BY MAGGIE
It wasn't that he had caught them ... well, almost caught them, as he had put it to Hercules earlier in an angry moment - 'rolling around in bed together'- really, it wasn't, although it still felt like betrayal. He had forgiven Xena and therefore Hercules too, and at the time they had had a job to do; no time to spend dwelling on hurt feelings. Now, however, the 'bone' of contention had ridden off to begin a quest for her own redemption, and Salmoneus had started off to Athens to begin Herc's biography - 'should make for an interesting read someday' - which left him and his best friend to wander home again.
'I wonder if we'll manage to get there without bumping into another adventure ...'
Iolaus had time to ponder over all these thoughts as Hercules had spotted a likely 'rabbitty-warren type of place over there', and had insisted on going off alone to catch them a couple of conies for their supper ...
"Well, why don't we both go?" Iolaus asked him, a little puzzled that Hercules hadn't immediately thought of including him in the hunt. Was he still teed off over Iolaus' earlier intense distrust of Xena, or what?
As it was, Xena might have been the cause but the reason was a kinder one.
"Er ... well, I ... thought I might, er ... you know, do it myself, to sort of make up for being antsy over you not trusting Xena ... you know ..."
"Look, Herc, it's okay," Iolaus told him, even though it wasn't really, "we can both go look for rabbits - at least that way we stand a chance of actually coming back with some."
The final comment had been more of a friendly hint that Hercules was forgiven all trespasses, but unfortunately the demi-god took it more as a friendly challenge.
"Iolaus, are you really trying to tell me that I can't catch a couple of little furry, hoppy things?"
The look on his face was harmless enough, but the friendly rivalry that existed between the two, was very much in evidence.
Instead of backing down, Iolaus pondered that look and decided that it would probably do more good to take him up on the challenge, even though he knew Hercules was perfectly capable of doing as he had suggested; catching rabbits was something the big guy could do with his eyes shut and one hand tied behind his back. After all, Iolaus had taught him all he knew ... about catching rabbits anyway.
"I'm willing to bet you're out of practice lately," he ventured, "so, yeah; come on, Herc, let's see a couple of big, juicy - you know, the bay, short-haired variety - rabbits. Two hand spans, nose to bob and you've got an hour. Okay?"
Hercules raised his eyebrows, his eyes throwing down a less well defined challenge to his friend. Nevertheless it was an expression that Iolaus was well acquainted with; he knew what was coming.
"An hour; you sure you want to give me that long?" Hercules asked him.
Iolaus took one more look at the lie of the land where the 'rabbity-warren' probably was and decided that it would be more difficult to engineer a catch, let alone two, than a first glance would reveal, and nodded.
"Yep; an hour. If you're not back before dark I'll come look for you."
As dusk was a good four hours away, Hercules gave him a very dirty look, and told him he had better get started on a fire because he was going to be back in thirty minutes with the exact menu that Iolaus had described.
As Hercules had already turned his back and was leaving their hastily chosen campsite, Iolaus smiled openly and threw over his shoulder, "and don't forget the herbs. If you think I'm eating rabbit without at least bay, you can consider yourself failed on this test."
Looking around for likely dried out foliage to start the fire with, Iolaus sneaked a peek over at Hercules' retreating back, but he didn't even break stride, although Iolaus would have given ten dinars to see the look on his face ...
Iolaus looked down at the shadow of the tree in front of him. The distance it had moved told him that he should have made a bet because if he had, he would have won it. It was well over an hour since Hercules had gone marching off in search of coney, and even from here, Iolaus could see him on the bank on the far side of the road, perched behind the bushy entrance to a warren. Still no rabbit.
"Hope I don't have to go get 'em myself," Iolaus murmured to no-one in particular. The prospect of Hercules in a bad mood because he had failed to catch a couple of stupid rabbits, wasn't an altogether pleasant one, especially as it was likely to be made worse by the fact that he was probably still missing Xena. It had only been a few hours really, since they had parted company with her, and Iolaus had recognised the signs of his friend's upbeat mood being a means of dealing with how his wayward heart was feeling.
From the way he was positioned near the hole, Iolaus could almost feel the bigger man's frustration and he sighed wondering how long he could dare leave it before taking on the task himself.
Maybe he could just plead hunger and take the resulting stick; now that he came to think about it, his stomach did feel fairly close to grumblingly empty, so at least he wouldn't be lying. On the other hand ...
"Oh Hades with it," he muttered, closing the subject. 'Another half an hour can't hurt.'
In fact, bearing in mind the position of the Sun, it shouldn't be too long before the rabbits came out of their burrows, intent on supper, which would give Hercules ample time to snatch a couple of them. Alright, so maybe they mightn't be quite as big or juicy as he had promised, but Iolaus was big-hearted enough to not say anything about that. Well, who knew they'd happened on the only 'man-wise warren' in the whole of Greece? It was hardly Hercules' fault.
At least there was no-one else with them to pass any less than wise comments. Not that he thought Salmoneus would have; he seemed to have this slight hero-worship thing where Hercules was concerned and probably wouldn't say a word against him, even in jest. Xena on the other hand ...
Xena.
Dammit, why'd Herc have to fall in love with her? Why couldn't he just save her soul or whatever, wasn't that enough? Why'd he have to ...
Thank the gods I didn't come back sooner; I don't think I could've ... No, Iolaus, don't think about that, alright I won't think about that. But, DAMMIT, why'd he have to --
"Iolaus? Why'd who have to what?"
Aw, no, REALLY dammit. Don't tell me I was thinking out loud again ...
"Iolaus? What's wrong?"
On the other hand ...
"What's wrong? Are there two of you, all of a sudden?"
"Two of me? Iolaus, what are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about, I'm talking about where have you been for the past few days! Like you don't know what you could possibly have done, so you must have a twin around here someplace, who just up and fell in love with Xena and then left again, so that you couldn't possibly have any idea what could be wrong, is what I'm talking about!!"
Hercules dropped the rabbits to the ground, and his gaze to his toes.
"Oh. Er ... that's what you're talking about."
"On the nose, pal."
From under pleading eyebrows Hercules was obviously trying hard to make amends as he stumbled over an explanation.
"Well, look, Iolaus, it wasn't quite like that ..."
"Oh, sure!"
"... It's just that, well ... It was Xena. She said that ... she wanted to let me know how she felt ... about me ... in case, well ... in case she didn't get another chance; you know, if she got killed fighting Darphus ... sorta ..."
"Oh." Looking Hercules straight in the eye or trying to; the big man's eyes were doing their best to make a thorough inspection of his size thirteens. "That's great, Hercules. So SHE wanted to let YOU know how SHE felt about YOU. That's wonderful."
"Well, Iolaus --"
"How d'you think that makes ME feel?" Really warming to the subject now. "And I'm not talking about you or Xena; how d'you think it makes me feel about ME!? Dammit! You know what she did; using me to get to you! Oh, she was the best, she knew exactly what to do -- boy, DID she -- until she had me wriggling on a hook the size of Poseidon's Trident! She kept telling me how much she valued me as a warrior and wouldn't even let me fight! The only thing she did let me do was ..."
"Iolaus --"
"Dammit, I don't want to hear it, Hercules. I meant nothing to her. She treated me like some damn personal slave, and it wasn't even because she wanted to! And I let her! Deep down somewhere, I could see what she was doing and I did nothing about it! I betrayed you, I betrayed myself, and now ... Now it turns out that she's in love with YOU? Did you have to, Hercules? Couldn't you have just said ... NO?"
"Iolaus ..."
A determined and angry gesture pushed away the demi-god's concern as Iolaus turned away from him and began walking slowly deeper into the trees.
A determined and penitent Hercules followed him.
"Leave me alone."
"I can't, Iolaus; you don't want me to."
"I just said --"
Catching up to him, Hercules snagged his friend's arm and hauled him around to face him. "I know what you said; but walking away isn't going to solve this. You haul off at me, and then walk off without letting me get a word in edgeways? That's not fair, FRIEND."
"Not FAIR!? FRIEND!?"
Iolaus had chosen to walk away to let his anger simmer away, having said his piece, or so he'd thought, but Hercules' remonstrance only served to redouble his anger. In fact he hadn't been this angry since they'd had that fight at Xena's hold, but now his thoughts were coming from a clearer place in his mind, and Iolaus didn't like what they were showing him.
"You want to know something; FRIEND? It's you who's not being fair! You don't know how it feels to be me, and you know what? You don't WANT to know! What you did with Xena back there might have felt right at the time, and I'm sure you managed to convince yourself that you were doing her a favour. Maybe from her point of view, you were; but it wasn't right, and you know it. It was thoughtless and selfish."
The words were boiling out now, the vessel overflowing with all the little moments of being ignored or passed over or made fun of, which Iolaus had buried, his generous heart and his love of, and loyalty to, his best friend, making light of them at the time. Now they would be ignored no longer.
"You knew I'd only gone ahead to scout; it's not as if I was going to be gone all that long. If I had been you would have got away with it, but you didn't. And come to think of it, I don't like the thought of that either."
By now Hercules seemed to have had enough of being yelled at, as he was standing defiantly, hands on hips, angry enough in his own turn. "Your point!?" he stabbed out.
"My point, is that you didn't even consider me! What is this friendship of ours based on, Hercules? 'Out of sight, out of mind'? 'While the cat's away, the mice will play'? What does that make you? And what does it make ME!?"
Tears threatened to spill, filling his eyes, unbidden, and blinking furiously, Iolaus tried to ignore them, but there was that emptiness again, that huge, yawning chasm, on whose lip he was so precariously perched once more; that same chasm that had swallowed him up at Xena's hold and under Xena's persuasion, after that punch to Hercules' jaw had shaken to it's roots more than just the teeth in the bigger man's head.
A friendship ended. A hole in Iolaus' life bigger than the Underworld, which only one thing could fill; he was facing that same hateful darkness which, like Ares' dog, Graegus, could devour him alive, keep him in torment for eternity.
If he let it.
He knew he could turn this around in an instant; back down, apologise, pass this incident over, bury it, as he had all the others. He and Herculels would be friends again in a second.
But what would that friendship be worth any more, if he let this slide, all in the name of an easy life?
He couldn't. He had to know. Was their friendship strong enough to survive this? Iolaus was the last person on Earth to want to deliberately hurt anyone without just cause, and oftentimes, even if there WAS. And there was just cause here; he wasn't the only one out of the two of them, who made mistakes ...
The look on Hercules' face betrayed puzzlement. "Iolaus ... We didn't do ... what we did ... to spite you; why are you going on like this?"
... and Iolaus bit back the sudden impulse to stride on over and deck him. He knew from experience - if he stopped long enough to think about it - that his demi-god friend had inherited more than just a god's strength from his father, Zeus. Like seeing things in black and white, for example. There were times when the complexity of the human spirit and personality eluded Hercules and then it was necessary to patiently explain all those finely tuned grey areas, as if to a child. It felt a little ridiculous, as Hercules was a grown man, but Iolaus could see that this was indeed one of those times and he groaned inwardly.
His face softened, and raising tired and reddened eyes to the heavens, Iolaus sighed, some small humour-demon releasing a half-hearted chuckle in spite of him.
"Oh, Herc ..." He shook his head trying to think of a way to make his feelings plain enough for the demi-god to understand. "Look; I just can't think of any other way of explaining ... how I feel. But will you just do me one favour?"
"What is it?" Hercules asked him, doubtfully.
"Just ask yourself, if our positions were reversed ... If it had been you that Xena duped to get to me, and then later she told me that she wanted ME ... Do you think I would have done what you did? With no thought to how that would make you feel?"
The reaction wasn't what Iolaus had hoped for, although he realised it shouldn't have been all that unexpected. The bigger man, hands on hips once more, accusation plain on his face, nodded vigourously.
"YOU, Iolaus? Knowing what I do about you and women? Yes, I do."
Some ledge inside him, on which his heart was seated, cracked across, and every feeling fell away into that darkness which was still waiting for him. For the span of a beat of that heart -- a seemingly endless moment of exquisite torment -- Iolaus considered falling too. He grappled with demons, suddenly too close, behind closed eyes, the pain too personal, too private to share with one who, it seemed, would never completely understand it.
Arms crossed across his chest as if to keep his heart from falling out of what felt like a gaping wound over his breast bone, Iolaus proceeded to put Hercules straight about a few things. Straight for good and all.
"You think I would've done that, do you?"
Hercules nodded. "Yes; come on Iolaus, be honest --"
Reaching out and grasping the other man's arm in his right hand, Iolaus forced a grip that would be painful even for Hercules. His eyes dared him to free himself. His words held him pierced and unmoving like one of the coneys Hercules had caught, staked and ready for roasting.
"Honest ... You want me to be honest? Okay; here's honest. You'd better think again about what I'd do or wouldn't do, because you obviously don't know me like you think you do; and like I thought you did. I know you didn't deliberately set out to spite me, Hercules, but I wouldn't do what you did with Xena to spite my worst ENEMY; and I'm your FRIEND."
There was hurt in Hercules eyes now; not for himself but for Iolaus. Hurt and the beginnings of an understanding. Iolaus had no wish to make things any worse, but he knew it was necessary to make sure that his friend understood. He wanted to be sure that there would be no ugly repetitions in the future, for Hercules sake as well as his own. It wouldn't be easy; it meant laying bare something that he would rather have kept to himself, but he knew it was a risk he had to take for the sake of their friendship. He took a deep breath even as a diver would before launching himself headlong for the water, and then releasing Hercules from the grip he had held him in, he stepped back a pace or two, to distance himself from the other's reaction when it came.
Forcing himself to look Hercules in the eyes still, he continued.
"She hurt me, Hercules; hurt me in ways that I don't think you can understand. That's not your fault," he added hastily, wanting Hercules to know that he wasn't accusing him anymore, "but I need you to know ... I'm not indestructible, I can't just dismiss what she did to me, and ... If she had done this to you, no matter if she had proved to me that she had changed, no matter if she did love me and wanted to share her feelings with me the way she did with you ... I couldn't. I just couldn't do that, do you understand? Because she would have HURT YOU. I ... just need you to know that, Hercules, that's all."
The hurt was still there, but the puzzlement was back, and Iolaus all but threw up his hands.
"What?"
Hercules began pacing, back and forth and his expressive hands were doing a fair share of the talking. "Iolaus ... I KNOW you're not indestructible, I KNOW you get upset over things like this, but ... if that's the case ... What was all that pride stuff over the brawl on the bridge for, all those months ago? I mean that's almost the complete opposite of what you're trying to tell me now ... Isn't it!?"
Iolaus put his head in his hands and laughed wearily. When he looked back up again, it was to shake his head once more at the impossibility, seemingly, of solving this problem to Hercules' satisfaction. Approaching Hercules, who had stopped pacing and seemed to be waiting on an explanation, Iolaus just clapped a hand on the bigger man's shoulder and gestured back towards the coneys, indicating that they should get on and prepare supper before it got to dark to see what they were doing.
"Hercules ... It's a paradox. Life's a paradox, people are a paradox; you're supposed to just accept, learn and then carry on."
Hercules stared in amazement at Iolaus for a moment. Iolaus could swear he could hear wheels grinding around in his friend's head as he tried to come to grips with this conundrum. Finally, the big man gave up and returned Iolaus' clap to his shoulder with a hearty one of his own.
Normally, Iolaus would have played along and flopped to the ground, but this time he didn't, causing more surprise.
"See? I don't HAVE to play along; in fact it might do you some good if, every once in a while, I DIDN'T."
But there was a smile wreathing Hercules, admittedly, noble features, and the satisfying sound of his laughter. "Iolaus, how'd you get to be so wise, my friend?"
"You should spend more time with your mother, Hercules."
"Ouch ..."
"Now, how about these rabbits ..."
Much later, coneys cooked with Bay AND Marjoram, and eaten, fire burning lower, and the two friends stretched out before it, drifting pleasantly towards sleep, Hercules tentatively broke the companionable silence with an apology.
"Iolaus ..."
"Hmm?"
"I've been thinking ... about everything that you said ... and ... you're right; I didn't even think about you while Xena and I were together, I just ... I dunno. And there've been other things too; times when I've taken you for granted, when things have happened and I've expected you to just carry on, the way I do ... I mean, look at when we went up against Maxius and Postera; you got hurt because I didn't think things out properly like I should have. Just charged on in there like a bull at a gate."
An innocent piece of twig was slowly being torn to shreds between Hercules' fingers; a sure sign that some thought had gone into what he was saying and that he wasn't very happy about what he'd found. Nevertheless, he was doing okay, so Iolaus kept his silence and let his friend continue.
"Then there've been times when something's happened to me, and what have I done? Shut you out as if I couldn't trust you. Like when my family was destroyed by Hera; if I hadn't been so stubborn about everything, you never would have been caught by the She-Demon. I'm sorry, Iolaus; I guess I should thank you for standing up to me like you did; it's made me realise that I shouldn't be seeing things from my own point of view all the time ... and that I shouldn't spend your life without thinking, just because you let me ..."
A long moment of silence, and a long look between them; eyes spending thoughts and feelings to the value of their friendship. It could not be bought cheaply, and there were a couple of dangerously watery-eyed smiles at the end of that silent communication, but they got through it and both felt clearer and stronger for it.
Hercules opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. Noticing this Iolaus smiled, chuckling silently. Herc tried again, shook his head, took in a breath ...
"Iolaus --"
"Hercules ..."
"Yah!?" Puppy dog smelling bone, all ears and teeth and quivery with anticipation.
"Just eat your rabbit."
THE END
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