Hi! So my brain is a troll, apparently, because when I got asked for JayDick and 74 of the 100 themes, 'Are You Challenging Me?' my mind immediately went, HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE A GREAT IDEA?! A GLADIATOR AU. YEP. DO THAT. So I did. 3.5k in one night? Not bad at all, if I do say so myself.
On that note, I know I said I would only be doing two updates a week but uh, I kinda accidentally looped myself into this themes thing so... we'll see? I'm just going to post prompts when I finish them and if that happens to line up on a day I would have posted a normal update, it'll probably take over that update. If not, then just enjoy extra stories! You can keep track of my progress on my Tumblr, and I'll probably be periodically asking people to give me pairings for the different themes, so if you want a shot at that stay tuned to my Tumblr updates.
No real warnings. Explicit sex, I guess? If you feel like that needs a warning?
The roar of the crowd sings in Dick's blood, energizing him in the way that only that sound ever can. It's not even for him; it's the fight before his because he's always last. He's the headliner, the final piece for the crowd before they go home excited and sated, at least until the next day.
He's the acrobat, the fury, the champion of this ring and a half dozen others throughout the country under his family name. No single name, no slave brand, no collar for him. He was born and raised in this lifestyle and when he proved he could fight, when he proved his acrobatic skill was good for something besides entertaining the crowds while the other boys swept the sands clean of any spilled blood, he joined it wholeheartedly.
He's a Grayson. He's the Gray Son of Gotham. It's a hard thing not to get carried away on, but he's had practice. The fight and the steel always keeps him as focused as he needs to be.
He tilts his head back, rolls his neck and breathes out slow and steady against the rush of fire and adrenaline starting to light in his blood. The leather of what little armor he's wearing — the standard for fights like his, that are more for show than any true bloody end — moves seamlessly against his skin and taps his thighs as he rolls his shoulders back and shifts his weight, listens to the clashes of steel and the screams of the crowd to gauge what's happening outside of the darkened waiting room he's still inside.
The hungry roar, that means drawn blood. The almost-shriek, that means a narrow escape. The angry one, that means too long without any real clash. After all his life, he's an expert in reading the moods of the crowd.
He can tell when they want blood, when they want someone spared, when they want a fighter toyed with or when they want it to be quick and brutal. He's spent all his life in the ring and most of it playing to the whims of that crowd, and most crowds are the same. Unfriendly sometimes, when he's new to the area or the other fighters aren't giving a good enough show, but he's a master of playing to what they want. Making them want more.
He's had great teachers.
His mouth curls into a small smile at the extended cheer, the scream that means it's over. He rocks his weight forward, back, listens to the crowd and then the shout of the announcer as he draws the crowd to a hush, speaks to give the boys time to clean the pit up and the two fighters time to get out of the sand. Assuming they're both still alive and one isn't being carried or dragged out.
He bends his knees, lets the muscles in his shoulders and back go loose in easy relaxation, ducking his head and closing his eyes for a moment to just listen. A minute more, maybe two, as he breathes slow and even and sinks into the intensity and concentration deserving of a title fight. It's not likely, but if he loses this could mean his life. He has the money to buy himself out of trouble, but not all fighters are willing to risk a previous champion taking their title back.
He hears the cue, opens his eyes, and wraps both hands around the hilts of his twin short swords and pulls them from the ground. A half moment later and he's moving forwards, towards the opening double doors and then out into the sunlight, into the heat and noise of the pit.
Gotham's primary pit, the one he holds the title of but hasn't been back to in at least a year. Most of his time is spent traveling from one to another and that doesn't always leave time to come back to his home ground. Even now, he's only here for a week to do a couple of title challenges before he heads off to make another circuit of the bigger pits.
Still, Gotham is home. Gotham's where he made a name for himself once he became a fighter and fell under Bruce's training. It's good to be back.
He jogs forward to where the announcer is standing as his name is called, tosses his swords down to stick in the sand and spins in a slow circle as he raises his arms to wave at the crowd. They're screaming, and the response sings in his veins and makes him offer a wide smile as the announcer, needlessly, repeats his name and then Bruce's name as his benefactor and trainer. He finishes his circle, lowers his arms and turns as the announcer quiets the crowd and then starts on a different variation of the same pre-entrance speech for his opponent.
"And against our champion, here for a shot at the title. Gone for years from the pits but back again! You've seen him fight and claw his way to the top the last eight months, and you knew him by a different name when he was first here but now you know him by just! One! Word!"
The crowd is stirring, already rising in anticipation.
"Lazarus!"
The screams are almost as deafening as when his name had been called, and he turns to look at the other door, to watch the man jogging out from it. Bruce hadn't warned him about any new powerhouse in the Gotham rings, but then he hadn't seemed overly concerned over the fight either.
Tall, heavy muscle with the same nearly-bare armor that he's wearing, but lean and fit. Matching twin swords, short black hair, and then he's standing not five feet away and blue-green eyes rise to meet his and his breath catches.
'Jason?' he mouths, as his once-partner pushes the swords into the sand and gives a wicked smirk.
He can't even begin to help sweeping his gaze down the defined lines of Jason's mostly-bare chest and equally bare legs as Jason turns in the same circle that he did, that smirk turning to an equally wicked grin. The boy he knew, that he'd partially helped train to fight, is gone. Jason is all lean muscle with thick thighs and biceps that mean he's strong. Gone is that slight hesitance, or the bright, wide-eyed look he always had when he was facing a crowd before, and in its place is an easy confidence and relaxation that Dick recognizes from a hundred different lifetime fighters he's seen come and go from the rings.
What's still there are the thick scars down the side of Jason's left leg and across the right side of his stomach, the ones that he last saw when they were stitched-closed gashes that came so close to killing the still-new fighter that Jason had been. It was a bad match; Jason didn't have the skill to go up the opponent he was paired against, and it was bad. It was bloody. He lost, and he lost hard. There were a lot of people wondering if Jason was ever going to be able to walk normally again, let alone run or fight.
When Jason was healed, while Dick was out on a brief tour of the pits to keep them happy, he left. None of them saw him again, and honestly he'd long since given up on ever seeing Jason again.
He's easy enough to track down; he always thought that Jason would come to him if he wanted to talk. Maybe that's what this is, in a way. But it sure looks like a real challenge, and Jason sure looks like a real fighter. It's hard to think that this might all just be some elaborate way for Jason to talk to him again, especially since the most he's gotten so far is a smirk.
Then his breath catches a second time as he, vaguely, hears the announcer mention Jason — Lazarus' — trainer; Ra's al Ghul. Bruce's biggest competitor when it comes to real, champion, fight-winning pit fighters. Ra's' fighters tend to be nasty, bloodthirsty, expertly trained pieces of work. He's never lost to one before — he half expects that Ra's would have his opponent kill him if it ever happened — but then, none of them have ever been someone he used to know.
Not that it matters.
He shakes off the surprise, lets the roar of the crowd sink him back into the right mindset within a few moments. Picking up the swords comes like second nature, and he meets that wicked little smirk with his own easy smile, shifting his feet in the sands and waiting for the cue to start the fight.
The crowd falls all but silent, the hush settling over both of them, and Jason's grip on his swords shifts, thumbs rubbing over the hilts and the tips nearly low enough to touch the sand. The intensity in his eyes is something that Bruce had never quite managed to teach him, but apparently Ra's had better luck. It's the look of a real, focused, fighter.
The announcer reaches the safety of the sides of the pit, the cue goes off, and everything bursts into movement.
Jason is fast, absurdly so for the size he is, and follows just a fraction of a second behind when he whirls away from the initial strike and tries to get at his back. Steel meets steel, slides off with a grating spark of metal on metal that leaves them both open, chest to chest with the swords splayed off to either side. His foot cracks into Jason's ankle, Jason's head cracks into his, and they both end up staggering back about a step. Jason is wincing, testing weight on the ankle, and he's got an ache in his temple that's definitely going to be a bruise, but neither of them are really hurt.
The crowd is deafening, apparently more incensed just by the fact that they're in the same ring than the fact that they're not really doing damage yet.
It stays that way. The fight is close quarters, vicious, filled with smirks and grins and the occasional laugh that's lost to the sound of the crowd, but it feels almost like a game. They trade bruises and the occasional small slice — the crowd screams at each new line of blood — but there's no real advantage on either side.
Jason loses a sword and then knocks one out of his hands not two seconds later. He flips up and over Jason, landing a knee in his back that staggers him and earns a drowned out sound of pain, and gets an almost immediate rear horse kick to the chest that flings him back into the sand and steals his breath for a few precious moments. Every time one of them gains a bruise, they deal out near the same thing. But it's close, it's skillful, it's flashy and vicious and more than enough to keep the crowd entertained past when they should be clamoring for an end.
Until finally he spins close to Jason, right up against his chest. Grabs his wrist with one hand, slams the other shoulder into Jason's chest and shoves a leg behind his calves. Jason flails, falls, and he twists the wrist to keep Jason's sword incapacitated as he hits the sand. The sword he flicks underneath Jason's chin almost feels like an afterthought, the point nudging his jaw up to bare his throat and threaten death, unless…
"Yield," he orders, in the sudden, sharp hush of the crowd.
Jason's grin, though breathless, is still wicked. But the sword drops from the fingers of his captured wrist, and Jason goes all but lax below him, tilting his head back to surrender to the steel holding him down.
The crowd is shrieking, utterly deafening, and he looks up to the trainer's box, to the small figures of Bruce and Ra's. The decision of what to do with a downed fighter is technically his, but it pays to play to the crowd and there are always background deals being made. At least, almost always.
He couldn't kill Jason even if that's what the crowd wanted, so he just fakes seeing an answer from Bruce and lowers the sword away from Jason's throat. The crowd sounds approving, and he embeds the sword in the sand so that he can use both hands to pull Jason back up to his feet. His hands only slip a bit on a stray bit of blood that's wound down from a shallow cut on Jason's right bicep, and it's familiar enough that it doesn't stop him from pulling Jason up, pulling him closer than necessary and almost shouting in his ear to be heard underneath the shriek of the crowd.
"Come to me," he says simply, and then lets go, retrieves his sword, and steps away with a smile.
Jason's grin seems to echo exactly what he's feeling.
Breathless. Exhilarated. Hungry.
Getting back into the built-in fighter's quarters happens in a dual state of hyperawareness and haze, feeling the sting of each cut and the ache of each forming bruise keenly as he washes off, but barely hearing the servants around him except to move how he knows he's expected to. To strip out of stained armor, change into some that's just as pointlessly non-protective but cleaner, softer, more flexible. Trappings to mark what he is and get fans to swoon and fall even in more love with the idea of what he is. That part's all Bruce.
And then the door to the temporary sleeping quarters is being pushed open and it's Jason bending to slip inside, too tall to just walk through. Similarly changed to fresh armor, cleaned of the blood and sand from the pit and with his hair freshly wet, eyes dark.
The door closes again, there's a single beat of silence, and then somehow Jason is pressed up against him and he's pressing back just as hard. Their mouths crash together, teeth and tongue followed quickly by the hard press of hands to bare skin to stroke and explore and grab. His hand bites into the back of Jason's neck, Jason grabs his waist at both sides and just lifts him, the grunt of effort muffled into his mouth, and he wraps his legs around Jason's hips more than just automatically.
His back presses against a wall, and Jason is pulling his legs higher and then unashamedly grabbing his ass in both hands, grinding forward and the stupid little skirts of leather do absolutely nothing to block the feeling of it. He bucks forward into it, nails digging into the back of Jason's neck as he hisses at the touch.
Then Jason is wrenching away, pushing to let him drop back down to the floor, and he's got wild eyes and clear hunger in his gaze for the second before he turns. Jason strides across the room with all the purpose of a man on a mission, dropping to one knee next to a bed and reaching underneath. He's already heading for Jason when the hand comes back out with a jar of what's doubtlessly oil because there are enough of these kind of encounters that fighters have learned to be prepared for them.
Jason sets the oil down, starts to turn, and he gets both hands on Jason's back and shoves him forward. Jason manages to roll over onto his back on the bed and push himself up to halfway lean on the wall at the head of it, but then Dick is following and climbing over him, leg swinging wide to straddle his hips. He drops his teeth down to Jason's jaw, down along his neck, and the younger man groans and arches into him.
Then there are slick fingers sliding beneath the useless leather skirt of armor, up and into him with no preamble and he moans into Jason's throat, pushing back against the slide. There's the clack of the jar getting set aside, and Jason trembles when he gets his teeth on what must be a particularly sensitive spot below his ear.
Two fingers comes fast, three burns a bit but he's so done waiting that he just takes it in stride, biting a little harder to compensate as he adds to the growing collection of bruises on Jason's throat. Let everyone assume they're from some girl who was willing to sleep with Gotham's second best fighter; he doesn't even care.
When he slicks Jason with the oil and sinks down onto him it's that same burn, a feeling of fullness that makes him arch his back and neck, biting into his own lip to keep from crying out at the long slide inside him. Jason's fingers are digging into his hips and he's panting, shaking with what has to be mostly restraint. They let out twin groans of mixed relief and disappointment when Dick settles into his lap, and Jason's finally fully seated. Groans that turn to moans as he circles his hips, testing the slide and the feeling until Jason hisses and bucks up hard enough to jolt him up as well.
He braces his hands on Jason's shoulders, hands gripping tight and digging into solid muscle as he lifts himself briefly and then slams down again. Jason pushes up, getting his back solidly against the wall and dragging Dick in, putting him in his lap as the desperate lifts and falls settle into a real rhythm. Their mouths meet again, even hungrier and with as much biting as actually kissing, blood eventually springing from someone's lip but neither of them knows or cares which one of them it is.
It's all the slick, heavy slap of flesh to flesh, the dig of nails and the moans and gasps muffled between their mouths. Then one of Jason's hands is circling him, still faintly slick with whatever oil it is, and he's bucking forward and back and tightening his grip on Jason's shoulders until there's sure to be some probably suspiciously hand-shaped bruises there.
Jason jerks his head away, mouth pressing to the crook of his neck and shoulder instead, free arm wrapped around his waist and clinging tight. Then Jason is shaking and muffling a shout into his skin, wet heat spreading up into him as hips shove up even harder than they were. The hand on him is still moving, and the feeling, the sound, the sensation, shoves him over the edge too. He bites down on his lip to muffle his own shout, pushing down and arching and coming up and onto Jason's stomach.
His grip on Jason's shoulders loosens, and then he leans forward and into the solid press of muscle. Jason's arms circle his back, pulling him in and holding him close, breathing shakily against his throat. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to bring his arms in and all but curl up on Jason's chest, the hunger easing out of him and the adrenaline fading away to leave behind a pleasant, bone-deep kind of satisfaction. It feels just as natural when Jason presses a soft kiss to his throat and hums in a way that sounds just as satisfied.
Finally, when their breathing has calmed down and their hearts aren't pounding, he murmurs, "I missed you, Jay."
Jason's grip tightens just a touch, and a nose rubs against the side of his neck. "Missed you too, Dick. 'M here now though."
"To stay?"
"Plan on it. I'm leaving Ra's' troupe soon as I talk to him again. Swapping over if you'll have me."
He rubs a hand up Jason's chest, smiles into his skin. "Good. You got all handsome and confident while I wasn't looking, Jay. I like it."
"I noticed." Jason nips at his skin, and he gives a small rumble of sound and rocks his hips forward an inch or so.
"Careful, you'll make me want to go again."
"Not a bad thing," Jason counters, but doesn't make any other move. "I was hoping you were feeling what I did out there; the hunger."
"The excitement," he adds, and then leans back just enough to meet Jason's gaze. "This answer enough for you, Jay? Because I want to feel that again. A lot."
Jason's grin is that same brand of wicked as it was earlier. "Good. You ever consider this, before?"
"Really before? You were still young. But when I saw you out there today? Yes." He rocks a little bit more, gives a soft groan when Jason slips from inside of him with the movement but doesn't try and fix it at all. "Fight with me again? Nevermind the crowd, I just want to do that again, with or without them."
"Maybe next time I'll win," Jason murmurs, and then gives a laugh. "If I win, does that mean you fuck me instead? Because I could get behind that."
He echoes Jason's laugh, and the feeling inside him is bright and warm and whole. He leans in, catching Jason's mouth in a brief kiss that he can't stop smiling for.
"We'll see."