(yes yes I know the title is an awful pun. I suck at titles :P ) This is just a short drabble on the theme of Alex getting thrown back in time, and ending up in the Middle East during the Crusades. And kinda nomming a young novice Assassin named Altair at some stage long before this fic happens.
Malik's shifted into consciousness by degrees, and it took him some time to realize that he was, indeed, awake. The odd thing was that he was in much less pain that usual.
He simply lay there for a long time, basking in the decrease of pain and frailty. He was lying on something soft and clean-smelling. In fact the miasma of despair, fear, and human stench that permeated the dungeons where he'd been trapped for much too long, was almost entirely absent. What had happened?
His recollections were blurred, fragmented and incomplete, but he thought he remembered Altair bursting in to rescue him. He'd had that dream so many times over the endless, hopeless months though, that he almost discounted it out of hand now. Still. He'd been feverish and ailing, but it did seem like Altair's arrival had had a bit more realism around it than the dreams usually did. All the blood, for one thing.
Malik opened his eyes. He was too exhausted to be really surprised when Altair's forehead swam into focus before his eyes. Malik felt Altair's weight on his thighs, and a warmth against the sides of his ribs. Dazed and exhausted as he was, it took Malik several minutes to figure out or care about the oddities of the situation.
Altair could have been in his mid-twenties, instead of being the spry-but-aging Grand Master that Malik had last seen. Yet there was a set of intense strain to this young Altair's face. Golden eyes stared sightless and unblinking off into nothing, and his chest was still, not seeming to move with even the slightest breath. If not for the heat and weight pinning Altair to the bed, he would have said that Altair was a dream.
But since Altair was undeniably solid, and yet did not have the aspect of a corpse, Malik didn't know what to make of the unnatural stillness.
The stench of death was not entirely absent either, although it did not seem to be coming from the insensible Grand Master. Malik shifted his head just a fraction, and caught sight of a dead and bloated body lying in a grotesque heap next to the bed. The corpse was unfamiliar to him, although that might be a fault of too long in the heat and the multiple horrendous wounds that had made a bloody, stinking mess of the corpse's torso. It lay in an exceptionally large puddle of congealed blood, as if all the blood that had once been inside it had been allowed to drain.
"He attacked us," a rough voice said absently, as if commenting on the heat of the sun, or a novice's training.
Malik looked back at Altair, whose almost-glowing golden eyes were half-focused on Malik.
"...why?" Altair asked out of habit more than anything else.
"Probably to kill you. Or me. Don't know. Don't care," Altair grunted, eyes going distant again. "Stay still."
Things were too strange though, to simply let things go at that. "What are you doing?"
"Killing."
Which was odd, because as far as Malik knew, Altair had to at least move to kill someone. "Who are you killing?"
Altair glowered half-distractedly at Malik. "Wrong question. Not who, what. They're not smart enough to be a 'who.' Not like me."
Malik wondered if this was all a last fever-dream before death. "Alright, what are you killing?"
"You just can't shut up, can you," Altair growled, but it was half-hearted. "I'm killing the sicknesses inside your body."
"How do you kill a sickness?" Malik asked, bemused.
"One very small piece at a time. Now for fuck's sake shut up and let me work."
Malik almost let it go, almost fell back into warm, comforting sleep. But he still didn't know why Altair was young, and the sense of warmth at the sides of his ribs didn't exactly feel like hands...
He looked down. To where Altair's forearms rose into a rippled confusion of black and red vines that rooted in his sides.
"No," Altair said in a strangled voice. "Don't be afraid, that makes it harder."
Malik's caught his breath, cold fear still gripping his heart. "What are you?" He thought he remembered weapons of no mortal nor natural origin, ripping through guards and Abbas' allies like the sun through shadows. He wanted to believe it was merely his own fevered mind at the time of his rescue, but... He glanced at the shredded corpse bloating in the heat.
"I'm not here to hurt you. Damnit Malik, for once in your misbegotten, holier-than-thou life, fucking trust me."
For a second Malik was poised to fight off the demon pinning him so effortlessly, familiar face or no, but logic and his own weakened state won out. He might not be dying, but he was far from recovered, and it was true that there were much quicker ways of ending Malik's life than sitting him to death.
"What are you?" Malik asked again, fear ebbing slowly as his heart stopped fluttering in his chest like a trapped bird. His mind whirled in confusion as it tried to recover from the shock of realizing that something unnatural and inhuman was closer than his own skin.
The demon tensed fractionally, like he was protecting himself from a blow, but stayed silent.
He just wasn't up to thinking through all the possibilities and scenarios, Malik knew. But unnatural quirks aside, there was really only one thing his instincts were telling him about the demon on his chest. "...Altair. What are you?" Malik asked, almost gently this time.
"A plague." Altair said at last, head bowed to hide his face. "I'm a plague, Malik. I could murder everyone in Masyaf in less than a day, without ever raising a hand to them."
Well, the arrogance was certainly the same. Resolutely, Malik pushed away the fear still curled in his gut. "Don't get too full of yourself," Malik said dryly, bumping Altair's leg with a weak fist. "Novice."
Altair let out a startled huff of air, and glanced up at Malik.
"This isn't over. We're going to have a long, long talk," Malik threatened, but the brief yet eventful conversation had exhausted his diminished reserves. "Later," He amended, eyes drifting shut into healing sleep. His last sight was a slanted view of Altair's attempt to hide a smile.