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When they met as boys, Alexander never anticipated Hephaistion becoming more than his best friend. That friendship began when Hephaistion refused to allow Alexander to win a fight purely because he was King Phillip's son and heir to the throne. Alexander had appreciated the honesty because he knew an enemy would give him no quarter either, and if he was to assume that all would balk at killing the son of the King of Macedonia, then he would not live long.
When lessons were over for the day, Alexander liked to slip away, eager to be away from the prying eyes of others who wanted to gain favor with him for greater power and position. He had learned from his mother at a young age that there would be few friends and many sycophants during his life, and the hard lesson would be telling them apart. With Hephaistion, that decision came easy along with a comfortable friendship that grew stronger from the day Hephaistion found Alexander's secret hiding spot and said nothing.
Eventually, it became their hiding place, where they would meet in secret to discuss the ever-changing world around them and speak in earnest of their fears and loves without censure or ridicule. He trusted Hephaistion with more than his life. He trusted him with his thoughts and dreams too.
In the years since their first meeting, Hephaistion had never once pulled his punches whether physically or verbally. Many a time, Alexander had hated that honesty, and they had fought once or twice over harshly stated words, but never once had Alexander taken his anger further. He had never called for his guards or threatened Hephaistion's life. He needed a friend more than he needed a sycophant, who would tell him nothing but flattery. For when Hephaistion gave praise, he did so sparingly, and Alexander knew it was well deserved.
Alexander recalled the first time that boyhood friendship became intimate, and how he had reached out for Hephaistion one day, unafraid that Hephaistion would reach back purely because Alexander was his father's heir. They already knew the feel of each other's body from the training grounds--from wrestling and sword fighting as they honed their battle skills--but this touch was meant to bring pleasure rather than pain.
At first they had started with intimate touches upon their own bodies, mirroring each other's caresses, and seeing what brought the greatest pleasure. He would watch the way Hephaistion's thumb smoothed the leaking seed across the head, how it slid down along the slit, bringing a fine shudder and soft exhale of pleasure falling from Hephaistion's lips. His mirrored touch felt as good, but when he replaced his own hand with Hephaistion's one day, the powerful shot of pleasure through his body arched him off the cloak spread beneath him on the dusty ground. The touch of Hephaistion's lips upon him was more powerful still, and he soared among the gods as he spilled his seed into the heat of Hephaistion's mouth, watching avidly as Hephaistion drank every droplet. Unable to resist, he had leaned in and kissed the sweet lips to sample the bittersweet essence of his release, tongue twining with Hephaistion's in a desperate need to taste more. Eagerly, he had pushed Hephaistion to the cloak and straddled his narrow hips, wrapping hand and then lips around the straining flesh and not stopping until he had drained every last droplet in turn.
Hephaistion had returned all of his touches eagerly, and as time passed, they had shared in each other equally as taker and taken, letting go of all responsibility and all concern for the future as they lost themselves in the scent and pleasure of the other's body. It was a good time--a happy time--where youthful indulgence in another man was accepted, and a stronger bond was forged between them. Unfortunately many--including their teacher, Aristotle--frowned upon the continuation of such passion once the youth became a man, seeing it as a weakness and using the grief of Achilles as he mourned the death of Patroculus as just reason for their words. Alexander believed them all wrong, that while they lived and loved together, Achilles and Patroculus had been stronger warriors than any other on the battlefield. He saw no weakness in mourning the death of one's beloved.
He likened himself and Hephaistion to those long dead lovers, and so their rendezvous' continued as they grew into manhood, growing ever more secret as those around demanded that they take wives to honor them with children. Yet he did not find as much pleasure within the softer arms of a woman, performing out of duty alone and wishing for the harder planes of Hephaistion's body, of his secret lover's moans and cries of passion, and the strong hands that would hold him just as tight as they rutted together.
As the campaign continued; as they swept across the known world and into the unknown, he saw many of his men fall, and Hephaistion was gone from his side for months on end as they created a new empire. Kingdoms fell beneath Alexander's feet, and he raised many of them up again, preferring to ignore the words of Aristotle in this too, by accepting barbarians as consorts and wives for himself and his men, rather than handing over each fallen kingdom to a Macedonian.
Yet it was in Ecbatana that Alexander was to suffer his greatest defeat, and without the blow of a single weapon upon his body or a strike upon his armies. With Hephaistion's last mortal breath, Alexander's world stopped spinning on his axis, coming to an end. When he held the lifeless body in his arms, Alexander understood the weakness of Achilles, of seeing the rest of his days pass without the warmth of his lover's touch or the sound of his laughter, or the cries of passion that would fill the air wherever they met in secret. His heart was broken, torn out of his chest, and all his thoughts and prayers turned towards meeting Hephaistion again in the after life; no longer finding any anchor to hold onto in this life. Yet he refused to simply lay down and die. He fought ever more fiercely on the battlefield but not with suicide in mind. When the end came it would be a noble death, one fitting the designs of the gods so that he might be reunited with Hephaistion in paradise.
In his greatest moment of hubris, Alexander recalled that he had once remarked that without him, Hephaistion would have been nothing. Yet as the months passed in ever-increasing loneliness, Alexander learned that he too was nothing without his Hephaistion. When his last day came and he lay dying, his thoughts returned to those secret rendezvous' where he and Hephaistion would touch the essence of each other with lips and hand, and where they would lie together, sated with passion spent and full of enduring love. And as his last breath left his body, he was smiling as he reached for eternity...and Hephaistion.
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