Desmond was too busy looking at all them, taking in the way they looked and memorizing every detail, thinking of how he should get their autographs and a picture with them, and how everything was incredible. For being dead for hundreds of years, they certainly looked good. He jerked slightly when he saw Hawkeye looked over his shoulder and gave him a thorough once-over before smirking with the same hunger Alex had had. He shivered.

"He's mine tonight, Malik," he heard Alex growl, and Malik flopped a hand at him.

"Zip it, novice."

"If you have time to eye my treasure—"

"Remember, dumbass," Hawkeye said, turning to give him a critical eye, "you wrote our agreement. I get whatever you get. Your shit is mine."

Alex snarled, and the pilot scoffed, turning back around.

"'Sides, I wouldn't be surprised if by the time we land next, everyone's fucked the boy at least once… but somehow, I don't think he would mind."

Desmond was bright red, looking at all the faces around him, each one with their own sadistic little smile, and suddenly, he felt more like a prized carcass for a pride of lions. At least he was the prized carcass for the pride of lions. He jerked when he felt the bonds crawl off his arms, and he looked at his wrists.

"W-what the Hell?"

There was a quiet chuckle through the cockpit. Alex had one eyebrow raised. "You don't know what that was?"

"N-no!"

Paper Crane shook her head. "So much for a fanboy—"

"Hey! It's not like I had access to a lot of shit! I ended up stealing from monasteries to get what I wanted! You guys have been off the radar for hundreds of years! No one has seen you!"

Mother smiled again—she needed to stop that. "Such a smart little boy. Such a brilliant, intelligent boy."

He flushed. "I-I—"

"You know we're not human, right?" Paper Crane said.

"Duh!" Desmond standing up. "If you were, all of you would be dead by now! The Gentek explosion happened three hundred and twenty-two years, four months, and six day—no, seven, now—days ago!" His arms were flailing wildly as he spoke, occasionally fisting in his hair. "Hawkeye's explosion happened two-hundred and thirty-six years, seven months, and four days ago, and Paper Crane should be at least ninety five years old! She was twenty three when her fiancé died, and that was seventy-two years ago!"

The Specialist whistled. "You know your shit. Why don't you give him a lesson in Gentek's experiment, Mercer?"

Alex growled. "I guess."

He was drug out of the room and into Alex's, and by the time he was watching as Alex showed him just what the experiment was, Desmond was in love. He watched his arms morph into claws, into blades, into fists, and into a whip. He watched the man melt into a pile of red and black ooze. This was so much more than he ever expected. He could morph into whatever he wanted.

That night in bed was even better.

When he woke the next morning, that burn in his backside was there again, and he couldn't help but smile. There was the feeling of soft breath against his head, and something warm pressed against him, and he snuggled in, deciding that perhaps this was the best thing to happen to him in a long time. When he heard a chuckle, he inhaled. It was beautiful.

"I should've guessed you were a cuddler."

He was going to die of sensory overload. Not that he would mind, but if Alex kept talking to him, he was sure he could die of happiness. The man's voice was incredible. His breath hitched as he felt a hand rub lightly at his side, and he found himself twisting to look at his bedmate. Alex—Zeus—had an amused look on his face (which probably was from the shocked look on his own), and one hand trailing over the skin on his back. He could feel his fingers pause, and grow, and spread over his back and cover his skin, and whatever the Gentek experiment virus-thing was, was warmer than hell and comfortable. He jolted slightly: he hadn't taken his medications.

"I…"

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"My medications!"

Zeus rolled his eyes, and after a few seconds of debate on whether he should move or not, Desmond saw his medications appear in front of him. He blinked at the black and red tendril holding them in front of his face before reaching out to take them. When he sat up to open the container, he found himself tugged back down before he could object.

"I didn't say you could sit up."

"I-I can't take them without sitting up to swallow and a glass of water!"

Alex growled, pulling him tighter, and he inhaled sharply—this was the sky pirate of legends not wanting him to get out of bed with him. This was the sky pirate, telling him not to move because he wanted to cuddle with him—with him! With Desmond Miles, the queer little fanboy who lived in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, with his adopted older brothers after running away from home! With Desmond Miles, the kid whose brother had killed himself after going crazy, and was on medications for the exact same reason, and here he was, being commanded by his idol to shut the fuck up and stay in bed with him.

Really, he didn't even know why he was objecting. He nestled back down, lost in a dazed stupor, as Alex nuzzled against him.

"I knew you'd see it my way."

"W-wha—Why?"

Alex quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Why me? What? I don't… Why me?"

Alex smirked, giving him a predatory look that made him shiver. He clutched the medication bottle close as Alex moved over him, and he stared wide-eyed at the beautiful man. His smirk grew into something darker, and he shivered.

"What do pirates collect?"

Desmond could feel his desire stirring at the growl. "U-uh… treasure?"

He inhaled sharply at the greedy look he was given, his fingers curling a little tighter around the bottle of horse-pills. "A fanboy is certainly a treasure."

He swallowed, taking a second to register the comment before grinning like a goof. "Well, that depends on how many fans you have. En masse, we get pretty terrifying."

Alex rolled his eyes, leaning in and murmuring against his lips, "Well, you're the only one I know of, and you're far too beautiful to go unappreciated. A true treasure, if I ever found one."

Desmond turned a brilliant shade of red as Alex pressed a fierce kiss against his lips, and he found one hand curling at the base of Zeus' neck as he let him take his mouth, leaving him breathless when he pulled back. One hand was still curled around the bottle of pills, and he shuddered at the look he was receiving. Alex licked his lips, and Desmond inhaled loudly.

"You're all mine."

He groaned when Alex leaned back in, and it wasn't until the pirate had had his wicked way with him that he was lying boneless and breathless on the bed, his pill bottle lost somewhere in the covers, completely forgotten about. Desmond practically purred as he pressed closer to Alex, despite the mess, and felt the man's skin ripple at the contact. Zeus' arms wrapped around him and held him tight, and he felt as if he could die right now and be okay.

"It's hard to believe you're the Great Eagle's brother."

Desmond hummed complacently. "Who's 'e?"

"And enemy of mine."

Desmond knew he should be worried; he knew he should be panicking, but he was so utterly content right now he couldn't bring himself to care. "When?"

"Before the Gentek experiment. He was supposed to kill the man whose appearance I don now."

Desmond blinked, then looked up at Alex and blinked again. "He… what? No. Not Altair. He's too young. There's no way he's as old as the Gentek explosion."

"You seemed fine with me being that old."

"But you said yourself that you, Mother, and the Specialist weren't even human anymore!"

Alex chuckled, drawing him in for a deep, hungry kiss. Desmond had his hands curled on the back of Alex's neck, held close by the time he pulled back for air. The pirate's lips were still brushing his, and he kept his eyes closed as Alex murmured, "He is just as inhuman as us, Desmond."

He couldn't believe it. At all. There was no way Altair was the arch nemesis of Zeus. There was no way he was living with a man who was almost three hundred and twenty three. There was no way his protector and provider for the longest time was at the Gentek explosion, and there was no way that he had been living with a Gentek-experiment-virus-thing for almost eleven years of his life (he had stumbled into Altair's protection at age eight with his brother) and not known it.

"You can ask him when he comes for my head."

His eyes shot open, and he stared at him. "W-what?"

Alex smirked, his expression growing darker. "I stole his treasure. Naturally, he's going to come and get it back."

Desmond could only blink in response for the longest time, eventually shaking his head as best he could so close to Alex, and breathed, "I'm not a treasure to him."

"Of course you are."

He shook his head. "I'm just another kid who needs a place to stay."

He could feel a rumble in Alex's chest as he brought one hand to lightly caress his cheek. "You underestimate yourself, Desmond."

Desmond rolled his eyes, nestling back down against him and trying not to think about it, and he almost succeeded, until he heard someone knock at the door.

"Get up," he heard Mother rasp. "Our little girl got him on the phone."

Desmond shot up, and Alex growled, rising slowly and walking out after pulling on some pants. He saw Mother in the doorway, watching Zeus move away, before looking at him and smiling. He shivered.

"My precious little boy, you may want to come too."

She vanished, and Desmond blinked, looking down at himself as he thought about how he'd have to find a way to clean himself, only to find the mess gone. He stared for a little bit before he remembered that Alex ate things that weren't dead for his meals. He ate living beings. He ate living cells. He blanched at the thought, his nose wrinkling and his lip curling. Gross. Slowly, he rose, his backside burning, but feeling incredible as he grinned, stretching, before pulling on some pants (they were Alex's, but he couldn't find his) and a shirt (also Alex's, but he was pretty damn sure one of those tendril things had hidden his clothes). He jumped when he heard a whistle.

Paper Crane was standing there, two bottles of pop in her hand as she laughed. "Hot piece of ass Alex picked up this time."

He jerked backward before walking over. She thrust a bottle at him, and he jumped, realizing it was already open. He looked at her as she held hers up.

"Name's Rebecca—don't call me by my code name. We're buds. A toast, yeah? To a successful theft and getting that phone to work!"

Desmond blinked several times before a smile pulled at his lips, and he raised his bottle, clinking it with hers and taking a sip. He had no idea what a phone was. Sure, there was one in their house, but it was never used, and so, he had no reason to toy with it, always more concerned about his schooling and his training. She hooked their arms together and led him into the engine room, chattering.

"It was hard to fix, but I got it. I'm hoping I can make a few improvements to it, but I'll have to run them by Shaun first. Damn shit is picky about his airships, you know? Well, probably not, but you'll meet him anyway when we land. Okay, now, be prepared. Alex will be pissy since it's your bro on the line. He doesn't like him."

Desmond nodded as he pushed open the door for her, and she bopped on in, taking another sip from the bottle. He followed in behind her.

"No. Over my dead body."

There was silence. Alex was hunched over the phone in the pilot's cabin, the cord twirled helplessly in his fingers. He watched, wondering what the Hell was going on, not understanding how it worked. Alex looked at him, then growled into part of it.

"Here, talk to him. You'll see what I mean."

He was gestured over, and the phone was thrust into his hands. He stared at the thing, not entirely sure what to do with it. He had never used one. He mimicked Alex, holding one end to the side of his face and the other to his mouth. When Rebecca laughed, he blushed. She adjusted it, and he shrank down slightly as he realized he had it backwards.

"Hello?" he murmured, looking down at his feet.

"Desmond?"

He jumped, Altair's voice coming in through part of it. It was crackly and fuzzy, but distinctly Altair, and his eyes grew wide.

"A-Altair?"

"Are you okay?"

It was hard to understand, but he could make out the gist of it. With an amazed breath, he looked at the piece Rebecca had pressed to his ear.

"Awesome. This is what that thing in our home did?"

"Desmond, are you okay?"

There was silence for a bit as he stared in wide-eyed wonder at the phone.

"This is so fucking cool!" he shouted, looking at the others. "This is awesome! How does it work? How are you talking to me? Awesome! This is so fucking cool!"

"Desmond—Desmond!"

He jolted, a goofy smile plastered to his face. "This is awesome, Altair. I wish you were here! You'd never believe it! I'm on a ship with all the sky pirates! I'm talking to you on a phone! I get to fly! This is awesome!"

"Desmond!" Altair barked, and his jaw snapped shut. He sounded angry, which never meant positive things.

"Y-yeah?"

"Are you okay? Do you have your medications? Have they been hurting you?"

"W-what?"

"Desmond, are you okay?"

He blinked. "I'm fine. I'm awesome. I'm in the air, Altair! You know how much I wanted to be a sky pirate! I'm flying with Zeus! I'm flying with Hawkeye! I'm flying with Paper Crane and Mother! I couldn't get any better! You should see the ship! This is incredible! And I'm talking to you on the phone! Geez! This is great! I… Altair, this is awesome!"

He thought he heard Altair sigh on the other end. "Desmond, listen to me. Those people are evil—"

"These people are awesome!"

"Those people cannot be trusted. Do you understand?"

He lapsed into silence. Of course he knew that. Of course he knew they couldn't—they were pirates. "Of course I do," he murmured, "but… I mean… I just…"

"I know, Desmond. But you can't trust them."

He was silent as he thought, slowly but surely making up his mind. "Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

He paused briefly, then looked at his feet. Altair had a way of shaking him from his daydreams and fantasies. He had a way of making him feel as if he were in trouble, as if he was still a child and not eighteen already.

"Is… Are you… Were you really at the Gentek explosion?"

There was silence on the other line. Finally, he heard a heavy sigh.

"Yes, Desmond, I was."

He shuffled his feet, making sure to not look up, as if Altair were there to see him. "Why… why didn't you tell us?"

"I didn't want you to get even more lost in your fantasies then you were. After your brother died, everything was walking on eggshells. You don't realize how frightening it was to see you become so lost in your daydreaming to console yourself over Darien."

He twisted his lips, rolling the cord between his fingers as he stared at the ground and his bare feet. "That… that was when I first started the medications."

"Yes. You kept telling me you saw Darien in the skies, telling you to come join him."

"Did Ezio and Federico know about you?"

"Yes."

He chewed on the bottom of his lip. He still needed to take his medications.

"Desmond?"

He looked up, at the wall, and blinked. "Yeah?"

"I'm going to let you go now."

"What if—"

"I'll give you our number. You've always had a good memory. Ready?"

He nodded, then remembered that Altair couldn't see him. "Yeah."

As Altair recited the number, he committed it to heart. He knew he would remember it. He could remember anything if he wanted to, and he needed to remember this. He nodded once he was done, staring at the phone again.

"Remember, Desmond," Altair started.

Desmond looked up at the wall.

"I love you. Don't let them let you destroy yourself. I will find you."

He nodded vigorously, and he heard Altair chuckle quietly.

"Desmond, if you're making some kind of head motion, I can't see you."

"R-right! I love you, too, Altair. I won't forget to take care of myself."

"And Desmond," he began, and he nodded in response, "you can hold your own against Alex if you have to. He's not so different from fighting me, and I have faith you can fight me."

He nodded once more, feeling, for once, homesickness of all things. He wasn't going to see them again since he was "kidnapped." He almost wanted to plead with the others to take him back home. He pulled the piece from his ear as he heard the phone line die, staring at the earpiece as if Altair would come back and speak to him.

"You okay there, Desmond?"

He nodded numbly, handing the phone off to Rebecca as she came over, and he started walking out.

"I'm… gonna go take my medications." He paused only when a hand clamped down on his shoulder, and he was still staring at his feet. "Yeah?"

"If that's what has you down—"

"No," he murmured. "It's not. I just… I'm not going to get to see them again, am I?"

He took the silence as an affirmative as he pulled from the grasp. He sighed as he walked down the narrow hallway to the bed he shared with his biggest idol. Not even the prospect of knowing he was in Zeus' room was exciting. He wanted his bedroom. As he paced into the bedroom, he sighed again and shook the covers on his and Alex's bed, stopping only after he saw the bottle. He wanted to see Altair again—he wanted to prove himself against him. He wanted to joke around with Ezio and Federico and cuddle with Petruccio on the couch. He didn't know he'd have to give up his family forever if he wanted to travel. He wouldn't have wished for it so hard if he had.

"Hey…"

He turned after opening the bottle of pills. He saw Rebecca standing there with his bottle of pop. She offered a soft look and his drink before sitting with him on his bed. He took the pills and downed the soda before tossing the empty bottle and the pill bottle on the bed and covering his face with his hands. He went with the motion when Rebecca pulled him close, slouching against her.

"It'll be okay. I know what it's like to miss someone."

He yelped when she pulled them backward onto the bed. She rolled partly on top of him, and he blinked as she offered him a small smile.

"I lost my fiancé a long time ago, remember?"

"Yeah."

She nodded, her expression looking more hurt. "I was so upset. But Shaun, he's the man you're going to meet, Shaun offered me solace and a job away from the place he died. I can still remember what he did at the funeral."

"What did he do?"

"He started out by giving me his shoulder to cry on, since he was the first one to talk to me. He talked to me, trying to calm me down, about absolutely nothing, and it got on the topic of my mechanic skills. When I told him that I wasn't going to last since my fiancé ran the shop, he offered me a place away from the town and the painful memories."

"How was he killed?"

Rebecca shook her head. "A single bullet to the head. They traced it back to a hitman, but they never found him. Personally, I think the hitman was murdered by the man who hired him."

"Who hired him?"

Her voice cracked, and she let out a depressed laugh before shaking her head and resting her forehead on his chest. "We don't know. I don't know who murdered him. But once the man who murdered my fiancé is dead, I'm free from my contract with Shaun."

He hugged her tightly. "Contract?"

She shook her head again. "He has us all under contract to work for him. Keeps us alive, you know? Like Malik and Kadar?"

"Malik?"

"Hawkeye?"

"Oh!"

"Those contracts bind our souls to him. We live as long as he lives, or start the aging process once the contract is dissolved. I can't wait to find the man who murdered my fiancé and grow old and die."

He hugged her tighter, and she returned it with a tired hug.

"I just want to know he's at peace. My fiancé, I mean. And Shaun has been so supportive."

"Seventy-two years."

"Then the murderer is old."

"Dead soon."

He ran a hand through her hair and hugged her tighter as she cried softly against his chest. He could feel her back moving in jerky movements as she breathed between sobs, and he realized that his situation wasn't as bad as he thought. He could feel a damp patch on the shirt slowly grow as she cried, and couldn't help but kiss her head and hope she would be okay. He kept her close, holding her until she started moving. She sniffled as she pulled back a bit. Her eyes were swollen and bright red, and so was the tip of her nose, and she had tears streaks down her cheeks as she wiped her nose on her sleeve.

"Sorry. I dribbled snot all over your shirt," she murmured.

"It's not mine," he responded as she wiped her eyes, hiccupping once.

"W-what?"

"It's Alex's," he murmured, smiling when the corners of her lips turned upward.

"Why aren't you wearing your clothes? Elizabeth brought them in for you."

"Who's Elizabeth?"

"Mother?"

"Oh. I didn't know."

"She grabbed them while the others were distracted by us."

He blinked, and Rebecca laughed quietly.

"You didn't think we were going to buy you a whole new wardrobe, did you?"

He shook his head rapidly, then grinned like goof. "I hadn't actually even thought about clothes."

She laughed a little louder. "Where you planning on running around naked?"

He shrugged, leaning up on his elbows as she sat back. "I don't think you'd object, would you?"

She gave him an amused look, wiping her nose again. "No. I don't think I would, so long as you ended your naked streak in my bed."

He laughed with her, then pulled her down to kiss her. She chuckled as she pulled back, and he could help but grin wider. "I can arrange that."

She hugged him, and he used one arm to hug her back. They sat like that for a while before she murmured, "You're really built."

"I was taught by my brother."

"Altair is your brother?"

"Not a blood relative, although we look so similar I wonder if we are sometimes. Our orphanage is like a clan, almost."

"I wouldn't be surprised. After all, you held Pariah and lived."

"Pariah?"

"Elizabeth's kid? When he touches people, they usually shrivel up and die in horrid pain. Gentek mutation. Unless you're immortal. But you aren't, so that's why we were surprised."

He pursed his lips before shrugging, switching arms to hug her. "I suppose it's possible, since he's ancient."

"How did you not know that Altair was at the Gentek experiment? I mean, even if you didn't live with him, then surely you realized he never grew older."

He sat up completely, scooching back to lean against the headboard of the bed. He pursed his lips. "I'm… I never paid attention."

"How not?" she asked, staring at him as she straddled him before leaning back on her hands.

"Those medications I take are really strong. Like, when I first came into Altair's care, I was eight, and my brother was already having conversations with himself in languages that weren't real. As he got worse, I spent more time with him because he was my only family after running away, and while the other guys were nice, I was only eight, yeah?"

"Well, that makes a little bit of sense. What about later on?"

"The day after my ninth birthday, Darien committed suicide. He had given me some of his clothes and his favorite blanket—all his journals. He wrote me a message on the wall in his blood as I slept, telling me he loved me and would see me in the skies. I guess, after that, I started hallucinating really badly, and Altair stuck me on medications he ordered in from somewhere. They help a lot, but I never noticed because, usually, I forgot to take the medications, and so then the daydreams and illusions came back, and the paranoia got worse, and so… I was always distracted, between schoolwork and all the mental problems."

Rebecca was watching him silently. He met her gaze slowly, and she leaned in, hugging him. He hugged her back, pulling her close, and they sat there for a while, not speaking, not moving, just cuddling against one another, sharing their grief. Desmond realized perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if he had her to help him through his homesickness. There was comfort in her arms, and he could find himself enjoying the way she smelled of oil and sweat and hard work from the machinery that always needed tending to. It smelled comforting to him, and as he curled his fingers tighter in her shirt, he realized this may just have been the best family he could've stumbled into. Eventually, he heard someone walking down the hallway, but he ignored it.

"I think that Elizabeth grabbed your blanket," Rebecca murmured.

"Really?"

She moved, and he sighed when she left him.