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Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Drive your quarry where you choose
Baffle them with trick and ruse
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Snares are meant to catch and hold
Loop a vine with knot to hide it
Place just where the over-bold
Stick a foot or head inside it
Hook it to a counter-weight
Or a young and sturdy sapling
Use their manly pride as bait
Catch them with its sudden grappling
Mercedes Lackey "Snare and Deadfall"
Mostly retired he may have been, but Shay still expected the Assassins to hunt him down, sooner or later.
“Kill me if you must”, he grits out at the hooded young man holding a hidden blade to his throat. The boy looks vaguely Native. Kesegowaase's relative? “But know it will not stop any Templar plans. Mostly because I'm not involved in them.”
“I am not going to kill you. I am looking for people who knew Haytham Kenway.”
And Shay's heart does an odd thing at that. Is Haytham dead? In danger? Is the Assassin looking to kill him as a message to Haytham?
“Knew is right. We've been out of contact for years. But what is it to you?”
“Haytham Kenway was my father. I killed him.”
Now that the lad mentions it, there is a resemblance, faint but unmistakable. Shay feels a mixture of sorrow for his old friend, and sympathy for the brainwashed child, and burning rage at whoever had put him up to it.
“Piece of advice from an old man, son. Do not cling on to those you killed. Even those you loved. Hell, especially those you loved. Their ghosts will do nothing but torment you.”
“I didn't love him. I never really knew him. I thought I hated him, but... I hated the man I thought he was, not the real him. I want to remember him as who he actually was. He deserves that, at the very least.”
“How did he die?”, asks Shay as he dusts himself off.
The boy remains impassive but Shay senses he touched a sore spot.
“I stabbed him in the neck”, the lad gestures at his own neck, then at the hidden blade he'd had placed at Shay's own throat moments ago, sad and awkward, “when we fought. He bled out in my arms. Told me he was 'proud of me, in a way.'”
“Not the worst way to go”, says Shay, part because it is true, part because he needs to console the boy – and himself, shocked at how hearing it described made it suddenly real – Haytham gone, his mind oh-so-not-helpfully imagining the face of his dear friend on people he himself had killed that way. “He would probably have expected it.”
“What was he like? As a man?”
“Proud. Proper. Reserved. Kept his distance. He cared about few people or things and even then was exceptionally terrible at saying or showing it. He was an excellent swordsman, on a par with me, possibly even better. His style was certainly more elegant and technical. For you to have bested him...” he trails off as an unpleasant possibility occurs to him; he pushes it away resolutely, and continues “you must have been either damn good or damn lucky, or both. He cared about the Templar cause, believed he was working to protect humanity. He hated corruption within the Order, though rather than fight it from the outside, as I did with the Assassins, he tried to change it from within. He was bloody stubborn, so much it bordered on ridiculous. Had a soft spot for children and animals and the helpless in general, though he did his best to hide it. That one time...”
They fall into a sort of truce after that. Shay shares the stories of his voyages with Haytham, Templar secrets carefully redacted. Connor's lips tighten every time Shay mentions killing assassins or says a less that favourable thing about Achilles. Finally, he decides to call him out on it.
“What is it, lad? You know your precious sainted assassins weren't so holy after all. Especially your mentor.”
“I know. I just hope that the next time you find a problem with the Order you will attack me directly, not hunt down everyone else like a coward.”
“Why would I do that? You'd probably kill me.”
“True. But if you hurt them I promise I will end you in the most painful fashion I can imagine and I can think of some.”
And with what he knows of the young Assassin, he has no choice to doubt the earnestness of his words, but the deadpan, matter-of-fact delivery still makes him laugh out loud. It's like having a young Haytham again, with all of his deceptively calm murderous focus and none of his finesse. Not that he'd ever really had Haytham, even back then.
“Aye, that is a fair enough reason. Care to shake on that?” he reaches out his hand and tentatively, the Mohawk youth grasps it. Shay realises that outside of their first encounter, it is the first time they touched each other. His hand is larger than Shay's own, the skin much darker, the grip firm but brief.
Gradually, Shay comes to the conclusion that the young man is not only a formidable threat, but also someone reasonable enough to be considered a potential ally. He is not sure if that happens before or after he started falling for the boy. He is tall and lithe and agile and more than strong enough to overpower Shay with raw brute force when they spar. And spar they do; Shay is a little surprised how happy he is to fight not to the death for once, how easily he slips into a familiar camaraderie like that which he enjoyed with Haytham, once upon a time, with his assassin friends, even earlier. (It still hurts a little to think of that, not a raw fresh pain but the dull ache of an old wound – and he has his fair share of those.) For all his wary, aloof manner Connor is far more open with his emotions than Haytham ever was, kind and awkward and as blatantly eager to please in small things as he is apparently unwilling to compromise on the big ones. And God help Shay, he is perfectly willing to take advantage of that. He is already going to Hell for too many reasons, might as well add one he will enjoy for once.
Pursuing the boy is both far more difficult and far easier than Shay imagine. More difficult because he proves oblivious to all but the most blatant clues. Easier because, when he does finally get it, he wastes no time kissing Shay back with all the clumsy, lustful impatience of youth, undoing his robes with surprisingly skilled fingers.
“Damn”, thinks Shay as he goes down on his knees hard enough to hurt, a bright little spike of pain, struggles to take the sizable length down to the root, “I should have known the obvious approach would work. I should have done this sooner.”
“Forgive me, Haytham”, thinks Shay, as he removes oiled fingers from Connor, slicks his own cock generously, “for I am about to fuck your son. If that helps, I'll make him enjoy every minute of it.” Then, he thinks of nothing but the moment.
Connor fucks like a force of nature, all biting kisses and bruising thrusts, yet his strength is carefully controlled to avoid injuring his partner. Shay still feels sore for the next couple of days. It is the best fuck he had in years.
Shay hates when Connor is gentle with him. Not because it is not pleasant, which it is, overwhelmingly so, but because he knows the lad is thinking of Haytham and if feels plain wrong to think of Haytham at a time like this.
Sometimes Shay wakes up and wonders how long their truce will last, how long before he is forced to fight the young Assassin and kill him. He resolves to be even nicer to the boy, to make up for things he will do and time they will not have.