(no subject)
Oct. 22nd, 2013 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It is not the road of the arena. It does not tremble underfoot, there are no pillars to shake, no editor to grant award. Neither is the battlefield - he is accompanied by no brave companion, possessed of no noble cause. There is nothing glorious or memorable about this, nothing about which he can be proud.
More than anything, it reminds him of the pits. Brutal, raucous, dark, and he can practically hear the ring of coin as it changes hands. There will be no death and he fights for no master but himself; at the end of the night he will receive his own payment. But he takes no satisfaction in that.
The feel of his body moving, responding. The force of blows and the ensuing pain. These things, while there is no satisfaction, provide a twisted kind of comfort. Tonight, regardless of his payment, he will sleep well.
He feels his opponent's septum crunch under his fist and knows that it's over before the man even falls. He stands under the hot lights, his head tilted back, listening to the crowd. There might be no death here, but underneath everything it's still death that they all want.
So he barely acknowledges the crowd as he leaves the arena, palming sweat and blood away from his face. in a brief moment of quiet and solitude in the room he and the others had been given to prepare in, he leans forward and peers into a dirty mirror, examining the superficial wounds on his face.
This can't be all that he is, at the end of everything.
But he has lost everything else.
More than anything, it reminds him of the pits. Brutal, raucous, dark, and he can practically hear the ring of coin as it changes hands. There will be no death and he fights for no master but himself; at the end of the night he will receive his own payment. But he takes no satisfaction in that.
The feel of his body moving, responding. The force of blows and the ensuing pain. These things, while there is no satisfaction, provide a twisted kind of comfort. Tonight, regardless of his payment, he will sleep well.
He feels his opponent's septum crunch under his fist and knows that it's over before the man even falls. He stands under the hot lights, his head tilted back, listening to the crowd. There might be no death here, but underneath everything it's still death that they all want.
So he barely acknowledges the crowd as he leaves the arena, palming sweat and blood away from his face. in a brief moment of quiet and solitude in the room he and the others had been given to prepare in, he leans forward and peers into a dirty mirror, examining the superficial wounds on his face.
This can't be all that he is, at the end of everything.
But he has lost everything else.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-24 06:11 am (UTC)As if he has something to prove to her. Or to himself.
The fight has intensified everything in him, sending heat through to every sensation, and he knows he won't last long. He doesn't want to. When this is over, he can try to forget.
Even though he knows a vain struggle when he sees one.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-24 07:45 pm (UTC)"Spartacus."
She says it only because she knows it is not his name. Because she knows the power it held over the people of Rome, the fear they felt every time someone spoke it in hushed tones. It holds no power over her, not here in Darrow, and her hips arch toward him as she gasps the name again.
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Date: 2013-11-26 01:53 am (UTC)He had forgotten how good she felt. He had not wanted to remember.
He won't say her name. But he hisses something enraged and wordless as the pleasure builds to an apex, one hand tangled in the fall of her hair and pulling at her.
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Date: 2013-11-26 02:59 am (UTC)Breath catches in her chest as she tilts her hips, creating friction, finding exactly what she needs from him and taking it.
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Date: 2013-11-27 04:55 am (UTC)Will he remember this later? He has no idea. There is no desire in him to do so. But thought is beyond him. He breathes in hard, rough groans, the movement of his hips stuttering, and with a sound like a wounded animal he releases into her, grateful in that moment for nothing but the fact that his own mind has ceased to function.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 01:07 pm (UTC)There has been no interruption this time, no laughter, no mocking voices. No reason to pull free and rush to defend herself. Instead she feels herself relaxing bit by bit, her breath returning to her.
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Date: 2013-11-29 05:53 pm (UTC)He feels empty.
With a soft grunt, he pulls out of her, stepping clumsily back and fumbling at his pants. This means nothing. It was bodies and flesh, nothing more.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-30 04:30 am (UTC)"Still champion, then," she says as she pushes away from the wall and brushes past him on her way out of the alley.