An Equal and Opposite Reaction
By Shamenka

Hercules was many things, strong, half God, resourceful.  One thing he was not, was overly stupid. He was facing greater odds than even he could easily face, so being fond of living, he turned around and ran. That was one more thing in his favour, he was fast on his feet, for such a physically big man. Running from the heavily armed warriors behind him didn't really sit well with Hercules, but he was trying to get ahead of them to start picking them off in ones and twos.

Realising he was close to one of Ares' shrines, he thought the irony of fighting his foes there somewhat funny. Especially as his enemies weren't Greeks, judging by their armour they were Northern Barbarians, and judging by their power in battle, they were travelling with their God. The best way for a mortal to fight a War God was with another War God. Which was where his brother would come in, hopefully.

Keeping a good few minutes ahead of his pursuers Hercules made it to Ares' shrine, praying to his brother as he ran, and fell over the threshold into Ares' waiting arms.

"Well, well, well, little bro needs me. I'm touched Herc, truly, deeply touched!" The sarcasm dripped from Ares' tongue, the false bonhomie cast his face in a bitter parody of brotherly love.

"I'd save it for them." Hercules pointed back the way he had come. "These guys have brought their very own Ares wanaa-be with them..." He was interrupted by a suddenly serious Ares.

"They have a War God with them? Are you sure about that? Absolutely sure?" The Greek War God waited for both his brother's reply and his opponent to show up.

"Absolutely." Hercules crossed to the doorway where he stood side by side with Ares and looked out at the approaching enemy. "Why?"

"Because, brother dearest, their War God is travelling with his followers, a group of very strong powerful followers who believe in him implicitly. I'm facing him with you, who doesn't actually believe in me, now do you?" The look on Ares' face caused something to tighten in Hercules' belly.

"How can I not believe in you? Your here by my side, see!" He reached out and grabbed his brother's arm.

"Oh, you believe I exist but not in my power or my place in the world. That might cause us a few problems." Yet, before he could explain further the war party had arrived, with it the War God they had been referring to. "Well, looks like I'm on." Ares turned to face his half brother. "You take the soldiers, I take big bad and Godly, wish me luck?"

The truth of Ares' words struck home with Hercules, and for the first time ever he wondered at his affect on his brother every time he persuaded a follower to stop following. What had it done to his brother?

"Good luck is for amateurs, you are, if nothing else a professional. Just be careful, don't go getting yourself ..." Hercules paused, looked at Ares' opponent then back at his brother. "Can he harm you?"

"Harm me? If he wins, he can kill me! Not that he probably would, after all there are conventions between the Gods about these things." Ares looked at his opponent. "I only hope he's read the bloody things!" So saying he stepped out of the sanctuary of his temple followed by a quietly chuckling Hercules. "What's so funny little bro?"

"Even in the face of your own possible death, Ares, do you ever stop with the wise cracks?" Hercules wasn't angry, anyone listening to him would know that that was as far from his mood then as possible, under the circumstances. He had just never fought with  Ares as an ally before, not shoulder to shoulder, facing their deaths together like this. That Ares was still being less than serious was a cover for the Gods true feelings, that was what upset him, that Ares didn't trust him as his ally, his brother, or possibly didn't trust his belief in his abilities was closer to the truth.

"Least of all at a time like this bro, lest of all." Ares winked at him, produced his sword and Hercules knew it was Ares' emblem of power, that sword. There was a warm surge of power around him, somehow the hero knew this was the touch of is brother's power. Not knowing what to expect he looked around and saw weapons, of all shapes and sizes, scattered around the battlefield. "Oh, they can't see them, only those with God blood in their veins can. Greek God blood at that, I'm not entirely stupid you know? No matter what you want to believe." Ares smiled, bitterly, and walked forward.

"I am Ares, God of War, who desecrates my lands?" The voice that boomed out from his big brother had a wonderful effect on the warriors opposing them. It terrified them, truth be told it rather unnerved Hercules too. He suddenly realised that he had never faced all the Ares was, in any of the previous run ins. It made him determined to find out just who and what the real Ares was.

"I, Vraxis, God of the Valyan people do challenge you. Mortal combat!" The God stepped forwards and took up a battle stance.

"Who?" Hercules asked. "'Mortal' combat? As in killing each other?"

"Never heard of him or his people. Either they're new, like really new or really, really lost! Ya know, I swear, that if ever dad gives up his throne to me, the first law I'm gonna pass is that every damn God an' Goddess learns to read a bloody map! As for the 'Mortal' bit, he's welcome to it."

Hercules couldn't help himself he burst out laughing, which was Ares' intention. It drew the eye of every warrior to his little brother and away from their God. The change in the power flow around them told Ares that this was a relatively new deity and that his followers were more concerned with Hercules' apparent blasphemy than the God facing their God.

"He's a real newby!" Ares grinned, and watched the dinar drop as Hercules caught on to what was going on.

"You take the wimp and I'll take his wimpettes, big brother!" Hercules stepped forward to take up a battle ready stance.

"Certainly, little brother. Witness, father, our victory!" Ares called out both verbally and mentally to their father, in their peripheral vision they saw their father appear.

"Go on then my boys, fight!" Zeus was smiling, which made Ares smile, all it did for Hercules was worry him. Not Zeus' smile, but Ares' bitter expression, he was more and more certain that there was much about Ares that he simply didn't know.

"You want to join in father?" Hercules offered.

"Why should I, when you're gonna win. Off you go son, enjoy yourself, it's not often that you and Ares get to play together." Zeus further undermined the new God's followers belief in him, further weakening the new God Vraxis. Hercules saw this for what it was, a tactic against Vraxis, or whomever he was, not the active support of Ares that it seemed to be.

The fight commenced. Hercules was actually enjoying himself, he found the battle did actually skirt each and every location that Ares had placed a weapon for him. As he picked up each weapon, apparently from thin air, the troops facing him lost more and more of their faith in themselves, and their God. The constant loss of power seemed to more than just annoy Vraxis, he fought like a Berserker, one of the Norse fighting styles Hercules had seen in the far off, cold northern lands of the Vikings and their Gods. He didn't recall seeing or hearing of any called Vraxis though. Ares pressed every advantage. The odds were still in the enemy's favour though. He had his believers whose faith was renewed at every successful stroke and was tempered with the defeat of every failed stroke.

Ares had his little brother and his father on his side. Someone really ought to have told Vraxis that the truest belief comes from within and within the family. If he had had the time Hercules would have liked to have just stood and watch Ares fighting.

Hercules dispatched another warrior to the arms of Hades or wherever these falling warriors would go.

"Behind you Hercules!" Zeus' voice was filled with warmth and delight at the sight of his two favourite sons fighting side by side. Hercules stepped forwards slightly, spun and despatched another enemy. "Go on, you've got him Ares!"

Ares was pressing home every advantage, his sword wrung out against that of the challenger. The clearing before his temple was turning red with blood and the dust was almost blinding as it was kicked up into the air.

"Dad, do something about the dust, would you?" Ares spoke in a conversational tone. Not pressed for breath, not under any strain. The effect on Hercules' opponents was amazing. Their God had not spoken since the battle had begun and Ares the Greek God of War was calm enough to 'chat' with his father. A father who believed so strongly in his son's abilities that he let them fight without his direct intervention.

"Certainly son, here you go." Zeus did something, Hercules wasn't sure what though, and the dust settled as if a fine rain had washed it out the air, only it wasn't wet.

"Thanks dad." Ares cheerfully cried out to him.

"You are very welcome, my boy. Now finish this and we can get home for dinner before your mother comes looking for us, you know how upset she'll get if we're late!" Zeus chuckled. It was the last straw for the warriors, those that could, turned and ran, leaving their God to fight their battle for them.

Ares was prepared to call it quits but he realised that his opponent wasn't going to back down. This had gone from a territorial skirmish to a fight to the death. The idiot had meant it when he had talked of 'Mortal' combat. So be it, if Vraxis wanted death, then that was what he'd get. Ares redoubled his efforts, actually making an effort for the first time, or so it seemed to observers. Zeus realised that his son was tiring, not as much as Vraxis was though, but the fight had to end soon. He stepped away from the fight to give Ares more room for whatever he was going to do, to end this.

Hercules, however, moved in closer, behind Ares, backing him up in whatever he was going to do. Believing in his brother's abilities, feeding him in the most basic way you can for a God. In the end it was not what Ares chose as the end, but Vraxis' choice. The failing God of the Valyan edged closer to Ares' shrine and ran in, followed by both Ares and Hercules. Zeus remained outside, not wanting to crowd his sons out.

Zeus never knew what happened next. There was an explosion and the temple collapsed. No one, not mortal child, not Godly child was left behind.

"Ares! Hercules!" He screamed to no avail, they were simply not there to hear him. A few of the other Gods arrived at the sound of his grief, Apollo, Hephaestus and Asclepius and all they could do was look at the rubble that had been Ares' temple.

"What did this? A weapon?" Apollo looked at the mess before him and indicated for his son to see to Zeus. Asclepius stood by his grandfather's side and rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Come grandfather, return to Olympus with me?" Zeus allowed himself to be lead slightly away but refused to leave the site.

"No weapon did this. A God died here, the energy signature is unknown to me, but the power is considerable! What happened?" Then slowly Zeus told Hepheastus and the others all that had happened there.

***

Inside the temple Ares soon had Vraxis pinned against his alter, where a normal, intelligent God would give up and regrouped for another attack Vraxis chose the
other, stupider, option. He expended all his energy at once, blowing himself and the temple apart. Once he realised what was about to happen Ares spun around, grabbed Hercules, and tried to transport them out of there, but he was too late, and Hercules too mortal. They were picked up, mid transport, by the wave of raw power and thrown, thrown beyond their world and out into a whole new reality.

Eventually, they picked themselves up out of the dust and looked at the rubble that had been Ares' shrine. Moss covered it. The explosion hadn't done this damage, time had.

"Where are we, when are we? Did we get to the Sovereign's world?" Hercules looked at the image of Ares carved in the rocks before him, the face had a beard, so unless Ares, the God of Love had changed his image, completely, he knew the answer to his own question.

"No, not there. Hades' shit!" Ares clutched his head and collapsed to his knees once more. Immediately concerned that his brother might be injured, Hercules crossed to his side.

"What is it? Ares are you hurt?" Unsure of what he should do, Hercules did nothing, not wanting to face rejection, or misinterpretation of his actions.

"Noooo!" Ares managed to gasp out, then after a few moments he regained his internal balance. "Oh, damn it all to Tartarus." Unsteadily he regained his balance enough to once more stand up.

"Ares, what's going on here? Where is here anyway?" Hercules couldn't keep the concern, or the fear, out of his voice.

"We're in your 'dream world' Hercules, a world where, it would seem, I do not exist. A world without a Greek War God, hope it makes you happy!" Hercules looked at the pale, shivering figure before him and took a deep breath, not having realised he had been holding his breath since his brother had collapsed.

"Which means what? Are you gonna die, what?"

"Would you care?"

"Of course I would, damn it. Even after all you've tried to do to me over the years, you are my brother, and these days, I don't have that much family around that I can afford to lose any more!" Hercules again took a deep ragged breath, and tried to calm himself. Ares smiled at him, pointing a less than steady finger in his general direction.

"See, it's happening to you already. You gotta accept your anger, or you're gonna lose it altogether, ya know!"  Ares stood a little straighter, a little steadier and smiled. "No sitting God of War, welcome to your dream world little brother."

"Can you get us back?" Hercules was recalling the last time he had experienced his brother's loss of power. It hadn't lasted too long, the damage was contained, but it hadn't been a pleasant experience for any of them. "Are you still a God?"

"Yes, that's why I .. you know!" Even in these circumstances Ares was not about to admit to a weakness in front of Hercules. Hercules just nodded, hoping Ares would go on, which he did. "I picked up a lot of this world's aggressive energies, but even I have my limits. This has been going on for years, not days. All that anger, wow, what a bummer ride, ya know?"

"I can imagine." Hercules replied, dryly, but he could, indeed, imagine it and that picture was less than pleasant. "So how do we get back?" He finally asked, hoping for an inspired answer.

"I don't know, yet. But I will find out!" Ares looked around him, obviously looking for something Hercules simply couldn't see, and finally settling for a particular direction he set off with Hercules left to follow on behind.

"Where are we going?" The hero asked, hopeful.

"To find this worlds Ares and find out what's gone wrong and sort it! Just general Hero work but, what the hay, I can slum it for a while." Ares kept looking around them and refining their path, like he had some kind of invisible link to this worlds Ares, and was following it, right to him.

"How do you know where to go?" Hercules asked, feeling for the first time in his life like Iolaus probably did. Tagging along with the great hero, not knowing where or what or why!

"Because I'm a God, even here I'm a God. It's a God thing okay." Ares waved at him to be quiet while he followed his invisible string or what ever it was.

"Can you tell me how far we're going?" Hercules again had to fight for inner calm.

"Not exactly, but not too far, less than three days travel I'd say." Ares thought as he walked and finally, reaching a decision he produced some travel rations for Hercules. At least, if he were eating he'd be less prone to talking, leaving him free to follow his alternates path more accurately.

Ares was silent as they walked, Hercules tried to think of something to say, some topic of conversation that he could discuss with Ares with out them fighting. Step after step he walked with his silent brother and failed to find any common ground in all their dealings with each other. He tried to think of any interests Ares might have outside of War, and failed. Hercules had to finally admit to himself that he simply didn't know as much as he thought he had about his brother.

Having thought of nothing to talk about, and having found no common ground in their lives, Hercules remained silent. He resigned himself to a silent journey when he felt and almost heard a sound from his brother, turning he saw Ares now walked beside him wearing linen trousers and a cotton shirt. The sword was the same though.

Finally Hercules had an opening for a conversation with his brother.

"Why the change of clothes?"

"You know, sometimes I get really sick of your constant assumptions that I'm stupid!" Ares sighed deeply and stepped away from Hercules, only to have his irritating brother step up beside him again.

"I didn't say you were stupid. All I asked was why you changed your clothes is all. I don't think I've ever seen you wear anything other than your leathers. Black, white, either way it's leather, leather, leather. Ares is synonymous with leather!" Despite his best efforts Hercules laughed, especially when he caught the look of abject horror Ares wore when he heard mention of white leather.

"Don't mention him in front of me ever again, hear me?" Ares did look ready to kill.

Hercules could see that there would be no furthering this conversation. He sighed, deep to the soles of his boots, he wondered how he was ever going to survive this journey into the unknown with Ares. He also wondered why Ares hadn't killed him yet, why Ares had changed his appearance in the first place.

Changed his appearance? Was it that simple. Who did Ares look like now? Well, like him, like a travelling man, like any other mortal man in fact. Ares was right, he did tend to think of him as stupid and unsubtle, looking at him in this new light he wandered what else he had missed. What schemes had Ares put into operation, while he was out stomping all over his brash and bold schemes for world domination. Hercules finally realised that Ares had had several hundred years to perfect his Art of War, while he thought himself so much the wiser with his thirty years plus.

They walked on in silence again. Ares unwilling to explain himself to his mortal half brother, and Hercules unwilling to apologise.

They saw no one on the road until they entered a small village around lunch time. When they entered the little outcropping of civilisation they found the buildings mostly in ruins, the people mostly dead, the few who survived all looked at them as if their woes were their fault.

"Strangers?" The oldest man around them half asked, half accused them of nothing more criminal than being strangers, but the way he said it left chills dancing on Hercules' spine.

"Yeah, what of it? You're strangers to me? We're just passin' through on our way to our brother's place out west aways, where we'll be less strangers than here. The world has gone mad, an' I don't want to go mad with it." Ares answered for them both. His voice sounding like he had come from this village, like he belonged around there, where ever there was.

"Aye, it has that. When the madness came we fought tooth and nail, and defeated them from the village over the north end of the valley. We fought them man ,woman and child till they were all dead. Every man, woman an' child. Then the madness leaves an' all that's left behind is the ..." He clamed up, unable to speak further.

"When the passion goes, the remorse remains, but in this madness, the remorse leaves the passion behind it!" A woman of no more than twenty spoke up, crossing to stand with her fellow combatant.

"That's the worst madness. I wish I could grant you peace from it. I truly do!" Ares looked around the winners of the local war. There were six men, about twenty women and maybe as many children. If they had truly annihilated their neighbouring village then the death toll would be enormous. Looking around he could catch traces of control, but a very tight, cold control. Not touching the actual passions that drives war.

As he looked around the village, half listening to Ares' benediction of peace he saw the villagers eyes de-glaze, he saw life and remorse and guilt take up residence. He saw realisation of what they had done, to their friends and neighbours, strike home and take up residence in their hearts.

"We have food, you are welcome to share, strangers. I am Apollina, my husband used to be the inn keeper around here. I guess, what with him gone, I am now. I'm ashamed of this sorry welcome, please come inside and we'll find some seats and some food. Be welcome!" She wandered into a slightly less wrecked building than the others, and having nothing else to do at that moment, Ares and Hercules followed.

"What's going on around here?" Hercules whispered, so low only the Godly ears of his brother could hear him speak.

"Total War. Something I have never, ever sanctioned, but something you've longed for all your life. Get used to it Hero, until I can figure out how to get us back from where ever here is, you're just gonna have to get used to it."

"Total War?" Hercules had never heard that description of a battle before, but felt sure he knew the exact meaning, deep in his bones, and his bones didn't like the answer he was about to get.

"Total War. When even the babes at their mother's breast fight to kill 'the enemy' where the 'enemy' is everyone not of us! I have always prayed to never see this again, but here it is, and here I am. I hope you are enjoying it."

"Where did you see  it before?"

"Not where, when, dear brother. This is what all our world was like before I took up my sword, since then .... you should know!" Ares was looking weary again, like he had when they had first arrived in this world.

"What's wrong? Are you ill?" Unable to help himself he put an arm around his brother and lead him to a table, easing him into a chair he sat facing him, hoping for a reply.

"I've got a link to our world, and all the energy I usually absorb, day to day. It's how I'll lead us back. But here, here I got their passion too! Like more than double the load I bare. This is old passion, years old .." Ares tipped his head back, closed his eyes and just stopped talking. It wasn't rudeness Hercules realised, but exhaustion. His brother was a God, but a God of their world, now facing the duties of two worlds. No wonder he wanted to find this worlds Ares and re-establish his own order.

Hercules sat quiet and thought about all the passion that would be needed to drive entire villages to this level of mutual destruction. He shuddered.

"They're calm now ..." He saw Ares' eyes look at him, as if looking at a fool. A judgement he realised that might be appropriate. "Because you're here?" He questioned. Ares nodded. "You said our world was like this, how long did it take you to control those passions?"

"About a hundred years, give or take ten." The exhaustion could be heard in his brothers voice, Hercules looked around for their hostess and saw her standing behind her bar, watching them. No, he realised the truth, she was watching Ares, not him. She was looking vacantly at his brother, feeding her 'passions' directly to him. As if on some instinctual level she knew he was a War God. Suddenly he resented her adding to his brothers burden.

"Do you have any wine left?" His voice was perhaps a little sharp, she jumped, both frightened and guilty at being caught staring at her customers for no apparent reason.

She poured two large beakers of wine and handed them to Hercules, he dug around in his money pouch and found a couple of coins, more than enough to pay for their wine and a meal. Silently he paid her and returned to his brother's side. By the time he got there, the other survivors had come into the inn, better to be close to their one source of comfort. Their faces grew a little lighter as his brother's face grew ever more drawn and grey.

"We leave as soon as we eat!" It was a statement, not an  invitation, Hercules was brooking no argument., but he was going to get one anyway, he could see it in his brother's eyes.

"Why, I would have thought that you would have wanted to stay and help these poor unfortunate, war ravaged mortals?" Ares scrubbed a hand over his face, as if he was trying to wipe away his fatigue.

Hercules sat heavily on to his chair and stared at his brother. He could see himself doing exactly as Ares had said, in another life perhaps, this time however he could see being around these people creating more problems.

The woman, Apollina, put two platters of cold meat and cheese before her customers with a separate plate  of dry biscuits. As soon as the food was before them they began to eat, in silence, a heavy silence. Each trying to get some semblance of control over their emotions. Ares was fighting the double load of passions he normally fielded, Hercules was trying to control his own rages. While Hercules attacked his meal with something akin to gusto, Ares picked at his, not actually eating much.

"Sirs, might I ask you a question?" The man from outside was standing by their table, looking at Ares with a passion.

"What question?" It was Hercules that cross questioned the man.

"When you go, to your brother's place, like you said, could we, might we go with you? There is nothing here for any of us, but the ghosts of what we have done. For the children's sake, can we go with you?" He was still looking at Ares and pleading with his heart and soul for the peace that radiated from the stranger. Ares couldn't look away from the desperate mortal.

"No, we go alone!" Hercules pushed his chair noisily away from the table and jumped to his feet. Ares' attention was drawn from the villagers back to his brother.

"What?" He asked, sounding so tired, so confused.

"They want to leach onto you, they want to follow you to Ar... our brother's place." Hercules whispered. so close to his brother's ear that the villagers, recently released from their madness just by Ares' proximity, couldn't hear them.

"They want to be close to their God!" Ares stated, the fatigue so evident in his voice, little more than a whisper.

"Yeah, well, they want their God, they're not getting mine!" Hercules grabbed Ares' arm and pulled him to his feet. "We're getting out of here, now!" His own emotions were in turmoil, boiling madly within him as these villagers were calming down.

"Please!" The man pleaded, begged for salvation.

"Hercules, this is my job!" Ares found himself begging his own mortal brother.

"Wrong, this is HIS job, your only job is protecting our people, not these ... villagers!"

Ares said nothing more, he was too tired, too in need of sleep. He just looked at Hercules and pleaded silently. Hercules could take anything but that look, the one he had used himself so often, the one that said why, that said, please, that was the key to his own self control.

"They're killing you, let them find their own control. Please!" Hercules almost screamed in joy when his exhausted brother nodded slowly, dropping his eyes.

"But the world needs me." Ares whispered into his chest.

"No, our world needs you, I need you, they can't have you!" Hercules lifted his exhausted brother to his feet and helped him out into the open air once more. By the time they reached the village boundary he was all but carrying Ares, but with each step they took away from those people he saw the life returning to his brother, and Hercules felt the rage dying within him.

"What's happening here Ares? Don't lie to me." Hercules finally let them rest, deep in the forests that hugged the valley walls around them.

"They don't have any of me and you've got twice as much of me. And, you got all your own rage. I can't take any of it here, I don't know why, but you're on your own here." Ares managed to look at Hercules but his little brother could see his eyes defocusing. Ares needed rest, now!

"Rest, Ares, it'll be okay, we'll be okay!" Hercules sat them both down and held him against his own body for warmth. Almost as soon as he felt that heat Ares was asleep.

As he held his brother while he slept, Hercules tried to make sense of what Ares had been saying, having him, not having him, not taking his rage? Was there so very much that he simply didn't understand about Ares, and his place in the world? He had to conclude that there was. Maybe, once he had rested, Ares might be a little more coherent. Unconsciously, Hercules drew his brother closer to him, sharing his body heat, protecting Ares as he slept.

Ares slept for a full hour, held against Hercules' body for warmth all the while. He woke suddenly, one moment his breathing was slow, deep and even, the next he was drawing in a sharp, quick breath, and he pushed against Hercules as he tried to regain his personal space and freedom..

"I slept, I actually slept. How long?" He twisted to look at Hercules. A look of complete surprise on his expressive face, a face Hercules had spent his time watching while Ares had slept.

"About an hour I'd reckon. What's so bad about sleeping?"

"Mortals sleep." Ares scrubbed his hands over his eyes, then looked at them, closely, as if he had experienced sleep for the first time.

"And Gods don't?" Hercules knew this was not so, he just wanted to hear Ares' response.

"I know, you know, we all know, Gods sleep. We are living beings, we need to recharge our energies, but for a God to sleep so deeply, that's not natural. I slept the night through no more than three nights ago. I shouldn't need to sleep at all for at least, oh two more days, possibly as much as four." Ares yawned and had such a surprised look on his face the Hercules found himself grinning at his brother.

"Well, looks like you could do with more rest." Hercules patted Ares' shoulder, gently. "Care to translate that less than clear explanation you started to give me before you fell asleep?"

Ares laughed. His memory of his explanation replaying itself, and even he couldn't fathom what he had been trying to say. As he thought, he alternately bit his bottom lip and let the very tip of his tongue stick out from between his clenched teeth. Once decided on his approach he signalled his readiness by rubbing his left hand over his already dry lips.

"Okay, try this. In our world, I absorb all the passionate energies that would otherwise be spent on war. I take in the energies that would otherwise go into driving mortals towards annihilating each other, that sort of thing. That's what I told you about total war, okay?" Hercules nodded his understanding and Ares continued. "Here, where ever here is, there is no sitting God of War, or if there is, they're not absorbing those passions. Mortal rage and anger is not being tempered, just left to its own devices. As a sitting God of War from a world enough like this place for this world to recognise me, as soon as I turned up it started shovelling the emotions onto me. Just like there was no tomorrow." Again he stopped to gauge Hercules comprehension. Again he continued. "A world, any world, is a living, breathing being, we are just part of it, it will regulate itself one way or another. Either, I get the emotions, or the world gets rid of its troubles the way a dog gets shot of fleas. The world will kill as many mortals as it takes to re-establish order. Lose too many mortals and we Gods cease to have meaning anymore. Even Gods need to regulate their passions, and guess who gets to do that too?"

"You?" Hercules asked and was rewarded with a nod of Ares' head.

"Here, this world has latched on to me, it doesn't care that I have a world of my own to look after, it can't afford to care. The anger, the aggression, the passion in this world is reaching flash point. What ever is going on here has been going on for years. This is no 'oops I misplaced my sword, let's go find it Xena'! I suspect there are major differences here, from what we know as our world." Ares fell silent as he saw Hercules take in, and finally realise, just what it was he did in their world

"You see, brother, this world is stagnating, if they have a War God then who ever it is, isn't doing their job right. No innovation. Too many are dying for there to be any innovation, you stop fighting to think, your a dead man, woman or child."

"That's why you want to put their Ares back in his rightful place?"

"Exactly! There is no other God able to do it, I was born to do it. I was born with the knowledge, the meanings of all the emotions mortals generate, a complete understanding of War, of passion, of , of, of being me, if you will!" Ares shrugged, eloquently. Unable to explain in mortal words the concepts he had lived his entire life, just knowing.

"So why did I get so, so angry, when those villagers were giving you their passion, their anger? And why did you all but collapse under the burden?" Hercules paused to think, while forming his thoughts he absentmindedly bit on the end of one finger. "How come I'm calm now?" He mumbled around the nibbled tip of his finger.

"If we take the last point first, you are calm, brother dearest, because you have the undivided attention of your very own War God. Whether you acknowledge me or not, every time you lift a hand in battle, to kill or not, you are asking for my benediction and getting it. Every flash of anger and despair, every thought to hurt and kill, all come to me, all the time and I take them and make them part of me, changing them from the desire to kill to plain old fashioned being pissed with some one, from a killing frenzy to a slap in the face. And I do it all the time, here I'm forced to do more than twice the work, there is such a well of anger that when mortal minds are near me, they can't help but react to me. The instinctive parts of their minds will give me worship and their anger. I can only deal with so much at any one time. Too much anger, too much rage, and even I pass out. I need to focus all that energy into wars just to burn it up. Here we have a world that can ill afford the kind of war it would take to bring the energy levels back down into a more manageable level." Ares was looking exhausted, still. Hercules tried to deliberately think calming thoughts, to steer away from the anger that was building in him at the very idea of all those mortals who were leaching from his brother.

Sympathy for Ares? Hercules had to conclude he did want to protect his brother. From being the God of War, if from nothing else.

"Then we stay clear of villages and mortals for now." Hercules looked back the way they had come. "What'll happen to those villagers back there?"

"They have found a God who can take their anger, they will calm down and then try to follow me. Not pray to me, but be where I am, finding me is gonna be the trick for them though." Ares stood up and stretched, his joins popped, he snarled loudly, and finally Hercules realised, that though Ares took the worlds anger and rage he had no real vent for his own feelings. Little wonder then that he would build his rage and then look for a vent for that Godly emotion. And these last three decades that vent had been him. Of all the times he could actually have done him real harm, Ares had always let him escape, until the next time he was needed.

"Lets get out of here, which direction? You're the one with the direct link!" Hercules stood too, and crossed to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother.

"That way!" Ares pointed, if Hercules but knew it, in a straight line, directly to this world's incarnation of himself. Silently, they set off, walking again. The lack of conversation didn't bother Ares. The War God had often wondered at the mortal predilection for idle chatter, and had put forward the theory that if they shut up a bit more often, they wouldn't try and kill each other quite so often. Hercules welcomed the silence as it gave him a chance to think about all Ares had told him.

Ares was trying to figure out just why he had been so honest with Hercules. It was not his normal tack on these matters, not that he actively lied, quite the contrary, just that he normally said nothing rather than try and tell an outright lie. For his part, Hercules was wondering what kind of man this world's mortal Ares would prove to be. He had never met the mortal Ares either time he had lost his powers, but had heard from Xena and Gabrielle that the mortal Ares was, of all things, a sweet man. Prone to complaining but basically a good human being. Worse than some, but by far, better than most.

They walked in silence for the rest of the afternoon, until Hercules heard, rather than saw, Ares stumble a few times more than would be normal. He looked over at his brother and saw just how weary Ares was, and remembered once again the double burden he was carrying.

"I think we should find ourselves a place to make camp and settle for the night. I am hungry, what about you?" Hercules wondered if Ares was about to launch into one of his famous barrages against the weaknesses of mortals, and was alarmed when all his brother did was nod his head. Then Ares further amazed Hercules when he exerted his powers and created a very comfortable camp site for them, minus tents though.

"What no comfortable tent Ares?" Hercules hoped that his exhausted brother could hear the humour in his voice, and know he was not complaining.

"To tell the truth, I hate tents. But if you need one, have one." And Ares lifted his hand and prepared to create the tent for Hercules.

"No, this is fine, I'm not fond of tents myself. So what do you have against them anyway?"

"They keep the stars away." So saying, Ares sat on the ground and stared at the fire, the dancing flames held him entranced.

"Yeah." Hercules sat beside Ares and looked into the flames too. "I see dancing trees, see there!" He pointed in to the flames where the images did dance.

"I see Hepheastus, in every flame I see Hepheastus." They fell silent again, there was nothing Hercules could say, nothing that wouldn't sound false or trite. Ares provided their every need, food, warmth, bed rolls. And he couldn't even provide him with conversation. For the first time in many years, Hercules felt useless.

***

Two figures sat outside Ares' collapsed temple and looked into their own fire. Father and son sat waiting for their family to return to them.

"Ares?" The younger, much shorter of the two whispered into the night.

"What is it Hepheastus?" His father asked, worried that perhaps he might lose a third son to what ever was going on.

"Oh thank the flame. They're safe, Ares is safe and I knew he would keep Hercules safe, come what may."

"How do you know, son?"

"Because the flames tell me, every time Ares looks into a flame, the flame whispers to me that he is there. Always has, always will!" Hephaestus looked deep into the flame and pushed with his own power, slowly two figures appeared in the flames, sitting quietly, side by side. One face looked worried, one looked drawn and weary.

"My sons, thank you for this sight of them." Zeus drew his deformed son into his embrace. "They are settled for the night, and this cold hard ground is not good for you, come, let's go home." Zeus helped Hepheastus to his feet and back into his arms before he transported them both back to Olympus.

Obeying the silent command of the Fire God, the flames died and went out, still showing the image of Ares and Hercules.

***

In their small clearing Ares and Hercules ate, almost absentmindedly, each consumed by their own thoughts. Hercules was by turns wondering what else he didn't know about Ares' role in the world, and wondering what he might find out next. All the while he was pondering these mysteries, Ares was wondering what was happening in their own world. If he was balancing this world too, he feared his world would sink into the confusion and chaos rife in this world.

He might talk about a world conquered by war, but that world was always calmer, more peaceful, he knew if he could expend enough energy in war then the world would become a much easier place to control. Not that he thought anyone would understand. Then there was his decrees, oh, he had said Xena could take credit, but he was the one that drafted them. Rights and privileges the mortal peasants didn't have under the current system of chaos. Would he ever get the credit that was rightfully his? Somehow Ares just couldn't see it, not in his life time, the entire immortal length of it!

Ares laughed and relaxed.

"What's so funny?" Hercules asked, distracted from his own thoughts

"Just idle thoughts and ideas. The usual things that pass through the mind when tired." Ares smiled, it was a genuine smile, no edge to it, no hidden message.

"Why do you see Hephaestus in the flames?" Hercules felt the burning need to change the subject, away from Ares' thoughts, thoughts he suspected were best left alone. He found himself inexplicably frightened of what ever Ares might have been thinking, what thoughts could make the God of War laugh?

"Because we are friends! Believe it or not, I don't really care, but Heph and me are the best of friends. He likes to make stuff, an' I get to use a lot of it when planting new ideas." Ares stretched out and pulled a blanket around himself, suddenly he was exhausted. "I gotta sleep, again!" The way he said it, Hercules would think his brother was swearing. Though in his eyes, he probably was.

"Then sleep Ares, sweet dreams." Hercules stretched out and looked at the stars. "Have you noticed the heavens? Are they the same or different?" He tried to bring an image of the stars he knew only too well to mind and failed.

"I never thought about it." Ares did take time to look. "About the same I'd reckon." Ares finally announced, after staring at the stars above them for some considerable time.

Still gazing at the stars, the God and the mortal fell asleep. In their sleep Ares rolled into Hercules' arms, where he found a haven from the chaos driving that world.

Next morning Hercules woke first, gently disengaging himself from his sleeping brother. He watched Ares, aware that he was being given the privilege of watching his older brother sleeping. Aware too that Ares would never let another mortal see him sleep. In repose Ares' face was softer, gentler, the image of .. what had Xena described him as? Hercules could definitely see the sweet man he had been told about, but had never really seen as a possibility before. Now he wondered how that 'sweet man' survived the trials of being the God of War, all the time!

Ares stretched, his hands and feet curling, arms and legs ramrod straight, shoulders almost becoming one with his ears, finally his eyes opened and took in the image before him.

"You'd think you never seen someone wake up before." Ares shook his head, yawned and shrugged, finally and unequivocally awake. "Ready for breakfast?"

"Uh, yeah, sounds good. You sure you're a God?" Hercules loved the surprised look on Ares' face.

"What?" Ares arched his eyebrows, worried that perhaps this alien world had driven Hercules insane, a distinct possibility in his mind, he had never really thought the Demi-God all that sane to begin with.

"Well, the way you stretch, you look more like a cat than either a God or a man!" Hercules laughed at the shocked looked on Ares' face.

"Miaow!" Ares replied.

"If I scratch behind your ears will you purr?" Hercules risked his life, he reached over and scratched Ares right behind his left ear.

"Ah, oh, scratching ... hmm." Ares rolled forwards so that the scratching fingers fell onto his now naked back. "Okay, I concede, maybe I am a cat, a cat God, like Bast perhaps?" Hercules laughed too, but indulged his brother and continued scratching his back.

"You said something about breakfast?" Hercules prompted, eventually, yet he did not rush to stop scratching Ares' back. Though he did wonder, would their own world know a more lasting peace if they could find someone willing to spend an eternity doing just this one simple act for the War God?.

"Hmm, I did, didn't I?" Ares groaned, moved away from Hercules indulging fingers and sat up, he swept a hand before him and food appeared. With another thought Ares was dressed once more. Again in the rough shirt of a common man, but he wore the face of a contented God.

"Hedonist!" Hercules laughingly accused his brother.

"Every one ought to have a hobby." Came the calm reply causing Hercules to laugh and spit out his half chewed mouthful of food. "Ah, brother dearest, you're supposed to swallow not spit. You're thinking of something else entirely, I think." Ares grinned at the momentary blank look followed by the brightest and biggest blush he had seen in a long time.

Taking a half hearted swipe at the War God, Hercules found he was laughing so easily in Ares' company. It left him wondering why he felt this relaxed, this calm. He had been ready to kill those villagers the day before, but now?

"You are getting my almost undivided attention, especially when you're willing to scratch my back!" Ares grinned, almost evilly, at the astounded hero. "You're face always was a dead give away for your thoughts." It further confused Hercules when Ares started to laugh, gently.

Hercules' considered and articulate response was to throw the bread he had been eating at his laughing brother. Breakfast was completed in a companionable silence. When finally ready to meet the road once more, Ares simple vanished everything with a flick of his hand.

"Very convenient." Hercules observed, smiling.

"Isn't it just!" Ares looked so much better that morning than he had the previous night, Hercules wondered what the day ahead would bring them, whatever came his way, he hoped he and Ares would finally reach some common ground. The idea of befriending his own brother cheered him.

"Which way, oh wise and Godly one?" Hercules bowed, let Ares see the grin on his face, and swept out an arm before him.

"Good, finally learning your place I see! This way ..." Ares walked towards the mortal Ares he sensed ahead, a good couple of days walk away still, but getting closer all the time.

"Why don't you just zap yourself there?" Hercules walked beside his brother today.

"Because I can't 'zap' you there too, you're just too mortal for that." Ares spoke without thinking and for once told Hercules a truth he couldn't believe. That he chose to walk with Hercules, rather than abandon his brother to that war torn world.

"Oh!" The hero fell silent and they walked on, one step after another, getting closer all the time, to their destination and ironically, each other.

***

In the castle that was their destination, morning was following what was obviously a time honoured routine. The bulkier of the two occupants of the bed, in the master bed chamber, woke first and watched his beloved wake, slowly.

One strong finger stroked down a relaxed, bearded cheek, along the jaw line and up onto the relaxed lips. Lips that had just the night before driven him to the heights of passion, then over into the depths of love. He smiled as his slighter built lover kissed that questing finger tip.

"Oh, it's just a finger!" And he pouted, opening one dark eye and spoiling the image by smiling in delight at the sight of his lover looking down at him.

"Tease!" The bulkier man tried to snarl, but it fell short of anger by a long margin.

"Isn't that part of the reason you love me so much?" The slighter built man wriggled, enjoying the touch of all of his body against his lover's, pulling him down to cover him. "Seems a pity to waste these early morning gifts form Aphrodite, doesn't it?"

"I could stay here all day, just you, me, a jug of oil and a flask of wine." The bigger man took his weight on his elbows, not wanting to risk any hurt to his lover. Little bothered by the fact that his lover would be regarded as a very well built man by any yardstick, other than him. "I love your taste. All of you." He lowered his lips again kissing his beloved, deeply. Feeling those very gifted hands running up and down his spine, nails dragging up to his delight.

Breaking the kiss his lover looked up into the eyes of the larger man.

"All day?" He challenged, a warm laugh hiding behind the otherwise insecure sounding question.

"All day!" The larger man confirmed, leaning over and lying on his side, the better to stroke his lover's strong body.

"Even when the guys get back?" The slighter build man laughed aloud at the look of horror his lover's face displayed.

"Shit!" He hissed, not angry with his lover, but with his own distraction. "I forgot, entirely, damn. When are they due here?"

"Dunno! Just sometime today. Come on, you'll enjoy seeing Iolaus again, wont you?" He cajoled his lover as the bigger man moved to the edge of their bed. "Even if he does bring Mister Goody-Goody with him?"

"You know that's what I called him?" He looked over his shoulder at his beloved.

"Well, of course. I might not be a God but that doesn't make me deaf, ya know!" The words were accompanied by a warm, hearty chuckle.

Drawing on his clothes he stood up and turned to face his lover, taking in they fact that his lover's ribs were showing, a little, but that was still too much. He knelt back down and cupped a hand around his lovers waist. Unable to stop himself counting the ribs his large, gentle hand covered.

"I know, so listen to this, and listen good. Stay in bed, rest, you're looking so tired, I can see your ribs." His hand moved up the flank, drawing his lovers attention to the fact that he was now underweight. "You need to eat more!" He demanded.

"I know, look Herc, you know I don't enjoy eating, but for you, I'll try, really try. Anything to take that worried look off your face, okay?" He smiled up at Hercules.

"Good, I'll keep you to that promise. You can count on it! I can't lose you too Ares, I just can't!" Hercules' eyes filled with tears at the weight of memories pressing in on him.

"Oh, Herc, I'm sorry, I never thought .. I'll do better. One day, I will get a grip on this eating like a mortal bit, honest." He knelt up to face his lover, took his face in both of his hands and very gently touched his lips to those down turned lips before him.

Hercules crushed the ex-God of War to him, holding him to his body, trying to protect him from the world. Finally satisfied that he had imprinted his love onto Ares' body he broke the kiss.

"All the same, I'm gonna bring breakfast to you and you're gonna stay in bed till Iolaus and mister I'm-so-peaceful-I-can-walk-on-water get here." Hercules really let his dislike for Iolaus' lover show.

"I'll stay, but only if you come back to bed with me?" Ares was still kneeling up, still naked, still semi erect, still as sensual as always.

"You tempt me, you really do, damn it Ares, one of us had better do the work around here?" Hercules let his eyes take in his lover's body, his face. He loved his half brother with a passion beyond words. Not just for his gloriously sensual body, but for his loving, sweet nature.

Ares just laughed, gently, it caused his semi erect penis to bob up and down, almost as if it were waving to Hercules. Not that Hercules could take his eyes off it.

"Be tempted!" Ares said, finally. "I love you, you love me, the animals are in the fields, it's been quiet around here for weeks. Take the day off, be with me, love me?" Ares didn't care that he was begging, once, long ago, a lifetime before .. was it only four years? He would have minded, would never have let himself sound so desperate for a lover's companionship. Now, now he didn't mind, he knew in his heart that Hercules loved him and wouldn't turn his trust and love against him.

"Okay, you persuaded me! I love you, you manipulative bastard!" Hercules crushed Ares to him again. Holding on as if his life depended on it, if not his life then his heart and soul.

"Hey, I'm not the bastard around here!" Ares protested.

"No, you're not, but she's not here to answer for her crimes." Hercules replied, waspishly.

"Drop it, drop it right there Herc. I don't want to go through that again. Today is for you and me, got that? Because we love each other, nothing is going to get in the way of my loving you, not today, not tomorrow, never, okay?" Ares held Hercules' face cupped firmly in both hands, forcing his lover to meet his eyes. "Okay?" He demanded. Letting his feelings show clearly in his eyes, his face, his whole body showed Hercules how much he loved him.

"Okay." Hercules confirmed. As a reward Ares let their lips meet and passion rekindled between them. He loved this strong, quiet man, but as much as Hercules tried to protect him from the mortal world, he had to try and protect Hercules from himself.

"I love you!" Ares whispered. They were the three strongest words that Hercules had ever heard, and coming from the former God of War somehow made them all the more potent.

"And I love you!" No matter how often they said these words to each other, they never lost their power over them. It was like a marriage ceremony, every time. And Hercules would never let it lose that power, no matter what.

"Go get breakfast and hurry back." Ares let go and sat back on his heals, still smiling. That was something else Hercules would fight to protect, Ares ready ability to smile, and mean it. His beloved Ares' happiness was so precious to him.

"You got a deal." He smiled back and slowly turned away, not wanting to miss a moment of this newest gift Ares had presented him with. A whole new smile, just for him.

***

Back on the path through the forest, two men walked, making their way forwards one step at a time.

Elsewhere in the same forest a troop of horse soldiers were making their own way to the castle.

It was almost inevitable that the warriors on horseback would meet the men walking the path before them. What Ares couldn't foresee was the effect it would have on him. Whatever they had been doing, they had had to fight, recently, and their anger was raw and heavy on his soul.

When they rode up, stopping just before the men on foot, one of them had collapsed. Seeing the to men before them, one in evident distress, the leader of the troop of horse soldiers, held up a hand and stopped his troops.

"Hercules?" He queried. "That you? What you doing out here? Who's that with you? What's wrong with ..." Then recognition struck. "Oh, sweet Gods, Ares!" Obviously he liked Ares, he dropped from his horse and ran to his friend's side and help him lower the comatose form of Ares to the ground.

Hercules spared a glance for the man helping him to ease his brother to the forest floor but failed to take in the man's face. He couldn't spare him any attention, not when Ares needed him.

"Ares, what can I do? How can I help?" Hercules held his brother close and rocked him. Finally he looked up into his benefactor's face, and recognised Joxer.

"Joxer?" He queried.

"Yeah, we're on our way to your place. Here, let me help." Joxer reached for Ares but had his hand batted away. Quite painfully, Hercules didn't moderate his strength, not when protecting Ares.

"No, don't, please don't touch him. He can't take you touching him. Take your men and get away from here. Go where ever you are going, just leave us here." As he spoke a shadow shielded Ares from the early morning sunshine.

"Herc? What's wrong buddy? Has something happened to the castle? Why are you here?" Hercules looked up to see the concern in Iolaus' eyes. It cheered him to know that even in this world he and Iolaus were, or at least had been, friends.

That gave him the strength to tell this Iolaus and Joxer the truth.

"It's your troops, you fought recently, didn't you?" He questioned Joxer, who somehow seemed to be the leader of these men.

"Yes, for the last three days, we were running refugees from Elis to Thebes. Why?"

"This isn't your Ares, he lost his powers, some years ago. Didn't he?" Hercules looked directly into Joxer's eyes. "And I'm not your Hercules. This isn't your God this is my God, and currently he's taking the passions of our world and every bit of your world that he encounters. Look at your men!" He nodded his head in the direction of the troop of fighters. Every one of them was staring fixedly at the fallen God of War. Joxer looked at the collapsed God in Hercules' arms and back at his men.

"Draco, take the men to the castle, leave us a couple of spare horses, we'll meet you there later." He stood when his soldier didn't respond. He crossed to stand before the transfixed warrior. "Draco!" He shouted, breaking the hold this alien Ares seemed to have over his warriors.

"Sorry Joxer, two horses was it?" He turned and shook his men out of their reverie. In short order Joxer's men were once more on their way, feeling so refreshed, so renewed, that in next to no time their voices could be heard, raised in song rather than crying in lament.

"Until he wakes up, can you hold him on a horse?" Joxer asked. "That way we'll make better time to our Hercules and Ares' castle." He and Iolaus helped Hercules get the still unconscious Ares onto a horse, sitting behind him Hercules held his brother to him.

"So, he's taking our worlds troubles on too?" Iolaus drew his horse to one side of Hercules, leading the forth horse until it was needed.

"Yes, and I don't like it." Hercules held Ares tighter, if that was at all possible.

"Well, that's hardly surprising is it?" Joxer asked, smiling at Hercules and then at Iolaus.

"What do you mean?" Hercules challenged.

"I don't know about your world, now do I? But, judging by how tight you're holding on to him, you are just as married to him in your world as you are in ours. Love will out, you know!" Joxer saw the look of horror, the look of shock, the look of rage as they all crossed Hercules' face, one after the other, and knew he had made a basic error. "You are not married to him then?"

"NO!" Hercules shouted, his own rage burning wild, he tried to calm it down, for Ares' sake. Ares' arms twitched, just a little. Hercules turned all his feelings towards willing his brother's recovery, if he could. "Ares, come back to me." He whispered, not noticing the glances that went between Joxer and Iolaus, too intent on holding on to his unconscious brother.

Finally, he felt Ares twitch.

"I feel sick." Ares whispered. "Why am I in a boat?"

"You're not, your on a horse with me?" Hercules whispered back.

"Oh, that's nice." Ares rolled further towards Hercules and fell into a natural sleep.

"He's asleep. He'll sleep away his exhaustion now." Hercules told his astounded audience. More or less demanding their silence, to allow his brother the rest he needed to recover, as well as gaining Hercules the time to figure out how to break the news. The news of their alternates marriage to Ares in such a way as wouldn't get him fire balled.

They moved ever deeper into the shade of  the forest, as the world around him grew colder, Hercules drew his brother ever closer to him. In an attempt to keep his brother warm, and himself, sharing their body heat. Even though he was asleep, and Hercules knew full well his brother was asleep, yet Ares' arms went around him, holding on to him.

It was some time after they had begun their horse borne journey that his comforting hold on his sleeping brother was broken. Not by his doing, nor by Ares' actions. This world, that they found themselves in, fought hard against his best efforts to protect Ares from it. It conspired to have Ares all to itself, and he vowed to fight it, every step of the way.

The sudden movement of a startled rabbit caused Hercules' horse to bolt forwards. Grasping his brother and his horse's reigns, he lunged forwards, both slowing the horses panic and waking his brother into the bargain.

"What the..?" Ares asked, less than pleasantly, due largely to his shock at being so close to Hercules, on horse back no less. Life, as far as the God of War could see, just didn't get any worse. Unless he had woken up on a boat, he really didn't like boats these days. He extended his mind and calmed the horse.

"Sorry, the horse bolted, I didn't mean to wake you up." Hercules apologised to Ares, the War God seeing it as an honest apology, nodded his head in acceptance.

"No doubt you didn't. Well, do I have a horse too or do we buddy ride where ever we are going?" Ares looked up at Hercules and leered at him. Not able to hold the expression too long, Ares began to laugh, when he laughed so did Hercules. It was impossible to ignore the tremors the laughter set up through Ares' large frame anyway. Hercules was surprised to discover he liked the sound of his brother's laughter, when he wasn't the butt of the joke.

Their conversation  had been whispered, a fact that Ares was grateful for after he realised that they did indeed have company. Their laughter had been heard though. Ares almost jumped out his skin when he suddenly heard two or more horses gallop up along side them. Instinctively, Hercules held him closer, and the God let him, taking some comfort from that action.

Hercules had slowed the horse to a walk and then stopped. That allowed Iolaus to come along side and greet the War God, finally.

"Welcome to our world Ares, got a horse for you, I assume you know how to ride?" Ares looked at the hunter's honest earnest face and back at Hercules, then back at Iolaus again.

Slowly, Ares stretched and eased his muscles as he climbed down from in front of his brother, then he remounted his own horse after walking out the stiffness in his muscles. All the while he was thinking, as fast as any God could. Trying to assimilate this new revelation from this world, this Iolaus was alive, while theirs was dead?

"It's good to see you alive Iolaus." Ares kept one eye on his brother, the other on this worlds version of his brother's best friend, as best he could.

"Alive? What does that mean?" Iolaus looked at Ares, and wished the words unsaid as he saw the amusement gleam from those ebony eyes, so much like his own best friend's lover.

"Normally it means not dead. I assume it means that here too?" Ares leaned towards Iolaus, away from Hercules and felt rather than saw his brother shiver. Either feeling the cold or fighting his emotions, for once Ares took pity on Hercules, he produced a thick woollen cloak for his brother and one for himself too.

"Yeah, it does ... oh, shit!" Realisation struck the hunter, a look of profound sadness filled his expressive blue eyes, as he flicked his gaze from Ares to Hercules and back. "How?" He whispered.

"A God, not Greek, called Dahok." Ares looked for any recognition and saw none.

"Never heard of him, but if he's that good I'll mind and avoid him, if ever I hear of him." Iolaus smiled at the other world representation of his friend's lover, his friend too for that matter. "I take it Herc took it bad?" The sympathy for the visiting Hercules clearly seen in his now clouded eyes.

"Ah ha!" Ares murmured.

"No wonder he wouldn't talk to me while he held you. He took it just as hard as I would, if ever I had lost him." Iolaus shrugged, blushing slightly under the God's scrutiny.

Ares looked around and saw one other rider, and recognised him. Joxer, in this world Joxer rode with Iolaus, he vaguely recalled other horse soldiers ... staring at him.

"Where are we heading? We're still on course for your world's Ares, that much I can tell." Ares looked from Iolaus to Joxer, hoping one of them would volunteer the information.

"We're going to their Ares all right, and his lover, seems he married this world's Hercules." Hercules was blunt with the information, Ares could feel the embarrassment flowing from his brother. They were in company again, and he was no longer touching Hercules, little wonder his brother was losing control of himself again.

"Well, their Hercules shows remarkably good taste!" Ares laughed and moved his horse closer to Hercules, once there he reached out and took his brother's hand.

"I thought you and he .. weren't .. you know? Herc said so.." Iolaus blushed himself to a stand still.

"You don't understand Iolaus, Herc needs to touch me to control his emotions, I need to touch him to help me control yours." Ares was being open and honest with these men, Hercules had never seen his brother this open with anyone. He wondered if it was this world, or just that they would need help restoring their Ares to his rightful place that had his brother being so honest? Either way, he concluded that he simply didn't have enough information yet to decide.

"What do you mean, control our emotions?" The hunter looked to the hero and the God, riding side by side, holding hands, but it was his own lover that supplied his answers.

"He is what this land has been missing for the last four years, a sitting War God; with all the duties and responsibilities that that entails. He's no doubt still linked to his own world, just as Hercules said, and is now linking to our world. He needs the physical contact with someone from his own world to balance the two conflicting sets of emotions. Am I right?" Joxer looked at Ares, not Hercules, and not their linked hands.

"You're right, you know, you sound just like Xena, is she still alive around here?" Ares looked at two very confused faces.

"Who's Xena?" Iolaus asked.

"Warrior Princess from Amphipolis, used to head one of my greatest armies, now fights against me, most successfully, unfortunately." Ares was still looking at their companion's faces, as was Hercules.

"No, never heard of her, Joxer fits that description though. Do you have a Joxer in your world?" Iolaus asked.

"Erm, yes we do, he's a friend of mine, and of our Iolaus, and the woman Xena Ares mentioned. Nice guy." Hercules tightened his grip on Ares' hand, he was finding talking to this version of his friend so hard, so painful, and through the physical link, Ares knew that too.

"He's a blood innocent in our world." Ares supplied, allowing them to think that their Joxer was not a fighter in any way, hoping they'd let the subject drop.

"What? He's never been an assassin? A warrior? Head of the biggest army Greece ever saw?" Iolaus was not proud of his lovers past, but didn't shy away from it either. He was proud of his lover turning away from that path, for no other reason than Iolaus had asked him to. Ares could feel it, almost taste it, in the emotions that flowed through and around him, and through their physical link so could Hercules.

"No, his brother, Jett, is the assassin in their family, and Jace is reasonably good at commanding men. Not as good as his father though." Ares was still dancing around the one truth he knew for a fact that Hercules didn't want to tell them. Why was he so willing to protect their Joxer and his Hercules' feelings?

"I don't have any brothers." Joxer stated, quite calmly.

"Well there you go, our Joxer never needed to fight, his family owns a lot of land, someone has to mind the home. And you never had the choice. Add to that you don't have a Xena, and I suppose you don't have a blonde bard from Potedaia called Gabrielle either?" Ares smiled, glad for small mercies, though the smile faded as he realised his joy was to be short lived.

"Oh, we got Gabby, she's Draco's wife. Great little fighter, great story teller too, gets all the gore and feeling of action in her stories." Joxer obviously like their Gabrielle, as did Iolaus judging from their smiles.

"That's more than ours ever did. She can't, and here I quote, simply can't write action scenes. She uses really stupid, flowery descriptive passages instead 'Xena burst in, in a blaze of glory, raining blows down like a storm from the heavens.' Believe me, I do quote!" Ares was looking at his brother rather than their travelling companions.

Finally Hercules laughed. As Ares had spoken he could see and hear Gabrielle speaking too, he absolutely knew his brother was telling the truth. He also got a flash of fear as Ares recalled being powerless at that time.

"It's true!" He added, and laughed harder when Joxer screwed up his face in utter disgust.

"How long till we reach our destination?" Ares suddenly asked, changing the subject with neither flare nor finesse. Hercules could feel the residue of the fatigue in him.

"Galloping while holding hands is gonna be difficult, don't you think?" He asked.

"What, for a hero and a God, who just so happen to be brothers, sharing the same blood, the same connection to their world? Huh? Don't you trust your big brother, baby bro?" Ares raised their linked hands and shook them in Hercules' line of sight.

"You, here, I trust, it's the horses I can't vouch for." Hercules did indeed look very uncomfortable on horse back.

"Don't worry, I'll have a word with them and they'll see things my way." Ares' nose crinkled up at the sides as he spoke, showing dimples in his cheeks,  as it always did when he was teasing someone. Hercules was startled to recognise that fact, after being on the receiving end of that self same look that he had, for a lifetime, called snide.

"Do we need to gallop?" Hercules asked Joxer and Iolaus.

"If you want to reach the castle today, then yeah, we need to gallop." Joxer smiled, the look was strange on the otherwise familiar face. A smile that spoke of understanding, of a sharp intelligence, of Xena. And on Joxer's face!

They galloped.

***

By the middle of the day Draco and the rest of the troops arrived, noisily, at the castle. The cacophony of iron shod hooves on the courtyard cobbles would have wakened the dead, if they could ever be close enough to hear them. They did, however, wake Hercules and Ares. The lovers had fallen asleep again, after their morning of loving.

They dressed on the run as they hurried out to greet the new arrivals. Hercules was immediately worried when he didn't see either Iolaus or Joxer with the troops.

"Where are the others?" He quizzed Draco while Joxer's second in command saw to his horse.

"Coming." Draco looked back the way they had come, then at the hero, the ex-hero. "Look Hercules, there's something you ought to know." He pulled Hercules to one side, away from Ares who was talking to Gabrielle, helping with the horses. "We met a couple of men, they'll be coming with Jox and Iolaus, one of them's you and the other is Ares. An Ares with all his powers. I felt it, the calm as he drained us of all our anger and aggression, but something's wrong, see, he collapsed!" Draco tried to let Hercules know just how worried he was. "All the men were standing there, couldn't move, all of us pouring out our fears and what have you at him. And they're coming here, I think."

Hercules looked back at his lover and watched him as he laughed gently at something Gabrielle had said. He shuddered at the prospect of another Ares, an Ares who was still a God. A God that wanted something from them! From his Ares!

"Get the men barracked and fed, if they settle in their quarters maybe this God won't notice them too much. Any idea what he wants?"

"None what so ever, we just met them walking in this direction. I'm just surmisin' a lot here." Draco shrugged and then grinned over Hercules' shoulder at his wife's laughter, she was amused by something Ares had said to her. The contrast hit him so hard. "You know if he's a War God, then he's probably doing what ever it was that Ares did, before you know who took charge. And not just for us either." He shrugged, again. "Hey, I've got quarters to go to, with my wife, so if you'll excuse me, I'll go rescue her from your beloved over there!" Draco laughed at the sight behind Hercules, and he pushed past him gently and went to retrieve his wife.

Hercules heard them clear the court yard, not just Gabs and Draco, but all the men. As he heard the last of the horses clip clop their way towards  the stables, he slowly turned to Ares. His lover saw the confused, strained look on his face and walked over to join him. He gently cupped Hercules' face and smiled, sweetly, into the now shadowed eyes.

"What's wrong Herc? What did Draco say that stole the light from your eyes?"

"Oh, Ares!" Hercules cried out, softly, and crushed Ares to his chest. Not sure why, but so very certain that their next load of visitors would bring chaos and the end of their happy life together, and have everything come crashing down round their ears.

"Now you're scaring me, what did Draco say to you?" Ares pushed gently against Hercules' chest, getting a little distance between himself and his worried lover. Looking at the tears almost falling from his lover's eyes, again Ares cupped his cheek in a warm, mortal hand. "I love you, and if you're upset, then I'm upset."

Hercules looked deeply into the eyes of his beloved Ares, seeing the worry in those beautiful, dark pools.

"Seems Joxer and Iolaus are bringing another Hercules and Ares with them. An Ares with his powers intact." Hercules watched Ares' face for reaction, and saw just a warm smile and laughing eyes looking back at him.

"Poor Ares then." Ares' smile tightened, and Hercules knew he was remembering what it was to have his powers.

"Why 'poor Ares', huh?"

"Because, little brother, he'll be doing double duty here. His job as well as mine ... " Ares trailed off, abruptly turned away from Hercules and started to walk back towards their home.

"Ares?" Hercules tried to get Ares' attention.

"Ares!" He shouted after him, alarm colouring his voice, the pain and fear finally got Ares' full attention.

"Leave it Herc. Just don't go there, okay?" Ares turned to look at his brother as he spoke and spun away again, as soon as the last word was said. All Hercules could do was nurse his own guilt and pain as he watched Ares disappear into the dark interior of their home. He turned and looked at the castle gates, walking slowly towards the outside world he didn't hear the returning footsteps echoing in the courtyard.

"Hercules?" Ares' voice sounded as if it were coming from miles away. "Hercules! Please, don't leave me!" The fear caught his attention, quickly he spun and looked at his distraught brother, his lover, his husband if they would but say the words.

"I ... I ... I'm not going anywhere, just looking." Even to his own ears it sounded forced, as if he didn't really believe it either.

"Look, it's no use tearing each other apart, not like this, we shouldn't be arguing like this." Ares ran across the courtyard to stand at the threshold of their gate with his lover. "When, if, they get here, we'll find out what they want, how they got here, and what we can do to help them get home. Until then any and all speculation is worthless. Don't tear us apart over ancient history." Ares tried a smile, it was shaky but warm, warm enough to thaw the immediate guilt from Hercules' heart.

"I never want to lose you Ares. I love you way too much, more than I ever loved anyone else, ever, ever." Hercules slowly embraced his lover, savouring Ares' collapse against him as his tightly held emotions gave way to a flood of relief.

"Then you won't lose me. I wish I could make you believe it. Just once!"

"Hey, you said enough of that for now."

"True, I did, but when have you ever known me to stick to my own rules, huh?" Ares grinned, in so doing he gifted Hercules with the sight of twin dimpled cheeks almost hiding the two most beautiful ebony eyes he had ever had the privilege of gazing in to.

"That's true." Hercules laughed at the affronted look  Ares gave him. "Come on, let's leave the road to its own business and you can eat some lunch!" A possessive hand stroked up Ares' ribcage. Reminding the ex-God of their earlier conversation on his eating habits, and reminding him of his promise to try harder with his eating habits.

"Did anyone ever tell you, that you are a bully?" Ares smiled, not wanting to offend Hercules, their emotions too raw to really be teased and toyed with.

"Me? A bully? I'll have you know I'm a great hero, so I've heard. Not a bully!" Hercules held Ares in both his arms, cupping his hands together behind his lover's back, the better to hold him close like that. Then he kissed him. Gently. Briefly. A butterfly kiss, promising so much for later.

"And I am Paris of Troy!" Ares laughed at Hercules' strange look.

"No, you are definitely not Paris, you are far more beautiful than he ever was."

"But you, you are my hero!" Ares kissed him, savouring the sweet words he had spoken.

"I wish I could be, Ares, I really wish I could be!" Hercules gave his oath as he broke the kiss, smiling sadly at his beloved.

"I give up, Herc, truly, I give up! Let's go eat before we start to fight again, and I really don't have the strength for another round of that particular fight." Ares sighed wearily, giving way to a gasp of surprise as Hercules swung him up and carried him back to their home. Ares could either struggle and not be guaranteed his freedom, or he could laugh and enjoy the ride. He laughed.

***

Joxer and Iolaus looked knowingly at each other as they watched the alternate God of War and Hercules get down off their horses with out letting go of each other. It involved a lot of mutterings and not a little laughter from both of them. Yet, finally there they were, walking their horses to rest them from the hard galloping they had had to do.

Ares looked at their hands, still firmly clenched together, then at his brother, whose emotions he could feel quite clearly through their physical link.

"Feeling calmer now then, little brother?" Ares didn't know why he felt like talking with Hercules, it was after all not normally on his list of favourite things to do, not at all, let alone top of that list.

"Yeah, much .. big brother." Hercules smiled at Ares and then let his eyes drop away to their hands, the sight of his hand firmly in the grip of Ares' made him laugh. He really did feel like the God of War's little brother. As if their father had told him to take a hold of his brother's hand and not let go! Hercules began to swing their hands back and forward. In big arcs too.

"What are you doing?" Ares asked, the very epitome of 'big brotherness' to Hercules' strained way of thinking. After all, he had had Iphicles to practice on, he was good at being a little brother. Even if he did say so himself!

"Being a good little brother, not letting go of big brothers hand, mustn't get lost after all!" Hercules laughed to himself with absolute delight at the totally confused look on Ares' face. "You see, I'm well versed in all things little brother. I've done all this before, with Iphicles. Mother would tell me to take a hold of his hand and not let go. No matter how much he swung our arms about, I never let go. We would go round the market, the farm, and I'd be swinging from the end of his arm, all snotty nose and bad attitude. I was four, I could look after myself!" Some of that ages old resentment surfaced, Ares could clearly feel it. It found an echo in his memories.

"Start skipping and you die!" Ares promised his brother.

Hercules laughed at the mental image that warning conjured up.

"How would you explain that to dad?"

"Simple, I just tell him the truth ... he skipped! No one would hold it against me." Ares smiled, quite evilly.

"You're quite safe then, we're leading the horse and horses don't skip." Hercules was chuckling at the mental image when a small spark of something frizzed through their link and warned him that Ares was about to do something.

"Oh yes they do!" Ares and two horses proceeded to skip down the trail, dragging Hercules with them.

Giving in Hercules skipped too, laughing like a very little, little brother.

Watching them with an indulgent smile playing around his lips Iolaus looked to his lover and asked.

"So, do you buy into the 'we're not lovers crap' Herc 2 there is trying to peddle to us?"

Joxer looked at the God and the hero as they and their horses finally stopped skipping, both men were laughing. Together, and the body language told him that this might be the first time in their lives that they had just simply been silly together.

"Yeah, I do actually. They're not lovers .." He turned and looked at his own lover. "Not yet at least. But, I'll tell you what .." He paused for dramatic effect, that and he simply knew it would annoy Iolaus.

"What!?" Iolaus demanded on cue.

"They're becoming friends. Ares 2 is still a God and they're becoming friends." He smiled at Iolaus and was rewarded with a big grin in return.

"There's hope for them yet then?" Iolaus observed.

"True."  Joxer looked at his lover, how the sun that reached them through the dense trees made his hair gleam like precious stones. "Give them time and they'll figure it out for themselves ... but a good example never hurt anyone!" And so saying he kissed Iolaus

As Hercules walked beside his brother, both of them smiling, still letting loose the occasional chuckle, he heard a tell tale noise from behind them.

"Are they kissing?" He asked Ares.

"Yes." Ares replied, quite shortly.

"What's wrong?" Hercules didn't think Ares could be jealous of Joxer and Iolaus being together. Ares simply wasn't interested in either man that way, was he?

"They were discussing us. They don't think we're lover ...yet!" The 'yet' almost drove Hercules to break Ares' hold on him.

"What do they mean, yet!?" He demanded.

"I don't know, you said their Ares and Hercules were a confirmed couple, married I seem to recall you saying. They're just projecting that relationship on to us. Don't let  it get to you." Ares shrugged and tried to smile reassuringly at Hercules, it came out more as a conspiratorial grin. "That and we are holding hands." His timing was perfect, Hercules went fifty shades of purple before settling on bright red and bursting out laughing.

"Could you imagine dad's face if he could see us now?" Hercules finally asked, between bouts of laughter.

"Worse still, could you imagine my mother's face?" Ares asked, dead pan.

Hercules' incredulous expression set Ares off, he giggled. He couldn't help himself, he giggled, a high pitched sound, of true abject amusement that Hercules had never heard so freely expressed by Ares before.

"How could you Ares? And with him too!?" Hercules squeaked his voice to make it sound screechy enough to do a passable impersonation of the Queen of the Gods.

It was too much for Ares, he stood still and laughed. He laughed until tears fell from his eyes, he lifted their joined hands and wiped them away. Hercules was mesmerised. For the first time in his life he felt Ares'  tears on his hand. Tears of laughter and joy, granted, but he wouldn't wish tears of sorrow on anyone, not even Ares. Something in him blossomed, fed by those few tears. His brother was as capable of being as human as any man he had ever encountered. And somehow he knew that Ares was genuinely amused, that he was honestly enjoying their silliness, and that helped that spark of something grow.

"Remount, and we'll be there in a an hour!" Joxer's voice called out, breaking the spell, but not the connection.

"This'll be fun!" Hercules observed as Ares stood beside him, holding his hand while he remounted his horse.

"Not really." Ares said and was suddenly sitting on his own horse still holding Hercules' hand. "You know, I do think that you tend to forget that I might be your brother, little bro, but I am a full God, ya know?" Ares was both joking and serious.

"Didn't you know miracles are par for the course from big brothers? Every little brother expects his big brother to be capable of miracles, why should I think less of you? It's just the miracles I expect are harder than any I ever dreamt Iphicles could perform." Hercules felt a sharp stab of guilt when he thought about his mortal brother, Ares felt it too, and for once remained silent and left his own mortal brother to his own sorrows.

The horses, however, thought they were both quite mad.

***

By late afternoon the usual group, or rather half the usual group were sitting around Ares and Hercules' kitchen table. They were quite deliberately not discussing the imminent arrival of a God from another world. Nor were they talking about the fight they could not have failed to have witnessed between Hercules and Ares.

What they were discussing was the menu for that nights dinner. What would be a worthy meal for a sitting War God, and despite Ares having been a sitting War God, no one was taking his suggestion of nothing seriously. And that was annoying him immensely.

"Look will you listen, just once. Believe me, he will prefer nothing over anything we could give him." Ares was not shouting, he very rarely shouted these days, but there he was, stomping up and down the length of the kitchen, all but pouting.

"Why must you be so convinced he'll be rude. Just because you were a right rude bastard Arry, doesn't mean to say he will!" Draco could not quite hold back the mirth at the mental image of his friend Ares as he had been, back when he had been his God.

"It's hard to explain, mortal food just doesn't sit well with Gods, even ex-Gods." Ares smiled, remembering the same times Draco was. He had spent so long, too long of late, remembering his Godhood, what it meant to be a God, what it cost him to be a God. What it had ultimately cost him to lose his Godhood, what it had cost Hercules, by far a greater cost than any he had paid. "It's part of my own trouble with eating, I don't like the taste, I have no idea what it tastes like to you, I have no terms of reference as to what it does to me. What it'll do to him, and he's still a bloody God, for fuck's sake. Let him feed himself!"

"And this other Hercules?" Gabrielle asked, all the while she watched their Hercules for a reaction, and she got one.

"If he's with his Ares, then let his Ares take care of them both then. Why do they want to come here anyway?" Hercules slumped deeper into his chair and was immediately attended by Ares, crouching by his side, holding the nearest of his lover's hands in both of his.

"Look, why don't we wait until they get here? We can't second guess anything, please Herc? For me?" Ares turned the hand he held captive over and placed a slow, loving kiss in its palm and folded it closed, as if to hold in the kiss, for ever.

"We could leave if you really want to have wild sex on the kitchen table?" Draco offered and was instantly slapped by his wife.

"Pig!" She decried him.

"Oink!" He replied, pulling her over to sit on his knees, burying his face in the side of her face and "Oink!" made more, louder pig noises right in her ear.

"That's it, you die!" Gabrielle shot to her feet and searched the room for a suitable weapon, finally she settled for a wooden board used to knead bread on, then she whacked him with it, not gently either.

"Ow!" Draco was shocked and surprised, his wife had actually intended him harm. "Gabs, what's got into you?" She hit him again and stopped mid way through her third swipe.

"Draco?!" She squealed, dropped the board and took his battered face in her hands. "What's got into us today?" She begged the whole world for an answer, and got her prayer answered, by the ex-God.

"Ares has, his presence has triggered a landslide in your emotions, if he doesn't control them you'll find yourself exactly how you were four years ago." He smiled sadly at his lover and their friends. "So now we gotta hope he is coming here." As if on cue the room echoed with the clattering of several horses in the courtyard.

The four mortals got up, almost as one, and went out to greet whatever, whomever the day had brought them.

***

The castle was achingly familiar to Ares. He risked a glance at Hercules and saw that he too recognised where they were headed. After all, they had fought there, Ares had seen his youngest son there, for the last time. As his father anyway.

"I do care for him, in my own way, in a way that I can keep him safe, or so I thought. Safe from the machinations of our family. You saw how Eris reacted, and she's my twin sister, imagine how Artemis would have reacted?" Ares shrugged, unsure if Hercules was even hearing him.

"I know, and I'm sorry I've kept you apart." Hercules felt a sudden shudder in their link, like nothing he'd ever felt before, then he realised what it was.  Ares' mental laughter. "What's so funny?" He challenged, quite angry at being laughed at.

"Keep me from my son do you? Never wondered who the magic Milos is?" Ares saw the dawning of comprehension in his brother's eyes. "Since you wouldn't let me be my son's father, I'm his best friend in the whole wide world, ever!" Ares spoke in the tone of a young child prone to over dramatisation.

"Did you really walk along the seabed looking at the dolphins swim by?" Hercules was somehow actually relieved that the mythical Milos was real and was actually Ares. Evander would be safe in Ares' hands, he knew that, through the link, he knew Ares was right about loving Evander, about how their family would put him at risk. All of it was true.

"Yeah, we did. It was something I hadn't done in a lot of centuries, not since Cupid and Strife were kids in fact." Ares' eyes clouded over, he lost his ready smile. And Hercules knew it was Strife.

"You miss the mischief maker?" He asked, gently, with a soft smile playing around his lips and eyes. "Truth be told, I kinda miss him myself. There seems to be something missing in the world without Strife stirring things up." Their link filled with twin memories of the Mischief God and his infectious, inane giggle.

"I more or less brought him up. Eris, Discord, abandoned him as soon as he was born. Since we don't know who his father is, Eris won't say, and whomever it is won't admit it, well, someone had to take him in. Not that I had much option, it was either me or Zeus would have had mother raise him, and I couldn't let that happen to another child. Not after .. that's ancient history now anyway." Ares smiled, a warm, friendly smile, as he remembered the early years of life with his nephew running about, filling his life with childish laughter. He had been a little a bit younger than his son Cupid but not by much. The boys were more brothers than cousins, and some times more trouble than they might be considered worth by the other Gods. Yet Ares' memories overflowed with the sounds of their laughter, and the screams of outrage, as they pulled another prank on one of their fellow Olympians.

"You actually like having young children around, don't you?" Hercules had an epiphany with regards to his brother, Ares actually did enjoy the company of children. Yet, knew he had to be careful of protecting them from his enemies.

"With all the scum and filth of mortal, or indeed immortal, life that I have to deal with on a daily basis, children and their innocence are a refreshing change. Guilty as charged, little brother." Ares looked up and saw they were getting ever closer to that dark castle where his alternative self was living, and indeed loving with the alternative Hercules. "I know you don't believe me, but I am capable of loving someone, you know?" Not at all sure he even wanted to know why it was suddenly imperative that Hercules believed him.

"I know. I do know that you are." Hercules said simply. Then silence fell between them, not oppressively, and they remained quiet until they dismounted in the castle courtyard, with as much of a pantomime as they had while walking their horses in the forest.

As Ares looked around he let his hand fall from it's safe haven in Hercules' grasp. Then, unprepared for the sudden crushing weight, and the unremitting onslaught of feelings and passions, he fell first to his knees, clutching his pain ridden head. Then blackness took him and he was falling into unconsciousness, even as he heard the faintest whisper of his name.

Hercules saw his brother clasp his head, he saw him keel over. He screamed his name as he ran the few short steps to his brother's side.

"Ares!" Just as his brother's head would impact with the cobbles Hercules caught him, and held him close. "Ares, you should never have let me go. I should never have let you. I'm sorry!" He rocked his brother against his chest. The sooner they did what Ares wanted to do for this world, the sooner they would find the way home and he could take care of his brother. "Shh, now, everything's gonna be all right, you'll see!" He smoothed the sweat soaked hair from his brother's face and finally looked up into  the troubled blue of his own eyes.

What he saw there made him stop moving, he saw anger, anger directed at his Ares, and he saw sympathy, and he saw an echo of an old hurt, an old fear. Looking away he met the open gaze of Ares, the mortal Ares of this world. His eyes were filled with a painful understanding of what his Ares was going through, for his world, for their own world, for him.

"Everyone back off!" Ares commanded. And everyone did just that. The courtyard cleared. Joxer and Iolaus took their own horses away, Draco and Gabrielle took Hercules and Ares' horses away with them. That left Hercules and Hercules looking steadily at each other over the fallen body of the still unconscious Ares.

"Now Herc, help .... Herc bring Ares inside, please." He smiled at his lover then at Hercules. "Now this'll cause a lot of confusion." He noted, still smiling. "He'll be fine, once we can get him in a calm environment."

"Well, that'll not be our world then." The mortal Ares' Hercules observed. "Might as well go right on home then!"

"I would if I could. If I had the knowledge, the ability, I'd take Ares so far from here, leave you to rip your world apart in Total War, so fast, it'd leave your head in a spin. This place is hurting my brother, possibly even killing him! I don't know, but would you want to risk your brother like that?" He challenged the resident Hercules.

The resident Hercules just stood there, looking at the fallen Ares and his brother, then he looked at the worry in the eyes of his own brother, his lover.

"I'd do exactly the same." He finally said, quietly, calmly. "Come on, let's get him inside. Ares can be a right pain if you don't do things his way, but I guess you know that?" He looked at his twin and laughed. In all honesty, Hercules didn't know why, but he laughed back.

"Yeah, but not as well as you do. We're, Ares and me, we're not together, not like you." Hercules blushed himself to a standstill as he followed the other Ares to a bed chamber where he could lay Ares down, and lie down beside him, letting the God of War ground himself once more.

"We'll talk later." Ares observed, not really giving him the chance to gain say him.

As he held Ares once more, Hercules drifted off to sleep, almost as if his sleeping would lessen his brother's burdens.

Outside their bedroom, back in the kitchen in fact, that worlds Hercules looked at the strained face of his own, precious Ares.

"Well, that was unexpected."  Hercules' voice was forced, desperately trying to sound friendly.

"Not really. Even I can't .. couldn't deal with the weight of passions he's dealing with. I expect he'll deal with some it while asleep, and be more able to cope once he's finished sleeping." At least, if he didn't believe it himself he seemed to have reassured Hercules. Once calmer in himself, Ares saw that his own precious Hercules was calming down too.

"Lucky we already have an expert in being Ares around then. I wonder what he wants?" Hercules put his arms around his lovers waist and snuggled in close to him. Burying his face in the mass of curls adorning Ares' head, he breathed in the scent of his beloved, in long, slow breaths.

"I've no idea, but I guess their Hercules wants to get home, with his brother in one piece." Ares emphasised his speech with an elaborate shrug, almost pushing Hercules away, but not quite.

"Yeah." Hercules agreed, retaking his former position nestled against Ares. "I know I would, an' he said as much to me outside. He'd leave us to rot if he could." Hercules wasn't too sure if he was angry because the other Hercules' words were harsh, or because they were true, or just because they were justified.

"His Ares wouldn't let him." His own Ares smiled, turning he took him in his own arms and snuggled back in close, burrowing his own face into the crook of his neck.

"How do you know?" Hercules' voice rumbled in Ares' ear, it caused the ex-God to laugh, softly.

"I used to be omniscient, remember?" he laughed aloud at the echoing good humour from Hercules.

Together they went about their daily tasks, waiting to see what their new arrivals would bring in their wake. Something, no doubt, that they would share with them
once they were awake and alert again.

***

Ares awoke first. The knowledge that he was sleeping once more in Hercules' embrace did little for his comfort. Indeed, he felt supremely uncomfortable knowing that it was touching Hercules that allowed him to function. He also knew, through their growing link, that Hercules was uncomfortable about it all too. Though strangely, it was also a great comfort to him, both of them. He just hated to be faced with a paradox, they gave him a headache

He rolled over, still within the sanctuary of Hercules' arms and watched his brother sleeping. His eyes were still, his breathing even, he was not dreaming, probably about to wake up anyway. Thus suitably convinced he was not going to unduly wake him up, he shook his brother awake.

"Hey, sleepy head, wake up!" His hand closed around Hercules' left shoulder and he rocked him back and forth, gently. Finally Hercules gave in and opened his eyes, slightly. Only once he had processed the information telling his brain that Ares was only a couple of inches away from him, in bed, did he sit up with a start.

"My thoughts exactly!" Ares smiled, sitting up beside him. "Oh, my head hurts!" Sitting up that quickly might have been an error, Ares' skull still throbbed. So he lay down again.

"Do you remember where we are, what happened?" Hercules lay back down, side by side with Ares, once more holding his hand.

"Kinda, we reached the castle and then we saw them, the pain hit me like a herd of charging elephants, and then I woke up in this bed, with you. Did I miss anything important?"

"Not really, just their Ares directing their me to bring you in here, with me, he helped me. Oh, shit Ares what do we do now? If I have to touch you all the time it's gonna get real old, real quick, you know?" Hercules stopped talking, thought over what he had said and shrugged. "Now I'm even sounding like some cross between you and Strife." He groaned, but Ares just laughed at him.

"And this is a bad thing, why?" He asked, still chuckling away to himself.

"Ask me that again when you start to stop wars and right wrongs and defend the mortal world from the capriciousness of the Gods? Then we'll discuss it." Hercules was cross at being laughed at, but saw Ares' point of view too. It was like complaining he was breathing out and in, rather than in and out!

"Ah, better get ready to open up to me. To feel what I'm feeling here, 'cos, guess what? I've gotta stop wars, write a terrible wrong and put the Gods back in their accustomed places. Then we can go home." Ares looked sideways at Hercules. "And then we might get to stop for lunch!" He said that last part so emphatically that Hercules was almost convinced it was a real statement, but his brother finally laughed. Recalling his thought the day before, that this must be how Iolaus had felt, as his companion.

"Make me curly and call me Iolaus!" Hercules was surprised to realise he had spoken aloud, Ares, however, was highly amused.

"Ya know, it's a good job for you that I'm not Aphrodite! She would make you look like Iolaus, just for the fun of it!" Ares saw realisation strike Hercules, as he saw that Ares was speaking the truth.

"So now what? How long did we sleep anyway?" He knew Ares would have the answers he wanted, needed, didn't know how Ares knew, just that he did.

"We've slept a couple of hours; and we get out of bed and go get some thing to eat,
then find out what is really going on in this world. Unless you have a better plan." Ares sat up, slowly, feeling no pain this time he broke contact from Hercules and crossed to look at the world as framed by the bedroom window. A slight breeze blew in, making him shiver.

"Careful, you don't want to go through all that pain again, do you?" Hercules also got off the bed and crossed to stand behind Ares, pulling him back against his own body. Sharing his warmth, and what protection he could offer from that world's passions.

"I'm okay like this, when no one can see me. It's always like this with mortals and Gods. Out of sight, out of mind. Everyone seems to be involved with their own tasks, not thinking about us at all. Just as it should be." Ares sounded resigned to being either the centre of everyone's attention or totally ignored, and through their link Hercules suddenly knew what that lack of attention did to the Gods It sapped them of energy, of strength, of their sense of self. That was why they did most of what they did, an attempt to get attention from mortals, to feel alive. And when Ares got too much attention - he collapsed in abject agony.

"Okay, but if it gets too much, take my hand, okay?" Hercules squeezed his brother, enjoying the feel of hard muscular flesh beneath his hands. He knew too that Ares took as much comfort from that action as he himself did.

"Okay!" Ares agreed, not readily, but at least honestly.

"Right, now that that's settled, shall we go looking for food?!" Ever practical, Hercules was once more thinking with his stomach. Sounding, even to his own ears, so very like Iolaus.

"Sure, come on, this way!" Ares lead the way, taking a firm hold on his brother's hand, just in case they encountered one of the castle's seemingly endless supply of residents.

Hercules followed Ares, just as much as Iolaus had spent so many years of his life, acting as his silent companion with whom he could talk out problems, this now seemed his lot in life.

***

They passed several other bed chamber doors on their journey to the kitchens, and through their growing link Hercules could access Ares' senses, and hear what was going on behind those doors. The cacophony almost made him collapse, until Ares sorted out all the different sounds and conversations. Such as they were.

Ares and Hercules found them selves in a corridor, surrounded by rooms in which people were having sex. Not necessarily wild sex, loving sex would be closer, it just made for very strange conversations when they could mix and match the voices Ares could hear for them.

"Ares, Ares, Ares my own, beautiful Ares!" Hercules could hear his own voice chanting and blushed a very deep red.

"In me Jox, in me deep!" Even though he knew it was Iolaus' voice it sounded like Joxer was the one pounding into Ares ... assuming Ares was being pounded and not pounding. God and Demi-God found that they could not move, not even twitch. And looking at each other was definitely out!

"Ha, ha, ha Drrrraaacccooo, now!" Gabrielle would never look the same again, in either of their eyes ever!

"My love  ..... AAARRRGGGHHH!" And Draco came, with all the grace of a bull elephant in full charge.

"YYYEESSS!" Gabrielle did too, they were evidently well matched. "Stay in me?" She pleaded.

"For ever if I could, sweet, sweet Gabrielle. No wonder I love you so very much..."

His voice was interrupted by another shout.

"Sweet Gods of sex and violence! Where DID you learn THAT?" It was Iolaus again.

Followed by a low chuckle and a whisper they still heard quite clearly.

"I spent some time 'studying' with Minya in her brothel." Joxer must have grinned because Iolaus laughed.

"Studying?" he quizzed.

"Studying!" Joxer confirmed, but Ares and Hercules didn't believe him either.

"Faster, harder, stronger. Oh sweet glory Herc. I love you, I love what you do to me, I looooovvveee, Aaarrgghh!" And Ares did blush as he and Hercules listened to Hercules taking Ares to a loud, long and very satisfying orgasm.

"Oh, my God, forever, Ares!" Hercules then roared, loud enough to ring through the hallways.

"Do you always come that loudly?" The God asked his brother, still holding his hand but steadfastly not meeting his eyes.

Hercules looked at him, blushed, grinned and whispered back.

"Only when properly inspired!" Hercules could feel the heat radiating from his brother's face, or was it the heat radiating from his own?

"Shall I make us supper then?" Ares changed the subject and pulled Hercules away from that emotionally charged corridor.

"That would be nice." Hercules and Ares walked the length of the corridor, both physically affected by all they had heard, still holding hands.

"I could have lived with out hearing all that." Ares observed.

"Me too." Hercules agreed.

"Damn!" They both said together.

***

They were sitting in the kitchen, Ares had indeed made them supper, he had created all the food that now lay before them.

"Ares, there's bound to be food around here, why 'make' it?" Hercules shrugged and indicated the banquet now laid out before him.

"Don't you like my 'cooking' for you? Do I use too many strong spices? Not enough?" Ares laughed, so free and easy was his humour, in front of Hercules, that the Demi-God was not really surprised at finding its echo in his own soul.

"No, your food is the greatest food I've ever tasted. Even better than dad's occasional creations." Hercules thought about the few times Zeus had created food for him and shuddered at the memory. "Actually Joxer's gravy is better than dad's food? If you're so good at it, how come he's so bad at it?"

"Because he's never eaten that much mortal food. I can't eat mortal food, it makes me sick to my stomach. The couple of times I've been mortal in the past I swear it wasn't just the .. what's it? The hangover. I can't explain it, it's the taste. I've never encountered something that vile. But knowing what I don't want it to taste like, I can create food that tastes as I know it should taste, like it would in a perfect world. Do you understand any of that? I could show you, if you like?" Ares grinned and shrugged.

"I got the bit about showing me how bad mortal food tastes to you. So how would you do that?" The mortal son of Zeus watched the mischief playing behind Ares' eyes, and saw it for what it was, an older brother teasing a younger brother. "Why do I get the distinct feeling that I'm not going to like this? Huh?"

"Wait and see." Ares stood up, away from his seat at the table, pushing it out of his way slightly, and stood beside Hercules. He closed his eyes and transformed into a  shimmer of blue and gold light. The hero finally knew that this was Ares' true state, he could feel the joy in his brother through their link, even more so in his pure form. Then Ares flew at him. No, Hercules realised, not at him, into him. He felt Ares in the very fibre of his body, every nerve, every muscle, every bone, all was both Hercules and Ares. Then that which had been Ares, God of War, asked that which had been Hercules to find mortal food and eat it.

So Hercules did. He found a joint of roasted lamb and tore a small piece off of it. He put it in his mouth and all but spat it in the kitchen fire. He could not clear the taste of decay and putrefaction from his mouth, he felt sick to his stomach. Ares manufactured a glass of strong flavoured fruit juice for his little brother.

*Here, this will help!* The thought wasn't his yet it was, and Hercules complied and drank the fruit juice. As he washed the disgusting taste out of his mouth he thought about his brother Ares. Who was he, what was he, other than the plain fact of his being the God of War? Suddenly, Ares couldn't hide it from him, all that Ares was filled his mind, the confusion at the flood of images almost causing him real physical pain.

*I'm sorry, Herc, let me go and the pain will fade.* Ares' whispering mental voice spoke to him.

"Let you go?" Hercules asked out loud, too used to speaking to cope with the sudden change to thinking his conversations.

*If you push me out of your mind, my energy will leave your body too. Then the pain will go away. You are mortal, you can't take the weight of knowing War, help me leave?* Ares' mental voice sounded sad to Hercules' mental ears, and he knew too that Ares was sad, saddened that no one, God or mortal, had ever taken the weight of knowing War. He finally knew how truly alone his brother was in life. All his long, long life.

Rather than close his mind, he deliberately opened his mind, and his heart, to Ares. Letting Ares know who and what he was, what motivated him, what inspired him.

*Hercules, please, this will hurt you, damage you!* But the hero ignored the advice of the God in his soul.

Ares saw the futility of fighting Hercules verbally, and for a second he wondered if exposing him to his very worst memories would shock his baby brother into setting him free. As soon as he thought, even vaguely, about those memories they rushed to the fore to be recognised and catalogued by Hercules.

And the hero witnessed one of Ares' worst memories first hand, as if it were happening to him.

The God of War had gone to Zeus to beg him for help in stopping the Trojan war. He had tried to break up the combatants, single handedly, and Godly and mortal warriors had beat him. Injured him greatly, and one of the worst had been Hercules himself, crazed by the battle he had cut deep into Ares' flesh. Hercules could feel those wounds as his own. In fact they were becoming his own hurts, memories.

And Zeus had turned on him too. Just because he dared to decry their glorious petty squabble as just that.

"Look, why of all the Gods on Olympus should I help you? You're the ugliest of all my children, you are by far the stupidest God in the heavens. All you want is War, War, War..." Ares had tried to plead his case.

"But I want to stop this so called war. It's a slaughter, no one will win, an entire city will be destroyed ,and a few of our own States will collapse too with the loss of men and revenues."

"Don't interrupt me!" And Zeus had physically punished Ares. The memory of the flames on his skin was as fresh as the moment they had burned him. And Hercules felt every blow and beat of those flames right along with him. "You are just as ugly, as foul, as that whore, your mother! If I could change one moment in time, I'd go back and rip out her cunt, with my seed still in her. No one would bread from that pustulant, festering cancer. No more Hera, no more you!" And Zeus had 'winked' out, leaving Ares knowing yet again how much he was hated, by his father, by all the Gods, the mortals, every one.

Little wonder he plotted their downfall so often. A God's lifetime's desire for revenge filled Hercules, then he realised it wasn't Ares' desire for revenge, it was his!

All he felt from his brother was his humiliation that Hercules now knew what their father thought of him. Feeling Ares' pain, he drew his brother even closer to his innermost being and wept for him, eventually Ares and Hercules drifted apart and Ares was still in his brother's arms. This time, physically.

Hercules looked at the dark head, bowed in misery before him, and vowed that no one would ever again hurt his brother the way their father had. All those stories Zeus had ever told him, about Ares' nature and deeds, he now knew which were true and which were lies. So many of them were lies, such hideous lies. He was almost tempted to ask why Zeus hated Ares so much, but as he thought the question the answer filled his mind. Zeus feared his son, the most powerful of the Gods on an individual basis, feared his son would do to him what he had done to his father.

"But he has been good to you too, worried about you. Cheered you on in your fight with Vraxis or whatever his damn name was." Hercules had two distinct pictures of Zeus in his mind now. The loving father and the hateful father, which one was the real one, which one was Ares' father, which his?

"And I never know which one will greet me." Ares observed, answering Hercules' unspoken question and observation. "Oh, shit, you never spoke!" Ares looked into Hercules' eyes, expecting to find revulsion, what he did find was understanding.

"The link's getting stronger, isn't it?" The hero hated stating the obvious, but, sometimes it was called for.

"Worse, I think it might be becoming  permanent. I've never had a link with anyone, God or mortal, that was this strong, never." Ares closed his eyes, tilted his head back and shot to his feet when he felt warm, gentle lips on his cheek. "What did you do that for?"

"You needed to be close to someone, and that someone looks like it'll be me. And Ares, in case you didn't notice, I don't mind." Hercules could see the struggle in Ares' soul and in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted you to taste mortal food as I taste it. Not expose you to the horrors of War." Ares sat back down, and slowly, very slowly, he took Hercules' hand once more. Hercules finally saw the sweet man Xena had tried to convince him actually lived, lost in Ares' soul. Only, now, with Hercules' soul linked to his, Ares would never be able to hide that gentle nature from him ever again. He wondered how Ares could survive as the God of War, and still have even a shred of that sweet nature remain intact, let alone all that he could now see of it.

Hercules lifted their joined hands to his lips and kissed them, causing Ares to try to pull himself free of the hero's grasp.

"Sorry, you take your time, I'll be there, a thought away." Hercules lowered their hands to lie on top of Ares' thigh, slowly Ares lowered his head until they sat together, the War God's head resting comfortably on his brother's shoulder.

"Do you still want something to eat?" Ares finally asked.

"Yeah." Hercules agreed, getting up he crossed back to the table that had been moved in their earlier joining, repositioning it to within easy reach, he passed  some wine to Ares and retook his former position as his brother's support, both physical and emotional. They stared quietly into the flames of the kitchen fire until Hercules saw, at the exact same moment as Ares, the image of Hephaestus looking back at them from the hearth fire.

"Heph looks a bit worried, doesn't he?" Hercules observed of the Fire God's face.

"I think he was born worried, but with his life, I guess he has call to be." Ares smiled at the Fire God and slowly Hephaestus smiled back. It was also obvious that he was shocked and surprised at finding them sitting like that, Ares snuggled into Hercules' side, resting his head on his shoulder. "Do you think I should sit up then?" he asked his mortal brother.

"No, you're not heavy, you could never be heavy to me, you're my brother, the other half of me now." Hercules realised something, that Hephaestus could hear them, or read their lips. "Can he hear us?"

"Probably, the flame tells him everything. Hi Hephy, is Dite okay?" Ares asked in a quiet conversational tone.

Hephaestus nodded slowly and turned his head to speak to someone, lifting his good arm he drew his wife to him. Aphrodite looked into the flames and saw her brothers sitting there, then she knew what had happened, and she smiled. Such delight for them, for their new closeness, she whispered something to Hephaestus and the flames slowly danced out her message.

Her words were written before the God and Demi-God in flames.

"Are you lovers?" She looked so hopeful that Hercules felt Ares' sadness at having to disappoint her, he also felt so cold as Ares sat up, away from his comfortable perch.

"No Dite, we aren't lovers. Just brothers ..." He was interrupted by Hercules.

"Just brothers who have shared as deep as any brother could. It's all right Dite, I truly understand Ares now. Everything you ever tried to explain to me and so very much more." Hercules smiled at Ares, not their sister.

Ares saw Dite grin when Hephaestus told her what Hercules had said, Hercules saw it through Ares' eyes too, but it didn't distract him from the vision before him. Ares, smiling, relaxed and happy in the firelight, and right there beside him. It was all the hero could do to keep his hands to himself.

Ares felt the effort of will Hercules was imposing over himself, it was little wonder that his mortal brother could take the weight of knowing War, his mental reserves of strength were phenomenal. And all directed to his protection.

A dark shadow flickered over the flames as Zeus arrived at Hephaestus' forge. Obviously invited to see his sons alive and together, safe. The King of the Gods looked into the flames in Hephaestus' forge and saw the same thing Aphrodite had, and more besides.

He saw the hatred in Hercules' eyes, and the sorrow in Ares' and the connection between them. He saw that Hercules now knew the truth about his damaged relationship with Ares.

Zeus could exert a measure of control over every aspect of the powers of all other Gods. It was basically his job to control them in their excesses, it had also been his delight to twist Ares' powers into keeping his dark son isolated and too weak to move against him. He could twist the flames to send his message to Hercules and Ares.

"Hercules, I keep trying to tell you, there are more colours in life than black and white. Don't believe everything Ares tells you about me." And that was Zeus' biggest mistake. He could see it, only it was now too late to recall his words unseen.

"Why you ..." Before Hercules could give vent to the rage in him, and have it directed at the root cause of his life's miseries, and Ares' miseries, Ares covered his lips with gentle fingers and made shushing noises at him.

"Don't. He can see we are close, closer than he ever wanted us to be, he'll never love me and none of your words and grief will ever make it so. I know this, have always known it, just accept it, please?" Ares had eyes for no one else but his brother, his Hercules.

"Then he doesn't know what he is missing." Hercules took his brother into his arms once more. This time Ares didn't struggle or protest as Hercules kissed him, lightly, on his forehead. A non sexual gesture, that spoke to Aphrodite of so much more than brotherly affection. It spoke to Zeus too, of all he had lost by pushing his dark son away only to then pull him close. If he had been consistent, he now saw, he would have had such a loving son. A  son who would have defended him, not plotted against him.

In Hephaestus' forge the Fire God and the Love Goddess heard his whispered question.

"What have I done?" And it was Aphrodite who told him.

"Lost them both pops, you've gone and lost them both." She didn't smile, didn't joke, she was as serious as she ever had been where defending Ares was concerned.

"But can I win them back?" He asked his flighty daughter, hoping against hope to hear the answer he longed for.

"Probably not, Ares no longer needs you. He's found someone that will accept him, just as he is, and has joined him heart and soul to his being. That which you denied him all his life is now his, and Hercules' and you know how slow Herc is to forgive." Dite pulled no punches, and Zeus asked no quarter. He just looked like a very old God all of a sudden.

"But I love them both, will they come back?" He looked at his daughter and asked the question of his crippled, unacknowledged son.

Hephaestus looked back into the flames and saw Ares was still watching the flames while Hercules was still watching Ares, stroking the side of his brother's neck.

He twisted the flames into his father's question, and waited for the answer.

Ares' fire whispered voice was clear to him, and he knew even Zeus couldn't help but hear the reply.

"This world is in chaos, there's no sitting War God controlling the passions, their Ares is alive, but mortal. Been there, done that, hated it! I want to try and put things to rights before we come home. As soon as this world got a hold of me, it began shovelling it's War passions on to me too. I still have control over our world and now this one too. Herc has been helping me, grounding me, letting me bleed off the passions and power through him. This world is about to rip itself apart, I can't leave it like this, after all, I don't know what repercussions that would have for us and our world. Oh, and it's divergent not parallel." Ares smiled and turned to listen to something Hephaestus only just heard from Hercules.

"You do realise that they'll think we're burning up all those passions in bed, given how close we are now?" The hero half brother to the Gods grinned quite wickedly at Ares' surprised expression.

"Deviant!" Ares scolded.

"Prude!" Hercules admonished.

Hephaestus controlled the flames one more time.

"Children behave. Come home to us, in one piece as soon as you can. Miss you, both."

Ares gifted him with a rare, genuine smile, full of warmth and love for his brother. Not the same as the love he could see might grow between Ares and Hercules, but a centuries old affection that had often warmed him in the cold of the night, when he had thought himself unlovable.

Hercules nodded and looked as contrite as he could. Which was not very. But as a consolation he also looked as if he would bring their Ares home, alive, well and his - if at all humanly possible. Hephaestus suddenly felt sorry for his beautiful dark brother. The odds were definitely not in his favour.

"We'll be home, as soon as we can. But not without setting things to rights here first." Ares finally confirmed. Zeus could hear his dark son's voice, had infact heard  every word of his answer to Hephaestus and looked into his son's strained face, his tired eyes.

"Ares, my son, come home to us. I do love you!" Zeus' flames spelled out their message and he and Hephaestus both heard Ares' reply.

"And I don't believe you." Ares stirred the fire and broke the connection.

"At least they're both safe and well." Hephaestus pointed out, trying to break the growing tension.

"True." Zeus agreed. "But what have I done to Ares? What has he done to Hercules?"

"Everything and nothing. In that order." It was the Goddess of Love that spoke. She had seen Zeus with both her missing brothers a lot more than her Hephaestus had, and was finally in a position to let Zeus know what she thought about his treatment of Ares, and of Hercules. "You isolated your strongest son in favour of your weakest son. Hey, I was actually there when you had a go at Ar over the whole Trojan War shit, what you did then lost him forever. And, I kind of think that if I were to dig deep enough, I'd discover you were the one who sicced Cowface onto Herc's family to isolate Hera, and Ares, even more!" She had been bluffing until Zeus blushed.

Zeus and Aphrodite looked at each other, finally Aphrodite broke the silence.

"Daddy Zee, you make me sick!" She turned her back on him and refused to look at him.

Hephaestus looked at his wife's back and his father's face.

"She has a point Zeus."

"But how do I put things right?"

"I don't think you can. There are no quick fixes for broken hearts, and I don't think you'd ever find all the pieces of Ares' heart, even if you spent the next thousand years looking for them" Hephaestus put a protective arm around his beautiful wife and lead her away from the charged atmosphere around his forge.

"Where would I even begin to look?" Zeus asked the empty flames and left, a single tear on his check, for the sweet boy who might have been a sweet man had Zeus treated him with the love he deserved and craved ... and until he had found his own path to his brothers heart, had never known.

"Hera, love, Ares is safe ..." Zeus entered his wife's bedchamber, to tell her only good things of her son, only loving things, and saw he was offering too little, too late, with her too. And it left him wondering what could possibly be enough?

Back in the other world's Ares' castle, Ares and Hercules sat eating, slowly, drinking more of the strong fruit juice Ares had made earlier. Almost as if trying to take a very bad taste away that had little to do with the putrid taste of mortal food.

"What will Zeus do when we get back?" Hercules quizzed is brother.

"Follow me around for a year or maybe two, until I pretend I've forgiven him and he's happy to let it all slide for a little while. It's an age old routine, but I think this time he'll follow you around instead." Ares grinned at the feeling of horror that flooded through Hercules at the idea of Zeus stalking him for months on end.

"Oh joy!" Hercules dead paned.

Ares giggled, a light, young sound that brought a flood of joy to Hercules' heart.

***

After their meal Ares began to wonder exactly how much like his castle this one was. He pulled Hercules to his feet and urged him to follow him.

"But where are we going?" Hercules asked his brother who was now bouncing with anticipation.

"The main down stairs bathroom. It'll be disused now, come on let's go see if there is one." Ares pulled Hercules along behind him, like a reluctant mule teamed to a chariot with an Arabian stallion, all the hero could do was follow.

"Why would they not be using a bathroom?" Hercules was walking more in step with Ares, curiosity always won out in the end with the hero.

"Because it can only be made functional by a God, and no one here has that certain quality anymore." Ares headed for an ornate door and reached out for a handle that did not appear to be there until he turned it. "Looks promising!" He all but giggled.

Once through the door, lights sprang into being, water started rushing through pipes, flushing a stagnant latrine system, in a mater of moments though, the stale stagnant air had been washed away. Hercules looked around, the running water suddenly reminding him he had not relieved himself for hours.

"Wait a moment Ares." Hercules turned to the now functional latrines, so typical of Greek styling, you could hold a conference on that latrine.

"I'll let you into another secret, shall I?" Ares was laughing, inside his own mind and soul, and Hercules could feel it.

"What secret would that be?" Hercules was working the fastenings of his pants, getting quite desperate to relieve the pressure in his bladder.

"We Gods gotta pee too. We eat, we drink we gotta get rid just like mortals. Here, allow me?" And Ares released the fastenings on his own pants and Hercules'. Standing a