Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/9200567.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Da_Vinci's_Demons
  Relationship:
      Pope_Sixtus_IV_|_Alessandro_della_Rovere/Girolamo_Riario
  Character:
      Pope_Sixtus_IV_|_Alessandro_della_Rovere, Girolamo_Riario
  Additional Tags:
      Rape/Non-con_Elements, Underage_Sex, Intercrural_Sex, Abuse, Religious
      Guilt, Incest, Parent/Child_Incest
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-01-04 Words: 4923
****** Apocrypha ******
by viceindustrious
Summary
     "And while innocence is a rare quality these days, as Girolamo will
     tell you, it's utterly useless to me." Concerning the events that
     took place after Alessandro brought Riario out of the monastery and
     into his service.
Notes
     For ClementineStarling, who inspires me and has the patience of at
     least 2.5 saints. All historical oddities are due to Al-Rahim mucking
     about with the river of time (though please point out if you feel any
     extra errors have cropped in! I know almost everyone on the show
     wears trousers, not hose but ah, lets just imagine the great trouser/
     open shirt revolution happened later...). Riario is heavily implied
     to be underage here, though no specific ages are mentioned. There may
     be a part 2. Thank you!
Simbruini Abbey, three days before Epiphany. Girolamo is washing his face over
a dented, pewter basin when Brother Piero comes to fetch him. The impatient
snap of the monk's fingers and the thin line of his mouth both show that he
clearly is not interested in overseeing the ablutions of a snipe like him, so
Girolamo must make do with the back of his shirt sleeve for as towel as he’s
briskly shepherded past the archway leading into the lay frater, past the
inquisitive eyes of his fellows and toward the private rooms of the abbot.
Piero taps his knuckles softly on the door and a voice from within calls out
for them to enter. Or not both of them it seems, for Piero just nods curtly
toward the door and waits, his mind no doubt already turned toward far more
important tasks than playing escort to an orphan boy.
Inside, Girolamo is assaulted by a bloom of colour; gold and russet wall-
hangings, each chair upholstered in bright, striped silk and here clothed in
his habit and looking like something of a magpie in its nest, sits the abbot.
There is a low table in front of him and a white plate littered with small
pastries and sundry other sorts of confectionary. At the other side of the
table there sits a man in layman’s clothes.  
“Father Abbot,” Girolamo says respectfully.
He looks to the other man and falters. He knows this room is for the
entertainment of the noble, wealthy or otherwise luminary guests who visit the
abbey, but he has never met one of them. What he should say or if he should say
anything at all leaves him at a complete loss. He gives a bow, just to be safe
and keeps his eyes to the floor, saying nothing.
“Girolamo,” the abbot says, with a throaty chortle. “This is Signore della
Rovere. I will tell you now, today is an exceedingly fortunate day for you, my
lad.”
Girolamo glances at the abbot who is beaming with paternal good nature. He
would like to study della Rovere’s face too but surely that would be too close
to impudence, too much like voicing a question that is not his place to ask.
There’s a damp strand of hair stuck to his temple that he’s itching to brush
back but he’d rather not seem a fidget either. Perhaps this is some sort of
test.
“You described him well, Giovanni.”
The sound of the stranger’s voice causes all the tiny hairs on the back of his
arms to rise. Then - a creak of wood and the toes of the man’s shoes step into
his line of sight. Next, the hem of his cioppa, then-
“Look at me, boy.”
Girolamo raises his eyes but a large hand is already cupping his jaw, tipping
his chin up further. The scrutiny of the inspection stops his breath, he is
being searched for something he is sure and there is so much of the raptor in
this man’s aspect that he is nervous of what might happen if he is found
deficient.   
“How miraculous,” della Rovere says, after one long moment further.
“Considering the circumstances.”
The abbot coughs and busies himself with cutting the corner from a slice of
panettone.
Della Rovere smiles at him, conspiratorial, as though they are both sharing
some personal amusement that the abbot cannot fathom. He tucks that errant
strand of Girolamo’s hair back behind his ear and brushes the pad of his thumb
across his cheek. Girolamo flinches, only the slightest shiver, but della
Rovere notices and his smile broadens.
“Your education here has run its course, Girolamo, the Lord has called you up
to greater things.”
Girolamo stares at him. He has a dutiful notion that he should look to the
abbot now. Who is this man, after all, to say such things? A dutiful notion and
yet, oh such a feeble one, he can’t bring himself to look away even for a
moment. His heart is racing, there is such certainty in della Rovere’s words.
“Forgive me, sir,” he asks cautiously. “But why do you say so?”
Della Rovere casts a significant look at the abbot who fails to notice for what
feels like a very long time, happily ensconced in his sweetmeats until
illumination strikes of a sudden and he makes some hasty excuse; that he must
be off to count candlesticks, whip an unruly chorister, bless the cat for her
diligent mouse hunting. It could be anything at all as far as Girolamo is
concerned, he’s too busy watching the other man to listen.
Della Rovere has a stern look but there are laughter lines about his eyes and a
cryptic sort of gleam within. His hair is receding and mostly a cinereous grey
colour, threaded with silvery white and here and there, streaks where one can
still see the dark black he must have worn in his youth. The arch in his
eyebrows suggests imperiousness and the way he’s looking at the abbot now is
nothing if not that.
When the door closes behind the abbot, della Rovere turns back to him and says,
very simply.
“Because you are my son.”
Girolamo’s brow furrows as he searches della Rovere’s face for the lie in it.
How many nights of prayer for this moment? Long enough until he learnt to make
his peace with the truth; that he must either be unwanted or alone.
“Come, Girolamo,” della Rovere says. He sounds exactly like a man who is
impatient to collect a thing he knows without a doubt is his own. “We have a
long journey and much I must talk with you about.”
 
They’re on the road for four days, during which time Girolamo is certain he
speaks more than he has in the last four years. His father sits carving a pear
with a short, paring knife, passing him slices as reward for clever answers
while he tests him on his Latin. Nothing is as sweet as knowing that, thank
mercy, he has not failed yet.
His Greek needs work, his father tells him, but never mind all that for now.
Girolamo thinks to amaze him with his mastery of arithmetic but it turns out
that his father has no head for numbers in particular. He hands Girolamo a
large vellum map and instructs him to study that instead, tracing their route
with the tip of his figure, flicking the paper scornfully at the name of one
city or another.
Girolamo does study, but every so often he will steal a glance up. He wishes he
had a mirror in his lap instead, he would like to discover if there is anything
of his father in the map of his own face.
He learns his father is going to become Pontifex Maximus and of the great
things he plans to achieve. He learns of the fiends and devils that would stay
God’s will and lead the Holy Mother Church into confusion, destruction and
dismay. Ignorant mystics, heathen Turks, irreligious statesmen. He will have a
hawk and a sword and a horse of his own, read books written by wise, great
minds, see the world!
That he is meant to serve the Lord as his father describes fills him with a joy
so overwhelming that it starts to curdle into guilt.
 “I was afraid,” he says, one morning as the clouds lie low and unbroken over
the horizon. The air is cooler now the carriage has crept further north and
Girolamo hands are wringing the lining of his cloak. He buries his face in its
folds. “Is that a sin?”
“One would have to consider the cause of your fear, my dear boy.”
“With the monks. At the abbey. I was not happy. They were all so…so content. I
was afraid maybe, there was something in me to turn away God’s love.”
“It is a terrible thing to doubt the love of our Lord,” his father declares.
“But you have nothing to fear there. Do you remember what I said? This is the
path the Lord intended for you. Any sin you have or will commit along the path
of such righteous service will be forgiven, Girolamo.”
He sinks to his knees in relief and gratitude, taking hold of his father’s
right hand and pressing it feverishly against his check. “Thank you, father.”
His father ushers him up off the floor and draws him alongside him, placing his
head in his lap. The fingers carding through his hair comfort him.
 
It’s past dark when they arrive at the small villa outside Varazze. They are
met by servants carrying lanterns who attend to his father’s belongings and
lead the horses down an ivy strewn path, their little lights bobbing up and
down until they fade into the night like will o wisps. There is no need for
anyone to carry his things for he has brought none. His father’s hand rests, a
warm weight, on the nape of his neck, guiding him through an iron gate and
along a gravel promenade to the front of the house where two torches are
burning bright in their sconces.
“Can you read that?” his father asks, nodding toward an inscription about the
door.
Girolamo squints, it is not a windless night and the flickering of the torches
casts puzzling shadows into the hollows of the engraving.
“Iustus.” He tilts his head to one side, “Iustus ut palma florebit.”
“You know it?”
“‘The righteous will bloom like the palm tree’, Psalm Ninety Two?”
He feels his father give his neck a squeeze. “Good boy.”
As they pass through one dim, frescoed hallway after another, his father
explains that this is the motto of the Riario family. His motto now, in fact,
and so too (his father points out as they pass, the coat of arms emblazoned on
an old-fashioned archway in tempera) the family crest. Girolamo Riario, he
rolls the name over his tongue, trying it on. Of course, he had not thought
much on it until now, but far better that the Pope have a nephew in his service
than a son.  
“Girolamo Riario,” he murmurs.
“A good fit I think. From what I have seen you are blooming splendidly.”
His father sounds so pleased, might he even dare to hope, proud? Girolamo
smiles in slow delight and though he almost feels foolish for it, when he
glances up his father is smiling back down at him.
“I am sure you have had your trials, Girolamo, but it does no good to pluck the
flower before its time. The Abbot Giovanni was careful to watch for when,” he
pauses, stroking the side of Girolamo’s neck with a contemplative hum. “When it
was proper that you should come to me. All things happen for a reason, you must
have faith in that.”
Only at their journey’s end does Girolamo realize he would have no idea how to
find his way back alone. The chamber is modest; a narrow bed tucked against one
wall, a writing desk and a chest against the other. In the candlelight the
windows look like they’ve been glazed in onyx, but if he holds his palms like
horse blinders and presses his nose to the glass he can see the vague arboreal
suggestion of a garden. His breath draws a mist over the scene and he turns
around.
“Someone will fetch you for breakfast.” His father tugs at the end corner of
the bed clothes as though straightening them. “Now, you must be weary.”
Girolamo’s nod is apologetic. He watches as his father approaches the chest.
Either it was left unlocked or the keyhole is mere decoration, for it opens at
a touch and a sweet scent of lavender floats into the air. Girolamo peers
inside and sees a scattering of dried flowers but other than that it is bare.
“When we have arranged for new attire there will be no need to keep those
things any longer, but for now.” His father gestures to the chest.
“Thank you, sir,” he says. Then, when his father’s expression of rooted
expectation does not change, bows his head and adds. “I am very grateful.”
He receives the simple quirk of an eyebrow for that. “Well?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t-”
“Get undressed.” His father releases the lid of the chest and it falls back
against the wall with the same decisive, low percussion as his words.
 “Oh,” he says confused, feeling foolish for his confusion and twice as
conscious of the blood rushing to his cheeks. “Of course.”
His boots take an age of fumbling, his belt is almost worse. It seems the eyes
upon him have cast a spell to switch his fingers with his thumbs and he can
feel the heat in his face growing. He stares intently at his hands while he
folds his doublet and at the high, benighted ceiling as he strips away the rest
until he’s left standing bare legged in his shirt.
 “Here,” His father’s tone is mild now, indulgent. “Allow me.”
Girolamo palm snaps to cover the laces at his collar as his father reaches for
them. “Ah, forgive me, this is always how I have slept, sir.”
“Is that what they taught you?”
“It would be less pious to do otherwise,” Girolamo says quietly.
His father snorts. “Are you giving me a sermon here, boy?”
Cowed, he shakes his head.
“And what, am I not to look upon my own creation?” his father asks.
He draws Girolamo’s hand aside and Girolamo leaves it there, resting limp
against his heart as he is slowly unfastened. The shirt, a charitable donation,
fits him poorly and no sooner is the first knot undone than it begins to slip
off from one arm. His father cups the newly bared slope of his shoulder,
kneading, then sweeps his fingers along his collarbone back down to his gaping
shirtfront. The last ties come apart. His father pushes the collar from off his
other shoulder.
He isn’t thinking when he catches the shirt as it falls down about his hips,
clutching the bundle of off-white linen in front of him. The sleeves still hang
rucked around his wrists.
“Let it fall,” his father says. “Excessive modesty is a particular kind of
vanity itself, Girolamo.”
The shirt drops into a pile at his feet.
His father makes a noise he can’t decipher and neither can he bring himself to
break his contemplation of the wall’s cornice to see if his slow obedience has
been found wanting, nor to know with what judgement he is looked upon. Is he
still such a babe to think if he does not look that means he cannot be seen?
Like a little boy hiding under his bedclothes from the devil at the foot of his
bed? And what a shameful thought at that, his father is no devil.
Mild as the winter is, he shivers as a draught licks around his ankles. His
limbs gripe from the rocking of the carriage, from the frozen tension of
standing here, stock still. He shakes his mind clear of the uncertain thoughts
tangling into one another and forces himself to step out of the shirt.
Before he can do anything else, his father kneels down before him and picks the
garment up himself. Girolamo is shocked into following the movement with his
eyes and then immediately averts them again, blushing furiously from his collar
to the roots of his hair.
“There is a painting in your abbey.” His father has not yet risen. He is
folding the shirt, Girolamo thinks, only half listening to what’s being said
and worrying the chapped skin of his bottom lip.
“The birth of our Saviour. The artist paints a cave, do you know why?”
Tentatively. “No, sir.”
His father stands. “An apocryphal gospel. I must tell you the story some time.”
The shirt, folded, is offered. He takes it with a bashful look of gratitude and
then his father leans down and kisses him, very gently, on the mouth. His lips
are warm and paper dry and soft and it is all innocence except this lingering
touch lasts long enough for Girolamo to feel his own lips beginning to tingle
as though they’re being brushed by the flutter of moth wings.  
His father draws back. “Don’t forget to say your prayers.”
He leaves before Girolamo can find his voice to say goodnight.
 
Winter soon falls to spring and the oleander tree outside his window begins to
bud. When his mind is worn from too much study he lays his arms upon his book
and his head upon his arms and gazes outside, thinking absolutely nothing at
all. Peaceful contemplation until there comes the inevitable rap at the door
and he finds; his tutor in rhetoric has arrived, or the sword master who
miraculously metamorphoses into a dance instructor each Wednesday afternoon, or
perhaps the irritable old Iberian who can barely speak Italian, here to teach
him the finer points of Spanish.
If fortune and the sun shine, then it will be the stable hand, a boy at least
three years his senior who addressed him the first time they met as ‘my lord’.
When the weather is fine he will put away his books for half a day and ride
until his pony’s nostrils flare and its head begins to droop. He sits a horse
handsomely, his father tells him and that no doubt one day he will be a perfect
horseman on any saddle.
His old clothes are left to the Sanctuary of Saint Caterina. His father brings
him a jacket of stiffened jet brocade, a doublet of inky silk. Girolamo asks,
in shy jest, if he means to make a raven out of him and his father strokes the
loose, dark wave of his hair and asks, “are you not one already?” Those hands
are so familiar now, tightening his belt snug round his waist. They roam about
his body without compunction to trace stitching and seams and the embroidery of
black thread on black cloth while he tells Girolamo that if he is observant,
here there are a thousand shades to find.
Girolamo wonders where the money comes from. This small estate seemed grand to
him at first and in many ways he still thinks it so. Yet even he can see the
signs of a house falling into disrepair; its unloved corners, its skeleton
staff, and its locked and shuttered rooms. Tucked away so far from the nearest
town, one could almost imagine it had fallen into the trees from the pocket of
some Duke too wealthy to bother with the effort of searching the foliage for
it.
As the nights grow shorter and he reads later into the hours he will spy his
father strolling in the garden; sometimes with a finely robed gentleman,
sometimes with severe looking men in plain, dark clothes. He wonders what it is
they talk of that causes one to slap a glove against his palm, another to
gesture fiercely into the air as though swatting flies.
This pleasant evening in May there are no guests. His father has returned from
a fortnight away and brings back with him books and news, the latter in
plentiful supply. Having lived cloistered from the world for so long, Girolamo
finds he has no end of appetite for these things. There is so much he yearns to
discover.
He paces around his father’s chamber, summoned through a note to an empty room,
too restless to sit still on one of the little velvet stools or the cushioned
stone bench beside the window. The frescoes here are in better repair than any
other place in the house, goddesses and saints frolicking shoulder to shoulder.
“What do you think, my lady?” He speaks to one of the fading beauties on the
wall, sitting serene with a serpent twined around one dainty arm - but she is
too busy staring into her mirror to answer. Her eyes look soulful, intense.
Alive.
He is a little in awe of the power that lies in an artist’s hands, how far can
you say they come to possessing something like the power of creation before it
becomes blasphemous? He frowns slightly and chews on the inside of his cheek.
“Girolamo!”
He whips around to see his father striding through the doorway in obvious good
spirits, is embraced heartily before having a hat and cloak briskly shoved into
his arms.
“Well. That de Borja creature is likely not long for this world,” his father
says.
Girolamo listens intently while he puts away the clothes.
His father opens a window and sits down upon the bench. “His health is failing,
they say. Spirits are high in Rome. There are always rumours, but you need only
look at that whelp, Pedro Luis, to know there’s something in it.” A bark of
laughter. “He looks sick to death himself, and rightly so!”
“What will happen to him? If Callixtus dies?”
“He’d be torn to pieces in the middle of Saint Peter’s square if I had my way.”
A pause. “Likely he will flee the city.”   
Girolamo is silent as he kneels to remove his father’s shoes. Don Pedro Luis is
Captain General of the Church, a post his father has promised will one day fall
to him. Promise feels like a paltry word for it in truth, to hear his father
talk he could easily believe an angel came down to whisper the prophecy in his
ear.
“You should remember this, Girolamo.” His father seems to read his thoughts.
“Your enemies will have no mercy for you. Afford it to them and you may as well
admit defeat already.”
Girolamo nods, recites carefully: “It is the nature of war that what is
beneficial to you is detrimental to the enemy and what is of service to him
always hurts you.” 
“You’ve been studying Vegetius.” His father sounds faintly impressed.
“Maestro Alberghini has been teaching me.” More certain now. “Qui desiderat
pacem, praeparet bellum.”
He glances up hopefully, looking for approval.
“Exactly, my boy and the Church is beset on all sides. Christendom needs to be
brought to heel, how else can one even think of peace in the world? Just look
at what we’ve come to.” His father sneers. “The mere idea of a Frenchman on the
throne of Saint Peter - we’d be better saving the trouble and handing over all
our lands to Charles directly.”
A trill of birdsong drifts in prettily through the window, but here there is a
thunderstorm brewing on his father’s face. Girolamo knows better than to speak.
All of a sudden the clouds clear. “Come here.” His father pats a space on the
bench beside him. “Tell me what else you have been reading, something for
pleasure?”
Girolamo draws one leg beneath him as he settles on the bench and folds his
hands across his knee, knitting his fingers together tightly, squeezing.
“There’s pleasure in all of it, sir.”
“Indeed,” his father drawls.
Through the window he can see larks in their nest, shuffling their feathers. He
tries to smile but there’s a sour taste on the back of his tongue. Larks are a
delicacy aren’t they? They’re singing again and all he can think of is the
kitchen maid plucking out feathers from their limp little bodies in handfuls.
From the corner of his eye he sees his father’s head turn to follow his gaze.
“You’re not forgetting your Bible I trust,” he says. “Let me hear you recite.”
Girolamo wets his lips, searches for something appropriate, scanning through a
mental array of illuminated letters.
“My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For
length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.”
His father huffs in amusement and motions with a lazy roll of his wrist for him
to continue. Girolamo manages not to stumble over a single step of it, until
his father holds up a hand. Stop.
“Fair,” he says. “But mind your breath. And take better care with your
diction.”
He starts again but this time only manages a couple of verses before his father
shakes his head.
“Not quite ...”
He instructs him to move over, to sit between his legs, halfway on his lap.
Awkward and coltish, Girolamo tries to arrange himself so he’s balancing on the
edge of the bench but his father spreads his hand wide over his stomach and
pulls him firmly back against him.
“Breathe,” his father says. The hand on his stomach flexes. “Slower than that.
Now try again.”
His father’s breath is tickling the back of his neck. Girolamo struggles to
remember how to begin, his tongue making little dry sounds against the roof of
his mouth as he wrestles for the right syllable to begin.
“My son, forget not my law.” His father prompts. Girolamo hears his smile.
He manages the words, sets them down one in front of the other, thinks of that
and only of that and not at all of what it feels like as his father sweeps his
hair round to one side of his neck and breathes in deep against his skin. 
“Once more.” His father tugs his head back and slips a hand around his throat,
squeezing just hard enough that he can feel it when he swallows.
“I don’t think I…I don’t…”
“Does this distract you?”
Girolamo gives a startled hiccup of distress as the hand on his stomach reaches
down between his legs.
“It’s a lesson, boy,” His father kisses the words into his neck, he can feel
the wet slide of his teeth. “You need to learn composure, sprezaturra, hmmm?”
The heat of the body pressed full up against his back is alarming. His throat
is damp from his father’s mouth. Something strange is happening under his skin
- crawling, prickling warmth that sparks instinctual revulsion, like the fever
that rises from a plague victim. You run from such things but he is not
running, in fact, he does not even make the attempt.
“Can you say the words?” His father tuts. “Don’t disappoint me now.”
“My son forget not my law.” A panicked rush of words on the release of one
breath. Inhale. Again. “But let thine heart keep my commandments.”
His father tightens the grip around his throat. The hand between his legs
strokes, relentless and firm. His pulse is pounding. It sings in his ears and
throbs between his thighs, tension pooling low in his belly, he can feel
himself starting to swell, full and heavy.  
“Again?” His father asks. Fingers flex against his windpipe.
He forces the first verse out, hoarse, desperate. As he chokes out the second
he cracks and falters, crying out in shame to feel his hips jerk up against his
father’s grip of their own accord. “Please. Please don’t.”
He barely whispers the words. He isn't even sure they've escaped the voiceless
roundel of his own thoughts until his father chuckles.
“Oh, Girolamo.” He takes his fingers from around his throat and pushes them
into the sweat damp tangle of his hair. “I will forgive such transgressions
only once.”
He struggles not to squirm on his father's lap, he knows what it is that's
lying hard beneath him. The hand in his hair moves slow, threading deep down
along his scalp and he wishes for a sharp, clean tug of pain but all he feels
is that same filthy pleasure throbbing right down to the base of his skull in
waves.
He pants, open mouthed, eyes closed. Breathes in the stale, hot air that comes
from his father’s mouth. There are tears rolling from beneath his shuttered
eyes but he is not weeping. Outside the birds still sing, the light streams in
bright and clear, dancing across his eyelids. He knows the saints on the wall
are watching this, watching him. Yes, forgive me, please forgive me - but how
can they, when they have seen him bite his lip to keep from whimpering in need.
When they have seen how he stains himself, leaking wet, under his father's
hand.
"I barely had to touch you." His father's voice, casting sentence.
He comes with a series of broken little cries, his body twisting like a
shameless thing. There is one moment of dazzling, white, thoughtless release
and then he moans again, this time in despair.  
His father shoves a hand beneath his legs, prising him up with a harsh rasp of
knuckle bones. There's an awful rustle of fabric and then something thick and
blood hot is pressing up between his legs.  
“Keep your knees together, boy," his father growls.
The cooling slickness inside his breaches spreads across his thighs, smearing
into his skin and soaking into his hose as his father thrusts his cock up and
down through the tight space between them, grunting in satisfaction.
“Your role.” A thrust. “As the lord’s instrument.” Again. “Means that you are
my instrument.” Again. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he whispers.
Now he does yank at Girolamo’s hair, shaking his head by the roots of it as he
fucks up against him. “You do?”
“Yes. Yes, father, yes!”
His father groans and spills over him, then collapses back against the wall
with a heavy sigh. Girolamo trembles in his lap.
“Go get yourself cleaned up then,” his father says, dismissing him as easily as
that. “We will work on your studies another time.”
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