Assassin's Creed Drabbles

↳ battle confessions

alexios always did have the worst timing. 

THE HETAERA BATS her stained lashes and rests one hand on Alexios' chest, the other on one of his broad shoulders. She meets your pained gaze across the courtyard —knowing you entered the symposium on his arm— and smirks, rising on her toes to whisper at his ear. "Perhaps I can be your Aphrodite tonight, misthios?" The hetaera solicits, still watching you and the shift in your expression from pain to something more devastating. It's a sight you've seen before and one that never fails to make it feel as though a hot dagger has been plunged into your heart and gut. You won't be made a fool of, though. Wiping the dampness from your eyes, you take your leave of the villa, finding an unoccupied stone bench just outside in a rose garden.

"Perhaps not," Alexios responds, brushing off the hetaera's hands and stepping back —he scans over those amassed, only to find you're no longer there. He sighs, denying the hetaera's advances for a second time before leaving the villa.

It takes him a moment to spot you surrounded by flowers the same shade as your scarlet cloak, but as he draws near, Alexios can see your shoulders shaking, face buried in your hands. "What's wrong?" He asks, sliding onto the bench next to you. As his dearest friends, he does not like to see you so distressed.

"Nothing," you sniffle, wiping the dampness from beneath your eyes —avoiding his warm gaze.

Alexios frowns, lifting his hand to your cheek —gently bringing your focus back to him. "I know you well enough to know when you're lying," he chides, lips curling into a smile.

But you shake your head, not wishing to trouble him with the woes of your heart or the jealousy that festered within you upon seeing him with the hetaera. "Alexios, it's nothing–" you lay your hand on his shoulder, forcing an empty smile "–I promise."

BARNABAS SHAKES HIS head as he steps beside Alexios at the helm of the Adrestia, the two of them surveying the deck, and the small groups scattered about it. The old captain grips onto the rail, his good eye shifting to the Eagle Bearer. "Sometimes I think it is you who only has one eye," he notes, using the same cryptic tone as when he speaks of fate and the gods.

"Speak plainly, Barnabas," Alexios says, turning to look up the scorpion tail of the trireme with a deep furrow between his brows. He is not in the mood for the captain's riddles this night after leaving the symposium with more questions than answers regarding clues for another Cultist.

"She's hurting," Barnabas tells him. At first, Alexios does not know of whom the captain speaks, but as he turns back to the crew, he understands. It sends a pang of guilt through his heart. Eppie and several others surround you, telling stories and laughing over a small cask of wine —though none of your smiles reach your eyes, they remain hollow and forced. Alexios cannot remember the last time he saw your eyes shine.

"Alexios, think about it," the old captain supplicates. For as long as the captain had known Alexios, he'd known you as well. The two of you were not going to be parted so easily on the docks of Kephallonia. You and Alexios had been together since the day he washed up on a beach when Markos found him.

As children, you played and thieved with one another, but now you fought at his side at every turn to help him reunite his family and purge Hellas of a shadow cult. "You both know one another better than you know yourselves," Barnabas says, and Alexios' lips curve into a smile. It's the truth. He could recall how you got even the smallest of scars on your arms and legs before he could remember the stories behind his own.

"She's the one person in this world you trust above all others." For years you have been Alexios' confidant, the only person he trusts with his life. "The one you told me you could not live without," Barnabas recalls.

"Oh," Alexios breathes, the pieces falling into place, and the realization of it meant hitting him in the chest like a quarry-stone. There was a reason you turned aloof around hetaera and other women who offered themselves up for a night a pleasure. It's the same reason Alexios doesn't enjoy seeing you with other men who could steal you away. The mutual jealousy is founded in something much more profound and can easily account for Alexios' actions and feelings.

"A woman in love is often jealous," Barnabas tells him. Time has given him more than enough experience to learn the workings of a woman —even though his own time with his beloved Leda was cut short. "She hides it well, but it still pains her." You had been distraught upon returning to the Adrestia without the Eagle Bearer. Through the tears, the captain had coaxed the full picture from your lips.

"It's–" Alexios rakes his hand through his matted hair, pacing a small circle "–it's just I have nothing to offer." He has the blood of kings in his veins with nothing but a broken spear to show for it. "No home, no chance of normalcy."

Barnabas smiles, gripping onto Alexios' shoulder. "She's happy with you now, isn't she?"

THE THRILL OF battle is more intoxicating than even the strongest Samian wine. You lash out at one of the bandits, blade slicing through the back of the man's thigh. He yelps and collapses to one knee only to be met with the point of the Leonidas Spear in his throat. "Thanks for not leaving me on the docks this time," you laugh, feeling Alexios' back pressed against yours as more bandits and cutthroats filter from the forest and into the camp.

He cleaves a thief to the breastbone, surprised to find another blade sticking from the poor bastard's throat. The body slumps to the side, your and Alexios' battle-heated gaze meeting in a quick lull. He grips onto your forearm, unable to look away. "For so long, I was blind," he starts but is interrupted by the cry of another bandit charging forward. Alexios kicks up a spear and throws it without aiming —his golden gaze not straying from you. The spear punches through the man's poor armor, felling him. Alexios grips onto your arm again as you kick another corpse from your blade. "Worried about my shortcomings–" he raises his spear, deflecting a strike aimed at his neck to the side "–if I was worthy."

"Is now really the best time, Alexios?" You shout, dodging under the swipe of spear —unsure what is so important he feels the need to confess at a time such as this.

"What I'm saying is–" he spins out of the way of an assailant and cuts a line up the man's back before gripping onto your wrist and pulling you back flush against him "–it was always you." Your heart —hammering in your chest— skips a beat as Alexios' words set in. "Always will be you," he adds, stepping back to dispatch one of the last of the bandits.

When he turns back, you grab onto his chiton, hauling him down until his lips are on yours. It's a brief reprieve from the fight, where everything slows to a grinding halt, and all Alexios can focus on is the soft warmth of your lips against his —like a dream he has no intention of waking from. You lift a hand to his cheek. Fingers ghosting over the scar below his eye and across the dark stubble on his jaw.

The moment fades with the sound of gravel crunching underfoot. Parting, both you and Alexios turn to the last bandit. You glance at each other and take a step forward —Alexios throws the Leonidas Spear at the man and you a short dagger. Each of the weapons finds its mark and the bandit falls backward. Alexios reaches for your hands, blood-slick from the fight just like his, and presses his forehead against yours. "I'm sorry for being such a fool," he breathes. Barnabas was right, again.

Smiling, you tilt your chin until your lips brush his. Your kiss is short and sweet and a promise many more to come. "I always knew you were a bit of a fool, Alexios," you laugh, "even so, I've always loved you." He laughs too as he steps back, squeezing your entwined hands.

"Wasn't there a waterfall nearby?" You ask. There's a glint in your eyes that Alexios has not seen in a long time, and it fills his heart with warmth. He nods, slipping his hands free of yours only to pick you up and toss you over his shoulder, just like old times on Kephallonia with both of you laughing as he starts toward the waterfall. In an instant, everything had changed, but at the same time, nothing had changed at all.