Drink To It

A Word: I will never get tired of interactions that aren't totally AU with Desmond. Excuse me as I continue to spiral down into this again.

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Desmond wakes up even though it feels like he's been awake for a while. He's standing anyway and it's never been a good thing with him when he comes to on his feet with his eyes already open.

The Temple is dark and silent around him. No lights or noise penetrate it. There's the faint glow of the lights they'd hooked up to the generators outside the doors that are still open. It's enough for Desmond to see by as he turns and marvels over the fact that he doesn't hurt at all.

Desmond knows he's dead. Knows it because Juno hadn't shared her last harsh truth. The device to save the world didn't just require a life to free her, it also required one to act as sacrifice. Desmond closes his eyes and clenches his hands into fists. Remembering the way it felt like he was everywhere, that he was everything. The awe that had faded with agonizing pain as he burned. Waves of fire rolling over him before he could even comprehend what he'd become. The terrible knowledge of Juno's final price coming clear just before complete agony took him over.

Painless his ass.

He's dead now, there is no other possibility. Desmond is both surprised that there is an afterlife, and pissed that he's starting it in the last place he really wants to be. He got the information needed to save the world, made the choice everyone wanted him to make, and paid for it with his life. Desmond has done absolutely everything that everyone has ever wanted from him, everything he never really wanted to do. He's dead now, it's over. He's done with all of this shit.

Desmond walks out of the dark cavern, towards the light. Desmond chuckles softly at the thought.

The exterior area is the same as he last remembers it. Their gear scattered around the broken remains of the temple. Rebecca's sleeping bag with her four MP3 players and the soft gray shirt she wears to sleep in the closest to him as he comes off the bridge. He wonders if they got out before shaking his head because it's a stupid question and he can almost hear Shaun's scorn over it before something else catches his attention and wipes all other thoughts out of his mind.

Ezio is lounging on the comfortable seat of the Animus. His arms crossed under his head and the corner of his cloak tugged over his eyes. He's young looking now. Like he was shortly after his family's death. Face smooth and unlined except for the scar, a long tail of hair trails off the seat swaying slightly in the faint breeze coming from the entrance.

Desmond stares and doesn't really feel anything but a faint confusion. He's dead, but Desmond wonders if he's still going to be stuck with the hallucinations that had been getting worse the further into Ratonhnhaké:ton's memories. The stress of the normal Animus dives amped up by the approaching date and the heavy weight of being so damn close to his dad after so long of thinking he'd never see the man ever again.

Ezio's chest falls and rises slowly in a deep sleep, and he doesn't stir as Desmond wanders over. Hand outstretched because the best way to deal with the Bleed is with touch. The hallucinations can take over any other sensation, but being in his mind does not make them solid. Nothing dispelled them faster than watching his hand pass through apparitions that his mind tried to insist were really there.

Ezio grunts when Desmond's fingers poke into the soft, but solid, area under his right arm. He tenses before stretching out. Arms unfolding from under his head as he expands across the seat, bones popping audibly to Desmond before he relaxes and goes boneless with a content sigh. "This seat is small but so comfortable."

"Yeah?" Desmond says because he really doesn't have much else to say. He's dead and not hallucinating. Ezio really is here, which makes sense given the fact he's been dead for a lot longer than Desmond. "Try living in it for a day and see how comfortable it is then."

"Is that what you have done, Desmond?" Ezio chuckles as he brushes the cloth from his eyes and grins up at him. There's a double shock of his name coming from someone in the past -one he never got over despite how many times it happened while chasing Ezio's memories, and then there's the shock of the eyes peering up at him. They're hazel, a lighter brown from what Desmond had always assumed. The reflection of passing water or off the cold metal of a sword or knife not doing very much to do more than vaguely inform Desmond of Ezio's features. The images of the memories stored by the Animus were always from a distance that wasn't great on details. "I cannot think of much that would remain pleasant over that many hours."

"Yeah, well," Desmond looks away. Looks at the scattered tools and the dark computers. The messy pile of papers that Shaun had been obsessively combing through that last day. There's even a pile of wrappers, precisely folded into compact squares, next to Rebecca's station. Three empty boxes that had been full the last time he went under peek out from a boulder. Their own special ways of coping with stress. Desmond doesn't look over at the bank of computers used to communicate with people outside. He doesn't quite feel up to seeing any signs from there. "Not much choice really."

"Literally," Ezio is speaking English. His voice accented as he rolls off the seat and onto his feet. Boots tapping almost soundly as he settles the black robes he never had until gray started edging into his hair around him more comfortably. The robes don't look as oddly against the modern equipment as they should. "Going from what I have heard of you."

"What you've heard?" Desmond asks, but he's distracted by the fact that he's taller than Ezio. By a few inches, but noticeable now that the man is on his feet. It doesn't seem right somehow.

"The dead speak, Desmond," Ezio says with a wry smile even as he walks to the left. Eyes flicking up and down. Taking in Desmond with something that he recognizes as avid curiosity. Desmond glances down and can see Ezio's right hand twitching slightly. The tic he'd noticed early on when Ezio wanted to snatch something. "Even the Templars. Though it takes a bit more force to get the information from them."

Ezio's smile says he doesn't mind that very much though and Desmond can't help the laugh. "And now I'm afraid what they've been saying about me."

"Oh, not much complimentary, I can assure you," Ezio says and moves quick, circling around behind Desmond before coming around his other side. His right hand moves out -without his conscious thought, from what Desmond knows of the man- and pulls at the strap of the bag Desmond still has though he doesn't think he wore it when releasing Juno. "Though you have made quite an impression on those not trying to kill you. The few that I could find anyway."

"You looked," Desmond frowns as Ezio continues to explore the bag. Seemingly fascinated by the zipper and velcro. "Why?"

"You do not know why?" Ezio asks and reaches for his left arm. Desmond lets him pick at the sleeve and push it up. He's not wearing the hidden blade that he knows he had on when he died. In fact, he doesn't seem to have any of his weapons on him. Ezio examines the tattoo instead after a brief frown.

"I'm not a mind reader, no," Desmond says and wonders if he should be a little creeped out at his passivity here. Ezio is poking and prodding him. Literally, as he bats a stiff finger away from his jaw. Any other person would be eating his fist by now at being so familiar. Both from the creep factor of it and the innate paranoia that's only been enhanced since he woke up in Abstergo labs.

But Ezio is familiar to Desmond, as familiar as his own hands. Perhaps more familiar to him than anyone else. So much of his time had been spent reliving Ezio's memories that it was usually images of Italy and its people that invaded his waking days. It's a little weird to be touched by hands his mind wants to say are his own and not feel the expected sensation of touch.

"And yet, you have still been inside my mind," Ezio ignores his slapping hands and continues to examine him. He's smiling but his voice is serious. The seriousness that had only come with age, and there's a disconnect hearing it come from the young man before him.

"That wasn't mind reading," Desmond protests.

"Close enough, or are you saying you were not able to know my mind when you were living my life?" Ezio finally steps back and crosses his arms over his chest.

Desmond can't exactly deny that, because that had been the one thing that never truly transferred right. The memories and actions translated well into images, videos, but the emotions had always been something that only Desmond knew. That had always been the worst part of Animus diving. The way he'd been helpless against feeling what they all felt.

"But I didn't know what you were thinking," the mind and inner workings of Ezio had been faint as Desmond ran through his life. Never really able to control his actions completely, following a script that had happened so long ago, but only nominally aware of the thoughts and reasons why he was doing it. Even with the emotions to inform him, he'd never been a spectator to the man's actual thoughts. It's why the database had been so necessary, why he'd needed to be guided through some of the memories.

"No?" Ezio looks surprised at the admission and then a little wry. "Truly? Well, then I feel a little like an idiot now. Here I thought you were in my mind this whole time and hearing me when I spoke to you."

"Wait," Desmond frowns because as far as he knew, he was just a name to Ezio. One he'd been surprised the man had carried with him to the end of his life as an Assassin. He'd never thought of it beyond that though. Hadn't exactly had the time to. "You talked to me?"

"Yes, often," Ezio easily admits. "Maybe it's for the best you never heard though. Especially at the beginning. I was not very kind then."

He wouldn't have been. Desmond still remembers the emotions that had ripped through him when Minerva so casually dismissed the man and addressed Desmond. They'd melded with his own surprise when it seemed like the hologram looked right at him and said his name. Desmond remembers though, the smoldering anger that had made Ezio more brash in the memories that had stubbornly held him in the Animus after the Vault. Brief things that had given him all too brief insight into Ezio's mad scramble to leave. The memory important but corrupted after Minerva's message was delivered.

"In my mind, where I believed you to be, and so I did not seem completely insane," Ezio tapped his head lightly, and there's a bit of wistfulness in his tone. "It was helpful at times to think I was not alone."

The Brotherhood had been Ezio's pride. The sharp joy he had gotten as more and more joined his ranks. Taking the oaths and learning to live by the Creed under Ezio's tutelage. The man had never been happier than when he was surrounded by people. His mood tended to turn dark when he was alone, and left to his own thoughts that Desmond could never read beyond the emotions they elicited.

"Oh," Desmond jams his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. Because he can relate a bit. It'd always been hard on him. Traveling had been awesome, seeing new places and people. Learning things he'd never known before, and -after leaving the Farm- everything had been new to him. It was the best years of his life spent going from one side of the country to the other. Slinging bottles around like the knives that had never felt right no matter how many times he'd been taught to handle the weapons. Listening to people's lives as he fed them a steady stream of cheap or pretentious -sometimes both- alcohol. Their triumphs and lows, their best stories and their worst. Entire life times related over a bar to Desmond who was just the faceless bartender to them. Ready with another beer and kind of shitty advise that usually did a good job at getting those down to smile again.

They were also the loneliest years of his life.

The Farm was small, but the families close. The people who came through for a day or two always friendly and warm to Desmond's curious questions. Always there and always willing to help out. The loss of that support, no matter how crazy he thought them all to be, had almost made Desmond turn around more than once. There was no way Desmond could build that network up for himself again out in the world. Not when he moved every month. Sometimes twice if he thought something was fishy. Running from his past and the ghosts of a threat that he really didn't believe existed but had been trained to well to fear to give up the paranoia of the Templars so easily.

Yeah, he can kinda see how it'd be nice to have someone in your head from that angle. It's crazy, but Desmond has been slowly losing his mind from the first time he opened his eyes on Jerusalem in the night. He's used to crazy by now. "So, what did you talk to me about, Ezio?"

"Many things," Ezio throws an arm around Desmond. Friendly and leading as he turns them towards the entrance. The source of the breeze. "Let's get a drink though, and maybe some food while I tell you. It will be nice to hear your response this time I think."

"Sure," Desmond could use a beer or a dozen. He's dead, he's essentially sacrificed himself for the world. He's allowed to get himself nice and drunk for that. Ezio's company will be a nice way to keep him from feeling lame over doing it alone. The older man tends to be fun when drinking and not worrying over death and killing. "Why the hell not? You know of any good places?"

"I know of a great many places," Ezio says with a laugh. "They are all open too and never short on the best drink and food either. You will enjoy being dead, Desmond."

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