TITLE: Messing with Love – Chapter 6: "Another torture begins."
AUTHOR: Too_beauty.
PAIRING: Alexander and Hephaestion.
RATING: NC-17
CATEGORY: Historical Alternative Universe.
DISCLAMER: I don't know the people involved; they belong to History and to themselves.
WARNING: Mentions of m/m relationship, physical and mental torture, insulting vocabulary, male rape, angst.
NO BETA so all mistakes are mine.
Hephaestion was brutally raped for the following five days. His body didn't look like a body anymore; it was a mass of swollen flesh and blood, bruises and cum, pain and angst.
His body, badly nurtured for a fortnight, had started to show severe damages: his broken ribs and nose were giving him serious breathing difficulties; his broken ankle was healing, apparently in the right position, but it was so stiff that he doubted he'd be able to walk again properly.
Most of his cuts were showing signs of infection and he could realize he was running a constant and rising fever. Only his bruises were getting better, changing from black to bluish the more recent ones, and from purple to yellow the older ones.
His skin was so dry due to the dehydration that every now and then tiny cracks appeared and they stung badly.
Ox, the rapist, realized that if he wanted to get any piece of information from the stubborn kidnapped General, he'd have to stop with the physical abuse. The man's body couldn't take anything else. So he decided on a new way to get him crack.
Ox entered the cell and found Hephaestion curled into a ball of limbs, talking to the air, his eyes lifeless. He realized the General was delirious and calling for someone "my sun" and he supposed he was calling for one of his gods.
He approached the prisoner, put a finger under his chin and looked at the once handsome face, and cursed. The man was nearly broken; his mind and his sanity were slowly abandoning him; he had to push him a bit further and he would have him where he wanted: a malleable mass to play with; then he'd ask for the ransom to the Macedonian King, not because he was in need of the money, but because he was looking for revenge. He would let the king get his lover back but he'd never be the man he had been.
Ox knelt beside Hephaestion and the brunette flinched with his proximity and wound his arms tightly around his body. The rapist whispered into his ear:
"It's clear that your king does not want you back. It has been fifteen days since your kidnapping and we also sent a messenger ten days ago and he came back without an answer for us. He knows you are now my slut and he doesn't want any scum near him"
Hephaestion felt his heart break, that couldn't be possible, Alexander loved him and cared about his well-being.
Later that evening, Aetos gave Hephaestion a piece of bread and some fresh water. He also left nearby a cloth to clean himself. One of the brunette's arms had been set free from the shackles but Hephaestion hadn't realized of all these things because his mind was still processing the information Ox had told him.
Another night passed and there were no news from Alexander, what Hephaestion didn't know was that their kidnappers had never sent any messenger at all. Ox entered the cell again, very early this time, and told him that a new messenger had been sent and that he had just arrived with a letter from his king. A tiny hope appeared in Hephaestion's eyes. Seeing that, Ox told him he'd read to him Alexander's reply to their ransom request. The rapist cleared his voice and started to read:
"From the Great King Alexander,
We won't pay any ransom to you; my soldiers know very well that if they are caught, their fate should be accepted and tolerated as Macedonian soldiers. Moreover, General Amyntoros won't be reliable to us as he had surely revealed our tactics, projects and position.
Do with him as you wish, we do not expect him to come back." "And here is the royal seal" he showed something red.
Ox finished reading the letter and looked at Hephaestion, his face had a stony expression and his eyes were more lifeless, if that was possible. Ox was hopeful; he was about to break the most important soldier's mind any moment soon and then the real revenge could begin; that had been assured by the person who had betrayed the General.
Hephaestion didn't move for hours, Aetos spied on him through a pepping hole in the door and he saw how Hephaestion was grieving. In a moment his sobs were so strangle and little that he thought he had stopped breathing, but then a muffled cry broke the spell and Hephaestion's head fell into his chest and he didn't lift it again.
Aetos knew he shouldn't be doing that but as days went by, he had fallen for the broken soldier; he was mesmerized by his strong will and his loyalty. In fact, Aetos was envious because he'd never have that kind of loyalty from any of his men and Ox …., well Ox was just an animal, too difficult to tame.
He entered the cell again, carrying a bowl of warm soup; he stood next to the fallen Hephaestion and touched him gently on his shoulder.
"Wake up, here you have some soup, you need it" he added.
Hephaestion opened his eyes slowly and tried to focus his eyes towards his captor. He didn't understand how he should react. Would Aetos slap him as before when he tried to eat the bread or was he allowing him to eat something more than his daily chunk of stale bread?
Hephaestion decided to leave the soup there, just in case; he didn't need more punishment, his body wouldn't tolerate any more pain.
Memories of the letter came back to Hephaestion's clouded mind; his weaken strength and will gave way to doubts and more fear. He had to accept that his King had abandoned him; he was just a spoil of war and the quickest he accepted that fact, the sooner he'd able to go on … alone.
In the meantime, Alexander was going insane; it seemed as if the ground had opened her mouth and dragged his Phai to her guts. He had been going out every single day, twice a day, but no tracks were found and nobody had seen his gorgeous brunette.
The army was getting nervous, some of his companions understood the situation but tried to convince him to move on; some others were secretly enjoying his misfortune and some of his recently defeated enemies had started to build up their strength back when they realized the powerful King hadn't moved for the last twenty days.
Ox entered the cell for the second time that day, kicked the bowl of soup, spilling it all over the floor. He grabbed Hephaestion's hair, put it all together near his nape and cut it to the scalp level. Fat tears fell form the cerulean eyes while Ox laughed like a madman.
Hephaestion knew his sanity was abandoning him, he knew that they might crack him under torture. He had resisted for so many days but now his strong body was covered in multiple bruises and deep cuts; his head shaved and his handsome faced marred, his ribs broken; his whole body sullied.
But he preferred to die first than to betray his King, his Lover, his Soul mate.
At the crack of dawn, a rider threw a bag at the entrance gate of the palace. One of the guards took it to the dinning room, where the King was holding a meeting with his Generals. Alexander opened the bag, peeped inside and gasped in anger, while taking out the content of the bag. Long brunette tresses covered the table and the king shouted hysterically, and looking at his companions, he hissed through his teeth:
"For every time they molested him, for every single time that they hurt who is mine, I am going to make them regret and curse the day they were born"
He was now not only a king on a mission, but also a lover looking for revenge.
TBC