Author: Rothalion

Title: Shadowboxing

Summery: Alexander reflecting on Hephaistion and more. Stone's movie-verse driven. First ATG fan fic. An expansion of Cleitus punching Hephaistion at the banquet before the wedding. I love that scene. Not sure where it will go just yet, it's already growing far larger than planned.

POV: Hephaistion. This is an unexpected chapter brought about by research for an unrelated character. Cleitus will be raging in the next Chapter. This tale will be a bit longer than I thought I guess. Please bear with me.

Thanks for all the reviews and comments. This as well as other nonsense will be posted on my LJ at Strong PG-17. M/M not too graphic but it's there. If pulled from FFN follow the link to my LJ, which because I am computer stupid is not a true link. Type it in.

Disclaimer: Don't own them. Stone's movie verse does.

Damn the gods it has happened again! As I lie here, held a prisoner of whatever sickness has attacked me, my muscles still twitching slightly I try in vain to bring awareness to my blurry brain. I try to recall my last actions before the horrible spasms took control of my body again. Council meeting, visited the stable…yes that big brute of a bastard, Attalus' man, the one I'd tangled with at the wedding ceremony all those years ago, yes, he'd confronted me in the stable. I could not believe that the oaf was still around. We'd exchanged words and blows and I'd returned to my room after knocking him senseless. He should have taken heed. I am no longer the tall, skinny, untried young man of Pella that he gathered so effortlessly into his crushing arms to keep me from getting at master. Now the cold floor numbs my bones and blood seeps from the gash in my scalp where my head has slammed against the stone driven by my spasms.

I have to talk to Alexander. He has seen this new weakness of mine, on two occasions, and though it terrifies him he refuses to discuss it with me. I haven't the heart to tell him that it's happened more then just a handful of times. He will have to understand my request. I cannot lead men into battle if I have to fear slipping into some uncontrollable fit, a general cannot be plagued by the fear of seizing up and lead a charge. These fits aside, there are the missing chunks of time that plague me as well. Time that slips passed without my knowledge. As though I have drifted off to sleep in the middle of what I am doing. No Alexander, you cannot ignore this, you must help me to figure it out. If only you had the time.

I push weakly up to a sitting position and drawing my knees up I drape my arms across them and take some deep breaths to get control. His voice startles me and I flinch at his unseen entry.

"Phai!" And he is kneeling at my side, one hand on my heaving chest and his other checking the wound to my head. His face twisted with worry "Hephaistion? Cleitus!"

"No." Although my voice sounds good inside my head it is thick and hoarse to the ear. I cough to clear my throat but it does little good. "No, the seizure again, get me up."

He helped me to the edge of my bed and went for some water, and a cloth for my head. Now he would have to listen. Listen and see that all was not well with me for some reason. Had not been well since Cleitus' attack, it was just after that when these attacks had begun. He left me and sent for a doctor. Weak and disgusted with myself I stretched out on the bed and awaited his return. I had hoped that after we returned from our time in the mountains that these fits would pass. We'd talked and talked about Cleitus and Roxane and any other thing that had come between us over these last long years on the march. Talking was a salve for my heart and just having him as mine and mine and mine alone for endless hours was a comfort I had thought to never have again. Bolstered, I returned and leapt back into my work with a renewed vigor, and now just weeks later this again.

"Hephaistion, I've brought Glaucus, now let him tend your wound, come now roll over, no lie down, just roll over that's it. That's it."

I could hear him padding to and fro as Glaucus cleared the hair from the wound and threw a few sutures in it. He bade me to sit up but slowly and wrapped a clean strip of linen round my head to bandage it.

"I need not warn you to keep it clean, you've both enough knowledge of healing from Aristotle to know that. Now what happened boy?" He demanded pushing me back down onto my pillow and sitting down in the chair that Alexander had pulled up for him. He always made me feel like a child and that alone was cause enough not to get wounded.

Alexander sat down near my head and rubbed his hand soothingly across my chest. I looked up at him self-conscious of his gentle touch in front of another and then back to Glaucus, who snorted and shook his frizzy white haired head in annoyance.

"It's no camp secret about you two, Hephaistion! Now out with it youngster, what ails you?"

I told them as best that I could. The first time, it had occurred. In the stables at the site of a rat skittering passed my feet. The second time after I'd returned to my room the night of Alexander's wedding after giving him the ring. The third after Cleitus had whispered in my ear a threat against my father back in Pella. One time out on a patrol a week ago. I'd fallen from my horse caught off guard by it. It was long moments before I could remount and rejoin the fight. I told it all. The drifting off in the meetings and at other odd times. All of it.

"The Sacred Disease, Hippocrates has written a great deal about it. There must be some demon the gods feel a need to purge from your soul dear Hephaistion."

"Demons, I've done nothing Alexander, nothing! What would demons want with my soul? Zander!" Now I sounded like a petulant child and Glaucus smiled a bit at that.

"Shh, Phaistion, shh. Is there nothing to be done to stop it Glaucus?"

"Root out the demons Alexander, drive them away. It is often not the victim who has committed the act my good Hephaistion, but that some act has been perpetrated upon the victim."

He patted my shoulder and looked sternly into Alexander's eyes as if telling him some unspoken secret. I can read my love's eyes as well as the page of a scroll and I saw the unspoken agreement he passed on to the doctor. They walked away, Glaucus telling Alexander to make sure that I got a bit of rest.

Alexander came back and sat beside me. "I want to stay with you tonight."

"But…"

"A banquet." He looked ashamed. "Can you come Hephaistion? Sit at my couch. Are you too spent? Then I am all yours."

"No, Alexander I'll be there."

Our conversation was stilted and forced. Not the easy dialogue between friends let alone lovers. What was he afraid of? My heart was tight and fear shot through my soul. Was I dying? Would I leave him alone.

"Alexander, what's wrong with me?" My eyes demanded his honesty, my soul needed it, yet my logical self feared the answer. "Alexander, please."

He brushed a firm but gentle hand back across my brow and ran his fingers through my hair avoiding the bandage.

"Phai, Cleitus must be gotten rid of. Glaucus thinks so, and well so do I…he is a reminder…and the reminder causes you well, anxiety, and that brings on these fits. He is your demon."

"No, I'll not burden you with that Alexander, I'll come to terms with him. Just free my hand in it. You are beholding to him, the gods. Alexander give him a…a….Satrapy, yes a Satrapy somewhere far away, remote. An honor yet it keeps him clear of me! Say Bactria. We are leaving for India soon leave him here."

Note/Hephaistion is suffering from Non-Epileptic seizures brought about by sever physical and emotional trauma. He is plagued by both Absence seizures and Clonic Tonic seizures. Hippocrates wrote about Seizures calling them the Sacred Disease, and claiming that they were an attempt by the gods to rid a person of demons. My medical knowledge is limited and still under research so any corrections are welcome./