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One.
They were in a market place in Turkey between missions.
Andy dragged Joe away by the arm the moment they got there, following the smell of cooking meat to get their dinner, leaving Nile and Nicky to peruse the rest of the marketplace. It had only been a few months since Merrick, since Nile had joined the team and they’d begun traveling across Europe together. Never America, though. Apparently Joe and Nicky insisted on avoiding it at all costs.
Even so, Nile enjoyed getting to know her new team and exploring places she'd only ever dreamed of visiting before. At the moment, not dying was a small price to pay if it meant she got to see the acropolis in Athens and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. She was holding off on any kind of “ Holy Shit I’m A New Immortal And This Is My Life Now ” full on breakdown and was just enjoying the sights and the company.
Nicky, in particular, had really taken her under his wing. She, of course, got along well with Andy, had formed a bond with their leader while dealing with the Merrick situation, and could trust her with her life on missions. Joe could always make her laugh and pull her out of her head when she was on the verge of being overwhelmed. But Nicky? Nicky had made it his personal goal to make sure that Nile was not only safe and sane but also happy .
Like right now, as they window shopped through the market, and he pointed out the earrings he thought she would like and the necklaces he thought suited her. He was wrong about all of them, because the man had no sense of style or fashion, but it was still sweet of him. It reminded her of when she and her brother would go to the mall and he’d point out the worst clothes possible and tell Nile that she’d “totally rock it.” And she didn’t want Nicky to feel bad, because he was being so kind, so she played along. He’d hand a pair of earrings to her with a delighted look, she’d look at them excitedly in the mirror, and then when his back was turned, she’d put it back down on the table.
But she had to admit, it was nice to shop for something other than necessities. Splurge a little and treat herself to something other than a shirt she’d just have to throw away in a day because it would be bloodstained. So she bought herself a new necklace and a few other small things. Things that she’d probably begin to hide away in her own safe houses like the others had been doing for centuries.
She was about to ask Nicky if he was going to get anything for himself when the older man made a beeline for another vendor. By the time Nile joined him, he was holding a leather journal with an intricate design on the cover in his hands. Except, no, he opened it and she saw that it was a sketchbook. Nicky whistled and ran his fingers over the cover.
“Joe would love this,” he said, grinning. He looked back at Nile and proudly showed it to her. “Don’t you think so?”
It was beautiful. Turns out Nicky had terrible taste in fashion but a decent eye for art. They’d definitely be discussing that later. But still, she shrugged. “Doesn’t he already have a million sketchbooks?”
“Yes, but he’s always needing new ones,” Nicky said, flipping through the pages with a small smile on his face. “And this one is good quality, just how he likes it,”
“Has he always been an artist?” She asked, leaning against the table. Nicky was a man of few (but powerful) words, but if there was one thing he could talk about, it was Joe.
Nicky’s grin grew. “Always. When we first started traveling together, we did not speak the same language. He taught me Arabic through his sketches. It was very useful,”
Nile couldn’t help but grin with him. “That’s really cool,”
He shrugged, but the look in his eyes told her that he agreed. “Neither of us have ever kept a journal, so most of our lives is documented through his art,” He said, once again gleaming over the sketchbook. “I remember our history through his eyes,”
“So sketchbooks are pretty special, huh?”
“Very,”
Nicky considered the sketchbook for a moment before nodding and fishing into his pocket for his wallet. “I think I will get it for him. He could use a pick me up after...” The unspoken loss of Booker hung in the air, and Nicky shook his head. “I think this would make him smile, and he has not been doing much of that lately,”
Nile grinned at him. “You guys are cute,”
“So I’m told,”
Two.
A safe house in Romania.
The team had been traveling north. They’d done a couple of odd jobs along the way, not even violent ones that required their uh, skill set. Joe had painted a mural in a children’s hospital and Nicky had helped an old woman with her groceries, that kind of thing. It was nice to make money that way because it gave them all the chance to train with each other and not train by dying at the hands of the enemy.
That particular afternoon, Nile and Andy had been outside training since dawn. Andy wasn’t pulling any punches, but Nile could tell that she was getting tired. Without her accelerated healing, she got winded more easily, took a moment longer to stand back up after she’d been knocked down than it would have previously. But she knew that Andy would never admit it, so Nile was the one to throw down her sword (because yes, she was getting trained to sword fight ) and call it a day.
Andy called the first shower, so while she slipped away towards their bathroom, Nile headed to check in on the guys. When she last checked in on them at lunchtime, they’d been watching a soccer (well, football, whatever) game in the living room. And sure enough, the tv was still on and blaring.
But she could only see Nicky.
When she’d last left them, Joe had been on his feet and yelling excitedly at the screen. Now she only saw the back of Nicky’s head, sitting on the couch and facing the screen, no Joe in sight. Frowning, Nile made her way into the living room, rounding around the back of the couch, mouth half open to ask where their other teammate went and-
Oh.
There he was.
She hadn’t seen him from behind the couch, but Joe’s head was in Nicky’s lap and his long legs taking up the rest of the couch, one of his arms dangling off and brushing at the floor. Naps were a sacred thing around the team (Who knew that being immortal would involve so much sleep?), so when Nicky looked up at her in surprise, she winced. She mouthed a “ Sorry,” and tried to turn away, but Nicky passively waved a hand.
“My Yusuf is a heavy sleeper,” he said, one of his hands gently running through Joe's curls, but his voice was still low. “How was training?”
Nile eyed Joe, afraid that he was going to wake up dazed and confused (as he often did) but sat on the chair next to them all the same. “It was good,” She says, speaking at the same level Nicky had. “I mean, I don’t know that I’m getting better, but I enjoy sword fighting lessons more than I enjoy Italian lessons,”
Nicky made a playful, wounded face, and clutched at his chest with his free hand. “I must not be a very good teacher then, if you don’t enjoy your lessons,”
Nile smiled at him, and shook her head. “Nah, you’re a pretty good teacher,”
“It gets easier, don’t worry,” Nicky said, his hand now absent mindedly wandering to brush at Joe’s shoulders. He didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it. “Maybe soon Andy will teach you German. We’ll be there soon for our next mission and she’s very good at it,”
“I’d believe that,” Nile said, nodding. “Is there any language Andy doesn’t know?”
Nicky thought about it, pursing his lips and rubbing gentle circles on Joe’s bicep. “I think her Japanese might be a little rusty, but she’s fluent in all the others,”
“That’s insane,”
“She speaks Arabic like a natural,” He commented. “Even better than me. It delights Joe to no end,”
Nile grinned softly, and then nodded at the man in question. “How is he?”
It was no secret amongst them that Joe hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Mostly because every morning, Joe loudly announced at breakfast that he hadn’t slept well.
Nicky sighed. “The last few months, and everything that happened in that lab, it’s just been a lot for him,” he said, looking down at his sleeping lover. “Booker not being here has been harder on him than he’s been willing to admit. They were like brothers, you know,” He glanced up at Nile, and she nodded. “And now he has lost his brother. There is a grief in that on top of everything else and sleep has not come easy to him lately because of it,”
“Nightmares?” Nile asked.
Nicky nodded hesitantly. “About Booker, all alone again in the world. About the lab. About the two of us being tortured . And it’s just...” He sighed, looking down and gently running his knuckles along the side of Joe’s face. “It’s not easy to see him like this,” He said, softer than before. “To see him hurting,”
Nile gave him a small, comforting smile. “At least he still has you,”
Nicky returned it. “He will always have me,”
“And at least he’s sleeping now,”
As if on cue, Joe snored. Nicky laughed, a soft laugh, but it still lit up his whole face. “He’s going to wake up very cross because he missed so much of the game,”
On the other end of the house, Nile heard the water shut off from Andy’s shower, so she sighed and stood up. “Well hopefully he wakes up feeling better.”
“I can only hope so,”
Three.
Another safe house in another country.
It was all blurring together.
When Andy didn’t drag Nile out of bed at the crack of dawn, she slept in. Sleep was a luxury to them, as she’d come to learn over the months. They all slept when they could and there was never any judgement when one of them slept in till noon. In fact, Joe often encouraged it. In fact, Joe could sleep in later than any of them.
That day though, Nile woke up bright and early when a sunbeam landed right in her face. She’d slept good, really good actually, but she still groaned awake and her limbs felt heavy with sleep. She stretched her arms over her head, and with a yawn, dragged herself up into a sitting position, bleary eyes taking in the sight of her darkened room. The smell of something delicious was wafting through her door, and her stomach grumbled, so she pulled herself out from underneath the covers, threw on a sweater, and made her way to the kitchen.
“Morning,” Andy greeted her over a steaming cup of coffee.
Nile mumbled something unintelligible in response.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Nicky called out, and Nile turned half open eyes to see him over by the stove, wearing a goddamned Kiss The Cook apron and flipping pancakes with a cheery grin like he was in a fucking movie.
Nile glanced over at Andy with a raised eyebrow, and the Sythcian rolled her eyes.
“Oh, come now, you two,” Nicky scolded, “It’s a beautiful morning! The skies are clear, the birds are singing, and the day is ours for the taking!”
“Shut up, Nicky,” Andy said.
Nile grumbled in agreement.
Nicky flipped another pancake with a smile in their direction.
Mumbling incoherently, Nile made her way to their coffee pot and poured herself a cup. She grabbed a banana off the counter and one of yesterday’s muffins and joined Andy at the table. The three of them were comfortably silent for a few minutes, with Andy sipping on her coffee, Nile eating her muffin, and Nicky humming to himself as he began making scrambled eggs. Nile looked closer at the counter and saw that he had a whole breakfast spread he was preparing, with blueberries and strawberries and even a glass of orange juice along with the eggs and pancakes.
“What’s with the breakfast platter?” Nile asked, once she’d found her voice.
Nicky grinned at her, and there was an innocent glee in his eyes. “I am making Joe breakfast in bed,”
“Oh,” She said, taking a swig of coffee, “Is today a special occasion?”
“Hmm?” Nicky hummed, deeply focused on his eggs.
But Andy shook her head. “No, it’s not. They just do this sometimes,”
“Aww, that’s kind of sweet,” Nile said, and Andy rolled her eyes.
Nicky shrugged and smiled at them as he cooked. His smiles always seemed to be endless. “Every day is special when you wake up with the love of your life keeping you warm,”
Nile made a face. “Nicky, if that’s a sex thing-”
“It’s not,” Andy answered for him. “They’re both just like this all the time,”
“Oh. That’s sweet, too,” Nile said, biting into her banana. “I mean, gotta keep love alive after nine hundred years, I guess,”
Nicky pointed his spatula at her. “Exactly, Nile. Why would I wait for a special day to tell him how much I love him?”
“You must hate Valentine’s Day, then,” Nile teased, and Nicky huffed.
“With a passion,”
“Please don’t get him started on it,” Andy grumbled.
“Tell you what, Andy,” Nicky said, slinging a hand towel over his shoulder. Nile vaguely wondered if they’d ever watched Queer Eye. “Tomorrow I will make you a special breakfast, so that you feel special too,” Anyone else, Nile might have thought they were teasing. But not with Nicky. Andy was right, he was truly just like this all the time. “In fact,” Nicky continued, turning to Nile. “I will make you both breakfast tomorrow, and we can eat it out in the garden,”
Nile shrugged. “Sounds good to me,”
“You’re encouraging him,” Andy elbowed her.
“You’re damn right, I am. I want my special breakfast, too,”
“And you’ll get it tomorrow,” Nicky said, picking up the tray on the counter. Nile could now see that it didn’t just have the plate of food and the orange juice, but also a small bundle of wildflowers, no doubt picked from the garden outside. “Today is for Yusuf,” He smiled warmly at them once more before slipping down the hall to their room, where Joe was still fast asleep.
Once the door had shut behind him, Andy put down her coffee cup and sighed. Nile was expecting a speech about how love is stupid and they’re so annoying, but...
“You know some people spend their whole lives wanting to be in love like that?”
Nile blinked in surprise. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say,”
Andy was very focused on her coffee mug. “I know I give them a lot of shit but...” She sighed again, and looked down the hall to where the lovers were. “I’m glad they have each other,”
Nile was still so stunned by Andy’s... softness that she didn’t say anything. The moment didn’t last long either, because Andy downed the rest of her coffee and slammed the mug back down on the table.
“Come on, let’s get started on your German lessons,”
Nile groaned in response.
Four.
Germany.
Things were going well for them, all things considered.
Until they weren’t.
The mission was supposed to be simple. A get in, get out kind of day. And technically, it had all gone according to plan, the bad guys had just put up more of a fight than they had been expecting, and there had been more of them than they’d originally planned on, but they’d handled it. At the end of the day they’d eliminated all the targets, they’d saved the women who were being held captive, and they were supposed to be on their way out. Andy had been the ones to escort the women to safety, leaving Nile, Joe, and Nicky to sweep the scene of the crime for any loose ends.
It was after a fight that Nile appreciated Nicky the most. When Nile was feeling the weight of all that they’d done crushing in on her chest, when she was feeling the weight of every person she’d killed, Nicky kept her steady. He reminded her that they should feel every death, to not get comfortable in murder, but to hold tight to the good that they were doing. He reminded her of the lives that they’d saved. It was always after a fight when she was reminded of how much like a family they were, when Nicky spoke kind comforts to her and Joe pulled her in for a tight hug, the two of them grounding her in reality.
Nile made sure to send up a prayer of thanks for the men who were becoming like her brothers, always looking out for her and taking care of her when she needed it most.
But then, things strayed from the plan.
Nile had her back turned to the boys, cleaning up the mess when she heard in rapid succession: a gunshot, a body drop, and Nicky screaming “ NO!”
She whirled around in time to see Nicky take down someone she’d never seen before. He must have been lying in wait for their guard to be down before he struck, and it paid off for him in the sense that he managed to get Joe before any of them knew what was happening. But in another sense, he was dead in seconds once Nicky had gotten to him.
Nicky didn’t even wait for the other man’s body to hit the ground before he was rushing back to Joe, and Nile’s stomach turned when Nicky’s knees landed in blood.
Joe had been shot in the head.
Nile ran over to them and by the time she’d landed next to them, Nicky had pulled Joe’s head into his lap and was running shaking fingers over his lover’s face. “Yusuf, wake up,” He whispered, and Nile realized that not only was he speaking in Italian, but she’d understood him. Apparently her Italian lessons had been paying off.
But Joe was still lifeless, glassy eyes staring up into Nicky’s.
“Yusuf, please , wake up,” Nicky begged. “It’s not your time yet, my love. Wake up, ”
Joe didn’t wake.
Nicky shook his head and gently cradled Joe’s face. “You promised me, Yusuf. You promised that we would go together. You promised , so please wake up , ” He begged.
But still, nothing.
A wave of panic rushed through Nile and she felt it coursing through her chest. She felt it clawing up her throat and buzzing at her fingertips. “Nicky-”
“No,” Nicky cut her off, voice firm, and didn’t even look at her, didn’t take his eyes off Joe. “He will wake,” Nicky insisted, switching to English. “He will wake, he promised me ,”
“ Nicky -” Nile had started to say, but he shook his head again. He never once tore his eyes from Joe’s, never risked missing the moment when life would flood back into him.
“He would not leave me,” Nicky insisted, but Nile heard the crack in his voice. “Not after all these years, he would not go without me. He would not go where I cannot follow,”
Nile didn’t know who he was trying to convince more: her or himself.
Then she heard footsteps from behind them, and turned quickly with her gun raised to see Andy standing in the doorway. “What’s taking so long?” She asked. “What happened?”
“Joe got hit, hasn’t woken up yet,” Nile answered.
“Shit,” Andy said, rushing to Nicky’s side.
“He’s going to wake up,” Nicky insisted. “He will,”
Andy didn’t say anything to that, just crouched by his side and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. And so the three of them waited together, and the only sound in the room was Nicky whispering in Italian, begging for Joe to come back to him. Nile didn’t catch all of it, she wasn’t that good yet, but she kept hearing the phrases “ You promised ,” and “ I love you, ”
She tried to wrap her head around the idea of loving someone for almost a thousand years. Not only loving them for a thousand years, but having to witness their death over and over, and being able to do nothing but pray that they would wake up again. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it, couldn’t quite imagine the depths of what Nicky was feeling as he cradled his lover’s head in his lap.
So she mirrored Andy, put her hand on his shoulder, and prayed.
Heartbeats later, Joe gasped awake.
Five.
A couple weeks later, Nile and Nicky walked into a bookstore in a small town in Denmark.
Joe had lovingly referred to them as “shopping buddies” the other day, because whenever they had downtime, Nicky was dragging Nile away excitedly for them to visit the local stores. Nile was more than fine with that though, because she enjoyed their time together. They could peruse thrift stores and marketplaces and artisan’s shops for hours, and Nile would rather do that than train. Plus, it was a cool way to experience whatever country or city they were in at the time.
She thought that Nicky mostly enjoyed having a shopping buddy that wouldn’t make fun of his terrible taste the way Andy would.
Currently, Andy and Joe were on their own mission. It didn’t require the whole team, and those two seemed best suited for the job, so Nile and Nicky got the afternoon off to do whatever they wanted. So far they’d gone into a variety of shops but hadn’t bought anything, and then when Nicky saw the bookstore, his eyes lit up and he practically dragged Nile inside.
“This is perfect,” He said. “Joe and I’s anniversary is coming up, and I haven’t gotten him anything yet,”
“I thought you said you didn’t need a special day,” Nile said.
A small smile played at Nicky’s lips as he began looking over the shelves. “We don’t need one, but we do have one. We actually have many anniversaries, but only one that we acknowledge every year,”
“Many anniversaries?” Nile pressed, picking up a random book and flipping through it. “Like wedding anniversaries?”
Nicky hummed. “We have been married almost fifty times-”
“ Fifty times?”
“But those are not the anniversaries we celebrate,” Nicky said, moving to the next aisle. “We also don’t have the typical anniversary that modern couples do, that can be marked by the first time they went on a date, or called each other boyfriends . It was a little bit more complicated than that, nine hundred years ago,” He said, his tone casual like he didn’t just use the phrase nine hundred years ago .
“So then what do you celebrate?” Nile asked, leaning against the shelves.
Nicky looked up at her with a twinkle in his eyes. “The day we laid down our swords and stopped fighting each other,”
“Holy shit,”
“Hmm, indeed,” Nicky said, moving down the aisle again. “And celebration isn’t quite the right word, it’s more of a...” Nicky frowned, and then snapped his fingers. “It’s more of a remembrance of that day. And anytime someone asks us what our anniversary is, or we have to fill out paperwork about our marriage, we use that date,” He said with a shrug.
“That’s kind of incredible,”
“It was Joe’s idea. He has an entry in his oldest sketchbook of our swords laying side by side on that day. It’s how we remembered it was that day specifically,”
Nile remembered what Nicky had once said that he remembered their history through Joe’s eyes and artwork, and was about to ask what makes for a good nine hundred year anniversary present, when a teenager popped out of nowhere.
For two immortal warriors, the two of them jumped like they’d seen a ghost.
“Hello, there!” The teen said, surprisingly in English, and upon closer inspection, Nile could see she was wearing a name tag that read Emma and had a little rainbow sticker on it. “Can I help you find anything?”
“Ah, yes,” Nicky clapped his hands together. “I’m trying to find a book of Arabic poetry for my husband. Do you have anything?”
At the word husband , the teen’s mouth dropped, and she began stuttering incoherence. Nile was about two seconds away from throwing hands at a sixteen year old when the teen in question said: “I’m gay, too,”
Nicky and Nile’s eyebrows skyrocketed.
“Sorry,” Emma blushed and covered her face with her hands, “Sorry, it’s just that I came out a few days ago to my parents and I shouldn’t assume that you’re gay and not like, bi or pan or queer, you’re just the first adult I’ve ever met that’s mentioned a-”
“It’s okay,” Nicky said with a kind smile. “You have nothing to apologize for,”
“Sorry,” she mumbled again, and Nicky chuckled.
“I understand completely,” Nicky assured her. “We must all stick together, no?”
Emma peered out from behind her hands and nodded. “The only other gay people I know are like, my age , so like meeting an adult is just like wow ,”
“You know, I get that a lot, actually,” Nicky said. His tone was light, but Nile liked to think that she knew him well enough by that point to pick up on the sadness in his voice. “My Joe and I have been together for a very long time, and we’ve been through a lot by each other’s sides,”
Nile fought the urge to snort at the understatement of the century.
Young Emma’s eyes lit up. “What’s he like? Your husband?”
Nicky sighed dreamily and stuck his hands in his pockets. “He’s the best person I’ve ever met in my life. He has a passion in him that makes everyday worth getting out of bed. He’s a lover and a fighter and my everything. I don’t know where I’d be without him,”
“Damn, I thought Joe was the poetic one,” Nile mumbled.
Nicky winked at her. “We take turns,”
Emma, on the other hand, looked like she was about to cry.
“So...” She started in a small voice. “So, it gets better?”
Now Nile was about to cry.
“Oh. Oh, yes,” Nicky said, in the softest voice Nile had ever heard from him, and that was saying a lot because this was Nicky. “It gets better,”
Emma drew in a shaky breath and nodded, rapidly blinking her eyes. “Um, our books on poetry are in the back left corner,” She said, gesturing behind her. “And I hope you have a lovely day and a wonderful life with your husband,” And with that, the young teen walked quickly away, wiping at her eyes and disappearing into the aisle.
“That was... something,” Nile said as Nicky began heading towards the back of the store.
Nicky hummed in agreement. “I hope she finds her own Joe one day,”
Nile laughed. “I think you guys might be one of a kind,”
Nicky laughed, too, his fingers skimming the books until he found what he was looking for and pulled it off the shelf. “Hmm, here we go, just what I was looking for,” He said, looking over the cover. “A book of Joe’s poems,”
Nile raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, what?”
Nicky showed her the cover. “Joe wrote these poems and published them anonymously in, oh , the thirteenth century?” Nile’s jaw dropped. “Sometimes it’s fun to find them and read back over them on our anniversary. He lost his original copy a few centuries back,” Nicky said it with a casual shrug, like it was no big deal, and Nile wondered if she was ever going to get used to living this life.
“That’s fucking wild, Nicky,”
“I get that a lot,”
+ One
Nile’s life seemed to be an endless rotation of safe houses.
This time in Sweden, in a cozy cabin the woods with the snow coming down around them in swirls. The whole gang was gathered around the crackling fireplace, in their warm sweaters and cuddled under blankets.
And they were drunk off their asses.
The amount of liquor one has to drink, the strength of the alcohol that one has to consume when one has supernatural healing powers in order to stay drunk was almost indescribable. There were many reasons that they didn’t get wasted all the time, mostly involving their safety and not wanting their guard to be down. (But here, tucked away in the Swedish mountains, they felt comfortable enough to truly unwind.) However, the main reason they didn’t get trashed very often was because it was difficult to find shit strong enough to get the job done.
So when Andy and Nicky had returned from the supply run with jugs of the strongest shit money could buy, there were cheers all around.
Nicky also made sure to get them s’mores materials, because he’s a god damned hero, so Nile was happily munching on toasted marshmallowey, chocolatey goodness as the elders swapped stories. It was nice to see the three of them relaxed and laughing and...
Drunk.
“Shakespeare was such an asshole ,” Andy said with a giggle.
Nicky giggled back from his position under Joe’s arm. Normally, the two of them weren’t huge on public displays of affection. They didn’t really need to be all over each other, after nine hundred years of devotion. But when they were drunk?
All rules out the window.
Nile decided that the two of them cuddling was probably the cutest thing she’d ever seen. Nicky’s head was tucked into Joe’s chest, and Joe was lazily running hand up and down Nicky’s arm, which was wrapped around Joe’s waist. Their legs were covered in a fleece blanket, intertwined and stretched out onto the coffee table. Every now and then, Joe pressed a kiss to Nicky’s head, and Nicky snuggled closer to him. It was sickenly cute to watch.
“Oh, come now, Andy,” Nicky protested. “He wasn’t that bad,”
“Oh, my love, he was an ass ,” Joe laughed, pressing his nose into Nicky’s hair.
“I still can’t believe you guys knew Shakespeare ,” Nile grinned. The first few months she was with the team, she felt an overwhelming sense of FOMO, but now she just appreciated the stories. Especially when they gave her a deeper insight to history.
“He was so full of himself, it was obnoxious,” Andy groaned.
“You’re just saying that because you fucked him,” Nicky teased, and Nile gasped.
“Andy, no- ”
“Nicky, you little shit, you were sworn to secrecy!”
Nicky gasped, and twisted himself to look up at Joe. “Was I? Did I promise that, Joe? I don’t remember,”
Joe threw his head back and laughed. “You did, habibi, you did,”
“Oh, Andy, I’m so sorry,” Nicky turned back to Andy, snuggling back down into Joe and running his hand up and down Joe’s chest. “I had no idea,”
Andy giggled, honestly giggled . “You’re forgiven, Nicky,”
“Shakespeare, Rodin, who else in history have you been with, Andy?” Nile teased, gently kicking their leader, causing Nicky and Joe to burst out laughing.
Andy sat up in her seat and pointed at the boys, who were giggling to each other. “Not a damn word from you two, not a fucking word,”
“Okay fine,” Nile laughed, and turned to her other teammates. “What about you two? Anybody else in the last nine hundred years?”
“Nope,” Joe said, popping the ‘p.’ “Been faithful to each other for forever,”
Nicky hummed, dancing his fingers across Joe’s chest. “I wouldn’t want anyone else,”
“Okay, so here’s a question,” Andy asked, pointing her glass at the lovers. “What’s the craziest place you’ve fucked?”
Joe said: “I don’t kiss and tell,” at the same time Nicky said: “The Colosseum,”
Nile laughed so hard she clutched her sides.
“ Nicoló ,” Joe scolded, but there was only love in his voice.
The evening went on like that, with the four of them swapping stories and eating toasted marshmallows and drinking til their bottles were empty. Andy was the first to slink off to bed, stumbling down the hallway to sleep in a real bed. Nile, however, was quite comfortable from her spot on her couch, and liked being close to the crackling fire. She pulled her blanket up around her shoulders and it wasn’t long before she was sleeping peacefully.
At least, for a little bit.
She woke up a few hours later, when the fire had dimmed down to a smoulder and the only light in the room was a dim candle. She wasn’t sure what woke her up in the first place, but now that she was awake, she could hear... whispering? For a split second, she was worried that their safe house had been invaded, but she quickly recognized Joe and Nicky’s voices. They clearly hadn’t moved from their spot on the other couch either, and she could vaguely make out their shapes in the shadows, still curled into each other.
“I had fun tonight,” Nicky was saying, and even in a half awake, half drunk state, Nile could tell he was speaking Italian.
“Hmm, me too,” Joe responded in the same tongue. “It was nice to see Andy smiling,”
“It was nice to see you smiling,” Nicky said, and Joe sighed.
“I’m sorry, Nicoló, I know I haven’t been myself lately-“
“What? No,” Nicky said, and Nile heard him shifting, like he was sitting up to look Joe in the eyes. “Yusuf, you don’t have to apologize. You never have to apologize to me,”
“Nicoló-”
“You have been grieving , my love,” Nicky cut him off. “And I am here for you in your grief as I am here for you in your joy. I take it all, as I always have,”
She heard Joe sniffle.
“Every time I close my eyes,” Joe said, his voice strained. “I see them cutting into you. I feel them cutting into me. I feel that fear that we’re going to be separated again. That they’ll cut into one of us and we won’t heal. That you’ll go where I can’t follow,”
“I know, my love, I know,”
“And what Booker said to us? That we hadn’t known the weight of all the years alone? As if I hadn’t felt grief and loss and pain in the last nine hundred years? The way he turned our love against us as an excuse for what he did to us? That cut deeper than any knife. Two hundred years, he was by our side. Two hundred years he was our brother ,”
Nicky didn’t say anything to that, but in the dim light, Nile could see him pulling Joe closer to him, enveloping him in his arms and holding him tight. Nicky kissed the top of Joe’s head and murmured things to him in a voice so low and in a language so old that she didn’t catch any of it. Not that she really should be eavesdropping, but she was drunk and couldn’t go back to sleep. Sue her.
Joe pulled slightly out of Nicky’s embrace, just far enough out that they could look at each other. “What would I do without you?” He asked, voice as soft as the flickering candle.
“You’ll never have to find out,” Nicky responded, surely and without a doubt.
“You are my heart,” Joe whispered, cupping Nicky’s face in his hand.
“And you are mine,” Nicky responded, like it was an old, familiar saying, like a prayer or a vow whispered between them. “Come, my love,” Nicky said, knocking their heads together. “We should get some sleep,”
“You mean you don’t want to sleep on the couch?” Joe said, sniffling a little bit, like he was wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“Absolutely not,”
“Poor Nile, I’d almost forgotten she had fallen asleep there,”
Nile shut her eyes very quickly and hoped they couldn’t tell she had been awake.
“You should start to teach her Arabic,” Nicky commented, standing up and stretching. “She’s very good at Italian. A fast learner,”
“I feel like she’s already a part of the family, and she’s only been with us for a few months,” Joe said, following suit and standing up. “But you should take over her sword fighting lessons, because Andy is shit with a sword,”
Nicky laughed softly. “Don’t let her hear you say that,”
“I’m just saying. She tries to use it like an axe. It’s effective, because it’s Andy , but you’ve got the true technique down,”
“You could teach her, too, you know,”
“Yeah, but then I couldn’t watch you sword fight,”
“ Yusuf,”
“What? I know what I like,”
The couple giggled to themselves, and Nile had to force herself not to smile with them. She heard someone blow out the candle and footsteps retreating back into the bedrooms, but then moments later, she felt someone readjusting her blanket, pulling it up to cover her shoulder where it had fallen off. She was already drifting back to sleep at that point, the warmth of the evening and the alcohol and the love she felt from her new family making her hazy and sleepy in all the best possible ways.
“Sleep well, little sister,” Nicky said, his voice as gentle as the falling snow outside.
And so she did.