Title: Circles
Rating: T
Notes: originally written for the livejournal community spartacus2010's first comment ficfest. Prompt: Pietros, rough hands and gentle touch.
Summary: Set between prequel and season 1. The thought always made Pietros smile.
OOOOO
The shell was sharp, hard and rough. The legend, forged in the arena, named by his master and raised to glory by the crowd, had imprinted on the young boy the image of a beast, like his name announced to his rivals.
Pietros had known nothing of gladiators but the words running on his master's tongues, exchanging tales of blood, of savage animals. He cared not about such horrendous creatures, far from him, and spent his tranquil existence as a slave in the house of Capua's magistrate Sextus, the same place that saw him come to life.
Until the day he was sold.
He would not sleep the night prior to his leave, shaking in fear despite the firm hold of his mother's arms, who hours before, with red eyes and trembling lips, had announced separation, telling her child that he would be sent to the ludus at the hill. Good coin had been paid to have a pair of young hands aiding the Doctore. He was to serve at the very core of the ludus. Every time he dared to close his eyes, Pietros imagined the monsters those men surely were, and saw himself beaten by them. The Beast of Carthage and the undefeated Gaul, the champion.
He was not mistaken about the roughness, yet his eyes rounded in wonder at the beauty. And the rawness… Pietros never enjoyed the violence, but other emotions were as true as the blood those men drew in contest. And some had learned to love delicate things, teaching him a valuable lesson and granting the most unexpected of gifts a slave thought possible having.
Sometimes life proved you wrong. The hands were strong, and loaded with lethal skills, but that paled in the presence of his touch. Love, he had been granted with love.
Turning his head, Pietros met Barca's face and smiled. His champion was asleep, yet even in dreams, his hand traced little circles on his back.
Fin.