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“Oh,” Joe moans, letting his head fall back onto the headrest for a moment, “That’s so good - “
“Shh. Don’t wake up Nile.”
“She’s slept through more - oh, fuck,” Joe says, a few flakes of pastry falling out of his mouth from the mouthful of the flamiche aux poireaux, supplied by Nicky’s careful aim of the plastic fork, then a paper napkin to dab the corner of his mouth. “Thanks, mmm.”
Joe had insisted on driving the last leg of their trip to meet up with Andy again, citing Nicky’s reckless operation of modern vehicles, much to Nicky’s consternation and Nile’s bemusement. Nicky has crashed a car once, not that Joe will ever let him forget it. It was really Joe’s fault in the first place, because he was the one who couldn’t wait until they got to the safe house, and he had leaned over the console with that particular look, and it had been a while since they had a moment to themselves, and it’s not like Nicky was going to push him away -
It wasn’t like they actually died, anyways. At least Joe didn’t share the details of that particular story with Nile. Nicky loves him more than anything, but he has to admit, Joe does overshare.
Nicky turns his head a little, checking on her. Her hand’s still wrapped around the seatbelt, her head tilted back as she snores ever so slightly, mindless to the frankly pornographic sounds that Joe is making from the driver’s seat over the flamiche.
The Picardy countryside rolls by outside. Nicky lets his hand dangle outside of his open window, feeling the wind roll warm and dry over his fingers. They’ll be at the border in about an hour and a half, he thinks, but it’s the perfect kind of day to drive aimlessly for miles and miles. Perhaps some other time.
It looks so peaceful, now, even though all of his memories of the area are gruesome, bloody type. They’d had time to make a trip quick to the Amiens Cathedral, where Nile had stared up pale shadows from the vaults of the ceiling, the decapitated martyr statues. Nicky had wondered how something so massive could feel so quiet too, now.
Nicky takes a bite of the flamiche himself, now, before feeding Joe another piece. “It’s strange to be here without Booker,” he says, without fully thinking it through. He hasn’t brought him up, in part because he doesn’t wish to see Joe enraged, and because it brings a fresh wave of pain from recalling the betrayal.
Now, though, it hurts just a little less. Joe swallows the bite with little fanfare, but instead of looking angry just at the mention of his name, his face remains thoughtful, if the mood feels more solemn now. “Do you miss him?”
“I do,” Nicky confesses. With another quick glance to the backseat, he switches to Italian. “I know Nile does, too, but it’s different. She was - just willing to forgive him, so easily, but she hasn’t known him as we do. And yet if we saw him today, I might just as easily forgive him, too, and I know that’s not fair to you or Andy.”
“It’s not a fault of yours that you forgive,” Joe says in turn, his hands tightening on the wheel. “It makes you - “
“Don’t say a better person.”
“I was going to say human,” Joe says. “I wish I had your forgiveness.”
Nicky puts down the fork, and he holds his hand out. Joe reaches over to take it, pulling both their hands to rest on his thigh. “I’ll forgive him enough for the two of us for now,” Nicky answers in the same, “And I’ll wait for you to get there, too.”
“You’ll have the patience of a saint,” Joe says, and Nicky lets out a small huff, he lifts their hands to kiss their joined hands. “You know what I remembered, in the cathedral?”
“The flamiche waiting in the car?”
“We got married in there once,” Joe says. “Do you remember?”
Nicky doesn’t, not exactly, but he supposes that Joe has given him heartfelt, public declarations of his love in most Gothic cathedrals across Europe at this point, and that counts in his opinion. “We didn’t have a priest, and I don’t think I signed a contract,” he teases, squeezing his hand.
“Like we are bound by anything,” Joe says, and he smiles at the road ahead of him. “It was in the winter. Your hair was long, and I remember how your eyes were more beautiful than all that stained glass put together.”
Nicky’s pretty sure he’s misremembering the occasion or at least splicing together at least three occasions, but he isn’t about to correct him. “I liked that first time in Napoli," he says. "You went in with me - “
“You were the one who wanted to go, because we hadn’t been back Italy in decades, and yet I was the one who cried once we were inside,” Joe says, “And then you kissed me so sweetly - “
“Under the mosaics,” Nicky finishes. “That, I remember.”
“Ugh,” Nile says from the backseat, and she doesn’t startle them, but it’s close to it. “Can you go back to making weird noises instead of - whatever this is?”
“Respect your elders,” Nicky says mildly, at the same time as Joe says, “We’re teaching you about true love, here, and this is how you repay us?”
“Tooth-rotting, more like,” Nile says, and when Nicky looks back, she's gazing out the open window, putting her hand out as he had been doing. “I texted Andy, and she says to roll my eyes for her."
“She and Booker used to bet how long until we lapsed into dangerously nostalgic territory on such trips,” Joe says, “Sometimes, we’d throw the bets if we knew one was running out of cash, or just to keep it interesting.”
"I have a feeling that Andy doesn't take bets she loses," Nile says.
"She does like to win," Joe replies.
Nicky squeezes his hand, and he keeps it there until long after they reach Belgium.
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