A/N: Thanks once again for all of the nice reviews! I decided to stop teasing now and get down to real work when it comes to this story. If you'd like to, DO write me your suggestions, I'd appreciate every one of them just as a nice chat on historical matters. Alexander and Hephaestion got me hooked up on their times indeed!
Edgier Hephaestion is really fun to write about, by the way.
Chapter III, part II
As soon as Alexander opened the doors and stormed out with a silent gasp playing on his lips, Hephaestion stirred slowly on the bed, opening his eyes tiredly. He wanted to sob, to scream just like the king himself did during his fits but even though tears flowed down his cheeks in rivers, breaths hitched painfully against his throat, he felt anything but better, fighting hard not to let himself be ever fully consumed by it. Crying around wasn't his thing, emotions tangled and even more messy than before. But nowadays he simply couldn't ignore or deny their existence any longer, he realised the night he woke up weeping helplessly onto the cushions while dreaming of himself ending all of the pain with just a simple move of a knife.
Men were whispering now openly upon seeing him, not just behind his back, something he could've easily handled before. Now nobody but Ptolemy greeted him when entering the room the other generals were gathering in, pairs of opened widely eyes following his every move. Hephaestion knew they wouldn't ever dare to do anything risky in front of Alexander that could either clearly insult him or harm him physically. The king was rarely by his side now though and Hephaestion openly dreaded the moment he would find himself in a darker corner with any of them, Cratoros or even Cleitus. He heard himself all those years ago, when he was a still just mere soldier and began to love Alexander with all his heart that wouldn't be as welcome among them anymore the moment he fell out with the king because he was just a slut of his that could be replaced with a flicker of Alexander's wrist. In their eyes, he was anything but a hard working soldier he thought himself to be. He took part in every battle, among all of the men, sustained wounds many didn't make it to another day with but... He was just a slut, king's plaything not able to defend himself against them without the latter backing him up, men laughed loudly behind Alexander's back. Hephaestion doubted if even Hercules himself could do anything then, surrounded with vicious hatred he could never really grasp fully.
He was just a man. A soldier. A general. A Macedonian with Greek roots.
Alexander's companion.
He was definitely not anybody's whore.
He grimaced at the trail of Persian perfumes Alexander's robes left behind him, hanging damply in the air like a big, black cloud. He slowly raised himself, looking at his hands blankly, over the chiton he still wore from the last night, cushions digging into his back. The state of the room was pitiful but Hephaestion casted only a disinterested glance round it once, quickly falling onto the bed once again.
Sitting around like that was useless and he had been perfectly aware of that from the beginning. Destroying his possessions or plain laziness in the heat of the afternoon were just as senseless but he didn't care at the moment. Those things helped him calm down a bit. Start thinking more carefully and less hot-headed. He'd never wanted Alexander to have seen him in such a pitiful state for it was that dark part of himself he'd like not to think too often about.
He didn't attend the party tonight and he was sure many new gossips bloomed because of that, either about him crying his eyes our or trying to please the king in order to get back to be in his good books once again.
Hephaestion was too proud to beg for anything and even though treating Alexander this way he did those days hurt him deeply, there was no other choice left to make, he concluded suddenly, eyeing a few golden cups near his bed. They were beautifully decorated, an easily recognized Eastern style of sculpturing and thus looked like the most hideous things to him. Everything in this palace, general thought bitterly, reminded him of the fact that Alexander wasn't his alone any longer. Each piece of jewelry presented to him here shimmered the same way Bagoas' eyes did, each sculpture's frame in the halls as painfully different and more perfect from his own as it could get, wine soaked through with the smell of incense, music far too loud and sending shivers down his spine, not that those snake movements of the eunuch did anything else.
He played his fingertips over a small wooden medallion Alexander had given to him all those years ago, back in Macedon. It had a few lines from the Iliad engraved into itself and held a lock of the king's hair inside. Alexander had a similar one, with a lock of his. They were commissioned by him one day, ebony shimmering as darkly and newly-like as if they had been made yesterday. Alexander never took down his own for a moment just as Hephaestion never did. Even now, with that boy rolling in his bed and over himself, the king never replaced it with any gifts men offered to him in Persia, even pure gold necklaces. Hephaestion found some reassurance in that small gesture but it was just a gesture. Nothing more.
Romantic at best but just a gesture.
He'd had enough of the whole masquerade. He was the bearer of his heart and Alexander would be taught the most painful lesson he could've never mastered the will before Bagoas. He sure saw stray glances before, even back at Mieza, casted at other beautiful boys. Hephaestion could live with the guilt, could lie to himself that it wouldn't matter anymore because he was sick and tired of moping around, trying to live a dream that couldn't come true.
He was just one of the many, may it be the first one or the last, but still. He was just a number in Alexander's long list of companions.
Tears stung icily in his eyes but Hephaestion wiped them off with anger, getting himself quickly a set of new towels, robes and a big glassful of wine. He was the bearer of his own heart and Alexander, king or not, his friend or not, his love or not, would never stand in his way like that again.
Hephaestion snatched the strap from around his neck and pulled. It broke easily and he dropped it onto the ground, smashing the small medallion with the heel of his foot onto the ground. Wood broke into splinters, some of them cutting through his skin but he ignored the pain, staring down on the floor, huffing and trying as hard as he could not to break down and cry.
He didn't look back as he nearly sprinted out of his chambers at a neck-breaking speed, sadness and anger blending easily into a frantic excitement. Nearly all of the corridors were dark already, the last few torches' flames dying slowly, smoke going high into the air. It was considerably colder here in the halls, and gooseflesh arrived quickly on Hephaestion's skin.
Suddenly, he heard a muffled echo of laughter in a corner a few steps away to his left.