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ridingtorohan · 6 months

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𓇻 ft. shay cormac x assassin recruit gn reader 𓇻 warnings! minor spoilers for AC Rogue. alcohol consumption + minor injury. 𓇻 au. reader is Hope and Liam's newest addition to the Brotherhood. Unfortunately, you've just learned about Shay's involvement... long after you've already met him. 𓇻 enjoy! feel free to like, reblog, or send in asks! ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎read on ao3! - masterlist - join the taglist!

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"Looks like you've got a right shiner this time."

It's a voice you recognize, even through the thick of the fog. With bottle of brandy in hand, opening to your bottom lip, you've managed to cool the swell of your ego better than you have your bruise. Tongue darts out, pushing at your upper lip.

His glove rests to your cheekbone, index finger trailing softly over tender skin. Never tender enough because you flinch instinctively, expression pulling tighter. Guarded was never a flattering expression on Shay and it certainly wasn't now. Nose wrinkling, you incline your head away, the cold now freshly stinging.

Even though it's been a few hours, the tenderness hasn't gone down, still bitter and sitting coloured beneath the flush of your skin. At least you've managed the swelling some. The ghost of Shay's fingers on your skin lingers. You turn away, nursing the bottle with another sip. With a low, wanting creak of wood, the saloon's deck groans beneath Shay's weight as he shifts, back turned towards the banister, eyes always on you. Elbows resting over the rails, fresh snow lines the roots of his dark hair, skin still unbothered by the cold. So he's the one you heard step out after you.

"Did Hope give it to ye?" He asked, voice low and careful, eyes still impossibly dark, even when the warm tavern light dances over his features. Your mouth twists, sour line worrying into the skin.

"Liam."

"Ah." Then, "Well, he's always been a right git anyhow."

Looking at him like this, an air of familiarity drifting between you two, it almost tempers the sorrow and grief that still echoes in your bones. The insisting song of rage and injustice. Your fingers curl tighter around the bottle- and you see it too. How Shay's eyes don't even dart away but a barely perceptible twitch. Always watching each movement. A biting scoff rises in your throat before you can stop it.

For everything that Hope and Liam had trained you for, for all the burdens you bore, memories and lessons drilled into your head- this was not how you thought it would go.

Because every scary story told to you, every drill and hasty explanation- it was all because of him. Every bruise and aching joint- every nasty remark and lessons forced well past their dues. Even Achilles, as senile as he seemed, remarked upon the force the Brotherhood trained you.

All to avenge ghosts of Assassins you didn't know, never had a chance to know. All for a Brotherhood that had been tarnished before you joined.

You were meant to replace Shay, you realize that now. A bitter truth that had come to a head earlier that night, when Liam saw how you held your blades. Accosted you for it, demanding where you learned it from. 'From Shay', you had wanted to say, because it had been the truth. Then the rest of it followed, with Hope pleading with you to leave for the night while everyone cooled down. While they cooled down.

Looking back, you should have known better than to accept some strange man's friendly banters in taverns. Known better than to walk his boat, learning its knots better than you learned your knives.

It makes sense. Shay befriended you to sniff out the Assassin's plans. It made sense. Just as it made sense that Liam tried building you into a better tool, trying to outpace the losses that the Brotherhood had suffered.

'It's not fair.'

You think how his hands felt on your sides, careful in his guidance. Teaching you with a far greater patience than Liam had, with far kinder methods than Hope's. You had learned better under Shay- and somehow, that made it all worse, stinging more than the betrayal did.

"I hate you," you tell him. Shay tilts his head, little more than an acknowledgement. Eyes studying you, judging your reaction. Fog puffs in front of his face with his slow exhale. The wind blows it back, dusting across dark eyes before disappearing into the night.

"I know."

Still, even though you know, even though he knows, neither of you move. It's just the slow tilt of the bottle against your lips, burning motion of liquor down your throat. Cold seeping through your clothes, always too thin, never durable enough for the winter. Something that Shay had tried to correct you on but Kesegowaase didn't care for. Always too busy for your innate questions.

You want to hate Shay for everything. Pin it all on him. It'd be the easiest way. Give in to what your mentors had been trying to drill into your head: enemy, enemy, enemy.

Glass presses to your lips again. Shay's fingers ghost over yours, leather pressing light to exposed fingers. A grip that remains solid - but not insistent... and with the patience of a man that wouldn't exist in the Shay that the Brotherhood knew.

But he lets you take another drink anyway. You weren't a lightweight. Shay had made sure of that.

"Are you going to kill me?" You decide on saying when the fire has tempered in your throat. All that's left is the chill in your eyes, the nip of frost and frozen winds on your cheeks.

His fingers remain on the bottle and with a light tug, you concede, letting him bring it to his own lips. Cleanshaven, unlike the scruffy remnants that you had been sworn to. In all the ways that matter, he's unlike the man you've been told about. But you can see where the threat lies, the careful way he tilts his shoulders, languid but prepared. That part of the stories are true.

"Only if our blades cross," Shay responds, swallow audible, eyes dark as he peers at you over the neck of the bottle. He passes it to you, fingers brushing over yours.

Fingers connect. You try not to memorize how they feel.

"They'll order me to kill you," you decide to say.

Shay blinks, then blinks again when the snow lingers on his lashes. "Aye. And I won't let you." You scoff bitterly against the bottle. You both have roles to play. You just wish yours wasn't this.

You turn your eyes away, skimming over the balcony, out into the rolling hills of snow. More powder falls from the sky, dusting across your shoulders, frozen kisses upon cold-flushed skin. It'd be easy, you know, for Shay to just reach over and slide his blade into your neck. Nobody would hear you. Even with gold light dusting over the white expanse ahead, there's still dark shadows. You're both still isolated.

The music in the other room sounds so far away.

He doesn't move and you get to take another drink.

You think, then, that this isn't all there is. That there's more to the man that you were told about. That words uttered with hate or hellfire don't amount to the hours you've spent by his side, listening to some bawdy tale that Gist told him.

Then, in the same breath, you think: he doesn't have to kill me and I don't have to kill him.

Then, in another: what if there was another way?

Because for all the assassins are, good teachers aren't one of them. That you still swore to protect the innocent and your blade hasn't known flesh. In all these moments, caught between the Homestead and someone you had thought you had known, there exists things that you don't know. Impossibly, that there might be kindness beyond this rage and suffering that everyone has been dealt.

Again, in your mind's eye, you feel the shadow of Shay's gloves on your arms and waist, correcting your stance. Think of Achilles' words, heated and grave. Of Hope's flattering gait as she leads you through her warehouse.

"Shay, what-" You turn, throat tight, shadows and aches lingering in your mind still. There's nothing there, the impressions of his boots filling with the drifting of snow. Only gloves left on the railing, cuffs rimmed with fur. Still warm, even as you press chapped and shaking fingers inside, leather cushioning your palms. Because this is who Shay is, always watching out for you.

The next sip of the bottle goes down tasteless, no longer satisfying. The despair doesn't run as hot in your blood anymore, though the sense of betrayal lingers. Except now you wonder, just who exactly you feel betrayed by.

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