Learn
Title: Learn
Fandom: Assassin's Creed/Kuroshitsuji. Sort of.
Author: write_rewrite
Rating: G.
Pairings: William/Grell; Alan is single.
Warnings: Universe-mixing.
Notes: For hanakotoba_fic. I should be shot repeatedly.
Summary: Alan is an Assassin, and his trainer is nuts.
Blend
“So you can wield a knife; big deal,” says the instructor, and Alan battles to keep his tongue leashed and manner obedient, “but can you blend?”
You’re a prostitute, Alan thinks, you’re tall, your hair is blinding. There is no way you can blend.
“No, sir,” is what he says, in the tone of voice the Brothers use towards Master Assassins.
“Let me how you.”
The instructor’s robes are faded and more gray than white, and Alan can see the wear on the leather. It fits him not well, shifting noisily about his person, and his back is blown up by the fabric. In the beginning, there is this Assassin in front of him, and in the next, the crowd has swallowed him up, and Alan is left alone.
Perhaps it was hasty to judge.
Alan trudges behind the Assassin’s footsteps, trying to catch sight of him, but the Master Assassin is gone.
“This will be fun,” he mumbles sourly, and blocks his ears to the cries of the market-stalls, and the jabbering nonsense of society, tries to glimpse white in gray and black and green and brown (the world is so dull nowadays) and, all of a sudden, a guard in plate metal turns, and hisses.
“Thief!” the guard screams it, and the call rattles over the vendor’s braying like a church bell, and it takes Alan a second or two to see that they mean him, that they are coming for him, that the Master Assassin is behind them, grinning a mad, mad grin beneath his hood.
Alan turns tail and flees, weaving through the crowd like a common street child, until a side-ways glance into an alleyway show a pock-marked wall. He scrambles up the holes, hiding on the rooftop like a rat.
The Master Assassin is there, with his mad grin and vivid hair, perched by him. Alan isn’t going to question how he’s there.
“Good boy, but a bit of a naff show.”
Alan grits his teeth. “You could’ve gotten me killed!”
“Then you would have shown yourself a terrible Assassin. Ah, well. Try to blend, this time.”
“Try not to send guards after me!” Alan can’t keep his voice from lifting, and the higher it goes, the more amused his instructor.
“Ordering me around, little one?” There is laughter in the instructor’s voice, and Alan cannot help it, he hisses in rage. “Ooh. Naughty boy. Show respect to your elders, little one.”
“Earn it,” Alan says haughtily, in the voice of a nobleman.
The instructor studies him a moment, and then lays a hand on his shoulder.
And then, he is tumbling over the edge of the rooftop and onto the solid ground below (though it’s a thankfully brief fall, broken by a pile of garbage).
Bureau
Alan has never been to the Bureau, and Grell promises to take him when he is ready - and though the Assassin is flighty and devil-damned, the promises are never broken. One day, Grell does not show up for lessons, and he is not at his brothel.
They meet by a market stall, and Grell murmurs, “perhaps I’ll introduce you today; come on,” and then pays for his produce, and leaves.
Alan follows him blindly, and uses the tricks from school - never push, adapt pace to the surroundings, be unremarkable. The crowd drowns him, but the guards never see him.
Two miles outside of the village, Grell stops at a house about to tumble down, and gestures to the door - unthinkingly, Alan opens it, and peers into utter darkness only minutely improved by a handful of candles. He steps in. A floorboard squeaks.
Knives fly past his face, one grazing, cutting his cheek, and dent the doorway with three silent sounds.
Alan jerks back, and falls in his attempt to duck, and doesn’t like it at all when the Master Assassin just laughs (that madman laugh, only fit for Bedlam) and steps over him.
“William, pet, it’s only me.”
“You should have called out.” Something moves in the darkness, and nearly covers up that shuttered voice.
“His aim is off,” Alan mutters, but eyes the knives warily, and pushes himself up.
Grell walks the darkness like he knows it; he opens a window like it’s his own home. Alan is not prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, since this particular Assassin is an oddity, and not one that Alan knows much about, not one to ask about. There is a dark pall over him that cannot be shifted, even to the idle gossips.
“Yes, my aim is off,” goes the other voice, frozen and icy.
Light slants over a perfectly clean floor, and highlights a drab rug on floorboards nearly the same colour. The room is filled with books. The chairs have repaired upholstery, in a neat and efficient hand, yet Alan can see no women, and the other voice is male.
In one of the chairs, straight as a ruler, there is another man.
“Your Bureau leader,” Grell gestures, sitting on the desk. Alan cannot think what the man has against chairs, and does not point it out.
The Bureau leader jerks his head in acknowledgement, and lifts it, turns himself to face Alan, and Alan can see, then, why the knives did not quite strike out his eyes.
There is a long, grubby bandage stretched across the Leader’s eyes. Beneath it, his mouth is unsmiling and stern, and Alan wishes to look away, but the bandage is fascinating, and he is staring, and the Bureau leader knows it.
“Who is this, Grell?”
“My novice.”
“The one you plunged off a roof.”
Grell drops something, and Alan glances away quickly, and takes a step back. The redheaded Assassin slides off the desk, and into the opposite chair.
“The very same.”
William’s hand, he notes, with some interest, goes across to the middle of the table immediately, still clutching the fourth throwing knife.
“I hear you chased him for a while, over the rooftops. Is that true? Grell embellishes.”
There is something like fondness in the Bureau leader’s voice.
Alan flushes, and does not look away, stepping close, again, to view the bandage from a different angle.
“It is true. I was angry. I should not have been so careless and distracted.”
“This is William,” Grell interjects, carelessly slinging his legs over the arm of the chair he is sitting in. Beneath his lengthy weight, the wood seems to sway drunkenly.
The name is familiar.
Alan should not have stared.
“Th-There is a portrait of you in the main hall.”
“I would not know,” William touches the bandage over his eyes, and then drops his hand, curls his fingers into a fist. His voice never lifts or changes. “Are you here for any particular reason, or is Grell just being lazy?”
“Shockingly enough, William, he is here for his first task,” and William grins, sharply, toothily, and the effect, plus the bandage, makes him frightening.
“There is a list over there,” William gestures towards the back, and the cluttered maze of books. “Read them to me.”
Names speed past.
Alan watches the light skim over the tabletop, studies the blade the blind Assassin holds: he does not recognize the make, and cannot discern a signature that might indicate which blacksmith forged it.
“That one. Slingby. He is chamberlain to the king.”
“William, is has not been that long since you have lost your sight; surely you know that castles are well-protected?”
“If he cannot sneak into a simple castle,” William retorts, “then you are wasting your time, and so am I.”
“Be that as it may, it does seem a tad... advanced for a novice.”
This argument vaguely reminds him of home, although his mother would never dare to raise her voice in such an impetuous manner.
“Grell, don’t meddle. As you’ll recall, it never turns out well enough.”
William pulls at the bandage again, irritated. Alan wonders if it itches, or if he has trouble getting it to fit properly, and pictures the white fabric falling onto the table, soiled and dirty, leaving his disfigured face free to the light.
“Honestly, you get worse with old age. Fine, then. Slingby. Chamberlain to the king,” Grell rolls bright green eyes, and gets up to root behind the desk. “Are we still using feathers?”
“Bottom shelf, on the floor. The blue box. And you used roses. Even such a simple rule, you were incapable of following it.”
“Yes, I’ve heard this all before, you don’t need to dry your throat on my account.”
Alan looks away from William when it seems like the older man might say something cutting and sharp and not for his ears, and stares at the proffered feather. “Um.”
“You dab it in his blood. It is proof of the kill.”
“R-Right.”
“And don’t stutter,” William snaps, biting the words out. “Leave.”
Alan is halfway down the road before he realizes that his instructor stayed behind, in that two room hovel, with the blind Assassin.
Fandom: Assassin's Creed/Kuroshitsuji. Sort of.
Author: write_rewrite
Rating: G.
Pairings: William/Grell; Alan is single.
Warnings: Universe-mixing.
Notes: For hanakotoba_fic. I should be shot repeatedly.
Summary: Alan is an Assassin, and his trainer is nuts.
Blend
“So you can wield a knife; big deal,” says the instructor, and Alan battles to keep his tongue leashed and manner obedient, “but can you blend?”
You’re a prostitute, Alan thinks, you’re tall, your hair is blinding. There is no way you can blend.
“No, sir,” is what he says, in the tone of voice the Brothers use towards Master Assassins.
“Let me how you.”
The instructor’s robes are faded and more gray than white, and Alan can see the wear on the leather. It fits him not well, shifting noisily about his person, and his back is blown up by the fabric. In the beginning, there is this Assassin in front of him, and in the next, the crowd has swallowed him up, and Alan is left alone.
Perhaps it was hasty to judge.
Alan trudges behind the Assassin’s footsteps, trying to catch sight of him, but the Master Assassin is gone.
“This will be fun,” he mumbles sourly, and blocks his ears to the cries of the market-stalls, and the jabbering nonsense of society, tries to glimpse white in gray and black and green and brown (the world is so dull nowadays) and, all of a sudden, a guard in plate metal turns, and hisses.
“Thief!” the guard screams it, and the call rattles over the vendor’s braying like a church bell, and it takes Alan a second or two to see that they mean him, that they are coming for him, that the Master Assassin is behind them, grinning a mad, mad grin beneath his hood.
Alan turns tail and flees, weaving through the crowd like a common street child, until a side-ways glance into an alleyway show a pock-marked wall. He scrambles up the holes, hiding on the rooftop like a rat.
The Master Assassin is there, with his mad grin and vivid hair, perched by him. Alan isn’t going to question how he’s there.
“Good boy, but a bit of a naff show.”
Alan grits his teeth. “You could’ve gotten me killed!”
“Then you would have shown yourself a terrible Assassin. Ah, well. Try to blend, this time.”
“Try not to send guards after me!” Alan can’t keep his voice from lifting, and the higher it goes, the more amused his instructor.
“Ordering me around, little one?” There is laughter in the instructor’s voice, and Alan cannot help it, he hisses in rage. “Ooh. Naughty boy. Show respect to your elders, little one.”
“Earn it,” Alan says haughtily, in the voice of a nobleman.
The instructor studies him a moment, and then lays a hand on his shoulder.
And then, he is tumbling over the edge of the rooftop and onto the solid ground below (though it’s a thankfully brief fall, broken by a pile of garbage).
Bureau
Alan has never been to the Bureau, and Grell promises to take him when he is ready - and though the Assassin is flighty and devil-damned, the promises are never broken. One day, Grell does not show up for lessons, and he is not at his brothel.
They meet by a market stall, and Grell murmurs, “perhaps I’ll introduce you today; come on,” and then pays for his produce, and leaves.
Alan follows him blindly, and uses the tricks from school - never push, adapt pace to the surroundings, be unremarkable. The crowd drowns him, but the guards never see him.
Two miles outside of the village, Grell stops at a house about to tumble down, and gestures to the door - unthinkingly, Alan opens it, and peers into utter darkness only minutely improved by a handful of candles. He steps in. A floorboard squeaks.
Knives fly past his face, one grazing, cutting his cheek, and dent the doorway with three silent sounds.
Alan jerks back, and falls in his attempt to duck, and doesn’t like it at all when the Master Assassin just laughs (that madman laugh, only fit for Bedlam) and steps over him.
“William, pet, it’s only me.”
“You should have called out.” Something moves in the darkness, and nearly covers up that shuttered voice.
“His aim is off,” Alan mutters, but eyes the knives warily, and pushes himself up.
Grell walks the darkness like he knows it; he opens a window like it’s his own home. Alan is not prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, since this particular Assassin is an oddity, and not one that Alan knows much about, not one to ask about. There is a dark pall over him that cannot be shifted, even to the idle gossips.
“Yes, my aim is off,” goes the other voice, frozen and icy.
Light slants over a perfectly clean floor, and highlights a drab rug on floorboards nearly the same colour. The room is filled with books. The chairs have repaired upholstery, in a neat and efficient hand, yet Alan can see no women, and the other voice is male.
In one of the chairs, straight as a ruler, there is another man.
“Your Bureau leader,” Grell gestures, sitting on the desk. Alan cannot think what the man has against chairs, and does not point it out.
The Bureau leader jerks his head in acknowledgement, and lifts it, turns himself to face Alan, and Alan can see, then, why the knives did not quite strike out his eyes.
There is a long, grubby bandage stretched across the Leader’s eyes. Beneath it, his mouth is unsmiling and stern, and Alan wishes to look away, but the bandage is fascinating, and he is staring, and the Bureau leader knows it.
“Who is this, Grell?”
“My novice.”
“The one you plunged off a roof.”
Grell drops something, and Alan glances away quickly, and takes a step back. The redheaded Assassin slides off the desk, and into the opposite chair.
“The very same.”
William’s hand, he notes, with some interest, goes across to the middle of the table immediately, still clutching the fourth throwing knife.
“I hear you chased him for a while, over the rooftops. Is that true? Grell embellishes.”
There is something like fondness in the Bureau leader’s voice.
Alan flushes, and does not look away, stepping close, again, to view the bandage from a different angle.
“It is true. I was angry. I should not have been so careless and distracted.”
“This is William,” Grell interjects, carelessly slinging his legs over the arm of the chair he is sitting in. Beneath his lengthy weight, the wood seems to sway drunkenly.
The name is familiar.
Alan should not have stared.
“Th-There is a portrait of you in the main hall.”
“I would not know,” William touches the bandage over his eyes, and then drops his hand, curls his fingers into a fist. His voice never lifts or changes. “Are you here for any particular reason, or is Grell just being lazy?”
“Shockingly enough, William, he is here for his first task,” and William grins, sharply, toothily, and the effect, plus the bandage, makes him frightening.
“There is a list over there,” William gestures towards the back, and the cluttered maze of books. “Read them to me.”
Names speed past.
Alan watches the light skim over the tabletop, studies the blade the blind Assassin holds: he does not recognize the make, and cannot discern a signature that might indicate which blacksmith forged it.
“That one. Slingby. He is chamberlain to the king.”
“William, is has not been that long since you have lost your sight; surely you know that castles are well-protected?”
“If he cannot sneak into a simple castle,” William retorts, “then you are wasting your time, and so am I.”
“Be that as it may, it does seem a tad... advanced for a novice.”
This argument vaguely reminds him of home, although his mother would never dare to raise her voice in such an impetuous manner.
“Grell, don’t meddle. As you’ll recall, it never turns out well enough.”
William pulls at the bandage again, irritated. Alan wonders if it itches, or if he has trouble getting it to fit properly, and pictures the white fabric falling onto the table, soiled and dirty, leaving his disfigured face free to the light.
“Honestly, you get worse with old age. Fine, then. Slingby. Chamberlain to the king,” Grell rolls bright green eyes, and gets up to root behind the desk. “Are we still using feathers?”
“Bottom shelf, on the floor. The blue box. And you used roses. Even such a simple rule, you were incapable of following it.”
“Yes, I’ve heard this all before, you don’t need to dry your throat on my account.”
Alan looks away from William when it seems like the older man might say something cutting and sharp and not for his ears, and stares at the proffered feather. “Um.”
“You dab it in his blood. It is proof of the kill.”
“R-Right.”
“And don’t stutter,” William snaps, biting the words out. “Leave.”
Alan is halfway down the road before he realizes that his instructor stayed behind, in that two room hovel, with the blind Assassin.