(t/cw for swearing & implications at abuse)
It was just a simple solution, it was simple. Simple! And yet, somehow in this convoluted mess of a museum he just had to end up in the one place where anybody has a trace of memory of who he was supposed to be, of who he was before this. Of what he went through before it all came crashing down on him, of course he had to! And they could do nothing but wait, that's what he spent his whole life doing, waiting.
And then came oblivion, finally willing to take him and he willingly accepted his trip down the Styx. Until Anubis asked for a favor, 50 odd end years ago, he asked for a favor
So now he waits- he paces, he paces until the granite should get worn down, until his legs burn and his lungs scream, until he feels fit to fall apart held together by the straps of his armour, Jedediah was by all means, entranced by this side of Rome, a more accurate Rome, an Augustian Rome, one he carved, one he sculpted, one he burned. He left that Rome behind, they called him by Octavius and nothing more, and that’s who he is, Octavius, *Ockie*. By all means, except in the daylight, human.
Not here, he killed the Emperor, he watched him die slowly by disease and none of his family wept, Rome mourned the man they saw, not the man he was, he wasn't strong, he wasn't kind, he wasn't peaceful, he was weak and selfish and a coward and so, so angry, animistically, Achillianly, he was fit to murder the senator himself so he's pacing, pacing to do something, pacing to keep his mind off it, pacing to try and ignore who- no, what he saw.
No, no, don't you fucking dare!
The hug he's trapped in makes him want to vomit, he wants to tear off his skin and burn it, his lungs fail to breath, his heart pounds like a rabbit in a snare, his blood boils, he can feel his face twisting up in disgust. His friends, his accomplices, look at him like his some monster, like Athena transformed him right then and there, he pulls back and frowns “are you not happy to see me? After all these years?” He can't say anything, if he goes, he'll surely scream so loud his vocal chords will snap like the string of a bow, simple, methodical, fatal. “I thought you'd be a little happy to see me, I gave you an empire after all!” The general steps back, he has to, he has to, to run, to flee, to avoid death and punishment, he's telling himself, but he knows deep down that if he doesn't step away one of them will surely meet one of the fates.
“How have you been all these years?” He trains his eyes on the man who ruined half a century, half a gods-forsaken Century for him. “Good, once I figured out how to forget all that you've taught me” he looks hurt, good. “All? Really?” It's a ploy, a silly little trick, he always said, a play, gaslighting, manipulation Nicky had told him. “Yes” he responds “after all I did for you” he says, looking away “you really hate me that much?”
A dull, pathetic laugh pushes it's way out, carving, not slicing, it turns into something manic, something Cesarean. “Hate? Oh, let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live! There are one million, three hundred and twenty thousand cubic meters, that fill the colosseum in my diorama” he had begun to progress, pushing into Ceasar’s space, defying it, disrespecting it, it was exhilarating “if the word ‘hate’ was engraved into each nanometer of a nanometer of those hundreds of thousands of meters, it would not mean a one-billionth of the hate I feel for you at this very instant. All for you, hate, hate!” His laughing had turned feral as Ceasar actually physically dropped in fear, looking at him as if he was some sort of creature, something inhuman.
He looked at him and steadied his breath, chuckles still coming out of him with regards for how they view his sanity, it's not like he has an empire to run, does he? “You do not know the meaning of the word, but I, I have lived it because of you, isn't that funny?” The general smiled, sighed contently “I hate you” he said with that same smile
“Ockie!” The general looked over to his cowboy, smiling and waving excitedly “gigantor’s boyfriend finally figured out what from where, hurry up, we gots an pharaoh ta save!” Octavius sighs again and looks down at the man who is now him, terrified, shaking, anticipating the next words, praying to the gods that it would just end “vade in Tartarum, meretrix” the general coo’ed, happily walking out and stopping side by side with the cowboy “who was that by the way?”