"whispering in the cold"

[vixys]

Title: whispering in the cold
Fandom: The Eagle.
Characters: ensemble, with focus on Marcus.
Word Count: 3715
Rating: PG
Summary: "They're Roman; hurt goes unexpressed." "Esca smells wild. Maybe he always has." Marcus/Esca.
Warnings: pass.
Notes: A hopefully not-too-confusing mix of film and book canon.

Comments

[demon_rum]

baaah. *wipes eyes*

so lovely and bittersweet, so well-imagined! I especially love hoe Marcus' waiting and worrying is described in such spare detail. But now I want to know why he is going to Calleva...

[vixys]

Shopping trip? :D Thank you! ♥

[feilongfan]

I am glad to read a Marcus-centered fiction. You captured Marcus' silent strength very well. Good job!

[vixys]

He does a good line in brooding, I think... Thank you! ♥

[robanybody]

This is so gorgeous and vivid enough that I could picture everything clearly in my head and almost feel the cold. It is full of quiet emotion and the things that are not said but felt. I love how Esca isn't physically in the story until the end, but he is still such a solid presence throughout the story, weaving his way in and out through peoples' conversations and Marcus's memories.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing more of Marcus's interactions with his uncle and Sassticca, and I love this line more than I can say: They’re Roman; hurt goes unexpressed. It rings so true, like everything else in this story.

And I love Marcus and Esca at the end, the way they talk without words, the comfortable way they are around each other, how wild Esca seems in comparison to Marcus, and how much Marcus seems to like that, even as he fears that Esca's wildness will mean that he'll leave Marcus.

This is all so beautifully written, all the emotions expressed so wonderfully, and I love this story a lot.

[vixys]

I think there's a certain wildness to Esca that he'd never lose, no matter how long he spent around Romans - and, idk, I can't necessarily see him settling down completely with Marcus, because he'd always need a certain escape. Or something. :D Thank you. ♥

[carmarthen]

This is gorgeously written; it's gen like canon, which is to say only barely. :-P

This is my favorite:

Esca smiles lopsidedly, and doesn’t speak. Instead, he stands, slips off the bed, bare skinned, proud in the moonlight. He smoothes his palm across his arm, circled with blue ink - except, now, the tattoos are different. Marcus knows Esca, knows every inch of his skin, and knows those tattoos in particular (the same way Esca has Marcus’ scars burned into his heart: marks of a life before) - and now, in the darkness and the light, they’re different. Marcus moves, slowly, sitting upright on the edge of the bed, but he doesn’t touch. Not yet

[vixys]

gen like canon, which is to say only barely.
So true. I sell the film/book to my friends as barely-disguised homoeroticism, which I think is a fairly accurate description... :P Thank you! ♥

[carmarthen]

That is pretty much how I sell all Sutcliff. :-P

[vixys]

Thank you! ♥