It turned out that trying to instill in someone a skill that just happened naturally was not easy. He tried everything, trying to tell him it was like flipping a switch, and that he just had to hit the switch right to get it to flip on. He showed him how his eyes changed, described what it looked like, lured and tried to bait him, until the husband hollered up, and he dragged himself out of the bed to go get food, since he wasn't going to be relaxing any time soon. The kid followed him dutifully out, trying with all his might to get his eyes to change, to feel that switch flip on, and as they collapsed at the table, the husband was nice enough to serve them.
"You two look like you've been hit by a train."
"I feel like it," Des groused. "Try… try concentrating on changing the way you look at things, not the way they look."
"What the hell does that mean?" Desmond snapped.
Oh, buddy, they were getting tired. And when they got tired, they got cranky. This was not going to end well. Des sighed, frustrated as a plate of pancakes and sausage links dropped in front of him.
"Eat up. She told me to make everything we had, so I hope you have large appetites."
Des grinned. "You have no idea."
And halfway through his sixth pancake, which was wrapped around four small sausage links, he noticed Desmond sitting up straighter in his chair, the pancake bite smothered in syrup loose in his hand as he looked around. He put down his fork and stared at the kid, quirking an eyebrow and watching him look around slowly.
"Hey, Des…"
"You did it?"
"I think… I found the right switch."
"And?"
"You're blue, and so is the man."
"Excellent."
"Should I ask?"
"No," Des said, looking at the husband with a soft smile, noticing the suspicious look. "It's a mental game we play sometimes." He laughed. "It helps us stay sharp."
The husband quirked an eyebrow, his posture screaming that he was prepared to kill them (as if he could), and Des took his chance to chance the subject. "You know, this syrup bottle doesn't have a label. Am I crazy? Or is this homemade?"
The man blinked. "It's homemade—not by us, though."
"Who made it?" Des inquired, picking up the bottle and examining it in half-hearted interest.
"My mother-in-law. Her husband makes it," the man replied, slowly relaxing. "We go up there once a year to help."
"Really?" he commented thoughtlessly, trying to keep the conversation going. "We've never done something like that."
"Aye, don't let it fool you: it's hard work."
Des gave him a charming grin, well, as charming as it could be. He really needed a shave. "Pish. We're used to it, aren't we?"
He glanced at Desmond, whose eyes were still golden, the pupils blown wide as he looked around with the Eagle Vision. The boy scowled but nodded. The raw and blistered skin on his hands was testament to that. Des looked back at the man with the grin still plastered there. Julian—at least, that's what he thought his name was—shook his head.
"You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. Will you need a razor?"
Des nodded. "Yeah, please. I don't want to keep the scruff."
Julian helped himself to another pancake as Desmond finished off the rest of his and the last sausage link.
"I think you look good with it," Desmond murmured, and Des snorted.
He could feel the bleeding effect tugging at his mind, like a kid pulling on a string on his hand-knitted sweater. He had to clamp down on it. It was already relatively easy to ignore, what with his death and the running away again from the Farm.
"It's got some unpleasant memories with it," Des said, frowning, before shrugging and finishing his food. Time to change the subject. "What's the best way to get to Italy? Would you suggest plane or ship? Which is cheaper?"
The man pursed his lips. "You have family over there?"
"I suppose you could say that," Des said with a laugh. "There's a company over there I need to visit, since, you know, I resigned to run away with my brother here."
"And you're traveling all the way to Italy?"
"Abstergo is the mother company of the one I used to work for. Bossman said he'd let them know I was on my way."
"He seems rather compliant with what you were doing," Julian said skeptically.
"He's a good man," Des stated, leaning back in the chair and smiling warmly. "While I'm thinking of good men, is there anything we can do while we're here to help you out? I'll feel terrible just sitting here and using up your things."
The man looked impressed, his gaze sliding between them. "Unless you're good at cleaning…"
"Consider it done," Des said, nodding. "It's the least we—I—can do."
"Hey, I can clean too—"
"Isabel will kill me if I have you doing anything until your hands and feet are healed," the man said, frowning. "I'd rather keep living."
Darkly, under his breath, Des muttered, "Trust me: I'd give you my life in exchange for death in a heartbeat."
Desmond gave him an incredulous look but said nothing.
Shortly after that, they were finally done, and the man dismissed them to let them go. Des trudged up the stairs, feeling utterly exhausted. He could feel Desmond climb in beside him after a few seconds, nuzzling into his arms and technically spooning with him as he felt his younger self's breath even out. It was nice to have a body beside his even if it was himself, and it felt nice to know that there was someone banking on him protecting him. That someone would be grateful.
He didn't wake up for over twenty hours, eventually stirring to the feeling of someone rather large sitting on his back. He could feel butt bones digging into his spine, and he curled his lip as he unfolded his arms from under the pillow under his head and planted one on either side of his shoulders to push himself up.
"Finally. I thought you were dead."
He blinked, pushed up halfway as he registered it coming from his back. He frowned, looking over his shoulder and seeing his younger self sitting on his back. The boy was way too skinny if Des didn't even register him that much. He hadn't registered anything other than the bones of his butt digging into his back.
"Shit, kid, you're as skinny as a rail. We gotta fatten you up."
"Blah, blah, blah. Get up, lazyass. You've got chores to do today."
Des grunted, pushing up as Desmond got off, rolling onto the bed. Eventually, Des showered, dressed, and walked downstairs, asking a few minor questions about how to clean, and set about doing just that. Desmond followed him around for the better part of it, not asking questions like he expected, just watching, flipping through the channels of the TV, or chattering quietly with Julian in the other room. He worked diligently, greeting Isabel when she came home. Isabel looked surprised to see him cleaning but thanked him and went to say hello to her husband.
It continued like this for a few days, patching up the roof right before it snowed again, fixing various things with skills he had picked up in the past lives, until Des decided that they were wasting time, and they really needed to get moving to New York to get to Italy.
Or maybe they would skip Italy and go straight to the temple and finish everything up. He could get Desmond to finish things overseas. That would probably be the best option. He could have him contact Lucy before she became a mole, have her get Clay out beforehand. They could finish things up. They could get things moving. Everything would work, even if Clay didn't know what he knew from their last lives.
That would be their course of action, he decided at the table in the middle of dinner. That, and they seriously needed to get out of here before either the Templars or, worse, his father found them.
"Are you okay? You haven't been that talkative tonight," Isabel said, setting down her fork and looking at him, concerned.
Des met her gaze, frowning as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. He looked at Desmond. "We leave tomorrow. I'll steal some cash or something, and we'll stock up on supplies. We've got to go to New York."
"New York? What of Italy?" Julian asked, scowling.
Des stared at him, hard, the kind of stare he knew projected "There's so much more going on that you've probably figured out, but I'm not telling you, so don't ask." "We've got other business to take care of. More familial drama that needs to be stopped before it gets bad."
Desmond raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing, eating quietly.
"You don't have to steal anything," Isabel said, leaning forward. "We'll give you the money you nee—"
"Isabel," Julian said, exasperated, "we've sheltered complete strangers for almost a week now, and now we're funding their wild expeditions to other states? We should be encouraging him to find a job here and—"
"Their family is more important," Isabel said firmly. "Besides, we can afford it."
Des finished his meal quickly, then rose and said, "There's no need to, ma'am. We can handle it. My brother needs to learn how to protect himself, and this is something that no amount of ignoring and settling down will fix."
He smiled warmly as Isabel protested, and he excused himself from the table. He paced upstairs and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. There were too many things that could go wrong. He supposed it would be best to kill himself at the temple first, save the world, make Clay's warning obsolete and send Desmond after Lucy and Clay himself. The kid was smart enough he could do that. But that caused problems because he knew that they needed both an Apple and the necklace to get into the Temple. Decisions, decisions. He didn't want to go to Italy to retrieve an Apple, but maybe there was one nearby.
Desmond eventually came into the room, peeking in.
"Hey, are you okay?"
He looked at boy, pursing his lips before sighing. "No, not really."
"So what are you planning, anyway?"
He watched the boy come over, watched him sit down, watched him lay beside him.
"I'm thinking about my plans for you, and how I hope they're better than anticipated."
"What do you mean?"
He sighed, closing his eyes, and began to explain to him how they were going to go to New York. They would find the key, find an Apple, and then open the temple. Afterward, Desmond would be in charge of finding Lucy and Clay and keeping Clay alive. Keep his long-distant cousins alive and out of Abstergo's hands. He paused, thinking about where to get the Apple. They'd have to get to Italy anyway to get the Apple. Then, he remembered the map that was burned into his memory. The map from the Apple, from the codex pages. He snapped into a sitting position.
"Uh, Des?"
He ignored him and remembered: there was a dot in the D.C. area. D.C. meant the White House. The White House had a POE, and if they could get their hands on it…
He grinned, looking over at Desmond, who pulled back in alarm. He could feel the look grow on his face.
"So, kid, what do you say to robbing the White House?"
A pause.
"What?"
There would be an Apple in the White House. With all the activity around from Connor's time, the Templars must have known—even if Haytham had no idea. They must have sent the Apple over here in an attempt to find the cave and left it in the White House for safeguarding after it was build, because, well, the White House would have been the obvious choice. There was a dot on Fort Ticonderoga as well, wasn't there? The assassins wouldn't have touched it, and the Templars would have hidden it.
"The White House. Let's rob it."
A heartbeat. "You're fucking with me."
"Nope," he said, his grin turning from dark to genuine. "We rob the White House and make off with the treasure we need. We retrieve the key, and then we high-tail to the temple. I kill myself, you collect the other pieces—"
"Woah, what?" the younger man asked, his eyes wide with surprise.
Des nodded eagerly. "Yup. I'll kill myself to make sure that the earth doesn't go up in flames, and then you're going to fetch the other Pieces of Eden with help from the Apple that we'll get from the White House, and then you'll take down Juno and Abstergo."
Desmond stared at him as if he were crazy. Oh, wait, he reflected: he was. He looked at the boy, feeling bright and eager for once, and grinned at him.
"Well? Are you in?"
There was silence for a while, and he stared at Desmond, who was staring right back, scrutinizing him as if to call for bullshit. He squirmed under the gaze. This would be their ticket to the best ending possible aside from it never happening at all.
"Are you serious?"
Des blinked, the smile falling away into something more of disappointment. "What?"
"I…" the boy hesitated, looking away. "I haven't even killed someone—and my skills are a long ways away from the black spooks that haunt the White House lawn according to the news."
Des grinned again. Desmond caught one glance of that look and frowned.
"Okay, what are you not telling me?"