I Know You Know (Ch. 1)
ETA: Quickly realized I'd left this, f-locked, fixed now. Fic for all!
Ok gals and guys, here we go, my first real, serious attempt at a fanfic, with plot and everything! I have no idea how long this will run. Long, I'm guessing. Be gentle with your reviews, I'm new at this.
Title: I Know You Know (borrowed from a song by the excellent band "Empires," listen to their music here: http://www.weareempires.com/)
Chapter: 1/?
Fandom: Assassin's Creed
Disclaimer: All characters and concept (c) Ubisoft
Rating: This Chapter PG-13, overall M
Pairings: Shaun Hastings/Desmond Miles, bits of Ezio Auditore/Leonardo da Vinci, Ezio/Caterina Sforza, Ezio/Laura Boccanera, and Altair/Malik in later chapters. (Our boy Ezio sure gets around, doesn't he?)
Warnings: FULL OF SPOILERS. LIKE, JUST, ALL OF THE SPOILERS. So if you have not played all three main-line games (AC, AC2, ACB), including DLC, as well as at least taken a glance at the wiki entries for the non-console games (handheld, Facebook, etc.), don't say you weren't warned. Also some violence, and swearing, and badly translated French, and slightly less but still pretty badly translated Italian. And a lot of sex, eventually, some of it between men, so if you're, you know, not into that, you probably won't like those parts.
Word Count: This Chapter 1850. Overall? TO THE MOOOOOOON!
I feel I should also mention I haven't a clue in Heaven or Hell where I'm going with this thing. So there's that, too.
Le Chevalier Guillaume LeBlanc scratched at his chafing neck. His squire had forgotten to ask the armorer to replace the leather straps that held his mail shirt closed, and the damn things had given out just as they made their first charge. Boy had a mind like a cage trap, unreliable and full of holes. At the first lull in the action, the knight had gotten one of his men to re-buckle his armor, but only the last hole was left of the top strap and the mail rings were rubbing at the junction of his neck and shoulder every time he lifted his sword.
Sensing its master’s bad mood, his charger stamped and shifted uneasily. He took a deep breath to calm himself and patted the horse’s neck through its quilted armor to quiet it. Wouldn’t do to have the beast spook and throw him while they were re-forming the battle lines. The first charge had gone well for the cavalry, but the infantry had taken heavy casualties from enemy archers, and without their support the knights had been fighting hard for every inch of ground. He watched the stretcher bearers jogging back and forth, grabbing the dead and wounded from the field and carrying them to the doctors, priests, or undertakers. Crows, vultures, and their human counterparts swarmed the field, stripping corpses and near-corpses of loot, running off whenever a stretcher bearer got too close. They avoided the high-born, but many of the common soldiers were practically naked by the time they were carried off.
He shifted in his saddle and winced. An arrow had found its way between the plates of his armor and stuck in his calf. It hadn’t been a bad wound, more fabric caught than flesh, but it hurt more and more as the day went on. He couldn’t wait for night to fall so they could fall back, have a drink, and leave the fighting to the archers and trebuchets. He couldn’t wait for this whole useless war to be over, actually. He should be at home on his estate, with the harvest getting ready to come in, and his wife and children. He’d have a new son or daughter by now. He wondered which it was. A son would, of course, be preferable, to give Jerome a younger brother to rely on for support in matters of managing the estate, as Guillaume himself relied on his own younger sibling. But he had to admit he wouldn’t mind another daughter. Now that Elise was grown, and a lovely young woman she had become, he missed the sound of his little girl’s laughter filling the halls and making the manor house seem more like home.
His reverie was broken by the sounds of screaming coming from the infirmary tents. He pulled his thoughts back to the battlefield. He’d be no use to his freeholders, wife, or anybody if he got himself killed because he was daydreaming about home when he should be concentrating on the fight.
The screaming increased in volume, and Guillaume crossed himself, muttering a prayer to God to end the poor man’s suffering, one way or another…
He jerked awake, head fuzzy with confusion. The screaming was coming from inside the room, now…but hadn’t he just been out with the men, re-forming the line? “Ce que l’enfer…” he muttered, and the sound of his own voice was strange to him. Then, with a sudden sensation of falling into his own body, he remembered. Shaun. That’s me. I’m Shaun. Shaun Hastings. I’m at the Villa Auditore with my team. It’s 2012.
And somebody really was screaming. He jumped to his feet, ready to fight if necessary, and saw that Miles had fallen off his camp cot onto the floor and was thrashing in his sleep, blanket tangled tightly around his legs. From the sounds ripping out of his throat, whatever dream or memory had hold of him was nothing good.
Jesus, I bloody well told Lu he needed a break! Shaun was on his knees next to the other Assassin in a flash, risking a punch in the face by grabbing his shoulders to shake him awake.
So fast he couldn’t follow, the bigger man had him pinned on the floor, forearm pressing down on his trachea. Brown eyes narrowed to dark slits showed no recognition at all as they searched his face. “Non ti conosco. Stai Templare?”
Oh.
Shite.
Shaun’s Italian was basic at best, and it was hard to think in a foreign language while scrabbling for purchase at the arm across his throat, which may as well have been made of iron rebar for all he could get it to move. “Non sono!” he choked out, “Sono Assassino! Sono collega!”
“Dimostrarlo.”
Bloody hell. He wracked his brain for evidence that would convince the 16th century Mentor of the Order. The Oath, you pillock, he means the Oath! his oxygen-deprived brain screamed at him. Wheezing, he managed, “Er…lavoriamo nel…shite, what’s dark… oscuritá! Nel oscuritá, per servire la luce!”
“Dispiace, amico” The pressure eased and Shaun gulped in a breath, which caught and turned into a hacking cough. Meanwhile, Miles - or Ezio? - looked around the room, confusion spreading across his features. “La villa? Ma, dove sono le Templare? E Laura, dov’é Laura? Habbiamo stato nel nave di…di…” He shook his head and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
For a count of thirty seconds, he stayed so still that Shaun wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Just as the historian was getting his courage up to move, to find Rebecca and ask for help, Miles let out a sobbing breath and his head snapped up, eyes wild, searching the room. When they landed on Shaun’s face this time, he saw the relief that flooded them and knew the episode had passed.
Tentatively, he reached out to pat Miles on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Miles. You’re okay. It wasn’t real.” God but he was bad at the sympathy thing. That was the girls’ job, he was just supposed to provide historical background. And sarcasm, though that was more of a self-appointed position.
Apparently Miles wasn’t in a position to reject comfort when it was offered, as he grabbed Shaun’s hand and held on so tight the historian could feel the bones rubbing together. “But it was real!” he said, voice breaking. “They caught me and I wasn’t going to tell them anything but Laura, they had Laura and they were bleeding her, and I know we’re supposed to place the mission above all else but dammit, Shaun, she has a kid and I recruited her and it would have been my fault and I couldn’t…I just couldn’t…” his eyes welled up and a pair of tears streaked down his face.
Shaun could actually see the poor bastard shaking, shudders and flinches running through his body like a man in the grip of a fever. “Oh, Christ almighty, Miles,” he sighed, for a number of different reasons, not least of which was the resemblance his tone of voice was starting to bear to Lucy’s recordings of Sixteen. An unfamiliar emotion wrapped around his heart and it took a moment for him to identify it as sympathy. Well, that’s a new one.
With an exasperated huff, Shaun shifted closer to Miles and put his hands on the man’s shoulders, making eye contact. “Listen to me, Miles,” he said, “They got Ezio, not you. And whoever this Laura was, she had a kid. Whatever her life was, she’s been dead for centuries now. Remember, the memories aren’t yours. It’s not happening, it already has happened. You can no more change the events they show you than you can change what you see in a recorded video.”
Shaking his head, Miles protested, “But I…he…when I’m him, there are options, and I’m making choices…he’s making choices…”
“I know. It seems like it’s happening in the present. But you’re experiencing it exactly as he did, meaning every time you go back to the same memory, it will seem like the first time it’s happening. And for him, it will be. You’re riding along in his brain, his thoughts, so even though it seems like a different choice could be made, like outcomes could be changed, that’s an illusion. Whatever happened in history is what will happen in the memory, every single time.”
Nodding, Miles rubbed his arm across his eyes. The shakes had subsided, though his breathing was still erratic and he looked like he was just on the edge of freaking out. “Right, I know that, I know…but it feels like…”
Shaun nodded. “Just…don’t dwell on it too much, mate. It’ll take you over if you let it.” Like Sixteen was the implied ending, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. None of them talked much about the kid, not around Miles, not at all, and especially not Lucy.
Speaking of whom, Shaun knew he had to go find her and tell her about this. She’d asked to be informed of severe instances of the bleeding effect, so she could lighten up the schedule and give Miles more time as himself when he needed it. He stood up to leave, only to be dragged back down by Miles’ vice grip on his hand. “Miles, I need that back now,” he said, trying to extricate himself.
“No. I mean, not yet. Please.” Miles looked down, embarrassed. “Just…I know you’re going to tell the girls, and they’re going to get all concerned over me and I just…can’t handle that right now. With you, at least I know I’m not being pitied,” his lips curled in a wry grin, “Or even liked all that much.” The smile faded. He glanced up at Shaun. “Just another minute. I need another person around. Makes it easier to stay…grounded.”
“Fine.” Shaun sat back down, cross-legged, and rested his chin in the hand not currently commandeered by Miles. Never noticed how big his hands are, he brushed the thought away. “But I’m not your bloody security blanket, right?” he said. “So don’t be thinking about making this a regular occurrence.”
After a while, Shaun could see some of the tension leave Miles’ shoulders, as the other man sat up a bit straighter and took a deep, if shaky, breath, held it, and let it out. “I think I’m good now,” he said. “Thanks for waking me up. And for staying.”
“Don’t mention it.” Shaun stood, pulling Miles up with him. “And I really mean that, don’t tell the girls. They’ll think I’ve gone soft.”
Miles snorted. “Ha! Right. You’re about as soft as a hammer. But don’t worry, I won’t tell them.” He let go of Shaun’s hand, which felt suddenly cold.
I could offer to stay longer, Shaun thought, and he even opened his mouth to say the words, but Miles had turned away, was picking his blanket up off the stone floor, shaking it out. The moment had passed. Shaun turned and went across the hall to tell Lucy they were working short hours the next day.
Ok gals and guys, here we go, my first real, serious attempt at a fanfic, with plot and everything! I have no idea how long this will run. Long, I'm guessing. Be gentle with your reviews, I'm new at this.
Title: I Know You Know (borrowed from a song by the excellent band "Empires," listen to their music here: http://www.weareempires.com/)
Chapter: 1/?
Fandom: Assassin's Creed
Disclaimer: All characters and concept (c) Ubisoft
Rating: This Chapter PG-13, overall M
Pairings: Shaun Hastings/Desmond Miles, bits of Ezio Auditore/Leonardo da Vinci, Ezio/Caterina Sforza, Ezio/Laura Boccanera, and Altair/Malik in later chapters. (Our boy Ezio sure gets around, doesn't he?)
Warnings: FULL OF SPOILERS. LIKE, JUST, ALL OF THE SPOILERS. So if you have not played all three main-line games (AC, AC2, ACB), including DLC, as well as at least taken a glance at the wiki entries for the non-console games (handheld, Facebook, etc.), don't say you weren't warned. Also some violence, and swearing, and badly translated French, and slightly less but still pretty badly translated Italian. And a lot of sex, eventually, some of it between men, so if you're, you know, not into that, you probably won't like those parts.
Word Count: This Chapter 1850. Overall? TO THE MOOOOOOON!
I feel I should also mention I haven't a clue in Heaven or Hell where I'm going with this thing. So there's that, too.
Le Chevalier Guillaume LeBlanc scratched at his chafing neck. His squire had forgotten to ask the armorer to replace the leather straps that held his mail shirt closed, and the damn things had given out just as they made their first charge. Boy had a mind like a cage trap, unreliable and full of holes. At the first lull in the action, the knight had gotten one of his men to re-buckle his armor, but only the last hole was left of the top strap and the mail rings were rubbing at the junction of his neck and shoulder every time he lifted his sword.
Sensing its master’s bad mood, his charger stamped and shifted uneasily. He took a deep breath to calm himself and patted the horse’s neck through its quilted armor to quiet it. Wouldn’t do to have the beast spook and throw him while they were re-forming the battle lines. The first charge had gone well for the cavalry, but the infantry had taken heavy casualties from enemy archers, and without their support the knights had been fighting hard for every inch of ground. He watched the stretcher bearers jogging back and forth, grabbing the dead and wounded from the field and carrying them to the doctors, priests, or undertakers. Crows, vultures, and their human counterparts swarmed the field, stripping corpses and near-corpses of loot, running off whenever a stretcher bearer got too close. They avoided the high-born, but many of the common soldiers were practically naked by the time they were carried off.
He shifted in his saddle and winced. An arrow had found its way between the plates of his armor and stuck in his calf. It hadn’t been a bad wound, more fabric caught than flesh, but it hurt more and more as the day went on. He couldn’t wait for night to fall so they could fall back, have a drink, and leave the fighting to the archers and trebuchets. He couldn’t wait for this whole useless war to be over, actually. He should be at home on his estate, with the harvest getting ready to come in, and his wife and children. He’d have a new son or daughter by now. He wondered which it was. A son would, of course, be preferable, to give Jerome a younger brother to rely on for support in matters of managing the estate, as Guillaume himself relied on his own younger sibling. But he had to admit he wouldn’t mind another daughter. Now that Elise was grown, and a lovely young woman she had become, he missed the sound of his little girl’s laughter filling the halls and making the manor house seem more like home.
His reverie was broken by the sounds of screaming coming from the infirmary tents. He pulled his thoughts back to the battlefield. He’d be no use to his freeholders, wife, or anybody if he got himself killed because he was daydreaming about home when he should be concentrating on the fight.
The screaming increased in volume, and Guillaume crossed himself, muttering a prayer to God to end the poor man’s suffering, one way or another…
He jerked awake, head fuzzy with confusion. The screaming was coming from inside the room, now…but hadn’t he just been out with the men, re-forming the line? “Ce que l’enfer…” he muttered, and the sound of his own voice was strange to him. Then, with a sudden sensation of falling into his own body, he remembered. Shaun. That’s me. I’m Shaun. Shaun Hastings. I’m at the Villa Auditore with my team. It’s 2012.
And somebody really was screaming. He jumped to his feet, ready to fight if necessary, and saw that Miles had fallen off his camp cot onto the floor and was thrashing in his sleep, blanket tangled tightly around his legs. From the sounds ripping out of his throat, whatever dream or memory had hold of him was nothing good.
Jesus, I bloody well told Lu he needed a break! Shaun was on his knees next to the other Assassin in a flash, risking a punch in the face by grabbing his shoulders to shake him awake.
So fast he couldn’t follow, the bigger man had him pinned on the floor, forearm pressing down on his trachea. Brown eyes narrowed to dark slits showed no recognition at all as they searched his face. “Non ti conosco. Stai Templare?”
Oh.
Shite.
Shaun’s Italian was basic at best, and it was hard to think in a foreign language while scrabbling for purchase at the arm across his throat, which may as well have been made of iron rebar for all he could get it to move. “Non sono!” he choked out, “Sono Assassino! Sono collega!”
“Dimostrarlo.”
Bloody hell. He wracked his brain for evidence that would convince the 16th century Mentor of the Order. The Oath, you pillock, he means the Oath! his oxygen-deprived brain screamed at him. Wheezing, he managed, “Er…lavoriamo nel…shite, what’s dark… oscuritá! Nel oscuritá, per servire la luce!”
“Dispiace, amico” The pressure eased and Shaun gulped in a breath, which caught and turned into a hacking cough. Meanwhile, Miles - or Ezio? - looked around the room, confusion spreading across his features. “La villa? Ma, dove sono le Templare? E Laura, dov’é Laura? Habbiamo stato nel nave di…di…” He shook his head and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
For a count of thirty seconds, he stayed so still that Shaun wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Just as the historian was getting his courage up to move, to find Rebecca and ask for help, Miles let out a sobbing breath and his head snapped up, eyes wild, searching the room. When they landed on Shaun’s face this time, he saw the relief that flooded them and knew the episode had passed.
Tentatively, he reached out to pat Miles on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Miles. You’re okay. It wasn’t real.” God but he was bad at the sympathy thing. That was the girls’ job, he was just supposed to provide historical background. And sarcasm, though that was more of a self-appointed position.
Apparently Miles wasn’t in a position to reject comfort when it was offered, as he grabbed Shaun’s hand and held on so tight the historian could feel the bones rubbing together. “But it was real!” he said, voice breaking. “They caught me and I wasn’t going to tell them anything but Laura, they had Laura and they were bleeding her, and I know we’re supposed to place the mission above all else but dammit, Shaun, she has a kid and I recruited her and it would have been my fault and I couldn’t…I just couldn’t…” his eyes welled up and a pair of tears streaked down his face.
Shaun could actually see the poor bastard shaking, shudders and flinches running through his body like a man in the grip of a fever. “Oh, Christ almighty, Miles,” he sighed, for a number of different reasons, not least of which was the resemblance his tone of voice was starting to bear to Lucy’s recordings of Sixteen. An unfamiliar emotion wrapped around his heart and it took a moment for him to identify it as sympathy. Well, that’s a new one.
With an exasperated huff, Shaun shifted closer to Miles and put his hands on the man’s shoulders, making eye contact. “Listen to me, Miles,” he said, “They got Ezio, not you. And whoever this Laura was, she had a kid. Whatever her life was, she’s been dead for centuries now. Remember, the memories aren’t yours. It’s not happening, it already has happened. You can no more change the events they show you than you can change what you see in a recorded video.”
Shaking his head, Miles protested, “But I…he…when I’m him, there are options, and I’m making choices…he’s making choices…”
“I know. It seems like it’s happening in the present. But you’re experiencing it exactly as he did, meaning every time you go back to the same memory, it will seem like the first time it’s happening. And for him, it will be. You’re riding along in his brain, his thoughts, so even though it seems like a different choice could be made, like outcomes could be changed, that’s an illusion. Whatever happened in history is what will happen in the memory, every single time.”
Nodding, Miles rubbed his arm across his eyes. The shakes had subsided, though his breathing was still erratic and he looked like he was just on the edge of freaking out. “Right, I know that, I know…but it feels like…”
Shaun nodded. “Just…don’t dwell on it too much, mate. It’ll take you over if you let it.” Like Sixteen was the implied ending, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. None of them talked much about the kid, not around Miles, not at all, and especially not Lucy.
Speaking of whom, Shaun knew he had to go find her and tell her about this. She’d asked to be informed of severe instances of the bleeding effect, so she could lighten up the schedule and give Miles more time as himself when he needed it. He stood up to leave, only to be dragged back down by Miles’ vice grip on his hand. “Miles, I need that back now,” he said, trying to extricate himself.
“No. I mean, not yet. Please.” Miles looked down, embarrassed. “Just…I know you’re going to tell the girls, and they’re going to get all concerned over me and I just…can’t handle that right now. With you, at least I know I’m not being pitied,” his lips curled in a wry grin, “Or even liked all that much.” The smile faded. He glanced up at Shaun. “Just another minute. I need another person around. Makes it easier to stay…grounded.”
“Fine.” Shaun sat back down, cross-legged, and rested his chin in the hand not currently commandeered by Miles. Never noticed how big his hands are, he brushed the thought away. “But I’m not your bloody security blanket, right?” he said. “So don’t be thinking about making this a regular occurrence.”
After a while, Shaun could see some of the tension leave Miles’ shoulders, as the other man sat up a bit straighter and took a deep, if shaky, breath, held it, and let it out. “I think I’m good now,” he said. “Thanks for waking me up. And for staying.”
“Don’t mention it.” Shaun stood, pulling Miles up with him. “And I really mean that, don’t tell the girls. They’ll think I’ve gone soft.”
Miles snorted. “Ha! Right. You’re about as soft as a hammer. But don’t worry, I won’t tell them.” He let go of Shaun’s hand, which felt suddenly cold.
I could offer to stay longer, Shaun thought, and he even opened his mouth to say the words, but Miles had turned away, was picking his blanket up off the stone floor, shaking it out. The moment had passed. Shaun turned and went across the hall to tell Lucy they were working short hours the next day.