Part Twelve: Death of a Cardinal
The next day brought about a visit from Machiavelli. "I'll be here for about a month," he said in his dour tones. "I hope to get much work done while I am here."
"Before we start, there is something you should know." Ezio explained the fire and the inn and two painful deaths that resulted in it.
Machiavelli said nothing, the diplomat's face stoic as he absorbed the information before simply saying, "We should not be surprised. The information I have been gathering suggested such an assault might be in the works, and with our 'offensive' as you call it, such a reaction was bound to happen. There are other things in the works as well."
Ezio blinked. "That's it? Two of our people died and all you can say is 'We should not be surprised?' "
"Did you want me to wail and gnash my teeth? Bemoan their passing and grieve for months when there is still work to do? Or do you want me to fight on and make sure their deaths were not in vain?"
"Just once, just once, Machiavelli, is it possible for you to see outside your own ideals and see the pain of others?"
"I do. At the right time and place."
Ezio threw his hands up in the air. "Fine! I don't feel like arguing with you. What work were you hoping to get done?"
"There are several things: First and foremost, I was able to get papers to get one of ours into the Vatican proper. One of my spies was finally able to name the cardinal in charge of the Followers of Romulus, and once our people are inside, they can kill him and be rid of the cult of bandits for all time. Beyond that, there are several servants of the Borgia who believe they can hide behind the church, thinking themselves immune. Making an example or two wouldn't hurt our cause. I also got the name of one of the smithies that equip Cesare's forces, the men there are corrupt to the core from what I've found out and can be eliminated. There's also a class of papal guards who are going to complete their training in the next few days. I'd rather not have them on the streets. Finally, there are still the French brutes out brutalizing the city. I assume you'll want to take that assignment personally."
"No," Ezio said, "I have something different in mind."
Vittoria, his first and most determined recruit, was given the assignment of training the newly minted Concetto by taking them into the Vatican and killing the cardinal in charge of the Followers of Romulus, as well as the corrupt allies of the Borgia. The novice was eager for the opportunity, and Ezio pulled Vittoria aside and told her to be very careful with such a new face. One month's training was not nearly enough to be competent, but numbers were never on an assassin's side. She nodded resolutely and took him in stride. The papal guards were given to Alighiero and the recently returned Filippo, the best apprentices he had. Abate and Candida were assigned the smithies. All of them were told to finish their assignments as quickly as possible, because all of them, even the clumsy Sancia, were going to have a hand in taking care of the French. In honor of Vecellio.
Their faces were bloodthirsty and resolute, and Ezio left them to their assignments.
Not an hour later, Claudia arrived.
"We have the name," she said. "At last."
Ezio perked. "And?"
"Egidio Troche. He hasn't been at the brothel, it's why I didn't realize it before. He used to be a regular, but in the last years he's tapered off; I asked around and learned he's been to some of the cheaper establishments. He owes money to everyone, brothels and bankers both, but his largest debt is to The Banker. He's been complaining for weeks, from what I've heard."
Ezio nodded. "Bene, this will work to our advantage. Once I have the name of the Banker, I can strike; the sooner the better. Volpe sent a letter earlier, he has the name of the last of Lucrezia's lovers, he's keeping an eye on them for now, and if I can get both done in relative succession..." he looked at the lists and plans spread across his desk, already thinking ahead. Nodding, he looked up to his sister. "Another thing," he added, "Vecellio. He's back here for the rest of his recovery. Can you arrange to have the boy, Giovanni, visit here on occasion? I think it will do them both some good."
Claudia nodded. "I can do that."
"I set out tomorrow, then."
"Buona fortuna."
"Grazie."
The next day Ezio took the tunnels to the Campidoglio. The seat of the senate was flooded with people as it always was, debating legislation, making proposals, quibbling over budgets, making motions, dealing behind closed doors. Ezio was invisible even in his whites, moving from crowd to crowd like a white shadow, asking his eagle for help. He asked a few subtle questions about Egidio. More than a few laughed at the very mention of the man's name, and the master assassin quickly got a measure of the man as he searched the Palazzo Senatorio: in his fifties, the man was nothing more than a scam artist. Troche constantly begged money from his associates and constituents for various causes: addressing poverty, confronting corruption, regulating banking, things that on the surface were too good to pass up. The senator then took the money and gambled it away, often drunk or dashing from one debtor to the next.
"Why would we give our money to Egidio? We know what he intends to do with it," one of the men Ezio talked to scoffed.
With such a picture in mind, Ezio found no signs of him in the palazzo. It was midday now, Ezio stepped outside thinking the man might have gone out to lunch. Instinct made him look around the corner of the palazzo, and he saw three guards accosting a man in his fifties.
"No more arguing."
"Your bill has come due."
"Make an exception for an old man!" the man said, high nasal voice pleading with hands up in supplication.
"No," said a guard coldly.
"The Banker sent us to collect."
"I will have his money momentarily," the man sniveled.
"Not good enough."
By then two of the guards had firm grips on the senator's arms, and the third gave an unhindered punch to the old man's gut, making him double over and gasp for breath. That was all Ezio gave them time to do, finally finished weaving through the crowds, and blatantly stabbed the third guard in the back. The other two goggled at the very sight, shocked to see violence be done in front of them that they had not inflicted. The shock gave the master assassin the opening he needed, grabbing both faces and extending his hidden blades, the warm metal sinking into their unprotected necks and killing them instantly. Ezio grabbed the senator, obviously Egidio Troche, and began pulling him away from the three corpses, the master assassin rounding the corner and marching down the massive series of steps of the Campidoglio at a brisk pace.
"A good Samaritan in Roma? I thought they were a dying breed!" Troche said, panting to keep up.
"Senator Egidio Troche," Ezio greeted.
The older man moaned. "I don't owe you money too, do I?"
"I'm looking for Cesare's banker," Ezio said in clipped tones, still pulling the man along before pausing at the bottom of the steps, as much to give the man a chance to catch his breath as to scan the crowds for signs of the murder above being discovered. There was no rush of movement, no sudden shrieking; they had a few minutes at best. If only he had his recruits with him...
"Ha!" Troche scoffed. "Cesare Borgia? And you are?"
"... A friend of the family," Ezio said with a hint of Florentine irony.
The senator scoffed again, louder this time. "Cesare has a lot of friends these days. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. I owe his banker too much money to be on his good side."
"I can pay," Ezio offered, seeing a patrol of guards and slowly pushing the senator around the edge of the square and to an alley.
Incredulous, Troche responded, "Well, isn't that something? He fights guards and he gives away money. Where have you been all my life?" he asked with a bitter smile.
"We'd better get out of here," Ezio countered, finally reaching an alley.
The senator nodded. "I know a place. Follow me." The senator took the lead, taking the alley and then ducking down a complex series of twists and turns. "You're going to have to protect me though. The guards aren't being very friendly, if you know what I mean, and an old man can hardly protect himself."
There was little talking after that, the next twenty minutes spent with Troche showing a shockingly detailed knowledge of Rome's back alleys and side streets. He ducked away from guards before Ezio even had a chance to suggest it, and there was a confident bounce in his step that hinted at him running from debtors previously. And often.
"Someone really wants you dead," Ezio said, not without some irony.
"A few months ago my brother Francesco, the Pope's Chamberlain – I know, I know, don't get me started – He told me of Cesare's plans for Romagna. I wrote to the ambassador of Venezia, warning him. The Senate has nothing to do these days, the Borgia have taken all the power. You know what it's like to not have un cazzo to do? It changes a man. I admit I've been gambling, drinking."
"And whoring," Ezio said with a smirk.
"Oh, you're good," Troche said, turning to face his savior. "Was it the perfume on my sleeve?"
"... Something like that," Ezio said.
But, with the rant started, it seemed that Troche was not about to stop. "Senators used to petition about real issues, like unlawful cruelty, abandoned children. Now we write up legislation on the appropriate width of women's sleeves. Like any man cares about the decency of a woman when he's set his mind to his cazzo, it's a disgrace! We're nothing more than dressing, petty garnish that makes the policies of those God-be-damned Borgia look generous. The senate is nothing more than a collection of hypocrites!"
"Not you," Ezio replied blithely, poking his head around a corner and motioning Troche to pause a moment as a patrol swept past them. "You raise money for false causes to pay back your gambling debts."
"False causes!" Troche declaimed, throwing his hands up. "False causes he says! I am interested in pursuing them as soon as I am financially able to do so. You ever look at a grave and think 'This is the most significant thing I will ever do? Die?' Well, I have. Once I get out of debt every single one of those causes is going on the docket, not a one is going to be ignored. But to pay off one debt I have to in-debt myself to another, and so on and so on, and all those bankers know it, plan it! They're the first to go, banks should be regulated by the governing body, not the money grubbers that just want to make money like those Medici bastardi. Once the money is settled, a new tax system, it's inhumane to expect the people with no money to pay all of the bills. Once that's settled many of the problems will be at least partially fixed themselves, and then we can finish the work with proper legislation: apprenticing orphans, education reform, regulating all those mercenaries running around, doing away with all this inhuman cruelty. I have it all planned out! Just as soon as I get the money..."
The passion behind the senator's whiny voice was enamoring, and Ezio found himself smirking as Troche lead them deeper into the city, navigating the back alleys with ease. The master assassin wondered when he'd last found an idealist in a governmental position. He wondered if he could take advantage of such a man.
"Maledette letters. I should never have sent them to the ambassador. Now Cesare will murder me. Maledetto brother, too. He is such a coglione. I don't know what Cesare saw in the bastardo to trust him with plans over Romagna. Francesco has always been a stupid figlio di puttana, but I guess I'm even more of one for having this damned sense of civic duty. What ever possessed me to send those maledette letters to Venezia, I'll never know. Now that damn Borgia Banker's sent the word out and city guards are after me and the grave really will be the best thing I do for this world. Ha! And you want to help," Troche muttered, glancing at his mysterious benefactor. Ezio shook his head as he continued to bemoan his plight.
Eventually, they arrived at a narrow iron gate.
"Benvenuto to the home of my brother, Francesco. Thank God he's not here, we haven't talked since he found out about the letters. What did you want again?"
"Cesare's banker," Ezio reminded him, tempering his patience.
"Juan Borgia, right. I need to arrive with the money. Problem is, there is no money."
The master assassin perked. "You are meeting the Banker? Where?" A name and a location in as many sentences? What luck...!
"I never know until I'm there," Troche whined. "I go to one of three places. Then his friends take me to him; and I say again: there is no money!"
"How much do you owe?"
"Three thousand ducats."
Ezio winced at the number, running a hand over his forehead. That was all of his preciously, carefully guarded savings! Would money ever stop being a problem for him? Fine...
"I will bring you all the money you owe," he said in low tones, his rich baritone only barely hiding his resignation.
Troche's eyes doubled in size. "Seriously?" he demanded, incredulous. "You need to stop this. You might actually give me hope!"
Ezio left the man to his bemusement, taking to the rooftops to orient himself to where he was, and then it was a run over the city to the Rosa in Fiore. Claudia needed to know about the major withdrawal he was about to make. She and Maria were both there, and he quickly explained what had happened. "I don't want to lose this chance. If Troche can lead us to the Banker, then I can kill him and your girls can take the money back to the underground, and any other money you can get your hands on."
"Fine," Claudia said. "I can have my girls follow you however long you need, they'll never be noticed. You said the name was Juan Borgia? Some of the clientele are close to him, I'll do some digging on my own. Take this note to the bank north along the riverbank. They know me there, and it's one of 'our' banks, too. Tell him to liquidate the accounts, he'll know what to do, and he'll send a message to Romeo and Matteo."
"Bene. Stay alert."
It was midafternoon by the time Ezio withdrew the money and took the tunnels back to the Troche residence. He tossed the heavy pouch of gold to the senator, and the older man incredulously opened it, eying the money with a face that slowly slacked to open awe.
"... I cannot believe you would just do this," he said softly, the whine disappearing from his voice.
"There is a condition," Ezio said.
Egidio moaned loudly. "I knew it."
"Keep an eye on the politics of the city. I want you to report back to Claudia at the Rosa in Fiore about targets that are helping the Borgia."
"And what," Troche asked, still cynical, "you'll...make them disappear?"
Ezio held the man's gaze, and the senator's face paled as he realized that was exactly what Ezio would do. The moment hung to an almost awkward length and Ezio finally gestured to the money.
"Oh, right..." Troche took the golds and emptied them into a small chest, making the delivery look more impressive and hefting it into his hand. "The pezzo di merda may hate me, but he's still family," he muttered. "Bastardo may betray me but I'll be damned if I betray him. Stupid maledetto idiota figlio di putana brother." He looked up. "Va bene, we go."
Ezio nodded. "I will follow you to the Banker."
"But what if they see you?"
Ezio offered a dark, confident smile. "They won't."
Troche left the house and turned to ask another question, but Ezio had already disappeared to the roofs. He followed Egidio along the slanted tile south, keeping to the roofs and slowly pulling out his crossbow, hoping he wouldn't need it. The senator stopped in a small courtyard, pacing about for over an hour before a pair of guards arrived.
"Egidio," one said in a snide voice. "It seems you are ready to die like a gentleman."
"I have the money!" he replied, his nasal voice carrying well.
Both guards paused, absorbing the information, before one of them shrugged. "That's different then. The Banker will be pleased. You came alone?"
"Do you see anyone else here?" the older man said with his usual cynicism. Ezio silently thanked the man for being a halfway decent actor. Most people couldn't deliver a line like that without some kind of obvious tell.
"Follow me, furbacchione."
And so the tailing began. Ezio kept to the roofs, hopping from one tiled slope to the next or crossing an arch as needed, his eyes never leaving his quarry or the sum total of his savings. Troche, as always, wanted to talk.
"Have you heard anything about my brother, Francesco?"
"Cesare is dealing with him," the guard answered.
"...I hope he's all right," the senator mumbled to himself. "So what are you going to do with my money?"
"The Banker likes to treat his friends well."
"How 'generous' he is," Egidio muttered, ready to moan about the use of his (re: Ezio's) money to buy off friends and do favors.
"What did you say?" the guard asked menacingly.
"Nothing!"
"Then keep it that way," the guard said, and any hopes of Troche babbling at last died.
An hour later they had arrived at what Ezio assumed was the second meeting place. The three men waited about, but nobody else arrived with payment of any kind, and so they moved on. Ezio only needed to use his crossbow twice for guards he was utterly unable to avoid. The rest he was able to either distract with a thrown rock, avoid line of sight, etc. The sun was just starting to stretch her shadows when Ezio saw the massive structure of the Pantheon rise out of the buildings. Ezio kept to the roofs still, laying out on his belly as Troche and the guards entered the square and crossed it to the massive building. The master assassin did some quick running to get a better angle; this must have been the third meeting place, and watched as a new man, not a guard, with a shaggy cloak in the high summer heat approach the men.
"Egidio brought the money," the guard said with snide tones.
"Well, well," the man in the cloak said, mildly surprised and still arrogant. He had a Florentine accent. "The Banker has a special evening planned. I will be delivering your payment. Give it here," he said with absolute authority, gesturing to the small chest.
Troche glanced down at the box longingly, hesitant to let go of so much money. Ezio more than agreed given the money was his, but had the wherewithal to go ahead with the plan. A guard drawing his sword convinced the senator to capitulate, and he handed the chest over.
"Hold him until I get back," the civilian ordered, and took the chest into the Parthenon.
Ezio was not about to lose sight of his entire savings and found a haycart. He leapt into it after some quick calculations, and as he exited he grabbed several rocks lying about the paved streets. Disappearing into an elongating shadow, he threw the rocks at the guards, darting to another shadow and throwing again.
"Merda, when will the idiots learn that gets them killed," one of the guards muttered. One disappeared, leaving the other to guard Troche, and Ezio was able to angle around him and sneak into the Pantheon. The civilian was inside the massive church, counting the gold by the altar and completely oblivious of the sacrilege that represented. Keeping to the shadows, pulling his hood low, he locked eyes on his target and focused on keeping his boots silent. The civilian was still in his dark, heavy cloak, and Ezio reached up and grabbed the man's hair, yanking his head back and slicing his hidden blade across his throat before he could cry out and shoving the body aside. Most of the blood pooled away from the cloak, and Ezio quickly tugged it off and pulled it around his shoulders. It hid most of him, and he pulled up the cowl before hefting up the chest. He stooped himself a little, angling his hips and sloping his shoulders before he had the right posture. It was passable for a quick change, and though he knew he was going to sweat buckets in the late July heat, he was grateful for the disguise.
Inside of five steps he had the gate of the man, and he exited the Pantheon.
"Why not release me? I have paid," Egidio was saying.
"He is counting the money. Until it is counted you cannot leave."
"Everything going well in there?" the second guard said, seeing Ezio.
"We have to go, Luigi, or we'll be late."
"The count is complete?"
Ezio nodded.
"Va bene," said the guard. He turned to his partner. "Kill him."
"No," Ezio said, pitching his voice slightly higher and further back in the throat. "Wait until he owes us more money."
Both guards smirked at the thought. One turned to the senator. "Lucky you. Luigi says you get to live." Ezio leveled a meaningful glare at the older man, the senator recognizing Ezio and quickly closing his mouth from whatever retort he was going to make. Trembling at his good fortune, Egidio left with a flourish. The master assassin hoped the man kept his nose clean after this. He certainly couldn't afford to bail the man out again.
"Lead the way, boss," the talkative guard of the pair said.
Ezio blinked, poleaxed as he realized they were expecting him to know where they were going.
Merda merda merda merda merda mer—A thought struck him, and he leveled a glare at the pair. "You'd leave a civilian to take point when holding this much money?" he asked in his strained voice. "What if something happens?"
The two looked at each other, one rolling his eyes. "Whatever you say, Luigi," the talkative one said in placating tones, indicating this had been a conversation they had many times. That suited Ezio right down to the ground, and he let the quiet guard take point as the talkative one walked at his elbow, leading them through the Pantheon's piazza. He spied a courtesan leaning on the corner of a building, a fan dancing in her hands. He nodded to her, hoping he was recognized, and focused on keeping his gate consistent.
"Now we're going the right way," the talkative guard said. "We're making good time. Soon this job will be over, and soon the party will be all around us. I hope they let us inside. The stories that come out of the Banker's parties are legends. Luigi, you've been there, what is it like?"
"... Better than you could ever imagine," Ezio replied, noting their southwesterly direction. Were they heading to the river?
"You never tell us any details," the guard groused.
"Only because there are not enough words to describe it," Ezio drawled in his pitched voice.
Eventually they reached one of Rome's bridges to the west bank, Ponte Emilio. Ezio was getting tired of sweating, but he could see more guards at the other side, waiting as torches were being lit in the last gasp of sunlight. One of them, fully armored, gestured the box be handed over.
"Hand me the chest, Luigi. I will bring it to the Banker."
"You may enter," another guard said, a fully armored brute. Ezio nodded, following even as his pair of escorts were stopped from following.
"We can't go in?"
"You have to patrol by order of Cesare." Ezio stiffened under his heavy cloak. Cesare? He's here?
"Porca puttana!"
Ezio slowly drifted from the guards and shed his heavy cloak, glad to be without its extra weight. If the Captain General himself was here, then could Ezio kill him and the Banker both? All that would be left after that would be Borgia himself... but that depended on where the party was taking place. There were few buildings on the half-rotted west bank that were suitable for a party of any kind, unless it was an open air party, there were one or two locations for that, likely by the city wall... but that meant guards would have multiple points of view, and hiding would be that much harder. He could kill one but not necessarily the other, unless he could do a stealth kill, but that wasn't always guaranteed in these kinds of situations and... He growled to himself, settling on waiting and seeing. There was also the money to consider as well, he wasn't going to drop every gold he had earned over the last several years to a corrupt Banker that was soon to be a corpse. He exited out to one of the main roads and was soon flanked with a pair of courtesans.
"Tell Claudia that the Banker is here," he whispered.
"She already knows, word came in after you left about this party. The entire brothel is here. Is that the money?"
"Si."
The courtesan nodded to the side, and Ezio watched as Lucia in full courtesan regalia sidle up to the guard with the chest.
"Hello there," she said in a low sultry voice, far different from the normally smooth tone he'd seen when she was instructing Federica.
"Hello," the armored man said, his voice deep and throaty.
"Mind if I walk with you?" Lucia asked.
"Yes! ...I mean, I do not mind."
And Lucia began her work, smoothly engaging the guard in conversation as Ezio followed with his two courtesans at a discrete distance. Twice, one courtesan would disappear to distract a guard and another would take her place at his arm, with no prompting from Ezio. As they entered the ground of the party, Ezio saw several people in what could best be described as biblical garb, nude of everything but leaves and masks. Even with so little fabric, everyone was sweating in the evening heat, giving them a healthy, lusty sheen. Men and woman were dancing together, everything visible and swaying to whatever rhythm they were following.
As they progressed even deeper, the guards became thicker, and the guard stopped at an obvious checkpoint.
"Money for you, Banker," the guard said, getting the attention of a grossly overweight man clad in little more than a cardinal had and a bit of fabric that held an ornamental, horned skull at his manhood. The cardinal was already flushed with wine, sweating profusely, and marked with previous encounters of passion.
"I will take that," he said slowly before his eyes caught sight of Lucia. His face became lecherous. "And that," he added, grabbing her arm and tugging her to his side. "You are dismissed," the Banker said, waiving the guard off without a second glance, his eyes already promising future deeds to the courtesan.
"It's an honor," Lucia said softly, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed, the perfect picture of a woman in awe of a man of power. Her acting was superb.
"Welcome to my party," the cardinal said. "I am Juan Borgia."
Got him. Ezio glanced to the girls at his side, and both quickly moved to distract both the guard as he left, hands patting his waist, and the men at the checkpoint. Dancing and twirling and enticing, they gave Ezio the distraction to slip by, even as he saw a different collection of girls slowly work their way to the money chest. Claudia really did send all of her girls here, and for that Ezio was grateful.
His eyes quickly found Borgia and Lucia again, the cardinal's hand already exploring her ass and his mouth pressed to her neck as they walked, biting and slobbering. Lucia's eyes caught Ezio's and for a brief moment her face betrayed her disgust before shifting to something more cloying, moaning at the cardinal's work before a page appeared, announcing Cesare at the main square.
"Come," the Banker said, one hand gripping her waist while the other forced her face to his mouth, capturing her lips in a wet, noisy kiss. Once he was satisfied, he resumed walking. "Are you having a pleasant evening?"
"Yes, Eccellenza, I am," Lucia said in a breathy voice. "There is so much to look at."
"Oh good," Borgia said. "I spared no expense. But of course the greatest thing here is me." He pulled at her face again, biting this time with enough force to leave marks. Lucia made a small noise of pain and Ezio found his feet carrying him closer to the pair, unable to witness someone forcing himself on another. Lucia caught his eyes again and shook her head, wincing at another painful bite even as she giggled.
"I can tell," she said softly, reaching up and drawing the scantily dressed cardinal's face up for a more lingering kiss. He didn't like that, and pulled back.
"The finer things in life make power so rewarding. I see an apple, I can pluck that apple. No one will stop me."
Lucia smiled, shy and sweet. "Well, it depends whose tree it is."
"You don't seem to understand, my dear. I own all the trees."
Perhaps it was her disgust at the man's attention, or perhaps it was deliberate, but Lucia smiled very softly, and whispered, "Not mine."
The Banker openly laughed, an ugly, oily sound. "On the contrary. I watched you steal my guard's money, I believe I've earned a free ride as repentance. In fact, I want you here all night long."
Ezio was beside himself, forced to witness this. To use one's position, one's power, to "pluck any apple," to use it as justification to rape a woman for hours on end... The master assassin thought he knew all the abuses of power capable of a man, but the Borgia family had proved, once again, that they would explore all avenues of debauchery, and enjoy their decent into Hell for it. Worse, Ezio could do nothing to stop this, until he was close enough to Borgia or saw any sign of Cesare he was forced to wait, and the impotence of the action made him feel dirty, as if he was somehow complicit in the ensuing rape. How could a man stand it? But Lucia seemed to sense his desire to stop things every time, catching him with a glance or a smile or a look, telling him over and over to wait, to watch, to do nothing until it was time. How could anyone willingly place themselves in such a situation...?
"My services? For free?" Lucia asked, her voice softly incredulous. "I have to make money you know."
"Three hundred florins?"
"Seven hundred."
"Done! A pleasure doing business with you."
The pair came to what was obviously the center of the party, an old section of ruins that opened up to a breathtaking vista of the city. Lanterns hung everywhere, torches placed on tall poles, to give everything a golden, romantic light. Blankets and pillows littered the ground, and several of the partygoers were already partaking of each other, bodies gyrating and moans littering the air. Wine bottles were everywhere, and the scent of sex and sweat assaulted Ezio's nose. The two courtesans at Ezio's arms pressed closer to him, nibbling at his neck and playing with his armor and sleeves. He felt no desire whatsoever.
"Start acting, Maestro, or someone will be suspicious."
The soft chiding brought focus back to Ezio's mind, and he took a deep breath before breathing in the scent of hair, nuzzling as his eyes locked on Juan Borgia. That glutton would die, not only to prevent Cesare from being financed, but also for his obvious abuse of power. The fat man ignored all else as he ripped the corset off of Lucia, exposing her to the world before grabbing at her skirts and doing the same. He threw her down to the ground, meaty fists around her neck, his only stitch of clothing long gone.
"Thank you all for coming!"
Ezio's eyes snapped up to the building opposite the vista. Cesare stood in full armor, shining in the night air and reminding Ezio of the fires of Monteriggioni. By his side was the Pope Alexander, all three targets at the same place...! Ezio's entire body stiffing, his grip tightening involuntarily as it was all laid out before him. His hands itched to extend his hidden blades, he wanted to run up to both of those Borgia puttanieri and stab them over and over and over, for every drop of blood that Mario spilled, for every blow that Ulderico received...
And he took a deep breath, forcing himself to let it go again. He wondered when, if, he would ever grow to the point where he would not have such a visceral action when he saw his enemies; he was wasting precious time controlling himself, his mind was scattering to memory and emotion and thirst for revenge, he needed to get his head on straight enough to prioritize, to plan, to deduce whom he would end first.
"We have a long night ahead of us," Cesare said expansively. "What better way to celebrate my victories than to join in the brotherhood of man? Soon we will be here once more celebrating a united Italia and then the feasting will last for forty days and forty nights! Begin now!"
The crowd roared in response to the short but effective speech, and within moments everyone was fucking each other, in pairs and threes, soaked in wine and fetishes and fig leaves. Several cried out in pain, very few in actual pleasure, followed with grunts and gasps and thrusts. No one was spared, and even the courtesans helping hide Ezio pressed their work, hands tucking under his thick red sash and guiding him to a bench, trying to distract him from the hideous revelry that he was watching. Sex, it was meant to be about love, about two people being attracted to each other and consenting to explore the attraction. Even Ezio, for all his lack of thought when grief pressed him to find warm beds in winter, had rules to make the experience safe and enjoyable. This... this was none of that. It was sex for the sake of sex, taking whoever sparked desire regardless of reciprocated intent, regardless of emotional attachment. There was no love in this, it was just sex. It was just... fucking. "This is wrong," he whispered into an ear, watching Cesare move to talk to his father.
"Pay it no mind," was the breathy response. "Watch the pope, he is not happy."
Ezio forced himself to concentrate, struggling against his inner conflicts.
His eagle awakened, casting his enemies in bright reds and making his ears tune out the grunts and groans and cries of pain around him. "We did not agree to conquer Italia," Rodrigo hissed.
"If your brilliant Captain General says we can do it, why not rejoice and let it happen?" Cesare countered, his tone confrontational as he leveled a heated gaze at his father.
"You risk upsetting the delicate balance of control we have worked so hard to tighten," the Spaniard countered.
Cesare scoffed blatantly. "I appreciate all that you have done for me," he said in a patronizing tone, "but I have the army, so I am making the decisions." Rodrigo glared, flat and closed off. "Don't look so glum," Cesare said, patting the old man's arm, "enjoy yourself. Surely you brought one of your lovers with you?" The Captain General marched off, signaling two papal guards to escort him. A private debauchery with his sister or another lover? Or off to his next conquest? Ezio wasn't sure, and soon after the pope left as well, taking away two of his three targets.
… In the end, that was just fine with him. He had a special conversation to have with the sack of skin who was responsible for this gathering that was little more than glorified gang rape.
Shifting his eyes, he saw Juan Borgia still working Lucia, not remotely gentle if the number of blossoming bruises were any indication. His hands were still about her neck, and she had stopped moving. Was she dead...?
"Is she dead?" he whispered, shocked at the very idea.
"No," the courtesan on his left whispered, nibbling at his ear. "It is a fetish of his. She is unconscious but not dead."
Ezio couldn't decide if that was a small favor or not. He stayed still, the debauchery continuing around him and Claudia's courtesans keeping him invisible. If nothing else, their acting was superb; he was not remotely filled with desire for what was happening around him, but they kept giggling and pretending they were enjoying themselves immensely, gossiping to each other. It was nearly dawn when the last of the partygoers spent themselves and fell into a hazy unconscious. The Banker walked amongst the lingering revelry and debauchery, watching and getting off on it. His fat body was slick with sweat, his face even redder in the nighttime heat, and he watched with lustful, greedy eyes.
Ezio ducked his head into the neck of the courtesans as the Borgia approached.
"And what do we have here?" Juan asked, lust in his voice.
Ezio's response was to stand up and stab his hidden blade in the fat man's stomach, twisting and yanking it out as he slowly guided the cardinal to the bench and then stabbing again for good measure.
Gasping, Juan Borgia looked up to Ezio, recognition slowly dawning on his features. "The things I have felt, seen and tasted. I do not regret a moment of it," he said, his tone pleased even in encroaching death.
"A man of power must be contemptuous of delicacies," Ezio said, struggling to give the man respect in death. He did not deserve it.
"But...I gave the people what they wanted," the cardinal said, as if it was a justification for what was happening around him.
"... And now you pay for it," Ezio replied in a low baritone. "Pleasure unearned consumes itself. Requiescat in pace."
He had to take a deep breath when he stood, fighting to release the contempt and turning to look at the mass of sleeping bodies. One by one, the courtesans that were lost in the piles stood – even Lucia in her myriad of new injuries – dressing themselves in whatever they could find, and then skillfully put their ordeal behind them and pick the pockets of those still asleep. It was a level of dedication Ezio could not comprehend, and his respect for the women and their profession shot up to the skies; he found himself wanting to talk to Claudia.
"Go, Maestro," the girls at the bench said. "We'll take care of the rest. See to the Maestra and see to your money."
… And in everything that he had been forced to witness he had completely forgotten his savings and the risk he had taken in this successful gamble.
Uncertain what else he could do, he bowed to the women and departed.
The guards, too, had taken part in the revelry, and so he had no problems whatever in leaving the party unnoticed and making his way east to the river, finding a gondola, and crossing the Tevere. Within an hour he was at the Rosa in Fiore, approaching its main doors in the dawn light and finding two courtesans crying in each other's arms. His pace quickened, sensing, knowing, that something had gone wrong.
"What happened?" he demanded, striding up to them.
"We came back with the money," one of the women said, tears streaking down her cheeks. "They followed us home..."
That was all Ezio needed to hear, he pushed passed them and strode into the brothel, mind racing. Cesare had papal guards as escorts, the most highly trained men in Rome outside of assassins, there must have been more, many more, at the party watching when the guards left their posts. That meant there was little to no chance that this had ended well – and Ezio saw the blood as soon as he had the thought. Merda, Claudia and Maria were both here, what if they were...? Federica...? The hanging filled his mind, watching his father and brothers be lost to the rope, he saw the fall of Monteriggioni, Mario being shot in the head and being forced to listen to Ulderico's final death throws. Every member of his family had been killed, would his mother and sister... his niece...? All too well could he picture their bodies littering the floor, his failure on visceral display. Would he truly lose everything...? Merda merda merda merda merda merda merda merda merda merda mer-
He broke into the main salle to find the floor littered with four bodies.
All of them... city guards.
And... among the bodies...
"What?" Claudia demanded, defensive and indignant at the same time.
Ezio was still staring at the four bodies, the four fully armored bodies of trained city guards, and then looking up at Claudia: calm, collected, and with a bloody knife in her hands. Bodies. Bloody knife. Bodies. Bloody knife.
"Why else do you think I insisted that I be trained by Ulderico as well?"
And something that should have been so obvious finally sank into Ezio's head, and he couldn't help but smile at the truth.
"My sister knows how to wield a knife," he said, pride and irony filling his voice.
"And I am ready to do it again," Claudia said with confidence, a smirk on her lips as she gave an expert flick of her blade.
Ezio remembered the training when they were young. He remembered her at Monteriggioni, a bloody knife in her hands back then, too, but he just hadn't seen it. He hadn't seen it, and it was right there in front of him. He laughed. She didn't need to be protected and now he finally, finally, understood why. She was an Auditore, and Auditore were fighters. Every last one of them. Ready to do it again?
"Spoken like a true Auditore."
"Finally, you two came to your senses," Maria said, a smile on her face as well. "It's about time. Giovanni will be happy to hear it."
Ezio stared up at the ceiling of the Sanctuary, as always a little confused as to why it was in such disrepair before he sat up in the Animus and Ezmond realized that he was Deszio and not... Wait, what? Altair rubbed his face and kept his head still, sorting through his cluttered chambers of memory, wondering what the Apple had done to him this time, how many days had he been lost in its study? Malik would be upset and he needed to sail for Cyprus only the architecture was foreign to him and he wasn't sure where he was except he recognized the others in the circular chamber.
He moaned, and Desmond finally figured out where he was and who he was and when he was... though he was beginning to lose track of why he was, but he stood regardless as Lucy and Shaun came down from lookout. Rebecca was already standing and stretching, adjusting her headphones and rolling her hips and cracking her knuckles. Desmond watched for a long time, standing at the Animus, as the rocker walked up to the other two, a bright smile on her face before she thwacked Shaun on the head for something he said and the two laughed at their own antics and Lucy was staring at him from across the room, her eyes tight with worry and concern and... there was something else there that Desmond was beginning to think was the same thing that existed in him, and so he smiled; softly, tentatively, meeting her eyes. She blushed at being caught, but smiled back, also tentative, and Desmond felt his heart warm.
"Colleagues," Shaun said, Desmond walking up to join them. The Brit spread his arms wide. "We have been cooped up on this dungeon for ages. I feel it's best for both our sanity and productivity if we go into town tonight and enjoy the local color. A bit of wine and maybe some music." He gave a meaningful look to Lucy. "Please advise."
"I'm all for it," Rebecca said brightly. "It's been ages since I've gone clubbing. But, what about Desmond?"
"He can't leave the Sanctuary and I won't leave him alone," Lucy said, face resolute.
Shaun sighed, dramatically. "Looks like just the two of us, Rebecca," he said, but not without some hinted amusement.
The team technician pumped her fist in the air. "WOOT!" she said, making Desmond blink. Did people really use 'net speak out loud? "A date with Shaun! I'm totally drinking you under a table. I saw some great cafes and clubs earlier when I went for a supply run. I am going to get you so drunk you'll come home in a dress, and I'll take pictures and send it to everyone I know, in and out of the Order, it'll go viral!"
Shaun made an indistinct noise that might have been a huff. "You're assuming, Rebecca, that you can drink me under a table. I'll have you know I have a remarkably high threshold when it comes to alcoholic beverages, after all, and it may just be you coming home in a dress – which, I might add, has a certain amount of appeal. It would certainly brighten the place up."
"Are you seriously going to challenge me to a drinking contest? You're on!" She swung an anticipatory face to Desmond and Lucy. "You heard him, right? He thinks he can out drink me. Have the cameras ready when I get back. This is going to be great! I'll be dragging him from bar to bar all night!" She giggled. "I won't even need to give him a ruffie."
Shaun sputtered again. "What? You were going to what? That's sexual harassment, that, and I'll have you know-"
"Shut up Shaun, I was just joking. But if you really want to make the case for sexual harassment I'll have you know I keep a list of every shitty thing you've ever said to me; and tonight I'm totally going to make you apologize for every one of them."
"You keep a list? You keep a list? Where? In that unorganized mess you call a go bag? Or perhaps the even more unorganized mess you call a computer? Or maybe you keep it on your person..."
The two were already fighting as they made their way back up the stairs to leave the villa, and Lucy and Desmond looked to each other.
"Yeah, this is going to end well," Desmond said with full sarcasm.
Lucy actually smirked. "The drunk sex might do them good," she said softly, her normally defensive arms hanging loose at her sides. "And the pictures will be great. With any luck we'll get a lot of mileage out of their misadventure." The two lingered, looking where the other two had gone, reveling in the good tidings the pair were about to have. At length, Lucy took a deep breath through her nose. "Anyway, I'm going to get back to redesigning the Animus, and I'm sure you want to get back to exercising." She touched his shoulder before walking back to her work station and grabbing her Abstergo pen.
Desmond hesitated. It was so rare for the two of them to be alone for a few minutes let alone several hours, and there were a lot of things he wanted to talk to her about. He watched her swivel to her screen, reading it intensely as her face pressed into a deep frown, rubbing her chin and then her temples, before turning away and going back to the notes she had been taking. The blond glanced up, catching his eye as he stared. "What?" she asked.
He wasn't sure what to say at first; he just wanted to relieve her stress in some small way. He wanted to take that tension off her face, he wanted to make her smile. He wanted...
"... Let's go on a date," Desmond said. He winced at how utterly random that sounded.
"... Excuse me?"
But Desmond threw caution to the wind. "Rebecca and Shaun shouldn't be the only ones to have a good time. We should too." He walked over to Lucy and grabbed her clipboard and her pen, ignoring the startled "Hey!" and moving them away from her.
"Desmond! I need that, give it back!"
"Nope," he said, lifting the objects high over his head, out of the considerably shorter Lucy's reach. "Not a chance."
"Desmond!"
They danced around each other for several minutes, a cheshire grin on Desmond's face as Lucy kept hopping and jumping and trying to physically climb him in order to get her clipboard. The pair were laughing uproariously before Lucy finally got a knee on Desmond's hip to give her enough height to reach her things. The laughter continued, neither able to stop, and for several minutes one couldn't look at the other before bursting into more coils of laughter.
"See?" Desmond finally said. "Let's add to the misadventure."
"Just as long as we leave out the drunk sex," Lucy said, still giggling.
"Great. Help me move the Animus."
With a fair amount of grunting, the two were able to shove the reclining machine out from the center of the sanctuary and a few feet to the side. Desmond grabbed his sleeping bag and unzipped it completely, folding out into a rough picnic blanket filled with Italian fair and a beautiful woman sitting on it smiling at him. Lucy arranged for paper plates and plastic cups while Desmond prepared hummus bi tahini, common fair for Altair. Rebecca had gotten chickpeas on her last run, and there was no shortage of olive oil and mushrooms for flavor. He added garlic and parsley, and cut up the Italian bread that had become a staple of everyone's diet while the four were here. There was also a bottle of red wine from the last run, and he popped the cork and brought it over.
"Hey," Lucy said, smiling, "I said no drunk sex."
"I doubt either of us would get drunk on one bottle of wine," Desmond said, "And it's a date night, anyway, alcohol is a staple, isn't it?"
"Says the bartender," Lucy said, offering the plastic cups.
"Says the bartender," Desmond agreed. "Too bad this is all we have, I could make some great drinks for a date night."
"I'll bet."
They sat on Desmond's picnic blanket looking out over the impressive vista of... Desmond blinked and shook his head slightly, focusing on the blond and smiling for her. "Here's to date night."
The plastic didn't exactly clink when they touched, but both of them sipped their wine and broke bread. The hummus bi tahini had just enough Italian spice that, with the Tuscan saltless bread, it served both of Desmond's new palettes. He had never eaten hummus before all this, and he thought he'd like to have it more in the future. "This is the high life," he said, gesturing to the ruins of the Sanctuary. "Exotic locations; fresh, new cuisine; cheap wine; and good company."
Lucy snorted. "You have such high standards," she said with a smirk.
"Well, I do about the company."
Lucy flushed again, hiding it behind her sip of wine, and Desmond let it go. Nothing would happen that she didn't start, he had resolved himself to that a while ago, and she needed to be comfortable with it, first. He changed subject. "Have I ever told you how grateful I am?"
"What?"
"I wasn't kidding when I said I was having the time of my life," he said, taking a bite of his bread and hummus. "When I ran away from the Farm, all I wanted to do was stay buried, it's why I decided on New York. I had people come into that bar from everywhere; college students, business men, executives, travelers from other countries. You saw a little bit of everybody, and they were all exotic in their own ways. The strobe lights and the dancing, the cosmos and the sugar drinks, the sex, all those tight skirts and tight pants... It was like another world, the Bad Weather. It felt really good going to work there, but at the same time... I hated it."
"You did?"
How could he explain it? "Going to work every day, that walk from the subway to the bar, I knew I was going into a different world, and it felt good. But the world itself, it was fake. It didn't mean anything, because I didn't have any 'good company.' The customers, the regulars, they were friendly enough, but they were never enough. Even the owner, she had a crush on me but she never got that close. Or, rather, I never let her get that close, and by the time I left the bar, by the time I left that world, it felt hollow. Empty. I wanted... I wanted to experience it for real. I wanted it to be real."
Desmond... he wanted to be happy. And he wasn't; not in New York, not really. He had just started coming to terms with it when he had been taken, and... "And suddenly I really was in a new world: Abstergo's world, and it wasn't at all what I wanted."
Lucy frowned, bread and hummus halfway to her mouth. "You're still in Abstergo's world," she said. "The Assassin world too, if you think about it."
"But the company is different," Desmond said, looking at her again. "I'm not with that rat bastard Warden Viddick. I'm not worried about surviving to the next day – well, not as bad, anyway. I'm not fighting against the world like I've been doing since I was, like, fourteen. I'm fighting with people, with friends, with... you." And that had been all he had wanted. It had been what his father had never given him, that sense of camaraderie, that sense of togetherness. Lucy had given it to him, had given it to him since his first day captured by Abstergo. She had sacrificed everything to make him not feel alone, she had risked everything to break him out and give him more people to feel close too (even if one of them was Shaun-bloody-Hastings). She had given him the promise of more people when this was all over.
But it had all started with her, and he wanted her to realize the part she had played.
"I wouldn't be where I am without you," he said softly, embarrassed by the confession, and sipped his wine to hide it.
Lucy was bright red, looking away. "I... don't deserve it," she whispered.
"Lucy..."
But the lights cut out, and for a moment they were in utter darkness. The two stared at the sudden change of events, blinking in the darkness.
"... Some date night."
They both chuckled. Moonlight gave some illumination, and as Desmond's eyes adjusted he reached out and touched her hand. "Isn't the first date always the most awkward?" Embarrassed confessions, weird topics, awkward pauses. Most first dates wouldn't talk about kidnapping or discussing emotional baggage, conspiracies and saving the world. Now they had power outages. Desmond didn't think a "first date" could get more awkward.
"I wouldn't know," Lucy confessed.
"Hah!" Desmond couldn't help the sharp staccato fall out of his mouth. "And you said you knew how to have fun!"
"Desmond!"
"Come on," he said, instead, "lay down, scema, I want to show you something."
The two pushed their finished plates away, keeping the plastic cups of wine close by and stretching out on the sleeping back. Looking up, Desmond pointed to the grating that acted as a skylight. "Ezio, when he was younger, he would lay out under here at night when he couldn't sleep, or when he couldn't find a woman to seduce and he was too lonely to stay in bed. He'd read the Codex, or he'd stare at the statues, but mostly he looked up at the stelle."
"You mean the stars."
"That's what I said," Desmond replied. "It's not as good now, even with the power out there's a lot of light pollution. On a crisp December night you can see so many stars, he would pick out the constellations and wonder why they were named like they were. Altair did that too, I think, he studied the stars and he was constantly using them at night when he was traveling."
"Okay, so then kind of constellations do you see right now?"
Desmond studied the stars, hoping to find the familiar clusters and confused that none of them were where he expected them. They seemed so far away, and he realized dimly that after five hundred years they would of course be in different locations. Some constellations were completely foreign after a thousand years. He felt very small, looking up, eyes darting this way and that, trying to connect the then and the now, and at the same time trying to separate them out. He was only twenty-five, but in some ways he felt infinitely older with all the extra years of experience running around in his head. Six months with Altair didn't amount to much, but he'd lived something like twenty years with Ezio, from age seventeen to forty-three. No, forty-four, the grandmaster had just celebrated his birthday a month ago, back in June. Wait, what month was it?
"I wonder when he finally settles down," he said, hand falling back to the ground. A smaller, warmer, hand reached out and held it. "I mean, he's been an Assassin for so long, but he has kids eventually, right? I hope I'm not some illegitimate bastard, that'd be kinda sad. He has to find someone, right; Altair had Maria, and they must have lived happily ever after because they had two sons from the Codex, and he always talked about her very highly. Ezio deserves that kind of happiness. Everyone deserves that kind of happiness and it's just sad when they deny it for something like duty and-"
"Desmond..." He turned from the skylight to see Lucy staring at him, her eyes wide. "What are you trying to say...?" she asked.
He pursed his lips, finding his heart racing. Something in the air had changed, and he was afraid to ruin it, but this had to be said.
"I want you happy," he whispered. "Lucy, you deserve to be happy."
The words hung in the air between them, Desmond staring at this most beautiful woman in front of him, watching all the minute changes in her face, the microexpressions flitting back and forth. The distance between them seemed to be closing under the starlight, he wasn't sure what was going to happen, but when her lips hesitantly touched his he thought he knew what it was like to have heaven descend to earth.
She pulled away, shy, and looked into his eyes for approval.
He nodded.
It was like the flood gates opened after that.
Their lips crashed together, Lucy rolling to her side to face him better and Desmond reaching up to cup her cheek, angling his hips. God, she tasted like chickpea, but with a hint of sugar and mmmmmm, he wanted more. They broke apart briefly for air, but only briefly before they crashed together again, a mess of tongue and teeth and taste. Desmond dimly realized a hand was in her hair, and he pulled at the hastily placed pins, he wanted to smell the cheap shampoo she had been using and whoa one leg brushed against the exact right spot and his brain positively buzzed in fire. He rolled onto his back and Lucy came with him, her weight pressing all along the length of his body and she fit so perfectly against him. Her blond locks were loose now, tickling his face and he didn't care because she tasted so good and oooooh yes, she found a sweet spot with her fingers. His sweatshirt was unzipped, as was her brown overcoat, and they struggled to shrug off those outer layers. Her bare arms prickled in the cool air but his hands were big and warm and they caressed every inch of her toned muscles, even while one of her hands found the edge of his tee and began snaking up to explore his abdomen and chest.
They were panting when they broke apart again, but Ezio lost all sense of details at that point as he fell into his senses. She was beautiful, his wife, in all the ways that counted, and it didn't matter that she knew so little about his past, Maria would learn all of it in the days to come and the burning need to be with her was overpowering and she was utterly determined to bed him and Altair was perfectly fine with that. Something pressed against his desire and he moaned, deep in his throat, reaching up and pressing a hot palm on an exposed midriff and he felt her utterly melt on top of him, kissing him again in heat as they both fumbled with the buttons of their jeans. She completed him, in a way that he had never experienced before, not since Cristina, not since Adha, and he realized that all his life he had been looking for exactly this. What blew his mind, however, was that he did not have to take it; it was given to him freely, without condition, without bribery, without manipulation; it was her, just her, in all her glory and he reveled that she deemed him worthy of her attention, worthy of her body, worthy of her life, and he needed to find some way to express his feelings for her. Hips ground together, hands exploring and caressing and massaging and pinching, lips unable to let each other go for the world save for breath, and beautiful eyes that were his and only his.
"Jamil," he moaned into her lips. "You are so jamil. Dun a'hub-aka, amore mio."
And all too suddenly, her body went completely rigid.
Confused at the sudden change, he looked up, wondering what had happened. "... Lucy?"
Blond hair fell everywhere, her lips were swollen and pink in the dim starlight, and the power picked that moment to kick back on, and he saw her eyes wide and filled with tears. Wait, what...?
"Lucy?" he asked again, suddenly acutely aware that one hand was... was... Shit his hand was on her ass and the other...
Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit shitshitshit...
He just wanted to kiss her! That was all! But now he had just...!
"I can't do this," she said, her voice as watery as her eyes as she pulled herself up and away, pulling her shirt down and quickly zipping up her jeans.
"Lucy, Lucy wait, I'm sorr-" Desmond was tripping over himself to catch up, to zip up his own jeans and grab his sweatshirt at the same time. "Lucy!"
Holy fuck what had he just done? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He dashed after her, behind Altair's statue's disapproving gaze and into the darkness of the mines. He found her by the old well water, pacing back and forth and hugging her arms together, still bare in the underground chill. She was muttering to herself, and she physically backed away when he called her name, eyes wide and arms crossed in defense.
"Lucy," he said, pulling himself to a stop. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me..."
"It's the Bleeding Effect," Lucy said, voice shaky. "We should have known this would happen, but it never did at Abstergo. I guess that makes sense, it's not like people were thinking about things like that when they're kidnapped."
"Lucy..."
"No, it's okay, Desmond," she said slowly, taking a shaky breath and shivering in the cool air. "I understand, you had no control over it, so it's perfectly fine, and..."
"No it's not!" he shouted, voice echoing over the caverns of water. His own breath was shaky, his whole body was shaky, and just felt so disjointed, so confused. Bleeding Effect? Bleeding Effect? What he felt for her, was it really just a manifestation of the fucking Bleeding Effect? Was it really just Altair and Ezio superseding his own wants and desires? No, he had liked her even before that had started, back when he was at Abstergo, when she was the only one nice to him. ...Stockholm Syndrome then? Relating to captors? Except she was just as much a victim as he, just as trapped, just as lost. How could either of those just write off what he felt? Altair and Ezio, they weren't kidnapped against their will and left to feel beholden to a fellow prisoner, they didn't follow that prisoner half blind to the truth of the world, they weren't offered the chance to fight the Templars. It had to be different, it had to be, because he had felt Altair's love for Maria, Ezio's for Cristina, and this was different. It was. It was. It had to be.
It couldn't just all be in his head, because if it was...
That was truly terrifying.
What was real?
What was real if his own feelings couldn't be trusted...?
… Was he real? Or was he the vision? The memory? The phantom? The ghost?
"Come on, Desmond. Let's let you rest and then everything will be fine and-"
"It's not fine, Lucy!" Desmond shouted, backing up himself, his voice cracking. "It's not fine to just write what just happened off! Maybe it is the Bleeding Effect, maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome, maybe I'm just too fucked up in the head for any of this to be real, but goddamnit I care about you! I've cared for a long time, and that isn't Altair, and it sure as shit isn't Ezio. I promised myself... God, I promised myself that wouldn't happen, that I wouldn't let it happen unless you wanted it. I didn't want to fuck it up because I'm so happy for everything that you've done and I didn't know if you felt the same way and... damn it I wanted to do it right and now...! Jesus Christ, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?"
It had to be real. His feelings for Lucy. They just had to be real, because they were the only thing that grounded him. They were the only thing that kept him sane. If it wasn't real...
"If it's not real... then... what's to stop me from disappearing?"
"Desmond..."
"What if I really am a phantom like Ezio says? If you can't anchor me, and he isn't here to anchor me, then what if I just float away...?"
He was terrified. He was completely, utterly, categorically terrified. He had never doubted that his feelings for Lucy were genuine, but she was right, it could just be emotional backlash, or shit from the Animus. If he couldn't trust even that... what... where... when...
… Who was he?
… Who was he without Lucy?
His breathing was coming out in gasps, he was hyperventilating, doubt and worry and fear overtaking him, oxygen made him dizzy and he swayed on his feet. He wasn't real... he wasn't real... he wasn't...
"Desmond...!"
He fell to his knees, and he felt cold hands touch him, piercing the panic attack. Where was he? When was he? Who was he?
A hard slap cracked over his cheek, and he could finally take a breath, which he did gratefully. He held his head, forcing himself to breathe slowly through his nose, rocking back and forth slightly, waiting for the panic to go away go away go away goawaygoaway. Slowly, with skitters and jumpstarts, he started to think again. He looked up and saw Lucy, clutching his shoulders, face white with panic. Her mouth was moving, words were coming out, and it took him a moment to remember what language it was.
"I'm sorry, Desmond," she way saying, over and over. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"No," he said, shaky and suddenly exhausted. "I'm sorry."
The blond shook her head. "This is all my fault. All of it. I should never... I didn't think... oh Desmond..."
The two held each other for over an hour, weathering each other's panic attacks, working through their emotions, trying to ground each other from their respective insanity. They talked intermittently, both afraid to touch certain topics and trying to dance around to what they really needed to talk about. Desmond tried to talk about his feelings for her, trying to pinpoint if it was really real or some backlash from the Bleeding Effect or the Animus, talking about how terrified he was it if wasn't true. She listened and accepted it, nodding and tried to be reassuring if not encouraging. As the panic continued to subside, Desmond wondered if this was how Sixteen started to go insane. He only really knew Sixteen after he had broken – writing blood on the walls and recording his disjointed thoughts in bits of glyphs. Did he just have simple panic attacks? Moments of absolute terror where he wondered how much of his own psyche was real? Could he even talk to someone about it?
… Sixteen couldn't. Desmond wondered if talking about it would even do anything. But... he had to do something.
"I've been having episodes outside the Animus," Desmond said slowly. "It doesn't really take much for me to think like Ezio, and then I'm back in his memories. It's getting harder and harder to get back to myself when I come out of the machine, and with Altair standing over all of us I synch up with him, too. Sometimes I don't even notice it, and that's what's really scary. At least if I know I'm seeing things then I know it's just me, but if someone has to point it out to me..."
"It's a loss of control," Lucy supplied.
"Yeah. Kinda."
She smiled slightly a brief twitch of her lips. "I don't like losing control either," she said softly. "I know how much pressure there is, and I don't want to let anybody down. I feel better if I'm doing something, but I feel like everything's just flying out of my grip, and I feel so panicked when that happens."
"I've been trying to get you to loosen up," he said, hugging her shoulders to keep her warm. "I see how much stress you put on yourself, your whole body's gonna snap if you're not careful. I just... I wanted to do something for you."
"Like an awkward date night?"
The two gave soft, empty laughs.
"Desmond... I'm not in a place where I can... I can't give you that right now."
His chest hurt. Rejection. He sighed. "I understand. I'm probably not in a place for that right now either, all things considered."
"But... maybe when this is all over... After the deadline, after we don't need you in the Animus anymore..."
It... Desmond wasn't sure what to make of that offer. The odds were good that he'd be batshit crazy by then; he was already well on his way if this last... episode... had been any indication. He'd have to be put down like an animal, assuming he didn't paint the walls in his own blood. Making that kind of offer didn't mean much, easily made easily broken. It plain wasn't going to happen. But... beyond the face value of the words was something underneath. In her own way, she was telling him that she, too, cared for him the way he cared for her. She was acknowledging his feelings and even reciprocating them, even though they both knew nothing could come of it at this moment in time. Neither of them could pursue this, but in those words Lucy had returned his feelings for her. She...
She had just given him an anchor.
"I understand," he said softly.
He could do this. He could hold on to his sanity, he could tape himself together, knowing there were some things in his life that were still his own, were still labeled as "Desmond Miles." Yes. He understood, and he could move forward from there.
Slowly, he took a breath. "Want to head back up? Wait for Rebecca and Shaun's epic return?"
The snort was empty but he could feel her nod against his shoulder, and slowly the two went back up.
It was two in the morning when the errant historian and technician returned. Rebecca had apparently won the bet, she was drunk as sin but conscious enough to half carry, half drag a thoroughly plastered Shaun into the Sanctuary. He was not in a dress, but his shirt was conspicuously missing, and there were many marks of lipstick smeared across his arms and back, most of it poorly written words.
"It was aweshome," Rebecca slurred, swaying back and forth and thoroughly satisfied with herself. "He was pissh drunk aft'r th' first bar. I coulda done anythin' I wanted. You shoulda seen him tryin' to come on to me."
"Is that why his shirt's missing?"
"Asshole was tryin' t'do a strip dance! In th' middle of the bar! It was hilarioush. Where'zza camera?"
And, per her request, Lucy took several pictures of Shaun in his shirtless state, the bits of Italian written on his back, and a damning picture of him at Rebecca's mercy, the technician sitting on him with a blurry look of trying to decide what to do with him. Desmond privately decided the blackmail would last for weeks, maybe even months, and he looked to Lucy and the pair shared a smile.
They weren't perfect, but for now what they were was enough.
The next morning Desmond woke to the wonderful smell of coffee, and he saw Rebecca stumbling around with a cup, guzzling it. Her headphones were on, and the music was throbbing all the way from where Desmond lay, and he didn't dare ask how music that loud helped a hangover. He did, however, get up and wash up enough to crouch over Shaun and enjoy waiting for him to wake up. He shared several smirks with both Lucy and Rebecca, and eventually the three got tired of the Brit sleeping it off.
One bucket of water later Shaun was sputtering, moaning, and cursing all at once.
"Slave drivers, all of you," he grunted, looking up with bleary eyes to his three tormentors. "God, I've got a ripping headache. Do we have any pain pills?"
"What's this?" Rebecca asked, perfectly perky and utterly absent of any traced of a hangover. "Don't tell me you have a hangover after that tiny little bit we drank."
"It was most decidedly not tiny," Shaun hissed before moaning at a sudden stab of pain. Desmond glanced at Lucy to see her taking more pictures. "And you are an alcoholic."
"It's called 'clubbing,' Shaun," Rebecca said her voice louder than it needed to be. "If I'd known you'd be so bad at it I wouldn't have brought you along. No wonder you never got past second base with Kate."
"Well, he's obviously not an Auditore," Desmond said.
"Damn you all," Shaun cursed.
"We're already damned," Desmond replied, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "You should be more creative, ubriacone."
"And you should stick to one language."
Damnit.
Standing up, Desmond said nothing, only offered a dry smirk, before turning from the suffering Shaun. He caught Lucy's eye and showed his worry, and she nodded, understanding. She swept in with a bottle of water and the itinerary for the day, and Desmond took his place in the Animus, waiting for the rest to catch up and rejoin Ezio.
Author's Notes: Heavy chapter. Seriously. Heavy. Chapter.
Gosh, where to even start. Ezio at last comes to understand that Claudia can care of herself in most circumstances, and that she's someone to be supported instead of protected. He also comes to understand just how difficult it is to be a courtesan, and what they have to go through. We say that his education on the nature of women is officially over with this chapter, though Claudia's arc is far from finished. Ezio also shines in that he's making himself be patient - something he NEVER would have been when he was younger, and while it will never be easy, he will always be able to do it. And does anyone else wonder where Cesare and Borgia went after their obligatory scene in the memory? Maybe Borgia brought one of his lovers - he had something like three of them didn't he? And Cesare, well...
But, mostly this is a Desmond chapter.
Though we struggle with him constantly, THIS is something we've wanted to do with him for forever. As soon as either of us read the email about a date night with Shaun, we knew damn well what was happening while they were gone. Rebecca says in Revelations that they have a "starry eyed moment," so she may well have caught signs of it, but this was completely under her radar - because Desmond wouldn't talk about it and Lucy would keep it under her hat because she already feels conflicted enough. Though Lucy ultimately betrays the Assassins, we can't really believe that she didn't harbor some kind of feelings for Desmond; William's (er, Warren's?)emails to her mention how much care she has for his health, and it isn't much of a leap to go to something like this.
Neither of them are in good places to be in a relationship, of course, but that's life. It's also a great place to highlight Desmond's slow sink to insanity. The Bleeding Effect, theoretically, affect smore than just memories and schizophrenia, it also toys with emotions, and that's one of the reasons it freaks Desmond out so much. "Je pense, donc je suis." I think therefore I am, but if your thoughts are taken over where do you look next? Your feelings, and now Desmond knows even those are subject to the Animus.
Poor Desmond. It only goes downhill from here. Down, down, down hill.
Next chapter: Thieves, apprentices, and plays; oh my!