After this, eight chapters left!
Disclaimer: All except the list and the plots of each short story belongs to You Higuri. Because she's just awesome that way.
Warnings: Slash—homosexual lovin' for the menses!
Author's Note: In the first ficlet here, Cesare calls Giovanni a "goodman", a term that was polite only if used from one commoner to another. If a noble calls another noble that, as in this case, it is a thinly-veiled insult.
And Chiaro gets a little touchy-feely. Finally.
Ten Things
Chapter Two
By Cezzy/Cory
The man was nervous. That much was apparent by the stringy hair clinging to his sweat-sticky forehead and the quick puffs that whistled through his greasy, hooked nose. His glassy eyes peered past the droopy skin that hung from his skull like melted wax, hastening to look from each face. His expressions shifted from the most insufferable extremes: from disdain to a quietly repulsed Volpe; to distractedly incredulous, prying insult to the strange masked man that always hovered a bare few feet from his rumored friend from Perugia School; to a various blend of weedy imploration and a subtle, instinctual fear that he didn't want to examine towards the Borgia.
"Lord of Pesaro. I have called you before me on the grounds that you knowingly and willingly allowed your petty soldiers to hassle Lucrecia Borgia in a coarse manner. Do you deny it?" Cesare demanded softly. His eyes were half-lidded and his lips pressed together, forcing the full mouth into a warning frown.
Giovanni gulped. "Now Cesare—is this all necessary?" He had attempted a tone of voice that a father would use to reprimand a stupid or obstinate child, but it came out as a creaky waver.
Cesare looked up slowly until his violet eyes met Giovanni's dark ones. "I am aware that it is polite to shield virginal women from men of those sorts, which would undoubtedly have ill will towards your lady. Are you not?"
"It was all in a bit of fun, Cesare—"
"With all due respect, Lord of Pesaro—" Cesare told him in gently hushed tones as he forced an effort not to stress the word due—"I am addressed as Lord Cesare."
"Eh…yes. Of course. Really…Lord Cesare, it was a mere reward for the men. They have been working dutifully lately," Giovanni floundered, shifting uncomfortably under the unblinking gaze of the Borgia.
Cesare could feel the roiling anger running over inside Chiaro, and he flinched lightly. "Let me assure you, this will not happen again, goodman," Cesare conceded, eyes jerking up to meet Giovanni's through his long eyelashes, "or such an affront may have your cold body softening at the bottom of a cesspit."
Hours later, Cesare would be descending the steps of the cream-colored castle to the garden to join the gala with Cesare, and his eyes would alight upon a certain blond-haired beauty with eyes that were green as sin and large as oxen hooves.
6) Cesare likes that pensive expression Chiaro would acquire whenever he happened to see Lucrecia. However, because Cesare is not an idiot, knows exactly why he gets that look. The only problem that he has is that he wishes it was for him and him alone, and he knew he would make it happen if time didn't allow it of its own pace.
It was a slow funeral.
Cesare stifled a yawn as he awaited his turn to approach and pay his last respects to the fallen man who had had his tarnished reputation from birth.
The court doctors had done their best; with the body completely bloated from the water of the river.
Cesare was confused. He did not feel exactly saddened by his half-brother's passing, but neither did he feel quite pleasant. There seemed to be a warm weight pressing down on his chest when he thought of the tossed ruby-like beads of blood and his wide eyes that seeped tears slowly even as he gazed up at him fearfully on his last breath. But there was a sense of triumph accompanying his brother as he followed the casket with the other "mourners". He had won.
He thoughtfully gazed down at his brother's corpse when it was his turn. He looked down at the body with a feigned though credible look of detached, professional bereavement. The skin fair glowed in the sun secreted behind the sheen of clouds. Farewell, brother. He lightly placed his handful of dried rose petals among the others lying among him, tossed by the brass around him.
When he returned to his seat (eyes lowered, sad pout: the picture of obedience and sadness), Chiaro leant down from his place behind Cesare—he was forced to stand because of his lack of power, money, and connections.
His warm breath whisked by Cesare's ear and ruffled his hair lightly as he asked a question that would surely have gotten him thrown in jail if anyone but Cesare or Volpe would have heard.
"How high was his collar?"
Cesare snorted. A few mourners around him flashed their eyes over to look at him, scandalized. He cleared his expression and pressed a hand to his throat, as if he had just coughed explosively.
At least the dinner after the ceremony was good.
7) Cesare likes his whispers. As rare as they are, they cause him to have thoughts that a clergyman really should not have.
Chiaro stamped his feet lightly to send some feeling—pain or not—back into his feet. Who throws an outdoor party in the middle of winter? he wondered, gritting behind his mask.
It was different today—the mask, that is. It was not uncommon, surrounded by colorful, outlandish, and occasionally jewel-encrusted masks of various aristocracy. He shivered and sipped some hot hazel ale, the searing liquid not resonating far enough to warm his cold-flushed skin.
He imagined the deep blue feathers sprouting buoyantly from the side of his mask (given to him by Cesare minutes before entering the party) freezing until he could chip it off and the tiny sapphires gaining a coating of frost.
Behind a trellis (that was devoid of flowers due to the season), Cesare could only smirk as his servant attempted to get warm and looked mistrustingly and resentfully at the others attending.
8) Cesare likes the way Chiaro acts when the latter thinks he's not watching.
Was hell really worse than this?
He could do nothing. He could only watch and be damned. Was hell really worse than this? A place where he could rot and choke and scream and cry and burn?
There, he could at least have some choice, or have some sense that he had at least made a choice.
Hands (he vaguely recognized them as his own) grated against the stone floor, leaving red evidence in their wake bubbling from under the nails.
—blood blood bleeding blood red anger red blood alone ruby blood red damned deep fury scarlet dark blood BLOOD—
Those hands dyed red up to the palm snatched at unforgivably smooth hair. Those fingers knotted into his hair, weaving until they clawed hopelessly, caught in that stunning brown net. Those nails seeped into his scalp, scrabbling and biting.
—help blood please hope blood blood scarlet blood hate no no no no nononononono—
"Cesare?!"
Undeniable warmth—soothing, not blistering and screeching—clutched onto him. Some unknown being cradled his quivering form. A hand slapped away his own from his head and soothingly eased through the festered scalp and hair.
9) Cesare likes the way his demons flee from the peaceful glide of Chiaro's skin to his.
"Why must you look at me like that?" Cesare asked, a mock-teasing edge to his voice to mask the pain.
Chiaro was no fool. Cesare knew this himself well, and sometimes this caused him to wonder just how much he knew of this infatuation which he could not help. "I'll let you fight your own battles, but I'm there if you need me."
Cesare quirked a slender eyebrow. "Chiaro?"
"You want to wallow and be alone." Chiaro growled that statement out, and it was not a question.
"Perhaps, among other things," Cesare simpered in false lightheartedness.
"There's no way in hell that I'm letting you do that, you idiot!"
Cesare was not sure what to do, so he released a screech of laughter. It emerged with more than a little hysteria. No way in hell?! When it died down, Chiaro was still glaring at him fiercely. The smile faded, and Cesare closed his eyes briefly. "I've been lost for a very long time, Chiaro," he murmured, tightening his blood red robes about his frame.
"Then let me find you," Chiaro snarled sharply.
10) Cesare likes his Light.