A/N: Just a short piece for Esca and Marcus that I wrote during an eight hour plane ride after watching the best parts of the movie three or four times.
The night was humid when Esca woke gasping from his visions. He lay still for a moment, his stormy eyes gazing hard at the wood of the roof while his chest heaved with the effort of quelling a child whose father would sacrifice him for a war. Esca took a deep breath and held it. There was a soft creak of a wooden chair beyond the edge of the bed. Esca pushed himself up with the frame and set his steady gaze on the man sitting in that chair.
"Nightmare," Marcus murmured, lowering his tired eyes from the bed to the floor. It was a statement, not a question. "That is quite the relief. I was beginning to think I was the only one."
"Never." Esca's voice was guarded, laced with the distress of his dreams. At the sound, Marcus looked back into his ex-slave's eyes.
"Tell me about what haunts you." And while it sounded like an order to any outsider, Esca understood the tenderness in the sentiment and the option to decline an answer.
The dark blonde touched his fingers to his throat and sighed.
"The boy," he said. Marcus stiffly moved his leg out straighter.
"You really cared about him," the ex-soldier said.
Esca nodded slowly. "It was a bond like my old family, and like them, I watched as he died."
"It wasn't your fault. You should not worry. You defended his honor and took vengeance for his death," Marcus assured as he tried to move his leg back to a bent position. Esca shook his head.
"Your leg is bothering you," he said. He slipped off his bed and knelt before Marcus in the chair. "Your stubbornness will cost you this limb."
Esca placed his worked palms against Marcus's leg and helped lift it and bend it. Marcus frowned as he let Esca help him stretch his old battle wound.
"You don't have to do this anymore, Esca," he said. "You are no longer my slave."
"No. I am your friend, and that is all the more reason for me to do this." The Brit's voice was solemn as always, never quite revealing his emotions.
For several minutes, they were silent. Esca worked and Marcus winced but made not a sound, even though he knew Esca would not think less of him if he had.
"Why did you return for me?" Marcus murmured after a moment while Esca let the leg rest. "You could have stayed free with those people, with any people, with the boy. Why did you return to me?"
Esca pressed his fingers into Marcus's leg, gently and slowly massaging the injured area. This time Marcus did hiss a bit.
"When Iwas the master, I saw things done to you that had been inflicted on me. Part of me was pleased. A mighty Roman was getting a taste of the cruelty he had helped inflict. However, a larger part of my heart feared. I kept thinking of this leg of yours and worrying that I would soon be a part of you losing the ability to use it forever. You were a Roman, but you had never inflicted pain on me as the others had. I felt angry for my thoughts. I wondered every day if there was a way for me to check and care for you and your leg without them finding out. I may have planned our escape a day earlier than I should have because I worried so."
Esca stopped massaging and simply held Marcus's knee between his rough hands.
"If there was one thing I learned from my time with you, Marcus, it was that there is something more powerful than empire, kingdom, or race. It is even more true than your honor. I found something more to believe in." When Marcus looked into Esca's eyes, he saw the determination, the passion hidden in them. Esca was always passionate. Before he could over analyze the consequences, Marcus had to ask.
"And what is your new belief that overpowers all else?" he asked. He felt his chest brace for the answer, for whatever truth Esca had discovered in the forests with him.
Esca's finger tenderly moved over the scars on Marcus's leg but his face remained the same.
"You," he said.
Marcus let out a heavy breath and a smile tugged at his lips while relief spread through him, relief like the end of a surgery, the end of pain. He leaned forward and Esca pushed himself closer until Marcus could touch his face without issue. Their lips brushed in a hardly emotional manner, a simple and plain first kiss. When they looked over each other afterward, they both found something kin-like that hadn't been noticeable before. It wasn't quite physical, but it was what they had.
"I found a belief in you as well," Marcus admitted unashamedly. Esca seemed to frown in the darkness. He bent his head and placed a kiss over Marcus's worst scar, his fingers stilling.
"I think my nightmares have gone," he said in the quiet of the night. "Come. We should go to bed."
Marcus smiled like he'd won a small but important victory and let Esca pull him from the chair. The smaller man led Marcus back to the soldier's bed, which was quite larger than Esca's. There he laid them down and they slept in the safety of their new belief.