Chapter Text
When the plot of Sergius Catiline to overthrow the state was revealed by Cicero in the senate, Brutus was as shocked as anyone. That is, he hadn't really expected anything less of Catiline, who had always been murderously insane, but the fact that he had wide ranged support from many prominent citizens was enough to worry any right-thinking Roman.
After Cicero had made the decision to execute the key conspirators without trial, those executions had happened and everything had calmed down again, at least a little bit, Brutus was faced, briefly, with the awkward question whether he was going to see Mark Antony or not.
They were maybe, kind of, just about friends.
They had studied together in Athens and their social circles overlapped on occasion, though their interests greatly differed.
While Brutus felt himself content in the evening with an oil lamp and a good book, Antony liked to be out drinking and roaming through Rome's most disreputable neighborhoods.
At the same time, circumstance had sort of made Antony his confidant and keeper of his greatest secret, but that had not been by choice.
Then there was the recent time they had both spent serving as tresviri capitales, something which one might call a bonding experience, although Brutus referred to it more along the lines of righteous exhaustion.
The number of times he had to literally kick Antony out of bed in the morning so he would do his job were actually nice compared to the ...different entanglements Brutus had often found him in. Something he, as the nephew of Cato, simply didn't have the aplomb for or Antony's casually amused attitude towards.
Especially if Antony decided to tease him for his embarrassment and "reluctance to join in", as he put it.
But still it would be understandable to think of them sharing a friendship after all this, and Antony did keep his secret. He never brought up what was between Brutus and Cassius in public, and even in private he restrained himself from joking too much about it.
The thing this all had to do with Catiline was that Antony was the stepson of Lentulus Sura, and Lentulus Sura had been among the key conspirators Cicero had executed.
You did not exactly make a visit with condolences after someone was sentenced to death for betraying the state, at the same time, a part of Brutus wanted to check on Antony to make sure he was alright.
Still, this would be the most gruesome context they had ever met in, there would be no laughing this off, and so there was apprehension there as well.
In the end, Brutus did go to see him, but to be honest, it was mostly a quest to distract himself from his own woes.
Cassius had finally married his sister a few weeks ago and Brutus would be the first to admit that he himself wasn't handling this very well.
He had awkwardly decided to give the newly weds some space to get know each other...or something.
While Tertulla knew everything about Cassius and him, Brutus couldn't imagine she would be thrilled with him showing up all the time to steal her husband away when she was just getting comfortable in their shared home.
So he was currently avoiding Cassius, something he had sworn he would never do, and also he was maybe sulking a little because he would never live in the same house with his lover or have such an easy connection and access to him.
Anyway, Marcus Antonius and his antics had always been a ready distraction from Brutus's own problems ever since the aforementioned time as tresviri together.
On a cloudy morning three weeks after the executions, Brutus went ahead to the house of Lentulus Sura, a path he knew all too well.
The house was boarded up and empty, but a barber across the street informed him that the lady Julia and her sons had gone to a smaller house in her possession on the Esquiline to weather the storm.
Ever since it had been revealed that the Catilinarians were would-be arsonists, their popularity had rapidly declined. Rome's plebs was famous for violently making their opinions known, so Julia's decision had been a prudent one.
Not wanting to give up easily, Brutus followed the barber's vague directions to the Esquiline, knocked on a few wrong doors until he finally happened upon the right one.
"Junius Brutus, what a surprise!"
The Janitor, a man named Fufius, knew Brutus from his and Antony's joint tresviri days, as well as one rather embarrassing incident before no one mentioned anymore.
Right now, Fufius looked at him suspiciously. He also carried a few almost healed bruises that were probably attained in trying to defend his master when the city cohorts came to take him.
"I came to see Marcus Antonius.", Brutus said. "Is he home?"
Fufius's glare intensified. "He won't see you."
Brutus wondered whether there was some new family feud between them he had missed. Other than the fact that Brutus's uncle Cato had been the deciding voice in the senate to vote for the executions....
Maybe this really was a bad idea.
Brutus was just about to make up an excuse and leave, when a female voice inside inquired who he was at the door.
The Janitor told her, and then Brutus found himself face to face with Julia, mother of the three Antonius brothers.
She was wearing dark mourning clothes and had a piercing stare not unlike her eldest son as she scrutinized Brutus up and down.
"What do you want?", she asked.
"I...well..." Brutus decided that the truth was probably his best option. "I just came to see how Marcus is doing... A lot has happened, you know, and I was wondering how he was holding up."
"By" you know", you mean the execution of my husband, I presume?" Clearly Julia liked to get to the point.
“Yes, I do... I'm very sorry for your circumstances." Brutus tried not to sound too awkward.
Julia considered him, then made a regal hand gesture. "Come on in, then."
The Janitor stepped aside very reluctantly, and then Brutus was standing in the darkened Atrium with Julia.
"You're in luck.", Julia said. "I sent both of my other sons away from Rome for a while, but Marcus is still here."
Her tone was carefully guarded, making Brutus suspicious immediately.
"Do you want a snack? Something to drink?" Julia gestured for a slave.
Now Brutus felt embarrassed. "Please, you needn't bother. I really just came to make sure Marcus is alright."
Julia ignored him and a few minutes later, there was a table prepared before him. While he ate, she went to rest on the couch opposite him. Clearly there was something wrong and she wanted to talk about it, though she seemed unsure whether or not to trust him.
"You're so unlike my son's other friends.", Julia observed. "But you are truly his friend, aren't you?"
Brutus was thrown off by the intensity of the question.
"I... I suppose so.", he said.
Julia eyed him, seemingly making a decision.
"You may see my son, but only if swear by Jupiter Best and Greatest not to tell anyone what you witnessed in this house."
Brutus considered excusing himself and leaving, just not to get dragged into some nebulous act of crime or whatever it was Antony had done now. But then he said to himself that he wasn't a coward. He did want to see whether Antony was well. Perhaps they really were friends.
"I swear it.", Brutus said to Julia.
"Then come with me."
He followed Julia upstairs and down a corridor towards a closed door. Julia sighed, then opened it and went inside.
The room was dark and smelled terrible, a mixture of sweat and vomit that made Brutus wish he hadn't eaten anything moments before.
He blinked until he could make out a figure prostrate on a the bed. Mark Antony.
"Needs cleaning in here.", Julia muttered. She went outside to call for servants.
Brutus carefully approached the bed, thinking Antony asleep - or rather, passed out drunk- when he saw that Antony's eyes were very much open, staring at the ceiling.
Really, he looked terrible. Aside from needing a bath and a shave, there was this air of complete dejected emptiness clinging to him.
Brutus began a greeting, addressing Antony who at first did not react at all to his presence, before he minutely turned his head and gazed at him for a tense moment. Then his eyes unfocused and drifted to the ceiling again.
Brutus saw Julia come to stand beside him, while silently a group of slaves with cleaning equipment entered the room.
"He's been like this for two weeks.", she said. "At first, he went out drinking himself half to death and brought some woman home he claimed was his wife, which was much even for him. After a few nights of wild parties he just wouldn't come out of bed in the morning. I've tried everything to rouse him, his brothers tried, but it only made it worse. Of course, I can't very well send him away from Rome in that condition."
Brutus again looked at Antony, who was carefully avoided by the cleaning crew, and had to think of someone imprisoned. Imprisoned by what, he wondered.
Before he could stop himself, he said half to Antony, half to Julia: “Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Perhaps spending some time with him will help. He only sees me and I'm beginning to think that's not enough. He needs something, someone else, and I'm just about at the end of the rope.“
Brutus felt a mixture of relief and apprehension. Relief that he hadn't been dragged into another typical Antony situation as he knew them from their tresviri days, apprehension at these new, nearly unknown set of circumstances.
He had never seen Antony this vulnerable and was kind of shock that there was anything in this world that could affect him this much. Antony was the epitomy of shrugging it off and moving on, he had thought.
He turned away from Antony to look at Julia, feeling privileged that she would choose to trust him with this.
“Why not go to any of his other friends?", he asked. "I know he has many."
“Well, I'm currently not leaving the house much, and I certainly won't trust any of those rogues he goes out drinking with. Yours is about the only friendship of his I approve of."
This was probably not as much of a compliment as it appeared at first glance, yet Brutus didn't have the heart to tell her how rocky in its foundations his relationship with Antony had always been.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day, Brutus arrived at Julia's house again with a scroll. Yesterday, he had tried to talk to Antony about the weather and the races respectively, the only two subjects in current discussion that had nothing to do with Catiline and the conspirators. It had not provoked any kind of reaction in Antony and Brutus had ended up just awkwardly sitting there, head full of things he probably shouldn't say.
He still wasn't giving up, though, and so he had brought a scroll on platonic realism he was currently reading to pass the time.
He was let in, quickly greeted by Julia, then he went up to Antony's room again.
Antony was still just lying in bed, seemingly not having moved since yesterday, though he would have had to use the latrines at some point.
He acknowledged Brutus and his greeting with a turn of his head and a single blink, then went back to staring at the ceiling.
Brutus settled himself on a chair beside his bed and started to read loud enough so Antony could hear him. At first Brutus kept shooting glances at his prone form, not for the first time wondering what Antony, well again, would do to someone who had seen him this vulnerable.
But then, maybe they would just be even as Antony knew about him and Cassius.
The thought of Cassius seemed entirely unwelcome in this context, and he clamped it down with all his might.
He was aware he was being a coward in regards to the entire situation, but he couldn't think of a way to change his feelings.
After a while, however, Brutus entirely lost himself in the contents of the scroll, and he read on well into the afternoon.
~~~~~~~~
Another day, another scroll. It had become a well versed ritual at this point, Brutus visiting at the house with his reading material tucked under one arm. Maybe he was kidding himself, but Antony did seem to be improving, at least he started to keep his gaze on Brutus and seemed a little more attentive.
Besides the reading, Brutus had soon started to just talk to Antony outright, the awkwardness from the beginning slowly falling away until it wasn't there anymore.
“Really, I didn't know you cared this much about Lentulus Sura. He always seemed to be to busy with scandals to be a proper pater familias, but that just goes to show how little we know about what happens in another household, I guess..."
At twitch of the eyebrows from Antony.
“You have to know, though, that I had no idea Cato was going to call for the executions. I mean, obviously I didn't, Cato doesn't discuss his potential plans with me and to say I had influence over him would just be a joke... "
After a few days, a group of slaves knocked and entered.
"Julia told us to give him a bath.", the man in the lead said.
Suddenly, Brutus could feel Antony's gaze boring into him with all of its familiar shrewdness, though he was sure he was only imagining it.
Embarrassed and considering what was best for both of their dignity, Brutus left them to it and waited in front of the door.
Now, Brutus had always been sort of casually attracted towards Antony. For someone inclined that way, Antony was simply to gorgeous to ignore. Still, it wasn't the soul shattering, passionate connection he had with Cassius, but something much simpler and more physical.
The real problem was that Brutus was pretty sure that Antony would not turn him down were he to offer, and that half the reason Antony had liked to tease him this much in the past was because he knew exactly what Brutus would think when he saw him naked.
Even in these, very much unsexy circumstances, Brutus was still flustered when confronted with the possibility of Antony's body. His well-toned, could-as-well be-a- statue-of-Praxiteles kind of body.
That did bring Brutus and idea as he leaned against the door. Perhaps it was time to appeal to Antony's vanity so he would move out of his stupor. He liked to stay in shape, after all, and this was not the way to do it.
Normally Brutus would have considered himself very much the wrong person to bring this sort of thing up, but things weren't normal anymore.
So, another few days passed before Brutus had gathered his courage to look up from his scroll to say: “You know, if you want to stay a walking Adonis, you need to start moving again. Go to the palestra, have a few wrestling bouts, that kind of thing.“
Antony blinked, then muttered something. Victory!, Brutus thought almost giddily.
"Could you repeat that?"
Antony said in a rapsy voice: "Where is your other half?"
Cassius again. It seemed Brutus couldn't escape him even here, and it made him feel slightly guilty that he even thought that at all.
“He married my sister just recently and I'm sure he is very busy... with that. But everything totally fine between us.“, Brutus hurried to add. “At least I think so. I mean, I may have been avoiding him for a bit, but only to give him some space, and-" He stopped himself, aware that he was rambling.
Antony was silent for so long that Brutus started to think he wasn't going to reply at all, so he reached for the scroll again, when Antony said: "You're an idiot."
Brutus took this entire exchange as a positive sign.