Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Blood. Smoke. Victory.

Oscar Piastri tasted all three as the morning sun crawled over the horizon, casting Tarraco in a deceptive golden glow that belied the night of carnage. He removed his helmet with hands that still trembled from battle-fury, the metal slick with substances he preferred not to identify. The heavy bronze fell to his side, dangling from nerveless fingers as exhaustion crashed through his body like a tidal wave.

Another city falls to Rome. Another victory for the Empire. Another night I'll never forget, no matter how hard I try.

He dragged a hand across his face, wincing as his calloused palm caught on the fresh gash above his eyebrow. Blood flaked away beneath his touch — some his, most not. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, cataloging the familiar scents of conquest: woodsmoke from burning buildings, the coppery tang of spilled blood, the acrid smell of fear still clinging to the streets, and beneath it all, the salt-kissed breeze from the Mediterranean that seemed obscenely pristine amid such devastation.

"Commander."

The voice startled him, and Oscar straightened immediately. George Russell's normally meticulous appearance had been undone by battle. Blood — dried to rust-brown — caked one side of his face from a nasty gash at his temple. His ornate centurion's armor bore fresh dents and scratches, and one shoulder guard hung awkwardly from damaged leather straps. Despite this, he maintained the rigid posture drilled into every Roman officer from their first day of training.

"Russell," he acknowledged. "Report."

He gestured toward the eastern section of the city where columns of smoke rose like accusing fingers toward the heavens. "The gate is secured, though these Iberians made us pay for every inch. Intelligence claimed they would fold at the first sign of Roman eagles. Instead, they fought like men possessed."

Oscar's lip curled. "Intelligence," he spat the word like a curse. "Gathered by men who've never held a sword or faced an enemy who'd rather die than kneel." He turned his gaze toward the harbor, where the sapphire waters of the Mediterranean stretched to the horizon, indifferent to the human suffering on its shores. "What of casualties? Ours and theirs?"

"Still counting," Russell admitted, absently touching the makeshift bandage wrapped around his forearm. "At least two hundred of our men. As for the Iberians..." He shrugged, the gesture heavy with significance. "Many. More than necessary if they'd just surrendered."

Oscar nodded, his eyes scanning the smoking ruins of what had once been a prosperous marketplace. Bodies lay where they had fallen, Roman and Iberian alike, their differences in life rendered meaningless in death. The cries of mourners – widows, orphans, and grieving omegas who had lost their mates – pierced the morning air with sorrow that needed no translation.

"And their leader?" Oscar asked, already suspecting the answer.

"Sainz?" Russell sneered, his lip curling in distaste. "Fled three nights ago. Took his personal guard and several noble families with him. Abandoned his people to our swords while securing his own worthless hide."

Oscar's jaw tightened painfully. In his decade of military service, nothing disgusted him more than leaders who abandoned those they'd sworn to protect. A dark, private part of him hoped he'd one day face this Sainz on the battlefield — a thought unworthy of a Roman commander but satisfying nonetheless.

"The Senate will demand he be pursued," Oscar said, already dreading the political machinations that would follow this conquest. Rome's appetite was never sated; each victory merely whetted its hunger for more.

"Let someone else chase him through the mountains," Russell replied with unexpected vehemence. "We've completed our assignment. Tarraco is ours."

The sound of armored boots crunching over rubble shattered the momentary silence between them.

Both men turned toward the approaching officer — Alexander Albon, breathless from his ascent through the ruined streets. Unlike Russell's classically Roman features, Albon's heritage reflected the Empire's diverse reach — perhaps Greek and Egyptian, Oscar recalled, though the man had been born in Rome and was Roman to his core 

"Commander," he saluted weakly. "We've secured the harbor. The last fishing boats were trying to evacuate civilians." He swallowed hard. "We... stopped them as ordered."

Oscar acknowledged the report with a curt nod, ignoring the weight that settled in his stomach. War demanded certain cruelties. Rome demanded obedience. Neither cared for a commander's private reservations.

"Any word on who maintained their defense?" Oscar asked, deliberately changing the subject as he began walking toward the city's central plaza. His officers fell into step beside him, their boots crushing shards of pottery that had once been someone's prized possessions. "Sainz abandoning them should have shattered their will, yet someone kept them fighting with surprising coordination."

Albon nodded eagerly, seemingly relieved by the shift in conversation. "That's what's strange, sir. Their defense wasn't the desperate last stand of abandoned civilians. We encountered sophisticated traps, coordinated retreats, ambushes that suggested intimate knowledge of both the city and basic Roman tactics." He lowered his voice slightly. "Whoever led them in Sainz's absence knew what they were doing."

Oscar navigated the blood-slicked cobblestones carefully, stepping over the broken remnants of lives interrupted — a merchant's wares scattered across the street, a child's wooden toy crushed beneath a fallen column, the body of an elderly man still clutching a kitchen knife as his last defense.

"Find whoever commanded in Sainz's absence," Oscar ordered. "Someone with that level of tactical skill could prove valuable — or dangerous if left unchecked."

A woman's scream cut through the morning air, sharp as a blade. Oscar turned instinctively toward the sound and found himself locked in the gaze of an Iberian woman crouched in a doorway, trying to drag an injured man to safety. The hatred in her eyes was so pure, so absolute that Oscar felt it like a physical blow.

Oscar looked away first.

"Establish medical stations for our men and civilians," he ordered, voice harsher than intended as he tried to shake off the woman's accusing stare. "Post guards at wells and water cisterns. Distribute rations to civilians — our supplies, not theirs." He turned to Russell, finding solace in decisive action. "I want this transition as bloodless as possible from this moment forward."

"Transition?" Russell's eyebrow arched. "An optimistic word for conquest."

Oscar shot him a warning glance. "We're not here to create a graveyard, George. Dead Iberians pay no taxes."

They climbed the steep path to the citadel in silence, the elevation offering an expanding view of the conquered city. Tarraco spread beneath them like a wounded creature — beautiful even in its suffering. White limestone buildings gleamed in the strengthening sunlight, terracotta roofs forming a patchwork interrupted by columns of smoke. Beyond, the Mediterranean stretched endlessly blue, deceptively peaceful.

A commotion below interrupted their exchange — shouts and the clash of metal on metal. From their vantage point, they could see a skirmish unfolding near what appeared to be a hidden postern gate in the city's inner wall. A group of civilians was attempting to flee while a single figure fought to hold back pursuing Roman soldiers.

"That gate wasn't on our maps," Oscar said sharply, immediately alert. "Albon, take a squad and cut them off before they reach the hills."

Albon saluted and hurried away, barking orders to nearby legionaries.

Oscar narrowed his eyes, focusing on the lone defender. Even from this distance, there was something remarkable about the way the figure moved — fluid, precise, almost dancing between opponents. A short sword flashed in the sunlight as the defender parried a Roman thrust, then countered with blinding speed.

"Impressive," Russell murmured, also watching. "Trained fighter, not some desperate civilian."

"Someone who knows what they're doing," Oscar agreed, his interest piqued.  "Come. I want to see this fighter up close before our overzealous legionaries cut them down."

They descended rapidly, taking shortcuts through narrow alleys strewn with debris from the night's fighting. The sounds of conflict grew louder as they approached the small gate, which had been hidden behind a false wall that now lay shattered.

By the time they arrived, the situation had escalated. A dozen Roman soldiers had surrounded the defender, who stood protectively in front of the entrance to what appeared to be a tunnel. The civilians had either escaped or been captured — Oscar couldn't immediately tell.

"Stand down!" he commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Hold your positions!"

The legionaries immediately withdrew a few paces, though they kept their weapons trained on the lone figure who remained in a fighting stance, chest heaving with exertion.

Now Oscar could see their opponent clearly — a young man, perhaps his own age or slightly younger, with dark curls plastered to his forehead by sweat and blood. His once-fine clothing hung in tatters, yet he maintained a fighter's stance despite obvious exhaustion. 

Oscar stepped closer, examining the defender with greater attention. The young man's features were refined, his skin bearing the olive tone common to the region but somewhat fairer than most. A silver medallion hung from a chain around his neck, partially obscured by his torn clothing but clearly visible enough to indicate status.

Most arresting were his eyes — a startling shade between green and blue, and burning with such pure, undiluted defiance that Oscar found himself momentarily speechless. He'd seen hatred before, had weathered the glares of countless defeated enemies, but something in this gaze was different — a fire that refused to be extinguished even when all hope was lost.

The defender stood tall, though a subtle tremor ran through his limbs — not from fear, but from the strain of holding himself upright. Blood traced a line down his forearm from a shallow cut, and his chest rose and fell with the ragged rhythm of spent effort. Still, his grip on the short sword never faltered, and his eyes, sharp despite the fatigue, locked onto the insignia on Oscar’s armor with unwavering defiance.

"Does he speak Latin?" Oscar asked Russell, though he couldn't tear his eyes from the captive.

Before Russell could answer, the young man's lips curled into a contemptuous smile.

Then he deliberately spat at Oscar's feet.

"I speak enough Latin to tell you that your precious empire is built on the corpses of better men than you," he replied in accented but perfectly intelligible Latin, each word delivered with precise venom.

Several soldiers shifted forward aggressively, but Oscar halted them with a subtle gesture.

"Lower your weapon," Oscar ordered, stepping forward. "The fight is over."

The young man's chin lifted defiantly. "Come take it from me, Roman."

"You're bleeding, outnumbered, and exhausted," Oscar pointed out reasonably. "Your courage is admirable but misplaced."

"And your invasion is an abomination," the young man retorted. "Yet here we are."

Despite himself, Oscar felt his lips twitch. Such spirit was rare, especially in defeat. "What's your name?"

The young man's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "So you can whisper it to my corpse?"

Oscar’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. "So I know which ghost haunts me."

The young man shifted his weight slightly, and Oscar realized with an experienced eye that he was favoring his left leg — injured, but hiding it well.

"My name is Lando," he finally answered, chin lifted proudly. "Lando Norris."

Oscar nodded, committing the name to memory. "And what were you defending here, Lando Norris? This passage wasn't on any map we acquired."

Lando's eyes flicked briefly to the tunnel entrance behind him, and in that momentary glance, Oscar read genuine concern — not for himself, but for others. "What does it look like, Commander?" he replied, sarcasm barely masking deeper emotions. "I was giving my people a chance to escape your civilizing influence."

"The tunnel — where does it lead?" Oscar pressed, stepping closer despite the sword still pointed at his chest.

"To your mother's bedchamber," Lando replied with a mirthless smile. "She sends her regards."

The legionaries tensed, but Oscar merely raised an eyebrow. "Your wit won't save those you helped escape. We've secured the outer perimeter. Your refugees will find only more Roman swords waiting."

Something flickered in Lando's eyes — fear, but not for himself. Oscar found himself strangely moved by the realization.

"Lower your weapon," he said again, his tone gentler this time. "There's been enough bloodshed today."

For a long moment, Lando remained poised to fight. Then, with a grimace of pain he couldn't quite hide, he slowly lowered his sword.

"Take him," Oscar ordered the nearest legionaries. "Carefully. He's not to be harmed."

As the soldiers moved in, Lando's composure finally broke. "The tunnel leads to the eastern hills," he blurted desperately. "Families with children. Old people who couldn't fight. They're not armed. They're not a threat to you. Please—"

Oscar hesitated, struck by the raw desperation in the young man's voice. He glanced at Russell, who subtly shook his head — a warning not to show weakness.

But something in Lando's plea resonated with a part of Oscar he usually kept buried beneath duty and discipline. He sighed heavily, making his decision.

"Albon," he called to the centurion who had just arrived, breathing hard from his dash around the walls. "Take your men and find these refugees. Escort them back to the city."

Lando lunged forward, only to be restrained by the legionaries. "No! You promised—"

"I promised nothing," Oscar interrupted sharply. "But they will remain unharmed. You have my word as a Roman officer and an Alpha."

That last word hung in the air between them as Lando's eyes widened fractionally. Only then did Oscar become fully conscious of what his instincts had already registered — beneath the metallic tang of blood and the earthy scent of the tunnel, there was a distinctive sweetness emanating from the captive. An Omega's scent, partially masked by battle but unmistakable to an Alpha's senses.

The realization hit Oscar with unexpected force, stirring primal instincts he typically kept firmly leashed. Now he understood his inexplicable fascination with this defiant fighter — his Alpha nature responding to an Omega of exceptional strength and courage. Not the simpering, submissive Omegas paraded through Roman society, but something altogether more compelling: an Omega who fought like an Alpha while retaining that distinctive, intoxicating essence.

From the way the nearest legionaries shifted stance, nostrils flaring subtly, Oscar wasn't the only one who'd noticed. A surge of possessive protectiveness rose in him so suddenly that it nearly took his breath away.

"Russell," he said quietly. "Have him taken directly to the governor's palace. Post only mated guards or Betas outside his chambers. And summon a physician — competent, discreet — to attend his wounds."

Russell's eyebrow arched slightly, but he nodded. "As you command."

As Lando was led away, he turned back, catching Oscar's gaze one final time. "This isn't over," he promised, voice barely above a whisper yet carrying clearly in the morning air. "Tarraco may have fallen, but its people will never submit. Carlos will return, and when he does, Rome will pay for what happened here today."

Oscar maintained an impassive expression, but his mind had seized on the familiar name. Carlos Sainz — Tarraco's fled commander. The personal tone in Lando's voice suggested a connection beyond mere loyalty to a military leader.

Interesting.

The thought was accompanied by a surge of something dark and primitive that Oscar refused to acknowledge as jealousy.

***

The sun hung low on the western horizon, painting Tarraco's white stones in shades of amber and gold as Oscar stood on the governor's palace balcony. From this vantage point, he could survey much of the city — smoldering ruins in some quarters, untouched elegance in others. Roman patrols moved systematically through the streets, establishing order. Civilians had begun emerging cautiously from their homes, realizing that wholesale slaughter was not the conquerors' intent.

The day had been filled with the tedious necessities of securing a conquered city — organizing supplies, establishing guard rotations, reviewing intelligence, sending dispatches to Rome. Yet throughout it all, Oscar's thoughts had repeatedly returned to the defiant Omega and his desperate defense of his people.

He heard Russell's approach before seeing him — the measured stride of a man who'd spent his life in military service.

"The city is secure," Russell reported, coming to stand beside him at the balcony rail. "Albon has settled the refugees in the western quarter as ordered. They're being provided food and medical attention."

Oscar nodded absently, still gazing across the city. "And our prisoner?"

"His wounds have been treated. Nothing life-threatening — the physician says he'll recover fully within days." Russell hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. "The men are talking. About him. About the right of conquest."

Oscar's jaw tightened visibly. "Make it clear that no one touches him — or any omega in this city — without explicit consent. The days of using rape as a weapon died with the Republic."

"Of course," Russell agreed readily. "Though you should know — we've found documents in Sainz's quarters. It seems our prisoner is not just any citizen. Norris is Sainz's betrothed. Their union was to seal an alliance between two powerful families."

Now Oscar turned, genuine surprise breaking through his composed facade. "Betrothed? To Sainz himself?"

"Apparently so. The ceremony was scheduled for the summer solstice." Russell handed over a sealed parchment. "This appears to be their formal engagement contract. Sainz's seal is unmistakable."

Oscar broke the seal, quickly scanning the document's contents. The legal language was formal but clear — Lando Norris, Omega son of a prominent Iberian house, was pledged to Carlos Sainz, Alpha commander of Tarraco's forces. The marriage would unite two influential bloodlines and considerable fortunes.

Something dark and primal stirred in Oscar's chest as he read the flowery language describing the union to come. The image of Lando — fierce, defiant Lando — bound to the coward who had abandoned him to Rome's mercy ignited an inexplicable anger in him.

"This changes matters," Oscar murmured, struggling to maintain his professional demeanor despite the turmoil of emotions he refused to examine too closely. "If Sainz abandoned his betrothed to Roman conquest..."

"It demonstrates his character," Russell finished the thought. "Or lack thereof."

Oscar rolled the parchment carefully, weighing possibilities. "The Senate will be interested in this connection. An Omega betrothed to our primary target has political value."

"As a hostage?" Russell suggested.

"As leverage," Oscar corrected, turning back to the sunset-bathed city. "Though I suspect our defiant Lando would sooner die than willingly help Rome against his people."

They stood in companionable silence for several moments, watching as torches began to illuminate Tarraco's streets against the gathering dusk.

"The men are eager to return home," Russell finally said. "Many have been away from their families for over a year."

Oscar nodded, decision crystallizing. "Begin preparations. We'll leave a garrison under Albon's command, but the main force returns to Rome."

"And the Omega?" Russell asked.

Oscar's gaze drifted toward the chamber where Lando was being kept. "He comes with us. The Senate will determine his ultimate value to Rome."

He turned away from the view, adjusting his commander's cloak as night began to claim the conquered city. "Begin preparations," he repeated with quiet finality. "We're returning home."

Chapter Text

The sun beat down mercilessly as the Roman caravan snaked its way north along the coastal road. Oscar wiped sweat from his brow, the taste of dust thick in his mouth despite the watered wine he'd sipped throughout the morning. Five days of this relentless march from Tarraco, and the land itself seemed determined to punish them for their victory.

"I swear by Jupiter's balls, this heat will kill more of us than the barbarians ever managed," Russell grumbled, riding alongside him.

Oscar laughed despite himself. "Careful. The gods have sharp ears."

"The gods have better things to do than listen to the complaints of a tired soldier," Russell retorted, but he still made a quick gesture to ward off ill fortune.

The column stretched behind them like a great armored serpent, dust rising from thousands of sandaled feet marking their progress across the conquered land. Oscar's gaze drifted toward the rear where the prisoners walked, bound together by lengths of rope rather than the traditional chains — his one small concession to humanity in the face of this punishing heat.

Among them, one figure caught and held his attention. Even from this distance, Lando stood out — his posture unbent despite five days of forced marching, his chin lifted in defiance of circumstance. The omega's resistance fascinated Oscar in ways he dared not examine too closely.

"That one continues to trouble you," Russell observed, following Oscar's line of sight.

Oscar's fingers tightened on his reins. "He troubles me because I don't understand him. What manner of omega commands an army? And commands it well enough to nearly repel Rome?"

"Perhaps Iberian omegas are cut from different cloth than our own," George suggested. "Or perhaps he's simply extraordinary."

"There's nothing simple about extraordinary men," Oscar replied, more sharply than intended. "They complicate everything they touch."

George studied his commander with knowing eyes. "Including the hearts of those who capture them?"

Oscar jerked his gaze forward, jaw clenched. "I have no heart for him to complicate. Only curiosity about an unusual adversary."

"Of course," Russell agreed with exaggerated sincerity. "Just as I have no taste for the wine we liberated from Tarraco's cellars."

Oscar ignored the jibe, focusing instead on the horizon where heat shimmered like the surface of disturbed water. The truth was more complex than he cared to admit, even to himself. Something about the omega's defiance had kindled an unwelcome fire in his blood — one that military discipline and rational thought seemed powerless to extinguish.

***

When they stopped at midday, the legion fell into the well-practiced routine of a brief respite with the efficiency of a mechanism whose parts had moved together countless times before. Servants erected a canopy of stretched linen for the officers, the fabric snapping in the hot breeze, while common soldiers sought whatever meager shade they could find, dropping to the ground beneath stunted olive trees or against sun-bleached boulders. Water bearers moved among the troops, replenishing depleted skins with precious liquid from the wagons.

Oscar declined the shade, ignoring the sweat that trickled down his spine beneath his armor. A commander needed to be seen, especially in moments of hardship. He moved among the legionaries with practiced ease, his eyes noting everything - which men sat alone, which laughed despite their exhaustion, which stared too long at the water carts. The men responded to his presence like parched soil to rain, their postures straightening, eyes clearing of fatigue. These small exchanges — a nod here, a word of recognition there — were investments that would pay dividends when battle lines formed and men needed to believe their leader understood their sacrifice.

His circuit eventually brought him to the rear of the column where the prisoners rested, guarded by spearmen whose vigilance hadn't wavered despite the soporific heat. Most captives huddled together, seeking comfort in proximity as they tended to blistered feet with strips torn from already insufficient clothing. Their eyes followed Oscar with vacant hostility or broken indifference — the look of men who had already surrendered not just their weapons but their spirits.

All except one.

Lando sat slightly apart from his compatriots, his back pressed against a gnarled olive tree whose silver leaves cast dappled shadows across his features. With methodical precision, he worked dust from a superficial wound on his forearm, his movements economical and focused. The injury to his left leg was poorly bandaged with cloth that had once been white but now bore the dull, rust-colored stains of old blood — dried and set deep into the fabric.

Still, his eyes remained clear and sharp, following Oscar's approach with unflinching intensity.

Oscar unhooked the waterskin from his belt. A servant could’ve done this — should’ve done this — but some unnameable impulse made him stride forward alone.

"Water," he said simply, extending the skin.

Lando's gaze flickered to the offering before settling somewhere beyond Oscar's shoulder.  "I'd rather die of thirst than accept Roman charity."

"Dying would be inconvenient," Oscar replied mildly, kneeling to bring himself level with the seated man. "For both of us.”

"Your inconvenience brings me joy." A ghost of a smile touched Lando's cracked lips, transforming his expression from merely defiant to something almost playful, despite the circumstances.

Oscar's eyebrow arched in surprise. "Then live and find greater ways to inconvenience me than simply perishing from stubbornness."

The hostility in Lando's expression wavered, momentarily replaced by something closer to curiosity.He studied Oscar with renewed attention, his extraordinary eyes catching the midday light like shallow ocean waters—luminous, complex, and ever-changing. Sunlight turned his irises nearly translucent at the edges, the color shifting between seafoam and stormcloud  with each blink. Beautiful and wounded and impossibly alive despite everything.

"Do you envy the dead, Commander?" Lando asked suddenly, his voice was a thread of sorrow, so quiet only Oscar could hear it - and wish he hadn't.

The question caught him off-guard. "Why would I? Rome stands victorious."

"Because their suffering is finished," Lando replied, eyes drifting to where some of his countrymen sat with hollow gazes. "While for those of us who live, it's only beginning."

This quiet despair unsettled him more than any rebellion could. "So you envy them," Oscar said, statement rather than question.

"Sometimes," Lando admitted, elegant fingers plucking at a fraying edge of his bandage.  "Their war is over. Mine continues with every breath."

Oscar found himself staring at the graceful movement of Lando's throat as he swallowed, at the sunburn peeling across his nose, at the raw grooves where rope had abraded delicate wrist bones. These were not the details of a trophy, but of a man. A man who had loved and been loved, who had sat at tables and told jokes and who should have been standing beneath flowering arches right now, clasping his beloved's hands as they exchanged vows.

"You'll be treated fairly in Rome,” Oscar said, and immediately hated how hollow it sounded.

Lando huffed a broken laugh. "Fairly," he repeated, tilting his face toward the relentless sun. For a heartbeat, Oscar thought he glimpsed moisture glistening along his lashes, quickly consumed by the heat. "When your historians write of this glorious conquest," Lando whispered, "will they mention how Carlos kissed me goodbye? How he held my face between his hands like something precious?" His voice cracked. "Or shall I be another nameless savage in your gilded cage?"

"Your fate will be better than those destined for the mines," Oscar countered, even as something in his chest constricted painfully.

"Is it, though?" Lando's gaze swept across the distant horizon. "They'll die quickly in darkness. I must live watching your architects turn our temples into brothels and our sacred groves into kindling for your bathhouses."

Oscar's breath caught in his throat like a trapped bird. He opened his mouth — to argue, to dismiss, to say something that would make this easier — but the bucina sounded, sharp and final. Around them, the legion stirred to life, armor clanking, voices rising in disciplined readiness.

Oscar turned to leave, then paused, looking back at Lando. "The offer of a wagon still stands," he said quietly. "There's no glory in crippling yourself for pride's sake."

"My place is with my people," Lando replied, struggling to his feet with a badly concealed wince that made Oscar's hand twitch forward instinctively before he mastered himself. Pain painted itself across Lando's features for an instant before being masked behind determination. "I'll walk into Rome on my own feet or not at all."

"As you wish." Oscar turned sharply, his heavy wool cloak slicing through the air in a perfect arc before settling against his back as he strode away without looking back.

The saddle's familiar embrace should have been comforting. The stallion's warmth beneath him, the creak of well-worn leather, the chime of bridle rings — these were the rhythms that had steadied him through countless campaigns. Yet now they rang hollow, the automatic movements of a conqueror going through motions while his attention frayed backward.

His skin prickled with the effort of not looking. Not measuring Lando's limping gait against the cadence of marching boots. Not calculating how the distance between them grew with each mile, even as that stubborn figure loomed ever larger in his mind.

Lando might as well have been walking beside him, for all the space he took up in Oscar's skull.

Damn him.

Damn the way Lando's shoulders remained squared despite exhaustion. Damn the proud angle of his chin, lifted as if he led this procession rather than endured it. Damn the way sunlight caught on his sweat-slicked throat, turning each ragged breath into something perilously close to beauty. And most of all, damn this gnawing feeling that Lando wasn't just walking toward Rome — he was walking into Oscar's thoughts, carving out space where he didn't belong.

The stallion sidestepped, sensing his distraction. Oscar tightened his grip, reins biting into his palms. He should be reviewing supply lists, planning the triumph, drafting his report to the Senate. Instead, one traitorous thought circled relentlessly:

What becomes of unbreakable men in a world determined to break them?

***

The afternoon pressed on with brutal intensity, the sun reflecting off the paving stones of the ancient road with punishing brilliance. Oscar maintained his position at the column's head, posture immaculate despite the heat that seemed determined to melt flesh from bone. Sweat carved rivulets down his back beneath the armor's weight, but his expression remained impassive — the face of Rome that his men needed to see.

When the first heavy raindrop struck his cheek, he initially dismissed it as a trick of his heat-addled senses. But within moments, dark clouds had rolled in from the sea, transforming the scorching day into a sudden, violent downpour.

"Jupiter has heard your complaints after all," Oscar called to George over the growing rumble of thunder.

"And responded with typical divine excess," Russell replied, blinking water from his eyes as the heavens truly opened, turning dust to mud in moments.

Oscar was about to reply when shouts erupted from the rear of the column. He turned to see soldiers running toward the prisoners' section, a commotion visible even through the increasingly heavy rainfall. 

Oscar felt how his stomach tightened with instinctive concern.

"Take command," he ordered Russell, wheeling his horse around and spurring it toward the disturbance.

The rain fell in blinding torrents now, reducing visibility to arm's length. Oscar guided his mount more by memory than sight, the animal's hooves struggling to find purchase in what had become a morass of mud. When he reached the disturbance, he dismounted in one fluid movement, landing ankle-deep in slurry as he pushed through the ring of gathered soldiers.

The scene that greeted him sent a cold fury through his veins.

Lando knelt in the mud, one hand clamped tightly around his wounded leg, rain plastered his dark hair against his skull and washed blood from his split lip down his chin in pale crimson streams. Above him stood Marcus, a newly promoted centurion, his whip raised for another strike — the leather already stained dark with more than rainwater.

"Halt!" Oscar's command cut through the din like a blade. Every head turned toward him, soldiers scrambling to attention despite the miserable conditions. "What is the meaning of this?"

Marcus whirled, his face flushed with anger. "This prisoner attacked me, Commander. I'm merely delivering appropriate punishment."

"Indeed?"  Oscar's tone was deceptively calm, but the soldiers closest to him took involuntary steps backward. "A half-starved, injured omega overpowered a Roman centurion in full armor? That's either a remarkable accomplishment or an admission of incompetence I should address immediately."

Lando lifted his head. His eyes met Oscar's, and in their depths was not fear, but something far more unsettling - a quiet, knowing amusement, as if he'd anticipated this confrontation and found ironic satisfaction in its unfolding.

"He was disrespectful," Marcus insisted, sensing his position weakening. Rainwater dripped from the end of his whip, each drop carrying traces of Lando's blood. "Refused direct commands and spoke with insolence unbefitting his position."

Oscar's gaze never left Lando's face. "Is this true?"

For a long moment, Lando simply regarded him through the curtain of rain. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement that spoke volumes about his pain and his pride in equal measure, he straightened his posture despite remaining on his knees.

"The centurion suggested that since I was too weak to walk, perhaps I might serve other purposes during our rest tonight," Lando said, voice carrying clearly despite the rain. "I told him I'd rather crawl through the kingdom of your dead gods on broken glass than suffer his touch."

A ripple of murmurs spread through the gathered legionaries. Oscar's expression darkened as he turned to Marcus.

"Is that true, Centurion?"

Marcus's hand tightened on his whip. "The omega twists my words, Commander. These barbarians are known for their lies and—"

"I asked a direct question," Oscar interrupted, stepping closer until barely a handspan separated them. "Did you suggest using this prisoner for your personal pleasure?"

Marcus swallowed visibly. "I merely jested, Commander," he said, his voice losing some of its earlier conviction. "To lighten the burden of the march.

"Is that so?" Oscar's voice remained level, but something in his eyes made Marcus take an involuntary step back. "Perhaps your sense of humor differs markedly from mine."

"He's just an omega—" Marcus began, then stopped abruptly as Oscar stepped closer.

"An omega who held Tarraco against us for eighteen days. He fought with more courage than half the alphas in that city." Oscar said, loud enough for all to hear. "An omega who killed five of our men before surrendering. Perhaps you'd like to face him unbound, with a sword in his hand? I'd wager a month's wages on the outcome."

The challenge hung in the air. Marcus swallowed visibly. "No, Commander."

Oscar turned to address the gathered soldiers. "Let me be perfectly clear. These prisoners travel to Rome under my protection and authority. They are not for your entertainment or pleasure. Any man who forgets this will answer directly to me." His gaze swept the assembly. "Is that understood?"

A chorus of affirmations followed, though some sounded more reluctant than others.

"Twenty lashes for the centurion," Oscar ordered. "To be administered at tonight's camp."

Marcus blanched. "Commander, I—"

"Would you prefer thirty?" Oscar asked coldly.

Marcus's mouth snapped shut.

With the matter settled, Oscar crouched beside Lando, ignoring the mud that immediately soaked through his ornate greaves. With swift efficiency, he pushed aside the omega's hands and examined the injured leg himself.  What he found transformed concern to urgent anger. The bandage was soaked through — not just with rain but with pus and blood — infection had clearly set in, likely days ago, perhaps already spreading beyond the local wound.

"This wound is septic," Oscar said, looking directly into Lando's eyes. "Without treatment, you'll lose more than your pride. Is that what you want? To die anonymously on a road far from your homeland?"

Lando glared up at him through rain-soaked lashes. "Does it matter? I'm still your prisoner whether I walk or crawl."

Something fierce and unexpected twisted in Oscar's chest. He grasped Lando's chin, fingers pressing just firmly enough to ensure the omega's complete attention. The Lando’s skin burned beneath his touch, flushed with fever, his lips cracked and bitten through.

"You’d really rather die in a ditch," Oscar snarled, "than let me help you?"

For one fractured second, Lando’s defiance flickered. His breath hitched, pupils swallowing the seaglass hues of his irises, his body trembling not just from pain, but from something deeper, something raw. Then he exhaled a single word:

"Yes."

Oscar moved before he could think. One arm slid beneath Lando's knees, the other around his shoulders, lifting him with surprising gentleness. The omega gasped, fingers instinctively clutching at Oscar's armor as pain lanced through him.

"Stop—"

"You’ve lost the right to argue," Oscar growled, carrying his burden toward his waiting horse. Lando weighed shockingly little in his arms, all sharp angles and trembling muscle. "You're being childish."

"And you're being Roman," Lando shot back, though his struggles weakened as movement jostled his injured leg.

Oscar snorted softly. "Is that meant as an insult?"

"The greatest I know," Lando murmured, his brow furrowing in confusion as he studied Oscar's face.

A particularly rough step drew a wounded sound from Lando's throat, his head tipping back to expose the elegant column of his neck. Rain pooled in the hollow of his throat, catching on the hammering pulse there. His fingers scrabbled weakly against Oscar's armor, not to push away, but to anchor himself as pain washed through him in visible waves.

In this moment of unwilling vulnerability, Lando looked heartbreakingly young. Water-darkened lashes framed glassy eyes, his sharp features softened by suffering, his breath coming in shallow gasps that warmed the skin beneath Oscar's collarbone with each stumbling step. The proud warrior who had made Rome bleed was reduced to this fragile, furious creature who still somehow found the strength to glare even as he clung to his enemy for survival.

With practiced ease, Oscar mounted while still cradling Lando against his chest. The horse shifted beneath them, adjusting to the double burden, before steadying as Oscar's thighs tightened around its flanks.

With one hand still supporting Lando, Oscar unfastened his commander's cloak with deft fingers. The crimson fabric, though soaked through, still retained warmth from his body as he wrapped it carefully around Lando's shivering form.

"This is unnecessary," Lando muttered, though he unconsciously pressed closer to Oscar's body. "And inappropriate. Your men will talk."

"Let them," Oscar replied simply. The arm he wrapped around Lando's waist was firm but gentle, the pressure calculated to provide security without causing pain. His hand splayed across Lando's ribs, feeling the too-rapid heartbeat beneath his palm. "I answer to Rome and my conscience, not rumor."

He urged his mount forward through the rain. "Though your company is surprisingly tolerable when you're not actively trying to die."

Lando offered no response, but Oscar felt the subtle shift as the omega's rigid posture gradually softened against him. The resistance in his muscles surrendered incrementally to exhaustion and the instinctive seeking of warmth, his body melting against Oscar's larger frame.

Oscar guided his horse toward the front of the column, leaving the gawking audience behind. The rain continued unabated, quickly soaking through their clothing, but Oscar barely registered the discomfort. His attention was consumed by the omega in his arms — the feverish heat radiating from Lando's body despite the cool rain, the subtle tremors that ran through him with each jolting step of the horse.

"Why are you doing this?" Lando asked after a while, voice barely audible above the rain's percussion. His lips moved against the exposed skin of Oscar's throat, each word a whisper of warm breath that sent involuntary shivers down his spine. "I'm your enemy."

Oscar considered the question carefully before answering. "You were my enemy in battle," he said finally. "Now you're my responsibility."

Lando's fingers, which had been pressed against Oscar's chest in token resistance, slowly uncurled, one hand coming to rest against the alpha's collarbone in a gesture that was neither push nor pull. "Rome's mercy is legendary for its absence," he murmured, eyelids growing heavy as the motion of the horse and the warmth of Oscar's body lulled him toward unconsciousness.

"Perhaps," Oscar conceded, adjusting the cloak to better shield Lando's face from the driving rain. "But this isn't Rome's mercy. It's mine."

The rain cascaded around them, drumming against the rich crimson fabric he'd wrapped protectively around the omega. As their bodies pressed together, seeking warmth against nature's cold assault, something shifted in the charged air between them.

It happened suddenly — the rain seemingly washing away whatever barriers had contained Lando's natural essence. His omega scent bloomed in the dampness, rising like steam from his fever-warm skin. The fragrance hit Oscar with unexpected force —  thick, golden honey dripping from a spoon on the hottest summer day, sun-warmed figs with their sticky-sweet flesh bursting from taut skins, and beneath it all, that warm, slightly peppery spice.

Sweet yet wild, vulnerable yet somehow defiant even in unconsciousness, it carried complexity that reminded him of sunbaked afternoons when the air shimmers with heat, of the first sip of festival wine, warm from the sun and spiced with memories. And something indefinable — something that was simply, irrevocably Lando — that no other omega possessed.

Oscar found himself instinctively drawing deeper breaths, his body moving of its own accord. The rain faded to background noise as his senses narrowed to this single point of connection — this unexpected intimacy thrust upon them by circumstance. He lowered his face until his nose nearly brushed the curve where Lando's neck met shoulder, inhaling deeply like a man starved for air finding his first proper breath.

The scent ravished his senses — raw and eloquent in ways language could never capture. A primal melody woven from Lando's very essence vibrated through Oscar's core, awakening something forgotten yet eternally present within his alpha nature. This wasn't merely fragrance but an ancient covenant between their kinds — a wordless supplication, a plea for protection crafted by evolution long before Rome raised its first column or commanders wore their first laurels.

Oscar’s lips hovered dangerously close to that sensitive hollow, breath ghosting across dampened skin as he drew the omega's essence into himself. Some primal part of him — the alpha buried beneath layers of military discipline and Roman stoicism — was already answering that silent call, even as his rational mind fought for control. This was a prisoner of Rome, not some damsel in need of rescue from the Greek myths his tutor had drilled into him as a boy.

Yet his arms tightened traitorously around the unconscious form, his thumb absently tracing a soothing pattern against rain-slicked skin.

As they crested a small rise, Oscar could see the advance party already beginning to establish the way station — a simple fortified outpost maintained to support traveling legions. Relief flickered across his usually stoic features — shelter was close, and with it the chance to properly treat Lando's wound before infection claimed more than just his leg. The omega's breathing had grown increasingly labored, his skin alternating between burning heat and chilling cold as fever took firmer hold.

"Just a little further," he murmured, though he doubted Lando could hear him. His lips brushed against the omega's rain-soaked hair. "Stay with me."

***

The way station's stone walls barely muffled the storm's fury as Oscar kicked open the chamber door, rainwater cascading from his cloak onto the packed earth floor. The brazier's glow painted Lando's fever-flushed skin in gold and shadow as Oscar deposited him on the camp bed, his hands lingering a moment too long before slipping away.

"Fetch Andrea," he ordered the attendant who had scrambled to his feet at their entrance. "Tell him to bring his medical kit. And send for dry clothing — the warmest available."

Alone now, Oscar reached for the sodden tunic clinging to Lando's heaving chest. His fingers had barely grazed the fabric when—

A hand caught his wrist with surprising strength. Lando's eyes flew open, pupils swallowing the storm-gray of his irises. "Don't." The word was a blade pressed to Oscar's throat. "Not while I can't..." His breath hitched, fingers tightening convulsively. "Not like this."

And oh, the accusation in those words cut deeper than any wound.

Oscar recoiled as if burned. His chest tightened, something hot and wounded flaring inside him. He thinks I would—? The thought alone was like swallowing glass.

"I’m checking your wound," he bit out, voice rougher than he intended. "Nothing more."

Lando’s laugh was a shattered thing, bitter and hollow. "That’s what they all say," he whispered. "Roman or Iberian, an alpha’s hunger smells the same."

Oscar couldn't take it anymore.

Something fundamental inside him rebelled against being categorized with those who would abuse power in such a way. Slowly, deliberately, Oscar tilted his head to the side, baring his throat in the most vulnerable gesture an alpha could make. His pulse hammered visibly beneath his skin, exposed and unprotected.

"Then smell again," he said quietly. "Tell me what you find."

Lando's breath caught. His eyes darted to Oscar's exposed throat, then back to his face, searching for deception or manipulation. Oscar remained motionless, allowing the omega to see whatever truth he needed to discover.

Almost against his will, Lando leaned slightly forward. His nose brushed the skin just below Oscar's jaw, so lightly it might have been imagined. Then he inhaled sharply, his entire body tensing as if preparing for confirmation of his worst fears.

Oscar held perfectly still as Lando took another breath, deeper this time. He could feel the omega's warm exhale against his neck, could sense the exact moment Lando's rigid posture began to soften.

There was no aggressive alpha musk, no predatory pheromones, no scent of arousal or dominance. Only the clean fragrance of pine and leather, undercut with something warmer — concern, protectiveness, and a quiet, aching hurt.

Lando pulled back slightly, his grip on Oscar's wrist loosening. His brow furrowed in bewilderment, lips parting as if to speak, though no words emerged.

"Not all alphas are the same," Oscar said softly as Lando's fingers finally unclenched, their tension easing by degrees. "I've never taken what wasn't freely offered, in war or peace."

Lando studied him through half-lidded eyes. "Then you're either the greatest liar I've met," he whispered, "or the first decent Roman."

"The latter, perhaps," Oscar conceded. "But this infection cares nothing for your opinion of my character. It will kill you all the same if left untreated."

They regarded each other in tense silence, neither willing to retreat, until Oscar sighed heavily. "Would you prefer to die and let Carlos learn of your fate through imperial dispatches? To never see your homeland again? To abandon your people when they might need your voice in Rome?"

Something fractured in Lando's expression. His breath hitched, just once, before his shoulders slumped — not in surrender, but in exhausted acceptance.

"Your physician only," he finally muttered. "No one else touches me."

Oscar nodded once. "You have my word."

As if the concession had cost him the last of his strength, Lando's body sagged against the bedding. His eyes drifted shut, long lashes casting shadows on hollow cheeks. "A Roman's word," he murmured, the old bite returning faintly to his voice even as consciousness slipped away. "How reassuring."

A sharp knock cut through the heavy silence of the chamber. Before Oscar could call out, the door swung open, revealing the broad frame of Andrea Stella, the legion’s chief physician. The grizzled, gray-haired veteran — a man who had stitched Oscar back together after three separate campaigns — stepped inside, his leather case of instruments clutched in one calloused hand. The scent of crushed herbs and vinegar clung to him, sharp and medicinal.

"Commander." Andrea dipped his head in respect, but his dark eyes flicked immediately to the figure sprawled across the cot. "This is the one?"

"Infected leg wound," Oscar confirmed, stepping back to give the medic space. "Likely neglected for at least five days."

Andrea exhaled sharply through his nose as his fingers — scarred from decades of battlefield surgeries — gently probed the inflamed edges of the wound. The skin pulsed an angry red beneath his touch, unnaturally hot and visibly swollen.

"The infection runs deep," he muttered, more to himself than to Oscar. The physician’s voice was low, clinical, but Oscar heard the fracture in it — the unspoken this is worse than I expected. Lamplight caught on the viscous gleam of pus as Andrea withdrew his fingers. The metallic, sour scent of advanced infection permeated the small chamber.

Oscar didn't speak. His gaze remained fixed on Lando's face — on the way the omega's eyelashes trembled against fever-flushed cheeks, on the faint hitch in his breathing every time Andrea applied pressure to the wound. That defiant jawline, so unyielding during their confrontations, now appeared painfully vulnerable in unconsciousness.

The physician rummaged through his kit with grim efficiency. Clay jars clinked as he produced his arsenal: honey so thick it clung to the spoon, vinegar that made the air sting, and the strange blue-green mold he cultivated from spoiled bread. When he reached for his scalpel, the bronze blade gleamed like a threat in the low light.

"He won't survive travel," Andrea said abruptly. 

Oscar's hand flexed at his side. Outside, the storm had quieted, leaving an unnatural stillness that made the physician's words echo.

"I need him alive." The admission slipped out before Oscar could temper it.

Andrea wiped his hands on a cloth, studying Oscar with renewed focus. "Then you'll need to wait. Three days at the very least — if the gods are merciful. Maybe four." He gestured to the angry red streaks creeping up Lando's thigh. "This isn't just a wound — it's a war. And right now, the infection's winning."

Oscar's fingers curled into fists at his sides as his thoughts churned. Rome awaited his triumphant return. The Senate expected promptness. His legionaries deserved to complete their long march home. The weight of command pressed against his shoulders like armor grown suddenly too heavy. He could almost hear the venomous whispers that would inevitably spread through marble corridors — Oscar delays. Oscar hesitates. Oscar places a prisoner above his duty to the Empire.

His jaw clenched.

All of it mattered.

Then—

A soft, pained groan from the cot.

Lando stirred, his head rolled to the side, dark lashes fluttering against flushed skin. A lock of sweat-damp hair fell across his forehead, clinging to his temple like a plea.

Oscar's chest tightened.

None of it mattered.

"Russell takes the legion at dawn."

Andrea stilled, hands hovering above his instruments. "And you?"

"I stay."

The physician studied him for a long moment before nodding once. "As you command," he said simply, turning his attention back to his patient. "I'll need clean water, fresh linens, and privacy to work."

Oscar nodded curtly and stepped outside, running a hand through his hair as the evening breeze cooled his face. The storm had passed,  leaving the air crisp and rain-washed. He noticed a young legionary hurrying past — barely more than a boy with gangly limbs and earnest eyes — and raised his hand slightly to stop him.

"You," Oscar called, his voice softer than usual. The boy nearly dropped his burden in startled recognition.

"Commander!" He straightened so quickly that water sloshed over the sides of the skins he carried.

Oscar steadied one as it threatened to slip. "Your name, soldier?"

"Kimi, domine. Andrea Kimi Antonelli." The boy's voice cracked slightly.

Oscar studied the fresh-faced recruit - his ill-fitting armor, the barely-healed scrape on his cheek from where his helmet had rubbed. "Find Centurion Russell for me, Kimi. Tell him..." Oscar paused, choosing his words carefully. "Tell him he'll lead the march tomorrow. I need to remain here."

The boy blinked owlishly. "All of them, Commander? The entire legion?"

A faint smile touched Oscar's lips at the awe in the young soldier's voice. "Yes, all of them. Can you remember that?"

Kimi nodded with such enthusiasm that water arced from the skins in glistening droplets. "Yes, Commander! At once!"

The boy took off like a spooked colt, all flailing limbs and unchecked energy. Oscar’s mouth quirked — gods, he’s going to faceplant in the dirt before he makes it ten paces — but the amusement faded as quickly as it came.

***

Oscar sat on a rickety wooden stool outside the station house, cradling a clay cup of sour wine that did little to ease his troubled thoughts. The setting sun painted long shadows across the dusty courtyard, where soldiers were beginning to light the evening fires.

Somewhere by the stables, a group of legionaries burst into laughter - the kind of careless, raucous sound that comes after a hard day's march. Oscar closed his eyes, letting the familiar noises of the outpost wash over him - the creak of wagon wheels, the snort of tired horses, the distant clang of the blacksmith's hammer.

He took a slow sip, wincing at the bitter aftertaste. The wine was atrocious — thin and sharp as vinegar — but it occupied his restless hands.

His mind kept circling back to the wounded omega who now occupied his thoughts as thoroughly as he occupied Oscar's quarters. Andrea would be in there now, probably changing dressings again. Oscar wondered if Lando was awake. If he was still fighting the fever with that same stubborn set to his jaw. If his fingers still twitched toward imaginary weapons even in sleep. 

The cup was empty. Oscar didn't remember drinking the rest.

A cool evening breeze carried the scent of horses and woodsmoke. It should have been calming. Instead, it just made him think of Lando on that first day they met  — bloodied, beaten, and still smirking up at Oscar like the entire Roman army was just a mild inconvenience.

And now…

Now Lando occupied his bed, helpless and vulnerable in ways that made Oscar's stomach clench with unfamiliar emotions.

Oscar's fingers tapped restlessly against his thigh. Would those fierce eyes recognize him when they opened, or see only another Roman conqueror? Did he cry out in his native tongue when nightmares seized him, calling for comrades who could no longer answer? Would he flinch at Oscar’s touch, even in sleep? 

Oscar set the cup down too hard.

The dice game across the yard erupted in another burst of drunken merriment. Night watch would begin their rounds soon. The legion would march at first light.

And he would remain behind, waiting for a prisoner to awaken so he could see those defiant eyes once more.

Damn.

He rubbed his face, suddenly tired. The wine sat heavy in his stomach.

Some choices, he realized, were never truly choices at all.

***

"Your Iberian pain in the ass is gonna live."

Russell strode into the commander's quarters without ceremony, muddy boots leaving damp impressions on the stone floor. "Well, well," he announced, tossing a wine skin onto Oscar's desk with a wet thud. "Your favorite prisoner decided not to die after all, Andrea says the fever broke."

Oscar didn't look up from his reports. "I believe the term is 'recovering patient.'"

"Patient my ass," Russell snorted, collapsing into the chair opposite. The wood creaked dangerously. "That boy's got more fight in him than our entire Third Cohort. Woke up swinging, bit two orderlies, and demanded to know where you were —  though I'm substantially sanitizing the language employed."

This time Oscar did glance up from the parchments. "He asked for me?"

"Ah, so that gets your attention? " Russell said with a knowing smirk, uncorking the wine skin. "Don't flatter yourself. Should have heard the colorful phrases — I learned three new ways to desecrate Roman ancestors before Andrea gagged him."

"I get the picture," Oscar replied dryly, setting his stylus down with deliberate care. His fingers lingered on the wooden shaft a moment too long. "Though perhaps you could refrain from gagging injured prisoners in the future."

"Injured prisoner? Is that what we're calling him now?" Russell took a long pull from the wine skin, watching Oscar over its leather rim. When Oscar refused to rise to the bait, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "The men are ready to march with the dawn," he continued, suddenly all business. "Weather's clearing too — the gods  finally decided to piss elsewhere for a change."

"And you're confident you can manage without me?" Oscar asked, though they both recognized it wasn't genuinely a question.

"I've led men before," Russell replied with a slight smile. "Though perhaps not with your particular talent for making even the most battle-hardened veterans fall silent with just a raised eyebrow."

Oscar's lips curved upward. "A useful skill in certain negotiations."

"No doubt." The moment of levity vanished as Russell leaned forward, lowering his voice though they were alone in the room. "What troubles me more is what tale you'll spin for the Senate. Three days' delay can be excused. But if you're not parading through Rome within a fortnight..."

"I've sent word ahead. The Senate will understand the need to deliver valuable prisoners alive rather than as corpses." Oscar's tone was firm, brooking no argument.

Russell studied him for a long moment, his gaze disconcertingly perceptive. "Is that truly all this is about? Ensuring a prisoner survives for the triumph?"

"What else would it be?" Oscar challenged, though something in his eyes wavered.

"You tell me," Russell said quietly. "I've known you since we were green boys training with wooden swords. I've watched you lose men — good men, brothers in all but blood — without your voice faltering or your resolve weakening. Yet you've barely eaten or slept since you carried that Iberian into camp yourself."

Oscar looked away, focusing on the map spread across the table. "He's not just any prisoner. His presence in the triumph sends a message about Rome's power over the entire region."

"Is that the only message that matters to you now?" Russell's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "And how much information has he given you? Besides," he dropped his voice to a raspy whisper, "'Go fuck yourself, Roman?'

Oscar didn’t answer. He kept his gaze fixed on the campaign maps before him, tracing the same border line for the third time — as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world, and not an excuse to avoid meeting George’s eyes.

"Answer me this," Russell said, brushing imaginary dust from his tunic. "When the time comes to chain him for the Triumph — will you personally lead him through the Forum? Or will you conveniently discover pressing business elsewhere?"

The question hung in the air between them, dangerous in its simplicity. Oscar's expression hardened, though whether in anger or defense was impossible to tell.

"Your concern for my reputation is noted," he finally said. "Now, unless there's something else requiring my attention, I suggest you get some rest. You have men to lead in the morning."

George recognized the dismissal but rose unhurriedly. He turned to leave, then stopped, his mouth twisting into a knowing grin. "The men are already taking bets, you know. Whether you'll kill him, fuck him, or—"

"Get. Out." Oscar's voice was dangerously soft.

Laughing, Russell sauntered toward the door. "Just remember what they say about Iberian wolves, old friend. They bite the hand that feeds them." He paused at the threshold, turning back with gleaming eyes. "Especially when they discover they like how it tastes."

***

The camp slept in that heavy stillness between midnight and dawn when even the sentries' footsteps grow muffled. Oscar moved through the shadows like a ghost, his crimson cloak blending with the darkness. The few soldiers still awake offered quiet salutes, which he acknowledged with silent nods, his path leading unerringly toward the private quarters.

At the threshold of his chambers, his hand froze mid-reach.

The oil lamp above the threshold guttered, casting nervous light across the bronze handle. Every scar on his body ached in reminder - he was Rome's blade, honed sharp by discipline. Not some lovesick boy sneaking to a lover's bed.

Yet when he finally pushed the door open, his breath caught regardless.

The attendant dozed in the corner, jolting awake at Oscar's entrance. A quick gesture sent the man outside, leaving Oscar alone with the sleeping omega.

Lando lay motionless on the cot, dark curls stark against the white linens. Fresh bandages wrapped his thigh, the sharp scent of medicinal herbs doing little to mask the essential fragrance beneath — that wild, untamed scent that had haunted Oscar since he'd carried him through the rain, Lando's limp body pressed flush against his chest.

His hand rose without permission.

Oscar halted a hair's breadth from Lando's forehead, close enough to feel warmth radiating from skin still flushed with the remnants of fever. His fingers trembled, hovering over the proud arch of Lando's cheekbone and the absurdly long lashes that fluttered with dreams Oscar couldn't share.

At the last moment, he curled his fingers into a fist and withdrew.

Oscar sank onto the stool beside the cot, elbows braced against knees as he studied the prisoner who had so thoroughly disrupted his meticulously ordered existence. In the wavering lamplight, shadows played across Lando's features — accentuating the aristocratic lines of his face, the defiant curve of his mouth even in unconsciousness, as if he were still arguing with the world in his sleep.

Lando stirred slightly at the sound but didn't wake, his head turning on the pillow. The movement exposed the elegant line of his throat, the pulse point there visible evidence of life flowing beneath the skin. Oscar's gaze fixed on that rhythm, finding strange comfort in its steady beat.

His hand reached out again, this time allowing his fingertips to brush lightly against Lando's, a touch so delicate it couldn't disturb even the most fragile sleep.

The contact sent warmth spiraling up Oscar's arm, a sensation both alarming and exhilarating. Lando's fingers lay open in sleep, unconsciously trusting, and Oscar traced their length with the reverence of a man touching something sacred. The roughness of sword calluses gave way to the surprising softness between them, where no weapon had touched.

When his thumb brushed the vulnerable inner wrist, Lando sighed - a sound so tender it ached. Oscar stilled, watching as the omega's sun-bronzed fingers twitched unconsciously,  turning almost imperceptibly toward his touch. Their hands now intertwined in the quiet darkness like roots finding water after a long drought.  — something inevitable, unstoppable.

As the first hint of dawn lightened the eastern sky, Oscar finally withdrew his hand and rose. He would return to his duties, prepare for another day of command while his army marched toward Rome without him. He would maintain the facade of cool efficiency that his position demanded.

But he knew, with a certainty that shook him to his core, that something fundamental had shifted within him — something that couldn't be undone, no matter how desperately he might wish it.

Chapter Text

Dawn crept across the way station like a hesitant lover, its pale gold fingers tracing the worn edges of stone floors where Oscar stood motionless watching his legion march eastward. The air carried the scent of dew-dampened grass mingled with leather and metal — the unmistakable perfume of an army on the move. His chest tightened with an emotion he couldn't name as he observed George at their head, crimson sagum billowing behind him like a blood-streaked cloud.

Russell turned in his saddle one final time, and the sun caught the curve of his smile, familiar as the hilt of a well-worn sword. 

"Try not to miss me too much, Commander," George called, a hint of laughter in his voice despite the solemnity of the moment. "Rome's gates stand ready for your triumph."

"And the Senate awaits your report," Oscar replied, allowing himself the smallest curve of lips that passed for his smile. 

For a suspended moment, their gazes held across the widening distance. Then George raised his arm in salute, and the morning light transforming the gesture into something sacred. 

"Glory to Rome."

Oscar waited until Russell wheeled his mount around and rejoined the column of marching men. Only then did he let his breath out in a slow stream, whispering words meant for no ears but his own:

"Glory to you, my friend."

The wind carried his words away like an offering.

Oscar recalled the first time he’d met George — a gangly youth with northern blood evident in his pale complexion and stubborn defiance of authority. He had been all sharp angles and sharper tongue in those days, a raw-boned recruit from the distant provinces, his fair skin burning quickly under the Mediterranean sun, and his mouth already shaping questions too bold for his rank. That spark of insolence had nearly earned him a flogging in his first month — until a training sword landed in his hands, and the drillmasters discovered the lethal poetry he could conjure from steel.

They'd risen through the ranks together, that stubborn northerner and him. Battle after battle had tempered George's recklessness into cunning, his defiance into loyalty that ran deeper than blood. He was Oscar's most trusted officer, a man forged in the same fires of battle that had shaped Oscar himself, now entrusted with command of the main legion while Oscar remained behind with their... captive.

The morning light fractured through Russell's retreating form, glinting off the bronze fittings of his armor. Oscar's fingernails bit into his palms as the golden aquila standard receded into the distance, its wings catching fire in the sunrise. That eagle had led them through Gaul, across treacherous mountain passes, and finally to the walls of Tarraco. Now it was returning to Rome without him — another reminder that his triumph would not be quite what he'd imagined during those long nights planning sieges by lamplight.

He drew a sharp breath, filling his lungs with the cool morning air as he watched his men — his men — disappear over the horizon. Each step they took carried them closer to Rome and further from him. Oscar's fingers tightened on his sword belt. He'd left half his heart marching east with those men, and George knew it.

Forty men remained behind — a skeletal force compared to the thousands now marching homeward. Oscar's gaze swept over them, these remnants of his proud legion, now little more than a guard detail. 

A wistful ache settled in Oscar's chest as the last helmets disappeared from view. The weight of command had never felt heavier than in this moment of separation. He had conquered cities and subjugated regions, yet standing here, watching the dust cloud rise from marching feet, he felt strangely bereft.

Oscar sensed Andrea approaching before he heard him, the familiar herbal scent of his medicus preceding him like an announcement. 

"The road to Rome won't get any shorter while you stand here brooding," Andrea said as he reached Oscar's side.

Oscar didn't turn. "Observing, Andrea. There's a difference."

"Not when you've been 'observing' that same patch of sky since dawn," the medicus countered, rubbing salve-stained fingers against his thigh.

Oscar didn't answer at once. His gaze remained fixed on the horizon for a moment longer, as if expecting it to offer something besides silence.

"How is he today?" Oscar finally asked, turning to face Andrea's knowing expression.

"The fever broke during the night. The wound is finally healing clean, though the scar will be considerable." He nodded toward the commander’s chamber where a string of creative profanity in Iberian cut through the morning calm. "He's refusing the poppy again. Claims it turns him into a ‘dull-witted Roman’."

"Stubborn," Oscar muttered.

"Like someone else I know," Andrea replied with the familiar frankness only he could get away with addressing to a commander.

Oscar's mouth twitched. "Mind your tongue, medicus. The northern frontier lacks competent physicians. And sunlight."

"You've been threatening that since Gaul," Andrea replied, unconcerned. "The northern healers would welcome my knowledge of battlefield surgery. My herbs, however, won't grow in frozen ground." He paused, studying Oscar's profile. "You should rest, Commander. We have a long journey ahead, and your prisoner will be trouble enough on the road to Rome."

"I'll see him," Oscar said, his jaw tightening as he adjusted the bronze clasp of his cloak — a nervous habit Andrea recognized all too well.

"Of course you will." Andrea's knowing look burned hotter than the rising sun. He turned with deliberate slowness, letting his stained physician's robes swirl dramatically before disappearing between the tents.

Left alone once more, Oscar allowed himself a moment of uncharacteristic uncertainty. The decision to split his forces — to remain behind with the wounded omega rather than leading his victorious troops homeward — had seemed necessary at the time. Now, watching the last traces of dust settle on the horizon, he wondered if he had made a grave miscalculation.

Another crash from within — shattering pottery by the sound — followed by that musical Iberian cursing  shattered his contemplation. Oscar sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

No, he thought grimly. Not a miscalculation. A complication.

***

Five days had settled into an uneasy rhythm within the stone walls of the waystation's commander quarters. Each morning, Oscar found himself pausing outside the heavy oak door that now separated him from his own chambers - listening to the quiet sounds of movement within, the occasional hissed breath of pain that slipped through Lando's clenched teeth.

This morning, the scent of crushed lavender and vinegar seeped beneath the door. Oscar pushed it open to find Andrea bent over the bed, unwrapping linen bandages from Lando's thigh. Sunlight streamed through the high windows, catching the sweat on Lando's collarbones as he gripped the carved bedposts, his knuckles white against the dark wood.

"Commander," Andrea acknowledged without looking up from his work. "Come to assess our patient's progress yourself again?"

Lando's eyes flickered briefly to Oscar before returning to their contemplation of the ceiling. "Has Rome no messengers that its commander must personally attend to every detail?" he asked, each word edged with deliberate sharpness.

Oscar leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. "Rome values efficiency. Why receive reports when I can see for myself?"

"The wound is healing well enough," Andrea interjected before Oscar could respond, rebinding Lando's thigh with fresh linens soaked in a pungent mixture of vinegar and herbs. His hands moved with practiced efficiency, applying just enough pressure to be effective without causing unnecessary pain. "But infection still lurks like a thief in the shadows. One wrong move, and fever will return faster than a senator to his mistress."

Lando huffed something close to a laugh before catching himself. "Your metaphors are as colorful as your concoctions smell foul, old man."

"Disrespect my medicines again, and I'll make your next dose taste even worse," Andrea threatened without heat, finishing the binding with a neat tuck. "You'll travel in the covered wagon. No walking, no riding. The Commander insists you arrive in Rome with both legs still attached."

"How thoughtful of Rome to prefer me whole," Lando remarked dryly. "Though I suspect it's less about my comfort and more about the spectacle value of an intact captive being paraded through your streets."

Oscar heard the fear beneath the sarcasm — the genuine dread of what awaited in Rome. He'd seen it before in high-ranking prisoners, this terrible knowledge that their value as trophies would determine their fate more than any sense of justice or mercy.

"You're of more use to Rome healthy than maimed," Oscar said, a statement of fact rather than reassurance. "Your knowledge of Iberian defenses and tribal alliances will be valuable to the Senate."

Lando's sea-glass eyes met his, sharp with intelligence despite the lingering pain. "And when I refuse to betray my people further? What then, Commander?"

The question hung between them, thorny and unavoidable. Oscar had no satisfying answer — not one that would appease the omega's fierce loyalty or ease the tension that seemed to pull taut between them whenever they occupied the same space.

"Then you'll have made your choice," he replied finally. "As we all must."

***

Later that morning, as they prepared to depart, Lando stood supported between two guards beside the covered wagon positioned near the front of their reduced column. The morning air hung heavy with humidity, promising a sweltering day ahead.

Lando had accepted these conditions with ill grace, his initial relief at avoiding amputation quickly replaced by frustration at his enforced convalescence. Being confined to a wagon — especially one positioned so close to the commander's own mount — felt like another form of captivity, more intimate and therefore more galling than simple imprisonment.

"I should be with my people," he argued, his eyes flashing with indignation as Oscar approached, his accent thickening with emotion as it always did when he was angry. "Where I belong. Where I'm needed. Not displayed like a trophy at the head of your procession." 

Oscar signaled for the guards to step back, giving them a semblance of privacy. The gesture seemed to surprise Lando, whose guarded expression briefly faltered.

"You're placed where your medical needs can be best attended," Oscar had replied evenly, though something in him had wanted to add: And where I can ensure your safety. "Unless you'd prefer gangrene to set in after all? I hear Roman surgeons excel at quick amputations."

"Is that your idea of humor, Commander?" Lando asked, though the corner of his mouth twitched upward. "Because if so, your reputation for wit has been greatly exaggerated."

"My reputation concerns itself with victories, not amusement." Oscar gestured toward the wagon. "You need help getting in."

It wasn't a question, but Lando answered anyway. "I don't need your assistance."

"And yet you'll receive it." Oscar stepped closer, offering his arm. "Your choices are limited to accepting my help willingly or being carried in like cargo."

For a heartbeat, Lando held his ground. Then with a derisive snort, he grasped Oscar's forearm, fingers digging in with deliberate pressure. "How noble of you," he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of Oscar's ear as he hauled himself up. “Such perfect Roman manners."

Their proximity lasted only seconds, but it left Oscar's heart racing and his senses sharpened to painful awareness. Then Lando pulled away too quickly, hissing as the movement jarred his injured leg. He collapsed onto the wagon's cushions with more grace than a man in pain should possess.

"Happy?" Lando asked, his tone deliberately provocative. 

Oscar wasn't. Not even close.

"Rest," he instructed, stepping back with military precision. "We have a long journey ahead."

Lando's fingers traced idle patterns on the cushions, his gaze drifting to the swaying tent flap. "Ah, Rome," he mused, voice dripping with false reverence. "The Eternal City. How fortunate I'll see it through your... gracious escort." His lips curled in a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "May the gods help us both, Commander."

Indeed, Oscar thought as he mounted his horse and signaled for the column to move out. May they help us all. Especially me.

***

Salt-tinged wind whipped along the cliffside road as their small column advanced. Oscar rode at the front, his jaw clenched against the persistent awareness tugging at his attention - the covered wagon just behind him, and the infuriatingly perceptible presence of the omega within.

Five days into their journey, and Lando’s existence had become an inescapable disturbance. No matter how Oscar tried to ignore it, his senses tracked every shift of fabric from the wagon, every stifled sound of discomfort when the omega’s injury flared. Even when he willed himself to think of anything else, some primal part of his mind remained locked onto Lando’s position, his condition, the quiet rhythm of his breathing.

It was maddening.

To drown it out, Oscar drowned himself in duty. With renewed vigor he drilled the men during rest periods despite their reduced numbers, inspected every strap and buckle in their gear with obsessive thoroughness, and spent hours poring over maps late into the night until his eyes burned.

None of it helped.

The merchant caravan appeared around a bend at midday, gaudy wagons painted in garish purples and golds. Oscar spotted the approaching wagons from a distance — a dozen heavily laden vehicles escorted by hired guards whose weapons marked them as former legionaries. Their leader — a florid man with oiled curls and fingers heavy with rings — hailed them with the practiced charm of someone who'd sweet-talked his way past a hundred patrols.

"Hail, Commander!" he called, raising his hand in greeting. "Laurentius Stroll of the Stroll trading house, at your service! What news from Tarraco? The markets buzz with rumors of its fall." His Latin carried the clipped tones of a man who learned languages for profit rather than pleasure.

Oscar reined his horse alongside the merchant's ornate carriage. "The rumors are correct. Tarraco belongs to Rome now."

Stroll's eyes gleamed with the calculating look of a businessman assessing new opportunities. "Excellent! New markets opening precisely as I bring the finest goods from Rome. The Fates smile upon my ledgers this season." 

"You may find trade slow to recover," Oscar cautioned, noting how Lando had gone rigid beside him. "The city suffered significantly during the siege."

The merchant waved this concern away with bejeweled fingers. "Where there are Romans, there is commerce. Your soldiers will want comforts from home, and the locals will need to rebuild. Both mean profit for men like me." His gaze drifted past Oscar, settling on the covered wagon where Lando sat partially visible through the open front.

Something predatory entered the merchant's expression. "Although it seems not all your spoils are material, Commander," he observed with a vulgar wink. "The Iberian omegas are renowned for their fire — both in battle and in bed, so I've heard. A worthy prize indeed for a victorious alpha."

He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone that carried nonetheless. "I carry certain oils from Damascus that can make even the most reluctant omega pliable during their heat — the price is steep, but I assure you, the results are — "

The low growl that escaped Oscar's throat surprised even him, rumbling up from some primal place he rarely acknowledged when his hand dropped instinctively to the gladius. 

"Mind your tongue, merchant," he interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous register that made even his own men stiffen in alarm. "That is a political prisoner under my protection, not a concubine. Speak of him again, and I'll see how well your Damascus oils preserve a severed tongue."

Stroll raised his hands in hasty appeasement, recognizing too late the line he had crossed. "No offense intended, Commander. Merely an observation. We Greeks have different customs regarding—"

"Observe less and travel more," Oscar replied coldly, deliberately relaxing his grip on his sword. "The road is open to you."

Lando's laugh rang out, bright and delighted as wind chimes. "Such drama over little me!" He leaned further out of the wagon, the movement causing his tunic to gape slightly at the collar and revealing the edge of a fading bruise from the siege. "Tell me, merchant," he purred, his Iberian accent thickening with mock curiosity, "would you like to see what this 'prize' does to presumptuous men?"

The Strolls's breath hitched as Lando's demeanor shifted suddenly - the playful glint in his eyes hardening into something far more dangerous. 

Lando’s voice dropped to a honeyed whisper that raised the hairs on Oscar's neck. "Let me educate you - we don't just burn in bed. We remember every man who's ever laid hands on us." His fingers traced the bruise with deliberate provocation. "And when the time comes... we return the favor tenfold."

The merchant's face went ashen.

Lando leaned back with a sigh, the picture of innocence. "But alas, today you benefit from Roman... hospitality." His gaze slid to Oscar, heavy with unspoken meaning. "Run along now, little man. Before my keeper remembers he's supposed to be civilized."

As the merchant's caravan scrambled away, Lando settled back against the cushions with a satisfied smirk that did dangerous things to Oscar's already compromised restraint. 

"Really, Commander," he mused, picking idly at a loose thread on his bandages. "I could have handled that one myself, you know. You didn't need to defend my honor," Lando’s gaze flicked up, sharp with amusement. "I've heard worse since your legions breached our walls."

"It wasn't about your honor," Oscar replied, though they both recognized the lie. "It was about discipline. My men cannot hear such talk about any prisoner under our protection."

"Of course," Lando murmured, watching him, eyes half-lidded, the way a cat watches a mouse it has no intention of killing just yet. Rome's famous discipline. Nothing to do with the way your scent just marked me as untouchable to any passing alpha."

Oscar felt heat rise along his neck, cursing his body's betrayal. "It wasn’t intentional," he said, too quickly.

A slow smile spread across Lando's face, transforming his features from merely handsome to something dangerously captivating. "Did they not teach you at that polished Roman academy of yours?" He shifted painfully, but his gaze never wavered. "An alpha’s instincts don’t ask permission before they act."

Despite himself, Oscar felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. "The academy covered many things, Lando. How to respond to infuriating Iberian omegas with sharp tongues? Regrettably, no." 

"Their curriculum sounds woefully incomplete," Lando replied, settling back against the wagon's side with a wince as his wounded leg shifted. "Perhaps I should offer my services as an instructor when we reach Rome. Lesson one: when an alpha growls at another alpha over an omega, it's never about discipline."

Their gazes held for a long moment before Lando deliberately turned away, leaving Oscar with the unsettling sense that some significant exchange had just occurred — though what exactly had been communicated, he couldn't say.

Oscar pointedly ignored the unfamiliar heat coiling low in his gut. He also ignored the way Lando's laughter seemed to chase him as he returned to the head of the column - warm as the Mediterranean sun and twice as bright. 

***

As they crossed Gallia Narbonensis, the landscape grew more familiar to Oscar — territory he had traversed before, during his earlier campaigns. The roads improved, the towns became more obviously Roman in architecture and customs, and the locals viewed the passing legionaries with the resigned acceptance of those long accustomed to imperial presence.

For Lando, however, each mile took him further from everything familiar — another thread cut between himself and everything he had known. Oscar often caught him staring at the horizon, his profile etched against the setting sun, eyes fixed on some invisible point as the distance between him and Tarraco grew with every passing day.

"What are you thinking when you look back like that?" Oscar asked one evening as they shared the evening meal apart from the men, a habit they had fallen into without discussion.

Lando traced the rim of his cup with one finger. "I'm imagining the journey home," he said, his voice low but clear. "Calculating the distance, memorizing landmarks. How many Roman outposts I would need to avoid. Which tribal territories might still shelter a fugitive." His eyes met Oscar's, challenge in their sea-glass depths. "Whether my leg would carry me all the way back, or if I would die trying."

"And would that be preferable? Death on the road, rather than life in Rome?"

"It would be my choice," Lando replied simply. "Something you Romans seem determined to deny me at every turn."

They sat in silence as twilight deepened around them, the first stars appearing in the eastern sky. It was during this moment of unguarded melancholy that Oscar decided to broach a subject he had long avoided.

"Tell me about Sainz," he said quietly, the name of Lando's betrothed feeling strange on his tongue.

Lando's head snapped up, wariness replacing the momentary ease that had developed between them. "Why? So you can hunt him more efficiently?"

"So I can better understand you," Oscar corrected, setting aside his wooden bowl. "And the man who would leave his betrothed behind while saving himself."

The flash of anger in Lando's eyes was immediate and fierce. "You know nothing of it," he hissed, leaning forward until Oscar could feel the heat of his words. "Nothing of him, nothing of us, nothing of what truly happened."

"Then enlighten me," Oscar challenged gently. "You've had ample opportunity to condemn Rome and all it stands for. I've yet to hear you offer a single defense of the man who abandoned you to its mercy."

The observation struck home; Oscar could see it in the way Lando's expression faltered, the momentary crack in his carefully maintained defiance. He looked away, fingers clenched around his cup.

"Carlos didn't abandon me," Lando finally said, his voice low but intense. "He left to gather allies. To find help. We knew Tarraco couldn't stand alone against your legions."

"Yet he took his personal guard and left you — his betrothed — to face the Roman eagles," Oscar pointed out. "Not the action of a devoted alpha, by any measure."

Lando's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "I chose to stay," he said fiercely. "I volunteered. Someone had to remain. Someone the people would follow when fear threatened to consume them." His gaze turned distant, remembering. "Carlos wanted me to go with him. We argued about it. But I knew I could be more useful in the city."

Oscar could understand Sainz — the strategist, the commander forced to seek reinforcements. The logic was sound: without allies, the city would have fallen even sooner.

But the mere thought of leaving his omega — undefended, vulnerable, facing an entire army alone — twisted something visceral in Oscar's gut. No military objective, no matter how crucial, could justify such abandonment.

"Carlos loves me," Lando added, suddenly defensive, eyes flashing with a pained intensity that betrayed his uncertainty. "He will return. When you least expect it, when your guard is down, he'll come for me — and for vengeance."

Oscar absorbed this revelation, his perception shifting. It altered his perception of both Sainz and Lando — the former perhaps not quite the coward he had imagined, the latter more strategist than abandoned lover. And yet—

"If he loves you so deeply," Oscar asked quietly, his gaze dropping to the vulnerable curve where Lando's neck met his shoulder. "Why did he not claim you before departing? Why not cement your bond with a mating bite?"

Lando's hand flew instinctively to his neck, fingers brushing against the unmarked skin where a mating bite should have been. The gesture was so unconscious, so vulnerable that Oscar felt a pang of guilt for raising the subject — even as a surge of possessive heat flooded through him at the sight of that untouched flesh.

"That's none of your concern," he said finally, but the fire had dimmed from his voice.

"Perhaps not," Oscar acknowledged. "But it speaks volumes that he left you unmarked and unbound, knowing what fate might befall you."

"Romans with your quick bites and quicker divorces — you wouldn't understand sacred things," Lando said defensively, though his voice wavered. "Our bonding rituals aren't yours bacchanalias where alphas sink their teeth into the first willing throat. The ceremony requires proper rites, witnesses, blessings from the elders. We were waiting for the proper time."

"And now?" Oscar pressed gently, fighting the inexplicable urge to brush his thumb across that vulnerable, unmarked spot on Lando's neck. "What time would be more urgent than imminent separation? What greater declaration of intent than to mark what is yours before facing unknown dangers?"

Lando's eyes glistened in the firelight. "He promised we would complete the ceremony upon his return. When Tarraco was free again."

Something tightened in Oscar's chest — anger at Sainz for his foolish pride, for leaving this remarkable creature unprotected by the one bond that even conquering armies generally respected.

And beneath the anger simmered something more dangerous — a possessive heat that whispered how easily, how naturally his own teeth would fit where another's mark should have been. The way that unclaimed skin would flush under his mouth, how those defiant shoulders would arch—

"And if he doesn't return?" The question slipped out before Oscar could stop it.

Lando's eyes flashed. "He will."

The unshakable conviction in Lando's voice settled in Oscar's bones like a deep winter chill. Not hope, not prayer — absolute conviction. It sparked an irrational anger in his chest.

"You gamble much on a man's word," Oscar said coldly. "While your enemies hold steel."

"And what would you know of honor beyond steel?" Lando leaned forward, firelight painting his face in gold and shadow. "Carlos would sooner cut out his own heart than break an oath. Unlike your kind, who—"

"Who what?" Oscar matched his posture, close enough now to catch the scent of honey warmed by sunlight clinging to Lando's skin. "Who protect what's ours? Who claim openly what we cherish most? Who ensure that every alpha who catches your scent knows you are spoken for, protected, treasured beyond measure?"

The moment the words left his mouth, Oscar knew he had crossed a line. Lando recoiled as if scalded, his expression shifting from anger to something more wounding — a stunned vulnerability that was somehow worse.

Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating. Somewhere in the darkness, a sentry coughed. The fire burned lower.

When Lando finally spoke, his voice was barely audible.

"You're right about one thing, Commander." He raised his cup in a mocking salute. "War respects no traditions."

He drank deeply, crimson wine staining his lips momentarily before his tongue darted out to catch a stray drop. Oscar found himself staring, transfixed by the movement of Lando's throat as he swallowed.

That unmarked throat.

A sudden, visceral image flashed through Oscar's mind — his teeth sinking into that golden skin, claiming what another alpha had been fool enough to leave vulnerable. The fantasy was so vivid his gums ached.

Oscar turned abruptly toward the campfire, letting the night air cool the dangerous direction of his thoughts. 

Some hungers, no matter how natural, deserved to starve.

"You fought well," Oscar said, fighting to keep his voice steady. "Many of my men still speak of your defense at the postern gate. Had you commanded more than a handful of civilian volunteers, the battle might have ended differently."

"Not differently enough," Lando replied after a moment, a weary resignation replacing his usual fire. "Rome always wins in the end, doesn't it?"

The question contained no bite, only a genuine curiosity that Oscar found himself answering with equal honesty.

"Thus far," he said simply. "Though history suggests no empire lasts forever. The Persians under Darius, Alexander's Macedonians, the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt — all believed their rule eternal. All eventually crumbled."

"But not in our lifetime," Lando concluded, his voice tinged with such profound sorrow that Oscar found himself inexplicably moved.

"No," Oscar agreed softly. "Not in our lifetime."

The dying fire cast long shadows between them when Lando broke the silence, his voice stripped of its earlier venom.

"What will happen when we reach Rome?"

Oscar stared into the dying embers, wishing he had a reassuring answer. "You'll be presented to the Emperor. He'll decide your fate."

"And you?" Lando asked, surprising Oscar with the question. "What happens to the conquering commander?"

"A triumph, most likely," Oscar replied, no pride in his voice. "Parades, ceremonies, political maneuvering in the Senate. Then another campaign, another province, another war."

Lando studied him with unexpected perception. "You don't sound particularly enthusiastic about your rewards."

Oscar met his gaze across the firelight. "Glory for Rome doesn't always taste sweet to those who bleed for it."

The night air between them grew thick with unspoken words. Oscar looked at Lando once again — really looked at him — seeing not just the captive omega with the defiant eyes and unmarked neck, but the man beneath: intelligent, resourceful, loyal to a fault, capable of both tenderness and fierce determination. In another life, under different stars, they might have met as equals rather than as victor and vanquished.

Pity it couldn't be this one.

***

Rome greeted them with a spectacle that even Oscar, veteran of three triumphal returns, found overwhelming. Streets lined with cheering citizens stretched before them, a sea of faces drunk on the promise of victory and the pageantry of imperial might. Children darted between adults' legs to catch glimpses of the conquering heroes. Women threw flower petals from balconies, creating a fragrant rain that clung to armor and matted in horses' manes.

"Aquilinus! Aquilinus!" The chant rose and fell like waves against a shore, echoing off stone buildings and through narrow alleys.

Oscar acknowledged the adulation with practiced gestures — a raised hand here, a nod there — while maintaining the dignified bearing expected of a Roman commander. Yet his attention continually drifted to the wagon where Lando sat, surrounded by guards and visibly uncomfortable with the spectacle unfolding around him.

"The crowds aren't here for you," Oscar said, an attempt at reassurance that fell flat even to his own ears.

"No," Lando agreed, his voice bitter. "They celebrate our subjugation without even knowing who we are. Just another conquest for glorious Rome." His gaze finally shifted to Oscar. "How many parades have you led, Commander? How many people have you brought to their knees for the entertainment of your citizens?"

Before Oscar could respond, a young girl broke through the crowd's edge and ran toward them, clutching a small bundle of wildflowers. Guards moved to intercept her, but Oscar waved them back, curious.

The child skidded to a stop before the wagon, her chest heaving. Up close, Oscar could see where her homespun tunic had been mended at the shoulder. She stared up at Lando with the fearless curiosity of youth, then abruptly thrust her floral offering upward.

"For you," she said in accented Latin. "Because you look sad."

A ripple of tension passed through the guards. Lando stared at the girl, genuine surprise breaking through his carefully maintained mask of indifference.

Slowly, as if handling something infinitely precious, he reached down. His calloused fingers - still bearing the marks of swordplay - closed gently around the fragile stems. He lifted the blossoms to his face, inhaling their wild fragrance, and something unreadable flickered across his features.

"Thank you, little one," he said in flawless, aristocratic Latin that made several guards exchange glances. His voice held a warmth Oscar had never heard before. "These smell of home."

The girl beamed, revealing a missing front tooth, before scampering back to a horrified-looking woman at the crowd's edge. As Lando carefully arranged the flowers beside him, Oscar noted how his fingers lingered on the petals with unexpected tenderness.

 "Where did you learn our tongue?" Oscar asked, genuinely curious. "Your accent betrays no provincial origin. You speak like someone raised in the capital itself."

Lando's eyes met his, something wistful briefly visible before his usual sardonic shield slipped back into place. "Your legions have walked Iberian soil for generations, Commander. Only a fool wouldn't learn the language of those who threaten his home." He closed his eyes for a long moment, as if steadying himself against a memory.  "My mother insisted I learn it from childhood. 'Know your enemy better than they know themselves,' she would say."

"Wise woman," Oscar remarked.

"She was," Lando replied, and the past tense hung heavy between them, another unspoken casualty of Rome's inexorable advance.

As they neared the Forum, a contingent of Praetorian Guards in distinctive armor fell into formation around them. Their leader, a stern-faced man with close-cropped gray hair, rode up beside Oscar.

"Commander Aquilinus," he greeted with a formal salute. "The Emperor awaits you in the Golden Palace. I'm to escort you and the Iberian prisoner directly."

Oscar frowned. "The Iberian requires medical attention before any audience."

"The Emperor's orders were explicit," the Praetorian replied, unmoved. "No delays."

The abrupt command set alarm bells ringing in Oscar's mind. Immediate presentation to the Emperor, bypassing the usual protocols of the returning commander first reporting to the Senate — it was unprecedented and concerning.

He glanced at Lando, finding the omega already watching him with acute understanding in his eyes. Despite his captivity, Lando's political instincts remained sharp; he recognized the irregularity as clearly as Oscar did.

"It seems your Emperor is eager," Lando observed quietly as the Praetorians closed ranks around them, effectively taking control of their small procession. "Should I be flattered or terrified?"

"Neither serves any purpose now," Oscar replied, keeping his voice equally low as they were funneled toward the palace complex. "Verstappen is capricious but not unnecessarily cruel. Answer his questions directly, without embellishment or defiance, and — "

"Don't provoke the wolf in his den?" Lando finished for him, a ghost of ironic humor flickering across his features. "How disappointing. I had prepared so many colorful observations about imperial inbreeding and Rome's inevitable collapse."

Despite the gravity of their situation, Oscar found himself fighting the incongruous urge to smile. "Save those for a more private audience," he advised. "Verstappen tolerates many things, but public disrespect isn't among them."

"Noted," Lando murmured as they approached the imposing bronze doors of the palace, their surfaces worked with scenes of imperial triumph that seemed to move in the shifting sunlight. "Though I make no promises about keeping a civil tongue. My people have rather strong opinions about kneeling."

As the massive doors swung inward, revealing the cavernous splendor of the imperial audience chamber beyond, Lando drew a deep breath, visibly steadying himself. 

"If I die in there," he said with surprising calm, "tell my people I remained unbowed. That I never surrendered in spirit, even if my body was taken."

Oscar studied him for a moment, struck by the quiet dignity in a man who had every reason to break. "They know, Lando of Tarraco," he replied softly. "They already know."

***

The bitter scent of fear and anticipation hung in the air as they entered the Emperor's domain. Hundreds of eyes turned to witness their procession — some curious, others calculating, all watching with the intensity of vultures eyeing wounded prey. The chamber stretched before them like a gilded maw, its polished marble floors reflecting the figures that moved across them in distorted shadows.

Oscar felt the familiar weight of expectation settle between his shoulder blades as they crossed the threshold. His armor – polished to mirror brightness for this occasion – caught the light and threw it back in defiant gleams. 

The chamber's vastness seemed designed to diminish all who entered, making even the mightiest commanders feel small before imperial power. 

"Eyes forward," Oscar murmured to Lando, who limped at his side. "Speak only when addressed directly. Remember, one wrong word in this room can mean—"

"Death?" Lando's voice was pitched low, but carried a barbed edge. "Is that meant to frighten me, Commander? After watching your legions butcher my people, death holds little terror."

The sudden rap of the herald's staff against marble silenced their exchange. The assembled courtiers stilled, their vibrant togas and stolas creating a living mosaic of Rome's elite.

"Commander Oscar Aquilinus returns victorious from Iberia, bearing tribute for the divine Emperor!" the herald proclaimed, his voice carrying to every corner of the vast hall.

They proceeded down the long central aisle, passing between two ranks of the elite Praetorian Guard whose ceremonial armor gleamed with gold inlay that marked them as the Emperor's personal protectors. Beyond them stood the imperial court – senators draped in togas bordered with rich purple, eastern merchants in silks so fine they seemed to flow like water, and foreign dignitaries whose elaborate headdresses and exotic garments marked them as representatives from the furthest reaches of the known world.

Oscar moved with measured precision, each step deliberate, his gaze fixed on the raised dais that dominated the chamber's far end. Lando matched his pace despite his injury, his chin lifted in silent defiance that drew both admiration and scorn from the watching aristocrats.

"The famous Iberian," someone murmured as they passed. "Smaller than I expected."

"But with fire in his eyes," another replied. "No wonder Aquilinus keeps him close."

Oscar ignored the whispers, focusing instead on the imposing figure who dominated the dais ahead. 

Max Emilian Verstappen Augustus didn't simply sit on his throne – he possessed it, as he did everything, with an air of casual entitlement that came from never having known limitation. His purple toga — the sacred color reserved exclusively for the Emperor — draped across his form in elegant folds that Oscar knew had required a slave's careful attention for hours to perfect. A laurel wreath of hammered gold rested among his fair curls, seemingly tossed there as an afterthought though the positioning was precisely calculated to frame his sharp, youthful features.

What struck Oscar most, as always, was how young the Emperor remained – barely thirty – yet his eyes held the ancient calculation of one who had navigated the treacherous currents of imperial politics since childhood. Those eyes watched Oscar's approach now with the cool assessment of a predator deciding whether to pounce immediately or play with its prey.

When they reached the prescribed distance from the dais, Oscar knelt in a single fluid motion, his right fist pressed to his heart in the traditional salute. "Ave, Caesar," he intoned, using the formal address. "Rome's loyal servant returns with victory and glory for the Empire."

Lando remained standing, his sea-glass eyes fixed on some distant point above the Emperor's head.

Verstappen leaned forward slightly, studying him with open curiosity rather than immediate anger. "The famed strategist doesn't kneel before the divine presence?" he asked, his voice carrying an undercurrent of genuine interest beneath its imperial authority. "I wonder — is it pride that keeps your spine so rigid, or simply a lack of proper education in imperial etiquette?"

Before Oscar could intervene, two Praetorians stepped forward. One struck the back of Lando's knees with practiced efficiency while the other forced him down onto the hard marble floor.

Lando couldn't entirely suppress a grimace as his wounded thigh took his weight, but he made no sound beyond a sharply drawn breath. His eyes, when they met Oscar's for the briefest moment, flashed with accusation – as though this humiliation were Oscar's doing rather than the consequence of his own defiance.

"Fascinating,"  Verstappen observed Lando with the discerning eye of a collector assessing a rare acquisition. His fingers traced the golden lion heads adorning his throne's armrests, each caress a silent reminder of who held true power here. "I've read every report of the Tarraco campaign, Commander – yet somehow none captured the essence of your most valuable... acquisition."

Oscar remained kneeling, protocol demanding he stay so until granted permission to rise. "The written word has its limitations, Caesar."

"Indeed it does." Verstappen's gaze traveled over Lando's form with deliberate slowness. "Your dispatches described a rebellious omega who commanded enemy forces with unexpected skill. They failed to mention his remarkable composure under duress or the particular quality of defiance in his eyes." He gestured imperiously. "Look at me, Iberian."

For a moment, Oscar thought Lando would refuse – a final act of resistance that would surely earn him immediate punishment. But after a heartbeat's hesitation, Lando raised his gaze to meet the Emperor's.

"There," Verstappen said, satisfaction evident in his voice. "Not broken, not cowed – merely calculating the precise moment to strike. A strategist to the core." He turned to Oscar with unexpected warmth. "Rise, Aquilinus. Rome welcomes her favored son home." 

Oscar stood with fluid grace. "You honor me with your welcome, Caesar."

"Tell me of Tarraco's fall," Verstappen commanded without shifting from his regal pose. “Not the sanitized version you provided the Senate – the truth of it."

Oscar stood with his expression carefully neutral. "The city fell after a seventeen-day siege, Caesar. The western wall proved vulnerable to our sappers, creating a breach that allowed the Fifth Cohort to—"

"Spare me the military minutiae," Verstappen interrupted, leaning forward with sudden intensity. "I want to know about him." He pointed to Lando, who remained kneeling but with his back straight, refusing to bow his head despite the guards looming over him. "Reports reached me of an omega who commanded the city's defense with such skill that even Russell – my finest siege tactician – was temporarily confounded. How did such a one come to hold authority in Iberia? And why does he resist Rome's inevitable embrace with such... passion?"

Oscar hesitated, aware that his answer could determine Lando's fate. "The Iberian tribes have... different customs regarding their omegas, Caesar. They permit greater freedoms, including martial training and positions of leadership. Norris was exceptionally talented even by their standards – his defensive innovations nearly succeeded in repelling us despite inferior numbers and equipment."

"How utterly fascinating," Verstappen drawled, though his eyes had sharpened with genuine interest. "And his connection to the rebel Sainz?"

"Betrothed," Oscar confirmed. "Though Sainz abandoned the city before the final assault, leaving Norris to organize the defense while he purportedly sought reinforcements from allied tribes."

"Abandoned by his alpha on the eve of battle," Verstappen's laugh held no humor. "How very... convenient for Sainz." He turned his attention directly to Lando. "Did your betrothed kiss you farewell before fleeing, omega? Did he promise to return with an army to save you from the Roman wolves?"

Oscar tensed, sensing dangerous currents beneath the seemingly casual question. The Emperor's interest in Lando's relationship with Sainz felt oddly personal, almost intimate.

Lando's lips curved into a smile that never reached his eyes. "He kissed me like he meant it," he said, voice rich with dark amusement. "All heat and promise and nothing like your Roman partnerships — political arrangements sealed with cold handshakes while true desires are satisfied in shadowy corners with slaves and paid companions." His gaze locked onto Verstappen's, unflinching. "But such passion would be foreign to you, wouldn't it, Divine Emperor? Too distant from human experience, too consumed with godhood to remember what it means to burn for another's touch."

The silence that followed was so absolute Oscar could hear the distant splash of fountains in the courtyard beyond the audience chamber. 

Verstappen's reaction defied expectation. He threw back his head and laughed – a genuine sound of surprise and delight that echoed against the marble columns. "By Jupiter, he's magnificent! No wonder you delayed your return to Rome, Commander. I'd have lingered too, with such an intriguing captive."

Relief and wariness warred within Oscar's chest. The Emperor's mercurial moods were legendary – laughter could transform to rage in a heartbeat. "The delay was due to medical necessity, Caesar. The prisoner was wounded during the final assault and developed an infection that required treatment."

"Of course, of course," Verstappen waved away the explanation, his attention still fixed on Lando. "And you ensured his recovery personally, I'm told. Most attentive of you, Commander."

The insinuation hung in the air, clear to everyone present. Oscar felt heat rise along his neck but kept his expression carefully neutral. "Rome values intelligence, Caesar. I merely preserved a valuable source of information regarding Iberian defenses."

"Is that all you preserved?" Verstappen's smile turned predatory as he finally rose from his throne with the deliberate stalk of an alpha approaching a challenge.

He descended the marble steps with unexpected agility, his movements fluid and controlled — evidence of a man who practiced with the sword daily despite his imperial status. The court withdrew slightly as he approached, creating space for the living god who walked among them.

When Verstappen reached Lando, he circled him slowly, reminding Oscar of nothing so much as a leopard he'd once seen in the imperial menagerie, stalking prey with lazy confidence. Without warning, he reached down and grasped a handful of the omega's dark curls, jerking his head back to expose his throat.

The Emperor's fingers slid along the vulnerable skin of Lando's neck, pausing where a mating bite would traditionally be placed.  "How curious," Verstappen murmured, his breath warm against Lando's ear as he bent closer. "Your alpha left his sword in your hand but never his teeth in your flesh. How... restrained of him"

Oscar's vision narrowed dangerously, a red haze threatening at its edges. Every alpha instinct screamed at him to intervene, to rip Verstappen away — to cover Lando's exposed neck with his own hand, his own teeth, anything to erase the Emperor's violating touch. Only years of iron discipline kept him rooted in place, his face a mask of professional detachment while his heart hammered against his ribs.

Lando remained utterly still in the Emperor's grip, neither yielding nor struggling, his only response a slight flaring of his nostrils as he controlled his breathing.

"Simply lovely," Verstappen murmured, his fingers uncurling from Lando's hair with deliberate slowness. "Even in captivity, defiance burns in him like sacred fire." He turned to Oscar with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I've decided his fate."

Oscar felt his stomach drop. Imperial punishments for rebellion were notorious – crucifixion, the arena, the mines. Each worse than death in its own way. He had already begun formulating a plea for mercy when Verstappen's next words stopped him cold.

"The Iberian omega is yours, Aquilinus."

Oscar blinked, certain he'd misheard. "Caesar?"

"A gift," Verstappen clarified, eyes gleaming with private amusement. "A reward for your service. By Jupiter's favor, after six years of ceaseless campaigning for Rome, you've earned something of exceptional quality to grace your household." He gestured expansively. "Besides, what better fate for a rebellious omega than to serve the very commander who conquered his homeland? There's a certain poetic justice to it, don't you think?"

The court erupted in murmurs – some congratulatory, others envious, all speculative. Oscar stood frozen, his mind racing to find appropriate response to this unexpected "gift" while carefully avoiding Lando's gaze. Even without turning, he felt the weight of that gaze like a blade between his shoulder blades — a silent, searing indictment sharper than any outburst.

"Caesar honors me beyond measure," Oscar managed, the formal phrase buying him precious seconds to think. "But perhaps the omega's strategic knowledge would better serve Rome in a military capacity. His understanding of Iberian defenses could prove invaluable in—"

"Are you refusing my gift, Commander?" Verstappen cut him off, one eyebrow arched in dangerous inquiry. "Perhaps you find him unsuitable? I could always have him sent to the ludus instead. I'm told the Thracian trainers have exceptional methods for breaking spirited recruits."

The threat was unmistakable. If Oscar rejected the "gift," Lando would face a fate far worse than becoming a military commander's concubine. The ludus – training grounds for gladiators – was notorious for its brutal treatment of captives, particularly those deemed difficult or rebellious.

"I would never presume to refuse Caesar's generosity," Oscar replied carefully. "I merely sought to ensure Rome receives maximum benefit from all available resources."

"How pragmatic of you," Verstappen murmured, his voice like silk. The Emperor approached Oscar, circling him as he had Lando, studying him like a sculptor inspecting his marble. "But we both know strategy isn't what stays your hand."

Oscar maintained perfect stillness, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. 

"I've watched you since you entered my hall," Verstappen continued, pausing before Oscar and examining him with predatory intensity. "Your eyes return to him like tides to the shore. Your breath catches when he struggles. Even now..." He paused, leaning in to inhale sharply near Oscar's throat. "...your scent betrays you, Aquilinus."

Oscar felt exposed, laid bare by the Emperor's uncanny perception. Had he been so transparent? He'd thought his discipline impeccable, his professional demeanor beyond reproach.

"The Emperor sees much," he acknowledged, neither confirming nor denying the observation.

"The Emperor sees everything ," Verstappen corrected, his tone light but his eyes hard as flint. "Including the fact that you've already claimed him in all but name. The way you move when he's near — always angling your body to shield him, always ready to step between him and danger. When he breathes too hard, your own chest stills, when he sways, your arm tenses as if to catch him before remembering he's not yours to touch — these are not the actions of a disinterested captor, Commander."

Oscar had no response to that uncomfortable truth. He said nothing, but stood with his head held high, jaw tight, refusing to flinch beneath the weight of what had just been spoken aloud.

"He belongs to you by right of conquest," Verstappen continued, gesturing expansively. "Rome has always rewarded her generals with the spoils of war. I merely formalize what nature has already begun." His voice dropped, becoming almost intimate despite the public setting. "Take him, Commander. Tame him. Make him yours in truth as well as law."

He glanced toward Lando, then back. "Your offspring could be extraordinary  —  his beauty and fire paired with your intelligence and discipline. Rome needs leaders with strong bloodlines, and yours..." He allowed the silence to stretch. "Your bloodline grows stagnant in its gilded patrician pools. His?" Cold eyes raked over the omega's trembling form. "His runs wild and hot like mountain springs. Imagine what could rise from such a pairing."

Throughout this exchange, Lando had remained silent, still kneeling where the guards had forced him. Now, however, something in him snapped. He surged to his feet with unexpected speed, shaking off the restraining hand of the nearest Praetorian.

"I am not a broodmare for your imperial breeding program," he snarled, each word precise and cutting despite his accent thickening with emotion. "Not property to be gifted, not a prize to be claimed by conquest. I am Lando Norris of Tarraco, and I would rather open my veins than spread my legs for a Roman knothead who—"

The Praetorian's fist caught him across the temple with a sickening crack before he could finish.

Lando's head snapped sideways, his body folding at the waist before he crashed to the floor. Blood bloomed bright across his cheekbone, dripping in steady rivulets onto the polished stone.

Oscar moved without conscious thought.

One heartbeat - the guard loomed over Lando, armored fist drawn back for another blow.

The next - Oscar's hand locked around the Praetorian's wrist with bone-crushing force. The crunch of bending metal vambraces filled the sudden silence as he wrenched the man backward.

"Enough," he growled, the word vibrating with authority. "He is under my protection now."

The chamber froze in tableau – Oscar's grip remained locked around the Praetorian's wrist, Lando swayed on his knees, blood painting his chin in vivid crimson streaks, his chest heaving with ragged breaths that echoed too loudly in the sudden silence. The courtiers had become statues — their jeweled hands frozen mid-gesture, their silk hems pooled around motionless feet.

All eyes turned to the Emperor.

Verstappen's amusement had hardened into something far more dangerous. The shift was subtle — a slight tightening around his eyes, a new stillness in the way his fingers rested against the armrest.

"Release my guard, Commander," Verstappen ordered quietly. "Unless you wish to challenge imperial authority along with imperial gift-giving?"

Oscar complied instantly, military discipline overriding alpha rage. He stepped back, though every instinct screamed at him to position himself between Lando and potential threats. The Praetorian retreated as well, flexing his fingers where Oscar's grip had bruised them even through armor.

"It seems your new acquisition requires substantial training," Verstappen observed dryly. "Though I suspect you'll find the challenge invigorating. Nothing compares to breaking a truly spirited omega – the moment when defiance finally yields to desire..." He trailed off, his expression momentarily distant. "Well, you'll discover that pleasure for yourself soon enough."

Oscar inclined his head, unwilling to trust his voice. Beside him, Lando had regained his feet, one hand pressed to his bleeding mouth, his eyes burning with a hatred so intense it was almost tangible.

"This audience is concluded," Verstappen declared, returning to his throne with feline grace. "Return to your villa, Commander. Official reports can wait – I imagine you'll want privacy to establish certain... new household arrangements." His smile betrayed his enjoyment of Oscar's discomfort. "A triumph will be arranged for the Kalends of Quintilis – sufficient time for the Senate to gather and properly honor Rome's newest hero. Perhaps by then your Iberian will have learned the proper way to address his Emperor."

The dismissal was clear. Oscar bowed deeply, then turned to Lando, who stood rigid with fury and humiliation. Blood trickled from his split lip, staining the collar of his already travel-worn tunic.

"Come," Oscar said quietly, offering his arm. When Lando made no move to accept it, he added under his breath, "For both our sakes, don't make this worse. Not here."

Something in his tone must have penetrated Lando's rage. The omega gave a barely perceptible nod and moved toward the exit, ignoring the offered support despite his obvious limp.

The massive bronze doors swung open before them, revealing the relative refuge of the antechamber beyond. As they passed through, Oscar heard Verstappen's final words float after them:

"And Commander – do enjoy unwrapping your prize. I expect he'll fight magnificently before surrendering."

The laughter of the court followed them into the corridor, where marble busts of former emperors watched their passage with blank, judging eyes.

"Don't touch me," Lando hissed the moment they were beyond earshot of the guards, pulling away when Oscar attempted to examine his injured face. "I am not yours, Roman. Not your property, not your concubine, not your breeding bitch – no matter what titles your Emperor bestows."

The omega's scent had turned acrid with distress and rage, the honey notes almost entirely consumed by bitter smoke. Blood still flowed from his split lip, running in a thin crimson line down his chin.

"I never claimed you were," Oscar replied, keeping his voice low as they navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the imperial palace. "And I have no intention of treating you as such."

Lando's derisive laugh held no humor. "Your intentions are irrelevant, Commander. I've been handed to you like a victory trophy, and all of Rome now expects you to mount me like the conquering alpha you pretend to be."

The crude imagery stung more than Oscar cared to admit. ""I prefer those who come to my bed by choice, not imperial decree," Oscar replied, keeping his voice barely above a whisper. "Despite what you think of Romans."

"How noble," Lando spat, though something flickered in his eyes – uncertainty, perhaps, or the first glimmer of reassessment. "The honorable Roman commander. Tell me, does that honor extend to sending me back to Iberia, or does it conveniently end where your Emperor's commands begin?"

They had reached the palace's western exit, where a litter waited to convey them to the military quarter. Eight slaves stood at attention beside it, their expressions carefully neutral despite the obvious tension between their passengers.

"We both know that's impossible," Oscar replied as they descended the marble steps into blinding sunlight. "Verstappen would have you hunted down and crucified within a day, and I'd likely join you on the cross for disobedience. There are limits to what even a conquering commander can defy."

Lando's shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly – not in defeat, but in acknowledgment of a temporary stalemate. "Then what happens now, Commander? Do you lock me away until I'm sufficiently broken to serve your needs? Drug me with alpha-scent until I beg for your knot? What's the Roman protocol for taming unwilling omegas?"

"I don't know," he admitted finally, honesty replacing military formality. "This wasn't exactly covered in my training at the academy." A brief, rueful smile crossed his face. "We're in uncharted territory, Lando. But we need to find a way forward that preserves both your dignity and my standing with Rome." He gestured toward the waiting litter. "For now, that means returning to my villa and determining our next steps away from imperial eyes and wagging tongues."

Lando hesitated, clearly weighing his limited options. Finally, he gave a curt nod and moved toward the litter, his limp more pronounced now that they were away from the court's scrutiny.

"Welcome to Rome," Oscar said quietly, as they entered a sunlit, bustling street where the city surged around them in color and sound. "For better or worse, this is your home now. But I give you my word – for whatever a Roman's word is worth to you – that what happens next will be guided by respect, not imperial expectations."

Lando's eyes met his, searching for deception and finding none. "We'll see, Commander," he replied, his voice tired but still defiant. "We'll see."

Chapter Text

Self-mastery was Oscar's most prized possession. More valuable than the ceremonial gladius awarded by the Emperor himself, more essential than the sprawling villa on Palatine Hill's prestigious western slope. This iron discipline had been forged in Carthaginian deserts where legionnaires dropped from heat before enemy arrows found them, tempered in Germania's brutal winters where his decisions meant life or frozen death for hundreds, and polished to gleaming perfection in Senate chambers where carefully chosen words proved deadlier than the sharpest blade.

But in the three weeks since the Iberian omega had entered his household, Oscar found himself questioning that once-unshakeable foundation.

Lando wasn't simply testing his patience. He was dismantling it with surgical precision — and evident enjoyment.

"I can hear you thinking from here, Zakary," Oscar said without glancing up from the military correspondence spread across his desk. The shadow in his doorway had been lingering for nearly a minute, growing more restless with each passing moment. "Whatever calamity has befallen us, delaying its delivery won't improve the news."

His steward shifted his weight, one sandaled foot tapping an anxious rhythm against the mosaic floor — a tell Oscar had learned to interpret as catastrophic news imminent.

"One might say, Domine, that our Iberian... guest... has elevated his art of provocation to new heights." Zakary cleared his throat meaningfully. "Or perhaps I should say... new depths."

Oscar's eyebrow arched. "You're being unusually poetic today, Zakary."

"The situation demands it." Zakary's gaze slid toward the window, where suspicious splashing sounds were becoming audible. "Your eastern garden, specifically... the water lily pool."

"Your circumlocution suggests I should be sitting down for this news." Oscar's stylus hovered over the parchment, leaving an ominous ink blot beside the Iberian campaign report. "Fortunately, I already am."

"He's bathing in it," Zakary winced, "or perhaps 'lounging' would be more precise. Among the lilies." He hesitated, searching for appropriate words. "With the... enthusiasm of a sea nymph discovering water for the first time."

Oscar's head lifted slowly, stylus suspended mid-sentence. "He's what?"

"Creating quite the pastoral spectacle, Domine. One that has captivated the entire garden staff, I'm afraid."

A familiar chill slithered down Oscar's spine — that particular unease that always slithered in moments before Lando redefined the word "scandal."

"Surely you don't mean he's—"

"Naked, Domine,” Zakary confirmed, shattering Oskar’s last, fragile hope. “Entirely. As natural as the day the gods created him. The garden slaves..." he paused, searching for diplomatic phrasing, "...are experiencing a sudden, collective interest in horticulture. Young Gabriel has volunteered to prune the same rosebush four times this hour."

"How dedicated of him,"  Oscar pinched the bridge of his nose — a momentary surrender to the headache building behind his temples. 

Of course. It was becoming Lando's signature — finding precisely what Oscar valued and systematically violating it in the most provocative way possible.

"I'll handle this personally." Oscar stood, straightening his toga with a precise flick of his wrist. 

"That might be wise, Domine. The lilies are suffering significant casualties."

Oscar's sigh seemed to emanate from the depths of his very soul. "As is my sanity, Zakary. As is my sanity."

His fingers flexed unconsciously at his sides, already anticipating the inevitable — that glint of triumph in Lando's eyes when caught in the act, the way he'd tilt his head just so, as if daring Oscar to scold him. 

Gods, grant me strength, Oscar thought, to resist that look. He could already hear the excuses forming on Lando's lips — something about "communing with nature" or "creating a more natural aesthetic" — delivered with that infuriatingly charming smile.

Oscar paused at the threshold, bracing himself. "Has he at least maintained some level of modesty?" he asked, dreading the answer. 

Zakary's silence was response enough.

***

The pattern had been established within days of the omega's arrival.

Oscar had made every conceivable effort to ensure Lando's comfort — a futile endeavor that, in retrospect, resembled trying to domesticate a wildfire. He'd provided spacious quarters in the east wing, furnished with elegant pieces that balanced comfort with restrained luxury. He'd even commissioned a small fountain in the Iberian style that he'd once admired during a campaign in Tarraco — a gesture that had earned him exactly one raised eyebrow and a cutting remark about Romans collecting foreign aesthetics like hunting trophies.

"He is not a slave," Oscar had emphasized to Zakary, as they prepared the rooms. "Nor is he a traditional guest. His position is... nuanced."

Zakary, who had served in Oscar’s house for many years and remained unshaken by any oddity until now, simply lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "And if this 'nuanced' position attempts to flee your hospitality?"

"He won't," Oscar had replied with more certainty than he felt. "Rome offers him nothing but hostility. He's too intelligent for suicide."

That much, at least, had proven true. Lando hadn't attempted escape. Instead, he had embarked on a far more subtle campaign of resistance — one that targeted not the physical boundaries of his captivity, but the psychological equilibrium of his captor.

It began with clothing. Oscar had commissioned garments of fine Roman styling — an olive branch meant to help the omega integrate into his household. Lando had responded by appearing at breakfast wrapped in nothing but bedsheets, diaphanous linen artfully arranged to suggest rather than conceal, sliding from one shoulder whenever he reached for his wine cup. Oscar had been forced to dismiss a visiting senator's aide after the young man walked directly into a marble column while tracking Lando's progress across the atrium.

"I find Roman clothing restrictive," he'd explained with feigned innocence, eyes wide as a child's. "In Iberia, we believe the body should breathe freely. Surely a man of the world such as yourself understands cultural differences?"

Oscar had relented, ordering Iberian-styled clothing instead — a compromise he thought reasonable. When Lando accepted them with an uncharacteristically serene nod and disappeared without another word, Oscar allowed himself a moment of cautious relief.

The next morning, during his walk, Oscar came across the new garments draped over the statue of Venus. 

He stopped. Blinked. Then muttered a prayer to whatever god might be listening for patience — a prayer that, judging by the way the morning breeze made the fabric flutter in what could only be described as a mocking wave, had gone entirely unanswered.

Next came the meals. Roman cuisine, apparently, offended his Iberian sensibilities on multiple levels.

"The Iberian has refused the midday meal again," the cook reported one afternoon, his perpetually stern expression somehow growing more severe. "Said he would not eat food that had been placed 'within smelling distance of fish.’”

"The fish was on the opposite side of the kitchen,” Oscar said evenly, fully aware that logic would never sway Lando.

"Try telling him that!" The cook's voice climbed an octave. "He suggested we build him a separate kitchen 'untainted by fish entrails' or let him starve like a 'proper martyr to Iberian culinary standards.' Then — get this, Domine — he requested honeyed dates.”

"The same dates," Oscar sighed, "he declared 'an insult to fruit' yesterday?"

The cook's eye developed a dangerous tic. "Said they tasted 'less Roman' today.”

The household staff had gradually divided into two camps: those who found Lando's antics secretly amusing — primarily the younger slaves, who admired his defiance from a safe distance — and those who regarded him with the wary respect normally reserved for unpredictable natural disasters.

Several had taken to making offerings at the household shrine before approaching Lando's quarters after he had solemnly promised to "teach them proper Iberian curses that would make their Roman gods blush" if they continued hovering outside his door like — Zakary's report contained a pained pause before retelling this part — "Imperial vultures circling a battlefield, waiting for permission to feast on the fallen." 

Despite himself, Oscar had felt his lips twitch at the creative invective. The omega had a way with words, even when those words were designed to wound.

The breaking point — quite literally — had been the vase. Not just any vase, but an alabaster masterpiece gifted by Senator Ricciardo after the Carthage campaign, representing the cultural synthesis that Oscar privately believed was Rome's true strength rather than its military might.

"Tragically shattered beyond repair," Zakary had reported, his eyes fixed on some distant point above Oscar's left shoulder. "According to the Iberian, the piece 'grew weary of imperial captivity and leapt to its death of its own accord.'"

"A suicidal vase," Oscar had replied, his voice dangerously even. "How unusual."

"He suggests it was an act of rebellion against cultural appropriation,"  Zakary had added, clearly baffled by the concept. "Something about art belonging in its place of origin, not displayed as trophies of conquest."

Oscar had felt a curious mixture of irritation and — though he would never admit it aloud — reluctant admiration. Lando's understanding of precisely what would disturb his Roman sensibilities was uncannily accurate. 

When confronted, Lando had studied Oscar's controlled expression with open fascination. "You Romans have a curious relationship with beauty," he'd observed. "You tear it from its native soil, place it in artificial settings, and then expect gratitude when you allow others to observe it. Perhaps the vase simply longed for freedom."

"And you appointed yourself its liberator?" Oscar had asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Someone must advocate for the voiceless," Lando had replied with mock solemnity, fluttering those impossibly long eyelashes. "Besides, I'm told breaking things is expected of barbarians. I would hate to disappoint."

Oscar had responded to these provocations and dozens more with Herculean patience. He told himself the omega was adjusting to captivity, to the loss of his homeland and position. Some resistance was natural, even healthy. It would pass with time as Lando grew accustomed to his new circumstances.

He had been spectacularly, catastrophically wrong.

Rather than diminishing, Lando's defiance had evolved — becoming more refined, more precisely targeted, more exquisitely calibrated to disrupt the rhythms of Oscar's carefully ordered life. And somewhere along the way, it had developed a distinctly personal quality — as though the omega had dedicated himself to discovering exactly which pressure points would make Oscar's famous self-control fragment like that ill-fated alabaster vase.

Last week, he had reorganized the carefully cataloged scrolls in Oscar's library according to what he called "an Iberian system of knowledge categorization," which appeared to involve color coding and possibly some relation to lunar cycles. The day before yesterday, he had convinced three young house slaves that an elaborate ritual involving olive oil, honey, and recited poetry was necessary to ward off "Roman ceiling spirits" that caused plaster to crack and fall on sleeping inhabitants.

And now, the water lily pool.

***

The eastern garden was Oscar's private sanctuary — an architectural triumph hidden within the villa's walls. Columned walkways surrounded a central pool where bronze dolphins spouted arcs of crystal water. Marble benches nestled between carefully pruned cypress trees that cast dappled shade over mosaics depicting the sea god Neptune taming wild horses. But at its heart lay the water lily pool — a perfect circle of still water where rare blossoms from the Nile Delta opened their petals each morning to greet the Italian sun.

Today, that tranquility had been thoroughly shattered.

The first sight that greeted him was a cluster of garden slaves huddled by the rosemary hedges, pruning shears and water jars clutched in idle hands as they stared, transfixed, at the spectacle before them. At Oscar's approach, they startled like a flock of sparrows, suddenly finding urgent business in opposite corners of the garden.

And then Oscar saw him.

No description from Zakary could have prepared him for the scene before him. Every worst expectation confirmed, and somehow, exceeded.

Lando floated on his back among the lily pads, his bronze-gold skin a startling contrast to the pale blossoms surrounding him. Flower petals clung to his wet flesh like devoted worshippers, somehow accentuating rather than concealing the lean strength of his body. His eyes were closed, impossibly long lashes resting against high cheekbones as his face tilted toward the sun with an expression of such sublime contentment that Oscar momentarily wondered if Venus herself had orchestrated this test of his resolve.

Oscar forced his gaze to remain fixed on the omega's face, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the rest of him — the elegant throat flowing into broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the long limbs that carved through water with effortless grace.

His attempt at disciplined observation failed spectacularly when Lando stretched languorously, causing water droplets to cascade down the contours of his chest.

Lando didn't open his eyes, but the slight curve of his lips indicated he was perfectly aware of Oscar's arrival. He continued floating, arms extended outward, fingers occasionally brushing against lily pads with deliberate gentleness that somehow made the entire display more provocative.

Oscar cleared his throat pointedly.

"Five hundred and seventy-four," Lando announced without opening his eyes.

Oscar paused. "I beg your pardon?"

"Five hundred and seventy-four individual tiles form the mosaic border of your precious pool," Lando explained, finally allowing his eyes to open. "I've been counting them while waiting for you to arrive. Your slaves have been circling like anxious geese for ages now, clearly desperate for someone to save them from the terrible Iberian savage defiling Roman waters." He stretched languorously, causing several lilies to drift disconsolately away from his golden limbs. "You took your time, Commander."

"I was unaware we had an appointment," Oscar replied, his voice deliberately even. "Had I known you planned to declare war on my horticulture, I would have adjusted my schedule accordingly."

Lando's laughter rang out unexpectedly — a sound of genuine amusement that momentarily caught Oscar off guard. There was something disarmingly youthful about it that didn't align with the calculated provocateur he'd come to expect. 

"War? This isn't war, Commander — merely a cultural exchange. I'm experiencing famous Roman bathing customs while contributing Iberian innovations."

"And what innovation would that be? Using priceless Egyptian lilies as bathing accessories?"

"Precisely!" Lando shifted, causing more ripples to disturb the remaining flowers. Water streamed off his shoulders as he half-sat, revealing the lean contours of his chest. "In Iberia, we believe bathing should engage all the senses. These flowers" — he lifted a broken lily stem with theatrical gentleness — "provide such exquisite fragrance. Their sacrifice elevates the bathing experience considerably."

Oscar noted with weary resignation that his favorite lily — a rare blue variety with gold-tipped petals that had taken three seasons to mature — now lay crushed beneath Lando's shoulders like a funerary wreath.

"Those particular sacrifices," he said with remarkable composure, "survived pirates, storms, and the Mediterranean's temperamental moods to reach Rome. They endured a journey most humans would find harrowing, only to be martyred beneath your shoulder blades."

"How very tragic," Lando replied, not sounding remotely sympathetic. "Torn from their native soil and forced to bloom in a foreign land for the pleasure of their Roman captors." His eyebrow arched meaningfully. "I can't imagine how that feels."

Oscar absorbed the barb with practiced ease. "The comparison lacks subtlety."

"I thought Romans appreciated directness," Lando countered, pushing himself upright. Water cascaded down his body as he found footing on the pool's mosaic floor. "Or is that only during military conquests?"

The pool was shallow enough that the water only reached mid-thigh, leaving the rest of him exposed to the air and Oscar's increasingly strained peripheral vision. Light traced the arch of his ribs, the dip of his hips, the provocative trail of droplets disappearing below the surface - as if even the sunlight conspired with him, gilding each sinful curve with deliberate precision. 

Oscar had seen countless nude bodies before — in military baths, in training grounds, in the casual nudity of Roman daily life. None had affected him like this. Perhaps it was the contrast: golden skin against pastel blossoms, virile youth amid cultivated beauty. Or perhaps it was how utterly, infuriatingly at home Lando looked in his defiance, as though the pool had been created specifically for this moment of rebellion.

"These lilies," Oscar said, steering toward safer waters, "are not merely decorative. Some have medicinal properties. Others are used in sacred rites for—"

"Sacred rites?" Lando interrupted, his face brightening with mock enthusiasm. "How fortunate that I've stumbled upon them! I've been performing my own Iberian water rituals." He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Would you like to know what we believe water spirits reveal about a person's future? It requires careful study of how petals float around the naked body. Tremendously sacred. Profoundly mystical."

A heartbeat of silence stretched between them as Oscar considered the decimated flowers drifting aimlessly around Lando's naked form. "You invented that entirely," he said flatly.

Lando's smile widened, unrepentant. "Perhaps. Or perhaps Iberian spiritual practices are more sophisticated than Romans give us credit for." He leaned back in the water, never breaking eye contact with Oscar. "Your imagination is disappointingly literal, Commander. Has no one ever taught you to play?"

The sight of water beading along Lando's collarbones sent an unwelcome heat coiling low in Oscar's gut. Like watching honey drip from a spoon, some traitorous part of his mind supplied — slow, golden, and unbearably sweet. 

He forced his attention back to Lando's face, only to find the omega watching him with knowing amusement.

"Contrary to what you may believe," Oscar said, "Roman commanders occasionally engage in pursuits beyond conquest and governance."

"Do tell," Lando purred, floating closer to the edge where Oscar stood. "What does the mighty Aquilinus do when he's not subduing barbarian tribes or terrorizing his household staff with his fearsome discipline? Do you collect seashells? Compose poetry to fallen enemies? Perhaps you secretly dance under moonlight wearing nothing but olive leaves?"

"Your assessment of Roman recreational activities is remarkably creative," Oscar observed. "Though I must disappoint you — my dancing is strictly reserved for imperial functions, and always fully clothed."

"I have an excellent imagination," Lando agreed cheerfully. "A necessary skill when one is held captive in a foreign villa with nothing but stuffy scrolls and disapproving slaves for company."

"You are not a captive," Oscar said automatically, the words practiced from many similar exchanges.

The playfulness vanished from Lando's face so abruptly it was as though a cloud had passed over the sun. "No?" His voice turned dangerously quiet. "What pretty Roman word makes this arrangement palatable to your sense of honor? Unwilling guest? Imperial gift? Living trophy?"

The air between them grew heavy, teetering on the edge of another familiar, fruitless argument. Oscar braced himself for the inevitable clash — that same bitter exchange they'd repeated a dozen times before — when suddenly Lando's gaze softened and drifted to the surrounding gardens.

"You know," he mused, plucking a fallen petal from the water's surface, "for all your tedious Roman regulations, you do cultivate remarkable gardens." He twirled the petal between his fingers before letting it float away. “Though we did have public bathing pools without all these complicated Roman rules about who may use them and when."

He arched his back slightly, water sluicing down the elegant curve of his spine, and Oscar knew with absolute certainty — Lando knew exactly what he was doing.

"Those rules generally involve not decimating rare botanical specimens," Oscar replied dryly, though without genuine heat.”

"Plants over people," Lando observed, wading closer to where Oscar stood. "Very Roman."

"The plants weren't attempting to antagonize me," Oscar countered. "They merely existed in their designated space, causing no harm."

"Designated spaces." Lando's smile turned sharp. "Another Roman obsession. Everything and everyone in their proper place, neatly ordered, controlled." He reached the pool's edge, looking up at Oscar from beneath wet lashes. "Tell me, Commander, what happens when something — or someone — refuses to stay in their assigned position?"

"Generally," Oscar said, "they find themselves reassigned to less pleasant accommodations." He extended a hand, intended as both peace offering and tacit command to exit the pool. "Come. There are proper bathing facilities if you wish to cool off.  This accomplishes nothing."

Lando studied the offered hand with exaggerated consideration, water dripping from his curls onto his shoulders, tracing paths down the contours of his chest. A single lily petal clung stubbornly to the curve where neck met shoulder, its pale pink a stark contrast against golden skin.

For a moment, Lando seemed surprised by the gesture. His eyes narrowed suspiciously, but then his expression shifted to something Oscar couldn't quite read — a mixture of calculation and mischief that set off warning bells too late. He reached for Oscar's extended hand, his own fingers closing around the commander's wrist with surprising strength.

"You're absolutely right," Lando said, tone suddenly reasonable — which should have been Oscar's first warning. "This accomplishes nothing at all."

Oscar realized his tactical error too late. 

One moment he was standing safely on solid marble, the next he was being yanked forward with astonishing strength. His balance — honed through years of swordplay and battlefield maneuvers — betrayed him utterly as his sandals slipped on the water-slick edge of the pool.

Time seemed to slow as he fell, giving him ample opportunity to observe the pure, undiluted triumph blooming across Lando's features. The omega's sea-glass eyes widened with delight, his lips parting in a grin of such boyish mischief that Oscar found himself simultaneously outraged and, bewilderingly, charmed.

He crashed into the pool with a spectacular splash that sent water cascading over the stone edges and surviving lilies fleeing in all directions. 

Oscar surfaced with a gasp that was equal parts indignation and shock at the sudden cold. His immaculate toga — once a symbol of his authority — now clung to him like a second skin, suddenly heavier than legionnaire's armor and significantly less dignified. Water streamed from his cropped hair into his eyes, momentarily blinding him.

He spat out a mouthful of lily-scented water, blinking droplets from his lashes as he regained his footing in the shallow pool.

"Was that entirely necessary?" Oscar asked, sounding uncharacteristically petulant even to his own ears.

Lando's laughter rang out — a sound of such pure, unfiltered joy that it momentarily silenced Oscar's building tirade. The omega was practically radiant with delight, his head thrown back and shoulders shaking as peals of laughter bounced off the garden walls.

"Your face!" Lando gasped between fits of laughter, "Oh, by all that's sacred— the expression!" He clutched at his sides as though physically pained by his own hilarity. "The great Aquilinus, terror of three provinces, conqueror of Iberia — defeated by a puddle!" Fresh laughter overtook him. “Perhaps your enemies should replace their fortifications with ornamental pools — Rome would never advance beyond its borders!"

Oscar made a valiant attempt to rise with dignity — a futile endeavor given that his water-logged toga now weighed approximately as much as a small ox. The fabric clung indecently to his form in ways that would have scandalized proper Roman society, revealing rather than concealing the athletic physique that years of military campaigns had sculpted. 

The flush rising up his neck had nothing to do with the water’s chill and everything to do with the way Lando’s gaze deliberately lingered.

"The lilies offered less resistance than the Iberian tribes," Oscar replied, attempting to maintain some semblance of authority despite his undignified state. "Though I'm beginning to think their tactics are remarkably similar — luring one into a false sense of security before striking."

Lando's laughter stuttered to a halt, surprise flickering across his features. "Commander Aquilinus, was that... humor? From you?" He pressed a dramatic hand to his chest. "I fear I may faint from shock. Perhaps you hit your head on the way down?"

"Believe it or not," Oscar muttered, "Roman military training doesn't actually involve the surgical removal of one's sense of humor." He attempted to push his sopping hair back from his forehead, succeeding only in redirecting a small waterfall down the back of his neck. "Though I'm beginning to think it might be advisable."

A startled chuckle escaped Lando before he could suppress it. He covered his mouth quickly, as though caught doing something forbidden, and the moment of unguarded amusement vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, replaced by a strange expression on Lando’s face.

"You're just a man after all," Lando said softly, studying Oscar with new interest. Water dripped from Lando's own lashes as he tilted his head slightly, as if committing this version of Oscar — the damp strands of hair clinging to his forehead, the faint flush along his neck from exertion, the way his chest rose and fell with each steady breath — to memory. "Not marble, not iron — just flesh and breath and beating heart. How... unexpected."

Oscar froze, the dripping water suddenly forgotten.

Just a man.

When had anyone last called him that? Not Domine, not Commander?

He could barely remember. 

Even his lovers spoke to his title, his power, never to him. Senators' sons murmuring "Glory of Rome" between his thighs. The young tribune who couldn't stop trembling beneath him, stammering "Legatus" like a prayer. Even his last long-term companion — that patrician's omega heir with his silver tongue — had sobbed "Commander" into the pillows when he came like it was his given name.

His bed had never lacked warm bodies, but it had been years since anyone had dared to touch him without reverence. 

But Lando?

Lando stood waist-deep in the ruins of Oscar's lily pool, water streaming down his bare chest, and looked at him with no reverence at all — just sharp, assessing curiosity, as if Oscar were nothing more than…

A man.

Oscar stood motionless, suddenly aware of how vulnerable he felt beneath that piercing gaze.

Then the spell shattered.

Slaves clustered at the garden’s edge, their whispers carrying across the water. They were staring. Of course they were staring. Their master stood drenched in his own lily pool, toga plastered indecently to his body, facing off against a naked Iberian who looked entirely too pleased with himself. grinned up at him like this was exactly where he’d meant to be all along.

"Your audience has returned," Lando observed, nodding toward the onlookers. "The mighty Roman and his barbarian captive, performing impromptu water theater. Should we charge admission? We could fund another provincial conquest." 

"They're wondering if they should rescue me,"  Oscar replied, watching how the water droplets clung to Lando's eyelashes like liquid jewels. The slaves' murmurs formed a buzzing counterpoint to the pounding in his temples. "Though whether from you or from my own poor judgment remains unclear."

"Rescue implies danger, Commander," Lando said, suddenly adopting an expression of childlike innocence, blinking up at Oscar with exaggerated wide eyes. He cupped his hands to splash water playfully at his own chest. "I merely thought you might appreciate cooling off in this dreadful heat. Such practical Roman engineering, these garden pools." His voice dripped with feigned earnestness as he gestured to the elaborate marble surroundings.

Oscar had never imagined he’d be more dangerous naked than armed — but gods, he was.

A shadow fell across the water. Zakary appeared at the pool's edge, his face a masterclass in professional neutrality. The steward's eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance, refusing to acknowledge either his master's sodden state or Lando's complete lack of attire.

"Domine," Zakary began, pointedly focusing on Oscar's face rather than his current state of soggy disarray, "forgive the interruption, but the Senate has called an emergency session. Your presence is requested immediately."

Oscar closed his eyes briefly. Of course. Because this day needed additional complications. "The reason?"

"Senator Leclerc has raised objections to the Emperor's grain taxation proposal. The Praetorian Prefect suggested your military perspective might prove... stabilizing."

Translation: Verstappen was close to losing his temper with the outspoken young senator, and Oscar's presence might prevent the Emperor from doing something politically disastrous. Again.

"I'll change and leave at once," Oscar said, wading toward the pool's steps with as much dignity as a thoroughly soaked man could muster.

Zakary produced a large drying cloth with such seamless efficiency that Oscar momentarily wondered if the man possessed oracular powers. "Already prepared, Domine. Along with a formal toga appropriate for Senate appearance."

"Your foresight is appreciated," Oscar replied dryly, accepting the cloth and beginning to blot water from his arms. "Though I note you didn't think to warn me about the hazards of pool edges."

"Give the Emperor my regards," Lando called after him as Oscar turned to leave, "Tell him his gift is thoroughly enjoying Roman hospitality."

Oscar glanced back, one eyebrow raised. "I'll tell him his thoughtful offering is adapting to Roman culture with characteristic Iberian subtlety."

"Is that what you call it? And here I thought I was being exceptionally obvious in my disdain."

Lando still stood waist-deep in the water, naked and utterly unbothered, the pale blooms drifting around him like misplaced offerings. The water shimmered where it clung to his skin, and he made no move to cover himself — instead, he arched a brow as if to say, Here is your Emperor’s gift. Here is the arch of his bare throat and his mocking mouth. Isn’t he magnificent? 

"The day you become obvious, Lando Norris, is the day Rome falls to barbarian hordes," Oscar replied with unexpected warmth. "I suspect we're safe for the time being."

Lando laughed, and oh gods – Oscar would never grow accustomed to what that sound did to his chest, how it curled warm and dangerous beneath his ribs. 

"Until this evening, then, Commander," Lando said, executing a theatrical bow that sent more water cascading from his curls. "I do so look forward to hearing about the Senate's deliberations on grain taxation. Perhaps you could describe the proceedings in excruciating detail over dinner? I've been suffering from insomnia lately."

Oscar accepted a fresh tunic from Zakary, still maintaining eye contact with Lando. "I expect to see you properly attired at dinner," he said, his tone making it clear this was not a suggestion. "In the triclinium."

"And if I refuse?" Lando challenged, though the question lacked the bitter edge of their earlier exchanges.

"Then I'll have the cook prepare nothing but fish for the remainder of the week," Oscar replied smoothly. "I'm told it's quite plentiful this season."

Lando's expression of genuine horror made Oscar's lips twitch with suppressed amusement as he turned to walk away, leaving a trail of water in his wake.

Behind him, he heard a splash and Lando's voice calling after him: 

"That's barbaric, even for a Roman!"

"I learned from the best," Oscar replied without looking back, allowing himself the small victory of having the last word.

***

Oscar slipped into the Senate chambers with as much dignity as one could muster after being treacherously pushed into the ornamental pool. The dry toga did little to help — the ghost of pool water still clung to his skin, mingling stubbornly with the perfume of crushed lilies. His hair, wet and plastered to his skull, made him resemble less a decorated Roman commander and more a disgruntled cat who'd been awarded military honors solely for surviving an unexpected bath.

If the gods possessed any mercy whatsoever, someone might mistake his lingering dampness for sweat. Roman summers were brutal, after all.

But then, the gods had never shown particular fondness for Oscar Piastri. Because if they had, he would never have met Lando Norris in the first place.

The Senate chamber assaulted his senses the moment he entered — a living, breathing organism of political intrigue. It reeked of ambition, rancid oil-based perfumes, and that peculiar stench of power that always smelled suspiciously like unwashed men convinced of their own importance. Years of military service and political maneuvering had taught Oscar that this room was less a place of governance and more a stage for elaborate social warfare. A uniquely Roman bouquet that Oscar had come to associate with hours of his life he'd never recover.

Another day, another pointless debate that could have been resolved in the time it took these peacocks to arrange their togas.

But even through this olfactory chaos, Oscar immediately detected the distinctive tension that meant only one thing: Verstappen and Leclerc were at it again.

Emperor sprawled across his imperial throne with the casual disregard of someone who knew precisely how much it irritated traditionalists. One muscular leg thrown over the armrest, his toga hitched up just enough to display a well-defined calf — a deliberate provocation that somehow managed to be both barbaric and regal simultaneously. The slow drag of his thumb along the armrest's carving — back and forth, back and forth — was the only outward sign of his dwindling patience.

Before him stood Senator Charles Leclerc, the very image of aristocratic perfection. His toga hung in flawless folds, the deep crimson border declaring his patrician status. Every line of his posture spoke of effortless superiority - back straight as a sword, shoulders squared just so, that faint tilt of his chin making even deference look like a favor granted. The tailored cut of his toga left exactly zero doubts about his athletic build, and half the Senate pretended not to stare at the way the fabric hinted at the lean strength beneath. 

The other half, more interestingly, pretended not to notice Verstappen noticing.

"The grain shipments from Alexandria have been delayed again," Leclerc was saying, his voice carrying that distinctive Gallic inflection that he had never entirely shed despite years in Rome — a deliberate choice, Oscar suspected, as the man could perfectly mimic any accent when it suited his purposes. "The third such delay this season. Yet curiously, shipments consigned to Senators Horner and Marko arrived without incident."

Oscar settled into his designated seat, recognizing the familiar opening moves in what had become Rome's most compelling political theater. Senator Ricciardo, already seated nearby, leaned over with the conspiratorial whisper of a man who lived for political drama. 

"They've been at it for nearly an hour," he murmured. “Started with tax assessments, somehow veered into Egyptian grain logistics, and now we're apparently investigating shipping corruption. All while looking at each other like that."

'Like that' was a particularly apt description. Despite the professional subject matter, Verstappen watched Leclerc with sharp, unwavering focus. Leclerc absorbed his attention effortlessly, moving with the ease of someone born to be seen — tilting his shoulders just enough, spine loose, presence tuned to every glance. He basked in the imperial gaze like a sunflower soaking up light, not merely aware of the attention but thriving in it, intent on catching every drop.

Oscar suppressed a groan. Every Senate session, these two engaged in the same elaborate ritual. It was like watching a particularly aggressive mating display between exotic birds, all puffed feathers and dramatic shrieking, except the birds were Rome's most powerful alpha and a frustratingly self-assured beta senator who refused to submit like a proper subordinate.

"How far along are they this time?" Oscar asked quietly, leaning toward Daniel.

Ricciardo's eyes glimmered with the joy of a gossip about to unload his most salacious information. "Leclerc suggested that the Emperor's new racing chariot acquisition might have been funded with money earmarked for grain subsidies."

Oscar's eyebrows shot up. "He didn't."

"Oh, he absolutely did," Daniel confirmed with a grin that stretched from ear to ear, revealing teeth that had charmed half the capital's omega population. "Verstappen countered by implying that Leclerc's family vineyards are mysteriously exempt from the new agricultural taxes. To which our favorite senator drawled—" Ricciardo pitched his voice into a perfect imitation of Leclerc's clipped tones, "—'Perhaps the Divine Caesar was too distracted by his latest concubine to recall signing that particular edict.'"

Daniel waggled his eyebrows. "Though we all know the only concubine Verstappen seems interested in acquiring wears a senator's toga and is currently lecturing him about fiscal responsibility."

Oscar exhaled sharply. The entire Senate knew Verstappen would have dragged Leclerc to his chambers and fucked this stubbornness out of him months ago if the senator had been an omega. But since fate — with its characteristic sense of humor — had cursed Rome with a beta possessing the defiance of an alpha and the composure of a Vestal Virgin, they were all doomed to witness this absurd dance of legislation and lingering glances that somehow managed to be more indecent than anything that happened Rome's most notorious pleasure houses.

And then, as if on cue, Leclerc struck.

"Perhaps," he said, turning just enough to catch the light along his jawline, "if the Emperor's attention were as focused on grain distribution as it is on funding his new Colosseum expansion, the plebeians might have bread to accompany the circuses."

Someone in the back benches choked on their wine. Oscar didn't bother looking to see who — the Senate was full of men who couldn't hold their liquor, their outrage, or their common sense.

He also didn't need to glance at Ricciardo to know they were sharing the same thought - they'd memorized this script by now. 

Act One: Leclerc provokes with exquisitely phrased criticism. 

Act Two: Verstappen retaliates with increasingly less-veiled hostility. 

Act Three: The entire Senate endures their verbal foreplay while actual governance stagnates.

"My precious Senator Leclerc," Verstappen drawled, examining his signet ring with exaggerated interest, "always so concerned with the welfare of people whose names you couldn't possibly know. Such nobility. Such... performative compassion." 

A hush fell over the Senate - the kind of silence that comes before lightning strikes. Verstappen stretched like a great cat, the motion making his toga gape open further along his thigh. He caught Leclerc's involuntary glance downward and smiled, slow and knowing, before continuing his verbal assault.

"How fortunate Rome is," Verstappen continued, his voice dropping to something dangerously intimate, "to have such a paragon of virtue gracing our halls." His gaze swept over Leclerc with deliberate insolence. "Tell me, Senator, do you rehearse these performances in front of your household mirror? I picture you practicing that particular tone — the one that manages to make 'Caesar' sound like an insult — until you've perfected it."

Leclerc didn't hesitate. "I find truth requires no rehearsal, Caesar. Though I'm touched by your interest in my daily habits." His expression remained perfectly composed, refusing to acknowledge Verstappen's hand sliding possessively along his bared thigh - though the sudden tension along his jawline spoke volumes. "As for mirrors, I find reflection of all kinds beneficial. Perhaps the imperial household might benefit from installing a few more?"

Oscar bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing aloud. No other senator would dare speak to the Emperor with such brazen disrespect, yet somehow Leclerc not only survived these encounters but seemed to thrive on them. What's more, Verstappen — who had once ordered a man flogged for coughing during an imperial address — appeared to be enjoying himself, if the predatory gleam in his eyes and the subtle shift in his scent were any indication.

"My household arrangements are more than adequate," Verstappen replied, voice dropping to a dangerous purr. "Perhaps you'd like a personal tour? I'd be delighted to show you exactly how... reflective I can be."

Oscar watched Daniel's eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline. Three senators to their left made sudden, frantic notes on their tablets, pretending deafness with all the skill of men who had built political careers on strategic moments of selective hearing.

"Your generosity overwhelms, Caesar," Leclerc responded, his tone bone-dry. "But I fear such intimate knowledge of imperial quarters might compromise my objectivity when discussing fiscal allocations for palace maintenance."

Verstappen's lips curled into a slow, dangerous smile as he regarded Leclerc with something disturbingly close to tenderness. He actually leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees like an eager student, golden diadem tilting precariously as he stared at Leclerc with undisguised delight.

"Gods," he breathed, the words thick with something far more intoxicating than mere admiration, "you really never stop, do you?"

"Not when Rome's welfare is at stake," Leclerc replied smoothly, though Oscar noticed how his weight shifted forward slightly, like a tactician catching the scent of weakness in enemy ranks. "Speaking of which, perhaps we might return to the matter of grain distribution? Unless the Emperor finds Egyptian shipping lanes less engaging than personal jibes?"

"Oh, I find everything about your presentations engaging, Senator," Verstappen said, voice laden with meaning that had nothing to do with agricultural policy. He gestured lazily toward the speaking floor, making the gold lions on his armbands gleam. "By all means, continue enlightening us about these mysterious shipping delays."

Leclerc launched into a detailed explanation of Mediterranean shipping lanes and provincial storage facilities, his hands moving in elegant gestures that somehow managed to convey complex logistical concepts with remarkable clarity. Throughout his exposition, Verstappen watched him with unblinking intensity, occasionally interrupting with surprisingly insightful questions that suggested he was genuinely engaging with the proposal rather than merely performing his imperial role. His intense focus never wavered, though his fingers still tapped that uneven rhythm against the throne, betraying the restless energy that always simmered beneath the surface of his rigid control.

It was the most peculiar sight — the man who commanded legions with a single glance sat motionless but for that relentless tapping cadence, watching with the rapt wonder of a youth hearing his first love recite poetry — utterly captivated, hanging on every word, and loving every second of it.

Oscar found himself more fascinated by their interaction than by the content of the discussion. There was something almost intimate about the way they focused on each other, as though the crowded Senate chamber had narrowed to include only the two of them. Their verbal exchanges had the rhythm of a well-practiced duet — challenge and response, thrust and parry, each anticipating the other's moves with uncanny precision.

"If we redirected resources from the gladiatorial games," Leclerc was saying, his passion for the subject evident in the slight flush that had risen to his cheeks, "if we prioritized repairs to the Sicilian aqueducts, if we implemented the water conservation methods successfully employed in Hispania—"

"It's always if, if, if, right?" Emperor Verstappen interrupted, straightening on his throne with visible irritation. "If the Sicilians had better irrigation, if the summer rains had come, if the provincial governors were more competent." His voice carried the distinctive edge that experienced courtiers recognized as dangerous. "If my mum had balls, she would be my dad, my dearest Senator."

Ricciardo choked on his wine, shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter as he nudged Oscar's foot with his sandal — this was why he never missed Senate sessions.

Leclerc didn't so much as blink. "An interesting anatomical hypothesis, Caesar," he replied, his tone suggesting he was addressing a particularly disruptive symposium participant rather than the most powerful alpha in the known world. "Though perhaps we might leave theoretical testicles aside in favor of actual grain distribution?" His eyebrow arched with perfect condescension. "Unless, of course, you find ancestral anatomy more pressing than feeding Rome?"

Oscar watched as Verstappen's face flushed with what could only be described as delight - not the dangerous, glittering amusement of an emperor toying with his prey, but something far more disarming. His stern expression softened into something almost boyish, lips parting in unconscious wonder as he gazed at Leclerc with the rapt attention of a man utterly enchanted. For a fleeting moment, Divine August looked at the sharp-tongued senator not with predatory intent, but with something startlingly close to tenderness - as if Leclerc had hung the moon and stars simply by continuing to exist.

Oscar couldn't prevent the small snort of laughter that escaped him. He immediately tried to disguise it as a cough, but too late — Verstappen's predatory attention had already shifted his way.

"Commander Aquilinus seems amused by your observations, Senator," Verstappen remarked, his gaze fixing on Oscar with unsettling precision. "Perhaps he'd care to share his thoughts, given his... extensive experience managing resources in conquered territories." A slow, dangerous smile spread across the Emperor's face. "Speaking of which — how fares that Iberian acquisition of yours? Still keeping you up at night, or have you finally broken him to proper Roman obedience?"

The chamber's attention snapped to Oscar, who cursed internally. He had allowed precisely one flicker of amusement — a single, traitorous twitch of his lips — and Verstappen had seized upon it like a wolf upon the scent of blood. 

The Emperor's knack for finding and exploiting weaknesses was, Oscar reflected bitterly, as relentless as it was inconvenient.

Oscar rose with parade-ground precision, his bow calibrated to millimeter-perfect deference. "Caesar honors me with his interest," he began, his voice carrying the measured cadence that had served him well in both battlefields and political arenas, "though I fear my domestic affairs pale beside matters of state. Rest assured, my household maintains perfect discipline — without requiring imperial intervention."

Verstappen's smile only widened, revealing teeth that seemed unusually sharp in the afternoon light. "Come now, Commander. After personally selecting such a... spirited companion for you, surely I'm entitled to inquire after his adjustment to Roman life?" His fingers drummed an idle rhythm on the throne's armrest. "Does he still bite?"

The stifled laughter that rippled through the Senate carried an edge of nervous hysteria. Oscar felt the heat creeping up his neck but kept his expression neutral through decades of battlefield discipline. "Caesar has many concerns of state demanding attention," he replied, layering his words with just enough deference to mask the steel beneath. "I wouldn't dream of burdening you with the trivial domestic matters of a simple soldier. My affairs are well in hand — as are my methods for maintaining order."

Verstappen's grin turned positively indecent as he lounged back on his throne. "Oh, spare us the noble pretense, Aquilinus. We all know exactly how you 'break in' your Iberian stallion." His tongue darted over his lips. "Tell me — when you have him on his knees before you, does he still spit curses in that savage tongue? Or have you finally taught him to moan in Latin?"

The chamber erupted in crude jeers. Oscar felt white-hot rage flash through him at the image they conjured of Lando — proud, fierce, beautiful Lando — reduced to a common whore in their imaginations. His stomach twisted with something sick and heavy, a feeling that went beyond anger, beyond pride. It was something deeper, something that made his fingers tremble with the need to draw steel.

Lando, who even in captivity carried himself like royalty – his unbroken spirit evident in the defiant tilt of his chin, the unyielding pride in his gaze.

Lando, whose very posture spoke what his lips would not: You may own my body, but my soul remains unconquered.

Lando, whose rare, unguarded smiles — bright as dawn and just as fleeting — were given freely to stable boys and kitchen maids, to hounds and horses and even the occasional visiting dignitary.

Lando, whose smiles were never, ever meant for him.

And yet—

A dangerous stillness settled over Oscar, the kind that came before a killing strike. Their crude words painted Lando in vulgar strokes, reducing something wild and brilliant to mere flesh - as if his spirit could be contained by their filthy imaginings. As if the man who had challenged Rome itself was nothing more than a body to be used.

Oscar forced his breath to steady, his voice to remain calm, though every word burned like poison on his tongue.

"Rome teaches all men their place, Caesar," he said, his tone perfectly measured. "But some lessons require... patience."  He met Verstappen's gaze, letting the silence stretch just a heartbeat too long - some men are worth being patient with too.

Verstappen's smile remained perfectly in place, though his gaze took on the chilling stillness. "Careful, Aquilinus," he purred, that deceptively soft voice wrapping around Oscar like a vine. His eyes - those piercing, all-knowing eyes that seemed to strip men bare to their shameful cores - held Oscar pinned more effectively than any physical restraint. "Your pet’s bad habits appear to be contagious." He waved a dismissive hand, but the threat hung heavy in the air. "We’ll revisit this... attachment of yours another time."

His gaze shifted back to Leclerc, who had been watching this exchange with keen interest. "Senator, you will prepare a more detailed proposal on these irrigation matters, with specific costings and implementation timelines. Present it to my advisors tomorrow."

Leclerc bowed with perfect form, though Oscar detected the subtle tension in his shoulders that suggested surprise at this sudden capitulation. "As Caesar commands."

As the discussion moved on, Oscar exhaled slowly, his body still thrumming with barely leashed violence. The Senate's laughter echoed in his skull, and Verstappen's vulgar smirk burned behind his eyelids - but worse, far worse, was the memory that haunted him now:

Lando's face.

Oscar's fingers ached with the need to crush something. Because for all his authority, all his might, he couldn't stop this. Couldn't shield Lando from their filthy words, their degrading fantasies, their pathetic attempts to diminish something magnificent to their own sordid level.

"The Senate is dismissed," Verstappen announced, rising from his throne with unusual abruptness. "Senator Leclerc, you will attend me in my private study to begin preliminary discussions."

As the assembly dispersed in a flutter of togas and murmured speculation, Oscar found himself cornered by Ricciardo, whose expression blended amusement with admiration.

"That," Daniel said with a low whistle, "was either the most elaborate political negotiation I've ever witnessed or the most public courtship ritual in Roman history. Possibly both."

"Definitely both," Oscar replied, massaging his temples as if trying to erase the memory of the last hour. "And entirely exhausting to watch." 

"Yet oddly compelling," Ricciardo observed. "One wonders how their private meeting will unfold."

Oscar allowed himself a rare, wry smile. "I imagine with considerably less talk of grain shipments and considerably more direct communication."

"One can only hope," Ricciardo agreed. "For all our sakes. Ten denarii says they don't make it past the antechamber next time."

Oscar gave him a flat look. "I'm not taking that bet. Mainly because I value my dignity. And my life."

"Coward," Ricciardo sing-songed, just as the unmistakable sound of something expensive crashing to the floor echoed from the direction of the imperial study, followed by what might have been either a growl of anger or something else entirely.

Oscar decided right then that he was absolutely not getting paid enough for this.

"I'm leaving before someone expects me to testify about whatever that was," he announced, already halfway to the door.

Behind him, Ricciardo's delighted whisper carried: "Fifteen denarii if they break another priceless artifact!"

Oscar didn't dignify that with a response. He had a sudden, urgent need to be anywhere else. Britain sounded nice this time of year. Cold. Isolated. Gloriously far from whatever fresh disaster was unfolding in the Emperor's chambers.

***

The villa was suspiciously quiet when Oscar returned. None of the usual disruptions greeted him — no upset servants, no reports of broken items or refused meals. Even Zakary seemed relatively composed, though a certain tightness around his eyes suggested the day had not been entirely without incident.

"The Iberian?" Oscar asked, handing his formal Senate toga to a waiting slave.

"In his chambers since your departure, Domine," Zakary replied, a slight furrow between his brows betraying his unease. "Though he did spend a considerable amount of time interrogating the kitchen slaves about Roman customs regarding poisons and their antidotes. Purely academic interest, he claimed."

Oscar suppressed a sigh, his shoulders heavy with the weight of Senate politics and now this. "I'll be in my private bath," he informed Zakary, rolling tension from his neck. "No disturbances.” He paused, his gaze sharpening. "None."

***

His private bathhouse was a modest space compared to the grand public facilities that dotted Rome, but it offered what Oscar craved most after Senate sessions — solitude. A single rectangular pool of heated water formed the centerpiece, with alcoves carved into the walls holding oil lamps that cast a gentle, flickering light. The scent of cedar and cypress oils perfumed the humid air, mingling with the mineral tang of the heated water.

This was a place for shedding more than just dirt - here, Oscar could strip away the weight of senatorial pretense along with his sweat-dampened tunic.

Oscar dismissed the attending slave after ensuring the water temperature was suitable. As the door closed behind the servant, he released a deep sigh, allowing the tension of the day to begin unwinding from his shoulders. He removed his tunic with practiced movements, draping it carefully over a waiting stand before continuing with his undergarments until he stood unclothed in the warm, steam-filled room.

The first touch of hot water against his skin as he descended into the pool drew another sigh from him, this one of pure pleasure. He submerged himself fully before resurfacing to lean against the smooth marble edge, eyes closed as he focused on nothing but sensation — the heat penetrating tired muscles, the gentle lapping of water against stone, the distant sounds of the household filtered through thick walls.

Peace. Finally.

It lasted approximately seven minutes.

The soft sound of the door opening barely registered at first, dismissed as a slave returning to collect his discarded clothing. It was only when that unmistakable scent reached him — the one that lived in his dreams and haunted his waking hours — that Oscar's eyes snapped open.

Lando stood at the pool's edge, silhouetted against the lamplight, as casually as if he'd been invited.

"I heard the Senate was particularly tedious today," he observed, moving into the light with deliberate grace. "Something about grain taxes and imperial temper tantrums?"

Oscar straightened, water sluicing down his chest as he instinctively shifted to a more dignified posture. "The private bath is called such because it's private , Lando."

"Ah, yes. ‘Private’ — meaning yours alone," Lando mused, tilting his head with mocking precision. "How could I forget? Your ever-vigilant Zakary informed me of this particular Roman eccentricity. Along with approximately seventeen other rules I've apparently violated since sunrise." His fingers moved to the edge of his tunic, tracing the hem with casual deliberation, the motion drawing Oscar's eye despite his determination to maintain a composed facade. "Your steward maintains a remarkably comprehensive mental catalog of my transgressions."

Some boundaries, it seemed, existed solely for Lando to cross them.

"Perhaps if you stopped actively seeking new rules to break, Zakary would have less to catalog," Oscar replied, striving for a neutral tone despite the way his pulse had quickened. 

"But how else would I entertain myself in this prison of marble and privilege?" Lando countered, his expression caught between mockery and genuine frustration. "Should I spend my days learning proper omega comportment like your Roman pets? Practicing how to lower my eyes and simper prettily when alphas enter the room?"

In the bath's hazy light, Lando's eyes had darkened to the unfathomable shade of the Mediterranean during winter storms — depthless and dangerous. "Tell me, Commander," he continued, his voice dropping to a silken murmur that seemed to slide along Oscar's skin, "does Zakary earn his position through such obedience?

Oscar watched those wandering fingers with wary attention, heat coiling low in his belly that had nothing to do with the bath's temperature. "Zakary takes his responsibilities seriously."

"As do you," Lando replied, beginning to unfasten his tunic with unhurried precision. "The serious Commander. The disciplined alpha. The honorable Roman." Each phrase carried subtle mockery as more golden skin was revealed, inch by tantalizing inch. "Tell me, does it ever get tiring? Maintaining such rigid control every moment of every day?"

Oscar didn't flinch, though beneath the water's surface, his thighs tensed with the effort of remaining still. "Does it ever get tiring," he countered, "being so deliberately provocative?"

Lando's laugh was low and thick. "Oh, I don't know. You tell me." He took another step, close enough now that Oscar could see the water droplets beginning to form on his skin from the bath's humidity. One perfect drop traced a slow path down his throat to his collarbone, drawing Oscar's gaze like a magnet. "Is it working?"

The tunic slipped from his shoulders, pooling at his feet like shed skin. Beneath it, he wore only a light loincloth — the last barrier between modesty and complete exposure. The fabric clung to his hips, damp already from the humid air, outlining what it purported to conceal.

Oscar kept his expression carefully neutral through years of practiced discipline, though he couldn't prevent his pupils from dilating slightly at the sight before him. A familiar tension coiled through his muscles,  the same tension he felt before battle - that razor's edge moment when the first sword is drawn and all pretense of civility falls away.

"What exactly are you trying to accomplish?" Oscar asked, his voice rougher than intended.

"Bathing," Lando replied with exaggerated innocence that wouldn't have convinced a child. "Isn't that what these elaborate rooms are for? Or is there yet another Roman rule I've failed to comprehend?" He untied the loincloth with deliberate slowness, his fingers lingering on the knot as his eyes locked with Oscar's. "Your civilization is so full of arbitrary restrictions."

The final garment whispered against marble as it joined the discarded tunic. Completely nude now, Lando stepped into the pool without waiting for permission or invitation, descending the marble steps with a slow, sinuous elegance. Steam curled around his form as the water embraced him, lending him an almost otherworldly quality in the lamplight.

Oscar's mouth went dry.

The heat of the bath suddenly felt insignificant compared to the fire licking through his veins. Every movement Lando made was liquid grace — the way the water caressed the dip of his lower back as he turned, the play of lamplight along the curve of his shoulders, the unconscious roll of his hips that sent water sloshing against marble. There was nothing delicate about him - only raw, untamed energy barely contained within the boundaries of his form.

He was beautiful in a way that made Oscar's chest ache.

Not in the carefully cultivated way of Roman omegas - those gilded creatures who moved through society like living ornaments, their softness preserved by layers of scented oils and calculated indolence. No, Lando's beauty was that of a blade left too long in the sun - all sharp edges and dangerous heat. The kind that made fingers itch to touch even as instinct warned of burning.

His body defied every Roman ideal — shoulders broad enough to bear armor rather than jewels, a waist narrow enough to slip through enemy lines, thighs hardened by years astride warhorses instead of reclining on dining couches. Yet for all its warrior's strength, there was an unexpected elegance to him — the long, fluid lines of his legs, the delicate bones of his wrists that could wield a blade with lethal precision or trace the petals of a flower with equal grace. That tantalizing trail of dark hair leading downward drew Oscar's gaze despite his disciplined restraint, a path his fingers longed to follow to its inevitable conclusion.

Oscar exhaled sharply, his fingers digging into the marble bench hard enough to sting.

He had believed himself immune by now to the sight of Lando’s bare skin — after all, he’d seen it before: bloodied and half-conscious in his chambers after Tarraco, or just this morning when Lando without the slightest hesitation claimed the lily pool as his personal bath, slipping into its still waters as if they’d been built for him alone. As if modesty were a concept meant for other people.

Yet now, every detail felt perilously new. The way the humid air clung to the fine hairs on Lando’s arms. How his scent — that vivid, sun-warmed brightness — coiled in Oscar’s lungs with every breath. The flush blooming slowly from the hollow of his throat seemed to pulse in time with the erratic beat of Oscar’s own heart.

Lando settled onto the submerged bench opposite Oscar, tilting his head back until his throat formed a vulnerable arch above the water's surface. His eyes, when they opened again, held a challenge Oscar couldn't quite decipher.

"You're staring, Commander," Lando observed, his voice dipping lower as he reclined against the marble edge. The water lapped against his collarbones, creating tiny wavelets that glinted in the lamplight. "Does my form disappoint compared to your Roman omegas?"

Oscar kept his expression neutral, though it cost him dearly. "I wasn't aware I was conducting an assessment."

Lando laughed — quietly, with that infuriating ease that made it unclear whether he was entertained or simply bored. "Weren't you? Alphas are always assessing, categorizing, determining worth."

He slid marginally deeper into the water, letting it rise to his chin. Then, with a deliberate movement that sent small waves across the pool's surface, he pushed away from the edge and glided toward Oscar, the water parting around his body like liquid silk. He stopped just short of physical contact, so close now that Oscar could feel the displaced water from Lando's movements lapping against his chest, the currents creating a phantom caress between them.

"Mm. You know..."  he drawled, voice was pure indolence — the kind that seeped into muscles and made them ache."I'm getting tired of waiting, Commander." A droplet traced the curve of his collarbone as he sighed. "It's exhausting, really."

Oscar's eyebrow arched. "Waiting for what?"

"For you to stop pretending," Lando answered, his voice dropping to a near-whisper that somehow carried perfectly in the humid air. "For the disciplined commander to reveal his true nature."

Then, without warning, Lando moved.

Water surged as he closed the distance between them, settling onto Oscar’s lap with deliberate, unhurried grace. The sudden weight of him — the heat of his thighs bracketing Oscar’s, the press of his body — sent water sloshing over the edge of the bath, spilling onto the marble in glistening rivulets.

Oscar went utterly still, every muscle locked in rigid control. Lando’s skin was fever-warm against his, his body a living temptation — sleek with moisture, his pulse fluttering visibly at the base of his throat. Their faces were inches apart, close enough that Oscar could count the droplets clinging to Lando’s lashes.

"What do you think you're doing?" Oscar managed, though his hoarse voice betrayed him. His hands remained locked on the marble edge, knuckles white with the effort of restraint. Sweat beaded along his hairline, mingling with the steam as Lando shifted deliberately in his lap.

Lando tightened his knees around Oscar's thighs with predatory precision, the water between them offering no protection from the heat of skin-on-skin contact. His left knee dragged upward in a slow, devastating arc along the outer edge of Oscar's thigh, pulling their bodies closer still — as if the mere inch separating them was some unconquered territory demanding immediate subjugation.

"Testing a theory," Lando purred, warm breath caressing Oscar's cheek as he leaned in. "Seeing how long the noble Roman can maintain his famous self-control."

Oscar's body — his traitorous, wanting body — responded with brutal honesty. The hardening length of his dick pressed unmistakably against Lando's thigh, betraying his desire more eloquently than any confession could have. His pulse roared in his ears, drowning out reason, his alpha instincts screaming to flip their positions, to pin Lando against the marble and take — to claim what was being so brazenly offered.

Yet he didn’t move.

Not because he lacked the desire — gods, it threatened to devour him whole — but because the desire wasn’t enough. 

"And what would proving this theory accomplish?" Oscar asked, managing to keep his voice steady despite the heat building in his core. "What victory would you claim if I behaved exactly as you expect?"

A shadow passed through Lando's eyes — there and gone in a heartbeat, like sunlight vanishing behind storm clouds. His lips curled in that familiar, razor-edged smile, but the usual venom in his voice rang hollow now. "It would prove Romans are as predictable as the tides," he said, fingers flexing against Oscar's shoulders. "That all your talk of civilization and discipline is just that — talk."

Oscar could feel every inch of Lando's skin where it met his own — the slick heat of his inner thighs bracketing Oscar's hips, the damp press of his chest as he leaned closer. Then the unbearable weight of him — those surprisingly soft curves of his hips working higher, the delicious friction of skin gliding over skin as he—

He knew exactly what he was doing.

"So tell me," Lando murmured, his lips brushing the sensitive skin below Oscar's ear, "Why resist?" His hips nudged, slow and insistent, drawing an involuntary shudder from Oscar’s core. "Why deny what we both know is inevitable?" He tipped his head back, exposing the column of his throat in blatant invitation, his pulse fluttering wildly beneath golden skin. "Don't you want to hear me beg for your knot?"

Oscar's fingers dug into the cool marble, his entire body taut with restraint. Lando's scent enveloped him - golden honey dripping from the comb, sun-warmed figs splitting open at their seams, the drowsy heat of summer afternoons when the air itself seems to hum. It clung to his senses, this intoxicating fragrance that had seeped into his dreams night after night, leaving him restless at dawn with sheets tangled around his waist and the ghost of that sweetness still teasing his nostrils.

It would be so easy.

To pull him closer. To finally learn if his skin tasted as sweet as it smelled. To wring those breathless, broken sounds from his lips, to feel the way his body would tremble when pleasure overtook infuriating pride.

Oscar prayed to every god he'd ever sworn by — Jupiter's thunder, Mars' wrath, even Venus' cursed mercy — to keep himself still. His fingers stayed anchored to the marble bench, his body rigid with restraint even as his blood burned like molten bronze in his veins. The only movement was the rapid rise and fall of his chest, each breath stirring the steam that curled between their nearly touching lips.

"You're wasting your time," Oscar managed, his voice thick with barely-leashed desire. "This performance won't give you what you truly want."

Lando's smirk was razor-sharp as he rolled his hips once more against Oscar’s lap. "Isn't it?" His fingers traced the rigid line of Oscar's jaw. "Your body tells a different story, Commander."

Oscar caught his wrist — not with force, but with devastating precision. Beneath his fingers, Lando's pulse fluttered like a dying bird's wings.The rhythm betrayed Lando completely — not the steady thrum of arousal, but the stuttering cadence of a soldier awaiting execution.

Every frantic beat screamed what his sharp tongue would never admit:

I expect pain.
I know how this ends.
Do it quickly.

The truth shone in the sweat-slick hollow of Lando's throat. In the minute tremor of his lower lip. In the way his body screamed silent pleas:

Take me.
Prove me right.
Be the monster I know you are.

Let me finally stop hoping for something better.

Oscar's thumb stroked the blue-veined vulnerability of Lando's inner wrist, "Bodies react," he murmured, watching how Lando's pupils dilated at the low timbre of his voice.  Each slow circle of his thumb drew another fractured breath from Lando's lips - tiny, vulnerable sounds that resonated through Oscar's fingertips like plucked harp strings.

Then he pressed Lando's palm flat against his chest, letting him feel the thunderous war drum beneath.  "But we choose what we do with those reactions." 

Lando stilled, his breath hitching slightly, though his lips remained parted in defiance. He leaned in, close enough that Oscar could feel the warmth of his exhale against his mouth.

"Such noble sentiments," Lando challenged, but the words lacked their usual bite, cracking at the edges like thin ice over turbulent waters. His body trembled faintly where they connected, betraying him far more effectively than any confession could. "I wonder how long they'd last if I did this..." 

His hips rolled in a sinuous motion that drew a strangled sound from deep in Oscar's throat — half-growl, half-groan, the sound of control fracturing along hairline fissures. The omega's eyes widened slightly at the response, a mixture of triumph and uncertainty flickering across his features.

Oscar exhaled through clenched teeth, the scent of Lando's skin filling his lungs. "Enough.”

"Don't pretend you don't want it," Lando challenged, but his voice wavered. "I can feel how badly you do."

"Want and take are different concepts," Oscar replied. The water lapped gently between them, creating tiny currents that whispered against sensitized skin. "One I've learned to master, the other I refuse to do."

Lando's bravado faltered, confusion washing across his features. "You're... refusing me?"

Oscar reached up, cupping Lando’s jaw with surprising tenderness. "I’m respecting you," he corrected softly. "Even if you refuse to respect yourself."

Lando flinched slightly at the words, as though they'd struck a nerve. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, a defensive note entering his voice even as he remained conscious of Oscar's gentle touch against his face.

"It means that you're worth more than being used as a tool for your own self-fulfilling prophecies," Oscar replied, his voice gentle but firm. "You expect me to be a monster, so you provoke me into becoming one. What satisfaction is there in that?"

Lando's lips parted, words failing him momentarily as confusion and something like wonder crossed his features. His lashes fluttered against his cheeks as he processed Oscar's unexpected gentleness and the truth in his words.

Then Oscar moved, closing the last whisper of distance between them. Water rippled as he shifted, ensuring Lando couldn't ignore the hard evidence of his arousal pressing insistently between them.

"Restraint," Oscar murmured, “is not the absence of desire, Lando." His hips rolled up once, deliberate, wringing a gasp from Lando's lips. "It's the mastery of it."

Lando's pupils dilated until only a sliver of ocean-blue remained, like the last visible ribbon of sea before a storm swallows the horizon. The ripples radiating outward mirrored the shockwaves traveling through his carefully constructed defenses.

"I want you."

Oscar’s voice was raw — stripped bare in a way that would have shocked him mere moments ago. His hands moved beneath the water with a will of their own, finding the sharp curve of Lando's hips. The contrast startled him - how smooth the skin felt under his battle-roughened palms, how perfectly his thumbs fit in the hollows above Lando's thighs.

He could feel Lando breathing - each quick, shallow inhale pressing against his thumbs.

"More than I should," he rasped. His mouth was dry. "More than is wise."

And there it was — that strange, twisting ache blooming behind his ribs.

Not lust — he’d known lust. Not guilt — though it curled at the edges.

But something older, deeper. Something quiet and starving.

It lived in the space between Lando's parted lips, in the way his lashes cast broken shadows across his cheeks in the lamplight. It pulsed in the quiet, terrible understanding that this — them — could never be simple.

The water rippled gently as Lando shivered. For once, no clever quip rose to his lips. His breath hitched — not in triumph, not in mockery, but in something that looked almost like recognition.

As if he felt it too.

That terrifying, nameless thing.

Oscar swallowed hard.

"But not like this." The words cost him more than Lando would ever know.

Lando felt weightless in his hands — fragile in a way that made Oscar's chest tighten. The water dripped from their bodies as he lifted him with reverence, as though Lando might splinter under careless touch. 

His fingers lingered at Lando's waist a heartbeat too long, his palms cradling the delicate curve of hipbones as if memorizing their shape. The warmth of Lando's skin seemed to brand itself into his hands even as he let go.

Oscar rose, water cascading down his skin, the cool air hitting his heated flesh as he stepped out of the bath. He didn't look back — not at the way Lando's hands hovered in the empty space between them, not at the unspoken tension in his parted lips.

"So that's it?" Lando's voice was almost unrecognizable — raw and small, missing its usual sharp edges. "You walk away and pretend this never happened? How convenient for your precious honor."

For one treacherous heartbeat, he almost turned. Almost gave in to the pull — to gather that trembling form against his chest, bury his face in the curve where neck meets shoulder and say something soft, something doomed.

Instead, Oscar reached for a linen cloth, drying himself with methodical precision before wrapping it around his waist. The thin, damp fabric did nothing to hide his obvious erection, but he didn't bother trying to adjust it. His body's reaction was what it was - no point pretending otherwise after everything that had just happened. 

Let him see, Oscar thought bitterly. Let him look his fill.

"Continue your campaign to prove me a monster if you must," Oscar said quietly but firmly as he prepared to leave. His voice carried neither anger nor resentment — just weary resignation. "Break more vases. Refuse more meals. Bathe in every fountain on the property. I will continue to replace the vases, provide alternative food, and perhaps invest in more private fountains." 

Behind him, the water stirred. A quiet splash, then the soft, liquid sound of a body shifting position. Oscar didn't need to turn to know how Lando would look - the way the steam would curl around his bare shoulders, how droplets would cling to his collarbones before tracing slow, glistening paths down his chest. The image burned behind Oscar's eyelids, vivid and unwelcome.

"When I next go into heat," Lando called after him, his voice trembling in that particular way that made Oscar's teeth grind together, "we'll discover the truth of your restraint, Commander." A droplet splashed - Oscar could picture it running down Lando's throat, that vulnerable hollow where an alpha's teeth might- He cut the thought viciously. "Of your pretty words about choice and agency." 

Oscar's jaw clenched hard enough to hurt. Heat bloomed low in his gut as unwanted images flooded his mind - Lando's body arched toward him, sweat-slick and pliant, that sharp tongue finally silenced by pleasure. His alpha instincts snarled to turn back and show him exactly how thin his precious restraint truly was.

It was the cruelest kind of thirst — to cup water in his palms and let it slip through his fingers.

"Until then," Lando continued, voice carrying across the water with unexpected vulnerability, "tell yourself whatever helps you sleep at night. That you're different from other alphas. That your restraint makes you noble." Lando's voice dropped to a whisper that nonetheless echoed through Oscar's bones, "And I'll keep telling myself that when the moment of truth arrives, you'll be just like all the rest — so I won't be disappointed when you are."

Oscar's breath came ragged through clenched teeth. He focused on the pain in his palms,  the way his damp skin prickled in the air, the cool marble beneath his feet — anything to keep from turning around.

A single step forward. The marble floor felt like ice beneath his bare feet, a stark contrast to the fever burning beneath his skin. Then another. Each movement required monumental effort, as if the humid air had turned to syrup, resisting his retreat. The door stood ahead, a promise of escape, of silence — of solitude where he could finally fucking breathe without Lando’s presence wrapping around him like a noose.

He didn't look back.

Alone in the empty corridor, Oscar finally allowed himself to collapse against the wall, his legs giving way beneath him. His forehead pressed against the cool stone as his body shook with silent, shuddering breaths that brought no relief.

Somewhere behind him, in that steam-choked bathhouse, Lando was rising from the water. Droplets would be tracing the paths Oscar's teeth should have marked. His mouth should have traveled. His hands should have claimed.

A ragged, broken sound tore from Oscar's throat — something raw and wounded that no commander should ever utter. 

How pathetic he was.

He'd marched through fields of corpses without flinching. Endured torture that made hardened soldiers beg for death. Yet here he stood - unmade by nothing more than a scent, a memory, the phantom sensation of heated skin beneath his palms.

Oscar's body betrayed him with every step. His muscles, trained for decades to obey, now trembled like a youth's first battle.The night air should have cooled him, but instead, he remained enveloped in Lando’s lingering scent  —  one that made his mouth water like a starving man’s.

His legs moved without command — carrying him into the garden like a deserter fleeing a losing battle.

Moonlight painted the colonnades silver, the night suddenly too bright, too sharp. His knees struck stone as he collapsed beside the fountain, his reflection staring back — a stranger with wild eyes and bared teeth.

Oscar stared into the fountain's dark waters, his reflection fragmenting with each ripple. It was the desire itself that would destroy him — this relentless, all-consuming hunger that clawed at his insides, that made his skin too tight for his body. The wanting. The needing. The impossibility of having.

This torment was worse than any battlefield wound, more cruel than the torturer's blade. At least against physical pain he could fight back, could grit his teeth and endure. But against the relentless ache Lando inspired?

His fist struck the water's surface, shattering his reflection. The ripples revealed his fate more clearly than any oracle's prophecy — he wouldn't meet his end on some glorious battlefield, wouldn't fall defending Rome with gladius raised high. No, his undoing would be the insatiable yearning that now consumed him from within, the desperate craving for what remained forever out of reach.

It would find him in the dead of night when his traitorous hands ached to touch what they shouldn't, when his body trembled with needs no honorable alpha should entertain, when the memory of golden skin and honeyed laughter tormented him more fiercely than any enemy's blade ever could. 

The irony might have been laughable — if it didn’t ache so bitterly. He who had conquered provinces, who had made kings kneel before the eagle standards of Rome, now found himself conquered by an omega who hadn't even tried. His downfall would come not from possessing Lando, but from the exquisite torment of never having him — from the endless nights spent imagining what could never be his, from the phantom touch of skin he would never feel, from the echoes of pleasure he would never know.

This was how empires fell. Not through siege or betrayal. But because one irreverent, impossible omega had slipped past every defense — not with violence but with existence itself. Simply by being who he was — stubborn and clever and utterly, devastatingly alive in ways Oscar had forgotten men could be.

The thirst itself would be his executioner.

Oscar exhaled, slow and shattered. Let the empire fall. Let the world burn. He was already on his knees. And Lando hadn't even asked.

Chapter Text

The villa had never been so unnervingly quiet.

It wasn’t the absence of noise, exactly — Oscar could still hear the distant splash of fountains, the murmur of servants in the halls, the rustle of cypress branches in the evening breeze. No, it was the absence of him.

The absence of chaos incarnate. Of that wild, crackling energy that lived in Lando’s very bones — an untamable spark that lit everything it touched.

Oscar caught himself pausing at doorways, muscles tensing instinctively for the inevitable crash that should have followed — another of his prized vases falling victim to Lando’s relentless boredom. His ears strained for the outraged cries of peacocks that should have been screeching through the gardens, driven to madness by Lando’s uncanny ability to mimic their mating calls — a talent that left the birds so deeply offended they refused to fan their tails for days afterward.

He missed the arguments. Gods preserve him, he actually missed Lando's passionate dissertations on the criminal inadequacy of Roman cuisine, delivered with the fervor of a philosopher defending his thesis while shamelessly stealing olives from Oscar's plate. He missed how simple remarks about the weather could spiral into fierce debates on everything from military strategy to the proper way to train horses.

Oscar saw him still, of course. Caught glimpses of him moving through the villa like a shadow given form — flitting through the colonnades at dawn, his footsteps silent on the marble. Sometimes he'd enter a room only to feel the faintest trace of his scent in the air, just enough to make his breath catch before it was gone. When they crossed paths — and they did, inevitably, at meals or in the library, Lando would offer the barest incline of his head — polite, distant.

It was wrong.

All of it.

Like hearing a lyre play half its strings. Like a feast with no salt. Like waking to find the sun had forgotten how to burn.

Now, Lando walked with measured steps. Spoke in even tones. Wore his Roman tunics with studied grace, reclining on dining couches like a courtesan trained to please the eye.

Looked at Oscar not with challenge or defiance or even hatred, but with... nothing at all.

The emptiness was worse than rage. Rage, at least, acknowledged his existence.

Some nights, lying awake, Oscar wondered if he'd invented the wild, radiant creature Lando had been. Perhaps that other Lando — the real one, the wildfire one — had only ever existed in the spaces Oscar himself had carved out for him. In the way he'd let arguments stretch beyond reason, just to watch Lando's eyes flash with passion. In how he'd pretended not to notice stolen olives because the smirk Lando wore while taking them was worth a thousand perfect meals.

Or maybe he had been nothing more than a trick of the light — a burst of color against the sterile backdrop of Oscar’s world, so vivid it left an afterimage behind his eyelids. Just a desperate fantasy Oscar's lonely mind had conjured to fill the empty spaces in regimented monotony of his rigid, gray military life. A phantom stitched together from all the things he had wanted but never asked for.

The thought alone made his nights endless. Each time Oscar turned it over in his mind, the hollowness in his chest grew sharper, as if he were carving out pieces of himself with every recollection.

Because if that was true, then the ache in his chest wasn't for the loss of Lando.

It was for the loss of himself — the version of Oscar that only existed when Lando looked at him with that particular, world-altering fire.

***

Oscar's hands moved mechanically along the length of his gladius — long, practiced strokes of the oiled cloth. The blade didn't need polishing - hadn't needed it for the last hour — but Oscar continued the rhythm — up, down, turn — as if sheer repetition could wear away the tension coiled in his shoulders.

Zakary's voice droned from the doorway, reporting on household affairs.The words washed over Oscar like distant waves — vineyard yields, kitchen inventories, stable reports. He nodded absently, his attention fixed on the sword's edge catching the light with each pass of the cloth, hypnotic and meaningless.

"—the new shipment of amphorae arrived from Capua. The oil merchant sends his regards and—"

Up. Down. Turn.

"—and the head gardener suggests we might consider expanding the herb garden. The cook has been requesting more variety for the evening meals, particularly—"

Up. Down. Turn. The rhythmic motion of blade maintenance usually calmed him, but today Oscar's reflection in the polished steel looked fractured — a dozen distorted fragments that refused to coalesce into something whole.

"—and the stablemaster reports the new Thessalian stallion—"

"How is Lando?"

The question slipped out before Oscar realized it. His hands stilled mid-motion, the polishing cloth frozen against steel.

He hadn't meant to ask. Hadn't even been aware of the thought taking shape in the back of his throat until his traitorous tongue gave it voice — raw, unguarded, dangerously revealing.

Zakary blinked, thrown off rhythm. "The Iberian has been unexpectedly compliant, Domine." 

"Compliant," Oscar repeated flatly, inspecting the blade.

"Yes, Domine." Zakary sounded as bewildered as Oscar felt. "He takes his meals promptly, speaks courteously to the household staff, and has made no requests save for additional reading material. Philosophy, mainly. Some poetry. A treatise on Roman law that I confess surprised me — it's quite advanced."

Oscar dragged his thumb along the flat of the blade, feeling the metal's chill seep into his skin. "Has he..." He forced his fingers to resume their work. "Asked for anything else? Mentioned any... particular needs?"

"None, Domine." Zakary's brow furrowed. "If I may say... he seems quite content  to occupy himself quietly.."

Content. 

Lando had never been content with anything — not captivity, not comfort, certainly not that night, when he'd slid into Oscar's lap in the baths like he belonged there, and for one reckless moment, Oscar had almost—

A sharp sting bloomed across his palm. He looked down to find the blade's edge biting into his flesh, a thin line of red welling up against the polished steel.

Zakary started forward. "Domine—"

"Leave it." Oscar watched, transfixed, as the blood traced the contours of his lifeline. "See that the Iberian has whatever texts he requires. And..." The words stuck, dry in his mouth. He swallowed. "If he asks for anything else. Anything at all. He's to have it."

Even if he demands the very heart from my chest, Oscar thought. Let him carve it out himself if he wishes.

As the door clicked shut, Oscar pressed his wounded palm flat against the cool stone. The marble drank his blood greedily, the dark stain spreading like spilled wine. 

The pain grounded him — clean and bright as sunlight after days of suffocating in shadows. Simple. Unlike everything Lando had ever made him feel. Oscar flexed his hand, watching fresh blood well in the cut. Let it hurt. Let it scar. Better this tangible wound than the invisible, shapeless one festering beneath his ribs each time he thought about Lando. 

***

By the sixth day, Oscar was convinced he was losing his mind.

He had taken to rising early, lingering in the shadows of the colonnade just to catch a glimpse of Lando at daybreak — when the light was soft and the world still quiet enough that he sometimes forgot to guard his expressions. This morning, Oscar found him sitting by the pool, lost in thought, fingers tracing idle patterns in the water. Each touch sent ripples dancing across the surface, breaking his reflection into fleeting fragments before it could settle whole again.

What do you see in that troubled water? Oscar wondered, pressing closer to the marble pillars.

Did the ripples show him the fire-glow of Tarraco's fall? Did they twist into the silhouette of Carlos, vanishing into smoke?

Or did they merely mirror the hollow shape of everything he’d lost?

For one reckless, heart-stopping moment, Oscar had considered speaking — though he had no words prepared, no plan beyond the desperate need to bridge this unbearable distance between them — had even taken a step forward — but then Lando had turned, and his face had smoothed into that infuriatingly polished mask.

"Commander." 

The greeting had been respectful, distant, empty of everything he craved to hear.

Oscar had fled like the coward he was.

Now he sat picking at his dinner in the triclinium, trying to convince himself that the knot in his chest was hunger rather than something far more complicated, when familiar laughter echoed from the atrium. Rich, irreverent, utterly unrepentant —
it rolled through the marble halls like thunder promising rain, and Oscar’s head snapped up.

He would have known that laugh anywhere. That laugh — gods, that laugh could raise the dead or wake sleeping Vesuvius. There wasn't another soul in Rome who laughed like that — like he'd just heard the gods themselves tell a particularly filthy joke and couldn't wait to share it with the nearest willing audience. 

"Daniel," Oscar muttered, setting down his wine cup as footsteps approached with that familiar, self-assured swagger.

"Oscar, my dear, brooding friend!" Senator Daniel Ricciardo burst into the dining hall like a force of nature, spreading his arms wide. His white-toothed smile blazed against sun-darkened skin that spoke of afternoons spent in gardens rather than hunched over scrolls like proper senators. "Surely you didn't think you could hide away in your provincial paradise without eventually attracting the attention of proper Roman society?"

He inclined his head in a mock courtly bow. “I was passing through — well, relatively speaking — and simply couldn't resist the opportunity to grace your undoubtedly lonely existence with my sparkling presence."

Despite everything — the chaos in his chest, how every thought still circled back to Lando like a trapped bird beating against cage bars — Oscar felt his lips twitch upward. Daniel had always possessed this particular gift: the ability to make the world seem less impossibly complicated simply by treating everything as an elaborate entertainment designed for his personal amusement.

"I was beginning to think you'd forgotten where I lived." Oscar replied, gesturing for the servants to prepare another place. 

"Impossible," Daniel replied with theatrical horror, helping himself to the empty couch with his usual dramatic flair. "Your villa is the only one with that particularly grim statue of Divine Augustus scowling at visitors in the entryway. One couldn't forget it if one tried — that judgmental marble glare haunts my dreams, I tell you."

He accepted wine from a hovering servant, pausing to survey the solitary table setting with exaggerated horror. "Good gods, Oscar, please tell me you haven't been dining alone like some tragic hermit contemplating the fundamental meaninglessness of existence. This melancholy bachelor act is beneath you — and more importantly, it reflects poorly on my taste in friends."

"Just enjoying the peace," Oscar replied, watching servants arrange fresh dishes. The lie slipped out with startling ease. Peace? No. But Daniel didn’t need to know that. "Though I should have known it wouldn't last with you within fifty miles of decent wine."

"Peace is for the elderly and the dead," Daniel declared, raising his cup in mock salute. "And last I checked, you qualified as neither. You'd wither away without me here to remind you there's more to life than military reports and border disputes." His dark eyes sparkled with anticipation. "Speaking of which — you're missing the most delicious scandals currently convulsing the Senate. The stories I could tell..."

Oscar felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease despite himself. This was familiar territory — Daniel's gossip, harmless and entertaining, requiring nothing from him but the half-listening and the occasional interested noise. "I'm sure they're suitably salacious," he said, accepting the fresh wine cup a servant pressed into his hands. "Though I'm equally sure they're at least half fiction."

"The best scandals always are," Daniel agreed cheerfully. "But this time, my dear skeptical friend, reality has surpassed even my considerable imagination. Take our beloved Emperor, for instance — Max has managed to create more drama than a Greek tragedy, and with considerably less artistic merit."

He paused to take an appreciative sip of wine, clearly savoring both the vintage and Oscar's reluctant attention. "You know he was engaged to Kelly Piquet? That arrangement the Senate spent months negotiating to secure those lovely trade agreements with her father's territories?"

"I'd heard something to that effect," Oscar said carefully. Imperial gossip was treacherous ground, but Daniel had never been one to let wisdom interfere with entertainment. 

"Poof!" Daniel flicked his fingers. "Gone faster than virtue in a brothel. Three days ago. Sent back every last denarius of the bride price, her family's heirlooms — even those painfully proper little letters she wrote him. Though between us," he added conspiratorially, "if those were love letters, I'm a Vestal Virgin. Read more tax ledgers."

Oscar raised an eyebrow. "That seems... politically unwise." 

It was, perhaps, the understatement of the century. The Piquet alliance had been the cornerstone of Rome's northern strategy, a carefully negotiated treaty that had taken two years to arrange.

"Oh, but that’s the beauty of it. Max doesn’t care about ‘politically unwise.’” Daniel purred, his eyes alight with the glow of a man about to deliver the killing blow of gossip. "My sources—” he paused meaningfully, they both knew those "sources" included half the imperial bedchamber staff and several senators' mistresses. "—claim our divine Caesar canceled the Piquet contract for one spectacular reason."

Oscar's cup froze midway to his lips. His mind supplied the answer before Daniel could speak it. That name, always that name, floating through marble halls like incense smoke or plague miasma depending on who breathed it.

No. Not him. 

Anyone but him.

"Charles Leclerc," Daniel confirmed his worst fears, watching the minute twitch beneath Oscar's left eye with the delight of a gambler revealing a winning hand. "I can't decide if he's the most principled man in Rome or just spectacularly stupid to keep playing hard-to-get with an emperor.

Of course it's Leclerc. Oscar closed his eyes briefly. It's always Leclerc these days.

Daniel shrugged with elaborate nonchalance. "Personally? If Caesar so much as glanced in my direction, I'd be sprinting to his chambers before he finished blinking." His eyebrows danced suggestively. “Barefoot and shedding clothes along the way, if that's what pleased him."

Oscar exhaled, staring into his wine as if the dregs might reveal some semblance of sanity. His thumb traced the cup's embossed scene of Apollo pursuing Daphne in eternal, futile chase. The irony wasn't lost on him — gods pursuing mortals who would rather become trees than submit to divine desire.

"Naturally," he muttered. "Because nothing secures an empire like throwing away strategic alliances to chase a man who'd rather take a scorpion to bed."

Daniel's laughter bounced off the frescoed walls, startling a slave arranging pomegranates nearby. "But wait! When the Senate demanded an explanation — and gods know they demanded one, practically foaming at the mouth — our beloved Emperor claimed Jupiter himself appeared to him in a vision, forbidding the union with Piquet's daughter."

He covered his mouth with his hand, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Between us? I suspect the only ‘vision’ that ruined his engagement was Leclerc in that Sidonian silk at the Floralia feast — translucent enough to make even me," he adjusted his toga with exaggerated modesty, "a man who's bedded half the priestesses from here to Alexandria, need an immediate cold plunge."

Oscar's strategist mind — usually so disciplined — made a rare tactical retreat from the vivid image of silk clinging to Leclerc's undoubtedly exquisite frame — though he’d witnessed firsthand the devastating effect of that particular combination. Instead, his thoughts raced ahead: the Piquet legions folding their banners, supply lines requiring complete realignment, diplomatic corps scrambling to placate betrayed allies.

And somewhere in this damned city, Charles Leclerc was probably lounging in some sun-drenched courtyard, blissfully unaware of the chaos he caused — or, more infuriatingly, perfectly aware and entirely unconcerned.

"This will embolden every tribal leader beyond the Alps," Oscar observed coldly. "Verstappen’s practically gift-wrapped an invitation for them to test our borders."

"Love," Daniel declared with philosophical grandeur, "makes fools of gods and emperors alike. Though I'd wager Max considers this particular folly worth every disrupted treaty and sleepless night it costs him."

He nudged Oscar's foot with his sandal. "But really, must you turn even a scandal into a battlefield report? I bring you Rome's juiciest drama and you analyze it like a military dispatch. Where's your sense of romance, your appreciation for a beautiful disaster?"

"Romance is a luxury I can't afford," Oscar replied, though something in his chest twisted at the words. "Someone has to think about the aftermath."

Daniel stretched like a sun-drunk cat, his gold armbands glinting. "Oh, my dear, perpetually serious friend, Rome thrives while you wither over your dusty scrolls. You could learn from Briatore — now there's a man who remembers how to savor life's... sweeter pursuits.  Gods, to still have that man's... enthusiasm..." He trailed off with a suggestive chuckle, "and his frankly embarrassing budget for romantic pursuits at his age." 

"He's still chasing after omegas?" Oscar exhaled through his nose, fingers tightening around the stem of his cup. "I thought he'd finally accept that his courting days ended when Mars' Temple was still new."

Daniel's grin turned absolutely feral. "Ah, but he's found a jewel this time — young Franco from the Colapinto family." He rested his chin on a jeweled hand.  "You've seen him, surely? That coltish beauty who nearly overturned his quadriga at last month's races — though I suppose you don't trouble yourself with attending social events."

Oscar remembered Franco all too well. The Colapinto patriarch had presented his omega son last summer — a transparent, almost pathetic attempt to curry favor with Rome's military elite. Franco had been a vision of youthful innocence, his toga virilis still crisp with newness, clinging to his father's arm like a vine to an oak. Those wide, dark eyes had taken in the spectacle with unguarded wonder, so different from the jaded stares of Rome's elite. There'd been something painfully vulnerable in the way he'd laughed — bright and uncalculated, untouched by the world's cruelty.

The kind of purity that made men like Briatore salivate.

"That boy's barely out of his toga praetexta," Oscar said with visible disgust. "I'm certain he still smells of his mother's milk."

"Sweet, isn't he?" Daniel purred, licking wine from his thumb. "Eighteen summers old and already has every alpha in Rome sighing at his feet. Yet somehow our Flavio convinced himself—"

"—that what? A child raised on honey cakes and bedtime stories wants some withered satyr panting after him?" Oscar's voice carried sharp contempt. "Even for Briatore, this is a new depth of delusion."

Daniel's laughter rang through the atrium. "Precisely! Poor Franco looks ready to throw himself from the Tarpeian Rock every time Briatore appears with another 'generous offer' for his hand. This old peacock hired the entire chorus to follow the boy through the Forum, singing odes to his 'sun-kissed shoulders' at all hours."

A pang of sympathy twisted in Oscar's chest. Franco was just a boy — soft-eyed, trembling and painfully young, caught in a game he'd never asked to play.

Daniel shook his head with theatrical pity. "Poor lamb's taken sanctuary in Diana's temple, while his parents conveniently develop hearing problems whenever Briatore's money chests open." He sighed, taking a deliberate sip of wine before continuing. "Pathetic, really. Franco’s probably composing his own funeral ode as we speak."

"Someone should put that ancient fool out of his misery," Oscar’s expression darkened. "That boy deserves better than to be some aging libertine's latest conquest."

Daniel's eyes sparkled with sudden inspiration. "Actually, now that I think of it, why shouldn’t you play the hero? The Colapinto family would probably throw their son at your feet for half what Briatore's offering — and let’s be frank," his lips curled, "you’d be getting the far sweeter deal. Franco's got those enormous dark eyes and that golden skin, absolutely gorgeous. And unlike Briatore," his gaze slid over Oscar, assessing, "you might actually interest him."

Marriage rarely crossed Oscar's mind - there was always another battle to fight, another border to secure. But now he couldn't stop thinking about Lando's wedding, the one that should have happened if things hadn't turned out the way they... had. The one that perhaps, in some stubborn corner of his heart, Lando was still waiting for.

Carlos Sainz remained a mystery to Oscar, but he'd clung to one fragile hope — that the man might have deserved him. Someone who could have matched Lando's fire, stood equal to that brilliant, infuriating spirit. Not some panting old relic like Flavio, buying youth to pretend his own hadn't slipped away.

The idea of Lando bound to such a man was unbearable — Oscar wanted, needed to believe there had at least been someone worthy of standing beside Lando Norris. Someone who would see more than just a pretty omega to claim and display.

"I'm not in the market for a spouse," he said more sharply than intended.

"Your profound loss," Daniel shrugged, entirely unbothered by Oscar's tone.  "If I weren't so devoted to my delightful vices — and if marital fidelity didn't sound so dreadfully dull — I'd make an offer myself.”  He took another sip, grinning. "Though I suppose domestic tranquility might interfere with your brooding schedule. Can't have that."

He waved dismissively, already moving on. "Speaking of domestic tranquility — or rather, spectacular lack thereof — Nico and Lewis have elevated mind games to an art form." He fanned himself with his napkin. "I'm convinced Rome stands not on the sacred flame of Vesta, but on the sheer volcanic energy of their arguments. Should a day ever pass without hearing their shouts echo through the Curia, I'll immediately order mourning wreaths — for clearly the world must be ending."

Gods, what have I missed while campaigning in Iberia? Oscar thought ruefully. Every homecoming after long campaigns felt like stepping into foreign territory. The city that had raised him now felt alien, and its social warfare wearied him more than any siege. 

"I should have stayed beyond the sea," Oscar muttered into his cup, suddenly nostalgic for the straightforward violence of the frontier. "There, when men act like idiots, nature kindly removes them before they can reproduce more stupidity."

"Oh, my dear battle-hardened friend," Daniel purred, swirling his wine with deliberate slowness, "you fail to appreciate the sheer poetry of it all. I thank Mercury every day for guiding me from the brutalities of war to the Senate’s hallowed halls — where else could I witness such magnificent spectacle?

Oscar raised an eyebrow. "They're still...?"

"Oh, they're very much still. They fight like gladiators, fuck like fertility deities, then spend weeks not speaking to each other over some perceived slight that the rest of us can never quite understand." 

He shook his head with fond exasperation, clearly enjoying the telling. "Last month, Lewis stormed out of a military briefing because Nico had the audacity to agree with him about Germanic troop deployments. The betrayal in his eyes!" He clutched his chest. "You'd think Nico had suggested disbanding the legions and taking up flower arranging. Poor Senator Rosberg looked ready to faint when Lewis snarled, 'Since when do you support my strategies?' as if consensus were the vilest of insults."

A reluctant chuckle escaped Oscar's lips at the image. "And Toto still hasn't murdered them both?"

"He threatens to drown them in the Tiber at least thrice daily!" Daniel crowed. “I swear the poor man regrets that fateful day he took two promising tribunes under his wing more than Romulus regretted making Remus his co-founder." He shook his head, the lamplight catching the amusement in his eyes. "Now he spends his days alternating between playing nursemaid and threatening to post them to guard frozen outposts in Britannia — separately, of course."

Oscar found himself genuinely intrigued despite his black mood. "Let me guess — three days later they were inseparable again?"

"Oh, my sweet summer soldier," Daniel's grin was absolutely radiant. "Three days later, Lewis arrived at Nico's villa with every flower vendor in Rome trailing behind him like a triumph procession. Roses from Paestum, lilies from Antium, enough orange blossoms to drown the Empire in scent."

He paused for maximum effect, savoring Oscar's raised eyebrow. "Then — and Jupiter strike me down if I lie — the great Lewis Hamilton dropped to his knees in Rosbergs's atrium and delivered a marriage proposal so moving it would have made Venus herself sob. Before the entire household, mind you. Servants, neighbors, probably half of Rome watching through the windows."

Oscar nearly choked on his wine. "You're having me on."

"On my sacred honor as a senator and citizen of Rome," Daniel confirmed with unholy glee, raising his right hand in mock solemnity. "Apparently three days of reflection convinced him that life without Nico's particular brand of brilliant, maddening perfectionism wasn't worth living. Nico, of course, being Nico, made him grovel beautifully for a full hour before finally saying yes — but not before making Lewis promise to stop treating Germanic negotiations like personal vendettas against him specifically."

"And Hamilton agreed to the conditions?" Oscar asked, genuinely amazed. Lewis had never accepted limitations on anything — his pride was legendary even by Roman standards.

"With unseemly enthusiasm," Daniel confirmed. "The man walks through the Senate now like he's conquered his eighth province. They're planning an autumn wedding, and I hear Lewis has already commissioned a statue of Cupid for their garden. Disgustingly romantic, if you ask me." 

He took a satisfied sip of wine, clearly enjoying Oscar's bemused expression. " It's almost nauseating how happy they are, except they're both so obviously perfect for each other. Three years of public brawling and private reconciliation proved that much — some storms are meant to rage together rather than apart."

Oscar rubbed his forehead wearily. "I'm petitioning the Emperor tomorrow to send me to Parthia. No, better yet, send me straight to the underworld. It's got to be more peaceful than this circus."

"Don't be such a cynic," Daniel waved the hovering slaves away with an imperious flick of his hand and took it upon himself to refill Oscar’s cup. "Think of it as free entertainment. Better than the theater, really — the actors aren't nearly this good-looking or emotionally invested in their performances."

He paused, studying Oscar over the rim of his cup with the calculating look. "Though there's something almost poetic about it, isn't there? A man who spent half his life refusing to bend, finally finding someone worth kneeling for. And someone who refused to settle for anything less than complete surrender." 

Oscar snorted dismissively. "You've gone soft, Ricciardo."

"Perhaps," Daniel said, drawing out the word thoughtfully. "But watching two stubborn bastards finally admit they'd rather fight together than apart... there's something to be said for love conquering pride, don't you think?"

Oscar didn't know how, but Daniel had somehow struck a nerve. He stared into his wine, suddenly agonizingly aware of the empty space beside him — the absence of someone who might be worth compromising for, worth the terrifying vulnerability of genuine feeling.

Someone like Lando.

Before he could formulate a response — or drink enough wine to avoid needing one — the soft whisper of silk against marble drew his attention to the triclinium's entrance.

Lando appeared in the doorway like something conjured from fever dreams and midnight prayers.

He stood framed there, breathtakingly untouchable, his features arranged with the serene indifference of the divine frescoes gazing down upon them. The effect was devastating — as if one of those painted gods had stepped down from the walls to pass judgment on mortal folly.

The deep blue toga — the one Oscar had commissioned from the finest weaver in Rome, the one that had gathered dust in Lando's chambers for weeks out of sheer stubbornness — now draped his lean frame like liquid starlight. 

All of Rome could have burned in that moment and Oscar wouldn't have noticed. Not with the way the silk moved with him as he breathed, catching lamplight and shadow, making Oscar hold his very breath - terrified that blinking might shatter this impossible vision like fragile glass, sending Lando back into the realm of dreams where he so often haunted Oscar's nights.

Oscar would never admit, not under threat of crucifixion, that he'd thought of Lando's eyes when selecting that exact shade. The rich, impossible blue of the Aegean at twilight, deep enough to drown in, transforming his already striking gaze into something almost supernatural. If he'd spent an obscene amount of coin achieving that precise match, if he'd sent backbolt after bolt until finding one that satisfied his exacting standards — well, that secret would accompany him to his funeral pyre.

Lando looked perfect. Even his hair, usually a riot of untamed waves that spoke of Iberian winds and freedom, had been ruthlessly conquered — though a single rebellious strand curled defiantly at his temple. That one imperfection only emphasized the flawless whole, like the deliberate flaw Persian carpet weavers included to remind viewers that only gods achieved true perfection.

But gods forgive him, Oscar thought desperately, Lando came dangerously close.

Yet it was his expression that sent ice through Oscar's veins, freezing the admiration in his chest.

Politely blank. Detached. Impeccably composed. A flawless mask where Lando's face should be, beautiful and empty as the marble statues lining the garden paths.

"Forgive the intrusion," Lando said, his fingers lacing together in front of him. Each syllable was perfectly measured, as deliberate as the placement of his feet on the mosaic floor. "I was told we had guests and wished to pay my respects."

His gaze swept past Oscar, settling instead on Daniel with polite curiosity. As if Oscar were nothing more than expensive furniture — present, functional, but hardly worth acknowledging.

Daniel, meanwhile, had gone completely still on his couch, his wine cup froze halfway to his lips. His dark eyes widened as he absorbed every detail of Lando's appearance with the intensity of a connoisseur presented with an unexpected masterpiece. Oscar could practically see his pulse quicken, could smell the subtle shift in his scent — that immediate, hungry interest no alpha could fully mask.

Of course Daniel would want him, Oscar thought with bitter resignation. What breathing alpha wouldn't?  

But Daniel, to his eternal credit, recovered faster than most men would have. Oscar watched his friend's fingers flex briefly around the cup before setting it aside.

"No intrusion whatsoever," Daniel breathed, rising smoothly to his feet. His smile was all charm, warm and appreciative as he inclined his head. "Senator Daniel Ricciardo, completely at your service and deeply honored by this unexpected pleasure."

"Lando Norris of Tarraco," Lando replied politely, dipping his head slightly. "Though I suppose 'of Rome' would be more accurate now."

Rome doesn't own you, Oscar nearly said before biting back the words — absurd, given the circumstances. You were never meant for this.

Not in Rome had Lando been born, not in Rome had he fought, not in Rome had he almost pledged himself to another. The sun of Tarraco still lived in the dusting of golden freckles across his nose, still curled stubbornly in those unruly waves of hair — no amount of Roman silk could disguise that.

Daniel tilted his head. It was perfectly calibrated, like everything Daniel did, and Oscar hated how effortlessly his friend could slip into the cadence of seduction, as if charm were a language he'd spoken since birth. As if he didn’t even need to mean it to make it work.

"I've heard tales of Tarraco's fiercest son,” Daniel continued, his voice dropping into that velvet register Oscar knew all too well — the one that had melted resistance from senators and courtesans alike. "But clearly our poets have failed in their sacred duty to truth and beauty. No verse could..." His gaze traveled over Lando with deliberate appreciation, lingering where the blue silk clung to the lean lines of his torso. "Do you justice."

Lando's lips curved into a smile that didn't reach his eyes — but Oscar caught the slight flush that warmed his cheekbones. Despite everything, despite the careful mask he wore, Daniel's attention was affecting him.

"Poetry has always struck me as the art of saying too much about too little," Lando murmured. "Though I am curious - does a man of your standing truly have time for such... frivolous pursuits? Doesn't Rome keep her senators occupied enough?"

Oscar found himself unable to speak, barely able to breathe. He simply watched - watched the way Lando's lashes cast delicate shadows when he blinked, the way Daniel's fingers kept curling and uncurling, as if already imagining the feel of Lando's skin beneath them.

A sickening helplessness washed over him, leaving him raw and exposed. It was as if someone had peeled back his ribs to examine the tender, unprotected thing he kept buried deep — the part of him that still remembered the exact weight of Lando's body against his own, the warmth of his breath against Oscar's lips, that choked little sob Lando had made when he'd—

Oscar cut off the thought, one he had no right to follow.

Daniel laughed, a low, easy sound, and fine lines creased at the corners of his eyes — genuine, unguarded, the kind of warmth that couldn’t be faked. "Oh, if only you knew the tedium of speeches I endure daily," he countered, his hand rising in a graceful gesture that made his gold bracelets chime softly, "you'd understand why I'd trade a thousand such sessions for one evening of..." His gaze had sharpened on Lando. "Stimulating conversation."

He leaned forward slightly, voice dropping to honey-warm intimacy. "Though now I wonder if my abandonment of tonight's tedious gathering wasn't divine guidance leading me exactly where I needed to be."

Oscar lowered his gaze to his wine cup. How many times had he witnessed this exact performance? How many trembling hands had Daniel steadied with those same elegant fingers, only to guide them somewhere more private? Oscar knew intimately the way patrician wives' fans would flutter like wounded birds when Daniel passed, how young omegas' scents would sweeten unconsciously in his wake, drawn irresistibly like petals unfolding beneath the golden glow of his attention.

But this was different. This was Lando.

Oscar felt a dark thrill coil in his chest - he wanted, with sudden vicious intensity, to see Daniel's legendary charm break like waves against Tarraco's cliffs. To watch Rome's most accomplished seducer falter when faced with the one person who couldn't be bought with pretty words or practiced smiles.

Let Daniel taste what it was like to want something he couldn't have — just once.

"Please," Oscar heard himself say, the word emerging with more force than intended. The sound of his own voice startled him — he hadn't meant to sound so... invested. But the sight of Lando had unraveled something in him. As always. "Join us."

And as Lando finally — finally — turned his head to meet Oscar’s gaze, his expression was…

Nothing.

Just the cool, dispassionate courtesy of a man who knew his place.

"If you're certain my presence wouldn't be presumptuous," Lando replied, holding Oscar's stare with unsettling steadiness. "I wouldn't wish to intrude upon your evening with your friend."

"Quite the contrary!" Daniel assured him with genuine warmth. "Any conversation graced by your presence would be infinitely improved. In fact, I absolutely insist — the evening would be tragically diminished otherwise.” He extended a hand toward the empty couch with a flourish. “I'd sooner drink poison than let you slip away now." 

Servants materialized as if summoned by thought alone, setting a third place with the household's finest silver. Lando lowered himself onto the dining couch with fluid poise, the blue silk pooling around him like water. He was close now — close enough for Oscar to breathe him in. Ice-cold Lando shouldn't have smelled like this: like Iberian sunlight, golden and drowsy, like the baked earth of hillsides in high summer.

He was close enough to touch, if Oscar possessed either courage or right to do so.

Oscar couldn't look away if his life had depended on it. Daniel's easy laughter, the clatter of serving dishes, the swirl of wine in cups — all of it faded into meaningless noise against the gravitational pull of Lando's presence. Oscar wanted—

What exactly did he want?

For just once, just once , to be the one who drew that breathless attention instead of Daniel with his easy charm and golden laughter? To have the right to look at him openly — to study him, admire him, drink in every detail without stealing glances like some shameful thief?

Or perhaps simply to sink to the cold floor, press his forehead to the sharp bones of Lando's knees, and choke out the words rotting his throat: Look at me, look at me, why won't you ever really look at me?

"So," Daniel's voice sliced through his thoughts, rich with amusement as he reclined against the cushions with obvious pleasure, "Oscar's been keeping you quite to himself lately. Surely that can't be as entertaining as it sounds?” He shot Oscar a look that was equal parts teasing and calculated. "Though I suppose there are worse fates than being the exclusive company of our commander here."

The words were light, playful — the kind of teasing barb that passed between friends. But Oscar knew Daniel too well not to recognize the game being played: he was mapping uncharted territory, probing the fragile space between Oscar and Lando like a tongue testing a loose tooth. 

And it was painfully obvious in the way Daniel’s gaze lingered on Lando’s face, studying every flicker of reaction like a gambler reading dice.

Lando’s smile twitched. "The Commander has been most... generous in allowing me to find my own entertainments within his household. Though I suspect he finds my presence more tolerable when those entertainments take me far from his sight."

Daniel's eyes sparkled with genuine admiration as he swirled his wine. "Ah, but what a tragedy for Rome if you were kept locked away here," he mused, his voice warm with sincerity. "A man of your intellect and grace should be shared with the world, not hidden away in solitude." He leaned forward slightly. "Though I can't blame our Oscar for wanting to keep such a treasure all to himself."

"I am not—" Oscar began sharply, then caught himself before the words could betray too much. "Lando is entirely free to choose whatever company he prefers. I have no claim on his time or attention."

Lando went very still, his gaze darting quickly to Oscar — eyes widening slightly before he looked away. "Yes," he said, the word coming out too fast, almost brittle. "The Commander and I make no demands on each other’s time."

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.

Then Daniel laughed, bright and effortless, shattering the tension like glass. "Well then!” He said, raising his cup in a toast, "let’s drink to new entertainments.”

***

But as the meal progressed, everything became infinitely worse.

Daniel, seemingly oblivious to Oscar's discomfort — though Oscar knew his friend well enough to recognize the calculated nature of his apparent obliviousness — had turned his considerable charm fully toward Lando. He was a master craftsman at work, and Lando...

Lando flourished under the attention like a parched vine finally tasting rain — his laughter freer, his posture looser, his eyes bright with a fire Oscar hadn’t seen in days of suffocating silence.

Oscar might as well have been dining alone. He contributed only when directly addressed, offering monosyllabic responses that did nothing to encourage further inclusion in their increasingly intimate conversation.

By the time servants began clearing the final course, Lando was leaning forward in rapt attention, occasionally reaching out to touch Daniel's arm when a particular observation struck him as especially clever.

This isn't real, some desperate part of him insisted. It can't be.

But the alternative — that Lando might actually be enjoying this — was infinitely worse.

"Is it true what they say about Iberian riding techniques?" Daniel tore off a piece of bread, waving it animatedly. "That your warriors can control their mounts using only their legs, leaving both hands free for weapons?"

"Among other things," Lando replied, and Oscar could hear the unmistakable note of pride in his voice. "We learn to ride before we learn to walk. The horse becomes an extension of the body."

"Fascinating," Daniel murmured, chewing thoughtfully as his gaze swept over Lando with undisguised interest. He swallowed before adding, "I'd love to see a demonstration sometime. I consider myself a decent rider, but this sounds like a whole different art form entirely."

"Perhaps that could be arranged," Lando said, his voice dropping to a silken cadence as he thoughtfully traced the rim of his cup with one finger. "If my... host... permits such liberties."

"I'm certain Oscar wouldn't deny such an innocuous request," Daniel said, shooting Oscar a look that was equal parts challenge and amusement. "Would you, my friend?"

Oscar forced himself to relax his grip on his cup before he shattered it entirely. "As I said, Lando is free to demonstrate any skills he wishes," he said evenly. "Provided they don't involve throwing knives at my household staff."

"That was once!" Lando protested, the sudden spark in his eyes like sunlight breaking through storm clouds — and for a heartbeat, Oscar saw him again as he'd been weeks ago: unguarded, vibrant with that wicked wit that had first drawn Oscar in. "And Zakary agreed he deserved it for entering my chambers unannounced."

"Knife-throwing as well?" Daniel sounded delighted. "Your talents are numerous and varied, it seems."

"You have no idea," Lando replied, and the low, intimate tone made Oscar's blood simmer.

Daniel’s voice dropped to match Lando’s. "Then I find myself eager to learn.” The fine linen of his toga pulled taut across his shoulders, revealing the lean strength beneath its folds as he leaned in closer. "Perhaps we could ride out tomorrow? I'm a poor student, I'm afraid, but an enthusiastic one."

The words sent Oscar reeling back to that storm-lashed night - the memory striking with visceral clarity. The weight of Lando's unconscious body in his arms, frighteningly limp. The way the crimson wool of his commander's cloak had darkened to blood-black in the rain as he'd wrapped it around Lando's shivering form. How even in delirium, Lando had instinctively burrowed closer, his fevered brow seeking the warmth of Oscar's throat, his breath ghosting across damp skin with each shallow exhale.

He wanted to drive his fist into something. Preferably Daniel's perfect teeth. 

Lando was quiet for a long moment, his gaze flickering between Daniel and Oscar with an expression Oscar couldn't read.

"I would be delighted, Senator. It's been too long since I've had the pleasure of proper company."

"The stables will provide whatever mounts you require," Oscar said quietly. "I'm sure you'll both find the countryside... entertaining."

Daniel's smile was triumphant, though he had the grace not to appear too obviously pleased with his victory. "Excellent. Shall we say dawn? I find the morning light particularly flattering for beautiful companions."

"Dawn," Lando agreed, his voice soft with something that might have been anticipation or challenge or simple pleasure at the prospect of escape. "I'll be waiting."

Daniel's smile deepened, his teeth flashing white against his sun-darkened skin. He shifted on the cushions, the movement deliberately slow, making the silk of his toga whisper against the couch. "Careful," he murmured, reaching to pluck an invisible speck of dust from Lando's shoulder, letting his fingers linger. "Promises like that might make a man forget his duties."

Daniel sighed dramatically, though his eyes burned with undisguised hunger. "Alas, I should retire," he said, making no move to rise. "Before I do something terribly irresponsible, like... keep you from your rest when you'll need your strength for tomorrow's... lessons."

"Must you retire so soon?" Lando asked, and the disappointment in his voice was unmistakable. "The evening has been so... illuminating. It's been wonderful to have such engaging conversation."

"For me as well," Daniel replied, his gaze never leaving Lando's face. "I find myself quite reluctant to end such charming company. But tomorrow promises even greater pleasures, doesn't it?"

Lando's smile bloomed radiant. "Indeed it does. I look forward to it more than I can express."

Oscar's knee knocked the low table as he jerked upright, sending wine sloshing over silver goblets.

"I'll escort you out." He straightened awkwardly, clasping his restless hands behind his back.

"Of course," Daniel replied smoothly, though his attention remained fixed on Lando. Rising with panther-like grace, he captured Lando's hand in both of his, turning it palm-up to press a lingering kiss to the delicate wrist. "Until tomorrow," he murmured against the fluttering pulse point, "though the wait may very well kill me."

"Until tomorrow, Senator." Lando's fingers twitched but didn't withdraw from Daniel's grasp. Instead, his pinky curled ever so slightly around Daniel's thumb - a small, intimate betrayal that sent white-hot fury coursing through Oscar's veins.

Daniel’s grip tightened, swallowing Lando’s hand whole as he drew their joined fingers to his chest. "I beg you - call me Daniel. "His thumb stroked the delicate webbing between Lando's fingers, "Hearing 'Senator' from those lips..." He shuddered visibly. "It's torture. I'll have to abdicate my seat in the Senate."

A gentle flush crept up Lando's neck, painting his cheeks the color of sunset beyond the villa walls. His lips curved as he whispered, "Until tomorrow... Daniel."

Oscar turned and walked from the room before he did something irreversibly catastrophic. The last thing he heard was Daniel's low chuckle, Lando's soft, musical laugh in response — and the sound of his heart breaking into a thousand irreparable pieces.

***

"Well," Daniel mused as they walked through the torch-lit colonnade, his voice dripping with smug amusement. "That was certainly... educational."

Oscar didn't bother to look at him, his jaw set in a hard line as he continued walking. "Was it," he replied flatly, the words clipped and final.

"Oh, don't take that tone with me." Daniel's grin was utterly unrepentant, practically radiating satisfaction. "You can hardly blame me for admiring what you seem determined to ignore right under your own roof."

Oscar stopped so abruptly that Daniel nearly collided with the suddenly immovable wall of his back. When Oscar finally faced him, his expression could have flash-frozen the Tiber in high summer.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning," Daniel said, lowering his voice but keeping that infuriatingly amused quality, "that you have the most exquisite omega I've ever encountered living under your roof, and you're pretending not to notice.” He tilted his head. "If I were you, I'd have made him mine before the first evening star appeared."

"Lando is not a possession to be—" Oscar began sharply.

"No," Daniel interrupted, "he's not. He's a person. A brilliant, gorgeous, devastatingly attractive man who deserves to be appreciated properly. And tomorrow, when I show him exactly how much he's worth appreciating..." He shrugged with deceptive casualness. "Well, that is going to drive him straight into my arms. And my bed." 

Daniel’s gaze locked with Oscar's. "Unless, of course, you'd care to demonstrate first?"

Oscar’s breath came sharp. "You don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Don't I?" Daniel tilted his head, considering him like a particularly interesting specimen. "Let's see. Brilliant — obviously. Beautiful — undeniably. A smile that could make a man forget his own name — I witnessed that firsthand tonight. And yet, here he is, unclaimed, untouched, despite the Emperor himself handing you the right to brand him like a proper alpha should."

"He’s promised," Oscar snapped. "To the commander of Tarraco’s forces. They were betrothed before the siege. His alpha left to rally allies — Lando stayed to hold the city."

For just a moment, Daniel's confident expression faltered, revealing something almost like genuine surprise. Then it was back, sharper than before. "Is that so?" He arched a brow. "How romantic. And where is this fortunate man now? Still in Iberia, I assume? Or has he found himself... delayed?"

Oscar’s silence was answer enough.

Daniel exhaled slowly, shaking his head. "Right. So. Let me summarize this tragic tale of yours." He began counting on his fingers with theatrical precision. "Your Lando has a betrothed — somewhere, presumably alive, presumably aware he exists — who hasn't bothered to come retrieve him in, what, months? And yet you—" He made a sweeping gesture toward Oscar, his expression caught between pity and disbelief. "You're playing the noble guardian, keeping him untouched like some temple virgin?"

"It’s not that simple," Oscar ground out.

"It’s exactly that simple," Daniel corrected, stepping closer — so close now Oscar had no hope of hiding from his gaze. "He’s here. He’s unclaimed. And unless this phantom lover comes riding through the gates tomorrow—" He shrugged with deliberate casualness, "—then as far as I’m concerned, the field is open."

“I won’t force him,” Oscar whispered, desperate.

Daniel threw his head back with a laugh that echoed off the marble columns. "Oh, Oscar," he said, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes. "How very noble of you. But here’s the thing, my virtuous friend — I don’t plan on forcing him either. I do, however, plan on making it very difficult for him to remember why he ever swore himself to a man who clearly can’t be bothered to claim him."

Oscar felt something inside him crumble. His hands hung useless at his sides, and he dropped his gaze, unable to meet Daniel’s anymore.

"I’ve already said — he’s free to make his own choices," he repeated hollowly.

"Exactly," Daniel agreed with surprising gentleness. "He is. The question is — when he does, will you be able to live with that choice? Or will you spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been if you'd had the courage to reach for him?"

Oscar turned on his heel and strode away. These days, his life seemed measured in footsteps walking away — though whether from Daniel's taunts, Lando's impossible presence, or from himself, he couldn't say.

The walk to the stables passed in heavy silence, broken only by the crunch of gravel underfoot and the distant call of a night bird. As they stepped inside, the warm, earthy scent of hay and horses enveloped them — leather, oats, and the musky sweetness of fresh straw. Oscar jerked his chin at a drowsing groom, who startled awake and scrambled to bridle Daniel's horse.

The white stallion greeted Daniel with a familiar nudge, pressing its velvet muzzle into his shoulder. "Ah, there’s my beauty," Daniel murmured, stroking the powerful arch of the horse's neck. His sharp gaze flicked to Oscar. "Some creatures only flourish under the right... hands."

In one effortless motion, he mounted. The stallion pranced beneath him, hooves striking sparks against the stones, as attuned to Daniel's tension as a bowstring to its archer.

"Mark my words, old friend, — tomorrow, when I spend the day showing Lando exactly how desirable he is, when I remind him what pleasure really is... that beautiful, brilliant young man is going to make a choice. And unless you find the courage to give him a reason to choose differently, it won't be you."

Daniel winked, his white teeth flashing in the dark, before adding, "And well. I suppose we'll see where his loyalties lie, won't we?"

Without waiting for a response — perhaps recognizing that Oscar had none to give — Daniel clicked his tongue and slapped the flank of his stallion. The powerful beast needed no further urging, its muscles bunching as it sprang forward with a snort, hooves striking sparks against the cobblestones. One moment they were there — Daniel's silhouette proud against the torchlight — the next, swallowed by the night, darkness, leaving only the acrid scent of disturbed dust hanging in the air.

Oscar stood motionless long after the hoofbeats had faded, staring at the empty path where Daniel had vanished. Then, slowly, his shoulders slumped — as if an invisible weight had settled across them, pressing down until his spine curved under its burden.

Too late.

The choices had already been made. Tomorrow would come regardless, bringing with it consequences he wasn't sure he was brave enough to face.

***

Oscar pressed his forearm hard against his eyes, as if he could physically push the thoughts away. The pressure sparked colors against his eyelids — bursts of red and gold that did nothing to blot out the image burned into his mind: Daniel's lips brushing the delicate skin of Lando's wrist, the way their intertwined fingers had pressed against Daniel's chest as if sharing a heartbeat, Lando's careless caresses along Daniel's hand.

The sheets were too hot. The air too thick. His own skin felt ill-fitting, stretched too tight over bones that ached with something he refused to name.

What remedy existed for this sickness? Distance? He'd tried that — yet like a man cursed, he always found himself circling back to Lando. Indifference? A laughable concept. Violence? His hand spasmed around the half-healed cut across his palm. He'd driven himself to collapse in the training yard day after day —  blades dulled from overuse, knuckles split and bleeding — but no amount of physical punishment could excise this relentless ache behind his chest.

A sound escaped him — something between a growl and a groan. He rolled onto his side, pressing his face into the pillow like he could suffocate the feeling. It didn't work. Nothing worked.

In the heavy silence of night, regret washed over him in waves.

Gods, if he could turn back time — if the Fates granted him one mercy — he would never have taken that damned crimson cloak from the Emperor's hands. Would never have set foot in Iberia. Would have stayed in his Father's villa, content with sun-drenched afternoons and the whisper of olive trees.

He regretted the years spent building a military career when he could have been — what? He didn’t even remember who he was before this, before Lando. The man he’d been seemed like a stranger now, hollow and untethered, a shadow compared to the wildfire that had consumed him since the moment their paths crossed.

Oscar punched his pillow with unnecessary force, then immediately felt foolish for the childish gesture. This was madness. Lando wasn't his to claim or control. He had made his feelings about captivity abundantly clear from the first day. If he found Daniel's company agreeable — preferable, even — what business was it of Oscar's?

None, he told himself firmly. None whatsoever.

Yet sleep remained elusive, chased away by images his mind insisted on conjuring: Daniel and Lando riding side by side through sun-dappled woods; Daniel reaching over to adjust Lando's posture, hands lingering at his waist; Daniel drawing Lando into the shade of an ancient olive tree, their faces close, breaths mingling…

Lando would wake tomorrow and dress and break his fast, entirely unaware that somewhere in this villa, Oscar lays in ruins because of him. Because of the way his hair caught the light. Because of the particular cadence of his voice when speaking his mother tongue. Because of a hundred insignificant details that had somehow become vital to Oscar's survival.

Oscar's hand drifted downward almost against his will, fingers brushing against the growing heat between his thighs. A sharp breath hissed through his teeth as his traitorous body responded instantly to the mere thought of—

No.

He wrenched his hand away as if burned, rolling onto his stomach with a muffled curse. The sheets scratched against his oversensitive skin, every nerve ablaze with bitter, skin-deep humilation. This was beneath him. Worse — it was a betrayal of everything he'd promised himself about maintaining control, about restraint, about dignity.

But his body didn't care about dignity.

His fingers trembled as they found the edge of his tunic again, slipping beneath the fabric. The first brush of his own calloused fingertips against his abdomen sent a shock through him — too rough, too harsh, nothing like the delicate hands he imagined tracing these same paths.

But gods, he could see them — Lando's fingers, elegant and sure, mapping the planes of his body with a scholar's curiosity. Could feel the whisper of his breath against Oscar's neck as he leaned close, his lips parting around words Oscar would never be worthy to hear.

A ragged sound escaped him as his hand drifted lower, his hips lifting instinctively into his own touch. Shame burned through his veins, but it was nothing compared to the heat pooling in his gut, molten and relentless.

He shouldn't.

Gods, he shouldn't.

But the images came anyway — unbidden, unwelcome, searing themselves behind his eyelids with cruel precision.

The way Lando's storm-blue eyes would widen if Oscar dropped to his knees before him like a man in prayer, hands trembling as they pushed apart those perfect thighs.

The broken, beautiful sounds he'd make when Oscar finally took him apart with nothing but his fingers and patience, drawing out pleasure until Lando sobbed from the sheer overwhelming rightness of it.

The way his gaze would shatter when Oscar whispered every depraved, worshipful things he'd locked away in the darkest corners of his mind — words he would sooner die than speak aloud — how perfect he looked like this, how badly Oscar wanted to ruin him, how he'd sell his soul just to hear Lando say his name once. Just once.

With a snarl, Oscar gave in.

His hand slid down his abdomen, fingers skimming the trail of coarse hair below his navel before wrapping roughly around his cock. He was already hard, shamefully so, the flushed length of him hot against his palm, the swollen head leaking precome onto his stomach.

Pathetic.

He tightened his grip, hissing at the sharp burst of pleasure-pain as his calloused fingers dragged over sensitive skin. There was no finesse to it, no tenderness — just brutal, punishing strokes, as if he could scour away his own weakness through sheer force.

His hips jerked up into the contact, betraying him with their eagerness. The sheets beneath him were rough against his thighs, the friction almost painful, but he welcomed it. He deserved it.

A particularly harsh twist of his wrist wrenched a choked sound from his throat. His thighs trembled, his stomach muscles clenching as pleasure coiled tight in his gut, but he refused to relent. He wanted it to hurt. Wanted to remember, after, why this was a mistake.

The room was silent save for the slick, filthy sounds of his hand moving over his cock, the occasional bitten-off groan he couldn’t quite suppress. Sweat beaded along his spine, trickling down the dip of his lower back, his skin feverish with desperation and need.

He thought of Lando’s mouth.

Thought of how it would feel wrapped around him, hot and wet and willing for once, instead of just yielding out of necessity. Thought of the way his lips would stretch, the way his tongue would press against the underside of his cock, the way his throat would convulse when Oscar pushed too deep.

He twisted his hand again, the pain sharp enough to make his vision white out for a second. Lando would never—

But gods, how he ached for it. Ached to be touched the way Lando had touched Daniel earlier — like something coveted, not just endured.

His hips stuttered, his breath coming in short, desperate gasps as his orgasm built, inevitable and damning. He could feel it — the tightening in his stomach, the way his balls drew up, the unbearable pressure coiling at the base of his spine.

His mind went blank, obliterated by a single, searing thought: Lando. Lando. Lando —

Release hit him like a blade between the ribs — a white-hot burst of pleasure so intense it bordered on agony. Oscar’s back arched off the bed, his muscles locking as his cock pulsed in his fist, spilling over his fingers in thick, shameful stripes across his abdomen. Still his hand moved, working himself through it with near-brutal efficiency, milking every last drop until his fingers were sticky and his oversensitive flesh ached.

For a moment, he simply lay there, chest heaving, staring at the ceiling as if the answers to his torment might be written in the cracks of the plaster. The air smelled of sex and sweat and something bitter — the acrid tang of self-loathing clinging to his skin like a second shadow.

With a grimace, he dragged his soiled fingers across the rough linen coverlet, the fabric scratching against oversensitive skin. The stain would be invisible come morning, but he would know it was there — a permanent mark of his failure.

Sleep should have claimed him then — his body was spent, wrung out, his muscles heavy with exhaustion. Yet he lay there — eyes dry and burning, pulse still thrumming unevenly — as his thoughts churned like storm-tossed waves.

Why him?

It wasn’t as though Oscar was some green boy untouched by desire. There had been others before. Logan, for one — steady, uncomplicated Logan, whose warmth had been comforting, whose body had been willing, whose scent had never once made Oscar’s blood sing like this. Their couplings had been... pleasant. Efficient. A simple transaction of mutual relief, unburdened by any ties or expectations.

Logan had been safe.

Logan had been simple .

Logan had never haunted his dreams, had never made him lie awake in the dead of night, aching, as if his very bones were carved hollow with want.

But Lando?

Lando was a storm barely contained in human skin. Lando was sharp edges and sharper words, a mind like a blade and a tongue that could flay a man alive. Lando was unbroken pride and defiant grace, a flame that refused to gutter even when the world poured its darkest waters upon him.

And Oscar hungered for him with the desperate, clawing need of a man who had tasted ambrosia and could no longer stomach mortal fare.

He turned his face into the pillow, inhaling the fading scent of his own release, yet the ghost of Lando still clung to him. It wasn’t in the sheets or the air or the sweat drying on his skin — it was in him , woven into the fabric of his being, as if Lando had pressed his fingers to Oscar’s pulse and left a mark no water could wash away.

He could drown himself in wine, could scrub his skin raw, could flee to the farthest edge of the empire where Rome's eagles didn't fly.

It would still be there.

Oscar exhaled, slow and ragged, and dragged himself upright. The sheets were a lost cause.

So was he.

He rubbed a hand over his face. Outside, the night pressed against the shuttered windows, black and endless. Dawn was still hours away, and Oscar couldn't decide if he wanted it to come faster or never arrive at all.

He tried to sleep. Tried not to think. Tried not to bury himself deeper, though he couldn't imagine how much lower a man who had already debased himself so completely could possibly sink.

He failed on all counts.

***

Dawn came — inevitable, unrelenting, indifferent to the night that had preceded it, no matter how long or merciless it had been.

Oscar stood at the edge of the courtyard, his shadow stretching long and thin across the flagstones. He hadn’t meant to watch them leave. Had told himself he wouldn’t.

Yet here he was, drawn like a moth to flame, helpless against his own self-destruction.

Daniel was already mounted, lounging in his saddle with effortless nonchalance, exchanging some bawdy joke with the stable master that made the old man's ears turn red. But Lando—

Lando lingered.

He stood beside the restless black Andalusian stallion, his fingers working methodically through the horse's tangled mane. There was something almost intimate in the way he touched the animal - the way his long fingers, usually so quick with a blade, now moved with surprising tenderness. The stallion, known for its vicious temper, stood unnaturally still under his ministrations, its ears flicking back to catch the low murmur of Lando's voice as he spoke in that liquid Iberian dialect.

Even the beast bent to his will. Even creatures without reason recognized that instinctive pull — the primal need to step into his orbit, to bask in the warmth that radiated from him like midday sun. There was something in his very presence that promised sanctuary — as if the world's sharp edges softened simply because he stood near.

Oscar had seen it before — had seen it in the way Tarraco's soldiers had fought to the last man, even when the walls crumbled around them. They had followed him, not out of fear, but because of this — this quiet, unshakable force that lived in the set of his shoulders, in the steadiness of his gaze.

Men marched to Tarraco’s gates knowing they would die there — and had done so gladly, because to stand in his light was to feel invincible, if only for a moment.

And now, this proud, violent beast stood docile as a newborn lamb under his hands, as if the storm in its blood had stilled simply because Lando willed it so.

Daniel twisted in his saddle with a self-assured grin plastered across his face as he adjusted his stirrups. "You sure you can handle that beast?" he called to Lando, nodding at the black stallion. “He looks like he'd rather take a chunk out of you than carry you anywhere."

"He's fine," Lando glanced up, fingers tightening briefly in the horse’s mane. The stallion huffed, pressing its muzzle against his shoulder as if in agreement. "Just needs someone who knows what they're doing." His voice dropped, softening as he turned his face toward the stallion's ear. "Aren't you, darling? All that rage, all that fire — but underneath, you just want someone to understand you."

Something in Lando's voice sounded almost defensive — as if they weren’t talking about the horse at all.

One fluid motion and he was astride the stallion, his thighs flexing as he settled into the saddle with the unconscious grace of a man who'd been born to it. The morning breeze caught his loose tunic, pressing the thin linen against the lean strength of his body for one tantalizing instant before fabric fell back into place.

Then, as if sensing the weight of Oscar’s gaze, he turned.

Their eyes locked across the courtyard, and for the first time, Oscar saw something unfamiliar in Lando's gaze — a hesitation that hadn't been there before, as if some hidden part of him was screaming to stay even as his body prepared to leave.

His lips — usually pressed into a firm, unyielding line — parted slightly, just enough that Oscar could see the faintest tremor in his breath, and for a heartbeat, he could have sworn he saw the words forming.

Ask me.

Ask me to stay.

Ask me, and I will.

But Lando didn’t speak.

Instead, his lashes lowered for the briefest moment, as if steeling himself. When they lifted again, his face was smooth — unreadable, as always — as though that flicker of vulnerability had never existed at all.

"Ready then?" Daniel called, already turning his horse toward the gates.

Lando's shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly. "Coming!" he replied cheerfully but the words came too loud, too forced against the morning stillness. He gathered the reins with a sharp tug, but Oscar didn't miss the way his knuckles whitened around the leather, the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard before urging the stallion forward.

Oscar didn't stay to watch them disappear beyond the gates. Couldn't bear to see the moment when Lando truly left him behind.

Life goes on, he thought bitterly. It always did. But he wasn't sure he wanted this life - this hollow, aching existence where he stood perpetually in the shadows, watching what he couldn't have walk away time and again.

***

Oscar had thrown himself into every conceivable task.

By midday, he'd reviewed every ledger on the villa twice. His fingers were stained black with ink, his neck stiff from hunching over columns of numbers. He approved new vineyard expansions, signed off on grain shipments, and drafted letters to merchants until his handwriting grew sloppy with fatigue.

Physical exhaustion was an old friend. He knew its contours well - the satisfying burn in his shoulders after sword drills, the pleasant ache in his thighs from riding patrols. He could fight it, conquer it, emerge victorious.

But no matter how many hours passed, no matter how many reports he signed or orders he barked, his mind kept circling back to the same unwelcome thought:

Where are they now?

Had Daniel taken Lando to the olive groves? The riverbank? Or some hidden meadow where the only witnesses would be the whispering grass and the indifferent sky?

By evening, his patience had worn thinner than the last light clinging to the horizon. He stood in his study, gripping the edge of his desk, when the distant sound of hoofbeats finally reached him through the open window.

Oscar’s body moved before his mind could protest, carrying him back to the same cursed spot where he'd watched them leave.

The fading sunlight painted them in gold as they crossed the threshold, still astride their horses. Dust clung to their clothes like a second skin, their faces flushed from the ride and something else — some shared joy Oscar couldn't name. 

Lando was incandescent. His hair, tousled by the wind, caught the fading light in a thousand copper strands that danced about his face like living flame. His skin, already burnished by the sun, seemed to glow from some inner radiance as he threw his head back in laughter at Daniel's remark — a real laugh, unrestrained and musical, the kind Oscar had never earned and likely never would.

They moved together in perfect harmony — Daniel's dark curls tumbling over his forehead as he leaned in to murmur something that made Lando's eyes crinkle at the corners, their horses shifting in mirrored movements. 

They were magnificent in the dying light, Oscar thought. Breathtaking.

Daniel spotted Oscar first, flashing that easy grin of his. "You should have seen him, Oscar," he called, voice rich with admiration. "I’ve never seen anyone handle a horse like that. It’s like they share a mind."

The effect on Lando was immediate. He ducked his head, but not before Oscar saw it - that rare, unguarded pleasure that transformed his face. The way his lashes fluttered against his cheeks, the shy curve of his mouth as he bit his lower lip to contain his smile. The rosy flush that spread from his neck to the tips of his ears, painting his sun-kissed skin in shades of dawn.

Oscar had witnessed countless sunrises over battlefields, seen the first light gild marble temples and mountain peaks — but nothing compared to this. Nothing had ever been so devastatingly beautiful.

Lando dismounted swiftly, running a hand down the stallion's sweat-damp neck one last time before handing the reins to a waiting groom. The horse nuzzled into his touch, blowing warm air through its nostrils as if reluctant to let him go.

"I've invited Daniel to dine with us tonight," Lando said, meeting Oscar's eyes directly. His own were unreadable in the fading light. "If you have no objection."

For one suspended moment, Oscar considered refusing. He imagined the sharp satisfaction of watching Daniel’s ever-present smile falter, of seeing that easy confidence flicker under the weight of a single, cutting no . He could do it. One word, and the evening would unravel before them. No, Daniel. Not tonight. Not here.

But then he saw the way Lando’s fingers flexed slightly at his sides, the subtle tension in his shoulders as he waited for judgment. He looked... expectant. Hopeful, even.

Oscar realized, with a bitterness that seeped into his bones, that if he refused, Lando wouldn't fight. Wouldn't protest. He would simply... accept. Bow his head in that quietly graceful way of his and retreat into silence, picking at his meal alone in some shadowed corner of the villa while the light in his eyes — that rare, fragile warmth — gutters out like a dying lamp.

And Oscar couldn’t bear to be the one who put it out.

"Of course," he heard himself say. "Daniel is always welcome." His voice sounded distant, even to his own ears. "I'll have the kitchens prepare something special."

The lie tasted bitter. There would be nothing special about this meal except its exquisite torture.

Daniel's face lit up as he slung an arm around Lando's shoulders. "Excellent! I've been dying to hear more about those Iberian hunting techniques you mentioned."

As they moved toward the villa, Lando hesitated half a step, casting one last glance at Oscar. His eyes in the fading light were impossible to read - not quite triumphant, not quite apologetic, but caught in that strange middle ground Oscar could never navigate.

He said nothing again, just held Oscar's gaze with that same unreadable expression, as if expecting him to somehow understand the silent language Lando insisted on speaking. As if Oscar was supposed to instinctively know what that look meant - what any of his looks ever meant.

But he didn’t. He never did.

Then Lando turned away, following Daniel inside.

The sight of them walking away together — Daniel's arm sliding down to curl around Lando's waist, their bodies angled toward one another, shoulders brushing as they bent their heads together over some private joke — sent a white-hot lance of pain through Oscar's chest. He stood frozen in the courtyard, the last golden light of dusk painting the scene in cruel clarity.

Lando’s laughter — light, unguarded, happy — floated back to him, and that was the cruelest cut of all - its utter lack of malice. This happiness wasn't designed to exclude him; it simply didn't consider him at all. 

His shoulders sagged.

A sudden, piercing realization struck him - he'd become a stranger in his own home, the dissonant note in what had become, without his noticing, a harmonious duet.

He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t sit through a meal, forcing polite smiles while Daniel charmed Lando with effortless stories, while Lando leaned into his words with that rare, unguarded interest.

So before they could disappear completely into the villa, he called out, his voice carefully stripped of anything that might betray him:

"Forgive me. Urgent matters require my attention tonight. I won’t be joining you for dinner."

Daniel turned, eyebrows raised. "Work? At this hour?" He clucked his tongue. “Honestly, Oscar. Rome won’t crumble if you take one evening for yourself, you know."

Lando said nothing, but his gaze — sharp, assessing — lingered on Oscar’s face for a moment too long, as if he could see right through the lie.

Oscar ignored it. "The guest chambers have been prepared for you, Daniel," he continued, forcing the words out. His gaze flickered to Lando, before adding, "Stay as long as you like."

Stay the night. Stay in his company. Stay until the morning light brushes his curls and you're still there — wrapped in his arms, his voice, his laughter.

Stay everything I can't seem to give him.

Daniel’s grin widened — bright, careless, triumphant — as he pulled Lando closer, his arm slipping around that narrow waist. "Generous as always, my friend." 

Oscar gave a single, clipped nod and turned on his heel. It wasn't until he was halfway down the corridor that he realized he'd been holding his breath.

He was doing the right thing.

He was.

Better to let them have their evening without his stifling presence. Better to remove himself entirely than to poison whatever joy Lando had managed to find in this place that had never been meant to be his home. Better—

His hands clenched at his sides.

Better not to know what they might say, what they might do, when no one else is watching.

***

The study was steeped in oppressive silence, broken only by the occasional sputter of the dying oil lamp. Oscar sat hunched over his desk, reports lay scattered before him - all long since read, all long since signed. The letters blurred into meaningless ink stains as his exhausted eyes refused to focus. 

He had done his duty. Again. And again. The endless cycle of responsibility that had once given him purpose now felt like chains dragging him deeper into the abyss.

And what did it matter, in the end?

Perhaps nothing ever does.

With a sharp shake of his head, he banished the treacherous thought before it could take root in the fertile soil of his weariness. He had learned long ago that despair was a luxury he could not afford — not then, not now, not ever. Men depended on him. His household depended on him. Rome itself, in its small way, depended on the steady flow of reports that crossed his desk now.

Yet the parchment might as well have been blank for all the good it did him now. 

Time moved strangely in the growing darkness. Minutes stretched into hours, or perhaps hours had collapsed into moments — Oscar could no longer tell. With a ragged exhale, he dragged his palms down his face, the pressure of his fingers against his eyelids doing little to ease the dull ache behind them.

This was the price, then, he thought distantly. This was always the price.

But perhaps it was a fair trade - his discomfort for Lando's rare, unguarded smiles. His solitude for the warmth he could hear in Lando's voice when he spoke to Daniel. His own longing, carefully buried, for the happiness he'd never quite known how to give.

A soft knock at his door made him lift his head sharply. For a moment, he considered ignoring it — his body slave had been dismissed, Zakary wouldn't disturb him at this hour unless the villa was burning, and he had no desire to see anyone who might require the mask of command he was too exhausted to maintain.

But the knock came again, softer this time, almost hesitant. Something in the quality of the sound made his breath catch.

"Enter," he called, wincing at the roughness in his own voice.

The door swung open with the faintest creak of hinges.

Lando stood framed in the doorway, backlit by the flickering torchlight from the corridor. The golden glow traced the sharp lines of his profile - the defiant set of his jaw, the elegant arch of his nose, the proud angle of his shoulders. But his eyes...

Blue, like the heart of a flame, like the edge of a blade held to the light. And they were fixed on Oscar with an intensity that made his skin prickle with awareness, as if every nerve in his body had suddenly awakened from a long sleep.

"The senator has retired to his quarters," Lando said without preamble. "I thought... you might want to know that."

Oscar studied his face, searching for clues in the careful neutrality of his expression. But there was nothing — no smirk, no defiance, no trace of the playful insolence that usually danced in his eyes. Just that unnerving stillness.

"You don't owe me any explanations," Oscar said finally.

"No," Lando agreed, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. The click of the latch was startlingly loud in the quiet room. "I don't. But here I am, giving you one anyway."

"You can spend time in the senator's company as much as you wish," Oscar said carefully, keeping his voice level. "He's clearly... taken with you."

Lando didn't move from where he leaned against the door, but something flickered in those blue eyes - a spark of that familiar, frustrating perceptiveness. "But it would hurt you?" The question came softly, almost tenderly, yet edged with something dangerous. "If I did?"

Oscar closed his eyes.

The lie sat ready on his tongue — a simple denial that would preserve what little dignity he had left. It would be easier, certainly. Safer. But what was the point? Lando would see through it anyway. He always did.

"Yes," he admitted, the word raw, stripped bare. "It would hurt me."

Oscar kept his eyes closed, unable to face whatever expression might be crossing Lando's features. He'd said too much, revealed too much, crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed. Let Lando do with that knowledge what he would.

When he finally forced his eyes open, Lando remained exactly where he'd been - leaning casually against the closed door, one shoulder propped against the wood. But his posture, deceptively relaxed, contrasted sharply with the piercing intensity of his gaze.

"He kissed me," Lando said suddenly, phishing himself off the door. "This evening, when he walked me to my chambers. Very... thoroughly. Very skillfully."

Oscar knew. Gods help him, he knew — had seen it in the way Daniel’s gaze lingered on Lando’s mouth, in the way his fingers always found excuses to brush against his wrist, his shoulder, the small of his back. He’d known it was inevitable, had braced for it, had told himself he was prepared.

But knowing something intellectually and hearing it confirmed were entirely different experiences.

"The moonlight was terribly romantic, I suppose," Lando mused, and Oscar watched in horrified fascination as he moved to perch on the edge of the desk, seemingly unconcerned with the careful arrangement of scrolls and documents. His position put him slightly above Oscar's seated form, close enough that the scent of him filled Oscar's awareness. "And the things he whispered — gods, Commander, you'd blush to your toes. All that pretty poetry about my eyes, my lips…" His teeth caught briefly on his lower lip before releasing it. "Well. Some secrets are best kept private."

Lando tilted his head, as if amused by the sight of Oscar's clearly paling face.

"His hands," he continued, swinging one leg idly - the toe of his boot brushing against Oscar's thigh with each movement. "Were surprisingly gentle. One at my waist, holding me close, the other — " He broke off with a coy smile, as if remembering something particularly delightful. "Use that famous strategic mind of yours, Commander. I'm sure you can imagine where."

Oh, Oscar could. In excruciating, vivid detail. Daniel’s palm cradling the back of Lando’s neck. The way Lando’s breath would have hitched when those skilled lips first met his. The soft, helpless sound of pleasure that would escape before Lando could stop it.

This was torture of the most exquisite kind, designed to produce maximum suffering with surgical precision. Every muscle in his body tensed as if preparing for battle — but what enemy could he strike here? The truth? His own foolish heart?

Trapped, he could do nothing but meet Lando's gaze — that merciless blue stare that seemed to see straight through him.

"He wanted to take things further, of course," Lando added, almost absently, examining his nails. "Begged me to come to his chambers. Whispered all these... delicious promises against my skin. Said he could show me pleasures beyond my wildest imaginings." Lando glanced up through his lashes, calculating and cruel. "I almost said yes, you know. He can be... very persuasive when he wants something."

Under that gaze, Oscar felt flayed open — exposed, small, ridiculous in his own skin, which suddenly seemed too tight, too fragile to contain the storm of foolish emotions raging beneath.

It was as if every particle of his being oriented toward Lando with terrifying inevitability — his breath, his pulse, the very blood in his veins. Oscar was helpless against it, a ship dashed against the rocks by an unforgiving tide.

"Almost," Lando repeated softly, picking up a stylus from Oscar's desk and twirling it between his fingers with absent grace.  "But then I thought—" He sighed dramatically, shaking his head with exaggerated pity, "—poor Commander. Sitting here in your self-imposed exile, surrounded by your precious reports and that insufferable dignity of yours. How terribly dreary that must be in comparison."

He lifted his gaze again, eyes gleaming. With a soft click, the stylus found its way back to the desk.

"So I told the senator… perhaps another time.”

Oscar couldn’t breathe.

"Do you think he could?" Lando asked innocently, sliding off the desk to drift closer, close enough that Oscar could count the faint freckles dusting his nose. "Make me forget myself, I mean. Make me... come undone in ways I've never experienced before?"

"Stop," Oscar breathed, his voice breaking on the single word.

But Lando wasn't done. Couldn't possibly be done, not when he'd only just begun to twist the knife. His voice took on a dreamy, faraway quality that made Oscar's stomach turn.

"Can you see it, Commander? Can you picture me in his arms, responding to his touch? Imagine me gasping his name? Think about—"

"Please." The word tore from Oscar's throat like a sob, raw and desperate and utterly without dignity. "Please, don't... don't torture me like this." 

He didn't care how pathetic he sounded. Didn't care that he was begging, that he was revealing the full extent of his vulnerability to someone who had already proven capable of using it against him. He just needed it to stop.

Oscar's voice, when it came again, was rough and broken. "I know I deserve this," he stared down at his own hands resting on his knees, watching as his fingers tightened into fists without his command. "But... please. Have mercy."

Lando froze.

The cruel amusement that had played about his lips moments before vanished. His fingers, which had been toying idly with the edge of Oscar's desk, stilled. For the first time since he'd sauntered into the room, Lando seemed...uncertain. Unmoored.

"Just tell me," Oscar murmured, so quietly the words barely carried. "Tell me it would make you happy. Because if that's true — if he can make you laugh the way you used to, if he can make you feel valued and desired and free — then I'll bear it. I'll watch you ride away with him and I'll be glad for it, because your happiness is worth more than... than whatever."

Because that was what love meant, wasn't it? Wanting someone's happiness above your own, even when that happiness meant your own destruction?

Oh.

Oscar had spent his life studying philosophy under the greatest minds in Rome, had read every treatise on virtue and duty and the proper ordering of one's desires. But none of their teachings had prepared him for this — this all-consuming, devastating love that demanded everything and offered nothing in return.

Love wasn't the pretty verses poets wrote about. It wasn't gentle hands and sweet whispers in the dark. It wasn't the soft sighs and tender glances depicted in frescoes and songs.

No — love was this: standing knee-deep in the wreckage of your own heart, picking through the rubble with bloody hands, and still finding the strength to smile as you handed the last intact piece to the one who'd destroyed it.

It was knowing, with absolute certainty, that you'd let them do it again. And again. And again.

Lando leaned forward until Oscar could feel his breath — warm, maddeningly close. His gaze scoured Oscar's face with near-desperation, flicking from his mouth to his eyes to the faint lines at his brow, as though the truth might be carved somewhere beneath the surface if only he looked hard enough.

What did he hope to find? Oscar wondered wearily. Some proof that this was all a lie? Oscar wished desperately he could offer that comfort. But every raw, humiliating word had been torn straight from the marrow of his soul — and it had been the terrible, aching truth.

And now Lando was looking at him like he was the one who'd been wounded. Like Oscar had somehow struck the blow instead of being the one bleeding out at his feet.

"Why are you so..." Lando began, his voice uncharacteristically small. His shoulders slumped forward slightly, the proud set of them collapsing under some invisible weight. "Why are you such a..."

The question died unfinished. With a sound that might have been frustration or anguish, Lando shoved away from the desk so violently the stylus clattered to the floor. He was across the room in three quick strides, the door slamming shut behind him with a finality that reverberated through Oscar's bones.

Alone now, Oscar became acutely aware of his body's betrayal: the wild drumbeat of his pulse, the way his breath came in short, uneven gasps as if he'd been running for miles.

And the words — oh gods, the words. They rose unbidden from some deep, secret place within him, clawing their way up his throat with terrifying urgency. Words he hadn’t even known lived inside him until this moment:

I love you.

I love you, and it’s killing me. I love you, and I don't know how to stop.

Oscar dragged a trembling hand through his hair. Some loves weren't meant to be enjoyed, he realized with sudden, brutal clarity. Some loves existed only to be endured — heavy and aching, like an arrow left lodged in the flesh because removing it would kill you faster.

And his love for Lando was the kind that left scars, the kind that marked a man forever.

***

Oscar had barely slept — perhaps two hours, if he was generous in his estimation. His eyes felt gritty with exhaustion, and there was a persistent ache behind his temples that even the cool morning air couldn't ease. But duty called, as it always did, and Senator Daniel deserved a proper farewell.

What surprised him, as he approached the main entrance where Daniel's retinue was making final preparations for departure, was the absence of a familiar figure. Oscar's eyes swept the courtyard, expecting to see Lando's distinctive silhouette among the servants and guards. After last night's... revelations... surely Lando would want to see Daniel off? To exchange some private word, perhaps make arrangements for future meetings? 

At the very least, he'd expected some theatrical display of affection designed to twist the knife a little deeper.

But the courtyard held only Daniel and his men.

"Leaving so early?" Oscar asked, forcing his voice into the neutral tones of polite inquiry. "I thought you might stay for the morning meal."

Daniel turned, his dark eyes immediately taking in Oscar's haggard appearance with the shrewd assessment of a man who'd spent decades reading people's faces across negotiation tables. A slow smile spread across his features — not unkind, but knowing in a way that made Oscar's skin crawl.

"Ah, my dear Oscar," Daniel said, clasping his hands behind his back. "You look absolutely terrible. Rough night?"

"I had reports to finish," Oscar replied stiffly, hating how defensive he sounded. "I trust you slept well?" 

But he didn’t need to ask — he already knew exactly how well Daniel had rested.

The evidence was everywhere — in the lazy satisfaction coiled in Daniel’s posture, in the way his tunic sat just slightly askew, as if tugged at by impatient hands. And Lando... Lando had made certain Oscar understood precisely where those hands had been.

He could practically smell Lando's scent clinging to Daniel's clothes. Could picture, with vicious clarity, just how comfortable his guest’s night had been.

"Oh, beyond satisfactory. Your hospitality is legendary, after all." He paused, studying Oscar's face with the calculating gaze of a man who'd spent years reading people for political advantage. "But I suspect you're eager to see the back of me."

Oscar said nothing, which seemed to amuse Daniel further.

"Though I have to say, I'm surprised not to see your lovely Iberian this morning. I rather expected him to see me off. He was quite attentive during my stay."

"Perhaps he's still abed," Oscar managed, proud of how steady his voice sounded. "The hour is rather early, and Lando is not... obligated to anyone's expectations."

Daniel's eyebrows rose. "Is that what you tell yourself?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing, nothing." Daniel waved a dismissive hand, but his eyes remained sharp, calculating. "It's just interesting, the stories we tell ourselves to sleep at night. Or in your case, to stay awake."

Oscar felt heat rise in his cheeks. This was exactly why he preferred written correspondence to face-to-face meetings with his fellow Romans. They all seemed to delight in these verbal sparring matches, these careful dances around uncomfortable truths. It exhausted him more than any military campaign ever had.

"If you have something to say, Daniel, say it plainly."

"Always so direct." Daniel chuckled, but there was something sharp beneath the amusement. "Very well. Your boy — and he is a boy, isn't he, for all his pretty words and clever games — told you quite a story last night, I'd wager."

Oscar narrowed his eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, but I think you do." Daniel stepped closer, voice dropping to intimate register. "I can read it in every line of your face — he gave you all the sordid details, didn't he?"

Oscar wanted to turn away, to end this conversation before it could go any further, but something in Daniel's expression held him frozen in place. There was no triumph there, no satisfaction at a conquest well made. Instead, there was something almost... pitying.

"Gods," Daniel muttered, running a hand through his dark hair. "He's cruel when he wants to be, isn't he? I'll give him that — the boy knows exactly where to place the knife for maximum damage. It's rather impressive, actually, in a terrifying sort of way."

Oscar's breath caught. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying nothing happened, Oscar." Daniel's voice was gentle now, almost kind.  "Oh, I played my part, don’t mistake me — when a beautiful creature bats his lashes at me with those bedroom eyes, I'm hardly made of stone.”

Oscar felt the ground shift beneath his feet. "But he said—"

"He said many things, I'm sure." Daniel fastened the last clasp on his bag with more force than necessary. "What he probably didn't mention is how fast he recoiled when I actually leaned in. One moment he's pressed close enough that I could count his eyelashes, the next — " Daniel mimed a violent flinch, " — like I'd suggested defiling his mother's grave rather than what we'd both been leading toward all evening."

"I don't understand," Oscar said, and was mortified to hear how lost he sounded.

Daniel moved closer, lowering his voice so the slaves couldn't overhear. "Neither do I, if I'm being honest. At first, I thought — ah, perhaps he remembered his beloved Carlos — you know how these Iberians are about their honor and their arranged marriages. And for a moment, I actually respected it - that stubborn, stupid fidelity. But then..."

A dry chuckle escaped him. "But then I realized — if that were true, why begin the game at all? Why lead me step by step to the cliff's edge just to wrench away at the last moment?" 

His eyes locked onto Oscar’s, piercing and strangely gentle. “Unless, of course, the fall was never meant for me.”

In some selfish, shameful corner of his soul, Oscar should have felt relief — vile and ugly as it might be — that nothing had transpired between Daniel and Lando. Yet no such solace came.

Instead, a more terrible understanding took root - that Lando's deliberate deception cut far deeper than any physical betrayal could have. This wasn't about Daniel at all. This was Lando seeing straight through to the most vulnerable parts of him, knowing precisely where he ached, where he bled, and pressing there with deliberate, calculated precision — not out of anger, not even out of vengeance, but simply because he could . 

And Oscar was so, so tired of this.

"You look like you're about to be sick," Daniel observed with clinical interest. "Sit down, man, before you fall down."

Oscar shook his head sharply, though the motion made his headache worse. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because contrary to what you might think, I do possess something resembling a conscience." Daniel's expression grew serious. "And because that boy of yours is playing a game far more dangerous than he realizes."

Oscar wanted to deny it, wanted to defend Lando against the accusation. But he couldn't forget the look in those blue eyes the night before — the cold satisfaction as each word found its mark, the deliberate way he'd positioned himself to cause maximum torment.

Daniel started to climb into the cart, then stopped and turned back one more time.

"Oh, and Oscar? When you see your beautiful Iberian, give him my warmest regards, won't you? Daniel's smile was sharp as a blade. "Tell him my offer still stands. Always. I meant what I said — I'd treat him well. All he has to do is say yes."

The driver snapped the reins, but Daniel leaned out just enough for his final barb to land.

 "And ask yourself this — if he'd lie about me, what else has he lied about?"

As the carriage disappeared beyond the gates, Oscar tilted his face toward the sun. Strange — it was the same sun that had warmed Oscar's childhood, his triumphs, his quiet moments of joy. Yet now its light felt thin, insubstantial, like gilded ice against his skin.

A dry laugh escaped him. He used to believe in absolutes — honor bound in iron, truth as tangible as the sword at his hip. Now even daylight played him false.

How much longer could he endure this? How much more of himself could he sacrifice on the altar of Lando's pain before there was nothing left? He was already a ghost of the man he'd once been — confident, decisive, unshakeable in his convictions. Now he wasn’t sure when the last of him would scatter — or if it already had.

A dry wind stirred the dust where Daniel’s cart had been. The road stretched ahead, empty and endless, just as it had been the day Lando arrived.

Oscar wondered, distantly, how much farther he could walk it before his legs gave out. Before he finally collapsed under the weight of loving someone who might never stop punishing him for it.

***

Oscar found Lando in the inner courtyard, sprawled across the marble bench like a cat seeking shade beneath the sprawling fig tree. 

He lay on his back, head pillowed on his bent arm, the other moved with lazy, almost hypnotic rhythm — fingers trailing along a low-hanging fig branch, stroking the broad leaves with touches so gentle they barely disturbed the surface. There was something almost meditative about the motion, as if he were trying to read secrets written in the veins of each leaf. 

"Did our dear senator depart safely?" Lando asked without turning, his voice carrying that familiar note of mocking amusement. But something was different about it today — hollow, perhaps, as if the mockery were aimed more at himself than at Oscar.

"He did." Oscar moved closer, studying Lando's profile in the dappled sunlight. "He seemed... disappointed not to see you there to bid him farewell."

"How terribly tragic for him." Lando's Lando exhaled dramatically, his fingers never pausing in their idle exploration of the leaf. I’m sure he’ll recover from the devastation of my absence."

Oscar stopped before him, the sunlight dappling through the leaves above painting them both in shifting gold and shadow.  

"You lied."  

Lando’s hand stilled. Slowly, he turned his head to look up at Oscar through dark lashes.

"Did I?" he blinked with feigned innocence."You'll have to be more specific, Commander. Which lie would you like me to confess to first?"

"Daniel told me nothing happened."

Lando tilted his head, studying him. Then he rose from the bench, but Oscar caught the slight tremor in his hands before he clasped them behind his back.

"Does it matter?" he murmured. "Would you sleep better if I swore on the gods it was all a lie? Or worse — if I told you every delicious detail?" His lips curved. "Would you rather imagine me untouched, or know exactly what you’re missing?"  

"Why?" Oscar asked quietly.

"Maybe I was bored," he said, affecting an airy tone that rang painfully false. "Maybe I wanted to see if the great Commander Piastri could be made to suffer like us lesser mortals. Maybe I simply enjoyed watching you squirm."

Oscar felt his hands clench at his sides. He wanted to reach out, to shake Lando, to make him stop hiding behind these cruel games. Instead, he kept his voice steady, patient. "That's not why."

"Isn't it?" Lando's laugh was sharp, almost hysterical. "You think you know me so well, don't you? Think you can see right through all my lies and manipulations to some — what? Hidden purity? Noble heart beating beneath?"

Oscar met his gaze unflinchingly. "I know you're better than this."

"You don't know anything!" Lando’s voice cracked, rising into a desperate shout. "How can you claim to know who I am when I don't even know anymore?" His voice quickened, edged with desperation. "I used to know. I was Lando of Tarraco once. Heir to lands and titles and a future that made sense.”

Oscar's breath caught in his throat as Lando's voice cracked with uncharacteristic vulnerability. He'd never seen him like this — not angry or mocking or cruel, but simply lost. Broken, almost.

"Then I was a captive," his voice hardened, "a prize of war, something to be traded and gifted and used. I could hate that, at least. I could rage against it and plan my escape and dream of revenge." He laughed bitterly. "Simple emotions. Clean ones.”

"Lando—"

"But now?" Lando's voice cracked. "Now I don't know what I am. I'm not your slave — you've made that abundantly clear. I'm not free either, though you pretend otherwise. I'm not your whore, though the Emperor seemed to think that's what I was for. I'm not even properly your enemy, though perhaps I should be." 

He pressed his palms against his temples. "I exist in some space between all these things, and I don't know how to be there."

Oscar wanted to reach out, to offer comfort, but he didn’t dare. Some fragile thread had finally slipped loose between them, and he was afraid that if he reached for it — reached for him — the moment would unravel completely

"I lied because I wanted to hurt you," Lando said suddenly, the words coming out in a rush. "I wanted to make you feel as confused and helpless and exposed as I feel every day. I wanted to watch you suffer the way I suffer, not knowing where I stand or what any of this means or why I—"

Lando shook his head, wrapping his arms around himself, shoulders curving inward as if to make himself smaller.

"I never wanted to be your captor," Oscar said quietly.

"But you are." Lando's voice was matter-of-fact, without accusation. "You are, and you're so... so impossibly good about it. Do you know how difficult that makes everything? 

Oscar blinked, genuinely startled. "Difficult?"

"How am I supposed to hate you when you've never raised a hand to me, never demanded anything I wasn't willing to give?" Lando whirled on him, eyes blazing with desperate frustration. "When you ask instead of command, when you give me space to breathe and respect I have no right to expect. When you look at me like I'm..." He gestured helplessly. "Like I'm worth something beyond just this body, beyond being some obedient omega to warm your bed and spread my legs on command." 

Oscar's heart clenched at the pain in Lando's voice. "You are worth something, Lando. You're worth everything."

"Don't!" The word came out sharp, almost panicked. "Don't say things like that. Not when I don't know what they mean, not when I can't tell if you're just being kind or if you..." A wet, broken sound escaped him as he dragged his hand across his nose, and Oscar saw the first tear threatening to spill over his lower lashes. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be what you want me to be, or what I want to be, or even what any of this means."

The first tear fell — a single, glistening drop that clung to Lando's lashes for a breathless moment before tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. Then another followed, and another, until they fell in a silent cascade. Lando swiped at them furiously with the back of his hand, his jaw clenched tight, but they came faster than he could erase them, carving shimmering paths on his skin.

Oscar reached out instinctively. "Lando, I just want you to—"

Lando jerked away as if burned. "I was built to hate you," he said, voice rising with every word. "Trained for it. You're everything I should despise — Roman, conqueror, the man who holds my leash because your emperor thought I'd make a pretty gift for his favored commander."

Oscard never asked for this — never wanted Lando as a spoil of war. But the truth changed nothing — he was the conqueror. The captor. The man who held the chain, no matter how lightly he tried to grip it.

"It would be so much easier if I could," Lando continued, and this time he made no attempt to stop the tears. "If you were cruel or demanding or if you treated me like the posession everyone says I am. But instead you give me soft words and softer touches—" His breath hitched. "—though I know better than anyone how little I deserve them. Instead you're—" His voice broke completely. "You're you."

A ragged sob escaped him. “And I lied to you about Daniel because— because seeing you hurt was the only way I could convince myself that I could still hate you properly." Lando rushed on, as if afraid that stopping would mean never being able to start again.

His breath came in short, ragged bursts as he clutched at his own shoulders, “Every morning I wake up waiting — waiting for the moment your patience finally snaps. When you shove me against the nearest wall, tear my ridiculous clothes off, and remind me what I really am.” 

Lando's whole body trembled now, and Oscar could see the way his fingers dug into his own arms, leaving red marks on the golden skin. "A conquered omega who's grown too bold in his master's kindness."

“I’ve imagined it,” he said, barely breathing the words. “In every perfect detail — how you'd grip my hips hard enough to bruise, how you'd bite my neck to keep me still, how you'd fuck me — rough, ruthless — just to prove you could.” A bitter smile twisted his lips. "Because that's what alphas do with disobedient things like me."

A sound tore from Oscar's throat — half protest, half wounded noise. It didn’t matter how much he wanted — how fiercely, how hopelessly — gods, he could never—

"And I want you to," Lando continued, a harsh, humorless laugh escaping him. "Because then at least I could hate you properly again. At least then it would make sense."

Oscar stood frozen, helpless in the face of it, unable to reach for him, unable to look away.

Lando choked on another sob. "And I don’t know why I’m telling you this," he whispered, voice crumbling. "As if you could fix it. "There's no winning here, is there? Every day this... this whatever-it-is between us continues, it only—"

He stopped abruptly. Oscar watched in horror as all color drained from Lando's face - his sun-kissed complexion turning deathly pale in mere heartbeats, like wine spilled from an overturned cup. One hand flew to his stomach, pressing flat against the fabric of his tunic with desperate urgency. 

"Lando?" Oscar took a step forward, concern overriding everything else. "What's happened?"

"I'm fine," Lando gasped, "Just... just need a moment..."

But he clearly wasn't fine. As Oscar watched, Lando's knees seemed to give out slightly, and he had to catch himself against the tree trunk to keep from falling. The scent that rose from him was different now — warmer, richer, with an undertone that made Oscar's alpha instincts snap to attention.

No. No, surely not.

Lando seemed to realize it simultaneously. His head jerked up, eyes blown wide with panicked recognition. "Oh gods," he choked out, the words barely audible over his ragged breathing. "No, not now. Please not now—" His protest ended in a strangled whimper as tremor wracked his body, visible in the way his spine arched against the tree trunk.

There was no mistaking it now. The way his body trembled. The fever-bright flush creeping up his neck. The slick, heavy scent thickening the air between them.

Heat. Lando was going into heat.

It wasn’t the full, crushing weight of it yet — just the first whispers,  the warning tremors that preceded the storm — but it was enough. Enough to make Oscar's pulse thunder in his ears, enough to make every muscle in his body lock with the monumental effort of staying still when every instinct screamed at him to move, to touch, to protect.

Lando remained frozen, one arm wrapped protectively across his stomach. His lips parted — not in speech, but in silent, stunned realization — before his lashes fluttered like moth wings against his cheeks.

Then, with a quiet, almost graceful surrender, he collapsed.

Oscar saw the exact moment it happened. Saw the light leave Lando's eyes as his knees buckled. He was moving before thought could catch up — muscles coiling, boots scraping against stone as he lunged forward, arms outstretched. 

Lando’s body met Oscar’s chest with a soft, breathless impact, his weight pressing fully against him as if pulled by some unseen force. Oscar's hands found their places without thought — one splaying wide between Lando’s shoulder blades, the other curling around the dip of his waist — holding him, sheltering him, pulling him close enough that Oscar could feel the racing of his heart.

Lando's weight settled against him, boneless and pliant. His head lolled against Oscar's shoulder, the heat of his skin searing even through layers of fabric. The scent of him — ripe figs, sun-warmed honey, the salt of exertion — was overwhelming this close, curling into Oscar's senses like smoke from a sacred brazier.

Oscar adjusted his grip, fingers pressing into the delicate arch of Lando’s waist, memorizing the feel of him even as he knew it would only make the inevitable hurt worse.

He knew he should move. Knew he should call for help, should do anything but stand there drinking in the feel of Lando's body against his. Yet he remained frozen, knowing this stolen moment would haunt him long after Lando woke.

Because Daniel was right — that's what love did. It made fools of wise men and beggars of kings. And Oscar, for all his titles and triumphs, was no exception.