Done for the Assassin's Creed Kink Meme. The prompt was "Malik is haunted by his little brother's ghost, but instead of revenge Kadar wants him to act on his feelings for Altair." I am not normally a writeanon, but I felt like I could do justice to this one. At least one more chapter is due after this. Be patient!

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عمى العين ولا عمى القلب

-Blindness of the eye is better than blindness of the heart.

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Even as a child, Malik had experienced vivid dreams. When Kadar had died, his brother had plagued his dreams in so many different forms that Malik was sure that he was to be haunted forever by his presence. He often awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for air and entangled in the blankets and pillows of his bed. Those dreams with his brother were always the most stunning. He could see the blood smeared across the man's face, his hands, that gaping wound in his side that would not, could not be closed, even by the best doctors the Brotherhood had on hand. Kadar had died in pain, grasping weakly at his brother's dirty robes, eyes filled with fear. And it was those eyes that always seemed to linger with Malik when he awoke from his sleep. They hovered in his presence like some unwanted spirit, and continued, months after the tragedy, to plague him and his thoughts.

So it was with great confusion that the company of his brother's memory seemed to fade like blood in the river where they washed their robes. Malik had been certain that it would remain with him for the rest of his existence. But time had passed. Humility in the form of Altaïr's presence was as sudden and unwelcome at first as any annoying insect. But he had changed. Even the rafiq had seen the look on the assassin's face when Malik spoke of his brother, even in an offhanded mentioning. There was a tenseness there that couldn't have been caused by any other mission or assignment. Altaïr always seemed to handle his assassin work with a certain grace and forwardness that never permeated into his every day actions. The man could be as quick as a hunting eagle when he chose to be, snatching feathers out of Malik's hands or tipping his incense pots with a mere breeze of his form passing by. But the killer's quickness fled when he stepped into the bureau most days. It was as if he was trying to restrain himself, for Malik's sake. The look he gave his amputated arm, even under the layering of bandages and the cloth of his robes, made the rafiq think that his arm would grow back out of pity.

Reservation. It was a word that should have never come to mind when thinking of Altaïr. But as soon as his assassin training picked up the padded footsteps of his former adversary, and Malik turned his head to offer the greeting of their shared bond, the other assassin seemed to freeze, his movements becoming slower, more methodical. He was always thinking around Malik. He was always aware of the tenseness, the blood that had been spilt between them. If Altaïr could have scraped the lifeblood of his brother off the cobblestones where it had been poured, the man would have tried until his hands were raw. There was no doubt of that now in his mind.

Having the other assassin walking so delicately around him just spurred his anger towards the man. He wasn't a cripple. Of course he would love to take on the missions that Altaïr did. To feel the freedom of that lifestyle again made his throat tighten instinctively. But he had other duties now. He was trusted as an informer. He protected the new members of the brotherhood on their adventures into his city. Altaïr was a familiar face in a crowd of many who he often never saw again, if he caught a glimpse of their features at all. He had scorned the man the first couple of times he had come. Of course. The blood was still fresh between them. He wanted him to suffer.

There was a sick pleasure in seeing Altaïr's face contort with pain as he took the verbal beatings in silence. Trained silence. He held his tongue, but Malik could see that his fists were shaking under his robes. He felt the anger, shame, guilt as much as any man. He couldn't run from emotions, only hide them under masks of detachment. It was when that mask fell, as it was more and more around Malik, that the rafiq had the opportunity to see what roiled beneath. There were wounds there. They still stung the assassin. His pride would not let others in, and his guilt would not let himself out.

Kadar's voice still echoed through his dreams at times, especially on days when he was sick or exhausted from the day's work. But his brother had taken his leave, and instead of his own face reflected in the eyes of a dying man, they were instead reflected in the eyes of a haunted man. Altaïr had made his presence known in increasingly more of Malik's dreams as of late. Often he was simply a lingering touch on the rafiq's shoulder, a distant voice in the background. But more recently, he was becoming a solid entity. He would be by his side, a gentle guiding tone in his voice that was non-existent in the waking world. Altaïr wasn't known as being a tender individual, not in any sense of the word.

But he could be patient. He was adept at listening. Malik often found himself running on about his day and the troubles within to the man, who sat on the pile of pillows in the corner of the room, fists beneath his chin, eyes fixed on a place just to the left of the one-armed man's ear. He would be listening, of course. Malik had tried to trick the man and ask him questions. He wanted him to start out of a slumber, to look at him with dazed grey eyes. But it never happened. The gaze that always met his was calm, measured. He listened. He understood. Perhaps it was one of the many ways that he was trying to be forgiven for his mistakes. The man seemed to have a list of them in his mind. There was always that small flame of guilt in his own eyes, even when he smiled. The emotions never reached those two entities. Malik had forgave him long ago. But it was his choice to take up such a burden, and the man would not be convinced of otherwise.

He had tried. He had voiced his concerns for his health, he had voiced concerns for his missions. Malik had gone so far as to try and get Altaïr to voice his troubles to him. The man wouldn't budge. Short of physical violence, there was nothing that Malik could do. He was as cooperative as a stray cat, and just as standoffish. There had to be a breaking point, even for the great assassin. He was sure to reach it at some point. No man could suffer so much and still keep his emotions that trained. There had to be an outlet, or the whole world would crumble in on them. Often times that outlet was the targets that the man was assigned to. It was with a distinct brutality that he made his kills, returning with more blood on his hands and bracers than Malik had ever bathed in during his work as a novice.

Of course the kill was necessary and so the rafiq would let it go and retrieve the blood-soaked feather from his charge's fingertips, placing it under the counter and willing it out of his mind until the man was out of the Bureau. It was only once the controlled footsteps of his assassin brother had faded that he would tenderly retrieve the feather, by then drying silently on the wooden slats below the countertop, and examine it. Always covered thoroughly, from stem to tip. And it would be around then that Malik would utter a prayer to whatever heavenly being resided in the world that the man was on their side, and that the fates hadn't dealt him a Templar birth. Altaïr's sheer determination alone could dispatch his enemies, let alone his skill.

Even when Altaïr was injured, hauling his beaten body into the Bureau's safety and relative quiet walls, he never asked for anything more than a place to rest for the night and perhaps a cup for the water he would retrieve from the fountain in the garden. Nothing more. Those grey eyes, dull with pain and exhaustion, would cast themselves upon him from underneath the hood, and then they would slide on to other things; the maps that lined the walls, the rolled parchment that was stacked haphazardly by the door, the pillows on which he was usually sprawled, and then to his own bloody hands. It was there that his gaze would remain, brows knit in contemplation. There was no fear there for the tasks he had to perform to keep his Brotherhood safe, simply an acknowledgment that this was the life he had been given and that he would serve until he was beaten bloody and raw, unable to draw another breath into his body and drag himself another inch forward.

There had been nights like that. Malik didn't even need his other arm to count the number of times it had happened, when the assassin's injuries had been so grave that he hadn't even made it to the Bureau before collapsing in a side street somewhere, or on the roofs surrounding the safe-haven. It had been sheer luck that he hadn't been found by Templars and dispatched quickly when he couldn't put up a fight. Malik had been responsible for saving him more than once, dragging the man's prone form back into the safety of the Bureau and tending to the wounds and raging fevers that would kill a lesser man. The chance that Altaïr would not recover from his injuries was always a stark reminder of how fragile their lives truly were.

And it was always with a strangled "Many thanks brother," that Altaïr would greet him with when he awoke from the coma-like sleep that he usually fell into when his body was injured beyond the repair of his own hands. There had been pride. There still was. Altaïr took great pride in the work he was set out to perform, regardless of his demotion at the hands of Al Mualim. The fact that he had been trained in the assassin's ways seemed enough of a reason for him to keep his strong chin held high, and his jaw clenched against all the troubles that the weary world threw him. And so the pride remained, through all the dark nights that Malik had sat beside him, weaving a needle through the tanned flesh of his companion, listening to the rattling breath of the man who sat cross-legged on the rafiq's bed, unmoving except to utter his curt thank-yous and customary "safety and peace, rafiq," when he limped out of the door the next day.

He was not above pain. It was written on his face like the maps that Malik often gazed at, and often he was just as readable. But he would never cry out. Not without reason. It was in the innumerable, sweat-blurred nights when his fevers were uncontrollable, even with the one-armed man's knowledge of medicines and healing, that the man would cry and moan though his teeth, eyes jumping like crickets under the confines of their eyelids. Those were his weakest times, and the ones that he wouldn't speak of. Ironically, those were also the times that Malik's heart ached for the broken assassin who thrashed in the sheets of his bed, tears staining his cheeks, knuckles fisting through his hair. There were nightmares there, and the rafiq was happy to go without sleep for a night, if only to keep watch over his charge and make sure that he did not tear himself asunder with the grief that seemed palpable in his fever-soaked dreams.

Of course Altaïr dreamt. Everyone did. When he held his vigils in the main Bureau while the man was ill, Malik could hear the noises that he made as he fought off his enemies. Everyone was his enemy. Even when he slept, Altaïr did not rest. He often awoke looking more exhausted than when he had taken the rafiq's bed the night before. The one-armed man would usually try to coax him into staying another day, but there was always a refusal in store for him, followed by a string of apologies and thank-yous, and the shuffle as the assassin pulled his hood over his eyes and fled the Bureau. It had become almost habit now, to ask him to stay one more night in order to work up his health. If he could convince Altaïr to stay in his company, he could at least administer medicine and clean the wounds more thoroughly, with the light of day as his guide. It hadn't happened if Altaïr had anything to do with it. Unless he was too ill to walk and Malik could physically keep him in bed, he would try to leave.

Tonight had been one such night. The assassin had dragged himself through the roof of the Bureau, tumbling into the stack of pillows in the corner of the room, weakly disentangling himself as soon as he hit the floor. There were arrows in his back, and Malik had looked up mid-sentence from his work only to gasp and throw his quill and ink aside, moving around the countertop to assist the injured man. Altaïr was already attempting to pull the barbs within reach from his body, tugging at the shafts with a grunt of pain.

"Stop, stop." Malik slapped Altaïr's hand from the quivering arrows, pulling the fabric of his robes away from the wound so that he could inspect them further. "These are deep, how close were the archers?"

"I… I did not see… I was climbing away from my target…" Altaïr made a gesture with his hands, as if he were scaling an invisible wall before him. The arrows that speckled his side like the tail feathers of a bird rattled as he moved, and Malik pushed his arm down to keep the man from compounding on the injuries he had already received.

"So they were behind and to the side." The rafiq grimaced, gauging how deep the barbs of the arrows were within the flesh of his companion. If the archers had been in front of the man, they would have been dispatched easily. So like the Templars, to shoot from behind as he was escaping. Cowards.

The man beneath his skilful hand was slumping to the side, his breath ragged and short.

"Altaïr." Malik shook him gently, watching as he snapped back into consciousness, grey eyes darting about before focusing with some difficulty on the one-armed assassin. "Stay with me, brother. Did you make your mark?"

As an answer, the man fumbled in his robes, pulling out a bloody feather and setting it before Malik's gaze. It was probably soaked with more of Altaïr's blood than the target. But he had succeeded in his mission. He could rest. Malik would send word that the assassin was not to be dispatched for at least a fortnight. He had to. If he pushed himself any more with the injuries he had sustained this night, coupled with the ones that had still not healed from missions past, Altaïr would drop dead of infection or exhaustion before the moon had even finished it's cycle.

Malik took the feather gently from the fingers of the assassin, who was swaying in place now, eyes closed against the pain. The adrenaline that had probably helped him escape and make it to the Bureau was wearing off. He would slip into unconsciousness, and would be a dead weight. Malik couldn't carry the man with one arm, even if he wanted to. Months of sitting behind a counter and looking over maps had diminished his muscle mass considerably. He still went through the training exercises that he had been taught when he was a novice. He never got to use them, unlike the assassin who was currently bleeding out on his carpet.

Altaïr was all muscle, coiled under his tan skin like a cobra ready to strike. He could crush lesser men like a cat snapped a baby bird's neck in its jaws. A spike of jealousy wiggled its way into Malik's throat, and he suppressed it with a scowl, shaking his companion once again into consciousness. It was taking more time for the man to rouse from his stupor. He had to get him away from the prying eyes of passing soldiers and into his own bedroom. A few merchants and beggars had already looked in with interest when they had seen the bloodied floors and a mess of a man offering the normally well-mannered local scribe a feather. The bedroom would be best, and it was with a poorly-concealed grimace that the rafiq made Altaïr stand and lean against him, leading the assassin through the rough wooden door and into the dark private quarters of the Bureau.

"Show me the wounds." Malik let Altair slip from his grasp, lowering him as steadily as he could to the low sleeping mat. Altaïr slipped one hand under his cowl, lifting it from his head and throwing it aside. The rest of his clothing was too much for his uncoordinated movements, and he relented to Malik's touch, the rafiq pulling the short blade from it's scabbard at the assassin's back and tearing through the assassin robes. It would be no use trying to pull the tunic off while the arrows were still in. They would catch on the feathered end and cause more pain and bleeding than necessary. Altaïr would simply have to have another outfit made for him once he reached Masyaf.

In total, there were six arrows in his companion's side. More than one archer had found his mark in the assassin's body. This would heal with time and care, but they would not heal well. There would be scars. Altaïr was a man of pride, but he was also a man of understanding. If there were to be marks from this night, then so be it. Battle scars already crisscrossed his tan flesh from enemies past. Even Malik was not without mark, though he did not make assassinations. There were guards to enjoyed tormenting the one-armed man when he was out in the market. He had to learn to take it, learn not to reach for the knife that was tucked safely into his robes. That would cause a commotion, more than he needed. He was a rafiq, a scribe in the city of Jerusalem. He has taught his body to be patient. To take the blows that it received. He had learned the art of medicine not only through patching up the novices that passed through his Bureau, but also from treating his own wounds, light as they might be compared to an active assassin's work.

"This will hurt, Altaïr." It was a statement that felt stupid in the situation that they were both dealing with, but Malik felt his friend tense under the words instinctively, as if ready for a sword-blow. "You cannot stiffen your muscles, brother. You need to relax as much as possible, or the arrows will do more damage coming out than they did going in. I want your shoulder to be usable again, without weakness." Malik had seen sword injuries that never healed. They left the muscle warped underneath puckered skin. It was ugly. The arm or leg that was dealt the damage couldn't support weight, couldn't be used effectively. It left the soldier a cripple for the rest of their lives. The thought of Altaïr, the strongest of all the brotherhood, laid low by a wound that turned him into a cripple made the rafiq's throat tighten. Never. Not as long as he breathed and ran this Bureau. He had suffered enough for both of them. The phantom pains where his arm was supposed to be reminded him of this. Altaïr didn't need any more grief. Not now.

Feeling the muscles of his companion's shoulder once again unwind themselves, Malik leaned against the other's back, searching for a good direction to pull the arrows from. Finding the angle that the closest arrow had entered, he yanked experimentally from the same direction, feeling the barb wrench further to the surface but otherwise remain beneath the skin. Altaïr winced visibly, but held his tongue, eyes screwed tight against the pain. He looked like he was ready to vomit.

"I'm sorry, brother. They are deep." The rafiq murmured against the smooth curve of the other man's neck, feeling his back once again release it's tension and relax, if only slightly. Uttering another brief apology under his breath, Malik ripped the arrow from it's stubborn position in the man's shoulder, carefully setting it aside before pressing a clean cloth to the hole where it had once been. A sharp intake of breath, and a choked sob from Altaïr, who had his head in his hands. "There's nothing I can do, friend. These have to come out."

"I'm not complaining brother. Keep going." His voice was hoarse and scratchy, and when he turned to look at Malik, his face was drawn with exhaustion and pain. But his eyes were as clear as day, a bright grey not unlike the glint of sunlight on steel. There was trust there, infinite and deep. Altaïr turned away once again and relaxed himself for the next arrow's removal, gritting his teeth against the handles of one of his throwing daggers.

The next arrow came out easier than the last, but the blood that spilled from the wound was just as quick. Malik kept as much pressure as he could with one arm, but it was a losing battle. Sighing, he reached out for the other assassin's hand, feeling his fingers flinch under the unwanted contact. He guided them to the man's shoulder, instructing their position with his own hand. "Hold your hand to this cloth, Altaïr. You need to put pressure on the wounds to keep them from bleeding too much." Another arrow, and this time a cry of pain. His heart wrenched. He continued.

After an hour of work, all six arrows were lined up neatly on the rug, their wicked points glinting in the candle-light. Altaïr's shoulder had been wrapped tightly, and Malik gave him a cocktail of different herbs to help dull the pain. The assassin was now sleeping, his head tucked under his arm, face still rife with pain. It would take time to heal him. The rafiq had been watching the slow rise and fall of his companion's chest, and had to let a small smile flicker across his face. How true those words. The man was a mess of bruises and scars, wounds long ago healed from previous missions. The biggest wound he had sustained, however, still hadn't healed. That was the bloody cut to his heart that had been inflicted so many moons ago, at Solomon's Temple.

Malik bore a similar wound, and for a long time he had let it fester and turn raw, unable to even glance at Altaïr without feeling it burst open again with anger. But it had healed, as all wounds were wont to do. His was now a faint scar, and although it caused him a twinge of pain on occasion, it had disappeared from his thoughts. To see Altaïr, his chest still cut open, his pride and grief and sorrow still visible to all who glanced upon him, tore at Malik like no honed blade could. He wouldn't forgive himself and it was killing him.

Finally figuring that the man was asleep, Malik stood slowly, sweeping through the Bureau and blowing out the candles that he had left unattended in the main room. There would be no more studying tonight. Altaïr was a stubborn patient at best. If he had any strength in him by morning he would be attempting to climb the wall and make his way out of the city. His sense of duty was unfaltering, and it was one of the positive aspects that Malik had discovered about the man. If he asked Altaïr to retrieve a scroll or tonic from the market, he would obey without question.

Of course, an assassin was not an errand-boy, and Malik had his own guilt to deal with when he sent his companion out to do his shopping. But it was helpful. The job of a rafiq might not have been as active or exciting as he would have liked, but to hide his true identity was more of a task. In order to act the part of the local scribe, he would have to buy the necessary items and make it look like he was working on a map or treaty and not helping his assassin brethren slaughter the town leaders.

The rafiq returned to the back room once the rest of the Bureau had been tidied up a bit, the blood that had splashed the walls and floor cleaned up as best as he could given that he could barely see in the gloom. Malik had brought several of the pillows from the courtyard with him, and set them down on the floor beside the sleeping mat that was currently occupied. He wouldn't disturb Altaïr, not when he was so exhausted. He would keep vigil as long as he could. It was the least he could do for the man.

The room was comfortably warm, the sun's warmth leeching out of the bricks that the building had been made of and filling his senses with an overwhelming drowsiness. Malik fought the urge to settle down and sleep as long as he could, but before long his head slumped against his chest, and he was ushered into the world of dreams.