Title: The Making of Him

Fandom: The Eagle (2011 movie!verse)

Pairing: Marcus/Esca

Rating: Mild R-ish

Warnings: some sexuality; references to violence.

Word count: 1780

Disclaimer: I don't own The Eagle (of the Ninth) or its characters in any of its incarnations.

Summary: Every scar tells a story. Marcus wants to know what stories Esca's will tell.

Comments: Written as a fill for a prompt on The Eagle kink meme over on LJ, which I've tidied up a bit.

Also, I borrowed part of one of Esca's lines from the book, since I sort of missed it from the film.

Marcus was no stranger to scars. It was inevitable, being a soldier. He'd seen for himself the wounds that men could incur in action, and what was left behind afterward. And, of course, he had scars of his own. Even then, however, he only noticed them because he had to live with them; he had never really taken note of any other man's scars before.

But Esca's... they were fascinating. In the baths, or when they were lying together, skin against skin, his eyes would trail over Esca's body, at the tracery of marks and scratches across it, and wonder how they had come to be there. He would remember the veterans he had met during his time in the legions, who could recount their entire military career through their scars, and he'd wonder at the stories that Esca's could tell, seized by the desire to know what they were, where they had come from.

But he never asked. Something always held him back. Esca had only ever volunteered any information about his life before his slavery once: that night, over their campfire, when he had told Marcus about how his family had died. Marcus remembered how carefully flat Esca's voice had been, his unreadable eyes. There had been too much pain there, and Marcus was reluctant to press him for anything else, to cause him any more.

But it didn't stop him from wondering, that fierce yearning to know. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Esca, to share that pain, if he could.

One night, he could hold back no longer.

He was lying in bed, propped up on his elbows as he watched Esca undress. As he pulled his tunic over his head, the lamplight flickered over his pale torso, the lean planes of his muscles, and Marcus' eyes were drawn to the intricate scattering of scars that marked his skin. It would be wrong to say they marred it; they just seemed to be a natural part of it, a part of Esca.

"How did you get them?" The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Esca looked at him, frowning. "What?"

"Your scars," said Marcus. "How did you get them all?"

Esca's expression was inscrutable, and for a moment Marcus felt a twist of fear in his gut. Even now, after all they had done together, after all they'd become to each other, it was hard to know what sort of questions would be an intrusion, if he had gone too far already...

"Why do you ask?" Esca's voice was low, as unreadable as his face.

"Because they're yours," said Marcus.

Esca looked at him again, his eyes suddenly clear, and there was a faint shadow of a smile around his mouth as he slipped onto the bed beside Marcus, the wool-stuffed mattress dipping beneath his weight. Marcus drew in a breath as Esca laid himself out, and he felt the warmth of Esca's skin brushing his own. Holding himself up on one elbow now, he let his eyes wander over Esca's body, taking in every scar, every scratch, aware all the time of Esca's eyes on him.

"Which do you want to know about?"

Marcus paused, let out a half-embarrassed laugh. "All of them."

He lifted Esca's hand, where he had noticed before an old cut in the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. "This one first," he said. "Where did you get this one?"

Esca breathed out, eyes half-lidded as he remembered. "Just after I passed into manhood. I was carving my first spear-shaft, and let the knife slip."

Marcus chuckled. So did Esca. Their eyes met for a heartbeat as Marcus stroked his thumb along the shallow gouge. Then, on an impulse, he leaned his head down and touched his tongue to it, tasting sharply the salt of Esca's skin. Esca drew in a breath, and when Marcus raised his head, he saw that Esca's eyes were dark.

His hand moved to Esca's side, stroking the sharp hipbone before moving to the next scar: a long, thin streak in the skin just above it. He traced it with his fingertips, feeling the hard line of the wound against the softness of the skin.

"And this one?" he whispered.

"Not long after the first," Esca replied, "during my first battle. We were fighting against warriors of the Corionotatae who had raided some cattle of our clan's herds. One of them wounded me with the edge of his sword. I killed him in return," he added.

Marcus nodded; then, as before, he lowered his mouth to the scar, pressing slow, wet kisses along the length of it. Beneath his hands, he felt the way Esca's muscles tautened in response, and smiled against the skin.

He slid down now, to Esca's flank, where there were two scars, one just below the other, dark red against the pallor of his skin.

"On a hunt," said Esca, without being prompted. "I was on horseback, so I avoided the worst of the boar's tusks, but he still caught me. My father speared him before he could harm me, or my horse, any further."

Marcus nuzzled Esca's thigh, leaner and more sinewy than his own, before laying his mouth over first one scar, then the other, the mottled skin rough against his lips. Esca's breathing was now harsher, his hands curling into tight fists at his side, and Marcus could feel the heat rising in his own body as he moved over him, weight resting on his good leg, to the scattering of scars across Esca's torso. He lavished attention upon each one in turn with his lips and tongue as Esca, in a voice growing breathier with every moment, told him where he had come by it, telling more stories of skirmishes between the tribes, of hunts in the summer, and of accidents when he was a boy - falls from rocks or from horses, or mock-fights with his brothers that had become slightly overzealous. Marcus listened avidly, memorising each story as he learned each scar. He had explored Esca's body countless times before with his hands and mouth, but this was something new, something deeper. This time, he wasn't just learning Esca's body, but the things that had gone into the making of him - the things that made him Esca. The thought aroused him almost past bearing, and he could feel the hardness against his stomach that told him how it was affecting Esca.

Until he came to the final scar on Esca's chest. It was larger than all the others, and deeper, a great gash that scored the skin just beneath his ribs. Marcus paused, aware that Esca had suddenly drawn as tense as an arrow on the string, his breathing suddenly still. For his own part, he was filled with a deep reluctance to touch it, the suspicion of what it was gathering in his mind. He glanced at Esca, and saw that his face had once again become inscrutable.

"From a Roman sword," he said, before Marcus could stop him, his voice low. "On the night the legionaries broke through. After getting this wound, I was too weak to fight, and I could only watch as my father and brothers were slain. I was taken soon after." His expression shifted as he met Marcus' eyes, and Marcus caught a glimpse of the hard defiance that he remembered from the time when Esca had been his slave. "I swear, I was lying for dead when they took me. They would not have taken me, else."

"I know," said Marcus. "I know." Reaching behind Esca's head, he drew his face up and kissed him deeply, wishing that it was possible for a kiss to banish the memories. If only it were possible, he would take on any amount of pain, to prevent Esca from having to bear it.

Something seemed to uncoil in Esca with the kiss, and when they broke apart, breathless, he murmured against Marcus' mouth, "Go on."

Tentatively, Marcus touched his fingers to the edges of the scar. He glanced up, to confirm once more that this was what Esca wanted. Esca looked back silently, eyes encouraging, tense with apprehension.

Slowly, Marcus ran his fingers along the scar, from the reddened skin at the edges, to the deep, hard-edged furrow in the centre. It was worse than any of the other scars that Esca bore; Marcus had seen men die from less. How much pain must it have caused? How much anguish, as he was forced to watch his family slaughtered before his eyes?

In the end, when Marcus lowered his mouth to the scar, he almost thought he could taste the pain of that night. He couldn't take the pain away from Esca; he could only try to share the burden with him. So he ran his tongue along the length of the old wound as he had to all the others. There was nothing dishonourable about it, nothing for Esca to be shamed by. Marcus would love him for it, as he loved him for all the others.

Which brought him to the last of the scars. Gesturing to Esca to turn over, Marcus ran a hand along his back. Here there were no cuts, no gouges, but a series of fine silvery lines that crisscrossed over Esca's skin. They were so faint as to be nearly invisible, but they stood out to Marcus as livid as the scar from the Roman sword. He didn't need to ask what had caused them. Any slave as proud, as defiant as Esca would have been the bane of any slave trader's existence, and would be punished hard for it.

Beneath Marcus' mouth, the welts were nearly as faint as they appeared to the eye, a slight thickening of the skin, no more. He ran his tongue along each one, wetting and warming the skin, each one drawing a shiver from Esca.

When at last he was done, Esca turned onto his back once more, his gaze seeking Marcus' with new heat. Looking into Esca's eyes, Marcus had the sudden feeling that he now knew Esca more than he had even before they had done this. And at the corner of Esca's mouth, a smile flickered. His hand came up, sinking in Marcus' hair, drawing their mouths together once more into a kiss so deep, so intense, that when they finally broke it, they were both trembling.

Even then, Esca didn't let him pull away, but tightened his arms around Marcus' shoulders, holding them close together as he whispered, "Thank you, Marcus."