I got a feeling there's gonna be a riot
So, I got sufficiently irritated today to channel my ire into finishing my porny project from last week.
Title: This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race
Author: o_contrary
Pairing: Esca/Marcus
Rating: NC-17 *bites nails*
Disclaimer: This is fiction based on fiction based on fiction. The characters ultimately belong to Rosemary Sutliff; I am merely borrowing them. No money is being made, please don't sue.
Summary: Marcus learns a thing or two about himself, north of the Wall. One-shot, PWP.
Warnings: I'm going to say dubcon, to be on the safe side (it's not, but Marcus is too Roman to articulate it). Also, unbeta'd.
A/N: So, the seed for this was planted by, surprise, surprise, robanybody's post, and possibly some of the prompts over at the_eagle_kink - I'll let y'all be the judges of which ones. And many thanks to wingedvictory for her cheerleading. It would not have been written without you bb, no lie. Apologies for the jarringly anachronistic title, courtesy of Fall Out Boy's song by the same title, which I also do not own.
~*~
Marcus doesn’t know what to do with himself. There had been women, giggling and flirting with their eyes at him from across the cove, and suddenly, Esca and the Seal Prince had been there, all but running him down in their haste to block his sight line.
He knows he’s in trouble, though how much exactly, he isn’t entirely certain, and he curses himself for his complacency about Esca’s language - any language other than Latin, really, anything that might have been of use north of the Wall - as they stand before him, tall and fierce and decidedly angry.
There’s a deep pang in Marcus’s chest, one he recognizes almost instantly as longing for Esca, the Esca he’s come to know during the long weeks of rehabilitation following his surgery. The one he thought he came to know, the one who saw the worst, the meanest parts of Marcus and gave back every bit that he got, the constant presence guiding him out of the dark, the confidante.
The person Marcus had found himself trusting without question, more so even than his uncle, whatever kind of folly it was.
It comes as something of a shock to him, thus, that here in this strange land, among these strange people, that as much as there is a large part of him aching for the Esca that he’s come to know, to show him some sign that this is all part of some grand machination and allay his anger and confusion, there is a significant part of him that wants…
With a sinking heart, Marcus realizes as he stands before Esca and the Seal Prince, lost and chastised, that he wants something entirely different - or maybe not so entirely, given his current predicament - from Esca than the man he had come to think of as a friend.
He wants Esca’s mouth on him. On the raw, bleeding spot on his cheek, licking and sucking. On the abrasion on his neck, letting the sting of teeth replace the burn of cold air and exposure.
After all, he reasons in some deep, feverish, previously unknown corner of his mind, if he is to bleed and bruise and break here, it might as well be at Esca’s hand, for he prefers him above all others. In everything. Even, Marcus concludes, in this, which should be the furthest thing from his mind.
In things Marcus had had no idea he even wants.
This realization, more than anything, makes his heart seize in his chest, makes it almost impossible for him to react to the conversation that must have something to do with his fate going on in front of him.
Something of his traitorous, shameful thoughts must show in his eyes, something only someone who knows him as Esca does would be able to see, because something predatory and wild flashes across his face before his hand is tight, so tight in Marcus’s hair, forcing him to his knees before them.
It is only the stiffness in Marcus’s leg that makes it seem an act of force, because in reality he finds he’d as soon melt into the rough touch as resist.
He knows, oh, how he knows just how badly this could go, this affront to the Seal Prince, but all he can focus on is the feel of Esca’s fingers, so tight in his hair, so unlike anything he’s felt before.
All he can do is wait, forcing himself to keep breathing as words are exchanged over his head, harsh and guttural in his ears. It only serves to remind him how lax he was in learning all he needed to before this journey north of the Wall.
Perhaps there was no way to learn all he needs to know, not without forcing the issue in ways Marcus had never had intentions of using on another human being, ever. He isn’t at all certain there was anything he could have done to prepare for something so unforeseen.
Esca yanks his head back, at an angle that should be both painful and vulnerable, and it is, and it’s all Marcus can do not to reach down and adjust himself through the rough wool of his breeches. His leg screams in protest at the position, but Marcus just doesn’t care, awash in all these other new sensations. Were it not for Esca’s hand in his hair, he might have melted right into the stones digging into his knees.
Then, abruptly, the Prince is moving away, throwing a smirk over his shoulder that would be sinister if only Marcus could think beyond the fingers digging into his scalp. He has no idea what has transpired, other than the vague notion that he is not to die at this very moment if he has been left to Esca.
Perhaps, then, another kind of death entirely, without Marcus having any real say-so in the matter at all - his sex is throbbing between his legs, no sense of loyalty or decorum.
When Esca tightens his fingers that much more, letting his nails scrape, ever so slowly over Marcus’s scalp, his breath stutters and he feels his cheeks flush with shame, with arousal. His skin prickles with awareness of Esca standing behind him, so close and still, the first hint of warmth Marcus has felt this day.
Esca’s nails drag back, back, over the curve of Marcus’s skull and down to score a path over his nape to the edge of his tunic. The pain, so small he should barely notice it - for what is the scrape of blunt fingernails to getting crushed under a chariot, or any of the hundreds of smaller hurts he’s accrued through years of training and battle - is made so much greater for how it transmutes into attainted pleasure. His nostrils flare with the effort to control his breathing, to not to give too much away to this Esca he’s not sure he can trust.
But it is still Esca, who has always been able to read him better than anyone, as though he’s in Marcus’s head. There is no hiding from him in this, either. His fingers settle into the curve where shoulder meets neck, his thumb spanning across to the other side and gripping, hard enough to leave marks of their own, and Marcus has to fight to keep his head up rather than drop it in supplication. Then Esca shakes him, short but firm, like one would a dog by the scruff of its neck, and Marcus bites his lip rather than make a sound.
I am the centurion’s hound, to lie at the centurion’s feet. Esca’s words from what seem like an eternity ago come back to him, and Marcus wants to close his eyes in humiliation, but he won’t give in to it, not yet. He wants to wrap his fingers around his shaft, to stroke until he brings an end to the heavy ache there, pride and honor be damned. But some part of him senses that Esca will stop him if he tries, so he doesn’t.
He can’t decide if that makes it better or worse.
There’s movement behind him, Esca’s front sliding down his back, and Marcus bites his lip harder, tasting the coppery tang of blood when Esca pulls him back against his chest, then uses his other hand to palm the top of his head, pushing it forward and to the side and making the abraded skin at the side of his throat stretch and spark with fresh irritation. An involuntary shudder races through him at the moist gust of Esca’s breath on his neck, followed by a slow, wet swipe up his nape. It’s chill under the damp Northern air, but Marcus’s skin is feverish. Agonizingly slowly, Esca trails his tongue along the path laid out by his fingers, just shy of where Marcus wants him, to end by his ear.
“Do you know what we said, Marcus?” The Latin words are a relief, something familiar in the midst of this wholly unfamiliar experience. Esca’s voice is rough, though the words are whispered and taunting - of course Marcus doesn’t know. Esca punctuates the question with a swift, sharp nip over the cord of his throat, not quite where Marcus really wants him. It makes Marcus jerk, but somehow, he manages to keep quiet. “Liathan bade me to remind you that you are my slave, to do with as I please.”
Marcus barely has time to register the words before Esca’s teeth are set, hard and merciless in the abused flesh of his neck, tongue curling over the bloodied skin and shaking him like a dog again, like he wants to carve out a piece of him, like he wants Marcus to carry the mark of this most shameful event for the rest of his days. Like he wants to mark Marcus indelibly as his.
Marcus can’t fight back the orgasm that slams through him with all the force of the chariot that ended his life as he knew it any more than he can the harsh groan that finally forces its way out of his throat and past his lips.
Somehow, it feels like life anew.
No sooner has he stopped shaking than he is being shoved forward, just barely catching himself on his hands. The sharp edges of the pebbles strewn over the ground cut at his palms, but Marcus is far too distracted by Esca’s weight at his back, clever hands warring with his tunic and breeches to notice.
As a warrior, Marcus knows what follows. As a warrior, and a Roman, he should be fighting it with all his strength, but it turns out that where Esca is concerned, he has none.
As a man, he can only shudder when Esca’s palm slides through the mess at his groin, can only choke on the sounds straining to break from his throat. He can only hang his head low for his neck to receive Esca’s sharp teeth again and clench his fingers in the stones at the pressure at his opening, the dull ache of Esca’s fingers inside him.
He is not ignorant of this practice, had often been propositioned in the barracks as a youth in training, but had never given in to it. He had had too much at stake, too much to lose if he got caught.
Now that he has lost everything, is on the verge of losing yet more, the strictures of his upbringing just don’t seem to hold weight any longer, not in the face of this all-consuming want.
Esca may be lost to him, but Marcus at least can have this.
He drops to his elbows and pushes back, and is not quite far gone enough not to feel a thrill of triumph at the hitch of breath from Esca when he does so. This time, when Esca’s teeth catch on the blade of his shoulder, he doesn’t try to stifle his cry, or still the jerk of his hips.
And when Esca’s fingers are gone, something blunt and thick and gods, so hot pressing in instead, he drops his forehead to rest on the backs of his hands, and spreads his knees to the stretch and burn so that Esca might slide in deeper.
If he could but touch Esca’s heart in this way, perhaps he would come back to him.
Esca brushes over something deep inside that sends off white light behind his eyes like Jupiter’s thunderbolts, and Marcus goes boneless, lost to everything but the shock of the sensations emanating from that one spot, making his legs tremble and his spine go tight and his belly pool with heat. He reaches back to grasp Esca’s hip, to pull him closer still, and Esca lets out a guttural sound, a flurry of words Marcus doesn’t understand even as he welcomes the wash of harsh syllables over him, this proof that Esca, too, is undone by this.
Until Esca pulls out, and Marcus cries out at the sudden, shocking emptiness he feels at the loss. But Esca places a hand at Marcus’s throat, callused fingertips skating over the raw skin, over the bite marks, sending him so close to his own edge again he almost misses the feel of the knuckles of Esca’s other hand brushing rapidly over the skin of his buttocks as he strips his own phallus to completion.
He does not miss it when Esca lets out a final hoarse yell and spills over Marcus’s lower back like hot rain and collapses against him, moving his hand up to the nape of Marcus’s neck. With his other, he trails his fingers through the wet, spreading it over Marcus’s skin, hotter than a brand, and Marcus arches his back into the touch, making a sound in his throat that is almost a whine, almost a groan, almost Esca’s name.
Then Esca’s breath is hot at his ear, his voice low and coarse as the ground on which they kneel. “You wear my marks, my seed. They will see me and smell me on you, and they will know you are mine.”
All it takes is one touch to his throbbing sex, and once again, Marcus is gone. It is like crumbling to dust, like drowning, like looking into the faces of the gods.
Esca stands and walks away without looking back, leaving him shattered and aching and somehow replete, his words ringing through Marcus’s ears and brain and body.
Perhaps all is not lost.
~*~
Marcus’s hope is a short-lived thing, fragile and easily crushed by Esca’s casual dismissiveness of his very existence amongst the Seal People, and he begins to resign himself to the fate of his father, dead and dishonored in lands far from home.
Perhaps it was his fate all along, all he’d ever had to look forward to.
But then Esca comes back to him, proves himself time and again to be the man Marcus thought he knew, and slowly it blooms again.
They don’t speak of that day, not in so many words. But when they are again safely south of the Wall, when they have been fed and warmed by the fire of an inn on the journey south, Marcus finds the strength to take Esca’s hand and press his lips to the palm before sliding it to cover the still-healing marks on his neck. His eyes close, and he tilts his head to the side and hums in appreciation.
Esca drops to his knees to straddle Marcus’s lap and put his mouth where his hand had been. His voice is strained unto breaking as he burrows his fingers under Marcus’s tunic and whispers that he’d never thought to be forgiven for that day.
Marcus slides his own hand to Esca’s nape, lets his mouth settle by Esca’s ear. “How could I need to forgive you for knowing me better than myself?” he asks, not needing an answer, and not allowing one. Esca’s mouth is finally close enough for him to kiss, and he does, licking his way inside, past all the uncertainty and doubt, wrapping his arms around him until Esca tastes the truth he spoke, and allows himself to hold and be held.
Fin
I'm off to visit my BFF tomorrow; whoo-hoo!
Title: This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race
Author: o_contrary
Pairing: Esca/Marcus
Rating: NC-17 *bites nails*
Disclaimer: This is fiction based on fiction based on fiction. The characters ultimately belong to Rosemary Sutliff; I am merely borrowing them. No money is being made, please don't sue.
Summary: Marcus learns a thing or two about himself, north of the Wall. One-shot, PWP.
Warnings: I'm going to say dubcon, to be on the safe side (it's not, but Marcus is too Roman to articulate it). Also, unbeta'd.
A/N: So, the seed for this was planted by, surprise, surprise, robanybody's post, and possibly some of the prompts over at the_eagle_kink - I'll let y'all be the judges of which ones. And many thanks to wingedvictory for her cheerleading. It would not have been written without you bb, no lie. Apologies for the jarringly anachronistic title, courtesy of Fall Out Boy's song by the same title, which I also do not own.
~*~
Marcus doesn’t know what to do with himself. There had been women, giggling and flirting with their eyes at him from across the cove, and suddenly, Esca and the Seal Prince had been there, all but running him down in their haste to block his sight line.
He knows he’s in trouble, though how much exactly, he isn’t entirely certain, and he curses himself for his complacency about Esca’s language - any language other than Latin, really, anything that might have been of use north of the Wall - as they stand before him, tall and fierce and decidedly angry.
There’s a deep pang in Marcus’s chest, one he recognizes almost instantly as longing for Esca, the Esca he’s come to know during the long weeks of rehabilitation following his surgery. The one he thought he came to know, the one who saw the worst, the meanest parts of Marcus and gave back every bit that he got, the constant presence guiding him out of the dark, the confidante.
The person Marcus had found himself trusting without question, more so even than his uncle, whatever kind of folly it was.
It comes as something of a shock to him, thus, that here in this strange land, among these strange people, that as much as there is a large part of him aching for the Esca that he’s come to know, to show him some sign that this is all part of some grand machination and allay his anger and confusion, there is a significant part of him that wants…
With a sinking heart, Marcus realizes as he stands before Esca and the Seal Prince, lost and chastised, that he wants something entirely different - or maybe not so entirely, given his current predicament - from Esca than the man he had come to think of as a friend.
He wants Esca’s mouth on him. On the raw, bleeding spot on his cheek, licking and sucking. On the abrasion on his neck, letting the sting of teeth replace the burn of cold air and exposure.
After all, he reasons in some deep, feverish, previously unknown corner of his mind, if he is to bleed and bruise and break here, it might as well be at Esca’s hand, for he prefers him above all others. In everything. Even, Marcus concludes, in this, which should be the furthest thing from his mind.
In things Marcus had had no idea he even wants.
This realization, more than anything, makes his heart seize in his chest, makes it almost impossible for him to react to the conversation that must have something to do with his fate going on in front of him.
Something of his traitorous, shameful thoughts must show in his eyes, something only someone who knows him as Esca does would be able to see, because something predatory and wild flashes across his face before his hand is tight, so tight in Marcus’s hair, forcing him to his knees before them.
It is only the stiffness in Marcus’s leg that makes it seem an act of force, because in reality he finds he’d as soon melt into the rough touch as resist.
He knows, oh, how he knows just how badly this could go, this affront to the Seal Prince, but all he can focus on is the feel of Esca’s fingers, so tight in his hair, so unlike anything he’s felt before.
All he can do is wait, forcing himself to keep breathing as words are exchanged over his head, harsh and guttural in his ears. It only serves to remind him how lax he was in learning all he needed to before this journey north of the Wall.
Perhaps there was no way to learn all he needs to know, not without forcing the issue in ways Marcus had never had intentions of using on another human being, ever. He isn’t at all certain there was anything he could have done to prepare for something so unforeseen.
Esca yanks his head back, at an angle that should be both painful and vulnerable, and it is, and it’s all Marcus can do not to reach down and adjust himself through the rough wool of his breeches. His leg screams in protest at the position, but Marcus just doesn’t care, awash in all these other new sensations. Were it not for Esca’s hand in his hair, he might have melted right into the stones digging into his knees.
Then, abruptly, the Prince is moving away, throwing a smirk over his shoulder that would be sinister if only Marcus could think beyond the fingers digging into his scalp. He has no idea what has transpired, other than the vague notion that he is not to die at this very moment if he has been left to Esca.
Perhaps, then, another kind of death entirely, without Marcus having any real say-so in the matter at all - his sex is throbbing between his legs, no sense of loyalty or decorum.
When Esca tightens his fingers that much more, letting his nails scrape, ever so slowly over Marcus’s scalp, his breath stutters and he feels his cheeks flush with shame, with arousal. His skin prickles with awareness of Esca standing behind him, so close and still, the first hint of warmth Marcus has felt this day.
Esca’s nails drag back, back, over the curve of Marcus’s skull and down to score a path over his nape to the edge of his tunic. The pain, so small he should barely notice it - for what is the scrape of blunt fingernails to getting crushed under a chariot, or any of the hundreds of smaller hurts he’s accrued through years of training and battle - is made so much greater for how it transmutes into attainted pleasure. His nostrils flare with the effort to control his breathing, to not to give too much away to this Esca he’s not sure he can trust.
But it is still Esca, who has always been able to read him better than anyone, as though he’s in Marcus’s head. There is no hiding from him in this, either. His fingers settle into the curve where shoulder meets neck, his thumb spanning across to the other side and gripping, hard enough to leave marks of their own, and Marcus has to fight to keep his head up rather than drop it in supplication. Then Esca shakes him, short but firm, like one would a dog by the scruff of its neck, and Marcus bites his lip rather than make a sound.
I am the centurion’s hound, to lie at the centurion’s feet. Esca’s words from what seem like an eternity ago come back to him, and Marcus wants to close his eyes in humiliation, but he won’t give in to it, not yet. He wants to wrap his fingers around his shaft, to stroke until he brings an end to the heavy ache there, pride and honor be damned. But some part of him senses that Esca will stop him if he tries, so he doesn’t.
He can’t decide if that makes it better or worse.
There’s movement behind him, Esca’s front sliding down his back, and Marcus bites his lip harder, tasting the coppery tang of blood when Esca pulls him back against his chest, then uses his other hand to palm the top of his head, pushing it forward and to the side and making the abraded skin at the side of his throat stretch and spark with fresh irritation. An involuntary shudder races through him at the moist gust of Esca’s breath on his neck, followed by a slow, wet swipe up his nape. It’s chill under the damp Northern air, but Marcus’s skin is feverish. Agonizingly slowly, Esca trails his tongue along the path laid out by his fingers, just shy of where Marcus wants him, to end by his ear.
“Do you know what we said, Marcus?” The Latin words are a relief, something familiar in the midst of this wholly unfamiliar experience. Esca’s voice is rough, though the words are whispered and taunting - of course Marcus doesn’t know. Esca punctuates the question with a swift, sharp nip over the cord of his throat, not quite where Marcus really wants him. It makes Marcus jerk, but somehow, he manages to keep quiet. “Liathan bade me to remind you that you are my slave, to do with as I please.”
Marcus barely has time to register the words before Esca’s teeth are set, hard and merciless in the abused flesh of his neck, tongue curling over the bloodied skin and shaking him like a dog again, like he wants to carve out a piece of him, like he wants Marcus to carry the mark of this most shameful event for the rest of his days. Like he wants to mark Marcus indelibly as his.
Marcus can’t fight back the orgasm that slams through him with all the force of the chariot that ended his life as he knew it any more than he can the harsh groan that finally forces its way out of his throat and past his lips.
Somehow, it feels like life anew.
No sooner has he stopped shaking than he is being shoved forward, just barely catching himself on his hands. The sharp edges of the pebbles strewn over the ground cut at his palms, but Marcus is far too distracted by Esca’s weight at his back, clever hands warring with his tunic and breeches to notice.
As a warrior, Marcus knows what follows. As a warrior, and a Roman, he should be fighting it with all his strength, but it turns out that where Esca is concerned, he has none.
As a man, he can only shudder when Esca’s palm slides through the mess at his groin, can only choke on the sounds straining to break from his throat. He can only hang his head low for his neck to receive Esca’s sharp teeth again and clench his fingers in the stones at the pressure at his opening, the dull ache of Esca’s fingers inside him.
He is not ignorant of this practice, had often been propositioned in the barracks as a youth in training, but had never given in to it. He had had too much at stake, too much to lose if he got caught.
Now that he has lost everything, is on the verge of losing yet more, the strictures of his upbringing just don’t seem to hold weight any longer, not in the face of this all-consuming want.
Esca may be lost to him, but Marcus at least can have this.
He drops to his elbows and pushes back, and is not quite far gone enough not to feel a thrill of triumph at the hitch of breath from Esca when he does so. This time, when Esca’s teeth catch on the blade of his shoulder, he doesn’t try to stifle his cry, or still the jerk of his hips.
And when Esca’s fingers are gone, something blunt and thick and gods, so hot pressing in instead, he drops his forehead to rest on the backs of his hands, and spreads his knees to the stretch and burn so that Esca might slide in deeper.
If he could but touch Esca’s heart in this way, perhaps he would come back to him.
Esca brushes over something deep inside that sends off white light behind his eyes like Jupiter’s thunderbolts, and Marcus goes boneless, lost to everything but the shock of the sensations emanating from that one spot, making his legs tremble and his spine go tight and his belly pool with heat. He reaches back to grasp Esca’s hip, to pull him closer still, and Esca lets out a guttural sound, a flurry of words Marcus doesn’t understand even as he welcomes the wash of harsh syllables over him, this proof that Esca, too, is undone by this.
Until Esca pulls out, and Marcus cries out at the sudden, shocking emptiness he feels at the loss. But Esca places a hand at Marcus’s throat, callused fingertips skating over the raw skin, over the bite marks, sending him so close to his own edge again he almost misses the feel of the knuckles of Esca’s other hand brushing rapidly over the skin of his buttocks as he strips his own phallus to completion.
He does not miss it when Esca lets out a final hoarse yell and spills over Marcus’s lower back like hot rain and collapses against him, moving his hand up to the nape of Marcus’s neck. With his other, he trails his fingers through the wet, spreading it over Marcus’s skin, hotter than a brand, and Marcus arches his back into the touch, making a sound in his throat that is almost a whine, almost a groan, almost Esca’s name.
Then Esca’s breath is hot at his ear, his voice low and coarse as the ground on which they kneel. “You wear my marks, my seed. They will see me and smell me on you, and they will know you are mine.”
All it takes is one touch to his throbbing sex, and once again, Marcus is gone. It is like crumbling to dust, like drowning, like looking into the faces of the gods.
Esca stands and walks away without looking back, leaving him shattered and aching and somehow replete, his words ringing through Marcus’s ears and brain and body.
Perhaps all is not lost.
~*~
Marcus’s hope is a short-lived thing, fragile and easily crushed by Esca’s casual dismissiveness of his very existence amongst the Seal People, and he begins to resign himself to the fate of his father, dead and dishonored in lands far from home.
Perhaps it was his fate all along, all he’d ever had to look forward to.
But then Esca comes back to him, proves himself time and again to be the man Marcus thought he knew, and slowly it blooms again.
They don’t speak of that day, not in so many words. But when they are again safely south of the Wall, when they have been fed and warmed by the fire of an inn on the journey south, Marcus finds the strength to take Esca’s hand and press his lips to the palm before sliding it to cover the still-healing marks on his neck. His eyes close, and he tilts his head to the side and hums in appreciation.
Esca drops to his knees to straddle Marcus’s lap and put his mouth where his hand had been. His voice is strained unto breaking as he burrows his fingers under Marcus’s tunic and whispers that he’d never thought to be forgiven for that day.
Marcus slides his own hand to Esca’s nape, lets his mouth settle by Esca’s ear. “How could I need to forgive you for knowing me better than myself?” he asks, not needing an answer, and not allowing one. Esca’s mouth is finally close enough for him to kiss, and he does, licking his way inside, past all the uncertainty and doubt, wrapping his arms around him until Esca tastes the truth he spoke, and allows himself to hold and be held.
Fin
I'm off to visit my BFF tomorrow; whoo-hoo!