Having a Nosy

[madimpossibledreamer]

I typoed ‘demonstrated’ as ‘desmonstrated’ and stared at it for a minute trying to figure out what went wrong. Muscle memory got me.
I would also like to share that I was looking up Egyptian magic for reasons and was skimming and missed something very important. The introduction of late Egyptologist Jan Assmann, though they a) didn’t write his name correctly (it’s actually Assmann) and b) the part that I actually noticed was “as Assman points out” and I just. Um. Was very confused as to why we were suddenly insulting an Egyptologist because I hadn’t realized that was his name. The places that research goes, I guess. (...Also yet more parallels and by this point it’s a whole Plate of Shrimp [see Repo Man] because, uh. Guess what one of his areas of study was. Atenism. How. Why.)
Brexit will not happen in this universe. That does not preclude other bad things happening. (And also it’s set before that, but still.)

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and Shaun investigate the disappearance of the shopkeeper.
Word Count: 2655
Rating: Teen 

        The conversation moves on at that point. Shaun doesn’t, though. Desmond notices, because of course he does, that Shaun’s suddenly sipping a little slower, focusing on eating more, and it’s sweet. He might’ve been planning on getting drunk when he first came in but he’s absolutely taking serving as Desmond’s sidekick for this investigation seriously. Honestly, maybe him getting a soup was a good idea in general when it comes to being hydrated for this. Desmond has gotten a good look at what Shaun looks like when he’s anxious or nervous over the course of several different months and worlds, and he’s definitely alert now. He’s probably readying himself to use the magic he’d demonstrated back when they’d been sparring—huh. If anything maybe he’s using this as an opportunity to prove himself to Desmond, just like Desmond had specifically wanted to show Shaun that he can take care of himself. Maybe even that he can take care of himself if he comes to the Assassins’ attention, that he can be trusted about the Farm.
        He’s still actively trying to relax in the meantime. Every time he ends up glancing outside a little too often or starts looking a little too tense he’ll catch himself, force himself to enjoy the meal and have a normal conversation, and even addresses Chelsea a couple of times rather than just talking to Desmond. It catches her by surprise the first time; she’s still a little confused by the second but actually seems to be expecting it by then. At some point Rebecca ends up talking to Desmond, too, specifically asking about the kind of music he likes. He’s pretty sure it’s mostly a cover for digging about potential future presents, but he still appreciates it, and finds it kind of funny that she’s given up on being at all subtle because she knows he’ll just catch it. Eventually, though, past sharing a little colorful layered fudge, sweet but with a surprising amount of spices, it’s time for them all to leave. He’s not surprised when Rebecca grabs the check, though, given that she’d invited them.
        “Text us if you need anything,” Rebecca announces, all but grabbing Chelsea and Lydia and leading them away to Chelsea’s protests, first about leaving them behind and then about the rain that’d started up while they’d been in the restaurant. Desmond had been considering leaving Katherine with Rebecca, just in case something happened, but between the way Katherine has plastered herself to his side and the fact that they’re already nearly out of sight, that suddenly becomes much less of an option.
        “Of bloody course,” Shaun sighs, staring out into the downpour, and Desmond’s first instinct is to offer his jacket, before he realizes that’s a bad idea if he’s trying not to mess with Shaun too much and also all he has is a hoodie, which won’t help much.
        “You’re not used to it raining in London?” Desmond teases, and Shaun mock-glares at him.
        “I’ll have you know Seattle, Washington has a higher average number of rainy days, so we can’t all blame the weather in the United Kingdom for everything, much as we may want to,” he retorts, clearly psyching himself up to go out and get soaked—and maybe because he’s worried about all this. “...Not that it’s your fault,” he adds as an afterthought.
        Rukh seems just about as unhappy about the sight as Shaun does, but he does extend a wing over Shaun’s arm once he’s clambered up, like a minimal suggestion of a particularly feathery umbrella. Maybe he’s just hoping it makes it easier for him to dry off later, too.
        “Yeah, well, at least we’re not walking as far as the others,” Desmond points out, and Shaun does manage a small smile at that as they step out into the rain, transitioning from the upbeat music to the drumming of raindrops against the cobblestones.
        Shaun veers directly over to talk to Mama Abena, probably not just because she has a nice, wide table-style umbrella in her wheelchair as she smokes and watches the rain and passersby. “Good evening, Mama. Nothing new with Annapurna, then?”
        “Always in such a rush, Monsieur. But for once with a good reason,” she acknowledges, staring at the empty store. “The magic has been disturbed for a long time, and even the Templars that care cannot see into every corner and crack. It’s affected even the wares in the House of Chalk. The manbo had to make many sacrifices to the Iwa.”
        Okay, Desmond isn’t following that exactly, but he can guess it’s not a good thing. “So, uh, was she kidnapped?”
        Maybe that was a little too abrupt, because she doesn’t seem pleased with the interruption, but she shrugs. “Ask the earth. I saw nothing with these two eyes, but I can tell you what I’ve felt. Whatever happened it was not here, but there have been whispers. London is hurting. Where there is space left behind, something will move to fill it, until we no longer know the soul of the city.”
        That’s...suitably ominous. By Shaun’s frown, he doesn’t like those implications any more than Desmond. “I’ve...suspected as much. Portents are everywhere. I’d hoped it’d be a while yet before the ‘coming storm’, as a few put it, came to Ealdwic, but I suppose it’d be too unlikely to think it’d only affect Templar Hall.”
        Desmond can’t tell if she considers that a joke or just the latest in a string of catastrophes. “Templar Hall has been here for a thousand years, but the earth beneath is older. Age does not always protect from change.” She waves her cigarette at the store. “Well, continue to hurry. Take care of yourselves!”
        They don’t make it halfway to the door before a woman walking out of the Haitian Market, seemingly trying to announce to the world that they’re even more miserable than Shaun in this weather, states loudly, “Banshees take poetry slams much too seriously.” Are poetry slams a competition or something? Did she lose, or is she just upset about the reception or something? Desmond kind of wants to know if Shaun has been to one or even participated, but as much as he wants to ask that’s probably not the most important note there.
        “Do I have to worry about banshees?” Desmond wonders out loud as they wander in, because he’d thought Shaun offhandedly mentioning bogeymen and Loki was just talk and look where that went.
        “The ones participating in more human affairs, no, probably not, though you should probably still take care not to follow a fae lord or sidhe out of this world. Watch what you eat in their presence, the favors you do for them or have done, et cetera.” He winces as Rukh flicks a little of the rainwater into his glasses, but he doesn’t complain. “As for others, the legends are never fully clear as to whether they warn of impending death or cause it. Either way…” he swallows, “...you’ll probably be fine, but I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t go around testing it. They tend to stay near their old faery mounds, anyway.”
        Maybe he’d partially just talked to the Mama just so she’d know they were trying to help and the police shouldn’t get called. Not that Shaun probably couldn’t talk them out of it as a Templar and all, but still.
        Shaun’s glancing around, wrinkling his nose at the smell of decaying flowers and curdling milk. Katherine seems intrigued, but she sticks close to Desmond and Shaun rather than going off to explore, even if that wouldn’t leave her far away, with how small it is—just a single middle shelf, with shelves around the walls, though the ones in front of the windows are really short, and the few grocery-type displays out on the street. Rukh finds an empty part of a shelf to perch on and starts preening and using his feet to try to get the water off.
        Shaun winces as Desmond goes straight to the register and starts rifling through the papers, but he doesn’t complain. Poking around with the Calculations isn’t finding anything, and while that’s probably just because Desmond doesn’t know what he’s doing and the answers are actually there, he’s pretty sure Shaun also probably won’t appreciate if he pushes too hard and gets a nosebleed or worse, here, while he’s watching.
        “It has been far too long,” Shaun mutters, frowning, sparing a glance at Katherine, who’s starting to peek out of her shell and is still—alert. Not anxious, at least not directly anxious, and for all he knows she’s mirroring Shaun. Desmond hadn’t managed to keep the fact that Shaun was important to him from any of his human companions, so maybe it shouldn’t surprise him that she’s taken to Shaun so quickly, but it’d still caught him off guard. “That is, looking at documents of this sort. You can glean a variety of interesting facts from the records of storekeepers at the time, glimpses into daily lives, and it’s not as easy as checking through social media to find the price of bread or someone with an inflated sense of self-worth making a global forum their food diary. For all that assuming any of it survives they might not even be wrong about such facts being of interest, merely the questions of ‘to whom’ and ‘when’. Things about the economy, the relative status of certain professions, and the like. I’d examined a wider diversity than just books in my academic days, but, well, lately it’s just been books from the Templar library. Particularly regarding a certain apocalypse and the sword.”
        It’s...interesting. Shaun isn’t usually the kind of guy to regret a whole lot, so the possibly wistful tone is more than a little unusual. “Do you miss it?”
        “I certainly don’t miss teaching,” Shaun replies instantly. He didn’t even have to take a moment to think about that. “Or fighting for funding, attempting to argue my way into access to documents or artefacts. But...yes, I suppose. I’m more useful where I am, don’t get me wrong, and I like that, but it can be nice, too, not knowing what’s waiting on every page. All the answers at my fingertips, and I’d barely scratch the surface with a hundred lifetimes.”
        As fun as it is to watch Shaun at work, Desmond’s definitely not reading that fast, and Shaun looks like he’s getting more out of the shorthand. So, rather than using the Calculations to just find out where she is or any useful information about the place, he starts looking everywhere else, trying to spot hiding places. Most of it is fairly useless, but he manages to find the safe and, with a sheepish glance in Shaun’s direction, and a bit of Eagle Vision, opens it right up, only to find money and not much else. Well, at least that means this probably wasn’t a robbery or anything.
        “I suppose you could call it the Socratic paradox. The more I know, the more I know I don’t know.” He glances back up, looking for Desmond, and when he notices the safe and hidden panel in the vending machine and loose part of the flooring Desmond has pried up and just blinks behind his glasses. “I hope you’re going to wipe that down.”
        “Just in case they dust for fingerprints? Yeah, of course.” Technically he’d used the sleeve of his hoodie, but they could maybe get fibers or something if they really wanted to. He can probably just end up cleaning up behind himself with the Calculations. That’ll be a lot easier, honestly, partly because he knows how that feels and it’s easier to do Assassin things. They feel natural, even if he’s doing them with his mind rather than, you know, physically.
        “I,” Shaun announces, waving a hand slightly pompously, “...am wearing gloves. Admittedly because it’s required for some volumes, so I’m usually carrying a pair of archival gloves, but it means I came prepared.”
        Desmond closes and locks the safe. Sure, it doesn’t look like anyone’s actually stolen much if anything, but she’d probably still appreciate it if her cash is still here when she comes back. Assuming she comes back. “Find anything useful?”
        “In a manner of speaking. I’m pretty sure elix. means elixir, which she does happen to sell. And if you’ll notice, much of her profit comes from a single elixir type, sales of which trail off to the present day, but I can’t tell you which one it would be as it doesn’t appear to be stocked on her shelves. I’d remember a magical item of that price.” Desmond comes back to join him, taking a peek over his shoulder—and yeah, one bottle of something maybe magic costing over one hundred euros would definitely stick in his head, too. A quick look at the right area (Shaun heads straight to it) confirms that.
        “What are the rest of these, usually?” he asks, figuring Shaun would know, if he ever purchases them.
        “Healing. More disease than a so-called ‘healing potion’.” Shaun shrugs. Maybe this is his usual fallback for when he gets the flu and can’t work, rather than those anti-flu stuff probably sold by the Illuminati or Orochi. “Your Third Eye, is it...telling you anything else relevant?”
        Desmond glances around again, this time just using plain old Eagle Vision, and absolutely nothing stands out. It makes more sense that Shaun hadn’t been able to find anything just looking through here, even if he was distracted and didn’t have a lot of time to check up on her in the first place. “We’re not going to find anything here. Do you know where her apartment is?”
        “I certainly know where her flat is.” Shaun’s voice would almost sound grumbly if not for the teasing, amused smile, small but real, that he attempts to hide.
        Desmond snorts but shakes his head. “Very funny. Come on, lead the way, Shaun.”
        “I am hilarious, thank you Desmond.” He’s in a playful mood, apparently. He’d get like this with Rebecca, too, sometimes, only back when they hadn’t really known each other well Desmond had misinterpreted it as Shaun just not liking people in general. He wasn’t sure Shaun and Rebecca were even friends, back then, and it doesn’t help that Shaun sometimes would go too far, because he’s pretty sure the dirty looks she’d respond with sometimes were real.
        “Yeah, you are.” He’s not giving anything away. They’d hung out enough in Ealdwic before that he can say that without having to refer to any database entries. When he’d been—well, Bill would have said ‘wasting his time’ and ‘avoiding his responsibilities’ and whatever else, but Desmond had needed it and maybe he deserved just the tiniest bit of a vacation after dying to save the world, dad, thanks.
        Still, it doesn’t seem like that was the answer Shaun was expecting, because he just sputters rather than reply. He’s blushing again as they head back out into the chilly, rainy night, but for all his bluster, he’s—he’s happy. It shouldn’t be a revelation. Desmond’s seen him happy before, with a good cup of tea and actually being useful, getting to share his knowledge and have a good audience. And he’d known, because Rebecca told him and because it was pretty obvious after that, that Shaun likes him. But there’s something different about actually seeing that he makes Shaun happy that he can’t put into words.
        The silence isn’t uncomfortable. Despite the rain, larger drops that filter through the looming roofs and wooden walkways crossing overhead, the city’s alive, with the occasional music and sirens, people talking under awnings and the propetiers selling their goods in the market and rushing past, covered (and contained) fires crackling in defiance of the weather, footsteps splashing against stone, on their errands. And yeah, it is nice.