Chapter 5

A bell dinged somewhere in the small grocery store as Desmond and Shaun walked in, looking like they were suffering from a case of extreme dandruff. Looking even more irritated than usual, Shaun brushed snow off the shoulders of his black trench coat and stalked to the back of the shop, trying to get away from Desmond. Unfortunately, the store was much smaller than Shaun had originally thought. He went to the aisle closest to the back, only to see that Desmond had had the exact same idea, and they were now face to face again- and in a very confined space with shelves packed to the point of exploding. If Shaun had been the kind of guy who gushed at pretty cushions and sparkly things, he probably would have gone as far as to describe their current surroundings as cozy.

It was a good thing Shaun wasn't like that, though, because he could now describe their surroundings as uncomfortable in the extreme, and he wouldn't get caught up in the, er… perfect place to fuck someone named Desmond? Whispered his brain.

Fuck off, brain, Shaun responded, turning on his heel. He needed to get out of here now. When he heard footsteps behind him, and he deduced that Desmond had decided to follow him, Shaun almost cracked right there.

"Desmond," Shaun said, trying to keep his voice calm. "Why don't you go get some bread?"

"Roger that," Desmond mumbled, and walked to the end of the aisle. Once he disappeared around the corner, Shaun slumped to the ground.

What. The. Fuck? He asked himself. What was going on? Where the hell had this wildfire attraction come from? He wasn't that desperate, was he?

The man is good looking. You have to admit that. His brain informed him. Shaun considered this. It was hard to ignore the fact that Desmond was a complete twit, but when he stripped Desmond down to basic looks (And not his underwear- Bad Shaun!) he was pretty attractive. Probably fit, too, considering he was an assassin. Well, maybe half an assassin. But still, the fact remained. Shaun caught himself thinking briefly about the eternal question (boxers or briefs?) when he mentally slapped himself. Now was really not the time to realize that you were physically attracted to your co worker. Not when getting back to the stronghold might turn deadly at any given moment.

Speaking of the stronghold, Shaun realized that they had better get going and he hadn't even started picking things up yet. He heaved himself off the floor, dusted himself off, and pulled his shopping list out of his pocket. Desmond chose this exact moment to come back with the two loaves of bread they needed. He stopped short when he saw the list in Shaun's hand.

"Whoa. Isn't a list sort of a girly thing?" He smirked, picking some canned fruit off the shelf Shaun had just been leaning against.

Shaun rolled his eyes. Definitely not attracted to the personality.

"No, Desmond. Lists keep you organized. Organization is gender neutral, thank you very much. You could do with some organization yourself, you know. Map out your plan to get to Lucy?"

Desmond froze mid-reach for a can of peas. Shaun couldn't help notice how his heavy sweater pulled up his t-shirt, exposing a quick glimpse of Desmond's sides and abs, and answering one of his questions from earlier. Yep. He was definitely fit. Very fit.

"What are you talking about?" Desmond asked quickly, trying to sound nonchalant. He had unfrozen himself, and was now adding the peas to the basket he had picked up when he went to get the bread.

"Oh, please," Shaun scoffed. "It's so obvious. You want to jump her bones, and you communicate that to her by using such God-awful lines that I could have sworn you were a cheese expert in a former life."

"Well then what would you suggest? I mean, you are of course an expert on relationships, considering that you don't even like anyone, let alone feel an attraction towards anybody."

A hysteric laugh escaped Shaun, who immediately covered his mouth with his hand. Desmond looked on with wary eyes.

"Uh… You okay, Shaun?" Desmond asked cautiously.

Shaun cleared his throat, and started towards the register.

"Yep. I'm fine. You almost done? Then let's get out of here."

"Okay, we'll have to take a different route back," Shaun informed Desmond as they exited the store, each carrying a grocery bag.

"Why?" Desmond asked.

Shaun sighed.

"Are you thick, Desmond? Wait, don't answer that. Of course you are. What did we discuss before coming into the store, hm? Discretion? Maybe you were too busy making a fuss to hear me. These Templars are all over the place. They will eat us for breakfast if there are enough of them. I'm a pretty good fighter, but not much of an escape artist. And you… Well. We can only hope that the Bleeding Effect has decided to stay with you. We would have to fight through the Templars, which would not be an ideal situation. They might spare you, since you are useful. But I'm a nobody. I'll get axed before you can say 'Piece of Eden'."

"Piece of Eden." Desmond replied hopefully.

Shaun narrowed his eyes.

"Yes. This is the perfect time to joke, isn't it? When our lives -my life- is at stake. Let's move." Shaun turned down the alley that they had recently inhabited. He figured there was a roundabout route they could take. Luckily, he had a pretty good sense of direction.

"Yes, mom." Desmond said sarcastically, following close behind Shaun. "You know, I'm not a complete moron."

"I beg to differ." Shaun responded flatly, moving swiftly through the alleyway. He was extremely skittish, and jumped at the smallest sound. Unfortunately, Desmond hadn't exactly acquired the "stealth" gene from his ancestors. His feet crunched loudly on the tightly packed snow, and Shaun almost jumped out of his skin when he heard a crack behind him. He whirled around, fists at the ready, only to see Desmond standing sheepishly over a broken twig.

"My bad." Desmond almost apologized.

Shaun took a deep breath, trying to get his racing heart to calm down.

"Fuck, Desmond. Pay attention to where you're going, will you? We've got to get back. I have a bad feeling about being here."

And indeed he did. As soon as they had exited the store, Shaun had felt eyes on them, and he was pretty sure they weren't admiring Desmond's spectacular abs.

The pair continued down the alley, and they were almost to the end, when something whizzed past Shaun's left ear. He smelled burned hair and skin. Shaun glanced behind him. Desmond was clutching his left ear, and blood was pouring trickling through his fingers.

"Shit! Desmond, are you okay?" Shaun asked, rushing to his side.

"I'm fine." Desmond answered, waving his bloody hand at Shaun dismissively. "It only grazed my earlobe." Blood drops splattered on the snow.

"Thank God," Shaun said, and for a minute, Desmond thought he was going to say something nice, when… "Lucy would have killed me if you died."

Desmond made a face that Shaun didn't see, as he had turned around, looking to see where the shot had come from. He figured it had been a bullet, though he had heard no gunshot. A silencer, maybe?

Suddenly, another bullet flew past Shaun, but on his right this time. Figures appeared at the end of the alleyway that Desmond and Shaun had just come from, and as Shaun turned around to pull Desmond the other way, more figures appeared the way that they had been planning on going.

Desperately, Shaun looked at the red brick buildings blocking him and Desmond in. An extremely experienced assassin, who had mastered the art of free running, could probably scale those walls, but Shaun was no experienced assassin, or a master of free running. Zero for two, it seemed.

The Templars were closing in fast on either side, and Shaun realized that there was no getting out of it. He had told Desmond that they would have to fight their way back to the stronghold, and now he was going to have to cash in on his promise.

Quickly, Shaun pulled up his right pant leg, and pulled a dagger out of its holster on his right ankle. From his left side, he pulled out a small pistol. Not the most ideal arsenal, but he hadn't expected to be ganged up on, no matter what he told Desmond about the extremely high chances of them being attacked.

For the first time in his life, Shaun wasn't bursting with pride and smugness at having proved himself right.

Shaun knew that Desmond didn't have a weapon on him; they had left the hidden blade back at the stronghold. It still had kinks for them to kick out, considering it hadn't been used in years. So instead of keeping the dagger for himself, he tossed it back effortlessly to Desmond, heart pounding with adrenaline as he cocked the .45 in his hand.

"Desmond, we gotta tag team these bastards," Shaun snapped, grabbing the man's arm, pulling him out of the way of a barrage of pathetically fired bullets.

"Give it up, Assassins!" The henchmen yelled, cackling with wicked smirks. "If you give it up now, you might actually get out of this alive." They all broke out in a chorus of laughter, as if this moment had been rehearsed in drama class time after time. Shaun snorted and took a shot, hitting one of the men right in the heart, taking him out in an instant. The others watched in horror as one of their men went down which, of course, hadn't been according to the plan.

Hastily, Desmond threw a knife, trying to hone Ezio's superb throwing abilities and to his surprise, got a goon right in the middle of his forehead. And for a moment, it horrified Desmond. Shaun saw the look on his face; the look of killing your first man.

"It gets easier after the first few," Shaun growled, shoving Desmond along so he wasn't a star struck statue anymore. Desmond snapped back and raised his fists, ready to fight back against the men who had brought batons, ready to beat the shit out of them.

But Desmond had thought of something else other than fighting the enemies at hand. Then before Shaun could stop him, Desmond leapt at the brick wall and to everyone's amazement, ricocheted off the walls and after a few moments of disbelief, made it to the roof without uttering a single word.

"Desmond... What the fuck are you doing?" Shaun shouted in a rage of fury, fists clenched tightly as he watched the white sweater disappear from sight. Suddenly, six pairs of piercing eyes were on him. Shaun's blood went cold as he knew he couldn't jump those walls. That he couldn't run past those goons without receiving a load of broken bones – and by the looks of their steroid pumped arms, just bumping into them could shatter his whole skeleton. But then he suddenly remembered the gun in his hand and how it was quite effective against heavy blokes like that, even if they did have a considerable amount of weight acting like a fleshly armour to protect their organs.

But Shaun could see the goons looked reluctant. Their orders presumably, had been to capture Desmond Miles and take no prisoners other than the infamous Subject Seventeen himself. But since neither of the options seemed present, Shaun figured he was just an eyesore to them – like a massive spider sitting in the middle of an immaculate, white carpet. Nothing else to do than squash it because if it's let free, then it could come back again.

Then suddenly, a baton struck him hard against the back, causing him to grunt in pain as he spun around, whipping the handgun across the ugly bloke's face causing possibly a broken nose with the amount of blood that ran like a free flowing fountain. Obviously, fighting one man meant the others were to join in on the brawl, making one against six quite a hard fight.

And so Shaun fought like he had never fought before. Blood splattered, bones cracked, sweat dripped and skin was split right open.

Shaun smashed a baton over the top of a man's head, causing blood to seep through his hair and down his face; all in a way that not even the most gruesome horror movie could portray with expensive special effects. It was bone chilling as he heard the screams and shouts of each man as they went down, mixed with his own cries out of pain. He was bloodied, bruised, and maybe there was a broken bone somewhere in all three hundred and two of the lot. After watching the bodies fall to the ground, either groaning in agony or unconscious due to the brute forces they had endured, Shaun didn't know how to feel. Standing alone in the snow, Shaun regarded how artistic the blood looked in the snow, all splattered in different directions and gathered in different sizes.

But suddenly all the aches and pains in his body pulled him away from stupid, irrelevant thoughts. Slowly, he began to limp away from the scene of the gruesome crime and back out onto the street, slinking back into the shadows, carrying the three bags of groceries that the bloody wanker had dropped. It hurt pretty damn bad.

Though now he had only one thing in mind and that was to fucking murder Desmond bloody Miles.

"Desmond! What... happened to your ear? Oh my God!" Lucy ran over to Desmond as he walked in from the hallway, who was joined by a worried Rebecca as they both examined his bloody ear, with a tiny bit missing, left somewhere in the snow.

"I kind of... got shot. Though it's okay," Desmond sighed, but it really did hurt like a bitch. Lucy pulled him over to her desk and sat him down as Rebecca grabbed the First Aid box. The two set down to work on cleaning up the wound, as if it was fatal but Desmond knew they were just overreacting.

"What happened?" Rebecca asked as she swiped his ear with disinfectant, causing Desmond to yelp like he had when they first injected the DNA reader into his wrist for the Animus.

"Shaun and I went to get groceries... then suddenly we were cornered in some alleyway and they began to open fire..." Desmond stopped short, blinking furiously.

"... Go on," Rebecca urged him, frowning as she began to patch up his ear. It wasn't looking too bad but she knew that their friend had gotten lucky. To Desmond's surprise, Lucy affectionately rubbed her thumb against Desmond's cheek.

"Sorry, you had a bit of blood there..." She smiled sweetly at him, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear. Desmond nodded and tried to recall what happened next. He couldn't believe that he was drawing up a blank.

"I... I don't know what happened next. I just... blacked out, then the next thing I remember is I'm walking through the stronghold door in agony..." Desmond mumbled, trying to grab any memory that might fill out the gap in his mind. It was like something was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn't quite recall it.

Rebecca swallowed heavily and applied a few small bandages. "Maybe you passed out from going into shock from the blood loss...? Could be other things but-"

"Yeah! That sounds right. I was pretty dizzy before I remember blacking out..." Desmond smiled weakly at the two girls as Rebecca took a damp cloth and cleaned the remaining blood off his neck.

"... So, where's Shaun?" Lucy asked hesitantly, watching as Desmond's face went from calm to a sudden panic.

"I left him back in the alleyway with all those big men! We have to go back and get him!" Desmond shouted and tried to get up in a hurry but a voice suddenly stopped him and caught the girls' attention.

"Oh? Do you now? Well, I saved you the trouble and came back all by my fucking self." Shaun snapped, his tone malicious as he dropped the grocery bags on the floor, dripping with blood.

"Shaun!" Rebecca cried out and rushed over to him, completely abandoning Desmond, who was too shocked to say anything. "Your clothes...! Your face! You look absolutely horrible! What the hell happened back there?"

"Well, thanks for the reassuring and pleasant welcome back, Rebecca," his tone was spiteful, even though he was talking to Rebecca. Desmond knew that tone – he had used it when they went out. Knew that it was the way he talked down on people, pissed off and ready to start throwing punches.

"I'm sorry but-"

"YOU!" Shaun shouted, his sudden change of volume completely catching Desmond off guard. Before Lucy, Rebecca or Desmond could do anything to prevent what was coming next, Shaun crossed the room in six heavy, determined strides and smashed his fist into Desmond's jaw, knocking him to the floor. A sudden chill swept over the room as Rebecca grabbed Shaun's arms, jerking him back as Lucy joined Desmond's side, daring Shaun to back down as their eyes met for a split second.

"What the fuck, Shaun? What the hell did I do to you?" Desmond shouted, wiping the blood out of the corner of his lips.

"What did you do to me? Well!" Shaun was near hysteric, eyes wild with revenge as he broke from Rebecca's hold and wound up his leg, kicked and connected his hard, leather shoe with Desmond's nose. Fuck Prada. He just wanted to fuck up Desmond and his fucking good looks.

"Shaun!" Lucy screamed and jumped at him and before he could mutter an apology, a knife was at his throat, daring to draw his blood. "You touch him one more time I swear to God you won't see another day. He did nothing wrong, he just blacked out from shock and-"

"He blacked out from shock?" Shaun broke in a mad laugh, pulling roughly away from Lucy and her furious hold. "The bastard fucking left me with six guys on my bleeding ass! He abandoned me! He hates me and he nearly had me killed for it!"

The room went silent as Lucy and Rebecca glanced over at Desmond, whose eyes had gone wide.

"I... I left you there? With six of those beefy guys...?" Desmond asked in astonishment. "That's... low. That's an asshole move-"

"And you fucking did it!" Shaun hollered at the top of his lungs, enraged at Desmond's obnoxious and unprofessional behaviour. He went for another move but Lucy whipped her knife back out and threatened him back, using words that Shaun thought he would never come out of Lucy's oh so innocent mouth. For all Shaun cared, she could fuck off right about now.

"I don't remember! Shaun, come on!"

"How do you not remembering scaling that two story wall? Huh? He's fucking with me!" Shaun screamed in frustration, grabbing a bunch of his own hair and tugging in frustration.

"Look, he said he blacked out from shock and-" Rebecca tried to protect her new friend, but Shaun was not having any of that.

"Stop fucking standing up for him like he can't speak for himself! You're a big boy, aren't you, Desmond? Oh wait, I forgot. You're not. You can't take care of your bloody self, you probably use the bloody internet for pathetic pick up lines to try on Lucy, and you're one of the most blandest people I've ever fucking met! How did you get to be Subject Seventeen? Fuck, I'd prefer to have a fight to the death with insane Subject Sixteen than spend one more moment with you. Actually, you know what Desmond? Fuck you. Fuck your tactics. You will never, ever, be a good assassin like Ezio had. And most certainly, you will never, ever, ever get Lu-" Before he could finish his sentence, Lucy slapped him with as much strength as she could muster, causing his vision to go black for a second. Then suddenly, just as he was recovering, Rebecca punched him. That's right, fucking punched him like the 'big bad' butch Shaun thought she was.

"Look, Shaun, as much as you're a pain in the ass, and trust me, I've said this enough times to get this through that thick skull of yours, we're a team. Do you know what that is? It's a group of people who work together to achieve the same goal and rake in the success together," Lucy huffed, sheathing her dagger into its case before she went back and helped Desmond up. Shaun sneered as he began to walk away.

"Well, you don't always have to like everyone on your fucking team," Shaun spat, furious as he made his way to his bedroom.

"But you don't have to try and kill them either!" Rebecca called out after him.

"Yeah, well tell that to Desmond!" Shaun yelled back and Rebecca began after him but stopped short when she heard his bedroom door slide shut and lock loudly. Defeated, she walked back to Lucy and Desmond, a frown on her face.

Desmond decided to break the silence. "It's just me, isn't it?"

Rebecca and Lucy looked at each other, sighed, and went back to their stations, leaving Desmond to wander aimlessly until they started the Animus back up. Instead of going to bug Shaun, which he longed to do, even though it might have earned him another punch, he started to unpack the groceries. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a small, apologetic smile from Lucy, which he returned sincerely with a small wink from a blackening eye.

Authors' Notices:

brilliantmemories: Well! Sorry this one took so long, guys. I've just moved to the other side of the country and I've yet to settle down (we're hotel hopping for about a week or two). So, internet connections have been unstable and such. So, we're gonna try to do this while we're on opposite ends of the country and we've got plenty of plans down for this! Also, it's switched this time. She wrote the first bit and I wrote the second. Anyways, hope you enjoyed it and I apologize for the delay. ^^;

googleit6: Hey guys. I gotta say, brilliantmemories' part is hilarious. I love me some Shaun 'Kick-Ass' Hastings. I was pretty much laughing my ass off the whole time I was reading her part. (And beta reading, may I add.)
Anyways, I'm just working on the first part of chapter six now, so let it be stated, for the record, that I am not to blame in this. Blame it on the one who ditches me and moves across the country, leaving me to fend for myself in a black abyss of souless apathy... /melodrama
Continuing... Hope you guys enjoyed this installment. We've got lots more shennanigens coming up, and hopefully they will be coming up on schedule. *glares at brilliantmemories*