Troy/Iliad fanfiction

Hector/Paris, NC-17

Summary: A moment alone for Paris. Follows from Neither Paris, Nor the Goddess.

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Paris’s eyelids lifted slowly, and he wondered where he was. Curled on his side, with his hands under his face, he could not orient himself. His eyes roamed and he saw weaponry… and that he was lying on a thick leather hide on the floor…

Confusion clouded his mind, but he remained where he was. A small noise, and he looked up and saw Hector. His brother was seated on a low wooden stool, his elbows resting on his spread knees, his hands hanging between them. His head was bowed.

He was the beauty of Apollo himself, and he was an enigma to Paris… Paris closed his eyes against the ache that seared his chest.

And he remembered last night. How was it that he was waking, when neither of them had been able to stop long enough to fall asleep. It was now morning, as the quality of light in the armory testified to, but Paris remembered last night. Their toiling, their perpetual struggle to find each other in the labyrinth that was their need for each other.

But again, as ever, the morning had come to torment him. Hector once again prepared to leave for battle, and Paris’s mind collapsed in silence. In his head were punishing images, thoughts, visions, of Hector under savage assault, fighting his way out of death’s jaws, fighting, fighting, fighting.

What god or man could counsel him with what he wished with all his heart to hear? Who could he compel to swear to him that Hector would outlive this day... Olympus mocked, and watched, and waited. For was it not the fate of all warriors destined for immortality that one day they would not come home…

His mouth fell open, and he breathed as quietly as he could, deeply, to cool the fire in his head.

Silently, he implored for another day, another night. He promised, and bargained, and lied. But his heart told him it would be easier to simply lie here, to never get up. So that when there was no need for him to ever wake up again, he would already have died.

Finally, Hector began to lift his head… and Paris slowly shut his eyes, and laid completely still.

He heard the scrape of the stool on the floor as Hector stood up, and then there was absolute silence in the room for a long time. At last Paris heard the bolt being thrown, the door opened and shut, and Hector was gone.

Paris turned over and faced the wall, his arms tightly wrapped around himself. His heart ached without respite… but he did not know how to cry. So instead he laid quietly, and waited for the blissful oblivion of the goddess’s gifts to wash over him.

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