Fanfiction: Visitors (Gratuitous Wish-Fulfilment Edition), Part Two (Assassin's Creed)
I have now written over 28,000 words in the Visitorverse, taking into account both the original Visitors and the increasingly inappropriately-named 'gratuitous wish-fulfilment edition'. This means my work in this universe has now overtaken With These Signs Upon Our Souls, my previous longest work of fanfiction.
With These Signs Upon Our Souls took me two and a half years to write.
I started Visitors six weeks ago.
The format of Visitors is 'a billion little ficlets in a consistent universe' rather than 'one big fic', but this is still slightly ridiculous. I just... I just love this concept so much. And I'm having an absolute blast with posting it on AO3; I almost never post things chapter-by-chapter, so this 'gradually getting to know readers as they comment on each new part' thing is exciting and new!
I think most of the people tracking me on AO3 are hoping for Dangan Ronpa fanfiction, though, so I do feel slightly bad about suddenly posting things they don't care about every few days. SORRY FOR THE BILLIONS OF ASSASSIN'S CREED NOTIFICATIONS.
I don't think anyone still watching this journal is looking for Assassin's Creed fanfiction either (this isn't a dig; it's just that I don't think any of you have played the games, so this probably wouldn't make any sense to you!), but I like keeping all the things I write here, so I'm afraid I'm posting it anyway! Here's a second 'wish-fulfilment edition' collection, because I think the first one is probably nudging the LJ character limit by now. This one is occasionally not horrible to Desmond, because I'd been tormenting him so much that my reviewers started begging me to be nice.
(The easiest way to keep track of this universe, if you are reading it, is probably the newly created series page on AO3, which contains both my writing and all the amazing fanfiction that two(???) other people are writing in my AU(?????????). (It's great, don't get me wrong, but I'm still having trouble believing this is happening!))
Title: Visitors (Gratuitous Wish-Fulfilment Edition), Part Two
Fandom: Assassin's Creed
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Shay Cormac/Aveline de Grandpré, occasionally
Wordcount: 7,500 (this part; 16,500 cumulative)
Summary: Visitors was a collection of scenes from a universe in which most of the Assassin's Creed protagonists kept meeting through involuntary time-travel. This is the same, only now they all cuddle and fall asleep on each other. Don't give me that look.
Notes: These side-stories may occasionally conflict with the established Visitors timeline. It's the gratuitous wish-fulfilment edition and everything is permitted.
Part One
Shay can’t linger by Hope’s body; sooner or later someone is going to come across this scene, and it won’t be hard to link the dead woman to the man covered in weapons beside her. The sensible thing would be to throw her into the water, make sure nobody finds her.
He can’t.
Shay arranges her limbs carefully, trying to make her look peaceful, like she’s sleeping, even though he knows as he’s doing it that it doesn’t fit her; Hope’s never looked peaceful in her life. He stays a moment longer by her side, and then he climbs up onto the nearest rooftop and sits there in the moonlight, looking down on her. At least this way he won’t be seen straight away.
He’ll end up killing Liam as well. He can see it so clearly. He was an idiot to pretend this could go any other way.
“Shay?”
He glances at Aveline, sitting beside him, and then back at Hope. They do have a way of dropping in at personal moments, the visitors. He wants to be alone right now. Or... he doesn’t know what he wants. Being alone won’t make anything better. But he doesn’t need anyone to see him like this.
There’s an intake of breath from Aveline. “You worked with her, didn’t you?”
She doesn’t ask whether he was the one who did it. Maybe she thinks it’s too blunt a question. More likely she doesn’t need to.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” he mutters, not looking at her.
Aveline says nothing for a moment. “It can be hard to reach an understanding on different sides.”
“Harder to put a blade through a friend,” Shay says. “And yet I did that first. If I’d been better with words, maybe she...”
“Shay,” Aveline says, so firmly that he falls silent. “There’s a reason our two sides spend more time killing each other than conversing. People are not so easily persuaded. This was always going to end with a death.”
“Maybe,” Shay says. “But I don’t know if the right person’s walking away.”
He’s still looking at Hope, and he isn’t expecting it when Aveline takes his hand. He stares for a moment at her hand in his, then looks up at her face.
“As an Assassin, my side in this is decided,” Aveline says. She slips her fingers through his. “But as myself... I’m glad you’re still with us.”
They’re just words. They’re not even words it’s easy to believe. To everyone but Haytham and Edward he’s an inconvenience, a threat, a figure who can’t be trusted. She can’t really want to be bonded to a Templar like this; she probably wishes another Assassin could take his place in their strange group. Someone like Hope.
But... but maybe he was wrong, maybe he doesn’t want to be alone right now.
“Aveline,” he says, and then he doesn’t know what to say next.
She shifts closer to him on the rooftop and tugs on his arm. It’s a moment before he realises she’s trying to guide him to lean against her shoulder, and a moment longer before he gives in and lets her. He closes his eyes and tries not to think of Hope’s last ragged breaths, tries to focus on Aveline, the feel of her, the scent of her, warm and alive beside him. She smooths back his hair and kisses his forehead, like he’s a child who needs protecting, like he hasn’t spilled enough blood to float the Morrigan.
It’s dangerous, letting her past his defences like this. Even if she can set aside their differences long enough to show him kindness, she’s an Assassin first.
And he can’t let an Assassin matter to him. He knows that now. It’ll always end this way: Shay looking down at a body, nothing left to him but fond memories turned painful.
But she’s the only comfort he has right now, and he’s not strong enough to throw that away.
-
The Precursor temple can get pretty cold, and they only have sleeping bags, so it feels good to wake up with some kind of heavy, warm blanket on top of him. Slightly less good to realise the heavy, warm blanket is Edward, sprawled over him and fast asleep, with his face buried in Desmond’s neck.
“Edward.” Desmond tries to shift, to get more comfortable, but he’s pretty much totally pinned down. “Edward.”
“Mmph.” Edward flaps his hand vaguely at Desmond, not lifting his head, then lets his hand fall onto Desmond’s face.
He should have kicked Edward out of that hotel bed back in Brazil, before all the others showed up. Of course this was always going to happen. It seems so obvious now.
“Edward, get off me.” With a Herculean effort, Desmond manages to shove him to one side and sits up, still wrapped in his sleeping bag.
Edward sits up as well, looking deeply offended. “A man can’t sleep in peace any more?”
“You can sleep somewhere else. I’m not a bed.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, beds are in short supply around here,” Edward says. “You could provide better for your visitors, you know. Even Altaïr sets aside a blanket when he’s sleeping.”
Desmond has to wonder whether Altaïr got into that particular habit after an experience like this one. “You don’t.”
“There’s space enough in my bed for those that need it,” Edward says, with a shrug. “You see, Desmond, I am a man of generous spirit.”
“I’m just a man who wants to get some sleep,” Desmond mutters, lying down again.
“In any case,” Edward says after a moment, evidently not taking the hint, “I don’t know why you’re only complaining now.”
“I was asleep, remember?”
“Yes, but before then. All the other occasions. You seemed content enough.”
Desmond stares at the ceiling, and then he rolls onto his side to stare at Edward. “How many times, exactly?”
Edward shrugs. “Didn’t realise you wanted me to keep a tally.”
So this has happened before. Enough times for Edward to lose track of, which probably, even taking into account Edward’s frequently inebriated state, amounts to at least three. And Desmond has just... what, never noticed? It seems unlikely.
Which means that Edward is going to wrap himself over Desmond more times in the future, and Desmond is just going to... quietly put up with it?
“I definitely would’ve complained,” Desmond says. “It’s weird.”
Edward sighs, even though Desmond is clearly the only person with a right to do that in this conversation.
“Look,” Edward says, “us visitors, we know each other as intimately as a group of people can. I’ve been with Ezio to the Rosa in Fiore. I’ve seen you showering. And then there’s Shay and Aveline.”
Desmond nods, slowly. There’s definitely Shay and Aveline. More importantly, though, he doesn’t remember Edward ever showing up while he was in the shower, which means that every shower is going to be filled with nervous suspense from now on.
“So I don’t see how you can act like we’re strangers sometimes,” Edward finishes. “If you can’t be comfortable around us, it’s hard to believe you can be comfortable around anyone.”
“So I should let you sleep on me?” Desmond asks. “That’s what you’re saying?”
Edward spreads his hands. “Well, why not?”
“Or I could just put out a sleeping bag for you,” Desmond says.
But he knows he won’t, will he? Not if what Edward’s said is true, about this happening before.
It’s stupid, but... maybe Edward is right. Why not? It was good to wake up warm, for once. It’s good to be here with Edward and feel that he’s not alone, even if he’s just talking to empty space. And it’s not like the others are going to see him snuggling up to an eighteenth-century pirate.
The others in the temple, at least. The other visitors might turn up. But Edward’s right about that as well; it’s not really the worst they’ll have seen of each other.
Yeah, maybe it’s weird. But right now he’s living in an ancient temple, haunted by a cryptic angry hologram. He spends most of his time in the past, one way or another, trying to figure out how to save the world. He’s been kidnapped by an evil pharmaceutical company and mind-controlled into stabbing a friend. If he can’t have ‘normal’, he’ll settle for ‘weird but not bad’.
“Fine,” Desmond mutters, settling more comfortably into his sleeping bag. “Come on. Before I wake up enough to realise this is a bad idea.”
Edward grins.
-
It’s idiotic that it should end like this, after a life spent in conflict, but that’s the way it goes. A misjudged jump, a slip of the foot, and...
He wasted too much time trying to climb out, before he realised it wasn’t going to happen. Not with these slick rock faces, not with these heavy clothes, not with these hands, numb and getting number by the second. Maybe he could’ve swum to the Morrigan if he’d gone for it straight away, but he knows he’ll never make it now. Water like this, he’s got minutes at most, and he’ll have to take the long way around to get past the rocks.
He can see her, he can see her mast, but crying for help gets him nothing but a mouthful of brine.
He makes a half-hearted effort to undo the coat that’s dragging him down. Useless. This many straps and fastenings, it’s almost like he was trying to drown himself when he put it on.
So he strikes out for the Morrigan, even though he knows it’s hopeless. Maybe he’ll find some land low enough to crawl onto on the way. Make your own luck.
But the cold’s clawing into him like a wild beast, and his vision’s already starting to darken around the edges, and a moment later he finds himself lying face-down on damp earth, gasping for breath.
“What on...” a voice mutters, and then, “Shay?”
A hand on his back, another pressed against his throat, checking his pulse. It’s warm against his skin, and Shay clings to that. He can still feel the icy water; it’s faint, it’s distant, but he can feel the cold down in his bones, like a quiet reminder that he’ll never be warm again.
All too soon the hand leaves his neck, and then Shay’s being rolled onto his back.
“Can you stand?” Haytham asks, crouching beside him.
“Don’t know,” Shay mumbles. He coughs a few times. Feels like he’s trying to cough water out of his lungs, but nothing comes. Maybe because he’s left his lungs behind, in the North Atlantic.
For now. Any moment he’ll be back there, choking on saltwater, freezing away the last seconds of his sorry life.
“What happened?” Haytham asks.
“Think this is the last time we’ll see each other,” Shay says. “Or the last time I’ll see you, at any rate.”
“Tell me what happened.”
So Shay tells him. He’s been given a few miraculous minutes before the deep claims him, and he’s going to have to spend them recounting exactly what an idiot he’s been.
“I see,” Haytham says. Businesslike, no show of emotion. Shay wasn’t exactly expecting the Grand Master to break down weeping over his soon-to-be corpse, but... well, he wouldn’t have minded. “Where exactly are you?”
“God knows,” Shay mutters. Somehow his mind seems clouded, sluggish. “Pearl Island, I think it’s called? Size of a pin. Rocks all around. Royal pain to get to, and nothing there but auks and ice. Went there looking for a Viking grave. S’pose I found my own instead.”
“You’re not going to die, Shay,” Haytham says, so sharply that Shay almost believes him. “When is it? Date, year? Time of day, if you can manage it.”
Shay closes his eyes for a moment, trying to think. Opens them again, because the darkness is making him feel like he’s already dead. “Uh, small hours. November, I think. 1759.”
“Not far off,” Haytham murmurs. “And in the future, which certainly makes things simpler.” He fixes Shay with an intense stare. “The exact date?”
Shay can’t focus. The cold is getting worse again, spreading out to clutch at his lungs and his throat.
“Shay?”
He’s back in the water, and the cold rushes over him harder than ever. For a moment he can’t breathe, he can’t move, and icy brine floods his nose and mouth. He claws at the ocean, barely manages to drag himself back to the air. No hope of moving forward now; all he can do is try to keep himself afloat.
For what? For a last few tortured moments of life before he passes out?
“Shay!”
At least he didn’t have to watch Liam die.
“Shay, will you look at me?”
Something slaps into the water in front of him. Shay stares vaguely at it.
It’s the end of a rope.
It almost takes more of his mind than he has left to follow it with his eyes, up to...
“I suspect this will go more smoothly if you take the rope,” Haytham says.
A hallucination. Must be. But he gathers all his focus together and reaches out to lay his hands on the rope, just in case.
Haytham begins to haul on the rope, and it slips at once through Shay’s numb fingers. Haytham pauses, and sighs, and pulls the rope up to throw it in front of Shay again.
Shay tries to reach for it again, but he knows as he does that it’s hopeless. The cold is shredding his thoughts; it’s taking everything in him just to keep breathing. His hands are weak, too weak to grip, too clumsy to tie the rope around him...
“Shay,” Haytham says. “If, after all my effort, you can’t even summon the minimal strength required for me to save you, I will be spectacularly unimpressed.”
“Shit! Oh, shit! Where the hell is this?”
Desmond. Splashing around beside him, in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. A wry apology’s called for, Shay thinks, vaguely, but consciousness is getting harder to hold on to, just another thing slipping through his frozen fingers, and...
“Shit, Shay, are you okay?”
“Desmond,” Haytham says, sharply, “take the rope for him!”
Confusion and understanding and panic all flash across Desmond’s face in less than a second. He looks at Shay, maybe for permission, but Shay feels distant from his own body somehow, can’t work out how to speak or move.
And then Shay finds himself literally distant from his own body, treading water where Desmond was a moment ago.
“Fuck,” Desmond mutters in Shay’s voice, “he’s numb all over” - but his mind’s obviously still sharper than Shay’s after less time in the water, and maybe that’s what lets him push past Shay’s weakness and tie the rope clumsily around his waist.
Haytham starts to haul on the rope, and-
Shay wakes on his bed in the Morrigan. Stares at the ceiling. Can’t move an inch.
It seems impossible to believe he’s still living, but surely he wouldn’t be hurting so much if he’d died.
He manages to raise his head, a little, and immediately regrets it. Lets it fall back, screwing his eyes shut against the wash of dizziness. He’s managed to take in a few things, at least: the blankets piled high on top of him, which at least explain why he feels like he’s being sat on. His sodden clothes lying in a heap in a corner. Probably cut off him. They cost enough, too.
And Grand Master Kenway sitting by his bedside.
He opens his eyes, frowning.
“Well, at least it was early November,” Haytham says. “If I’d had to camp on that godforsaken rock any longer, I might well have left you to freeze. My men were due to bring the ship back in two days.”
It takes Shay a moment to remember how to speak. “You’ve... you’ve been living there, sir?”
“Don’t give me that look; it wasn’t that great a sacrifice. You must have seen that abandoned ship as you came in. The captain’s cabin is comfortable enough, and well supplied.”
Shay stares at him.
“I didn’t even have to keep watch very intently,” Haytham says. “The arrival of the Morrigan was rather a clue. I dressed and came out the moment I heard her docking, but you’d already rushed off to drown yourself. You don’t waste any time, do you?”
Shay swallows, tries to lick some warmth back into his lips. “Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Haytham says. “I have a responsibility to the Templar order, that’s all.”
Maybe so. But the order probably had other duties it needed carried out, and the Grand Master can’t have been able to do much if he’s been out in the middle of fuck-all for a week.
“It seems I owe our friend Desmond a debt,” Haytham murmurs.
“The debt’s mine,” Shay says. He almost tries to sit up again; quickly decides against it. “To both of you.”
“Keep yourself alive, then,” Haytham says. “I’ve bought a stake in your continued existence; do try not to be careless with it. And that means staying exactly where you are until we can bring you ashore to a doctor.”
Shay nods. “Yours to command, sir.”
A slight smile crosses Haytham’s face. “Respect and obedience, Shay? We’ll have to do this more often.”
-
The ‘visiting’ hallucinations are the most obvious impact of the Bleeding Effect, but they’re not the only thing Desmond has to deal with. You can’t experience your ancestors’ thoughts in the Animus - if you could, the ‘Haytham’s a Templar’ surprise would have been a lot less surprising - but emotions, sensations, those all come through. And...
You... fall in love, in the Animus. It’s ridiculous, but you do. You meet people your ancestors loved, people who died centuries before you were born, and you fall just as hard for them yourself.
It wasn’t a problem with Altaïr. The time Desmond spent as him, he didn’t really seem to have romance on his mind. There was a strange twinge of something that seemed to pass between him and the people he killed - the strike of the blade, the way he held them as they died, there’s an intimacy to it that’s hard to explain - but, for the most part, Desmond can deal with the feelings Altaïr left him.
Ezio is tougher. Desmond lived through so much of his life in the Animus, and for most of it Ezio was a man who could fall in love twice a week. But, although his feelings were always passionate and genuine, they usually didn’t last that long.
Usually. There are still a couple of names Desmond can’t think of without feeling like something’s gone missing in his chest. Cristina. Sofia.
He’s asked Shaun about Dürer’s portrait of Sofia. Apparently it’s in a museum in Vienna. There’s a part of Desmond that wants to visit and see it, once all this is over. But he can’t be sure he wouldn’t break down in front of it, and he feels like that’d be hard to explain.
Haytham and Ziio...
Haytham kept a tight lid on his emotions when Desmond was going through his memories, most of the time: so tight, in fact, that Desmond started to wonder whether emotional synchronisation had been taken out in the latest Animus upgrade. Maybe that’s why it hit Desmond so hard when he found himself alone with Ziio in that cave, and she took his hand, and suddenly everything he’d suppressed-
Haytham, he tells himself, firmly. Everything Haytham had suppressed.
He replayed that memory a few times afterwards, to ‘improve his sync rate’. He had to stop when Shaun and Rebecca started giving him weird looks. He doesn’t think he’d be able to go through it again now, anyway; not since he dropped in on the aftermath as a visitor, which would have been awkward enough even if he hadn’t been painfully in love with one of the people involved.
And now here he is, standing feet away from Ziio, and all he can do is stare. All he can think about is how alive and real she looks, and how beautiful she is, and how she’ll die a few years from now when this house goes up in flames.
She and Haytham are sitting in close conversation, broken off when Haytham looks up and sees him. Really, Desmond? he mouths.
“I can’t exactly help it,” Desmond mutters. He hesitates, trying not to look at Ziio; she makes him feel like he’s falling apart. “Can I talk to you?”
Haytham looks at him flatly for a long moment, then heaves a silent sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Ziio asks.
Haytham shakes his head and gets to his feet. “I saw something moving around outside.”
“Again?” she asks, half-laughing. “It’s never anything. Stay.”
“For my own peace of mind.” He leans over to kiss her. Desmond looks away. “I won’t be long.”
Desmond, taking the hint, walks out of the doorway, leaving no tracks in the fresh snow. Haytham follows him out.
“This is a valuable moment for me,” Haytham says. “I’ll thank you to keep this brief.”
He won’t let Desmond take over. Of course he won’t. Desmond isn’t even sure what he wants to say to Ziio. But he has to ask.
“Sorry, Dad,” he says. “I was just wondering if I could talk to Mo... m...”
Haytham raises his eyebrows.
Desmond collapses onto the snow and buries his face in his hands.
Of course, he has to deal with Connor’s feelings as well.
-
He’s standing in sparse woods, the only person in sight a man in Assassin garb, so it isn’t hard to work out who he’s been called to visit. But Haytham isn’t sure that he’s seen this man before. From behind the set of his shoulders reminds him of Altaïr, but his build is closer to Ezio’s, and these surroundings do not speak of either of them.
How many visitors must there be? Desmond, Ezio, Altaïr, Shay, his father - that was a shock - and now... who?
Even without the cloak this man’s allegiance would be clear at once from the hatchet that hangs at his side, its blade in the shape of the Assassin symbol. Not that Haytham was expecting anything else; this visiting affair has brought him to nothing but Assassins so far.
The man turns and at once lays hands on his hatchet, although he makes no move to draw it. A stranger, yes. And yet...
“Father?” the man asks, tense.
Father? Haytham’s mind goes at once to a bizarre visit from Desmond, a few months ago. Is there something particularly paternal about him?
“Perhaps it’s vanity,” he says, ready to draw his sword if he needs it, “but I do wish I’d stop hearing that from men too old to be my child.”
A strange expression passes across the stranger’s face: a sadness, but unsurprised. Bitter. This man, it seems, is poor at concealing his emotions. It is a trait that Haytham has always welcomed in his enemies.
But this emotion seems out of place. And something else is bothering Haytham, as he studies this stranger.
“You reject me, then,” the man says.
“I reject you?” Haytham echoes. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
The man meets his eyes with a stare, hard and wrenchingly familiar, and Haytham knows.
“Ziio,” he whispers. “I didn’t realise...”
He should return to her. She sent him away, but - perhaps, if she knows by now that she’s carrying his child, perhaps she might...
But he knows it’s hopeless, in the same way he knows the only possibility is that she’s pregnant now; there’s no chance she will take him back, no chance of a child in their shared future.
And their child before him is an Assassin. One who instinctively reached for a weapon at the first sight of his father. This is not someone Haytham has raised. Or not someone Haytham has raised well, at any rate.
“Forgive me,” Haytham says. It’s not the first time he’s seen open shock at an apology. “I didn’t know who you were.”
The man takes his hand from the handle of his hatchet - tomahawk, Haytham supposes. “This is our first meeting?”
“So it seems,” Haytham says. He has a son. “You know my name, I take it. May I have yours?”
The man hesitates before he answers. “Connor.”
“Connor? Is that the name your mother gave you?”
“No,” Connor says. “But I do not know if she would have wanted you to know that name.”
It cuts deeper than Haytham would have expected. He takes pains not to let it show.
Would have wanted. So Ziio is dead. A strange grief comes over him, for the death of a woman he will never see again, an unknown number of years in his future.
But not enough years, he thinks, looking at Connor’s young face. Not as many as she deserves.
“You became an Assassin,” he says.
“The Assassins were able to help me,” Connor says. “And you were not there.”
Strange, to suddenly gain a son already grown and being difficult. “But we have some sort of relationship, I suppose, as visitors?”
Connor hesitates. “Some sort, yes.”
Haytham will have to be content with that. He has never pictured a hostile, distant child in his thoughts of being a father, but now it seems hard to imagine any other possibility.
An Assassin. A boy raised, for at least some of his life, by a woman Haytham cannot approach. A visitor, meaning he is likely to intrude on Haytham’s life at the most inopportune moments. This will be a complicated fatherhood, it seems.
He does hope Desmond won’t turn out to be his son as well.
-
“This place is looking lively,” Edward says, looking around at the homestead. More of a success than Nassau, certainly, although he’s reluctant to admit it. “How many are living here now?”
Connor says nothing in response. Barely glances at him. Just keeps speaking to the farming couple.
Edward’s sure the farmers are pleasant enough, but they live here. Who knows when he and Connor will meet next? “I’m talking to you, you know. There isn’t exactly anyone else around I can converse with.”
Connor shakes his head, very slightly. Might be aimed at Edward, but it’s hard to be sure when Connor won’t look at him.
Connor’s always seemed selfconscious about breaking off his conversations to speak to visitors, and he’s always point-blank refused to be seen apparently talking to himself. It seems he’s decided to sidestep the entire issue by ignoring his visitor.
Well, Edward’s never taken well to being ignored. He didn’t become a pirate captain so people wouldn’t pay attention to him. The Assassins, they can move in the shadows or whatever it is they like to do. Edward is going to be seen.
Connor tenses up when Edward puts an arm around him, but he keeps his focus on the couple. He stutters off in the middle of his question about harvesting when Edward ruffles his hair, though.
“Connor?” the woman - Prudence, was it? Edward’s not been paying much attention to their talk, but he thinks he’s picked up that much - asks, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”
Connor shakes his head. “I am fine, thank-” and then Edward tries to tickle him under his ribs, and Connor jerks sharply and whips around to glare.
“Oh, you can see me?” Edward asks.
“Connor?” Prudence asks, alarmed now.
“Forgive me,” Connor says, through his teeth. “I have remembered that I have business elsewhere.”
He stalks away. Edward follows, trying not to smirk too openly.
When they are beneath the shelter of the trees and well out of earshot, Connor turns on him, his expression murderous.
“Good to see you too,” Edward says. “I’m a guest in your home; you’re not going to offer hospitality?”
“I am trying to build a normal life,” Connor growls. “You are making it very difficult for me.”
“You’re not normal,” Edward says. “None of us are. I’m trying to build a life where I can at least have a friendly relationship with you lot, if we’re stuck with each other, and you’re not exactly making it easy.”
Connor stares at him.
“You forced me to abandon my conversation with Warren and Prudence,” he says. “You think I am the obstacle to our friendship?”
All right, maybe Edward should have anticipated that Connor wouldn’t really be in an amicable mood after that. In his defence, though, baiting Connor is hilarious.
“Well, why don’t you show me how making friends is done, then?” As ruses go, he’ll admit it’s not the least transparent.
“Have patience,” Connor says. “If I am busy, wait. I will speak to you. But not when I am with others.”
“You know, you could tell your friends about us,” Edward suggests.
Connor hesitates.
“They would not believe me,” he says. “These people accept me. I cannot risk...” He shakes his head. “No.”
“Is it acceptance, really, if they don’t know who you are?”
“It is enough,” Connor says, with a glare that says the conversation is over. Edward chooses to ignore it.
“I told Mary, and she took to it well enough.” He pauses. “Perhaps too well. Learn from my mistakes: don’t let Ezio into your body when ladies are present.” Although it’s hard to think of Mary as a lady.
Connor closes his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. “He spoke to Myriam before her wedding. It...” He hesitates again. “It was unfortunate.”
Edward laughs. “Oh, I need to hear more about this.”
“I would prefer not to relive it,” Connor mutters.
“Come on. Might make me feel better about my own suffering at his hands.”
Connor sighs. “She still looks at me as if... very well. Perhaps it would be good to speak of it.”
As it turns out, the key to friendship lies in complaining about Ezio. Edward’s not sure why he didn’t guess it before.
-
Desmond barely has time to register he’s in Venice before Ezio is slinging an arm over his shoulders. “Desmond! I am glad to see you. You must meet my beautiful wife.”
Sofia?
“What?” Desmond asks. “Uh, I don’t know if...”
“Come,” Ezio says, steering him firmly down a side-street. “I promise you, she is the most radiant being you will ever have laid eyes upon.”
That’s what Desmond is afraid of. “I know. I mean - I know she’s beautiful. I’ve already seen her. In the Animus. So you don’t, uh, you don’t need to go to this trouble.”
“But you have not seen her in person,” Ezio says. “You have not met her.”
He can’t meet her. He wishes he could - well, maybe he doesn’t, it’d probably just make things even more complicated, but part of him wishes he could - but he can’t. Not really, not as himself.
Ezio gestures grandly with the arm that isn’t around Desmond. It suddenly strikes Desmond how strange this must look from outside, Ezio walking through Venice with his arm resting on nothing. “And I have told her so much about you! She would never forgive me if I failed to bring you to her.”
“She knows about me?” Desmond asks, startled. His heart kind of stutters; Sofia has talked about him with Ezio. She’s thought about him.
God, he’s so messed up.
“I have kept no secrets from her,” Ezio says. “It would be a lonely marriage if I had to conceal my life as an Assassin, and my friendship with you.”
It’s never really occurred to Desmond to tell anyone about his ‘visitors’; he knows it’d just make them worry. If he ever gets married, will he need to talk about this?
Probably not a question he really needs to think about. He’s too damaged to make a good husband to anyone. Right now, he’s being manhandled by a hallucination of his ancestor through a hallucination of Venice to see a hallucination of his other ancestor who, oh, yeah, Desmond’s kind of in love with. That’s not the kind of baggage that any relationship needs.
“Sofia, my love!” Ezio calls, and Desmond feels like the ground is collapsing under his feet.
Sofia is leaning over a roadside stall, wearing a deep green dress. She turns and gives Ezio a smile, which quickly becomes amused and puzzled. The arm thing must definitely look weird.
“I have someone for you to meet,” Ezio says, gesturing to Desmond.
Sofia laughs. “Oh, I see. Will this one be more talkative than the last?”
“Connor is a little shy,” Ezio admits. “But I am sure Desmond will be happy to tell you of his time.”
“Ah, so this is the famous Desmond?” She curtseys in Desmond’s direction, and for one heart-stopping moment, before he remembers Ezio’s arm, Desmond thinks she can see him. “I am honoured.”
Sofia is talking to him. Not to Ezio in his memories, but to Desmond, knowing who he is. And for a moment all Desmond wants is to do what Ezio is suggesting, to take over Ezio’s body and have a real conversation with her.
But he can’t. He’s pretty sure Ezio wouldn’t want him here if he knew how Desmond felt. Which means that speaking to her, even innocently, would be betraying Ezio’s trust. He can’t do that.
“Can I talk to you?” Desmond asks, quietly.
“But first,” Ezio says, smiling at Sofia, “I’m afraid Desmond and I have a private matter to discuss.”
“Very well,” Sofia says, with a show of disappointment. “But bring him back before he leaves.”
Ezio immediately hauls himself up the side of the nearest building, because in his head apparently the rooftop is a logical place for a private discussion. Desmond quickly clambers up after him. Why can’t any of his ancestors spend five seconds on the ground?
For a moment they stand quietly on the rooftop, side by side. Desmond feels slightly dizzy. He doesn’t know whether it’s the height or just seeing Sofia.
“You do not wish to meet her?” Ezio asks at last.
“It’s not that,” Desmond says, quickly. “It’s not that at all. It’s... kind of the opposite of that, actually.”
He takes a deep breath and prepares himself for the most awkward conversation of his life. And then he takes another deep breath, because it’s easier than actually talking.
“Speak,” Ezio says. “Whatever you have to say, I will listen.”
Okay. Okay. He’s going to say this.
“You know the Animus?” Desmond asks. “The machine that lets me see your memories?”
“I know something of it,” Ezio says.
“Okay. Well, it lets me feel what you’re feeling as well. And...” Is this really happening? Probably not, outside his own head. Somehow that isn’t making this any less uncomfortable. “Some of those feelings... uh, they’re kind of hard to shake.”
Ezio says nothing. Desmond stares very hard at a balcony on the other side of the street.
“I’d love to talk to her,” Desmond says, when the silence gets worse than speaking. “Believe me. But, uh... I wouldn’t feel right about it, if you didn’t know. I mean, obviously I’m not gonna try anything.” There are about fifty reasons why that would be a bad idea, of which ‘in the extremely unlikely event that this actually is real, Desmond could write his own birth out of history’ is a particular highlight. “But I thought you might not want me around her.”
He’s been avoiding Ezio’s eyes, but he’s startled into looking at him when Ezio starts to laugh.
“This is what you were so afraid to tell me?” Ezio asks. “That you are in love with my Sofia? My friend, I would be offended if you were not.”
Desmond blinks. “Uh...”
“Come,” Ezio says, smiling. “No more excuses. You must speak to her properly.”
-
They’re in calm waters when Aveline shows up, which is just as well; navigating a storm takes focus, and all the focus goes out of Shay’s head at the sight of her. For a moment he can only stare.
As soon as his mind’s working again, Shay clears his throat and glances over at Gist. “D’you know if docking’s permitted anywhere nearby?”
Aveline breaks into a grin. “Am I correct in understanding that Gist isn’t the one you’re speaking to?”
“Oh, thank God,” Shay breathes. He drops the helm at once and goes straight to her, leaving a slightly bewildered Gist to take over. Hopefully Gist will take the hint and dock them, but for all Shay cares right now he could send them into battle against a man o’ war. So long as he and Aveline aren’t disturbed.
Might be tough not to get distracted when your ship’s being blown to bits around you, but Shay’s prepared to meet that challenge if it comes.
Aveline’s kissing him before they’re even below deck. Some of the men are staring. Shay is vaguely aware that this must look ridiculous. It’s still hard to care.
In his cabin, she hops up to sit on his table. Directly on top of his fleet map. Probably hoping to lure him into damaging it somehow. She’s still an Assassin, after all.
She gestures with exaggerated grace to her leg. He takes it and examines the shin guard.
“You know I have no idea how to take these off,” he says.
“Which is why you need the practice,” she says, with a laugh. “I thought we would never stop missing each other. You’ve had trouble too, I take it?”
Shay groans. It’s not easy to be in a relationship with someone who only sometimes knows it. “Three or four times. I’ve said permitted every time, and you’ve not understood.”
“No understanding, you could say,” Aveline says, smirking.
“You know, I used to wonder why you kept saying that to me,” Shay says, idly tracing the curve of her thigh over her trousers. “Understanding this, understanding that. I thought you were trying to show some secret loyalty to the Templar cause.”
Aveline looks affronted.
“You could’ve just gone with ravish me as your codeword,” Shay suggests. “I promise you I wouldn’t have minded. It might have saved us some time.”
“Codeword,” Aveline says. “It implies a code, doesn’t it? Some level of subtlety?”
“Wasn’t subtle enough for me not to grasp it was a code. I just missed the target with the meaning.”
“Understanding is not an easy word to slip into casual conversation,” Aveline says, narrowing her eyes. “I’d like to see you try it.”
She’s frightening when she looks at him like that, and yet in a way it’s when Shay wants her most.
“It was your choice of word,” he points out.
She sighs. “I know. Permitted seems to have worked well enough; I don’t recall ever noticing you saying it, before I knew its significance.”
“Really?” Shay asks, a little taken aback. It feels like he’s said it unsuccessfully a thousand times. “I was starting to think you’d chosen it deliberately.”
“You thought I’d deliberately give you a codeword I’d heard you saying often?”
Shay shrugs. “Thought it’d amuse you to think of me walking off frustrated every time I said it.”
Aveline starts to laugh. “I wish I had thought of that.”
“And yet I was frustrated all the same,” Shay says. “Stroke of luck for you.”
“You see, Monsieur Cormac, some of us have no need to make our own luck.” She loosens the straps of her collar. “And some of us have luck sitting on the table before them, and yet would prefer to criticise luck’s choice of codewords.”
“I’m understanding you,” Shay says. He has to fight down an apology when she glares at him. “Is there any chance luck could move off that map, though?”
Aveline only raises her eyebrows.
Not a surprise. So now he’s left with a dilemma. Touch her, and risk damaging the map? Or walk away, and... well, he should at least look like he has to think about this.
It looks like the Assassins are going to win this one. When the battle’s between him and Aveline, they usually do.
-
Desmond wakes to the sound of a loud throat-clearing. For a moment he keeps his eyes closed. Yeah, Shaun’s probably about to mock him, but Edward’s arms around him are so solid and reassuring that it’s kind of hard to care.
And then he remembers that Shaun can’t see Edward, and he opens his eyes.
The throat-clearer is Haytham, and somehow the sight of him brings all Desmond’s selfconsciousness rushing back. He extricates himself from Edward, with some difficulty, and rolls away.
Great. He’s still embarrassed, and now he feels cold and lonely as well. But he can’t exactly go back to Edward now. Thanks, Haytham.
“What exactly are you doing?” Haytham asks.
“We’re being companionable, Hat Man,” Edward says, pushing himself up to sit. He looks twice as resentful as Desmond feels. It’s kind of gratifying, actually. “Or we were. You could join us, if you like, but I take it you’re not one to get close to others.”
Which is just as well, really; Desmond’s not sure he’s comfortable with the idea of Haytham joining them. But...
“‘Hat Man’?” Desmond asks.
“He doesn’t know my name,” Haytham says. He looks narrowly at Desmond. “It is to stay that way.”
“Wait, you’re telling me Desmond knows it?” Edward demands. “Why not me? What’s wrong with me?”
“Desmond,” Haytham says, quietly.
“I won’t say anything,” Desmond promises, and then, when Edward turns a wounded look on him, “Sorry. This guy’s scarier than you are.”
“I’m a pirate!” Edward protests. “Terror of the seas!”
“Perhaps you could be less quick to embrace people, if you plan to intimidate them later,” Haytham says. “I don’t imagine it helps. And I’ll remind you that we’re not on the seas.”
Edward shakes his head. “But why just me? What did I ever do to you?”
Haytham pauses.
“I’m a private person, that’s all,” he says. “It isn’t just you, I assure you. Desmond is the only one of us who knows my name.”
Not true. Desmond knows that for a fact. But Haytham is looking pointedly at him, and he knows better than to say anything. It’s probably to make sure Edward doesn’t ask anyone else who Haytham is.
So it is just Edward. Why? Most of the visitors are Haytham’s enemies; why hide from this one guy who isn’t even an Assassin?
“Go on,” Edward says, nudging Desmond. “Tell me. I’ll give you your own ship.”
“You’re offering me an imaginary ship?” Desmond asks, raising his eyebrows.
“A real ship. Tall and proud. If you think it’ll be an imaginary ship, why are you so afraid of Hat Man imaginary killing you?”
Real or not, Haytham is terrifying. “Okay, a real ship. In the past. Where nobody can see me and I can’t actually steer it.”
“Fine,” Edward says. “I’ll let you talk to Mary, if you promise not to kiss her.”
Desmond feels himself flush. “If I... what?”
“It’s a man’s name like any other,” Haytham says, firmly. “Nothing of interest. You’re wasting your time, and endangering Desmond’s life.”
Edward gives him a careful look. “Strange thing to murder for, if it’s ‘nothing of interest’.”
Haytham shrugs. “And yet I’m prepared to murder for it regardless. I suppose I’m a strange man.”
“I’ll know one day, I promise you,” Edward says, and then he disappears.
Haytham looks for a moment at the point where Edward was sitting, then sighs. “I know,” he says, quietly.
“You know?” Desmond asks, even though his common sense is begging him to stay quiet. He’s not sure he wants to draw Haytham’s attention after the threats. But he’s also really curious.
“I had it from Shay,” Haytham says. “He’s spoken to an Edward who knows the truth. Just another inevitability in my life, but I do what I can to delay it.”
“So why’s it so important that he doesn’t find out?”
“You know very well I won’t tell you, Desmond.”
Desmond falls silent. He really wishes he could stop feeling on some level that Haytham is his dad. It was bad enough when he only had one terrible father.
“But it is important to me, regardless,” Haytham says, after a moment. “I appreciate your silence.”
Oh. Wow. Holy crap. That feels really good. Suddenly all Desmond wants to do is run off and join the Templars, just to get some more approval from his fake dad.
“So what were you doing when I turned up?” Haytham asks.
“Like he said,” Desmond says, shrugging awkwardly. Which was... what was it Edward said, again? “Being companionable. Edward kind of insisted on it. It’s not so bad, though.”
“Hmm,” Haytham says. Desmond can’t meet his eyes. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Part Three
With These Signs Upon Our Souls took me two and a half years to write.
I started Visitors six weeks ago.
The format of Visitors is 'a billion little ficlets in a consistent universe' rather than 'one big fic', but this is still slightly ridiculous. I just... I just love this concept so much. And I'm having an absolute blast with posting it on AO3; I almost never post things chapter-by-chapter, so this 'gradually getting to know readers as they comment on each new part' thing is exciting and new!
I think most of the people tracking me on AO3 are hoping for Dangan Ronpa fanfiction, though, so I do feel slightly bad about suddenly posting things they don't care about every few days. SORRY FOR THE BILLIONS OF ASSASSIN'S CREED NOTIFICATIONS.
I don't think anyone still watching this journal is looking for Assassin's Creed fanfiction either (this isn't a dig; it's just that I don't think any of you have played the games, so this probably wouldn't make any sense to you!), but I like keeping all the things I write here, so I'm afraid I'm posting it anyway! Here's a second 'wish-fulfilment edition' collection, because I think the first one is probably nudging the LJ character limit by now. This one is occasionally not horrible to Desmond, because I'd been tormenting him so much that my reviewers started begging me to be nice.
(The easiest way to keep track of this universe, if you are reading it, is probably the newly created series page on AO3, which contains both my writing and all the amazing fanfiction that two(???) other people are writing in my AU(?????????). (It's great, don't get me wrong, but I'm still having trouble believing this is happening!))
Title: Visitors (Gratuitous Wish-Fulfilment Edition), Part Two
Fandom: Assassin's Creed
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Shay Cormac/Aveline de Grandpré, occasionally
Wordcount: 7,500 (this part; 16,500 cumulative)
Summary: Visitors was a collection of scenes from a universe in which most of the Assassin's Creed protagonists kept meeting through involuntary time-travel. This is the same, only now they all cuddle and fall asleep on each other. Don't give me that look.
Notes: These side-stories may occasionally conflict with the established Visitors timeline. It's the gratuitous wish-fulfilment edition and everything is permitted.
Part One
Shay can’t linger by Hope’s body; sooner or later someone is going to come across this scene, and it won’t be hard to link the dead woman to the man covered in weapons beside her. The sensible thing would be to throw her into the water, make sure nobody finds her.
He can’t.
Shay arranges her limbs carefully, trying to make her look peaceful, like she’s sleeping, even though he knows as he’s doing it that it doesn’t fit her; Hope’s never looked peaceful in her life. He stays a moment longer by her side, and then he climbs up onto the nearest rooftop and sits there in the moonlight, looking down on her. At least this way he won’t be seen straight away.
He’ll end up killing Liam as well. He can see it so clearly. He was an idiot to pretend this could go any other way.
“Shay?”
He glances at Aveline, sitting beside him, and then back at Hope. They do have a way of dropping in at personal moments, the visitors. He wants to be alone right now. Or... he doesn’t know what he wants. Being alone won’t make anything better. But he doesn’t need anyone to see him like this.
There’s an intake of breath from Aveline. “You worked with her, didn’t you?”
She doesn’t ask whether he was the one who did it. Maybe she thinks it’s too blunt a question. More likely she doesn’t need to.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” he mutters, not looking at her.
Aveline says nothing for a moment. “It can be hard to reach an understanding on different sides.”
“Harder to put a blade through a friend,” Shay says. “And yet I did that first. If I’d been better with words, maybe she...”
“Shay,” Aveline says, so firmly that he falls silent. “There’s a reason our two sides spend more time killing each other than conversing. People are not so easily persuaded. This was always going to end with a death.”
“Maybe,” Shay says. “But I don’t know if the right person’s walking away.”
He’s still looking at Hope, and he isn’t expecting it when Aveline takes his hand. He stares for a moment at her hand in his, then looks up at her face.
“As an Assassin, my side in this is decided,” Aveline says. She slips her fingers through his. “But as myself... I’m glad you’re still with us.”
They’re just words. They’re not even words it’s easy to believe. To everyone but Haytham and Edward he’s an inconvenience, a threat, a figure who can’t be trusted. She can’t really want to be bonded to a Templar like this; she probably wishes another Assassin could take his place in their strange group. Someone like Hope.
But... but maybe he was wrong, maybe he doesn’t want to be alone right now.
“Aveline,” he says, and then he doesn’t know what to say next.
She shifts closer to him on the rooftop and tugs on his arm. It’s a moment before he realises she’s trying to guide him to lean against her shoulder, and a moment longer before he gives in and lets her. He closes his eyes and tries not to think of Hope’s last ragged breaths, tries to focus on Aveline, the feel of her, the scent of her, warm and alive beside him. She smooths back his hair and kisses his forehead, like he’s a child who needs protecting, like he hasn’t spilled enough blood to float the Morrigan.
It’s dangerous, letting her past his defences like this. Even if she can set aside their differences long enough to show him kindness, she’s an Assassin first.
And he can’t let an Assassin matter to him. He knows that now. It’ll always end this way: Shay looking down at a body, nothing left to him but fond memories turned painful.
But she’s the only comfort he has right now, and he’s not strong enough to throw that away.
-
The Precursor temple can get pretty cold, and they only have sleeping bags, so it feels good to wake up with some kind of heavy, warm blanket on top of him. Slightly less good to realise the heavy, warm blanket is Edward, sprawled over him and fast asleep, with his face buried in Desmond’s neck.
“Edward.” Desmond tries to shift, to get more comfortable, but he’s pretty much totally pinned down. “Edward.”
“Mmph.” Edward flaps his hand vaguely at Desmond, not lifting his head, then lets his hand fall onto Desmond’s face.
He should have kicked Edward out of that hotel bed back in Brazil, before all the others showed up. Of course this was always going to happen. It seems so obvious now.
“Edward, get off me.” With a Herculean effort, Desmond manages to shove him to one side and sits up, still wrapped in his sleeping bag.
Edward sits up as well, looking deeply offended. “A man can’t sleep in peace any more?”
“You can sleep somewhere else. I’m not a bed.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, beds are in short supply around here,” Edward says. “You could provide better for your visitors, you know. Even Altaïr sets aside a blanket when he’s sleeping.”
Desmond has to wonder whether Altaïr got into that particular habit after an experience like this one. “You don’t.”
“There’s space enough in my bed for those that need it,” Edward says, with a shrug. “You see, Desmond, I am a man of generous spirit.”
“I’m just a man who wants to get some sleep,” Desmond mutters, lying down again.
“In any case,” Edward says after a moment, evidently not taking the hint, “I don’t know why you’re only complaining now.”
“I was asleep, remember?”
“Yes, but before then. All the other occasions. You seemed content enough.”
Desmond stares at the ceiling, and then he rolls onto his side to stare at Edward. “How many times, exactly?”
Edward shrugs. “Didn’t realise you wanted me to keep a tally.”
So this has happened before. Enough times for Edward to lose track of, which probably, even taking into account Edward’s frequently inebriated state, amounts to at least three. And Desmond has just... what, never noticed? It seems unlikely.
Which means that Edward is going to wrap himself over Desmond more times in the future, and Desmond is just going to... quietly put up with it?
“I definitely would’ve complained,” Desmond says. “It’s weird.”
Edward sighs, even though Desmond is clearly the only person with a right to do that in this conversation.
“Look,” Edward says, “us visitors, we know each other as intimately as a group of people can. I’ve been with Ezio to the Rosa in Fiore. I’ve seen you showering. And then there’s Shay and Aveline.”
Desmond nods, slowly. There’s definitely Shay and Aveline. More importantly, though, he doesn’t remember Edward ever showing up while he was in the shower, which means that every shower is going to be filled with nervous suspense from now on.
“So I don’t see how you can act like we’re strangers sometimes,” Edward finishes. “If you can’t be comfortable around us, it’s hard to believe you can be comfortable around anyone.”
“So I should let you sleep on me?” Desmond asks. “That’s what you’re saying?”
Edward spreads his hands. “Well, why not?”
“Or I could just put out a sleeping bag for you,” Desmond says.
But he knows he won’t, will he? Not if what Edward’s said is true, about this happening before.
It’s stupid, but... maybe Edward is right. Why not? It was good to wake up warm, for once. It’s good to be here with Edward and feel that he’s not alone, even if he’s just talking to empty space. And it’s not like the others are going to see him snuggling up to an eighteenth-century pirate.
The others in the temple, at least. The other visitors might turn up. But Edward’s right about that as well; it’s not really the worst they’ll have seen of each other.
Yeah, maybe it’s weird. But right now he’s living in an ancient temple, haunted by a cryptic angry hologram. He spends most of his time in the past, one way or another, trying to figure out how to save the world. He’s been kidnapped by an evil pharmaceutical company and mind-controlled into stabbing a friend. If he can’t have ‘normal’, he’ll settle for ‘weird but not bad’.
“Fine,” Desmond mutters, settling more comfortably into his sleeping bag. “Come on. Before I wake up enough to realise this is a bad idea.”
Edward grins.
-
It’s idiotic that it should end like this, after a life spent in conflict, but that’s the way it goes. A misjudged jump, a slip of the foot, and...
He wasted too much time trying to climb out, before he realised it wasn’t going to happen. Not with these slick rock faces, not with these heavy clothes, not with these hands, numb and getting number by the second. Maybe he could’ve swum to the Morrigan if he’d gone for it straight away, but he knows he’ll never make it now. Water like this, he’s got minutes at most, and he’ll have to take the long way around to get past the rocks.
He can see her, he can see her mast, but crying for help gets him nothing but a mouthful of brine.
He makes a half-hearted effort to undo the coat that’s dragging him down. Useless. This many straps and fastenings, it’s almost like he was trying to drown himself when he put it on.
So he strikes out for the Morrigan, even though he knows it’s hopeless. Maybe he’ll find some land low enough to crawl onto on the way. Make your own luck.
But the cold’s clawing into him like a wild beast, and his vision’s already starting to darken around the edges, and a moment later he finds himself lying face-down on damp earth, gasping for breath.
“What on...” a voice mutters, and then, “Shay?”
A hand on his back, another pressed against his throat, checking his pulse. It’s warm against his skin, and Shay clings to that. He can still feel the icy water; it’s faint, it’s distant, but he can feel the cold down in his bones, like a quiet reminder that he’ll never be warm again.
All too soon the hand leaves his neck, and then Shay’s being rolled onto his back.
“Can you stand?” Haytham asks, crouching beside him.
“Don’t know,” Shay mumbles. He coughs a few times. Feels like he’s trying to cough water out of his lungs, but nothing comes. Maybe because he’s left his lungs behind, in the North Atlantic.
For now. Any moment he’ll be back there, choking on saltwater, freezing away the last seconds of his sorry life.
“What happened?” Haytham asks.
“Think this is the last time we’ll see each other,” Shay says. “Or the last time I’ll see you, at any rate.”
“Tell me what happened.”
So Shay tells him. He’s been given a few miraculous minutes before the deep claims him, and he’s going to have to spend them recounting exactly what an idiot he’s been.
“I see,” Haytham says. Businesslike, no show of emotion. Shay wasn’t exactly expecting the Grand Master to break down weeping over his soon-to-be corpse, but... well, he wouldn’t have minded. “Where exactly are you?”
“God knows,” Shay mutters. Somehow his mind seems clouded, sluggish. “Pearl Island, I think it’s called? Size of a pin. Rocks all around. Royal pain to get to, and nothing there but auks and ice. Went there looking for a Viking grave. S’pose I found my own instead.”
“You’re not going to die, Shay,” Haytham says, so sharply that Shay almost believes him. “When is it? Date, year? Time of day, if you can manage it.”
Shay closes his eyes for a moment, trying to think. Opens them again, because the darkness is making him feel like he’s already dead. “Uh, small hours. November, I think. 1759.”
“Not far off,” Haytham murmurs. “And in the future, which certainly makes things simpler.” He fixes Shay with an intense stare. “The exact date?”
Shay can’t focus. The cold is getting worse again, spreading out to clutch at his lungs and his throat.
“Shay?”
He’s back in the water, and the cold rushes over him harder than ever. For a moment he can’t breathe, he can’t move, and icy brine floods his nose and mouth. He claws at the ocean, barely manages to drag himself back to the air. No hope of moving forward now; all he can do is try to keep himself afloat.
For what? For a last few tortured moments of life before he passes out?
“Shay!”
At least he didn’t have to watch Liam die.
“Shay, will you look at me?”
Something slaps into the water in front of him. Shay stares vaguely at it.
It’s the end of a rope.
It almost takes more of his mind than he has left to follow it with his eyes, up to...
“I suspect this will go more smoothly if you take the rope,” Haytham says.
A hallucination. Must be. But he gathers all his focus together and reaches out to lay his hands on the rope, just in case.
Haytham begins to haul on the rope, and it slips at once through Shay’s numb fingers. Haytham pauses, and sighs, and pulls the rope up to throw it in front of Shay again.
Shay tries to reach for it again, but he knows as he does that it’s hopeless. The cold is shredding his thoughts; it’s taking everything in him just to keep breathing. His hands are weak, too weak to grip, too clumsy to tie the rope around him...
“Shay,” Haytham says. “If, after all my effort, you can’t even summon the minimal strength required for me to save you, I will be spectacularly unimpressed.”
“Shit! Oh, shit! Where the hell is this?”
Desmond. Splashing around beside him, in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. A wry apology’s called for, Shay thinks, vaguely, but consciousness is getting harder to hold on to, just another thing slipping through his frozen fingers, and...
“Shit, Shay, are you okay?”
“Desmond,” Haytham says, sharply, “take the rope for him!”
Confusion and understanding and panic all flash across Desmond’s face in less than a second. He looks at Shay, maybe for permission, but Shay feels distant from his own body somehow, can’t work out how to speak or move.
And then Shay finds himself literally distant from his own body, treading water where Desmond was a moment ago.
“Fuck,” Desmond mutters in Shay’s voice, “he’s numb all over” - but his mind’s obviously still sharper than Shay’s after less time in the water, and maybe that’s what lets him push past Shay’s weakness and tie the rope clumsily around his waist.
Haytham starts to haul on the rope, and-
Shay wakes on his bed in the Morrigan. Stares at the ceiling. Can’t move an inch.
It seems impossible to believe he’s still living, but surely he wouldn’t be hurting so much if he’d died.
He manages to raise his head, a little, and immediately regrets it. Lets it fall back, screwing his eyes shut against the wash of dizziness. He’s managed to take in a few things, at least: the blankets piled high on top of him, which at least explain why he feels like he’s being sat on. His sodden clothes lying in a heap in a corner. Probably cut off him. They cost enough, too.
And Grand Master Kenway sitting by his bedside.
He opens his eyes, frowning.
“Well, at least it was early November,” Haytham says. “If I’d had to camp on that godforsaken rock any longer, I might well have left you to freeze. My men were due to bring the ship back in two days.”
It takes Shay a moment to remember how to speak. “You’ve... you’ve been living there, sir?”
“Don’t give me that look; it wasn’t that great a sacrifice. You must have seen that abandoned ship as you came in. The captain’s cabin is comfortable enough, and well supplied.”
Shay stares at him.
“I didn’t even have to keep watch very intently,” Haytham says. “The arrival of the Morrigan was rather a clue. I dressed and came out the moment I heard her docking, but you’d already rushed off to drown yourself. You don’t waste any time, do you?”
Shay swallows, tries to lick some warmth back into his lips. “Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Haytham says. “I have a responsibility to the Templar order, that’s all.”
Maybe so. But the order probably had other duties it needed carried out, and the Grand Master can’t have been able to do much if he’s been out in the middle of fuck-all for a week.
“It seems I owe our friend Desmond a debt,” Haytham murmurs.
“The debt’s mine,” Shay says. He almost tries to sit up again; quickly decides against it. “To both of you.”
“Keep yourself alive, then,” Haytham says. “I’ve bought a stake in your continued existence; do try not to be careless with it. And that means staying exactly where you are until we can bring you ashore to a doctor.”
Shay nods. “Yours to command, sir.”
A slight smile crosses Haytham’s face. “Respect and obedience, Shay? We’ll have to do this more often.”
-
The ‘visiting’ hallucinations are the most obvious impact of the Bleeding Effect, but they’re not the only thing Desmond has to deal with. You can’t experience your ancestors’ thoughts in the Animus - if you could, the ‘Haytham’s a Templar’ surprise would have been a lot less surprising - but emotions, sensations, those all come through. And...
You... fall in love, in the Animus. It’s ridiculous, but you do. You meet people your ancestors loved, people who died centuries before you were born, and you fall just as hard for them yourself.
It wasn’t a problem with Altaïr. The time Desmond spent as him, he didn’t really seem to have romance on his mind. There was a strange twinge of something that seemed to pass between him and the people he killed - the strike of the blade, the way he held them as they died, there’s an intimacy to it that’s hard to explain - but, for the most part, Desmond can deal with the feelings Altaïr left him.
Ezio is tougher. Desmond lived through so much of his life in the Animus, and for most of it Ezio was a man who could fall in love twice a week. But, although his feelings were always passionate and genuine, they usually didn’t last that long.
Usually. There are still a couple of names Desmond can’t think of without feeling like something’s gone missing in his chest. Cristina. Sofia.
He’s asked Shaun about Dürer’s portrait of Sofia. Apparently it’s in a museum in Vienna. There’s a part of Desmond that wants to visit and see it, once all this is over. But he can’t be sure he wouldn’t break down in front of it, and he feels like that’d be hard to explain.
Haytham and Ziio...
Haytham kept a tight lid on his emotions when Desmond was going through his memories, most of the time: so tight, in fact, that Desmond started to wonder whether emotional synchronisation had been taken out in the latest Animus upgrade. Maybe that’s why it hit Desmond so hard when he found himself alone with Ziio in that cave, and she took his hand, and suddenly everything he’d suppressed-
Haytham, he tells himself, firmly. Everything Haytham had suppressed.
He replayed that memory a few times afterwards, to ‘improve his sync rate’. He had to stop when Shaun and Rebecca started giving him weird looks. He doesn’t think he’d be able to go through it again now, anyway; not since he dropped in on the aftermath as a visitor, which would have been awkward enough even if he hadn’t been painfully in love with one of the people involved.
And now here he is, standing feet away from Ziio, and all he can do is stare. All he can think about is how alive and real she looks, and how beautiful she is, and how she’ll die a few years from now when this house goes up in flames.
She and Haytham are sitting in close conversation, broken off when Haytham looks up and sees him. Really, Desmond? he mouths.
“I can’t exactly help it,” Desmond mutters. He hesitates, trying not to look at Ziio; she makes him feel like he’s falling apart. “Can I talk to you?”
Haytham looks at him flatly for a long moment, then heaves a silent sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Ziio asks.
Haytham shakes his head and gets to his feet. “I saw something moving around outside.”
“Again?” she asks, half-laughing. “It’s never anything. Stay.”
“For my own peace of mind.” He leans over to kiss her. Desmond looks away. “I won’t be long.”
Desmond, taking the hint, walks out of the doorway, leaving no tracks in the fresh snow. Haytham follows him out.
“This is a valuable moment for me,” Haytham says. “I’ll thank you to keep this brief.”
He won’t let Desmond take over. Of course he won’t. Desmond isn’t even sure what he wants to say to Ziio. But he has to ask.
“Sorry, Dad,” he says. “I was just wondering if I could talk to Mo... m...”
Haytham raises his eyebrows.
Desmond collapses onto the snow and buries his face in his hands.
Of course, he has to deal with Connor’s feelings as well.
-
He’s standing in sparse woods, the only person in sight a man in Assassin garb, so it isn’t hard to work out who he’s been called to visit. But Haytham isn’t sure that he’s seen this man before. From behind the set of his shoulders reminds him of Altaïr, but his build is closer to Ezio’s, and these surroundings do not speak of either of them.
How many visitors must there be? Desmond, Ezio, Altaïr, Shay, his father - that was a shock - and now... who?
Even without the cloak this man’s allegiance would be clear at once from the hatchet that hangs at his side, its blade in the shape of the Assassin symbol. Not that Haytham was expecting anything else; this visiting affair has brought him to nothing but Assassins so far.
The man turns and at once lays hands on his hatchet, although he makes no move to draw it. A stranger, yes. And yet...
“Father?” the man asks, tense.
Father? Haytham’s mind goes at once to a bizarre visit from Desmond, a few months ago. Is there something particularly paternal about him?
“Perhaps it’s vanity,” he says, ready to draw his sword if he needs it, “but I do wish I’d stop hearing that from men too old to be my child.”
A strange expression passes across the stranger’s face: a sadness, but unsurprised. Bitter. This man, it seems, is poor at concealing his emotions. It is a trait that Haytham has always welcomed in his enemies.
But this emotion seems out of place. And something else is bothering Haytham, as he studies this stranger.
“You reject me, then,” the man says.
“I reject you?” Haytham echoes. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
The man meets his eyes with a stare, hard and wrenchingly familiar, and Haytham knows.
“Ziio,” he whispers. “I didn’t realise...”
He should return to her. She sent him away, but - perhaps, if she knows by now that she’s carrying his child, perhaps she might...
But he knows it’s hopeless, in the same way he knows the only possibility is that she’s pregnant now; there’s no chance she will take him back, no chance of a child in their shared future.
And their child before him is an Assassin. One who instinctively reached for a weapon at the first sight of his father. This is not someone Haytham has raised. Or not someone Haytham has raised well, at any rate.
“Forgive me,” Haytham says. It’s not the first time he’s seen open shock at an apology. “I didn’t know who you were.”
The man takes his hand from the handle of his hatchet - tomahawk, Haytham supposes. “This is our first meeting?”
“So it seems,” Haytham says. He has a son. “You know my name, I take it. May I have yours?”
The man hesitates before he answers. “Connor.”
“Connor? Is that the name your mother gave you?”
“No,” Connor says. “But I do not know if she would have wanted you to know that name.”
It cuts deeper than Haytham would have expected. He takes pains not to let it show.
Would have wanted. So Ziio is dead. A strange grief comes over him, for the death of a woman he will never see again, an unknown number of years in his future.
But not enough years, he thinks, looking at Connor’s young face. Not as many as she deserves.
“You became an Assassin,” he says.
“The Assassins were able to help me,” Connor says. “And you were not there.”
Strange, to suddenly gain a son already grown and being difficult. “But we have some sort of relationship, I suppose, as visitors?”
Connor hesitates. “Some sort, yes.”
Haytham will have to be content with that. He has never pictured a hostile, distant child in his thoughts of being a father, but now it seems hard to imagine any other possibility.
An Assassin. A boy raised, for at least some of his life, by a woman Haytham cannot approach. A visitor, meaning he is likely to intrude on Haytham’s life at the most inopportune moments. This will be a complicated fatherhood, it seems.
He does hope Desmond won’t turn out to be his son as well.
-
“This place is looking lively,” Edward says, looking around at the homestead. More of a success than Nassau, certainly, although he’s reluctant to admit it. “How many are living here now?”
Connor says nothing in response. Barely glances at him. Just keeps speaking to the farming couple.
Edward’s sure the farmers are pleasant enough, but they live here. Who knows when he and Connor will meet next? “I’m talking to you, you know. There isn’t exactly anyone else around I can converse with.”
Connor shakes his head, very slightly. Might be aimed at Edward, but it’s hard to be sure when Connor won’t look at him.
Connor’s always seemed selfconscious about breaking off his conversations to speak to visitors, and he’s always point-blank refused to be seen apparently talking to himself. It seems he’s decided to sidestep the entire issue by ignoring his visitor.
Well, Edward’s never taken well to being ignored. He didn’t become a pirate captain so people wouldn’t pay attention to him. The Assassins, they can move in the shadows or whatever it is they like to do. Edward is going to be seen.
Connor tenses up when Edward puts an arm around him, but he keeps his focus on the couple. He stutters off in the middle of his question about harvesting when Edward ruffles his hair, though.
“Connor?” the woman - Prudence, was it? Edward’s not been paying much attention to their talk, but he thinks he’s picked up that much - asks, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”
Connor shakes his head. “I am fine, thank-” and then Edward tries to tickle him under his ribs, and Connor jerks sharply and whips around to glare.
“Oh, you can see me?” Edward asks.
“Connor?” Prudence asks, alarmed now.
“Forgive me,” Connor says, through his teeth. “I have remembered that I have business elsewhere.”
He stalks away. Edward follows, trying not to smirk too openly.
When they are beneath the shelter of the trees and well out of earshot, Connor turns on him, his expression murderous.
“Good to see you too,” Edward says. “I’m a guest in your home; you’re not going to offer hospitality?”
“I am trying to build a normal life,” Connor growls. “You are making it very difficult for me.”
“You’re not normal,” Edward says. “None of us are. I’m trying to build a life where I can at least have a friendly relationship with you lot, if we’re stuck with each other, and you’re not exactly making it easy.”
Connor stares at him.
“You forced me to abandon my conversation with Warren and Prudence,” he says. “You think I am the obstacle to our friendship?”
All right, maybe Edward should have anticipated that Connor wouldn’t really be in an amicable mood after that. In his defence, though, baiting Connor is hilarious.
“Well, why don’t you show me how making friends is done, then?” As ruses go, he’ll admit it’s not the least transparent.
“Have patience,” Connor says. “If I am busy, wait. I will speak to you. But not when I am with others.”
“You know, you could tell your friends about us,” Edward suggests.
Connor hesitates.
“They would not believe me,” he says. “These people accept me. I cannot risk...” He shakes his head. “No.”
“Is it acceptance, really, if they don’t know who you are?”
“It is enough,” Connor says, with a glare that says the conversation is over. Edward chooses to ignore it.
“I told Mary, and she took to it well enough.” He pauses. “Perhaps too well. Learn from my mistakes: don’t let Ezio into your body when ladies are present.” Although it’s hard to think of Mary as a lady.
Connor closes his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. “He spoke to Myriam before her wedding. It...” He hesitates again. “It was unfortunate.”
Edward laughs. “Oh, I need to hear more about this.”
“I would prefer not to relive it,” Connor mutters.
“Come on. Might make me feel better about my own suffering at his hands.”
Connor sighs. “She still looks at me as if... very well. Perhaps it would be good to speak of it.”
As it turns out, the key to friendship lies in complaining about Ezio. Edward’s not sure why he didn’t guess it before.
-
Desmond barely has time to register he’s in Venice before Ezio is slinging an arm over his shoulders. “Desmond! I am glad to see you. You must meet my beautiful wife.”
Sofia?
“What?” Desmond asks. “Uh, I don’t know if...”
“Come,” Ezio says, steering him firmly down a side-street. “I promise you, she is the most radiant being you will ever have laid eyes upon.”
That’s what Desmond is afraid of. “I know. I mean - I know she’s beautiful. I’ve already seen her. In the Animus. So you don’t, uh, you don’t need to go to this trouble.”
“But you have not seen her in person,” Ezio says. “You have not met her.”
He can’t meet her. He wishes he could - well, maybe he doesn’t, it’d probably just make things even more complicated, but part of him wishes he could - but he can’t. Not really, not as himself.
Ezio gestures grandly with the arm that isn’t around Desmond. It suddenly strikes Desmond how strange this must look from outside, Ezio walking through Venice with his arm resting on nothing. “And I have told her so much about you! She would never forgive me if I failed to bring you to her.”
“She knows about me?” Desmond asks, startled. His heart kind of stutters; Sofia has talked about him with Ezio. She’s thought about him.
God, he’s so messed up.
“I have kept no secrets from her,” Ezio says. “It would be a lonely marriage if I had to conceal my life as an Assassin, and my friendship with you.”
It’s never really occurred to Desmond to tell anyone about his ‘visitors’; he knows it’d just make them worry. If he ever gets married, will he need to talk about this?
Probably not a question he really needs to think about. He’s too damaged to make a good husband to anyone. Right now, he’s being manhandled by a hallucination of his ancestor through a hallucination of Venice to see a hallucination of his other ancestor who, oh, yeah, Desmond’s kind of in love with. That’s not the kind of baggage that any relationship needs.
“Sofia, my love!” Ezio calls, and Desmond feels like the ground is collapsing under his feet.
Sofia is leaning over a roadside stall, wearing a deep green dress. She turns and gives Ezio a smile, which quickly becomes amused and puzzled. The arm thing must definitely look weird.
“I have someone for you to meet,” Ezio says, gesturing to Desmond.
Sofia laughs. “Oh, I see. Will this one be more talkative than the last?”
“Connor is a little shy,” Ezio admits. “But I am sure Desmond will be happy to tell you of his time.”
“Ah, so this is the famous Desmond?” She curtseys in Desmond’s direction, and for one heart-stopping moment, before he remembers Ezio’s arm, Desmond thinks she can see him. “I am honoured.”
Sofia is talking to him. Not to Ezio in his memories, but to Desmond, knowing who he is. And for a moment all Desmond wants is to do what Ezio is suggesting, to take over Ezio’s body and have a real conversation with her.
But he can’t. He’s pretty sure Ezio wouldn’t want him here if he knew how Desmond felt. Which means that speaking to her, even innocently, would be betraying Ezio’s trust. He can’t do that.
“Can I talk to you?” Desmond asks, quietly.
“But first,” Ezio says, smiling at Sofia, “I’m afraid Desmond and I have a private matter to discuss.”
“Very well,” Sofia says, with a show of disappointment. “But bring him back before he leaves.”
Ezio immediately hauls himself up the side of the nearest building, because in his head apparently the rooftop is a logical place for a private discussion. Desmond quickly clambers up after him. Why can’t any of his ancestors spend five seconds on the ground?
For a moment they stand quietly on the rooftop, side by side. Desmond feels slightly dizzy. He doesn’t know whether it’s the height or just seeing Sofia.
“You do not wish to meet her?” Ezio asks at last.
“It’s not that,” Desmond says, quickly. “It’s not that at all. It’s... kind of the opposite of that, actually.”
He takes a deep breath and prepares himself for the most awkward conversation of his life. And then he takes another deep breath, because it’s easier than actually talking.
“Speak,” Ezio says. “Whatever you have to say, I will listen.”
Okay. Okay. He’s going to say this.
“You know the Animus?” Desmond asks. “The machine that lets me see your memories?”
“I know something of it,” Ezio says.
“Okay. Well, it lets me feel what you’re feeling as well. And...” Is this really happening? Probably not, outside his own head. Somehow that isn’t making this any less uncomfortable. “Some of those feelings... uh, they’re kind of hard to shake.”
Ezio says nothing. Desmond stares very hard at a balcony on the other side of the street.
“I’d love to talk to her,” Desmond says, when the silence gets worse than speaking. “Believe me. But, uh... I wouldn’t feel right about it, if you didn’t know. I mean, obviously I’m not gonna try anything.” There are about fifty reasons why that would be a bad idea, of which ‘in the extremely unlikely event that this actually is real, Desmond could write his own birth out of history’ is a particular highlight. “But I thought you might not want me around her.”
He’s been avoiding Ezio’s eyes, but he’s startled into looking at him when Ezio starts to laugh.
“This is what you were so afraid to tell me?” Ezio asks. “That you are in love with my Sofia? My friend, I would be offended if you were not.”
Desmond blinks. “Uh...”
“Come,” Ezio says, smiling. “No more excuses. You must speak to her properly.”
-
They’re in calm waters when Aveline shows up, which is just as well; navigating a storm takes focus, and all the focus goes out of Shay’s head at the sight of her. For a moment he can only stare.
As soon as his mind’s working again, Shay clears his throat and glances over at Gist. “D’you know if docking’s permitted anywhere nearby?”
Aveline breaks into a grin. “Am I correct in understanding that Gist isn’t the one you’re speaking to?”
“Oh, thank God,” Shay breathes. He drops the helm at once and goes straight to her, leaving a slightly bewildered Gist to take over. Hopefully Gist will take the hint and dock them, but for all Shay cares right now he could send them into battle against a man o’ war. So long as he and Aveline aren’t disturbed.
Might be tough not to get distracted when your ship’s being blown to bits around you, but Shay’s prepared to meet that challenge if it comes.
Aveline’s kissing him before they’re even below deck. Some of the men are staring. Shay is vaguely aware that this must look ridiculous. It’s still hard to care.
In his cabin, she hops up to sit on his table. Directly on top of his fleet map. Probably hoping to lure him into damaging it somehow. She’s still an Assassin, after all.
She gestures with exaggerated grace to her leg. He takes it and examines the shin guard.
“You know I have no idea how to take these off,” he says.
“Which is why you need the practice,” she says, with a laugh. “I thought we would never stop missing each other. You’ve had trouble too, I take it?”
Shay groans. It’s not easy to be in a relationship with someone who only sometimes knows it. “Three or four times. I’ve said permitted every time, and you’ve not understood.”
“No understanding, you could say,” Aveline says, smirking.
“You know, I used to wonder why you kept saying that to me,” Shay says, idly tracing the curve of her thigh over her trousers. “Understanding this, understanding that. I thought you were trying to show some secret loyalty to the Templar cause.”
Aveline looks affronted.
“You could’ve just gone with ravish me as your codeword,” Shay suggests. “I promise you I wouldn’t have minded. It might have saved us some time.”
“Codeword,” Aveline says. “It implies a code, doesn’t it? Some level of subtlety?”
“Wasn’t subtle enough for me not to grasp it was a code. I just missed the target with the meaning.”
“Understanding is not an easy word to slip into casual conversation,” Aveline says, narrowing her eyes. “I’d like to see you try it.”
She’s frightening when she looks at him like that, and yet in a way it’s when Shay wants her most.
“It was your choice of word,” he points out.
She sighs. “I know. Permitted seems to have worked well enough; I don’t recall ever noticing you saying it, before I knew its significance.”
“Really?” Shay asks, a little taken aback. It feels like he’s said it unsuccessfully a thousand times. “I was starting to think you’d chosen it deliberately.”
“You thought I’d deliberately give you a codeword I’d heard you saying often?”
Shay shrugs. “Thought it’d amuse you to think of me walking off frustrated every time I said it.”
Aveline starts to laugh. “I wish I had thought of that.”
“And yet I was frustrated all the same,” Shay says. “Stroke of luck for you.”
“You see, Monsieur Cormac, some of us have no need to make our own luck.” She loosens the straps of her collar. “And some of us have luck sitting on the table before them, and yet would prefer to criticise luck’s choice of codewords.”
“I’m understanding you,” Shay says. He has to fight down an apology when she glares at him. “Is there any chance luck could move off that map, though?”
Aveline only raises her eyebrows.
Not a surprise. So now he’s left with a dilemma. Touch her, and risk damaging the map? Or walk away, and... well, he should at least look like he has to think about this.
It looks like the Assassins are going to win this one. When the battle’s between him and Aveline, they usually do.
-
Desmond wakes to the sound of a loud throat-clearing. For a moment he keeps his eyes closed. Yeah, Shaun’s probably about to mock him, but Edward’s arms around him are so solid and reassuring that it’s kind of hard to care.
And then he remembers that Shaun can’t see Edward, and he opens his eyes.
The throat-clearer is Haytham, and somehow the sight of him brings all Desmond’s selfconsciousness rushing back. He extricates himself from Edward, with some difficulty, and rolls away.
Great. He’s still embarrassed, and now he feels cold and lonely as well. But he can’t exactly go back to Edward now. Thanks, Haytham.
“What exactly are you doing?” Haytham asks.
“We’re being companionable, Hat Man,” Edward says, pushing himself up to sit. He looks twice as resentful as Desmond feels. It’s kind of gratifying, actually. “Or we were. You could join us, if you like, but I take it you’re not one to get close to others.”
Which is just as well, really; Desmond’s not sure he’s comfortable with the idea of Haytham joining them. But...
“‘Hat Man’?” Desmond asks.
“He doesn’t know my name,” Haytham says. He looks narrowly at Desmond. “It is to stay that way.”
“Wait, you’re telling me Desmond knows it?” Edward demands. “Why not me? What’s wrong with me?”
“Desmond,” Haytham says, quietly.
“I won’t say anything,” Desmond promises, and then, when Edward turns a wounded look on him, “Sorry. This guy’s scarier than you are.”
“I’m a pirate!” Edward protests. “Terror of the seas!”
“Perhaps you could be less quick to embrace people, if you plan to intimidate them later,” Haytham says. “I don’t imagine it helps. And I’ll remind you that we’re not on the seas.”
Edward shakes his head. “But why just me? What did I ever do to you?”
Haytham pauses.
“I’m a private person, that’s all,” he says. “It isn’t just you, I assure you. Desmond is the only one of us who knows my name.”
Not true. Desmond knows that for a fact. But Haytham is looking pointedly at him, and he knows better than to say anything. It’s probably to make sure Edward doesn’t ask anyone else who Haytham is.
So it is just Edward. Why? Most of the visitors are Haytham’s enemies; why hide from this one guy who isn’t even an Assassin?
“Go on,” Edward says, nudging Desmond. “Tell me. I’ll give you your own ship.”
“You’re offering me an imaginary ship?” Desmond asks, raising his eyebrows.
“A real ship. Tall and proud. If you think it’ll be an imaginary ship, why are you so afraid of Hat Man imaginary killing you?”
Real or not, Haytham is terrifying. “Okay, a real ship. In the past. Where nobody can see me and I can’t actually steer it.”
“Fine,” Edward says. “I’ll let you talk to Mary, if you promise not to kiss her.”
Desmond feels himself flush. “If I... what?”
“It’s a man’s name like any other,” Haytham says, firmly. “Nothing of interest. You’re wasting your time, and endangering Desmond’s life.”
Edward gives him a careful look. “Strange thing to murder for, if it’s ‘nothing of interest’.”
Haytham shrugs. “And yet I’m prepared to murder for it regardless. I suppose I’m a strange man.”
“I’ll know one day, I promise you,” Edward says, and then he disappears.
Haytham looks for a moment at the point where Edward was sitting, then sighs. “I know,” he says, quietly.
“You know?” Desmond asks, even though his common sense is begging him to stay quiet. He’s not sure he wants to draw Haytham’s attention after the threats. But he’s also really curious.
“I had it from Shay,” Haytham says. “He’s spoken to an Edward who knows the truth. Just another inevitability in my life, but I do what I can to delay it.”
“So why’s it so important that he doesn’t find out?”
“You know very well I won’t tell you, Desmond.”
Desmond falls silent. He really wishes he could stop feeling on some level that Haytham is his dad. It was bad enough when he only had one terrible father.
“But it is important to me, regardless,” Haytham says, after a moment. “I appreciate your silence.”
Oh. Wow. Holy crap. That feels really good. Suddenly all Desmond wants to do is run off and join the Templars, just to get some more approval from his fake dad.
“So what were you doing when I turned up?” Haytham asks.
“Like he said,” Desmond says, shrugging awkwardly. Which was... what was it Edward said, again? “Being companionable. Edward kind of insisted on it. It’s not so bad, though.”
“Hmm,” Haytham says. Desmond can’t meet his eyes. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Part Three