Work Text:
.
All he can taste is ash.
Sound returns to him slowly as his body twitches, his fingers scrabble through the rubble, searching, reaching out for... He’s not quite sure what.
He coughs and opens his eyes, blinking away the thick smoke even as it makes his eyes water again.
There’s fire everywhere, licking up the walls, crawling along the floor, he looks down at himself, horrified by the amount of blood that runs in rivulets down his arms, his chest, his legs.
Blindly, he stumbles through the room, flames burning at his skin, the pain is almost unbearable, melting his flesh but he has to get out - he can’t - he can’t stay here or he’ll die. Of that he’s certain.
Distantly he’s aware of screaming, though he can’t be sure it’s not his own.
There’s a rumble to his left, a series of bangs followed by a loud crash. He flings himself against the wall as what appears to be a... a tank? comes crashing through the wall opposite.
It screeches to a halt inches from his chest, which by this point is heaving, desperately trying to expel smoke from his already damaged lungs.
The hatch on the top of the tank opens and a man appears, backlit by the fires, he reaches his hand out. Offering salvation.
“Nicolò! Get in!”
Hearing the Italian jolts him out of his shocked stupor and he reaches out, taking the offered hand and allowing himself to be pulled into the tank.
He attempts to thank his saviour, but his voice catches in his throat, sending him into a bout of coughing.
His lungs burn with the effort and when he wipes his mouth, his hand comes away wet with blood.
His rescuer, eyes brimming with unshed tears and soft with an emotion he can’t quite name, brings a cloth to his mouth, his touch gentle as he wipes away the mess.
Through the tears in his eyes and the screaming in his head he’s aware of the pressure at the corner of his lips, of the tank moving again, that he’s being saved.
Then darkness, and he’s not aware of anything anymore.
— Joe POV
Joe paces the three metres between the door and the bed where Nicky is still asleep.
It’s been a little over four hours and his love still hasn’t woken. Nicky’s body was so badly burned, his eyes so wild, his voice hoarse from screaming, Joe had been almost relieved when Nicky passed out in his arms.
This was why he didn’t like to be separated from Nicky during a fight.
They had each others backs - figuratively and literally, they’d never fought without the other nearby. So if they were ever separated even for a moment, a piece of Joe’s mind would always be on Nicky, and vice versa.
It meant they could never 100% concentrate on the job, even after 900 years, if they could not see, or sense the other.
But they had been separated this time and those dreadful minutes in which Nile somehow stole a tank and they had rammed their way into the burning building had Joe holding his breath, terrified for Nicky every second they were apart.
But Nicky was with them now, and Nile had got them back to the safe house without relative fuss, bless that girl. In fact Joe could hear her now through the door, asking Andy if they were okay.
She was still so young, he thought, but he was so proud of who she was becoming.
“Am I dead?”
Joe chokes on his relief as Nicky’s voice breaks the tense silence of the room.
He sobs even as he laughs, falling to his knees by the side of the bed, taking Nicky’s hand in his and kissing his knuckles.
He almost misses it when Nicky flinches. Almost.
“Nicolò?”
Nicky pulls his hand away and Joe flails, fingers tightening around air, flexing on nothing, then falling to the bed.
Joe’s mouth moves, but no sound comes out as he watches Nicky look around the room - their room. They’re in the master bedroom of a quirky mid-terrace somewhere in Vicenza, Northern Italy. Nicky had chosen it back in the 1880s, he’d liked the window boxes.
But now he’s looking around like he’s never seen it before and something deep in Joe’s chest plummets as those eyes land on him with no sense of recognition in them at all.
“Nicolò? What’s going on?”
He sticks to Italian, hoping it will bring Nicky round, his heart clenching painfully.
The love of his life looks down at his own body and sits up suddenly, pushing the covers back and running his hands along his arms, down his chest to his legs.
“I was on fire”
He says it in Italian, his voice smooth and unaffected, like his lungs weren’t aflame hours earlier.
“I was on fire!”
His voice rises in pitch as he begins to panic, Joe watches on helplessly as Nicky throws himself out of the bed and runs, naked, to the floor-length mirror in the corner.
He stands up shakily and approaches Nicky slowly from behind, hands out and empty, showing him he means no harm.
“Nicky please, you’re scaring me”
He locks eyes with Nicky in the mirror and brings his hands down, rubbing along Nicky’s shoulders tenderly.
“You know who I am, Nicolò”
Nicky shakes his head,
“I don’t”.
He takes a shuddery breath in, his eyes wet and his body trembling.
“I don’t think I know who I am”
He chokes it out through tears, and Joe can’t bear it. He spins Nicky round and engulfs him, cradling him in his arms, one hand tight around Nicky’s shoulders and the other cradling the back of his head gently.
“We will fix this darling”
He runs his fingers through the hair at the nape of Nicky’s neck as reassuringly as he can, his own heart jackrabbiting in his chest, so tight it’s almost painful.
“Everything will be okay”
He says it mostly for Nicky’s benefit, he only wishes he could believe it too.
—-
“He doesn’t know who we are”
Joe’s voice wavers as he faces Andy and Nile in the kitchen while Nicky rests upstairs, still too exhausted to do much else.
“He didn’t recognise me, he didn’t even remember his own name he doesn’t remember -“
Joe cuts off, frustrated, and rubs his palms into his eyes, desperately trying to tamper down his upset and anger - at himself, not at Nicky, never at Nicky.
“Nine-hundred years”
He sobs, helplessly.
“Has this ever happened before? Am I going to forget you guys?”
Nile’s voice cuts through the turmoil in his head and Andy’s quick to take her hand, squeezing it to comfort them both. Joe can tell that she’s confused too, but she hides it better. An extra couple of thousand years will do that though, he supposes.
Andy sighs, “No Nile this is... unusual to say the least. It’s never happened before. The only thing that I can think, and this may not be any salvation Joe, is, maybe it’s something to do with his last death”
She sounds a hell of a lot more sure than Joe reckons she actually is, and in that one moment he’s irrevocably glad that she’s their leader. She’s scared, he realises, but she’s trying to be strong for him, for Nile, and he loves her even more because of it.
“What about his last death? We didn’t see it, I don’t think, he was barely alive when we found him”
Nile seems invested in solving this. Joe wishes it were that easy, but he can’t forget the lost look in Nicky’s eyes, the complete and utter lack of devotion - of the emptiness he’s never had directed at him before, and his heart constricts painfully as a cold, dawning dread overcomes him.
“I wasn’t there”
He says it so softly Andy and Nile don’t even hear him at first but as the realisation settles deep in his gut like a punch, he realises it’s the truth.
“He died and I wasn’t there - ah Madre Di Dio”
He exhales shakily into his hands, a truth he had never even considered, shaking him to his core.
“Every time he’s died before, I’ve been there... From the very first times where we killed each other over and over and - over nine-hundred years. We’ve never died apart”
Nile gasps.
“Do you think that’s it?”
Andy drops down in the chair opposite them with a heavy sigh.
“Joe and Nicky aren’t like us Nile, they’re not like Booker or Quynh or Lykon. They came into this together, they’ve practically never been apart and -“
She turns to Joe, her face sympathetic,
“You’re right, I can’t believe I’ve never noticed it but, this must be the first time he’s died without you there”.
Joe releases a shuddery breath and startled when Nile reaches out and places her hand on his forearm.
“You should go and talk to him”
She suggests,
“Help him remember”.
Joe nods tightly, and offers them both a shaky smile. When he speaks, his voice is full with affection.
“What would I do without my girls hm?”
Andy rolls her eyes and stands up, drawing Nile’s attention. “We have some shopping to do anyway. We’ll leave you to it”.
Joe waves them goodbye and heads back to the master bedroom, pausing outside to press his head against the door, hoping futilely that it was all a bad dream.
When he enters the room he is surprised to see Nicky wide awake, and dressed even, though not in his clothes - in Joe’s.
He is sitting on the floor underneath the window, with his back against the wall, directly opposite the door. And when Joe walks in his head snaps up, the wariness in his eyes a mirror image of that in Joe’s.
Before Joe can even ask, Nicky speaks.
“I couldn’t sleep”
He brings his arms around his knees, huddling them to his chest.
“I felt cold, all over, along my back - my arms, I...”
He lets out a wry laugh, tracking Joe’s movement into the room.
“I don’t usually sleep alone do I?”
Joe sits on the floor next to him, leaving what felt like miles between them, but what really couldn’t have been more than a foot in space.
“I don’t think either of us have slept alone in over nine-hundred years, darling”
He shrugs his shoulders helplessly, “We’re a little co-dependant. Andy says it’s an issue”.
Nicky laughs then, a soft snort that forces Joe to look away, his hands balled into fists in his lap. His fingernails digging half-moon crescents into his palms.
Nicky notices, of course he does, and brings his hand to Joe’s, uncurling his fists, soothing the pain. Joe stills.
“Please don’t”
He says it softly, withdrawing his hands from Nicky’s searching ones. “If you touch me then I will want to kiss you and touch you and it won’t be fair”.
“Fair to who?” Nicky asks.
“To either of us”
He looks back into Nicky’s eyes. Wondering for the first time in a long time, what exactly his love is thinking, where his mind is wandering to.
“In the last few hours you have learned many unbearable truths. Who you are, what we are”.
He runs his fingers through his hair, exhausted all of a sudden. “You have no memories of being my Nicky”
“I have no memories of being anything” Nicky offers, wryly.
Joe hums in response, eyes shut as he leans his head back against the wall. He opens them moments later, when Nicky says nothing more, and find his face inches from his own.
“Nicky!”
“Sleep with me”
Joe blinks, eyes flicking down to Nicky’s mouth, the space between them so menial, so unimportant in this exact moment. He must’ve misheard.
“Nicky what -?”
“I have not been able to sleep and you are obviously exhausted” Nicky offers, “Show me how we do it”.
Joe shakes his head, dismissing the offer before he completely hears it,
“Do not tease me Nicolò”
“I do not” Nicky’s eyes are fierce, more like himself than Joe has seen since he awoke, “Lie with me, Joseph”.
He slips his fingers through Joe’s, and Joe, as always, finds himself helpless to resist. Nicky pulls him up gently, and leads him to the bed.
“It’s Yusuf” Joe speaks, so quietly he’s afraid Nicky did not hear but then -
“Show me, Yusuf” Nicky murmurs, climbing under the covers, eyes fixed on Joe.
Joe exhales shakily and climbs in behind him, turning Nicky softly, and tucking himself in behind him, pulling the covers over them both.
He sinks down into the bed, Nicky’s scent overwhelming him almost immediately and he groans at the taste of it; thick and cloying on his tongue. He presses his face into the soft skin at the nape of Nicky’s neck, nosing at the knob at the top of his spine.
Nicky, to his credit, allows him. Shuffling himself backwards into his hold. Joe hesitates, arm hovering over Nicky’s waist, but Nicky can sense it somehow, and reaches back, threading their fingers together and resting their joined hands on his stomach.
They fall asleep like that, almost instantly; the sun shining through the pale curtains, casting shadows over their still forms. Their bodies fitting together, moulded against each other like they were made for one another.
— Nicky’s POV
He wakes slowly, warmth surrounding him. It’s dark in the room, proof they’ve been asleep for several hours.
He feels Joe behind him, feels his body pressed up against his. His arm round his waist, his breath a gentle flutter on the back of his neck, his leg between Nicky’s own like it belongs there always.
He’s overwhelmed suddenly, by the realisation that this man has been his entire world for hundreds of years. That they’ve slept in this exact position, perhaps in this exact room, thousands of times - and he doesn’t recall it at all.
How? He begs to an invisible force, how can someone mean so much to him, and be taken like this? What has he done so wrong that he deserves to forget.
He has been told he used to be a priest, that he used to believe in God. He finds this easy to believe, watching Joe watch him earlier that day. He can understand how he might’ve devoted himself to Yusuf the way he once did God.
As if he could hear Nicky’s thoughts, Joe begins to stir behind him, his hold round Nicky tightening as he presses his lips to the nape of his neck.
“Nicolò” He murmurs.
Nicky does not tense, or push him away like he knows he should. Instead he consciously loosens the tension in his body, sinking back against Joe.
“My Nicolò” Joe repeats, obviously still half asleep.
Nicky makes a small noise of encouragement in the back of his throat and suddenly Joe’s hand is rubbing small circles into his stomach, pressing Nicky’s body back against his.
Nicky moans quietly as Joe mouths along his neck, and turns his face to seek him out. Their lips meet, and Joe kisses him deeply, pushing his head back into the pillow with the strength of it, his tongue a deliberate force against Nicky’s.
And Nicky understands, as if he hadn’t before, that this man owns his very soul. Joe kisses him like Nicky is his salvation, like his body and his mouth are the only thing keeping him safe and whole.
His body fits hot and insistent against Nicky’s, and his hand makes it’s way down Nicky’s front, mapping out a persistent path from his stomach to his shorts.
Nicky lets out a cry when Joe’s hand finally slips underneath the thin fabric, tearing his mouth away from Joe’s as the sensations threaten to overwhelm him.
Which is when Joe’s hand stills.
Nicky opens his eyes, for the first time that night, and searches for Joe’s in the dark.
“Nicolò?” Joe whispers, his tone hushed and confused.
“It’s me” Nicky murmurs against his lips.
Joe’s eyes meet his in the darkness and whatever he sees there shocks him awake all at once.
He yanks his hand back as if he’s been burned, his whole body has suddenly gone rigid against Nicky’s and without warning he pulls away from him, scrabbling back against the sheets until he finds the edge of the bed.
He throws himself out of it, his back against the wall.
“Yus-“
“No” Joe’s voice trembles. His eyes are screwed shut, his breaths coming out short and sharp; like they physically pain him.
Nicky reaches out to him, hands spread wide, showing Joe he means peace.
“Yusuf please”
Joe shakes his head violently, and his eyes open, searching out Nicky’s. Tear stains mar his face. When Nicky reaches out for him again, Joe flinches back and puts a hand up between them. His message clear: stay back.
“Joe”
Nicky makes one last attempt, to try and coax this beautiful, venerable man back into his arms.
“It’s me. I’m your Nicky”
“You’re not”
Joe speaks, first in Arabic, then he repeats himself in Italian, his eyes burning holes into Nicky’s face.
“You look like him, you smell like him, your skin feels as it has felt for almost a thousand years, your mouth fits against mine like it was made by a higher power to be pressed against me, inside me always. Your taste -“
He huffs softly, “Your taste is exquisite as always”.
He breathes in deeply, “But I looked into your eyes and you were not him”.
His voice is thick with emotion and Nicky shakes his head, misunderstanding. “I am though-“
“You’re not!” Joe snaps. His body trembling with the effort of staying upright. “Your eyes - they’re so beautiful always but not... they’re not the same, you did not look at me like he looks at me, do you understand?”.
He sounds desperate.
“When we are together like this-“ he gestures to the bed, between them.
“There is always something... something uniquely us. A passion, no, a longing! Both, I don’t know. I have always had the words, I always know what to say but now I - I’m lost”.
His voice quietens, he sounds resigned. Tears threaten to fall from Nicky’s eyes as he so desperately try to reconcile where it all went wrong. “I should’ve stopped it” he offers.
Joe shakes his head, “It shouldn’t have started. I am sorry. This was a mistake”.
He moves round the bed, heading for the door. “I can’t stay here anymore”.
“Joe, wait” Nicky reaches out but his hand closes on empty air, a gentle breeze stirs him as Joe shuts the door behind him, his footsteps pausing outside the door before heading away.
Nicky shudders out a sob, burying himself back into the bed, his mind miles away from what they were doing not ten minutes ago.
The sheets smell of Joe and he brings them to his face, inhaling deeply, the fabric wetting where it presses against his eyes. It’s not fair, he thinks, that he can’t remember.
It’s not his fault. He wants so desperately to know Joe, he wants it like nothing else, to remember hundreds of years with this beautiful, fierce man.
He doesn’t fall asleep again. He lies there, cold and alone until dawn creeps through the window, birds furrow through the pretty window-box on the sill, their voices loud and shrill in the quiet of the morning.
When he finally rises and makes his way downstairs, he is greeted by the two women; Nile and Andy, his mind supplies.
“Good morning” He says in English, vaguely aware of the fact that the younger girl does not speak Italian, he’s not sure how he knows this, just that he does.
She beams back at him, “Nicky!”
She gestures to the seat next to her, “Come sit, Joe’s gone to get breakfast!”.
Nicky takes the proffered seat, he can smell it before Joe walks in through the door moments later. He doesn’t look at Nicky, but heads to the counter and unpacks his bag.
Nile grabs a croissant before it has the chance to leave Joe’s hand and he swats at her as she rips it in half and shoves one half of it into her mouth, reaching for another already.
“Patience” he mock-glares at her, shooing her back to her seat. She grins at Nicky as she sits, mouth full of pastry flakes, and hands Andy the half she didn’t eat immediately.
Andy takes it without fuss, and behind her Joe turns with their breakfast plated in hand. He places the plates on the table.
“Coffee?”
He asks Andy in Italian. She nods at the kettle on the side and he pours himself one then pauses, takes another cup off the shelf, and pours another.
Nicky doesn’t realise, despite how closely he’s watching the other man, that it’s for him until it’s placed before him.
“Thank you” he murmurs softly.
Joe just nods tightly, grabs a fette biscottate off the table and heads through to the next room, all three people seated at the table watch him leave.
“So last night”
Nicky turns when Andy speaks. She’s watching him, her gaze soft but calculated. Nicky immediately knows she’s their leader, can imagine what their relationship is like. He suddenly wants nothing more than to hold her, his hands twitch on the table, betraying his thoughts.
She smiles back at him, and rests a hand atop his. “You are still our family Nicky, whatever happened, even if it’s irreversible, we love you and we will be there for you, as we always have been”.
Her words settle deep into Nicky with a quiet warmth and he thanks her, taking a sip of his coffee as he reaches for a fette biscottate.
Which, of course, is when the front door blows up.
Nile’s quick to pull a gun from underneath the table where it must’ve been strapped, and covers Andy without prompting.
Andy is already armed as well, but Nicky has nothing and can’t do anything but stand and watch helplessly as soldiers in black stream in through the hole in the wall where their front door used to be, their guns drawn and shooting.
Joe appears from the doorway to his side, backlit and ethereal, sword in hand, and rushes into the fray. A stray soldier makes his way to Nicky and instinctively Nicky disarms him, turning his gun back on him and shooting him dead.
But not before he himself gets shot, and he watches with wonder as the wound heals away to nothing. It’s one thing to be told, another to see it in action.
He spies another sword, carefully placed against the wall in the corner, and reaches for it without thinking. It fits in his hands perfectly, a reassuring weight that he swings with ease.
It must be his, he muses, and nothing feels more natural than this right now. He watches Joe fall and rushes to his side, swatting the enemy down as if they were flies, inconveniences rather than actual threats.
He pulls Joe to his feet, pulling his hand away reluctantly when he has to fight off another soldier. More and more of them swarm in, bullets fly past him, whizzing close to his ears as he cuts down one after the other.
Then without warning there’s a gun in his face, and everything goes black.
— Joe’s POV
They’ve been here before.
Joe hovering over Nicky’s prone body, brains splattered along the floor like a gruesome Jackson pollock, grey-blue eyes staring unblinking at the ceiling.
There’s bodies scattered all around them, blood covering every surface, but Joe can only focus on Nicky. Eyes flicking over the bullet wound in his forehead, waiting for the healing process to kick into gear.
“C’mon Nicky, sweetheart get up”.
He cradles Nicky’s face in his hands, releasing a breath he didn’t even know he was holding when the wound starts to close, pushing the bullet out with a soft squelch.
The glazed look in Nicky’s eyes fades as light returns to them, and he suddenly convulses on the floor, sucking in a deep breath, his eyes finding Joe’s almost immediately.
Once their eyes connect Joe feels the world drop out from under him, he feels like he can breathe again, for the first time since he rescued Nicky from the flames not even forty-eight hours ago.
Because he looks into Nicky’s eyes and he doesn’t see the wary recognition of the man of the past two days, he sees the love and devotion of the man he’s spent his entire life with.
“Yusuf?”
Nicky sits up then, so quickly that Joe barely has time to pull back to avoid being head-butted.
“Nicolò”
He almost sobs with relief as Nicky flings himself at his chest, arms around his shoulders, pulling him close. Joe’s arm come up to wrap around Nicky’s waist, his other cupping the back of his head tenderly.
He inhales deeply, ordering himself not to cry and failing. He squeezes Nicky to him even tighter, pulling back to run his fingers over his face gently, assessing for damage he knows won’t be there.
“It’s you? You’re back?”
Nicky smiles at him, and God if Joe didn’t miss that, that shy, reserved beaming smile that exists for him and him alone.
“My love I never went anywhere, I was just...” Nicky trails off. Joe waits patiently, blood seeping into his jeans where he’s knelt on the floor; he knows Nicky will find the right words eventually.
“I was here all along” he settles on eventually, “I just needed to find my way out of my own head”.
Joe grins at that, blood staining his beard. “You had to get shot to do that?”
Nicky snorts, rolling his eyes and Joe is almost blown away when he’s hit by the full force of the affection that he feels for this man.
“Getting shot was just for added dramatics, no?”
Nicky raises an eyebrow at him and Joe can’t help but pull him in for a kiss. A slow, deep kiss that whispers the promise of more. He pulls away reluctantly,
“I happen to think you’re plenty dramatic enough thank you very much”.
Nicky grins a bloodstained smile and casts a glance around them.
“Andy and Nile?”
“Here!”
Nile appears from the hallway. Andy following behind her, they’re both covered in dried blood.
“Welcome back!”
Nicky barely has time to stand before he finds himself grappling with an armful of Nile. He laughs, “Yes okay I missed you too”.
She grins up at him, moving back to let Andy get closer. “I don’t want to say I’m glad you got killed again but at the same time-“
“-We’re so damn glad you got killed again” Andy finishes for her, embracing him firmly.
He wraps his arms around her, speaking into her hair.
“As much as I am absolutely loving this - should we not be leaving before more men come for us”.
Andy laughs, pulling away. “Oh honey no, this time we’re taking the fight back to them”.
Joe shoots her a warning glance but she just winks at him. “We‘ll make sure Nicky doesn’t die again”.
“Too right” He grumbles, softening when Nicky slips his hand into his.
“And when the fight is done?” He asks Nicky.
Nicky offers him a sly look; “We’ve a safe-house in Scotland, I hear it’s particularly pretty this time of year, plus Nile’s never been”.
Joe brings Nicky’s hand to his lips, kissing each of his knuckles delicately.
“Scotland it is then”.
.