Chapter Text
“For heavens’ sake, Captain, we’ve been at this for five hours,” Julian whines. “Can we please take a break?”
“No,” the Captain says firmly. “I am not leaving until I get this right. It is just like performing drills. Practice makes perfect.”
“Or, in this case, practice makes crazy.”
“Julian.”
“Fine, fine. Where were we?”
“The imperfect tense.”
“Right. Once again, the endings are bam, bas, bat, bamus, batis, bant.” The Captain repeats the endings like a mantra, committing them to memory. “Shall we try to put together a sentence?”
“Alright.”
“How would you say, ‘yesterday I was having sex with a beautiful prostitute’?”
“Good lord, Julian!”
Julian raises his hands in surrender. “But you know all of those words!”
“Against my own will.” The Captain sighs. Maybe Julian is right and they should give up for today. They clearly aren’t going to make any more progress.
“Alright, alright, fine. How do you say, ‘yesterday I was walking with my dog’?”
“I don’t have a dog,” the Captain says, just to be difficult.
Julian sighs. “Do you want me to keep teaching you or not? I could very easily go back to looking at porn on Alison’s laptop.”
“No, no, don’t do that,” the Captain says hurriedly. “Erm, heri ego ambulabam cum… cane?”
Julian snorts. “Cum.”
The Captain rolls his eyes. “Every single time.”
“Sorry.” Julian didn’t sound sorry at all. “That was good. You don’t need the ego, though, because the verb ending indicates that you’re doing the walking. And the verb usually goes at the end of the sentence too.”
The Captain groans. They had already spent the whole of yesterday and several hours today on the language and still he can’t even get the most simple sentence correct? It was hopeless.
“Oi.” Julian kicks his shin lightly, snapping him out of his thoughts. “You’re getting in your head again. You’re doing well at this, trust me.”
“I’ve never trusted you.”
“Fair enough.” Julian shrugs. “But I spent years learning Latin at a very expensive school, and I still make mistakes. Stop being such a perfectionist.”
“I don’t want to embarrass myself,” the Captain whines, which in itself is embarrassing.
“Cap, given the fact that you can barely form coherent sentences around Spartacus in English, I think we’ve moved past the embarrassment stage.”
The Captain responds by sinking further into the sofa, groaning.
“Alright, I’m making an executive decision to stop for today. We both need the rest.” Julian stands up. “Can I just make one request?”
“What is it?”
Julian smirks. “When you two eventually get your act together and bone, do it in direct view of Fanny’s window.”
“Julian!”
---
It is another two days before the Captain finally feels confident enough in his knowledge of Latin to face Rufus. And so he is pacing nervously outside the gates to Button House as the centurion approaches the drive. The Captain catches the glint of his armour out of the corner of his eye and raises an awkward hand in greeting. Despite the distance, he can see Rufus’ face break into a grin that would make his heart skip a beat if his heart was still beating.
“Captain!” Rufus calls as he jogs down the drive. “It has been a few days. I thought you may have moved on without me.”
Never, the Captain’s thoughts supply, but he shoves it to the furthest corner of his mind. “I apologise, Rufus. My duties got the better of me.”
“I understand. We soldiers cannot ignore our duties,” Rufus replies, smiling easily. “It is good to see you again. It may have been only a few days but I did miss you.”
If the Captain were alive, the gentle hand Rufus places on his upper arm would have made him keel over then and there. “I, uh, I actually have something to tell you,” he manages to say.
Rufus’ eyes widen. “You do?” The Captain nods. “Then, by all means, go ahead.”
The Captain clears his throat and recalls the Latin he learned over the last few days. “Um,” he begins eloquently. “cepi de te curare, Rufe.” Immediately he sees Rufus blink in surprise, and his conviction almost leaves him, but Rufus nods, signalling him to go on. “scio… nostrum primum difficilem conventum non esse… pridem, prae… praesertim umbrae ut tibi ipsi, sed…” He clears his throat. Rufus is still staring at him, his cheeks adorably mottled pink, but he hasn’t stopped him or laughed at him yet, which the Captain is taking as a good sign. “sentio me te cognoscisse longissime, et… superbe te nomino unum meorum propo- propissimorum amicorum. sed...” he falters. “Does this make any sense?”
Rufus blinks, and the Captain swears he can see the glint of tears in his eyes. Oh Lord, was his Latin really so bad that it made the centurion cry? “linguam Latinam didicisti?” he asks softly, slowly so that the Captain can catch his words.
The Captain nods. “tetendi.”
Rufus lets out a soft laugh. “Your attempt was not perfect, and your accent is terrible, but… no one has spoken to me in more than a sentence of my native language in two thousand years. So, I think I can ignore a few imperfections.”
“One more thing,” the Captain says quietly.
“And what is that?” Rufus asks. The Captain realises that they are merely inches away from each other now. When did that happen?
He takes a breath. And like a soldier on the front lines, he charges. “te amo.”
Rufus hesitates for just long enough that the Captain starts to reconsider that plan to retreat to the basement, but then he smiles, wide and bright and beautiful. “I love you too,” he says before glancing down at the Captain’s lips. “May I…?”
“Please.”
The kiss is slightly clumsy considering the Captain hasn’t kissed anyone before and Rufus is a little out of practice himself, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful. When they break apart, Rufus rests their foreheads together, his hand still round the back of the Captain’s neck. “di immortales,” he mumbles dazedly.
“That was my first,” the Captain admits. “I’m sorry if…”
“Shush,” Rufus says, kissing him again. “It was good. basium optimum.” Rufus continues to kiss the Captain, on the lips, on both cheeks, on the nose. “da mi basia mille,” he says between kisses, “deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is from a poem by Catullus,” Rufus replies, “about how many kisses you must give to me.”
“And how many is that?”
“Hundreds.” Rufus kisses him. “Thousands.” Another kiss.
The Captain feels like he is floating on air. He can’t remember ever being this happy. “There was a song, back in the forties, that had the same sentiment.” As Rufus kisses down his neck, he hums the tune. “Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again, it’s been a long, long time…”
The Captain never danced when he was alive. His men would go to the dance halls and return late, drunk, and laughing. The activity messed with the strict discipline he was used to imposing on his troops, and he could never find the appeal of something that did that. But here he is now, swaying slowly to a tune he himself was singing, with none other than a Roman centurion in his arms. And if he can see figures in the windows of Button House watching them, he decides to ignore them for now.
---
“Hurry up, ladies and gentlemen, we said nine o’clock sharp, and we have merely five minutes to the hour!” the Captain exclaims, herding the ghosts out of the door and towards the gates. The sun has just set, and the Captain can just about make out Alison and Michael fussing over the projector they’ve set up. “Michael, Michael, that projection is not straight,” he calls as he approaches them. “I tell you- Alison, please tell your husband that the projection is not straight.”
“Mike, the Captain says the projector’s not straight,” Alison repeats.
“I thought that’d be his style,” Mike mutters as he fiddles with the device, only to receive a light smack from Alison for the remark.
“Alison,” the Captain calls. “Thank you,” he says quietly when she turns his way. “I greatly appreciate this gesture.”
“Not at all,” Alison says, grinning. “If we’re going to have family film nights, might as well include the whole family.” The statement makes the Captain feel warm inside. “At least when the weather’s nice,” Alison continues. “Might have to figure something else out for when it rains.”
“Rufus! Rufus!” the Captain hears Robin shout, and true enough the centurion is walking down the drive. He jogs over to meet him.
“salve,” Rufus says with a smile that still makes the Captain melt a little. It had been a few weeks since their first kiss, and while most of the other ghosts had shot him knowing glances since then, he and Rufus had decided not to make anything official just yet. The Captain wasn’t quite ready to open up that part of himself. Until tonight.
“Good evening,” the Captain greets him, immediately lacing their fingers together.
Rufus glances down at their joined hands, then back up to the Captain, his eyes wide. “Are you sure about this?” he asks.
The Captain nods. “I’m ready. I’m pretty sure most of them know already, but I think it’s time.”
Rufus gives him a fond smile. “As you command, mea lux,” he says.
So they walk back to the rest of the group together, hand in hand. Kitty spots them first and gives a squeal of excitement. Robin, Thomas, and Julian all look rather smug, Pat happily welcomes Rufus into the Button House family, and even Fanny begrudgingly congratulates them. After a few moments, Rufus notices the Captain’s growing discomfort with the attention on him and says, “Right, I was promised a marvel of modern technology. Where is this ‘pro-jector’?”
The first thing they watch is a streamed production of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, complete with Rufus pointing out every single historical inaccuracy.