#gladiator!au

you feel their eyes on you as you fight.

your sword clangs against your opponents', once, twice, three times before you dance backwards, narrowly avoiding a stab aimed at your stomach.

the two of you retreat from one another, circling and assessing each other in turn. he takes his paces with a slight limp, its source a thin cut across the meat of his calf. he's an older fighter, one with a few victories - and a few more losses - under his belt. he's a good entertainer, though, and so the crowd has called for mercy each time he's fallen to his knees.

mercy, granted each time by the gods that watch you now.

you, a new fighter in these games. not the newest, of course, but new enough to have skin yet unmarred with scar tissue, able to fight without phantom pains crowding your mind and making you slow. you're experienced enough in combat, though, to know your advantages.

your opponent is wounded; you are not. he fights like a soldier; you do not. however, your greatest advantage is thus:

your opponent is known, and you are not.

your name, your voice, your strategies - all have been carefully guarded. your anonymity makes you interesting, to the crowd and emperors alike, and interesting gladiators are the ones who survive.

you keep yourself low to the ground as you break the circle and charge towards him. your opponent braces, his eyes on your sword, his blade raised in defense.

with a sharp inhale, you part your lips - the sound that leaves them is not one that could ever be considered human. it’s the guttural scream of a wounded animal, and the soldier in front of you flinches but for a moment.

it’s all you need. the distance closed, your sword flashes through the air. the heavy thud of metal on dirt is followed by slow, soft drops of fresh crimson; you kick your opponents’ sword away as he clutches at his hand. the collective around you holds their breath, and it's only now that you dare to meet their gazes.

emperor gojo’s eyes are bright, blue as the endless sky above you and wide with excitement that you’d almost call boyish.

emperor getou’s eyes, on the other hand, smolder like volcanic ash, dark and narrow and curious.

Ooooh, lots of ideas I have under cut!

@kelenia (who made all my dreams come true 😭❤) presents:

Gladiator!Iltariya ⛓

Click for better quality!

Title: Inferno

Rating: Mature

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence and Major Character Death

Category:M/M

Fandom:文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs

Writer: alchemy_omi

Relationships:Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs) and Akutagawa Ryuunosuke/Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs)

Characters:Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs),Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs),Akutagawa Ryuunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs),Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs),Mori Ougai (Bungou Stray Dogs),Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs),Sakaguchi Ango (Bungou Stray Dogs)

Additional Tags:minor sskk,Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome,Mori is a dick,but he is also the emperor,so he is a dick and the empero,Alternate Universe - Gladiators,ladiator!chuuya,noble!Dazai,aku and atsu are his students,oda is dead,ango lowkey suffers,Implied/Referenced Domestic ,iolence,implaid/referenced domestic angst,trying to light it up tho,some fluff and ,ummor,first time trying smut,sskk tho but also a spice of skk,cant promise ,nything,Angst and Fluff and Smut,Action & Romance,I wont spoiler it but ,meone dies,I like this AU tho,No Beta

Language:English Words:5015 Chapters:1/?

Summary: A gladiator (Latin: gladiator, "swordsman", from gladius, "sword") was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminal. Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered spectators an example of Rome's martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim. This is where Nakahara Chuuya lives. This is where he fights. And this is where Dazai Osamu will found him. A noble with a promise to fillful and a future prescribed but unwanted. This is where he will feel alive. Between life and death, a kill or be killed world, two people will fell in love against odds and rights. Two people will try to live while The Fates start their countdown for their lives.. Will they make it before the last string get cut?

The crowd is deafening. Between the jeering, the yelling and the clapping, he can never make anything out but noise, but they seem particularly rowdy today. When Dean fought three months ago, they weren’t nearly as excited. And while he’d like to take credit for being the reason for all the extra ruckus, the novice gladiator knows they’re not cheering for him. Well they are, sort of.

They’re cheering for his blood.

If Dean had to guess, that’s what he’d put money on. Sure, there might be a couple of people gambling for him to win, but let’s face it—no one is gonna bet on the up and coming Celtic slave when there’s the Angel.

Or, at least, that’s what everyone calls him… to Dean, he’s just Cas. Castiel. Also a former slave, the two’ve them have spent months living in the barracks together. They’ve shared meals, shared life stories, shared dreams and desires, and today, they fight one another. Hopefully not to the death—though the crowd seems bloodthirsty enough, Dean hopes both he and Cas are too valuable to Crowley for either one to be lost as an investment—but certainly they’ll be expected to draw blood. Maybe break some bones.

Dean feels sick.

Because it would’ve been difficult to do if he and Cas had stopped at sharing parts of their lives and living spaces, but… but they’ve both gone ahead and done more than that. At first without meaning to but then, deliberately. Until finally, sweat soaked after training one day and on their way to wipe down Castiel had shoved Dean into the spare armory and kissed him senseless. 

It’s a thing they do, now: kissing. Sometimes in the morning, or late at night, or tucked away somewhere, but always every day and always in secret. They pleasure each other sometimes, too, when they have more than a few minutes. And, yesterday, after shoving into the same hammock under the guise of giving more room to the newcomers, Castiel whispered I love you. But when Dean had made to answer, the other had pressed long fingertips to his lips, shaking his head.

“Tell me tomorrow,” he’d said. “After the fighting’s done. Tell me then.”

“But, Cas—”

“Promise me, Dean. Promise me, we’re both coming out alive, and that you’ll tell me, then. Please.”

Dean had agreed.

In the present, the young man’s heart is in his throat as he gets pulled up the 54th elevator. The sound from the crowd becomes so loud it cracks in his ears, and he whirls around to see where exactly the threat within the arena is, kicking up sand as he goes. He meets blue eyes from halfway across the stage and gives a barely noticeable incline of his head, which Cas returns.

Small thing

(gladiator!au)