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They’re trying to bring down a house of a known drug-lord, hidden in the forest of Canada, when things go a little to shit.
Their team is trapped at the bottom of the house, armed guards trying to break into the store room. Booker can’t detonate the charges until they’re cleared out because he doesn’t know how structurally sound the house is ( “it looked better on the blueprints!” he’d snapped when Andy demanded to know why he hadn’t taken the crumbling structure into account). Nicky has been shot three times, which means Joe is three times as anxious as normal.
And Andy is still mortal.
So yeah. Nile doesn’t really love what’s happening.
“We’re all going to die, right?” She asks Andy, who’s struggling with a locked door at the opposite end of the room (Booker swears there was plans for a tunnel out of here, which only makes sense given who owns this place).
“Yeah. A few times, I’d guess.” Andy offers her a mirthless smile. “Well. You guys will. I’m just going to get the one.”
“Don’t joke about that,” Nile says softly, and the two women exchange a long, sad look before Andy continues fighting with the padlock.
“If we are about to die,” Joe says, turning to Nicky, “then I must tell you.”
“Oh no,” Andy mutters.
“Here we go,” Booker grumbles, his gun trained on the door, heavy on his shoulder.
“What’s happening?” Nile asks, frowning, as Joe gets on his knees next to Nicky.
Nicky glances down at him, smiles, but then returns his attention to the door, his own rifle primed to begin shooting.
“You are the love of my life,” Yusuf begins.
“And you are mine,” Nicky answers readily.
“I think I need a vacation from you all after this,” Andy announces, pulling out her axe to begin hacking at the lock. “Nile, would you-”
Nile moves to protect Andy’s six and brings her gun up to point at the door; they can still hear the boom of people trying to get through it.
“Nicolo, you are the first thought I have in the morning, the last thought I have before I close my eyes. I dream only of you-”
“That’s not true, you dreamed of Nile six months ago-” Booker points out, but he’s quickly overridden by Joe’s earnest voice.
“-and you are the most perfect dream. The sun pales in comparison to your light, and your soul provides shelter to me in a world that would otherwise lose all meaning. At your hands, I am undone and remade, and your body inspires me to maddened ecstasy even centuries after you first touched me.”
Nile’s face heats up at the unabashed intimacy of the statement.
“Your kindness, your beauty, your good heart -” Joe reaches up to Nicky, who takes his hand and hauls him to his feet. “You must know that I would be bound to you until the end, no matter how many times it comes.”
It’s like a little private bubble wraps around them as they press their foreheads together.
“I know, caro mio,” Nicky murmurs.
“I should love to marry someone so beautiful before the end,”
Nile rolls her eyes affectionately and adjusts her grip on her gun; the battering continues outside the door.
“Andromache?” Nicky doesn’t move from Joe’s embrace. “What province are we in?”
“British Columbia, technically.” Andy doesn’t even glance away from the lock she’s trying to break.
“British Columbia!” Joe gasps in delight, and Nile doesn’t understand why. It’s a pretty enough forest that they’re in, but … they’re still all about to get murdered a bunch of times, and Andy only needs the one time, now, so Nile doesn’t see why geography really matters.
She doesn’t understand when Joe releases Nicky and turns to Booker, beaming. Booker’s eyes flicker over to Joe, and he sighs through his nose.
“No.” Booker returns his full attention to the shaking door.
“Booker,” Joe says, hand extended. “S'il vous plaît.”
Booker curses under his breath. “I said no. Not again.”
“Sebastien.” Joe holds his gun loosely in his left hand and creeps towards Booker; he tugs on his sleeve. “Sebastien, would you deny your two oldest friends this chance?”
“Absolutely I would.”
The door rattles again, and Booker’s body remains tense, his eyes flicking to the vulnerable Andy behind them all. Nile steps in front of her even more, and Joe tries again for whatever it is he wants:
“Sebastien, how long could it take, hm? A minute?”
“We don’t have a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute,” Joe echoes, tsking as he turns his head to Nicky. Nicky’s grey eyes are more lively than Nile’s ever seen them, even if he’s hiding a smile quite well in his full mouth. “We do not have a minute to celebrate true love! What has this world come to -- Nicolo, do you hear this?”
“I do,” Nicky says, deeply amused, his gun still engaged and prepared for the inevitable bloodbath.
“Ah!” Joe clutches his heart as though wounded and turns to Booker. “Do you hear these words, Sebastien? The beautiful poetry that flows from the lips of my beloved! Do you hear how prepared we are?”
“What is happening?” Nile laughs, glancing around the room for an answer.
“Booker became an officiant years ago as a joke,” Andy explains; her axe slams into the rusted lock chain again. “And he performed Joe and Nicky’s wedding back in … ‘55?”
“Which ‘55?” Nile asks for clarification.
“1955,” they all say at the same time with various levels of affection and murderous rage.
“So now,” Andy hacks at the lock again and wipes sweat off her bruised temple. “Now, wherever we go, they get Booker drunk, get him to apply to be an officiant online, and then … whenever we’re about to die…”
“No.” Nile snorts a giggle, glancing over at Booker. “Shit, Book, you let them do that to you?”
“Life is but an endless eternity of struggle,” Booker says grimly, still focused on the door. “We all must suffer through it until the end.”
“How many times have you done this?” Nile asks. The rattling behind the door gets louder.
“Millions of times,” Booker mutters.
“Forty-six times,” Nicky corrects, lips twitching into a sweet smile that quickly vanishes into his cold-eyed murder look that Nile has learned to move out of the way of.
“Forty-seven, caro mio, do you remember? Monaco, last year-”
“Fuck!” Booker drops his gun and stares at Joe, incensed. “I don’t even remember Monaco!”
“Still legally binding, I think,” Joe says, the picture of serenity. “So?”
Booker screams wordlessly in frustration and points his gun back at the door, releasing a truly impressive stream of furious French. “ Connard! Merdasse! Putain de merde -Enfoiré! ”
Nicky and Joe exchange looks of wordless delight the whole time.
Then, he groans and his shoulders slump, defeated. “Join hands.”
Joe and Nicky’s hands entwine immediately, Nicky still, impressively, pointing his massive gun at the exit as he stares into the eyes of his beloved.
“Don’t worry boys, I got this handled.” Andy hacks at the lock again. “Mother fucker I forgot how much I hated blisters--”
“Is there anybody here who will be a witness to this shitshow?” Booker asks wearily.
“Hey!” Joe protests.
“Fine. This union between this man and this man?”
“Ooo!” Nile bounces up and down. “Oh shit, me! I’ll do it!” She jogs over and stands between Nicky and Joe. “Fuck, I was supposed to be a bridesmaid for my friend, Rachel, but then, y’know, I died, and-”
“Jesus fuck, don’t encourage them,” Booker grumbles.
“You can be our maid of honor, always,” Joe promises her, glowing with happiness, and Nicky nods serenely.
Booker begins, faltering over the words that he’d probably memorized off a website, who knew how long ago: “Nicolo, do you -- undertake to afford Yusuf … the love of your person, the comfort of your companionship, and the patience of your understanding; and to share equally of the necessities of life as they may be earned or enjoyed by you; to respect the dignity of their person, their own inalienable person rights and … and to … shit what was it - right, to recognize the right of counsel and consultation upon all matters relating to the present or the future of the household established by this marriage?”
“I do,” Nicky breathes, leaning his forehead into Joe’s, glancing away from the door. Joe beams into the embrace, and Nile coos when she sees that Nicky is crying.
“Yusuf, do you-”
“I do,” Joe nuzzles Nicky tenderly.
“Fantastic,” Booker mutters snidely. “Now-”
“Shit!” Nile pulls her gun up as the door finally busts off the hinges, and she gets ready to fire --
Nicky lifts his gun without looking and shoots the first three combatants in the head.
“Continue,” Joe encourages, still holding hands with Nicky, but pointing his gun and attention at the exit now.
“Fuck yes-” Andy swears as the heavy chain unleashes, and she groans pulling the heavy door open. “We got a tunnel out of here,” she reports.
“Go in first, we’ll cover you.” Nile takes a step back from Nicky and Joe and puts herself between Andy and the exit.
“Repeat after me, Nicky.” Booker takes out the next guy through. “I call on those present to witness that I, Nicolo di Genova, take Yusuf al-Kaysani to be my lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward in whatever circumstance or experience this unending, painful life-”
“Booker,” Andy warns, disappearing behind the heavy door.
“Fine, whatever experience this joyful life may hold for us.”
Nicky repeats it, pausing here and there to make room for the retort of his gun as he and Joe shoot the next wave through the door. Nile barely has to pull her trigger at all, keeping an eye on Andy’s escape route.
“Yusuf, repeat after me-” Booker sighs.
“I, Yusuf al-Kaysani, take Nicolo di Genova to be my lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward in whatever circumstance or experiences this joyful life may hold for us!” Joe rattles off without having to hear it again.
Nicky smiles and nuzzles a kiss into Joe’s jaw.
“Great!” Booker swears violently as a lucky shot into the room enters his hip and pings off the back wall. “Merde! Merde merde - fuck the rings, you two have sworn your vows and we have a witness - thanks Nile, great witnessing - upon the authority vested in me by this fucking province of British Columbia, may we never return, I pronounce you now as married.”
“Do we kiss?” Nicky asks dryly, smirking at Booker.
“Kiss now, or kiss later, but we should get the fuck out of here,” Andy snaps, poking her head back in the room.
They choose to kiss later, thankfully, and Nile stays back in the room with Nicky as the two best shots as Joe and Booker sprint to the tunnel to flank Andy.
Nicky doesn’t even seem to notice the six gunshot wounds he takes to the torso and legs, and after they’ve cleared the hallway of other hostiles, he limps, hanging off of Nile’s shoulder, as they enter the tunnel and slam the door shut again behind them.
“You gonna be okay, Nicky?” Nile asks, eyeing the nastier wound to his upper leg which is slow on healing up.
“My Yusuf looked so handsome, did he not?” Nicky sighs as they limp towards the end of the tunnel. “Almost as handsome as he did in ‘11.”
“Which ‘11?” Nile asks, grinning up at her older brother.
“1711,” Nicky smiles down at her. “Great year.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
They haul themselves out of the tunnel and find themselves in a thicket of impenetrable woods - Booker and Joe slam the metal door shut on the end of the tunnel, and then swiftly stack up fallen tree branches and rotted trunks, Nicky and Nile joining them so that ridiculous weight is built up on the exit, making it impossible to follow them through it.
“We all in one piece?” Andy asks from where she stands sentinel between the trees, looking back in the direction of the house.
“Yeah, boss.” Booker holds up the pack he’s been wearing this whole time. “Got enough evidence and drugs to put those fuckers away for a long time.”
“I don’t think the stack of bodies in their basement will help them either,” Nile points out, smirking at Andy, who allows her a small smile in return.
“Wait!” Joe gasps out. “Wait! Booker, we have not yet-”
Booker slaps a hand to his head and shakes it woefully. “Will this torment ever end?” He sighs when he looks up to see Nicky and Joe’s shining faces. “Très bien. Va te faire foutre.”
Nicky and Joe grab hands as a distant explosion goes off on the west side of the house they’d infiltrated; Booker watches the flames go up, pats his pack with a contented hum, and then heaves a truly impressive sigh, swinging around to face his friends.
“May you enjoy the rest of your days, the fulfillment of your hopes, peace and contentment of your mind -- as you live and fulfill the terms of this covenant you have made with one another.”
Nile swears Booker is smiling, but then the shadows from the trees overhead shift a little, and he’s scowling again.
“You may now kiss your husband.” Nicky and Joe oblige immediately, and Nile can hear Andy roll her eyes.
“Assholes,” Booker mutters, swinging his pack back on his shoulder.
Nile pats Nicky on the back encouragingly as she goes to check on Andy, and they all wait for the two to finish the final part of their marriage pact.
“It’s sweet,” Nile tells a still grumbling Booker.
“You say that now, but wait ‘til the fifteenth time.” Booker’s smiling again though, and he gives her a one-armed hug. “Or the fiftieth.”
With all the happiness they’d felt the first time centuries ago, Joe and Nicky kiss for what feels like an age, blissful and complete and joyful, in witness of the trees and the moon …
And three fondly exasperated family members.