First fic, second language. Don´t expect to be impressed in any way :)

Slash, most definitely, since i´m a fan of the very unusual pairing Herc/Icarus. (What is it, one or two other fics…?) So if that kind of stuff rubs you the wrong way – it´s okay, just turn around right now. If you dislike the pairing because you´re a homophobic whom believe that all us slash worshippers deserve to burn in hell, you´re an idiot. Turn around and leave.

A bit one-sided, but a happy ending is most likely to sail up – i´m a sucker for ´em.

I really like Meg, just so you guys know, but still I think she´s a bit of a bore. I mean, in the choice between her and Icarus – whom do you think would guarantee you a life completely free of boredom?

Prologue

When growing up, Hercules had been quick to learn some of life´s lessons.

The most important thing he´d discovered would be – If you happen to be different from everybody else in any way, it doesn´t matter at all if you try to be nice and always do your best. People will hate you anyways, and do their best to turn your life into living hell. It´d been a hard lesson to learn, so to discover when he finally met up with his real father that he in reality were a demigod… well, for a short while that´d been the best moment of his life. He were different, but for a reason, and maybe there were a chance for him to one day reach Mount Olympus – a place where the likes of him were considered normal! His happiness had less to do with the discovery that the most powerful of all the gods were his father, and more to do with the fact that maybe, just maybe, he would one day be considered normal!

He´d met Phil, started his hero training, and shortly afterwards he went to school for the first time ever. School – a sweet little hell consisting of bitchy teachers, a workload the size of mount Olympus herself and constant pressure to try and keep up with both lessons, homework and hero training.

But… what did it matter? Because here, Hercules found at least a bit of what he´d searched for all his life. He found a little acceptance, and a little bit of feeling for being normal.

Of course, he didn´t felt it all the time. For a kid, whom despite his enormous strength were shy and naïve, turned out to be an easy target for the school´s bullies, with Adonis as their leader. Hercules remembered the same kind of morons from his home village, but here in Athens, there were a significant difference.

That difference had presented himself as Icarus. He were such a freak that Hercules himself seemed normal when compared, he seemed to be a complete nutcase, his hair looked more like a bird´s nest and his eyes seemed to have been stolen from two completely different creatures and then placed in the same skinny face.

He´d also met the pretty and a bit spooky Cassandra, yes. But Icarus had became his first and best friend, and for a long, long time, life had been perfect for Hercules. He still were haunted by bullies, yes, but what did it matter when he had Icarus and Cassandra with him? They studied together, ate together, adventured together – they did everything together. Hercules felt his friendship with Icarus evolve and become stronger, despite the many annoying things that Icarus did and said, and his relationship with Cassandra went back and forth between friendship to small crushes and back to friendship again. Despite the overwhelming responsibility of school and training, Hercules were truly happy for the first time of his life, and some days he just wanted his life to continue like this for all eternity. All were simple, all were smooth, and in the end of all their adventures and fights against Hades and his minions, everything went back to perfect again.

And then… things changed.