Cw for: blood, gore, violence, Sadir's filthy fucking mouth, entirely inappropriate displays of aggression, probably a few rage-boners, etc., etc..
Sadir wanted to dig in.
It was the only way he could describe it, the sensation of wanting to just go absolutely hog-wild and sink his hands and teeth and everything into anything— anything at all— and just thrash until there was nothing left. A harsh, hateful primal sort of instinct, the kind that always followed a fight he wasn't allowed to finish.
And he was never allowed to finish Spike. The beast in Sadi wanted to destroy the beast that was his most famous opponent— like rival animals at a meeting of territories, driven by starvation and the need to survive, and knowing that only one of them could be allowed to remain. They were caught in a limbo by the powers that be, though, chains of words and orders and threats of whippings pulling at their throats and yanking them apart each time.
Sadir wanted to end it. Wanted to sink his teeth into the other gladiator's neck and snap it in two. His jaw tensed at the thought, and he worked it in a slow grind. His nose was full of copper— he wasn't bleeding as heavily as he had been out on the sands, the flow a mere sluggish trickle, thick and sticky and red over his lips and chin. He could feel the dull throb high in his nose, no doubt where something had been jostled out of place, but nothing he was concerned about.
Nor was he worried about the tears in his skin, the sharp gashes from claws peeling apart with every movement, tearing open what little scabbing had started to form and mixing with sharp, stinging sweat.
Sadir loved it. The sensation was... indescribable. He hadn't the poetry for it, preferring his fists to his words, but the feeling lanced across the taxed muscles in his back, over his ribs and his chest, flooding him once more with that same desire to bite, shake and snap. Or, failing that, to inflict as much pain as possible until he was satisfied. Sated. Spent.
He was never allowed weapons against Spike. He was never allowed armor beyond the wrap of black cloth at his hips. And the same was true for Spike— they were clipped, their nails blunted, every potential lethality removed and those that couldn't be were well monitored. Fights stopped before they got too heavy. Just enough to get the crowds in a frenzy but never enough to actually lose the value of a good fighter.
As long as Sadir didn't inflict any permanent damage that would retire his rival, anything went. Well. Any more permanent damage. Sadi grinned, hot and flashing and stained with blood that wasn't all his own, at the thought of his handiwork. Handiwork that would follow Spike to whatever early grave he was rolled into, would mark him as having been thoroughly and inexplicably...
Beneath him.
Far too keyed up, Sadir grunted and snapped at the Coliseum medics that moved to care for his wounds before they became infected, bright orange eyes at the open door the whole while, waiting with very poorly controlled anticipation for the appearance of red scales and deep black horns at the threshold of the healers' rooms.
