Notes: This is partly the result of a conversation with delos13. Other notes/acknowledgements at the end. As for the rollercoaster, all I can say is…stay with me. I'm trying to place what happened in a larger cultural context.

He was going to have to kill him.

The laws of timē, public honor, demanded it.

It wasn't just that Alexander had embarrassed him in public. In one sentence, Alexander had stripped him of all standing he'd struggled to attain since they'd crossed into Asia. He'd never been as ambitious as some of his fellow officers, but his good name did mean something to him.

Now, he was nothing. Not just nothing without Alexander, he was nothing at all. Alexander had cut him off at the knees. Or maybe at the balls would be more appropriate. A man owed no respect.

And it hadn't been his enemy, it hadn't been Krateros, to deliver the blow. It had been his friend. Wasn't a virtuous man supposed to help his friends and lay low his enemies? In his fury, Alexander had treated him like an enemy.

Hephaistion had been in the wrong. He didn't deny that. He'd lost his temper at Krateros's goading and pulled his sword first. Krateros had answered, and Parmenion's Successor had gone blade to blade with Alexander's Hypaspistes Oktopos: the two most powerful men in the army brawling like boys in the gymnasion.

Oh, that had not been pretty. And when Alexander had pushed his way between them, the light of the god on him, his face full of frightening rage, Hephaistion had been shocked back into himself. "What the fuck are you both doing?" the king had thundered in that tone that commanded armies, his own sword drawn, pointed first at one, then other. Even Krateros had gone white in the face.

For a few breaths, Hephaistion had wanted the earth to open and swallow him. He'd dropped his sword and his chin, unable to meet Alexander's eyes. He'd let his own insecurities, his own pride, and his own plain irritation get the better of him.

But then had come those words. Words he'd never be able to forget: "You're fucking rash and out of your goddamn mind if you don't realize that without me, you're unimportant."

It had been said loudly, too. In front of Krateros. In front of Krateros's men. In front of Hephaistion's men. In front of the other Companions and Friends who'd run up at the racket.

Everyone who was anyone had heard Alexander declare that without him, Hephaistion was inconsequential.

Alexander's eyes had widened even as the rebuke had spilled out of his mouth. Anger might have driven it, but he'd known exactly what he'd said the moment he'd said it. He might have followed up with something to contravene it, or just have admitted he hadn't meant it.

But kings couldn't publicly admit they were wrong, especially not that king.

Instead, he'd turned to glare at Krateros. "You. Now. In my tent." He'd stalked off, Krateros following, but not before the latter had shot a triumphant glance at Hephaistion.

He'd won, the dogshit-eating bastard. Sometimes the one who held the field was the winner. But sometimes the winner retired first, leaving the enemy dead at his feet.

Hephaistion was as one dead.

Shock had carried him back to his own tent where he'd ordered his staff out, then proceeded to methodically tear apart the interior in a frenzy. That wrath had passed into weeping grief, then curling shame. He'd refused to leave his quarters for almost a full day. He knew what he'd face, he knew the indignity, or, from his friends and supporters, the pity.

The Untouchable Hephaistion had finally been brought low. Kicked to the side of the road by his own friend the king, along with donkey shit and yesterday's trash. He'd never asked to be untouchable, he'd just dared to love Alexander, and to trust that Alexander would love him back and protect his honor, even as he defended Alexander's own.

The next day, he'd been summoned to Alexander's tent. He'd toyed with refusing but the Page bearing the message had made it clear the king's "invitation" was an order, which had pulled him back finally into the light of the sun.

Or, well, into a pouring Indian afternoon rainstorm. It had seemed appropriate. He wasn't the only one summoned. Krateros had been there, too, glaring as he'd entered. Hephaistion had been told that the king had delivered a harsh dressing down to Krateros yesterday.

But it hadn't been public.

Standing beside Krateros, Alexander had been all Macedonian king, neither sporting Persian dress nor occupying a throne, even a makeshift one cobbled from a camp chair. He'd waved Hephaistion nearer, making himself a physical barrier between the two. Hephaistion was taller, Krateros was bulkier. They'd glared.

"This is going to stop," the king had said, voice deceptively light. "I've made my own inquiries since yesterday. I know exactly what the fuck is going on here, Krateros. First Philotas, now Hephaistion? And who before those two that I didn't hear about?"

Krateros had turned his eyes from Hephaistion's face to Alexander's. "What is my king implying?"

"That you're an ambitious son of a bitch. I admire that, actually, to a point. But this man"—he'd tapped Hephaistion's shoulder—"is off limits."

"I can defend myself," Hephaistion had snapped. "Maybe I'm unimportant without you, but I can still fight."

"You will shut up." Turning, Alexander had met Hephaistion's eyes. "I don't care what anybody says to you, you will not display behavior unbecoming of a senior officer and my right hand. That says you don't trust me to hold you in proper esteem, and I can't abide a lack of trust."

Alexander may as well have socked him in the jaw. "Lack of trust? Which of us insulted the other in public?"

"Shut up, Hephaistion!"

Krateros had watched their exchange with sly amusement, and that, more than Alexander's rebuke, had closed Hephaistion's mouth. The calculating snake; Hephaistion would give him nothing more to use against them.

Stepping back, Alexander had left Krateros and Hephaistion to face each other across five paces. "You'll shake hands. And you'll swear never to fight again. If you do, I'll kill you both, or at least the one who started it."

There was nothing of humor or jesting in his face. It was the long, icy stare of the King-of-Kings. He'd do it, even if it were Hephaistion he killed, Hephaistion who he claimed to love above all others.

So Hephaistion had shaken Krateros's hand, even as he'd decided that he'd have to kill Alexander despite the fact he loved Alexander above all others.

Honor required it, and sometimes honor trumped love.

To live without honor, without timē, was worse than dying. And Hephaistion knew he would die when he killed his king. If the rest of the Bodyguard didn't spear him immediately, he'd fall on his own sword. Why had Alexander committed this horror against them both? Didn't he remember why Pausanias had stabbed Philip?

Hephaistion and Alexander weren't speaking outside staff meetings, Hephaistion's Guard duty, or very public venues. The entire army was awash with that delicious scandal: the inseparable friends had been torn asunder, leaving fissures of leverage for others. At the highest levels, little pity existed, and the possibility of new power could render old friendships stale. Hephaistion noted who remained loyal, and who only pretended to.

Perdikkas and Nearchos were the most steadfast, along with Perdikkas's brother Alkestas. But Koinos remained friendly, as did Peukestis and Lysimachos. Ptolemy was harder to read; he professed continued friendship despite a certain coolness. Then again, he often seemed cool, sitting back and reading the weather vane of moods at staff meetings, not unlike Hephaistion himself. Aside from these, however, most scented rot and distanced themselves. Krateros's enmity was a given, and Seleukos had never liked him, using this opportunity for advancement, as did Aristonous, Peithon, and Leonnatos, all fellow Somatophylakes, even Alexander's secretary, Eumenes.

Lines were drawn, and in an effort to shelter those who'd proven loyal when it wouldn't help them, Hephaistion left personal notes in a casket that he entrusted to one of his senior staff, without explaining the purpose. He just said, should anything happen to him, the casket was to be given to the rest of the Bodyguard. If the man might have wondered why the Guard instead of the king, he otherwise didn't question the order. Since leaving Poros's kingdom, fighting had become steadily worse and even senior officers were falling, if not always in combat.

Hephaistion wept when Koinos succumbed to a raging fever, and his funeral was one of the few times Hephaistion stood beside Alexander to honor their old friend. Ugly rumor circulated that, post mutiny and for the fact Koinos had championed the officers' request to return, Alexander had arranged for Koinos's demise. Furious, Hephaistion had dared anyone who said such a thing to meet him in personal combat or keep their mouths shut. The rumor died down. No one had any desire to fight the King's Octopus with spear or sword.

It might have seemed odd to defend the man he intended to kill. But Alexander didn't move against men in private by poison, and even now, Hephaistion felt bound to defend his former friend. Like too many in India, Koinos had died of illness, not of more nefarious means.

And as Hephaistion had once gone to Alexander to thank him for standing up for him in public, now Alexander came to Hephaistion's tent to do the same. Hephaistion was working on supply orders for the upcoming campaign against the Malli. Alexander wanted to prevent them from joining up with the Oxydraki, so it had to be fast, and he was leaving in the morning. Supply orders or no, Hephaistion wouldn't be going with him. He—and Krateros too—were excluded as punishment. Hephaistion was to sail with Nearchos to make a base camp downriver, while Krateros brought the elephants and other non-combatants more slowly.

Alexander didn't make a production of his visit, so there was no forewarning, no Page sent ahead to announce him. Hephaistion looked up from the table when the flap to his tent office was pushed aside—he rarely sat with his back to a door these days—then abruptly stood upon realizing who it was. Normally, he wouldn't bother but now was hardly normal. Alexander waved him back into his seat and pulled out a chair for himself. His Somatophylakes hadn't followed; it was just them, the first time they'd been completely alone since his fight with Krateros.

Hephaistion could pull his dagger and finish it right now. He didn't. His damnable curiosity made him wonder why Alexander had come.

"I heard you issued a challenge to anybody who claims I had Koinos murdered for disagreeing with me earlier?"

"I did."

For several long moments, Alexander didn't reply, just studied Hephaistion, hands folded together on the tabletop. Lamplight struck iron-blue eyes, hard like a winter sky. Normally, Hephaistion could read his mood, but not now. "Thank you," he said finally. "It means something to me, that you'd do that, considering."

"I am my king's Somatophylax and hypaspist." Shield-bearer, in the older meaning. He hadn't been a member of the Hypaspists since Baktria and the death of Philotas.

Alexander simply nodded, once. His expression didn't change, but somehow, he seemed sadder. "Duty," he said.

"Duty."

"You know I had to do it, Hephaistion."

He didn't need to explain either the change in topic or the "it." Hephaistion felt his own face go still and his teeth clenched. It was only by force of will that he didn't bellow back in reply. "You had to stop us, yes. And I should never have started it; I admit that. But he shouldn't have said to me what he did—that I got my place only by letting you fuck me. And you didn't have to say what you did in front of everyone. It only confirmed his attack."

Alexander finally glanced down. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't good enough."

"Sorry is all I have."

Exploding to his feet, Hephaistion stalked away, out the door of his office, through the little tent entry foyer, and into his bedchamber. His abrupt appearance startled Ptolemy and Peithon, on guard in the foyer. Not the ones he'd have wanted to overhear this. Maybe Alexander would leave with them.

He didn't. He followed Hephaistion. He couldn't stand to have people angry at him, which was bizarre for a king who frequently had to make people angry as a matter of course. That upset had lain behind his sulking when the army had refused to go further into India. Hephaistion had been sympathetic then. Not now.

Fists clenched, he rounded on Alexander. "Get out of my tent."

"I'm your king."

"Yes, that's all you are now."

There—it was said. Alexander must have known it, but this was the first time Hephaistion had flatly stated it and Alexander's pale skin paled further, freckles standing out starkly. "You're more to me than just a bodyguard and shield-bearer, agapete."

"Don't call me that. I'm not your love."

"You are. And 'sorry' is all I can offer. I was furious with you—you, of all people, should have known better! Did you really think anything Krateros said would matter to me? It's been water off a duck's back to you in the past. Why fucking explode now? How do you think I felt, running up to find my best friend squabbling with another officer like a pair of five-year-olds?"

"How you felt?" Hephaistion was incredulous, but he shouldn't have been. "It's always about you, isn't it? Yes, you're the fucking king, but not everything is about you. Krateros has been harassing me for months. Yet you didn't know, care, or try to stop it, did you? It's not fear of what he said affecting you that made me finally lose it. It's that he's dividing the army. But you didn't ask me a thing, when you rode up. You just sided with him and told me I was worthless."

"I did not side with him—as I made obvious the next day when I warned him off you."

"Where you accused me of not trusting you! That wasn't it, but you made it all about you again. Then you made us promise not to fight, or you'd kill us both. And you would, too."

They were virtually chest to chest, their voices hard but not loud, all too aware of the two Somatophylakes in the room beyond.

Now Alexander spun away and stalked around a bit. "I wouldn't," he admitted. "I couldn't harm a hair on your fucking head. But Krateros has to believe I would. And it's not about me, not like you mean. There are lines in the sand. You're not just my friend, you're also my officer. If you'd come to me and told me what was going on, instead of attacking him yourself…that's the lack of trust I meant!"

"I couldn't come to you, you idiot. That's what he's been saying—I'm not man enough to fight my own battles."

"No, you're a little boy who threw a temper tantrum against a fellow officer instead of coming to your superior—me—to handle it?"

The king had a point, but Hephaistion wasn't ready to admit it. "That's not the Macedonian way. All King's Companions are equal. I can't be seen running to you to fix everything."

"Fuck the Macedonian way! We're not in Macedonia. We're in an army camp on the edge of fucking India surrounded by fucking hostiles. Normally you aren't one to harp on Macedonian custom. That would be Krateros. And he won't come at you again." He paused for breath. "I told you, I'm sorry. I was absolutely livid. That makes me say things I don't mean—and you're no better. But I can't walk back in time and unsay what I said."

Hephaistion's ire had risen all through Alexander's little speech. He just didn't understand. He was entirely focused on excusing himself.

"Some things can't be fixed with plaster and a linen bandage, or 'sorry.' You hurt me too badly. You didn't just hurt me, you humiliated me. Get out of my tent."

Get out of my tent before I kill you.

He still intended to kill him, but it would be calculated, cool, and deliberate. And public.

For just a moment, Hephaistion feared he might have to draw his dagger after all—to defend himself. White-hot fury twisted Alexander's face, the same kind that he'd shown when grabbing a spear to run it through Kleitos.

It broke almost immediately, replaced by a face-crumpling grief even hotter and more intense. For a moment, he seemed to be struggling to say something, then spun on his heel and walked out.

Hephaistion had the supply orders done by morning, delivering them before returning to his office, not bothering to watch as the strike force set out. Two days later, he and Nearchos struck tents to march ahead south and make a base camp, Krateros's part of the army lumbering after.