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Chapter 4; Charity Starts at Home
Nine Years Later
"Altair…" There was only one person brave or stupid enough to peck on his door like that. And unless there was a talking woodpecker out there, it could only be him. "Altair, you have to get up, someone's here to see you."
He groaned and rolled over in bed. Throwing a pillow at the door, satisfied with the dull 'whump' of down and cotton against the wood, that would scare off any talking woodpeckers, and buried his head under the blankets.. "Goooowaaaay! 'mon vacation."
Malik sighed, an irritated, impatient sound. "Do I really have to get Saree in there to drag you out of bed? You know how much she enjoys it."
Altair sighed and rolled over, rubbing his face with both hands before calling out in a hiss; "Whoozit?"
"Who do you think it is you stupid ass…" A lengthy pause and then a sigh; "It's your assistant."
Altair groaned and forced himself up, dangling his arms over his knees for a few minutes before he kicked the blankets back like a petulant sleepy child, and climbed out of bed.
Nine years… most of which his 'Assistant' had been religiously coming to his aid every evening on weekdays, and every morning on weekends. Even while he'd been in the hospital recovering, there he'd been. Standing on tiptoes, peering over the foot rail with wide dark eyes that seemed the size of dinner plates.
Altair didn't mind much… Save the kid was an annoying little prick sometimes. Chattering on happily. He was always so fucking happy. And the fact that as soon as he'd hit puberty at fourteen he'd taken to imitating Altair in some things, the way he dressed, how he hunched his shoulders, how he 'prowled' around, how he even cut his fucking hair…
It got on Altair's nerves.
Well…
It most usually only got on his nerves when Malik commented on it in that snide 'holier-than-thou' way, the rest of the time he tried to ignore it. Tried to take it as a face value complement and not the boy's attempts to distance himself from the ever widening gap of a relationship he shared with his father.
Of course, Altair supposed, he should have seen it coming the first time. Barely three days out of the hospital, his arm in a cast, trussed up in a sling to support the torn and cut/repaired ligaments and the patch on his subclavian artery, and it's raining, the middle of the night… And there's Desmond on the back stoop dripping wet with a backpack stuffed full of comic books, a pair of Batman underpants and a plastic baggie full of pocket change he'd used to ride the bus across town at two in the morning to get there grinning up at him.
Altair remembered rubbing his face in exhaustion, the hospital bracelet he'd been too tired to cut off scratching his neck, leaning heavily on the door frame because he'd just swallowed a larger than prescribed amount of pain pills not twenty minutes earlier and was feeling politely stoned out of his mind, and he didn't quite believe the boy was actually there and he wasn't hallucinating from the Vicodin.
He didn't remember exactly what he'd said when he'd called Ethan after Desmond fell asleep on his couch, only that it involved the words; 'Why the fuck', and then Ethan whining and saying he'd come pick the boy up in the morning.
But Ethan didn't come in the morning, he came at nearly six the next evening after Hadiya had already fed the boy breakfast lunch and dinner then had to excuse herself to cry into Malik's shoulder in the bathroom when Desmond looked up at her with wide eyes and said he'd never had three meals in one day before.
And THAT had gone over like a fucking knife in the chest.
Altair could still hear Malik growling threats at Ethan, and see the taller, thinner man slowly backing away with his hands up his eyes wide in shock.
Malik, Altair had found, was the absolute last person on the planet you wanted mad at you. He knew that from personal experience.
So, no, Altair didn't REALLY mind Desmond's presence… Not as much as he pretended to anyway.
He showered quickly, rubbing a bar of soap through his hair, over his body and rinsing. Scrubbing himself with a towel, and pulling on underwear, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a hooded jacket because he'd found he remained calmer and less likely to pull that knife he'd started carrying in his sleeve and stab someone if he had his head covered. He shoved his feet into some socks and padded out of his room.
Over the last nine years, Malik had renovated their building. Downstairs on the main floor he still ran his print shop, though much larger than it had been to begin with, venturing into a small time publishing house. The second floor was Altair's apartment and office, the third and forth floors Malik had converted, with help from contractors, into a cozy little home for Hadiya and their four children, which included a rather luxurious rooftop garden and a large 'family' dining room.
Altair hadn't even made it halfway to his office before he was stopped by a cup of coffee shoved under his nose.
"Rough night?"
He blinked up at the young man's face, in an almost displeased way, but despite the perpetually chipper attitude and irritatingly bright smiles, Altair couldn't find a reason to be angry with the kid, ever.
Desmond had, after all, been able to escape when Rodrigo, his son and another of their helpers had been trying to drag him and Ezio off to their private jet.
Too bad Ezio hadn't been so lucky.
Having the kid around was a constant reminder of another of his failures, as if the stump of his finger and the scars left by the incident weren't enough.
The police had been less than pleased that he'd almost gotten himself killed that night, but thanks to him, they had one boy back, they had faces, had names, and had a laser pointer of a lead.
Six days after that little jet disappeared into the blue with Ezio onboard, Rodrigo and his son were arrested in Mexico.
But it seemed too late, because Ezio and the little 'Helper' Desmond had told them about had vanished.
Altair took the coffee and gulped it down, grunting like a caveman as he pushed open the door to his office and shuffled inside.
Most usually he liked mornings just fine. But the past week had been hell. Nothing but delivering summons, and tailing cheating husbands at all hours, and going over information Desmond would have to know to qualify for his own PI license.
It was mundane, and it was so goddamned tiring Altair wanted to throw his computer out the window and laugh maniacally when it crashed into the sidewalk. He was so sick of paperwork, so sick of numbers, so sick of everything. He was tempted to just disappear for a week or two and fend for himself on the streets to get away from it all.
He plopped into the chair behind his desk and leaned back, fumbling for the little remote he kept there that controlled the mechanical massager built into it, cranking it up on high and releasing a whine, his head dropping back, shoulders slumping.
Desmond was still standing there looking expectant.
Altair flipped a wrist at him and swiveled his chair around until he was staring up at a painting he'd bought from a college friend of Desmond's not long ago. He thought the kid's name was Rebecca or something like that.
The painting itself wasn't really that great, some impressionistic crap she'd done for finals and didn't want cluttering up her dorm.
Altair thought it looked oddly enough like the sensation that crawled under his skin whenever he had to deal with the two new sergeants in his father's precinct.
A flare of heat that sank low in his belly and curled up his spine like the blue splatters of paint erupting from the red and orange below, twisted and wound around the black stripes on the canvas.
Altair didn't want to admit it, but every time he sat there and stared at the damned thing long enough with the massager in his chair on high, thinking about that feeling, he became tragically horny.
He was just glad Desmond was too stupid sometimes to notice his boss's fascination with the half-assed mash of colors on the wall. It was bad enough the kid already thought he was a weirdo because he tended to go around his office without shoes, or that he knew more about the life of twelfth century monks and the impact of the Third Crusade on the Holy Land than he did about the life of the average American. Or that sometimes he would pull Desmond away from his work and instruct him on how to incapacitate an attacker with two hits, and on the odd occasion he was feeling particularly dark and broody and Desmond was chatting away about his university friends, Altair would smile in his disturbing way that showed too many teeth, and remind him that he knew seven ways to kill a man with his thumb, and would Desmond like to see one? Altair didn't need to add 'sick pervert' to the list of reasons Desmond had to be wary of the older man.
But then again, Desmond was an open minded individual, and seemed to take everything in stride, so maybe Altair's attraction to a woman who hated his guts and carried big guns, or a man who packed the other kind of heat could be over looked?
"You're distracted today."
Altair swung around in his chair again, still slouched low with his mouth hanging open, breath coming out in a vibrating whine. "What?"
Desmond grinned and dropped into a chair across the desk from him; "You're distracted… You get cockblocked at the bar or something?"
"I don't drink."
"Ah, yeah, sorry…" He flipped his fingers at his temple then leaned forward, crossing his arms on the desk and resting his chin on them, looking for a record fifteen seconds like a kicked puppy. And then there was a knock on the door and two little faces poked into the room.
Kalila and Saree, Malik's two daughters, and the bane of Altair's existence, peered in at him with large black eyes, cheeks pinked.
"Papa says you'd better come and eat something or he'll whap you one." Saree said from where she stood over her younger sister.
Kalila giggled in a high pitched seven-year-old voice and covered the gaps of missing front teeth in her mouth, then batted her big eyes at them. "Hi, Desmond." And in a flurry of curling black hair and lavender skirt, she darted away, feet thudding rather loudly on the floor.
Saree, though only two years older than her sister, seemed to have inherited Malik's cool demeanor, and prided herself in her ability to pop her little fists on her hips and glare at Altair in such a similar manner as her father that Altair would do whatever she said with a wince and a nervous scratch at his neck.
She looked Desmond up and down; "And if you wash your face and hands you're welcome to join us."
For a young man of twenty, nearing twenty-one years, Desmond didn't act any older than fifteen sometimes. Today… Today he leapt from his chair and disappeared into the bathroom, scrubbing his face with cold water and soap, and lathering his hands. He reappeared with his hairline wet and let the little girl inspect his hands, then watched him with a wrinkled nose as he practically skipped from the room.
Altair decided Desmond's one weakness was food. That kid would do anything if you dangled a bit of falafel or a hamburger in front of him.
Saree was tapping her foot, thin little arms crossed over her chest. "Are you coming?"
He grunted and thankfully, she took it to mean whatever she wanted, and left, though she didn't shut the door behind her, and Altair turned back around in his seat and stared at his painting for a few more minutes before with a sigh, the smell got the better of him, and he slunk from the room, up the wrought iron spiral staircase in the corner of the open air room (That technically was a 'waiting room' but he never had more than one or two people there at once and Hadiya had filled it with plants to make it feel more 'homey' and Altair gave Saree five dollars a week to keep them watered and otherwise tried to ignore them.)
He was halfway up the stairs when his phone rang. Caught right in the middle of what could be a paying job, and the tantalizing scent of home cooking, Altair suddenly wished there were two of him… Or at least, that Desmond was doing what he was supposed to be doing and answering the goddamned phones like a good little assistant instead of noshing his way through Hadiya's cookbook.
With a growl he decided he'd let the answering machine get the call, and climbed the rest of the stairs with his shoulders slouched.
Malik had a large mahogany colored antique table set up in their dining room. Altair didn't know where he'd managed to find a table so freaking big, but there it sat. Malik was at the head of the table, like always, Hadiya to his left empty sleeve instead of his right as was traditional. Altair thought it was more a sign of trust and love than having her to his right hand could ever be, so he didn't say anything.
He took his seat and the plate Gadil, Malik's five-year-old son, offered. The boy was a rather studious kid. Always proper, always polite, he spent most of his time curled against his father's side reading, or helping his mother watch his just-turned-two-year-old brother Zafir, who at times seemed to have more energy than all of his siblings combined and the attention span of a gnat.
When Altair sat down Zafir was sitting on Desmond's lap, munching away at a bit of bread his juice cup listing dangerously to the side. He was chattering away in an almost indecipherable toddler babble and pointing a little finger while the older male nodded and smiled, helping him tilt his cup so nothing was spilled.
Saree sat beside her mother, answering questions her parents asked about this and that. Smiling, laughing.
And then a little body was squirming into his lap and Altair lifted his arms to allow Kalila room to perch on his knee, setting her plate beside his.
The meal went on in this fashion, Zafir migrating, along with Kalila from one lap to another, until they both ended up, one on each of Malik's knees while the man tried to enjoy his after dinner coffee, laughing when Zafir insisted on 'sharing' his juice, holding up his sippy-cup to his father's face, only to wrench it away again with a shrill cackle when Malik pretended to taste it.
Hadiya had disappeared into the kitchen by that time, reappearing with packaged popsicles she used to herd the children up the stairs to the rooftop garden to play, smiling sweetly while she asked in a cooing voice, pressing rapid, too sweet kisses to Malik's forehead, if he, Altair and Desmond would mind doing the dishes.
He fussed, his hand traveling dangerously close to the back of her skirt, eyes gleaming impishly, muttering something Altair wished he hadn't heard, and Desmond was glad he couldn't understand, seeing as she swatted his hand and pinched the end of his nose between finger and thumb, threatening his manhood in a drippingly sweet voice while she made his head shake back and forth in an exaggerated 'no'.
"Fine…" He muttered rubbing his nose and waving her off with a jerk of his chin as she patted his head.
"Thank you." She gripped his jaw firmly and kissed him once, then disappeared up the steps after the children.
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