Micheletto decided to pledge himself to Cesare Borgia in under sixty seconds for a variety of reasons, most of which were reasonable, like:
1) Working for the pope’s son is a better gig than working for a cardinal who may or may not succeed in killing the pope and then staying in favor once a new pope is anointed
2) Probably it would pay better
3) Cesare seems wayy more competent than Orsini, since Orsini hired Micheletto specifically to do this poisoning thing that Micheletto’s kind of doubtful about, which has resulted, obviously, in Cesare catching Micheletto in the act
4) and Micheletto absolutely values competence, and would rather work for someone who knows what the fuck he’s doing and won’t send Micheletto on assassination trips likely to get him killed.
5) This particular assassination attempt is doomed anyway, so why not make the best of things
Headcanon B: what I think is fucking hilarious
Micheletto decided to pledge himself to Cesare Borgia in under sixty seconds because:
1) Cesare looked at him like this:
grinning and breathless and visibly having fun, almost as fast as Micheletto and just as cruel.
2) Cesare kept grinning at him when he shoved Micheletto into a wall with his hand on the back of Micheletto’s neck like he was a fucking dog
3) and Micheletto, an obvious masochist and brutally stupid romantic, fell in love instantly.
4) While I think this is fucking hilarious, I also absolutely believe it’s true.
Headcanon C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
There’s a world where Micheletto chooses Pascal instead of Cesare.
He’s happy, in that world.
Headcanon D: what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Micheletto, the most A Poet a person can possibly be while being absolutely illiterate, ghost-writes the poems of Pietro Bembo while living in Ferrara as Lucrezia’s personal bodyguard/secret pet assassin, Cyrano de Bergerac style. As in, he sits there and brusquely, scowlingly dictates these lush gorgeous love poems to Bembo, who writes them down and sends them to Lucrezia.
Some way to stop seeing bowler hats or glowing cigarette butts from the
corners of his eye. Sometimes he swore he could smell them, unwashed
bodies muted with mud, a godawful stench really, but his godawful stench. His men.
“And he did indeed look very fine. You’re still better.” He rocked up onto his toes and kissed Bucky’s cheek. “Go tell ‘em Mister Stark approves and appreciates the rush job.”
Thankfully, Pepper simply laughed instead of taking offense. “Good heavens, your mother is almost as bad as mine! I didn’t even know she read the New York papers until she called and asked me all about you after the gala. Next thing I know she’s going to be unearthing the hope chest she started for me when I was sixteen.”
“Jus’ go to the tenth floor,” he said, he said, slurring a little; vodka always went to his head, along with whiskey, tequila, and scopolamine. “I can get you the right sort of gun.”
“These are special, aren’t they?“
Steve raised his eyes to meet Buck’s, then, and
he held Buck’s gaze for a long, still moment before he nodded and turned away.
He carefully laid the two pennies in the exact center of the big table, side by
side, two bright glints in that dark expanse.
“Yes, Master,” Harold says. “Forgive me, Master.”
He lets John take some of his weight, walking down from the stage. A bittersweet feeling: trust John doesn’t deserve.
There’s a wry expression on Arthur’s face as he watches the
two of them leave, Merlin hanging on Cenred’s arm. He hates himself for putting
Merlin in this position.
Unbeknownst to him, someone else is also watching them leave
from across the room, and the smile playing on her lips signals doom.
“There is no such thing as dignity in death. Their brains
have stopped functioning, everything they are, were or ever could’ve
been is already gone, all that’s left is a rotting pile of meat.”
He gave his sister a disturbed
look and watched her cringe, aware of her own morbidity.
“Sorry, that
was… insensitive.”
Nothing about him particularly was in disarray, but he felt rumpled. The stain on his shirt, garishly red under the fluorescent lights, had already set but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
There were more difficult things to deal with now.
“You
are not among the plethora of the faceless. I know you may not have wished it,
and perhaps I am partially to blame for the circumstance, but your involvement
with the auxilia has undoubtedly caused many to notice you as an individual.
All it takes is a particular person recognizing you as a man with an identity
and your value alters its state.”
More vultures moved in, and a flock of gulls gusted away with the wind. In the corner of Will’s eye they appeared a great winged cloud, flapping and calling to each other. The stranger closed his sketchpad and stood, his feet meeting sand as he walked away.
Dessert was passion fruit mousse and chocolate ganache tarts, served with a selection of cheeses and sweet wines. It was well past midnight, and when he was accosted by the ruckus of guests falling, uproariously, into the swimming pool fully clothed, Will Graham decided abruptly that he had had enough.
He showed himself to the kitchens.
Thomas touches the tips of his fingers to his jaw, just beneath his ear. The barely-there contact sends a stubborn shiver of yearning through his chest. “We have never been able to keep each other safe,” Thomas says quietly.
Micheletto’s gaze flicked down to follow the path of
Cesare’s hand, then looked back to his eyes, patient.
Cesare pressed his lips together, considering. He needed…he didn’t know what he needed.
“What would you ask of me, my lord?” Micheletto asked
quietly.
I’m rewatching the first season of Borgias because my brain is a staticky mess from churning out 5K of original stuff in 6 hours today, but like.
Listen.
Am I gonna be the one to write a plotless thing about Cesare’s thoughts on the scars on Micheletto’s back and Claiming and Micheletto as a cherished weapon and about how scars are the heraldic symbol of Cesare’s own house.
It is a stupid risk, but Micheletto takes it anyway, follows a boy out from under his lord’s nose to an abandoned palace. What is he alive for, except for stupid risks like these. If he had wanted a safe life, he could have stayed in Forlí, and married Violetta the miller’s daughter.
It is a very pleasant interlude. The boy is a sweet, fine thing–finer than anything made for gutter trash like him, and almost unsettlingly tender.
He returns seamlessly to his lord’s side when the pleasure is done, and that evening reports some of the curiosities of da Vinci’s workshop, only himself left in Cesare Borgia’s war tent. Cesare listens to him for a while, sipping at Ludovico Sforza’s wine, and then abruptly he turns to Micheletto and says: “You fucked that boy.” It isn’t a question.
Micheletto freezes, utter dread and a strange, savage relief flooding him in dual measure. He has feared exactly this for so many years, and now it has happened. His lord knows the truth of him. There is nothing left to fear. He unbuckles his dagger and drops to his knees before his lord, pressing the point to his heart. “Kill me quickly,” he manages, offering Cesare the hilt. “Please.”
A hand joins his on the dagger’s hilt, Cesare’s fingers brushing his, and then Cesare is drawing it away from him, setting the blade aside. “There will be no killing,” his lord says quietly. “God’s wounds, Micheletto. Did you think I did not know?”
Micheletto raises his head sharply, and finds Cesare looking at him with the concentration he usually reserves for matters of state. His voice, when he can bring himself to speak, is hoarse. “You knew. How long have you known?”
Cesare shrugs, but doesn’t break their eye contact. “How long have you been in my service?”
Micheletto has trained himself too well to move, but he feels that like a blow. All these years. All the care, all the terror, and for nothing. “My lord wanted to know about the boy,” he says stupidly.
“Mm,” Cesare agrees. “I marked him. Machiavelli did, too. You must take greater care, my sweet assassin.”
The only answer Micheletto can make to that is a nod, stiff and humiliated.
Cesare tilts his head to the side, curiosity filling his face. “You will not see him again.” It isn’t a command, but it also is not a question. Micheletto shakes his head anyway. “And you have no lover in Rome.”
“Love is not–for men like me,” Micheletto says haltingly.
“Oh?” Cesare raises his eyebrows. “So you do not love me?”
He can make no answer to that, his tongue gone dry in his mouth. He is suddenly very conscious that he is still on his knees.
Cesare smiles at him. He sounds amused, but his eyes are sharp. “Either you know or you don’t.”
Micheletto finds his voice at last, swallowing hard. “I would need a heart for that, my lord.”
“Ah,” his lord says, drawing the word out. “Of course. I had forgotten.”
words-writ-in-starlight asked: WHY DID I LET YOU TALK ME INTO THIS, THERE IS NOTHING HERE BUT PAIN. I mean also that scene where Micheletto tells Paolo to tell him of love and claims to know nothing of it makes me really need to write some stuff for like the first season, BUT MY POINT STILL STANDS.
OH GOD I FORGOT ABOUT THE SCENE WHERE MICHELETTO AGGRESSIVELY ASKS PAOLO TO TELL HIM ABOUT LOVE. HE’S TRYING TO WEB MD HIS OWN EMOTIONS. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH
The sheer amount of scheming that everyone is managing to fit into individual letters here
Cesare and Lucrezia
This also covers the previous episode, but Lucrezia Borgia and Giulia Farnese, CEO and COO of Badass Ladies In Elaborately Elegant Dresses Incorporated (aka BLEED Inc)
Cesare and Sister Martha (I am SO PROUD of them for making the obvious Abelard and Heloise reference by the by)
Their gleeful advantage-taking of the fact that this particular French king was called Charles the Affable which is hilarious to me
Watching Cesare needle Della Rovere
Micheletto’s line “Then I am servant to a hostage, Your Eminence” I AM DEAD
So I’m all of four episodes into Borgias, and I’ve got an important question.
WHERE is my fic taking ruthless advantage of Cesare’s need for power and Micheletto’s utter loyalty? With the two of them having sex with deeply fucked-up power dynamics and probably a lot of unnerving knife imagery? About how Micheletto goes to his knees and does what Cesare commands because Cesare in his rich robes and wolf-smile is all the God Micheletto needs or wants, and about how Cesare knows that Micheletto could kill him in a heartbeat and would still place a straight razor in Micheletto’s hand and offer up his throat to be shaved with absolute knowledge that Micheletto won’t even nick the skin? About how Cesare could put a knife to Micheletto’s chest and Micheletto wouldn’t even flinch?
words-writ-in-starlight asked: I am ONE AND A HALF EPISODES into Borgias and that scene where Micheletto hands Cesare a whip and orders him to torture him is so??? Do I ship this? Is this a thing I ship? "So whip me, My Lord" I? This show was such a quality rec on your part, I love it.
