Chapter Text
Just once, Desmond would like the bathroom to be free when he came up from his animus sessions. Just once.
"Goddammit Shaun, I need to pee, how long are you gonna hog the bathroom?!," Desmond shouted, pounding on the door for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes.
"As long as it takes!," Shaun called back. The shower had been turned off for a while now; what on earth could possibly take him this long?
"Finish your primping later, I only need a few minutes," Desmond yelled, unable to keep the edge of a whine from his voice. He was this close to just kicking in the door.
Shaun didn't reply, but Desmond could still hear him moving and doing... whatever it was he was doing in there. Just before his patience finally snapped, the door opened and Shaun sauntered out, cool as you please, already dried and dressed, dirty laundry bundled up in his arms. He'd even styled his hair (if you could even call that a style). Desmond looked him over - there wasn't anything about Shaun that would need fifteen goddamn minutes to put together!
And Shaun, he just let him look, lips quirked just shy of a smirk, until Desmond's eyes dropped to his bundled clothes. Amongst the boring colors that made up Shaun's usual outfit, there was a flash of color - something light blue and... Was that lace...?
Shaun huffed and rolled his eyes, pushed past Desmond with a "Bathroom's free, your majesty," muttered exactly loud enough for Desmond to hear. Desmond's eyes snapped back to Shaun's face just to glare at him on instinct mostly, because of course Shaun was being a massive dick. And then Shaun was out of his way and the odd moment was quickly pushed aside as he hustled into the bathroom to relieve his aching bladder.
~
Despite the fact that he interacted with only three actual, currently alive people these days, Desmond didn't actually know much about them. Later that night, as he dressed for sleep, he thought about it - that flash of fabric he'd seen and come to the most obvious conclusion: Shaun was seeing one of the girls. Or sleeping with them, at least. Rebecca seemed like the obvious choice, at least at first. She and Shaun clearly knew each other well, and had been a team together for years.
But something about that didn't sit right with him. She didn't seem like the type to prefer either the color or the lace he thought he'd seen. Then again, maybe she did. Maybe she secretly liked all that girly stuff she violently rejected in her 'daytime' persona.
However, there was also Lucy - and the panties (that was the only thing they could be, honestly) seemed like they could be hers. She was more traditionally feminine (in her appearance, at least), and maybe she and Shaun were a new thing, or just reconnecting after her long stint with Abstergo. Desmond wondered for a moment, wondered if it was a secret or not just his business. After all, none of them knew him very well either. And he had flirted with Lucy a little bit. Even if it seemed out of character for Shaun to keep quiet on something that would definitely make Desmond uncomfortable, the fact that maybe he felt he had to so Desmond wouldn't snap bothered him a lot more.
Desmond never said anything to anyone about it - and he didn't stop flirting with Lucy (he was certain she knew he'd never really meant it) - but he did start watching them more closely. He couldn't even explain why - it's not like he cared all that much, but for all that he loved to talk, Shaun was actually a really secretive person. So much so, in fact, that if he was engaging in a relationship with either of the girls, Desmond couldn't tell. And that, more than anything, is what kept him watching - at least, as far as he'd admit to himself. He considered himself pretty good at reading people; he'd been a bartender for years, after all. And nothing about Shaun's or the girls' behavior even so much as hinted at the existence of any deeper relationships between them at all.
And he'd have forgotten it entirely, he really would, were it not for the fact that it was very clearly supposed to be a secret. Those panties were clearly hidden in Shaun's clothes, not meant to be seen. And Desmond wasn't an idiot; what Shaun had done the very moment he'd noticed where Desmond's attention had focused was nothing less than a distraction. And there was no real reason for it, none at all, but Desmond absolutely had to know why.
~
Things in the warehouse followed a routine, of sorts. There was some pressure, sure; a time limit that hung over their heads, but it wasn't catastrophic. However, when Vidic found them out and attacked their hideout, things got pretty crazy for everyone for a while - it was just more of a literal thing in Desmond's case, with the bleeding effect getting worse, and even longer times in the animus. He didn't have time to think about Shaun and the girls or Shaun and the lace or Shaun in general at all.
But things settled into a new routine once they were settled in Monteriggioni, as they were wont to do. Desmond spent a great deal of time in the animus, which wasn't surprising, but he also got to spend some time outside, which kind of was. He shared a 'room' with Shaun, a sad little partition of the main underground room where their sleeping bags were set, and the girls had a 'room' of their own. All four of them bathed in water that was always cold, and Desmond never had to wait for Shaun, since he could almost always just go outside when he really needed to pee. He'd almost forgotten about the stupid underwear completely, until he saw them again in the most unexpected place - on Shaun himself.