Chapter Twenty
Let me out, his raccoon hissed urgently.
You can’t scratch his eyes out, our mate is crying. Marty’s tears started all over again. He hated seeing his mate look so broken and knowing his words had caused it.
He’s going to be embarrassed. Let me out. I’ll cuddle him. It always works best when an animal does it, and I’m cute. It’ll work.
Considering Marty was all talked out and just felt hollow inside, he was happy to shift. He wasn’t sure how cuddly his raccoon could be – it’s not like his furry side had much experience in that side of things, but he whipped off his shirt, knowing his raccoon would easily get free of the clothing on his lower half.
The raccoon came through, shaking himself, making sure his fur was all going the way it was meant to, and then scurried over the couch cushions, sticking his nose under Ares’ elbow.
“What the…? Oh, hello. What are you doing?” Ares’ cheeks were damp, although the raccoon noticed his eyes didn’t go red-rimmed the way Marty’s did. Must be a god thing. “Did you want to come onto my lap?”
As if the raccoon needed an invitation. He climbed onto Ares’ lap, taking care with his claws because they could be a little sharp, reaching up with his front half so he could sniff around Ares’ neck.
“You have lovely fur,” Ares said quietly, running a tentative hand down the raccoon’s back. “I feel like you’re giving me a cuddle. Is that what you’re doing?”
I don’t get this close to just anyone. But the raccoon reasoned Ares wasn’t used to his quirks and rubbed his cheek against Ares’ neck.
“I’ve been such a shit to you both.” Ares still seemed sad, but the raccoon could sense the feeling wasn’t as oppressive as before. Raccoon super-powers. “I’m so proud of Marty sticking up for himself, telling me where I went wrong. It wasn’t easy to hear, but it was the right thing to do.”
That was Marty speaking. You had no idea what I was thinking, although the raccoon figured that was probably a good thing. Marty was the nice one in their partnership.
“Is it possible I’m just stuck in a rut? Personality wise, I mean?”
The raccoon gave the best approximation of a shrug he could manage.
“Marty was right. I’m so used to expecting people to be hateful toward me - people like my family - that I never give them a chance to be anything else. I’m horrid back. The cycle continues…”
Noooo, not the cycle of life shit again. Marty was very fond of talking about that rubbish, especially when he was hungry, hadn’t eaten properly for days, and it was pissing down with rain.
“Marty always seems so positive.”
Not when it’s raining and he’s hungry…
“It’s incredible. He really doesn’t care what people think, and I bet you don’t, either.” Ooh, Ares was getting bold. The raccoon found he liked having that spot between his ears scratched.
Don’t expect me to say anything. I don’t even want to think. Oh, yeah, right there…
“Did you want to go to Olympus?”
Damn. My Zen just flew out the window. The raccoon pulled his head out of Ares’ neck and looked up at the one eye he could see from his angle.
“It would only be for a visit.”
Was that redness on Ares’ cheeks? The raccoon wanted to tap one to see if it was as hot as it looked.
“I thought, if we just went for a short while, I could show you around the main amphitheater and my quarters, where I was living up there.”
Ares seemed to be asking his opinion. But the raccoon could feel Marty’s hesitation as well.
“If we bump into anyone, and I don’t know if we will or not, but I promise I will introduce you as my mate. I want you and Marty to know I am proud of you.”
Which was sweet. And hell, the raccoon reasoned, what have we got to lose? I can be cute and keep my teeth and claws to myself for the most part.
Marty didn’t seem as sure, but the raccoon got some leverage on the top of Ares’ chest, pushing up with his back legs so he was perched with all four feet on Ares’ shoulder. A quick swirl around, his tail brushing under Ares’ nose, and the raccoon laid down again, making himself comfortable. Ares’ shoulder was more than wide enough to take his weight and length, and the raccoon could tickle his whiskers against Ares’ ear if he felt inclined.
“I’m going to take that as a yes to Olympus.” Ares smiled. It wasn’t a laugh, but it was an improvement on crying. Resting his hand on the raccoon’s back, Ares said, “Don’t let go, my cute little mate,” and the raccoon felt that disorientating feeling of being translocated.
Beam me up, Scotty. We’re off on our next adventure.
Yes, the raccoon was a television freak when Marty had lived at home, if anyone was asking.
/~/~/~/~/
You can do this. You can absolutely do this , Ares told himself as he swept himself and his raccoon mate to Olympus. He landed, intentionally, in the middle of his living area, part of a larger suite of rooms that he had.
Translocating to his own space was prudent. Ares did that mostly because he didn't want to run the risk of translocating into somebody else or even appearing in front of someone else before he’d taken the breath needed to adjust. And while Olympus was filled with mostly staff, with very few actual gods around, Ares had no way of knowing if he’d translocated anywhere else, if he might bump into someone, before he was ready.
Ares was desperate to prove to Marty that he’d been heard and understood, and that he was going to make a difference in his behavior going forward. Marty had made a good point in that Ares did imagine everyone hated him. Actually, it wasn’t imagined – he had proof. In turn, he wasn’t a nice person to them, either.
But Athena’s sudden drop in, which was so unexpected, had rattled Ares’ calm, and he realized he had to be more proactive, rather than wanting to hide anytime someone from the Pantheon came near him and his mate. By walking into the lion’s den, so to speak, he could show off his mate, instead of hoping no one would find out by other means how important Marty was.
As for the gossip – what did that matter? Marty had been right about that, too. His kin had been gossiping about him – and others – for as long as time had existed. Ares had no wish to live on Olympus anymore. Far too many of his kin were still single and most had few morals. If Marty met someone like Apollo, for instance – the epitome of beauty in a male… Ares didn’t need that hassle.
“So, this is my living space on Olympus,” he said to the curious raccoon who was busy sniffing the air. “One thing you’ll notice as we wander around here is that the temperature never changes, it never rains, and the only time there’s any wind around here is if Zeus is throwing a tantrum. He’s not here right now,” Ares added quickly as the raccoon sat up.
“If you wanted to know where I first caught sight of you, I was in this room.” He wandered over to his big table. “I got a notification from the company that monitors my security cameras for the house in Boston, and as I was here, I waved my hand at the table and caught a glimpse of you disappearing into the trees. I’d been thinking of going to France because I have a house there as well, but suddenly Boston looked more interesting.”
He could see the raccoon looking down at the view of the garden. It was empty, of course, because Marty was with him. “All I saw was your light – just a flicker in the trees, but it was enough for me to come.”
Ares chuckled. “When I saw that light that first time, I thought it was some quirk of my table. It wasn’t until I stayed in the house and saw you the next night that I realized you’d been lit up by the Fates for me to find. The happiest and scariest moment of my life.”
He got a nose in his ear for his confession and chuckled as one of the raccoon’s whiskers tickled his nose. “So, this is like my viewing table. All gods have some way of keeping an eye on scenes, places, or people that are important to them. A lot of mortals assume that gods can see everything all the time, but can you imagine what a mind fuck that would be?”
The raccoon nodded, his eyes bright.
“So we all have our different ways. Zeus has computers, but he used to use the clouds a lot as well. Hades is so in tune with his realm that he knows things as they happen, but he’s not too interested in the world above the Underworld. Poseidon is the same – he’s focused on the sea and his mate, and I’m not sure which one is more important, but I did watch his wedding to Claude through this table. He said he would give up the sea for his mate, so there’s that.”
The raccoon tapped him on the side of his face and then his own chest. The message was clear, and Ares grinned. “I can’t give up war for you because I gave up on that a long, long, long time ago. But I’m going to do my best to give up being an asshole just for you. Aw, is that raccoon kisses on my cheek? Thank you. Did you want to look at anything else on here before we move on?”
Feeling unbelievably pleased at how he and the raccoon were communicating, Ares flicked a couple of tabs, making sure to stay away from Demetra’s. He did not want Marty thinking he watched porn, and he had no idea what that woman was doing. He stopped at a scene showing a woman hosting another meeting – the outfit was extremely well put together for someone who was homeless.
“This is my mother, Hera.” He pointed at the table. “She’s currently banished from Olympus for ten years by Paulie and was supposed to be homeless, but… As you can see Zeus was right when he told his mate she would be running the shelter before long. It looks like she’s on the fundraising committee as well, and that’s not suspicious at all.”
The raccoon made a chittering noise. “Yes, I was being sarcastic. She definitely didn’t stay homeless for long, by the looks of things. But oh, look at this one. This is Persephone.” Ares flicked his table again, opening the scene of the former Dread Queen in her hive.
“If you look closely, you can see she's still got her crown. That was absolutely hilarious.” He zoomed in so the raccoon could see. “See there, the little cartoon crown on that bee’s head. I’m not sure if you know the story about Persephone. Hades stole her from a field a gazillion years ago and took her down below to be his bride. When Demetra, Persephone’s mother, plunged the world into winter because of her grief, Zeus made Persephone Hades’ queen, even though she refused to have anything to do with Hades at all.
“Unfortunately, she really liked being queen, though. She made Hades’s life miserable for so long – clinging to her title but spending very little time with the man who made that possible. Anyway, Hades eventually found his mate, a chipmunk shifter called Ali, and he’s blissfully happy. Persephone did not take that well, especially when the realm of the dead shut Persephone out – or it might have been Ali, but anyway, she had been petitioning Zeus for absolutely ages, insisting that Hades take her back as queen.
“He didn’t – thank goodness, but when Paulie learned how badly she wanted to be a queen, he suggested the beehive. Apparently, he told Zeus, Persephone would be useful that way, but when he was imagining the scene, Persephone had a crown, and the crown remains. Are you laughing?” Ares looked at his cute raccoon, whose shoulders were shaking. “I do believe you are. I agree, I thought it was funny, too.”
“So, we have a rest from her nonsense for ten years. Zeus told Paulie he’d let them back on Olympus after ten years, because they were so rude to Paulie, and they tried to bring Zeus down.”
Ares paused and then added, “That was the only reason Athena came to visit me today. Now she’s got it into her head to try and take over from Zeus, but hopefully I gave her enough warnings so she would back off. I told her if there was a fight over who rules Olympus, I was siding with Zeus this time.”
“So anyway, this is my table. This one is Zeus” - he quickly flicked on Zeus’s tab - “and then this one is Hephaestus. He’s still pregnant, so no baby to buy for yet, and yeah. Anytime you want to look at something or someone, you can do it through this table. I imagine it works for you, too, now that we’re mated, but perhaps not in your furry form.”
The raccoon hissed and shook his head. “You can try,” Ares suggested. “Wave your little paw over the table – you don’t need to touch it – and think about where or who you want to see.”
For a moment, Ares didn’t think the raccoon would try, but he should’ve known Marty would try anything at least once. Sure enough, the raccoon looked at the table and then leaned over so far that, Ares put up his hand to help him balance. A front paw came out, waving over the table, and the scene in the table changed.
Ares frowned as he studied the scene. It wasn’t a place he remembered seeing before, which meant the raccoon could indeed operate his table. But it was the picture showing that hurt his heart.
The house looked like any other on a housing estate in a rough part of any city. It needed painting, the porch was sagging in one corner, and the lawn hadn’t been mown in what looked like a long time. There were children’s toys strewn in among the long grass, but as Ares looked closer, he could see most of them were muddy or broken.
There was a group of people – mostly men, but a few women - sitting around on wooden chairs on the porch. They appeared to be having a party, or at least a lot of drinks. Although the sound was muted, Ares could see people laughing, and there were drinks in everyone’s hands.
“Babe, is this your family home?”
To his surprise, the raccoon buried his face in Ares’ neck, waving one paw frantically side to side, as if he wanted to wipe the picture away.
“It’s gone, precious. It’s gone.” Ares swiped a little more precisely, and the regular tabletop returned. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s understandable to want to look, but you don’t ever have to do that again unless you want to.” He wasn’t sure what to do, but he stroked down the raccoon’s back in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. After a few moments, the raccoon sat up again, giving himself a shake before Ares got a brush of his raccoon’s nose against his cheek.
“More raccoon kisses. I like that. So, we’ve seen this place – these are my rooms, but if we go and look out the window over here, you can see down into the grand amphitheater where all the Olympians and their companions used to congregate. You won’t believe it to look at the place now, but this place used to be party central.”