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The night after they get home from the Smithsonian, they’re set up in the basement while Larry negotiates a way to keep them all together. Trouble is, there’s not much to do around here for a pair of miniatures, and Jedediah is bored.
He sits on a metal folding table, next to Octavius’s pile of discarded armor, and watches; sometimes thinking about their trip, sometimes not. Actually, mostly not. Mostly, he watches Octavius, who’s still in his element commanding the Roman army, despite it all.
Jed squints; they’re just doing the usual drills, but he’s moving kind of funny. Even in training mode, without the armor on, he’s not quite as graceful as he usually is.
“You alright?” Jedediah asks him, when Octavius comes to join him on a break.
He sits, tucks his legs under him, and fixes his skirt so it lays smooth. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a yes or no question, pal.”
“I’ll answer if you tell me why you’re asking.”
Jedediah crosses his arms. “So it’s a no. I mean, I kinda figured that, but it’s nice to know I’m right. What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened? Nothing happened.”
“Shut up,” he says fondly. “I’m trying to be worried about you.”
Octavius sighs and smiles gently. “If you insist. Fine. If you must know, I had to physically encourage that squirrel to do what I wanted it to do, and I didn’t come out quite unscathed.”
“You lost a fight to a squirrel?” Jed has to bite down on his tongue to avoid snorting with undignified laughter.
“I won that fight, thank you! I’m quite proud of myself. The beast was four times my size.”
“Right, right. I’ll let up on ya.” He looks him over once more. “You look like you’re still feeling it, though.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “Yes, well, I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“Yeah, sure. You don’t look a day over two thousand.”
He swats him on the arm, and neither he nor Jed misses the way he flinches at the movement. He folds his arms back into his lap and looks at Jed. “I do appreciate your concern,” he says, “but I can deal with it myself.”
“But you shouldn’t have to.” The phantom feeling of sand crawls its way up his neck; he has to resist the urge to shake it off like a dog. “Come on, Octavius, let me help. I owe you one.”
“All right.”
He says it indulgently, in the same tone of voice as when he agrees to any of Jedediah’s ideas, but Jed can’t find it in himself to be annoyed about it.
“I’ve already dealt with most of it myself, but I suppose it can’t hurt to have someone else look me over.”
Wait.
“Dealt with what?”
Octavius doesn’t answer - not out loud. He just grabs at the neck of his tunic, tugs it to the side, and adamantly does not meet Jedediah’s eyes as he does it, which is good, because there’s no way Jed could hide the grimace that spreads across his face when he sees the state of his neck.
“What the hell did you do?” He reaches out, but stops himself short of grabbing the long scratches that cut from the back of his shoulders to the front of his collarbone.
“I told you, I did nothing. This was the squirrel.”
“Yeah, it ripped you up pretty good." The scratches have mostly scabbed over, but they’re cracked and weeping in places. "And you’ve been moving like normal?”
“Doing my best to, yes,” he says, voice clipped.
He sits back on his heels. “Shit. No wonder that hurts.”
“Thanks for your expert opinion,” Octavius says, then sighs and immediately apologizes. “That was rude. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Jed says, and he means it. “I don’t get mad when you get snippy anymore. I know you don’t mean anything by it.”
“Still. I should — I’m trying to be better.”
“I know.”
They sit in contemplative silence for a couple awkward seconds before Octavius twists around to ask, “So. What is your opinion?”
Jed lets himself touch, now, traces the skin between the cuts with a fingertip. “There’s nothing I can do about those. Even if I had the stuff to stitch ‘em up, it’s way too late for that. They’re too old. I can clean you up a little, though.”
“Are you calling me unclean?”
This is a tone he recognizes, one that makes him comfortable snarking right back at Octavius. “No, I’m makin’ an observation, 'cause you are covered, partner. I bet there’s a shit-ton of it caked into your shirt, too, so it’s a damn good thing you wear red. Do you know how much it sucks to get dried blood out of good clothes?”
“Please, it was not that bad. I didn’t even feel it until we were on the plane home.”
“Yeah, it’ll do that,” he mutters. “You don’t even know you’re hurt till all the excitement wears off.” He sits back. “Did that crazy varmint do anything else?”
Octavius actually laughs, the weirdo. “Oh, he chewed on my helmet for a good little while. I had quite the headache from that.” He tries, and fails, to run his fingers through the hair on either side of his head.
This time, he doesn't bother trying to stop himself from touching. “Octavius.”
“Yes?”
“There’s blood in your hair,” Jedediah says, horror creeping into his voice as it flakes off into his hands.
Octavius sounds genuinely surprised. “Oh, is there?”
“Yes. God, just — I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere,” he orders.
It takes no time at all to dash out to the giants and ask for some water, but it takes longer than he’d like to lug his bottlecapful back to camp.
“I don’t have soap or nothin’, so just the water will have to do,” he says, plunking the cap to the ground behind Octavius.
“Well, I suppose anything is better than letting it stay.”
“Oh, so now you agree with me?” He grins as he unties his neckerchief. The fabric turns a dark scarlet when he dunks it into the water; he tries not to think about the color too hard when he sees it next to Octavius’s stained skin.
“Well, even you occasionally have good ideas,” he says. Jed can practically hear him grinning, the bastard.
As the rag comes into contact with the scratch, he actually does hear something: a sharp breath in, then silence as it’s held.
His hand stills. “All good?”
“Yes. I was just caught off guard by the cold.”
“Oh. Sorry. I think this was vending machine water.”
The dried blood dissolves easily under the wet cloth. It really hadn’t been as bad as it looked; the smears had made it seem more serious than it actually was.
Jedediah sighs silently. It still shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and it’s his fault that it did. “All clear,” he says, dropping the kerchief. “Now let me wash your hair.”
Octavius turns around just to pout. “Oh, don’t. It’ll ruin the curl.”
Jed levels a look at him.
“Really, I can wash my own hair,” he says weakly.
“Yeah, but you won’t.”
Octavius goes quiet. It seems like he can't find an argument for that one.
He shakes his head to hide his smile. “Just get in the goddamn water.”
They fold up the vest and the discarded cape, tuck it under his shoulders, and Octavius finally tips his head back into the makeshift basin.
Jedediah shucks his gloves and rolls up his sleeves, and when he turns back, Octavius is looking up at him with an unreadable, upside-down stare.
“What are you lookin’ at?” he asks, self-conscious.
“Hm? Nothing.”
The water is cool when he dips his hands below the surface. Octavius closes his eyes when Jed’s fingertips find his scalp.
He pauses, fingers frozen in his hair, when something occurs to him.
“You’re thinking very loudly,” Octavius comments.
“It’s nothin’.”
“If I’m not allowed to use that excuse, neither are you.”
Jed laughs and gets to work scrubbing the bits of dirt out of his hair. “Alright. You got me there. No, I was just thinking about how crazy this whole thing would’ve seemed to me a couple years ago.”
Dark red flecks and a sheen of grime have started to appear on the surface of the water. He doesn’t think about how soft Octavius’s hair feels on his skin.
“I have to agree.”
“Hm?”
“This is quite the change. If someone had shown me this scene not even three years ago, I would have had them thrown out of Rome.” He cracks an eye and smiles. “Though I’m not complaining, of course.”
“I told you,” Jed says absently.
He should make himself move – should stop touching him so much. The hair is as clean as he’s going to get it, but he still finds he can’t pull himself away. This is the most contact he’s gotten in – well, forever, and the cool water feels like a buffer, staving off that claustrophobic feeling he usually gets when he touches someone too long.
Or maybe that’s just because it’s Octavius.
“Am I free?” asks the man in question.
“What? Oh.” He withdraws his hands and shakes the extra water off. “Yeah, you’re alright. Good as new.”
“Excellent.” Octavius sits up, turns so his head is tipped over the bottle cap, and starts to wring the water out of his hair.
Jedediah gets up, too; he wipes his hands ineffectually on the leather of his chaps, goes and settles down where the metal table meets the wall, and lets the back of his head fall against the concrete.
Why do I do these things to myself? he wonders.
It’s easier to watch Octavius from farther away. The basement is nothing like home, not really, but there’s still something to be said about how domestic it feels to be here with him. They don’t have any of their stuff – only what they had on them when they were packed up – but Jed’s always been a light traveler. He doesn’t need much to be content.
Not much in the way of material things, anyway. The other things he wants could fill a journal – have, in fact, filled the one in his tent back in the West.
Octavius has apparently gotten his hair as dry as he can, so he gives it one last shake before coming over to join Jed by the wall.
“Comfortable?” he asks, eyeing the cold metal and the concrete.
“Ha. Look, I don’t have my gloves or my vest. I’m showing skin, partner. This is as comfortable as I ever get.”
He sits back against the wall and kicks his legs out in front of him. “Seems like a shame.”
“How come?”
“You could have much better, that’s all.”
Jed knows he’s looking at him, but he doesn’t turn his head to meet his eye. He can’t.
“Then again,” Octavius continues, “I was thinking of Roman luxury. Who knows when we’ll be able to return?”
“Hopefully soon. Now that you mention it, I think I’d like to take over one of the baths and dunk everybody in the West.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“Octavius.”
He pauses for effect. Octavius likes that kind of dramatic thing.
“You smelled that shipping crate.”
Octavius laughs. “You have a point.”
They fall silent; Jed’s mind has latched on to that particular memory and keeps throwing him images of what could have happened if they had been just a bit less lucky the rest of the night.
Octavius shifts in his place against the cold concrete. “It could have been much worse,” he says, and he doesn’t need to clarify what he’s talking about. Clearly, his mind has been going the same place Jed’s has.
“Yeah. Coulda been a lot worse.” He nods. “You know, I’m just happy you’re alright.”
“You as well.” He sighs audibly. “You could have died at the hands of that madman.”
“Nah. I wasn’t worried.”
“No?”
“I was fine. You were gonna come for me.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal, like the look Octavius is giving him isn’t making him feel like his heart is swelling out of his chest.
“Well, of course I was,” Octavius says. “But you had no way of knowing that. You hung quite a lot on my ability to come back for you.”
He shrugs again, then looks away. “Well. I trust you.” He decides, in an impulsive strike of bravery, to show his hand. “And I’d’ve done the same for you.”
The moment hangs quiet in the air. The sounds of the rest of the exhibits echo around the bare walls of the basement, but Octavius doesn’t say anything; he just looks at Jed with a slight crease in his forehead. He hasn’t even blinked.
“Why?” he finally asks.
This is one of those choices that Jedediah knows will haunt him for the rest of his life if he makes the wrong move. It’s looking up at the clouds, waiting to see what will fall; it’s standing on a precipice, knowing that there’s only one way to find out how far the drop is.
He closes his eyes. “You know why.”
Leather scrapes against leather and metal drags on the table as Octavius moves closer next to him. “Jedediah,” he says quietly.
He’s being baited into looking at Octavius, but he can’t give in. He’ll do something stupid if he does.
“Jedediah, please.”
“Don’t make me say it.”
“I won’t assume. I’m not going to risk pushing you away.”
“Octavius,” he says slowly. He needs to choose his words very carefully. “I don’t think there’s a single thing you could do that would make me not want to spend time with you anymore.”
Yeah, that’s a good one. Gets the point across, while still having enough deniability that they can do what they always do and pretend Jed hasn’t said anything out of the ordinary.
“Forgive me,” Octavius whispers.
Or not.
The first thing Jed registers is the hand on the back of his neck, rough-skinned with a surprisingly delicate touch. The second thing – though it takes a while to work its way through his thick head – is that Octavius is kissing him.
He kisses him back, more out of instinct at first than any of the knot of emotions that drops into his stomach, and Octavius makes a ridiculous little noise that makes Jed want to take him home and keep him forever, if forever can be like this.
His hair is still damp where Jed tangles his fingers into it. He’s seized with the nonsensical desire to get closer, but he doesn’t want to break this indescribably gentle moment, so this will have to do.
It could be a second or an hour later, but when they break apart, Octavius blinks like he’s just woken up.
“So that’s how it is,” Jedediah murmurs.
Octavius nods, then stops, looking stricken. “Unless I misunderstood—“
“No, no,” Jed says, suppressing the urge to smirk like an asshole. “It’s just that I’d been wondering, between us, who was gonna crack first.”
“You were not.” Octavius rolls his eyes.
Jed kisses him again and smiles for real. It’s going to be a good night.