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Chapter 43; First Date
The police arrived just seconds before the ambulance, securing the scene and pushing back the crowd so the EMT's could get in and out without fuss.
Altair sat on a stool with his head in his hand watching as Desmond was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled out, and then he and Ezio were pushed into a police cruiser and driven to the hospital.
It was not, by any means, a pleasant experience. Even less so when they got to the hospital and had to sit in separate rooms and give official statements to strange officers with stern expressions and didn't get to actually hear any word on Desmond for almost four hours. And by that time Giovanni was there and so was Malik. The latter looking positively livid in rumpled jeans and the T-shirt he'd been sleeping in.
Malik was sitting self consciously in the corner trying to tug his shirt over the scarred stump of his left arm. Eyeing everyone who even so much as glanced at him as if he wanted to bite their face off.
Altair came out of the room he'd been sequestered in looking like a zombie. When he spotted Malik he shucked off his jacket and handed it over, letting the older man send him death glares as he turned the left sleeve partially wrong side out so it didn't flap around and become distracting.
Altair suspected that the assumed phone call had frightened Malik and he'd only pulled on his jeans and come running, completely oblivious to the fact he wasn't wearing something he deemed appropriate for outside the house and only after he'd gotten there did he realize he felt so naked.
Ezio went right to his father, letting him reassure himself his son was OK. They both came over once Giovanni was done and sat together for a while, until well after eight when Giovanni got fed up and demanded to see the head nurse.
The woman appeared a few minutes later looking insulted that she'd been pulled away from whatever it was she was doing. She insisted, in a severe commanding voice that she couldn't disclose any details about the young man in questions because they were not family members and the Power of Attorney wasn't there.
Giovanni almost got into a shouting match with her, but Malik gave him a look, and the older man grumbled as he took his seat again.
Malik got up a few minutes later, walked over to the ER's shiny double doors and politely let himself in.
Nobody seemed to notice.
Fifteen minutes later he came back out, calm and easy as you please, scrubbed an itch from his chin and started rattling off facts.
Altair was never more glad for Malik's nosy little habit.
"They did blood tests and it seems someone slipped him a very strong sedative. They pumped his stomach and gave him fluids. They've also given him a catheter so he won't be too happy about that when he discovers it. He's under observation and he'll likely be here until tomorrow sometime, but he was awake enough to be cranky as hell when I got in, so I think he'll be alright."
Altair felt like a giant weight had lifted from his shoulders and glittery specks danced before his eyes, his ears ringing.
"You can go, I'll stay with him." Malik yawned into his fist and patted his stomach. "Just point me toward the cafeteria before you leave."
Giovanni nodded; "I'll give you my number, when he wakes up let me know." He wrote it down on the back of a receipt he pulled from his pocket and handed it over.
Ezio stalled when his father put a hand on his shoulder and started to guide him toward the door; "I… I'd like to stay if it's alright."
Giovanni blinked at him, almost as if he wanted to protest. "You haven't slept well in three days. I can bring you back when he wakes up."
"I'd rather stay…"
Giovanni looked a little confused at first, then with a sigh he nodded and rubbed a twinge from his stomach; "Alright, it's your choice."
"I'll call you if I need anything."
He nodded in agreement and was opening his mouth to give his goodbyes when something startling happened. Something that had been nagging him all month finally clicked into place.
The day in the car when Ezio had said he had a crush on someone, a male someone who'd had a big impact on his life of late. Someone Ezio spoke of frequently, and had been spending a lot of time with lately.
And now, here Ezio was, three days sleepless, wanting to stay in an uncomfortable hospital waiting room and—
It's Desmond, he has a crush on Desmond!
In his head Giovanni was cheering that he'd finally been able to figure it out. He smiled, ready to declare that he had solved the mystery but his voice died in his throat. No… He'd wait. He'd keep this secret. Let Ezio figure out that he knew in his own good time.
"Be sure to eat something, and if you can find a place, at least take a nap, you look dead on your feet." He tugged Ezio's hair playfully and gave him a hug before he left.
Malik looked a little surprised watching the older man walk away, and flicked a tiny, microscopic… Overwhelmingly WICKED grin in Altair's direction; "Why don't you two go have breakfast together. You could finish that conversation you were having Tuesday… Bring me back something." It was by no means a suggestion.
Altair's mouth flapped open like a codfish but Malik was pushing him away with those dark eyes of his. He spluttered, stumbled as if he had been shoved and narrowed his eyes; "You're possessed."
Malik just waggled his fingers his eyes narrowed; "Have a good time, Princess."
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Breakfast, was not what Altair would have called the slop they were presented with in the hospital cafeteria.
The eggs were not real eggs. The pancakes were dry, and the low-fat-turkey-bacon was tough like leather.
He supposed, since he'd really been craving Taco Bell instead of this crap that his mind made it worse than it actually was. He prayed his mind was also making the silence between himself and Ezio more oppressive than it was in reality.
Just looking at him made Altair's chest tight. He did like Ezio, he did… but what would everybody else think?
Malik obviously thought it was funny or else he wouldn't have been pushing them together so.
"This food sucks." He picked up a lump of egg and let it drop back to his plate with a slight bounce.
Ezio snorted quietly and coughed into his shoulder trying to hide it. After a minute he lost the battle and bowed his head laughing under his breath.
Altair felt himself grinning for no reason whatsoever.
Ezio took a drink of his coffee and prodded his egg into the gravy to try and make it taste a little better. "Should we even bother trying to continue that conversation or is it already finished."
Altair sighed and propped his cheek on his gapped left fist. He shrugged but didn't really say anything.
"I don't want it to be finished."
He glanced up, catching Ezio's eyes and holding them. Absently stabbing his pancakes with his fork.
"I like you… And I don't regret what happened. It—it was nice." Ezio poked a little of the gravy covered egg into his mouth and ate it, more so he had time to think and word what he wanted to say carefully, than out of actual hunger.
"It wasn't that nice…"
Ezio snorted; "It was the first real kiss I've ever had, thank you very much. And if I say it was nice, then it was nice." He shoved more of the gravy egg mixture into his mouth just so he didn't have to speak. But there was a strange tingling sensation on his forehead and he glanced up, wiping his chin with his napkin.
Altair was staring at him with a somehow unreadable expression on his face.
Ezio cleared his throat and rubbed his shoulder on his jaw self consciously. "Why do you care what anybody else thinks anyway, you wore a bright red dog collar to a barbecue with the mayor and at least two dozen reporters."
The PI glanced away, with a sigh.
"I'm not looking for much, Altair. Really. I don't want anything physical—well, maybe like a kiss or two, that was kind of nice… But I don't think I can do sex. I've thought about it, but it usually ends up turning into something violent. It was only nice the once and I woke up in the middle of it and it took almost half an hour to clear my mind long enough to actually finish what had started, and it really wasn't as good as everyone made it out to be. It was really messy and I had to go back to bed without my underwear. And then I rolled over on myself in the morning and that wasn't—"
Altair was staring at him with wide eyes, his face the color of fresh blood. He'd gripped his fork so tight the plastic had snapped in two.
"What's wrong?"
Altair shook his head and his mouth opened and closed like a goldfish a few times before he found his voice; "Y-you… What… H-how—"
"You're shy like my father, aren't you." He propped his chin on his hand. "It's alright. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
Altair shook his head. He wasn't shy, he was anything but shy, but he knew that you just didn't talk about masturbation in public. In a hospital cafeteria least of all! "You really shouldn't talk about that here… People will think you're crazy or a pervert or something."
He didn't look convinced. "Why, it's natural, and you talked about it before—"
"It may be natural, but it's not something you discuss in a cafeteria!"
Ezio rolled his eyes. "I gave a guy a blowjob once in the kitchen of a—"
Altair laughed, a high helpless sound and cupped his forehead.
"I'm not asking for anything like that, Altair… I just—just want to get to know you without this professional pretense." He yawned; "And I'm not usually this blunt, but I'm exhausted and my common sense has gone down the drain. I can't sleep without thinking about you." He dropped his hand onto the table and plucked at that lonely looking little finger on Altair's left hand. "And it just depresses me to think that we both like one another but… I feel like this." He gave the finger a pinch and lowered his temple to rest on his elbow; "I can see what's going on but I'm separated from it all, and it sucks to be alone." He released a deep breath and let his eyes fall closed.
"What did that even mean?" Altair sounded like he was about to start laughing. "You sounded like Malik the weekend Chris came home from collage and got the three of us high and made us watch The Wizard of Oz with the sound turned off a-and—" He dissolved into a fit of giggles.
"Okay, that's enough of that." Malik apparently, tired of waiting for his breakfast to be delivered, had come looking for them. He gave Altair's head a little shove. "Go home. Go to sleep. You're both exhausted and insane!"
"But I was just getting to the good part!"
"Just go! You're both useless!"
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Altair wasn't aware of calling a cab, or knocking his fist against the big front window of the print shop until Hadiya came from the back room and buzzed open the door to let him in. All he knew was by the time he made it up the stairs and down the hall, his bed looked like a tropical oasis of crumpled cotton and flattened pillows. He kicked off his shoes and dropped across the mattress with a sigh, welcoming the weight that followed him. He shifted and rolled and tossed until he'd worn a comfortable groove in the memory foam then pulled the blankets over his head.
The weight beside him shifted and stretched and grumbled about the sun.
He was jolted awake a few times by unnatural motion of his bed but went back to sleep quickly enough.
The sun blazing in through his window like a laser beam pulled him from sleep, baking him and he wiggled out of his shirt, kicking the blankets off and popped the button of his jeans before he dozed again.
Sometime after three that afternoon Altair woke on his back with his arms up over his head. He didn't like sleeping in this position, he always ended up snoring or waking up with a dry throat when he slept on his back. This time he was somewhat lucky, he woke only to the ache of a full bladder and the hot, uncomfortable sticky feeling of an overheated body pressed intimately against his right side.
It was startling, realizing he wasn't alone in his own bed, and he lifted his head from the pillow, the back of his skull and neck feeling damp and hot. There was a pile of messy long hair on his chest, and a bare leg tangled in his sheets.
He didn't dare move at first, memories slowly dripping back like honey oozing from a jar.
Malik had practically thrown them out of the cafeteria and they'd found a cab, the driver obviously thought they were drunk because he'd asked a few times that they please not throw up back there.
Altair vaguely remembered climbing out of the cab in front of the print shop, and knocking on the front window like a zombie, pawing and groaning until Hadiya had peered out at them with a concerned scowl. She rolled her eyes when Ezio had pressed his mouth against the glass and puffed his cheeks out, looking like a starfish or a sea snail.
She'd held down the buzzer button under the counter unlocking the door and they had stumbled up the stairs.
Ezio had grumbled; "He did it on purpose… Let me stand out there pulling on it when it was locked…"
Altair didn't know what he was talking about, he was more interested in getting to his bed… What a wonderful bed.
It had happened naturally, letting Ezio roll under the blankets with him. Allowing the younger man to rub his face on the pillows and work a groove for himself into the mattress. He hadn't thought anything of it until now.
Ezio had, sometime while Altair had still been asleep, taken off his jeans, and thrown them at the window. They were in an angry heap draped over the radiator. And the young man's long pale leg was draped over his lap.
Almost as if he could feel the tension growing in the PI, Ezio shifted fractionally and pried his eyes open, peering up in a daze.
They stared at one another for a few minutes, and then Ezio became distracted by something shiny on the far side of Altair's bare chest. "What's that?" He lifted his head, his chin on Altair's shoulder, and curiously, with such an innocent expression on his face, tweaked the thing between forefinger and thumb—
Altair grunted and slapped a hand over the spot, lurching upward.
Ezio rolled back surprised and after a few seconds of rubbing his eyes he sat up startled; "It's attached?"
Altair nodded and tried not to look at him his face slightly pink.
"What is it? Did I hurt you?" Ezio pawed at his shoulder and tilted his head, staring. "Oh."
"I'm alright… Just don't do that again."
He nodded; "Is that the—uh—stupid thing you did with that woman from the barbecue?"
"Yeah." He groped off the bed for his shirt but couldn't find it, so he just crossed his arms awkwardly over his chest; "So, did you—did you sleep well?"
He nodded, his gaze turned inward, pulling the blankets closer around his waist. "I… W-where are my pants?"
Altair motioned toward the radiator.
"Can you shut the curtains please?"
"I don't have curtains." He stood and scuffed over, tossing the jeans lightly onto the bed beside the younger man, putting as much distance between himself and Ezio as he could.
"There are people living in that building right across the street, and you don't have curtains? What if they're perverts and look in on you!"
He shrugged; "All I ever do is sleep in here. If they get off on that kinda' stuff—"
"That's beside the point, you should have a little privacy."
"I do, in the bathroom. I have all the privacy I need in there."
Ezio sighed and pulled his jeans under the blankets with him, shifting and wiggling, arching his hips off the mattress—
Altair felt his mouth go dry and purposefully looked away. When he turned back Ezio was standing beside the bed with the hem of his t-shirt between his teeth, fighting with the zipper and the PI found himself staring at the gentle ripples of developing muscle.
Altair finally found his shirt in front of the closet atop another pile of clothes he snatched it up and yanked it on wrong side out in his haste then dropped onto the far side of the bed and picked at the dirty bottoms of his socks.
"What time is it?"
"About three-thirty."
Ezio rubbed his eyes again, blinking owlishly around, then sat back down on the bed. "Do you think Desmond's awake yet?'
"No, Malik would have called."
"Well, shouldn't we go back to keep him company?"
Altair scratched his head and dropped onto the opposite side of the bed. "We can go back around six and stay so Malik can come home."
He nodded and yawned again, then flopped backward. "Your bed is very comfortable."
Altair grunted and eyed him warily.
"Altair?"
"What?"
He hesitated, glancing to the side, then up into the older man's face; "Can… Can that conversation please not be finished?"
He sighed, right elbow on his knee, chin on his palm, and for a moment just stared down at Ezio with a pained expression on his face. "There isn't much left to say."
Ezio nodded, gaze turned inward, and with a sigh he rolled to his hands and knees on the bed and scooted to sit on his heels behind Altair's right shoulder, resting his nose there, their ears together. "Please?"
The word was warm, breathed into his skin and Altair turned his head fractionally, just to look, he told himself, only to look…
It was frighteningly intimate. Something given freely and not taken, just a firm but gentle slant of Ezio's mouth against his own, and for the few seconds it was held he found himself inundated by a sensation he couldn't quite describe. All he knew was it was warm. And when Ezio pulled away, just a fraction of an inch, their breath mingled and their eyes connected, flicking up and down between the place they'd just shared and the darkness of pupils.
Aw hell...
It wasn't as difficult as he'd thought it would be, didn't leave him feeling like a pervert or as if he were taking advantage of the younger man. He didn't look into those hazel eyes and see a victim of brutality, he saw Ezio.
"Okay…" He swallowed past the tightness of his throat. "Okay."
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