Well, this is (going to be) a trio of one-shots for the Assassin's Creed kink meme. The prompt is as follows:

Ezio cannot be the only one who was so horrendously destroyed by the Auditore execution. I want to see some Assassin's broken on hearing the news - angry, griefstricken assassins. Mario to turn the villa upside down or something. Volpe to be ablaze, really lose it at one of his theives and have them think he's crazy. As many people as you want - I just want it to be more than Ezio's pain, but the Order's.

For the meme! XD Always for the meme! Hope you enjoy!


Il Magnifico

He blinked, and he was too late. It would be the one fact that he would never be able to escape for the rest of his life, however long it was now.

He had failed him, his ragionere, his assassino, his amici, his ...

Lorenzo yells a curse and throws whatever he happened to lay his hands on to the wall, smashing the fragile (and rather expensive) treasure to pieces. Looking at it, he finds it somewhat poetic; it was broken, shattered into tiny irreparable shards, much like his ...

Another fit of anger overtakes him and he grabs the files on his desk, tearing them apart one by one, sending some drifting into the fire, like feathers. This thought, the thought of feathers snaps him out of his rage, draws him from the fog enough to realize that the file he has in his hands right now was written by him. By G-

He can no longer see the writing, and hears a drop of something fall, blurring the loop of and 'l' (Lorenzo) and the tail of a 'g'.

The principe, one in all but name, dabs at the offending moisture; first on the parchment and then on his face. (He will never admit where it came from. There was only one person, one man he would have, but he is no more.) His name is saved, but the other's...

Name. Names. There was something important about names, about his name that he was overlooking. It was vital, something he would have wanted most of all. He thinks of that man, tries to picture him smiling and sleeping and frowning, to hear him talking and laughing, to recall his scent. All he can recall now is the sight of his empty face; purple, with his tongue lolling, eyes blank and listless. He hears only the creak of rope heavily burdened, the caw of carrion, the stench...

He was not alone. There were more: Frederico, Petruccio! Ezio, Maria, Claudia! Dios mio, how could he have forgotten? A spark of energy, a daft glimmer of hope ignites his blood.

"Guards! Guiseppe! Come quick!" There is the sound of frantic footfalls before one of his captains is in the doorway, eyes alert in case of trouble.

"Il Magnifico, what is the matter? Are you hurt?"

"You must assemble yourself and your most trusted men and go to the Villa Auditore. Search everywhere for them. If they are not there, then tear down all of Firenze until they are found, and bring them to me. Bring them here."

"Si signore, as you command." A clank of metal on metal and Guiseppe is gone, shouting orders that fade as he hurries to do his master's bidding.

He sags into a chair at his desk, suddenly very, very tired. He runs a hand through his hair as he eyes the destruction he has reeked across his study. Was it not here only a few weeks ago, no, mere days ago that he sat here with him and Umberto? That traitorous snake, I will make sure he suffers.

He knows it is an idle threat, for the moment. He blinked, and now the city is gone. His city is gone, a ghost of what it was, and its memory soon to be no more than a regretful whisper of what it could have been. Don't you see, amico mio, Firenze needs you. Italia needs you. I...

The next few hours drift by unnoticed as he stares as the now salt-stained file on his desk, the eagle feather quill in his ink pot, that damned bust he had received as a gift many a year ago...

Everything reminds Lorenzo of him. Ever since that day all those years ago as a child, when he had been certain that he was lost to a watery grave, pulled out by a foolish boy with grey eyes and the cheekiest grin he had ever seen on a boy, he could not imagine being anywhere else. Somehow, that boy wove himself into his life, sharing laughs and jokes and dreams, as well as nightmares and bloodshed.

"Il Magnifico." He had not heard his captain knock, never mind crossing the room to his desk. Lorenzo clasps his hands in front of himself and does his best to look composed. "Mi dispiace, but we could not find them. There is no trace of the Auditores."

Numb, he is numb as the captain takes his leave. Denial clouds his mind. How? How could things have gone so wrong so completely? He loses feeling in his hands, in his face, in his limbs until he is nothing but a slightly twitching mass of half-sensed nerves. Perhaps there are tears on his face, but he cannot feel them. He is dazed, and does not notice himself as he pulls from a secret drawer in his desk a white neck tie, one he would never admit to owning, not even to him. A name, the name finally breaks through the fog and he grips onto the piece of cloth like a life preserver, chocking back sobs.

Giovanni.