Papi, it's been 84 years since you fed us Gladiator AU and you left it in a juicy place. Where is it going next?
They're riding like hell on that horse. Like they're running from the devil himself, well... because they are. Actually, they're running from much worse. They're running from the might of the entire fucking Roman empire. They've been riding for hours and Kate is crying uncle from the back. Yelena is ANNOYED. This is Kate's fucking fault and now she's "tired". Ain't that cute lol. But Yelena runs the horse into the forest and finds them a spot. They can rest...BUT NOT FOR LONG.
"I'm going to go see if I can find us water."
Yelena is being hella snippy and, frankly...I don't blame her. The fuck did Kate just talk her into?! The severity of it has sunk in as they've been riding and she's mad Kate made her kill a bunch of innocent people. Killing people in the arena is one thing but none of those people had to die. She was a Gladiator not a fucking murderer. She's also fully convinced it won't take a genius to figure this out and that they'll be after them/her in not time so she's STRESSED.
Yelena starts to leave in whichever fucking direction. They're literally in the woods at night. She doesn't have a fucking clue where she is going to supposedly "look for water" aka mostly she just needs space for a second. But Kate, Kate never knowing when to read a room comes after her and is like
"Bitchhhhhhhhhh...did I not leave you on horse babysitting duty???"
Yelena keeps walking but Kate literally cuts her off, stands in front of her, holds her face, and kisses her. For the first time in almost nine months Kate's lips are on hers.
Within seconds the waterskin Yelena was carrying is on the floor and her hands are around Kate. Within a minute they're on the floor ripping each other's clothes off.
Later, when they're tired and spent, and with the moonlight illuminating them, Kate straddles Yelena and does her best to examine her body looking at all the new scars she doesn't remember from before. Kate had memorized Yelena's body and she can easily spot which ones weren't there. Yelena tells her the story of all of them.
Yelena is now reminded why the bullshit from the last twelve hours is all worth it. She'd kill anyone she has to for a million nights like this. After a while they fall asleep in tangled in each other's bodies.
When Yelena wakes up Kate isn't there. She puts her clothes on and she walks back to where they left the horse. The horse is gutted open and Kate is sitting there, tears running down her face with a dude holding a knife to her neck.
"She's finally up. Lucky for me, you're not that hard to find Beast."
This is one of the headhunters that is after her.
"At least you're smarter than you look and..."
One of Yelena's knives is tucked out of sight on her back along her waistline. She isn't sure how Kate gets the message but it's a good thing they're on the same wavelength because all she has to do is look at Kate a certain way and Kate knows to move her head out of dodge. Out of nowhere Yelena's knife comes hurtling at the dude's skull, lands in his eye socket, and cuts him off mid sentence. He's dead.
While Yelena runs up to the dude and starts picking his pockets to see what he has on him she's is like "BITCH...moveeeee!" because Kate is sitting there, lounging like they're on vacation.
They take his horse and jet.
They get to the nearest town and Yelena gives Kate some of the dude's money.
"Go get new clothes. You 1) have dude's blood on you and 2) stand out everywhere with your rich girl fit. Get shit you can blend in with. I'm going to go get us some stuff. Keep your head down. Don't attract attention to yourself."
"Clothes, generic, be chill. GOT IT!"
Does Katerina Episkupus have a SINGLE FUCKING CHILL BONE IN HER FUCKING BODY?! We all know she doesn't...
Sooooooo...Yelena is over at the food end of the market getting them supplies to last them days. They're probably going to have to go deep into hiding if she also has headhunters after her and they can't be going places to get food and water. They need to be stocked up. All of a sudden...a commotion from the center of the market. Then she hears Kate's loud ass fucking mouth. OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!
She quickly pays for this shit, grabs all the other things she had already bought, and hustles through the crowd. She finds Kate legit brawling with a dude and the entire market looking at them. Yelena jumps in and the dude is on the floor with one punch. She looks at Kate and she's like
"WHAT PART OF THIS IS FUCKING BEING CHILL?!"
"He punched his wife. I had to punch him."
"jcmsbfksjfkwfjsjfjdn I WANT TO KILL YOU."
Yelena grabs all their shit and drags Kate out of there while everyone on the market stares at them. Then Yelena notices Kate's hands are empty and she doesn't have any bags.
"Did you get clothes? Where are the clothes?"
"I was in the middle of buying clothes from him and then he was a fucking prick."
Right then they're walking by a stall that has clothes hanging and Yelena just rips whatever was closest to her hand off the hanger and they basically start running at that point. Add "thief" to the growing list of crimes Kate continues to drive her to commit.
The commotion has attracted the attention of the young rookie soldiers that are assigned to patrol the market. One of them takes one good look at Yelena and instantly recognizes her. He used to be a Gladiator stan at one point. He went to games every weekend with this family. It was his fucking jam. He grew up watching Yelena fight in the arena. There's no mistaking her.
What is a woman like THAT doing here, causing these sorts of trouble, and accompanied by another woman who is clearly of much higher status??? That's definitely going to stick out in his mind.
If this is how these idiots were trying to fly under the radar they MISERABLY failed. Word is already starting to spread that Yelena is wanted for the murder of a Roman General so it's not going to be long before every soldier in the Republic is looking for her and being asked about her...including this kid.
