Desmond allows himself the luxury of waking up slowly, mumbling some half-hearted complaint against the alarm clock and reaching out an arm to hit snooze. It's been quite a while- three weeks, almost four- since he's been able to wake up in a real bed, and he's not planning to get out for anything less than a templar attack.

"Desmond…"

Definitely, literally, nothing. He's been on the run with Rebecca and Shaun for close to a month, thanks to a careless screw up that ended in the three of them being chased across half of the continental United States. Now that they've finally managed to make it back to a safe house, absolutely nothing is going to convince Desmond to get out of bed before at least noon.

"Desmond, come on already!"

Not even a particularly obnoxious ancestor banging around inside his head.

"Go back to sleep," Desmond complains aloud, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow. The voice in his head is as familiar to Desmond as his own- he's so used to his ancestors (Edward, in this case) by now that he barely even notices the intrusion.

"I can't," Edward says. "I'm in your head, and you're awake. So I'm awake."

"Then be quiet and let's both go back to sleep," Desmond says. "How about that?"

Something soft sails across the room and hits Desmond in the back of the head- he's out of bed and on his feet before his conscious mind even realizes what's happened, instincts forcing him into full awareness to process whatever threat is in front of him. Then he blinks, and sees that the soft thing is a pillow, and that Shaun is the one that threw it. The other man is glaring at Desmond from the far side of the room they're temporarily sharing. He looks about as tired as Desmond feels, but he's already out of bed and hard at work on something or other.

"What was that for?" Desmond demands, once he's finished processing the gross injustice of being out of bed several hours earlier than he'd planned.

"Please keep your disturbing mental conversations with your ancestors inside your head, Desmond," Shaun says, without looking up from the stacks of papers in front of him. "Some of us are trying to work, and it's very distracting when all I can hear is half a conversation."

"Whatever," Desmond mutters, yawning and heading out for the door. Over the past couple years, he's gotten too used to working with Shaun and Rebecca to actually be bothered by Shaun's attitude. It's December of 2014- in the past twenty seven months, he's been kidnapped by templars, rescued by assassins, forced into the heads of five of his ancestors, killed (ish) by the remnant of a woman older than human civilization itself, brought back to life (minus nearly all of his memories), saved the world, had his memories restored, and then spent the next several months with the assassins.

It's a long and complicated story, one Desmond is thoroughly sick of retelling. Lately, Shaun's been asking for details on every aspect of what it's like to have someone else in his head, to have access to every single one of their thoughts and feelings, to effectively be that other person. He claims it's research, that what Desmond (and, occasionally, his ancestors when one of them feels like traveling through time to visit) has to say may help future animus users survive the process. Desmond isn't sure exactly how that's supposed to work, since his experience with the animus has been extremely unorthodox, but Shaun insists and it's easier to go along with him than to argue.

It's all because of the apples of Eden. Desmond, Altair, and Ezio all have an apple inside of them, linking them to each other as well as the three Kenways in a way that goes beyond what the animus normally allows. On top of that, the apples act as translators for essentially every language known to man, offer a reliable although difficult method of time travel, and frequently cause their hosts to glow.

"Desmond!" Edward says, interrupting his wandering train of thought.

"What?" Desmond asks, letting a hint of exasperation creep into his voice. He's still upset about Edward dragging him out of bed so early. "What could possibly be this important?"

"…nothing," Edward admits, with a mental shoulder shrug that still feels strange in Desmond's head, even after all this time. "I'm just bored."

Desmond very briefly considers being annoyed about that, then shakes his head and smiles instead. There's just no point in being annoyed at Edward, because he either doesn't notice or straight up ignores it, depending on his mood. So he chooses to smile instead of frown, and wanders off to see if anyone's left any food lying around.

Typically, assassins are not known for their culinary prowess. The work they do is best suited to take out and microwaves, and this place is no different. Desmond finds a cabinet full of dust covered cans and (as a nice surprise) some pretty quality coffee. Over the past few months, Desmond has gotten pretty good at making something edible out of whatever happens to be on hand, and he's worked with worse than this before. By the time Rebecca and Shaun have joined him in the sorry excuse for a kitchen, breakfast is actually starting to smell pretty good (the coffee helps), and Desmond feels decidedly more cheerful.

They trade casual barbs about each other's cooking skills while they eat, with Edward providing a constant stream of commentary in Desmond's head. Despite the less than perfect accommodations, this is… nice. Before Abstergo, Desmond wouldn't have believed himself capable of trusting people the way he did Rebecca and Shaun, and the idea of a rotating cast of ancestors in his head would have freaked him out.

How quickly things change. He's trusted Rebecca and Shaun with his life so many times by now that he doesn't think twice about it anymore. And his ancestors... By now, the thought of life without them is one Desmond doesn't even want to consider. They are as much a part of him as his own arms and legs, and life without them would be… bad. Lonely. Still, as far as Desmond knows, separating them would be impossible anyway.

Definitely, literally, impossible.

-/-

I very strongly recommend reading Unintended Consequences before this- I'm doing my best to explain things as I go, but that fic was pretty all over the place. It will make more sense if you read it first.

Next chapter: Real plot starts happening