By Aramis

DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to MCA/Universal and were used without permission. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made.

It's a beautiful sunny day outside and I could be hunting or fishing and I'm stuck here. If I'd only broken one leg at least I'd be able to get around, but I had to break two.

There I was happily hunting and the bloody track I was on crumbled and I fell. Herc says I was fortunate not to be killed, but I don't feel very lucky at present. Okay, during those three days I was lying on the hillside before Herc found me, I thought it might be nice to be in a comfortable bed, but I've been trapped in here for a week now and the bed has lost any appeal it might have had.

Herc gave me this parchment today in the hope that it will give me something to do. He just wants to shut me up, to try to stop me grumbling. Yeah, I know I'm being unreasonable, but complaining helps. Well, it helps me anyway, though not poor old Herc. I've just about driven him to distraction. I know that he doesn't deserve this, but I can't seem to stop moaning even though I have good intentions of doing so.

Anyway I'm afraid I wasted the first piece of parchment drawing a nasty picture entitled "Hercules: The Tyrant Nurse". I've hidden that under the mattress. Drawing it made me feel good, but then I thought about all he's done for me and I felt really guilty. I'll have to find some way to get rid of it because he will be hurt if he sees it.

However, I know he would never stoop to reading something private that I might write, so now I've resolved to try to take my feelings out in writing rather than getting at Herc. I don't know if I'll manage this, but I'll try.

I don't know why but I always let Herc see my worst side. I suppose I feel I don't need to keep my guard up with him and can just be myself, warts and all. Anyway he's known me since we were kids so I guess there's not a lot that he doesn't know about me. I suppose that that is really a measure of a true friendship that you can know a person's bad points and still like them.

Herc is my best friend in all the world yet I know he's not perfect. Some people would scoff at that. The idea of an insignificant mortal saying that about a demigod, and the son of Zeus, to boot, would seem a ridiculous piece of presumption, but it *is* true. For one thing, Herc always assumes he knows best and the really annoying thing is that that is usually true, not that I'd admit that to him of course. Anyway, as a result he has an annoying habit of lecturing me as though I was a kid. That's what he makes me feel like anyway.

He seems to think I don't know when I've done something foolish and that he needs to point it out to me. Little does he know some of my more stupid acts have been committed precisely because he's told me not to do something, like when I went out over the wall at Naxos to try to destroy Titanus, Bledar's giant catapult. I'd suggested going, but he had vetoed it. Okay, I *did* get caught, but I at least got right up to the catapult and I'm sure he'd not have managed to sneak that close. He's too big to be properly sneaky.

The trouble is he doesn't understand that when someone tells me I can't do something I just *have* to try it. I don't know why myself. No, that's a lie. I *do* know why. I always have to try to prove myself to others ... and myself.

I've just made a comment about Herc being too big, but the real problem is I am too small, at least according to other people's lights. I don't feel that small. I know I always get a shock if I'm standing by Herc and I see our reflection in a mirror. He must be a good foot or more taller than me, but it doesn't normally seem that much.

Okay, people have always got at me about my height. They needn't bother. They don't have to tell me I'm short. My father made it quite clear to me from the start that I was just a runt, so I suppose I should be used to it and Herc tells me to ignore it when men make comments about it as words don't hurt people, but they *do*. They hurt *me* anyway. I suppose that's just me being the wimp my father always said I was, but that's how it is.

However, there's more to it than that. You see if I don't respond the bullies think I'm yellow and that just encourages them. It's all very well for Hercules to refuse to fight because everyone knows his reputation and if he doesn't fight no one would imagine it's because he's a coward, but it's different for me.

Anyway, they'll keep needling me until there is a fight so it's best for me to seize the initiative and attack first. If I'm lucky that gives them second thoughts and causes them to back off and if I'm not well I get a few more cuts and bruises and then a lecture from Hercules on my stupidity.

Actually, to be honest, I shouldn't have said 'If I'm lucky' because I enjoy the odd scrap. It gets the blood flowing. Herc can't understand that. The thought that someone might actually enjoy a set-to is alien to him and yet there have been times when I'm sure he's had that feeling, although he never consciously acknowledges it.

I know it was just a fun thing, but one occasion that comes strongly to mind was a little fight we had in his barn before we set out after the monster that turned out to be the Minotaur. With some considerable difficulty, because he had repeatedly insisted "I am not going to fight you, Iolaus", I had goaded him into letting me show him some eastern fighting techniques I had picked up. He thought I'd be easy meat and was quite amazed to find himself flying across his own barn more than once. He finally managed to get me in a scissors hold and once he had his hands on me I was lost. When I'm fighting with him I'm fine as long as I can keep my distance, but once he's got a grip there's no hope. It's like being held in a vise. He picked me up and was all set to stuff me head first into a water barrel, when Deianeira arrived and saved me. However, there is no doubt in my mind that he was thoroughly enjoying the roughhousing. I know I was anyway.

My father always used to say I was a worthless runt and would never be a warrior, but Herc doesn't think that. Sure he says I'm foolhardy and too quick with my fists, but at least he doesn't see me like my father did. *And* he trusts me to watch his back in fights.

I do get mad at times because he is overprotective, but I know he's not like that just with me and so it isn't really a putdown. He's like a mother hen, always falling over himself to look after everybody else.

He's always so kind to others and always looks for the best in everybody, even absolute scumbags. It's amazing that he hasn't become totally disillusioned after some of the characters we've met, but it's even more incredible how often he's found good points in people, just by believing in them, that *they* didn't even know they had. The mercenary Derk, with whom he was stranded on a desert island, is one case in point and an even more telling one is the way he managed to make peace with Echidna, the Mother of All Monsters.

Of course, he does get hurt at times when people he hopes to help or reform don't respond as he had hoped, but he never voices his disappointment over this, I just see it in his eyes.

He's not like me on that score. If someone or something annoys me, I get *very* vocal. I like to express my feelings rather than bottling them up. It always makes me feel better even if it sometimes escalates the situation

Herc feels he needs to exercise self-control. He's a bit scared of his own strength and is always afraid of using excessive force. People are always impressed by what he can do, but few have seen the real power he can unleash. When we're fighting, I'm always giving the bad guys all I can, while he's consciously holding back, pulling his punches.

This extreme self-control has positive aspects, but also negative consequences. He tends to brood over things. I know I'm back to the mother hen image, but it's the most apt description of Herc I can think of. Often he'll get mad with me and he will be giving me the silent treatment and I can't stand that. I'll get so jittery I'll actually ask for the lecture just to break the tension.

By contrast, I know he thinks I talk too much. I like to chatter about various things, particularly to break the boredom of a long journey, but he calls it "babbling" and frequently has me on about it. Even my singing can irritate him. I have to admit that my songs are often louder and bawdier than they need be just to stir him up. Sometimes he retaliates by clamping a hand over my mouth, but not usually as he knows I'll take revenge by being noisier than ever once he's let me go.

I know anybody reading this (and I hope nobody but me will ever read this) will be surprised, and probably disapproving, of my getting at Herc, but it's impossible for me not to tease him when he's on his moral high horse and is self-righteous and too serious. Anyway, even when he's not, I still have fun pestering at him. What good are friends if you can't give them a bit of cheek?

Actually, his mother, Alcmene, reckons it's good for him to have someone to tease him and to treat him just like anybody else. There are too many people who are ready to almost worship him because he is the son of Zeus and that can't be good for anyone. Anyway, I know he enjoys our banter and usually gives as good as he gets.

Sometimes I do go too far and he does get really mad and I will admit that I've occasionally been a bit scared on such occasions when I've thought about his strength. He could snap me like a twig if he really wanted to do so and sometimes I wonder if ... No, he's never really hurt me physically. Sure he occasionally gives me a playful punch on the shoulder that hurts a damn sight more than he knows or I let on, but he doesn't mean to hurt me. He even threatens me at times. He tells me I need a damned good thrashing, but I had enough of those as a kid to know that they do no good and he knows that too.

He is aware that my father treated me harshly when I was a child, though I hope he'll never know just how bad it was. He'd be sorry that he never tried to intervene, but how could he? He was only a kid like me. However, he'd still feel guilty. He always carries the cares of the world upon his shoulders. It's a self-imposed burden that he doesn't deserve.

I'm afraid that I've caused him more than my share of trouble and, despite my best intentions, I'm sure I'll continue to do so. For instance, I remember when we were on our way to the games at Thrace and a band of thugs tried to make us pay a toll to cross a bridge. Herc was willing to find a place to cross further down and when they taunted us with being chicken he didn't care and started to walk off. I hesitated as I didn't want to back down and they called to him "Don't leave your kid brother behind" and that was *it*. Of course, Herc turned back to help me and I would have got creamed without him as there were just too many, but I just *had* to fight.

I suppose that in a way he's the cause of some of my worst excesses as I know, when the crunch comes, he'll always be there to bail me out and he's quick to forgive. I'll never forget that time that Xena got her claws into me and I was so infatuated I was ready to throw aside his friendship and even came near to killing him. When she made her escape I pointed out he could have stopped her if he hadn't gone to my aid and I've never forgotten what he said to me: "You're more important to me than she is". Gods that made me feel so guilty and yet so proud at the same time.

That's Herc all over. Even when I've been particularly stupid he's more likely to hug me than to reprimand me.

He actually hugged me the first day we met and it absolutely stunned me. I could never recall anyone doing that to me before.

I must have been about ten years old and my family had just moved to the town. A gang of boys had decided to 'welcome' me by picking on me. I saw red and waded into them. I got in a few good shots, but there were too many of them and I was soon on the ground and they were punching and kicking me. Suddenly this boy intervened and started pulling them off me. I managed to get up and together we put them to flight.

I was so elated. I held out my hand to him expecting him to take it in a warrior's grip but, to my consternation, he took my hand and pulled me into a hug. I started to struggle a bit, but he held me until I calmed and then said, "Are you feeling better. They've made quite a mess of you."

With the adrenalin flowing, I hadn't been aware of my cuts and bruises up to that point and was amazed that he should be concerned. Whenever I had limped home after a fight, my father had taken it as another instance of my inferiority and had been totally unsympathetic and he had often done worse to me himself with no sign of remorse.

My new friend took me to his home and his mother patched me up. Her tenderness and expressions of concern almost unmanned me. I could feel the tears welling up. I got out of there as quickly as I could before I disgraced myself.

However, in the months that followed, I gradually learned to accept the affectionate gestures both made towards each other and, most surprisingly, towards me. It was a revelation to find that a parent should be so loving to a son and even towards his scruffy, trouble-making little friend.

I must admit that, when I looked at my new friend, I couldn't help thinking my father would have been proud to have a son like him: big, strong and handsome instead of little and woefully pretty. However, in the face of his sunny nature and generous friendship I did not hold that against Hercules. I just could not believe my good luck that someone like him would want me as a friend.

Mind you, I knew lots of things about hunting and fishing that he didn't know and so I felt I had something to offer to the friendship too.

I also had lots to offer in the form of ideas that got us into trouble. Herc would have not got into a fraction of the strife he did if he hadn't followed my lead. Not that he followed blindly. Often he had major and, as it frequently turned out, very sensible reservations about the wisdom of my various projects, but he'd always tag along to see to my safety if nothing else. It was probably only fair that the worst he used to suffer were scoldings and the occasional groundings from Alcmene, whereas my father would thrash me unmercifully *if* he happened to be at home, because the various scrapes we got into always seemed to have been my fault.

At such times I used to envy him the fact that Zeus never in an appearance, though now, knowing the latter, I am aware he would have regarded our escapades with amusement anyway. How I wished my father would go away and not return.

Yet it was stupid really. Usually Dad just turned up, but sometimes my mother got news that he was coming home and then I'd get quite excited. I used to imagine he would come home and be impressed by how much I'd grown and by the new hunting skills I had acquired, but he never was. Truth was I never seemed to get much bigger and he wasn't sufficiently interested in me to care whether I had any skills or not.

When he was home I virtually lived with Alcmene and Hercules and avoided him as much as I could. I tried to hide everything from them, but they saw the marks on me and must have realized that it was too much of a coincidence that I suddenly became very clumsy and had lots of falls every time my father was home.

When I was fourteen I finally fled from home after a particularly vicious beating and ended up begging and thieving on the streets of Athens for a year. Hercules was the one that found me.
 
He was visiting the city with his mother and he saw me stealing fruit from a stall. The owner had not observed me, but Herc intercepted me and took me back and paid for it. Next thing I knew he had somehow arranged for me to go to Chiron's Academy with him.

My life would have been a dead-end without him. I would have got deeper into crime or possibly become a mercenary. Herc doesn't understand just what a debt I owe him and can never repay no matter what I do.

As far as I am concerned he is the centre of my world. When Maceus, brother of Demetrius, tortured me to try to make reveal Hercules' whereabouts I was determined not to tell in spite of what he did and I preferred to die by the Fire Enforcer's hand to protect him from her. When I fought the Water Enforcer to try to keep her away from Hercules he thought I should have gone to him rather than taking her on myself. He doesn't understand that if anything happened to him my life would be over.

That makes me think of another thing I do that embarrasses him. I love to tell people stories about the things he does. He accuses me of exaggerating and making up details, but I don't ... well, only a bit. Stories need to be tidied up a bit and rearranged at times. That doesn't make them wrong. Anyway, I love to tell people about him and they like to listen, so everybody's happy. Everybody except Herc that is. The trouble is he's too modest to take the credit for all the good he does, but he fully deserves all the admiration that comes his way and more.

I have to admit though that I do get a bit down at times because people are so busy thanking him for his help that they forget that I was there too. However, I know that Herc recognizes my contribution to our partnership, even though I do forget this at times.

I guess I'm just a bit too sensitive. Although I try to pretend to the world that nothing hurts me, Herc knows better. I can let my guard down with him and cry in his arms and he never thinks the worse of me for it.

He upsets me at times though himself, especially when he shuts me out. Like when Alcmene was kidnapped by Demetrius and he wanted to go after her alone and told me it was a family matter. That *hurt*. He'll never know just how much that hurt. I had already gone through an emotional wringer when he had been badly injured by Hera's archers. Their arrows are invariably fatal to humans and I had not known whether his divine blood would save him. For some hours, I thought he was going to die and then, when he finally roused, it seemed I was going to lose him in another sense at least.

I know he didn't mean to hurt me and was only trying to protect me, but what I know rationally and what I feel are often quite disparate. I guess this is all part of my insecurities. The trouble is he is my safe place in this world. When I'm with him I feel I can do anything, but when I'm not I feel like the best part of me is missing.

He tells me I could be a famous warrior in my own right, but I don't think so. What I am is what he has made me. I would probably have died in a tavern brawl or ended up in jail or the galleys were it not for him.

I'm not a coward, but I just need someone .... him! I don't like being alone.

I guess that's one of the reasons I get into so much trouble. I look for love and yet something in me says I'm not worthy of it. A legacy of my father! So I flirt because, apart from being fun, it avoids commitment and subsequent emotional hurt. It doesn't stop physical hurt, however, as numerous husbands, boyfriends and brothers don't seem to understand it's just a harmless game.

Of course, Herc doesn't approve of this either because he would only make up to a woman if he was serious in his intentions towards her.

That's a problem in itself as far as I am concerned. I liked Deianeira and felt she was a worthy wife for him, but when he married Serena, the Golden Hind, my world fell apart. She was a creature of Ares and I neither liked nor trusted her. This sounds stupid considering she saved my life, but it was her arrow that had poisoned me, supposedly in mistake for one of Nestor's hunters, and I still don't know whether she saved me only because of her interest in Hercules. Whatever the truth, he was so besotted with her that I was pushed out of any small place I had in his heart. Somehow I managed to force myself to be best man at their wedding. It was killing me, but I couldn't let Herc down.

Then when she died I felt so guilty because I had wished her dead. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't sorry that she was dead, but because Hercules was so upset and feared that he had actually killed her in his sleep. I even offered to admit to the killing, in order to protect him and his reputation, when the lynch mob was coming, although he wouldn't allow me to do that.

Anyway, we'll never know whether Herc or I was right about her. I guess most people would say he'd be bound to know best and I'd have to say on balance I'm usually the one who has made the mistake, but he's not always right.

I remember when he actually got us imprisoned on purpose. We had met this woman called Felicita and she had told us about her husband, Gladius, who had been unjustly enslaved by the tyrant Menas Maxius. Well, old Herc had a stupid idea about getting us thrown into the prison so we could free the man. I couldn't believe it. I had a really bad feeling about the whole thing. I protested, but as usual he brushed my objections aside. Once he has decided upon a course there's no stopping him. I say he's stubborn; he says he's determined.

Well, we did manage to save Gladius so he was right, but I was right too as neither of us emerged unscathed. I was so terrified that Herc would die in that arena and as far as I am concerned nobody's life is worth his.

I keep coming back to this. I keep saying how much he means to me, but I've shied away from the whole truth and, if I can't even write it on a piece of parchment that is for my eyes only, how will I ever pluck up the courage to tell him.

I love him.

There I've said it. Written it anyway which is probably as close as I'll ever get to saying it.

Okay, the fact that I love him should have been clear from what I've already written, but there are many kinds of love. Sure I love him as a friend, but it's more than that. I *want* him.

I first consciously recognized this when we were hunting the warlord Darphus and Ares' dog Graegus. I had been scouting ahead and returned to camp to find Xena partially clad and both she and Hercules dishevelled. Clearly they had been enjoying themselves in my absence. I burbled, "Did I get back too soon" and then tried, unsuccessfully to correct my gaffe by adding, "I mean I didn't think I'd get back so soon."

Both were as uncomfortable as I was. However, they misinterpreted the reason for my flustered reaction. Both assumed my emotion was one of anger that my best friend should contemplate an affair with the woman who had seduced and used me in a plot to kill Hercules, even though she had subsequently saved my life and we had been reconciled, to some extent, as a result. They probably even recognized the jealousy involved. However, they did not know that I was jealous of her being with him not vice versa. In a blinding flash of self-realization, I knew that I wanted Herc for my lover.

Okay, that was months ago and, coward that I am, I still have not brought myself to tell him directly how I feel about him. Sure I've dropped hints, and some very broad ones at that, but he hasn't picked up on any of them.

I guess I'm scared how he'll react. He'll probably be shocked and I can't believe there's any real chance that he will share my desires. I know he loves me, but that's just as a friend. With his handsome face and glorious body, he could have anyone he wanted, even without the added glamour of being a demigod so why should he pick me?

The trouble is every time I look at him my head fills with lascivious thoughts and it's been worse since my accident because he's had to do so much for me physically and his touch is driving me crazy. Also because I'm stuck here I have had little to do but think. Gods if he knew just what I've been wishing he'd be stunned.

I just stopped and read over what I've written. Looking at all my waffle, I have decided enough is enough. I've made a decision. I am going to let Herc know how I feel because, looking at what I've said, I've decided that otherwise I'm really proving my father right and that I am nothing but a wimp.

All I've got to do is figure out the best way to do this.

*All*?

Oh, gods ...

THE END

E-mail the author c/o Nephele at nephele@hotmail.com