Speak the Language

[madimpossibledreamer]

Still using my own knowledge of Italian + Google Translate, still haven't watched a full season of Arrow.  (The characterization might be off...sorry...) I have read a couple of the comics, though.
(And I really liked that Arrow, season 1 at least, was vaguely based on Green Arrow, Year One, because that volume was great.  As was the Batman Year One.  Random aside, really.)
Anyone's guess is good as to Ezio's sexuality, probably.  I'm just having him straight for this fic but I have no idea.  He's flirty with everyone, but whether he actually means it...no idea.
also help i have written 24,810 words and i'm not probably stopping soon.  this has pulled me in
aaaand I tried to get a lot done today and didn't get much done aaaaaaarg
~Dreamer~

Main Points:
Arrow/Assassin's Creed
Summary: Ollie talks to Felicity and Digg.  Or...well, he tries, through the Bleeding Effect.
Word Count: 1501
Rating: Gen

            “Shhh, shhh, he’s waking up!”  I know that excited voice.  It’s speaking a language I’ve never heard in my life, and yet, I know it.  My eyes open.  They blearily focus.
            “Ollie?  Are you okay?”
            My head’s pounding, so no, non proprio.  Still, she’s worried.  “Rosa?” I ask, even if that’s all wrong.  Rosa doesn’t have locks like—the sun?  No, not quite, but then, I’m thrown off by the headache.  “Dove sono?” I add.  I’ve seen this place before, and yet I’ve never seen it, and that’s just making the headache worse.
            “Wait, are we speaking Italian now?  Why are we speaking Italian now?” she babbles before looking closer at me.  “Oh, yeah, why did you say your death was a ‘mistake’?  Tommy’s really pissed at you, you know.  For leaving, or for running off and getting yourself killed.  Either way we’re all a little mad at you, except it’s hard to do that when you look worse than I’ve ever seen you, and I’ve seen you shot and bleeding out in my car, and that—”
            “Felicity,” a new voice joins the group, except it’s not new; I’ve heard it too, and the memory of her babbling is just the trigger I needed.  It’s an anchor.  A small one.  It won’t last.  I’ve kept myself going to talk to Tommy, and I’m not sure what will happen after I do, but I need to do it.  But first, I should probably rehearse, a little scena.
            No, focus.
            “Templars kidnapped me,” I begin, voice hoarse from all the pain, and they both immediately react—Felicity flinches, Digg—right, that’s his name—straightens.  Like a good soldier.  Like a good Assassin.  “And you’re going to be really excited by the next part,” I tell Felicity.
            “I wouldn’t be happy about how they tortured you,” she sounds indignant.  “I was mad at you, but not that mad.”
            I smile.  It feels like it might be real.  It’s hard to tell these days.  “You sure?  It’s an impossible machine.”
            She perks up a little at that, but still shakes her head.  “Nope, uh-uh, no way.”
            I’m stalling.  Am I stalling?  They might think I’m insane.  They might be right.  I should just tell them.  Protect the Brotherhood.  Don’t shove them away.  “They’ve developed technology to dig into a person’s DNA and relive the memories of our ancestors, only this time, they wanted to try to see if they couldn’t get into a living person’s memories.”  It sounds insane, but we’ve seen a lot, these past—whatever they are.  Time doesn’t really make sense anymore.  I hope it does again, but I’m not sure how permanent whatever they’ve done is. 
            Felicity pauses, puffing out her cheeks in a vain effort to stay quiet, before she bursts out, “Oh, I hate it!  You were right.  That sounds really cool, and that—hang on, I remember something about—” and she’s off to look up something on that strange—the computer.
            Digg stays put.  He knows it was still torture, and the look in his eyes says that I’m going to tell him everything.  I’d been planning on it.  “But they had to attune me to the machine, make sure that it worked for me.  I was good enough at Altaïr, but then they had me go into Ezio’s memoria.”
            “Focus,” Digg urges me.  It takes a moment because that’s outside my head and I’m not used to that.
            “Si, si, mi dispiace,” I mutter, and from the look on his face that’s wrong, but I’m trying and it’s so loud and my head hurts.  I’m lost in a fog of memories and words.  “Ezio è…”
            It’s his name.  It’s just so comfortable to talk about Ezio in italiano…
            “My Italian ancestor—we were too close.”  I have an accent now.  “They call it the bleeding effect, when we lose ourselves in our ancestors, when they bleed their personality onto ours, and my synchronization was so high—”
            “You were similar?” Felicity glances over, distracted. 
            Ezio smiles using my face.  “His father was an assassino who never told him about his family’s heritage until they were betrayed and his father and brothers were killed.  He left a list of Templars to kill.  Before, he was known for scandal and was a lady’s man.  Oh, and his sister was similarly terrificante,” I add, suddenly thinking of Claudia.  She still intimidates me.
            Felicity is just staring at me, and even Digg is shocked.  “I got lost.  I’m still—”  I tap my head.  “They thought me pazzo, lost to their cause, which let me escape, but I’m still—”
            I still can’t keep a coherent thought or sentence, can’t spend a minute in the present without drifting.  I’ve been concentrating on Tommy, on the fact that I’m bisexual and Ezio isn’t and Tommy might be the son of a Templar but he’s definitely no Templar.  And I want to kiss him again.  I remembered our first, our only, at least, when both of us was sober.  We were both very affectionate, Italian even, growing up.  I want to do even more.  But I need to talk to Tommy, and I can’t do that when I can’t even keep speaking the same lingua.
            “I need to talk to Tommy,” I manage, still lost, losing it.
            “If he’ll talk to you.  You really did hurt him, you know,” Felicity tells me gently, before giving me another look.  “You know, I never did believe most of the things I read in the tabloids.”
            This is a good, modern conversation.  Keeps me in the present.  “You should, though.  I think I’m one of the very few people for whom most of the stories were real.”
            Felicity gives me a very disturbed look.  “Even the one about the cow?”  I blink at her, and she blushes a little.  “Not that, you know, I read a lot of tabloids when I was a teenager.  A friend showed me that one.”
            “That was the month I tried to behave.  I figured I’d try to actually stay in college and not get in trouble for once.  It didn’t last long, but they had to make up things for once.”  I shrug and lean against her desk.  “If you go in first and tell him I got kidnapped, will he be more likely to talk to me?” I ask, hopeful, and she giggles at me.
            “Are you seriously trying to make a battle plan for talking to someone you kissed?”  One look at Digg says that he thinks I’m ridiculous, too.
            I throw my hands up.  “Look, I can’t—this is serio, I can’t mess it up—”
            “Ollie, you have some serious problems that have nothing with your inability to continue speaking English,” Digg tells me.
            I try to glare at him, but apparently it’s not very intimidating.  Then again, perhaps a man losing his mind isn’t the scariest thing—I mean, it should be, given that if I completely lose it I might decide they’re Templars and try to kill them, but then, they decided to join me in my crazy crusade.
            “What are you going to tell your family?” Felicity realizes suddenly, and I wince.  I hadn’t wanted to talk to Claudia circa la mia prigionia—
            I probably need to talk to her, really talk to her, tell her about Templars and Assassins, but I need to talk to Tommy first and hope that helps me stay in the present.
            “There was, very briefly, a ransom.  When the kidnappers never contacted your family again, Captain Lance figured that you’d managed to tick them off and got yourself killed.” Digg explains, which—between that and me disappearing during the Undertaking, it makes sense.
            “They drugged me,” I add, because that’s the easiest explanation for why my brain is still such a mess, though it won’t fly if it lasts too long.
            “I thought you were immune to most—” Digg starts, and I wave that off.
            “Si, si, but it’s not like they know that.”  I’m starting to fade again.  “Felicity?”
            “He wants to talk to you; we all do.  It’s like that’s your superpower, that Oliver Queen charm.  We all fall a little in love.  We talked about it while drunk and watching musicals.”  I’m sure the disturbed look on my face must show, because they both laugh at me.
            “I’m not finding it, but I’m sure there was a thesis that sounded like—I’ll keep looking, Mr. Queen.  Sorry, Oliver,” Felicity announces, and goes back to focusing on what she’s doing.  And then she realizes something.  “Wait, no, I have to come help you, and probably drive you because I’m not sure Italian you knows how to drive, and then I can finish research.”
            Digg watches us carefully, like I’m going to fall over at any moment.  I’d be insulted if he wasn’t possibly right.  “Go talk to your best friend, scary vigilante.  Don’t give me any details.  I don’t want to know.”