TITLE: "All of me"
PAIRING: Alexander and Hephaestion.
RATING: PG
CATEGORY: AU.
SUMMARY: A quick offer, a thoughtful decision and an unexpected outcome.
DISCLAIMER: I do not know the people involved, no harm intended; everything is product of my imagination. Alexander and Hephaestion belong to History and to each other but I would not mind sharing my life with the blue-eyed man.
WARNINGS: Not our usual boys' behaviour.
My mother tongue is Spanish and I work without a beta so all the mistakes are mine.
FEEDBACK: comments are love! Any kind of them will help me to improve my writing or leave it forever.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This little piece was inspired by a quote found written on a sugar packet while I was at my favourite coffee house. The translated phrase is "The only thing I can offer you is me, all of me, for as long as you want me"
The poor youth, who was spying from one of the furthest windows, looked with astonishment the luxury of the Throne Room, which was the most important and richly ornamented chamber in the recently-conquered Persian Palace. He had never been allowed to get close to the big building in spite of working for the owner of the palace. He had been born in captivity and he had become automatically a slave as soon as his thin and short legs were strong enough to keep him standing. He had started with very simple tasks but since an early age he had shown a natural skill with horses. That skill had given him the only good thing in his short life, the possibility of becoming the first slave turned into a stable boy.
The true king and owner of the palace, however, was in the run and would probably be dead soon, so only one logical, but at the same time, disturbing thought came to his stable boy's mind when hearing the news about Alexander's victory, what could he offer to this young king who already had it all?
The boy had always been a quiet and hard-working slave, listening to everything and everyone but speaking nothing. He had heard that this Alexander had royal parents who could trace their lineage to the very same Achilles. Two of the best tutors of his time had also taught him. He had a very close group of good Companions, a loyal and undefeatable Army, vast and exotic lands under his rule; immensurable treasures so many that not even the royal secretary knew for sure how much its value was.
This king had also extended his domination over hundreds of peoples living freely in their own lands. He had also married a foreign woman and made her his queen and a graceful dancer and eunuch warmed his bed quite frequently.
However, the conquest of the stable boy's homeland had been very difficult for the Macedonian king and the poor boy feared a big and violent reprisal.
He was a simple slave, he was neither intelligent nor strong, and he had nothing to offer in exchange of his life. He immediately realized that the only thing he could offer the conqueror was he and he asked the gods to be enough and accepted when the time came.
The stable boy was so deep in his thoughts that he did not realize he had been discovered until he was pulled downwards by one of his legs and he fell hard on his back among the roses bushes. Many long and hard thorns found their way through his dirty and thin chiton, scratching the dry skin and letting tiny drops of blood appear on the dirty surface, adding more scars to his already marred thin frame.
The guard that caught him dragged him all the way by his long hair and after walking for a while, he threw him onto his knees in front of the king.
Alexander stopped talking to his queen and asked the guard what that filthy thing was doing in his royal presence. The officer was about to explain that the man had been caught while spying and probably planning a robbery, but the youth, taking a big risk, lifted his head and with a low broken voice, he offered himself all as a gift for as long as the king wanted him.
A generalized and loud laughter flooded the Throne room. Men and women, and even some children, laughed so hard at the youth's idiocy that it brought tears to many of their eyes.
However, the youth remained on his knees, with his eyes cast down, blocking the surrounding noise and only focusing on the blond who was still staring at him with curiosity. He knew that because he could feel the king's eyes on him, he had learned how to see without showing his eyes; a trick that had saved him from unexpected attacks and unfair punishments.
Alexander lifted one hand and the noise died away as quickly as it had begun. He stood up from the gold throne and walked around the youth, studying him, trying to discover if the offer was worthy.
Whispers spread around the room; no one could believe that the powerful king could even be considering the slave's ridiculous offer.
He looked at the young man once again and did not see fear in his body language; he showed neither arrogance nor pride, but a kind of peaceful resignation.
Alexander beckoned Bagoas to his side and asked him to bathe the slave, cut the long hair and beard and give him a simple clean chiton to wear. As soon as he was ready, Bagoas would have to bring him back to the king so he could probably take a more accurate decision if he could assess what he had been offered.
The whole ordeal took nearly two hours. The bathtub had to be emptied twice because the water was so dirty that it was impossible to be used more than once. After many buckets of water, hard body brushes and sponges, white soap and the work of three eunuchs, the work was finally finished and the result revealed a true surprise. Beneath the filthy rags, marred skin and untidy hair, there was quite a handsome man, younger than everyone had surely supposed.
When Bagoas saw the clean long hair, reaching below his shoulder blades, he did not dare to cut it. However, instead of trimming the beard, he decided to shave him clean because he guessed that there were soft and high cheekbones hidden behind it. It was true, without all that facial hair, the young man was absolutely stunning.
A loud gasp made Alexander turn round and as a true admirer of beauty; he looked at the slave in a new light and many ideas started to take shape inside his head. He could take him as a lover or he could simply have a taste of his body and then give him to his men to entertain them. He could kill him for his trespassing or forgive him and send him to work on the land instead of with the horses. He could also chain him until he starved to death or exile him from his newly conquered kingdom.
While all these ideas were running inside his head, the man in question remained on his knees, his head high and his cyan eyes looking at the front, over Alexander's right shoulder.
Alexander tried to clear his mind but he was unable to do it. There was something intriguing about the slave; the king stopped in front of him to look at him again and he could see some things he had missed before, firstly, the young man had no Asian features and those blue eyes were absolutely out of this world and secondly, the man's posture revealed that he was neither a robber nor an intruder but someone who might have had a good upbringing. In spite of his wiry and thin body, he could have been a good soldier or able to endure some military training. Adding all those facts together plus the boy's skill with horses, before taking a final decision, Alexander wanted to know more.
"Tell me your name and profession," Alexander demanded in a loud and clear voice, in spite of the fact that he already had part of that information.
"Hephaestion, son of General Amyntoros, slave and stable boy" Hephaestion replied and any of the Macedonians there could hear his flawless language, spoken with a slight Asian accent.
"So you are Macedonian" Alexander stated surprised.
"No, I was born here, sixteen years ago" he replied.
"How is that possible?" Alexander asked, trying to understand.
"My mother lived with General Amyntoros for many years but they were not married. However, she accompanied him wherever he went. When she got pregnant, my father left her behind because he was going to war and did not want to risk any of our lives. He promised to come back and went away a month later. However, he never came back and my mother spent her little savings looking for him. She never got closer to a real answer, she got into debt and when she could not pay, she became a slave. I was born a month later so I became a slave too" Hephaestion explained.
"Nobody knew about his family. You never met your father but I did and I can assure you that he was a great and brave man. In fact, he died saving my life when I was only five years old and I was kidnapped from my father's palace" Alexander explained.
Hephaestion immediately lifted his face and Alexander could see pride in those cerulean yes. However, seconds later, his eyes became two thin slits, filled with wrath and the young man clenched his jaws so tight that Alexander could hear his teeth crashing against each other.
Hephaestion did not know what to think, the man standing in front of him was the cause of his father's death sixteen years ago and the terrible life he had to suffer because of that, and now, that very same man that destroyed his past, had his future life in his hands.
"Where is your mother?" Alexander asked.
"She died during the great fever five years ago" Hephaestion replied and his tone of voice was sad and not so polite as before.
"So where do you live and who with?" Alexander asked again. He wanted to reprimand the slave for addressing him not as his king, but he decided to wait.
"At the stables with the horses" the young man replied.
Alexander knew that he could no longer delay the situation; it had already taken already three hours and this needed to be ended.
"Why have you offered yourself to me? What makes you so special?" Alexander asked.
"I am not special, no one will miss me if something happens to me or if I die and I think you can clearly see that the only thing that I possess is me but I would like to live a bit longer if it were possible" he answered.
"Why do you want to live longer? You are a slave; you have neither a house nor a family. What other thing can you lose?" Alexander asked, curiously but feeling a bit irritated.
"My freedom" Hephaestion replied plainly.
"You have already lost it; don't you remember that you were born a slave?" Alexander asked, smirking.
"Well, everything depends on your concept of freedom" Hephaestion said.
"By Zeus, I did not know I was talking to a scholar; so please, enlighten us" Alexander said and his voice had a mocking tone.
Hephaestion remained in silence; he had been doing well so far but his big mouth had got him into trouble again.
"Speak slave!" Alexander demanded, shouting.
"For me, liberty is connected to the body and its movements, and I cannot lose what I have never had, but my freedom is more connected to my mind, my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings and no one can steal that from me" Hephaestion said with a broken voice.
"However, you have just offered me all of you, so your mind, ideas, thoughts and feelings are mine too from now on and for as long as I live" Alexander replied seriously, sentencing Hephaestion to total slavery.
A pregnant silence followed the king's announcement and Hephaestion only dared to lower his head and accept his fate.
However, deep inside his heart, he promised himself to find a way to keep his freedom intact, without knowing that his own heart would betray him the most.