A/N: *****WARNING. PLEASE READ THIS FIRST OR SO HELP ME GOD, I'LL SEND TELL ABSTERGO WHERE YOU LIVE. YES, I HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO DO THAT.*****
The warning is this - this contains a MAJOR GIGANTIC HUMUNGO-ASS SPOILER FOR ASSASSIN'S CREED: BROTHERHOOD. If you don't want to ruin anything, DON'T READ THIS. If you read it anyway and have everything spoiled, DON'T BLAME ME. I gave you fair warning!
In other news, a piece inspired by the song "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie about the ending scene of Brotherhood because I've been freaking out about it all day long. Leave your comments in the form of reviews, pretty please~!
'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room-
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news.
Then the nurse comes 'round, and everyone lifts their heads,
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said:
"Love is watching someone die."
Pawn. Puppet. Sheep. He should have seen this coming, damn it, he should have seen this fucking coming. He should have known there would be a catch, should have told the others to wait. His ancestors had done it alone - what made him so privileged to company? To companionship? To love? According to them, though, those things weren't what saved the world. Bitter sadness and black holes instead of devotion and hearts, that was what saved worlds.
He was blind. Even with his gift of Sight, of the Eagle's Eye, passed down by his most ancient of ancestors, he could not see. He couldn't read his own future, couldn't read the anything. And while he was cursed with darkened vision of what had to be done, he still saw it all, and God damn it all, how he wished he was blind.
But he wasn't. He wasn't blind as he felt every fiber of his body seized against his will and edged around the altar. Past Rebecca - relief. Past Shaun - suspicion. Past the stairs - horror. The blade was ready to spring, was thirsty for blood, and so was Juno. His eyelids still worked, he realized. His feet stopped moving, and there he was in front of her. Frozen in staring at their surroundings in awe, and he wondered what she was thinking about. Him? The Templars? Yogurt? Who knew? But all of a sudden, it became the most important piece of information in the world.
His heart hammered as he prepared to shut his eyes, but he realized he couldn't. Not because of Juno, but something else, tugging at the horrified strings of his heart. He looked at her face, looked at her unblinking eyes, blue like the sky and ocean and blueberries and butterflies. Good things. No matter how much blood she had spilt, he could see the innocence there in her spirit. A soul like the sun.
Her shirt was white like a lamb. She was their sacrificial lamb, the blood on the lintels of their doors. He saw it, now, and he realized that the something else was this:
If he didn't watch her die, who would?
It was his yoke. His burden. He would pay the consequences, and maybe, just maybe, she could have peace in the afterlife. He hoped with all his heart that there was something beyond life right then and there, and that she would make it there in one piece, and that one day he could meet her up there and beg for her forgiveness, explain everything, and that maybe she would find it in her heart to forgive him.
And suddenly, the blade shot out from its sheath, and his wrist moved forward. He felt through this metal extension of his body the ripping of the flesh, the gushing of the blood, the electricity of the nerves. He felt the gasp, and Desmond watched Lucy die.
The blade retracted, and both of them fell, simultaneously, to the frozen onyx floor. Desmond watched the sky go cloudy, the ocean dry up, the blueberries wither, the butterfly shred. He listened to her lips in their attempt to ask, or say, or make any noise at all. He watched the blood blossom through her shirt like a plague, felt it spill onto the floor and onto him. In his hand, the Apple felt numb.
The deed was done, and they painted Lucy on the door frames.
"Love is watching someone die."