Take a Breath - by Liva Wilborg
Ezio wipes the blood from his hand off on the leg of his pants to prevent the weapon he holds from slipping in his grip. It's just a small wound on the back of the hand, although it bleeds freely. He knows it was a stupid mistake and wows not to let Leonardo standing there, grinning, distract him.
Much against his will, his eyes turn to where the artist is standing, holding his scrolls of sketches and box of paint. Leonardo and Mario exchange a comment he cannot hear which leaves them laughing, before the artist disappears down in the direction of the town, probably for the tower above the gate. Ezio barely dodges his opponent's attack, his attention forced back to the training-ring by the swoosh of the weapon.
"Concentrate, damn you!" Mario barks at Desmond. "Get your head out of the clouds, Nephew. You think a Templar will wait for you to take a breath and get ready?"
The words rang in Desmond's ears as he sat on the stairs looking out over the Monteriggioni night. He smiled a little at the memory of his uncle. No, Ezio's uncle. In the warm, night-clad city that stretched before him, he saw the light and life of centuries past.
Forcefully, he got up, shaking his head, willing the present to embrace him. It was so lonely, out here. In the ruins of his past. Desmond sighed and took a deep breath.
o-O-O-O-o
Were the nights here really different? Or was it just the soundscape, or the smell?
No, even the bloody stars were different! Too damned… visible.
Shaun sighed and leaned his forehead against the cool metal bar of the tall railing in front of him, designed to prevent wayward tourists from climbing the old city walls of Monteriggioni; not that any tourists ever came up here, behind the crumbling villa.
He missed the soft buzz of life, traffic, voices; like the sound of a distant ocean. The sound of London happening about him as he sat snugly in his little flat, in self-imposed imprisonment behind piles of books; basking in the gentle, life-giving glow of the monitors. He even missed the overcast sky; the good, old-fashioned, decently grey London drizzle.
All this adventure, fighting the good fight, out in the field, trying to be more than he was nonsense… How did the others stay sane?
There was a darkness, always, in front of him and he balanced on the edge, constantly teetering and flapping his metaphorical arms to keep from plunging. Shaun sometimes felt that the only thing preventing him from tumbling was the hook in his flesh from those higher up. The constant, needy orders and information and messages to and from the teams operating both in Europe and the New World and worst: the way he had to censor everything from one level to the next. There were things he couldn't even share with his own team. It had felt so good in the beginning. So important. So trusted. Now, however…
God, if only he still smoked! Maybe that would take the edge off. He should've never quit!
And watching their poor science experiment grow thinner in Rebecca's damn chair… Couldn't they have put the chair somewhere else so he would only have to stay wise to the data streaming, pouring, flooding his workstation, constantly demanding his responses. Did he have to watch as Desmond paled, died a little, every single day this madness continued?
Even when the man was up and about it seemed like the life was slowly and inexorably draining out of him and only an indefinable sadness remained, like a sticky film clinging to his features, making mirrors of his golden-green eyes so that all they reflected was loss and impatience.
A twig snapped audibly behind him in the Monteriggioni nightscape. Shaun whirled around, sudden adrenaline flooding his system; reaching for the small knife he wore in his belt whenever he ventured out from the damned underground tomb.
Desmond stood behind him, holding a stick in his hands which he had evidently broken to announce his presence. He walked closer and threw the pieces through the bars of the fence, his movements quiet and despondent.
"What the hell are you doing, Desmond!" Shaun snapped. "What, you think you can just creep up on people, all high and mighty, because your bloody ancestors used to live here!"
"Sorry I startled you." Desmond said, softly: "I thought I was being tactful, not sneaky."
"Well, you weren't. You were being a nuisance! And, really, how would you know about tact…"
"Shaun. Shut the hell up, okay… I'm sorry I startled you." Desmond said, leaning against the metal railing and looking up at stars. The yellow floodlights that made the city-walls glow for the tourists, cast odd shadows under his cheekbones.
"Yes. Well…" Heart-rate slowly returning to normal, Shaun found himself desperate to get away, feeling a reluctance against the melancholy of the remains of the old Villa Auditore which Desmond seemed to amplify a thousand times. Unsure why he didn't retreat to the relative safety of his workstation, Shaun leaned against the railing too, crossing his arms as he studied the heavens.
"What are you doing out here, anyway." Shaun finally asked. It was almost like letting a cat out, when Desmond was freed from the chair. He would stretch, pad softly around in circles searching for food before shouldering his backpack and disappearing to who knew where…
"Same as I always did…" Desmond just answered.
"What? Mark your territory by spraying your ancestral begonia patches?"
Desmond gave an incredulous laugh, shaking his head: "What did I do to piss you off so badly?" he asked quietly: "Do you think I feel special? That I'd be here, if I had ever had a choice?"
Shaun sighed: "No. I don't think so. I don't think either of us would choose this." he added and watched as Desmond's knees gave way under him and he slowly sank down to sit with his back against the unforgiving metal. It looked anything but comfortable, but he just rested his cheek on his knees, looking like a child lost in his own world.
Shaun looked at him for a while, and then found himself crouching, putting a hand on the other man's shoulder: "I swear; you're as queer as a nine bob note…" he mumbled.
"Shaun…" Desmond lifted his gaze: "Sometimes I have no fucking clue what you're saying."
"Well, you bloody Americans should have thought about that before you decided to stop paying your taxes, eh? Losing your grasp of plain English was obviously the first to slip…"
"Yeah, you are maxed out on playing the bad-ass, egghead Brit, I get it." Desmond said, a grin haunting his lips for a moment.
"Look here, I-" Shaun started and then faltered, sitting down instead: "I didn't exactly mean to... snap at you. Before." he said.
"I know." Desmond said: "You're scared. I'm down with that." After a little while, when Shaun found that he couldn't quite protest, Desmond added: "And me too."
"It'll end soon enough. For better… hopefully. Not worse." Shaun said.
"You are a real lousy optimist; you know that, right?"
"Oh, please. Just because a fellow's a realist, he is automatically saddled with being a doom prophet?"
Desmond smiled. "I need…" he began after a little while and then shook his head, looking suddenly a little sheepish: "I really want you to come with me; okay? To the roof."
"What? Why? What roof." Shaun asked: "Not the house. It's a pile of rubbish, it'll fall under us and we'll be crushed-"
"No we wouldn't; but not that roof…" Desmond said: "Come on, please." He quickly leapt to his feet.
Puzzled and a little wary, Shaun let himself be dragged along until they stood at a door in the metal fence allowing access to the battlements of the city-wall. The door had been locked with a modern padlock which was now unhinged and useless.
"What?" Desmond asked as he held the door open. "You think I climb just to climb, when a bolt-cutter can do the trick? Come on." and he led the way along the wall, Shaun following. There was something leisurely about the way Desmond walked; at home, like a man navigating his own living room in the dark. This level of familiarity was a little unsettling, Shaun thought, considering that they had only recently set up shop here.
They were near the half crumbled tower stretching above the main gate, when Desmond looked over his shoulder, grinning; a slight change in his bearing: "I had the platform build for Leonar- No. I mean, he did. Ezio. Ezio did. We would sit up there in the warm evenings and watch the sun set. Leo needed the vantage point to study the landscape from, while he stayed here. Come on." he added eagerly and pushed the heavy door open. It was obvious that it had been locked, but had given in earlier to a violent force.
"Desmond!" Shaun said. "Please. It's dark. We can come back in the morning and-"
Desmond held up a hand to stop him and rummaged in his bag for a flashlight.
"Oh, wonderful. You brought the complete Desmond Miles Burglar-Kit. I was rather hoping to get acquainted with the Italian police; breaking and entering should probably do it..." Shaun sighed, an uneasy feeling sneaking into his body as they made their way inside and he saw the wooden stairs. They must have been sturdy. Five hundred years ago. Now, however...
"Ehm, Desmond. You seem to forget that while you were born into climbing about like a monkey, I was technically born to sit behind a desk... My parents are librarians, for God's sake!"
"They are sturdier than they look. Trust me." he said: "Please."
The climb up, lit only by the electrical torch, was awful; creaky, fragile, ancient wood protesting under his feet, but the rational part of Shaun's mind suspected that it would have been impossible if he had in fact been able to see what he was doing. Finally reaching the sheltered platform above, by way of a trapdoor in the floor, the sudden star-packed view of the Tuscan heavens stretching above them in windy glory, unfettered by city lights, made him reach out to support himself on the wall from fear of toppling over. Desmond walked past him on the platform, leaning on the wall, looking out over the night landscape, the melancholy cloud again hanging over him, almost visible.
"So... What exactly are we doing here, Desmond; if you don't mind enlightening me? Especially considering that you have lured me here through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered... "
"I..." he turned, and Shaun saw, in the unflatteringly stark light of the torch, how Desmond's gaze was following something else entirely and he seemed to be struggling to pull his attention away. He suddenly paled visibly and sat down by the wall, sheltered from the soft wind that kissed the landscape.
"I always like it here. I need someone to know. I mean; to know about me." he said, finally, looking up into the light and shading his eyes with his hand.
"What do you need me to know?" Shaun put the torch down and knelt by Desmond's side. "What do you need?" he asked gently, an unfamiliar and unexpected feeling of worry pushing his hand forward to touch Desmond's shoulder; then touching his cheek with his fingertips when there was no reaction.
Desmond reached out and locked his fingers around Shaun's wrist, pulling him so close that Shaun could feel the warmth emanating from him and see the desperation in his eyes in the pale, shivery light of the electrical torch.
"Take a breath, Desmond. Come on." Shaun said, anxious, studying his features in search of a calm place in a turbulent ocean of emotional confusion. "Please." he added and felt Desmond's grip on his wrist relax a little and the assassin closed his eyes and sighed deeply.
"I see them, living, breathing..." Desmond said: "This place is so full of ghosts that I can hardly move without bumping into someone I knew at some point. I was here just the other day, just sitting in the evening sun, having a cup of wine and a couple of jokes with a man who is now centuries in his grave. My best friend. The only man who never judged me or used me or feared me. And all this; it's breaking me apart. It's all has-beens and gone-so-long-agos and I have no idea what's left." He drew a deep shuddering breath.
Shaun found himself reaching out gently and putting both of his hands on Desmond's face. Their eyes met in the shifty light.
"So what do you need?" Shaun asked.
"I need someone to know who I am." Desmond said quietly. "Before it all washes away. I need you to know that I existed."
"I know."
"I mean... I ran away. I tried to leave this stupid war. I tried to get out."
"I know." Shaun repeated gently.
"No. You know the data. I'm guessing all my transgressions are on file, right? That's not what I mean."
"You need someone to remember you, so that you don't have to. Is that it?"
Desmond's gaze again flickered away for a second, and he grinned briefly before returning to the present to give Shaun an almost terrified look: "...Yeah. That's it. Remember. I'm losing me! Help me stay sane."
Shaun couldn't hold back a sudden laugh, watching as Desmond sent him a scared and lost stare: "You want me to help you stay sane?" Shaun sighed, his thumbs caressing the other man's face and then he leaned closer and found himself kissing Desmond's lips very softly, his inner dialogue exploding in a chorus of demands for an explanation and harsh blame for the inappropriateness of the situation.
Desmond sat very still; his hand still on Shaun's wrist, his eyes closed.
"If data is not enough then I can't remember you like you want me to." Shaun finally said retreating as far as the hand on his wrist would let him. "Data is all I understand. All I can offer. Except the now."
"Now." Desmond said, reaching out, pulling Shaun closer, hiding his face at his neck. "Right now. And we are both alive in the present." he whispered and then nodded slowly as they exchanged a timid kiss.
Desmond reached out tentatively and plucked the glasses off Shaun's nose, depositing them safely by the wall. Pulling away a little from the next kiss, he said: "I... I didn't plan this. You know that, right? I didn't ask you up here to-"
"Shut up, Des. I know. I'm the aggressor, remember?" Shaun smiled, slightly breathless, as their lips met again, braver and warmer this time.
o-O-O-O-o
Leonardo's shoulders are bobbing up and down in soft, silent laughter as he ties the small puppet, made of sticks bound together, to the underside of the miniature glider. The frame of the small model is wood, glued to a sketch of the landscape he has discarded.
"Look, it's you." Grinning, he holds the toy-size glider-and-pilot model up: "The Venezia triumph re-experienced, only this time in the comfort of Monteriggioni! What better desert could you ask for?" he says, gesturing grandly with the model at the remains of their evening meal on the table between them.
Ezio has furtively been studying Leonardo's work, enjoying the sight of his concentration, but now glances up from his book: "So, that's what you do alone up here all day." Rolling his eyes as if at a child's antics, he manages to stay serious for a moment before a grin breaks through: "Are you going to fly it?"
"That, my friend, is a stupid question!" Leonardo takes a quick sip of wine before he positions himself at the sun-warmed wall of the tower.
"So, that is me..." Ezio comments as he joins Leonardo, looking at the little model. The glider, held in the artist's long fingers, is ready to plunge into the air to conquer the Toscana landscape stretching in sun-doused evening splendour before the city gates.
"Yes. And now I, the greatest, and only, designer of flying machinery in all Italia, will defeat the skies once again!" Leonardo states laughingly and sends the small craft flying. It hangs beautifully in the air, soaring, before a sudden gust of wind takes it, flips it around, sends it in a sudden loop back the way it came.
Both men take a hasty step away as the model is carried on the breath of air between them and over the edge of the tower's other side. It suddenly loses momentum, doing some lopsided manoeuvres above the city. Laughing, both men hurry to the city-side of the tower, their hands touching as they lean over the wall to look, just as the small model hits the wall half way down, momentarily stuck drunkenly with a wing tip in a crack in the stones. Wobbling in a draft, it gives up and falls with a papery flap, hitting a window-sill and a banner pole before impacting with the ground below. A cart rumbles shakily through the gate and the model is broken under a heavy wooden wheel.
Ezio puts an arm around Leonardo's waist and pulls him away from the wall to where they are unseen from below, laughing hard: "I'm really glad I have the best designer. Had I gone for second best, I think I could have gotten hurt..."
Leonardo laughingly leans on Ezio's shoulder: "It hit everything!" he gasps.
"I hope I never have to be the test subject again." Desmond says: "I'm sure we can find something better to do with our time."
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