Desmond woke to breath on his face. He cracked his eyes open and then felt his lips curl into a smile. Okay, good. Not a dream. It would have been so awful and unfair if last night had been a dream. Wane autumn llight seeped in through the boards covering the window from the early morning sun.
Hesitantly like she would vanish before his eyes he reached out and ran his thumb along Lucy's cheek. She didn't wake and he smiled happily. He felt so… calm. So relaxed. He didn't remember feeling like this in a long time. He wouldn't even deny that a good bit of it might have been because of the sex, which he hadn't had in like seven years. So yeah, sex went a long way to making his stress levels just plummet. And the fact that she was actually right there, laying next to him, sleeping. The huge knot in his chest loosened a bit as he watched her sleeping and he felt good and capable. He remembered that talk he'd had with Hawk, about the huge empty hole inside him. It felt a little less deep now, a bit more filled.
Lucy grunted in her sleep and he held his hand very still. She took a deep breath, deeper than before, a waking breath, but didn't open her eyes. "That was nice you know," she murmured, eyes still not opening. His lips twitched and he stroked his thumb across her cheek again. "Yeah," she sighed and seemed to make herself sink deeper into the pillow and pushed closer to him.
He slid his hand down from her face to under the sheet and around her waist. Skin pressed against skin and not for the first time in the past eight hours or so he thought how he wanted to lick every inch of her skin. He was pretty sure he'd done that though. "Do we have to get up?" she asked him.
"No," he said.
Her eyes opened, "You're lying," she said with a smile.
"Just a little," he agreed and brushed their noses together. She tilted her head up and kissed him sweetly, he tugged her closer his hand sliding lower, she didn't stop him.
There was sudden banging on his door. They broke apart and looked at the door, "Desmond," Ezio called. More banging, "Desmond are you awake?"
He rolled his eyes and called back, "If I wasn't before I am now. What is it?"
The door opened without permission, "We can't find-" All the words died on Ezio's tongue when he saw them. His eyes went very wide and honestly Desmond thought he looked sort of like a parent who'd just walked in on their kid having sex. Lucy did her best to be invisible. "Excuse me," Ezio said in a sudden small voice and then the door was closed and he was gone without another comment.
"Uh-oh," Lucy said slowly.
"Fuck 'em," Desmond said and turned back to her. She let him kiss her again before pushing away. "Hey," it was nearly a whine.
"I think we should get up. You know they won't be happy."
"Does it look like I care?" he asked her seriously.
"Do you want to have to face them naked though?" she asked him hotly.
He frowned, "Good point." He kissed her once more and then rolled out of bed. "Also, for the record," he picked up her underwear from the ground next to the bed, "these are really cute," even though they were guy's underwear, they had sailboats on them.
"Shut up and give me them," she said sternly, hand out.
"Maybe I should just keep them," he teased.
"Desmond!" she cried. He laughed and tossed them onto the bed before finding his own clothes and started to pull them on. As he did he took stock of his marks and was perplexed to find them fading. They were slowly sinking back down towards the end of his limbs and most of his chest was actually bare of them.
The door opened, "It's called knocking," Desmond said to the form of Altair in it.
"Out here. Now," he said in such a dark voice Desmond's balls tried to climb up into his body. Okay. Well that was perfectly terrifying. He glanced at Lucy before leaving the room to stand in the little hall with Altair in just a pair of pants. Altair closed the door and then hit Desmond upside the head, hard. "What is wrong with you?" he demanded.
"Me? You just fucking hit me for no reason!" Desmond cried right back rubbing his head.
"No reason? That's the reason," he pointed at the now closed door. "Do you like making stupid decisions Desmond? I know your upbringing was subpar but I know you're better than this fucking stupidity."
"What?" he was just confused and also starting to feel not only insulted, but angry.
"Did your brain fall out of your ears or something? Or are you just thinking with your little brain instead of the big one? You know what she is, what she's supposed to do. And you walk right into it. That is not Lucy Stillman. That is a synthetic humanoid with her appearance and memories. To make you weak, to make you want to give in. What are you doing doing exactly what the proeathans want?" Altair demanded in an angry, stern, tone.
"What about what I want?" Desmond asked him, staring at him.
"What?" Altair's confusion stopped his rage for a moment, like it always did.
"What about what I fucking want?" Desmond demanded. "Huh? What about that? Why am I always the one who has to give up what I want? Do you think I wanted to be raised the way I did? Do you think I asked to be born into that sort of environment with the genes I have that make me this fucking genetic hiccup that has the most advanced species this planet has ever seen shitting itself?" he was getting louder, slowly. He was angry. He was so tired of what he wanted being ignored. He was also tired of Altair coddling him like he was going to break at any second. He. Wasn't. Broken. And he was tired of being treated like he was!
"Do you think I wanted to have to be on the run my entire life and even when the world has gone to shit, which I put it in by the way, in case your ancient fucking ass forgot, I can't even die in peace and I am busy being ordered around by holograms to fix this entire mess?
"Do you think I want to be like this?" he spat at Altair, so furious he could barely understand what he was saying only that he was angry and he'd had enough. Desmond have a great deal of patience, but he could just… snap and he'd unleash everything on the closest thing to him. Altair had pushed him to the edge and now he was having to deal with it. And he wasn't letting the immortal get a word in edgewise either. "Do you think I want to know that I'm the reason the world is like this or that I am personally responsible for the eradication and enslavement of my entire species?
"I didn't want any of this," he was just shy of yelling now. "I didn't even want you to come save me back in Finland!" and the look on Altair's face was such that Desmond couldn't even describe it. But for once Altair looked small in front of Desmond instead of a giant. Small and vulnerable in the wake of such a fury, staring at Desmond silently, maybe mortification was a good adjective to describe the look on his face. "So let me tell you what I want, because no one on this entire fucking planet seems to care one way or another what it is, only that I do what they want.
"I want to be happy. And so god help me if you think you can get in the way of that ever a-fucking-gain Altair I will put you Under, because she makes me happy when this is the biggest fuck up of my life. So don't you fucking lecture me," and he poked Altair so hard in the chest the ancient took a step back. "Especially when the first woman you ever fucked was a Templar," he hissed and Altair looked like Desmond had just hit him.
"I don't care what she is or what she's supposed to do or that to your precious moral code what I'm doing is wrong. Nothing you say is going to make me feel bad about this because I am so tired of this shit. Including your shit," he jabbed Altair again. "So fuck off!" and with that he shoved past Altair and walked down the hall knowing he needed to get away and couldn't go back into that room. He couldn't face her when he was angry.
"No, no," he heard Hawk saw as he heard someone try to follow, "Just let him go," he imagined his ancestor holding Altair back. "Let him go Big Eagle," and then Desmond walked out of the building.
Desmond left the building and walked across the street and down the block, still in sight of the base to another apartment building. He grabbed the fire escape ladder and pulled down. The ladder squeaked but did as bid and Desmond climbed the fire escape up to the roof five stories up.
He stood on the roof and looked out across Cordoba. The morning was crisp and cold, a telling of a at their doorstep, the sky clear, yesterday's storm forgotten except for a dampness in the stone. Desmond took a deep breath tipped his head back and screamed into the sky, to let it out. He did it a second time before going to the far side of the building to the house and sat on the parapet, overlooking the dead city, his breath was a thin cloud in front of his face. He suddenly felt exhausted and all the good feelings he'd had earlier had evaporated.
The sun rose, the sky faded to blue. It didn't get any warmer and even though he was hungry and starting to get cold, shivering just slightly, he refused to leave the roof. He was covered in goosebumps and the sun was cold and wane overhead. His fury and his self hatred made him stubborn and kept him where he was. He wouldn't be the first one to make a move after that.
He refused to look when he heard someone walking up to him. It was past noon. It was a bit warmer now, but he still had goosebumps and was shivering to the point that his insides trembled. He didn't move though. He didn't look.
"Hey," Lucy said. He tried to not, but he wasn't strong enough and he tore his eyes away from the city. He looked up at her. "I thought you'd be cold," she said and offered him his coat. He stared at it a moment before taking it and putting it on. "Can I sit?" she asked, when he continued to say nothing she sat next to him.
They watched the city in silence. "I'm not…" she started, then hesitated, "going to ask, really, what that was about," she said softly. "Desmond," he turned and looked at her, "I am sorry I'm not really her-
"Don't," he said.
"Don't what?" she asked.
"Ever be sorry. For that. For anything."
She swallowed, "Even though I'm not-
"I don't care," he said softly.
"You don't?"
"No," he said. "I watched you die before. You'd be amazed what death can do to prioritize your feelings. You're still you."
She smiled a little and looked back at the city. He did so as well, he felt her reach out and slid her fingers into his. "I don't want to hurt you," she told him, "but that's what they want me to do. That's what I'm supposed to do. I won't. Not again. Not ever again."
"I know," he said softly.
They sat in a silence, hands clasped together, "What you said, did you mean that?"
"Hmm?"
"What you said to Altair?"
"Every bit of it," he squeezed her hand.
She sighed a little. "I'll try to be that girl who deserves you," she told him.
"Hey," he reached over and reached out, gently making her look at him. "You are."
She smiled painfully, "I'm just a copy," she told him.
"Yeah well the original me isn't so fantastic either," he smiled nicely at her.
"Better than your copy," she said.
"Well duh," and he leaned over and kissed her, "I like you and he doesn't. What an idiot," he gently stroked her cheek.
"What did you say about how the original wasn't so fantastic either?"
He snorted, "You're so mean," he told her.
"And yet you keep coming back," she kissed him again.
"Couldn't stay away if I tried," he said against her mouth. And he wouldn't want to either. He wanted to be right here, for a long time. Lucy convinced him to come down only after it had gotten dark.