Past Lives - Sparta
Oct. 30th, 2010 01:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: possible underage (we’re talking about the Greeks here, though!)
Summary: This possibly links up to prompt on the last meme, found right here, but I didn’t exactly follow it.
This’ll be the first in a Past Lives series. Why? Because there’s always room for more historical AUs in the world, I think. And I like the idea of the boys kicking some ass throughout history!
Up to this point, his life has been war.
His mother died in childbirth. His father, nobody had ever known. So he was alone in the world. Deemed fit to live, they turned him over to the temple priestesses for safekeeping. Only for a few years, until he was old enough, until he was seven.
And his life became war.
The training in the agoge was harsh and unforgiving. They fought, each other and the older boys, were whipped and beaten, to teach them about pain, ran, slept, ate with one another, to learn teamwork, studied scrolls and old stories, to know about the world and all the things in it. Days blurred, months vanished, scars formed, he grew, scars faded only to replaced with fresh wounds. He watched the sun set sometimes, in the evenings before bed, one of the older boys always out there, every night.
He was the crazy one, they said, slightly odd, but he was straight-limbed and a good fighter in his own right. The younger boy liked him. He could always be counted on to give the best answers in class, find the strangest ways of recovery in a tussle.
"What are you looking at?" he asked him once.
"Ever want to fly? Like the birds, all the way up there?"
"Like Daedalus and Icarus?"
"No," the older boy had told him, and smiled. "Like Pegasus."
"You can't be a horse!"
The older boy gave him a look, like he was an idiot for not understanding. "Or maybe Belleraphon. I don't know which enjoyed the flying more, you know."
Then they had laughed and run back in for bed.
When he was twelve, training changed. Just a little. It got more intense, and yet, it got better, too.
"I never had a father," the boy said, feeling clumsy, standing at the edge of the small table. It was summer outside, hot and breezy, the smell of grass coming off the fields where the helots were tending crops. The young man, sitting there, listening, had a glint in his blue eyes. So strange, blue eyes, and his hair, already growing gray, made him look far older than his twenty-five years. He was a legend already, and there's more than a little fear at being put into his care. "Is that what you're supposed to be?"
"I'm supposed to make you a better Spartan, kid," the man told him, and leaned forward a little. "We're going to make that happen."
There's a helot, a black-skinned warrior from distant shores far to the south where only the gods have walked, who's good friends with the boy's mentor. He works at the smithy, but he's as good with a sword as any of the full citizen men around here. The older man insisted that they fight sometimes, get his student used to a different fighting style, and those encounters are the worst of all. The helot's a kind man, the boy learns, and he picks up a little of the man's language during their time together. It seems to make him happy. His mentor speaks more of it, but praises his boy's quick mind and laughs at his mistakes along with the black man. They aren't friends, though. Things don't work that way here.
His mentor insists that the boy sleep with him - wouldn't do for either of them give the impression that he wasn't getting all the training he was supposed to be receiving. But the truth is, he rather likes the idea of having a father, and the soldier rather likes the idea of having a student, or so he says, and they're in agreement. Nothing comes of it.
At night, he lies there, held, warm, bare skin against his soothing sore muscles and new bruises, pain caused by the strong frame behind him, and he thinks he might love this man. He's not sure what that is, exactly. No mother, no father, no family to compare him to. Maybe it's the way his friend, the one who wants to be Bellerephon, feels about the sky.
Not tonight, though. Tonight, tonight, he's out hunting. Eighteen. Ready to join the army, ready to be a man, ready... with one last test to pass.
The Krypteia.
It's night, dark and moonless, cold with approaching autumn, the stars the only light in the expanse of the Spartan countryside. All the boys are out, doing the same thing, knife in hand, stalking a kill.
His friend went through this, and when he returned, his eyes were dark and he spoke to nobody but the boy's mentor for days afterwards. The boy had never seen anybody affected so. It was the primary duty of all Spartan men to kill for the state, for freedom, for the safety of their families and their homes. Why had it bothered him so?
He can't answer that question. He's been thinking about it all night, and he can't answer it. It doesn't make any sense to him, not at first, not until he comes upon a few of his fellows, two of them, ganging up on a man, a dark man who's only visible down the road because of his white robe.
The man from the smithy. He starts running.
He's bleeding by the time the boy gets there, leg badly mangled, but he's still fighting, a kind of bloodlust in his eyes, and the boy figures that he can say he was defending the boys, rathe than the smith, if he's asked about this later. They're supposed to kill a helot tonight, prove their worth, but he doesn't want to see this one die.
Into the fray he jumps, knife flashing, and it hurts and it's not pretty, but he gets the other two on the run and the black man on his feet. A pat on the shoulder, and a quick hint about where he might be able to hide for the rest of the evening, and the boy's off, his heart no lighter but somewhat easier.
He gets his man, before dawn, a murmured apology as he slits the slave's throat a sure sign of weakness but one nobody else will ever see. The blood's on his hands and his chest and his knife as he comes back into the agora, victorious, a man at last.
His silver-haired mentor is in front of the crowd, waiting for his return, pride written on his handsome features. The boy, no, the man, smiles back. The blood on his chest is dry. It itches.
The day's nearing noon by the time they get back to his mentor's small dwelling, and the older man insists on washing the younger himself. Tells him to go back to the bedroom and wait. He arrives with a small dish of water and tells him to strip.
He doesn't know what to expect, really, his teacher's hands surprisingly gentle like they never are, running a wet cloth over battle-hardened, battle-fatigued muscle, erasing every trace of the night from his skin.
"The smith told me what you did for him."
He looks away. "I'm sorry. I know I probably should have..."
"Mercy is a virtue, too, like good wine, saved for special occasions and loved ones," his mentor tells him, the cloth dropping back into the dish. "Don't overuse it."
"Yes, sir."
"You're a man now," he says, cupping a cheek, fingers playing against the younger's ear lobe. "I am very proud of you. They're going to let me have my own command soon. I want you in it."
His body grows hot and his heart seems to expand and he has no idea what this is, but it feels right.
He doesn't know what he's doing. No mother, no father, no family but this man, right here in front of him, and there's never been time or room or space at all for anything like this. But he makes his decision, and leans forward a little, close enough to feel breath on his face, and there's no air between them, nothing at all, lips touching softly.
That hand on his cheek moves to grip short hair and the older man takes charge, just like he always does, encouraging him to open his mouth and a tongue slips inside, and, oh gods, it's exactly like watching the sunset, like besting an opponent in a hard-won battle, the way a feast smells during festival times and everything good in life, but better, bright and shining and filling something in him he's never known was empty.
The sensation breaks and he moans in protest as the older man pulls back.
"Are you ready for this lesson now?" he asks, breathless.
"Looking forward...to serving under you...sir," he pants, and the older man, his new lover, his new commander, smirks and throws them both back onto the thin pallet where they sleep.
If the first kiss was gentle and yielding, the second is entirely the opposite. It's harsh and needy and violent, like only this man can be violent, and before he knows it, his mentor is naked and pressing him down, caresses he arches into, a hand around his hard manhood that feels so much better than his own that makes him writhe, thighs around his own, like they're still fighting, outside in the sand, learning things that will save his life one day, as if this is no less urgent. They've been naked together before, but this is different. Much more. Beyond.
Still fighting, but it's not quite war. It's entirely new. He likes that.
Positions change, his belly grinding down into the bed, something cold dribbling down his back, between his cheeks - oil - and a finger pushes it inside him, closely followed by a second, the twisting of the digits surpassing anything he's ever felt before, and only dimly can he hear all the noise he's making. Some of the others have talked about this, but he never imagined, not ever, that it would be like this. The man above him grunt, repositions again, and then something larger drives into him, impaling him, opening.
He tenses, grits his teeth, the pressure almost too much to bear, but he's a warrior now and he'll take it, anything this man does, just as he has for the last six years, but he doesn't need to worry about it too much. The silver-haired man soothes him with soft words and a fees light touches, and then starts to move, hitting something deep inside...
He screams.
And the world falls away.
Heat spreads through him, glorious heat in his bowels and his lover has gone still. His own cock is soft again, sticky cloth beneath him, and everything is perfect until the man above him pulls out and rolls to the side.
He curls up, trying to draw his knees into his chest, the loss indescribable, this man no longer inside of him. There won't be cuddling, not like when he was a child still in need of comfort, he tells himself, but then he's being drawn backwards against that familiar chest and his legs are pushed down and entwined and it's all the Spartan man can do to keep from sobbing out in relief.
He licks his lips instead, not turning, not giving any sign of how much he needs this, how long he's wanted it, not wanting to show that kind of weakness. There will be more, he's sure of it...
"Thank you," he says instead, and the other man just laughs, chest rumbling. "So, what are we going to be doing in your unit? Drills and drills and more drills? Fighting the Athenians? More drills?"
"I was thinking about something a little more interesting..."
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: possible underage (we’re talking about the Greeks here, though!)
Summary: This possibly links up to prompt on the last meme, found right here, but I didn’t exactly follow it.
This’ll be the first in a Past Lives series. Why? Because there’s always room for more historical AUs in the world, I think. And I like the idea of the boys kicking some ass throughout history!
Up to this point, his life has been war.
His mother died in childbirth. His father, nobody had ever known. So he was alone in the world. Deemed fit to live, they turned him over to the temple priestesses for safekeeping. Only for a few years, until he was old enough, until he was seven.
And his life became war.
The training in the agoge was harsh and unforgiving. They fought, each other and the older boys, were whipped and beaten, to teach them about pain, ran, slept, ate with one another, to learn teamwork, studied scrolls and old stories, to know about the world and all the things in it. Days blurred, months vanished, scars formed, he grew, scars faded only to replaced with fresh wounds. He watched the sun set sometimes, in the evenings before bed, one of the older boys always out there, every night.
He was the crazy one, they said, slightly odd, but he was straight-limbed and a good fighter in his own right. The younger boy liked him. He could always be counted on to give the best answers in class, find the strangest ways of recovery in a tussle.
"What are you looking at?" he asked him once.
"Ever want to fly? Like the birds, all the way up there?"
"Like Daedalus and Icarus?"
"No," the older boy had told him, and smiled. "Like Pegasus."
"You can't be a horse!"
The older boy gave him a look, like he was an idiot for not understanding. "Or maybe Belleraphon. I don't know which enjoyed the flying more, you know."
Then they had laughed and run back in for bed.
When he was twelve, training changed. Just a little. It got more intense, and yet, it got better, too.
"I never had a father," the boy said, feeling clumsy, standing at the edge of the small table. It was summer outside, hot and breezy, the smell of grass coming off the fields where the helots were tending crops. The young man, sitting there, listening, had a glint in his blue eyes. So strange, blue eyes, and his hair, already growing gray, made him look far older than his twenty-five years. He was a legend already, and there's more than a little fear at being put into his care. "Is that what you're supposed to be?"
"I'm supposed to make you a better Spartan, kid," the man told him, and leaned forward a little. "We're going to make that happen."
There's a helot, a black-skinned warrior from distant shores far to the south where only the gods have walked, who's good friends with the boy's mentor. He works at the smithy, but he's as good with a sword as any of the full citizen men around here. The older man insisted that they fight sometimes, get his student used to a different fighting style, and those encounters are the worst of all. The helot's a kind man, the boy learns, and he picks up a little of the man's language during their time together. It seems to make him happy. His mentor speaks more of it, but praises his boy's quick mind and laughs at his mistakes along with the black man. They aren't friends, though. Things don't work that way here.
His mentor insists that the boy sleep with him - wouldn't do for either of them give the impression that he wasn't getting all the training he was supposed to be receiving. But the truth is, he rather likes the idea of having a father, and the soldier rather likes the idea of having a student, or so he says, and they're in agreement. Nothing comes of it.
At night, he lies there, held, warm, bare skin against his soothing sore muscles and new bruises, pain caused by the strong frame behind him, and he thinks he might love this man. He's not sure what that is, exactly. No mother, no father, no family to compare him to. Maybe it's the way his friend, the one who wants to be Bellerephon, feels about the sky.
Not tonight, though. Tonight, tonight, he's out hunting. Eighteen. Ready to join the army, ready to be a man, ready... with one last test to pass.
The Krypteia.
It's night, dark and moonless, cold with approaching autumn, the stars the only light in the expanse of the Spartan countryside. All the boys are out, doing the same thing, knife in hand, stalking a kill.
His friend went through this, and when he returned, his eyes were dark and he spoke to nobody but the boy's mentor for days afterwards. The boy had never seen anybody affected so. It was the primary duty of all Spartan men to kill for the state, for freedom, for the safety of their families and their homes. Why had it bothered him so?
He can't answer that question. He's been thinking about it all night, and he can't answer it. It doesn't make any sense to him, not at first, not until he comes upon a few of his fellows, two of them, ganging up on a man, a dark man who's only visible down the road because of his white robe.
The man from the smithy. He starts running.
He's bleeding by the time the boy gets there, leg badly mangled, but he's still fighting, a kind of bloodlust in his eyes, and the boy figures that he can say he was defending the boys, rathe than the smith, if he's asked about this later. They're supposed to kill a helot tonight, prove their worth, but he doesn't want to see this one die.
Into the fray he jumps, knife flashing, and it hurts and it's not pretty, but he gets the other two on the run and the black man on his feet. A pat on the shoulder, and a quick hint about where he might be able to hide for the rest of the evening, and the boy's off, his heart no lighter but somewhat easier.
He gets his man, before dawn, a murmured apology as he slits the slave's throat a sure sign of weakness but one nobody else will ever see. The blood's on his hands and his chest and his knife as he comes back into the agora, victorious, a man at last.
His silver-haired mentor is in front of the crowd, waiting for his return, pride written on his handsome features. The boy, no, the man, smiles back. The blood on his chest is dry. It itches.
The day's nearing noon by the time they get back to his mentor's small dwelling, and the older man insists on washing the younger himself. Tells him to go back to the bedroom and wait. He arrives with a small dish of water and tells him to strip.
He doesn't know what to expect, really, his teacher's hands surprisingly gentle like they never are, running a wet cloth over battle-hardened, battle-fatigued muscle, erasing every trace of the night from his skin.
"The smith told me what you did for him."
He looks away. "I'm sorry. I know I probably should have..."
"Mercy is a virtue, too, like good wine, saved for special occasions and loved ones," his mentor tells him, the cloth dropping back into the dish. "Don't overuse it."
"Yes, sir."
"You're a man now," he says, cupping a cheek, fingers playing against the younger's ear lobe. "I am very proud of you. They're going to let me have my own command soon. I want you in it."
His body grows hot and his heart seems to expand and he has no idea what this is, but it feels right.
He doesn't know what he's doing. No mother, no father, no family but this man, right here in front of him, and there's never been time or room or space at all for anything like this. But he makes his decision, and leans forward a little, close enough to feel breath on his face, and there's no air between them, nothing at all, lips touching softly.
That hand on his cheek moves to grip short hair and the older man takes charge, just like he always does, encouraging him to open his mouth and a tongue slips inside, and, oh gods, it's exactly like watching the sunset, like besting an opponent in a hard-won battle, the way a feast smells during festival times and everything good in life, but better, bright and shining and filling something in him he's never known was empty.
The sensation breaks and he moans in protest as the older man pulls back.
"Are you ready for this lesson now?" he asks, breathless.
"Looking forward...to serving under you...sir," he pants, and the older man, his new lover, his new commander, smirks and throws them both back onto the thin pallet where they sleep.
If the first kiss was gentle and yielding, the second is entirely the opposite. It's harsh and needy and violent, like only this man can be violent, and before he knows it, his mentor is naked and pressing him down, caresses he arches into, a hand around his hard manhood that feels so much better than his own that makes him writhe, thighs around his own, like they're still fighting, outside in the sand, learning things that will save his life one day, as if this is no less urgent. They've been naked together before, but this is different. Much more. Beyond.
Still fighting, but it's not quite war. It's entirely new. He likes that.
Positions change, his belly grinding down into the bed, something cold dribbling down his back, between his cheeks - oil - and a finger pushes it inside him, closely followed by a second, the twisting of the digits surpassing anything he's ever felt before, and only dimly can he hear all the noise he's making. Some of the others have talked about this, but he never imagined, not ever, that it would be like this. The man above him grunt, repositions again, and then something larger drives into him, impaling him, opening.
He tenses, grits his teeth, the pressure almost too much to bear, but he's a warrior now and he'll take it, anything this man does, just as he has for the last six years, but he doesn't need to worry about it too much. The silver-haired man soothes him with soft words and a fees light touches, and then starts to move, hitting something deep inside...
He screams.
And the world falls away.
Heat spreads through him, glorious heat in his bowels and his lover has gone still. His own cock is soft again, sticky cloth beneath him, and everything is perfect until the man above him pulls out and rolls to the side.
He curls up, trying to draw his knees into his chest, the loss indescribable, this man no longer inside of him. There won't be cuddling, not like when he was a child still in need of comfort, he tells himself, but then he's being drawn backwards against that familiar chest and his legs are pushed down and entwined and it's all the Spartan man can do to keep from sobbing out in relief.
He licks his lips instead, not turning, not giving any sign of how much he needs this, how long he's wanted it, not wanting to show that kind of weakness. There will be more, he's sure of it...
"Thank you," he says instead, and the other man just laughs, chest rumbling. "So, what are we going to be doing in your unit? Drills and drills and more drills? Fighting the Athenians? More drills?"
"I was thinking about something a little more interesting..."
