You know, I'm so sorry I posted the other one. It was a train wreck (I'm pretty sure it still is), but I revised it once and am going through it again.
Pt.2 pg.35 of Kinkmeme
Desmond leaned back in the chair, a look of astonishment on his face. He scanned the email again: "Everything is going according to plan. However, I'm still in the process of healing, but everything is falling into place. We have the Apple, and he still thinks his running away was his idea… He still believes his past is his freely chosen past. Sincerely, Lucy Stillman."
He frowned. Behind him, he heard Shaun. "Doing okay there, mate? Find something interesting?"
Desmond whirled around and scowled at him. "Were you in on this?"
"In on what?"
"In on my escape and everything being planned?"
"What are you shitting about?"
Desmond scowled and gestured to the screen. Shaun walked over, set his tea down on the table in front of him, and leaned over his shoulder to read. Finally, he pointed at a line.
"I have yet to tell Shaun, since he was not born of assassins' blood. He threw quite a wrench in things when he and Desmond started bonding. We'll have to be careful, or else he might start leading Desmond astray. The man is smarter than we realized: he did, after all, hack Abstergo."
Desmond scowled and looked at him. Shaun was frowning.
"Don't trust the outsider." Shaun hissed, his eyes narrowing. "I should apply to be an Abstergo spy. You can get the applications for it online."
Desmond scoffed. "This is just ridiculous. This pisses me off."
Shaun stared at him. "I've always been slightly irritated that I was always on the 'outside' because of my blood." He snarled. "Racist pigs."
Desmond looked at him, pissed off. "They don't like how we're friends, either. That makes me even madder."
Shaun was studying him. "Because, Heaven forbid, you have a say in your own life for once, hm?"
"Yeah. Heaven forbid." He clicked out of Lucy's email account and closed the laptop. "Suddenly, I don't really want to help them anymore. I don't wanna search for the next piece."
Shaun pulled a chair up beside him. They had moved from Ezio's palazzo after Lucy was stabbed and met up with another team, and all eight were now working together. Desmond sagged forward, covering his face with his hands and sighing, frustrated.
"I just wanna be free."
There was silence for a few minutes before he felt Shaun place a hand on his shoulder.
"We can be free, mate, if you're willing to work with me. Remember? 'We'll have to be careful. The man is smarter than we realized'?"
Desmond looked up at him, utterly flabbergasted. "You'd be willing to work with me?"
Shaun's eyes flicked to the laptop as he leaned back. "I don't have a plan yet, but I've got one forming. Give me some time, and I can have something. You're bearable enough once you've actually got some intelligence in that thick head of yours."
Desmond looked upset.
"I mean it in a good way, pet. I can get us both out of here."
"I don't want to get into the Animus again. They're close to the right memory. I can feel it."
Shaun studied him closely for a moment, then leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"How far are you willing to go?"
He regretted answering that question as he stood at the kitchen table, holding the butcher knife in his hand. His other hand splayed on the table. His stomach twisted in knots as he thought about what he was about to do. Thankfully, he remembered Shaun was going to get some high-end painkillers along with the groceries he had been charged to get.
He ground his teeth. It would just have to be done. If he wanted out of the Animus, he needed a bad injury. And this would fit right up the alley of the Bleeding Effect. He readied the knife in his hand and cursed loudly in Arabic.
In one motion, he brought it slamming into his finger, and he screamed as he felt the bone break and the finger sever. He reeled back, crying out as he clutched his hand tightly, cursing Malik and the Apple. Perhaps his thought patterns were a little too easy to keep clear when he needed to "be" in a foreign past.
As he watched the blood spill out, his screams and yells turned to curses and shouting. William was the first one to come in, and he froze momentarily at the sight before screaming for bandages. Desmond turned on him, grabbing the knife from the table and raising it to fight, screaming in Arabic for Malik. William was approaching him cautiously as Desmond fought against blacking out from the pain. He was cursing and screeching as Rebecca came in with plenty of medical supplies before dropping them in shock.
Desmond had his hand pressed tightly against his stomach, tears rolling down his cheeks as he continued yelling for Malik, for his supplies, for the drugs that he would burn, and the fire to cauterize the wound. It took some time, but eventually, William and Erudito managed to pin him down as Rebecca sealed it with a cigarette lighter. He was screaming and crying as they did so, and he accused them of being Templars and bit his tongue so he wouldn't leak any information.
When it was finally bandaged and over with, he was so numb from the pain, all he could was sit there, slouched over, and listen to them talk.
"Perhaps the bleeding effect is worse than we thought?" Lucy murmured.
"Either way, we'll have to put off searching for the next piece," William said.
"Could anybody translate what he was screaming?" Erudito asked.
"Something about needing Malik to get him pain killers, and how the Apple caused his finger to reappear," William replied.
All he could do was whimper, and it felt like too long before Shaun returned, pretending to be storming mad about letting him do that, and he could only feel a flood of relief when the historian injected his arm with morphine.
The man leaned to whisper into his ear, "All done, mate. A few more days and my application will be cleared. Once we know I'm getting a paycheck from Abstergo, we'll get the Hell out of here."
He refused to sleep with anyone but Shaun that night, spewing Arabic and pretending he was Malik to make sure they believed he really was going crazy.