Desmond often found there was something comforting about living in such a large, complex environment. It reminded him of happier days during his times in New York. Marginally happier, but still... There was something he loved about being awake and active during the evenings, sunsets, and nights. And the people running the Assassin's HQ – not all necessarily Assassins – were in tune with that style of living naturally.
So, he took a deep breath and sighed it out on his way towards the fountain Shaun had asked to meet him at. The sun was going down for the day... and the first stars were becoming visible in the skies. His skin shivered at the sight of the skyline behind the tall, mountainous buildings...
Sitting beneath them – or so it looked, from the angle Desmond was approaching from – was Shaun. He was browsing through several loose sheets of paper, all standard sized. And there was a much larger one, too... folded up and set underneath a black, plastic bowl with some kind of food Desmond couldn't quite make out. He waved in Shaun's direction, and the latter looked up. Irritation was plastered all over his face, and so Desmond was pretty sure he knew what the very first words out of Shaun's mouth would be. He wondered if he might not just turn around and leave if he was right...
"About bloody time, mate!" whispered Shaun, sharply. "I've got NEWS for you..."
On the verge of turning, Desmond stopped. "...News...?" he said hesitantly. "Bad news?"
"Far from it! Take a seat, man!"
Shaun scooted over a bit to make some room for Desmond, adjusting his plastic bowl and folded paper as he did so. Desmond slid somewhat gracefully into a seated position besides Shaun, and caught the smell of what seemed like...
"...chicken fingers?" he asked, eying the bowl. "Are you eating chicken fingers?"
"Yeah!" replied Shaun, defensively. "I am. What of it?"
Desmond shrugged. "Nothing. Just... didn't ever see you as the 'chicken finger' type."
Shaun shrugged in return. "Yeah, well, desperate times call for desperate measures." He popped the last bite of the chicken finger lying on top of the remaining in his mouth. "Look–" he continued with a full mouth "–I've been through hell and back to get this information for you. You'd better be bloody grateful."
Desmond rolled his eyes and grinned mischievously at him. "Yes, mater. Now, tell me what's going on."
"Ooh, 'master', eh? I like the sound of THAT..."
"C'mon, Shaun, spit it out. I was trying to spend some quality time with my right hand upstairs."
Shaun froze, a chicken finger halfway to his mouth. He stopped, and surveyed it disdainfully. "Erm... Want a chicken finger?"
"Sounds good," replied Desmond, taking it from him without waiting for anything further. "So, what's the deal?"
"Okay..." sighed Shaun. "First, did you talk to Lucy about going to see the movie yet?"
Desmond bit off a chunk of the fried poultry and shook his head. "Mm mmm."
"Good. Because, guess who's in the air, as we speak, for an emergency clean-up mission in Ireland with a team of Assassins?"
A thousand emotions ran through Desmond in the course of a second. "Lucy..." he half-asked, half-answered sadly.
Of course. Of course she was leaving. And the "team of Assassins" probably included Gary.
Why? Why did this keep happening to him? Why was it, no matter what, he couldn't catch a break. Not of any kind, for any even short length of time...? Nothing. Ever.
What if she was gone for a long time? What if it took them weeks, months? What if the mission didn't go as planned, and it took even longer? Years! Years without seeing her! Without seeing Lucy...
What if it was a trap of some kind? What if she got hurt, or... he swallowed a lump that seemed to have solidified and inflated in a second to a considerable size... killed. What if it happened, and for real, this time...
But, then... was this such a bad thing?
No! No... He wouldn't go there, wouldn't think that. No matter how much harder this was getting for him, it wasn't worth Lucy dying. Or even being gone for a long time...
No, he was pretty sure he wouldn't like that, either.
He put his head in his hands, and dropped the chicken finger into the fountain. He was vaguely aware of Shaun's eyes following it into the water...
But he didn't care. He tried to imagine going for an extended period of time without... well, without Lucy. Even in the limited form he had. Even from a distance, watching her laugh and enjoy her lunch was something he could look forward to. If he could ignore Gary on the side...
Even though she was sometimes pointedly not talking to him when she spoke, her voice would hold itself in his head. Helped him relax at night, when he was trying to go to sleep. Helped him find the inspiration he needed when his aforementioned right hand was lonely...
He raised his head and leaned his chin in his hands, instead. "Lucy," he repeated, taking a deep breath. "Lucy is, of course..."
For all his many, many brains, Shaun was remarkably oblivious to the mini-breakdown Desmond had just experience right in front of him. "Nope! No, Lucy's probably on her way back from the airport, though..."
Desmond turned, and looked at Shaun with a puzzled expression all over his face. Normally, it would've registered as a bit of a happier thing, but he was too tired from his strained thought process to let it sink in yet.
"No, it definitely wasn't Lucy," Shaun continued with a sly smile. "It was Gary."
"What!?" demanded Desmond, sharply.
"Gary," repeated Shaun. "Your father got word from a team in Ireland that a Templar straggler group had killed all three of his team members. He chose Gary's team to back him up. Obviously, they'd like to avoid further losses to our ranks, so–"
Desmond held up a silencing hand. "Wait, stop. I don't care about the Assassin versus Templar bullshit anymore. You'd better not be toying with me, Shaun." He put both hands on Shaun's shoulders and gazed into him. "Are you saying that, for an undetermined amount of time, Lucy will be here... alone... without Gary...?"
Shaun's face wriggled into an expression of incredulity that he often wore when speaking with Desmond. "Yes, mate, that's exactly what I'm saying. Now, please... You're wrinkling the sweater vest, and people are staring at us like we're about to kiss, or something–"
Desmond leapt up suddenly. "YES!" he yelled. "Oh... YES! Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Whoo! Alright! That's what I'm talkin' about! More, please! More of that! Yes!"
A joyful feeling settled into his stomach, and seemed to coax the monster that had resided there since he'd thought Lucy had died. The monster that had kept twisting and turning him inwardly, giving him stomach aches and headaches, keeping him up at night...
"How, when? What should... I don't know, what should I do?" he asked of no one in particular, looking back and forth at the perfectly-cleaned lobby they were in like he was seeing it for the first time.
"Well, for starters, you might want to sit back down," came Shaun's forcibly-patient voice from behind him.
"Oh! Yeah..." agreed Desmond. He slid back into his seat. "So, wait... when did they leave? Gary AND Lucy, I mean? How long before she's back?"
"Easy, there, Desmond."
Something about Shaun's tone of voice was enough to partially-kill Desmond's buzz. There was a bit of a warning in his tone and a frantic pleading in his hand gesture that immediately told Desmond there was something else...
"Okay, okay, sorry," he said, subdued. "It's just, I haven't heard anything that good in a while, so..."
"That's right, and if you don't want to waste it, you can't be like that. I know you were a REAL expert on love – in the physical sense of the word, anyway – back at the Bar. I did the background check on you, myself."
This caught Desmond by some marginal surprise. "'Background check'?"
"But that won't work with Lucy," Shaun went on, "in case you hadn't picked that up in all your time with her. She doesn't go for the wild, hormonal... well, biker type."
"I haven't rode a bike for–" Desmond began defensively.
"– it doesn't matter!" interrupted Shaun. "Not the point. The point is, you can't just go charging in there and expect to succeed totally on charm and a tan."
Desmond looked at his hands, reminding himself in afterthought of a cartoon.
"With Lucy, you have to be gentle, and you have to have some semblance of class. So, that's why I figured I'd probably better plan this one out."
Putting his hands down on his thighs, Desmond straightened up. "Right," he said, aligning his spine with a shudder. "Classy. No one knows 'class' like you, huh? Probably why you haven't been laid in so many years."
Shaun rolled his eyes. "It might interest you to know–"
"–and it doesn't count when you paid for it," Desmond cut him off.
Something of a knowing look in Shaun's eye settled, and he folded his arms in mock surrender. "Whatever you say. Now, shall we talk about Lucy?"
"Wait, what? Who was it?"
"I figure," Shaun went on, "that Lucy will be a little distracted when she gets back from seeing Gary off. I figure that's your time to go for it. You still wanna see that movie?"
Although his curiosity had the better of him, Desmond nodded, tentatively. "I... yeah. Sure. Since Gary's not going."
"Not unless he's learned teleportation. So, I think we can safely assume he won't be there."
"He wouldn't need a plane," chuckled Desmond.
"Right. So, here's what I think you should do: go back up to your room, and before your pants come off, write to her and ask her if she's still interested in going to see Titanic. Don't let her know that you know Gary's not there. Instead, when you write to her, just ask if she's interested. Without mentioning him in the letter, that was you make it clear it's her you're thinking about. If she accepts, when you go out, take her somewhere nice-ish to eat. Nothing too fancy or obvious. But don't go for something like... McDonald's or Taco Bell, or wherever."
"I'm not THAT stupid."
"That's debatable. When you watch the movie, lean back in your seat and balance one of your ankles on your other knee. Try putting your arms behind your head, or lean them off the back of your seat. It's quite an... emotional movie, to put it mildly. So, you don't want to seem too obvious. Like you were expecting something, or anything. But don't do anything like sit in the back, where the teenagers will be screwing around. Sit somewhere in the middle, if you can."
Desmond bit down on his tongue behind his closed lips. Obviously, Shaun had never been to a New York theater, where the teenagers screwed around pretty much wherever they sat. People rarely bothered to call the cops anymore...
"When it's over, ask her if she wants to go eat again. If not, she might want to go for a walk. Or, hang out somewhere else, for a little while. She'll probably be lonely, and as we all know, it's... not something she handles well."
A shot at her betrayal, thought Desmond. He affixed Shaun with a meaningful look. Nice...
"Oh, you know what I mean. I'm not blaming her for it. Even if she HADN'T... well... you know..." He cleared his throat self-consciously and straightened his glasses. "I'd still be on her side. At least, about this. I've not enjoyed the time alone, either."
Desmond nodded. "Yeah. Well, anyway, I get the point. Take Lucy to the movie. Don't be too obvious. Play it subtle. And remember Ezio."
"There ya go!" Shaun clapped Desmond's back. "Draw on all your time with good old Ezio in the Animus. Certainly knew how to get around, didn't he?"
"Yeah..." answered Desmond, softly.
Thinking about Ezio explained a lot of his own experiences whilst working at Bad Weather. Not that he'd gotten THAT much from the women there, but... he had quite a track record, of his own. He'd never wondered about it, or questioned it, really. To him, it had seemed like normal. His buddies had all gotten around, pretty well, also. That was just... LIFE, as a bartender. There were bound to be a few women who took interest in the guy who was serving them their drinks and their food. It happened sometimes...
But, thinking back, he knew where he'd gotten some of his traits from. The way he could maneuver his way up to a woman using his voice and his smooth movements. The way he slipped his hand pretty much anywhere on her body... The fluid movements of his jaw, when he set his lips to work... again, anywhere she wanted him too...
"Christine," he whispered, and sighed as he realized he was really only thinking of one woman.
"I'm sorry?" asked Shaun, retrieving the papers he had set down.
"Christine. I was thinking about the owner at Bad Weather. I..." he paused, and considered what he was about to say. Was this REALLY something he WANTED to know about?
Well... yeah, it probably was. "What did you mean when you said you did a 'background check' on me?"
"Typical procedure, whenever we recruit someone new. 'Specially in circumstances like yours."
Shaun did not look up from whatever it was he was reviewing. It made Desmond feel like, maybe, it was safe to pursue the topic.
"Yeah?" he pressed.
Shaun flipped to the next page. "It's just, it's important for us to make sure we don't have people who have been indoctrinated by the Templars, or who are psycho killers of their own volition. You know, safety of the order. A track record of being able to keep secrets is important, as well. That's what I'm looking at right now, actually." He held the papers over for Desmond to see. "A new recruit..."
Desmond pushed the papers away. "I don't like that." But seeing the look on Shaun's face, he explained. "I mean, this is over... We don't need to bring anyone else into this, do we?"
"Oh, about that, you're wrong, my friend. Very wrong. You think this is over? This will NEVER be over."
Desmond had a momentary flashback to when Lucy had said the same thing to him outside the Villa Auditore in what remained of Monteriggioni. "I'm not sure it WILL ever end, Desmond."
"We could always use people to help. We don't have to be so quiet about it now. I mean, people know what Abstergo was up to. But there's always going to be stragglers. Always going to be nut cases who buy into what the Templars were all about. They'll never let it go. We always have to be watching."
Desmond sighed. He guessed he couldn't argue with that. Although it still didn't sound like enough to justify messing with other people's lives like the Assassins had messed with everyone he knew.
He still couldn't help smiling as he imagined what Lucy would say to him if she could hear the thoughts running through his mind. "You're just biased, Des..."
He nodded. "Yeah... I guess so." He looked down at the larger piece of paper. "But what's that?"
Shaun followed the nodding of his head. "Oh! That?" He reached out and took it, and gingerly unfolded it. "That... would be you."
He spread out onto Desmond's knees a missing person's poster.
"HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?"
..."Desmond Miles"...
He gaped. What. The. FUCK!?
He turned and stared at Shaun. "What's this? Wha–"
Shaun nodded and clapped Desmond's shoulder. "Yep. That's you."
Desmond lifted the poster a bit and examined himself on it.
He was surprised how much he'd changed over the time. His face was a lot more defined, more prominent. His body seemed wider. Fuller. More muscular. Or, hell, not even that. Just healthier. His white hoodie... which he hadn't actually worn in such a long time, it seemed like... and dark jeans. His eyes were a golden brown color back then. But they'd changed so much, now. His chest had poked out in such a cocky way. His arms hung loose, uncaring, and relaxed at his sides. His lips and nose set on his face with a straight-laced, extremely-serious expression he had worn so much back then. He recognized this picture.
"It's... my twenty-first birthday. The last picture anyone ever took of me."
Shaun sniggered. "Well, that anyone ever took of you where you weren't naked."
Desmond rolled his eyes. "Yes, sexual pictures, aside, of course." He looked back at it, and touched his own face with some kind of awkward wonder. "It WAS Christine who took this picture, though..."
He closed his eyes for a second. He could remember his twenty-first birthday very clearly... The bass thudding outside the door. Christine giving him his... birthday present. The cold beer he was clutching and occasionally drinking out of, throughout...
And then, there was when it got WAY crazy. He'd tended bar on his first legal shift completely naked. He'd probably contracted and given away a thousand diseases that night (or, at least, he would've thought so if his health reports hadn't shown him otherwise). He'd eventually collapsed on the bar and fallen asleep, despite not ever being totally drunk throughout the whole almost-twenty-four hour shift.
He shook his head with a deep breath. "Wow," and folded the poster up. "Here you go, Shaun."
"Oh, no, no, no," said Shaun. "It's meant for you."
"What?"
"Well, that's... part of the reason I called you down here. To give you that. And to ask you what's bothering you. I mean, I know what it is, but your father's worried because your mother's worried."
Desmond blinked. "What?" he repeated, numbly.
"Your mum's said that you sound 'upset' in your emails to her. She asked your dad to find out about it, and he asked me. And he thought it might be some kind of separation issue. You know, like some part of you misses this time in your life, so he thinks the poster will help."
Desmond sighed, and slid down to sit in front of the fountain and lean back against the base of it. "I HAVE been wondering what they did, actually... What happened to them when Abstergo... Well, you know. But, I didn't actually think much about it until a week ago. I realized... Bad Weather's only about a block down the corner."
Shaun fell silent, and went back to his papers. And so Desmond knew that meant he didn't approve of this idea.
"What?" he demanded a little more sharply than he meant to.
"I don't think you should get back into that, Desmond. I don't think it's really you."
Desmond leaned his head forward on his knees. "I know, I know," he murmured automatically – an inbred response to this same thing he had heard from Lucy a surprising number of times, given their situation together.
Or, apart, more like.
"Well, it's up to you, of course. But I just can't escape the feeling going back there would do more harm than good."
He stood and began to gather his papers. "If I were you, I wouldn't wait to send Lucy that email. She's probably going to be back soon, and you don't want it to arrive right after she returns. Looks too suspicious."
Desmond nodded, but as Shaun started to walk away, a question came to the forefront of his mind. "Shaun?"
Shaun stopped and turned the top half of his body. "Yes?"
"I remember, when I was on Animus Island, hearing how Lucy... had told you some things."
Shaun completed his turn. "What kind of things?"
"You know, about... about what she said. About how she liked me?"
He tried not to add mentally how "liked" was the key word.
Shaun paused to consider this for a moment. Desmond watched the outward signs of his mind working frantically inside. He knew that, even if Shaun had decided (for some reason) to help him with this little situation he was having with Lucy, he had known Lucy for a lot longer than Desmond had, and so to who was his loyalty greater, at the moment? Desmond, who he'd never been the closest of friend with? Or Lucy, who he hadn't exactly been the closest of friends with, either?
And Desmond was pretty sure he knew what Shaun thought of the both of them at the present time. And that was that they were both behaving stupidly, at the moment. He figured Shaun probably thought he was a coward, and he'd good as said he found Desmond to be dumb during his painfully-detailed description of how Desmond should semi-attract Lucy. But he was pretty sure Shaun also thought Lucy was being a total bitch, flaunting her new relationship with Gary in front of everyone all the time.
Because, after all... Lucy HAD trusted Shaun with this information about how she felt about Desmond, at the time. So she obviously saw something in him perhaps Desmond hadn't seen. That, or she may have just been desperate when it happened. Desmond didn't know, but he was pretty sure Shaun was aware that Lucy was about as open and readable as an instruction manual in Spanish was to a person like Desmond – so he probably knew, Desmond would never figure it out on his own.
Surely, Shaun was also aware of the unique position he had come into because of this, too. Being between Desmond – the son of the Assassin leader – and Lucy – one of the highest ranking in the order, especially since the end of the war – was not exactly a small thing when considering the great things the Assassins had just done.
Finally, Shaun said, "You know what? You'll have to ask her about that."
Desmond's face fell into a partial-glare. But the resolute way Shaun nodded made it clear that would be the end of THAT.
So, he nodded. "Alright."
Shaun started to walk away again.
"Hey, Shaun?" called Desmond again.
"Yes?"
"Why're you doing this? I mean, all this, for... for me? What's this all about?"
Shaun paused, then returned to Desmond and answered quietly. "Well, truth be told... I don't think you and Lucy will do very well without each other, as your lives progress. I mean..." he looked at his hands, "...Lucy had nothing going for her before the Assassins. And you had nothing, either. And the only thing either of you have found out of this entire experience is..." he raised his head and looked Desmond in the eye, "...each other."
Desmond blinked.
"And besides..." Shaun sighed, "...putting you through all that, and then THIS is what you get for it?" He shook his head. "This sounds like a worthy goal to me."
And then, without another word, he left.
Desmond sat for some time underneath the large, glass ceiling and stared up. During his conversations with Shaun, the sun had set, and the skies were out.
And Desmond found it to be a different kind of calm. As per his life at Bad Weather, when he had first come down, sunset was to be the beginning of his shift. A shift at a job that, honestly... was very busy. So, whenever the sun was going down, he'd be excited.
But, by the time it set... he'd usually be mellow. But now, he had a lot to think about. And he wasn't sure he wanted to wonder.
An airplane buzzed by over the HQ building. Desmond wondered momentarily if it was Gary's flight.
He unfolded the poster again and looked at himself. With a sigh, he realized how... cool he used to be. Or rather, considered to be. He remembered how Christine used to be when he was around. He remembered how he would stand behind the bar, and turn his brain off, and talk like an idiot – a shallow, vapid, high school idiot – and his friends would hang on his every word. He remembered the lights, the drinks... The after parties. Even when he was out of it, he couldn't say 'no' to an invitation. Because he'd WANTED the attention. He'd NEEDED it.
He wondered how much of that had to do with his father, and everything he'd been through because of that. He wondered about Lucy, and what kind of private drawbacks she'd suffered from this war. As he looked around at the various people passing by, he realized everyone – every single one of them – had given up their all... even if they were new recruits... so that everyone else could have the normal, everyday problems that the Assassins all WISHED they could have.
Feeling more like an old man than he ever had, he pulled himself up by the fountain's edge. His eye caught the chicken finger lying on the bottom of it. The fish were all sort of gathered around it. His lips pulled up into a smile on the right side of his face.
By the time he had returned to his room, he had decided to follow Shaun's advice. He emailed Lucy.
I was thinkin' about that offer you made me. To go to Titanic, I mean. You still interested? It's still in town for another week...
He leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and admired his thirty-second handiwork. Yeah. That oughta do it. That sounded nice and casual, right? Typical of him...
With a nod, he hit the "Send" button and closed the laptop.
When he turned away, his gaze fell on the cheap dirty magazine he had been about to put to use before getting the message from Shaun. He reached for it, and examined the page it was open to for a moment.
He decided he didn't need it. Not with the combination of Lucy, Shaun's comments about teenagers in movie theaters, and memories of Bad Weather in his mind. He threw it aside, and shrugged out of everything but his t-shirt with a speed that surprised him.
The rest of the long, draggy night he spent grinding out his problems with himself, like he always had, multiple times, and falling asleep in between. And each time, one hand worked his male member, while the other rubbed the fabric of his t-shirt into his chest and abs... and touched any part of his body that would help him encourage the release he needed so much.
An infuriating mental battle ensued as he tried to settle on which woman he imagined was servicing him. His mind flickered unwittingly between Lucy and Christine.
The last time, he eventually felt so frantic that he bit down on the inside of his cheek and the end of his tongue until he tasted blood to calm him down. The sweat got onto his lips and into his mouth, and that helped.
Unbeknownst to him, Lucy had replied and accepted his offer hours ago.
But finally, around seven the next morning, he fell asleep.