Fic: Nothing Like the Sun
Title: Nothing Like the Sun
Fandom: Rosemary Sutcliff, Eagle of the Ninth
Rating: PG-13
Beta: carmarthen
Disclaimer: So not mine. :(
Prompt: hc_bingo, body image issues
Warning: attempted rape (not by Marcus)
Summary: Esca did not want Marcus to want him, yet it burned that even if he were not Marcus’s slave, he was too ugly for Marcus to want.
There is one thing worse than a master who wants you; and that is one who does not, but would have you anyway, because he is bored.
“You’d be near tolerable if it weren’t for that ear,” Cordius said, and drunkenly dragged Esca onto his couch. His wine-reek breath billowed on Esca’s face, his plump soft hand tugged Esca’s hair, and Esca felt - startled. Startled, and numb with it.
And then Cordius’s hand brushed against Esca’s clipped ear, and he shuddered and shoved Esca off the couch. “Not drunk enough yet,” Cordius said. “Get me more wine, boy.”
Esca dropped the flask. It was Samian ware, and expensive, and Cordius sold him to pay for it.
***
Esca did not like that Marcus touched him so much.
It was in the nature of the work: he had known it would be so. And he had thought, even if Marcus took advantage, that it would be better to be his body slave than to be sent on to another arena to be snared in a net again, and bleed out on the sand for the pleasure of a roaring crowd.
And of course Marcus took no advantage. No one would want Esca but out of cruelty, and there was no cruelty in Marcus. Esca had seen that in the arena, and it was that which had transfixed him. Since his ear was clipped, no one had looked at him with kind eyes.
Or touched him with kind hands.
He did not like it. And it frightened him that something might be broken in him: he might never like to be touched again, no matter how kindly it was done.
That night as every other night, Esca accepted Marcus’s arm around his shoulder and they began the painful limp back to Marcus’s sleeping cell. It was not so uncomfortable as it had been. It was good to be useful: honorable, in its way, to serve a fallen warrior.
Marcus’s foot caught on an uneven flag, and he fell. He tried to release Esca’s shoulder, but his armilla caught in the tunic cloth, so Esca followed him to the tiles.
“So,” gasped Marcus, and loosened his pincer-tight grip on Esca’s shoulder. “So, so, so,” he said, breathing slowly. “A sorry thing for you, to be trapped with such a clumsy master,” he said, and gave Esca a pat, as one might pat a faithful hunting dog.
His hand brushed against Esca’s clipped ear. Esca flinched.
“I am sorry,” Marcus said, and Esca was so startled by the apology that he looked at Marcus, as he had not looked at him since that first day: man to man, and not hiding behind the mask of a slave. “Does it hurt your ear to be touched?”
Something in Esca cried, let him think it is so. But Esca swallowed the knot in his throat, and said quietly, “No.”
He could see the next question in the shape of Marcus’s mouth, and he had no answer to give of which he was not ashamed.
But Marcus only put a hand on Esca’s shoulder and levered himself up from the floor, and asked nothing more.
And after that, Esca did not mind so much being touched.
***
And soon enough Marcus had no need to touch Esca anymore. His wound was re-searched, and he grew well enough that he could walk without leaning on Esca; and Esca felt odd and useless, walking without the weight on his shoulder.
Indeed, Marcus did not need a body slave at all; and it gnawed at Esca’s heart that he might be sold. But instead, Marcus said, “Will you train me?”
“Train you?” said Esca, and his heart was in his throat, because he did not think he could train Marcus as a Brigantes warrior. He was not sure that he wanted to: but more, he did not think he remembered how.
But - “Like the gladiators train,” said Marcus; and that, Esca could do well enough.
Or so he thought, at least, till halfway through a series of lunges, Marcus fell. He rose and wobbled half a step forward, and fell again. Esca threw aside his staff and knelt beside him. “Marcus,” he said. “Marcus, have I hurt you?”
“It is only the muscle,” Marcus said. His face was pale and slick with sweat. “It is only that I have pulled it, I think. It is...” He tried to stand again, and fell again to his knee. Esca’s stomach twisted at Marcus’s pained gasp.
“I should not have pushed so hard,” Esca said.
“No; I didn’t say anything.” Marcus protested, voice tight with pain.
“So? Do you think the warriors of the Brigantes say anything when they are hurting? I am training you; it is my job to see you do not hurt yourself,” Esca said, fiercely, and swallowed his bile. It would do no good to curse his failure now. He must go on. “Come. Let us get you inside.”
Marcus laid his arm around Esca’s shoulder, as he had in the early days. His gasps brushed Esca’s ruined ear as they walked, and his hand on Esca’s shoulder hurt, heavy and too tight.
Esca had missed this. It horrified him how he had missed this, Marcus’s hand on his shoulder and breath on his neck. He did not want to want Marcus to touch him. It was not the same as wanting someone, to want to be touched; but it was not so different, either.
He was not sure it was different at all, this time. And he did not want to want his master - or for his master to want him - even if that master were Marcus.
Marcus would never want him, anyway. And, though Esca did not want Marcus to want him, yet it burned that even if he were not Marcus’s slave, he was too ugly for Marcus to want.
They reached Marcus’s sleeping cell. Marcus sat hard on the bed, and covered his face with a hand. Esca’s stomach shriveled at the pain in that gesture. “I will fetch you some wine,” he said, and left; and when he was around the corner, he leaned against the wall, head down, arms clenched about himself. Injuring Marcus was not the part of a good armour-bearer.
Or a good body-slave.
When he had been bought out of the arena, Esca had not much wondered why: his heart had been bent on wondering who. He had known, with the strong sure knowing more common to dreams, that it was Marcus: but he had not believed until he had seen Marcus.
And then the why of it seemed clear enough. Marcus had needed a body-slave.
Wanted an unusual body-slave, he said; and Esca had not wondered at the why of that. But the strangeness of it hit Esca more nearly now.
Maybe it was only that Esca had been cheap. No one would pay much for a beaten gladiator.
(He knew, with the same dream knowing, that it was not so. But he did not believe that either.)
***
It was only on the road back to Calleva, the Eagle still under Marcus’s cloak, that Esca asked. “Why did you buy me?”
Marcus blinked at him, the rain dripping off his brows, and frowned. “It was in my heart,” he said slowly, as though feeling it out for himself, “when I saw you in the arena, that you were afraid.”
Rain slipped down Esca’s neck as he lowered his head, staring at his mare’s mane. When he first met Marcus, Esca had told him that he had been afraid in the arena: it had been in the nature of a gift, for a confidence was the only gift he had to make a bond between them.
And he had believed it was a confidence: he had thought Marcus had not known. Had everyone in the arena seen his cowardice? “Any gladiator is afraid,” he said.
“But not any gladiator is you,” Marcus said.
“But what did you know of me?” Esca persisted, and wondered at himself. What good could come of this? “What did you see? A frightened gladiator to be pitied?”
“No,” Marcus said. Swiftly he went on, his voice stumbling as if he hurried over rocky ground. “It was in my heart that there was...that fear made a kinship between us.”
“You do not seem to me much afraid,” Esca said.
“I was,” Marcus said simply. “I feared I would never walk again, and remain all my life penned in my uncle’s house.”
Esca changed the reins to his other hand. His fingers were numb with the drizzle. “So? Did you see in me an ugly broken thing?”
Marcus drew back as if slapped, and only then did Esca hear the cruelty of the question. “No!” Marcus said, and drew his horse suddenly before Esca’s, stopping him in the road. “No, Esca, do not say these things,” he said fiercely, and checked, and asked more quietly, “Did I seem ugly and...did I seem so to you? Do I seem so still?”
“No,” said Esca. “No, but I knew you saw yourself so.”
But Marcus shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I...” He tilted his head, and did not seem to notice rain dripping off his nose. “Did you see yourself that way?”
Esca’s face was hot beneath the chill mizzle. He nudged his horse forward. Marcus’s gave way.
Marcus grabbed Esca’s reins. The mare shied; but Marcus held on, and Esca laid a hand on her neck to calm her. “Did you?” Marcus said.
“Let me go,” Esca said.
But Marcus did not let go. “Esca. Do you think you are broken and ugly?”
“I do not see that it matters!” Esca cried. “I do not see why you ask it of me, except to be unkind, and you are not unkind; I saw in the arena that you were not unkind, and that is why - ”
He stopped. His horse snorted. “Let go,” Esca ordered, and was surprised at the strength of his voice. He had forgotten that he knew how to speak as a chieftain’s son: and it steadied him, the more so because Marcus did let go.
Esca almost kicked his horse to a canter, but he knew that if he fled they would never speak of it again; and that not-speaking seemed more unbearable than speaking would be. Esca got off his mare instead. Marcus dismounted too; and they walked on, leading the horses, the mud spattering on their legs.
The silence grew between them, and it came to Esca that if he did not speak, the chance for talking would be lost as surely as if he had run away. He cleared his throat, and cleared it again; and forced himself to look at Marcus, and said, “I do not see why you ask.”
“Because I...” Marcus seemed to be having trouble speaking too. It eased Esca’s heart. “I would not have it so; because you are the strongest man I know.” He searched Esca’s face. Esca did not say anything, and Marcus went on, a little stronger. “And also the bravest; and you are beautiful - ”
Esca laughed. Like a cloudburst it poured from him, and though Marcus’s thin face flushed red, and his gaze dropped from Esca’s face to the road, Esca could not stop.
“I am sorry,” Marcus said stiffly, when Esca’s laughter had quieted.
“No, no, do not be sorry!” Esca gasped, trying to catch his breath. “It is kind indeed for you to lie to me.”
“Kind!” said Marcus, and he jerked upright to face Esca again, eyes alight. “Esca, I am not lying. You are beautiful; I have long thought so; I thought so when I saw you in the arena, even, though I was injured then and did not think more of it. But in these last months - I have thought - that is, I have wanted - ”
He flushed again. Esca was too stunned to speak or even feel: but his face said something, perhaps, because Marcus stepped forward, and twined his hand in Esca’s hair, and kissed him with rain-cold lips.
And then Marcus’s fingers brushed Esca’s ruined ear. Esca shied away. “I am sorry,” Marcus said, and drew away. “I am sorry - I thought - ”
“You thought right,” Esca said, though he was not sure it was so. It had seemed so impossible that Marcus could want him that it was hard to believe it was not some mockery. “It is only - I do not like my ear touched.” He touched his ear himself. His fingers flinched away. “Because it is so ugly.”
“It is not,” Marcus said.
“Don’t lie to me,” Esca replied sharply.
“I am not! Have I ever? Why are you so sure I’m lying?”
“Because you are, you must be lying: because it is ugly,” Esca replied.
There was a silence again. Esca’s horse snorted. Esca began to walk again, but Marcus touched his arm: not staying him this time, but asking him to stay.
Esca stopped.
“Do my scars seem beautiful to you?” Marcus asked.
Esca was silent. He twisted the reins around his hand.
“Well?” Marcus said.
“No,” said Esca. “But that is different.”
“Why?”
“Because they are not a mark of shame,” said Esca. “They show you to be a hero; and they are not on your face!”
Silence, again. Esca stared at his wind-bitten knuckles. One was split, and bleeding. He lifted it to his mouth.
“Would a coward have offered to stay behind in the face of certain death, so I might win free with the eagle? Would a coward have gone to Caledonia at all?” Marcus asked.
Esca shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “No.”
“And so - so your ear is not beautiful,” Marcus said. “But it is a part of you, and I love you, so how could I turn from it?”
Esca’s throat closed too far for speaking.
“Don’t tell me I am lying,” Marcus said, and the effort in his voice made it possible for Esca to glance at him again. Marcus looked beseeching.
“I know you are not,” Esca said, and turned his face to search the thin clouds scudding below the heavier gray mass. “But I cannot believe - ”
His voice died. The rain thickened.
“Esca,” Marcus said; and when Esca looked at him, Marcus laid a hand on Esca’s shoulder. “You do not need to believe, all at once. Only try - if you want to try, that is; if you do not, if this is unwelcome to you, then we need never speak of it again. But - if you want - ”
Esca hesitated. The rain dripped cold down his neck. Marcus looked at him, serious and kind, and his hand was warm on Esca’s shoulder.
“Yes,” said Esca. “It is in my heart that I would like to try.”
Fandom: Rosemary Sutcliff, Eagle of the Ninth
Rating: PG-13
Beta: carmarthen
Disclaimer: So not mine. :(
Prompt: hc_bingo, body image issues
Warning: attempted rape (not by Marcus)
Summary: Esca did not want Marcus to want him, yet it burned that even if he were not Marcus’s slave, he was too ugly for Marcus to want.
There is one thing worse than a master who wants you; and that is one who does not, but would have you anyway, because he is bored.
“You’d be near tolerable if it weren’t for that ear,” Cordius said, and drunkenly dragged Esca onto his couch. His wine-reek breath billowed on Esca’s face, his plump soft hand tugged Esca’s hair, and Esca felt - startled. Startled, and numb with it.
And then Cordius’s hand brushed against Esca’s clipped ear, and he shuddered and shoved Esca off the couch. “Not drunk enough yet,” Cordius said. “Get me more wine, boy.”
Esca dropped the flask. It was Samian ware, and expensive, and Cordius sold him to pay for it.
***
Esca did not like that Marcus touched him so much.
It was in the nature of the work: he had known it would be so. And he had thought, even if Marcus took advantage, that it would be better to be his body slave than to be sent on to another arena to be snared in a net again, and bleed out on the sand for the pleasure of a roaring crowd.
And of course Marcus took no advantage. No one would want Esca but out of cruelty, and there was no cruelty in Marcus. Esca had seen that in the arena, and it was that which had transfixed him. Since his ear was clipped, no one had looked at him with kind eyes.
Or touched him with kind hands.
He did not like it. And it frightened him that something might be broken in him: he might never like to be touched again, no matter how kindly it was done.
That night as every other night, Esca accepted Marcus’s arm around his shoulder and they began the painful limp back to Marcus’s sleeping cell. It was not so uncomfortable as it had been. It was good to be useful: honorable, in its way, to serve a fallen warrior.
Marcus’s foot caught on an uneven flag, and he fell. He tried to release Esca’s shoulder, but his armilla caught in the tunic cloth, so Esca followed him to the tiles.
“So,” gasped Marcus, and loosened his pincer-tight grip on Esca’s shoulder. “So, so, so,” he said, breathing slowly. “A sorry thing for you, to be trapped with such a clumsy master,” he said, and gave Esca a pat, as one might pat a faithful hunting dog.
His hand brushed against Esca’s clipped ear. Esca flinched.
“I am sorry,” Marcus said, and Esca was so startled by the apology that he looked at Marcus, as he had not looked at him since that first day: man to man, and not hiding behind the mask of a slave. “Does it hurt your ear to be touched?”
Something in Esca cried, let him think it is so. But Esca swallowed the knot in his throat, and said quietly, “No.”
He could see the next question in the shape of Marcus’s mouth, and he had no answer to give of which he was not ashamed.
But Marcus only put a hand on Esca’s shoulder and levered himself up from the floor, and asked nothing more.
And after that, Esca did not mind so much being touched.
***
And soon enough Marcus had no need to touch Esca anymore. His wound was re-searched, and he grew well enough that he could walk without leaning on Esca; and Esca felt odd and useless, walking without the weight on his shoulder.
Indeed, Marcus did not need a body slave at all; and it gnawed at Esca’s heart that he might be sold. But instead, Marcus said, “Will you train me?”
“Train you?” said Esca, and his heart was in his throat, because he did not think he could train Marcus as a Brigantes warrior. He was not sure that he wanted to: but more, he did not think he remembered how.
But - “Like the gladiators train,” said Marcus; and that, Esca could do well enough.
Or so he thought, at least, till halfway through a series of lunges, Marcus fell. He rose and wobbled half a step forward, and fell again. Esca threw aside his staff and knelt beside him. “Marcus,” he said. “Marcus, have I hurt you?”
“It is only the muscle,” Marcus said. His face was pale and slick with sweat. “It is only that I have pulled it, I think. It is...” He tried to stand again, and fell again to his knee. Esca’s stomach twisted at Marcus’s pained gasp.
“I should not have pushed so hard,” Esca said.
“No; I didn’t say anything.” Marcus protested, voice tight with pain.
“So? Do you think the warriors of the Brigantes say anything when they are hurting? I am training you; it is my job to see you do not hurt yourself,” Esca said, fiercely, and swallowed his bile. It would do no good to curse his failure now. He must go on. “Come. Let us get you inside.”
Marcus laid his arm around Esca’s shoulder, as he had in the early days. His gasps brushed Esca’s ruined ear as they walked, and his hand on Esca’s shoulder hurt, heavy and too tight.
Esca had missed this. It horrified him how he had missed this, Marcus’s hand on his shoulder and breath on his neck. He did not want to want Marcus to touch him. It was not the same as wanting someone, to want to be touched; but it was not so different, either.
He was not sure it was different at all, this time. And he did not want to want his master - or for his master to want him - even if that master were Marcus.
Marcus would never want him, anyway. And, though Esca did not want Marcus to want him, yet it burned that even if he were not Marcus’s slave, he was too ugly for Marcus to want.
They reached Marcus’s sleeping cell. Marcus sat hard on the bed, and covered his face with a hand. Esca’s stomach shriveled at the pain in that gesture. “I will fetch you some wine,” he said, and left; and when he was around the corner, he leaned against the wall, head down, arms clenched about himself. Injuring Marcus was not the part of a good armour-bearer.
Or a good body-slave.
When he had been bought out of the arena, Esca had not much wondered why: his heart had been bent on wondering who. He had known, with the strong sure knowing more common to dreams, that it was Marcus: but he had not believed until he had seen Marcus.
And then the why of it seemed clear enough. Marcus had needed a body-slave.
Wanted an unusual body-slave, he said; and Esca had not wondered at the why of that. But the strangeness of it hit Esca more nearly now.
Maybe it was only that Esca had been cheap. No one would pay much for a beaten gladiator.
(He knew, with the same dream knowing, that it was not so. But he did not believe that either.)
***
It was only on the road back to Calleva, the Eagle still under Marcus’s cloak, that Esca asked. “Why did you buy me?”
Marcus blinked at him, the rain dripping off his brows, and frowned. “It was in my heart,” he said slowly, as though feeling it out for himself, “when I saw you in the arena, that you were afraid.”
Rain slipped down Esca’s neck as he lowered his head, staring at his mare’s mane. When he first met Marcus, Esca had told him that he had been afraid in the arena: it had been in the nature of a gift, for a confidence was the only gift he had to make a bond between them.
And he had believed it was a confidence: he had thought Marcus had not known. Had everyone in the arena seen his cowardice? “Any gladiator is afraid,” he said.
“But not any gladiator is you,” Marcus said.
“But what did you know of me?” Esca persisted, and wondered at himself. What good could come of this? “What did you see? A frightened gladiator to be pitied?”
“No,” Marcus said. Swiftly he went on, his voice stumbling as if he hurried over rocky ground. “It was in my heart that there was...that fear made a kinship between us.”
“You do not seem to me much afraid,” Esca said.
“I was,” Marcus said simply. “I feared I would never walk again, and remain all my life penned in my uncle’s house.”
Esca changed the reins to his other hand. His fingers were numb with the drizzle. “So? Did you see in me an ugly broken thing?”
Marcus drew back as if slapped, and only then did Esca hear the cruelty of the question. “No!” Marcus said, and drew his horse suddenly before Esca’s, stopping him in the road. “No, Esca, do not say these things,” he said fiercely, and checked, and asked more quietly, “Did I seem ugly and...did I seem so to you? Do I seem so still?”
“No,” said Esca. “No, but I knew you saw yourself so.”
But Marcus shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I...” He tilted his head, and did not seem to notice rain dripping off his nose. “Did you see yourself that way?”
Esca’s face was hot beneath the chill mizzle. He nudged his horse forward. Marcus’s gave way.
Marcus grabbed Esca’s reins. The mare shied; but Marcus held on, and Esca laid a hand on her neck to calm her. “Did you?” Marcus said.
“Let me go,” Esca said.
But Marcus did not let go. “Esca. Do you think you are broken and ugly?”
“I do not see that it matters!” Esca cried. “I do not see why you ask it of me, except to be unkind, and you are not unkind; I saw in the arena that you were not unkind, and that is why - ”
He stopped. His horse snorted. “Let go,” Esca ordered, and was surprised at the strength of his voice. He had forgotten that he knew how to speak as a chieftain’s son: and it steadied him, the more so because Marcus did let go.
Esca almost kicked his horse to a canter, but he knew that if he fled they would never speak of it again; and that not-speaking seemed more unbearable than speaking would be. Esca got off his mare instead. Marcus dismounted too; and they walked on, leading the horses, the mud spattering on their legs.
The silence grew between them, and it came to Esca that if he did not speak, the chance for talking would be lost as surely as if he had run away. He cleared his throat, and cleared it again; and forced himself to look at Marcus, and said, “I do not see why you ask.”
“Because I...” Marcus seemed to be having trouble speaking too. It eased Esca’s heart. “I would not have it so; because you are the strongest man I know.” He searched Esca’s face. Esca did not say anything, and Marcus went on, a little stronger. “And also the bravest; and you are beautiful - ”
Esca laughed. Like a cloudburst it poured from him, and though Marcus’s thin face flushed red, and his gaze dropped from Esca’s face to the road, Esca could not stop.
“I am sorry,” Marcus said stiffly, when Esca’s laughter had quieted.
“No, no, do not be sorry!” Esca gasped, trying to catch his breath. “It is kind indeed for you to lie to me.”
“Kind!” said Marcus, and he jerked upright to face Esca again, eyes alight. “Esca, I am not lying. You are beautiful; I have long thought so; I thought so when I saw you in the arena, even, though I was injured then and did not think more of it. But in these last months - I have thought - that is, I have wanted - ”
He flushed again. Esca was too stunned to speak or even feel: but his face said something, perhaps, because Marcus stepped forward, and twined his hand in Esca’s hair, and kissed him with rain-cold lips.
And then Marcus’s fingers brushed Esca’s ruined ear. Esca shied away. “I am sorry,” Marcus said, and drew away. “I am sorry - I thought - ”
“You thought right,” Esca said, though he was not sure it was so. It had seemed so impossible that Marcus could want him that it was hard to believe it was not some mockery. “It is only - I do not like my ear touched.” He touched his ear himself. His fingers flinched away. “Because it is so ugly.”
“It is not,” Marcus said.
“Don’t lie to me,” Esca replied sharply.
“I am not! Have I ever? Why are you so sure I’m lying?”
“Because you are, you must be lying: because it is ugly,” Esca replied.
There was a silence again. Esca’s horse snorted. Esca began to walk again, but Marcus touched his arm: not staying him this time, but asking him to stay.
Esca stopped.
“Do my scars seem beautiful to you?” Marcus asked.
Esca was silent. He twisted the reins around his hand.
“Well?” Marcus said.
“No,” said Esca. “But that is different.”
“Why?”
“Because they are not a mark of shame,” said Esca. “They show you to be a hero; and they are not on your face!”
Silence, again. Esca stared at his wind-bitten knuckles. One was split, and bleeding. He lifted it to his mouth.
“Would a coward have offered to stay behind in the face of certain death, so I might win free with the eagle? Would a coward have gone to Caledonia at all?” Marcus asked.
Esca shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “No.”
“And so - so your ear is not beautiful,” Marcus said. “But it is a part of you, and I love you, so how could I turn from it?”
Esca’s throat closed too far for speaking.
“Don’t tell me I am lying,” Marcus said, and the effort in his voice made it possible for Esca to glance at him again. Marcus looked beseeching.
“I know you are not,” Esca said, and turned his face to search the thin clouds scudding below the heavier gray mass. “But I cannot believe - ”
His voice died. The rain thickened.
“Esca,” Marcus said; and when Esca looked at him, Marcus laid a hand on Esca’s shoulder. “You do not need to believe, all at once. Only try - if you want to try, that is; if you do not, if this is unwelcome to you, then we need never speak of it again. But - if you want - ”
Esca hesitated. The rain dripped cold down his neck. Marcus looked at him, serious and kind, and his hand was warm on Esca’s shoulder.
“Yes,” said Esca. “It is in my heart that I would like to try.”