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The screaming, surprisingly, isn’t what wakes Shaun up.
Rather, he half-jolts, half-claws his way out of dreams he won’t remember and back into reality with legs tangled in his sheets, ears ringing, straining only to hear nothing, when the screaming stops. He knows with conviction that he heard it, though, so he comes to the quick conclusion that his brain must have gotten used to it - conflated it with part of his dream, perhaps? - and only realized it was wrong when the screaming stopped and his dream continued.
He kicks the sleeping bag away from his legs, pushing himself up into a sitting position, and finds his glasses by one arm, thankfully not crushed in his sleep. Above him, the towering faces of ancient statues, and creeping vines, and his computers. Work and home life, dangerously interconnected. They have been for years, more than ever now that the Assassins have migrated to their last safe haven in Italy: Monteriggioni. Shaun can’t see much of anything, both due to the darkness and the absolute shite quality of his vision, but he’s gone through this routine enough times that it doesn’t slow him down.
Shaun pauses as he’s getting up, cursing the cold hard cement that grinds against his palms, swearing he can hear something, but it’s not the screaming again. Some ambient old-building noises, it seems, because the sound is similar to that of creaking foundations, and then - oh. For a moment, he wants to write it off as the place being haunted, even though he’s never really believed in any ghosts but those that persist in memory, but...creaking foundations. Far above him, too, and moving away. He knows it’s Desmond, too, because nobody else walks like that. Even if he can’t articulate it, Shaun recognizes the footfalls of each one of his colleagues - they might as well be family by now. And anyways, for all the time he spends hunched over one desk or another, Shaun is a trained Assassin. Even when his physical skills fade from disuse, his mental skills have stayed sharp as ever.
He doesn’t know, in this moment, why he’s fumbling to stand without hurting himself, to make for the way up and out, through the structurally questionable stairs and into the villa. He isn’t thinking. Maybe he’s already gone through the thoughts, deep in his mind, and has already come to the conclusion he’s looking for. Yes, that’s it. The conclusion is that Desmond is screaming again, and nobody is doing anything about it, because they all hope he’ll wear himself out and ride it out and keep going like he has been, and because he’s been hiding it when he can, purposefully sleeping with his face under a pillow more often than not and leaving the door shut back when they were still at the warehouse. (Shaun thinks, now, that he didn’t do enough then. Didn’t take Desmond’s pain seriously. It hurts, knowing that he can’t fix the hurt that he caused Desmond, back then. He can start, now, though. He has started.)
He knows that Desmond, when the man has the presence of mind to do so, thinks ahead, thinks about the times when he won’t , thinks about what the Bleeding Effect will do to him.
Shaun could continue to do what he usually does, throwing a pillow over his own face and blocking out the sounds and his own thoughts until he falls - really, he does fall, bloody tripping and scraping his palms on the way down - back into restless slumber. He could play into Desmond’s secret hope that nobody will notice, or that they’ll keep ignoring the problems the other man doesn’t want to burden anyone else with. But here’s the thing. See, Shaun has been on the other end of this before. Not the whole Bleeding Effect thing; no, aside from being very, very British Isles, his DNA is wildly ordinary and normal. Shaun knows, though, what it’s like to be falling apart, and to want to hold it all in so you don’t scare the people close to you. Again, it’s not like this, but he knows what it’s like to lose your grip on reality, to be disconnected, to not be sure whether you’re feeling or not, to be watching your life in third person. He watches Desmond, when the other man thinks nobody is watching. And he knows that, as much as he’s bitter over the way Desmond got dragged into this whole mess, the way he got dragged into it, all the ways both of them didn’t get dragged into it, nobody should have to fall apart all by themself. He’s helped Desmond before, a few times, lent a hand when nobody else can or will.
Besides, banter is banter. Alongside a good cuppa, it might as well be the blood running through Shaun’s veins. Somewhere along the line, he’s stopped meaning everything he says, and started really caring. He thinks that happened after they had to leave the warehouse, but he can’t really place it. He knows that was when he really started to realize that Desmond is falling apart. He’s falling apart too, in a different way, and holding it all in, because he loves Desmond more than he reasonably should, and that’s after negating the defect to reason that comes from loving the man in the first place. Love is a strong word, too, but Shaun does everything with strength. Fervor. Aggression. Fierceness. Whatever you want to call it, whether the thing in question is good or bad or a little of both, Shaun does it with all his might. Everything in life. Strength. Force.
He finds Desmond on the ground floor of the villa, in what used to be the room where Ezio brought decrypted codex pages. The wall is caving in near the entryway to the stairs. Vines climb over the grimy tiles. Electrical wires snake across the floor. Any furnishings or other evidence of this place being lived in is long gone, removed or decomposed. Villa Monteriggioni is no longer a home. They will not be here forever.
Desmond isn’t out in the open when Shaun enters, slowly but not too quietly, not wanting to wake anyone else up but also not wanting to startle the other man. He’s deliberate in his movements, letting his footsteps fall more roughly than he otherwise might when sneaking around in the middle of the night, not that he has much recent experience in that or anything (he does, and he can’t be bothered to lie to himself about it). He moves not slowly, not like he’s stalking or anything, but not quick, either, like he usually would. Not jerky. Definitely not erratic in any way. He scans the room as he comes to the top of the stairs, wishing he had Desmond’s Eagle Vision, then insisting to himself that he doesn’t need it to do what he can do. It might make the job easier, but Shaun hasn’t stayed alive and (mostly) sane over all these years by wishing for things he can’t have. Unless you count Desmond, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s kind of everywhere, all at once, an all-encompassing thing, if Shaun is being honest with himself. Point is, Shaun is absolutely not against coming up with ingenuitive ways to make his life easier, but he’s not about to cut corners when the alternative is learning a skill that will help him.
And currently, his skills are helping him quite a bit, or maybe Desmond isn’t trying as hard as usual, because it doesn’t take Shaun long to locate subject seventeen - he’s so much more than that - in the corner between the opposite wall of this room and a partly blocked-off door. He’s in the shadows, hard to see, back to the wall, where he can see the rest of the room. It’s a strategic choice, and though Shaun knows he’d do the same in Desmond’s position, it hurts knowing that Desmond has to do this in the first place, running and hiding, in the one place that’s supposed to be safe for him.
In here, Shaun can hear what he couldn’t before. Not screaming, not anymore. Heavy, quick breathing that suggests pain and distress, slight anxious shuffling, muffled... is he crying?
He is , Shaun realizes, and swallows the fear that this realization ignites in him, because it’s the twenty-first century, and men should be able to cry and show their emotions without being judged, and anyways, he’s mostly just freaked out because it’s Desmond . It’s highly probable that Desmond has cried in private during his time with the team, and Shaun gets the feeling he’s intruding on a private moment right now, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has never seen Desmond cry before. In Shaun’s mind, Desmond Miles and crying are not associated, and the cognitive dissonance of having these two things pushed violently together is enough to send him into a state of distress.
He crosses the room slowly, carefully, so Desmond, if he wishes - if he’s even paying attention - see Shaun’s every move. And, although Shaun is half expecting to be attacked, he finds Desmond without a hitch, crouches in front of where the other man is curled up in something that somehow reads like both the fetal position and a defensive stance at the same time.
“Desmond?” he asks. “Mate, you - ” Alright doesn’t even begin to cover it “ - you there?”
There is better. More accurate. More fundamentally terrifying to consider.
Desmond’s head comes up from between his knees. His lips are chapped and torn, his old scar lost amongst the fresh red. His eyes are red, too, bloodshot with tears both fresh and dried, and his face is streaked with the same, cheeks puffy. He opens his mouth, as if he is going to speak. Takes in a breath, sharp as he inhales and shaky as he exhales.
No words come.
“Desmond?” Shaun repeats, one hand hesitantly inching out despite himself, because now of all times is not the time for his usual facade of vitriol and acerbic wit.
Desmond flinches away from his hand, then, eyes widening in fear, and it hurts Shaun, it hurts him in a way that even their worst arguments never have, to see that he , however indirectly or misguidedly, is the source of this fear. But he thinks Desmond is here, just a little bit, because his hand keeps hovering in the air, and Desmond stills after a long moment that’s breathtaking in all the wrong ways, and Shaun’s hand lands on his shoulder.
Shaun’s Italian isn’t good by any means. A combination of grade school Spanish, months watching Ezio’s memories through a computer that is seeing through Desmond’s eyes, and years of researching has made him recognize names, and he can introduce himself, maybe ask where the bathroom is. He can curse far more exorbitantly than any grade school teacher, regardless of language, would want to hear, and he’s picked up on some phrases that have fallen out of use in the last five hundred years. That’s it, though. He can’t hold a conversation.
He does, however, understand the words that fall out of Desmond’s mouth as he grabs the other man by the shoulders, matching expressions of terror on both their faces.
“Il mio nome è Ezio Auditore da Firenze,” he says; then, more urgently - “Lo sono Ezio!”
My name is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am Ezio.
Ezio has been dead for half a millenium. Desmond Miles was born in 1987, less than half a century ago.
Shaun doesn’t understand the rest of it, hasty and terrified as it is. He only picks up single words here and there: You . Leonardo . Leo . Love. My love. Home. Why? Dead. Leonardo. How?
Snapshots. Just like Ezio’s memories.
Oh, this isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.
“I’m - Des - I’m not Leonardo.”
Desmond - Ezio - doesn’t seem to understand the English. He doesn’t respond to his own name, although it’s just a nickname and he might be less likely to pick up on it than his full name from wherever he is buried within whatever version of reality he is consciously experiencing right now. His face, though, says that he is present enough to hear Shaun, and process at least some of what he hears - his eyes widen at Leonardo’s name.
Shaun already knows how this is going to go, because this isn’t the first time. It’s the not the first time he’s come and found Desmond at this hour, roused from his sleep by the Bleeding Effect. It’s not the first time he’s been faced with a creature bearing Desmond’s body and someone else’s mind. Altaïr. Ezio. It’s not like they’ve been reincarnated, but their genetic memories can only be relived through a vessel, and...well, Shaun always thought that if time travel were invented, it wouldn’t be about some wild particle physics and wormholes so much as memories. He wasn’t so far off.
Now Desmond is the one grabbing Shaun by the shoulders, shaking him , rambling on in rapid-fire Italian, and at some point Shaun starts to block out the words he can’t understand, and he stares at that stupid bloody scar on Desmond’s lip, almost identical to the one both Altaïr and Ezio have. Such an emblematic detail, it’s almost laughable that all three of them have it. It’s the kind of thing Shaun would expect to see in some fantasy epic with heavy religious undertones, but no, this is real, and he’s fixating on it, and he is definitely not thinking about what it would feel like against his own lips, because now is not the time, and he would never, not when Desmond thinks Shaun is someone else, not when Desmond thinks he is someone else.
Shaun knows how to ground someone from an anxiety attack. A panic attack. A dissociative episode. He knows these things, because he routinely deals with all of them, sometimes in tandem with each other.
He has no bloody clue where to even begin grounding Desmond from this, because what with the man spending every daylight hour in the Animus and Shaun constantly having more work, of increasing importance and urgency, piling up around him, he hasn’t gotten the chance to do any research. Usually he just sits it out, or shakes Desmond-Ezio-Altaïr and complains in his particular British way about whatever the hell he can think about until something clicks in the other man’s eyes, until all his shaking makes the real Desmond Miles fall out of those conglomerate memories.
This time, it seems neither of those tactics are proving to be particularly effective, so he tries something new. Tightens his grip on the other man’s shoulders. Digs into his own memories, which are exclusively his own.
“Cosa puoi vedere?” he asks, What can you see?
Desmond-Ezio-Altaïr (but most likely Ezio) goes silent.
“Cosa puoi avvertire al tocco?” What can you feel by touch?
He works through the five senses, in broken and by all means probably grammatically incorrect Italian, and then shakes the other man again, by his shoulders, thumbs digging into collarbones.
“Dimmi,” he says, Tell me . It’s the same technique he uses to ground himself, to remind himself what’s real, when it feels like reality is unhinged and untethered and breaking down, when it feels like he’s trapped in his own body, clawing to get out.
Once again, Shaun does not understand the words coming out of the other man’s mouth, but he recognizes that they are doing so in a rapid, disjointed manner, rushing out in a flood. And then he pauses, midway through looking around and pointing things out, as if that will make his surroundings more real, and fires a question at Shaun. Shaun hears the upward lilt in his voice, reads the look in his eyes, but doesn’t understand the words.
“Non lo capisco,” is all Shaun can say. I don’t understand that .
“ Leo ,” Ezio - he’s decided it’s Ezio, for sure, this time - says, eyes widening, and everything about it, from the slight parting of his lips to the tone of his voice and the way his hand trembles as it reaches towards Shaun, indicates utter defeat. Whatever memory is playing out, superimposed on the present time, these two things certainly aren’t meant to go together.
Shaun shakes his head. “No,” he insists, and the other man begins to say something in Italian. Cuts himself off. Slumps a little, looking down at the floor. He shouldn’t have spoken Italian - yeah, it came across to Ezio better than anything in English could have, but why did he expect to bring Desmond back to the real world doing that?
“Ez - Desmond. Come on.” His hand rests gently on Desmond’s shoulder, although he flinches a bit at the intimate nature of this. It’s not that he dislikes it, particularly, but part of him expects Desmond to bolt away like a frightened rabbit any moment now.
God.
This is his fault. He knew this would happen to Desmond, getting lost in memories that aren’t even his own. He knew, or he knows now and wishes he’d known, that it wouldn’t help to respond to the man’s delusional rambling in Ezio’s native language, not Desmond’s - never Desmond’s, he doesn’t have anything to himself, he doesn’t even have a memories or life of his own, it’s all tangled with the rest.
Why is he even here? Moral obligation, sure, not that he typically listens to his conscience. No one else will do it, or maybe they would , and maybe Shaun just wants to be the one who gets to claim the prize - Congrats! You got too close to the broken, shattered facsimile of a human being that calls himself Desmond Miles, and now you’re fucked up too!
(Maybe he actually does care, just a little bit more than he’ll admit.)
Except, that’s what Desmond would say, and Shaun - the Shaun who isn’t a total arse, that is, the Shaun who hides behind a messed-up sleep schedule and caffeine dependency and only comes out in moments of unhinged panic - would say, No, I was fucked up to begin with. We both got dragged into this against our will.
(The actual Shaun, the one that is , says nothing.)
And then, what would Desmond say?
“Fuck,” comes a broken voice. Desmond’s broken voice. “I’m so fucking sorry, Shaun,” he does say.
Shaun jolts out of his mind.
“Don’t be,” he says, despite himself, and then, to preserve what little of his good old arsehole facade Desmond hasn’t broken down over time, “you bloody moron .”
Desmond is pitching forward, fisting his hands in Shaun’s T-shirt, head dropping against Shaun’s chest, and Shaun is pulling him closer, pulling Desmond to his chest,, encircling him, enclosing him, embracing him. They’ve done this before. Desmond has acknowledged it, in the form of slight smiles and covert glances, but they don’t speak of it, after the fact. This time feels different, though. Like something has changed, a slight shift. Somewhere in Argentina (or was it Brazil? Shaun doesn’t remember) a butterfly flaps its wings. Somewhere in Texas (it was definitely Texas) there’s a tornado. The behavior of systems as complex as weather and love cannot be completely mapped or predicted. Such things are inherently too chaotic.
Part of Shaun, a part which is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore and increasingly (terrifyingly so) easy to accept the presence of, wishes they would acknowledge this after the fact, if only so he had something more permanent to hold onto than the fleeting possibility of something.
“Shaun?” Desmond asks after who-bloody-knows how long, voice muffled by Shaun’s shoulder. Shaun has a sneaking suspicion that Desmond is crying, and that he might have to wash snot and tears out of this shirt soon. At least it’s not one of his good work shirts, or - he shudders just to consider it - a sweater.
“Yeah?” he replies.
“Can you - ” a pause, a sniffle “ - can you repeat the - the grounding technique you were trying to explain earlier? I barely caught it, but...I think it helped.”
“I should hope so. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Classic Desmond. A ripple of exasperation - and could that be fondness? - passes through Shaun, followed by the jolting relief of realizing that this is most certainly Desmond. Desmond, not any of the other Assassins fighting for space in his brain.
“Five things I can see, four things I can touch, three things I can hear, two things I can smell, one thing I can taste. Getting in tune with my senses helps to ground me in physical reality, as opposed to, you know, mental reality or not reality or what have you.”
There it is, Shaun’s good old snark coming out again.
They sit there for some indeterminate but lengthy amount of time, Shaun’s arms wrapped tightly around Desmond, and Shaun recalls what Ezio said. It doesn’t take a genius - which Shaun is , but his point still stands - to figure out what those scattered words meant. And he already knows, anyways, that Leonardo and Ezio had something. Could have had something. Even with what he’s seen of Ezio’s memories, he hasn’t experienced them like Desmond has, and he doesn’t know the subtleties. Those sort of things are hard to pick up through historical records, when such records haven’t slipped through the cracks to begin with. Lost, whether by accident or neglect or willful destruction, he doesn’t have much to work with.
He knows they didn’t work out - that they never moved past snapshots, fleeting moments, the possibility of something. He knows this, because he asked Desmond, once, on one of the past occasions that this happened. Said it was just for the historical record, it was his job, it wasn’t - isn’t - personal. But it is, knowing how much Desmond feels like he’s just reliving Ezio’s life, and knowing that with that comes the loss not of something you once had, but of something you danced around for long enough that you never really had it in the first place.
He’s in love with Desmond, and he has a duty to make sure Desmond doesn’t lose himself, and it’s hard not to conflate these two things, especially when it’s so easy to see how they can fit together. How he can give Desmond something Ezio never had - although, full disclosure, love is a two-way street, and he’s not about to be someone’s coping mechanism - and at the same time, rest well knowing he’s not doing it purely out of duty.
Desmond is still shaking in his arms.
He might be shaking a little bit too.
Maybe this hasn’t been out of obligation for a long time.
That logic, it’s...it’s not much in the line of logic at all. Humans are inherently emotional creatures, not as rational as they’d like to think they are. And Shaun tries his hardest, he really does, to be logical above all, but despite that - or maybe because of it - he’s indulged himself in this one illogical thing in his life. He thinks he could find logic in it if he tried hard enough, something about how it’s better for Desmond’s mental health, but maybe he doesn’t want to, because the rush of knowing what he’s risking for this one human freedom is strangely intoxicating.
But then, love is still a two-way street. He doesn’t know that Desmond isn’t coming to him, or letting him help, out of convenience or ease or what-have-you. That might have been part of what kept Leonardo and Ezio firmly in the realm of should-have-been , the not knowing if it’s reciprocated. And this is the only time Desmond is really open with him, forget that it’s also the only time he’s really open with Desmond, but he’s not going to say what he wants, desperately, violently, to say. Not like this, even though he doesn’t know if there’ll be another time.
(He can do what Leonardo didn’t, he thinks. He can make another time.)
He understands Desmond better, after this. He’s grateful for it. And yet, he still wishes they could be close without the pretense of such a drastic situation. There’s no point in denying it anymore.
But he can’t do anything right now, not in good conscience. So he just holds onto Desmond, and he memorizes the way Desmond’s hands splay against his chest, against his beating heart, and he waits for the hard part to pass.
It hurts Desmond, thinking he’s someone else, thinking he’s lost someone that he never loved, never knew, never even lived in the same century as. It hurts him after the fact, too, when he lies prone in the dark, staring up at the ceiling knowing that Ezio’s family once lived not too far above him. He doesn’t know what he would do without Shaun having helped him, not just once but many times, and especially the most recent time.
He’d thought he was Ezio. Had reached for his Eagle Vision, and realized he was a fool, because it was the same across time and space, the same no matter what, blurs of bright color untouched by the shifting of memories. And he’d - he flinches, cringes as he recalls it - he’d thought Shaun was Leonardo. He’d thought he was reliving what he’d already seen as Ezio, the whole bit where they dance around each other for years and years but never come close enough to touch.
To Ezio, to the world around him that had looked and felt and in all senses seemed like Ezio’s world, it had been a nightmare, reliving what he knew would end in bitterness, but then it hadn’t. Desmond had sat there, shaking. Thinking. Someone was touching him like he was - is - loved, like he is precious and breakable and there are good things in this world, but that never happened to Ezio, not with Leo, it couldn’t have been Leo.
It’s ironic, he thinks, that what pulled him back to reality - grounding exercises aside, although they had done their part - had been the realization that he felt loved by the man with Leonardo da Vinci’s face superimposed on his own, in a way Leo had never provided to Ezio - and which Ezio had never provided to Leo, either - and therefore, that man could not be Leo.
There’s the reckoning, then, carried out in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep, lying still in his sleeping bag so as not to wake the others, face turned perfectly upwards so that nobody, if they’re awake - God knows Shaun probably is - will see his eyes wide open. This is because Desmond realizes that, while what Leo and Ezio never really had is bitter to him, while it hurts him as Ezio and as Desmond, the pain of thinking that he - Desmond - and Shaun could turn out the same way is something unique to Desmond.
The fresh, raw possibility of changing things before it’s too late - that, too, is unique to Desmond.
So he goes and he finds Shaun, on the roof of the villa, scribbling idly in a notebook and watching the sunrise. He thinks Shaun thinks he doesn’t notice, and that’s a long way of saying he doesn’t notice, but he does , he notices that Shaun does this a lot. For all the time he spends behind a computer, for all the dorky sweater vests that take away any sharp edges he might have - which Desmond maybe, possibly, if he indulges himself, hopes to see in detail someday - he’s still an Assassin. He can climb a building.
(Someday, when all this is over, Desmond wants to go into a city, a real city, and freerun with Shaun, just to see what he can really do, and maybe also to get the chance to just be with him. Or, if not, he just wants to walk around, explore, hold hands, whatever. Anything without the impending end of the world hanging over their heads.)
Shaun sees him approach, and says nothing. The calm haziness of the pre-dawn light seems to have fallen over both of them, making a snarky remark feel out of place. The sky is, for the most part, a light, desaturated shade of blue, but rosy and lavender tones dot the horizon. Orange creeps over the not-so-distant mountains, sunlight that will no doubt reach Monteriggioni sooner or later.
“Hey,” Desmond says, tossing himself down next to Shaun with a hmph , legs dangling off the edge of the roof.
“Come to bother me?” Shaun asks, idly, without any real bite in his voice.
“I came to talk about the other night, actually,” Desmond says, and realizes a moment too late that he probably made that sound a bit more ominous than was strictly necessary, because Shaun stops writing and his shoulders tighten up. In his notes, a blot of ink begins to pool under the tip of his pen, and he clicks it shut. Slides it into a pocket. Closes the notebook and sets it carefully down at his side.
He turns to face Desmond.
“Well, now you have my full attention.”
Desmond puts up his hands. Palms out. A gesture of preemptive surrender.
“Nothing bad, I swear. I just wanted to…” he finds himself rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, stray hairs scraping against the callouses of his fingers. “I wanted to thank you. And also maybe. Possibly. Talk about something.”
The last part comes out ridiculously quiet, but he hopes Shaun heard it. Or maybe not. He can always...come back to it later. One thing at a time, right?
And he freezes up. His tongue is heavy in his mouth. He’s a naive, impressionable kid again, blundering his way through things. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Doesn’t know how to just get the words out. Doesn’t know how to reckon with the fact that he’s in love, and it’s nothing like Ezio and Leonardo, but it could be, and he’s not sure what scares him more - the prospect of losing Shaun, or the prospect of losing this, one of the few things that reliably lets him distinguish between himself and the other voices fighting for space in his head.
It’s a little of both.
How does he do this?
Does he just say it, straight up? Even then, what words? I love you , somehow that feels too simple, like it doesn’t capture everything he wants to get across, which, okay, actions speak louder than words, but he doesn’t want to just go ahead and kiss Shaun or whatever, not without first knowing he isn’t crossing some terrible irrevocable boundary.
His palms are sweaty. They’re fucking sweaty. It’s like he’s a teenager having his first kiss all over again, except this is so much more meaningful, for more reasons than one.
“Desmond?”
Shaun is watching him intently, leaning towards him just a little, staring over the rims of his stupid fucking nerd glasses, seriously, Desmond doesn’t know how they haven’t fallen off and broken yet, and somehow he manages to make them look cute -
“Desmond? You alright, mate?”
Desmond blinks. Wipes his hands on his jeans, and hopes it isn’t too obvious that he’s anxious.
“Y - yeah. Just. Thinking.”
Aaaaand, ten points for eloquence to Desmond Miles! (He mentally slaps himself.)
“Remember when you asked me about Leo and Ezio that one time?” Desmond blurts.
Now, it’s Shaun’s turn to look vaguely confused.
“Yeah,” he says, after a moment.
“They just. You know. They thought they had time to wait until things blew over, so they could take the next step without having to constantly worry. And then that never happened, they...just...fell apart, and never went anywhere with...their relationship.”
Shaun is silent, so Desmond, too, stops talking. The two of them sit for a few minutes, silence hanging between them, as light creeps up the hills and valleys, slowly approaching them.
“I was thinking about that, actually. The other night,” Shaun begins. Slow, hesitant, carefully broaching the subject with a ten-foot pole.
“The pining, it’s something you and Ezio have in common. Not knowing when to stop waiting and just go for it.”
Desmond sucks in a breath. He knows. He has to. There’s no other explanation. But…
“It’s my job to make sure you don’t lose yourself to the Bleeding Effect,” he continues, and Desmond’s heart drops into his stomach. His throat closes up; he can’t have misinterpreted this so badly, no…
“If you’re going to.” He swallows. “If you’re going to do this, please don’t do it for that reason. Only...only if it’s real.”
Shaun turns to face him. Tilts his head sideways. Looks so confused, so concerned, so soft , Desmond doesn’t know what to do or say or even feel.
“ Desmond ,” he says, gently, almost a question. A breath. (A reminder, too: You are Desmond. ) And then it all spills out.
“I want to be close to you, without the pretense of the Bleeding Effect. It’s simply a convenience that doing so might help you remember the difference between you and your forefathers. Do you understand?”
“What do you mean?”
Shaun tilts forward, one hand resting on Desmond’s knee, one splayed on the roof, right next to Desmond’s thigh, so close Desmond could reach out and take it in his own. His hands stay firmly at his own sides, fists in the pockets of his hoodie.
“I helped you, originally, out of obligation. But it’s not just that anymore. I - ” he dips his head, face flushed, no doubt realizing how out of character he sounds “ - I do care a great deal about you, Desmond.”
Desmond swears his knee feels like it’s on fire where Shaun’s hand touches it, and it’s the dumbest thing, really, he’s not a fucking teenager , but he feels all warm inside and that’s a good thing it really is.
There’s so much, so much floating around in his mind, spread across timelines, so much that Desmond can’t seem to gather up and pick apart and understand , so he asks again, tilting his head, parting his lips, furrowing his brows, a silent inquiry. But then he thinks he understands, so he breathes, and he speaks.
“I think I get it.”
“Yeah?” Shaun is smiling. Orange is tickling the edges of the roof, creeping up bare arms one atom at a time. The sky is lightening. Birds are chirping.
“I don’t have to be like Ezio. We don’t have to be like Leo and Ezio.”
“That’s not the only thing,” Shaun insists. “You’re Desmond Miles regardless. This isn’t just because I’m trying to make sure you know who you are at any given moment.”
“It’s real?”
Shaun smiles tenderly. “Of course. You?”
“Real. All me.” One hand comes to his chest, gently bumps his sternum, feels his own heart beating double time. “All Desmond.”
“That’s what I was looking for,” Shaun says, and he sounds so genuine, so happy that Desmond almost wonders whether he’s hallucinating again. But no, he’s not. It’s just Shaun, as he is under all the snark and prickliness and dodging.
Desmond likes this version of Shaun a lot, and he says that, he says “You know, I really do like you, especially when you’re not actively trying to be a pain in the ass.”
“I should hope not, given that you’ve essentially just confessed your undying love to me,” Shaun remarks, a light, airy smirk dancing across his face.
“Is that what we’ve gone and done, now? Gone into something we can’t step back from?”
Shaun’s expression sobers up a little as he leans closer to Desmond, and Desmond finds himself leaning in too, like they’re opposite poles of a magnet.
“We can step back any time. Take things at any pace,” Shaun says, and their lips are so close, it’s the easiest thing in the world to kiss him. It’s slow, soft, gentle. It’s everything Desmond’s ever wanted, but he’s still content when it ends.
“I’d like that. Taking it slow, you know,” he says, Shaun’s breath tickling his face.
“Me too.”
They don’t need to rush. Sure, the possibility of death lurking around the corner is just as real for them as it was for Ezio and Leonardo, five hundred years and half a world away, but rushing won’t do anything for them. Right now, Shaun is reaching for Desmond’s hand, and Desmond is intertwining their fingers and leaning against him, smiling into his shoulder, and when he looks up, Shaun is smiling too, softer than he’s ever seen. Right now, with the sun slowly beginning to warm up the hills around them, dousing Monteriggioni in fresh light, it feels like they have all the time in the world.