abandon hope, all thee who enter here...
Jul. 30th, 2010 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
communi_kateTitle: The Seventh Circle
Fandom: Assassin's Creed
Rating: 18
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Explicit M/M sex
Summary: Ezio and Leonardo have a conversation, and then they...have a conversation. if you know what I mean. Slash.
It was a blustery January evening when Ezio crawled through the second floor window of Leonardo's atelier. Leonardo heard the Assassin's footsteps on the floor above his studio -Ezio was quiet, but not that quiet-and lowered his brush with a sigh. "Ezio?"
"Salute, Leonardo."
"I am working," Leonardo called back. In fact he wasn't; he was failing to work. Unfinished sketches covered the boxes stacked around his feet. The painting-the frustrating, maddening, unfinished painting- sat on an easel in the centre of the floor. He sighed again. "Who are you running from this time, amico mio?"
He heard the floorboards above his head creak as Ezio crossed the floor. The Assassin appeared a second later at the top of the ladder that led to the attic. He was drying his hair vigorously with one of Leonardo's shirts. "Do I have to be running from somebody to knock at your door?"
"Usually, yes." Leonardo replied. "Though I admit that I cannot remember the last time you used the door."
Ezio's smile widened into a grin. "Assassins prefer windows," he said as he swung himself through the hole in the ceiling and climbed down the ladder. He moved more gingerly than was usual. Leonardo's eyes narrowed. "You're injured?"
Ezio rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt to display a narrow bandage. "Not badly."
"You-"
"I've been to a doctor. It's fine. "
Leonardo raised an eyebrow. "Knowing Venetian doctors as I do, I doubt it. Murderers and-"
"And thieves. Yes, I know. But I refuse to try any more of your strange inventions."
"The mouldy bread poultice worked," Leonardo said defensively.
"It worked. I would feel better if I knew why it worked." Ezio sat down on a box and began to unlace his bracers. "At least the doctors have reasons for treating as they do."
"Reasons?"
"They talk of the four humours and of God." Ezio said without looking up.
Leonardo shrugged. "And you believe them?"
Ezio mimicked his gesture. "As much as any man. I have my doubts about the humours. As for God-well, I am only an Assassin. I leave that talk to the priests." He paused, staring at the painting. "Speaking of priests, the last time that I saw you, you were working on a Madonna for the brothers of San Michele. What happened to that?"
Leonardo waved a hand vaguely around the crowded atelier. "It's in here somewhere," he said. "This is a new commission. What do you think?"
"Interesting," Ezio said politely.
Leonardo set down his palette. "I can't get the smile right."
"It's the eyes that worry me," Ezio said. "They follow you around. But the smile reminds me of Caterina." He cocked his head. "I like it. Who's it for?"
"Francesco del Gioconda," Leonardo told him. "If I ever finish it. It's been two years already. "
"They say on the streets that your paintings are heirlooms." Ezio swiped a rag from a hessian sack piled among the boxes. He flicked a catch on his bracers. The hidden blades concealed between the layers of leather and steel sprang out. Leonardo glimpsed a smear of crimson on one blade before the Assassin quickly wiped it away.
"I'm flattered," he said."Heirlooms? Really?"
Ezio smirked. "Si. You take so long to finish a portrait that the commissioners' grandchildren get the paintings."
Leonardo ignored him. "Great paintings take time, Ezio," he said.
"Other painters are quicker."
"Other painters can do whatever they want."
Ezio yawned unrepentantly. His gaze wandered across the piles of boxes and books, the stacks of half-finished paintings and the litter of plaster busts and sketches that filled the small room to its ceiling in places. "Of course, you might merely have mislaid your finished paintings in this mess. Have you ever considered tidying up?"
"No," Leonardo said.
Ezio shrugged. "No matter. I'll stay, if there's space." He yawned again. "Scusi. It's been a long day."
"For you, there's always space," Leonardo said automatically. He pushed a pile of papers to the side with his toes and wondered if there really was space and if so, how he would go about finding it. "Take my bed," he offered.
"If you're sure," Ezio said doubtfully.
"I'm sure. Although if you make any more remarks about my paintings I might just change my mind."
Ezio sketched a bow. "There is nobody else in Firenze-no, in the whole of Italy- who can paint as well as you." He raised an eyebrow. "Good enough?"
"True enough," Leonardo agreed.
Ezio grinned and vanished upstairs. Leonardo settled in for a long cold night.
He had thought about finishing the painting, but was sane enough to realize that in his current state he would only make a mess. Instead he cleaned his brushes in a jar of linseed oil and wiped them carefully with soft rags. He hung a sheet over the painting to protect it from dust and rats. On the whole, Leonardo decided, he liked it better covered up.
He poured himself a cup of wine, wrapped himself in a blanket and perched on the window-sill. The canal water sucked at the foundations of the building as he reached for a creased book of poetry.
The book was old and well-read. Its margins were thick with intricate sketches of heroes, gods and demons. Leonardo had illuminated the capital letters of each canto in the traditional style. Mischievous little devils swung from the curls of the lowercase y's and posed with aplomb on the top of the capital T's. Their acrobatics reminded Leonardo of Ezio, who was no doubt asleep in his bed at that very moment.
Leonardo shook his head. He picked up a pencil and flicked to the well-thumbed fifteenth canto of Dante's Inferno. "Firenze," he muttered, "where such a den of wickedness is built."
The canto did not help his mood. Leonardo sighed and turned to another page. When he realised that he had begun to sketch Ezio's face on every cavorting demon he sighed again and lowered the pencil. Wrapping the blanket more securely around him, he wedged himself between the wall and a pile of notebooks and blew out the lamp.
He had thought it would be easy to sleep on the floor. It was not. The room was too cold. When Leonardo wrapped himself more tightly in his blanket, it became too hot. The floor was far too hard. Draughts of freezing air blew between the loose boards. Leonardo made a mental note to keep the atelier in better repair. It was a promise that he made to himself every winter and broke just as easily every spring.
After an hour of tossing and turning on the bare floorboards, Leonardo sighed and moved upstairs.
Ezio was already asleep in Leonardo's bed. The Assassin slept as silently as the dead and did not even snore. A narrow path marked his passage from the window to the trapdoor in the floor and back to the bed. Half-finished paintings and scale models of Leonardo's experiments were strewn across the floor. There was no room for Leonardo. There was barely room for the bed.
Leonardo sighed. He gave up. Clutching the copy of Dante like a crucifix, he crawled onto the pallet next to Ezio. He picked up a sheet from the floor and rolled it into a narrow cylinder. Once it was folded to his satisfaction he shoved it between them, just in case Ezio rolled over and tried to stab him in his sleep.
Scudding clouds flecked a sickle moon through the frayed and threadbare curtains.
I'll never be able to sleep here, Leonardo thought, and immediately fell asleep.
He woke late the next morning. Ezio was still asleep. He had not moved a muscle. Leonardo blinked and rolled over to check the rise and fall of the Assassin's chest. Ezio appeared to be sleeping soundly. He was pleased to see that there were no bloodstains on the bandage. Maybe the Assassin's doctor had done a good job after all.
Leonardo yawned and wondered what to do. He had slept in shirt and breeches; now he slid a hand up under his shirt and scratched at his ribs before flopping back down. He knew that he should gather the rest of his clothes and creep down to his studio to paint before Ezio woke. Instead he reached for a sheaf of cheap paper and stub of charcoal. His fingers flew over the paper. Ezio so rarely stayed still, and-
-what was that smell?
Leonardo looked around suspiciously. He had a habit of leaving half-finished meals around his lodgings during fits of inspiration, but those that he could see had been eaten by mice long ago. The scent of oil paint and turpentine drifted up from the study below, but Leonardo did not even notice them. Taking a deep breath, he leant over Ezio, sniffed his hair and recoiled. The Assassin smelled like canal water. Or at least, Leonardo decided, he smelled mostly like canal water. The scent of warm skin and worn leather hovered like a base layer under a thicker gloss of mildew and rainwater. Leonardo wondered what Ezio had been up to and decided shortly after that he didn't want to know.
Ezio muttered something and rolled over. Bruises dappled his ribs. Leonardo's fingers itched for a box of paints. He'd shade Ezio's hair in burnt sienna and terracotta, shadow the wounds in with carmine and a hint of viridian, or just leave them out all together.
He did the best he could with paper, charcoal and chalk. The memories of a dozen anatomical dissections raced through his mind as he meticulously sketched each muscle. Each Latin name carried the faint sting of formaldehyde.
Ezio slept on. The shadows raced across the floor and vanished altogether as the sun rose beneath a blanket of thick cloud. Leonardo ran out of paper at the same time as his charcoal broke. The light was good for drawing: not too bright, and he considered his options. He could climb over Ezio and fetch a new pad, maybe his paints, and risk waking him...
Ezio muttered something in his sleep. He rolled over again and came to rest sprawled out like a starfish, all legs and limbs. Leonardo noticed a bruise on his forehead. Violet and madder, he decided, then wondered if he had any witch hazel in the studio. He probably did, but whether he could find it was a whole different matter.
Ezio twitched. His eyes tracked rapidly back and forth under his closed eyelids. Dreaming, Leonardo thought. He lay back down, crooked a hand around the back of his neck and stared out of the window. He lost himself in the play of light on water for a while before Ezio's outstretched hand touched his arm.
Leonardo spun around. He opened his mouth to explain himself before he realised that the Assassin was still asleep. The crumpled copy of Dante was still on the windowsill. Leonardo pushed his hands behind him, sat up and reached for it.
Or, at least, he tried to.
His hand touched the cover just as Ezio awoke. The Assassin moved like a panther. As Leonardo went to rise himself, he rolled on top of Leonardo and kissed him. Hard.
It was simultaneously the most arousing and the most terrifying moment of Leonardo's life. He dared not move, but he dared not not move. He had rather less control over a certain part of his body. The sheet he had placed between them had helpfully vanished.
He judged that the Assassin had been thinking about someone else from the rather startled "Leonardo?"
"Merda," Leonardo said softly.
Ezio stared down at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Tangled hair obscured his eyes. "What are you doing here?" He did not move away. Leonardo enjoyed the warmth of the Assassin's lean body against him for a brief second before he said hurriedly "I can explain."
"Oh. How?"
Leonardo hesitated. He wondered whether he could, and then whether he should. After all, it was Ezio who had kissed him, not the other way around. The Assassin did not need to know that Leonardo had wanted him to.
For years, Leonardo's traitor mind suggested."There wasn't enough room on the floor," he explained. Ezio had not moved, and the pressure in Leonardo's groin was making it increasingly hard to think. "Um. I didn't have any burnt sienna, you see." He wondered if Ezio had failed to notice his arousal. Dio, wasn't it obvious?
The Assassin just stared. Leonardo expected him to curse, or at least roll over, but he did not move. When more than a minute passed without a word from Ezio, Leonardo decided that it was obviously all a dream.
If this was a dream, it didn't matter what he did. So he might as well do what he wanted.
He reached up to touch the back of Ezio's neck. His fingers knotted in tangled hair. "Avvicinati."
Their kiss was sweet and gentle and quite unlike the last time.
Ezio might have smelt of canal water, but he tasted of sweat and musk. Leonardo held his breath. He would have sketched the moment if he could, but the greatest painter in the world would not have been able to record the sweet ache in his groin, the heat of the watery sun on his face and the small sounds of pigeons' wings beating like angels in the rafters as Venezia, new cleaned by the rains, sparkled outside his window.
Ezio's breath was ragged.
Abandon all hope, Leonardo thought, all those who enter here.
He realized for the first time that it wasn't all a dream. He still did not let go of Ezio's neck.
"Oh come here," Ezio said. He dipped his head and kissed Leonardo hard on his throat. It was more of a bite than anything else, quite different from the touch of a woman's lips, and it made Leonardo's eyes roll back into his head. He blinked and chewed his lip, wondering if he dared go further.
For I would never forgive myself, he thought, if I gambled Ezio's friendship and lost it on the hope of something more.
His hand moved downwards anyway. The Assassin's slender, wiry body was as lean as a greyhound. It angled, Leonardo discovered, in most interesting places.
I shouldn't, he thought. "His hand moved as he spoke. "I-I-well, uh."
Ezio closed his eyes. His voice was dazed with something more than sleep. "Silencio,-just...Dio, Leonardo! What-?"
Leonardo had to concentrate to keep his own voice steady. "I-well, it's just-" He reached up to run a hand through his hand and ended up stroking Ezio's instead. "You do know that there is a better way to do this?"
Ezio's eyes sharpened. "What did you have in mind?"
Leonardo had to prevent himself from drawing up a list of options right then and there, each with their pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages. "Um-it's just." He decided to stick to the basics. "Have you ever-?" He raised his eyebrows and, mentally damning himself, made a gesture that was unmistakeably obscene.
"Just with women."
That did surprise Leonardo. He mentally revised his list of expectations. He had not thought any youth could survive for long in Firenze without a little experimentation. "I-mmm. Let me put this a better way. Have you ever wondered what you're missing?"
Ezio's expression betrayed the fact that he had not. "Not yet."
Leonardo's list diminished further. He glanced at Ezio, who smelled of sleep and a little of sex and looked so...so Ezio that Leonardo had to restrain himself from sliding down the bed and showing the Assassin exactly what he had been missing.. "Do you want to?"
Ezio looked uncertain for a moment. Then he nodded. It was unlike him, Leonardo thought, to be so quiet, but then there were times in your life when you really didn't have to say anything. Leonardo was content to stay silent himself. He was sure that Ezio would let him know if he crossed the line.
Hopefully, Leonardo thought wryly, in a non-lethal fashion. .
"Come here," he said, his voice steadying. "Avvicinati. No, not like that. Sit there." There was just enough room in the clutter for him to kneel between the Assassin's splayed thighs. He tugged at the laces of Ezio's breeches with paint-stained fingers. Ezio raised one eyebrow but did nothing to stop him. When the Assassin's breeches were around his ankles Leonardo said "Tell me if you want to stop," and ducked his head.
"I think I'll wait and –" Ezio's teeth bared as Leonardo took him in his mouth. He hissed out the last word through his teeth. "See."
Leonardo ignored the words. He was concentrating. Oh, he had done it before, but never with somebody he cared about this much.
He wondered if Ezio was being patient just to humour him, wondered if he genuinely didn't know what to do and decided after a while that it didn't matter. He looked up at Ezio through his lashes and a mess of tangled hair, splayed his hands out over his thighs and took him in deeper. Ezio yelped. His hands twisted in the sheets. "Aaaah. Dio, Leonardo. No, don't stop-"
Leonardo complied. Ezio tilted his head back. His eyes slid closed. The muscles in his thighs jerked under Leonardo's hands. His expression was one of near-religious ecstasy. Leonardo wondered if it would be blasphemous to add Ezio's face to one of his paintings, and decided that probably was. He didn't care. Ezio would make a good Saint Sebastian. All Leonardo would have to do was add some arrows. Nobody would know.
Nobody except him.
He took Ezio's cock deep into his mouth, ran his hands up to the Assassin's hips and gripped hard.
"Aa." Ezio groaned. "Dio-I. Leonardo."
Leonardo smiled. He reached up and wrapped his hand around the base of Ezio's cock.
"Leonardo-" The Assassin's voice was sharp. He lifted his hands from the bed sheets and clenched his fists in Leonardo's hair. "Leonardo."
It was not an invitation to stop.
Leonardo rocked rhythmically. He tasted, quite suddenly, a sharp, salty taste at the back of his mouth. Ezio jerked once, held perfectly still and bit his lip. "Ngh." His muscles tensed and he surged forwards as he spent. "Dio mio."
Leonardo swallowed as tactfully as he could manage. He drew back, pulling a few stray strands of hair into his queue. His breeches tightened uncomfortably around his own cock. He shifted, but the friction only made things worse. When he could delay no longer he looked up and caught Ezio's eye.
Leonardo had expected the Assassin to look embarrassed. He had dreaded revulsion.
He had not expected Ezio to look down at him with dark eyes, slide down next to him and take Leonardo's cock in his hand. His movements were sure and practised. Leonardo wondered if he had had experience with this sort of thing and cursed himself for a fool. Of course he has. He knew that Ezio was easier with this sort of contact. He could feel it. And Dio, the Assassin was good.
Leonardo surfaced for just long enough to say "Ezio-"
"Shut up," Ezio said. His voice was still slightly hoarse. He rested his hand on Leonardo's chin and moved closer. Leonardo thought that the Assassin would kiss him. Instead he drew back, paused and bit Leonardo's neck again. And then-
And then-
Leonardo's world dissolved into pressure, heat and friction. He could feel Ezio's hip hard against his thigh, his hand on Leonardo's cock, his lips moving on his neck; whispering dirty and highly erotic suggestions into his ear, of Ezio-
Of Ezio-
Leonardo bit back a cry as he came helplessly into the cheap linen of his shirt.
When he could talk again he cleared his throat and said "That was...unexpected."
Ezio smiled. It was the same smile that Leonardo had seen hundreds of times before. "It's only polite," he said, slightly breathless himself.
"That-that was all it was? Politeness?"
"Of course not," Ezio drew back and sat against the bed with his hands dangling loosely between his thighs. Leonardo copied him. He had just settled himself into position before Ezio said "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You might have said no."
"I could have said yes."
"Would you?"
"Maybe." Ezio said. "If you'd given me any idea."
"Any idea?" Leonardo wrapped himself in the bed sheet as a draught lanced through the open window. "You never guessed?"
"Guessed what?"
"You never guessed just how long I've wanted to do that for?"
Ezio raised an eyebrow. He seemed unaffected by the cold. "How long?"
"Amico mio, I have wanted to do that since you first walked through my door in Firenze."
The Assassin looked embarrassed for the first time. "I-I did not know."
Leonardo smiled wryly. "That was rather the point. I doubt that your mother would have given me commissions if she had thought I had designs on her son."
He had the pleasure of watching Ezio's expression blank out. "Si," he agreed after a while. "She is an open-minded woman, but not that open-minded. May God grant her healing," he added, as if they hadn't spent the last quarter-hour doing things that neither the Auditore matriarch nor the Lord Jesus Christ would have approved of.
"She deserves it," Leonardo agreed. "Now be quiet." He rummaged through a box and produced a half-filled sketch pad and a fresh stick of charcoal from its contents. "I need to sketch you."
Ezio lounged back on the mattress. "I'm no model."
"I would never have guessed," Leonardo said wryly. "Now hold still."
Ezio rolled his eyes, but he complied. More or less. His eyes slid half-closed while his toes twitched like a restless cat. He wore his scars and bruises easily, although it was some time before Leonardo thought to ask about them. "What were you doing?"
Ezio shrugged. "I was in Forli," he said quietly.
"Caterina?"
"Business only." Ezio looked embarrassed for the first time. "You know that I like women."
"I've known you long enough to know that you are never going to change," Leonardo said as his charcoal stroked the paper.
"I'm not a typical Florentine, if you get my drift. But you?" Ezio looked thoughtful. "Yes. Best keep it quiet, thought. This isn't Firenze."
Leonardo remembered the particular horrors of the Inferno. "Quiet," he agreed hastily. "Yes."
Ezio lounged back on the bed. Bored, he rolled over and picked up the copy of Dante that Leonardo had left on the windowsill. "What's this?"
"Keep still," Leonardo said automatically, before he realized that reading was possibly the only thing that was likely to keep the Assassin still long enough to make a decent sketch. "Oh, read if you want."
Ezio flicked from canto to canto. "Interesting reading." He turned a page and raised his eyebrows. "Especially for you." He paused. "Us."
Leonardo shaded in the outlines of muscles. "Let me guess. The seventh circle?"
"Does it worry you?"
Leonardo hesitated. "It has crossed my mind before," he admitted. Dante had spent a great deal of time describing the horrors waiting in Hell for those who loved men more than God. Or more accurately, those men who loved men more than God.
"Hmm," Ezio said. He brightened. "Well, if we're talking hells then I'm already in the second. That's lust," he added helpfully. "Blown about by the terrible winds of a violent storm."
"I didn't know you knew Dante," Leonardo said.
The Assassin shrugged. Leonardo admired the interesting way in which his shoulder muscles moved. "My father insisted. So. We've already established that I'm in Dante's second hell. And possibly in the fourth-that's profligacy," he explained. "People who squander their possessions. I'm certainly in the fifth circle."
"Fifth circle?"
"Yes. That's where the wrathful sinners wrestle in the swamp-like depths of the river Styx. The sixth circle is for heresy, and as Borgia's the Pope, and the Hells are Catholic, I think that one's probably a given. The seventh circle's violence, so I'm in there on three counts," He ticked them off on his fingers. "Inner circle-sodomy and blasphemy. Not the middle," He shrugged. "As I recall, that's for suicide. The outer circle's for those who are violent against man. Nasty, that one, River of boiling blood. You have to admire the man's imagination. Thieves, they're in eight. Ninth is for traitors, but I think I'm safe there. Of course, that depends just how you define betrayal. So it's not so much that I'll end up there; it's how they'll sort me out." He shrugged again. "I expect they'll manage."
Leonardo shook his head. "I don't understand how you can take it so lightly."
"I don't understand how you can't." Ezio tore a page from the book before Leonardo could stop him. He rolled the page into a thin tube. "It's just a book." He reached up and touched the tube to the flame of the oil lamp. The vellum burst into flame.
"Don't burn it!" Leonardo protested.
"Inferno? I think it's appropriate."
"It's expensive." Leonardo scribbled out a sketch and started on a new page. "Keep still."
Ezio rolled his eyes. "It's just a book. I know what's right and what's wrong without some author having to tell me."
Leonardo wished that he did. "This is right?"
"Does it feel it?"
"No," Leonardo admitted, "but in a good way. Ezio, do not do that, it is distracting. And do not move."
Ezio peered at the page. "I'm not moving," he complained.
"You are."
"Not much. And if it's the sex you're bothered about, then it's not wrong. It's not right, either. It's just sex. And it's just...different."
Leonardo paused in his drawing. "Different how?" he asked curiously.
"Different." Ezio said. He reached out, took Leonardo's sketchbook and peered down at the drawings. "This is me? It's good. But don't you think you could at least make me a little more dashing?"
"Dashing?" Leonardo said, surprised. "You are quite dashing enough."
"Not really," Ezio said. "I'm glad you think so, though. It was...good."
"Good?"
"Different. But yes, good."
"You'd try it again?"
"I might. Mario once told me that the only way to get good at something was to keep on practicing."
"I doubt Mario would approve." Leonardo's heart was suddenly in his throat. His brain was abruptly somewhere else. He swallowed. "You'd like to, um... practice more?"
"Your drawing-" Ezio held up the sketchpad.
"I can draw any time," Leonardo said hastily.
Ezio laughed. He pulled Leonardo onto the bed. The flakes of ash from the burned book settled slowly around them on the sheets, where they smudged across white sheets and bare flesh. A half-burned scrap of paper fell forgotten to the windowsill. A single line of text waved in the cold winter breeze. Lasciate ogne speranze, it read, voi ch'intrate.
Abandon hope, all thee who enter here.
Author's Note.
This one is completely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nerrianah 's fault, for challenging me to come up with a Leonardo/Ezio fic which would both be enjoyable and which would fit into my personal AC head! canon. Dialogue taken from the online version of Dante's inferno. Innuendo by me. As for the faces of saints in the throes of ecstasy resembling people in the throes of passion, have you ever seen the statue The ecstasy of St.Theresa?
Abandon hope, all thee who enter here is a famous quote from the Inferno itself and should be the motto of all those who write/read Internet slash fanfiction. I was quite surprised how hard I found it to write.
Fandom: Assassin's Creed
Rating: 18
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Explicit M/M sex
Summary: Ezio and Leonardo have a conversation, and then they...have a conversation. if you know what I mean. Slash.
The Seventh Circle
An Assassin's Creed 2 fan fiction by xahra99
An Assassin's Creed 2 fan fiction by xahra99
It was a blustery January evening when Ezio crawled through the second floor window of Leonardo's atelier. Leonardo heard the Assassin's footsteps on the floor above his studio -Ezio was quiet, but not that quiet-and lowered his brush with a sigh. "Ezio?"
"Salute, Leonardo."
"I am working," Leonardo called back. In fact he wasn't; he was failing to work. Unfinished sketches covered the boxes stacked around his feet. The painting-the frustrating, maddening, unfinished painting- sat on an easel in the centre of the floor. He sighed again. "Who are you running from this time, amico mio?"
He heard the floorboards above his head creak as Ezio crossed the floor. The Assassin appeared a second later at the top of the ladder that led to the attic. He was drying his hair vigorously with one of Leonardo's shirts. "Do I have to be running from somebody to knock at your door?"
"Usually, yes." Leonardo replied. "Though I admit that I cannot remember the last time you used the door."
Ezio's smile widened into a grin. "Assassins prefer windows," he said as he swung himself through the hole in the ceiling and climbed down the ladder. He moved more gingerly than was usual. Leonardo's eyes narrowed. "You're injured?"
Ezio rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt to display a narrow bandage. "Not badly."
"You-"
"I've been to a doctor. It's fine. "
Leonardo raised an eyebrow. "Knowing Venetian doctors as I do, I doubt it. Murderers and-"
"And thieves. Yes, I know. But I refuse to try any more of your strange inventions."
"The mouldy bread poultice worked," Leonardo said defensively.
"It worked. I would feel better if I knew why it worked." Ezio sat down on a box and began to unlace his bracers. "At least the doctors have reasons for treating as they do."
"Reasons?"
"They talk of the four humours and of God." Ezio said without looking up.
Leonardo shrugged. "And you believe them?"
Ezio mimicked his gesture. "As much as any man. I have my doubts about the humours. As for God-well, I am only an Assassin. I leave that talk to the priests." He paused, staring at the painting. "Speaking of priests, the last time that I saw you, you were working on a Madonna for the brothers of San Michele. What happened to that?"
Leonardo waved a hand vaguely around the crowded atelier. "It's in here somewhere," he said. "This is a new commission. What do you think?"
"Interesting," Ezio said politely.
Leonardo set down his palette. "I can't get the smile right."
"It's the eyes that worry me," Ezio said. "They follow you around. But the smile reminds me of Caterina." He cocked his head. "I like it. Who's it for?"
"Francesco del Gioconda," Leonardo told him. "If I ever finish it. It's been two years already. "
"They say on the streets that your paintings are heirlooms." Ezio swiped a rag from a hessian sack piled among the boxes. He flicked a catch on his bracers. The hidden blades concealed between the layers of leather and steel sprang out. Leonardo glimpsed a smear of crimson on one blade before the Assassin quickly wiped it away.
"I'm flattered," he said."Heirlooms? Really?"
Ezio smirked. "Si. You take so long to finish a portrait that the commissioners' grandchildren get the paintings."
Leonardo ignored him. "Great paintings take time, Ezio," he said.
"Other painters are quicker."
"Other painters can do whatever they want."
Ezio yawned unrepentantly. His gaze wandered across the piles of boxes and books, the stacks of half-finished paintings and the litter of plaster busts and sketches that filled the small room to its ceiling in places. "Of course, you might merely have mislaid your finished paintings in this mess. Have you ever considered tidying up?"
"No," Leonardo said.
Ezio shrugged. "No matter. I'll stay, if there's space." He yawned again. "Scusi. It's been a long day."
"For you, there's always space," Leonardo said automatically. He pushed a pile of papers to the side with his toes and wondered if there really was space and if so, how he would go about finding it. "Take my bed," he offered.
"If you're sure," Ezio said doubtfully.
"I'm sure. Although if you make any more remarks about my paintings I might just change my mind."
Ezio sketched a bow. "There is nobody else in Firenze-no, in the whole of Italy- who can paint as well as you." He raised an eyebrow. "Good enough?"
"True enough," Leonardo agreed.
Ezio grinned and vanished upstairs. Leonardo settled in for a long cold night.
He had thought about finishing the painting, but was sane enough to realize that in his current state he would only make a mess. Instead he cleaned his brushes in a jar of linseed oil and wiped them carefully with soft rags. He hung a sheet over the painting to protect it from dust and rats. On the whole, Leonardo decided, he liked it better covered up.
He poured himself a cup of wine, wrapped himself in a blanket and perched on the window-sill. The canal water sucked at the foundations of the building as he reached for a creased book of poetry.
The book was old and well-read. Its margins were thick with intricate sketches of heroes, gods and demons. Leonardo had illuminated the capital letters of each canto in the traditional style. Mischievous little devils swung from the curls of the lowercase y's and posed with aplomb on the top of the capital T's. Their acrobatics reminded Leonardo of Ezio, who was no doubt asleep in his bed at that very moment.
Leonardo shook his head. He picked up a pencil and flicked to the well-thumbed fifteenth canto of Dante's Inferno. "Firenze," he muttered, "where such a den of wickedness is built."
The canto did not help his mood. Leonardo sighed and turned to another page. When he realised that he had begun to sketch Ezio's face on every cavorting demon he sighed again and lowered the pencil. Wrapping the blanket more securely around him, he wedged himself between the wall and a pile of notebooks and blew out the lamp.
He had thought it would be easy to sleep on the floor. It was not. The room was too cold. When Leonardo wrapped himself more tightly in his blanket, it became too hot. The floor was far too hard. Draughts of freezing air blew between the loose boards. Leonardo made a mental note to keep the atelier in better repair. It was a promise that he made to himself every winter and broke just as easily every spring.
After an hour of tossing and turning on the bare floorboards, Leonardo sighed and moved upstairs.
Ezio was already asleep in Leonardo's bed. The Assassin slept as silently as the dead and did not even snore. A narrow path marked his passage from the window to the trapdoor in the floor and back to the bed. Half-finished paintings and scale models of Leonardo's experiments were strewn across the floor. There was no room for Leonardo. There was barely room for the bed.
Leonardo sighed. He gave up. Clutching the copy of Dante like a crucifix, he crawled onto the pallet next to Ezio. He picked up a sheet from the floor and rolled it into a narrow cylinder. Once it was folded to his satisfaction he shoved it between them, just in case Ezio rolled over and tried to stab him in his sleep.
Scudding clouds flecked a sickle moon through the frayed and threadbare curtains.
I'll never be able to sleep here, Leonardo thought, and immediately fell asleep.
He woke late the next morning. Ezio was still asleep. He had not moved a muscle. Leonardo blinked and rolled over to check the rise and fall of the Assassin's chest. Ezio appeared to be sleeping soundly. He was pleased to see that there were no bloodstains on the bandage. Maybe the Assassin's doctor had done a good job after all.
Leonardo yawned and wondered what to do. He had slept in shirt and breeches; now he slid a hand up under his shirt and scratched at his ribs before flopping back down. He knew that he should gather the rest of his clothes and creep down to his studio to paint before Ezio woke. Instead he reached for a sheaf of cheap paper and stub of charcoal. His fingers flew over the paper. Ezio so rarely stayed still, and-
-what was that smell?
Leonardo looked around suspiciously. He had a habit of leaving half-finished meals around his lodgings during fits of inspiration, but those that he could see had been eaten by mice long ago. The scent of oil paint and turpentine drifted up from the study below, but Leonardo did not even notice them. Taking a deep breath, he leant over Ezio, sniffed his hair and recoiled. The Assassin smelled like canal water. Or at least, Leonardo decided, he smelled mostly like canal water. The scent of warm skin and worn leather hovered like a base layer under a thicker gloss of mildew and rainwater. Leonardo wondered what Ezio had been up to and decided shortly after that he didn't want to know.
Ezio muttered something and rolled over. Bruises dappled his ribs. Leonardo's fingers itched for a box of paints. He'd shade Ezio's hair in burnt sienna and terracotta, shadow the wounds in with carmine and a hint of viridian, or just leave them out all together.
He did the best he could with paper, charcoal and chalk. The memories of a dozen anatomical dissections raced through his mind as he meticulously sketched each muscle. Each Latin name carried the faint sting of formaldehyde.
Ezio slept on. The shadows raced across the floor and vanished altogether as the sun rose beneath a blanket of thick cloud. Leonardo ran out of paper at the same time as his charcoal broke. The light was good for drawing: not too bright, and he considered his options. He could climb over Ezio and fetch a new pad, maybe his paints, and risk waking him...
Ezio muttered something in his sleep. He rolled over again and came to rest sprawled out like a starfish, all legs and limbs. Leonardo noticed a bruise on his forehead. Violet and madder, he decided, then wondered if he had any witch hazel in the studio. He probably did, but whether he could find it was a whole different matter.
Ezio twitched. His eyes tracked rapidly back and forth under his closed eyelids. Dreaming, Leonardo thought. He lay back down, crooked a hand around the back of his neck and stared out of the window. He lost himself in the play of light on water for a while before Ezio's outstretched hand touched his arm.
Leonardo spun around. He opened his mouth to explain himself before he realised that the Assassin was still asleep. The crumpled copy of Dante was still on the windowsill. Leonardo pushed his hands behind him, sat up and reached for it.
Or, at least, he tried to.
His hand touched the cover just as Ezio awoke. The Assassin moved like a panther. As Leonardo went to rise himself, he rolled on top of Leonardo and kissed him. Hard.
It was simultaneously the most arousing and the most terrifying moment of Leonardo's life. He dared not move, but he dared not not move. He had rather less control over a certain part of his body. The sheet he had placed between them had helpfully vanished.
He judged that the Assassin had been thinking about someone else from the rather startled "Leonardo?"
"Merda," Leonardo said softly.
Ezio stared down at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Tangled hair obscured his eyes. "What are you doing here?" He did not move away. Leonardo enjoyed the warmth of the Assassin's lean body against him for a brief second before he said hurriedly "I can explain."
"Oh. How?"
Leonardo hesitated. He wondered whether he could, and then whether he should. After all, it was Ezio who had kissed him, not the other way around. The Assassin did not need to know that Leonardo had wanted him to.
For years, Leonardo's traitor mind suggested."There wasn't enough room on the floor," he explained. Ezio had not moved, and the pressure in Leonardo's groin was making it increasingly hard to think. "Um. I didn't have any burnt sienna, you see." He wondered if Ezio had failed to notice his arousal. Dio, wasn't it obvious?
The Assassin just stared. Leonardo expected him to curse, or at least roll over, but he did not move. When more than a minute passed without a word from Ezio, Leonardo decided that it was obviously all a dream.
If this was a dream, it didn't matter what he did. So he might as well do what he wanted.
He reached up to touch the back of Ezio's neck. His fingers knotted in tangled hair. "Avvicinati."
Their kiss was sweet and gentle and quite unlike the last time.
Ezio might have smelt of canal water, but he tasted of sweat and musk. Leonardo held his breath. He would have sketched the moment if he could, but the greatest painter in the world would not have been able to record the sweet ache in his groin, the heat of the watery sun on his face and the small sounds of pigeons' wings beating like angels in the rafters as Venezia, new cleaned by the rains, sparkled outside his window.
Ezio's breath was ragged.
Abandon all hope, Leonardo thought, all those who enter here.
He realized for the first time that it wasn't all a dream. He still did not let go of Ezio's neck.
"Oh come here," Ezio said. He dipped his head and kissed Leonardo hard on his throat. It was more of a bite than anything else, quite different from the touch of a woman's lips, and it made Leonardo's eyes roll back into his head. He blinked and chewed his lip, wondering if he dared go further.
For I would never forgive myself, he thought, if I gambled Ezio's friendship and lost it on the hope of something more.
His hand moved downwards anyway. The Assassin's slender, wiry body was as lean as a greyhound. It angled, Leonardo discovered, in most interesting places.
I shouldn't, he thought. "His hand moved as he spoke. "I-I-well, uh."
Ezio closed his eyes. His voice was dazed with something more than sleep. "Silencio,-just...Dio, Leonardo! What-?"
Leonardo had to concentrate to keep his own voice steady. "I-well, it's just-" He reached up to run a hand through his hand and ended up stroking Ezio's instead. "You do know that there is a better way to do this?"
Ezio's eyes sharpened. "What did you have in mind?"
Leonardo had to prevent himself from drawing up a list of options right then and there, each with their pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages. "Um-it's just." He decided to stick to the basics. "Have you ever-?" He raised his eyebrows and, mentally damning himself, made a gesture that was unmistakeably obscene.
"Just with women."
That did surprise Leonardo. He mentally revised his list of expectations. He had not thought any youth could survive for long in Firenze without a little experimentation. "I-mmm. Let me put this a better way. Have you ever wondered what you're missing?"
Ezio's expression betrayed the fact that he had not. "Not yet."
Leonardo's list diminished further. He glanced at Ezio, who smelled of sleep and a little of sex and looked so...so Ezio that Leonardo had to restrain himself from sliding down the bed and showing the Assassin exactly what he had been missing.. "Do you want to?"
Ezio looked uncertain for a moment. Then he nodded. It was unlike him, Leonardo thought, to be so quiet, but then there were times in your life when you really didn't have to say anything. Leonardo was content to stay silent himself. He was sure that Ezio would let him know if he crossed the line.
Hopefully, Leonardo thought wryly, in a non-lethal fashion. .
"Come here," he said, his voice steadying. "Avvicinati. No, not like that. Sit there." There was just enough room in the clutter for him to kneel between the Assassin's splayed thighs. He tugged at the laces of Ezio's breeches with paint-stained fingers. Ezio raised one eyebrow but did nothing to stop him. When the Assassin's breeches were around his ankles Leonardo said "Tell me if you want to stop," and ducked his head.
"I think I'll wait and –" Ezio's teeth bared as Leonardo took him in his mouth. He hissed out the last word through his teeth. "See."
Leonardo ignored the words. He was concentrating. Oh, he had done it before, but never with somebody he cared about this much.
He wondered if Ezio was being patient just to humour him, wondered if he genuinely didn't know what to do and decided after a while that it didn't matter. He looked up at Ezio through his lashes and a mess of tangled hair, splayed his hands out over his thighs and took him in deeper. Ezio yelped. His hands twisted in the sheets. "Aaaah. Dio, Leonardo. No, don't stop-"
Leonardo complied. Ezio tilted his head back. His eyes slid closed. The muscles in his thighs jerked under Leonardo's hands. His expression was one of near-religious ecstasy. Leonardo wondered if it would be blasphemous to add Ezio's face to one of his paintings, and decided that probably was. He didn't care. Ezio would make a good Saint Sebastian. All Leonardo would have to do was add some arrows. Nobody would know.
Nobody except him.
He took Ezio's cock deep into his mouth, ran his hands up to the Assassin's hips and gripped hard.
"Aa." Ezio groaned. "Dio-I. Leonardo."
Leonardo smiled. He reached up and wrapped his hand around the base of Ezio's cock.
"Leonardo-" The Assassin's voice was sharp. He lifted his hands from the bed sheets and clenched his fists in Leonardo's hair. "Leonardo."
It was not an invitation to stop.
Leonardo rocked rhythmically. He tasted, quite suddenly, a sharp, salty taste at the back of his mouth. Ezio jerked once, held perfectly still and bit his lip. "Ngh." His muscles tensed and he surged forwards as he spent. "Dio mio."
Leonardo swallowed as tactfully as he could manage. He drew back, pulling a few stray strands of hair into his queue. His breeches tightened uncomfortably around his own cock. He shifted, but the friction only made things worse. When he could delay no longer he looked up and caught Ezio's eye.
Leonardo had expected the Assassin to look embarrassed. He had dreaded revulsion.
He had not expected Ezio to look down at him with dark eyes, slide down next to him and take Leonardo's cock in his hand. His movements were sure and practised. Leonardo wondered if he had had experience with this sort of thing and cursed himself for a fool. Of course he has. He knew that Ezio was easier with this sort of contact. He could feel it. And Dio, the Assassin was good.
Leonardo surfaced for just long enough to say "Ezio-"
"Shut up," Ezio said. His voice was still slightly hoarse. He rested his hand on Leonardo's chin and moved closer. Leonardo thought that the Assassin would kiss him. Instead he drew back, paused and bit Leonardo's neck again. And then-
And then-
Leonardo's world dissolved into pressure, heat and friction. He could feel Ezio's hip hard against his thigh, his hand on Leonardo's cock, his lips moving on his neck; whispering dirty and highly erotic suggestions into his ear, of Ezio-
Of Ezio-
Leonardo bit back a cry as he came helplessly into the cheap linen of his shirt.
When he could talk again he cleared his throat and said "That was...unexpected."
Ezio smiled. It was the same smile that Leonardo had seen hundreds of times before. "It's only polite," he said, slightly breathless himself.
"That-that was all it was? Politeness?"
"Of course not," Ezio drew back and sat against the bed with his hands dangling loosely between his thighs. Leonardo copied him. He had just settled himself into position before Ezio said "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You might have said no."
"I could have said yes."
"Would you?"
"Maybe." Ezio said. "If you'd given me any idea."
"Any idea?" Leonardo wrapped himself in the bed sheet as a draught lanced through the open window. "You never guessed?"
"Guessed what?"
"You never guessed just how long I've wanted to do that for?"
Ezio raised an eyebrow. He seemed unaffected by the cold. "How long?"
"Amico mio, I have wanted to do that since you first walked through my door in Firenze."
The Assassin looked embarrassed for the first time. "I-I did not know."
Leonardo smiled wryly. "That was rather the point. I doubt that your mother would have given me commissions if she had thought I had designs on her son."
He had the pleasure of watching Ezio's expression blank out. "Si," he agreed after a while. "She is an open-minded woman, but not that open-minded. May God grant her healing," he added, as if they hadn't spent the last quarter-hour doing things that neither the Auditore matriarch nor the Lord Jesus Christ would have approved of.
"She deserves it," Leonardo agreed. "Now be quiet." He rummaged through a box and produced a half-filled sketch pad and a fresh stick of charcoal from its contents. "I need to sketch you."
Ezio lounged back on the mattress. "I'm no model."
"I would never have guessed," Leonardo said wryly. "Now hold still."
Ezio rolled his eyes, but he complied. More or less. His eyes slid half-closed while his toes twitched like a restless cat. He wore his scars and bruises easily, although it was some time before Leonardo thought to ask about them. "What were you doing?"
Ezio shrugged. "I was in Forli," he said quietly.
"Caterina?"
"Business only." Ezio looked embarrassed for the first time. "You know that I like women."
"I've known you long enough to know that you are never going to change," Leonardo said as his charcoal stroked the paper.
"I'm not a typical Florentine, if you get my drift. But you?" Ezio looked thoughtful. "Yes. Best keep it quiet, thought. This isn't Firenze."
Leonardo remembered the particular horrors of the Inferno. "Quiet," he agreed hastily. "Yes."
Ezio lounged back on the bed. Bored, he rolled over and picked up the copy of Dante that Leonardo had left on the windowsill. "What's this?"
"Keep still," Leonardo said automatically, before he realized that reading was possibly the only thing that was likely to keep the Assassin still long enough to make a decent sketch. "Oh, read if you want."
Ezio flicked from canto to canto. "Interesting reading." He turned a page and raised his eyebrows. "Especially for you." He paused. "Us."
Leonardo shaded in the outlines of muscles. "Let me guess. The seventh circle?"
"Does it worry you?"
Leonardo hesitated. "It has crossed my mind before," he admitted. Dante had spent a great deal of time describing the horrors waiting in Hell for those who loved men more than God. Or more accurately, those men who loved men more than God.
"Hmm," Ezio said. He brightened. "Well, if we're talking hells then I'm already in the second. That's lust," he added helpfully. "Blown about by the terrible winds of a violent storm."
"I didn't know you knew Dante," Leonardo said.
The Assassin shrugged. Leonardo admired the interesting way in which his shoulder muscles moved. "My father insisted. So. We've already established that I'm in Dante's second hell. And possibly in the fourth-that's profligacy," he explained. "People who squander their possessions. I'm certainly in the fifth circle."
"Fifth circle?"
"Yes. That's where the wrathful sinners wrestle in the swamp-like depths of the river Styx. The sixth circle is for heresy, and as Borgia's the Pope, and the Hells are Catholic, I think that one's probably a given. The seventh circle's violence, so I'm in there on three counts," He ticked them off on his fingers. "Inner circle-sodomy and blasphemy. Not the middle," He shrugged. "As I recall, that's for suicide. The outer circle's for those who are violent against man. Nasty, that one, River of boiling blood. You have to admire the man's imagination. Thieves, they're in eight. Ninth is for traitors, but I think I'm safe there. Of course, that depends just how you define betrayal. So it's not so much that I'll end up there; it's how they'll sort me out." He shrugged again. "I expect they'll manage."
Leonardo shook his head. "I don't understand how you can take it so lightly."
"I don't understand how you can't." Ezio tore a page from the book before Leonardo could stop him. He rolled the page into a thin tube. "It's just a book." He reached up and touched the tube to the flame of the oil lamp. The vellum burst into flame.
"Don't burn it!" Leonardo protested.
"Inferno? I think it's appropriate."
"It's expensive." Leonardo scribbled out a sketch and started on a new page. "Keep still."
Ezio rolled his eyes. "It's just a book. I know what's right and what's wrong without some author having to tell me."
Leonardo wished that he did. "This is right?"
"Does it feel it?"
"No," Leonardo admitted, "but in a good way. Ezio, do not do that, it is distracting. And do not move."
Ezio peered at the page. "I'm not moving," he complained.
"You are."
"Not much. And if it's the sex you're bothered about, then it's not wrong. It's not right, either. It's just sex. And it's just...different."
Leonardo paused in his drawing. "Different how?" he asked curiously.
"Different." Ezio said. He reached out, took Leonardo's sketchbook and peered down at the drawings. "This is me? It's good. But don't you think you could at least make me a little more dashing?"
"Dashing?" Leonardo said, surprised. "You are quite dashing enough."
"Not really," Ezio said. "I'm glad you think so, though. It was...good."
"Good?"
"Different. But yes, good."
"You'd try it again?"
"I might. Mario once told me that the only way to get good at something was to keep on practicing."
"I doubt Mario would approve." Leonardo's heart was suddenly in his throat. His brain was abruptly somewhere else. He swallowed. "You'd like to, um... practice more?"
"Your drawing-" Ezio held up the sketchpad.
"I can draw any time," Leonardo said hastily.
Ezio laughed. He pulled Leonardo onto the bed. The flakes of ash from the burned book settled slowly around them on the sheets, where they smudged across white sheets and bare flesh. A half-burned scrap of paper fell forgotten to the windowsill. A single line of text waved in the cold winter breeze. Lasciate ogne speranze, it read, voi ch'intrate.
Abandon hope, all thee who enter here.
Finis.
Author's Note.
This one is completely
nerrianah 's fault, for challenging me to come up with a Leonardo/Ezio fic which would both be enjoyable and which would fit into my personal AC head! canon. Dialogue taken from the online version of Dante's inferno. Innuendo by me. As for the faces of saints in the throes of ecstasy resembling people in the throes of passion, have you ever seen the statue The ecstasy of St.Theresa?Abandon hope, all thee who enter here is a famous quote from the Inferno itself and should be the motto of all those who write/read Internet slash fanfiction. I was quite surprised how hard I found it to write.
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Date: 2010-07-31 08:40 am (UTC)This was both funny and hot. I love the dialog between the two, it had tugged the corners of my mouth upwards and I went "damn it nerri, you're grinning to yourself again". I am currently playing trough AC2 (found out my comp was strong enough to run the game) so the voices are still fresh in my mind. I can easily picture them saying that XD
"He would have sketched the moment if he could, but the greatest painter in the world would not have been able to record the sweet ache in his groin, the heat of the watery sun on his face and the small sounds of pigeons' wings beating like angels in the rafters as Venezia, new cleaned by the rains, sparkled outside his window."
You know... my hands are itching like crazy right now and do I wish I had the skills to bring this scene on paper/screen. I'm still in the process of sketching the chasing scene from WOG and I think I'm gonna go and illustrate one of the scenes in this fic ^_^
As for the Inferno, I've read some parts of the Divine Comedy and I found it rather scary O_O...
Now,Scusi while I go and read this story again :D
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Date: 2010-07-31 08:52 pm (UTC)am in a hostel in london full of sweaty men: this cheered me up no end. The Divine Comedy really isn't that bad: it took me an annotated guide to even realise Dante was talking about gays, but hey, I'm not a gay Renaissance man...
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Date: 2010-08-01 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-31 10:09 am (UTC)I liked it! This one is... particularly visual. (And I'm not just talking about the sex.) Felt like you really captured a painter's perspective.
Incidentally, I did a paper once on The Ecstasy of St. Theresa! It is one of my favorite statues, even though sometimes I feel like I can't take it seriously enough. Man, the nudge-nudge-wink-wink scholarly stuff I read about it...
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Date: 2010-07-31 08:54 pm (UTC)And the orgasm face thing is SO TRUE. I don't care what anybody says.
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Date: 2010-08-18 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-18 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 09:12 pm (UTC)I love how literary and religious Leonardo is - particularly compared to the irreligious, if not atheistic Ezio^^ - and how messy his workshop is! The doubts about whether or not he could find his witch-hazel was a treat. I loved his absentminded doodling on the Dante. Such an attentive reader, lol!
Ezio's straightforward acceptance of Leonardo and his interest in "practicing" are both lovely and very him.
The smut was very very hot, btw, and the amount of work you put in truly shows.
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Date: 2012-01-14 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 06:23 pm (UTC)I used to be a great smut writer but I lost the gift a while back.
Leonardo *is* the absent-minded professor, LOLz. It is brilliant when the characters/Muses make it easy on writers - Leo is one that would tell you if you were wrong, I suspect.