Chapter Text
“Ah,” Cesare says, as he comes up short in the doorway to his quarters. “Not subtle, my friend.”
Micheletto is seated on Cesare’s bed, stripping a sharpening stone down the blade of Cesare’s dagger. He looks up. “Should I be?”
In another man’s mouth, the question might be meant in jest. In Micheletto’s, Cesare cannot imagine it is.
It has been silent days since that night. There is no battle, but Cesare has felt the familiar taut anticipation of lines drawn, forfeits decided, stratagems arranged. Cesare’s own, of course, was decided long ago, perhaps the very day of Lucrezia’s birth: anything for her, anything and everything for her. So for her, he waits, knowing well enough that these internal negotiations are not to be interrupted, battle or no.
But here is Micheletto instead.
“It would be a little late,” Cesare says finally.
Micheletto stands to approach Cesare, the handle of the knife extended to Cesare’s hand. He waits for Cesare to grip it before he says, quiet, “You could have another man.”
“In my service, or my bed?” Cesare asks. Too blunt, maybe, but he is not known for patience.
Micheletto shrugs. His gaze is cast down to where his fingers still rest on the blade, gentle and sure in their placement.
Cesare shifts his grasp on the knife, getting Micheletto’s attention. Micheletto raises his eyes to Cesare’s, and Cesare holds his gaze as he says, “I would not have either.” He balances the weight of the dagger back into Micheletto’s hand.
Fast and fluid, Micheletto flips the blade and brings the tip up under Cesare’s chin. Cesare does not flinch, does not feel even the impulse. He knows well enough that he could not have saved himself.
Micheletto does not break eye contact, nor resheath the knife before he steps in. Impossible to say whether the blade or his eyes are the sharper, but when the point dips down Cesare’s throat to rest in the hollow of his collarbones, its touch is light enough that it does not so much as sting. A full-body tremor runs up Cesare’s spine. He hears what he thinks Micheletto wishes him to: Neither would I; and he hears the importunacy Micheletto might imagine his silence conceals: Good.
Steadying himself, Cesare lifts a hand to clasp Micheletto’s upper arm and pull him even closer, chest to chest, not quite touching. Micheletto looks relaxed, but Cesare can feel the core of tension in him, steel-strung. Unblinking, Micheletto presses the dagger a little firmer into Cesare’s neck, a tiny point of pain sending blood pulsing to Cesare’s groin.
Cesare swallows hard, regains his composure. If nothing else, it will prove inconvenient if he cannot control himself when Micheletto puts him at swordpoint on the training ground. The thought amuses him so that he has to say it, swallowing again to make his voice casual: “Is this how you must best me now? By distraction?”
The impact of the ground comes before Cesare sees Micheletto move. One moment, they are on their feet, and then without discernible transition, Cesare is on his back, Micheletto under and behind him with legs locked tight around Cesare’s thighs, the dagger now flat across his throat, Micheletto’s other hand wrapped in his collar to threaten a stranglehold.
“That is an answer,” Cesare breathes when the air returns to his lungs. He does not bother to struggle. “By God, I wonder I ever survived our meeting.”
“I liked the look of you.”
Cesare is saved from his own response by Lucrezia, without pretense of stealth, appearing in the doorway.
“My lady,” Micheletto says, unassumingly calm, as though they are not fairly embracing on the floor, as though he has not said—what he has just said. He releases Cesare, allowing them both to roll to their feet.
“Carry on,” Lucrezia says with blithe cheer, though Cesare spies an avaricious gleam to her eye as she looks him and Micheletto up and down. She pauses as she comes near where they stand, her hand lifting for a moment as though to reach for them. Then she shakes her head a little, settles instead on the bed.
Micheletto inclines his head towards Lucrezia, then turns back to Cesare. “Again, my lord?”
They are not dressed to spar. Cesare licks his lips, begins to unfasten his doublet. “Again,” he confirms. There is a weight in the pit of his stomach, alternately hot and cold with nerves. With enforced levity, he adds, “Though I think I should go armed, or you will have twice the advantage.”
Micheletto, discarding his doublet and belt, grunts acknowledgment and passes over the dagger.
Cesare weighs the handle in his hand for a beat, tosses it, catches it—then lunges. This time, at least, he sees Micheletto move, but not nearly in time to react: Micheletto steps in and through his guard, behind him again; drives an elbow into his shoulder, sending a buzzing shock all down his arm; and has the knife out of his slack fingers and against his throat a moment later. Cesare yields, rubbing his arm and wincing.
Micheletto hands the dagger back.
The next time, Cesare is more attentive, chooses his moment, and at least manages to take Micheletto to the ground. Yet, as they grapple, Cesare still finds himself rolled over and pinned, his arm contorted behind his back, the point of the blade at the nape of his neck. He yields, and the warm weight of Micheletto astride his back lingers as he gets to his feet.
Again, Micheletto returns him the dagger.
Determination makes Cesare more cautious. He flips the handle around and essays a few strikes with the pommel, trading blocks and blows against the solid cord of Micheletto’s arms. Then in a blur, Micheletto’s fist collides with Cesare’s jaw, yanks him into a headlock, and somehow the knife is back in Micheletto’s hand. With his head jammed into Micheletto’s side, Cesare can feel the heat of Micheletto’s flesh against the side of his face; leather and cotton and sweat fill his lungs.
Micheletto brings the tip of the blade to threaten at the corner of Cesare’s eye, and he yields, panting. Irritation begins to well, thick as honey and burning as sweet, in his throat.
Again. Cesare abandons caution and tackles Micheletto flat-out, landing fully atop him, but Micheletto’s hand—quick and muscular as the coil of a serpent—escapes Cesare’s hold and breaks his grip on the dagger by the thumb. He snaps the blade up under Cesare’s leg, and Cesare does not know his anatomy well enough to be sure it rests exactly on the big artery there—but he trusts nothing more than his certainty that Micheletto does.
Cesare freezes, palms flat on the floor where he caught himself; he stares down at Micheletto. If this were in truth a fight to the death, any flicker of motion on his part could have Micheletto ramming the knife home in his thigh instantly, a sheet of blood bathing both of their legs. The danger, incarnate in the hard line of the blade against his flesh, erupts hot in his chest, lighting him out to his fingertips, down to his toes. The side of Micheletto’s hand presses up against Cesare’s groin, and even if they are fully clad, Micheletto cannot possibly miss the shape of Cesare’s cock pressing back against him.
“Yield, my lord,” Micheletto says, pushing the blade harder into Cesare’s leg.
“No,” Cesare says.
Micheletto’s arm twitches, and Cesare sucks in a breath, but the dagger moves only enough to part the fabric of his hose. He becomes aware that he is shaking, fingers flexing on the stone to either side of Micheletto’s head, knees tight straddling Micheletto’s waist. The edge of the blade scratches bare on his skin; still, he does not move, daring Micheletto to force him.
Micheletto does nothing of the sort. He is perfectly still, his arm perfectly steady, altogether immovable.
“Micheletto,” Lucrezia says, and he and Cesare both look over. The blade remains precise in its place against Cesare’s flesh, shredding his focus, making his head swim. Lucrezia is seated demurely on the bed, skirts in a neat pool around her. Sometime in their distraction, she has taken her hair down, set its ribbons and net aside. “Do you know what my brother wants?”
“I do not dare,” Micheletto says.
Lucrezia smiles. “But I did not ask what you dare. I asked what you know. And I think you know his mind very well.”
“I hope so, my lady.”
“I think we both do. But you do not dare give him what he wants.” Lucrezia pauses. “Without leave, of course?” It sounds like a question; it is not. But when she next turns her gaze on Cesare, the lilt of curiosity in her voice is earnest. “What are you waiting for, brother?”
“You, sis,” Cesare says, just as earnestly surprised that she need ask. “Always you.”
“Oh,” Lucrezia murmurs. “Should I ask for you, then? Micheletto,” she says, faltering for a moment; then her fist clenches in the bedclothes and she licks her lips. “Micheletto, I think you ought to hurt him.” Her voice falls to a whisper, but it grows steadier with every word.
Micheletto remains unmoving, except to look back up at Cesare. Cesare meets Micheletto’s eyes and makes himself nod. For good measure—for Lucrezia’s benefit—he adds, voice pulled heavy from his chest, “As you please.”
There is a pause. “As my lady pleases,” Micheletto says quietly, glancing at Lucrezia, and Cesare feels himself chastened.
But Lucrezia is smiling again, a little wicked, a little fascinated. “But I would see what you please,” she repeats to Micheletto, and Cesare cannot help a few breaths of laughter at them, at himself, talking each other in circles so.
Perhaps he is trying to antagonize Micheletto.
Perhaps he succeeds.
Before Cesare can brace himself, the blade breaks his skin, scoring a burning furrow across his inner thigh. He gasps, clenching his fists against the floor. Lucrezia echoes his gasp, and then all is still for a moment, save the blood soaking into Cesare’s hose. He imagines he can feel it threading along the warp and weft of the fabric, caressing; he imagines crimson fingertips tracing the tender meat of his thigh, and a new pulse of blood thickens his cock at the thought.
Then the pinprick sting of the dagger reappears at Cesare’s throat, and he is trembling so that the edge catches in his skin again. It cannot be an accident; he knows Micheletto’s control too well for that. Half in helpless reaction, half in experiment, Cesare swallows, and the blade bites deep enough to draw fresh blood, dropping flecks on Micheletto’s neck, his collar. Cesare exhales, long and shaky, tempted for an instant to lean into the pain like a dog to his master’s hand.
“Brother,” Lucrezia says behind him, “Take your shirt off.”
Micheletto stills for a fraction of a second, so Cesare thinks Lucrezia has surprised him. Only a fraction, though; then he withdraws the knife long enough for Cesare to settle back on his heels and obey. As he does, Micheletto sits up under him and brings the dagger smoothly back to its place, notching another tally across Cesare’s windpipe. A reminder. Tomorrow, Cesare will look like a boy who has failed to shave himself. He wonders if Micheletto means him to feel so.
“Let me see,” says Lucrezia.
Cesare tries to think, deciding how to position them for her advantage, but Micheletto does not allow him: he presses the knife deep enough to threaten, until Cesare has to lean back, further and further, until the muscles of his belly and thighs jump with the effort, until he can hold himself up no longer and must collapse back on his elbows. Still, Micheletto continues, forcing him to drop flat to his back. His legs are tangled on either side of Micheletto’s, but Micheletto extricates himself with grace, coming up on his knees. Almost casually, he leans over to lay atop Cesare, one leg between Cesare’s thighs, grinding the length of them full together.
Cesare flinches, trying on instinct to draw his legs up as heat rushes to his cheeks. It is as though his body remembers only now that Lucrezia is watching; as though he realizes only now what it is she is watching—what he can no longer deny, not with the slow, deliberate movement of Micheletto’s body on his, the heavy rasp of their breathing, the hungry light in Micheletto’s eyes as they rove over Cesare’s face, his jaw, his throat. Not with the way Cesare’s eyes fall shut, the way he bites his lip when Micheletto rocks into him, both of them hard and obvious through their clothing.
Only once Cesare’s eyes are closed does Micheletto exchange the dagger for an open hand on his neck, pinning him roughly enough to make him gag when he tries to draw breath. After a few seconds, Micheletto closes his hand tighter, so only a bare thread of air cools Cesare’s throat. Blood rushes to his head. He struggles briefly but succeeds only in squirming humiliatingly against Micheletto, only making himself harder.
Micheletto does not relent, even when Cesare begins to resist more in earnest, turning his head, trying to lift his shoulders. An edge of panic sets in; it forces Cesare’s eyes wide, darkness beginning to curtain his vision. Somehow his hands have come to wrap around Micheletto’s wrist, but they would be useless against him at the best of times—Micheletto’s forearms are like iron; Cesare has seen his fingers crack limbs like straw, has seen them kill—has seen men die in just this way—and now Cesare’s own fingers are growing limp, his body leaden.
Just as sickening dizziness swirls up to Cesare’s head, as his eyelids begin to flutter, Micheletto releases him, and as he does, rolls their hips hard together. Cesare exhales explosively, and it comes out a ragged cry; he gulps air, chokes on it, tries again, and the return of breath brings every nerve hot and alive with sudden giddiness. He groans at the wash of intensity, a wave tugging at him, breaking over his whole body.
“Oh,” Cesare hears Lucrezia murmur, over the drumming of his heart. He cannot hear her move, but her shadow appears beside him, seated or kneeling by his head. Her fingers land on his throat, tracing up to his chin, the curve of his jaw.
Cesare watches as Micheletto looks over at her, his expression rare, but familiar enough to Cesare: a sharpness to his eyes, a set to his mouth that is neither a smile nor a snarl, but not far from either. It puts him in mind of a hound baying over prey, as indeed Micheletto is, but it is not a look that anyone besides Cesare often survives the sight of.
When Micheletto speaks, it is with the same subtle, vicious confidence that shows on his face. “Will you keep him quiet, my lady?”
“So?” Lucrezia’s hand crawls over Cesare’s mouth, her touch still gentle as anything. Somehow, it makes Cesare shiver just as badly as Micheletto’s roughness.
Micheletto grunts approval and pushes himself up on hands and knees. Cesare had near forgotten the dagger in his other hand, but now Micheletto sets the point of it at the top of Cesare’s sternum, and Cesare’s breath speeds, making the steel dig minutely deeper, not quite cutting, with every heave of his chest. Ever so slowly, Micheletto drags the blade down Cesare’s torso, over his stomach; still, it does not cut, but it stings like flying embers, and the light scratch of pain goes straight to Cesare’s cock. He sighs into Lucrezia’s palm.
Micheletto brings the tip of the dagger down to the waist of Cesare’s hose, and Cesare wants to mock him for it—Is my clothing so difficult to remove?—but Lucrezia’s hand is reminder enough to be silent, and the knife rests just on the sensitive angle of his lower belly, so he has to curl his toes, tighten his thighs, to stop himself jumping every time it moves. Then, just as slowly, Micheletto begins to slide the blade back up the same perfect line, as though he would split Cesare in half. Even still, it does not break skin. Cesare finds his mouth coming open, his shoulders tense with anticipation.
Delicately, Micheletto sketches the dagger along the lines of Cesare’s collarbones, out and back in, out and back in; Cesare imagines the pink weals it must raise in its wake. It is a desperate tease, a tiny pain always promising more. Micheletto outlines each bone of Cesare’s ribcage, all the way down his sides where the ticklish prick of the blade makes Cesare’s back arch involuntarily. There is nothing but cool, predatory focus on Micheletto’s face, yet there is color rising up his throat, sweat in the collar of his shirt, heat radiating from his every coil of muscle. Again, it is a little intoxicating, a little terrifying, to know Cesare can arouse Micheletto so.
After long, taunting minutes, Cesare feels a quiver run through Lucrezia’s hand, imagines her shifting where she sits, perhaps licking her lips as she prepares to speak. “Will you,” she begins, “will you not cut him again?”
Micheletto pauses with the dagger resting under Cesare’s sternum, ready to stab up into his heart. “Do you wish it?” he says, and it comes out low, without really the sound of a question.
A harder tremor in Lucrezia’s hand. This time, Cesare hears her move: her skirts rustle, her fingernails scrape on the stone. At last, she whispers, “Yes.”
Relief and apprehension make Cesare’s head spin; he cannot help screwing his eyes shut to brace himself, not fast enough to miss Micheletto dipping his head in acknowledgment. Micheletto lifts the dagger off of his skin and places it back at the top of his chest. Then, like a dissection, like the doctor he will not be, he carves smoothly back down the center line of Cesare’s torso.
Cesare tips his head back, panting, his spine pressing back into the floor even as his hips lift. The pain is bright and searing, all-consuming in spite of its precision. Micheletto waits only a few moments, then follows the same line back up, cutting slower and deeper, forcing Cesare to hold himself still for as long as the blade moves. He digs his nails into his palms, clenches his teeth, a strained whimper escaping him until Lucrezia’s hand tightens to muffle it.
Steady and sure, Micheletto begins to incise the same fanning pattern along Cesare’s collarbones, his ribs. He moves with the care of a sculptor, sometimes slower, sometimes quicker; sometimes lighter, sometimes harder. Cesare feels beads of blood well along the shallowest cuts, feels streams trickle from the deepest. Tears burn in his eyes. He is so hard he aches. Above him, he can hear Micheletto breathing harder, belying the patient work of his hands. Lucrezia, too, is gasping, inhaling hard, then exhaling slow and shaky, as though she is trying and failing to control herself.
Of course, Micheletto will never abort a task, no matter the impatience that Cesare senses like steam in the air between them; only once he has retraced in blood every line across Cesare’s chest does Cesare feel the point of the dagger pulled away, hear it click to the ground next to him. Without a word, Lucrezia withdraws her hand and shuffles back a little. Cesare pries his eyes open, breath catching in his throat, and sees raw, fierce hunger painted on Micheletto’s face; she must read him as clearly as Cesare does, knowing to leave him space, because—a shudder takes Cesare’s whole body—because there is only one thing that comes next.
Micheletto is not gentle, making no move that could even pass for tenderness. He is brusque as he unlaces Cesare’s hose all the way down the seam; he makes no effort to settle Cesare, to ease any discomfort, before oiling himself and pressing their bodies together. His one hand drops to guide himself into place as he props up on the other elbow, his palm replacing Lucrezia’s; then that palm clamps down, muting the raw cry Cesare gives as Micheletto thrusts into him, slow and hard.
Cesare fights for breath, lungs convulsing too fast to take in the air. Sparks and inkblots pop in the corners of his vision. The pain is worse and better somehow than the cutting: deeper, duller, throbbing. He struggles, unable to help himself, trying to twist his head to draw breath, trying to yank away when Micheletto begins to move. Ineffectual, of course, so Cesare bites his tongue until he tastes blood, seizing back control of himself, until he can breathe without seeing stars, can unwind the wire-tension of his muscles enough to relieve some of the pain.
When Cesare’s breath slows, Micheletto releases his hand and wraps it instead under Cesare’s shoulders, pinning him into Micheletto’s chest. Cesare’s blood sticks their skins together: sluggishly flowing, half drying, then brought fresh by the flow of sweat. Instinct has Cesare bringing his hands up to Micheletto’s back, digging into the thick muscle, into the rough interlacing of scars. They may as well be one body: burning, bloodied, scarred, panting in heavy unison.
After a time, Micheletto raises his head, slows in his movement. He looks down at Cesare, eyes dark; then, without fanfare, he ducks to lick at the blood along Cesare’s collarbone.
“God,” Cesare swears in spite of himself, voice cracking, fine and fragmented as glass. The wound is stinging, the flesh around it hot and sensitive, and the slickness of Micheletto’s tongue against it feels sweet and hideous all at once. Micheletto does the same again, licking up the length of the twin wound to the other side, making Cesare arch his back and clench his fists tight, tears welling in his eyes again.
Finally, Micheletto runs a finger up the first vertical cut down Cesare’s sternum, then raises his hand. Lucrezia leans into Cesare’s view, taking Micheletto by the wrist, and Cesare exhales another broken curse when she closes her lips around Micheletto’s finger. Cesare’s body tightens involuntarily where Micheletto is still rocking, slower, into him; he has lost his erection, the pain too intense even for that, even for him, but heat still snaps like a whip in his belly at the vision above him.
Lucrezia lets go of Micheletto and moves back, and Cesare feels another helpless pulse to his groin when he imagines blood on her lips, reddening them deeper. Again, Micheletto looks down at him, gazing for a long, long moment. Cesare wonders if Micheletto means to say something, but he remains silent. Eventually, wordless, he leans down, pulling them back tight together and setting his teeth carefully in the join of Cesare’s neck. Cesare nods against Micheletto’s shoulder, unsure what he is assenting to, unsure what permission he is giving, sure only that he means it.
Micheletto exhales on a soft sound, half a growl, before he bites down, hard and tearing, and Cesare is already stifling a moan into Micheletto’s shoulder, already clutching at his back, before Micheletto picks up fucking him again in fast, deep strokes. It hurts, still, sore and stretched and bruising somewhere deep inside him; but for those final few moments, as Cesare is pinned and quartered between pains—aching, rending, burning—it is perfect.
Micheletto goes stiff and shaking, silent as Cesare feels him spill inside him, and Cesare feels an impulse to draw him closer. He heeds it, clasping Micheletto tight, chests heaving against each other, before Micheletto pulls away.
And then Cesare is splayed flat on the floor, gaping and exposed as a gutted fish, as Micheletto kneels over him. He hears Lucrezia move nearby, and wishes suddenly he could cover himself, but his limbs are truly leaden now, and he cannot even lift a hand. She comes to sit by his head again, and he manages to crane his neck up to see her: her eyes are bright, lips crimson, he thinks more with biting than with blood. But her fingers trail over his throat again, down to the mark of Micheletto’s teeth, and they are stained when she lifts them. There is hunger on her face, too, a wondering shadow of Micheletto’s, and Cesare is not surprised to see her lick her fingers clean.
Lucrezia drops her other hand to brush over his hair. “You liked that very much,” she says. Her voice is soft.
Cesare nods, split open, breathless, watching her.
He thinks he sees her swallow, sees her chest hitch. “Will you still have me?” she says finally.
“Yes,” Cesare rasps. “Yes, sis, yes. Yes.” He strains his hand up to hers, interweaving their fingers. He coughs, throat scraped as bare as the rest of him.
Micheletto speaks, sounding, as he often does, faintly uncertain to find himself uttering more than a word or two. “I think he will want you very much in the morning, my lady.” He cuts himself off shortly, then continues. “It can be too much for the body, even if the spirit wants.”
Lucrezia smiles, and Cesare is surprised anew at the ease of their understanding. “I suppose it must be,” she agrees. “To bed, then—and to the morning.”