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CHAPTER 2
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Should've gone for Argo. Already, Joxer had tripped over his own feet twice, crashed into five trees, three boulders, and a stray goat, nearly garrotted himself with his own belt, and fallen over for no apparent reason an astonishing sixteen times. And Callisto hadn't even been trying to control his movements at all. She snorted derisively. Maybe it would do him some good.
Joxer looked around in confusion. Xena and Gabrielle continued on ahead as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
"Am I the only who hears that?" he muttered to himself.
Callisto had been playing it cool for the past few hours while she waited for a convenient moment to re-acquaint Xena with her old pal Hades. If Xena grew wise to her presence in Joxer's head, she'd surely run him through and then Callisto would be shit out of luck. Except for horsey.
Argo shied away from Joxer and whinnied nervously, as if reading Callisto's thoughts.
Callisto forced Joxer to stop and re-lace his boots as a preventative measure against the inevitable. Ahead, Xena and Gabrielle paused as they reached a log bridge spanning a wide, swiftly flowing river.
"It looks deep," commented Gabrielle, trying to see through the muddy water to the bottom.
In a flash, Callisto seized control of Joxer's legs, propelling him forward, head down, smack into Xena's rear. Xena screamed as she slipped off the bridge into the river, her cry cutting off abruptly when she landed in ankle-deep water. She glared at Joxer.
He coughed. "Killer bee. Headed straight for you. No need to thank me."
Callisto was impressed—Joxer had come up with that on his own. Years of having to think up excuses on the spot to cover random acts of idiocy had evidently made it somewhat of a reflex.
Xena and Gabrielle cast identical suspicious sidelong glances at him. They're beginning to suspect.
"Suspect what?" Joxer hazarded in a barely audible whisper.
How manly and courageous you are—erm, I am. Callisto unconsciously gritted Joxer's teeth.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my head?"
Shit. Callisto rallied. I'm Terminyx, the Goddess of Insect Repellent, come to protect you from evil killer bees.
Incredibly, Joxer seemed to buy this. "Do you do spiders, too?"
What?
"Once, I fell asleep under a spiderweb and woke up with dead flies stuck to my face. It really grossed me out, and ever since—wah!" The path quite rudely rose up to smack Joxer in the face.
That's it—I'm driving now! Callisto seized Joxer's muscles, forcing them to cooperate instead of battling each other with every step. His uncharacteristically smooth, fluid movement drew awed stares from Xena, Gabrielle, and Horsey until Joxer staged a revolt in his left ankle and purposely tripped himself up. Xena and Gabrielle shrugged and resumed walking.
The tighter Callisto tried to control his movements, the harder Joxer fought. He careened back and forth across the path like a man in a body cast being attacked by fire ants.
Gabrielle watched as he got tangled in a vine and fell flat on his ass. She turned to Xena, chuckling. "You know, for a second there I was worried that Callisto had taken over Joxer's body, too."
"Calli—?!" Joxer managed to exclaim before Callisto rammed the hilt of his sword into his throat.
She felt the beginnings of anger crawl out of the primordial ooze of his mind and beach itself on the shores of wrath. It dawned on Callisto that if she made him angry enough, he'd force her out just like Xena and Gabrielle did. She abruptly relaxed control, sending Joxer flying down the path like an overstretched rubber band.
Xena extended a hand to help him up. "Are you okay?"
Callisto maintained an iron grip on Joxer's vocal cords. "Fine," he grunted.
Joxer staggered to his feet, his anger subsiding somewhat as he regained control of his limbs. Seeing half of the broken staff sticking out of Gabrielle's pack, he grabbed it in an attempt to beat Callisto out of his head.
"Give that back!" Gabrielle ordered.
Joxer struggled to tell her what was going on inside his head, but Callisto wouldn't let him. Gabrielle unsuccessfully tried to pry his fingers from the broken staff as he continued to bash it into his skull. Experimenting with a new tactic, Gabrielle began to smack him in the head with the staff, reasoning that she'd get it back when he was unconscious. Xena stayed well out of their way until Joxer decided he needed a bigger bludgeon and went for her sword.
Callisto folded her arms, figuratively speaking, and watched with glee as they beat each other senseless, keeping alert for any opportunity to stab Xena with something sharp.
As luck wouldn't have it, none appeared. Xena ended the scuffle by hog-tying Joxer and throwing him over Argo's back. They reached the outskirts of a small town with no further mishaps.
"I think we all need a break from each other. Why don't we split up and meet tonight at the tavern?" Xena suggested.
"Bye," Gabrielle seconded, heading off to the market.
Xena untied Joxer, leaving him alone with Callisto as she went to find a stable for Argo.
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She had thought Sovereign was intolerable, but nothing, not even the tapping, compared to the little peep show Joxer had running through his head twenty-four/seven. The main feature, inspired by recent events, involved Xena and Gabrielle and very little in the way of clothes. Occasionally, depending on his mood, it also included olive oil, mud, or gelatin.
That's disgusting.
"If you don't like it, you can always leave," Joxer addressed a flower cart in the town marketplace.
Callisto smiled inwardly at the bystanders' reaction. You know, most people don't answer the voices in their heads out loud.
"Oh." Joxer glanced nervously around at the staring faces. I mean, oh. "What do you want with Xena anyway?" he whispered under his breath.
Callisto picked up a few things as they passed a kitchen-wares stall. I want to apologize for all the nasty things I've done to her over the years.
Joxer looked down at the implement in his hand. "With a meat cleaver?" Something posing as understanding dawned. "Wait, you're not, like, into all that kinky M&M bondage and stuff, are you?"
That's S&M.
"I knew it!" A mischevious glint lit up his face. "You think there's any chance, like after you apologize to Xena, we could um, you know, with her and Gabrielle and you coaching me…" He accompanied this request with a variety of graphic hand gestures.
Joxer's shoulders shuddered with the force of Callisto's revulsion. She would kill him this instant if she wouldn't die along with him or would at least ditch him if she had another means of keeping close to Xena. Callisto reflexively steered him away from collision with a precariously stacked display of fruit. Tell you what—why don't you just take a back seat for awhile and let me do all the difficult work, like walking and talking, while you carry on with your little plans.
"You know, I've always fantasized about being dominated by a woman, but I didn't expect it to be like this."
Something snapped in Callisto's mind. The lethal combination of klutziness, cheerfulness, and the never-ending dirty daydreams produced a rage akin to that she felt every time she saw Xena's face. There was a tiny pop, and suddenly Joxer's head was a very, very quiet place.
Joxer?
Silence.
Callisto skipped, twirled, and came dangerously close to frolicking in the marketplace. The victory dance subsided as she realized that she was drawing stares from a cluster of women standing around a jeweler's stall. Callisto stared down at Joxer's armor in distaste as it clunked to a halt several moments after she stopped moving. Did he lose a bet or something? Well, there's no reason I have to dress like Joxer just because I happen to be Joxer. She ducked into a changing tent outside the clothier's stall.
The dented and ill-fitting armor was off in a flash. Oh my gods. Callisto's lip curled at the network of scars and accompanying rainbow of bruises covering Joxer's body like a bad game of connect-the-dots. "Does he think black and blue is a good look for him?"
She clothed him in tight silver-studded leather armor a la Ares, and immediately exploded in derisive laughter. "I look like a dominatrix's wet dream," she chortled. Leering menacingly at herself in the mirror just made her laugh all the harder. Joxer was simply the opposite of sinister. "This will never do."
She changed clothes several more times, eventually settling for a plain cotton tunic and leather trousers. "Well," she reasoned, "if I don't inspire fear, at least I won't attract butch women looking for a whipping boy."
A strong hand seized her by the scruff of Joxer's neck and hauled her out of the tent. Xena glared at her from an arms' length away. "I've been looking all over for you. There's trouble," she added ominously.
Callisto scrambled to come up with a suitably Joxer-esque response. "You think I had something to do with it?"
Xena glowered, leading her through the crowd.
-=-=-
Gabrielle met them outside the tavern, distrust written across her face as she watched Joxer approach. "There's some random guy in there pretending to be you. I think it's Callisto trying to play a trick on us."
Callisto had to struggle not to snigger aloud. She managed to mutter a "You don't say" without choking. Gabrielle led the way into the crowded tavern, where a burly bartender observed them apprehensively.
"So where's this impostor?" Callisto asked as she rested Joxer's elbows on the bar, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.
The bartender whipped a butter knife out of nowhere and held it to Joxer's throat. "You're the impostor!"
So that's where the little twerp went.
"Knock it off, Callisto," Gabrielle ordered the bartender. "You're not going to get us that easily."
"I'm not Callisto, I'm Joxer!" the bartender protested. "He's Callisto!" He waved the butter knife menacingly at Joxer's face.
"I can understand why you want to be me," Callisto said as if chewing on a lemon. "I mean, I'm Joxer the Mighty."
"I'm Joxer the Mighty!"
"He's been saying that since we got here," Gabrielle muttered under her breath. "He knows a lot about us, too. I think he might have been stalking Joxer or something."
Xena discreetly had a coughing fit.
Callisto felt Joxer scrutinizing her through the bartender's eyes, making sure she didn't damage his body any more than it would have been damaged anyway in his care. "I look good!" Joxer exclaimed in spite of himself. "What did you do to my armor?"
"I burnt it." Callisto cleared her throat, realizing that she had drawn startled looks from Xena and Gabrielle. "I mean, it was about to fall apart and I couldn't pay anyone to take it away, so I ditched it."
"You did what? I made that armor myself!" the bartender squealed in indignation.
"Yeah, it looked like a bartender made it," Callisto drawled, miming drunkenness.
"Why, I oughta…" The bartender tried to launch himself at Callisto, hands outstretched to strangle Joxer's throat, but he slipped and clunked his head on the bar. A moment later, he popped up again with a flatware caddie in his hands, chucking forks at Callisto's head.
She deftly dodged out of the way of the flying utensils, catching a few to fling back at him with perversely accurate aim.
The bartender roared in a gravelly voice much deeper than the one he previously spoke with. "Stop him from flinging forks at my ass!"
He replied in his original shrill register. "I'm trying!"
Xena turned to stare intensely at her. "Callisto." It was a name. It was an accusation. It was a death warrant.
What the hell. The cat's out of the bag and has already hacked up a hairball on the floor. Callisto smirked and waved to Xena.
The bartender's limbs spasmed as he fought for control of his own body. "You are an annoying little shit and I bid you begone!"
"No!" he shrieked hysterically at himself. "You can't force me out! Where am I gonna go?"
Gaining the upper hand, he folded his arms and glared menacingly in the manner of all bartenders when dealing with a particularly difficult patron. "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."
Joxer's frustrated howl cut off abruptly as the bartender successfully expelled him from his mind.
Xena, meanwhile, went after Callisto with everything in the bar that wasn't nailed down. Callisto ducked and dodged out of the way, catching whatever she could to throw right back at Xena. Gabrielle managed to trip Callisto with her patched-up staff, sprawling her flat-out on the bar.
Not about to miss his opportunity, the bartender reached under the bar and pulled out a heavily rusted, deeply nicked, and generally nasty-looking sword, which he held at Callisto's throat as Xena pinned her down. "You cause trouble in my bar, you get trouble in my bar. If a blow from this don't kill you, then you'll certainly die from infection afterwards."
"Allow me," Xena said, taking the hilt from the bartender's hand.
Callisto mentally pressed the eject button. Nothing happened. She still looked at the world, specifically the Sword of Tetanus, from Joxer's eyes. What the fuck? She tried again, and again. Horrible realization presented itself with all the force of a fork to the ass. She was stuck.
Xena maneuvered the sword until the tip rested in the hollow of Joxer's throat. "Goodbye, Callisto," she whispered, readying herself to shish kebab her enemy.
Callisto closed Joxer's eyes in resignation. She escaped from Tartarus once, she could do it again.
Xena prepared for the final thrust, but was stopped by Gabrielle's hand on her arm.
"You can't," implored Gabrielle. "If you kill Callisto, Joxer won't have a body to come back to. He'll be doomed to wander the earth as a restless spirit for eternity."
Xena raised an eyebrow. "That might not be a bad thing."
"You've killed her a couple times already. You can kill her again once she's safely out of Joxer's body."
"Against my better judgment," growled Xena, tossing the sword back to the bartender. "But you're coming with us until we find out where the real Joxer's gone."
"Fat chance, bitch." Callisto kneed Xena in the gut, kicking her over onto Gabrielle, and dashed out of the tavern.
Joxer's disembodied consciousness watched helplessly as his body ran off into the night. What am I going to do now? he wondered, floating away up into the sky.
A thunderclap resounded in the heavens as a shimmering blue whirlpool appeared above him.