You all have some really interesting ideas about why Desmond is important to the Flock.
Also I love Jacob. The end.
It was an hour before Jacob looked like he was starting to wake up. Hawk had gone off, Desmond wasn't sure where, and Altair was still gone. He and Ezio had stayed, talked some. Desmond had wanted to know about the things Ezio knew, history, that sort of thing. It was interesting to him, and he had a first hand account of the past five hundred years right in front of him, why wouldn't he grill the old man? It, oddly, hadn't occurred to him since then that really he was living with three walking history books. There'd just been a lot happening. This was the first time they'd slowed down enough to really ask these sorts of questions or to really get it. Things moved fast in America and Australia hadn't been either with trying to fit Jacob into their lives. Then of course there had been Dubai and… Desmond hadn't really wanted to deal with any of them between then and now.
"Go get Altair would you," Ezio said when they saw Jacob move, sucking in a deep breath, his first breath in an hour, though didn't wake up quite yet.
"What're you going to do?"
"Try and get him not to panic," Ezio said, "Waking the first time is disorientating. Hawk attacked me the first time, and I nearly killed Altair on my second time, the first proper time," his smile was thin for a moment. "Go on," he shooed him away and Desmond left the workshop.
He went looking for the ancient and found him in the kitchen. He wasn't cooking, but was sitting at the island under the big skylight (there were a lot of skylights in the house), looking into a cup. "He's waking up," he announced from the doorway that led into the dining room where he and Clay had been only about an hour before. Where was Clay anyway?
Altair straightened and looked back at him, "He is now?" Desmond nodded. "Okay," and he slid off the stool. "Come help me," he beckoned to Desmond and he went into the kitchen as Altair opened the fridge.
"What were you drinking?" he asked and stopped briefly at the island. "… You were drinking, seriously?" he asked after sniffing the cup. It was whisky, thirty year old whisky, he could tell by smell alone (he was a bar tender ten years, sue him).
"I told you," Altair said grumpily, "I am human. Not like I drank a lot," and he shrugged.
"Can you even get drunk?"
"Yes," and he was pulling something from the fridge. "It's just hard, I have a really high tolerance for it now. Go get a loaf of bread from the cupboard," he'd pulled out sandwich fixings.
Desmond took a detour to the pantry and grabbed a loaf and went back to Altair who was taking out the food. Fresh food came from the main land. Apparently Clay went, by himself, every month or so, though he had a vegetable garden on the island. Meat and perishables had to be brought in from off the island. Though there was a lot in the freezer room in off from the kitchen. Like one of those freezers you saw in restaurants to keep food appropriately cold and nearly unable to go bad. "I've never seen you drink before," Desmond said and Altair motioned for him to open the bread and take some pieces out. "Even in your memories."
"The Order didn't drink," was Altair's reply. "I picked up that vice after I found out I couldn't really die," and Desmond winced a little. He could imagine Altair drowning himself in alcohol, trying to forget it all. "I lost about a decade. I've since learned moderation," and Desmond actually blanched. One because Altair had seemingly read his mind, the other because a decade, it was hard to imagine one of the greatest Assassins who ever lived as an alcoholic, one so bad he lost ten years of his life to it.
Altair took the bread and laid it out in a few lines and with Desmond's help they made several sandwiches, more then everyone could eat. "Why so many?" Desmond asked into the silence between their hands.
"He'll be hungry."
"This many?"
"The first Waking is the worst. I ate a quarter of my weight the first time. Hawk we couldn't stop eating for almost two days. Though he had a very different experience then me and Ezio."
"What about Ezio?"
"I don't know. I wasn't there. He jokes he ate a horse."
"And?"
"Well," Altair paused, his hands stilling for a moment and then snorted, "knowing him, he very well might have," and Desmond chuckled.
Altair left Desmond to put the top piece of bread on the ten sandwiches and returned to the fridge again and pulled out some fruit and a bottle of some sort of juice he'd made before hand it looked like. "So all this, for one guy?"
"We may very well be making more," Altair said with a shrug.
"But why?"
"Why what?" Altair asked putting the sandwiches on a plate, stacking them a bit messily.
"Why the food? Why would you be hungry?"
"Well, and this is just from my experience and first hand knowledge, when you Wake it's after your body has basically scrubbed you clean of any dead, dying, or dangerous cells and has made you whole if you're injured. It takes a lot of energy to do that and your body is starved for proteins, vitamins, and other stuff that make you function properly. When I woke up in Dubai," Desmond frowned but he carried on and picked up the plate leaving Desmond to grab the bowl of fruit and juice and follow after, "It had been two weeks, Two weeks to fix a few bullet holes. I'm assuming they hadn't taken the bullets out. So my body had to assimilate the bullets and then fix the damage. I Woke up, starving. Once I got out of there I took a day to get in order and to eat, because it was like I'd just completed the Iron Man competition, several of them, right in a row. That make sense?"
"I guess," Desmond said. "So it's like, you're doing a lot of exercise and then have to refuel?"
"Yes, exactly like that. It's a real strain on the body, but when you Wake up, you're as fit as you ever were, and while not immune to diseases, you won't have any of them when you Wake up."
"Any?"
"Not a one."
"What about bad ones?"
"Like?"
"Cancer, STDs, that sort of stuff."
"Scrubbed clean."
"Huh. Well that's handy," Desmond said as they arrived at the workshop again and Altair stared at the door. "Gonna open it?" he asked.
Altair looked at him, he looked strangely pale. "Just so you know," he said. "He won't be like you. I couldn't fix him," he said softly.
"So what's that mean?"
Altair took a long sigh, "You'll see," and he opened the door. Jacob was sitting up on the floor, next to Ezio who was sitting next to him. They both looked up when they entered.
"Oh good, you're back," Ezio said easily.
"You been telling him?" Altair asked Ezio.
"Right now," he said.
"So I don't have to. Wonderful," Altair said, "Hungry Jacob?" he asked.
"Starving," he sounded normal.
"Good," and Altair crouched down next to the two, "Eat," and put the plate down, Desmond put his bowl and juice down as well. "Where's Hawk?"
"Hiding from you," Ezio chuckled.
"That won't last very long," Altair said and stood up.
"Where are you going?" Desmond asked, looking up at the old man as Jacob one-handed grabbed a sandwich and devoured it in about fifteen seconds and grabbed another one to do the same, his left hand in his lap.
"To go find Hawk. We need to have a talk."
"You going to hurt him?"
"Nothing he won't recover from," Altair shrugged.
"It's mostly just scare tactic," Ezio put in. "Scaring Hawk does more then anything."
"Oh well. Okay," Desmond said, feeling out of touch because he thought it would be worse. Hadn't Hawk been freaking out? He'd been terrified actually. What the hell was Altair going to do to him. He sort of didn't want to know. No, he really didn't want to know actually.
"Good luck. Try not to break anything," Ezio said.
Altair rolled his eyes, "See, unlike that child, I don't break things unless I mean to," his eyes flicked to Jacob and then to Desmond and gave him a little smile, though it was sort of thin and strained. He was seriously missing something now, he wasn't quite sure what though. Then he turned away from them and headed for the door again.
Jacob coughed, like he was choking and quickly put down his food once he was able to breath, "Wait, wait you stupid novice I didn't say you could leave yet," and Desmond turned to Jacob who was scrambling to his feet before Altair could get more then a few steps away. What had Altair said? Jacob wasn't like him. So then what the fuck was he like?
"Really, now is not the time," Altair said, looking at the New Yorker.
"Shut up."
"Did he just—" Desmond looked at Ezio with a 'he just told Altair to shut up' sort of look. Ezio picked himself up off the ground and Desmond quickly straightened as well and faced the two of them.
Looking at them side by side Altair looked small. Jacob was modern height, almost six foot or so, Altair topped out at five foot nine and a half on a good day and Jacob looked amazingly pleased to have to look down at Altair. Desmond somehow always forgot how short his ancestors were, they just always seemed so tall, so big, really though they were all shorter then him. Except Hawk, he always remembered Hawk was short, he seemed to take up no space at all, unlike Altair and Ezio who seemingly couldn't help but take up space. Maybe you learned how to do that after you were five hundred years old and Hawk just hadn't taken all the prerequisite classes on how to be immortal to get the 'how to be tall' class. Or something.
"You don't get to say that to me kid," Altair said firmly. "And if I remember correctly, you're the novice."
"Still wrong, as usual," Jacob said and put his right hand on his hip, amused. It was a weirdly familiar posture to Desmond, but not one he'd ever seen Jacob make. "Too worried about everything else you shouldn't be worried about still. I would have thought you'd have broken that habit Altair-
"Shut. Up," Desmond said in disbelief, all of them looked at him. "What the hell did you do to him?" he asked, still staring at Jacob and wondering if it really was okay to still call him that.
"I told you. He's not like you."
"You mean besides the whole immortal part," Jacob said, waving his hand in a certain motion-
"Stop that," Desmond said.
"Stop what?"
"That thing you just did. Just stop, it's terrifying and… oh my god."
"Well he seems to be taking it rather well," Jacob said.
"Was there a point to this?" Altair growled, "Beyond annoying me I mean? I do have a bird to go pluck."
"Yes, actually, I do," Jacob said and smiled. He hadn't seen Jacob smile like that since… fuck since Desmond had been sleeping on his couch. Altair gave a half grunt, half yelp that was more of a squawk of surprise when Jacob grabbed him by the front of his shirt and jerked him forward and kissed him on the mouth. It lasted only a second or so and Desmond was sure his jaw was hanging open. He jerked when Ezio leaned over and tapped it closed for him. "Wanted to do that for nine hundred years," and Altair was just staring at him, slightly horrified.
"Did that…"
"I think you broke then Jake," Ezio said with a laugh.
"Well at least they're quiet now," Jacob said, looked far too pleased with himself. He poked Altair in a chest a little, Altair was still just staring at him, unmoving. "And you," he turned to Desmond. Desmond squeaked when Jacob kissed him next. "I've wanted to do that again for a while too," he said, still pleased with himself.
"I think I need to sit down," Desmond said in a tiny voice and did just that and sat down on the floor of Hawk's workshop.
Don't over think what just happened. It's probably exactly what you think just happened. This story isn't that complicated guys, I promise. You make it more complicated then it has to be.