Chapter Text
Thursday
“I’m hungry,” Octavian says, pulling at Julius’ sleeve.
“Yeah, I know, just give me a minute,” he replies, admittedly a little distracted. This is the second, maybe third time Octavian has asked? He feels bad for putting it off, but he knows there are snacks in the kitchen and that he’s almost done with what he’s working on.
“Dad,” Octavian persists, “I’m hungry .”
“Have a snack. There’s some poptarts in the cupboard, I think. You like poptarts, right?” Julius responds. Octavian huffs irritably, like he’s the one who has a busy schedule and little time.
Julius thinks nothing of it until there’s a ring at the doorbell. When he goes through the kitchen, Octavian is climbing up onto one of the chairs. Despite his struggle, Julius can see a smug glint in his eye. He’s been planning something. Julius knows those cunning genes are from his side of the family; his sister had them too.
When he opens the door, he knows three things. 1) He did not order pizza. 2) Octavian is hungry and absolutely capable of ordering pizza, despite being three years old. 3) The delivery guy is in a shirt that’s a bit too tight on the side of perfect and has sex hair (but natural looking?) and is generally kind of very hot.
“Hi,” the kind of very hot delivery guy says, “So, you ordered fifty pizzas, but I’m guessing that was a typo, so I brought five.” He’s a bit sheepish when he says this, but Julius can’t really tell because the pizzas have been shifted to in front of his face.
He considers telling the man that he didn’t order and pizza, but then he remembers Octavian’s devious smile and decides that it’s better to just take the pizzas.
“Also, the note for the delivery person was just, uh, key smashing? So I didn’t really do anything for that.”
Julius thinks about his life for a moment. “Yeah, that’s fair, I guess. How much do I owe you?”
The delivery guy awkwardly shifts the pizzas over to one arm so he can look at his paper. “$79.99,” he says, looking over Julius’ shoulder to where he evidently expects enough people to order 80 dollars worth of pizza. Julius hates this because he knows he won’t be able to punish Octavian because he is a weak, weak man.
“Okay,” Julius sighs, going back into his apartment and looking for his wallet. “Hi, Octavian,” he says flatly to the gleeful toddler sitting primed and ready at the kitchen table.
“Hi,” Octavian parrots back, smiling widely. Julius rolls his eyes.
When he gets back to the living room, the pizza guy has shuffled into the room, but still near the door. He’s still holding the pizza, almost like it’s a lifeline. When the pizza guy notices Julius, he shoots him a too-wide smile and adjusts his grip on the pizzas. Poor guy - he must feel so out of place. Julius tries to smile back and the man’s face tinges pink.
“Is there any possibility you can take some of these back?” Julius suggests.
“Sorry, company policy,” the pizza guy says apologetically. Julius can tell he wants to ask what happened, but is holding his tongue. He’s actually pretty hungry; he gets lost in time when he works.
Julius nods at the answer, unsurprised. “My son has decided to order dinner. He’s three.” he says, taking the pizzas and revealing a name-tag that says “Antony.” He can barely see Antony after taking the pizzas, however, so he decides to avoid that and call for the brat who started it all.
“Octavian!” he yells, startling Antony (if the tiny slip of his curly head is at all indicative of the rest of him). Octavian, though a child, carries himself with all the grace of an emperor and all the vanity of one. In his smart yellow sweater and comfy jeans, he logically shouldn’t be able to cut an imposing figure. Julius personally believes that Octavian is adorable one hundred percent of the time, which is probably why Octavian is able to get away with most things. But despite this, even Julius can’t deny that Octavian has a certain trademark smirk that is intimidating, even at the tender age of three.
Octavian enters the living room, having reluctantly relinquished his chair. “Hi!” he exclaims. “Hi” is his new favorite word; he says it at the beginning of every conversation (and sometimes at random intervals.)
“We will have words, before dinner,” Julius vows to the tiny boy before whisking off to the kitchen to put down the pizzas. The last he sees of Octavian before this is him flashing a predatory grin at Antony.
When he returns, Octavian is hugging Antony’s knees as the pizza man tries to gently shake him off, akin to a wild animal. Julius doesn’t blame him. What’s curious, though, is that Octavian seems to genuinely like the man. This is not the standard conclusion from this evidence, but this is what Julius knows: Octavian does not like new people. Octavian stared stonily into the distance while fiercely clutching Julius’ hand upon meeting Brutus. He kicked Cassius in the shin within minutes of meeting him. Octavian most definitely does not like Pompey - he bit his leg like a piranha and didn’t let go until Julius pulled him off. That was about when Pompey taught Octavian all the swear words he knew and when someone (Portia?) called the ambulance.
What these anecdotes are to say is this: Octavian does not like people, especially new people. (The exception to these is a boy named Agrippa who is the son of one of Julius’ friends. However, when they met, Agrippa offered a gift of candy to Octavian. So maybe the trick is candy.) So when Octavian makes contact with a human being that is not to maim/brutally injure, it’s safe to say that he likes them. This doesn’t mean that Octavian’s grin isn’t predatory and that he’s not contemplating sinking his teeth into Antony’s leg (he likes biting, for some reason), but it’s better than the last babysitter.
Before Brutus and Portia reluctantly agreed to babysit Octavian on the rare occasion Julius absolutely could not bring the boy with him, there was a myriad of other babysitters to try and keep Octavian from having to stay in Julius’ office, where it was boring. It suffices to say that he did not like them.
“Hi!” Octavian squeals, resisting Antony’s attempts to remove him and clambering up his leg.
“Hi,” Antony says, glancing up at Julius and shrugging a little as if to say “What can you do?”
“Octavian, get off of him,” Julius commands (albeit halfheartedly) and the boy climbs back down his leg. “He really seems to like you,” he says, directed at Antony.
Antony stares at him and Octavian for a second, wavering between apologetic and gratified. “The pizza is $79.99,” he blurts.
“Um, right,” Julius says, taken aback and saying “um” for the first time since maybe high school. He gives Antony a handful of twenties and is about to say goodbye, but Octavian looks up at him with big, mournful, blue eyes and he panics.
“This is a lot of pizza,” he says, stating the obvious.
Antony nods.
“You should- Do you want to stay? It’s just the two of us- I mean, it’s just me and Octavian living here, we can’t eat all this.” Julius continues. It’s painfully awkward, but he thinks of Octavian.
“I-” Antony looks torn and Julius feels his stomach drop. Antony sighs and scratches his curly head. It’s a thick head of hair, black and it looks silky soft. “Actually, this is the end of my shift. So, I mean… I guess so.” he says, looking hopeful. Julius isn’t sure if he’s hoping he’ll change his mind or hoping he can stay. Octavian eyes Antony’s shaggy head like a cat eyes a mouse.
“Great!” Julius says, a little too loudly. Antony smiles tentatively and follows him into the kitchen.
“Did they have spears?” Octavian asks, tugging Antony’s sleeve. Ah, of course. The only thing Octavian could have bonded over would of course be violence. How fitting.
“Yes! In the Trojan War, a lot of the heroes fought with spears. Diomedes, for example, even wounds Aphrodite with his spear.” Antony replies. He glances up at Julius, who watches him knowingly. Violence. Of course. “Ah, I’m sorry if I’m not supposed to- if he’s not supposed to learn about war and stuff. I just asked him if he liked history and then he wanted to know about-”
“It’s fine,” Julius waves it away. “I’m just happy he’s this excited about something.” Octavian is practically vibrating in his seat now, the pizza nigh-forgotten.
“Who’s Dio- Dimo- Mee-? Is he cool?” Octavian asks, ignoring his pronunciation struggles in favor of asking his second question.
Antony glances quickly at Julius, as if for permission, before continuing. “Uh, yeah. He was one of the Greeks and was close friends with Odysseus…”
Julius isn’t overly fond of pizza. The only reason Octavian likes it so much is that whenever Brutus babysits him he orders it. (Octavian has since warmed up to Brutus.) He’ll eat it, though, when it’s a special occasion and Octavian really wants it. He thinks that this can count as a special occasion as he watches Octavian’s eyes widen in fascination as Antony describes how Diomedes fights the gods.
“So, are you a professor or something?” Julius asks when Paris is calling for an opponent to fight.
Antony’s attention to Octavian is broken; it’s almost as if he’d forgotten Julius was there. “No, I just- It’s a hobby,” he says reservedly. “When I’m not delivering pizza, I’m a bartender. Do you know Cicero’s?”
Julius makes a face before he can contain himself. “Unfortunately.”
Antony laughs, loud and boisterous and not at all as anxious as he’d seemed. “I know the feeling. He’s annoying as hell, but it pays the bills.”
“Oh, I know. We used to work together, in politics. He wrote speeches for a colleague of mine.” Julius replies, wincing. Cicero had always been on his nerves.
“Ugh, I would not like to hear any speech written by Cicero,” Antony moans.
“Sissy,” Octavian says seriously, shaking his head and frowning. The two adults burst into laughter.
“I-” Julius starts, but is cut off by his phone ringing. “Excuse me,” he says, stepping out of the room. As he leaves, he can hear Antony starting up conversation with Octavian, who is asking for more of the Iliad.
“Answer your fucking texts,” is what Cassius says as soon as Julius answers the phone.
“Hello to you too, Cassius,” Julius says, bemused. “Wait- Cassius, stop hyperventilating.”
“I can’t! And you know why? Because Gnaeus fucking Pompey is running for your seat in the senate! He’s on TV right now, look, I can see him, there he is, hi Pompey- God, he’s so fucking ugly-” Cassius says in a rush.
“Cassius,” Julius says, calmly, “Please calm down. Deep breaths.”
“DEEP BREATHS?! WHEN DOES THAT HELP ANY- Oh, hi Brutus.”
“Is that Brutus there? Give him the phone,” Julius says.
“No!- Hi Jules, It’s Brutus. Cassius is really freaking out. We’re gonna go calm down now, but he was trying to tell you that you need to be in D.C. now for meetings and stuff. It’s really stressing him out. Y’know, sometimes I wonder why he picked this job- IT’S BECAUSE IT MAKES GOOD MONEY, BRUTUS- but anyways, he wants you here as soon as possible- RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY JULIUS CAESAR- so you probably need someone to watch Octavian since I’m here too. Um, I’m pretty sure he’s not allowed in most places cause he’s a baby, but- I DON’T CARE! JUST GET HERE! I-”
Julius assumes that the call had been ended on account of the fighting over the phone between the two of them. Their antics are amusing, but the problem of Octavian remains.
“Ew, no, take that out of your mouth! No, it fell on the floor! Nonononono-” he hears Antony say from the kitchen. Disgust and worry he feels in equal amounts until they are outshined by an idea.
“Hey,” he says cautiously when he returns to the kitchen.
“Hey!” Antony says, pulling pizza out of his son’s mouth. It’s perfect.
“Look, I don’t really know you, and this feels a bit sudden, but-” he starts.
“Yes! Absolutely!” Antony says, face a little red, but grinning nonetheless.
Julius is slightly confused, but not put-off. “You’re gonna… you’re going to babysit Octavian while I’m out of town?” He must have heard the call, Julius reasons. How else would he know what he was going to ask?
Antony’s wide smile flickers, but remains present. “Yep! Absolutely. He’s… an absolute angel. Amazing. Great. How much will you be paying me?”
Julius mentally tries to calculate how much babysitters cost in his head. Brutus and Portia usually do it for free and he only vaguely remembers how much Octavian’s old babysitters had cost. It’s got to be a lot, right? He’s going to take care of Octavian for a week, like 24/7.
“$2000?” he says, but it comes out almost a question. It seems like the right answer, because Antony’s face lights up.
“Nice!” he says. “Okay!”
Julius is now realizing he doesn’t know how this is going to work because he’s never even had an overnight babysitter.
“So… you can stay here because all of Octavian’s things are here. There’s no guest room, so you can stay in mine. I’ll reimburse you for any of the costs for food and stuff. There’s a list of things to know on the fridge from when my usual babysitters are here, his allergies are there too, oh, and he absolutely has to be in bed before eight or he’ll turn into a monster-”
“Got it,” Antony says, giving him a lopsided thumbs up. “I’ll call every night and put Octavian on - need your number, though.”
“My n- Right, my number.” Julius says. He’s admittedly a little frazzled at the moment. He recites his number and Antony dutifully writes it on his wrist. His phone rings again, and he answers it.
“I’ve booked a plane for you, it leaves in an hour. Chop-chop, asshole,” Cassius says, then hangs up. Julius hopes the “asshole” is affectionate.
“I’ve got to- I have to leave now,” Julius says. Octavian watches this exchange with interest and the entrepreneurial gleam of a nineteenth century oil magnate.
“Already?” Antony says, a hint of panic slipping into his voice, which had been even and calm before.
Julius is already rushing into his room to pack. He’s preoccupied with thoughts of Octavian and how he’ll fare during the week. There’s a little fear in the back of his mind that Antony will turn out to be some child-trafficking freak, or that he’s going to kidnap Octavian for a ransom, but this part of his brain is drowned out by trying to make sure he’s packed everything in ten minutes.
“Love you, kiddo,” Julius says, kissing Octavian on the forehead swiftly. “Good luck!” he calls as he rushes out the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He’s used to the lights and cameras by now, but what he’ll never get used to is standing apart from Pompey. Pompey has never been anything but confident in the wash of the spotlights, has never had anything but a grin and wink for the cameras. Julius had always admired him.
“What an ugly bitch,” Cassius mutters from the wings.
The debate passes agonizingly slowly. Julius is tired from the flight and his mind constantly wanders, thinking about Octavian and Antony. Fortunately, Cassius had prepared his answers and sent them to him so he could go over them on the flight, so he wasn’t totally unprepared.
When it’s over, the news outlets call the winner “ambiguous,” but Julius knows he must’ve looked like crap on that stage. Cassius looks even more tired, so Julius assumes that he’s been doing work with Brutus as well. Cassius manages campaigns for both Julius and Brutus and runs himself ragged.
“Rough day?” he asks once the debate is over.
Cassius glares. “Fucking Pompey. Who announces they’re running for the senate at 7pm? And then demands a televised debate on the same day. Fucking Pompey, that’s who.” He yawns and rubs his eyes vigorously. “I fucking hate that guy.”
“Language,” Julius chides without much heat. They’re in public, but there’s no one else around, so Cassius can speak as he likes. Cassius ignores him in favor of checking his beloved planner.
“Right, did you get a babysitter for Octavian?” he asks.
“Actually, I did. Thanks so much for the warning,” he says, struggling to keep the bite out of his tone.
Cassius ignores this, too. “Well, the reminder is to check in with them. Do you want me to do that, or-”
“I can handle it, Cassius,” Julius says, “Get some sleep.”
“I’m not even going to protest that, which shows how tired I am.” Cassius answers.
Julius rolls his eyes, but pulls out his phone to call Antony.
“Hey,” he says, wishing he could just go to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Hey there, uh, buddy,” Marc Antony says to the toddler. Yes, that’s his last name on the nametag. His manager says it’s not fair that he has two first names, so now he goes by Antony when he’s delivering pizza and Marc when bartending. His friends mostly call him Asshole.
He’s in this predicament because his mind had immediately labelled Julius Caesar as “hot dad!!!” and then decided to open his big, fat mouth. He’s not sure how “Yes, I would love to go on a date with you,” turned into “Of course I’ll babysit your son!” but here he is, Octavian sitting across from him and just… watching. Unnervingly. Sure, he seems sweet enough, but something about a 3-year-old who was able to order pizza freaks him out.
It’s not all bad, though. He finally has someone to ramble on about history and other obscure topics now. Cleo gave up when he got a little too excited about presidential assassinations. (McKinley was hilarious, you have to admit.) And she still doesn’t find the Jimmy Carter Rabbit Incident funny. It even has its own Wikipedia page! That aside, the two thousand dollars isn’t that bad either. Antony can’t count the number of things he can buy with that much money. He can fix the leaky sink in his apartment, buy some new clothes, get something for Cleo’s birthday, and still have money left over. It’s wild. Also, he gets to stay in the super-nice apartment. It’s huge; the only reason Julius doesn’t have a guest room is because there’s an office and a storage room. Everything smells like Febreeze with the faint hint of money.
Octavian hasn’t seemed too keen on his new babysitter ever since Antony stopped talking about the Trojan War and started discussing babysitter duties. He sits at the now-empty kitchen table and watches Antony with his keen blue-grey eyes. Antony drums his fingers on the kitchen table. The silence is agonizing.
“Let’s go get ice cream!” he says desperately. Kids like ice cream, right? This will get him in Octavian’s good books. Who cares that it’s getting late? He’s eaten ice cream (out of the carton) late at night more times than he can count. Octavian will be fine.
Octavian inclines his head at this (and this can’t help but remind Antony of Zeus’ world shaking nod to Thetis) and scrambles off of his chair. He reaches up to grab Antony’s hand and grips it tightly.
There’s an ice cream place a few minutes away and the line is short. Antony feels good about this. Things are going well with Octavian, he can feel it. Octavian points at the chocolate-peanut butter ice cream while Antony orders a blue moon. Yes, things are going well, Antony thinks, until Octavian bites into his ice cream and starts crying. He throws the ice cream to the ground and wails loud enough to shake the earth, kicking Antony in the shin when he tries to calm him down. It’s probably a brain freeze, Antony reasons, because he bit right into that.
“Nonononono, it’s okay, we’ll get you another one, okay? Octavian? It’s okay, buddy, come on-” Antony says frantically, wiping Octavian’s tears with his sleeve. The boy’s face is bright red. Too red. “Oh, shit .”
Octavian vomits on the floor. The tears stop abruptly. “Hi,” he says, miserably. “Wanna go home.”
“Okay, buddy,” Antony promises, throwing a $20 at the cashier for their troubles and pulling some napkins out of the dispenser to wipe Octavian off before going back to the apartment. Bathtime goes on relatively more successful as Octavian is too miserable to do anything but sit there, watching the bubbles morosely.
The list on the fridge, as suspected, cites Octavian’s (many) allergies to include peanuts. Antony stares at it, slumped at the kitchen table in defeat. He can hear Octavian quietly playing with his legos, the faint crashing of colliding blocks. He’s shaken out of his failure induced stupor when his phone buzzes from its place on the table.
Cleo
where are u binch its movie night
Cleo
cant believe u missed. legally blonde its like ur fave
Me
aaaaaaaaaaaa i forgot!!!!! askdfhalksdhf sorry ill make it up to youuuu
Cleo
whomst are you with that made you forget legally blonde
Me
hhhhhh long story but i promise i’ll tell you
Cleo
u fuckign better
Cleo
bye i lov u bitch
Me
aint neva gonna stop lovin u bitch
Cleo
asdhfaklsdjfh shut up
Energized by contact with someone he actually knows, Antony finds the strength to take a shower. He hasn’t brought anything over yet, so he borrows some of Julius’ clothes for pajamas. He won’t mind, right? Antony’s living in his house; a shirt and some underwear probably isn’t a big deal. The shirt is incredibly comfy and so soft. He spots another one in the dresser. That one is even more comfortable than the previous. One thing leads to another, and Antony is in front of the mirror with Julius’ designer suit, admiring how it fits. A pile of other clothes sit on the bed.
“I could get used to this,” he says to himself. “God, my ass looks so good in this.”
Me
(attatched_image.jpg)
cleo look how good my ass looks
Cleo
ASDHFKAHSDFKL WHERE DID U GET THAT
Me
oh, you know,
Cleo
i forgive u now for skipping movie night. ur ass is truly blessed
Cleo
but ur telling me EVERYTHING tmrw
Cleo
or im killing myself by snakebite
Me
a fashionable way to die
Sadly changing from the suit and into pajamas, Antony goes to bed with both hope and fear. It’s just one bad day, right? Tomorrow will go better. Or at least, he hopes. Also, Julius can never know about the ice cream place incident. He’ll have to swear Octavian to secrecy on that one. Speaking of Julius, the buzzing from his phone must be him.
“Hey,” he says, wishing he could just go to sleep.
“I’m sorry for dropping this on you so quickly, but I really want to thank you for watching Octavian for me. I know he seems like a lot at times, but he really is a good kid.” Julius says. Antony can hear him sigh on the other side of the line. “Is he in bed?”
“Yeah. He- Yeah, he’s fine.” Antony says, choosing not to trouble Octavian’s father with the ice cream incident. “I borrowed some of your clothes, is that okay?” Please say yes, please say yes-
“That’s fine. You can even keep some if you want- Think of it as my gratitude for watching Octavian.”
FUCK yes!!
“I- Thanks. Does Octavian have a daycare that he goes to?” Antony says, glad Julius can’t see his bright red face a thousand miles away. He can keep the clothes! He’s screaming internally, but trying to keep at least some semblance of cool.
“No, he’s always like staying with me throughout the day. You can bring him with you pretty much anywhere, as long as there’s a flat surface and he brings his legos. Keep an eye on him, though, because he’s liable to run off exploring at the first chance he gets.” Julius answers with the air of a tired, tired man who has dealt with this before.
“Nice, okay,” Antony replies. There’s a beat of silence. “Well, I’m going to bed now,” he continues, despite currently laying in bed.
“Bye,” Julius says, haltingly. He hangs up.
Antony is asleep as soon as he makes sure his phone is charging.
~~~~~~
There’s a dark shadow over his bed and Antony’s heart is racing. He’s paralyzed; he can’t move and he can feel himself starting to sweat. The door is ajar, casting a sliver of light into the room. Something pokes his side again. He opens his mouth to reply, but it’s dry and all that comes out is a croak.
“Ant’ny?” comes the whisper, terrifyingly soft and from the side of the bed. “I can’ sleep without a story.”
The pieces click into place. Octavian. “Jesus, buddy, you scared me there,” Antony breathes, sitting up. “Turn the light on.” With the lights on, Antony confirms that it is indeed Octavian Caesar, droopy eyed and yawning.
“I need a story,” Octavian repeats, insistent. He pauses. “The one- the one from earlier.”
It takes a few moments for Antony’s sleep addled brain to compute this. “You want- you want the Iliad?” Octavian nods emphatically.
“Okay… I’m gonna have to do this by memory, so it might be a little off. So, there’s this guy Agamemnon, right? Well, he’s an as- he’s a jerk. And he’s got this girl, Chryseis…”
Whether he understands the story or not, Octavian is appeased by it and leaves the room after Antony gets to when Agamemnon decides to take Briseis from Achilles.
“This is my fucking life now,” Antony says to himself as he closes his eyes. Surprisingly, it’s not that bad.
@vicarious-ink on tumblr drew this art of marc antony as a pizza guy!!!!! i love it so much and its going to stay here forever
