Introduction: I found the ending of Assassin's Creed Revelations extremely annoying, not least because it was unclear what happened with Sixteen, Desmond and Animus Island. The fan-run Assassin's Creed Wiki states that somehow Subject Sixteen sacrificed himself to save Desmond from deletion, meaning that his consciousness was deleted and he's now officially "dead". I say balls to that, if only because he's the only truly interesting character in the modern plotline and I want him to return for Assassin's Creed III. There are still far too many unanswered questions to just shunt him out of the games forever.

So this story is based on two things: Subject Sixteen's request for Desmond to take him along upon returning to his body, and the statement he made right at the end of the game when he was hugging Desmond: "What is a man but the sum of his memories? We are the stories we live! The tales we tell ourselves!"

The story is rated M because it'll probably get a bit rough somewhere down the line. You can also expect to see some Desmond/Sixteen stuff so feel free to stop reading now if that's not your cup of tea.

Prologue

Before it had always been similar to the sensation of waking up, but now it was as though he were a sabretooth tiger who had fallen into a tar pit and spent 8 agonising hours dragging himself back to the edge and back out of the greedy, clasping blackness. Even as he opened his eyes in the van and saw the blurred outlines of people, he could still see Constantinople on the edges of his vision like an afterimage, and feel the wheedling tug of the Animus trying to pull him back.

Or perhaps it wasn't the Animus. Perhaps it was just Desmond, the same old Desmond who had run away from his destiny all those years ago and now was trying to run away from the truth of Lucy, and the truth of what he had done and what he had to do.

As he clawed his way back into the present day, he could hear Shaun, Rebecca and his father saying things to him that he couldn't quite make out. And then, strangest of all, he heard himself say something to them, though he couldn't quite make the words.

Suddenly a wave of exhaustion came crashing over him and he realised that none of his time in the Animus had ever been spent sleeping, and as rested as his physical body might be his mind hadn't taken a break in weeks.

"I need to sleep," he said aloud, almost automatically.

"Oh you must be joking!" snapped Shaun, and his usual tone of mild contempt was tinged with something deeper and uglier.

"Shaun!" Rebecca said warningly. "Let's go back to the safehouse in the town. Now we know where it is, there's no need to rush things."

"He's done nothing but lie there for weeks while we drag him around like a hatbox, he's just said he knows exactly what to do, and suddenly he feels like a little nap? For God's sake..."

The rant continued, but Desmond felt his father's hand on his shoulder and Shaun's voice became fuzzy, like a radio going out of tune, just as William's became louder and clearer.

"It's alright son," he said solemnly, and Desmond laid back down on the seat of the Animus and fell into a slumber so deep that when they got back to the New York safehouse he had to be half-carried inside to a bed.

In his free and hedonistic life as a bartender, Desmond had had quite a few one night stands. Sometimes in the morning the girl would still be there and sometimes she would be gone, and somehow he was always able to tell whether he was alone in the bed even before he had opened his eyes.

On this morning, Desmond woke up and knew straight away that he wasn't alone. He stayed very still, counting to ten in his head, and then got out of bed and put on some clothes he didn't recognise, that were laid out on the dresser.

The safehouse was nicer than the one in the warehouse, and even nicer than the villa. It had the air of an old family home, and his room had an en-suite bathroom. He walked in, closed the door behind him, and stood at the sink brushing his teeth. There was a mirror above the sink, but he avoided looking in it until he had rinsed out his mouth completely. Then he looked up, straight into his own eyes, and thought as clearly as he could: Can you hear me?

Nothing happened. Well, at least his thoughts were his own.

This time he asked another question, out loud. "Is it you?"

Who else? replied Subject Sixteen.