#only mentions of joe x nicky in this one

[romancingromanoff]

Night Terrors

Andromache the Scythian x f!reader

I decided to create a series of loosely related one shots for Andromache (my beloved). Here’s part 1 

Summary: A revisit to your past and you learn about an old member

TW: Mentions of child abuse, torture, choking, drowning

Word count: 2,437

After a long day of training you were completely spent. Already feeling the soreness start to settle in while you ate dinner with the team, you went straight to bed after that. It hadn’t taken very long for you to drift off into the realm of dreams.

Nicky and Joe were the first to notice you thrashing in your sleep. The two were trying to inconspicuously sneak back inside the safe house late at night when they heard some concerning noises coming from the corner where your mattress was.

You took a deep gasp of air as you were pulled up to a sitting position, a firm hand supporting your upper back. Could it be her? It was too dark to register anything besides the lingering sense of danger that wafted around you.

“Stop! Don’t touch me!” Desperately trying to get away from your assailant, you threw yourself out of bed and painfully landed on your left shoulder.

“Y/N, it’s us, Nicky and Joe. You’re safe, kid. It was just a bad dream.”

Once you were able to recognize the two pairs of eyes nervously staring at you the panic began to subside. You were awake and it was only a nightmare.

“Let me help you up.” Joe reached out for your hand but both of yours immediately grabbed at your own throat. It still felt like she was suffocating you. Nicky turned the lights on causing you to shield your eyes from their brightness.

“Is everything okay?” Your head shot up right as Andy burst in on the scene, the right side of her head had a few hairs sticking up and her eyes looked slightly groggy. They seemed to widen when she caught sight of you on the floor. “Y/N! What happened?”

“I-I…”

“Is everyone alright?” Booker nearly tripped into the room but caught himself and leaned on the back of the couch. “If it’s another spider I really don’t want to deal with it. I had to kill the last one.”

“Y/N was having a nightmare,” Joe explained and the Frenchman’s expression seemed to change.

“What did you see, kid?”

The clashing realities began to slowly fade with every breath you took. Still, the muffled voice of the strange woman rang in your ear. Andy whispered something soft and comforting in your other one. It was a language you didn’t recognize.

Andy, oh sweet Andy. Your ruthless leader. Only a few hours ago she shared a story about the time she took out a dozen assassins with just a leather belt and some duct tape. Now here she was rubbing small circles against your back and holding your hand to stop you from hurting yourself any further. You glanced at each of your other team members and noticed how silent it had become, yet none of them pushed you to talk. All they offered you was unwavering patience and understanding. Wiping the tears from your face, you eventually spoke as your grasp on reality strengthened.

“My mother. She choked me for so long once when I was seventeen that I nearly died. It felt so real though.”

There’s a shift from each of your teammates at your confession, each one slightly different with how they react. Joe shakes his head in disgust and his lips form a thin flat line. Booker’s face breaks and he gazes at you with pity. Nicky sighs deeply, you think he might try to reach out to you at that moment but he holds himself back. By now they know how easily triggered you are by touch even if you trust them.

Andy was the one to rest her hand on your shoulder. Only she was allowed right now. You could tell it was hers before she even made full contact. When you faced her, it reminded you of the first time you had met and she had promised to protect you. She looked more determined now than ever.

She squeezed your shoulder ever so gently and you knew you were safe.

“I could’ve sworn I was back there reliving that exact moment and then… it switched.”

In your dream, you began to lose consciousness as your mother continued to grip at your life force and dark patches blurred your vision. But instead of the light returning as oxygen once again filled your lungs like it had in the moment, the darkness became all encompassing. You weren’t simply imagining it was there, you could feel that nothing but pitch black blanket stretched on for miles in every direction. And though you’d never swam in the sea, you knew exactly where you were.

“I saw a woman trapped in a giant metal coffin at the bottom of the ocean. She kept drowning and coming back, drowning and coming back all alone in the darkness. It was like I could feel her anger, her rage.”

The other immortals exchanged knowing glances which made you worried. A thick silence hung in the air, allowing the nerves to creep back up your spine.

“Did I… Did I say something wrong?”

“No, of course not,” Joe assured you while Book and Nicky quickly joined in. “We’re glad you told us, Y/N.”

But Andy suddenly seemed a million miles away.

They tell you all about Quynh and the events that transpired during the witch trials, the decades they spent searching for anyone who might know where she was, only for all of their efforts to end with the same results. The mere thought of having to endure such never-ending suffering with no hope of escaping the cycle makes purgatory itself seem merciful and brief.

“It’s why we fear capture,” Nicky says. “It’s also why Andy blames herself after all of these years.”

“Why do you blame yourself?”

“I lost a soldier,” Andy’s voice pools with guilt and it stings you to see her torment herself in such a way. “My job is to protect everyone on the team and I couldn’t do that.” There’s a bitterness in her expression you tell yourself not to take personally. With everything she’s been through and all the stories she’s told, this one is laced with the most regret.

This time it’s you who reaches out and grabs her hand. “I would never presume to understand exactly how you feel but we’re immortal, Andy. That doesn’t mean we’re all-powerful or perfect. You tried harder than anyone else could have ever done.”

You don’t know if your words make any real difference but you are glad to have spoken your truth. While Andy and the three guys exchanged some short comments, you began to struggle to keep your eyes open as the realm of sleep tried to drag you back under. The Scythian cooed something in your ear, bringing you closer to her, and you quickly gave in.

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

Things had finally settled down as you slept soundly in Andy’s arms, a warm smile graced her face as she thoughtlessly stroked your hair. None of the guys had ever expected to see her as domestic as she looked while watching over you.

“Was I the only one that was hesitant about her at first?” Booker asked, although it was more likely he was simply thinking out loud. “I mean about her being one of us despite not being a fighter in a traditional sense?”

“I was worried too,” Joe admitted as he intertwined his fingers with Nicky’s. “I feel terrible about it now since it’s clear how much we need her in the group.”

Andy, only half paying attention to the conversation up until that point, curiously weighed the words Joe subtly tried to direct at her.

“Just don’t make her wait too long to tell her how you feel,” Joe smiled, bringing up the back of Nicky’s hand to his mouth so he could kiss it. His eyes knowingly sparkled at Andy the entire time. “I have no doubt she’s the type that’s quite perceptive until it comes to someone else having feelings for her.”

“I believe Andy should simply follow her heart. As should Y/N,” Booker chimes in. “They’ll come together at the right time if it’s meant to be.”

“That’s a rather romantic way of looking at it!” Nicky was thoroughly impressed.

Booker simply shrugged. “I may not get as much practice as you and Joe but I’d like to think I’m not as rusty as this one over here.”

All three of them turned to look at Andy as their leader tried to remain still and unbothered. She did have to admit that it was difficult for her to get angry when you were resting against her.

“Are you actually calling me old, Book?” There was an edge of warning in her voice without any actual concrete threat. She was more than aware of how long it had been since she’d had feelings for someone and it was somewhat intimidating to face. Nothing had been confessed and yet she was already terrified of losing you.

“Of course I don’t mean it like that, capitaine. But I agree with Joe. Sweet and subtle will most likely fly straight over her head.”

“Not really all that straight.” Nicky murmured under his breath before chuckling at his own joke.

“Still, you should do whatever you feel is right,” Booker continued but shot the Italian a quick glance. “Don’t do something because you think Joe, or Nicky, or even I might do it in your position. She already likes you so all you have to do is be yourself.”

It was more than just a little cliche. She hated how oftentimes the best advice usually was.

“If I say I won’t wait more than a hundred years then could we please end this discussion? She’s finally sleeping, no thanks to your conversation, and I’d like for her to get as much rest as possible.”

None of them looked fully satisfied with her answer but they could all at least agree that it was best to let you sleep.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Good night.”

“Sweet dreams.”

The lights were turned off and Andy carefully tried to settle down with you. She planned to stay awake, to make sure that you were properly guarded and could sleep peacefully. But the steady sounds of your breathing and beating of your heart eventually lulled her to sleep as well.

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

“Good morning.” You gradually opened your eyes to the sight of Andy sitting up next to you in bed. The smell of eggs wafted in the air from the next room over. “We let you sleep in for a little bit but didn’t want you to get a cold breakfast. The food should be ready soon. I trust you got some better sleep?”  

You nodded, sitting up and feeling a bit awkward that Andy was still in your bed. Had she been there the rest of the night? “Yeah, I had a nice dream actually. I was on a white sand beach that was surrounded by cliffs with all sorts of tropical flowers growing around them. Have you ever been to a place like that?” You purposefully left out the details regarding Andy kissing you as the sun set. That was one thing she didn’t need to know about.

“Yes,” she nodded as a pleasant memory appeared to pass through her mind. Still, there was also a speck of sadness that shone in her eyes. “There are some that perfectly match that description in Greece, Thailand, Brazil. I’ve visited my fair share and the views never disappoint. Add some good company and it makes the trip all the better.”

You wondered who she was thinking about; what memories they might have shared together.

“I’ve actually never seen the ocean,” you confessed. “My mother is terrified of the water because a boy she went to school with in her childhood drowned in a lake one summer. She forbade me from ever going near it, even though I’ve wanted to learn how to swim since I first learned about mermaids.”

“You would still want to go? After your nightmare and seeing what happened to Quynh you’re not feeling hesitant at all about the ocean?”

“No, I don’t think so,” you admitted and pondered at the question. “That was terrifying, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a good and bad side to everything, right? Besides, I don’t want fear to control me anymore. Not like how I was with my mother.”

Andy studied you with such intensity, giving you the perfect opportunity to get lost in her eyes once more. You knew that you could stare at her forever. But what could she possibly be thinking about while gazing at you so intently? You honestly had no clue and when you were so ordinary. The only thing you were certain of was that she looked at you like you meant something. And to mean something to her was the best feeling in the world.

She looked like she wanted to say something but ultimately decided against it.

Instead, she cleared her throat, bringing the both of you back to the moment. “Alright, it’s decided then. I’ll teach you how to swim then. It should really be a part of your training anyway and after you’ve got it down I’ll take you to the beach from your dream.”

She sounded completely serious yet it took you by surprise. “Do you mean that?”

“Of course. I promise it will have everything you imagine aside from mermaids.”

“Aw, I mean I understand but it’s still somewhat disappointing. I was really looking forward to being serenaded by a siren that may or may not try to kill me.”

The Scythian chuckled. “I can already tell you that you don’t want to hear me try to sing.”

You raised an eyebrow at that. “Actually, that only makes me more curious. After having 6,000 years to practice you cannot possibly be that bad!”

“I’m afraid I sound so bad that it makes all the dogs bark.”

“One day, I’ll get you to sing,” you shoot Andy a look showing that you’re nothing but serious. “You can’t say ‘no’ to me forever. You’ll cave in eventually, I promise.”

“Breakfast is ready!” You could hear Booker exclaim from the kitchen.

As you turned to leave and grab some food, you didn’t notice the soft pair of green eyes following you or how Andy couldn’t seem to move after hearing what you said. There had been nothing but truth to your words and she knew if you asked her to sing or throw herself off a mountain she would do either if it could make you happy.

[laurasinele]

Fictober24

Prompt 2: "It's been a long time"

Fandom: The Old Guard (2020 movie)

Relationships: Immortal Husbands | Joe x Nicky

Rating: Mature, non explicit, implied sex.

Special warnings: AU in which the traitor is Nicky; as this happens after the 100 years of banishment, Andy has died and her grave is mentioned; Nicky goes through a crisis of faith and comes out not believing in God.

Summary:

Nicky thought working with Merrick was the right thing to do and the others would soon come around. Things didn't go as expected. One hundred years later he can come back to his found family and hope that Joe has forgiven one thousand years of giving in, then backing up and drowning in Catholic guilt.

Excerpt:

During the first few years of exile, he still believed his decision was right but unfortunately things went wrong. Their immortality, the dreams that connected them, and their war oriented abilities never seemed to him like God’s deed, although he spent centuries trying to see God’s hand in their every move. Side by side to those portents or maledictions, there was the passion and devotion Joe ignited in him ever since the days when to Nicky he was pejoratively “the Moor” and they didn’t know each other’s tongues. It was a new and unknown feeling to Nicolò, who was always repulsed by other people’s nudity and ashamed of his own arousal: he craved Yusuf’s sight, and soon his touch as well. He missed terribly the sound of his voice and his breathing when they parted. He dreamt of his body and woke up shaking, erect and unashamed until he got his release. In a millennium he failed to repress his lecherous need of Yusuf only a few times, and partook with him in countless calm conversations, heated arguments and desperate pleas over his commitment to the Lord. It all only served to reassure him their meeting and their gifts were the Devil’s work. And if time and shared hardship shaped that unnatural passion into love and benevolence, to Nicky it was just proof that God was giving him some respite and showing him the way: the Devil might have turned the hate of the enemy into lust for a man’s flesh, and Nicolò might have given in on occasion, but the pure love of the shepherd for his flock was the only true answer, he believed. His given flock just happened to be a band of elite immortal soldiers with little regard for Nicolò’s spiritual aspirations for them. Nicky’s attachment to his dogma and rites was met with a variety of disheartening attitudes that Nicky strived to see as God testing his faith: Joe resented his coldness, his struggles with chastity and his constant guilt, and called him a coward and “the only true sheep” every time Nicky almost gave into him but stepped back; Andy took him aside every now and then to remind him that she didn't mind if he followed God’s rule —“your god”— as long as he followed hers on the field; Booker constantly challenged Nicky’s faith with his own crisis, sometimes even on purpose; and Nile, as a Christian and only recently immortal, assumed Nicky’s longevity had given him answers he most definitely didn’t have. Through it all, Nicky held onto his calling. His unearthly life wouldn’t make sense if he let go.

[lyricfulloflight]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers (if you’d like). Spread the self-love ♥️

Thank you @ongreenergrasses! I really dug deep for these answers... I think this may be the first time I have linked anything from my earlier fanfic writing days on Tumblr in about 10 years!

My Top 5:

I Believe You - My first fic ever. On ye olde Fanfiction . net. I should probably move it over to AO3... Anyway, it gets a mention because its the first fanfic I ever shared and that's a big step for any fanfic author. Also, I think its a cool concept and not badly done for my first try at writing fic.

Then Came You - A super cute, (but also a deep look into grief...) Cherik fic. I wrote this for the 2020 Xmen Remix Madness event, based on a wonderful fic by one of my all time favourite Cherik authors - @pinkoptics. I loved playing in the universe she created and the fact that she enjoyed my fic so much is what makes this a top 5 fic (seriously, if I ever get down about my writing I go read her comment about this fic and feel better).

Hollow - another Cherik fic. Written for the 2019 Secret Mutant Exchange. I'm proud of this fic because it took me out of my comfort zone. It is by far the darkest version of Charles I have ever written. And, not to toot my horn or anything, has some of the best lines I've ever written.

To Build A Home - An Immortal Husbands fic (AKA Joe x Nicky from The Old Guard). This was written for A Big Bang event and the art by @notablogtobefollowedunless is fucking sublime! I didn't write much in the Old Guard fandom, but I am proud of what I did contribute and I think this fic is a great representation of my writing in that fandom.

The Consequence of Hiding - The first (and so far only) time I finished a long fic. So proud of myself for this fic. It turned out exactly the way I wanted it to - I had the ending in mind the whole time and even though I knew it might not be what people were expecting, it was well received and turned out how I wanted it to. Not sure I could really ask for much more than that when writing.

Answering this ask was great, but also made me sad to realize I haven't posted anything since 2022. I am currently writing. I always have ideas popping into my head. But the last year in particular has been very tough health wise. I hope to finally post something new next year. Thank to 911 and Buddie, I have been full of fic ideas, which has been so fun :)

[sluttyhenley]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @starrybouquet (thank you!!)

1. how many works do you have on Ao3?

50 (actually 51 if you count the one that hasn't been revealed yet)

2. what's your total Ao3 word count?

269,637

3. what fandoms do you write for?

I have posted in 18 different fandoms on ao3 but most recently 911, Top Gun and The Old Guard

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

my heart is working overtime (e, 911, buddie, 4k)

is forever enough (e, 911, buddie, 10,4k)

lover good be good to me (e, the old guard, joe x nicky, 20.4k)

a twister to blow everything down (t, 911, buddie, 17.2k)

when one plus one equals three (t, 911, buddie, 3.6k)

(gonna also say how blown away i was by the reception to my heart is working overtime, considering it really is one of my sillier fics)

5. do you respond to comments?

yeah, it typically won't be right away, but i do tend to reply to comments definitely! on a multi-chapter fic it doesn't tend to be until i'm posting the next chapter

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

the sound of glass (kate daniels, m, hugh d'ambray x christopher steed)

i wrote this fic for the kate daniels series last year for yuletide. i kept it within canon parameters and therefore there was no way for this pairings ending to be anything but angsty. to this day my fic is the only one in that pairing tag.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

either is forever enough (mentioned above) or put a hold on my heart (e, tgm, rooster x phoenix, currently sitting at about 31k) which i haven't finished posting yet, but like i did finish writing it and let me tell you that ending is some of the sappiest shit i've ever written

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i have. both times i deleted the comment with the intention of moving on, the second time the commenter didn't let me do that so i responded with a rocky horror gif

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i didn't used to but boy howdy those scenes sure do seem to be finding their way into my fics. i have a wip in the works that opens practically right out the gate with two explicit scenes. it took me a bit to get back into m/f smut after writing so much m/m for buddie. (i haven't posted any f/f but i have written it for an original work)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

yep! only one and it was a cross between the old guard and leverage and it was such a fun time actually

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

if so i don't know about it

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

nothing beyond bouncing ideas back and forth with others

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

oh god. i have like. the ones that scratch an itch in my brain and ones that i love writing for. i got new ones this year (icemav and rooster x phoenix) i love writing buck x eddie and i have had a lot of fun writing book of nile.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i have a couple of ideas that i started and then kind of moved on from those fandoms (i had a couple of hp wips that i was excited about but will now never finish) but really a lot of what i have sitting in my docs that are unfinished are things i would like to come back to someday

16. What are your writing strengths?

dialogue, probably. and humor

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i've had to spend so much time developing my imagery skills, and describing action. explicit scenes are such a challenge for me, from vocabulary to action. but as i work on them more i find myself developing those. but all of that are still very much weak points for me

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i won't really do it unless it's just a few words. i did it in a book of nile fic a while back, but i kept it to a few french phrases that i could translate in text.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

the first fandom i ever posted fic for was the librarians. i actually wrote some doctor x rose stuff that never went beyond the privacy of my own docs.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

i'll do three that i'm really proud of (and a bonus one that i can't name because it hasn't been revealed yet) put a hold on my heart (i just am so fond of it and all the little details that i came up with for the story some of which will be expanded on in other fics) words i've never said (it was fun to write a mistaken identity christmas fic for buddie and i really do like how it came out) let's get lost (and let the good times roll) which i wrote as a companion to lover be good to me (mentioned above) and i just really liked getting to explore and expound on another facet of that story and i really liked the character dynamics i created

tagging (no pressure of course!): @natashatrace, @reachingforaspark, @ladywaffles, @redbelles

[alit0my]

Fic prompt if you are taking them! Nile & Booker depression naps together, where Quynh hasn't been found yet and Nile is struggling with dreaming her deaths nearly every night, she finds booker and accidentally falls asleep next to him but for some reason it really helps to keeps the dreams at bay. And they keep finding weird places to take naps in post-exile. Thank you if you do write this!

hi anon! im not gonna miss an opportunity to write about Booker sleeping! also yay booker x nile friendship!! hope this is what you wanted! x

~

Booker was known for his peculiar sleeping habits. Sometimes, Joe would find him half sitting against a wall slouched over, one knee bent up and his hair in front of his eyes.

If the man wasn’t immortal, Joe thinks he would have had the back problems of an eighty-year-old.

Sometimes, it was Nicky who found Booker sleeping on the couch, his long limbs draped off the edges as he slept soundly and comfortably through the noise of the blaring TV, much to Nicky’s amusement. The Frenchman could sleep through a bomb detonating if he had to.

He has.

Andy would always poke him into a more sustainable position whenever she found him sleeping with a twisted back or with his neck too bent. Even at six thousand years old, she was adamant about keeping a reasonable posture, and Booker gave her the shits whenever she found him sleeping oddly.

Naturally, the team told Nile of the Frenchman’s sleeping positions whenever she asked about it, as she had caught him dozing off against a wall, still on his feet. When she confronted Booker about it, he just brushed her off gently.

“Sleep is important for growing bodies,” he winked, drinking some water from the bottle she had handed him.

“You’re not going to tell me the real reason, are you?” Nile prodded, groaning when the man shook his head.

“No, if only to preserve your innocence.”

~

Nile awoke with a gasp, the feeling of water crushing her lungs escaping her as she opened her eyes. Panting, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, silently making her way out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. Grabbing herself a glass of water, Nile turned around and jumped when she saw Booker on the couch, the TV flashing the room with the movie that was playing on mute.

She walked over and waved a hand in front of Booker’s face, humming softly when he didn’t respond, the slight rise and fall of his chest indicating that he was sleeping. Sipping her water, Nile grabbed the remote and switched the TV off, shrouding the pair in darkness as Nile sat down and tucked her feet underneath herself.

She watched the older man for a bit, sipping her water until it was empty.

‘Totally not weird that I’m watching a grown man sleep,’ she thought, placing the empty glass on the coffee table before settling back down on the couch. Resting her elbow on the back of the couch and her head in her hand, Nile exhaled heavily in an attempt to calm herself enough to try sleeping again for the night, wondering how Booker slept in such uncomfortable positions and seemingly avoided lying horizontal at all costs.

She closed her eyes and levelled her breathing. She was a Marine, for crying out loud. She could sleep anywhere too.

So she slept.

~

Nile opened her eyes slowly, blinking away the bleariness as she rose to consciousness. She sat up quickly when she realised she was leaning against someone, nearly giving herself whiplash as she did so and blushing slightly when she remembered joining Booker on the couch to sleep.

“Well, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you detest me by the speed at which you just moved,” Booker grinned and chuckled at Nile’s face, which was still laced with sleep and a little bit of drool on the corner of her mouth.

“Nonsense,” Nile replied, wiping at her mouth. She was not going to get embarrassed about drooling of all things. “I just forgot I moved out here.”

Booker hummed and scratched at his beard, stretching his arms above his head as he stretched, satisfied when he heard multiple joints pop, releasing into a comfortable slouch once more. “Why did you decide to join me? You always give me shit for not sleeping in a bed.”

“Not always!” Nile protested, fixing her hair and draping it over her shoulder. “I just.. dreamt of Quynh last night.”

“Ah,” Booker nodded slowly, in understanding. “Yeah, that’ll do it.”

Nile thought for a moment and frowned slightly. “I didn’t have any dreams when I fell back asleep out here with you. I usually have multiple dreams each night.”

“Well, you’re welcome to sleep on the couch with me whenever you like. We can even pull the bed out and cuddle,” Booker teased, patting Nile’s leg before leaning back again, taking a pause before speaking again. “It’s why I don’t sleep in a bed, Nile.”

“The dreams?”

Booker nodded. “The more comfortable and sober I am, the more dreams I have.”

Nile looked around the room and saw an empty whiskey glass on the coffee table and wondered how she hadn’t seen it last night. “That explains so much.”

Booker simply grinned and stood up, straightening his clothes as he did so. “The offer stands, Nile. If you somehow think being in my presence helps relieve you of your dreams, I’ll gladly accept you as my sleeping buddy. Just be warned, I sleep a lot.”

“Oh I know, Book. I know.”

~

Booker really did sleep a lot.

Nile found him outside in the small garden this particular safehouse had, lounging on a lawn chair with his hat covering his face. Nile glanced at the sky and shrugged at the clear blue skies before walking over to the other lawn chair and pushing it closer to Booker’s, plopping herself down once she was happy.

The sun kissed her skin as she relaxed into the chair, closing her eyes and relishing in the warmth the star provided the earth, her breathing evening out until her consciousness left her.

~

Nile often sought out Booker whenever she had dreams of Quynh instead of the others. She just felt like he understood better, and he was always more than happy to take a nap with her if she felt like.

Their current safehouse was located in Russia, and Booker was more anxious than ever. The first few nights Nile slept by his side as the dreams got bad, but then Booker changed his mind about their offer and refused to settle if Nile was around.

“What’s up with Booker?” Nile asked Andy, who was sharpening her labrys at the kitchen table. The older woman sighed and paused her movements, looking Nile dead in the eye.

“We’re close by to where he first died. It’s still a sore subject for him,” Andy replied, nodding towards the living room where Booker was watching a silent film. “He often gets nightmares about his time in the Grande Armee as well as Quynh, so that might be why he’s pulled away from you. Don’t worry about it too much, he does it to all of us.”

“Huh,” Nile pondered for a moment before walking to where the Frenchman was sitting on the couch and stood in front of him, blocking his view of the TV.

“Uh, Nile, I’m watching something,” Booker spoke, frowning up at her as she held her hands out, hesitantly taking them and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. “What are you doing?”

“We are going to take a nap.”

~

AO3 Link

[emo--chanel]

Nile: [looking up from her phone] Hey do you guys have Twitter by any chance?

Joe: [chuckles] No. I don't... [looks at Nicky]

Nile: Nicky?

Nicky: [smirks] ... Perhaps.

Nile: Oh my God.

Nicky: It was only once.

Nile: What's your handle?

Nicky: My what?

Joe: [beaming] "Io amo il sole"!

Nicky: Oh, that.

Nile: "Io.." what?

Joe: Here, Nile, let me. [holds out his hand]

Nile: [gives her phone to Joe] What does it mean?

Nicky: "I love the sun". Yusuf, how do you even remember that?

Joe: How could I forget, habibi?

Nicky: [smiles]

Nile: [confused]

Joe: Found it! [reads the only tweet on the profile, starts giggling, gives phone back to Nile]

Nicky's tweet:

Nile:

-----

Inspired by this headcanon, brought to us by @jlmdemon (i can't tag 😭) & @joenicky.

[paradisetemporarilymisplaced]

So I was being a basic bitch the other day and listening to my true crime podcasts when it occurred to me just how suspicious Nile’s “death” would look to everyone not in the Guard, leading me to a train of thought that, 2200 words later, absolutely got away from me but I can’t let go so I’m inflicting it on all of you!

To set the stage, we know the movie takes place over approximately a week. Here’s what happens to Nile from the military’s point of view:

She dies is very seriously injured

She heals without a scratch

Just before she’s supposed to be shipped out to Germany, she vanishes, leaving two men concussed (and presumably reporting being knocked out by a woman with short hair wearing civilian clothes)

She goes AWOL for several days

They get word from the CIA that she is to be reported killed in action (details unclear)

So, at the beginning of this very weird week, the USMC has to tell Nile’s family of her death critical injury. What her family was told depends on how long she was dead – a Google search tells me that family will be notified in person within 8 hours of a soldier’s death, but we don’t know how long her first death lasted. For an injury, however, they’d get a phone call to notify them and the unit would arrange for them to visit as soon as the soldier is transferred out of a combat zone. Like I remember when I was in high school, a guy from my church who was a Marine was really seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Iraq and from what I could tell, his parents were told immediately and were flown out to Germany to see him, so it stands to reason that Nile’s family would have been informed relatively quickly after her throat was slashed, one way or another.

And then, she goes AWOL. Her family would be notified while the USMC tried to figure out where she went, not least because the military would want to know if she’s contacted them. (And it’s possible that her family may have been on the way to Germany to see her since we know that’s where she was supposed to go!) So for several days:

Nile’s mom and brother have no idea where she is

They know she was seriously injured and most certainly should not have been moving around on her own

They can’t get a hold of her

The military can’t tell them anything

And the next thing they know for sure is that she was “killed in action.” After being injured and vanishing into thin air. And they presumably cannot produce her body or any concrete evidence of her death. In any case, something sketchy is going on, so they’re like. SMELLS LIKE A MILITARY COVERUP.

In a surprise to probably no one, there is a well-documented legacy of mysterious US military deaths, particularly of women of color (TW for sexual assault in these links). The cases of LaVena Johnson and Vanessa Guillenin particular have made national news because of their families’ persistence in seeking justice. Likewise, Nile is a Black woman, and her mom and brother are most certainly hypercognizant of (a) state violence against Black people and (b) these high-profile cases of suspicious military deaths. So her family are seriously side-eyeing the situation, knowing that (a) the military has a serious incentive (and a documented history) of covering up things that make them look bad and (b) nothing about Nile’s disappearance and supposed death are adding up.

And Andy’s right. Nile does come from warriors. And you know who else does? Her brother.

Don’t get me wrong. Nile’s mom would absolutely not back down. She’d know something was up and want to get to the bottom of it. But based on what I know about Gen X parents (mine), they’re not the most technologically savvy. Like they can use the internet, but they didn’t grow up with it the way we young millennials and Gen Z did. So Nile’s brother takes the lead. And what do zillennials do best?

Social media.

Nile’s brother starts going hard on any site he can, trying to get the word out to see if anyone knows what happened to his sister. He starts a Reddit thread. He starts a Facebook group. He reaches out to the media and true crime bloggers and podcasters à la Sarah Turney, getting loud and being a general nuisance in hopes of getting some answers. He gets his friends and Nile’s friends involved. Maybe eventually Dizzy, Jay, and others from Nile’s unit hear about it and reach out, telling him what they saw and how weird it all was. He’s drumming up interest, and soon “Nile Freeman” becomes a household name (at least among the true crime fans).

Copley is, of course, trying his best, but at this point there is just so much that it’s impossible for him to scrub everything. Sure, he can erase new footage of Nile and the Guard, but what can he do about Reddit threads and podcast episodes that are speculating something weird has happened? Maybe he could hack the sites and shut those things down, but honestly, that’s the last thing he’d want to do, because that only adds weight to the theory that Nile’s disappearance is a military coverup. So eventually he has to tell Andy what’s going on.

Andy, obviously, does not take the news well. However, she is also completely computer illiterate, because that’s Booker’s job and he’s the only one who ever bothered to learn what the internet is in any meaningful way. (She probably calls Booker for advice, and for the record, I think Booker would have no qualms about shutting down conspiracy threads, tinhats be damned, but Copley is too concerned about the consequences. He’s ex-CIA for crying out loud, he knows how it’ll look if they scrub every mention of Nile’s name from the internet.) Maybe she confers with Joe and Nicky but, let’s be honest, they’d be equally unhelpful. So at this point, she knows they have to bring in Nile.

But the thing about Nile is that she, too, knows how to use the internet (duh). Aside from her being a young millennial/digital native, we know from the cave scene where she’s giving Booker suggestions on how to track Copley that she clearly is even more computer savvy than the average person. And for that reason she almost definitely took over the day-to-day tech stuff after Booker’s exile. So I think it would be foolish to expect her to be unaware of what’s happening. She’s not contacting her family or posting on the message boards or anything, but she knows what’s up. So Copley and the team probably sit her down to “break the news,” but we know the girl does not have a poker face (see: literally shooting herself in the foot and not being able to play it cool whatsoever) and cracks immediately, telling them she’s seen everything about her case – she’s not interacting with any of it, she certainly didn’t instigate anything, but she knows. (And she is so goddamn proud of her brother.)

At this point, I’d like to pause and consider Nile’s role in the overall narrative of this movie. She’s set up as a foil to Andy, obviously, but she’s also a foil to Booker. Booker, who, like Andy, is a serious pessimist, but who, unlike Andy, still has very fresh memories and trauma associated with being the new kid, which have destroyed him. In his mind (and Andy’s), if Nile communicates with her family, she’ll become just like him in a century or two – bitter, alone, and stuck with her grief and memories of watching her family die and knowing they died resenting her. It’s a small sample size, but this is the only experience they have to go off of.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

There’s been a lot of discussion of TOG being a fundamentally queer movie – a group of people brought together because of something inherent about themselves that is different, that must be hidden, that causes others to hate, fear, and reject them. Booker’s backstory is the archetypal traumatic “coming out” story – his family learns who he is, hate him for it, and attempt to cast him out of their lives. He’s stuck with his trauma, his pain, his loss, and it consumes him.

But what if Nile’s family would be the opposite? What if her “coming out” to them as immortal is met with acceptance, love, celebration? What if her family is just overjoyed to have her back, and they don’t care what the circumstances are? I'm reminded of this incredible post from @shitty-old-guard-deaths a while back, where Nile’s mother hits Booker with a frying pan because “my baby let me believe she was dead for FIVE YEARS based on your bad advice???” (which may or may not have inspired this whole tangent). Nile takes the advice of someone who did the same thing she wants to do because she doesn’t want to risk her family’s rejection. She wants the good memories with her family and is afraid that showing them her true self will bring her unbearable pain, forever replacing those memories. But, with high risk comes high reward.

Anyway. Nile and the team are trying to come up with a plan for how to handle this whole thing, but she’s not really participating because she’s too afraid to hope. Until finally, quickly, so she doesn’t lose her nerve, she suggests she reach out to them, knowing that, realistically, that’s the only solution before things snowball even further out of control. The team is shocked, but realize that she has a point. They decide that Copley should actually be the first point of contact, posing as a US government official to talk with them and test the waters.

So Copley goes to Nile’s family’s house to talk with her mom and brother. They’re probably distrustful and apprehensive, but nonetheless secretly ecstatic that their work has paid off. They talk and review all of the information that they’ve collected, including testimonials from the people on Nile’s base and recent sightings (along with photos) of Nile (with the same three people) over the last few years that people have sent them but they haven’t posted publicly. At this point, Copley’s like, yeah this is about to blow up, we gotta put our cards on the table. He convinces them to come with him to some safe house/black site/whatever he can get that is technologically impenetrable (I’m picturing them in like, an interrogation room at a police station kind of deal), takes their phones, locks the doors, and brings in Nile.

What follows is the most delightful reunion scene of all time, bringing Joe, Nicky, and even Andy to tears as they watch and listen from outside the room. With Copley’s help, Nile tells her mom and brother about her immortality and what’s been going on since she died (within reason, of course), and they are thrilled. They don’t understand why (because no one does) but they don’t question it and they see it as a gift from God – she’s been resurrected, she will live, and she has a purpose. Her mother and brother are so happy to see her again and are willing to agree with pretty much anything to stay in her life as long as they can.

So. They set up some complicated agreement (they bring in the other three for support/intimidation as needed) setting the terms of their relationship. They swear Nile’s family to secrecy, maybe bringing up the lab to show how high the stakes are, and they readily agree. They come up with some cover story for Nile’s brother to share on the message boards (maybe that the government has opened an investigation but because it’s an open case he has to shut it all down? Tells people to direct their tips somewhere else? Something to that effect). There’s still speculation, of course, but without Nile’s brother at the helm providing the energy, the hype dies down as news stories are wont to do without any movement. And Nile’s family goes to work for the team. The experience has taught them that Copley can’t possibly do everything himself, especially when it comes to social media, so Nile’s brother takes the lead on the day-to-day tracking/social media while Copley and her mom focus on finding jobs and scrubbing their traces afterward.

So there you have it: Nile gets to integrate her biological family into her found family and spend the rest of their lives with them as it should be, Copley gets some badly needed help managing the reality of social media, the team finally has a positive narrative surrounding outsiders Knowing About Them AND about interacting with people from their previous life, and the audience gets the happy ending to this very lovely and very queer story to counteract the pain associated with Booker’s family.

Plus, you know, I’m a sucker for both a good government conspiracy theory and for Nile getting every good thing she deserves.

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[persephone11110]

Welcome Little One

Nicky Reagan Boyle x Chase Andrews oc

summary: Nicky and Chase are expecting their first baby together, unlike the reagans before her she isn’t married.

based on 10x03 , i just switched some stuff around.

The recently graduated college student, had tears slip from her face,her shoulders shook a little as she cried looking down at 3 pregnancy test infront of her.

Her train of thought were broken when she heard knocking coming from the otherside of the door.

“Babe, whatever the test results are Im by your side” he said softly, Chase sat down on the hallway floor, leaning his body against the door.

Nicky stood abruptly, hearing her footsteps Chase gathered himself off the floor.“Nick?” he asked looking into her eyes.

She nodded her aganist his head, allowing happy tears to slip down her cheeks. Not caring to wipe them away this time. Chase felt happy alongside his girlfriend. The only thing the couple were worried about was telling the Reagans.

Everyday for the past twelve sundays Nicky has gotten up playing the same scenario in her head, and each time she wonders if this the right time to mention her pregnancy.

She heard footsteps trail behind suddenly stop,“we’re going to be fine, if your family gets mad then so be its their lost of losing us.

Nicky nodded her, gently rubbing her hands down her stomach. As of right now she been tiny for the past 3 months but nearing into her 4 month she starting to show. This time she had no choice but to them, since they may have slipped up and told a small circle of friends.

**

Her and Chase were seated at the table listening to the family talk about their week. Chase looked up from his meal , eyeing her looking for confirmation.

“Joey remember that secret I told you about” she said to Joey not breaking any contact with her.

Eddie and Jamie both looked at their daughter with a questioning look. The table conversations came to a halt desperately waiting for Joey to share with them.

Chase grabbed Nicky’s hand with reassurance and a smile on his face.

“Go on Joe tell us”Eddie told her,

“Nicky and a baby” Joey excitedly squealed at them.

It took a little while for them to catch on , her mom being the first one“im going to be grandma”she tearfully looked at the couple.

“Yea mom,Baby Andrews 2022” with that the table broke out in cheers congratulating the couple. Pops took out Irish scotch for the expecting father.

The Reagans sat around table talking about the baby. Celebrating with the couple, Nicky easily forgot about the fear she had about telling them.

Nicky and Chase were laying in bed , later that sunday“I told ya we would be fine” he spoke into hair as she was laying against his chest.

Many months later, Dylan Marie Andrews was welcome into the family weighing a hefty 10LBS, and 3 OZS.

[maghrib-genova]

Just read the tales through time comic 😭😭

( Spoilers a head ⚠️ because I want to scream about one or two things about this comic.)

32 pages are not enough! Only 13 pages for Joe x Nicky story "Zanzibar and the other harbors". The first half of it was about Andy telling Nile during their sparring section at the beach about her axe history "My mother's axe". Andy easily kicked her butt lol clearly nile still have a long way to go and so many things to learn from Andy it was such a radiant and fun panel to read, I love it.

But I want more Joe x Nicky interaction but seriously Andrew and Jacopo delivered. The arts are so good. Nicky and Joe are super handsome. 😭

It's so cute the way the story start with Joe just staring at a man who he knows will likely cause trouble because he has seen it before in his very old life again and again. And Nicky was just wanting a quiet romantic night with his husband. It's not much to ask right?

And then Joe pretending he didn't know what Nicky mean lmao and Nicky start listing all the ruined "Romantic night" they had together because Joe was playing Hero most of the time and at the end Joe got smug !! look at his smirk 🤣

because clearly he has no regret and will likely do it again because he knows despite Nicky complains he will do the same because they will always help people in need.

Joe is the definition of a man that would walk through fire to safe you.

The funniest thing though, despite just a few second ago Nicky was calling Joe as someone who came to trouble during their romantic night out, then the moment someone insulted Joe he was the one who first lost his temper 🤣

Look at his angry face. So dang dangerously handsome !!

Also look at this old man suave as fuck line. "We should get out here. I want to commit a crime".. and Nicky confused yet intrigued expression. Even after all this year.. Nicky hadn't learnt a thing lol You married this sappy ass old man Nicky..should get use with this line.

Because this was the kind of crime he was talking about okay. Dancing and Kissing under the moonlight. "This is not the crime I thought you had in mind" Nicky you are such a precious bean 😭💕

And Joe replied with "We are under the eyes of god, my love (Aahsgsgsg the pet name I died). Anyone might see us. I dare say this is the loveliest crime we have ever committed" JOE YOUR INCURABLE romantic disease is showing joe!

And the moment after the kiss was so freaking tender. Their signature forehead touch..right under the moonlight (okay I have drawn the exact same art (though badly) this moment is straight out of my mind😭)

And Nicky the one with the poetic words "we've been afforded more times than any lovers I can name. And still, every moment we scrape together feels precious" damn nicky, you are just as hopeless romantic as your husband 🤣

And complete with the hand holding (how tight they hold onto each other) at the end too!! So even though it's just 13 pages comic of them. I think I basically get everything I want to see.

There are still so many things to talk about but that's just some of the highlights because 10 images limit.

I like the Lulu twist there. Shout out to the trans community I guess with this character. Lulu is a badass. "I like her" that's what joe said ☺️ (so they met Lulu in 1887 and met her again in 1932. So 45 years have passed since then huh? No wonder Joe and Nicky have forgotten her face not to mention they met her as a different person back then but Lulu never forget the "angels" who saved her) 👏🏾

And Should i say more about how handsome they are in those suits!! Joe and Nicky in a suit fighting crimes killing nazis I mean..running in those suits and dancing and kissing in the moonlight. It would be so beautiful in big screen with Luca and Marwan. I would be foaming from my mouth just thinking about seeing all of this being included in tog 2.

Please please shoot this comic into a movie Netflix.🙏🙏

[scimitar-and-longsword]

I saw you were taking prompts! I'd love to read something with the 20 of Fluff list, please :)

Thank you nony <3 This will be my last one of these for now... but who knows I might have time to write in a day or two... so if your prompt is still unfilled, have no fear!

Joe x Nicky + "Have i ever pointed out how beautiful you are?" "Yes, all the time"

Nicky woke up -like he had countless times throughout his long life- to the faint but unmistakable sounds of Joe drawing.

He was on his stomach, an arm dangling off the bed and face pressed almost entirely into the pillow. He could feel the dip of the mattress near his hips where he presumed Joe was sitting on the bed.

Nicky blearily blinked his eyes, he was facing away from Joe. Morning’s like this, where they were safe and alone, were rare. Not to mention mornings when Joe was awake before him. Nicky wished he had awoken facing the other direction, if only to catch a few moments of his love before Joe knew he was being watched.

The gentle scratching of graphite on paper paused for a moment.

“I know you’re awake, Nicolò.”

Nicky could hear the smile in Joe’s voice. 

“I’m not,” Nick answered while burying his face further into the pillow.

“Sure, habibi.”

Joe chuckled, and Nicky heard him resume his steady sketching. Nicky wasn’t entirely sure if he fell back asleep but he thought he might have drifted a bit before he finally turned his head so he could see Joe’ sketching away. It took Nicky a moment, but it hit him all at once that both him and Joe were still naked from the night before.

Joe was always a vision- to Nicky at least. Though he was fairly certain anyone who was faced with what Nicky got to wake up to every morning would feel the same. That morning was no different. Joe was sitting cross legged halfway down the bed with a well worn sketchbook balanced on one knee. He had an extra pencil tucked behind his ear. 

Nicky already knew the answer, but he still had to ask, “what are you drawing?”

“You,” Joe said, without missing a beat.

“Specifically, cuore mio.”

“You’re ass,” Joe said, with complete sincerity.

Nicky muffled a laugh into the pillow. He looked back at Joe who finally lifted his eyes from his sketchbook. He gave Nicky a wink and a small smile before going back to his art.

“What a poet you are, Yusuf.”

“A poet? Is that what I am?”

Nicky made sleepy noise in agreement. Joe brushed something off the page, and closed the book with a satisfied noise, tossing it aside. He crawled up to drape himself over Nicky’s back, and kissed behind his ear.

“Good morning,” Joe whispered into his ear.

Nicky shivered and turned over underneath Joe, who hovered over him, a brilliant smile on his face.

“Buongiorno,” Nicky hummed, and leaned up to press a light kiss to Joe’s lips.

Joe stared down at him for a moment, lost in thought.

"Have I ever pointed out how beautiful you are?" Joe asked.

Nicky felt a flush rise in his cheeks before he answered, "yes, all the time."

Joe’s smile widened and the crease at the edges of his eyes deepened.

“Hmmm, so not enough is what you’re saying?” 

“Yusuf-” Nicky chuckled, feigning protest. He knew he was powerless to stop Joe when he got like this.

Joe’s pushed a hand through Nicky’s hair, eyes beginning to sparkle with the emotion of words he was about to let wash over Nicky.

“You’re beautiful. The object of my every fantasy and dream. I have lived 900 years and never doubted my love for you. I could live another 900 -live for years beyond counting- and never tire of waking with you in my arms.”

Nicky pulled Joe down and kissed the tip of his nose, then trailed kisses up the side of his face before leaning into his ear to whisper, “Bellissimo.”

Joe clutched his heart and rolled off of Nicky with a dramatic sigh. Nicky laughed and covered his face with his hands. Lord, how he loved this man.

[peri-helia]

you’ve got to be kitten me

basically silly joe x nicky drabble as a writing exercise and “There’s a perfectly good reason for all these kittens”  + luminari’s posts about Nicky and cat shelters

“There’s a perfectly good reason for all of these kittens”

Joe can’t help it, watching his Nicolò frozen in the middle of the kitchen of their bolthole in Rome, ankles swarming with a dozen scraps of feline fluff, he laughs.

“And I cannot wait to hear it, habibi”

“They – that is to say, Hayati, I –“ Nicky tries to put the foot that had frozen mid-air at the sound of Joe’s key in the lock down on the floor, but can’t until a pearly grey kitten has finished its stretch and decides to amble about an inch to the left.

“You?”

Nicky’s got a terrible habit of bringing home strays. In Prague. In Berlin, or Michigan. Or Malta. God, especially Malta.  He’s part cat himself, Joe would swear it.

“I fed one” Nicky starts defensively, pointing at a tortoiseshell kitten that looks like its been around the block a few times and Joe’s smile only grows, “And he told his friends?”

“Ah so it is a conspiracy of cats, then”

“A glaring” Nicky corrects, because he likes to know the correct term

“Yes, light of eyes and they are glaring at me right now because I am holding up their dinner I see”

“Don’t glare at Joe” Nicky reprimands a cream coloured ball of fluff gently as he scoops it off the countertop and deposits it in front of one of the saucers he’s laid down for their house guests. Rolling his eyes lovingly at his ridiculous, beautiful man, Joe picks his way across the floor of felines scarfing down their dinner to wrap his arms around Nicky. They lean into each other, the solid grounding weight that has been their constant, foreheads touching for a mutual breath before Nicky tips Joe’s head back, seeking a gentle kiss, hands splayed across his scapulae.

“Welcome home, Hayati”

“I missed you, tesoro mio”

Making dinner surrounded by kittens is not easy, but Joe’s done this enough times, mercy save him, that he’s quite adept and Nicky is never too busy to keep curious noses away from the dangers and delights of a modern kitchen. Joe also knows better than to ask if the kittens will only be staying for their supper. Eh. He’ll call the shelter in the morning.

The thing is, they forget to tell Nile.

It’s not that they forget, really, it’s just up there on the long list of things that have, well been a thing for so long that they forget about it themselves, until it becomes relevant. Joe still remembers the first time Booker had found out that they did this and had let out an exasperatedly fond declaration of ‘Nicky’ as he always did, before he’d gotten up, gotten on board with it and helped Andy wash the little things, trying not to laugh all the while.

Joe tries not to think about that.

But anyway, everyone else had known so when Nile Face Times them that evening, Joe’s in the kitchen making the coffee. Nicky doesn’t even mention the kittens until Cesare, an impetuous tuxedo cat, stalks across Nicky’s thigh and begins to make the trek up his t-shirt to his shoulder. Nicky’s hand is hovering over the delicate spine, in case Cesare should need assistance after leaving Base Camp when Nile’s voice quavers a little and she all but throws herself at the screen as she says,

“Is that a kitten?!”

Vaguely in the background in the middle of Croatia, Andy can be heard to sigh to herself as she leans into frame. “How many?”

“Only about 12 or so” Nicky replies, just as defensive as he was when Joe came home. Andy just laughs and behind Nile’s back, blows a kiss at the screen.

“You mean there’s more than one?!” Nile asks in a strangled tone, eyes fixed on Nicky’s shoulder, where Cesare has nearly reached his goal. “Bring him closer to the camera, I want to see” she commands

Joe deposits the coffee as he comes to sit down and goes to pluck Cesare from his pursuit, but the little tiger’s claws dig into the fabric of Nicky’s shirt insistently “Oh, you’re quite happy. Nicolò, habibi you’ll have to move the camera closer, okay, hello,” he greets the fearsome ginger tomcat named Perseus as he makes himself quite at home in Joe’s lap while Nicky looks on covetously.

“Andy how fast can we steal a plane?” Nile asks over her shoulder.

“Steal a plane?” Andy chortles, “Seriously?!”

“Kittens, Andy, Kittens”

Andy sighs and glares at the two men over the screen, “Right, yes, I’ll go and look up flights, holy fuck” she disappears from view.

Nile leaves them with air kisses and a strict promise that the kittens stay until she gets there.

“I’ll go to the store for food tomorrow” Nicky promises

Joe, so in love it fills him from head to toe, just laughs and seals the promise with a kiss.

[wildlittlefoxsworld]

Booker x Fem Reader Unlike your family you're not a soldier, more of the tech nerd of the group but that doesn't mean your some damsel in distress! It be good of your family to remember that so when you get kidnapped by people with a grudge, the kidnappers aren't the only one in for a surprise! Also if you could maybe add Angst 6,8 and Random 11,29,36 from the prompt list into the story if you can no pressure Thanks!❤

Badass wife | The Old Guard | Booker x Fem!Reader

Warnings: rape (but only mentioned), reader is kidnapped, torture (only mentioned), angst with happy ending

Words: 3k

Prompts:

-Angst

6. “Don’t you ever do this again.”

8. “Nobody’s seen you in days.”

-Random

11. “You’re insane.” “You love me.” “Not right now, I don’t.”

29. “How is my wife more badass than me?”

36. “That was kind of hot.”

Masterlist

***

If you were honest, you never enjoyed or loved being immortal. Of course, your immortal life had a lot of benefits. You couldn’t get ill, you were forever young and beautiful (that was what your husband said all the time to you), you spend the eternity with the love of your life. Sometimes it was very great, but sometimes you hated it. Your loved ones died a long time ago and you saw all the people in the world getting old, and you wanted that with your husband. Growing old, playing with your grandchildren, remembering a wonderful life.

But you had a family and currently you were the second youngest of your group. A few months ago Nile joined your little family and she was a former marine. Nile was a soldier, like the others in your group. You weren’t a soldier; you never learnt how to fight before you died for the first time. You were born in 1985 and during your time in school it emerged that you were a genius, primarily in mathematics and biology, but you focused your interest mainly in computers and other kind of this stuff later in high school. You made money with programming security and anti-virus software for companies to protect their data.

The first time you had died wasn’t something really special or spectacular, but you had died on smoke poisoning after a fire was breaking loose. You had woken up in the mortuary in the hospital and you couldn’t believe what happened. You had been disoriented and confused, so you just wrapped the white sheet tight around your body and searched for a way out of the hospital, because you wanted to go home. But you hadn’t come far… that was when you met Joe and Nicky for the time. Joe had explained you quickly that you had died, because of a fire in your house and they were there to help you. Nicky had wrapped you in his leather jacket and carried you in his arms, because your feet were bare.

That was six years ago in 2015 and you were now married with Booker for four years, these were the happiest in your life. Booker and you had become very close immediately and you couldn’t ask for a better man or husband. Booker was good with all the technical stuff, but you showed him skills that he only had dreamed off and fast you were responsible for finding persons or hacking any websites, searching for information and made sure that all the tech stuff ran smoothly. You felt sometimes like the fictional figure Ramsay from Fast and the Furious.

The time in your little cell gave you enough time to think about your life. You were here for three or four days now and your kidnappers thought you had find out information about their criminal business, and you had gave the info to the FBI, which was true, but the criminals couldn’t prove that. So they had water-boarded you already and now they were trying to starve you, so you would tell them what you did and what exactly you told the FBI.

You had a little worry that your family couldn’t find a way to rescue you or that it was very difficult to break in the building where they hold you hostage. You wore a little location transmitter under your skin, not only one, but four in different places. This was your first idea after you joined the team, because it would be easier for the team to track someone if one or more of you got kidnapped. You hoped the others already found you.

You were sitting on the floor with chains cuffed to your ankles and wrists when one of your kidnappers opened the door. It was Paul, the at least friendly one of the men, but he wasn’t very talkative. He checked the chains and brought a new bottle of water, but clearly no food. You didn’t eat something in the last seventy-six hours and you were very hungry, but you wouldn’t beg for food. You weren’t weak or easy to break, but your kidnappers didn’t know that and maybe your family members would rescue you in the next coming hours. You would definitely eat a cheeseburger and a large portion of fries.

“Do you want to tell me something, sweet girl?” Paul asked you with a gentle voice and little smile, but you only quirked an eyebrow and looked dumbfounded at him. Did he really think you would talk so fast? Andy had one rule; don’t say anything about their missions no matter what they would do to you. It was easy to follow the rule. Of course, you were afraid that they would water board you again. That wasn’t very pleasant, but they could do other things and you didn’t want to think about it.

“It’s very sad that you don’t want to talk with me and it’s impolite, too. You should show us more respect and answer a question when someone asked you.”

With two fingers he tipped your chin up, but you refused to look him in the eyes.

“No, I have nothing to tell you.”

“Well, that is bad… for you. My boss said that I have to make you talk and that I could do anything with you what I want. You have a pretty face, you know, I would really like to kiss your lips. But your body is more interesting, I ask myself what you hide under all your clothes. What do you think… can I take a look?"

That was the first time you gave him a glance and you were disgusted by the smug grin on his face.

“Fuck you,” you cursed and spit him in the face. Your spit landed on his cheek and mouth and brushed with his hand the wetness from his skin.

“Don’t you ever do this again!” he warned you with an angry voice and slapped you across the face, so that your head flew to the side. Your cheek burned where he hit you with the back of his hand, but you only turned your head slowly to him and grinned slightly. “That was your answer.”

His eyes were filled with rage now, because he had thought you were just a pretty little girl who he could threaten and you would sing like a bird. In the next moment he pressed his mouth hard on yours and his tongue tried to invade your mouth, but you bit him as hard as you can on the lip that you could taste blood in your mouth.

“You bit me, you little bitch. You will wish you were never born when I’m done with you.”

“I think it will be the opposite,” you considered and he shoot you a death glare. He came closer to you for a second time and you watched the blood dripping from his torn lip.

“You really want to be hurt, right?”

“No, but it seems you want to,” you replied and kicked your knee into his stomach. He gasped and fell backwards on his butt.  You didn’t get much time to put your plan into action. The chains around your ankles were tied to the ground, but the ones around your wrists were connected with a chain. You stood up fast to your feet, ignored the dizzy feeling in your head from sitting so long and wrapped the chain around his neck. You pulled tight to cut his air supply and he tried helplessly to inhale the much needed air. You used all of your strength to strangle him, because he started trying to put his fingers between the chain and his throat. You noticed how strong he was and he scratched the floor with his feet helplessly. You couldn’t give up now, you know there would other men come, but maybe he had any keys that you could use to free yourself from the shackles.

You felt how slowly his strength faded, but it did and you collected all of your strengths to pull the chain tighter. You thought it took you minutes until he gave fighting, but it was only a few more seconds until he went limp and you counted to sixty in your head to be sure he didn’t fake it.

 You searched in his pockets for any keys and you were successful. You thought why they were so stupid to give Paul the keys, but you thought that they weren’t smart enough to assume that you could have overpowered him. But you could only free yourself from the chains around your ankles, your hands were still in chains and you cursed that you couldn’t defend yourself properly. They weren’t very tight, you could have freed yourself earlier from them, but you would have to dislocate your thumb and break your hand in the process, and you weren’t brave enough to do it. Maybe you would find the keys somewhere else, you weren’t happy how the situation turned out, but at least you weren’t raped by Paul and you took Paul’s gun to your defense, then you walked on wobbly legs out of the little room. You didn’t know if there were any cameras, but you assumed they had a few, because you heart already shouting and appearing footsteps from down the long hallway where you stood now helplessly. You didn’t know where you were or how they got you here. Normally you weren’t active in any mission, you were the tech nerd and you stayed often with Nicky when he searched for the perfect position for his sniper rifle. But the last time you were with Nicky, he needed to change his position and you decided to stay in the first place he had chosen. You always had a gun with you and Andy had trained you, but you weren’t used to fight against so many men that had approached you after Nicky was gone. You were sure Nicky was crestfallen, because he left you there alone and Booker freaked out probably in the moment.

You thought about which way you should take and it would have been probably stupid if you would go into the direction from where the shouting was coming.

“She’s this way, boss,” you heard a familiar voice from behind you and your heart began to beat faster. That was your husband and the shouting was from the other criminal men, when the team had surprised them. You were glad that they finally came for your rescue and started running towards them.

“I hope they didn’t hurt her or I will them kill all over again,” Booker said maybe to Andy, because you didn’t know if all of them were in the building.

“She’s moving fast into our direction,” you heard him gasping shocked. In the next moment you ran around the corner and directly into his arms when he recognized you. Booker his arms around your body and you buried your face in the crook of his neck; you inhaled his familiar scent that helped you to calm your nerves slowly.

“Nobody’s seen you in days,” he joked chuckling in your ear and you laughed along with him. Of course, he had to make a stupid joke in the middle of a rescue mission. “I’m so happy that you are with me again.”

“Are you alright, Y/N?” Andy asked while she observed your surroundings. You looked up and she gave you short glance.

“I’m okay, but my hands are still chained.”

“How did you escape?” Booker asked and you quirked an eyebrow at him.

“The bad man wanted to touch me, so I killed him.”

“How?” – “I suffocated him with my chains.” I held my hands up in demonstration and Booker nodded in admiration.

“How is my wife more badass than me?” he said stunned.

“I trained her. Now let’s go!” Andy replied impatiently and let the direction to get out of the building.

The three of you ran down the hallway from Booker and Andy had come and you saw all the dead men on your way to the exit. You counted the corpse, twenty-four. You were still impressed, because you hadn’t often the opportunity to see the others in action. You saw a lot of flesh wounds that Andy had caused with her axe and the others had bullet holes from Booker’s guns. You hoped you would leave this building without meeting more of the men, but you didn’t come far when you heard again footsteps coming into your direction.

Andy gave a sign to slow down your tempo and you tightened your grip on the gun. You didn’t know how to describe your feelings in the moment, because you hated to be forced with the enemy. You felt tired, because you hadn’t eaten in days and you used the last bit of your strength to kill Paul. You were mostly pissed that they had you taken and they were still stupid enough to stand your in way to freedom. You were glad that you weren’t alone, because when you arrived in a great hall where they stored their stolen guns and drugs and all the other ware which they made profit with.

“I see you managed to escape. You killed one of my best man, you slut.” You knew the voice very well, it was Paul’s boss and he wasn’t happy about what you did to Paul. You saw his angry red face and the gun he pointed at you.

“I’m bulletproof… but please, don’t shoot me. I really hate the feeling of bullets in my body,” you answered him and he looked dumbfounded at you for a second.

“What are you talking about? Are you already gone mad? Well, I don’t care. You killed my man, so I’m going to kill your man, then the crazy axe lady and in the end I will torture until you beg me to stop and you will tell me your little secrets, and maybe then after every one of my men had their fun with you, I let you die.”

“You’re pathetic. You will pay for what you did to my wife!” Booker screamed and tried to push you behind, but you didn’t let him, you were too angry.

“You’re disgusting, Antonio. I make you a better offer: I will shoot your balls off and let you bleeding out like a pig, while you can watch how we kill the rest of your men and then we will blow up this whole building.”

You grinned like a mad woman when you aimed to shoot him between your legs and you didn’t hesitate a second until you heard the echo of your shooting. Antonio screamed in pain and felt down to the ground. You could shoot him again, but his men already began to fire in your direction and Booker pushed your forward, so you could get out of there finally. It took a lot of bullets and fighting until you were even near to the exit and then Joe came through the large door of the hall and shot two of them precisely in the head which left only two of them in the end.

A dark haired man fired a bullet into Booker’s leg and he winced in pain, but kept running. But you got so angry that they had the nerve to shoot your husband, when it was clearly that they were going to lose. You stopped and turned around to shoot them, but you were out of bullets.

“Fuck,” you cursed. That was definitely your favorite swear word. You used the handle of the gun to hit the dark haired man on the cheek and you heard the satisfying cracking of the bone. He tried to punch you, but you crouched down and tackled his body with yours, so you fell on the ground. The man had no time to react when you grabbed his head with both of your hands and smashed his head on the hard floor four times.  

Andy killed the other one with her axe while Booker pushed off the dead of the dead man and out of the building, and that was when you inhaled fresh air for the first time in nearly eighty hours.

“Are they all dead now?” Joe asked still aiming the door, but you couldn’t answer him, because you were pulled in tight hug from Nicky.

“Thank god, Y/N. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m perfectly fine, Nicky. Are you okay?”

Nicky watched me confused. “You’re asking me if I’m okay after you had been hold hostage for more than three days.”

“Ah yes, you seem very distressed.”

“You’re insane,” he mumbled when he kissed the top of my head.

“But you love me,” you replied laughing.

“Not right now, I don’t. You made me leave you alone there; I will never let you alone again.”

“Isn’t that my husband’s part?” You said still laughing when Booker hugged you from behind with his arms around your waist.

“He can share,” Nicky prompted snorting and both men cuddled you between them.

“Can we go home then?” Andy asked still impatient.

“Yes, boss,” all of you saluted and Andy rolled her eyes on you.

The ride home was silent. Joe and Andy switched on driving and you sat with Booker and Nicky in the backseat. Nicky was peacefully snoring beside you and you were cuddled up in Booker’s lap. When you got in the car earlier he had kissed all over of your face and then your mouth, he let you feel all his love for you.

“When Nicky had told us that they kidnapped you… I thought I would never see you again, but then I remembered how brilliant you were to get us the location transmitter last year and it was easy to find you, but to get in the building was so much harder. Please tell me, he didn’t get a chance to touch you? I can’t bear the thought that he might took you with force… I…”

“Shh, my heart. He didn’t touch me. I killed him before he got a chance. At least I was lucky enough to overpower him… don’t think about all the other possibilities how it could have ended. We are together again and that’s all what matters.”

“You’re right, sweetheart. I love you so much. Please, never leave me again.”

“How could I ever leave you, Sebastien. You are the love of my life and our life had only just begun. Wonderful five years, yes, but I hope it will be at least five hundred more.”

Booker chuckled at your words. “I will five thousand years at least, and more.”

Your lips found each other again and you know that as long as Booker was at your side, you would be never alone.

“I hope you can free me from this chains as soon as possible,” you told Joe and he only grinned at you.

“Don’t worry, we will make it when we’re at home. But are you sure you want to be free so soon? I can tell you that they’re perfectly for role games in the bedroom. Nicky and I had a lot with chains in the past.”

You looked back at Booker questionly. “Sounds like an interesting idea. You know when you hit and tackled the man down on the ground. That was kind of hot. It turned me really on.” The last words Booker whispered in your ear and you knew you wouldn’t leave the bed in the next days.

[fireinmoonshot]

THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS | ANDY x READER

Pairing: Andy / Andromache of Scythia x Reader Fandom: The Old Guard Word Count: 1197 Warnings: Death (like, a good lot of it), mentions of blood, guns.  A/N: I love writing for The Old Guard because it’s basically just angst, and Andy is potentially one of the most angst filled characters I’ve ever written for. I had a blast writing this. This does also contain slight spoilers for The Old Guard, of course. But it does take place after the events of the film in a random space of time that you can determine yourself!

For the first hundred years, Andy was determined not to let herself feel anything but friendship for you. She’d felt the pain of losing someone she loved so deeply before. The way it had torn her apart from the inside until she was nothing but cold and unfeeling on the outside, at least to most people. Booker, Nicky and Joe had brought some warmth back to her, and when Nile came along she did the same. But towards you, there had always been slight animosity. She was civil, she had to be – you couldn’t live with someone for a hundred years without at least pretending to like them. But it was different with you.

She’d forced herself to push her feelings down for a hundred years.

She was ready to push them down for another hundred.

Until, that is, the day of October 14th, a hundred and one years after you first died.

It was a normal day, a normal job for the lot of you. Nothing too difficult, nothing you couldn’t have fun with. Nicky, Joe and Nile were working together to barricade the room and keep the mansion’s guards out while you and Andy worked on going through the filing cabinets trying to find the files you were here to retrieve.

“This would be a really useful time to have Booker’s help,” you muttered.

Andy glanced over at you. “Focus on the task, would you?”

She ignored the jealousy that ran through her. You’d been friends with Booker, good friends. She’d thought that the two of you might have become more at one point, yet she had no idea that you had never looked at Booker as anything other than a brother.

“Have you got anything yet?” You knelt down and pulled open another drawer and began to flick through the files in it which had been, usefully, separated into labelled sections.

“No.”

From the door, Nicky yelled. “Any time soon would be great, guys!”

“We’re trying!” The two of you yelled back in unison.

You looked over at Andy, a grin making its way onto your face, expecting her to look at you the same way, amused. Instead, she made a point of not meeting your eyes and turned away from you, opening up another drawer and focusing on the files inside of it so that she wouldn’t think about how lovely you looked when you smiled.

That was when she heard the crash.

The barricade that the others had been building had started to strain from the pressure of the guards on the other side. A vase from the top of a cupboard one of the team had pushed in front of the door toppled and fell, crashing onto the floorboards beneath it. Andy held her breath as the cupboard swiftly followed the vase.

Everything happened quickly, then. She didn’t have time to move or act or to do anything other than watch as a guard weaselled his gun through the gap in the door and fired a single bullet. Whether it had an intended target, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted whoever fired it dead.

You fell backwards against the filing cabinet, several files you’d pulled out sent scattered to the floor, flecked with blood.

Nicky, Joe and Nile acted quickly, killing the other guards that tried to get through and beginning to barricade the door again. But Andy only had eyes for you. She fell to your side, knowing that you’d revive again any second, and cupped your face in her hands.

“Come on, come back,” she muttered, words inaudible against the gunfire.

Her eyes went to the wound. It should be closing up… it should be healing.

“No, no, no.” Panic flared through her and she shook you fiercely. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare do that.” It’s not their time. It’s not their time! It can’t be. “Come on, come back to me. Now!”

Andy never cried, not really. She never allowed herself that. This was an exception. She squeezed her eyes shut, her vision having blurred anyway from the tears that had assaulted her. Her hands stayed on your face.

Her eyes were still closed when yours blinked open.

You groaned a little in pain as the bullet clattered to the floor.

“Andy?” You muttered.

The gunfire had ended and Andy hadn’t even realised. It was quiet again. Her eyes opened and she took in the sight before her. You, alive, breathing… alive.

“Why the hell did that take so long?!” She cried, one of her hands moving to the wound to check if it had healed properly. It looked as if there was never even a wound there, the only tell being the blood around it. “I thought that you were dead!”

“I was dead.”

“Not funny.”

“How is that not funny?”

Andy fumbled. How was she going to explain this? How could she explain this? You, reviving with Andy kneeling over you, crying and willing you to come back. There was no explanation for that.

“Hey, why are you crying?” Hesitantly, you reached up a hand to wipe them away.

“Why do you think I’m crying?”

You thought for a moment. “Is it because you thought that this was it? You said something about it taking so long. You realised how much you never want me to actually die?” Your words were partly a joke and partly truth. You wanted to hear her say yes, to admit things you and the others had suspected for a long, long while. But you couldn’t help but tease at the same time.

Andy stared at you, words rushing through her mind.

“Well, is that it?” You pushed.

More silence followed. You wondered if she was ever going to say anything. Just when you were about to give up hope, to push her hands away from your face, and to stand and start searching for the files again, Andy surprised you by leaning in and pressing her lips to yours. The kiss was quick, rushed, but it held the passion of a hundred years of hidden love and the promise of a hundred years more.

Andy pulled away and looked at you. “You don’t do that again, you hear me?”

“Don’t do what?” You replied, a little shell shocked from the kiss.

“Die.”

A small laugh erupted out of you. “I can’t really promise that. I mean, dying… that’s kinda what I do… like a never ending circle of dying…”

Her lips quirked up into a small smile. “Oh, shut up.”

Another yell came from across the room. This time, it was Joe. “When you two are finished confessing your love, would you please find that file?”

Andy laughed and looked over at them. “Yeah, yeah, we’re on it.”

She stood up and offered you a hand, which you took, and stood alongside her. With a smile directed at you, she walked over to the drawer she was looking in before and started searching again.

“By the way,” you started, searching your own drawer again. “When we do get out of here, I’m expecting a full explanation of the last hundred years. You know that, right?”

[kill-your-authors]

My TTT 1 and TTT 3 Joe x Nicky character analysis:

Reading the Tales Through Time 3 comic is interesting because remember in the first Tales Through Time comic everyone was up in arms because Nicky was being “out of character” because he didn’t want to stab a nazi on sight in the middle of his romantic night out with Joe and because Nicky was giving Joe shit for always finding some righteous pursuit to interrupt their only private time together and because he seemed “annoyed” (he didn’t, but I digress...) to be interrupted by a woman’s desperate scream seconds before someone attempted to rape her? 

Yet, in this most recent comic, Joe is frustrated with Nicky because he’s going on a spree in Minnesota during the moon landing, right? Nicky is the one going out of his way to pursue justice in the middle of something that’s important to Joe. Not a romantic night out, but nonetheless, a one-of-a-kind moment in history that Joe specifically wanted to witness with Nicky. Joe is the one arguing against it.  For him it was enough to kill the serial killer, but for Nicky, it wasn’t. He wants to kill everyone who played any part in allowing the killer to get away with it. 

Now, setting aside the possibility that this contradiction is just an oversight on the writers’ part -

What changed and why?

In both TTT 1 and 3, Joe and Nicky feel entirely in character to me. I didn’t agree with people who thought that Nicky was being “out of character” in TTT 1 for not wanting to cause a scene on their romantic night out with someone who hadn’t even committed a crime yet, nevermind that Nicky seems like the voice of reason, the practical one, the one between Nicky and Joe who is more capable of accepting that they can’t get every bad guy every time, they can’t fight every battle every time. They can only do so much good, and they still deserve time for themselves. Or at least, that’s what I was thinking after reading TTT 1.

Now though, after reading TTT 3, it suddenly makes as much sense to me that Joe be the one who is more capable of accepting that they can’t do it all all the time, and that they still deserve time to themselves, and Nicky be the passionate one who can’t let something go. (I think I prefer it, honestly. I loved hearing Joe talk about seeing the beauty and magic in life. He’s such a pure-hearted character and I’ve always headcanoned that he more than anyone else in the guard is extremely grateful for his long life and never takes it for granted and never resents it because he knows there is always more to see and experience and live for.)

But either way, the point is the comics contradict one another, right? Joe and Nicky switched points of view? 

So, what makes this time different for the both of them? Why isn’t Joe the one on the spree, and Nicky the one in the bar lamenting that Joe isn’t there with him to witness the moon-landing? 

I think the difference lies in what the purpose of killing is for each of them. 

For Joe, killing is a means to an end. People are being killed by a killer - kill the killer, stop the killing. The killer is now dead and so he can’t kill anyone else. In Joe’s eyes, he has made the world a better place, he has saved the lives of that killer’s future victims. Preventing future harm is the point of killing for Joe. 

But for Nicky? Killing is about punishment. It is about taking the life of someone who doesn’t deserve to live. For Nicky, life is a privilege not a right. You earn your life either by doing good, or at the very least, by not doing harm. And once you’ve done harm, you no longer deserve to live. That is why Nicky thinks the people who enabled the killer to keep killing also deserve to die. This isn’t about hypothetical future victims that would have died. This is about victims who have already died. He is looking at the 24 men and boys who were killed and thinking they would still be alive if it weren’t for the killer AND he is looking at everyone who enabled that killer, and thinking some of the 24 men and boys would also still be alive if it weren’t for them. Punishing harm done is the point of killing for Nicky.

And what’s really interesting is when you start considering why that is. Why killing is about preventing future harm for Joe and why killing is about punishing harm already done for Nicky.

As always, it brings me back to their origin. Most likely, Joe was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when the siege of Jerusalem happened. He had been a merchant, but now his people were being slaughtered. He took up a scimitar and decided to fight to save them because the alternative was letting people die. For Nicky, the Crusades were a choice he made. He went to Jerusalem with the intention of killing people. Later, he realized what he’d done. The harm he’d done. The harm his people had done. For 900 some years, he has had to live with himself and for 900 some years he has done all the good he can do, served all the justice he can, in an attempt to make up for the harm he did in the Crusades. 

Joe has forgiven him, and loved him, and seen him become compassionate and good. Joe knows Nicky will never harm anyone again, and so that is why it is about what will happen for Joe, and not what has happened. Because of Nicky, it can never just be about what a person has done. It can only ever be about whether or not that person will change, and whether or not they will continue to do harm. 

But for Nicky, it has to always be about what a person has already done. Between being Catholic, and having been a part of something horrible, Nicky believes people have to be punished for what they’ve done. It is not enough for someone to be sorry, or never do it again. They have to make up for the harm they’ve done. And to Nicky, there are some things you just can’t make up for. In Nicky’s eyes, killing 24 men and boys, or enabling someone to kill 24 men and boys, is one of those things you can’t make up for. So he kills them. 

And this doesn’t contradict anything that happened in TTT 1. In TTT 1, the nazi hadn’t done anything yet. Both Joe and Nicky recognized that he would - which explains why Joe was already upset, and already about to do something, because for Joe it is about what will happen - but he hadn’t yet - which explains why Nicky tries to talk Joe out of doing something, because for Nicky it’s about what’s already happened. And it wasn’t until he did do something that Joe killed him. Similarly with the flashback, someone did something unforgivable, and so Joe killed him. For both Joe and Nicky killing those two in those respective situations aligned with their own personal reasons for killing. Those men were prevented from assaulting anyone in the future and punished for the assault they’d already done. 

If anything I’m saying right now is an accurate interpretation of Joe and Nicky’s individual motives for killing, I have to say that I really appreciate this characterization. I prefer a Nicky who can be blinded by the pursuit of justice to the point that he becomes something ugly (as Joe points out, his honor, his bravery, his compassion becomes ugly) and I prefer a Joe who cares more about helping good people than harming bad people. I think it makes sense that this is what it’s about for both of them. Joe could never be like Nicky, because if he was like Nicky, he could never have forgiven Nicky, even after Nicky became the honorable and brave and compassionate person he loves and it also makes sense that this is why Joe hates what Nicky’s doing “no matter his intent.” And Nicky knows, because of his past, because of what he did in the crusades, that it’s not enough that no more harm is done. People have to make up for what they’ve done, or they deserve to die. 

This might be simplifying things a bit. I think Nicky’s being blinded by something more than the pursuit of justice. I think this is personal to him as a gay man. He brings up the detective’s homophobia and his responsibility (oath to God) that he help people regardless of his own personal biases. He also mentions that he doesn’t feel better after he kills the detective, but that it’s better than how he’d feel if the detective had gone to work that night, implying I think, that he, like Joe, also takes the possibility of future harm into consideration when he decides to kill someone. 

But really, I do think that’s the difference. Preventing future harm, and punishing past harm, and I really like it. 

It makes me think about the movie, and how, before Rucka gave his word of God, there was a lot of debate about who’s idea it was to exile Booker for 100 years, and the fandom was split between whether or not Joe or Nicky proposed it. Most people thought that because Joe appeared angrier than Nicky did upon first learning about the betrayal, that it had to be Joe. 

I was on the side that thought that Joe appearing angrier didn’t indicate that he would have proposed the 100 years, because Joe, in general, was an open book that wears his heart on his sleeve and so, in general, Joe is always reacting the most passionately to anything that happens. I said I thought Nicky was angrier than Joe, and would more likely propose the 100 years, and that the only reason Nicky didn’t react as passionately is because Nicky, in general, is restrained in his emotions, and his anger runs cold rather than hot. 

Nicky doesn’t say a word to Booker from that point on in the movie, and at the end when they say goodbye to Booker, Joe looks over his shoulder at Booker, hesitates to walk away, and looks genuinely torn - whereas, while Andy is talking to Booker, Nicky is wearing a severe expression, almost like disgust or a sneer, and when they turn to leave he goes first without looking back. It made sense to me that Nicky approach the situation by cutting Booker off immediately, by no longer talking to him, and wanting Joe to do the same (he tells Joe to stop yelling at Booker, which many took as a sign that Nicky wasn’t as angry or that he felt sorry for Booker. I don’t think that’s the case at all). 

Even more so now, it makes sense to me that Nicky would insists on a 100 year exile, because he more than Joe would care about Booker making up for the harm he’d done. (But Rucka gave his word of God it was Joe who wanted the 100 years, and so it makes no difference if I think it doesn’t make sense, because everyone’s already hopped on board with Rucka’s word of God, because everyone prefers an angry, resentful, unforgiving, merciless Joe over...you know, actual canon Joe, who is the complete fucking opposite in every way possible...But...yeah, it doesn’t make sense lmao.)

Anyway, sorry this is so long but here’s my two cents. 

[oldguardhc]

Old Guard hc #17

Joe and Nicky were and always will be little shits

The first hint that was uncovered goes unnoticed. It was 1940, the world was in another disarray and the beginnings of a treasure hunt was so low on the list of priority news that it never even made it to the local newspaper.

The second clue got a brief mention on an Italian radio show in 1948. The team was in Brazil and knee deep in the Amazon river at the time of the broadcast.

The third and fourth clue similarly went under the team’s radar.

It wasn’t until the fifth clue that the team picked up on it. It was the 90s and the only headline for a whole week was about the ancient mysterious treasure hunt that expanded the whole globe.

Andy took one look at the Latin clue and glared at the couple in front of her.

Joe and Nicky tried to deny it at first. Of course that’s not Nicky’s handwriting! There were scholars back then who knew that dialect of Arabic!

It lasted thirty seconds because the anchorman started to report about the interesting symbol on each clue. In the corner of each clue, there was a circle with a longsword and scimitar in the center that formed an x.

They purposely avoided looking at the bed where the two weapons sat innocently.

Booker could only gape the entire time Andy yelled at the guilty pair.

After lots of yelling, it was decided to just let things be. Secretly, Andy also wanted to see the reaction when they found the treasure.

The whole ordeal is forgotten fairly quickly. With no progress, the media loses interest fast.

It’s three months after Merrick that the last clue is uncovered. Nile wakes them all up when she excitedly shrieks “Holy shit!” When she reassures them that everything’s fine, she holds up her phone and exclaims that they found the treasure!

She tells them about how everyone wanted to be treasure hunters when the fifth clue was discovered. She drove her mom crazy by burying everything in the backyard. Her sixth birthday was a treasure hunt party because of this.

Joe and Nicky are exchanging looks the entire time. Andy is biting back a grin.

Nile reads the article aloud and beams when she reads over the artwork found. Apparently there are multiple pieces of what appears to be two men, although one appears more often. There’s some literature as well and translating teams are working on it now. Nile gets all the way to the bottom and greedily takes in the artwork.

It takes a minute to recognize the two figures

Nile drops her phone in surprise, mortification creeping up on its heels. She covers her eyes with a groan. Oh god, she is never going to get those images out of her head. Jesus, she has to work with them! How is she going to look them in the eyes now?!

Joe picks up the phone and scrolls through the pictures, angling the phone so that Nicky can see too. Eight of the ten drawings are of him and Nicky fucking with all identifying features purposely left out. Despite that, it’s impossible to deny that they’re both men. The last two are of Nicky from behind holding his longsword.

Nicky rolls his eyes when Joe lingers on the poems Nicky wrote. They were considerably shorter than Joe’s, eight to ten lines compared to Joe’s pages. Joe says they captured the essence of their love efficiently.

Andy forces Nile to read all the tweets freaking out about the discovery. There’s three main groups. People who are gay screeching, people who are denying this is the real treasure and people who are making the relationship hetero. Andy is living for all the drama.

In Paris, Booker smiles softly into his glass at the news. His family were a bunch of trolls.

Nile’s childhood is officially ruined.