I need to be more active ..
No Title
Rating: PG-13, T.
Warnings: Violence and a bit of gore. Only a bit of beta-ing. Stream-of-conscious writing, and a bit of language. There shouldn't be any actual game spoilers, though.
Pairings and Characters: ShaunDes; Shaun, Desmond, mentioned!Lucy, mentioned!Rebbecca.
Summary: A bit of a tweest on the kink meme prompt:
Desmond's become crazy like subject 16, he can't remember who he is, as well who Shaun is. Poor Shaun angsts, and tries to help Desmond remember himself, as well as him.
Word Count: 2207
Author's Notes: This is my first hand at completing an AC fic, so please bear with me. I'll admit that I feel that my grip on their personalities is amateur at best, and I'd love a few pointers from anyone on how to perfect Shaun and Desmond's characterization. Blehhh.
There’s so much blood.
He tries not to notice. It’s a difficult thing to do, of course, what with it sinking into his clothes, into his bones, his skin is being painted red and he’d say something in protest. Really, he would. He’d love to do that, tell everyone off and get up and get cleaned up. His shirt is ruined. His pants-destroyed. They’re gone. Utterly torn to pieces by staining fluids and he’s thinking that maybe he could get them dry-cleaned. Maybe he could get them fixed at the very last second. That’d be good.
He likes that idea. He closes his eyes, keeping himself occupied. His clothes would be pressed and cleaned, and he wouldn’t have to look at the unsightly cuts that left his skin chilling, pouring, leaking and soggy. Maybe he could get his shoes dry-cleaned as well.
Simply get them clean. He wants to be clean so badly, so very badly. A breath gets caught in his throat, sucked back into his lungs and he chokes, willing away the feeling because it only makes his body tense up further, the muscles retracting and burning and he’s got to calm down. He must calm down. Please calm down.
It wouldn’t do to panic in this situation. He’s-he’s in good hands, he supposes, with a bitter, inner laugh. Hands that know what they’re doing, on whatever level; but he would much rather some sturdier ones. He takes a gulp of air and shifts his body, the sickening, slick feel of the wet floor beneath him making his brain twitch, eyes malfunction and he does his best not to think upon how much blood that is. About how some of it isn’t even his.
About how he’s not sure what the ratio is anymore.
His feet are slipping against the flooring, and he searches desperately for purchase to sail him across. The others have to be home. There’s got to be another home. It would be just like his luck if he were stranded, an island and lost at sea; but the panic is pushing his chest up and down and up and down and he lets out a low noise, a pleading noise, begging for the human contact to return to him, apologetic for the shun that he’s given. He’s sorry, he’s sorry-bring the others back. Return them to this god-forsaken place, and he’ll promise never to pick at consciences.
When no sounds pass over his whining ears, he lets out another sound, high-pitched and scared; and he’s torn. Scraped up and battered and broken, he limps from his spot, floundering and smearing the back of his shirt as he rolls onto his stomach - emits something that hurts his throat - and begins to drag himself. He needs a phone. He needs a keyboard. He needs medicated help, he needs something and he’s about to cry it hurts so badly. Please, help him, help him. He won’t be able to make it to his desk, and he sets his head down, trying not to let his lips press against the reddened wood.
His name is called, somewhere, faintly. He can hear it against the harsher sounds that are filtering in and out, whispering to him and his body seizes up again. Or, it would, if he had that kind of energy; but all he can manage now are flashbacks, recalling other times and trying to gauge what reaction he’s about to get. Soft? Are there going to be touches, gentle and full of apologies as he’s patched up and kissed, all tender and loving? He can feel them, balanced on the bridge of his nose where his glasses used to be, and fluttering about on the middle of his forehead. He can feel the bit of the scar. He can feel the hands that come with it, smoothing across his cheeks and petting the back of his head, those lips whispering sweet saccharines to his quaking face.
Or-or does he have more reason to shudder? He fidgets, fingers twitching in the little pools and he’s filled with burning bruises on his body, reminders of what a realized assassin can do. How dare he forget, how dare he underestimate and how could he ever manage to think that there’s something he could disregard, try to push away from and he doesn’t like to think about that. Leave him alone. Leave him to drown in these shallow lakes and he’d much rather have that than be faced with the monstrosity that lay within a subject’s mind.
He’s watched, all terror and confusion, as a culmination of stubbornness and sheer tragedy overwhelm. The other doesn’t mean it. He knows; but it doesn’t make any sort of difference when he’s left by himself, or when he’s suddenly at a lack of words-his glasses skittered across the hallway and his pride devoured by the heavy shame that lifts to his cheeks, to his fingertips, anywhere and everywhere as the other plays dumb. Kisses him better. Apologizes. Creates some fantastic story and Shaun can’t help himself. He couldn’t ever help himself. He breathes in that poor soul and nurses it as best he can, telling fantastically wound stories and explaining as best he can-because maybe, quietly he hopes, maybe if he spreads the map out finely enough, the other won’t get lost again.
It’s understandably disheartening when the information is lost again, and Shaun revisits the map, covers his bases, wonders if he left out anything vital.
He hasn’t.
His heart skips a beat.
And now, God, now, he’s scraping himself against the wood paneling and desperately pleading for the voice not to catch up to him, for the other to stay hidden in his little shadows as he has been, for Shaun to be able to reach that phone. This is no way to be, this is no way to carry himself, and his hand shakes as he reaches for the ground, pulls.
Reaches for the ground, pulls.
Reaches for the ground, pulls.
He’s getting nowhere fast.
Somewhere behind him, the voice sounds again, and Shaun panics more. Both hands shake as he tries to pull again, his limbs wavering from years of relaxation, his mind reeling and mouth adopting an acidic taste. The bile rises to his brain and he flusters, dragging his nails across the wood in a base attempt to crawl; and it’s met with a series of half-mumbled words-all poorly constructed and licked heavy with a slack jaw. Shaun shudders, eyes squeezing shut and it’s not him. It’s not him, because there couldn’t be any possible way for a condition to deteriorate so quickly like that.
He’s convinced, as he pulls his body - his legs are long lost causes, all broken in places and the flesh ripped so openly that he feels splinters hitting the bone - that the other hasn’t said anything for a long time. For whatever reason. For those stupid little reasons-the mornings that the other seems to appreciate more than he, the quips, the pads of fingers, and Shaun isn’t sure why he hadn’t noticed before.
He’d seen it, of course. The blank looks as they lay curled, nestling like spoons, all warped and wrapped up in their own ordeals before the sunlight taints their world. He’s not entirely sure why he chose to ignore it, those fumbled words and hesitation in shifts, a lighter grasp around Shaun’s waist until he starts speaking - low and rasped from the thick sleep he’s being drawn away from - and then, after a few sentences have been spilt, does Desmond encircle him. Only after there’s a small click in those brown eyes, all fogged and careless in the way that they skim across Shaun’s face, close, and let out their own little sigh as they keep down their invisible nightmares.
It could’ve spun out of control between the first hit and the second nametag. Shaun considers the possibility of when a third and fourth nametag were added, or perhaps when Desmond decides that he’s uncomfortable sharing a bed. That he’ll take the couch, and, no, thank you, he’ll be fine. It’s nothing important. He just doesn’t want to share a bed with Shaun. He doesn’t feel like it’s right.
Shaun does his best to understand that, when Lucy gives him a short look. There are boundaries now, of which he must respect on whatever level.
So Shaun goes to bed alone, in his too-big bed with his too-cold arms and middle. He becomes acutely aware of the amount of springs that are in the couch, and each sound that Desmond makes, each extra voice that escapes him is precious. He listens with a trembling ear, to how the vocal chords stretch and relax and bend and the mind take over the shattering parts of his innards to where Desmond flails and makes sharp, painful gestures, seizing and jostling himself. Desmond needs help.
Shaun must restrain him.
And now, he wheezes, curling his chin down to his red chest as he tries to pull himself up, pull himself toward what’s become his home for the past too long. His strength is deftly leaving him, fleeing and taking his life with it. At least it has the sense to escape, he muses, blinking away the continually blurring vision. At least it has the intuition to leave a situation, to get out and not make the mistake of trying to help, of trying to keep something alive.
He shudders, dry heaving as his throat fills with cotton. It-had been all useless, hadn’t it? There is no goodness coming from this anymore, his efforts utterly futile and he cringes, his body searing with the rakes of knives and quiet, happy-twisted words as he tries to remember where he’d gone wrong. Between the late nights and shaking the other from the Animus? Had it been Shaun? The fact that he had tried to do anything at all-had that provoked such a reaction out of Desmond?
He inhales within a low, haphazard gasp.
His body declining, rejecting effort and attempts at crawling up onto his desk-soft padding of feet on puddles on floor creating ice in his veins and Shaun falters, makes a low sound in an echo. Not now-he can still make it to the phone-
Pressure on his legs cause him to yelp and fall, trying to thrash the wounds away and rip himself away from the grip on the back of his shirt. Instinct is kicking in. The desperate need to live and avoid conflict and he cannot manage to look Desmond in the face again. He can’t. He would rather the thrashing, the weak, futile attempts to get out of a strong grasp until the blade is pressed against his throat all cold and forgiving, slick fingers winding in his hair.
Shaun freezes, every inch of his life becoming sharp and poignant and he doesn’t want to die.
There’s a mouth close to his ear, mumbling something, sounding far too sweet to be the cause of this situation-and it takes several sentences and partial-laughs from Desmond before he realizes that the other is speaking anything but English. Shaun squeezes his eyes shut, wondering if he can fool Desmond into thinking that he’s a statue. There’s a moment where he tries-his arms humming with a stained movement-to grasp for the blade, for a wrist, an arm, some kind of figment of past flesh, and the metal gets kissed against his reddened throat harder, a quiet and sick promise of what is to come.
Desmond keeps murmuring, the inflections of his voice shrieking in Shaun’s ear.
Shaun quakes, his body failing underneath the weight of the assassin above him; and he cannot think, cannot imagine the next feeling of the blade slowly dragging a new horizon for his vocal chords, a sputtered, wet sound being his last escape. It would hurt less if it weren’t so slow, so light against the same spot, over and over, making his skin scream and his mouth act out on its own, all noises cannot be made accountable to Shaun.
When the knife digs in, he sees white, precious as alabaster china and he’s afraid to touch anything as his head falls, connecting with the ground and the pressure easing off of his back-no knee puncturing his spine and no hand curling to his scalp. The flooring is less comfortable than Shaun remembers, much more slick than he remembers.
He wonders where things have gone-wonders, as he leaks, what’s happened. What’s going on. Why there was sudden, gentle pressure against his temple and he hears some word that resembles “Templar” dusted across his forehead, his face, as soft wisps were added. He shudders, the simplicity of the situation being overrun by exhaustion. He doesn’t want to think anymore. He doesn’t want to worry anymore, the sheer insanity of what he’s tried to fix. It would be broken anyway, he figures. Subjects and the Animus were never a good pair, humans and any sort of machinery will forever be determined that way, he thinks. And it is as simple as that. He should worry over other things.
He wonders how much dry-cleaning will be.
Rating: PG-13, T.
Warnings: Violence and a bit of gore. Only a bit of beta-ing. Stream-of-conscious writing, and a bit of language. There shouldn't be any actual game spoilers, though.
Pairings and Characters: ShaunDes; Shaun, Desmond, mentioned!Lucy, mentioned!Rebbecca.
Summary: A bit of a tweest on the kink meme prompt:
Desmond's become crazy like subject 16, he can't remember who he is, as well who Shaun is. Poor Shaun angsts, and tries to help Desmond remember himself, as well as him.
Word Count: 2207
Author's Notes: This is my first hand at completing an AC fic, so please bear with me. I'll admit that I feel that my grip on their personalities is amateur at best, and I'd love a few pointers from anyone on how to perfect Shaun and Desmond's characterization. Blehhh.
There’s so much blood.
He tries not to notice. It’s a difficult thing to do, of course, what with it sinking into his clothes, into his bones, his skin is being painted red and he’d say something in protest. Really, he would. He’d love to do that, tell everyone off and get up and get cleaned up. His shirt is ruined. His pants-destroyed. They’re gone. Utterly torn to pieces by staining fluids and he’s thinking that maybe he could get them dry-cleaned. Maybe he could get them fixed at the very last second. That’d be good.
He likes that idea. He closes his eyes, keeping himself occupied. His clothes would be pressed and cleaned, and he wouldn’t have to look at the unsightly cuts that left his skin chilling, pouring, leaking and soggy. Maybe he could get his shoes dry-cleaned as well.
Simply get them clean. He wants to be clean so badly, so very badly. A breath gets caught in his throat, sucked back into his lungs and he chokes, willing away the feeling because it only makes his body tense up further, the muscles retracting and burning and he’s got to calm down. He must calm down. Please calm down.
It wouldn’t do to panic in this situation. He’s-he’s in good hands, he supposes, with a bitter, inner laugh. Hands that know what they’re doing, on whatever level; but he would much rather some sturdier ones. He takes a gulp of air and shifts his body, the sickening, slick feel of the wet floor beneath him making his brain twitch, eyes malfunction and he does his best not to think upon how much blood that is. About how some of it isn’t even his.
About how he’s not sure what the ratio is anymore.
His feet are slipping against the flooring, and he searches desperately for purchase to sail him across. The others have to be home. There’s got to be another home. It would be just like his luck if he were stranded, an island and lost at sea; but the panic is pushing his chest up and down and up and down and he lets out a low noise, a pleading noise, begging for the human contact to return to him, apologetic for the shun that he’s given. He’s sorry, he’s sorry-bring the others back. Return them to this god-forsaken place, and he’ll promise never to pick at consciences.
When no sounds pass over his whining ears, he lets out another sound, high-pitched and scared; and he’s torn. Scraped up and battered and broken, he limps from his spot, floundering and smearing the back of his shirt as he rolls onto his stomach - emits something that hurts his throat - and begins to drag himself. He needs a phone. He needs a keyboard. He needs medicated help, he needs something and he’s about to cry it hurts so badly. Please, help him, help him. He won’t be able to make it to his desk, and he sets his head down, trying not to let his lips press against the reddened wood.
His name is called, somewhere, faintly. He can hear it against the harsher sounds that are filtering in and out, whispering to him and his body seizes up again. Or, it would, if he had that kind of energy; but all he can manage now are flashbacks, recalling other times and trying to gauge what reaction he’s about to get. Soft? Are there going to be touches, gentle and full of apologies as he’s patched up and kissed, all tender and loving? He can feel them, balanced on the bridge of his nose where his glasses used to be, and fluttering about on the middle of his forehead. He can feel the bit of the scar. He can feel the hands that come with it, smoothing across his cheeks and petting the back of his head, those lips whispering sweet saccharines to his quaking face.
Or-or does he have more reason to shudder? He fidgets, fingers twitching in the little pools and he’s filled with burning bruises on his body, reminders of what a realized assassin can do. How dare he forget, how dare he underestimate and how could he ever manage to think that there’s something he could disregard, try to push away from and he doesn’t like to think about that. Leave him alone. Leave him to drown in these shallow lakes and he’d much rather have that than be faced with the monstrosity that lay within a subject’s mind.
He’s watched, all terror and confusion, as a culmination of stubbornness and sheer tragedy overwhelm. The other doesn’t mean it. He knows; but it doesn’t make any sort of difference when he’s left by himself, or when he’s suddenly at a lack of words-his glasses skittered across the hallway and his pride devoured by the heavy shame that lifts to his cheeks, to his fingertips, anywhere and everywhere as the other plays dumb. Kisses him better. Apologizes. Creates some fantastic story and Shaun can’t help himself. He couldn’t ever help himself. He breathes in that poor soul and nurses it as best he can, telling fantastically wound stories and explaining as best he can-because maybe, quietly he hopes, maybe if he spreads the map out finely enough, the other won’t get lost again.
It’s understandably disheartening when the information is lost again, and Shaun revisits the map, covers his bases, wonders if he left out anything vital.
He hasn’t.
His heart skips a beat.
And now, God, now, he’s scraping himself against the wood paneling and desperately pleading for the voice not to catch up to him, for the other to stay hidden in his little shadows as he has been, for Shaun to be able to reach that phone. This is no way to be, this is no way to carry himself, and his hand shakes as he reaches for the ground, pulls.
Reaches for the ground, pulls.
Reaches for the ground, pulls.
He’s getting nowhere fast.
Somewhere behind him, the voice sounds again, and Shaun panics more. Both hands shake as he tries to pull again, his limbs wavering from years of relaxation, his mind reeling and mouth adopting an acidic taste. The bile rises to his brain and he flusters, dragging his nails across the wood in a base attempt to crawl; and it’s met with a series of half-mumbled words-all poorly constructed and licked heavy with a slack jaw. Shaun shudders, eyes squeezing shut and it’s not him. It’s not him, because there couldn’t be any possible way for a condition to deteriorate so quickly like that.
He’s convinced, as he pulls his body - his legs are long lost causes, all broken in places and the flesh ripped so openly that he feels splinters hitting the bone - that the other hasn’t said anything for a long time. For whatever reason. For those stupid little reasons-the mornings that the other seems to appreciate more than he, the quips, the pads of fingers, and Shaun isn’t sure why he hadn’t noticed before.
He’d seen it, of course. The blank looks as they lay curled, nestling like spoons, all warped and wrapped up in their own ordeals before the sunlight taints their world. He’s not entirely sure why he chose to ignore it, those fumbled words and hesitation in shifts, a lighter grasp around Shaun’s waist until he starts speaking - low and rasped from the thick sleep he’s being drawn away from - and then, after a few sentences have been spilt, does Desmond encircle him. Only after there’s a small click in those brown eyes, all fogged and careless in the way that they skim across Shaun’s face, close, and let out their own little sigh as they keep down their invisible nightmares.
It could’ve spun out of control between the first hit and the second nametag. Shaun considers the possibility of when a third and fourth nametag were added, or perhaps when Desmond decides that he’s uncomfortable sharing a bed. That he’ll take the couch, and, no, thank you, he’ll be fine. It’s nothing important. He just doesn’t want to share a bed with Shaun. He doesn’t feel like it’s right.
Shaun does his best to understand that, when Lucy gives him a short look. There are boundaries now, of which he must respect on whatever level.
So Shaun goes to bed alone, in his too-big bed with his too-cold arms and middle. He becomes acutely aware of the amount of springs that are in the couch, and each sound that Desmond makes, each extra voice that escapes him is precious. He listens with a trembling ear, to how the vocal chords stretch and relax and bend and the mind take over the shattering parts of his innards to where Desmond flails and makes sharp, painful gestures, seizing and jostling himself. Desmond needs help.
Shaun must restrain him.
And now, he wheezes, curling his chin down to his red chest as he tries to pull himself up, pull himself toward what’s become his home for the past too long. His strength is deftly leaving him, fleeing and taking his life with it. At least it has the sense to escape, he muses, blinking away the continually blurring vision. At least it has the intuition to leave a situation, to get out and not make the mistake of trying to help, of trying to keep something alive.
He shudders, dry heaving as his throat fills with cotton. It-had been all useless, hadn’t it? There is no goodness coming from this anymore, his efforts utterly futile and he cringes, his body searing with the rakes of knives and quiet, happy-twisted words as he tries to remember where he’d gone wrong. Between the late nights and shaking the other from the Animus? Had it been Shaun? The fact that he had tried to do anything at all-had that provoked such a reaction out of Desmond?
He inhales within a low, haphazard gasp.
His body declining, rejecting effort and attempts at crawling up onto his desk-soft padding of feet on puddles on floor creating ice in his veins and Shaun falters, makes a low sound in an echo. Not now-he can still make it to the phone-
Pressure on his legs cause him to yelp and fall, trying to thrash the wounds away and rip himself away from the grip on the back of his shirt. Instinct is kicking in. The desperate need to live and avoid conflict and he cannot manage to look Desmond in the face again. He can’t. He would rather the thrashing, the weak, futile attempts to get out of a strong grasp until the blade is pressed against his throat all cold and forgiving, slick fingers winding in his hair.
Shaun freezes, every inch of his life becoming sharp and poignant and he doesn’t want to die.
There’s a mouth close to his ear, mumbling something, sounding far too sweet to be the cause of this situation-and it takes several sentences and partial-laughs from Desmond before he realizes that the other is speaking anything but English. Shaun squeezes his eyes shut, wondering if he can fool Desmond into thinking that he’s a statue. There’s a moment where he tries-his arms humming with a stained movement-to grasp for the blade, for a wrist, an arm, some kind of figment of past flesh, and the metal gets kissed against his reddened throat harder, a quiet and sick promise of what is to come.
Desmond keeps murmuring, the inflections of his voice shrieking in Shaun’s ear.
Shaun quakes, his body failing underneath the weight of the assassin above him; and he cannot think, cannot imagine the next feeling of the blade slowly dragging a new horizon for his vocal chords, a sputtered, wet sound being his last escape. It would hurt less if it weren’t so slow, so light against the same spot, over and over, making his skin scream and his mouth act out on its own, all noises cannot be made accountable to Shaun.
When the knife digs in, he sees white, precious as alabaster china and he’s afraid to touch anything as his head falls, connecting with the ground and the pressure easing off of his back-no knee puncturing his spine and no hand curling to his scalp. The flooring is less comfortable than Shaun remembers, much more slick than he remembers.
He wonders where things have gone-wonders, as he leaks, what’s happened. What’s going on. Why there was sudden, gentle pressure against his temple and he hears some word that resembles “Templar” dusted across his forehead, his face, as soft wisps were added. He shudders, the simplicity of the situation being overrun by exhaustion. He doesn’t want to think anymore. He doesn’t want to worry anymore, the sheer insanity of what he’s tried to fix. It would be broken anyway, he figures. Subjects and the Animus were never a good pair, humans and any sort of machinery will forever be determined that way, he thinks. And it is as simple as that. He should worry over other things.
He wonders how much dry-cleaning will be.