Someday I will ask you if I was a disapointment.

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt and Open
WHAT| Enjoying a frosty, adult beverage (or ten)
WHERE| The Speakeasy
WHEN| A few days prior to Maximus' crowning
Notes/Warnings| No warnings at this time, will add any as they become appropriate. Epic levels of bromance. If anyone's been hoping to chat with Wyatt, this will probably be your last open chance prior to the new arena.



Max's crowning was all Wyatt's stylists could talk about, the whole District Ten team - including his escort - in a tizzy and growing ever more frazzled as it approached. It was at once both amusing, and disconcerting.

He didn't hold any particular ill will against the lot of them anymore - he'd come to accept them as more a nuisance than anything sinister - but he didn't much care for the way they eyed him speculatively when they passed in the halls or common room, whispering to each other and making strange gestures with their hands.

And, of course, whatever they were planning aside, the crowning also meant that the new arena wasn't far off.

He was happy to celebrate Max's victory for what it was, and for what it meant, but he couldn't stop that niggling concern from rooting around in the back of his mind, especially as he was spending so more time alone this round. Just him and his own thoughts, worrying over the possibilities like a hound at a bone.

He hadn't spoken to Howard, unsure there were even words enough to apologize - to earn forgiveness - for what he'd done in the arena, and he didn't want to speak to R. He could feel the lingering heat of that still burning bridge. Max was busy, of course. Everyone and their second-cousin wanting a few minutes with the new victor.

Even numbing his troubles at The Speakeasy was an undertaking anymore, the pub, like so many other places, turned off by the cuff shackled around his wrist. They hadn't thrown him out yet, but it was clear the attention he brought them was now of the unwanted variety and he'd cut his visits down accordingly.

He wasn't here to cause trouble.

He just sat his table toward the back, taking the insults that did come his way silently. Drinking alone as he toyed with the necklace he'd worn to the auction. He'd cut the cord and was now in the process of adding a few, more unusual charms, to either side of the little golden eagle.

Comments

[gluteus]

"Nothing about it is 'right'," Maximus said solemnly. "In no sane world would you be forced to make that choice. You made the best one, in the circumstances, but I cannot say that anything about it was right."

He reached out, fingers slipping around the shared glass, and took a long, deep drink.

A moment later a red-faced bartender set a bottle of beer down in front of Wyatt with a sharp, pointed tap and a glare, before turning and immediately walking away.

Maximus raised an eyebrow after him and then looked questioningly back at Wyatt.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's mouth opened, and closed, a warm, pink color flushing around his collar. Embarrassed in front of the victor, shamed in front of his friend.

(He'd dragged him across the desert, a dead weight, and now he was the only reason Wyatt was being served.

Where would he be without him?)

Clearing his throat, he propped up his arm on his elbow, silver cuff sliding around his wrist.

A silent explanation.

[gluteus]

The eyebrow slipped back down until it creased his brow, meeting the other between his eyes and furrowing deeply. His lips slipped into a frown to match.

"That's ridiculous." He growled, a little too loudly, as the other patrons of the bar did their best to pretend that they hadn't noticed the spark of angry electricity run under Maximus' skin.

[the_marshal]

"It's nothin' personal," he explained quietly, glancing around at the other tables, all pointedly minding their own business - the bartender furiously wiping a glass, as if trying to bury his words beneath the squeak of glass. "They're jus' tryin' to do what's best for everyone else."

Namely those folks who used those back rooms. The walls had secrets to keep, and the extra attention Wyatt's new cuff brought with him wasn't very appreciated.

He smiled, faint and self-depreciating. "This is actually a good night."

Most of the patrons were regulars who held him no more ill will than he did them. It was the strangers - the ones who came and went - that caused all the ruckus. Snide and biting, itching to start something.

[gluteus]

Maximus looked completely unimpressed and leaning quickly towards good, righteous outrage - tightly held in check and mostly shimmering in his eyes and rippling under his skin. He gripped his wine glass tightly.

"The entire concept is ridiculous." He said, flatly, with full and complete belief. "To spite a slave for his shackles, and ignore the invisible one around my neck."

He knew, of course, the implication. The marking. There had been slave rebellions in Rome. So he could not speak of that, but even then he could not find justification for why they would snub Wyatt and laud him.

It made him quite angry.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's boot tapped the leg of Max's chair, a gentle, soothing rhythm as blue held blue across the table.

He might have liked it, but he understood it. And if it made a difference in the end, he could bear a little spiting.

"Yer a victor, Max. Ya play the game. ...That's what matters to Them."

The emphasis was gentle - he hadn't seen his strange escort follow him in, but that didn't mean there wasn't one - but deliberate. The royal 'them' - the holders of their chains.

"So that's what matters to the crowd."

[gluteus]

Maximus didn't like it, at all, but he wasn't going to argue.

"At the least they could let a man drink in peace," He growled lowly but mostly to himself. He knew Wyatt was a better man than him - a more thoughtful one. So he did his best to keep his temper in check.

He hadn't even realized he'd been gripping Wyatt's little collection - the eagle leaving a sharp imprint on his palm. With a frown he held it back out to him.

"I know no man I'd rather bear that Standard."

[the_marshal]

He exhaled through his nose, a gentle snort, fingers rubbing over the tokens in turn. Thumb ruffling the otherworldly fur of the rabbit's foot, lingering on the eagle.

"Won't be the same," he replied, nail digging between the eagle's feathers, mouth twitching. Bundling the three of them up in his palm, the tucked the lot into his breast pocket - a bit of an odd bulge, but he didn't care. "But I suppose it'll do."

[gluteus]

Maximus looked almost pained, then.

He had a job to do. He knew it, could feel it down in his bones. He would not rest until he saw Snow dead. But he knew that it meant his own death, knew that toppling one man would not bring the entire castle down. That he'd be leaving the rest of the war to Wyatt, to his friends--

"... Wyatt, if I could bear it with you, I would--"

[the_marshal]

Thoughts focused on the far more immediate future - the arena - and believing Max's were as well, Wyatt's head tipped gently, pocket jingling softly as he pushed the necklace and its long coiling cord inside.

"There ain't anythin' about the arena I'd dare to call easy," he replied, shifting in his chair and leaning against the table (closer).

His hands folded around his bottle, eyes first on the amber liquid within, then lifting to look across at Max.

"But it is somethin' of a comfort - knowin' yer out here. Comin' back, it'll be worth it now."

Knowing someone was waiting, even that gruff mug of Max's, making the pain a little easier to swallow.

(Especially his.)

[gluteus]

That slight trace of pain only deepened, broadening, twinging between his ribs. His eyes fell to his glass, silent for a moment as he raised it to his lips and sipped, quietly. And then drank, deeply.

"I would still prefer to be fighting by your side," Maximus said eventually, heavily, raising his eyes to meet Wyatt's.

[the_marshal]

The corners of his mouth turned up, slow and small, but warm.

"Look on the bright side, I'm sure yer back'll appreciate that ya won't have to be draggin' my sorry corpse across any more burnin' deserts."

[gluteus]

"Of all the things we can not be sure of, I believe we can safely say the next arena won't be in the desert," Maximus pointed out, raising an eyebrow, trying to shove away the ache in his chest to be examined later. He leaned back further into his chair, his toe tapping thoughtfully against Wyatt's calf.

"Though I... I preferred the desert, despite everything."

[the_marshal]

"...It wasn't so bad," he agreed, leg rocking gently on his heel, swaying back against Max's foot. "Some of the bits there just before the end I won't miss-" the strange leathery monster that had taken him in the sand, Howard's pale snarling face, the silence that had followed both, "-but it could'a been a lot worse."

He took a drink, bottling tipping against his lips, head foaming noisily when it clicked back against the table top, thumb picking at the wet corner of the label.

"I thank ya, for that, Max."

[gluteus]

He smiled, quiet and warm, and didn't say anything for a long time, drinking in comfortable silence. He didn't look away, though, just content to sit and watch Wyatt for a while. There wasn't anything he could say, really. Didn't know how to put it to words, so he didn't try. Instead, he finished his glass of wine, and motioned for another.

This time when the bartender came, he brought a round for both of them before slipping away.

A few sips into his new glass, he finally spoke. "Tell me of home?"

[the_marshal]

"Home?"

It took Wyatt a minute, settled back against his chair and into the easy silence - soothed as much by the mere presence as he was by any words they could share.

"Didn't much have one, myself... if yer speakin' traditionally." He'd been boarded when he'd been taken, renting a room above the saloon... but after a pause, he shifted, rubbing a shoulder-blade against the rest of his chair, and told Max instead of the country.

The dark sweeping hills, the wide flat plains that swaying with grass. Wild rivers and soaring mountains. The wide blue ocean he'd glimpsed - just the once.

He told him about his brothers, and explained how he'd come about his wild scheme for hunting buffalo. He remembered pinning his first badge fondly... and, eventually, as the beer began to run low again, quietly shared his plans for the land he'd bought, just before being taken.

The home he had hoped to build.

"Wouldn't'a been much, but it'd have been mine." He nodded gently, polished off the last drop. "I was ready for it."

[gluteus]

Maximus listened.

He never once interrupted, though he did sometimes nod. Smile. A warmth spread through his veins as the wine ran low, and he sipped at the last dregs of it as Wyatt's story rumbled through to its end.

"It would have been a good home," Maximus agreed, his voice low as distant thunder but soft all the same. "All a man needs. Good, dark earth, and help to till it."

[the_marshal]

"I like to think so," he replied, nodding again, mustache twitching lightly.

But that's all it was now: a thought, a memory. Even if the land was still out there, even if he somehow managed to find it, undoubtedly it bore the fruits of someone else's labors, sheltered someone else's family.... Not that he begrudged them that. It was hardly their fault he'd been whisked away through time and space.

And besides, he was content just as he was, in this moment. His earlier worries distant now, in the warm company of Max, under the sluggish pull of the beer.

"What about you?" The toe of one boot nudged Max's calf, Wyatt's hands folding on the hard shelf of his stomach, smiling across at him, eyes half-lidded. "Big fancy general, ya gotta have stories to share?"

[gluteus]

Maximus chuckled lowly as he waved vaguely for another glass.

"That will require more wine," He said, as the bartender brought another for them both. He could already well feel the effects of the first, but he was content in the company he was keeping.

He considered for a few long moments, and then slowly, began to speak.

He rarely spoke about his past in any length, but he made up for that now. He started with the land. Not his farm, but his father's - the wide acres of their estate. The horses. The endless sky. He spoke of joining the army, of the good times (of which there were many), the boring times (of which there were more) and the hard times, which were few but held their weight significantly. Of how most of his life was waiting for the next battle rather than actually fighting one. Of how command had seemed to come to him whether he wanted to or not.

Of the first time he heard Marcus Aurelius speak. The moment he knew he would follow him to the pits of Tartarus.

He hadn't even meant to, but he found himself finally talking about his farm, about meeting his wife, of their son - of how long he would be away, about how much he yearned to see them. But then it was all rushing out, a rumbling, thunderous murmur as he told Wyatt of his Emperor's death (though not of his Emperor's last request), of Commodus's command. Of his attempted execution, of his desperate ride home--

His eyes stung as his throat closed up.

"Nothing left," He managed to get out, trying to clear his throat, his head dipping to his chest to hide his eyes as he put another empty glass of wine on the table. "No home to return to, even if I could."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt had trouble, often, trying to imagine the strange distant places his fellow tributes came from, so different from hi own. Trying to picture the spidery Some in his caves with his many brethren, of Calista and her faraway planets and odd machines, Howard and the FAYZ and their dome... he might have had an easier time plucking stars from the sky. But listening to Max, watching light play across his face, expression rising and falling with the tale....

He could almost hear the rustle of wheat, the faint clang of steel against steel. The authority of the Emperor's speech. The ashen taste of smoke, and the sharp heated twist of loss.

That... he didn't have to imagine. That he had lived for himself. And he knew there was nothing he could say as Max turned, his voice fading like the trailing edge of a storm.

Instead, after a pause, he reached out, the bottom of his bottle clinking gently against Max's glass. His fingers wrapping around Max's forearm, squeezing hard.

Lost and weary travelers, the both of them.

Brothers, also, across time and space, and they had each other. If nothing else.

[gluteus]

He sucked in a hard breath, hand going up to squeeze Wyatt's (once, twice, a pause, then a third time) before letting go and standing up quickly enough to make him sway, slightly.

"Let's get some air," He declared.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt blinked up at him, an eyebrow quirking, but he didn't ask, merely reaching for his hat a beat later and pushing back from the table. He paused at the bar, paying off his tab (his ill gotten arena gains), and fell in behind Max, sweeping a hand over his hair before slipping his hat on.

It was full dark outside, the sun having slipped behind the most distant buildings and the horizon beyond, and the night was pleasantly cool.

He glanced up at the inky sky and smirked over at Max. "Come on, fancy britches, I'll see ya home."

[gluteus]

"Hardly home." Maximus said as he paid up his own tab, and then walked out onto the street, Wyatt close behind him. "Can't stand the beds, here," he confessed, still doing his best to choke down everything he had dredged up. "Too soft."

He was already making a beeline for the park.

In another mood, he would have asked. Cheerily requested Wyatt's continued company, to spend one more night out under the stars rather than in the strange, foreign apartments. laughing it off. But the ghosts clung heavy to him like a weighted cloak, and could not bring himself to cheer, nor to burden his friend.

Brother? Other?

[the_marshal]

Invitation or not, Wyatt kept pace at his side, shoulder brushing Max's as he turned down the street and onto another, the leaves of the trees in the distant park a waning sliver under the moon.

"Sheet's don't smell right," he drawled softly, even that almost too loud on the nearly empty street.

He touched his nose gently, the memory of perfume and flowers making it itch, and then tucked both his hands into his pockets and looked up again.

"I miss the stars."

Oh, they were there, but distant pinpricks here, like dying fireflies, unable to compete with the unnatural glow of the city. They'd been a field in his time, stretching as far as the eye could see either direction, more white than black.

He'd always felt so small, the horizons infinite and unknowable.

Here, it was like being smothered, slowly.

[gluteus]

Maximus glanced up, but found the strange emptiness depressing, so shook his head and lowered them.

"They disappeared in Rome, too. Scared off by a hundred thousand lamps." He let out a hard breath. "Isn't natural."

He felt slightly better as soon as his toes touched grass. He leaned down, pulling off the ornate sandals and throwing them over his shoulder instead.