A/N: Don John/Conrade. Odd, yes; but if you've ever seen the Kenneth Branagh film of this, where Conrade is massaging Don John and all the men wear leather pants. . . slashy! Here's to you, Ash.
I smile. A black and false smile, but it is a smile. It is the only smile I know.
It is the smile that brings doom for my enemies. For my brother, for Claudio, for old Leonato. They are my enemies because I envy them. I, Don John - John the Bastard - am envious. They can do what I cannot.
They can speak publicly of their loves.
Claudio loves his woman; a soft love, easily hurt and easily healed, as befits the fair Hero. My brother, noble and strong, has given his heart to the stony Beatrice. He surely cannot believe he will win her - I can see her heart, and even as she denies it, it is Benedick's. It always has been. Then there is Leonato, who was wounded by love but was also gifted with a daughter in the form of Hero. They are lucky men, men born under righteous stars. I was born on the new moon, under dark clouds.
So it befits my love.
My love is tainted, and I will burn in Hell for it. I do not covet my neighbor's wife, nor do I commit adultery. It is not even the social stigma of loving a peasant woman. No, I burn eternally because I am doomed to love a man.
He is a beautiful man - I can see the flames even as I think it - but he is. I know that I am the only who thinks so, but I am also the only who knows him. Inside and out, he is what keeps me alive. It is his touch, his tired smile, his laughter as broken as mine, that keeps me from death. What I would do without him, I do not know. I only know that existence would be even bleaker, even more awful.
Existence without him is not worth it.
I love him because I love everything about him. The way he holds me, the way our fingers twine together, the way his face looks in firelight. I love his cunning, and the villainy of his mind. His presence is comforting. If one could fall into a nest of warm down pillows, that is what his presence is like. I fall into him, into his arms and his love and his very scent. He smells of hay, and sweat, and some essence that belongs to none but him. And I fall.
Deeper, darker, faster, I fall.
*finito*
Feed a starving author.
I smile. A black and false smile, but it is a smile. It is the only smile I know.
It is the smile that brings doom for my enemies. For my brother, for Claudio, for old Leonato. They are my enemies because I envy them. I, Don John - John the Bastard - am envious. They can do what I cannot.
They can speak publicly of their loves.
Claudio loves his woman; a soft love, easily hurt and easily healed, as befits the fair Hero. My brother, noble and strong, has given his heart to the stony Beatrice. He surely cannot believe he will win her - I can see her heart, and even as she denies it, it is Benedick's. It always has been. Then there is Leonato, who was wounded by love but was also gifted with a daughter in the form of Hero. They are lucky men, men born under righteous stars. I was born on the new moon, under dark clouds.
So it befits my love.
My love is tainted, and I will burn in Hell for it. I do not covet my neighbor's wife, nor do I commit adultery. It is not even the social stigma of loving a peasant woman. No, I burn eternally because I am doomed to love a man.
He is a beautiful man - I can see the flames even as I think it - but he is. I know that I am the only who thinks so, but I am also the only who knows him. Inside and out, he is what keeps me alive. It is his touch, his tired smile, his laughter as broken as mine, that keeps me from death. What I would do without him, I do not know. I only know that existence would be even bleaker, even more awful.
Existence without him is not worth it.
I love him because I love everything about him. The way he holds me, the way our fingers twine together, the way his face looks in firelight. I love his cunning, and the villainy of his mind. His presence is comforting. If one could fall into a nest of warm down pillows, that is what his presence is like. I fall into him, into his arms and his love and his very scent. He smells of hay, and sweat, and some essence that belongs to none but him. And I fall.
Deeper, darker, faster, I fall.
*finito*
Feed a starving author.