Dissonance.
When finally he manages to open his eyes, he sees he's still trapped on this island, still snared within the animus. Sixteen, his mind supplies cautiously, and then throbs with dull pain. All he remembered was the conversation held briefly, something about a sync nexus. Sitting up slowly, Desmond glances around, examining his surroundings and carefully coming to note the smaller more insignificant things. Like how real the sand felt beneath his fingers, yet how surreal the large doorway before him looked.
A sync nexus...to save my mind....
Desmond draws in a sharp breath, trying to remember while trying to forget. There was brief comfort in his madness, a blur of familiarity amidst the chaos yet he can't remember. All he remembers is shadows of Ezio playing behind his eyelids, blue eyes of a man...Leonardo maybe? He can't quite tell as his mind throbs once more drawing out a disgruntled sound from his lips. Slowly though he rises to his feet and brushes himself off out of habit. Looking around further reveals the rest of the Island spread out around him, when suddenly he wonders where Clay is, where is the other man trapped here as well? Nothing but silence, the synthesized lull of waves rolling up against the shore and the distance almost mechanical calls of birds carried along the wind.
It's lonely.
He wonders how Sixteen managed to survive this long on his own when his mind interrupts and hums out all too cheerfully, He didn't. He went crazy when the Silence ate at him. He made up voices, gave into the past, you can't trust him. Desmond doesn't believe that though, he can't. Sixteen has done nothing but protect him, guide him....right? Either way, he feels another headache gnawing at the edges of his mind, threatening to throw him once more into the past, but how far this time he isn't sure. Looking up at the sync nexus he takes a slow breath...then leaps. Everything goes black for a moment until the light flickers in front of his eyes, illuminating his surroundings. He's aware that he is no longer himself. There are no fingers, no feet, nothing but a sense of self and the soft low melody playing somewhere in the distance as if beckoning with it's crystalline pitch.
As he crosses the pathways towards the light, towards that sweet lilting melody, there are memories that pass by. Memories of the Farm, of his family, and he muses out loud about them. "I remember this," he says low, nearly bewildered by the sound of his own voice or that he can talk in the first place. "The Farm...we were hiding..." Desmond continues to talk aloud, finding it comforting to hear someone talking even if it is only just his voice. It echoes and bounces around him making it seem there is more than merely just him here. Finally though there is light, and he hesitates. What will he find behind that wall of brilliant white light? Yet he has nothing to lose, nothing to turn back to, no where to go but forward.
So he leaps forward.
Opening his eyes is a task, a chore at best and a muffled grunt escapes his scarred lips. There is a comforting weight at his side, a warmth that is nestled into his body. Blinking a few more times he looks around, beginning to take note of where he is and who is with him. The air smells of spice, sex, and sweat, heavy with the early evening sun filtering in to warm their bodies. They lounge back against several richly ornate pillows and there is a terrace above them, the entrance shut close and their solitude preserved.
"So you're awake finally," a muffled voice mutters out against his throat, making him aware of just how his body stirs feeling such heat in such a spot. "Yes," he hears himself mutter out low, hoarse and sore in all but good ways. For once, the other at his side has allowed him the rare satisfaction of domination and he feels a strange sense of contentment at such a feat. Calloused fingertips ghost along his collarbone, brushing over a few choice bruises here and there when he hears that voice chiding, scolding, at his ear now before enamel catches the flesh and tugs, "You should be more careful, what would happen if you went and had yourself killed? You are nothing but trouble for me, Novice."
A smile twists upon his lips slowly, his hands agile and quick as they pull at dark hair, yanking backwards to look up into the other's eyes. "And deprive you of your source of amusement? Never." He can sense the insult at the edge of those lips he claims now so forcefully, slanting his lips across defiant ones firmly until they become compliant and that hand weaves into his hair carefully. Rolling, he feels that body underneath him, feels the struggle put up and a laugh comes out akin to a growling rumble at his throat earning a slight shudder from his companion.
Parting slowly now, he looks down at that scowling face, body pressed close in naught but the best of ways. Pressing down firmly with his hips, he holds that writhing defiant body beneath him in place. "Be still," he murmurs against that bruised throat earning a less than happy grumble in return until he smiles against that darkened skin, "Malik, still yourself...or I will make you." Another noise of defiance, cut short by a slow moan as he grinds down firm and unrelenting. "Tch, Altair...you would defy my wishes...?" There is a slow laugh, and then he pulls back to look down at the other man who scowls up towards him, irate yet aroused.
"Yes Malik...I will. Because you are mine, just as I am yours. Rid yourself of anger, you'll find it hard to scowl by the time I am finished."
"Tch....a-ah...N-Novice, such arrogance..."
Darkness swallowed them both...blood, so much blood...Malik...he had to save Malik...
There is a sharp gasp, and he blinks sluggishly, staring up in pale clear blue skies with a sense of pain at his chest. Why, he wonders, why pain? He remembers Lucy, remembers how she looked and felt beneath his fingertips as they grew closer together. And now...she was dead...he killed her. That same pain ached in his chest and he brought a hand up to rub his eyes tiredly. The headache soothed though, Desmond wasn't sure quite what had happened and only recalls ghosts lingering faint for the smallest of moments. Though somehow despite it all his mind feels lighter, clearer. It seems Sixteen was right, Clay had been right...
Deciding to lay there rather than rise to his feet from the sand beneath him, Desmond watches the sky and raises a hand, as if reaching out for something. Malik? No, he thinks with a slight frown and a heavy heart, Altair hadn't managed to protect the man he cared for but maybe...just maybe he could learn from his ancestor's example...
Maybe...I can protect....