Purification Rite
Category: Julius Caesar/HBO Rome
Genre: Angst, Modern Era
Rating: Teens
Summary:
If this life is a second chance for Brutus, it does not feel like one.
Until it does.
The extravagances of the twenty-first century must have made Marcus soft.
He doesn’t understand how he used to march all day in stiff sandals and sleep in muggy camps strewn with straw and filth; now he can barely go an hour serving coffee without feeling like his head is about to split open. It can’t be age - he is only twenty-six.
Another reason to not apply for that master’s degree in PPPA at Milan. As if he could ever be Marcus Junius Brutus of the Republic again.
“Caffè lungo for table 2,” calls Renata, sliding a plate with a cup Marcus’ way. Maybe he should have opted to man the counter instead of catering to the tables - less running around.
After a brief rush with five customers crammed at the tiny counter, a sleepy lull settles over the bar, and Marcus goes to wash the dishes. It is not a bad day, he thinks, humming a tune. He could even say he is in a good mood. Usually he is not anything at all, and must compel himself to do everything.
As he is putting away the cups, someone walks up to the counter and wishes him a good day.
Marcus turns to respond in kind, and a hole is blown through his chest.
The same. The same . Marcus searches frantically for differences, in the slant of the mouth, in the cut of the cheeks, because he cannot start hoping now. No , he thinks, faint, clutching the counter to steady himself. It is immaculate: the slight, near-fragile build. The keen black eyes. The skin that remained soft and pale no matter how much it was exposed to the sun.
“An espresso, please. For a table,” says the man. He smiles at Marcus, and if there had been any doubt before, there is none now, because only Caesar could smile like that, like you were precious to him even though you had only just met him, and make you believe it.
As the man starts to turn away, Marcus blurts, “Do you want any sugar?” just so he can have another moment to look at his face.
“Thank you, but I do not take sugar.”
“Perhaps something to eat? We have wonderful croissants.”
The man looks at him like he is growing annoyed, and Marcus curses his own clumsiness. “I am not hungry.”
Caesar had always had a bird’s appetite. “No, of course,” Marcus says, which earns him raised eyebrows.
The man takes a seat by a window, fishing out a pair of glasses from his breast pocket and a Kindle from his carrier bag. He sits straight, holding up the Kindle at eye level instead of placing it on the table, like a human who actually listens to sound medical advice.
Marcus manages to fumble the right drink out of the machine and bring it over to the phantom that should not be sitting there. The phantom thanks him, still reading, and takes a sip. The noises of the bar recede, blur as if they are underwater. Marcus goes back to the counter and makes the excuse of a toilet break to Renata. He locks himself in a cubicle and leans against a rickety partition, a hand clamped over his mouth.
Two thousand years.
Two thousand years later he had woken. He’s not sure when the memories started blitzing back into him - perhaps when he was around four, when his parents had taken him for an open-air performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar , and he’d sat, transfixed, in his mother’s bony lap, swimming in the smell of roasted peanuts and rank summer sweat.
The plastic knife had descended and blood sprayed across the world, more blood than he thought could come from one man, on the floor, on the statues, on the toga.
Marcus wishes he’d kept the fucking toga, rather than let Mark Antony appropriate it and throw it to the frenzied, stinking crowd like some cheap trinket. It had been torn to shreds, which could have been cast into the pyre, kept as trophies, tossed into waste piles along with vegetable peels and fecal matter. There is no world, Marcus thinks, in which he forgives Antony for that.
His fist strikes the partition without him meaning for it to. Is there a Cassius now too? Perhaps a Cato? Why not bring the whole lot back and have ourselves another conspiracy?
When he comes back, he finds Renata trying to deal with a line of customers who had not been there before. He gets to work, grateful for the distraction.
It does not last long enough; fifteen minutes later he is called to bring another espresso to the man who could be Caesar himself. Not reincarnated, not re-skinned - Caesar . As Marcus puts the plate down he says, “I’m sorry, I will seem terribly odd, but may I know your name?”
He half expects a sock to the nose. But the man looks at him over his oval spectacles with a mildly curious, somewhat mocking smile. “Giulio Cesari.”
Marcus tries to remember how to breathe.
“I believe you now have me at an advantage.”
That’s something he would say , thinks Marcus. “Marcu - Marco Buratti.” It had been by chance, but he has yet to decide if it was cruel or kind.
Caesar - Giulio - tilts his head to one side. After a while he says softly, “I do not think you are lying.”
“Why would I,” Marcus whispers.
Giulio holds his gaze. He is younger than he had been then, with his hair a dark silver; age had settled on him as a stately cloak. Brutus had thought he’d never looked more appealing. Now, here, Caesar - Giulio - might be around forty - possibly a bit older, since sunscreen and other wonders hadn’t been invented back then and Caesar had always been fussy about his appearance.
“ - rco! Order for table 13!”
Marcus jolts and apologises to Giulio before hurrying back to the counter. The next ten minutes whip by, and when he looks to Giulio’s table next, the cup and plate and folded paper napkin have been cleared. He stares at the empty space in blistering grief. He should have asked Giulio to stay, no matter how bizarre it would have sounded. He aches with the desire to touch Giulio to confirm his physicality, to talk with him so he can open his skin and eat his soul raw.
In the late afternoon Marcus sits down for his break and plays some stupid puzzle game on his phone to distract himself. He had taken this job because it isn’t conducive to thinking - there is always a drink to make, a screeching customer to deal with, a mess to clean up. Perks of a semi-touristy location smack in the middle of Rome. And yet here he is: thinking.
The thing is - Marcus had never known the extent of Caesar’s affection for him.
Out of masochism or self hatred, he had bought a biography on Caesar and sat with it on his overstuffed couch after his dinner. A little over halfway through he put it on his lap, bent over, and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Caesar had been told.
He had been told that Marcus could have been involved in a plot against his life, and he had wilfully ignored it. Brutus will wait for this shrivelled skin , he had said.
And wasn’t that just like Caesar - either he did not care for you at all, or he would rather die than so much as think ill of you. “You fool,” Marcus had gritted out over his wet, shaking hands. “You damn fool.”
But Marcus has never been one for sitting around and doing nothing. As he scrubs chocolate stains off a plate he begins to map out a plan in his head to see Giulio again. He decides to ask Renata if Giulio had registered for their points system, in which case they would have his number, possibly his address.
“Why do you want to know?” she asks, frowning, after the bar has been closed and they are outside beneath the striped awning. She flicks her cigarette. It glows in the dim blue of the evening.
“I think I recognise him. He might be an old friend. I don’t have his number anymore.” Not a lie, exactly, so he doesn’t have to feel guilty about it.
Renata’s expression softens. “He didn’t register and he paid in cash. Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Something. There must be something he can do to find Giulio. The Internet exists, and while Marcus usually does not bother stalking people, he’s sure that he can . When he reaches home he opens his laptop and types Giulio’s full name in the Facebook search bar. Lots of Giulios, few Cesari’s. Only one Giulio Cesari, and it’s a college boy. LinkedIn next - probably a better bet. There are a couple of men with the right name, but one is not the right man and the other’s profile is bare, with not even a profile photo.
Marcus continues his search, trying to dampen his growing frustration. Twitter, Reddit, Livejournal, Dreamwidth, even Tumblr.
“You look like shit,” Renata tells him the next morning when she sees him. “Did you sleep at all?”
“No.” He had lain in bed and wondered if he wasn’t just cursed to some long nightmare. He tried to convince himself that he had not seen Caesar’s reincarnation, that Giulio was just someone who looked and talked like him. And it wasn’t as if he had recognised Marcus for who he really is - or if he had, he had not shown it.
Marcus knuckles down. He makes coffee. He serves food. He cleans tables. He thinks of Caesar. He thinks of Giulio. There is a lump of lead in his chest.
By the end of the day he is frayed at the edges. Renata keeps telling him to straighten his back or he’ll end up with arthritis. He does not want to go home - all he will do is stew in his own head. Gods, I need more friends , he thinks, as he serves what is hopefully the last drink of the day. Maybe he can join one of those chatrooms. He wonders if there’s one dedicated to ancient Greece.
The door to the bar opens and Marcus starts to say they’re closing now, but stops short.
Giulio marches up to the counter and says, “A caffè macchiato to go,” looking at Marcus. “Apologies for the late hour. I was delayed.”
Marcus makes a funny, strangled sort of noise.
“Will you give me my order today or tomorrow?”
Marcus leaps to it, ignoring Renata’s strange glance. As Giulio takes the cup, he tells Marcus, “I would like to speak with you. Outside, when you are finished, if that’s all right.”
“Y - yes, yes, sure.”
Giulio leaves, looking satisfied.
Marcus scrabbles to finish up, dropping a couple of chairs in the middle of it, and rushes out with a wave to Renata. He finds Giulio standing nearby with his caffè macchiato still in his hand. He is not leaning against anything, or looking at his phone, or reading - his eyes are fixed on the buzzing street, his posture at ease. Marcus trundles up to him, wiping his hands on his jeans.
Giulio gives him one of his smiles, warm and open. Marcus wonders how there is no ring on his left hand. “Thank you for meeting me. I appreciate it.”
“It’s no trouble.”
He tilts his head to the side. “I feel like I have seen you before - no, like I have known you before very well, though I do not remember you. Have we met?”
Marcus almost says, Not in this life , and then decides he will sound like a lunatic. He settles for, “No.”
“I could swear we were once friends.”
Marcus’ eyes sting. He shrugs. “This is my first time seeing you.” I’ve slipped on your blood while it was still warm. I’ve held you as you convulsed and your eyes rolled back in your head. I’ve kissed your cheek and tasted salt on it.
“Do you want to come over?” he says before his brain to mouth filter can start working. “No, not like that, not like that, I swear!” He flaps his hands frantically at Giulio’s expression. “I just - I feel like I’ve met you before too. I mean, before you came to the bar. We can. Talk. And sit. Sitting is nice.”
Giulio’s smile is gently teasing now. “My place is close by. Only a ten minute walk.”
“That. Works.”
“How funny this is. Usually I would not invite a relative stranger to my house, but I trust you implicitly even though you have given me no reason to.”
Marcus stands statue-still as Giulio ghosts past him, and only belatedly turns to follow. Giulio walks with a light step - as light as it used to be. He keeps a steady, unhurried pace. Marcus scrabbles for things to say to fill the silence, but Giulio seems tranquil, finishing his drink and throwing the paper cup in a dustbin. “This is me,” he says, when they reach a whitewashed apartment building. Even from the outside it seems luxurious, in that understated, breezy way. There is no elevator, so they take the stairs to the second floor.
The door opens right into a living room. Clean lines. No clutter. Light woods. White on white. Beiges and creams. Dark, detailed paintings. Airy windows. Fresh lilies in a porcelain vase. The books on the bookshelf are all wrapped in pale, serene covers, as if Giulio had deliberately bought those editions to suit his space, and they appear well thumbed through.
Marcus steps inside slowly, taking his time to look around and stopping in front of the bookshelf. He hears the door close behind him. Giulio comes up next to him, close enough for their shoulders to brush, and Marcus should step away, since that would be appropriate, but he does not.
“You read classical Latin?” says Marcus, eyeing some of the volumes. Of bloody course he does, the pompous git , he thinks, half-fond.
“It is one of my life’s great pleasures.”
Marcus slides out a book and flips through it. “This is advanced. You are fluent?”
“As are you, it seems. When did you start learning it?”
A hysterical laugh bursts from Marcus’ mouth. He wipes the tears from his eyes. “Sorry, shit, I. I’ve learned it from a young age. My parents wanted me to know it. It did come in use at times for my philosophy degree.”
“You wish to be a professor, then? Will you continue your studies?”
“I actually wanted to go into politics.” A ludicrous thing to say. The only people who want to go into politics these days are unprincipled dullards; his own mother (in this life) had raised her eyebrows when he had told her, while his father joked that he would disown him. At least, Marcus thinks he was joking.
But Giulio looks impressed. “Politics? A worthy field if you are disinclined to bribes and corruption. Did you wish to prop it up with your philosophy degree?”
“No.” He had taken philosophy since it was the only thing he wasn’t utterly disinterested in. “I just…did it. After I graduated I got the idea of politics, but. I don’t know. I needed money and started the job at the bar, and it was…” Numbing . “Comfortable.”
“So you gave up.” Giulio’s tone is even, almost amiable. The honesty of his gaze sears Marcus. “That is cowardice. And a shame for someone as bright as you.”
Marcus finds himself growing irrationally angry. “What do you know about me?” he snaps. “Who are you to talk to me about cowardice?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Perhaps I should leave.”
“What?” Giulio’s hand shoots out to grab Marcus’ shoulder. “Don’t be absurd. I am sorry. That is not how I meant it.”
“How did you mean it, then?”
“I think you know.” Before Marcus can think of a retort, Giulio continues, “But I have been terribly rude; please sit down. Do you want anything to drink? Eat?”
Marcus is so surprised at the abrupt change of topic that he sinks meekly onto the sofa. Giulio disappears into what is presumably the kitchen and reappears with a glass of water. “I can add some ice if you want,” he says as he pushes it into Marcus’ hand. Their fingers brush.
The procession in Rome is red and white. The dagger has been in Marcus’ toga for so long the hilt is warm in his hand. Cassius is gesticulating: He had a fever when he was in Spain . His will to kill himself is stronger than his will to kill Caesar had ever been.
“- rco! Marco!”
A face swims into view. Caesar. He had been talking about Vercingetorix. Marcus says something, but cannot hear himself. He reaches out, intending to cup Caesar’s cheek, but his fingers slide off, clumsy and weak.
“What did you say?” Caesar is demanding.
Marcus’ mouth works. The world is growing less blurry.
“You called me Kaisar .”
Giulio.
All of a sudden Marcus comes to himself. He is aghast. “I’m sorry.” He covers his flaming face with his hands. “I’m so sorry, I - I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t have - ”
Giulio lunges forward and grips Marcus by the upper arms. There will be bruises there the next day. “I thought I was mad. I would have dreams, hallucinations. I would read a strip of Latin and know it instinctively, even before I began studying it. I strolled past a shop and the buildings around me morphed into a neighbourhood. I lived there. It was called Subura. There were brothels and butcher shops and taverns.”
Marcus tries to pull away, keeping his eyes on the curtains behind Giulio. “These things happen. Deja vu and all that.”
Giulio shakes him, and Marcus feels his teeth rattle. “Tell me I’m not mad.”
Marcus looks down. His reservoir of words has dried up. On the carpet his eyes land on the glass and spilled water. A finger lifts his chin, and he finds Giulio looking at him intently. “Marco,” he says gently, but with a fine, slender edge, “we are not ill, are we?”
“Debatable,” says Marcus, hoarse.
Giulio pulls away, looking troubled. He groans and puts his face in his hands, as if he has a terrible headache. “You are,” he says, breathless, “Brutus, are you not? Marcus Junius? You look the same.” It seems to Marcus that Giulio’s manner of speaking has changed: his accent, his cadence, his tone.
Marcus sees no further point in pretence. “I am.”
A silence descends, and Marcus thinks it might last forever. Giulio removes his hands from his face, and he looks ten years older. “I do not know if I can forgive you a third time.”
“Kill me, then,” Marcus says, without meaning to. But he does not take it back.
“Don’t be a fool,” Giulio snaps. His face screws up as though he is in pain. “I couldn’t then, and I cannot now. Spare me this one cruelty.”
Marcus drops his head back. Don’t you dare cry. “I don’t know how to apologise, even though I want to, more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Nothing I say or do will be sufficient. I can’t even ask your forgiveness, because it’s so - it’s…”
Giulio draws a long breath. “I think it may be better if you leave.”
Marcus gets up on unsteady legs and turns to go. Giulio does not open the door for him.
When Marcus is outside the building he looks up. Amid the darkness, a window from an apartment complex on another street lights up. From somewhere he cannot see, a couple of children shriek with laughter. This cannot have happened, he thinks, as he begins his trudge towards the bus stop that will take him home. This cannot have happened. He checks his phone for Giulio’s number, even though he knows Giulio had never given it to him.
At work the next morning Renata asks if he wants the day off. Marcus refuses. What will he do in his empty apartment full of tattered books in classical Latin?
Giulio will never speak to him again. Accept it , Marcus tells himself, as he smiles at the customers and makes endless cups of coffee and cleans up broken plates, accept it, accept it, accept it . An older gentleman talks at him about Giorgio Chiellini and gestures to the echoey television in the far corner and Marcus summons all his energy to make the appropriately interested expressions.
He tries not to look at the bar door. He tries.
He won’t come back , he tells himself, and immediately continues with, There’s still twenty minutes to closing, though .
They clean the floor. They put the chairs up. Renata locks the door. A couple of teenagers in short dresses and high heels stumble past them, giggling. It is Saturday night, Marcus realises dimly. They might be heading to a party.
Each night, Marcus returns home wearier than before. The world develops a faded green cast to it. When he finds that Saturday evening has rolled around again, he opens the bookmarked postgraduate application page on his laptop and stares at it vacantly till his eyes grow itchy.
Cowardice .
When did Marcus turn his face away from Rome?
The Rome I killed my best friend for.
He blinks, and resurfaces. The room comes into sharp relief. The light from his lamp is blindingly bright.
I killed my best friend.
No.
He will not spit on Caesar by abandoning Rome .
Two hours later he has a rough draft of a statement of purpose. Rusty , he thinks, eyeing it. Old fashioned. I’ll have to change it if I don’t want them to think I’m some pretentious clod.
“You’re energetic today,” Renata tells him early on Sunday, leaning against the counter; there are not too many patrons at this hour. “Good to see your posture’s improved. You almost look military.”
Marcus smiles, not quite grim.
Just before lunchtime, one of the other table servers - a new boy - nabs him. “Excuse me,” he hisses, “one of the customers is asking for you. He says to bring him an espresso. He’s sitting by that window.”
“Unless he is unable to, he can order at the counter like every other - ” He trails off. Giulio is seated at the exact same table as the first time he had come here, reading his Kindle. “All right, thanks.”
Marcus makes the espresso and goes to set it before him. Giulio continues to read for a couple of more seconds, before putting down his Kindle and steepling his fingers, leaning back in his chair. He scrutinises Marcus. “Sit down.”
“Eh? We’re not supposed to - ”
“Sit. Down.”
Marcus sits. At the edge of the seat, so he can get up quickly if there’s another order. A quick look confirms that Renata is not paying attention, though the new recruit is eyeing them twitchily, as though he expects Giulio to take out a knife and run Marcus through.
“I need you to hear me.”
Marcus waits, taking in Giulio like a man dying of thirst, even though he shouldn’t. It is beyond bold - it is perverted to harbour such feelings for a man he left ruined on the floor like some dumb beast. It is perverted to even want to see him smile.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” says Giulio.
Marcus nods, trying to feel his way through the fog in his brain. It’s fine , he thinks, crumpling his apron in his hands. He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to.
Giulio hits the table with his fist, restrained, so the full cup only just rattles. Nothing spills. “But, damn it all, I still want to be near you. I want to know you again, and I want to know you now.” There is a sheen in his eyes. It could be the slant of the sunlight. “Do you accept?”
“I thought.” Marcus clears his throat. Massages the front of his neck. “I thought you would tell me to stay away from you.”
“I entertained the idea. Much as I wanted to, I could not hold it for over a moment.”
Marcus gives a hoarse, wet laugh. “Of course,” he says. “Of course I accept.” He reaches out to clasp Giulio’s hand.
This time, he will stay.
Genre: Angst, Modern Era
Rating: Teens
Summary:
If this life is a second chance for Brutus, it does not feel like one.
Until it does.
The extravagances of the twenty-first century must have made Marcus soft.
He doesn’t understand how he used to march all day in stiff sandals and sleep in muggy camps strewn with straw and filth; now he can barely go an hour serving coffee without feeling like his head is about to split open. It can’t be age - he is only twenty-six.
Another reason to not apply for that master’s degree in PPPA at Milan. As if he could ever be Marcus Junius Brutus of the Republic again.
“Caffè lungo for table 2,” calls Renata, sliding a plate with a cup Marcus’ way. Maybe he should have opted to man the counter instead of catering to the tables - less running around.
After a brief rush with five customers crammed at the tiny counter, a sleepy lull settles over the bar, and Marcus goes to wash the dishes. It is not a bad day, he thinks, humming a tune. He could even say he is in a good mood. Usually he is not anything at all, and must compel himself to do everything.
As he is putting away the cups, someone walks up to the counter and wishes him a good day.
Marcus turns to respond in kind, and a hole is blown through his chest.
The same. The same . Marcus searches frantically for differences, in the slant of the mouth, in the cut of the cheeks, because he cannot start hoping now. No , he thinks, faint, clutching the counter to steady himself. It is immaculate: the slight, near-fragile build. The keen black eyes. The skin that remained soft and pale no matter how much it was exposed to the sun.
“An espresso, please. For a table,” says the man. He smiles at Marcus, and if there had been any doubt before, there is none now, because only Caesar could smile like that, like you were precious to him even though you had only just met him, and make you believe it.
As the man starts to turn away, Marcus blurts, “Do you want any sugar?” just so he can have another moment to look at his face.
“Thank you, but I do not take sugar.”
“Perhaps something to eat? We have wonderful croissants.”
The man looks at him like he is growing annoyed, and Marcus curses his own clumsiness. “I am not hungry.”
Caesar had always had a bird’s appetite. “No, of course,” Marcus says, which earns him raised eyebrows.
The man takes a seat by a window, fishing out a pair of glasses from his breast pocket and a Kindle from his carrier bag. He sits straight, holding up the Kindle at eye level instead of placing it on the table, like a human who actually listens to sound medical advice.
Marcus manages to fumble the right drink out of the machine and bring it over to the phantom that should not be sitting there. The phantom thanks him, still reading, and takes a sip. The noises of the bar recede, blur as if they are underwater. Marcus goes back to the counter and makes the excuse of a toilet break to Renata. He locks himself in a cubicle and leans against a rickety partition, a hand clamped over his mouth.
Two thousand years.
Two thousand years later he had woken. He’s not sure when the memories started blitzing back into him - perhaps when he was around four, when his parents had taken him for an open-air performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar , and he’d sat, transfixed, in his mother’s bony lap, swimming in the smell of roasted peanuts and rank summer sweat.
The plastic knife had descended and blood sprayed across the world, more blood than he thought could come from one man, on the floor, on the statues, on the toga.
Marcus wishes he’d kept the fucking toga, rather than let Mark Antony appropriate it and throw it to the frenzied, stinking crowd like some cheap trinket. It had been torn to shreds, which could have been cast into the pyre, kept as trophies, tossed into waste piles along with vegetable peels and fecal matter. There is no world, Marcus thinks, in which he forgives Antony for that.
His fist strikes the partition without him meaning for it to. Is there a Cassius now too? Perhaps a Cato? Why not bring the whole lot back and have ourselves another conspiracy?
When he comes back, he finds Renata trying to deal with a line of customers who had not been there before. He gets to work, grateful for the distraction.
It does not last long enough; fifteen minutes later he is called to bring another espresso to the man who could be Caesar himself. Not reincarnated, not re-skinned - Caesar . As Marcus puts the plate down he says, “I’m sorry, I will seem terribly odd, but may I know your name?”
He half expects a sock to the nose. But the man looks at him over his oval spectacles with a mildly curious, somewhat mocking smile. “Giulio Cesari.”
Marcus tries to remember how to breathe.
“I believe you now have me at an advantage.”
That’s something he would say , thinks Marcus. “Marcu - Marco Buratti.” It had been by chance, but he has yet to decide if it was cruel or kind.
Caesar - Giulio - tilts his head to one side. After a while he says softly, “I do not think you are lying.”
“Why would I,” Marcus whispers.
Giulio holds his gaze. He is younger than he had been then, with his hair a dark silver; age had settled on him as a stately cloak. Brutus had thought he’d never looked more appealing. Now, here, Caesar - Giulio - might be around forty - possibly a bit older, since sunscreen and other wonders hadn’t been invented back then and Caesar had always been fussy about his appearance.
“ - rco! Order for table 13!”
Marcus jolts and apologises to Giulio before hurrying back to the counter. The next ten minutes whip by, and when he looks to Giulio’s table next, the cup and plate and folded paper napkin have been cleared. He stares at the empty space in blistering grief. He should have asked Giulio to stay, no matter how bizarre it would have sounded. He aches with the desire to touch Giulio to confirm his physicality, to talk with him so he can open his skin and eat his soul raw.
In the late afternoon Marcus sits down for his break and plays some stupid puzzle game on his phone to distract himself. He had taken this job because it isn’t conducive to thinking - there is always a drink to make, a screeching customer to deal with, a mess to clean up. Perks of a semi-touristy location smack in the middle of Rome. And yet here he is: thinking.
The thing is - Marcus had never known the extent of Caesar’s affection for him.
Out of masochism or self hatred, he had bought a biography on Caesar and sat with it on his overstuffed couch after his dinner. A little over halfway through he put it on his lap, bent over, and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Caesar had been told.
He had been told that Marcus could have been involved in a plot against his life, and he had wilfully ignored it. Brutus will wait for this shrivelled skin , he had said.
And wasn’t that just like Caesar - either he did not care for you at all, or he would rather die than so much as think ill of you. “You fool,” Marcus had gritted out over his wet, shaking hands. “You damn fool.”
But Marcus has never been one for sitting around and doing nothing. As he scrubs chocolate stains off a plate he begins to map out a plan in his head to see Giulio again. He decides to ask Renata if Giulio had registered for their points system, in which case they would have his number, possibly his address.
“Why do you want to know?” she asks, frowning, after the bar has been closed and they are outside beneath the striped awning. She flicks her cigarette. It glows in the dim blue of the evening.
“I think I recognise him. He might be an old friend. I don’t have his number anymore.” Not a lie, exactly, so he doesn’t have to feel guilty about it.
Renata’s expression softens. “He didn’t register and he paid in cash. Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Something. There must be something he can do to find Giulio. The Internet exists, and while Marcus usually does not bother stalking people, he’s sure that he can . When he reaches home he opens his laptop and types Giulio’s full name in the Facebook search bar. Lots of Giulios, few Cesari’s. Only one Giulio Cesari, and it’s a college boy. LinkedIn next - probably a better bet. There are a couple of men with the right name, but one is not the right man and the other’s profile is bare, with not even a profile photo.
Marcus continues his search, trying to dampen his growing frustration. Twitter, Reddit, Livejournal, Dreamwidth, even Tumblr.
“You look like shit,” Renata tells him the next morning when she sees him. “Did you sleep at all?”
“No.” He had lain in bed and wondered if he wasn’t just cursed to some long nightmare. He tried to convince himself that he had not seen Caesar’s reincarnation, that Giulio was just someone who looked and talked like him. And it wasn’t as if he had recognised Marcus for who he really is - or if he had, he had not shown it.
Marcus knuckles down. He makes coffee. He serves food. He cleans tables. He thinks of Caesar. He thinks of Giulio. There is a lump of lead in his chest.
By the end of the day he is frayed at the edges. Renata keeps telling him to straighten his back or he’ll end up with arthritis. He does not want to go home - all he will do is stew in his own head. Gods, I need more friends , he thinks, as he serves what is hopefully the last drink of the day. Maybe he can join one of those chatrooms. He wonders if there’s one dedicated to ancient Greece.
The door to the bar opens and Marcus starts to say they’re closing now, but stops short.
Giulio marches up to the counter and says, “A caffè macchiato to go,” looking at Marcus. “Apologies for the late hour. I was delayed.”
Marcus makes a funny, strangled sort of noise.
“Will you give me my order today or tomorrow?”
Marcus leaps to it, ignoring Renata’s strange glance. As Giulio takes the cup, he tells Marcus, “I would like to speak with you. Outside, when you are finished, if that’s all right.”
“Y - yes, yes, sure.”
Giulio leaves, looking satisfied.
Marcus scrabbles to finish up, dropping a couple of chairs in the middle of it, and rushes out with a wave to Renata. He finds Giulio standing nearby with his caffè macchiato still in his hand. He is not leaning against anything, or looking at his phone, or reading - his eyes are fixed on the buzzing street, his posture at ease. Marcus trundles up to him, wiping his hands on his jeans.
Giulio gives him one of his smiles, warm and open. Marcus wonders how there is no ring on his left hand. “Thank you for meeting me. I appreciate it.”
“It’s no trouble.”
He tilts his head to the side. “I feel like I have seen you before - no, like I have known you before very well, though I do not remember you. Have we met?”
Marcus almost says, Not in this life , and then decides he will sound like a lunatic. He settles for, “No.”
“I could swear we were once friends.”
Marcus’ eyes sting. He shrugs. “This is my first time seeing you.” I’ve slipped on your blood while it was still warm. I’ve held you as you convulsed and your eyes rolled back in your head. I’ve kissed your cheek and tasted salt on it.
“Do you want to come over?” he says before his brain to mouth filter can start working. “No, not like that, not like that, I swear!” He flaps his hands frantically at Giulio’s expression. “I just - I feel like I’ve met you before too. I mean, before you came to the bar. We can. Talk. And sit. Sitting is nice.”
Giulio’s smile is gently teasing now. “My place is close by. Only a ten minute walk.”
“That. Works.”
“How funny this is. Usually I would not invite a relative stranger to my house, but I trust you implicitly even though you have given me no reason to.”
Marcus stands statue-still as Giulio ghosts past him, and only belatedly turns to follow. Giulio walks with a light step - as light as it used to be. He keeps a steady, unhurried pace. Marcus scrabbles for things to say to fill the silence, but Giulio seems tranquil, finishing his drink and throwing the paper cup in a dustbin. “This is me,” he says, when they reach a whitewashed apartment building. Even from the outside it seems luxurious, in that understated, breezy way. There is no elevator, so they take the stairs to the second floor.
The door opens right into a living room. Clean lines. No clutter. Light woods. White on white. Beiges and creams. Dark, detailed paintings. Airy windows. Fresh lilies in a porcelain vase. The books on the bookshelf are all wrapped in pale, serene covers, as if Giulio had deliberately bought those editions to suit his space, and they appear well thumbed through.
Marcus steps inside slowly, taking his time to look around and stopping in front of the bookshelf. He hears the door close behind him. Giulio comes up next to him, close enough for their shoulders to brush, and Marcus should step away, since that would be appropriate, but he does not.
“You read classical Latin?” says Marcus, eyeing some of the volumes. Of bloody course he does, the pompous git , he thinks, half-fond.
“It is one of my life’s great pleasures.”
Marcus slides out a book and flips through it. “This is advanced. You are fluent?”
“As are you, it seems. When did you start learning it?”
A hysterical laugh bursts from Marcus’ mouth. He wipes the tears from his eyes. “Sorry, shit, I. I’ve learned it from a young age. My parents wanted me to know it. It did come in use at times for my philosophy degree.”
“You wish to be a professor, then? Will you continue your studies?”
“I actually wanted to go into politics.” A ludicrous thing to say. The only people who want to go into politics these days are unprincipled dullards; his own mother (in this life) had raised her eyebrows when he had told her, while his father joked that he would disown him. At least, Marcus thinks he was joking.
But Giulio looks impressed. “Politics? A worthy field if you are disinclined to bribes and corruption. Did you wish to prop it up with your philosophy degree?”
“No.” He had taken philosophy since it was the only thing he wasn’t utterly disinterested in. “I just…did it. After I graduated I got the idea of politics, but. I don’t know. I needed money and started the job at the bar, and it was…” Numbing . “Comfortable.”
“So you gave up.” Giulio’s tone is even, almost amiable. The honesty of his gaze sears Marcus. “That is cowardice. And a shame for someone as bright as you.”
Marcus finds himself growing irrationally angry. “What do you know about me?” he snaps. “Who are you to talk to me about cowardice?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Perhaps I should leave.”
“What?” Giulio’s hand shoots out to grab Marcus’ shoulder. “Don’t be absurd. I am sorry. That is not how I meant it.”
“How did you mean it, then?”
“I think you know.” Before Marcus can think of a retort, Giulio continues, “But I have been terribly rude; please sit down. Do you want anything to drink? Eat?”
Marcus is so surprised at the abrupt change of topic that he sinks meekly onto the sofa. Giulio disappears into what is presumably the kitchen and reappears with a glass of water. “I can add some ice if you want,” he says as he pushes it into Marcus’ hand. Their fingers brush.
The procession in Rome is red and white. The dagger has been in Marcus’ toga for so long the hilt is warm in his hand. Cassius is gesticulating: He had a fever when he was in Spain . His will to kill himself is stronger than his will to kill Caesar had ever been.
“- rco! Marco!”
A face swims into view. Caesar. He had been talking about Vercingetorix. Marcus says something, but cannot hear himself. He reaches out, intending to cup Caesar’s cheek, but his fingers slide off, clumsy and weak.
“What did you say?” Caesar is demanding.
Marcus’ mouth works. The world is growing less blurry.
“You called me Kaisar .”
Giulio.
All of a sudden Marcus comes to himself. He is aghast. “I’m sorry.” He covers his flaming face with his hands. “I’m so sorry, I - I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t have - ”
Giulio lunges forward and grips Marcus by the upper arms. There will be bruises there the next day. “I thought I was mad. I would have dreams, hallucinations. I would read a strip of Latin and know it instinctively, even before I began studying it. I strolled past a shop and the buildings around me morphed into a neighbourhood. I lived there. It was called Subura. There were brothels and butcher shops and taverns.”
Marcus tries to pull away, keeping his eyes on the curtains behind Giulio. “These things happen. Deja vu and all that.”
Giulio shakes him, and Marcus feels his teeth rattle. “Tell me I’m not mad.”
Marcus looks down. His reservoir of words has dried up. On the carpet his eyes land on the glass and spilled water. A finger lifts his chin, and he finds Giulio looking at him intently. “Marco,” he says gently, but with a fine, slender edge, “we are not ill, are we?”
“Debatable,” says Marcus, hoarse.
Giulio pulls away, looking troubled. He groans and puts his face in his hands, as if he has a terrible headache. “You are,” he says, breathless, “Brutus, are you not? Marcus Junius? You look the same.” It seems to Marcus that Giulio’s manner of speaking has changed: his accent, his cadence, his tone.
Marcus sees no further point in pretence. “I am.”
A silence descends, and Marcus thinks it might last forever. Giulio removes his hands from his face, and he looks ten years older. “I do not know if I can forgive you a third time.”
“Kill me, then,” Marcus says, without meaning to. But he does not take it back.
“Don’t be a fool,” Giulio snaps. His face screws up as though he is in pain. “I couldn’t then, and I cannot now. Spare me this one cruelty.”
Marcus drops his head back. Don’t you dare cry. “I don’t know how to apologise, even though I want to, more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Nothing I say or do will be sufficient. I can’t even ask your forgiveness, because it’s so - it’s…”
Giulio draws a long breath. “I think it may be better if you leave.”
Marcus gets up on unsteady legs and turns to go. Giulio does not open the door for him.
When Marcus is outside the building he looks up. Amid the darkness, a window from an apartment complex on another street lights up. From somewhere he cannot see, a couple of children shriek with laughter. This cannot have happened, he thinks, as he begins his trudge towards the bus stop that will take him home. This cannot have happened. He checks his phone for Giulio’s number, even though he knows Giulio had never given it to him.
At work the next morning Renata asks if he wants the day off. Marcus refuses. What will he do in his empty apartment full of tattered books in classical Latin?
Giulio will never speak to him again. Accept it , Marcus tells himself, as he smiles at the customers and makes endless cups of coffee and cleans up broken plates, accept it, accept it, accept it . An older gentleman talks at him about Giorgio Chiellini and gestures to the echoey television in the far corner and Marcus summons all his energy to make the appropriately interested expressions.
He tries not to look at the bar door. He tries.
He won’t come back , he tells himself, and immediately continues with, There’s still twenty minutes to closing, though .
They clean the floor. They put the chairs up. Renata locks the door. A couple of teenagers in short dresses and high heels stumble past them, giggling. It is Saturday night, Marcus realises dimly. They might be heading to a party.
Each night, Marcus returns home wearier than before. The world develops a faded green cast to it. When he finds that Saturday evening has rolled around again, he opens the bookmarked postgraduate application page on his laptop and stares at it vacantly till his eyes grow itchy.
Cowardice .
When did Marcus turn his face away from Rome?
The Rome I killed my best friend for.
He blinks, and resurfaces. The room comes into sharp relief. The light from his lamp is blindingly bright.
I killed my best friend.
No.
He will not spit on Caesar by abandoning Rome .
Two hours later he has a rough draft of a statement of purpose. Rusty , he thinks, eyeing it. Old fashioned. I’ll have to change it if I don’t want them to think I’m some pretentious clod.
“You’re energetic today,” Renata tells him early on Sunday, leaning against the counter; there are not too many patrons at this hour. “Good to see your posture’s improved. You almost look military.”
Marcus smiles, not quite grim.
Just before lunchtime, one of the other table servers - a new boy - nabs him. “Excuse me,” he hisses, “one of the customers is asking for you. He says to bring him an espresso. He’s sitting by that window.”
“Unless he is unable to, he can order at the counter like every other - ” He trails off. Giulio is seated at the exact same table as the first time he had come here, reading his Kindle. “All right, thanks.”
Marcus makes the espresso and goes to set it before him. Giulio continues to read for a couple of more seconds, before putting down his Kindle and steepling his fingers, leaning back in his chair. He scrutinises Marcus. “Sit down.”
“Eh? We’re not supposed to - ”
“Sit. Down.”
Marcus sits. At the edge of the seat, so he can get up quickly if there’s another order. A quick look confirms that Renata is not paying attention, though the new recruit is eyeing them twitchily, as though he expects Giulio to take out a knife and run Marcus through.
“I need you to hear me.”
Marcus waits, taking in Giulio like a man dying of thirst, even though he shouldn’t. It is beyond bold - it is perverted to harbour such feelings for a man he left ruined on the floor like some dumb beast. It is perverted to even want to see him smile.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” says Giulio.
Marcus nods, trying to feel his way through the fog in his brain. It’s fine , he thinks, crumpling his apron in his hands. He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to.
Giulio hits the table with his fist, restrained, so the full cup only just rattles. Nothing spills. “But, damn it all, I still want to be near you. I want to know you again, and I want to know you now.” There is a sheen in his eyes. It could be the slant of the sunlight. “Do you accept?”
“I thought.” Marcus clears his throat. Massages the front of his neck. “I thought you would tell me to stay away from you.”
“I entertained the idea. Much as I wanted to, I could not hold it for over a moment.”
Marcus gives a hoarse, wet laugh. “Of course,” he says. “Of course I accept.” He reaches out to clasp Giulio’s hand.
This time, he will stay.