#shakesfic

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Category: M/M Fandoms: Coriolanus - Shakespeare Relationship: Tullus Aufidius/Caius Martius Additional Tags: Subtext Sexual Metaphors Sexual Tension Swordfighting Language: English Stats:Published:2015-07-05 Words:775 Chapters:1/1

For the prompt "Coriolanus Volumina - Mother knows best."

A short piece wherein Volumnia is facing labor troubles when giving birth to Caius Marcius.

rosemary, pansy, fennel, columbine hamlet/ophelia words, 549 tw: suicide, abuse for liv (ororo-munroes)

when he first comes for you you’re small, barely a woman, and you want him with the shyness of a girl. he’s as beautiful as you are delicate, and though you’re terrified you can’t deny him. he consumes you, he always has, and he knows it, but he’s gentle with you that night; lies you down on your bed and kisses the nightclothes off your body so softly you hardly notice their absence. you stake your modesty on his love and share with him the secrets of your body, and though he’s newly a man he seems to already know the language of your skin, whispering tremors over its puckered surface like a murmured incantation.

you remember this years later, hold it in your hands like warm bathwater and use it to soothe your swollen body after he’s fucked you and left you lying on your bed, with bruises blooming like flowers under your fragile skin. you can breathe for the first time when he leaves for university. you’re glad to be left alone, to soak your swollen present with the memories of your tender past.

it’s only a matter of time before he finds out and when he does your father calls you a whore and despairs, planting new bruises in the garden of your flesh. your brother lets you cry in his arms at night and tells you stories of your mother and you beg him to never leave you, but he does. when he leaves you your prince comes back and there is no one left to protect you. he is a sorrowful creature and buries his anguish in your bed, clawing at your hair and face as if they knew the way to bring his father back to life. you hold him to your bosom and suckle him with your tears, and in those moments he is as gentle and frail as a babe.

it’s your fondest memory of him and you carry it to your grave.

you don’t want to betray him but you aren’t given a choice. he leaves you immediately and when he goes he takes with him your future. you have nothing left in this life and you know it, know it will only be a matter of time before you choke on shame like a bone in your throat. you want to disappear so fervently that thoughts of it eat you alive. soon your lungs collapse along with your mind and they shut you away, unsettled by the very sight of you, with your matted hair and wild eyes. you don’t mind.

but one day you slip away unnoticed and steal into the forest for flowers, flowers like the kind you used to harvest when you were little and dreamt of the future. you believe that if you can just get those flowers again you can go back and your brother will chase you into the thicket, and you can stay there and never come out, you can dream of a new future. rosemary, pansy, fennel, and columbine. that’s what you aim to find. but your amblings bring you too close to the riverbed, too close to your own reflection. you see him in the water, your heart trembles, your body aches.