Disclaimer: Though I´m not exactly sure who Alexander belongs too, it´s certainly not me. Some ideas behind this story, probably belong to Mary Renault.
Rating: PG 13
Warning: hint at self harm... hint at sex, but I bet you can handle that.
A/N: I decided not to put a slash warning, because I heard someone say slash shouldn´t be a warning. We don´t warn people: "Careful, het fanfic"... so I didn´t put one. Wow.
A/N2: English isn´t my first language, so there may be stupid mistakes or wrong use of grammar...
A/N3: MARY RENAULT BASED. Everyone, go read the book "Persian Boy" by Mary Renaults. It´s so much better than the movie... I LOVE it!
A/N4: This was written rather late at night in a writing rush.... I haven´t exactly checked this and I hope I will still like this tomorrow morning...
I don´t even have you anymoreDear Alexander,
I am not quite sure why I am writing this. There used to be no need to write anything to you. All I wanted to say, I could tell you. No, you would have just known, without me saying a word. I miss what it used to be like.
It has become so hard being me. But I won´t complain. Because after all this is the fate I have chosen myself. Even if I would be given the chance of living my life again., I would do everything exactly the same again. Well, maybe I would have admitted my feelings for you earlier, so we´d have had more time. More happy time. More time together. Not like now a days, when I am more your general than anything.
I anticipate every battle and if it is only because I long to hear you scream my name in that particular manner again. The way you used to, when we were younger, before you had conquered Asia, before you became obsessed with this quest for the end of the world. Before you even became king. When we were not quite men yet, but hardly boys anymore. Somewhere in between those two worlds, where nothing seemed to exist but the two of us. It was a time when every night we used to see each other and, when we didn´t, it nearly tore us apart. It was back in those nights, when you screamed my name the way you only do in battle now. Back in those days that you wanted me, needed me as much as I wanted and needed you. Back then there was no quest, there was no Roxanne and no Bagoas. No Persia, no India, no need for a son. Back then there was only us.
The only thing that has always been there, but hits me now a days more than ever, is envy. How it constantly nags at the people that share my closeness to you. Ptolyme, Kassander, the whole lot of them. I doubt you know it, but I don´t have any true friend amongst them, actually none at all. They don´t even know about the distance you have been keeping to me lately. For them I am still your favourite, the boy from Pella who has all those great honors thrust upon him, simply for letting himself be laid by the conqerer once in a while. They don´t know about the pain I feel, about the loneliness. The more powerful you grow, the more do I, the more they envy me. At the same time I grow more and more lonely, because you became more and more distant.
As much as I hate to admit it, the only people that truly understand my misery must be the two people I hate the most, Roxanne and Bagoas. I hate her for taking my place. I have been your counterpart forever. And everyone knew it. Even in front of Darius mother have you not tried to hide the fact. "Everywhere he is Alexander, too." Yes, I have been. I was Alexander as much as you was Hephaistion. Was being the key word. Now it is her. Where I used to be mentioned alongside your name, now it is her.
But who I maybe even hated more, is him, Bagoas, sweet, soft Bagoas, Darius´ boy. Whereas Roxanne merely fills in my name and sees a lot less of her husband, than I do, and, to be honest, I am convinced you are not really in love with her, that little bastard manages to sneak into your bed more than I wish to know. Of course I know that he is trained, he knows what he is doing, plus he has all day to prepare, to look pretty, to get ready, so he is as seductive as possible at night. I liked to think that it has something calculating, that he learned all the ways of touching you, like he learned his precious dance moves. For him, it is nothing more than a dance. The question is, what was it for you, Alexander? Sometimes when I lie awake at night I imagined what it is like between you. I believed it to be very delicate, slow, somehow like waves, like the wind. With me it was all a battle for release. Tearing at each others clothes, screaming for each other, passionate, desperate. Very desperate. Like only in our union would all the world´s weight be lifted from us. Like this was the only way to find peace. Often afterwards we lay in each others arms and cried. I doubt Bagoas does that. Cause for him it is a dance. It might not have been as perfect with me, as pleasurable, as good, I won´t even try to fool myself, but still, for me it was everything I had, everything I could give and everything I wanted. For me it was just love. When you strip me of all offices, all titles, my name and my being, when it comes down to it, all I am is in love with you. Truly, madly, deeply, in love with you.
You used to say that I always told you the truth. That I was the only one who never let you win. And I liked to think so too. But I have realized that it is just a sweet illusion. That really I did let you win. I wanted you to win happiness. That´s why I didn´t object at your wedding, though at night I was so sick from the wine and tears that I cut my own.wrist and let it bleed till I passed out. And it´s the reason I didn´t let someone kill Bagoas. Because you liked him. Because I realized you needed him. I took the poison so you could have the wine. I chose loneliness for your happiness. I am sorry to disappoint you. I am not the way you liked to picture me. But none the less I love you. And I will always be the Patroklos to your Achilles and be it only a silent guard who does his best to watch over you from afar. Who takes the poison for you, even when you don´t remember his name anymore.
I won´t give you this letter. I will be silent again tomorrow and burn it. I´ll say what you need to hear to keep you going. Do what you need me to do, so you´ll be happy. For really, I am no great man. I don´t have a vision like you. I don´t have your charisma. I don´t even have you anymore. But I can always cling to the love I owe you. It may not be much, but I can´t affort to ask for more.
I love you.
Hephaistion