Work Text:
Achilles has never seen a boy work so hard for so little reward in all his years.
Now, Connor is asleep on the bed in the room he still is slow to accept as his, even after three years at the Homestead. It is the early morning of his seventeenth birthday, or as near as Achilles was able to discern it was. It’s fall, and in the big room without the fire going, cold. Nevertheless, Connor fell into bed after training last night without a care for the weather. He’s shirtless and in his socks and breeches, for goodness sake.
It’s the bow and the bruises that draw Achilles eye, though.
The bruises are mostly fresh, newly purple from a fall that had Achilles worrying after a doctor. He was sure there were ribs broken, and he’s not one to coddle, but the idiot boy had been up a tree, and he’d hit more than one branch on the way down. Connor had insisted that he was fine, and had carried on training with a grimace. It’s the kind of dedication that Achilles usually needed to press into recruits, and never quite so young. Now he pays for it in scrapes down his shoulders and slightly hitched breathing, but he knows Connor will never complain. And what boy sleeps with his mouth closed, hm? And curled up like a child. Almost like he’s reaching for someone that isn’t there, even after all his years without her.
The bow and quiver make better use of the blankets than Connor has, but he notes the almost careful placement of them- at his back, string and feathers where he can get his hands on them the fastest with one coltish, flung-out limb. Again, such diligence. He’s already outgrowing his clothes, Achilles thinks bemusedly. There is an ache there, as well, familiar but no less awful. The clothes he’s been saving- they’ll probably have to be let out. Connor looks to be broader in the shoulder already than his predecessor, and Achilles fears he isn’t done stretching yet.
Normally he’d wake Connor with a swift rapt to the head or a sharp, loud word, but perhaps, just this once, he’ll let him sleep.
But first, he reaches over Connor’s sleeping form and grabs the edge of the blanket to drag over his body. He’s shivering. Stupid child. Doesn’t he know that’s how people die? How his son-
“What is it, old man,” Connor grumbles, not even bothering to open his eyes. Such sass he’s never heard out of a boy’s mouth, calling him old man. He yanks the blanket sharply, just to get slivers of stern brown eyes on him, and then tucks it with mocking gentleness around Connor’s shoulders. Or maybe not so mocking, judging from the way his eyes flutter open and he moves, as if to sit up.
“Get some more rest, boy. You’re going to need it if you’re going to get us to Boston tomorrow,” he says, and ruffles his hand through Connor’s girlish locks. His fingers snag on a feather, and Connor winces as he struggles to untangle it.
“A morning in? I should remember to injure myself more often,” he says, and would be sardonic if not for the way his voice cracks around a yawn that scrunches his whole face with silent pain.
“Just for that,” Achilles says, shaking long strands of hair off of his fingers with a bit of a smirk, “you’ll be getting a bath before we head into the city too. Can’t have you scaring nice womenfolk with your wild-man ways.”
“I’ll be sure to howl at them as I pass,” Connor snarks, and then rolls over, snugging his blanket up to his chin. Achilles snickers to himself as he makes his way out to go fetch well water. It will be worth weathering the cold and his creaking bones to watch Connor sputter and howl like a mad cat under the soap. For a remarkably civil young man, he has the queerest qualms about being clean, and he knows it has nothing to do with his culture- that friend of his, what’s his name. Starts with a K. He is always spic and span, or as much as you can be out in the forest.
He ends up delaying the trip after he sees the extent of Connor’s bruises, with the crust of dirt and blood scrubbed off and lit up by daylight. Connor raises a hoot, and Achilles bickers with him good naturedly, but he doesn’t miss the way Connor is ginger with his side and judges his call well-made.
Some time later, playing Fanora with Connor scowling across at him, he thinks maybe he might get more reward out of this training than Connor. Already the Manor is airier, and on the few occasions he can rise a laugh out of Connor, bright. And he has excuses to be petty and fatherly again, not to mention chasing after the fool through the forest gets him more exercise than he’s had in years.
Really, in three years, he’s taught Connor what Assassin’s have spent most of their adult lives learning. And yet he wonders what all the boy is getting out of hanging about a drafty old house with a bitter old man, learning what he could get himself from books and experience.
When Connor captures his last piece with a self-satisfied smile, he thinks, perhaps, they’ve found kindred fools in each other.