Portia: A Roman Tragedy Drabbles
By Misha
Disclaimer- Not mine.
Author’s Notes- I am combining my A Courtesan of Roman drabbles and putting them in one place. These are the ones set within my tragedy-verse and their place in the timeline is marked.
Pairing- Marc Antony x MC
Summary- A few stolen moments from the tragedy verse.
Rating- PG-13
1. Late 50 BCE
The night of Portia’s debut and Marc Antony’s Return to Rome.
“You’re enjoying yourself,” I commented as I moved to Antony’s side, noting the way he was watching the party, taking in the chaos his very presence had caused.
He smirked and shrugged his shoulders, my eyes lingering on the muscles beneath the armor. “Isn’t what one is supposed to do at a party?” He looked at me carefully, appraisingly, “though I hear I missed the entertainment.” He cocked his head to the men milling around us, “they say you have the voice that came straight from the muses. A pity I missed it.”
“You never know, perhaps another opportunity will arise,” I told him with a mysterious smile.
Antony returned it with a smile of his own, running his finger down my face, his touch surprisingly gentle. “Would you sing for me?”
“If you are lucky,” I told him, ignoring the voice that told me that it was dangerous to flirt with this man. I gazed up at him from under my eyelashes. “Are you?”
“Very,” Antony told me, his eyes dark and hungry as they met mine, “because I believe in making my own luck.”
2. Spring 49 BCE
I moved to slip out of the bed, but strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me back into the bed.
“Where are you going?” Antony asked, his voice rough with sleep, his lips against my ear.
“Back to the scholae,” I told him, “it is almost dawn.”
“Almost, but not quite,” Antony countered, “besides, will you turn to stone at dawn? Like in some story?”
I laughed. “No, but Lena may expect–”
Antony had only requested me for the evening, but it had turned into something more, as it often did, but I had been expected back at the scholae hours before…
“I will deal with Lena,” Antony said with a careless shrug, his hands traveling down my bare flesh, “stay.” It was half command, half plea a nd I was powerless to resist it.
“For a while,” I agreed, sinking into the bed, wrapping my arms around Antony as his mouth met mine. I knew I should go, that there needed to be rules and limits to this arrangement but I rarely did what I should.
3. Somewhere between 48 and 30 BCE
She comes to him in his dreams.
It is never a regular occurrence and as the years pass and other women claim what remains of his heart, the visits are less frequent, but on nights when he falls in bed bone-tired and weary from the weight of the world, and not from drink or pleasure, she is there.
She is always dressed in red, her curls falling down her shoulders, her green eyes beseeching as she reaches for him.
It always feels so real. The press of her lips against him, the swell of her curves under his hands. It is so easy to fool himself, to let himself believe that it is real. Even though he knows that all too soon he will wake up and she will be gone.
Just like she has been for too many years.
Despite that, he finds himself pleading with fate, begging her not to leave him.
She cups his face tenderly, her green eyes melting into his brown ones, “don’t worry, I could never leave you, I love you too much.”
He knows it is a lie. Hadn’t she left him despite her claims of love? And yet, had she ever really left him? All these years, all these dreams, maybe, just maybe they were her way of letting him know that she was still there, still with him.
Perhaps it was a foolish thought but it was one he clung to when morning came and he was pulled back into reality, once more left nothing with memories. But maybe he had more than that. Or at least he wanted to believe that, clinging to those words, that promise,
I could never leave you, I love you too much.
You just ripped my heart out