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NOTE; I've incorporated a few characters so far without naming them, but this one is going to need a little explanation. Daddy-Dearest IS who you thought he was, (I hope) at least I intended him to be, but since the name in the game is actually a title, I gave him a name here… =3= He also had a shave and a haircut because the bushy beard didn't really fit in with his modern persona.
5 Points to whoever can guess what the name I gave him means. XD
And 10 points to whoever can guess correctly the reason Altair was discharged from the military! HINT! It's not the reason you think it is! *Devious Face*
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Chapter 21; Hero's Welcome
Altair hated social functions. Everyone who had had contact with him in the past ten years knew that. He liked to keep to himself, enjoyed the occasional walk or frolic across the rooftops same as the next guy, he tried to keep everything professional and tried even harder not to have personal attachments.
He also happened to like silence.
Which, at the moment, there was a terrible lack of.
Loud noises made his heart race. Crowded rooms made his throat close off. And the fact somewhere between the front door and the back door he'd lost his jacket with its lovely hood, as well as the comforting weight of his knife in his sleeve, just made it all the worse.
So, he sat down on a kitchen chair across from his mother's friend Dorothy's youngest son, a snotty, spoiled, foul mouthed, lazy little bastard who wore only designer clothes and had taken out a third mortgage on his mother's house to buy a Porsche that he crashed a week later.
The kid was barely eighteen and Altair hated his guts.
But, the kid was quiet while he was texting, so Altair tolerated him.
Mom, Dorothy and Altair's eldest adoptive sibling Emma, were moving around the kitchen clucking and chattering like hens over dishes of food brought by their guests. Tasting and sampling, heating, chilling, adding some salt or sliding the casserole to the back of the fridge where it could be 'forgotten'.
Altair's mind seemed to hone in on everything. Feeling startled, maybe even disgusted by the dishonesty he saw in everything.
Mom and Emma would smile, hug and press kisses to cheeks, say how happy they were to see you. Ask if you'd lost weight, make surprised jubilant eyes at whatever food was presented, hiss an excited 'Ooo! My FAVORITE!' and offer a drink… Then as soon as you were out in the back yard the eyebrows would curl upward, mouths would purse and hands would fold around ears;
"Did you see that skirt? I don't think it could be any shorter! And how old is she now? Fifty? What was she thinking!"
"She doesn't think, darling… That's why he married her."
"Don't look now but I think she's had some work done… See her breasts? Who does she think she's trying to fool? She might as well have just put water balloons in her shirt!"
"Yeeeessss, just keep smiling, you poor dumb bastard, she's not going to the gym just for the exercise."
"What should I do with this goop?"
"Just hide it behind the fruit platter, by the time we pull dessert out it'll be too late for another hot dish."
"Speaking of hot dish, you'll never guess what I heard about that Barnes woman, yesterday!"
"Mother, when are we allowed to eat? I'm starving!" Dorothy's little bastard rolled his eyes and slumped in his chair.
Altair scoffed under his breath.
That little shit hadn't eaten since that morning and he was 'starving'. Altair was tempted to tell him to stop complaining and be glad he'd had a meal that day. That there were people who had to go days, maybe even weeks without reliable food. Or if they did eat, they had to do—
Ray stuck his head into the kitchen, grinning broadly; "Mother… They're here!"
Irene spun on her heel, hand flattening on her chest, eyes wide and she dove out the back door, shoes clacking on the porch; "They're here! Goddamnit, Palmer, get IN here!"
Altair raised his head wearily and turned to stare up at his sister; "Who's so important they got Ma' so worked up? The Governor or some shit?"
Emma scoffed and handed him a bottle of water; "Dad threw this whole thing because of your 'heroism' and you have to ask who he invited?"
Irene bustled back inside, flanked by two men, one he recognized as being a news paper reporter, the other a tall, thin man with white hair and square shoulders.
He lifted his chin and let his wife straighten his collar, glanced at Altair and gave a nod, just as the front door opened. "Mr. Auditore! Welcome! Come on in, all of you! Make yourselves at home! You're just on time."
Altair felt his spine straighten like a flag pole and he scrubbed frantically at his face, scratching off the stained little pieces of tissue and stood up—
Only to bash the top of his head into the freezer door where Emma had opened it to get some ice.
He heard a loud crack, like a gunshot and there was a collective cry of surprise.
For the next five minutes he was aware only that his heart had migrated to his skull and was warring with his brain for prime frontal lobe territory. That and every voice in the house seemed to be clucking like agitated chickens.
He didn't dare open his eyes, or remove his hands from over his scalp. Partially because he was afraid he was bleeding, and partially because he knew the second he opened his eyes he was going to have an even bigger headache because of the light. So he just sat hunched over in his chair cursing shrilly in his aching head.
"Well, did you bash your brains out, or are you going to live?" Mom was right by his ear.
He grunted. Hoping they all understood Caveman enough to see he would be alright in a few minutes, once the birds had stopped flying around his head.
Then there was laughter and Altair cracked his eyes open long enough to see his father was leading Giovanni out the back door with a firm hand between his shoulder blades, and motioning Maria, Claudia and a very pregnant blonde toward the counter to deposit the food they'd brought.
And then the humiliation sat in.
He groaned and curled tighter in on himself.
"I didn't know you'd be here, Altair." Federico stepped into the kitchen.
Irene made a noise in her throat; "Did he not tell you Palmer and I adopted him when he was young?"
"No, I guess it didn't come up."
Good save, Altair thought. He hadn't told the Auditore family he was the adopted son of the police chief because, at the time, he'd been disowned. It didn't seem relevant.
"S-shouldn't he have some ice on his head?" Federico tapped his temple with a finger.
"Oh…" Irene pushed on Altair's shoulder and opened the freezer again, pulling out a frozen bag of lima beans. "Come on, let me see it… God forbid you need stitches."
Reluctantly he pried his hands away and let her inspect it. Even her breath moving his hair hurt.
"Hmmm… Let me get the scissors and I'll see if you're bleeding—"
"I'm fine!" He snatched the beans away and held them to his head, this time making sure he wouldn't hit the freezer before he stood, shuffling toward the living room like a dog with its tail between its legs to sprawl himself on the couch for a few minutes, until he could see straight.
But… The couch was occupied.
Ezio was sitting there beside his younger brother, looking slightly nauseous and uncomfortable in what were obviously brand new clothes.
Petruccio was slouched down, thumbs working quickly on his cell phone. Music audible through his headphones. He glanced up at Altair as he came into the living room, then looked back to his phone.
Altair dropped gently onto a chair across the room and gave Ezio a nod.
It was kind of strange seeing him sitting there on the couch in the house Altair had grown up in. Even stranger seeing him cleaned up looking normal, despite the crutches.
Ezio gave him a faint little grin and motioned to the lima beans; "Ouch?"
"Big ouch."
It was quiet, chatter and laughter from the back yard and the odd person passing through from outside, going up stairs to the bathroom, coming down, going outside, coming in.
"So… Chief Hayes is your father?"
"Adoptive."
Ezio nodded and looked around nervously. Seeming to go tense whenever anybody passed behind him. He pulled the hood of his jacket up.
Altair wanted to say so much, wanted to ask how things were going. Ask if Ezio was comfortable, how he was feeling, but he kept his mouth shut.
Mrs. Audtiore came back into the room at that moment and smiled at them. Pecking Petruccio on the head with her knuckles.
"They are about to begin."
Petruccio nodded, rolled the cord of his headphones around his MP3 player and hid it, along with his phone, deeply in one of the pockets of his pants.
Maria watched him go then turned to Ezio, leaning her elbows on the back of the couch she spoke to him softly in Italian.
Altair didn't really know what she was saying, only catching a few words that were similar enough to the Spanish he remembered.
It looked like a private conversation, so he stood, gave the two of them a nod, and walked quietly outside, still holding the bag of beans on his head.
The backyard was crowded. Sometime while he'd been upstairs or sitting miserably at the kitchen table, people had actually arrived. There were officers from the precinct, a few family friends, the mayor, and the Auditores… The rest of the throng Altair knew were either reporters, or people high on the political totem pole.
Folding tables had been set out in strategic and artistic places around the yard. Chairs and benches, all seeming to curve like theater seats toward the deck where the old man was standing over his expensive grill, and where some of Mother's potted plants had been arranged to create a presentation space at the railing.
It all screamed carefully orchestrated production to Altair.
Even more so when he noticed how his mother was standing while she spoke to a few politicians. Her hands cupped and folded elegantly in front of her, smiling politely, graceful movements… Like a bad play and he hadn't memorized his lines.
Oh, God, what the hell am I going to say if they ask me questions!
He backed silently through the crowd and ended up hiding in the little niche between the fence and the deck, watching everyone and wracking his aching brain for any semblance of a plan.
"You're harder to find than a fart in a wind storm, you know that?"
Altair glanced upward with a wince.
He was a little surprised to see Sergeant Thorpe leaning over the rail with her fingers latticed together.
She'd changed out of her leathers, and was wearing a tight pair of dark jeans black flats and an overly large black and gray striped cardigan over a dark red tank top. She blinked at Altair and jerked a thumb over her shoulder; "Do I look suburban enough to pass as one of Them?"
"Take the tags off the sweater and you'll fit in well enough."
She paled and discretely grabbed at them under her arm, cursing under her breath. She glanced around, making sure nobody was looking, then twisted her body and brought the tags to her teeth, biting through the plastic tie and dropping them into the bushes. "Thanks for that."
"No problem…"
"So… Why the hell are you hiding over here?"
He shrugged.
She nodded a little and leaned backward, hanging onto the rail, staring upward, then rocked forward again looking bored. "You know, when I agreed to come I thought your brother meant 'date' not 'beard'."
Altair blinked up at her startled. "What?"
"You're gay, aren't you."
It didn't come out like a question, just a rather blandly stated fact.
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, for one, I've got a really damned good gaydar, and two you haven't once looked at my tits the whole time I've been bent over like this."
He did look then, simply because she'd mentioned them. "I'm not… totally gay."
"You can't be a little bit gay."
He looked away for a moment, to regroup, then looked up at her with his nose wrinkled; "Pansexual then."
"Kinky."
He snorted; "How is that kinky?"
She just grinned in a holier-than-thou way. "Bisexual implies only men and women… But you said Pansexual, which implies anything with a pulse and a filed away under the 'human' category."
"I've known you five minutes and you're already analyzing my sexuality."
"I really don't have anything else to talk about, unless you want to talk about guns."
"I don't like guns."
"Ah."
"I prefer knives…"
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Altair didn't know how he'd survived, but somehow he'd made it halfway through the barbecue without being cornered by his parents, or the press. He supposed the thick aura of superiority Sergeant Thorpe exuded was a pretty good defensive barrier against annoying chitchat.
Of course, there was only so much he could talk to her about before it started to become a heated debate.
Altair didn't know why Walker thought the two of them would hit it off so well… The woman was opinionated, mouthy, rude, and had punched him twice in the arm when he flinched after she'd asked him what it was like to be fucked by another man.
Aside from the fact she did seem to play his kind of bedroom games, it didn't appear that they had anything else in common. And Altair didn't want to alarm her, or anybody else, but her mere presence was starting to piss him off.
Fantasy, he decided, was a lot different than reality.
He decided that the only way to get out of this, and get away from her, was to engage one of those damned reporters, the mayor, or God forbid his parents.
It was like falling, he supposed, sometimes you've just got to close your eyes, open your arms, and let it happen.
"Hey, Dad… Come here a minute, would you?"
The old man excused himself from the men he'd been talking to, and walked over, swirling the dregs of his beer in his bottle.
It was almost an audible hit to his pride that he'd actually called out to him. He hadn't wanted to be the first one to break their nearly twelve-year silence… But if Thorpe didn't stop talking he was either going to strangle her or take her up to his old room and fuck her, and at the moment he didn't want either.
Palmer was built almost identical to Walker, older and a little thicker in the chest. He had a cataract on one eye that depleted his vision but he worked mostly behind a desk now so it didn't bother him much. He was also a retired Marine, and still oozed that straight laced militarily controlling aura. He'd been strict while Altair was growing up, but he'd also been fair… Until Altair's discharge from the military. Then he'd changed, become a religious whack-job and someone who only fundamentally resembled the person who'd always been such an inspiration to Altair.
Now he was just a cranky old man who wanted to look good in the public eye and bend the facts to his will.
When he approached he patted Altair on the back and smiled, but there was no warmth in it—
And that hurt.
Altair hadn't been expecting it, but a twinge shot through his chest, the death throes of that last shred of hope he'd kept hidden from everyone, even himself—Hope that his father would apologize and accept him for who he was, would not try to make him fit with harsh words and angry fists.
"Yeah… I'm—" He swallowed past a lump in his throat, and every plan he'd made on his way over, every sentence and retort and defiant jab he'd put together came rushing back; "I'm gonna have to go. It was nice seeing you."
Palmer didn't say anything at first, then he smiled and gripped Altair's arm; "Well if you've got to go, then you've got to go… Take care of yourself." He nodded to Thorpe and turned, and spoke loudly, joyfully at Maria and Giovanni, who'd just returned to the table their family was gathered around and were looking around uneasy.
Altair wove through the crowd, dodging looks and attempts of conversation, not because he wanted to be rude, but because it felt like his chest was imploding. His vision was shrinking in at the edges and everyone he saw was tinged in red.
Blue stole his attention as he passed into the living room and he turned toward it, startled to find Claudia and Ezio sitting on the couch, Claudia rubbing gently at the back of her brother's neck where he was bent over his knees.
Ezio glanced up at him, looking teary and a little green, and Altair wanted to stop and ask if he was OK, but there was an insistent tug at his elbow and he realized Thorpe was still there, pulling him toward the door.
She had a serious look in her eye and hissed quietly at him; "Not now, not now, just keep walking." She pushed him outside, past the twins who were still occupying the front porch, too good to show themselves alongside the peons in the backyard, down the stairs and into the driveway. "Stay here a minute."
She pulled her hand away and seemed to prance catlike up the stairs and into the house.
It wasn't until she was gone that Altair actually felt how tight his chest had become, how hard it was to draw breath, or how badly his hands were shaking. He was a little glad that she'd made him leave at that moment.
Thorpe reappeared a few seconds later, shrugging into her leather jacket, carrying Altair's backpack. She tossed his jacket at him, and he tried to ignore how his whole body was beginning to tremble as he pulled it on. He took his switchblade out of a pocket on his backpack before he shrugged it over his shoulders, slipping the knife into his sleeve where it felt natural.
"What was wrong with Ezio?"
She glanced up at him as she backed her bike into the street; "Some asshole of a reporter asked some assholeish questions. His sister has it under control."
Altair felt that burning ache in his chest intensify and he balled his hands into fists.
"Don't do it… Mr. Auditore's got it in covered, look." She jerked her chin toward the end of the driveway and the wedge of backyard seen over the fence. Altair glanced up, noticing how Federico, Petruccio and Giovanni were all on their feet now, like a wall of anger, Giovanni speaking quickly and making slashing motions through the air with his hand at a group of men including Palmer.
"Come on." Thorpe kicked her bike into life. "I'll buy you a drink, you look like you need it."
Altair ground his teeth and turned away from the house, threw his leg over the bike and wrapped his arms around Thorpe's waist.
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