Silent Laughter

He hated her.

He hated her with a passion.

She was infuriating silent. And no, the irony was not lost on him. The Listener embodied her role almost too perfectly. She rarely ever spoke.

She listened. Only listened. Listening, listen, listened, listening. Always. Just. Listened.

At least the Night Mother had an excuse to be silent. And he knew the excuse intimately. The inanimate body reminded him of why she remained silent. So painfully silent. Some called it madness but it was an obsession with the corpse that drove him mad. The tantalizing tidbit held so close... and yet so far. The voice that he had so prayed for, every time. Every time. Even when the Jester started to mock him, he continued to pray reverently.

But she had no excuse. The Listener had a voice. The Listener was alive. With a voice. A voice voice voice.

The only time he had ever heard her speak was when she had stumbled out of Mother's coffin, dazed and confused. He had been ready to knife her right then and there. How DARE she. HE was the Keeper. He. Him. Only he was allowed near the Mother. He was the one who had suffered for her. Killed for her. Bled for her. Suffered for her.

Not her.

But she had stumbled out all the same. And just when he ready to stabity stab stab and paint the room with her red... she looked up, a grim expression on her face and said the first thing he had ever heard come out of her mouth. She had whispered it. Softly. A normal person would have missed it. But Cicero... no. Cicero had lived for those words.

"Darkness rises when silence dies," she breathed.

And he froze. And the silence in his head was overwhelming. He did not hear when his blade clattered to the stone floor. She only looked at him. And waited. His heart skipped a beat. Mother spoke. Mother had spoken, through her, to him. And he was overjoyed.

But that celebration had been cut short. Quick quick quickly. His realization that Mother spoke to her and not him inflamed him. But he held it in. He wasn't stupid. He needed the Listener to speak to Mother. Needed her. The rising bile had been hard to control. But he did. Yes. Yes he did. Mother would be proud of him.

And then he waited. He had been a good boy. He had waited. And waited. And waited for Mother to speak again. To him. Through her, but to him. He was loyal. He was the one who had waited. He was the Keeper, and she needed to confer his Mother's words to him. HIM. The Loyal one.

But she hadn't. She hadn't spoken to him again since that occasion. And it drove him mad. He had waited so long for that one taste, that one glimmer of Mother and she had taken it away from him.

And it wasn't fair.

And he tried. He coaxed her. He threatened her. He screamed, yelled, laughed, giggled, pleaded, prayed, and when it didn't work, he followed her like a puppy. Every time she knelt in front of the coffin of his Mother, he followed and he sat there. And he strained. How he strained. He strained and strained and strained and strained to listen. Maybe if he tried harder, he would be able to eavesdrop.

But he only ever got silence.

And he beat his head and screamed and laughed and threatened some more. But the Listener remained as silent as his beloved Night Mother.

She only looked at him. Looked at him with her eyes. Those infuriating brown eyes. Cicero suspected that if they had been some other colour, an unnatural colour, it would have made him feel better. It would have given him a sign that she was different somehow. But they were brown. Plain brown. Brown as mud.

And he hated her.

His obsession with hearing Mother speak became an obsession with hearing her speak.

But she never slipped. She never spoke. She only nodded and looked and gestured. But never a sound she passed through her lips to him. He never heard her voice after those words.

Even when she took him on missions. Never a sound. She would step into the room, waited until he acknowledged her before she jerked her head in a gesture for him to follow and walked out. And he followed. He always followed. She never looked back but he always followed.

Even when they fought their enemies. Aside from the odd grunt that he lived for, she never spoke. And he babbled. When they camped, he babbled. Anything to fill the silence. And she would smile, and nod, and she listened. Only listened. He wanted to make her speak. So badly. To speak, talk, laugh, whisper, whimper, moan, anything.

He can't stand it. Can't stand the silence. The jester he had killed always bubbled up from the depths of his mind to taunt him in the silence.

He started to spy on her. Or at least, he tried but she always seemed to welcome his company. He always started to babble and mumble. But she never seemed to mind having him around. So much so that he had developed the habit of sleeping in the same room with her in hopes that she might speak in her sleep.

She never did.

But she danced. When she thought nobody was watching her, she danced to a song that nobody could hear. And he hid in the shadows, and watched. The first time she danced, he purposely interrupted her in hopes of embarrassing her enough for her to yell at him to get out.

But she didn't. She smiled a sheepish smile, removed something from her ears, bowed sarcastically and swept out of the room.

He never interrupted her after that. He felt that she was hiding something. Something big.

And he hated her even more.

Then one day, she stumbled back into the Sanctuary. He heard the commotion before he saw it. He was tending to Mother when he heard Nazir's panicked voice and the young vampire's annoyance. She didn't say anything of course. And he peeked around the corner, and the fit of giggles that threatened to bubble out of the jester died on his lips.

The Listener. Their Listener was injured. His Listener was injured.

There, from her slumped position on the floor and an apologetic smile to everyone in the room, she looked smaller. Weaker than he remembered. Much frailer than he thought. He didn't know how long she had been away. The days melded into one in the deafening silence in front of Mother's coffin and time was inconsequential.

"What happened? I thought you went on a simple assignment!" Nazir demanded as he tried to staunch the wound on her left side. She only looked up with a sheepish smile.

"Honestly! You were running other errands again weren't you," Babette muttered in a tone much too mature for her voice. There was only a shrug in answer. Babette sighed and rubbed her forehead, "That looks poisoned. Nazir, you should move her to her room. I'll see what I can do."

As the redguard swept up the injured girl into his arms and carried her swiftly to the large bedroom that she occupies, Cicero followed behind quietly. For once, the Jester did not giggle out from the cracks of his psyche.

By the time Nazir had placed their Listener onto her bed, Babette had whisked back in with a bag full of various coloured bottles. Once glance at the rapidly failing form of their leader was all she needed to announce, "We need to strip you."

Cicero went still. This was... this was almost sacrilegious.

Stripping? Their Listener? His Listener?

Caught in between stopping the two from defiling her image and his fear that she would never speak again permanently, Cicero froze. And he slunk back into the shadows and watched.

With one swift cut of the knife, Nazir quickly stripped apart her armour and pulled it off swiftly.

Cicero felt his mouth went dry and he swallowed thickly. He felt really confused. The incessant chittering of the Jester had started up again in the back of his mind but it was only a low buzz compared to the flashes of his thoughts as he stared at the Listener. Something from a long time ago stirred beneath the surface, as if clawing to get out.

The wounds were much worse than they had all originally thought. Large angry gashes tore open her side and what looked like angry bite marks (complete with teeth attached!) stretched from her shoulder to across her chest. The thought of their leader's mortality crossed his mind and he shuddered. Cicero started humming and nervously pacing at the outskirts of the room. The memories of the disintegration of the last Brotherhood danced in his mind.

It had all started with the death of their Listener too.

Dance on, the Jester said, dance your troubles away. Sing. Sing sweetly. Sing until you forget.

But he wasn't in the mood to. Fidgeting nervously in the corner, he continued to watch.

She seemed to be disgustingly comfortable with her partial nudity. With only a breast band to hide her from her shame, she merely leaned back and allowed, allowed! (that very notion made Cicero steam) the redguard's hands to touch her, to hold her down as the child vampire applied salves to her wounds. Though she twisted in agony at the searing pain, not a sound escaped her lips except for the occasional gasp of air.

Cicero thought it took forever. Then, just like that, it was done. Nazir and Babette left, leaving their Listener lying and looking drained on the bed. And she was slowly drifting off into sleep. The un-child vampire had assured the redguard that she would survive and he had breathed an immense sigh of relief. Cicero suspected that he feared the loss of another leader so soon after the Blasphemer.

Not that Cicero cared. The Listener was much more important that that one. His hand instinctively went to the side where that werewolf husband of hers had torn into. It was an ugly scar now. Only one of many.

She hadn't spoken to him then either.

When Astrid had sent her to finish off the job, she had found him, curled up on the floor of the dusty sanctuary. That damned spectre had been there as well, looming over her like some sort of avenging angel.

He hadn't been that weak. He could have taken her on if she actually did try to kill him. He knew it wouldn't be much of a fight but he wouldn't go down without one. But there he was, on the floor looking up at her as he begged her to spare him.

The ghost had whispered and fretted around her as she stood there silently observing him. When she had stepped forward, he flinched but watched with wide eyes as she drew a healing potion from her pack and placed it in front of him. He had looked at her, dazed. And that was when it happened.

She had placed a gloved hand on his cheek and smiled a sad but worried smile. Then, she leant forward and placed a chaste kiss on his forehead.

While he had sat there, stunned by the potion and the kiss, she had swept out of the room without a single word.

And now, as he watched her, feeble and weakened in her state, he felt his chest compress just a little bit.

Cicero crept forward.

An eye cracked open to stare at him and a small smile slowly spread across her face.

"My Listener," he murmured reverently, head bowed, "My Listener..."

She wheezed softly, as if trying to laugh before it broke off into small breathless chuckles.

He frowned and crept forward still. Finally at the edge of the bed, he placed his chin on the fur covered mattress and looked up at her tired form, willing her to say something. She merely looked down at him with a tired look in her eyes. Then, she shifted.

He jerked back in alarm, "Listener! No! You'll hurt yourself! Cicero won't allow it! Mother will be mad! Mad mad mad mad mad!"

She slowly wiggled her arm out of the covers and lifted the fur covers and gestured for him to get in.

Cicero froze and stared at her as his mind tried to work out the situation. The Jester had gone completely quiet as if he did not know how to react to such a situation. The songs disappeared from his mind as he stared at the gestured space beside her.

Beside the Listener.

Beside his Listener.

She gestured again, a bit more impatiently.

It wouldn't do to keep the Listener waiting. Cicero slowly crawled in beside her, feeling more awkward that he had ever felt in a long while. The man he had used to be was slowly resurfacing and Cicero wasn't sure if he liked it very much. That man always came with the memories. And seeing their Listener so weak... the old memories were coming back in rolling flashes.

Lonely lonely lonely.

A hand snaked out to grasp his and the fur covers dropped over them.

He went completely still. The Listener... she was touching him. Twisting in the bed, he turned to look at her. She was already asleep.

The fur only covered her up to her breast and exposed her neck and shoulders. As Cicero watched her chest rise up and down up and down, his eyes took in the new scars that crisscrossed with the old. As they lay there, the silence was slowly sinking in again and he shuddered.

Deafening deafening silence.

And just like that, the Man was gone and the Jester started to hum.

Her head rolled to the side and ended up resting on his shoulder. He continued to hum.

And that was how he spent the next week.

While Nazir showed his obvious distaste at the sudden closeness Cicero and the Listener had developed, he kept his own opinions to himself. Babette had only smiled a smile that revealed nothing and left the two of them alone.

Cicero found nothing strange about it after a while. He had slept, curled up in the Night Mother's coffin before to ensure no harm has happened to his beloved Mother. He had slept, with his ear close to Mother's mouth, should she ever want to speak. And now, he slept in a similar manner, pressed close to the Listener with his ear near her lips. And night by night, the Jester slowly crept back into the dark recesses of his mind.

He hated to admit it but listening to her breathing night after night calmed him. It reminded him that he wasn't quite so alone any more. But the obsession of hearing her speak never really went away. It quelled, certainly, in the close proximity of her but it never really went away.

But something else was happening. He was getting spasms of memory from his time pre-Jester. Not just the horrible memories that came with the dissipation of the Brotherhood that he was a part of but the small insignificant things that he had long forgotten as well.

The warmth of a touch for example.

Each time she had reached out to grasp his hand, something had stirred deep within him and it was getting stronger every night. It confused Cicero greatly and there were times that he had even missed talking to the Jester in his head.

At least there was simplicity in madness.

This new direction utterly frightened him. It reminded him of the time before.

Away. Go away.

Cicero flailed helplessly against the barrage of unwanted memories.

A grunt of pain suddenly broke his reverie. He opened his eyes to see the Listener had woken and was rubbing her bruised side in a grimace. The covers had fallen off her seated form as a bandaged arm rubbed her side gingerly.

And there she was, her half exposed form for him to see.

In his daze, Cicero took note of her features in the dim light of the Dawnstar Sanctuary. The breast band that bounded her seemed to be a bit too well worn. He could make out the shape of her nipples beneath the thin fabric and as his eyes travelled along the curve of her modest chest, he took in the myriad of scars that covered her body that he never noticed before. There was one particularly large one that dipped down her side and seemed to disappear beneath the covers.

As if acting by instinct instead of coherent thought, he grabbed the fur covers and yanked them off her, mesmerized by that one particular scar.

Her sharp intake of breath to the invasion of cold air sounded like melody to his ears.

"Scars, scars, scars, Listener," he murmured, more to himself than to her.

He reached out a pale ungloved hand and traced that scar down. She went still when he touched her but he paid her no mind. Scar. What about the scar. Where did it go?

He hooked a finger along the band that held up her underpinnings and pulled them down. He found out where the scar ended. It ended in a cruel looking hook just on the inside of her thigh.

But he was also looking at the recently shaved joining in between her legs with a bit of bewilderment.

The Man in him peeked with him in interest.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp stinging pain on his cheek and the view suddenly disappeared. Cicero looked up in confusion as he touched the stinging cheek.

The Listener scowled at him as she drew the furs up to cover herself.

Cicero felt tears sting his eyes. She hit him. The Listener hit him. After all he had done? For the Brotherhood? For Mother? For her? After all he had suffered?

Hit him. She had hit him.

The Man broke the silence within him with a deafening roar.

Cicero howled, dagger in his hand. Stab it. Need to stab. Stabbing stab. Stab.

With the dagger now half buried in the wooden dresser on the side, Cicero turned on her.

He hated her. She did this.

With a growl, he lunged at her.

Within seconds, he was on top of her, holding her down, with her wrists pinned above her head. Cicero felt a great deal of satisfaction when he saw the look of surprise and fear in her eyes.

Yes. Yes.

"Speak to Cicero, Listener. Cicero is waiting so long," he snarled. Then, his lips closed over hers. Maybe he could suck the words out.

The body beneath him twisted but he held her down firmly in place. No. Cicero will hear the words. Today.

Though... Cicero never thought that the Listener would taste so sweet.

His tongue dipped greedily into her mouth. She squirmed but the way she jerked against his body was reminding him of how he used to use it all those years ago and he responded in kind, pushing his hips down against hers.

She whimpered against his mouth and his heart surged. He felt giddy. It was working!

Then, he felt her mouth on him. She fought back with her tongue and he quivered in response. What was happening?

He let go of her wrists. The need to touch her everywhere was overwhelming. His hands travelled down the scarred shoulder rubbed gently over her bandaged sides. Freed, her hands held his face before they travelled to knock the Jester hat off his head and tangled themselves into his auburn hair. There was a jerk and he was pulled into her.

Everything was a whirl after that.

Her remaining pieces of clothing had come off and, for some odd reason, so had his. Cicero felt breathless. His heart wanted to explode. What was happening? He almost missed the Jester being there. All he could hear now was the Man roaring in his head and it hurt his ears.

But it was warm. Soft, slick warmth that covered his body and he had never felt quite so warm ever since he came to Skyrim. The Listener's hands were all around him, pulling him closer, closer, almost too close. Then her mouth was on his neck, his shoulders, his chest. And his was on hers. And he bit, and nibbled, soaring when he heard the small mewing sounds she made.

Then Cicero was inside her. And her hands clutched him. And they were moving together as if they were one. Keeper and Listener, one body.

It felt so right.

Her body arched against him and it was so perfect. He thrust further in, greedy for this new, yet old, sensation. She moved against him so agreeably that his head hurt. Everything was building up, he could feel it and he continued to thrust desperately. Maybe if he did it harder, he would hear her speak but he could feel himself slowly slipping away. Something inside him wanted to explode.

Yes. Yes yes yes. Yesyesyesyesyesyes.

He bent over her, grunting, hissing, snarling at the sensation. The Listener, his Listener, drew him close, head rolled back in pleasure as her hips moved against his. And finally, he felt her tighten and jerk against him. It was too much.

And that was when he heard it.

"Ci-Cicero!" she moaned into his ear.

He released himself and shuddered as the sensation crashed like a wave over him. He collapsed on top of her, trembling like a leaf.

His Listener! She spoke! To him! Only to him. She called his name. His name.

He trembled again as he basked in the revelation. When he finally had some sense to roll off her, the trembling had passed. Her hands stroked his matted greasy hair as he rested his head on her chest, listening to her breathing. Both Man and Jester had lapsed into a peaceful silence.

The bandages were damp as her wound had started bleeding again. The sting of metal in her blood pierced his nose.

"Cicero," she sighed again.

His heart thumped against his chest, elated. She spoke! Again! His name! His name! He remained silent, willing her to speak more.

"Oh Cicero... You're... you're not real... You can't be."

The Jester slammed back into his mind.

And he laughed. He laughed... and laughed... and laughed.

A joke.

It was all a joke.

He hated her.

He hated her with a passion.

A/N: Ah poor Cicero. This has been stuck in my head for a while so I hope that I've captured a believable view of Cicero's madness. Anyways, this is a sequel of a prequel of sorts I guess. Not sure yet. Hope you enjoyed it anyway, and don't forget to review!