Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Few saw the streak of fire falling from the sky. Those who did attributed it to a simple firework. If any had watched they would have connected the slight tremor of the earth with the fire hitting the ground. Instead, no one paid mind to the crash of the spacecraft. Just as well as had they investigated they may have been consumed by the entity within. Instead it slowly flowed out over the ground and made its way through the woods.

It was like any other day for Desmond, working from late in the night to early morning. He liked his job though, regulars and tourists both making their way through the bar’s doors and watching him work with interest as he showed off his bartending skills.

There was usually at least one tipsy bachelorette party every weekend who cooed over how strong he was or how hard he must work to keep from breaking bottles. It was invigorating to have people praising him or even just watching appreciatively.

The sun was rising as he finished closing up for the day, waving off his coworkers’ goodbyes as he headed home. It wasn’t unusual for him to run across someone who was living on the streets but today was odd, even for New York.

The man was naked and unconscious, just sprawled out on the ground with no indication as to what had happened to him or how he had ended up in this state.

Desmond considered for a moment before kneeling beside the man and trying to wake him up. Wouldn’t be good for the stranger to be caught by the police like this.

The man’s eyes seemed almost red as he hazily looked at Desmond, letting out a growl.

“Hey, you should at least have some clothes, you know? It’s kind of a felony.”

The man growled again, making sounds that might have been words but Desmond couldn’t understand. It seemed to take all of his energy though because he slumped down again, head rolling to one side.

Desmond signed and considered whether he really wanted to get involved with some strange guy who was laying in the street. On the one hand, it was really none of his business and probably more trouble than he wanted to deal with. On the other hand, he would feel like an asshole if he just left him there.

”Ugh. Fine.”

Which is how Desmond ended up with a strange man in his home. It would be fine. It was not fine.

Desmond didn’t really have anywhere to put unconscious strangers so the man ended up in his bed. It didn’t, however, explain why he woke up with the man’s tongue down his throat.

“What the fuck?” Desmond exclaimed as he shoved the man off of him.

“You are quite the fool,” the man replied, seeming quite pleased with himself. His smile seemed almost wrong, like someone who didn’t smile much and was just trying to mimic the expression. At least his voice was nice, even if evidently he was a prick.

“Right. Guess that shows me for being nice.”

“Quite,” the man replied with a huff of laughter, licking Desmond’s cheek only….

“Holy shit!”

That was not a human tongue. The man (creature?) smiled wider, his teeth as inhuman as his tongue. Desmond wondered if he was going to die, eaten by some monster pretending to be human. Not his preferred way to go but at least the monster was kind of hot.

”So, what’s the deal with him?” Shaun asked as he leaned against Desmond’s kitchen counter, vaguely waving toward Alex.

”I found him on the street one day and now I can’t get rid of him.”

”Right. He knows what you’re like, right? Massive loser and all.”

Alex glared across the apartment at Shaun, stalking forward to wrap a possessive arm around Desmond’s waist.

”I’m afraid that I don’t appreciate your attitude towards my partner.”

”You can’t just say I’m your partner like that!” Desmond protested, though he made no effort to escape Alex’s hold. “We’ve talked about this. I have a say in all this!”

Alex purred, nuzzling against Desmond’s cheek and watching Shaun with narrowed eyes.

”Of course you would find someone even more of an imbecile than you.”

Alex snarled and Desmond snorted, rolling his eyes as he redirected Alex’s lunge.

”You are a real friend, man. Don’t know why I did’t tell you sooner.”

”If you wanted emotional support you would have gone to Rebecca. Which you did. That’s how I even heard about this whole thing.”

Desmond rolled his eyes and pushed Alex towards the bed, which was the only place to sit in his apartment. Alex did but pulled Desmond into his lap while holding onto him possessively.

“He’s actually not that bad, really. Bit of an ass but I rather like him.”

Alex let out a pleased purr and licked Desmond’s cheek, smirking at Shaun.

“Whatever floats your boat I guess. He’s not getting you out of helping me and Rebecca track down that rare book I want.”

“Yeah yeah. Whatever. I’ll be there Saturday like we agreed.”

“Perhaps,” Alex said as he kissed Desmond with a growl.

Chapter Text

Aiden crouched in the shadows, watching as the guard made their rounds. Thankfully they weren't shifted themselves because even having rolled in mint would do little to hide his presence if they had been.

He darted across the hall, keeping low in the shadows. His animal form was usually good for infiltration but he usually wasn't against anything as heavily fortified as this. Thankfully his skill at hacking was still superior to whatever tech personnel they had hired.

The blueprints and security footage he had gotten were enough to direct him where he needed to go. He had also sent a delayed program to loop the footage in the security cameras for the next hour. It would be obvious to anyone watching it back but by then it would be obvious something had happened anyway. He wasn't leaving without his mate.

He had to swipe a keycard from one of the guards to get through the door where his mate was being kept, a simple trick when they were so over confident that they were barely paying attention to thier job. Slipping into the room he growled as he saw the small cage where his mate was being kept. The small form moved slightly, rising into a low crouch to turn and look at him. Thankfully the golden eyes of the feline seemed aware rather than hazed from drugs. Desmond let out a soft meow, pressing up against the bars as Aiden approached. He pressed his cheek against the bar, relaxing slightly as he felt the rough tongue against his fur.

The lock on the cage was simple enough. Desmond probably could have delt with it himself if he'd been able to shift while in such a small space. Aiden was able to shift and quickly deal with it, reaching into the cage to help his mate out of the small space. Within moments his arms were filled with the broad form of his mate, the other man nuzzling against him and pressing kisses to his face.

"Missed you," Desmond murmured, sighing as he held Aiden close.

"I've missed you too but we don't have time to linger love."

Desmond let out a soft growl but nodded, pressing close to Aiden for a moment longer before stepping away and returning to his feline form. Aiden returned to his own fox form and pressed his face into Desmond's side for a moment before opening the door and slipping back out with Desmond close to his tail.

The two carefully kept to the shadows, making their way back out of the building. They were close to where Aiden had entered when Desmond cried out and there was a snarling behind him. Aiden whirled around to find Desmond struggling to fight off a monsterously large wolf. Neither of them were well equipped to fight against something so much larger and more deadly but he would not stand for Desmond to be hurt any longer.

Quickly Aiden jumped on the wolf's back, biting as hard as he could onto the wolf's neck. Desmond was able to slip free, his fur bloody but only panting slightly as he gathered his energy before joining Aiden in the fight. The feline form slipped under the wolf's massive body and Aiden was nearly thrown as the creature cried out in pain. Evidently his clever mate had bitten the wolf's inner thigh, threatening his most sensitve place. The wolf watched them both warily as Aiden stood in front of Desmond's small form, snarling at the stranger.

The wolf shifted and sneered at them, the man narrowing his eyes as he tried to kick Aiden. Aiden dodged easily, shifting back to human form along with Desmond.

"The fuck do you want, Cross?" Desmond asked, evidently recognizing their attacker.

"You, back in your cage, little kitten," the man snarled, eyes settling on Desmond as his fingers flexed.

"Aw, big bad wolf has a little crush? Fuck off. I'm taken. Obviously."

"We won't stop coming for you, kitten."

"I'd like to see you try," Aiden snapped, narrowing his eyes at the man.

"It's not a fight you'd leave alive, Cross," Desmond added with a snort. "Just take your loss and return to your master with your tail between your legs."

"I'd say that the kitten has claws but, well, we both know that's not true anymore. Isn't that right, kitten?"

"What did you do to him?" Aiden snarled, putting himself more physically between his mate and the other man.

"Doesn't matter. I don't need claws to kill you, Cross. Or do you think I really couldn't have bitten through something fatal in that last fight if I really wanted to?"

"I could say the same, kitten."

Aiden lunged at the man, unable to take this man who'd sided with those responsible for taking his mate and hurting him speaking to him like that. The attack was blocked but Desmond took advantage of the man's distraction and put a blade that Aiden hadn't even realized Desmond had taken from his pocket to the man's throat.

"So, this is how it's going to go, Cross. We're going to leave. You can raise whatever alarms you want, I really don't care. We'll be gone before they get here. But you are not going to follow us or you will be very dead."

"You can't escape me forever, kitten."

"I'm sure that sounded scarier in your head, asshole."

With that, Desmond kicked the man to the floor and aimed another sharp kick at the man's head before grabbing Aiden's hand and making a break for it through the hole that Aiden had entered through. The feline was quickly through and running for where Aiden had parked in anticipation for needing a quick escape. Evidently his mate found his plans rather predictable as he didn't really need to follow Aiden to the location.

Within minutes the two were away and well hiden from anyone searching for them in Aiden's bunker. Desmond dragged Aiden into the small cot he kept there for when he needed to stay for his work, pushing Aiden down sprawling out over Aiden's chest and holding him close.

"Thank you, love. I was so scared, being stuck there."

"I'll always come for you, Desmond."

"I know. I love you."

"Love you too."

Desmond purred, nuzzling against Aiden's neck as he sighed and finally relaxed. They could deal with those fools who'd taken his mate later. Aiden would ensure that they suffered for every injury that he had endured. No one messed with his mate

Chapter Text

Delsin refreshed the page and let out a soft groan as the most video that had been posted started playing, the same one that Delsin had watched at least a dozen times since it had been posted. He had been following this guy who posted videos of himself free running and parkouring around various locations across the country.

In the last video he had said that he was making his way to Seattle so he was looking forward to seeing the man post while he was still in town. The man had asked for suggestions on locations to hit during his time in Seattle so Delsin had been hoping that maybe the man would hit some of his own favorites. He also had been hoping that maybe he could run into the man while he was in town.

Carefully balanced on the top of the old factory, Delsin sighed and sprawled out on his side, carefully holding his phone tightly. It would be just his luck that he'd spend the whole week hitting every location suggested in hopes of running into the man and still miss him. He didn't have a crush, shut up Reggie.

It would probably have been weird anyway. They always say don't meet your heroes and that probably also went for random encounters with people who you watched on the internet. Definitely weird as the man likely wasn't going out to do his videos expecting to run into a fan on top of the location he was trying to scale. This whole thing was a stupid idea.

Another sigh and Delsin rolled up to sit on the edge of the building, looking out into the distance unfocused. At least, he wasn't really focused on anything until he noticed a spot of white moving in the distance. He froze, focusing in on the form which was climbing a different building. That white hoodie was unmistakeable though. That was Desmond!

Quickly Delsin scrambled down the building he'd been perched on, glancing over any time he had a chance to make sure that Desmond was still there. The man was still making progress up the other building but by the itme Delsin hit the ground he hadn't started his own descent.

Delsin ran half way there before freezing, wondering if he was really going to be that kind of a creep to approach a man who he'd never actually spoken to before outside of video comments. He could pass it off as if he was just curious about someone else who liked parkour right? Right. That was totally a normal thing to do.

Nervously Delsin approached the building, looking up at Desmond as the man had finished his climb. Where he'd evidently parked a woman was holding a camera while another man seemed to be talking to Desmond.

"If you jump from there, I hope you die," the man said, his accent strongly British. Delsin couldn't hear a reply but the man just seemed to get angry about it.

"I don't care if it does look cool, it's a lot less cool when we have to pick your fat arse up and drag you to the hospital."

"Oh, just let him jump. I can include the footage after he gets out of the hospital on the end of the video and make fun of him for being an idiot."

Delsin finally recognized that they must be Shaun and Rebecca. Rebecca usually edited videos and occassionally Desmond would add comments about how she had done something stupid to the video footabe. Shaun, well, Delsin wasn't really sure what Shaun did but he seemed to be part of Desmond's process as he would often say something like "Shaun hated this, but he's a sourpuss anyway".

"How is my baby doing?" Rebecca asked, not looking up from her camera. Shaun evidently was listening to what Desmond said before relaying it to Rebecca.

"The camera appears to be working fine as far as he can tell but the strap broke. I'm guessing that wobble we saw was him recovering the camera before it fell."

"Well thank god for that. I might actually post his most embarrassing moments if he'd broken my baby."

Delsin felt like his heart stopped as he watched Desmond stand at the edge of the top of the building with his arms spread. Was he really going to jump? He did sometimes, it was always amazing to watch, but it was somehow different seeing it in person. Maybe it's because he assumed watching it online that if something had gone wrong the video wouldn't have been posted.

Desmond didn't jump all the way down but did jump, leaving Delsin breathless as he watched the man make his way down in small leaps. When he finally reached the ground Delsin felt light headed and dry-mouthed. This was not helped at all by the slight smile he could see on Desmond's face as he looked at him with a slight tilt to his head.

"Well, I wasn't expecting to have any additional audience members yet, but hello."

Shaun cursed and Rebecca swung around with her camera. Delsin felt his face flush and wished he hadn't been caught blushing like an idiot on camera.

"Uh. Hi."

Ugh. He sounded so stupid. This was so embarrassing. Reggie would never let him live this down if he found out about this. 'Note to self,' Delsin thought, 'Don't let Reggie find out about this.'

"Hey," Desmond said, approaching him with a grin. "Not exactly the kind of place I'd expect to find someone hanging around. You also interested in parkour?"

"Uh. Yeah. It's cool."

Delsin sounded so stupid, he knew he did, but he had no idea how to talk to someone he followed online. He should have come up with some kind of plan before coming out here. Now he was just making a fool out of himself.

"Would you be interested in showing us some other places that are good for parkour? If you're interested, you could even join me on my next climb. Though I will warn you, we're filming."

"That would be amazing!"

Delsin knew he was blushing something awful but was too excited, practically vibrating in place.

"Great. Now there's two of them," Shaun grumbled, but Desmond seemed pleased as he motioned for Delsin to lead the way.

Chapter Text

The quiet noise of the other patrons could mostly be tuned out as Aiden worked. The little coffee shop was nice, free Wi-Fi was always a plus and the coffee was good. His main reason for liking the place was that it was conveniently out of the line of sight of all the surrounding security cameras with no cameras inside. It was always nice to have someplace he could be without his face covered without worrying about being monitored.

The majority of the morning crowd had already left, a few college age kids still lingering on their laptops much as he was on his own phone. The owner who was also working the counter had gone around to clean the tables and such. As he passed Aiden's table he dropped off a new cup of coffee and a muffin, which caused Aiden to glance up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"On the house. Plus you look less sad when you have something to drink."

Aiden huffed and scowled slightly, glancing at the cup. The man just laughed and headed back to the counter to handle the next batch of customers, some kid in a suit who was probably an intern.

The bell above the door jangled and Aiden glanced up before ducking his head and lowering his hat further over his face, preparing to bolt. A man in a Blume uniform had come through the door and seemed to be arguing with the owner.

"I told you all last time you came by, I'm not interested," the man at the counter said loudly and clearly, arms crossed over his chest. The Blume worker glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention before gesturing emphatically at the cafe owner. The owner didn't seem concerned, eyes narrowed and head tilted slightly as he looked down at the man.

"I. Do. Not. Care." This time the man's words were louder, more clearly stressed out to emphasize his point. "Now, either order something or get your ass out of my establishment."

The Blume guy seemed to lose his temper and tried to come around the counter at the owner, coming up short as the man easily grabbed his arm and forced him down to the countertop. By now everyone was watching, though the college kids were laughing and cheering, telling him to 'stick it to the man'.

Aiden relaxed as the Blume employee was escorted out of the cafe, sighing into his mostly empty cup of coffee.

"Need another drink?" the owner asked as he looked Aiden's way.

"Sure. I'll pay this time."

The man smirked slightly and winked at him, making Aiden feel like he'd missed a step in his shock. One of the kids wolf-whistled, causing him to blush and wonder if it would be better to just leave and not come back. No one could make him feel embarrassed if he just refused to ever come back, even if he rather liked this little shop.

"Here's your order. Feel free to come up and pay whenever." Aiden was pulled out of his head by the smell of coffee as the cup was placed in front of him. "Made just the way you like it."

It was probably bad that he was predictable enough that the man knew what his preferred coffee order was, but he really did like this shop and maybe it wouldn't be too bad to be a regular if the man had some kind of beef with Blume. It might be useful for him to come by more often.

Another week and Aiden finally resigned himself to learning the cafe owner's name. It just seemed rude to allways consider him 'the cafe owner' in his head when the man had a name. Desmond seemed a nice enough guy, laid back but taking no shit from Blume or anyone else who wanted to try to take a stab at him.

Aiden was actually a bit worried about Desmond after the third time he saw someone come in to try to shake him down. Though, admittedly that one lady was probably not seriously trying to shake him down as Desmond kind of treated her the same way Aiden did his own sister. She didn't even get thrown out, just told off and given a cup of coffe which she'd held close almost like Desmond would take it away again and sat in a corner with her laptop doing something very heavily encrypted. He would know, he'd spent like an hour trying to hack into the computer to see what she was doing.

This time though, whoever it was didn't seem to like being told no and was waving around a weapon that Aiden couldn't see. He could recognize the way the man was holding himself though, as well as how Desmond was reacting. Desmond seemed almost more wary of the other patrons than the weapon though, likely concerned about someone calling the cops.

Aiden tilted his head slightly, considering if he wanted to get involved. On the one hand, it wasn't his business. However, he really liked this shop and Desmond was really generous about handing out free coffee if someone stuck around all day. Absently he hacked the guy's phone, surprisingly easy considering what he found on it. It seemed someone had put out an order to capture Desmond Miles alive. Interesting.

It was childsplay to cause the phone to ring, startling both Desmond and the man threatining him. When the man went to check the phone, Desmond launched himself over the counter, knocking the man to the ground and working to disarm him. Aiden never saw exactly what the weapon was, it looked like some kind of bracer from where he was sitting and pretending to mind his own business.

Something the other man did or said caused Desmond to lose his hold on the man, his opponent taking the advantage to knock him down and get his hands on Desmond's neck. By then most of the other patrons had run out the door and some were calling for the police. Aiden just stood and grabbed his coffee which was relatively fresh and dumped it down the back of the man's neck. The man cried out but by then Desmond had escaped his hold and reversed their positions again, this time knocking him unconscious.

"Thank you for that. I appreciate it."

"Well, looks like I need a new cup of coffee anyway."

Desmond looked startled before grinning widely and laughing.

"Yeah, sure. Coming right up."

Chapter Text

There were tons of theories about the god of the sun. Well, some people called him that. Others claimed that he was human. Originally a lot of people theorized that he was a Conduit, but that never really seemed adequate to explain what he did. What everyone universally agreed was that he was very powerful and seemed to have some abilities in common with the sun. Delsin just thought he was hot.

Well, both literally and in an appreciation of one's appearance way. Obviously the man was hot, physically (literally), as the man seemed almost made of plasma. Delsin assumed that he kept it contained somehow as he didn't set stuff on fire all the time despite being surrounded by burning plasma all the time. He'd seen the man a few times as he passed through the area. The heat wasn't really noticeable until you were practically right next to the man.

No one really knew why but he seemed to be wandering around the world aimlessly, always east to west. Thankfully he didn't move nearly as fast as the sun, often staying in one place for a few days while he did whatever it was that he decided to do. Currently he was in Seattle, mostly taking pot shots at the DUP and pestering anyone he caught giving the citizens a hard time, Conduit or not.

Currently he was sitting in what had been a perfectly maintained park, which thanks to his presence was now wildly overgrown as his powers or whatever caused the plants to grow at a crazy rate. Delsin was laying on top of a nearby building just watching him (totally not stalking, that would just be rude). He was pretty sure the man, god, whatever, had noticed him anyway and just didn't care. The man had glanced up at him, waved, and gone right back to sitting and staring out at the bay.

Delsin was really curious as to what the man was planning on doing. He'd seen him walk straight out over the water before and everyone had seen videos of him traversing the sea as if it was just an ordinary road, his feet almost seeming to not touch the water. It was very cool, though not as cool as the man stopping at various natural disasters to help people. It was no wonder that he had a small cult following. Who hopefully weren't a real cult, because that was bad.

Delsin nearly tipped over the side of the building as he tried to get a better view of what the man was doing, not that he seemed to be doing much of anything. Still, he didn't want to miss anything interesting.

He didn't even notice something was happening until he was picked up from behind by something.

"Hey!" Delsin flailed uselessly in the air as whatever had grabbed him slowly carried him down into the park across from the sun god. As he flailed he could see bands or something of bright fire though he could barely feel the warmth.

The man smirked, a more human expression than he'd expected. Usually no one could get a picture of his face so mostly what they did have online was the man very focused. That probably fed into the whole "sun god" thing that he had going on for him.

"So, were you watching for any particular reason? Something you wanted to ask for maybe?"

"Do people usually do that? Just ask for stuff?"

The man chuckled and shrugged, the aura of plasma shifting around him. It was a bit hard to look at this close but he could almost make out what looked like a hoodie under all that light.

"Sometimes. If it's something that I can do and doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it then I might do it. I try not to get involved in things that might cause people to be hurt but sometimes it's inevitable. There's a lot I can't do, things I could do which would only make things worse. Mostly I just try to take bullies down a notch where I can."

"Like the DUP."

"Yes." The man grinned and leaned forward slightly. "They are often cruel to the Conduits. Sometimes even to those who are not. I feel something is going to happen soon. Perhaps not yet, but soon. The numbers are shifting, counting down towards a choice. It's not a choice for me nor do I believe it is my place to say how the choice should be made. But it is coming."

Delsin shivered even though it was rather warm in the park so close to the sun god. It was easier to see now why people insisted he was something divine. What else could talk in prophecy like that? Still, this was probably the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have left you to your watching." The god, or being, looked sad. He pulled back from where he'd been sharing Delsin's space almost like they were sharing secrets. Now the man just seemed disappointed in himself.

"Why did you?" Delsin asked, leaning forward and waving his arm. "Say something, I mean. Why bring me down here and tell me that?"

"I guess," the man said slowly, eyes closing. "I guess I was lonely. You reminded me of someone and I…"

The man trailed off, looking up at Delsin with a slight tilt to his head. Suddenly the plasma disappeared, leaving an ordinary looking man sitting in the place of the sun god.

"I wanted someone to know me, to want to know me. It was selfish but I could help you to make up for my selfishness. You deserve that much from me, for my interference in your life. I shouldn't be selfish. It's not fair with the power that I have but sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I'm only human."

"Well, you certainly look human right now," Delsin commented as he took the man's hand and ran his fingers over the back it. The man blushed and looked at him in a way that seemed way too much for just him. Delsin wasn't anything special, he was just a screw-up. Still, it made him feel important that whatever this being was looked at him and decided that he was the one to choose to speak to.

"So, what do I call you?"

"Would you mind calling me…Desmond?"

The words were so hesitant like he expected Delsin to take it back. Desmond definitely seemed to be touch starved from the way he was leaning into Delsin's touch. Being the friend of a being that could be considered a god was probably a bigger responsibility than Delsin should take, but it was certainly interesting.

"Alright then Desmond. Let's be friends."

Chapter Text

Desmond sat at the top of the main mast, telescope in hand as he scanned the horizon. Below Lucy kept them on course with the help of Rebecca and Shaun who were referencing their charts and old rumors regarding where treasures had been hidden.

Shaun was best at deciphering the clues hidden within the rumors as well as cross-referencing information regarding the various islands and bays which might be used as locations. Rebecca kept their maps up to date as well as tracking their location by either the location of the stars or some complex math she did using shadows and the time of day.

Desmond really wasn't useful for much outside of a fight but he was good at finding hidden things and the best at spotting things which may be of interest. Speaking of…

"Ship off the starboard bow!"

He kept an eye on the ship as they turned towards them, trying to figure out who it was and what they were doing. They had British flags, which was interesting, but they also had something that looked like a net running out the back of the ship. Whatever was in the net seemed to be fighting, a black shape beneath the water moving and causing the ship to pitch slightly to one side.

Desmond dropped down to the deck to consult with the others.

"They're British, not military as best I can tell. But they've got something in a net. Can't see what it was, but it looked pretty big. Strong enough to make the ship tilt. Might be a whale."

"It's the wrong time of year for whales," Shaun argued. "Not to mention it's rather far for them to travel just to hunt whales."

"Could be a pod of dolphins maybe?" Rebecca proposed.

"I couldn't see it clearly, just that it was there and strong enough to move the ship."

"A big enough school of fish could do it," Shaun added with a shrug. He turned to Lucy, who was technically captain and as such the one who made the decisions regarding attacking other ships. "You think it's worth our time?"

"Maybe," Lucy said thoughtfully. "The whole situation is odd to me. What would they be fishing for out here running the English flag? Might be that they found something and were trying to bring it up in a net but they caught something else. Could be that they're just low on food while transporting other goods. If nothing else, they probably would have supplies that we could take and sell or use ourselves."

"Aye aye!" Desmond said with a salute, heading back up the mast with the telescope to watch as they approached the other ship. "Turn a few more points starboard to intercept them!"

While he had been down on deck talking with the others it looked like the other ship had gotten the net up out of the water. Whatever they'd been hauling up either escaped or was now on deck. As they got closer it was clearer that the crew was distracted by whatever was now on deck.

"Whatever it is they had in the net is now on deck!"

When they were close enough Desmond helped Shaun man the cannons, knocking out the other ship's rudder and at least shredding one of their sails as the crew panicked. Once the ship was disabled Desmond lept across to start subduing the crew, knocking most of them to the ground easily for Shaun and Lucy to bind as Rebecca kept their own ship from drifting too far from their target. Only a few had the presence of mind to fight back which meant taking over the other ship was a quick process.

With the other ship under their control the pirates finally had a chance to see what the other crew had the other crew so distracted. Desmond was rather confused to see a young woman with short, black hair similar to Rebecca's. She seemed to be wary of them, clutching a sheet of sailcloth over herself.

"Are you alright, Miss?" Desmond asked, "Where did you come from? Were you a passenger?"

"A passenger?" Shaun asked, glancing over and seeing the woman. "If so, where's her chapherone or guardian? No one would send a woman off on her own like that, not with a crew like this."

The woman shook her head, backing away from them. She glanced between Desmond and Shaun warily, edging towards the side of the ship.

"Hey, it's okay. You're safe now. We're not going to hurt you," Desmond said, placing his weapons on the deck and backing away with his hands out placatingly. "We can drop you off at the nearest port with a bit of money and you can find a way home from there. You'll be safe with us."

It didn't really seem to do much to help the woman feel comfortable because as soon as he was out of range to grab her she dropped the cloth which had definitely been the only thing she was wearing and made a run for the side. Without a word she dove over the side and Desmond couldn't quite describe what happened as he ran over to watch her disappear into the water. It was like she changed, expanding and elongating as her skin turned black. Whatever she was also had way too many limbs to be remotely human.

"Where did she go?" Shaun asked as he joined Desmond at the side of the ship too late to see the last of the tentacles disappear into the water.

"I don't know what she was, but she definitely wasn't a passenger."

"What?"

"She wasn't human, Shaun."

"Desmond, is something wrong with you?"

"Probably," Desmond sighed, running a hand over his face. "But I'm pretty sure she's gone. We should focus on what we actually came here for rather than worring over it. She made her choice on where she'd rather be."

Later that night after everyone else had gone to bed Desmond was on watch, looking out over the dark water and wondering just what it was he had seen. His attention was pulled to a sound that he didn't recognize, a low noise almost like whale song but not quite right. Whatever it was making the noise seemed close so he went to see if he could spot whatever it was through the water on the port side.

The sight of tentacles writhing up the side of the ship caused him to reel back but he was grabbed before he could call out to the others and pulled under the waves. Thankfully he managed to hold his breath as he was pulled through the water, feeling the uncomfortable pressure of the depths.

He wondered for a moment if he was going to die like this before he was pulled into a cave with air and light from some crystals. Inside was the woman from before, this time wearing an old, worn dress that probably had been scavenged from a ship wreak.

"I am sorry about this," she said with a sigh. Another form appeared from the water, this one a man who had similar features to the woman.

"My sister tells me that you saved her," the man said, approaching Desmond who glanced back and forth between them.

"Honestly, we didn't even know she was there until after we'd boarded that ship. Mostly I guess we provided her an opportunity to escape. We wouldn't have hurt her, though."

"I told you," the woman huffed with a roll of her eyes.

"Still, a debt of gratitude is owed," her brother said as if she hadn't spoken at all.

"Ugh. It's not that big of a deal," his sister grumbled.

"What she said," Desmond agreed, wondering what exactly was going to happen to him.

"You saved my sister from being forced to become a sea bride of one of those sailors. As such, you should be given equal compensation." The man seemed to be completely ignoring both Desmond and his sister's words, just continuing on with his prepared speech.

"That doesn't really sound fair to her, making her get married just because I saved her or whatever."

"He doesn't mean me," she sighed, covering her face with a hand. "I'm Dana, by the way. That's Alex. It's better to just do what he wants."

"I don't understand."

"I will be the one to become your sea bride," Alex stated, wrapping an arm around Desmond's waist.

"I don't even know why I'm still here. You two deal with this. Call me if you need me." With that, she walked into the water, disappearing from sight as Desmond blinked up at Alex in surprise.

"You want to marry me? Why?"

"You are a capable fighter and a good man. You cared for my sister's well-being, even after knowing what we are you worried over her freedom and happiness."

"You didn't know that before you brought me here though."

"Yet, you still proved yourself, did you not?"

Desmond flushed in embarrassment and tried to turn his face away but Alex held his face firmly in place. The man's expression caused a shiver to run down Desmond's spine. There was a feeling of something against his legs and he glanced down to see that tentacles had appeared from somewhere behind Alex and were slowly winding up his thighs.

"Oh," he gasped, shivering again as he felt them shift further up his legs. Alex pulled him closer, tilting his head up so that Desmond could see his grin with too many teeth, all way too sharp to be human.

"I will bring you much pleasure, my husband."

"Yeah? I hope that I can do the same, my husband."

Chapter Text

Delsin was nervous as he waited with the other actors and actresses who were here to audition. He'd never had a big part before, just small local gigs doing commercials and a few bit parts where he was a nameless character in the background. Still, he was hoping that this audition would go well. It wasn't a huge part that he was auditioning for, only a minor character, but it would be his first big production. Plus he'd heard that Desmond Miles would be the main lead actor on this movie. The man was one of the most famous actors there was and Delsin might have had a bit of a crush on the man based on his performances in other movies.

When his name was called he headed into the interview room, trying to keep calm as he wiped sweat from his palms. Inside he was surprised to see that Desmond was sitting next to the producer Lucy Stillman as well as the writer Shaun Hastings. The other two he'd mostly expected as Lucy was the one who was in charge of casting and such and Shaun was rather well-known for his control issues. It wasn't until the two started arguing before he'd even had a chance to say anything that he realized why Desmond was there.

"The character is so minor it really doesn't matter who we chose, it'll be fine so long as they can do a decent enough job and Mr. Rowe has a good history with acting," Lucy grumbled as she flipped through the papers in front of her. "We have too many real positions to pick from to be stuck on this."

"That's not true at all!" Shaun protested, throwing up his hands. "If it didn't matter then we wouldn't be doing auditions for any position. We'd just pick whoever and have them just do the job. All of the positions need to be treated the same and with the same level of care!"

"It's really not," Lucy huffed, rolling her eyes and motioning for Delsin to sit, which he did hesitantly.

"They do!"

"Guys, you're freaking the poor kid out," Desmond interrupted, offering Delsin a script and a gentle smile. "Would you mind scanning through and reading the lines for Martin? Don't stop unless Shaun asks, okay? Lucy will try to throw you off, but don't listen to her. I'll be reading the responding lines."

Delsin nodded hesitantly, looking over the script and finding the relevant lines. He frowned slightly as the lines didn't look like they belonged to a minor character, but not much had been released yet about the movie before they started calling for auditions so it wasn't like he knew for sure.

"You've been my friend for a long time, Ben. I wouldn't be where I am without you," Delsin read, ignoring Lucy's noise of surprise.

"That's not true at all," Desmond responded, not even glancing at the script. "Even without me, you would be amazing. You are amazing."

"Hey!" Lucy interjected, "That's not-"

"I'm not amazing," Delsin continued, ignoring Lucy as Desmond had told him, "I'm just a failure. If you hadn't-"

"You are amazing," Desmond cut in as the script said he was supposed to. "You aren't a failure. You're everything that I could ever want and more."

"But," Delsin continued, doing his best to make himself cry for the scene. "You could do so much better than me. I'm not-"

"But you are," Desmond cut in again, his voice rougher, making Delsin glance up at the man. He was watching Delsin intently. Lucy had her face covered but Shaun was watching them both raptly as if waiting to see what would happen. Which was absurd because the man had written the script, surely he knew exactly what was in the scene. Desmond continued, drawing Delsin's attention back to the scene. "If I could have anything that I want, then I want you."

"Please," Delsin said with a soft sob, "I don't deserve you. Don't ask me to-"

"You're hired!" Shaun interrupted, startling Delsin out of the scene. Lucy groaned but Desmond looked rather pleased so Delsin supposed that he'd done well.

"That wasn't even the part he was auditioning for," Lucy pointed out with a hand over her face.

"I don't care. That was great. Desmond, you're fired. I'm taking him instead."

Delsin jolted, shocked as he looked between the three of them. Desmond snorted, shrugging and tilting his head slightly.

"Oh. What a shame. I guess I'll just have to find another position. It's not like you weren't looking for someone to take Ben's role. Plus I know that you liked me for that position better than Martin's. Have fun with that, kid," Desmond said as he pat Delsin on the shoulder. "Looks like we'll be working together rather closely. I hope you take care of me, Mr. Lead Actor."

Delsin sat there in shock as the other three bickered, wondering what exactly had happened. Desmond glanced away from where the others were arguing and winked at him. Well, at least he could spend time with his crush? Delsin was so screwed.

Chapter Text

Desmond absently poked around Abstergo's servers, mostly bored as their system admin was barely putting up any kind of resistance to his hacking. Usually he didn't even bother with hacking businesses, usually preferring to stick to simple stuff like hacking phones and cars. However, if something was going to be this badly designed, they kind of deserved what they got. He and another hacker, RC, had set up a private chat room on the server which somehow still hadn't been noticed even though they hadn't bothered to encrypt it. Much. Mostly they used it to trash talk how bad the security was.

When he'd been a teen, Desmond had run away from home and headed for New York. He didn't know what his parents were doing. He hadn't looked into anything about what Eden's Gate out in Montana was doing since he'd left. He definitely hadn't seen the videos of the leader being taken away in handcuffs or checked the arrest records of the members to see if they'd been picked up along with the other crazies in their cult. What prison his parents were in didn't matter to him, he'd gotten out the first chance he had. Definitely wasn't worried that the whole county was currently unreachable via any communications system that Desmond could hack.

It was rough when he'd first gotten to the city, not having a school record or any kind of ID or information to give anyone. He'd worked the streets for a while, either taking tourists' money or from the various husslers on the street. Eventually he'd been picked up by his mentor, BW, who'd taught him a bit about how to hack. From there, he and BW had parted ways and only occassionally met up online to do jobs. Online, BW was Bad Weather, the infamous hacker who liked to trigger alarms just to send people scrambling even when it would be better to stay incognito.

For now, Desmond was kind of between jobs and bored. He and RC had met via Abstergo's servers. He wasn't sure what they were after but they kept asking him to look at stuff. At first he'd thought that RC was just testing him, but he was pretty sure now that they were just using him as a gopher. Honestly, he had nothing better to do and what he'd been picking out of Abstergo's servers was kind of interesting. Evidently they were a similar death cult to the ones his parents had belonged to, whole end of days and such nonsense. As best he could tell they thought some Mayan calendar that said that the world would end on the twelth of December that year was somehow true. Crazy folks.

Desmond's attention was caught as an urgent message went through the system, straight to the lead researcher Warren Vidic. Someone had found something out in Chicago and they were scrambling to try to send a team to get it. The way they were talking about it, whatever it was probably was a person, though they were careful to call it 'the asset'. He forwarded what he'd gotten to RC and decided to book himself a ticket to Chicago. This could get bad for whoever was on their radar. Abstergo certainly hadn't had any trouble killing people off for their pet project before.

Over the flight to Chicago Desmond kept an eye on the chatter in Abstergo. For people with terrible encryption they were very good at keeping their communications vague. He did however get a trace on the person who was going to 'collect' their 'asset'. Thankfully he was ahead of them as they were not on their way to Chicago yet. That gave him enough time to learn a bit about the city's layout and set up his own access into the local networks.

By the time that the hit man or whatever it was Abstergo was sending finally showed up Desmond was starting to feel a bit bored. RC had messaged him back in concern about what he'd found, saying not to get involved, but he was mostly ignoring them. They weren't the boss of him and honestly, he wasn't paid nearly enough (or at all) to listen to their opinions on what he should or shouldn't be doing. Besides, this was interesting and he could potentially save a life.

Finally he found where the Abstergo agent was going and set himself up at The Fox, a rather fancy little bar in the middle of town. He sat at the counter and sipped a random drink that the bartender had given him. When he'd told the bartender to surprise him the man was a bit over the top about showing off his skills and dramatically handed over his own flair on the Shirley Temple. It was cute, makind Desmond smile and give the man another look over. He wasn't bad looking, the sort that Desmond would flirt with in any other circumstances. Maybe once he'd finished what he was doing he'd be back to flirt with the man.

After a while of setting up his stake-out of the bar Desmond spotted his target who was also making eyes at the bartender that Desmond had taken a liking to. What were the odds? Curious. His eyes narrowed as he watched the man slip something into a drink and offer it to the bartender. The man didn't even question it, taking the drink without question. A few minutes later the bartender was staggering and begging off to take a break. Desmond's target followed the bartender out the back and after a moment to let them get ahead of him Desmond followed.

The Abstergo guy was trying to force the bartender into a van when Desmond got out into the back alley. With a flick of his wrist Desmond had his extendable batton out and charged the man, aiming for his knees. It wasn't hard to bring the man down, slightly harder when three of his friends came out of the van to try to help. In the end Desmond had taken down all four of the men and picked up the bartender awkwardly.

He was reluctant to take the kidnappers' van as who knew what kind of trackers it had on it but he also didn't bring his own vehicle. In the end it was simple enough to hack a car and load his rescuee in the back. Curious as to what Abstergo was after, he ran the man's face through the local recognition system. The man was listed as Aiden Pearce, though the information was fake if you looked deep enough. However, he did have a sister listed. Desmond had better make sure that Niccole was alright too. Abstergo might try to use her or the kids as leverage.

Well, at least this was going to be interesting. Plust was the knight in shining armor for a rather cute guy. Wins all around for Desmond.