Hiding Camels
by Amorette

"Oog," said Iolaus eloquently as he lay back on the bed. "I should not have had that third helping of fig pie."

Hercules, who was surreptitiously undoing the buttons on his trousers, replied, "I should have skipped the dessert table completely."

"Naw, no one could have skipped that dessert table. It would have been unnatural. Besides, you didn't want to insult the happy couple."

"I see." Hercules shifted uncomfortably. "And not eating myself into a stupor would have been an insult."

"Yeah." Iolaus was less surreptitious as he unfastened his pants. He sighed, loudly and with great relief, as the pressure from his waistband eased. "This is nice. Good food, comfortable beds, warm room inside."

"Yeah." Hercules closed his eyes, hoping his stomach would forgive him for his overindulgence. It wasn't as if he ate like this all the time. If he had, even he would be portly.

Iolaus, however, was more accustomed to over consumption. He just tucked his hands under his head and continued the conversation. He knew his digestive system was up to the challenge.

"I've heard that in Rome, at their big banquets, they have this room off to one side and when you're full, you go into the room and there is this trough. . ."

"Stop!" Hercules held up his hand. "Do not, if you value your life, continue with that sentence."

Iolaus giggled but before he could respond, Hercules sat up on his elbows, frowning. Iolaus, in spite of being full of food and wine, was immediately tense.

"What is it, Herc?" he asked, looking around for a convenient basin, in case Hercules' stomach wasn't up to the task.

"It's Ares."

"What? Where?"

Hercules pointed to the corner of the room farthest from the lamp. "Show yourself, Ares."

A light flickered in the corner and Ares, God of War, was revealed standing there, looking, if possible, a bit embarrassed.

Sounding grim, Hercules said, "What do you want, Ares?"

"Nothing." Ares crossed his arms and tried to look more belligerent. "Nothing. Ignore me. Pretend I'm not here."

"Right." Hercules shook his head. "Like that is possible. What are you doing here?"

"I told you. Nothing. I am standing here, doing nothing."

Iolaus and Hercules exchanged shrugs. Ares was telling the truth. He was just standing in the corner, doing nothing besides occupying space.

"You expect us to ignore you?" asked Hercules, still obviously puzzled.

"Exactly. Go to sleep or whatever you were about to do."

"Um," Iolaus snickered. "You're kind of hard to ignore. I mean, you take up a lot of space."

"Ha, ha." Ares did not sound amused.

Before anyone else could comment on the odd situation, Hercules' stomach made a distressed noise and he belched, loudly, drawing raised eyebrows from both his brother and his friend.

"Excuse me," he muttered, flushing with embarrassment.

Ares shook his head, trying and failing to conceal the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "What have you two been up to?"

Iolaus replied, settling back down on the bed. Having Ares standing in the corner of the room was odd but not, apparently dangerous. "Eating. Big wedding banquet. Lamb. Duck. Roast suckling boar. . ."

From his side of the bed, Hercules made a pained sound.

"We ate too much."

Iolaus grinned at Ares, who winked back, then said, very innocently, "So that's why little brother undid his trousers."

"Shut up, Ares," muttered Hercules, rubbing his belly. "If you have to be here, you could be quiet."

"I would like to point out, I was the one who suggested you just ignore me."

There was a moment of silence, then Ares said, "Any camel?"

"What?" Iolaus gave the God of War a look that suggested he questioned said god's sanity.

Ares looked at Iolaus. Hercules had one arm draped across his eyes in an attempt to actually ignore Ares. It was impossible to tell if it worked.

"Camel. Was there any stuffed camel?"

"Are you nuts? Who in their right mind would eat a camel?"

"I would." Ares summoned up a chair, not one of his huge, imposing thrones, just a fairly ordinary chair, carved of ebony, with a black leather seat cushion and gleaming silver feet. He sat down, crossing his ankles. "I was at a wedding banquet in Egypt a couple of centuries ago and they served stuffed camel."

"Yuck."

"That's what I thought but it was delicious. See, they start with a young camel and put a sheep inside that. The sheep is stuffed with chickens and the chickens are stuffed with fish and the whole thing is slow roasted in a pit with herbs and. . ."

"Stop." Hercules uncovered his eyes. "I thought I was supposed to ignore you."

Ares sat up and said primly, "You are ignoring me. I was talking to Iolaus."

"Please." Hercules sounded genuinely miserable. "If you must talk, could you at least not talk about food."

Iolaus snickered, surprised to hear Ares do the same.

"Fine," said Iolaus soothingly, once he had his giggles under control. "We'll talk about something else. So, Ares, is it true that Aphrodite likes to. . ."

Hercules growled warningly. "And not that either."

Ares, grinning, just winked at Iolaus and nodded.

"Okay," continued Iolaus. "So, Ares, why did you support the Trojans?"

Ares blinked as if startled, then relaxed again. "Because Athena was supporting the other side."

"Yeah, but Greece was the other side."

"Trojans are Greek, too, for that matter. Besides, it was a stupid war. Of all the dumb things to go to war over. . ."

"Then you weren't behind the whole apple thing?"

"No." Ares shook his head. "That was Discord's idea pure and simple. I thought it wouldn't work and even if it did, who would have dreamed so many people would have fought for so long over such a dumb thing."

Hercules, to his surprise, said, "But I thought you liked war."

"I do. I just thought that stupid war went on too long and too many good people died. Plus things got out of balance elsewhere while everybody was fighting the Trojans. There's war and then there's obsession."

"So, did you know what was in the horse?"

"You mean you and Hercules and everybody? No, but I wasn't actually there that day. I'd gotten kind of tired of the whole mess and was in. . ." Ares gave Hercules a sudden, sideways glance. "Egypt."

Hercules groaned. "Not back to eating camels. Please, not back to eating camels.

"Herc's right." Iolaus burped. "That's a topic for another day."

The room was silent for a moment, then Iolaus said, "All right, one last question, then I'll ignore you. Why are you here?"

The embarrassed look came back into Ares' face. He stared at his boots before muttering, "Because no one would look for me here."

Hercules frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just what it sounds like. If you were looking for me, would you look in a room with the two of you?"

"Um. . ." Hercules looked over at Iolaus, who shrugged. "Well, no. Frankly, this would be the last place I'd look. So, who's looking for you?"

Before Ares could answer, the answer appeared, in the form of two small boys. One was fair-haired, dressed in a white chiton, with a pair of shimmering wings. The other boy had darker hair and wore trousers and a tunic.

"Found you, Grandpa!" crowed Bliss, leaping in his grandfather's lap and throwing his chubby arms around Ares' neck. "Vander was right."

Evander turned and waved at the occupants of the bed, saying, "'Lo, Uncle Herc, Uncle Oluss. You're it, Daddy."

"If you ever tell anyone," growled Ares as he stood up, a boy held securely in each arm, "I will kill both you of slowly and horribly, no matter what Zeus says."

The room was lit for an instant with bright flash, then Iolaus and Hercules found themselves alone. Blinking at the afterimage, Iolaus shook his head.

"That was odd," he said, trying to focus on Hercules.

"That was a hallucination brought on by too much fig pie." Hercules said it very firmly, ignoring the ebony chair with the leather seat and silver feet which gave lie to the hallucination theory.

"Right." Iolaus tugged the corner of the blanket over himself. "Too much pie." He waited while Hercules got comfortable, then added, "Wonder what camel tastes like?"

February 2002
written before the death of Kevin Smith on Feb. 16, 2002