Brutus had trouble sleeping.

His dreams were normally the same thing, being: Caesar being alive. And not being happy. He would thrash himself awake every night, weary and slightly embarrassed in the darkness, nightmare thoughts turning themselves into molehills.

Tonight was no exception. He awoke with a start, the dead man's name still on his lips, sour.

Cassius stirred beside him, rubbing bleary eyes, pale pink lips setting themselves into an almost childish pout. "Brutus…" He groaned, closing his eyes again. "Sleep."

They had been poring over maps, deciding what point to attack from, looking in books, arguing and agreeing in plans. Cassius' fingers bore ink stains that resisted scrubbing, and they had to start again after Brutus knocked a candle over, setting a roaring, scorching flame to his plans, biting with charcoal fangs until Brutus was staring at a pile of ashes.

Cassius had given him a sigh that made Brutus feel worse than the scorched fingers did, and had dragged over another tablet of paper, dipping a fresh quill in ink and handing it to Brutus with an icy stare.

They had worked themselves into the eves of the night, long past when a sundial would work, and from a quick glance outside Brutus gathered it was around four am when Cassius stopped in the middle of a sentence and collapsed on the table.

There had been a panic-filled moment when Brutus thought he was dead, and only the quiet, measured breathing of Caius Cassius managed to reassure him. Then he had to drag him around onto a mat on the floor, and, after giving a slightly longing, slightly relieved look at the papers piled on the table, licked his fingers and pinched out the candle.

He stood in the dark for a second, tired brain wondering vaguely why he had dragged Cassius onto the only mat (because caius would probably say marcus didn't love him again) and then lay down beside him.

It was slightly awkward, at first, the larger man fitting himself beside Cassius' lithe frame, but it was cold in the night-time and in his sleep-emaciated state he ended up slightly curled around him, one arm thrown over the older man. Cassius muttered something, a slurry of half-dead words, then settled down again.

"Hnn…yerwarm." he sighed, and it was happy-sounding, a little sound of content that awake, Cassius would not make, would not be caught dead making.

Caius Cassius, politician and sly dealmaker, making a happy sound?

No.

Well…maybe.

Marcus smiled slightly in the darkness, then closed his eyes.