asscreedkinkmeme | Kink Meme - Assassin's Creed pt. 6

Perhaps if only one of them had tried to put out the fire on Desmond's hand, it would have worked a lot better. As it was, Desmond tried to stop, drop, and roll at the same time as Haytham tried to grab his arm and push it into his water pitcher. This ended very badly, with both of them tumbled on the floor covered in flash-boiled water. Desmond screamed as his entire arm was scalded, and yet, it was still on fire. The last thing he remembered before passing out was Haytham wrapping his heavy wool coat around Desmond's arm, and lying on it.

Connor was just starting to worry what kind of mischief his father had gotten himself into. Had he somehow escaped the ship? Taken over the world? Convinced his whole crew to join the Templars? And there was that smell--that terrifying, familiar reek of burned wood and flesh and hair that made Connor's breath hitch and his vision swim. Before he knew, he was halfway down the hill--no, stairs--racing towards his mother's longhouse--no, his father's cabin. He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't lose his father like this. He couldn't bear it.

Flinging open the door, Connor could hardly see anything through the smoke and steam, the stomach-wrenching reek of charred pork (my mother is roasting my mother is scorching) but he could hear a struggle in the tiny room. "Ista!" No, that wasn't right. Not Ista, not this time. "Rake:ni! Please, Rake:ni!" Why wasn't his father responding? Was that him coughing so much? Was he doomed to watch both his parents burn to death? He waded in and promptly tripped over someone on the floor.

"Connor... take him to the doctor... his hand... and he's been... tortured..." Haytham was jacketless, his face grimy from sweat and soot, half-dragging a young man with a scorched arm. "Fire's... out... Sorry..." he added, coughing and leaning against the wall as Connor picked up the unconscious man.

He hadn't gone three paces before he heard a thump, and, sighing, turned back to drag his father along, too.

When Haytham woke up, the ship's surgeon was picking melted pieces of the young man's white jacket out of the charred flesh of his arm. Luckily, it looked like they could save all his fingers. Connor was avoiding looking at the blackened flesh, though, so was the first to see his father sit up, and promptly went over to thump him on the back rather harder than was necessary. When Haytham coughed up a rather large glob of blackened phlegm, Connor handed him a tin cup of water and waited for him to take a few sips before demanding, "So, who is he, Father? And why were you helping him stow away on my ship?"

Haytham coughed again, confused. "I don't know who he is. I thought maybe you had a twin brother you had forgotten to mention to me."

"A twin--do you think me a fool? Obviously my mother was just one in a line of native women for you--"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"You probably left her bed and went to New Jersey and found some Lenape woman--"

"I swear to you, Connor, I have never been to New Jersey--"

"Then some other village--"

"And in fact I have never shared a woman's bed since your mother sent me away--"

"A likely story!"

"--unless you count sleeping in the same tent as my sister after I rescued her from slavery, which I certainly don't."

Connor scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. "And yet, look at him."

"If he's not your twin brother, I have no explanation. Unless he's Altair ibn La'ahad fallen through time because of a Precursor artifact, which is at least more likely than anything you've come up with."

Connor scoffed. "And what do YOU know about Altair--"

This was probably the worst of all possible times for Desmond to wake up shouting in Arabic.

Oh Desmond, you know you're confusing the hell out of these poor people.

(And, yay! A long post! :D)

-OP

The Bleeding Effect. So agonizing for Desmond, so convenient for the fanfic writer.

-writer!anon

Well... Looks like things have gotten off to a good start for them!

Ouch! Now that, that was just terrible teamwork. Hopefully Haytham will get better at the whole 'helping Desmond' thing, yeah?

more please?

Alas for gainful employment...it interferes with writing wacky Assassin (and Templar) hijinks!

-writer!anon

FYI to OP: have you read Cipher (http://archiveofourown.org/works/869710/chapters/1669971) yet?

Just to add, I do have two more parts to this story in the works but might not be able to finish and post until later tonight...of course the one I've done more on, comes after the other...

writer!anon

(my employment isn't even that gainful, alas...)

It was crowded in the room--marketplace--palace--too crowded for him to breathe. "Go away! Go, get lost!" He remembered, he remembered how to figure out who he was. Count the fingers. Ten. Close the eyes. Feel the face. Clean-shaven. Feel the hair. Short. This was a good thing. He was Desmond, and he was going to open his eyes and ask for some excedrin and maybe some junk food.

A man deserved donuts on his way to saving the world, after all.

He opened his eyes.

Two men stared down at him, faces almost identical but for the color, clad in similar jackets and hats.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. Nope, still there. The younger man looked suspicious, the older one pitying. Okay, this was definitely a bad day for his brain. He re-counted his fingers extra slowly. Still ten. Five looked a bit overcooked, though. Face, still smooth. Hair, still short. Wait, what if--nope, everything looked normal under his shirt. But the two men were still there, now both looking slightly confused. Which was nothing compared to how Desmond felt.

"What's your name, lad?" asked the older man, gently. Okay, this was really Bizarro Land. The only good thing was that the younger man seemed to agree with that assessment.

Desmond wasn't sure how to reply, or even if he really was Desmond. "Umm..."

"I think that you are some other bastard son of my father's that he has helped stow away on my ship for evil purposes, but he thinks it more likely that you are a man named Altaïr from many years ago, somehow appearing out of nowhere."

Desmond rubbed his eyes, confused. How did one respond to that? "Your father's right, it is more likely."

"I told you so, son."

"How is that possible?!"

"I'm not actually Altaïr, today anyway. But I..." How could you explain the Bleeding Effect? How could you explain the Animus? DNA? How could he explain it all to his ancestors, starting with the fact that they were his ancestors?

"So some days you are Altaïr and some days you are not." Connor's voice was flat, agreeing with the madman to keep him quiet.

"Connor! Be nicer to him, he's been tortured. You wouldn't believe it if you'd seen it."

"And how have you seen it, Father? Were you the one torturing him?"

"No, I... it was in a dream. Many dreams. Dreams I've had longer than you've been alive."

"Then it cannot have been this man, can it? He has few scars for having been tortured for more than two decades."

Haytham frowned, puzzled. "He has always looked this age."

Desmond spoke up, hoarsely. "I'm from the future."

"Of course you are. That is why you are not Altaïr today, because he is from the past and you are from the future. Perhaps tomorrow you will be Ezio Auditore!"

Desmond shrugged. "Maybe. He's pretty badass too."

Connor glared at Haytham. "Is this what you are trying to do to me? Drive me so mad that I end up like him?" With that he turned and stomped out, muttering something in his native tongue.

Desmond asked Haytham, "What does he have against New Jersey? I mean, there's no turnpike yet, Newark doesn't have a sketchy airport, Rutgers doesn't yet have a reputation for bullying, and Snooki is like negative two hundred years old still. "

Haytham's voice was strained. "I am not going to ask you what any of that meant, but how did you understand him?"

I almost feel like it's inappropriate, how much you make me laugh. Because poor Desmond's so confused and in pain and (at least, so far as Haytham believes) recovering from 'torture' - but, damned if I'm not snickering the whole time!

-OP

Also, went to check out that link you posted earlier. I think I'm going to have to set aside a good few hours to read it all in one go, it looks so good.

I think if it wasn't funny, it would just be TOO angsty. I mean, Desmond's life has basically gone to shit over the course of a couple months. Now he's on the fast track to going crazy and/or committing suicide and/or getting killed by a global conspiracy. And NOW I'm throwing him into a war full of poor sanitation and crazy, murderous relatives.

On a wooden ship.

Sailing to the Caribbean.

Without a yellow fever vaccine.

I really like how you're writing Haytham. I always liked the guy.

Thank you! I have to admit that I love tinkering in Haytham's head. He's been so twisted around by the crap in his life that I don't think he has a great deal of internal consistency and he's trying to hold on to what few principles he can.

Damn, that was depressing.

Also he's got a big whack of depression and a much older sibling he doesn't know how to talk to, despite respecting her and wanting to have a better sibling relationship. He just doesn't know how. So me and Haytham, we're like soul sisters.

aww...poor new jersey...

Yeah, Newark Airport isn't that bad, I don't know what Desmond is talking about.

Desmond gulped. "Um, listen, I'm really tired, what with all the time traveling and you almost shanking me and me setting my hand on fire. And it's a really, really long story and it'll probably piss you off a lot." He determinedly closed his eyes.

"Were you being tortured in that chair?"

"You could call it that. Haytham, I'm really tired--"

"The people torturing you, putting you in that, that machine. Were they Templars? Or assassins?"

"Both, actually."

"Ah." A pause. "How typical." The words were barely audible, so loaded with loathing that Desmond felt sick--the pain in every careful inflection overwhelmed him so. "Well, sleep well, lad. You're safe now." And just like that, Haytham's voice was gentle again.

Desmond kept his eyes shut--he had no hope of figuring out how to get out of this situation, this whole century, if he had to invent his story on the fly, trying to keep out of whatever dungeons they threw crazy people in during the American Revolution. Obviously the greatest threat to him right now was Connor, who didn't want to give him the benefit of any doubt--

Was Haytham fucking Kenway actually tucking him in??

And despite his best efforts to stay awake and plan, he fell asleep immediately.

d'aww!!!

hush now des, just let grandpa take care of you.

Oh, Desmond, you and your snark. How I love it. :D

-OP

Rebecca cheerily called out, "I made the donuts!" as she entered the cave, bearing a tray with two cups of coffee confectionery in one hand, and an orange and white box in the other. "Hey Shaun, I have this great idea for all the powdered sugar left over in the corners, we can put it all around Desmond's nose and take pics, and then upload them to his facebook. Whoa, why the long face? I got your Bavarian Creme."

Shaun glowered at her from the computer chair. "Rebecca, check the Animus. We're not going to be pranking Desmond anytime soon. Unless we can find him." Sure enough, the chair was empty, the light dark, the screen dead.

"Well, where is he? What happened? You were here, did he get up and run off?"

"I, ah... was taking care of personal business, and the lights flashed, so I ran out of the bathroom." He pointed to the Animus. "It sparked and I could see glitches, but erm... by the time I pulled up my trousers to run over there, it looked like a massive static discharge, and he... vanished."

"Vanished. As in, he was here and then he wasn't here."

"Yes, as implied by the term vanished."

Rebecca began nervously chewing at the cuticle of her thumbnail. "What was he doing?"

Shaun shrugged helplessly. "Sailing. Connor had an argument with his father and then was watching dolphins. I've seen enough Flipper for one lifetime, and he wasn't fighting or anything, and I think we should throw out the rest of the leftover vindaloo from the other day, incidentally. So I thought he could hold out... of course, if you had been here... "

"Oh, don't blame this on me, Mister I've Got This Embarrassing Craving For American Junk Food Please Don't Tell Desmond. I thought you could keep your pants on for twenty minutes."

The Animus rebooted itself. POST, BIOS, OS. Rebecca watched it in silence, until a status message appeared.

         HASSHASHIN

"What... "

     DEZMND SAFE

"Is the Animus talking to us...?"

       NO
       EGLE

"Uh..."

        ALTR

Rebecca and Shaun frowned at each other. "Either it's got some kind of code that I didn't code, or it's spelling things really badly, which I also didn't code," Rebecca said slowly.

     LOK MEMRY

"Who taught you to spell?" Shaun groused as Rebecca began downloading both a memory dump and the video playback immediately prior to the shutdown.

      NO ON

"That's obvious."

      ANGLSH
      NO MINE TUNG

"Who taught you English anyway?"

      MINE WYF

"Hey Rebecca, do you think Frau Berliner-Mauer could have gotten in here and married the Animus?"

"What the shit are you babbling about, Shaun?"

"It's telling me that its wife taught it bad English."

Rebecca peered over Shaun's shoulder. "It looks like it learned to spell from like the Canterbury Tales. Or Robin Hood."

     !!!

"Fan of Robin Hood?"

       WNTED TO TLK HIM
       TAL HIM BE HSSN

Rebecca shook her head. "No idea what you're saying, Baby. Okay, look. Right here..." She played a video clip of Desmond as Connor steering the Aquila. "Pretty boring. But see here, it starts to go hazy. Like he's desynchronizing."

   RBN NVR WRIGT BK

"But he didn't do anything to make himself desynchronize. And he's done this memory fine, it was just to help him with the other one."

    MYHP RBN CNOT RD

"Or maybe he just couldn't read the way YOU write."

     THS RLY DIFFCLT

"Stop, already. Now look, the viewpoint moves away from Connor and goes down the stairs."

       RTNHKETON

"Yeah, we can't say his name, but you can't spell, so shut it."

"Shaun, I swear there's no vowel shortage in the Animus. So you see, it goes to Haytham, and it finally gets into focus now."

"Well, he can't be reliving Haytham's memory, that's impossible now."

   EGLE
   EGLE
   egle

"Ugh, seriously Haytham, close your mouth when you sleep."

"Maybe he's got a deviated septum."

"You're just sticking up for him because he's British."

"I am not 'sticking up' for a Templar just because he's British! I'm just saying, maybe he can't help drooling in his sleep."

       THMSPSLNR

"I have no idea what you're even trying to say, strange little computer."

"So then it zooms in on the Piece of Eden, then it glitches, and then the Animus crashed."

     DEZMND SAFE

"So you say."

     SO I KNOWE

"You know, your spelling is really annoying."

     SO BE THY FACE

"Did you just... sass me??"

     COM ATT ME BRO

"That is so not Canterbury Tales."

     NOT DEAFE

"Okay, Shaun, please, stop yelling at the Animus. There was some kind of power surge right then."

   EDEN DREW DEZMND BACK
   SAFE
   RTNHKETON
   YUNGE EGLE
   SAFE

"He's safe... with Connor?"

"Oh, goody. He's on a wooden ship in the middle of the ocean, with an Assassin and a Templar who need massive amounts of family therapy. Who knows what sort of diseases are going around? You know he's too young to have been vaccinated for smallpox. Plus, this is Desmond, what's he going to do without cellphone reception?"

"Shut up, Shaun. How could he even get to Connor's time?"

    PIEC OF EDEN

"And what exactly are you, because I'm pretty sure you're not actually the Animus."

    CAV

"...And I'm also pretty sure you're not some kind of geological formation, either."

"No, Rebecca, he didn't mean cave, he meant cavy. As in a guinea pig."

    PG???

"You know, squeaky little rodent?"

    NO?

"Ah, forget it."

"Why are you calling my Animus 'he' anyway?"

"For one thing, I thought we established that this isn't the Animus talking back to us. And for another, he mentioned his wife."

"So? This is New York, this is 2012, a woman can marry another woman if she wants."

     YEA
     WMN CN VRAI STRNG
     AND TOUGHE

"With spelling like that, we're not talking to a modern woman from New York."

     NIL
     TRUY
     EVTHNG
     PRMTE

The lights around the walls strobed.

"That wasn't creepy at all."

Altair?! That was Altair, right? Dear god, that conversation nearly killed me! Honestly, it's a little hard to breathe right now.

-OP

*gives you an inhaler*

I'm honestly not trying to assassinate anyone here, I just think Altair couldn't put up with Shaun!

I'm fuckin choking this is gold okay and if anybody tells you different they're lying. Especially the bit where Altair gets snippy at Shaun. Is the spelling a nod to how written Arabic has almost all vowels removed? I can't wait for the next part!

Re: Teaser!

(Anonymous) - 2013-11-18 06:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Teaser!

(Anonymous) - 2013-11-18 12:49 (UTC) - Expand

donuts! facebook! robin hood!! fuckin' com att me bro!!!

*iz ded*

Re: Teaser!

(Anonymous) - 2013-11-18 06:41 (UTC) - Expand

This is just...gold. Friggin' gold, I swear!

Re: Teaser!

(Anonymous) - 2013-11-18 15:38 (UTC) - Expand

For once, Desmond dreamed his own dream, remembered his own life. He knew it was his memory because of the television (for dvds only, of course; cable was part of the Templar Plot). He had waited until his parents stopped yelling and turned off the hallway light. Then he'd given them a good two hours to get to sleep, and another to be sure.

Earlier that day, he'd prepared: Janie's older sister had just made full Assassin, made her own untraceable credit cards, and was allowed to go on missions by herself. She was both well-positioned and well-disposed to acquire the contraband the younger kids craved, and through an elaborate barter system, Desmond was able to trade three shiny pencils, a Lisa Frank notebook, and a week of sweeping Janie's house for a Star Wars DVD, a bag of Twizzlers, and a graphic novel that Janie swore would break his mind.

Desmond had hidden the DVD in his math textbook, and squeezed the candy and comic book into his secret hiding place inside the couch cushion, which he had partially hollowed out for just that purpose. It promised to be a great night of sugar, pop culture, and just being a kid.

Unfortunately, he forgot about the third creaky step (what normal kid had parents that purposefully loosened the floorboards in case of intruders? And who would want to sneak into their house anyway?) and Desmond could have groaned with frustration to see his father look up at him from the couch.

William Miles was wearing sweatpants and a tank top, which Desmond was perfectly aware wasn't his normal sleeping attire. His pillow was at one end of the couch, along with a shabby fleece blanket. Desmond clenched his fists with frustration. His perfect night, ruined by whatever they had been fighting about.

"Des, son? You couldn't sleep either?"

It was best to play along. "Yeah, I kept trying to sleep. I think maybe I need a drink of water." He went to the fridge to pour himself a glass from the jug. Even if they'd been close enough to get city water, the Farm didn't approve of fluoridation. Boiling the water from the slightly untrustworthy well was near the bottom of Desmond's list of favorite chores.

After rewashing his glass, Desmond padded back through the living room. His father was looking rather wistful. "Come here and sit with me, son."

Desmond would really rather have snuck upstairs to listen to rap on his discman (more contraband, both disc and player) since his original plans were shot, but it was best not to argue.

"Were you having more nightmares like you used to?"

"No, Dad, honest. I just wasn't sleepy." He betrayed himself by yawning. "What I mean is, I lie down but I'm just thinking so much I can't sleep."

"Thinking about what?"

How much I want to get out of this crazy place. "Just, you know, stuff."

"Fire?"

"Not anymore. Just stuff. Kid stuff, I guess."

William nodded, and to Desmond's embarrassment, he found he was leaning on his father's pillow. It smelled comforting, like a pillow should. Like a father should. William chuckled. "How about you lie down here? Count some sheep or something."

Desmond stifled a yawn. "Every time I count sheep, I end up wanting to run away and be a pirate."

"A pirate? Why?"

"'Sgotta be better than counting sheep all the time." He snuggled down into the pillow, and his father tucked him in tenderly, then covered Desmond with his coat. It smelled so, so comforting: a little sweaty, a little spicy, a little soapy, faintly bloody, but mostly fatherly. Now perfectly content, Desmond was out like a light.

Except it had never happened that way, Desmond realized as he slowly regained consciousness. He had shivered under the ratty blanket that smelled like feet, while his father awkwardly sat at the other end of the couch reading work stuff. There had been no concerned conversation about his sleep patterns, just the irritable order of "Count sheep or something, Desmond, just please go to sleep already." And he had never ever mentioned the pirate thing.

Desmond had barely slept that night, and he had never again even pretended to seek comfort from William. This whole dream had been wishful thinking, so real, so perfect, so much like what a dad should be that he could still smell it even though he was almost completely awake now. He resisted opening his eyes, concentrating on remembering how it smelled in his dreams to have a dad, not just a father. A tear trickled from each eye. Oh, that was just silly. Here he was, a grown man, a bartender and an Assassin, sniffling over a silly dream. He wiped his nose on the thick, embroidered wool fabric of his blanket--

No, not his blanket.

Haytham was so going to shank him, for real this time, for snotting up his jacket.