Title: Wet (God Complex)
Author: Goddess Blue
Email: goddess.blue @ gmail.com, frogfish.ish @ gmail.com
Rating: For mature audiences only, due to sexually explicit
situations.
Fandom: Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules the Legendary Journeys
Pairings: Ares/Joxer
Disclaimer: Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules the Legendary
Journeys, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks
of Universal Television Distribution Holdings LLC. They are used
here for entertainment purposes only.
Warning: Near death. Morbid thoughts and scenes. Very explicit
sex. Naughty language. Also, this is going to be smut that's
just this side of angsty. Tearful sex, or something, I think I
heard it termed once.
Status: Complete. Sequel to 'Hot'. 2nd in the 'Sacrificial'
series.
Archive: Yes to AJCS, joxerotica, JoxerFic. Anyone else, please
ask.
Website: http://www.geocities.com/nonexistent_virtually,
http://frog-fish.livejournal.com/,
http://www.fanfiction.net/~goddessblue

Notes: For Joey RZ who asked for more, and for Amejisuto, who
squeed in fangirly fashion when I shared my plans for what's
turning into a series on LiveJournal. This is for you. Please
feel free to squee again, it makes me turn pink and get hot.

Summary: After almost eleven years of watching Joxer teeter
through life, Ares gets an unexpected second chance and takes
full advantage of it. In a river.

- - -

Joxer had always imagined drowning would be more terrifying.
He'd seen someone get drowned before, an inept warrior in his
father's troops who must've pissed off Fortune something fierce
because he'd drawn the Warlord's anger at precisely the /wrong/
moment.

His father's victim had struggled wildly against the men who'd
held him face-down in the river. His arms had flown out and
wiggled around, and his legs had thrashed in the murky water.
His whole body had convulsed and his fingers had spasmed and
encountered the nearest surface--the arm of his father's most
loyal captain--and /scratched/ deep rivulets of flesh from him.

The captain had grunted and his face had turned red and he'd
pushed more firmly on the dying soldier's shoulders.

Joxer had swallowed his vomit down and looked away to meet
Jayce's eyes. Jett only looked on from his other side, as if
morbidly fascinated.

The splashing slowed and there was a loud sucking sound as the
body expelled the last of its air, and his father had seemed
pleased. The troops had looked uneasy.

So Joxer had, of course, imagined that drowning would be more
terrifying than it actually was. As it turned out, drowning was
quite a calming experience.

He'd gotten in a fight on the trail that led out of Corinth and
into the harsh woodland, and had suffered a blow to the head.
Then he'd been robbed and left on the side of the road for the
carrion.

Blood in his eyes, Joxer had stumbled to the banks of a nearby
river, blearily thinking to wash the stickiness from his vision.
His fingers were cold with the water, and his knees were heavy
and pulling his whole body into the bank, and he'd attempted to
stand. He'd lost a lot of blood, though, and maybe he'd been hit
so hard that bits of his mind had knocked loose to bump around
and against each other because the whole world went white and
dark at the same time and he'd dizzily fallen into the river.

Face first.

Disoriented, he'd begun to lift his head from the water and had
tried to take on fresh air too soon. He'd coughed water into his
mouth. Then he'd swallowed. Then he'd panicked and choked and
his fingers had scrambled at the murky, muddy grass that grew in
the river.

This should have been terrifying, but all Joxer could really
think was how it just figured that the moment he first attempted
to break away from Xena and try to take care of /himself/, he
was about to die. This thought caused him to laugh, which had
him taking on even /more/ water.

The following scenes ran through his head, though not
necessarily in this order or at this level of coherency: Wicked,
dark, night winds tickling at his bared skin and managing to
tickle behind his eyes somehow to make him tear. Hot, heavy,
blistering days and sweat that dripped off of him and down his
skin, pulling sweet memories--Ares, Lord--of a similar day too
long gone. Fingers, the big kind that belonged to someone whose
very being embodied the hopes and fears of Greece. Lord Ares.
And itch along the slope of his ass, and itch where it always
itched when he thought of that day and his God and the altar and
its taste.

A flash of bright white light.

Hands on his upper arms, pulling him from the darkening recess
of his mind. Pulling him from the river of his thoughts.

The twist of his body and his mind floating everywhere and his
eyes staying squeezed so tightly shut.

Hands on his chest, pulling his armor off so easily, almost like
it had melted away or vanished. A hard shove and he was reverse
drowning, which turned out to be a bit more terrifying than the
regular kind.

He twisted around again to face down, spat up water and choked,
coughed, and sobbed into the sand.

Fingers, the big kind that belonged to /someone/, ghosted along
his suddenly naked back. Every inch of skin they touched was
soothed and heated and still dripping wet. With every firm pat,
he could breathe just a little better.

"Third time's the charm?"

Lord Ares.

He spluttered and coughed again, choking on his raspy words,
"What?"

"You know." Ares nudged him lightly and then ran his fingers
comforting circles along his back, "You've dedicated yourself to
me twice already, and I've accepted. I really think that this is
a bit over the top, don't you?"

Joxer regained strength with every pass of Ares' gently rough
hands over his skin, and within moments was breathing as if he'd
never taken a trip face down in the water. Gods, he supposed,
were that way.

He turned back around and lay on his back on the muddy bank of
the river, staring up in fascination at Ares. "You're here."

"Of course I am, look." Ares grasped his chin and tilted his
head back, and Joxer got his first good look at the bank of the
river. On it, a hastily put together altar stood with an old,
rusty sword propped up against it. "When a mortal comes to a
place of worship and makes a sacrifice of him or herself, the
patron God or Goddess of said shrine has no higher obligation
than to answer. In affirmative or negative. In short, the bond
between the worshipper and the worshiped is stronger than any
other bond made by man or God. It breaks all other contracts,
all... oaths."

"I didn't--" Joxer argued, but Ares quickly cut him short.

"Yes, you did. If you didn't, then you'd be deeper in this
river, drowning and dying from loss of blood. So, yes. You did."

Joxer swallowed, and then nodded, "All right. Why?"

Ares relaxed onto him, his heavy weight pressing Joxer into the
squishy mud and grass, their legs tangling in the shallow bank
of the river. He reached a hand up and combed his fingers
through Joxer's soppy brown hair and hemmed. "Why what?"

"Why me?"

"Come on, you're acting like this has never happened to you
before." A brief, shivering memory of Joxer's home temple in
Corinth had Ares grinning and leaning his face down into the
cusp of his hand on Joxer's face, mouth to Joxer's ear. Ares, it
appeared, had a certain disrespect for Joxer's personal space.
"Try again. Why what?"

"Why... now?" Joxer's voice strained on the question, a little
piece of tense feeling in his heart breaking and smoothing out
at the confirmation that they'd once shared something he'd begun
to think was only a dream.

"Why now? I told you, Joxer. The bond between a worshiper and
the worshiped is stronger than any other bond made by man or
God. I'm currently bound by another oath, but I've been waiting
for this opportunity for eleven years. Let me taste you again,"
his voice had turned hoarse at the last, and Joxer was hard at
the sound of his roughness. With every word that fell from Ares'
mouth, a lip brushed against the lobe of Joxer's ear and made
him dizzy like the loss of air had made him just minutes before.

"Oh, please, my Lord."

"Oh, I missed that. You forgot my favorite word--"

At Ares' complaint Joxer hissed out a passionate, "Yes!"

The hand buried in Joxer's hair clutched into the flesh of his
skull and yanked his head to the side and back, baring Joxer's
neck. Ares bit him, hard, and made him bleed. There was the
sound of water slowly being stirred, and soon Ares' wet fingers
reached up to tend the bite. He didn't heal it, he merely poured
water over it and watched as the blood mingled with the wetness
and formed little streams of pink down Joxer's neck and upper
shoulder before dripping into the grass.

"Do you like bleeding for me, Joxer?"

"Yes, my Lord," Joxer whispered, turning his head into Ares' dry
hand and kissing his God's palm.

"Eleven years, and you still taste like the perfect sacrifice.
Your blood still hums with it. Your prayers have always sang of
it."

Joxer was drowning in Ares' words that flowed over him and his
body like water. He was breathing in Ares' scent; choking and
spitting on all the words he desperately wanted to offer up to
him. Words like, 'I love you.' and, 'Where have you been?' and,
'Why are you back?'

Ares, being a God, heard them all anyway, and his head reared
up. His black, black eyes held Joxer's brown ones. The teasing,
sensual moment had cracked when Joxer had dared to think of
something deeper that he couldn't understand but felt all the
same. Ares stared at Joxer, into Joxer, for a long moment, and
then settled both hands on either side of Joxer's head and
lowered his lips.

They paused less than an inch apart, less than a centimeter.
Less than a breath.

Ares descended on him, widening his own lips as they met
Joxer's, pushing his lover's mouth open, sinking into him. Ares'
tongue swiped across Joxer's own. Ares' teeth bit down on
Joxer's bottom lip and pulled blood into tiny welts in the
sensitive flesh.

Joxer's moan condemned them both.

Ares' arms closed around him, lifting him up a few empty inches
above the marshy ground and against his naked body... which
meant that at some point during their kiss Ares had flashed away
his leathers. Joxer's moan ended on a thankful sigh, as if being
naked and next to an equally naked Ares was the answer to all of
his prayers. And it probably was. He'd always told himself and
his friends that he wanted war in him, but only he knew that he
meant it more in the physical sense than the spiritual.

Every hair on Joxer's body was standing at attention, as if
Ares' touch had made him something more. Something weak and
mindless that yearned for his God. Some sacrifice of sanity. A
worship.

Ares cut off his thoughts viciously with his lips, claiming
Joxer's again and pulling another moan from him. Joxer's fingers
tangled now in the grass, and his tongue tangled with Ares'.

This couldn't be happening, not eleven years after the fact. Not
eleven years after he'd sweat and bled his faith and devotion
out for Ares to taste. Eleven years was like a vast chasm of
hopelessness that stretched between them, and if Ares' kiss was
to be believed then that eleven years had been for nothing and
they could have been this fusion of sacrifice and God for...
/eleven years/.

Ares groaned into his mouth and pulled reluctantly back.

Joxer had too many questions. "I can't answer them. Not now,
maybe not ever, but I need you to forget them for a little
while. I don't have enough /time./"

But Joxer couldn't shut his mind off, or stop himself from
asking all the questions that he shouldn't. He didn't want to
push, because the moment was delicate and if he pushed Ares
might leave. Leave him. Leave him here to drown without any
faith at all. So Joxer didn't want to push, but his questions
wouldn't stop coming. Buffeting against the edges of his mind so
loudly that Ares couldn't help but hear them. Joxer could barely
stop them from tumbling out his lips into the air between them
and breaking everything.

"I'm... sorry."

Ares sighed and then smiled, shaking his head. "No, I'm sorry.
You have no idea. I... can't tell you what you need to hear, and
I can't even take the time to make you understand that..." Ares
trailed off and then his eyes slid closed and his head dropped
into the curve of Joxer's neck.

"I don't understand," Joxer whispered to Ares. Quiet because if
he was any louder then whatever they were hiding from would come
and put a stop to all of it.

Ares dropped a kiss where his lips were pressed against the beat
of Joxer's pulse. "Let's forget we know how to talk for a while,
okay?"

Joxer nodded and turned his head slightly to kiss Ares' exposed
temple, breathing shakily out.

Ares lifted his face and kissed Joxer again, open mouthed and
slick, swallowing a moan that wasn't a word. Joxer's fingers
scrabbled in the grass again, and he shifted as if to move
closer to Ares, and they slid towards the water another inch
with the force of it. Joxer's strength had returned when they'd
put away the words, and he was using it now to get as close to
his God as he possibly could.

Ares had been away and not touching him for /eleven years/.

The thought had Joxer pushing even further into Ares' embrace,
pushing Ares back onto his ass in the shallow water. Because he
had to make up for all eleven years, every wasted second of
them, and he didn't know if he had enough time to do it. So he
wanted to do it fast.

Ares groaned when Joxer's fingers began to explore him. Before,
the first and last time they'd been together, Ares had been the
one to do all the touching. Joxer wasn't sure if this was going
to last, or even if it was real, but he knew that if he could
just collect the feel of Ares' skin and tie up the memories of
/now/ like presents just waiting to be unwrapped, he might not
begin to forget the heat again.

Where Ares' fingers were huge and calloused in all the perfectly
right places from dozens of battles over the years, Joxer's were
softer. His nails were bitten and sharp in places, and they
scratched at Ares' skin with every pass. It made him twitch and
jerk and grab at Joxer's hip in a vain attempt to regain the
moment.

Joxer didn't fight him when Ares' toppled them sideways and
half-into the water, he only latched onto Ares tighter and
grasped at Ares' erection. His fingers wrapped around Ares'
length and Ares swore and thrust against him.

"Wanna touch you," Joxer whispered.

"No talking," Ares responded, but thrust into his fingers again.

Ares' own fingers reached down to hold Joxer and they both
groaned and brushed against each other. The water seeped around
them, and with every move they made towards or away from each
other it followed them.

Ares quickly became frustrated with their lack of connection and
grasped Joxer's wrists, pushing them into the muddy water and
holding Joxer down. Joxer whimpered until Ares pressed their
bodies together, head to foot. "/Yes./"

Ares grunted in agreement, and didn't call him out for talking.

The War God rolled them onto Joxer's back and shoved them deeper
into the water with his thrusts. The river lapped gently against
Joxer's chest with every movement they made, and eased the slide
of their bodies against each other. It may have made it too
easy, because there wasn't enough friction, wasn't enough Ares.
There just wasn't enough, and Joxer whimpered and fought to get
his hands loose from Ares' grip.

"Wanna /touch/ you."

Ares growled, and then leaned down and bit lightly into the
uninjured side of Joxer's neck. Licked at the bite. "Talk again
and I'll bite you harder."

"Let go of my /hands/ so I can touch you!"

Ares bit him again, harder, and Joxer jerked against him
deliciously. Ares let go of his hands, and Joxer gripped at his
God's waist; shoved them more satisfyingly together. "Please,
yes. Anything you want."

Ares licked at the wound, not healing it, and thrilled inwardly
at the sound of Joxer's begging; "I want you to stop. Talking."

"Okay--oh!"

Ares had moved his hand from where it had rested at the small of
Joxer's back, letting his fingers dip promisingly into the swell
of Joxer's ass. Pressed them deeper. Teased the place that no
one ever touched but Ares, not even Joxer. Guaranteed to shut
Joxer up.

"Oh..."

Or at least stop him from talking, which was the point and
rapidly becoming the old point. The new point was even better
than the old point, because it involved sound still; just no
words. It involved sound, and more touching, and it involved
Ares digging his fingers just a little more deeply, opening
Joxer up.

Watching Joxer for eleven years had brought him here, to this
moment where he could touch Joxer again for a little while.

The water spilled around Ares' fingers, tickling at Joxer
wickedly and causing him to jerk against Ares' hand. Slipping
Ares' fingers in more deeply. Making Joxer groan and--

"Oh, Ares!"

--talk again, apparently. Ares pressed in unntil his knuckles met
soft flesh and the pads of his fingers searched inner silk until
they found--

"Ah! There! Touching me again... don't go away..."

Ares wasn't going /anywhere/. At least not right this moment,
and /never/ very far though Joxer didn't know it.

"Not going... just going to--" Ares grunted into Joxer's neck
when Joxer twisted back onto his hand and dug his own fingers
into Ares' arms.

"No! Oh," Joxer saw flashes of Godlight as Ares' fingers played
games with his sanity. "Yes."

"Going to get inside you."

"Oh, yes please..."

The 'yes'es were getting to Ares, making him lose his control
and thrust dizzily against Joxer when he meant to stay still and
torture his mortal slowly. So Ares kissed Joxer, deeply and with
just a tinge of blood on his tongue, in the vain hope that the
'yes'es would remain unsaid but still deeply felt.

Joxer moaned into Ares' mouth and then panted and breathed in
Ares' air.

Finally, Ares couldn't stand the separation any longer and he
wedged his leg in between Joxer's thighs to push them apart.
Joxer tilted his head to force their mouths more firmly together
and slide their tongues together.

Joxer tasted like everything Ares had never wanted and been
given anyway. Joxer tasted like the reason Ares was real.

Ares' fingers left Joxer, and Joxer had only a moment to feel
woefully cheated before his head wrenched back and his lips tore
from Ares' and he was shouting in pain.

And then moaning as all the pain went away and there was only
Ares, deep inside him again where he /belonged/.

"Sorry," Ares mumbled into his neck, tongue worrying at his bite
mark, "I forgot. It's been so long. Are you alright?"

"/Yes./" Joxer was more than alright, thanks to Ares' godhood.
He was dizzy and full and on the edge of tears. There was a
sucking sound as Ares drew back, and they stared at each other
in consternation at the out-of-placeness of that sound. The
water was hugging them tightly, touching more of them than they
were touching each other, and Ares was momentarily jealous of
it. Jealous of the way it molded over Joxer and left it's damp
trace on every inch. Jealous of the way it got inside of Joxer.

Ares growled and slammed into Joxer, who's head rolled back
again just as it was raising to try and capture Ares' mouth
again. Joxer choked and panted, and his fingers scrambled
loosely in the river bed before pulling wetly out of the river
and sliding over Ares' back. Down it. Gripping with all the
strength he could muster in a silent prayer to get Ares moving
again.

Ares laughed and shoved into him again, and began a hard, taking
rhythm.

The water lapped against them still, with every movement they
made against each other. Ares' hands trailed up Joxer's body,
and his right thumb brushed against Joxer's left nipple on it's
way up. Joxer twitched and groaned and his legs lifted and
wrapped around Ares' waist. Changing their angle. Changing
/everything/.

Ares scrubbed his thumb against it more firmly and, within
moments, had Joxer babbling.

"Lord, please, /please/, anything. Yes, so much... Ares!
Touching me... hit my head on the way down... dreaming... so
/good./"

Ares swallowed his words and Joxer's breath, thumb still
scratching at Joxer's nipple. Joxer tightened his legs and
humped back against him, and they bit at each other's mouths.
Ares' left hand found it's way into Joxer's hair and cupped at
the mortal's face. His thumb scratched and brushed against the
soft skin of Joxer's cheek in the same motion as his other
scratched against Joxer's nipple.

Joxer moaned, and it tasted like a whole new moment, and Ares
pushed more strongly into him.

Joxer jerked against him, and groaned into his mouth, and came.

His muscles squeezed Ares tightly, and Ares bit down on Joxer's
lip in a tight growl, and tasted blood as he spent himself
inside his mortal.

Joxer groaned, and his legs dropped from Ares' hips. For a
moment, he caught his breath before his head jerked up and he
stared into Ares' softened gaze. "Don't go."

Ares kissed him, and Joxer winced as his lip was pressed against
his teeth and he could taste his own blood.

"Never," Ares promised.

"Good, because I still have questions."

Ares kissed his again, and Joxer's lip tingled as it was healed.
"Remember, Joxer. I'll never go away."

And then there was a flash of Godlight, an emptiness inside of
Joxer, and a moment of lightness before the water rushed over
him where Ares had been flattening it out.

- - -

Ares sat naked in the water long after Joxer had pulled himself
from the bank and back into his armor. He watched as Joxer's
fingers slid numbly over the edge of the beaten metal. He
watched Joxer stare off into space, fingers drifting up to his
neck to dance over the bite marks Ares had left for this exact
reason. To remind Joxer, for as long as the bites lasted, that
it had been real. He watched as Joxer shut a little piece of
himself down and straightened his shoulders before heading past
Ares' altar and back into the forest.

Fin