once more.

Cupid walked over to Strife and their daughter's shade, he didn't try and touch either of them, there would be time enough in the rest of eternity for that privilege.

"I do love you. It has been an agony waiting for my promised freedom. But never as much as yours. I am truly sorry you ever suffered, either of you."

"This will be your last chance. Ever!" Strife looked away from the almost painful hope that lit Cupid's eyes and glanced at his favourite uncle instead.

"How long will it take?" "How long is a piece of string once those three have had at it?" Ares smiled, this was just another adventure to him. A chance to try out several of his alternate strategies if the Fates let him remember what failed.

As suddenly as blinking, the Elysian grove was once more empty of Gods, house, souls and Fates.