Work Text:
This is the problem, he wants—
always, he wants—
those things he cannot have. Antony endured four long winters in Gaul, knuckles worn dry by the stinging wind; he was stabbed, pierced by an arrow, nearly died five times over. He let Caesar’s war wear him down into the perfect soldier. For four years the gods gave him heaven, and then they took it all away.
He wants power, but not like this. Does he want power? He’s never quite known. He wants wine, always; the need sits thrumming somewhere within him, a lover’s chokehold on his heart. He wants sex, the feeling of closeness, of careless banter, of loyalty— he had it, a few times, maybe he’ll have it again. He wants purpose, most of all. But purpose without power feels like futility, and Antony’s never been one to handle losing well, so power it is.
With Caesar dead there is no need for Caesar’s soldier. Even with Caesar alive, Antony was not allowed to just be a soldier. Caesar asked and Antony gave. Caesar came home and Antony tried to morph himself into what Caesar needed— a tribune, a governor, a friend. Caesar died, and Antony could not follow him There, so he stopped, and wondered what he would do next—
”You turned them against me,” says Brutus, and Antony laughs. The blood-stained toga is still in his hands. He could bring it home, have it washed and dried and stitched back up together— all 23 of the holes, he’d counted them last night, and recounted to make sure he’d gotten the number right, because knowing it felt important, somehow.
”It was a funeral,” Antony tells Brutus. “It’s traditional to give a eulogy. I was only speaking from the heart.”
”Your heart is a hateful thing, then.”
Antony believes him. He would rather have a hateful heart than a weak one, and so Antony hates. It’s easy to hate Brutus. As easy as it is to love him. He tells Brutus to Go, and Brutus looks coldly at him, but he does go—
Brutus leaves, with Cassius, to Greece, of his own volition, and he stays there, in the East, with Cassius. If he hadn’t then maybe there would be some way to fix this. But Brutus is a Liberator now. An honorable man. There are expectations that come with that. Antony gets it, he does. It’s only that now he has to fight for this, for power, and it’s not the kind of fighting he likes.
He wants, more than anything, to go back: to horses, sieges, drawing the blood of foreigners instead of his countrymen, drinking wine in Caesar’s tent, snow between his fingers.
He can’t have what he most wants, but he always wants wine. So he drinks and tries not to think of Brutus in Greece and Caesar beyond his reach, in the sky, a God.
It snows that winter, a freak snow, light and wet. More sleet than snow, really, but Antony can pretend. He kneels in it and tries to convince himself that he is wanting for nothing. He thinks maybe he’s drunk (it’s hard to tell, sometimes, when the days blur together). He goes back inside and counts the holes in the toga, he’d kept it because he felt like he ought to, and Octavian gets his name and his money so the least he can do is leave Antony this. 23 holes. 23 holes. It’s the oddest of numbers.
With the bloodstained toga in his hands (22, 23, start over) Antony resigns himself to the feeling of wanting.