Marcus/Esca, comfort!fic. (I will let you choose: Marcus has PTSD nightmares about his knee or Esca broods out by the river about his time confined in the arena.)
Esca digs his toes into the dirt, fresh and clean and sweet. It's perhaps too cold for him to be barefoot, but he'd rather suffer a cold than feeling confined in his boots for one more second. He looks up at the sky, and thanks the gods that the trees let in a little starlight. He can see a little sky. He feels free enough to fall asleep, to fall away from the world.
He takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.
"Is something the matter?" Marcus asks, almost brutishly. Everything Marcus does is indelicate. His hands clumsy unless there is a sword in them. Esca appreciates that he is easy to read, but sometimes he dreads how perceptive he can be.
"Not at present," Esca hedges. He doesn't want to talk about it, not now, not ever. Maybe one day, after he is dead, he will be able to let it go, the way that Marcus had saved his life so cavalierly, and then walked away. A thoughtless creature, except Marcus seems to value more life than his Seal brothers, even the life of a slave.
"Then something bothers you in the past tense," Marcus postulates, "Or in the future." Esca sighs again. Marcus cocks an eyebrow as if to say see.
"I lied. I am bothered at present by your line of questioning." Esca says, testy. "I'd like to let it go."
"You can't let it go," Marcus says, "if you keep it clutched tightly to your chest." Marcus pauses, and Esca mulls it over. "You don't have to tell me right now, or ever at all, but you do have to tell someone, eventually."
"I don't want to." Esca says mulishly.
"You don't right now," Marcus reasons, and maybe he does have some grace after all, "but if, in the future you need someone to talk to, I hope you will consider me at your service."
Esca laughs bitterly at the irony of that statement, but later, when he finds himself viewing Marcus as a human being instead of a slave, he rethinks Marcus's offer.
He doesn't tell him right away, but he does tell him. When he does, Marcus places his hand on Esca's shoulder, nothing too friendly or forward, but genial enough. The hand on his shoulder doesn't feel like a cage, bars of friendship closing around him, but rather a mooring, a foundation to cling to in the great, empty world.
"Thank you," Esca says, one night, petting Shadow's flank.
"I have never asked for your thanks," Marcus says, "but I accept them as freely given. And though, unless you're talking about the new shoes on this beauty," Marcus pats the side of Shadow's neck, and Shadow butts his head against Marcus's shoulder. "I have no idea what you're thanking me for, you're welcome."
Esca's chest feels like it's on fire, like it had when Marcus had put Placidus in his place. For the first time, Esca allows himself to be grateful for Marcus's reckless humanity.
