Joaquin

Momentarily, he was able to be distracted by the talk on the preparations of the feast. It would be his time to shine, to hover over the other slaves and point mistakes while citing how they were failing to live up to Tertius’s vision. While soldiers were death’s emissary, Hector would gladly be Tertius’s, even when it garnered groans and eye-rolls. 

Hector had assumed that the announcements would be over but for whatever reason, the gods needed to play their tricks and have this drag along for a bit longer with a gathering in the tablinum. It felt almost akin to torture after everything to be made to share the same room as Charis or even Teutus for that matter. He didn’t exactly evade the slave’s annoyance. As Tertius left first, Hector skipped after him, though the nosey part of him did wonder what Teutus and Charis were whispering between themselves, if only because the recent events were morphing him into a cross grandmother.

He closed the tablinum’s doors and approached the desk, standing in a way that made it clear that he was ready as ever to do anything for Tertius. He would even grab a writing pin and hand it to his master, so he didn’t even need to reach across the table for it.  He pretended to not feel any eyes that fell his way once again, partly out pride, and instead worked hard to keep his face looking pleasant now that he was in a more intimate environment.

@Atrice @Sara @Sharpie
 

Hector would go as far to call her anything so long as in the end, it made him feel better, ultimately that was his intention: to assuage his own damaged ego. So far, Helios was doing everything right, saying everything that Hector wanted, rather than needed, to hear. For a short moment, he was almost hesitant in entering the narrowing alleyway, if only because there were aspects of Rome that he did not go exploring. As a man, he had less to fear in some ways than perhaps the female slaves when they did venture out but in others, he had more to fear. Being a man always made you game for troublemakers and while he might have been athletic, he had no brawling bone in his body. He also saw such areas as almost beneath him, preferring the domus and areas of the city that felt the sun. Still, he kept behind Helios, giving mostly a look that seemed to be struggling to withhold its judgement, an action that was a gesture of good faith where his normal interactions with the other slaves were smug, self-congratulatory, and filled with shit-eating grins. Helios was spared at least.

“She doesn’t like him?” Hector repeated in disbelief. If what Helios had stated was true, it somehow made him even angrier. “She pretends she doesn’t like it, but I know deep down inside, she squirms like a love-stricken little girl.” He didn’t actually know what Charis thought or how she felt about anything, but it was his hatred of her and consuming jealousy that made him utter anything. Oddly, he first felt enraged on behalf of Tertius, as if it was an insult that she didn’t like him. He couldn’t understand what there was to dislike about Tertius, he had a number of pleasant qualities in not only a master but a man as well, even at his age. But on the other hand, he was enraged because if she truly didn’t like him, what was she widening herself for? It made him feel like perhaps she might turn to be far more troublesome for his master than he realised. 

“She enjoys herself so much, she threatened to drown me the other day even.” A small hyperbole of the flower vase, perhaps but annoyance always added embellishment where it needed it. 

@Atrice

Hector heard the scraping of the container holding the flowers and had almost believed that Charis had surrendered to return them outside. He fought the teasing of a smile at the corner of his lips, deriving a childish joy at the small victory. That was until she risked breaking the distance between them, the fact that she continued to do so only aggravated him more. He gave her a contorted expression at her entire grotesque display, still utterly blind to whatever it was that his master saw in her. He didn’t want to admit that there might have been some inkling of truth in what she said in the end, even if in his opinion you had to dig through layers of a Brittonic accent and stupidity to get there. 

“It’s maybe I’ll get rid of them on you,” he corrected her. “Not ‘maybe I get rid of them on you’. It makes you sound like a lumbering fool. Not that you aren’t one.” 

Wiping his forehead, he shuffled out from under the flowers in the event that she did follow through with her threat, all the while whispering one last insult under his breath. The droplet had run through the moisturiser he had applied to his face earlier. He began to travel down the length of the bed to set on the end to rearrange his hair, feeling the petal that had made itself home there, he made an annoyed tutting sound as it fluttered down to the floor. “Just make sure to change the water and get rid of the flowers if they die, I won’t be doing it,” he said, his voice still very clearly filled with exasperation, almost like a parent that resigned to letting their child keep a puppy. 

@Sara

He hadn’t named names but there was certainly no mystery of whom he was referring to and at Helios’s enquiry, he gave a very honest nod. ‘Charis’, a Greek word for ‘kindness’, inspired such aggravation and resentment, she was nothing like her namesake. It was a relief to hear confirmation in Helios who seemed to agree with him without even a pause for thought, but it was even more liberating to feel all the poison that had been building up inside his heart released and acknowledged by someone else. It had been there ever since Tertius had informed him of his plans and since he had announced them in front of the rest of the household for all the hear. “I would like that very much,” Hector answered, rare enough words from his tongue where other slaves were involved. 

With that he followed the older slave’s indication to move and rushed after him like an over-eager child, presumably off the street and out of the way of the crowds. “I hope you don’t have anywhere too…” he stopped himself, realising that he was supposed to be making friends. So he opted to changed the topic back to Charis, something safe and common. “There is so much you don’t know about her, Helios,” Hector said, almost ominously and theatrically, presuming that the extent of the other’s interaction with her ended at the news he had given Tertius. “You have to live with her to know. She has my master waist deep inside her and her tongue halfway down his ears. Fucking sorcery.” He was ready to complain, though the most of what he had to say of Charis wasn’t especially enlightening or intelligent, it was mostly endless expletive after expletive. 

If the gods had told him days ago that he would find himself satisfied in Helios’s company and receptive of an alliance, he would have scoffed at the absurdity but there was certainly nothing more or as quickly unifying than mutual hatred for another human being. On its own, it was very isolating. 

@Atrice
 

Hector could hardly return the humour at Helios’s jest about returning Tertius’s kindness. The insecurity compounded by his master’s turn of attention towards Charis made its way onto his face in the form of an unhappy scowl. For as much as he played the well-tempered slave, he was easy to aggravate with the right stimulus. He didn’t have any word for it but when Tertius felt something, he could almost feel it and perhaps, he was a fool for it, or it was what made him a good slave even despite all his efforts. If the other man was upset by something, he too could almost feel that pain when he looked at him or if he, almost like a guard dog, sensed a threat in another, his immediate instinct was protection. Yet now he also felt conflicted and threatened by his interest in Charis.

“I only know that you came for the money,” he said. It wasn’t an accusation, just Hector’s perception. He believed that he understood how other slaves and the poor thought well. He had been around many for so long, even if he didn’t share the same motivation. There wasn’t a chance, in his eyes, that Helios went to Tertius out of complete charity, despite that Tertius seemed convinced or at least enough to become as infuriated as he had. “But it was right you did in the end,” he relented with a sigh. Slaves gossiped amongst themselves about one another all the time, he reasoned. “She is trouble, a scheming little shit.” It felt better to say it out loud, to someone else. And he almost didn’t care it was the first person he had walked up to either. “And I’m trapped with her.”
 

@Atrice

Hector wanted to give Charis a bitter “you already are” but said nothing, she was messing with what was his and has felt himself get lashed, he grumbled a string of profanities under his breath. Briefly, he contemplated rising from the bed, scooping her up, and dumping her outside. The most that protected her from it was Tertius’s displeasure with him. But then even as a man, his bark was worse than his bite, a bite that had mostly been domesticated or trained out of the slave. 

Not only did he dislike her, but he disliked stringing together what she was saying in her abysmal Latin. It only served to give him a headache and his face furrowed in pain, uncertain if what she had just said of his looks was an insult or not. He made a loud tutting sound. “You don’t feel anything,” he mumbled like a moody teenager, still tending to his nails, even if he had finished and was only just extending the act to appear preoccupied with something other than Charis.

He gave the flowers a brief and nosey glance from where he was. He honestly would have done the same for the room, it needed life and colour. That is, if he had wanted the room but he didn’t. “Well, I don’t like them, they make me sick,” he told her plainly, “and I don’t need any more of your clutter in here.” He didn’t need more things that reminded him that she lived there too. 

@Sara
 

The ‘how come you’re out here’ was like a snap back to reality that he had been trying to ignore. It wasn’t even that Tertius was with Charis presently, he had been engaged in important business and had charitably dismissed him. Still, with the Briton whore under the same roof, he didn’t trust it. Even a split thought of her sent him shaking with rage and not even the gods and divine intervention could calm him. It had certainly irritated him when Helios came to the domus, he felt threatened, but it had been different. Charis was there, under the same roof. 

As guarded as he intended to be, he oftentimes had a transparent expression and gave a smile but an almost bitter one, if only because all the withheld annoyance and anger was beginning to feel poisonous. “I am here alone, does that surprise you? My master is kind and allowed me out,” he answered. If given the chance, he could wax poetry about Tertius for days. “He often does. You couldn’t find kinder.” He was convinced of it. With that, he remembered the sum that Helios had demanded of Tertius had given. He remembered because he had carried Tertius’s coin purse, all the while scowling. Even though he had kept his nose out just enough and stuck it only where Tertius needed him, he hadn’t trusted Helios at the time and didn’t think he deserved whatever money his master gave but again, he believed in Tertius’s generosity. 
 

@Atrice

Hector hadn’t yet recovered from the entire ordeal with Charis, despite the amount of strength and energy it took to literally be his master’s only cheerleader in the room, before Tertius unexpectedly continued. Hector did not think matters could get any worse, but they could, they always managed to. Tertius had more news to get Hector’s blood pressure rising through the roof of the domus. As the manumission was mentioned, Hector’s head briefly turned in Teutus’s direction, forgetting in that moment, to conceal his surprise or annoyance, whichever you’d like to call it. He had never believed that Tertius would ever adopt him as his heir and truthfully, Hector didn’t want that, if only for what it meant between the two of them. It didn’t just confirm that Teutus was above him, it made him above him and for that, he felt annoyance. It felt that everyone was being given something save himself. 

@Sharpie @Sara @Atrice

Hector’s attention peaked at ‘yesterday’, but he didn’t immediately make that clear, instead he kept his expression as neutral as possible where normally he was an open book. Hector rose up and lowered towards his master’s feet, setting the water bowl on the floor, hanging the wettened cloth. He wanted to know where his master had been. Almost in the same way as a cat that wandered into a filled space, there was a security that came with having Tertius in close proximity, even if that was in the next room, at least Hector knew where he was. It was duty, obligation, attachment, and many things and without that, he truthfully felt aimless.

He took Tertius’s ‘you always seem to know what I need’ as affirmation, which made the slave feel elated. He took the most satisfied in Tertius’s expressions of approval, whatever form they came in. Hector’s expression brightened, his fingers were kneading into Tertius’s feet, rough but gentle at the same time. He would have given what others would have called an ass-kissing answer in return, but he felt Tertius’s gaze before his question, rising his eyes to look up just in time to catch it. For him, he didn’t know from where his master’s question was coming from, if only because he felt like his loyalty went without questioning or so he hoped. He wondered if Tertius had done something, but his mind hadn’t gone to Charis, instead he wondered if he was trouble or needed Hector to perform something important or sensitive. “I would never disappoint you, domine,” he said with an intensity and genuine seriousness to his voice. “Never. I am forever yours and at your service, you can ask whatever of me and I will always do it without question. If you need anything, tell me and I will complete it.”
 

@Atrice

If circumstances were different, the answer might not have been good but today, it was good. Still he didn’t confirm it, if only because he did not want to scare his present company off or give any impression that he was desperate for what might’ve been easy small-talk.

Normally, Hector fancied himself as ‘too good’ to associate with other slaves, despite being one himself, and for the most part, he kept a self-imposed distance. But he was also a chatterbox, he could talk in circles when unfiltered and if given the chance, which often lead him to being inexplicably sociable. He didn’t have that option at the domus currently, but then he’d never had it. He was unpopular with the other slaves, yet completely fine with it. His unspoken superiority complex likely had much to do with firmly cementing the overall dislike of his character.

“Hector,” he answered after a very short pause following the other’s question, possibly with exasperation even if there would have been no reason for him to have remembered it. “Couldn’t say I remember yours either,” he said in admission. “Kratos, was it?” The truth was that Hector had remembered ‘Helios’. He had been in the doorway when Helios had been addressing his master and since, his almost protective but equally jealous instinct had kept the name folded in the back of his memory. 
 

@Atrice

The second Charis spoke, Hector immaturely groaned loudly out of grief as if he had just been gouged by a spear. “I didn’t touch anything, you deceitful harpy,” he said. It didn’t matter to him that he had just admitted to moving her things. With her accusation of his refiling through her things, he wondered if she suspected him. Whenever she wasn’t around, he often glanced over his shoulder before digging his sticky fingers though her belongings, simply to get a sense of her. Ever since Tertius had told him everything, he paid even more attention to her than he had before, watching the way she spoke, the way she moved, carried herself, studying her face and body, and it was still beyond him why Tertius liked her. Between the both of them, he was the far prettier one.

He swatted at her finger as if it were a bee before giving her a look of utter horror from the contact, as if it gravely offended him. She could breathe or simply exist, and it was all offensive to him. He almost considered throwing the stone he used as a nail file at her head like a child but knew the moment he did, she’d be scuttling off to Tertius like the little insect that she was. Instead, he opted for the second-most immature choice of action and flung out his leg to nudge her away in the same manner one might if they were trying to displace a yapping lapdog. “Can’t you see I’m too busy for your child’s play?” he exhaled, returning to his examination of his finger nails. 

@Sara

Upon being given permission, Hector dampened the cloth, wrung out its water, and began to gently apply it to Tertius’s upper body with the intention of working his way down rather than up with the same care that was given by a priestess in the polishing of a temple statue. No part of the work disgusted him. He was satisfied and looked satisfied with cleaning away any sweat or dirt from his master’s body along with any other form of grooming and would be even when the day would come where his own bones became brittle and his joints began to ache him. If he ever survived that long.

He listened to Tertius’s question; it hadn’t necessarily been unexpected. He thought highly of his master for taking interest in his day, it even flattered. But what he had to report was largely uneventful, it was equally the same as asking a dog how its day had transpired where it’s only answer might’ve been licking its balls and staring at the back of the front door. At Tertius’s hope that Hector hadn’t been too bored, he gave a light laugh while he continued with the cleaning, taking hold of his master’s arms, hands, then fingers. Bored was the understatement of the century but he rarely, if ever at all, expressed any negativity around Tertius because as far as he was concerned, he didn’t need it.

“I did miss you,” he confessed. “But I kept myself occupied, then spent good company with the others.” He was referring to the other slaves. It was exactly the opposite of what he did in all his huffing and puffing like a big bad wolf all evening until his master’s return. In fact, it was out of his character overall, he didn’t usually seek any of them out unless he needed something from them. “A foot massage?” he offered as he rose to wash the rest of him. 
 

@Atrice

Hector lay back lazily on the bed in the small chamber, intermittently switching between filing away at one fingernail after the other and drawing his outspread hand closer to his face for examination. He hated the space, if only because there were little traces of Charis here and there, but he had opted to be there rather than anywhere else, where he would have normally been enjoying the warmth of the sun, to avoid the other slaves. That was the one good thing about the bedroom when compared to the accommodations for the slaves, that he had his privacy, for the most part.

The entrance creaked to give way for Charis and immediately Hector fell as silent as a grave and his body stiffened. All of a sudden, his relaxed, self-indulgent air changed into something purposely frosty and passive aggressive as he continued tending to his nails without bothering to address her. At least for a very brief while before he ceased his pretentions and looked up towards her with a look like he was going to be sick. He eyed her to wait and see to see if she had noticed that he’d gone about rearranging their belongings, specifically clumping hers into a back corner. He had felt very productive doing so.

“I thought they looked better over there,” he said in a tone that made it out like uttering words for her were such a chore or distraction from the important things in life. 
 

@Sara

Whenever he was given time for himself, Hector was never shy of being performative about it. Although he might not have openly screamed it from the hilltops, there was always a ‘notice me’ about him as he passed the other slaves in the domus by. At least in the past. With everything, he felt far too deflated to flounce about in self-importance. He had accepted Tertius’s word as law, but it didn’t necessarily cease his mourning. Instead, Hector simply left without his usual one-man parade. Before Charis, he might have needed a push to leave the home, he always happy to be more of a shadow than Tertius’s own shadow, but ultimately, he would not have thought anything of it but now, it pained him even more to do so. Even if Tertius was occupied elsewhere, he still felt like somehow Charis was sinking her talons into him.  

Hector usually tried to keep some degree of an exercise routine outside of tending to Tertius, which was arguably a set of exercises of its own, and that day, he took to walking through the streets of Rome in an effort to get his blood flowing. The fresh air, which was as fresh as the air of Rome could be, and the bright yellow Mediterannean sun provided some level of cleansing. In a way, he felt he understood the Greek adage ‘healthy in mind in a healthy body’. The soft breeze gently stayed his exasperation as he walked. Eventually, he found himself pausing where a cluster of people had gathered around, either leaning against columns or sitting back against white stone, to watch some performance by a small troupe in cheap coloured masks. 

Since arriving partway through the ordeal, the nature of the story completely evaded him, but he lingered out of curiosity due to laughter being emitted by some of the passers-by. One of the performers swished along the line of people before stopping just before Hector out of happenstance. They made a comedic statement before scuttling off and breaking into song, but the context was still lost on the slave with the most he could give in reaction was a curve of his brows and a blink in disbelief. “What was that supposed to be?” he commented, receiving a sharp ‘shh!’ from a nearby middle-aged woman, who he recognised from the nearby markets. She had pressed a finger against her lips and looked ready to tackle him if he made another sound.

His eyes lifted up to the opposite end of the crowds and met with the familiar face of Helios, who was either watching or passing by. While Hector still admittedly held a grudge for his advancements on Tertius, he no longer considered it remotely in the same league as with the Briton. Circling the crowds, Hector approached the other man. “What a surprise, seeing you here,” he uttered in greeting, giving what was a brief smile. 

@Atrice

As Tertius indicated that no slave was above the other and looked to him, Hector become both temporarily deaf and blind. As his master continued to speak, Hector kept his head firmly forwards and his face stony, just in case any of the slaves assumed to gauge his thoughts from his expression. He was vain enough to assume they would look to him. It didn’t take an Aristotle to realise that his recent snappishness and prickliness might’ve have something to do with this news.

As he felt Charis’s bewildered look in his direction in the periphery of his vision, he felt himself rage. As always, she was playing dumb, which she was if anyone asked Hector though naturally no one was, but she was playing far dumber than she already was. He was already displeased with having to listen to this change once again except in front of everyone else, including Teutus, which added more humiliation to the hurt, and her even daring to look in his direction was like salt in a wound.

He heard Jocasta’s exhale and for once in his short life, he agreed with her.

From the back, Hector uttered a “yes, domine” quietly in the sunniest voice, ready to cheer Tertius on, at least when he was in the same space.

@Sharpie @Sara @Atrice

Hector felt his stomach plummet. ‘Well satisfied’? Hector’s brows narrowed in questioning, even if it didn’t take much for his perverted mind to fill in the blanks with a colourful imagination, but he didn’t voice a single thought or even ask what the other man meant by it. “Of course, domine,” he said at Tertius’s request with an obliging smile, which hardly changed how he felt in that moment: yesterday’s paranoia was back. He swung back, rose from the bed, and adjusted his slave’s tunic, all the while his mind wandered here and there. As he headed out from the chamber, he gave his master a smile akin to that of a doting mother, but the moment Hector’s back was turned and he was out in the hall, his smile dropped immediately into a glower.

As Hector went first to retrieve a drink from the kitchens and as he did so, his eyes immediately locked eyes with Rhoda. He scrunched his face in disgust even if it wasn’t exactly directed towards her before he began go about his business, directly preparing something sweet and revitalizing for the morning but all the while, he kept spilling things and let out of his frustration with a sequence of impatient huffs and puffs. The same ordeal reoccurred as he fetched water. For some reason, his motor skills were failing him. As Hector returned to Tertius’s chamber, everything was well put together, well arranged, as if Hector hadn’t been fighting back a breakdown. He neatly set down the drinks. He had only brought two as Tertius had asked him to have something for himself, though he had no appetite now, he felt nauseated. 

He approached Tertius with the bowl of water and a cloth, which he had draped along the bend his arm. “Allow me to wash you? You deserve only the best, domine,” he stated like it was fact – only because it was fact, to him. He settled down into a seated position at Tertius’s bedside and then placing the water onto his lap. This way, Tertius didn’t even have to lift a finger, he didn’t even to lift his body either, if that pleased him. Otherwise, he was ready to do whatever Tertius commanded of him. It might’ve been a subtly pushy Hector moment but he wanted Tertius to notice him. 

@Atrice

Characters:

HECTOR

Application | Body-slave to Tertius Quinctilius Varus

Hector is an Anatolian Greek slave, he's a brown-noser, likes to think he's above other slaves out of a mixture of vanity and internalised classism. He's athletic, a typical young man and interested in the same things every cardboard cut-out of a 22-year old man is, but also interested in "feminine" things like fashion, beauty, self-care. 

RANDOM PLOT IDEAS

• Ain't got no shit here. Open to anything.

RELATIONS/ASSOCIATIONS

• Tertius Quinctilius Varus - master
• Charis - fellow slave 
• Teutus - fellow slave + master's son

VALERIA FLACCA

Application | Matron, Muscian, and Poet (including pseudonym of 'Landicus') 

Valeria is the daughter of a senator (Publius Valerius Flaccus). While she has circulated works under her own name, she has a whole secret career revolving around dick jokes and incredibly bizarre and obscene poems (all done to shock stuffy Romans) under the character of a raunchy old man named Landicus.

RANDOM PLOT IDEAS

• Roman ladies' night out (or in), like a crazy hen party of ancient Rome, lots of wine and silliness without the husbands/male lovers.
• Poetic protégé, taking a younger woman interested in poetry under her wings. If not poetry, music could be another option.

RELATIONS/ASSOCIATIONS

• Titus Sulpicius Rufus - husband
• Quintus Sulpicius Rufus and Scipiones, brother- and sister-in-laws 
• Nymphia - slave

Hector limply approached the throngs of slaves with instant notion of what this was to be about, ready to hear some of his most unfavourite words of all time to be uttered. He was not in the least bit happy, part of him felt as if it were a punishment for some inexplicable thing he had done. He had spent the days going between re-evaluating himself to anger, primarily directed towards Charis, who he both mistrusted as some conniving temptress and also believed (somehow) to be as intelligent as a rock with how she articulated in Roman. Nothing she did would ever be good enough for him. Whenever he was within in Tertius’ peripheral view, he was the same: sycophantic and subservient but perhaps now amped up to eleven. In his eyes, Tertius might as well have been capable of ejaculating gold and it was too difficult to feel any level of annoyance towards him, even if there were firsts for everything. He kept his distance far from Charis and Teutus.

@Sara @Sharpie @Atrice

Hector was no mathematician, but the numbers were beginning to come together. It wasn’t until the afternoon stretched into evening that an unsettled feeling began to take residence in his stomach and then metastasise into a jitteriness across his body. His mind began to wander and wonder where his master was, even when he had his suspicions which only gave rise to a strong annoyance. As always, he was attentive to his master’s whereabouts in the household. Sometimes he was a shadow, sometimes he might as well have possessed eyes in the walls. But he had grown perceptive to enough to recognise the distinct lack of a certain stinking Briton, which only worsened with the equally suspicious behaviour in the other slaves.

Any other day, Hector might’ve lounged like the trophy slave of antiquity that he took pleasure in being and perhaps passed the time as any hotblooded man a few years past adolescence would, with his hand down his tunic in an attempt to pass the time ‘productively’. But the past day, in a jerk reaction, he instead proceeded to endeavour to make every other slave under the roof as miserable as he was, if only by his unpleasant and passive-aggressive company or presence or their immediate environment, purposely dampening the atmosphere. Seasoning any eye contact with the occasional bark: “what are you looking at.”

In the same way a dog lay by the door, feeling what felt like the coming and passing of years, Hector waited and waited… and waited… and finally, Tertius returned home and Hector was already at the door, more than eager to welcome him back and emboldened to appeal to him as if it would erase the unknown hours that had transpired earlier. Ending the day in Tertius’s bed, Hector felt he’d ‘won’ his little Greco-Britonic war and slept deeply. With the morning came a new day and Hector slowly began to rise into waking under the sensation of movement and touch through the veil of sleep.

His eyes fluttered, widened then narrowed onto Tertius. Hector’s lips immediately broke into a wide smile, almost playful. Sleep had entirely removed all paranoia or the sinking feeling in the pit of his abdomen. For a few moments, he was pretending it was just them, he wanted it to be only them, especially when he felt compelled to compensate for the lack of Tertius the day prior. He shuffled onto his stomach, then played a finger against Tertius’s chest. “Would you me like to prepare for your day or do you have things in mind?” Of course, ‘other things’ simply implied matters of sexual nature, if only because Hector had the stamina for it any time of day, any number of times through the day – without falling dead yet.

@Atrice

HECTOR.

Twenty-two years | 12 December 52 CE | Slave | Body Slave to Tertius Quinctilius Varus | Sexually Fluid | Wanted | Alex Pettyfer

Personality.

Hector takes his position and every assigned duty in the household of Tertius Quinctilius Varus with relish and pride, which is done so out of what has developed with time into a genuine loyalty and care. Consequently, his master’s interests are his own – for the most part. By nature, Hector is a perfectionist and is particular about any product of his work and sometimes, even other’s work, especially if he feels it is a reflection of himself or of his master. Often it seems like he has an unlimited reservoir of energy, where working at his side is a matter of the tortoise and the hare, which isn’t unsurprising given that he is a young man with an athletic build. On one hand, Hector is a workaholic but on the other, Hector has qualities that every young man does: the capacity to be playful if given the chance, a love of wine, and is often swayed by his hormones and emotions even with his overall good and subservient temperament. 

Born and grown a slave, Hector is uncritical about being a slave. He had never known anything else or felt compelled to think complexly about his station, having accepted it as the way of things. Instead, he plays to his role well, unquestioning, well-mannered, and poised. He learned to define himself by his value to masters, by his ‘stock’ and quality as a slave: Greek origin, young, male, strong, and in good health. But there is a subtle sense of self-confidence and pride in being a ‘valuable slave’, which almost brushes hubris, behind his manner and behaviour. Outwardly, Hector is disciplined and compliant, a ‘teacher’s pet’ but inwardly, he can think like a bit of a ‘prima donna’ for a slave. It’s a quality that may make him unpleasant or unpopular with other slaves and the unpopularity may be well-justified, especially where a mixture of his young age and favouritism come into play to just confirm what he deems of himself. At times, he believes that he is entitled to or deserving of more than most fellow or other slaves. Although he won’t outright state it. It might be explained as an internalised classism in the form of a survival mechanism but ‘once a slave, always a slave’ even in the most comfortable environments. And it needn’t take more than one eye to tell there’s a clear discrepancy to Hector’s tune when in the company of those above him and those with him.

Appearance

Given the name “Hektor”, Hector is an Anatolian Greek, tall and long-limbed with a Greek masculine athleticism and a light feminine mannerism, a combination of characteristics which translate into a ‘gay jock’ vibe. He is golden-haired and green-eyed with the face of a young man that he carries himself with equal pride and submission. Despite being a slave, he is clean, well-nourished, and well-groomed, owing to the effort and time he puts into his presentation and the knowledge he has accumulated in manners of hair and skin care.

Family

Father: Kleitos, whereabouts unknown.

Mother: Acantha, whereabouts unknown.

Siblings: Unknown.

Spouse: None.

Children: None.

Extended family: None.

Other:

•  Tertius Quinctilius Varus, master/dominus. 

History

Hector was born to Anatolian Greek slaves who were the property of a flamboyant and plump Greek slaver by the name of Alecto, though he has no living memory of either. Hector had spent limited time with them before they were separated, where his father and mother were sold and sent to different geographical locations. He was reared by the collection of household slaves on Alecto’s estate and had never felt lacking in being without a mother or father, especially when he had a place and a part within a wider household even if there was a pack hierarchy. His life was customary for a slave, filled with instruction, service, and reprimand. As a young boy, Hector had gained the positive attention of his master first for his decent looks for a slave, being golden-haired and heathy-looking, and then for his willingness to assist without question his master’s ailments from gout, which had then shifted Hector’s position. 

Hector was subsequently directed by his master to perform tasks including playing the lute or singing whenever Alecto planted himself behind vessels upon vessels of wine. Hector willingly obliged without question even when the perceived favouring grated his fellow slaves but serving for Alecto, as those who did knew, was playing to the expectations of a man who wanted and expected more extravagance than he could afford, including out of his own slaves. It in combination with his over-eagerness with the back of his hand and spit confusing vulgarities meant that his slaves often over-performed to evade the display. 

He was kept in the household until his late adolescence until his master passed away by myocardial infarction. In the transition of the household and rearrangement of the slave management, Alecto’s son Euclid had decided to reform the slaving business, beginning from undoing his father’s former lavish style to something more in accordance with his own practicalities. He employed his brother Phrixos and associates for the transportation of slaves, including some from the household, to the Roman markets for sale. His future was ultimately left in the hands of his seller and prospective buyers, which had left a cloud of uncertainty that had made him uneasy and sick to the stomach. The markets of Rome were intimidating, he was one slave among many in silent competition for a good placement. 

He was purchased by Tertius Quinctilius Varus who by first impressions contrasted with his last master. While Hector was relieved that he had at least escaped a worse fate, he still felt displeased and degraded with being delegated to the work of a common household slave especially when he had acquired training to do and be so much more under Alecto. He was far happier when he became Tertius’s lover which might have been subservience at first but then developed into genuine attachment and care for his master given the amount of relative freedoms for a slave that he was given. As of late, he feels threatened by Tertius’s interest in Charis and feels every bit of the jealous lover.

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