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The granddaddy of all confused stares crossed Jameel's face at that instant. Lex...just kissed him? Lex was kissing him. What the hell was going on? Lex was kissing him! These thoughts were peripheral, stuck to the edges of his mind by the overwhelming shock of the action.

Then, just as quickly, Lex pulled away and ran. The man didn't even register how he got onto his feet, only that he was pounding for the door like the entire crusading force of Europe was waving their swords at his head. He watched him leave, not feeling well enough to give chase. Lying down was altogether a euphemism for collapsing. He stared at the ceiling, dumbfounded. His mind tried to cobble together a logical string of thoughts, which kept being overridden by foolish, emotional exclamations.

What was that? Lex kissed me. For what? What did I do? What did I do to deserve that? Why? Why did he do that? What the hell is going on?!

His brain screamed at him to take the boy and give him a good lashing when he returned. But that's not what... He shook his head and wrangled his thoughts into some sort of order. Grasping his head, he focused on the issue and previous experiences with similar happenings.

Lex had kissed him. That was the issue. A boy, his student, a Novice, had kissed him. No, no, he wasn't a boy. Even Jameel had noticed the fine, light fuzz coming to the young man's upper lip. Since the time he had come to Masyaf he'd become a very small sort of young man. Still having so much to learn, runty, but a young man nonetheless.

Experiences came next. He had kissed women before. Of course he had. He often enough bedded them afterward to continue his bloodline if they so wished. Lex wasn't a woman, though. The Sparrow couldn't have been a woman if someone dressed him as one.

He'd seen men kiss men in greeting, these being close friends, but that was the only time. Often enough, he'd seen these friends moving along the streets, speaking rapidly, gesticulating with one arm, the other locked with his fellow's or clasping his hand. A pang of envy had risen in his chest. The same pang rose up now, a desire for that sort of intimacy. The kind that had been denied him by his brother's presense, one he tended not to allow himself even now. He quashed the feeling. That was far and away from this fragile line of thinking.

Enough, he decided. I can't know anything for certain until I question him about his motives. Speculation does me no good. Letting his head turn to one side, he realized that it was the side where the Sparrow had lain over the duration of his bedrest. He turned his head away and shut his eyes, unaware that his head turned back to the same position in his sleep.

The Novice had run all the way to the top of the tower and stayed there for the greater part of the day. The dimming light and hunger forced him to come down for a meal and to wander the now familiar pathways of Masyaf. As night approached, he contemplated sleeping on the tower, but decided against it. He'd probably fall off and snap his own stupid neck.

Lex steeled himself and returned to the infirmary. He was safe from a chat, Jameel asleep again. His brows were furrowed, as if he was thinking even in his sleep. Sighing, he dropped down to get some rest himself, but the sleep that came to him was one of a man going to the mental gallows.

His brain conjured up images of what awaited him in the morning: optical disembowelment, verbal evisceration, probably a good, old-fashioned a** kicking. Jameel had promised not to kill him. Taking him, ripping him apart, and stitching him back together so that he maintained an inch of life wasn't killing him, his mind reasoned.

Lex sighed and opened his eyes as daylight filtered into the room. He got up, ate a quick breakfast, and sparred a little with Desmond. Returning to the room, he slept again, a sleep of fatigue that left him a little better rested for his lack of thoughts. He opened his eyes as he felt another pair on him.

Jameel scratched around the healing hole in his shoulder, not enough to break the skin, just to ease up slightly on the itching. He watched as the boy's breathing shifted in waking, though he was still feigning sleep.

The Novice swallowed and sat up, moving onto a sit on his knees once more. All right. Let's get this over with so I can go find a hole to crawl into and die in when he's done flaying my skin off with his eyes and tongue.

"Yeah?" His voice came out in a tentative whisper as he lifted his eyes to the man.

Jameel's stare wasn't one of hatred. It was confusion and curiosity both. Even his voice held no malice or mockery in any way, when he responded, "Why did you kiss me?"

"Because I felt like if I didn't I'd go absolutely insane." Lex licked his lips. "Because I wanted to walk up to that brother of yours and rip his throat out with my teeth when he was holding you over the water. Because you almost died saving me, and helped me when my leg was broken, and I almost sat on my hands whenever you showed me those scars of yours 'cause I wanted to reach over and touch 'em." It took him a moment to realized he'd been saying all this out loud, and that he was nose to nose with the Owl. The blood thrummed cold in his veins, heart feeling as though it had waltzed into his mouth and stopped beating there. "Because I want to do it again...and..." He shut up and did it again.

This caught Jameel off guard once again, but the rest of him didn't listen to that the way his mind did. He found himself kissing back.

Lex smiled against his lips, closing his eyes. By the time he remembered that oxygen was necessary for breathing and breathing a function for sustaining life, he'd twisted one hand into Jameel's hair and the other around his back, accidentally weighing the other man down onto his back. "Might wanna hang onto me," he chuckled. "I might start doing backflips off the tower for all I know." Jameel looked up at him with a serious expression that almost killed the moment, though it was tinged with some other unreadable emotion.

"You do realize that when you do have a way to get home, it'll be difficult to part?" He used his good arm to grip Lex's shoulder as he wrapped it around him, bringing him down into another kiss, eyes shut this time. Yes, that will be a problem. If we're going to go through with this... Well, it will just be hard.

The kiss was broken again by him this time, both breathing hard.

Lex tugged his good arm down, finding his hand and twining their fingers together.

"It'd better be difficult." He squeezed his hand as he looked into Jameel's eyes. "Probably end up killing Altair and Dessy off, if they had to try and yank us apart to get me to go home." He dipped his head down, pressing his lips to the scars he'd feared to touch before. A soft sound came from him, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Jesus Christ... Can--can we think about now, right now, at least for a minute?"

"Sure." Jameel pulled his head up again. "We'll think about now." Their lips brushed again. Lex settled onto his forearms and knees, kissing him harder than before, as though trying to push every ounce of what he felt into the pressure. He gasped as something warm invaded his mouth, tongues wrestling against each other.

Jameel raised a brow when Lex stopped kissing him and rolled off to his side, hands behind his head and a smile on his face. He spread out his arms before putting them behind his head again.

"Go ahead. Do whatever you want."

"When no one else is around."

"Who's around?"

"Servants can walk in on us at any minute. Besides, I have broken ribs and a shattered arm. To top all that off, I'm also slightly weakened from poison." He set his hand over the Sparrow's. "Which I still need to thank you for. Thank you for saving me from the poisoned dart."

He meant every word. Had it not been for Lex, he would have been dead already, another rotting body in the sand. He owed his life to the little bird for saving him from the venemous tricks of the crows.

Lex's shook his head and turned on his side, smiling at him.

"Afwan." He kissed him lightly, only to freeze as someone cleared their throat. Desmond waved from the doorway, grinning fit to split his face in half.

"Next time shut the door, guys." He ducked as Lex threw a pillow at him. "Hey, hey, it was a fair warning." He smirked at the other boy from the future, unable to resist a bit of childishness. "Lex and Jameel, sitting in a tree, F--" A throwing knife sent him backing away from the threshold, the blade imbedded in the wood beside his head. The younger Eagle shut the door and ran.

The Sparrow's face had turned pomegranate red, lips still pressed against Jameel's. The Owl hadn't even moved out of the kiss to throw; the knife had shown up beside Desmond's head of its own accord. Jameel flicked his tongue over their lips before pulling away.

"What do we do now that Dessy saw us?" Lex asked. Jameel shrugged lopsidedly.

"Desmond found out. We cannot change that." The man settled onto his back, bringing the younger man to his side. "If he does tell anybody, well..." He let the threat hang open-ended. Well, Altair, I'm sorry to say my bloodline is already anchored down. I'm not fading away anytime soon. He looked at Lex, fingers toying with a strand of his hair. Unlike most of the people here, I may do as I please.



In the courtyard, the two Eagles were locked blade to blade. Unlike Lex, who'd gotten off from training relatively easily in his opinion, Desmond was trained every spare moment by his ancestor. Now they stood and tested each other's strength.

Above them, Jameel's owl swooped down and alighted on the fence rail. She appeared to watch Altair and Desmond spar. The owl hooted and stretched her neck out to get a better look at the straining figures. She looked away to preen her feathers, but went back to watching each time.

"Hey," Desmond grunted, "it's the owl." He looked up and waved to it. Altair took the chance to punch him upside the head. The younger Eagle staggered, then countered with a knee toward the Master Assassin's face. Altair leaned back, avoiding the blow. "What's its name anyway?"

"Ask Jameel sometime." Altair parried his blade as it came around for his belly, kicking Desmond back.

The owl swooped to another perch closer to the men where it got a better view. She hooted again as Desmond went in for a jab and was dropped on his back; it sounded like laughter. He shot the bird a look. Is that thing laughing at me? It is laughing at me! Somebody grab me a rock.

Altair watched as Desmond stalked over to the bird and lowered himself to eye level with it.

"You're laughing at me, aren't you?" He gave a good imitation of Altair's fiendish having-just-killed-someone grin. "I'll turn you into a featherduster, bird. Laugh at me again."

Fool, it's only going to s**t on your head and laugh, Altair thought to himself, folding his arms. Sure enough, Desmond reached up and picked up the pellet the owl had coughed onto his head like a massive loogie. He stared at it before cringing and letting it fall to the sand.

The owl laughed again, as unafraid of the grin as her master, and flew to Altair's shoulder. There she picked past his hood to play with his stubbly hair. It looked like it couldn't tell the difference between Altair and Jameel because of the white hood, but it was enjoyable to watch all the same. The bartender noted it down as another thing to tell Lucy. Altair stroked the owl's feathers a bit.

"Go find that boy in the infirmary. He's with your master. He has more hair to fuss with," he murmured to the owl. He watched as she winged toward the doorway before turning back to Desmond, who was still searching his hair for left over projectile owl s**t, and kicked him in the chest. He held out his hand to the man he'd knocked onto his back. "Get up, Novice, we're still training."

The owl easily found the two in the infirmary, having been made to nest there often enough when her master was injured, and rearranged the boy's hair to her liking. She went out again, caught a rat, and flew back, devouring the animal as day approached. Finally, she moved to her makeshift nest and slept.

This would be repeated over the next weeks as the four men fell into an odd sort of rhythm. Desmond slept in his haystack, sparred with Lex, and wandered around Masyaf's rooftops and streets when not training with Altair or pestering Jameel. The last time wasting activity usually got him chased away by knives or a very angry ball of feathers.

"C'mon, Jameel, there are only so many things a man can do around here," he finally whined.

"Go read a book, Desmond. Or can't you?" Jameel stared at the chess board set between himself and Lex. The game had come up as a matter of twenty questions. Lex had managed to mentally backtrack from kissing the Master Assassin to wondering what he actually knew about him. The truth was not very much.

Jameel had been at one of his self-imposed light work outs when Lex had walked in, sat down, and asked with as serious an expression as he could muster, "What's your favorite color?" The Red Owl had looked at him for a long time before sighing and feeling his forehead.

Once Lex explained what he meant by that and assured the man he hadn't taken one too many headers from the tower, Jameel had answered with, "Ask me something that makes sense." Favorite games had been the next thing to crop up in his mind.

"Chess."

"You guys have chess here?"

"Yes, of course. You know the game?"

"Yeah. I can't do much more than push wood, though." Jameel had had a good laugh at that. "What?" Lex grinned. "My dad never could get the strategies into my head. I never got why doing one thing was better than doing something else. Okay, it's not that funny!" Jameel gripped his shoulder, his laughter dying off into a chuckle.

"Get me a board, little bird. I'll teach you how to play."

Jameel had taken almost all of his pieces again, but Lex had set up a good defense with what he had left. Desmond looked at the board and finally decided to sit and watch them. The two players sat rigid as statues, Desmond as engrossed in the board as they were. Finally, a smile stole onto the Owl's face. Lex's eyes widened.

"What? You found a way through?"

"Yes and no."

"What is it? How're you gonna win this time?"

"Like this," he said and turned the board so that Lex's pieces were on his end. Desmond slapped his leg and threw back his head, cackling at the other time traveler's distraught look. The Novice sighed and knocked the king over. The Red Owl reached over and pressed the piece into his hand.

The two easily let Desmond in on their games, but the bartender left them alone when things became too familiar for his health. It was usually at the end of the match when Lex would do a little of what amounted to homework. Jameel would help him along with his studies, giving little hints as needed.

Jameel settled back and listened. Reading the unfamiliar Arabic writing was still troublesome, but he was getting there, if at the level of a young child. His speech was improving, even with the ponderous stresses his accent provided.

"What about you?" he asked, cutting Lex off mid-sentence.

"What about me what?"

"Tell me about yourself." Lex set the book down. Maybe it was good Jameel distracted him. Friggin Abu Nuwas... Yeah, don't wanna have any issues in the middle of a lesson. It wasn't his fault that the man had written what he'd written, just that he thought about the person next to him when he read it.

"What?" He shrugged. "What? Specifics. What?"

"Are either of your parents Assassins?"

"No! They..." He pressed his lips into a thin line. "Can we talk about something else?" The man nodded. Lex settled on his side, head propped on his hand.

"Are you anyone's student there?" The boy gave him a confused look. Jameel turned onto his own side. "Like here."

"I went to school. Everybody goes to school." Lex shrugged and shook his head. "But not like here."

"They obviously didn't teach you very well if you don't know how to read."

"The books were in English, Jameel! It's not like American kids are expected to know"--he waved his hand and grasped at a number--"five languages!"

"If it helps your injured pride, my French is terrible."

"Say something."

Jameel made a face and spoke through his nose, making his voice rasp as he did, "Je suis Robert de Sable!" The men looked at each other before slipping into peals of laughter.

"Don't ever do that again." The laughter eventually subsided, replaced by silence. A silence that was too uncommon in the castle. Lex frowned, listening. No footsteps, not a servant or Assassin walked the halls. Wait, there were some!

Desmond swung around into the room, breathing heavily as he crouched down.

"Guys, we have a problem. There's--" The words were cut off by the sound of boots on the floor, advancing toward the room. The Master Assassin rose to a sit, skin prickling with gooseflesh. The steps grew louder.

Al Mualim turned into the doorway, his eyes, both the seeing and the blinded one, scanned them. A glowing object, the treasure from Solomon's Temple, was in his hand.