Hi again!
This is, I suppose, stand-alone, but if you want to be dark and depressing, you can make it a sequel to whatever other fic of mine you've read. :) choice is yours, really.
Little darker than usual, but I suppose you've probably come to expect that from me :D Again this new style. Still can't decide if I like it enough to keep it...
Updates might be a little slower this time around. Hockey practice and all and the draft is coming up too. Captains get to pick our teams!
If you like, there's a survey on my profile :D I'd love to know if you prefer this present tense or past tense style.
Anyways.
Enjoy!
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Memories have coordinates. Real time by emotional time, no matter what Rebecca says about years and nucleic acids. Desmond knows that memories are anchored down by time and emotions, not genetic material and numbers. The only thing that keeps them tied down like tethered balloons is why the time that created them is important and why the feelings they are charged with changed something. It doesn't matter what neurological pathways channeled them, and it doesn't matter what numbers are tied to them to signify time and place, all that matters is what happened around them, how it felt to live them. This is why some slip away, like balloons that are too loosely looped around a fencepost, because they weren't held onto tight enough. They simply floated away. There are empty gaps between memories Desmond visits in the Animus, he can only jump between the tied-down memories and work his way between them by living through it.
He imagines it's like walking down a path through a meadow, fence running along beside it, and every now and then, a balloon is tethered to the fence. He can see this so clearly, this green field and dirt path and brown wood fence, balloons batted about by the wind, and when he told Shaun this so long ago, Shaun had smiled and asked what would happen if he got to the end of the path or stepped off it entirely.
On a Thursday morning, Desmond is waiting as Rebecca configures the Animus, trying not to look at Shaun. Every time he looks at the historian, all he thinks about is the way Shaun used to moan when Desmond kissed him, and Desmond hasn't heard that in so long. He's only been back here a month, with Rebecca and Lucy and Shaun, and already it hurts so much.
"Desmond?" Rebecca points to the Animus, "Ready?" He nods blindly, tries to stop thinking about Shaun, even though that has never worked.
The memory is the wrong one. It's years too far ahead, and Desmond is going to tell Rebecca this when he notices something. He's in front of Leonardo's workshop, and there's no key in Ezio's pocket. Ezio has had a key to the workshop since the day Leonardo first kissed him.
Desmond realizes something is wrong when Leonardo doesn't smile when he opens the door. All Leonardo says is Ezio's name in a confused breath, but that's all it takes for Desmond to realize what has happened. The turmoil finally came between them; Leonardo got tired of being scared and Ezio stopped finding reasons to make himself so vulnerable. From the look on Leonardo's face and the dark sorrow Ezio feels, it's obvious. The world, in all its violent wrongness, finally came between them. The same thing happened to them as did to Desmond and Shaun. Something went wrong.
Desmond finally leaves the memory, tense with being freshly wounded. He can't feel it as deeply as he would have years ago, but it's so deeply numbing that it sparks pain. Rebecca is apologizing, saying something about the wrong coordinates, but she didn't need to tell him that. It felt wrong, so wrong, to feel that split between Ezio and Leonardo, to learn that, one day or maybe over many days, they stopped loving each other.
"What?" Rebecca asks, when Desmond only stares at her. He's never told them, not even Shaun, that Leonardo and Ezio were in love. It felt too much like he'd be betraying something deeply personal. He almost told Shaun, but was afraid it would be too serious, scared it would seem like suggesting, hinting, and however much of him wanted to do that, there was enough that didn't that scared him into keeping his silence.
"Nothing," he lies, because it's all he's able to do now. It's nothing, he's fine, it was inevitable, he doesn't miss Shaun, not at all, it doesn't hurt to breathe now. He can't remember the last time he told the truth.
"Why don't we take a break for a while?" she suggests, but Desmond shakes his head no. He spends as much time in the Animus as possible, where Leonardo loves Ezio and Ezio isn't afraid to love him back.
"I'll just go back to where we left off." It's coming, this heartbreaking split he's already lived through once, here where emotions can destroy him, but there's still time. Desmond would give anything for more, to go back to when Shaun talked about everything with him, when he looked up from his reading every few minutes to see if Desmond was still in the room, when he put a little more sugar in his tea so Desmond would steal some, when he found Desmond in the shower to kiss him and his mouth felt hotter than the water. Desmond wants to go back, before the world started to fall apart. Every time Shaun doesn't look at him, Desmond feels it again. The world didn't fall to pieces the day they said they stopped loving each other, it only started the breaking that still hasn't stopped. It's been three years since then, and the world still hasn't stopped breaking and breaking and breaking.
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The sunlight illuminates raindrops the night storm left on the window, casting a slant of light across the bed. Desmond wakes up cold. He tries to keep from sleeping with Shaun wrapped up in his arms; it's hard, so hard, but it's better than letting Shaun think Desmond loves him. Desmond does, so much, but there's the lingering regret that wants something easier. Hiding was difficult; convincing himself not to go back is even worse.
Shaun is already awake and dressed; he used to stay in bed longer, curled against Desmond's side, before Desmond kept finding excuses to leave him. He's flipping through papers on the desk, licks the tip of his finger so he can thumb through a stack. This little motion is what Desmond first fell in love with, and Shaun has no idea. He moves on to another stack, and Desmond knows he's going to find it. Desmond wrote to another group of assassins, asking if they wanted him, and he left their letter on the desk. They want him, of course, and now he's been wondering what to do. If he were stronger, he would tell Shaun this instead of leaving it on his desk to see. If he were truly stronger, he'd tell Shaun he loves him instead of running away to prove he doesn't.
"Des?" Shaun sounds confused and, Oh God, so hurt. Desmond sits on the side of the bed, but doesn't meet those blue eyes. He once spent a whole lazy afternoon trying to decide just what shade of blue they are, and it hurts that right now, he can't remember what he decided in the end. "Are you leaving?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Why?" This pleading is the last tone before he'll become defensive, then angry. Everyone else spurs him straight into anger; only Desmond can hurt him enough to find these new steps, new ways for him to hurt.
"I haven't decided yet."
"But why would you?"
"Just- because, I just. I want to." He wishes he weren't this weak, because it's hurting Shaun, it's hurting him. It's hurting Shaun, and that tears and rips at him, drawing blood and making him scream inside, because he's hurting Shaun.
"Why? You never told me you-" Shaun suddenly goes silent and before he looks angry, Desmond sees so much hurt it kills him, threatens to make his heart just stop, give out from all this pain and just stop. "Were you going to?"
"I don't know." It's like tearing his heart out, slowly, every nerve screaming at him to stop, stop before he kills himself, stop before he lives through this and the pain never goes away. "Shaun, I just- I don't- I can't." He doesn't know what he's trying to say. He can't keep doing this, can't keep loving him and pretending he doesn't, can't keep feeling like he's going to lose Shaun and all this hurt will have been for nothing. He keeps wondering, wondering if he could get this from someone else, someone the world wouldn't hate him for, and he can't keep living with this doubt.
"Can't what?" Shaun dares, glaring. Desmond looks at the floor, heartbeat hammering in his ears.
"With- with you, I just can't-"
"So don't. If you always know, why'd you ever start this?" he snaps, and Desmond says nothing. Shaun started this, kissed him first. Desmond used to feel wildly grateful, before he realized he was scared to death.
"It's too fucking hard, okay?" he snarls, and Shaun doesn't say anything, nothing at all, as Desmond just keeps destroying his own heart, "this- it's all too hard! I don't want to be different, I liked when everything was easy and didn't hurt all the time, and it's too hard, and it's not fucking worth it!" Shaun hears what Desmond doesn't say, of course he does, he always does- you're not worth this. Desmond hears it too, because suddenly there's silence, even his heartbeat has stopped pounding, he can't hear it anymore.
"So go," Shaun says, "let them use your memories. That's all you've got now."
Now Desmond sees his beating heart, going away, and Shaun slams the door on the way out, the sound echoing in the emptiness.
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Friday morning, Desmond wakes up in the extra bedroom, which is really just an office with a mattress on the floor. Desmond had been surprised that Shaun had moved back in here when Desmond left them, and Desmond refuses to make anything of it. When Desmond returned, Lucy and Rebecca made Shaun move back to the room he used to share with Desmond. It's unsettling, being here, but in the wrong room. This is Shaun's old room, his from the time before he joined Desmond, and Desmond used to sneak in here to kiss him. It was always dark, silence from down the hallway, and Shaun would let him crawl under the covers and Desmond would kiss him until he fell asleep. It's fitting, that he'd dream of their fight, the day Desmond decided to leave, or as close as he can figure. No matter when it was that he decided to leave, it was that day when he was gone.
He lies to Rebecca, says he needs to go back to an even earlier memory to find some piece of information, but all he wants is to again hear Leonardo back when he sounded like Shaun used to.
In Venezia, it's stormy and cold, wind rattling through the alleyways and hounding the ocean water. Ezio is in Leonardo's bed, warm and half asleep with the world's most brilliant artist wrapped in his arms.
"Ezio," Leonardo nuzzles against him, so warm against the early morning cold, this time before the sunrise where chill seeps into everything, "do you think it's safe?"
"Is what safe?" Ezio loops Leonardo's curls around his fingers, kisses the tip of Leonardo's nose. There are fourteen freckles across the bridge of Leonardo's nose, Ezio has counted so many times.
"The little bird," Leonardo says. Yesterday, he got one of the caged bird at the market, freed it into the forever blue sky.
"Of course, caro mio," Ezio promises, "birds keep themselves safe. They are delicate, sì, but smart."
"I was worried," Leonardo confesses, like Ezio doesn't already know.
"The bird is safe, amore mio, like you. Mio piccolo uccellino."
The scene fades away, the sound of the rain the last thing to go and the first thing Desmond hears again. It ticks against the glass like thrown jewels, little bits of diamonds that cover the world until they're swept away.
"Get what you needed?" Rebecca asks Desmond.
"Yeah." It almost hurts more than it helps now, because he's back near Shaun. Rebecca shuts off the Animus, and her movements are slow, thoughtful.
"I'm glad you're back with us," she finally says, "I mean- it's horrible, what happened to your team- but I- we all missed you."
Something about fate is horrible and twisted, that this tragedy brought him back here, that Belle's death and Felicity's desertion brought him to Shaun again, that Shaun still won't even look at him. It's the same fate that gave him a heart in the form of someone else. Desmond lives with this gaping emptiness in his chest, pain that refuses to let him die, because he was given a heart he could breathe without. He couldn't live without it, not really, but he didn't realize that until he cut out his beating heart and forced himself to keep existing.
It always felt so dangerous, that his heart was someone else, it used to make him feel so vulnerable. Used to, because Desmond can't really feel anymore. He tells himself it's better this way, that losing little things like intense emotions is better than losing everything, but it's getting harder to convince himself that losing his heart wasn't the worse thing in the world that he could have done to himself.
Fate is twisted. Desmond knows this now, because he did all this to himself. There is no one to blame but himself, and all through this, his heart keeps beating, so far away from him.
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Hope everyone liked that!
Update to follow. Hopefully within the week?
I'd love it if you reviewed :)
Love ya,
Sunshine