Ezio Auditore (mentore) wrote in the100, @ 2016-02-22 05:48:00 |
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Ezio had no idea why the tobacco leaves inside the tin smelled the way they did - or exactly how hot he would burn in Hell for using old bible pages as rolling papers, mostly illegible or not - but a few test drags had given him a loose, mellow feeling and not killed him on the spot, so that was something. Not dying had progressed to bonelessness. Bonelessness to lightheadedness. And lightheadedness to messaging Jacob. Because if one feels like one might float away any second now, one should obviously call the person most likely to be the least help whatsoever. He knew exactly why he’d called Jacob and not Evie, of course. Dame Evie Frye, who probably would have saved him from himself with minimal, well-deserved, ego bruising. God, why hadn’t he called Evie? Oh, right. He was a self-destructive idiot who couldn’t seem to take a hint. What he could do, and quite well, was deny deny deny. And sit against this gnarled, snow-dusted tree with his coat hood half up and a squint locked on the sky. That part was easier. That and lifting the spliff to his lips to take another long drag, promptly followed by a hacking fit loud enough to ricochet off the nearby trees. “Shhhh,” Ezio stage-whispered, once he finally caught his breath. “Merda, I hope there aren’t any assassins lurking out he--oh wait.” At least his snickering was quieter than the coughing. Jacob Frye was utterly unaware as to what he was about to walk into. Ezio’s message hadn’t given any details - just a request to come outside - but there had been a quality to it that was curious, to say the least. Evie was the one between them to read messages and analyze them, but that didn’t mean that Jacob was completely insensitive to odd sentence structure or word choice. Something about Ezio’s phrasing had been a little off. Either way, Jacob made a concentrated effort to sneak to the area of the woods outside of Mount Weather in case there was a kidnapping or monster attack or whatever might have caused Ezio enough distress to request company on a chilly not-quite-spring day. It took a good amount of effort to squash the spring in his step with the matter of stealth in mind. Jacob wasn’t a particularly difficult person to flatter, and flattery from someone he liked more often than not led to fuzzy feelings and a desire to please. Flattery from someone he fancied? Even worse. Not that Jacob thought about it in those terms - he tried not to think about it at all - but conversations with Ezio were more-often-than-not not unlike sparring with him - a constant back and forth, defense and regress, strike and skitter away. And Jacob liked sparring very much. He heard Ezio before he saw him - coughing, a murmur, then chuckling. Oh, someone else is here? But no, no one but the one figure swathed in gold in his Eagle Eye. Jacob made his presence known. “Are you… talking to yourself?” Under normal circumstances, Ezio might have known Jacob was close before hearing his voice. At the very least, he’d been expecting him and the crunch of snow was hard to avoid. But this wasn't normal circumstances. He felt squishy and relaxed, right up until the normally familiar timbre of Jacob’s voice snapped him out of his daze. Ezio twitched in surprise and made a small noise, pushing his hood back to get a better look at his “attacker”. When his suspicious glare fell on Jacob, his eyes lit up and he beamed a slow, crooked grin at his friend. “Noo,” he insisted, drawing the word out only to frown. “Hm. Maybe?” Ezio waved his hand dismissively, the joint still clamped between his fingers. “No matter. I am talking to you now. I like talking to you. Most of the time.” He laughed, stretched his legs out in front of him, and pointed at the ground beside him. “Stop looming, assassino. Sit.” “I’m not looming,” Jacob protested, not because he had nothing else to say, but because he was trying to process it all. Ezio surprised by his arrival! Ezio’s words slurring far more distinctly than usual! Ezio holding something that looked like a cigarette! Ezio looking as comfortable as a sleeping kitten on the cold, rocky ground! Where to start? “What is that you’re smoking?” Jacob asked, deciding that to be the mitigating factor here in Ezio’s unusual behaviour, and he plopped inelegantly to the ground and took an imprudent whiff of the smoke rising from the rolled swath of paper in his friend’s fingers. “Smells like… is that a spliff?” ‘Cannibis’, of course, on the medicine bottles lining the shelves of where the Rooks slept, but no one ever called it that. Certainly not Jacob, who would try anything once and had had whiskey rubbed into his gums as a baby when he cried too much. “Where did you find that? No wonder you’re--” A side-glance at Ezio’s relaxed form, and Jacob changed directions. “It’s probably irradiated to hell and back, you idiot. Come on, then, how much do you have? And more importantly, am I here to drag your arse back to Mount Weather or share?” He knew which he’d be better at. Ezio rested his head against the tree trunk behind him, a dopey smile on his face and only half his attention on the actual words coming out of Jacob’s mouth. The other half was lost in details like the feel of leaves crunching between his fingertips, the sharpness of the wind against the tip of his nose, and the way Jacob said idiot. Because his focus was apparently going the way of the smoke, Ezio zeroed in on that word and leaned in to complain. Only the second he opened his mouth, he remembered he was an idiot. He was currently out of his mind from smoking leaves he found in a barn, for Christ’s sake. He felt unbearably good, which was generally when he made his biggest mistakes. And he’d called Jacob out here to witness his idiocy up close! Amazing. Ezio’s mouth curled into an exaggerated pout. “I do not need you to drag me anywhere.” Probably untrue. “I can take care of myself.” Definitely a lie. “I simply wanted...to repay you for that absolutely disgusting cigar,” Ezio smirked, holding the spliff out between the tips of his fingers. That one was at least a half-truth. Good god, the man was pouting. Jacob was torn between letting into him some more and finding it endearing. He decided to go for the latter, as no one liked to be taunted and he was still tender from having briefly turned into a free giver of Ethan Frye lectures when Evie had been magic’d to be sixteen. “Repayment. What a good citizen you are, monello.” He let the word drip with sarcasm but didn’t hesitate to take the offered spliff from Ezio’s fingers - they felt cold against his in the brief moment. How long had Auditore been out here in the chill? “Christ, this smells awful. Well...” A drag and several moments later confirmed that the weed was not only awful but weird - for one brief panicked moment Jacob used the head and foresight that he mostly ignored and wondered what the hell it had been laced with - nice job as usual, Frye. Leaning back against the tree trunk, head already swimming, he eyed the spliff with blatant suspicion. “This was a terrible idea. No wonder you wrote me to help and not Evie.” It didn’t matter that Jacob was being a shit. Hearing him speak Italian pleased Ezio more than it should have. Rather than focus on how much more, Ezio tempered his smile and toyed with the zipper on his coat. “It tastes worse than awful, but you asked for it. And yes, there is more where that came from,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the tin at his hip. He should trade it away as soon as humanly possible, but the fuzzy floaty feeling had completely eradicated any Fight Club aches that had lingered over the last few days. Not feeling his age wasn’t so bad. Ezio rolled his head to the side and squinted at Jacob. “When everything went blurry around the edges, you were the first person I thought of. Evie would likely make sure I did not end up in a deep dark hole, yes. But you. You...would probably fall in first. That counts for something special, Jacob.” Ezio grinned, clamping a hand on Jacob’s arm to hold it still long enough to reach for the joint. The last thing he needed was more, but he’d never been known for moderation, anyway. “Aren’t I charmed.” The words were intended to be sarcastic, but despite himself Jacob had lit up like a candle on a cold night as Ezio took another drag off the spliff they were sharing. He was all too aware that he tended to be the headfirst twin - did everything in his power to be that person - so he took Ezio’s ribbing in good-natured stride, instead focusing on the bit where he’d been the first person to be thought of. Whatever the stuff was laced with, it wasn’t unpleasant despite the dreadful taste. And smell. And coughing and watery eyes it inspired. As a wave of warm dizziness washed over him, Jacob leaned his head against the bark of the tree and closed his eyes, tension leaving his shoulders. “Good God,” he summarized succinctly. “This was a significant improvement to the week. Suppose we’ll have to share. Probably could be used in ah, Medical. Or whatnot.” A lazy hand gesture, and he peeped at Ezio with one eye. Ezio snorted a laugh and immediately regretted it. The coughing session that followed was little longer than the last round. As it trailed off, he handed the spliff off by repeatedly tapping the back of his hand against Jacob’s chest until it was taken off of his hands. For good, if he could show some restraint. Slicing a glance at Jacob’s ridiculous one-eyed squint, Ezio thought now would be an excellent time for restraint. “Mm, right. Medical. Look at you, so selfless.” Ezio squinted up at the trees overhead. A guilty smile twisted the edge of his mouth. “And here I was only thinking that recovering from getting my ass kicked should always be this tingly.” Turning laughing eyes back to Jacob, he shrugged and held up the tin. “Do you really think I should just give it away? Will you think less of me if I don’t?” “No,” Jacob replied, taking another drag and holding it for several moments before he released his breath. “I think if you’re going to get matched to fight against Evie ever again, you’re going to need all the help you can bloody well get.” Jacob had faith, somehow, that if a situation arose in which spliff was needed that Ezio would give it up. Perhaps it was optimistic faith - what did he know of Ezio, really, that wasn’t from a lesson or from one of his bawdier stories? But nevertheless he thought the best of him with an instinct that had absolutely led him astray in the past. It was likely due to the shared Assassin thing, he thought, because that was less-terrifying than the alternative reason. “Even if you got your arse kicked, you did quite well, I think.” Jacob was always a talker, even now when everything was soft and blurry and pleasantly distant. “Three rounds. This was the first time I’ve been in three rounds here. Superpowered people, hmmph. Good for them, but it’s bonkers fighting them sometimes. Evie’s never going to shut it about taking you down.” The corner of his mouth twitched and broke out into a smile, and he leaned his head against the palm of his hand. “The great Assassin Ezio Auditore, felled! Was fun to watch, no matter how it turned out.” “Well.” Ezio laughed and pulled one leg up to rest his arm across his knee. “There was a compliment in there somewhere, I think. It is so very hard to tell with you sometimes. Even when I have my head on straight.” Flashing a smile, he swept a hand back through his hair. He wasn't about to defend himself. Evie was an incredible opponent and he was, well, more retiree than the Great anything these days. He couldn’t even blame this world. The last few years had been leading towards this feeling already. The feeling that had him tucking the tin inside his coat for later use and ditching restraint for one last drag from the joint, plucked from Jacob’s fingers. “Evie has earned every right to crow. I only hope she will take the opportunity for herself. You have already secured your place as destroyer of my ego and do not need any more practice.” “Hard to tell? Destroyer of your ego?” Jacob laughed, rolling his eyes and making a failed swipe for the rolled cigarette. “Aren’t you the high-maintenance sort? Fine. If it brings you comfort in your failure…” He puffed up and dramatically swiped his top hat from his head, bringing it to his chest. “You, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, also known as the Assassin who took out the Borgias and other assorted villains and knaves of the Italian Renaissance! ...rather boring when printed out in black and white in a text, but infinitely improved by face-to-face interaction! Good at fighting with fists, better at sticking sharp things in his enemies! Terrible at modesty, worse at humility, and--” Jacob paused, did an inelegant double-take, and peered in at the spliff Ezio was holding. “...is that… the book of Proverbs...? Oh. Oh. Terrible at modesty, worse at humility, and absolutely going to Hell, ha.” Merda, Ezio was officially in trouble. His clouded brain did nothing to keep an utterly charmed smile from taking over his face. Shaking his head at Jacob’s sass didn’t help either. It felt a bit like piloting Leonardo’s flying machine and plummeting towards the ground, all said. Refusing to overthink that particular comparison, Ezio flicked what was left of the offending joint off into the snow and leaned into Jacob’s space. “You should know by now, monello. Actions speak louder than words on a page.” What happened next was not nearly as smooth as it would’ve been if Ezio were sober, but it was still something to see. He smacked Jacob’s elbow from underneath, dislodging the hat from his grip and tipping it right into Ezio’s other hand. Rolling quickly to his feet, he blindly stepped backwards, donning the hat with a cheeky smirk. He doubted this offense would stand for long, but it was - childishly - nice to have the upperhand for a moment. “But I’ll give you the going to hell. Honestly? You have no idea.” Ezio sent both a bold smile and a tip of Jacob’s hat down at him. “Sodding pages-- HEY, give that BACK.” Jacob, having been lost in a pleasant reverie of mockery and relaxation, had embarrassingly-enough managed to be several seconds behind each of Ezio’s hat-grabbing stances, ultimately grasping for air as Ezio backed up. Ordinarily most people in a fine weed haze would surrender, disinterested in competition, but Jacob had grown up with Evie Frye. Stealing things was inexcusable. There were ways to be graceful, and there were ways to be effective. Jacob’s leap landed nowhere near either, but it at least succeeded in the most important thing, which was knocking Ezio back on his arse with enough force that the hat nearly fell of his head altogether. “Give it back or I’ll take it back, your stupid head still attached.” Which was a nice threat enough, only it lost some of its power when Jacob collapsed back on the ground beside him with a sigh as if the effort to sit upright was entirely overrated. “This shite. I’m still not certain it’s not poison. Very well, then. It’s story hour, isn’t it? How are you going to hell besides the obvious reason? Reasons. Plentiful reasons. I’ll tell you a story if you do the same.” Whatever Ezio had been expecting, it hadn’t been to end up right back on the ground again. The world make an uncomfortable tilt to the left as he landed, but he managed to keep the hat from tumbling off into the snow and not crack his head open on a rock. Sad how low his standards of success where at the moment, but with Jacob sprawled out next to him, Ezio was just glad he hadn’t done anything especially embarrassing. He did elbow Jacob in the ribs before dropping the hat down on his chest, though. “We need to work on your communication skills, Jacob. Threat first, tackle second,” Ezio huffed breathlessly, tucking an arm up underneath his head. He hadn’t planned to end up back on the ground, but now that he was here, he didn’t really see any point in moving. Still, as much as he selfishly wanted to hear whatever story Jacob would willingly share in this condition, Ezio wasn’t chomping at the bit to talk about his less exposed sins. “Does there really need to be more reasons than the obvious?” He glanced at Jacob and lifted his eyebrows high. “I am a debauched heretic who has broken at least…seven of the ten commandments. Pick a deadly sin, amico, I have a story.” “Threatening takes too long,” Jacob mumbled back, riding out a wave of comforting dizziness until he felt keen on opening his eyes again, shifting his weight to face Ezio as he accepted the returned hat. “I’d rather just act.” Strewn along the ground under the tree like they were felt oddly intimate. Jacob did about as much not-thinking as someone who had the capacity to think could do, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t listen to his instincts. Despite having just tackled his friend to the ground over a hat, a more-serious look crossed Jacob’s face as he regarded Ezio’s hesitation that eventually ended in acquiescence. “Let’s see… there’s lust, wrath. Could probably figure those. Sloth - boring, no, I don’t want to hear how you had a lie-in when you were supposed to be at mass. Pride… could probably figure that one out on my own. Don’t care about gluttony. Hate greed; don’t want to think ill of you. So let’s go with envy. You can choose one for me and I’ll tell you something in return, if you’d like.” Ezio watched Jacob shift to face him out of the corner of his eye. A clench of his jaw betrayed his relief that lust wasn't the topic on hand, but Jacob would've needed psychic abilities to sort that out. Especially when Ezio misdirected with a smile and a, “There you go, making assumptions again." As it was, Ezio took a deep breath and rested his free hand over his own heart. Envy would be harder to talk about, but it wouldn't require any lying to save his audience. “But as you wish.” Ezio took one more steadying breath and smiled, sadder this time. “My brother, Federico, was better at everything. Fighting, wooing, slacking off, even gaining our father’s love. I did not understand at the time. I only knew they had a bond and I was not a part of it. I…” Drumming his fingers on his chest, Ezio turned his head to the side and met Jacob's eyes with a heart worn stare. “One of my last thoughts about my brother while he still breathed was how unfair it was, that such a layabout had such a charmed life. I wanted what he had. And the next morning...he was hanging at the end of a rope.” Wincing apologetically, he turned his face back towards the tree canopy overhead. “This is where I would like to remind you that you asked for this story. And if you'd prefer to talk about you, as I certainly would, then I am curious if the good Jacob Frye has ever had any genuine moments of wrath.” Jacob had held Ezio’s stare during the confession, and continued to watch his profile as Ezio turned away. He’d known the basic outline of Ezio’s initiation into the Assassin’s - a father and brother exposed, and execution the next day - but he’d always heard it as some sort of romantic-sounding revenge fantasy. It was decidedly less stirring to hear it laid so bare with the complexities of human emotions working their way into facets of guilt and regret. Ezio had been in his late teens when that had happened. Twenty years had passed, and yet Jacob still heard pain in Ezio’s voice. He wondered how bad it had been twenty years ago. Jacob had always hated sympathy - useless, even when it was well-handled, so he offered none of his own save reaching out and briefly running his fingers over the back of Ezio’s fidgeting hand. The gesture was over as soon as it had been offered; even within his addled haze Jacob had a skittish feeling about anything too-- overt. Already he was exhaling, talking out loud, sorting out an answer to Ezio’s question: “Wrath. I’m a bleeding Assassin and I hate Templars, bullies and capitalists; I’ve surely been wrathful several times. I’ve never violated the Creed, at any rate.” A glance back over to Ezio. “I’ve hated people enough to want them dead for the good of me rather than the world. Is that the sort of story you mean?” The touch was brief enough that Ezio wasn’t entirely sure it even happened. A searching glance at Jacob certainly didn’t confirm anything one way or the other, but then everything was still soft edges and loose limbs and old grief swimming around in the middle. Better not to wonder. Or stare too long. Better to take the change of subject and run as fast and as far as Jacob would let him. Ezio rolled lazily to his side, propping his head up in one hand and nodding. “That would do it, yes. Wrath is more personal than just righteous anger, I think. More complicated. You...mentioned falling under the sway of someone like Lucifer? That seems like something that could lead to wra--ah, wait.” Ezio covered his chest with his hand, tracked his gaze over Jacob’s face, and smirked darkly. “I was supposed to ply you with alcohol for that story. Forgive me. I forgot.” “I was afraid you were going to bring that up,” Jacob muttered. Roth. It always went back to him, didn’t it? Pearl’s betrayal had stung, surely, but Roth’s had festered. It was always the matter of what to say about him, and how to say it; keeping him secret felt almost like giving him power. Jacob didn’t want that. But how to express how he’d made him feel, without expressing exactly how he’d made him feel? Because he still wasn’t entirely sure about all that. “It’s fine; whatever you’ve poisoned me with is worth at least three rations of whiskey,” he began airily, facing Ezio with the determined demeanor of a man who wanted you to believe he had not a care in the world. “You know how Evie and I managed a gang, the Rooks, and they fought Starrick’s Blighters? I fell in with their leader, Maxwell Roth. He invited me to dinner one night, Evie said not to go but I did anyway because we were annoyed with one another.” It was to Evie’s credit, he realised then, that she’d never once mentioned I told you so. “Anyway, Roth wanted to bring Starrick down as well, and he gave me a few jobs, and I did them behind Evie’s back. Disrupting things, blowing up a few shipments. It was a right laugh. Roth and I became fast friends; he managed a theatre in London and was one of those dramatic, forceful sorts. Had made a name for himself in the local fighting rings when he was younger.” God, he hoped he sounded factual and careless. Jacob somehow doubted he was pulling it off properly. Rushing to get to the story’s conclusion, he said: “Anyhow, he eventually had a job I didn’t want to do - children would be killed, he thought it a worthy sacrifice, I didn’t - and we parted ways, he took it personally, tried to burn down his theatre with the audience inside in my honour… you know. Typical stuff.” And because he wasn’t sure what else to do, he smiled. Broadly. Ezio very nearly begged off the second Jacob grumbled out a response. It wasn’t hard to read the discomfort that radiated through his friend as soon as the subject came up. But Ezio stayed quiet and waited for Jacob to decide for himself if this was a story he really wanted to share. The story itself sobered Ezio up a few tiny increments. Not much, but enough that by the end, he was sitting up completely, concentrated frown locked in place. “Good God.” Figuring out just what to say here that wasn’t either pointlessly overprotective or a platitude was harder than it should’ve been. There was even a tiny part of his stupid, self-centered brain that decided to zero in on the fact that an older man had befriended Jacob and then violated his trust. Ezio grimaced. “I’m assuming this story ends with his assassination? That had to have been difficult....Which, I realize is a completely idiotic given. My apologies. I am at a loss.” “I killed him. In his own theatre that was burning down around us.” Jacob exhaled, thinking of the smoke filling his lungs, the sound of screaming, the blood from Maxwell’s dying kiss. “It was suitably dramatic,” he concluded, rolling his shoulders back in a good impression of being collected. “Anyhow. Everyone I’ve killed, including him, deserved it for what they were doing, but he - I was wrathful. He’d had a bird - a pretty thing - as a pet and after I’d made him angry, he broke its neck and sent it to me as a warning. I wound up stuffing it to keep; kept it on the train. To remember. Most people will tell you who they are, if you pay attention.” The corner of his mouth worked up; this much, Jacob felt, was at least solid ground again. “So the takeaway moral of that experience is… pay attention when they tell you, I suppose.” Jacob felt a little better. He’d said enough, he thought, to have painted an accurate picture without having lavished in the detail no one needed to know. Evie knew more than anyone, but she’d pieced it together from him rather than gotten a blow-by-blow account. Jacob hoped suddenly, violently, that he didn’t look as foolish as he’d felt to Ezio, out of both professional and personal pride. The bird struck a particular note for Ezio. Partly because unnecessary cruelty always struck a note, and partly because Jacob had taken wisdom away from a betrayal. Bitterness, too, no matter how well he tried to hide it, but anyone who could walk away from that situation without some battle scars was inhuman, anyway. Jacob was young and could easily have let his loss grow into something ugly. Instead, he simply seemed wary of it all. Ezio drew his teeth across his bottom lip and nodded, thoughtful gaze shifting away from Jacob’s face. “No doubt there is an insightful reply I could give you. Or at least something morbidly witty. But, all I can think...is that you are more exceptional than you let people see, Jacob Frye. And you deserve better,” Ezio added pointedly. With that said, and a growing need to get them both out of their own heads, Ezio rolled abruptly to his feet and stumbled against a tree. Leaning there, he smiled down at Jacob and held out a hand. “Now, do you want to race or do you want to fight? Because all this heartfelt discourse isn’t going to burn the drug cloud from our minds without a little help.” Ezio’s compliment - Ezio’s fantastic compliment, actually - pulled Jacob out of his thoughts enough to where he peered up at the other Assassin for a moment under his eyelashes, clearly taken aback to the point of sudden shyness. Jacob wasn’t used to compliments, having grown up hearing both constructive criticism and unconstructive criticism from his father, and was still surprised when approval was freely given. He forcibly shook off both the shyness and encroaching melancholy by gripping Ezio’s offered hand and hauling himself up, stumbling a little upon being upright once again. “We could race back to the Mountain and then fight,” he suggested brightly, then added in a slyer voice: “Unless you’re still recovering from the beating my sweet sister gave you.” Christ, that look. Ezio swallowed the lump in his throat and huffed out a laugh, shoving Jacob away. “Let’s find out, monello. Try to keep up!” The taunt would have worked better if Ezio hadn’t nearly tripped on a tree root as he spun away, but what can you do? He’d take the head start, embarrassing or not, and run like his life depended on it. |