She held him close, straining to feel his heartbeat as he moved within her. She knew in all hours, both waking and sleeping, that he bore a heavy weight of unhappiness and discontentment- save for the few moments they shared, when he completed the course of his passions and knew an instance of peace and calm and an absence of thought as she cradled him between her thighs and in the softness of her bosom.
Early in their affair, he had slept beside her, though easily awakened at the barest touch and quick to shove off an offending limb that wandered too close. He had later allowed her to comfort him in his worse humors, and in the aftermath of his thwarted overthrow, residing fully clothed in one another's company. Too often of late, he would slake his passions and stalk away into the night, leave her pooled in cooling sheets, wrapped and trapped in words she dare not utter to call him back.
Upon their arrival at Leonato's great home, he had seemed to crave her touch again as they'd lain in bed, her head pillowed on his linen swathed chest, his hand tracing idle patterns along the bare skin of her arm. Then he'd pressed her into the mattress, a dark desire sparkling in his eyes- only to be interrupted by his man Borachio's announcement of mischief and distemper to sow and he'd meant to leave her. She had boldly stayed him at the door and placed him back upon the track of his carnal purpose; he had come to her every night hence.
It were a strange thing to admit to herself that she loved him as she did, though she would never admit it to anyone else, and would bear the secret misery of that truth to her death, as it would surely arrive one day in her service to him. A lesser man might shrink from such an undertaking of fealty; not so Conrade. It was the boundary and measure she had foresworn, to be upheld with all she had to the small bent of misshapen honor she carried: she would serve and protect and defend and obey him as best she could, until she could do no more-
Her thoughts plummeted over a small precipice as they tumbled down together, their hearts thundering like the hooves of freshly loosed horses on a boardwalk, his ragged exhalations stirring her hair as she waited to see if he might speak. Don John was not a man of many words, she knew, but he tended towards converse with his prized confidant over all others, and she thrilled to his voice when he graced her with such precious intercourse.
But tonight the silence held, taut as a bowstring between them as he collected himself back. She felt the melancholy prince shift slightly then, drawing out of her but electing to remain in the circle of her embrace, and she held the breath in her lungs until he had settled again. His breathing began to slow, calming to a shallow rise and fall as he drifted into a dreamless slumber beside her. She smoothed the furrowed skin at his brow, willing him to relax, to sleep on, to stay.
Soon enough - too soon for her mind - the dawn or some other harbinger of a return to his villainous enterprising would follow. In the meantime, as he rested with her, she simply sighed a truth into the darkness that hung around them like a nighted curtain, shielding them from the intrusions of the world: "Is it not strange, my lord? I do love nothing in the world... so well as you."
A/N: having just re-watched the latest and oh so very shiny Whedon-tastic spin on my fave Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing, I just had to jot this down. If it reads a little strange, it's because I meant to draw from the original text and blend it with a modern twist.
Hope you like it; whether you do or not, please leave a review. Reviews are such meet food to feed me. Enjoy!