
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6044689.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      The_Mummy_Series, The_Mummy_(1999), The_Mummy_Returns_(2001), Egyptian
      Mythology
  Relationship:
      Imhotep/Alex_O'Connell
  Character:
      Alex_O'Connell, Imhotep, Ankhesenamun_of_Egypt, Ptah, Bast, Sekhmet,
      Ma'at, Anubis, Thutmose_I_of_Egypt, Nefertiri, Evy_Carnahan_O'Connell,
      Rick_O'Connell, Jonathan_Carnahan
  Additional Tags:
      AU_of_an_AU, Underage_Sex, Past_Sexual_Abuse, Age_Difference, Magic, Soul
      Bond, accidentally, Historical_Inaccuracy, Tags_to_be_added_as_needed
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-02-17 Updated: 2016-02-24 Chapters: 4/? Words: 34838
****** This Shadowed Path ******
by Scilera
Summary
     Had he still been a boy, his uncle’s thin hands might have been
     enough to hold him fast. Then again, at the hands of that phrase –
     had he still been a boy – none of this would have happened.
     An AU of an AU written by the very talented Pakeha in which we
     explore the possibilities of Uncle Jonathan's grasp - and, more
     importantly, what happens when it is not strong enough to hold back a
     headstrong teenager who doesn't have the faintest clue what he's
     doing... but jumps in headfirst anyway. Literally.
Notes
     Because AO3 will only let me link to a work and not a series, I'm
     putting the link here. This story is an AU of Pakeha's work and
     branches off at their piece Let the Sands of Time Scrape Us Clean,
     which is why I chose that one for the 'inspiration' link. All pieces
     before it chronologically, however, are canon history for this story
     and there will be references to them as we go along. If you like this
     pairing, you should go read the rest of the original series - I know
     I personally can't wait until the next installment is posted.
     http://archiveofourown.org/series/109262
     There really should be more works out there for this pairing - there
     are so very many possibilities!
See the end of the work for more notes
  This work was inspired by
      Let_the_Sands_of_Time_Scrape_us_Clean by Pakeha
***** Chapter 1 *****
Had he still been a boy, his uncle’s thin hands might have been enough to hold
him fast.
Then again, at the hands of that phrase – had he still been a boy – none of
this would have happened.
Everyone grows at different paces, in different ways.  Alex had thought himself
a man for at least three years, now.  It was the result, he would argue later,
of having been raised around death and danger the way he had been.  If he lived
long enough, he might eventually come to recognize it as simply a function of
teenage boys to think themselves invincible, but with his captor clinging to
the edge of the precipice with tears bright in dark eyes as the woman he’d
sacrificed everything to be with left him to die, with the surge of panic and
furythat sang in Alex’s veins when that tearful (remorseful?) gaze turned to
meet his one last time – with the rush of adrenaline-fueled strength that let
him burst through Uncle Jonathan’s well-meaning grasp… Alex wasn’t exactly
thinking long-term.
Nor were his chances of living past today very high.
His parents were too busy saving each other to notice their seventeen year old
son racing across crumbling ground behind them and skidding to the edge on his
chest.  They were too strained trying to combine their strength to haul his
father to safety to see Alex plunge both arms into the chasm and take a firm
grasp on shoulders whose slope had been burned into his memory. 
“Oh no you fucking don’t,” Alex hissed, straining until the tendons in his neck
stood in sharp relief.  He didn’t know what secrets were written across his
face – he wasn’t even entirely sure just what the hell he was doing– but
whatever it was that Imhotep saw there sent a jolt of shock that first
slackened his face and then softened it.  Thin lips parted and in his entire
life Alex had never heard the four syllables of his name whispered with such
reverence.  It made his chest feel tight, like his ribs had suddenly shrunk
around a heart and lungs already too big for their home.
In a moment of terrible clarity, Alex knew what that one word was.  It was
eureka; it was goodbye.
“Please,” he hissed, the word choked by the wet clench of his desperate throat
– flavored by the salt of the single tear that fell from his lashes to his
captor’s cheekbone.  His arms were on fire and he could feel the slow scrape of
stone burning the skin of his chest and stomach as he slid slowly forward.  He
knew better than anyone the strength in the body he clung to – Imhotep was many
terrible things, but weak had never been one of them.  If only he would
try,would lend his power to Alex’s desperation, they would be alright. 
Everything would be alright.
Even Alex knew his thought process wasn’t exactly rational.  It didn’t stop him
acting on it, but at least he knew he wasn’t operating under anything
resembling logic. 
“Please,” he repeated, pain and physical effort making his voice crack when he
tried to add some volume to his plea.  If the bastard would just try,they
wouldn’t be on this precipice anymore, but the arms he pulled at made no effort
to push their owner from danger.
“O Youth who came forth from the Double Scepter Nome, I have not been
neglectful of truthful words.”
It was a passage Alex knew well, taken directly from the confessions before
Ma’at at the weighing of souls.  It was one of a set – forty-two give or take –
but the fact that the lips which shaped it formed no others was telling.  It
was damning. And Alex had no earthly idea whether he believed in any god, but
this felt so final.  This felt so… this felt so much like loss.  There was
magic in those words, and for reasons beyond his understanding, Alex found
himself rapidly reciting the first five – and would have gone on because in the
chaotic mess of his mind, it seemed like the right idea.
“Alexander.”  His name was spoken again, simultaneously firmer and warmer than
he had ever heard this particular voice.  The softness had retreated from
Imhotep’s hawkish face, replaced by a fierce determination until only dark eyes
held onto the affection Alex had been so adamant he never wanted to see.  “He-
who-is-Blood who came forth from the place of slaughter, I am no longer blinded
by greed – “ and for a single, terrible moment, hope bloomed in Alex’s chest,
sprouting a bright and fragile grin to blossom across his dirt-streaked face. 
He gave in too soon; he did not see the way Imhotep’s gaze lifted above them
both, to something over his shoulder, he did not see the single nod the son of
Ptah exchanged with the daughter of his ancient enemy.  He did hear the
deliberate alteration of the confession, but by then it was too late.  Pain
blossomed in the base of his skull and his world spiraled into darkness, echoes
only of a dead man’s last words following him down into nothingness.
“ – I am glad of my one.”
 
    * - -
 
As the high priest fell into the pits of those who are damned, he did not weep;
he was the first in three thousand years to endure the crossing without
shedding a single tear for his own soul.  The barrier almost did not let him
pass – very nearly was he consigned to an eternity of numb emptiness with the
rest of those that were no longer fully human – but a burning on his cheek
before he was allowed to fall once more reminded him of what had dropped from
Alexander’s miserable eyes.  Alexander. There was a sharp and aching beauty in
the irony of his conquest; in the knowledge that his prize had fully belonged
to him only in the moment he realized the extent of his grievous error… the
depth of his sins against the only soul to stand by him when he was brought so
very low.
It was a sensation he could liken only to having his soul pierced by the
sharpest sword.  There was a euphoria he had not yet dared to name – so blinded
by his thirst for vengeance that he forgot how fleeting all life truly is – but
there was nothing left to hide from.  It was freeing to know that he had, in
some small measure, been cared for, but that knowledge came with the raw
understanding that he had chosen unwisely.  He had missed the very great
blessing thrown practically into his lap – had abused and misused it until any
lesser mortal would have been broken beyond repair.
But not his prize.
It was comforting to know that Alexander’s flame would long outlast his ashes. 
It was small comfort, given the torment he was sure came now, but he clung to
it all the same.  He clung to it as he fell through darkness; he clung to it as
he fell through water.  He clung to it as he plummeted through the vast,
glittering expanse of an endless night sky. 
And – if he was completely honest with himself, which at this point seemed like
all he had left – it was all that held him together when his body struck solid
marble hard enough to crack its surface. 
This… was not at all what he expected.  He held his breath against pain that
did not come.  When he tried to release it and draw life into his lungs, he
found them constricted, useless, frozen.  After such a fall, paralysis was not
even a little bit out of the question, but as he lay there, the lack of breath
did not steal consciousness the way his body felt it should.  So when Imhotep
found himself able not only to move, but to rise and stand on his own feet, it
came as something of an understandable shock.
Only then did he take stock of his surroundings.
Only then did the lamps ignite around him.
Only then did he understand.
“How long has it been since Iset lost a wager, hmm?”  The voice came from the
shadows on his left, but Imhotep could not yet see its source.  It was low,
purring, distinctly female, but there was a power to it that only mothers
possessed.
“Hush, beloved.  She has not lost it yet.”  The second voice came from the
shadows on his right.  It was higher than the first, but had within it a
wildcat’s screaming power despite speaking at little more than a murmur.  The
fact that it was also female – also spoke the tongue of Ancients – and referred
to the first voice as only lovers would do… it set his teeth on edge.
It wasn’t that he was a hypocrite – this was one crime he would not lay at his
own feet – but there were some cultural taboos that take root in the marrow of
the bone and are not so easily shaken.
“Baast.  Sakhet.”  This final voice was distinctly male, rich and warm with
equal parts power and affection.  “Is this any way to greet your son?”  Imhotep
was so focused on trying to understand the familiarity this man’s tone stirred
in him that he did not immediately comprehend the question.  The moment he
caught up, his mouth opened and he made to speak of staunch denial –
disbelief.  But no sounds emerged.  His stomach clenched, his throat moved, his
tongue and lips shaped the words he wanted, but he could not speak a single
one.
“Hah, this empty scarab beetle is no son of mine.”
“He carries the stench of tainted blood, of rotting flesh.  How come you to
call this vulture our kin?”
From the darkness outside Imhotep’s single ring of warm lamp light, a man
emerged.  He was taller than any man Imhotep had ever seen – at least twice the
height of Lock-Nah and probably closer to two and a half times his size – and
his skin was the same fertile green as the jade which came from the farthest
expeditions to the east.  He was garbed in the white shroud of the dead but
wore the divine beard and carried the ankh and scepter of the pharaoh himself. 
Imhotep knew him as even a blind man would know the warmth of the sun; so much
of his life had been dedicated to the worship and glory of this god and his
work that it would be impossible not to feel the exact weight of his entire
wretched life like an albatross about his neck.
Though this body still would not form words, Imhotep sank to his knees and
offered the prostration known only to the high priests before settling simply
on his heels.  He sat thus with a kind of resigned grace.  He had played the
game; he had lost.  The penalty of losing would be accepted with dignity – and
apparently, with silence.
“I call him this,” Pitah answered, kindness in his tone and sad wisdom in his
smile as he reached out to lay his hand atop the head of the priest, “because
he is blood of my blood.”  From the shadows to left and right, two great
lionesses – one sand and the other ash – emerged and came to sit at the heels
of their mate.  Pitah lifted his hand from Imhotep and rested one on each great
head beside him.  “And I have sired no offspring save by you.”
And that was that.  Fertility and the rites surrounding it were so sacred that
none of the three disbelievers dared to question its truth once the ritual
words of family and fidelity had been uttered.  None of them were ready to
believe,but none of them could speak against it (Imhotep in a literal sense)
and so there fell upon them a kind of quiet that felt as though it stretched
into centuries.  It was soothing, this silence; it brought a kind of stillness
to Imhotep’s soul that felt very much like peace, but nothing lasts forever.
The great lioness of darkened ashes moved first, eyes narrowed in thought and
suspicion as she stalked closer and bent her massive head to meet his gaze head
on.  There was fire dancing in her eyes and death glinting in her fangs but he
did not look away.  When this small, insignificant mortal held her gaze with
neither challenge nor fear, her eyes widened and Baast looked like she had been
slapped. 
If he existed at all beyond this encounter, Imhotep promised himself he would
be allowed a quiet laugh at such an expression on a feline face.
“Tef?”  There was hesitation in her powerful voice for the first time, the
barest sliver of tenderness mingled with disbelief to soften the very cat-like
aloofness.  “Immutef?”
As if he had been the one struck on the back of the head, Imhotep found that
pain exploded inside his skull with the sound of those names in that voice. 
Flashes of light and color struck at him behind his eyes; he choked on scent
and taste that felt like it might smother him.  Touch made his skin crawl and
everything was too real, too raw – too much after the comforting anesthesia of
death.
He fell forward onto the palms of his hands and for the first time heaved
strained breaths into lungs that remembered their function while his heart
raced to make up for the beats of which it had been deprived.  Language escaped
him while life returned to his limbs with pin-and-needle pain, but there was a
melody that permeated everything within him in this moment.  He hummed it under
his breath with a voice that was rough and broken from disuse.  It was almost
indistinguishable as music.
It was enough.
Being pounced on and smothered by two lionesses the size of locomotives had
never been a scenario in which Imhotep had pictured himself, but as fur became
skin and cloth and paws became arms and legs, he remembered what it was like to
feel small and yet not afraid.  “Renpetneferet,” he gasped, a name he had not
allowed himself to speak aloud in three thousand years.  “I could not stop
him.  I could not save – “
“Hush,” Sakhet soothed.  “We know, Khatef.  We know.” In the arms of his
mothers and under the watchful protection of his father, Imhotep broke down and
grieved – for himself, for Ankhesenamun, for Renpetneferet and for Alexander.
 
    * - -
 
“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Connell.  At this point there is little we can do but keep
him hydrated.”
Evelyn heard the words – addressed to her husband, never to her – but it was in
that surreal way she heard other languages when they were spoken in her dreams.
“After the first forty-eight hours, it’s as likely to last three months as it
is three days.”
She could see the sympathetic expression every time the damnable man shifted
his gaze to look nervously at her.  It was irrational – she knew it was
irrational – but she hated him a little more every time.  Just for doing his
job.
“Young bodies are surprisingly resilient.  The skull sustained no fracture and
his other injuries are minor.  There are some alternative treatments we can
explore, but my professional recommendation is to let the boy rest.  His body
knows what to do.”
It was the most useless advice Evie had ever heard in her life and this was the
foremost physician in the whole bloody backwards country.  That sum of facts
was nearly enough to have her swinging at him, but Rick knew what was coming
and smoothly stepped to one side until he had physically blocked her access to
the doctor with his own (taller, broader) body.
“Thank you, Dr Khouri.  We’ll take that into consideration.”
The good doctor knew his cue to exit when he heard it, pausing only long enough
to shake the hand Rick offered before practically bolting out the door.
“I’ll kill him,” she spat, fingers flexing at her sides – gripping blades that
were not there.  “I’ll tear open his throat and watch him bleed out on the
sand.” 
“I know, honey.  I know.”  Rick turned and wrapped her up in both arms, face
buried in her hair.
“I’ll kill him,” she repeated, this time unable to fight the tears that would
undoubtedly leave a mess over the front of her husband’s shirt.
They both knew she wasn’t talking about the doctor.
 
    * - -
 
The sound of heavy drums began in the distance, warning enough that this moment
of respite was not to last.  Imhotep stood and straightened his robes, head
held high.  Divine heritage or no, this was a rite of passage for all souls at
this stage of their journey. 
“Remember, Khatef; death is only the beginning.”
It was advice that pricked at the rapidly unfurling spools of memory in a way
he knew would grow fresh questions in his mind if he stayed himself after
this.  There wasn’t time to dwell on such things now, though – not when Anubis
and Ma’at approached with the scale and ostrich feather.
Ma’at he could not see well enough to pin down her appearance in his mind; she
was half hidden and half fluid, maintaining solid form but never static
details.  Anubis, however, was like looking into a mirror and seeing everything
he most hated within himself.  The way he bared his teeth to the jackal was
pure instinct, but it did not stop his respectful bow toward the keeper of
justice. 
“Imhotep, son of Pitah.”  Her voice was sharp and cold – distant and
impartial.  “You served your mortal life among the most devout.  You know why
we are here.”
“I do.”
“Do you believe your heart-soul can balance against Shu?”
“No, I do not.”  This answer seemed to startle Ma’at, for she paused in her
ritual recitation and turned her featureless face to stare down at this strange
mortal.  “But I do not deny your right to judge it for yourself and thus
fulfill your ancient pact with Ammit.”  That smooth face tilted slowly to one
side, examining him thoroughly before beckoning him closer with one hand.
“Then come to me, son of the two Kingdoms, and we shall see what it is that so
weighs upon your heart.”
Imhotep did as he was told, passing his mothers and father with even strides
and stopping in front of the goddess shaped in ever-flowing ice and marble. 
She reached out one pale hand to rest against his chest, drawing from him the
heart-soul which was the essence of each life.  She had seen this one when it
had passed into this body; remembering its former splendor when faced with the
current decay made even the cold heart of Justice stir within her breast.  The
wounds – gouges and bruises and twisted scars – were ancient, but the casing of
stone had let them rot and fester rather than heal.  The shield he had built
around himself had become his crutch and later his poison, but what had once
been airtight was now little more than crumbling ruins, a ring around the last
few places that were raw and vulnerable and red with life.  There were little
more than glimpses left, but not everything had surrendered to the black decay;
not yet.
“Proceed, Imhotep.”  The sad resignation in the voice of Ma’at told him more
than even the gleeful smirk on the jackal’s smug maw, but he did not resent her
for it.  Taking his heart-soul into his own calloused hands, he stepped up to
the scale and held it over the empty plate. 
“He-who-is-Blood who came forth from the place of slaughter, I am not greedy.”
It was not the proper confession, but though the words made Anubis snarl, Ma’at
allowed them to stand.  There was some kind of commotion behind him, but the
force of the scales’ magic had already begun to whip around him and made it
nearly impossible to focus on anything else.  It did not matter.  He only had
one further confession he could make at any rate.
“Youth who came forth from the Double Scepter Nome, I have not been neglectful
of truthful words.”
There was a finality in this confession, because in all his wretched existence
he had never known the meaning of anything so deeply as he did this.  But
instead of the wise aspect of Justice behind his eyes when he said it, it was
sharp angles and pale skin, freckles dusted across sunburn and sandy hair
fallen over hazy blue eyes.  This was his truth and here at the end of all
things, it was enough.  He could feel the weight of everything left unspoken
pulling down at the heart-soul in his hands, tugging against the weight of the
feather in an inexorable pull toward damnation.  He did not feel ready – no one
ever felt ready– but he was resigned to his fate.  One last time, Imhotep let
his eyes slide closed and waited for the jaws of Ammit.
They did not come.
Instead there was a subtle lesseningof the weight he bore – the sensation
identical to the division of a heavy load between two sets of shoulders. 
Instead there was a source of unimaginable heat beside him… and though he could
not look away from the blinding light of the scales as they calculated, the
voice that shouted out into the wind beneath his ear was one he would never be
able to forget.
“Oh Wide-strider who came forth from Heliopolis, I have not done wrong.”
Foolish boy. 
 
    * - -
 
Not that, you know, he’d had a whole lot of experience with it, but Alex was
pretty sure that being knocked unconscious wasn’t supposed to leave you awareof
all the blackness you were swimming through while your brain sorted itself
out.  From the descriptions he’d gleaned growing up (from father, mother
anduncle) he’d rather thought it was like folding time into a smaller piece. 
You were out and the next thing you knew you were awake again with no concept
of the hours or days or weeks that had passed in the meantime.
He hadn’t known what was happening as it happened, of course, but he’d spent a
verylong time being bored out of his wits whilst floating about the vaguely
space-like area inside his own head.  It had meant a lot of time for thought
(for dreams, for memories, for regrets) and he’d mostly pieced it together
during the times between.  Then he’d gotten angry.  Unfortunately for him there
wasn’t a lot to take your anger out onwhile in outer space inside your own
head.  It would flare up from time to time like a nebula, but with nothing to
act upon it always petered out again.
As it turned out, now was one of the not-angry times and Alex found himself
bored enough to be reciting Sophocles in the original Greek simply to pass the
time.  He’d just gotten to the bit with the soldiers and nobody liking the
bearer of bad news when something changed. There was a bucking sensation like a
horse had just tried to throw him (something with which he was unhappily
familiar) and then he was falling.  At first this was (understandably)
alarming, but after about an hour of just endlessly falling, this too became
dull.  First he’d tried to calculate his approximate speed based on the time it
took his hand to snap back to its fullest height after he’d made the muscles in
that arm go slack.
Maths… had never been his strong suit.
He’d just about decided to go back to Sophocles when he collided with something
large, warm and very furry.  “Sorry about that, old girl,” he grumbled as he
tried to right himself.  “Never fancied falling onto a horse in my own head. 
Thought all those lessons would have chased them out years a… go.  Oh, horse
shit.”
It was not, as he had just discovered, a horse that he had collided with, but
rather a lioness roughly the size of one.  Said lioness was now staring at him
like a mouse caught in a trap – and to make things even better, she had a
friend.  “I, um.  Shouldn’t have said that,” he faltered.  “Er, the um, the
‘old girl’ bit, not the sorry bit.  Cause I am.  Uh, sorry, not an old girl –
not that you are either!  Just that, um.  … Please don’t eat me?”
“You would hardly make a mouthful.  Why would I waste the effort?”
He had not expected her to talk back. 
“That’s… fair, I suppose.”
Although really, after the life he’d had (and the last few weeks he’d had for
sure) it really shouldn’t have surprised him so much as it did.
“I’m A-“
“Yes, we know who you are, young one.”  This time the friend butted in.  She
was darker than the lioness he’d landed on but definitely not any smaller. 
“What we don’t know is why you’re here.”
“Come to witness your handiwork, perhaps?”
“Well that makes two of u- hey!  I didn’t – what?  What handiwork?  Who the
bloody hell are you and what am I supposed to have done now?”
“We are mothers watching our son about to do something incredibly foolish and
get himself killed.”
“Oh.”  For some reason, that answer made them both seem suddenly far too much
like his own mother for Alex’s comfort.  “I’m… I’m sorry.”  Partly because that
was the done thing – to apologize at someone else’s bad news – but also because
he found he genuinely was.  He had a lot more sympathy for mothers of stupid
children now than he had a fortnight before. 
“Are you really?”  The sandy one seemed surprised – and just a little bit
bitter.
“I don’t think he knows, beloved.  Breathe him in; there will be a stench if he
has tried deception.” 
“Could someone possibly clue me in to what exactly is going on?”  Alex took a
step back with both hands raised defensively as the two lionesses leaned
closer.  “Preferably beforewe do any sniffing, please!”
“By the water, he truly does not know.”
“Then how could he be here?  How could he possibly be – “
The rapidfire questions were cut short as Alex doubled over, a crushing ache
behind his lungs.
“Oh.”
One word, one syllable – two voices in unison.
“Answers.  Would be.  Nice.  Right.  About.  Now.”  Alex’s response was broken
and strained as he struggled to draw air again, but every ounce of his fed-up
frustration came through loud and clear.  Rather than respond outright,
however, the two lionesses simply stepped back, like having the red curtains
parted before the start of a play.  Alex watched as an all too familiar
silhouette was slowly engulfed by the white-gold light of truly unmistakable
scales. 
“Doing.  Something.  Stupid.  Literally.  Every.  Day.”
Later it would occur to him to maybe askwhy the person he wanted to hate more
than anything else in the world had two dire lionsfor mums, but just now he
felt that anger flooding right back into his veins and this time?  This time
there was an outlet.
“If we live through this,” he told the two oversized felines, “I’m going to
break his nose.”
And as the lanky youth strode right into the blinding light (all the while
muttering under his breath about insanity running in both sides of his family)
both goddesses rather agreed he had every right to do it.
 
    * - -
 
“Well this is anticlimactic.”
Alex was not amused.
“It’s dark.  Again.  I am floating.  Again.  I am actually going to die of
boredom.  Again.”
There was an extended, stuffy silence after he spoke.  It wasn’t hot and it
wasn’t cold.  There was nothing here to touch, but the sound of his own voice
was heavy, like when speaking in a radio room with carpet on floor, walls and
ceiling.  It was a little disorienting to be honest, but even as he started to
wish for anythingto alleviate the empty monotony, Alex found reason to take it
back.
“You should, perhaps, have thought of this before binding your soul to one
damned to an eternity in Duat.”
That voice.
He knew that voice; it sent ice up his spine and put butterflies in his stomach
all at the same time.
“Which could have been avoided if you weren’t so intent on physically flinging
yourself into hell in the first place.”
“I had no choic-“
“Horse shit.”
“Ankhesenamun – “
“Was a mental bitch who was more in love with power than with you.  Yeah, I
know.  Lit-er-ally everyone knows.  That doesn’t mean the only option is ‘fling
self off cliff into hell’.  I was right there.”
In the extended silence which followed his outburst, Alex had plenty of time to
wish he’d been able to make that come out more angry and less sullen.
“It was not the only option, but it was the one that was right.”
“Bu-“
“No, Alexander.”  This time it was Alex being interrupted and his jaw closed
with an audible snap.  “Had I accepted your help, you would never have been
free.  I have never claimed to be a good man, but I refused to repay your
loyalty with more suffering.  You would have seen your tormentor destroyed –
forever out of reach of hurting you again.  It was… perhaps the only noble
thing I had ever done.”
And it wasn’t that he couldn’t see the (twisted, convoluted) logic involved in
that decision process, but Alex still had a lot of anger boiling underneath his
skin and though he couldn’t exactly break a nose he couldn’t see, he could
certainlyunleash it in other ways.
“No, it wasn’t,” he snarled, fury snapping along nerve endings until it felt
like his entire body was a live wire.  “I don’t care that you had sex with me. 
Yeah, I know, believe me it’s just as fucked up in my head as it sounds out
loud.  I get that.  But it’s true.  I don’t.  What pisses me off is that you
took away my choices.  Over and over and over again, you ripped them away from
me until there were days I looked at you before choosing which bite of food I
wanted from my own damn plate.”  He paused then, rubbing at the back of his
neck and lowering his voice from a shout to a low growl.  “I didn’t even so
much mind thatall the time, because sometimes when I bent it seemed like it
made you relax and when you calmed the fuck down I’d get glimpses of someone I…
liked.  Someone who could have cared about meinstead of what vengeance he could
wreak by using me.”  Alex shook himself and when he spoke again, the anger was
once again close to the surface.  “But honest to God,Imhotep, when it affects
my life – I get. To have.  A goddamn say. In what happens.”
The silence that stretched out between them then felt like a hollow victory.
“It was foolish in the extreme to risk your life – your very soul– for the sake
of a monster who mighthave cared for you.”  They were chilling words indeed,
but there was a bitterness to them that made Alex feel bold. 
“Look, I’ll be the first to admit that your gods are pretty universally insane,
but Ma’at sees everything when she does the scale thing.  If you really were a
complete monster who didn’t care, I don’t think it would have worked.”
Imhotep’s answering laugh was dark and strangely sad.
“Your logic is fallacy, Alexander.  Look around you.  This is Duat.  Whatever
you thought you would achieve with this madness, the plan has obviously
failed.”
“But that doesn’t disprove my theory unless – “
Alex blinked once and suddenly the world was not black and empty anymore.
The ground was wet and sucking under his feet, but he did not sink.  The air
was thick with flowers and spices but the cool breeze kept the heat from being
overwhelming.  There were great green reeds all around him and he could sense a
tall body directly behind him.  The fact that he didn’t even need to glance
over his shoulder to know that it was Imhotep probably should have worried him
a little. 
It didn’t, but it should have.
“Er – why are we in a marsh?  I don’t remember anything about a swamp in the
underworld.”
“It is not a swamp,” Imhotep corrected him quietly, something that sounded
almost like amusement warming his voice.  “This is papyrus.  We are in the
flood plain.”
“Oh!  Right.  The papyrus fields.  Wait, if that’s this then where’s – “
“Ausir?”  The addition of a third voice to Alex’s left had them both whirling
around to face it.  The fact that they ended up with Imhotep physically between
Alex and the unknown was just a coincidence of movement.  Surely. 
Nevertheless, Ma’at – the owner of the third voice – looked… well, about as
amused as a goddess made of ice and marble couldlook.
“I was going to say Osiris, but yeah, essentially.” 
Imhotep’s wrist twitched like he wanted to silence the boy before his mouth got
them into trouble, but he squashed that impulse and simply watched the goddess
warily.
“You say tomato…”  The modern idiom coming from the mouth of this ancient being
startled a laugh out of Alex; Imhotep only scowled deeper.  “You aren’t passing
through Ausir’s gate today, young one.”  Alex’s shoulders slumped forward.
“So it didn’t work.”
“Do not despair, child.  The binding of souls saved the son of Pitah from the
jaws of Ammit.  Your devotion and his remaining divinity were enough to balance
the scales, but only just.”
“Okay,” Alex answered, stepping up beside Imhotep and pretending he did not see
the way that arm nearest him moved as though it would haul him back safely
behind his… whatever before the motion was aborted.  “So what does that mean
for us?”
“The son of Pitah will be sent back to the time he should have been given –
before the viper led him into the path of that terrible curse.  He will know
nothing of his future; mere mortals cannot hold two existences at once within
themselves, so it will be locked away.  You, son of Nefertiri, will go with him
as you must; bound souls cannot stray far.  You will remember, but he will
not.  Your fates are tied to one another, now.  If your influence is enough to
keep him on his true path, then you both will be free.  Do you understand?”
“Not in the least, but that hasn’t stopped me yet.”
This time the goddess laughed, tilting her head back to indulge in the
sensation before laying her cold hand over Alex’s head in blessing.  “You will
be good for the ancient kingdoms, Alaexandros.”  Only then did she turn to
Imhotep, the humor draining away but not the kindness that had at first seemed
so alien in her.  “Teach him what he must know to survive, Immutef; much
depends on your mutual success.”
“Right,” Alex grumbled.  “Because that’s not cryptic or anything.”
Ma’at ignored him.  “When you are ready, call for the gate and it will appear.”
And without warning or fanfare, she was gone.
 
    * - -
 
This was madness.
With Ma’at gone, silence had descended among the papyrus, leaving Imhotep to
thoughts that went only in endless circles.  It was frustrating; a helplessness
which was exorcised in the only way currently available.  He paced.  A lot. 
“This is madness,” he repeated aloud, though really to no one in particular.
“So you’ve said.”  Alexander’s voice was enough to startle him.  “Multiple
times.”  The boy simply stood there, watching him pace with both arms folded
over his chest.
“I say it because it is true,” he snapped back, propelled once more into zero
sum movement back and forth over his little stretch of field.  “How am I meant
to learn from my errors when the trial is to be administered in such a way that
I will not have the knowledge to keep me from those same mistakes?  It makes no
sense!”
Alexander was silent, but there was a quality to his stillness that Imhotep
knew meant he was listening.
“I could fill your head with the entirety of the law, people, culture, worship…
I could teach you to assume any role in the kingdom, but none of it will mean
anything except you surviving long enough to watch me fail.”
It was a strange, unfamiliar comfort, being actively, willinglylistened to.  It
frightened Imhotep, but at the same time kept him from flying entirely off the
handle.  Eventually his pacing stopped and he scrubbed both hands over his face
– anything to buy himself another moment to think.  Just one more and he’d come
up with the solution to the riddle, surely.
Except he didn’t.
“I don’t think that’s what she meant.” 
It wasn’t so much the words that startled him; it was the sense of loss that
came with them because somehow he felt like they should have come with a hand
resting against his skin.  It was a foolish and ridiculous assumption – had
their positions been reversed, Imhotep knew he would not want to touch his
tormentor ever again – and he felt heat in his face for his own stupidity, but
he could not shake the ache of something missing. 
“Then what could she possiblyhave meant, child?”  His confusion and discomfort
made his retort much sharper than it should have been – sharper even than he’d
meant it.  The scowl that twisted Alex’s face in response was expected; his
answer, however, was not.
“I am not a child.”  That stopped the reply on the tip of his tongue.  Thatwas
the point this frustrating mortal was going to argue right now?  “The – frankly
ridiculous – age gap issue aside, you lost the right to treat me like one when
you took me to bed.”  There wasn’t an accusation in the tone, but Imhotep’s own
conscience made him flinch from it anyway.  “Not that it stopped you before,
but it will stop now.  I have a saynow.  I will spend forever right here in
this papyrus field before I do this on uneven footing.”
And all of that was inherently fair; Imhotep had no grounds on which to argue
any point, but there was still something cold and knotted in his stomach that
made him ask one thing.
“This,” he gestured between them, “has never been on even footing.  Why - ?” 
He cut himself off, unable to even vocalize the question for how exposed it
made him feel.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m reallybad at the whole ‘slave’ thing.” 
Alex’s deadpan delivery did exactly what Imhotep suspected he had intended; it
made him snort a single breath of laughter.  It was enough of a break in the
tension that he turned to look him in the face.  “I didn’t lean over the edge
of hell to save my master.”  The little smile curling in one corner of Alex’s
mouth was distracting.  “I did it to save you.”
“But then what am I?” he asked, voice little more than a breath.
Alex’s smile grew – and went just a little bit crooked.  “What I tried to tell
you earlier.  I think that’s what the riddle is.”
It was not an easy sensation for someone who had spent so much of his life with
every answer he’d ever needed right as his fingertips, but this time Imhotep
did not know.  He did not understand the rules and it was becoming increasingly
uncomfortable. 
“I do not follow.”
It was even lessof an easy thing to admit.  Imhotep felt himself growing
instinctively defensive, but the reaction faltered and petered out when Alex
simply shrugged without judgment.
“I mean, I’m not really all that sure I do either, but if we’ve got to go
somewhere you won’t remember anything important, I’ve got to remember it for
you, right?”  Imhotep nodded once, willing to see where this was going, at
least.  “But that does us no good if you don’t remember me either, so I
think…”  Here he faltered too, color coming up under freckled skin with a very
innocent awkwardness.  “I thinkwhat she meant was teach me what I need to know
so you’ll let me close enough to be ableto help you.”
That was…
It wasn’t that it didn’t make sense – it did – and it wasn’t that he couldn’t
see the wisdom in it either; it was just that out of all the trials he could
have possibly been given, this one was…  “Those are the kinds of secrets that
can destroy a soul in motivated hands.”  He knew in the rational parts of his
mind that Alex certainly deserved the chance to destroy him if he wanted, but
that didn’t erase the primal, animal fear.
“Ma’at doesn’t lie, right?”  Suddenly Alex was much closer to him than Imhotep
had remembered him being.  The change in positions and the whiplash change of
subject were enough to throw him off entirely.
“Yes, but – “
“And she says your soul’s all tangled up in mine now, right?”
“That is… certainly one description of your foolishness, yes, but-“
“Then it’s fine.”
Still unreasonably annoyed by Alexander’s lack of consideration for his own
wellbeing in his foolish endeavor, Imhotep found he still wasn’t following. 
“What is fine?  How is any of this ‘fine’?”
Alex heaved the longest, heaviest sigh of his life so far.
“Fine, let’s put it in your terms.  Simple law of self-preservation.  If
destroying you would destroy me, self-interest says I’m obviously not going to
do it.”
“Rationally, yes, but even you must admit, Alexander, that you are not exactly
ratio-“
Imhotep never got a chance to finish his sentence – true though it might have
been.  With one of Alex’s hands at the back of his neck and one twisted in the
front of his robes, he was yanked sharply down into a surprisingly demanding
kiss.  It stole his breath on a single, broken cry, open to lips and teeth and
tongue that claimed his mouth with feeling, enthusiasm and determination… if
not so much finesse.  By the time Alex had pulled far enough away to breathe,
he had Imhotep’s blood smeared across his lips and Imhotep’s arms holding him
tightly chest to chest.
“No,” he panted out agreement, “I’m not.”  His eyes were bright and sharp as
they searched the dark ones up close.  “But neither is the way you say my
name.”
And that was all it took; Imhotep could feel his resistance crumbling
entirely.  The brat would have his way, but before he handed Alexander the
weapons that could be his undoing, he had one last task to accomplish.  Tilting
his head slightly to one side, he brushed his mouth against Alex’s ear.
“Alexander…” he breathed, allowing that one word to be flavored by all the
sentiment he felt but did not entirely understand.  The way the youth shivered
hard at the sound was extremely gratifying.  “Alexander,” he purred, turning to
run the bridge of his nose against the sharp angle of his jaw.  The way the
hand on his neck slid up to cup the back of his skull and tug him back against
Alex’s mouth was thrilling. 
“Alexander,” he promised, “I will trust you with this.”
But first, he was going to show him exactlywhat slow, intense precision could
do to a simple kiss.
 
***** Chapter 2 *****
There had been three most likely scenarios given that he looked nothing at all
like he should have been born in Memphis.  Alex was deeply annoyed that while
none of them had included being woken up and shoved around by large men armed
with very sharp swords, that was exactlyhow this day started.  Before he’d even
had a chance to discover who he was supposed to be in this ancient world, he
had his arms bound behind his back and a sack shoved over his head.
They were crude tactics – Namibian mercenaries were far scarier with less than
half the fuss – but at least by the time Alex had been marched through about
two dozen city streets and shoved to his knees, he was very much awake.  He
squinted against the light cast by two enormous oil lamps when the sack was
ripped away, but though his initial captors stood back at a more than
reasonable distance, no one was volunteering to unbind his wrists.
“Hospitality could use some work.”  It was only supposed to be a low mutter to
himself – he’d even done it in Greek so as to lower the chances of being
understood even if he was overheard.  But this was obviously just not his day.
“You must forgive my protectors.”  He knewthat voice, though he couldn’t yet
see the viper it belonged to.  “They are often overzealous in the pursuit of my
happiness and safety.” 
“Ankhesenamun,” he spat back, his own venom disguised in dry sarcasm.  “You
could have just sent a note.”  Against all odds or expectation, that only made
her laugh.
“If you know who I am you know why that simply would not do.”
Finally she emerged, stepping from behind one of the room’s enormous pillars
draped in obscene amounts of jewelry and clothed only in sheer white linen.  It
wasn’t anything Alex hadn’t seen before; his position as Imhotep’s ‘pet’ had
made him less than furniture to her.  The way she smiled at him – sultry and
deceptively soft – and her body language made it abundantly clear what she
wanted to inspire, but he was honestly a bit underwhelmed. 
“On the contrary, my lady,” he evaded, using the formal address and excuse
Imhotep had prepared him with.  “The whole kingdom knows your name.  How could
I be any different?”  It worked, netting him a coquettish little laugh. 
Objectively, he supposed, it was a nice enough sound, but it made his stomach
turn. 
After the leonine rumble of Imhotep’s mirth, Alex was fairly certain nothing
else would sound right.  He wasn’t exactly thrilledabout that, but he wasn’t
delusional enough to doubt it either.
“Who knew the bastard son of the princess would be so charming?”  Barbs laced
with honey… this was absolutely the Ankhesenamun he remembered.  “I should very
much like to meet your father.  The gods only know you did not come by such
grace from your mother.”
That struck closer to home than he’d like, but he clenched his jaw and remained
silent.  It was just as well; Ankhesenamun saw it as a victory and he escaped
that moment of crisis without handing her a real one.
“Alaexandros of Crete…  The son of a mercenary and a whore, they tell me. 
Hah!  Likely tale.  There are thousands of such brats reared in temples all
over both kingdoms and yet here you are, a prize of my very own.”  The
implications of that word alone were still hot-button topics for Alex, but to
hear it from hermade him sick to his stomach.  “Just think of what else I could
accomplish,” she purred, bending to breathe the words right against his ear,
“when given the proper incentive.”
He did not flinch from her, but it was a very near thing.
“I suppose anything you desired, my lady.”  Alex kept his voice neutral and his
eyes fixed blankly into the middle distance ahead.  It was a defense that got
harder to maintain when the queen-to-be began rubbing up against his shoulder
like a housecat, but it was one he understood it was vital to maintain.
“Exactly so, my pet.  Would you not agree, then, that it would be in your best
interests to please me?”
“Probably, my lady, but I doubt I would be of much use.”  It was the politest
way he could think of to decline.  Unfortunately, it was perhaps a bit too
polite to be effective. 
“Oh, I could imagine a few ways.  I am infamously generous to those who… please
me.”
The verb she chose had very distinct connotations when used just this way; it
conjured visions of his head between her thighs – both her hands gripping his
hair while she rode his face.  Alex felt bile rise in the back of his throat
and cold sweat break out over his skin. 
“Go to hell,” he growled, turning to glare up at her in open defiance.  The
curse wasn’t a native one by any means, the literal translation being something
closer to ‘rot in Duat’, but the general sentiment carried over well enough. 
For just a fleeting moment there was raw, venomous hatred in her gaze, glossed
over quickly by faux pity and a picturesque little pout.
“Oh well,” she crooned, saccharine sympathy not doing much to disguise smug
satisfaction and wicked glee.  “It seems I really have no choice, then.  Such a
pity, you could have been fun.”
“So sorry, my lady,” Alex sneered as the sack was once again shoved over his
head.  “I don’t play with Pharaoh’s toys.”
Something struck his ear hard enough to send him sprawling to the floor.  It
might have been unwise to lose his temper and lash out that way, but as Alex
lost his grip on consciousness, he really didn’t very much care.
 
    * - -
 
The next thing Alex knew, he was falling again, dumped out onto another floor –
though this one was cut from rough stone rather than smooth marble – and left
trying to gain his bearings through a splitting headache and multiple new
bruises.  At first the only sound was the rustling of what sounded like paper. 
No, wrong era; papyrus, not paper.  The rustling faded to silence for a moment
before that was interrupted by the cracking of freshly fed flames. 
“A gift, indeed.”
He knew this voice as well, but rather than the dread and tension the first had
inspired, this one was… well, ‘welcome’ was still an awfully strong word, but
Alex couldn’t fight the way his entire body relaxed.
“Please relay to your gracious mistress that her generosity is like the life-
giving sun; I am both humbled and nourished by its attention.”
Fully recognizing that he was a very green player in all of this, Alex thought
that sounded like a load of horse shit.  Still, it made the majority of the
people in the room with them leave,which could only be a good thing.
He hoped.
There was silence again after that, for what felt like hours but was probably
only ten minutes at the most.  This time it was the rustle of fabric that broke
it, the soft sounds of movement as someone with a lot more grace than he had
rose and came near.  Body heat and sound were his first indicators as a very
familiar form knelt beside him.  He smelled wine and myrrh and spices and the
dry tang of ink and papyrus.  The rope binding his wrists was the first to be
cut, followed by sure hands massaging the blood back into his hands.  Only then
was he rolled to his side, the sack cut and pulled gently away from his face
before his head was settled in a warm lap.  Opening his eyes was more painful –
more of a struggle – than he’d anticipated, but he wanted to seethat he was
safe, not just feel like he was. 
The sight of Imhotep’s familiar face – the same but somehow younger – folded
into an equally familiar thoughtful frown was far more reassuring than the
rational parts of him said it should have been.  Gentle fingertips pressed
against the side of his neck, jaw, ear and skull with knowing precision,
seeking out further damage before the superficial mess was attended to.
“Be still,” he murmured, voice distant while his focus was on his immediate
work.  “I mean you no harm.”
Alex found this funny, but with his pounding head being poked at, laughing was
just not about to happen.  Still, there was a smile on his face as he lifted
one hand and made the sign of those who were acolytes of Sekhmet.  The sharp
intake of breath above him was gratifying – both because he didn’t often get
the pleasure of surprising Imhotep and because it meant it had been seen and he
could let his arms go slack again.
“So it is true, then,” he sighed, reaching to one side and wringing out a cloth
over a bowl before dabbing the damp heat at the place where Ankhesenamun’s
strike had broken his skin.  “You are Alaexandros, son of Nefertiri.”
“I am Alaexandros,” he confirmed in the half-whisper that made his head hurt
least.  “But I do not know my mother.”  It was as close to completely honest as
he could be and for reasons he would rather not examine all that closely, Alex
found that he wantedto be honest.  It was made easier by the fact that Imhotep
asked nothing and offered nothing for a long time, seemingly intent on cleaning
and then bandaging his patient’s head wound.  The next time Alex heard anything
from him was a soft shushing sound as he lifted the young man from the floor
and settled him somewhere higher and much softer. 
He disappeared then and Alex drifted in and out of awareness for a while before
strong arms brought him upright so that his head settled on a broad, bare
shoulder.  “Here,” Imhotep coaxed.  “Drink this.”  Alex, who had never in his
life demonstrated any kind of real talent for obedience, did as he was told and
drank.  It was tea, he was pretty sure – or at least, something very like it. 
Spicy and tangy and sweet, it had a hint of smoky aftertaste and left him
feeling much better after only a few small sips.  He dozed off for a while on
Imhotep’s shoulder, but was still cognizant enough to offer a sleepy protest
when he was once again moved.  The last thing he remembered was low laughter
and a soft order to sleep now.
After that, all was dreamless darkness; time folded in on itself.
 
    * - -
 
Waking up slowly was a luxury Alex had all but forgotten.  Doing so in a
comfortable bed tangled with cool sheets while the warm sun slanted through the
wide window to warm his skin was… frankly, this was what he had always imagined
heaven must feel like.  He took his time, luxuriating in a long, deep stretch. 
His body felt better than it had in a long time; something about that tripped
at the back of his brain like that shouldn’t be right, but he wasn’t awake
enough to worry all that much.  Finally he let his eyes flutter open and sat
upright, linen sheets pooling around his waist.  The rooms he found himself in
were large and open, situated on an outcropping with a beautiful view
overlooking the Nile.  There was an elaborately carved wooden tray on the table
nearest the balcony, laden with fresh fruits and cool wine.  It was to this he
walked first, lifting a pomegranate half to his lips before stepping out onto
the balcony proper.
It felt good here, the breeze off the water kissed his bare skin and the Nile
itself was close enough that he could hear it lapping against the shore.  Off
to the right, the din of the city’s sacred markets was muted but still present;
to the left and further upstream, the low sound of farmers’ work chants wove in
and among the winds like a bird.  Rich flavor and succulent juice burst on his
tongue with the first bite and the humming moan it inspired was obscene.
Everything was vivid and yet nothing felt real.  It was good; everything was
good.  Alex ate the rest of his pomegranate half and then selected another.  He
could feel Imhotep approaching and did not think twice about this knowledge, he
simply smiled as he bit into his breakfast and made rather a mess of it.  So
that when Imhotep actually set foot inside his own chambers, it was to find the
royal bastard standing on his balcony wrapped in nothing but a sheet, twisting
his upper half to smile warm welcome over his shoulder with… pomegranate juice
sliding down the skin of his throat.
Alex caught sight of the high priest and his breath hitched.  He felt compelled
to turn around entirely to get a better look because he’d neverseen him look
quite like this before.  This was unmistakably a high priest of Ptah… the
sempriest too by the look of it.  The short cloth covering hips and thighs was
crimson instead of black and he did not have the length of flowing, sheer linen
draped about his shoulders that Alex had become so used to.  Instead he wore
the ceremonial panther skin draped over one shoulder and his eyes were lined
with kohl. 
“You.”  Alex knew he probably looked as hungry as he suddenly felt – the
haziness of the air around Imhotep told him his eyes were dilated at the very
least.  “I know you.”  Okay, so it wasn’t the smoothest thing he’d ever said,
but it was true and that seemed like the most important thing right now.
His host looked a little like he’d just been struck hard in the stomach – or
possibly had the wind knocked out of him – but Alex’s statement helped to shake
him out of it at least a little.  “Yes, I would imagine you do.  I used to
teach the young ones in Sekhmet’s service – how to read and to write and to
calculate sizes and distance.”  Stepping inside properly, he lifted the sacred
skin from his shoulders and draped it carefully over the rack designed to hold
it.  “It was to me Ankhesenamun sent you last night.”
“Yes,” Alex answered breezily, coming in from the balcony with his sheet
dragging the floor and slipping lower down his torso.  “I remember.”
Imhotep had his back to the boy, removing the heavy golden bracers from his
forearms (with some difficulty) and setting them atop the panther skin. 
“Good.  That will certainly save some time.  What did you do to so rouse her
fury?”
“I told her no.”
That was not the answer expected, obviously, because it startled a rough laugh
from a throat that Alex would bet anything wasn’t very used to the sound.  It
made him smile back, though his host couldn’t see; it made him feel like there
was a small sun that had taken up residence between his lungs. 
“I doubt she has ever heard such a word applied to her,” Imhotep answered,
turning back to his young guest and licking over his lips before lifting his
gaze to meet the boy’s.  “It is a miracle you lived long enough for me to set
you to rights.”  But the expression on the high priest’s face was shifting
quickly from enjoyment to puzzlement.  He stepped forward, closing the
remaining distance between them and Alex felt like the ground had begun to move
under his feet.
When Imhotep had to catch him under his elbows to keep him from falling, the
puzzlement had become outright concern and Alex found himself wanting to reach
up and smooth out the lines it had etched into his face.  With no warning,
Imhotep leaned forward and inhaled deeply through his nose against the place on
Alex’s neck where the pomegranate juice had begun to stain his skin pink. 
“I smell no poison…”  And that shouldhave been a sobering thought – Alex’s
history lessons had been littered with the names of pharaohs and their families
willing to kill each other over power or prestige – but instead he found
himself fixated on the soft puff of hot breath against his throat and hummed
his satisfaction.  But when he turned his head to scrape lips and teeth against
the corner of a sharp jaw, Imhotep froze. 
Before Alex had time to think about what was happening – forget reacting at all
– one large hand had lifted to hold his entire jaw in a grip that was both
gentle and entirely unyielding.  It let Imhotep hold him in exactly the right
place to watch how the light hit his eyes as his head was turned.  It let him
press down on the soft skin high on his throat and then watch how long it took
for the skin to fade back from white.
Those two things apparently told hima lot more than they were telling Alex
because he had started laughing so hard his shoulders shook, though he’d done
well at keeping the sound entirely silent.  “Thank the gods – It is only the
hemp and poppy from the shepenet.”  There was mirth in his voice and in the
soft chuckle that followed it, but there was relief in the hand that came up to
clasp the back of his neck.  The touch was familiar in a way Alex couldn’t
place, like déjà vu he recognized but could not name.  “Most of the acolytes
have built up a tolerance by your age.  Poor kitten, I would have cut the dose
in half if I had known.”
“A tolerance?”  That confused and rather upset Alex.  He hadn’t spent a lot of
time around drugs in his life, but even he knew enough that substances like
hemp and poppy were not things lots of people built up tolerances too.  “What
the hell are they doing that they need thatmuch for?”  He certainly thought it
was a fair question, but it sobered Imhotep immediately.
“It is true, then.  You arestill an innocent.”
“Hah!” Alex barked, the laughter quickly trailing off into a derisive snort. 
“Not so much anymore, no.  But up until recently I … yeah, yeah I was.”  When
he looked back up at his host, there was pain, sorrow and a bitter empathy
written across his face. 
“I am sorry, Alaexandros.  You should have been spared that kind of abuse.”
“Um.”  Alex blinked at him a few times and then sort of sideways squinted. 
“Thanks?”  He was starting to get the distinct feeling that they were having
two different conversations entirely.  “I think?”
Imhotep merely shook his head, something like fondness tugging upward on
reluctant lips.  Alex remembered what that mouth tasted like and he wanted to
try it with the addition of the smile, but as he leaned forward he found a hand
(the one he would have sworn had been around his jaw just a second ago) pressed
flat and firm against his chest.
“Thatwill not be necessary.”
“And why not?”  Alex had apparently inherited more of his mother’s vey British
indignation than he’d thought, because even as the demand left his lips it
soundedlike her.
Imhotep had not been prepared for that in the slightest.  “Because it is not –
I will not – it simply isn’t.”  Alex knew he hadn’t been because he’d never
before heard him stumblelike that.  It was incredibly endearing.
“That’s not a very good answer,” he retorted, calling him out on it with a
crooked grin.
“Perhaps not, but you are too inebriated for anything better.  Go back to
sleep, Alaexandros.”  Alex felt himself turned and nudged gently toward the
bed.  “You will be safe here until the plants leave your system.”
Alex found he couldn’t really argue with that logic, but – and really for no
other reason than he didn’t give in to anything very gracefully – he obeyed on
his own terms, releasing his hold on the sheet so that it pooled on the floor
and left him walking back to sprawl over Imhotep’s bed as naked as he’d been
born.  A muffled, distant part of him recognized as he sank into the soft
cushions that it could backfire on him in a really bad way, but it was
overruled by the smugly satisfied voice that said only ‘worth it’. 
He wasn’t sure why, but the feeling of willingly falling asleep in Imhotep’s
wide, warm bed was definitely more important just then.
 
    * - -
 
The sound of that moan was going to haunt him until the end of his days.
Imhotep had no delusions about the state of his life or his soul; his earliest
memories were of the nurses in the temple telling each other ‘that one was
bornangry’.  Well, no, that wasn’t strictlytrue, but those were the earliest
memories he allowed himself to think about, which was essentially the same
thing.
In either case, emotions like fury, hatred, helplessness, fear – they had been
his longest and most faithful friends.  He had been the first common-born man
to rise so far – the first man at all to rise so quickly – and though the
throng of fish-mouthed fools at court praised and marveled at his virtuous
ambition, he knew better.  It wasn’t ambition that had driven him so far beyond
the scope of mortal man; it was revenge.
Thothmes had lit his innocence on fire before he lost his first tooth.  All
that was left now were ashes, but they had fueled a fire so much greater – one
that had propelled him here.  And in all his years and all his work and all his
careful planning and strategy, there had only been one distraction. 
It was the worst-kept secret among the men and women who dedicated their lives
to the crafts and service of their gods, but there was within the very
foundation of their orders an apostasy of the worst kind.  In its beginnings –
as with most things – Imhotep could see that the intention had been good and
pure.  It only made sense to pair the temples’ young ones with wise teachers
who could take the place of parents and shape them individually rather than
leave them as simply one face in a herd.  And he was also willing to
acknowledge that even now, the practice itself was not evil in the hands of
those who had honor and integrity.  There was nothing wrong with pleasure,
nothing wrong with companionship and there were many different models for
successful relationships that had nothing to do with the binary nonsense the
foreign merchants always spouted. 
But in the hands of small and evil souls, the power to so twist and warp and
pollute what should be good and whole and free… it made him sick.
He had participated in the system during his tutelage – it was the most
efficient means to rise within the temple and he hadn’t understood until it was
much too late what kind of price it demanded.  He hated the practice – for what
it took from him and what it took from others – but the majority of his age
mates did not share in his distaste.  For most, they simply saw it as something
they should be able to reap the benefits from because they had taken the abuse
of their elders and now it was their turn.  They had laughed at him, even
coined the newest term for their personal acolytes in mockery of his argument;
apostates for their apostasy.  He had always firmly refused to take one of his
own and had never even been tempted.
Except once, three years ago.
He had always known of the bastard prince’s existence.  Nefertiri’s mother had
trusted him above all others and so it had been on his advice that the boy be
hidden with the other mercenary orphans among Sekhmet’s brood.  He had kept an
eye on him in a distant, background sort of way.  Those who became too curious
or stumbled too close to the truth were quietly eliminated – that sort of
thing.  He had enjoyed teaching him when he had been small – a sharp and
voracious mind was always welcome in a student, especially when the teacher
himself had been so young then – but he learned so much more quickly than most
and was on to the other tutors in less than a year.
Beyond that, Imhotep honestly hadn’t given him much thought at all.  His
ascension to high priest had come on suddenly and with a deluge of new
responsibilities.  He continued to do his duty by his promise to the boy’s
mother and grandmother, but that was all.
Three years ago – the first new year celebration he had presided over as Ptah’s
only high priest – Imhotep had been ceremonially invited to a new facet of
Sekhmet’s traditional pacification ritual.  There was an acolyte of the temple,
they said, who could soothe the rage of even the wildest beasts.  Imhotep had
scoffed – louder when they told him there was no beer involved.  Impossible,
he’d said, but he’d gone anyway.  Mostly because to decline would cause
tensions between their temples and he had too much stacked against him already,
but also partly because he wanted to see this new sorcery.
He had nearly swallowed his own tongue when the master of ceremonies announced
the name of this acolyte to those assembled on the dais high above the
courtyard. 
The priests and priestesses around him compared Alaexandros to Helios as he
stepped into the sunlight opposite a wild mare.  Golden hair and fair skin made
him a rarity even among the abandoned children of the Greek mercenaries.  It
lent a certain romance to the stories which claimed that Re’s brother ruled
over the far away island nation’s people; having a boy among them they could
claim the son of a foreign god would add prestige to a temple that had been
mostly neglected during Thothmes’ reign. 
The mare had been large and dark, beautiful in the deadly way the massive
Ethiopian horses always were.  She had started wild enough to worry even
experienced horse masters, but fell swiftly under the boy’s spell.  It would
have been enough for the crowd when she let him touch her nose, but to have him
vault up onto her back and ride her around the courtyard drove them wild. 
Imhotep had been impressed, but a horse was at heart a prey animal and the
process of their domestication had been known for many hundreds of years.  It
was a talent, to be certain, but not necessarily a divine one.
A pack of jackals came next.
Then a male Ibex.
Three sacred asps followed suit.
Then an ostrich with beautiful plumage and a deadly kick.
By the time the penultimate trial was set forth in the form of a mother river
horse – who, within the span of mere moments, lay down in the dust and allowed
the boy to scratch at her vulnerable underbelly – Imhotep had been left able
only to stare in awe.  But when he saw the final task – a great Barbary lion
bloodied and furious from the botched hunt that brought him here – he had tried
to intervene.  Surely it was no credit to their goddess for the boy to be eaten
alive on her day of peace.
Sekhmet’s high priestess had been unmoved.  Surely Maahes would not allow one
of his sons to displease his mother; if the boy was truly divinely touched,
there would be no harm.  If he was not, then only Maahes could despoil his
mother’s day without fear.  Besides, one of his own priests had been quick to
inform him, this particular lion wasn’t going to live very long anyway.
And so Imhotep had watched, captivated by interest and fear, as an almost
fourteen-year-old Alaexandros approached the great beast without any hint of
hesitation.  He watched as snarling growls became annoyed grumbling became
huffing resignation became quiet acceptance.  He watched the boy embrace the
lion’s massive head, pressing noses bridge to bridge and murmuring something no
one else could hear.  He watched this skinny golden youth pull a wicked blade
from his belt and end the lion’s suffering with one sure stroke.
He had not been the only one to witness these things, but he had been the only
one to see him use his clean forearm to brush away wetness from his eyes before
turning to face the cheering crowd.
That day had left an indelible impression on Imhotep; it had also left him with
a serious problem.
The boy had been kept in ignorance of his ancestry for a reason; he was not to
blame.  Even those who saw to his care knew nothing, had possessed no malicious
intent in showcasing him so.  But despite no ill motive, Imhotep knew that the
more interest those in the social elite took in this boy – which was bound to
happen after a display like this – the greater the risk of discovery. 
Alaexandros’ life was at risk, as was the stability of their world.  They could
ill afford a civil war with the kingdoms so recently unified and the son of a
god would make for a wonderful figurehead if he fell into the wrong, ambitious
hands.
He had two choices that remained to him if he were to protect the boy.  He
could take him as his own apostate, which would give him the ability to keep
him out of sight until the worst of the initial fuss died down and then the
authority to keep him from such trouble in the future.  The only other course
would be to send him far to the north with one of the mercenary bands.
Imhotep had wrestled hard with this decision.  The life of a mercenary was a
hard and often short one, but it was the most freedom anyone could hope to have
in this life.  Being an apostate did not have nearly so high a mortality rate
and he liked to think that he could do better than he himself had experienced,
but…
He had chosen to send the boy with the mercenaries and all it took was one
morning to remember why. 
As soon as that damned boy settled back into bed, Imhotep turned on his heel
and went to stand on the balcony.  His knuckles were white where he gripped the
railing, his head dropped between his shoulders until his chin touched his
chest.  His own pulse rushed in his ears and his breath came hissed between
clenched teeth, but stillhe knew the exact moment when Alaexandros had fallen
asleep once more.  The wretched prince had been tempting enough before, when it
was just the promise of what was to come peeking through the last vestiges of
childhood roundness, but now?
Three years among the mercenaries had taken all of the softness from him.  He
was not broad – that would not come for another few years yet – but there was
speed and strength written in the lines of his wiry frame.  It was temptation
enough on its own, but to see the fulfillment of all that youthful promise so
unguarded in his rooms, wrapped in linen that smelled of his own skin – to have
it offered so sweetly in the easy haze of the hemp and poppy still running
rampant in his veins…
Arousal was a human response to need in the same way as hunger and thirst. 
Imhotep had always known this and had no shame in it, but it had become less
and less a driving force as he’d gotten older, more powerful – as his body
acclimatized itself to the solitary life his mission imposed upon him.  It had
been a long time indeed since he had felt it as more than a passing morning
nuisance – never before had this kind of desire stoked liquid fire in his
belly. 
Imhotep did not know yet how Alaexandros had come to be back in Men-nefer, but
he knew that he was somehow again under the ‘protection’ of the priestesses of
Sekhmet.  There was much to be done, so much more now that needed his immediate
attention, but he could not simply will away the ache that throbbed – hard and
heavy – between his thighs. 
With a low growl, he shoved himself back from the railing and paced along its
length.  Motion had always soothed him, but with each pass he found his eyes
drawn to the contrast of pink skin against white linen – to the boy that had
once come so close to derailing him from an absolute within his own moral code…
to the mouth that had come so close to moving against his own.  It was foolish
to torment himself this way, he knew.  He knewit would lead only to madness…
but there were no options left now that Ankhesenamun had found him, so
obviously knew who he was. 
There wasno right answer here and that made the high priest feel closer to
breaking than he had in twenty-five years.  With a smothered cry that mixed
equal parts desire and despair, Imhotep flung himself back against the balcony
wall, hands tugging and lifting at crimson cloth until he could take himself in
hand.  Even that much sensation was enough at this point to steal his breath. 
He tried valiantly to clear his mind, to focus on the sensations of his touch
alone and lose himself in the pleasure without an object.  It had always been
his way of satisfying this requirement when alone – no outside stimulation
necessary – but no matter how hard he tried, flashes of memory slipped in under
his guard.  The sun shimmering in golden hair, the splatter of fresh red blood
on smooth pale skin, the trail the pomegranate’s juice blazed down his throat,
the arch and play of tight muscles as he dropped the covering of the sheet and
walked away, the wet promise of his mouth as he’d leaned in to kiss him… that
gods-cursed moan. Each time he slipped up, the memory sent a bolt of lightning
down his spine, leaving his hips jerking hard into his own fist.  It soon
became more than he could bear and memory became fantasy.
That mouth – always and forever that mouth – only this time bruised and swollen
from kisses; a streak of blood over the bottom lip.  Whose blood it did not
matter… 
Those arms straining against his hands where he pinned bony wrists to his bed…
The smooth, soft heat of all that skin pressed against his own – the cold stone
of his ceremonial seat a stark contrast to the body straddling his lap and
rocking their hips together…
So much – so many desires he had not even known he possessed – flashed behind
his eyes as his hand moved faster, jaw clenched tight against the sounds of the
release he chased so fiercely.  He arched his back away from the wall and sank
to his knees, thighs beginning to shake as his spine undulated and his head
fell back.  The heart was a cruel, conniving thing, saving the fantasy with the
most power – that which was most damning – for its piece de resistance.  The
sound of that moanechoed again inside his mind, only this time it was followed
by a single word steeped in need, desire… devotion.
Imhotep 
His namecried out like that was his great undoing; he fell forward on a choked,
sobbing moan, teeth bared in a silent snarl as he braced himself on one hand
and came so hard he couldn’t see.  Again and again he felt the impact of all
his muscles constricting in waves more powerful than he was prepared for.  It
was overwhelming – it was terrifying.  But as his vision slowly returned and
Imhotep saw the mess he’d made (blood dripping from his lip to mix with tears
and seed there on the natural stone floor) he collapsed to one side to catch
his breath and knew he wanted nothing more than to know that feeling again.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     Starting in this segment, we're going to see more of Alex's long-term
     struggles with his past traumatic experiences and those yet to come.
     Please note that not everyone handles trauma in the same way. I've
     modeled Alex's arc on the experiences of different people with his
     personality type; it is not at all meant to be disrespectful or
     dismissive of the awful impact of rape and non-consent, simply
     descriptive of a kind of response and coping that doesn't get a whole
     lot of mainstream attention.
When Alex woke next, the skies were grey and dark the way they only ever were
in the last hour before dawn.  His limbs were sluggish and his body was stiff
like he’d slept for too long in one position.  It was a struggle to push
himself upright and sit on the side of the bed; the chill in the air made him
pull the sheet up and over his shoulders again.  One hand held the edges closed
over his chest while the other lifted to rub the sleep out of one eye and push
shaggy hair back out of his face.  He knew where he was – which was a small
mercy – but the rest of it was all a little bit mixed up in his head.
“Here.”  The voice from behind him startled Alex, but the jump in his pulse
never quite made it to true fear.  Knowing that it was Imhotep’s voice meant
that there were very real reasons to; he knew this and did not dispute the
facts, he simply did not feel the emotion.  “This will help.”  Rather than
dwelling on it now, he pushed himself back up to sit cross-legged on the bed
and face the priest – or, more accurately, to sit cross-legged on the bed and
stare suspiciously at the steaming clay mug being held out to him.
“Be easy.  It is only buni,I promise.”  The reassurance was offered wryly, with
hints of a smile around one corner of Imhotep’s mouth.  So Alex’s suspicion
hadn’tgone unnoticed, then.  ‘Buni’ wasn’t a word Alex recognized immediately,
but the first breath of unmistakable bittersweet heat brought everything
sharply into focus.
Coffee. 
He’d been using the wrong frame of reference to try and analyze the word;
‘buni’ was the Ethiopian term – which, since according to Uncle Jonathan (in
one of his long-winded rants about something completely mundane) it had
comefrom there originally, made perfect sense.  He just hadn’t been ready to
think like that.  At first, Alex only clutched the handle-less mug in both
hands, savoring its warmth and breathing in the smell that had defined
‘morning’ his entire life.  It was thicker than he was used to – darker, too –
but tempered with what tasted like fresh heifer milk and honey.  It was
delicious and within the first three sips he could feel the muscles in his neck
ease up a little.  Everything became just that bit less fuzzy and the idea of
movement was no longer entirelyabhorrent. 
He watched over the rim of his cup as Imhotep retrieved another mug (presumably
his own) and moved to mirror his position on the opposite end of the bed. 
There was silence at first, not unwelcome in its own right but to Alex it felt
as though it were growing increasingly weighted.  He took one more drink of his
coffee and decided to simply plunge on ahead.
“Thank you.”  They were only two words, but still Imhotep looked at him
blankly, as though somehow confused by them.  “I don’t really know why
Ankhesenamun sent me here, but I would lay down good money that it wasn’t so
you could patch up a head wound.”  He shrugged, as awkward as everyone in his
family was when discussing anything resmbling emotions or less-than-casual
gratitude.  “You could have been really awful and you weren’t, so um.  Thanks.”
Imhotep waved a hand in dismissal now that he seemed to have caught on.  “Your
thanks are accepted, but gratitude is unnecessary.”  It was an oddly formal
response, but Alex was used to that.  No matter who he addressed, Imhotep
alwayshad an air of stiff formality – like he had a script for everything and
stuck to it religiously.  Alex had never heard him veer from it except once and
those had been… extenuating circumstances.  “I knew your mother well.  I knew
your grandmother better.  I made a promise to keep you from harm.  This was
simply another step in its fulfillment.”
“I… see,” Alex lied, though his tone was rather clear on his confusion.  He
didn’t understand any of this – Imhotep had said nothingabout a hidden prince
he was looking out for – but he understood enough of everything else to know
that the wrong questions could ruin everything.  This was a better opening into
the high priest’s sphere of influence than he’d expected; he wasn’t about to
blow it now. 
“No,” Imhotep answered, shaking his head with a small, rueful smile.  “I do not
suppose you would see.”  At least he acknowledged it – and without being rude,
even.  That alone was enough to surprise Alex, who was still waiting for the
arrogant condescension he’d come to associate with his former captor.  “I
apologize.  I would explain more, but for now it is safest if you know as
little as possible.”
Alex chewed that over for a moment.  On the one hand, he had some righteous
indignation to wrestle with; it was hislife, he deserved to know what the hell
was going on.  On the other hand, the bits he hadmanaged to put together made
him nervous enough already.  It was entirely possible that this was one of
those things where the more he knew, the less he’d be able to sleep at night. 
Imhotep wisely let him consider in silence, seeming to recognize at least
something of the internal struggle.  Which was ironic, since it was the memory
of words the high priest might never remember saying that finally made Alex’s
decision for him.
I will trust you with this. 
Alex would do no less.  “Alright,” he conceded, heaving a small sigh and
draining the last of his coffee in three large gulps.  “I trust you.”  He saw
Imhotep’s eyes widen and added quickly, “I mean I’m still alive, yeah?  You
must be doing something right.”  It worked – he could see the priest relax, see
his mouth twist into an unwilling smile even though he tried to hide it in his
own drink.
“Indeed.  Unfortunately I am running out of methods to do so while Ankhesenamun
takes an interest in you.”  Imhotep was silent for a moment after that, staring
down at his hands in a way Alex knew meant he was deep in thought.  “I do not
know her intentions in sending you to me the way she did.  Intending you for my
apostate would be the obvious answer, but my distaste for the entire practice
is so well-known… unless she believes that something about you would cause me
to make one exception.”  Watching him think out loud was something Alex had
never gotten to do before.  It was unexpectedly fascinating, with the final
‘lightbulb’ moment inspiring several entirely irrational responses. 
“She thinks that you would use me to hurt the royal family?”  Out of all of
them, Alex thoughthe’d picked the safest one, but judging by the sharp,
suspicious way Imhotep’s gaze jerked up to meet his own, he’d apparently missed
the mark.  “What?” he argued before any accusation could be made.  “She called
me the bastard son of a princess.  You asked if I was Alaexandros, son of
Nefertiri.  I’m young, not stupid.”
“Indeed.”  Imhotep’s answer was minimal, but he visibly relaxed and Alex
thought he might even have detected some hint of impressed amusement lurking in
the otherwise neutral expression.    The priest bought himself a moment more to
think while he unfolded his limbs and took Alex’s empty cup along with his own
across the room to refill them from a clay jug whose handle was made by a
stylized lioness.  He was silent still as he returned and settled back to his
former seat.  Alex, following along, accepted his second cup without comment
and waited.  “I believe you are right, Alaexandros.  She is far better at this
game than her predecessor.”  And for some reason he sounded… sad about that. 
“You will not be safe except under my direct protection.”
Alex had a pretty good idea what that meant – Imhotep had prepared him
thoroughly in case he ended up stuck in one of the temples for an extended
length of time – but he didn’t interrupt.
“I will have to make an offering to the high priestess of Sekhmet to smooth
over ruffled feathers, but I know no other way to protect you than as my
apostate.  Ankhesenamun has placed her pieces well.  Either I take part in
something I despise or I fail to keep the only promise I ever made.  I am
sorry, but until I can secure passage for you somewhere far from the Lower
Kingdom, you will have to stay here as my apostate.”
Evidently he misinterpreted Alex’s dry stare over his apology for some kind of
concern or mistrust, for he was quick to reassure him.  “I promise you I have
no interest in taking what is not freely given.”  That part Alex had to laugh
at, considering all the evidence he had to the contrary, but Imhotep
technically hadn’t done that yet and he at least didn’t seem offended that Alex
laughed.  “You will be safehere, Alaexandros; in all ways.  This I swear.” 
It was better than he’d hoped for.  As Imhotep’s apostate, Alex would not only
be allowed to be with him at all times – it was expectedthat he would be.  If
there was truly a chance to avert disaster – and in spite of himself, Alex
found that he trusted Ma’at to give them at least that – this would be the best
position from which to do it.
“I trust you,” he repeated, but this time made no attempt to detract from the
weight of that statement.  “Tell me what I need to know; tell me what needs to
be done.  So long as I know those, I’ll be fine.”
Imhotep didn’t answer right away, instead holding Alex’s gaze for a long,
silent consideration.  In the end, however, his response was simple.
“Very well.  Here is how we shall begin.”
 
    * - -
 
Those first few weeks were a continuing exercise in expanding his Ancient
Egyptian vocabulary and putting out small fires everywhere. 
Not literally,of course – though honestly Alex sometimes thought literal fires
would have been easier to manage – but honestly it was like Imhotep could go
nowhere, do nothingwithout mortally offending someone. How he had survived this
long was a mystery – how he’d climbed to the rank he had was plainly nothing
short of a miracle. 
The beginning had been easy enough – though that in and of itself had irritated
Imhotep to no end – Sekhmet’s high priestess had not even demanded recompense
for what he had been so sure would be seen as a form of theft. 
“They are all too busy being overjoyed that I cannot abolish a practice I
partake in,” Imhotep had spat, knocking a week’s worth of work from his desk
with one frustrated sweep of his arm.  “Jackals!  Cowards!  Fools.”  Alex had
merely stood in one corner of the room with his arms folded over his chest, a
silent observer.  It certainly hadn’t been the first temper tantrum he’d borne
witness to (though it was so far the mildest,considering the only casualties
were a few bits of broken ceramics and an upturned inkwell) and he was sure
even then it was not to be the last.  He’d waited until the high priest had
stormed off to his workshop – the one place Alex was not expected to follow –
and then cleaned up the mess and reorganized the desk.
Later, once he’d calmed down significantly,Imhotep had been impressed.  Sort
of.
“There is no need for you to follow in my wake with a sack and broom,
Alaexandros.”  It was the gruffness that had made Alex fairly certain there was
at least a little embarrassment involved.  “The temple hasslaves.  You are not
one of them.”
That assertion had stolen his breath for a moment – and it was another few in
addition to the first before he’d managed to get a tight rein on the
conflicting impulses to laugh and cry – but in the end, Alex had managed only
to shrug.
“I am serious, young one.  I do not need a nursemaid.”
Alex wanted so badlyto argue that point, since that was in essence his entire
role here, but the dry and easy way Imhotep had accepted his blunt arguments
and sarcastic quips in the realms of the dead did not exist here.  “How many of
them can read?”  Thus, he opted for the more neutral argument.
“What?”  The high priest had turned from his contemplation of the missives in
his hand to stare hard at Alex.  “What relevance is that to their ability to
perform menial tasks?”
“Normally none,” Alex had conceded, shifting a little uncomfortably under the
weight of that stare.  “But before you punished it this afternoon, your desk
was organized to a slightly unhealthy degree.”
Imhotep had scoffed.  “And so it was organized upon my return.  What is your
point?”
“I can read.” 
There had been a moment of awkward silence as the whole concept was laid bare,
made painfully obvious and then mulled over.
“I would have been content to reorganize it myself, once the mess had been
cleaned.”  Imhotep’s seemingly stubborn refusal to acknowledge the real point
brought a surge of frustration to the back of Alex’s throat, but there had been
an odd defensiveness to the sullen tone that made him take a deep breath and
proceed more gently than he really wanted to. 
“A slave who cannot read would have a hard time deciphering what is and isn’t
mess with ink splattered over everything,” he began.  “A slave who disposed of
something that was actually important would be whipped at best – at worst he
would be killed.” 
“I am not so unfair a master!”  But there had been a flash of dawning horror in
Imhotep’s eyes before his quick defense.  It had been enough for Alex not to
push any further; his point had been made. 
“Then I won’t worry so much about making a mistake when I sort it all out the
next time.”  Which should have closed the conversation – wouldhave closed the
conversation – but Alex had a… problem resisting the impulse to run his mouth
sometimes.
“I don’t really mind a good whipping, you see,” he’d found himself adding as he
kicked off his sandals and climbed into bed, “but being dead is just dull.”
The utter and complete silencethat had followed had been enough to send Alex
into dreams with a grin on his face. 
And that had certainly taken some getting used to, the bizarre sleeping
arrangements.  Rather than risk creating the suspicion bringing in a pallet or
assigning Alex different rooms would have, Imhotep had simply waved him in the
direction of his own bed the first night Alex was awake (and sober) enough to
ask about it.  It was certainly comfortable – and large enough for three or
four people to sleep in, let alone just two – but despite Alex’s acceptance of
the arrangement without complaint, he might as well have been sleeping alone. 
He always fell asleep while Imhotep read or wrote by lamplight and always woke
to the sounds of breakfast being brought in.  If it hadn’t been for the indent
in the sheets where another body had been, Alex would have thought he didn’t
sleep at all.  He’d done some (very primitive) maths on it in his head once,
about a week and a half in; given about how long it usually took him to fall
asleep and the fact that the indent was almost always cold when he woke up,
there was no way Imhotep was getting more than five hours of sleep each night –
sometimes probably closer to three.  Alex – with his head full of the wisdoms
of modern medical science – was absolutely positively certain this wasn’t
healthy in any respect, especially long term.  Bringing it up, however… well,
there just wasn’t a casual way to do it and it never really seemed like a good
time.
Once the initial fuss over Imhotep taking an apostate died down, their days
became very routine very quickly.  Mornings were spent in sacred rituals to
Ptah and Sekhmet, then in a series of what sometimes seemed like
endlessmeetings.  Late afternoons, when the day was hottest, meant respite in
the shade or one of the temple baths.  Most of the time, these hours were
lessons; Imhotep took very seriously the ‘education’ part of his apostasy. 
Alex had dreaded these times at first – he hadn’t ever been a fan of organized
schooling and the possibility of rousing Imhotep’s temper if he did not catch
on quickly enough made him jumpy.  Over time, however, he learned to look
forward to those hours most of all.
Imhotep proved to be a gifted storyteller and so long as Alex showed genuine
interestin what he was trying to explain, he was incredibly patient – and
persistent – in trying different avenues until the idea finally ‘clicked’ and
stuck.  He was what Evie would have called a ‘true Renaissance man’, who knew
at least something about anything Alex ever asked him.  And he was remarkably
open to Alex’s own ideas as well, though Alex was very careful to hedge around
possibly modern thought lest he cause a breakdown in the space-time continuum
or something. 
He’d only slipped up once, when they were talking about the calendar and the
division of time.
“The twelve month system makes sense,” he’d said, chewing his lip and frowning
into the middle distance.  “But that only gives you 360 days a year, which is
why a strictly lunar calendar is going to go out of sync with the star
movements within a few years.” 
There had been something unmistakably proud in the small smile on Imhotep’s
face – Alex absolutely blamed that for his sudden need to show off, to
impress.  “Exactly so, but how would you address this problem?”
It was a good teaching style for the most part; Imhotep often asked him to try
and reach the answers himself using the information at hand, leading him along
to the answer instead of simply handing it over.  But Alex had felt his insides
twist a little at the evidence that his teacher was pleased with him.  He
wanted more of it.  “Well, the five days of the sacred month at the end of each
year fixed a lot of it,” he began.
“Good,” Imhotep had praised.  “But not all?”
“No,” Alex had answered.  “It takes longer, but the calendar is still going to
become more and more inaccurate over time.”  The system of dates and
measurements he had grown up with still seemed the most natural to Alex, but
they had been designed around a climate and seasonal rotation that was next to
meaningless here.  “I mean, you’d have to have someone better with numbers
check my math, but if every four years you make the sacred month six days
instead of five, it should fix it, I think, and then you wouldn’t have to start
the whole thing over every time someone new became Pharaoh.”
And he’d been right – he knewhe’d been right because Ptolemy had tried to
implement the exact system some thousand years in the relative future and then
the Emperor Augustus hadimplemented it two hundred years after that – but the
look of shock and slowly dawning awe that stole over Imhotep’s face as he did
the mental calculations required to check the ‘guess’ had made Alex wish
immediately that he could take it all back.
He had gotten neither the pride nor pleasure he’d been after, only a steady
increase in polite distance that Alex hated but never entirely understood.
Every three or four days, Imhotep would dismiss the mass of people who sought
his attention shortly before the noon hour.  Alex would be sent on an errand,
either to the markets or one of the city officials or one of the temples –
occasionally even to the royal palace itself.  His white wrap and sigil collar
of brass and malachite (able to easily go on and off over his head, he’d
checked) announced to the world that he was about Ptah’s business and allowed
him access to any part of the city unmolested.  It was a chance to be free of
the temple’s often smothering atmosphere – to be around life and people and to
really stretch his legs.
Those nights were always the most comfortable.  Alex would return successful to
find Imhotep fresh-faced from the baths, loose and lazy.  They hardly ever
spoke during those evenings, but it was never awkward or tense. 
Time passed – and aside from the time Alex spent handling those upset by
Imhotep’s manner (which oddly seemed to happen less and less often as the weeks
went on) he found that overall he enjoyed this life.  By the end of his third
month, his face was so well known among the places he went frequently on
Imhotep’s business that guards, merchants, servants and nobles alike would
often greet him brightly by name.  By the end of his fifth, he was so
flawlessly fluent in the languages he had to use that he would often catch
himself thinkingin Greek or Egyptian (which he now knew to call Kemet) or
Hebrew rather than his own native English.  By the end of his seventh, he’d
stopped waiting for Imhotep to turn on him, to revert to the harsh and
unforgiving captor of a time that had begun to seem more and more like a
nightmare. 
There were bumps along the way, of course.  Imhotep’s continuous insistence
upon rigid polite distance even in conversation drove Alex steadily insane,
especially because there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to its existence. 
They would undertake a project and get into a rhythm of work and talk that
seemed to make him forget to hold himself apart, but then he’d ruffle Alex’s
hair or grip the back of his neck – or they would sit through an interminable
meeting and catch matching ‘kill me now’ expressions on each other’s faces and
break into grins more suited to scheming boys than men of serious position.  No
matter what the original scenario, Imhotep would always catch himself and
reinstate the enforced distance – often overcompensating and spending the next
few days saying nothing beyond short, clipped orders.
It was frustrating, but Alex didn’t see the danger in it until the month before
the sacred festivals of the new year.
 
    * - -
 
“Alaexandros, Alaexandros!”
The shouts of his name were enough to make Alex jump.  He was quick enough on
his feet so as not to drop the jar of sweet oil he had been tasked to inspect,
but he paused only long enough to offer swift apologies to the merchant – who
waved him off with a grandmotherly tut and shoo – before spinning to find the
source of the commotion.
It was Eitan, the former slave whom Imhotep had put to work as quartermaster
for the temple complex.  He ran into the market square, dodging through the
crowds of people before gripping Alex intently, gasping for breath.
“Easy, Eitan, easy.”  It was second nature now for Alex to revert to Hebrew
when conversing with Eitan and the others; he’d learned early on that it put
them more at ease and he wasn’t about to turn down friends anywhere he could
make them.  “Catch your breath and tell me.”
“Not.  Enough.  Time.”  There was an urgency in him, not only from his tone but
in the temporal immediacy of the syntax he chose.  It inspired a cold knot of
dread in the pit of Alex’s stomach.  “It is your master.”  Alex had given up
months ago on trying to explain to the Hebrew slaves and former-slaves among
his acquaintance that Imhotep was not his master, but even now the term made
him cringe.
It did not, however, ease the blossoming of that dread into full-blown fear.
“Imhotep?” Alex questioned needlessly.  “The high priest?  What of him, what
has happened?”
“An attempt on his life.  The surgeons have been sent for but you know how he
feels about them.”
Alex did know.  “Where is he, Eitan?”  His own panic – which he was absolutely
refusing to think about – aside, he had to get there before the physicians or
there would be terrible consequences all around.
“In his workshop.  Go!  Go, I will follow.”
Alex needed no further encouragement than that, tucking his arms into his sides
and using his knowledge of the city’s less-traveled routes to make the journey
swifter.  There would be apologies to make later, but he felt the press of time
like he had not since he woke up in this place.  Delays were unacceptable.  By
the time he flew through the temple’s back hallways and down to the far corner
of the rearmost courtyard where the high priest kept his forge and kiln, Alex
was well and truly winded, but high enough on adrenaline that it didn’t slow
him down.
The place was a wreck.  Shattered glass and fractured clay littered the
benches, shelves and floor; smoldering cloth and leather lay strewn among the
bodies.  There were five of them in matching white robes.  It reminded Alex
with a wave of nausea about the assassination of Caesar.  The sixth was alive,
but when Alex got to him, he almostwished he wasn’t. 
“Alaexandros…”  The reliefin Imhotep’s voice struck Alex hard, but he couldn’t
think about that ache in his chest when confronted with the current gory
reality.  Somehow during the fight for his life, Imhotep must have gotten in
the way of a spilling vat of molten glass.  His left arm was covered,coated
from halfway up his forearm all the way to the shoulder joint and a little
beyond.  Alex was horrified. He could see melted flesh and charred muscle
beneath the slowly clarifying glass.  “Alaexandros.”  The first flash of pale
bone drained the color from his face and Alex felt lightheaded.  “Alaexandros!”
The sharpness of Imhotep’s voice was enough to yank him from the brink of total
uselessness, though he softened immediately once Alex had looked up into his
face.  “Khalex, please.  I need your help.”
Things were reallybad if Imhotep had resorted to the intimate diminutive of the
shorter name he’d tried monthsago to get him to use.
Alaexandros is such a mouthful.  Alex is fine. 
The echo of his own voice felt surreal, as did the hazy question floating
around in his mind about whether this is what shock felt like.
“Please.”
“Right.  Yes.  Sorry, I’m sorry; I’m here.”
“Good.”  Imhotep’s voice was level, but very obviously strained.  “I need you
to bar the door.  If those vultures get their claws into me – “
“I know, I know.  Okay.  Hang on.”
Alex pushed himself back to his feet (when had he stopped standing?) and pushed
the smaller stone table and two of the heavier workbenches against the door. 
“Good.  Thank you.  Now come here, please.”
The laugh this inspired in Alex came out high and a little bit hysterical, but
he obeyed.  “Only you would remember your manners while your arm was being
melted down.” 
“Manners make man,” he retorted, forcing a small smile as he finally had the
perfect opportunity to shoot back something Alex had spouted at him monthsago.
“Your memory for minutiae is just not normal, you know that, right?” 
“Neither am I.  Now, listen; in a moment, this glass is going to crack open. 
When that happens, I need you to pull me up and settle me over there with the
injured arm submerged in the water trough.  Can you do that?”
“Crack open?  But how is that – “
“Hush, Khalex.  Please.  I will explain everything later but for now I need you
to follow my instructions and not waste time on questions.”  Alex hesitated for
just the briefest moment before nodding sharply once.
“I trust you.” 
He may have imagined it, but for a split second Alex would have swornhe saw
warmth in Imhotep’s dark eyes.
“Alright.  On my signal.  One, two, three, now!”
As he counted, Alex watched in amazement as the glass physically frosted over
and began to crack.  Imhotep’s signal came right as the pieces fell away and
Alex grunted under the effort of hauling him up with his good arm over Alex’s
shoulders.  Three careful strides across the room (avoiding bodies) and he
settled Imhotep as gently as he could next to the trough.  He didn’t want to
think about the fact that once the arm was submerged, the water became crystal
clear and grew a very thin layer of ice at the top.
The question was on the tip of his tongue, but remembering his promise he
swallowed it and the high priest looking up at him – waiting – slumped a little
in relief. 
“Alaexandros!”  The shout was still some distance away, but it was getting
closer.
“That’s Eitan,” Alex hissed.  Imhotep nodded.
“Tell him to find the steward and stall the physicians, then when he is gone,
fetch that large basket from the bench nearest the door.  We’ll need all the
time he can give us.”
Alex nodded and pushed himself back up to go have a quick conversation with
Eitan at the workshop’s lone window.  Once the quartermaster was on his way,
Alex grabbed the basket in question and set it next to the trough before
crouching down behind it.
“Good.  Inside, you’ll find a wooden jar sealed with beeswax.  I will lift my
arm from the water and hold it out.  You must put a thick coat of the substance
inside the jar over the entirety of the burn.”
“I – yeah, okay, just a moment.”  He’d seen a shallow bowl and a sphere of
natron soap when he moved the tables earlier.  Taking some of the trough water
into the bowl, he used the natron to scrub himself clean up almost to the
elbow, then rinsed his skin and shook off the excess water.  Only then did he
see the odd way Imhotep was staring at him.  “What?  I’ve just been in the
markets, I’m not about to put dirt and sweat and who knows what else onto a
fresh wound.  Shit, Imhotep, I actually dolisten when you tell me things.”
“I know you do.”  The quiet way the answer was given added to the way the high
priest had almost flinched when Alex had said his name sank guilt deep into the
pit of his stomach.
“I’m sorry, I – “
“It is fine, Alaexandros.  You’re doing well.” 
The return to his full name set Alex’s teeth on edge, but he kept his flash of
temper down to only a momentary clench of his fists.  Kneeling next to the
trough, he found the wooden jar and broke its seal, setting the lid to one side
for now.  The ointment inside was an almost solid oil – not quite sticky but
thick and substantive.  It smelled strongly of aloe (which made sense to Alex)
and mint (which very much did not) but the way his fingers began to tingle when
he scooped out the first bit meant there was some kind of analgesic involved
and that was really the most important thing right now. 
He nodded once to his companion, who gritted his teeth and lifted the injured
arm up out of the cooling water.  Alex let it stand for a moment first,
watching the excess water drip away before working in steady circles from wrist
to shoulder.  It took the entire jar, but by the time Alex was finished, the
lines of pain in Imhotep’s face had eased considerably.  Once that had been
accomplished, he pulled the clean linen bandages from that same basket and
began to wrap the arm – wrist to shoulder – with the kind of careful precision
of which he hadn’t really known himself capable.
“Why do you do that?” Imhotep asked him quietly.
“Do what?” Alex replied, more focused on covering all of the burn without
winding the bandage too thick or too tight than he was on the unexpected
question.
“You always use the slaves’ language when you talk to them – even with Eitan
and the others here, who are no longer slaves and who speak Kemet as well as
you or I.”
“Yeah, I do,” Alex acknowledged.  “Is it a problem?”
“No, there is no convention against it.  It is simply unusual.”
Alex shrugged, tucking the last end of one bandage strip into itself and
reaching for another.  “It’s more comfortable for them.  They are a conquered
people living in an alien land where nothing follows the rules of what they’ve
always known.  Their language is the last thing they can truly claim as their
own and I’ve always found it beautiful.  There are words and expressions for
concepts found in no other tongue.  The way Greek and Kemet are structured,
there are so many ways to twist a word until it no longer means what it
should.  Hebrew is a fluid language, but within structures of absolutes.  Like
a swift river inside a deep canyon.”  A bit of color rose to his cheeks as he
realized he was gushing about it like he was talking to a linguistics professor
or another student of etymology.  “It’s a lot harder to lie in Hebrew,” he
summed up.  “Not impossible, of course, but you have to really meanit.”
Imhotep was silent after that, but to Alex it felt more like their old
comfortable silences than the more recent awkward ones.  When he did speak, it
was soft and almost… hesitant.  “I had not considered it in this light.  There
is wisdom in what you say.  Perhaps… ah, nevermind.”
Another day, Alex would have leapt on that opening, pursued it back along its
channel toward something closer to the source of the continuing mystery this
frustrating man presented.  Today, however, as the adrenaline from his earlier
panic began to fade, it was all he could do to finish the bandage correctly. 
Once that was tied off, he closed the basket and set it out of the way, moving
benches and table before opening the door and returning to Imhotep with his arm
extended. 
Imhotep stared at the offered hand with something that reminded Alex too much
of fear tugging at the edges of his expression before setting his jaw firmly
and clasping it with his uninjured one.  Alex chose not to comment, instead
situating them both so that the priest’s good arm was around his shoulders and
his own was braced around Imhotep’s waist. 
“Shall we go ruffle the vultures,” Alex asked as they picked their way
carefully back through the courtyard.  “Or would you rather settle into your
roost where we can more easily roust them when they become tiresome?”  He’d
tried to inject a little good humor into them both before their moods went
irreparably sour.  It worked – Imhotep broke into a smile and even a breathless
little laugh – but his answer was one Alex had not at all expected.
“Let us go rescue Eitan.  I have faith in your ability to frighten off the
butchers when they overstep themselves.”
It was enough to spark a proper laugh from Alex – which in turn made Imhotep’s
own smile grow.  “As you command, good sir.  As you command.”
Discussions about the day’s events – and the answers he felt that at this point
he was very much owed – would keep.
 
    * - -
 
As it turned out, they ended up having to ‘keep’ until morning.
Imhotep’s faith proved to be well-placed.  Everyone present thought that it
would be the high priest who snapped when he became fed up with the old
buzzards’ incessant prodding and endless questions.  But though the lines of
pain and tension crept steadily deeper in his face and posture, Imhotep endured
the whole affair with something almost like grace.  It was Alexthat found
himself resisting the urge to bare his teeth every time one of them reached to
lay a hand on the bandaged limb to ‘check the heat dear boy’.  And when the
thirdamong them had reached in his bag for an instrument with which to cut
through those bandages and expose the wound, it was Alex who snapped. 
“Are you physicians with a patient or are you children with a stick and a
scarab?” he demanded hotly, stepping in front of the chair where Imhotep sat
and blocking the one trying to come nearer with a single hand flat on his
chest.  Alex was taller than this man was – stronger, too.  And there was a
kind of wildness in his expression that made even Eitan look a little bit
nervous.
“Young man!  It is highly irregular for an acolyte to darepresume to – why, why
I should have you flogged!“
“Turo.”  The voice calling the physician’s name was low and sharp – the crack
of the whip and the rumble of the lion in one.  It commanded the attention of
the entire room and sent Alex’s heart racing.  “Alaexandros is my apostate. 
When you point your hook at me, he has everyright to question your aim.  So
long as you are wise, old friend, you will afford him the respect you would
give to me.”
Turo – and his fellow physicians – went alarmingly pale beneath their olive
complexions, but offered no argument.  Alex decided this was as good a cue as
any to make their escape and nodded once to Eitan.  While the quartermaster and
the steward saw their guests out, Alex pulled Imhotep once more to his feet and
started the slow trek up to his rooms.
“Children with a stick and a scarab?”  It was a dry question, but at least
Imhotep had waited until they were halfway up his personal staircase before
asking it.  Even without an audience, Alex flushed bright pink.
“It was all I could think of without outright accusing them of being stupid!”
he defended, twisting his head around enough to try and see if the high priest
was actually angry.  That was his mistake.  It was the closest he’d been to
that face in more than half a year and Imhotep was smilingat him in this
conspiratorial way that made Alex feel like they were sharing a secret and for
a moment it blocked the pain out from those dark eyes and it made his chest
ache. The urge in that singular moment to taste that mouth or nuzzle the bridge
of his nose along that jaw or … or anythingto articulate the way his growing
fondness for the cranky old panther had sharpened to such an unexpected point –
it was beyond any of Alex’s (admittedly limited) emotional experiences.
Had the sound of a slamming door and the shuffling of slaves coming up with
dinner not made them both jump, Alex honestly could not have said whathe might
have done.
Once dinner had been laid out by one girl and the supplies he had asked for
earlier were laid out by another, Alex discovered that the biggest challenge of
the day was still ahead of him; getting the damn fool to eatsomething.
“For the last time, I am not hungry.  I am neither a child too young nor a
grandfather too old to know my own body, I am well aware of myself.  I simply
do not want anything to eat!”
Alex closed his eyes, counted backwards from ten and silently reminded himself
that he didn’t really want to strangle Imhotep before he answered.  Slowly. 
“Of course you don’t feel hungry.  You’re in pain, which means you’re probably
nauseated.  Which is why there are pomegranates and bananas on your plate, not
roast ostrich and honey cake.” 
Stubborn silence.  Time for Plan B. 
“Here’s something the Greek physicians teach their students,” he began, noting
with relief that here finally was at least his attention.  “The skin?  It helps
to protect the body from illness.  It’s why when it is torn open by sword or
arrow or fang or claw, sometimes a bad infection sets in.”  Alex could see
already he was losing him, this was obviously a conclusion he’d come to himself
long before.  “But that’s not its only function.  It also holds in water until
you become too hot and sweat it out or it becomes too damaged.  A burn this
large is going to make you become dehydrated much quicker than you usually
would.  If you won’t eat the banana at leasttake the pomegranate.  There’s
plenty of water in the juice to get you through the night.”
The look on Imhotep’s face plainly said ‘nice try kid’.  Or whatever the
linguistic equivalent was for Kemet.  He was obviously not used to being
gainsaid on matters of his own body and Alex would have lost, but he had the
ace up his sleeve.
“Fine.  Here’s what this comes down to.  I have the shepenet. If you eat the
fruit, I will give it to you, but you know as well as anyone that poppy on an
empty stomach is not at all pleasant.”
Aha!  There, he had him.  Victory was within his grasp!
Imhotep flipped him a very rude hand gesture, but he ate the damn fruit.  In
silence.
Once his part of the bargain was fulfilled, Alex brought Imhotep a cup of the
same smoky-sweet tea he’d been given on his first night in the temple.  Once
the priest had it in hand, Alex bent to start unwinding the bandages so that he
could apply fresh ones before Imhotep was entirely unconscious.
“No,” he was interrupted – gruff, but not harsh.  “Leave them overnight.  The
salve needs as much time to work as we can allow and I can make no more until
the flood waters recede.”  Alex hesitated, chewing on his lip and eyeing the
bandages warily.  Imhotep must have been able to read some of it in his face,
because he added a promise in low, reassuring tones.  “We can change them first
thing in the morning.  Now come, help me to bed.”
Rationally, Alex supposed, he should have known that was coming.  With the
drugs in his system, Imhotep was hardly going to be doing any late night
reading.  It was just that he had avoided being in it when Alex was awake for
so long that it hadn’t even crossed his mind.  He nodded, checked the various
‘loose ends’ of the bandage to make sure they stayed secure, then assisted the
priest to the bed, settling him on his side of it and removing his sandals.  It
was a slow process, easing Imhotep down to where he could lay on his back
without putting any undue pressure on the parts of his left shoulder that were
causing him pain.  By the time it was finished, both men had sweat on their
faces.  Alex rose and took one of the clean white cloths from next to the water
pitcher, returning with it dampened to ease over Imhotep’s brow and neck.
Already he was falling asleep, the drugs taking away the worst of his pain and
easing him into unconsciousness.  Alex was glad; the injury he’d seen those few
hours earlier would have driven anyone else mad with agony.  He ate a few bites
of his own meal and readied himself for sleep, but it was not so easy for him.
Crawling into a bed Imhotep already occupied brought back memories he had not
dwelt on in months.  The dark sway of a train car lit only by oil lamps; the
rough drag of rugs against his face, already soaked with his sweat and saliva;
the weight of each command and the euphoria of each scrap of praise.  He had
not forgotten – he would neverforget – but while he sat on the edge of ‘his
side’ of Imhotep’s bed and waited for the fear, the sickness, the anger…
They did not come.
Alex had always considered himself an enlightened thinker – a real twentieth-
century man as Uncle Jon would say.  He knew what had been done to him was
wrong, abhorrent in the most despicable way.  He knew that he had every right
to be angry and afraid.  He knew that if he had to live through the whole
experience again that he would feelthose things again.  He knew that someone
who had done those things before was absolutely capable of doing them again. 
There were reasons – valid, legitimate reasons– to be angry with and afraid of
Imhotep.  The rare moments of kindness and goodness he’d glimpsed through the
layers of anger and vengeance and insanity and desperation in those earliest
days may have been enough to not want him to die or to rot in hell, but that
was where reason and logic said any mercy should stop.
Except that’s not where it stopped.  Alex sat there for the better part of an
hour trying to find his fear and his rage.  And it wasn’t like they were …
gone,exactly.  More like they were little birds flitting just out of his
reach.  Visible but not present.  In spite of everything his better sense told
him, Alex found that he very much wanted to get into this bed; he wanted to
fall asleep – and if he was very lucky, to wake up – with this man beside him.
He did get into bed and he did pull the linen sheet up over himself against the
night breezes that would soon begin to stir.  But much as he wantedto sleep
like this, he knew he shouldn’twant to, and so he spent about half the night
watching the steady rise and fall of Imhotep’s breath and contemplating the
distinct possibility that he himself was mad.
 
    * - -
 
Alex didn’t remember falling asleep – one almost never did when it was being
elusive – but waking up was an experience he was not likely to forget. 
The first thing he knew was that he was warm– comfortable in a way he almost
never was in the early mornings now that the harvest was over.  The next thing
he realized was that he was on his side and not his stomach – unusual for him,
but not unheard of when trying to conserve heat.  The fact that he was wrapped
around and tangled with another body (which was, on further reflection, the
cause of the first two facts) did not even register except as a very distant
third.  Despite the comfort of his current position, he had fallen asleep too
late for him to be anything like instantly coherent.  That meant that it was a
good five minutes more before the implications of his current position decided
to march right up and politely bite him in the ass.
Because it wasn’t just that he had wrapped himself around his bedmate; Imhotep
had wrapped back.  The more completely he woke up, the more Alex began to take
in.  Imhotep’s uninjured arm was wrapped around his back in a loose embrace,
holding him against his side where Alex had been using his chest for a pillow. 
The leg closest to Alex was bent slightly at the knee to accommodate the one
calf beneath it and the other thigh hitched up on top of it.  All in all, Alex
realized, they were about as tangled up as they could be while accounting for
Imhotep’s injury.
And he was pretty slow first thing in the morning but he wasn’t stupid. That
Imhotep slept so easily despite the addition of a lanky teenager plastered to
his side like coral on a shipwreck told Alex that this was not an uncommon
occurrence.  No drug kicking around in this day and age was thatgood.  Which
meant that this was probably why – oh,if that was the reason for the past eight
months of ridiculousness, Alex was going to kill him. 
Judging by the deep and steady way Imhotep was still breathing – and the slow
heartbeat under Alex’s ear – there was still the better part of an hour before
he would wake.  Carefully extracting himself limb by limb (and wondering how in
the worldthe fool man had managed to do this every morning without waking
himwhen drugs had notbeen involved) Alex pulled the sheets higher to try and
compensate for the loss of his body heat and then went about his usual morning
routines.
By the time Imhotep began to stir, Alex was clean, dressed and fed – sitting
cross-legged on his side of the bed with two mugs of bunibalanced on his
thighs.
“You’re an idiot.”
He offered no explanation, but as Imhotep stiffly pushed himself upright (and
as Alex deliberately did notthink about the kind of strength it would take to
do that with one hand while not jarring the whole other side of his body) he
did hold out one of the mugs.  He was (deeply, unbelievably) irritated, but he
wasn’t cruel. 
“Good morning to you, too.”  There was a pleasant quality to Imhotep’s voice
just after waking that Alex had almost forgotten.  He was not going to be
swayed.
“You’re an absolute fuckingidiot.” 
“So you’ve said.”  Alex felt it was incrediblyunfair that despite only being
just now woken, obviously in pain and possibly hung over from the drugs that
had let him sleep, Imhotep only sounded weary and not at all annoyed.  He
watched the high priest inhale deeply the smell of coffee and then indulge in a
long, slow drink.  He watched him use his uninjured forearm to wipe across his
mouth (without spilling anything from the cup it held) and he watched as those
dark eyes finally blinked properly open and settled on him.  “Are you going to
tell me why or must I live in suspense?”
“We’ll get there,” Alex bit out, knuckles going white around his own mug before
he forced himself to ease up, to take a drink of his own and to breathefirst. 
“First I want to know what happened yesterday.”
Imhotep shrugged his functional shoulder as if to acknowledge that this was a
fair line of inquiry.  “Six would-be assassins dressed as uninitiated acolytes
cornered me while I was working.”  Alex went immediately pale.  He hadn’t been
paying that much attention to the bodies he’d stepped over beyond the
similarity to Caesar’s murderers, but he didn’t have to ask the question that
clawed and stuck in his throat.  Imhotep understood his stricken expression
well enough to nod.  “They couldn’t have been more than fifteen – sixteen at
most.  I did try to subdue them without harm but they were… remarkably well-
trained.”
“Who trains children how to kill?”  Alex couldn’t help blurting out what seemed
like the obvious question.  His own personal line of inquiry he’d get back to
in a moment.
“There were certain… guilds – cults, really – that relied on such practices,
but they were disbanded more than a hundred years ago.  Even the royal army
cannot recruit a trainee until he has completed his Rite and it will be a year
after that before he does anything but swing sticks at his fellows and be
knocked into the dirt by his trainers.”  To his credit, Imhotep seemed as
disturbed by the idea as Alex was, and remembering having to kill them in his
own defense brought something almost haunted to his expression.
Whatever else he might yet become, this man was no monster.
“Wait, six?  There were only five bodies in the workshop with you.”
That gave Imhotep pause.  “So one flew the coop – presumably to inform his
master that they had failed.  That is unfortunate, but perhaps it will dissuade
any future attempts.”
Alex couldn’t disagree with that assessment and so there was a momentary
ceasefire of sorts, both men sipping at their respective drinks until suspicion
dawned suddenly over Alex’s face.
“Hang on.”  Imhotep looked up from his own thoughts, startled by the sudden
resurgence of accusation in Alex’s tone.  “Hang on, that can’t be right. 
There’s a certain way you move when you’ve been trained to fight.  I’ve seen
it.”  Ardeth Bay had been a prime example, but not his only one.  “You do it,
too.  There’s no way some kids get the drop on you, I don’t care how well
they’re trained.”
At least Imhotep had the good grace to look sheepish, swallowing his mouthful
and clearing his throat a bit awkwardly.  “I…”  He coughed softly and averted
his gaze.  Alex would remember how nobly he gave in and show mercy.  “It is…
possiblethat I may have… dozed off at my bench.”
Nope.  Mercy gone.
“You’re telling me that you may have lost the use of your arm – that you almost
died– all because you’ve spent the last gods only know how many monthsdepriving
yourself of sleep?!?”  That seemed to be the point where Imhotep started
putting the rest of the pieces together, because he froze absolutely.  “You’re
an idiot!” Alex huffed and launched himself off the bed to cross the room and
pour himself another drink. 
He was so angry his hands shook.  It made pouring the hot liquid somewhat
hazardous and not at all graceful.  He was furious – he was incandescent– but
it felt like a brittle anger, like if he was struck the wrong way it would all
shatter and he’d be left with only what roiled underneath.  There was fear down
there – not for himself but for the fool still in bed.  There was fear and
worry and sorrow and loneliness and guilt and he wanted to deal with absolutely
none of it at all. 
“Alaexandros…”  His name came so quietly from far closer than expected.  Alex
fumbled with his grip on the pitcher and ended up sloshing coffee out on the
table when he set it back down. 
“You could have died,” he repeated, hating the way his voice cracked before he
could finish getting the words out.  He could feel the heat of Imhotep’s right
hand against his back – almost touching and then pulling away as though unsure
how to even attempt to offer comfort.  Alex braced both hands on the dry edge
of the table, shoulders slumped forward in something that probably looked a lot
like defeat. 
“No more, Imhotep.  No more.”
“What?”
“You need.  To fucking.  Sleep.”
“But it is not – “
“Not what?” Alex demanded, turning quickly and staring up into that face with
naked defiance.  “Not right?  Not appropriate?  The entire city thinks you’re
fucking my brains out on a regular basis and you’re worried about what they’ll
think of you sleepingwith me?”
“No!”  There it was, there was that flash of temper Alex had been waiting all
morning to see.  Finding it felt like a victory in and of itself, but it did
not last long.  “It was not an effort undertaken for the sake of the old
gossiping fishwives, Alaexandros – it was undertaken for you.”
“I – what?”  That took the wind out of Alex’s sails with remarkable speed.
“You can’t help seeking warmth in your sleep, it is not a fault or failing.  I
simply thought it best that you did not know.  I…”  He trailed off on a heavy
sigh, finally turning away.  “After what you had known of apostasy, I did not
want you to be afraid of me.”
“What I had known of…”  And then it clicked, a dim and drug-hazed memory of
being asked about his innocence and agreeing that it was indeed gone.  Imhotep
had taken him to mean he had been abused as someone else’s apostate.  The sheer
amount of irony that the abuse had come at the hands of the man so stupidly
self-sacrificing that he almost got himself killedover not wanting Alex to be
afraid of him…
Right now it made Alex feel about a thousand years old.
“Sometimes, Imhotep, I really don’t understand you.”
The response was equally weary, but with a touch of self-deprecating good humor
mixed in.
“Sometimes, neither do I.”
That made Alex snort a laugh and shake his head, one hand lifting to push back
through his hair.  “I’m serious,” he concluded.  “No more of this stay up late
and sneak off early bullshit.  If I get too close for comfort kick me or
something, but you need to start getting enough sleep – especiallywhile this
heals.”  He gestured to the injured arm and the bandages which were starting to
show little spots of blood soaking through. 
“Very well,” Imhotep finally conceded, looking just about as uncomfortable as
Alex had ever seen him.  “At least until my arm has healed, we will try it your
way.”
It was as good a concession as Alex could have hoped for – and came with a lot
less of a fight than it could have, all things considered.
“Right.  Yes. Good.  Now, come on.  Sit down and let me change these before you
bleed on something sacred.”
Such bright and simple laughter had never felt so much like victory.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Notes
     This monster has made me crazy all week. There was no good place to
     stop and it just kept growing and growing and growing until
     everything was entirely out of hand. I sincerely hope this is the
     last chapter to run away with me like this and apologize for the
     extended wait on it. Extra thanks go to Midgetdragon7x for being my
     second pair of eyes and reassuring me when I got a little nervous
     about the porn.
     Feedback is always appreciated. :3
     Also, at some point soon I'll post a pronunciation guide for the
     weird names and things I use in this fic. Probably end up on my
     tumblr and then get linked to in the notes on the next chapter or so.
     At any rate, enjoy!
“No way.”  Alex had seen a lot of shit in his time, but this was just beyond
bizarre.  “No fucking way.”
He stood next to the pile of discarded bandages and staredat the arm he’d only
just seen less than a full day before.  And it wasn’t that it looked great,
because it was still very much a mess, but it was… there was discernable skin
on it – there was substanceto it.  It caused Imhotep very obvious pain, but
already he could sort of move his fingers again.  There wasn’t much else he
could move yet, but after burns bad enough for Alex to get a glimpse of bonehe
had honestly expected nothing functional out of that arm ever again.
Imhotep was being really rather patient, considering that every little breeze
brushing the uncovered burns made him flinch.  Alex recognized this and shook
himself.  Really, after having raised his own mother from the dead, one would
think he would be surprised by nothing.  “Okay, okay.  Okay.”  Lowering himself
to kneel next to the bowl of clean water and the basket of bandages, Alex began
to work.  First the entire arm had to be cleaned carefully. The tissue that
remained was fragile and swollen – thick with inflammation.  He didn’t want to
break anything open but the blood and oils needed to be lifted away. 
It was a delicate process – undoubtedly what would take the longest with each
dressing change until enough of the skin healed sufficiently to clean with
easier methods – but it was not impossible.  Alex managed; he wasn’t perfect,
but he managed.  Once that was done, there was a mixture of more mundane plant
extracts to be slathered on the burn before it was wrapped again.
“That wasn’t a normal salve you had me use yesterday.”  It wasn’t a question,
but Alex left enough of a pause at the end for Imhotep to contradict him if he
wished.  He didn’t.  “Just like the glass cracking apart or the water going
clean and cold wasn’t normal.”  Again there was no denial.  Alex went on
wrapping Imhotep’s arm, satisfied that no, he wasn’t insane and that yes,
apparently his life was going to continue to include a lot more of the very
weird hocus-pocus brand of fuckery.  The extended silence apparently unnerved
Imhotep; it was less than ten minutes after Alex’s last statement when he
ventured a question of his own.
“You are not… afraid?”
That one had a complicated answer.
“Of magic?  Yeah, kind of.”  Alex glanced up at Imhotep’s face and saw a heavy
kind of sadness that gave him pause.  The hand not slathered in plant-goop
moved to rest against his knee – a small squeeze of unspoken reassurance before
he went back to work and to his explanation.  “It’s hard not to be wary of it
when you’ve seen it suck an oasis dry to create a tidal wave or watched it
drain someone’s life away.”  Imhotep went very, verystill under Alex’s hands,
but he did not interrupt.  They hadn’t ever discussed the subject before, but
Alex had pieced together enough of who he was supposed to be over the last
months that he felt like he had a pretty safe timeline to work with.
“But if it weren’t for magic I wielded – mostly on accident, to be honest – my…
my best friend in all the world would still be dead.”  He paused then, rinsing
his hands clean and wiping them dry before starting to work his way up the arm
with a fresh bandage.  “So yeah, I’m a little afraid of magic.  Just like I’m a
little afraid of a really sharp sword.  If it’s pointed at me, it’s bad news. 
But if I have it – or someone I trust does – it can be a comfort too.”
There was silence then, a stillness that stretched on until Alex had finished
his work and cleaned the resulting mess.  Just as he went to cross the room and
retrieve another cup of the shepenet,Imhotep reached out and took hold of one
wrist with his good arm.
“You read the spell from the Book of Coming Forth by Day?”  His question was a
quiet one, but there was concern etched in his expression as he looked up at
his apostate. 
“Yes, I did.  She – she has a husband and a young child.  I wasn’t going to
send them her body.”
“How did you come to possess one?”  There wasn’t any anger in the tone – there
was nothing in it – and that honestly frightened Alex more than if there had
been.
“We were in the desert west of Abydos to hunt down a group of thieves raiding
the old tombs.  One of them had the book.  I was the only one still alive who
even recognized it.  It was returned with the rest of what had been stolen.”
Imhotep released his wrist and slumped back in his chair with visible relief,
eyes sliding closed until he looked almost like he was at prayer.  “There are
not many with the power in their veins to call anything out of that book –
fewer still with the force of will to bend it to their own purpose instead of
being a tool for the magic’s whim.  I am… impressed.”
Coming from Imhotep, that was highpraise.  Alex hid the way his face and neck
colored in response by turning to mix and pour the drug-laced tea that would
allow the priest to sleep through most of what would otherwise be an intensely
painful day.
“Make sure that – “ Imhotep tried to give him further instruction on how to
handle the rest of the day, but Alex hushed him with a press of gentle
fingertips against his mouth.  It was a liberty that surprised even the boy
himself – though he did a good job of running with it, especially when the
older man did not immediately explode.
“I have been at your side every day for almost a year, now.  I know what Eitan
and I can sort out and what to put aside for you to read later.”  Alex hadn’t
yet moved his hand away and though from this distance he could see that those
dark eyes had dilated, he also saw the changes in expression that meant a very
impressive argument was coming and decided to head it off at the pass.  “Do you
trust me?”
That definitely cut Imhotep off.  He wrestled with the idea for a moment while
Alex let his fingers slide from dry lips and placed the cup of shepenetinto his
unimpeded hand.
“Do you trust me?” he repeated, placing a little extra emphasis on each word to
show that it really was a simple question.  Imhotep lifted the cup and drank
the contents in their entirety, gaze never once moving away from Alex’s own. 
“Yes.”  His single word answer was rasped and strained, obviously not an easy
admission.  Alex took the empty cup from him and waited, leaving plenty of room
for a qualifier that… never came.  Touched more than he really wanted to think
about, Alex set the cup aside for later and helped him cross from his chair
back to bed. 
“Sleep, Imhotep.  I won’t be far.”
 
    * - -
 
As it turned out, Alex managed to arrange the interim schedule so that he only
rarely had to leave their suite of rooms.
The first week was unquestionably the hardest.  When Imhotep was awake during
the day, he was in terrible pain and abjectly miserable.  When he gave in and
took the shepenet,his sleep was disturbed by dreams that often made him thrash
and twist in ways not conducive to a healing arm.  There were whole hours where
Alex knelt by the side of the bed, trying to soothe and restrain without
causing further injury.  It got a little easier when he figured out that
sitting in the bed with Imhotep was enough to keep it mostly from ever getting
that bad. 
It was an… unconventional way to sort through the piles of information sent to
the office of the high priest, but the man himself remained Alex’s priority;
everything else could be worked around that.  His system of sorting was simple
enough.  Everything he read over went into one of three piles – the largest
were things he and Eitan could see to, then there were the things that needed
Imhotep’s attention but did not require an immediate answer and finally the
small stack of things that needed Imhotep’s attention and could not wait.  The
urgent matters he conveyed each evening, during those precious hours between
the morning drugs wearing off and the nightly ones being administered.  Imhotep
would listen, consider and give Alex instruction on how to proceed. 
The combination of pain and medicines meant that Imhotep was never hungry. 
Alex would get nourishment in him through a complicated process of coaxing and
bullying, but it was never enough to ease the tight knot of worry in his
stomach.
He didn’t get much sleep that first week, but it was alarming how quickly he
became accustomed to waking from what he did get wrapped around his bedmate. 
When finally the morning came that Alex removed the nighttime wrappings and saw
blisters alongside hints of new, pink skin, he had a moment where he was
honestly afraid he might cry from relief.
After that, they started scaling down the drugs, adding less and less into the
morning shepenetuntil it was only taken before bed each night.
Despite the increase in wakefulness, Alex found the routine established in that
first week varied little.  He woke up held against Imhotep’s side, bathed,
dressed, changed the bandages, fought some food into the cranky old panther,
took the previous day’s work downstairs to go over with Eitan and the scribes,
retrieved the next batch of (endless) reading, worked through it with a more
awake Imhotep (the three pile system worked very well indeed), tricked him into
eating another meal, changed the bandages, mixed the shepenetand crawled into
bed.  There was an inescapable intimacy to it that seemed to do much to settle
the priest; he did not shy from small, thoughtless touches while they worked,
he wasn’t so stiff and formal when he spoke…  He smiled more.  He laughedmore. 
The only dark spot on an otherwise happy existence was the way Imhotep’s face
would fall every time the bandages came off and the healing burns were
exposed.  There was no doubt at this stage that there would be extensive
scarring.  The skin was healing, but twisted and warped like a particularly
disturbed child had been playing in clay. 
The first morning he removed the bandages and did not make to put another set
on once the arm had been cleaned, Alex jumped nearly six inches out of his skin
at the reaction he got.
“What are you doing?” Imhotep snapped.  Arguments about food aside, he hadn’t
even raised his voice since the attempt on his life – nearly three weeks gone,
now.  It took Alex off-guard and he snapped back reflexively.
“I’m cleaning up this mess, what does it look like I’m doing?”
“No.”  In all of Alex’s experiences, only this man could make one syllable
sound so imposing.  It made him tremble in a very Pavlovian response, but that
merely served to ignite his own temper.
“No?  What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“You have not replaced the bandages.”
Alex felt a cold sliver of guilt as he realized it had been something he’d
thoughtabout, but not spoken out loud before doing.  It wasn’t muchof a sliver,
since there were about two dozen more mature ways Imhotep could have responded,
but it was enough to make him force his answer into a more even tone. 
“No, I didn’t.  You have enough new skin to be alright so long as you don’t
jostle it too badly.  It needs to be open to the air for a while or you’ll
start to see rot come in under the cloth.  I’ll wrap it again before we go to
bed tonight.”
“No.”
There was that word again.  It wasn’t so heavy like it was the first time, but
there was enough force behind it still that Alex threw his hands in the air and
turned on his heel.  “If this is how you’re going to be today, fine, but I’m
not going to sit around and be the punching bag.”
“Wait!”  The call caught him mid-stride, this time containing an edge of
desperation that was enough to make Alex (against his better judgment) stop,
sigh and slowly turn around.  He could see Imhotep settling back into his chair
– which did nothing to make Alex any less infuriated, because if that lunatic
had overbalanced on the attempt and fallen on his injured arm…  His jaw worked
soundlessly, the motion repetitive as though he was trying to force words that
simply refused to form.  Alex could see his good hand clenching over and over
into a fist – he could even see the fingers on the injured side twitching. 
There was an uncharacteristically naked fear in the eyes that finally found
Alex’s face and that was enough for him to ignore the anger in there too and
cross the room to crouch in front of that chair.
One hand went to the top of his thigh; the other unclenched that tight fist
before sliding up to rest on that forearm.  Alex didn’t even think about doing
it until he felt Imhotep tense and then slowly relax under his palms.  They
stayed like that for a little while, but eventually the dark eyes dropped from
his own and Alex saw shame in the priest’s familiar face.
Once upon a time, he’d have exulted to see it – it would have felt right. Now
it made him feel… he wasn’t sure.  It made him feel hollow, but that wasn’t an
emotion so far as he’d ever been told.
“Wrap it today.”  The quiet request pulled his attention back to the immediate
present.  “Please, Khalex.  Tomorrow.  We can begin tomorrow… but give me one
more day.”
Alex did not pretend to understand – he was fairly certain it had something to
do with the look on Imhotep’s face every time the bandages hadto come off, but
he had never struck Alex as a particularly vainman, which meant there was
something he was missing. 
“Okay, habibi.”  Alex’s voice was soft, his acceptance colored with what
reassurance he could give.  “Okay.”  He hadn’t meant to slip the Arab-Hebrew
endearment into it, but neither did he feel particularly inclined to take it
back.  Imhotep nodded and Alex squeezed the leg under his hand before pushing
back and gathering what supplies he would need.
Salving and bandaging the arm was old hat by now; the whole process took Alex
less than ten minutes.  When he knelt up and finished tying off the last end
over Imhotep’s shoulder, he saw the torso under his hands begin to twist.  The
opposite hand came up to rest against the back of Alex’s neck and before he
understood precisely what was happening he felt the firm press of thin lips
against the hairline just above his temple.  He recognized the gesture for what
it was – silent, trusting thanks – and twisted just enough to bump the bridge
of his nose up against the underside of Imhotep’s chin in a playful
acknowledgment before pulling back to stand and stare down at his ‘patient’
with hands on hips.
“Now eat something, will you?  I’ve got to go talk with Tasherit about the
arrangements for the shared rites and at least oneof us should have a
productive morning.”  Alex wasn’t sure if it was the reminder of the upcoming
sacred month or the mention of Sekhmet’s often waspish high priestess that
caused Imhotep to pull that particular face.  Either way, it felt good to start
down the stairs still laughing.
 
    * - -
 
Eitan ben Abijah had more to be grateful for than most.
Born to slaves, he had been purchased from their mason masters younger than
anyone in his family eve had been.  He’d been educated, freed and offered a
position which allowed him enough bounty to bring his family out of labor and
into comfort one by one.  There were voices in the community that spoke out
against him – him and all the bogediwho lived their lives outside the
strictures which bound the majority of their people – but he had always
believed in the wisdom of never biting off more than could be chewed.  He was
one man.  He could do nothing about the systemic subjugation of an entire
people.  It was within his power to make life better for himself and his
family.  Surely that was enough.
Even among the other bogedi,there was a certain level of disdain for Eitan;
this was not a personal offense, but a professional one.  He was not the only
one to find gainful employment in the business affairs of an idolatrous temple,
but he was the only one who would work so closely with Imhotep.  Amraphael, his
people called him – the one who speaks darkness. 
The ability to sense and affect the world around them had not been so diluted –
so diminished – in the children of Israel as it had been in their captor race. 
Their talents were almost always either passive (as in the reading of auras or
prophetic dreaming) or supportive (words for healing and words for
protection).  Every generation, one child was born with a more active gift. 
These were the kings, the heroes of their people, but they had not been blessed
with a single one in the generations since setting foot on Kemet’s black soil.
While they still waited for their deliverer, the children of Israel were ever
vigilant lest a fate even worse than this one befall them when there was no one
to shield them from it.  Amraphael pulsedwith power – even the weakest among
them could feel it radiating from him like heat from the great forge fires –
but it was nothing like their own energies.  To them it felt dark,
overwhelming… terriblein all its unknowable scope.  Their seers never laid eyes
on him without nearly choking on the metallic tang of fresh blood.  He was
anathema; he was the wolf among the sheep.
Eitan had always been of the firm belief that a man’s actionsshould matter more
than his appearance – supernatural or otherwise.  The one he could control; the
other he could not.  To him it was as simple as that.  Imhotep had never been
what one would call warm,but he had always – always– been fair.  He had picked
out Eitan out of a hundred temple slaves and given him a chance to make not
only his own life better, but that of his family.  This was more than enough to
ensure his loyalty for so long as Eitan drew breath.  However, much as he was
willing to defendImhotep – and much as he had never been given reason to
complain about his position – he had never very much enjoyedit.
That is, until the private guard of the Queen-to-be had marched through the
temple and brought with them Alaexandros of Crete.
Where Imhotep was blood and darkness, the boy they called Alexander was as
bright and warm as the morning sun.  Eitan knew enough Greek to recognize the
name – Alaexandros, Defender of Mankind.  He was young – a good seven years his
junior at least– but the boy with the golden hair and eyes the color of the
clear sky made friends very nearly everywherehe went.  People were drawn to him
and though Eitan thought he looked uncomfortable with it a lot of the time,
Alex did his level best to be kind.
Oh there was no denying his temper; Eitan lived and worked in close enough
proximity – especially during the last few weeks of Imhotep’s convalescence –
to have been the unwilling audience for more than a few… heated arguments
between their high priest and his apostate.  And Eitan, with his own cultural
and religious upbringing, wasn’t sure at allhow he felt about… that, but there
was no denying that Alaexandros’ presence in the temple had been good for its
master.  Most recently, it seemed like it had been doing Alex some good as
well, so it was with great surprise that Eitan found him down in one of the
empty workrooms downstairs that afternoon.
“Alex?”  Unlike most of… well, the rest of everyone else, Eitan tried very hard
to remember to honor the boy’s stated preference of shorter given name.  The
missives for the day were still piled haphazardly on the table in front of him
and the sound of his own name had been enough to make him jump.
“Eitan!  I’m sorry, you startled me.”
Eitan smiled mildly and inclined his head toward the younger man.  “Then I
should be the one to offer apologies; that was not my intention.”  The fact
that Alex always addressed him in his native language had endeared him to Eitan
almost immediately.  Even now it made his mouth twitch with a small smile.  “I
came looking for a quiet space to compile the storage tallies – I would have
thought you’d be upstairs again by now.”
Judging by the way the boy darted a quick look over his shoulder to gauge the
daylight, Eitan presumed he must have been very deep in his own thoughts. 
“I – “  That Alex began to talk only to cut himself off so quickly was not,
strictly speaking, unusual; that his face fell into lines of a puzzled,
troubled frown, however… that was a first in Eitan’s experience.  Setting his
own work on an otherwise unoccupied section of table, he took the seat across
from the boy and gestured for him to continue at his leisure.  He had learned a
long time ago that patience was a virtue wellworth cultivating.
It was well he had, for it took young Alex an awfully long time to sort out
what it was he wanted to say.
“Why would survival be shameful?”
Eitan wasn’t sure he understood the question.  His confusion must have been
easy to read, for Alex quickly rephrased.
“I mean scars.  Having them means you weren’t killed by whatever it was that
attacked you, essentially.  Why is there shame in that?”
“Ah, I see.”  It did not take a great leap of intellect to piece together this
specific line of inquiry with Alex’s change in routine and come to a broad sort
of conclusion.  It was an odd question to hear from an acolyte, but each temple
had their own traditions and he supposed it would be impossible to have an
entirely standard education.  “You are aware of the importance of collecting
each piece of the body during burial preparations, yes?”
Alex nodded, already leaning forward attentively.
“It all comes from the same root idea.  A whole unit of soldiers is more
powerful than one at only half strength.  A jackal with all his teeth will have
a deadlier bite than his fellow with only a few.  So the belief is held among
the religious and political elite that all power is related to being whole.” 
It was a foolish idea, easily disproved by anyone who’d been in the same room
as the high priest since the incident (which was not all that many, honestly,
the apostate sitting across from him had been like a wall between the
recovering Imhotep and the vultures circling outside).  However, when one took
into account how few of them were left who could actually sense such things,
Eitan supposed their faulty logic would have to be excused.
“But I’ve seen generals with scars who command more respect than almost
anybody.”
“A very good observation, Alex.  Indeed, scars in the usual way aren’t
considered a ‘loss’ that would affect an individual’s usefulness.  However, if
it was extensive enough to appear as though an entire limb had been
mutilated…”  He trailed off there, knowing the lad was smart enough to fill in
the rest.
“Iesous,” Alex hissed.  That… was not a curse with which Eitan was familiar –
he knew no one associated with the temple or those within it by that name – but
he was not given the chance to ask.   “How serious an accusation is a loss of
power like that?”  Eitan’s disdain for that question was obvious enough that
Alex cringed and let his face fall into his palms.  “Oh gods… for a high priest
of coursethey would make a big deal out of it.”
“Indeed.  I imagine that knowledge has not set well with your master.” 
“No,” Alex sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face.  “No, it most certainly
did not.”  That the boy hadn’t fought against the classification of Imhotep as
his master – hadn’t seemed to notice, even – was a good indication of how
deeply this really did worry him.
“You cannot take his temper to heart, Alex.”  It was something he’d had to
explain to any number of new additions to their staff, but that it had taken
this long for the topic to come up was a first.  It was that knowledge which
made Eitan extra gentle in its execution.  “He rants and he roars and
occasionally breaks things, but he’s never hurt one of us.”
“What?  Oh.  That.”  Eitan’s brow furrowed; wasn’t that the root of all of
this?  “I’m not afraid of him anymore.”  He was impressed in spite of himself. 
Even after twenty years under Imhotep’s ownership, tutelage and employ, Eitan
still found himself nervous from time to time – justified or not. 
“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand.  What troubles you if not his anger?”
“I can’t let them take him down, Eitan.  Not over something so stupid.”  It was
an admirable sentiment, but the intensity, the passion behind it was something
unheard of in all but the oldest and most devoted servants.  “I won’t.”
Ah.  Yes.  That… would certainly explain a few things.
“Alex…”  Eitan tried to formulate some kind of advice – a caution for this
young man whom he counted as a friend – against what he knew of their high
priest’s hard and unmoving nature.  One did not choose such isolation as
Imhotep had without reason.  Eitan and the other inner circle of attendants had
their own theories, but even the kindest of explanations meant heartache for
anyone (and probably everyone) involved.  “Be careful.”
“I know, I know.  The politics at court are dangerous.  That doesn’t mean it’s
impossible, just difficult.”
Eitan knew they were on two different pages now, so he made an effort to steer
them back to the most immediate point first.  “You have been good for him,
Alex.  This is the closest to happiness any of us has ever seen from him, but
our high priest is a driven man.  His work is his life – has always been his
life.  He does not have family, he does not have friends; it is not in his
nature.  You must not expect more than he is capable of, it… it would only
injure you both.”
To his credit, Alex took the time to mull this all over – to consider it
properly before forming a response.  “I understand more than you give me credit
for, Eitan.”  He opened his mouth to object, to point out that he meant no
slight by his warning, but Alex shook his head.  “I know you mean well, my
friend.  I appreciate your concern, but I know what I’m doing.”
Eitan wasn’t all that sure he did, actually, but it was not his place to say
so.  Instead, he simply inclined his head in silent acknowledgment and allowed
the subject to lapse in favor of one a bit less awkward for them both.  “What
is it you propose then?  If I have learned anything about those who move in the
highest circles, they will have been preparing to exploit this since the news
of his attack and the subsequent dismissal of the physicians reached their
palaces.”
Alex was quiet again, studying Eitan in a way that made him feel restless. 
When the boy broke into a lopsided, conspiratorial grin, the quartermaster was
left with an inexplicable sense of relief.
“Find me a blacksmith, an astronomer, a mathematician and a seamstress, Eitan. 
Here’s what we’re going to do.”
 
    * - -
 
The sacred month came upon them at last – the celebration of their gods coming
into the world – and Imhotep felt restless.  Normally his presence was required
throughout all aspects of celebration, but he had been ‘relieved’ of such duty
in light of his continued recovery.  Relieved.  That word had burnt in his gut
ever since he’d read it in the Pharaoh’s official missive.  He was invited to
come on the final day and perform the rites for Ptah, but that was all.  It was
an outrage!  He lead those who served the greatest of all gods – he who had
fashioned the heavens and given life to all other deities – and he was brushed
aside like so much sand.
Nevermind that he would have been abjectly miserable spending four extra days
in the snake pit Thutmose called his court; that was beside the point entirely.
His mood had been further soured by an excess of time to ruminate on the perils
of his current situation.  Alaexandros had been absent their rooms more and
more of late and he could suffer no other company for more than an hour at
most.  Of course the petty and the power hungry would move against him soon,
that much he had known from the first day his arm had been left bare.  But from
this position there was little that could be done.  He would survive the final
sacred day and then regroup while the river flooded its banks.
The night before he was due to make his appearance at court, Imhotep took only
a third of the shepenetthat had served as enough relief to sleep through every
night since he’d been attacked.  It made for a restless night and uneasy fits
of dozing.  He woke sometime after moonrise to the sensation of thin arms
gathering him close.  He rolled to his uninjured side and was tucked under
Alaexandros’ chin.  One arm served as a pillow and that hand stroked and
caressed over his bare head and down along the back of his neck.  The other
rested on his hip, thumb drawing lazy circles. 
It was no more intimate than the way he often woke now, but to have the process
going on while he was aware of it was something entirely new.  Each breath drew
in the familiar scent off his apostate’s skin and the warmth shared between
them was entirely comfortable.  Imhotep found himself soothed, felt his body
relaxing in a way that had become rare since his Khalex had begun spending so
much of his days elsewhere.  An ache rose in his chest, fondness sharpened to
an edge with which he had no prior experience.  As he drifted off into a much
more restful sleep, the last thought he could remember was to wonder how he had
ever slept a night through without this boy in his bed.
Waking again was not at all unpleasant – Alaexandros’ mouth was pressed against
his brow and his sleep-roughened voice was softly repeating Imhotep’s name –
but it still came far too soon.
“Come on, habibi. Wake up, I’ve a gift for you before we leave.”
The exchange of such gifts was not uncommon during any of the festival times,
but Imhotep had never been the recipient of one that hadn’t been a matter of
state.  Inhaling a long, deep breath, he bumped his nose against Alaexandros’
jaw and pulled back to sit up and begin the day.
“Very well,” he rumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes with his uninjured hand. 
Being awake before the sun was not a new phenomenon for him, but Imhotep had
fallen out of the habit over the last few weeks and was not at all pleased to
be returning to it – even if only for one day.  “What have you to show me,
Alaexandros?”
He didn’t answer at first, instead removing the bandages covering Imhotep’s
ruined arm.  The sight of the mangled, webbed scar tissue still made him sick
to his stomach, though Alaexandros certainly never seemed bothered.  Imhotep
turned away, unwilling to see it again even in the more forgiving firelight
from the nearby torches.  When the process was done, he expected to have his
attention called elsewhere.  Instead, he felt two warm hands rest gently
against his shoulder.
“I learned something new,” Alaexandros told him, and before Imhotep could make
it so far as wondering if this was his gift, a soft and subtle glow lit all the
places where their skin touched.  It was warm and flowed down Imhotep’s arm
like honey.  It left a vague taste of spices on the back of his tongue, but it
had also relieved him of his pain.  The limb was still stiff and he doubted it
would stand up to anything like normal use, but he had not felt so at ease in
almost five weeks now; the relief was a gift, indeed.
“Khalex,” he breathed before he could catch himself, impressed and also proud. 
“This is wonderful, thank you.”  His power was suited to other magicks; it was
not something he would have managed on his own.  “Where did you find the
spell?”
His apostate only grinned down at him, flush with praise and nearly vibrating
with excitement.  “You’re not my only friend who knows things.” 
Fighting down the entirely irrational surge of bile and jealousy that answer
invoked, Imhotep tried for the less confrontational route of inquiry, but he
wasn’t even given the chance to formulate another question before they were
interrupted by a knock at the door. 
“That will be Eitan,” Alaexandros explained, trailing fingertips over twisted
skin as he turned to answer it.  Two broad-shouldered slaves entered first,
bearing a heavy trunk which they abandoned in the center of the room before
bowing low in Imhotep’s direction.  He waved them off and stood, stretching his
good arm and popping his back on his way toward the chest.  He could hear Alex
and Eitan talking rapidly in the slaves’ musical language, but rather than pay
attention, he placed his hand palm down against the wood and frowned at the low
hum of energy he could feel pulsing through it.
“Oh Alaexandros,” he sighed under his breath.  “What have you done?”
 
    * - -
 
“Either you are a genius or a madman, Alaexandros.” 
Alex knew it wasn’t, strictly speaking, meant to be praise, but he found
himself grinning brightly anyway.
“Be still,” Imhotep snapped without venom.  “I have not decided which it is,
yet.”
“I don’t care,” he shot back, his grin melting into a verysatisfied smirk as he
gave the priest an appreciative once-over.  “You look good.”
“Stop that,” he snapped again – this time with a little more force behind it. 
“I look ridiculous.” 
Alex was undeterred; he had endured enough of Imhotep’s moods to distinguish
defense mechanisms from genuine ire.  Licking his lips in an intentionally
suggestive way, he tipped his head back just far enough to look into dark eyes
and raised both brows with faux innocence that fooled exactly no one at all. 
“I can promise that’s not true.”
“Enough.”  This time there was a thread of warning in that low rumble.  “Such
sport is beneath you, Alaexandros.”
What? “But I’m n-“
“What is this display meant to achieve, exactly?”  Imhotep interrupted his
argument and Alex stared at him with narrowed gaze for a moment.
“I should think that’s self-explanatory,” he drawled dryly, conversational
payback for Imhotep’s slipshod exertion of control. 
“Obviously the cloth… ‘sleeve’ and the metal plating disguise my deformity – “
Alex started to protest (again) his persistence in referring to his injury that
way, but Imhotep paid him no mind and simply plowed straight on “— but I don’t
understand the significance of the gold, nor the spells folded into the metal.”
Alex’s smile came back to stretch his face until his cheeks hurt.  “So you
canfeel it.  I knewit – I knewyou could.”
“Alaexandros.” 
That was the sound of Imhotep on the very edge of losing patience.  Considering
the stresses of the day, Alex supposed he had prodded at him enough.
“Alright, Chanticleer.  You’re going to bring up the sun.”
 
    * - -
 
Bastet preserve me, this boy will be my death. 
Standing on the platform of, frankly, the most ridiculous chariot he’d ever
seen, Imhotep was still having serious doubts about the wisdom of his current
course.
And yet here you are,the pervasive hiss in the back of his mind reminded him. 
You survived so long, climbed so high…  They have tried everything to bring you
to heel, and it turns out all it takes is a pair of pretty thighs. 
Shaking himself almost viciously, Imhotep growled under his breath and reminded
himself that there was a method to this plot – in addition to the madness. 
Alaexandros’ spell had meant that the armor he now wore did not cause him pain,
which would be a boon as the day wore on.  It felt odd, to be encased in cloth
and metal on one arm while the other was bare save for the golden serpent on
his bicep.  That was the other thing; all this gold. It served its purpose, but
he felt ostentatious.  He felt ridiculous, no matter what that maddening boy
tried to claim. 
There was gold around his bicep, there was gold inlay on every piece of the
metal pauldron and greave that wound down his ruined limb, there was gold in
the ornament holding his crimson wrap tight around his hips, there was even
gold in his sandals and in the chain which draped the sacred panther skin from
his armored shoulder like a Greek prince’s cape.  The damned chariotwas gold,
for pity’s sake.  It all looked silver in the moonlight, of course, but Imhotep
knew what it was – what it would become with the dawn – and felt very much like
he wanted to vomit.
Before he could do anything about that sensation, the jangle of the horses’
harness signaled Eitan and Alaexandros’ arrival from the temple entrance and
when he looked up, Imhotep felt like the world had been turned very much on its
ear.
Doubtless their entry had been timed precisely so that he would not have time
to argue, but even had he been given an hour to formulate an articulate way to
express the roil of desire and denial in his gut, he wasn’t entirely sure it
would have made sense.
Alaexandros had apparently taken leave of all sense.  He wore the rich purple
chiton of the northern island kings and a wreath of golden laurel sat in the
loose mess of golden curls.  The fabric of the foreign garment barely met the
standard of ‘decent’ length, but even that was not so obscene as the golden
chain that bound the golden collar around his neck to the golden shackles on
his wrists and his ankles. 
There was no doubt that he was meant to portray a prisoner of war, but as Eitan
helped him climb into the chariot in the subservient place half a step behind
Imhotep and just off his shoulder, the priest could not figure why. Everyone
knew his apostate by now.  This wasn’t going to fool anyone.
The ceremonial procession started off ahead of them and the well trained pair
of black Libyan mares pulling their contraption followed suit.  At this point
it was too late to turn back.  They had only a narrow window of time to reach
the palace courtyard at the conclusion of the midnight rite for Anubis and
already the common people lined the street to watch them go by.
When Imhotep saw the first of them fall into step behind their flank of
guardsmen, he felt ice sink slowly into the pit of his stomach.  How could he
have forgotten?  As the patron deity of craftsmen of all kinds as well as the
chief creator, Ptah was the defender of the common man.  None could be barred
entrance to the celebration of his birth – for it was the birth of them all. 
Whatever happened today was going to happen in front of all Men-nefer.
Staring straight ahead, Imhotep felt the icy fear coalesce into something much
closer to ragewhen he felt the boy beside him shift his weight and whisper five
meaningless words in his ear.
“Go big or go home.”
Before he had met Alaexandros of Crete, Imhotep had never felt the simultaneous
need to choke a person and to kiss them senseless.  It was no longer an
unfamiliar sensation, but tonight it had most definitelyintensified.
 
    * - -
 
The Pharaoh’s palace at Memphis (Imhotep couldn’t correct him inside his own
head, so Alex was going to use the Greek word all he liked) was splendid even
in the dark grey of predawn.  Enormous oil lamps normally kept the entire
complex in a state of red-gold glow, but for tonight’s offering, everything was
dark.  Everything was silent, too.  Even the horde of people following in the
wake of the priests and soldiers from Ptah’s temple were quiet.  There was a
weight to the atmosphere that made the hair on the back of Alex’s neck stand on
end.
Contrary to what Imhotep had been muttering about off and on from the time he
filled him in to the time they set off from the temple, Alex had a verygood
idea of what was at stake.  Failure in any respect could very well mean his
life – and that wasn’t actually the worst case scenario.  Yet in spite of this
he had forged ahead with planning and then preparation and then execution. 
Most days he rationalized it with the fact that he had to get to a place from
which he could actually influenceImhotep if they were going to succeed in
this.  Some days he acknowledged that there was a particular burn to pull this
off because the idea of opportunistic cowards plotting a strike against the
high priest rankled hard at his sense of protectiveness and fair play.
But tonight, as they drew into the large palace yard filled already with
nobles, priests and royalty of all varieties – as he stood close enough to feel
the heat (and the determination) off Imhotep’s body – Alex had to admit to
himself just this once that there was a deeper reason, too.  Moments away from
the greatest possible disaster of his life,all Alex wanted in all the damn
world was to see pride – to see affection– in haunting dark eyes.  It all
boiled down, he supposed, to the fact that some part of him was still the
kneeling slave with the newly woken hunger for his master’s praise sharp and
hot in his belly.  Perhaps some part of him always would be.
That possibility didn’t bother him as much as it should have, and thatwas
enough to make him sick.
The procession rolled to a stop.  Those in front of them had peeled away to
left and right, leaving Imhotep and Alex in a chariot directly in front of
Pharaoh’s throne.  One of the younger priests walked forward from behind them
and held an enormous book over his head like a living pulpit.  Imhotep did not
acknowledge his presence, did not even blink.  He simply reached forward,
opened the great book, and began to read.
This was the tensest Alex thought he’d ever been in his life – and that
included days on a train in the desert where he’d honestly thought he would
break.  The precise mathematic calculations involved to pull this off were hard
enough in their own right – harder still without numerals that made sense to
him.  Eitan had found him a scholar who had spent time in Athens – bless him –
but the process had not been an easy one.  If there was one piece to their plan
most likely to go awry, it was this one.  And yet…
And yet, standing there listening to Imhotep read in a voice powerful enough to
rattle around a little inside Alex’s chest, he could not help the faith that
flickered to life alongside the hope he had already begun to cling to.  Imhotep
was remarkable in his own right.  He always had been.  And as he began to read
the seven greetings for the dawn, Alex came to a sudden and startling
realization.
The difference between this Imhotep and the one he had met in the desert was
painfully simple.  This one struggled against a deeply held belief that he was
worthless; the one Alex had known had been doing everything he could think of
in a desperate attempt to prove that he wasn’t.
This understanding drew up affection and a fierce, hot protectiveness in Alex
instead of… he didn’t know, but something more appropriate would have been
nice.  It twisted his insides, but there wasn’t time to dwell on that.  Imhotep
had reached the final greeting, the one which bade the sun to rise and shine
its bounty on the children of its creator.
Nothing happened.  Alex held his breath.
Imhotep paused and if Alex hadn’t known any better he would have sworn the
frustration on his face was real.  The invocation was repeated, but again was
met with nothing but continued darkness.
The crowds began to get restless.  Alex could hear shifting and murmurs – even
one quickly smothered laugh.  It was all he could do to keep a straight face;
biting down on his tongue was not as much help as it was supposed to be.
Huffing a breath of agitation, Imhotep slammed the book closed and lifted his
face to the heavens – to the place where the sun was meant to rise behind the
Pharaoh’s throne.  “Ungrateful child!  You would spit rebellion into the face
of your father on this day of all days?”  His shout echoed around the courtyard
with slivers of such power that even the thin-blooded among them shivered.  The
darkness around them remained unchanged and a low growl resonated in Imhotep’s
chest that made Alex’s pulse roughly double, his breath caught tight between
his ribs.
Now was really, reallynot the time.
“If you insist on so dishonoring Ptah the Creator who has given so much, then I
have no choice.  Order must be restored.  Order must alwaysbe restored.”
Inhaling slowly, Imhotep moved his arms to his sides and concentrated. 
It started with the gold inscribed in the metal and worked its way down, an
unearthly glow reminiscent of the sun itself.  As Imhotep slowly raised his
arms, the glow intensified until it came from all of his adornment, from Alex’s
restraints – from the chariot itself.  His arms were out and flat like the
horizon, gathering his power for the slow push up and beyond.
Alex expectedthe sun to rise with his motion, the first rays striking the river
below in a display that was sure to prove their point.
He had notexpected for the sun to keep rising– climbing until it hung at a
noontime zenith over their heads.  Neither had he expected for the touch of its
rays to have the effect they did.  As they were illuminated, the two mares
faded from pitch to a blinding white; his tunic bled from purple to a bright
and vibrant crimson.  It was the same color as the cloth wrapped about
Imhotep’s hips, which really, reallydidn’t matter right now but was the only
detail Alex’s brain seemed capable of fixing upon.
Imhotep let his arms fall to his sides, breath coming fast and a thin sheen of
sweat accenting the shimmer from the mineral powder his priesthood had always
adorned themselves with for the highest holy days.  Around them was nothing but
silence.  No one moved.  No one spoke.  Alex would honestly have been surprised
if anyone breathed. 
They didn’t exactly have a plan for this, but Imhotep played it off with more
grace than Alex thought it was fair for any one person to have.
“O great Pharaoh, on this the day of his blessed birth, as Ptah our Creator
presented the sun to Amun-Ra to bless his reign of order and prosperity over
the heavens, so I honor my father with this humble gift to you.”  And he
lowered himself into a graceful bow of respect from his waist.  Alex watched
the entire affair with undisguised awe.  “The willful sun has once more been
brought to heel because the heavens have been brought to order.”
A snap of his fingers brought the youngest of their acolytes running forward to
kneel before Pharaoh and hold up a copy of the Reckoning of Days, modified with
Alex’s correction and inscribed on a tablet of gold inlaid with malachite and
opal.
“The wisdom of Ptah has given rise to a new order of days.  Our arrangement of
the stars would so often slip into chaos because we were remiss in our honor of
the gods during this time of sacred celebration.  We do not account for the god
who walks among us.  If, every four years, our sacred month is extended by one
day to allow for the celebration of he who sits on the throne of Iset, order
will be forever restored among the stars with whom we keep sacred pact.”
There was one terrible moment where Thutmose did nothing.  Alex knew he was not
unaware of the power just displayed – he’d seenhim go pale under his tan – and
yet he seemed determined to make them all wait as though he had some great
judgment to pass.  With measured movements he reached out and took the new
Reckoning from the child, stroking fingers along his own jaw as he studied it
and then simply set it aside.
“Your gift is commendable, Imhotep.  As a son of Ptah’s sacred priesthood, you
do your holy father proud today.”  His mouth curved up into a genial, paternal
smile, but something about the expression made Alex uneasy.  “But I see captive
Helios in your retinue.  Why not make a gift of him instead?”  Fear, disgust
and rage processed through Alex one on the heels of another at breakneck
speed.  “Surely a northern godling would make a better offering than a festival
every four years.  Why should one appease me better than the other?”
“Son of Helios,” Alex called back, naked defiance in tone and manner.  “And it
would be a poor gift indeed when I have only one master.”  Alex felt a rush of
fear in the wake of his words, but the sensation was not his own.
Thutmose barked out rich laughter, but Alex was certain he hadn’t imagined the
flash of temper immediately prior.  “And which master is that, child?”
Alex smirked, lifting one brow higher than the other.  “It wasn’t you that
brought the sun to heel.”  He shrugged and turned, chains singing a soft music
that despite his bold words made his skin crawl.  That wash of fear not his own
started to twist, to mingle with frustration and a possessive rage that shook
Alex to his core.
“Truly spoken, son of Helios.  Come.  Your master has brought us the sun – it
is time we celebrated her creator.”
 
    * - -
 
After the morning they’d had, Alex felt that he was entirely justified in his
continued indulgence of Pharaoh’s most excellent wine throughout the rest of
the day’s festivities.  When he found himself that same evening grabbed by the
front of his chiton, yanked into a dark corridor and slammed back against the
wall by a furious Imhotep, however, he rather started to regret it.
“You mad fool!  Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Me?  I’m not the one who went overkill on the fucking suntoday.”
The way Imhotep’s mouth twisted into a momentary frown told even an inebriated
Alex that his point had been well made.  Still, he wasn’t to be diverted.
“Ankhhaf is dying,” he hissed, face alarmingly close to Alex’s own and voice
pitched so that only he could hear.  “In six months – maybe less – Kemet will
be without a vizier to govern under Pharaoh.”
Alex nodded, but he wasn’t really seeing what point this information could
possibly have except.  “You are… to succeed him?”
There was a manic light in Imhotep’s eyes as he nodded sharply.  It was too
close to the look he’d worn on their way to Ahm Shere and Alex was too drunk
for the spike of fear that resemblance shot through him.  Imhotep saw it – of
fucking courseImhotep saw it – but drastically misinterpreted its cause.
Sort of.
“Khalex,” he murmured, both hands coming up to cradle Alex’s face between
them.  “My entire life has been about finding this opening and you gave it as a
gift without asking anything in return.”  Alex wasn’t sure if it was the words
themselves or the raw and vulnerable tenderness with which they were spoken,
but something in Imhotep’s reply made his heart leap into his throat.  “No
matter what comes, know that I will never abandon you.  You have no reason to
be afraid.”
Alex spared a brief thought to wonder whether or not Imhotepwas also drunk, but
quickly tossed it aside in favor of the action that definitelysounded like a
better use of his time.  In a way that felt familiar and yet not – because
nothing in the realms of the dead was exactly true to life – he reached both
hands (cuffed but no longer chained) to grab the taller man by the back of his
neck and pull him down to where Alex could surge up and kiss him.  And kiss him
and kiss him and kiss him.
Imhotep must have been drunk on something, for there was not even the faintest
hitch or hesitation in the way he responded – hungry and demanding – to those
eager, messy kisses.  Alex found himself digging his fingernails into Imhotep’s
neck for purchase and he responded with a low growl and a press forward until
Alex was well and truly pinned. 
“You should not have baited Pharaoh the way you did,” Imhotep panted against
his mouth before trailing little sucking kisses up the length of his jaw.  He
nipped at Alex’s earlobe and then sucked it into his mouth to soothe the
sting.  It was a reprimand, but the purr in his voice was most definitely
(territorially, a slightly hysterical voice in the back of Alex’s head pointed
out) pleased.  “Son of Helios, indeed.  You brazen, beautiful creature.”  He
laughed roughly against the shell of Alex’s ear and that alone sent a hot pulse
of desire rocketing across pale skin.
“It’s part of my charm,” Alex gasped back, unable to control the way his hips
jerked forward when Imhotep found a particularly sensitive place on his neck.
Imhotep hummed his agreement, bending just enough to suck a bruise at the bared
juncture of neck and shoulder.  “I won’t deny that, but you could perhaps have
skipped over telling the entire court that he was not man enough to master
you.”
That made Alex draw back, chest heaving with panting breath and eyes fierce as
he locked gazes with Imhotep.  “No, I could not.”  Imhotep opened his mouth to
respond and Alex cut him off, his own voice rough with the things he did not
express when in full control of his faculties.  “I will diebefore I let someone
else touch me without my consent.”  He meant every word.  “I bend when Ichoose
to bend, not at the whims of anyone else.”  He saw understanding in Imhotep’s
familiar face, but more than that, he saw that dark affection he’d craved for
longer than he wanted to think about, let alone admit.  “I wantyou,” he
continued, raw and earnest.  “I do not want him.”
Once more he saw that mouth open and once more Alex jumped in before the
argument could be made.  “He can sweeten the pot with anything he likes; the
scales still tip to you.”  For a brief moment, Alex saw something soft and very
young when he looked up at Imhotep’s face. 
“A little godling, indeed.”  It captivated him, but he soon had his attention
diverted elsewhere. 
Being pulled from the wall and held tight against a powerful body while being
exquisitely, thoroughly kissed was one hell of a distraction.  Alex melted into
that strength and mewled desire into his claiming mouth.  Imhotep took one step
backward and then spun them both around until he sat on the closest of this
hallway’s intricately carved wooden benches with its respective mess of overly
elaborate cushions.  His uninjured hand trailed down Alex’s arm until he could
take hold of that hand and tug him in close again.  He made to turn, to recline
lengthwise along the seat while he pulled Alex against his chest.
Alex…
Alex had different ideas.
He came forward when Imhotep tugged, but he brazenly straddled his thighs
before any change in respective positions could be achieved.  He heard the
sound of breath catching in the throat that courted it and grinned. 
In a more rational frame of mind, Alex would absolutely have flushed at the way
his clothing and chosen position did nothing at all to hide the heat and
hardness of him.  As it was, he was too busy being lost in the sensual slide of
linen and skin, in the way Imhotep’s eyes went absolutelyblack.  He wanted – oh
Alex had ample proof of that from his perch – but even now he tried to show
restraint. 
Alex was having none of it.
 
He rolled his hips, grinding against the body beneath him in a way that was not
so much suggestive as it was outright explicit.  Imhotep snarled against his
jaw, but instead of upping the ante, he seemed even more determined to lower
it.  He leaned up only slightly and this time teased at Alex’s mouth – little
brushes, small nibbling caresses that made him whimper and try to press for
more, for deeper.  This only encouraged Imhotep, who rested firm hands on
Alex’s hips, holding him steady so that he had to work hard if he was going to
continue to try and push for his own way.
Restraint had always had the opposite effect of docility on Alex, but with
Pharaoh’s wine still thick in his blood – with the scent of incense heavy in
the air and the sound of dancers’ drums matching the race of his heart – he
felt his resistance twisting into something new.  There was a dark and primal
place inside of him that thrilledat his partner’s strength, purredat the
exertion of precise control.  He arched his back and leaned forward to nip
sharply at the skin under Imhotep’s jaw, but it was only a rattling of the
chains and they both knew it.
It even made Imhotep laugh; a low, rich sound brushed against Alex’s ear that
made the muscles in his stomach clench and flutter.  It was not a sensation
with which he was familiar, but he found he liked it all the same.  “Such
fire,” he purred, giving Alex just a taste of a firmer kiss.  “Never tamed, but
I wonder… can you be tempered?”
Alex didn’t have the slightest clue what that meant but bit his lip and nodded
anyway, flushed and eager to please.  Imhotep hummed pleasure and caught Alex’s
lower lip between his teeth, sparking a sharp moan on the verge of ‘too loud’
for their present venue.  “Let’s find out,” the man beneath him rumbled.  “Fold
your arms behind your back, Khalex, so that you can hold your forearms with
your hands.”
There was hesitation, but not for lack of willingness so much as Alex having no
earthly clue how to move his body that way.  His total loss was apparently
written all over his face, for Imhotep – with that crooked smirk Alex decided
was completely unfair – moved his limbs into the right arrangement.  It wasn’t
perfect, his left arm would take a long time to come back to anything like full
dexterity, but it was enough of a guide that Alex could make his own
adjustments from there.
It wasn’t an uncomfortable change, all things considered, but what surprised
Alex most was how much it altered his balance.  Staying astride Imhotep was
fine once he found the right angle for his knees, but staying upright without
tipping one way or another was a constant game of micro-adjustments in the
various muscle groups of his torso.  He liked to think that he would master
this quickly under normal circumstances, but his head was slightly hazy and his
balance already impaired as it was, so for the moment it was a challenge just
by itself.  Imhotep watched him struggle with it, waiting until he saw the
corrections get smaller before adding anything else to the mix. 
“Excellent,” he growled, restoring his hold on slim hips to help stabilize him
further.  “Now, little one, tell me what you want.”
Even drunk and slightly distracted with keeping himself upright, Alex found he
was still capable of the dry ‘over-the-glasses’ type stare that said ‘Are you
kiddingme?’ better than any amount of vocalized exasperation.  “I’m practically
riding you half naked with my dick dripping on your leg and you have to ask?” 
Imhotep swatted his thigh – which made Alex gasp and his cock twitch – and bit
a light reprimand into his lips.
“That mouth is going to get you into trouble one of these days.”  And though
there was absolutely an edge of threat in Imhotep’s reproach, his voice never
lost the warmth that made Alex feel safehere, made him feel… made him feel
wantedhere.  “Since you refuse to answer me politely, you will take what I give
you.”  Alex was not at all ready for the way that phrase sparked arousal in his
belly.  “Stay quiet or I stop.”  Which Alex sincerely hoped was relative since
he was pretty sure no one would hear anything over the sound of the feast down
the hall.  “Stay balanced or I stop.”  That one was actually fair, since he had
no desire to end up in a heap of limbs on the floor right now. 
“Hold still, or I stop.”
Alex bit down hard on his lower lip, but nodded.  Already his thighs were
beginning to ache from holding him steady in a position that was not so easy as
one might think.  Imhotep’s smile grew wider, more wicked, and he leaned back
against the cushioned bench.  His left hand rested on a small pillow next to
Alex’s leg; his right one moved beneath the short chiton and brushed the backs
of his fingers along Alex’s length.
It wasn’t enough and was too much all at once.  Alex felt like every muscle
from his ribs to his knees just clenched in unison and there was half a
heartbeat when he felt entirely paralyzed.  It stirred a kind of frenetic
energy in him and more than anything Alex wanted to move,but when he forced
open his eyes and saw the way Imhotep was looking at him, he set his jaw and
exerted what little self-control he had left.
“Oh,” Imhotep breathed out on a rough, pleased growl.  “Oh good
boy,Alaexandros.”  That kind of praise made Alex’s stomach do flips and (though
he tried to swallow it) pushed a strangled whimper from his throat.  He was so
focused on following the rules (stay still stay up stay quiet) that he wasn’t
paying an enormous amount of attention to anything else, so when Imhotep took
him in hand properly his vision went momentarily white.
Imhotep was slow, steady – his hand over Alex was almost-but-not-quite
satisfying.  Alex found himself panting for breath within minutes, thighs
beginning to tremble with the combination of pleasure and constraint.  He was
light-headed and flushed, soon unable to prevent the minute rocking of his hips
in time with Imhotep’s hand.
Imhotep twisted his wrist at the top of one stroke, palming over the head in a
way that made Alex nearly choke before resuming his motion, using his
apostate’s own precum to ease the slide of skin on skin.  “Look at you,” he
growled, something hungry in his voice that made all the muscles in Alex’s back
seize up and then shiver loose.  “You try so hard, Khalex.”  Alex worked at
making his eyes focus, but when he found Imhotep’s gaze, there was an intensity
there that almost made him wish he hadn’t.  “Why?  Why do you push yourself to
such extremes over and above what has been asked of you?”
Alex could already feel his mouth moving, shaping words that for some reason
scared him.  He twisted his head rapidly down and away, eyes squeezed shut and
lips pressed hard together.  He shook his head vehemently and half expected to
be dumped unceremoniously to the floor.  When, instead, he felt Imhotep’s
injured arm go around his hips, pulling him closer and steadying him all at
once, when he felt the hand on his cock squeeze once and then slow to an
agonizing crawl, he felt something crumbling in that space between his chest
and his stomach. 
“Tell me.”
They were two words, spoken with a hard, unyielding tone.  At any other time,
they would have made Alex nervous.  They probably should have made him nervous
right now, but in his weakened, open state, Alex felt so much warmth,
affection, feeling – impossible to convey in two little words, but there it
was.  It was the last straw of an already crumbling resistance and his answer
came out rough from a throat straining not to release the sounds of pleasure
building up within it.
“I don’t.”
It was as far as he got before another twist of Imhotep’s hand wrenched a
breathless cry from him.
“I don’t,” he repeated, “unless it’s you.”
 
    * - -
 
Imhotep’s hand slowed further, the implications of that statement taking longer
to sink in simply for the fact that it was the last he expected to hear.  When
the shock wore off, a primal snarl ripped its way from his chest and he pulled
the boy tighter against him.  Lips and teeth found the smooth, pale skin of his
neck and attacked it with abandon; in that moment he needed more than anything
to lay his claim.  The soundsAlaexandros made – needy, desperate, pleading –
lit a fire in his blood and Imhotep found desires awoken within himself that he
had never before seriously entertained.
His own arousal, heavy and throbbing where it was caught between their two
bodies, faded from a secondary to a tertiary concern.  It was another piece of
the unparalleled experience that was possessing Alaexandros, but beyond that he
gave it little thought – there would be plenty of time for that later.  He
worked his mouth up to the soft skin just under Alaexandros’ ear, sucking
lightly and smiling at the keening little whine he got in response before
tilting his head just that little bit further.
“That means you are mine,Alaexandros,” he purred, delighting in the way the
boy’s entire body jerked hard against him.  “You belong to me.”
“Yes,” Alaexandros gasped, the sweetest sound yet.  Imhotep tightened his hold
around those hips and sped his hand.  “Yes, oh god yes.”  It was confirmation
of a gift he had never believed his life would hold, but as Imhotep sought the
boy’s mouth and caught that lower lip between his teeth, he felt unimaginably –
perfectly– happy. 
“Come, Khalex,” he moaned, the words swallowed up in eager, messy kisses. 
“Come for me.”
At this point, he had expected that command to be what pushed Alaexandros to
his release; he had notexpected that it would be nearly so intense as it was. 
The entire body he held jerked forward against him, thighs clamping down around
his own – Alaexandros sobbedinto his mouth and fell helpless victim to the
spasms that left hot seed dripping down Imhotep’s hand and stomach.  He had
never seen release affect a body like that; it was beautiful. 
When Alaexandros went absolutely boneless in his arms, Imhotep shifted him
against his chest and lifted his right hand to lick it clean.  He didn’t know
whyhe did it – it had certainly never sounded like a good idea before now – but
he also didn’t feel like questioning the impulse too deeply.  It was good,
salty and tangy in a way that made him want to know how his Khalex would
shatter under his mouth.
The sound of footsteps from the other end of the hall gave him just enough time
to shift Alaexandros until he was held against his chest rather than straddling
him.  It was a more innocent position – but only just.
Imhotep had spent a lifetime honing his expressions into a weapon and not a
weakness; it was well he had, for otherwise his surprise at seeing Ankhesenamun
walking toward them unattended would have given him away entirely.
“My lady,” he began, openly looking over her shoulders for any sign of an
escort. 
“Relax,” she assured him, one hand lifted palm up in a sign of peace even as a
predatory smile curved her generous mouth.  “It is finished.”
For one terrible instant, Imhotep thought only of what he had just been engaged
in, before common sense caught up and reminded him of the reason all Pharaoh’s
women had been absent that day.
“All is well, I trust?”
“Sadly, no,” she replied, though there was an edge to her tone that said she
wasn’t all that sad about it.  “We lost them both tonight.”
“My condolences.”  It was the polite thing – the expected thing – to say in
such circumstances, but it was hardly the first time this particular tragedy
had struck in Pharaoh’s house.  Nor would it be the last, despite the desperate
rush as Thutmose crested his twilight years.  Ankhesenamun shrugged one of her
shoulders and stalked closer, shaking her head at the boy in his arms.
“Oh,” she crooned, a sweetness to her voice that set his teeth on edge.  “Poor
lamb never sampled royal wine before, did he?”
Imhotep couldn’t help but see his apostate as something much closer to a
panther kitten than a helpless lamb, but he did not dare make the correction –
not even in play.  Ankhesenamun was a deft and agile player, underestimating
her was to court death.  “Not hardly, no.”  But it presented as good an
opportunity for escape as ever.  “If you would be so kind as to lend us one of
your slaves to help us find our quarters for the night, I think it is best to
let him sleep.”
He made to stand, but found his way blocked by Ankhesenamun, a significant
obstacle to movement of any kind.  It was another play, but he could do nothing
until she finished whatever gambit lay in wait.  “The whole city is talking
about you.  Even in the harem we have heard talk of nothing else.”  She lifted
one hand to press it warmly against his cheek, thumb brushing just under his
eye.  It was entirely inappropriate, but propriety had never stopped
Ankhesenamun from doing as she liked when no one could see.  The little
rebellions had always amused him, the touches simply another (albeit enjoyable)
part of their repartee. 
Just now, however, he found that it made him vaguely uncomfortable. 
“The power you wield…”  She trailed off and shook her head, finally letting her
hand fall away.  “You really are something special.  Is it true that you will
succeed Ankhhaf?”
He knew better than to respond – there was no safe ground in this kind of
conversation – and she stepped back soon enough, satisfaction in her smile.  “I
will send Hippolyta to help you with your pet.  After all, I want him at his
best now that his piece is well and truly on the board.”  Point made, she
turned to go back to the celebrations and her Pharaoh.
Imhotep was left with ice slowly twisting knots in the pit of his stomach as
terrible realization dawned on him – far too late and fartoo slowly.
“Ankhesenamun,” he called after her, standing easily with Alaexandros in his
arms.  She paused and turned her head just enough over one shoulder to let him
know she was listening.  “What was it?  The one lost today?”
Ankhesenamun smiled.
“It was a boy.”
 
End Notes
     “Wherever this shadowed path might lead, we were both irrevocably
     committed to follow it to the end.” - Susan Kay
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