Summary: Desmond finds a note next to him when he wakes up; he's a little disturbed when he recognises the handwriting as Ezio's…
Set in Assassin's Creed II.
Contains swearing.
Influenced and inspired by dogmatix' Bonkers, as well as being prompted by her on my prompt post on dreamwidth. XDD
Took a couple of liberties in how many times Desmond woke up. ;p
Different terminology is fun! Not. D:
And, of course, when I think I'm going to need loooots of research, it doesn't actually appear in the amount of detail I thought they would. Pfft.
Notes Left Behind
By Dark Ice Dragon
Desmond woke up to find his bedside lamp on, which was a little weird since he was sure he'd switched it off before he'd gone to bed (a habit from The Farm that he'd never gotten rid of). What was even weirder was that fact that he was on top of the duvet when he'd been under it – and his suddenly ink-stained fingers weren't helping his stomach from unsettling further either.
So, he'd either been sleepwalking or…
Desmond's eyes were drawn to the innocent sheet of paper lying next to the lamp. He eased himself up and picked it up.
It was in his – no, Ezio's handwriting. Desmond froze when he realised what he'd just thought, the air catching in his lungs. Lucy had said the bleeding effect wasn't a problem if the hallucinations didn't last for more than thirty seconds; the paper in his hand definitely wasn't a hallucination, and it didn't look like the letter had been written in thirty seconds either, taking up nearly the whole page. Fuck.
How long had it lasted?
Long enough for…Ezio to leave his room, find a piece of paper (which Desmond didn't know where to find himself. Maybe from Shaun's desk?), walk back and then write the letter.
He really hoped he-as-Ezio hadn't been seen by any of the others… Shit, what if he'd – no, if he'd talked with anyone, he wouldn't be in his room.
Desmond eyed his closed door warily.
After a second's deliberation, he set the paper down and padded over to the door, his stomach creating a new knot with every step. What if the others had seen him and they'd locked him in?
The doorknob turned easily in his grasp and Desmond breathed a sigh of relief when the door slid open. All right, no-one saw him. Closing the door, Desmond sat on the edge of his bed and picked up the piece of paper again.
He skimmed the first couple of lines before he stopped and backtracked. It was in Italian, which he hadn't realised straight away because he had understood it perfectly. The letter also talked about events that Desmond hadn't lived yet, being shown around Venice when the last Desmond remembered, he'd been boarding the ferry to get there. As well as finding a glyph that Desmond had never seen, describing what was in the clip.
Desmond's mind whirled with questions, but the biggest one was: what day was it? How long had he been unaware if Ezio had had enough time to go into the Animus and come out of it? Desmond brought a hand up to rest his forehead on it. Better gaining consciousness out the Animus than in, but it wasn't much of a comfort to losing, what, an entire day?
He returned his attention to the letter, wondering what else would be in it. After the paragraph about the glyph, Ezio started recounting what 'should' happen next, and a detailed description of a tomb that he (they?) would be nearing – there was also a guide of what path to take.
At the end of the letter was a musing note, Ezio wondering if this would happen again.
Taking a deep breath, Desmond memorised the instructions and then ripped the paper into the smallest pieces he could. Once he got changed, the scraps were going to get scattered around the warehouse, after getting dunked in water. That should be enough to hide what had been written on it.
xOx
"Looks like your sky-high synchronisation from yesterday settled down," Rebecca commented as Desmond exited the Animus in a daze. Nearly everything that Ezio had said had been right, from how to find the tomb, to the fastest route to the seal; only a few things had been wrong, but they were little things, nothing that had caused him to desync.
There hadn't been any remarks about 'him' acting weirdly the day before, apart from an aside from Shaun that he was finally speaking with his own accent again.
"I guess I'm feeling better after some rest," Desmond threw out, hoping it would be a good enough response.
It apparently was, and the four of them finished things up before they started to prepare dinner.
xOx
Desmond couldn't believe he was doing this. He shook his head as he stole into the main room, cautiously switching on what he hoped would be a small number of lights and wasn't, say, another alarm system.
It thankfully was just the lights, throwing enough illumination so he could see without being too obvious.
Why was he doing this? There hadn't been any symptoms when he'd left the Animus this time, so why was he preparing for another one?
Just in case.
Just in case it did happen again, a part of him whispered, over and over again. Then Ezio would know what still needed to be done and what had happened before.
But if he was experiencing the side effects… He didn't feel like he was losing his mind. While he was searching for paper so that he could leave a message for his ancestor if he possessed his body again. Or whatever had happened. Right. Completely normal.
But 'normal' had flown out the window weeks ago when he had been kidnapped and forced to live out his ancestors' memories, and everything that he had found out after that.
His thoughts settling, Desmond found a small pile of papers on Shaun's desk; he left enough that it hopefully wouldn't be noticeable, and went back to his bedroom.
Once he was there, Desmond stared at the paper, feeling extremely stupid. Okaaay, so what was he supposed to write? Thinking about writing a letter was easy, but actually doing it with a pen in his hand? A lot more difficult. Not to mention, he'd never written one before…
Putting those doubts to the side, Desmond started writing about all the things he could remember, trying not to compare it to a leap of faith.
When he had finished the…report, Desmond supposed, even though it was peppered with tangents and questions Ezio probably didn't know the answer of, he paused, wondering what else he should add. He couldn't think of anything, but he jotted down where he had stashed the rest of the paper.
Satisfied it was at least done, Desmond switched the light off and went to bed.
xOx
The lamp was still off and the letter was still in place when Desmond woke up the next morning. Huffing a sigh of relief and smiling ruefully at himself, he picked up the letter to dispose of it when he realised that he hadn't folded his letter, but this one was.
He opened it to see Ezio's familiar writing.
Fuck.
It was in the same format as the previous letter, telling Desmond what he had done in the Animus. At the end, Ezio answered a couple of Desmond's questions, as well as thanking him for the extra paper.
Desmond sighed, hard, and ran a hand over his face. He had gotten used to the swerve that his life had taken recently, so it wasn't as big a shock as it could have been. It was just another part of the weirdness he had to adjust to.
He just hoped the pattern would stick with switching every day, and that he wouldn't wake up to Altaïr's handwriting at some point.
xOx
After that, Desmond fell into the routine of waking up, catching up on what Ezio had done the day before, going inside the Animus, and then writing down everything that had happened before going to sleep. Eventually, he started adding in some of the conversations he'd had with the others – it had started off as making sure Ezio stayed in the loop in case it came up later, but it slowly changed to what he thought Ezio would find interesting.
Ezio didn't seem to mind, doing the same back, as well as telling him specific kinds of attacks and counters he could do with certain weapons (Desmond guessed Ezio knew what he still had to learn because of Rebecca).
Things progressed quickly from there, and no-one seemed to suspect anything.
One morning, Desmond woke up to the regular letter, this one recounting how Ezio had just assassinated both Dante and Silvio. At the bottom of the letter, there was one sentence that captured Desmond's attention: 'Now I'll know if her message is more understandable to you than when I heard it.'
What did that mean…?
Well, Desmond thought, getting off his bed, there was only one way to find out.
The prompt was 'Assassin's Creed, Desmond, Ezio!Desmond, and/or Altair!Desmond in a co-operative multiple personality situation. Leaving notes for each other, working towards the same goal in a mission(this assumes they all remember what the other personalities did).'
Why didn't Ezio just tell Desmond right at the start? Desmond still needed to learn his skills and…bubble memory. Ezio could only remember a little further than what he'd just experienced. …Yeah…