Title: Home (Barca / Pietros)
Rating: T
Notes: Originally written for spartacus2010 's first comment ficfest. Prompt: an ocean in your eyes.
Summary: Barca dreams again.
OOOOO
It had been a long training day. The sun had bore no mercy on the gladiators, only Doctore's firm voice commanding them to eat and rest had spared them from the heat.
All gladiators sought shadows but one.
A broad figure stood by the cliff, silently staring at the open immensity.
Barca had had a dream last night. Never thought, in countless lives, that he would ever dream again. Not since he lost freedom. Not since he was forced to fight his people on the sands. He had buried dreams under their blood. He deserved no freedom. That was the irony: he had lived, yet losing his freedom as reward.
Years had gone by. He had moved through by simply accepting his life, his fate. Killing. Fucking. Building within a sense of belonging in that new world where fate had thrown him, were life was a fleeting thing. Had seen men and women come, live and die within those walls. Had seen men suffering. A few smiles. Had cemented a friendship based on respect with Crixus, the very man that killed Auctus, albeit I fair fight, a gladiator who had learned the values of brotherhood quicker and with more honor than most.
But no dreams ever came to his nights, nor he expected them, believing himself undeserving of such luxury.
And then... Unconsciously, Barca squinted his eyes as if to strengthen his thoughts. A young lad. A delicate thing. Who hadn't feared him. Who had opened his heart to him, stark honesty poured into a hardened chest, piercing his soul forever. No come back from that.
A quirk of the lips shaped in smile. He had dreamed again. Of home. Of showing Pietros his land, open to the sea, a rich vastness unlike nothing the boy had ever seen.
OOO
A broad figure stood by the cliff, silently staring at the open immensity.
No gladiator took notice or cared. Only one. A young boy, who had dreamed of the beast of Carthage, had seen the poetry of his fierceness in the fight and the strength of his heart in love. A boy that felt he lived one step higher than the rest of the world because of the love he shared.
Silently, with that attitude he always carried between the gladiators, respect and permission asked with every move, he took a bowl and filled it with water, walking the distance to the cliff with care of not spilling it.
"The heat is too strong. You should drink." Barca didn't like this boy showing affection to him when training, so he spoke his words careful and from a distance. Maybe too far, Pietros mused, because Barca hadn't said a thing. "Barca?"
The beast of Carthage didn't move. "I had a dream last night."
Pietros stood still.
"I dreamed of home. Wondered why."
Silence from the boy, frozen in place, eyes round.
"Now I know why." Barca turned and looked at his lover. "I dreamed of the ocean. Then I awoke. You were there, asleep."
And then, he smiled. Really smiled. "I wasn't dreaming about the ocean. I was dreaming about you. I was dreaming about home." Barca extended an arm and caressed the hand that trembling, held the water. "I am home."
Fin.