Chapter Text
He can only keep up the pace for so long. All he needs is one more burst of strength and he can catch up to that cowboy and finally teach him a lesson. Octavius is still sore about getting shut in the stocks. Nobody, but nobody, does that to a Roman general.
Jed, hampered by his chaps, isn’t running very fast. But Octavius is held back by the weight of his armour and sword. He just needs a bit more stamina but his arms and legs ache. He can’t catch up and Jed can’t widen the gap.
Finally, they’re both so exhausted they can’t go any further. So they simply stand looking at each other, Jed just out of sword’s reach. They stare it out, sides heaving. Too winded to yell insults. Jed’s eyes are vividly blue, wild and adamant, his face red from exertion. Neither will break the stare. Octavius is hot under his armour and it weighs on him. He would be in with a chance of if only he was carrying less.
So be it. He will face his adversary unarmed. He casts aside his sword and with a yell resumes the chase.
***
He would have had him. Even unarmed, in hand-to hand combat, Octavius knew he was stronger than Jedediah. That was how he pinned him down in the first place, arms and legs trapped and no risk that Jed would dare head butt him while he had his armour and helmet on.
Jed only got away by cheating. How could Octavius guess that the man would retaliate not with a violent struggle, but with something so underhand, so soft… gentle words he doesn’t understand and then an even gentler mouth. On his! It throws Octavius totally. He’s so shocked it’s a hundred times stronger than a blow from a fist. Then he’s so into that touch, that taste, that he doesn’t care. And in those seconds of inattention Jed twists like a snake, slips out of his grasp and is away. Octavius is left lying there, stunned.
It’s not vengeance he wants now. He doesn’t know what he wants now, only that he wants.