Fic: Fools Fall In Love 1/3 (Xena, Ares/Joxer, NC17)
Title: Fools Fall In Love
Fandom: Xena
Pairing: Ares/Joxer
Rating: NC17
Summary: Part of the Stupid Cupid universe. How Ares and Joxer met and fell in love.
“Son, I know this is still hard for you.” Ares let out a frustrated sigh and ran one hand through thick, dark hair. He frowned idly as he realized how long it was getting, wondering whether he’d crossed the line yet between cultivating a look and just looking unkempt. “Your mom and I can’t live together. We tried and it just didn’t work.”
“I know that, Dad,” Cupid said, rolling his eyes with the dramatic impact that only a fourteen-year-old could manage. His son was the only person in the free world that had ever been able to make him feel clueless, and he just hoped Cupid would grow out of his ‘I’m a teenager and I know more than you’ phase soon. “I know why you broke up in the first place, I’m not dumb.”
Ares resisted the urge to say something churlish about the way Cupid was acting, remembering just in time exactly how far that would get him with his son. It wasn’t going to do either of them any good for him to pick a fight, especially not while they were sitting in a crowded deli. He was starting to regret taking Cupid to a neighborhood place where everyone knew him instead of going into Manhattan where it wouldn’t matter as much if Cupid decided to have a tantrum and embarrass them both.
“No, you’re not dumb, Cupid. Frankly your intelligence frightens me sometimes. But I don’t really see what this has to do with…”
Another roll of the eyes and a drawn-out sigh let Ares know he’d said exactly the wrong thing. “That’s because you’re not listening,” Cupid said a little more loudly than he needed to. “You never listen to me.”
Ares bit back his initial reaction, which would have lost him a few points with his son and possibly made someone in the deli dig out their cell phone for a quick call to the cops. Or Social Services. The urge to shake the annoying teen angst out of Cupid got a little stronger every time he visited, and even though Ares couldn’t put his finger on exactly when his son had started to change he wished he’d hurry up and grow out of it. “I’m listening now,” he finally hissed through gritted teeth.
“Forget it.”
This time Ares did roll his eyes, but it didn’t matter because Cupid wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was slumped on the other side of the booth, arms crossed dramatically over his chest and his bottom lip puffed out in a pout that only his mother could love. In fact when he did that he looked remarkably like Dite, and Ares had to close his eyes for a long moment before he tried again. “Son, let’s not do this, okay? You’re going back to Neptune this afternoon, can we just enjoy the last few hours of your visit?”
“You don’t understand anything,” Cupid snarled without looking over at Ares. It was obvious from the way his voice wavered that he was trying not to cry, and suddenly Ares felt like the worst father ever. The whole weekend had been a series of little fits on Cupid’s part, though, and no matter how hard he tried Ares hadn’t been able to get out of him what was bothering him. “I don’t even know why I wanted to live with you. You’re just as bad as Mom.”
Shock flooded Ares’ senses, making him blink at the miserable mass of blond hair and golden skin slumping even further in the booth. His heart soared at the idea that Cupid wanted to move in with him, but the feeling turned quickly to guilt. There was no way Cupid could come live with him in the city, they’d decided all this when Dite kicked him out and filed for divorce. He couldn’t watch Cupid every minute and the trouble he could get into in the city made even Ares shudder. Still, at least he was finally getting a small clue as to what had been bothering his son so much lately. If he wasn’t getting along with his mother it was natural that he’d want to move in with Ares, at least until he decided that compared to his dad Dite hadn’t been nearly so bad.
“Cupid…do you know how much I love hearing that you want to come stay with me? But you know why it can’t happen. Your mom would miss you so much, and then there’s school…”
“I hate school,” Cupid snapped, casting a furtive glare at Ares before he went back to his staring contest with the floor. “The other kids are all losers and all they do is make fun of me because…”
Cupid trailed off, guilt replacing his dark scowl just long enough for Ares to understand what he wasn’t saying. His heart dropped into his stomach and he blinked against a sudden stinging at the corners of his eyes. He’d known this was coming, in fact he was surprised it had taken two years for Cupid to start resenting what his father had done to his life. No amount of telling himself to expect it could have prepared him for the reality that he was the source of his son’s misery, though.
“I’m sorry, Cupid. I wish I could do something to change this, to make it easier for you. You shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes.”
“It’s not that.” Cupid’s voice was so soft that Ares could barely make out his words, and he wasn’t sure if there was something else on his son’s mind or if he was just feeling guilty for making Ares feel responsible for his problems.
“Then what is it, son?”
Cupid looked up at him then, his expression so open and raw that Ares stopped breathing for a second. Then Cupid frowned down at the table and it was gone again, and Ares was left wondering if he’d just imagined it. “Nothing. Can we just go?”
Ares swallowed a sigh and nodded, standing up and following Cupid through the crowd toward the front of the deli. He knew he should have said no, that they needed to talk about this. He should have pressed Cupid to tell him the truth until he finally annoyed it out of him, but there were only a few hours left of his visit and Ares didn’t really want to spend it arguing. Besides, they had the whole train ride back to New Jersey for Cupid to brood and ignore him, and if Ares really pushed it the trip back would be even more unpleasant than usual.
They stopped by Ares’ loft long enough to pick up Cupid’s things, Ares’ mind racing as he tried to think of anything to say to at least ease the tension between them a little. The longer the silence stretched out between them the harder it was to come up with a way to break it that didn’t seem stupid, though, so by the time they boarded the train at Penn Station he’d given up. Cupid spent almost the entire train ride back to Jersey staring out the window, giving one-word answers to all Ares’ questions about school and his friends. By the time they got to Dite’s house Ares was actually looking forward to seeing his ex-wife, just to hear the sound of another voice.
When they reached the house Cupid went right inside and headed straight for his room, grunting something that might have been ‘goodbye’ in Ares’ direction before he disappeared up the stairs. Ares waited until he heard the door slam behind his son before he let out a frustrated sigh and handed Cupid’s bag to Dite.
“Is he on drugs or something?” The strange thing was that part of him was actually hoping she’d say yes, at least that would explain Cupid’s sudden personality change.
“He’s a teenager, Ares,” Dite snapped, but her expression softened a little when she took in her ex-husband’s haggard expression. “School’s been hard for him lately, he’s outgrowing his friends and spending more time alone. You’re not around all the time so the changes seem bigger to you. He’s been like this for awhile. It’s normal for teenagers to go through these kinds of growing pains.”
Ares resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his ex-wife’s psychoanalysis of their son. She’d been a marriage and family therapist for so long that it necessarily carried over to her own family, but that didn’t help Ares resent any less her calm approach to the Cupid-shaped demon that had replaced their son. “Maybe he could come into the city more often, get his mind off things at school. I could take him again next weekend.”
Dite frowned and Ares braced himself for what was coming. Part of him thought he deserved it after what he’d done to her, but it got a little harder to listen to her put him down every time he asked for more time with his son. He knew he wasn’t that far from snapping and blowing up at her, and he didn’t want to do that when Cupid was in the house. He didn’t really want to do it at all, but they’d known each other for so long that she knew exactly which buttons to push.
“I don’t want him around your men,” she said, her dainty nose wrinkling on the last word. “It’s not good for him to see that.”
“We’ve been over this enough, Dite,” Ares said, carefully lowering his voice so Cupid wouldn’t hear them. “My life is my business. You know me better than to think I’d put our son in a situation that would endanger him.”
“It’s confusing for him,” she said, talking over him as though he hadn’t even said anything. “Seeing you with a different man every time he comes into the city - I don’t want him getting the impression that that’s a healthy way to live.”
He gritted his teeth and let the comment slide, knowing he wouldn’t be able to back down from an argument after the weekend he’d had. She knew him well enough to know he kept his love life separate from the time he spent with his son, so he could only assume her lectures about his lifestyle were her way of getting back at him for turning out to be a different man than the one she’d thought she married. If he could take it all back he would have…all but Cupid. He wouldn’t trade their son for anything; all the years of trying to deny who he was and the two years of misery since their divorce were worth it as long as Cupid was in their lives.
“No men, I know the ground rules. I can pick him up on Friday after school.”
“This weekend isn’t good,” Dite said, although she looked just regretful enough for Ares to wonder if she was being sincere. “He’s got a track meet on Saturday, he'd miss most of the weekend and be exhausted on Monday. I’ll talk to him about the weekend after next and have him call you, okay?”
Ares nodded, biting his lip to keep his disappointment from showing. “Sure, Dite. Thanks.”
He let himself out of the house he’d lived in for the first twelve years of Cupid’s life, glancing back over his shoulder once on his way to the bus stop. Even after two years it still felt strange to leave and go back to the loft in the city, and somehow his place always seemed a little more lonely after a weekend with Cupid. Even brooding, sullen Cupid added a little life to the place he called home now, so no matter how angst-ridden and miserable Cupid was Ares wanted him around. His son had a whole life in New Jersey that didn’t include Ares anymore, though, and it had been that way long enough that Ares should be used to it by now.
How was he supposed to get used to being nothing more than to a visitor in his own son’s life? Ever since the divorce Cupid was the only thing he really had to hold onto, and even though he knew he couldn’t build a new life around his son it was hard to adjust to the situation. Two years - it had been two long years and Ares was still living in a barely furnished loft above his karate studio, almost as though he was just waiting for the nightmare to end so he could go back to the life he’d had before.
It wasn’t so much that he wanted what he’d had; he’d proven that by his inability to be the kind of husband Dite needed. He missed having a family to go home to, though, someone to sit across the table from him and bore him with the mundane details about their day. He missed knowing what was going on in his son’s life from day to day, watching the changes as he grew up and dealt with hormones and girls and his friends at school. It hadn’t been so bad, being married to a woman he could never really feel passion for. He loved her, and he’d always thought that would be enough. They’d known each other practically their whole lives, they’d been high school sweethearts and she knew him better than anyone.
Only she didn’t know what was evidently the most important detail about him, the defining characteristic of his life. That day she walked in at exactly the wrong moment had turned all their lives on end, and since then he’d been defined by his sexuality and nothing else about him mattered. No one cared that he was a good father, that he provided for his family and that he was home every night. No one cared that he was a successful business owner in a time when most small businesses were barely keeping afloat. No one cared about anything except the scandal surrounding the fact that he was gay, and he’d finally been forced out of the closet.
Coming out and moving to the city was supposed to make him happier, that was what Dite said after she calmed down enough to actually look at him without bursting into angry tears and a fresh round of accusations. She’d told him in a frighteningly calm voice that the best thing he could do for himself was move into the studio apartment above the dojo and figure out who he was and what he wanted. He was free; free to date who he wanted without having to sneak around, free to finally hold his head up and step out from under the shadow of the dark secret that had ruled his life for so long.
That wasn’t the way it felt, though. Sure, he could bring anybody he wanted home now, but waking up next to some naked stranger didn’t make him feel any more fulfilled than when he’d gotten up and gotten dressed to catch the train back to New Jersey in time for dinner. Picking up men wasn’t any easier or more difficult than it was before Dite threw him out, and it wasn’t like he was looking to fall in love. He’d been down that road once, and he’d proven in the most dramatic way possible that he wasn’t capable of holding together a relationship. He loved Dite and he loved his son, but he was barely in their lives anymore. So there was no point in looking for something that didn’t exist. He just had to find a way to come to terms with his life now, to accept that this was the way it was going to be and make it be enough.
~
Ares stepped out of the taxi and hoisted his bag a little further onto his shoulder, taking a deep breath of early autumn air before he climbed the front steps leading into Mount Saint Michael Academy. He could teach basic karate in his sleep, but being around a couple hundred high school boys was just going to remind him of the problems he was having with Cupid. It had been over a week since his son’s last visit, and Cupid was still barely speaking to him. Ares had no idea what to do about it, but he knew if he didn’t stop thinking about it long enough to get through the demonstration he was going to embarrass himself.
He stopped just inside the front door, letting his eyes adjust to the soft light before he looked around for the office. Finally he located a sign for the office and walked toward it, taking in the wood-paneled walls and the almost palpable silence of the school. The times he’d been to Cupid’s school to pick up his son had always been a frenzied rush of noise and the scent of industrial cleaning products, but Mount Saint Michael was so quiet that Ares felt like he was walking through a church rather than a high school.
The office proved brighter than the hallway, but it had the same aura of quiet and Ares was starting to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. How was he supposed to teach a bunch of teenagers the basics of street fighting without making any noise? As soon as the thought formed a door slammed behind him and he turned around a little too quickly, nearly knocking over a slim, dark-haired man. “Sorry,” Ares mumbled, dropping his bag automatically as he reached out to catch the other man before he hit the floor.
“My fault,” the man said, grinning cheerfully as Ares let go of him and took a step backwards. “It gets like a morgue in here during class, I forget how much noise the sound of a door slamming can make. You must be new.”
“Ares Kouros,” Ares answered, grasping the hand the other man held out and giving it a firm shake. “I’m supposed to be teaching karate but I’m not really sure where I’m supposed to be.”
“Joxer Parrish,” Joxer said, his smile brightening a little as he let go of Ares’ hand. “I’m afraid I’m not much help to you, I teach music. The secretary’s in the teachers’ lounge right now, I can take you to her if you like.”
Ares smiled his thanks and leaned down to pick up his bag again before he followed Joxer out of the office. He tried not to let his gaze stray below the slim shoulders in front of him, forcing himself to focus on the class he was there to teach and not Joxer. He wasn’t even really Ares’ type, but there was something about his smile that made Ares want to know more about him. Which meant he really was losing it, because the last thing Ares looked for in a potential sex partner was information about his life. Sometimes he didn’t even bother with introductions before he made a decision about whether or not to sleep with somebody. In his experience too much conversation could kill the potential of a relationship faster than anything else.
Not that any of his brief involvements could really be classified as ‘relationships’. Picking up some guy in a bar and spending a weekend messing up the sheets was really nothing more than an extended one night stand, and the few recurring sex partners he had could hardly be called boyfriends. They weren’t even friends, really, they were just guys that floated in and out of Ares’ life occasionally. The ones that knew better than to try to bond over their personal lives were the ones that lasted the longest, but Ares didn’t feel any particular affection for any of them.
He didn’t realize how far he’d let his mind wander until he felt a hand gently shaking his arm, and he started and looked down to find Joxer frowning thoughtfully at him. “Are you alright?”
“Sorry,” Ares said, his face flushing as he realized they were standing in front of a door marked ‘Teachers’ Lounge’. “I…I’m fine, just a little distracted.”
Joxer smiled and Ares did his best to ignore the way his stomach flipped. He had no idea what that meant, so he decided it was just nerves because of the setting and the fact that he was starting a new class outside of the dojo. He was used to teaching his classes at the karate studio, and going out to a school to conduct even a beginning class was a new experience for him. He could handle it, it was just the newness of the experience throwing him off.
“This place has that affect on everybody at first,” Joxer said, leaning forward a little and dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The nuns have a thing for quiet. You get used to it.”
Ares nodded, not trusting his voice to answer. Joxer was leaning into his personal space, and even though he knew it didn’t mean anything he couldn’t help reacting to it. There was just something about those big brown eyes and the almost childlike smile that set Ares at ease and made him a bundle of nerves all at once. It was a strange sensation, and one he wasn’t entirely sure he liked. He cleared his throat and followed Joxer into the teachers’ lounge, stopping just inside to door as the smaller man waved a grandmotherly woman over.
“Sorry to interrupt your break, Sarah. This is Ares…I’m sorry, what did you say your last name was?”
“Kouros,” Ares supplied, taking an involuntary step backwards when Joxer’s gaze landed on him.
“The karate instructor. Can you point him in the right direction? I’ve got to get back to my classroom before lunch ends and the freshmen descend.”
“Mr. Kouros, I’m so sorry,” Sarah said, dismissing Joxer with a wave of her plump hand. “I completely forgot…it’s been such a day around here, we had a fire alarm and then a flood in the third floor bathroom. I swear, they should have leashes, every last one of them. Lord knows what they’ll come up with before the end of the day.”
As she spoke she took his arm and dragged him back out into the hallway and down the hall. He glanced over his shoulder to find Joxer watching them walk away, an amused grin lighting up the smaller man’s features as he watched the school secretary overpower a man twice her size. Joxer waved and then turned in the opposite direction, and Ares was surprised to find himself regretting the fact that he hadn’t had a chance to say thank you.
He shook it off in time to let the secretary lead him what he assumed was the gym, although it looked more like an Olympic arena than a high school gymnasium. Ares resisted the urge to whistle at the sheer grandeur of the room, stopping inside the door as Sarah waved over a middle-aged man wearing sweatpants and a Mount Saint Michael tee shirt. “Mr. Kouros, this is Coach Robinson. Coach, Mr. Kouros is here to teach the karate course.”
Once the introductions were done and Sarah disappeared again in a rush of energy Ares turned his attention to the coach, forcing himself to focus on the short tour of the facilities and the run-down of the equipment they’d made available for his class. By the time his students began to arrive he’d managed to push any stray thoughts of Joxer almost completely out of his mind, but he couldn’t quite shake the lingering image of that smile, or the butterflies that insisted on rustling in his stomach every time he found himself picturing it.
~
The water was as hot as he could get it, but even after 20 minutes of letting the shower practically scald his skin raw Ares still felt dirty. He couldn’t shake it, he didn’t understand why but no amount of scrubbing was making him feel clean. Finally he gave up and turned off the shower, stepping out of the stall and wrapping a towel around his waist before he wiped away the steam fogging up the mirror.
As soon as he looked at his reflection he regretted it, but he forced himself to look anyway. He looked tired, years older than he was, his eyes sunken and his long hair dotted with the first signs of gray. He was too old to find himself waking up in a strange apartment next to some guy he didn’t recognize, not remembering whether or not he’d used a condom and not even knowing the color of the stranger’s eyes. He was tired of stumbling out of an unfamiliar apartment building and having to figure out where exactly in the city he’d ended up. The hangover he inevitably woke up with wasn’t even the worst of it, because he knew he deserved the dull ache behind his eyes and the churning feeling in his stomach.
He couldn’t even remember what depressing thoughts he’d been trying to drown the night before, and he barely remembered the guy he’d gone home with sitting down next to him at the bar. He knew if he hadn’t been so drunk he still would have gone home with the guy, but at least he would have remembered to be safe and responsible about it. There was no excuse for taking risks like that, and he knew what Dite would say if she could see him now. He knew she was right, too; she had a right to be horrified with the way he was living, and to want to protect Cupid from it as much as possible.
But that was what had driven him to that bar in the first place, wasn’t it? His conversation with Cupid the night before came rushing back and he turned away from the mirror, unwilling to look at the misery etched in his own features. His own son, the one person that mattered in his life - maybe the one person that gave a damn what happened to him - didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to talk to him or have anything to do with him. Ares knew Cupid had had a bad couple of weeks, but he hadn’t expected Cupid to be so angry. And at him, as though he’d even been around to cause any of Cupid’s misery.
That was the whole problem, though, because Ares wasn’t there. He wasn’t there for the painful day-to-day disappointments that plagued every teenager’s life, he wasn’t there for Cupid to ask embarrassing, stammered questions about girls that would leave them both red-faced and uncomfortable. He wasn’t there when Cupid had a bad day at school, or even just to pat his son on the back when he came home with an A on one of his papers.
So he couldn’t really blame Cupid for not wanting to have anything to do with him, could he? It wasn’t really anybody’s fault, but Cupid needed someone to blame and Ares was the most obvious choice. Even Dite had been sympathetic when she took the phone from Cupid and told Ares that she’d try to talk to him, but he knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Cupid wasn’t going to come around until he was ready, and all Ares could do was wait him out and hope that when his son finally figured things out that he’d still want Ares in his life.
To make matters worse, he had karate class at Mount Saint Michael that afternoon, and he knew he wasn’t going to shake his hangover-induced headache in time to face a roomful of energetic teenage boys. He managed to suffer through his morning classes with as little discomfort as possible, but those were his advanced students and they all understood the value of quiet reflection. So if Ares was a little quieter than usual that day most of them followed his lead. A gym full of teenagers was a different story, though, and by the time he got to the academy he was regretting his decision to take the job in the first place.
He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders before he walked into the building, telling himself it wouldn’t be that bad. He could handle an hour of thirty boys with energy to burn, he’d just put them to work reviewing what they’d learned in the first few classes. A small sigh escaped his lips as he turned the corner that would lead him to the gym and ran smack into someone coming from the other direction.
“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” an amused voice said, and Ares caught his balance and looked down to find Joxer smiling at him. His stomach did a little flip that didn’t help his hangover at all, and he just barely managed to stifle a groan.
“Sorry, guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“No problem, I’m tougher than I look,” Joxer answered, but his smile faded as he took a step closer and squinted at Ares. “Are you okay? You look a little green around the gills.”
Ares smiled, instantly regretting it when fresh pain shot through his temples. “I’m okay. Just a little headache. Look, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to run you down like that.”
“It’s no big deal, Ares.”
The sound of his name took Ares by surprise, and he found himself wondering if it meant anything that Joxer had remembered it. He’d remembered Joxer’s name, but he couldn’t assume that Joxer had remembered his for the same reason. It was possible he was just a really nice guy. A really nice straight guy. Or maybe he just had a good memory. The bell rang and Ares closed his mouth, realizing for the first time that he’d been standing there with his jaw hanging open.
“Guess we’ve both got a class to get to,” Joxer said, his smile returning as the hall started to fill with students. “See you around, Ares.”
“Yeah, see you,” Ares called after him. When he realized he was still standing there watching Joxer walk away he shook his head and forced himself to turn in the direction of the gym, barely noticing the students jostling him as they hurried to their next class.
~
It was harder to forget his second chance meeting with Joxer, and Ares found his mind wandering to that warm smile more than once over the next few days. He still hadn’t made any headway with Cupid and his personal life was as much of a mess as ever, but for some reason thinking about Joxer’s smile calmed him. It was a weird feeling that he couldn’t put a name to no matter how much time he spent thinking about it, and it was starting to freak him out.
It just wasn’t normal to spend half his day thinking about someone he didn’t even know. He’d been to the school six times in the past three weeks, and he’d only seen Joxer twice so far. There was no reason for him to be developing a crush on someone just because he liked the way the guy smiled. Besides, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. Even if Joxer was interested he’d learned a long time ago not to get involved with anyone he worked with, and even if they technically didn’t work together Joxer still worked for the academy. Ares could very easily screw up his new job teaching at the school if he got involved with one of its employees and it ended badly, especially considering the academy was run by the Catholic church.
He was so hard at work trying to convince himself that he wasn’t really interested in Joxer anyway that he didn’t hear the door open, in fact he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone in the dojo until a throat cleared behind him. His evening class didn’t start for over an hour, so he was startled by the sound of another person in the otherwise silence of the karate studio. When he turned to locate the source of the interruption he swallowed hard and did his best to ignore the butterflies making his stomach roll.
”Joxer,” Ares said, wincing at the breathy quality of his voice. He cleared his throat and tried to pull himself together without looking too much like he needed to pull himself together.
“Good memory,” Joxer said, the smile that had been haunting Ares on and off for days lighting up the smaller man’s features. “So this is where you spend your time. It’s…nice.”
Ares smiled at the hesitant quality of Joxer’s voice, but he couldn’t help wondering what on earth the other man was doing in his dojo. “It doesn’t look like much, but I’ve been in this neighborhood for years. I’ve thought about moving but the rent’s good and people around here know me. So is there something I can do for you?” He ignored the heat creeping slowly up his neck and hoped that didn’t sound the way he wished he meant it.
Joxer cleared his throat and looked away, and for a split second Ares wondered if maybe his attraction wasn’t completely one-sided after all. Then Joxer looked up again, his open smile once more firmly in place. “The kids at school can’t say enough good things about you,” he said. “I spend half my time with my seniors trying to get them to stop practicing karate moves on each other.”
“I’m sorry,” Ares said, his eyes wide as he wondered how he was supposed to handle this. It was great that his students were so excited about karate, but he’d never thought about what would happen if their enthusiasm got him in trouble with the other teachers. “I didn’t realize…I can talk to them…”
“I’m not here to complain,” Joxer interrupted. “Trust me, if it wasn’t you they were going on about it would be something else. Music isn’t exactly the most exciting subject for most of them. They think you hung the moon, though.”
Ares snorted at that thought, wondering idly what Cupid would say if he heard the boys at Mount Saint Michael talking about his father like he was some kind of hero.
“Anyway,” Joxer went on, shifting his weight a little nervously as he glanced up at Ares again, “I have a brother that’s really into martial arts, and since you’re right down the road from the school I thought I’d stop by and check it out. If this isn’t a good time…”
“It’s a perfect time,” Ares answered before he could stop himself. He felt his cheeks flush and stopped short of rolling his eyes at himself. “I mean I don’t have class for an hour or so. I can give you a lesson now if you want. Show you some of the basics, and still have time left over to talk you into signing up for a class.”
Joxer’s smile made his eyes sparkle, and suddenly Ares wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea. In fact he had a feeling it was a very, very bad idea, but it wasn’t like he could just take it back now that he’d made the offer. Besides, karate had been his life for years. He could handle one private lesson with someone he was attracted to. It wasn’t as though the attraction was going anywhere, he’d already promised himself he wasn’t going to act on it. He had a feeling even if Joxer was interested that he wasn’t really the casual type, but then again he didn’t really know Joxer well enough to assume anything about him. Which was the best reason of all not to let his emotions run away with him.
“I’m not exactly dressed,” Joxer said, glancing down at his tweed jacket and khaki pants regrettfully.
“No problem, come on back to the locker room. I’m sure I’ve got a gi your size lying around somewhere.” Ares turned toward the locker room purposefully, not bothering to look back to make sure Joxer was following him. Having something to distract him from the other man’s smile was the best thing for him, so he set himself to looking for a gi that would fit Joxer with an enthusiasm that was probably frightening to the casual observer. In fact when he finally located a tunic and pants that looked about Joxer’s size he found the other man eyeing him warily, one eyebrow quirked.
Ares ignored the questions in Joxer’s eyes and handed over the gi without quite meeting the other man’s gaze. “You can change right back there. Just hang your clothes anywhere, no one’s around to bother them. And don’t worry about shoes, bare feet are part of the uniform.”
As soon as he finished speaking he turned and walked out of the locker room, telling himself he was just giving Joxer some privacy while he changed. The fact that he was having a little trouble focusing had nothing to do with it, at least that was what he told himself as he went back to putting away the equipment he’d been working on when Joxer came in. By the time the locker room door opened again Ares had managed to rein in his emotions enough to at least look like he wasn’t losing his mind, and he turned and grinned at the picture Joxer presented.
The gi was a little big, but it would do for the introductory lesson. He’d tied the belt around his waist in a messy, cumbersome knot, and standing there in his bare feet he looked a lot like Cupid did when he was younger and woke up in the middle of the night looking for a glass of water. Ares pushed the memory away and crossed the room, stopping in front of Joxer and reaching automatically for his belt. “There’s a trick to these things,” he said as he untied the knot and pulled Joxer’s tunic closed. He looped one end of the belt through the other with practiced fingers, counting out the steps the way he did for his younger students. When he was finished he gave the ends of the belt a final tug, standing back when he was done to survey his work. “See? Nothing to it.”
“Thanks,” Joxer mumbled, and Ares glanced up for the first time to see a faint blush creeping into the other man’s cheeks. He realized belatedly that grabbing Joxer without warning and fixing his belt for him might not have been the best idea he’d ever had, but he was so used to doing that with the kids in his classes that it hadn’t occurred to him to ask first. He cleared his throat and moved to a safe distance, deciding that ignoring the awkwardness and moving right into the basics was the best course of action.
He moved next to Joxer and began talking about the philosophy of karate as he demonstrated some basics, his mind on auto-pilot as he went through the speech he’d delivered hundreds of times. By the time he stopped for breath he found that he’d managed to relax, and Joxer was actually keeping up with the constant stream of instructions. Every once in awhile Ares reached over to adjust one of his hands or push his hips into the right position, but the awkwardness had melted away as they both focused and he found himself really enjoying the other man’s company.
“The kids were right about you,” Joxer said when they stopped. “You’re a wonderful teacher.”
“Coming from another teacher that means a lot,” Ares said, smiling warmly at the other man. “Thank you.” Joxer grinned back at him and Ares felt something stir in his chest. He ignored the rush of panic that came along with the new feeling and tried to focus on what Joxer was saying.
“Music isn’t as exciting for my students as karate, but every once in awhile I get a kid with a natural talent that’s just begging to be brought out. That’s where the real rewards are, having a hand in shaping a kid with a real talent for music. My nephew, for instance. That poor kid…he’s got a lot working against him, but you should hear him play the piano. I used to give him lessons before I took the job at Mount Saint Michael and left Detroit. That kid could play at Carnegie someday.” Joxer stopped talking abruptly, his cheeks flushing again. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”
Ares couldn’t help smiling; in fact he’d been grinning since Joxer started talking about his nephew. It was obvious from the way he talked about him that they were close, and he could tell Joxer missed the kid. “Not at all,” he said, “you should hear me when I get started on my son. I could talk you into a coma telling you about Cupid.”
“I doubt hearing you talk about your son would be boring,” Joxer answered.
Ares held his gaze for a long moment, but his expression was unreadable. Finally he looked away, reminding himself harshly not to go looking for things that weren’t there. “I’ve got a new beginners’ class starting up next week,” he said, turning toward the front desk to get away from the other man’s steady gaze. “There’s still room, can I put your name down?”
When Joxer didn’t answer he looked up, his breath catching in his throat when he found the other man watching him. He had no idea what it was about the way Joxer looked at him, but he felt almost like the other man could see right into him. When their eyes locked Joxer smiled and took a few steps toward the locker room. “You talked me into it,” he said, his grin turning mischievous. “I should go change so you can have your clothes back.”
“Keep them. You’ll need them,” Ares said.
“Ares, I can’t let you…”
“They’re included in the price of the class.” Ares matched Joxer’s grin with one of his own, finally resigning himself to the fact that he just wasn’t going to be able to breathe on Wednesdays between 7:00 and 8:30 for the next few months.
~
“Cupid, damn it, would you just…”
That was as far as he got before the line went dead. He was getting used to the sound of the phone being slammed in his ear, and that alone was annoying enough. Coupled with the fact that it was his only child constantly hanging up on him made Ares wonder how much more he could take before he snapped. The thing that scared him the most was that every once in awhile, when things were really bad and he and Cupid had an especially bitter argument, he found himself wondering if it would be easier to just stop trying.
Every time the thought crossed his mind he felt sick to his stomach, and he instantly felt like the worst father in the world. He knew he’d never stop trying to help Cupid figure out whatever he was going through, but Cupid wasn’t talking and Ares was starting to get scared. The weirdest part was that Cupid called him more often than Ares called to check up on him, and their conversations still degenerated into a shouting match followed by Cupid hanging up on him. It was obvious his son was trying to reach out, but for the life of him Ares couldn’t get Cupid to tell him why.
He was so distracted on Wednesday night that he couldn’t even enjoy watching Joxer go through the motions of the short form he’d started teaching the class during their first session. During their first class Ares had spent most of his time trying not to notice the graceful way Joxer moved, but it had been a long time since he taught someone that picked up the basics of Kempo so quickly. It was refreshing to have a student that seemed naturally inclined toward the sport, and the fact that it was Joxer made Ares appreciate it just a little more.
Thanks to his problems with Cupid Ares was having trouble focusing on teaching at all, though, so he barely registered Joxer’s presence in the room. He spent most of the class just trying not to wonder what was bothering his son so much that he couldn’t talk about it, a myriad of terrifying possibilities racing through his mind. By the time class ended he’d worked himself into such a panic that he didn’t even notice that Joxer didn’t leave along with the rest of the class.
“Ares.”
Ares looked up from a pile of paperwork he’d been neglecting since Cupid hung up on him, frowning in the direction of the voice. “Joxer. What can I do for you?”
“Actually I was about to ask you that,” Joxer answered. His smile held a hint of nervous energy, and Ares felt his heart skip a beat in spite of his mood. “It’s just that you seemed a little…”
A heavy sigh escaped Ares’ throat as he realized how obvious it must have been to his students that his mind wasn’t on teaching. “It was totally unprofessional, I know,” he said. “I’ll have to make it up to everyone somehow.”
“To tell you the truth I don’t know if anyone else noticed,” Joxer said. “It’s just that I was watching you and…maybe I’m overstepping some kind of bound here, but I’ve been told I’m a good listener. And I know where to get the best cup of coffee in the Bronx.”
Ares stopped in the middle of silently berating himself for letting his personal life affect his teaching, his head snapping up to stare at Joxer. He was almost sure…no, Joxer hadn’t just asked him out. He was just offering to listen, which meant Ares must look every bit as pathetic as he felt. He let out a groan and ran a hand over his face, wondering when his life had gotten so far out of control.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…look, forget I mentioned it, okay?”
He opened his eyes again to find Joxer backing toward the door, his forehead furrowing in confusion for a moment before he realized that he’d managed to screw up something else. “Joxer, wait, I wasn’t…” He took a deep breath when Joxer stopped a few feet away from the door and eyed him warily, almost as though he was expecting Ares to attack him for suggesting they get a cup of coffee. Somehow he managed a weary smile, stifling a relieved sigh as he watched the other man relax. “Actually coffee sounds great.”
“Great,” Joxer echoed, his smile returning as Ares dropped his paperwork back on the counter and reached for his keys. They stepped out into the chilly night air, Joxer tugging his coat a little closer around him as he waited for Ares to lock up.
“There’s a diner just a few blocks from here,” Joxer said when Ares turned back to him. “We can catch a cab if you want, but it’s a nice night for walking.”
“Let’s walk,” Ares answered, taking a deep breath as he fell into step next to the other man. “Early fall and the first snow of winter.”
“Pardon?”
Ares smiled as he remembered something Cupid had said to him when he was ten. “Something my son told me once. Early fall nights like this one and the first snowfall. The only two times when New York really smells clean.”
Joxer laughed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “He’s got a point, I think. It’s definitely different than Michigan. Not that the neighborhood I grew up in was anything to write home about, but it’s a lot different than New York. Did you grow up here?”
“No. Well, almost. I’m from Jersey; Neptune, to be exact. It’s about an hour and a half by train, my son still lives there with his mother. I don’t get to see him nearly as much as I’d like, especially lately.”
Ares glanced over at Joxer, but the other man was still staring at the sidewalk in front of them. “I can only imagine how hard that is. I miss my nephew, but I’m not his father so it’s not the same. I just tried to look out for him after his father was out of the picture.”
“How long have you been in New York?”
“About a year and a half now. I found myself caught up in one of those never-ending relationships that’s not going anywhere, so when I got the offer from the Academy I jumped at it. Probably not the most mature way to get out of a bad situation, but the change was good for me.” Joxer smiled as he stole a glance at Ares. “From what I hear it took my ex a couple weeks to notice I was gone.”
Ares frowned at that, but didn’t press Joxer for details. “My ex was well aware of my departure,” he said, a bitter laugh escaping his throat at the memory. “She made sure most of the neighborhood was aware of it, too.”
“How long were you two together?”
“We were married for thirteen years, but we’ve been together since high school. She went to college for a couple years before we got married, so almost twenty years.” Ares frowned and counted backwards before deciding he was right. “Wow. I never really thought about it in terms of time.”
“Kind of eye-opening when you really stop to look at your life,” Joxer said. Ares glanced sharply to his left, but Joxer didn’t look like he knew any more about Ares’ many failures than Ares had told him. He forced himself to relax as they reached the diner Joxer had mentioned, holding the door and letting the other man brush past him.
They found an empty booth near the back and ordered two cups of coffee, neither of them speaking again until the waitress came back with their order. Joxer watched while Ares poured sugar and cream into his cup until the coffee was a strange tan color, clearing his throat in a failed attempt not to laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone put quite that much sugar in a single cup of coffee before.”
Ares grinned and leaned forward, dropping his voice to a stage whisper. “Now you know one of my dark secrets. I have a terrible sweet tooth.”
“One?” Joxer quirked an eyebrow and lifted his own cup to his lips, taking a sip of black coffee before he set it down again. “You have secrets darker than that?”
“Depends on who you ask. If you asked my ex she’d tell you a different story than how I take my coffee.”
“Does this deep, dark secret of yours have anything to do with why you looked so miserable during class tonight?” Ares felt his face fall, a dark cloud settling over him again as he remembered what had him so distracted earlier. He was amazed to find that he’d forgotten all about his problems with Cupid while he and Joxer were talking, but now it all came back in a dizzying rush. “I’m sorry, Ares, I shouldn’t have…it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s alright,” Ares said, guilt hitting him hard when he looked up to see the stricken expression on Joxer’s face. “Actually that was about my son. He’s fourteen, and he’s going through some major teen angst and taking it out on me. He called a few hours before class and ended up hanging up on me for the third time this week. I guess the fact that I’m not around doesn’t help, and I have a feeling it might have something to do with the reason his mother and I split up.”
As soon as he said it Ares realized that he was skirting dangerous territory. He had no idea what Joxer was looking for from him, if he was just trying to be nice or if the attraction Ares felt really did go both ways. There was no way Joxer was going to just let it go, though, and Ares was either going to have to tell him the truth or make up some excuse and get out of there. The thought of pushing Joxer out of his life left him with a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stand telling the other man he was gay and having Joxer look at him like he’d just announced he had leprosy.
“How long have you two been divorced?”
“Two years,” Ares answered, not bothering to check the sigh that went along with that admission. “I know we did the right thing, even if it is hard for Cupid. But to think of him paying for my mistakes…”
He trailed off and stole another glance at Joxer, but the other man seemed content to wait for Ares to spell it out for him. Ares had come out to people before, but it had always been in a fairly safe setting. This was a person he didn’t really know, someone who worked in the same building where Ares taught a class. Then there was the fact that they had a student-teacher relationship…well, sort of, anyway. He was pretty sure there was nothing ethically wrong with sleeping with someone from his karate class, but that was the least of his worries.
Part Two
Fandom: Xena
Pairing: Ares/Joxer
Rating: NC17
Summary: Part of the Stupid Cupid universe. How Ares and Joxer met and fell in love.
“Son, I know this is still hard for you.” Ares let out a frustrated sigh and ran one hand through thick, dark hair. He frowned idly as he realized how long it was getting, wondering whether he’d crossed the line yet between cultivating a look and just looking unkempt. “Your mom and I can’t live together. We tried and it just didn’t work.”
“I know that, Dad,” Cupid said, rolling his eyes with the dramatic impact that only a fourteen-year-old could manage. His son was the only person in the free world that had ever been able to make him feel clueless, and he just hoped Cupid would grow out of his ‘I’m a teenager and I know more than you’ phase soon. “I know why you broke up in the first place, I’m not dumb.”
Ares resisted the urge to say something churlish about the way Cupid was acting, remembering just in time exactly how far that would get him with his son. It wasn’t going to do either of them any good for him to pick a fight, especially not while they were sitting in a crowded deli. He was starting to regret taking Cupid to a neighborhood place where everyone knew him instead of going into Manhattan where it wouldn’t matter as much if Cupid decided to have a tantrum and embarrass them both.
“No, you’re not dumb, Cupid. Frankly your intelligence frightens me sometimes. But I don’t really see what this has to do with…”
Another roll of the eyes and a drawn-out sigh let Ares know he’d said exactly the wrong thing. “That’s because you’re not listening,” Cupid said a little more loudly than he needed to. “You never listen to me.”
Ares bit back his initial reaction, which would have lost him a few points with his son and possibly made someone in the deli dig out their cell phone for a quick call to the cops. Or Social Services. The urge to shake the annoying teen angst out of Cupid got a little stronger every time he visited, and even though Ares couldn’t put his finger on exactly when his son had started to change he wished he’d hurry up and grow out of it. “I’m listening now,” he finally hissed through gritted teeth.
“Forget it.”
This time Ares did roll his eyes, but it didn’t matter because Cupid wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was slumped on the other side of the booth, arms crossed dramatically over his chest and his bottom lip puffed out in a pout that only his mother could love. In fact when he did that he looked remarkably like Dite, and Ares had to close his eyes for a long moment before he tried again. “Son, let’s not do this, okay? You’re going back to Neptune this afternoon, can we just enjoy the last few hours of your visit?”
“You don’t understand anything,” Cupid snarled without looking over at Ares. It was obvious from the way his voice wavered that he was trying not to cry, and suddenly Ares felt like the worst father ever. The whole weekend had been a series of little fits on Cupid’s part, though, and no matter how hard he tried Ares hadn’t been able to get out of him what was bothering him. “I don’t even know why I wanted to live with you. You’re just as bad as Mom.”
Shock flooded Ares’ senses, making him blink at the miserable mass of blond hair and golden skin slumping even further in the booth. His heart soared at the idea that Cupid wanted to move in with him, but the feeling turned quickly to guilt. There was no way Cupid could come live with him in the city, they’d decided all this when Dite kicked him out and filed for divorce. He couldn’t watch Cupid every minute and the trouble he could get into in the city made even Ares shudder. Still, at least he was finally getting a small clue as to what had been bothering his son so much lately. If he wasn’t getting along with his mother it was natural that he’d want to move in with Ares, at least until he decided that compared to his dad Dite hadn’t been nearly so bad.
“Cupid…do you know how much I love hearing that you want to come stay with me? But you know why it can’t happen. Your mom would miss you so much, and then there’s school…”
“I hate school,” Cupid snapped, casting a furtive glare at Ares before he went back to his staring contest with the floor. “The other kids are all losers and all they do is make fun of me because…”
Cupid trailed off, guilt replacing his dark scowl just long enough for Ares to understand what he wasn’t saying. His heart dropped into his stomach and he blinked against a sudden stinging at the corners of his eyes. He’d known this was coming, in fact he was surprised it had taken two years for Cupid to start resenting what his father had done to his life. No amount of telling himself to expect it could have prepared him for the reality that he was the source of his son’s misery, though.
“I’m sorry, Cupid. I wish I could do something to change this, to make it easier for you. You shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes.”
“It’s not that.” Cupid’s voice was so soft that Ares could barely make out his words, and he wasn’t sure if there was something else on his son’s mind or if he was just feeling guilty for making Ares feel responsible for his problems.
“Then what is it, son?”
Cupid looked up at him then, his expression so open and raw that Ares stopped breathing for a second. Then Cupid frowned down at the table and it was gone again, and Ares was left wondering if he’d just imagined it. “Nothing. Can we just go?”
Ares swallowed a sigh and nodded, standing up and following Cupid through the crowd toward the front of the deli. He knew he should have said no, that they needed to talk about this. He should have pressed Cupid to tell him the truth until he finally annoyed it out of him, but there were only a few hours left of his visit and Ares didn’t really want to spend it arguing. Besides, they had the whole train ride back to New Jersey for Cupid to brood and ignore him, and if Ares really pushed it the trip back would be even more unpleasant than usual.
They stopped by Ares’ loft long enough to pick up Cupid’s things, Ares’ mind racing as he tried to think of anything to say to at least ease the tension between them a little. The longer the silence stretched out between them the harder it was to come up with a way to break it that didn’t seem stupid, though, so by the time they boarded the train at Penn Station he’d given up. Cupid spent almost the entire train ride back to Jersey staring out the window, giving one-word answers to all Ares’ questions about school and his friends. By the time they got to Dite’s house Ares was actually looking forward to seeing his ex-wife, just to hear the sound of another voice.
When they reached the house Cupid went right inside and headed straight for his room, grunting something that might have been ‘goodbye’ in Ares’ direction before he disappeared up the stairs. Ares waited until he heard the door slam behind his son before he let out a frustrated sigh and handed Cupid’s bag to Dite.
“Is he on drugs or something?” The strange thing was that part of him was actually hoping she’d say yes, at least that would explain Cupid’s sudden personality change.
“He’s a teenager, Ares,” Dite snapped, but her expression softened a little when she took in her ex-husband’s haggard expression. “School’s been hard for him lately, he’s outgrowing his friends and spending more time alone. You’re not around all the time so the changes seem bigger to you. He’s been like this for awhile. It’s normal for teenagers to go through these kinds of growing pains.”
Ares resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his ex-wife’s psychoanalysis of their son. She’d been a marriage and family therapist for so long that it necessarily carried over to her own family, but that didn’t help Ares resent any less her calm approach to the Cupid-shaped demon that had replaced their son. “Maybe he could come into the city more often, get his mind off things at school. I could take him again next weekend.”
Dite frowned and Ares braced himself for what was coming. Part of him thought he deserved it after what he’d done to her, but it got a little harder to listen to her put him down every time he asked for more time with his son. He knew he wasn’t that far from snapping and blowing up at her, and he didn’t want to do that when Cupid was in the house. He didn’t really want to do it at all, but they’d known each other for so long that she knew exactly which buttons to push.
“I don’t want him around your men,” she said, her dainty nose wrinkling on the last word. “It’s not good for him to see that.”
“We’ve been over this enough, Dite,” Ares said, carefully lowering his voice so Cupid wouldn’t hear them. “My life is my business. You know me better than to think I’d put our son in a situation that would endanger him.”
“It’s confusing for him,” she said, talking over him as though he hadn’t even said anything. “Seeing you with a different man every time he comes into the city - I don’t want him getting the impression that that’s a healthy way to live.”
He gritted his teeth and let the comment slide, knowing he wouldn’t be able to back down from an argument after the weekend he’d had. She knew him well enough to know he kept his love life separate from the time he spent with his son, so he could only assume her lectures about his lifestyle were her way of getting back at him for turning out to be a different man than the one she’d thought she married. If he could take it all back he would have…all but Cupid. He wouldn’t trade their son for anything; all the years of trying to deny who he was and the two years of misery since their divorce were worth it as long as Cupid was in their lives.
“No men, I know the ground rules. I can pick him up on Friday after school.”
“This weekend isn’t good,” Dite said, although she looked just regretful enough for Ares to wonder if she was being sincere. “He’s got a track meet on Saturday, he'd miss most of the weekend and be exhausted on Monday. I’ll talk to him about the weekend after next and have him call you, okay?”
Ares nodded, biting his lip to keep his disappointment from showing. “Sure, Dite. Thanks.”
He let himself out of the house he’d lived in for the first twelve years of Cupid’s life, glancing back over his shoulder once on his way to the bus stop. Even after two years it still felt strange to leave and go back to the loft in the city, and somehow his place always seemed a little more lonely after a weekend with Cupid. Even brooding, sullen Cupid added a little life to the place he called home now, so no matter how angst-ridden and miserable Cupid was Ares wanted him around. His son had a whole life in New Jersey that didn’t include Ares anymore, though, and it had been that way long enough that Ares should be used to it by now.
How was he supposed to get used to being nothing more than to a visitor in his own son’s life? Ever since the divorce Cupid was the only thing he really had to hold onto, and even though he knew he couldn’t build a new life around his son it was hard to adjust to the situation. Two years - it had been two long years and Ares was still living in a barely furnished loft above his karate studio, almost as though he was just waiting for the nightmare to end so he could go back to the life he’d had before.
It wasn’t so much that he wanted what he’d had; he’d proven that by his inability to be the kind of husband Dite needed. He missed having a family to go home to, though, someone to sit across the table from him and bore him with the mundane details about their day. He missed knowing what was going on in his son’s life from day to day, watching the changes as he grew up and dealt with hormones and girls and his friends at school. It hadn’t been so bad, being married to a woman he could never really feel passion for. He loved her, and he’d always thought that would be enough. They’d known each other practically their whole lives, they’d been high school sweethearts and she knew him better than anyone.
Only she didn’t know what was evidently the most important detail about him, the defining characteristic of his life. That day she walked in at exactly the wrong moment had turned all their lives on end, and since then he’d been defined by his sexuality and nothing else about him mattered. No one cared that he was a good father, that he provided for his family and that he was home every night. No one cared that he was a successful business owner in a time when most small businesses were barely keeping afloat. No one cared about anything except the scandal surrounding the fact that he was gay, and he’d finally been forced out of the closet.
Coming out and moving to the city was supposed to make him happier, that was what Dite said after she calmed down enough to actually look at him without bursting into angry tears and a fresh round of accusations. She’d told him in a frighteningly calm voice that the best thing he could do for himself was move into the studio apartment above the dojo and figure out who he was and what he wanted. He was free; free to date who he wanted without having to sneak around, free to finally hold his head up and step out from under the shadow of the dark secret that had ruled his life for so long.
That wasn’t the way it felt, though. Sure, he could bring anybody he wanted home now, but waking up next to some naked stranger didn’t make him feel any more fulfilled than when he’d gotten up and gotten dressed to catch the train back to New Jersey in time for dinner. Picking up men wasn’t any easier or more difficult than it was before Dite threw him out, and it wasn’t like he was looking to fall in love. He’d been down that road once, and he’d proven in the most dramatic way possible that he wasn’t capable of holding together a relationship. He loved Dite and he loved his son, but he was barely in their lives anymore. So there was no point in looking for something that didn’t exist. He just had to find a way to come to terms with his life now, to accept that this was the way it was going to be and make it be enough.
~
Ares stepped out of the taxi and hoisted his bag a little further onto his shoulder, taking a deep breath of early autumn air before he climbed the front steps leading into Mount Saint Michael Academy. He could teach basic karate in his sleep, but being around a couple hundred high school boys was just going to remind him of the problems he was having with Cupid. It had been over a week since his son’s last visit, and Cupid was still barely speaking to him. Ares had no idea what to do about it, but he knew if he didn’t stop thinking about it long enough to get through the demonstration he was going to embarrass himself.
He stopped just inside the front door, letting his eyes adjust to the soft light before he looked around for the office. Finally he located a sign for the office and walked toward it, taking in the wood-paneled walls and the almost palpable silence of the school. The times he’d been to Cupid’s school to pick up his son had always been a frenzied rush of noise and the scent of industrial cleaning products, but Mount Saint Michael was so quiet that Ares felt like he was walking through a church rather than a high school.
The office proved brighter than the hallway, but it had the same aura of quiet and Ares was starting to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. How was he supposed to teach a bunch of teenagers the basics of street fighting without making any noise? As soon as the thought formed a door slammed behind him and he turned around a little too quickly, nearly knocking over a slim, dark-haired man. “Sorry,” Ares mumbled, dropping his bag automatically as he reached out to catch the other man before he hit the floor.
“My fault,” the man said, grinning cheerfully as Ares let go of him and took a step backwards. “It gets like a morgue in here during class, I forget how much noise the sound of a door slamming can make. You must be new.”
“Ares Kouros,” Ares answered, grasping the hand the other man held out and giving it a firm shake. “I’m supposed to be teaching karate but I’m not really sure where I’m supposed to be.”
“Joxer Parrish,” Joxer said, his smile brightening a little as he let go of Ares’ hand. “I’m afraid I’m not much help to you, I teach music. The secretary’s in the teachers’ lounge right now, I can take you to her if you like.”
Ares smiled his thanks and leaned down to pick up his bag again before he followed Joxer out of the office. He tried not to let his gaze stray below the slim shoulders in front of him, forcing himself to focus on the class he was there to teach and not Joxer. He wasn’t even really Ares’ type, but there was something about his smile that made Ares want to know more about him. Which meant he really was losing it, because the last thing Ares looked for in a potential sex partner was information about his life. Sometimes he didn’t even bother with introductions before he made a decision about whether or not to sleep with somebody. In his experience too much conversation could kill the potential of a relationship faster than anything else.
Not that any of his brief involvements could really be classified as ‘relationships’. Picking up some guy in a bar and spending a weekend messing up the sheets was really nothing more than an extended one night stand, and the few recurring sex partners he had could hardly be called boyfriends. They weren’t even friends, really, they were just guys that floated in and out of Ares’ life occasionally. The ones that knew better than to try to bond over their personal lives were the ones that lasted the longest, but Ares didn’t feel any particular affection for any of them.
He didn’t realize how far he’d let his mind wander until he felt a hand gently shaking his arm, and he started and looked down to find Joxer frowning thoughtfully at him. “Are you alright?”
“Sorry,” Ares said, his face flushing as he realized they were standing in front of a door marked ‘Teachers’ Lounge’. “I…I’m fine, just a little distracted.”
Joxer smiled and Ares did his best to ignore the way his stomach flipped. He had no idea what that meant, so he decided it was just nerves because of the setting and the fact that he was starting a new class outside of the dojo. He was used to teaching his classes at the karate studio, and going out to a school to conduct even a beginning class was a new experience for him. He could handle it, it was just the newness of the experience throwing him off.
“This place has that affect on everybody at first,” Joxer said, leaning forward a little and dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The nuns have a thing for quiet. You get used to it.”
Ares nodded, not trusting his voice to answer. Joxer was leaning into his personal space, and even though he knew it didn’t mean anything he couldn’t help reacting to it. There was just something about those big brown eyes and the almost childlike smile that set Ares at ease and made him a bundle of nerves all at once. It was a strange sensation, and one he wasn’t entirely sure he liked. He cleared his throat and followed Joxer into the teachers’ lounge, stopping just inside to door as the smaller man waved a grandmotherly woman over.
“Sorry to interrupt your break, Sarah. This is Ares…I’m sorry, what did you say your last name was?”
“Kouros,” Ares supplied, taking an involuntary step backwards when Joxer’s gaze landed on him.
“The karate instructor. Can you point him in the right direction? I’ve got to get back to my classroom before lunch ends and the freshmen descend.”
“Mr. Kouros, I’m so sorry,” Sarah said, dismissing Joxer with a wave of her plump hand. “I completely forgot…it’s been such a day around here, we had a fire alarm and then a flood in the third floor bathroom. I swear, they should have leashes, every last one of them. Lord knows what they’ll come up with before the end of the day.”
As she spoke she took his arm and dragged him back out into the hallway and down the hall. He glanced over his shoulder to find Joxer watching them walk away, an amused grin lighting up the smaller man’s features as he watched the school secretary overpower a man twice her size. Joxer waved and then turned in the opposite direction, and Ares was surprised to find himself regretting the fact that he hadn’t had a chance to say thank you.
He shook it off in time to let the secretary lead him what he assumed was the gym, although it looked more like an Olympic arena than a high school gymnasium. Ares resisted the urge to whistle at the sheer grandeur of the room, stopping inside the door as Sarah waved over a middle-aged man wearing sweatpants and a Mount Saint Michael tee shirt. “Mr. Kouros, this is Coach Robinson. Coach, Mr. Kouros is here to teach the karate course.”
Once the introductions were done and Sarah disappeared again in a rush of energy Ares turned his attention to the coach, forcing himself to focus on the short tour of the facilities and the run-down of the equipment they’d made available for his class. By the time his students began to arrive he’d managed to push any stray thoughts of Joxer almost completely out of his mind, but he couldn’t quite shake the lingering image of that smile, or the butterflies that insisted on rustling in his stomach every time he found himself picturing it.
~
The water was as hot as he could get it, but even after 20 minutes of letting the shower practically scald his skin raw Ares still felt dirty. He couldn’t shake it, he didn’t understand why but no amount of scrubbing was making him feel clean. Finally he gave up and turned off the shower, stepping out of the stall and wrapping a towel around his waist before he wiped away the steam fogging up the mirror.
As soon as he looked at his reflection he regretted it, but he forced himself to look anyway. He looked tired, years older than he was, his eyes sunken and his long hair dotted with the first signs of gray. He was too old to find himself waking up in a strange apartment next to some guy he didn’t recognize, not remembering whether or not he’d used a condom and not even knowing the color of the stranger’s eyes. He was tired of stumbling out of an unfamiliar apartment building and having to figure out where exactly in the city he’d ended up. The hangover he inevitably woke up with wasn’t even the worst of it, because he knew he deserved the dull ache behind his eyes and the churning feeling in his stomach.
He couldn’t even remember what depressing thoughts he’d been trying to drown the night before, and he barely remembered the guy he’d gone home with sitting down next to him at the bar. He knew if he hadn’t been so drunk he still would have gone home with the guy, but at least he would have remembered to be safe and responsible about it. There was no excuse for taking risks like that, and he knew what Dite would say if she could see him now. He knew she was right, too; she had a right to be horrified with the way he was living, and to want to protect Cupid from it as much as possible.
But that was what had driven him to that bar in the first place, wasn’t it? His conversation with Cupid the night before came rushing back and he turned away from the mirror, unwilling to look at the misery etched in his own features. His own son, the one person that mattered in his life - maybe the one person that gave a damn what happened to him - didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to talk to him or have anything to do with him. Ares knew Cupid had had a bad couple of weeks, but he hadn’t expected Cupid to be so angry. And at him, as though he’d even been around to cause any of Cupid’s misery.
That was the whole problem, though, because Ares wasn’t there. He wasn’t there for the painful day-to-day disappointments that plagued every teenager’s life, he wasn’t there for Cupid to ask embarrassing, stammered questions about girls that would leave them both red-faced and uncomfortable. He wasn’t there when Cupid had a bad day at school, or even just to pat his son on the back when he came home with an A on one of his papers.
So he couldn’t really blame Cupid for not wanting to have anything to do with him, could he? It wasn’t really anybody’s fault, but Cupid needed someone to blame and Ares was the most obvious choice. Even Dite had been sympathetic when she took the phone from Cupid and told Ares that she’d try to talk to him, but he knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Cupid wasn’t going to come around until he was ready, and all Ares could do was wait him out and hope that when his son finally figured things out that he’d still want Ares in his life.
To make matters worse, he had karate class at Mount Saint Michael that afternoon, and he knew he wasn’t going to shake his hangover-induced headache in time to face a roomful of energetic teenage boys. He managed to suffer through his morning classes with as little discomfort as possible, but those were his advanced students and they all understood the value of quiet reflection. So if Ares was a little quieter than usual that day most of them followed his lead. A gym full of teenagers was a different story, though, and by the time he got to the academy he was regretting his decision to take the job in the first place.
He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders before he walked into the building, telling himself it wouldn’t be that bad. He could handle an hour of thirty boys with energy to burn, he’d just put them to work reviewing what they’d learned in the first few classes. A small sigh escaped his lips as he turned the corner that would lead him to the gym and ran smack into someone coming from the other direction.
“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” an amused voice said, and Ares caught his balance and looked down to find Joxer smiling at him. His stomach did a little flip that didn’t help his hangover at all, and he just barely managed to stifle a groan.
“Sorry, guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“No problem, I’m tougher than I look,” Joxer answered, but his smile faded as he took a step closer and squinted at Ares. “Are you okay? You look a little green around the gills.”
Ares smiled, instantly regretting it when fresh pain shot through his temples. “I’m okay. Just a little headache. Look, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to run you down like that.”
“It’s no big deal, Ares.”
The sound of his name took Ares by surprise, and he found himself wondering if it meant anything that Joxer had remembered it. He’d remembered Joxer’s name, but he couldn’t assume that Joxer had remembered his for the same reason. It was possible he was just a really nice guy. A really nice straight guy. Or maybe he just had a good memory. The bell rang and Ares closed his mouth, realizing for the first time that he’d been standing there with his jaw hanging open.
“Guess we’ve both got a class to get to,” Joxer said, his smile returning as the hall started to fill with students. “See you around, Ares.”
“Yeah, see you,” Ares called after him. When he realized he was still standing there watching Joxer walk away he shook his head and forced himself to turn in the direction of the gym, barely noticing the students jostling him as they hurried to their next class.
~
It was harder to forget his second chance meeting with Joxer, and Ares found his mind wandering to that warm smile more than once over the next few days. He still hadn’t made any headway with Cupid and his personal life was as much of a mess as ever, but for some reason thinking about Joxer’s smile calmed him. It was a weird feeling that he couldn’t put a name to no matter how much time he spent thinking about it, and it was starting to freak him out.
It just wasn’t normal to spend half his day thinking about someone he didn’t even know. He’d been to the school six times in the past three weeks, and he’d only seen Joxer twice so far. There was no reason for him to be developing a crush on someone just because he liked the way the guy smiled. Besides, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. Even if Joxer was interested he’d learned a long time ago not to get involved with anyone he worked with, and even if they technically didn’t work together Joxer still worked for the academy. Ares could very easily screw up his new job teaching at the school if he got involved with one of its employees and it ended badly, especially considering the academy was run by the Catholic church.
He was so hard at work trying to convince himself that he wasn’t really interested in Joxer anyway that he didn’t hear the door open, in fact he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone in the dojo until a throat cleared behind him. His evening class didn’t start for over an hour, so he was startled by the sound of another person in the otherwise silence of the karate studio. When he turned to locate the source of the interruption he swallowed hard and did his best to ignore the butterflies making his stomach roll.
”Joxer,” Ares said, wincing at the breathy quality of his voice. He cleared his throat and tried to pull himself together without looking too much like he needed to pull himself together.
“Good memory,” Joxer said, the smile that had been haunting Ares on and off for days lighting up the smaller man’s features. “So this is where you spend your time. It’s…nice.”
Ares smiled at the hesitant quality of Joxer’s voice, but he couldn’t help wondering what on earth the other man was doing in his dojo. “It doesn’t look like much, but I’ve been in this neighborhood for years. I’ve thought about moving but the rent’s good and people around here know me. So is there something I can do for you?” He ignored the heat creeping slowly up his neck and hoped that didn’t sound the way he wished he meant it.
Joxer cleared his throat and looked away, and for a split second Ares wondered if maybe his attraction wasn’t completely one-sided after all. Then Joxer looked up again, his open smile once more firmly in place. “The kids at school can’t say enough good things about you,” he said. “I spend half my time with my seniors trying to get them to stop practicing karate moves on each other.”
“I’m sorry,” Ares said, his eyes wide as he wondered how he was supposed to handle this. It was great that his students were so excited about karate, but he’d never thought about what would happen if their enthusiasm got him in trouble with the other teachers. “I didn’t realize…I can talk to them…”
“I’m not here to complain,” Joxer interrupted. “Trust me, if it wasn’t you they were going on about it would be something else. Music isn’t exactly the most exciting subject for most of them. They think you hung the moon, though.”
Ares snorted at that thought, wondering idly what Cupid would say if he heard the boys at Mount Saint Michael talking about his father like he was some kind of hero.
“Anyway,” Joxer went on, shifting his weight a little nervously as he glanced up at Ares again, “I have a brother that’s really into martial arts, and since you’re right down the road from the school I thought I’d stop by and check it out. If this isn’t a good time…”
“It’s a perfect time,” Ares answered before he could stop himself. He felt his cheeks flush and stopped short of rolling his eyes at himself. “I mean I don’t have class for an hour or so. I can give you a lesson now if you want. Show you some of the basics, and still have time left over to talk you into signing up for a class.”
Joxer’s smile made his eyes sparkle, and suddenly Ares wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea. In fact he had a feeling it was a very, very bad idea, but it wasn’t like he could just take it back now that he’d made the offer. Besides, karate had been his life for years. He could handle one private lesson with someone he was attracted to. It wasn’t as though the attraction was going anywhere, he’d already promised himself he wasn’t going to act on it. He had a feeling even if Joxer was interested that he wasn’t really the casual type, but then again he didn’t really know Joxer well enough to assume anything about him. Which was the best reason of all not to let his emotions run away with him.
“I’m not exactly dressed,” Joxer said, glancing down at his tweed jacket and khaki pants regrettfully.
“No problem, come on back to the locker room. I’m sure I’ve got a gi your size lying around somewhere.” Ares turned toward the locker room purposefully, not bothering to look back to make sure Joxer was following him. Having something to distract him from the other man’s smile was the best thing for him, so he set himself to looking for a gi that would fit Joxer with an enthusiasm that was probably frightening to the casual observer. In fact when he finally located a tunic and pants that looked about Joxer’s size he found the other man eyeing him warily, one eyebrow quirked.
Ares ignored the questions in Joxer’s eyes and handed over the gi without quite meeting the other man’s gaze. “You can change right back there. Just hang your clothes anywhere, no one’s around to bother them. And don’t worry about shoes, bare feet are part of the uniform.”
As soon as he finished speaking he turned and walked out of the locker room, telling himself he was just giving Joxer some privacy while he changed. The fact that he was having a little trouble focusing had nothing to do with it, at least that was what he told himself as he went back to putting away the equipment he’d been working on when Joxer came in. By the time the locker room door opened again Ares had managed to rein in his emotions enough to at least look like he wasn’t losing his mind, and he turned and grinned at the picture Joxer presented.
The gi was a little big, but it would do for the introductory lesson. He’d tied the belt around his waist in a messy, cumbersome knot, and standing there in his bare feet he looked a lot like Cupid did when he was younger and woke up in the middle of the night looking for a glass of water. Ares pushed the memory away and crossed the room, stopping in front of Joxer and reaching automatically for his belt. “There’s a trick to these things,” he said as he untied the knot and pulled Joxer’s tunic closed. He looped one end of the belt through the other with practiced fingers, counting out the steps the way he did for his younger students. When he was finished he gave the ends of the belt a final tug, standing back when he was done to survey his work. “See? Nothing to it.”
“Thanks,” Joxer mumbled, and Ares glanced up for the first time to see a faint blush creeping into the other man’s cheeks. He realized belatedly that grabbing Joxer without warning and fixing his belt for him might not have been the best idea he’d ever had, but he was so used to doing that with the kids in his classes that it hadn’t occurred to him to ask first. He cleared his throat and moved to a safe distance, deciding that ignoring the awkwardness and moving right into the basics was the best course of action.
He moved next to Joxer and began talking about the philosophy of karate as he demonstrated some basics, his mind on auto-pilot as he went through the speech he’d delivered hundreds of times. By the time he stopped for breath he found that he’d managed to relax, and Joxer was actually keeping up with the constant stream of instructions. Every once in awhile Ares reached over to adjust one of his hands or push his hips into the right position, but the awkwardness had melted away as they both focused and he found himself really enjoying the other man’s company.
“The kids were right about you,” Joxer said when they stopped. “You’re a wonderful teacher.”
“Coming from another teacher that means a lot,” Ares said, smiling warmly at the other man. “Thank you.” Joxer grinned back at him and Ares felt something stir in his chest. He ignored the rush of panic that came along with the new feeling and tried to focus on what Joxer was saying.
“Music isn’t as exciting for my students as karate, but every once in awhile I get a kid with a natural talent that’s just begging to be brought out. That’s where the real rewards are, having a hand in shaping a kid with a real talent for music. My nephew, for instance. That poor kid…he’s got a lot working against him, but you should hear him play the piano. I used to give him lessons before I took the job at Mount Saint Michael and left Detroit. That kid could play at Carnegie someday.” Joxer stopped talking abruptly, his cheeks flushing again. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”
Ares couldn’t help smiling; in fact he’d been grinning since Joxer started talking about his nephew. It was obvious from the way he talked about him that they were close, and he could tell Joxer missed the kid. “Not at all,” he said, “you should hear me when I get started on my son. I could talk you into a coma telling you about Cupid.”
“I doubt hearing you talk about your son would be boring,” Joxer answered.
Ares held his gaze for a long moment, but his expression was unreadable. Finally he looked away, reminding himself harshly not to go looking for things that weren’t there. “I’ve got a new beginners’ class starting up next week,” he said, turning toward the front desk to get away from the other man’s steady gaze. “There’s still room, can I put your name down?”
When Joxer didn’t answer he looked up, his breath catching in his throat when he found the other man watching him. He had no idea what it was about the way Joxer looked at him, but he felt almost like the other man could see right into him. When their eyes locked Joxer smiled and took a few steps toward the locker room. “You talked me into it,” he said, his grin turning mischievous. “I should go change so you can have your clothes back.”
“Keep them. You’ll need them,” Ares said.
“Ares, I can’t let you…”
“They’re included in the price of the class.” Ares matched Joxer’s grin with one of his own, finally resigning himself to the fact that he just wasn’t going to be able to breathe on Wednesdays between 7:00 and 8:30 for the next few months.
~
“Cupid, damn it, would you just…”
That was as far as he got before the line went dead. He was getting used to the sound of the phone being slammed in his ear, and that alone was annoying enough. Coupled with the fact that it was his only child constantly hanging up on him made Ares wonder how much more he could take before he snapped. The thing that scared him the most was that every once in awhile, when things were really bad and he and Cupid had an especially bitter argument, he found himself wondering if it would be easier to just stop trying.
Every time the thought crossed his mind he felt sick to his stomach, and he instantly felt like the worst father in the world. He knew he’d never stop trying to help Cupid figure out whatever he was going through, but Cupid wasn’t talking and Ares was starting to get scared. The weirdest part was that Cupid called him more often than Ares called to check up on him, and their conversations still degenerated into a shouting match followed by Cupid hanging up on him. It was obvious his son was trying to reach out, but for the life of him Ares couldn’t get Cupid to tell him why.
He was so distracted on Wednesday night that he couldn’t even enjoy watching Joxer go through the motions of the short form he’d started teaching the class during their first session. During their first class Ares had spent most of his time trying not to notice the graceful way Joxer moved, but it had been a long time since he taught someone that picked up the basics of Kempo so quickly. It was refreshing to have a student that seemed naturally inclined toward the sport, and the fact that it was Joxer made Ares appreciate it just a little more.
Thanks to his problems with Cupid Ares was having trouble focusing on teaching at all, though, so he barely registered Joxer’s presence in the room. He spent most of the class just trying not to wonder what was bothering his son so much that he couldn’t talk about it, a myriad of terrifying possibilities racing through his mind. By the time class ended he’d worked himself into such a panic that he didn’t even notice that Joxer didn’t leave along with the rest of the class.
“Ares.”
Ares looked up from a pile of paperwork he’d been neglecting since Cupid hung up on him, frowning in the direction of the voice. “Joxer. What can I do for you?”
“Actually I was about to ask you that,” Joxer answered. His smile held a hint of nervous energy, and Ares felt his heart skip a beat in spite of his mood. “It’s just that you seemed a little…”
A heavy sigh escaped Ares’ throat as he realized how obvious it must have been to his students that his mind wasn’t on teaching. “It was totally unprofessional, I know,” he said. “I’ll have to make it up to everyone somehow.”
“To tell you the truth I don’t know if anyone else noticed,” Joxer said. “It’s just that I was watching you and…maybe I’m overstepping some kind of bound here, but I’ve been told I’m a good listener. And I know where to get the best cup of coffee in the Bronx.”
Ares stopped in the middle of silently berating himself for letting his personal life affect his teaching, his head snapping up to stare at Joxer. He was almost sure…no, Joxer hadn’t just asked him out. He was just offering to listen, which meant Ares must look every bit as pathetic as he felt. He let out a groan and ran a hand over his face, wondering when his life had gotten so far out of control.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…look, forget I mentioned it, okay?”
He opened his eyes again to find Joxer backing toward the door, his forehead furrowing in confusion for a moment before he realized that he’d managed to screw up something else. “Joxer, wait, I wasn’t…” He took a deep breath when Joxer stopped a few feet away from the door and eyed him warily, almost as though he was expecting Ares to attack him for suggesting they get a cup of coffee. Somehow he managed a weary smile, stifling a relieved sigh as he watched the other man relax. “Actually coffee sounds great.”
“Great,” Joxer echoed, his smile returning as Ares dropped his paperwork back on the counter and reached for his keys. They stepped out into the chilly night air, Joxer tugging his coat a little closer around him as he waited for Ares to lock up.
“There’s a diner just a few blocks from here,” Joxer said when Ares turned back to him. “We can catch a cab if you want, but it’s a nice night for walking.”
“Let’s walk,” Ares answered, taking a deep breath as he fell into step next to the other man. “Early fall and the first snow of winter.”
“Pardon?”
Ares smiled as he remembered something Cupid had said to him when he was ten. “Something my son told me once. Early fall nights like this one and the first snowfall. The only two times when New York really smells clean.”
Joxer laughed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “He’s got a point, I think. It’s definitely different than Michigan. Not that the neighborhood I grew up in was anything to write home about, but it’s a lot different than New York. Did you grow up here?”
“No. Well, almost. I’m from Jersey; Neptune, to be exact. It’s about an hour and a half by train, my son still lives there with his mother. I don’t get to see him nearly as much as I’d like, especially lately.”
Ares glanced over at Joxer, but the other man was still staring at the sidewalk in front of them. “I can only imagine how hard that is. I miss my nephew, but I’m not his father so it’s not the same. I just tried to look out for him after his father was out of the picture.”
“How long have you been in New York?”
“About a year and a half now. I found myself caught up in one of those never-ending relationships that’s not going anywhere, so when I got the offer from the Academy I jumped at it. Probably not the most mature way to get out of a bad situation, but the change was good for me.” Joxer smiled as he stole a glance at Ares. “From what I hear it took my ex a couple weeks to notice I was gone.”
Ares frowned at that, but didn’t press Joxer for details. “My ex was well aware of my departure,” he said, a bitter laugh escaping his throat at the memory. “She made sure most of the neighborhood was aware of it, too.”
“How long were you two together?”
“We were married for thirteen years, but we’ve been together since high school. She went to college for a couple years before we got married, so almost twenty years.” Ares frowned and counted backwards before deciding he was right. “Wow. I never really thought about it in terms of time.”
“Kind of eye-opening when you really stop to look at your life,” Joxer said. Ares glanced sharply to his left, but Joxer didn’t look like he knew any more about Ares’ many failures than Ares had told him. He forced himself to relax as they reached the diner Joxer had mentioned, holding the door and letting the other man brush past him.
They found an empty booth near the back and ordered two cups of coffee, neither of them speaking again until the waitress came back with their order. Joxer watched while Ares poured sugar and cream into his cup until the coffee was a strange tan color, clearing his throat in a failed attempt not to laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone put quite that much sugar in a single cup of coffee before.”
Ares grinned and leaned forward, dropping his voice to a stage whisper. “Now you know one of my dark secrets. I have a terrible sweet tooth.”
“One?” Joxer quirked an eyebrow and lifted his own cup to his lips, taking a sip of black coffee before he set it down again. “You have secrets darker than that?”
“Depends on who you ask. If you asked my ex she’d tell you a different story than how I take my coffee.”
“Does this deep, dark secret of yours have anything to do with why you looked so miserable during class tonight?” Ares felt his face fall, a dark cloud settling over him again as he remembered what had him so distracted earlier. He was amazed to find that he’d forgotten all about his problems with Cupid while he and Joxer were talking, but now it all came back in a dizzying rush. “I’m sorry, Ares, I shouldn’t have…it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s alright,” Ares said, guilt hitting him hard when he looked up to see the stricken expression on Joxer’s face. “Actually that was about my son. He’s fourteen, and he’s going through some major teen angst and taking it out on me. He called a few hours before class and ended up hanging up on me for the third time this week. I guess the fact that I’m not around doesn’t help, and I have a feeling it might have something to do with the reason his mother and I split up.”
As soon as he said it Ares realized that he was skirting dangerous territory. He had no idea what Joxer was looking for from him, if he was just trying to be nice or if the attraction Ares felt really did go both ways. There was no way Joxer was going to just let it go, though, and Ares was either going to have to tell him the truth or make up some excuse and get out of there. The thought of pushing Joxer out of his life left him with a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stand telling the other man he was gay and having Joxer look at him like he’d just announced he had leprosy.
“How long have you two been divorced?”
“Two years,” Ares answered, not bothering to check the sigh that went along with that admission. “I know we did the right thing, even if it is hard for Cupid. But to think of him paying for my mistakes…”
He trailed off and stole another glance at Joxer, but the other man seemed content to wait for Ares to spell it out for him. Ares had come out to people before, but it had always been in a fairly safe setting. This was a person he didn’t really know, someone who worked in the same building where Ares taught a class. Then there was the fact that they had a student-teacher relationship…well, sort of, anyway. He was pretty sure there was nothing ethically wrong with sleeping with someone from his karate class, but that was the least of his worries.
Part Two