Chapter Text
Desmond Miles is not a funny man. Shaun still isn't sure what kind of man he really is, but he's definitely certain he is not, in fact, a funny one. No matter what Desmond himself thinks.
"What are you doing?" Shaun asks flatly after having found the said not funny man in their awkward kitchen corner in the Sanctuary under Auditore Villa – eating last of their ice-cream straight from the bucket. He's using a big spoon too. "Are you seriously sitting in the dark alone eating ice-cream out of the box – what is this?"
"I had a craving," Desmond says, watching him calmly and curiously – as if he's the mental one here and not the git sitting alone in the dark eating ice-cream straight out of the box.
"You had a craving."
"Yeah," Desmond says, takes out another spoon full and sticks it into his mouth. "Craving."
Shaun narrows his eyes suspiciously. Has he lost it or is this some roundabout way of combating Bleeding Effect? No ice-cream in 16th century Italy, therefore, if I sit in here the darkness eating ice-cream out of the bucket like a sad divorced woman from a bad rom-com, I can't possibly mistake myself for a 16th century Assassin?
"Craving," Shaun repeats slowly. "What, like a pregnant woman?"
Desmond smiles blandly and points the spoon at him. "Not as far as you can tell, anyway," he says and sticks the spoon back into the ice-cream.
Shaun stares at him for a moment and then decides, it's too bloody late for this, Desmond is too bloody weird, and whatever he's doing with the ice-cream, he can damn well do on his own. "You know what," Shaun says. "I don't care. I'm going to go out and take the piss I was planning to take and then I'm just going to forget you being weird alone in the darkness now."
"Sure thing, Shaun."
"Have you noticed that Desmond is gaining weight?"
Shaun lifts his head from the dictionary and stares across the table at Lucy, who in turn is staring at the sleeping form of Desmond Miles, who's wrapped up in his sleeping bag under the statue of Altaïr. "What?" Shaun asks. "Seriously?"
Lucy shrugs, looking a little awkward. "I noticed it when we were going through the tunnels," she says and shrugs. "Side effect of the Animus, I'm afraid – Subjects tend to suffer muscular atrophy, one even had bed sores from prolonged Animus sessions."
Well, duh, Shaun thinks but doesn't say, looking over to Desmond's curled up form. He does have a round sort of shape to him these days. "It was your job to train him and what not if I recall," Shaun says. "Have him do sit-ups or something. Might do him some good beyond burning off a few calories. Like, repair whatever damage Rebecca's demon couch is doing to his spine."
"Hey," Rebecca says, from the said demon couch. "Baby has the best ergonomic design out there, if anything, she's doing good to people's spines."
"Yours, maybe – but Desmond has good twenty centimetres on you. I don't think his spine goes where yours does on the chair."
"Bah," Rebecca answers.
Lucy doesn't say anything, looking at Desmond. "Maybe we should start getting more fruits and veggies on our food runs," she comments. "Honestly, it might do all of us good."
"What the hell is that?" Shaun asks flatly.
Desmond looks down. "It's a sandwich," he says slowly. "Are you… okay, Shaun?"
"I'm fine, and I can see what it's supposed to be – but what the –" Shaun makes a motion at the thing. "That is not a sandwich."
If anything it looks like it, whatever it is, possibly ate the sandwich and then transformed like a horror movie monster into something… gruesome. It kind of looks like it's inside out too, with more stuffings on the top than between whatever Desmond thinks passes for bread there. Where the hell did he even get the ingredients for it?
"No way can you eat all that," Shaun says. "I fact, I bet you can't, I bet you ten quid."
"I can't even do anything with that," Desmond points out. "No shop runs for me, remember?"
"Then I'll get you something nice the next time I go out on one. Anything you want, which costs around ten quid," Shaun says and makes a face as Desmond bundles up his monstrosity of a food item into a wrap and then –
He takes a bite of it.
Shaun shudders.
"I want peanut butter," Desmond says, staring right at him like some sort of psychopath while eating his monstrosity of a sandwich. "A whole lot of peanut butter. And pickles."
"I think that will mess up Lucy's planned communal diets here," Shaun says and makes a face – because now he's imagining peanut butter on pickles and really he might hurl now. "Actually you're messing up your diet right now, I think. Doesn't Lucy have you on calorie restrictions or something? You really shouldn't be eating that. Just for biohazard reasons."
Desmond arches his eyebrows. "Give me a break," he says, his voice almost creepily bland with sauce smeared all over his scarred lips. Then he grins. "I'm eating for two here, don't you know?"
Shaun watches from the corner of his eye as Desmond raises from another Animus session. It really kind of looks like a zombie rising from death, doesn't it – Desmond goes from perfectly still to sort of stupefied listlessness, with the slack confused look on his face, staring dumbly at nothing. Any day now, he will wake up mumbling about brains – and Shaun is only half convinced it will be because the Animus is turning his brains into a mush.
"Take it easy," Rebecca says automatically, as she always does while she turns to wind the Animus down from the session. "You were in for six hours. Slow movements and small steps now."
Desmond stands up with all the grace of a zombie too, stumbling and swaying slightly… and then he grimaces and leans forward, rubbing his lower back. "Aww, shit," he mutters.
"You alright?" Rebecca asks.
"I'm fine, I'll just walk it off," Desmond mutters, and heads off, rubbing his lower back as he goes, all theatrical and noticeable. He grabs the headset and the watch as he goes, muttering something about his back as he turns to the stairs.
Well, Shaun thinks with a frown. At least he's exercising.
Desmond really does eat pickles with peanut butter, and it really does look as disgusting as it sounds. He makes a show of it too, being all casual and easy going as he sticks one pickle after another right into the jar of peanut butter, ruining it for everyone else before sticking the whole mess into his mouth and just, ew, just ew.
"It's actually pretty good," Desmond says earnestly, his legs stretched out on the seat where Shaun would usually sit, except he refuses to sit beside a monster. And Desmond is becoming one, he really is.
"You are one crazy dude," Rebecca says. "How can you do that with a straight face?"
"I'm serious, it's actually really good," Desmond says and then, just to prove a point, sticks another slimy, peanut butter encrusted pickle in his mouth.
"That is by far the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," Shaun says very clearly. "And I've seen people disemboweled. Congratulations, Desmond, you are beyond disgusting."
"I am a miracle of life," Desmond answers calmly and goes for another pickle.
"A miracle of life," Lucy repeats, amused, while coming to the table with a tablet in one hand and a fresh cup of coffee in other. "How do you figure that?"
Desmond looks up, draws a breath to answer – and then he goes completely green. "Scuse me –" he groans and then flails himself off the table and chairs, knocking one of them over before running towards their please don't use except in emergency toilet. A moment later they heard the sounds of throw up from behind the flimsy privacy curtain.
"That's what you get for showing off!" Rebecca laughs after him while Lucy makes a face.
"Screw you too, Becs!" Desmond groans, and throws up again.
Shaun, in the meanwhile, is eyeing Lucy's steaming cup of coffee, his eyes narrowed.
The thing is, Desmond gets nauseous a lot. It's kind of a side effect of Animus – it messes up with the sense of balance, and also there is the sensory feedback and Ezio does a lot of stomach-turning things. It's not that uncommon to hear Desmond rushing behind the curtain to throw up early in the morning, freshly woken from whatever nightmare he had the pleasure of enduring that night.
They'd all been politely ignoring it though. The guy's existence is messed up enough as it is without them pointing out the stuff he can’t do anything to change. Him getting out of shape due to lying around all day is something he can do something about, hence the exercise and the now very veggie heavy diets. Granted, Desmond is somehow circumventing the diet a lot, and where the hell is he getting all the turkey anyway, Shaun would really like to know. When even was the last time any of them bought turkey?
But the nausea, the nightmares, the headaches, the hallucinations – none of them can do much about those, and neither can Desmond, and pointing fingers there wouldn't just be rude, it would be bloody cruel. So they don't.
But Desmond has been sick more and more often.
"Morning sickness," Desmond says fatalistically and shrugs. "What can you do."
"Seriously?" Shaun asks flatly. "Seriously."
Desmond just shrugs again and heads off, rubbing his lower back. Shaun isn't the only one staring after him weirdly as he heads for his pre-Animus run around Monteriggioni – something he's taken to doing every morning at Lucy's health-related urging. It seems to be doing him some good, too, his colour is better.
"Damn, my feet hurt," he then complains after, of course. "I swear my ankles are the size of footballs at this point.
Well, whatever helps him get up in the morning. And if perpetuating this joke cheers the guy up even a bit… Well, who is Shaun to judge? Just the British asshole who has to endure the sight of Desmond smearing peanut butter on everything and eating pickles straight from the jar.
Seriously.
"Hey, Desmond, I got you something," Rebecca says, coming down the stairs with plastic bags on both hands, and something tucked under her arm. As Shaun goes to see if she finally found the right tea, she throws that something at Desmond, who catches the thing from where he is, sitting on the floor, stretching.
It's a packet of digestives.
"Might help settle your stomach," Rebecca says, cheekily. "I had a friend who ate them packet a day when she was pregnant – told me she couldn't live without them."
"Are you seriously humouring him?" Shaun asks under his breath, even as Desmond all but lights up and tears into the packet eagerly. "He's bad enough as it is!"
"What?" Rebecca asks, giving him a wide-eyed look. "It's just a packet of cookies, Shaun. Don't be rude."
"Next we'll be giving him back rubs and foot massages," Shaun mutters, giving Desmond a suspicious, narrow-eyed look. Desmond is warily sniffing at one of the bland looking biscuits before biting into it – and then slumping with something like relief when it doesn't immediately trigger a gag reflex. "Honestly."
In the end, it turns out the digestives are actually helping, though, and Desmond even manages to share the kitchen table with Lucy's coffee cup without hurling again. Him not throwing up all the damn time is really best for everyone's mental health and even Lucy starts losing some of the pinched look of anxiety, so… all the better for all of them.
Though giving Desmond's delusions more fuel at this point…
As part of her project of "stop Desmond from getting too fat to go into the Animus", Lucy got their hideout a scale. Shaun has very determinedly not stepped on it even once so far – one should never ask a lady's weight, honestly – but Desmond's been ordered to keep track of his weight every day.
So they are all aware that his weight is slowly but steadily growing. Of course, Desmond hadn't been the fittest of guys when he'd been kidnapped by Abstergo – had nice arms, though, from what Shaun has overheard Lucy talking to Rebecca. Desmond had been on the leaner side though, Shaun recalls, sort of skinny really, at least when it comes to his face. He's still all high cheekbones and narrow features, like a bloody model or something. But numbers don't lie.
"I think the peanut butter has to go," Lucy says.
"Don't you dare," Desmond says and hugs the said peanut butter. "I will literally scratch your eyes out if you touch my peanut butter."
"Desmond," Lucy says, awkward and frustrated. "Listen, I know this is a bit – it's not serious now, but the Animus can have seriously bad physical side effects if we let them go on like this. Sudden weight gain can put a strain on your system and we can't afford any sort of setbacks right now – and we don’t have the capacity to deal with medical emergencies. I'm sorry, but we need you in tip top shape from now on. You need to cut back something. Or exercise more!"
"I already am – I run around Monteriggioni every damn day," Desmond says, and for the first time in a long while he sounds actually kind of bothered about the whole thing. "And eat all the fucking vegetables even though they make me hurl half of the time. I don't know what else I can really do, aside from not spending most of the day lying down on the damn Animus…"
Shaun grimaces. Why does this feel a bit like watching a guy being kicked when he's already down?
"You eat too much junk food," Lucy says firmly. "And Shaun," she adds and points a finger at him. "You need to stop enabling his habits. Desmond needs to eat much healthier than this – the peanut butter has to go."
Desmond bows his head and – bloody hell it actually looks like his lips quiver a bit. Like he's going to cry. Bloody fuck, okay - "You know, muscle weighs more than fat," Shaun says and folds his arms, half defensive and half – he doesn't even know. He is not protective of Desmond Miles, he's really not. Except he is a bit. "Numbers aren't everything you know – you can actually gain weight while losing fat. It's scientifically proven."
Desmond looks up, hesitantly grateful and suspicious.
"Happens sometimes with pregnancies too," Rebecca pipes in from where she's working on the Animus. "Rarely, granted, women tend to get more fat as they get pregnant, what with all the cravings and all, but it's known to happen."
"Desmond is not pregnant!" Lucy shouts, throwing her hands up in the air. "Stop indulging him, both of you. This stops now. Desmond, give me the peanut butter."
"Are you going to say it's for my own good?" Desmond asks suspiciously.
Lucy doesn't say anything, but it's clear on her face. "You're going to be eating healthier from now on," she says firmly. "More protein, less sugar, and less saturated fats. And less salt. The pickles are going to go too."
Judging by the face Desmond makes, that one actually might've hurt him physically. "Fine," he says and turns away. "Whatever."
Shit, Shaun thinks.
The atmosphere in the hideout is somewhere in the level of the sewers for the next couple of days – and Desmond’s nausea is in all-time high. As are his back aches, judging by the way he has to take a moment every time before getting up from the Animus. He also is starting to avoid wearing his shoes more and more whenever he can manage it, kicking them off when he goes to the Animus and sighing with obvious discomfort when he has to put them on.
Lucy's solution to all of this? More training outside the sanctuary, longer walks in the morning, stretching – and stomach crunches. Desmond does have a bit of a gut going on.
"F-fuck," is Desmond's pronouncement when he tries. "No, nope, this is not happening, I can't do it."
"Stop being a baby, Desmond," Lucy says and sighs. "Come on, I'll hold your feet – you can do it."
Shaun watches from the side, feeling incredibly awkward about the whole thing – Desmond seriously can't do a proper sit-up. He can pull twice his own weight in a pull-up, can pump set of twenty push-ups without breaking a sweat, but he cannot do a sit-up. Shaun has never been one for the physical side of Assassinhood and he can do reasonable amount of sit-ups with minimal effort. How can guy as obviously fit as Desmond have this much trouble?
It's gone a bit beyond just being a funny gag and kind of even beyond Lucy's crusade of keeping Desmond healthy at all cost. This is something different.
Shaun makes a cup of tea and watches as Lucy and Desmond give up on the stomach crunches and try for squats instead – something Desmond is having definitely better luck with. It's still kind of awkward to watch, because Desmond has to stop every now and then to wince at his back and it's… it's not faked for laughs, is it? The guy's back is seriously hurting.
"Oh, fuck – what –" Desmond grunts and grabs at his stomach, making a weird face.
"What?" Lucy asks, frowning.
"Uh, indigestion. Probably," Desmond says, making a face. "Just… a really weird feeling. Never mind, let's keep going. "
Shaun scowls into his cup of badly scalded tea. Seriously. Bump on his belly, bad back, all the nausea, swollen feet, yadda yadda yadda… now, whatever that was. Seriously.
There's no bloody way.
Shaun hauls in the day's purchases, another week or so worth of food and essentials, quickly glancing around. He'd spotted Lucy outside taking in the air, and Rebecca should have the night watch, therefore – hah, there, thank god. Rebecca is fast asleep on her bedroll. Good – no one there to witness his lapse to insanity.
Quickly Shaun digs into one of the bags and calls, "Desmond, heads up," before lobbing a packet right at his head.
"What's this?" Desmond asks, catching the thing with ease.
"Reason why I will not visit Monteriggioni pharmacy ever again," Shaun answers. "Just… something for some peace of mind. Or something," he waves a hand and turns to get the groceries into the coolers, determinedly ignoring the weird look Desmond is giving him. He can hear the moment Desmond actually looks at the package, the inhale he draws.
"Are you serious?" Desmond asks suspiciously.
Shaun grumbles. "No, I've lost my bloody mind," he mutters. He's got to have. Indulging Desmond's joke from before was something, this, this is something else. "But fuck, it's either this or you have a massive tumour growing in your gut and I can only figure out a quick way to check for one of these options. Take it for a joke or something."
He very carefully doesn't look anywhere near Desmond, feeling the guy's stare on his back – trying not to think about what this might mean, if, if not, whichever it is. Desmond opens the package and there's crinkle of paper being unfolded as Desmond, dutiful health-conscious Assassin that he is these days, reads the instructions.
Shaun doesn't look. He puts the groceries away, taking his damn mind sorting stuff out and he totally isn't tracking Desmond's every movement by hearing, how he heads out – to most likely take a piss. Bloody hell.
Shaun is arranging the tea bag by bag when Desmond comes back and slaps something on the table, something plastic sounding. Shaun closes his eyes. "Please don't tell me you just put something soaked in your pee onto the table where we eat."
"Shaun," Desmond says and his voice is… weird. Bad weird. Tense weird. Oh shit sort of weird.
Shaun laughs and runs a hand over his eyes, knocking his glasses askew. "Okay, I have to tell you, I'm sorry but I have to speak my mind now," he says helplessly. "You, Desmond Miles, are not a funny man. I'm sorry, but there it is. Your jokes are absolutely terrible."
Desmond doesn't say anything and after a moment Shaun finally turns to look. Desmond's expression is just as awkwardly tense as the atmosphere, and he doesn't look like he's joking. Shit. Shaun stands up and looks to the table, to the stick of plastic sitting there. Shaun knows how to read it – he bought the packet, he read the instructions.
A little red cross is a weird sort of portent of doom, really.
"Congratulations," Shaun says faintly. "You're pregnant."