Hello all! I have recently become fascinated with Cicero's story, and realized there are not near enough crazy jester fics out there! Please enjoy this little one-shot idea I had for my dear Cicero :) Those of you reading Servant of Memories will like this, and I will update that story soon! Read and review!

FUN FACT: This story was written in one sitting, in 5 hours, and while listening, ironically, to the song "Madness" by the Muse.

A New Kind of Madness

Cicero was lying on the cold and unforgiving stone ground of the Dawnstar Sanctuary, shaking and bleeding out from a massive stomach wound dealt by Arbjorn. He curled himself tighter into a ball to contain the pain, his head swimming with his murdered jester's laughter. He laughed along with him, ironically sharing his bloody fate.

Hearing footsteps, he chanted "And now we come to the end of our play. The grand finale!"

Through his bleary eyes, he saw his Listener's form suddenly fill the doorway, blood splashed across her face and her bow in her hands. Her dark black mage robes clung to her hips and caressed her body all the way to the floor below her, her hood thrown up to cover all but her face. She stood like a powerful warrior, panting from running and murdering the undead, but her pale gray face and slanted red eyes were plastered with fear, confusion, and most undeniably, a form of innocent love.

Cicero shook it off, feeling that cheerful but consuming laughter bursting within himself. "You caught me!" he shouted in a shrill voice. "I surrender! Ha ha ha!" he laughed tauntingly again, curling up tighter and away from his Listener's stare. He would soon be with his Mother.

She stepped forward into the room, knocking an arrow and pointing it razor-sharp end at his forehead. Her gaze turned quickly into a scowl. "What the hell do you think you're doing Cicero? Wounding your family like that? Arbjorn? Veezara? " She took another step forward, her voice hitching.

To this, Cicero laughed again. "Oh! Oh! Foolish assassin, you are! Foolish Listener! Yes! I attacked that harlot, Astrid! They disrespected Mother. Who was Cicero to let them live? Hm?" he questioned, curling tighter in his craze.

The dark elf shook with sobs, he glare still drilling into him. "Cicero, I know you're not crazy, you're in there, I know it! Don't lie to me. I know there is another man within you; the real you, not just that damned jester! Fight it!" she screeched.

The past rushed back to Cicero with a power he didn't know existed, bombarding him with memories of himself before he was the humble jester he found himself today. But the laughter filled the mind of the Imperial curled miserably on the floor once again, and he felt it pour through him and out his own mouth. "Mother did not choose you because you were smart, now did she?"

The woman took another step forward, now with the arrow inches away from his head with her hands beginning to singe the wood of her bow with anger and desperation-heated magic. "Come back to reality Cicero. Please. Or I will be forced to kill you," she said, tears now pouring down her face. She swore she saw a glint of something other than madness in jester's face for a moment, before he blinked and the pure darkness of the Void returned to his features.

"Let Poor Cicero live, Listener. Return to the pretender, tell her I'm dead! Tell her you strangled me with my own intestines! Ha ha! But lie! Yes, lie! Lie, and let me live!" he pleaded, but something in his eyes when he looked up at the Dark Elf was more than a selfish pleading for his own life. Something that the Listener could not place lurked deep within the seemingly mad jester, but she hoped it was sanity.

With one final deep breath, she lowered her bow and sunk to Cicero's level, promising to lie to her sister on his behalf. She put her bow on her back and outstretched her hands, now glowing with a soft amber color. She leaned in closer, attempting to examine his wounds. To this, the jester jerked away with a grunt.

"Get back! Cicero will be fine on his own! Just him and Sithis!" he screamed.

The elf scoffed before pulling her hood down to her shoulders to reveal her jagged-cut short black hair, leaning in further. "You will die without help, Keeper, please let me save you," she said, hoping it sounded calm but knowing it a desperate plea.

With a sudden and inexplicable change of heart, Cicero unwound his body to show his stab wound to the elf. "Oh, alright, Listener. Because you said please," he snickered.

Before he could change his mind, the elf stuck out her hands and pressed them onto his belly wound roughly, making the Imperial scream in agony as her hands drowned in fresh blood.

But the agony quickly dulled into a pleasurable tingling that spread throughout Cicero's entire body as his flesh mended together, his blood dried, and his torn abdominal muscles wound together again, as strong as ever. Cicero felt blackness enter the sides of his vision as the tingling increased almost uncomfortably, his eyes rolling back and struggling to stay awake. His mind was reeling as fast as a horse and he was struggling to keep up, feeling like he was running away from himself.

Sweat broke out on the brow of the elf and she began to pant, but she kept her glowing hands plastered to his wound, determined to save his life. She ignored the tightness and bubbling that came into her chest, refusing to stop his healing halfway through. Her head threatened to spiral out of control, but she willed herself to stay in control of the magic in her hands. She felt herself growing weaker, but continued to hold firm against him.

After a few more moments, the jester no longer felt any sort of pain, and the elf dropped her hands to her sides and tipped backwards onto her rear in exhaustion, hands gripping her head before fumbling outward to catch herself. She looked back at Cicero, her double vision quickly becoming clear. He was out cold on the stone, but the massive wound was healed, only leaving a dried brown spot behind on his striped outfit.

Still breathing deeply, she crawled over to him and caressed his cheek lovingly and gave him a soft peck on the forehead. "I never once thought that your entire being was a slave to this madness, dear Cicero…" she whispered, before rising and shuffling silently out of the room.

When Cicero finally awoke, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and surveyed the room. He was alone.

Truly alone.

No laughter. No unholy chanting. No Sithis. And the silence was more than pleasurable. No thunder. No horror. His mind was clearer, and he could focus on the reality of the room around him for the first time in what felt like decades.

He grasped at his midsection, amazed to find it completely healed with no scarring, as if the wound had never happened in the first place. He looked quickly around the room again, his mind now branded with the image of his Listener so close to him. He was frantic to find her somewhere in the shadows, for she had given him to ability to start over, and to revisit the time at which he had humanity. Something about her magic healed his mind. Healed his heart.

"Where are you, my Listener?" he asked silently, whispering voice breaking the silence. "My Chimera?"

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Cicero looked down into the dark amber liquid of his mead, seeing his own reflection discombobulated and swaying in the fluid. He gave a small stifled laugh before swirling the cup around in his hand, seeing his own face twist and curl in the mug. He laughed a bit louder this time, throwing back his head and slapping the wood bar in front of him, drawing gazes from the people around him in the inn. The Nords around him just assumed he was drunk. Very, very drunk. So they went back to their business to let the man laugh himself mad.

"Be mad, Cicero, be mad!" he laughed again, begging to hear more laughter that would continue to consume his soul, anything to tie him to the times of killing again. Killing…

Suddenly he silenced, pulling himself back into reality and setting his jaw roughly, grinding his teeth together. The laughter was not enough to satisfy his need to kill as it once was.

He let the soft voices of the room fill his. For the first time, he had the ability to control the shouting that happened within his own mind. Ever since he was healed by magic at the sanctuary last year, something about his mental state had changed. He was able to leave his jester's clothes tucked safely at home in the Sanctuary to embrace his own humanity, wearing a basic tunic at an inn, just like a sane Imperial man.

Calmly and as if his insane outburst had not happened, the man took a small sip of mead from his mug, burning holes in the wall in front of him. He was still getting used to controlling his own mind again, being that madness was all that he remembered knowing.

The laugher of the jester as Cicero took his life echoed in his head again, but the assassin simply rolled his eyes and took another large chug of his drink. It was just his memories; that mad man's voice was in the Void. He had ended his life by his own hand, he realized that now. It wasn't some gift from Sithis, it was his own mind to justify his insanity. Just like becoming a jester was to feel closer to death.

The bloodlessness of his Keeper's blade always made him cringe. He was pretty sure that there was a time he was going stir crazy without contracts to honor his god, locked up in a room with a dried up and horribly silent woman.

Life was simpler without the Night Mother. As much as Cicero adored the corpse and would care for her until his dying breath, he would have preferred to be out in the shadows right this instant, not getting drunk by himself at a bar trying to balance his new found mindset with the familiarity of his completely insane one.

He had driven himself in the edge desiring to hear the voice of his Unholy Matron, simply asking for the privilege of her words to keep him company in his lonely misery. His family of assassins were all dying off, slowly but surely, and he clung to the only thing that he could.

Then he thought of her.

Her burning image.

He balled his hands into fists on the bar and ground his teeth together again at seeing her face in his mind. As stupid or ironic as it sounded, the Listener was driving him mad. Just the simple thought of her made him feel as though he was about to explode everywhere at the same time. She gave him an unexpected swelling in his chest that he had never felt and could never explain to anyone. An assassin did not feel for another living being, and he was almost disgusted that another could have this kind of physical and emotional influence on him.

She could have killed him, he knew that. She could have walked away and let him slowly and painfully bleed out before his Mother. But she chose to save him, and he swore she heard her whisper sweet nothings to him and give him a small kiss before fleeing back to Falkreath. He refused to think that his mental state could have made him experience something physical like that, even though he could not explain how or why it had occurred.

Chimera had kept to herself since she had saved him in Dawnstar. After the betrayal of Astrid and the timely murder of the Emperor Titus Mede II, (which, Cicero knew, was by his dear Listener's hands) the remaining few of the Brotherhood had moved into the Sanctuary with him. Nazir and Babette somehow both knew that Chimera spared the jester and that he was still alive, understanding that she always had a soft spot for his antics that drove the rest of them almost as mad as him. At 300 years old, Babette could keenly tell when a woman had a glint in her eye that saw beyond the superficial of a man, and Nazir was no idiot either.

But Cicero refused to believe them, as the elf in question took frequent trips that sometimes lasted weeks at a time and refused to make eye contact with the jester whenever they passed each other in the dark dank hallways. Most times, he was sure she took the long way just to avoid him, or passed him by some miracle by lurking in the shadows. As of right now, he had not seen her in at least a month.

He scowled, thoughts returning to the bar around him. Without another thought, he tossed 25 Septims onto the table and stood up to walk away, suddenly tired and craving his bed.

The bartender, who was cleaning a metal cup with a dirty rag sauntered over and eyed the gold pieces suspiciously, then glanced back up at the man with a raised eyebrow. "Only had one there, lad?" he questioned, arms bulging in his sleeveless tunic as he continued his drying. "Somehow I don't believe that," he chuckled, referencing Cicero's earlier outburst.

To this, Cicero sighed, turning around to face the man. "Yes, just one. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get home to Mother," he said matter-of-factly, turning away again to walk towards the door just wanting to get home.

The man laughed out loud this time, throwing his head back and shutting his eyes, letting an unstifled belly laugh escape him. Cicero stopped dead in his tracks and faced him again, now fuming with anger. He caught the bartender's eye as the man wiped a tear from them with the back of his arm. "I will kill you," Cicero blatantly stated, before the man could spit out an insult. "Don't tempt me."

His tone had silenced the Nord bartender, and Cicero was able to quickly rush out of the door, avoiding the stares of the people he had inadvertently caught the attention of with his threat against the man. He slipped out into the cold and snowy air of Skyrim, the sun setting behind the mountains and basking all of Dawnstar in twilight.

Rubbing his arms with his hands, he made his way in between houses and down to the bay, where he made a right towards the Sanctuary. As his walk progressed and the closer he got to home, the more pressing was the image of Chimera was on his mind and the less he thought of the man who insulted his Mother. Thinking of her and only her soon had him grinning, and knowing that she was his Listener and a hardened killer just made him grin wider.

Her.

He was mad for her.

He soon found himself skipping towards the Black Door with a large but crazed smile on his face, jumping to clack his ankles in midair with his arms over his head.

"Madness is merry and merriment's might, when the jester comes calling with his knife in the night…"

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Chimera curled herself tighter in her fur bearskin and leaned more weight against the Night Mother's iron coffin, volume three of Cicero's diary open on her knees with the other four opened and scattered around her. She tucked her legs closer to her chest and pulled the blanket up to cover her chin, just exposing her eyes. She sighed deeply, tired eyes gazing over the words scrawled onto the page that she had read so many times before. She pulled the stubby but still burning candle closer to her, illuminating the words and making them clearer to the elf.

"We are a Dark Brotherhood without a Listener. With no Listener, the Black Sacrament will go unheard. Surely the Night Mother will speak to someone soon…"

Chimera almost mumbled the words before she read them, knowing almost all of his entries by heart. Even since she had collected him from his room in Falkreath, she was captivated by his stories. It was those words that had proven her hunch that his madness could be cured. She gave a large yawn before turning just the right number of pages to scan another entry.

"The jester lies dead. My final contract has been completed. Oh, how he laughed and laughed. Until he didn't…"

She rubbed her warm hands against her cool eyes, tossing the journal off of her and pulling another specific leather-bound book into her lap and flipping to the last page.

"A place to rest and ply my trade, for I once more take up the blade, and send some unlucky souls to Him, when laughter strikes, as fits my whim!"

Those words, in comparison to his earlier entries, always made her sad, but today the words were suddenly very blurry. Chimera felt her eyes slipping shut and her head tipping back, mind still reeling from staring at writing all of the day, when the voice of her Matron filled her head.

"My Listener…" she spoke in a hoarse voice. "My Listener…together with my Keeper…"

The elf opened one questioning eye, before laying down in a ball on the stone and pulling the blankets over her head in annoyance. "You like it in my head, don't you Mother?" she mumbled from within her cocoon.

"Of course, my dear. So full of evil. So full of death; corrupting such a young mind" she spoke, relishing in the dark thoughts of her Listener. "But also so full of thoughts of my kindhearted Cicero," she said, voice strained.

Chimera grumbled again from under the covers, irritated that she couldn't even hide her thoughts anymore; the Night Mother knew her too well. Or maybe it was just that blatant.

"I have to stay away from him," Chimera moaned sadly.

There was silence a moment before the Night Mother responded. "You…you, my Listener, are many things," she croaked. "But my Listener is not weak. My Listener is not without wisdom."

The elf miserably curled herself tighter with another moan, knowing full well that the Night Mother really was in her head, responding to Chimera's thoughts of thinking herself an idiot.

She poked the top of her head out of her wrap with a sigh. "Mother, I could not hold back my feelings for your Keeper in my magic when I healed him. Tangling my knowledge of the arts with my own heart's desire sealed something between us…" Chimera trailed. "It's driving me mad, the thought of Cicero. I studied this," she scolded herself, "My magic will have an influence on him. He will fall in love with his savior, but I want to give him a choice in his life. The choice that isn't me..."

The Sanctuary was quiet, but Chimera still self the presence of the Night Mother, much to her relief. Finally, she spoke again. "My Keeper never had a choice," she breathed. "My Keeper was always in love with his Listener. Magic or no magic…the Void, the absence of my unholy voice, and his desire to kill…was not all that drove him mad…" the corpse managed to say. "Free from his jester, free from his burden of silence…his reality is you…His reality is my Listener…"

Chimera's heart fluttered as it skipped a beat in her chest, hearing the Mother's words echo for what seemed like an eternity in her mind. She felt like she couldn't breathe, her throat constricting and her head spinning with endorphins. Cicero…

Suddenly the Night Mother's voice was back in her head before she could have a second thought or drift off into sleep. "My Listener…yet another child has prayed to their Mother…" she trailed off, but began again. "So begins a contract…bound in blood."

Chimera instantly stood, no longer fazed by her exhaustion, as the thought of murder was tantalizing to her. Her eyes flashed with the desire for blood and the crazy high that death gave her as the Night Mother told her of the person who had prayed. "It will be done, my Lady of Death," she said, bowing her head respectfully before the corpse.

The Night Mother replied with a "Hail Sithis!" before completely withdrawing her influence from the sanctuary and leaving Chimera to hustle to her room to gather her supplies. The Night Mother had spoken. She would leave immediately.

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Cicero paced outside of Chimera's large room in the Sanctuary, mumbling to himself about what to say, knowing full well that she didn't wish to speak to him, which made his words even trickier to choose. His feet were uncharacteristically clumsy and loud with nerves on the stone as he walked back and forth in the hall. Not only was she his Listener, but her and her magic were the sole reasons for his current mental state, and confronting change frightened him to his core.

He took a deep breath, deciding to say whatever came to mind and go with it. She thought he was crazy already. He held his hand up to the door ready to knock when it was thrown open from behind, and a battle-ready Chimera stood just inches away from him.

He jumped backwards with a small yelp, taken aback by her swift actions and brooding behavior. Her eyes widened when she looked up into his amber eyes, and took a hesitant step back into her room, a blush erupting into hot flames on her cheeks.

"Keeper!" she said surprised, clearing her throat, almost not recognizing him in his basic beige tunic. "To what do I owe the pleasure this evening?"

Cicero simple let out a chuckle despite his fright. "I came to see you, my Listener. I've missed you so."

Chimera's blush grew impossibly brighter, hearing his desire to see her, but she dropped her eyes to the ground. "Well you've caught me at the wrong time, I was just about to head out," she said, trying but failing to brush past him.

He caught her in his arms and spun her around towards him, her face once again inches away from his. "You are not sneaking past me again, Chimera. You're driving me mad," he said desperately to her. He released his arms and brought his hands to her hood before pulling it off to expose her head. Her short hair popped out of the cowl, sticking up in adorable places and her face madly blushing at his touch. Her eyes remained fixed on his boots.

His breath caught with just how beautiful she really was as he ran a soft finger down her flaming cheek. She was better than he had remembered in his mind; better than the image seared into his brain.

His hands fell to her shoulders, then carefully ghosted down her arms to take her small nimble hands in his. "This is madness," he said. "What you do to me, Chimera. It is madness. You have freed me from the jester's laughing in the Void but poisoned me with something far more potent. Don't leave me this time..."

Chimera finally looked back into his eyes when he tucked a finger under her chin and pulled her head up to meet his, eyes pleading with something vaguely familiar to him. A familiar kind of love.

Captivated by her eyes and driven by something he didn't know could exist within himself, he shut his eyes and pulled her flush against him, pressing a firm kiss against her lips. Fireworks exploded behind his eyes and his senses danced in amazement. He was bewildered that contact with another person could ever make him feel like this, and he was eagerly desiring more.

Quicker than he had expected, she was on her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck, moving her lips softly against his. Her fingers brushed the edge of his flaming red hair, tracing hot circle on his skin as she pulled away just enough to break the contact. She pushed her forehead against his.

"Love is madness," she said through a grin, eyes still closed.

He sighed deeply with a smile. "My dear Listener, it is."

After a moment of enjoyed silence, Chimera dropped from the balls of her feet to flat on the ground, still staring into his eyes, free of the jester's spell.

Then she got a wonderful idea.

She flashed Cicero a smile that couldn't be described as anything but wicked, making tingles shiver up and down his spine. "I was actually off for a contract, my dear Keeper, and I know how you have been craving blood and flesh against your blade again."

She reached inside of her black robes and withdrew a folded and yellowing piece of parchment, holding it up and swirling it almost seductively within her fingers.

Cicero grinned widely back, his eyes going dark and bursting with joy at seeing that contract, almost daring Sithis to make this night better. "Are you inviting me along for a kill, my dear Chimera?" He could hardly contain himself.

She grinned, eyes filled with blood lust. "I believe I am," she said calmly, pulling her hood over her head, her red eyes glowing from within its shadow.

He was shaking with excitement as he rushed over to wrap his arms around Chimera's midsection and lifted her off the ground. She laughed as he kicked his legs out in front of him in a dance, her thin but deadly body still in his arms. "Cicero and the Listener! On the hunt!" he almost sang, planting a firm kiss on her cheek.

Chimera kicked and squealed before he put her back on her feet, and she quickly straightened out her robes and made sure her bow and dagger was in place. "As long as you can behave yourself," she giggled coyly.

To this, Cicero gave a theatrical bow in her direction, one arm wrapped around his midsection and the other in the air straight out behind him. He lowered his front half to her hip level, exaggerating the move almost comically before looking back up to meet her eyes. "Humble Cicero lives to serve," he said, smiling the smile of a sane and free man, but his eyes gleamed and defined him as someone who was clearly and undoubtedly, madly in love.