Work Text:
Nile wakes up to an ache in her neck from the position she’s twisted herself into in the front seat of their borrowed car. She keeps her eyes closed as she carefully adjusts, listening to the quiet murmur of Joe and Nicky’s conversation behind her. She’s too tired to concentrate on it right now, but she can tell they’re meandering through languages like usual. Their ability to do so is one of their many intimacies that leave her feeling like an outsider.
Nile opens her eyes as she feels the car decelerate and, sure enough, they’ve hit the outskirts of what looks like a decent sized town; it's a relief after hours of driving through uninhabited Montana wilderness. Nile finds herself blinking in surprise as she notices the festive lights that decorate the street lamps. She’d mostly forgotten it was December. Time was sometimes hard to keep track of on a job.
“Hey, what do you all want to eat?” Andy asks as they idle at a stoplight.
“A big burger,” Nicky pipes from the backseat.
“Hm, I was hoping for something sweet,” Andy counters, her eyes scanning the street ahead of them, “Joe? Nile? Opinions?”
Nile shrugs, “Hot food is good.”
“Let me look,” Joe says. The glow of a screen lights the dark interior of the car, accompanied by Nicky’s groan of protest and Joe’s apologetic hush. Nile presses her cheek to the cool window and watches the street lamps flicker past.
“There’s a diner about 5 minutes down the road on the left,” Joe finally decides, “It should work for everyone.”
Andy nods and the car settles back into exhausted silence.
It had been a rough morning. Andy had earned a sprained ankle and too many bruises from close calls. Joe had died twice; once in a spray of bullets that left him moving slow enough upon waking up that his second death had been a shot to the head that he normally could have avoided. Nicky had also gone down once from a double chest shot. Nile had died three times. The first two were bullets meant for Andy, and the third-- the third was a bad one. She’d taken, of all things, a baseball bat to the chest, and had immediately felt the familiar, sharp agony of fractured ribs. A few minutes later, gasping wetly for air that wouldn’t come, she had the horrible realization that she had punctured a lung. The next thing she remembered was Joe carrying her over his shoulders as she choked and drowned in her own blood.
She’d gasped awake in the backseat of their borrowed car, her body cradled gently between Nicky and Joe. Nicky was already talking, his hand on her chest as he coached her through a breathing exercise, and Joe’s hand was wrapped firmly around hers as he and Andy argued about their escape route.
Nile had tried to settle into their care, she really had. She knew they meant well, and usually she appreciated their attention, but still her chest was tight with a desperate need to breathe. It wasn’t long before she muttered an excuse as she crawled into the front seat next to Andy.
Andy had glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, then she’d reached up with bloodstained hands to gently cup the back of Nile’s neck.
“You good, kid?” she’d asked.
“Yeah,” Nile had lied.
Nile opens her eyes now as Andy takes a left turn into the parking lot of the diner. She lets out an amused huff as she identifies the building in front of them.
“Diner my ass, Joe,” she teases, “It’s a fucking Denny’s.”
“Yeah,” he grips her shoulder and she can feel him leaning toward her, “a fucking Denny’s diner.”
Nile shakes her head with a smile and reaches for the car door.
The four of them ease themselves out of the car. Andy stumbles only a bit as she finds her footing on her sprained ankle, which is wrapped snugly in the brace that Nicky “just happened to have in my backpack, Boss, don’t give me that look.” Not that Nile is complaining. She just happens to have a handful of wrap bandages and a suture kit in her duffle bag.
Nicky reaches for Joe’s hand as they step up onto the sidewalk, and, wow, Nile is really having a bad day because the twist in her gut is pure jealousy.
She takes the lead as they make their way toward the diner door, firmly pressing back against her foul mood with each step. As she swings the door open and turns to hold it open for the others, she wonders, for the thousandth time in the last eight months, what normal people think of their group. The three other immortals have a weight to them that overwhelms her sometimes, but they also do a surprisingly good job of blending in. Do people just see an interracial gay couple and their two friends? Do they see two interracial gay couples? Do they see how uncertain she still is of her place among these three ancients?
Nile’s musing is interrupted as Joe drops a kiss on her forehead and startles a smile onto her face on his way through the door. Nicky gives her a warm smile from Joe’s other side, and Andy squeezes her shoulder as she passes, and then the four of them are waiting quietly in the entryway that stinks of grease and artificial cinnamon.
A short man with a greasy center part looks up from behind the counter and flashes a customer service smile. He greets them with a forcefully bright, “Merry Christmas, folks,” and Nile grabs at her recently healed ribs in alarm as a sharp pang fills her chest.
Nicky tilts his head at her, his lips pressed into a concerned line. Nile shakes her head and forces a smile as the pang settles into a low ache. It’s not her ribs.
She’s homesick.
Nile follows the others in a daze as the host leads them to a sticky booth against the back wall. She slides into the seat next to Andy and stares blankly at the menu in her hands. She orders something when it’s her turn, and as the server walks away, she addresses the torso of the man seated across from her,
“Joe, can I see your phone real quick?”
“Sure, habibi ,” his tone is gentle and just barely patronizing as he pulls his phone out of his jacket and slides it across the table toward her.
Nile taps at the screen, which lights up with the factory set background image. The date and time shine in stark contrast at the top.
20:04. December 25, 2020.
Nicky and Andy are having an animated discussion about the song that’s playing over the diner’s speakers (“Why does this song keep coming back? It makes no sense.” “It’s a joke, Nicky. Santa Claus is the kid’s dad.” “I know that, Andy-“) but to Nile, it sounds like they’re talking through cotton. She slides the phone back to Joe and stands awkwardly, mumbling something about the bathroom, and ignoring Joe’s scrunched eyebrows.
Nile makes her way into the women’s bathroom, and slides carefully to the tiled floor of the corner stall. She presses her back firmly against the yellow drywall and takes several deep breaths.
So, it’s Christmas. Big deal. She had been deployed the last three Christmases. Being away from her family during the holidays is nothing new or unfamiliar. There is no reason that she should feel so gut-wrenchingly homesick.
No reason, except that it’s Christmas and she’s sitting in a Denny’s with three people she barely knows and she’s hungry and tired and dirty and this morning she had killed people and she had died. She died this morning choking on her own blood and it’s Christmas and she wants her mom. She wants to bury her head in her mom’s shoulder and fall apart while her mom traces patterns on her back and drops kisses into her hair and instead she’s in a goddamn fucking Denny’s with three people who are older than most civilizations, barely remember their own families, and definitely don’t celebrate Christmas.
Nile digs the heels of her hands into her eyes until she sees stars and chokes down the hysterical sob that’s building in her chest. She had done a lot of shit in the last eight months that she’d never imagined, but she was not going to cry in a Denny’s bathroom for fuck’s sake.
Your breathing, baby. Slow it down before you lose it.
The voice in her head sounds like her mom and Nile chokes down another sob before forcing herself to take a slow, shaky exhale, then starts on a breathing exercise Nicky had taught her.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
Again.
Four. Seven. Eight.
Four. Seven. Eight.
The bathroom door creaks open and Nile jumps slightly before recognizing Andy’s boots as they pause outside the stall door.
“Nile?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I come in?”
Nile scrubs at her face with one hand as she rolls to a crouch and unlatches the stall door with the other. She settles back against the wall and doesn’t make eye contact with Andy, who slides her way into a seated position with her injured ankle stretched in front of her. Her shoulder is pressed firmly against Nile’s and her head is resting gently against the drywall behind her when she asks,
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
Nile exhales in a breathy laugh that comes out shakier than she intended.
“The boys didn’t want to brave the women’s bathroom, so you got stuck with checking on the baby, huh?”
“I volunteered,” Andy corrects with a careful shoulder bump, “and you’re deflecting.”
“That relationship seminar was a mistake,” Nile sighs.
Andy hums in amusement, “Maybe. So?”
“I don’t know, Andy,” Nile starts, “It’s stupid. I just- This morning sucked. Like royally fucking sucked and now it’s Christmas and I’m tired and I’m hungry and I-” her voice breaks, “I miss my mom.”
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
She’s pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes again, and her breathing hitches against the sob she’s trying to avoid.
Andy sighs, and her arm shifts from where it was pressed between the two of them and wraps firmly around Nile’s shoulders.
“It’s okay, Nile,” Andy’s thumb rubs gentle circles, “You had a rough one today. You can cry. It’s okay.”
“In a Denny’s bathroom?” Nile hiccups.
Andy huffs a laugh and rests her head against Nile’s, “Yeah, kid. In a Denny’s bathroom.”
Permission granted, Nile dissolves into long heaving sobs that echo in the empty bathroom. It’s not exactly what she wants, but Andy holds Nile tightly and presses her nose into her braids for the long minutes of her breakdown.
Later, when the growling of Nile’s stomach overtakes the ache in her chest, Andy pulls her to her feet and tells her to wash her face.
Afterward, when she slides back into the sticky diner booth, her pancakes are still hot and there’s extra bacon on her plate. She can see the worried set of Nicky’s jaw as he gives her a soft smile and slides the syrup toward her. Joe’s eyebrows tilt with concern as he presses his knee against hers and he quips about the quality of the food. And Nile blinks back tears again, overwhelmed at the care her new family shows her.
Andy presses a handful of paper napkins onto the table in front of Nile with one hand and snags a piece of bacon off Joe’s plate with the other.
The ensuing scuffle (“Don’t touch my food, Boss!” “Aren’t you off pork again? I was helping!” “Joe! Dai !” ) covers the sound of Nile blowing her nose, and she smiles around her first bite of food.
The ache in her chest doesn’t go away, but it eases as the three of them tease each other around her.
And if she cries again, later, when they step out of the diner into the cold air and Nicky presses a peppermint into her hands with a small smile and a whispered,
“Merry Christmas, Nile.”
Well. It’s okay.
She is the baby, after all.