Hey look, I'm back, and with another historical AU. This time it's GerIta, and the year is circa 400 BCE in the Roman Republic. I decided to write this story a long time ago when I was taking Latin and was learning a lot about ancient Roman lifestyles, and now I'm finally doing it.

This story will probably turn out to be considerably shorter than my medieval!FrUK fic, but you'll continue to find as much historical accuracy as possible.

And while I'm on that subject, there are several things I have to note before you read the prologue. Since it's Ancient Europe, the Italy bros' names are Felicianus and Lovinus because almost all male Roman names ended with -us. And instead of Ludwig, it'll be Hludovig to fit the way Germanic names were in the time period. Also, at the end of each chapter will be things to explain certain parts of the chapter you might not have understood. Also - the title of the fic means "The freedom of love" in Latin. It sounds a lot better in Latin, doesn't it?

Felicianus and Lovinus were extremely fortunate. Out of all the men who could have bought them from the sleazy-looking Greek slavetrader, it was Roma Vargatus, notably one of the kindest men in Pompeii, who did. Their parents had died and were being quickly replaced before the two brothers had any idea what happened.

There were men who treated their slaves like the horses that pulled their carts, and there were men who bought slaves merely so they could treat them with cruelty. Roma knew as soon as he saw those two boys—the youngest of the lot—that he had to keep them from a horrible life. And the only way to do that was to buy them himself.

While he had come from a long line of rich men and had no idea what it was like to live a life of servitude, Roma still felt a lot of compassion for them. As well as for all people, really. Especially children—he just couldn't help but be drawn to how cute the infants were, even if that was supposed to be a woman's interest.

But then, while he was an extremely kind man, he was also rather proud and boisterous—if not for anything else, then for his name. Any man named after the republic he lived in would be likely to grow up with such a mindset, of course. It was well-known how loud he could be, whether that was referring to his attitude in general or the strength of his voice during intimate relations with women.

Oh, the women. Roma was simply a lover of them, and as Felicianus and Lovinus grew up under his care, he taught them the beauty of women as well. He treated them like his own children (which he'd never actually had himself) and taught them everything he thought they needed to function in the world. They would do their day's work for him and then join him in the atrium to learn his lessons of life. When they got a bit older, he even had a tutor teach them properly.

His treatment of them truly was more fatherly than masterly. It was probably because of the empty feeling where a wife and children should have been.

Oftentimes as a child, Felicianus would take some of the food that he delivered from the kitchens, and Roma would catch him at it. The first time it happened, the boy just began crying because he knew that he could be punished—but Roma merely chuckled and let him have it. He had no problem with them having food, and he didn't care if it was off of his own plate. They were just children, after all.

And Felicianus did seem to have a special interest in food. He was always very happy to serve, especially if it involved the kitchens. As a young boy, he would have conversations with the chef and ask about cooking. It seemed very obvious what he was going to end up doing in the coming years, once he was taller and more capable.

Lovinus, however, wasn't enthusiastic about any of his work, despite having been in this life since such a young age. It wasn't really because of the fact that he was a slave, though: It was much more because he couldn't do his work well enough. Trays of food, he dropped. Tunics he was meant to wash, he ripped. There didn't seem to be a single thing he could do correctly, and it frustrated him to no end. His younger brother would get all this praise from Roma as well as the adult slaves, and Lovinus—while he wasn't punished—was more or less ignored. All because he had weak legs that would give out and make him clumsy. It wasn't fair.

This bitterness was the reason that, at the age of thirteen, he tried to convince Felicianus that they should run away.

"But—brother, we don't have a bad life right now! We're hardly even slaves. What do you want to throw this all away for?" he argued, feeling sad that his brother would want to leave.

"For—for…." Lovinus couldn't think of the right way to word it. He hadn't been the best learner of the Latin language, either. "Just to leave. I want to leave this place and go where I will not be judged."

Felicianus's expression became worse, and it was at this point that Lovinus started changing his mind if only for the look. "…Roma would be heartbroken. We're like his sons, you know. He cares for us, Lovine."

This conversation became a common one during their teenage years. And while they didn't know it, Roma was aware of it. It did make him sad that Lovinus felt so inferior to his brother that he wanted to leave, but it made him sadder that, as their almost-father, he would have to let them leave someday.

Yes, he did wish for them both to be their own men and be happy, but he also didn't want them to leave him. He'd gotten used to their company over the past twenty years, and now he was just letting them go. Just like any man would do with his sons. It's okay, Roma, he told himself. You're doing this for them. You bought them in the first place so they could have good lives, and the best life for them now is to legally free them. They know how to get women and survive. You taught them well.

He hoped that the boys thought the same. Either way, like most ex-masters were with their freedmen, they remained friends. And Roma hoped very badly to remain a sort of father-figures to them. All these years, he'd rather liked having someone to look up to him for guidance, and he didn't want them to stop.

After the freeing ceremony was officially over, Lovinus looked happier about it than his younger brother. Felicianus gave a tremendous, but sad smile, and hugged Roma very hard around the middle.

"If it pains you this much to leave, you may stay another fortnight," Roma laughed, and Felicianus laughed with him.

"That would kind of defeat the purpose of the house you made a deal on for us," Lovinus said seriously, though beneath his eyes Roma could really tell that he was truly a bit sad as well.

"I know, I know." Their ex-master smiled and clapped them both on the shoulder. "Boys, I want you to promise me one thing—that you both marry beautiful women."

This time there was laughter from all of them, though with the older brother it was more like just exhaling, and his slight smile seemed almost pained. Neither of the other men thought much of it.

"You never did, though," Felicianus pointed out, smirking.

"Yes, well." Roma put on a smile but couldn't help but look down for a second. If there had been any practical reason for him to find a woman to stick with, he would have done it. But he had realized at a young age that having children seemed to be impossible for him. So he'd never thought a woman would wish to stay with him if he couldn't impregnate her. (Oh well, he'd always tried to assure himself with, more sexual promiscuity at the brothels for me.) "I'm strange. I simply can't stick to one woman, since all of them love me!"

Not feeling as bad as he should have for keeping up this lie to them, Roma clapped their shoulders once more and bent down to kiss both of them on the cheeks.

"What are you two waiting for? Go out and ready your new home!"

Returning the kisses, the boys complied, one much more outwardly eager to leave than the other. Once they were no longer on the wide street and within Roma's range of sight, he sighed and looked out there once more before returning inside. It was several hours before he gave an order to a slave again.

Merely months after they'd moved into their new home, Lovinus had a sack packed up.

"But we have such a good life here—why do you wish to leave again? Do you not like living with me? Is that the problem?"

His shoulders slumping, Lovinus sighed. "No, brother. You were never a problem. Pompeii is the problem. Being a servant was the problem. I—"

"But we're freedmen—"

"Yes, I know that we're free. But—well, not really. I'm not free. I still do things to please others and work for the people of Pompeii. I'm stuck in this villa and stuck in the ways of life that Roma taught us! I don't want that, Felicianus, I… I just want to leave. I want to go travel northwest and see what those lands have. This life isn't for me."

Having known his brother his whole life, Felicianus understood what he meant. Lovinus had never seemed like he belonged or even wanted to belong. He'd never wanted to be the way that Roma tried to teach them both to be. So he understood why Lovinus wanted to leave.

But that didn't mean Felicianus wanted him to go. Lovinus was his brother and the only family that had always been there—when they hadn't any parent-figures, Lovinus would take care of him. For his whole life, even if he wasn't very good at it, he'd protect him. And Felicianus wasn't sure if he still needed that protection, but he still thought he'd end up being reckless without him.

Lovinus seemed to realize what his younger brother was thinking by the look in his eyes, and he tried not to look sad as he spoke.

"You have to let me go, brother. I know you like it here. You can stay and continue cooking and perhaps one day you'll get one of the beautiful women here to be your wife. But I can't."

One thing Roma had taught them as children that it was important for a man to show a lack of negative emotion and have a tough exterior. This was also one thing that Felicianus had always failed at, since he simply couldn't keep himself from crying—especially now. Except they weren't just tears of sadness: He was also happy for Lovinus, in a way.

Lurching forward, Felicianus hugged his brother tightly and kissed him on the cheek. "Be careful, Lovine. I don't want you to get killed by thieves or rogues or beasts, but I can't force you to stay here. I'm… going to miss you."

The tears flowed freely onto Lovinus's shoulder, but he didn't care to wipe them off just yet. He returned his brother's kiss on the cheek and hugged him tightly for several more seconds, trying hard to keep from crying himself.

"I'm going to miss you, too. And I will be careful."

"Can you promise me that you'll return someday?"

There were a few seconds of silence, and then Lovinus squeezed his brother's shoulder and nodded. "Someday. I promise."

He gave Felicianus one more kiss on the cheek before announcing that he would have to leave now—before nightfall, wishing his brother a good life, and heading out the door.

Explanations/notes:

-The reason that Felicianus addresses Lovinus as Lovine is because in the Latin language, there's also a Vocative case, in which the endings of names change. Remember Julius Caesar - "Et tu, Brute?" Yeah, he's addressing Brutus, so the "us" goes to "e." The e makes an "ay" sound, btw.

-Unlike how slavery was in a lot of places (especially in America, way later on), slaves in Ancient Rome were generally treated like family. Although, a master (called a dominus) is allowed to kill his slave if he has a reason, which could be as small as them dropping something. Most weren't nearly that cruel, though. But there was this one guy who was really rich and had hundreds of slaves and he would kill them as soon as he had a reason to - by dropping them in a pool full of eels.

-The atrium is just the living room of a Roman house, which is called a villa.

-Most merchants would use their own home for their job unless they worked for someone else. So Felicianus runs his pub in a building attached to his house.

-A lot of Greeks went to Rome to be slaves, especially cooks.

-It was a very common thing in both Rome and Greece to be openly bisexual, since Christianity didn't exist yet, and homophobia was really only present in that it wasn't honorable for a Roman man to be penetrated. So as long as you were a top, you were free from any sort of ridicule - so of course most men in faithful, mutual relationships would keep it a secret who was the pitcher and who was the catcher. Also keep in mind that the term Roman man really only applied to men who weren't slaves, so if the relationship was between master and servant, it was fine. And with women, no one cared because there were no dicks involved. Marriages weren't even sacred in this respect - women couldn't cheat on her husband with a man because she could get pregnant, but she could sleep with other women all she wanted. And the husband could sleep with other men and women all he wanted.

I think that about clears up the Roman history for today. And don't worry, the actual chapters will be much longer. This was just to get a solid background in before I started the real story. Reviews are much appreciated, and I hope you continue reading!