A/N: here's another one I've been cajoled into posting (jkiluguys) |D. Dunno how many parts it'll end up being, but there's still a bit left to go before I'm done. Just too tired to finish typing tonight. Hopefully I'll have the rest of it up this weekend.


The assassin gasped, struggling to breathe, desperately scrabbling to remove the armored boot on his neck. Spots were dancing across his vision as he felt the world around him dim.

"Stop!"

Consciousness rushed back to Ezio as the boot was lifted from his throat, and he lay gasping on the cobbled ground. As his abused lungs hoarded all oxygen that passed them, he did not notice the chains being put around his ankles and wrists. And when he did, even when he did, his limbs were too weak to respond appropriately. Indeed, it took a moment before the assassin suddenly thought he knew that voice, amidst the spinning world around him.

"Remember, Borgia wants him alive," the person continued.

"Yes sir," the brutes dragging Ezio to his feet grumbled.

"L-Leonardo?" Ezio cried, struggling to make sense of the situation, to see why it was really his artist here, and why the guards were listening, obeying him.

The artist turned cold, unfeeling eyes to the assassin, who had not ever seen this expression before on his Leonardo, and he shivered. Those blue eyes that Ezio had been so in live with glinted with an unreadable emotion, that the assassin felt he needed to understand. As the guards pulled him away, half-carrying, half-dragging him, he couldn't help but mouth a soft, betrayed, "Why?" to the artist. Leonardo merely shook his head sadly and turned away.

Down in the darkness, where the assassin's body was fettered to a wall, his mind reeled in circles, aimlessly, hopelessly. Why? Why, why, why, why? Was Leonardo a Templar, allied to the Borgia, a liar? Impossible. His exhausted mind refused to believe it. Out of everything that had fallen apart in his life, Leonardo had been the one constant, the one who was always there for him. The one who he loved and had thought loved him in return. It was true that Leonardo had caused the brutes to cease their almost-successful attempts on asphyxiating him, but why had they listened? Something strange was afoot for guards not to question the 'artist's' word. Ezio hung his head, held to the wall by his wrists. Even as the door to his cell opened, he did not move, his bare chest marred by old scars and new wounds, both from torture and the battle.

"Ezio." The statement was quiet, and the door was shut behind the intruder.

"Leonardo." The assassin's voice was cold, hard, a perfect mask to disguise the thoughts and emotions broiling underneath.

"You're still alive," he said, sounding relieved. Ezio raised his head, eyes narrowed in an attempt to trap away any emotions behind them.

"Why?" the assassin asked, voice nearly cracking. "Why did they listen to you?" He did not know if he wanted an answer.

"Rodrigo Borgia asked for a few commissions from me. His men have learned my face."

"But they took your orders!" Ezio was desperate, needed to know that the only thing he depended on was not a lie also.

"If I told Borgia that they had killed you, he would have their heads."

"Look me in the eyes and tell me truly, are you a Templar?" Ezio gazed at Leonardo; that desperate question hung in the air. With the growing silence, every passing moment, the assassin was sure that the bottom had fallen out of his world.

"No," the 'artist' finally replied. "I am my own entity, belonging wholly to neither the Assassins nor the Templars." Ezio's heart had risen painfully high with relief before freezing. "I am usually considered an ally by both sides." The assassin's heart twisted.

"Am I just a toy then, a game, and experiment?" he spat.

"No!" But even to Leonardo it was too quick a reply. "No…you know that I do not condone any such cruelty."

"I thought I did. I don't know what to think anymore…" Ezio watched as pain glimmered across the artist's features, and he was touched with a dark joy. "I don't know you anymore," he shook his head harshly. "You won't get me to talk. I'll never tell you Templars where the Apple and Staff are."

"I…that's not what I'm here for, Ezio."

"Oh really? What for, then? To shatter anything I ever believed in, tell me that everything is a lie, that you never really loved me?" Ezio strained against the chains that held him back, rewarding him nothing for his efforts but redoubled pain.

"N-no…"

"Why don't you just kill me now?"

"Ezio! You know that I could never kill you."

"At least I'd die loving you. Everything that mattered to me wouldn't have been blown out like a candle." The assassin's voice cracked, and he looked away, to the ground.

"Ezio, caro mio," Leonardo frowned as the assassin flinched, "ti amo." It hurt the artist to see Ezio clench his eyes shut. "I used to work for them, before I met you. Borgia does not know that I am close to you. I…they wouldn't let me refuse to work for them, for inasmuch they would assume that I am allied to you and would have killed you instantaneously.

"Are you lying to me?" the assassin finally asked, looking up. 'Because I couldn't take it if you are,' he finished in his thoughts. Leonardo steadily held his gaze, and Ezio waited, tense in the metal arms that restrained him.

"No." The assassin hung his head in relief, feeling a burning pressure in his eyes that he was not accustomed to. "I promise, I'm not lying. I could never lie to you."

Ezio watched as his vision blurred and dots darkened the stone floor. "So your hand was forced?"

"Yes. Besides, I knew that I could spy for you if I worked for Borgia." Leonardo stepped across the gap between the two and lifted the assassin's chin with a hand beneath it, caressing his face. "Are…are you crying?" Ezio smiled wearily and shook his head, spattering the droplets on the ground. With gentle fingers, the artist brushed away his tears. "What have they done to you, caro?"

"Many, many things. But I'll never talk, now." Ezio's resolve had strengthened once more, now that he still had someone to protect. Leonardo sighed fondly, still holding the assassin's face.

"I shall see what I can do to arrange an opening for escape for you."

"They won't kill me until they know where the Apple and Staff are. Unless of course I frustrate Rodrigo until he decides to fix his mistake in not killing me."

"Still. I do not like to see you wounded from their torture."

"They won't break me, not now that I know you are not deceiving me." He smiled wearily and the artist's eyes narrowed in worry.

"I must go now. I'll try to come back soon. Ti amo," he murmured, pulling away slowly. Casting one last glance back, Leonardo turned and straightened, knocking loudly on the door, bringing the guards to open the iron monstrosity from the other side of the hall, forcing them to leave their card game. Ezio hung his head, the picture of a defeated assassin, and the guards snorted, holding their lances tightly.

"Looks like you beat him down," one of the guards said, laughing derisively. Leonardo raised an eyebrow in amusement, turning slightly to look at Ezio, he alone spotting the smirk on the assassin's face.

"Perhaps. All you have to do is push the right buttons. Quite intriguing." He stepped out of the cell, waiting for the guards to shut the door before walking away with them, chatting amiably.

It wasn't long before Rodrigo returned with his lackeys, one of them carrying a whip, the others heavily armed. "Ready to talk yet, Ezio?" Borgia asked, a dark sneer on his face.

"Never," the assassin spat. "I'll be dead before I tell you anything."

"You'll change your mind soon enough." Raising a heavily jeweled hand, he gestured the guard with the whip forward. Aforementioned guard raised his weapon with a feral grin.

"This is for each of my comrades that you have slain," he hissed, before ringing the whip cruelly down on the assassin's chest, causing a soft cry to escape him as his back pressed into the rock wall, reopening recent wounds. The guard continued whipping him, watching his expression of agony with a great joy. Borgia watched on coldly.

"Where is the Apple?"

"Gone. I ate it," Ezio replied, grinning darkly.


Ti amo - I love you

Caro mio - My dear

Is there anything I missed? |D;

Grrr, was ignoring my separation of story and A/N. :c sorry about that.