The Real LJ Idol: "Brutus"
Brutus
Real lj idol | week 19 | 290 words
Et tu, Brute?
x-x-x-x-x
The room suddenly seemed too small, and the feeling of being watched by hundreds of eyes was like a prickling at the back of Brutus' skull.
The words came for him, then: "Et tu, Brute?"
Brutus took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the moment.
What should he say?
Was he ready? Truly ready to spend the rest of his life with a man who was pretentious enough to fold Latin into their wedding ceremony (or to use it for irony, which Brutus never really understood anyway, so wasn't that just as bad)?
Could he be happy with a man who preferred books to baseball, hiking to hotdogs, and who actually watched Masterpiece Theater on purpose?
The kind of man (another thought reminded him) who never minded Brutus' ridiculous name, and who sometimes called him Bruto The Magnificent and drew pictures of him with a mask and a superhero cape to match? Who had also sketched a cartoon of him as Bigfoot or a bear or something, living in a cave littered with dead mathematical proofs?
Who let Brutus turn the spare bedroom into his own robot-hobby workshop, and had only once complained when Brutus used the premium-bond paper to scribble page after page of differential equations?
The man Brutus loved waking up next to every morning, and who thought Brutus was handsome and wonderful and did have a sense of humor? Who taught himself about songbirds and muscle cars, just so he'd have more conversational topics in common with Brutus' father?
The minister and Jeff were still waiting for an answer, and Brutus hoped he hadn't taken too long.
His reply to Jeff-to the world-was the only one he'd ever hoped to give:
"Yes. I do."
I went for the literal meaning of the quote, here: You also, Brutus? or And you, Brutus? because I wanted to write about something other than betrayal. If you enjoyed this story, community members can vote for it along with the other fine entries here.
Real lj idol | week 19 | 290 words
Et tu, Brute?
x-x-x-x-x
The room suddenly seemed too small, and the feeling of being watched by hundreds of eyes was like a prickling at the back of Brutus' skull.
The words came for him, then: "Et tu, Brute?"
Brutus took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the moment.
What should he say?
Was he ready? Truly ready to spend the rest of his life with a man who was pretentious enough to fold Latin into their wedding ceremony (or to use it for irony, which Brutus never really understood anyway, so wasn't that just as bad)?
Could he be happy with a man who preferred books to baseball, hiking to hotdogs, and who actually watched Masterpiece Theater on purpose?
The kind of man (another thought reminded him) who never minded Brutus' ridiculous name, and who sometimes called him Bruto The Magnificent and drew pictures of him with a mask and a superhero cape to match? Who had also sketched a cartoon of him as Bigfoot or a bear or something, living in a cave littered with dead mathematical proofs?
Who let Brutus turn the spare bedroom into his own robot-hobby workshop, and had only once complained when Brutus used the premium-bond paper to scribble page after page of differential equations?
The man Brutus loved waking up next to every morning, and who thought Brutus was handsome and wonderful and did have a sense of humor? Who taught himself about songbirds and muscle cars, just so he'd have more conversational topics in common with Brutus' father?
The minister and Jeff were still waiting for an answer, and Brutus hoped he hadn't taken too long.
His reply to Jeff-to the world-was the only one he'd ever hoped to give:
"Yes. I do."
I went for the literal meaning of the quote, here: You also, Brutus? or And you, Brutus? because I wanted to write about something other than betrayal. If you enjoyed this story, community members can vote for it along with the other fine entries here.