He was never born.

When you're born, there's a mother--he sounds out the word--who holds you, pets you, gives her tit to suck.   You drink, make happy sounds, and she throws you this thing called love.   The Sovereign knows this, has seen it around the palace.   It makes him mad, and sometimes he grabs those loud little bundles and tosses them from a window.   Because it's not fair.  And if the mothers complain or try to jump out after them, his guards know what to do.   The women are chained to his bed and he'll try to climb into their cunts.   It doesn't satisfy him, and sometimes he tosses them out the window, too.

Before he left, there were enough bones to make a throne.   Once he gets back, he'll demand one.  A stale rhyme falls from his memory.   "I'll grind your bones to make my bread.  Don't look back, or you'll be dead."   Something like that.   You can never look back.   Someone's always there, ready to steal your power, a bunch of hungry babies with cavernous mouths.   They want to drain him.   All he has is this power, and he's not ready to give it up, even here in this not-world with a population of two.

And forget that fruitcake god of love.   A joke with his girly squeals and too-pretty face.   Once, so long ago it feels like a dream, he'd gone to Ares' temple.   Didn't say anything, just walked around, touching the altar, the murals, the statuary.   When nothing happened, nothing changed, he went home and set his house on fire.

The wall, old squares stones, breaks under his fist.   His hand doesn't break back, although it hurts.  It takes a lot to break him; he's the Sovereign, and his bones are adamant.   At least that's what the whispers are, when he hits walls or people and they fall apart while he stays whole.  It's because of Zeus.   Zeus fucked Alcmene, and his spunk has magical properties.   He's not sure how it works, and it hurts his head to think about it.

He doesn't like to think, gave it up years ago.   Thoughts are weightless and weak.   Either he knows, or he doesn't know.   When he tries to go beyond that, it gets fucked up and the headaches come.   The last time he tried, when Iphicles came to see him, the palace turned red.   The throne room stank for weeks after, and no one would tell him where Iphicles was.   Not that he cared.   Brothers are accidents of fate and faulty birth control.   Anyone can be one.   Besides, he has others left.   His father is a whore and ensures his immortality by knocking up every bitch with a nice set of tits.

Not that it matters, not here in this goddamn hellish nowhere with no one around except that cringing jester, Iolaus, who's only good--and he uses to the term loosely--to hang off the Sovereign's cock when the mood strikes.   He hits the wall again, and it thunders.   "Let me out!"

Iolaus cowers in the corner, muttering to his head-on-a-stick about greater and lesser evils.

Sensing an insult, the Sovereign grabs a loose chunk of stone and lobs it at Iolaus' head.   "Idiot."   But Iolaus is already hidden behind a fallen pillar, still gibbering like an ape.   He's about to pound the little freak when the world, all thirty square feet of it, starts to quiver.

"The vortex," Iolaus says.  He doesn't sound pleased.

The west wall collapses into a horizontal tornado, and the Sovereign shouts, "Freedom!"   A running leap doesn't get far:  he hurtles in as someone hurtles out.    *Smack* into a hot solid thing that sends him crashing back into the wall like a very large fly.

"Ouch."   Iolaus again, and this time he does sound pleased.

There's someone glued to the other wall, right across from him.   Dark.   Big.   Familiar but not.   "Ares?"   Except the white pansy outfit's gone, and even wind-gutted, the guy's no simpering idiot.   Not with a sword longer than a Titan's dick hanging from his waist.   That smirk blacker than the leather.   The other one.   War.

His territory invaded, the Sovereign shouts and charges.   And hits the wall.  No metaphor: his brother's evil twin does a god-thing or maybe just sidesteps him, using a big fist on his spine to make sure his face meets stone really hard.

"Ouch."

"Shut up!   I'll take care of you later!"   The Sovereign hurts.   This is new and startling.   His blood surges, pulsing behind his eyes, and all he sees is Ares' face etched in red.   Another charge, another crash.   Pain, hot splatters of it on his shoulder, his head.   A rough sound soars over him, and he looks up, blinking.  It's a laugh.  The bastard is laughing at him.   The last time someone tried, the Sovereign had ripped out the man's small intestine and fed it to one of the wolfhounds who wandered through the palace.

"What's the matter?   Can't handle a real man?"

The voice grips his spleen and twists, but to land a punch he's got to focus.   Ares has been moving right to avoid him--not very smart for a war god--so this charge ends with quick right turn.   Satisfaction.   That hot body against his, muffled curse, thunder as they hit the ground together.   He pops Ares hard and fast on the jaw, watches the dark head jerk back, and raises his fist for hit number two.

God-fast, Ares grabs his wrist and bends, throwing a punch of his own.   Fist meets stomach, and the Sovereign gasps, then rolls sideways, taking Ares with him.   Like some crazy wave, they crash over broken stone, punching and...

Ares bites him.   On the shoulder, under his vest.    A red sun on his skin, and the Sovereign roars and bares his teeth, feeling wolfish, as they grapple.   Not uneasy.   Hungry for blood.

"You'll never win," Ares says, and pins him, hands crunching bone under the Sovereign's biceps.   "You don't know who you're dealing with."

The Sovereign bucks and ends up on all fours.  He's lucky this time: he gets a mouthful of god.   Ares' forearm, and he clamps down.   Liquid gushes down his throat, choking him, thick and sweet as honey.   Ichor.   It splashes into his gut, heats like wine, then eddies.  Warmth and power spread through him, vines of it circling his organs, his heart and liver.   He sucks hard while Ares struggles to get free.   This only tears more of his arm, splashing the Sovereign's face.   He cracks his jaw trying to swallow it all.

Blows fall, but they're faded, pushed to the background by the rough thrill of being filled.   Flooded.   His tongue probes the wound, feeling tendon and muscle, as Ares' strength pours into him.   He can hear himself sucking, and under that, rumbles of pleasure.   Who knew the god of war would taste so sweet?

"You're so hungry," Ares whispers in his ear.   "I'm going to fix that."

He pays no attention, just keeps sucking, vaguely aware that the blows are a memory.   Something else is different, too, but he's not sure what.  Not until there's a pressure at his hole.   It's their clothes.   Gone.   More god's tricks, and now his balls are caught in an elemental dilemma.   Give up the blood or give up his ass.   His body decides for him: when the word "no" explodes in his head, it stays there, and he keeps sucking, only growls like a wolfhound as the huge oiled cock penetrates him.

There's pain, ripples of it as his ass is stretched wide as his mouth.   He sucks harder to escape it, the act and idea of it, that he's whoring himself.   A hot gush in his mouth rewards him, and the potent blood spirals through his body, this time targeting his cock, which swells between his naked thighs.

When Ares' hand closes around it, the Sovereign shudders.   It's the ichor that's making his skin burn like this, that's all, his breath come like an animal's in desperate uncatchable bursts.   Not Ares' cock plunging into his ass, the fingers stroking him, this backward version of sex.

"Wow," a second voice says.   The Jester.   He sounds awed, maybe even turned on.

A vision floats before him, what the Jester sees.   Him, crouching like a bitch, gnawing the arm like a bone, his cock stiff and pointing to Hades, his ass plowed by Ares standing at his back.   They're both sweating; drops fall on him, adding to the river down his own back.   Ares is violently beautiful, and the Sovereign considers banging his wimpy twin when he gets back.   He's never fucked him; Ares always seems to be around the corner watching, never close enough to touch.   He'll track him down this time, fuck his tight round ass on the altar of his temple.   Revenge.

"You need this, don't you?"   Ares pulls back his hair, licking his neck, then his ear, his thrusts long and deep.   "I should've done it years ago."

Something's wrong with that, only it's hard to care as Ares reaches under him to fondle his balls.   His belly is full now, glutted with ichor, but he keeps drinking, greedy for the heat that pulses in time with his heart and Ares' powerful strokes.   That's why he lets those strong fingers rub his balls.   No one has ever touched them before.   It's where his power is, and no one's allowed to get that close.   Only he has no choice, not with the world murky, just blotches of color, red and black.

Ares is still whispering in his ear.   "You're beautiful, brother.   Sweet, sweet ass.   My beautiful brother's sweet, hungry ass."

They're not brothers.   They don't even live in the same world.   He wants to explain this, maybe with a punch.   After.   Not now, with his body stretched and filled and hot.   Not empty anymore.   He's thrusting back, forcing Ares somewhere south of his heart, not human anymore, or a mongrel god-spawn.   A goddamn animal, trapped on that massive cock.

"I wanted to help you," Ares said softly.   "When you came to the temple.   But I was scared.   Even then you were so angry."

More thrusts, and no more pain.   His ass is wide and open now, taking it greedily, his cock painfully full.   He's flying, another dream, so powerful, so strong and...

He's falling.   Panicked.   Because it's finally coming together.   Everything is.   The heat in his ass, his mouth, mixing with the shame that's even hotter.   This really is his brother.   Not war.

Love.

Love up his ass.   Love in his mouth.

The Sovereign wrenches away from the blood, his lips smeared.   And it's only then, his mouth free but his guts stained and his ass taken, that he unleashes the howl.   When he does, Ares howls with him, and he comes, they both come, streams of it, while their limbs shake and quiver.   Like being born.
___

Afterward, the Sovereign is so weak that he can only lie on the fur that's magically appeared while Ares, beardless now, his wrist closed but the skin purple, licks him everywhere.   Cleaning him, maybe.  He tries to fight, but it's like being underwater.   Revenge can wait, he decides, and watches Ares tenderly suck his nipples, one then the other, his dark hair against the Sovereign's chin, his chest, soft as the fur beneath him.

He's still drunk on god-blood, and the nursing mouth is oddly soothing, even while it sends a trail of pleasure to his spent cock.    His nipples look like berries, so red and swollen with blood.   How long has Ares been sucking them?   He reaches up to push away the mouth, and his fingers get caught in Ares' long hair, so he ends up cradling the head against him, until Ares begins to lick a path down.   His hips are tasted, and so is his navel, the curve of his waist.   "Kill you," the Sovereign mumbles.

Ares, holding the base of the Sovereign's cock in one hand, his breath ticking the head, nods.   A curl dips into the tiny pool of semen still leaking out.   "I know you'll try.   I tricked you.   I fucked you.    And I'll fuck you again.   And again."

About to remind Ares who he is, who they both are, the Sovereign only moans as his cock slides into that warm, sucking mouth.   His body arches, then settles back, and he tries to understand why Ares' mouth is different from the thousand mouths that have serviced his cock.  Hard to think at the best of times, even more when Ares does those things with his tongue, except maybe a disturbing jealousy over the thousand cocks that Ares has practiced on.   And there's the answer.

It's not Ares' experience that makes his cock-sucking different.   It's because he really wants to do it.   There's no force, no threat, no obligation, no expectation.   He loves it.

This infuriates the Sovereign so much that he thrusts up, ramming his cock to the back of Ares' throat.   Ares only reaches up and toys with his nipples, his tongue never stopping.   "Rip your head off."   Later.   Not when Ares is spreading his thighs even wider, bending the Sovereign's knees to his chest.   His hole is exposed, then penetrated first with a tongue that licks everywhere, in and around, then by a finger.   That second penetration has the strange effect of making him painfully aware of his emptiness, and he has to force himself not to screw his body down onto it, or worse, beg for Ares' cock.   How can a finger do that?   He's never used his fingers to fuck anyone.  It never even occurred to him.

Everything is so wrong that he shakes his head to wake up.   "Stop."   The command is almost forceful, which reassures him, so he says it again.   Only this time it sounds like a lie.

"Shut up or I'll gag you with my cock," Ares says, and kisses his thigh.

It doesn't make sense.   Ares is weak.   He has always been weak, a pouting and simpering imbecile.   So how is this possible?   How can Ares have three fingers up his ass and his hand cupped over his balls?   How can his threat sound real, even in that soft voice?   How can he, the strongest, most powerful man in the world, be lying here with his legs spread for the weakest god on Olympus?

"You think you're the only one who hides things?"   Then Ares is sucking the Sovereign's cock again, riding it with his mouth, while his fingers play tricks inside the Sovereign's ass, making him gasp and writhe, somehow holding off his orgasm to torture him for hours, days.

How is this possible?

Then he understands.   It's the ichor.   He really is drunk on the blood, or poisoned.   It's why everything is so screwed up, why he wants to keep staring at Ares' face, why he wants Ares' cock up his ass again.   Why his hand is now stroking Ares' hair.   "What's in your blood?  What's in your fucking blood, you dumb whore?"

Ares is shifting between his legs, grasping the Sovereign's hips and pulling him onto his cock.   "What do you mean?"   A single fluid thrust, and he's buried again inside him in a tight, hot fit.

"What's it done to me?"

Ares is over him, fucking him slowly.   He looks confused, then smiles with a terrifying satisfaction.   "There's nothing in my blood."

Somewhere in the room, the Jester laughs.
___

(c) August 2001, Never Born by Thamiris