i. this is how it is at the end, my skin glistening with streaks of starlight
Fire yet burns in his eyes, and the image of those who meet their ends upon the cross permanently burns in memory – Gannicus, harsh laughter pouring from mouth as blood pours from palms. Nemetes, Lugo, and the like, cursing in the tongue he now knows as well as Latin and the one he was born to. Spartacus, ever their leader, gazing down from the crucifix, apology in his dimming, red eyes to find do not dare, it was we who chose this in return. Naevia, dignified and full of grace as she returns to the arms of her beloved in the afterlife.
He is meant to be next. He should be next, should be granted the same honor as she, should fade from this world to find final freedom of Agron's permanent embrace in the next. But a gaze falls upon him and a cruel grin of recognition graces Roman features. A shot of fear courses through Nasir's body as the commander hauls him from the line.
The general turns from his regard of the mass crucifixion when Nasir is shoved to his knees at his feet.
"What filth is this?" demands Crassus, scrutinizing him as one would the scum of the underworld, and Nasir glares fiercely back.
"A rogue dog, general," the Roman commander replies with relish. "The body slave of Vibius Seius Novellus."
ii. and the waters keep on breaking as I reverse out of my body
When they had departed for the mines all those years before, their numbers divided and armed with little hope of success, Nasir had felt in his heart that it was to be the last time he would see the villa where he grew from boy to man. This revelation held surprisingly little weight – for all that he had seen and experienced there, it had not been a home.
Once he might have served and fetched and submitted and anticipated as easily as he drew breath, but no longer. To find himself kneeling in the midst of the villa bedchamber once more, stripped of clothing and arms, is a fate now unbearable. The fact that he has not even been bound, as though to discount the possibility that he could defend himself, merely adds insult to the wound. Novellus – for he ceased to be Dominus the moment Nasir could easily swing the weight of a sword in hand and still believe in the power and shocking grace of Agron's rough fingers snaking their way past collarbone and neck to cup his jaw in warm embrace, nails scraping at his scalp and teeth tugging lips already swollen from past exertions – leers above, circling him as a vulture would a dying deer.
"Was it worth it, Tiberius?" he asks, soft, casual, as though exchanging pleasantries with an old friend.
Nasir does not respond. He will not give him the satisfaction.
"Was it worth it," Novellus repeats, "after all our years together? I gave you a home, boy, and you would exchange it so easily for a few years living like a wild dog, a whore of brutes. Tell me," he whispers from behind, winding unwelcome fingers tightly through ebony hair, enticing a shudder at the unbidden memories that whelm up within him, "how many cocks have been inside of you since last you were mine?"
Nasir clenches his jaw, and feels every inch of his skin burn firewhite at Novellus' words. Agron's face swims before his eyes, Agron's fingers brushing down his spine, Agron sighing into the curve of his body, Agron touching his ribs one by one, Agron drawing circles in the space between his heart and collarbone with careful questioning fingernails. Things Novellus cannot have. Novellus is sharp tiled floor biting at his knees and bile rising in his throat. Novellus is a ringing in his ears and bejeweled fingers pulling at collar and hair, robbing him of breath.
But when the fist enmeshed in his hair grips ever tighter, pulling upwards and ripping at his scalp, when Novellus roars angrily, "How many?" Nasir gasps out, "One," and hates himself for it.
Novellus releases him, tossing him across the room. Nasir throws his hands out to lessen the impact of the fall upon a nearby table, and he hisses in pain when his palm lands upon something sharp, keen enough to draw blood. Eyes widening, he slowly closes his fist around the fruit knife. His heart pounds. The blade small, but battle is in his blood now. It will be enough.
Enough for both of them, that is. He has no desires towards continued life without his heart, but first he will see Novellus from this fucking world.
"One," Novellus venomously echoes his answer, approaching him from behind. Poisonous words drip from his lips into the darker man's ear, too preoccupied with delivering punishment to notice what Nasir holds in his grasp. "What fucking romance. And how many times, Tiberius? How many times will I have to fuck you to remind you? How many times to remember that I own you?"
With a feral hiss, Nasir whips around, aims his foot, and in one swift motion kicks Novellus across the room. Fury pouring in hot waves, he launches himself on top of the older man, pinning him to the floor, knife in hand and poised to strike. Yet a small thought in the corner of his mind gives him pause. He would savor this moment. He would take this as a small triumph, as revenge for those who were denied theirs, as vengeance for the young boy whose life and innocence was stolen from him, for the man who soon goes to join the friends and heart that were taken away.
"Tiberius…" Novellus says tremulously, and it brings no pleasure to hear the pleading in his voice.
"This villa is all I have known since I was a small child," he tells Novellus quietly. "I remember the first time I laid eyes upon it. You struck me when fear would not allow me to speak, and spat upon me when at last I told you my name. If this is my home, where are my mother and father? Where is my brother? I do not know. The Romans took me from them to be your pet," he spits out the word with venom, voice rising. With calm, resolute hands, he takes the man's chin in a bruising grip, forcing his gaze upwards, a reverse of countless times passed when he had been victim to Novellus' dark moods. "For all the years I lived here, this was but a cage, but no longer. I am Nasir, I am a free man, and I am far from home."
At long last, the blade falls in a slow, gleaming arc, and finds home buried within Novellus' heart. It does not end there. Savagely, Nasir drags the knife down, twists, relishes in the man's screams as he has never before delighted in a man's passing. He raises the blade once more, brings it down to Novellus' chest again, again, again, slashing and twisting and hissing and reveling in the singing of metal through air as it claims pure vengeance.
Then it is done.
Nasir struggles to draw breath into his lungs as he finds footing on trembling legs, is too quick to release it once drawn. Fighting to maintain control over respiration, he promptly falls to his knees once more, the exhaustion of battle and captivity and hunger and long-awaited retribution finally claiming him. He wonders whether the clash of swords ringing in his ears as darkness claims him is a herald of the next life, prays Agron stands among the warriors there, waiting to welcome him home.
iii. I wear you tightly as I burn, don't make me come back
The smell of stew meets his nose before light or quiet conversation are detected. They come to his eyes and ears presently, however, quickly followed by a loud grumbling noise, which Nasir recognizes as his own gut. A large, warm palm comes to rest on his cheek, and despite still-closed eyes, his own hand snaps up to capture the intruder's wrist in icy grip. A booming laugh follows, Nasir's eyes snap open, and for a moment all breath stops.
Agron, safe. Agron, smiling. Agron, haloed by the greenery of trees far above. Agron, alive.
He gasps the German's name, struggling to raise his head from the ground. Gently, Agron moves his hand down to his shoulder, preventing him from rising up.
"Shh," he soothes, tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind Nasir's ear. "You must regain strength."
Nasir obeys, but his mind continues to race as he drinks in the sight before him. He had been there. He had seen it, seen the Roman's sword raise behind Agron, rushed to impede the attack and yet been too far still when the blow had met the crease between shoulder blades. He had watched Agron fall, their eyes held in limbo with declarations and promises and oaths never to be kept, then been swept away by the frenzy of battle.
"Then this must be the afterlife," he concludes aloud, watching as Agron ladles stew into a bowl.
Smiling ruefully, the taller man shakes his head. "The gods of the underworld would not have me," he says, tipping the bowl to Nasir's mouth, who drinks from it gratefully. "Yet they would have, were it not for a goddess of war."
Nasir, mouth filled with hot broth, furrows his brow in question.
"Saxa scouts ahead to learn of ships bound for Germania," Agron explains. "She will join us presently."
Another presumed fallen. The realization of what blessing the gods have bestowed upon him slowly dawns, and Nasir allows instinct to pull the corners of his lips upwards. He knows he has yet to process this truly, but after all he has endured, not all has been lost to Rome's shadow. Saxa lives. Agron lives. Agron, in whose presence all others become a pale shadow of no interest, for it is Agron who taught him to live, Agron who holds his beating heart in his palm.
Nasir surges upwards, exhaustion and injury be damned, and claims Agron's lips in a searing kiss. Agron covers his body with his own, and Nasir wraps around him, trying to get inside his bones, trying to keep him there within reach, so that he can breathe in the scent of dust and caraway, bite down hard to taste the acrid copper tang of blood upon his lips.
They will go to Germania. They will cast off the shadow of Rome, and in the lands east of the Rhine, they will find peace. They will find freedom. They will live a life of honor and dignity in memory of those freed to the afterlife.
"You've been so brave," Agron whispers in his ear, and Nasir feels him tremble within, pulls him even closer to be rid of the miniscule distance that remains between them.