Endings And Beginnings

TITLE: Endings And Beginnings

AUTHOR: Midknight

CHAPTER: 1 of ?

FANDOM: Spartacus

SHIP: Gannicus / Saxa

RATING: NC-17

CATEGORY: Erotica

SPOILERS: Season 2 & 3

SPOILERS: SEASON 2 FINALE. Set between Season 2 & 3. How Gannicus and Saxa became the couple we see at the beginning of War Of The Damned. KINDLY REVIEW, even if you don't review kindly.



DISCLAIMER: I do not own Spartacus Vengeance / War Of The Damned. None of these characters belong to me. They belong to whoever created them and holds license to them. I pay homage to them and I make no profit from this story in any fashion, way or means.

AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first Spartacus fic. I apologize before hand and hope you will forgive any errors or blatant discrepancies.

FEEDBACK: Yes Please. It helps. It really, really helps. – midknight_tales@yahoo.com

There had been much loss with both Oenomaus and Mira slain on the field of battle, and the celebration of their victory was muted, but a celebration none-the-less. They honored the fallen as well as the continued freedom that victory represented and it was as it should be, but he stuck to the shadows, away from the fires and watched the stars as he lifted cup to honor his friend, comrade and former doctore, remembering the sweet times as well as the hard ones.

Gannicus' hand instinctively reached for the hilt of his sword when he felt eyes upon him, but he relaxed as he found the source. The flaxen-haired Germanic wench was watching him from across the blaze of a fire, her hair and skin painted gold by the flames, her blue eyes cool and speculative. She was a ferocious fighter, a savage, graceful whirlwind of death with a pair of daggers and a fine figure of womanhood, yet hard as any man in muscle and spirit. He believed her to be Saxa of name. She too had stood friend to both Mira and Oenomaus since her arrival. He raised his cup to her and then returned his gaze to the study of the starry firmament and memories of old.

Saxa found her eyes drawn to the champion Gannicus as they often were. How such a fearsome, skilled and seasoned warrior remained so fair she did not know. She was attracted not only to his body and prowess, but also his calm, gentle nature off the battlefield, which she noticed, he took such great pains to keep hidden. She took her pleasures when and where she chose and she was not coy by nature, but she found herself loath to make her desires known to him. But, the transience of life had been all to brutally illustrated of late and the future held only the certainty of battle and the inevitability of death. She held his gaze when it found hers and she acknowledged his raised cup with a nod before he returned to his contemplation of the night and she her contemplation of him.

He started when a hand rested on his shoulder, teasing to defend himself, surprised that he had not heard the person's approach. "Be at ease, Gannicus. I would but share a cup to honor fallen friends if you are amenable." An accented, feminine voice identified her even as her hand swiftly retreated before he turned his head to find her fair face. She was light of foot because he was never so deep in thought to have someone come at his back as she had. She held cup and jug, but no weapon and he nodded. She settled next to him without further comment and filled his cup, touched hers to his and the raised it to the stars. He followed suit as she said soft words in her own tongue with a bowed head. He did not understand the words, but appreciated their tone.

"What words do you speak?" He enquired after moments of revered silence.

"A benediction said by my people of safe journey and bounteous destination to those who have passed. I shall miss Mira's company and Oenomaus' instruction. How fares Spartacus with the loss? I know there was rift between them of late, but I believe she was still in his heart." She wondered after answering him. Gannicus sighed at the remembered distraught and grieved sight of his leader and brother's visage, but days past or the grim, determined rage he had witnessed that very day.

"He endures as he always has, with stoic fortitude and hunger for vengeance." He replied somberly and she nodded. They shared wine and fond remembrances. Her stories were only of better times and they shared laughter and he felt his spirits lifted. She spoke of her lands and people East of The Rhine and he talked of his travels for a while.

"Is it truth that you fight with Spartacus even though you won your freedom on the sands of the arena?" She finally asked quietly, her head tilted and turned to him in question.

"Aye." He answered simply with a slow nod, which she mirrored in response. They continued to drink but drifted into companionable silence after that. She must have moved closer, because her shoulder brushed against his, but he didn't mind, her skin was warm and smooth while her scent was far from unpleasant. He turned his head to look at her when her leg made contact with his and her foot nudged his.

"We have shared wine to honor the dead and I would share the desires of flesh to celebrate life." She told him with signature boldness, yet with a strangely shy smile upon her lips.

"Gratitude for your companionship this night, Saxa. I see my spirits much lifted. Fare thee well and may you find satisfaction in the celebration you seek." He bid her, extending his hand to grasp hers. He frowned as she laughed, a deep rich sound launched into the night with amusement but no mockery.

"You mistake my intent, Gannicus. I would celebrate with you and see more than spirits lifted." She informed him and her hand passed his to cup his cheek before she pressed her lips to his. She felt him tense in surprise even as parts of her tensed and tightened with arousal with the electric touch. He hesitated for a moment and then strong fingers were twining into her hair and cradled her head before grasping a handful and crushing his lips to hers. He kissed her hungrily and she returned it equal passion and fervor as she straddled his legs and let him pull her into an embrace. She felt him stiffen and rouse against her crotch as she moistened and rocked her hips to grind against him while they nipped and sucked at each other’s lips and their tongues dueled with boisterous, moaning abandon.

His hand ran down her back and grabbed her behind before working its way under her clothing to grasp and massage flesh and she pressed into his grip. She gripped a handful of his hair and pulled his lips from her even as she held his lower lips tight between her teeth, stretching it. He growled and she purred as she released it and swiped her tongue across the flesh she had caused to swell. Their chests heaved as they sought breath, the solid hardness of his massaging her bosom and sending sparks arching into her chest as it compressed the taut peaks of her nipples. His arousal throbbed against her as he bucked between her legs and pulsed from his eyes to send flames running along her skin. She guided his lips to the juncture of her neck and shoulder and he was soon using teeth, tongue and lips to good effect, sucking biting, licking and lapping his way southward. Her raiments, such as they were, suddenly felt hot, restrictive and rough against her skin and she reached back beneath her wealth of golden tresses and found the fastening to remove the one that covered her breasts.

Gannicus had not thought himself to be stirred to desire that night, lost to melancholy reverie and he had enjoyed her companionship more because of her warrior nature and the comfortable comraderie it afforded them than her femininity. There was no denying that she was a woman, her charms were all to obvious, but he had believed her tastes ran more to those of her own sex as he had seen her show such attentions of desire often enough. But, with her words and then the hungry touch of her lips his body sparked to life and hunger. Her body was warm and soft and hard at the same time, a wondrously enticing and attractive mixture of warrior and woman, as he pulled her onto his lap and into his arms while they devoured each other’s lips.

He reveled in the taste and feel of her as they kissed and explored each other with the same passion and ferocity with which they fought. A quirk of amusement rocked through his mind even as his maleness grew hot, hard and throbbing in his loincloth and against her grinding heat as he heard Oenomaus' voice approve of such a match, as they were about to make.

She undid it, but it was his eager hand that pulled it off her and tossed it aside. The night air felt wonderful against her heated skin and the taut, puckered peaks of her nipples. She moaned loudly as his lips latched onto her nipples and he suckled hard, drawing taut a chord of delicious sensation from his mouth to her flexing, flooding sex. His hands kneaded her back and buttocks as he switched to the other breast and she arched against his touch to press more of her flesh into his mouth while she ground harder against his undulating hips.

Saxa made a disapproving noise as he fought her grip and raised his head until his eyes met hers. They blazed with desire. "Should we seek sheltering tent and warm blankets?" He enquired, his voice low and rough, his hand kneading her ass while his hips undulated restlessly to grind up against her.

"Do you have need of tent and blankets, Mighty Champion Of The Arena? I would have thought you made of sturdier stuff." She mocked him with an amused quirk to her kiss-swollen lips that in no way lessened the desire in her eyes.

"I was but thinking of your comfort, Vixen Of East Of The Rhine." He retorted with a grin.

Her eyes narrowed as she searched his face and found the sincerity in his eyes that belied his flashing grin. She ran her hand from his torso to the centre of his chest and then with a hard shove, she pushed him onto his back, and he let her.

"The only comfort I desire this night is the might of your cock inside me." She informed him in a husky, sultry tone as she rose to her knees and with swift, deftness removed the rest of her clothing and then worked at removing his. Gannicus lifted his behind so that she could remove his loincloth and his erection sprang free to quivering attention between them. The contrast between her heat and the cool air felt wonderful on his throbbing cock. Saxa was a flaxen-haired vision in moonlight and shadow as he watched the tip of her tongue make a slow circuit of her lips.

"A champion indeed." She whispered as she wrapped her hand around his thick shaft and felt it pulse with heat and virility against her gentle grip as she caressed his length. His chest rose sharply as he took a deep breath and then let it out with a slow satisfied groan as her fist skimmed up and then down his length, her eyes locked to his with blazing hunger. She grasped the base of him and rose up as she shifted forward while his strong hands found her narrow waist and supported some of her weight. She liked both the strength and the consideration in his touch as his hands flexed slowly and his hips undulated to press into her grip.

Saxa positioned herself over him and he felt inviting, liquid heat radiating from her. The heat intensified as she lowered herself onto him and he had to fight the urge to thrust up into her as she made contact. He was only partially successful as she sank down onto him. Her breath caught and then slipped from her lips in a breathy moan and his teeth gritted to repel the groan that rose from his throat as he filled and stretched her snug but slick femininity while she drew a delicious trail of pressure and friction down his throbbing length. She sighed as she settled onto his thighs, slowly rocking her hips as they became one. Her eyelids fluttered as he arched his back to gently, firmly thrust up into her and his hands pulled her down to get even deeper into her hot, enticing and clenching core. Her fingers flexed on his chest, her palms hot against his skin as she slowly circled her hips as she adjusted to him.

He was not a gentle or passive lover by nature, but he found himself simply luxuriating in the feel of her around him and under his hands as he let them leave her hips to skim across her flat, slightly quivering belly, up over the ridges and valleys of her rib and onto the pert, firm globes of her breasts. She pressed into his hands as they flexed and they both moaned softly as she rocked her hips. Saxa was in heaven, letting her eyes flutter closed as the velvet steel of him stirred her core and filled her to delicious capacity to make pleasure curl and flex in her belly. She had not been with or had the desire for a man in some time, but the feel of him stirs the best of her memories and gave promise of better ones to be made.

She opened her eyes and stared into his as she marshaled her breath and flexed her thighs to lift her upon him and then relaxed to slide down him with another breathy sigh of enjoyment. His head tilting back and a hiss of breath and a sharp flexing of his hands over her breasts is his response. She can feel the male power of him being held in check in a tremor of tensed muscles against the inside of her thighs and the against the palms of her hands as she rode him, hauling herself up his length and then letting herself slide back down. Pleasure rippled out from their connection with every rise and fall and connected to the burst of sensation as he kneaded and massaged her breasts on tweaked and rolled her taut, tingling nipples. Her breathing started to speed up as did her racing heart as the bursts of delight overlapped and intensified as he bucked into her decent driving himself into her and drawing soft cries from her.

Gannicus wanted her, wanted to roll her onto her back and take her with furious passion, but the sight and feel of her had him spellbound. His cock throbbed and his balls churned and ached with delicious tension as pleasure arched into his loins and disperse into his body as the greased, silken fist of her sex traversed his length. The sounds of the night around them faded until all he could her par was the bounding of his blood in his ears, his panting breath, her soft cries and the reverberating slap of flesh meeting flesh as he relaxed his control and his hips bucked to meet her, driving into the flexing, flooding furnace of her core. He grunted, his jaw clenching as she clenched around him and circled her hips to grind down on him and he did the same to grind up into her. Her eyes were wild, her expression feral, mixed with fierce exalted joy, just as if she were in battle. Despite the cool night air her skin glistened with sweat, become slick underneath his hands as her tawny, taut frame moved faster and her cries increased in volume.

The sweet tension at her centre was growing fast as she rode him with purpose and passion, but she could feel him holding back, the hunger blazing in his eyes, but his body held in check. She swallowed to wet her dry mouth and throat before letting her hands slide to his shoulders so that she could lean forward and drop her head next to his.

"I don't want you to hold back, Gannicus. Take me. Fuck me, My Champion. Make me yours." She whispered into his ear before licking the shell of his ear and closing her teeth on the flesh of his earlobe. A deep growl rumbled his chest against hers before, as with masculine power, he reversed their position.

"As my lady commands." He growled with fierce passion and a strange kind of intimacy a moment before his powerful body sprang into thrusting action. She cried out joyously and clutched at his broad shoulders as she curled her legs around him to open herself to him and find leverage to move with him. She had not particularly enjoyed the domination of male partners in the past, but now she luxuriated in his solid weight and powerful possession as he drove into her again and again and again.

Her words were like a trigger, like the erotic equivalent of the roar of the crowd in the arena or the flash of pain from a wound in a battle. It galvanized him, energized him and woke the animal in him to its full and powerful fury and she was a willing, eager recipient as he rolled her onto her back and started pumping, hard and fast. Her cry of ecstasy rang in his ears as he lost himself in the slick, hot and tight feel of her around him and the sweat-slicked silk of her skin against his. She arched her back and clutched at his shoulders, bracing to receive him and drawing back to increase the length and speed of his strokes. She bucked and writhed to meet him with power and desire and a warrior’s body to match his, her cries mingling with his grunts as they strained together in counter-synced harmony.

Their mouths met for a short, bruising, hungry kiss and she bit his lower lip as they parted the sting of pain adding to the pleasure he was feeling. The cool night air turned to fire before it reached his lungs and the continuous bursts of pure animal pleasure soon had the small of his back twitching and his ass clenching while his balls churned with the need for release. Words in a language he did not understand to knew stead dripped stridently from her lips, but their meaning was clear: joy, pleasure, desire and encouragement. The stamina and will that had made him a champion of the arena and alive when the battles were done stood him to new stead as he used them to keep his release in check without slowing his pace as he wanted her to join him in the ultimate of ecstasies.

Saxa reveled in the pure male power of her new lover, let herself be swept away by the delectable impact of his body against hers and the spear of his manhood finding her pulsing, blazing core again and again. Words of delight and encouragement in her native tongue spilled from her lips as the powerful surges of pleasure scrambled her thoughts. She clutched at his shoulders and let one hand find the hard, bucking curve of his buttocks to squeeze and pull at him to urge him on. The hot gusts of his breath bathed her face and neck while his sweat rained down on her as they strained together. Her full breasts were crushed beneath his wonderful weight and the unyielding, solid plains of his heaving chest sending electrifying lightning strikes into her chest as her stiff, swollen nipples dragged across his skin.

Her breathing grew fast and ragged, whimpers and mewls mixed with her cries when tremors shuddered through her body as the delicious tension and energy grew and flare to an intensity that challenged her ability to contain and still he continued to pound into her. Tremors graduated to wracking shudders and her breath caught in her throat for a moment before she wailed his name into the darkness when her head snapped back and her spine snapped off the ground and into a quivering bow as the dam inside her burst and the pure, white-hot bliss of climax exploded from her loins to inundate her every sense and fiber of her being.

His control was growing more and more tenuous by the moment, but still he strained on, loving her reaction and the amazing vision of her beneath him. Her quivering body and the timbre of her cries told him that she was close and then she constricted around him, hard and trembling tight, her back arching off the ground while she wailed his name as a verbal indication of her release. Her sex became a velvet vice along his length, tight and twisting even as it flooded with renewed heat. The added pressure, heat and the vibration of her body around him was his undoing and he growled as the small of his back twitched before it tensed to curve his back in opposition to hers.

He threw his back and roared his release to the night sky as hips pumped to drive him deeper, to press them tighter and to aid his constricting balls in rocketing his seed into her. The intensity of his release danced along the border between pleasure and pain as muscles tensed and relaxed in rapid succession under the assault of the rippling surges of sexual energy that carried bliss along his nerves.

Her world went bright and then dim as her eyelids fluttered and her body shuddered with her heart hammering at her chest, her blood pounding in her ears as it carried her bliss, joy and satiation throughout her as she felt him join his essence with hers. His pumping hips lanced him into her although they were as close to one as two bodies would allow, but the movement against the furnace of her clenched and rippling core renewed the pulses of pleasure. She mewled and whined, her head tossing from side to side, her hair a wild, golden storm around her face as exerted muscles and overloaded nerves struggled to continue channeling the most amazing climax she had ever experienced.

Gannicus had never experienced such complete release before. His hips continued to buck, his balls clenching even though he had emptied himself into her in heavy spurts. But, it was more than just physical. He would not call it love, it was too animal for that, but it was close. His union with her had given him a connection to a kindred spirit and an intimacy of flesh he had not experienced or thought to experience before. He caught his weight on his forearms and dragged his knees forward to hover his large frame over her protectively as the furious energy of his climax leached from him. As, vivacious as she was and as wild as what they had just done was, she soothed something in him. He was starting to believe he might have met his match on so many levels. Their lives were too hard for sentimentality, but he could see himself sharing it with her, a formidable alliance both on the battlefield and between the blankets.

Her body relaxed by degrees and she moaned softly as she opened eyes she could not remember closing when his forehead came to rest on hers and he slid out of her. His breath bathed her face in warm gusts as they stared at each other, his large frame balanced over hers, their chests heaving as they tried to catch their breath. She smiled lazily and stretched well-used muscles as he rolled onto his back next to her with a grunt of effort. Saxa was a little surprised when his hand found hers, his fingers twined with hers before he lifted their linked hands and pressed the back of her hand to his lips. She sighed at the warm, intimate contact.

She felt content for the first time in a very long time, even before she had been taken as a slave. She had not been taken in the way he had taken her with both animal hunger and an intimate care borne of equals. She didn't think their connection was a romantic one, it was too physical in its origins, but the way it made her feel right then was different enough from anything she had felt before, she could happily let herself believe it. And, she did not want it to be just that one night. She smiled into the darkness as he laid her hand across his heart so that she could feel its strong, steady beat and rested his over it.

They lay together in contented silence, the sounds of the night and the camp drifting to them. She could feel the echo of him and the slickness of his essence inside her and she idly let little fantasies flit through her mind of a flaxen-haired, swarthy skinned son or daughter she would never have, on a farm like the one she had grown up on. She a mother and Gannicus a doting father. She nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity, even as her eyes prickled with the sting of unshed tears. The real world coldly intruded as the heat of exertion left and the sweat on her skin dried. She shivered and became aware of the stones and twigs digging into her back as well as the delicious complained of well-used muscles.

"I would have those offered warm tent and those soft blankets now." She informed him as she sat up, caressing his skin, following the slight ridge of a scar on his chest as she slipped free of his hand and reached for her clothing. For all her satiated laxness, she felt a knot twist and grow in her belly as she felt herself waiting anxiously for a question she had voiced as a statement.

The journey of her fingers left a tingle on his skin and their departure created a swell of sadness that their connection might be at an end. He watched her retrieve her coverings and start to don them, but turned his head away when she turned hers toward him.

"And, my company?" He asked quietly, not looking at her, shocked at the pleading note in his voice and the nervous flip in the pit of his stomach as he waited for her answer. He didn't see her warm smile or the promise in her eyes she gave him behind the slow, flutter of her lashes as the knot in her belly unraveled

"Your company is what will warm the tent and lend softness to the blankets, amongst other things." She told him softly, but with hot promise and he turned his head to beam a smile at her as he too sat up and pulled on his coverings.

Her accent made the near poetic words he wanted to hear seem even more special. He didn't know how long this relationship of theirs was going to last, but nothing was certain in these rebellious times and, as always, he decided to make the best of it and enjoy whatever respite he and Saxa could give each other. With, her invitation and his decision, the tension in his gut eased.

"I shall endeavor to provide you with warmth and softness, amongst many, many other things, Saxa from East of The Rhine." He vowed solemnly even though he was grinning and the tone of his voice broadened her smile even as it once again tightened things low and deep inside her.

THE END? MORE?