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We are going up in flames
Covered in ashes
We’re covered in ghosts
( x )
Fort George is a hollow shell, barely anything left after the bombardment. None of the fighting forces have bothered with an attempt to rebuild; the resources are needed elsewhere. Shay trails his fingers along some of the stones, frowning at the soot staining his fingertips. He doesn’t know why his steps have carried him here, to a place that is likely to bring nothing but pain and emptiness. He’s only been here three or four times before, always on official Templar business; when he’d been ordered to leave again, Haytham’s personal quarters had been elsewhere in the city and he had preferred to stayed over at Fort Arsenal more often than not. A letter from Charles had informed him that Haytham had moved most of his personal possessions to Fort George and into the Templar Headquarters during the latter years of the war.
Shay pointedly ignores the faint traces of numerous blood spatters, still soaked into wood and stone. He doesn’t want to think about where it was that Haytham bled his last, doesn’t want to know; the ache inside him is far too mighty too process such information yet.
It takes him a while to retrace his steps to the rooms the Templars had made use of most often. The grand table in the middle is splintered and broken where a cannon ball crashed into it. Haytham’s quarters are not far, on the level above, inside one of the towers that looks out onto the sea.
“Did you watch?” Shay whispers, placing his hand on the sill of a broken window as he stares out onto the roiling sea. “Did you stand here, knowing that these ships would carry your death as they approached?”
It would’ve been just like Haytham; never one to be partial to unnecessary sentimentality, but still given to bouts of black humour and an almost fatalistic acceptance of the future, particularly during his later years.
-
“He will come to kill me sooner or later.” Haytham’s voice is quiet and factual, only the faintest tremor at the edge of his words, so in contrast with the light blue sky outside the bedroom window.
“You say that as if it’s a given.” Shay rolls over so he can look at him. The expression on Haytham’s face is hard to interpret.
“Trust me, I have seen my son’s blade at work. And I know my age – I do not have any illusions about my chances.” There is an almost wry amusement to Haytham’s voice now. “Although I can promise you that I will not go lightly or easily to my end.”
“How about you don’t go at all, sir.” Shay grasps his hands and presses a kiss to Haytham’s knuckles. “There must be a solution that doesn’t end in death.”
“You of all people should know that death is never far where Assassins and Templars are involved.” Haytham frees one hand from Shay’s grasp and traces the remnants of the bullet hole in his shoulder, fingers wandering up to the scar across his brow. “My son is astonishingly single-minded. He will come, sooner or later, to kill Charles and me. Better I meet him in battle than to hide and cower until he finds me.”
“I believe I know where he gets his single-mindedness from,” Shay says. Haytham snorts quietly in reply.
“Do not underestimate his mother.” He sighs and turns a little until he is lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling. “Sometimes I wish it were different and we would have had the opportunity to bring him up together.”
Shay grasps his shoulder then, as if he could stay the future from its path with nothing but the sheer force of his will and grip. He will not let Haytham go so easily, and he says as much.
“I will fight until the end; that is the only promise I can give.” Haytham’s gaze softens slightly, in a rare moment when he offers Shay a glimpse at his heart. He turns to look at him again, touches a finger to Shay’s lip. “But whatever regrets I might have over what has transpired, know that you were never one of them.”
-
Anger is the only emotion still capable of pushing through Shay’s grief. Sometimes he wonders if that’s all he has left – to be devoured by the great emptiness that gapes open inside him, or to give in and break into pieces where nobody will find him.
Looters have been through the fort, leaving everything in disarray that hasn’t already been damaged by the battle and subsequent fire. Shay doesn’t know why he’s still here, still looking for anything at all, when there’s probably nothing left. The conversation with Connor has left him reeling and he yearns for the feeling of safety that being close to Haytham once afforded him. The little book Connor gave him isn’t enough – he still searches for more, anything tangible of Haytham’s that can prove to him that their time together wasn’t a dream.
He immediately notices when he steps into Haytham’s quarters, despite the degree of destruction around him. Most of the books on the shelf and windowsill are singed or burnt, as are the remnants of an old tricorn hat in the corner. Shay steps up to the books, his fingers brushing over their brittle spines. Despite their state, he recognises at least two of them, knowing they were at home on the Morrigan for a while once upon a time.
-
“You are like a cat,” Shay looks up at Haytham from where he is sprawled across his lap. Haytham tears his gaze away from the book he’s reading, raising his eyebrows.
“Hm?”
“You don’t take kindly to people attempting to order you around. You always put a certain amount of effort into your appearance. You have the arrogance.” Shay reaches up to smooth out the lines on Haytham’s brow with his fingers. “Don’t frown, you know it’s true. And, last but not least, instead of hair balls you leave books behind everywhere you go.”
“I do?” Haytham cannot quite keep the smile out of his voice. Shay laughs, gesticulates around them, encompassing the entirety of the Morrigan’s cabin in the motion and the dozens of books that are strewn around most vaguely horizontal surfaces.
“You’ve been here for what? Three nights? I can attest to it that the number of books in this cabin has at least doubled.”
“Well.” Haytham closes his current book and drops it on the windowsill next to the bed, on top of two others. One large wave, Shay thinks, and these books will fall down and break our noses at night. “It’s not like you had many to start with. A man must find his comforts where he can, even if he has to bring them with him.”
“Should I be insulted? For not being comfort enough to you?” Shay makes a show out of pouting, causing Haytham to roll his eyes.
“Whilst your company can be rather…pleasing, it isn’t always available, seeing that you are the captain of this ship.” In contrast to Haytham’s words, his hand is moving under Shay’s shirt, along his collarbone, down towards his throat and on to his chest in a very deliberate motion. “And a good book offers its very own particular set of pleasures.”
“Surely nothing that I can’t provide just as well,” Shay suggests, slowly drawing himself upwards as close to Haytham’s body as possible, whilst his hand wanders down to the growing bulge under Haytham’s pants. The Grand Master’s breath hitches ever so slightly in response, even as his voice remains remarkably even.
“You have clearly never had the pleasure of reading Voltaire,” Haytham murmurs, cupping Shay’s chin and pulling him close for a kiss. Shay’s reply is lost in the quiet, but breathless laugh that is shared between them.
-
Walking along the books, Shay remembers the conversations he’s had with Haytham about so many of them. Haytham had never chastised him for his rather limited knowledge about everything to do with literature. Instead, he had taken an obvious delight in providing plot summaries and relaying the most important ideas he came across in his books to him. And Shay, in turn, had always delighted in the utter joy it evidently brought Haytham.
“You would be so very angry at the state of these books, wouldn’t you,” Shay says to the empty room. He hopes that nobody can overhear him talking to a dead man, but even if so, he doesn’t really feel any shame about it. “I believe I still have a few of them on the Morrigan – you told me you’d take them back the next time we saw each other. Perhaps I should send them to your sister…”
Despite having been in London twice during his search for more Precursor Artefacts, Shay has never visited Jennifer Scott. He isn’t entirely sure why – but from Haytham’s words he knows that he and his sister, though amicable now, have never shared the closest of relationships. There has simply never been a reason to disturb her with Shay’s presence. He wonders, now, how Jennifer would react to the books, or indeed, to him visiting in person.
As he ponders the thought, his gaze falls on something glinting under a mountain of soot and rubble in a destroyed corner of the room. Shay walks closer and realises that there is something hidden below the remnants of the ceiling that has collapsed onto the bed in the corner. Something that Haytham had stored underneath his bed, away from prying eyes.
It takes some digging and careful shifting of debris (taking care not to cause the remaining ceiling to come down on top of him) until Shay has freed the mysterious object from its confines. It is a small wooden chest, undecorated save for the initials carved carefully into the brass plate above the lock: H. E. K. The lock itself is easy enough to break, although Shay feels a flicker of shame at doing so. It should have been buried with Haytham, most likely, not left here to rot if nobody had found it. Haytham isn’t here to object, would never be here to object to anything ever again, but there is a still certain finality to the act of breaking open something that he had held so dear.
There is a small velvet pouch on top of a number of things inside. Shay weighs it in his hands and opens it, only faintly surprised when a Templar ring falls out. He doesn’t even have to look at the initials carved on the inside to know whose it is.
-
“Are you looking at Birch’s ring again, sir?”
Haytham turns his head at Shay’s question. He’s sitting at the table where he’s been doing his nightly writing. Now he is looking down at the ring on the papers in front of him, turning it back and forth with his fingers. Shay has walked up from behind and places a hand on Haytham’s shoulder, now that he knows he’s here.
“I noticed earlier that I am still carrying it in my pocket,” Haytham answers belatedly. “I should have had it melted down or given to a new member long ago, and yet…”
“…yet you can’t seem to let go.” Shay nods; he knows a little about clinging to the past himself. Hidden away in the depths of his closet is his old Assassin uniform, destroyed and bloody like the day it was when Monro’s people cut it off him. He has asked Haytham before about how he had felt killing his former guardian; there is no need for them to have this discussion again.
“I wonder whether Reginald knew that I would kill him for what he did. He had to have known that I would find out sooner or later, and he’s always been one who was aware of how strong my anger could be, how unforgiving.”
“Would it have changed anything? If he knew?” Shay’s fingers are still on Haytham’s shoulder, resting there to provide an anchor for Haytham to hold on to.
“No, probably not.” Haytham sighs and leans back in his chair, unconsciously rubbing the old scar on his chest. “He told me he thought I’d see reason, that I would understand what he did and why, shortly before he died.”
“And do you?” It’s a dangerous question and Shay knows it; but he, perhaps, is one of only two people in the world who is allowed to ask. Haytham is quiet at first, taking the time to think through the answer before he picks up the ring and turns it in his hands as he speaks.
“To a certain extent, yes, if I apply the reasoning he always tried so hard to instil into me. However, this does not mean that I can condone what he did. Nor will I ever be able to forgive. What he did to my family, to Jenny, will hopefully have earned him a place in hell.” He clenches his fist around the ring now, the shadow of an old and familiar wrath crossing his face.
“Then you should let go of the ring,” Shay says. “It does nothing but remind you of old pain. And you carry enough of that around with you already.” He leans forwards as he says the words, his hand moving until he grasps Haytham’s fingers, right on top of the old wound that almost killed him. Haytham tilts his head up in response, into a quick kiss.
“I could say the same to you,” he remarks. “I know you still have the piece of brickwork from Lisbon in your room.”
“That’s different.” Shay shakes his head. The stone had fallen onto the Morrigan when one of the gunpowder storages close to the harbour had exploded during the earthquake. It is a painful reminder of his past, and it serves to strengthen him in his conviction that what he’s doing right now is right, every time he looks at it.
“It isn’t.” A faint smile travels over Haytham’s lips, any argument that Shay might have cut off when he kisses him again. “But perhaps I will put the ring elsewhere for a while. No need to carry it on my person.”
-
Shay puts the velvet pouch and the ring aside, fingers trembling as he digs deeper into the little box. Next are several sheets of paper – some of them he recognises, some of them he doesn’t. He thinks at least one of them is from Jenny, another from Connor, if the angry signature at the bottom is anything to go by. There is a painful sting in his heart when he spots his own handwriting. He has never been good at writing letters, not even to Haytham; the words that he would say to him face to face suddenly seem insincere and flat when he’s writing, not worth the effort to ban them on paper and send them to the Grand Master.
This was one of the few ones he had written, back when he had arrived in Paris, hard on the trails of the box and the local Brotherhood. I found the box, the words read. An Assassin named Charles Dorian will soon be entrusted with it, and I will take it from him at the earliest opportunity. The words appear crass and unwieldy, even now. Despite the bloody trail he leaves wherever he goes, Shay has never delighted in murder, not even that of Assassins. Dorian would never have given up the box willingly and for that, he had to die. Shay will dip his hands in crimson over and over again, if it only means that the world will remain safe.
What he had loved most about Haytham was that he had never denied the amount of blood spilled by Shay’s hands, had never attempted to make light of or gloss over the violence that he had committed. No, Haytham would bathe in red beside him, would hold his hand as they ventured down to hell together, still believing that they were doing what was right. Sympathy and pity Shay couldn’t live with; grim acceptance he can. It was something that Haytham seemed to understand instinctively.
It’s like an ache that rises up inside him, the sudden, intense feeling of missing Haytham, missing the warmth beside him, the ally at his back, the dry humour that never failed to make him chuckle. It robs him of his breath and makes his fingers tremble.
Shay puts the letters down next to him with a careful hand and directs his attention to the last few items at the bottom of the chest. There are three, each carefully wrapped in what Shay recognised as Haytham’s handkerchiefs. The first is a hair ornament, clearly fashioned by the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka. The second a silver button, engraved with a symbol unknown to Shay, and two initials on the back: JH. And the third…
-
“You are miles away, sir,” Shay smiles, his fingers tracing the beginning wrinkles on Haytham’s face with a light touch from behind.
“Hmm?” Haytham replies, still staring out of the window. He’d been looking at some reports from the Order earlier, but evidently his attention hasn’t been on them in quite some time. Shay laughs quietly.
“I said you are miles away, Haytham. What are you thinking about?”
Haytham sighs, and finally seems to emerge from his stupor.
“I was wondering whether we should procure another warehouse near the harbour. Imports have picked up ever since you have expanded your fleet, and we seem to be running short on space…”
“Such romantic thoughts.” Shay reaches out and cards his fingers through Haytham’s hair, currently unbound. Haytham leans back into the touch ever so slightly. “Next thing you’re going to tell me is that you’ve been calculating numbers of grain shipments in your head whilst buggering me.”
“Not grain shipments, never.” Haytham turns slightly, throwing a completely earnest glance in Shay’s direction. “It was metal shipments.”
Shay cuffs him lightly on the shoulder in response.
“And here I was, about to actually be romantic,” he says with a theatrical sigh. Haytham only raises his eyebrows in response. He is in a playful mood today, something that is becoming rarer and rarer these days. Haytham has never exactly been a carefree man, but for him to drop his guard so completely is a rare thing.
“Romantic? Indeed.” The way that Haytham’s gaze travels across Shay’s body (covered in barely more than breeches and a loose undershirt, despite the cold December morning) is anything but innocent. Shay rolls his eyes in response, but still pulls out the little pouch he’d saved for the occasion from behind his back.
“It’s your birthday in two days. And since you’ll be leaving tonight…”
“How did you-“ Haytham frowns. He doesn’t look unhappy, per se, but very surprised nonetheless.
“-know when your birthday is?” Shay finished the sentences for him. “Let’s just say that certain other Templars aren’t by far as good at keeping your secrets as you are.” It had been an easy matter to find out Haytham’s birthday, taking nothing more than Charles in a rare benevolent mood, and a bottle of rum. “And I needed some kind of excuse to gift you something, sir.”
“Well.” Haytham finally takes the pouch from Shay’s hands, evidently surprised at how little it weighs. He opens it and shakes the contents into his palm. Shay is more nervous than he would like to let on; he’s known Haytham for many years at this point, but he’s never made him a gift like this before.
“Oh.” Haytham doesn’t say any more than that, but his thumb keeps rubbing over the three ribbons in his hand. All of them are varying shapes of red, like the current one he uses for his hair, but feature the subtlest of golden embroidery on the edges of the already expensive fabric, metallic thread reflecting the light of the beginning day.
“I thought, since you keep losing your hair ribbons- I hope they’re alright, sir.” Shay’s aware that he’s waffling slightly, more nervous than he thought he would be.
“I am quite unused to receiving gifts as thoughtful as this, I have to admit.” Haytham looks up at Shay and there it is, one of the rare smiles that steals across his face. “They are beautiful. Thank you. Would you-“
“Tie up your hair? Of course.” Haytham hands him one of the ribbons, and Shay sets to work. He takes his time, running his fingers across Haytham’s scalp, feeling him relax at his touch. The trust that Haytham displays towards him is worth more than all the words he could ever say.
Haytham motions him closer when he’s done, indicating for them to swap positions. There are no words needed; he sets to work quietly, but methodically, smoothing out the chaos on top of Shay’s head until it, too, is tied up properly.
Shay keeps an eye on the ribbon in Haytham’s hair in the following months and years. Two of the three ribbons he spots him wearing regularly (until Haytham apparently loses one of them, leaving only the one that he wears every time Shay catches him somewhere and that he was just as likely buried with), but the third he never sees again. He’d thought that maybe Haytham disliked this one or that he’d lost it, too, but…
-
…he had seemingly kept it instead, safely stowed away with other items of the greatest value to him.
Shay cannot recall how or when he went from crouching to sitting down. He doesn’t care about the debris digging into his skin or the ash that’s getting on his clothes. It is here and now that it finally overcomes him, that reality is becoming tangible. The little box with its tokens has achieved what neither the grave nor Connor’s words did – making him realise, once and for all, that Haytham is gone.
Shay’s hands are trembling as he clutches the box. The grief is intense all of a sudden, and its familiarity does nothing to dull the edge, nothing whatsoever. On an abstract level he knows that it could only ever have ended this one way – there are no happy endings for ghosts with bloody hands. And Haytham’s hands, just like his own, had been red indeed.
That doesn’t change the fact that it hurts.
It hurts more than he will ever care to admit.