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"... so I punched him in the face!", Quintus explained way too happy for it to be genuine. Gaius could see his stiff shoulders, the slight hysteria in his eyes and the way his fingers moved falteringly as if he didn't know what to do with them. Problems at home. Again.
Gaius wasn't prepared to be awake during these dark hours, but Quintus smuggled himself into his room regardless. If everyone else in this household wasn't so drunk, he would have never gotten across the Atrium without being noticed. He could still hear their slurring singing voices from here. It sounded like an orchestra of dying cats.
What shocked him was, that Quintus didn't take the chance to drink himself to oblivion like the rest of the Roman population.
It seemed like his friend had quite the rough night. He provoked two older boys and immediately attacked them after they gave him his energy back. Knowing this, it's no great wonder why Quintus was so beat up. His left eye already began colouring in greens, yellows and blueish colours and on the sides of his torso he could also see the exposed, story-telling spots. Gaius was just happy he hadn't gotten any serious injuries that weren't a little blood trickle or a bruise. He pitied his friend a little, because he would bet his right leg, that they would hurt like hell the next few days. Quintus' ego must've also taken a hit, because right now Gaius couldn't think of any person, old or young, that wouldn't make fun of him on the spot if they knew of his condition.
He must have really pissed them of, huh?
While it's completely in Quintus' nature to be unbearable and get into fights everywhere, it's uncommon to happen so late into the night. We don't talk about That Day. That was a special occasion. Even Claudia got into trouble, because of him.
How Julia got out of that situation will forever be a mystery for the small friend group.
„... and they just left me after that! Such pussies! Can you believe that?“ Gaius concentrated on Quintus again,“Be happy about that. You already look like you climbed straight out of the grasp of Orcus! What even happend to your tunica?“
„Didn't you listen to me!? I already told you, it got ripped open when I tried climbing over that senator's fence, because a dog barked at me and I lost my balance.“
Gaius did indeed not listen. So he just shrugged and observed Quintus' destroyed tunica. It was smeared with an impressive amount of variant substances. A few he could tell, grass stains, sweat, a drop of blood here and there, simple dirt, others where a little more tricky to get a clue on. He didn't even want to guess what the yellow fingerprints were. Gaius gave up on trying to find out what they are; not that it would work in the shine of the simple oil lamb illuminating the room. In that light there were little colours one could admire.
There was also a rather long rip in the textile, presumably from when he stumbled over the fence. Under the dirty rags a bit of tan skin could be seen.
Gaius wanted to drive his hands up Quintus´ sides. To shrug the dirty rest of his ruined tunica off of his body. To press him down into the bed and kiss along his neck right up to the sensitive place under his ear. To whisper softly in his ear how much he wants him, How long he'd wanted to do this. How he'd never want this moment to end. How he'd-
„Gaius?“ Quintus looked at him slightly concerned, Gaius could feel embarrassment wash over him and was quite thankful for the lack of light in the shadowy room.
„Just thinking about your stupidity. Why again did you think punching that respectable citizen of Rome was a good idea?“ At the center of Gaius' clearly fake smile Quintus just puffed up his cheeks and grumbled slightly annoyed, that „in no way these bastards could have been respectable“.
Quintus looked cute like that. Quintus often looked cute like that.
When he was ready to look in Gaius' eyes again his bashful visage changed to one of desperation and anguish “Everyone is gonna make fun of me, won't they?“
At that Gaius had to snicker“ Not like that's something new for you.“ At that Quintus had to audibly sigh and let himself fall back on the bed. Gaius couldn't deny his satisfaction of seeing Quintus spread on his bed with his arms above his head, even though he would enjoy that sight even more if he could lean over and press his lips to the slightly bruised ones of his friend.
„Do you think I could weave this grand story of me going against ten strong men who harassed a beautiful and kind woman, whom i spent the rest of the night with?“ Quintus hopeful eyes met his, but were ultimately met with disappointment. „It didn't work last time, why should it now?“ He was met with a defeated groan.
Gaius laid down too, because the picture of his friend under him was too much to deal with. „At least you can spend your night with me, Gaius Drusus Maximus, the strongest man in all of Rome. You should feel honored, considering I have to spend mine with a little weakling who got beat up by small fries!“
That earned him a kick, but turning his head he could see that Quintus' frown has disappeared from his face and he tried his hardest to not smile like an idiot.
„You're terrible. I'm tired!“ He whined, but didn't get up to lie down the right way. It probably hurt too much to move. Sympathy for his companion washed over Gaius. He watched him eye the ceiling, as if it held all the secrets of the universe. It didn't of course, so it was no great wonder that Quintus looked back at him after some time.
„What do you think Magister is doing right now?“
Gaius had to chuckle slightly at that. „Probably searching for the meaning of one of those abstract texts, he always wants us to analyse. He get's real passionate about those.“
„Definitely, that guy is never fun. Why would he suddenly decide to become tolerable now!“ Quintus had this impish shine in his eyes again. Mixed with his lopsided grin and pretentious wrinkle of his cheeks he looked absolutely stunning.
Gaius felt speechless. He couldn't look away. He was caught in the stare of Quintus, as if his life laid in the hands of his dear friend. Gaius was completely at his mercy and Quintus could decide what would happen to him. He was-
Quintus little grin turned to a frown and his eyes darkened slightly. Lady Fortuna was seldom on his side. „Or he's working on more unsolvable questions for me, specifically.“
Gaius started laughing, but it sounded rather desperate even to his own ears. Fortunately though, Quintus didn't seem to find anything strange and joined in.„No, I'm serious! He always asks me the most complicated questions not even Cicero could think of and then gets mad at me when I can't answer them for any "unbelievable" reasons! Who does he even think I am that I would be able to speak that godforsaken language perfectly?“ Gaius couldn't stop laughing.
Quintus was not lying that Magister saved a lot of the harder questions for Quintus, but he was vehemently exaggerating. Some of them should have been solvable, even for Quintus.
Though he couldn't disagree with the fact, that Magister was awful. He was one of the worst, when it came to assignments. He was very particular about deadlines and his tasks were extremely boring. Magister took it very personally, if one of his students didn't complete their assignment at all. Like Quintus, which was just another case of him fucking up.
Gaius was at a loss of what Julia did, to make Magister not hate her. But good for her, he reckoned?
„He's dumb...“ Quintus quietly grumbled. Gaius couldn't help but look at his ill-tempered friend, before they both fell into a comfortable silence.
„Come on, you big baby! Let's get you to sleep.“