Work Text:
Andromache wasn’t sure what to make of the two new ones.
They were different from anything she’d expected. They didn’t bear the usual world-weary exhaustion, and if it hadn’t been for the near century spent dreaming of them, Andromache would have thought that they were young.
No, they didn’t carry a century’s worth of weariness. They didn’t even seem to carry the violence they’d witnessed, still managing to hold their heads high and smile at the sight of kindness. They still walked through the world like it was good and new, like it hadn’t torn them apart and put them back together—
But despite her initial confusion, it didn’t take long to work out what made them so different.
Because unlike any other immortal that she had ever met, they had never felt the weight of walking the world alone.
They’d found each other on a battlefield, killed each other, and then… they’d simply decided to stop. It wasn’t quite something that she could understand—even after living as long as she had, enmity still ran deep through her veins. A sense of warrior’s vengeance was one of her long-standing bedfellows, and it wasn’t so easy to shake.
Meeting Quynh hadn’t been like what they described. It had been a pleasure, a joy, a relief. She’d been almost knocked over with the knowledge that she was no longer alone, and time allowed them to grow from there. She and Quynh forged a relationship that was burning passion and raging fire, but these two… they barely seemed to simmer. And yet, they had never been, never were apart—and there was some kind of energy between them that Andromache just couldn’t wrap her head around.
It was irritating. She wasn’t used to finding something new, and she wanted to know. She wanted to understand, and even their sweet and cloying explanations hadn’t been enough to sate her curiosity.
Nothing had been—until she saw them fight.
They were attacked in the night, put upon by a band of thieves who thought to try their luck on sleeping travellers. Quynh was on watch, and gave a shout—moments before a knife sliced clean across Nicolò’s throat.
The man had been sleeping on the outer edge of their camp, keeping his lover between himself and the fire. It meant that Yusuf had an extra second—a second he put to use by grabbing his sword and swinging it at the thief who killed Nicolò, cold steel finding warm flesh.
Andromache only heard the rageful yell—she too was reaching for a weapon, her labrys close at hand. Quynh was outnumbered and had already abandoned her bow, her blade far better for close combat. The three men attacking her were strong, but they weren’t quick, and they weren’t expecting an attack from behind.
Once she and Quynh were grinning through the blood on their faces, there were still a good five men left—all of them attacking Yusuf, apparently deeming him the larger threat than two women. Just that thought raised Andromache’s hackles, and she felt Quynh at her side as she turned—
But what she saw brought her pause. For the first time in a very long time, Andromache stopped fighting, and… stared.
Nicolò had recovered and risen next to Yusuf, who had not stepped away from his side. They were fighting back to back, each with a sword in their hands, each so covered in blood they looked like madness incarnate. Their blades swung through the air with timed precision, a deadly, practiced dance which could only come from a deep and perfect intimacy. They fought as if they were each one half of a single whole, as if they knew what the other would do before they did it—no looking around, merely trusting that what they needed would be done.
Andromache watched Yusuf grip Nicolò’s free hand to swing him to the side, both taking him away from a blow that would have landed and putting him the path of an attack Yusuf himself could not have blocked. Nicolò followed through on his parry and slew the second man, before ducking around Yusuf once again and taking out a third—all while Yusuf finished the first.
“Damn,” Quynh said, her voice a little breathless. “They’re good.”
“Better than good.” Andromache watched with a touch of amazement she wasn’t used to feeling—and felt the beginnings of a smile curve along her lips.
There were two men left, standing opposite the two younger immortals. The thieves snarled and hissed, while Yusuf and Nicolò just waited. And, sure enough—
One thief charged first, then the other. Nicolò stepped forward without any kind of signal, then dropped to his knee and swung his sword up hard, causing the man to fall forward. Yusuf lunged to deal the final blow while Nicolò rose once more, driving his sword into the unprotected chest of the last man.
Quynh went to move forward—but Andromache stopped her with a gentle hand. She watched as Nicolò pushed the dead man away, as Yusuf fell to his knees, as their hands first cupped the other’s cheeks then slid down shoulders, arms, sides—before coming back up to wrap firm and tight, the pair pulling into a close hug.
She had been a warrior long enough to recognise a grounding ritual—they were checking each other over for injuries, even though any hurt would quickly heal. Their words were quick and quiet, and spoken in a mish-mash of dialects even Andromache could catch less than half of.
Her fingers tightened on Quynh’s arm, and she felt her own love place a soft hand over hers.
She still wasn’t sure what to make of them—but she could more than recognise that they had found what most people spent their lives searching for.
They got lucky.
And as she turned to share a smile with Quynh… she knew that, at least, was something she could understand.