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“Pass the bottle, please.”
Ezio didn’t bother looking over at Connor. He simply tossed the bottle of wine up into the air over Desmond’s head, confident that the other assassin would catch it cleanly. Sure enough, he heard the meaty thud of the glass impacting against Connor’s palm as he snatched it out of the air, followed by the sounds of a deep pull. A moment later, there was a satisfied sigh.
“Ah, that is quite good, actually,” Connor declared, setting the wine down next to himself on the roof.
“Of course it’s good,” Ezio told him with a haughty sniff. “As if my father would keep anything less than the best in our cellar.”
“Eh, it’s good, but I’ve had better.”
Ezio turned his head to shoot Desmond an affronted look. “Lies. This is the best wine in all of Firenze!”
“Sure,” Desmond allowed, shrugging with one shoulder. The stub of his missing arm brushed against Ezio’s own with the motion. “It probably is. But I’ve always been a bigger fan of California reds.”
“Cal-ee-fornia?” Ezio echoed, brow furrowing as he tested the foreign word on his tongue.
“It’s in the U.S.” Desmond said, which didn’t really explain anything. He let out a heavy sigh, leaning back against the wall of the clock tower behind him and tilting his head back to look up at the stars overhead. “I miss a lot of things about my time. Can’t say that the alcohol cracks the top ten, but damn I would kill for a nice cab sauv right about now.”
“For an assassin, that’s not saying much,” Ezio replied with a snort.
Desmond grinned at him. “True.”
“The flavour is…much sweet,” Altaïr spoke up suddenly, making Ezio look over at him. While he, Connor, and Desmond were all sitting along the rooftop of Palazzo Vecchio next to the tower, Altaïr had elected to perch a bit further away, hidden in the shadows where he could keep an eye on the streets below for any threats. He’d taken a few sips of the wine when Ezio had first uncorked it, but had forgone any more of it. Ezio had believed that it was because Altaïr didn’t like to drink, but this sudden confession put that thought into doubt.
He gave Altaïr a disbelieving look now. “You think the wine is…too sweet?”
To the average person, it would have been impossible to spot Altaïr’s tiny flinch when Ezio corrected his words, but despite waking up in a body nearly fifty years younger than his actual age, Ezio was still a master assassin, and he could read Altaïr’s body language easily. He did his best to hide his own guilty wince; while both Connor and Altaïr had picked up the Florentine language very quickly since they’d arrived here, Altaïr had struggled with it more than Connor. Both Desmond and Connor had tried to offer excuses to protect Altaïr’s pride — English bore a much closer resemblance to Florentine than Arabic did, Connor had been bilingual since childhood and could therefore pick up new languages more easily, among other things — but the Syrian assassin hadn’t appreciated their efforts, and they’d all soon learned to drop it.
Truth be told, the speed at which they’d become fluent was nothing short of awe-inspiring, but Ezio had a feeling that Altaïr would not see it that way. The man was a perfectionist, after all. It had been clear to Ezio even before he’d met Altaïr, thanks to the codex pages he’d studied over the years.
Thank goodness for Desmond. Ezio, Connor, and Altaïr got along well enough for the most part, but sometimes there would be a moment of culture clash or one of them would accidentally insult another without realizing. It was at those times that Desmond would step in. As the link between all three of them, he always seemed to know exactly how to smooth things over when someone’s feathers got ruffled, something that he quickly did now.
“Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I remember the wine in Damascus being drier,” he mused. He reached out and plucked the bottle of wine from its resting place next to Connor’s hip, and took a small swig, swishing it around in his mouth as he tested the flavour, before swallowing. “Hmm, it’s hard to say because I haven’t had it in a while, but yeah. I see what you mean.”
Altaïr tilted his head in Desmond’s direction. “You remember?” he asked pointedly. “Or I do?”
Desmond winced, before ducking his head sheepishly. “Ah. Yeah, no. Definitely pulling from your memories again, man. Sorry. Can’t say I ever had Syrian wine in my lifetime. And even if I had, it probably would have tasted way different than the stuff you were having centuries before.”
Altaïr didn’t bother replying, simply nodding his head like he’d made his point, before turning to look back down at the street below.
“So did you try many wines in your lifetime?” Connor asked Desmond, trying to bring the conversation back from the awkward topic of how often Desmond mixed up their memories with his own.
“Yeah, I did,” Desmond confirmed, putting the bottle back down in between the three of them.
Ezio took the opportunity to pick it up and take another sip while he eagerly listened to Desmond. He so rarely spoke about himself, insisting that his life had been boring and that he was nothing special, but Ezio treasured each of these glimpses into who Desmond truly was. A quick glance at Connor and Altaïr showed that they were both listening equally intently.
“I was a bartender, so I had to try all of the drinks so that I knew what to recommend for people. The place I worked at had a house white and a house red, but we switched up the rest of the wines every couple of months, it felt like. I was always more of a rum or vodka guy myself because it was cheaper, but I appreciated wine too.”
“I have had rum before,” Connor perked up at the word, one that Ezio was unfamiliar with, although from context he could guess it was another kind of alcohol. “My, uh…”
He frowned, and then glanced over at Desmond and said something in his own tongue. While Ezio didn’t speak either of Connor’s languages, he had picked up enough to recognize that he was likely speaking Mohawk, rather than English. Desmond considered what Connor had asked him for a second, clearly searching his thoughts, and then said, “Crewmates.”
“My crewmates, yes. They introduced me to rum.”
“Did you like it?” Desmond asked curiously.
To Ezio’s amusement, Connor’s nose wrinkled. “Not particularly. I must confess I have never been very fond of liquor. It dulls my senses too much.”
“Ha!” Desmond snorted and shook his head. “Fair enough. Like I said, I was a bartender, so I kind of had to drink it so I knew what I was doing. Dunno if I would have enjoyed it so much if it wasn’t part of my job.”
“What is a bartender, anyway?” Ezio asked, not recognizing the word.
“I worked at a bar — uh. An establishment that primarily served alcoholic drinks. My job was to mix drinks and serve them to the customers.” When he saw Ezio continuing to stare at him in confusion, Desmond’s face screwed up in thought as he considered how to best explain. “In the future, alcohol is often served mixed into other things to make it taste better, or at least different. You add things like syrups or mint or shit, depending on the cocktail you’re mixing up.”
“Huh.” Ezio considered that for a moment, before giving Desmond a bright smile. “I think I would like to try that.”
“Maybe I’ll introduce you guys to sangria,” Desmond offered. “Since we’ve already got wine.”
Ezio tilted the wine bottle in a salute to the idea, and then took another pull. At this point it was getting pretty empty, so he handed it over to Connor next, since the biggest assassin had had the least so far.
“I gotta admit, though,” Desmond suddenly added with a chuckle as Connor took his next sip, “that it’s honestly kinda hard for me to see you drinking like this Ezio.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. In my time, there’s a legal drinking age. You have to be at least twenty one years old to be served alcohol. As a bartender, a big part of my job was making sure I didn’t serve to anyone underage, and even though it’s been a long time since I was working at a bar, your baby face is setting off all sorts of alarm bells that I can’t quite shake.”
Ezio stared at Desmond in shock for a second before spluttering in indignation, while at his side Connor nearly spat out the wine in his mouth.
“B-baby face!” Ezio cried. “I do not have a baby face!”
Desmond let out a loud cackle, his head thrown back with amusement. “Yes, you do!” he crowed, unrepentant.
“You…do appear much younger than the rest of us,” Connor offered neutrally as he wiped the trickle of spilled wine off of his chin with the back of his hand, though from the way his lips were twitching, Ezio could tell that he was fighting back the urge to laugh as well. Traitor.
“I am not, though!” Ezio insisted. “Just because I am trapped in a younger body does not make me actually younger!”
“You’re like ten years younger than us,” Desmond argued, still grinning. “Give or take. That makes you the baby of our group, pretty sure.”
“I am not a baby!” Ezio insisted again, crossing his arms with a huff.
He was admittedly playing up his ire more than he really felt it, since the more he objected, the harder Desmond laughed. While Desmond often wore a smile on his face and rarely complained about the troubles of finding himself trapped in the past centuries before he was supposed to be born, the smiles he wore were often sad or pained, like he was thinking back to fonder things that were now lost to him. The number of true, happy smiles that Ezio had seen were few and far between, and so it pleased him to see Desmond looking so joyful and carefree, even if it was at his expense.
So, puffing his cheeks out to look even more foolish, he added, “I am a master assassin. Not a baby.”
“You’re not a baby,” Desmond agreed. “But you might just be the baby.”
“What the devil is the difference?!” Ezio grumbled.
“Being the baby just means you’re the youngest in the group,” Desmond explained.
“But I’m not! I just look like it!”
“Yeah, which makes you the baby.”
“Hmm. Actually,” Connor suddenly piped up, studying Desmond closely with narrowed eyes as he rubbed at his jaw contemplatively. “If the baby is whoever is the youngest, then perhaps it is you, Desmond.”
“Me?” Desmond spluttered in amused surprise, clearly caught off guard by accusation. “How so?”
“You are the youngest,” Connor explained simply. “In years experienced, anyways.”
“Hey now! I’ve experienced plenty of years!”
“Not as many as us, though,” Ezio jumped in, picking up what Connor was implying. He leaned towards Desmond and gave him a meaningful look. “After all, I lived to my sixties. Even if I am now stuck in the body of a young man, that does not erase everything I have lived through.”
“Exactly,” Connor agreed with a decisive nod. “I did not make it quite to sixty years, but yes, I still remember much of my life. I would agree that this would make us both older than Desmond, even if you do not appear to be older.”
“Now wait just a second,” Desmond protested, pointing a finger at them both. “If we’re counting years experienced towards our ages, I think that would make me even older, considering I’ve lived all of your lives on top of my own!”
“You lived through parts of our lives,” Ezio argued right back. “Not through all of them. You said it yourself, the longest a memory would last was a few days, was it not? Living through a few days of our memories here and there would not add up to years.”
Desmond opened his mouth to protest, but then slumped. “Shit. Fine, maybe you’ve got a point. But I’m pretty sure all of the Isu bullshit I had to deal with should give me at least a few extra years!”
“You have plenty of time to earn more, my friend,” Ezio reassured him, clapping Desmond on his shoulder hard enough to make him stumble a little bit. Thankfully Connor reached out and smoothly grabbed Desmond by the back of the collar before he could topple off of the roof. Ezio winced a little at his error; perhaps the wine had been stronger than he’d thought if they were all stumbling like this.
Once he was settled, Desmond shot Connor a grateful glance, before looking back at Ezio and giving him a crooked smile. “Yeah, I guess you have a point. Honestly, there were days when I really didn’t think I would. I mean, I really kind of thought that was it, down there in the Temple.”
The casual way he accepted the fact that he had been fated to die so young was enough to sober Ezio up immediately, all of his earlier cheer leaving him in a rush. In its place was left a churning fury deep in his gut that he struggled to keep off of his face; he and Desmond had had several arguments about Desmond’s treatment at the hands of both the Isu and the future Assassin’s Order, all of which had gotten so heated that they both often had to storm off to cool down for a while. Desmond insisted that it had all been worth it to save the world, but Ezio firmly believed that even if it had all been necessary, that the future assassins should have treated Desmond better during the process.
Both Connor and Altaïr usually stayed out of it whenever Desmond and Ezio started shouting, but both of them had offered their support to Ezio’s side of things more than once. It was nice to know that they agreed with him, even though Desmond usually got very upset when he perceived them as ganging up on him and often disappeared for a full day whenever it happened. The first time he’d managed to vanish into Firenze so fully that even Altaïr hadn’t been able to track him down had sent all three assassins into a panic that hadn’t been settled until he returned to the Palazzo Auditore the next morning. The second and third time had been almost as bad.
They’d all learned to avoid discussing Desmond’s past experiences dealing with the Isu after that.
An awkward air descended upon the assassins. Ezio stared down at his hands, while Desmond toyed with the neck of the wine bottle, his expression slightly pinched with regret at bringing down the mood. Thankfully, Connor cleared his throat, drawing their attention.
“While I think the question of who is the youngest is debatable,” he offered quietly, “I do not believe there is any question about who is the eldest.”
When they both gave him questioning looks, Connor nodded his head towards their quietest companion. “Altaïr is definitely the eldest.”
Ezio and Desmond turned to stare at the assassin in question, who looked up in surprise to suddenly find himself the center of attention. Ezio studied him for a moment, then looked at Desmond. They shared a silent pause, speaking without words, and then they both nodded as one.
“Oh yes,” Ezio said. “Altaïr is definitely the eldest.”
“No question,” Desmond agreed.
Altaïr bristled a little for a second before pointedly relaxing. He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Idiots,” he muttered under his breath.
“See? He even sounds like a grumpy old man,” Ezio declared. "More so even than my father. He is absolutely the eldest.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Desmond chuckled, raising the wine bottle in a salute, and then he tipped the bottle back to finish it off.
Altaïr grumbled something else in Arabic, but Ezio didn’t need to know the language to understand what he was saying. While the words themselves were almost certainly an insult, the tone told Ezio that they’d been said with nothing but fond amusement.
Feeling cheeky, Ezio offered him a wink. “Don’t worry, grandfather. We will help you back down off the roof later, so you do not hurt your back.”
Altaïr’s only response was another long-suffering sigh. But Ezio could still see the smile he was trying to hide behind his hood.