Rome: Borgia Apartments; 1492

Horatia's P.O.V

Some said anger was simply sadness in fight-mode. Horatia Borgia, that sunny morning, definitely appeared to be prowling for a fight, any fight really, weaving through the halls of the Palazzo, footsteps echoing with a brisk and biting clack, cheeks still reddened from her harsh words with Cesare. Every step and every breath seemed to stoke the ire of her fury higher, another coal in the hearth, a spark to the gunpowder, a clap of thunder for the lightning.

Cesare had lit the match to be sure, but perhaps, Horatia thought, this resentment had been brewing inside for a while now. Maybe since the very day Albus had come lurking in the dark and stole a child, and ever since then she had been locked in some style of box. Cupboard. Saviour. Horcrux.

There was only one thing for it. There was only one person for it. One Horatio knew would listen, and more importantly, would not try to cage her in because, truly, he seemed to like the bars of an imaginary prison or the doors of a metaphorical stable even less than she.

Juan.

The wild brother for a wild plan.

However, as all good plans appear to go, especially ones with Horatia involved, it went awry from the very beginning. No matter where she looked, how far she ventured, what shadowed corner of the Borgia apartments she went hunting in, the normally loud and loquacious brother was nowhere to be seen or heard.

And wasn't that a little bit troubling?

He wasn't in his personal chambers, slumbering in the daylight like a great big golden Cheshire cat. He was not in the kitchens, flirting with the scullery maids with that lopsided grin of his. He was not in the dining room, having his fill of fine wine as he rendered a bawdy joke to whoever was close enough to listen. He was not with mother, and Lucrezia was in lessons, Rodrigo had left an hour before, Horatia had only just left Cesare herself, and there was nowhere else to go but one last spot.

The bottom guest rooms across the courtyard.

Merlin knew what Juan would be doing all the way over there, a place typically kept for riders who brought missives from across Rome to Rodrigo while the horses rested in the stables out back, but, well… It was Juan.

Juan did as Juan did, and that appeared to be answer enough some days.

Nevertheless, Horatia's luck was, as always, terrible, and the first two rooms she checked in the long hall were silent and empty. The third was not much better either. The fourth-

She stalled outside the door, ears pricked, silent as a door mouse with her hand resting on tacked handle.

Horatia thought she heard a groan possibly, a ruffle of movement, something muted like linen tousling, and a… Yes, a sigh.

A word? A name? Indeed, what sounded like her name drifted beneath the crack of the doorframe. Breathless, gasping, and definitely made by Juan.

Maybe he had heard her coming? Seen her morose march across the courtyard like thunder was beneath her shoes from the large windows in the rooms. Enter and Horatia could have the same bobble when heard through wood and stone.

The door clicked as she twisted the handle and pushed.

"Juan! I need your help. Ces-"

There was no candles lit this early in the morning, bullion sunlight stealing through translucent curtains of chiffon and silk to soak the room golden, and Horatia spotted her brother instantly in the little room.

He was lounging on the bed, thick embroidered drapery open, for even here, in the rooms meant for humble emissaries, the Borgia's spared no expense, and from door to four poster bed there was only seven steps separating the two.

So, yes, Horatia could see Juan clearly in the golden light made shimmer fine by chiffon. She could see his head reclining on the carven headboard, eyes closed so lashes rested on arching cheekbone. She could see the tangled sheets around his waist, folds and furrows below a bare chest and stomach speckled with a dusting of tan and hair. She could see one long fingered hand resting on the pillow below his perched back, and the other dipped below the sheets, right where-

Yes, Horatia could see Juan clearly in the golden light made shimmer fine by chiffon… And there was no mistaking what that other hand was doing.

Juan, of course, came to at her voice, eyes snapping open, locking right at her, pupils blown a startling black.

Horatia faltered like a filly being rode for the first time, with jolts and groans and a strangled sort of uncertainty.

"Sorry! I should have knocked or called and-"

And she stopped, just like that, span on her heel, and darted right back out of the room. She hadn't seen anything, Horatia told herself. Nothing at all. Juan had been sleeping, and she should have knocked, and perhaps she should go to the kitchens, the farthest part of the apartments away from the guest rooms, not because it was the furthest part away, but because she all of a sudden her mouth was parched, and her throat felt tight, and perhaps she was coming down with something, the sweating sickness was making the rounds in town and-

A clatter and a clang rang out behind her, Juan likely stumbling his way out the room, a curse from a knocked knee or perhaps a stubbed toe, but Horatia was already down the hall and readying to skirt around the corner when he appeared, shirtless, breaches still unlaced but, thankfully, on.

"Wait, Horatia!"

Horatia should have carried on, pretended she didn't hear his shout, pretended she was suddenly sick with the swirling in her stomach, a churning she could not quite understand. Instead, she did stop, and she did turn, and she did ramble through a shuddering response that came, unwittingly, too loud and too fast to be as nonchalant as she wished it were.

"I didn't see anything! Nothing at all!"

Juan came to a blundering stop before her, by the hall wall, a hall that was too narrow and too tight, too close, the hand that had been below the sheets scrubbing at the stubble lining the bow of his lips and-

Nope.

She hadn't seen anything.

"You said you needed help?"

Help?

Had she?

Yes!

Help!

Help with Cesare and the Cardinal Orsini, both very different, very safe topics far away from where that hand had been and what-

Nothing. She had seen nothing. Not a single damned thing.

Horatia latched onto Juan's diversion like it was a raft thrown out to her bobbing in the sea.

"Uh, yes! Yes, help. Cesare-… He's being stubborn and reckless, and he won't listen to me."

Juan snorted.

"When isn't our dear brother obstinate and deaf?"

There was a glisten to Juan's skin, the breadth of his chest, glittering in the high light, sweat that would shine when-

No.

Horatia was not used to having brothers, but, she was sure, one did not typically make such poetic note of what sweat looked like upon their sun kissed skin-

Normal skin.

Ugly, brotherly skin. Skin like a piglets, pink and sour, and not at all something Horatia, never, was taking notice of. She wasn't. Truly. It was…

It was the Italian sun. That was it. The heat was playing with her poor, English brain. An English brain that was not used to such light, such warmth, only cold damp rain and dim grey skies. She just… She just… Needed to acclimatize. Both to the heat, and to having brothers, and all would be… Hunky dory.

Yes, it would it. She had seen nothing at all, and she was thinking nothing at all, and there was nothing to be done because nothing, nothing, inappropriate was going on inside or outside.

Horatia doggedly squared her shoulders.

"But you listen… You always listen. Even when all I did was babble in the night."

And that was why she had come all this way, wasn't it? Scoured the Borgia apartments for this one man? Juan had listened to her from the very beginning, from cradle to vineyard and back again, even when all she spoke had been gibberish, nonsensical babble, and if anyone were going to listen to her now, now when she needed someone to listen, it would be him. Horatia was sure of it.

She wasn't exactly sure how she knew that, but she was sure of it.

Juan, like tallow in a candle beneath a flame too bright, seemed to soften at that, melting against the brick and daubed wall.

"Horatia, what precisely has happened?"

Cesare was being a donkey, but, Horatia thought, Juan would ask when wasn't he. Father was in danger, but, again, Juan would ask when there father wasn't. There was, however, one thing at the heart of the matter. One that would grab Juan's attention.

"I think Cardinal Orsini might be… Like me."

A jump in the sloping muscle of Juan's jaw gave away his shock, all the more so if the drop of his voice to a hushed whisper had not.

"Are you sure?"

Horatia, the happenstance of moments before long forgotten now that she was back into the groove of things, the groove where everything made sense, and she felt like herself, and the world was back to having ups and downs and lefts and rights, slipped in closer, tone matching Juan's in soft intrigue.

"As sure as I can be without seeing the man or his home in the flesh. Still, Cesare's refusing to let me go. He's going to father as we speak, who will just so be dining with Orsini this very moment. They won't know what to look for. Not like I do. Juan…"

"And so you've come to the rowdy brother to whisk you wayward out the terrible Borgia fortress, from underneath the watchful eye of your wardens?"

Horatia smiles, because of course she does.

It was Juan.

It was harder not to smile at him.

"Who else would be daring enough to do so? Are you in?"

"Who else indeed… Father is likely already with Cardinal Orsini. The Cardinal's often break midday fast together in the chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo."

"All the more reason to go now, while we can watch Orsini out in the open without suspicion."

He seemed to think it over, eddying with the slowly coming-together-plan.

"There has been a delivery of venetian glassware father has been waiting for that came this morning. If we were, of course, to be diligent sons and daughters, our ride in to tell him of such a delivery would only be seen as us being dutiful children."

another step closer, and they were almost whispering into each other's faces.

"Exactly! And neither father, mother, or Cesare can condemn dutiful children, could they?"

"Of course not. And, if in our hast, we forgot to inform mother of our departure, then it was only in our enthusiasm to see father."

"Who could disparage such devotion?"

He grins at her. Horatia laughs. The metaphorical stable doors are blown wide open.

"I knew you were my favourite sibling!"

It's meant as a jest, but something unamiable flutters across his face. Yet, it was gone before its ever really there, and Horatia thought she might have imagined it.

That's Juan, Horatia thought. A man encrusted in jests and jokes, and foolhardy quips, but beneath that crust was a thing that was achingly lonely. Just like Horatia. And they know each other. Know and love and it's… Nice, not to feel so alone.

"Let us be off then, before Cesare informs mother of his own departure for the chapel."

He reached in and kissed her forehead before Horatia could blink. Soft heat that blooms between her two brows-

That too is over before it's ever really there, leaving, again, Horatia a moment to think she imagined it too.

Then he is walking down the hallway.

"Juan!"

"What?"

"Your doublet?"

"Oh, yes, right."

A.N: I'm going to be honest with you. I BURNED OUT. For this story and for a lot of my other stories too, I just went up in flames. Burnout is no fun. In fact, it makes everything decidedly not fun, and that was why I wrote in the beginning, as an entertaining hobby that I hoped was fun for others to read as it was for me to write. Somewhere along the way, I sort of forgot that and replaced it for perfectionism, and that's quite sad, really.

That said, I've slowly been getting back into writing for fun sake, and I've been posting every now and again on my AO3 account, but I wanted to come back to some of my oldies and just go wild with it and, again, have fun. Times are tough as they are, and I don't need to go around making them tougher for myself lol.

So while this chapter may be short, perhaps not ground-breaking in any shape or form, it was fun to write, and I hope it was fun for you guys to read, and hopefully, fingers crossed, I'm getting back on the horse.