Fic: Media Vita
Title: Media Vita
Pairing: Federer/Nadal
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: ~7200
Warnings: Roman gladiator AU
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were.
Summary: Roger is the greatest living gladiator in the province.
A/N: For frogglesthefrog, my partner in crack. Many many thanks to ifeelfinite and rilla_ for the beta.
The gossip went round quickly in the late afternoon after drills had finished: Marius had been to the slave-market, and was bringing a new man back to the school. They'd been short a fighter since the last games, and the accident. One by one the men curiously cut their eyes over to where Roger sat in the shade of the portico with some of the fighters of the first class, to see how he would take the news. The dead man had died by Roger's sword.
With status ranked by the men who'd fallen to you in the arena, Roger reigned supreme as the first gladiator of the troupe; the first gladiator of the province, if Marius' advertising was to be believed. There wasn't a man among the loose crowds casting glances his way who hadn't fallen to him, whether in training or in the arena itself. His victories cloaked him with an air of invincibility, like a Hercules among mortals.
Roger scuffed the dirt floor with the toe of his boot, keeping his own eyes down and away while he half-listened to the talk around him. What was one more novice fighter to him, anyway?
-
When Marius returned the sun was nearly setting and the men were eating their dinner in the mess, so that nobody was there when the cart bearing Marius' newest acquisition rolled back into the school. When Roger left the mess early, he found Marius in the courtyard, propping his lean, weathered form against a column of the portico while he watched the body-slaves examine his new acquisition.
"Roger! Come and see my new student." Marius was in a high good humour, very well-pleased with his day's business. He beckoned to Roger, and Roger went obediently. For all his affability and his proprietary fondness for Roger, Marius, the owner of the gladiator school and all its students, wasn't a man to be disobeyed. He gestured to the courtyard, where the new man was kneeling to be tattooed. From this angle all there was to be seen was the man's bare back, slick with sweat and gleaming like bronze in the low gold light, the muscles of the shoulders taut with the anticipation of pain. Roger had seen men who had had to be held down for the process; this one knelt unforced, but somehow there was no sense of submission in the act, only an impression of strength and force of self-control. He made no noise when the hot brand pressed against his shoulder. Roger could smell the seared flesh.
"He bears the pain well," he said. "Where is he from?"
Marius waved a hand dismissively. "One of the islands. Strapping young fisherman, something like that. All that doesn't matter now. You're right, he is strong."
The tattoo having been administered, the man was allowed to stand, which he did, slowly. He stood stock still while the slaves fussed around him. Roger watched the lean, tense back, the ragged hair that lay in damp strands at the nape of his neck. His arms were well-muscled, defined further by his tightly clenched fists. The slaves were handling him roughly, feeling over his body for weakness the way you did a horse. Then they turned him, and Roger got his first glimpse of the man's face: strong, defined, strangely young and old, framed with that fall of ragged hair that made the planes of his face all shadow and light. His eyes met Roger's, dark and unflinching and defiant, wild like an animal's, the gaze strong and sudden as a blow. A sense of connection jolted Roger sharply, as if the man had reached out over the distance that separated them and grasped his wrist in a crushing grip. It was unnerving, and Roger felt the urge to cut his eyes down and away - he, who had faced down the most terrible and feared fighters of his day. But he managed, with difficulty, to hold the man's gaze, and in the end it was the new man who looked away, though not with any sense of having been beaten, but more as if he were bored. Roger, watching, felt as though he'd lost.
-
Marius wasted no time beginning the new man's training, and the next day Roger stood in the shadows of the portico and watched the trainer, Felix, start him at the palus drill - a pole stuck in the earth so that it stood about a man's height, against which the trainee went through a sequence of offensive and defensive movements with a wooden sword and shield. Roger had gone through that drill so many times that it was almost a muscle-memory. He had to cross his arms across his chest to subdue the urge to join in.
Felix put the double-weight wooden training sword into the man's right hand, showing him the right grip, but the man was frowning - there was something not right about the way he held the sword, the way it sat in his hand. Watching with a practised eye, Roger guessed the problem barely a moment before it became obvious: Marius' new man was a left-hander. Switched to his left hand, the sword hung naturally in an easy grip; when he gave it an experimental swing, there was an unexpected fluency to the motion.
"He moves well, doesn't he?" said Marius, appearing at Roger's side.
"It's hard to tell for now," Roger said, though it was true.
Felix was pulling the new man's arm up into the first movement, showing him how to hold the shield full across his body. It looked strange and backwards, the shield in the right hand, the sword in the left.
"He's left-handed, too?" said Marius. "It's as well they didn't see that before, or I should never have afforded him. And he does look well, move well. I think that between you and him, we may make a show. We shall have you in Rome yet, Rogelius," he said, clapping Roger's shoulder heartily as he moved off.
Roger stayed a little while, watching. It was good practice to size up a potential opponent, particularly one with a natural advantage like left-handedness. But equally, there was something about the new man that drew Roger's eye, almost irresistibly. It took more effort than Roger cared to admit to turn away at last.
-
The first class fighters trained separately from the lower classes and the novices, so that Roger saw very little of the new man, and after a time it was easy to forget the shock of those dark eyes when they met his, and the gleam of bronzed muscles under their sheen of sweat. Easy, until the night that he came sullen and scowling to Roger's cell, dragged by the wrist by a harried-looking Felix.
"Roger," said Felix, "there's been an - incident. This man is going to sleep here from now on. Go on, in," he said then, shoving the younger man through the doorway into Roger's cell.
The spare pallet in Roger's cell had been empty since the last games, and since there had never been any suggestion of moving another fighter in to share, Roger had become used to having the space to himself. The cell wasn't large, and already it felt so much more crowded, even with the other man only standing near the doorway. His physical presence seemed to fill the space, his rough-spun tunic seeming only to emphasise the body it was meant to conceal, and Roger stood up, feeling small and somehow oddly vulnerable sitting down. They were nearly the same height, eye-to eye. Roger made himself hold that dark, fearless gaze.
"I'm sorry, Roger," Felix said, "there's nowhere else for him to go tonight."
"That's all right," said Roger, although there was something oddly unsettling about the prospect of sharing the small space with this man, whose presence set Roger's nerves on edge.
When Felix had left, Roger and the new man stayed standing, he by the door and Roger next to his pallet. The new man was looking around the small space: the light from the small oil lamp showing the baked brick walls with the small window set high, a blank black square, and the dirt floor and the low pallet with its straw bedding and coarse homespun blanket. There were no locks on the doors at Marius' school, and no bars on the windows, but it was a cell nonetheless. From somewhere in the school came the distant sound of low, rough laughter, but in Roger's cell there was only silence.
"Do you have Latin?" Roger said, after the silence had spun out long enough. The younger man looked up and snarled something low and harsh in a guttural barbarian tongue.
"It will be easier for you, if you do," said Roger.
The young man scowled, and raked one big long-fingered hand through the damp strands of his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. "A little," he said. His accent was thick and heavy, and he wrinkled his nose at the sound of the strange words.
Roger nodded. That was a start. "What's your name?"
"Rafa," the younger man said. Rrrafa, thought Roger.
"Rafa," he said. "I'm Roger."
"Roger," said Rafa, rolling the r and blunting the g, so that the familiar sound of his own name became strange and exotic to Roger. "You number one, no?"
"Yes," said Roger, because there wasn't any point in saying otherwise, and because there was nothing lurking behind the words when Rafa said them, as there could be sometimes with the other men - resentment, or combativeness. With Rafa, it was a plain statement of fact. "Why did you get moved here with me?"
Rafa wrinkled his nose. "The man I with, he say me very bad things about - about where I from, no? My family. So I - " he made his left hand into a fist, lifting it to show Roger the slightly scraped knuckles, and then he smiled. "Is good, no?" he said. The smile transformed him, lit up his face and his eyes, dispelled the shadows.
"Very good," Roger said, the corners of his own mouth twitching in spite of himself. Rafa's wide bright smile was infectious.
Rafa ducked his head almost shyly, still smiling, and tucked the stray wild strands of his hair back behind his ears. It made him look young and vulnerable, at odds with the rest of him. It was - strangely charming, Roger thought. When Rafa looked at him with upturned eyes, almost childlike, Roger couldn't help smiling back fully.
"You weren't a gladiator before this," Roger said. Rafa shook his head.
"No," he said, shrugging, and frowning while he searched for the words. "I am - of the islands. Now here."
"You weren't trained to fight?"
Rafa shrugged. "My uncle teach me a little, but no like this. This I never think of. I never hear this word - gladiator - before I come here."
"You're left-handed," Roger said, indicating the hurt left hand. Rafa looked down at it, then back up at Roger.
"Where I am from is bad luck to use this hand," Rafa said, holding the hand out to Roger, open as if he were displaying the bad luck pooled in the calloused palm. "At home I use only the other hand."
"Here it's very good luck to use this hand," Roger said, smiling. "Worse luck for everyone else."
"Worse luck for you?"
Roger shrugged, smiling. "Maybe."
"Maybe," Rafa echoed, a mischievous edge to his smile. Roger had to force himself not to stare at the curve of Rafa's mouth.
"I am glad I meet you at last, Roger," Rafa said after a little while. "Everyone say me, he is the best. I am glad I meet you."
"I'm glad to meet you too, Rafa," said Roger. He held out his hand for Rafa to clasp, a gesture of friendship, and Rafa stared at it, brow furrowed. Then he came forward and clasped Roger's arm, fitting them together so that his big calloused hand gripped the wiry muscle of Roger's forearm just below the elbow. His skin was hot against Roger's, his grip firm, the fingers pressing tightly into Roger's skin, and that - certainly that - Roger thought, accounted for the sudden jolt of sensation sparking along his arm and shivering down his spine. Rafa looked up then and his eyes were dark and steady on Roger's, and Roger felt again that blunt force of the connection between them, stronger still with physical contact. They stood there like that for a long moment, joined together, close enough that it set Roger's nerves alight. It was a warrior's embrace, heartfelt; a moment of real understanding, that Roger was strangely touched by. Then Rafa nodded tightly, and smiled, squeezing Roger's arm once more before he released it.
-
Roger didn't generally take much notice of the novices while they picked up their drills, but there was something about Rafa that caught the eye irresistibly - something in the way he moved, that focused animal intensity, a natural vividness of movement that couldn't be taught and that was as innate to Rafa as his bright boyish smiles and his strange, snuffling laugh.
In Roger's cell at nights, Rafa would sometimes talk about the island where he had been born and raised: about his village, and about the blue sea and how his father and uncles had taken him fishing sometimes on their boat; about the wriggling silver fish on the deck and the way his mother cooked them at home so that you could still taste the sea under the smoke of the hearth-fire.
In return, Roger told him about the mountains and the snow that he remembered from his childhood; the air so cold you could see your breath on it, the sharp scent of the pine forest and the rankness of furs against your body, the songs his mother sang as they huddled around the fire in the wintertime.
He told Rafa what he'd never told anyone before, about the sight of his father burning on the bier of the war-dead, and the long march down through the mountains with the shackles so cold against his wrists that they burned, and the dimly-remembered journey by cart ever southwards until he found himself blinking in the sun and dust of the slave-market.
And Rafa, haltingly, told Roger about his father's debts, how he had seen his mother and his sister sold at the markets on the island where they had been happy; about the journey in the hold of the ship, the crushed bodies in the darkness and the sea slapping against the hull, nothing like the calm blue beautiful sea of his childhood; about the shame of having Marius' eyes running over him like a cattle-dealer pricing stock.
After he had finished telling his story, he fell silent, and for a long time they both lay in the darkness and said nothing. Roger felt terrifyingly exposed, as though he had dropped his shield in the arena; exposed, lighter - liberated, somehow.
"Roger," Rafa said after a while. "I am glad I come here."
Roger turned in the darkness, his eyes finding the outline of Rafa's body, a shadow within the shadow. "I'm glad too, Rafa."
-
"You've never fought a lefty before, Roger?"
"No," said Roger. Rafa looked up from fastening on his leather greaves on arms and legs, and smirked at Roger. He understood enough Latin for that, all right.
"Well, it's different," said the trainer. "You're at an instant disadvantage, obviously, so -"
"I'll work it out," Roger said, and then, to Rafa, "Are you ready?"
"I am," said Rafa. His Latin was improved, though still loaded down with that thick, heavy accent.
They took their positions, slightly crouched, the first position of the palus drill, with their wooden shields held across the body to make up for the lack of armour. And then Felix called, Begin! and Rafa sprang into action.
Roger hadn't ever fought a left-hander before, and it was hard, like Felix had said - Rafa's sword arm was opposite his, and in theory that made them equal, except for Roger's long-learned instinct to slash across the body, aiming for a right-handed opponent's vulnerable sword-side. Only a fraction of a second needed to correct the instinct, but long enough to slow his reactions, and Rafa was quick, too - quick on his feet and quick to read Roger's movements.
He was inexperienced, though, drawing on the basic movements of the palus-drill for his attacks like he fitted his hard-learned Latin words into a sentence - just a little clumsily, and Roger would have downed him quickly if there hadn't been some spark there, some instinctive flair that had him spinning just out of the reach of Roger's sword, or skidding across the dirt to land a resounding blow across Roger's shield. When he went down at last, their fight had lasted maybe half as long as most fights in the arena - but even that was a long time more than most novice training fights.
Rafa panted on the dirt, squinting up at Roger through the bright afternoon sun. His shield had rolled away, and his sword lay limp and useless in his hand. Roger smirked and pressed the tip of his wooden gladius against Rafa's throat.
"Mercy?" Roger said.
"Yes," Rafa said, smiling, "mercy."
Roger looked over at the trainer, still smiling, and Felix made a show of deep thought, stroking his chin like a client at his own games, and after a moment or two he made the quick dismissive gesture that would have saved Rafa's life in the arena.
"Looks like you're lucky today," Roger said, taking the sword-tip away from Rafa's exposed throat and stepping back to let Rafa get up. Rafa winced as he stood, rubbing his ribs where Roger's shield had bashed against them. His skin was gleaming with sweat in the sun and smeared with red dirt along his arms and shoulders.
"You the lucky one," Rafa said, smiling. "I make you work, huh?"
Roger snorted, but Rafa kept on grinning, his smile bright against his tanned cheeks, wide and infectious.
-
The fact was, being the best got boring sometimes. Objectively, Roger knew he was probably the greatest living gladiator in the province; Felix had been a gladiator ten years and a trainer ten more, and he maintained that Roger was the best he'd ever seen. Marius had been in the business of the games longer, and he said the same. Maybe Rafa wasn't great yet, maybe not even good - but there was something there, some spark that lit to the spark in Roger and made a blaze between them.
So Rafa was a challenge, but a welcome one; for the first time in a long time Roger began to feel the thrill of the fight - as though atrophied muscles had begun to ease back into life, as though his mind were clearing and his reflexes sharpening.
And steadily Rafa began to lose the laboured adherence to the basic forms of the drills, developing a fluid, assured style. When Roger watched Rafa practice with the other men, he'd find himself struck sometimes by the grace and ferocity of Rafa's movements, the way he threw his whole self into every blow, stretching and flexing to the full extent of his long, muscled arms.
"He leaves himself exposed," Felix would complain. "But he's so quick, they can't touch him."
And they couldn't, not with Rafa moving like that; he made them look sluggish, clumsy. He had style, there was something that was purely Rafa about all those swinging sword-slashes, and the fierce, honest way he just came at you, over and over.
It felt like no time had passed at all when Marius decided he was ready for his first games.
"I don't know," Roger said, when Marius told him. "He's still very new."
"Rogelius," Marius said, "you see how he fights! It would be criminal of me not to hire him out. We must build him up quickly."
"I don't know," Roger repeated, and to be sure, it was hard to account for the heavy knot of dread twisting in his belly at the thought of Rafa in the arena. Wasn't that what they trained for, after all?
-
It was tradition that the night before the games began, the paying client would throw a banquet for the fighters in the forum; a last lavish meal of the delicacies that the fighters got so little of, living on thick helpings of barley mash that lay heavy in the belly but burned well as fuel for the body. Here there were delicate roast fowl and wine that didn't taste sharp as copper shavings. Most of the men gorged themselves; beside Roger, Rafa picked over a spartan plate and sipped from a cup of wine watered almost to a child's mixture. His face was shadowed and tense in the torchlight, quiet and solemn.
"Are you all right?" Roger asked, leaning close so as not to have to shout over the noise of the other men.
Rafa seemed almost startled to be spoken to. "I am fine," he said, in a tone that heavily implied he wasn't.
"Do you want to leave?" said Roger.
Rafa wrinkled his nose. "Can we do that?"
"Yes. As long as we don't go far. Come on," said Roger, standing. Rafa followed suit, glancing nervously along the length of the table, but the men were too drunk and gluttonous to pay attention. They walked together a little way off, to the edge of the forum where there was a little plain temple to Fortuna. Roger enjoyed the irony of that, and he beckoned Rafa over to sit on the steps. He half-wished he'd brought his wine-cup over, to offer a libation; but in truth he'd lost faith in the power of the gods long ago. Rafa settled down on the steps next to him, close enough that their arms pressed warm against each other. It was a balmy night, but there was a cool breeze and Roger was grateful for Rafa's presence.
"How you feel," Rafa said at last, "before you fight for first time?"
Roger swallowed, remembering. "I was afraid," he admitted.
Rafa turned to look at him. "You were?"
"Yes," Roger said. "Are you afraid, Rafa?"
Rafa grimaced, looking away back towards the torches and the banquet. "Yes," he said, nodding tightly. "I am afraid."
"You'll be all right," said Roger, though it wasn't his promise to make.
"After my family - " Rafa broke off, looking down, and began again, "after that, I think I want to die. But now I think I want to be alive, I want to live. Roger, I don't want to die."
"You'll be all right," Roger said again, adding silently to himself, you have to be.
-
Roger's own fight was over quickly; his opponent begged for mercy and received it from a grudging crowd, disappointed at the shortness of the match. But Roger's mind wasn't on his own match, not really.
Back in the tunnel, Rafa was waiting to go. He was helmeted but bare-chested, unarmoured except for his shield and his sword, clutched with a white-knuckle grip in his left hand.
"You win?" he said to Roger, as Roger came through into the cool shadows, welcome relief from the heat and dust of the arena.
"Yes," Roger said, and Rafa grinned.
"Good," Rafa said, nodding tightly.
While they waited for the intervening fights to be over, Roger taught Rafa the quick prayer to Nemesis that fighters gave before they went out into the arena, and Rafa repeated it, though without much conviction. He was practically vibrating with energy, bouncing on the balls of his sandalled feet. His features obscured by the helmet, he looked like some figure out of a legend - gleaming, muscled, serious. Roger didn't envy the man facing him down today. When the two men from the fight before Rafa's staggered back through into the arena - one of them bleeding badly from a thigh wound - he tensed up suddenly, every muscle taut with anticipation. Out in the arena the referee was whipping up the crowd for the next match - Rafa's match.
"Fight well," Roger said, and Rafa nodded tightly, and then he was gone, disappearing into the bright arena.
Roger waited in the dim shadows, listening to the roar of the crowd outside. Suddenly there was a bitter thread of menace in the sound; blood would be had today, Roger was sure. You learned, after long enough, to read the mood of an audience - to recognise the difference between a crowd satisfied to be merciful and one that wanted to see you bleed in the dirt. This crowd wanted blood. Roger thought of Rafa, Rafa with his unexpected boy's smiles and the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, his halting Latin and the furrow in his brow when he was confused or concentrating - Rafa out there in that arena, with an iron sword in his hand under the glare of the sun and a thousand pairs of eyes waiting for him to fall.
The roar of the crowd built to a gruesome crescendo, shot through now with the harsh discordant sound of applause. Roger's stomach twisted. That meant the fight was over - but for who? The crowd had begun to chant, and it was death they were calling for, as Roger had known they would - but whose?
And then came the roar of celebration, a thousand jubilant, blood-satiated voices washing round and through the arena, chilling Roger's blood. One of the fighters was dead. Maybe Rafa was dead. Roger steeled himself for that. To be a gladiator was to stand firm against death, whether it came for you or your opponent, or for the man you shared a cell with and called a friend. Roger had lost friends. He had killed friends. And yet the image of Rafa's body, lying bloodied and empty of life on the sand - it was wrong, somehow.
A figure appeared in the bright arch leading out into the arena, backlit by the streaming afternoon sun into a hunched indistinct shape - and Roger thought suddenly, with a bright piercing pain that shocked him, it isn't him, he's dead - but then the figure came closer, and raised its bowed, helmetless head and looked Roger straight in the eyes with that familiar dark gaze and Roger's head went light and dizzy with relief, because it was Rafa.
"Roger," he said, his voice rough and strained, his eyes desperate in the frozen mask of his face. He was slick with sweat and streaked all over with blood. There was blood on his hands and his face, and the sword he held in his left hand was wet nearly to the hilt with it. Across his bare torso blood and sweat and sand had mingled. "Roger. Roger."
And Roger, dazed, reached for him, mindless of the mess. He reached for Rafa and pulled him close, knocking the sullied sword out of his grip, and Rafa let out a harsh breath like a sob as their bodies collided, rough and ungentle. His arms came around Roger, clinging tight, and he buried his face in Roger's neck and shook hard while Roger held him together.
Roger could still remember the first time he had taken life in the arena; still smell the stink of the blood-soaked sand, the acrid sweat of the man who lay limply resigned at his feet, and the sweat of his own body, the deep ache in his muscles. He had looked up and the sun had nearly blinded him - he had had to squint to see the simple movement of the provincial governor's hand that sealed the fate of the man on the ground. Roger could remember the sword-weight in his hand, and the way that the man had frozen when the sharp tip pressed at the vulnerable point at the top of the spine - and then, with excruciating clarity, the shock of how easy it was to force cool iron through living skin and sinew, to sever and destroy. How little a thing it was, really, to take a man's life; how simple a thing it would be for their positions to be reversed, and for Roger to be the one kneeling in the sand.
He had stumbled back through into the blessed dark, and vomited on the sandy floor. Leaning with his palms braced against the wall of the tunnel, holding himself up, the bitterness of sour bile and death in his mouth, he had felt as though he were bringing up his very self. And then, suddenly, Marius had been there, with one hand flat against Roger's back where he leaned over.
"It will not be easier," Marius had said, his voice very close to Roger's ear. "Don't believe that it will. This is what you are now. Become used to it. Or else you will die." And then as suddenly as he had been there he was gone, and Roger was alone in the darkness.
He had not had to kill many opponents since that day, more thanks to Marius than to the gods. There were few clients who wished to see fights to the death, and Marius was careful with Roger now, not a man to risk his property for the sake of a few extra coins from some middling provincial looking to slake his bloodthirst or that of his troops. Marius was a canny businessman, and it was better to have the greatest living gladiator in your troupe than the compensation for a dead one, however high Roger's price might be.
Roger didn't tell Rafa any of the things that Marius had told him, the first time he'd taken a life in the arena. Instead he held Rafa, and then after a long moment he took Rafa by the shoulders and pulled him away from Roger's body just enough so that he could press their mouths together, harsh and hard, because they were alive. He wanted the taste of Rafa in his mouth and the feel of him under his hands. He could taste blood and he didn't know whether it was Rafa's or the dead man's and he didn't care either, because it was Rafa's mouth moving under his, and Rafa's hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise. There was nothing gentle about the kiss - all force and heat, the clash of teeth and tongues.
"Roger," Rafa panted. "Roger."
"Come with me," Roger said, and he took Rafa's wrist in a crushing grip and pulled him blindly through winding corridors until they reached the deserted cells which had once held wild beasts but now lay empty and abandoned, still reeking faintly of their former occupants. Roger shoved Rafa into the nearest of these, and they came together again, Rafa pushing Roger until his back scraped against the cool damp wall, and Roger thought that no wild animal could have matched this passion, the intensity of their kisses and the ferocity of their rough and clumsy caresses. It was like fighting, with the thrill of combat in every push and pull, the way their bodies met and the sound of their panting breaths, the iron tang of blood and the stink of sweat underlaid with the sharper scent of sex. And then Rafa reached between them and took them both in his big, calloused hand, and Roger looked down in time to see the wet, angry-red head of his cock moving through Rafa's fingers once, twice, three times before he came, biting down sharply on the salt-slick skin of Rafa's shoulder to keep from shouting; he heard Rafa's strangled gasp against his ear, and then there was slick heat spreading between them, and Rafa sagged against him, so that Roger was supporting the both of them against the wall. His knees felt weak, and he let himself slide down, bringing Rafa with him into a panting heap on the dirt floor. Rafa's full weight was across Roger's legs, and it was uncomfortable and he didn't care, so he stroked Rafa's hair and listened to the sound of his breathing become deeper and more even while his own heart steadied in his chest.
-
As a rule Marius was furious after one of his fighters was killed, but this time he collected the dead man's worth from the client and confided to Roger that the increase in Rafa's popularity was worth twice the price of a fighter like that.
"We'll be billing his name with yours before long," he said, watching Rafa go through his drills the next day when they were back at the school. "You should have heard how they roared for him, and afterwards his name was on everyone's lips. He's worth a fortune, he'll be star, you mark my words."
Roger lay awake at night thinking about it, listening to the sound of Rafa's slow, even breaths, and after a long while he reached across the space between their pallets and found Rafa's wrist in the darkness, encircling it tightly, and he fell asleep counting the beats that pulsed against his fingers.
-
And so it was barely any time at all before Marius announced that he had taken another contract to provide fighters for the funeral games of a very wealthy local man; twenty pair, he announced, for a three day spectacle of beast-fights and duels that would culminate in the most spectacular fight of all - and here he turned, bursting with excitement, to Roger, standing at the edge of the group of eagerly listening fighters with Rafa at his side - the fight between the greatest gladiator in the province, and his shadow, his opposite, the left-hander!
The sun was at its height, but Roger felt as though his blood had turned to ice. He had to school his features into a smile, to look as though he were pleased and grateful for the honour, but his mind was blank with the roar of the baying crowd. Beside him, Rafa was rigid, waves of tension roiling off him like heat. Roger hoped that Marius hadn't noticed - maybe he hadn't, because he had turned away and was talking about something else, but Roger wasn't listening - couldn't listen. Everything was heat and blood and death.
"We can run," Rafa said, the moment they got back to their cell - strange now, how it was theirs, not Roger's alone. Things like this kept occurring to him, laying bare the unavoidable fact of Rafa's importance. "We can escape. You and me, we go, we can -"
"We can't," Roger said, flatly. "Where do we go, you and I? What do we do with these?" He gestured at his shoulder and then at Rafa's, where the tattoos marked them indelibly as the property of Marius. Slaves, with no lives save what they could bleed out on the floor of some provincial amphitheatre. He sank down onto his straw pallet, back against the wall. Rafa sat down opposite him, raking his hair back from his face.
"Roger," Rafa said, "Roger, what if they - what if I - ?"
"Marius wouldn't risk us like that," Roger said, quickly. "We're too valuable to him to throw away."
Rafa looked up, meeting Roger's eyes. "Is not his choice," he said.
-
With only one win under his belt, Rafa should have been practicing drills and training with the third class fighters, but with the funeral games so close Felix had them training exclusively together, and as the days passed Rafa's swings became more tight and controlled, and Roger lost the instinct to slash across the body. They trained together so much that Roger began to feel that he would never be able to fight another man, that he was moulding himself into the opponent for Rafa. There would never be another opponent for Roger; there would never be another fight after this one.
One day Rafa brought Roger down for the first time with a stinging swipe across the ribs that would have spilled Roger's guts if it had come from a real sword. Winded, Roger knelt panting on the ground, and Rafa looked down at him, stricken.
"Roger, please," he whispered that night, low and desperate in the darkness, "we run away, we go. I no can do this. Please."
Roger kept his eyes shut tight and pretended to be asleep, forcing his breaths slow and even past the tightness in his throat.
-
The night before the games began was hot and moonless, the air in their cell suffocating, and lying sleepless and hopeless Roger couldn't shake the thought that it was black fate pressing horribly close around them.
"You are not sleeping," Rafa said, after a long, long while. He was an indistinct shape in the darkness.
"No," Roger said. "I can't."
There was a rustle of straw as Rafa moved, leaving his bed altogether and crossing the small space that divided them. Neither of the pallets was big enough for two, but nevertheless Rafa began to settle himself against Roger's side, and if Roger turned onto his side so that they were pressed chest-to-chest there was just enough room for both of them, even if Rafa was probably half on the floor and Roger was pressed against the cool cell wall. This close, Roger could make out the glitter of Rafa's eyes, his cheekbones and his soft, full mouth. He raised his fingers and drew the tips gently across Rafa's jaw, traced the strong line of his cheekbones, swiped his thumb over Rafa's lips, and then he leaned forward and replaced his fingers with his mouth, dusting kisses across Rafa's hot skin while he held him steady with a hand flat against Rafa's neck, where the pulse beat strong and quick against his palm. Rafa sighed, warm breath against Roger's skin, and draped an arm over Roger's waist, anchoring them together with one hand on Roger's back. His blunt nails scraped lightly over Roger's skin, making Roger shudder. Rafa allowed Roger's kisses until Roger's lips pressed against the corner of Rafa's mouth, and then he turned slightly and caught Roger's mouth with his own.
It was nothing like the first time. The first time had been all raw heat, battle-thrill in the blood, the push and shove of desperation; here the roughness was replaced with gentleness, the desperate fumbling with slow, easy exploration of each other's bodies, so gently affectionate that when Rafa hitched his hips against Roger's the shock of sensation was that much sharper almost for being unexpected.
Roger had known that there were things some men did together, that drew sneers and coarse jokes from the other fighters, but there was nothing base about the beauty of Rafa under his hands, or the bright clear pleasure that built with every movement of their bodies against each other. The friction that caught and blazed low in his belly had nothing to do with sordid barracks-humour. The soft sounds that Rafa made against his mouth when they kissed caught at his heart and twisted in his stomach. He pushed his face against Rafa's neck and kissed the pulse-point there, tasted the salt of Rafa's skin, and Rafa dragged fingers through Roger's hair, scraping lightly against his scalp and down to cup the curve of Roger's skull, urging him back up for more long, languid kisses. When Roger rolled his hips against Rafa's, Rafa gasped against his mouth, breaking off to mutter soft, incomprehensible words against Roger's cheek, low and breathless while Roger bit tiny kisses along his jawline and hitched their hips together, again and again, friction catching to blaze in the heat between them and around them. Roger clutched at Rafa's hips, pulling them impossibly close, trying to keep that blaze burning ever higher. When he came, it was with Rafa's name choked on his lips, muffled against the slick skin of Rafa's shoulder while he shut his eyes tight against the impossible pleasure, Rafa's hand burning like a brand against his hip, holding him, claiming him, while he shuddered out his own climax with his lips pressed in an open-mouthed kiss against Roger's temple.
After, Rafa fell asleep half-sprawled across Roger, their bellies slick and sticky with sweat and semen. The cramped space was claustrophobic with the shared heat of two bodies pressed close together, and Roger felt choked by it, but he didn't loosen his grip on Rafa's waist, and he relished every deep breath that pressed them impossibly close, the beat of Rafa's heart matched to his own.
-
Armoured and helmeted, Rafa and Roger stood in the cool shadow of the tunnel leading out into the arena. Out in the heat and the roar of the crowd the referee's clear practiced voice cut through the jumbled din of the audience, describing Roger's glittering career, and the upstart left-hander who'd risen so far and so fast to challenge him. He was stirring the crowd to frenzy. Marius must have paid him a fortune.
"Roger," Rafa said, his voice tight. "Roger."
Roger turned to face him; through the slits of their helmets their eyes met, and Roger felt the same thrill of connection as he had done that first time Rafa had turned and caught him with those dark, knowing eyes in the courtyard of the gladiator school - so long ago, so little time ago.
"It's all right," Roger said. "It's all right. I know. Rafa, I know."
Rafa held his gaze, and nodded. Then he held his hand out, and Roger looked at it for just a moment before he stepped close and gripped Rafa's arm in that same warrior's embrace of their first meeting, clasping Rafa's forearm just below the elbow where the skin was paler and softer, his fingers pressing tightly into Rafa's skin. Rafa returned the embrace with equal intensity, and then he looked up and caught Roger's eyes again, and this time he smiled, that bright boy's smile that lit something fierce and pure in Roger's chest.
In the arena the noise of the crowd had crescendoed, but it seemed to be very far away. For a moment the arena, the crowd, the reality of the fight that was coming - all that receded into a dim periphery at the edge of Roger's awareness. There was nothing but Rafa and Roger, and this moment.
"Ready?" Roger said at last, and Rafa nodded and said, "Ready. Yes."
"Then let's give them a show," Roger said. He squeezed Rafa's arm tightly one last time, and Rafa returned the embrace, and then they separated to stand shoulder to shoulder until the call came, when they would walk out together into the arena and the fight of their lives.
-
Pairing: Federer/Nadal
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: ~7200
Warnings: Roman gladiator AU
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were.
Summary: Roger is the greatest living gladiator in the province.
A/N: For frogglesthefrog, my partner in crack. Many many thanks to ifeelfinite and rilla_ for the beta.
The gossip went round quickly in the late afternoon after drills had finished: Marius had been to the slave-market, and was bringing a new man back to the school. They'd been short a fighter since the last games, and the accident. One by one the men curiously cut their eyes over to where Roger sat in the shade of the portico with some of the fighters of the first class, to see how he would take the news. The dead man had died by Roger's sword.
With status ranked by the men who'd fallen to you in the arena, Roger reigned supreme as the first gladiator of the troupe; the first gladiator of the province, if Marius' advertising was to be believed. There wasn't a man among the loose crowds casting glances his way who hadn't fallen to him, whether in training or in the arena itself. His victories cloaked him with an air of invincibility, like a Hercules among mortals.
Roger scuffed the dirt floor with the toe of his boot, keeping his own eyes down and away while he half-listened to the talk around him. What was one more novice fighter to him, anyway?
-
When Marius returned the sun was nearly setting and the men were eating their dinner in the mess, so that nobody was there when the cart bearing Marius' newest acquisition rolled back into the school. When Roger left the mess early, he found Marius in the courtyard, propping his lean, weathered form against a column of the portico while he watched the body-slaves examine his new acquisition.
"Roger! Come and see my new student." Marius was in a high good humour, very well-pleased with his day's business. He beckoned to Roger, and Roger went obediently. For all his affability and his proprietary fondness for Roger, Marius, the owner of the gladiator school and all its students, wasn't a man to be disobeyed. He gestured to the courtyard, where the new man was kneeling to be tattooed. From this angle all there was to be seen was the man's bare back, slick with sweat and gleaming like bronze in the low gold light, the muscles of the shoulders taut with the anticipation of pain. Roger had seen men who had had to be held down for the process; this one knelt unforced, but somehow there was no sense of submission in the act, only an impression of strength and force of self-control. He made no noise when the hot brand pressed against his shoulder. Roger could smell the seared flesh.
"He bears the pain well," he said. "Where is he from?"
Marius waved a hand dismissively. "One of the islands. Strapping young fisherman, something like that. All that doesn't matter now. You're right, he is strong."
The tattoo having been administered, the man was allowed to stand, which he did, slowly. He stood stock still while the slaves fussed around him. Roger watched the lean, tense back, the ragged hair that lay in damp strands at the nape of his neck. His arms were well-muscled, defined further by his tightly clenched fists. The slaves were handling him roughly, feeling over his body for weakness the way you did a horse. Then they turned him, and Roger got his first glimpse of the man's face: strong, defined, strangely young and old, framed with that fall of ragged hair that made the planes of his face all shadow and light. His eyes met Roger's, dark and unflinching and defiant, wild like an animal's, the gaze strong and sudden as a blow. A sense of connection jolted Roger sharply, as if the man had reached out over the distance that separated them and grasped his wrist in a crushing grip. It was unnerving, and Roger felt the urge to cut his eyes down and away - he, who had faced down the most terrible and feared fighters of his day. But he managed, with difficulty, to hold the man's gaze, and in the end it was the new man who looked away, though not with any sense of having been beaten, but more as if he were bored. Roger, watching, felt as though he'd lost.
-
Marius wasted no time beginning the new man's training, and the next day Roger stood in the shadows of the portico and watched the trainer, Felix, start him at the palus drill - a pole stuck in the earth so that it stood about a man's height, against which the trainee went through a sequence of offensive and defensive movements with a wooden sword and shield. Roger had gone through that drill so many times that it was almost a muscle-memory. He had to cross his arms across his chest to subdue the urge to join in.
Felix put the double-weight wooden training sword into the man's right hand, showing him the right grip, but the man was frowning - there was something not right about the way he held the sword, the way it sat in his hand. Watching with a practised eye, Roger guessed the problem barely a moment before it became obvious: Marius' new man was a left-hander. Switched to his left hand, the sword hung naturally in an easy grip; when he gave it an experimental swing, there was an unexpected fluency to the motion.
"He moves well, doesn't he?" said Marius, appearing at Roger's side.
"It's hard to tell for now," Roger said, though it was true.
Felix was pulling the new man's arm up into the first movement, showing him how to hold the shield full across his body. It looked strange and backwards, the shield in the right hand, the sword in the left.
"He's left-handed, too?" said Marius. "It's as well they didn't see that before, or I should never have afforded him. And he does look well, move well. I think that between you and him, we may make a show. We shall have you in Rome yet, Rogelius," he said, clapping Roger's shoulder heartily as he moved off.
Roger stayed a little while, watching. It was good practice to size up a potential opponent, particularly one with a natural advantage like left-handedness. But equally, there was something about the new man that drew Roger's eye, almost irresistibly. It took more effort than Roger cared to admit to turn away at last.
-
The first class fighters trained separately from the lower classes and the novices, so that Roger saw very little of the new man, and after a time it was easy to forget the shock of those dark eyes when they met his, and the gleam of bronzed muscles under their sheen of sweat. Easy, until the night that he came sullen and scowling to Roger's cell, dragged by the wrist by a harried-looking Felix.
"Roger," said Felix, "there's been an - incident. This man is going to sleep here from now on. Go on, in," he said then, shoving the younger man through the doorway into Roger's cell.
The spare pallet in Roger's cell had been empty since the last games, and since there had never been any suggestion of moving another fighter in to share, Roger had become used to having the space to himself. The cell wasn't large, and already it felt so much more crowded, even with the other man only standing near the doorway. His physical presence seemed to fill the space, his rough-spun tunic seeming only to emphasise the body it was meant to conceal, and Roger stood up, feeling small and somehow oddly vulnerable sitting down. They were nearly the same height, eye-to eye. Roger made himself hold that dark, fearless gaze.
"I'm sorry, Roger," Felix said, "there's nowhere else for him to go tonight."
"That's all right," said Roger, although there was something oddly unsettling about the prospect of sharing the small space with this man, whose presence set Roger's nerves on edge.
When Felix had left, Roger and the new man stayed standing, he by the door and Roger next to his pallet. The new man was looking around the small space: the light from the small oil lamp showing the baked brick walls with the small window set high, a blank black square, and the dirt floor and the low pallet with its straw bedding and coarse homespun blanket. There were no locks on the doors at Marius' school, and no bars on the windows, but it was a cell nonetheless. From somewhere in the school came the distant sound of low, rough laughter, but in Roger's cell there was only silence.
"Do you have Latin?" Roger said, after the silence had spun out long enough. The younger man looked up and snarled something low and harsh in a guttural barbarian tongue.
"It will be easier for you, if you do," said Roger.
The young man scowled, and raked one big long-fingered hand through the damp strands of his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. "A little," he said. His accent was thick and heavy, and he wrinkled his nose at the sound of the strange words.
Roger nodded. That was a start. "What's your name?"
"Rafa," the younger man said. Rrrafa, thought Roger.
"Rafa," he said. "I'm Roger."
"Roger," said Rafa, rolling the r and blunting the g, so that the familiar sound of his own name became strange and exotic to Roger. "You number one, no?"
"Yes," said Roger, because there wasn't any point in saying otherwise, and because there was nothing lurking behind the words when Rafa said them, as there could be sometimes with the other men - resentment, or combativeness. With Rafa, it was a plain statement of fact. "Why did you get moved here with me?"
Rafa wrinkled his nose. "The man I with, he say me very bad things about - about where I from, no? My family. So I - " he made his left hand into a fist, lifting it to show Roger the slightly scraped knuckles, and then he smiled. "Is good, no?" he said. The smile transformed him, lit up his face and his eyes, dispelled the shadows.
"Very good," Roger said, the corners of his own mouth twitching in spite of himself. Rafa's wide bright smile was infectious.
Rafa ducked his head almost shyly, still smiling, and tucked the stray wild strands of his hair back behind his ears. It made him look young and vulnerable, at odds with the rest of him. It was - strangely charming, Roger thought. When Rafa looked at him with upturned eyes, almost childlike, Roger couldn't help smiling back fully.
"You weren't a gladiator before this," Roger said. Rafa shook his head.
"No," he said, shrugging, and frowning while he searched for the words. "I am - of the islands. Now here."
"You weren't trained to fight?"
Rafa shrugged. "My uncle teach me a little, but no like this. This I never think of. I never hear this word - gladiator - before I come here."
"You're left-handed," Roger said, indicating the hurt left hand. Rafa looked down at it, then back up at Roger.
"Where I am from is bad luck to use this hand," Rafa said, holding the hand out to Roger, open as if he were displaying the bad luck pooled in the calloused palm. "At home I use only the other hand."
"Here it's very good luck to use this hand," Roger said, smiling. "Worse luck for everyone else."
"Worse luck for you?"
Roger shrugged, smiling. "Maybe."
"Maybe," Rafa echoed, a mischievous edge to his smile. Roger had to force himself not to stare at the curve of Rafa's mouth.
"I am glad I meet you at last, Roger," Rafa said after a little while. "Everyone say me, he is the best. I am glad I meet you."
"I'm glad to meet you too, Rafa," said Roger. He held out his hand for Rafa to clasp, a gesture of friendship, and Rafa stared at it, brow furrowed. Then he came forward and clasped Roger's arm, fitting them together so that his big calloused hand gripped the wiry muscle of Roger's forearm just below the elbow. His skin was hot against Roger's, his grip firm, the fingers pressing tightly into Roger's skin, and that - certainly that - Roger thought, accounted for the sudden jolt of sensation sparking along his arm and shivering down his spine. Rafa looked up then and his eyes were dark and steady on Roger's, and Roger felt again that blunt force of the connection between them, stronger still with physical contact. They stood there like that for a long moment, joined together, close enough that it set Roger's nerves alight. It was a warrior's embrace, heartfelt; a moment of real understanding, that Roger was strangely touched by. Then Rafa nodded tightly, and smiled, squeezing Roger's arm once more before he released it.
-
Roger didn't generally take much notice of the novices while they picked up their drills, but there was something about Rafa that caught the eye irresistibly - something in the way he moved, that focused animal intensity, a natural vividness of movement that couldn't be taught and that was as innate to Rafa as his bright boyish smiles and his strange, snuffling laugh.
In Roger's cell at nights, Rafa would sometimes talk about the island where he had been born and raised: about his village, and about the blue sea and how his father and uncles had taken him fishing sometimes on their boat; about the wriggling silver fish on the deck and the way his mother cooked them at home so that you could still taste the sea under the smoke of the hearth-fire.
In return, Roger told him about the mountains and the snow that he remembered from his childhood; the air so cold you could see your breath on it, the sharp scent of the pine forest and the rankness of furs against your body, the songs his mother sang as they huddled around the fire in the wintertime.
He told Rafa what he'd never told anyone before, about the sight of his father burning on the bier of the war-dead, and the long march down through the mountains with the shackles so cold against his wrists that they burned, and the dimly-remembered journey by cart ever southwards until he found himself blinking in the sun and dust of the slave-market.
And Rafa, haltingly, told Roger about his father's debts, how he had seen his mother and his sister sold at the markets on the island where they had been happy; about the journey in the hold of the ship, the crushed bodies in the darkness and the sea slapping against the hull, nothing like the calm blue beautiful sea of his childhood; about the shame of having Marius' eyes running over him like a cattle-dealer pricing stock.
After he had finished telling his story, he fell silent, and for a long time they both lay in the darkness and said nothing. Roger felt terrifyingly exposed, as though he had dropped his shield in the arena; exposed, lighter - liberated, somehow.
"Roger," Rafa said after a while. "I am glad I come here."
Roger turned in the darkness, his eyes finding the outline of Rafa's body, a shadow within the shadow. "I'm glad too, Rafa."
-
"You've never fought a lefty before, Roger?"
"No," said Roger. Rafa looked up from fastening on his leather greaves on arms and legs, and smirked at Roger. He understood enough Latin for that, all right.
"Well, it's different," said the trainer. "You're at an instant disadvantage, obviously, so -"
"I'll work it out," Roger said, and then, to Rafa, "Are you ready?"
"I am," said Rafa. His Latin was improved, though still loaded down with that thick, heavy accent.
They took their positions, slightly crouched, the first position of the palus drill, with their wooden shields held across the body to make up for the lack of armour. And then Felix called, Begin! and Rafa sprang into action.
Roger hadn't ever fought a left-hander before, and it was hard, like Felix had said - Rafa's sword arm was opposite his, and in theory that made them equal, except for Roger's long-learned instinct to slash across the body, aiming for a right-handed opponent's vulnerable sword-side. Only a fraction of a second needed to correct the instinct, but long enough to slow his reactions, and Rafa was quick, too - quick on his feet and quick to read Roger's movements.
He was inexperienced, though, drawing on the basic movements of the palus-drill for his attacks like he fitted his hard-learned Latin words into a sentence - just a little clumsily, and Roger would have downed him quickly if there hadn't been some spark there, some instinctive flair that had him spinning just out of the reach of Roger's sword, or skidding across the dirt to land a resounding blow across Roger's shield. When he went down at last, their fight had lasted maybe half as long as most fights in the arena - but even that was a long time more than most novice training fights.
Rafa panted on the dirt, squinting up at Roger through the bright afternoon sun. His shield had rolled away, and his sword lay limp and useless in his hand. Roger smirked and pressed the tip of his wooden gladius against Rafa's throat.
"Mercy?" Roger said.
"Yes," Rafa said, smiling, "mercy."
Roger looked over at the trainer, still smiling, and Felix made a show of deep thought, stroking his chin like a client at his own games, and after a moment or two he made the quick dismissive gesture that would have saved Rafa's life in the arena.
"Looks like you're lucky today," Roger said, taking the sword-tip away from Rafa's exposed throat and stepping back to let Rafa get up. Rafa winced as he stood, rubbing his ribs where Roger's shield had bashed against them. His skin was gleaming with sweat in the sun and smeared with red dirt along his arms and shoulders.
"You the lucky one," Rafa said, smiling. "I make you work, huh?"
Roger snorted, but Rafa kept on grinning, his smile bright against his tanned cheeks, wide and infectious.
-
The fact was, being the best got boring sometimes. Objectively, Roger knew he was probably the greatest living gladiator in the province; Felix had been a gladiator ten years and a trainer ten more, and he maintained that Roger was the best he'd ever seen. Marius had been in the business of the games longer, and he said the same. Maybe Rafa wasn't great yet, maybe not even good - but there was something there, some spark that lit to the spark in Roger and made a blaze between them.
So Rafa was a challenge, but a welcome one; for the first time in a long time Roger began to feel the thrill of the fight - as though atrophied muscles had begun to ease back into life, as though his mind were clearing and his reflexes sharpening.
And steadily Rafa began to lose the laboured adherence to the basic forms of the drills, developing a fluid, assured style. When Roger watched Rafa practice with the other men, he'd find himself struck sometimes by the grace and ferocity of Rafa's movements, the way he threw his whole self into every blow, stretching and flexing to the full extent of his long, muscled arms.
"He leaves himself exposed," Felix would complain. "But he's so quick, they can't touch him."
And they couldn't, not with Rafa moving like that; he made them look sluggish, clumsy. He had style, there was something that was purely Rafa about all those swinging sword-slashes, and the fierce, honest way he just came at you, over and over.
It felt like no time had passed at all when Marius decided he was ready for his first games.
"I don't know," Roger said, when Marius told him. "He's still very new."
"Rogelius," Marius said, "you see how he fights! It would be criminal of me not to hire him out. We must build him up quickly."
"I don't know," Roger repeated, and to be sure, it was hard to account for the heavy knot of dread twisting in his belly at the thought of Rafa in the arena. Wasn't that what they trained for, after all?
-
It was tradition that the night before the games began, the paying client would throw a banquet for the fighters in the forum; a last lavish meal of the delicacies that the fighters got so little of, living on thick helpings of barley mash that lay heavy in the belly but burned well as fuel for the body. Here there were delicate roast fowl and wine that didn't taste sharp as copper shavings. Most of the men gorged themselves; beside Roger, Rafa picked over a spartan plate and sipped from a cup of wine watered almost to a child's mixture. His face was shadowed and tense in the torchlight, quiet and solemn.
"Are you all right?" Roger asked, leaning close so as not to have to shout over the noise of the other men.
Rafa seemed almost startled to be spoken to. "I am fine," he said, in a tone that heavily implied he wasn't.
"Do you want to leave?" said Roger.
Rafa wrinkled his nose. "Can we do that?"
"Yes. As long as we don't go far. Come on," said Roger, standing. Rafa followed suit, glancing nervously along the length of the table, but the men were too drunk and gluttonous to pay attention. They walked together a little way off, to the edge of the forum where there was a little plain temple to Fortuna. Roger enjoyed the irony of that, and he beckoned Rafa over to sit on the steps. He half-wished he'd brought his wine-cup over, to offer a libation; but in truth he'd lost faith in the power of the gods long ago. Rafa settled down on the steps next to him, close enough that their arms pressed warm against each other. It was a balmy night, but there was a cool breeze and Roger was grateful for Rafa's presence.
"How you feel," Rafa said at last, "before you fight for first time?"
Roger swallowed, remembering. "I was afraid," he admitted.
Rafa turned to look at him. "You were?"
"Yes," Roger said. "Are you afraid, Rafa?"
Rafa grimaced, looking away back towards the torches and the banquet. "Yes," he said, nodding tightly. "I am afraid."
"You'll be all right," said Roger, though it wasn't his promise to make.
"After my family - " Rafa broke off, looking down, and began again, "after that, I think I want to die. But now I think I want to be alive, I want to live. Roger, I don't want to die."
"You'll be all right," Roger said again, adding silently to himself, you have to be.
-
Roger's own fight was over quickly; his opponent begged for mercy and received it from a grudging crowd, disappointed at the shortness of the match. But Roger's mind wasn't on his own match, not really.
Back in the tunnel, Rafa was waiting to go. He was helmeted but bare-chested, unarmoured except for his shield and his sword, clutched with a white-knuckle grip in his left hand.
"You win?" he said to Roger, as Roger came through into the cool shadows, welcome relief from the heat and dust of the arena.
"Yes," Roger said, and Rafa grinned.
"Good," Rafa said, nodding tightly.
While they waited for the intervening fights to be over, Roger taught Rafa the quick prayer to Nemesis that fighters gave before they went out into the arena, and Rafa repeated it, though without much conviction. He was practically vibrating with energy, bouncing on the balls of his sandalled feet. His features obscured by the helmet, he looked like some figure out of a legend - gleaming, muscled, serious. Roger didn't envy the man facing him down today. When the two men from the fight before Rafa's staggered back through into the arena - one of them bleeding badly from a thigh wound - he tensed up suddenly, every muscle taut with anticipation. Out in the arena the referee was whipping up the crowd for the next match - Rafa's match.
"Fight well," Roger said, and Rafa nodded tightly, and then he was gone, disappearing into the bright arena.
Roger waited in the dim shadows, listening to the roar of the crowd outside. Suddenly there was a bitter thread of menace in the sound; blood would be had today, Roger was sure. You learned, after long enough, to read the mood of an audience - to recognise the difference between a crowd satisfied to be merciful and one that wanted to see you bleed in the dirt. This crowd wanted blood. Roger thought of Rafa, Rafa with his unexpected boy's smiles and the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, his halting Latin and the furrow in his brow when he was confused or concentrating - Rafa out there in that arena, with an iron sword in his hand under the glare of the sun and a thousand pairs of eyes waiting for him to fall.
The roar of the crowd built to a gruesome crescendo, shot through now with the harsh discordant sound of applause. Roger's stomach twisted. That meant the fight was over - but for who? The crowd had begun to chant, and it was death they were calling for, as Roger had known they would - but whose?
And then came the roar of celebration, a thousand jubilant, blood-satiated voices washing round and through the arena, chilling Roger's blood. One of the fighters was dead. Maybe Rafa was dead. Roger steeled himself for that. To be a gladiator was to stand firm against death, whether it came for you or your opponent, or for the man you shared a cell with and called a friend. Roger had lost friends. He had killed friends. And yet the image of Rafa's body, lying bloodied and empty of life on the sand - it was wrong, somehow.
A figure appeared in the bright arch leading out into the arena, backlit by the streaming afternoon sun into a hunched indistinct shape - and Roger thought suddenly, with a bright piercing pain that shocked him, it isn't him, he's dead - but then the figure came closer, and raised its bowed, helmetless head and looked Roger straight in the eyes with that familiar dark gaze and Roger's head went light and dizzy with relief, because it was Rafa.
"Roger," he said, his voice rough and strained, his eyes desperate in the frozen mask of his face. He was slick with sweat and streaked all over with blood. There was blood on his hands and his face, and the sword he held in his left hand was wet nearly to the hilt with it. Across his bare torso blood and sweat and sand had mingled. "Roger. Roger."
And Roger, dazed, reached for him, mindless of the mess. He reached for Rafa and pulled him close, knocking the sullied sword out of his grip, and Rafa let out a harsh breath like a sob as their bodies collided, rough and ungentle. His arms came around Roger, clinging tight, and he buried his face in Roger's neck and shook hard while Roger held him together.
Roger could still remember the first time he had taken life in the arena; still smell the stink of the blood-soaked sand, the acrid sweat of the man who lay limply resigned at his feet, and the sweat of his own body, the deep ache in his muscles. He had looked up and the sun had nearly blinded him - he had had to squint to see the simple movement of the provincial governor's hand that sealed the fate of the man on the ground. Roger could remember the sword-weight in his hand, and the way that the man had frozen when the sharp tip pressed at the vulnerable point at the top of the spine - and then, with excruciating clarity, the shock of how easy it was to force cool iron through living skin and sinew, to sever and destroy. How little a thing it was, really, to take a man's life; how simple a thing it would be for their positions to be reversed, and for Roger to be the one kneeling in the sand.
He had stumbled back through into the blessed dark, and vomited on the sandy floor. Leaning with his palms braced against the wall of the tunnel, holding himself up, the bitterness of sour bile and death in his mouth, he had felt as though he were bringing up his very self. And then, suddenly, Marius had been there, with one hand flat against Roger's back where he leaned over.
"It will not be easier," Marius had said, his voice very close to Roger's ear. "Don't believe that it will. This is what you are now. Become used to it. Or else you will die." And then as suddenly as he had been there he was gone, and Roger was alone in the darkness.
He had not had to kill many opponents since that day, more thanks to Marius than to the gods. There were few clients who wished to see fights to the death, and Marius was careful with Roger now, not a man to risk his property for the sake of a few extra coins from some middling provincial looking to slake his bloodthirst or that of his troops. Marius was a canny businessman, and it was better to have the greatest living gladiator in your troupe than the compensation for a dead one, however high Roger's price might be.
Roger didn't tell Rafa any of the things that Marius had told him, the first time he'd taken a life in the arena. Instead he held Rafa, and then after a long moment he took Rafa by the shoulders and pulled him away from Roger's body just enough so that he could press their mouths together, harsh and hard, because they were alive. He wanted the taste of Rafa in his mouth and the feel of him under his hands. He could taste blood and he didn't know whether it was Rafa's or the dead man's and he didn't care either, because it was Rafa's mouth moving under his, and Rafa's hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise. There was nothing gentle about the kiss - all force and heat, the clash of teeth and tongues.
"Roger," Rafa panted. "Roger."
"Come with me," Roger said, and he took Rafa's wrist in a crushing grip and pulled him blindly through winding corridors until they reached the deserted cells which had once held wild beasts but now lay empty and abandoned, still reeking faintly of their former occupants. Roger shoved Rafa into the nearest of these, and they came together again, Rafa pushing Roger until his back scraped against the cool damp wall, and Roger thought that no wild animal could have matched this passion, the intensity of their kisses and the ferocity of their rough and clumsy caresses. It was like fighting, with the thrill of combat in every push and pull, the way their bodies met and the sound of their panting breaths, the iron tang of blood and the stink of sweat underlaid with the sharper scent of sex. And then Rafa reached between them and took them both in his big, calloused hand, and Roger looked down in time to see the wet, angry-red head of his cock moving through Rafa's fingers once, twice, three times before he came, biting down sharply on the salt-slick skin of Rafa's shoulder to keep from shouting; he heard Rafa's strangled gasp against his ear, and then there was slick heat spreading between them, and Rafa sagged against him, so that Roger was supporting the both of them against the wall. His knees felt weak, and he let himself slide down, bringing Rafa with him into a panting heap on the dirt floor. Rafa's full weight was across Roger's legs, and it was uncomfortable and he didn't care, so he stroked Rafa's hair and listened to the sound of his breathing become deeper and more even while his own heart steadied in his chest.
-
As a rule Marius was furious after one of his fighters was killed, but this time he collected the dead man's worth from the client and confided to Roger that the increase in Rafa's popularity was worth twice the price of a fighter like that.
"We'll be billing his name with yours before long," he said, watching Rafa go through his drills the next day when they were back at the school. "You should have heard how they roared for him, and afterwards his name was on everyone's lips. He's worth a fortune, he'll be star, you mark my words."
Roger lay awake at night thinking about it, listening to the sound of Rafa's slow, even breaths, and after a long while he reached across the space between their pallets and found Rafa's wrist in the darkness, encircling it tightly, and he fell asleep counting the beats that pulsed against his fingers.
-
And so it was barely any time at all before Marius announced that he had taken another contract to provide fighters for the funeral games of a very wealthy local man; twenty pair, he announced, for a three day spectacle of beast-fights and duels that would culminate in the most spectacular fight of all - and here he turned, bursting with excitement, to Roger, standing at the edge of the group of eagerly listening fighters with Rafa at his side - the fight between the greatest gladiator in the province, and his shadow, his opposite, the left-hander!
The sun was at its height, but Roger felt as though his blood had turned to ice. He had to school his features into a smile, to look as though he were pleased and grateful for the honour, but his mind was blank with the roar of the baying crowd. Beside him, Rafa was rigid, waves of tension roiling off him like heat. Roger hoped that Marius hadn't noticed - maybe he hadn't, because he had turned away and was talking about something else, but Roger wasn't listening - couldn't listen. Everything was heat and blood and death.
"We can run," Rafa said, the moment they got back to their cell - strange now, how it was theirs, not Roger's alone. Things like this kept occurring to him, laying bare the unavoidable fact of Rafa's importance. "We can escape. You and me, we go, we can -"
"We can't," Roger said, flatly. "Where do we go, you and I? What do we do with these?" He gestured at his shoulder and then at Rafa's, where the tattoos marked them indelibly as the property of Marius. Slaves, with no lives save what they could bleed out on the floor of some provincial amphitheatre. He sank down onto his straw pallet, back against the wall. Rafa sat down opposite him, raking his hair back from his face.
"Roger," Rafa said, "Roger, what if they - what if I - ?"
"Marius wouldn't risk us like that," Roger said, quickly. "We're too valuable to him to throw away."
Rafa looked up, meeting Roger's eyes. "Is not his choice," he said.
-
With only one win under his belt, Rafa should have been practicing drills and training with the third class fighters, but with the funeral games so close Felix had them training exclusively together, and as the days passed Rafa's swings became more tight and controlled, and Roger lost the instinct to slash across the body. They trained together so much that Roger began to feel that he would never be able to fight another man, that he was moulding himself into the opponent for Rafa. There would never be another opponent for Roger; there would never be another fight after this one.
One day Rafa brought Roger down for the first time with a stinging swipe across the ribs that would have spilled Roger's guts if it had come from a real sword. Winded, Roger knelt panting on the ground, and Rafa looked down at him, stricken.
"Roger, please," he whispered that night, low and desperate in the darkness, "we run away, we go. I no can do this. Please."
Roger kept his eyes shut tight and pretended to be asleep, forcing his breaths slow and even past the tightness in his throat.
-
The night before the games began was hot and moonless, the air in their cell suffocating, and lying sleepless and hopeless Roger couldn't shake the thought that it was black fate pressing horribly close around them.
"You are not sleeping," Rafa said, after a long, long while. He was an indistinct shape in the darkness.
"No," Roger said. "I can't."
There was a rustle of straw as Rafa moved, leaving his bed altogether and crossing the small space that divided them. Neither of the pallets was big enough for two, but nevertheless Rafa began to settle himself against Roger's side, and if Roger turned onto his side so that they were pressed chest-to-chest there was just enough room for both of them, even if Rafa was probably half on the floor and Roger was pressed against the cool cell wall. This close, Roger could make out the glitter of Rafa's eyes, his cheekbones and his soft, full mouth. He raised his fingers and drew the tips gently across Rafa's jaw, traced the strong line of his cheekbones, swiped his thumb over Rafa's lips, and then he leaned forward and replaced his fingers with his mouth, dusting kisses across Rafa's hot skin while he held him steady with a hand flat against Rafa's neck, where the pulse beat strong and quick against his palm. Rafa sighed, warm breath against Roger's skin, and draped an arm over Roger's waist, anchoring them together with one hand on Roger's back. His blunt nails scraped lightly over Roger's skin, making Roger shudder. Rafa allowed Roger's kisses until Roger's lips pressed against the corner of Rafa's mouth, and then he turned slightly and caught Roger's mouth with his own.
It was nothing like the first time. The first time had been all raw heat, battle-thrill in the blood, the push and shove of desperation; here the roughness was replaced with gentleness, the desperate fumbling with slow, easy exploration of each other's bodies, so gently affectionate that when Rafa hitched his hips against Roger's the shock of sensation was that much sharper almost for being unexpected.
Roger had known that there were things some men did together, that drew sneers and coarse jokes from the other fighters, but there was nothing base about the beauty of Rafa under his hands, or the bright clear pleasure that built with every movement of their bodies against each other. The friction that caught and blazed low in his belly had nothing to do with sordid barracks-humour. The soft sounds that Rafa made against his mouth when they kissed caught at his heart and twisted in his stomach. He pushed his face against Rafa's neck and kissed the pulse-point there, tasted the salt of Rafa's skin, and Rafa dragged fingers through Roger's hair, scraping lightly against his scalp and down to cup the curve of Roger's skull, urging him back up for more long, languid kisses. When Roger rolled his hips against Rafa's, Rafa gasped against his mouth, breaking off to mutter soft, incomprehensible words against Roger's cheek, low and breathless while Roger bit tiny kisses along his jawline and hitched their hips together, again and again, friction catching to blaze in the heat between them and around them. Roger clutched at Rafa's hips, pulling them impossibly close, trying to keep that blaze burning ever higher. When he came, it was with Rafa's name choked on his lips, muffled against the slick skin of Rafa's shoulder while he shut his eyes tight against the impossible pleasure, Rafa's hand burning like a brand against his hip, holding him, claiming him, while he shuddered out his own climax with his lips pressed in an open-mouthed kiss against Roger's temple.
After, Rafa fell asleep half-sprawled across Roger, their bellies slick and sticky with sweat and semen. The cramped space was claustrophobic with the shared heat of two bodies pressed close together, and Roger felt choked by it, but he didn't loosen his grip on Rafa's waist, and he relished every deep breath that pressed them impossibly close, the beat of Rafa's heart matched to his own.
-
Armoured and helmeted, Rafa and Roger stood in the cool shadow of the tunnel leading out into the arena. Out in the heat and the roar of the crowd the referee's clear practiced voice cut through the jumbled din of the audience, describing Roger's glittering career, and the upstart left-hander who'd risen so far and so fast to challenge him. He was stirring the crowd to frenzy. Marius must have paid him a fortune.
"Roger," Rafa said, his voice tight. "Roger."
Roger turned to face him; through the slits of their helmets their eyes met, and Roger felt the same thrill of connection as he had done that first time Rafa had turned and caught him with those dark, knowing eyes in the courtyard of the gladiator school - so long ago, so little time ago.
"It's all right," Roger said. "It's all right. I know. Rafa, I know."
Rafa held his gaze, and nodded. Then he held his hand out, and Roger looked at it for just a moment before he stepped close and gripped Rafa's arm in that same warrior's embrace of their first meeting, clasping Rafa's forearm just below the elbow where the skin was paler and softer, his fingers pressing tightly into Rafa's skin. Rafa returned the embrace with equal intensity, and then he looked up and caught Roger's eyes again, and this time he smiled, that bright boy's smile that lit something fierce and pure in Roger's chest.
In the arena the noise of the crowd had crescendoed, but it seemed to be very far away. For a moment the arena, the crowd, the reality of the fight that was coming - all that receded into a dim periphery at the edge of Roger's awareness. There was nothing but Rafa and Roger, and this moment.
"Ready?" Roger said at last, and Rafa nodded and said, "Ready. Yes."
"Then let's give them a show," Roger said. He squeezed Rafa's arm tightly one last time, and Rafa returned the embrace, and then they separated to stand shoulder to shoulder until the call came, when they would walk out together into the arena and the fight of their lives.
-