Fic: A Scratch

[aleathiel]

Okay. Time for some Hector/Paris. I played around with different tenses. I hope it works

(Persephone and Stewardess: this is not going to be my banabloom entry. That is significantly longer than this and has a higher smut rating! It's currently in betaland.)

A Scratch


Paris will stand on the tower above the Scaean Gate and watch the blood well up from the graze on his hand. He will look down over the city walls at the battle but will not be able see any one archer to blame. With a shake of his head he will move to descend the stairs and a drop of his blood will fall onto the stones, crimson against the dust.

*

The rattle of the wagon was the first Paris knew of the return of his father. He stood at the gate of Troy and watched them cross the last remaining stretch of the plains from the Greek camp. Them. His father and his brother. His Hector.

Around him the men swarmed out to bring in their exhausted monarch, to help him down from his seat, to take his horses to the stable, to help him as he stumbled around to the back of the wagon. He had returned with the body of his son.

Paris could not move, could not go to his fragile father. His mind supplied the image of his father on his knees to Achilles, of his father begging to be allowed to pay ransom for Hector’s battered body. Hatred welled up in his breast and he tasted the bitter need for revenge.

*

Great Hector had slain Patroclus in the sand outside the Scaean Gate and with his dying breath Patroclus had prophesised Hector’s death by the hand of Achilles at that very spot.

Hector had laughed and stripped Achilles’ armour from his dead lover making the Greeks fight for the naked body to return to their great leader. Hector had laughed, but he had known fear. He had trembled in Paris’s arms that night as they made love and tears had washed his handsome face.

Paris had known better than to offer comfort, for what comfort could be given against death?

*

They laid the tattered and beaten body out in Hector’s house and wrapped it in silk. The women led the lamentations: Andromache his wife, Hecuba his mother and fair Helen for whose folly he had died. Priam bade the men build a great funeral pyre and they feasted and held games in Hector’s honour for all the eleven days truce Achilles had granted them to honour their prince.

Paris sat alone in his brother’s chamber when the ashes and charred bones were wrapped in fine purple cloth and laid to rest in a gold casket in a tomb deep in the earth. He had no wish to see the mortal remains of the man he loved. They were no longer Hector.

*

For twelve nights Paris had lain awake in his bed while his brother’s spirit walked. Each night Achilles had rode around Patroclus’ grave mound dragging Hector’s body behind his chariot, twisted and broken, Hector’s gleaming hair dull and foul with the dirt and filth of the battlefield.

Each night Paris had relived his final moments with his brother, had remembered the heavy weight of Hector’s body against his as they collapsed sweaty and sated amongst the fur and blankets, had remembered the fierce resolution in his eyes as they kissed farewell.

*

Paris stands with his bow drawn, watching for Achilles to come within reach. He remembers Hector’s poor body and in his anger aims at Achilles’s ankle. Let him feel that pain, that reminder. He closes his eyes and calls to Aphrodite that if she ever loved him she will aid him now.

He sights along the arrow and releases.

*

Hector had fled from Achilles. Thrice around the walls of Troy he had been chased before making his final stand in the approaching dark at the foot of the Scaean Gate. Paris had stood above with tears of weakness in his eyes.

When Hector had had no spears left Achilles had still retained one. Paris’s fingers had been white from gripping the stone ledge at which he stood. He had known even before that moment that he would never again hold his brother in his arms. Hector had pulled free his sword, “Let me die with honour!” he had cried.

Achilles had put the spear through his neck before even moving within sword-strike.

*

Apollo sees that Paris’s arrow flies true, finding Achilles’s one weak spot amongst the chaotic melee of the battlefield.

The Greeks carry the body of their hero back to the black ships and burn him, mixing his ashes with those of Patroclus.

Only then do they begin to despair and look to advice of their soothsayer. At his instruction they seek out Philoctetes with his poisoned arrows.

*

Paris will make it to the bottom of the stairs before collapsing, black venom seeping through his veins from the scratch.

Comments

[perseph2hades.livejournal.com]

Especially since we know that at first he fled from Achilles.

when i first started writing hector, the very first thing his muse told me about paris was that paris was a bloody coward. and that hector despised him for it. i never told hector!muse, but i think it was a premonition of his courage one day failing him that was behind his abosolute intolerance of that aspect of paris.

there, i admitted it. now hector!muse will kick my ass.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense. Gives Hector more instinctual motivation too.

there, i admitted it. now hector!muse will kick my ass.
Shh! I won't tell him.