Sunrise didn't happen in the storage garage, due to the lack of windows, but Desmond woke with it anyway. His waking was still and silent - a simple opening of eyes and loss of dreams - and so when he looked over he found Clay sleeping on undisturbed. To his amusement, Desmond realised that their final position had been with Clay on his back and Desmond on his side with one hand lying upon the other man's chest, underneath his shirt.

Some people look childlike in sleep. Somewhat predictably, Clay was not one of those people. His brow was furrowed ever so slightly, making what was probably just a REM cycle look like mild crossness, and just audible in the quiet of dawn was the gentle scraping sound of his teeth grinding together in an unconscious habit. Desmond found himself torn between the enjoyment of watching Clay sleep, and a wish to wake him up and do other things to him. Eventually he elected the former option, figuring that Clay would wake up of his own accord.

Given the time and liberty, Desmond was able to observe the smaller details of Clay's physicality that had escaped notice until now. His hair was a shade darker at the roots than it was at the tips, not through chemical bleaching but simply because the strands became lighter over the time that they were exposed to the sun. He had a tiny silver scar that just barely sliced through the tip of his left eyebrow. His skin was not actually all that pale, but had merely appeared that way beneath the fluorescent Abstergo lights and the harsh blue of the Animus, and Desmond had become so accustomed to the idea of his having pale skin that he'd never quite acknowleged the colour in it.

Desmond also observed that he wanted to be fucked by Clay, he wanted that very badly, to the point that he reconsidered the option of waking him up specifically for that purpose. He didn't know whether that was an observation of Clay or of himself. He wanted to strip Clay naked and climb into his lap and stroke him and watch him come, then kiss him afterwards. He looked at Clay's mouth and wondered what it would feel like on his dick. He wondered whether the skin over Clay's spine would taste the same as the stretch of skin that connected his hip and groin. He wanted to bite Clay gently on the back of his leg, just to see what the reaction would be. Was this normal? Was this weird? Did it matter? God, Clay, I think I really need you to fuck me.

Desmond became aware of his own erection and tried to carefully shift away so that it would not be pressed so obviously against Clay's hip, and that was when the pain decided to cheerfully make its presence known.

"Ahhh, holy shitting hell, fuck!"

Clay sat bolt upright looking comically startled, his hair sticking up where it had dried on the pillow. "What is it?" he demanded harshly. "Desmond, what?"

"My leg, my goddamn leg." Oh God, what if he'd rebroken the bone doing all that running and ... those other activities? If it was broken it would take months to heal again, and they'd need to go to a hospital; they'd need to risk capture once more.

"Hold still, don't try to move it. Let me take a look."

Desmond laid back down, exhausted by the pain, as Clay removed the blanket carefully. His strong fingers caressed the skin around Desmond's shinbone, then began to apply a small amount of pressure.

"Does that hurt?"

Desmond gritted his teeth. "Tell you what. If it stops hurting, I'll send you a memo."

"Don't be a smartass, I meant does it hurt more when I put pressure on it?" Clay squeezed the leg ever so slightly once more and Desmond tried to concentrate.

"No. I don't think so. It feels like my leg's on fire..."

"I don't think it's the bone. I think your muscle's in spasm."

"Oh, is that all?" Desmond snapped, trying to focus on not passing out.

"Makes sense," Clay said, ignoring the sarcasm. "You've been off that leg for a good couple of months, and then you spend fifteen minutes sprinting on it with no warm up. Your calf muscle must have freaked the fuck out. It looks a little swollen, but there's no bruising." He carefully drew the blanket up over the afflicted leg again and moved back up, reaching out to stroke the back of his hand over Desmond's sweat-soaked cheek. "Try breathing deep and slow."

Stepping down hard on the impulse to make an insulting retort, Desmond tried to follow the advice. It did nothing to stop the pain, but it at least calmed him down a little. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on Clay's hand as it brushed his lips and jaw soothingly.

"I hate seeing you in pain," Clay stated quietly. "It makes me want to find whoever's responsible and..." He didn't finish the sentence.

"Guess that's me, this time," Desmond muttered tensely, wondering if amputation was too drastic a measure to take.

"I shouldn't have made you run."

"You can't make me do anything I don't want to do, Kaczmarek."

Clay laughed tightly and pressed his mouth against Desmond's hair, inhaling deeply. It can't have smelled all that good but it felt pleasant. Words that he couldn't quite make out were mumbled against his skull.

"What was that?"

"I need to leave for a bit."

Fighting down the instinct of no, no, no, Desmond asked, "Why?"

"We need money. Food. You need painkillers." That last part was definitely true. "I might even be able to find some crutches for you to use, since you really shouldn't be on that leg at all. I promise I'll only be a few hours."

Desmond was already panicking at the idea of being alone, but his leg was screaming its injury at him and the idea of painkillers was attractive to an almost sexual degree. Clay demonstrated how to massage and stretch the muscle to ease the cramping, and for a moment Desmond became distracted from the pain by the feeling of Clay's fingers rubbing and manipulating the area with intriguing skill. When the hands finally left him, his leg felt unnaturally cold.

"Keep stretching the muscle, when you can," Clay said. Slowly, as if afraid he might be rejected, he leaned in and pressed a slow kiss against Desmond's hairline, his lips warm and a little chapped from dehydration. Then he listened at the door for a moment before rattling it half-open, ducking outside, and slamming the metal sheet back into place. Desmond closed his eyes and decided to try and sleep as much as possible through Clay's absence.

He made it through the first half hour before his leg woke him up again. He tried to read one of the books in the garage, and that worked for a while as he alternated between reading a chapter and stopping to massage some of the pain away. It was a relief, therefore, when he heard footsteps approaching from outside and saw the shadow of fingers appear underneath the door. It was pulled upwards and open with a flourish.

"About time," he began, then froze. Even squinting at the figure silhouetted against the bright sunshine, he could tell that it definitely wasn't Clay.

"Got him!" the young Assassin called out excitedly. He was soon joined by another as Desmond tried and failed to struggle to his feet.

He recognised them from the Den; they were brothers, born into the Order but raised outside of it, so they were only now a few years into their training and eager to please both their father and Desmond's.

"I told you it was weird that this one didn't have a padlock," the first Assassin said smugly to his brother, who ignored him.

"We're here to take you back, Mr Miles," he said gently.

Desmond braced his back against the wall and pushed himself up it, trying to conceal how crippled his leg was. "It's good to have ambition, I guess," he replied.

The second brother had clearly read the pain on his face, and took a step closer. "We can get that leg looked at properly."

"Nothing wrong with my leg. I think it's fine as it is."

The first brother piped up again. "We can do this the easy way, Mr Miles, or we can do it the-"

He never finished the sentence. A broken-off, rusted section of pipe appeared suddenly and bloodily to sprout from the middle of his chest. He stared down at it in amazement and tried to speak, but liquid escaped from his mouth instead of air. The pipe was forcefully dragged out through his back and as soon as it was gone he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

They obviously hadn't reached the part in their training where they were lectured not to weep for fallen comrades in battle. Or perhaps they had - some things you just couldn't teach away. The second Assassin stared in horror and paralysed grief at his fallen brother, and Clay used the moment of hesitation to drag him to the ground, straddle his body and pound the length of pipe into his skull until there wasn't much of it left.

Desmond thought about throwing up, but decided against it. The place was messy enough as it was.

Clay stood up abruptly and crossed over to join Desmond, pressing close enough that their bodies almost connected and touching Desmond's face with bloody hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left you. Are you alright?"

Desmond stared at him disbelievingly. "Clay ... Jesus fucking Christ, you killed them!"

"I know. They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"They didn't do anything! You ... You..."

Actually, maybe he would throw up. He tried to match up the Clay who'd kissed him last night and come in his mouth and held him afterwards, the same Clay who was now stroking his face tenderly and leaving bloody trails on his cheeks, with the Clay who had less than a minute ago been calmly turning a man's head to pulp with a length of pipe. He wondered how he had ever been convinced that Clay was better now, that he was normal and not the crazed wreck he had been in Abstergo. He was still insane, that was certain, but with a different and far more dangerous kind of insanity: one that could kill and think nothing of it.

"Grab some clothes and get dressed. I'll stash the bodies in here. I guess this guy will have more problems than just some missing underwear when he gets back."

Hating himself for listening to these instructions, Desmond got dressed in stolen clothes as well as he could manage with a leg that still felt like it was tearing itself apart from the inside. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Clay drag the Assassins' bodies into the garage and wipe the blood from his hands using the blanket they had slept under. He picked up a stray shard of skull from outside and tossed it into one of the cardboard boxes, where it landed next to a Fleetwood Mac album. Then he slid one of Desmond's arms around his shoulders and guided them both outside, finally bringing the garage door down to conceal the horrors within.

Desmond staggered a little and immediately he found a metal crutch wedged underneath his armpit. He leaned on it and tried to breathe.

"Raided a hospital. Just found it leaning in a cupboard and started using it. You'd be amazed how unwilling people are to take a crutch off of someone, no matter how suspicious they are."

Silence.

"Are you angry with me, Desmond?"

He still didn't trust himself to reply.

"Would you please say something?"

"You killed them," Desmond said at last, too tired to put any vitriol or accusation into the words.

Clay was silent for a few seconds before answering. "Would it make you feel better if we agreed that I assassinated them?"

"What...?"

"Is that more acceptable to you? What about that guard back at Abstergo? Was that murder or assassination?" Clay's words were angry, but saying them he simply sounded weary.

"That was different! He was a Templar!"

"I'm not on the side of the Assassins or the Templars, Desmond. They're all the same to me. I'm on your side, and I'll do whatever it takes to protect you." He leaned down and picked a blister pack of pills and a bottle of water from a backpack that he'd dumped nearby. "Take two of these. We should get moving."

Somewhere in Desmond's mind was the perfect argument to convince Clay that killing the two Assassins had been wrong and killing the Abstergo guard had been ... less wrong. For some reason, however, the argument was refusing to articulate itself. Desmond hesitated, then took the pills and water from Clay, who let his hand drop to his side and stared off into the distance with an unreadable expression.

When Desmond had swallowed the pills and handed them back, Clay surveyed him with as gentle an expression as he could muster. "Are you OK to walk?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's move."