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With My Heart and Soul

cw: unhealthy relationships, period-typical slurs

Prompt 22 - whole hearted love @thepromptfoundry

Drusus saw the drink coming and, in his defense, he did take a step to the right to avoid it. Except, he wasn’t sure he did take a step to the right. Maybe it was to the left? Or forwards? Backwards would’ve given him more of a chance of dodging but he wasn’t that lucky.

In other words, Drusus got drenched in one of the best wine in Roma and he didn’t even manage to keep his mouth open for it. Shame. A casket of it would’ve fed his vices for a month or so.

Someone laughed and slapped him on the back, making him stumble forwards. Drusus almost thought he’d be renamed the foolish drunkard of Roma if he slipped on wine he was already drenched in if it wasn’t for a strong tug at the back of his tunic. He didn’t crash like an idiot to the floor. He did crash back into the broad, strong chest of someone he was sure he’d been making out with moments before their jealous wife came into the picture.

“Well, salve again, mi deliciae,” Drusus purred. Or, well, he tried to but his hiccups and slurring did not go unnoticed. He was a man of Roma. He soldiered on. “Come to continue what your uxor interrupted… quiqui es?”

Drusus saw the man’s jaw twitch and he didn’t have to be sober to know they were annoyed. Who wouldn’t? He’d been about a palmipes close to bending this proud man over in one of the alcoves and he didn’t know their name.

Shameful? Yes. Embarrassing? A little. Does he really want to know their name? Well…

It’s complicated.

The man still had their hold on his tunic and they used it to pull Drusus closer. Very close. Enough for him to feel the hardness against his own and for their breaths stinking of wine to mix together into something heady—something more intoxicating and filthy.

“And here I was ready to scream your name, Drusus,” The man said, groaning when Drusus began moving against them. They shifted their hold downwards until their hands cupped Drusus’ arse, squeezing hard. “Why don’t you make it up to me and be an obedient cinaedus for me tonight, hm?”

Drusus moaned and smiled. And, with heady half-lidded eyes, he reached down and twisted the man’s cock as ruthlessly as he could. Predictably, the man’s knees buckled and he was on the ground, writhing in agony. It probably didn’t help that Drusus hadn’t let go of their cock.

He twisted it further and stepped on the man’s chest. Smiling still, he leaned down till their noses brushed.

“You’re a hundred times too ugly to ask me to bottom for your pathetic dick, quiqui es,” Drusus snarled. “Now scram.”

He gave the man’s cock one last cruel twist before letting go. His former prospective tryst lay on the ground, groaning and clutching at their groin as the other men cackled and threw drinks at them.

Drusus downed his drink and left the party. He was still hard. He had one destination in mind and one only.

The house was far enough that he was kind of sober by the time he caught sight of it. The lights were out, just as the others are in this neighbourhood. Drusus passed by some patrols who saluted him before going on their way. They didn’t question where he was headed or why he was going around this rich neighbourhood, stinking of wine.

They knew why. They knew where or, more specifically, who he was heading toward.

The house was at the top of a hill, joining the others belonging to the affluent class in Roma. They were dark, too, not a single light on with how late it was. It’d really be rude to come barging in at this time but Drusus’ strides were sure and confident.

He always was when it came to getting welcomed in Manius’ home.

Drusus knocked and waited. He heard scuffling at the very back of the house, some mumbling, before a small light bobbed its way to the front door.

A servant answered the door. She blinked at him a bit blearily.

“Dominus… Drusus?” They said, sounding confused and would’ve gone on a line of questioning he wasn’t in the mood to answer if he hadn’t interrupted.

He leaned against the doorway and smiled. “Manius is in, right?”

The servant nodded, if a bit hesitantly. “Yes, dominus. But it’s late. Dominus Manius has gone to bed. Why—”

Drusus plucked the oil lamp from the servant, smiling still.

“I think,” He said, voice going low. “You can take a walk for the night, no? I hear there’s a lot of celebrations going on tonight.”

That’s all it takes, really. The servant stiffens in understanding, their gaze taking in Drusus’ state of intoxication. They mumble their apologies and shuffle off and away and finally leaving him alone.

With Manius, of course. That was the important part.

From all the times Drusus had come to this house in the dead of night, he didn’t really need the oil lamp. He could walk through and right to where Manius is no matter the obstacle placed in his way. But he wanted to see the man and so the lamp went with him, bobbing and casting shadows all round.

Manius’ bedroom door wasn’t fully closed. The usual scent of patchouli seeps from the crack and Drusus takes it in, mind heady with the promise the smell brings. Manius told him the scent calms him to sleep.

Drusus goes crazy from the slightest whiff of it.

His steps hasten and he slams the door open with no care of their neighbours. He could give no fuck about anyone and anything else right now.

Manius is in bed. The man was in his underclothes, the bottom hem runched up and sleeves slipping from its master. It slipped even further as the man sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

“Wha… Drusus?” Manius blearily said, his brows furrowing in confusion. “I thought you were at a… party?”

Drusus hummed, placing the lamp on a nearby dresser. He leaned against the doorway and watched as the flickering light bathed the room and its master, drawing shadows in just the right places.

“I was,” He said and smiled as he approached the bed. “And now I’m here. Don’t I deserve a greeting, hm?”

Manius blinked. Then the thing Drusus had been waiting for all day and night came and it was worth it.

Manius laughed softly, eyes still soft with sleep. He held out his arms out and Drusus, as though drawn by a force he couldn’t understand, followed the silent command. He let the man cup his face and bring it closer to that laugh, that smile, and those eyes.

Their noses brushed. Manius laughed again.

“Good evening, carissime.”

It’s always been like this. Drusus would fuck any man willing to bottom for him. He would come out of closets or alcoves or even rooms, having just fucked and left his conquest and still aching for more.

He was the most notorious bachelor in Roma. Drusus Aurelius Lepidus Felix could have anyone and they would be glad to be called all kind of slurs for it.

Manius laughed again and touched his face. Drusus hated and loved how he leaned into it, his eyes fluttering open as the only man he’d allowed inside him slowed his thrusts.

“You’re many leuga away, carissime,” He murmured, smiling despite that and despite everything that Drusus is.

Drusus swallowed a whine and shut his eyes. He tried to move his hips, digging in his ankles as he tried to resume the backbreaking pace of before.

“Oh, no, no,” Manius said, now cupping Drusus’ face and wiping away something. A thing he doesn’t want to admit he’s capable of shedding. “Oh, mi carissime, open your eyes. Open them and look at me, hm?”

Drusus doesn’t want to. He really, really doesn’t want to because they’ve done this dance before and he knows it’ll hurt both of them if he acquiesces.

But this is Manius Caelius Agrippa Caracalla. This is his dulcissime who’s asking and so he does open his eyes. He meets Manius’ soft, loving gaze and breaks.

Drusus wraps his arms around the man’s neck and sobs as he confesses what he did tonight—the betrayal he almost committed again because he had forgotten, just as always, that Manius is there. The fervour of the celebration got to his head. There was wine. There were glances and touches and next thing he knew he was rubbing his cock against the arse of a man he didn’t know, the tip already catching at their rim.

“I’m sorry,” Drusus says, almost babbling and choking on his breath because Manius is still inside him and moving so slowly. Like rocking a babe who needs comfort. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, mi dulcissime. Forgive me—forgive me.”

He feels when Manius sighs. He feels the stilted movements of those hands at his back that had steadied him when he moved. For a moment, Drusus dreads. He wonders if this is it. If this is one betrayal too many and he would never have the time to say those two words—

Manius digs his fingers in Drusus’ hips, nearly draws out, and slams back in quick. Out and in, again and again, his thrusts gain their manic nature and Drusus is left a drooling mess bouncing on his lover’s cock. He clings harder as ever to Manius, his breath being punched out of him with no rest and this was his punishment, wasn’t it? This was carnal and wild and nothing like his dulcissime.

Drusus doesn’t realise he’s sobbing till the thrusting slows and there are fingers wiping the tears away. Lips press softly against the corner of his eyes and he opens them again to see Manius smiling softly with love. His Manius. A man he doesn’t deserve. The greatest man in Roma.

“Te amo, mi carissime,” He says, pressing a kiss to his cheek, his forehead, the tip of his nose. “Know that my love will always be here for you when you remember to come home.”

Te amo, Drusus wants to say. Te amo, the words form over and over till it fills his chest and his mind, threatening to tear them apart with an explosion. Te amo, the words climb up his throat with daggers for hands and feet and making him bleed inside with a hurt that’s worth it.

“Yeah,” Drusus says instead, letting the words fall into the void. He rests his forehead against Manius’ and looks at the man he can call his own. “I’ll come home, mi dulcissime. I’ll come home to your love.”

I’ll always remember.

He is home when Manius smiles. He is home when their fingers interlace and he feels Marius’ warmth spread inside him, filling in every crevice of his body and soul.

Drusus is home.

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Title: Artist and Muse Prompt: Decadencember Fine Clothes @thepromptfoundry Artist: Caiti Relationship: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Rating: T Note: Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

January Of Firsts - Day 1: First Impression

Anakin is convinced that Grim and Obi-Wan are actually related.

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He Who Tends, He Who Mends

tw: PTSD, period-typical homophobia

Prompt 10 - a luxurious bath @thepromptfoundry

They’re all battered and bloodied when they meet their queen. She is purity incarnate and here were her knights and soldiers, coming in through the palace halls with the stench of a war hardly fought but surely won. That is the first thing Wymond talks about when she inclines her head for him to speak.

“Your Majesty,” He starts. “Our sincerest apologies for not cleaning up before—“

“No need,” She interrupts. The unease still obviously stirring within him and the others must’ve shown because she raises a brow.

Wymond tenses. So do the others and there are twitches of fingers too close to their weapons because these are people who’ve just come back from war. Coming back doesn’t mean they’ve learned to come home.

If the queen notices the tension, she doesn’t show it. She maintains that raised brow and those fingers tapping on the throne’s armrest. A few seconds. Some minutes. An hour, maybe, of how the silence lasted and the tension thickened like blood gathering on the cursed ground of a battlefield.

Then she smiles, ever so softly and says, “Good work.”

Wymond’s not the only one who has to steady themselves. He’s not the only one whose legs threaten to buckle and give under him, with the tension that’d been running whisked away by those two words. Like the others with him in this room, he chokes on the air that his body has finally allowed him to take in, pure, clean, and free of that heavy scent of death.

Wymond gets to breathe and with it comes the burn of tears he hasn’t allowed himself to nurture nor shed. Hitches of breath, sobs, and sniffles fill the room and while Wymond wants to join in, he still has a duty to fulfil.

He straightens up. He feels his tears silently pour out and streaking down his face. His vision of Queen Aldith blurs but it only takes some blinking for him for her visage to become clear again and again.

She’s smiling still at him—at all of them as if they are but her children who tried acting tough after skinning their knee. Wymond feels small but that’s alright because she’s the queen who’s letting her soldiers and knights cry before her.

“Now,” She says finally. “Report, if you please.”

Wymond sniffles and blinks away the new onslaught of tears. He salutes, goes on one knee, and follows the order.

Queen Aldith calls after him once the last of the weeping knights and soldiers are out and he’s a step away from the doorway. No one hears the command but him, the others too tired from the sudden expulsion of emotion to notice anything else than the promise of a peaceful rest.

Wymond stops and turns back. The queen’s halfway to the passageway behind the throne and there’s a look on her face he’s all too familiar with.

He stiffens under her gaze. He does not reach for his sword.

After a moment, she speaks again as if these are words she’d rather not say but is bound to set free.

“Amis wants to see you,” She says. “Best be on your way to not disappoint him. He’s been in a… state, lately.”

She does not turn away to go when silence descends on the both of them again. She keeps her gaze—that look—on him and Wymond feels like he is being sent to war again.

But this is a war he’s been fighting for as long as he could remember and one he would spend his last breath on.

Wymond straightens, returns the queen’s gaze, and says, “Gladly, your Majesty.”

When the doors close behind him, he still feels that gaze trying to penetrate his will like a dagger chipping at a mountain.

None of the others ask or look twice when he splits off from them and goes for the wing where the royal quarters are. They have all shed blood and shared loves and fears with each other. Gossip is not something any of them can afford. Well, not right now, anyway.

The way to the royal quarters is long and heavy with silence. Guards litter the hallway but they give nothing more than a salute and a nod before assuming their stoic position again. Their shiny armours glint in the sunset.

Wymond knows his armour is too caked in blood and dirt and the darkness of death to even have a chance with the light.

The clink clank of his armour accompanies him on this walk. It’s a comforting sound, reminding him he is protected in this place whose sovereign does not want him anywhere near. Not in this place where autumn’s fall has not yet shaken the will of the royal gardens to live and flourish. Not in this place of purity where his every step spreads miasma of a war they’ve prevented from ever reaching the palace doors.

Wymond walks. And walks. And walks.

He stops.

The door to Amis’ room is ajar. Light spills from the crack and Wymond hesitates for the first time since his declaration at Queen Aldith. The light’s unlike the waning colours of sunset too close to the colour of washed out blood. It’s… soft. Bright. A gentle light beckoning him to come inside, come inside, my knight and Wymond wants and he is scared.

The war is over and his fear makes him push open the door.

The room is as he remembers. There’s still the desk by the window, its width taking up the entire expanse of the wall. Papers and books opened to various pages fill up the space with nary a place for any personal effects. Those, he knows, are carefully stored in the chest at the foot of the four poster bed which he’s all too familiar with.

Except it isn’t familiar. Not when Amis isn’t there, curled up in a light sleep which the prince always is when waiting for him. Amis isn’t there at his desk either, furiously scribbling on paper of his treatises and governing proposals.

Amis—his Amis—isn’t here and Wymond…shuts down. He panics. He can’t breathe, his knees giving way under him and he’s tearing at his hair—at his face—a guttural sound coming from deep in his chest.

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t—

“Myn lykyng?” Softly callused fingers slid across his face till a pair of hands fully envelops and cups it. “Wymond?”

He opens his eyes and sees salvation incarnate. There Amis was, bending over him, his shadow a place of solace for broken men like Wymond. Strands of cropped hair—when, why had he cut it?—fell delicately on that face that graced his dreams when all he knew is blood and death and dirt. And he’s…

“Why are you unclothed?” Wymond croaks out, his throat sore from swallowing down his cries and shouts.

Amis looks amused. His hand moves to finger Wymond’s ear and only then he realises it’s hot and burning. Oh gods. He’s blushing.

“Cute,” Amis says as if unbothered by his current state. Their current state. “I forgot how cute you are, myn lykyng.”

A finger runs down and traces incoherent symbols on Wymond’s jaw and neck, nails lightly scratching the dirtied skin. Amis seems unbothered from the state of his filth and something in his chest unfurls and breathes a sigh of relief. It’s okay. He’s okay for Amis. He’s still okay for his prince.

Amis steps closer and closer till his bare body is flush against Wymond, armor to skin, purity to filth, love to love.

Amis smiles and kisses the corner of Wymond’s lips. “Welcome home, myn lykyng.”

Wymond shudders and there’s only a monent of hesitation before he wraps his arms around his prince, bloodied hands gripping tight at supple skin. He leans close, brushes his lips against Amis, and closes his eyes.

“I’m back, myne owne hertis rote.”

Amis had always been gentle. Before he left and now, he is gentle in unbuckling and taking off every piece of Wymond’s armour that seemed to have melded together with blood and dirt as adhesives. His touch seems to carry purity and cleansing with it as the gathered filth in the kinks fall apart.

Wymond feels like falling apart, too. Without his armour, his knees tremble and his hands shake. He wants nothing more than to collapse into the floor, letting the ground reclaim its child.

Amis doesn’t let him and he follows the silent order.

“Okay,” Amis says as the final piece falls. He catches Wymond’s eye and smiles. It’s childish and reminiscent of their time as children, running across fields, hand in hand. “Now you’re gonna take a bath, myn lykyng.”

It is not the first time he’s in his prince’s room but it is his first time he’s in his prince’s tub. The water’s warm as it sloshes around his calves, making him tremble all the more as he climbs in. Or, more accurately, as Amis orders him to get in.

He’s a knight who’s commanded an entire battlefield but he’s manhandled by Amis to sit his arse down in the tub. He does quite dutifully. Then he looks towards his prince as if waiting for the other to join him.

Amis smiles, childish and gentle and salvation all in one. He takes Wymond’s hands and brushes his lips against each dirtied knuckle.

“Oh, myn lykyng,” He says. “It’s time you get taken care of, don’t you think?”

Wymond opens his mouth to protest but Amis is already starting. He kneels on the cold floor, takes a sponge and sets it to his skin.

The words die in his throat. He swallows its corpse, glad to have something to do because he is not used to…this. To the gentle almost rocking motions of the sponge against his skin—his arms, his chest, his face and his legs. He’s not used to the scents Amis drops into the bath nor being able to breathe so so easily without his armour.

Wymond thinks he talks during this. About the war. About each battle they fought and lost. He talks of the dead they had to burn and how the smell that permeated their food for weeks to months.

Amis listens. He listens and bathes his knight till the water turns murky and Wymond is cleansed.

Later, he listens as his love gets to sleep properly for the first time in months and that is enough. It always is for Amis.