[drabbles/ficlets] AC, TF2, HH
If At First (Retcon)
(Altair/Maria, pre-Altair/Malik/Maria, PG. Deleted part from If At First.)
It would be many months before Malik could look at Altair and not feel the ghostly sensation of his non-existent left arm, and many years before he could laugh without reservation and not expect to hear Kadar laugh right back at him.
The day he did, though, was not one he could remember. It had been something trivial-the glimpse of a master assassin tripping gracelessly over his robes, or maybe a bad and misleading translation of one of Altair’s books-but Malik had laughed, unheeded and without malice.
From then on, it became wonderful and easy, especially whenever he caught Altair and Maria in the struggles of new parenthood. His laughter did not go unnoticed by them, perhaps for the worst, as they frequently threw soiled rags his way when they heard him snickering.
“Try this,” he said, and adjusted the squalling baby in Maria’s arms so that the infant’s head was resting against her padded shoulder. He brought out a ball of cloth from the cup he carried, dipped in goat’s milk and honey, and stuck it in its mouth, a common trick he had seen mothers do in the marketplace.
The room went blessedly quiet for one moment, but before Altair and Maria could breathe a sigh of relief, the cloth was spat out, as if with a vengeance, and once more the baby’s cries echoed throughout the fortress.
“Truly, the boy is your son,” Malik said dryly.
“If I wasn’t so tired, I would hit you,” Maria replied, rocking back and forth in a weak attempt to appease the baby. Surprisingly, the infant started to settle, and Maria’s expression brightened.
Altair grinned, eyes fixed on his wife, and Malik was suddenly reminded of moonlight and the shadows of latticework and leaves. He stilled, just like before, but with dangerous thoughts flitting into his mind that hadn’t been there like last time.
Then Altair glanced at him, still grinning, and Malik would swear it was with the same look from years ago, quiet and determined. Waiting, just waiting.
And Malik had no one to blame but himself when he allowed Altair to reach forward, hand outstretched, to deliver a playful slap against his head, jarring his thoughts completely.
“There you go,” Altair said, cheerful.
Maria scowled, “I didn’t need your help for that,” and shifted the baby so that she could bring her hand to Malik’s face. She tapped against his cheek, once, and was far gentler than Altair. Her calloused fingertips lingered and she looked at him, a slight knit of a worry over her brow. Malik stared back, blankly, unsure of what to make of her anxious expression-whether it was on his behalf, or her own. She smiled, almost tentative, and softly tapped his cheek again before Altair could notice their exchange-or perhaps he did, and had stayed silent while Malik stood rigid and stricken.
He made some excuse, weak and flimsy-another blanket for the baby, something to drink for Maria-anything to escape the room, leave the two-three-of them happy, as if his misery was somehow contagious.
And, to his eternal surprise, it was not Altair who followed him as he fled to the gardens, but Maria, still with the baby cloth drawn over her shoulder and colorful food stains on her tunic. She sat next to him on the grass and laid her hand on his head, unrepentant and unconcerned for decorum. The silence enveloped them and Malik was uncertain of her presence, if it was warm like a blanket or if it stifled like one.
“I used to hate him, too,” she said, speaking to his hands, since he had covered his face with them, rubbing viciously at his temples. “But the damn bastard has a way of changing minds and hearts.”
Malik laughed, surprised to hear the note of genuine humor as he did, and drew his hands away. “I can’t imagine how you can stand it.”
Maria raised an eyebrow, perhaps picking up on the double-edge of his words. “Sometimes I wonder the same about you.”
She was earnest. The way she said it, though, was a curious thing-half with wonder and half with the reserve of keeping something much more incriminating from her tone. It would be easier to despise her, Malik thought, but it would not be the same, to share that certain look with her-the look they shared now as Altair came into the gardens, with the baby in his arms.
“How can you two abandon me in my time of need?” the Grandmaster whispered fiercely, but the baby was sleeping peacefully, so he had only come over to gloat, most likely.
And he was too focused on his son to notice how Maria’s fingers threaded through Malik’s hair and how she leaned to his ear, breath soft against his cheek.
“When you are ready, then,” she murmured. “We will talk.”
Malik felt rather than saw her draw away, as if the blanket had been lifted from his shoulders, leaving a chill he did not know was there. He was about to move aside, but Maria had taken the ends of Altair’s robes to tug him down to join them. And whether by chance or Maria’s indirect control, Altair sat next to Malik, keeping the dai in between him and his wife, shoulders bumping together. When he leaned closer, it was to proudly show Maria the slumbering baby over Malik’s lap.
But, maybe, Altair’s eyes had flickered for a moment to glance at him, and when Maria bent closer to kiss the baby-hair brushing against his cheek-Malik could pretend, if only for a little while, that the warmth from both sides included him as well.
Meaningless
(Kink meme fill, gen, PG. Desmond gets teased about his tacky tattoo.)
Ever since Lucy gave him the hidden blade kit, Desmond’s been rolling up his sleeves just so that he doesn’t end up poking holes through the cuffs of his sweater on accident. The first time he does it, he catches her eyeing him askance, a quizzical fix to her brow, but she remains silent.
Shaun does no such thing.
“Christ, Miles, don’t tell me you have ‘mom’ tattooed in a heart over your chest too, because I don’t think I can be any more embarrassed for you.”
“Hey,” Desmond protests, resisting the urge to tug down his sleeves. Rebecca has been giving curious looks at his arm as well. He begins to suspect that the both of them have been speculating about the tribal tattoo while he was in the Animus, and it doesn’t help that Lucy is staying quiet instead of telling them to shut up. “I got it when I was seventeen.”
“Ah, so you were just as idiotic back then too,” Shaun sighs.
“Rebecca,” Desmond says, not quite wailing, and turns to her. He figures that she’s the one who can at least understand him the most, in that respect. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you were raised out in the middle of nowhere, no contact with the outside world, and then you run away.”
“Yeah, I follow you,” Rebecca says, lowering her headphones.
“And, when you run away, you hang low and work for a year-I don’t know, scrubbing tables or something,” Desmond continues, “So, as a runaway seventeen year-old, what would be the first thing you’d do with the money you’ve earned?”
Rebecca doesn’t miss a beat. “I’d get a motherfucking tattoo, that’s what.”
“Thank you,” Desmond says.
“Still a shitty tattoo though,” Rebecca coughs. “Way too nineties for my tastes.”
“Rebecca, this alliance can’t work if you’re going to undermine me like that.”
Meanwhile, Lucy and Shaun are laughing it up in their chairs. Desmond throws his arms in the air.
“Guys, it’s just a tattoo!”
“Just a tattoo? Are you sure? No deeper, symbolic meaning?” Shaun taunts from his desk, because apparently he has nothing better to do while Desmond tries to eat his lunch in peace.
“Well, you see this blue swirl right here?” he begins, patience wearing thin, and holds out his arm; Shaun looks. “That symbolizes the agony you’ll feel when my foot goes up your ass if you don’t shut up.” With that, he takes a bite of his sandwich, propping his feet up on a crate.
“Uh-oh,” says Rebecca, and Lucy ducks her head in a weak attempt to hide her grin.
“Wh-“ but before Desmond can even finish saying the word, Shaun is standing three feet too close to him, grabbing his wrist.
“Now you’ve done it,” Rebecca hums.
“I bet you don’t have a clue what your tattoo means,” Shaun says, unbuckling the bracer from Demond’s forearm and roughly turning it over. He gives it a glance, snorts, and lets go of Desmond’s wrist like it was a piece of garbage. “Absolute tripe, that design.”
“Desmond, did you forget who analyzes the glyphs you find?” Lucy adds helpfully.
He did. “Ah, shit.”
Shaun gets this smug look behind his glasses. He returns to his desk, waving a hand. “Don’t fret, Desmond. It’s not that bad. It’s a faux-Hawaiian design. I can pick out the original symbol, but it’s got all these extra patterns that make it meaningless. Apparently you claim to have paradise written all over your arm, or some gaudy version of it.”
“Okay, that I knew,” Desmond grumps. “It wasn’t like I voluntarily inked out my arm without knowing what I was getting.”
“But, paradise. Really?”
Desmond doesn’t intend to say what comes out of his mouth next, especially with Lucy smiling there for the first time in a while, but he can’t help it.
“Working from paycheck to paycheck, going to trade school, and living alone in a beat down apartment?” he snaps, yanking down his sleeves. He makes his way to the Animus and flops in it. “Yeah. It was. Anything was better than the Farm.”
The chamber goes quiet and, just like he predicted, Lucy’s smile disappears and her expression becomes anxious. He doesn’t bother looking at Shaun or Rebecca-instead he grinds the palms of his hands in his eyes, shutting them out.
“Ugh, I’m tired,” he mumbles, loud enough so that it can almost be an apology. He lowers his hands and tries for a grin, weary and small, but at least it reaches his eyes. “I’ll do a few more hours, then a break.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Rebecca says, her voice a little softer than usual.
She hooks him up and soon Desmond is in Rome, the skin of his left arm showing nothing but scars and the deep impressions of the hidden blade’s bracer.
+
When he wakes up, Desmond’s jacket is missing, and his arms are covered with ink and something he guesses is highlighter marks, but it shows up badly on his skin. He stares, still groggy from the Animus session; there’s a crudely drawn eagle above his elbow and a kiss made from actual lipstick (and, possibly, lips) on back of his hand. Also stars. And monochrome rainbows. And scribbled hearts in thin red ink. And ‘Shaun was here, tee hee’ written in what doesn’t look like Shaun’s handwriting, but word ‘WANKER’ in what does.
“There better not be anything on my face,” he says to the room at large, though Lucy’s gone out on a grocery run and Rebecca’s headphones are blaring out rock music. Only Shaun glances at him with an innocent expression. Groaning, Desmond gawks at his arms again. “Okay, Shaun, I hope your decoding skills are up this analyzing this, because I can’t even guess what all this means.”
Shaun frowns. “It’s simple, actually. It means that there were three people who had access to too many pens and an unconscious body.”
“And what about the ‘we love you, Desmond’? Because. That’s. Well.”
“Excess patterns,” Shaun mutters. “Means nothing.”
“Worst tattoo job ever,” Desmond grumbles, standing up to stretch.
But he keeps them on for the rest of the day.
---
And I did the music/fic meme on tumblr! It was... interesting, hurr.
Marry You - Bruno Mars
(r!Spy/b!Spy, PG)
One morning, BLU Spy woke up to his RED counterpart fast asleep against his chest and smelling like six different kinds of alcohol. Now that in and of itself wasn’t much a surprise, but the thing that worried BLU Spy the most was the silver ring around his finger that definitely was not there last night.
The second thing he was worried about was the matching piece on RED Spy’s hand. It was bad enough with one ring involved. Having two meant something was horribly consensual, and given that the room looked like the honeymoon suite of a five-star hotel, BLU Spy thought that maybe, just maybe, something was wrong.
“Salut, mon moitié,” he said, playing for casual when RED Spy opened his bloodshot eyes.
RED Spy grunted and lifted his head. As he shifted, there was a curious sound of crinkling paper and BLU Spy reached down to discover a crumpled marriage certificate that was tucked into his briefs. He took a glance and, when he was through, silently handed it to his counterpart.
“Nice name,” RED Spy slurred, squinting into the paper.
“I thought that one was yours,” BLU Spy mumbled.
RED Spy paused, evidently still half-drunk. He patted BLU Spy on the shoulder, clumsy but somehow affectionate, and tucked the certificate back into his briefs.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get them corrected tomorrow.”
It’s a beautiful night,
We’re looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby,
I think I wanna marry you.
Everlong - Foo Fighters
(Archie -> Horatio, PG)
The moment Archie grabbed on to William’s arm on the edge of the cliffs, a million of thoughts passed through his mind--that this was a bad idea, that William was going to kill him (if he didn’t drown first), and, most of all, that it was likely all Horatio’s fault.
Damn that grin of his, Archie thought, and for the life of him he couldn’t help but grin back.
“Gentleman,” Horatio said, and Archie had never heard him sound so commanding. “On the count of three.”
Which, to be honest, was silly. William outranked them both.
“We’re not going to jump,” said the first lieutenant, but when had Horatio ever turned down a good plan?
“One!”
“That’s my final word!” William said, almost pleading.
“Two, and three!” Archie shouted gleefully, because he damn well wasn’t going to let Horatio have all the fun now was he?
And I wonder
When I sing along with you
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again