Work Text:
Octavius struggled with the waistband of Jed’s chaps. His fingers hooked into the rough leather and tugged, but despite his best efforts, he could not get the trouser legs to budge. “Hurry up, Octy, we ain’t got all night!” exclaimed an exasperated Jed. “C’mon, I’m rarin’ to go. Get a wiggle on, amigo!”
Surely he could do this. Tunics and braccae were much easier to deal with than the attire of the Westerners, but surely Octavius could find his way around a simple pair of trousers, couldn’t he? He had already taken off his armor, helmet, and tunic and piled them neatly on a chair beside Jed’s cot, but the force of his exertion was making him sweat in the simulated desert heat. He fumbled with the leather with hot hands, his cheeks starting to dapple with light pink. The stubborn general wasn’t about to ask Jed for help. And what on Earth did Jed mean by “get a wiggle on”? Octavius scowled at the cowboy’s strange expression, shook his head, and breathed, “Medius fidius, Jedediah!”
“C’mon, pardner, I’m itchin’ to go for a ride!” Jed groaned impatiently. With a low, frustrated growl, Octavius finally gave in and whined, “Please, I need you, Jedediah. Now.” Larry walked into the Hall of Miniatures to see if Jed and Octavius were ready to join the other Westerners for movie night, and his eyebrows shot up at the sound of Octavius’ needy moan. Whoa, uh huh, nope, I don’t even want to know, he muttered under his breath as he quietly darted from the hall. The show could go on without them.
Jed sighed and stood up from where he had been sitting just outside the entrance to his tent. He pushed back the tent flap and stepped inside, eyes trained to the floor. “C’mon, Oct, I said you didn’t have to put on the whole get-up if you didn’t wanna. Whaddya—” he complained as he looked up to face his friend. Octavius was standing next to the cot, wearing an unbuttoned pair of Jed’s chaps slung low on his hips, just beneath the sculpted furrows of his Adonis belt, with his left thumb hooked into the waistband. He raked his right hand through his short, dark hair with an irritated sigh and let his hand rest on the back of his head as he turned his gaze to Jed. Jed stared with wide eyes at the lean, toned figure before him. The flickering lantern light danced across Oct’s lightly tanned skin, dewy with perspiration. His lips parted to speak, but for the first time in his life, Jedediah Smith was completely and utterly speechless – his mouth felt like it was full of cotton. He had seen the other cowboys strip off their dirty clothes and wash up in the river before, but he never paid them no mind. But there he was, his best friend and closest confidant, half-naked in the middle of his tent, skin glowing with sweat, wearing nothing but a pair of Jed’s spare chaps pulled almost all the way up. His skin prickled with hot embarrassment and some other competing feeling he couldn’t quite put a name to. Sure, he sometimes wondered what Oct had hidden under all that armor, but hell, he hardly ever got a chance to see Oct without even so much as his galea. Whoo-wee, he thought. After all his pondering, it sure was different seeing the real deal right there in front of him. He felt the heat rise to his face.
“You ain’t decent, boy,” Jed finally managed to spit out.
“I simply cannot understand how your people can wear such restrictive clothing,” Octavius pronounced as he took a step toward Jed, dropped his right hand to his waistband, and futilely tried to pull the chaps up a little further with a little sigh. “But you, dear Jedediah, have insisted on dressing me up as a cowboy to go horse riding with you tonight and I cannot even put on these trousers. Now, a chariot race, that would be different!” He exclaimed with a broad grin, jabbing his finger at the air. “Yes, tomorrow night I shall have you join me in the chariots and we will see how you feel in a tunic and subligaculum!” he continued, entirely oblivious to the stupefied look on Jed’s face. Jed absently toyed with the fingers of his gloves. Octavius continued monologuing about the superiority of Roman fashion over Western styles, pacing back and forth, gesticulating broadly as the leathers struggled to remain perched atop his muscular hips. Jed stood rooted to the spot, his face flushed from intently watching the Roman stomping around his tent, and absently pulled down his Stetson in a futile effort to hide the rosy bloom that spread across his cheeks. He couldn’t say why, but he liked seeing Octavius get worked up. It made him feel warm all over seeing his normally reserved friend working himself into a lather over somethin’ or ‘nother.
Jed loosened his kerchief with a small groan and fidgeted nervously with the fingers of his gloves. Octavius suddenly stopped ranting, wheeled around to face Jed, and gently placed his hands on his broad shoulders. He softly asked, “Oh, Jedediah, help me get into these cursed things, won’t you?”
“S-sure thing, Kemosabe,” Jed sputtered. “I’ll show you the trick to gettin’ all geared up like a real cowboy, ’n then we can go saddle up.” He tried hard to keep his eyes locked on Oct’s face as he tossed his gloves to the ground and gingerly placed his warm, calloused hands on the Roman general’s hips, curling his thumbs under the waistband of his leathers and gripping tight with his other fingers. Their bodies were nearly touching from chest to thigh, and Jed could feel the heat radiating off his companion’s bare skin. The fresh, piney scent of rosemary in Oct’s hair was intensified by the heat and made Jed’s stomach do a little flip. Octavius glanced down at Jed’s hands and gave a wry smile before flicking his eyes back to his golden cowboy’s gentle face.
Jed sucked in a sharp intake of air. He’d been up close and personal with Oct plenty of times. They’d spent every night fighting one another for decades, sparring and grappling and wrestling relentlessly until daylight started to peek through the museum windows. They’d spent countless nights side by side in the RC car, their bodies sliding together every time Jed took a turn a little too sharp. They’d gotten pressed together in Larry’s shirt pocket or the coarse goat hair brim of Attila’s hat too many times to count. Hell, they even woke up face-to-face in that crate in the National Archives, limbs tangled together in an entirely undignified way, supported by a cushiony little cloud of packing peanuts. If they hadn’t been fearing for their lives that night, Jed felt like they could have just held each other close till dawn, talking and laughing, and everything would have been as fine as cream gravy. Jed knew Octavius felt the same way. It had never been spoken – it just was. So why’s this any different? he pondered, as he stood there with his hands clutching Oct’s hips. I feel worse ‘n a long-tailed cat ‘n a room full of rockin’ chairs.
Tonight, there was no fighting and no “save the world” urgency. It was supposed to be just the two of them together with a softer, quieter set of plans: they were going to skip tonight’s movie to take a picnic lunch and ride up to the bluffs overlooking the little river that snaked through the back of the Western diorama. Jed had wanted Oct to get kitted up like a cowboy for the ride, since he reckoned it would be a whole lot more comfortable than those wooly little Roman britches and heavy armor of his, for both Oct and the horse. Jed briefly wondered if they would still have time to take Ol’ Reliable out for a saunter tonight before turning his attention back to the velvety-voiced Roman in his embrace.
Octavius gazed at the golden cowboy before him, chestnut-colored eyes sparkling in the lantern light. He slid his hands down to Jed’s waist and closed the gap between them. “Perhaps we can save the horseback riding for another night,” he purred as he leaned in.