#yusuf looks like he has fire in his eyes

[negotiumcrucis]

One of my favourite pictures of Yusuf 🔥🔥🔥

[youssefguedira]

K or N for Joe and/or Nicky

K. On the edge of consciousness.

Yusuf wakes slowly, so slowly that he can’t see and isn’t even sure he can open his eyes, only half-sure he still has eyes, and that’s how he knows there’s something very, very wrong. He can’t move, can’t hear, can’t even smell anything. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened to him, but every part of him is burning, and he’s fairly sure the weird aching sensation in his head is his skull knitting itself back together, which. He really, really didn’t need to know what that feels like. 

There’s a scraping in his chest when he breathes in, but at least he’s breathing. 

Where is he? He could be anywhere. He could be in the middle of the street, could have been dragged away from the fighting from someone who had seen him breathing through a wound that should have killed him immediately. When he wakes, what will he find? Will they have taken his weapon? How long has he been dead? 

Will Nicolò be able to find him, if they are separated? Will he even try?

Slowly but steadily, he starts to hear something: a high pitched whistling that sounds like it’s coming from deep inside his own head. The darkness begins to lift, leaving flickering amber lights across his vision, and a shadow in front of him. 

There’s a voice, too, one that sharpens into words as Yusuf’s hearing begins to return. He doesn’t understand their meaning, but the cadence of them and the voice itself is familiar. 

“Are you awake?” Nicolò asks softly, switching to Arabic. 

Yusuf tries to make a sound in response. Whether it’s audible he doesn’t know, because the only noise he can really make is a rasping exhale, but Nicolò hushes him anyway.

“Do not… you can be slow,” Nicolò says. He’s more comfortable with the sounds of the language now, but still doesn’t always string sentences together well. “We are safe. I am here.”

He’s made aware of where his hand is by the feeling of Nicolò reaching for it. Yusuf manages to make an actual sound this time, but still can’t form words. Nicolò squeezes his hand gently. 

“I am here,” he says again. 

Eventually, Yusuf’s skull seems to piece itself back together fully, and his vision sharpens, letting him see that they’re backed into the corner of the two remaining intact walls of a house ravaged by fire, Nicolò crouched in front of him with his sword in hand. There’s a trail of blood leading to where Yusuf is lying now, and a section of the room that has collapsed. He can piece together enough. Nicolò would have had to drag him over here.

This time, he manages to make a sound, even if he can’t quite form words. Nicolò looks down at him over his shoulder, and there is blood on his face and in his hair, and only then does Yusuf notice the bodies in the room. 

“Okay?” Nicolò asks. 

Yusuf manages to nod, and it sends a spike of pain along his spine. Nicolò turns slightly to look at him properly. 

“You are almost done, I think,” he says. “You did not… you were asleep for a long time. I did not know if…”

“Nicolò,” Yusuf finally manages, hoarse.

“Rest,” Nicolò says. “I am here.”

(letter asks)

[materassassino]

For the prompt ask: hoodie for Joe/Nicky 😉

This one got a bit long, actually... It works though.

One word prompts!

---

Somewhere in the Altai Mountains, 1402

They are travelling east again, weary of the never-ending woes of the Mediterranean and Europe, and because Quynh wants to eat what she calls ‘proper food’ again – there is only so much Nicolò can do with imported spices that have lost their potency from travel (when they can afford them). Why they chose this accursed northern route instead of some sensible ship from Jeddah Yusuf will never understand, but Andromache mistrusts the sea in general, and Quynh will go where she goes, which means Yusuf and Nicolò have little choice. She also wants to show them Karakorum, which they have yet to see.

Winter is not close, but there is a chill on the air, especially now evening is falling and the shadows lengthen. Andromache scouts them a place she deems worthy for camp that night (though she is rarely very discerning, and Yusuf would swear she could sleep on a bed of gravel with no complaint), and they settle. Yusuf joins Quynh to fetch water, Andromache tends to the horses and Nicolò starts their fire and starts to prepare their food. It is a well-worn, familiar routine, each night in the wilderness the same as the one before.

Quynh is busy telling him about the time Andromache got herself in a spot of bother with some Gauls in Armorica when they get back to camp, and Yusuf is trying very hard not to trip over he chokes on his own laughter. Andromache scowls, and if the light were better, Yusuf would wager he saw the slightest embarrassed flush on her stoic cheeks.

“Not that one again,” she grumbles, removing her horse’s saddle and blanket. Quynh grins, something sharp-fanged and delightfully wicked.

“You just hate it because it ends with you in a pig sty!” she says. Yusuf wheezes helplessly.

That is when Nicolò sneezes.

Yusuf stops laughing immediately, sets down their filled waterskins and puts his hands on his hips.

“I told you to wear your cloak!” he grumbles. Nicolò has the cheek to roll his eyes, even as he wipes his nose on the back of his hand.

“I am fine,” he retorts, turning back to the fire. He sneezes again.

“God give me strength,” Yusuf mutters, raises his eyes to the heavens and waving his hands beseechingly. He stomps over to their pile of saddlebags and begins rummaging, but he soon stops.

“Nicolò,” he asks, “where is your cloak?”

They all see the way Nicolò’s shoulders tense, creeping up guiltily by his ears.

“Come to think of it,” Quynh says, pursing her lips, “I have not seen it since the village we passed through two days ago.”

Yusuf levels Nicolò with a long glare. “Nico?”

Nicolò rubs the back of his neck. “I think… I think I forgot it. At the inn.”

Andromache guffaws. Yusuf groans. Nicolò is usually so meticulous, but in fairness they had beaten a rather hasty retreat after Andromache got into a fight with a merchant over the treatment of his horses, so it is entirely likely it was simply lost in the whirlwind madness.

“We might not see another settlement until Karakorum itself,” Andromache says, drumming her fingers on her knee. “And it will only get colder the further up we go.”

Yusuf sighs, getting to his feet and fumbling with the clasp of his own cloak. He throws it over Nicolò’s shoulders and sits heavily beside him.

“Do not be stupid, Yusuf,” Nicolò says, shrugging the cloak off. “You need it!”

Yusuf waves him away, dismissive. That causes Nicolò to scowl.

“Well, if neither of you wants it…” says Quynh edging around the fire with a sly look.

“Leave it!” the two men snap in unison, and she darts back, hands raised defensively even as she laughs.

“Share it, you idiots,” Andromache snaps, shaking her head. “We’ll turn one of the spare blankets into a new cloak tomorrow.”

Yusuf and Nicolò both look at her, and then at each other.

“That… seems wise,” Nicolò concedes, and Yusuf muffles a snort of laughter.

They end the evening beneath the same cloak, huddled close together. There is, Yusuf muses archly, little difference with the night before.

--

Geneva, August 2022

The clouds roll in from almost nowhere, spilling down from the mountains. They don’t herald rain, but they cover the sun and an uncharacteristic chill shrouds the city. They’ve been scouting out potential new safehouses – it’s good to add to the rotation, and it’s time Nile got a few under any of her various shiny new aliases. The prices are eye-watering, but there’s always something to be found somewhere, especially further outside the city.

There’s a slight bite to the air now, just enough to cause some goosebumps. Nile tugs on the cardigan she’d draped over her shoulders that morning, covering her bare arms. Andy does absolutely nothing, because she refuses to let the whims of Mother Nature bother her overmuch. Nicky untie the hoodie from around his waist – unfashionable, as always – and zips it up, sticking his hands in its pockets.

Joe sneezes.

Nicky looks at him, in his optimistic breezy linen shirt and shorts, and raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t even need to say anything as Joe scowls at him.

“It was sunny until a moment ago!” he protests the unspoken accusation.

“Yeah, but the weather lady said it would get cloudy!” Nile pipes up, withering slightly under Joe’s glare.

“Should’ve paid more attention,” is all Andy says with a flippant smirk.

Joe simply folds his arms petulantly and stomps on ahead, attempting to brave the sudden chill. He doesn’t last long before he’s rubbing his arms, and the walk back to the hotel is thirty minutes.

Nicky sighs, and unzips his hoodie again. He drapes it over Joe’s shoulders, completely ignoring Joe’s pout.

“I don’t need it!” he says, about to shrug it off and hand it back like a stubborn fool. Nicky levels him with another long, hard look, and Joe meekly puts it on properly. He allows Nicky to adjust it fastidiously and zip it up, his resigned façade cracking entirely when Nicky plants the most fleeting of kisses on the tip of his nose.

“Oh my God,” Nile says. “That’s so adorable it’s disgusting.”

[bonnie131313]

I've been trying to resist this since I first heard about Yusuf Dikec but it's impossible.

"This is a bad idea."

Harold just sighs.  "You have said that several times now, Mr. Reese, " He reminds the former agent.  "We have all agreed with you that it is a bad idea.  Unfortunately, none of us seem to have a better idea."

"Finch is right," Shaw adds.  "If I go in there's the same issue with potentially being exposed. And, I  can't get into the men's dormitory like you can."

"I know," Reese frowns.   "But anonymity is one of our biggest advantages."

"Well, we might be able to do something," Shaw considers for a moment.   "Clothes and hair can be pretty effective disguises."

Harold does that perplexed bird thing and John just sighs again.

"What did you have in mind, Ms Shaw?" Finch asks.

"See if you can find Reese some eyeglasses,"  She hops off her chair and grabs her jacket.   "Something nice but a little more frumpy than fashionable.   Also, don't tailor the uniform too much."

"Where are you going?" Harold asks.

"Beauty supply store," She calls back over her shoulder. 

Reese has to admit that Finch and Shaw have done a great job. He's supposed to be a former soldier turned divorced father and he looks it.  The clothes fit but are just a tad loose.  Some discreet padding gives him a bit of a paunch but he still looks fit enough to be a blue collar worker.  The glasses are sensible but not flashy.  

The hair makes the biggest difference.  His slightly silvered hair is now more gray than dark.  

"It'll wash out," Shaw had assured him.  "Might take a week or two but you'll be back to normal pretty quick.  Try not to scrub too hard until this is over."

John settles himself in his lane along the firing line.  He eyes the competitors' equipment doubtfully.  The ear protection makes sense to him, no need to risk hearing loss.  Still, his simple earplugs are more than enough.  Why spend money on fancy electronic earmuffs?  The glasses are kind of silly though. Easier to use both eyes when aiming.

One hand, he reminds himself.  This is an air pistol with almost no recoil.  He doesn't need two hands to hold the gun steady.  Better to keep his left hand in his pocket so he doesn't accidentally make a mistake.  

"I thought I told you not to win?" Harold had sounded exasperated.  

"I had to stay in as long as the number was in," John reminds him.  "Besides, no one remembers who comes in second."

"You're a meme," Harold had groused.

"They're already moved on to that  pole vaulter with a big dick," Reese assures him.

"This was a bad idea," Harold complains.

"Yeah," John agrees.  "But I got a cool medal."

[fondofeveryprickle]

My AO3 Wrapped 2023

Welcome to my AO3 Wrapped 2023, where I take a look at some of my favourite fics from 2023 (one bookmark per month). 

There were so many amazing fics in 2023, so many new people and friends I met because of fanfic <3 So here’s to a very good 2024, full of words and worlds!

Let’s go to the fics:

January-

The Fine Line Between Hormones and Home by seekingmoonscapes (Bad Buddy: The Series)

In an almost canon universe where the only difference is that it is omegaverse, Pat is an omega, and Pran is an alpha. And during one of his heats, Pat is at home, and decides to ask Pran for a shirt with his scent to help with his heat. But instead, he asks Pran for help in other ways. Fic where the porn IS the plot, everything is super consensual, and sexy and hot. Alternating POV, so on Pran’s pov we get to see all the pining.

February - 

If Never Again, If Every Day by gallifreyburning and takiki16 (The Old Guard)

This fic was wonderful from beginning to end. For reasons, 2021 Nicky goes back in time to Jerusalem and his first death at Yusuf's hands. Meanwhile, 1099 Nicolò goes forward in time to 2021 and meets Joe. It's heartbreaking and loving and funny and so full of love. Nicky and Joe miss each other even when around their younger versions. But the love they feel for each other is stronger than that. Wonderful story, happy ending.

March - 

Wooing the Water Tribe by lenaballena (ATLA) @dameferre

Sokka has been living in the Fire Nation as Zuko's second in power and his best friend and everything. When Katara comes to visit, Sokka thinks Zuku is courting her. And he realizes he is also in love with his best friend. Lots of pining. There's absolutely no courting of Katara. It's also really funny. My heart broke for Sokka at some moments.

April - 

The Grand Unified Theory of Shen Qingqiu by 00janeblonde (SVSSS)

WIP - This story is all fluff and no angst, like the tags say, slice of life and it's wonderful. SQQ dies at Maigu Ridge, and is offered to acquire the Game Plus, where he can go back to the past with his cultivation and memory intact, and try again. Doing that he discovers that he is actually the real Shen Jiu reincarnated, and he can try to recover memory markers to be able to restart the "game" even before than when he first "transmigrated". His friendship with YQY becomes strong, LQG also becomes his friend (it's really sweet how he wants his friends back). Everything is very soft. Absolutely great teacher SQQ.

May - 

but for me, there is a storm by Authoress (Haikyuu!!) by @kiribakus

An epic pacific rim au. Hinata and Kageyama are both cadets who want to be Jaeger pilots, but they cannot get along. So they work really hard because they are their last hope to pilot a one of a kind Jaeger - a Kaiju/Machine hybrid. They solve their problems in the beginning (and then later they have more problems). Hinata and Kageyama are not the only main characters, other characters are also very important and have their own storyline and pov. This story is heartbreaking as well. There's MCD, and it made me cry so hard I got puffy eyes. It's a wonderful read, and very well written.

June - 

The UA Analyst Kid by RogueVector (BNHA)

Izuku meets the UA teachers before getting OFA and they see how good his analysis is, so they start to train him (together with some other heroes). But some things don't change and Izuku still meets All Might and gets offered OFA. This story is funny, sweet and with amazing relationships. Izuku is OP with his intelligence and training. All the teachers and heroes are so supportive and good. A really feel good story.

July - 

Deku? I think he’s some pro… by Clouds (BNHA)

After All Might told Izuku he can't be a hero, he finds himself in a forum used by some underground heroes and offers his analysis to them, since he can't be a hero, he will help them. The underground heroes think Izuku is some kind of retired pro when they ask for help analyzing some villains and all, and when they finally meet face-to-face they all decide to practically adopt Izuku and teach him to fight so he will have a chance to be a quirkless hero. It is amazing! Also, the relationship between Izuku and the underground heroes is more like friends than teacher-student, and it's amazing that way. (some All Might bashing - be warned)

August - 

Mobius by Foxquills (BNHA) @fox-quills

WIP - I love this story so much!!! Third-year Izuku is sent to the past because of a quirk accident, to the time both Shouta and Hizashi are third year students at UA. Problem is, according to Nedzu, time is constant, or a loop, so he can’t change anything in the past, and everything that has happened, will happen again. He becomes fast friends with both Shouta and Hizashi, and starts crushing on them as well. Both Hizashi and Shouta also start crushing on him. It is lovely. There’s pain. It’s awesome. (also omegaverse).

September - 

Factory Settings by Anonymous (Good Omens)

Post season 2 au, because Crowley follows Aziraphale to heaven. Things happen, and instead of Crowley, there is Raphael, without any memory of all the time he's lived as Crowley. Heaven and Hell are at it again. Aziraphale has no idea what to do, and he misses his Crowley. Muriel is a sweetheart. Both Aziraphale and Crowley/Raphael povs. Great story, feels very much canon.

October - 

Justice in Defiance by Foxquills (BNHA) @fox-quills

WIP - Aizawa is a hero turned villain who kills both heroes and villains alike. And one day Izuku finds him right after he kills someone. They fight. And now Izuku needs to know more. What made Aizawa turn????? To do that, he will also need Hizashi in his corner. Absolutely lovely story!!!! The povs are amazing. The feelings and pining are perfect.

November - 

If I Must Starve (Let it be in Your Arms) by Igneum807 (The Witcher)

So think about the softest story involving Jaskier and touch-starved witchers, and this is the result. During his travels alone, when he and Geralt go their different ways for a few weeks, Jaskier meets Geralt's brothers, who are just as touch and companionship-starved as Geralt was before meeting Jaskier. It's super soft and tender.

December - 

Cultivate: Slow Life on a Monster-Infested Mountain by NeonGhostCat (SVSSS) @neonghostcat

When SY transmigrates, the System tries to put him on SQQ's body, but SQQ is aware and is able to stop it from happening. The System then gives SY his own body, but something goes wrong with the system and SY is decided to not get involved with the plot, or with Cang Qiong Sect, and specially SQQ. He finds an abandoned mountain, with an abandoned house there and decides to stay there until he is strong enough if SQQ finds him and wants to kill him. Obviously things cannot be that simple. Now he is stuck on the mountain he can't get out of, every full moon night there are monster attacks and one day LQG appears on the Mountain, how can he get out of helping with the plot now? Shen Yuan is absolutely perfect on this fic. I love how he deals with the mountain and its beasts and plant-life. Liushen is the softest you'll see. Slow burn, super domestic, feel good story.

~

Enjoy your readings!

[reginamillls]

why are you covered in blood? + joenicky if it strikes a vibe

IT DOES STRIKE A VIBE

I'm typing this on mobile so sorry for the mistakes ALSO you know me so have a snippit of an AU that came to my mind with the plot

* * *

The forest is quiet, eerily so.

It's long since grown used to Nicolo and considers it one of it's own. It does not still for him like it did when he first arrived some fifteen years ago.

Nicolo and the forest are connected.

He knows his forest, and he knows that whoever runs within is not a danger, but that they are in danger.

Nicolo moves to prepare his bow, but the trouble finds him first.

The person crashes into him, and the sharp smell of blood fills his nostrills and his eyes flash.

"Why are you covered in blood?" Nicolo asks, alarmed, trying to take in the stranger's injuries in the setting sun. He looks up, and knows that they will be out of time soon.

"Sir please-"

The stranger groans, and collapses in Nicolo's arms. He sighs. There isn't much time left before dark.

He heaves the stranger onto his shoulders and goes to his cabin.

The cabin is small but old. Nicolo had come to it when he first came to the Forest and found sanctuary within its walls. He's made it his own over the years, repairing it and making it comfortable.

He isn't a medic, and this isn't a place of healing, but Nicolo will do his best.

The cabin only has room for one bed and Nicolo lays the stranger down on it's only blanket. He will need to take his furs out should the stranger be cold from blood loss, if this was indeed his blood.

He hurries to light a candle, letting it light his way as he goes to the washbin to get fresh water. He pours it into a bowl and grabs a rag.

Nicolo says nothing as he begins to wipe away the blood from the man's face. He would turn on a fire, but if the man was running from something, Nicolo doesn't want to give away their position.

The candle is more than enough light for Nicolo. Most nights he doesn't need it at all.

The flickering light dances across the man's face and even through the blood and grime Nicolo can make out the stranger's handsome features. He has a full beard, soft and well groomed, and there are freckles across the bridge of his nose. His eyes are scrunched, revealing laughlines that should be lit up in a smile but are only deepened with pain.

Nicolo keeps his touch brief, cleaning away the blood. There are scratches across his neck and chest, his clothing torn from his journey in the woods. The callouses on Nicolo's hands catch at the fine fabric.

This man could be noble with such fine clothes.

Lower he finds a worrying wound and Nicolo's fingers brush against it-

The man gasps and shoots up. A glint of metal flashes in the candlelight and Nicolo's neck is on the other end of a blade.

A blade that he is very familiar with.

Nicolo backs away as if burned and his hands go up. There's a phantom pain across his face as he remembers the last time he had seen the blade.

The Dragon Blade of the Crowned Prince.

Prince Yusuf al- Kaysani.

"Who are you?" The Prince hisses in a language that had been foreign to Nicolo fourteen years ago but has now become as comfortable to him as his own childhood's tongue.

The Prince stares at him as Nicolo fights to beat his own silence. His gaze flickers to the scar across Nicolo's face, but the man's eyes show no spark of recognition.

Nicolo moves to speak but the man groans then and the blade in his hand shakes before he drops it.

"Where am I?" The Prince grits out and he's tugging at his hair.

He stares up at Nicolo then, his dark eyes shine in the candlelight, reminding Nicolo of the dark sky at night.

They're filled with tears, wide and terrified.

"Who am I?"

[guttersniper]

@rvolving as yusuf said: a hug to say sorry, maybe after they fail to save someone mutt must have liked 😢

hug prompts.

they'd started a fire with mutt's matches and what whiskey remained in booker's flask. dinner had been cooked, cleared away by the time he distances himself a few paces away. he's grateful that none of them follow him, knowing each other and their proclivities by now as if they were their own. eyes numb and almost catatonic in their remove, it is more than evident to any who know his tells that he has vanished away within himself in an effort to combat his wounded grief.

he imagines a shared look, though. wordless, but words passed. nothing can stop those.

before mutt heard yusuf's approach, he can tell it's him, he knows their gaits, his knee bounced rapidly. done so to stave off the shakes that could've manifested elsewhere, like in his hands, his shoulders. his hands clasp together and rest against his mouth. they were the only barrier between him and the bloody aching he felt forming a ball in his throat, constricting. he stills, forcing more tension into his tight muscles, when he's no longer alone.

yusuf crouches in front of him. one hand is gently placed on top the younger's wrist, limp on his thighs. their heights aren't equaled, but it does allow them to look at each other straight. for once, mutt's taller.

mutt swallows, squeezing his eyes shut when he feels them begin to sting. tears collect at the lower lashline. it has been many, many years since he has allowed himself to cry. he does not know how to go about changing his own permissions. when at last he speaks, it comes out a whisper, and still he cannot look at yusuf for his shame. " they'd trusted me. "

he feels a warm hand cradling one side of his face before the fingers move to rest right below his chin. prompting him to finally snap his eyes up, mutt looks at him for the first time. " that's probably what they were thinking about. when they died. how i should've been there. and how i wasn't. "

it isn't your fault. he knows he isn't alone in this grief. and yet, he has placed the entire burden on himself. he abruptly stands. it is a nasty, ugly thought that says he could punch yusuf to get him to leave him alone. for the split second, he considers it, before yusuf closes the small distance between them and draws him to him. he's whispering, sweet and gentle and comforting nothings low enough only to be heard by his ears.

it takes a little while before mutt returns the gesture. he curls, slightly, into the familiar width and breadth, and his arms knot tightly around his frame with unforeseen fervor.

[branmac9]

Just another day in New Hope for Krux Phebo. Running and playing hide and seek with the other children. Lots of crates among the Geodomes and hydroponic tents to hide in. He pulls his supplementary oxygen mask down a bit breathing in the fresh smell of pine and plants.He sees his father Hara smile and wave in his brightly multicolored sweater. Life is good for these hard working communal settlers. In ten years or so the air should be fully breathable with all the work the folks of New Hopes small but dedicated folks have put in.

Then suddenly fire rains down from the sky. Everything is burning. The smell of burnt flesh permeates the air. The intense pain of the plasma burning him alive is to much to bare, Krux passes out.

Suddenly he awakes in a start. His left arm has been replaced by a robotic arm. His right leg below the knee has been replaced with robotic parts. Not only that half his head is covered in a chrome plate, one eye is seeing in a red that focuses like a gun scope. His nose is gone replaced by an iron plate, most likely to help him look less disfigured. Panic and vertigo hit like a sledge hammer all at once. Then Thoth the sage a trader that would visit New Hope on occasion looks down on him with a warm smile. He speaks “ you know your going to have to pay me back for all this work I’ve done to you” the he laughs blowing out the vapor from what ever stim he’s smoking.

Damn! another night terror. Krux wakes up covered in wetness. Looks like he’s shorted out his right leg again with his own body sweat. Over Twenty years and the night terrors still happen. Thoth died in a salvage mission gone wrong a few months back. Depression and loneliness are setting in as well. His only company for the last month has been TR-5 his all to serious combat bot. A melon sized mechanical ball that follows him everywhere floating over his left shoulder. One of Thoths creations. Time to get up and fly the ship Thoth left him (the Three of Diamonds) to the location of a derelict space craft so he can get that plasma servo for Yusuf Toshi on Lameria Station. He doesn’t want to run out of those various stims and drugs that keep his all to weak body going (the none mechanical parts). And hopefully have enough credits left over for food, fuel, and maybe a lady for the night. Been awhile since he’s seen another person let alone touched one. And maybe possibly he can pick up a lead on the pirate chief that destroyed his life all so long ago. No name he just remembers that space suit cover in furs and reptile skins with the four horned space helm. A giant brute of a man if that’s what he was at all. The vow of revenge is what drives him on day after day hopping for a break someday he will get his vengeance! My

[steelcityreviews]

REVIEW: An American Hymnal: Forgiving and Healing Through Music...

He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love…. - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Music provides humanity with many things: a universal language, a range of emotional responses, and, for many, a light in the dark. Terra Bruce Productions understands how music functions in our every day lives and how to channel it into not only a history lesson but a deeply personal story dealing with the importance of forgiveness as well.

The show introduces us, rather abruptly, to Father Paul Barry (in a captivating performance by Connor Lucas) who has left his home in Ireland to move to America, determined to help others. On the busy streets of Chicago he encounters Dinah, an unforgettable jazz singer (and a beautiful and layered performance by Ruth Acheampong), leaving Paul with a decades long lasting impression. We follow their journeys through melding various genres of music from gospel to rock and roll of the 50’s and 60’s, and face the injustices of society throughout, many of which still resonate strongly to this day.

Director Courtney Brown and the creative team behind An American Hymnal showcase some of the best use of projections I have witnessed in ages. The projections set the scenes beautifully from the stained glass of a church to the devastating fires of the Chicago riots (which targeted black urban areas following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968). These projections do not detract from the efforts of this exceptionally talented cast who work fluidly to transition scenes and keep the story moving. At times, the stage at Theatre Aquarius almost feels too big for the more intimate moments between characters, but it also demonstrates how isolating and empty moments in life can be and the staging utilizes this well overall.

As we journey with Father Paul, we are introduced to several familiar songs like Morning Has Broken (best known by Yusuf/Cat Stevens), His Eye is On the Sparrow (a stunning gospel song recognizable from Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit), Only You by The Platters and the powerhouse performance of I Believe (a pop song from the late 60’s, envisioned here as a march and protest song). There are some standout moments from Steve Maloney as the rockabilly baritone Carter Johnson (who channels an entertaining heartthrob Elvis vibe) and the ensemble continuously shines in the aforementioned I Believe and The Three Bells, among others. There are no small parts within this show and the ensemble proves it throughout as they dance, sing, play multiple characters and change set pieces effortlessly. Bravo.

The leads Lucas and Acheampong are both exceptional in their own right. Lucas is gut-wrenching in his moments of despair. His soaring tenor was impressive in several songs (especially during His Eye is On the Sparrow which gave me chills) and Acheampong’s stubborn dreamer energy is authentic and inspiring with her incredible vocal prowess in I Believe and Wade in the Water.

The audience will connect with several of the themes here, the strongest being that of learning how to forgive and perhaps even more importantly, to be forgiven. There’s no escaping the religiosity of it all but forgiveness goes beyond monotheism and takes a very hard look at how to move on and learn from one’s mistakes, hardships and loss. The musical selections only hammer these themes home and are carefully reprised in the second act, taking on new and more profound meanings.

An American Hymnal is a deeply moving and impactful history lesson reflecting on moments that still resonate today. It also provides wonderful connections regarding how music shapes and changes throughout history. It reminds us that without gospel, we would never know rock and roll. Without mistakes, we would never know forgiveness. Without loss, we would never truly understand or appreciate love. All these things and more make this new musical a must-see. The only true criticism I have is that it isn’t playing in Hamilton, ON for more than 3 days. I highly recommend seeing this show. You will not be disappointed.

FOR TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT:

THEATRE AQUARIUS BOX OFFICE

[eyes-onthehorizon]

The Old Guard Provide... Leverage

It's the 1800s, and Martha recently left the employ of Sir Archibald Graham for reasons she can't discuss. The Old Guard help her get revenge and closure with a healthy dose of found family on the side. A reworking of February is a Month Like Any Other because it desperately needed editing. An Old GuardxLeverage mashup. Rape is implied and the circumstances around it are discussed in detail; the violence itself is only alluded to.

chapter one (ao3)

Two

Yusuf receives a letter, and we meet someone new.

emporium [empɔːriəm]

Word forms: plural emporiums, plural emporia

countable noun [formal]

An emporium is a store or large shop.

(“What are doing down there, Habibti?”

“It’s none of your business, Mister.”)

The birds sang as sweetly as they had the day Nicoló had departed. Yusuf sighed, and began their daily routine a cappella, sorely missing the accompaniment of his husband’s movements. He swept the floor, rearranged a few items… There. Your Local Emporium was now open for business.

The post arrived shortly after.

“’Ere, son. A romantic overture from your long-lost love.” Amadeus teased. The postie was as caring as he was nosy, and didn’t bother with hiding the torn edge of the envelope. Yusuf didn’t bother to protest it. Finally, he had some news.

As he pulled the paper from its wrapping, Yusuf felt his face light up. A letter from Nico! A letter containing hopefully vital information to the case they were building against Sir Graham, but a letter from his beloved nonetheless.

“Your omniscience inspires faith, Amadu,” Yusuf says, his tone wry but his eyes warm.

The other man chuckled. “As it should. See you tomorrow, Joseph.”

Yusuf waved him off, turning to go back into the shop before looking sharply over his shoulder. He scanned his surroundings before spotting what had caught his gaze. A sharp pair of eyes stared back through the hedge beside the shop entrance. He backed into the shop, slowly, only breaking eye contact at the last moment. Yusuf made his way to the apartment quickly, grabbing some food and a jug before stepping back out onto the shop floor, arranging them on the nearest flat surface before heading back downstairs to make himself busy.

He'd recently not-adopted an urchin, a tiny, bony, belligerent streak of red-and-eyes who refused any food or help unless she thought she was stealing it. Over the last three months, she’d said exactly six words to him, in a tone so reminiscent of Seb that he was immediately a goner. He’d taken to leaving portions of his meals around – taking a bite and stepping away on one pretext or another – and it looked like she could put away everything Nicoló eats in a day and then some. He’d forgotten just how much children could need.

The Emporium usually stayed empty ‘til noon on the weekdays, so Yusuf found himself a comfy spot close to the fire and began reading.

My dearest love,

It has been too long since I have held you in my arms. The pages of our love have been bound by fate and there is nothing that can stop my return to you now. I know I cannot make heads nor tails of anything but being in your presence once more.

Yours always,

N

It wasn’t his best work but the message was clear enough. Yusuf suddenly couldn’t contain himself: rushing around reordering things, feeding the fire. Checking the stock in the back, noticing that not only the food but the plate was gone, along with a very small whirlwind.

There was a small gang of boys who made it their business to “patrol” the neighbourhood. They weren’t too bad – not nearly as dangerous as the group of thugs they’d encountered when they’d last been in the New World – but they did like throwing their weight around. The second-in-command, Bean, was particularly aggressive. No one wanted to be on Bean’s bad side, so they mostly let him get away with whatever it was he wanted.

Duff was the leader (“Short for Macduff, Vanquisher of Evil!”) and the brains of the operation. He collected monthly dues from the shopkeepers and the coppers turned a blind eye to their patch, which had been exactly how Andy had wanted it when they were discussing areas of the city in which to open a front.

Duff collected, and if he didn’t, Bean would make sure that you didn’t forget the next payment.

It had been a week before Yusuf had made the connection between the tornado eating her way through his pantry and the gangly redhead who loomed over everyone. Yusuf suspected her brother knew where she was – she spent time enough in the Lights and Mirrors room to cause no end of trouble – and prayed every day he would continue feigning ignorance.

Yusuf sighed, stretched and read Nicoló’s letter for the fourth time that day, absentmindedly stirring his tea. His train of thought was interrupted by an obnoxious slurping. Raising his eyebrows at his companion, he risked an amused glance.

She only met his eyes for a moment before her gaze skittered away. “You should drink that before it gets cold.”

He hummed his reply before taking an equally obnoxious slurp of tea.

She giggled before she could think better of it. “I’m Tig.”

“I’m--”

“You’re Mr Kayson. You let me eat a lot and you’re in love with someone named N. Why do you let me stay? I hope it’s not because you feel sorry for me because I can take care of myself, thank you very much. But it’s nice here. Warm. Like a--”

It seemed Tig had saved up three months of conversation for this very moment. Yusuf was glad the tinkling of the bell gave her an excuse to breathe.

“It’s very nice to make your acquaintance, Tig. I’ll be right back.”

It was the Davis sisters, Yusuf realised with reluctance, who had floated into the shop. He wished he’d just stayed with Tig and the tea.

The Davis sisters were from the American South. They had been sent to England by their great-uncle, who had died and left them obscenely wealthy. Tig reacted to them like a cat responding to a cucumber; but thankfully, only within his eyeline. Yusuf mentally thanked whichever God was listening that the girls had only wanted ribbons that day and left the shop with little fuss.

He heard Tig sigh above him. “They’re so pretty. It’s a shame they’re so annoying.”

Yusuf just repressed a smile and fed the fire once more.

[youssefguedira]

happy saturday! this is for mary @spacegirlsgang as always because i was thinking about Them again

The thing is, Nicolò stops thinking about it.

He doesn't mean to say it at first – Andromache doesn't believe him, the first time she overhears and he has to explain just to escape the inevitable teasing – but it slips out anyway, on a quiet evening when they're both on watch, Andromache already long asleep, which is a rare occasion indeed. He tells Yusuf to get some rest, more for show than anything else, because Yusuf shakes his head as he has done for the past few nights. "In case you fall asleep," is his normal excuse, and he's always smiling as he says it. It's not a risk in the slightest, but Yusuf doesn't seem to care, and Nicolò will not refuse the company.

(He's not as comfortable alone anymore than he used to be. He hasn't had time to really think about that yet.)

So it is evening, and Nicolò is poking at the fire in an attempt to revive it somewhat while Yusuf is mid-tale, voice hushed to avoid waking Andromache but waving his hands animatedly as he talks. It might have infuriated Nicolò when they first met, how Yusuf never quite seemed to be still, but it's rapidly become one of the things he likes most about him.

(That's another thing he hasn't had time to think properly about since Helm's Deep, but has been haunting him anyway: Yusuf's eyes, exhausted but still gentle, as he offered to help with Nicolò's braid; the way he'd smiled brighter than the sunrise when the elves had arrived from the east, Quynh among them; the way he'd persuaded Nicolò to join in the celebrations afterward. And then, the thing that plagues him the most: the way he sang, both soft and solemn for those they'd lost and joyful and loud later on, everyone's eyes on him, the most beautiful thing in the room.)

It's because of all this that when Yusuf asks him about the flow of a line in the song he's taken it upon himself to compose in commemoration of the battle, he answers: "I could not say, elenya. I have never been particularly musical."

He realises what he's said only after he says it. Yusuf almost certainly notices, but he doesn't say anything about it, sparing Nicolò's heart for now. Instead, he leans back on his elbows, and the movement draws attention to the way his curls fall across his face, the way the firelight turns him to gold. "I don't know about that," Yusuf says. "You grew up in Rivendell, you must have learned a thing or two."

"If that were true," Nicolò says, "perhaps Andromache would have learned to carry a tune. Alas."

Yusuf laughs, golden, and Nicolò is – Nicolò is hopeless. "You're lucky she's asleep."

The topic of conversation turns after that, and it is, largely, forgotten.

The worst of it is that it doesn't end there. It's just so easy to slip it into conversation, warm and familiar like they've known each other for years, elenya, star. It suits him, Nicolò thinks, even if he is perhaps a bit biased: a bright point of light amid so much darkness.

He never admits this to Andromache, even when she overhears and gives him a sidelong look but blessedly doesn't say anything in front of Yusuf. She would say he's being insufferably poetic; Nicolò would argue the time with Yusuf is a bad influence.

So it becomes a reflex, and he doesn't think about it. Until after everything, after they are all reunited and safe (and they survive, all of them, even Nile and Lykon, carried back down into the city by the Eagles, still enough that Nicolò had thought they were dead at first until Nile had coughed and he'd been light with relief), and he and Yusuf finally have the time to figure out this thing between them.

It is – Nicolò does not have the words to describe it. He only knows he has never felt this much before.

They're in the courtyard when it comes up. It's late, and the night is clear, clear enough that there are more stars than Nicolò could ever hope to count. Yusuf is lying beside him, his head resting lightly on Nicolò's shoulder, quiet enough that he could be asleep, but Nicolò knows he isn't.

(He'd thought Yusuf was never still before, but just didn't see it: now Yusuf is comfortable enough with him to let himself rest properly, and Nicolò still marvels at that a little.)

Just when Nicolò is starting to think Yusuf may have actually fallen asleep, he speaks. "Thatr. That's one you don't know."

Nicolò repeats it to himself, then asks, "What does it mean?" They've been teaching each other bits and pieces of their respective languages for a while now, first as a way to pass time on the road, but now it's a habit.

"Star," Yusuf says, then tilts his head to look at Nicolò expectantly. The stars are reflected in his eyes.

"Elen," Nicolò responds. He doesn't think it through until Yusuf props himself up on one elbow, his brow furrowing in thought.

"Elen," he echoes, and only then does Nicolò realise, but he cannot take it back now. "But that sounds like – what's the word–"

"Elenya," Nicolò says, and there is really no reason for him to steer clear of telling Yusuf what it really means, now that Yusuf knows exactly how Nicolò feels, but. Well.

"Nicolò," Yusuf says. Nicolò doesn't look at him, but Yusuf's voice is soft when he asks, "What does it mean?"

"Translated literally," Nicolò says, "it can mean star, or my star for some, I think, but it is not – there is more to it than that, I cannot–"

When Nicolò finally looks at him there is something like wonder in his eyes. "All this time?" Yusuf asks.

"All this time," Nicolò replies. "What did you think it meant?"

"I don't know, something like – idiot, or–" Yusuf makes an exasperated sound, and Nicolò can't help smiling, which only makes Yusuf roll his eyes. "Don't look at me like that, it's not that far-fetched. I still thought you didn't like me. Why?"

"It made sense," Nicolò says simply. "Even when things were impossibly dark, you were there."

Yusuf just looks at him for a long moment, silent, eyes shining. "Nicolò," he says again, and then kisses him, and then neither of them speak for some time after that.

When they do part, finally, Yusuf lies back down and curls close to Nicolò's side. "And you call me the poetic one. Honestly."

"It's true," Nicolò insists, because he can't hold a candle to Yusuf's way with words. Yusuf just shakes his head, and for a while they're still.

"You know," Yusuf says, "when Andromache and Quynh find this out, they'll never let you hear the end of it, amrâlimê."

He'll ask Yusuf what that means tomorrow. "I know." They've been teasing him about it since the first time Andromache overheard him, and then since she told Quynh. But he loves them anyway, so it's all just as well.

[materassassino]

WIP Wednesday

Am I a week late? Yes. I forgot. I'm sorry. BUT! Today is a Wednesday, so I can make up for it.

Tagged in the circle by @emmalostinwonderland

Sharing a different Old Guard fic this time, one I'm procrastinating because of all the research I have to do for it.

One final, snatched kiss and they step away from each other, the last thing to release is their hands. It is agony to turn away, and Nicoló keeps looking back, over his shoulder. Yusuf, he can see, does the same, until the sun drenches the land in the pinks and light reds of full dawn and the cliffs of the wadi separate them. Finally Nicoló turns away, head bowed. Quynh is surprisingly quiet through all this. Nicoló chances a look at her, and for once there is no glint of mischief in her eyes, just a small, indulgent smile. “We must look quite pathetic,” he murmurs. “It’s young love,” she says, squeezing his arm fondly. “It is new and bright and beautiful and you’ve never felt anything like it before, have you?” Nicoló shakes his head, flushing slightly. No one has ever moved his heart like Yusuf has, changing the very shape of life for him. “It’s easy to lose yourself in it,” Quynh says, and she sounds like she knows how it feels. “It can devour you, drown you in it until you forget who you ever were without it. He may complete you, Nico, he may be the other half of your soul, but you must also be yourself even without him.” The prospect isn’t appealing at all, and Nicoló says so. Quynh’s smile is a little pitying now, and it rankles. “I mean it. When I met Andromache, I knew I’d found the person I would love for the rest of my life. It was perfect, it was fire and madness, and I realised that if I continued like this, I would lose myself. I would forget to be Quynh. So we separated, walked different paths for twenty years. And I remembered who I was, what I could do alone.” She releases Nicoló’s arm and dashes up a boulder on the side of the path, standing atop it like a mighty conqueror. “I was Quynh! Tiger of Au Lac! Scourge of Nanyue! The Heavenly Arrow of Lam Ap! I still am! Quynh of the mighty bow and fast daggers! She who laughs as she kills!” With a snarling laugh she leaps from the rock and lands beside him, and he can’t help but smile at her. “And I am still Andromache’s, as well. When we reunited, it was all the sweeter. Knowing who I was alone helped me love her more.”

Trying to explore any differences between Andromaquynh and Joenicky and also because I want to write reunion sex. This entire fic came about because I had a mental image of Nicky and Joe rolling down a sand dune as they kiss, which amused me.

Tagging uhhhhh @non-un-topo @dangerouscommiesubversive and @veradragonjedi

[a-fic-reviewer-757]

Eu postei 13 vezes em 2022

Foram 13 posts a mais do que em 2021!

13 posts criados (100%)

0 posts reblogados (0%)

Eu marquei 13 posts meus em 2022

#ao3 - 13 posts

#ao3 fic - 12 posts

#modern au - 7 posts

#game of thrones - 3 posts

#got - 3 posts

#a song of ice and fire - 3 posts

#asoiaf - 3 posts

#lyanna x rhaegar - 2 posts

#lyanna stark - 2 posts

#rhaegar targaryen - 2 posts

Maior tag: 55 caracteres

#i don’t know if they have a ship name franzo or lorenco

Meus principais posts em 2022:

#5

Need an engine spark to ignite my heart

by: vivacisskimo| word count : 10430| AO3 |chapters: 1/1 | rating : mature

Summary :

“I’d have introduced myself, but I get the sense you know who I am,” Lyanna flirts, and the man’s indigo eyes dance, “this is my party, after all.”

“Oh I’m certainly aware,” he cocks his head like something is outrageously funny, “I’m the one throwing it for you.”

.

Or, Formula 1 prodigy Lyanna Stark won't settle for anything less than a world championship. A serendipitous encounter with a stranger who turns out to be anything but reminds her that fortune favors the bold.

Tags :

Alternate Universe - Formula One | Alternate Universe - Modern Setting | Racecar Driver Lyanna | Getting Together | Running Away | Minor Catelyn Tully Stark/Ned Stark | Minor Oberyn Martell/Ellaria Sand | Past Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen | gratuitous feminism in motor racing

Review : 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜

Very well written, to fans of F1 it's specially good, it has a very good grammar and has very good characters not just development but in witting, you actually see the characters in that Au even thought it's quite modern. The only thing that I didn't really know why was the written made Lyanna Dornish and not Northern, not something that appears too much in the story, but it does not hinder on the experience of the fic. For people looking for a Rhaelya modern fic it is a very good start.

41 notas - publicadas em 11 de agosto de 2022

#4

Wait and Hope

by: mightbewriting| word count : 94948 | AO3 | chapters: 12/12 | rating : mature

Summary :

“Harry,” Hermione began, voice very controlled, but she could feel the blade of panic slicing at her vocal cords. “Why was Draco Malfoy just screaming bloody murder about his,” and the word almost strangled her as she said it, “wife?”

Harry's green eyes blew wide. Healer Lucas pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly displeased with the recent series of events.

“He was referring to you, my dear,” she said. “That was the other question you got wrong. Your name is Hermione Jean Granger-Malfoy.”

Hermione had to be sedated again.

[In which Hermione loses the last six year's worth of her memories, including the entirety of her relationship and marriage to Draco.]

Tags :

Memory Loss | Romance | Slow Burn | draco is trying so hard | hermione is so confused | harry is so harry | ginny is tired because toddlers | ron is very uncomfortable | lavender is there | pansy goes nuclear | theo is trawling for a boyfriend | blaise just wants to have a drink

Review : 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜

That I've always found Dramione a superior ship should be no secret to anyone near me, and this fic is one of the reasons why. It's a fic about memory loss, and Hermione loses her memory due to an accident and Draco who is her husband has to take care of him, tell her about their relationship and control her emotions. It's practically them falling in love again. And it's the reason why I am ride or die in Dramione. So I highly recommend it.

70 notas - publicadas em 16 de agosto de 2022

#3

Like stars in the summer night

by: Dark_Violet | word count : 54024 | AO3 |chapters: 14/ 14 | rating : explicit

Summary :

Yes, another getting together story. In which Nicolò wants to go home but needs a guide, and Yusuf doesn't want to be alone, therefore accepts to accompany him. They still hate everything about eachother, though, and being together sometimes just brings out the worst of them both.

Also, the journey is long and dangerous and it's safer if Nicolò pretends to be Yusuf's prisoner. Or maybe not?

Tags :

Canon-Typical Violencemention of slavery | Angst| Fluff| Eventual Smut | Slow Burn | Enemies to Friends to Lovers | Getting Together | Period-Typical Racism| First Time | Top Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani | Loss of Virginity | Drama & Romance| Threats of Rape/Non-Connot between the main pairing tho| Not Beta Read| Bottom Nicky | Nicolò di Genova

Review : 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜

What a fucking ride, 5/5 starts. It's a beautiful origin story where Nicky and Joe are amazing together, it is very emotional, and I already consider this the most canon version f their origin story. Nicolo is a lovely person and Yusuf is also amazing, the thing that made me like this fic the most is that it does not demonize anyone for their culture or religion. It's a masterpiece !

88 notas - publicadas em 12 de agosto de 2022

#2

We Make the Rules

by: sameboots| word count : 30667| AO3 |chapters: 10/10 | rating : explicit

Summary :

Brienne Tarth is tired of being Brienne the Virgin. Brienne is also awkward, shy, has no time for dating, and doesn't want to figure out how to broach the topic of virginity if she ever does date again. Enter Jaime Lannister: her handsome colleague who is also perpetually single, much to Brienne's confusion. But as tends to happen, the perfectly reasonable solution to a perfectly ridiculous problem gets a little more complicated.

--

“You asked me for a favor.” He places his elbows on the table, leaning over them, getting even closer to her. “And that favor was for me to sleep with you.”

Brienne might have a heart attack or vomit, there’s really no way to predict at this point, both seem imminently likely. She miserably answers, “Yes.”

Jaime’s eyebrows furrow again, his mouth firming in concentration. It’s possible the most painful part of this entire conversation is how well she knows his face, his expressions, how easily she can read him now.

“In that case, I have questions.”

Tags :

Friends With Benefits | Loss of Virginity | First Time | Mutual Pining | Resolved Sexual Tension| Unresolved Emotional Tension | Alternate Universe - Lawyers | Alternate Universe - Modern Setting

Review : 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜

Most beautiful fic, everything is beautiful for you who are looking for a Modern AU of Game of Thrones/ A song of ice and fire, this here is perfect. It's a modern AU that also sets Brienne and Jaime as lawyers and colleagues in a law office, and the elements of the friends with benefits relationship and how they develop that into a loving relationship, wonderful. The smut is wonderful and the characters are very good. I recommend it.

157 notas - publicadas em 15 de agosto de 2022

Meu post nº 1 de 2022

that i may rise and stand, o'erthrow me

by: mortaltemples | word count : 8229 | AO3 | chapters: 10/10| rating : Explicit

Summary :

The line between lies and truth is fine indeed.

No one knows that better than Halbrand.

“I cannot help but be curious…what happens,” he sneered, “When she finds out? Do you truly believe that the golden princess of the Noldor will forgive you? Do you think she will grant you absolution?” The air was silent until --

“Do you truly believe that she will want you?”

Tags :

Angst | Worship | stripping someone but in a 'worshipping your god' way | Spoilers | Speculation | Potential Major Spoilers | Emotional Hurt/Comfort | they're in LOVE your honour | Confrontations | Post-Episode 6 | Big 'take me to church' vibes | now with added smut | and even more angst | Please note the change in rating | Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

Review : 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜

I have to admit I do ship Galadriel and Halbrand mainly because he is Sauron ( yes I'm that bitch ). I've read the Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings and Hobbit and still, Sauron is my baby girl okay. I know he committed war crimes, but babe someone can fix him and her name is Galadriel. This fic has a lot of that even if the end is quite bittersweet, but still I loved it, the smut wasn't as extensive as I would like but still the way that Galadriel is compared to Morgoth in the sense that she is the new "god" that Sauron worships, and that she is the most of the light he would ever know in his lifetime is very good. So for people that have just watched the Rings of Power, and are now as I am shipping Saurondriel.

402 notas - publicadas em 14 de outubro de 2022

Veja a sua Retrospectiva 2022 →

[valiantsword]

     “ i do, “ arthur nods at the question of the sword, barely catching it amongst all the touches.  gods, he missed his wife.  he’d never stopped grieving her, lancelot, or even myrddin.  to think she tried to spread their story or, at the very least, attempt to correct the undertones authors were trying to sell.  suddenly, the blonde chuckles to himself.  had he followed his heart sooner maybe he would’ve found her because that above all over things, makes sense.  there’s a comfort in thinking she tried to protect him even though she thought him gone.  his approach to the whole thing had been rolling his eyes and avoiding it at all costs.

     “ it’s not the same as you remember.  that blade has been reformed and reforged several times over the years but i still think of it the same way. “  arthur’s head jerks up at that.  pulling his hand from hers is incredibly painful, even though she’s right there for him to take it again his heart aches at the space.  sitting inches from her is far too much.  but, he needs to be practical and he needs to be slow.  if not for her sake then for his.  it’s like warming yourself up after the intense cold, too much at once could damage something vital.

     “ this, though, “ he pulls the ring and the necklace from beneath his tunic.  up and up and up, over his hair until it’s a coiled bundle in his hand.  for a few seconds (or possibly even moments) he watches the firelight dance across the thick chain.  in it he sees the stretch of time between the battle of camlann and that very moment.  he sees the anger in those first few years leaving his family behind.  he sees the attempt at becoming a farmer and the way he’d given up on living for a good few decades.

     reaching out, he lifts the necklace over gwen’s head to let the chain rest on her shoulders.  better the ring  on her than on him.  all he does is get sad over it, anyway.

     “ i’m sorry for mordred, “ the immortal presses his eyebrows together.  although, words do not come close to encompassing the level of disappointment and sadness that fills his chest.  did he raise a son as power hungry as his sister?  how could lancelot just stand by while gwen gave up everything in her life?  his jaw clenches so his anger can settle between his teeth.  as his nostrils flare he turns away to look at the fire.  in it he swears he can hear battles raging.  metal clinking against metal.  the pound of hooves across the dirt.

      “ whenever i felt lost i looked to the sky and asked for your guidance. “  in order to combat the anger arthur tries to pull himself back to the conversation.  the initial instinct is to tell her about yusuf and nicolo but the chances of them being in the same place and time was considerably marginal.  news of two people fighting to the death over and over and over again would’ve hit her ears had she been in the vicinity at the time.   still, he was sure it was a thing the three of them could bond over when they met.  “ it wasn’t the same, as you can probably imagine.  but i tried very, very hard to tell myself the things you would tell me.  i… “ arthur brings himself to turn back.  “ i never stopped loving you.  I hope you know that. “

Others like us. She still doesn't know what to make of it—she has spent more years than she could ever count trying to answer the question, has turned to every god and all of their priests and found nothing. There are no magicians who can tell her why she cannot die, no poets who can give her the answers she needs, no alchemists who could undo what's been done. She would like to say that time's been cruel, but in truth, it's only been indifferent. Arthur's fingers trail along her hand, and she lets out a little sigh of contentment. The real cruelty, until now, has been her memory, sharp as ever, and the realization that so much lost to her would not fade. Now, it makes her shiver, to realize that his touch is exactly what it was then.

The hand not held in his reaches up, and she pushes his hair back from his eyes. "It's good you weren't alone," she says finally, sincerely, and she trails her index finger along the curve of his cheekbone, the slope of his nose. "And that you've had purpose. You never enjoyed aimlessness. Though I wish you could have found purpose without war." She laughs quietly, gently. "You still have the sword, then?"

There's something comforting in the thought of it. The idea that some piece of their lives has survived so long (something besides them) sets her at ease, makes her feel a little less mad, as if the physical proof that they were there, once, is enough to soothe her. Her finger moves to the line of his jaw, and when she's made a study of that she sets her palm flat against his chest, directly over his sternum.

"I have kept to myself, for the most part. Even without this—" Affliction? Curse? It seems less a curse now than it did a year ago. "—without being in this state I would have left Camelot. Mordred asked me to step away. I had ruled as his regent, until he was ready, and the longer I remained, the more it undermined him. Lancelot remained as his advisor, and swore to me that he would protect him. I planned to retire to a convent." She wrinkles her nose in disgust at the thought; a thousand years has hardly dimmed her distaste for the religion. "I wandered, instead. Settled where I could and moved on when I drew attention. I spent some time as a midwife. Went to Jerusalem and stood against the Christian invaders. Studied alchemy and medicine where I could. I traveled. I learned." She pauses, as if unsure whether or not to confess this, then says, voice soft, "And I told our story. You were already becoming a legend. I tried to correct the errors I could, though I have been ignored in favor of a more fanciful narrative more times than I can count."

Her lips quirk into a smile, though it's almost shy. "I often imagined you with me. Particularly when I first learned to swing a sword. There were times I swore I could hear you laughing when I swung too hard and knocked myself over. And when I goaded the learned men into a fight—I heard your laughter then, too."

[raedear]

Joe yawns, jaw-cracking and eye-wateringly wide into his elbow as he wanders down blinding bright aisles. He’s not even sure what he’s looking for, not at this time of night, but it’s better than staring at the walls in his temporary flat. Some new kind of tea, maybe. Or maybe a book, from the sparse collection of new releases clustered protectively together between the glossy magazines and wilting, already out of date newspapers.

He yawns again as he rounds the corner, eyes closing with the force of it. It annoys him even as it happens, he knows the second he lies down he’ll be wide awake, but here he is, yawning his head clean off in public. It’s embarrassing.

Case in point, in his bare seconds of blindness, Joe walks headfirst into someone with a discordant clatter of dropped groceries.

‘Scusami,’ says a rough voice, as Joe blinks through the new blindness where the stranger’s head met his nose. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Fine,’ gasps Joe, rubbing at his eyes. The pain’s already receded, no harm done, but it takes him a moment.

When he can see again, he thinks for a wild and vertiginous moment, that he’s dreaming.

For three hundred years, Joe has seen those eyes every time he closes his own. Seeing them again, now, under hideous supermarket fluorescent lights in a backwater Belgian suburb? Impossible.

Until.

‘Yusuf?’

Joe knows that voice, knows that face; has thought of that face every day for centuries and now it’s here, creased with shock and pain and confusion, and fuck if he doesn’t know what to do. It’s impossible. Inconceivable.

And yet.

‘Nicolò?’

It is him. It is. It’s Nicolò, looking exactly as he had when Joe had walked away from him in Turin all those years ago, taking only a miniature of his eyes and the knowledge that he had met and lost the great love of his life with him.

His hair is shorter now, he no longer has his scruffy beard, but that beauty mark by his lips, the elegant curve of his nose, those eyes—Joe knows no other face so well as he knows Nicolò’s, he’s drawn nothing in his excessively long life as much as he has the curve of Nicolò’s cheek.

(Although he sees now where his memory was failing him, the tiny folds of skin where Joe had imagined him developing wrinkles; the dark shades of his hair Joe had been picturing turning salt-flecked with age and venerability.)

‘I would give all the stars,’ says Nicolò, wonderingly, staring at Joe with eyes so wide they seem to glow. ‘For one day more in your presence. I would drain the sea, to share a second more with you.’

A bell rings, somewhere in the dark of Joe’s memory. He wrote those words, pressed them into Nicolò’s hand while he slept, the morning he slipped away. Curled his fingers over them and sealed them with a kiss before he fled like a coward into the night.

‘I always wondered,’ continues Nicolò, reaching out with a shaking hand to touch the bulge of Joe’s locket beneath his shirt, the pale imitation of the vibrant colours that have somehow spilled back into Joe’s life. ‘Why you would say such things to me, when you could have spent your whole life with me, if you had wanted to.’

Joe reaches up, feeling like the world has somehow started to turn backwards beneath his feet. Nicolò’s skin feels just the same under his fingers, soft and warm, the same scar at the base of his thumb. He knows this hand.

‘But you could not have, could you?’ asks Nicolò, stepping closer, peering at Joe like a puzzle he’s trying to solve. ‘All that time, I thought it was me, stealing every moment I could, hoarding them. But you were too. What could we have gained, if only one of us had cut his cheek shaving in front of the other, or slipped with his knife at dinner? What have we lost, in the time between?’

They had a month together, entwined every second, never apart from the moment they met as all the love Yusuf had ever wished for had raged through him like Greek fire. Pulling himself away from Nicolò had been necessary, he had to protect his heart from the agony of watching Nicolò fade away. If he couldn’t see him go, then he could always be exactly as he was, in those perfect summer days.

How right he was; how wrong.

‘My heart,’ rasps Joe, clutching tightly at Nicolò’s hand, pulling it helplessly up to his lips to kiss his beloved for the first time in three hundred years. ‘You’ve been absent from me for so long. I’ve been a shade without you. What have we lost that we can’t regain?’

Nicolò smiles, the first breeze on a becalmed sea; the first snowdrop as winter ends; the first drop of rain after a drought.

‘We can regain everything, my love.’

(also here on ao3)

[normal-thoughts-official]

Ya'aburnee

Joe/Nicky, The Old Guard, Major Character Death.

Ya’aburnee This Arabic term means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

Read it on Ao3

All things happen for a reason.

Nicky has faith in that. He does. He has faith in that as he had faith in the Lord when he put his life to His service, and as he had faith when he took it back for himself.

There's very little of his faith in the Lord that he'd kept after that. He didn't look at the Bible for guidance, but rather at himself. He didn't trust men of faith above all others, but rather looked at them with spite, even arrogance. He didn't hold God above all else, because his deepest worship could only be directed at a man.

But this, this he never doubted. Things happen for a reason. Every pain he'd endured, it strengthened him. The pain of losing his old life, his old family, his old self - hateful, disgusting fighter Nicolò - was just his rebirth into a better- no, a good person, and a happier one. He couldn't fault a fate that led him to Yusuf, nor that gave him so many blissful years to enjoy with him. He couldn't fault a fate that allowed him to drop the sword he held with hate and gave him a chance to fight for a better world instead. He died when he became immortal, but it was that death that breathed life into him, that brought him salvation and the brush of the very sun on his fingertips.

So he doesn't despair. When Andy loses her immortality, he figures that this, too, will be a rebirth. She was dead when she was immortal. Maybe now that she can die, she can also live.

When Joe loses his immortality, he doesn't despair either. He takes his sword and makes a cut into his palm, deep and precise, no more than an experiment, a confirmation.

When the cut heals as normal, that's when he despairs.

*

It happens for a reason, Nicky tells himself. It happens for a reason.

There's a reason Joe can die and he can't. There's a reason they found each other all these years ago. There's a reason the sun rises in the East. There's a reason for the birds to sing, and for the tundra to be cold, and for the trees to grow. There's a reason flowers smell sweet, and there's a reason the sun feels like a comfort when it touches one's skin. There's a reason for the soft summer breeze, and the joy that food brings, and for humans to love.

There's a reason for Joe to get shot in the head, dying before he even hits the floor.

There has to be. There has to be.

Nicky screams.

*

Maybe this is his punishment, he muses.

So much blood on his hands, and more deaths than he could ever hope to atone for. And yet, he had found happiness. For centuries, he had known peace in the soft eyes of the holiest man that's been brought to Earth, had been allowed to feel the joy that irradiated from the crinkles in his eyes, had known the happiness and beauty that a life of peace, of love, of union could bring.

And then had it taken from him, to remind him that that was not the path he had chosen.

He deserves it. He knows he does. But still - Joe does not. Joe was nothing if not the most loving, deserving of all of God's creatures.

Divine retribution can't be the reason, then. He cannot believe, cannot trust in a god that would let Joe take the fall for Nicky's mistakes.

*

The closest he can get to understanding it is this: he still has a mission.

Nile, natural leader as she is, nevertheless still needs him. She needs someone who can show her what only centuries of experience can teach. And the world still needs her team to have a sniper, to carry out their missions, to save lives. To make the world a little better, and with it, its people, just as they've always done.

He resents the world for it. How could it not see that Joe was the very goodness it so desperately needed?

*

"You don't have to keep fighting, you know," Nile says, her voice gentle, uncharacteristically so for the girl made of fire that Nicky knows.

"Of course I have to keep fighting," Nicky replies, not looking up from cleaning his gun.

"It's only been a month," she insists, voice still soft, although the edge of irritation gives it a bite that sounds more like Nile. She never had the patience or the willingness to accept what she didn't think was right, and Nicky loves her for it. He had hoped she would never change, but that wasn't for him to decide, either. "It's okay to grieve, Nicky. It's okay to feel."

"I've felt plenty," he points out, because it's true. He felt rage, and despair, and more pain than he could ever fit in his soul, as he failed to get in front of the bullet that hit his love on time. When he had dropped to the ground, Nicky cradled him in his arms, forgetting all about the mission, about the danger they were in, about his own existence as he stared at the already lifeless eyes that held his every joy. He screamed and cried and shook, punching the ground in rage until it was covered with the blood from his unsplit fists. He felt himself be torn in half, excruciatingly slow as his soul, and his heart, departed from him, leaving him gasping like he would when he woke up from a particularly gruesome death.

No other death compared to this.

He felt himself die right there with him, agonizing in every way that the bullet hadn't been. It was like he was being skinned alive, forced to shred everything that made him himself.

Then… He felt determination. He took the body in his arms, and he killed every last soul in the facility, starting with the fucker who had fired that shot. He bathed the body, getting rid of all the metal and blood and pain that did not belong with his love for eternity. He kept the water warm and his touch gentle, then shrouded him and took him back to his homeland to be buried, all in the same day. He calculated the exact angle to Mecca, down to the hundreth and third digit where the count finally ended; dug the grave himself; laid him in it on his side; begged the locals to perform the traditional prayers that Nicky could not; and marked his grave; all with a single-minded focus that he had never felt on any of his previous missions, not even the ones he once believed to be holy.

Then, he felt despair. He wanted to scream and cry, make a scene like he had when he had first seen his love's unhealing body, lie down with him in the grave and wait for his time to come. His love shouldn't spend so much time on his side without Nicky to hold, to stay between him and the door, to protect him. It isn't right.

Then, he felt smothered. He couldn't cause a scene, couldn't desecrate the body like that. And he wouldn't, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he needed to, because his love's wishes came before his own needs, always had.

Finally, he felt agony, as he realized that his job was done and there was nothing more that he could do. He had done it, he had made sure that the body would be taken care of as he would have wanted, and yet, he still was healing, still wasn't allowed to abandon whatever his mission was. The agony was just as cutting as it had been the first time, burning through him until it destroyed all hope, all joy, all faith.

And then he felt nothing.

It wasn't blissful. It wasn't scary. It was just nothing.

It never gave way to any other feeling.

He felt nothing as he killed a whole group of human traffickers, and he felt nothing as the victims hugged him and cried, wailing their thanks again and again and again. He felt nothing as he offered them his water and smiled, attempting to find a common language to reassure them in. He felt nothing as one of the youngest ones, dehydrated and starved, died on the way to the helicopter that would take them to the hospital. He felt nothing as her sister started to wail loudly, screaming and begging for her to come back, to hold on for just a little longer.

He felt nothing as he kneeled by her side, and told her that he knows she's in pain right now, but they need to keep moving if they are to stop this from happening to the others. He felt nothing as she screamed in his face, telling him he didn't understand. He felt nothing, still, as he made the decision to tell her the truth - that he had recently lost the love of his life, and his whole family long before that - because he knew their shared pain would get her to agree to keep moving faster.

"How do you live with it?" she asks, eyes shedding tears like one would shed his coats after getting home. Impersonal and repetitive. Exhausted.

He shrugs. It's not like he had a say in it.

"Don't you have a fucking heart?!" she yells, the weeping turning active and sorrowful and loud again as she cradles her sister even closer.

He feels nothing.

*

He feels nothing when he wakes up every morning and slashes his hand again, just to see if the time has come. He feels nothing even as the wounds closes down as if it never were, same as it did in that horrible, horrible moment.

After the thousandth time, he reconsiders. Everything happens for a reason, he tells himself. Trying to rush his time or figure out when it will come is pointless. So, he decides to stop testing.

He feels nothing about that, too.

*

No one but Nile and Booker can even tell there's something wrong with him.

Not even when they come across an acquaintance from before, who asks him good naturedly, "where's your better half". Not even when a man named José, with hair in the perfect curly texture and eyes that crinkle when he smiles, hits on him at a bar. Not even when the thousands of strangers stumbled upon him staring at the grave for hours and even days at a time.

Each time, he performed perfectly. "I don't know exactly, but I should be able to see him soon", "Sorry, I'm married", "I was just passing by and wanted to pay my respects". Each time, they smiled and went on their way, believing everything he had said.

It was very easy.

It made him feel nothing.

*

Nile and Booker know, of course. Nile still tries to get him to open up, to feel, cry, even if it involves purposefully trying to stir a reaction with sharp words. She was willing to try to make him snap at her in order to help him heal, because Nile's kindness was only rivaled by one person. Still, it doesn't work. No amount of kindness, not even of love, could dig his soul from the grave it was in.

Booker says it's like déjà vú. Nicky tells him not to worry, he won't go crazy and betray them. Booker doesn't even take offense, just silently offers Nicky his flask.

Nicky refuses. He doesn't need help dulling his pain, because he feels none.

*

His new routine is easy. He wakes up, having slept on his back, then gets up and doesn't make tea exactly ten minutes after pouring his first cup of coffee. He cooks for the team, mindful of keeping Nile and Booker's favorites on the menu as much as possible, adds bacon to dishes that would go well with it, and doesn't make tajine. He banters with them good naturedly, smiling and making bets with Booker, and doesn't make weird silences as he waits for an extra opinion to chime in. He goes on missions and doesn't make any harsh decisions that would get him killed, doesn't pass on guns to someone who's not there, and doesn't engage in needless violence.

His friends stare at him in concern anyway.

He doesn't feel bad about it.

*

Days. Months. Years. Decades. And nothing.

Nothing, and nothing to show for enduring it. His routine doesn't change. He doesn't stop fighting, doesn't stop going on missions. Everything happens for a reason, so he must still have work to do.

And yet, work brings him nothing. The world gets better, and they make it a point to keep tabs on the ones they have saved so they don't forget the good they're doing. So far, every one of them has made a difference.

He doesn't particularly care, but he keeps going. He's a soldier walking on broken bones, a corpse among the living, a body without a soul. For the first time in his immortal life, he feels wrong. Unnatural. Like a puppet pulled by strings, unable to signal to its handler that it's still alive in there.

It doesn't bother him much.

*

He had never really felt out of place.

The world kept changing, sure, and a lot of what he had known was gone - but that had been true since he first put down his sword and set off to Maghreb. He had cherished the changes, loving to learn more, loving to have his eyes open to the wonders of the world. Where the others had resisted new technology and centuries later still preferred their axes and swords to guns, Nicky had immediately set himself to learn how to use a sniper rifle and never looked back. When Nicky saw the first ever satellite images of the stars, he felt the exact same elation Nicolò had when he first entered the Maragheh Observatory.

When the world changed, he had found it beautiful. And when he changed with it, he had seen it as an honor.

Now, time moves on, and he can't.

He stands, untouched, as the world around him moves uncaringly. Stuck in the same place, in front of the same grave, no matter how many other places he visits and how many supposed wonders he sees.

Time is just another thing that left him behind.

*

Nile actually offers to set him up with someone.

He can't help it. He laughs, even if there's no joy in the sound. Nile is kind, and smart, and perfect, but there are some things she really is too young to understand.

She is offended. He briefly muses on whether or not he wishes he felt bad about that.

*

Life, to him, becomes nothing but the absence of death. He's convinced it is born out of that absence, much like the absence of warmth cuts and burns enough for humanity to name it cold.

He wonders if that sounds poetic, then shrugs. He was never the poet among them, so it's not like he would know.

*

The sharp sensation as he accidentally cuts himself when he shaves barely even registers, much like the burning of being shot or sliced open. He just sighs, reaching for a washcloth to wipe the trickling blood with.

It is only after several rounds of wiping, absentmindedly wondering how he managed to shed so much blood from one quick cut, that he realizes the reason it doesn't stop bleeding is that the cut isn't healing.

He feels something then.

Relief.

It punches through him, knocking him down to his knees. His time is coming. He's going to die.

Thank you, God, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. He bows down, forehead touching the floor, sobbing as he rocks back and forth in place. Thank you, oh God, oh, thank you, Lord. His sobs turn into laughter, joyful and deep and cutting, and oh God, he's finally going to die. Thank you, thank you.

It's like the world's been lifted off his shoulders. Like he's finally alive again. His corpse breathes in, soul lodging back into place, broken bones being allowed to rest and put themselves back in position. His cut is still bleeding. He's never felt more healed.

Thank you, God.

His penance is over. Heaven is just at his fingertips. He might even have believed he was already in it, but there's no way there would be a Heaven without Joe.

Joe, he thinks, deliriously. Joe, Joe, Joe. He is floored by the amount of memories and sensations that hit him then. Curly hair shining in the sun. Soft eyes that always seemed to melt when setting on him. Easy, quick, musical laughter that made him feel at the top of the world even when it came at his own expense. Charcoal smudged hands. Soft touches, wiping his tears, wiping his blood. Joe. Yusuf.

Oh Lord, thank you.

When his family bursts in, alarmed by the sound, they find him in that same position. Kneeling on the floor, rocking back and forth, laughing and weeping as he bleeds, hands clasped together as repeats Yusuf's name over and over again. A prayer, answered.

"Nicky? Nicky, what happened?" Nile asks, alarmed, taking in the mess in the bathroom. It is only then that he really registers her presence.

He turns to her, points at his hurt cheek. "It's not healing," he says, and for the first time in three decades, Nile sees his smile reach his eyes again.