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The pain doesn’t register until the adrenaline wears off, and it’s only then that Nicky realizes what’s happening.
His legs shake, threatening to give out as his trembling hand comes down to cover the still-open wound on his abdomen. He takes a step and collapses to his knees as the dust around him settles. Nicky sucks a wheezing inhale into his aching lungs as he watches the plane disappear into the distance, but the only thought in his head is a quiet whisper of, “Joe.”
There’s the faintest taste of blood in his mouth and he can feel the trickle of it spill between his fingertips as he looks around the dirty battlefield. The evacuation had been a success, even with the unexpected opposition they had met. Nile, Joaquin, and Booker had made it out safely, but he and Joe had been left behind to make sure the plane got off the ground.
There’s a litter of bodies in the tall grass around them, but there’s only one that matters.
The world spins on a tilted axis and Nicky’s free hand comes down heavily into the marsh, struggling to keep himself upright. The overwhelming pain blurs his vision as he searches for Joe’s uniform amidst the mix of crimson blood, green grass, and dark earth.
And then, finally, he catches flashes of the sun on Joe’s scimitar and relief floods through his body.
It’s a terrible crawl, every motion sending bright, sharp fire up through his stomach and chest. But finally, after what feels like hours, he finally makes it across the field to the sword and the man laying beside it.
Joe’s eyes are closed, face covered in blood and dust and dirt and God knows what else, and Nicky can see a seeping wound at the side of his neck and another terrible hole in his stomach, leeching red across his grey shirt. “Yusuf,” Nicky croaks, voice weak as the strength in his arm gives out and he finds himself collapsing to his elbow on the ground next to his love. “Destati, Yusuf…”
A rattling cough tears from the older man’s throat as Joe’s eyes flutter open, spinning wildly at Nicky’s voice. Their gazes finally meet and a quivering smile is forced across Joe’s perfect mouth as he reaches for Nicky’s face. “Nico…” he wheezes tiredly, expression falling when he registers the pain Nicky isn’t able to hide. “You…you’re hurt…”
A single tear slips out the corner of his dark eyes when Nicky nods. “I’m not healing,” he sniffs, brushing a loose curl off of Joe’s sweat-slick forehead. “I’m sorry…”
He doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for. For not believing enough. For being weak. For showing the fear in his eyes. For the time they thought they had together suddenly disappearing in a single instant. They’ve been together for nearly five thousand years, but it will never be enough.
Joe tries to push himself up on his elbows but can barely make it an inch off the ground before he falls back with a whimpering gasp. “My back…” he says, voice trembling as he looks for Nicky’s face. “I can’t…I can’t feel my legs, Nicky…”
Joe’s beautiful brow pinches together as the reality begins to set in.
They always promised each other that they would go together or not at all—damn God and damn their immortality. But it was always an empty promise; they had no control over when their time would come and it was a thought that kept Nicky awake so many nights in increasing frequency as the years went on. And now, this was the moment, and Nicky never found himself believing in divine intervention more.
He releases the pressure on the wound on his stomach and shifts over Joe’s arm, cupping his face in his bloodstained fingers. “I’m not leaving you,” he rasps, the ache in his lungs growing stronger with each half-breath he manages. “Not til the end, understand?”
Another track of saltwater cuts down Joe’s temple as he nods, struggling to keep his eyes open. A rattling exhale spills from his chapped lips as he whispers, “Ya’aburnee, rohi…”
You bury me, my soul.
How many times has he heard this over the millennia? A thousand? A million? Tenderly tucked in the safe warmth of Joe’s arms as they fell asleep, under the steady weight of the other man’s body as Nicky gasped and writhed beneath him, pressed against lips and cheeks and collarbones. But this time is different. Less a promise and more a desperate plea—as if Joe was begging Nicky not to be the first to go.
So Nicky swallows back a creeping mouthful of blood and leans down to capture his love in a tender kiss, both of their eyes slipping shut in peace.
He settles in the warm space at Joe’s side afterwards, head pillowed on his arm, hand tangled in the older man’s curls, and tilts Joe’s paling face to meet him. The other man’s dark eyes are unfocused, but he still has the strength to curl his fingers around Nicky’s when their free hands meet. “Do…” Joe croaks quietly, “do you think they’re coming for us?”
Nicky shakes his head stiffly, pressing his forehead to Joe’s. “Not before we…” His voice trails off, unable to think of the outcome he knows will come. He can feel his heart beating hard and slow in his stomach, blood still trickling from the wound. Joe’s shirt is soaked as well, the crimson stain seeping down the sides of his abdomen. “They’ll find us though…after…I know they will...”
A wet chuckle gets stuck in Joe’s throat as a smile pulls on his face. “We h-had a good run of it…didn’t we?”
Nicky laughs a little, the sound turning to a groan when his muscles tighten around the wound. “Andy would be proud of us.” His voice sounds tight when her name slips past his lips, even after all this time. They’d never forget their sister, even after four thousand years of her being lost to them, and Nicky knows she would want it this way.
More than anything, Nicky prays that they’ll see her in whatever next life there is.
The sun begins to hang low on the horizon, dipping below the tree line, and he refuses to take his eyes off Joe’s perfect face. The shadows on the sweet slope of his cheekbones, the wash of dark lashes on his freckled skin. His breath is coming far more labored and Nicky knows he’s not faring any better, fighting for every strangled inhale he can.
Suddenly, Joe’s head begins to tilt slowly, eyelids sagging shut. Panic rushes through Nicky’s heart, quick as a flood and he grabs at the older man’s face, shaking him roughly. “No,” he croaks around a copper tongue. His lips are so dry they crack as he begs Joe to wake up, blood seeping back into the corners of his mouth. “No…not like this. P-Please…not l-like this…”
The relief is barely enough to settle Nicky’s racing heart when Joe startles awake, startles back to life, and draws a single, rattling wheeze.
His brows knit together, carving valleys of pain deep into his bronze skin, and Joe’s teeth clench to hold back the rushing whimpers that are threatening to spill from him. Saltwater tracks back into his sweat-damp curls as his nostrils flare, pupils and irises swinging wildly as he searches for Nicky’s face. “Ni…Nicolò…” Joe gasps weakly, another tear spilling past his lashes.
“I’m here, Yusuf,” he promises, smoothing a trembling hand over the older man’s face. “I’m here and you are with me.”
The hand around Nicky’s wrist goes tight, all of Joe’s muscles going rigid as a flood of pain washes through him. His body shakes as a sob claws its way up his throat, raw and so helpless that it cuts through Nicky sharper than any knife. “It h-hurts…” Joe chokes, voice barely audible as a thin, trickle of blood begins to seep from his nose. “Nicky, it h-hurts…”
Nicky nods, his mouth twisting and pressing thin to keep from breaking, and he leans down to press his forehead against Joe’s. “I know it does.” The ache in his own body is all-encompassing, burning through his veins and his muscles and into the very marrow of his bones, but, in this moment, all he can think about is Joe. “I know how much it hurts,” Nicky murmurs as the first of his own tears slip out and spill across the other man’s temples, “but I need you to stay with me for as long as you can.”
“I don’t w-want…to l-leave you,” Joe sobs, breath coming shallowly as the trembling in his body begins to worsen.
“There is nowhere that you could go that I will not follow, Yusuf.”
He has followed this man into immortality, has followed him across the world, into battle, into a life of love, and now, Nicky was going to follow him into death without a moment’s hesitation. They will go to whatever comes next, hand in hand.
But that doesn’t mean he’s not begging for a little more time.
His body feels weak, sluggish, like every move he makes adds another couple of kilos of weight onto his frame as Nicky holds himself over Joe’s body, trying to comfort him as best he can. The older man’s face is pallid and grey, all color washed from his skin even in the golden light of the setting sun, and Joe’s nose still hasn’t stopped bleeding. There must be enough fear in his own face for Joe to read it through whatever blurred vision he has, because he reaches trembling fingers up to touch Nicky’s cheek, croaking, “N-Nicky?”
“I’m okay,” Nicky murmurs, his eyelids heavy as he strains for another breath. He’s lost a lot of blood—they both have—but he can’t bring himself to look down and see the true extent of the damage. “Just t-tired…”
Joe shakes his head, another sob punching out of his bloodstained chest. “S-Stay…” he chokes, struggling to keep his eyes open.
“Yusuf, I’m not g-going any—”
“I c-can’t watch…” Joe sobs, the sound dry and rattling in the back of his throat. His hand falls from Nicky’s face and the wheezing breaths grow quicker until it’s one terrified, panicked sound. “S-Stay…c-can’t…p-please stay…” Joe’s cracked lips quiver, petitioning him in a silent plea, as the blood trickling from his nose mixes with the mucus from his tears. Ya’aburnee, rohi… he had begged, back when this had suddenly become real for them, and Nicky realizes what is being asked of him.
Stay. Keep watch. Hold me one last time because I can’t watch you leave first. Stay.
The first tears begin to track down Nicky’s cheeks as the realization that Joe is fading faster than he is begins to set in. He swallows back a mouthful of blood and moves a hand down to put any kind of pressure he can on the older man’s wounds. “I’ve g-got you, my love,” he murmurs, heart sinking into his stomach as he watches the cut in Joe’s neck open once more and begin to seep in slow pulses again. “I’m not leaving you…”
Joe’s shaking hand fumbles for his, and Nicky has to make the terrible decision whether to keep trying to slow the bleeding or meet him where his love is reaching out for him. Nicky’s brows knit together as he intertwines their fingers, trying not to notice the way the dark stain on Joe’s shirt once more grows shiny with fresh blood.
He wishes there was any shred of comfort he could provide, any story that he could conjure from the past to ease Joe’s pain, but all Nicky can find strength for is a simple, “I love you so much, Yusuf. To the f-far edges of the earth, you know I’m yours…”
The older man’s breathing is shallow and fast, eyelids heavy and gaze unfocused as he stares at some distant point beyond Nicky’s head. “L-La orid…an a-atrokak…” Joe sobs weakly, fear woven into every syllable. The words cut deeper and leave wounds that can’t be healed as Nicky shakes his head, holding the man’s hand tighter. “La o-orid an…an at-trokak,” Joe repeats, even fainter this time, and the silent tears flow freely from them both at his lament.
I don’t want to leave you.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Nicky chokes, saltwater seeping past his lips. “You’re going to b-be okay, Yusuf, as long as you are with me.” His heart is breaking in a thousand places at the lie he has to tell, and this may be the first time he’s questioned his belief in God. How could he be forsaken like this? Thousands of years and it’s still not enough.
Joe’s hand clenches around his as another tremor rolls through his body like a rogue wave, and a weak, excruciating cry spills from him. It cuts Nicky to his core, tearing him apart at the seams when Joe’s muscles go stiff from pain. He wants to take all of this from the other man, take all the agony and torment and seep it into his own bones so that Joe doesn’t suffer another second of this.
“Ya amar, look at me. Yusuf, I n-need you to—”
“L-La…la orid…” Joe’s voice is wet and hollow as he struggles for words, face tight with terror. “La o-orid…an a-amout…” he croaks, and there is undeniable panic in his dark eyes. Nicky swallows down a sob as the older man’s face crumples in fear, copper skin pale and washed out beneath the bright ruby blood. Joe’s voice fails him but his mouth curls around the Arabic words over and over again, no matter how many times Nicky tries to soothe him. Over and over he watches them form on Joe’s bloody lips, and every time is worse than the one before.
I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.
Nicky pushes Joe’s soaked curls back from his forehead with a trembling hand and tries to settle his spinning vision long enough to meet his love’s eyes. He pulls their clasped hands to his mouth, kissing Joe’s tight knuckles gently as he murmurs, “You have been the g-greatest gift God has b-blessed me with, Yusuf. I don’t know where we are going now, but I know that it’s w-warm and b-bright and somewhere we will be able to rest at l-last…”
Joe’s laborious breath slows, and his body begins to still, fear slowly fading.
“I have f-followed you to the ends of the earth,” Nicky continues, holding tight as the older man’s grip on him goes lax, “and I will follow you t-to Paradise, cuore mio. Andromache and Q-Quynh will be w-waiting for you, Yusuf, and your m-mother and my s-sisters.” His body shakes with the force of his reigned-in sobs but Nicky knows he has to stay strong in these final moments. A single tear tracks back along Joe’s temple, disappearing into his curls. “They w-will keep you s-safe until we are r-reunited. Until I c-can find you again…”
Blood seeps up between Joe’s teeth, staining the inside of his lips, but when Nicky leans down to kiss him, all he can taste is the man he’s chosen again and again over the millennia. He curls his free hand around the back of Joe’s neck, holding him close as Nicky presses their foreheads together as they’ve done so often for so many years.
“The f-fight is over, Yusuf…” he whispers, words trembling around a sob. “Be at p-peace…” The tears flow freely and there is no prayer that can ease this pain. Joe stares into his eyes, tired and worn, and pulls another shallow breath into his lungs as Nicky promises, “I w-will see you on the other s-side, my l-love…”
He can’t pinpoint the moment it happens, but Nicky knows when Joe is gone.
That glorious light, bright as a night full of stars, disappears from his eyes and his body grows heavy in Nicky’s arms. The chest that used to rumble with laughter and breathed life into a billion and a half “I love you”’s goes still, and, though Nicky is dying, he still feels this ache more deeply than any wound his mortal body has been dealt.
“Yusuf?” he rasps, the words barely coming out at all in the rising swell of his grief. “Yusuf, please…Yusuf?” There’s no movement from the other man, no fluttering pulse beneath his hand, no twitch of fingers in his, and Nicky suddenly can’t breathe.
His fingers tangle in Joe’s curls, burying deep and clenching hard enough to feel the strands give way in his grip. Nicky sinks over Joe’s body, a soundless cry ripping his body apart down to his soul as he futilely tries to muffle his heartache against his love’s cooling skin. The tears flood down his cheeks, mixing with the blood on grime on them both, and Nicky has no one left to stay strong for. No one left to reassure that they were going to be okay.
No one left to comfort him.
And so, Nicky finally breaks.
Breaks until his throat is raw with his tears and his own blood has seeped into Joe’s wounds to mix with his beloved’s. Breaks until all he can do is scream at God, with whatever strength Nicky has left, to let him follow Joe. How is he even breathing right now, when half of his soul has been torn from him right in front of his very eyes? Joe is gone and Nicky is here, and there is nothing in creation that can ease an ache like this.
The world spins on an axis and Nicky finds himself slipping off the edge, arms shaking as he collapses at Joe’s side.
The world is so quiet. So quiet that all he can hear is his own trembling gasps. There’s no one coming for them, not now, and maybe that’s what Nicky fears the most. That he’ll leave this world and reunite with Joe in the next but their bodies will be torn apart in death. They had promised each other in whispered confessionals in the days and weeks after they had scattered Quynh’s ashes in the same place they had scattered Andy’s, that they would be buried together, bodies intertwined, their bones resting as they had spent life.
But it had been a moment alone, a moment between the two of them, and no one else knew.
No one else could carry out their plans.
Tears pool in the corners of Nicky’s eyes as everything grows heavy and he can no longer lift his head from the ground. “Yusuf…” he croaks, sluggishly fumbling for Joe’s hand again. His fingers brush against the older man’s but Nicky can’t find the strength to curl them together. “Yus…Yusuf…”
Silence is the only reply he receives and another crashing wave of grief rolls through him as he remembers that Joe is truly gone from this world. A dry, weak sob scrapes its way up his throat and Nicky has never wished for death more than this moment.
The golden light fades, washing them both in grey, before he hears a faint, “Nicky!”
Footsteps crunch through the tall grass, shaking the ground beneath him, and he tries to call out but all that escapes him is a feeble whimper of pain. Nicky’s eyes slip closed and he thinks he hears his name called again, muffled and far away, but he can’t tell if it’s Joe’s voice or the person that had called out before.
“Joe! Nicky! Where are—JOE!!”
Booker. Their closest friend, their brother in arms and in life and in spirit. They had seen so much together and it seems fitting that he would be there at the very end of it all.
Somewhere in the haze, Nicky can hear Booker’s panicked weeping, his frantic, “No, no no!”’s that never seem to stop. Joe’s body shifts and a terrible sob spills from the younger man’s mouth as Booker cradles Joe’s head and arms against his body.
“Book…” Nicky croaks, his trembling fingers twitching weakly on the ground and suddenly Joe is lying next to him once more.
“Oh my god, Nicky,” Booker chokes, scrambling over and turning him over as carefully as he can. Nicky whimpers in pain, fire rushing through his veins and making his entire body shake as Booker eases his head up into his lap. His vision is hazy, blurry with tears, but Nicky can see the absolute devastation and heartbreak sunk deep into Booker’s face. “F-Fuck, Nicky, what happened?”
It was our time, Nicky wants to say, but his throat is too dry, jaw too clenched, and his mind no longer connects with his body anymore. He’s fading fast and they both know it. It was our time but at least it was together. His brow knits together and his lower lip quivers as he rasps once more, ‘Book…”
“S-Shhh,” the younger man insists, tears flooding down his cheeks. “Save—save your strength. I’m—I’m gonna get you out of here. Joaquin can fix you b-back at—” Nicky shakes his head, tired and worn, and another broken sob tears from Booker. “Please, Nicky, J-Joe’s gone and I can’t lose you t-too…”
They’ve all experienced so much loss and he knows Booker has suffered the most, but, while he doesn’t want to add to the list of names that keeps his friend up late at night grieving, Nicky knows he’ll never make the trip back to base camp.
“Joe…” he croaks, hand slipping back in a vain attempt to reach his love, and weeps when he falls short. “J…Joe…”
“He’s gone, Nicky,” Booker says, not even bothering to mask his own grief. It spills from his mouth in trembling words and broken syllables as his hand finds Nicky’s. “He’s gone, but I’m here.” Nicky’s gaze struggles to meet Booker’s but, when it does, the past few hours must play in his bloodshot eyes because the Frenchman only grips him tighter. “You didn’t leave Joe and there’s no way in hell that I’m leaving you.”
Never in his life has Nicky been more grateful for him than in this moment. He’s not afraid of death, not when he knows Joe is waiting for him in whatever comes next, but in this life, he is tired and in so much pain that he can barely breathe, and all he wants is a familiar face to be the last thing he sees.
Booker smoothes Nicky’s hair back from his sweat-drenched forehead and repeats the motion a few more times out of nervousness, petting him in an effort to give any sort of comfort. “It’s…it’s all g-going to be okay, Nicky,” he stammers wetly. “I’m—I’m not going to let anything h-happen to you t-two.” There are flashes of red in Nicky’s flickering vision and Booker’s hands are covered in blood and, somehow, the reality that he’s truly dying begins to set in. “You’ll always b-be together…”
And there it is. The confirmation. The creases in Nicky’s forehead relax and the fear begins to wash out of him like the tide going out to sea—a heavy warmth replacing the empty space it leaves. His eyelids grow heavy and it takes all the effort he has to mouth, “B…Bur…”
“B-Bury, yeah,” Booker chokes around a held-back cry. “I know, I’m g-going to bury you together, I p-promise.” The younger man’s hands shake as he cradles Nicky’s head, thumbs wiping stray tears from the corners of his eyes. “In J-Jerusalem, in Tunis, G-Genoa, where—wherever you w-want…”
A shallow, rattling breath settles into Nicky’s lungs and he shakes his head imperceptibly. “Ma…Mal…”
“Malta, o-okay,” Booker whispers, and he sounds so broken that Nicky can help but grieve for what he’s leaving behind.
Soon, he and Joe will be nothing more than carbon in the earth and stories left behind to tell like the ones they’ve recounted of Andy and Quynh, and the legacies of people they’ve helped that link them all through the centuries. It’s not enough, but when will it ever be? He’s had longer than anyone could possibly ask for and he’s done the good that he can.
His hand goes limp, falling to his side and the last thing he remembers as everything goes dark is the grief-stricken sound of his name falling from his friend’s mouth.
“Nicolò?”
A hand reaches out through the darkness and brushes against his. The pain is gone and he is no longer cold and shaking. Warm fingertips stroke along the nape of his neck, and Nicky can’t help but smile.
“Nicolò? Is that you?”
The hand reaches out for him once more, but this time he curls his fingers around that familiar palm and it is suddenly brighter than a thousand suns spilling light across the universe. He doesn’t need to see that it’s Joe because he would recognize him in life, in death, and even here in the beyond.
Their fingers intertwine and a comforting ease washes over Nicky’s soul.
He is home.