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The morning after their escape from Merrick, Joe woke up to Nicky flinching at the bright morning light, could feel the shudder running through Nicky's body at the same time. He knew at once that something wasn't right. Nicky felt different than he normally did, like he was trying to curl in on himself on the inside. It was disconcerting.
"Nicolò, talk to me," Joe whispered, as softly as he could, trying to keep the worried tone out of his voice.
Nicky was silent for a moment, but he understood at once what Joe meant.
"It is... hard to explain."
He turned away from the window towards Joe, seemed to be torn for a moment. There was a kind of fear in his eyes that Joe had last seen around nine hundred years ago, when they had first discovered their immortality. There was a horrible suspicion arising in Joe...
"You're not—Nicolò, amore, are you—?"
Joe wasn't often at a loss for words. But the thought, the mere idea of Nicky leaving this world before him had him terrified.
Nicky looked confused, but only for a moment.
"No! No, rohi, no, not without you, no. Never."
Joe knew that Nicky was saying this as much for his own benefit as for Joe's. They both exhaled at the same time, trying to let go of the terror of this possibility.
Nicky's words were an empty promise, neither of them had any control over mortality or immortality, but the act of saying them, of reassuring each other that they both wanted to go together or not at all, was important in and of itself.
Joe ran a fingertip along Nicky's jawline, then up to his cheek.
"What is it, then?"
Nicky averted his eyes slightly.
"Yesterday, I healed, but today I feel pain where that man shot me, I don’t understand it..."
"Nicolò," Joe said, so very gently. Even though he enjoyed making big speeches, he knew that the simplest things were sometimes the most comforting. Especially when it came to Nicky.
In response, Nicky buried his face against Joe's shoulder, his breathing a little more shallow than normal. Joe held him with one arm, running the fingers of his other hand through Nicky's hair slowly until Nicky lightly shook his head.
"Makes it worse," he mumbled by way of explanation.
Joe left Nicky's hair alone at once, but now, he was truly out of his depth, and that terrified him. His touch had never hurt the man he loved, had never hurt him in nine hundred years. Well, there had been that one time, after they had killed each other for the fifth or sixth time, but that had been very much on purpose, while they still hated each other... The thought made Joe's heart wrench even now: that he had ever been capable of deliberately hurting Nicky was a burden he did not bear lightly.
With a suppressed groan, Nicky moved his head away from Joe's shoulder, as his pain seemed to intensify slowly. Joe was forced to watch his face contort, and there was a horror in that like he had barely ever known. Watching Nicky die was bad enough, and the accompanying fear, deep down, that this was the one, the last one, the final death... But his love had always woken up, had always healed, the separation had always been temporary. This was the opposite: having to watch him get worse instead of better, being helpless to do anything to improve the situation, the feeling tore at Joe's heart like a ravenous wolf.
"Could you," Nicky whispered, shivering with pain at having to form the words, "close the curtains, please?"
"Of course, my heart."
Joe got out of bed at once, careful not to force any more movement on Nicky than was absolutely necessary, and made straight for the two large windows, only to discover that the curtains that came with this safe-house were a joke. Not that that was particularly surprising—they had never needed to choose safe houses based on curtain quality. But of course, the thing you thought about least always came back to bite you in the end. That was just how life worked, and after centuries on Earth, Joe was hardly surprised.
This, however, was a tangible problem he could solve, unlike Nicky's strange illness, and so Joe threw himself into finding a solution.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," he promised before leaving the room and going in search of anything he could use to darken the windows.
After a desperate search, he finally found a stack of blankets in one of the boxes upstairs. He could work with that, all he needed was some tape, he had seen some in the kitchen...
In his hurry, Joe almost crashed into Nile on the narrow staircase, dropping a few of the blankets.
"Fuck," he mumbled, angry at his own uncharacteristic clumsiness.
"Joe, are you okay?"
Nile helped him gather up the sheets of cloth, the concern clearly visible on her face.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Nicky's sick."
Nile's brow furrowed.
"Sick? Sick how? I thought we didn't get sick."
"Yes, I thought so as well," Joe replied heavily, taking the last of the blankets from her, then starting to walk in the direction of the kitchen again.
"Maybe I can help," Nile offered, following right behind him. "I haven't been immortal long, I remember what it's like. What are his symptoms?"
And even in his fear and worry, these simple words touched Joe deeply, for in this moment he realized that Nile really and truly had become part of the family. That even though they had known each other for only a few days, he could trust this woman with his heart and soul.
"His head is aching where he was shot," he explained as calmly as he was capable of being in this situation, "touch makes it worse, and the light is hurting him..."
"Could be a migraine. My mom—" Nile stuttered for a moment, the pain of separation from her mother clearly audible in her voice. Then, she swallowed and forced herself to go on. "My mom gets them sometimes. For her, it's always important that the room is really quiet and dark when she does. Cold compresses help a little, I'll show you how to make them."
They had reached the small, run-down kitchen, and Joe took a moment to look into her eyes.
"Thank you," he said sincerely, and she nodded once in return.
"Don't mention it."
Fortunately, they had a handful of towels that didn't have bloodstains on them, which Nile soaked in water, wrung out and then put into the fridge.
"This works better with ice cubes or frozen peas or something like that," she said, critically eyeing the sadly empty freezer, "but cold towels aren't a bad start, I think."
"Why peas?"
"The texture is good," Nile shrugged. "If you have something that's already frozen, you wrap a towel around it before using it, but don't freeze the towel itself."
The implications weren't lost on Joe.
"No," he said, quietly but full of fierce determination. "This won't happen again. I won't let it happen."
They looked at each other for a long moment, neither wanting to argue although it would be incredibly easy to start an argument over this. But arguing would be pointless and they both knew it. Again, Joe had the strange feeling that Nile had been part of their family for so much longer than half a week, that he had known her for years and years, that their bond was unshakable.
Then again, it was like destiny, wasn't it? It always was.
"Do you want me to help with the windows?"
Nile nodded towards the pile of blankets Joe was still carrying, and not for the first time, Joe admired her quick thinking.
"No," he said after a moment's consideration, not wanting her to see Nicky so weak. "But thank you for offering."
Nile nodded, unsurprised.
"I'll be here," she promised, and this meant more to Joe than he could currently put into words. He would tell her later, he decided.
Joe snatched up the tape and made his way back to the room where his love was currently suffering, a thought so dire that Joe hardly dared contemplate it.
He tried to be as quiet as possible as he fixed the blankets to the walls so that they covered the windows, a process that reminded him strangely of times long past, times when glass had been scarce and expensive, when most people's homes had had nothing more than little holes in them for windows, covered by cloth or thin leather. The memories made him smile despite himself. It was almost laughable, thinking about it now, what sorts of problems people had struggled with back in the old days, things that nobody even recognized as big deals in this day and age. There were some innovations whose availability, by rights, should make people speechless every single day. Like hot, running water in every home. Or pre-prepared cuts of meat in supermarkets. Or mattresses.
Joe's ruminations were cut short by a groan from Nicky.
"Give me a second, my love," he mumbled, trying not to speak too loudly as he taped the fourth corner of the last blanket to the wall next to the window on the right.
When he was finished, Joe took a step back to check his construct for any holes that might let light into the room, but he'd done a passable job, the whole room was notably darker now. Joe supposed that chunks of wallpaper would come off the moment they tried to remove the blankets and with them, the tape, but what did he care about the damn wallpaper? He would gladly destroy this whole house if that eased Nicky's suffering.
He wondered briefly whether the towels were cool enough yet, then decided to get one anyway: even if it wasn't perfect, it was better than nothing.
As promised, Nile was sitting in the kitchen, a book in her lap. She looked up to meet Joe's eyes when he entered, and there was a moment of silent understanding between them.
"I'm going to make soup," Nile told him matter-of-factly while Joe fetched one of the towels from the fridge. "That's easy to reheat so you can eat whenever Nicky's—whenever works for you."
"Andy hates soup," Joe answered, desperately grabbing at any straws of normalcy he could find, so that he didn't have to think about the larger implications of Nicky's illness.
Nile shrugged, unconcerned.
"She can handle it."
Joe grinned, almost despite himself.
A short time later, he was kneeling next to the bed, gently placing the cold towel on Nicky's forehead. He could see on Nicky's face that this was helping: Nile had been right. Once again, Joe decided to thank her later.
This was all he could do for Nicky, however.
As soon as Joe was forced into inactivity, his thoughts began to spiral, and fear took hold of him.
There was a terrifying possibility that all of this meant Nicky might be on his way to mortality. Andy hadn't told them how it had felt for her at first, she had hidden her wounds and then stayed silent on the subject, classic Andy. Joe wouldn't have expected anything else from her, and he wasn't going to pester her regarding the topic. It wouldn't do any good anyway.
When it came down to it, he could survive losing Andy. It would be painful and horrible and hard, but he would find a way to go on without her. But he could not survive losing Nicky.
Joe had never felt so afraid as he did in that moment: sitting in the darkened room, holding Nicky's hand, wondering whether this meant he would soon be ripped apart from the love of his life. Whether the universe would damn him to endure years, decades, centuries, without half of his soul.
His tears were silent, and the silence was deafening.
"Yusuf, my love," Nicky murmured, and Joe could hear how much even speaking hurt him, "I'm not gone yet. Do not mourn me."
Joe gave a feeble appropriation of a laugh through his tears.
"I don't know how to be without you, vita mia," he offered helplessly. "I don't want to find out."
Nicky squeezed his hand, and Joe could hear him swallowing down his groan of pain.
"You won't. Non ti lascerò, ya hayati, never..."
Joe bit his lip to stop himself from arguing. Nicky usually only mixed languages when he was squirming under Joe's touch, wanton and desperate, and this was decidedly not that. This was actually the complete opposite of that, and the fact that the pain he was feeling was having this effect on Nicky's mind was almost personally offensive to Joe. This was supposed to be a side-effect of pleasure, not anguish. Never anguish.
Joe wished he were a religious man so he could pray, so he could ask a higher power for mercy. But he had broken with religion so long ago that he was now more familiar with Nicky's beliefs than with the ones he had been raised on, and he refused to pray to Nicky's God. If there was one thing they would always disagree on, it was religion. And this had never pained Joe more than it did right now: that he was alone with his fears, that he didn't have a deity to share the burden with.
He kissed Nicky's hands, his lips brushing against hard, cool knuckles and trembling fingers. There wasn't a God he could pray to, so he prayed to Nicky instead, silently, his Nicky, his Nicolò, to come back to him sound and whole and alive, you have to stay alive, do you hear me, Nicolò, you have to stay with me, for I am lost in darkness without you, lost in cold, eternal night without your light to guide me...
Later, Joe could not have said how long he sat there, praying, fearing for Nicky's life. Every second was too long, every minute agony. But Joe would gladly spend the rest of his life thus if it meant he could be with his Nicolò. For him, he would weather any hardship gladly, anything for his love.
Joe was forced to return to the kitchen several times to swap the now lukewarm towel for one of the cool ones, and once found Nile busy cooking, then the next time he entered the room, she was sitting at the table with a bowl of steaming hot soup in front of her. She didn't offer him any, knowing that he would refuse, but Joe didn't miss the fact that she had used a rather big pot, big enough to feed the whole family.
Two or three trips to the kitchen later, Andy was sitting at the table across from Nile, apparently lost in thought, absentmindedly playing with her spoon without actually touching her bowl of soup. Nile had gone back to reading her book. This time, Joe noticed that it was the one Nicky had lent her just two days before: one of the few religious texts he owned. The sight made Joe's heart overflow with fondness.
Andy looked up to meet Joe's eyes, and even though neither of them spoke, they didn't need to after knowing each other for hundreds of years. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod, and even though she was far from smiling, there was a steely kind of strength in her eyes that gave him hope. He returned the nod: there was nothing to be said.
Joe sat next to Nicky as he slipped into a fitful sleep, and Joe felt strongly reminded of their first years together, and guard duties, watching Nicky sleep while yearning to touch him—they had had centuries to make up for that lost time, but Joe still couldn't help but shake his head at how awkward they had both been around each other back then. He watched Nicky sleep again now, and he longed to rest his face against the back of Nicky's neck, to hold him in his arms, to breathe in his scent and to fall asleep listening to his heartbeat. But all that had to wait, and Joe waited patiently, as patient as he had been nine hundred years before. And although he hoped that it wouldn't take years this time, he was prepared to wait for years, centuries, eons if need be, to embrace his Nicolò again.
Thankfully, it did not take eons. It ended up taking the better part of an hour, after which Nicky woke up with a start, suddenly fully alert.
"Amore," Joe whispered at once, and their eyes met with smouldering intensity.
A slight smile played about Nicky's lips, and it was the most beautiful sight Joe had ever seen.
"How are you feeling?"
"Normal," Nicky answered, moving his head a little to check whether there was any lingering pain.
Joe stopped right before touching Nicky's forehead.
"May I?"
This made Nicky smile.
"You may, hayati."
Nicky's eyes fell shut as he leaned into Joe's gentle caress, and this time, Joe could see that pain had nothing to do with it. He breathed out deeply, relieved beyond measure. His Nicolò had thwarted death once again, it wasn't his time yet.
Joe tried to bury his fears deep inside himself: right now, they were together, living and breathing; right now, their hearts were beating for each other, and that was all that mattered. He wasn't quite successful.
Nicky sat up and kissed Joe's hand before pulling Joe into his arms.
"Don't do that to yourself, please."
Joe knew Nicky meant well, but he could not see how he was supposed to let go of his fears when he had to watch the love of his life die again and again, when he could still remember running his sword through Nicky himself and seeing him bleed out on the blade, almost a millennium ago.
"For nine hundred years I've had to watch you die, Nico," he said, tightening their embrace. "I cannot put into words how much I resent it."
"I know," Nicky answered, swallowing hard. "I feel the same way. But if we are afraid of our destiny, that will only lead to unhappiness."
Joe let his forehead sink onto Nicky's shoulder, a shiver running through his body.
"I meant what I said." Joe's voice was barely audible. "I don't know how to be without you... Everything I am exists because of you."
Nicky caressed the back of Joe's neck with gentle fingertips.
"We are reflections of each other," he said, in that profound tone of his that always had a sad edge to it. "Take away one image, and the other vanishes as well."
Even though Nicky was right, this statement made Joe grin all of the sudden, breaking the tension within himself.
"And you call me a romantic."
"Don't worry, I'll still let you handle the big speeches."
They were both laughing then, still clinging to each other. The fear seemed to dwindle in that moment, as he was safe in the arms of the man who was his love, his heart, his life, the man who was everything and more.
"I meant what I said as well," Nicky whispered a short while later. "I won't go without you. Fate has tethered us to each other, we came into this life together, and we will leave it together as well."
Joe sighed.
"I wish I could believe that."
"I will believe it for both of us."
Joe leaned up to kiss Nicky's temple.
"Thank you, rohi."
They kept sitting together for a while, unwilling to let go of each other. There was a tangible proof of life in touch that no other sense could provide: skin against warm skin, chests moving with steady breaths, heartbeats that pumped life into flesh, all the little movements that made up the human body. Joe cupped Nicky's face, kissed him gently, ran a hand through Nicky's hair. In return, Nicky pulled him close again, hugging him tight.
Joe knew the fear would be back. After all, there would be more deaths, that was simply a fact of their lives. But right now, with Nicky so warm and loving and alive in his arms, it had been banished to a corner of Joe's mind, unable to hurt him for the time being.
"Come on," Joe said finally, looking into Nicky's eyes. "Nile made soup."
A small smile played about Nicky's lips, the one that Joe loved so much.
"Poor Andy."
Joe grinned.
"She can handle it."