Fic: Gladiator: A love story (J2, NC-17)
Title: Gladiator: A love story
Author: zara_zee
Artist: evian_fork
Beta: endless_evelina on Tumblr
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jared/Jensen.
Written for: SPN_J2_Bigbang 2017
Word Count: 29,930
Warnings: violence, minor and spn-canon character deaths, torture, references to animal deaths, references to executions, m/m sex, slavery, branding, corporal punishment, non-con touching, attempted assault, non-graphic references to non-con and dub-con, fanciful Romanization of names, anachronistic language. Probably. Well it’s not ancient Latin, anyway.
Disclaimer: I’ve borrowed the names and faces of certain actors without their knowledge or approval. Not a word of this is true; I’ve just got them playing parts. Written for fun, not profit.
Summary: As a second son, Jensen Akelsen of Cimbria will never inherit the family farm, so he travels to Rome with a trader to join the Auxilia-the non-citizen corps of the Roman Imperial Army. Unfortunately, Jensen’s travel companion proves less than trustworthy and he finds himself sold into slavery. Jensen’s fighting skills see him bought by Ludus Armentarius, the training school which owns the most popular-and most terrifying-gladiator in all of Rome; the infamous Colossus, Jared of Illyria.
Bitterly angry and struggling to adjust, the very last thing Jensen expects to find in his new life is friendship, romance and love.
Story on AO3 | Art Masterpost
[NOTES AND THANK-YOUS]A/N: I did research. Lots of it. Having said which, this is still a “Hollywood” version of ancient Rome, which means that some liberties have been taken in the interests of the story. I’ve tried hard not to be inaccurate, but history-scholar-level accuracy is by no means guaranteed. Also, I’ve thrown in a few Latin words here and there (there are some translations at the end of the story), but I’ve anglicised the grammar in some cases. Apologies to any Latin grammar nerds who read this!
A huge thank you to my fabulous artist, Evian_Fork who made so much amazing art for me! Please go and have a look at their art post and leave them some love. :) A second massive thank you to my beta reader, Endless_Evelina, who took time out from exams to edit this for me. I tinkered aftewards, of course, all remaining mistakes are my own. And a final thank you to our fearless community mod, Wendy, without whom this fabulous challenge would never get off the ground.
This year I decided that I would only post the story on A03, because it's such an easy site to deal with and people can download it to e-readers and so on to make reading easier. Please feel free to come back here to comment if you'd prefer. I've also left the story open for non-archive users to comment over there too. :) Hope you enjoy!