Methinks I may love angst and drama a bit much. Just a bit.
Master of the House
Chapter 8 - Hope and Despair
Despite overhearing James and Davies that one time, despite listening raptly to Lee himself when he cajoled with him for his aid and despite his own, unfortunately vivid, imagination, nothing prepared Clipper for his first sight of his mentor.
Connor, normally so strong, so vibrant and full of life, always moving whether it was running or leaping or climbing walls and trees...He laid there, almost engulfed in the too-large bed. So pale and still that if it were not for the soft rise and fall of his chest, Clipper would have thought him dead.
“Oh, sir,” he whispered in horror.
He knelt by Connor’s bedside and carefully took one of his hands (too thin, far too thin) in his own. Those brown eyes stared vacantly at the window, blank and unseeing.
For a moment, Clipper was worried that he had lost his sight, but recalled that neither Lee nor Davies had said anything about blindness.
He felt inexplicably relieved by that. For a man with such special vision as Connor, the loss of sight would be devastating.
But what had happened to him? What had happened to the man he so admired?
What had Lee done to him?
Clipper swallowed painfully, staring at the man before him. He waited for...for something. For a movement perhaps. Any movement. A twitch of the fingers, a shifting of the eyes, a rustling of bed-sheets, anything. He needed to know that the man he looked up to, the man he had followed—that they had all followed—was still there. He needed to know that Connor was still there.
A minute passed, then five, then ten.
Nothing.
Connor laid there, like a marionette with its strings cut, glassy eyes staring out the window as clouds slowly hid the sun away.
It was as if Clipper were not there at all.
Clipper had thought he had felt true helplessness before. When he had been dragged away from the church, when he had been separated from Stephane and Deborah in their jail cells, when he had first learned of Connor’s miscarriage.
None of those compared to the gaping hole that made its home in his chest and sought to drag him in. Nothing compared to how small and useless he felt at that moment, faced with the impossible task of bringing back a man who may already be dead.
-----
Back in his office, Charles paced relentlessly, driven by manic energy and hounded by demons in his heart. He wanted to burst into the room where Connor and James’s Omega was, he wanted to tear out of the house and drag Matthew back, appointments be damned, he wanted to ride to New York and find Master Kenway and rage that it wasn’t fair to put this on him, and how could he reward his unending loyalty with this, he wanted to fall on his knees in front of Master Kenway and beg forgiveness...
He—he was coming undone. Everything was coming undone. That Clipper would have unsupervised access to his Omega...
(oh God, he was mad, he was going mad, the boy was driving him mad)
...and Master Kenway blamed him for the miscarriage...
(but it wasn’t, he hadn’t thought Washington would die, he hadn’t known that grief would kill the man, he’d been taken by surprise and didn’t see Connor there until one of the maids—was it Mary? Was it Amelia—had screamed and there was Connor and blood, so much blood soaking the seat of his trousers)
...and he was going to be King, but they would all see how crazy he was becoming and that would be taken away too...
Charles collapsed in his leather chair and stared at the portrait of Master Kenway hanging on the wall.
It used to give him comfort. It used to make him feel proud and valued...
(but never loved)
...and useful, but...
A welling of rage rose within him. Swiftly he grabbed one of the inkwells laying about his desk and hurled the bottle against the portrait.
With a sharp tinkling crack, the bottle broke and released inky black fluid against the man Charles so admired and...
(yearned for)
...looked up to.
As the dark ink ran over the dark blues and tans and pale browns of the oil painting, Charles seemed to wake from his anger and despair.
And he was horrified.
“Mary! Ronald!” he called for his head maid and man-servant, hurriedly grabbing spare bits of cloth and dabbing frantically at the portrait.
No. No, no. He wasn’t going to lose this too. They could still save it. Oils were resilient and a bit of cleaning, a bit of maintenance, and it would be fine.
He would not lose this too!
Ronald burst into the office, Mary swift on his heels. They took one look at the ruined painting, at their desperate, frenzied movements of their master and the crazed look in his eyes and moved as one.
Grimly, Ronald grabbed a hold of his master, the old man soothing him, petting him as he had when Charles had been a boy and he newly entered into the Lee’s service. Mary carefully took the painting and handed it off to her helpers to be cleaned and preserved.
Charles grasped after the disappearing painting, unwilling to let it go, unwilling to...
“Sir!”
He turned wild eyes upon Ronald, upon one of the few people who had served him and been by him near his entire life.
“Sir,” Mary repeated and laid a gentle hand upon her master’s.
“It can be restored.”
It? Charles wasn’t sure what she was talking about anymore. The painting? His Omega? His relationship with Haytham? His child?
But Mary was patting his hand, gently, confidently.
“What’s been broken,” Ronald began, “can oftentimes be fixed. Have patience, sir.”
But Charles wasn’t sure he had any more patience.
-----
Back in Connor’s quarters, Clipper came to a decision.
It would do no good to stand petrified by the enormity of the task he had set himself. Altair didn’t retake Masyaf by avoiding Abbas. Ezio didn’t avenge his family by mourning his life away. They both faced their difficulties, their sorrows and their regrets.
As an Assassin, Clipper could do no less.
And so Clipper raised the hand he had been cradling, laid a gentle, chaste kiss on it and set it back on the sheets.
He took a look around the room, paying attention to the double-lock on the door, to the heavy, almost stifling air within, to the light gathering of dust that had gathered on Connor’s shoes, something the servants had missed as no one thinks to dust shoes.
Connor hadn’t been out of the room in a while and, from the sickly pale cast of Connor’s skin, Clipper wasn’t sure he’d ever been let out of the house.
He turned to the admired and beloved form on the bed.
“I’ve missed you, sir. I’m not sure where Deborah and Stephane are, but I’m sure they miss you too. And I just want you to know...I’m not giving up on you.”
He closed his eyes, imagining Connor as he was, with Achilles, Stephane, Deborah, Jamie, Jacob, Duncan...
“I am not ever giving up on you. So please, sir, when you’re ready. Wake for me.”
Master of the House - part 9
Master of the House
Chapter 8 - Hope and Despair
Despite overhearing James and Davies that one time, despite listening raptly to Lee himself when he cajoled with him for his aid and despite his own, unfortunately vivid, imagination, nothing prepared Clipper for his first sight of his mentor.
Connor, normally so strong, so vibrant and full of life, always moving whether it was running or leaping or climbing walls and trees...He laid there, almost engulfed in the too-large bed. So pale and still that if it were not for the soft rise and fall of his chest, Clipper would have thought him dead.
“Oh, sir,” he whispered in horror.
He knelt by Connor’s bedside and carefully took one of his hands (too thin, far too thin) in his own. Those brown eyes stared vacantly at the window, blank and unseeing.
For a moment, Clipper was worried that he had lost his sight, but recalled that neither Lee nor Davies had said anything about blindness.
He felt inexplicably relieved by that. For a man with such special vision as Connor, the loss of sight would be devastating.
But what had happened to him? What had happened to the man he so admired?
What had Lee done to him?
Clipper swallowed painfully, staring at the man before him. He waited for...for something. For a movement perhaps. Any movement. A twitch of the fingers, a shifting of the eyes, a rustling of bed-sheets, anything. He needed to know that the man he looked up to, the man he had followed—that they had all followed—was still there. He needed to know that Connor was still there.
A minute passed, then five, then ten.
Nothing.
Connor laid there, like a marionette with its strings cut, glassy eyes staring out the window as clouds slowly hid the sun away.
It was as if Clipper were not there at all.
Clipper had thought he had felt true helplessness before. When he had been dragged away from the church, when he had been separated from Stephane and Deborah in their jail cells, when he had first learned of Connor’s miscarriage.
None of those compared to the gaping hole that made its home in his chest and sought to drag him in. Nothing compared to how small and useless he felt at that moment, faced with the impossible task of bringing back a man who may already be dead.
-----
Back in his office, Charles paced relentlessly, driven by manic energy and hounded by demons in his heart. He wanted to burst into the room where Connor and James’s Omega was, he wanted to tear out of the house and drag Matthew back, appointments be damned, he wanted to ride to New York and find Master Kenway and rage that it wasn’t fair to put this on him, and how could he reward his unending loyalty with this, he wanted to fall on his knees in front of Master Kenway and beg forgiveness...
He—he was coming undone. Everything was coming undone. That Clipper would have unsupervised access to his Omega...
(oh God, he was mad, he was going mad, the boy was driving him mad)
...and Master Kenway blamed him for the miscarriage...
(but it wasn’t, he hadn’t thought Washington would die, he hadn’t known that grief would kill the man, he’d been taken by surprise and didn’t see Connor there until one of the maids—was it Mary? Was it Amelia—had screamed and there was Connor and blood, so much blood soaking the seat of his trousers)
...and he was going to be King, but they would all see how crazy he was becoming and that would be taken away too...
Charles collapsed in his leather chair and stared at the portrait of Master Kenway hanging on the wall.
It used to give him comfort. It used to make him feel proud and valued...
(but never loved)
...and useful, but...
A welling of rage rose within him. Swiftly he grabbed one of the inkwells laying about his desk and hurled the bottle against the portrait.
With a sharp tinkling crack, the bottle broke and released inky black fluid against the man Charles so admired and...
(yearned for)
...looked up to.
As the dark ink ran over the dark blues and tans and pale browns of the oil painting, Charles seemed to wake from his anger and despair.
And he was horrified.
“Mary! Ronald!” he called for his head maid and man-servant, hurriedly grabbing spare bits of cloth and dabbing frantically at the portrait.
No. No, no. He wasn’t going to lose this too. They could still save it. Oils were resilient and a bit of cleaning, a bit of maintenance, and it would be fine.
He would not lose this too!
Ronald burst into the office, Mary swift on his heels. They took one look at the ruined painting, at their desperate, frenzied movements of their master and the crazed look in his eyes and moved as one.
Grimly, Ronald grabbed a hold of his master, the old man soothing him, petting him as he had when Charles had been a boy and he newly entered into the Lee’s service. Mary carefully took the painting and handed it off to her helpers to be cleaned and preserved.
Charles grasped after the disappearing painting, unwilling to let it go, unwilling to...
“Sir!”
He turned wild eyes upon Ronald, upon one of the few people who had served him and been by him near his entire life.
“Sir,” Mary repeated and laid a gentle hand upon her master’s.
“It can be restored.”
It? Charles wasn’t sure what she was talking about anymore. The painting? His Omega? His relationship with Haytham? His child?
But Mary was patting his hand, gently, confidently.
“What’s been broken,” Ronald began, “can oftentimes be fixed. Have patience, sir.”
But Charles wasn’t sure he had any more patience.
-----
Back in Connor’s quarters, Clipper came to a decision.
It would do no good to stand petrified by the enormity of the task he had set himself. Altair didn’t retake Masyaf by avoiding Abbas. Ezio didn’t avenge his family by mourning his life away. They both faced their difficulties, their sorrows and their regrets.
As an Assassin, Clipper could do no less.
And so Clipper raised the hand he had been cradling, laid a gentle, chaste kiss on it and set it back on the sheets.
He took a look around the room, paying attention to the double-lock on the door, to the heavy, almost stifling air within, to the light gathering of dust that had gathered on Connor’s shoes, something the servants had missed as no one thinks to dust shoes.
Connor hadn’t been out of the room in a while and, from the sickly pale cast of Connor’s skin, Clipper wasn’t sure he’d ever been let out of the house.
He turned to the admired and beloved form on the bed.
“I’ve missed you, sir. I’m not sure where Deborah and Stephane are, but I’m sure they miss you too. And I just want you to know...I’m not giving up on you.”
He closed his eyes, imagining Connor as he was, with Achilles, Stephane, Deborah, Jamie, Jacob, Duncan...
“I am not ever giving up on you. So please, sir, when you’re ready. Wake for me.”