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There were things in life that Nicky had given up on questioning: why he’d been blessed with immortality. How did the internet work. Was there a piece of baklava that would ever prove victorious over Andy’s sense of smell.
When exactly did time travel become a thing? was merely the latest of these. Certainly, it would be nice to know the answer, but ultimately, it was of no consequence. There were only two facts that mattered: one, that he was here, here being the grassy slopes of the Judaean hills in winter circa eight hundred years ago, his Kevlar vest transformed into a far-too-familiar suit of armor, so clearly time travel had become a thing. And two, that before he was sucked into the vortex of white light, Joe looked him in the eyes and said urgently, “It will be all right, love, you will come back to me, I promise,” and… that was that. When Joe made a promise, Nicky knew only how to do one thing: trust.
So: it wasn’t so much the existence of time travel Nicky was struggling with. Rather, it was the lack of a playbook. Living and dying, well, Nicky knew the rules to that. But changing the past was something he couldn’t afford to do, and no one had given him a cheat sheet for how to avoid it.
Judging by the movies, it would probably be best overall to avoid any contact with his past self, or Joe’s, said the voice in his head that sounded a lot like Nile after a marathon of 73 Avengers movies on Disney+, or at least that’s what it had felt like. In any case, it should be simple enough, Nicky resolved. Keep his distance. Be patient, make himself scarce. Just to be safe.
He lasted one hour.
*
It really wasn’t Nicky’s fault, in his defense. Joe should really have known better than to be walking alone on the road to Nabulus, which was always waylaid with bandits, but there he was: Yusuf al-Kaysani, walking on the brown dirt road, carrying some packs on his back and a sword and nothing else, and when Nicky saw him for a moment he stopped breathing, and when he saw the bandits, he acted before he could think.
The fight only took a few minutes. They fought back to back, as in sync as ever, and when it was over, the bandits all sprawled on the grass in a messy ring, Yusuf turned to Nicky, eyes wide and still panting, and said—
--something, he said something, but it was really hard to concentrate because by god, Nicky had missed him.
Which was ridiculous – how could Nicky have missed Joe? He’d woken up next to him just this morning! – but the Yusuf al-Kaysani standing in front of him was one that Nicky knew deeply, and hadn’t seen in forever; his hair cropped just so, his beard a little longer than he wore it these days, wearing robes that Nicky had spent months fantasizing about peeling off of him, once upon a time, clinging to his chest, and something raw and unsettled about his eyes that was hard to describe, that Nicky wanted nothing more than to kiss away.
“Thank you,” Yusuf was saying again, Nicky realized. He had switched to Latin, probably after testing a number of other languages, his accent less polished than it was in the 21st century.
“It was nothing,” Nicky managed, deepening his voice just a little. The helmet helped, he knew, distorting his voice just a bit more. He shouldn’t stay here. He should really, really find some way to escape.
“It was very much not nothing,” Yusuf said, extending an arm. Nicky hesitated, then clasped it carefully with his gauntleted hand. “Please, allow me to show my appreciation. Will you share a meal with me?”
“I cannot,” Nicky said immediately, and then frantically tried to think of an excuse. He couldn’t beg pardon for running late; he remembered the world before clockwork, when tardiness hadn’t been invented yet. But he could not take his helmet off in front of Yusuf; he couldn’t risk being recognized.
“Some tea, then,” Yusuf insisted. Nicky’s heart clenched. Refusing would be a terrible offense.
“I cannot,” he said again, pained, his hand unconsciously going up to indicate his visor.
Yusuf frowned. “What is the matter?” he asked. “You cannot remove it? Do you require assistance?”
“No!” Nicky blurted immediately, feeling like the embodiment of a facepalm gif. “It is the, uh. Ways of my people.” Oh no. Oh, no. He was not going to go there.
Yusuf looked no less confused, but he was clearly trying to be respectful. “The… ways of your people? You cannot – reveal your face?”
Nicky closed his eyes. “No. It is…” He forced the words out. “…My people’s creed.”
Yusuf leveled a long look at him, but in the end, took him at his word. “All right.” He nodded, hefting his packs back up. “I have a friend who’s taught me of your religion. The last creed I recall him mentioning was from Nicaea, but perhaps it’s time he updated his references, hmm.”
Nicky’s heart flipped at the mention of Yusuf’s friend. He and Joe had spent so many months discussing religion and philosophy, when they’d still been learning each other the first time.
“Who is this friend?” he found himself asking, and immediately wanted to kick himself. Excellent job of making himself scarce.
Something softened in Yusuf’s eyes. “His name is Nicolò, of Genova. I am traveling to meet him right now, in fact. He should be in Constantinople, or somewhere thereabouts.”
Nicky did some quick calculations. From the moment he and Joe had started traveling together for good, they’d rarely been apart. If Joe was in the Holy Land and Nicky was in Constantinople, this would put them in 1162; Joe and Nicky had split up to cover more ground, looking for Andy and Quynh, and Nicky had found them first. After, it had been a few weeks of interrogating Andy and Quynh daily about their dreams, trying to track Joe’s location secondhand, to make sure they were still moving in the right direction to reunite.
“Friend?” Yusuf was asking. Shit. Nicky hadn’t been paying attention.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I find myself distracted from the skirmish still.”
“Ah,” Yusuf said. “You reinforce my words, then. These roads aren’t safe, as we have both witnessed. If I cannot thank you with hospitality, allow me to accompany you to your next destination. Two swords are better than one.”
No, no, no, no, no. “I have two swords,” Nicky tried.
Yusuf laughed. “I will tell you a secret: I have three. Five swords are still better than three, then. Where are you headed?”
YUSUF AL-KAYSANI, Nicky wanted to yell, stop being so goddamn chivalrous and continue on your way to meet… past me.
It was no use. He knew that Yusuf would not let up, would insist on protecting this strange knight who had stepped in to help Yusuf in a fight he didn’t even need help with because Yusuf was perfectly capable of defending himself when he needed to, and Nicky was truly in a mess of his own making.
He needed to mitigate the damage, and make sure he would at least not let Yusuf stray off course and change who-knew-what in the timeline.
There was only one thing Nicky could say. “Constantinople, actually.”
Yusuf’s eyes brightened. “How fortuitous. We shall travel together, then. My friend often complains about my company but I assure you I am perfectly adequate,” he said, and Nicky wanted to punch whoever had dared tell Yusuf he was ever merely adequate, knowing full well that it would have been him. “My name is Yusuf,” Yusuf added, and looked at Nicky expectantly.
‘A mess of his own making’ didn’t even begin to cover it.
Nicky sighed with resignation. “Just call me Mando.”
*
They borrowed a pair of horses from the bandits, both to make time and also because there was only so much walking Nicky could get done with a suit of armor.
The days spent on the road with Yusuf were, to be frank – and in this day and age Nicky was nothing if not a Frank (and taking his jokes where he could get them) – torture.
It really wasn’t fair. Nicky had already been forced to live this existence once – waking up next to Yusuf al-Kaysani day by day, being able to look, but not touch – and it had been agonizing then, and it was agonizing now, and Nicky had to relive everything.
To wit: it was a warm day, the kind of unseasonable winter warmth that Nicky associated more with climate change these days than good fortune, and Yusuf had decided it was a good day to bathe. They had stopped by a freshwater spring, and Yusuf had disrobed, carefully setting his clothes and weapons on a low stone underneath an oak. He stood before the water, the lines of his back strong and proud, muscles gleaming in the sunlight, shoulders and arms and ass and thighs, all the way down to his calves, his shape like a work of art, perfection forged from dirt or stone and breathed into life by the divine.
Yusuf dipped his toe in the water and cursed.
Then he laughed at himself – and Nicky could never forget the sound of Joe’s laugh, as much a part of the soundscape of this land as the bubbling water and the insects and songbirds – laughed and dived in, and Nicky held himself back, remembered what it felt like to tumble naked in the water with Joe, to touch him everywhere he could under clear blue skies when it was nothing but them and the mountains.
Nicky used every ounce of determination he could to lock those memories away and stay seated on his rock. Guarding their gear. Slowly cooking in the sun inside his suit of armor, which he could not remove, because of his… creed.
Everything was fine.
*
If the days were torture, the nights, well.
Nicky generally tried not to speak too much, fearing something he said or his voice would reveal his identity, which meant that Yusuf did most of the talking. And on nights like this, faced with the beauty of nature, Yusuf tended to turn to poetry.
It was an exquisite kind of pain, sitting round a campfire that was just dwindling into glowing embers, sending golden sparks into the sky, his hands being warmed by a tin cup of tea Yusuf had brewed from leaves he had collected in the area – sage, mint, hyssop, cloves – the night sky spread above them, a shimmering blanket of stars in a world lacking light pollution that Nicky hadn’t seen in years and years – and Yusuf’s low, soothing voice reciting poetry.
How perfect this moment would be, if he could just bury his face in Yusuf’s chest. Take a deep breath and smell his skin. Feel Yusuf’s hand caressing his hair. Lean back against him, as they gazed up to the stars together.
“An-nizam is bright tonight,” Yusuf observed after a while. The string of pearls. Nicky’s eyes moved to the constellation he’d grown used to calling Orion’s belt. It’s always been one of Joe’s favorites, after Sadr, the heart of the swan.
“I’ve missed seeing the stars this way,” Nicky admitted.
“They would be clearer if you took your helmet off,” Yusuf said. “I could look away. No one would see.”
“No, it’s all right. Thank you,” Nicky added. “This is already beautiful enough. I’m sure any more would be quite overwhelming.”
Yusuf chuckled, and took a sip of his tea. “As you wish.”
Nicky’s eyes wandered to the other stars in the constellation, tracing over the shape of the great hunter. Shoulders, head, sword, feet; the brightest stars in the sky, culminating with the left foot of Orion, Rigel, Rijl al-jabbar. He could hear the facts in Joe’s voice, reading excitedly from an astronomy book they had gotten in the 20th century. Blue supergiant, seventh brightest star in the sky, 860 light years away from earth. The star Nicky was looking at wasn’t really there now; rather, it was, but it would take 860 years for its light to reach Earth. If Joe, his Joe, was looking at the sky right now in 2021, maybe he’d be watching just in time to see the light arrive.
Nicky moved to wipe a tear from his eye. His gauntlet clanged against his stupid helmet.
*
And if the nights weren’t enough, there was the bed.
As they made their way north, the weather got colder. Where they could, they spent the night in inns or shelters; barring that they set up camp in caves along their path, and barring that, spread bedrolls in the open air.
After a third night of shivering in his freezing armor in the Galilee mountains, Yusuf said, “My friend, I apologize for my forthcomingness but this is getting ridiculous.”
“I’m f-f-fine,” Nicky said.
“Clearly,” Yusuf said dryly. “Please, tell me this: is it just your face that must remain hidden, or your body as well?”
Nicky considered it. Yusuf had certainly seen Nicky unclothed in the past, so it was a risk; but Nicky had no distinct birthmarks, and it was very dark out, and they had never slept together, so it was unlikely he’d be able to recognize Nicky’s body by touch.
Nicky relented. “It would be possib—”
“Good,” Yusuf said firmly, and the next thing Nicky knew, they were huddled together on the same bedroll, Yusuf in robes, Nicky in his cloth undergarments and metal helmet looking, he was sure, quite deranged if anyone cared to notice, both of them sharing a woolen blanket and, thank the lord, body heat.
Yusuf fell asleep immediately. Nicky stayed up for a long time, watching the rise and fall of Yusuf’s chest, listening to his breaths, feeling his presence, the heat radiating from his body beneath the blanket, close enough to touch.
Nicky spent the night keeping his body very, very still, until he finally fell asleep.
*
In the morning, Yusuf yawned and said, “Nicolò, you snore too loudly,” and Nicky answered, “I don’t snore,” and Yusuf cried, “Aha! I knew it!” and Nicky realized he’d made a massive, terrifying, possibly-timeline-alternating mistake.
He was still on his bedroll, tackled by a face-full of Yusuf, who’d managed to pin Nicky’s hands up with a strong one-handed grip, the other hand hovering next to Nicky’s visor.
“Before you say anything,” Yusuf said quietly, “I have one request of you: please don’t lie to me, Nicolò.”
Nicky’s words died on his lips.
“Now. Let me take this off,” Yusuf said. “Please.”
Slowly, Nicky nodded, praying that he wasn’t condemning his future self out of a lifetime of happiness.
Yusuf released his grip, and carefully lifted the helmet, eyes widening visibly when he saw Nicky’s face. Nicky moved his hands to rest over Yusuf’s, and helped him remove the rest of the helmet, resting it on the ground beside them.
“I’m going to need an explanation,” Yusuf said.
“May I get up?”
“No.”
“That’s fair,” Nicky granted.
Yusuf was still sitting on Nicky’s chest. After the past week, Nicky had to admit to being a little grateful for the familiar touch.
He tried to think of the right words to explain.
“Yusuf. My—friend. I am not the Nicolò you think I am.”
“I know that,” said Yusuf.
Nicky’s eyebrows flew up. “You do?”
“I dream of Nicolò every night,” Yusuf said, and immediately blushed. “Not that I dream of him, like a man might, well – that is not what – what I mean to say is,” and Nicky had to bite back a smile because he hadn’t seen Yusuf this flustered in literally decades and it was fucking adorable. “What I mean to say is that I dream of two women, almost every night, and I know that Nicolò is with them, in Constantinople, right now, and so you are either Nicolò and you are in two places at once, or you are not my Nicolò.”
I am always your Nicolò, Nicky almost blurted, but changed it at the last second to, “You are right. I am not your Nicolò.”
“Then who are you?”
“I am—” Nicky took a deep breath. “I am Nicolò from the future.”
A long silence followed. Nicky could hear the morning birds waking up across the valley. The rush of wind in the trees. The cry of a hawk. He rolled his wrists, still held in a one-handed grip. Yusuf was studying him this entire time.
“Okay,” Yusuf finally said.
Nicky blinked. “…Okay?”
“I believe you.”
“You—how?”
Yusuf’s eyes were warm and brown and boring right into Nicky’s soul. “You are Nicolò di Genova?” he asked.
“Yes,” Nicky said.
“And you are telling me the truth?”
“Yes,” Nicky said.
“Then I trust you,” Yusuf said. “It is no more complicated than that.”
Nicky felt his chest squeeze tight, and it wasn’t because Yusuf was sitting on it.
“You are still – like us?” Yusuf asked. Immortal. Of course he’d want to know.
“I don’t think I should tell you that,” Nicky said.
Yusuf pursed his lips. “And when are you from?”
“I don’t think I should tell you that either,” Nicky said apologetically. “I’ve already exposed much more than I should. I only know that I must return to my own time, that I will return, hopefully soon, and you should forget you ever saw me.”
“I don’t think I can quite do that,” Yusuf said, and then, consideringly, “Tell me this. Do we ever—” He paused. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask, Nicky implored mentally. Yusuf shifted, still on top of Nicky, which was very much not helping. “What I mean is,” he continued, determined. “Do I ever tell Nicolò – tell you – that I – how do I put this, hmm.”
“No need to put it anywhere,” Nicky pleaded. “Truly. Just, uh. Listen to your gut, not to anything I say right now.”
“But my gut would very much like to ask you, Nicolò, if you and I ever become—” Yusuf took a deep breath “—more than mere friends.”
“Yusuf, amore mio, I cannot tell you that,” Nicky said, and then realized what he’d done.
They’d both gone still. But where Nicky could feel himself frozen, heart thudding in his chest with dismay, Yusuf’s eyes were wide with wonder, full of such intense relief that Nicky had to close his eyes against them, because they were too raw and vulnerable and happy all at once, and Nicky wouldn’t be able to bear another second of looking directly at them without jumping Joe’s bones and making sure he didn’t have to live another moment of his life without knowing that Nicky loved him more than anything else in the entire fucking world.
He was holding his breath, heart beating wildly still, when he heard a soft, “Nicolò,” above him, except it wasn’t just hearing, it was feeling, because Yusuf’s face was so close Nicky cold feel his breath ghosting against him, and the tips of Yusuf’s fingers were grazing Nicky’s cheek, cautious and scared and so, so gentle, and when Nicky opened his eyes he saw kind brown eyes, close and waiting, and Yusuf licked his lips.
“Oh, fuck,” Nicky said, and kissed him.
*
To Nicky’s great relief, he managed to keep it down to just a kiss.
Okay, ‘makeout session’ might be a more accurate description. But all things considered, it could have ended up much worse.
After pushing Yusuf off of him decisively and packing up their things, they continued north on their journey, Nicky still in his armor because he couldn’t very well travel in undergarments, but at least the helmet was tucked safely away in one of the saddlebags.
“How did you know it was me, anyway?” Nicky asked, when they’d set off. It was a beautiful day. The grass was a deep green, splashed with the red and pink wildflowers that spring across fields and between rocks every winter, and the woods surrounding them dotted with blossoming almond trees in whites and pinks.
Yusuf smiled. “It was your body language at first. We’d been traveling together for years. The way you moved, the way you carry yourself… perhaps it’s rubbed off on me.”
“And second?”
Yusuf’s smile morphed into a smirk. “Your obsession with pomegranates.”
“What? But I hate pomegranates.”
Yusuf laughed. “Yes, exactly. I have never met anyone who’s found them so offensive. Especially not while we are on the road and gathering food from a selection that is not, let us face it, extremely wide.”
“How can you enjoy a fruit that looks like sour, bony little teeth?” Nicky shuddered. “I refuse to apologize for having standar—”
And then a vortex of white light took him away.
*
He recognized the safehouse in Yorkshire. He was wearing a Kevlar vest. There was a smartphone in his pocket, and the date showed a few days after he’d disappeared. Nicky scanned the room desperately, because there was only one thing that mattered, and that was—
The door banged open.
“Joe!” he said, giddy with relief, and felt himself crushed into a fierce hug before he could even take a step in Joe’s direction.
“Nicky,” Joe whispered into his hair. “I told you I’d bring you back.”
“You did,” Nicky said, holding on tightly. “How did you know?”
“Well, I remembered you going back.”
“Oh,” Nicky said, and then took a step back. “Wait, what?”
“I mean, I can’t say I remembered the exact details – it was a long, long time ago – but it seemed like it had gone well.”
A shot of dread hit Nicky’s chest. Shit. In his joy to return to the present, he’d almost forgotten that he’d wreaked havoc on the past, and it was time to face the consequences of the damage he'd done. Who knew how different this Joe would be, or their relationship, from the one he remembered.
“So you… remember my visit 800 years ago?” he asked, sounding dejected even to himself.
Joe gave him a strange look. “Of course I do.”
Nicky wished he were standing closer to a wall just so he could bang his head against it. He groaned. “I’m sorry. I tried not to change the past, but I think I failed.”
“You – Nico, what are you talking about?” Joe shook his head. “Nothing’s changed. I just told you. I’ve always remembered you going back.”
“But—” Nicky blinked. “Wait, really?”
“Yes. Why do you think I cracked up so hard when we watched The Mandalorian last month?”
Nicky’s eyes widened. It was true. They’d started watching the new show which Nile had recommended because she was fixated on them catching up on everything Disney+ had to offer and Joe and Nicky liked to do things for Nile, and halfway through one of the episodes Joe had done a spit take and promptly fell off the couch in a laughing fit that lasted about five minutes without being able to give any reasonable explanation.
Joe grinned, now. “I could never forget Mando, my knight in shining armor.”
This was inexcusable. “You’ve known this was coming for eight hundred years and you kept it from me?”
Joe raised his hands. “I didn’t want to risk changing anything! You were the one who told me to forget any of this happened back in the past.”
“Oh my god,” Nicky realized. “This means that our first kiss—it wasn’t when you kissed me on the bridge in Constantinople?”
“It was! That was our first kiss. But also I had another first kiss with you, before that.”
“Oh my god.”
“With you!” Joe said, eyes wide.
Nicky punched him in the arm. Lightly.
“That felt undeserved,” Joe pointed out, eyes sparkling.
“The world – and our history – are shifting under my feet,” Nicky said. “You will allow me a moment.”
“You can have as many moments as you need.”
Nicky took a moment.
After a long pause, he let his head rest against Joe’s broad shoulder. Joe’s fingers came up immediately, stroking Nicky’s neck, smoothing his hair. It was the kind of touch he’d been yearning for for what felt like forever. “I was terrified I’d made the wrong move,” he whispered into Joe’s sweater. “Letting you know. Kissing you.”
Joe kissed his head. “You didn’t, hayati. I never would have had the courage to kiss you on that bridge in Constantinople, if I hadn’t known.”
Nicky processed the words, let them sink in. And for the first time in days, he let himself relax, melting against Joe’s body.
“We were always meant to be,” Joe murmured in his ear.
There were things in life that Nicky knew he never needed to question, and that was one of them.
“Okay,” he said finally, when he was not so overwhelmed with emotion that he could complete full sentences, and grabbed Joe’s hand. “This is sweet. But there is a bed with a real mattress that is not rocks in this very apartment and I’ve been dying to ravish you for a week now, and apparently I was the one who indirectly made you make your move, so I believe I’ve earned it.”
Joe laughed, a deep, delighted belly laugh, and let himself be dragged. “Lead the way.”