#also someone remind me about formatting on ao3 before i make a stylistic choice that relies on italics again

[high-tidethunder]

leaving eden

tell el-qadi.

Yusuf hates violence. Hates the man he’s been forced to become in the midst of it. There are days he mourns the loss of the man he’d been before, the man who had traveled so far from his home because his wandering heart yearned for adventure, for a glimpse of the world he had only heard of from his father's stories.

He had only been in this city a few years when the Franks came. He had taken to sharing knowledge, and poetry, and prayer, and hoping that one of these things would ease the ache in his soul, the one born of some lifelong feeling that a piece of him was missing. And it had, a little, reduced it to a simmer at the back of his mind rather than an ever-present sting. The dull awareness one has of their own muscles a few days out from laboring with them over the fresh bite of a snake’s venom.

An insufferably quixotic part of him wonders if this was what had been missing from him the whole time; the cold weight of a saif in his hand, the thrumming heat of adrenaline as it surges through his veins, the ache in his heart ebbed for the first time since he’d been old enough to notice it. It’s not a notion he likes to entertain, not without qualifying it with intricate justifications that he hadn’t been born to kill so much as he’d been born to protect, but at the end of the day, it is still another man’s blood that he is covered with when he retires to his encampment.

He tries not to think about how long it’s been since he’d first abstained from prayer, unable to wipe himself clean enough from the gore and not bold enough for the irreverence required to forgo doing so. Instead, he finds himself trying to picture his life after this war ends, wondering whether he’ll be able to reconcile the man he was before with the man he is now. He knows he will not be able to live and act as though his hands have not been soaked in blood, however justified the fight that spilled it. He thinks a third man must be born of the two he’ll have already been, some amalgamation of a scholar and a warrior, a man filled with stories of bloodshed told in words that are too beautiful for the situation. He wonders if he will hate him, too, if he will find his own self repulsive in his delicacy after having seen such brutality.

And he thinks, as he stares down at the fletched bolt newly sprouting from his chest, that it is a gift that he will choke on his own blood before he ever has to find out.

(Across continents, two women will dream of him when he wakes in anguish and snaps the bolt, wrenching it from his flesh and marveling at the way the jagged wound stitches itself back together.)

(Across a battlefield, a man who’s throat should have stayed split open will dream of a man he had shot rising from the grave built of bodies around him, the tear tracks on his cheeks the only part of his face unmarred by blood.)

(Yusuf will dream of him, too. He will be indecipherable from the nightmares of the battlefield he has every night until they meet, the Frank’s dagger piercing his side as his own sword buries itself in the other man’s heart.)

leddan.

Yusuf wakes with a shout and the rapidly fading memory of a blade slitting his throat. It marks the 3rd time today that the Frank had killed him, though how many days the two had engaged in their own war, he isn’t sure. He looks out at the sun, still low enough over the horizon that he thinks dawn must have broken only an hour or so ago. They’re getting slower in their slaughter, he thinks idly. This time last week he’d have been dead 10 times over, the other man just as many.

Waking up is always the worst part, coming back to the stench of blood and decay and the realization that this battle will never be over, not for him, and not for the cursed, filthy Frank whose stolen sword has cut into him in every way possible and yet left no mark as proof. Not that he had done any different with his own blade, but, to his merit, he was doing so in defense of an innocent city under siege.

He turns his head and stares at the hard edges of the Frank’s face as he waits for him to wake, wondering, not for the first time, what compels a man to travel so far from his home with no desire to understand, only that to kill. It must be a miserable life, he thinks, to love a god who would tell you that hate is the only way forward.

There is not a strong enough love in the world that would drive him to commit the atrocities that have surrounded him since he first picked up a sword for this city.

His thoughts are broken when he sees the man’s jaw start to move with a sharp inhale, and he contemplates pretending to not have woken yet just to rest a little longer.

It’s already too late, by the time the thought crosses his mind, but it doesn’t matter anyway. The Frank makes to stand but hesitates with one knee still firmly planted on the ground. «Why do we do this?» he asks Yusuf in a slow, broken approximation of his language, the weariness in his clear eyes accented by the dark blood that’s spattered across his face. «We have...we have died so—» he breaks, then, mutters something to himself, and frustration twists his features.

Yusuf is not sure why, maybe he’s empowered by the other man acting on their shared exhaustion, but he takes pity. “So much death and it does not take?” he asks the Frank, in his tongue, pushing himself to a sitting position so they’re face to face.

A look of relief flashes across his features. “Yes. What if we are meant for more than this? We are entangled, and I do not think it is meant to be a curse. It has been a long time since I have seen hatred in your eyes when you kill me. It has been a long time since I have felt it. There must be something more.”

Yusuf realizes, suddenly, that what the Frank says is true. The air between them had known their exhaustion, their anger, their desperation, but not their hate. Not since they have waited for each other to stand again before resuming their gruesome dance.

He stands, himself, before answering, reaches out a blood and dirt caked hand to the other man, and pulls him to his feet when he takes it. They stand close enough that his breath is hot against Yusuf’s cheeks.

He lays his free hand on his chest, over his heart. “Mi chiamo Yusuf,” he says, struck by the way gratitude floods the other man’s eyes at his words.

«Ismii Nicolò,» he responds, hand over his own heart, and the longstanding ache in Yusuf’s wanes.

(Nicolò will release Yusuf’s hand when he bends to retrieve his sword from the sanguineous mud at their feet, and the feeling of missing something will creep in at the edges of his consciousness, but Nicolò’s knuckles will brush against his when he rises again, asking Yusuf to lead the way, and the touch will act in the way a torch brandished at a bank of shadows does.)

buhayret tabariyya.

«Why did you do it?» Yusuf asks him one night, about a month after their shaky truce has been established. He asks the question in his own tongue, something in him not wanting to give the other man the comfort of familiarity.

Nicolò looks at him across the fire flickering between them, its glow haloing half his face in gold, the other half obscured by shadow. He squints at Yusuf, face remaining otherwise impassive and hands stilled on the whetstone he’d been running over the blade of Yusuf’s saif.

He blinks, then goes back to sharpening the blade, and an old sea of resentment begins to roil in Yusuf’s gut once more.

Then, «I have been a very foolish man,» Nicolò says, hardly loud enough to hear over the sound of stone on metal. Yusuf can see his language stalling in the other man’s mouth, as his jaws work like gears trying to construct the words. «I am sorry,» he finally says, and takes a deep breath. «I know you...you have no reason to believe me, and it is,» he pauses, looking up at the stars and closing his eyes. «It is hard? sì? to trust me? I know. You are right for this. I did not see that our,» he huffs out a sigh and leans the blade in his hands against the pack next to him. «I did not see that we were the same. I had been told, and foolishly thought, that what made us different was too big to ignore. I was wrong. You and I,» and to punctuate this he gestures between himself and Yusuf, «we are the same man, we bleed the same blood. We breathe the same air and bathe in the same water, no?» his face twists again and he stares down at his hands, muttering something Yusuf can’t hear. «I have only ever known one thing,» he says, haltingly, and takes a deep breath. «I have only ever known that God does not make mistakes. If He gave us both the same gift, then we are the same.»

The storm not quite calmed, Yusuf finds himself asking, «And those who don’t share our gift? Who are not of your blood? Not of your god?»

«They are of your blood, of your god. If I am the same as you, then I am the same as them, too, are I not?» Nicolò says, before a look of consternation suddenly crosses his face. «I’m sorry,» he repeats in a low whisper, casting his gaze to the flames in front of him. «I should not claim that. Not with what I have done.»

A different kind of ache settles in Yusuf’s heart at the look on Nicolò’s face, one that gnaws at him and spurs him to stand and skirt the fire to sit by Nicolò’s side. He rests a hand on the other man’s shoulder, grateful when he doesn’t shrug it away, and lets the hissing of burning brush be the only sound while he thinks.

«Maybe,» he says, at last, and Nicolò turns to look at him, «maybe you should not claim that. And maybe I should not be the one who is sitting here, accepting your apology. But I think,» and here he pauses, searching Nicolò’s pale eyes, «I think that right now, we are the only two who matter. And I think I can forgive you, not because what you did was not wrong, but because that is the way forward, now, is it not?» He takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the shine in Nicolò’s eyes. «Forgiveness,» he says, then again, «forgiveness...this is the thing that brings us out of the dark. It is the spark of stars against the looming night sky, or, no, it is a fire,» he says, grateful for the metaphor that dances in front of him, «it will bring you warmth, and light, and life, but you have to feed it for it to grow. You,» he says, gripping Nicolò’s shoulder now, steadily holding his gaze, «you have cut the wood and you have struck the flint. So, I am forgiving you.»

Nicolò breaks his stare, then, glancing at the fire, jaw twitching. He’s silent for a long moment, shadows flitting across his features in a way that makes his expression unreadable. «Thank you,» he says at last, eyes meeting Yusuf’s once more, and he can see gratitude in their depths.

(When they finally lay down to sleep, Nicolò’s back will face Yusuf, and he’ll realize with a jolt that the other man had never lain like that before. He’ll wonder, then, at how long Nicolò had been deliberating over his apology.)

yarmouk.

Nicolò seems lighter, in the days following their talk, their conversations now flowing with the same effortlessness as the river they followed to the port city they’ve found sanctuary in for the time being.

They spend their days picking up odd jobs to earn their keep in their rented room. Yusuf usually finds work in the dockyards, the bright mix of languages and kind of physical labor that leaves you feeling comfortably sore a welcome reminder of the youth he’d left behind. He finds that his thoughts drift to the warm mornings he’d spent with his family before his father would board another ship and set out across the world. He thinks fate is kind, that such mornings would eventually lead him to where he is now.

Nicolò finds rougher jobs, a hired blade for merchants transporting precious goods, or posted outside by those renting rooms to throw out anyone getting too unruly. These jobs leave his bedroll empty until the dark hours of the morning when he finally slips into their room and lays down, always between Yusuf and the door. Yusuf notices he’s taken to sleeping with a dagger under his pillow, as well. He figures there must be a kind of paranoia that settles into the bones of men like Nicolò, who spend their days on edge, figures that mindset must be hard to break out of.

On the nights they’re both in, Yusuf spends the hours teaching Nicolò to write in his language, teaches him sadeeq first and cherishes his soft smile, the reverence with which he writes it out on the dirt floor of their room. He traces waasa’ on the bare skin of Nicolò’s shoulders, belly warming at the rich laughter drawn from the other man’s lungs when he tells him what word it is.

They settle in like this, staying in the city through the end of the wet season until the Frankish forces lay upon it, too. Yusuf has to persuade Nicolò to leave, to remind him that their immortality is not invulnerability, that he cannot fight an entire army on his own.

They manage to get passage on a trading galley headed west along the coast of Africa in exchange for their labor at the end of the journey. Yusuf is almost surprised that Nicolò fits in as seamlessly as him, until he notices that the men on the crew he associates with carry edges of the same slanted accent that Nicolò speaks in Yusuf’s tongue with.

He asks him about it one night, about halfway through their trip, as they eat tucked away from the rest of the crew. A bittersweet kind of warmth laces Nicolò’s voice as he speaks of the country of his birth, a story he’d been reluctant to share with Yusuf until familiarity and alcohol loosed his tongue.

Yusuf goes to sleep that night soothed by the sound of waves lapping at the hull of the ship and the gentle rasp of Nicolò’s voice singing a lullaby he remembers his mother singing to him.

(Nicolò won’t sleep until the early hours of the morning, sitting against the swaying wall of the ship as he studies Yusuf’s face in the dark and thinks of the village he grew up in and the less than fulfilling life he’d left behind.)

nahr al-urduun.

They’ve been in town for a few months when Nicolò dies. He’s cut down by a desperate man whose tanned and leathered skin suggests he’d once been a sailor, with the way that one arm hangs limply at his side suggesting that it was no longer a viable form of employment. It’s early enough that no one is around to see the dead rise, a small source of relief for Yusuf as he carries Nicolò’s body away from that of the would-be thief.

It’s a deep wound, still oozing blood, and some macabre spirit whispers in Yusuf’s ear that maybe they were only blessed in the Holy Land, maybe the gift cannot reach them here. He thinks they had been spoiled, in the year since they’d left the battlefield, the jobs they worked no longer putting them on the wrong end of a blade. Yusuf realizes abruptly that, before now, the last time either of them had fallen had been at the other’s hand. It feels like a lifetime ago.

He tries to not let panic seep into his bones as he watches Nicolò’s body, pushing the whispers away when he sees the flesh around the wound slowly starting to heal and tracing where the edges had been with a feather-light touch. The skin is tacky with blood but otherwise smooth, bearing no other mark to suggest Nicolò had ever been wounded. A sudden wave of boldness compels Yusuf to press his palm flat against the other man’s side, heart skipping when he feels it swell with breath.

An unwanted and unneeded wave of guilt hits Yusuf and he pulls his hand away as though he’d been burned, skin still buzzing from the touch as Nicolò pushes himself into a sitting position against the alley wall. He frowns at the bloody mess of his side and pulls mindlessly at the fraying threads of the gash in his tunic.

“This was my favorite shirt,” he mutters in his native tongue, slipping into it the way he always does when he’s distressed. Yusuf barks out a sharp, hysterical laugh and looks at Nicolò with wild eyes. How strange it is to die and only worry about the state of your clothes, he thinks, when his gaze is met with a confused stare from the other man.

“Come,” he says in kind, pushing away the amazement, and stands, “we should get back to our room before it is light enough for anyone to see that you are covered in blood.” He extends his hand to Nicolò to help him up, bumping their shoulders together to pull the other man’s attention from where he’s still frowning at his abdomen. “Nothing to lose sleep over,” he tries to sound teasing, though his mind is still heavy with anxiety, and pokes at Nicolò’s pale skin through the tear in the fabric. “I will buy you another when the stalls open.”

(That night he will press himself to Nicolò’s back after the other man has already fallen asleep, reassuring himself with the warmth of Nicolò’s pulse against his skin. The sliver of moonlight that escapes into their room through the broken shutters will illuminate the expanse of Nicolò’s skin that had been marred and Yusuf will run his thumb over it, gently, as though it will anchor his life to the other’s.)

(Nicolò will try not to shiver at the touch.)

al-bahr al-mayyit.

Another year passes, spent traveling the coasts of the Mediterranean and offering their services where they could. Nicolò still opts to take jobs that require his vigilance, and Yusuf those that require his vigor, and they have only come close to dying again once apiece. They are more careful than Yusuf supposes they have to be, but he has seen enough death for a thousand lifetimes. If this gift means he has to live those thousand lives, then he does not want to have to see Nicolò’s prone and battered body and pray that he will still wake again any more than he already has.

They don’t talk about it much, their gift. Their days are spent busy, and often apart, and the work leaves them too exhausted at night to do much else besides eat before laying down to sleep. These days, it’s more often than not that they wake to find themselves curled together. Sometimes they discuss the dreams, in the early hours when the light is still grey and watery, but the quiet words dissolve in the daylight, like mist, when they have to part for work again.

There is a measure of freedom on this coast, though, the cost of their rooms not requiring their hours to be as filled as they tend to be. They spend the empty days exploring the countryside, every morning they didn’t have to work coming back to the overgrown apricot grove Yusuf had found to see if the blossoms had yielded yet. It takes a few weeks for the boughs of the first tree to be weighed down by the bright orange fruits, but Nicolò’s resulting delight is too intoxicating for Yusuf to think any time had been wasted in checking.

Yusuf graciously accepts the fruit when it is handed to him, waiting to take the first bite until Nicolò’s arm is looped around his and they’re walking amongst the trees. They share a companionable silence as they eat, breaking it only to remark at the birdsong or point out a tree whose blossoms had not yet fallen away.

Their walk remains quiet even after they’ve each finished their fruits and discarded the pits. Yusuf leads them in the way of an alcove amidst the trees, and when they arrive, Nicolò sprawls in the grass, hands tucked under his head and chin jutted toward the sun, and Yusuf slings himself into the low Y of one of the trees’ trunks, propping his back against one branch and stretching his legs out on the other.

The sun is warm on his cheeks, a drowsy kind of heat, and Yusuf feels his consciousness starting to slip away when Nicolò asks, Arabic accented but unbroken, «Do you ever feel like time has stopped?»

Yusuf opens one eye to look at him, watches as a light breeze sways the branches of the trees around them and throws dappled shadows over Nicolò’s face, and hums.

«What do you mean?»

Nicolò turns to look at him, briefly, before staring up at the open sky again. Yusuf allows his eyes to close once more and lets the cadence of Nicolò’s speech wash over him as he talks. «Since the first day we met, it feels like no time has passed at all. I am lying here in this grove with you alone, I feel the sun on my face and grass at the back of my neck, and I know that I am not on the battlefield anymore. I know that two years have passed, or something close to it, but I feel like it was yesterday I woke up among a hundred dead with blood spilled down half my tunic. It feels like this morning I woke from the dream of you.»

The sentiment settles over Yusuf, and the more he thinks about it, the more it rings true. «It does,» he says, then tests his next words on his tongue before deciding to say, «You know, I almost feel younger, sometimes.»

He doesn’t say what he wants to, doesn’t say that Nicolò makes time stop for him, that it’s Nicolò who makes him feel young and idealistic again. He hopes the meaning fills the silence that follows his words.

When Nicolò says, «I do, too,» it’s a whisper, then, louder, «my youth felt so lonely. And now I am here, with you, given the chance to do it right.» Then, after a pause, pregnant with the chatter of bugs and the susurrations of the apricot leaves in the breeze, «Tell me one of your stories, Yusuf. One that makes us young again.»

Yusuf is helpless to do anything but oblige.

When he finishes the tale, Nicolò stands and suggests they walk some more, so Yusuf slips down from the tree and joins their arms once again, asking Nicolò to lead this time.

It’s not long before he bumps their shoulders together to get Yusuf’s attention before he points to another tree in the grove laden with fruit, grinning. As they approach, though, it becomes clear that the ripe fruits are on branches too high for either man to reach, so Nicolò pulls himself onto the nearest bough. He shifts so that he’s lying on it belly-first, and plucks one of the fruits. He hands it to Yusuf before taking one for himself.

He takes a bite, then tries to turn to lay on his back and shifts too far to his left and flails for a moment before tumbling off the branch and onto Yusuf, knocking him flat on his back. Nicolò’s torso and shoulders shake and for a second Yusuf worries he’s hurt himself before the other man pushes up, hands planted on either side of Yusuf’s head, and he can see that Nicolò is laughing. The mirth glimmering in his eyes is enough to break Yusuf into a fit of laughter as well, the sound ringing through the grove until the both of them are worn out from it.

And then, Nicolò is looking down at Yusuf, eyes shining, and Yusuf is caught in a daze.

And then Nicolò’s lips are crashing into his own, clumsy until he kisses back, pushing himself off the ground with one hand and clinging to Nicolò’s shirt with the other. The kiss is sticky with apricot juice and Yusuf tastes the tart sweetness of the fruit in Nicolò’s mouth as he pulls him closer, anchored by the weight of the other man straddling his hips and floating away on the buzz of his kiss. He lets go of Nicolò’s shirt to cup his face, pressing the pad of his thumb into the ridge of Nicolò’s cheek. Nicolò’s hands come up to cradle the back of his head in response, and Yusuf shivers when his fingers tangle through his curls, the suddenness of the movement causing them to pull a little.

«I have wanted to do that for a long time,» Nicolò pants when they finally break apart.

«How long?» Yusuf asks, soft, brushing his thumb over Nicolò’s bruised lips.

«How long has day followed night?» he responds, eyes glittering as he holds Yusuf’s gaze.

Warmth blossoms in Yusuf’s stomach at the words and it courses through his veins until it’s gone and left him needing more. «Do it again,» he says, breathless, then, «please.»

Nicolò wastes no time in acquiescing.