Disclaimer: I don't own the characters; they belong mostly to themselves and a little bit to history.
A/N: Today is Alexander's birthday. so I had to write something. Since I had this headcanon in my head forever, I decided to use it! Hope you enjoy!
Just as a side note, I'm writing asexuality from experience. Title comes from the 30 Seconds to Mars song 'Was It a Dream?'.
Walls Built Deep Inside
Days like these, he hated being politically astute. His mind kept coming up with ideas, but the perspective was all wrong. Those would be the gifts of someone hoping to gain favour, and he could never allow himself to act on them.
He searched his heart, not his head, for anything he could actually do. His task was made more difficult by his target, and he almost berated himself for falling in love with a prince. Almost, because he could never condemn the feeling in his chest, not when Alexander carried the same feeling in his own heart. Every time he looked at those mismatched eyes, he saw love light them up from the inside.
How could this feeling be put into a gift?
It couldn't. So far he'd found adequate replacements, representations of their love and not just something material and frivolous, but year after year it was becoming more difficult. Besides, the regent of Macedon may have been able to afford quite a lot, but nothing of real value ever cost money. All the talents in the world would not be enough to show real love.
He could have anything. He had everything.
Everything he could give him.
…
"You seem troubled." The tell-tale blond curls appeared at the edges of his vision.
"What makes you say that?"
"You do that thing where you climb onto something and look into the distance. I hate when you do that," he complained with the most adorable pout on his face.
"This is my sixteenth summer."
"So? It's mine too, but you're still taller. What's the problem?"
"Alexander, how many girls have you lain with?"
"I don't know, not many. I'm certainly no Ptolemy!" He paused, sensing there was a lot more there. "Not many boys either. Experience is nice, but there is only one I love." He bit his lip lightly. "You haven't said something. Would you want to do that? You know I love you-"
"I'm sorry, Alexander." His eyes started to become glassy, his vision getting a little blurred with unshed tears.
"Sorry? You've done nothing wrong!" he insisted, indignant. "Unless there is something I don't know about, which I don't think is true."
"Well, you're wrong."
Alexander's eyes narrowed, suspicion and confusion showing in them clearly.
"You've been waiting. I can't imagine why, since there are so many others who can give you what you want.
"I want you. You're the one I love." There was anger in his eyes now. "What do you think is so important to me?"
"You want to lay with people. With girls, boys, me. It's a basic need for you, right?"
"Me and everyone else. But not everyone can grow up at the same rate. You might be taller, but you may need more time." Hephaestion smiled bitterly. "Really," Alexander asserted, "I love you, and that has nothing to do with whether we lay together or not."
"But still you wait. You wait until I'm 'ready'-"
"Of course! Forcing things like that cannot be love!"
Hephaestion was fed up with his love's seeming obliviousness. "Don't you see? I'll never be ready, Alexander! You're wasting your time." He turned away, tightly closing his eyes so the tears of anger and helplessness wouldn't spill.
"You can't know that." Alexander's anger had dissipated, leaving only confusion and relief. For a second, he'd thought Phai would admit to treason or something to that effect. He mentally berated himself, but Hephaestion had been behaving suspiciously.
"Your eyes don't lie. I can see what you want clear as day." He was exhausted emotionally, keeping that in; it was time to come clean. Hephaestion's shoulders sagged, and he curled into himself, waiting for a reaction. "Me, I never felt that urge. It must be quite strong, most cannot resist it. I cannot even feel it. Something in me is broken, Alexander. And though I love you, I don't want to hold you back. I never want you to have anything broken."
Alexander was frozen, looking at those deadly blue eyes. They looked sad like he'd never seen them before, filled with resignation. He could not stomach what he'd heard.
Hephaestion was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen. And that was not all. Phai was an explosive mix of deadly beauty, lethal negotiation skills and innate cunning. What exactly about that screamed 'broken' to him, he could not understand.
Alexander knew how many boys and girls longed for his attention. He was the prince, a prince with a good chance of one day taking the throne. Next to that, he was brilliant, scarily good at almost everything and with determination and strategic thinking that made many falter. If he didn't scare people away, he excited them, made them anxious to be close to him, take some of that inevitable greatness for themselves.
And Hephaestion, the only one who had his love, was rejecting it, purely because he thought himself not worthy. He couldn't decide if he was angry at Phai or himself, for never in those three years noticing something that big was amiss, never seeing his best friend slowly, quietly stressing about something that, at first seemingly really big, was not actually so important.
Hephaestion was freaking out. Alexander was still as a statue, had been so for the past minute, and he didn't know what to do. Should he leave, so whenever the reaction came, he wasn't present, or should he wait for it, let him let it out now rather than later?
"Well, I love you too," he finally said, with no warning, making him jump at the sound of his voice. "Hephaestion… Phai, I don't love you because I want to sleep with you. You should know that that has nothing to do with love. What's most important is here." He touched Hephaestion's chest where the heart should be. "It doesn't matter if we never sleep together. Not to me."
"I'm still broken, though."
"Ha! I'd like to see anyone beating you at anything, apart from me. Laying with people is such a distraction, anyway." He smiled mischievously. "Plotting how to take our enemies down is a much better way to spend our time!"
Hephaestion tried not to grin, and failed miserably. "Did you just say you can beat me at anything?"
"I might have implied it…"
"You still haven't beaten me at sparring," he reminded, elated. He was grinning like a fool now, a heavy weight lifted from his shoulders.
"We'll see about that! You and me, right now!"
"You will lose!"
…
Three years later, and Hephaestion was trying to think up some gift for Alexander, whose birthday was always a headache. Funny, how he thought it was the end of the world, not wanting to sleep with him. Oh no, it was definitely the birthdays!
They'd slept together, actually slept, plenty of times since then. But still, he didn't feel the need to go beyond that and kissing. He'd completely stopped worrying about it a few months back. Alexander loved him despite everything, and he'd shown it. They were happy.
Suddenly, he was hit with an idea. A bad idea, but still an idea.
The next morning, he woke up and immediately went to find Alexander, before he regretted it. They bumped into each other in the corridor outside Alexander's room.
"Hephaestion!" His eyes lightened up, and Phai couldn't help but smile in return. "I missed you yesterday! What were you doing all day?" Alexander frowned mock-suspiciously. "Do not tell me; you were planning something for my birthday, were you not?"
"That I was. In fact, I spent the day trying to think of what to get you." He waited and, sure enough, Alexander took the bait not five seconds later.
"And? What is it?"
"I thought… I thought, just for once, we could… sleep together." He was hesitant, wary that his love would want more than the once after the fact. "Because it's your birthday." He thought Alexander would be happy, but his expression turned serious.
He hesitated. "Are you… sure? You should not do anything you don't really want. Not for me."
It cost him to say it, Hephaestion knew, because Alexander had never been uninterested, even though these days he didn't sleep with anyone. He was touched; oh when Alexander wanted, he could be the most considerate person in the world.
"I do want to try it. Sleeping together does not appeal to me, but it doesn't disgust me either. Just this once, I want to try it. What do you think?"
"Well…" he grinned wickedly, and Hephaestion felt vaguely apprehensive. "It wouldn't do to waste your gift. It's not always one's nineteenth birthday!" He paused. "Just this once?"
He nodded.
Alexander kept asking for confirmation every second, it seemed, but just this once, it was okay.
…
Afterwards, they were surprised to see that nothing had changed. They didn't feel more complete or more in love.
They already loved each other more than anything, and no nightly activities, or lack thereof, as the case may be, could change that.
The End