There are three people in this room that Haytham absolutely cannot stand. Two versions of Connor (one of them an assassin, the other throwing away his humanity), and… himself.

Haytham sits on the far opposite side of the room from the man wearing his face, the man that is also an eagle and a squirrel and—and… that thing. That thing in the water. He'd felt it, the transition from human to… to… He still can't put a name on what that thing had been. But the feelings are clear and sharp as a knife in his mind, and Haytham knows there is absolutely no chance that he will ever be able to forget it.

There hadn't been much of him in that other Haytham's head. Little scattered wisps, and that was all. And then, when their mind had expanded, blooming outward into something big and ancient, something with thoughts as heavy and slow as the passing of the seasons, more a force of nature than a living thing.

He had been terrified. He is still terrified, truth be told. His whole world had been shaken and turned upside down when he came here, to this strange other reality where Washington is king. But that transformation had shaken Haytham's sense of who he is—it had broken the one thing in the world he had always imagined was certain. Himself.

"It's not right," he grumbles, watching as Ratonhnhaké:ton shudders in his sleep on the floor. "There has to be a better way to fight."

"There isn't," his other self says. "There are no other ways to fight this man. We've tried everything else, and nothing works."

"You don't get to have an opinion," he snaps. It's crueler than he needs to be, but Haytham needs to lash out somehow. He needs to prove to himself that he is still strong.

"I do, actually," the other Haytham says. His voice shakes (he is not strong, he is not even human, but—he has his hand on Ratonhnhaké:ton's shoulder, and that hand is strong and steady). "I am human."

Haytham opens his mouth to say something unnecessarily rude, but Connor nudges him in the side. "Don't," he whispers.

With some effort, Haytham closes his mouth. He doesn't really feel up for being angry right now, he just doesn't have the energy. So he lets himself lapse into silence, and waits with the others until Ratonhnhaké:ton stirs and wakes.

It takes him three or four tries to form actual human words (Haytham almost points this out, and forces himself not to). "We need to go," Ratonhnhaké:ton says, and his voice sounds deeper and rougher than usual. Almost like a growl.

"What did you meet?" Connor asks, and he sounds just a shade uncertain.

"Bear," Ratonhnhaké:ton grunts, and Haytham catches himself nodding. He even sounds a bit like a bear at the moment, deep and slow and sort of… powerful. "Can we go?"

"You can," the other Haytham says. "I don't think I'll be much good in a fight just now."

"Will you be alright?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asks. "With, ah—yourself?"

"I will," the other Haytham says, which seems extremely forward of him. Of course, there's no reason Haytham would actually want to hurt him—insult him, yes, perhaps, that makes him feel a bit better about himself. But hurting him seems counterintuitive. In that case, he'd risk tying himself to a corpse.

Ratonhnhaké:ton nods, and heads quickly outward, along with Connor. So that just leaves the two Haythams, alone in the room.

"Are you going to hurt me?" the other Haytham asks, when there is absolutely no chance either of their sons will hear the question.

"No." Haytham doesn't quite look at him as he says it. "And I… apologize for my behavior earlier. I was—"

"Afraid," the other Haytham says quietly. "Do you think I don't understand that?"

"You don't seem afraid," Haytham says. "Even when I was in your head, you only ever seemed resigned."

"I have had a great many years to come to terms with the horror I have chosen to become," the other Haytham says, in a calm, clipped voice. "I also understand the rationale behind that decision far better than you do. You have not yet experienced enough of life here to know how badly he hurts people."

"I hope I never do," Haytham says.

"We should all be so lucky."

The room falls again into silence. Outside, they can very dimly hear the sound of fighting. A wolf's howl pierces the air, and the two Haytham's look at one another.

"Alright," the other Haytham admits. "It may have been a mistake to allow him to drink the tea again." There is worry in his voice. "He could handle two, but the third, I think, is consuming him."

-/-

Connor sees Washington before Ratonhnhaké:ton does, and the man is looking straight at him. He can see Connor, so maybe this is a fight where Connor can actually do some good. He's so absurdly tired of this strange, half visible state he's been cursed with, only able to talk to himself and his father(s) and Desmond. (Although come to think of it, he hasn't seen Desmond in quite a while).

Ratonhnhaké:ton takes off running, and when he runs he is a wolf. Connor can't keep up, he only has two legs, and by the time he finally reaches Washington they are fighting. Viciously, with a kind of feral anger that Connor has never seen before, not in all his years as an assassin. Even when Ratonhnhaké:ton (with obvious, painful effort) goes back to two legs, there is… there is nothing human in his eyes. It's like this constant switching, back and forth, back and forth, eagle to wolf to bear and back, is tearing his humanity away.

Connor has seen flashes of this before, but never to this degree. It's frightening, really.

He does his best to put it from his mind, and focus on the fight in front of him. It turns out that he can touch Washington, thankfully. Connor very much wants to hit something right now. Unfortunately, this puts him within range of Ratonhnhaké:ton as well, and his increasingly wild tactics are clearly making it harder for him to remember who and why he is supposed to be fighting.

They are all bloody when Washington finally dies.

"That's it," Connor says, and he feels like laughing. "That's it, it's over—"

(But he thinks suddenly of Desmond, and his claim that Washington is still king several centuries into the future. And somewhere in his mind, he knows that something must be wrong)

Ratonhnhaké:ton struggles and manages to return to human form. "Over," he mumbles. "Good."

Connor strides forward, toward the apple, and reaches down to pick it up. He can hear it singing to him, a strange and ethereal noise that he can't quite put into words. It's song without voice, music without true sound, nothing he's ever heard before. Something in him wants to sing back, speak to the apple, let it do as it wills. It's hard to fight, but he does his very best because this world is a mess, and it is all the apple's fault—he can't let it keep going, he can't.

But he doesn't do anything yet. "What will happen to you?" he asks.

A pause. "What?" Ratonhnhaké:ton says.

"What will you do with the king gone?"

"Hunt," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. "Run. I—" he breaks off, looking at Connor. He looks confused.

Very gently, Connor reaches down and picks up the apple. "I could help you with this," he says. "I could undo what the tea did, make you human again—"

"No!" Ratonhnhaké:ton shouts. He backs up, lowering himself defensively to all fours. "No, my choice. Don't—"

"You're hurting," Connor says. "I can help!"

He raises the apple—Ratonhnhaké:ton snarls, and Connor is never after sure which of them strikes first. But in the next moment, Ratonhnhaké:ton—the wolf—is leaping on him, and he is raising the apple, reaching blindly out with a power he doesn't understand and could never have controlled.

And that's all it takes. That's all the apple needs to latch onto him, onto his mind, to take him in the same way it had taken Washington. There is a moment where he tries to fight back, but then—he is washed away, drowned by the power of the apple.

And then he is king.

-/-

There is light, light everywhere, and it makes Ratonhnhaké:ton's fur stand on end just to stand near it. He backs up nervously, wrinkling his nose against the scent of something… something bad coming from Connor. Not-Connor. He doesn't… the words Ratonhnhaké:ton needs to describe what's happened to Connor have leaked out of his head, which is too full of wolf-and-eagle-and-bear to have room left for human.

But he knows this is bad. The apple is changing Connor, his scent is all wrong and his eyes glow golden and mean. (Like the King's, like Washington's). Ratonhnhaké:ton looks at the apple Connor is holding in a death grip and thinks—maybe it wasn't Washington that was so bad. Maybe it was only ever the apple, and now the apple has Connor instead of Washington…

Ratonhnhaké:ton growls, ready to pounce on the thing that used to be Connor, but he chokes on the smell (wrong, bad, wrong, WRONG, WRONG) and stumbles back, whimpering. And Connor smiles at him, a terrible smile that is as much confirmation as Ratonhnhaké:ton will ever need that Connor is gone. His double has been utterly taken over by the apple, there is nothing human left there—

Ratonhnhaké:ton turns and runs. He isn't thinking clearly in the moment, but later he'll wonder why he's able to get so far from Connor when they'd been tied to each other only a few minutes before. Even later than that, he'll think that of course it makes perfect sense. Connor isn't Connor anymore. He's not some other version of Ratonhnhaké:ton, he's a tool of the apple.

So Ratonhnhaké:ton just keeps running, all the way back to the place where he'd left his father and the other Haytham. He flies there on eagle's wings, but (just barely) remembers to return to being human so he can talk.

"Connor," he says, panting hard.

"What about him?" The Haytham that isn't his father half rises to his feet, and Ratonhnhaké:ton is not so scared that he doesn't notice Haytham is worried.

"He's gone," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. "He—we killed Washington. But the apple wanted to do the same thing to him that it did to Washington and he couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop it. He's… just a thing. For the apple."

"No," Haytham whispers. "He can't… it can't end like this. Not like this."

"We need to go," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. "Because he's coming after us."

"Will he hurt us?" his father asks, and Ratonhnhaké:ton nods. He is still struggling with the realization that a man who shares his face and his past could become a vessel for the apple. Just a tool that the apple can use to hurt and kill and destroy…

"Yes," he says. Because the way Connor had looked at him… had smiled at him… there's nothing human there. "I don't know if he'll kill us, but he will—he will…" He shakes his head. "I do not know what he will do. But…"

"Time to go," his father says. He struggles to rise, but falls back.

"Never mind," Haytham says. "You can't walk—"

"I might have been able to," the other man grumbles. "If you hadn't beaten the tar out of me."

Haytham chooses not to answer this, looking away in what might be anything from disdain to embarrassment.

"I'll carry you," Ratonhnhaké:ton says.

"I'm too heavy for you," his father argues. "You should leave while you can."

"I won't leave you," Ratonhnhaké:ton insists. "I can be a bear. I can carry you."

His father looks like he might be considering refusing, but then he nods. "Thank you," he says, and his approval is a bright spot in all the horror of today. Ratonhnhaké:ton lets himself fall into the strong, steady form of the bear (it feels safe, wrapped up in a shape so big and strong), and a moment later his father's weight, far too light for a full grown man, settling on his back. Fingers curl through the thick fur on his back, and Ratonhnhaké:ton feels himself calm. Just a bit.

Maybe they can make it through this. Maybe, just maybe, if they're extremely lucky, they'll all make it out alive.

-/-

To the person that asked how long updates are going to take: um... I don't know? They'll go up when they're finished.