1904, Gijón, Asturias, Spain
He'd never been especially claustrophobic. But there was always something about waking up in a coffin that made the hair stand up on his arms. He looked around and made himself take slow, even, breathes. He could very easily panic, fuck, he knew he could, he was immortal, not a god, and he was still only human. He closed his eyes and counted slowly back from a hundred. He made it to about forty before opening his eyes again. Calm now. Well, calmer at least.
This was a nice coffin though, well made, but not like they used to make them. He wondered how he let the others talk him into this. He was seriously going to cut all of Ezio's hair off for this. All of it! Just shave him bald and call it a done deal. In hind sight they should have made Hawk do this. But Hawk didn't fit the description.
Fuck.
Yeah shaving off all of Ezio's hair and taking Hawk's Apple. It was the only thing he really cared about honestly and he'd pout about Altair having it.
He pressed his hands against the lid of the coffin and blew out air, his muscles strained. After a few seconds his eyes squeezed shut again. Maybe put a railroad spike through Hawk's hand too, he tended to freak out when Altair put him in serious amounts of pain. Nothing he wouldn't recover from, or even go Under for. But this was stupid and he really hated being buried. He'd faked three funerals in his life, his own, a friend's, and one time when Ezio hadn't been around to confiscate the body in time. Oh that had been a real joy.
He gave the coffin lid another shove and then frowned at it. Altair felt around next to him. The others were supposed to leave him with-
Oh those clever bastards. Okay maybe he wouldn't shave all of Ezio's hair off. He was still arresting Hawk's Apple though, and save the rail road spike for a rainy day when he just wanted to freak Hawk out and do it to himself. Hawk might not have actual emotions anymore, shadows of them yeah, but not real emotions, but Altair was pretty damn impervious to pain. Not that he didn't feel, because he could feel. Hawk would freak out, probably scream, and Altair would laugh at him. Sounded like a good plan.
Right now he was feeling a bit pissed as he grabbed the small spade and rammed it upwards. It took him a few tries before he splintered the lid. This was why he missed wooden coffins, not these fancy, lacy, reenforced things. You were going in a box in the ground, why did you care what your box looked like? He supposed that for people who stayed dead it didn't matter, though the people who had to bury them it mattered. Altair pushed the thought aside as dirt tumbled into his space. He wasn't going to think of burying people, he'd done that too much in his life.
Another smash of the spade got more dirt on him and with a move that you'd see on a contortionist he squeezed his body up to the top portion of the coffin and didn't bother to hold his breathe as the coffin lid gave out and dirt crashed down onto him. While the dirt shifted he moved quickly so he was mostly standing by the time the dirt had settled around him. He breathed in slowly, very slowly, and then let his arms scramble upwards on a slightly dirt filled lung full of air. Because he was already mostly standing it wasn't like he had to swim through six feet of dirt, only about a foot or so.
His hand breached air. No grass, good. He groped around for something and after a few seconds found the edge of his tomb stone. It should have felt weird, grabbing his own tomb stone, but it wasn't. Altair had over a hundred tomb stones, bought for him, with different names, over the centuries on the times he needed to die but didn't actually feel like getting buried. Cause being buried sucked. His lungs burned, damn it all.
Then a hand grabbed his, oh good. They hadn't left him. That was always a little fear in the back of his head, that they wouldn't be there at the right time, that they'd come too late and he'd really have to dig himself out of a grave. He could hear scratching above him and with his other hand he dug at the soil around him, pushing up and away, moving upwards.
Altair was rarely so happy to see the sky in his life then when he was Under or when had to crawl out of a hole. This time was no different. He coughed dust and dirt into Hawk's face as he helped push dirt aside so he could get out.
"I hate you both," he managed to say as Ezio grabbed onto his other hand. "Especially you," he told Ezio, as it was Ezio's fault he was in this situation.
"Yeah yeah, love you too Altair," Ezio said, tugging and Altair kicked at the ground. "You just had to come to in the middle of the day didn't you."
"Like I can chose, idiot," he grumbled. "Stop. Stop, you're ganna pull my arms off," his legs were still caught.
"You've survived worse," Hawk mumbled next to him, dirty as a dust clot as he kept digging, with his hands at that.
Altair yanked his hands away from Ezio who huffed at him moodily. "You owe me for this Ezio," he informed him and set about trying to pull himself the rest of the way out of the earth.
"If you'l recall I owe you for quite a lot. You still owe me for this though," and Ezio sent him a baleful look."
Altair glared at him, "You wanted this," he spat. Hawk eyed them both. "Nothing in life is without price. You should know that by now, you're not a child," his glare intensified. "I owe you nothing. You paid your own price."
"We should really get going before someone sees," Hawk chimed in suddenly. "Ezio, help me."
With a sigh Ezio kneeled and did help Hawk dig Altair up enough that he could climb from the soil. Out of the dirt Altair stood, wobbly from his time Under as well as his legs being compacted by dirt and spit out several mouthfuls of mud. He'd be tasting and smelling dirt for days. Behind him the others were pushing the dirt back over where it'd bee dug out.
"You all right?" Hawk asked him.
"Yeah," he was sitting against the back of his head stone now. It didn't have his name on it though, or even this decade and some's alias on it. It was some man Ezio knew, a man he'd let himself get killed for, so he could escape to America with a Piece of Eden called the Pen. But they'd needed a body, one that could pass for Moroccan, Altair could do that, the others couldn't. "I'm starving though," he added with a groan.
Hawk threw a sack at him and he opened it. Bread, and meat, and cheese. He devoured everything in one sitting before even thinking of the others. After Waking there were usually two things on their minds, one was food, always first was food, even if they didn't realize it, the other was (given the circumstances) where was the closest set of clothes. Altair was in his funeral clothes though, so he didn't care about the second, he was focused on food.
"Did he get away?" Altair asked as he found an apple at the bottom of the sack.
"Yes," Ezio said.
"Good. Otherwise I was really going to put you under and then leave you naked in an academy," Altair threatened.
"You wouldn't," Ezio frowned at him, he was clean shaven like the rest of them were, and his hair was short. Hawk was wearing his long. They both kept with the fashion of the era usually. Altair was seven hundred years old, he didn't care anymore, not really. Sure he'd wear some of the things that were standard for the era but his clothes didn't change much anymore. He was too old to care, too dusty and set in his ways.
"I would," Altair said around the apple and groaned, it tasted amazing. "We'll collect the Pen when he dies," he added to himself a bit.
"Is that everything?" Hawk asked.
Altair stood, dusting himself off, there was a lot to dust off and he needed a bath because he'd never get it all off. "Yeah," he said finishing the apple, even eating the core and only spitting out the seeds and stems. Ezio made a gross face at him. He didn't get how Altair could literally eat anything. Altair thought Ezio was a picky eater, as it was he wouldn't go near pasta or anything even remotely Italian. He hadn't been back to his home land since Sofia. He didn't blame the man, it was always hard to go back to Masyaf. Hawk was indifferent, he would go anywhere, see anyone, if it had sentimental value or not, because it didn't to him anymore. He was unburdened by nostalgia and Altair had never been more jealous of a man then Hawk ever in his life. "I don't want to see either of you for at least ten years," he wiped at his eye, it didn't dislodge any real dirt.
"Aww, that hurts Altair," Ezio teased.
"If I do I'm making good to my promise I made down in the grave of shaving you bald," he told Ezio flatly. Ezio's face made Hawk laugh.
"Fine. Ten years," Ezio said moodily.
"Ten years," Hawk agreed with a nod. "Why ten years?" usually when he gave them a number of years to stay away for they only got together for a reason. Sometimes it was ten years, sometimes fifty, or strange numbers like thirteen or forty-two. But they always came, because Altair always knew, and without Altair they both only knew so much, Hawk had his Apple but he still used it clumsily. Ezio had been a follower his entire life, even when he led, he'd wanted to follow, for someone to tell him what to do, that he was doing the right thing. Altair always did that and told him when he did good and when he did bad. For that Ezio always came back. Hawk came back because the two of them were the only things he had anything resembling emotionally attachment to. They were brothers, but they followed the leader, and that was Altair.
"Because," Altair said solemnly, "The world's going to burn. Usual meet. Ten years," and then without further explanation, he walked away from his empty grave.
