#pit!verse

Jason is a soldier. His army is conquering, laying siege, destroying, pillaging… there’s lots of violence around Jay, and he’s just. so. tired. He’s in a hopeless headspace. He feels angry, but his bursts of anger are quick to come and quick to go, plunging him back into despair soon after. He’s like a berserker during battles, fighting tooth and nail to protect himself and others around him, but he doesn’t enjoy the acts of violence themselves, the feeling of the blood, the sense of gutting unease he feels watching the life drain from a person’s eyes.He channels his loneliness and desperation with his sword, and has a name to himself as a incredible warrior, but he’s just a furious and quick to violence when he sees someone being mistreated. And he sees a lot of those people.His army - his guys - his troops - not his friends, ‘cause he doesn’t have any of those left, all lost in this senseless war … they are the ones in the wrong. They are cruel and ruthless, and while he always intervenes when other soldiers take things too far, one man on his own is not enough to stop an army, and ultimately, he doesn’t consider himself a good guy. Basically, he thinks that, in order to be a “good guy” he ought to die to protect the innocents, but he doesn’t WANT to die. PLUS, he thinks dying would also be the wrong choice, in the sense that, if he’s dead, he wouldn’t even be able to save the few he manages to save on the way… but he HATES himself for this logic. His mind quickly goes back to point one - “If I were a good person, I’d be willing to lay down my life, I’d be DEAD already” - and the vicious circle starts again, and again, and again.The one day, as the Roman army marches through - and basically reduces to ashes - a village, he sees some soldiers taunting and molesting a guy not much younger than Jay himself. I think Tim might be either a Celtic druid, who’s mouthing off to the soldiers while protecting their sacred groove/an artefact; or he’s one of the men Boudica led into revolt (same thing if we go with Spanish conqueror or Viking warrior Jay… Tim’d be the minute-looking, fierce-eyed, smart-mouthed guy protecting something small but devastatingly important to his people)EITHER WAY.Tim’s mouthing off.To the soldiers.Several of them.He’s fighting like a wild cat, fighting tooth and nail in the literal sense of the word, and Jason is taken aback so utterly, he’s actually snapped out of the rage-induced haze seeing this kind of scenes causes him, and he’s lucid and totally in control when he steps between the soldiers and Tim, and growls silent threats until, somehow, he acquires Tim as his slave/spoil of war).Tim is forced to go with Jason as his army keeps marching on. Sleeping next to him (manhandled and cuddled like a giant teddy bear, but much safer than he’d be sleeping out of Jason’s reach).In the following weeks, Tim becomes attached to Jason, and Jason to him. Tim can actually snap Jason out of his rages with just a whispered word or a caress. Once, Tim gets the chance to hide a knife on his person as they settle to sleep. During the night, Tim rolls over, drapes himself over Jason, then slowly raises himself on his knees, the knife held high over his head… and pauses. Unable to kill this infuriating man who is his captor, but also his only companion, who’s so good, while he should be all bad, who’s so tortured and desperate and beautiful.At this point, Jason reveals he was awake all along and whispers to Tim to go on and do it, to kill him and run. He all but BEGS, murmuring in a distant voice about the monster he is, how he’s not enough, never enough, but Tim just… flings the knife away and lays back against Jason’s chest and furiously whispers at him to keep living, if he feels so sorry, keep living as his punishment, and to let Tim watch that suffering as a sort of payment - of revenge - for all that he’s been forced to endure.It’s a string of lies, and both know it, because at this point they’re foolishly in love with each other, too deep to let go, but it’s a nice wall to hide behind. Tim’s not renouncing his revenge, but exacting it. And Jason’s not using the easy way out of his predicament.They run away soon after, and fight back against the Roman/Spanish/vikings. They help reconstructing villages and save the helpless and… undoubtedly die young, and not even side-by-side, but they get a few months/years of happiness together and in love.