Chapter Text
Now
It was a nice day. The sky was a clear cerulean blue with barely a cloud in it. The breeze caressed Aziraphale’s fevered skin, cooling it as he panted against the inside of his helmet.
Not too hot. Not too cold.
A nice day to die, all things considered.
The pain was sharpening now. Blood pulsing through his fingers. The muffled roar of the crowd rose. Too many voices, Too many thoughts and feelings. He couldn't really grasp if there was a general consensus over his fate. It sounded shocked, but also gleeful at the spectacle they'd been gifted. Aziraphale had learned to love the mob as much as he hated them. It didn't matter now. He'd done his part, and he was ready.
A long, lean shadow fell across him. Through the slits in his visor, Aziraphale saw Crowley had pulled off his own, smaller helmet. He had long discarded his net. He stood wonkily, trying to keep the weight off his right leg. Aziraphale's sword had sliced the skin open earlier. Among other things.
Neither of them was looking their best right now. The crowd had glorified in it, though. They'd howled in approval when the Emperor had allowed another round.
There would be engravings, statues, and immortality for both of them. Immortality with Crowley sounded rather nice.
Crowley spun his trident around awkwardly so the prongs pointed at Aziraphale. He staggered.
Aziraphale looked at the sky. He was ready.
He sensed, rather than saw, the trident jab down. A slow, cumbersome strike, easy to avoid. It vibrated in the arena sand next to Aziraphale's neck. He clumsily kicked out his leg, knocking Crowley’s feet out from under him.
Crowley landed next to him. Bloodied and exhausted, he curled on his side in the sand. Air rattled in and out of his lungs.
"Think we did enough?" Crowley asked roughly.
Aziraphale reached out the cleaner of his two hands. Crowley’s fingers gathered it to his heart.
Aziraphale's smile was hidden by his helmet. He gazed back up at the perfect sky.
Then
The dagger swept so close to Crowley's face that it could have taken his nose off. If it weren't blunted. Still, the blade could have broken it again.
The audience, lounging beneath the olive trees, cooed and applauded appreciatively. Their finery glittered in the sunlight as dazzling as the stuffed peacocks that formed the centre of the feast.
Crowley jabbed with his trident, but Eric was getting good. Despite never actually seeing the sand of an arena yet, he had impeccable footwork. He dodged away, without making it look too easy.
They weren't here to win, but put on a show as much as the musicians and dancing girls were. Like them, it was a performance that wouldn't end until the elite visiting the Emperor's Capri villa said so.
Crowley kept up his attack, trying to pace himself beneath the hot sun. He was glad he didn't have his net with him today. Both because it was a weight he wasn't carrying and he didn't want it getting tangled in the flowers trailing from the pillars. Or around the drunken observers who would sometimes stagger forward to cop a feel.
It wasn't like Crowley ever wore much in the arena anyway, but today all he had were trails of fabric reminiscent of fish scales, which very much did not preserve his modesty. Or anything, really.
Eric ducked below Crowley's trident, his blade nearly clouting Crowley in the ribs. The men yelled their approval, and the courtesans on their arms gasped.
Not quite the adoration of 80,000 in the colosseum, but it was much easier work stripping down, oiling up, and sparing with Eric for the titillation of a few imperial toadies.
Crowley flashed the most handsome of them a grin because when the fighting was done, they might decide to extend his contract to include more personal services. Easy and not unpleasant work, that was. Crowley was building up quite the prize fund. Now, if he could just stay alive long enough to spend it -
"We should hire The Bull one day." The Emperor's aunt, at least that's what he called her, swayed slightly as she muscled her way to the front of the crowd.
Ouch, but also good luck with that. Gabriel knew what a prize of a gladiator he had and never let his Bull out on private contracts like this. Not when he could arrange more intimate dalliances and skim off a heftier chunk of commission for himself. It was something Aziraphale, as The Bull was to Crowley, would often blush about.
Crowley let Eric get a few more good strikes in, ones that would make him memorable so that he'd already be somebody when he had his first official fight. It was hot, and the crowd was dwindling, so Crowley gave a signal for it to end.
Despite their rehearsals, Eric made him work for it. Crowley didn't mind; it was everyone for themselves in this game. When Eric was finally good enough to fall on his back, Crowley pressed his trident point to his chest harder than necessary.
Eric, all smudged eyeliner and insolence, blew him a kiss.
The audience applauded, the Senator Crowley had grinned at most of all. Perhaps Crowley wasn't a beardless boy anymore, but he was still very fuckable.
He helped Eric up, and the two of them made their salutes. Eric was barely breathing hard, and the ache in Crowley’s own lungs, the thrashing of his heart, made him aware of his age.
He caught himself recalculating how many years he might have left.
The senator didn't seem to mind. He clapped Crowley’s back, and his hand lingered. Most of the audience was pressing in close now. It was probably why they'd hung around in the heat so long.
Antonius Crowley, renowned retarius of the colleseum with twenty-eight wins to his name, could still pull a crowd, especially one as debauched as this. And Eric? Well, he was very pretty too.
"Wine!" Someone called. "Wine for our brave warriors!"
They were not given the good cups of glass, and left standing in the heat to drink, all the better to be oggled. Eric had definitely caught attention, and Crowley tried not to be jealous. His senator was secured, the woman on his arm having drifted off to gamer pastures.
Auntie was still appraising Crowley. Her palm moulded to his chest, and her thinly drawn eyebrows lifted. Beneath them, her jewel-like eyes were bright with wickedness. "It's odd The Bull has never fought you, Antonius."
It was not odd at all. Yes, retarii and sectors were naturally enemies, condemned to re-enact the conflict between Neptune and Vulcan, but he and Aziraphale were owned by different ludii. It was in Gabriel's and Beelzebub's interest to deliberately keep them apart. They were both too valuable to waste on such a dangerous match.
No one wanted to hear that. Wine-fuelled whispers drifted through the onlookers.
"I'd bring him down," Crowley said boldly, because it was what was expected. "He'd be powerless against me."
His senator squeezed his waist and agreed heartily.
Auntie drained her glass. "You sound very sure."
"Big lumbering ox," Crowley laughed without malice. "He'd never dodge my net then -"
He mimed making a flamboyant jab with his trident that was suggestive of more than one type of penetration.
The audience loved that, and the conversation moved on. Crowley was moved on, out of the heat finally, and into a secluded arbour where he earned himself a hefty bonus. Far more than he'd ever have got in the back streets of the Aventine.
He thought no more about fighting Aziraphale until a week later, when Beelzebub strode down to the training yard and grabbed Crowley by his ear.
Beelzebub was small, and Crowley was folded double, hobbling in an undignified fashion until he was shoved into their office.
"Idiot!"
"Yes." Crowley stretched his back. "Why this time?"
Beelzebub had their fists clenched, practically vibrating with anger. It would rattle itself out of them soon enough. They were too scheming to run so hot all the time. Plus, Crowley had caught sight of a bowl of grapes on their desk.
Food in the ludus was plentiful and hearty, but consisted mostly of grains and beans. Food to bulk a body up and fuel exertion. The opportunity for something sweet and with colour rarely presented itself.
"You are to fight Aziraphale," Beelzebub said.
Crowley’s head jerked up. His shock was sharp, sudden, but easily mastered. "Oh?"
"You're taking it very calmly." Beelzebub stared at him over their desk.
"Because I can't change it, can I?"
Crowley had been taught a lot since he'd been sold to Beelzebub, but the patience and acceptance he'd had to teach himself. He snatched up his grapes and sat down by the window.
"No," Beelzebub replied. "The Emperor wishes to honour the anniversary of his father's death with the most impressive games ever staged."
Crowley snorted. He believed wholeheartedly that Emperor Lucius' father had only died because Emperor Lucius had killed him. Had him killed, anyway. The imperial family tended to outsource the dirtier jobs.
"That means," Beelzebub growled, "the two most renowned gladiators in Rome meeting in a fight to the death."
To the death? Really? The dramatic little bitch. Crowley was angry because he was scared. Scared and powerless. And it was his fault, him and his stupid mouth.
Not that he'd let anyone see how his insides were turning to cold liquid.
"Nothing to do with another crushing military defeat in Germainia then?" Crowley shoved grapes into his mouth and chomped away, barely tasting them. His entire career would be wasted because the Emperor wanted everyone talking about a gladiator fight and not the might of Rome being overrun by Northern barbarians. Again.
"Can you beat him?" Beelzebub placed their fists on the desk.
"The Emperor?"
"Aziraphale."
"Do you want me to?"
It was impossible to know what deals the ludii owners made behind the scenes.
"Of course," Beelzebub insisted. Their offence was not entirely believable. "You are an investment, Crowley, one that continues to pay out."
"Which is exactly what Aziraphale is to Gabriel. If I kill his investment, that's going to make things awkward for you."
"Gabriel is not your concern." Beelzebub looked away.
Crowley didn't push. Gabriel owned and ran the other biggest ludus in Rome, and he and Beelzebub had, well, Crowley wasn't sure if it was accurate to call it a relationship. An arrangement, maybe. One that had skillfully kept both Aziraphale and Crowley in competition without ever actually letting them meet in the arena.
"There might be freedom for the winner," Beelzebub mused.
"You'll certainly lose your investment either way then," Crowley snapped. Then he sagged back against the cushions. Defeated.
Beelzebub scowled.
"I can beat him. Got twenty-eight victories to my name, haven't I?"
"So's Aziraphale," Beelzebub said.
Aziraphale knew how to beat Antonius Crowley in theory. He was one of the retiarii. A tall, pretty man who fought with his face unhelmeted and with a net and trident. Crowley was the natural enemy of the sector, and Aziraphale could use his longer sword to outmaneuver Crowley and strike at his unprotected side.
If he could avoid the net.
Antonius Crowley, netter of women! The graffiti read. And that was one of the cleaner ones.
Aziraphale lay back on his hard bed and closed his eyes. Twenty-eight wins, two losses, and five draws, and Crowley had kept his pretty face mostly unblemished. There'd been a broken nose at some point before he'd risen to fame, and that twisting scar below his ear that was now incorporated into his serpent tattoo. All other lasting damage was below the neck, and Aziraphale began marking the silvery lines and raised knots of healed skin in his mind.
It helped to focus on something other than the crushing uncertainty of his existence. Imagining a snake-quick smirk and a lean, hard body glossed with sweat would get him through the final few minutes of his current ordeal.
Nails scratched over his own scarred chest, a body tensed around his cock as the senator's wife increased the pace of her rocking. She was having a good time, at least.
Aziraphale ran his hands beneath her skirts and dug his fingers into her thighs.
"You beast," she whined, and Aziraphale hoped that his colleagues in the cells next door ignored that. "You really do fuck like a bull."
Or that. He'd never hear the end of it.
Taurus, they chanted for him in the arena. He was broad-shouldered and thick-thighed, strong enough to charge in the heat while carrying the weight of his armour. However, the nickname had initially come about because of his success at the other tasks Gabriel rented him out for.
The graffiti they wrote about him made that more than clear.
The senator's wife tossed her red curls over her shoulder. They were the colour of freshly spilled blood, and that helped Aziraphale find his focus. He could ignore the soft jaw, the rattling bangles as she pawed at him, and think about red hair, bronzed in the arena sunlight. A lithe, firm body as graceful as floating silk.
Aziraphale bit his lip as she hauled up her skirts and began to rub at the apex of her thighs. After a moment, she took one of his hands and ground it there instead. It was the invitation Aziraphale had been waiting for because she wasn't one of the women who liked to be touched without permission. Now, though, he could bring things to an end.
She was ready too, keeping a bruising grip on Aziraphale's wrist as she pleasured herself with him. Her gasps grew high and staccato sharp.
Aziraphale would be hearing them replayed behind his back all of tomorrow.
They're jealous, Gabriel would say, and do nothing to curtail it. He liked that his other slaves knew Aziraphale was a whore as much as a gladiator. Gives them all something to aspire to.
The senator's wife shook as she came. Aziraphale managed to reach an ending, too, but it was a difficult one.
Bronze coins dropped onto his naked chest, and the senator's wife hopped off him and put herself briskly to rights.
A knock on the door, and she was let out. Aziraphale was promptly locked back in.
Cat calls of you beast came from beyond the wall.
Aziraphale ignored them. He was too exhausted to come up with a witty retort. He could beat Crowley, but the truth was he didn't really want to.