Aschere

Chapter Summary;

hi desmond. welcome to the bullshit alien space wizard's apprentice club. :)

The still-protesting enforcers were unceremoniously tossed back out into the hallway and the door to Desmond's new temporary room in the medic's wing was slammed shut, their muffled shouts of alarm far overshadowed by the medic's much louder explicative filled rant, peppered with strong words from a surprisingly eclectic multitude of dead languages.

"-No, fuck you. Sure, go report this to your superior, yes, by all means. I'm sure your Mentor would be delighted to know you've just tazed his injured son. Now fuck off."

"Ignore them. We don't have time for that." the Historian called from his place at the bedside, eyeing their patient with wary caution.

The medic turned and braced her back against the door for a moment, sharing a fleeting look of distress with her teammate before clicking the lock and striding across the room to stand at the side of the bed next to him.

They stood there a moment, just watching, the boy's breathing loud in the quiet and then they both spoke at the same time, sentences overlapping:

"Next time, I'm going to be the medic." the Historian muttered dryly, shaking his head. "You can be the Historian."

"Do you think it's h - 'next time?'" she cut herself off, her pinched, worried expression shifted to one of amused disbelief as she turned to her teammate. "You really think there's going to be a 'next time?'"

"Not at this rate there won't." he snorted, stepping closer to the bed, tilting his head as he studied the boy's face intently. He waved one hand to indicate the general populace of the Farm beyond the locked door. "They'll be expecting answers, Kass. Answers we can't give them."

Kass made a noise of half-hearted protest and then fell mulishly silent for several seconds, watching as the Historian carefully lowered himself to crouch at the bedside, gently tilting the boy's head to one side and brushing strands of hair away from his neck. She turned away, fixing her gaze on the patch of dappled summer sunlight playing against the far wall.

"Look I… It was supposed to just be an in-joke, something to get the team lead off our trail while we recovered the artifact- how was I supposed to know the idiot was going to walk his team right into the temple's defense systems-" she sighed, scrubbing at her face. "This… this is why I don't work with anyone during retrieval anymore."

The Historian made a low noise of either surprise or complaint, and when she turned to face him he was staring up at her with one eyebrow raised, lips curved into a slight smile. She rolled her eyes. "Other than you, of course, Sl-"

"No." he interrupted, and then his voice gentled into something strangely reverent as he tilted his head to indicate their patient. "Look."
Kass came around the side of the bed to stand behind him, leaning forward slightly to get a look. A tiny, startled grin flashed across her face, and then she turned to her companion with a look of wonderment in her eyes.

One hand, missing a ring finger, held dark curly tufts of the boy's hair away from his neck, and there, glowing faintly from between his fingers, light pulsed in time with the boy's heartbeat, blooming outward into a familiar spidery star-shaped mark.

"He's-" she started, delighted laughter startling from her throat. "So it was a regression-"

"Yes, it certainly would appear so."

"Is it really- Do you think it's-"

"Him?" her companion removed his hand and pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he braced against the side rail of the bed for support. He leaned warily forward and peered searchingly at the boy's face for a moment before looking back at her and shrugging his shoulders in a noncommittal fashion. "Could be. Could not be. I can see the resemblance, but-"

"The resemblance? As if it could be anyone else - he's the only one unaccounted for-"

"Aita." He reminded.

"Eyes." she countered easily. "Besides, look at him. You can 'see a resemblance?' I'd sure hope so. Anyone with eyes could see that. You saw the disks, same as I did. He looks like a clone." She paused for a moment, then nodded to herself and turned to head for the door.

"We should tell them." she said decisively.

"No!"

"No? What do you mean 'No?' The others will want to- how long have they- have we- been looking for this kid-"

"A kid that is the youngest son of the Mentor of the modern Assassin Brotherhood" the Historian interrupted, voice dropping to a low, urgent hiss. "A kid who lives on the Farm, who has just been injured and suffered an unknown and inexplicable trauma in the process- think, Kassandra! If he goes missing now, people will look for him-"

"I wouldn't- I was not suggesting that we kidnap him-" she hissed back.
"Just…" her voice softened. "don't you think that at least he should know? After everything that's happened…"

"I… yes… I want nothing more than to tell him right now but… After the last tw- We haven't even spoken to the boy yet. We don't even know if the regression was successful or if it-"

"Even if the regression was botched ag- I still think they should know. We should tell them."

"And we will! Eventually. Just… not right now, Kass. Give it time." he sighed uncomfortably, and then admitted; "I just want to be sure we've got this right."

"...Fair enough."

Just as before, the moment Desmond became aware enough to process the straps preventing him from moving his arms and the enclosed space of the exam room, he absolutely lost it, bucking and twisting, yowling like a wounded animal.

Anything that moved was perceived as a threat, bright gold eyes tracking them with acute awareness even as he continued to struggle against the restraints.
Anything that tried to touch him was subjected to immediate and violent hostility using whatever means he had available to him. They already knew from the incident with the Farm enforcer in the hallway that he wasn't above biting, but within seconds of releasing the first strap, Kass was sent reeling backwards with a hand clutched to her face, already mentally adding 'headbutting' to that list.

"Ahhh fuck that hurts. He's strong, I'll give him that."

She shook it off and then made a half-hearted attempt at consoling the distraught teen, which trailed off into an startled explicative as he lunged in her direction again. "Shhhhhhhh-it! I know, I know. Being trapped freaks you out. I got it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, here, can I just - HEY! Kiddo, watch it! I know you're upset - don't bite me about it!"

Her teammate chuckled, mischief flickering in his blue eyes as he worked with steady hands to undo the straps. "I don't know, you could probably bite her a little. She'd probably even deserve it."

"Very funny, Slipp-"
"Do NOT call me that."
"Hah. You know what they say; 'If the horseshoe fits, wear it.'"
"It doesn't." the Historian snapped, giving her a withering look. "And no one ever says that."

"Kid, please stop trying to bite me - I know you hate this but - look, your parents would KILL me if I let you die of heatstroke after all this time it took to find you - are you even listening?" Concern flickered across her face. "Can you even understand me? English? Ελληνιστική Κοινή?"

Her teammate shook his head slightly in exasperation and then side-eyed her, interrupting. "Ancient Greek - Kass, why would you expect the poor boy to speak Ancient Greek?"

"I don't know!"she snapped, tensely. "Look; his mother did - it was worth a shot, alright?"

"That's not exactly true, though?" He stood back from the bed, widening his stance and lacing his fingers together in front of him, pitching his voice down as he recited in clear imitation of someone else. "That would be the telepathic translation. It's mind-to-mind communication; it doesn't really use 'words,' strictly speaking-"

Kass snorted despite herself.

"Whatever. Hytham - we don't have time for that. What's wrong with the kid? The regression can't have erased his knowledge of modern languages. I mean," She released the last strap and skipped back a pace as the kid in question launched himself off the bed, scrabbling in a blur of motion towards the far side of the room, and then vaulted up the counter and onto the cabinets above. She opted to ignore this and turned to the former Hidden One with a look of alarm. "Could it? Hytham?"

He wasn't paying her any attention, staring up at the frightened teen - who had somehow managed to wedge himself into the space between the admittedly high ceiling and the over-the-counter cabinets - with a pensive look on his face.

"...Is that safe?" Hytham wondered skeptically. "I don't know if those can support him."

Her words caught up with him and he turned to her with a snort. "Why are you asking me? I'm not one of them - I'm not even a Sage!"

"Oh no, of course not. You were only adopted by one through a blood oath and given a nanite graft and then you only spent practically your whole childhood following him around-"

"And that was years after his regression-"

"...And then you spent several years in the company of other Sages-"

"Neither Sigurd nor Eivor were exactly stellar examples of successful regression, Kass. Besides, they were part of the Eight-"

"And then you spent a millennium hooked into a precursor temple alongside him-"

"And you spent two traveling the world with his wife-"

[Perched on the cabinets above them, the boy called Desmond watched the two strangers-friends-blue-of-kin(?) argue with utter bafflement, before shaking his head and tuning them out, focusing his attention on the skylight in the center of the room's ceiling, glowing the watery pale golden shimmer of important-useful.]

"Yeah, but you were adopted by the one with the 'inherited backdoor recall on Project Anthropos.'" She said smugly. "Which he thinks the Seventh Solution was based on. Soooo, since you've got the nanites... you should be able to-" she wiggled her fingers in a vague, abstract gesture that failed to convey much of anything. "You know," she said, encouragingly. "Know."

"I… don't know how. The information is… there… but I don't know how to- I'm still not fluent. I don't know if I could understand it even if I could access it." Hytham sighed in frustration, a pensive, slightly embarrassed expression on his face. "He's still teaching me," he admitted. "it's… slow."

"Early stages," she murmured, patting him sympathetically on the shoulder. "It gets easier. Still get the headaches?"

"...Yes. Those go away?" he asked, lifting his head hopefully.

"Nope!" she said with faux cheer. "Though if it makes you feel any better; they get them too." She flung one hand up in a broad gesture at the boy perched atop the cabinets, who bared his teeth in response and flinched further back into the corner he'd wedged himself into.

"Price of being human! Well. Mostly." she squinted upwards. " …Feral little thing, isn't he? What is he doing up there?"

"He's scared, Kassandra." Hytham said softly. "Treat him like a non-threat, let him come to his senses on his own." His expression became grim.
"Then we can assess the damage."

[shrugs] dialogue heavy chapter goes brrrrr