Road Trip
Shaun and Rebecca are looking for help. The problem is, they have no idea where to get it.
Desmond and Lucy are on the run from Abstergo and looking for help. The problem is, they have no idea where to get it.
A/N: Any uploads from now on might be a liiittle bit spaced out. The reason why? Spiders have invaded my basement. I swear to God, I saw three of the exact same kind three days in a row. A new family has moved into the house. *sigh* So, I've been waiting for them to leave, as I've left them a kind, get-the-hell-out-of-my-house-before-I-call-the-exterminater message. (No, I'm kidding. But I have tried talking to them. They ignore me, and I end up being scared away from the computer.)
Anyways, I hate spiders, and they all should die. Focusing on the story... I meant for this to be light and fluffy, but once I started writing Desmond and Lucy's part, I realized that running for your life from such a corperation as Abstergo doesn't exactly sync up with light and fluffy, if you know what I mean. So... it's primarily from Shaun's and Desmond's point of view. (although I throw a few thoughts Lucy's and Rebecca's way every now and then.) After all my dumb blabbing, here is the story! Enjoy!
"Rebecca, this is ridiculous." Shaun complained, keeping his eyes on the road. His complaint was directed at the petite, dark haired woman beside him. "I mean, Jesus Christ, whose terrible idea was it to search the whole bloody nation for other assassins?"
"Shaun, I am so sick and tired of your bullshit. Please, please, just shut up. Listen to the goddamn radio if it will take your mind off things, but stop talking." Rebecca exclaimed, feeling as she might just throw Shaun out of the car herself if he couldn't keep his mouth shut for much longer.
"Okay, okay," Shaun surrendered, putting a hand over his heart. "Rebecca, from this moment on, I will remain as silent as your bedroom has been for the last few years. Speaking of that, what's the deal? Being hell-bent on bringing down the largest Templar cover ever is stressful, and I never even hear you rub one-"
"Shaun!" Rebecca shouted, her cheeks coloring. "Shut the fuck up!"
Rebecca and Shaun had only been on the road a few days, and more than once, Rebecca had had to fight the urge to stick her finger in a hotel electrical socket. Or stick Shaun's finger in one. Come to think of it, there were other extremities on Shaun that she could stick into an electrical socket that would be much more painful. A smile crossed her face as she pictured Shaun not being a douche bag for at least a moment, as he writhed on the floor with electricity coursing through him.
Shaun was keeping his eyes on the road. Damned if he would be the one who caused this car to flip off the road. Being an assassin, however, you had to be prepared for the unexpected, which might include flipping a car based on your own volition.
Shaun opened his mouth, but was met by an angry grunt from Rebecca.
"Rebecca-"
Grunt.
"Rebecca!"
Grunt!
Shaun sighed, and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Where the hell was he going, anyways?
"Wherearewegoing?" The words gushed out of Shaun's mouth before Rebecca could cut him off again.
"What?" She asked, exasperated.
"Where are we going, exactly?"
"Jesus, Shaun. How many times have we been over this? We don't have an exact destination. Once we find a lead, we'll work from there."
"Well, that's an exceptional plan, Rebecca. We might as well give a toddler a scalpel and ask him perform open heart surgery. He might have a better chance of completing his task successfully than we do of ours."
"You know what, Shaun? You are deep. Truly, you are. Unfortunately, the majority of that depth is made up of your cynicism. The rest is made up of you being a genuine asshole. Now, I would've said that you were fat, but I know how offensive the term is to you."
"It's going to be a long trip, Rebecca. You might want to save a few of those gems for later." Shaun shot back, adjusting his glasses, although they were bound to fall down the bridge of his nose again in a span of a few minutes.
Rebecca sat back in her chair with a huff, blowing her long bangs out of her face. She tapped her foot and pursed her lips in a mock pout.
"I hope Baby's okay," She mumbled, glancing in the rear view mirror hanging from the dashboard.
Normally, Shaun would've made a sarcastic response to Rebecca's worries, but the Animus 2.0 was something Rebecca had worked on for months, reworking and rewiring, often endangering herself in the process. On the days it seemed like Shaun wasn't having his boy-period PMSing mood swings- which was most days, truth be told- he would offer his help to Rebecca, even though he knew she would reject it, being the independent person she was. All those months, Shaun had watched Rebecca build and rebuild, with a determination about her unmatched by anyone. He himself was not knowledgeable in such extensive maths and sciences, but he did know enough to understand that what Rebecca was building- by herself, no less- was genius. After all of her months of hard work, Rebecca finally had gotten the design right, and the pride and glow that she floated around in made Shaun feel exceptionally proud of her, like the way a big brother would be proud of his kid sister who had just won the science fair. He would never admit it to anyone, even himself, but Shaun cared about Rebecca very much, and was very protective of her, whether it be because of her small stature, or the fact that Shaun admired her intelligence, he did not know. All he did know, was that if anyone messed with Rebecca, they messed with Shaun- although Shaun figured he wouldn't even be able to get a punch in before Rebecca flattened whoever it was that threatened her or Baby first.
The only problem with Shaun's quiet affections towards Rebecca was that he never appeared to feel anything other than rudeness toward her.
"Rebecca, we checked and double checked everything. The Templars have no idea we stole the blueprints for the animus, they have no idea we have a better animus than them, and even if they did, they have no idea where it is."
"Jeeze, Shaun! Could you say it a little louder? I don't think the boys in the Whitehouse heard us!" Rebecca was working herself up, which never happened unless she was thinking of Baby.
"Sorry, sorry." Shaun surrendered quickly. "We're fine. We can turn back anytime you like, anyways. This bogus trip wasn't my idea in the first place." He said the joke with as little venom as possible, hoping to lighten the tense mood. Strangely, he usually loved to fuel the tension, but he knew how hard Rebecca was working on their two-man creed, so he tried to let up a little, whenever he could. However, he was a cynical person by nature, and that trait most often seemed to trump his attempts at being more cordial to Rebecca. He was trying, though.
"No, no. We can keep going. Shaun, you know as well as I do that we've hit dead ends from our office, and the only way to find another assassin is to find him, you know? In the flesh."
"Yes. Finding an assassin should be a walk in the park. It's not like assassins are bred to avoid people trying to find them."
"We're assassins, Shaun. Finding our own kind will be difficult, but not impossible. We know how to track. We can be inconspicuous."
Shaun pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and sighed. His mouth was turned down at the corners as per usual, and his eyes displayed blatant doubt.
"We've been out of the loop for a few years, Rebecca, holed up in the apartments, working on secret missions. For a society trying to protect mankind's free will, we sure don't get to have much."
"You could've left whenever you wanted, Shaun. You can leave now," Rebecca said quietly. "I won't stop you."
"Stop the bullshit, Rebecca. You know that's not what I meant." In his agitation, Shaun's glasses had returned to where they spent the majority of their time- at the tip of his nose. In his frustration, he took them off and sat them in a cupholder between himself and Rebecca. "The point I was trying to make was that acquainting ourselves with the general workings of everyday life again might not be such a bad idea. It's not like we don't have the time."
"We aren't completely ignorant, Shaun. We know what the world is like. We've done groceries, gone to the Laundromat. Hell, we've even been to a movie or two."
"Yes we have. But, at the time, those were all luxuries. We got a chance to live a normal life for a couple of hours, and it was like a gift. For however long we are actually living in the real world and not tinkering with the animus, or uncovering conspiracies, things we once thought of as luxuries are now things we must take for granted. It's almost the opposite of what most people aspire to live like, but we all know that we are different from most people. It's all about the mentality, Rebecca. The more normal we seem, the less likely an assassin will know if we are on to them."
Rebecca thought Shaun's reasoning seemed off, but she didn't mention it. If he was holding something back, he would never tell her unless he chose to. What it sounded like to her was that Shaun missed living a normal life, although it had been a long time since he had gotten the chance.
As she thought about this, she couldn't help picturing Shaun as a child. A little boy with sandy hair, and spectacles. Not glasses, but spectacles. Shaun probably had thought that they made him seem smarter. He was that kid that read books at recess, and if the older kids ever teased him, he would whip out a big word he had just learned, and leave the kids wondering what they had just been called, even though it was equivalent to a snot nosed ugly kid. In more delicate terms, of course.
Rebecca giggled, pressing a hand to her mouth. Shaun had probably never been a normal person, to tell the truth. He was just one step above those homeless people who wore tin foil hats and spoke of mind control from the aliens. On the mind control, however, they were hitting the nail on the head. The tin foil hats, though… Those got Rebecca every time.
"Rebecca… did you take a few too many uppers today?" Shaun asked, making reference to her mood just a few moments previous.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," She assured him, waving a hand dismissively.
Shaun continued to drive in silence. Rebecca kept fiddling with the radio, though it was hard to find a solid station on the highway.
Midday slowly gave way to late afternoon, which then melted into sundown. Aside Shaun's earlier inquiry about Rebecca's possible drug intake, little conversation had been made since midday. Shaun was feeling his eyelids start to droop, and by the time night had fallen, he was exhausted.
His complaints of killing both of them if they didn't get to a hotel soon finally pissed Rebecca off enough to call it a day. Shaun pulled into a decent hotel somewhere in the back roads of a city he hadn't noticed the name to. As Shaun was waiting for Rebecca to get their room key and pay for the night, he felt the need to rest his eyes for a moment.
The next thing he knew, the blaring of a horn had woken him up. Shaun's eyes flew open, only to see that his forehead was stuck to the steering wheel, and he was the one sounding the horn.
Shaun rubbed his eyes tiredly, and heard a distant, "Shut the hell up!" from one of the hotel's rooms.
A tap on the passenger side glass startled him, but it was only Rebecca.
"Was that you waking up the whole hotel?" She asked as she slid into the car.
"I was just resting my eyes," Shaun muttered defensively, making his way to the parking lot and pulling into a spot.
The cool night air woke Shaun up enough as he popped the trunk for himself and Rebecca. They grabbed their bags, and after locking the car, headed to their first floor room.
With a grateful sigh, and not even considering the amount of unsanitary things on the bedspread, Shaun collapsed on one of the beds.
"Christ, I'm tired," he mumbled.
"It's not even that late, Shaun," Rebecca informed him, inclining her head toward the digital clock on the nightstand between the two beds.
"Yeah, well, you didn't drive for twelve hours straight today."
"That may be true. However, I did drive twelve hours straight yesterday. And if I recall, I made it past midnight. I mean, all you ever do is sit and research things, and you're still fine enough after twelve hours of that to annoy the hell out of me."
"You know I do more than sit and look shit up on Wikipedia." Even in his tired state, Shaun still summoned up enough energy to shudder at the thought of Wikipedia. Inaccuracies, less-than-half truths, blatant lies… ugh. Shaun found sources as primary as he could get- on a computer, of course.
Rebecca pranced into the bathroom, and Shaun heard water running.
The lights in this generic hotel room were too bright. Damn fluorescent light bulbs. You'd think they would've fixed the "scouring retinas" part on the description on the box by now.
Truly exhausted, Shaun put his elbow over his eyes, and was out within minutes.
***
"Lucy, this is ridiculous! We can't keep running forever!" Desmond exclaimed.
"Desmond," Lucy was keeping her cool, -something she had learned from Abstergo- and ironically, she was putting that skill to the test when running away from Abstergo. "We might have to keep running forever. I know you didn't ask to be a part of this, but you have no choice now. Well, you do, but I doubt you want you want to die a slow, painful death at the hands of Vidic." Lucy spit out the man's name with unconscious venom, her grip tightening on the steering wheel.
"It's just so frustrating!" Desmond said angrily, wanting to hit something. "I mean, we can't fight back, we can't go to the authorities… we can't do anything! Is the whole world doomed, then? Who can fight the Templars? I saw my own people being slaughtered at the hands of those bastards!"
"Stop, Desmond. You can't get bent out of shape. We're going to need every amount of togetherness we can get, and you're constant outbursts won't help us at all. There is a long road ahead of us, and unless you want to get out of the car right now, we're in it together."
Lucy stared Desmond down, her light blue eyes searching his dark brown ones. Desmond took a few deep breaths, and calmed down a little bit.
"I'm obviously not going to leave," He mumbled.
Lucy pursed her lips. Her knuckles were white against the dark leather of the steering wheel.
"Are you okay?" Desmond asked, staring at her tense hands. As he asked the question, re realized how moronic it sounded.
"I'm fine," She replied curtly, not looking at him.
"Okay…" Desmond backed off, turning to look out the window. There were on some back roads in some countryside, and all he could think was how if they couldn't disappear in such an out of the way place as this, where the hell could they disappear to?
They passed the occasional farm, although those were getting scarcer and scarcer as time went on. The scenery was all very green this time of year, and Desmond figured that once the Templars caught up to them, at least the ground was soft enough to dig a coffin, and he wouldn't be just thrown into a river somewhere, turning up on a bank, just to ruin some jogger's morning run or something.
They had been on the road for a few days, and so far, there had been no sign of any Templars. However, the Templars were not the red-cross bearing soldiers Desmond had learned of from his time in the animus with Altaïr. For all Desmond knew though, Templars could inhabit every city on the globe, all moles, learning the world's secrets. Now, whether Desmond liked it or not, he was the Templar's newest secret, and although the Templars brought secrets into their stronghold, none were ever brought out. And once Vidic was done with him, the secret would be put away for good. Images of horror movies Desmond had once seen were flashing in his mind. The killer is in the backseat, biding his time. The killer is riding on the underbelly of the car, waiting for you to stop at a secluded location. You're being trailed with a GPS. In the movies, the bad guy had known where you were from the start; just letting you play right into his hands… A sick game like a cat plays with a mouse. Every once in a while, the cat takes its paw off the mouse's tail, gives it a head start, but now that the cat has honed in, that mouse is as good as dead, whether it knows it or not.
Swallowing hard, Desmond nervously checked the rear-view mirror. No one was behind them on the road- it was completely deserted. He checked over his shoulder- no one was waiting with a bloody dagger in hand. The trunk was separate from the rest of the car, so Desmond had no idea what could be lurking in there. Lucy had cleared it when they were leaving Abstergo, but you never know… Any moment that they had both left the car….
Jesus, Desmond, stop being such a coward. You are with a fully trained assassin, and you yourself are not half bad at combat. No one is in the damn trunk, anyways. That was Desmond's logical side speaking. The side that had been captured by three masked goons in the middle of the night and taken to Abstergo under a sedative was thinking differently, however.
Check the goddamn trunk right now, Desmond. You want someone slicing through the upholstery and slitting both yours and Lucy's throats in two seconds flat?
Red had never been Desmond's colour, and he was not willing to give it a chance.
"Stop the car, Lucy."
"What?" She asked incredulously, turning her gaze towards him.
"Stop. The. Car."
"Why?"
"I need to check something."
Lucy was looking at him with wide eyes, and Desmond could have sworn he saw something akin to fear in them.
"What are you going to do?" She asked quietly, as she slowly pulled the car to the side of the road. Gravel could now be heard hitting against the underbelly of the automobile.
Without answering, Desmond opened the door, and stepped onto the rocky side of the road. He unlocked the trunk from the passenger side of the car, and walked back. This is so ridiculous, he kept telling himself, although he couldn't shake the feeling of apprehension that now had wedged itself in between his abdomen and rib cage. With every step he took, his nerves were telling him turn around. His heart was pounding in his ears as he stood in front of the unlocked trunk, so he didn't notice Lucy get out of the car, and move towards him.
With a deep breath that didn't get very far, as he could feel his chest tightening in panic, Desmond gripped the handle of the trunk. If someone was hidden there, they would have heard the unlocking of the car. They could have a gun pointed at him and get a round off before he even had the trunk fully open. He moved to the side, hoping the throw off the potential attacker, and yanked the trunk open.
No one was there.
"Jesus," He breathed, leaning against the back bumper, feeling his heart racing.
Paranoid, he scolded himself. It was then he noticed Lucy staring at him with relief. Had she thought someone was in the trunk, too?
"Were you thinking what I was thinking?" He asked, nodding towards the open trunk.
Lucy was speechless. Then she started to laugh. A breathless, nervous laugh.
"I thought you were taking me up on my offer," She said shakily, leaning beside Desmond, putting her hands over her face.
"What offer- oh…" Realization dawned on Desmond's face. Then incredulity set in. "You seriously thought I was going to leave you in the middle of God-knows-where?" He asked, almost unbelievingly.
"Well… Yes." Lucy admitted, her voice muffled by her hands. "I mean, I figured you would have left somewhere with people around, but you have as good a chance in the car as anywhere, if you're trying to outrun the Templars. I thought you just decided to go alone, on foot. Anything goes in this situation…" She mumbled miserably.
Desmond was stunned, but figured Lucy hadn't picked up on his total dependence on her for sanity.
"Hey," He said gently, pulling her hands away from her face. She looked at him, questioning. "I'm not going to leave you," He promised, noticing a stray hair had escaped Lucy's messy topknot in the gentle breeze of the day. It gleamed golden in the sun, and Desmond caught it between his fingers, tucking it behind her ear.
"Thank you," She whispered, looking down, a blush coloring her cheeks.
They stood silent and still, looking at each other. Lucy's blue eyes were bloodshot, and Desmond's face was withdrawn. It seemed that the skin was stretched tighter over his bones than that of a few weeks previous.
"You look tired…" Desmond said quietly, noting the bloodshot eyes with concern.
"Yeah, well, that's what you get when you're running from people who want nothing but your life." She said bluntly, willing herself not to let her knees give out, slide to the ground, and just give up. It had been looking more and more welcoming lately, even with Desmond's constant presence.
Desmond was torn. Should he console her? Tell her everything would be alright? They both knew what a lie that was. But confirming it… Well, it was like receiving an invitation to your own funeral with the words written in bold, black letters: We don't know when. But it will be soon. We'll keep a casket safe for you.
Sometimes, a person can manage to skate over reality, hardly brushing the surface. And it helps- for a while. When the ice thins, though… The skater is merely biding time, waiting for the inevitable. Falling into the rush of reality is overwhelming and all-consuming, and is entirely unforgiving.
Desmond had a feeling that Lucy was skating on very thinice. Confirmation-even though she already knew exactly what was breathing down their necks- might just cause the unavoidable fall to come even sooner. And Desmond needed Lucy firing on all pistons, for as long as possible. She had looked after him throughout his stay at Abstergo. It was his turn to carry their burden.
Desmond chose his next words carefully.
"Let's keep going." No words of acceptance, no murmurs of promises.
Lucy nodded, and Desmond noticed how everything about her tightened, and how her eyes glazed over.
Desmond gathered his wits about him, and the two returned to the car. He would drive this time.
They had only been on the road for a few days.
A/N: I hope people don't mind Desmond and Lucy! Yeah, it may be a little soon, but people bond in a crisis. (And nothing has really happened yet, has it?)
I hope no one takes Lucy's being somewhat weak as an insult. She's done a lot for Desmond, and she did have a life at Abstergo before we knew her. Who knows what she suffered while out of our sight... Anyways, she's just exhausted, and maybe someone *wink wink* will be there to wake her up again.
Hope you enjoyed! :)