"I'm gonna take that as a 'Yes, Zavi, I promise.'"

"I promise nothing," Sean says, breathlessly, trying to get breath back in his lungs. 

Once Sean's stopped wheezing, Zavi leans in to kiss his cheek. "I better go before someone starves to death. See you later?" 

Sean nods, and once Zavi is heading back down the tree, he gently touches the place Zavi's lips touched, and feels that same harsh pull on his insides. 

No one ever told him how much want hurts. 

He's relieved from his post around sunset, and he's able to fill in his replacement very quickly, considering that nothing happened. 

Well, nothing important to the Assassins, anyway. 

Then he's heading down the tree, and making his way back to the Farm.

Another Assassin greets him as he gets close, but there are two younger ones behind him, frantically waving him over. 

Sean hurries over to them. "Jesus, where's the fire?"

Dia has a look in her eye that always means trouble. "Desmond had another test today."

Noah chimes in. "No one spotted him until he was already out!"

Sean grins, pride for his little brother warming him. "Knew he could do it."

"Yeah, all the trainers said they hadn't seen him go past at all!" Dia says, bouncing on her toes. 

"Yeah, well, he's a Miles. We're just better than other people."

Noah rolls his eyes. "Shut up," he drawls.

Sean laughs, and knocks his friends gently. "Come on, lets go get dinner. I wanna congratulate Des on being the sneaky asshole I knew he was."

Neither of them complain about that, and soon all three of them are heading in the mess hall, grabbing plates as they go. 

Zavi isn't sitting at their usual table. 

Sean swallows down guilt, and looks for Desmond instead. 

Desmond sits alone, stabbing at his food with a distinctly pissed look on his face. 

Sean starts to worry a little. Shouldn't Desmond be crowing about his victory? He should look happy, at the very least.

"Wonder what's up with him?" Dia whispers.

"Me too. I'm gonna go sit with him. Can you grab a plate for Zavi too?" Dia nods, and does so, while Sean heads to Desmond with his dinner. 

"Hey, enano." 

Desmond bristles, and doesn't look up from where he is repeatedly stabbing his food. 

Jesus. What happened? 

"Heard you did an assessment today. Sounded like you blazed through it!"

"Yeah? Who told you that?" Desmond says. His voice is venomous. 

Sean is takenaback. When he passed his own, he hadn't stopped lording it over people for days, that he was gonna be a proper Assassin. 

"Uh...Noah and Dia came and told me. Why?"

Desmond scoffs, and pushes his food away. "They don't know shit."