[Fanfiction] Chiaro/Lucrezia - Thinking of You
Title: Thinking of You
Fandom: Cantarella
Word Count: 1347
Beta: butterflygirl_3
Genre: Romance, Angst.
Characters/Pairing: Chiaro/Lucrezia, implied Cesare/Chiaro and one-sided Lucrezia/Cesare.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Angst, non-explicit sex, incest, implied shounen-ai, het.
Author's Notes: A random idea that occured to me one evening. A slightly different take on the relationship betwen Lucrezia and Chiaro. I hope nobody is going to shoot me for ruining the purity of their love. It doesn't necessarily reflect well on the characters, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable in portraying them the way I do.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were.
Summary: Even when they're together, the memory of a man with eyes dark enough to drown in keeps them apart.
Please comment. I'm begging you. Recent revelations regarding the proportion of people who read and download stuff v the proportion of people who comment has depressed me a lot. So please, if you read, tell me what you think. Even if you hate it.
Her hair is too long. It falls around them in a cloud of spun gold, sticking to her sweaty skin, obstructing the kisses he presses against her neck and shoulders. It’s too fine, too fragile, as if it’s been woven from sunlight itself. She flinches if he pulls it too hard, if he tugs her head back and twines it around his fingers until they’re hopelessly tangled. So he gentles his touches, tempers his passion. Runs his fingers through rivers of liquid light even as he conjures a construct of darkness and velvet in his mind’s eye.
*
His hair is too short. It’s smooth under her fingers, but even when she closes her eyes she finds air where there should be more silken strands. It’s golden, bright, almost brash, showing off his summer-sky eyes to perfection but rasping against skin that longs for the cool slide of black silk.
She curls up his arms and closes her eyes, breathing in the raw, masculine scent of him. She falls asleep beside him, her head resting on her chest, and she pretends that when she opens her eyes and looks up into his handsome face she’ll look up into the eyes of her fairytale prince.
The problem is, she doesn’t want a fairytale anymore. She’d settle for a sweet crime and a spot in hell.
*
She’s too soft. Her skin is smooth, perfect, unblemished. She’s every man’s fantasy. Lithe and winsome, her lips strawberry-red and inviting, Calypso or Daphne all his for the taking. Her curves swell under his fingers as her body yields to his caresses, her soft sighs mingling with the rustle of the sheets. But she is too pliant, too tender, too giving. She bends in his arms when she should resist him, surrenders to his control when she should fight him for dominance. She tastes like raspberry cordial, but he longs for the burn of liquor on his tongue.
Her skin bruises easily. Too easily. One slip, a moment of pretence, and she wears blue and purple lace around her wrists. He doesn’t like seeing the signs of their sex on her skin.
*
He’s too hard. She closes her eyes and tries to pretend, but he feels wrong in her arms. They don’t fit together. She’s tried, tried to stitch up the rents and tears with her silver embroidery thread, but her needle slips and she pierces her fingers until her hands are peppered with tiny red beads of blood.
She healed his body, but he sliced up his soul and plaited it into a leather thong for someone else’s soul long ago. The first time they were together the ghost of him stood at the foot of the bed, and wherever she looks she can see his eyes and hear his voice.
He’s too violent, too passionate. She can almost taste the frustration seething below the surface. It feels good, but it’s never enough, never quite what she wants, always too much or too little. She measures his every touch, his every breath, and the scales don’t tip in his favour.
Scales of consecrated iron, which weigh his every act against communion wine and the secret smile of a sinner in Cardinal’s robes.
*
She is too kind. She kisses sweetly, kisses tentatively, kisses like a bride on her wedding night. She wants him, but she wants the fantasy of him more, a dream of saccharine serenity and murmured endearments. She needs him to be gentle.
When he sleeps beside her he dreams of violence. Of fingers on his wrists, stone against his back. Of teeth against his skin and his hands in long, dark hair. Of lips bruised and swollen from their kisses. Of pain, just the right amount of pain, and torn clothes and sweat and lust and need
He wakes tangled in the sheets and she strokes his hair and asks what he was dreaming about. He lies, he always lies, spins fables about blood and nightmares and lets her think she’s kissing them away even as he searches for another’s flavour behind her teeth.
*
He gathers her into his arms and she inhales the scent of him. For a moment, her heart swells and she is just another maid in love, his arms her battlements, his smile her standard. She can smell faint redolence of baking bread and blackberries, mingled with the crispness of his shirt. He’s warm and solid and blissfully real in her arms.
But the foundations of this castle rotted long ago, and she feels her walls crumbling even as he holds her. Phantom fingers reach for her, and she remembers their touch against her skin. She’s bottled up every moment, every affectionate caress, every kiss pressed to her cheek or forehead. The memories slide over her sweat slicked skin under Chiaro’s fingers, turning her feverish with need.
She’s sure she must say his name sometimes, caught up in the jumble of words and pleas that spill from her lips. But Chiaro says nothing. She wonders if it’s because he doesn’t notice, or because he doesn’t care.
*
She loves him too much, and not enough. He is her knight, her saviour, her lover on a white horse. She loves him with a child’s adoration. She’s a strong woman, but in his arms she is weak. She loves the good in him, but she’ll never love his darkness. He could never touch her with his bloody hands, never show her the nooks and crevasses of his soul where his every dark desire is stripped back to blood and bones.
She thinks she’s stripped away his mask, but the face beneath it is as fake as the piece of wood and leather beside the bed. Love stretched too thin over the sum and total of his sins.
But all the pleasure in her touch comes from the ghost he can sometimes see behind her face, the flash of him in her smile, in her eyes. He sees another’s face as they move together, sees another’s eyes, another’s lips, another’s teeth and tongue and hands and heart and soul. And as he toppled over the edge and his world splinters and refracts, it’s not he touches that drive him to the sweet brink of insanity.
It’s the memories of other touches, and the lustful, wicked glint in devilish eyes.
*
He doesn’t love her enough. She’s not sure if he knows that, but she does. It felt so good to begin with. They fell together, lost themselves in each other. They were lovers as lovers should be, full of reckless abandon and giddy delight in each other’s touch. But a shadow crept between them, a sceptre in red velvet with eyes dark enough to drown in. Her child-love gutters in the face of a darker passion.
She thought he could save her. But as he holds her close and refuses to meet her eyes, she knows he won’t. He can’t. Because in the end, he doesn’t even want to save himself.
*
He wishes he could pretend. Wishes he could fool himself for just one more moment, pretend he wanted the purity of the love the bards sing about. Pretend it was perfect. Pretend there wasn’t a gaping hole where his heart should have been.
But he can’t. He’s tried, he’s always tried, tried to lie to himself and to everyone else, but he can’t anymore. Can’t pretend that when he holds her he isn’t closing his eyes and conjuring a ghost of what he could have had.
Can’t pretend he isn’t thinking of the devil as he takes an angel in his arms.
So if she hesitates before she breathes his name, if her voice catches on the first syllable as her tongue tangles on the word, if she has to pause to think before she comes apart in his arms, if she has to bite her lip until it bleeds to keep herself from whispering betrayals, he doesn’t mind.
Because the name he mouths into her hair tastes better than hers ever will.
Fandom: Cantarella
Word Count: 1347
Beta: butterflygirl_3
Genre: Romance, Angst.
Characters/Pairing: Chiaro/Lucrezia, implied Cesare/Chiaro and one-sided Lucrezia/Cesare.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Angst, non-explicit sex, incest, implied shounen-ai, het.
Author's Notes: A random idea that occured to me one evening. A slightly different take on the relationship betwen Lucrezia and Chiaro. I hope nobody is going to shoot me for ruining the purity of their love. It doesn't necessarily reflect well on the characters, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable in portraying them the way I do.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were.
Summary: Even when they're together, the memory of a man with eyes dark enough to drown in keeps them apart.
Please comment. I'm begging you. Recent revelations regarding the proportion of people who read and download stuff v the proportion of people who comment has depressed me a lot. So please, if you read, tell me what you think. Even if you hate it.
Her hair is too long. It falls around them in a cloud of spun gold, sticking to her sweaty skin, obstructing the kisses he presses against her neck and shoulders. It’s too fine, too fragile, as if it’s been woven from sunlight itself. She flinches if he pulls it too hard, if he tugs her head back and twines it around his fingers until they’re hopelessly tangled. So he gentles his touches, tempers his passion. Runs his fingers through rivers of liquid light even as he conjures a construct of darkness and velvet in his mind’s eye.
*
His hair is too short. It’s smooth under her fingers, but even when she closes her eyes she finds air where there should be more silken strands. It’s golden, bright, almost brash, showing off his summer-sky eyes to perfection but rasping against skin that longs for the cool slide of black silk.
She curls up his arms and closes her eyes, breathing in the raw, masculine scent of him. She falls asleep beside him, her head resting on her chest, and she pretends that when she opens her eyes and looks up into his handsome face she’ll look up into the eyes of her fairytale prince.
The problem is, she doesn’t want a fairytale anymore. She’d settle for a sweet crime and a spot in hell.
*
She’s too soft. Her skin is smooth, perfect, unblemished. She’s every man’s fantasy. Lithe and winsome, her lips strawberry-red and inviting, Calypso or Daphne all his for the taking. Her curves swell under his fingers as her body yields to his caresses, her soft sighs mingling with the rustle of the sheets. But she is too pliant, too tender, too giving. She bends in his arms when she should resist him, surrenders to his control when she should fight him for dominance. She tastes like raspberry cordial, but he longs for the burn of liquor on his tongue.
Her skin bruises easily. Too easily. One slip, a moment of pretence, and she wears blue and purple lace around her wrists. He doesn’t like seeing the signs of their sex on her skin.
*
He’s too hard. She closes her eyes and tries to pretend, but he feels wrong in her arms. They don’t fit together. She’s tried, tried to stitch up the rents and tears with her silver embroidery thread, but her needle slips and she pierces her fingers until her hands are peppered with tiny red beads of blood.
She healed his body, but he sliced up his soul and plaited it into a leather thong for someone else’s soul long ago. The first time they were together the ghost of him stood at the foot of the bed, and wherever she looks she can see his eyes and hear his voice.
He’s too violent, too passionate. She can almost taste the frustration seething below the surface. It feels good, but it’s never enough, never quite what she wants, always too much or too little. She measures his every touch, his every breath, and the scales don’t tip in his favour.
Scales of consecrated iron, which weigh his every act against communion wine and the secret smile of a sinner in Cardinal’s robes.
*
She is too kind. She kisses sweetly, kisses tentatively, kisses like a bride on her wedding night. She wants him, but she wants the fantasy of him more, a dream of saccharine serenity and murmured endearments. She needs him to be gentle.
When he sleeps beside her he dreams of violence. Of fingers on his wrists, stone against his back. Of teeth against his skin and his hands in long, dark hair. Of lips bruised and swollen from their kisses. Of pain, just the right amount of pain, and torn clothes and sweat and lust and need
He wakes tangled in the sheets and she strokes his hair and asks what he was dreaming about. He lies, he always lies, spins fables about blood and nightmares and lets her think she’s kissing them away even as he searches for another’s flavour behind her teeth.
*
He gathers her into his arms and she inhales the scent of him. For a moment, her heart swells and she is just another maid in love, his arms her battlements, his smile her standard. She can smell faint redolence of baking bread and blackberries, mingled with the crispness of his shirt. He’s warm and solid and blissfully real in her arms.
But the foundations of this castle rotted long ago, and she feels her walls crumbling even as he holds her. Phantom fingers reach for her, and she remembers their touch against her skin. She’s bottled up every moment, every affectionate caress, every kiss pressed to her cheek or forehead. The memories slide over her sweat slicked skin under Chiaro’s fingers, turning her feverish with need.
She’s sure she must say his name sometimes, caught up in the jumble of words and pleas that spill from her lips. But Chiaro says nothing. She wonders if it’s because he doesn’t notice, or because he doesn’t care.
*
She loves him too much, and not enough. He is her knight, her saviour, her lover on a white horse. She loves him with a child’s adoration. She’s a strong woman, but in his arms she is weak. She loves the good in him, but she’ll never love his darkness. He could never touch her with his bloody hands, never show her the nooks and crevasses of his soul where his every dark desire is stripped back to blood and bones.
She thinks she’s stripped away his mask, but the face beneath it is as fake as the piece of wood and leather beside the bed. Love stretched too thin over the sum and total of his sins.
But all the pleasure in her touch comes from the ghost he can sometimes see behind her face, the flash of him in her smile, in her eyes. He sees another’s face as they move together, sees another’s eyes, another’s lips, another’s teeth and tongue and hands and heart and soul. And as he toppled over the edge and his world splinters and refracts, it’s not he touches that drive him to the sweet brink of insanity.
It’s the memories of other touches, and the lustful, wicked glint in devilish eyes.
*
He doesn’t love her enough. She’s not sure if he knows that, but she does. It felt so good to begin with. They fell together, lost themselves in each other. They were lovers as lovers should be, full of reckless abandon and giddy delight in each other’s touch. But a shadow crept between them, a sceptre in red velvet with eyes dark enough to drown in. Her child-love gutters in the face of a darker passion.
She thought he could save her. But as he holds her close and refuses to meet her eyes, she knows he won’t. He can’t. Because in the end, he doesn’t even want to save himself.
*
He wishes he could pretend. Wishes he could fool himself for just one more moment, pretend he wanted the purity of the love the bards sing about. Pretend it was perfect. Pretend there wasn’t a gaping hole where his heart should have been.
But he can’t. He’s tried, he’s always tried, tried to lie to himself and to everyone else, but he can’t anymore. Can’t pretend that when he holds her he isn’t closing his eyes and conjuring a ghost of what he could have had.
Can’t pretend he isn’t thinking of the devil as he takes an angel in his arms.
So if she hesitates before she breathes his name, if her voice catches on the first syllable as her tongue tangles on the word, if she has to pause to think before she comes apart in his arms, if she has to bite her lip until it bleeds to keep herself from whispering betrayals, he doesn’t mind.
Because the name he mouths into her hair tastes better than hers ever will.