Work Text:
August:
"Nile! Come on, Nile, open your eyes. Wake up!"
It is not Nile's first evisceration, but it is probably her worst to date.
"Nile, my love, look at me. Breathe."
Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.
"Nile!"
Nile gains consciousness with a guttural gasp, one of her lungs still punctured. She doesn't look down, can't bear to examine her own intestines from this angle.
"Thank fuck," Booker says from a thousand miles away. How are his hands on her face? He's so far away. "Come on, Nile, focus."
"Motherfucker," Nile finally grits out over the slick rustle of her flesh knitting back together. "An improvement?"
"Not even a little bit." Booker kisses her forehead, ignoring the gore. "We've got to get out of here."
"The target?" Nile asks, breathless. She curls into herself, shielding her open abdominal cavity.
"Nicky and Joe handled it after you went down," Booker reassures her.
Nile grunts as her back bends and her spine cracks back into place, fingers clawing for purchase on the blood-slick tile.
"I've got you." Booker holds her hand with his free one, gun pointed toward the door just in case.
"We've gotta quit meeting like this." Nile sits up carefully. "It's fucking Goussainville all over again."
"I'd prefer it to be my pain, but you went in first."
"I always go in first," Nile quips, grunting as she hauls herself to her feet. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
Nile ranks the latest big death on her mental list. This might top falling out of a window into the car, to be honest. It's the regrown liver that does it.
When she graduated from college, she would have never guessed her anatomy skills would be put to use like this.
They follow Joe and Nicky's trail out to the car and get the fuck out of Dodge.
"Please, ma sirène, change." Booker fishes out a new set of clothes and a bottle of water so she can clean up some.
"You took the most damage." Joe looks at her in the rear view mirror. "How fast was the healing?
"Faster than mine at Goussainville, but not fast enough," Booker says.
"It's the liver, and the punctured lung," Nile says, discarding what little remains of her top and sports bra. "That's too bad, I liked that one."
"I bought you more," Booker says, helping her clean up even as they bounce over shitty back roads. "The style you like is being discontinued, so I bought a case."
Nile kisses him soundly.
"Why have you never bought me a case of sports bras, Nicky?" Joe fake pouts.
"Because you don't wear them, beloved. If you wish to start, I will buy you as many as you want."
By the time they get back to the hotel, they're all cleaned up enough to go inside without drawing too much attention.
"We'll handle the call with Andy," Nicky says. "Go get some rest."
Booker insists on sweeping their room before Nile walks in, locking the door behind her once she's safe.
"Shower time," Nile announces, adrenaline crash imminent.
She would like to speak to the manager of whomever designed their immortality. What is the point of healing everything if the exhaustion stays?
"Should I..."
Nile turns on the water and starts stripping.
"Sébastien, baby, help me wash? I'm still sore."
A man on a mission, Booker is stripped and in the shower almost before Nile manages to get her fucking bra off.
He guides her under the spray, and Nile thanks whoever is listening that this shitty hotel has decent water pressure. She drifts, safe in Booker's gun-calloused hands.
When Nile fully wakes, she's bundled in two of the scratchy towels and perched on the closed toilet seat. Booker is washing himself quickly, methodically.
"I was going to touch you, baby," Nile grumbles.
"You are nine-tenths of the way to sleep, ma sirène. I will be here for you to touch in the morning."
"Promise?"
"I promise." Booker rinses off and dries himself briskly. "For now, you need sleep."
"We both need sleep." Nile gets her limbs to coordinate long enough to pull on clean underwear and an over-sized shirt. "I didn't pack cute pajamas."
"You look beautiful in anything, Nile." Booker does the rounds of the room one more time, plugs in the electronics, and stows the weapons. "Remind me to clean those tomorrow."
"No promises that I'll remember," Nile says. "Come to bed."
Booker slides under the covers, and Nile rolls so she can wrap her arm around his waist and tangle their legs together. It puts her freshly-healed abdomen against his, protecting all their soft, vulnerable bits between them.
"You promise you'll be here when I wake up?"
"I promise." Booker kisses her forehead and holds her tight. "The world could end, and I would still be here for you."
"You make the nicest promises. One of these days, I want a real wedding." Nile yawns, sleep catching up with her. "I know he hasn't been a priest in nine hundred years, but do you think Nicky would officiate?"
Nile is asleep before Booker manages to respond.
...
Nile wakes slowly, the bone-deep ache of a big heal taking its toll. She grumbles when she realizes Booker is reading, her head on his arm.
"Good morning, ma sirène. Sleep well?"
"Well enough, considering." Nile cuddles closer, now that she's awake enough to appreciate it. "You?"
"Well enough," Booker says, shifting his book to make room for her on his chest. "Feeling better?"
"Than when my insides were outsides? Yeah. I'm feeling better. I decided I want that potato thing you make me when we get home." Something occurs to her. "Did I really half-ass a proposal last night?"
Booker's chuckle rumbles through her.
"You did. I think you fell asleep before I could answer."
Nile traces an idle pattern on his side.
"And?"
Booker puts his book aside and pulls her on top of him so they can make eye contact.
"Name the day. I am already yours, so if a wedding makes you happy, we'll have a wedding." Booker's smile is shy. "I've gotten you multiple rings. We may as well make them real."
Nile is the luckiest woman on the planet, and she says so. Booker blushes, and Nile melts.
"We'll tell the family, see what Nicky says. If he doesn't want to, I bet Andy the Goddess will have some ancient vows we can take." Nile pushes his hair out of his face and kisses him. "I love you."
"I love you too." Booker hugs her to his chest. "Promise me not to go face-first into a grenade next time."
"I won't make promises I can't keep, but I will promise you this - no matter what, I will always wake up. We've got at least six thousand years ahead of us, and I will always wake up."
Normal mortality is terrifying. Immortality with an unknown expiration date is horrifying.
Immortality in the arms of the man she loves is far more appealing.
"I think we might end up writing our own vows," Booker says with a smile. "Til death do us part doesn't seem to fit."