Chapter Text
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You’ve been tasked with cleaning the armor and the weaponry used in today’s games. A job that is rudimentary and frankly, barbaric compared to some but also better than others you’ve been forced to do in the past.
You don’t complain though. You can’t complain. Not when running your mouth will only get you the wrong side of a firm hand or the whipping post. And you’ve learned your lesson with that. So, you stay silent so you can keep your tongue in your mouth and your head firmly on your neck.
You keep your head down and you do the grueling work assigned to you, regardless of how filthy it is. How degrading. How shameful it makes you feel.
Even when you must drag the fallen gladiators out of the arena, stripping them bare of their armor and their dignity because the empire wastes nothing. When you have to cleanse the rapiers and shields of gore, and the putrid smell of decaying flesh burns your nostrils and floods your throat, suffocating you until you have no choice but to swallow the bile that rises. Because vomiting will only lead to punishment and shame, for they will surely beat you and then make you clean up your own sick, mocking you all the while.
And you don’t wish to draw such attention to yourself.
The broken spears leave splinters deep in the flesh of your palms, the axes sharp enough to nick your skin, but no one cares when your blood mixes with those that have already died. To them, your blood is the same. You are a slave. Less than, and they do not let you forget it.
The only remedy comes in the form of the mercy your dominus provides. He feeds and clothes you well, and he doesn’t allow you to be unclean in any form. In some ways you think it is a blessing from the gods that you were bought by a wealthy man who does not let men touch you. Nor does he lay a hand on you unless he believes you are in need of a lesson, a reminder of who you belong to, of your place beneath him. When you are wrong, he is quick to realign you, but you are grateful his punishments are not as egregious as they could be.
Your master is an avid supporter of the games, and he is always eager to lend you as help wherever you’re needed.
It is near the end of your scheduled duty, but you’re aware that you are short on the allotted items you were supposed to clean. That there is a gladiator you have not received armor and weaponry from yet. One that managed to survive the day, and even though you do not know him personally, you are relieved that he is alive.
You’ve heard the rumors. The walls talk loudly within the coliseum about the general who betrayed the emperors. A man who dared defy them, even in defense of those who are dear to him. The anguish he must feel to be told he has to fight one of them to the death. You cannot imagine such heartache. What will he must have to live, to be so strong. You wonder how it will end. Even if you know full well that very little ends in anything less than blood, in death and loss.
Perhaps, you should not search for the general alone now that the arena is emptying, and the bath house is nearly vacant. It would not do well for your master to catch you with another man, and worse, an unmarried, disbarred one. Even one of whom once held such honor, now fallen mightily from grace.
You cannot help your curiosity, nor your desire to finish the job even at the risk of penalization. Besides, you feel the need to make sure that he is of adequate health.
Stepping into the bath house, you are immediately hit by a wave of steam so thick you can barely see, can feel the heat of the pool wafting over you, the heavy scent of oil and spring water. It is hefty and the sweat already begins to bead at your forehead and gathers at the nape of your neck. There is little sound but the slap of your sandals on the stone floor, the tiny puffs of breath that cloud the air in front of you.
You round the corner into the privacy of the pools, and your eyes are drawn to him instantly on the far side of the bath house, turned away from you, your gaze can’t help but catch on the obvious impressive slope of his shoulders first, then the expanse of his broad back still encased in heavy armor, the metal glinting in the candlelight.
The breath leaves your lungs entirely.
Even from this distance you can make out the layer of filth caked across his nearly bronze colored skin. His hair is long for a gladiator and unkempt.
He turns his head and you take in his profile, the strong unshaven jaw, peppered with an array of dark and gray speckled hairs. The sharp line of his aquiline nose, the curve of his full pink lips, even cracked and bloody; your eyes sting with your forgotten need to blink. Your throat burns like fire and you convince yourself it is the steam and nothing more. That you are not allowing your eyes to linger on a powerful male form you should not be so gratified by.
The dirt and dust are smudged along his scruffy cheeks. A cut bleeds sluggishly on his chin. You’re entranced by the veins in his neck, in the way the muscles move as he grits his teeth. The large hand he fists at his side.
You aren’t sure whether you’ve seen something more beautiful than the planes of his face, you imagine what he must look like under all that filth. An observation that is not yours to make but you do it all the same.
He fumbles with the cinches on the side of the chest plate one handed and the glimpse you get of his other arm reveals the reason why. Blood runs in rivulets down his wrist and onto his fingers, dripping to the stone floor below.
He’s been injured in the fight, and for some reason chose not to be seen by a healer. Your brows draw together in concern, wincing in sympathy when you see his own face pinch, a hiss escaping his clenched teeth. A muscle in his cheek twitches, frustration in his demeanor.
It makes you wish to be of service, help him in whatever way he will allow, but you also know it is not appropriate for you to be here when it is his intention to undress and bathe himself.
The right thing to do would be to fetch a male servant and have him help the soldier out of his soiled garments.
You aren’t meant to witness such vulnerability.
But you cannot leave. In truth, you don’t want to leave. Instead, you move closer. You gather your bearings, remind yourself to inhale.
It is not your place or your concern, and you tell yourself it is about the armor and nothing more when you step forward and clear your throat, announcing your presence.
He stills immediately, a stone statue for a moment, before he turns sharply in your direction, posture coiled up, muscles rippling and body poised with an instinct bred from years in battle until the sight of you standing a few feet away registers fully, and you see him lose the tension in his limbs.
You fight the compulsion to duck your head and hide your gaze, reminding yourself that you and this soldier are as equals. That you do not have to address him by title or appear meek in his presence.
“It is not my intention to intrude, General,” you greet him, unsure how to correctly address him.
You have done nothing wrong. This is a public bath house. You are simply attending to your duties. A man such as himself would understand that.
“I’m here for your armor,” you murmur, voice thick and scratchy in your throat from disuse, fully aware that you are out of your normal comfort levels. “It must be cleaned and prepared for your next battle.”
You don’t speak often unless you are spoken to, and even then you wait to be instructed. So it leaves you out of sorts now to greet someone so boldly.
“Acacius.” His voice is rougher than you had imagined it might be. When you do not reply, he says again, “I am called Acacius. I am no general now.” The words are spoken hollowly, his eyes flashing with something that makes your chest ache and your mouth bitter.
“Forgive me, I do not mean to offend,” you whisper.
A man despises pity, especially from a woman, so you know he will not want yours now.
But his statement does lend credence to the hearsay. That nothing but his own actions, his defiance have led him here. It does not mean that you still cannot understand. Because is it not your actions that led you the same way?
It seems you have both made decisions without a thought as to the consequences. And now you must live with it and die by it. For that is life’s way. It is the only truth that does not change. You do not need to know what he has done to see with your own eyes that he is lost. That he knows not how to turn back the tide. If it can even be done. He has far sense been swept up in a current too strong to resist.
Now he is as bound as you. Perhaps more so. You carry the hope that you will one day have your freedom. That you may one day be recognized as more than property.
His only hope is that he might die honorably or gain the favor of the people through winning the games. But with the Imperator so against him, the very reason Acacius has been imprisoned, it is nearly impossible that he will ever see freedom outside of death.
This man is a stranger and you do not know him but you find your heart breaking all the same.
“There is no offense,” he assures, like it is not odd, duty or not, that you are here in the bath house for the soldiers and gladiators. His fingers continue to struggle with the cinch under his injured arm and you do not want him to lower himself so by having to request your assistance.
You don’t think him weak and the last thing you want to do is give the impression that you do.
You step closer, gesturing to his chest plate. “Allow me?” you ask softly, tentative, hesitating until you see him release a breath and nod slowly out of the corner of your eye.
His hand falls away as you come up to his side, and you carefully avoid eye contact as your nimble fingers reach for the leather ties and begin undoing them deftly.
Breaths scarcely leave your mouth; you can feel the heat from his body standing this close, a wall of a man deliberately keeping himself still, from touching you. Only the sound of his breathing fills the space between you. Within this proximity you can smell the blood and sweat on his skin, and your nostrils flare with it, filling your lungs.
You back away the second the ties are undone, folding your hands in front of you, gaze dropping down and away.
You hear him grunt as he pulls the armor over his head, leaving him in only his tunic and the linen wrap he has around his neck. It is only now you notice his feet are bare.
The chest plate joins the rest of his armor on the table nearby and you know it’s time for you to go now. That you’ve overstayed your welcome. You should take the armor and leave him in peace. Offer to fetch him a healer for his wounds and a male servant to assist in washing and be done with it. The dominus will be expecting you back soon.
You should go now. But you don’t.
Instead, you say, “let me suture the wound on your arm.”
Acacius looks as surprised as you feel, and perhaps thrown a bit off kilter by such an unorthodox offer. But his eyes are tired and his body is weary and something tells you that he doesn’t want too many people seeing him this way, but you are no one. You are nothing so you don’t count.
Maybe that’s why he agrees.
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