#and nickys like 'have i ever told you of my time at sea?' and bookers like non so nicky goes

[thegayguard]

Okay but consider: Andy getting a sea shanty stuck in her head so she starts grumbling the words under her breath and then Joe then Nicky then Booker join in and you just have these immortal warriors absolutely belting Wellerman in perfect harmony and Nile just sits there like ?????????

[bestillmyslashyheart]

Hi< so I've just watcher the old guard like three times and consumed all the stories like five times and I'm obsessed. I love your stories and I wanted to share and fic idea I have that want to share with you and anyone else who loves this movie. So I had an angsty thought of what if rather than Andy and Quynh that were captured it was Joe and Nicky. Thus one of them were placed in an iron maiden under the sea. And post-movie the one who was trapped goes after the one who got away?

Nile shot up in bed gasping for air. A moment later the lights in the room turned on, the others having woken up. “Sorry,” she panted. There was no reason for her to be out of breath, no reason for her to pant and gasp like she needed every lungful she could get, and yet. 

Once it was apparent that there was no danger, the man known as Booker flopped back onto his bed with a grunt. “Get some sleep,” he told her. Nile nodded at him in reply even though he wasn’t looking at her. She knew she wasn’t going back to sleep, not after that nightmare, but some part of her was hardwired to be polite to a man who had welcomed her into his home and given her a place to sleep.

“Sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to wake anyone.”

There was a world weary sigh from the far bed. “What was it?” Nile looked over to see Andy sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing at her eyes.

“It’s nothing,” Nile tried to brush off. “Just a bad dream.” Booker stilled in the bed next to her, his fruitless shuffles to get comfortable ceasing at her words. Nile looked at him then back at Andy to find the older woman eyeing her carefully. “It’s nothing,” she said again. 

Andy looked like she was going to let it drop then at the last minute shook her head. “Tell us,” she urged. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“I don’t remember that in my job description,” Booker scoffed. Andy reached out and smacked him before nodding at Nile in encouragement.

Nile cleared her throat. “There was a man-”

“Oh that kind of dream, huh?” This time when Andy reached out to smack Booker, Nile kicked out and hit him on the other side. 

“He was drowning,” Nile continued. The others froze. “He- he was in a coffin? I think? And he was drawing and- and trying to scream. And trying to get out.” The others exchanged looks, half misery, half pained. “Did- do you know him?”

“His name is Yusuf.” Nile whirled to find a man standing in the doorway behind her, his face shrouded in a hood. Underneath, his eyes were old and weary and a little bit broken. “And you must be Nile.”

Nile didn’t know what to say. There was a rustle of fabric as Andy threw her blankets off and rounded the beds, her arms outstretched to greet the man. “Hey,” she said quietly, far softer than Nile had ever heard her speak. “You made it.” The man let her hug him but only offered a half-hearted embrace in return. 

“You said it was important.” The man’s voice was accented, like he wasn’t used to speaking in English.

“It is,” Andy told him. She stepped back and waved at Nile. “We’ve got a new one.”

“I see that,” the man nodded at her in greeting but offered nothing else.

“Nile, this is Nicky,” Andy introduced. “He’s like us, too.”

Booker got out of bed, apparently resigned to not getting any more sleep tonight, and strode past the man with barely a nod in greeting. “Nicky,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Sebastien,” Nicky replied. Nile furrowed her brow. Sebastien?

Andy sighed. “Coffee?” Nicky nodded in acquiescence and when Andy turned to her, Nile did too. She left for the kitchen with a gentle squeeze of Nicky’s shoulder.

She and Nicky stared at each other for an awkward moment before there was another rustle of fabric as Quynh got out of bed. Nile looked over her shoulder only to turn around again immediately when she saw that Quynh had to pull on some clothes. Nile watched as Nicky softened under Quynh’s approach, his shoulders sloping slightly and his eyes lightening.

Quynh didn’t say anything in greeting, just wrapped both of her arms around his neck and let him hug her tightly in return. When they didn’t pull away, Nile took it as her cue to leave and shimmied her way out of the room without disturbing them. 

“So,” Nile said slowly when she entered the kitchen. “There’s more of us?” When she’d met Andy, the other woman had only mentioned Quynh and Booker.

Andy set several mugs full of coffee on the table and sat down with a heavy sigh. “Yes.”

Nile sat down and pulled one of the mugs close. “You lied to me.”

“Yes.”

“It’s for your own good,” Booker added. He was hunched over his own mug. “Too much information at once makes your brain hurt. Trust me.”

Nile did, oddly enough, but that didn’t mean she liked being lied to. “How many more are there?”

“None,” Andy replied. “Just Nicky and Yusuf.”

“So Yusuf is…”

“Trapped somewhere on the bottom of the ocean,” Booker told her. He took a long sip. “The dreams won’t go away,” he warned. “Not until we meet him in person.”

Something lodged in Nile’s chest. Earlier, Booker had said he died in 1812 so if he had been having the dreams since then… “How long has he been down there?”

Booker and Andy exchanged a look. “About five hundred years,” Andy admitted. Nile felt like she wanted to throw up. “There’s a downside to not dying,” she said sardonically. “But we weren’t going to spring that on you right away.”

“What happened to him?”

Andy looked past her to where the bedroom was. “Nicky and Yusuf were together in a time and place where people didn’t like two men being together, especially if one of them was brown.” She swallowed thickly. “They tried to kill them. A couple of- well, more than a couple of times. It took me and Quynh weeks to get to them but by the time we did they had decided more drastic measures were necessary. They locked Yusuf in an iron coffin and took him out to sea. Dumped him overboard somewhere.” She shook her head. “We don’t know where. Nicky’s been looking ever since but so far-” she shrugged. “No one on the ship could say for sure where he’d been dumped overboard and with ocean currents and the technology available until recently...it hasn’t been an easy search.”

“But he’s still looking? Even after all this time?”

“He won’t stop,” Booker told her. There was something in his expression that Nile couldn’t figure out but she wasn’t sure it was altogether pleasant. “I’ve only met him a handful of times, when Andy or Quynh can drag him away from his search to help us out on a mission. As soon as it’s over, he goes right back to it.”

“Perhaps I simply do not like your company,” Nicky remarked calmly as he and Quynh joined them. They sat down in the empty chairs between Andy and Nile, Nicky between the two older women.

Booker’s lips twisted and he opened his mouth to say something but Quynh shot him a look that had his jaw snapping shut a moment later. 

“So,” Nicky asked,” what exactly is the problem?”

Nile listened carefully as Andy outlined the situation, even though they’d already been through it once before. As she spoke, Nile tried to get a read on Nicky but the man shot her a stony look that had her reconsider. 

When Andy was done and Nicky had asked his questions and the conversation disappeared, Nile desperately needed air and some space. It had been a very long two days and she was dealing with it as best she could but finding out that immortality could mean dying over and over again for hundreds of years had hit something deep inside her and everything was starting to get to be too much.

She pushed her chair back and took her mug to the sink before looking around the room, trying to get her bearings. She knew the area they were in was connected to the church but there were several doors leading outward and she wasn’t sure which was the correct one.

“What are you looking for?” Quynh asked kindly.

“How do I get to the church?” Nicky scoffed derisively. Nile frowned. “What?”

He rose from his seat, shaking his head. “The church is that way,” he pointed at a door on the opposite side of the room. “But your god cannot help you. He is not there. And if he is, he does not care.”

“Nicky,” Andy said softly. 

Nicky shook his head and went for the bedroom. “Wake me up when it is time to kill people.” The door closed softly behind him.

“What’s his problem?” Nile stared after him.

“He lost Yusuf,” Quynh said, like that explained everything. It didn’t, but Nile didn’t think she was going to get a different answer so she crossed the room and entered the church through the door Nicky had indicated. 

It was a world away from the room she had just left. The tension seeped out of her just as she left it behind. She wasn’t Catholic, had never appreciated the setting of a cathedral for her prayers, but she couldn’t deny that the place felt holy, no matter that it had been abandoned. Nile sat in one of the pews and took deep breaths, letting her mind calm. When she felt settled for the first time in days, she pulled out her phone and stared at the contact for her mom. 

“That’s a bad idea,” Andy warned. Nile jumped, not having heard her approach. Andy nudged her shoulder and Nile scooted over to allow her room to sit. 

“I have family,” Nile defended.

“So did Booker,” Andy replied. “He stayed in touch until they all died and-” she shook her head. “It’s a bad idea.”

Nile sniffed and shook her head. She had so many questions, so many things she wanted to say, that she didn’t know where to start. 

“Why doesn’t Nicky believe in God?” She asked. Nile blinked, surprised with herself. She hadn’t realized that was weighing on her mind.

Andy braced her arms on the back of the pew in front of them and dropped her head. “He used to. He fought in the Crusades,” she revealed. “Believed in God enough to fight a war in his name.”

“What changed?” She asked. Will it change like that for me?, she wanted to ask

“Nicky and Yusuf met in the Crusades. They found out they were immortal by killing each other and then waking up to do it again and again. Eventually, they fell in love and after that they were inseparable. For most of us, it took a long time to find each other but Nicky and Yusuf had each other from the very beginning. Nicky used to call it fate or, or destiny.” She smiled sadly. “Then Yusuf was taken from him and Nicky stopped believing in all of that.” Andy sighed and sat back, her shoulders brushing Nile’s. “He used to be different. Used to believe in the goodness of the world.” The man Nile had met did not seem like a man who believed in anything. He didn’t much seem like he even believed in living. “Quynh and I helped him look for about 50 years before we gave up. There was just no way to find him. But Nicky can’t stop.”

“Can you find him now? With today’s technology?”

“We wouldn’t even know where to start looking,” Andy confessed. “Nicky’s looked everywhere we thought even halfway plausible and then he went looking farther out. It’s been five hundred years, Nile.”

“But he’s down there,” Nile protested. “He’s drowning, over and over and over again.”

“I know,” Andy told her. “Booker still dreams about him so we know he’s still there, but there’s nothing we can do. Nicky’s tried everything already.”

An explosion cut Nile off before she could say anything. In an instant, she and Andy were on their feet and running back to the living quarters. There was smoke in the air and a small fire burning in the corner but nothing moved.

“Quynh!” Andy called. “Booker! Nicky!” There was no answer. “Nile check the back rooms.” Andy went for the living room and Nile headed for the bedroom. There was no one there. The kitchen was empty too.

“Book!” She heard Andy yell. Nile rushed back out to see Andy leaning over a bloody form on the couch. 

“There’s no one else here,” Nile told her as she came up next to her. She took one look at the body before them and almost threw up. It was Booker, or it had been. His chest was shredded, his guts, or what remained of them, were hanging out, and half of his head was missing. 

“Come on, come on, come on!” Andy chanted. She was staring at Booker’s body earnestly, like she could will him back to life. Nile wasn’t so sure he could come back, not with his head-

Booker coughed and then groaned. His one remaining eye fluttered open, trying to focus on Andy. “What-” he coughed. One shaky hand came up his head and pressed at where his left ear should be only to keep going until it hit his brain. 

Nile turned and threw up on the floor. 

“Quynh and Nicky are gone,” Andy told him, apparently unconcerned with the carnage. “And we’re going to get them back.”

---

The day had not turned out like Nile had intended. It was getting to be a recurring theme in her life, one she didn’t expect to go away any time soon.

Booker had betrayed them. Well, technically she supposed Booker had betrayed all the others since he hadn’t known about her when he set them up, but it was all the same. The four of them were locked in a lab being treated as lab rats and Nile was the only one who could get them out.

So she did.

She was really getting the hang of this whole getting shot thing. It hardly slowed her down at this point.

When she burst into the lab, the four of them had been locked in an argument that stopped the second they saw her.

“Nile?!” Three voices rang out. Nicky just looked at her with grudging approval. 

Nile didn’t waste time on pleasantries. She took the keys to their cuffs off the body of a guard on the floor and unlocked Andy’s restraints. Nile let her unlock the others while she guarded the door, fully prepared to shoot whoever came through it next.

A loud crash erupted behind her and Nile spun, finger on the trigger only to find Nicky on top of Booker, bashing his face in. It took both Andy and Quynh to pull him off.

“Hey!” Quynh got in Nicky’s face. “Not the time Nicolo. We need to get out of here.” Nicky didn’t appear to hear her, his eyes fixed over her tiny frame at where Andy was helping Booker to his feet. If looks could kill…

“We’re leaving,” Andy ordered. “All of us,” she added with a sharp look at Nicky.

“We do not need all of us to get out of here,” Nicky countered. Both Andy and Quynh glared him into submission, though, and soon enough the five of them were shooting their way out of the lab. 

When they were free, when they had escaped the building and gotten somewhere safe enough to take a moment and breathe, Nicky pulled a sword of nowhere and cut Booker’s head off. 

Andy and Quynh shouted at him but he ignored them. Nile thought she might throw up again as she watched Quynh take Booker’s head and hold it in place against his neck until his body stitched itself back together. 

Nicky stood over him, sword in hand, the entire time. When Booker gasped back to life, Nicky placed his knee in his chest and his sword at his throat. “Every second I was in that lab was a second that no one was looking for Yusuf,” his voice was soft, gently even. Contrasted with the threat of the sword it was chilling. “You would have had me be locked up for a very long time.” The sword dug into Booker’s neck.

“Nicky,” Andy warned, but she didn’t move for a weapon of her own so Nicky ignored her.

“You would have him be left down there forever with no one to look for him.” The sword dug deeper into his neck and he started spitting up blood. Nicky’s eyes were cold. “Never again.”

Booker nodded, the motion tearing his throat against the blade even more. Nicky didn’t move until Booker stopped breathing. When he was very definitely dead, Nicky wiped his sword on Booker’s clothes to clean it and stood up.

“Do not call me again.” Nicky walked past Andy and Quynh without another word, got into the car and drove away. He had effectively stranded them but neither Andy nor Quynh looked too upset about that. Instead, they focused their attentions on Booker as he came back to life.

“Now,” Quynh crouched down next to him. “What are we going to do about you?”

---

Nile watched Andy and Quynh examine Copley’s research, both seemingly overwhelmed by the evidence that they had actually achieved some good with their long lives. 

“Well?” Copley asked after they’d looked their fill. 

“Well what?” Andy asked.

Copley struggled to speak. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

Andy and Quynh exchanged a look. “We want you to help us,” Quynh answered for them. “Cover our tracks so we can keep doing our jobs.”

Copley smiled, relieved. “I can do that.”

“And one more thing,” Nile added. Quynh and Andy looked at her strangely but Nile focused on Copley. “We need you to find someone for us.”

---

Nicky had been less than ten miles off.

He’d almost hung up the phone when Nile called but she’d shouted Yusuf’s name fast enough that he paused long enough to hear her out. Nile quickly explained that Copley had found something on the ocean floor that had a strong possibility of being Yusuf’s iron coffin and when she’d told Nicky the location, he was already practically on top of him.

Quynh got them out there in time to see Nicky in scuba gear slip under the water with tools in hand. The boat he was on was small and didn’t have any equipment that could haul an iron coffin up from the bottom but he was clearly not going to wait long enough for them to get one. 

Nile stood on the boat next to Andy and Quynh and stared down at the water. They couldn’t see very far beneath the surface but none of them wanted to move. Nile was fairly certain the two women were only barely holding themselves back from going after Nicky. They’d given up on Yusuf, on any hope of finding him, and the guilt was clear on their faces. But so was the hope.

The captain of the boat Nicky was on told them he only had enough oxygen for an hour’s dive. It was almost two before they saw movement. Nile got a glimpse of a shadowy form that looked vaguely human before Quynh and Andy were both jumping overboard. Nile watched as they slipped beneath the surface, their shoes kicked off and Andy’s overshirt floating to the surface. The men and women on the two boats all rushed to the sides, some shouting, others preparing to go in after the two women. Nile tried to call them off but they ignored her.

A moment later, four heads broke the surface, two of them gasping for air. Quynh had Nicky’s limp form tucked under her arm as she swam towards the boat. Someone tossed a life preserving ring out to her. She put it around Nicky and let them haul him aboard. The next one tossed down she held for the man clutched in Andy’s arms. They were both gentle as they put it around him, treading water as they watched him be pulled up. 

Nicky awoke with a gasp and Nile turned from the women in the ocean to check on him. He brushed aside her hand and scrambled across the deck to the other man. He had long hair and a beard and his clothes looked like something out of a Renaissance Faire. Nile looked on as Nicky clutched at him, his hands cupping his face. “Destati, destati,” he murmured. Nile didn’t recognize the word but assumed it was Italian. 

The man didn’t move and he didn’t breathe. 

Andy and Quynh were both hauled up and they fell to their knees, out of breath, next to Nile. 

The man was still.

Nicky had started crying, his cries of ‘destati’ continued mixed with something that sounded like Arabic. He hunched over the man, their foreheads pressed together, the words a never ending stream from his lips.

Quynh grabbed Andy’s hand and held it tight. The two women were both shedding silent tears as they looked on. Nile shook her head, unable to believe the universe could be so cruel as to finally let Yusuf die only when Nicky had found him.

The deck was silent as the assembled crew quietly gave Nicky his peace and privacy. Nile was about to turn and go herself when there was a loud cough and a quiet, “Nicolo.”

[randomingoftherandomness]

Hi! Hope you're doing well. I posted this Booker/Joe/Nicky prompt on the TOG kink meme originally. No one claimed it, so I thought I might try asking you, if that is okay. Here:

"Porn with feelings is one of my favorite things, so: Five Times Joe and Nicky invited Booker into their bed and the one time they told him to stay.

You do not need to be explicit with the smut if you do not want to, although that would be lovely and much appreciated.

Just give me Joe&Nicky and Booker catching feelings throughout centuries worth of hookups while thinking that the other party is only interested in friendship and sex.

Angst With A Happy Ending, please.

Bonus for Bottom!Booker, but it is not a must.

Double Bonus for Exasperated!Andy dropping hints that they are too oblivious to understand."

Thank you for reopening your Ask Box and for considering my prompt. Have a great weekend!

A/N: Hope you’re well too, friend and thank you for the trust in my abilities! 😁 Feel free to consider your prompt filled if you’d like? It’s not as porny or as angsty as I think you were looking for but I hope it still satisfies.

--

one.

“I’m telling you guys,” Andy hisses, fingers digging into the soft dirt under her palms. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“And I’m telling you, Boss. We’ll be fine,” Booker grins sunnily, peering over the ridge to spy the military convoy transporting black-market arms and munitions. At the sight of the gleaming trucks and the stern-faced men with their faces focused on the road, the mischief dims a little.

Joe slaps him in the arm with a warm laugh. “If you get shot in the ass, you’re bunking with me and Nicky tonight. Let Andy have the big bed all to herself.” The man waggles his brows, brown eyes winking in devilish delight. “Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get front row seats to how Nicky makes love to me.”

Seeing that there were only two tiny Queen sized beds in their latest digs, Booker’s eyes blink in alarm, turning to her as if to ask, you wouldn’t do that to me, would you? He’s been with the family long enough that that was one knowledge he already has a too intimate familiarity with and not one he is keen to revisit.

If his reasoning hides the way his eyes always seek them out in a crowded room, that’s for him to know and only him.

Her only answer is the unsheathing of her hunting knife and the pulling of her scarf over her nose and mouth. “Better watch your ass, kid.”

two.

Nicky’s hand in his is what pulls him out of his thoughts. He must have been staring at the sea for longer than he had thought because stars dance in his eyes and he has to squeeze them shut to block out the sudden spinning of the world around him. 

Slipping away from Nicky’s touch, he sighs as he slowly feels himself come back to his stiff joints and sun-beaten face. He’s lost track of time again.

Booker feels Nicky take a seat on the sand next to him and instinctively looks around for Joe, before raising an inquiring eyebrow at him. “He has run out of his favourite colour again,” Nicky chuckles, kicking out his legs and burying his bare feet in the warm sand. 

“Ah.”

“Ah,” Nicky echoes with a smile. Their sympathies are immediate and resting solely with the poor salesperson who has to deal with Joe’s charm as he convinces them that one brand cannot be a substitute for another. They sit together, watching the tides kissing the shores in companionable silence before Nicky turns onto his side. “Are you okay?”

 Booker considers the question, still keeping his eyes on the way the sunlight dances on the waves. This beach is too warm for this time of the year and the air is the wrong tang of brine. Next to him, in the space where his wife should be with her wild laughter and her windswept hair, is nothing but empty, foot trodden sand. His heart sticks in his throat when he opens his mouth to speak and only the sound of unspeakable grief steals out past his lips. 

When Nicky wraps his arms around him, he doesn’t try to pull away. When he asks if Booker wants to come with him, unmistakeably to bring him to their bed - the one where he and Joe sleep in and not the comfortable guest bed in the spare room - he merely sighs, sinking into the warmth and strength of Nicky’s arms around him, and allows himself to be cared for.

three.

The camaraderie he feels amongst this new family is one he never thought he could have. He appreciates every new memory he builds with them and every new layer of life he lays down even if he cannot help looking behind him and long for what is no longer his.

Friendship and brotherhood are easy to grasp. What confuses him, however, is the way Joe, Nicky, and Booker have somehow developed something more than that. He isn’t unaware of the pleasures that brothers in arms share on a battlefront. Any shred of comfort and warmth to be shared in those moments of relief in finding yourself escaping Death’s embrace is one that was somehow tolerated when he had been conscripted to march for a madman. 

What Joe and Nicky have is more than that, and Booker knows it, is in awe of it, and can hardly stop admiring it. 

What they have in the moments where Nicky’s warm breath tickles against his neck as Joe presses in between his trembling thighs is one he cannot divine.

The easy way they three have fallen into the rhythm of kisses and touches, of shared quiet moments, lulled to sleep with the smell of sex on their skins confuses him and calming heartbeats. How, when he builds his first safehouse, he puts out a room for Andy but leaves the little touches for them in his own. The way he feels no jealousy when they go off on their own and nothing but elation when they fold him into the fabric of their being. And yet.

Yet, when they are together, Booker feels like his heart could stop from the guilty happiness he has coursing through his veins. When he is in the space between wakefulness and sleep held in their arms and sharing their space, it is the calmest, the safest he has ever felt since the day he walked away from Marseille. 

And Booker can’t stop but to wonder. What does it all mean?

four.

Joe stops mid-sentence and it doesn’t go unnoticed. The sounds of the other guests in the hotel percolate into their room and he has to take a moment to look at the bed where just an hour before, they’d languidly been tangled under the covers. They had arrived two days earlier just to take advantage of the privacy of the room and the luxury of a King-sized bed where Joe had pressed kisses into the quivering corner of Nicky’s lips as he tries not to laugh while Booker is playfully nipping at his jaw. 

God, has it just been an hour since he had to wrangle them all into some semblance of order so that Booker can catch Andy before she gets here? 

“What’s wrong?” Nicky asks, clear eyes catching in the light when they gaze at him. His beloved’s hands move methodically as they make the bed. The same sheets that still carried the scent that he is sure now permeate every shared space the three of them occupies on a regular basis. 

A whirlpool of emotions snake around his chest and all he is able to do is to reach out to Nicky; to the anchor in the storms of this strange life they live, to his true North. It speaks to the bond they share that Nicky comes to his side, kissing their clasped hands, patiently waiting for him to speak.

Joe thinks he can burst with all the love he has in him for this man. Then the quiet flicker of his mind to another face, another smile that he holds just as dear and he swallows down the maelstrom of words bubbling up because he knows that whatever he says now matters.

Love is not a finite source. Joe has seen enough and been through just as much to know that that is true not just for himself, but for Nicky too. Smiling at Nicky, he feels his shoulders relax, leaning into him. 

“My love, I think we need to talk.”

five.

“Come here.”

Booker hesitates but Nicky does not allow him any room to escape. Taking him by the wrist, he drags him to the quiet of an out of the way spare room in Copley’s home, eyes cataloguing every scrape, bloodstain, and healed over wounds.   

Sitting him down on the bed, Nicky begins to methodically push his fingers through Booker’s hair, brushing out flecks of dried blood and grime, bits of glass and debris. Neither one speaks for a long moment and the familiar silence is heavy between them. From this room, Nicky can pick out the quiet murmur of Copley and Nile speaking while Andy is being tended to by Joe. This moment won’t last and Nicky has to speak his peace.

“He’s hurt. We both are.”

Booker flinches but Nicky doesn’t allow him to rise from the chair, pressing him back into position, feeling some small relish when Booker obeys. “Why, Booker? Why couldn’t you come to us if you were hurting? Why did you hide from us?”

Blue eyes look away from him and down to where his leg is shaking. 

“Aren’t you going to defend yourself?” Nicky asks finally, softly and feels his heart break a little at all the possibilities that are slipping away with every moment they leave this unresolved. He sighs when Booker doesn’t speak, fingers moving to cup him by the jaw. 

“We love you,” He says. “But maybe that’s not enough just yet.”

“Maybe,” Booker murmurs. Moving to stand only for Nicky to take him by the hand, pulling him in for a kiss. 

“One day it will be.”

and the one.

Joe can smell the sea on Booker from the other side of the room.

Andy had levelled him a heavy look, telling him not to fuck this up with a soft smile on her lips as she leaves with Quynh in the first cab they could hail down. Nile had laughed when they asked if she was staying, telling them that she’ll be in the next city over if they needed her for anything.

Which now leaves Joe, Nicky, and Booker in a small motel room with the dying sunlight stealing through the gaps in the curtains. Nicky’s knee knocks against his and Joe has to sigh. Looking over to Booker, it is clear that the man is in the middle of some fight or flee reaction and he is tamping it down to fidget in the chair by the television set. 

Picking up one of the scratchy towels that came with the room, he tosses it at Booker, jerking his head at the bathroom door.

“Get cleaned up. We can talk after.”

Booker gapes rather unattractively at them and his look of incredulity grows into a frown when Nicky sighs around a snort. Joe can’t help but mirror Nicky’s amusement and feels his lips curl into a smile. Exhaustion clings to the way Booker looks from the towel between his hands and to them at the bed.

Joe feels a swell of affection cut through the need to clear the air before they go any further into this. He won’t make the mistake of not talking this through again. Walking over to him, he nudges Booker to his feet, pulling him into the bathroom. Brushing his thumb in an arc under his tired eyes, Joe says, “Maybe we can leave the talk for after we sleep.”

[chase-the-windandtouch-the-sky]

Hello! Can you do a fic request of NickyxJoe where Nicky is taken hostage for 23 hours, and by the time he's rescued, he's traumatized to the point where he doesn't speak or move? Joe is fretting and caring and wants to kill whoever assaulted Nicky.

This is part one, because I was having too much fun, and then I got too into it - but it was mainly the prologue! I hope it is an alright first part one! <3

Nicky doesn’t pray much anymore.

It’s been a while. It’s been since he spilt so much blood under God’s name, thrilled at the death of innocents under his blade. He wonders absently if he would live long enough to make up for it. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t able to die. To make up for all the people he ended, he spent his times on the earth trying to save more lives than he took.

The day started with a nice espresso, a long kiss from Joe, and then an excruciating amount of pain.

Long after Merrick, the nightmares of the lab slowly drifted away like a ship off to sea, he found himself in the comfortable routine with Joe that he loved. They traveled, they ate, they were with each other in the way that made Nicky think that he wished two people could inhabit the same space at the same time. They laughed with Andy, showed Nile the world, and slowly started conversations with Booker mere months after his banishment. He felt complete and whole.

…and comfortable.

It’s the comfortable that becomes dangerous.

He’s stirring a sauce that he told Nile would change her life, watching the bubbles of the tomatoes so they don’t burn. The love of his life is telling a story in the 1500s, where the two of them found a hidden waterfall and Nile is laughing at him. He loves that Joe has someone who is as forthcoming with her emotions as he is, the two of them getting on quicker than he’s ever seen anyone with Joe. His heart is full and warm, and he smiles as he stirs.

Then, the world explodes.

Nicky never quite gets over the sensation of dying. He’s standing at the stove, then suddenly he’s on the ground. Blinking a few times, Nicky tries to figure out what’s going on. Nile and Joe are a few yards away, coughing and slowly getting to their feet. Except Nicky can’t get up. He tries, but it hurts everywhere. It isn’t until he hears the painful howl of Joe does he realize someone’s pulling him to his feet. He wants to move away, but his limbs aren’t really functioning right now.

He’s dragged to his feet, which feels like they aren’t there, someone screaming. He blinks, trying to fight back, but he can’t feel anything. Someone yanks his hands behind his back and people yell. Nicky opens his mouth, but blood spills over his lips. He wants cry out, he wants to tell his love that everything will be okay, but all he can do is choke on the blood in his mouth.

They drag him away, further from his sun, further his family. Nicky wants to cry out, but he can’t.

He can’t.

As soon as he’s in the lab, they tie him down. It makes him feel rabid – feel angry and like a wild animal. Nicky always tried to be restrained after all the people he killed. But they’re strapping his arms and legs down, he’s healed, and he doesn’t know what to do. “No!” He cries, struggling against the restraints. “No!”

But its no use.

They tighten against his wrists and he feels feral. “No, no!”

Then they leave him.

Nicky lies in the room, strapped to a table, by himself. The walls are white and clinical and he smells antiseptic around him. There are instruments around him and he looks at the ceiling. “Io credo in Dio Padre onnipotente.” He says softly to himself.

Nicolo doesn’t say prayer often.

He says it because it’s comfortable and he’s feeling alone. He’s blessed, because he hasn’t felt alone in almost a thousand years. “Oh Yusuf,” he says softly. “I’ll find my way back to you.”

Nicky means it.

He will.

***

“Not good enough!”

“Joe—” Andy says exasperatedly.

“I said, not good enough!” Joe states, swiping his hands against the cups on the counter, the porcelain breaking against the floor. Nile flinches his violent reaction, feeling his anger from across the room. He paces, his hands on his hips, muscles straining against his shirt. “They have Nicky!”

“I know they have Nicky, Joe!” Andy shouts, her eyes wild. “I am doing what I can, but this is not my area. You know that!”

“Then call Booker!” Joe shouts, throwing his hands up.

Andy pauses. “What?”

“Call him!” Joe cries, his eyes filled with tears as he throws his hands up in the air.

“Joe, the—”

“I don’t care!” Joe cries. There is still blood flecked on his neck and his skin has stitched back together. “He can find Nicky and Nicky is gone. Call him.”

“Joe—”

“Call. Him.”

The next noise is a phone beep.

***

Nicky swallows, a probe inside his spine. They decided that they didn’t need to waste his time on antiseptic, so he feels the metal scrape against his skin. Nicky tries his best not to cry out, his hands shaking under the restraints. He curses in Italian, the words low and quick.

If only Joe was here.

He would look at him, feeling all his anxiety melt away.

Nicky sucks in a breath, looking at he ceiling. “Collect the samples.” Someone says and Nicky tenses.

In this moment, he thinks of Joe.

He can’t help it. His mind travels to the time in Malta, he will never forget.

Joe stood on a balcony, the sun shimmering against his skin. He was sweating slightly from the sun and from what they just did. Nicky never thought he’d seen someone so immaculate. He remembers laying in the bed and watching him. Watching the way the muscles move and the way his body curves. Nicky knows God and he knows truth.

Both are standing in front of him.

A scalpel is shoved against his skin. Nicky sucks in a breath and tries not to think about the blade against his skin. He swallows and tenses when the blade slices his skin. He closes his eyes and thinks of Joe.

Thinks of the way his eyes crinkle when he’s amused or the way his beard feels against Nicky’s chin. How he can’t picture anyone else next to him, his heat and his weight against him. Nicky turns his head away from the scientists, and sees no one.

Actually, that’s a lie.

He sees Joe.

***

“Keep your eyes open. Be ready.”

Andy is giving them instruction, but Joe barely hears her. Booker came through and traced the lab to a small town in Norway. Joe thinks that he and Nicky haven’t been here in a long time, and the ghost of his touch burns against his skin. “Nicolo, wait for me.” He says quietly, holding his weapon against his chest. 

That was their promise. That they would go together.

Joe lets out a breath. “Together,” he whispers. “We promised.”

Booker turns, clearly able to hear Joe, but still unsure. Joe hadn’t said anything to him, outside of demanding he find Nicky. To his credit, he found him. He found him in Norway, when everyone else lost hope. Booker poured him a drink and Joe took it. The two sat in silence, Booker tapping his keyboard on his computer. Joe sat there, sipping the whiskey, listening to the keys.

“I’m not ready.” Joe said.

Booker didn’t respond. He hesitated over the keys and Joe almost yells at him to continue. He doesn’t.

The two of them lead the way. Joe feels closer to Booker than he’s ever felt, and further away from everyone. The world is lonely and he feels it. He feels the ache in his chest. It had been twenty-three hours since he’d seen Nicky. The longest since the time two hundred years ago when they got in an argument over a certain family. Joe remembers thinking he never wanted to be away from Nicky ever again.

And yet, here they are.

“I-I’m not ready, Booker.”

Booker doesn’t say anything. But his eyes speak louder than any words can say. The man reaches out and grab his forearm, eyes filled with world Joe knows he needs to discover.

They blast through the walls of the lab, each room empty as the next. Joe tries not to cry out each time there’s no one waiting for him, but he can’t.

Until.

Until.

They blast through a wall, and there’s figure at the end of the lab. Joe doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he’s at his side in an instant.

Joe cups the man face. His hands hover over the side of Nicky’s head, his eyes unseeing. He’s never seen Nicky like this, except the times that Joe was waiting for the main to wake up after a tragic death. “Nicolo, destati. Destati, Nicolo!”

Nicky doesn’t move.

His icy eyes stare at the ceiling, seeing nothing. “Nicolo,” Joe states, shaking his shoulder. “Nicolo!”

Joe leans his head toward, tapping his forehead against Nicky’s. “Love of my life,” he pleads. “Light in darkness. Please, come back to me.”

Nicky doesn’t move. His body is still.

Joe cups his face, leaning closer to him. “Nicolo, please. Come back to me. You promised me. You promised that we would go together. We promised.”

Nicky doesn’t answer. His eyes remain unseeing, unmoving.

Joe grips his face. “Please, Nicolo.”

Nicky sucks in a breath, his back arching against the restraints. Joe all but cries with relief, his eyes watering. “Nicky, please.”

Nicky’s eyes dart around like they do when he comes back to live, searching for answer that Joe doesn’t know the question. The man searches and finds Joe’s eyes and stays there. He lives there.

“Nicky, please.”

When Joe whispers his name, Nicky’s eyes roll toward him. “Nicolo.” He states. His eyes roll in the back in his head, and the man dies.

Nicolo dies.

He dies, Joe searching on his body for the culprit. When his hand runs down his side, he feels a sharp blade buried in his side.

Joe sees red.

The moment he takes the blade out, Nicky sucks in a breath. His body jerks and Joe presses his forehead against Nicky’s, the man shuts his eyes. “Nicolo, please.”

Nicky stares at him.

Joe loses himself in the worlds of Nicky eyes. Nicky looks around, trying to focus on something, then fixates on him.

Joe stares. “My love,”

Nicky doesn’t say anything.

Not anything.

Before Joe can plead, someone blasts through the lab. Joe turns, seeing the soldier before him. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”

Multiple guns point at him.

Joe straightens. He pulls out his sword, bracing himself against those in front of him. The curved sword is in front of him, pointing against those in front of him and Nicky. “I would recommend you leave.”

The soldiers don’t move.

“Alright then,” he states, bringing the blade up. “I suppose this is what we’re about to do.”

The guns blast. The sword swipes.

Words fail.

[lovelikedestiny]

2. Nile: But I've lost your war

Two mirrors deep as sky and sea,

can see your bare soul, always testing.

Humming an indefinite melody, Nile pours the boiling water into the waiting cup and notes with subliminal amusement that Copley has a small sieve for loose tea in his household because his British-American heart would probably come to a standstill if he were to use bagged tea.

Exactly this sieve, together with the loose fruit tea that she found in a cupboard, is now in the cup that she intended for Nicky and she watches for a few seconds, lost in thought, how the water turns red. Involuntarily, the memory of Nicky's bloody hands and Joe's face contorted with panic rises in her and Nile blinks frantically, clears her throat and turns to the coffee pot.

The freshly brewed coffee gives off a strong, familiar smell as she pours it into the other cups and after she has placed all the filled cups on a tray, she carefully carries it into the living room. Just because she's suddenly immortal and injuries heal in seconds, doesn't mean Nile is particularly keen on scalding herself on spilling fluids.

When she enters, Copley looks up from his laptop, almost relieved, and Nile strongly suspects that this is not only because he is longingly waiting for the caffeine in the coffee, but also because he is still a long way from warming up with the other immortals . Nile doesn't have particularly friendly feelings towards him either, but at least she behaves normally in his presence and doesn't announce in every word that she will kill him should he make a serious mistake and betray their trust.

Quite different from Joe, who is as open with his feelings as always and rubs his skepticism and distrust at every opportunity in Copley's face. And to be honest, Nile can't blame him in the slightest. After all, it was partly Copley's fault that he and Nicky were tortured in the lab. What brings her to the problem child in their group.

Nicky.

A protector, Joe called him affectionately when he went shopping with Nile and Nicky and Nicky seemed content to stroll after them, eyes on their surroundings. The soul, Andy said with the rare look of tenderness on her face as Nicky kept an eye on the pan in the kitchen, singing softly. And even Booker said to Nile in the cave when he told her a little about Joe and Nicky: Joe wears his heart on his sleeve and manages to cast a spell over everyone with his charm and his radiant smile, his passion. And Nicky...Nicky is the guardian.

At the time, Nile didn't know what he meant by that. Now the meaning becomes more and more clear to her. And she just doesn't think it's fair. Doesn't think it's fair that Nicky is sitting next to Joe on the sofa with pale cheeks and a thick blanket around his shoulders, and that not only Joe is deeply worried by his deteriorating condition, but also Andy.

And for some reason, Nile didn't expect this situation to throw Andy, the ever steadfast, ancient warrior who stoically accepted her sudden mortality, off too. It reminds her how long Andy, Nicky and Joe have known each other and how deep their family bond goes and although Nile has only been part of this team for a few weeks, she doesn't feel excluded but strangely welcome in any way.

The cups clink softly as she sets the tray down on the living room table and she places the teacup with a small saucer for the tee strainer in front of Nicky. “Here Nicky, I made you tea. Really classy with Copley's little tea strainer.” It still hurts her heart to speak about her family, but she does it anyway. "My mom always said that tea makes everything better."

"Your mother passed her wisdom on to her daughter," Nicky says with a smile and pulls the cup closer to him to put his hands around the warm vessel with a barely audible sigh. "Thank you, Nile."

“Thank you, Nile. Coffee is exactly what I need now.” Joe leans forward with a dramatic groan and skillfully fishes for one of the other cups. He inhales the scent deeply, but immediately leans back into his previous position, balancing the mug on one knee and casually wrapping his arm around Nicky.

"No problem, I like to shine with my ability to operate the kettle,” Nile replies with a grin and threatens to raise a finger in front of Nicky. "And don't you dare to not finish the tea. Then I'll force you to do it with my puppy eyes and it won't be pleasant.”

"Oh, habibi, I would listen to her." Joe chuckles gently into his cup. "We don't want you to be the focus of their puppy eyes."

Nicky's mouth twists into the barely noticeable smile, which Nile has come to appreciate very much. “Very well, Nile. I will follow your instructions nicely.”

She winks at the couple and then continues her round, pushes a cup into Andy 's hand, who is standing by the window and stares out, and then she hands one to Copley before she takes the last one. After blowing softly, she takes a sip of the bitter brew.

Nobody complains that it's just plain coffee, which is partly due to the fact that Nile still doesn't know exactly how her team members prefer coffee and partly because she didn't feel like turning Copley's kitchen upside down. He offered to help her make the coffee, but Nile politely declined - the more he sits at his laptop, the sooner he will hopefully find an answer to Nicky's inexplicable condition.

Copley didn't seem offended by her refusal and thanks her for the coffee with a small smile and a nod, doesn't make a face as he takes a sip and looks at his screen again.

The only approach they have right now is the laboratory, because everything that has happened in that context was their last mission. And while they'd been under the radar to get used to the new situation, nothing suspicious had happened. They'd always been together, so it's impossible that just Nicky caught anything, especially since their immortality should have cured that certain something long ago.

“In all of the material I've found on Merrick's servers and in his building, I couldn't find anything that would explain why Nicky is in his current state,” Copley informs them, without taking his attention off his laptop. “I deleted everything to erase your traces and destroyed any samples from the lab. There is no evidence of your existence or any connection to what happened at Merrick's."

"And the bitch of a doctor?" Andy still has his back to them, but it's more than obvious that she asked Copley.

Continue reading on AO3 ;)

[nickydestati]

duolingo tog prompts #7

this was taken from the story module ‘saturday night’ and i got really carried away so it is a solid 1.8k, you have been warned

prompt: saturday night (sabato sera)

***

joe’s heart never fails to go batshit insane as soon as he lays eyes on nicky. you would think that after three years of friendship and one year of seeing each other almost every day, one would get used to the sight of another person, of a friend. turns out that isn’t necessarily the case.

but it’s this ridiculously exaggerated reaction of his heart that tells him nicky isn’t only a friend. or that he at least wishes he isn’t. of course, nile is very ardent about pointing it out to him whenever the occasion arises as well.

it seems nile and his heart have finally gotten through to him, though, because when he walks past one of the posters for a concert that litter the campus walls lately, he stops and reads it. it’s a stylish poster, simple and elegant, the work of someone who knows what they’re doing. a white double-sided axe stands against a black background, beneath it is written: ‘the old guard’ along with the venue, date and other details. he remembers nile saying something about it being a perfect date opportunity.

joe takes a picture and when he gets back to his dorm room, he buys two tickets before he can change his mind. it’s only when he has the order confirmation that he thinks he maybe should’ve checked if the band is any good. he shrugs, even if it happens to be the worst band in existence, at least they’ll have something to laugh about afterwards.

he meets nicky the next day for lunch, like they meet every day, and his heart practically leaps out of his chest when nicky smiles and waves at him. they talk about classes and work while they eat. or rather, nicky talks and joe nervously picks at his food thinking he should ask now. no, now. come on, now. why is it so hard? he has asked nicky to go do something a thousand times before.

“-and then the raccoon jumped through the window in a superhero costume and ate my assignment.”

joe looks up with a frown. “raccoon?”

nicky snorts. “there you are. what’s on your mind?”

joe looks away, pursing his lips. okay, now. “a date.”

nicky’s fork falls in his plate and he fumbles to pick it up again, not meeting joe’s eyes. “a date?” he clears his throat. “i didn’t know you had a date.”

“well no, not yet. i mean a date as in a… as in a you-and-me-date.” what is happening to him? usually he’s so good with words. 

nicky looks at him in confusion. “a you-and-me-hang-out-as-we-always-do-date?”

“no,” joe says slowly, really wishing the firealarm would go off or something so they could both flee for their lives. “kind of a you-and-me-date-date. there’s a band playing this saturday and i thought it might be, you know, fun to go,” he quickly continues before nicky can speak. “they’re called the old guard and i’ve already bought tickets so it would be kind of a shame to waste them.”

“this saturday? i’m afraid i already have plans, i’m so sorry.”

“oh,” joe says very eloquently. “oh, yeah, no sure.”

“i planned on working for my thesis this weekend,” nicky explains with a very apologetic look on his face that makes it somehow even worse. “i’m behind on my schedule, you know.”

“no of course, that’s alright. school’s more important.” joe stuffs rice in his mouth so the disappointment won’t show on his face. nicky could’ve just told him he didn’t want to go on a date with him, they’ve always been honest with each other. and joe had really thought... hoped... stupid, stupid.

“i’m sorry, i gotta go to class now. see you tomorrow?” nicky is already getting up. probably desperate to get away.

joe squeezes out a smile. it hurts his cheeks. “see you tomorrow.”

*

“i’ve heard they’re really good, thanks for taking me,” nile says excitedly as they enter the venue. it’s already pretty crowded so they stand almost all the way to the back.

“of course,” joe says.

nile must’ve noticed the lingering sadness in his voice, though, because she says, “hey, i’m sure he really had planned to work on his thesis. you know how he gets when a deadline is drawing near.”

“yeah, you’re probably right,” joe says with a shrug and tries to forget the fact he has barely seen nicky since their fatal lunch.

they talk of other things until the lights in the audience dim and the spots on stage turn on. the crowd cheers wildly as the band members enter the stage, and joe is surprised to discover they are friends of his. andy takes place behind the drum, quynh picks up a shining red guitar and booker a dark green bass guitar. 

“hm, i didn’t know they had a band,” he mutters to nile. though he faintly recalls them talking about rehearsals.

then the singer comes on stage and joe’s heart stops working altogether. he’s standing a far way off, but he would recognise those broad shoulders anywhere, that step as he walks to the mic, that brown hair. 

“is that nicky?” he yells over the crowd and turns to nile to find her actually laughing. “you knew?”

nile has a mischievous and very pleased twinkle in her eyes. “i designed their poster.”

joe wants to ask more but andy ticks off and the band starts playing. and when nicky starts singing joe forgets every language in existence and his poor, just revived heart goes right back into cardiac arrest. he knows nicky can sing, from secretly overhearing him humming to himself as he cleans or cooks, sometimes even coaxing a chorus from him when he plays one of nicky’s favourite songs on the piano, but he never knew he could sing like that. his voice is rougher than joe expected, and so full of conviction and emotion. 

“this can’t be true,” he mutters to himself after listening absolutely paralysed to several songs. he starts elbowing his way to the front of the crowd, barely noticing nile hastily following him.

somehow, he manages to reach the edge of the stage and stands there like a still statue in the sea of dancing bodies. they are throwing him strange looks, but he has only eye for one person. nicky, singing his soul out on stage with closed eyes and furrowed brow, moving along with the music and andy’s steady beat. he looks more handsome than joe has ever seen him, with his earrings and his hair falling in his eyes and is that eyeliner he’s wearing? 

then nicky opens his eyes, and they immediately find joe, as if he knew he’s standing right there. and he smiles. the bastard smiles at joe. and god, if joe didn’t already know he was hopelessly in love with nicky, then he surely does now.

the music falls back into something calmer, and quynh trades her electric guitar for an acoustic one. nicky’s voice is so heartfelt and vulnerable, joe closes his eyes for a moment, absentmindedly swaying to the melody. 

halfway through the song, nicky steps away from the mic stand. 

“and if you’d ask me to

I’d spend all my eternities with you”

as he sings this, he kneels right in front of joe and reaches out his hand. and joe stares at it and up at nicky’s eyes and back again as if he’s never seen a hand before. nile elbows him softly in the side and nicky smiles encouragingly at him as he repeats the verses. joe’s hand is trembling as he takes nicky’s, and he blinks to try and clear his suddenly blurred vision. he barely registers the crowd’s cheers as their hands meet, his whole world narrows down to their touch and the man singing before him. for him. 

in the guitar solo that follows, nicky leans forward and presses his lips to the back of joe’s hand and all joe can do is hold on for dear life and smile and laugh through escaping tears. after a last squeeze, nicky releases him with a smile. and in the smile, joe catches a glimpse of the quiet and shy man nicky is behind the stage, the nicky he knows so well and has come to love with all his heart. 

the rest of the concert goes by in a blissful haze with dancing and singing and yelling at the top of his lungs. 

afterwards, nicky finds joe and nile in the bar of the venue. he’s back in his usual simple shirt and jeans outfit and has removed the eyeliner. by the timid way he approaches, nobody would ever guess what a performance he gave mere moments ago. 

“i’ll go get some new drinks,” nile says and slips away, smiling and complimenting nicky on her way.

nicky and joe stand in awkward silence for a minute, nicky shifting on his feet, barely daring to meet joe’s eyes and joe observing him with a soft smile. 

“working on your thesis, huh?”

nicky chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“why didn’t you just tell me?” joe continues.

nicky swallows. “i think i was scared. of what you would think and that you wouldn’t like it. and i’m not that good of a singer so i was-”

“please tell me you don’t honestly think that,” joe interrupts and takes a step closer. “you were fantastic up there, nicky, absolutely phenomenal.”

nicky glances at joe with that slight smile of his that makes joe’s heart skip a beat every time.

“thank you,” nicky says. “but i’m really sorry, i should have told you. when you asked me to go out, i panicked completely and made such a fool of myself.” 

the most endearing embarrassed smile crosses his lips as he rubs his cheek with his hand, so you really can’t blame joe that he takes another step closer and takes that hand in his, bringing it to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to the knuckles.

nicky stares at him with wide eyes.

“so does that mean you do want to go out with me?” joe asks, playfully raising one eyebrow. 

and the smile that breaks out on nicky’s face is more brilliant than all the spotlights centered on him this evening combined. “yes,” he says, “i would want nothing more.”

what joe wants nothing more is to kiss nicky right then and there, and he probably would have, if nile and the rest of the old guard didn’t appear behind nicky. 

“thank god, he knows,” andy says, clapping nicky on the back. “can we now finally ask him to be our pianist?”

[caitlesshea]

if you close your eyes

Happy (1 day) early birthday @themoonwhenimlost! I promised a Coffee Shop AU with a happy ending, so the happy ending will be posted on your actual birthday. Sorry not sorry? I love you!

Chapter 1/2

“Will you stop?” 

Joe pauses his attempt at pacing a hole in the floor to glare at Booker.

“You’re just going to keep working yourself into a frenzy.” Booker tsks at him.

“I’m nervous.”

“You’ve done this before.” Booker points out unhelpfully.

And the thing is, is that Joe knows he has. He’s nine hundred and fifty four years old, and he died his first death nine hundred and twenty one years ago, leaving him forever thirty three. 

His first death. Stabbed by a long sword at the hands of one Nicolò di Genova, but not before Joe was able to stab him first. Only, Joe gasped awake and Nicolò stayed dead.

Or so he thought. Thirty years practically to the day he sees Nicolò looking every bit the same, minus the ridiculous chain mail, working in Cairo. 

At first he thought that Nicolò had survived that fateful day, like Joe had, but over time he came to realize that wasn’t the case. This Nicolò was not from Genova, even though his family hailed from there. He was born thirty years earlier. 

Over the years they traveled together, became lovers, and when Nicolò had started to age, Joe told him his secret. 

After his Nicolò passed, it became clear that history was repeating itself. 

Ever since that second meeting, Joe will meet Nicolò one way or another, spend however long they have together in that lifetime, and then thirty years after he inevitably loses Nicolò, he’ll find him again. 

Nicolò isn’t always the same. He’ll have different hair, different styles, even different names. But he always looks at Joe like he’s the sun. 

Joe gets to fall in love with every version of Nicolò he meets. 

Nicolò never remembers Joe or the lifetimes they’ve lived. Something Joe has spent his long life cursing the universe for. 

Now, he’s pacing his apartment floor, thirty years after he last lost Nicolò to old age. He never knows why he gets an inkling to do something or go somewhere a year or two before the thirty years is up, but he always follows his gut and does what his heart tells him. 

This time he knew he needed to be a university professor. Booker ever so kindly forging documents for him and now that he’s been at the university for two years he’s getting anxious. 

With technology how it is he knows he could’ve looked up Nicolò. He knows he’ll have some variation of the name he had all those years ago when Joe was still Yusuf and Nicolò was still Nicolò. 

But, he doesn’t want to. Well, that’s not true. But he feels like that’s cheating destiny. 

So far they’ve always met organically. Joe never seeks him out and once he gets comfortable enough to let his guard down and share their past with Nicolò it always goes over as smoothly as it can. 

“Too many times.” Joe answers Booker solemnly. 

“Joe.” 

“No. No, I’m being melancholic.” 

Booker snorts but then softens. “Hey.” Booker stands and grabs Joe’s shoulders. “This is always the worst part but once you meet it’s like he never left.”

“I know. I know.” The thing is Joe does know. Even though Joe always goes through thirty year periods without Nicolò he always gets him back. 

Reincarnation. 

Or, that’s what Copley, Booker’s husband, had called it when he first became immortal and joined their family. 

“Alright enough of this.” Booker walks over to the front door to put on his shoes. “I want coffee, we’re getting coffee.”

“I have coffee here.” Joe mutters weakly as he puts on his own shoes. 

“I want to try that new place on Charlie.”

“Cup of Joe?” Joe groans even as he says it. He hates coffee shops close to the university because he always seems to run into students. 

“Yes that one! I like the name.” 

“I hate you.” 

“Love you too, mon chéri.”

Joe laughs as Booker blows him a kiss as they make their way to the coffee shop. 

“I’m telling James you said that.”

“You wound me, Yusuf.”

“You’ll get over it.” Joe mumbles as he pushes open the door to the coffee shop with an entirely un-unique name. 

He’s about to let Booker walk in first when he turns and runs into someone. The moment they touch Joe knows it’s Nicolò.

Joe’s breath catches and they lock eyes, only Nicolò doesn’t have the usual look of wonder when they meet, no. This time he’s scowling. 

“Scusi.” Nicolò looks at him and scurries away but not before shooting a glare back at Joe. 

Booker shrugs and a woman wearing an apron behind the counter quickly apologizes for Nicolò’s behavior.

“Sorry. Nicky’s not normally so rude to customers.” The woman glares at Nicky and Joe smiles at the name. 

Nicky. 

He’s never gone by Nicky before but Joe immediately loves it. 

“It’s alright. Maybe he didn’t see me.”

Booker snorts and Joe elbows him in the side. 

“Maybe.” The woman looks at Nicky and turns back to them. “I’m Nile, what can I get for you?”

“I’ll have a large soy chai with extra whip cream.” Booker cuts in and Joe rolls his eyes at his drink choice. 

“I’ll take a coffee please, two sugars.” Joe says and Booker elbows him now and points to a sign.

First coffee is free for customers named Joe.

“Oh! Free coffee?”

“Is your name Joe?” Nile asks as she pulls out two punch cards for them.

“Yes.” Joe answers at the same time Nicky says, “That’s not his name.”

“Nicky.” Nile hisses and turns around. “Frankie! Come get your boy.” 

Another woman comes out from the back of the counter and takes one look at everyone and then grabs Nicky who starts muttering something that suspiciously sounds like his name is Yusuf in Italian.

Joe's staring stock still and Booker’s looking at him like he’s worried Joe’s going to start freaking out. 

“I am so sorry. Coffee’s on the house. I promise he is not like this.”

Nile’s worried voice breaks him out of his spiraling thoughts.

“It’s okay. I’m a professor at the university so my real name is in my bio. It’s Joseph.”

“Presumably most people named Joe have a full name.” Nile mumbles and looks back to where Frankie is forcing Nicky to sit down. 

“Anything else?” Nile asks as Joe stares at the bakery case. 

“No thanks.” Joe answers and they take their coffees to go.

“That was weird.” Booker mutters when they get outside. 

“You think?” Joe scrubs a hand over his face. “He’s never been hostile towards me.”

“Except the first time.” Booker points out unhelpfully. 

Joe glares at him.

“C’mon, we’ll come back tomorrow after your class. Maybe he’ll be in a better mood.”

~~~

Turns out, Nicky is not in a better mood when they head back to Cup of Joe.

Nile shoves him into the back as they order and Joe’s heart sinks. 

Booker looks like he’s about to say something when Joe spots baklava in the bakery case. 

“Baklava?” 

“Oh yes. Nicky loves it, loves to travel, so he bakes different versions from around the world. If you put in some money and guess the ingredients we’ll give you one on the house.”

Joe looks up at a sign that says:

Place your bets!

Booker snorts and Joe is transported to the last time Booker and Nicolò bet five hundred dollars on Andy guessing the flavors of an Eastern Turkey baklava.

Joe can hear Nicolò’s voice in his head. 

“Five hundred, Booker?” 

Joe turns to look at Booker and can tell he’s reliving the same memory. 

“Alright, five dollars Joe can guess that one.” Booker points to one on the top shelf and places a five dollar bill in the bowl.

“Okay!” Nile scoops up the baklava and hands it to Joe on some parchment. Before he takes a bite, Nile's yelling for Nicky and Frankie.

“Nicky! Frankie! We’ve got a guesser!” 

A crash sounds and then giggling and Joe’s breath catches at the sound of Nicky’s laughter.

“Honestly, introduce my wife to my best friend once.” Nile mumbles and Joe chuckles. 

He understands that sentiment, the first time he introduced Nicolò to Andy, Quynh, and Booker, and every time thereafter, they’ve all become fast friends.

“Who’s guessing?” Nicky asks and then pauses when his eyes lock with Joe’s.

Nicky turns away too quickly for Joe to notice anything so he decides to take a bite of the baklava and moans at the flavor.

“Mmm. Hazelnut, not walnut.” Joe takes a bite as Booker starts counting the ingredients off on his fingers. Nile smiles at him.

“Black Sea.” Joe smiles and takes another bite. “Rose water, pomegranate.”

Joe can see Nicky tensing and Joe takes another bite.

“Mmm. Eastern Turkey.” 

Joe opens his eyes in time to see Nile clapping and Booker smirking. 

But Joe only has eyes for Nicky, who’s covering his face in his hands as he turns and heads back behind the counter. Frankie pats Nicky on the back and looks at Joe and Booker.

“You’re the first one to guess that flavor profile.” Then she turns on her heels to find Nicky.

“That was amazing!” Nile’s still smiling and Joe shrugs. 

The flavors are familiar because it’s the last piece of baklava they bought Andy together, on their last trip to Turkey, the one Nicky bet Booker on.

Booker shrugs at him and orders another coffee.

“Do you want your free pastry now or rain check?”

Joe thinks about it for a moment. “Rain check.” 

Nile nods and pulls off a coupon from a little booklet and hands Joe a coffee. He thanks her for both as he wanders over to the wall of books and smiles at the little stand to drop off used books. 

“This was Nicky’s idea.” Nile says as she comes up beside him.

“The books?” Nicolò always did love books. Joe smiles at the warm memories.

“Mm. My wife and I wanted to open a coffee shop, and Nicky agreed to partner with us if he could bake and bring his books.”

Joe feels warm all over at the very Nicolò like thing that was to do. Nicolò was always reading and feeding people.

“These are his?” Joe looks over at the books.

“Some of them, yes. He thinks they should be shared with the world, which is why if you leave a book.” Nile points to the stand. “You can take a book.” 

“I love that.” Joe says honestly.

“So did we.” The bell at the front door jingles to indicate a new customer and Nile smiles as she goes to help them.

“How very Nicolò.” Booker mutters as he walks up to the books.

“I know.” Joe stops suddenly when he sees them. 

His books. His poetry. Nine of them, the very first volume One Thousand Sixty Nine is the only one missing. 

“Joe.”

“He has my poetry books.” Joe whispers, looking at the volumes, all written under various cover names. Except the first one. Which hasn’t been in print for a long time, the remaining copies sitting in a trunk at his house. 

“He has good taste.” Booker tries to joke but Joe isn’t convinced. 

“He’s never.” Joe shakes his head. “He’s never had any of my things before.” 

Booker turns back to look at where Nile and Nicky are whispering with a look of great concentration on his face. 

“What?” Joe snaps and then immediately apologizes. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. C’mon, you can come back tomorrow.”

“I don’t…”

“Joe.” Booker grabs his shoulders after they get outside. “I know this is different but when has any of this ever made sense?”

“No, you’re right.”

“I usually am.” Booker says smugly as Joe rolls his eyes.

“Don’t push it.” 

~~~

Joe changes up his tactics the next day, heading to Cup of Joe without Booker. 

He’s waited thirty years to see his Nicolò, hopefully he can manage a single conversation with Nicky that doesn’t involve glaring. 

No such luck. 

“Morning Nicky.” Joe says brightly and Nicky, ever the professional, sighs with his whole body and gets Joe’s coffee. 

That he doesn’t even have to ask Joe what he likes to drink makes Joe smile.

“Did you want your free pastry?” Nicky asks him and Joe smiles at the first real words Nicky has spoken to him.

“Surprise me?” Joe smirks and some of the tension Nicky’s carrying eases. 

Nicky picks a pastry that Joe finds vaguely familiar and when Joe takes a bite he actually can’t help the moan that escapes. 

“Oh my god, this is my favorite.” Joe says around a mouthful of a desert he hasn’t had in years. His mother used to make a variation of this and Nicolò always replicated it when he would learn that fact. 

“I know...I’m glad you like it.” Nicky curses in Italian and Joe can only look at him inquisitively. 

Before Joe can say anything else another customer walks in taking Nicky’s attention. 

Joe walks over to the bookcases and discretely pulls his own book out of his bag, the first volume that Nicky’s collection is missing. He places it on the Borrow a Book shelf and turns back to speak to Nicky.

“Ci vediamo domani.” Joe waves, pleased at the look of shock on Nicky’s face. 

Joe’s about to go to class when he sees a text from Booker. 

[Book: you gave him the book didn’t you?]

[Joe: how did you know that?]

[Joe: did you break into my place again?]

[Book: I have a key]

[Joe: I’m taking it back]

[Book: no you aren’t]

Joe sighs, Booker’s right. He isn’t taking his key back. They all have keys to each other’s place, privacy long since passed between all of them. It’s more enter at your own risk now. But still. 

Joe wanted a little more time with his decision to essentially out himself as himself with this prickly version of Nicolò before everyone else knew about it. 

And everyone else would know about it because Booker likes to gossip. 

He pockets his phone, resigned to spending hours with ungrateful students before he can see Nicky again. 

~~~

Joe thought when he walked into Cup of Joe the next morning he would be met with a shy smile and a ‘how did you find that edition?’ of his book that he dropped off. 

What he did not expect was for Nicky to grab him by the arm and bring him right back outside in such a flurry that Joe nearly falls down. 

Joe takes a moment to steady himself as he takes in the anger and fear on Nicky’s face. 

It’s something Joe hasn’t seen in centuries, although this Nicky is already so different than the Nicolò’s of the past, from his longer hair curling around his ears, the beard around his face, and two gold earrings, but also the fact that he seems to remember is enough for Joe to know this time is different.

“Where did you find this?” Nicky scowls and shakes the book Joe dropped off the day before in front of his face. 

“I…”

“Yusuf.” The sound of Joe’s real name jolts him back into awareness. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I had it in my collection. Thought I could complete yours.”

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani.”

Joe sucks in a shaky breath.

“Tell me how I know that’s your name.” Nicky snarls. “Tell me.”

“How? I don’t - ” 

“He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold.” 

“Nicky.”

“Tell me, Yusuf, how I didn’t have to read a single line in this damn book to know what it said.” Nicky shoves the book into Joe’s chest and he clutches it to him. 

“I - ”

“Better yet. Tell me how I remember you writing this. In Malta, in our cottage by the sea with the windows open while I laid in bed. ‘Nicolò, habibi, stay just like that.’ ‘Are you sketching again, amore mio?’ ‘No, writing about our love.’ Because it is a memory, isn’t it?” 

Joe feels like he’s been sucker punched. 

“You...you remember?” 

Nicky groans and grabs at his hair. Joe doesn’t know how this is possible. So many things in his life haven’t made since but Nicolò, even though they go years without each other, has always been his constant. 

“Tell me how this is possible?”

“I can’t, I…” Joe feels like he can’t breathe and the incoming panic isn’t helping. “I have to go.” 

Joe turns quickly and walks away from Nicky as fast as he can even though Nicky’s shouting after him. 

“Yusuf!”

Joe feels like running but he’s already struggling to breathe so he doesn’t, thankful that Booker and Copley live close to the coffee shop. 

He gets to their door and knocks, barely able to stand. He could use his key but that would require effort. He hears someone’s footsteps, Copley’s probably, and braces against the door as it opens.

“Joe? Why didn’t you use your key?” Copley asks him and then frowns at him.

“James.” Joe croaks out and Copley immediately knows that something is wrong because Joe has called him James exactly one time, and it was when Copley and Booker got married.

“Okay. C’mon. Can you walk?” 

Joe nods and he can tell Copley is checking him over to see if he’s injured.

“‘M fine.”

Joe sinks down onto their plush couch as Copley calls for Booker.

“James? Was someone at the door?” Booker takes one look at what Joe is sure is the most pathetic he’s ever looked before Booker’s running over to him.

“Joe? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Booker’s frantically checking him over and Joe just shakes his head. 

Joe looks up at the sound of more footsteps and cringes when he sees Andy and Quynh. 

“What? You didn’t think we remembered what year it is?” Andy asks as she sits on the coffee table. 

Joe gives her a weak smile as Booker grabs his hands to stop them from shaking.

Copley hands him a glass of water and Joe’s grateful for the cold, as he takes a couple of minutes to get his breathing under control. 

When he’s finally able to take a true breath he looks up at the people he’s called family for longer than anyone should ever live and cries.

“He remembers.” Joe says brokenly.

“Who?”

“What does he remember?” 

“What happened?”

“Nicky?”

Joe ignores the rapid fire questions from everyone and just looks at Booker. 

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Someone tell me what’s going on.” Andy uses her no nonsense voice and Joe cringes.

“He met Nicolò the other day.” Booker sighs after a moment when Joe stays silent. 

Andy and Quynh gasp, which Joe supposes is nice, that Booker didn’t let the cat out of the bag until Joe could tell them himself. 

“He goes by Nicky this time.” Joe smiles at the memory of finding out that Nicolò uses a nickname in this lifetime. 

“He owns a coffee shop with two of his friends, it’s called Cup of Joe.” 

Andy snorts and Quynh swats at her arm. 

“He, well there were signs the last couple of days that he knew things about me, about us, that he shouldn't have. But I just assumed it was me overreacting.”

“I take it the book didn’t help?” Booker holds up the book to show everyone and Joe nods.

“I dropped it off yesterday and today before I even made it inside Nicky was grabbing me and bringing me outside to tell me he remembered every line of poetry.”

“Well, that would make sense if he read it yesterday.” Copley sits down next to Booker, who immediately grabs his hand. 

“He didn’t just remember the poetry. He remembered what we were doing when I wrote it.”

“Gross.” Booker gags and Joe shoves him while everyone laughs.

“No. We were in Malta. He told me word for word the conversation we had.”

“And you remember it?” Andy asks and Joe glares at her.

“Of course I do.” Joe snaps and then reaches out to squeeze Andy’s hand in apology. 

“What do you want to do?” Andy asks him and Joe shakes his head.

“No, it’s not just about me or - ”

“Joe. If he’s remembering you need to tell him. You always do anyway.” Booker says quietly. 

“He was just so confused.” Joe puts his head in his hands, ashamed at himself for leaving Nicky there when he was clearly freaking out. 

“Hey.” Booker grabs his shoulder and Joe looks at him.

“I just left him. He’s all alone and I left him, probably wondering what’s going on.” 

“It’s too late now to do anything. You can go to the coffee shop tomorrow and see him.” Booker suggests as Copley stands to make dinner.

“Tomorrow.”

Joe wants to go now. Wants to comfort Nicky or at least be an outlet for his frustration. Joe’s never had to explain their history to Nicky with Nicky already having a head start. 

“Fine. Copley better be making croque monsieurs.”

“I am!” 

Booker laughs and claps him on the back and Joe nods, resolute to fix this, so he doesn’t lose Nicky this lifetime. 

~~~

Joe shows up at Cup of Joe right as it’s opening, a small bushel of lavender, Nicolò’s favorite, in his right hand, and his poetry book in his left. 

Nile takes one look at him when he gets to the counter and scowls.

Joe takes a step back and holds his hands up. Nile notices the lavender and softens immediately.

“Is that for Nicky?”

“Yeah.” Joe swallows. “How is he?” 

“He’s...been better.”

Joe nods and looks to the side, wondering just how much Nicky disclosed to his friends. They’ve had mortal friends throughout the years, if only because Nicky was mortal as well. A few they’d let in on their secrets but not in a long time. 

Nile sighs loudly and he turns his attention back to her. 

“Look. I don’t know what happened between you two, but he was pretty shaken up yesterday.”

“I didn’t…” At Nile’s scowl, Joe amends his statement. “It was a misunderstanding. I have no intention of hurting him again.”

Nile takes a moment, sizes him up, and must come to some conclusion that he’s telling the truth because she nods and hands him a brown paper bag and a to go cup.

“What’s this?”

“His favorites.”

Joe smells the bag and smiles. “Vanilla latte and blueberry scone.”

Nile smiles at him and Joe’s thankful she doesn’t ask how he knows that.

“He lives upstairs. That.” She nods to the bag. “Will let him know I sent you.”

“Thank you, Nile.”

“Don’t make me regret this!” Nile shouts after him as he goes to leave.

“I won’t!” 

Joe finds the stairs leading to the second floor and smiles at the hanging plants and welcome mat that says ciao at the front door. 

Nicky opens the door before Joe even knocks, almost like he was expecting Joe to stop by. 

Joe smiles and holds up his offerings. “Hi. I think we should talk?”

Nicky holds the door open further so Joe can walk inside and as he takes a look around he smiles warmly at the apartment that is so very Nicky.

“Nile gave me these.” Joe hands over the coffee and scone. “And I brought you these.”

Nicky takes the lavender and brings it to his nose to smell. He smiles a little, even though it’s sad.

“I guess I don’t have to tell you they’re my favorite, do I?” 

“I’d love to learn everything about you.” Joe blurts out instead of the answer Nicky really wants. 

Nicky takes that for what it is as he puts the lavender in a vase and then opens the brown paper bag and moans when he sees the scone. 

Joe chuckles. “You like your own baking that much?”

Nicky looks at him oddly and then shakes his head as he takes a bite. “I don’t make these, Frankie does.”

Joe pauses and then smiles as he remembers that he always made Nicolò scones, an old family recipe that puts…

“Brown sugar in the batter.” Nicky finishes and Joe realizes that he said the last part out loud. 

Joe smiles, sheepish, and holds up the book instead. 

“I wanted you to have this.”

“Why?”

“Well, frankly, it’s yours.”

Nicky nods and hands Joe a glass of water and Joe is grateful for something to do with his hands as he waits for Nicky to answer. 

Joe hands it to Nicky who runs his hands over the cover like it’s something special and precious.

“This was the only one I couldn’t find. The others, they’re not a true collection, different authors.” Nicky grins. “But I knew they were all by the same person.”

“Did you?”

“Know it was you before the other day?”

Joe nods, wondering if Nicky’s been remembering his past lives his entire life.

“No. And before you ask I didn’t start...uhh, the, uhh, un riccardo, how do you say in English?”

“Memory.”

“Right, the memories didn’t start until we met the other day.”

“When we touched?” Joe remembers the jolt he felt, unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. 

“Sì.” 

“I’ve had these feelings my whole life, inklings, I think. Like with the books, the scones, things like that, but never actual memories before.”

Joe looks around the apartment and notices the tapestries and rugs that match the ones they have in their home in Malta. The artwork on the walls, reproductions of both Booker’s and Joe’s art. The same nine books of Joe’s that he has in the coffee shop. Little pieces of their lives together and Nicky had no idea.

“It’s all familiar to you?” Nicky asks him quietly and Joe nods.

“Will you tell me about it?”

“About what?”

“Our life...lives.” 

Joe looks shocked for a moment. “I thought you?”

“I want to hear it from you, if you’re willing?”

“Yes. Yes of course.” Joe smiles, pleased that Nicky’s willing to hear him out. “Where do you want me to start?”

“The beginning.”

“It’s quite a long story. I’ve been alive a long time.”

“I’d like to hear it. I need to...make sense of everything.” Nicky points to his head and Joe smiles.

“Alright. I’m pretty sure you killed me during the Crusades.”

Nicky laughs and Joe can’t help it, he laughs too. A thought occurs to Joe and he gasps.

“Is that why you were so cold to me when we first met?”

Nicky’s cheeks turn a bright pink as he ducks his head and Joe warms at the sight.

“I didn’t know what was happening. I was confused. Seeing things that couldn’t have been real, in languages I didn’t know I knew.” Nicky shrugs. 

“You know I don’t blame you, right? We’ve long since worked it out.”

Nicky gasps and Joe’s glad that he can read this version of Nicky. 

“The love of my life was of the people I’ve been taught to hate.” Nicky recites and then shakes his head and Joe steps closer, raises his hand to telegraph his movements. 

Nicky nods and Joe squeezes his hand, gasps as the buzzing returns but then settles. 

“I love you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“You’re right, I don’t know this version of you, but I know your heart. I know the pain you still feel about what happened, but I’m telling you, the Nicolò I love has grown to realize the mistakes he made when he marched on Jerusalem.”

Nicky squeezes his hand before he steps back and Joe lets him go, stepping back a little himself. 

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you about our lives together, and you tell me about you.”

“You want to know about me?”

“I want to know everything.” 

Nicky smiles and turns to put on a kettle. Joe warms at the thought that Nicky still loves tea even though he owns a coffee shop.

“Chamomile? I think we’ll be up a while.”

Joe nods and takes a sip of the tea when it’s done, smiling when he realizes it’s just the way he likes it. 

Joe walks over the couch and settles with a blanket as he gestures for Nicky to join him. Nicky chuckles softly and goes to sit down.

Joe immediately shares the blanket as they settle in. 

“I think I’d rather hear about you first, especially if you remember a lot of our lives.”

“I’m not that interesting.” 

“Nicolò.” Joe waits until Nicky looks at him. “You are the most interesting person to me, always.”

Nicky blushes again and Joe’s enamored. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, he can’t wait to learn everything about this Nicky. 

~~~

When he leaves Nicky’s apartment the next morning, he’s smiling from ear to ear, with a spring in his step, even though he didn’t sleep.

They spent the rest of the day and all night talking, trading story after story. He knows they didn’t learn everything but he feels closer to Nicky than he ever has before, not realizing he was missing a partner that just knew things about him.

He also managed to get Nicky’s number and plans for an actual date tomorrow night, since all they ended up eating was leftovers. 

He’s giddy with the thought of dating Nicky. Of learning about all of the little things that make this Nicky decidedly his own. 

Joe doesn’t know how he does it but he makes it through all of his lectures and office hours. He even makes it through dinner with the family, overjoyed to tell them about his night and plans for the next day. 

He wakes up happier than ever, eager for the day to end so he can take Nicky out on their date. 

“I’ve never seen you like this.” Booker comments as they make their way to Cup of Joe the next morning.

“It’s all so new, we’ve never dated like this before.”

“You’ve dated.”

“But not like this. Not where he knows.” Joe knows he’s practically bouncing as they walk down the street, smiling from ear to ear. 

Booker chuckles and he shoves his brother lightly when he sees Nicky, Nile, and Frankie setting up their patio outside the coffee shop.

Joe also knows he has a besotted look on his face because Booker gags and then groans.

“Oh god, it’s like that already?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Joe says innocently and Booker smiles.

“It’s good to see you like this, brother.” 

Joe smiles warmly at Booker before he looks back at the trio outside the coffee shop. They’re just crossing the street and he calls out for Nicky. 

“Nicolò!”

But just as Nicky turns to smile at him, a car comes barreling down the road, completely out of control, and Joe can only watch in horror as the car hits the curb right in front of the coffee shop, flipping and careening right into the patio in a sickening crunch. 

“Nicolò!” Joe screams as others nearby scream and he and Booker run towards the wreckage. 

“Nicolò!” Joe slides to where Nicky was standing and sees him lying lifeless on the patio. He briefly touches Nicky’s forehead and looks around and sees Nile and Frankie lying at unnatural angles.

Nicky’s body is shielding them like he tried to push them out of the way. 

“Nicolò.” Joe croaks as Booker tries to pull him away.

“No. No!” 

“Joe. We have to call for help.”

“I can’t leave him!”

“Joe. He’s gone.”

“No! No!” Joe sobs as he cradles Nicky’s head. “No.”

“Yusuf.”

“No.” Joe knows he’s not breathing right, the hiccuping sobs making it harder to think.

“Nicolò, destati.” Joe sobs as he brushes Nicky’s shoulder softly. 

“Destati.”

[cryhardanddanceharder]

Happy holidays Abby @moonlightandromache I’m your andromaquynh secret santa and this next one shot is my gift for you. I tried mixing what i know you like, soulmate and mermaid combo. I hope you like it ♥

Also, thank you @lilolilyr for being my beta in this and helping me with my english ☺ And thank you @thirst-teenth for organizing this!

_____

An ocean between our love (it won’t keep us apart)

All mermaids, mermen and tritons are immortal and have a soulmate. 

Yes, mer folks are not just a myth, they are real. Quynh knows this because she is a mermaid. 

Since she was little she had been hearing stories about soulmates. How you would feel your soulmate’s injuries like they were your own and how you would dream of each other.

She started dreaming of her soulmate when she was fourteen years old. 

But, the thing about her soulmate it’s that she’s different. She is a human, a mortal. Because of this, many of the other mers often made fun of her. How would it be possible for a human and a mermaid to be together? 

“How does it feel to know your soulmate?” She asks her friends.

“It’s the best thing that can happen to you” Nicky tells her honestly. 

“There’s no one who could understand you or love you more, you just connect” Joe says, looking at Nicky with heart eyes.

“Look at us” Nicky says proudly. “We came for families who hated each other, and still our love prevailed” He explains.

She doesn’t need the explanation though, she had heard the story too many times. They are lucky, they’ve been together since forever. Just like Nile, Dizzy and Jay. 

All her friends had met their soulmate already and that kinda hurts. She knows it’s probably impossible for her to ever meet her own soulmate. She likes dreaming about her, but feeling her injuries not so much, because it worries her. Her soulmate is a warrior, so she always has something in her body that it’s hurting. And she could use a lot of words to describe her, like beautiful, brave and kind. And also loyal, smart and strong.

“You know there’s the story of this merman who had a human soulmate just like you?” Nile asks her, bringing her attention back to the present.

“Yes, I think I heard about him, but I thought it was just a legend” She answers thoughtfully. 

“Well Jay knows him, I can take you to meet him so you can talk and share your feelings” Nile suggests. 

“That would be great” She accepts. 

No one had ever told her that Booker’s story was real. So, she’s excited that she is going to meet him. Maybe he could tell her how to find her soulmate. Her family never helped her with that topic, not since she told them that her soulmate is a human. It’s like most mers think that she must be cursed or something similar, because isn’t a mermaid like them.

Booker it’s bitter and he is drunk. But he let’s her speak and he tells her stories about Lykon, his soulmate. 

“So you never met him?” She asks, feeling heartbroken.

“No, he died many years ago” Booker answers sadly. 

“But, you only have one soulmate in your life” She expresses her agony.

“I know” He nods.

“How do you keep living without it?” She asks, her voice breaking.

“I’m not sure I do” He says, using his cup to toast for him.

After that conversation, Quynh is left feeling entirely wrecked. How is she supposed to live her immortal life knowing her soulmate is going to die someday? 

She tries to hang on to the dreams of her soulmate, to pay attention to where she is so she can look for her. But she’s always on land and there’s never a beach near her.

And then, the day she has been fearing comes. Her soulmate dies. She’s been betrayed by her own people and they killed her with spears in battle.

“Are you okay?” Joe asks her, very worried because she has been in agony, shouting and sobbing for long minutes.

“My soulmate, she died” She answers with tears in her eyes, unable to say anything else.

She starts feeling the heartbreak of reality hit her as the worst pain she ever felt in her life.

She’s devastated and suddenly breaks down crying in full force.

Joe hugs her and holds her in his arms until she falls asleep. 

But, something she hasn’t been expecting happens. Her soulmate comes back to life. Her injuries are gone and there’s no more pain. At first she thinks she might be imagining it, but then she dreams about her again. And she is alright, she is alive and she is as strong as ever. 

After that, Quynh dares to hope again. If her soulmate is immortal, then maybe they can finally meet someday. And now the injuries are temporary. She only feels pain for a short time. Still, feeling her die is the most painful thing she has ever felt... and her soulmate dies a lot of times.

Quynh starts traveling all the oceans, trying to find her. Joe, Nicky, Nile, Dizzy, Jay and Booker decide to go with her, to help her in her search. 

But years and years keep passing by, and they still never find her soulmate. 

All she learns in her search is that her soulmate's name is Andromache and she is the best human warrior that has ever existed. Even mer folks start telling stories about her at some point, because they like telling human stories. All the stories about Andromache are about her battles, about how she’s special because of her immortality, how she’s always fighting for what she thinks it’s right and trying to help people. 

She wonders if her soulmate dreams of her too, if she ever thinks of her and if she ever tries looking for her.

But hundreds of years keep passing and they never meet each other. All Quynh feels is emptiness and loneliness. Yes, her soulmate is alive and is immortal, but she’s still human and they don’t have any chance of being together. And that hurts.

She starts feeling that her family is right. To have a human soulmate it’s a curse. 

So, she decides to give up. She stops the search. 

And then, suddenly, another unexpected thing happens that changes everything once again. Her soulmate is drowning. And not just for once, it’s constantly. Quynh is in permanent agony for her. Feeling her dying all the time is exhausting. How is it possible? And then, she dreams of her again and she finally understands. Andromache is trapped in an iron coffin at the bottom of the ocean. How the hell did that happen? 

“Quynh, we heard the stories about Andromache” Nicky informs her.

“What stories?” She requests to know. 

“The new ones” Nicky answers.

“How can there be new stories when she’s constantly drowning?” She asks, confused.

“Because they are about that” Joe replies. “Apparently she was in England, saving women from witch hunts. Finally the people from church trapped her and sentenced her to die, so they hanged her.” He explains calmly.

“Because she couldn’t die, they took it as proof of her being a witch” Nicky intervenes, feeling that it’s an important fact.

“Yes” Joe agrees with him. “So, they locked her in an iron coffin and threw her to the sea” He ends the tale. 

“I need to find her. She’s drowning and suffering constantly, I can’t take it” She expresses her feelings, she always feels safe doing so with them.

“We should start with the North Sea, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; those are the ones that surround England” Nicky suggests.

So, that’s what they do. They travel those seas, looking for her. 

It takes them almost one hundred years, but they finally do. They find the iron coffin in a part of the Norway Sea and all she can feel is relief. They prey open the coffin and, finally, Andromache is free and right in front of Quynh. 

When she comes alive she looks scared and ready to fight. She starts hitting them until she drowns again. 

Quynh grabs her and takes her to the superface. In the time it takes her to get her to superface, Andromache drowns three more times. But those times she doesn’t fight her. It is as she recognises Quynh, her presence helping her to relax even when she dies again.

“Hey” She greets her, once their faces are above the ocean and the other has revived.

“You’re the mermaid of my dreams” Andromache says, looking at her with an astonished expression. 

 “I am” She agrees. “My name is Quynh” She introduces herself.

“I thought mermaids were a myth” Andromache says, still staring at her, like she can’t believe she’s real.

“I thought immortal humans were a myth, too” She bites back and Andromache laughs. Damm, her laugh sounds so beautiful.

“Touche” Andromache accepts. “I’m Andromache the Scythian” She finally introduces herself. 

“I know” Quynh nods with a knowing smile. 

Andromache suddenly starts coughing and spitting salt water from her mouth, and that scares her. Quyn realises in that moment that she should have tried giving her mouth to mouth breathing like she heard in some tales about humans, instead of letting her die.

“I should have given you mouth-to-mouth breathing” She says, thinking out loud.

“What?” Andromache asks, confused.

“While I brought you to the superface, I should have given you mouth-to-mouth instead of letting you drown” She explains, in an apologizing way. 

“Don’t worry about it” Andromache dismisses it, like it is not a big deal. “Don’t feel bad, it was just what? Three more deaths? You did save after all” She expresses her opinion. 

It seems like her humor is a little dark and Quynh finds it endearing.

Andromache coughs again. She probably needs clean water and food after spending so many years without having anything. 

“Come on, you must be exhausted, I’ll take you to shore” She proposes. 

So Andromache climbs on her back and Quynh starts to swims. Quynh does it carefully, making sure to never dive deep so Andromache can keep breathing. It’s a hard and tiring task, it takes her a long time of the day, but the effort it’s worth it if it means her soulmate is safe. She takes her to the nearest desert beach. She leaves her on the shore, and then gets ready to go back to the depth of the ocean.

“Wait, please wait” Andromache calls her, when she realizes the other is starting to move away.

“What?” Quynh asks.

“Can I see you again?” Andromache requests.

“Why?” She asks, surprised about the request.

“Well, we dream about each other. I think that must mean something” Andromache tries to explain her point of view. “Don’t you want to figure it out?” She asks.

“Are you sure you want to see me again? Aren’t you scared of mermaids? l thought humans tell stories about us hypnotizing people with our singing and drowning them” She says, a little unsure about the situation.

“That’s sirens, not mermaids” Andromache corrects her. “What about you? Aren’t you scared of me? I’m the eternal warrior. There was a time I even was worshiped as god, you know?” She questions, in some kind of teasing way. 

“No, I’m not scared” She denies.

“Then prove it” Andromache challenges her.

“Fine, we can try” She accepts.

So they try…

Andromache builds herself a house on the beach. They see each other on every sunrise and every sunset. The rest of the day they continue with their normal lives. 

Quynh hadn’t thought it was possible to love Andromache more than she already did… But she starts realising she was very wrong. Spending time with Andromache is the best thing that has ever happened to her and she starts falling deeply in love with her, certain that she would love her even if they hadn’t been soulmates. She loves her with every fiber of her being, in every possible way.

Every moment they spend together is magical.

Like when Andromache teached her arching. 

“What is this?” She asks, looking at the objects the other is holding in her hands with wonder. She knows them, she has seen humans using them before, but she doesn’t remember their names.

“Bows and arrows, I'm going to teach you archery” Andromache answers her.

“You are?” She asks, surprised.

“Well you said you didn’t find sword fighting that much fun, so i thought maybe you would like to try something new” Andromache explains her idea.

“How am I supposed to do this when I can’t stand up like you?” She requests to know, still unsure about the idea.

“You do it sitting down” Andromache says with confidence.

Andromache spends all morning teaching her, until she can hit a target. She has to admit it was really fun. And some days, after practicing a lot, she learns to love it.

Another magical but unexpected moment, it’s when Andromache asks her to cut her hair.

“Are you sure?” Quynh asks, picking up the scissors nervously.

“I am” Andromache nods.

“Why do you want to cut it?” She needs to know, because she doesn’t want to do something the other may regret later.

“I’m tired of it, it’s so heavy and impractical. I want a change” Andromache expresses the reason for her choice.

“Fine” She finally  agrees. “But if you don’t like it, I won't take complains” She warns.

Quynh cuts her hair in the way the other has requests. When she finishes she’s astounded by how the hairstyle looks on the other. She’s so breathtakingly beautiful. She encourages herself and plays with it a little.

Another wonderful moment is their first kiss.

“I have a gift for you” Andromache tells her, with a smile on her face.

“What? Why?” Quynh asks, confused.

“Because you said that today it’s your birthday” Andromache reminds her.

“Ohhh…” She has forgotten humans have the habit of giving each other presents for birthdays, when for mer folks the habit was the other way around.

“Close your eyes” Andromache requests. “Do you trust me?” She asks, after they spend a long minute staring at each other.

“Yes” She nods.

“Then close your eyes” She repeats.

Quynh closes her eyes and waits for her present. Suddenly she can feel Andromache very near, invading her personal space. She takes a moment caressing her shoulders, her neck and her cheeks. And then, she is kissing her. 

Kissing Andromache is incredibly magnificent. It’s as if their lips were made just to be kissed by each other. It’s like they already know their moves, their tastes and what they like. It’s like breathing air for the first time. 

Another splendid moment is when she calls her “Andy” for the first time. 

“What?” She asks a little annoyed, the other has been staring at her for like a whole minute and never continues the conversation they were having.

“You called me Andy” Andromache finally says.

“Ohh, it’s just a nickname, like in a affectionate way” She tries to explain. “If you don’t like it…” 

“No” Andromache interrupts her very quickly. “I like it, you can call me Andy wherever you want” She assures. 

So she starts calling her Andy after that.

And so time goes by. And before they know they have spent decade after decade doing this, being together and apart in this way.

But, of course one day it has to come to an end. She should have known, she should have been ready… After all, how could it be possible for a human and a mermaid to be together forever?

“Have you ever heard of a goddess called Atargatis?” Andromache asks her.

“Her name seems familiar, but I don’t think so” Quynh denies. 

“Well, legends say she was the first mermaid. She’s a goddess of love and female fertility. They said that there’s an oasis in the middle of Sham desert where there is a temple for her and whoever is brave enough to sacrifice themselves in the search of it, the goddess would grant them a wish” Andromache relates her the story.

“I thought you didn’t believe in gods or goddesses” She says, surprised about the type of conversation. 

“Well maybe it’s time I do, so we can be together” Andromache tells her. 

“What do you mean?” She asks, confused.

“I can go there, I can sacrifice myself in the search because I’m immortal, I can wish for us to have a way to be really together” Andromache explains to her what she has been planning.

“I don’t think that’s smart, for you to go there alone” She expresses her disapproval. “What if you got hurt, or the goddess wants to remove your immortality as payment or is just not real?” She asks, not wanting to get excited about what it could mean. 

“But what if it’s real? Don’t you think we are worth trying it?” Andromache questions her. 

“I don’t know” She says sadly. “Don’t you think we are already good as we are?” She asks, fearing the negative possibility. 

“We are good” Andromache assures her. “But we could be better, we could be together forever, every time of the day, with nothing keeping us apart” She insists.

“I…” She doesn’t know what to say. The idea of not seeing Andromache for the time it takes her to do the quest hurts too much. “Andy don’t go” She asks.

“I have to. You may not believe our love is strong enough to survive this, but i do.” Andromache argues, very stubbornly. “Once I finish the quest, I’ll come back here.” She promises her.

Andromache gives her a kiss and then she’s gone.

Quynh is scared she won’t ever see her again and doesn’t know what to do without her. But at sunrise, Andromache is there, at the beach, once again.

“I thought you had left” Quynh tells her.

“I packed my things, but I wanted to say goodbye first” Andromache explains to her.

“Do you really have to go?” She asks, sadly.

“I do, this may be our only chance” Andromache answers. “I need you to trust me” She requests. 

“I do trust you” She assures her. “But, I don’t want to be apart from you” She expresses what troubles her.

“I don’t want to be apart from you either, that’s why I have to do this” Andromache insists, believing her decision is the best option they have. “I’m gonna be back as quick as I can” She promises her. 

Andromache gives her a long kiss goodbye. One that tastes like salt because of their tears. Is bittersweet and leaves her wanting more, but she lets her go.

All Quynh can do is wait. She waits and goes to their beach on every sunrise and every sunset, waiting for Andromache to come back.

While she waits she realises she’s scared. She fears Andy would find a mortal who would love her in all the ways she can’t. She fears Andy would die a lot of times and would suffer alone. She fears Andy could lose her immortality. 

Another thought creeping into her mind is that Andy might not really accept her the way she is and will try to take away her mermaid form... she knows that Andy might want to join her in the sea instead, and she doesn’t believe that her love would change her without asking her first, but she can’t silence the thoughts entirely.

She dreams of her and with every dream her fears turn off a little. Andy is really strong and she is trying to do this for them.

She dies five times in the desert. But like she sayed, it doesn’t totally matter. Not when she comes back to life again every time. 

It takes a year… And then, finally, Andy is back, at sunset time. She jumps directly into the sea and greets her with a passionate kiss. 

“Hey” Andromache says quietly, pressing soft kisses to her neck.

“Hey” Quynh says back. 

“I love you Quynh” Andromache confesses, looking right to her eyes. 

Andy loves her and knowing it makes her the happiest she’s ever been in her long life.

“I love you too Andy” She says, exploding with happiness and love. “I’m glad you are back” She admits, feeling relieved to be in the arms of the other woman again.

“Did you ever doubt I would?” Andromache asks, kinda teasing her.

“Maybe a little” She answers honestly. “So? How did the quest go?” She finally asks the important topic. 

“Well, I found the oasis, and the goddess conceived my wish” Andromache answers her, looking her intensely in her eyes. “You know why?” She asks.

“Because you gave your life founding the oasis” She answers, remembering the tale Andy had told her before going on the quest.

“Yes” Andromache nods. “And because apparently we are soulmates” She adds, looking at her intensely as she was trying to read her.

“Ah, that...” She trails off.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Andromache asks curiously, without judging her. 

“Because I didn’t want you to feel obligated to love me just because we’re soulmates” She answers genuinely, thinking it sounds a little silly now that she’s saying it out loud. 

“It would be impossible for me not to love you” Andromache tells her with so much confidence, that she believes her in every part of herself.

“So… how does the wish work?” She asks, bringing the conversation to that topic because she doesn’t want to get emotional.

Andromache looks at her with a tender smile, and then removes the pendant she’s wearing around her neck and gives it to her. 

“What does it mean?” She asks confused, checking the pendant.

“It’s a magic amulet, it’s made from cintamani and it grants a wish to whoever wears it” Andromache explains to her.

“What the wish would be?” She requests to know, still a little unsure.

“Well, I think it obvious, for the one of us who is wearing it at the moment to have legs on land and mermaid form on sea” Andromache tells her with confidence.

“You don’t want me to stop being a mermaid?” She asks, really surprised.

“No, of courte not, I love everything about you” Andromache assures her. “I just want the chance for us to be together” She adds, caressing her cheeks. 

Quynh kisses her. She hasn't thought it would be possible for her to love this woman more, but every time she thinks that, she is quickly proven wrong. It feels like everything Andromache does, it just makes her love her more and more. 

She feels so happy. She doesn’t know how to contain all those feelings in her body, so she just shows them. She kisses and caresses every part of Andromache’s body. 

When she feels satisfied, she puts the pendant around her neck. Then she grabs Andromache’s hand, so they can get out of the water. 

The first time she feels her legs is very strange, and she would have fallen if it wasn't for Andromache’s grip on her. 

Andromache teaches her to walk, takes her to all her favorite places and shows her everything about the mortal human world. Then they travel around the world together, meeting new places and sharing their love.

In return, Quynh shows her all the magical places and fantastic treasures the ocean hides in its depths. She teaches her to swim in her mermaid form and do different pirouettes. Also she introduces her to her friends and family.

Andromache has been right. To be together this way is even more wonderful. Thanks to the amulet Quynh can have human form at land and Andromache can have mermaid form at sea. This way they can share both of their worlds and always be together. 

So, yes. Maybe it is hard for someone like her, a mermaid, to have a human soulmate. But it is not impossible. They had found their way to be together and now they will be for all their eternal lives.

You can read it in ao3 too: here

[sebastiensbook]

Til The End

Prompt: Former lovers meet again after many years apart. Words: 1625 Pairing: Andy/Quynh Notes: zolotse- “my gold”, moya dusha- “my soul”

Read on Ao3 here (x)

-----------------------------

Joe, Nicky, and Nile would have her head for this. Since her immortality left, they had all been more cautious of her, trying to keep her out of harm’s way. They were all asleep now, Joe curled happily against Nicky’s back, Nile on her back in the other bed, leaving room for Andy. But Andy wasn’t sleeping. 

Her heart beat fast, loud enough that she could hear it in her ears like the drums of war, the rush feeling the same as if she were running into battle. But she was just walking down a long, empty cobblestone road, the only sound being the crickets and frogs hidden between old buildings with aging stone. 

Booker had found her- well, she had found Booker, and he’d called Copley to get in touch with Andy. When he spoke her name, it felt like all of time had finally stopped around her. Quynh. Her zolotse. 

She hadn’t wanted the others to know, not yet. They’d be overprotective, and Andy was just… so tired. Quynh could hate her for breaking her promise, for abandoning her to the sea for 500 years. Part of her hoped she did. She didn’t deserve Quynh’s forgiveness for giving up. 

She knew all too well that she was risking her now mortal life. If Quynh killed her now, she wouldn’t come back. She was fine with that. In fact, it seemed the most heavenly end to her too-long life, to be looking into the eyes of the woman who had held her heart for centuries. 

Andy stared at the old barn, with one of it’s doors hanging off a hinge and a part of the wall simply torn out. From the end of the dirt path, she could see Booker standing in the doorway, giving her a small wave. 

Every step to him, to the barn where Quynh would be, felt like another decade. His soft greeting was hushed by the rush in her ears, but she hugged him back tightly all the same. 

“She’s inside, I’ll take you-” 

“No. I want to go alone.” 

Booker hesitated, stepping back from Andy to give her space, his eyes worried. “Are you sure? I… Andy, I don’t want you to get hurt, in case she was lying to me.” 

“I’m sure, Book.” Andy gave him a soft, genuine smile, putting her palm to his scruffy cheek. “No matter what happens, I chose this. And if it’s my time… Tell the others that I’m sorry I couldn’t give them a proper goodbye, and that I have letters for them hidden in the silver box on the fireplace.”

Booker’s eyes told of a million unspoken things as he held Andy’s bittersweet gaze. Finally, he broke it, giving a small nod as he swallowed thickly. “I will.” 

Andy gave him a soft thank you as she pulled away, turning and walking into the dark barn. She could see the flickering lantern light coming from the hayloft. Taking a breath, she began ascending the worn ladder, time seeming to slow down to a painstaking crawl. 

There she was. Turned away from her, sitting on the only still assembled hay bale, a small dagger being twirled in her hands as she seemed to examine it, lost in thought. She didn’t look up as Andy stepped up onto the slightly groaning wood. 

She seemed somehow even more beautiful than Andy could remember. Like a newly sharpened sword glimmering in the light. Andy stepped forward as Quynh slowly stood, not breaking her gaze from the blade. “Quynh…” Her voice was barely a whisper, a desperate choke of her name. As those calculating dark eyes fell onto her, Andy felt her entire being shake with a helplessness and a surrender to the woman. She felt her knees hit the wood, but nothing else mattered as she stared into Quynh’s eyes. 

“Andromache.” Quynh’s voice was soft in volume, but Andy could hear the hurt louder than any explosion. “It’s been a long time.” 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Quynh.” Andy’s voice shook, but she pressed on, “I tried, for decades, we spent at least fifty years solely trying to find you or a way to find you. We just… We couldn’t. And I know it’s not an excuse, I know that I should have kept searching, and believe me, I would have walked the entire earth and died every death for you, but I couldn’t ask that of Joe and Nicky. I couldn’t leave them, either.” She had to take in a shaky breath, looking down a moment to blink back tears so that she could still see Quynh. “I regretted it every day.” 

Quynh listened with no emotion on her face, hiding it well behind her facade as she always had, but Andy could see the miniscule cracks of her mask. The twitch of her mouth, the way she looked down for a moment as she blinked, the slight stutter in her breath. “I had thought that you simply forgot about me. That you didn’t care.” Quynh stepped forward, casting a shadow over Andy as she loomed above her, the dagger lifting slightly towards Andy. “I wondered how you could be so cruel to leave me to die, over and over, chained in a box to drown. I wondered if everything you said had simply been a lie.” 

Andy felt the sharp tip of the blade against her lifted chin, but she wasn’t afraid. “I never lied to you. I broke my promise, but I never lied.” Quynh was silent for a moment. “I saw Booker shoot you. Your wound did not heal.” The blade pressed into Andy’s skin, though not quite enough to break it. “And I wondered… If you should be punished for my fate.”

Andy’s lips upturned slightly, and she couldn’t help the small, sad, bitter laugh that escaped her. “Oh, Zolotse, I was. Every day without you was worse than dying. I thought of you often, and it felt like my soul was being ripped apart, longing for you.” Andy’s hands gently wrapped around Quynh’s hand, slowly guiding the blade down to her heart. She reveled in the warmth of Quynh’s skin, in the slight confusion in Quynh’s eyes. “When I realized that I was mortal, it felt as if Atlas had the world taken from his shoulders. I would finally be released from an eternity without moya dusha.” “You are selfish.” Quynh’s voice was hard, the hiss of a serpent. “You would have left me in the ocean forever.” 

“I know that I don’t deserve your forgiveness. You can kill me, slow and torturously, make me feel every pain that you had.” Andy was so genuine that it threw Quynh off a moment. As Andy’s hands fell away to give Quynh full control again, she gave a request she knew may not be given. “I only ask that you might grant me one last kiss.”

The air seemed still, like the universe had stopped moving completely in that moment. Quynh’s mask was breaking, her anger and pain and hurt all showing as tears finally broke, barely visible in the darkness. Andy kept her eyes on Quynh until the blade’s swift swipe across her cheek caused her to break her gaze. 

That familiar warmth blossomed, slowly dripping down Andy’s face until a couple dropped splashed onto the floor. She could tell that it was just barely deep enough to leave a scar if it healed. Quynh’s hand was as quick and steady as it had been 500 years ago, her aim just as perfect. 

Before she had time to even properly feel the pain, she heard the knife clatter against the wood. “I hate you,” Quynh hissed, falling to her knees so she was level with Andy, who looked back at her only with love and reverence. Her hands went to Andy’s face, her thumb rubbing over the gash, making the woman grunt in pain. “You are the most cruel woman in the entire world.” 

Andy could see the tears streaking down Quynh’s cheeks, even in the shadow of her silhouetted face. She could hear the despair in her voice, so similar to how she had sounded as Lykon laid dying, his wounds unhealing. “I am only thankful that fate allowed me to see you one more time,” she whispered. “And I truly hope that you may find only peace and happiness in the coming years. I am ready, Quynh.” Using Quynh’s native tongue, as she often had in their most tender shared moments, she said, “My love will stay with you.”

It was what finally shattered the remaining pieces of Quynh’s mask. Andy was suddenly flung back by the force of the other woman’s body against hers. She only just managed to catch herself before she toppled over, quickly moving forwards again to steady them as she felt the warmth of Quynh’s lips. She could feel her nails digging into her shoulder blades hard enough to break skin, but she didn’t care at all as she kissed Quynh back with the fervor of five centuries of longing. Her arms slipped around Quynh’s slender waist as naturally as the shadow to the moon, her fingers clinging to the fabric of Quynh’s dress as though it could prevent her from ever disappearing again. 

As Quynh finally pulled away, Andy opened her eyes to see her expression of bittersweet sadness. “It is not the end. You promised. You and me, until the end.” Quynh pressed another kiss, a softer, slower kiss to her lips. “You won’t leave me again, Andromache. I will make sure of that.” 

The quiet determination in Quynh’s voice would convince Andy to step into molten lava. Staring at her love with tenderness, she smiled. “I swear it.”

[bitchin-beskar]

A Warrior’s Death

Fandom: The Old Guard

Rating: T (mentions of temporary character death)

Word Count: 810

A/N: So, this is probably the shortest thing I’ve ever written, but oh boy did I have fun writing it. This is, once again, pure crack.

Tags: @the-killer-queenie @perropascal

Inspired by: @immortalwarriors

Dedicated to: @acolorandafeeling ehehehe

Let me know if you’d liked to be tagged in any of my works!

Please consider liking and reblogging! I love the feedback!

Andromache didn’t talk about her life before she became immortal.

She was old, older than all of the others, by many, many years. She was the first, before Nile, and Booker, and Joe, and Nicky, and Lykon, and Quynh. She’d been alone for many years before she came across Quynh, and she’d always had a hardened exterior. She didn’t talk about her past, with anyone. 

Sure, her family had tried. But there was nothing they could do to make her talk, no drink that could loosen her tongue. One benefit of being immortal. Her tolerance for alcohol was unparalleled. She could get drunk, but not drunk enough to ever lose control of her faculties. 

But the one thing Andy hadn’t counted on, was turning mortal. 

So after Booker brought Quynh back into their lives, less than a year into his exile, and after they decided it was probably not a smart decision to make the man prone to depression and suicide spend one-hundred years in exile, Nile had innocently suggested they get drinks to celebrate the reunion of their family. Booker knew a good bar, and before they knew it, they were each three drinks in, and they were starting to realize something was wrong with Andy. 

She was giggling. While that, in of itself wasn’t too strange, Andy almost never acted so cavalier in public. She was stoic, closed-off, cold even. But giggling? It was practically unheard of. It wasn’t until she almost slid off her seat that the others realized what had happened. 

Andy was drunk. Honest-to-god drunk. And apparently, she was a giggly drunk. She was half laying on Quynh, pressing sloppy kisses to the woman’s cheek. While Quynh looked a little uncomfortable at the public displays of affection, she carried a small smile on her lips, subtly leaning into her other half, grounding herself. 

Nile was less confused than the others since she hadn’t spent nearly as much time with Andy as Nicky, and Joe, and Booker, and even Quynh had. While the others looked slightly worried, Nile’s mind was already racing with questions. Andy never wanted to talk about her past while sober, but maybe–

“Hey, Andy?”

The woman in question looked over at Nile, a somewhat dopey look on her face. “Yeah, what’s up?” She apparently found her own question hilarious, as she fell into another fit of giggles. 

Nicky was looking at Nile, a cautious look in his eyes, but Nile just winked. “I can’t remember if you’ve ever told me, but how did you die the first time?”

Booker coughed on his drink, and Joe inhaled sharply. Normally, Andy would clam up, refusing to speak on the matter, and depending on her mood, she wouldn’t talk to the person who’d asked for at least a week. 

But tonight, it was different.

“Oh, it’s not that interesting, really,” she offered, taking a big swig of her drink. “I always expected a warrior’s death, you know? Die in combat, fighting till the very end!” She slammed her cup back on the table, some of the liquid spilling out. “But nooo, that’s not how Andromache of Scythia goes. Nope.” 

Joe and Nicky are wide-eyed, and both Booker and Nile are leaning forward on the table in anticipation. “So, what happened?” Nile asked excitedly.

Andy didn’t look like she was going to answer, but then, surprisingly, Quynh spoke up. “Yes, my love, tell us,” she crooned, pressing a kiss into Andy’s hair. 

Andy sighed dramatically. “Well,” she began, blinking rapidly. “We’d just won a battle. My commander had ordered exotic foodstuffs from what’s now Southeast Asia for us to consume. She’d heard that plantains helped bolster those who ate them, made them stronger, harder to defeat in battle.” Andy laughed despairingly. “How was I supposed to know my body would reject it?” She shook her head.

Nile looked over at Nicky, surprised to see his face was bright red from trying to hold in his laughter. Booker wasn’t in any better condition, and Joe had covered his face with his hands. Quynh was looking at Andy strangely, and Nile felt like she was missing something. 

“Um, guys? What’s a plantain?” 

Andy threw her hands up at Nile’s words. “I died, choking to death on a fruit, of all things!” She banged her forehead on the table. “Truly, it was mortifying.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Nicky, Booker, and Joe lost it. They all howled with laughter, their whole bodies shaking with the force of their guffaws. Nile was still a little lost, and Quynh just looked like she almost wished she were still in an Iron Maiden under the sea, if only to be away from them again.

“Seriously! What’s a plantain?”It was Nicky who answered her, amidst loud cackles.

“I–It’s, It’s a–a, It’s a banana! She died, choking on a banana!” 

[bestillmyslashyheart]

under the sea pt 2

part one

Yusuf

Air. There was air.

He sucked in lungfuls of it greedily. Hands clutched at him, grasping tightly. It was Nicolo, he knew, but he couldn’t see him. It was too bright. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolo cried. He hunched over Yusuf, his head blocking the worst of the sun, and suddenly Yusuf could see him.

“Amore mio,” he croaked. His throat was fine, as healed as the rest of him, but it was like the muscles had forgotten how to form words. Nicolo didn’t seem to mind though, his smile wide and bright even as his eyes watered. Yusuf lifted a hand to his cheek, Nicolo’s eyes falling shut, and gently wiped away the tears. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure what language it came out in. “You found me.”

Nicolo sagged on top of him in relief. “I found you,” he whispered back. 

Two new hands grabbed his head. Yusuf jerked, his position lying prone on the floor with Nicolo holding him in place not allowing him much movement, and the sun was back in his eyes. He squeezed them tightly and trusted that Nicolo wouldn’t let anyone hurt him. A moment later soft lips pressed to his forehead and stayed there. A drop of water hit his nose. “Do not ever do that again,” a woman whispered in his own language, one he had not heard in centuries except from Nicolo’s lips.

Yusuf tried to shade his face from the sun in order to see. When he realized what was happening, Nicolo moved to block the light entirely and suddenly Yusuf could see Andromache’s face upside over his. “Andromache,” he greeted weakly, trying to smile.

Andromache smiled, her eyes watery. “Hello, Yusuf,” she said. “It is very good to see you.”

Yusuf reached a hand out to his left, Andromache’s right, where he knew Quynh must be. He was rewarded with two hands clutching him tightly. “You are the most beautiful things I have ever seen,” he told them honestly, his eyes drifting back to Nicolo as he spoke. 

“Let’s get you below deck,” Quynh offered. She picked over the words slowly, the sounds unfamiliar in her mouth though Yusuf knew she spoke his language fluently. She and Andromache moved back slightly and let Nicolo help him to his feet. Yusuf was unsteady on his feet but Nicolo held him surely, his arm clamped tightly around his waist, and Yusuf had no troubles leaning heavily on him as they made their way down into the blessedly dark cabins below deck. 

A wave of exhaustion crashed over him all of a sudden, his already unsteady steps becoming even more of a hindrance until Nicolo swept him off his feet into his arms and carried him the rest of the way. “I am tired Nicolo,” he murmured.

“Sleep,” Nicolo urged. “I will be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?”

“Always.”

Andy

Nicky disappeared into a cabin, Yusuf clutched carefully in his arms, and Andy hesitated only a moment before following. Quynh grabbed her hand and for a moment Andy feared she would try to hold her back but Quynh only squeezed tightly and walked next to her as they followed Nicky. 

Yusuf was laying on the bunk when they stepped into the cabin. Next to him, Nicky was stripping out of his wetsuit as fast as he possibly could, his eyes fixed on the man on the bed. 

“You need clothes,” Quynh noted. 

“They are on the other ship,” Nicky told her absently. He stripped completely before climbing into bed with Yusuf, his arms around him and his ear pressed to his chest. Nicky’s head moved up and down with the rise and fall of Yusuf’s breathing and Andy found herself mesmerized by it. 

“I will find them both something to wear,” Quynh touched her arm lightly. Andy nodded in acknowledgement but barely noticed when she left the small room. 

Yusuf was okay. They had found him. He was back where he belonged. 

It only took them five hundred years. Half of his life so far. 

Andy had given up. She’d known he was down there and she had given up. Andy buried her face in her hands to smother a sudden sob.

“Stop.” Nicky’s voice was loud in the silence of the room. Andy lifted her head to find him unmoved, his eyes closed as he listened to Yusuf’s heartbeat. “It is done. He is here. There is no point in worrying over the past now. It will not do him any good.”

Andy blinked away a few tears and forced herself to speak. “It’s not that easy.” She was the leader. It was her job to keep them all safe and she’d failed. Even worse, she’d walked away.

“Make it that easy,” Nicky countered. “All that matters is moving forward, Andromache.” He held out one of his hands to her, his eyes still closed. Andy moved to her knees next to the bed and took it. Nicky squeezed briefly and then brought their joined hands to the center of Yusuf’s chest and Andy could feel the life in him. His skin was warm, his chest moved with his every breath, his heart beat soundly under her hand. Yusuf was alive. “He is here,” he said again. “He has been gone from the world a long time,” he added. “As have I. We will need you to teach us what we have missed.”

They needed her. Both of them. Andy swallowed and nodded. She’d failed them both before, but never again. “I will,” she promised solemnly.

Quynh

Quynh wasn’t quite sure how but by the time she got back above deck, the two ships were pressed close together and joined by a gangplank. Rather than questioning either captain, she brushed past everyone and crossed to the other ship. “Where are his quarters?” One of the crew leads her to a small bunk that could have been anyone’s were it not for the two swords laying in the corner. Quynh gathered the few items that were not in the bag and stuffed them inside before grabbing it and the weapons and leaving the terrible room behind. 

No one stopped her or tried to speak to her as she crossed back to the other ship. Everyone seemed to have plenty of tasks to keep them busy though Quynh knew the second she was out of sight again, the work would stagger to a halt and the chatter would tick up.

“Quynh,” Nile stopped her with a hand on her arm. Quynh turned to her, a small amount of guilt welling up inside for having completely forgotten about the girl in the light of recent events. “Is Yusuf okay?”

Quynh smiled. New though she may be, Nile had a big heart and had clearly already welcomed Yusuf into it. “He will be,” she promised. “It will take time but he will be. Nicky will make sure of it.” She paused. “And so will we.” Nile nodded and took half a step back as if to separate herself from Quynh and the others. Quynh stopped her with a firm grip on her shoulder. “All of us. We are a team and a family and we will make sure Yusuf is okay. That includes you, Nile.”

Nile straightened her shoulders and nodded. “And Booker?”

There was that big heart again, Quynh mused. “That is up to Nicky.” She lifted the bag. “They need clothes.” Nile blinked as if seeing the bag for the first time and quickly moved out of Quynh’s way.

“Oh yeah, of course, sorry.”

“He is sleeping,” Quynh told her. “We should be ready to move by the time we get back to the port.” 

“I’ll get us moving,” Nile promised.

Quynh touched her arm in thanks and hurried back to the cabin. Inside, she paused briefly at the sight of Andy on her knees, her hand pressed to Yusuf’s chest and her head on top of Nicky’s, before closing the door to ensure their privacy.

Andy turned around at the sound and Quynh saw the tears still in her eyes. Nicky didn’t move. 

“I brought your stuff,” Quynh told him. Nicky didn’t react. “He’s still wet, Nicolo,” she reminded him gently. Nicky’s eyes shot open like he hadn’t noticed the wet cloth under his cheek. 

He looked from the bag in Quynh’s hand to Yusuf and back but he didn’t move. Quynh wasn’t sure he’d be moving anytime soon, truthfully. 

She dropped the bag to the floor and started going through it. Thankfully, Nicky was an organized packer and she found a full set of clothes rather quickly. Andy took it from her and handed them over to Nicky while Quynh kept searching for a second pair. When she found it, some sweats and a large t-shirt, something warm and comfortable, she stood up only to find Nicky struggling into his clothes as best he could without leaving Yusuf’s side.

“Nicolo,” she said quietly. Nicky’s movements paused. “Take a moment. It is alright.”

Nicky closed his eyes. If Quynh didn’t know him any better she’d say he looked like he was praying. After a moment he climbed out of the bed and pulled on the rest of his clothes with his newfound freedom of movement. As soon as he left Yusuf’s side, Quynh took over. She sat down next to Yusuf and pressed her hand to his chest and felt his heartbeat strong under her touch. Her shoulders sagged as the undeniable finally registered. She’d held his hand and heard his voice on the deck earlier but it still hadn’t quite seemed real until this moment. Quynh pressed a firm kiss to his forehead and raked her hand through his hair. It was longer and wilder than she remembered. 

Nicky and Andy let her have a moment but when she stood up, they moved in. Andy grabbed his shoulders to sit him up and Quynh reached out to steady him. “Nicolo,” he murmured, the movement waking him up.

“I am here, my love,” Nicky replied. Or at least, Quynh was fairly certain that’s what he’d said. There was a time when all of them had been equally fluent in each other’s native languages but Quynh hadn’t had the chance to practice Yusuf’s in a long time and her memory wasn’t as good as Andy’s when it came to the subject. Nicky seemed to have no trouble with it, though, murmuring soft words in his lilting accent. Together, they pulled the tattered remains of Yusuf’s shirt from him. Andy ran one of Nicky’s shirts over his back and chest to try and dry him off a little bit and then Nicky was helping Yusuf into the shirt Quynh had laid out. 

“Your accent is terrible,” Yusuf mumbled halfway through, as he always did when Nicky spoke his language. Nicky choked out a wet laugh. 

“My accent is romantic,” he countered, as Quynh knew he would. Yusuf leaned forward and pressed his forehead into Nicky’s neck, his hands clutching at his hair lazily in his sleepy movements. Nicky’s eyes closed and he clutched Yusuf back with shaky hands. 

Quynh shared a look with Andy and they came to a silent agreement. Without a word, they rose to their feet and slipped out of the room.

Nile

They needed to get back to land, that much Nile knew. But two entire ships full of people had just seen Nicky come back to life not to mention three people had gone into the water and four had come out. 

There would be questions, there had to be. And Nile had no idea how to answer them or how to contain this.

The second Quynh disappeared below deck, the frantic movement on both ships stuttered to a halt, everyone’s attention on the closed door and who lay behind it. 

“So,” the captain of the ship Nile, Andy, and Quynh had come out here on came up next to her. Nile waited but he didn’t say anything else. A moment later, the captain of the other ship came up on her other side.

“So,” he too said. 

They looked at each other over her head and Nile was surprised to see smiles on their faces. They both turned slightly giddy a moment later until they were breathless with laughter.

Nile stepped back to stare at them both. “What?”

“We found him,” one of them said. 

“Holy shit, we actually found him,” the other replied.

“What?” 

They turned to her. “Yusuf. We found Yusuf.”

Nile stared at the man who captained Nicky’s ship. “Wait. You knew?” She blinked and turned to the other man. “And you?”

They nodded. The man to her left looked over at his ship with a fond gaze. “We’ve been looking for him for a long time.”

“I don’t understand.”

The man on her right gestured between himself and the other man. “Our ancestors were on the ship that put him in the water,” he explained. “Ever since then, our families have been looking for him.”

Nile tried to process that. “But why? If your ancestors…”

They laughed. “Nicky’s very persuasive.” One of them shrugged. “I mean, in recent generations we wanted to help obviously. Once Nicky proved what he could do and we knew there was someone trapped, we had to help, but before that…”

“Let’s just say there’s a reason we’re the only two left?” 

Nile could read between the lines just fine. Nicky had made his way through the crew of the men who sealed Yusuf in his coffin and dumped him overboard until he found men willing to help him look. She assumed willing was a generous term. Just as she assumed those who weren’t didn’t have any descendents to help Nicky look. 

One of them clapped a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You’re new to all of this, aren’t you?” Nile only nodded. “You’ll get used to it. We all did.” He gestured to their combined crews. “Come on. We’ll head back to port now. You might want to get some rest until we get there.” 

Nile watched him go, watched the crews spring into actual action, and the two ships separated before turning back towards shore. After a moment where she only felt in the way, Nile made her way below deck, wary of intruding. She found Andy and Quynh in the first room she came across. It was a small break room and Nile helped herself to some coffee before sitting down next to them. “How are you two doing?”

“It’s, uh,” Andy laughed. “It’s been an interesting day.”

Quynh smiled. “We’ll be okay.” 

Nile took her word for it and let the rest of their journey pass in comfortable silence. When the captain came down to tell them they had docked, Nile let Andy shepherd her upstairs while Quynh relayed the news to Nicky and Yusuf.

They made their way off the ship and into a nearby coffee shop before Quynh joined them. Nile was halfway through her iced coffee when she spotted the two men. They were moving slowly across the deck of the ship, Nicky holding Yusuf tightly though it didn’t look like Yusuf needed the aid anymore. Nile watched as they made their way off the ship and shuffled along the pier. She’d look away if Andy and Quynh weren’t also fixed on the sight.

When the men were close enough to hear, Yusuf stepped out of Nicky’s grasp and held his arms out. His lips quirked in a rakish smile and he said something in that language that Nile didn’t know. There was a single beat, a moment where time seemed to stand still, and then both Andy and Quynh were on their feet, their chairs shoved back by the motion, and they were rushing into Yusuf’s arms. He wrapped his arms around them both as best he could as they clutched at him tightly. Behind him, Nile saw Nicky put his hands on Yusuf’s hips and his forehead into the back of his head. She wasn’t sure Nicky had actually stopped touching him yet. 

She pulled out her phone and took a picture of the four of them. Andy and Quynh had stressed the importance of not leaving a trail but Nile didn’t think they’d care in this case. She hesitated only a moment before sending it to Booker, no message attached.

His response came just a moment later: I’m glad.

“Nile.”

Nile looked up at her name to see Yusuf standing next to her. She jumped to her feet. “Hi.”

He smiled. “I have seen you in my dreams.” His English was halting, like he’d forgotten it, but his voice was warm and wrapped around her like a hug. A moment later, his arms followed the way of his voice and he pulled her close. Their hug didn’t last nearly as long as the others’ did but Nile felt grateful for it. 

“It’s really nice to meet you,” she told him honestly.

Nicky

Yusuf balked at the hotel. He’d watched the women walk in and taken a full step back, his eyes wide. Nicky saw it, because Nicky hadn’t looked away from him for a single moment yet, and led him away. Somehow they’d found themselves at the end of the pier, nothing before them but the shimmering blue water.

Nicky would very happily never go near the ocean ever again. Just the sight of it turned his stomach even though Yusuf was standing next to him. 

Yusuf was standing next to him.

It would take some time to adjust to. In the meantime, Nicky refused to apologize for being clingy. He let Yusuf stare out at the water and attached himself to his back, his arms wrapping around Yusuf’s waist. They would need to cut his hair. And give him a bath. But Nicky didn’t care about any of that right now.

“I never stopped looking for you,” he murmured in Yusuf’s Arabic. It was an antiquated version of the modern language with a distinct regional dialect that Nicky hadn’t let himself forget. It had been centuries since he’d been able to truly speak it with another person, since Andy had stopped responding to him in it, but it was still fresh on his tongue. 

“I know,” Yusuf replied. “I have had my dreams, Nicolo. They were brief and far between but I saw you. In Booker’s eyes and in Nile’s. I knew you were coming for me. I just had to be patient.”

“I’m sorry I took so long.”

Yusuf turned in his arms and cupped Nicky’s face gently. “Do not apologize. I do not want to hear that word from your lips.” Nicky might have protested, might have reminded Yusuf just how long Nicky had taken to find him, just how long Yusuf had had to suffer because Nicky wasn’t better at searching, but Yusuf kissed him and Nicky didn’t care about words anymore.

It was a terrible kiss.

It had been half a millennia since either one of them had had a kiss and they’d clearly forgotten a few things.

Nicky could not have cared less. He certainly wasn’t planning to pull away any time soon and from the way Yusuf was pressing up against him, neither did he. After a while, his lungs burned with the need to breathe but Nicky ignored it. If he died from suffocation from kissing Yusuf, it would be worth it.

Eventually, though, Yusuf pulled away. He was panting lightly, his eyes wide open as he sucked in gasps of air. After a moment, his breathing evened out and he smiled. “Hello, love.”

Nicky kissed him again, this time making sure to pull back before they got too far. It was a bit like riding a bike, the familiar motions coming back to them the longer they kissed. There was a time when Nicky knew Yusuf’s lips better than anything and if he didn’t remember, he was certainly going to enjoy learning them all over again.

Eventually, they slowed to a stop until they were simply sharing breath. The sun set behind them and the night air cooled around them and they didn’t move. “Why the pier?” Nicky asked. 

“There is wind. And the sun was high in the sky,” Yusuf answered. “And I can see the water below me. I am above it. I am not there anymore.”

“No,” Nicky promised earnestly. “You are not. And you never will be again.”

“Will you protect me?”

“Always,” Nicky promised. 

He could only hope desperately that he would be able to keep his promise this time.

[randomingoftherandomness]

After a death and return Booker has memory problems. Amnesiac Booker with Joe/Booker/Nicky

A/N: Non-linear Narrative

--

               'Time goes by so slowly, and time can do so much. Are you still mine?'

The one with the head of the loveliest curls says his name is Joe and the man with the cut glass eyes beside him is Nicky.

They smile twin curls of lips that are simultaneously brittle and sorrowful whle being happy. How these men could manage that, he doesn’t know but it seems to mean something to them when they come and sit by his side, taking turns reading aloud to him from books that he is told should trigger some memory or recollection but all it does is make him cry, longing and heartbroken for some inexplicable reason when they leave.

He rubs at the back of his head.

“Does it still hurt?” The man called Nicky asks, pale eyes raking over him with concern.

“No, I am fine, thank you,” He answers. They had told him that his name was Sebastien and called him Booker. He doesn’t know which is which.

These are strangers to him, even if they feel familiar. Especially these two men. When their hands had brushed together, it had sparked something in him that brokered a glimpse of laughter and warmth of naked limbs covered with a sheen of cooling sweat. It had made him blush. Something the two men had clearly noticed but never commented upon. 

A doctor had come round the day before and had given him a clean bill of health but when asked on when his memories would return to him, the man had all but shrugged and told the two women - Andy and Nile, his brain helpfully supplies - who were in the room with them that there could be a chance he never remembers a thing at all.

For some strange reason, when the man had said it, it felt a lot like relief that spread through his chest.

                                                                                  'God speed your love to me'

It is raining and the chill crawls up his spine uncomfortably. He curls in on himself under the blanket, turning into himself. It’s just rain but it feels too much like a half-formed thing that sticks to his skin tempestously.

There should be something. He blinks slowly, eyes fixed on the empty walls. Something that connects in his brain through that fog that veils him from whatever murky depths he cannot access.

“Are you awake?”

He lets his breath even out through the pain that blossom at the back of his head. “No,” He answers softly. “No, I’m not.”

Where was he? 

When was he?

What was he?

“Do you want to talk about it?” He hears over his shoulder. It sounds like one of the men had come in to watch him again - likely the one with the warmest brown eyes that make his heart skip a beat and his stomach turn sourly.

“Will you ever let me leave?”

There was no answer that could be heard over the patter of the rain and that, in itself, was an answer enough. 

                ‘Lonely rivers flow. To the sea, to the sea. To the open arms of the sea’

He turns and sees nothing but blood.

Hands hold him down as he screams himself hoarse and he wants to run and hide and tell them no, no, no, no I didn’t say anything I died rather than say anything I love you I loved you I have loved you I hate you because I love you leave me now that you know--

A fist to his cheek stoppers the hysteria that wraps itself around his heart and lungs and his broken voice slithers on a whimper. Hot tears make thin rivers down his cheeks and the hands turn gentle on his skin, arms wrapping around him as he chokes on all the words that die on his tongue. 

                                                                          ‘I'll be coming home, wait for me’

The radio clicks and he pulls himself up to a seated position. Mid-morning sunlight absolutely drenches the room in warmth. He lifts his hand to rub at the back of his head. Taking a minute just to breathe through the sleep warmed way he feels absolutely contented to be here. 

"You're awake."

He turns, smiling at the man who walks in with a tray of food. The man hesitates for a beat before coming closer to set his things at the foot of the bed. 

"How are you feeling?"

"Good," He answers, looking around the room. It's a nice room with not much else in it besides the bed he is on, a writing desk and chair, unadorned walls that tell him nothing about what sort of person would be owner of such a place. Something prickles at the back of his mind. Something he should remember but cannot. He turns to the man who was now watching him with an interest that could only be termed as hopeful. "I'm sorry but where are we?" 

The man’s warm brown eyes turn resigned and downcast. He seems to take a moment to steady himself before smiling sadly over at him. “You’re home, Sebastien.”

                                        ‘Oh, my love, my darling, I've hungered, for your touch’

The radio clicks and whirs and settles in a soft crackle of static that breaks through the night time quiet. 

He pushes himself to a seated position, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet touching the cold floor, toes wriggling as he leeches warmth to the ground. He makes to stand, only to crumple into a heap of uncoordinated limbs. 

He waits there for a minute. Ears straining to hear any sort of indication that there was anyone who had been paying attention. Flopping to his back, he lays there, eyes drawn to the way the shadows play on the ceiling and the song that lingers softly in the air from the radio. 

His heart gives a quick thump against his ribs. He doesn’t belong here. Not with these people who look at him with sadness and hope that he cannot understand. He cannot belong to them. How could he when he does not even know who he is? They named him but they have done little else to tell him who he was. 

Sebastien. Booker. Sebastien, who sounded like he could run to the edges of the world just to throw himself over. Booker who sounded like the man who crawled back out.

Which of them was he?

The door creaks open and Nile quickly helps him back up into bed. “What were you doing?” She asks, her voice threaded with worry. Out of the four of them, hers is the presence he finds easiest to bear. 

“Do I need to get Joe and Nicky?” She asks again, hand cupping his cheek gently and anchoring him here in the present. He shakes his head. Nile seems to wrestle with something in her but whichever part wins out, he does not know. “It’s been a few days but do you think you can remember anything? About yourself? Or us?”

She tangles her hand in his and he wants for some sweet moment to tell her yes, but all he can offer is another slow shake of head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Nile says. Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears. “It will happen when it happens.”

“And if it doesn’t?” If it never, hangs taut in the air between them.

She leans in, brushing her lips to his brow. “Then it doesn’t. And we build a new relationship from the ground up.” It sounds easy when she says it like that and he desperately wants to believe it.

“Who are they to me? Andy? Joe and Nicky? You?” He asks, hands holding on to her. “Why do you all feel so painful to me?”

“Maybe because we were pretty stupid. All of us,” Nile offers with a wet laugh. He ponders on that, wiping away her tears. 

“Why do Joe and Nicky make me feel like my heart could stop everytime they are near? What do they mean to me?"

"That," Nile says. "Is for them to tell you."

'Are you still mine?'

Booker wakes slowly.

He stares at the wall, watching the way the morning light drips on the wallpaper he had chosen for this room. Licking shafts of light like molten gold.

He searches his mind, digging his fingers into the soft fog in his mind and tearing it apart. There comes the patches of memories that spill in fragments - he was shot in the head, his brain didn't heal properly, he lost time, his family were downstairs.

Joe and Nicky were downstairs.

The thought curls something warm in his heart that refuses to sour with longing or regret. They came for him, he remembers, they dragged him out of that shit show of bullets and blood and brought him here to this house where they had spent so much of their time together in those early haze of days when they'd first asked him if he would want to be with them.

They came, he reminds himself, and that is all that matters.

'Unchained Melody' peters off into a happy jingle before Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time' starts up.

He pushes himself to a seated position, looking around his room. He'd not done much decorating in this room but he hadn't spent as much time here as he had in Joe and Nicky's. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he places his feet firmly and goes to a stand, wobbling a little before balancing. Booker takes a step. And then another until he reaches the door.

Turning the knob, he steps out of the room. Ready to see them again.

[gamebird]

Writing example

I’m sharing one of the bigger changes that came between drafts for the latest chapter for the TOG story Integration. The earlier draft started with what was basically explanatory exposition, mostly for my use and reference as the author rather than meant to tell the readers about the story unfolding. As such, it’s all narrative voice and even the dialogue was reduced to narration. You can compare and contrast to the expanded version as I revisited it and revised.

Earlier draft:

The house Nicky and Joe rented in Malta didn’t look like a lot from the outside, but Nile was fine with that. It was better that way, given they wouldn’t stick out from the other similar little houses that lined the ridge, belonging to working class, permanent residents of the island. It was too long a walk for tourists to comfortably get to market and not far enough for those wealthy enough to be able to afford true isolation. Nicky and Joe had made the arrangements while the rest of them bought the supplies they’d listed.

The long walk up the hill toward the address was occasion for Andy to complain about the lack of kinyins (or something pronounced like that), which she explained to be ‘like an onager, but not so stubborn’ and ‘they quit using them once horses came into vogue. That was … that was before Quynh. So. I guess a long time ago.’ She guessed, Nile thought with humor. Some pack animal three or four thousand years extinct and Andy casually dropped that into conversation as something she missed. Nile wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to this. Or that she wanted to.

What was important here for me was to establish that the characters have moved (or are moving) from location A to location B. Location B will serve as the stage for a lot of future chapters so it’s worth describing and especially necessary for me to know it inside and out. But while the reader needs to know some stuff, they don’t need or likely even want the details, and definitely don’t want the details like a travel description. They want to know how it effects the characters. In this case, Nile is the point of view character, so on the rewrite, it gets told through her perceptions.

Revised draft:

“What we need are a pair of kinyins,” Andy said over her shoulder as they trudged up the hill toward the house Nicky and Joe had rented. The ones they had passed to start with had been nice ones – obviously marketed to tourists – but the further they went, the more plain-looking they got. Some of the ones up ahead were downright shabby.

“What are those?” Nile asked.

“Like an onager, but not so stubborn.”

Nile looked over at Booker, who was walking next to her. He gave her a small shrug to show he didn’t know what Andy was talking about either. Nile knew an onager was some kind of donkey or antelope. There was also a weapon named after it, something old, maybe a catapult or bolt-thrower. But Andy was probably talking about the pack animal.

They were each carrying about ten kilos of food in sacks instead of packs because they just didn’t have packs. They’d left France with nothing but what they were carrying, leaving a cranky Copley to deal with their possibly-impounded car and recover their gear from it. The guns had been left behind as well. It felt weird not to be carrying, with no sweat-spot from the holster or even body-warmed steel against her skin. “Where would we find a … kinyin?”

Andy laughed once, bitterly. “Nowhere, now. They quit using them once horses came into vogue.”

“When horses came into vogue?” How far was it to this place they would be living in? They’d need to get bicycles if they intended to get to market every day like Joe had said. The ridge was rising on her left. Beyond it was the sea, which she’d been glad to see quite a bit of today, even if it was all at a distance. Houses continued to line the street, more closely packed on the ridge than inland to her right.

“Yeah. That was before Quynh, so I guess a long time ago.”

“You guess,” Nile said archly. Some pack animal three or four thousand years gone and Andy casually dropped that into conversation as something she missed. Nile wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to this. Or that she wanted to.

This will likely be close to the final draft. I thought it served as a good illustration of how to take a scene description and turn it into something the characters are moving through and experiencing.