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Jedediah smacks the handle of his revolver to the side of a Roman soldier’s skull, rolling the limp body out of the way to dodge as another soldier runs past him, seemingly chasing someone.
Those damn Romans decided to pick a fight again, some talk about “expanding their empire”, as if trying again now would produce any new result from the past five years. Jedediah is just about through with it at this point, ruining a good day with their melodramatic bull— but if the fighting itself wasn’t bad enough, Jedediah dreaded seeing Octavius again.
The two faced, Two timing, ugly leach did nothing but make bad worse. He’s all but certain Octavius keeps up the fighting for the sole purpose of antagonizing him specifically, he’s sure the selfish jerk would do it too, drag both their dioramas in to his old flings.
The cowboy glances around at the sea of red and leather around him, the crashing of fists against skin and makeshift swords of the Americans’ to Roman Gladius. After the realization their guns were worthless they had started making close range weapons, similar to that of the Romans, and they planned on sticking with it until they got their hands on the gun powder and equipment to make their firearms functional.
The Romans never would’ve found out and been able to use that against them, If it weren’t for his own, big, love-sick, mouth.
Jedediah spins his gun on his index and slots it back into its holster with a practiced efficiency as he spots the back of his Roman from across the battlefield of the museum floor, in all his pompous and complacent glory.
The blond B-lines to the other in a power walk, weaving through tussles as one would a too-busy-market until he meets the other amidst the juvenile carnage.
“Gaius Octavian,” He barks just loud enough to be heard and catch the other off guard. ‘Augustus’ is his name, his professional name at least, but he’s not the pope and Jedediah couldn’t care less.
The older man huffs immaturely before turning around to face the other, arms crossed over his chest like he was not completely aware they’d be meeting.
“You,” Octavius responds halfheartedly, making a point to not saying the blond’s name. Jedediah parrots his gesture of crossing his arms by placing his hands on his hips.
“Any reason you got yer boys out here again, tal’m ‘bout some expansion?” He asks sharply— knowing very well there is no real answer, but feeling the need to ask nonetheless.
“It is to happen, Rome must-“
“Rome must expand, yeah, I know,” Jed interjects, Octavius’s expression souring greatly as he steps into the his personal space, pushing a finger into the other’s iron plated chest as he continues, “Knock it off, will yah? It’s too damn early for you to be on this again, ain’t none o’ my men or yers wanna be here.”
Octavius flushes with anger, bristling like a bird as he puffs out his chest.
“Firstly, It is night,” He deadpans, swatting the cowboy’s gloved hand before he finishes, “My men are present out of their own accord and are more than enthusiastic to be apart of progress. Unlike some here, I have a plan for the future.”
Jedediah scoffs to himself. ‘The future’. Like everything isn’t going to be reset in a few hours, no amount of motivation is going to stop the night guards from fixing any wreckage or progress of their ‘nations’.
“Uh huh, to me it seems like yer just lookin for excuses to see me, and bringin’ those poor boys into it,” Jed retorts, savoring the flustered look that takes Oct’s face for a moment before he quickly comes to his own defense.
“I would do no such thing! Unlike you I could keep such selfish ideas to myself,” He argues, uncrossing his arms to ball his fists at his sides.
“Yeah, yeah, tell yourself that, Toga,” He mocks, the slightest slyness breaking through the annoyance in his expression. Octavius groans in response, rolling his eyes.
“You are insufferable, Jedediah,” he grumbles, tilting his head just slightly as if he was struggling to understand something. The cowboy clicks his tongue and lets a smile, lacking mirth tug on his lips.
“You can say it! Careful, say my name two more times and you’ll be stuck with me,” the cowboy taunts, earning a confused, slightly concerned look from Octavius.
“If that was true I would have been tied to you years ago,” the Roman says, turning his head away just to cast a sideways glance.
Jed bristles, digging his fingers into his hips as he leans forward ever so slightly as his expression twists into embarrassed confusion.
“…Hell’s that mean, Oct?” He inquires, staring the General down while the man in question glances him over and shrugs noncommittally, taking a visible enjoyment in how annoyed it makes Jedediah.
“Why I outta…” the American grits, balling his gloved hand into a fist, resulting in the immediate stiffening of Octavius.
He’s not really mad at the comment, if anyone else said something of the sort— whatever be the implication— he’d brush it off with ease. But this is Octavius, and if they meet without some sort of fight would it even be a proper meeting? Maybe Jed does take a little joy in seeing his former partner, if not to blow off steam, then to remind himself why he can’t stand him.
Seeing Octavius keeps him from missing him.
Jedediah throws the first punch, right into the chin guard of the Roman’s stupid helmet, hissing at the boiling pain in his knuckles. Quickly he reaches for his ammunition-less gun, just to have some sort of weapon, but is stopped as he’s socked square in the nose.
His vision blurs with white little stars which he blinks away, the split second of familiar lightness being taken away by a sprawling pain. He reaches up to his nose, holding it and noting after a second a stream of lukewarm blood as it reaches his forearm, past the leather of his glove.
Jedediah catches Octavius before he is about to land another hit, pivoting to the side and crouching ever so slightly to land a hooked punch in the Roman’s exposed side, yelping once more when his fist meets metal.
“Damned— tin can!” He barks, shaking the pain out of his hand like a Polaroid as he takes a few steps back.
He assesses Octavius for all of his open areas while the other catches the breath that had been oh, so slightly knocked out of him. To get any kind of advantage, Jed would have to figure out how to take some piece of armor off of the older man, and given his experience with taking things off Octavius he’s confident he knows how, just figuring out when if the problem.
He chokes on a groan as he’s shoved forward by a Roman and American fighting behind him, and is reminded starkly that both their dioramas are fighting around them.
Jed jumps forward once more, but Octavius moves out of the way in time and get the leverage to put him in a headlock.
The cowpoke chokes under the brunette’s armored forearm, forcing his fingers between the arm and his neck to let him breathe a little as he hunches over, elbowing the Roman in the stomach until he loosened his hold enough to escape.
Octavius doubles over and the blond bites his lip bloody to ignore the pain, that was certainly bruising, in his elbow. Given the advantage of the back of his helmet, Jed pulls up on the back-most adjunct until the metal brain barrier falls, clattering to the floor, ignoring the yelp of discomfort from the general beneath his grasp.
the taller man reclaims dominance in the fight in the petty move of ramming his padded shoulder into Jedediah’s side, and shoving him off stumbling, taking the split moment to steal a breath from the tense air.
Jedediah holds his right rib before mentally brushing off the slowly swelling pain to carelessly lunge at the other. With the new advantage, the blond throws another punch at Octavius’s teeth, knocking him down for the first time this fight. Jedediah grins, the muscles in his cheeks shaky from adrenaline, making his smile all crooked.
For a moment there’s a pause, and pause in their fight and all the fights around them. Jedediah feels an old infatuation spark in his chest at the sight of Octavius below him, star struck and seemingly lost for what could very well be a millisecond or a minute. For all the clarity that spark brings to Jedediah, it brings a nauseating dizziness tenfold.
Suddenly for a quarter of a breath, Jedediah wonders if he’s ever looked any different, if he Octavius had ever looked at him like he’d done any less than hung the moon and stars in the sky.
But as the world continues on its tilt, and the Roman’s expression sours into a snarl, the romantic thought extinguishes itself just as the spark does.
Jedediah jumps forward as Octavius begins to sit up, practically standing over him and white-knuckling the collar of his tunic to punch the other in the eye, hard enough to blacken the skin for the selfish purpose of letting all of Rome know he could do that to their leader.
The brunette howls in pain, grabbing the blond’s wrist and forcing his body weight back down, suddenly pulling Jed off his balance, and with a swift kick to his core, tossing the other over himself.
The cowboy groans in pain as he hits the ground, gasping for air as it’s stolen from his lungs.
“Fuck’n…To-ga boy—“ He wheezes out, turning on his side to push himself back up only to be seized by the long of his blond hair and tugged up forcibly.
He chokes a little on air as it’s stolen from him once more, shooting a hand up to death grip Octavius’s wrist and lessen the pain before any sort of whine can betray him.
The cowboy opens an eye to look at the equally out-of-breath imperator. His brown eyes are wide and frantic, nose scrunched and mouth curled into some kinda of snarl.
Jedediah breathes deep, uneven breaths, studying every imperfection of the other’s face,admiring noting the concentration still present in his face despite his frenzy.
The blonde smiles, eyes fluttering before he opens both and, to the best of his ability, focuses them on the Roman’s.
“Guess you win this time, part-ner,” He says, dragging out the name just to be annoying, to some effectiveness as Octavius’s red, slick face darkens and he drops Jedediah back down onto the museum floor, unsheathing his gladius and using the hilt to smack him on the side of the head.
darkness clouds Jed’s vision and within seconds he’s out cold, the slightest bit of paint dripping into the depths of his brain like a worm, even in his unconsciousness.
….
When he wakes up again, the next day had already come— or he assumes as much as he finds himself tucked into his cot, blinking away the illusion of spinning above him, and hears the sounds of America from outside the tent.
His head hurts like hell, and he’s sore all over, but it’s gotten easier to bear over the years.
moving a hand up he feels his upper lip, dried blood still coating it and the surrounding skin. He can’t smell the lingering tang of it, and the taste of iron in the back of his throat. It makes him a little sick.
He sits up, regretting it immediately as pain shoots down his spine like it has personal business with him. Groaning he falls right back down and holds the sides of his head in fear it may just split in half if he doesn’t.
After a few minutes, he finds the strength in himself to get up and find something to drink and ease the pain. He feared he would start sobbing as soon as sun met his eyes, but luckily he toughed it out until he found the well off to the side of town and pulls up some water to all but dunk his whole head into.
When he pulls his head out, pushing his hair out of his face he finally registers he’s missing his hat and pats the top of his head dumbly before he shrugs it off.
probably somewhere in his tent, or on the museum floor.
…
it would not end up being in either of those places, and begrudgingly Jedediah would have to buy a new one that was only just barely as cool as his long worn down hat after a week of looking.