Chapter One. Sink into the storm again.

The streets of Jerusalem were crowded, people milling around one another in some complicated pattern that the slightest misstep could ruin. Malik was used the streets, having traveled them often in search of supplies and equipment needed to manage the bureau and play host to the assassin's going in and out. Most rafiq's would just send a novice out to get what they required, but Malik liked to go out. It gave him something to do rather than just dig through old tomes and direct people around the city. Today, however, Malik just wanted to get his shopping done as quickly and painlessly as possible. The reason being the idiot tagging alongside him.

Altaïr walked silently beside Malik, weaving through the crowds like an expert gently pushing and nudging those with breakable items out of the way so that no attention was brought to them. Malik glared at him. "If you're going to come with me, make yourself useful and carry this bag," snapped the one-armed man, stepping around a woman with a large jug on her head.

Rolling his eyes, Altaïr took the bag from Malik, ignoring the way that the other man muttered about not being a cripple and needing help from ignorant novices. Turning down an alley way, Malik stopped at a merchant stall. The man inside was stout and meaty with a large beard and two eyes that glinted like diamonds, eager at the prospect of more money making.

"Ah, if it isn't my favorite customer!" he said with an easy going tone of voice. "What can I do for you today? I have everything you ever need!"

"Yes, yes, just the usual stuff and a little extra…" Malik talked to the man with a weary tone, used to the ways of merchants and their pokes and hints that you should buy other things as well. Altaïr tuned the conversation out, eyes wandering along the street looking at the people disinterestedly. He had forgotten the way that streets smelled, all musky with body odor and other things. Animals of all shapes and sizes could be heard in the background, hiding beyond Altaïr's view, but not his perception. He had forgotten the way that streets sounded, all footsteps and the murmurs of conversation meant for other ears, babies crying in the distance as beggars pleaded for coin. He did not like the reminders.

"…Novice? Novice? Altaïr!"

"What?" Altaïr looked over at Malik, expression blank to mask the thoughts rolling around in his head.

"Time to go," Malik hissed, glaring at Altaïr murderously, as if his spacing off for a moment had caused him great public embarrassment (the reality being just an amused merchant). Nodding, the assassin quickly gathered the newly purchased items and placed them in the bag with the other things Malik had already gotten before following him down the street once more.

Then something caught Altaïr's eye.

"Malik," he murmured, close to the rafiq's ear. "Please do not snap at me when I ask this; May I please borrow a few coins?"

The rafiq looked scandalized. "Why do you always ask me for money? You're an assassin, pickpocket!" Members of the Brotherhood, of course, did not get paid. Most money in an assassin's possession was earned not by wage, but by stealing, looting when they could. Malik knew Altaïr was guilty of it, they all were, but for some reason the assassin never had a single copper coin on him. As soon as he had money, it was gone.

"Please, Malik."

Malik stopped walking, a dark glare in his gaze, turning to berate Altaïr when he suddenly stopped. Altaïr's eyes were unreadable, but very dark, very pained. There was something in those deep black depths that was totally unreal to Malik. Something he didn't know or couldn't know about Altaïr and he knew everything, knowing the man since their first day of assassin training. Before Malik had even realized it, he was giving Altaïr a few coins, not a lot but enough for a decent meal, and the assassin walked across the street and knelt down to something there.

Malik's eyes narrowed, trying to see what it was that Altaïr was doing (plus, he still had that bag full of supplies) but the man's body was blocking the way. Malik walked towards Altaïr and faltered when he saw what exactly the assassin was doing.

"Thank you so much, sir," said a weak but very grateful voice. "You have no idea what this means to me."

"It is no trouble," he said softly before standing up. The figure below him was a young woman, tired and beaten by life. She was dirty and most likely homeless, given the way she dressed. An infant was cradled in her arms, big black eyes staring up at Altaïr with childish curiosity. Malik would have walked by them and not even seen them huddled there in the shadows of the merchant stalls. He wondered how Altaïr had.

When Altaïr extracted himself, giving what may have been a smile to the woman (though it might have just been a trick of the light- Malik could count on one hand how many times he had seen Altaïr smile), they walked back to the bureau in silence. Malik was contemplative; Altaïr was, as always, unreadable.

"That was a good thing you did," said Malik quietly, none of the usual sarcasm of snark attached, looking at Altaïr out of the corner of his eyes. Altaïr didn't respond. Malik tried again. "Why did you need money from me?" The question was honestly curious, again without any of its usual bite.

There was the smallest shift in Altaïr's stance, slightly more protective, noted Malik. "I had none," replied Altaïr, tense and uncomfortable. "I…I had already the last of my change to a boy before we started to shop."

Malik looked surprised and this his brow furrowed but before he could open his mouth to question further, Altaïr had already begun to speak again. "He was an orphan. He was starving." The muscles in Altaïr's were visibly tight, like a bow strung far too tight and about to snap. "I've heard there's a new gang in the city and they're recruiting disturbingly young."

Altaïr's eyes finally looked into Malik's and there was something decidedly raw in them, something Malik couldn't understand. "I can't do anything for him except hope that with each day I give some kid some of my spare coin, they're staying out of that for one more day. Its only one day, but its one day out of that hellish system."

With that, Altaïr handed Malik the bag and walked swiftly past the rafiq, to climb up on to the roof to enter the bureau's rooftop entrance. Malik just stared, even once Altaïr was out of sight. It suddenly occurred to him that there was so much about Altaïr that he didn't know, even after knowing him since their days as novices years ago. The rafiq shook his head and walked swiftly down an alley to the small side entrance of the bureau (the easiest way for him to get in and out of the building now that he could no longer climb with his former dexterity).

'Its probably nothing,' thought Malik to himself as he shut the door behind him with his hip before walking down the hall towards the main room. 'Just Altaïr the stupid novice with a hero complex.'

Something inside Malik told him that that wasn't the case.

The rain was a blessing for Jerusalem, but a curse for Altaïr. He despised the rain. Water in general was hated by the man, but rain's only positive quality versus still water was that he couldn't drown in it (or not easily, at the very least). High up above the city, Altaïr was perched on the wooden outcropping of a tall tower, giving him a wide view of the streets below. Thunder rumbled up ahead and Altaïr glanced up before sighing and getting ready to jump. There was no point to staying out any longer. The rain had pushed the citizens of Jerusalem indoors and with them went his informants.

If any had happened to look up and out of their windows at that precise moment in time, they would have seen a man clad in white leap from his place high above and down into a large bale of hay, graceful and precise in his movements in a way that not even a dancer could mimic. But of course, no one did. Altaïr silently rose from the hay to return to the bureau.

There were a lot of things that no one knew about him. Where he came from, why he became an assassin, who his parents were; some even he did not know the answer to. Altaïr had blocked out many parts of his past, forcibly forgot many things that he'd seen, but Jerusalem brought them all hurtling back. It was painful. Some things were just meant to be forgotten and those were an example of such.

Pausing in the mouth of an alleyway, Altaïr looked inside of it with unseeing eyes, dark and blank like twin moons; unreadable to the end.

A small form lay huddled in the alley surrounded by empty boxes and trash, shivering with the cold as rain pounded on him from above. He was painfully thin, practically gaunt with two large golden eyes that stared at nothing and everything at the same time. His breathing was labored, caused by sickness in his bones that would never go away as long as he was on the streets. But a life in a home was far off for the boy. He honestly couldn't even imagine one; after all, he'd never lived in one.

His back pulsed in pain, blood seeping through the thin material of his shirt. The rain made it spread against the already worn cloth, most likely permanently ruining the garment. (It hadn't looked all that good to begin with, either.) He'd messed up, he had. Didn't bring in enough money. It made Boss angry. He had set high demands, (obnoxiously high demands) for the boy and he hadn't been able to scrape by. He was made an example of, for the other boys. A cruel whipping and a beating was what he got for his troubles.

The boy wished he'd never listened to that charismatic sales pitch and joined that god forsaken gang.

Someone went stalking by and the boy huddled even farther down, back pressed against the brick like a wounded animal, as if he was expecting the person to lash out and kick him at any moment. One of the older boys had found him, hadn't he? He was done for. He'd be kicked and beaten into a bloody pulp and returned to the boss as the prime example as to why you never ran away from the gang. The gang was your family now. And people who left the family were never seen again.

But the blow never came. The boy was pleasantly surprised as the feet stayed in his vision and slowly, very, very slowly, raised his eyes raised to look at who had paused in front of him. A frighteningly tall man was standing there, his white hood causing dark shadows to cover his face. The boy cowered fearfully, a wretched picture under the strong tall man.

"What is your name, boy?" said stranger in a husky, low tone.

The boy was silent, too stricken by terror to find it in him to reply.

The white hooded man looked at him a moment longer before slowly easing down into a crouch in front of him, giving the boy a chance to see the face underneath the hood. It was a middle-aged man, handsome he supposed, and probably could have been a father to someone his age (what that was, exactly, was unknown but he assumed 8 or 9). But there was something in the man's eyes that both scared and exhilarated the boy. This was a man who was different. This man had seen hardship and conquered it. He didn't think he'd ever see a man like this again in his entire life.

The boy wished he could be this man.

The man repeated himself, breaking the boy out of his awestruck fantasies. "What is your name?"

"Altaïr," he stammered out, voice weak and soft. "A-Altaïr ibn La-Ahad."

The man raised an eyebrow before his expression became more concerned than confused. "Son of none? You don't know where your parents are?"

"…mother's dead," Altaïr said quietly, his large gold eyes deepening in grief. "I don't know who my father is."

The rain had decreased to a drizzle by now, not nearly as punishing as the downpour from before, but the temperature had sunk as nightfall fell upon the two. The chill sunk right into Altaïr's bones and shivers racked his thin frame no matter how hard he tried to hide them from the imposing man in front of him.

The man stared a moment longer before reaching forward (the boy flinching back from the hands but as he was already plastered against the wall as it was, there was no where else to go) and gently grasped the boy's chin to make him sit up straight. "I have two sons around your age," he said with an emotion in his voice that Altaïr couldn't understand due to age. "If they had to live like this…" The words trailed off and his hand fell away and Altaïr went back to the wall, pressing himself impossibly smaller against it. The action earned a small cringe from the boy (who's back still ached fiercely) and the small action did not go unnoticed by the man.

"What's wrong, Altaïr?" said the man seriously, dark brown eyes glinting in the shadows of his hood.

The boy shook his head fiercely and didn't comment.

There was only a split second between Altaïr's response and the man's next move. Before he even realized it, Altaïr was lying on the ground, chest down, dangerously close to a mouthful of mud and other unmentionables found in alleyways. A strong, calloused hand was on his neck, pinning him where he laid and no matter how he struggled, he couldn't rise. It wasn't even hard for the man to keep him down; after all, the boy was small, emaciated, ill, and (now that he'd gotten confirmation) injured.

A moment later, the boy was hoisted onto his feet (swaying a bit as he stood; blood loss mixed with hunger and sickness was not good for ones balance) and the man was crouched at eye level with Altaïr, looking at him with a determined expression.

"You're coming with me, little one," said the man. Altaïr glanced up.

"T-To where?"

"First, to get you taken care of," he said, standing up at full height and grasping the boy's hand. "Then, to Masyaf."

Altaïr blinked owlishly at him, confused. "Why?"

"Because you're going to be an assassin."

Another crack of thunder boomed overhead and the master assassin blinked in surprise, forcibly removed from the vision of his past. He sped down the street towards the bureau, feeling panicked inside. He did not want to revisit those memories. Not for anything.

Altaïr despised the rain.

The first thing Malik noticed when Altaïr dropped into the bureau was that the master assassin looked like a drowned cat. Second was the fact that Altaïr looked panicked. Very shaken up. But, of course, only he noticed it. After all, he was a master of deciphering exactly how Altaïr felt when others only saw apathy on his face.

"Safety and peace, brother," said Altaïr quietly in greeting, sitting on a stool in front of Malik's desk.

Malik frowned. "Go dry off," he snapped. "I don't want you getting water on these maps. I've been working on them for days."

Altaïr's gaze lifted and Malik was, for the second time in his entire life, saw that deep unending pain that reminded him he had no idea who Altaïr was. He looked back, something akin to sympathy on his face before placing his quill to the side and standing up. "Never mind. You wouldn't be able to find your way out of a paper bag, let alone find a towel in here."

Altaïr remained murmured a small 'thank you' before lapsing back into silence.

When Malik returned (towel and a new shirt in hand- because if the bastard caught a cold, he sure as hell wasn't taking care of him), Altaïr had removed his hood and stripped off each of his weapons that had previously been placed on his body and placed them on a nearby table, out of Malik's way.

"Here," said the man caustically as he entered the room, tossing the towel on the table as well as a new shirt. Altaïr picked it up and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. Malik flushed slightly (though it might have just been the way the candle was flickering-). "If you get sick, I'm not taking care of you," he growled. "So change your shirt."

The master assassin was silent for a moment before nodding his head in thanks to Malik. "Thank you, brother."

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled the rafiq as he sat on the stool behind the counter. "Just do it already you're taking-" he looked up, and his eyes widened. "-forever."

Altaïr's back was littered with scars, lines running up and down across the tanned skin that should have been without a mark. Malik was stunned. Assassins were very good about watching their backs. Sure, most had a few scars (arrows from that one archer they missed when they were taking people down, cuts from that one guard who joined the fray when they saw their comrades go fall, etc) but this many was unheard of. Watching your back was imperative to survival as you ran across the rooftops of cities and through the streets. It was your largest weak point, after all. Malik felt a little sick inside as he looked at them, and he had seen many sick sights.

Malik suddenly realized that Altaïr never took off his shirt around anyone, even when they were novices, training in the hottest parts of summer with not a break in sight. Most put it down as conviction (a sort of dedication to what he was doing that no one else quite understood), Malik included, but the mystery of Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad was growing every moment and he wasn't honestly sure how he felt about it.

He suddenly realized he wanted to know more.

Ducking his head before Altaïr looked over and saw him staring, Malik's head was moving a mile a minute. 'Those don't look like normal cuts,' thought the rafiq to himself, his gaze going from shocked to calculated, as if he was trying to decipher the very reason for those scars from just that one look. 'But I can't place exactly what they look like…'

It was decided then. Malik was going to study Altaïr's every movement until he knew exactly what Altaïr ibn La-Ahad was hiding. And he wasn't going to rest until he found out.

AN:

Don't you hate it when you realize once you've already uploaded a chapter, you've forgotten to put an author's note? Eish, this doesn't say great things about me, does it~? Well, my failures aside- Welcome to the first chapter of Choke! This is the first part of a three part fanfiction that I have already completely typed up. I'll be uploaded the next chapter in either the next few days, or next Tuesday depending on how editing goes (while this chapter was quick to edit, the next one was not- Oy ve). I hope you all enjoy this, my lovelies~

Also, just so we're all clear (and I am only going to write this once because it should be obvious)- I do not own Assassin's Creed or its characters. All rights go towards the always lovely Ubisoft and their wonderful team.

And, on a side note- The title of this fic and the names of the chapters all come from the song Choke by Hybrid. I suggest you all go to youtube and listen because its a great song.

Until next time-

Imaginingautumn.