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Chapter Text

Words had never been encouraged in Nicolo’s early life.

Silence was a virtue for him as a child, and when he took his vows, he only spoke to deliver the Mass and the various sacraments. 

Certainly no one cared about his opinion when he was sent to die outside Jerusalem. And, when Nicolo saw what they had done to the city, when he died and rose again and died and rose again in an absolute mockery of the Resurrection, he realized that there were no praises to be sung of what they had done to this city, to this people. He abandoned any hymns, rejected any apologism - there was only shame, bitter and deep to the core of him, stealing away what was left of his voice.

Then there was Yusuf.

Yosef, Nicolo tried the first night after they ran away, earning him a smile and a quick flicker of words from the man, words he couldn’t follow yet. 

He did understand that he hadn’t quite said it right.

“Yusef,” he tried again on the second day, and that earned him an even brighter smile and a flowing of words with a clear meaning:

That was better.

Nicolo blushed as he adjusted his pack, and they continued walking down the dirt road.

“Shajara,” Yusuf said, pointing to a tree at the side of the road.

“Sh-shager-a?” Nicolo repeated awkwardly, and Yusuf laughed.

His mind wandered, and long-familiar words that were not his, but suddenly held new meaning, sprung to the front of his thoughts: And God said let there be Light … and God saw that it was Good.

“Shajara,” he said, more clearly this time, pointing at the next tree they passed. He had practiced it, over and over again in his head, hoping to see another of the scrubby, little pines.

“ʾAnā faḫūrun ǧiddan bik!” Yusuf said, and it was clearly praise this time -- Nicolo let himself think that it was praise, and he smiled at the hard-packed dirt they walked over.

It was like that, always.

Even before they learned to fully speak to one another - usually a mixture of Genoese and Arabic so convoluted and personal that passerbys would struggle to comprehend - Yusuf was effusive, generous, constant in his praise. 

It made Nicolo hot all over, worried that he did not deserve such kindness heaped upon him. It made Nicolo cold in his stomach, that he was not sure how to return it. His life before had been so austere - any gifts were accredited to God, and he had given up all earthly things including recognition when he took the cloth. 

But that life was gone, and now there was only Yusuf, Yusuf al-Kaysani, who had come from the north of Africa, who had defended a holy city against an unholy war ( forgive me, Nicolo thinks, forgive me, if there is a phrase he will learn and unlearn and learn again in every language for the rest of his time on this earth it will be forgive me, and it will still be not enough).

They built a home, and lost it to bandits. They built a home, and lost it to fire. They built a home, and moved on and on and on, afraid to put roots down in a world that was so determined to change when they could no longer change.

One day at the start of the twelfth century, Yusuf returned to their little hut at the edge of Aleppo, his curls dusty from travel; Nicolo watched him from across the room, lust and something so-much-more-than-lust ( which is worse , he thought with that lingering guilt that he’d had when he was a man who could die, it is so much worse to love him because I will never stop; there is no satisfaction in a love like this ) clawing up his throat and blocking him from forming any words with any sense.

Yusuf smiled at him kindly and opened the sack he had carried down the long and dusty road from the city center; he had brought a goat to market, one of their healthiest, seeking out trades for items that could not be created with what they had. He removed textiles, a small collection of figs, some hard cheeses that made Nicolo’s stomach growl to think of - 

And then, a little parcel wrapped in paper, pressed into his hands. Yusuf crossed the room quickly, so that he was not watching as Nicolo unwrapped it. He pulled out a chunk of soap which had been rounded into a round, pretty thing. Just last week, he had been complaining that their soap was too coarse (which had made Yusuf tease him with any excuse to skip a bath, you filthy Frank ). He brought it to his nose and smelled, humming as he recognized the scent of lavender. 

“Thank you,” Nicolo murmured, looking up to see Yusuf smiling at him. His eyes crinkled so perfectly when he smiled like that. Nicolo couldn’t breathe. “You - you are too good to me, Yusuf.”

He spoke in Arabic, which had, in the past, gave him the added cover of a mistaken word or a lost meaning to hide how little words he had - but now he wanted Yusuf to hear him, and to hear how he meant it.

“It was nothing,” Yusuf was already saying, but Nicolo continued, determined.

“You are too good,” he insisted, holding the soap like Holy Communion as he crossed to be near the other man. He tucked the soap back into Yusuf’s palm and looked him in the eyes, forcing himself to keep speaking. “You are a good man.” He swallowed. “The best I have ever known.”

Yusuf’s eyes fluttered, and he looked down. It was the first Nicolo had ever seen Yusuf look bashful, and he found that he liked it.

So, he tried again. “I am thankful for you. God gave me a great gift when he gave you eternal life.”

“Is that so?” Yusuf asked, lifting his chin again to look him in the eye.

Nicolo nodded, taking a step closer. He wasn’t sure what to say; he was running out of words. How could Yusuf make entire speeches when he struggled so much to form a sentence? 

“I would not want to be on this earth without you,” he said, watching how Yusuf inhaled, his chest rising and falling, eyes searching Nicolo’s face.

And then they were kissing, a messy tangle due to its novelty. But they had time, Nicolo thought, they had time and time and time to make this perfect, and he would learn how to tell Yusuf in a thousand ways how much he cared for him.

For now, he had this, and he pretended it was a speech as he pressed his tongue inside Yusuf’s mouth, and he pretended he could deserve Yusuf’s kindness as he licked behind his teeth, and he pretended that these were hymns he sang once more as he moaned Yusuf’s name to whoever was still listening to them.

The poetry he composed in his head as he brought Yusuf to ecstasy that first time had words beyond human comprehension, and the poetry that flowed from Yusuf’s lips as he tangled fingers in Nicolo’s hair to hold him close was beyond comparison.

This is our scripture, Nicolo thought victoriously as he clung to Yusuf in their bed, this will be our catechism.

And he had eternity to figure out the words to capture it.

Nicolas was a quiet man.

Sebastien - Booker now - had noticed this from the start. 

Joseph could speak for hours on end, and Andrea could wield her wit like a rapier, only her grief holding her back from making pretty speeches. Booker knew not the shape nor the size of Andrea’s grief, but as he sat at his wife’s grave and tilted his head back against rain-slicked sandstone, he thought at last he knew the shadow of it.

But still, she spoke and shared her wisdom. Joseph spoke and shared his passion.

Nicolas would speak when addressed directly, and only then.

This was not to say that he was an ass; no, not at all. He was kind in his actions, gentle in his tone when inspired to speech, and his eyes were bright and shared his meaning quite well enough on their own.

But whatever mysteries were in Nicolas’s head remained there, and he was often found lost in thought in between battles and death and the shitholes they stumbled into often.

Conversely, Joseph was effusive in his encouragement to Booker as they went through the century; decades slipped past, and Joseph was unwavering in his kind words, in his praise in French and Arabic and all the languages in between. He could draw a smile from Andy like poison from a wound; he could charm extra meat off any butcher in the city; he could get Booker to talk about his children long after they were in the grave.

Silent and loquacious; friendly and distant. Two strange halves of a coin that Booker understood in a vague sense to be of the same forge as destiny. They loved each other deeply, but they also loved Andrea and Booker, so he tried not to be jealous of the bond that existed between the men, even if he rarely saw them converse, much less embrace as a couple would.

Then, one night in 1896, outside Kiev, he stumbled into the kitchen of their safehouse, pale with shock and sweating under the collar.

Andrea was there, already drinking from a bottle of vodka.

“You look like you saw a ghost.” She handed him the bottle when he sat down across from her, but he waved it off and pulled out his flask.

“Not a ghost,” he said hoarsely. “Something else.”

“Oh?” She lifted an eyebrow and took another pull of liquor. 

Three times he tried and failed to say what he had witnessed, and at last, with a kick from Andrea under the table, he managed to say:

“I did not know … Nicolas knew that many words.”

“Hm?” Andrea was intrigued now, and leaned forward.

“I saw,” Booker wetted his lip and sought the words. “They were in their … marriage bed,” he finally landed on the phrase as his explanation. His ears burned from the memory, and if he were being honest, his pants were tighter than normal.

“Ah.” Andrea laughed and knocked back another sip. “Surprised it’s taken you that long to see it. It’s been fairly constant the last half dozen centuries. It doesn’t bother you, I hope?”

She said it casually, but her hand had also gone to her axe which so rarely left her side; Booker eyed it before answering honestly. 

“Not at all.”

“So?” Andrea released her axe and gave him a strange look. “Why are you so upset?”

“Because.” Booker drank from his own flask. “Like I said, I have never heard Nicolas string together that many words at once. I don’t think I’ve heard him say that many words, total, in the last three decades.”

Andrea stared at him and then burst out laughing, a sound all the more delightful for its rarity.

Inside the small bedroom, Yusuf lifted his head from the pillow and looked towards the door. 

“Is that Andy?” He asked, but a hot hand at his balls had him moaning and losing the train of thought completely.

“We can find out later,” Nicolo assured him, rolling his hips and grinding down, impaling himself further on Yusuf’s cock. “Fuck, caro mio, your cock - I swear to God, your cock is the most perfect thing in all creation.”

“You feel good too,” Yusuf said, arching his back, fingers scrabbling at Nicolo’s hips as they continued to shift deliciously above him. 

“You feel so good inside me,” Nicolo echoed, placing Yusuf’s hand on his flushed chest; he clenched around Yusuf demonstratively, rendering the normally effusive man temporarily mute besides a drawn out moan. “Fuck, if I ever have to die and remain dead, I should want your cock inside me, fucking me into oblivion, Jesus Christ, Yusuf, Yusuf, I want you to come inside me-”

Yusuf laughed weakly and thrust up into Nicolo more forcefully, watching dazedly as Nicolo’s slender cock bounced with the movement. “I am more than fine with that-”

Nicolo reached behind himself to hold Yusuf’s balls lightly, a gentle touch that he’d learned Yusuf loved years ago, rolling the delicate skin between his fingers - his other hand stretched out to scrape the back of one nail against Yusuf’s dark brown nipple, and then with a higher-pitched moan, Yusuf came. And Nicolo spoke to him throughout all of it:

“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, the most perfect, most incredible, fuck, yes, give it to me, give me all of it, I want it, I want you so badly-”

With Yusuf utterly spent and panting underneath him, Nicolo grinned at him in victory.

“Who taught you how to talk like that?” Yusuf half-groaned, half-laughed, wiping a hand down his sweaty face.

“Oh, Monsieur Joseph, my husband did,” Nicolo answered cheekily in French, “mon mari m'a appris,” smiling without reservation as he gazed down upon Yusuf.

Still laughing, Yusuf wrapped a hand around Nicolo’s cock and stroked it until Nicolo was once again out of words to share.

Nile watches her family intently after she sweeps the back of the room; they always put her in the back, her and Joe, and she wonders about it until Yusuf points out two facts:

First, Andy always goes through first. Second, Nicky would make quite the ruckus throwing himself in front of Nile or Joe to catch a bullet (“so it is more expedient to just let him be next to Andy to begin with”).

Nile asks Nicky, once, about why he feels the need to stand between them and a hail of bullets, and Nicky’s response is soft and brief, the only way she thinks he knows how to speak.

“I acted as the sword of God when I was young, and I caused great evil. Now I am a shield.”

Here in the present, Andy signals that the next hallway branches into two directions. They’re eighteen floors below ground, and the claustrophobia of it all is starting to weigh even on Nile, who’s never been held captive the way the others have.

They quickly communicate that they’ll split in two groups: Andy with Joe; Nicky with Nile. Nile nods, but she can tell from the look Nicky and Joe exchange that this idea brings them both pain. This building is sterile, cold, dark -- far too similar to Merrick.

“Nicolo,” Joe murmurs, almost too softly to hear, as they stand in their two groups, looking in opposite directions.

Wordlessly, Nicky holds up his left hand, ring and middle finger down to his palm, pinkie, thumb, and index all extended. I love you, he signs, leaving his hand in the air as Joe stares at Nicky for a long moment.

Andy hisses to catch his attention, so Nile watches Joe turn and walk swiftly towards Andy; she watches how Nicky’s eyes linger on Joe’s form before he turns and walks in the opposite direction, towards their end of the corridor. Nile files in behind him, gun ready, stomach churning uneasily.

There is no promise the two could make, Nile realizes, not when they both know and felt and have been marked by the scars of separation - not when the ghosts in Andy’s eyes live on, resuscitated nightly by the dreams Nile still gasps awake from, clawing at her throat which is no longer full of water.

There were no words, no oaths to swear that could soften the distance that grows between them, here under the earth where one might be swallowed whole and the other might be spat back out. 

Now there is only a silence heavier than words that stretches with every step they take away from each other, growing thick where distance should spread it thin; there is only this oppressive silence that guarantees neither will so much as breathe again until they see their beloved once more. A centuries-old conversation that for now must pause, a conversation that must, for now, occur between hearts, a sacrament made in silence.

No. There are no words for this.

Chapter Text

The first thing he noticed about the Frank who killed him was that he had beautiful eyes.

The second thing he noticed, of course, was the sword coming down on him. 

Yusuf’s last thought, as the two collapsed, bleeding and dying, was at least I killed him too, the asshole.

(Neither stayed dead; they would come to accept around the fifth-sixth-seventh such death, that they were simply not very good at staying dead)

The Frank was terrible with languages: Yusuf noticed that very quickly as well.

The Frank was named Nicolo; he had clear eyes like water under a sunny sky, green and blue and sometimes silver; he had a wonderful nose; he fussed like a child when he had rocks in his shoes; and, he was terrible with languages.

“Bread,” Yusuf said helpfully when they were sitting near a fire on the third day of them Not Killing Each Other. “This is bread.”

“Koo-bzuh!” Nicolo declared, holding up his half of the loaf.

Yusuf hid his smile and nodded, poking the fire. 

Close enough. 

Yusuf managed to draw out enough sentences from Nicolo that he could get by in Genoese, some three weeks into their journeys together. They were passable sentences, and Yusuf knew he’d be able to pick it up faster if the man would just talk.

He was silent as the grave most days. Silent and beautiful and terribly frustrating. Maybe a small part of the frustration came from his beauty, but Yusuf decided to be frustrated with him because he would not talk.

So, after a while, Yusuf gave up the stumbling, halting one- or two-word phrases that he tried to teach to Nicolo slowly, and simply began to rant at him in Arabic.

“See, we could discuss the weather,” he said at the end of one such lengthy speech, pointing at the clouds as they settled near a lazy river. “We could discuss how nice it is to swim - I don’t even know if you know how to swim, because you are the most frustrating, ridiculous man I have ever met!”

Nicolo pointed at the river and said, nervously, “r...rajul?”

Yusuf could throw him in the water. He really could. He considered it. Then, he sighed, smiled, and grabbed Nicolo’s hand, re-directing his pointed finger at himself.

“Rajul,” he said, then turned Nicolo’s hand back to point at his own body. “Man.”

Nicolo repeated it, beaming and then said quickly, in a bout of Genoese, something about “man,” and “I think we should,” and then “bread!”

“Are you hungry?” Yusuf asked, partly in his language, partly in Nicolo’s. He patted his stomach to demonstrate when Nicolo frowned. “Food?”

Nicolo pulled his pack out and dug through it; he pulled out a small piece of hard cheese and took Yusuf’s hand, placing the food in his palm and folding his fingers over it gently.

“Forrmaticum,” Nicolo said softly. 

Yusuf tried to explain that he wasn’t hungry, he was asking if Nicolo was hungry, but then Nicolo took out the last of their bread and split it in half, handing the larger part to Yusuf. 

“Comede,” Nicolo urged him, gesturing to the cheese and bread. “Comede, Yusuf.”

Eat. 

“Thank you,” Yusuf answered in his own tongue, and Nicolo gave him a rare smile and ate his own bread, staring out at the river, silent once more.

Yusuf managed to eat most of the cheese, and some of the bread, before he realized something.

“Where’s your cheese?” He asked, gesturing to Nicolo’s hands. “Formaticum?”

Nicolo gave him a puzzled look and shook his head, tapping Yusuf’s hand. “Formaticum,” he repeated serenely, going back to his bread. 

“Is this all that’s left of it?” Yusuf asked, trying to clarify, and Nicolo lifted one shoulder in an impossibly frustrating shrug, mouth full of bread. “You did not have to give me the last of it, we could have shared it!” Nicolo gave him a puzzled look and returned his gaze to the river. “I know it’s your favorite, you insist on buying any kind of cheese when we go through a market, always cheese - why would you give it all to me? You impossible, silent, ridiculous man!”

“Rajul,” Nicolo said, brightening at a recognizable word, and Yusuf grumbled to himself and then stared out at the river with Nicolo, deciding that a little bit of quiet, at the moment, might be a good thing.

(The cheese was, admittedly, delicious, and his stomach did not snarl in the middle of the night like it usually did, admittedly)

Yusuf was killed once more, a month and a half into their travels. A nasty blow to the head by bandits raiding their campsite.

As blood trickled into his eyes and the light faded around him, Yusuf watched as Nicolo leapt up from where he’d been pinned to the ground across the clearing from him, and killed three men with his longsword. Then Yusuf was dead, and there was nothing to think about for a while, not even Latin priests with clear eyes like sunlight streaming through trees in the middle of summer. 

He came back to life cradled in Nicolo’s arms, and he heard the man moaning in urgent Genoese.

“Do not leave me,” he was begging, “not alone, I cannot, Yusuf, please, not alone- ”

“Not alone,” were Yusuf’s first words in that life, and he gripped Nicolo’s forearm. 

It sounded as though Nicolo should be crying, but his eyes were dry, his entire body a line of tension. Yusuf drifted off though, still dazed from the head wound, and when he woke up, their things were packed, and Nicolo extended a hand to him.

“They could have … friends,” he mumbled, using Genoese until the last word. 

Yusuf took his hand and rose from the blood-stained ground, and as they limped through the darkness together, both packs on Nicolo’s shoulder, Yusuf thought it was improbably lovely that among the hundreds of phrases he had tried to share with Nicolo in his language, Nicolo should know the word friends.

The next night when they sought shelter for the evening, Nicolo made them walk for much longer than normal. The sun was nearly erased from the horizon, any light the mere memory of it upon the earth, when at last Nicolo found an acceptable spot.

It was backed up to a flat, tall cliff, with scrub brush all around, and rocks still, forming a half-circle of shelter with one possible exit.

Yusuf excused himself to pray in private, and when he returned, he found that Nicolo had set their pallets down for both of them - he’d been carrying them all day, despite Yusuf’s attempts to share the load --  and Yusuf was surprised to see that he laid them out side by side, as they had always set them up across the fire from each other.

Frowning, he went to kneel on the pallet facing out, but Nicolo caught his forearm and gestured to the one nearest the cliffside.

“For you,” he said slowly, in that serious, calm way of his. “Safer.”

Yusuf lay down and realized that there were extra blankets on his side of their makeshift bed; Nicolo settled down on his more austere pallet and faced outwards. Yusuf could see the glint of Nicolo’s sword when he lifted his head.

“You do not have to do this,” Yusuf pointed out, frowning at the lean lines of Nicolo’s back. “I am not fragile, Nicolo. I cannot die.”

“You woke slowly,” Nicolo said softly, not turning around. “If someone finds us, I wake faster.”

It was logical, and Yusuf nodded, but as they grew quiet, the noise of the wilderness building up around them in a hypnotic flow, his chest felt strangely tight. He rolled over, turning his face away from the stars overhead, and towards the silent, strange man who had become his dearest companion.

“Nicolo?” he asked softly, touching his hip. He spoke in Arabic, finding it easier to express himself thusly. “You do not have to die for me, Nicolo. Not when I would live for you.” He cleared his throat. “Would you … live for me, Nicolo?”

Nicolo touched his hand lightly and squeezed his fingers, but all he said, stumbling over the Arabic the whole time, was, “We will not die tonight, Yusuf.”

Yusuf could not be disappointed when he knew Nicolo had not understood him. He could not bring himself to look back at the stars though, and he fell asleep studying the way Nicolo’s shoulder rose and fell with every precious breath.

When they finally created a stable home, Nicolo cooked for them every night, taking delight in turning the goods Yusuf brought back from the market each day into delicious meals. No matter how much they had toiled in the day, Nicolo would always create some sort of meal for them to share. His luminous eyes would stay on Yusuf until the first bite was taken, and the first nod of encouragement given - only then would Nicolo eat, with a tiny smile tucked away in the corner of his full, glorious mouth.

He did not speak much, still, but they had spent enough time together that Yusuf had picked up on enough Genoese and could hold a conversation with Nicolo; Nicolo had also managed to gather enough Arabic to answer Yusuf’s questions, even if his own answers were faltering and typically ended in Genoese.

Yusuf still spoke emphatically about everything around them, and Nicolo smiled at him fondly always, and would nod and encourage him to continue to speak, but the longest thing Yusuf had ever heard him say was a fifty-word story about his sister and something called a First Communion.

(He’d been so sad, so quiet after the story that Yusuf hadn’t pushed for more information even though it was the first he’d ever seen Nicolo light up from within while speaking; it was the first time he’d ever heard Nicolo’s voice rise and fall with a lengthy cadence; but, somewhere in the story, Nicolo had clearly remembered that everyone they ever loved would die, and it was unlikely that they would be able to join them, and his eyes had clouded over. The sun did not emerge for three days after that)

The entire first year they traveled together, Yusuf woke before Nicolo, but then they were NicoloandYusuf, and suddenly Nicolo rose with him and quietly prepared their breakfast or patched Yusuf’s shirts or simply sat with him while he prayed in the morning.

If Yusuf spent the better part of a day cursing the leak in the ceiling, Nicolo would quietly fix it within the week. If Yusuf spoke at all about the hole in his shoe, Nicolo would trade away his own belongings until a new pair of shoes were on Yusuf’s feet. 

Nicolo did not speak, but as he sat sewing a rip in Yusuf’s favorite shirt one evening as rain hit the top of their small house, Yusuf realized that perhaps his beloved had been saying quite a lot for a long time.

By the eighteenth century, it had been long established that Nicolo was as protective of Yusuf, as Yusuf was of him — if not more so.

He was Nicholas then, and Yusuf was Josef, and they were still NicoloandYusuf .

After catching a stray cannon to the side as they tried to push back the British for the sake of the Xhosha people, Yusuf found himself in their bed, Nicolo hovering above him, planting urgent kisses that ran the length of his healed body, fingers stroking over every inch of heated flesh.

“I am fine, Nicolo,” Yusuf swore, his eyes fluttering shut at such adoring attention. “Nicolo, I am fine.”

Nicolo shook his head, nuzzling a kiss into Yusuf’s bare hip with the same movement. His back was hunched as he knelt above Yusuf, his lips searching for any piece of flesh not already devoured that evening, and Yusuf tried to keep his moans low in his throat.

(He hated to draw attention to what they were doing when Andromache had lost her beloved so horribly)

All thoughts were lost as Nicolo dragged his tongue along the tender flesh inside Yusuf’s thigh, and he moaned, louder this time, when his beloved sucked a kiss, so close to his swelling cock.

“Nicolo,” Yusuf breathed adoringly, his fingers in the strands of long hair recently freed from its tie. Then he saw how Nicolo trembled, and he frowned. “Nicolo?”

“You were dead,” Nicolo whispered, resting his cheek on Yusuf’s thigh for a long moment.

“That is not unusual, my darling.” Yusuf ran his thumb along the bump in Nicolo’s wonderful nose. 

“You were so still.” Nicolo did not sound as though he had heard Yusuf. “God, Yusuf, you were-”

Lost to me . It went without saying now, their worst fear shared between them until it multiplied painfully.

“I would not leave you,” Yusuf swore ardently, still holding Nicolo’s face. “As the moon would never leave the night, as the sea would never leave the shore - I will always return to you. I told you years ago that I would live for you - I will not break my oath. You are all and more to me, Nicolo. I will never leave you.”

In response, Nicolo released a breath that sounded more like an unearthly groan; in one swift movement, he rolled onto his stomach and swallowed Yusuf’s cock to the root, nose pressed to his skin.

“Fuck!” Yusuf balled his hand into a fist and bit on a knuckle. “Nicolo-”

For what felt like hours, Nicolo sucked his cock, drawing groans and panted pleas from Yusuf’s lips; like a man led to water in the desert, Nicolo closed his eyes and relished in the taste of Yusuf’s flesh, drawing him to the back of his throat again and again until he came, limbs shaking -

With their immortality, it did not take them long to recover, and soon, Nicolo was drawing his newly hard cock into his mouth again, rocking his head back and forth - slow now, patient where his last effort had been frantic, and strangely tender in his motions for how obscenely his cheeks hollowed. 

“Nicolo,” Yusuf pawed at his shoulders, his hips arching off the bed, “Nicolo let me touch you - Nicolo, please, I want to-”

Nicolo hummed and gripped his hips and continued his steady work until Yusuf came again; his cock twitched from the sense memory of oversensitivity, even if it was not physically there, and Nicolo paused at his huff of complaint, resting his cheek again on Yusuf’s thigh.

“May I return the favor now?” Yusuf asked softly, stroking sweaty, sticky strands of hair back from his beloved’s face.

“There is something else I want,” Nicolo answered.

Yusuf fell asleep not long after, his back pressed to Nicolo’s chest, the strong arm of his beloved around him in a reversal of their normal sleeping - they both faced the door, and Nicolo’s hand was not far from his blade.

They were safe.

Booker cooked dinner for them all in Nice, not far from the city he’d grown up in, and while some of the bread was burnt, and the cream sauce was slightly singed, Yusuf watched as Nicolo ate multiple bowls of everything.

“You always cook for us,” Booker pointed out awkwardly when Nicolo heaped praise after praise upon him. “And this isn’t nearly as good as what you can do-”

Nicolo shushed him immediately and swept around the table, abandoning his bowl with a clatter so he could scoop Booker’s face in his hand and shower his brow with kisses. It was the happiest Nicolo had been in four months, Yusuf realized slowly, the happiest he had been since that awful time in the snow with the lost children who never had a chance to learn warmth again.

“How did you know?” Yusuf asked Booker once Nicolo had gone upstairs to wash up. 

“Hm?” Booker glanced up from his large glass of wine. “Oh, the dinner?”

Yusuf nodded.

“My … my wife,” Booker said haltingly, his eyes unfocusing for a moment as he slipped through an impossible time and space towards a woman who would never say his name again. “She … was always doing things for me. Like Nicolas. I made her dinner once, and she thanked me for a week.” Booker shrugged and took a sip of his wine. “They are both good people.”

There was an awful, dreadful moment, and Booker looked up and stared out the window. “She … was a good person.”

Nicolo holds it together the best of any of them.

He doesn’t snap at Booker; he finds new clothes for Nile; he changes the bandages on Andy. He even holds Joe’s face in his hands tenderly when they walk into the safehouse, looking into his eyes for a long moment, before he goes to make them all dinner.

(They’d told him to shower, but he’d insisted that Andy and Nile go first)

Yusuf watches him walk away, but all he can see is the blood staining the back of his t-shirt, absolutely soaked in it, the shards of bone that linger on his shoulders like dandruff from a nightmare.

He makes jokes about the bald spot on the back of his head as he hands them all a cobbled together pasta dish, he grips Andy’s shoulder and tells her to go to bed, he takes the bottle from Booker’s hands. Yusuf watches him, and it feels as though his heart might break.

He doesn’t have words for all of this - the anger he has towards their brother, the fear he has for Andy, the concern he has for Nile after her terrifying fall. He doesn’t have words for what it felt like to crawl over debris on broken legs to hold Nicky’s head between his hands as his clear, beautiful eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

Nicolo smiles at him, a little thing, as he makes a joke about needing to wash up, and Nile snorts and says “if there’s any hot water left in the country after that,” and it all feels so normal that Yusuf thinks he might finally be going mad.

But the water runs and runs and runs in the bathroom as Nicky uses the en suite to clean up, and Yusuf sits on the edge of the bed with shaking hands, praying for any kind of peace after the horror of the day. He doesn’t want to sleep in the same house as Booker. He doesn’t want to fight Booker. He doesn’t want to lose Andy. He doesn’t want Nicky to -

Nicky.

It’s been thirty minutes, and he hasn’t heard Nicky singing the way he usually does, wordless little melodies that hum from the long column of his throat. He doesn’t even hear the shifting noises of shampoo and soap and hopping from foot to foot. 

It’s just water.

Joe doesn’t even try to knock on the door; he opens it and finds Nicky staring at the curtain of the shower, still totally dry.

“Nicolo?” 

Nicky doesn’t blink.

“Nicolo, what is it?”

Nicky raises a hand to his neck and murmurs, “It’s stuck to my back.”

“What?” Joe walks to his side and touches his arm.

“It’s stuck to my back.” Nicky touches his collar and then claws at it, the stiff material peeling away from his skin. “Joe, it’s stuck to me, Joe, it’s - it’s-”

Joe shushes him and brings their foreheads together, a hand at the back of Nicky’s neck. “I will take care of you,” he promises, and he pulls on the hem of Nicky’s shirt, not pausing when it refuses to peel away from his body, refusing to retch when the soiled shirt is in his hands, still bearing fragments of Nicky.

The jeans are easier. Still stained, but less so, and they pool around Nicky’s feet easily.

After pulling his own shirt off, and then his jeans, Yusuf sticks a hand in the water and finds it to still be surprisingly warm; cranking up the temperature, he pulls the curtain back and grips Nicky’s elbow. 

He guides Nicky under the spray and follows him in.

Nicky’s still shaking as he guides his head under the water, and as the water runs pink and red and grey along Nicky’s back, Joe threads his fingers through the short strands of hair, wincing when more hair comes away, when more bone is found there. He stares at the blank spot, the former exit wound, and is thankful for the shower because it will wash away his tears as easily as Nicky’s blood, and they will both be fine after this.

(They will not be fine, he thinks. But they will be together)

With a murmur of, “close your eyes,” he pours shampoo into his hands and runs it through Nicky’s hair, only after the water that runs down his shoulders is a light pink; he moves his hands slowly, scraping his nails along the sensitive skin behind Nicky’s ears, under his hairline, massaging gently until the shampoo is gone.

Still, Yusuf touches Nicolo, bringing soap to his hands and not bothering with the sponge set aside for bathing; he cleans his shoulder blades, wiping away the dried blood that lingers between the notches of his spine, and he kisses the pointed tips of his scapula, imagining them, not for the first time, as angel wings.

Nicolo’s cock is soft and small, nestled in his coarse pubic hair when Yusuf turns him around under the water; that isn’t where his attention lingers. He smooths hands along the unblemished skin of Nicolo’s chest, seeing for a moment the cuts and incisions and needles that had entered Nicolo’s body. 

He washes each rib; he feels each heartbeat, and counts every one.

He washes the soft skin around his hips, and Nicolo’s hands come to his shoulders when Joe’s movements still.

“Yusuf?”

He looks up from his task with tears in his eyes.

“I-”

For the first time in nine hundred years, Yusuf does not know what to say.

Nicolo cups his jaw and kisses him, and Yusuf holds him tightly, thinking do not leave me, do not leave me alone in this world, never go where I can’t follow, be with me always.

As the water runs clear around them, steam floating up around their ankles to form a hazy mist to shield them from the outside world and its casual cruelty, Nicolo kisses Yusuf, and in his kiss is his answer: always, always, always.

Chapter Text

Nine hundred years later, Nicolo still remembers the first thing he ever gave Yusuf that wasn’t a necessity.

They’d bought and traded for food, clothing, shelter, and they had shared it among themselves happily (and Nicolo always loved to give Yusuf the last of something, the best of something) - but in the twelfth century, after they settled in Constantinople for the time being, Nicolo discovered a small shop at the edge of the marketplace. When he saw what was for sale, he went home, pulled out all the coins he had been saving here and there for the last four years of their travels in the empire, and went to make a specific purchase.

Yusuf returned that evening, weary from the day’s work, and his eyes landed upon the new item in their small home immediately.

“What is this?” He asked quietly.

“For you.” Nicolo touched the side of the easel nervously. “I bought these, too,” he held up two small paintbrushes that felt far too delicate in his large hands, “and some paint, and I …”

Yusuf hadn’t moved. “This must have cost you a fortune,” he said, still quiet.

Nicolo shifted awkwardly. “I didn’t take from our … I ... “ He deflated. “I should not have done this?”

“No.” Yusuf swept towards him then, hands extended, and cupped his jaw tenderly. “No, Nicolo, I’m only surprised.” He kissed him and Nicolo’s heart fluttered at the smile Yusuf wore when he pulled away. 

“You like it?” Nicolo asked, a smile of his own forming.

“Do I like it?” Yusuf laughed and touched the easel wonderingly. “I haven’t owned anything so fine since…”

Since I died and lost everything hung unsaid in the air between them; Nicolo swallowed and touched Yusuf’s arm.

“I love it,” Yusuf finished. “And I love you.”

“I love you too,” Nicolo answered readily. 

As he watched Yusuf paint for the rest of the day, Nicolo sat on their bed with his head tilted back on the wall and thought to himself that if he could find a way to make his beloved smile so brightly every day for the rest of their very long lives, he would be a rich man indeed.

When Nicolo brought home the oil, he felt playful, so he hid it in cloth, and put it in a box and wrapped the box in cloth and set it on the table to wait for Yusuf’s return.

Yusuf did not see the gift at first. Nicolo thought he might just vibrate out of his skin in anticipation while he watched his beloved move around their small home, setting aside his ledgers and cleaning up, eating a hearty slice of bread Nicolo had made for them two days ago.

At last, Yusuf came to where he was sitting to kiss him on top of the head. “Why do I feel like you are about to ambush me again?” Yusuf asked.

“Hayati, I have not ambushed you in almost a hundred years,” Nicolo pointed out drowsily, tilting his head back for a real kiss. “I bought you something in the market today,” he said when they pulled away from each other to breathe.

“You don’t say.” Yusuf’s eyes were twinkling as Nicolo handed him the gift. “Is there some occasion I’m forgetting?”

Nicolo shook his head and watched Yusuf fumble with the different packaging; at last, he pulled out the oil and eyed it for a moment. With a heady smirk, he looked up at Nicolo, his eyes dark and amused.

“Is this for you or for me?” Yusuf asked.

“Both of us,” Nicolo asked, and he shifted in his seat, already desperate for friction. “But … for me tonight. I hope.”

“On the bed, then.” 

Yusuf followed him there, helping him to strip his clothing so he stood naked at the foot of the bed.

“How would you like this?” Yusuf could barely get the words out before Nicolo lay down on the bed and drew his knees up to his chest.

“I want you inside me,” Nicolo said, already hard, and far too old to be embarrassed at how he whined when Yusuf pulled his own shirt off. “Yusuf-”

“I’m coming,” Yusuf chuckled and knelt on the bed. “You must have been waiting for me to come home a long time, Nico.”

He bent over and nuzzled a kiss to the sensitive skin near Nicolo’s cock; he gasped and arched his back before remembering to answer.

“I almost used it on myself,” Nicolo said, mumbling in his lust, “but I thought you might be upset to come home to find me with three fingers in my ass, fucking myself open for you.”

Yusuf cursed, low and hoarse before kissing the inside of Nicolo’s knee as he pulled the stopper from the oil. “I would never complain about such a sight, caro mio.”

“Not much of a gift if I’m selfish about it,” Nicolo pointed out, gasping when slicked fingers pressed against his hole. He whimpered pathetically when Yusuf drew away - but it was only to put more oil in his hand. “Yusuf-”

“While I don’t know if you seeking pleasure is, by itself, selfish,” Yusuf said kindly as he slid a finger inside Nicolo’s body, deep enough to make him see sparks behind his eyes, “I am very glad you chose to be generous tonight.” 

Another finger worked its way in before he thrust back into Nicolo’s body, and Yusuf built up a rhythm that had Nicolo gasping and begging for something that he appreciated was an inevitability (but something he still wished would be inevitable, faster).

“I didn’t get the oil for your fingers,” Nicolo pointed out after three fingers were fucking into his ass, making him harder and harder each passing moment. “Christ, Yusuf, there, there-”

“Oh?” Yusuf smirked at him, and Nicolo huffed a laugh before whining. “What did you get it for, then?”

“Your cock,” Nicolo snapped, having hung on the edge of ecstasy for so long, “I got it for you to put on your cock so you could fuck me properly, you impossible, ridiculous - ah! ”

Yusuf removed his fingers and poured more oil to ease his way, and Nicolo floated happily in the image of Yusuf preparing himself, his body pliant and waiting for the joy that could only be found with Yusuf inside him, or Nicolo inside Yusuf.

“I do hope you’re ready by now,” Yusuf commented casually as though he were discussing the weather (and this was a man who could recite poetry from nothing but the inspiration of a passing cloud, or how Nicolo’s eyes looked in a certain light - which added to Nicolo’s theory that Yusuf was tormenting him on purpose). “But I could always use your gift a little more exuberantly-”

“Fuck me,” Nicolo demanded. “Fuck me, fuck me-” He grabbed Yusuf’s arms when he was close enough and hauled him in until his cock rested, hot and hard, against the slickness of his ass, right behind his balls. “Yusuf-”

Yusuf laughed a little more, but positioned himself well enough to sink in - tortuously slow, Nicolo noted, how could he be so slow when Nicolo had found something to make this go faster, the way he wanted - and soon Nicolo was full on him, his body gripping Yusuf desperately as though wishing to make true the statement two flesh becoming one .

“I feel like I should make you ride my cock,” Yusuf said, kissing Nicolo’s jaw as Nicolo dug his fingers into the muscle of Yusuf’s back. “Work for your pleasure-”

“Yes,” Nicolo moaned. “Yes, that, yes-”

“Come like this first,” Yusuf murmured, licking the column of his throat. “Come on my cock while I fuck you, and then ride me - and when we’re done with that, it’s my turn. Nico, sweet Nico, you are so tight around me, Nico, fuck, you are so hot and wet for me-”

Nicolo came, flushed and pleased and aching all over with how much he loved this man.

Within a week of meeting her, Nicolo knew three things about Quynh:

She was old, much older than he and Yusuf were;

She had a wit so sharp you could cut yourself on it;

And, she was the most thoughtful person Nicolo had ever met.

He never really owned much: he preferred to have his longsword on him always, but he didn’t own much other than a spare change of clothes. 

But it was Quynh who brought him a beautifully rendered manuscript of his favorite tale of King Arthur; it was Quynh who found him his favorite cheese at market and dropped it in his lap with a teasing smile, it was Quynh who found him bolts of textiles from Genoa (“it was just sitting on the ship,” she had said serenely when Yusuf inquired its origins. “...what ship?” Yusuf had asked nervously, to which Quynh had only winked mysteriously, sheathing her sword and walking away. “What ship?” Yusuf shouted as she retreated, and Nicolo dissolved into giggles at the certain piracy that had brought him a small piece of home). 

Quynh was generous, creative, and endlessly selfless. She had a darker temper and could be inspired to violence -- but only if Andromache was truly threatened (the first time she killed for Nicolo or Yusuf, she slit a man’s throat for making a rude pass at Yusuf in a marketplace -- it was then they knew she viewed them as family as well). But between the wars and fighting and death, Quynh would slip through the fabric of the world, pulling on its threads to discover joy for her family. 

One of her favorite things to do was to find pieces of the older world for Andromache: in particular, baklava. 

The honey-sweet dough was a favorite among all of them, but to Andromache, it was nearly a religious experience. Whenever Quynh disappeared in the middle of the day, Nicolo learned that she was going to return with either a piece of baklava for her beloved, or, less deliciously, a severed head from a misadventure. 

(“He was hurting children,” Quynh said stubbornly as they packed up their belongings after midnight, ready to leave another place behind. “He was raping -” and Andromache had kissed her forehead and her nose and her lips and said “My only regret is that I was not there to help you”)

But Quynh and Nicolo had a similarity between them that blossomed into playful rivalry: if they were to be separated, Quynh with Andromache, and Nicolo with Yusuf, then they would bring back the most ridiculous gift to each other to see who discovered the best thing in the world.

Quynh returned from the cold, frozen north of Russia with a golden statue; Nicolo brought a bust of an elephant from Southeast Asia. 

They split in opposite directions in the New World, and Nicolo returned with a carving he was really quite proud of -- and Quynh came back with a horse.

They bantered across the few centuries they had together, and while they could rarely keep the gifts they found on their travels (the spices stayed with them, used for cooking large meals; the textiles became clothing that eventually wore down to frayed threads as the pieces aged but they did not), they still enjoyed the friendly game.

Nicolo returned to England, laughing at the tiny jewel he had snuck out of a Dutch trading ship -- they had stolen it, he reasoned, and he and Quynh would have a fabulous time bringing it back to the people it had been taken from -- and came to the place in London, an inn near the port where their family had decided to meet.

An hour passed; he and Yusuf exchanged a concerned look, but Yusuf rubbed his neck and looked at the sun with a frown. “Perhaps it is the wrong day?” His beloved suggested.

“Perhaps,” Nicolo agreed. 

For some reason, the words weighed on his stomach like an iron cannonball.

They stood and set coins on the table for the drinks and food they had consumed while waiting, but as they exited the door, a group of children ran past, tugging on each others’ sleeves as they talked quickly:

“ Witches!” one said excitedly, “ actual witches! ”

“ They’ve killed them fifteen times and they won’t stay dead-”

“-not even burning them at the stake, the evil-”

“Andromache,” Yusuf said, horrified, at the same time Nicolo grabbed Yusuf’s arm and gasped, “Quynh.”

They run to the docks after shaking the location from the excited children. There, they find a bleeding, half-mad Andromache sobbing and raging against the dead bodies of sailors all around her.

(Nicolo to this day tries not to think about the blood-stained manacles on the wall behind her, the broken fingers that had been ripped off in her desperate bid for freedom -- hundreds of years of memories have faded into background noise, but he cannot shake that image no matter how hard he begs God to take it away)

After three weeks of endless searching, of bribing and murdering and extorting, Yusuf stared at Nicolo, grieving and exhausted, over the trembling back of Andromache, who sobbed and screamed to the uncaring deck of their stolen ship.

Nicolo put a hand to the breast pocket of his shirt, feeling the tiny jewel that was supposed to beat Quynh in a competition that suddenly seemed so silly, so childish -

(He never got rid of the diamond; and when Booker gasped awake, drowning on dry land, from his first nightmare, Nicolo pulled it out of his pocket and stared at it while it glinted mockingly up at him in the darkness of the farm they slept in - a sparkling victory he could no longer stomach the thought of)

Andromache disappeared for twelve years, and when they found her, still combing ports across the world, still sailing out with pirates and mercenaries and anyone will either take her coin or fear her axe, she refused to come with them at first.

She screamed at them, cursed them, threatened them - she even held a blade to Nicolo’s throat, and her pain in that moment was so real and unforgiving, so monumental, that not even Yusuf moved in fury to defend his beloved. 

“Come home, Andy,” Nicolo said softly. He wrapped his fingers around the knife at his throat, not flinching at the way it cut into his skin. “Andy.”

“No.” She shook her head and tried to push the blade in further, and it was Andromache who gasped in pain when Nicolo bled. “No. I hate you. I hate you both.”

“You don’t hate us,” Nicolo countered gently. “You don’t.”

“Yes I do!” Andromache dropped the blade and grabbed his shirt instead. “You still  have him! You’ll always have him, and-and Quynh-” she gasped again, and the circles under her eyes loomed, a threatening shadow, “God - I hate you.”

“I don’t hate you,” Nicolo answered.

Andromache shoved him hard enough to make his teeth clack. “You should.”

She found them in their lodgings two weeks later; she didn't ask them why they had bothered waiting. She didn’t say much of anything as they packed up their belongings and went back into the world.

Forty years after Quynh’s death, Nicolo approached Andromache, a parcel wrapped in his hand. Syria was beautiful at this time of year, and Damascus’s bustling marketplace had many wonderful items for Nicolo to choose from: it was a very deliberate thing he had purchased that day.

“For you,” Nicolo said, holding the wrapped parcel out to her.

Andromache opened it slowly, pulling the cloth back - she must have seen the way the folds stuck to one another, held together by sticky strands of honey, but when she fully opened it to reveal the contents, she stared at it for nearly a minute.

Nicolo’s eyes flickered to where Yusuf stood at the edge of the grove, and they exchanged a worried look at Andromache’s prolonged silence.

Then, thin fingers picked up the square of baklava; Andromache took a careful bite and chewed slowly, her eyes a thousand miles away.

“Good?” Nicolo asked quietly when she had swallowed and her gaze had returned to the rest of the baklava.

She looked at him, and for the first time in forty years, Nicolo thought she was no longer looking through him. Tears hung like stormclouds in her blue eyes, but when she blinked they were gone; all that was left was the echo of grief which she would not lose for half a millennium. 

“Good,” Andromache answered.

Nicolo smiled as she took another bite.

Nile surprises him with a box around Christmastime.

“You didn’t have to,” he said, already smiling as he takes the gift from her.

“I wanted to,” is Nile’s easy response. “Besides, I already know what you got me.”

“You peeked!” Nicky understands he should sound more indignant, but anyone listening knows that he sounds delighted.

“Sure did.” Nile taps her fingers on the box, grinning at him. “Open it!”

Nicky hums a little as he pulls the bow free, and he gasps with unfeigned excitement when he sees what’s inside.

“My favorite color!” He declares, lifting the forest green sweatshirt out of the wrapping paper. “Joe, look!”

He pulls the sweatshirt over his head, his hair fluffing up around his cowlick as a result; Joe looks up from the football game ( if you were to ask him, he would tell you he most certainly had not looked to his left when the keeper let that last shot in, he had not been able to say, wow, Booker, did you get that guy drunk before the game? ) and smiles at the sight of Nicky in his new sweatshirt. 

Nicky stands up from the kitchen table, his copy of Infinite Jest abandoned, and he holds his arms out to do a dramatic circle.

“Looking hot,” Andy calls from where she’s sharpening her axe in the back corner.

“Looking cool, ” Nile corrects, giving Nicky an approving nod.

“It has a hood!” Nicky shoves his arms in the pouch in front, “Joe, look! It has pockets!”

“It’s perfect,” Joe agrees, winking at Nile fondly.

Nicky keeps the sweatshirt in his go-bag, with the tiny gold statue Quynh had brought him centuries ago, with the first wedding ring Yusuf had forged for him. He folds the sweatshirt carefully whenever he takes it off; when he goes into his bag, he runs his fingers along it and his other treasures whenever he opens the bag, even if he’s opening it to take out a knife or a gun. 

Nicolo di Genova does not own much; he would tell you he does not want much.

But, he would tell you just as quickly that he has everything he needs.

Chapter Text

They use their hands to hurt each other until they don’t.

Yusuf marvels at this even as the days slip between his fingers like so many grains of sand, days and days and days until centuries threaten to lose their meaning.

We killed each other, he tells the girl, Nile, who smiles like she really is bringing life to a desert.

Many times, Nicky agrees. 

His smile is a spasm. A phantom limb.

They rarely curl around each other in sight of their family: Andy catcalls and throws popcorn at them, Booker drinks heavily at the sight, and Yusuf still thinks about how Quynh used to threaten to set their socks on fire while they were sleeping. But in that moment where Nicky smiles with his eyes so distant -- many times says Nicky, many times says the scars they can’t see anymore, many times says the nightmare Nicky’s never been able to shake -- Yusuf wants to pin him to the floor, fingers on his wrists and mouth on his ear so he can whisper Nicolo, you haven’t hurt me since.

It had been a shock to the system, the first time their hands brushed. Probably because they’d spent so long carving each other up, iron on bone and rock on skull and hands on throat: a gentle touch was almost meaningless in that great rush of confusion of sense. The sound and the fury of contact.

It had been years since Jerusalem. Since the first Crusade, which they now knew was one of many. They had parted ways perhaps the twentieth time they cut each other down, and they had not resumed any form of connection for nearly twenty-five years. They had taken to their immortality differently: It was Yusuf who had shrugged off the echo of death with relative ease; Nicolo was the one who sat awake each night and murmured to Santa Maria, begging her to take away the pain.

As Yusuf learned more of the Latin language, he realized the importance of what Nicolo was saying:

Take away his pain, Nicolo begged the mother of his God each night. Take it away, and give it to me. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

Yusuf slipped a hand over his ear and curled up tighter on the thin mat, hoping that Nicolo’s God would forgive him so he wouldn’t have to.

(The last few times had hurt pretty badly, after all)

But, when it became clear that they really were trapped on this earth with no hope of a higher power extending any kind of sign to them regarding the nature and duration of their eternal punishment, Yusuf sighed, touched Nicolo’s hand as he rolled up a pack and said, “I forgive you.”

At least, he wanted to. But Nicolo flinched away from the touch, eyes wide and nervous, and the words died in his throat, petering out to almost nothing by the end.

Nicolo watched him, his eyes as deep and guileless as a fresh spring, and Yusuf’s throat tightened as he waited for his traveling companion to grab a knife and stab him in retribution for the shock. 

Instead, Nicolo offered him a single, trembling word:

“Why?”

With that word, Yusuf really did forgive him; he touched his hand once more and said the words that were, as he would reflect years later,  responsible for binding them more surely than any rope or chain:

“Because I am yours, as you are mine. We are each others’, and we can either hurt each other or love each other. And I am tired of hurting you.”

The other man bowed his head and turned away, flinching slightly when Yusuf put hand to his quaking shoulder, wondering at the heat and the light of him.

Nicolo wept.

He would pull the truth from Nicolo steadily as they traveled, twice as ruthless as tying him to the back of a chariot and dragging him outside the city gates. His methods were quite particular: Yusuf pulled it from Nicolo with quiet words and gentle touches to his arm and hands and chest -- the story of a terrifying father, an exhausted mother, a sick sister. And Nicolo, who stood before his father and accepted the pain so his family wouldn't have to.

It was a foreign concept to Yusuf. His own father had loved him dearly; he died ten years after Yusuf, only he didn’t come back. Yusuf’s mother was a kind, respected woman; she died sixteen years after Yusuf. His siblings were possibly still alive, but he tried not to find them in the world. They had loved him though, and he had loved them in return, and he could recall the warmth of their embrace decades on.

When he found his way back to Nicolo, when he had given him that promise - we are each other’s -- Yusuf discovered the truth about a priest who had entered the monastery from a shattered home.

Nicolo did not know how to touch - or rather, how to be touched -- in a way other than violence. It was the script written upon his skin, the narrative played before his eyes, from almost the moment he was born. Violence was Nicolo’s inheritance, and the first time he dropped his head in defeat after cracking a bowl that had taken Yusuf a week to properly craft, Yusuf thought he had been stabbed through the chest once more.

“Mea culpa,” Nicolo murmured to the dirt, and his body shook when Yusuf reached over their hearth to grasp his chin.

“Never like that,” Yusuf swore quietly. His thumb stroked against the stubble that the Latin man, his confounding soldier, never quite got rid of. Yusuf remembered to speak again. “I will never lift a hand to you like that.”

An insane promise, he had to admit. He had raised a hand like that many times to Nicolo, decades ago, their blood spilling over sand and stone and dust; Nicolo had done the same in return.

But it was different now. They were different now.

Yusuf had not felt his family near him in many years; Nicolo’s skin was warm under his fingertips, and Yusuf longed to consume more of that warmth. He longed for it to be returned to him.

Nicolo stared at him for a long moment, the soft flames flickering distantly in his pale eyes before he nodded.

“Not like that,” he echoed clumsily in Arabic.

They returned to their food, but Yusuf found he was far hungrier for the way Nicolo’s fingers curled around his spoon.

Nicolo learned what other touch was at Yusuf’s hands, and soon they were each other’s in every way that mattered.

Years on, and Yusuf would still remember that first time they approached everything , as Nicolo stood behind him, tracing hands all along Yusuf’s chest and arms until he shook, fighting off pleas for more, afraid that a single, unexpected noise would cause Nicolo to stop in his soft exploration and banish this moment to the realm of dreams once more.

It was strange, he thought as he closed his eyes and rocked backwards, his head resting on Nicolo’s broad shoulder. Nicolo had slit his throat and cut his arm off and stabbed him through the stomach; but this, this touch, this softness, would be the thing that cracked him open.

Nicolo kissed the top of his spine and rested his forehead there, his hands trembling where they were almost holding him, a loose hand at his hip and shoulder.

There was a kiss to Yusuf’s curls, and then Nicolo asked, “Can we go to sleep?” and Yusuf held him tightly, and Nicolo held onto him.

The first time they made love, Yusuf refused to give it any other name, recognizing it for what it was despite its awkward messiness. But he didn’t care about matching the passion of love poems, not when Nicolo rolled his hips so wonderfully underneath him, not when Nicolo’s hands mapped out patterns along his ribs and hips and ass, not when Nicolo kissed him so deeply, his tongue matching the fervor with which his cock was carving him open, fucking into his mouth as Nicolo moaned delightedly --

It was not perfect, but Yusuf came so intensely, staring down at Nicolo’s face as he spilled, hotwhitemess all over his trim stomach, that Yusuf thought deliriously that he had stared too long at the sun and had been burned alive. The heat of Nicolo surrounding him was better than poetry; the warmth of him as he thrust one last time into Yusuf before coming with a trembling shout -- it was more than sun, and more than heat, and more than life itself.

(Nicolo is the first day of spring, he thought and thinks and will think)

Yusuf thinks that he could stand on the face of the moon and look down to earth, and he would still be able to see Nicolo.

They have touched each other millions of times. It would be an exaggeration for most couples, but they are not most couples. Yusuf can close his eyes on the rare occasion they are separated and call to mind the sense memory of Nicolo’s fingers sliding down his arm, his hand cupping his cheek, his fingers toying with his cock. It goes beyond eroticism though, beyond comfort. 

If in a thousand years the earth gave up her hold on their bodies and gravity was diminished, Yusuf would still be tethered to the ground, held in place by Nicolo’s hand.

It does not matter how many times they gasp awake, Joe’s palm fitted to the curve of Nicky’s hip; it does not matter how many times they kiss in the face of death, victoriously alive and always in love; it does not matter how often their hands link or lips meet or limbs tangle.

Yusuf is Nicolo’s, and Nicolo is Yusuf’s, and each touch is a confirmation of this joy, a solidified reminder that they still have purpose in this life (and Yusuf does not despair at the selfish notion that perhaps their purpose is simply to belong to each other)

They did not make love - or even fuck - for nearly three years after Quynh was stolen from them.

It was not for lack of wanting: it was because they spent the first months on tempest-tossed ships, Nicolo too green ( little fish, can’t find his legs, Yusuf teased when Andromache was not nearby) to do much touching beyond fingers in his hair or cool rags at his neck. Then, it was because they took another into their bed.

Nicolo had fallen into the habit of sleeping in Yusuf’s arms, his back resting against his chest -- he had told Yusuf, sleepily, that he liked feeling Yusuf’s heartbeat as he drifted off to sleep (he’d been so touched that Yusuf had held Nicolo down and fucked him for what felt like an eternity, even to their old bones). But, in the years after Quynh was gone, they took Andromache into their bed and slept with arms around her, Nicolo’s forehead to hers, Yusuf’s lips in her hair, their hands an unbreakable knot around her as they tried to give her enough warmth to fall asleep.

(Yusuf did not think and does not think and will not think that the universe is kind enough to have let Quynh die -- he knew and knows and will know that she drowns each minute, death upon death upon death, and when Andromache still doesn’t feel warm four centuries later, he will smile and kiss her cold fingers anyway and try to hide how afraid he is for his sisters in the way he bows his head to warm Andy’s hands)

They did not need to have sex, having perfected the art centuries ago, but when Andromache asked quietly for space, they gave it to her, and while they were waiting for her to find their way back to them, they made up for every night not spent buried in each other, sating a hunger they hadn’t felt ‘til they were nearly starved.

Now, Joe tucks flowers into the crown of Nile’s braids and smiles as she weaves another crown of flowers with her clever fingers. Nicky wears similar flowers in his hair, which grows longer every day, his long limbs stretched out against soft grass that ripples in each suggestion of a breeze. 

Things are still good, after Merrick. Still sweet. 

Nile finds her immortality to be a blessing still, a fascination that she expounds upon with opportunity. She laughs at museum exhibits and just this morning had pretended to be a tour guide from 2819, trying to explain the antiquated technology of Spotify to a very confused audience “with implants in their brains, and who have no idea who Michelangelo even is!”

She did and does not see the worry in Nicky’s eyes because Nicky did and does not want her to see it. But Joe can see it from across the marbled floor of the museum, and he can see it here from across the small field they rest in. Andy sleeps fitfully on a nearby bench, and to any outsider, they look like a normal group of friends enjoying the spring air.

But in eight hundred years, they will still be here. The museum won’t be; the field won’t be either. There are trees as old as them, their roots stretching down deep into the earth where Yusuf still sometimes thinks -- privately, deep down where Nicky can’t see it and worry -- that he should be, his bones returned to dirt and dust, his carbon and calcium and all the parts in between filtering out to make new life.

In eight hundred years, this will all be different, but Nile will still be Nile, and he will still be Yusuf, and Nicolo will still be Nicolo. Nile won’t smile as freely as she does now. Yusuf will still be able to close his eyes and recall the memory of Nicolo’s touch when he is far away. Nicolo will still carry on, quiet and kind and tired. Booker will be with them again, and Yusuf will have probably forgiven him.

But Andy will be gone, and it is a pain so large that Yusuf cannot even grasp the edges of it - it expands daily, hurtling outward with the cosmos and threatening to pull them all apart with it.

In eight hundred years, he will still be here.

And no one will remember Michelangelo. 

He does not know who turns to each other first that night when they return to the safehouse. He does not know who gasps whose name, who reaches out, who touches first --

This is an infinite conversation, after all -- there has been no gluttony nor avarice between them, no pause nor overexertion in their song in all their years, no abundance or famine of the hunger that burns so steadily in Yusuf's stomach he nearly forgets to feel it some decades. There is only the steady rise and fall of the symphony they make with one another, no touch more valuable or treasured than another. 

They speak without speaking, and Nicolo's hands tether him and free him and bring him a happiness so complete it nearly wraps all the way around to become agony. 

And after, when Nicolo's lips whisper kisses into his brow, their skin cooling and hearts pounding as quickly as they had that first time, Yusuf turns his face into Nicolo's chest and thinks Never let me go. I couldn't bear it. Let the world disappear around us and be forgotten, and let us be the last things standing, relics with no home or meaning anymore. Just never let me go.

Nicolo's arms tighten around him as though he had heard the selfishness of Yusuf's thoughts, and his hand strokes along Yusuf's arm, curling at rest around his shoulder, and Yusuf swears he hears the answer in Nicolo's heartbeat, thrumming with its constant, miraculous familiarity: we are each other's, so I will never have to. 

Chapter Text

When they watch soccer, Joe knits.

Nile thinks it’s strangely cute: she’s seen the man handle military-grade weapons after all; she’s seen the aftermath of him swinging off of a thirty story building to smash through a glass window and kill numerous combatants; she’s seen him snap a man’s neck with horrific efficiency for the crime of having hurt Nicky.

But when they settle in to watch Genoa and Verona, Joe picks up his knitting needles and works on a scarf for Andy because “You get colds now, boss!” a comment that had earned him the blunt end of a knife to the back of the head. 

His skilled fingers go to work handling soft yarn, and he hums softly as he knits and counts stitches without looking, trading comments with Nile about this player’s propensity to “just walk it in, honestly, is he sleeping out there,” and it’s unbearably cute.

Nothing like watching one of the greatest warriors in history do something Nile’s Nana refused to do because it was too boring.

Nile drinks a beer, and Joe drinks an iced tea through a straw so he doesn’t lose his place in the scarf. Nicky sits across the room, propped up in the window seat as he reads a well-worn novel he picked up at a secondhand store last week. When Joe cheers effusively after Genoa scores a point, Andy twitches a little where she’s curled up in a cat-nap on the opposite loveseat.

“Come watch the game, caro mio,” Joe weedles after Nicky looks up with a soft smile at Joe’s cheer. “It’s Genoa. Your home land!”

“No, thank you,” Nicky says politely.

“Why not?” Joe asks, frowning as his hands still.

“Because,” Nicky’s gaze returns to the book, and he turns the page idly, “if you’ve seen one match, you’ve seen them all. And I’ve seen plenty.”

“Ugh!” Joe splutters indignantly, his yarn forgotten for the moment. “Such a cynic!”

“Not a sports fan?” Nile says, grinning at Nicky, who shakes his head bemusedly as he taps his bookmark against his thigh. 

“I don’t mind playing so much,” Nicky allows. “But watching. Meh.” A whole body shrug accompanies the answer.

Joe chides him in Italian -- Nile’s only been with them for five months, but Joe and Nicky always talk in Italian when they’re arguing or being sweet to each other, and Nile is definitely curious enough to want to know what they’re saying, so she’s picking up the language faster than she might normally pick a language up.

At the tail end, she hears something about: Barcelona and handsome and strong.

“I don’t care if you think that one player is beautiful,” Nicky says. He answers in English, and his smile is directed at Nile, re-including her in the conversation. (She’s going to master Italian without them knowing, and really freak them out when she answers them one day in Nicky’s language -- she’s already cackling internally at the idea, even if it means she has to sell her soul to that stupid fucking Duolingo owl). “I’m not going to get jealous and start watching football because you think someone is cute.”

“ Very cute,” Joe mutters darkly in Italian.

Nicky blows him a kiss and turns the next page. 

Something occurs to Nile when she sees Nicky’s thumb rub at his forehead, no doubt pushing away a tension headache from the way he’s sitting in the dimming sunlight (it will be gone in a few seconds, she knows, but he’s been there for a few hours, which means that he’s probably built up and lost at least a dozen such headaches). 

He’s sitting in an east-facing window; the bedroom he shares with Joe at this particular safehouse, nestled in the woods of Austria, has west-facing windows. Electricity is limited, and the only light source in this part of the house comes from the television; their bedroom has a lamp right next to the bed.

Nicky’s purposefully sitting in a dark room even though he’s reading, even though his light source is dwindling, even though he hates soccer.

Most days, Joe and Nicky don’t sit on top of each other. There was a very tense 48 hours after Merrick and London where Joe and Nicky were more like JoeandNicky and touched each other endlessly, as though assuring each other they were really there: Joe rested his head on Nicky’s shoulder, or Nicky pressed himself against Joe’s back, and their murmuring voices exchanged quiet, constant phrases of Italian that Nile didn’t have to translate to understand were variations of I’m here, I love you, I’m okay. 

But then they’d fucked off to Malta -- and “probably fucked each other quite literally to death a few times,” per Andy, something that apparently happened once when they forgot to eat back in the fifteenth century -- and since their return over three months ago, they’ve settled down again. 

Most of the time now, they don’t tend to sit on the same piece of furniture, their hands only brush against each other when one is about to walk away from the other, and they don’t typically embrace in front of Nile and Andy.

At first, Nile was worried they were holding back because of her; maybe they were still reeling from a millennium of aggressive homophobia (and Nile knows enough of classical history to understand that bigotry like that came and went, that laws were there in certain areas of the world, but some places shrugged about same-sex relationships for quite some time -- but still, generally, their love was not particularly celebrated or supported for a long time), and maybe they were afraid that Nile might not approve of them loving each other. 

(She hasn’t told them she’s bisexual yet, but if she drools one more time at the sight of Andy throwing her axe, she’s sure that they’ll figure it out)

But then again, she’s never seen a relationship that’s lasted for over nine hundred years. She doesn’t know how humans express love after such a long time; maybe, Nile thinks, maybe something bigger than constant reassurance exists for them -- they’re the definition of stable, after all, and even if they’re clear across the safehouse from each other, or if Joe’s in town or if Nicky’s out for a run, Nile still feels this thing. Like there’s a bridge between them that grows and shrinks however it has to, a connection that doesn’t weaken or tire, but hums with its own kind of electricity.

The kind of connection that means that Joe can watch as much soccer as he wants, and Nicky can be off in his own world in a book; it means that they can go a whole day without saying anything to each other outside of a conversation that includes Nile and Andy; it means that Joe can go off on a small mission with Andy and Nicky, while clearly worrying, won’t need to hear from him beyond a check-in that says he’s safe.

But, Nile also knows that Joe had a nightmare last night: when she was wiping her own face in the small communal bathroom, trying not to think about ice-cold water in her lungs, trying not to think about seeing the surface and rippling water behind a pair of eyes she’ll never be able to look into, she heard Joe screaming Nicky’s name from across the house.

She saw the light on underneath the door when she poked her head out from the bathroom; she heard Joe crying softly as Nicky’s gentle voice whispered something to him in Arabic; she saw Andy sit up from the couch and offer her a tight smile before rolling over and falling back asleep.

Joe and Nicky don’t often need to sit right next to each other; most of the time, Nicky will read in the bedroom when Joe settles in front of the day’s match, and most of the time, Joe won’t ask him to come sit and do something with him. 

Most of the time, Joe doesn’t sit bolt upright, screaming the name of the man he loves as he tears himself away from the horrifying memory of his favorite pair of eyes staring emptily at the ceiling, framed in a growing pool of blood.

Nile blinks as the announcer talks again; Joe pokes her foot and says, “five bucks says Genoa wins.”

“You can do better than five bucks, old man,” Nile says automatically, which earns a sleepy giggle from the couch where Andy’s supposed to be napping.

Joe mumbles to himself and starts to knit again, but he pauses when there’s a huge cheer from the screen as Verona takes possession of the ball unexpectedly and runs it almost all the way up the field. The look of betrayal on Joe’s face is hilarious, and Nile hides a smile in the sleeve of her jacket.

Nicky snaps his book shut, and stands with a sigh. “I can hear you moping,” Nicky says, sliding off his perch in the window. “It’s very distracting.”

A massive smile crosses Joe’s face as Nicky crosses the floor towards him; he folds his long legs up and sits on the floor in front of Joe and leans back, settling his shoulders against Joe’s shins. “Ugh, of course you make me watch them lose.”

Joe sets his knitting down carefully and cards his fingers through Nicky’s hair, rubbing his thumb along the patch still growing in with a tender expression that makes Nile’s stomach twist.

“Sorry,” Joe whispers in Italian.

Nicky twists to kiss Joe’s knee before settling back into place; his eyes close as Joe’s fingers scratch against his scalp. “No, you aren’t.”

Joe hums in answer, and the game continues. The sun sets fully outside, and Andy’s begun to snore a little, and Nile feels just-the-right-side-of-warm from her second beer (clearly a memory of what it was like to get tipsy, considering she has a bad ass liver now). She whoops when Genoa finally scores, and Joe startles a little and cheers a second too late. It confirms her suspicion: Joe’s officially watching something other than the game.

Shaking her head, Nile tilts her head back against the side of the couch and lets the drowsy peace wash over her. It hurts her neck to watch the tv at this angle, and she turns a little, twisting her shoulders to get comfortable.

And just like that, Joe lifts his arm off the back of the couch without looking away from the tv screen; Nile looks at him for a second before grinning, and she grabs a pillow and plops it against Joe’s firm side, snuggling in. Joe’s arm drapes over her, and the warmth feels even warmer now.

As she’s drifting off into what promises to be a very nice nap, she hears Nicky murmur, “Maybe soccer matches aren’t so bad.”

“I’m glad you’re seeing reason, my love. College basketball starts next month.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Booker is surprised when Joe shows up on his doorstep, rainwater dripping from his beautiful curls. His expression is one torn between determination and guilt, and Joe clears his throat before Booker can even form the word bonjour.

“I know we said a century,” Joe says, his throat spasming for a moment. “But.” More rainwater sluices down his leather jacket, and Booker has a bizarre thought of leather in the rain? You’ll ruin it, Joseph! but now isn’t the time to offer textile advice. 

“But?” Booker asks quietly, fingers gripping the shoddy doorframe. 

“But.” Joe’s eyes lock on his shaking fingers, and Booker wonders what’s rolling around in that big brain of his before he says, “Nicky doesn’t know I’m here.”

Booker’s heart twists a little. “Oh?” His eyes dart into his rented flat, wondering if now would be the time to invite Joe in, but Joe seems determined to have this conversation standing awkwardly in the corridor. 

“He misses you.” Joe clears his throat and nods, the look of determination back. “And - and Andy does too. Not that she would say it.”

“No. She wouldn’t say it.” Booker smiles tiredly, and he thinks perhaps Andy is not the only one of us who wouldn’t say it. 

“I--” Joe winces. “I think it would be good for the kid if you spent some time with us.”

“Oh?” Booker raises his eyebrows. “The kid.”

“Yes.” Joe nods. “See, it’s been a year, and … and she probably forgot what you look like. And that’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t,” Booker agrees. “Do you want to come in, Joseph?”

He props the door open a little, but Joe continues, talking faster now.

“See, with Andy … with Andy … with everything that’s happening, I’ve realized that time is really quite important. And I’m angry at you. I’m so angry at you, but a century might be too long for --” Joe hangs his head and sighs for a moment. “A year has already felt like a century. Andy got a cold last week, and she’s still sniffling.”

“I know.” Booker opens his door more. “Joe, you should-”

“And Nicky would kill me if he knew I was here!” Joe groans and tugs at his curls. “I hate keeping things from him, but I hate not seeing you more, and he might forgive me, if - if he could see you again, and I was the one who insisted that you get a century-”

“I thought Nicky said two centuries?” Booker asks, amused now. He looks back into the flat and snorts a laugh that doesn’t seem to register to Joe at all.

“And Nile said we should do nothing!” Joe shakes his head mournfully. “Out of the mouth of babes, I suppose.” He holds his hand out and sighs. “We might not have as much time as any of us thought, so … so come home, and … and we’ll just keep an eye on you.”

“Babysit me,” Booker corrects gently and Joe shrugs.

“Maybe. But with more guns.” Joe mutters something to himself before squaring his shoulders. “But … come find us. That way … that way Nicky and I can talk before you get home. I wasn’t … I wasn’t sure you’d want to come home.” He blinks slowly, sadness creeping into his eyes. “You … want to come home, right?”

“Yes,” Booker answered automatically because he is an asshole, but he does try to be honest with one awful, notable exception.

“We’re at the safehouse in Austria, right outside Italy,” Joe says, tapping the doorframe near Booker’s hand. “Just … come soon, and hopefully I can talk Nicky around. And then we’ll work something out.”

“Sounds fair,” Booker says. “What do you think, Nicky?”

“I’m Joe,” Joe says with a frown. “How much have you had to drink today, Book?”

Booker sighs and kicks his door all the way open, so it bangs against the badly painted wall of his shitty little flat. The motion exposes the person who’s been standing in the middle of his flat since Joe banged on the door five minutes ago.

“Nicky?” Booker repeats, turning to smirk over his shoulder. “Thoughts?”

Nicky looks like the proverbial child caught with the cookie jar. “Um,” he says eloquently, holding his hands in front of his chest. “Uh.”

Ten languages between them, and that’s the best Nicky can come up with. Booker tsks in fake disbelief. 

“Nicolo?” Joe asks, astounded. 

Booker wishes he was allowed to take photos of them; he thinks this would be a very nice … what was it called again … ah yes, meme. Their faces right now would be an excellent meme.

“Yusuf,” Nicky says faintly.

“I’m going out,” Booker announces, grabbing his coat from the hook. They probably need to talk for a minute. “See you two soon.”

He whistles as he walks down the stairs, unable to help the smile that stretches across his face at the thought of seeing his family again, at the thought of his family wanting to see him again. He misses them so badly it’s a physical ache, worse even than losing his wife and children, worse than not being able to die -- he’s been with them for so long that this year apart has been actual, physical pain, and to have Nicky and Joe show up within hours of each other, asking for more time with him --

Well. Booker doesn’t think he’s had a good deal of blessings in his (stupidly, awfully, grossly) long life, but perhaps things are looking up after all this time.

They take some time to themselves after Merrick.

Andy nods at them when Joe floats the idea; she’s still nursing that bullet wound, and Nile’s proven to be the most tenacious bodyguard they’ve ever seen, so Joe pushes away the guilt at leaving Andromache when she’s still vulnerable. 

He takes Nicky to Malta after he convinces him to just take some time.

It’s the one thing they have plenty of, but Yusuf knows the contraction of reality: they will never have enough time, either.

They go shopping in the open air market, and Yusuf watches, content, as Nicolo smells produce at his favorite stall and fills his basket, his brown hair fading to dark blonde in the sunshine. It’s been almost a thousand years, and Yusuf can’t quite get over how beautiful Nicolo really is. 

He wears various ill-fitting shirts that are more buttoned than Yusuf would like, and his sandals are threadbare from walking so much, and he doesn’t put any product in his hair which he hasn’t changed since 1946, but he’s so fucking beautiful that it carves Yusuf open to see him in the sunshine, laughing at children who tug at his baggy cargo shorts, asking for loose change or tangerines.

Nicolo cooks, the way he always does when they actually have time: big meals that they can’t finish, so they invite the housekeeping staff to share, or they box it up and eat it in a few hours after their stomach aches have been whisked away. When he cooks, he sings, peaceful tunes that hum from his throat, half-formed words that don’t have any meaning (except Yusuf understands that it contains the answer to everything all the same). 

His feet are bare as he stirs the sauce on the stove, and he lets Yusuf sit on the counter and taste it as it cooks, licks along the flat of the wooden spoon that looks more at home in Nicolo’s hand than a longsword ever could. Nicolo’s songs are happier when Yusuf drapes himself over his shoulders as he cooks; sadder when Yusuf kisses the still-bald spot where pieces of him had shattered so recently. 

It’s a scene they’ve lived in hundreds of times, mundane and slightly boring in the best way, and they eat in relative silence, Nicolo’s feet propped in Yusuf’s lap or vice versa, one of them dozing off before the other when they watch television or read or listen to the radio.

When it gets too hot to think, they go to the sea and swim in the water, salt drying to skin when they stretch out on flat rocks. Yusuf’s fingers itch for charcoal as he studies the long lines of Nicolo’s body, and when he sees Nicolo’s eyes, made bluer by the water around them, he knows he’s been caught looking. The smirk Nicolo wears assures him that the powerful feeling that’s surging through him isn’t one-sided.

He doesn’t need the reassurance, not after nine hundred years of knowing he’s loved, but he likes it all the same. He likes it when Nicolo lowers himself into the sea and swims to Yusuf’s rock, climbing up like a curious mermaid approaching a stranded sailor; he likes it when Nicolo licks from his ankle to where leg meets hip. He likes watching Nicolo’s tongue dart out to taste the salt that’s now on his lips.

He more than likes it when Nicolo takes him in his mouth, and the hum he hears (and feels, fuck, he can feel that to the core of him) when he tangles his fingers in Nicolo’s short hair is a signal to him to close his eyes and let Nicolo move on his own terms. There can be time later for fucking throats and ferocious lovemaking that leaves bruises that take a moment to heal even on their own skin, but right now, Nicolo wants to take his time.

Yusuf lets him.

He closes his eyes on the flat rock, the sun heating his skin and turning the dark world behind his eyelids red; and red is the feeling of Nicolo swallowing him to root, the utterly obscene sounds where Nicolo pulls back before lapping at the head of his cock. It’s red as teasing sparks of pleasure flare as Nicolo takes him apart the way only he knows how after centuries of study.

“My turn,” Yusuf mumbles, rolling into Nicolo’s side when he collapses onto the rock with fake-exhaustion after swallowing every last drop Yusuf had for him. 

“Later,” Nicolo answers drowsily, and Yusuf cracks an eye open to see Nicolo, golden and glowing and perfect in the sunshine, cut from marble and more beautiful than any artist’s muse. 

We have plenty of time, goes unsaid.

Their hands find each other, even with their eyes closed, and Yusuf drifts off into his thoughts -- not quite asleep, but more restful than sleep -- as he listens to the sound of the water against the rocks. He imagines he can hear Nicolo’s heartbeat in each beat of the rhythm; in each wave is Nicolo’s heart because Nicolo is the center of everything, no matter what Galileo said.

The thought doesn’t make much sense, but it’s still true. He’s been alive long enough to know that things don’t have to make sense to be true.

Three weeks into their stay, Nicolo kisses Yusuf lazily and accepts bites of bread and cheese from his hand, his book lying abandoned on the bedside table. Their sheets are a tangle around them, and the window’s thrown open to tempt in a nighttime breeze. 

Yusuf feels lucky because Nicolo rarely lets them eat in bed (“the crumbs, Yusuf,” he can hear with perfect clarity in his ancient memory, “I cannot have crumbs in my bed”), and he feels even luckier because he gets to be the one to feed Nicolo from his own hand, slipping in pieces of crust with his thumb, the sharp pink of Nicolo’s tongue flicking out to tease at the digit.

Joe’s phone buzzes, and he grumbles to himself and ignores it for a moment before remembering only three people in this world have that number, and one of them is in bed with him, Joe’s come still drying on his thighs ( ah, so that’s why he’s letting  us eat in bed , Joe thinks in the back part of his brain, we have to change the sheets anyway ). 

He groans and grabs the phone, Nicky mumbling in protest before rolling to rest his head on his chest, sighing happily when Joe’s fingers find his hair and stroke through it.

Yusuf smiles at Nicolo for a long moment, remembering a time where Nicolo would have flinched from a touch to his head, but that was so long ago, and anyone who would hurt them is gone from this world and they are still here.

“It’s Andy,” Joe reports, scanning the text. Nicky hums and pulls himself up to mouth at Joe’s shoulder. “She wants to know if we’re coming back any time soon.” Another buzz accompanies the next text. “...And she wants to know if we’ve broken the bed yet.”

“Not yet.” Nicky bites down playfully on Joe’s shoulder, a brief flare of pain that fades down down into sensation as Nicky kisses along the marks his teeth made, sucking over the already disappearing teeth marks until Joe groans and drops his phone.

“Not yet,” Yusuf agrees, rolling to face Nicolo and accept his next, heady kiss. 

They stay like that for a few minutes, their hands drifting without any need for destination. Nicolo pulls away first.

“Can we have a few more days?” Nicky asks, his eyes heavy-lidded (but not enough that Joe can’t see the sadness there).

(If he closes his eyes, if Joe isn’t being careful, he can still see it, can still feel and smell and taste the blood in the air, the blood on his hands, the blood on the floor, scattered pieces of skull and brain and Nicky and he doesn’t wake up fast enough, he takes too long, he isn’t waking up, he’s gone, he’s gone and they didn’t have enough time-)

“We can have all the days you want, hayati,” Yusuf answers in a murmur, letting his lips drift over Nicolo’s once more, a slip of contact along his plush lower lip.

“Mmm a million then,” Nicolo answers, and Yusuf smiles through the lingering grief in his chest, that wound that just doesn’t seem to be going away.

“You’re an incurable romantic,” Yusuf says, his hand gripping Nicolo’s hip, rubbing circles into the bare skin there.

“That’s my line.” Nicolo smiles into his next kiss, and Yusuf rolls them over so he’s slotted between Nicolo’s legs, their bodies stirring once more so they can reconnect and perform another masterpiece for the universe. 

It’s inside Nicolo that Yusuf experiences the most clarity (it’s a little more fuzzy on details when Yusuf is being fucked, a little more Nicky, Nicky more, Nico, please, Nico, harder, when it’s Nicolo inside him, gasps of different languages slipping from his swollen lips). Inside Nicolo, watching the man he loves tremble and come undone, Yusuf sees the universe along a single line, points of brightness that illuminate truth better than centuries of research ever could. 

Nicolo never asks for more time; he’s never selfish enough to ask for more time. But he’s asked for more time now, and Yusuf wants to be selfish with him even if he’s aware that they can’t be selfish for much longer.

They have Nile to think of, and Andy to protect, and Booker to forgive. They have people to save and people to stop and people to avenge -- they can’t be selfish for a million more days, even if that’s what it will take to make the thought of Nicky, broken and bleeding out in a hallway, vanish from Joe’s mind.

Yusuf nuzzles a kiss into Nicolo’s throat and whispers, “I love you,” even if Nicolo knows, a thousand times over, that he loves him more than reason should be able to allow. He loves him beyond doubt, beyond weakness, beyond distance and time and space and any of it.

“Forever,” Nicolo agrees, tilting his hips up to accept more of him, and Yusuf’s breath catches as tears slip from his eyes. “Forever,” Nicolo whispers, hand at the back of Yusuf’s neck as he pulls him in for another searing kiss.

Yusuf doesn’t let himself imagine a time where they don’t have forever.

But later, when he’s no longer inside Nicolo, when he’s lying next to him, feeling his chest rise and fall under his hand as his beloved dreams, worlds away, feeling his perfect heartbeat perform a rhythm he’s felt a million times but has never tired of, Yusuf has to pretend that he doesn’t feel any flicker of fear at all about the moment where he won’t have more time with Nicolo.

They’ve had so much time, but it will never be enough.