Antonio woke up, and first in long time he felt really relaxed. His bed wasn't so comfortable and he usually got to bed late, so he didn't understand why was now different. Then as he moved a bit to get up, he realized where he was, what happened the night before. He couldn't help the smile that came to his lips though he didn't understand himself. He noticed the arms around his waist, another body pressing against his back and felt the sleeping Lovino's breath on the back of his neck. It felt really nice, and Antonio only closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep…

When Lovino woke up, his head hurt like hell and he couldn't open his eyes from the sharp light. Oh shit, he knew that he had drunk a bit more than he should but this much? Groaning, he buried his face to something warm that was close to him and stayed like that for a while. Only when he noticed what it was, did he open his eyes and pull away. It was Antonio. He spent the night with Antonio. Oh. Well, it's not like it was rare, that the Romans slept with their slaves but… He hadn't done it yet. He always thought it to be pathetic, having nobody else to do it with.

Lovino sighed, it couldn't be helped now and pulled away from the other man, sitting up on the bed. His head hurt badly, he didn't know how he was going to survive this day… He rubbed his temples and kept his eyes closed, hissing at the bright light.

Antonio's mind slowly registered the absence of Lovino's warmth and he rolled to his back opening his eyes to see what happened.

"Good morning" he said with a smile as he saw Lovino sitting on the bed.

"Huh?" the patrician looked up at him, a bit confused. "Uh, yeah, good morning…" he mumbled and closed his eyes again continuing to massage his forehead. "Bring me my clothes, a simple tunic, I don't think I'm going anywhere today"

Antonio smiled gently when Lovino answered so silently and wanted to ask how he was, but then he spoke to him again. Coldly. An order. He froze at this and his smile slowly started to fade away. He didn't say anything, just got up and did as he was asked to, taking a tunic to Lovino. He sat down to the edge of the bed and handed it to him.

"Here they are" he smiled looking at him as he put it down beside him.

"Ah, good. Damn, my head hurts, bring me some fresh water!" Lovino growled as stayed in the position he was. This way he couldn't see how Antonio's face dropped completely.

"Oh… Okay" he said and stood up, hurrying out of the room to get what he was asked to. What he was ordered to.

He didn't know why it took him by surprise. He didn't know what he was expecting, he should know better. Still, it hurt him, he thought… No, the situation was the opposite, he didn't think anything! He scolded himself the whole way, for getting carried away, for letting himself to be weak. He just… wanted to forget it ever happened and not let repeat. Next time, he would reject him, no matter what Lovino would think about it.

Antonio pulled up the water from the well and poured it to a jug, then started walking backwards. He decided to not pay any more attention to this. He was supposed to act like it never happened, then he would eagerly do this because he wouldn't want to be humiliated.

"Here is your water, sir" Antonio said, with his voice might be slightly rougher and his look might be slightly angrier than usual. But aside from that, he acted as always, putting the jug to a table and poured some water to a glass, handing it to Lovino, who was still at the bed, resting his head on his hands and only looked up now.

"Thanks" he said and took the glass, quickly drinking its content. The water felt really good now, he should have drunk that the night before as well… Though even through his self-pity, he noticed the sharpness in his slave's voice and looked up at him with a slight frown. "Is there anything wrong?"

Antonio pressed his lips tightly together at the question. Anything wrong? Why would there be?

"Nothing, sir. Everything is alright" he said calmly, forcing a smile btu his voice was cold. He felt anger whelming up in him and he was holding that back. "May I help you dress?"

"No, I'll just rest for a bit more, I guess" Lovino shook his head and drank the rest of the water before continuing to speak. "You now go down to the kitchen and help out there. You have been working there so it won't be a problem for you, will it? We are having another family over for dinner as my father is a former consul, they all want to talk to him, the ones who just got their magistrates" Lovino rolled his eyes at this with a sigh, then giving back the glass to Antonio, he laid back to the bed.

Antonio only nodded as a response and went out of the room, down to the kitchen to help as he was said to. After all, he really wasn't needed when Lovino was trying to recover from his hangover. Also, he really didn't want to either, last night was enough of it, of this whole, of Lovino. He hoped that he will be occupied enough with his work at the kitchen to not have time for these stupid thoughts, constantly bothering him.

It was past noon when they woke up, so now the lunch was already over, the rest of the family was walking out of the dining room now. Some of them looked worn like Lovino, as Antonio noticed, especially the father. But still, he beckoned to Antonio to come over. So he wasn't going to get to the kitchen as fast as he wanted to…

„Yes, sir?" he asked politely as he stopped in front of the man.

„Where's my son? He has come neither to breakfast, nor to lunch"

"He is at his room, sir, having a headache. He woke up barely an hour ago and didn't feel good at all, so he said that he wasn't going to come down until dinner. He blamed it on the alcohol" Antonio answered, maybe a bit more honestly than he should have but he couldn't help it. "And he sent me down to the kitchen to help out."

"I see" the oldest Vargas said with a sigh and rubbed his eyes. "I hope he'll get better for the dinner, he can't miss it! You can go now and do your work" he nodded to him, a worried expression on his face and left the slave there.

Antonio nodded and hurried to the kitchen, to finally get away from the whole family. While working he would be at least able to think a bit, to relax a bit and to forget what he needed to forget.

When he arrived, all of the slaves were at the kitchen, busy with preparing for the dinner. It always was a big event when someone held a dinner, but now, when a future politician will be the guest, it was even more important. Every hand was indeed, so even the slaves working on the fields and around the house were in the kitchen. Who could was cooking, who couldn't was helping them out as well as they could. Antonio found himself in the middle of a mess and was right at that moment given the task to help bring water as they were constantly running out of it and only had one poor man bringing new.

But later he had to help with slicing up the different fruits and vegetables, help with making enough room for the food in the dining room, bringing in new couches to have enough for the guests and clean up the room.

By the time the dinner was on, Antonio felt really exhausted from the work and as he was sweeping the floor, he only wanted to get to his bed. But he knew that wasn't possible. If he did finish in the kitchen, he was sure he would be called to stand like a guard next to Lovino. And if some miracle happened and he wasn't needed there either, then he would have to stay up anyway to help and clean up after the guests were gone. His only chance was to be sent away by Lovino but that wasn't going to happen, and Antonio would rather stay up and clean than to meet him…

It wasn't like he didn't like him. No, that wasn't the case at all, it was just… Antonio might have taken what happened last night a bit more… seriously. He didn't know why but it just didn't let go of his thoughts, he was constantly thinking of the things Lovino whispered to him, his touches, his scent, his skin against his…

Antonio was distracted from his thoughts by a loud crack. He looked up from what he was doing and noticed that he accidentally knocked of a clay jug from the table and it broke into pieces. Oh no, this was no good, he will have to pay it back and he would be lucky if he got away with that…

"You! What are you doing?!" he heard the foreman shouting and turned around to face the man who stormed through the kitchen to get to him. "If you weren't daydreaming whole day, maybe it wouldn't happen!" he shouted with Antonio who stood there looking down, submissively but he grabbed his arm and pulled him closer roughly to make him look up at his eyes. "I have enough of how you were acting whole day, you can't pay attention to anything! But I'll teach you a lesson, boy!" he snarled and raised his free hand to hit Antonio. He was already prepared to it, but he kept looking at the foreman's eyes, he wasn't a coward, he'd face this beating now as a man.

"Stop! What do you think you are doing to /my/ servant?!" Antonio suddenly heard an angry voice and as he looked at the door, he saw Lovino standing on the doorway. "How dare you lay a finger on my personal servant? Know your place, slave, you might be the foreman here but you don't have any right to punish him! Go and make it right yourself whatever he messed up!" he ordered, his voice full of anger and menace. "And for you, Antonio, hurry and come with me, I need you now! I don't care what you were doing up until now, you're coming with me!" he said and turned to leave the kitchen, giving a despising look to the apologizing foreman.

Antonio didn't waste any moment, now he was really grateful for Lovino's presence. He walked behind him in silence but as they were alone, he soon started speaking.

"Thank you for…"

"No, no thanking" Lovino muted him with a glance. "I didn't do it to save your ass. I simply need you now, the son of the new aedile invited me and some others to their private bathing house. Like I would really care about that egoistic little… Ah, forget it, the main point is that you can't be beaten up. Do you have any idea how badly it would reflect on me? They would think I made them do it to you! I can't allow any rumors now that my father has every new politicians' attention" he sighed and shrugged as they slowly reached the hall.

"I understand" Antonio nodded and was glad that they had to stop the conversation as they arrived to where the other young patricians were waiting for Lovino. He still wasn't happy that he had to go with him, but he couldn't say a bad thing about him after what happened right now… Even if it really wasn't because of him.

They walked only a few streets to get to that bathing house, fortunately. There Antonio went with the other servants and helped them prepare everything for their masters. He was happy that he got something to do now, a bath always required the full attention of the servants. He had to bring drinks to Lovino, the towel if he needed it, and even food. Time passed quite quickly fortunately when he had something to do and it was truly better than to work on the kitchen.

When he was free, he just stood next to the wall with the other slaves. When the patricians were loud and occupied enough, they were able to speak a little, though Antonio wasn't too happy about these conversations, especially when the others came from the provinces and weren't real Romans.

So he ended up leaning against the wall and watching the patricians in the water, trying to listen into their conversations to keep his mind awake and working. He really missed reading, and having intelligent conversations about politics, the new provinces, and even the rumors, so he always listened to what the people around him was speaking.

His eyes wandered between the patricians, resting on each one of them to observe them, especially the son of the aedile. He was speaking the most, babbling about himself and his father a lot. Lovino was sitting next to him, acting like he was interested in what the others were talking about but he was clearly bored. Antonio's eyes stopped at him and he was watching him for long when his glance suddenly met with his. His eyes widened in surprise and looked away immediately, only turning his gaze back to the patrician when he somewhat calmed his expressions. He didn't want to be caught staring… because he wasn't staring! He was just passing time with watching them as he had nothing better to do. But as he looked at him again, Lovino was already turned back to the others, laughing at something. He hoped the other wouldn't think too highly about it, it really wasn't anything to be noted.

They were in the water for hours and didn't want to come out but it was getting too late. Lovino was the first to get bored of it and suggest that everyone go home now, and so he did right then. The patricians asked him to stay, mocked him about not being able to stay up and that he must have a beautiful someone waiting for him if he was so in a hurry. He assured them that none of these two was the situation and politely left, Antonio helping him in the meanwhile, of course.

"Urgh, at last!" Lovino sighed as soon as they stepped to the street and they was walking back home. "I thought I would never going to get rid of them! Why can't they just stop talking? They are not even talking about something, anything, they're seriously saying nothing! They act like they are already politicians but none of them has studied law at all!" Lovino complained to Antonio. "What do you think? Would you be able to keep up the 'good boy mask'?" he asked him curiously, tilting his head slightly.

"I… don't know, I didn't pay attention to the conversation, sir" Antonio replied diplomatically, hoping that he wouldn't be questioned more.

"Nah, I saw that you were watching us and listening, you had to hear them!" Lovino rolled his eyes, looking at him curiously. "Come on, tell me, I won't tell it to anyone. I'd be the one coming out of this worse if I did"

"Well…" Antonio bit his lower lip, looking downwards before answering. "They are horrible, sir, they have no idea how a real battle is fought, what the real situation is in the new provinces and what problems the Republic is facing" he sighed shaking his head slowly. "I've been to Rome and to the other parts of Hispania, the newly conquered ones. The barbarians are fighting like the gods of the underworld were helping them… They know nothing about it" he said with an angry expression and thought about how easily these patricians talked about how the army should fight, when he had been there, on the battlefield and it's absolutely not that simple as they thought.

"Ah… I see" Lovino nodded and stayed in silence, thinking about what Antonio just said. He had no idea that Antonio had fought in these battles, he only knew that he had been working for the army but that could mean a lot. "You know a lot about it, though, it would be interesting if you once said this to them" he added thinking but at the frightened expression on Antonio's face, he continued. "It's okay, you don't have to panic, I know you can't, and I have no intention in making you say this, that would be suicide on your part. I don't want to lose my best personal servant so far…" he said with a shrug and looked away from him.

Antonio stayed in silence at that, it was a rare thing to hear. Rare? No, he hadn't heard it at all, and he didn't know that Lovino had ever complimented any of his slaves. He was positive he'd know that, the other slaves by the house told him everything about his new masters, who he should be the kindest with, who he should want to like him and so. They also told him that he shouldn't be surprised how rude Lovino was, how he will act with him and that he shouldn't take it too personally, he's like that with other patricians as well. This wasn't something new to Antonio, he knew how Lovino acted with people, he had had a hard time with trying to get close to him back then, too. That's why this surprised him so much. And made him a bit suspicious as well.

"Thank you, sir" he said with a small, wary smile.

"Buh, you have nothing to thank! I'm serious, not just polite!" Lovino said and glared at him warningly. "I don't even have high expectations from a servant anymore, just to be able to tell how to wear a damned toga"

Antonio couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that, and no matter what the patrician said, he took the compliment personally. Because even if Lovino didn't mean it in a so emotional way as one would think, he still only said it to Antonio, and knowing this felt really nice to him.

They slowly reached home and they walked up to Lovino's room without a word, though Antonio felt really hesitant. The patrician of course saw it but didn't say anything about it, it was something the slave had to get over, he was still his servant. Antonio helped him get off the clothes, gave him and helped him put on the night clothes.

"Do you want anything else, sir?" he asked him standing in front of him when they seemingly finished, hoping that the other would just shake his head and he could go. Lovino looked at him thinking and it almost seemed like he was going to nod, Antonio already took a step back but then there was a shook of head. He sighed and turned towards him, waiting what he might want. "Yes, sir?"