Arena: Chapter 18: Homecoming, Part I
Apr. 3rd, 2005 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainofckTitle/Chapter: Homecoming, Part I
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: NC-17
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 interested, 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 Gladiator, which I have been informed did not steal FOTR's Oscar, as it won the Oscar the year prior. I still blame Russell Crowe, though. *glares*
Blame:uisgich, for encouraging me
The Arena Homepage
Chapter 1: Arena
Chapter 2: Water and Oil
Chapter 3: Flesh and Iron
Chapter 4: Night Terrors
Chapter 5: First
Chapter 6: Opening
Chapter 7: Closing
Chapter 8: Last
Chapter 9: The Mysteries of the Next Life, Part I
Chapter 10: The Mysteries of the Next Life, Part II
Chapter 11: Initiate
Chapter 12: Blood Wash
Chapter 13: Sword Practice, Part I
Chapter 14: Sword Practice, Part II
Chapter 15: Water and Oil, Reprise
Chapter 16: Laurel
Chapter 17: Dreaming
Viggo swept back thought the streets like a summer storm though the wheat fields. Sword at his side, dagger in his belt, knife in his boot, one blade in a beat-up sheath over his back, and in this weather, not even a cloak to disguise any of it. Citizens stepped aside as he strode through the market, the grim set of his features and the killing gleam in his eye plain for anyone to see.
He had wasted enough time playing games with Sennet, and Sean had paid the price. In his mind's eye, Viggo saw Sean, standing in the firelight when it was broad daylight outside, naked but defiant, blade in hand and bindings on his beautiful body. But in Viggo's mind's eye, Sean was forlorn. Lost.
Sennet was going to free Viggo today. One way or another.
Lost in his own racing thoughts, Viggo didn't realize until too late that the guard at the gate wasn't the usual contingent. They were waiting for him.
Sean woke from a frightening dream of flying without falling to the familiar feeling of a body curled against him. He opened his eyes blearily to find Zara huddled against him under a quilt too heavy for the season, and the steward standing over them, looking so smug Sean would have kicked him hard in the face, if he'd been able to get a leg free.
"Well, well. So you've finally given a patron something worth paying for? I sincerely hope it will be a new trend for you. We'll be able to double your rates." His tone of amusement touched a fury that Sean had thought he'd suppressed finally months ago. He lurched up, but tangled in the covers and the girl, he couldn't move fast enough for her.
Zara caught him and tackled him back to the bed hard, pressed her lips to his ear and breathed, "If I kill him, nobody will know how it happened."
Sean saw the death in her eyes, and he smiled a crooked predatory smile at the steward as she shifted off of him, climbed down from the bed, and straightened her clothes.
The Steward, a man who usually had too much to do and not enough staff to do it with, was quickly reverting back to his usual habits. And perhaps he recognized the danger in Sean's expression, because he was suddenly all business again.
"The Mistress has been looking for you high and low," he addressed Zara. "But you might as well wait now."
He turned to Sean, "And an escort is waiting outside for you. Dress and attend your Mistress."
Then he turned on his heel and left.
Zara looked flustered. She examined him closely.
"You're in no state to be seen outside this room. What are we going to do about you?"
Sean knew she wanted to save his pride. In the state he was in, everyone in the house would know what he had done with Viggo last night. But he found that at this point, he really didn't care. He moved about the room, looking for something to put on and was surprised and pleased to find the clothes that Viggo had brought him neatly brushed and folded over the back of one of the chairs. The linen shirt had been laundered, dried and pressed. He shook his head. Life in the lap of luxury. The household staff probably assumed that Viggo would take his things away with him when he left.
There they stood, in Laurel's doorway. Her two most prized possessions, these days, if truth be told. They looked a mess. Sleep rumpled. Sean in desperate need of a bath after what had clearly been a long night of the best kind of sex. She couldn't get enough of him in the leather and linen, either. It was a shame he wasn't more willing. The things she could have done with him. She would have had the Emperor himself here as Sean's regular patron.
She shook her head, and smiled in welcome.
"Please sit, both of you. We have a lot to discuss."
Sean sat, his movements showing the slight stiffness brought on by the previous day's exercise.
Zara didn't so much sit as alight.
She was not used to being invited to join her Mistress' audiences. Usually she faded into the background, listening and learning and anticipating the needs of Mistress and guests alike. Being asked to sit made her uneasy - made her wonder who was waiting and listening in the back of the room. Except that as best she could tell, there was no one. The Mistress had closed the door softly behind them and the three of them were alone in the sunny airy space.
She sat opposite them, her warm dark eyes dancing and a barely suppressed grin on her face.
"I've begun the invitation list for your unbinding," she said to Sean without preamble. "I want you to look it over and be sure I haven't missed anyone."
Sean heard the words, but it took a moment to understand them. When he did, the killing smile was back, and Laurel answered it, almost a mirror image.
"You don't have to invite anyone to an unbinding when the pleasure slave works in a house like this," he said. "That's for concubines and courtesans. You just need to put me out in the front room for free one evening, and the smith can have the last free fuck and mark me at dawn."
Laurel gave him a sly, foxy grin he could have devoured.
"I think they all deserve a bit of warning, though, don't you?"
Zara was watching them both with a confused kind of shock.
"No one will come. They'll all stay home with their bodyguards," she whispered, almost to herself. Two scathing, glances rested on her, and she looked very much like a rabbit in the wolf pen. Sean almost felt sorry for her, but he couldn't contain the battle lust that was coming up in him, and he thought maybe Laurel was the same.
"They'll all be terrified," Laurel purred. "They won't just stay home. I have to give two days' notice of the unbinding. They'll leave town. A third of the Council will find reasons to visit the furthest reaches of the Empire to give you room to enjoy your new freedom."
"Let's get started, then," Sean growled. "I have business to see to outside these walls, and the sooner we give them their notice, the better."
They had talked for awhile. Gone down her list. Discussed with some amusement refreshments to be served. Had enjoyed some refreshments themselves, served by Zara, who, having never been dismissed, had stayed and attended them. The two of them were more than a little drunk, and Zara was watching them warily.
"We still have our own business to discuss," Laurel said finally, after a long lull in the conversation.
Sean gave her a level look over the rim of his mug.
"What are you planning?" she asked him.
Sean's eyes shifted away.
"I need to get Viggo away from Sennet," Sean said quietly. He felt like a fool saying it so bluntly, but she was going to free him and he was going to have nothing. He would need her help to help Viggo. He wondered if she knew that and had an offer to make.
"I don't think Viggo needs your help," she said quietly. "I know more about him than you do, now."
"Yeah?" Sean asked. "What exactly do you think you know that I don't."
"We both know he killed Micon. Hardly a week ago. Except Micon was killed, it is widely rumored, by a very successful and dangerous assassin that has taken to hunting the powerful in this city..."
Sean was listening carefully now.
"The assassin made his presence known with the murder of Rodin, oh, a little more than a year ago. The body was never found. Rodin just disappeared, along with every single precious item in his entire private chambers. People still can't figure out how it was done. The town might think that Rodin had just run, if it weren't for the dead dogs. And the other assassinations, almost identical, that have occurred since."
"Including Micon's..."
"Viggo and Sennet," Sean murmured.
"Viggo looking for you, I'd guess. Sennet must have held out on him. Probably convinced him he didn't know how to find you. So Viggo hunted, and eventually he found what he was looking for."
Sean thought about it. Laurel continued.
"I think your Viggo's going to have a real problem on his hands. Sennet was controlling him with you. But now Viggo's found you. And Viggo has money, somewhere. He stalked out of here in a rage this morning. I suspect he plans to be back for you, possibly even tonight, though I would guess he'd take a little longer to plan and consider. Ah. A good reason to send his invitation first."
She got up from the table and went to the door with the note. Handed it to a guard and sent him away.
"If you're right, lady," Sean said, as she returned to her seat across the table, "Sennet won't wait." He sucked in a deep breath and spat it out, "Is there any way I could convince you to sponsor me to buy him?"
She looked at him a long time.
"What did Sennet owe you when you left his service," she asked quietly.
"A tenth of what I won in the arena," Sean said. "I took over 20,000 for him with Viggo, and another 12,000 or so before Viggo arrived. Plus the 5000 from the melee that day..."
"So," she said thoughtfully, "3700, roughly, for what, five years' work?"
She smiled at him sweetly.
"You realize that it is also tradition for a pleasure slave to receive a dowry upon an unbinding?" she said.
Sean snorted. "Not from a house like this," he retorted. But as the words hung in the air between them and he looked into her smiling face, a look of pure shock overtook him. Her grin broadened to perfect smug satisfaction.
She rose gracefully from her seat and went to the shelves were almost two years ago she had found his bindings. Now she took down a different chest.
"If I paid you ten percent for the work you've done here for me over the past two years," she stated in a businesslike fashion, "I would owe you very nearly 20,000. A much better return on your time investment, don't you think?" she asked. "And safer, too."
She set the entire chest in front of him.
"That's 25,000. The 20,000 I owe you, Sennet's 3700, and a little extra for your trouble."
"So now, I don't believe I need to sponsor you to buy your Viggo back." She was grinning like a loon. Sean still wasn't sure he believed any of it.
"Now, let's talk real business."
Chapter 19: Homecoming Part II
Author:
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofckPairing: SB/VM (other pairings in later chapters)
Rating: NC-17
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 interested, 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 Gladiator, which I have been informed did not steal FOTR's Oscar, as it won the Oscar the year prior. I still blame Russell Crowe, though. *glares*
Blame:
uisgich, for encouraging meThe Arena Homepage
Chapter 1: Arena
Chapter 2: Water and Oil
Chapter 3: Flesh and Iron
Chapter 4: Night Terrors
Chapter 5: First
Chapter 6: Opening
Chapter 7: Closing
Chapter 8: Last
Chapter 9: The Mysteries of the Next Life, Part I
Chapter 10: The Mysteries of the Next Life, Part II
Chapter 11: Initiate
Chapter 12: Blood Wash
Chapter 13: Sword Practice, Part I
Chapter 14: Sword Practice, Part II
Chapter 15: Water and Oil, Reprise
Chapter 16: Laurel
Chapter 17: Dreaming
Viggo swept back thought the streets like a summer storm though the wheat fields. Sword at his side, dagger in his belt, knife in his boot, one blade in a beat-up sheath over his back, and in this weather, not even a cloak to disguise any of it. Citizens stepped aside as he strode through the market, the grim set of his features and the killing gleam in his eye plain for anyone to see.
He had wasted enough time playing games with Sennet, and Sean had paid the price. In his mind's eye, Viggo saw Sean, standing in the firelight when it was broad daylight outside, naked but defiant, blade in hand and bindings on his beautiful body. But in Viggo's mind's eye, Sean was forlorn. Lost.
Sennet was going to free Viggo today. One way or another.
Lost in his own racing thoughts, Viggo didn't realize until too late that the guard at the gate wasn't the usual contingent. They were waiting for him.
Sean woke from a frightening dream of flying without falling to the familiar feeling of a body curled against him. He opened his eyes blearily to find Zara huddled against him under a quilt too heavy for the season, and the steward standing over them, looking so smug Sean would have kicked him hard in the face, if he'd been able to get a leg free.
"Well, well. So you've finally given a patron something worth paying for? I sincerely hope it will be a new trend for you. We'll be able to double your rates." His tone of amusement touched a fury that Sean had thought he'd suppressed finally months ago. He lurched up, but tangled in the covers and the girl, he couldn't move fast enough for her.
Zara caught him and tackled him back to the bed hard, pressed her lips to his ear and breathed, "If I kill him, nobody will know how it happened."
Sean saw the death in her eyes, and he smiled a crooked predatory smile at the steward as she shifted off of him, climbed down from the bed, and straightened her clothes.
The Steward, a man who usually had too much to do and not enough staff to do it with, was quickly reverting back to his usual habits. And perhaps he recognized the danger in Sean's expression, because he was suddenly all business again.
"The Mistress has been looking for you high and low," he addressed Zara. "But you might as well wait now."
He turned to Sean, "And an escort is waiting outside for you. Dress and attend your Mistress."
Then he turned on his heel and left.
Zara looked flustered. She examined him closely.
"You're in no state to be seen outside this room. What are we going to do about you?"
Sean knew she wanted to save his pride. In the state he was in, everyone in the house would know what he had done with Viggo last night. But he found that at this point, he really didn't care. He moved about the room, looking for something to put on and was surprised and pleased to find the clothes that Viggo had brought him neatly brushed and folded over the back of one of the chairs. The linen shirt had been laundered, dried and pressed. He shook his head. Life in the lap of luxury. The household staff probably assumed that Viggo would take his things away with him when he left.
There they stood, in Laurel's doorway. Her two most prized possessions, these days, if truth be told. They looked a mess. Sleep rumpled. Sean in desperate need of a bath after what had clearly been a long night of the best kind of sex. She couldn't get enough of him in the leather and linen, either. It was a shame he wasn't more willing. The things she could have done with him. She would have had the Emperor himself here as Sean's regular patron.
She shook her head, and smiled in welcome.
"Please sit, both of you. We have a lot to discuss."
Sean sat, his movements showing the slight stiffness brought on by the previous day's exercise.
Zara didn't so much sit as alight.
She was not used to being invited to join her Mistress' audiences. Usually she faded into the background, listening and learning and anticipating the needs of Mistress and guests alike. Being asked to sit made her uneasy - made her wonder who was waiting and listening in the back of the room. Except that as best she could tell, there was no one. The Mistress had closed the door softly behind them and the three of them were alone in the sunny airy space.
She sat opposite them, her warm dark eyes dancing and a barely suppressed grin on her face.
"I've begun the invitation list for your unbinding," she said to Sean without preamble. "I want you to look it over and be sure I haven't missed anyone."
Sean heard the words, but it took a moment to understand them. When he did, the killing smile was back, and Laurel answered it, almost a mirror image.
"You don't have to invite anyone to an unbinding when the pleasure slave works in a house like this," he said. "That's for concubines and courtesans. You just need to put me out in the front room for free one evening, and the smith can have the last free fuck and mark me at dawn."
Laurel gave him a sly, foxy grin he could have devoured.
"I think they all deserve a bit of warning, though, don't you?"
Zara was watching them both with a confused kind of shock.
"No one will come. They'll all stay home with their bodyguards," she whispered, almost to herself. Two scathing, glances rested on her, and she looked very much like a rabbit in the wolf pen. Sean almost felt sorry for her, but he couldn't contain the battle lust that was coming up in him, and he thought maybe Laurel was the same.
"They'll all be terrified," Laurel purred. "They won't just stay home. I have to give two days' notice of the unbinding. They'll leave town. A third of the Council will find reasons to visit the furthest reaches of the Empire to give you room to enjoy your new freedom."
"Let's get started, then," Sean growled. "I have business to see to outside these walls, and the sooner we give them their notice, the better."
They had talked for awhile. Gone down her list. Discussed with some amusement refreshments to be served. Had enjoyed some refreshments themselves, served by Zara, who, having never been dismissed, had stayed and attended them. The two of them were more than a little drunk, and Zara was watching them warily.
"We still have our own business to discuss," Laurel said finally, after a long lull in the conversation.
Sean gave her a level look over the rim of his mug.
"What are you planning?" she asked him.
Sean's eyes shifted away.
"I need to get Viggo away from Sennet," Sean said quietly. He felt like a fool saying it so bluntly, but she was going to free him and he was going to have nothing. He would need her help to help Viggo. He wondered if she knew that and had an offer to make.
"I don't think Viggo needs your help," she said quietly. "I know more about him than you do, now."
"Yeah?" Sean asked. "What exactly do you think you know that I don't."
"We both know he killed Micon. Hardly a week ago. Except Micon was killed, it is widely rumored, by a very successful and dangerous assassin that has taken to hunting the powerful in this city..."
Sean was listening carefully now.
"The assassin made his presence known with the murder of Rodin, oh, a little more than a year ago. The body was never found. Rodin just disappeared, along with every single precious item in his entire private chambers. People still can't figure out how it was done. The town might think that Rodin had just run, if it weren't for the dead dogs. And the other assassinations, almost identical, that have occurred since."
"Including Micon's..."
"Viggo and Sennet," Sean murmured.
"Viggo looking for you, I'd guess. Sennet must have held out on him. Probably convinced him he didn't know how to find you. So Viggo hunted, and eventually he found what he was looking for."
Sean thought about it. Laurel continued.
"I think your Viggo's going to have a real problem on his hands. Sennet was controlling him with you. But now Viggo's found you. And Viggo has money, somewhere. He stalked out of here in a rage this morning. I suspect he plans to be back for you, possibly even tonight, though I would guess he'd take a little longer to plan and consider. Ah. A good reason to send his invitation first."
She got up from the table and went to the door with the note. Handed it to a guard and sent him away.
"If you're right, lady," Sean said, as she returned to her seat across the table, "Sennet won't wait." He sucked in a deep breath and spat it out, "Is there any way I could convince you to sponsor me to buy him?"
She looked at him a long time.
"What did Sennet owe you when you left his service," she asked quietly.
"A tenth of what I won in the arena," Sean said. "I took over 20,000 for him with Viggo, and another 12,000 or so before Viggo arrived. Plus the 5000 from the melee that day..."
"So," she said thoughtfully, "3700, roughly, for what, five years' work?"
She smiled at him sweetly.
"You realize that it is also tradition for a pleasure slave to receive a dowry upon an unbinding?" she said.
Sean snorted. "Not from a house like this," he retorted. But as the words hung in the air between them and he looked into her smiling face, a look of pure shock overtook him. Her grin broadened to perfect smug satisfaction.
She rose gracefully from her seat and went to the shelves were almost two years ago she had found his bindings. Now she took down a different chest.
"If I paid you ten percent for the work you've done here for me over the past two years," she stated in a businesslike fashion, "I would owe you very nearly 20,000. A much better return on your time investment, don't you think?" she asked. "And safer, too."
She set the entire chest in front of him.
"That's 25,000. The 20,000 I owe you, Sennet's 3700, and a little extra for your trouble."
"So now, I don't believe I need to sponsor you to buy your Viggo back." She was grinning like a loon. Sean still wasn't sure he believed any of it.
"Now, let's talk real business."
Chapter 19: Homecoming Part II
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-29 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-29 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-29 08:52 pm (UTC)Ooo, but Sennet's new guard. Laurel's games. *drops and chews nails*
Damn. I mean, "yay!" -- but damn.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 12:28 am (UTC)Would you mind if I friended you?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 12:46 am (UTC)Please be assured it's entirely because of Viggo and the fact he now appears to be in trouble, not because I find this story lacking.
Laurel choosing to free Sean took me by surprise. I honestly didn't expect for her to do so. Though she doesn't strike me as a delibrately cruel person, it's clear that she's making bank from him. Undoubtedly, she has figured out how to make even more from him as a free man.
The idea of Sean's former clients running to hills. They should be scared.
I hope we don't have to wait long for part II.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 01:40 am (UTC)1. That should have been "deliberately."
2. "The idea of Sean's former clients running to THE hills" should end with..."puts a very predatory smile on my face."
R-rated language is fine in the context
Date: 2005-04-30 11:18 am (UTC)Haven't decided yet if Sean's going to actively pursue any of those people running for the hills. We'll see.
Hope you won't have to wait long for Part II, either, but RL controls... And absolutely, your first reaction can be "DAMN IT!" Tee hee! :) However, unfortunately the choice was an incomplete chapter now or a more complete chapter at some undetermined future date. I have been told I should free the fic! :)
Re: R-rated language is fine in the context
Date: 2005-04-30 02:19 pm (UTC)I much prefer the scenario of Laurel doing the honorable thing and freeing Sean. Not all wealthy Romans were grasping, money-hungry jerks.
Random thought: Since Sennet didn't do the honorable thing, I wonder if his reputation has suffered.
A few more random thoughts:
"She couldn't get enough of him in the leather and linen, either."
You and me, both lady. Yummy.
"It was a shame he wasn't more willing. The things she could have done with him. She would have had the Emperor himself here as Sean's regular patron."
Thank goodness he wasn't. Depending on the emperor, this would have been hideously dangerous for both of them.
This chapter has been so worth the wait.
Re: R-rated language is fine in the context
Date: 2005-04-30 02:32 pm (UTC)Yup. On the other hand, this is only loosely Romanesque, not an attempt to be particularly true to historical fact.
I definitely think of you. And everybody who gives me feedback. :) This is the longest thing I have ever written and the most complicated. People's reactions are fascinating, and the specific ones, like yours, make me much more aware of what I'm writing and what it might mean and where it should go from here.
I actually haven't changed *too* much in my story because of reader feedback, but one fun little piece of porn has gone all to heck because of something
So there you go! The importance of feedback! :)
Re: R-rated language is fine in the context
Date: 2005-05-02 09:11 pm (UTC)Re: R-rated language is fine in the context
Date: 2005-05-18 04:40 am (UTC)Thank goodness he wasn't. Depending on the emperor, this would have been hideously dangerous for both of them.
Am going back through old chapters and, with 20/20 hindsight, this comment is so very, very wrong! *snerk!* I mean, *squick!* Depending on the emperor, this would have been hideously stomach churning. ;-)
Re: R-rated language is fine in the context
Date: 2005-05-18 10:30 am (UTC)And in recent pics, he is very slim, if you can believe it. Also gone over to contacts, I believe. Still furry, but if you're into that kind of thing... He's really changed. :)
Re: R-rated language is fine in the context
Date: 2005-05-18 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 03:32 pm (UTC)