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He’s not the boy Barca fell in love with.
He’s not timid like he was before. He’s not nervous or obedient. He doesn’t shy from the violence or the spilling of blood. He revels in it, just like the rest of them. He turns to Barca across the battlefield, Roman blood smeared across his dark skin and he smiles, wild and mad.
Things have changed between them. How could they not? He meets Barca’s commands with bared teeth often as not. And Barca finds, strangely, that he likes that. The boy doesn’t bow his head now, or lower his gaze when confronted by the other men, those seeking to bully him. One man in the camp presses issue, calls the boy a whore, he pays for it with the loss of his teeth. An abuse once suffered in silence is no longer suffered at all. The boy doesn’t need Barca to protect him from the advances of lesser men anymore.
His hair grows long, and Barca teaches him to twist the lengths into knotted locks. His body grows stronger, leaner. His skin scars and grows tough. Now longer the lost little sparrow who once captured the heart of a beast. He is a lion now, in his own right.
Some things have not changed. There is still a gentleness is his hands, a kindness in his eyes, from time to time. He can not see a need and not at least try to fill it. He sees to the weapons without being asked, tending to each with well practiced skill and the utmost care. And in their bed, Pietros still trusts Barca with that which he will trust no other man.
But he is different here too, in many ways. Once timid in his wants and shy about voicing his needs, Pietos crashes against Barca the moment he enters the tent. The youth is all teeth and hands and clever lips, devouring his lover. Barca smiles, arms wrapped tight around the sinuous body, already unclothed.
“You kiss with purpose,” He laughs, blood rushing southward as the tip of Pietros tongue appears, savoring the taste of the Carthaginian on his lips.
Finger’s tangle in Barca’s locks.
“To the thought of freedom,” he replies, gracing his lover with another powerful kiss. Barca lets him.
He is still trying to untangle this boy, one he has loved for so long. They have both changed, both been broken so fully under the heel of Rome. In the passing months they have tried to put themselves back together, little by little. There were times when they did not speak, because the wounds of what had passed between them were too raw. Nights spent apart because the terrors kept them both awake. Times when the boy would shudder away from any hand upon him, when the thought of coupling turned his stomach violently. There was heartbreak and grief between them now that had not been there before. In the ludus things had been easier, there had been rules and expectations that were to be followed. But the life of a free men is much more difficult to navigate. Still, they found their way some how.
Pietros pulls at Barca like beast untamed, snarling as he tugs at armor and cloth. Barca smiles against the dark, warm skin, letting himself be pushed towards their bed. And once there they are wrapped tight around each other, unable to be parted.
Pietros bites and claws and clings and begs, peeling away the mask that Barca has worn for so long that he often forgets it’s still there. He takes the beast and makes him man again, just as he always has. But it is different now, because Barca finds that, with every touch of his own hands on his lover’s skin, with every kiss, with breathless endearment, that he now offers his love the same comfort.