Disclaimer: If I owned them no one else would see them. People see them. I seethe.

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Rating: PG-13 but it might be R... depending on you personal views on blood-play... let me know your opinions concerning this...(The rating I mean... Blood-play... eh...hell... we can talk about that for as long as you want too...)

Warning: Incest. If it bothers you I'm afraid this isn't for you.

Dedication: For my happy friend. And for my best friend who agrees with my theory.

Archive: Sure but ask first...

So many silent screams. Hector could hear them whenever he looked at his son's face and always wondered how he could sleep so soundly when all around him the air was filled with moans and pleas for mercy. Tonight in particular the palace was overflowing with them. It was strange how his room, so silent, could reverberate with so much noise. It seemed as though each corner, each small crevice cried a lament of their own. Maybe they were just intensifying the sound of Hectors' own deep breaths, the baby's calm ones or, perhaps, in the darkness, lurked the pain of the ones who sought glory and failed. The ones who in desperation crowded around him for hope and courage and found none. The pain of those who had died without even realising it.

Paris was destined to become a fragment of pain for his brother to hear in the night. He already was. His cries already were part of the choirs that so torturously echoed within Hectors' head whenever he wasn't plagued by the real ones during battle. But before today, Hector never had to associate Paris's face with slaughter or blood or death. Before today Hector had never seen his brother bleed and, before today, he had never seen his brother crawl. Paris wasn't made for lying in the dust; wasn't made for swords or wounds or killings. And Paris wasn't made for love either.

Paris was made for beauty. Paris was made for lust. Paris was made for a palace, for elegant drapes, for soft mattresses. For the tantalizing, gentle curves of many different women. Paris wasn't made for one.

Hector left his quarters following the same pattern he had been forced to forget since She had been brought here. Tonight though, there were no voices coming from Paris's rooms. No whispers of laughter, no gentle reassurance and no tears. The air was empty. He didn't pause near the door for more than a couple of seconds; He didn't want her voice to disrupt any of his already restless thoughts.

"Hector?" He never understood how his brother could always sense his presence. He had asked once but Paris had never answered. After that he had never asked again. It was with a steady hand that he pushed aside the heavy curtain that blocked the doorframe while he stepped into the torch-lit chamber. He let it quietly fall back behind himself, taking a second to glance at his brother's still body. He didn't understand why he was on the floor, why he was clutching his bare leg where Menelaos' sword had pierced him; didn't understand why his wounds hadn't been medicated yet.

"Where is Helen?" Hector walked forward and stood before him, fighting the biting urge to crouch down and help him up. His only response was to look down at his wound: at the small rivulets of dried blood that were still tracing the outside of his thigh, at the dirt that clung to it and that Hector so desperately wanted to wipe away. It unnerved him to see such marks of imperfection, of human flaw on him, simply because, in his eyes, Paris wasn't human at all. There were dark fingerprints around the lesion, as though some one had been pressing against it, as though someone had tried to close the cut by resealing the skin together.

"Why have you not had those cleaned?" This time there was a trace of anger in Hectors voice, a slight exasperation that Paris wasn't used to hearing spoken to him.

"Do you realise that unless Troy falls these are going to be the only marks I will get from this war?" He wasn't really awaiting an answer nor a confirmation, and Hector supplied him with none. He watched his brother's face remain impassive while his fingers numbly played with the raw skin where it had been split by the sword. But Paris's thoughts seemed to have been spent.

"I need to bleed Hector."

And for the first time Hector could see Paris's fingers press on either side of the lacerated skin forcing the blood to start flowing anew. They both watched in rapt fascination as a thin trickle of it streamed to retrace one of the old, drying patterns just to disappear underneath the bare thigh. And Hector was caught between wanting to slap his hand away and wanting him to carry on. Wanting to hurt him further, to see him bleed because he knew he would never get to see him this vulnerable again. And he hated that vulnerability and yet was fascinated with it. He couldn't decide whether it made him even more beautiful or not. A part of him couldn't even grasp the fact that his brother could have any flaws at all. Right then, as he studied him leant back against the wall, his eyes closed and his lips parted he was sure he had none. And he wanted him, right then, just for the beauty of this one imperfection. Paris could ache, he could bleed, he could die. And Hector both dreaded and wanted to hurt him. Just to see if he could.

"You aren't meant to bleed, nor suffer." Only silence followed that one sentence. "You know it just like you know I'm meant for war. For dying in battle." Again Paris said nothing but instead slightly parted the two ends of his wound and watched, captivated, as the flow of blood slowed down and then grew yet more abundant. "You can tell just by looking at someone sometimes. You just know when someone is incapable of grief; when their problems are simple and short-lived just because the Gods favour them above all else. You might crave the pain, you'll taste it but it won't be long lasting. I pray it won't be. We are all weak Paris. Pleasure just happens to be your one weakness."

"Yes, and I just happen to be your one." Paris's face remained expressionless as he spoke, as he felt his brother kneel down beside him watching him, he knew. And Hector watched his closed eyes, his moist lips move as he spoke. And he finally got to touch him. Leaning forward, so close Paris felt his breath on his face, he reached down towards his thigh and gently ran a finger over the smooth bleeding tissue. And Paris's breath itched in his throat and his eyes screwed tightly shut as a fresh wave of pain washed over him. And Hector pushed down harder watching rapturously as his brother's body tensed up, as his head tipped back fractionally, as a small groan escaped him. He finally leaned forward and kissed Paris's slack lips softly, his other hand moving to the back of his neck making his face tilt up gently so that he could deepen the kiss. And, as he finally pulled away to catch his breath, Hector thought he heard a soft murmur coming from him.

"We are both so weak"

FIN