Thanks to everyone who bothered reviewing. It really helped out a lot, confirmed what I thought I should do and such. (I also apologise to those of you who had to endure the crude, uncorrected version. I really have a bad habit of posting things without proofreading them first.)

Hope this chapter makes you happy. :)

Several Days Earlier

Lucy had mentioned someone else coming into the hideout. She'd talked about some roadside show and a kid playing with fire. She hadn't developed much on the kid, actually. Lucy had only said that "He's the descendant of a friend of Altaïr's. You shouldn't have too much trouble associating with him." He honestly doubted that. When didn't he have problems associating with people? As if it wasn't enough that Shaun was constantly being an ass. 'Seriously, it's not like I did anything to piss the guy off.'

It was Friday when two unfamiliar faces brought a new face to the hideout. It had taken a ridiculous amount of time just to ensure that the escorts weren't Templars. If that hadn't wasted enough time, the boy himself had to be checked for any weapons. Though the two lapdogs had made sure to take off any apparent weapon before knocking out the poor kid, there's no telling how he would react when he'd wake up.

Stupid, unnecessary things done with, Lucy was determined to get him into the makeshift Animus as soon as possible. Even Rebecca was a bit reluctant, but it's not like she had a choice. Lucy can be very convincing at times.

Of course, he wasn't present at that time. God knows he would've gone crazy to see him there, unconscious and—was that a bruise on his cheek?

"His name is Gabriel. Try not to kill him." Lucy had told him, keeping an eye on the teen at all times. She didn't even bother looking at Desmond when she spoke to him.

The aforementioned teen had spent around an hour in the Animus. Most of that time was spent easing him in and out of simplistic memories, getting him used to the switch and whatnot. Eventually, though, Lucy had begun to worry about the boy's vitals and quickly got him out. That's when she'd called for Desmond. He's been carefully instructed not to move and, if need be, restrain the flustered teen. He was still wondering why he had to play bodyguard. Weren't they all more-than-capable assassins?

The boy groaned. He drew an arm in front of his eyes, shielding them from the rather aggressive neon lights. Desmond sympathised; it was a pain to wake up to those lights all the time. 'That's probably why I have so many migraines.' As if he was slapped across the face, the teen shot straight up. His eyes were wild and he was obviously more alert than Desmond ever was. It took the later a while to figure out that he had to slam the kid back into the chair. (Somewhere he heard Rebecca ranting about how precious her chair was.)

"Let go of me!"

The voice was even accented the same. Desmond's grip didn't loosen in the slightest, but his face spoke volumes.

"What the fuck are you looking at? Let. Go. Of. Me."

"Please, Gabriel, calm down." Lucy's voice was almost sickeningly sweet. It felt like Abstergo all over again. "You're safe. You're with other assassins."

His jaw dropped. Since when does Lucy openly tell anyone that they're assassins?

Well it seemed to have worked, despite of that. Gabriel's muscles slowly relaxed and he fell back into the chair. His eyes were riveted on Lucy. She smiled, that Abstergo-signed smile. Desmond was wondering just how much of that place's training she had to go through to be that convincing.

"What the fuck's going on?" The teen ground out, completely ignoring Desmond. 'Yeah, sure, ignore the one who kept you from going batshit crazy.'

"You were placed in what's called the Animus. Gabriel, can you tell me what memories are?"

Desmond drowned out the sound and slowly took a few steps back. Until then he hadn't really taken the time to look at the boy any more than to keep him down. (Not that he really needed to.) But it was sort of obvious, now, whose descendant Gabriel was.

Malik Al Sayr may as well have been sitting in that chair and there wouldn't have been any difference. The two were practically identical. Desmond was slightly disgusted by that—I mean who enjoys looking like a man who's been dead for over eight hundred years?--but quickly reminded himself that he and Altaïr were basically carbon copies. 'Down to every scar.' he thought bitterly.

He kept on staring at the teen as Lucy meticulously explained what the Animus was and how it worked, and why they needed him, specifically.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, someone growled. He dismissed it; probably just some more of that stupid bleeding effect.

Lucy suddenly pointed at him. Her grin didn't really reassure him at all. Gabriel stared at him with nearly bulging eyes. 'Is there something on my face or what?'

"No way. I have to go in with that dude?" Gabriel asked, not sounding very enthusiastic at the prospect of... whatever Lucy had been explaining to him.

"It's the only other person that has any remote connection with you. If we can piece together both of your memories, we might have a more accurate map. Maybe we'll even be able to figure out how the pieces of Eden moved."

The teen scoffed, but still kept his eyes on Desmond. Something akin to recognition seemed to flicker there for a moment, but it was gone as soon as it came.

"Desmond Miles. Hope you have fun remembering who you killed." He said, taking a few steps forward to shake the youth's hand.

"Gabriel Deshaies." What kind of a name is that? "Don't need to remember it to have fun."

'Okay, yeah. He's not a psychotic kid at all.'

It wasn't until Gabriel had been in the hideout for three days that something started going wrong. He'd wake up in the chair and just stare at the ceiling for a couple minutes. Lucy didn't sound worried, but she'd spend more time trying to be a therapist than she did analysing Gabriel's memories. Normally, Desmond wouldn't have cared. But the thought that it could be the bleeding effect—'Fuck, that brat's just seventeen.'—it somehow managed to worry him, too. Nothing extravagant, but every time he'd hear someone say that Gabe had a hard time snapping out of it, his stomach sort of turned on itself.

And it wasn't just that.

It was the entire idea that maybe he'd go insane one day. Insanity, fresh out of the Animus and served on a silver platter.

Lucy tried to lower the time Gabriel stayed inside the Animus, and that worked for a while. But after a week, Gabriel was back to zoning out when he woke up. (Actually, waking up is pushing it. He looked awake, but he felt asleep.)

Day eight was the crazy day.

Gabriel had been reasonably sane that day. He'd only zoned out for about a minute, which was an improvement compared the the five or ten he was out of it five days before. Breakfast, lunch and dinner passed without any incident, and soon enough it was lights out for everyone. Desmond headed to his room and eagerly threw himself on his bed.

It wasn't until nearly two in the morning that he woke up. Another fucked up dream about Altaïr and—what's her name again? Maria? It had come as totally unexpected, to say the least. He woke up feeling groggy and utterly out of place. There was something wrong about that dream, for some reason. It felt like the Animus but it wasn't. But Desmond was convinced it had been a genuine memory.

But it still felt aggravatingly wrong.

And that's when he heard the door knob carefully turn on itself. There was a faint 'click', by which time Desmond had already made himself look sound asleep. He barely heard bare feet padding across the room to his bed and—'Just what the fuck is going on?'

The far corner of the bed sank. A knee and a hand, he knew it had to be a knee and a hand. Another hand slowly pressed down on his left leg.

"Hey. Hey, wake up."

His eyes immediately shot open. To say this was the last thing he'd expected would be an understatement.

"Wha... Gabe? What the hell are you—whoa, hey, are you okay?"

The teen's eyes were red and swollen. He'd obviously been crying. A lot. Even his nose was red—Gabriel sniffled—and he was shaking like a leaf. That the hell was going on in that kid's brain?

"I keep having dreams about him Desmond." Gabriel whispered, his voice hoarse, like his throat was too dry and parched for words to come out any louder. "I keep seeing Malik over and over and over again, and I keep dreaming about when I lose my arm and when my brother dies and I-I..."

'Wait what.'

When I lost my arm, when my brother dies.

Desmond's stomach doesn't even flip. It just shriveled up and died inside his stomach. All of his organs seemed to be wanting to follow.

He grabbed the teen's shoulder, shook him up a bit.

"Gabriel. You're not Malik. Your left arm is right there, and the only brother you ever had died at birth."

The boy started muttering something incessantly. Something Desmond couldn't quite catch. He exhaled sharply and just let the teen rest his head on his shoulder. He'd started sobbing again, quietly though. He could feel the tears slowly—almost painfully—making their way down his arm. He put his hand on Gabe's back, awkwardly, trying to comfort him. 'Seriously, this looks gay. How gay does this look?'

That's when he heard it though.

"Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop..."

Desmond took a shaky breath and slowly let himself fall back onto his pillow, dragging Gabriel down with him. Moving from his back to the back of his head, he carefully stroked the hair there. Something in his mind pulled and tugged and his heart felt like it was skipping way too many beats. Something felt weird. He didn't care.

Too tired to give a fuck right now.

So many thanks to TheEmptyMind and DarkExperience for dropping reviews. You guys gave me a push in the right direction. :)

More reviews are still appreciated though!