#v: “if i ever hear you call me 'honorius' tho the wedding's off”

[mikansei]

@nhura bless u for enabling me 🫶

(playing fast and loose w/roman naming conventions here, but these are like, fantasy space romans anyway so shrug.emoji)

parents: Gaius Pontus Ratio & Metia Ratio brother, older by 15 years: Gaius Maro Ratio the boi: Veritas Secundus Ratio Honorius

Gaius II hates his name and goes by Maro, because if everyone was gonna call him Maro anyway, why'd they name him Gaius at all? Veritas hates both his names - yes, the first means "truth," but what they named him after was the damned planet - and then they tacked on "second son" as if that were any better. (they gave him Honorius after he earned the honors degree from UVP, which is now the third asinine name they've forced on him and he refuses to acknowledge it in any way.)

---

their parents are upper class, old money, and not academically inclined at all; they own a small restaurant chain that's locally well-known but isn't planetwide. Maro was their firstborn, whose life was perfectly fine till he got a mild case of teenage angst, at which point they decided the best way to lift his spirits was to give him a younger sibling(???)

and that sibling was Veritas.

you can imagine how well this did not go for anybody involved.

to be fair to them, they didn't realize what a handful Veritas was going to be. but Maro felt abandoned in favor of the new baby - which, while not exactly fair, was an understandable reaction for a 15yo - stuck around resentfully till he was 20 and then moved out to be a party animal.

Veritas barely remembers his brother living with them. what he does remember is the first time he caught his parents in a lie: "of course your brother doesn't hate you, sweetie! him moving out had nothing to do with you at all." he remembers growing up in his brother's shadow: "what do you mean you don't like carrots? your brother loves carrots. won't you try them again? maybe you'll like them this time!" "why do you need to know what'll happen every hour of the day, your brother never needed such a strict schedule;" "your brother never asked for schoolbooks on his birthday;" "your brother always had so many friends..."

(but it's all right - once he started earning college degrees while still in highschool, it was Maro living in his shadow instead, and has been ever since.)

he met the first person in his life who understood him when he was 14. Professor Rond was the first person whose eyes didn't glaze over when he talked about scientific theory, who willingly lent him college-level textbooks and didn't look at him funny when he asked for even more advanced ones. suddenly he wasn't just a kid who got perfect grades but still seemed to hate school - he was a prodigy.

(without Professor Rond's influence, his parents' viewpoint would've remained "can't you just wait till you're 18 and get admitted to college the normal way?")

they were worried him being told he was so smart might go to his head; worried how he'd do socially as a gangly, precocious teenager on a college campus (after all, Maro was always so sensitive to what people thought of him). but Veritas could not have cared less - he'd finally found something to commit himself to, and that was absorbing knowledge like a sponge. snickers and jeers and resentful grumbling rolled off him like oil from water in the wake of that initial clarity of purpose. he earned his first bachelor's degree at age 15, his first doctorate at 18, and was a professor by 20.

the older he gets, the more ridiculous he feels complaining that his parents didn't understand him - but they truly didn't and still don't. they're proud of him, of course, but after so many years watching their eyes glaze over in incomprehension when he tried to explain his studies and work and accomplishments, he stopped trying.

(it's less painful that way. isn't it?)

Maro dropped out of college early to become a professional gay disaster and amateur shutterbug. (he prefers the term "freelance photographer," up until his father says it with a tight smile hiding all their past arguments behind his teeth, at which point he prefers not to be sober.) at 45, his biggest claim to fame is being hired by couples too cheap to get a real wedding photographer. few people believe he's related to the famous Dr. Ratio, and he prefers it that way; less judgment if they think the surname's just coincidence.

now that Veritas is grown, they've reconnected. they're still polar opposites who have almost nothing in common, but at least they can be friends in small doses even if they're no good at being brothers. there's guilt on both sides - but it's better than it was, so it's fine.

Maro still baffles him, though.

---

"Fruit is something I've only recently started eating and still don't fully understand," his brother says, as if it makes perfect sense.

Veritas feels his face scrunch in utter confusion. "Maro, what are you talking about? We grew up next to an apple orchard - you've eaten fruit your entire life."

"Yeah, but I didn't understand it till now!"

"What in the world does that mean?"

some days i write 1k words in a sitting. some days i open the document, move the em dash in 1 (one) sentence and close the document