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After a while being locked in, the nights blended into each other. Though there was a clock in the main hall that they could easily see from certain points of the Hall of Miniatures, finding a calendar was a whole other mission.
Octavius only knew today was in the springtime because of some Easter-themed decorations out in the main hall. Oh, and that it was 1993, if he craned his neck and squinted towards one of the banners at the far end of the hall. Or it could be an eight. The nines or the threes could be an eight. Maybe they’re all eights. Though, saying that, he knew it wasn’t the 1800s. The 80s, perhaps.
Screw it; it was 19-something. That was as far as he could confidently narrow it down.
He vaguely realised that perhaps one night out of every fifty or so––he didn’t have an accurate count on that––the guards would forget to shut them in before sunset. Sometimes they had as much as an hour or even two before the guards realised their mistake and locked them all back up. Most days, though, the miniatures were all confined to their respective dioramas, and their rigid schedule of reliving the past lives which may or may not have been their own. For Octavius, that meant military drills and senate meetings.
It was lonely sometimes, being locked in this one diorama. He lived to rule over his people, a role which didn’t usually lend itself to festivities or genuine socialisation. Not that he really minded it, of course, but he knew in his past life he’d at least have a break from it all occasionally. There was a nice resort town near the coast he liked to visit back then; he’d owned a villa there. Here he just had his living quarters, where senators could easily find him at all hours to pick his brains about the latest voting scandals or diplomatic issues, or his soldiers could pester him about getting feedback on various aspects of their technique. It made the time fly, yet drag at the same time. A haze that he was all too aware of. It loomed over him like the spectre of his past.
The passage of time became a distant memory, however, whenever the dioramas were left unlocked at sundown and Octavius felt leather gloves grasping at his thighs. He forgot all about time whenever they dug dully into his flesh, pinning him down before a heavier weight straddled him. Like right now, when all he could feel was the faint heat of hands through a layer of pure, well-worn leather. Those hands lifted after a moment, only to come back down with a thud as they smashed into his shoulders. One hand lifted again as Jedediah leaned over to punch him more, this time in the face. Octavius felt his cheekbone throb where it had been hit, though a different kind of throbbing distracted him from the worst of it. He didn’t know whether to find it fortunate or unfortunate.
If Jedediah asks, it’s the handle of my pugio.
Lean, deceptively-strong thighs squeezed his own thicker ones together, trapping him beneath the cowboy as he landed another punch, this time missing slightly and grazing past his chin. Octavius tried to hoist his upper body upwards, but this movement was met by tightening legs around his thighs, and a gloved hand placed against his neck as a warning.
“I wouldn’t be tryin’ anythin’ if I were you, Toga Boy,” the cowboy sneered above him, voice drawling in that way Octavius bristled at, “You can fight dirty but trust me, I fight dirtier.”
Octavius pulled his face, though the way Jedediah’s low voice reverberated through the thick air between them made his head swim. He gritted his teeth, frustrated with himself for letting the cowboy get under his skin again; he used that new-found energy to suddenly heave upwards so hard that he managed to flip their positions. He thanked his past self for investing so much in ab workouts during his military training.
“You were saying?” he teased, leaning over Jedediah to glare into his eyes from close range. He reached down for Jedediah’s holster whilst he was distracted by Octavius’s proximity to his face, throwing his remaining gun away to join the one he’d lost out in the hallway somewhere. He knew they didn’t shoot––endless mocking opportunities arose when he discovered that little nugget of information––but they could still make for an effective melee weapon. He didn’t fancy getting winded right now, especially not when he’d just gained the upper hand.
“I think you’ll find I’m the more accomplished fighter, buckin’ bronco,” Octavius growled mockingly, leaning in so close he was sure his breath was hitting hard against Jedediah’s lips. He felt a thrill down his spine at the possibility, his body betraying him once more. He paid it little mind, however, as he was far too busy gloating.
“Your military trainin’ don’t mean squat in the real world, Toga,” Jedediah sneered. Octavius paused for a moment, lifting up slightly, before landing a hard punch which split the cowboy’s lip. A little bit of blood trickled slowly out of the crack. Octavius smirked.
“Payback,” he hissed, noting that Jedediah’s punch to his lip during their previous fight hadn’t drawn blood, “With interest.”
Jedediah gasped beneath him, his eyes darkened as he swung an arm up to punch Octavius. He caught the fist in mid-air, though Jedediah soon used this as leverage to roll him over. Thus began the rolling-around-on-the-floor phase of their fight, a frequent occurrence. The hallway was hard beneath them, though––as Octavius realised during one particular roll which landed him on top––so was Jedediah. He smirked partly in relief, as he wasn’t the only one in that situation, but mostly at the fact that Jedediah was getting off on this and he could use that to his advantage.
He was playing dangerously close to the fire, but in the heat of the moment, Octavius didn’t pay attention to that. Instead, he leaned in closer, letting his breath brush against Jedediah’s cheek as it had done earlier.
“I think I rather like this, you know?” he purred, “Me on top. Where I belong.” He drew his right hand up carefully, making sure to brush along the entire side of the cowboy’s torso until it reached his neck. Grasping gently around it, he felt himself throb again at the coarse stubble beneath his fingers. “How the tables have turned,” he said with a smirk. He was met with a slightly hazy glare.
“You no-good son of a gun–” Jedediah growled, his voice crescendoing to a shout. Octavius quickly intercepted the hand that flew up, pinning it to the cowboy’s torso with his free hand. He moved his hips upwards to pin him down more effectively, deliberately pressing his backside down slightly as it crossed over the bulge in Jedediah’s jeans. Jedediah’s breath hitched in his throat as he did so, escaping with a soft gasp. Octavius smirked. He stopped moving up, deciding to stay seated upon the other man’s hips. It wasn’t just for self-serving reasons, he told himself as he felt the unmistakeable shape of an erection burning through several layers of fabric into his skin.
“I do play dirty, Jedediah,” he breathed, leaning even closer until the tips of their noses brushed, “Dirtier than you. And I must say–” he ground down slightly, signalling to Jedediah that he could indeed feel him– “You’re pretty dirty yourself, judging by this–“ another grind, Jedediah gasping against his lips– “Poking against my backside right now. Does fighting really get you that wound up?”
At this close proximity, Jedediah’s eyes widening like that was like staring into a galaxy. Octavius had to fight himself not to get lost in those eyes, but he was momentarily distracted and Jedediah took advantage of that. He launched upwards, knocking Octavius onto his back before standing over him.
“Now listen here,” he growled, his aggressive demeanour betrayed by how wrecked he looked, “Just because y’all Romans are perverts, don’t mean everyone is. They just get hard sometimes when there’s somethin’ all up against ‘em; y’know how it is. Don’t be thinkin’ you’re some God’s gift Adonis or nothin’.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” Octavius countered, smirking with self-satisfaction, “I was just leveraging a weakness in my opponent to my advantage.”
“Well lemme tell ya somethin’, Mr. Emperor,” Jedediah hissed, speaking right against Octavius’s lips, “Those in glass houses shouldn’t be throwin’ no stones. I know that ain’t that stupid little dagger o’ yours pokin’ out down there.” A pause. “It’s too small.”
Octavius felt his breath shudder as rough lips passed gently over his own, so barely it didn’t really count as a kiss. His blood boiled, and he furiously told himself that it was anger at getting beaten at his own game. He knew he had been by now; he was so hard he could be used as a club to bludgeon this infuriating cowboy’s skull. Now that was a mental image.
“Looks like I won again,” Jedediah smirked, “See ya ‘round, Toga Boy.”
Watching Jedediah walk away to climb back up to the Western diorama, Octavius found himself with even more mental images. Ones involving what lay under those jeans; those ugly barbarian breeches which somehow managed to sculpt a pair of buttocks so perfectly they wouldn’t be out of place in his palace. Ones involving the ghosting of lips over his own, what they would feel like if they kissed him properly. He’d had a crumb, but here he was craving the full meal. Craving the man he despised the most in this still-new world of theirs.
You, Octavius, are a complete and total stultus.
Catching a glance at the clock, he realised he’d been awake for around an hour and a half already. He didn’t fancy risking the guards finding him in this state. He dragged himself back to his own diorama––a gargantuan task given his current condition––sighing with relief as he got back into his personal quarters just in time to hear the guards locking them all up. Sagging down onto his bed, his hand drifted lower until it soothed at the itch crawling through his entire being, unable to bear the desperate thoughts swimming around in his head any longer.
In the hazy, sticky glow of the aftermath, he resolved to avoid Jedediah from now on. He was too dangerous, pulling him in like a siren’s call with his deep blue eyes and his shapely behind and the scrape of his stubble. He could not have weaknesses if he were to lead the people of Rome. Especially not if they were the unofficial leader of the enemy. He’d have to find some other outlet for his temporal anxiety from now on, even it was just his own right hand and thoughts of vague, faceless, gender-non-specific people with long blond hair and gloved fingers and rough stubble. If the Romans and Cowboys must fight, he was solely a commander from this moment, not a warrior.
He remained true to his mental edict, even when his eyes met with Jedediah’s intense cerulean glare across the battle lines and his knees shivered beneath him for a moment. He remained true to it right up until the moment he realised the new night guard still hadn’t locked them all up at three hours past sunset.
“It’s sort of how we pass the time,” he’d explained once the new guard was untied and had finally interrupted their first true fight in possibly decades. He wasn’t particularly surprised when Jedediah agreed with him.