#this is joe pov so he doesnt Know but this is like. a major event for nicky

[youssefguedira]

got lotr au on the brain it seems (for @spacegirlsgang <3)

Yusuf finds Nicolò in a small alcove not far from where the battle still rages on, sitting against the wall with his bow resting beside him, his eyes closed. He looks just exhausted as Yusuf feels, but they do not have long to rest - they sleep in shifts for a few hours at a time. It’s nowhere near enough, but it will have to do. They’re losing more and more soldiers every minute, and the enemy is moving closer and closer to the fortress’ wall.

It is quieter here, at least.

Nicolò opens his eyes as Yusuf approaches. The dark circles under his eyes are not new; before Helm’s Deep, they had almost lost Andromache, and before then, the hobbits, and Booker, and before then, Quynh. Yusuf is tired of losing people, and he knows Nicolò is too. But they cannot rest yet, at least not until this battle is won.

And if they lose, well.

Nicolò doesn’t say anything, but moves his feet to make room for Yusuf at the other end of the alcove. Yusuf takes the offer.

“How much longer do you think we will hold?" he asks, just to break the silence.

“I cannot tell,” Nicolò says. “If we can keep them from reaching the wall, there is hope, but…”

They cannot hold out forever. And somehow, the enemy’s forces just keep coming.

“How have you fared?” Nicolò asks, turning the conversation to a slightly lighter topic.

“Twenty-eight,” Yusuf says.

Nicolò hums. “Thirty-five.”

“Come on. You expect me to believe that?” Yusuf asks, feigning outrage; it gets the shadow of a smile out of Nicolò, the closest thing to one that Yusuf has seen from him since Andromache made her way back to them. He’ll take it.

Nicolò runs his hand over his hair - his braid has loosened since Andromache did it for him earlier, to the point where the flyaway strands are beginning to fall into his eyes. He reaches behind himself and undoes the tie holding it in place, running his fingers through it to tease some of the tangles out.

His hands are trembling as he does it, but Yusuf doesn’t mention it. Nicolò curses softly as he drops the tie, and then drops it again a moment later.

Finally, he seems to accept defeat, and looks up at Yusuf. “Will you…?”

He doesn’t finish, but Yusuf holds out his hand for the tie and gestures for him to turn so his back is to Yusuf, facing the opposite wall. Nicolò is perfectly still as Yusuf runs his fingers through his hair to untangle it as best he can, separating it into parts once he’s done.

They are both silent, at first, then: “Tell me something,” Nicolò says.

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Your home, maybe.”

"Khazad-dum?” Yusuf asks. “It’s…” It’s funny, sometimes: his job revolves around finding the right word for things, yet he still struggles. “It’s beautiful, Nicolò. There are- there are places where you can see the veins of gold or silver or diamond in the stone, where the ceilings sparkle like the night sky. There are waterfalls deep below the earth, even gardens. One of them” - he smiles at the memory of it - “one of them, when the sunlight filters through the stone just right, the water becomes like liquid fire. In all my travels, I have never seen anything like it. My sister, when she was young, she thought it became real fire.” The thought of Amira brings a sharp twist of homesickness, and he trails off.

Nicolò is quiet for a moment. “I’d like to see that, I think,” he says. “Someday. If we win this.”

“You can come with me, then,” Yusuf says. “When this is over.”

He doesn’t see Nicolò smile, but he hears it anyway. “I’d like that.”

Yusuf smiles, too, and ties off the finished braid. “There. All done.”

Nicolò reaches behind him to touch it, stands and turns back around to face him. “Thank you, Yusuf.”

“It was nothing," Yusuf says, even though they both know it wasn’t.

Nicolò offers him a hand. “We should go.”

Yusuf is tired, and aching, and homesick. But he takes Nicolò’s hand anyway, because the battle’s not over yet.

At least he isn’t alone.