"I don't know whether to thank you or slug you."

"How about neither? I just listened to a complaint and responded." He looked over at his friend, who'd come to the house Alexander had taken in Sidon, requesting to see the king.

Like he needed to ask.

True to his word, Alexander had assigned Hephaistion quarters not far from his, though Hephaistion had offered to stay in camp like the rest of his men. Most lochogoi, even among the Hypaspists, weren't high enough to expect town quarters, but Alexander had made arrangements for all the agema lochogoi to have them, even though it meant some were bunked five to a house, including Hephaistion. It was still better than a tent. After his frank conversation with Perdikkas, Alexander gave more thought to how things looked. Yet he fully intended to keep his promises, even if he and Hephaistion weren't talking. Much.

Alexander had come back here after hearing cases. It was sunset, and he was due soon at dinner. He hadn't expected Hephaistion, but as far as he was concerned, the sun could halt his progress across the sky for this. One advantage of being the king: it was impossible for him to be "late."

"Out," he told his servants, who'd been laying fresh clothes for supper and preparing a bath.

When the men were gone, he crossed to stand in front of his friend, but not so close he had to lift his chin significantly to meet his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me things were as bad as they are?"

"What do you mean?"

"Camp talk. It took Perdikkas to clue me in?"

Hephaistion just shrugged, glancing away. He hadn't been on duty, so he wasn't carrying all his equipment, but he still wore his cuirass and girdle plates, and his sword. "People say what they want. I don't pay attention to nonsense. Those who matter know the truth."

"Do they? Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"I've done exactly what I said I would, back in Byblos. You have quarters near me, and my own are open to you at any time. You didn't have to ask to come in, you know. And she's not in my bedroom, is she? I go to hers. Do you believe me now, that I'm not displacing you?"

Hephaistion sighed out, but didn't reply, just stared at something behind Alexander. Light from the setting sun fell in a high window, striking his hair and pulling out reddish highlights in the dark brown. Despite the winter weather, he wasn't wearing a long-sleeved tunic and Alexander could see the new scar on his bicep. It had gone from red to pink, healing well. The scar on his heart, however, still put dark circles under his eyes from apparent lack of sleep.

It had been two weeks since they'd touched. Alexander wanted him badly. If there was any upside to this whole mess, it had made him horny enough to do his duty with Barsine. They'd had sex three times since she'd joined him in Sidon. She was a good enough lover, if not any more enthusiastic than he was. They both knew what this was about. He'd leave her after and return to his own rooms, and wish his sheets smelled like Hephaistion.

"I miss you," he said now.

Hephaistion's gaze shifted, his mouth rueful. "If you think you're going to seduce me, you're not. I'm still…upset."

"You're still angry."

"I'm not angry. I'm upset. Unhappy."

"Fuck it!" Spinning away, Alexander stalked all around the bedroom. He'd been here almost a week but hadn't unpacked much. They'd be on the road again soon. He had chests that were short term, and those that he only unloaded if they were staying somewhere for more than a handful of days.

He looked back at Hephaistion, who remained near the bedroom door. His posture was stiff, one hand hooked in his belt, the other on the door handle, as if ready to flee.

They'd fought before. They had tempers. Usually it blew up fast and subsided equally quickly, perhaps with broken furniture or something more than shouts. Hephaistion had given him a swollen lip once; that had been interesting to explain. But nothing lasting, and it was buried when it was over. That was their rule. They battled it out, and then it was done.

No quarrel had ever lasted this long. He wasn't sure what to do or how to break the stalemate. "Do you really want to move back in with me? Given everything that's apparently being said—that you didn't tell me about? I should have made you keep your own quarters long ago."

"It wouldn't have changed anything."

Perdikkas had argued the same, and they were both probably right.

"What you said this morning helped more," Hephaistion admitted. "That's why I came, to thank you."

"Or slug me."

"Part of me wants to do that, too."

"And you said you weren't angry."

Hephaistion tilted his head. "All right, I lied. I am. A little. Mostly, I'm unhappy." He hesitated, hand closing on the door handle, turning it, then letting it go. "I miss you, too."

Alexander crossed the floor to slam into him, knocking him backwards into the wall. They were chest to chest, Alexander's hands on his shoulders, and this close, the king had to look up half a foot. Hephaistion didn't resist, but he didn't grip Alexander back, either, and had turned his face sideways, even though Alexander was too short to kiss him easily unless he helped. Right now, Alexander wasn't sure he wanted to kiss him, even while he desperately wanted to. "What do I have to do to prove I'm not dicking around?"

"I don't know," Hephaistion replied. He looked defeated, and exhausted, emotionally wrung. "I'm not sure there's anything to prove. I'm trying to come to terms with a reality that's been there a while, I just didn't want to face it."

He finally looked down at Alexander. "You're king. You're going to become Great King if you can catch Darius and kill him. You're going to have to get married, not just keep a woman, and probably marry several times. More, you're going to be running an empire, not just a kingdom, and it'll keep you fucking busy. We've just started to get a taste of that, and I'm not sure where I fit into any of it. We're not boys anymore, Alekos, sharing a room at Mieza. That game's played out."

He'd started to cry, eyes red, tears welling. So had Alexander, who let go of his shoulders to grab his face. Yet Hephaistion remained tense, resisting Alexander's pull. "It wasn't a game, agapete. It's never been a game for me. Has it for you?" Hephaistion could work himself up over nothing. "And no, we're not boys, but I still love you just as much, and after ten fucking years of feeling the same way about the same person, I'm pretty damn sure that won't change. I don't know where you fit, either, but I'll find a place. I'll cut it out of my own side, if I have to." Finally, Hephaistion stopped resisting and let Alexander pull his head down to touch brow to brow. "We'll figure it out," he told him, "make up the rules as we go, because I can't do this without you, agapete."

Hephaistion sobbed once and gave in, hugging Alexander finally.

It was over. Alexander clasped him hard, although the damn armor was in the way. He turned his attention to the fastenings on the cuirass. "Get this off so I can fuck you silly. Who knows you're here?"

"Your guard? Your servants? My hosts? Why?"

"I had an idea earlier, but it'll help if nobody realizes we're doing this. At least not yet."

"Doing what?"

"What do you think, you big, beautiful idiot? If I had any sense, I'd send you out and wait but I'm out of patience and I need your body right now."

"Same here." Cuirass and girdle-plates off, they both worked at each other's belts and chiton pins. Hephaistion wasn't wearing greaves, at least, and Alexander had been dressed in his usual day wear, without armor. It didn't take long to get naked. "If you don't want anybody to know we're doing this, we'll have to be quiet," Hephaistion said.

Alexander grinned, running fingers through the dark hair on Hephaistion's chest. It made twin fans on his upper pecs. Alexander didn't have much chest hair. "Like back at Mieza. You remember trying to keep it secret from Aristotle?"

"Everybody knew, even Aristotle."

"Of course, but we thought we were so clever."

"Shut up." Hephaistion kissed him, hard, then steered him over to a chair without arms in a corner. "Sit, zoi mou."

"Not the bed?"

"Not for this. Where's the strap?"

"Small chest over there," Alexander pointed. He knew which of them was going to be in charge of this reconciliation. Seated naked in the chair, his erection stuck up like the boy's in the bottom of his drinking cup. "The oil's in there, too. I didn't get it out." Without Hephaistion, there had been no reason.

Hephaistion searched through the chest and came back with both items, looking around for a place to secure the strap, finally climbing on the bed to sling the hook over one of the roof struts and adjust the length to the proper height. Alexander moved the chair under it. "You're all right for this?" Alexander asked.

"Yeah, I'm clean. Haven't been eating much."

"Me, either."

Hephaistion knelt in front of him, pouring oil from the little jar into Alexander's lap and spreading it liberally on Alexander's cock, using the opportunity to fondle all around the head with slippery fingers. Alexander's hips flexed, urethra leaking. "Not too much of that," he warned, "or I'll be done before we get started."

Hephaistion just grinned, looking up through long lashes in a way he must know left Alexander at his mercy. But he handed over the jar and rose. "Your turn." Standing, he straddled Alexander's lap.

Alexander put oil in his palm, then spread it behind Hephaistion's balls and all around his anus before slipping a finger inside, sawing in and out a bit until a second finger followed the first. Reaching up to grip the strap with a hand, the other on Alexander's shoulder, Hephaistion closed his eyes and leaned back onto Alexander's fingers. Alexander watched his face while feeling around for his walnut. Hephaistion's whispered, "Shit," told him when he'd found it. His big cock was purple and insistent, and Alexander used his free hand to massage the shaft, then bent to lick away the bead of precum on the end. "Oh, fuck!" Hephaistion yelped.

"Shhh."

"Right."

Alexander added a third finger, and kept licking all around the head.

"I'm going to fucking blow like Mt. Etna," Hephaistion whispered.

Stopping, Alexander removed his hand. "That fast?"

"It's been two weeks!"

"You've had your hands."

"I haven't had you."

"On me then."

Still gripping the strap, Hephaistion lowered himself carefully. He was nicely slick and Alexander breathed out when his cock head popped past the tight sphincter muscles. Hephaistion held still a moment, letting both their bodies adjust, then dropped down fast.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit." Alexander said, face pushed against Hephaistion's neck. He was clinging to Hephaistion's naked back. For another moment, they held still, then Hephaistion leaned away to get Alexander's cock at the right angle on the anterior wall of his rectum. Alexander slipped a hand between their bodies to find Hephaistion's cock. It was a little less rigid but firming up again. He gave it a few strokes.

Using the strap for leverage, Hephaistion began riding Alexander, up and down, his mouth open as he panted. Alexander gripped his hips and rocked with his rhythm while they stared at each other. Sometimes, one would lean forward for a kiss, but mostly they just watched arousal flush each other's faces, or Alexander's cock sliding in and out of Hephaistion. Despite the winter chill, Hephaistion was sweating, beads running down his neck from his hairline. This was why face-to-face sex in a chair—or on a table—was his favorite position: he liked watching. Moving a hand from one hip to Hephaistion's cock, Alexander jerked him rapidly. Hephaistion dropped his head back, speeding up, his hand behind him now on Alexander's knee while the other clung to the strap.

This was what he'd needed, this slick tightness at the entry, not the looser grip of Barsine. Rigid belly muscles and firm pecs and callused fingers gripping his leg, and best of all, the intimacy of being deep in his lover. The only noise besides their heavy breathing was the sound of skin slapping when their bodies met. It was rough enough that Hephaistion would probably be sore later, but he was controlling this. They bit at mouths now more than kissed, like they were foxes mating.

Alexander's sex tension had been spiraling and he couldn't really think anymore, just needed to hit that peak. Closer, closer, closer…. Then, almost without warning, he was there, grabbing Hephaistion's hips to hold him still while he emptied himself, swallowing a cry. Hephaistion held on, riding him out. Alexander pulled his head down to kiss him, then urged him to stand up again, off Alexander's lap.

That put his groin almost level with Alexander's face and Alexander grabbed his butt cheeks to pull him forward, then angled his cock down a little and opened his mouth to take him in. Hephaistion groaned but tried to pull away. "I don't want you below me doing that."

Alexander yanked him back. "Get your flat Athenian ass closer. I'm sitting, I'm not kneeling." He looked up at him and licked him from base to tip.

"Oh, holy Aphrodite," Hephaistion muttered, head falling back, mouth open again.

Alexander went to work with both hands and his mouth. He slid two fingers back inside Hephaistion's anus, well-lubricated from Alexander's seed, and rubbed his walnut while licking all over Hephaistion's cock, pausing now and then to concentrate on the head. Hephaistion was almost sobbing from the pleasure. This was only the fourth or fifth time they'd done this, but it was enough for Alexander to decide he really liked it, especially if he wanted to slow his lover down. It was intense, but as Hephaistion had said before, not intense enough to drive him fast over the edge. And if Alexander varied the speed, even pausing now and then, and also gripped the base of Hephaistion's shaft hard, he could keep Hephaistion on that edge longer, like he was doing now.

Hephaistion's legs were trembling and he was muttering, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," over and over, both hands on Alexander's shoulders, squeezing. They didn't need the strap for this. Alexander opened his mouth and took in as much of Hephaistion's shaft as he could, humming, while Hephaistion began to thrust, gently.

Hephaistion hadn't been kidding, either; it took only about a dozen pushes before he was spilling. Alexander pulled his mouth away and used a hand to milk him. Seed was salty, and he didn't like the taste, at least not in largish quantities, but he had better manners than to spit it out, even though Hephaistion had said he didn't care. Alexander suspected he did care, and whatever the taste, he was taking something of his lover inside him, his most pure essence, if the Hippocratics were right.

"Thank you," Hephaistion whispered now, sinking back into Alexander's lap. They just held each other, Alexander's arms around Hephaistion's waist and Hephaistion's around Alexander's shoulders, foreheads pressed together. Alexander felt as if he'd dropped a large pack at the end of a very long march. He rubbed a thumb back and forth against the skin covering Hephaistion's spine. They kissed a little but didn't talk. They'd said everything they needed to, at least for the moment.

"All right," Alexander whispered finally. "You need to get dressed and go. Don't say anything to anybody yet. I've got this state dinner tonight, so I won't see you again until tomorrow. I've a staff meeting before lunch. Attend."

"A staff meeting with Parmenion and Krateros and the taxiarchs?" Alexander knew what he was thinking. Lowly file leaders didn't attend staff meetings, and if Hephaistion certainly had sat in on some in the past, it had been only occasionally.

"Yes. Exactly. A letter came from Tyre today, while I was holding court, and we have some business to attend to, restoring Sidon to a working city before we leave."

"All right. But why do you need me there?"

Alexander pushed him up and away. "You'll see. And at least we'll both get some sleep tonight finally."

Hephaistion snorted, looking around for something to clean them both up. Alexander tossed him a rag, then stood and pulled his head down, kissing him quickly.

His world was right-side-up again.