Ship: aomine/himuro Fandom: kuroko no basuke Major Tags: mentions of death, implied violence, implied sexual content Other Tags: gladiator!au Square: you look so pretty but you're gone so soon Word Count: 513
***
Daiki is a gladiator, for want or need of nothing but victory in the ring. Freedom is a concept he's long relinquished, deemed as something someone like him can never attain. As long as he can fight, as long as he can win, living another day remains an option. Simple pleasures are as much as he's allowed—thirst momentarily quenched, hunger momentarily satiated, or in the winter, cold bones momentarily warmed by fire. Wanting more than what he has is not only discouraged, but dangerous. Give a gladiator something else to live for and they'd start wanting to live, instead of merely exist.
The carnage, the stadium, the triumph; he tells himself he wants nothing else apart from these, and then in walks Tatsuya, reintroducing to Daiki the very idea of desire.
-
He's training, a sword in each hand, facing off against no one in particular. Trust is a rarity, not a currency, in this place, and no one trusts him not to forget himself and take a blade to their jugular the way he's done to countless others, countless times before. It's just him, the sun, the swords, until it isn't any longer.
An unfamiliar gaze settles on his back and he spins around, battle ready, only to find himself looking at the most beautiful person he's ever seen. The stranger is accompanied by his master, and he's appraising Daiki not like he would a jewel or a weapon. It's discomfiting.
"He's one of our best," says Daiki's master, speaking as if he isn't there. He's accustomed to that, but the stranger's gaze is what tears him in two, uncertain if he should stay or run far away.
"I've noticed," says the stranger, who is introduced to him as Tatsuya, a noble searching for a representative in the arena. Tatsuya's eyes travel downwards and then up along Daiki's body, an unreadable smile perched upon his mouth. "He'll do."
With that, he turns and leaves Daiki's mouth drier than a city in drought.
-
Tatsuya intrigues him, but the notion of representing anyone but himself or his master doesn't sit well with Daiki, resistant to being owned by another again. There's only so much of him to go around, though all of this goes unsaid, evident only in the fury of his strikes, the brutal swings of his swords.
He doesn't understand why he should fight for someone else's sake until the day he wins and glances up, past the emperor's approval, past the riotous audience, at Tatsuya's smile, no longer as mysterious as before.
This time, behind the pride and the satisfaction, hunger quietly sits, waiting to be sated. That's what the appraisal had been, everything he wants to do to Daiki (or everything he wants Daiki to do to him) woven into a tapestry of depravity on his face.
And then it's gone, Tatsuya's attention claimed by something or the other, and forget winning, forget living at all.
Give Daiki that smile again, and everything that comes with it. Give him this, and the gods can do to him as they wish.
FILL: TEAM HIMURO TATSUYA/NIJIMURA SHUUZOU, B3, T
Fandom: kuroko no basuke
Major Tags: mentions of death, implied violence, implied sexual content
Other Tags: gladiator!au
Square: you look so pretty but you're gone so soon
Word Count: 513
***
Daiki is a gladiator, for want or need of nothing but victory in the ring. Freedom is a concept he's long relinquished, deemed as something someone like him can never attain. As long as he can fight, as long as he can win, living another day remains an option. Simple pleasures are as much as he's allowed—thirst momentarily quenched, hunger momentarily satiated, or in the winter, cold bones momentarily warmed by fire. Wanting more than what he has is not only discouraged, but dangerous. Give a gladiator something else to live for and they'd start wanting to live, instead of merely exist.
The carnage, the stadium, the triumph; he tells himself he wants nothing else apart from these, and then in walks Tatsuya, reintroducing to Daiki the very idea of desire.
-
He's training, a sword in each hand, facing off against no one in particular. Trust is a rarity, not a currency, in this place, and no one trusts him not to forget himself and take a blade to their jugular the way he's done to countless others, countless times before. It's just him, the sun, the swords, until it isn't any longer.
An unfamiliar gaze settles on his back and he spins around, battle ready, only to find himself looking at the most beautiful person he's ever seen. The stranger is accompanied by his master, and he's appraising Daiki not like he would a jewel or a weapon. It's discomfiting.
"He's one of our best," says Daiki's master, speaking as if he isn't there. He's accustomed to that, but the stranger's gaze is what tears him in two, uncertain if he should stay or run far away.
"I've noticed," says the stranger, who is introduced to him as Tatsuya, a noble searching for a representative in the arena. Tatsuya's eyes travel downwards and then up along Daiki's body, an unreadable smile perched upon his mouth. "He'll do."
With that, he turns and leaves Daiki's mouth drier than a city in drought.
-
Tatsuya intrigues him, but the notion of representing anyone but himself or his master doesn't sit well with Daiki, resistant to being owned by another again. There's only so much of him to go around, though all of this goes unsaid, evident only in the fury of his strikes, the brutal swings of his swords.
He doesn't understand why he should fight for someone else's sake until the day he wins and glances up, past the emperor's approval, past the riotous audience, at Tatsuya's smile, no longer as mysterious as before.
This time, behind the pride and the satisfaction, hunger quietly sits, waiting to be sated. That's what the appraisal had been, everything he wants to do to Daiki (or everything he wants Daiki to do to him) woven into a tapestry of depravity on his face.
And then it's gone, Tatsuya's attention claimed by something or the other, and forget winning, forget living at all.
Give Daiki that smile again, and everything that comes with it. Give him this, and the gods can do to him as they wish.