how the 5 acts meme works
- Post a list of your five favourite kinks/acts or themes in your journal. At the bottom, add what fandoms/pairings you're interested in.
- Comment to the
master post with a link to your post.
- Read other people's lists
here.
- Post comment-fic based off of other people's interests.
(
my 5 acts )
And We Drown [Coriolanus, Coriolanus/Aufidius, Trust issues + Admiration and envy + Violence] 1/2
It’s never easy between them.
They started in violence, there’s no way to get away from that. They were both born for war. Born and bred for it and he doesn’t have Coriolanus’ formidable mother but sometimes he thinks that’s the only difference between them. They are two sides of the same coin. And so it is fitting, inevitable, that they should’ve merged together so even before they merged properly - fists in ribs and claws across skin and scars so deep that not all of them can be accounted entirely physical.
They plateaued in violence, there’s no way to get away from that either. After the initial violence came a deeper kind, an almost sweeter kind. He was expecting it to take time… No, he was expecting it to never even happen. Mild antagonism, budding friendship, perhaps a deeper bond that only two soldiers who have seen the glinting edge of death can form - not this, not for them to immediately crawl so deep inside each other that the only way to express it is the shatter of bones or the smell of dried blood. It was inevitable, perhaps, but he still wasn’t expecting it.
He’s starting to expect that it’s going to end in violence, no matter no hard he tries to get away. Perhaps the sweet violence, or the bred violence, or a strange mixture of the both. He knows that nothing like this can ever end well - knows that when they’ve both clawed this deep the only way to get rid of the infection is to cut it out. All the poisonous trust, all the sweet violence, all the feelings too numerous to name - cut it out until there’s absolutely nothing left to harm him.
(Nothing left…
There will always be something left to harm them.)
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It starts with Coriolanus throwing him up against the wall, a physical fact. They haven’t even been arguing, this is just the way that they choose to relate. It passes for affection, almost, their brutal kind of love. The man crowds in closer, kisses him like they’re drowning. He bites like they’re coming back to life in return, earns a rumbled note of pleasure as he debates softly on just how to cut the poison out.
A knife, he decides, or the cold light of logic. But it is far too late to think about either right now. Coriolanus’ rumble turns into a growl - he lifts him up almost easily, the blades constantly between them the only things that stick. Turns him to the bed and throws him down so hard that bones rattle and scars become gloriously clear yet again. He bares his teeth in reply, trips his general down on top of him and relishes in the slam of muscle against muscle and knives digging into red hot knives.
Their clothes are a barrier - one cut far easier than the poison, one wriggled free from far quicker than the pinning knives. They like each other best when they’re naked, he has found. There are marks on his neck that Coriolanus revels in as he glories in the scratches upon Coriolanus’ chest, there are bruises on his ribs that Coriolanus traces over as he admires the scars on Coriolanus’ hips. There is a tangled world between them that only they can know and he crushes it on a breath and expects nothing else besides.
They fight for the top spot as they always do, never willing to let the other win. It’ll end in a violence like this - he thinks in fragmented notes as Coriolanus flips him and holds him with his muscular thighs - it’ll end like this, neither one willing to lose and neither one willing to win… The thought shatters, drifts away on the breeze. The heat of Coriolanus above him, beneath him, around him and inside him is primal. It is something that has existed before time, and will exist long after it - the two of them trapped in this strange dance that can never ever end. No matter how deep the cut.
The joining is as fierce as it always is, the poison surges between them and creeps so deep that not a single knife could reach it. He loses track of himself, they lose all link to the world. There is the thud of a heartbeat, the spread of a hand, a link so vital that it can be felt as a bloody thrum just above the skin. Empires have fallen for this, and empires will fall again. It is more than love - it is wildfire, it is blood, it is something that has never been named and never will be. A thousand poets will struggle to capture the word, and be left with only ash in their mouths. It is a thing that they will never get rid of, as they roll in their bed of a thousand whispers.
(Never…
It will last forever, and that’s the thing. They’re just not sure if they’re going to last with it.)
After it is done Coriolanus rolls off, he remains still. They stare up at the ceiling for a long few moments, sweat cooling on their bodies. It takes a long few moments for him to realize that the great general has fallen asleep, is lying besides him as still as the grave that he once wanted to put him in. The only thing to do is to roll over, slowly - watch his waxen face and muscled chest and almost innocence that is so almost perfect.
“I know I shouldn’t trust you,” he whispers, so low that even he can barely hear it, “but yet I can’t help myself.”
And Coriolanus, destroyer of nations and terror of Rome and melting horror of his every moment besides… Sleeps. Eyelashes fluttering, chest heaving, skin as pale as death against the dirty sheets of their bed.
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The way you express their relationship as a thing bigger than either of them and as something which will outlast them is wonderfully apt, and the parallelism you establish between their martial encounters and latter sexual ones is utterly spot on for them as characters. And I love the way that you have them sharing this unfathomable trust for each other (which I think they do, in their way) and that Coriolanus bestows his trust almost as a boon, something offered with the strangest kind of ceremony and verbal confirmation and that he acknowledges, at the same time, that he is not the master of himself in doing so.
In short, this is beautiful and everything I love about this ship. Thank you so much.
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What I like about the play/film is that you really do get a sense of that shared trust and unnameable bond, so I'm glad it came across! My headcanon is basically that Aufidius doesn't outlive Coriolanus for long, and I'm not sure how that fits in with history but I'm going to stick with it nonetheless. It's really a sort of... More than love? It's pure obsession, which really has driven far too many empires/people to ruin, and so yeah. The bond between them is one of my FAVOURITE THINGS EVER so I'm so glad that I actually managed to get that across instead of vaguely wandering around it for a while. :DDD
So, yes, thank you very much for the glorious prompt! And I might be back to write more because your list is pretty much my list with extra added awesome! :DDD
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Their bond is incredible and definitely more than love, bigger than anything they can control or anything that either man could be alone. I love the idea of Aufidius failing to outlive Martius for long. I can definitely see it - their lives are too intertwined for one to carry on without the other. And you definitely did a fantastic job of portraying the inexorable and epic nature of the bond between them.
Squee! Thank youuu. I love how alike our lists are. It is glorious. :DD
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