Chapter Text
As long as the Bleeding effect didn’t completely consume his surroundings Desmond figured he was safe. Crazy, but safe, time limits be damned. It was just a hallucination after all, like a particularity vicious case of deja vu- and man, did he get a lot of that. Between deja vu and the Bleeding effect, he'd almost rather stay in the animus. Things were a little more stable and linear in there, and that was terrifying.
Knowing they were hallucinations and couldn't hurt him was one thing but seeing a horse bearing down on him at full tilt wasn't something he could ignore. He braced for impact without thinking and a hand yanked him back against a wall. It wasn’t real, but he swore he felt the wind from the galloping horse's passage and smelled sweat and leather.
Then he realized- someone had pulled him out of the way.
Someone had touched him
Someone else had seen the horse.
Desmond whirled to see who. A far too familiar white hood was there. Altaïr's eyes met his clearly.
“Be more careful.” it was a full and direct sentence- not something that he got a great deal from the Bleeding. In fact, never. He'd hear noises and distant conversations sometimes, but nothing like this. He wasn't just hearing it, he was being talked to. “Just because someone tells you something can't hurt you doesn't make it true. Idiot.” the last word was added as an afterthought. Desmond reached out to touch the curve of the linen hood, and his vision cleared, leaving nothing but the stark walls of the hideout. He pulled his hand back and rubbed his eyes.
It was a hallucination, but it had been nice for someone to talk to him. Even when Shaun insulted him, it was as if it was aimed over his head. One of them, but not quite one of them yet, no matter what he did. Lucy, Shaun, Becca, they were his entire world outside the animus, and they tended to talk past him, not to him. As if they were too afraid to get close.
As if they knew they weren't going to get to keep him.
It was infuriating, but it didn't really hurt, because because they did care. But it was lonely.
A tragedy, not just a tool. It was almost worse.
“Des?” Becca's voice called down the hall.
“Coming.” he turned and trotted back, putting the incident from his mind as just one more Bleeding incident. As Shaun might say 'Bloody Bleeding'
Two days later, he was watching an argument between two men, filling in dialogue himself as they moved in their jerky, flickering way. In someways, but for the lack of real sound, the bleeding effect was better than TV.
“'no, your mother is a whore'” Desmond mumbled to himself. “'That's not what your sister said last night...'”
“No one taught you to read lips, did they? He took his lunch.”
Desmond turned, very slowly, to see that Ezio was leaning against the wall beside him.
“I have to say, though, your version is much more entertaining.”
The fight, which escalated to shoving was forgotten in favor to the hallucination that was talking to him. Not that Ezio looked like a standard echo from the Bleeding effect he was much more... saturated, and solid looking. He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “You should learn to read lips. It's very useful.” He gave a little shrug, making the folded hood around his shoulder shift. “Dull, but useful.”
“What... how...”
Ezio put his hands on Desmond's shoulders, and he flicked his eyes down, seeing how the fabric was displaced, feeling the warmth of hands, and then the stubbly brush of lips against first one cheek than the other. “So glad to meet you face to face, my friend.”
Desmond could smell him, not just feel him, leather, and linen and sweat. How could he smell a hallucination.
“I'm going crazy...”
“Si. We're all a little mad.” Ezio grinned. There was a clatter and a swear from up the hallway, and it wrested Desmond's eyes away to see what had happened. Lucy was there, picking up a crate of something, when he looked back the hallucination was gone, but he could still see the smile in his mind's eye.
“Desmond?” Lucy looked at him. “What are you doing?”
“Uh... just.. uh.. taking a moment. Getting my thoughts in order.”
“You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“No.. nothing like that.” Desmond tried to smile, and gave a weak laugh.
“You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?” she asked, concern furrowing her brow, and she abandoned the dropped crate to walk towards him.
“Of course I would.” he lied easily. It was a lie he told a lot. “Just.. a momentary Bleed, that's all.”
“Still not lasting very long?”
“Distracting flashes only.” he promised. “I'm trying to learn to ignore them.”
“Idiot.” hissed a rough voice in his ear and he flinched. Altaïr's voice again.
“That's good.” She either didn't notice the flinch or ignored it. Desmond wondered if she knew how much he was keeping from her.
“Here, let me give you a hand with that-”
“You don't have to;” she assured him.
“Nah, it's not like I'm doing much at the moment...” He helped her pick up the scattered files and carried the box back to the main room for her, and ignored the feeling that someone was watching him.