Water and Oil
Jan. 20th, 2005 06:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainofckTitle/Chapter: Chapter 2: Oil and Water (for lack of a better name)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: SB/VM (other pairings in later chapters)
Rating: PG-13 (to NC-17 in later chapters)
Summary: Viggo is somewhere else, where everyone and no one is the same
Content/warnings: AU. Violence.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: Slash is fiction. So while we may all be demented, slash is basically the author's ownporno script, populated by the individuals she feels would be ideal to fill the various roles if she ruled the universe if she were ever fortunate enough have the opportunity to bring her vision to the screen. *snortle*
Archive rights: www.rugbytackling.com, Green Opals, if they're interestd, and my journalsmuck_a_luck and brainofck
Further Disclaimer: Any resemblance to Ancient Rome mostly incidental. I have never seen any gladiator flick. Ever. Honest. Not even stinky Gladiator that stole FOTR's Oscar. *glares*
Blame:uisgich, for encouraging me
0 Years
Arena
The arena master was completely at a loss.
"I have no idea whose he is. I would swear on my father's grave that no foreign slaves went in today. It was a festival melee! Only the best slaves go in for the big battles! And look, he's not even dressed properly!"
Sennet watched the two warriors together, his Sean and the outlander. They were a well-matched pair, with light eyes and light hair - so unusual. The stranger was clearly a swordsman of some skill - Sennet had watched from the tiers with the rest of the owners. He could imagine the two men, fighting back to back. The reaction of the crowd earlier showed that they would be favorites.
The outlander was also clearly confused and distressed. He was watching Sean with an almost hungry look, staying close to him and obviously taking cues from him. Much to Sennet's surprise, Sean was tolerating the attention, even down to showing the outlander how to clean himself, of all things.
"What will you do if no one comes forward to claim him?" Sennet asked the arena master, as casually as he could manage.
The old man completely understood the point of the question.
"It would be a big inconvenience for me to keep him here," the man lied. The coliseum was full of cells and rooms where the outlander could be locked away for a few days. "And I suppose, if no one comes for him, we'll auction him eventually."
"What if I provided a place for him?" Sennet proposed blandly. "If someone comes for him in the next few days, you can send them to me. And I'd be happy to pay a fair price for him now, so that if no one ever comes, then you don't need to bother with the trouble of the auction."
Money changed hands. And Sennet brought home a fine new addition to his garrison.
The stranger followed Sean like an obedient dog. Sean wondered where he had come from. Sean had followed much of the low, hurried conversation between the arena master and Sennet, as he stripped off his garments and went to the basin to wash off the worst of the filth of his day's work. An unidentified slave? Unheard of! The stranger watched him uncertainly.
No. Actually, Sean thought the man hadn't watched him at all. His eyes had a dazed, cloudy look. He swayed on his feet. Sean sighed and walked back over to him. He took the stranger's hands, which brought startled eyes to his face. He smiled as reassuringly as he could and placed the man's fingers on the fastenings of his odd clothing. The clothes were a mess, the blood-soaked cloth sticking to the man's body. Not at all what he ought to have been wearing in the arena. Sean wondered again how he had ended up there. He wondered if he could have been brought here as someone's guest, then shoved over the wall into the fray. Well, there was no way to ask him about it.
At Sean's prompting to undress, the man seemed to wake up. He saw what was expected of him, and began to remove his clothes. Sean left him to it and went to wash.
When he was done, Sean took the bowl of oil in hand and waited for the man. It was only polite to help another combatant with the oil and scraper, and Sean was beginning to wonder if the stranger would even know what to do on his own. As he had suspected, when the man turned to him again, his eyes widened at the sight of the oil in the bowl. Sean shook his head, and pointed to their companions in the room, already well on their way through this process, the one already scraping the oil and dirt from the other.
The outlander nodded, though a bit shakily.
Applying oil to the man's skin, Sean looked carefully for a brand that would mark the man as a slave. Again, as he suspected, Sean could find nothing that seemed to be the right thing. There were certainly markings on the man's body, but nothing that looked like any mark of ownership Sean had ever seen. They weren't brands at all, but the ink designs that one saw on the dark skinned barbarians that were sometimes brought to the arena to fight.
More and more convinced that this was a free man standing in the halls of the arena slaves, Sean was furious when he saw Sennet pay the bribe. But he was a slave, and even the most valuable slave knows when to keep his mouth shut.
Sean instead concentrated on applying oil to the body before him. The stranger was well suited to the life it seemed he was entering. Well-muscled, though not as heavily as the other slaves in the room. He was lanky and sinewy where they were denser and thicker. Still, if the stranger usually fought with a sword, he seemed to be built for it. Sean moved oiled hands down from broad shoulders to narrow waist, carefully covering every inch of skin; then over and around the shoulder and bicep of each long arm, pleased with well-developed forearms, and long, graceful fingers. Sean wondered what the man's life had been, in his home far away, before this strange afternoon.
More oil on his hands, then smooth over buttocks and thighs and calves. Sculpted strong legs, down to obviously calloused feet. The man's shoes were made strangely and with a quality that Sean had never seen, so he suspected the man must go barefoot often. Sean rose and moved around to face the outlander, who had sensibly already applied oil to his own chest and torso. He reached forward tentatively toward Sean, who laughed. "Let me finish you first," he said, reaching for the scraping tool on the bench.
He scraped gently over the oiled skin. The dirt, and blood, and other soil of the battle coming away and sloughing to the floor. Then it was done and Sean stood to take his own turn.
The man took the bowl. But he didn't work methodically, as Sean had. The stranger seemed to paint Sean's body. And he started in front, not behind, applying oil to places Sean could easily have reached himself. The man's eyes were intent, and looking at his face, Sean realized that the outlander was older than his body would have had Sean believe. There were fine smile lines and crows feet and strands of silver in the sandy hair.
And a scar on his upper lip. It was then that Sean realized that the man had come through the afternoon completely unscathed. Not so much as a split knuckle. Sean looked on him with a new respect. The man was already finding Sean's little hurts from the day. A scrape here, a deep bruise there. The man murmured over them in concern, and once looked up as if to ask a question, but as there were no words to say, he left it unsaid and went back to his work.
His long fingers covered Sean with strange patterns and designs. Sean might have complained, but the job eventually got done, and there was something familiar and strange and reassuring and unsettling about the whole experience that Sean was hesitant disturb.
As the man lay the tool aside and finally rose to his feet, Sean suddenly needed to know one thing.
He pointed to himself. Somehow the man already knew, but he said it anyway.
"Sean." He said, softly and clearly.
The man laid his right palm open over his heart.
"Viggo."
Chapter 3: Flesh and Iron
Author:
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofckPairing: SB/VM (other pairings in later chapters)
Rating: PG-13 (to NC-17 in later chapters)
Summary: Viggo is somewhere else, where everyone and no one is the same
Content/warnings: AU. Violence.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: Slash is fiction. So while we may all be demented, slash is basically the author's own
Archive rights: www.rugbytackling.com, Green Opals, if they're interestd, and my journals
muck_a_luck and brainofckFurther Disclaimer: Any resemblance to Ancient Rome mostly incidental. I have never seen any gladiator flick. Ever. Honest. Not even stinky Gladiator that stole FOTR's Oscar. *glares*
Blame:
uisgich, for encouraging me0 Years
Arena
The arena master was completely at a loss.
"I have no idea whose he is. I would swear on my father's grave that no foreign slaves went in today. It was a festival melee! Only the best slaves go in for the big battles! And look, he's not even dressed properly!"
Sennet watched the two warriors together, his Sean and the outlander. They were a well-matched pair, with light eyes and light hair - so unusual. The stranger was clearly a swordsman of some skill - Sennet had watched from the tiers with the rest of the owners. He could imagine the two men, fighting back to back. The reaction of the crowd earlier showed that they would be favorites.
The outlander was also clearly confused and distressed. He was watching Sean with an almost hungry look, staying close to him and obviously taking cues from him. Much to Sennet's surprise, Sean was tolerating the attention, even down to showing the outlander how to clean himself, of all things.
"What will you do if no one comes forward to claim him?" Sennet asked the arena master, as casually as he could manage.
The old man completely understood the point of the question.
"It would be a big inconvenience for me to keep him here," the man lied. The coliseum was full of cells and rooms where the outlander could be locked away for a few days. "And I suppose, if no one comes for him, we'll auction him eventually."
"What if I provided a place for him?" Sennet proposed blandly. "If someone comes for him in the next few days, you can send them to me. And I'd be happy to pay a fair price for him now, so that if no one ever comes, then you don't need to bother with the trouble of the auction."
Money changed hands. And Sennet brought home a fine new addition to his garrison.
The stranger followed Sean like an obedient dog. Sean wondered where he had come from. Sean had followed much of the low, hurried conversation between the arena master and Sennet, as he stripped off his garments and went to the basin to wash off the worst of the filth of his day's work. An unidentified slave? Unheard of! The stranger watched him uncertainly.
No. Actually, Sean thought the man hadn't watched him at all. His eyes had a dazed, cloudy look. He swayed on his feet. Sean sighed and walked back over to him. He took the stranger's hands, which brought startled eyes to his face. He smiled as reassuringly as he could and placed the man's fingers on the fastenings of his odd clothing. The clothes were a mess, the blood-soaked cloth sticking to the man's body. Not at all what he ought to have been wearing in the arena. Sean wondered again how he had ended up there. He wondered if he could have been brought here as someone's guest, then shoved over the wall into the fray. Well, there was no way to ask him about it.
At Sean's prompting to undress, the man seemed to wake up. He saw what was expected of him, and began to remove his clothes. Sean left him to it and went to wash.
When he was done, Sean took the bowl of oil in hand and waited for the man. It was only polite to help another combatant with the oil and scraper, and Sean was beginning to wonder if the stranger would even know what to do on his own. As he had suspected, when the man turned to him again, his eyes widened at the sight of the oil in the bowl. Sean shook his head, and pointed to their companions in the room, already well on their way through this process, the one already scraping the oil and dirt from the other.
The outlander nodded, though a bit shakily.
Applying oil to the man's skin, Sean looked carefully for a brand that would mark the man as a slave. Again, as he suspected, Sean could find nothing that seemed to be the right thing. There were certainly markings on the man's body, but nothing that looked like any mark of ownership Sean had ever seen. They weren't brands at all, but the ink designs that one saw on the dark skinned barbarians that were sometimes brought to the arena to fight.
More and more convinced that this was a free man standing in the halls of the arena slaves, Sean was furious when he saw Sennet pay the bribe. But he was a slave, and even the most valuable slave knows when to keep his mouth shut.
Sean instead concentrated on applying oil to the body before him. The stranger was well suited to the life it seemed he was entering. Well-muscled, though not as heavily as the other slaves in the room. He was lanky and sinewy where they were denser and thicker. Still, if the stranger usually fought with a sword, he seemed to be built for it. Sean moved oiled hands down from broad shoulders to narrow waist, carefully covering every inch of skin; then over and around the shoulder and bicep of each long arm, pleased with well-developed forearms, and long, graceful fingers. Sean wondered what the man's life had been, in his home far away, before this strange afternoon.
More oil on his hands, then smooth over buttocks and thighs and calves. Sculpted strong legs, down to obviously calloused feet. The man's shoes were made strangely and with a quality that Sean had never seen, so he suspected the man must go barefoot often. Sean rose and moved around to face the outlander, who had sensibly already applied oil to his own chest and torso. He reached forward tentatively toward Sean, who laughed. "Let me finish you first," he said, reaching for the scraping tool on the bench.
He scraped gently over the oiled skin. The dirt, and blood, and other soil of the battle coming away and sloughing to the floor. Then it was done and Sean stood to take his own turn.
The man took the bowl. But he didn't work methodically, as Sean had. The stranger seemed to paint Sean's body. And he started in front, not behind, applying oil to places Sean could easily have reached himself. The man's eyes were intent, and looking at his face, Sean realized that the outlander was older than his body would have had Sean believe. There were fine smile lines and crows feet and strands of silver in the sandy hair.
And a scar on his upper lip. It was then that Sean realized that the man had come through the afternoon completely unscathed. Not so much as a split knuckle. Sean looked on him with a new respect. The man was already finding Sean's little hurts from the day. A scrape here, a deep bruise there. The man murmured over them in concern, and once looked up as if to ask a question, but as there were no words to say, he left it unsaid and went back to his work.
His long fingers covered Sean with strange patterns and designs. Sean might have complained, but the job eventually got done, and there was something familiar and strange and reassuring and unsettling about the whole experience that Sean was hesitant disturb.
As the man lay the tool aside and finally rose to his feet, Sean suddenly needed to know one thing.
He pointed to himself. Somehow the man already knew, but he said it anyway.
"Sean." He said, softly and clearly.
The man laid his right palm open over his heart.
"Viggo."
Chapter 3: Flesh and Iron
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 08:49 pm (UTC)