Cesare Borgia (il_valentino) wrote in bearandbarnacle, @ 2008-08-10 12:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | bedrooms, cesarepost, cesarethread, dorathread, topic |
Cesare Borgia: Topic: Bedrooms
The heat of August presses on his lids. Like sweaty fingers, trying to close his eyes, and it's tempting, so tempting to succumb and slide deeper into fever. He doesn't know what day or time it is. Nothing to be gleaned from canopy and shuttered windows, no-one to ask, for there is no-one to sit with him.
He makes a feeble sound and can't believe it comes from his own throat.
"Miquel," he croaks.
Silence. He thinks he can hear crickets, and the noise of the swallows nesting underneath the eaves. Elegant hunters, wheeling through the skies, but god damn their infernal shrieking. He's close to them, up here, top floor of the Vatican.
Cesare turns his head on the pillow. It reeks. Everything fucking stinks, including himself. His skin is raw and peeling; where it comes off it leaves bleeding sores that need wrapping, all from the time they immersed him in ice water to lower his fever, and much good has it done him. He fainted when they did that. Bleated like an ox, then fainted like a girl.
It's tempting and sweet, this warmth, the silence, the... the slide. Better than lying in his own dirt, at any rate.
And then he is slapped awake. "Miquel," he blurts, but it comes out as some incomprehensible mmhuh-
"Your old man." Slap. "Gone. Cesare, wake up, dammit!" Slap. "His Holiness your father. He's dead."
Cesare shoots up from the bed, or tries to, suddenly all sweat and bile and bowels turning to water. "Fuck." Scrambling for hold, any hold, he pulls the sheets with him as he is trying to rise, but his legs won't support him. The fucking indignity.
Mewling, cursing, trembling, teeth a-chatter,
And so the world ends.
Slap. Miquel hisses at him while above and around, the bedroom is reeling. "Your orders?"
Gulping for air, Cesare pulls himself into a sitting position, dragging his naked arse across the tiles. Right. Orders. Miquel is right. Nothing is lost. Orders. It's not the end of the world. All is not lost.
"Take some men and get his money. Under the bed. And, and. The cache, you know where it is. The vestments, too. Whatever you can grab before the mob gets in." He is squeaky and hoarse, yet his voice is enough to push Miquel into action.
Only when Miquel has left does Cesare attempt to lift himself off the floor - and fails miserably, body shaking from exertion. Unable to crawl back into bed, he sits between pooled sheets and buries his face in the crook of an arm. He wants to cry, but the tears won't come. Gently, bits of musselin from the canopy caress his back. There's a sudden breeze from where Miquel must have thrown open the windows but Cesare feels too weak to raise his head.
To look up and face the living.