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Booker wakes up to soft sheets, a fluffy pillow, and most importantly, somebody wrapped around his back like cling film. He doesn’t even think before he’s got them flipped over, hands pinned above their head and straddling their waist to pin them down. Joe just blinks up at him, hair all mussed up and still blinking sleep from his eyes.
It’s Joe. He’s woken up in bed with Joe.
Joe says something in a language he doesn’t recognise, vaguely placing it as something he’s heard him and Nicky speak, seemingly unconcerned that he’s been pinned down on his own bed. That it’s booker who is pinning him to his bed. Joe just smiles up at him, face open and soft and Booker feels like he’s looking into his soul.
He rolls his hips up from underneath Booker, not hard enough to try and get free, but- oh. Oh. Booker is off of the bed and over to the other side of the room in a heartbeat. The other side of the room that Joe is supposed to share with Nicky. He knew he’d gotten drunk last night but he honestly had no idea it was this bad.
‘You wake me up so cruelly this morning and then you have the audacity to tease me my love?’ Joe calls to him from the bed, in Italian this time.
Booker is facing away from him and he doesn’t have the courage to turn around. What is he doing here? And why is Joe treating this like it’s in any way normal!?
He can hear Joe grumble and start to get up and he panics, spinning round to try and explain himself, to sort this out, even though he has no fucking idea as to what is going on. And that’s when he sees it.
There’s a full length mirror propped against the wall he’s facing and the reflection staring back at him isn’t himself. It’s Nicky.
Joe is up and standing now, and he must see the expression of horror on his face as he’s instantly at his side.
‘Nicolo, habibi. What is wrong my love?’ but Booker just shies back, a whole body flinch away from Joe.
And he can see the pain that causes the other man, the hurt and confusion in his eyes and there’s a hint of despair in his words when he whispers ‘Nicolo?’
But Booker can’t seem to speak. The words have dried up on his tongue and he stumbles back, knocking into the wall and the dresser as his legs which aren’t really his take him too far back. The stride just a little off.
Joe follows him slowly, hands held up and calming.
‘You are safe’, he whispers. ‘ You are safe and you are loved and you will be for the rest of your life, the rest of time. I promise’.
‘I’m not’, Booker manages to croak out, finally managing to make his new tongue work with him, and Joe looks devastated. He looks devastated and wounded and maimed, more so than Booker has ever seen him in his life.
‘My love-’
‘I’m not Nicolo!’ he manages to finish, and as soon as he says the words he can feel the whole room freeze.
Joe stays where he is, eyes blinking ever so slightly down at him and he repeats his word back to him, sounding them out in his mouth and slowly letting them fall.
‘You’re not Nicolo’.
The two of them stay like that, staring into each other’s eyes, for what seems like, and Booker can speak from experience here, centuries.
Yusuf is the first to move, letting of a stream of words in the language which he’d used earlier, any meaning lost on Booker.
And as soon as his incomprehension is clear Joe moves. He pins Booker against the wall, one arm across his neck and the other grabbing his wrists and growls into his ear, ‘Where is Nicolo? And who the fuck are you?’
Joe lets the pressure up on his neck ever so slightly, enough for him to sputter out his own name before Joe’s pressing back down, a frown across his face.
‘Nicky is with Booker? How do you know this? If you have wrested whatever hijinks this is upon Booker too then I promise you, l will make sure you live to regret it’ and Booker would be flattered by that, really, he would, if only he didn’t feel like he was going to be choked out any second now.
Joe steps back completely then, letting go of his hold on him, and booker half collapses to the floor, knees weak beneath him.
‘I’m Booker you fool!’ he manages to get out, in old Ligurian this time so Joe might actually believe that it’s him.
Joe just stares down at him, frown still on his face, ‘Huh’ he says. Then, ‘what is the best Eurovision song?’ And Booker cannot believe that of all the things Joe could ask him to check who he was he’s picked this? This!?
He takes a very deep breath before answering, and Joe’s already started to smile down at him. The prick.
‘I don’t care what you want to pick, but it is definitely not Waterloo, you understand me?’ and Joe’s pulling him back to his feet, the well-worn teasing enough to satisfy his doubts about who Booker is.
‘I have to say Booker, you’re looking much better than the last time I saw you’ he jokes, and earns himself another glare from Booker, ‘But what the hell’s happened?’
And that he doesn’t know. The last thing he remembers he was on a night out with Andy, both of them stumbling drunk around the streets of Paris.
‘I have no idea. But if I’ve woken up in Nicky’s body then I can only imagine he’s woken up in mine. Me and Andy, we were both out spending the night in Paris.'
And he’s barely finished the sentence before Joe is throwing him a fresh change of clothes, darting around the room to collect all the belongings they’ll need and heading to the door with Booker only a few steps behind him.
‘Let’s go then’.
-----
It’s the empty wine bottle digging into his back which finally wakes Nicky up. He groans, his head is killing him this morning for some reason, and rolls over to find Joe and cuddle back down into bed again. And promptly falls off the couch.
‘Oww’ he grumbles, stretching out and taking a look around. And then very quickly taking another look around. He props himself up on his elbow, still on the floor at this point, and takes a third quick look around, just to be sure.
He’s at Bookers place. Bookers place in Paris, when just last night he and Joe had been in Amsterdam. He supposes it’s not completely impossible to have made the journey overnight, but why? He’s pretty sure he remembers settling into bed with Joe last night anyway.
He’s brought out of his thoughts by Andy entering the room, two cups of coffee in her hands, and she only takes a second to look at him, sprawled out on the floor, shirt rucked up and definitely in need of a shower before she says, ‘Oh Book’.
And okay he’s not feeling his best right now but he didn’t think it was that bad.