LANCASTER AND MAXWELL ( ✔ )

prologue.

Prologue.

FROM August to December, every Friday night the city of Richmond is vacant — everyone knows where they're supposed to be. You will find Regis High School's football stadium packed like sardines with red,black, and white dancing underneath the blinding, fluorescent lights. Friday nights are where you leave your troubles and woes wherever they may be and drown yourself in the pride of being a Regis High Gladiator. You  have no time to be weary when it's time to enter the ring.

Almost 4,000 people — remember that almost, it'll be important later — in the stadium scream as their gladiators enter the stadium with thunder coursing through their blood and victory contagious; there will be no mercy for the other rivals.

Only the greatest warriors in the city are allowed to step unto the battlegrounds, and they are led by their leader, their hero. It's not quite like Rome, but the people of Richmond do have their own Hercules — his name is Arthur Brooks Lancaster the Third. He is the living epitome of a god, or what you'd think one would be if they were to descend from Olympus to grace us with their  presence. The boy has the future a family man with a name from three generations and money from even further back would have. He's earned his right for the people to call him King Arthur.

Arthur takes his stage in front of the spectators, his smile displayed having the ability to cure cancer and end wars. With his helmet in hand, he lets out his battle cry and calls, "Call out the echoes!"

There isn't even a moment of hesitation from the crowd. "Wake up our ancestors!"

He rakes fingers through his blonde hair the color of the sun at its highest peak — hair that could have only been bestowed from God above— and he turns to his teammates, his brothers, and asks, "What do you say, boys?"

"Roll down the thunder!"

With the blowing of the referee's whistle, it is now time for battle. Arthur can't help but bask in the feeling of the screams and the lights on his face. Who needs drugs when he can have this? This is the highest the blonde will ever get.

He slides on his helmet and greets his family on the field before turning back to search for the face that he does this for — Arthur looks for his reason to live. When he finds it, he can't help the giddy smile that spreads across his lips. He presses his mouth to his palm and pretends as if the kiss is a football, throwing a game-winning spiral. To everyone else, it's just some silly pre-game ritual; to his lover, however, they know differently

It doesn't go to a girl in the stands. Or anyone sitting up there, for that matter — that almost did turn out to be important.

On the side, there's someone leaning against the bleachers as if they'd be content with the world perishing around them at any second. With a cigarette — or something of the like, it isn't anyone's business but theirs what they do with their life — dangling between their lips and green eyes brighter than Bermuda grass, they let out a small little laugh when they see Arthur's gesture. 

Still, they can't help but to smile and wink back. "Show off," they murmur.

Sullivan-Jaymes Maxwell doesn't exactly look like the type to go to football games — he doesn't look like the type that would do anything involving school spirit, for that matter. He is drawn to everything God created for people not to do, and just like Regis High has their Hercules, they also have their own Hades. He's in the form of an 17 year old boy with curly brown hair and a scowl made for battle. He's made of bloody knuckles and war-torn battlefields. He's a gladiator in his own right.

Like stated above, he doesn't look like the type to go to football games, but he does anyways. He may not be trying to wake up the echoes and roll down the thunder like everyone else, but he's on the sidelines every Friday night regardless of the location, smoking and rooting in his own way for his King Arthur.

They aren't dating — Arthur would cross oceans for Sullivan, and Sullivan would burn down the whole world just to see Arthur smile, but they aren't dating. They aren't just friends, either. The fact of the matter is that it has always been them against the world — will always be them against the people — and they will always choose each other before anything else. They don't show off what they have in public (oh God, could you even imagine what the locals would say? The young men are in love, but they aren't stupid), but if their knees touch for a few moments longer than considered normal or they whisper into each other's ears with their mouths too close to the other's skin? Well ... it's nobody's business but theirs, but it hasn't always been like this. 

Here, let's start from the beginning.