Fic: Hear It In The Thunder And The Rain (Spartacus, Agron/Nasir, Sibyl/Saxa)
Title: Hear It In The Thunder And The Rain
Fandom: Spartacus
Characters: Laeta, Agron/Nasir, Sibyl/Saxa, mention of Laeta/Spartacus
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Set after the War Of The Damned finale episode 'Victory.'
Summary: In a reclusive villa, a Roman woman, Laeta, expects a child. Her household is made up of free men and women, scarred, battered, and determined. They're not so strange in a world pulling itself back together. No one has any idea who they really are.
Author Note: A look at what could have happened post-finale, slightly AU. The title is a lyric from the song 'Cannons' by Phil Wickham.
In many Roman cities and towns, villas stood empty, even half-destroyed. The slave revolt had destroyed so much. Once the rebellion was ended, such properties were bought and slowly rebuilt, by those desperate to rebuild their lives now that the world had been brought back to order.
One such villa, on the bare outskirts of a small city far from the strongest grip of Rome, was bought by a Roman woman, who sent the expected purse with a Syrian, strikingly beautiful and loyal, the latter becoming clear when the seller slid a hand purposefully down the Syrian's arm.
“I remain untouched,” the Syrian said, gaze unblinking and tone warning.
The seller harrumphed and reluctantly removed hand. “By all but your domina, I’ll wager.”
The Syrian's mouth smirked with malicious disagreement.
Within days, the villa was occupied. The Roman woman, Laeta, was pale of skin and expectant with child. The Syrian, Nasir, stood with her; whilst a barbarian woman called Saxa openly wore blades at her waist and was often joined by a shy slip of a girl, Sibyl. Others in the villa kept to shadowed halls, including a male barbarian, battered and scarred, who guarded the property fiercely.
They were not the most unusual household. The world had been torn asunder thanks to Spartacus and his rebels and was now patchworking itself back together, nothing as neat and clear as it had once been. Those who visited found the villa well-run, the fields and animals beyond it thoroughly and prudently worked and managed.
“The gods saw fit to bless me,” Laeta's hand cupped her swollen belly as she spoke.
Visitors eyed those that peopled Laeta's villa, noting scars and weapons and absence of collars. What place was this? And where was the child's father? Laeta was talked of in pitying tones, as few notable men would wish to raise another man's child. How would she establish herself, her household? She had declared herself without family. All she had was an unborn child and a battered household, who would likely kill her when the mood turned.
She was to be pitied indeed.
*
Laeta felt the child within her kick. The shock of it caused her to drop an amphora. Sibyl was immediately at her side.
“Laeta?”
The girl’s hands were careful and gentle, guiding Laeta to a seat and calling for a cooling drink. Nasir stood at her side, his gaze assessing.
“The child announces its presence,” he guessed, his lips hinting at a smile.
“It is strong,” Laeta agreed ruefully, a hand to her belly, to sooth her child or herself, she was unsure which.
“Like its father.”
Laeta closed her eyes and smiled at Nasir’s words. A tear clung to her eyelashes. Here all masks were stripped away and her child’s father could be truly known and celebrated. Here, they could all breathe.
Laeta lifted her chin, proud and strangely happy, though as always tinged with the sadness that she'd seen forever fixed in her lover's eyes. “Like Spartacus.”
Her villa was filled only with those who had joined the rebellion, now protecting Spartacus's child, living in Rome’s shadow. Why would Rome search for them there? The rebellion was gone; Caesar and Crassus reaped their rewards. The rebels were dead.
Laeta and Spartacus’ child kicked again, emphatically. The rebels lived.
*
Sibyl often went to the markets, to gain what the household could not create in fields under hot sun, and to listen to what was talked about. She moved quietly and kept her head bowed, working hard to avoid attention. Whenever she was grasped, she claimed that she would be missed. She usually escaped with bruises that Saxa laved her tongue against, swearing vengeance in German.
Sibyl prayed every day. She thanked the gods for Laeta, for Agron, Nasir, and Saxa, for all the rebel lives saved and sheltered. She thanked them for the life that bloomed inside Laeta. She remembered all who had fallen.
She dreamed of Diotimos, his wild sly smile, his stories, his consideration of her, his heart set on freedom and rebellion. He smiled at her and told her to keep going, to fucking live in front of those Roman fucks - the best kind of revenge.
She shared a bed with Saxa, the German woman’s arms wrapped tight around her as though Sibyl might take flight during sleep. There was nowhere else Sibyl would rather be. She kissed Saxa's chin, jaw, and neck. Saxa rumbled with encouragement.
Some nights they both shared Laeta's bed, their friend trembling from nightmares and mighty ghosts. Sibyl sometimes suffered the same, though had the comfort of her love beside her. Laeta had life growing within her, but not who had made it so. Sibyl pressed close and hummed songs her mother had once sung into the darkness.
*
Nasir could have run, made a life alone with Agron past the Alps. But Romans still looked in that direction, looking to squash the last breath of rebellion, to gather more heads to show the senate. Nasir would be no Roman's glory. And there was Spartacus's child; Laeta could not travel great distance, or cross the sea. Her only safety was to cloak herself close to her past whilst striding towards her future.
To strangers' eyes, she was the centre of their patchwork household because of her Roman blood. What did strangers know? She was surrounded by the villa’s occupants because she was one of them, and because of what she carried. The same strangers looked at Nasir and Sibyl and saw beautiful creatures to be collared. Nasir spat at such thought. He would never be Tiberius again.
The echoes of his former life pained him in many different moments - the manner in which occasional Roman eyes fell on him, how their mouths leered. But he sneered back, his eyes a hostile challenge. He was a free man. He might live once more in a villa, but how different this life was. Here he would not be summoned to a dominus’s room, here his body remained his own, here his voice was prized. Here, Nasir lived and breathed and loved.
Agron would forever be Agron, with scarred wrists and clumsy hands. He worked the fields, fed the goats, and watched with face of thunder whenever a stranger crossed the threshold. He had no love for Laeta, but he would give all to protect that which grew inside her. He had promised, with tenderness and meaning, that he would never leave Nasir's arms again. Nasir had bitten a mark on his neck to remind him so.
Whether he walked amongst Romans or friends, those that peopled the villa as they had once peopled the rebellion, and most of all whenever he was in Agron's arms, he was Nasir. No Roman would ever fucking change that.
*
Saxa had had a life before capture and chains and Spartacus. The life she now had after was different, or at least it seemed to be. There was peace here, layered with secrets and swords. It was a peace that had to be fought for, every day.
Saxa still wore swords and leather, but she wore no collar or chains. Saxa watched Laeta with blade-sharp eyes whenever outsiders breached the villa, with their sneering curious eyes. They looked at Nasir and Sibyl in ways that made Saxa’s skin itch.
She was not alone in such feeling. She and Agron exchanged identical looks, the same fire burning within them; to cut down Romans who dared to presume anything about those close to German hearts. They had rid the world of such shits before, they would do so again. Sometimes to keep peace and shadows around them, Roman blood had to be shed.
If only they could bleed all of Rome dry.
*
Some offered money for Saxa, Nasir, Sibyl, any number of those that walked the villa's halls. Laeta always replied firmly that they were unbound, not for her or anyone to sell, so instead visitors laid wagers, betting hefty purses that Saxa or Nasir would be unable to conquer their household champions. The wagers were always accepted, Saxa and Nasir moving with sudden ferocity and delight, eyes filled with eagerness for battle. It was rare that they lost.
Such wagers were thrown toward Agron too and the same fire that burned in Saxa and Nasir lit up his countenance. He towered over most who challenged, but they saw the scars and the clumsiness of his hands and judged him a wounded animal, easy prey. Why was he here, if not to fight? Visitors assumed Laeta ran a place for blood and sport. Despite her words, they could not comprehend a world in which she was not domina.
Laeta shook her head. She and Agron would never be close, but she knew his loyalties, she saw them each day when he sparred with Nasir and gazed at his lover, adoration unmasked in his eyes. It was a thing that lifted her as well pained her, the same mixture of feeling that Sibyl and Saxa’s coupling brought forth.
Laeta pressed such thoughts back, and forced focus again on the German guarding her home. He had slowly come to trust her and would do all to protect her child. During the wearying journey after Spartacus’s fall, dreams had often betrayed her, forcing her awake with shuddering heart whilst most others slept. So Laeta had sat alone, sore and sad, as on higher ground Agron had stood watch. They came to exchange words, about many things, about both their pasts, Agron eventually speaking of his home, of his brother, of why he had loosed that name into the pyre’s flames. Each rebel had a story to tell. Laeta wished she knew more of them. Such stories were her bones and sinew now.
She breathed out truth. “He chooses to stay, and we are blessed by his strength of purpose and loyalty.”
Agron’s eyes widened, throat convulsing as he swallowed. Had he realised she had spoken as Spartacus had? That the Bringer of Rain had imparted much to her, about those he loved and valued? That he had valued Agron’s steadfast loyalty and strength of feeling? During those dim-lit times in Spartacus’s tent Laeta had listened and now wondered if Spartacus had known where his destiny lay, and so knew what she would need for the hard road before her.
“A wager then, Burrus against the savage.”
The arrogant words split Laeta’s thoughts, as did Saxa spitting at Acanthus. The trader spluttered as Saxa cupped Sibyl’s jaw, kissing her quick and fierce, just as Burrus - large and fair - threw caution and sense to the winds and advanced without warning. Saxa rolled free of harm and leapt on her prey.
Saxa’s eyes always lit up at such sport, just as Nasir and Agron's bodies always shifted to reveal their eagerness for more Romans forced to bleed. In truth it stoked an increasingly loud part of Laeta herself, a part cracked open during rebellion, a part that had not grown quiet since. She still did not rejoice in gory spectacle, but now she saw its meaning and was satisfied.
*
Sibyl washed blood from Saxa’s hands and kissed it from her mouth. The taste was home, Gannicus, sorrow, and joy.
Saxa tied a bloodied wrapping from her hand around Sibyl’s wrist and left sucking bruises on her thighs. Blessings and curses rained from her lips, German and heartfelt and each one spitting in the faces of the gods.
Nasir kissed every scar on Agron’s body. Together they ploughed furrows for food and another day of living free, children running at their feet, always asking questions. Questions were to be encouraged; they marked the path of freedom.
Agron loathed the scars on his palms, such reminders of life twisted beyond his grasp. He loathed how he could not caress and bring pleasure to Nasir as he had before. He loathed that he could no longer adequately spill Roman blood.
“You are Agron,” Nasir whispered, lips to parted lips. “We are free.”
And Nasir chose to stay at his side. Agron’s fumbling touches said more than any dexterous caress ever could.
*
The baby was born in morning’s early light. Lucia, a medicus with more practice on wounds than childbirth, attended with nerves like steel and a pinched smile. Sibyl held Laeta’s hands and murmured prayers continually. Laeta’s world became veiled with pain and images that could not be. She saw her husband, faint at the edges before burning, then Spartacus staring at her with some mix of affection, and somebody else, lithe and dark-haired, smiling at his side. Her eyes met Laeta’s and the babe was pushed free.
Later, when blood was cleaned away and celebration begun, Sibyl sung to the child, swaddled in purple cloth and gazing keenly at its world. Laeta was drowsy, her world still hazy with strangeness.
Sibyl helped her hold the babe, nestling him into his mother’s arms. “What did you see?”
Laeta's smile was soft. “All that mattered.”
*
“Decebalus,” Laeta declared, smiling down at her son.
A name that would be his own, unassuming to any Roman ear. Agron stroked the babe’s head and thought of a little brother running at his heels, always so eager to greet the sun. Nasir grasped weather-worn memories of a brother’s laugh, his name a precious thing on those lips. Saxa’s mind filled with those who had been chained in that ship and with those who had died on German soil, all were brother and sister to her. Sibyl’s smile was bittersweet as she recalled recent dreams, Diotimos laughing as blood ran down his cheek.
Each thought a different name upon the child and treasured the one given to him.
*
The sun wasn’t always warm and the fields weren't always abundant. The goats were rarely amenable. Agron often snarled in anger at his hands, still growing used to their scarred flaws. Sibyl was sometimes lost in dreams and prayers, her expression haunted and sad. All too often, they were pushed beyond their limits, just to scratch out survival.
But just as often, a child laughed. And sometimes, it rained.
-the end