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Catullus’s first memory that he can see with complete clarity in his mind is of blood streaming down his knees and tears down his cheeks and Lucius’s low voice scolding him as always.
“It’s your own fault, Gaius,” Lucius snaps as Catullus wails. “Papa told us not to ride the horses on our own. You’re lucky you only skinned your knees when you fell off.”
“I wanted to go fast, Cius,” Catullus sniffs miserably, his toddler mouth not quite able to form Lucius’s name properly. His big, blue eyes stare up at the stern face of his older brother- when Catullus thinks back on it, Lucius always did look so much older than he actually was- and Lucius tries his hardest not to break out of his disapproving glare. But Catullus is impossible to stay mad at in that infuriatingly endearing way that troublemakers always are, like some sort of weird survival skill, and in the end Lucius just sighs.
“There’s plenty of time for that later,” he says, and he manages a smile before standing up and heaving Catullus into his arms. “You can go fast once you’ve stopped bleeding all over the place.”
And yet somehow, Catullus gets Lucius to run fast for him, and somehow, Lucius doesn’t drop him.
Catullus’s first poems are the offspring of Sappho and a teenage crush that he would rather forget about when he gets older (not that Lucius ever lets him forget). He scrawls on wax tablets and papyrus scraps until his hands are sore and stained with ink, but even then verses still bounce in his head.
“You’ll go cross-eyed if you stare at that tablet too long,” Lucius says one night, entering Catullus’s room without knocking. Catullus is lying listlessly on his bed, fingers tapping slowly against his tablet, and he turns his half-lidded gaze to his brother with disinterest. “You missed dinner again, baby brother.” Lucius ignores the frustrated noise that Catullus makes at being called baby brother and sits down on the edge of the bed, setting a plate with bread and a little dish of olive oil in front of Catullus. “Eat, Gaius. You can’t feed yourself just on poetry.”
“’M not hungry,” Catullus mumbles, but he begrudgingly sits up and nibbles at his bread. “Can’t think on a full stomach, anyway. Makes me sleepy.”
“Or maybe you get sleepy because you stay up too late working on your damn poetry.” Lucius reaches for Catullus’s tablet, and Catullus throws his arm out to snatch it away from him- too late. “Eat your bread, Gaius! What’s the point of all this poetry if you’re not going to let anyone read it?” Lucius scans the messy lines- gods, how can Catullus tell what in Dis’s name he’s written?- before glancing up at his little brother’s pouting face. “This is quite the effort for a girl I’m fairly sure you’ve never spoken to.”
“I’ve said hello to her,” Catullus says. Lucius hums, unimpressed.
“I suppose that’s a good start. Please tell me you’re not going to give this poem to her, though.”
“Why not?”
“Well, to start, your meter’s off.”
“It can’t be! I rewrote that one line three times!” Catullus makes grabby hands at his tablet, and Lucius, satisfied by his appraisal, tosses it back so that Catullus can scour it for the metrical mistake. But after a minute, Catullus looks up in confusion. “I don’t see it, Cius.”
“Tsk, and you call yourself a poet!” Lucius says, but he can’t hold back a twitch of a smile, and Catullus blows a puff of air between his lips in a huff.
“That’s not funny,” he says. Lucius throws his head back, cackling gleefully, and Catullus drops the tablet onto his bed and stares down at it in annoyance.
He raises his head in alarm when Lucius’s laugh suddenly breaks into a choking cough. Catullus scrambles over to his brother and starts beating on his back, trying to free up his airway, but Lucius just waves Catullus away and stands so fast that he practically knocks Catullus over before hurrying out of the room. Catullus digs his nails into the wax of his tablet until he can no longer hear Lucius’s wet cough down the hallway; as soon as the coughing stops, he debates whether or not to step out of his room and find Lucius while picking the wax out from under his nails. But he doesn’t have to debate for long before Lucius slowly opens his door again and steps back in, cup of water in hand. Lucius’s face is pale, and he suddenly looks very tired.
“Just needed a drink of water,” he says, smiling weakly, but Catullus just frowns.
“You’ve been coughing a lot recently, though,” he replies. “Usually your cough is gone by this time of year.”
“Speak for yourself, baby brother. I still hear you coughing. Don’t try to tell me it’s just lovesickness.” It’s meant to be a lighthearted comment, but Lucius’s voice catches on every other word, strained and raspy, and it just comes out sounding pathetic. He pats Catullus on the shoulder and turns to leave. “Anyway, I was teasing. You have a talent, Gaius. Work a little more, and perhaps you will be as good as the Sappho you must’ve based that poem on.”
The compliment coaxes a small smile out of Catullus; the tousle that Lucius gives his hair gets a slightly larger one.
“Aw, cut it out,” he mutters, and Lucius laughs his way out of Catullus’s bedroom, but more weakly than he laughed before.
Rome is a wretched place, and Catullus loves her. She has all the run-down beauty of an old but well-loved horse, plodding along on buck-kneed legs and wheezing with every breath, and something about her wretchedness inspires him. Besides that, Rome is a city of poets- so many of them in one place, and so many of them terrible! But there are a few gems among the refuse, and either way, most of them are good company. If there’s anything Catullus would change, it’s the air; his already weak lungs struggle under the pollution, and gods help him if he goes near the Subura. He coughs more often than not after a long walk.
But Rome is a goddess, and Catullus cannot help but worship her no matter how much she harms him. Verona is sweet and lovely in her own way, but he knows all of her secrets. Rome’s mysterious rites draw him in more than any nostalgia could. He writes, of course- writing is all that he is. His first poems make the rounds of his circle of friends and are slowly passed to more prestigious hands, and a literary eye keeps it watch on him. But he writes letters, too, a taste of Rome for Verona, and he smells the papyrus that comes to him in reply, hoping to breathe in a bit of Verona’s country charm.
Catullus’s mother’s letters are long and cramped onto little sheets of papyrus, impossible to read to all but her child’s eye (which Catullus is grateful for, given how embarrassing they are, since his friends are notorious letter-snatchers). She sends him pressed flowers and his favorite cheese, which is worth the mocking and goop-eyes the other poets make at him, imagining some sweetheart back at Verona when they see her care packages. Catullus’s father writes rarely, the occasional note scribbled at the end of his mother’s letters, but they are always about how proud his father is and would Catullus please send him some poetry?
Lucius’s letters, though, are what make him the most homesick, Lucius’s letters are what ease the pain in his chest as he lies wheezing on his bed. They’re full of mundane things- a new foal, a cold morning, Mother worrying about his cough again- but they remind Catullus of riding horses with his brother and chatting about nothing in particular. News of Lucius’s cough worries Catullus more than anything else, especially since he knows how bad his own cough is, but that doesn’t stop him from saving the letters and rereading them on lonely nights, when Rome is at her cruelest.
Love is a tyrant, and Catullus his greatest victim. At least, that’s what Lucius assumes Catullus must think when Catullus arrives at Verona a sobbing mess and crumples into his mother’s arms. Lucius knows well enough that Catullus had some sweetheart in the city- frankly, Catullus wouldn’t shut up about her in his letters, and he sent Lucius the drafts of poems that he never did end up publishing- and this is too much of an overreaction for him to just be upset at being parted from her for a brief visit to his family.
Sure enough, Catullus’s sweetheart told him in few and not exactly pleasant words that he would not be welcome back on his return to Rome, as Lucius coaxes Catullus into revealing after he calms down and settles into his room. The tears start welling up again halfway through this explanation, and Lucius just sighs and lets Catullus cry against his chest, each sob followed by a hacking cough that makes Lucius hold Catullus closer to him. Catullus has always been quick to love and not very smart with whom he bestows his affections on, and Lucius cannot help but think of how he used to wipe the blood from Catullus’s cuts after each fall from a galloping horse. Catullus would always pick the toughest horses to ride, foolish in his childish belief that he could tackle any challenge; he picks his lovers no differently.
But Catullus is still Lucius’s brother, his little Gaius, and he saves his chiding words for when Catullus’s grief has waned. For now, he simply lets Catullus babble lovesick nonsense into his tunic until his heart hurts a little less.
When Catullus calms down again, he sits with his head against Lucius’s chest, letting Lucius pet his hair, the best comfort Lucius could give him. Each breath Lucius takes is hard and heavy, no matter how much he tries to make it sound normal, and Catullus, now that he can focus on something other than his broken heart, wonders if his brother is really as okay as his letters always claim.
Of all the goddesses, Rome is the least forgiving. Catullus worships her and keeps her secret name guarded in his heart, and she rewards him with nights spent suffocating on his own lungs and gasping through searing breaths that burn his chest. She grants him, on occasion, some respite from his affliction- the days spent without wheezing are a blessing- and it is rare that she ever curses him so hard that he cannot put on a brave face and go about his daily business. Either way, she can spit in his face and scorn his love for her as much as she wants; he still loves her as he always has, a lover by nature and not so easily dissuaded.
Besides, it is fair Rome who introduces him to Clodia. The moment he sees her reclining on a couch at one of the many parties he somehow finds himself at every other night, for the first time he understands Sappho’s songs in their entirety. Rome may be a goddess, but Clodia’s power is something still more ancient, more divine, and from his first gaze upon her, Catullus is hers. Rome has his body and his affection; Clodia has his soul and all his fiery passion. She is crueler than Rome, returning his desperate adoration with cool glances and smirks that promise nothing, but his flames are not so easily put out. When Rome does not choke him with her thick, heavy air that settles deep in his lungs, Clodia grabs his heart and digs her nails in sharp. Still, he cannot abandon either of his loves.
Lucius writes more often now, of Verona, sweet Verona. And of Clodia, too. Catullus keeps no secrets from his brother, and his letters are full of Clodia. Odi et amo, he writes, and in return Lucius sends him warnings at the end of every letter to guard his heart more carefully, to remember the time spent sobbing in Lucius’s arms. Lucius knows better than to expect any different from his little Gaius, but that doesn’t stop him from hoping that someday Catullus will listen to him.
Of course, Catullus blows him off. There is laughter in his scrawled words as he chides his older brother- stern old Lucius, always the downer- for being absolutely no fun at all. It becomes a habit for them, almost: Lucius, ever wiser than his years, advises caution, while Catullus throws caution to the wind and tells his older brother to enjoy the poetry of life, ever the Sappho to Lucius’s quiet, thoughtful Lucretius. Catullus’s words are better suited to the lyre than to letters, and Lucius simply reads them with a shake of his head and a rolls of his eyes and a reply even more exasperated than the last that Catullus nevertheless scoffs at.
It’s only when Lucius’s handwriting, those clean but familiar strokes of ink, with all of his quiet charm, is replaced with the stiff, lifeless script of a slave that Catullus really worries. His own hands shake and jerk from coughs that wrack his entire body sometimes, and he knows that he cannot write when these episodes happen, only manage a weak dictation. Verona is kinder than Rome with her clean, fresh air, but Catullus cannot forget the way Lucius’s chest strained under his breaths during Catullus’s last visit home.
Still, even the occasional fear for his brother is not enough to quell Catullus’s elation, and he continues to fill his letters to the brim with Clodia’s name and his songs.
Catullus’s love is itself poetry; he only gives that poetry a written form. He is merely the voice for the timeless song of love, and that shows in the way his poetry passes through all of the circles in Rome until finally he sees them scrawled upon walls wherever he goes. The cranky old conservatives hate him, a fact which fills him with uninterrupted delight; the band of young, rebellious poets that occupy his own particular poetic circle and reject the old Latin style seem to have taken him as their leader, a fact which fills him with the warmth of pride; and Clodia…
To say that she loves him is a step too far into the hopeful, he supposes. There is something between them, something poisonous and all-consuming and wild; the only problem is that Catullus is easy prey, and as Clodia sinks her fangs into him, he can barely manage a few pathetic scratches. He is like the livestock animal treated with an unusual fondness, putting complete trust and admiration in his owner only to be led one day to the slaughter, and somewhere deep in his heart he knows this. Lucius’s words of warning flicker into his thoughts in brief snatches, forgotten as soon as they are remembered. The reminder is unneeded. Clodia is a force of nature, and her presence inspires a sense of reverent dread, the acknowledgment that she is beautiful and powerful and will end you if she can.
Catullus knows that, should she choose, she could end him. Notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum…Cicero won’t shut his mouth about that damned conspiracy he claims to have stopped, but a whole city of Catilines has nothing on Clodia’s destructive force. Even thePater Patriae would quiver in her presence (and supposedly does, if rumors are to be believed).
Clodia turns her back to Catullus at night, when their panting breaths calm back down to steadiness- or at least Clodia’s do, while Catullus is left to try and suppress his wheezing- and she snarls a warning to stay on his side of the bed when he tries to wrap his arms around her. He thinks of Lucius and his letters in those cold moments when that shared bed is the loneliest place in the city; as he feels the tightness in his chest at every breath, loud in the silence of Roman night, Catullus lingers on warnings and Verona’s spring and splatters of ink where a cough must have jerked Lucius’s hand too hard into the papyrus.
Catullus hasn’t visited home in a couple of years, now that he thinks about it. He still writes, as always, making sure to send a few lines of poetry in his own hand each time, but Rome- and Clodia- have not loosened their grip on him yet. Perhaps a visit is in order, then- he knows his parents miss him, if they aren’t lying in their letters (and he knows they aren’t- honest Verona nourishes honest people)- and gods, to see Lucius again! Catullus knows well enough that Lucius will just chide him in person for his reckless affairs, but something about that thought fills Catullus with a nostalgic warmth as he remembers all the times Lucius has snapped at him to be more careful.
The idea of visiting bounces around in Catullus’s head until finally he finds himself sending off a letter to his parents saying that he’ll be leaving for Verona in a few days. He knows that both Rome and Clodia, much as he hates to think that they will, will be fine without him for a couple of weeks, and in between the parties and the nights with Clodia and the poetry, he packs up whatever he thinks essential to his trip home. It’s not much- a few writing tablets, some nice copies of his poems for friends and family, the few tunics he has that aren’t stained with wine or…other questionable substances- and he gets most of it done the day before he plans to leave.
But as he’s sitting in his bedroom and just finishing picking out what he wants to take with him, there is a knock on Catullus’s door. He practically bounds over like an excited puppy hearing its master’s voice outside a door, thinking that perhaps Clodia has dropped by for one last visit before he goes, but all that enthusiasm disappears and is almost immediately replaced with a different, but warmer, sort of excitement as soon as he sees who his visitor is.
“Well, baby brother, looks like I caught you just in time. Packing for the trip home?” Lucius doesn’t even get an answer before he suddenly finds himself enveloped in Catullus’s bony arms. He chuckles quietly, coughs, grimaces as he draws in a pained breath; when Catullus looks up at him, his face is pale, his eyes sunken. “Air’s not so good here, is it?” Lucius asks with a faint, forced smile, but Catullus can tell from his dull eyes that this has been going on for a while now.
“What are you doing here, Cius?” Catullus asks.
“Heading east, Gaius. I’ll be on staff for a year. And since I haven’t seen you in so long, I thought I’d drop by on my way over.” Lucius coughs again, and Catullus runs to get him some water, but he just shakes his head. “I’m fine,” he says between wet, struggling breaths. “Just…having a lot of trouble shaking it off this year. Gods, I don’t know how you live in this city! I thought I would die just walking here.”
“I manage,” Catullus mumbles. He sits on the edge of his bed and stares at the floor, and Lucius, smiling more sincerely now, sits beside him and tousles his hair like he always used to.
“Cheer up, baby brother,” he says softly. “I really am fine, I promise. No little cough is going to carry off a Valerius Catullus. I’ll be back here for another visit in a year, when I’m on my way back home.” He puts an arm around Catullus, and Catullus leans into the hug; for a while, they just sit there in silence. “Take care of yourself for me, okay, Gaius?” Lucius rests his cheek against the top of Catullus’s head and sighs in his quiet way. “She’s not worth your happiness.”
“She is my happiness,” Catullus replies, and Lucius doesn’t say anything else. Finally, Lucius pries himself from away from Catullus and stands.
“Here,” he says, handing Catullus a papyrus sheet. “This is where I’ll be staying. I’m sure you can find people heading east without too much trouble, and I know people will always be heading to Rome. I’ll write as often as I can.” Lucius smiles again and ruffles Catullus’s hair one last time. “You’re always writing, I know, but I hope you take some time from your poetry to send your dear Cius a letter.”
“Of course I will,” Catullus says. A last smile, and Lucius is gone. Catullus’s head itches from his hair being out of place, but to rearrange it would undo the work of Lucius’s touch. Catullus lies back on his bed, trying to resist the urge to fix his hair. When he sits up again, he goes straight to his desk and starts writing a letter.
The letters come less often than Catullus would like, but Lucius is true to his word; when he gets a chance, he sends a letter to Rome. It takes weeks for each one to get to Catullus, and then weeks for Catullus to send one back. His only consolation is that Lucius doesn’t wait for replies, just sending a letter whenever something interesting happens. Their letters are much the same as ever- Catullus writes of Rome and Clodia, and Lucius continues to remind him to be careful and occasionally gives him the love advice that he’s always begging for in between talking about his own goings-on.
It takes a while for Catullus to notice when the letters stop. They are already so far apart that he doesn’t think much of it until he is cleaning his study one day and realizes that it has been a couple of months with no letter from Lucius. No matter, he tells himself; Lucius is busy, or perhaps the letters got lost. He’s known that frustration before. And besides, Clodia is keeping him too occupied to pay too much notice to the lack of letters from the east. She takes a new lover every few nights and makes sure to invite Catullus to dinner only to watch her play with her most recent find, but as soon as he decides to cut ties with her, she starts whispering promises of affection to him and starting the whole cycle again. Rome resounds with his songs about her, but it’s a different tune every day.
Clodia is sitting on Catullus’s lap one night, murmuring false promises to him, when the next letter finally comes, and he is loath to turn his attention away from her lips to take it.
“Gossip from the east, perhaps?” she mumbles before biting sharply onto his earlobe, and he shivers at the pain, wanting more. “Go on and open it. Let’s see what your brother has to say.” Catullus grumbles, but he knows better than to disobey her. He picks up the letter and frowns; the seal upon it is not Lucius’s, and Catullus doesn’t recognize it. Maybe it’s not from the east at all? But the introduction, though not in Lucius’s handwriting, shows that the letter is from the Troad in Asia Minor. Catullus mumbles his way through the first few words, and then his shoulders stiffen. He practically pushes Clodia from his lap and stands up to pace as he finishes reading. “Gaius? Is it from your brother or not-”
“Leave.” Catullus’s voice comes out biting, and Clodia thanks the gods that he is turned away from her and cannot see her flinch. The only thing that stops her from biting back is the sudden coughing fit he breaks into, coughs that soon are half-replaced with sobs.
“Gaius?” she asks again.
“Leave.” Catullus practically coughs the word out. “Please, meum mel…”
Clodia shrugs. Well, have it your way, she thinks, and within seconds she is gone, off to find someone else to spend her night with. As soon as she’s gone, Catullus sinks to his knees and lets himself sob and cough and choke until his chest burns and his vision swims.
His slaves find him passed out on the floor in his own vomit, pale but breathing faintly, and prop him up on pillows on his bed, the only he has relief from the fire in his lungs. They wrestle him into a new tunic and wipe the drool and vomit from his chin and don’t even both calling a physician, experts in these horrible fits Catullus has and knowing that there is nothing they can do for him until he wakes up on his own. He comes to quickly, spluttering back to life as violently as he left it, and with wild eyes he glances around at the slaves surrounding him.
“You should have let me die,” he hisses before exploding back into coughs until he retches, curling in upon himself and sobbing. “I should’ve died instead…”
Days pass, and the letters and visits of consolation come in. Even Clodia visits, and for once she has neither cruel words nor sweet nothings for Catullus’s ears. She simply reaches out and touches his shoulder as he stares at her, through her, and after a minute, she leaves.
Somehow, it is the most comforting thing anyone does for him. Clodia’s touch is warm and firm and reminds him of the way Lucius touches him, resting a hand on his shoulder or mussing his hair. Or rather, the way Lucius used to touch him. The way Lucius will never touch him again.
Rome is cruel, and Clodia crueler, but Catullus has always forgiven them. He knows he cannot say the same for the land that took his brother away.
To hell with Bithynia and Memmius, Catullus thinks, and he dances away from his duty with his middle fingers in the air as his year of service is over. What a complete waste of time! Not a coin to be earned, and meanwhile Clodia is probably having her way with half the men in Rome while his bed, for the most part, offers only cobwebs for company. He should’ve been making enough money to have a few years of squandering luxury, but instead he’s coming home empty-handed. What an absolute fucking waste of time!
Or…well, that’s a lie. Not a complete waste of time. Because instead of heading straight home, Catullus makes his way to the Troad, using what little money he has left at hand to buy some wine and a honey cake when he gets there.
The monument doesn’t stand out among the plethora that line the road, and it’s only because of Catullus’s sharp eye that he finds it so quickly. He swallows as he kneels down beside it, throat suddenly dry, and when he tries to speak, nothing but a nervous laugh comes out.
“I was supposed to have something funny to say,” he says after he makes his offerings. “Spent the whole way here thinking of it. Didn’t work out so well, I guess.” Catullus falls silent again, listening to the gentle rhythm of hooves and turning wheels as carts and carriages move past him, oblivious to the man speaking softly to the house of silent ashes. He clears his throat. “You were supposed to come visit me on your way back home,” he says, and his voice cracks from dust and emotions as he fights down another coughing fit (they seem to come so easily these days). “So…guess I’m visiting you instead.”
Catullus blinks hard and finally just closes his eyes. He can almost imagine the sharp reply Lucius would, should have for him, the way Lucius’s playful stings sounded so strange coming from that deep, level voice. But he and Lucius have never had the same sense of humor, and Catullus is forced to admit that whatever he’s imagining sounds fake, a cheap imitation of a voice now forever silenced. He throws his arms around the monument and shudders at its sharp, inhuman edges. Stone is no replacement for the gentle warmth of Lucius’s firm embrace, but it is all Catullus has.
“C’mon, Cius,” he whispers, for he cannot summon the strength to speak louder, “say something.”
There is no use talking to stone and ashes. This is not one of those ancient myths; there is no divinity to take pity on him, no bargain with the underworld to be made. He is a poet, and his language tells him that poets are prophets, that the vates is both songwriter and seer. But he is no Orpheus, and his lyre cannot move the shades below; what good is his poetry, if it cannot bring Lucius back?
But as Catullus sobs against all that remains of his brother, as he cries and coughs and wishes that death had come to him instead, the sun’s heat starts to feel gentle on his skin, a faint breeze blows his ever-messy hair further out of place, and for a moment, nobody passes by Lucius’s tomb. Catullus, his sobbing momentarily quieted, raises his head at the sound of silence, looks up to the cloudless sky above, and smiles, lifting a hand to his head and slowly fixing his hair.
“Alright, I get it,” he says softly. “I’ll write it for you, so leave my hair alone, would you?”
Catullus rises from the monument and dusts his knees off. Perhaps he cannot bring Lucius back, but he is still a vates. While his brand of divinity cannot grant physical immortality, it is in his power to immortalize in other ways. If anyone deserves that honor, it is Lucius, and Catullus prays that, if nothing else of the many lines he’s given life over the years, the poem he is going to write next will last forever.
“Frater,” he mumbles, his last words before finally stepping away from the monument and leaving his brother to the peace of eternal sleep, “ave atque vale.”
A flame that burns too fiercely runs the risk of burning itself out, and Catullus has always blazed brighter than those around him. His fire warmed the hearths of thousands, and he fed those flames with his poetry, with his own soul. Perhaps, then, it is only fair that he, who reveled so much in his life and pushed himself to every limit he could find, soon dwindles to little more than sputtering ashes.
But then, it is not exactly fair; that Catullus suffocates on his own lungs and feels the pain of a thousand daggers in his chest at every breath is not entirely his fault. She, too, has killed him. He feels her nails digging into his skin and hears her hissing false affection to him, those lies of love he has heard from her for so many years. Yet even as she takes from him all that he has, he cannot help himself from giving her even more yet. She has drained him past exhaustion, and he knows that while she is his world, that she has his all, he will mean nothing to her once his light is gone. Still, he cannot be angry with her. He has nothing but awe for the whirlpool that could put out even his flames, for that destructive force that he no longer dares to name. In his heart, he knows that he would have burned himself out without her; she only sped up the process.
He dreams vividly, of Verona, of his parents. And most of all, of Lucius. Catullus’s days are spent more and more in feverish sleep, and the visions he sees terrify him sometimes, visions of running horses and blood on his knees, of Clodia’s sharp teeth leaving marks on his arms and he can feelthem dig deep into his flesh, of the dusty eastern air that chokes him almost as much as Rome- gods, I don’t know how you live in this city…But somehow he always eventually dreams of Lucius, and Lucius always knows how to calm him, to speak gentle words and hold him tight until he no longer drowns with every breath. Over time, even his dreams become hazy, incomprehensible, but Lucius is always bright and clear, the only constant that he can fully trust.
Lucius calls to him one day, reaches one of those warm, firm hands out to Catullus and asks him to take it. Come, baby brother, Lucius says, it’s about time you get some rest. And Catullus takes his hand, feeling light and woozy and strange on legs that suddenly seem new; like a newborn foal trying for the first time to stand, he manages a few steps before collapsing into a clumsy, long-limbed pile. Lucius catches him and heaves him into his arms as if he is nothing, and Catullus lets himself fall against Lucius’s chest.
“I want to go fast, Cius,” he mumbles, and Lucius laughs. Catullus breathes in sharply at that familiar, soft sound, and for once, his breath comes with ease.
There’s plenty of time for that later, Lucius says. But Catullus’s puppy-dog eyes are too hard to ignore, and somehow, once more, Lucius is running fast, Catullus safe in his arms.