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Rome wasn't built in a day.
That is what Augustus thinks as he sits on a marble boulder, watching Agrippa pacing back and forth across the Pantheon still under construction. Only part of the inscription gracing the pediment, Mark's name half-engraved on the stone, the roof of the structure almost complete except for sporadic holes left here and there – it's still unclear to Octavian whether this is a stylistic choice or a desperate attempt to have more light, infinite light, to work with on the parchment sketches.
“Marcus.”
Agrippa's footsteps kick the earth, the sound of rolling pebbles echoing against smooth walls and thick wooden scaffolding.
“Not now, Octavian.” Not now. No one else could ever respond that way to the Emperor, who defines time and for whom every command is an order. Every command of Augustus is an order, a concept that only works with Agrippa for big things: the conquest of Egypt, the conquest of Spain, wars, building projects. From outside, he seems to do precisely whatever is required of him.
“Marcus.”
But he doesn't; he doesn't even respond to yet another call. He is bent now over a parchment resting on a makeshift table, the sketch of the entrance columns stealing all his attention. Nerve-wracking, isn't it? I'm here. That's what Augustus would like to tell him. I'm here, can't you see me?
What's the matter with those damn white Corinthian columns that he doesn't have? He is longilinear, rather handsome - pleasing to the eye, if nothing else. Still, Marcus doesn't turn around or even listen to him.
Outside the construction site, imperial guards are ensuring that no one enters, the streets are a bustle of people crowding in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the Emperor from the ajar entrance. Outside there is chaos, inside the silence is already divine.
“What do you want to call it?"
“Pantheon, the temple of all gods.”
An ambitious project, but Agrippa would be able to collect a star if Augustus asked him to.
He settles on the seat, tilts the back toward the void and balances himself by the palms of the hand. His fingers tap against the side surface with a dull noise; the marble is smooth and cool despite the fact that he has been sitting there for at least half an hour.
He bites his lower lip and forces himself to find something to trick the boredom with. And then his gaze fixes on the folds of Marcus's tunic, the pure cotton fabric falling softly around his broad shoulders, his arms trained by war. He is standing under the only ray of sunlight that falls from the ceiling: the dust around him is busy enacting a golden dance that creates a pleasing visual contrast, so close to his massive figure.
A rustle of parchment breaks the silence. Then a voice, “What were you saying?”
Marcus has never been good at doing two things at once: either a very good general, a very good politician, or a good construction worker. So either he's pretending to work, or he's pretending to listen.
“I haven't said anything, actually.” Augustus is attentive to every shift of light.
“And what did you want to say?”
“I haven't gone to the Palace yet.”
The muscles in Marcus's neck flex a few degrees. “You should go rest,” he says, on his face the Emperor reads a smirk. “You could have come by tomorrow to see the work.”
“I wanted to make sure everything was going smoothly.” Almost truth, he is genuinely interested in the greatness of his Rome: let it be said in the future that Augustus was an Emperor of peace and beauty. But a small truth, surrounded by the larger and more intense one: he wanted to see Agrippa. To breathe Agrippa, to glimpse him in the crowd, standing among the dust, the papers. Disrupting his day, his work and every minute.
It works, because Marcus seeks confrontation, leaning the base of his back against the makeshift table and crossing his arms. “And what do you think?” The emperor's pupils are all for him, gluttonous spectators of a staging now decades long.
The first thing Augustus would like to say is that Rome was not built in a day. “I like the statue of Caesar, it's exactly as I imagined it.” He replies instead, scratching his bare shoulder.
“Because that's exactly how you told me to make it.” Where does he think this servility will lead him? He has already taken it all.
“Commendable of you.”
Marcus smiles, more blinding than the ray of sunshine coming down. And he doesn't respond, just stands with his fingers clinging to his elbows and the muscles in his forearms pulled in a mad, mad show. They remain silent, not even moving.
The Pantheon is dark and light: massive, high walls reaching up to the sky and then gleaming floor, yellow white and green yet to be finished. And columns inside and out to hold it up - still need to embellish the capitals, still need to install a couple of pillars where there are now wooden supports. Need, need, need. Constant work.
When Augustus set foot on the site that afternoon he made sure everyone left, imposed that they were alone. Imperial orders breaking precisely that continuous labor - he decided this way, this is how it will be done. Tomorrow Rome, today Agrippa.
“Go close the door.” Another order, but there is nothing imperial about it; rather, there is something extremely human about wanting to be alone with Marcus. The noise that follows is heavy, an inelegant thud fills the Pantheon and shatters that golden silence. The air filled with white dust dances around the locked doorway.
He skips a breath, impressed by the ease with which the other's arms pushed the two ends of the doors together.
“And now come here.”
Agrippa approaches him with a slow, thoughtful walk - perfect for driving him insane. He feels besotted with a thirst he has rarely felt in his life, perhaps only in Egypt under the extreme heat of midday.
Marcus stops a few feet away. He looks at him like a statue to be modeled, perhaps taking inspiration for the one that will take place at the entrance in a few months. And Octavian would like to shout to him enough of work, to hell with Rome - don't build it if I'm here with you - but he can't move. He feels rock, pure and marble-like. His curves, dark shadows on the milky white of stone, cool even in the blinding sunlight. Is this your magic, Agrippa? Are the columns actually tall men? The capitals branches of laurel trees? Flowers? Wonders of nature.
He doesn't ask, he stays on display. Agrippa's amber eyes have bought a ticket, let him enjoy the spectacle of a desperate Emperor, his blond hair messier than usual, his tunic cascaded a bit everywhere and showing off most of his muscular legs.
Then the real magic: Marcus's hard fingertips tickle Octavian's soft cheek. “I wasn't expecting you today.”
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. There is to move those stones further to the right, tomorrow, someone fetch a wooden pillar, tomorrow, where did the parchment with the sketch of the entrance go, tomorrow.
“I wanted to come back.”
Agrippa leaned forward earlier, now he increases the angle and gets even closer. “Do you know what the trouble is? That you are the Emperor. I have no way to deny you entry.” His thumb moves up and down on the shaved cheekbone. “You send my men away, you block my work, and at the same time you ask me for the most beautiful Rome in all the centuries.”
Marcus kisses him, the first sip in days. The hand on his cheek now nestles behind the neck, a few fingers lost in the roots of hair. Soft lips against dusty lips. “It's so hard to obey your orders.”
Another kiss. “I think I'm doing everything right and then you swoop in, no respect for other people's work and timing.” Gray in amber - the floor of the Pantheon is the set of those same colors.
Octavian breathes again, his cheeks flushed from the accusations and from what Marcus is up to. He feels himself boiling over. “Rome...”
Agrippa strips him of the top of the tunic, tickles his chest and plays with his right nipple. “Rome, can't you see that's all you think about? Then you should let me build.”
Curse the day he chose him as a aediles. “Rome was not built in a day.” Tentatively regaining some of the lost power, he gets straighter on the marble seat.
Agrippa smiles, just about to laugh.
And Octavian thinks he loves him more than it's possible to love. There must be a written law, up in heaven made by Venus, that imposes a maximum amount of love for each other. Maybe he got away with that too: first man in the world and first man to love more than nature allows. More, more of everything. “And you wouldn't have finished the Pantheon today even if I hadn't come to disturb you.”
The Emperor kisses, interest shifted to the lower lip. And then tongue against tongue, in a warm wet embrace. They take in each other's air, it is a breath that is more than any other breath. With a quick movement, even the much-studied cotton tunic is dropped down, followed by the waist belt.
Marcus's muscles are defined by wars, by handwork. Shadows and lights create an even more interesting spectacle, and for a few seconds Augustus tracks them with his fingertips, a path of hills, rises and falls.
“Couldn't you just wait for tonight?” The truth is that Agrippa does not know how to place himself and does not know how to place him: he would like to swallow him now, all of him, but he has no way of getting any closer than he already is, with that marble seat between them.
Octavian denies it and smiles wrinkling his nose. “I didn't want to wait tonight.”
Oh, to hell with the gods and the whole sacred structure he is putting up and the work and the Rome he has to build and the reputation of peace with which Augustus will clothe himself in the future. To hell with decency if love is so much more.
Marcus encircles his waist with hands - crazy, crazy show of arms around him - and says, “Come on, come further.” And the Emperor obeys, for a few inches the hip-length tunic protects him, then the skin screeches against the cool base.
No longer hard, shadowy marble, but clay under the hands of a master. Agrippa undresses him completely, caresses the muscles of his thighs, the curve of his buttock - squeezes, kneads. And he stares for a second at an unfinished work: Octavian has flushed cheeks, half-closed lips, watered-down silver eyes, his chest drawn and apprehensive, his member high and trembling.
“Marcus.”
Now, now.
Warm lips around him, hands touching everywhere and more than any other touch. Augustus tightens his grip on the marble, a charged breath escapes his mouth. Then moans, mixed with Agrippa's just below.
“Holy Jupiter.”
A slap against the calf is Marcus's admonition, looking up at him as he slowly licks his length. Holy Jupiter, Holy Jupiter. Octavian swallows, drops his head back.
Then, “More.”
A request, the response is a new command. “Make me sit, come on top.”
The skin off the thighs tingles as he lets go of the marble and his legs tremble for the few moments he stands without support. A column without a floor, that's what he feels as he silently waits for the other to get comfortable. A project made without a draft on parchment: he desperately needs a base.
Soon Marcus catches him again, the fingers of one hand run down his bare back following the curve of the thorn. The fingers of the other get wet with the Emperor's saliva (on his lips and around) and go down: one finger, two fingers, and he doesn't want the third one because they're wasting too much time. “I want to come with you inside.”
“Demanding.”
Octavian does not respond, asks for a kiss as Agrippa fills him. Then lips move down along the neck: stamping, licking, biting.
“Holy Jupiter.”
He wins another slap, this time hard and dry on his left buttock, which becomes all flushed.
He is now a column with a foundation. A structure with meaning, a book of architecture. Perhaps he was right to choose Agrippa as his aedile: no one else would be able to build the city of Octavian so well. Perfect roads, tunnels, ravines. Sighs are spring winds between alleys, kisses wet rivers, in little they put up bridges and aqueducts.
The first to come is Augustus, a splash on Marcus's chest, who soon follows and slumps against the Emperor's breastplate.
They are made up of labored breaths.
Then gray and amber return to each other, more than before. “I missed you.”
Who knows how it feels to know that the first man in the Universe cannot be without you. Agrippa must be getting used to the weight of that responsibility, because his response is a caress through the blond locks, a smile on his lips, and then a, “You too.” He still holds him tight, in a position that will only be comfortable for another handful of minutes.
“I love you.”
More than Rome, we'll build it tomorrow.
“I love you too.”