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Chapter Text

1554

The bell on the door of Yusuf’s shop has only just recently been repaired, yet he begins to worry it’s broken. How else to explain the sound of soft footfalls within his shop, despite no sounding of the bell?

Emerging from his inventory room, Yusuf sets his books and scrolls down, the explanation instantly made clear as to why he hadn’t heard a peep when he sees the two women lurking by the poetry. “I should have known it was you two,” he says, with the suitable mix of fondness and irritation that Andromache and Quỳnh deserve. “When did you sneak into port?”

“Only this last week,” Quỳnh assures. “We stowed away on a corsair and when it landed in Tunis, I told Andromache that we had to come and see you.”

“Did you break in through the window?” While his complaints may sound irritable, he’s already moved on, holding out his hand for the payment they owe him for their presence.It arrives swiftly in the form of three books that he will copy and then return to them before they depart.

Egypt had the Library of Alexandria. Tunis has Yusuf’s bookshop.

He turns the books to the side, pleased to see that he has been brought two books on art and one on the sciences. How well his friends know him.

Surreptitiously, he checks his windows to see if any of them have been slid open, which Andromache sees.

“They’re fine, Quỳnh is as quiet as a cat on her toes is all. She stilled the bell before it made a sound,” she praises with adoration writ on her face. As she speaks, Andromache digs through her satchel, removing something wrapped in expensive linens that does not look like a book at all. “We’ve brought you something else.”

Yusuf is barely paying attention. He’s opened the books to reverently pass his fingers over the ink, already fetching the candles he’ll need to spend the night transcribing a copy to keep upon his shelves.

“It’s a gift,” Quỳnh adds, eager and playful.

That draws Yusuf’s attention. They don’t bring him gifts. They bring him books in payment for food, shelter, and books in turn. That’s been their arrangement ever since they first met, when they descended upon the row of houses near the port that Yusuf had purchased and turned into this literary haven.

Gifts are refused, unnecessary, and they both know as much.

“From who?” is tinged with suspicion, wary that he knows the answer.

Andromache lays down the linen and the sound it makes is unmistakable steel.

Books forgotten, Yusuf approaches and carefully lifts up one corner of the linen, then another, until he reveals a beautiful knife. Its hilt is encrusted with gold and a single ruby, and the blade curves to a point like…

“I suppose he remembers what it felt like, buried in him as it was,” Quỳnh interrupts his thoughts, amused. “It looks very similar to the one you have hanging in the back.”

Instantly, Yusuf folds the linen back over it. A gift, he thinks; surely not. It has been sent to mock him.

“You didn’t tell me that you were coming from Genoa,” he says, hesitating with a hand on the hilt of the knife. He knows he should push it back towards them, but he cannot make it move.

He knows that he is in Genoa, he knows that he runs a smithy. It is impossible to avoid the gossip of sailors in port who speak of weapons from Genoa and how they are only the best if they come from a little shop without a name run by an elusive owner, whose name they never speak. There is every likelihood that they do not even know it.

They don’t have to. Yusuf knows who it is, because Andromache and Quỳnh spend their time with him when they’re not with Yusuf or out on their own.

“Why did he send this?” he asks, as if they will have the answer Yusuf has sought for so long.

Andromache hasn’t taken it back. Yusuf has a terrible feeling that it will not leave his shop, even though it feels like one more brick in a wall will come crumbling down if he keeps this. “He didn’t say,” Andromache replies. “Maybe he thought you needed something to defend yourself.”

“Why would he think that?” Yusuf asks, eyes narrowing at the two of them, beginning to see the full story.

“Andromache may have told him about the thief who attempted to run off with two shelves’ worth of your inventory. He brought this to us days later, merely asked that we bring it to you.”

Their claims of it being a gift are overstated, then. The implication is clear. He is not trusted with his own safety and so weapons are sent overseas because he thinks that Yusuf cannot manage his own business without assistance. He pushes the knife back towards them. “I refuse,” he says sharply. The unfortunate part of this is that he’s not actually refusing Nicolò’s crude attempts at peace and charity. He is refusing Quỳnh and Andromache. No matter how sharp Yusuf is, they will always be a degree sharper. He might try to cut with words, but their tongues will slice him in half. Andromache’s gaze is icy, and she doesn’t take it back.

Her “no,” is bored, calm, and annoyed.

“He went to some trouble to ensure it was fine enough that you would accept it.” Quỳnh is clearly trying to play peacemaker, but she too won’t pick it up. “Use it to fetch a bargain in the market. He would be happy to know it did you well, one way or the other.”

By now, Yusuf knows the role he is meant to play. He sneers, wears disgust like a shield, and pretends his last care revolves around pleasing that invader. “His happiness is not my concern.” His distance from Yusuf is how they have survived these last few centuries, but with this gift (and the others that litter Yusuf’s drawers), Nicolò is sending a tentative volley across the ramparts.

Of course Nicolò would think that Yusuf isn’t equipped to protect himself.

Never mind that the thief who had attempted to run off with his inventory had been unsuccessful. Instead of the books he’d been after, he’d earned a great goose egg before being bound by a set of ropes, sent out of town on a merchant’s cart once Yusuf was through with him. He doesn’t need an elaborate knife fixed with too many jewels to defend his shop.

Clearly, Nicolò is not hurting for funds, given how much wealth he has affixed to this blade.

Yusuf reaches out to touch the hilt one last time, making up his mind to trade it in the marketplace. It’s exactly like him to somehow barge into Yusuf’s life and create chaos within it without even being here. It seeds doubt, a little voice that asks if Yusuf should be more careful and he hates that he’s worried, suddenly. 

If the gift had been meant as yet another in Nicolò’s flurry of peace offerings, this one has failed, deeply.

“I have everything we need for tea in the back,” he says, eager to shift the topic away from a man whose existence he is trying very hard to ignore. “Come. Apart from your time in Genoa, I want to hear all of it.”

He sweeps the curtain hiding the back of the shop back to allow them to go first. The scimitar goes into a chest in the back of Yusuf’s shop. That settles his mind away from Genoa, as he sets out the fine teacups he’d traded several volumes of poetry for, and turns back to fetch lemon, milk, and something to nibble on with Andromache at his heels.

“Now,” he says, “what wonders have you seen?”

If he focuses hard enough on his company, perhaps the looming shadow in Genoa will stop haunting his thoughts.

As ever, Quỳnh is excited to share their news. “We began the year in England, there’s quite the scuffle happening with their royalty,” she shares, while Andromache helps Yusuf with the rest of what they need for tea, rummaging through his cupboards as if she has permission.

She does, but Yusuf would not say as much aloud. He doesn’t want her getting any ideas that she can simply root through his things unasked.

“We left quickly after the Princess was thrown in the tower,” Andromache adds, poking her head into the cupboard a little deeper. “If we’d stayed, I imagine Quỳnh would have tried to rescue her, which is much too public a thing to do.”

Yusuf scowls, pinching her earlobe. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You always hide the sweets when I come, is it on purpose?” Andromache deftly smacks Yusuf’s hand away with ease. He knows that he’d taken his life into his hands touching Andromache like this, but he lives without fear of retribution. After all, he has plenty of hands to spare.

“We left for the Netherlands,” Quỳnh continues blithely, as though Yusuf and Andromache aren’t bickering like children. “We found work for a time tutoring, but then a fire broke out in Eindhoven where we were staying.” Her look turns fond as she regards Andromache. “My love rescued a half dozen children, but the thatching fell on her soon after. We had to flee, lest they think my dear one was a saint risen from the fire.”

“I’m an excellent phoenix,” Andromache mumbles around a piece of baklava.

“How did you even find that?” Yusuf hisses, as he’d been hiding it for later.

She shrugs, as if she doesn’t feel compelled to share her talents, and keeps chewing while holding Yusuf’s stare, unapologetically.

“We thought we’d come to see you, via Genoa,” Quỳnh finishes. “Nicolò gave us his gift and it was an excellent excuse to come here. Unless you’re not willing to receive us? Does your ire for him extend to us?”

“Never,” Yusuf insists swiftly, setting tea, cream, lemon, baklava, and more upon the table. “My door is always open to the both of you.”

They are, after all, the only family he has. The descendants of his siblings have left for other countries and opportunities and Yusuf knows he has no place in their lives. For Andromache and Quỳnh, he will always open his doors to them.

Today, they stay for tea and to share their plans. They will stay in Tunis for several weeks before continuing to the Adal Sultanate, where talk of an uprising had reached them, even in England.

“My home is yours while you’re here,” Yusuf vows.

“A promise you’ve yet to regret,” Quỳnh says fondly, kissing his temple before settling in at his side comfortably.

Yusuf believes it’s a promise he never will. Quỳnh and Andromache have one another, but their presence in his life is fleeting and infrequent. He cherishes the time they do have, because they have quickly become some of the only people to truly know him.

He cannot imagine ever tiring of them. Even if Andromache is a wicked thief of his desserts, with a sweet tooth that spells trouble for his stores. When they are finished regaling Yusuf with the stories and the pot of tea is cold, they depart to explore the town with a key to the shop in hand and leave Yusuf to his business.

He locks the door, pausing near the chest to contemplate the scimitar within. He tells himself that he doesn’t want this gift, but there is something stopping him when he thinks of going to the market right now to sell it. It truly is made of fine materials, and to waste them feels wrong, even if Yusuf has a complicated relationship with the man who made it for him.

He should sell it, he knows he should.

Yet, the next day passes without Yusuf taking it from its chest.

Then another day.

Andromache and Quỳnh surface for tea and to read Yusuf’s new inventory, but neither of them mention the scimitar and Yusuf does not bring it up. Eventually, the thought of bringing the weapon to the market to sell simply vanishes from his mind. He simply … forgets. Nicolò is put out of his mind given how busy he is with the shop and Andromache and Quỳnh’s presence. The thought of his gifts disappears soon after. And so, the gift remains, buried by others that have arrived over the years, but still there. It’s as present as the truce that lies between them, forged nearly five hundred years ago and holding strong.

Nicolò would do well to remember that the only way this works is apart. In recent days, it is a reminder that Yusuf needs, too. Nudging gifts towards him is a precarious push towards the ledge.

Yusuf knows he’s not going to die from the fall, but he’s still not keen on plunging into unknown territory. So the truce must hold. They must keep their distance. It’s the only way this works (because it’s the only thing they’ve tried).

1101

The truce goes like this:

“I don’t ever want to see you again,” the invader says, his tone devoid of any emotion for Yusuf to read into.

Yusuf is not going to argue. He has slain this man more times in his imagination than in reality, but he suspects if they stay together, reality will creep close. In their waking hours, they speak only of truce and peace. Their weapons remain out of reach, with their common goal remaining to avoid further bloodshed.

Yusuf suspects their willingness to break bread isn’t because either of them has had a change of heart.

It is, simply, exhaustion.

He cannot keep killing this man, only to have him wake again and again. If this is to be his destiny, he will not spend it suffering from repetition. Talks of peace have become a negotiation of distance. They will not settle on the same continent, they will not visit one another, and they lead separate lives.

Their negotiations have led them to the port, where Nicolò is going to board a ship that takes him...well, anywhere that isn’t where Yusuf is going -- that’s all he cares about.

If they are going to find any true peace, it will not be with one of them casting a shadow over the other’s life. “I agree,” is Yusuf’s steely reply. “If this truce is to work, then you and I must vow that we will never haunt the other’s life.”

This is why Yusuf is here, to watch his former enemy depart.

Yusuf doesn’t care about this man, but if he doesn’t see him off with his own two eyes, he’ll never believe the scourge infecting his life has left him. Once Nicolò is over the horizon in his ship, then Yusuf will finally feel the weight on his chest lift. This new gift of life is unexpected and he doesn’t intend to spend the next hundred years fighting.

Nicolò has nothing left to say. That, or he bites his tongue to prevent himself saying it. Either way, their tentative alliance ends with Nicolò boarding a ship.

He doesn’t look back once.

Then, Yusuf is alone. There is a whole world out there waiting for him and now that he’s sent Nicolò back to the same hateful people he’d come from, there is nothing but opportunity at his feet.

Opportunity could call him to any corner of the world, but watching Nicolò sail away on a ship, Yusuf knows there is only one place his heart desires to be.

Home.

That night, he boards a ship of his own, bound for Tunis. He falls asleep in a hammock below deck and he dreams of two women in a foreign land. That night, on his way back to the security of his home, his dreams are not only of the women, but also of Nicolò walking away from him, sealing their truce.

The dream with the two women feels oddly like a portent of things to come.

The memory of Nicolò is a door closing, locked firmly shut, with the key hidden away.

When he wakes, he is closer to home and further from the invader. Finally, he is beginning to feel more like the Yusuf Al-Kaysani he’d once known, and been proud of. With every intoxicating and freeing breath of sea air, he knows that he is returning to a life he can live in peace.

The only question is how many years of peace he will have.

Yusuf wakes on the first day of his new life thinking of finding a hobby. Perhaps a profession.

In the end, he arrives in Tunis, and elects to roll both into one. The shop takes nearly every coin he possesses, but it sits near the port with a view of the waves rolling in. It is spacious enough to work and live in, yet close enough to visit his family to visit them within a few hours’ time.

Now, it comes to what he will do with the shop.

In his heart, down to his soul, he feels that he is an artist. This much space for an artist’s studio is unnecessary. Yusuf assigns the back room as his personal sanctum for art, choosing to opt for another of his great loves to serve as his profession.

There is one certainty in Yusuf’s heart -- he will not allow his life’s work to beget more violence. He wants to oppose it, in the best way that he can, and that’s how he decides exactly what he will sell.

“What will you name it?” the seller asks, counting his coins after transferring the deed to Yusuf.

Eyeing his new prize, Yusuf runs his fingers over the dusty tabletops, thinking that it will be a fine place once he puts some work into it. “The Library,” is a terrible name, but if this gift of his will keep him alive, then he cannot put his name on anything he touches.

It must be anonymous, mysterious, and secretive.

At least, as secretive as a place can be that’s hiding in plain sight.

The seller looks unimpressed, but Yusuf is not surprised. It really is an uninspired name. Maybe he’ll think of something else in the future.

If he is to live a while longer, there will be no absence of time for him to think of a new name. Until then, he has great plans for this space. He will fill it with poetry and books of science. He will barter with the sailors and trade knowledge and possessions. He will make a home of Tunis, afforded to him by the gift of life and the sanctity of a truce with his enemy.

As Yusuf takes the keys to his new shop, he eyes the door and wonders:

What is Nicolò doing right now?

Quickly, he dismisses that invading thought. It has no business in his mind, just as the man himself has no purpose in Yusuf’s attentions.

He will live on, and maybe he will even find happiness, but the important piece is that he will do it without infringing on Yusuf’s space, his time, and he will not be a part of his life.

1100

They have stopped killing one another, but a cessation of violence does not equal trust. Yusuf remains wary of Nicolò, his eye always on the sharp point of the sword as he wonders if his next death will come soon (and if it will be his last).

Talk of a truce has begun, but neither of them have yet agreed on the terms. For now, they are attempting to travel together to see if that is a future they can stand, but between Yusuf flinching every time Nicolò raises his arm and Nicolò’s seeming disdain for Yusuf’s company, he cannot see this lasting.

For now, they travel together towards the sea. Then, they will make their decisions. Rather than discuss the finer points of the peace they are attempting, they remain distant and silent, only talking to one another when necessary.

In this silence, Yusuf finds himself stuck obsessing over his enemy.

It is a fury and a fire he feels, resigned to travelling with him because they are of a kind. Whatever curse or blessing has been placed upon Yusuf’s head, leaving him unable to die, it applies to Nicolò as well. In this, it feels safer to travel together, but that does not mean he likes it.

As much as he prefers to ignore him, he is the only person in the world like him, as far as he knows. This knowledge has led to many conversations about what has happened to them and how such a thing can be possible.

“Do you think it’s only death?” Nicolò asks, one night when they sit on opposite sides of the fire. “Are we immune to all ills? Aches and pains?”

Before Yusuf can even answer, the idiot sticks his hand forward into the flames. Hissing at him, Yusuf leans forward to smack his hand away from the flames, flinching away at the heat. “I’d ask what’s wrong with you, but I don’t have the time to hear the list,” he spits at him, his Zeneize strong enough from his travels, though he is bitter at having to use it.

Still, he watches in fascination as the burns on Nicolò’s hand heals, as if he hadn’t been touched by flame at all.

Inhaling sharply, Yusuf reaches for his dagger to press a point into his palm.

“Are you an idiot?” Nicolò retorts, clearly bitter and annoyed, but Yusuf thinks that it’s a very different thing to give himself a pinprick instead of a burn so bad that it would lose him the use of his hand were it to remain.

Then again, what does he expect from Genoan idiots?

It heals. It heals as quickly as the burn had.

So they can die and they can heal. “Do you think we’ll age?” Yusuf asks, when the thought occurs to him that if their bodies are being preserved (for what? And why?), then there is a chance they will never see wrinkles or white hairs dappling their temples.

“Why would you think I have any answers?”

Why, indeed? “You are useless,” Yusuf sighs, though he’s too tired and confused to let anger temper his words. There is no answer, only more questions, and Yusuf chooses only to focus on what he does know.

Right now, that is not much. Each day, they make their way closer to the port, and Yusuf thinks of what he wants. He wants a peaceful life, however that happens. His hope is that he will sail back to Tunis, and he tells himself that he does not care where Nicolò goes. Their tentative truce is still new and he suspects that there is every chance it falls apart before they reach the port.

Nicolò still makes ridiculous comments that have Yusuf furious with him, though at least it seems that Nicolò is beginning to understand what he’s saying wrong. It’s not enough for Yusuf to think that Nicolò might sail with him to Tunis.

Besides, the thought of Nicolò hovering near him and tainting his home makes Yusuf flinch, reinforcing his desire to see them parted at the port when they arrive.

Today, they inch closer to Haifa, arriving at a small marketplace set up outside of town.

It’s fortuitous, because their supplies have been dwindling and they would soon be required to hunt to feed themselves.

“I’ll go,” Nicolò offers as he digs through their bags for coin.

“Try not to be yourself,” is Yusuf’s sharp warning. “I don’t want to have to run away from here quickly because you got killed for saying the wrong thing.”

He’s used to Nicolò’s annoyed glares, which means that when he receives another one, Yusuf ignores it with ease and returns to his work of penning the events in the day in his journal. He doesn’t even notice Nicolò leaving until Yusuf glances up and marks his absence.

With him gone, Yusuf returns to his writings, but as he reviews what he’s already written, he discovers that he has withheld the absolute truth of his inability to die.

Is it fear, perhaps? If someone discovers his words, will they believe the fantastical gift he has been blessed with?

Denial, maybe. Does Yusuf believe that he truly cannot die? Is it his worry that if he inks it down in words, this will be what binds it to reality and makes it come true?

Either way, he cannot bring himself to be true in his recollections, and his account is woven with holes. An hour later, Yusuf finishes with his work, but Nicolò has not returned. He sets aside his parchment and quill, searching for Nicolò anywhere near their camp, but there’s no sign of him.

Something must have gone wrong. Even as ineffectual and stupid as the other man can be, an hour is plenty of time to return with supplies.

“The bastard,” Yusuf hisses, when worry quickly gives way to feelings of betrayal.

Of course he would do this. He would simply abandon Yusuf and his possessions to get away from him, taking the coin and breaking out on his own.

So much for the truce, Yusuf thinks, as he begins to storm towards the market to find out which way Nicolò went. His stomach growls fiercely at him as he enters the market, asking a few shopkeepers if they have seen Nicolò. “The man with grey eyes, a stormy face,” he explains, and is pointed down an alleyway.

Yusuf sees Nicolò first, bent over with his back to him.

Scoffing, he prepares a lecture about how Nicolò’s escape attempts are rusty if he’s only managed to get this far, but his words die in his throat when he realizes that Nicolò is not alone.

“...you see how you press it and it goes too deep? This is not good quality.”

Yusuf inches forward to peer around the wall, discovering that Nicolò is speaking with a group of small children and holding a mango in his hands, which has dented at the touch. It’s overripe, but Yusuf does not have to explain that.

The children gape at Nicolò as if he is a witch, but that isn’t surprising. Men like him in these parts are usually soldiers and don’t spend their time explaining the ripeness of fruit to children. There is none of the smug, impatient invader in this man.

This Nicolò is soft and sweet, doling out fruit to these little children as he speaks to them in their own tongue (albeit poorly, as Nicolò’s accent is a disaster). This Nicolò is not harsh or blunt or stupid.

He is kind and soft and caring. He smiles with ease and lets the children soak up the dollops of information he gives to them, brighter than Yusuf has ever seen him before.

It is not a man he recognizes.

Yusuf doesn’t know what to make of this.

It’s a terrifying shift as this new image of Nicolò attempts to overwrite the last, the two not working together at all. Yusuf reminds himself of the fury and hatred in Nicolò’s eyes when he had killed Yusuf not once, not even twice, but three times. He thinks of the acts of Nicolò’s people in tormenting innocents in the name of their country and their God.

Yet, here is Nicolò, treating others with kindness and a gentleness that he has never shown Yusuf. It infuriates him, yet also humanizes him in a way that Yusuf hadn’t wanted. If anything, it brings on more anger.

How dare he? How could he?

This kindness and softness is not the man from Jerusalem that killed Yusuf, which means that he has denied Yusuf the courtesy of humanity. If Yusuf did not think Nicolò an enemy before, he now sees that Nicolò has made a choice. Perhaps deep down, he is not the man who killed Yusuf, but he chose to be over and over and over.

Whatever kindness he possesses had not been for him, and that is why they cannot have peace.

Yusuf hurries back to the camp, only managing to beat Nicolò there by moments. He startles when a heavy bag thumps down beside his head, a few fruits rolling out of it. The first, he sees, is the overripe mango with Nicolò’s thumbprint in it.

Still rattled, Yusuf reaches for it to lift it up. “Is this the quality of fruit you’re buying me?” he criticizes, because it simply feels easier than to tell Nicolò he’d seen him at the market, or ask why Nicolò is not like that with him.

“Eat it today, it will not kill you,” Nicolò sighs heavily, which helps to remind Yusuf how infuriating the man is, treating Yusuf like a burden. “It was cheaper, so we got more. Enough to get to port.”

Yusuf takes the mango and begins to peel it open, deliberately staring at Nicolò without blinking as he eats. It is both a stubborn need to show that he is amenable, but it is also because he cannot reconcile the Nicolò of the market with this man before him.

How is it he can be like that with them?

Which is the true Nicolò?

Can it somehow be the both of them?

Yusuf swallows the mango slice and smiles, sunny and overly charming and refusing to let the confusion overwhelm him. He will not let Nicolò win. “Delicious,” he insists, sucking the juice off his fingers.

He hears the sharp inhale, but by the time Yusuf looks at Nicolò's face, it’s too late to see the matching expression to that troubling sound. He’s moved on to preparing for the night with his back to Yusuf.

Meanwhile, he has left Yusuf with a furiously awful conundrum. He is not ready to marry the two men in his head. Nicolò is an enemy and nothing else. He cannot be a sweet man who is tender with children.

After all, that could be a man that Yusuf could begin to like.

There is only one thing to do. Yusuf puts it out of mind, pushing it to the wayside with any wanton and stray desires that the market’s visit had unearthed. Soon, they will be at port. Soon, they will write the final terms of their truce and, with luck, never see one another again.

He will never have to worry again about what it looks like when Nicolò smiles, sunny and sweet, at a group of children. He will never again feel the treacherous pain of being stabbed with a longsword.

Nicolò will simply cease to be, if Yusuf is lucky; extinguished from his life and his memory.

1101

When Nicolò first returns to Genoa, he stands with his satchel at the port for hours, wondering what he is going to do with his life. The sun descended into the sea, moving quicker than Nicolò. He remains still and locked in place by indecision.

He cannot return home.

He had been changed by his experiences and not only because he had died. His family had sent him off to a war to fight a people they had taught him to hate. Nicolò had done that, fiercely attacking and killing all those in his path, allowing himself to believe them to be his enemy.

Then, he had met Yusuf, a man unlike him in every way but one.

In truth, it had not been Yusuf alone that began to change Nicolò’s heart, but rather the constant, endless death with no result. It was the futility of his murderous aims. It was watching what his army was doing to innocent lives, and seeing the grief on Yusuf’s face when they came across it. The futility and the destruction and the hatred he had been taught and had put to practice only yielded grief and sorrow and pain.

All of it, he had seen on Yusuf’s face, making Nicolò question his upbringing and the lessons he had been sent off with.

It was Nicolò, realizing that maybe he was not on the right side of God’s battle.

That epiphany had carried him home along with the ship to Genoa and he’d known that what he needed most of all was a fresh start away from the villa in the countryside, and away from his family.

They had filled his mind and his heart with such hateful things, but Nicolò knew if he fought against it, he could purge the blackness from his head and his heart and his soul. He had experienced his own religious experience, the scales falling from his eyes, but it took him further away from God’s will.

He thinks that if not for how they had met (death upon death upon death), perhaps he and Yusuf might have remained at one another’s sides.

Despite Nicolò feeling that he had grown so much in the short time they’d spent together, he also knew it had been a fragile peace, only possible because they both knew it was coming to an end.

In those final days, Yusuf had done his best to avoid looking at him. When he did engage with Nicolò, he’d been quick to anger and Nicolò full of guilt over what he had done to him and his people.

So now, he is in Genoa, a statue on the waterfront, weighing his skills and not knowing what to do next.

Fate, it seems, decides for him.

“The boy is useless,” he hears someone nearby complaining. “He can only do his work for an hour before he complains of his arms being tired. I need an assistant with some strength, who won’t complain.”

“I’ve told you before, you should travel to Milan, or another of the kingdoms.”

The first man scoffs. “I want a proper Genoan.”

Nicolò doesn’t know what moves him. Desperation, perhaps? Whatever moves him gives him speed, bringing him to the men’s sides. “What is it you need?”

The two men look at him oddly. He knows he looks out of place. Here is a man in the clothes of a Crusader, standing frozen staring into the dark night, as if entranced.

“I’ve just returned home from the fight,” Nicolò says before they can dismiss him. “I need to earn my living, I will do anything. What is it you need?”

“I need a blacksmith’s assistant.”

Instantly, he nods, even though he’s never done such a thing before. How hard could it be? “I’ll do it.”

“You haven’t even asked what I’ll pay you,” says the smith, clearly amused at Nicolò’s eagerness. Nicolò knows that he must look like an idiot, a fool that doesn’t care enough about riches to ask questions that will protect his own interests.

The truth is that he doesn’t care. He is still trying to find his footing and what he needs most is a roof over his head, no matter what he does during the day.

“So long as you pay me something, offer me room and board, it will be enough,” he says, fighting not to sound desperate.

The smith looks to his friend, who shrugs. They’re both obviously entertained by the strange Genoan they’ve met at the port, but Nicolò also knows that if they want someone local, his accent will prove that he is one of them.

“Do you know your way around a sword?” the smith asks.

“Regrettably,” Nicolò says, when sharp contrition pierces his heart.

The smith takes him in, his attention sliding to the longsword at Nicolò’s side. “I see,” he notes, and Nicolò wonders what he sees.

Does he see the weapon? Does he see the mistakes Nicolò has made? Does he see the spots of blood that Nicolò has yet to clean from the scabbard? Does he see the guilt that Nicolò will dream about for years in his eyes?

“I’m Antoniotto, this is Fante,” he says, of his friend. “You’re sure you’ll take the job with no knowledge of the pay or the state of the room?”

“Now you’re beginning to make me worry what I might find,” Nicolò says, but there is a challenge in the arch of his brow.

How bad could it be?

Antoniotto shrugs and gestures for Nicolò to follow. “Let misfortune find you if you seek it,” he says, cheerful for a man leading his new apprentice on to his potentially suspect lodgings

When they arrive, Nicolò sees that his cheer had certainly been misplaced. The room is terrible, but Nicolò has slept in worse. Even before going to war, he had known the cold, hard concrete of the church’s floor.

This is not worse, but it’s hardly better.

The pallet is no more than a thin layer of fabric in a dusty, dark, drafty room behind the shop. Antoniotto explains that he will deduct several coins a week from his pay for it, which is robbery he’s sure, but if Nicolò’s gift keeps up and he cannot die, he imagines that if invested properly, he will eventually have enough money to do something with his life.

What that is, he isn’t sure.

He knows he doesn’t want to return to the priesthood. They had led him down a path of hatred and bloodshed that Nicolò has been questioning since he and Yusuf awoke again and again. He does not think he is ready to return to his family with no purpose, either. So he stays.

Nicolò di Genova becomes a smith, and finds that it is a tolerable life.

It’s hardly the life he expected to have, but working in a shop as a mere assistant for little pay and a worse room is a penance Nicolò feels he must undertake, if only to better understand what he should do next.

Besides, he finds he likes working for Antoniotto.

“Collino,” he calls, when the latest customer has left the shop, his new nickname earning an eye roll from Nicolò as it has since Antoniotto first used it. “We've got a new job.”

He nods dutifully, reaching for parchment to take down the order. His main role as assistant involves a lot of tidying and errand running, but once Antoniotto discovered Nicolò could read and write, he’d employed him to keep the books, as well.

“The mistress of the de Vincenzi family seeks a pin for her hair.”

It is not rare for the nobility of Genoa to come to this shop looking for accessories and not weapons, but Nicolò does not understand why Antoniotto is all but winking at him.

He takes down the order, assessing the likely size, but, “What colour?” he wonders.

“Don’t you have opinions on what gem would shine best in her golden hair?”

Nicolò stares at Antoniotto, unsure of the answer he’s expected to give. He knows that other men would wish to gaze upon her beauty, but for Nicolò, there is an absence of desire. When he closes his eyes and thinks of need, it is not the de Vincenzi mistress that comes to mind.

He could lie to himself and say he sees a blank slate and nothing, but he is trying to be honest with himself.

When he closes his eyes and thinks of desire, he thinks of the warmest set of brown eyes he’s ever seen and a smile that could illuminate the heavens. Yusuf had never smiled at him like this, but he had when bartering for their meals and thanking the villagers who assisted them in their journey to the harbour. Nicolò had soaked up those smiles, feeling like a thief to witness them.

“She is not my type,” Nicolò settles for speaking, when he can see that Antoniotto clearly expects a response. “I prefer dark-haired beauties,” he adds with haste, before he can ask for details.

Antoniotto grunts, turning back to his supplies. “I’ve picked up several aquamarines for the task. They’re with the garnets. Choose whichever is sturdiest and don’t mind the cost. They’ll pay whatever we ask of them.”

He departs, leaving Nicolò to his task and to the lingering thoughts of Yusuf.

Now that Antoniotto has led his mind towards him, Nicolò finds it is not so easy to step away. For one brief moment, Nicolò closes his eyes and imagines if he and Yusuf had met in a different situation.

Nicolò lets that sunny smile wash over him, pretends that it is intended for him. He imagines Yusuf is the sort of man who would not mind another man’s interest, and that Nicolò was not raised as he had been.

It is a lovely fantasy, but nothing more.

“To work,” he chides himself aloud, beginning to gather materials for Signora de Vincenzi’s hair pin, banishing all thoughts of Yusuf for the fantastical fiction they are.

1213

Yusuf’s dreams, tonight, are of the two strange women that have been invading his sleep for decades.

They have been a steady fixture of his dreams since he first died. At first, he thought them manifestations of some deep and unresolved emotions. Then, he dreamed of them again and again. He dreamed of them in the most mundane situations -- breaking bread, sharing tea, curled up together to fend off the cold. He dreamed of them in the most extraordinary circumstances -- battling back to back, blood-stained weapons as they fought whole armies, only to survive.

He dreams them until Yusuf believes there is no other explanation apart from them being real.

Tonight, these very real women haunt his dreams once more.

Yusuf cannot tell where they are, but it is clearly a cold night. He sees one of them shivering on the bed, wrapped in an abundance of furs, her hands occupied with something.

Socks, he realizes.

She is knitting socks.

The taller of the women, with the grey eyes, is tending to a small assortment of food, sneaking one past her lips for each slice of meat, cheese, and fruit she puts on the plate. With a century of work behind him, Yusuf cannot envy them for their wealth in food, but he does envy the richness they have in intimacy.

“I’m not stopping,” the one knitting warns, her long black hair falling forward over her shoulders.

The woman preparing the food approaches and gently cards her fingers through that long hair to brush it back over her shoulder, feeding her a fig from the platter. “I wouldn’t ask you to. I need those socks for winter,” she teases, settling at her back to avoid interfering with her work.

It feels wrong to have this window into their lives. He is an intruder on their intimacy, sure that his gaze is unwanted as he watches the socks put aside with the food, their absent affectionate touches slowly gaining more direction and guidance, cresting with passion.

The intimacy they share makes Yusuf ache, and unwillingly (or so he tells himself), his mind drifts to Nicolò. He thinks of him at the market with the children, showing them fruits and those large hands squeezing gently around a lucky mango.

Yusuf thinks of those large hands cupping his face and sliding his thumb over Yusuf’s lip as he did the skin of the mango, pressing in as if testing him for suitability.

The sharp inhalation Yusuf takes makes him startle awake, where he must face reality.

It is a pleasant reality -- his body tingles with a warmth that pools in his fingers and toes, as if coaxing him to touch himself at a leisurely, slow pace.

It is also an unpleasant one -- the stark horror strikes that Yusuf’s body twists with pleasure in the thoughts of that invader. Worse, that it is not the first time.

It is also a terrible and lonely reality -- the cold emptiness of his life pales in comparison to that of the two women. They have a bond full of love and tenderness, riches that Yusuf does not possess. Whoever they are, they are like him. They must be. For decades, he has dreamed of them exactly as they are -- unchanged and together -- and it tears through him like a knife gutting him until he is left with nothing but his loneliness.

No matter what happens, they have one another.

Despite the way the loneliness bitterly aches, Yusuf begins to anticipate and hope for dreams of them. No matter how cruel it feels to watch enviously as an outsider, he comes to welcome their companionship, if only by dream.

One day he arrives back from the market with food from a successful barter to find two familiar women waiting at his doorstep.

“The Library,” reads the tall one, who has eyes like the crusading villain in his dreams.

Yusuf tries not to let it annoy him, but thoughts of that man put Yusuf in a terrible mood, which is not helped along by the fact that he dreams of him constantly. He aches for touch, but his gift means he cannot form connections and bonds that others want of him without knowing that it will all have to end.

So instead, he is lonely. He is exhausted.

And now, he is beset by visitors summoned from his dreams.

Ones with hefty criticisms, given the mild disdain in the woman’s voice. “What would you have called it?” Yusuf asks sharply, shifting his possessions to try and get past them.

“Quỳnh’s Quibbles,” the other woman shares with a mischievous smile.

“I would never,” the first says. “She’s trying to get a reaction. She thinks I name everything after her.”

“I wouldn’t say it if you didn’t. How many weapons, meals, and mountain passes bear my name, thanks to your devotion?”

The tall woman says nothing, but Yusuf sees her blush.

They are both speaking perfect Tunisian Arabic, no hesitation at all for the local dialect as it passes their lips. It’s not the first thing Yusuf has noticed about them, but it is noteworthy. What is strange is seeing the two of them with so much distance between them. At night, in his dreams, they seem inseparably bound, as if one soul.

Here, outside Yusuf’s shop, they are distant and apart. It makes them appear as strangers.

“Here, let me help you. Andromache,” says Quỳnh, revealing the other woman’s name. “Get the door, please.” Without waiting for Yusuf’s acquiescence, Quỳnh takes half the goods from the market out of his hands, delight blooming on her beautiful face when she inhales deeply. “We should have come decades ago, if you were procuring such lovely spices then, too.”

Andromache opens the door for them, eyeing Yusuf critically. “Man of taste, are you?”

“I’m sure you know as well as I do that cooking gets very boring when you only use the same recipes again and again.” He thanks Quỳnh for her kindness with a soft spoken word and to Andromache, he bestows one of his blinding smiles.

He takes them through the winding paths of his bookshop to his home at the back of it, setting down his woven bags on the counters.

“Will you tell me what it is that has you in my dreams?” he asks, when they are finally alone. “Over a hundred years, there you’ve been, haunting me. How? Are you both some sort of witch?”

“If I had a coin for each time I’ve heard that,” Andromache mutters. “Cook us something with your spices, Yusuf. We’ll explain over dinner.”

Despite his misgivings, he ends up closing the shop early. His curiosities weigh on him and he knows that he doesn’t have enough customers to keep his mind from drifting to the questions he wishes to ask them. He pries spices from the bags and lets Quỳnh help him prepare the feast, creating a tagine with a liberal amount of cinnamon to sweeten the savoury aspects.

It is fresh and delicious, but Yusuf is not hungry for food. With these women before him, they hold answers and that is the only thing his appetite demands

“What are we?”

“I would have thought you figured that out by now,” Quỳnh muses, sipping her water. She’s splayed out comfortably on the ground, her bare feet tangled behind her on the throws Yusuf has set down for them. “Or did you miss the part where you’re still alive?”

He doesn’t roll his eyes, but only because they are his guests.

“I can see that we’re immortal, but why? How? Are there more like us?”

“At least one,” says Andromache, with a pointed look at Yusuf that says, you would know plenty about that.

Unluckily for them, he does not want to talk about the other one. “Why are we like this?” They must have answers for him. He will happily give them shelter and food, if only they can provide him the answers he so desperately craves.

They exchange a long look as dread sinks in Yusuf’s stomach.

“How old are you both?” he asks, filling the silence with a new question. If they won’t answer his first question, maybe they can give him some information.

He sees the tension release from Quỳnh’s shoulders. Clearly, this is something she’s much more comfortable answering. “I suppose it’s been almost four thousand years, but I can’t possibly claim the title of the oldest woman alive.” The corners of her lips curve up as she feeds herself by hand, smirking playfully at Andromache. “That belongs to this relic.”

“You didn’t mind touching my dusty crevasses last night,” Andromaches harrumphs, lifting her chin.

“I’m very respectful of ancient things,” she murmurs in turn, holding some of the squash out for Andromache to eat from her fingers. “Even ones that are five thousand years old, at least.”

Yusuf, suddenly, feels very much in the way in his own home.

He clears his throat pointedly, which seems to shake them from their devoted looks. He’s not sure what part of this is causing him the most trouble, but he suspects it’s still their missing answer.

“How can you be that old and not know why we’re like this? How can there not be more of us? Why did this happen to us?”

“Do you know what happens when you ask those questions, Yusuf?” Quỳnh reaches over the table for seconds, filling her bowl. “You drive yourself mad. We know only this: We get injured, we heal. We die, we heal. We heal and we heal and we heal, and then one day, we don’t.”

Fear grips him like a vice, but it loosens soon enough when he remembers the women before him are millennia-old, but also, that he has no cause to want to be alive for that long.

“How do you know?”

“We know because there used to be another like us. One that isn’t the stormy-eyed man from our dreams.”

Yusuf stares at his table so he won’t react to the mention of him. He is certainly a storm and a man and he most certainly is present in many of Yusuf’s dreams. Instead of speaking of him, Yusuf decides to latch onto his next question. “Why do we dream of each other?”

“That should be obvious,” Andromache says, lifting her mug to salute him. “We’re not meant to be alone, Yusuf. The dreams are to help us find each other. Now that we’ve met, we won’t dream of one another again. Well,” she says, “we might, but they’ll be normal dreams.”

She doesn’t blink as she takes a sip of her drink and holds his gaze.

“Tell me, Yusuf,” but it’s Quỳnh who speaks, as Andromache stares, unblinking. “Do you dream of the other one?”

He holds Andromache’s stare. He may not be a warrior any longer, but he hasn’t lost his mettle. “No,” he responds, a simple lie he hopes he gets away with. “I met him before my death and travelled with him briefly after my resurrection. There is nothing to dream about, I already know him. He was my enemy until we swore a truce. Now, we exist in peace, so long as we never meet one another.”

Quỳnh makes a disappointed noise with her tongue. “That sounds very lonely, Yusuf.”

“Perhaps, but now I have the two of you.”

They exchange a look, speaking to one another in this silence. Yusuf opts to ignore it, because he’s not sure there’s anything he likes in this tacit conversation. He doesn’t want to talk about Nicolò and he doesn’t want them asking more questions.

“So we will die,” he confirms, moving the conversation along in the event they decide they want to talk about the invader.

Quỳnh hums sorrowfully, while Andromache stares at her as if she might vanish if she blinks.

“One day, your wounds won’t heal. We don’t know when. You might still have a long life ahead of you.” Andromache sets her empty bowl in front of her, stretching out and using the excuse to peruse the shop with her eyes. “Is this what you want? To stay here, forever, with your books?”

“I haven’t tired of it yet,” Yusuf says, happy to be honest.

Andromache grunts, like she’s not so pleased by the answer. “I’ll ask that question again in a few centuries. We’ll see if you’ve changed your mind.”

“What she means to say is that we’re pleased to meet you,” Quỳnh speaks quickly, resting a hand on Andromache’s forearm and squeezing gently. “And we’re glad to have Tunis available as a port in the storm. We’re on our way to Genoa, next, to rid the stormy-eyed man from our dreams and establish contact.”

“Nicolò,” Yusuf blurts out, not sure why. Why does it matter that they know his name? “His name is Nicolò.”

Quỳnh raises her brow in a smooth and sly manner while Andromache quirks her lips upwards. “Is it, now?” Quỳnh replies calmly, the voice of innocence when that eyebrow certainly says something different.

Caught out, Yusuf scowls and reaches forward to take their bowls. Quỳnh isn’t finished and protests loudly, but Yusuf silences her with a single look that says she deserves to lose the last bites of her tagine for meddling.

She rolls her eyes and slumps back, leaning against Andromache.

“Would you like us to take anything with us?”

Yusuf sets the bowls in the sink, gripping hard as he leans forward and tries not to spit out a burst of profanity that neither woman deserves to hear. “I don’t want anything to do with that man,” he says sharply.

There is a lie inherent in those words. The question is how much of one, and whether they can tell.

Maybe the true question is whether Yusuf even knows how much of it is a lie.

The tension hangs heavily in the silence above them. Neither Quỳnh, nor Andromache seek to challenge him on it. Yusuf hopes that it will pass. He cannot face the haunting question of what he truly feels about Nicolò, especially not with these two would-be-friends.

“Well, then, in that case,” Andromache breaks the tension, sounding collected in a way Yusuf certainly doesn’t feel. “What’s for dessert?”

Chapter Text

1215

“Back already, Nicolò?”

“Yes, Signora Bruzzone,” Nicolò greets her in passing, aware that ‘already’ is heavily laden with sarcasm. “I’m heading to the shop to open my doors, but I will return for my morning meal,” he warns.

“I would be disappointed if you didn’t. Off you go, and don’t forget the ironwork you owe me.”

“Never,” he vows, cheerful in his step as he winds through the Genoan streets.

He’s been away for weeks, off to Rome to barter for materials. Nicolò is stunned to realize that during his absence, he’d been overwhelmed with a terrible bout of homesickness for what he’s created here.

The blacksmith’s shop has been his for over six decades. For the last twenty years, Nicolò has been shifting his business from supplying weapons to armies and focuses instead on investing his money carefully so that he can take on the jobs that he wants, rather than what he must. Nicolò forges beautiful weapons for people who could not afford them otherwise, with his main source of clientele being young women who require protection and cannot get it any other way.

He’s become very popular for it, once word got out that his is a shop that will give them something to defend them on the streets with whatever means of payment they can afford. He crafts elegant knives not only for killing, but for the kitchen. He makes beautiful jewellery. He creates heavy doors and elaborate candlesticks and chandeliers. If there is something that can be forged in the unyielding heat, Nicolò will create it.

He creates items that will make a house a home, all while seeking that same feeling in his own life.

Disappointingly, weapons remain his most popular item, but times have changed somewhat. The swords he creates are not used for skirmishes so much as status symbols.

When he rounds the alley to open his shop and settle in from his trip, he discovers two women on the stoop. One is slumped in the other’s arms and they are both half asleep, not minding at all that their compromising position is inappropriate for their place in public.

“If you are looking for the inn, it is down the street,” Nicolò greets them in the local dialect as he digs through his satchel to find the key to his shop. He barely pays any mind to the women, stepping over them as he heads inside to begin putting away his new materials. “We’re open now. You can come inside if you need protection or if you’d like some tea. Or, perhaps, you are customers? I can take your information once we’re inside.”

Perhaps they are being chased? Maybe they need some sort of weapon? They do not look like the usual frightened women that lingers at his door, but Nicolò is trying to teach himself not to make such quick judgments.

They follow him in, which means they must want something. He begins to shelve some of the books he’d picked up (most for his trade, but nestled among them is a book of Arabic poetry that had caught his eye that he intends to add to his collection). He glances up when he hears no response, wondering if they speak the language, getting his first good look at them.

The clear gray-blue eyes of the woman standing tall stops him before he can ask if she understands him.

“You,” he accuses.

“Hello. Nicolò, I think?” the woman says, with perfect pronunciation, proving that she’s excellent at the local tongue. “There’s a handsome source in Tunis who let your name slip past his lips. This is Quỳnh,” the woman introduces the second woman at her side, “and I’m Andromache. I believe you already know us.”

He does, but the trouble is, there is no explanation for how.

“Only in my dreams. Are you…”

“Witches?” Quỳnh sighs, as Nicolò winces with contrite apology that she’s taken the word out of his mouth. “I wonder if the two of you aren’t more similar than you know.”

The two of them. Barring another immortal out there, Nicolò knows who she speaks of.

“You’ve come directly from Tunis,” Nicolò says. Weeks ago, he had dreamed of them in the city, giving him a rare and desperately longed-for glimpse of a man he had not seen outside of his dreams for over a century.

The truce means that he cannot travel to see Yusuf and certainly, he does not think he would be welcome if he did. They never said anything about intermediaries though. The timing of his dreams feels like a destiny that he is meant to connect with Yusuf again, in some way.

Quỳnh eyes him with a mischievous smile. “We have,” she agrees. “Is there something there you’re interested in?” she asks, deeply innocent.

Of course there is, but Nicolò intends to let his actions speak louder than words.

They already have once before, when Nicolò used the point of his longsword and the flames of his hatred to pierce the heart of his enemy. Now, he can use his actions to beg for forgiveness. He ducks into a nearby chest of drawers, pulling out a cloak’s clasp that he’s been working on for some time.

Engraved in the silver, painstakingly etched in Arabic is poetry that Nicolò had read in the last decade. The translation reads: You are not you, and home is not home.

The poetry rouses a terrifying storm of emotions in him, as Nicolò has begun to question who he is, and whether Genoa is truly his home or if it is simply where he resides because it is where his work keeps him. He doesn't know who he is. He is not sure where his home lies. It makes him think of Yusuf, as well, and how desperate he is to show Yusuf that he is a different man.

He is not the same him.

He has spent a great deal of time pouring that devotion to an apology in his work on the clasp, and hours beyond that on the detailwork.

“The next time you plan to venture to Tunis, I’d like you to bring this to him, as a token of apology.”

Before he hands it over to them, he takes care to wrap it in linens with the sealed letter he has written, both for protection and to keep his words private.

The knowing look Quỳnh gives him as she takes it from Nicolò all-but-says that she intends to open it. Maybe she doesn’t speak Arabic and won’t understand it, but he suspects that he would lose that bet.

He doesn’t hand it over to them, not yet. It is too important for him to give without being assured of its delivery.

“Promise me that if I entrust this to you, it will arrive safely.”

Andromache and Quỳnh exchange an amused look. “Given how vicious Yusuf was about you, I would think you’d appreciate having us as a go-between to soften his temper.”

It’s not surprising, but the news still takes Nicolò aback. It’s been over a hundred years. He had been counting on some of the animosity to have declined. “He’s still cross?”

“I believe he implied something about the truce being the best thing the two of you could have done,” Quỳnh says, checking with Andromache that she’s getting it right. Andromache nods, which means that Nicolò’s hopes have met with a sudden wall.

“You know,” Andromache muses, “I like this.”

“What?” Nicolò asks warily.

“Instead of bombarding us with questions immediately, all you care to do is ask if we’ll bring a bauble across the sea for you.” She studies him speculatively, almost as if she doesn’t trust what’s before her eyes. “Or have I doomed us to the questions now?”

There are a dozen questions Nicolò wants to ask, but they revolve around Yusuf, as certain as the planets orbit the Earth. The news that Yusuf still bears him ill-will makes his gift more necessary, but he is unsure that asking anything of the man will yield anything but more bad news for his cause.

“Do you have answers to any of my questions?”

He is sure that Yusuf had been quick to ask them, having brought a litany of questions to the conversation up so frequently when they were on the road.

“Chicken and egg, you two,” Quỳnh mutters. “Yes, we have some answers. No, we do not have all of them. We cannot answer any of them unless you ask. Let us cover the basics,” she says, curt as if he has already been testing her patience despite just meeting. “We are, as you imagine, immortal. We have been dreaming of each other, though it will stop now that we have met.”

“No more lonely nights staring into the fire of your shop and courting sleep,” Andromache says, eyes flicking over his face. “I wonder, Nicolò, what do you think of when you do that?”

His cheeks flush with a heat of humiliation, but he does not say a word.

He is not a priest anymore, he no longer owes his confession to anyone. Quỳnh, unalarmed and uncaring, continues. “We do not age. Andromache and I have both seen the passing of thousands of years. We heal. Always. We go on. Always. We do our best to help people.”

“Always?” Nicolò echoes, amused by her pattern.

Quỳnh does not find it as funny. “When we can.”

They have answered many questions, but none on the topic he yearns to hear about (and cannot bring himself to ask). So, instead of asking the questions he wants answers to the most (about Yusuf and how he fares and if he is well and as handsome as ever), he chooses to ask the other question on the tip of his tongue.

“Have you always been together?”

Whatever question they had expected, it is not this one.

Quỳnh’s mouth, open as if to respond, shuts suddenly. She is stunned, but Andromache looks pleased -- a cat who has discovered a hoard of cream. “Since the moment I found her and no longer had to walk this world alone, I have been with Quỳnh. There was another, before. Lykon,” she says, eyes dark. “When Quỳnh mentions that we always heal and we always resurrect, she means she and I. There was another and one day, his wounds simply stopped healing. We are not eternal. We are simply lucky for as long as our luck holds true.”

Oh, thinks Nicolò.

It aches to watch the way Andromache bestows Quỳnh with such loving looks, if only because Nicolò has been so alone for so long. The friends he makes, they die. The customers who pass through his shop grow old and Nicolò must hide away in the mountains so he can return and start anew without arousing suspicion.

When he stares in the fire, he thinks of the warmth that he’d had on the road with Yusuf and how he hadn’t appreciated it, then.

He is glad that someone else has it, especially now that he knows it is finite, even for people like them.

It settles his mind. If there is anyone in the world who he can trust to deliver this gift, it will be them. “It’s very important to me that you take it to him,” he says, instead of implying that they will lose it. “When he and I met, I was not the kind of man I should have been. I was wrong. I was…”

There are not words enough to say how wrong he’d been, and Nicolò has seen languages flourish and fall over the last century.

Still, none of them suit.

“It is a gift and an apology. I want him to know that I regret what I did and that I hold him in higher standing than he thinks. I am not sure he will want it, but it’s still important to me that it makes it there.”

With his heart and soul bared, Nicolò extends the linen-wrapped gift to Andromache. She meets his eyes and there is something in the grey of them that Nicolò cannot place. Sympathy? Perhaps she thinks him little more than an infant, someone to pity in her old age. Judgment? He has just told her that he had not been a good man. Or maybe she has made mistakes of her own and understands the need for contrition.

Whatever she feels, she takes the gift from him.

“We’ll see it there safely the next time we go to Tunis,” she vows.

They are still strangers, but Nicolò can recognize that they are like him. He has more questions, but he sees the soft smile Quỳnh gives him, and the way Andromache seizes hold of the linen as if it is now hers to defend with her life.

The questions can wait.

“Is this your first time in Genoa?”

They don’t give him an actual answer. They don’t have to. The sheer weight of their combined annoyed expressions reminds Nicolò that he is speaking with women from his dreams who have outlived everything he has ever seen, tasted, touched, or heard.

Sighing, Nicolò waves a hand. “Yes, I know, I am young and stupid,” he permits. “It may not be your first time in Genoa, but I doubt you’ve had the torte salate from the market. The woman who makes it uses the freshest vegetables and a cheese that will make you weep, no matter how old you are.”

Andromache does not look convinced. It instantly sets Nicolò to stubbornly prove he is not lying.

“She’s very picky, you know. This could be a losing battle,” Quỳnh warns, eagerly heading towards the door as if she cannot wait to see who wins this particular bout.

Nicolò knows a thing or two about those battles. He spares one last thought for his apology gift to Yusuf and thinks that he will be fighting a losing battle for a very long time. It’s a good thing that he is too stubborn to give up -- whether it’s over a vegetable and cheese pie, or the handsome immortal that he wants forgiveness from.

1217

It takes two years for Andromache and Quỳnh to make their way back to Tunis, but they do with the package safely in hand and a travel-worn letter folded atop it. It takes Yusuf several days to gather the courage to open it, half-expecting some sort of trickery.

He finds a thoughtful gift and a strange letter and thinks that maybe trickery would have been easier for him to understand.

Yusuf --

Please find enclosed a clasp for your cloak. I remember you struggling to keep it fastened when we travelled together, all those years ago. It is not a bribe I am offering, but a continuation of our truce. It suits us well, I think, to be so far from one another. It has given me time to think of the wrongdoings I committed, the hurt I caused, and the terrifying hatred that burned in my soul.

There are no words to speak of how I regret my actions. I know that I cannot undo the past.

I can only offer this small token of my esteem and my plea that you look upon it with kindness that I do not deserve. You will see that it is etched with words from an Arabic poem. I think it is more beautiful than any words a poet from Genoa could have ever written.

I am myself and not myself. I am Nicolò di Genova, but also a man who does not know death. I think that you are also you and not you. Perhaps, we can become new men together if you will seek to give me another chance at becoming someone new entirely in your mind, if you will grant me forgiveness someday.

Even if you will not, I hope that you shall take this clasp and use it to keep warm.

In care, Nicolò

Yusuf takes the clasp in one hand, crumpling the letter in the other. He’s not sure what to do with this offering. He leaves the letter at his counter, angry and touched and confused and surprised all at once.

Those emotions are only heightened when he unwraps the linens to reveal a clasp with some of the most stunning workmanship he has ever laid eyes on.

“That absolute asshole,” he hisses, the anger winning out over the rest.

It’s not anger enough to have him dispose of the clasp. He will not be bought off, but neither will he ignore the beautiful craft of the metal. He can appreciate it without having to appreciate its sender. If Nicolò thinks that he can be so easily bought, then he is going to learn starkly otherwise.

Yusuf lets it be until he cannot and it requires him to let out his frustrations somehow. That “somehow” turns out to be a letter.

Nicolò --

You cannot buy me with shiny trinkets and pretty words. You cannot undo the harm that you have done. I do not need your help to keep warm. I do not need your help in any aspect of my life. You are not my guardian. If anything, you are still the demon that lurks in my shadow, haunting my memory.

You are another undying man, like I am. That is all you are. You would do well to keep that in mind.

The ink is blotchy in places and pointed in others, speaking to Yusuf’s rage as he penned the words. When he is finished, he allows the ink to dry and leaves it until the morning, taking the clasp with him to his quarters so that he can tuck it away and forget it exists.

The letter from Nicolò is harder to ignore.

In the morning light, he sets new eyes upon the harsh words he had written. He still feels a terribly complicated storm of things, but he is not sure Nicolò deserves such words when he is only broadening the terms of the truce by reaching out with a token of his apology.

He does not send it, but neither does Yusuf destroy it.

The things he feels are still vicious and complicated and real and tearing up the parchment feels too much like belittling them.

In the end, he sets the letter in his drawer. Time does not soothe the ache of this wound into nothing, but it allows it to scab over and scar. Days turn to weeks to months and eventually to years.

It’s with the grace of time that Yusuf finally returns to the cloak clasp and the letters -- both Nicolò’s and his own. The letter from Nicolò he places as a bookmark in the poetry compilation by his bed. Yusuf’s furious reply is burned in the fire.

The clasp?

It goes upon his cloak, only removed to be cleaned and tended to. Nicolò had spent a great deal of time crafting this apology to Yusuf. The least he can do is use it and treat it with at least a fraction of time and care in return.

1650

The sound of wet boots on the floor immediately fill Yusuf’s mind with dismal thoughts of mopping up the mess someone has tracked in. Without looking up, Yusuf calls out to the patron while trying to hide his disdain: “Stay there, I’ll fetch you a towel.”

He’s in the middle of shelving away his new acquisitions, both the books from merchants and the wine from the sailors who barter with fine vintages from around the world. On his way out, his gaze passes the window, where the sun shines in through the stained glass panes.

It’s not raining, yet he knows he’d heard the squelch of boots that imply a thunderous storm.

Strange.

He bends to find a large towel from a chest of drawers and when he rises, he finds Quỳnh standing there, soaking wet.

Yusuf gapes at her. “What happened to you?”

He is sure there could be any number of explanations and yet, nothing his imagination supplies paints a full picture. He doesn’t tell the other customers to leave the store, but many of them see the soaking woman as a mark that Yusuf’s store is an undesirable place to be, leaving them to their privacy. He will seek out their forgiveness later and bring the books they desire, but right now, his attention is on Quỳnh.

Once he checks the store for other patrons, he locks the door and puts on a kettle of tea.

“Andromache and I were travelling on a ship from Genoa,” Quỳnh explains, her words muffled behind the towel. “We had no reason to expect rough seas. When the swells started to crash the ship’s bow, we weren’t prepared.”

Storms of that nature are rare in the Roman Sea, but Yusuf has come to expect them at least once or twice a year. The picture is beginning to paint itself in his mind, given that they were likely on a small sloop carrying light cargo.

“You should know better,” is his indignant, stubborn response. “Travelling to see him in Genoa, you’ve clearly been cursed. You were swept overboard?”

Quỳnh nods, throwing the towel at his head in displeasure for something he’s said. It’s not hard to guess. Either she’s displeased with him for bringing up her ill luck in falling overboard or the tone Yusuf takes when speaking about Nicolò.

“It was luck or fate that brought me here,” she admits, “I drowned more times than I can count, but one of those times, I saw familiar land. I saw the port.”

It’s the very same port Yusuf sees from his front windows each day. He’d purchased this storefront because of its proximity to the ships that come in, because they’re his best access to books from other empires, not to mention the food before it goes to the market and the rarer commodity of fine liquor. Yusuf hands Quỳnh a mug of tea, settling on the counter as he studies her.

With her being so sopping wet, this must have only just happened. “Are you well?” he asks worriedly. “I can’t even begin to imagine what drowning so many times must be like.”

“Hell,” Quỳnh says bluntly. “The current would take me off course, but the sea eventually calmed. I drowned constantly, but luck brought me to your shore, Yusuf.” She wraps her long fingers around the mug, burying her nose in it. “Eventually, Andromache will be here and she will collect me.”

It seems as though he’s got company for the foreseeable future.

“I had been meaning to buy a new cat for the shop,” he muses. “I suppose you’ll do.”

Quỳnh hisses at him from behind her mug, still shaken enough that there doesn’t seem to be much actual venom in it.

“Good,” Yusuf says warmly, “you already know the part.”

He fetches her another blanket, because he doubts his charming warmth of personality will be enough to bolster her mood. He wraps it around her and coaxes her to sit in the most comfortable chair he owns, making room for himself beside her.

“You’ve never drowned, have you?” Quỳnh finally seems calmer once she’s had three mugs of tea. She’s pale, shaken, and Yusuf can only sympathize.

Shaking his head, he has to struggle to recall the last time he has died. “I’ve only died eight times, Quỳnh,” he says. “I’m lucky enough to not list drowning among them.”

She scoffs in derision. “Eight,” she echoes. “You were a warrior. I dreamt of your scimitar, of the way you killed Nicolò. Now you tell me you have only died eight times.”

He doesn’t intend to mention that three of those eight had been on the same day by Nicolò’s sword.

Since then, he has died twice of plague, once of starvation, once of fire, once of cold, and once, embarrassingly, from drinking too much and hitting his head.

“When I walked away from the battlefield, I fostered a truce with Nicolò,” he reminds her of a story she already knows well. “I took that as an opportunity for a fresh start. I can’t complain about the life I’ve found,” he says, eyes roaming his shop with pride. “I don’t want to become a warrior again.”

Five hundred years on and his shop is a work of art and history. It is Alexandria, only better, because Yusuf will not let anyone burn it down. He may have only died eight times, but that does not mean his scimitar has not been painted with blood to defend his home and his ground.

She gives him a displeased look, squeezing water out of her hair between sips of tea. She’s clearly disappointed in him. Yusuf could point out that if he hadn’t settled, she wouldn’t have had a port to swim to, but he’s not feeling that petty at the moment.

“I’ll fetch you clothes,” he says, hoping to stem any further criticisms of the peaceful life he’s chosen.

Quỳnh arches a brow. “You don’t have to run away from me to avoid the topic.”

“I think I might!” he counters over his shoulder, burying himself as he digs through the ornate chests he keeps behind the counter. “I don’t live the same life you do. I have made my peace with that.”

“You were a warrior,” she insists, utterly perplexed given the furrow of her brow. “You fought to defend your people, and now you’re content to sit behind a counter, drink tea, and copy down books?”

“Yes!” he snaps. “Quỳnh, I am!”

He really is. She might not believe him, but Yusuf has found true joy in what he does. Fighting, killing, slaying, slaughtering (even to defend) had never felt like this.

The disgust is clear on her face. “What a small and sad life.”

“Perhaps, but it’s my life,” Yusuf counters, yanking another towel for her and setting it aggressively down in front of her. “It is also my hospitality that you are trading in on. You should think twice about challenging the smallness and sadness of my life when you are wrapped up in its warmth.”

That quiets her. She accepts the towel with a murmur of gratitude, but Yusuf can tell she isn’t cowed.

“I no longer dream of you, but we see you often enough that we can see that you are bursting at the seams of this Library,” she says, once she has taken a moment to truly calm herself. “There is more out there and you know it. You feel that you are missing something, I can see that, too.”

She’s not wrong. Yusuf does feel as if there is an emptiness in his soul that he cannot name.

(Perhaps worse, he knows he can name it, but elects not to because his denial is a strong and fierce weapon that will protect him.)

Yusuf lifts the towel to collect her hair, drying it both to help her and so that he no longer has to face down her wrath. “All things come to the Library in time,” he says wisely, knowing this to be true. Even the one person he had come here to avoid has managed to invade these walls with letters and gifts.

Perhaps one day, that man will bestow his presence as well -- truce be damned.

“Be safe and mysterious, but I know you ache for something,” Quỳnh hums.

“Let’s focus on the missing piece in your life. Do you know where Andromache is? Can we get a message directly to her?”

Quỳnh takes the towel from Yusuf to continue drying the ends of her hair. “No need. Our contingency plan is firm. If either of us go missing while travelling south of Malta, we make for the Library and stay until we reunite. If North of Malta, we head to Genoa for the smithy.”

Yusuf arches a brow, deliberately not mentioning that she’s quick to judge his life, but just as swift to set it as a cornerstone in her plans.

“Oh, shut up, I can feel you complaining with your eyes,” she huffs.

“So long as you can feel it.”

He doesn’t think he’s earned the light shove she gives him, but she also doesn’t prod at Yusuf’s life again during dinner or the next day. His life may be small and sad to her, but she keeps quiet about it in the face of Yusuf’s intolerance for such judgments.

They settle into a comfortable routine as they wait.

Quỳnh helps with the cooking, though her specialities remain breakfast focused. She knits small boots for the stray cats that litter the alleys around the Library. At night, she tells him stories of what she and Andromache have been up to. Each time she does, there’s a moment where her voice lilts upwards and Yusuf can tell she’s approaching a question.

She catches herself each time and it never comes.

It’s both appreciated and terribly infuriating, because Yusuf would like to know what it is Quỳnh is so eager to know about his life.

It takes three weeks before news of Andromache reaches port.

One day, Yusuf is in the market and he overhears the merchants back from their voyage telling tales of a furious woman descending upon each port from here to Malta, demanding to know if any of them had picked up a woman named Quỳnh. According to all accounts, she should be arriving on a ship due into port today.

Yusuf hasn’t got a minute to spare. He stops back at the Library long enough for his shawl and to make sure Quỳnh stays where she is. “Quỳnh. I’m going to fetch something.”

“Lunch?” she calls out, distractedly.

When Yusuf pokes his head into the back, he finds her eating an orange and reading one of his books. He grimaces and plucks the orange from her hands, not wanting to have to dispense of the book because of stains on the pages.

“Something like that,” he quips. “I’m sure it will be a sight for sore eyes. Mind the storefront, will you?”

She barely acknowledges him, which is very ungrateful given that Yusuf intends to bring her beloved back to her. She’ll regret her indifference soon enough.

Is he being dramatic, not telling her where he’s going, and banking on her overwhelmed reaction upon his return? He supposes he is, but it’s not often he gets to be the catalyst to reunite two lovers. Still, with Quỳnh having been his companion for weeks, he’d have expected a bit more appreciation.

It’s not far to the port -- being that the Library’s proximity had been one of its selling points, many years ago -- and it certainly isn’t long before he finds a furiously determined woman scaring off the locals.

“Looking for a place to stay?” he calls over to Andromache.

The familiar voice doesn’t settle her, but it does relieve some of the others around them. Now that Yusuf has called out to her, they return to their business, treating Andromache as a ghost.

She moves with a coiled tension that betrays how worried she is. She wants to know that Quỳnh is safe, and Yusuf hopes his ease will give Andromache that peace of mind. She draws the scarf around her head back, advancing on him with a look she likely fixes on her enemies.

It is both terrifying and somehow arousing. Yusuf is not going to spend too long with that thought.

“Is she with you?”

“She is,” Yusuf vows, not wanting to leave Andromache worried. “She’s at the shop.”

“Does it still have such a boring name?”

Yusuf sighs, because even five hundred years later, he has yet to come up with anything better to call his shop. “Yes, Andromache, it’s still called the Library,” he says with an edge of defensiveness in his words. After all, it’s come to have a storied status in Tunis to rival that of other famous libraries around the world. What does it matter if the name isn’t creative?

“Bring me to her.”

Yusuf rolls his eyes. “And here I thought you were going to ask for a tour of the city,” he deadpans, because of course he’d meant to bring her straight home, though with one quick stop. “Let’s fetch lunch. I know the only hunger Quỳnh has is for you, but while the two of you have your reunion, I’d like to have something to eat.”

Andromache allows this, but Yusuf suspects it’s only because the market is mere steps away.

“Your bed is still cold and lonely, then? If there’s no one whose door you might darken while we reunite, I presume.”

Yusuf digs into his satchel for coins to trade for fresh dates and figs, giving Andromache an annoyed look. “Only moments ago, you looked as if you wanted to kill me. Now, you decide to slice me with a thousand cuts of judgment over my love life?”

She shrugs, and she doesn’t need to speak. The silence speaks for her. It says that she can only judge because Yusuf allows it.

He tucks away the food and some flatbread into his bag, nodding to the vendor with thanks. “There is no one,” he says to Andromache. “I don’t want there to be anyone.”

She gives him no response to that, but in this event, Yusuf isn’t sure whether it’s a kindness that she permits him to lie like this.

In return, he gives her the gift of silence. She is brimming with anticipation, but Yusuf knows she would be furious if Yusuf pointed it out. Instead, he delivers her back to the Library, heading inside and urging Andromache to shadow him close behind.

“You wouldn’t believe the catch I found at the market,” Yusuf jests warmly, getting Quỳnh’s attention so he can step aside and reveal Andromache.

The reaction he gets is everything he’d hoped and more.

“Andromache,” Quỳnh exhales, staggering back two steps as though she’s just been pushed back by a gust in a storm.

It’s as if she’s ceased needing the air around her to breathe. The way she speaks, the way she looks at her love, it knocks Yusuf back as though he’s experiencing the very same force of nature. There is no one in the world for Quỳnh but Andromache, and vice-versa.

He steps back, knowing he has faded from their attention. To them, Yusuf does not exist. If he could see through their eyes, he thinks that the world would be nothing but a blur outside one another.

Andromache’s hands cup Quỳnh’s cheeks, her shoulders, her waist, pulling her in and breathing in the smell of her. From here, Yusuf can see the tears in Andromache’s eyes, but knows he won’t say a word about it. She is in love and she has found her lost one. She can weep all the tears in the world and Yusuf would not think it strange.

“I’ll be in the back,” he says, even though he doubts that either of them are listening, taking his food with him and remaining grateful he’d thought to purchase something.

He goes, feeling adrift and pained, considering he has just helped to reunite his two dearest friends. Their happiness has highlighted his own unhappiness, a feeling that he has kept at bay and ignored, but cannot when shown such joy and love and care.

Will he ever know love like that?

Yusuf ignores the pang in his heart that reminds him that with his gift, there is none other in the world who will be able to love him the way Andromache and Quỳnh love one another. Intrusively, a traitorous thought whispers to him, that’s not true, but Yusuf robs that voice of its strength by ignoring it.

It does not matter if he thought the invader handsome.

It does not matter that he had seemed a different man after they set their truce.

It does not matter that Yusuf still dreams about him. Certainly, it does not matter that each additional letter he sends Yusuf is more tender and caring than the last.

The only thing that matters is Quỳnh’s safety. She is here, in Andromache’s arms, being cradled like the precious thing she is.

The ache in Yusuf’s heart is a secondary matter. If he is not destined to find a love like that, it will not matter. The shop is his love, and he tends to his books and his customers with the undying devotion of a man in love.

But, what if he could have someone?

Hand drifting towards the last unopened letter from Genoa, Yusuf closes his eyes and lets himself imagine for a single moment that he might allow Nicolò to take him in his arms the way Andromache had Quỳnh. He imagines Nicolò’s long fingers cupping his face, the intense burn of his eyes on Yusuf’s, and his admittedly lovely lips forming his name.

Yusuf, I have missed you, he imagines Nicolò saying, drifting towards this fantastic fantasy with a desperate ache.

“Yusuf!” comes Quỳnh’s delighted voice, breaking him out of his reverie as if burned. “Yusuf, it’s safe to come out now, we’re through saying hello and we’re both hungry. Come here, show us what you’ll cook us for lunch.”

Unsteady, Yusuf releases the letter and calms himself with several steady breaths.

The daydream evaporates as if smoke. There is no one else for him in the world that is here. There is only an invader who has returned to Genoa to live his life, just as Yusuf has made a life for himself here.

That is the truce they made, and that is the one they will live by --

No matter how lonely Yusuf might feel because of it.

1100

Each night, Yusuf dreams of the women. Since he has first died, they are a constant fixture in his thoughts. At first, he’d thought them imagined, as if some kind of trick of the mind to cope with his seeming inability to die.

There are two of them, as if to match him and Nicolò in number.

For days, he wonders what that represents. Are they a manifestation of peace and the truce they’re fostering? In the dreams, he can sense the great fondness the women have for each other. Perhaps they are a guiding light, and a reminder why Yusuf is taking such great pains to keep his scimitar at rest.

Tonight, as he and Nicolò settle for the night, he wonders if he will dream of them again.

They’ve stopped at an oasis, the first signs that they are beginning to inch ever closer to the sea and the port where they will go their separate ways. Here, Yusuf can begin to see the vegetation change as the desert gives way to new terrain. He thinks he can even smell the salt in the air, as if beckoning them closer. The market is a distant memory now and Yusuf does not find himself struggling to reconcile the Nicolò of the war with the Nicolò who possesses such kind smiles and gentleness for children.

Nearby, the man in question (neither the warrior nor the kind guardian, but some other version) lies on his bedroll, though he does not sleep restfully.

Yusuf snorts in derision, assuming Nicolò is a wilting flower and dislikes the temperature. It’s become clear that Nicolò cannot bear the heat of the day or the brisk cold of the nights. His skin goes effusively red when they travel and unbearably pale in the nights. In both cases, it sets off the shifting colour of his eyes, perplexing Yusuf and making him stare as he tries to determine what colour they actually are.

“Unprepared idiot,” Yusuf mutters under his breath as he pokes at the fire. It’s become clear that Nicolò had gone to war without even a cursory knowledge of how to do anything apart from destroy and pillage.

If not for his charity, Yusuf suspects that Nicolò would have perished already, ravaged by the elements, at least ten times over in their journey.

Soon, Nicolò’s restless sleep gives way to something unsettled.

Yusuf remains awake, unable (more likely unwilling) to sleep with Nicolò nearby. He worries that he will wake to find a dagger plunged into his heart, and while he knows he’ll survive it, he doesn’t want to lose another shirt.

So Yusuf stays awake, watching Nicolò’s distress.

His leg kicks at the blankets as he tightens his fists, clutching at the sand. Despite the cool night, Nicolò is sweating. The moonlight illuminates the sheen on his skin and his tunic sticks to his torso.

Yusuf is entranced, as if captivated and spellbound.

Worse, then come the noises. Nicolò writhes and moans, but Yusuf discovers the sound is not off-putting. If anything, it draws his attention, his eyes fixed on Nicolò’s body as he twists and gasps, his plush lips falling open as heavy breaths rest upon his lower lip. His long fingers tangle in his blanket, tightening and releasing, and Yusuf’s guilty mind asks:

What would that hand feel like, on your skin?

Instantly, Yusuf stops this line of thinking. This man had killed him, more than once. He fought with Yusuf’s enemy against all that he believed in and held dear.

And yet, at night, with the biting chill of the air on him and a tentative truce between them, those things fade into the back of his mind. He thinks only of Nicolò’s large hands and how it would feel to be taken apart by them not in violence, but in a frenzied passion of a very different kind.

He blames the thoughts on a weak mind surrendering to desire.

He blames the need on the fact that he hasn’t been touched in years.

He blames everyone -- the world, his situation, Nicolò (he can and will blame the invader so many times over), Nicolò (because he has no right to torment him like this), Nicolò (because Yusuf is not supposed to want like this, so clearly it is his fault).

The thoughts burn in his mind, making him furiously angry for this betrayal. He shouldn’t want to touch the invader. It must be some sort of wild sorcery that compels his thoughts. No matter how lonely or desperate Yusuf is, he cannot imagine himself wanting this man, yet the desire remains.

That night, he sleeps in fits and starts. None of it is restful, and this he blames on Nicolò as well.

When morning comes, Yusuf is pricklier than ever. His words cut, his gaze is withering, and his temper is short. He knows he could blame it on his lack of sleep, but his low patience and his growing ire are a consequence of why he’d lost sleep, which only makes him angrier.

In turn, Nicolò digs his heels in. If Yusuf asks for water, Nicolò holds his gaze and drains the last drop from his waterskin. If Yusuf snaps at him to move faster in cooking breakfast, Nicolò slows until he is practically frozen.

He is being more frustratingly annoying than ever before, and it leads to them snapping at one another.

Their truce is in such a precarious state that Yusuf begins to wonder if this will be the day it ends. If Nicolò moves even a second slower as he cooks, Yusuf is going to lodge his scimitar in his throat not only for his petulance, but for making Yusuf feel such complicated things last night, despite the fact that nothing had happened.

Yusuf tells himself that again and again, as if that will soothe his mind.

He need not regret, and there is nothing to forget. He had been weak and allowed his mind to drift, on account of his loneliness, but he hadn’t made a fool of himself.

Yet, even as that relief washes over him, another small voice enters the fray. This one whispers insidiously: You could have this, it could have been yours, don’t you deserve to allow yourself this desire, what would be the worst that could happen if you showed him you want him?.

“There’s a bucket of water to your left when you’re finally through cooking breakfast,” Yusuf says instead, willing his voice even as he reminds himself that showing weakness means exposing himself to his enemy. “You need it. You look as if a hoard of animals trampled all over your hair.”

Nicolò rubs a hand through the knots as he sits up slowly. He always moves at this half speed when he wakes, decidedly not a morning person. Yusuf does not think about the cause of his unrest, knowing it will do no good.

“Did you sleep well?” Nicolò yawns, barely covering it like the heathen he is.

Yusuf grunts his answer. He did not. He does not want to talk about it any longer. “Go plunge your head in the water. At least it will help one of us.”

“How?”

“At least then I won’t have to see your face or hear you speak.”

Nicolò scowls, which is preferable to the rumpled sleepy look it has replaced. When he is sleep-soft (and likely sleep-warm), it becomes harder than ever for Yusuf to remember why he hates this man. If Nicolò doesn’t push his face into the cold water Yusuf’s brought, he may drown him in there himself.

“How long until we reach our destination?” Yusuf has turned away, but he hears the long-suffering note in Nicolò’s voice right before the telltale splashing of Nicolò doing exactly as told.

Hellfire, but Yusuf isn’t sure that Nicolò following his orders precisely is any better for his opinion of him.

“Too long yet,” is his roughened answer, if only because he is beginning to suspect that the longer he spends with Nicolò, the more he will lose sight of why he loathes this man.

There are too many reasons for Yusuf to hate him to stop now. They have been working on a truce, but what good is peace if the delicate balance they’ve been working towards completely topples because of heated and desperate passions?

“Far, far too long,” Yusuf reiterates when he turns around to see the droplets from Nicolò’s hair cascading down his tunic and causing the linen to stick to his back, illustrating the width of his shoulders against the morning light.

If they do not part soon, Yusuf suspects he will lose the desire to go separate ways with Nicolò, out of his own weak loneliness.

That cannot be permitted to happen.

1300

Nicolò,

It pains me to say, but your latest delivery is not the worst gift in the world. If it had come from anyone else, I might even thank them. The work you did on the patterns in the horseshoe is impressive, even if it remains insulting that you believe I need your countrymen’s version of luck.

However, you cannot think you will win in this fashion.

In return, I am sending a book that I believe will be most beneficial for your relationships in life. It is a helpful book on manners and etiquette. I think you’ll find it interesting that nowhere in its chapters does it suggest travelling by land and sea in order to conquer a land that does not belong to you.

Do not send it back to me when you are through with it. I suspect you will need to read it more than once to get it through your thick head.

- Yusuf

1210

“Nicolò!”

There are some customers in town that Nicolò abhors seeing. They are usually the men who want swords to battle with, who come to his shop with a lust for blood in their eyes. They are an unfortunate reflection of the man Nicolò used to be and is trying to move away from. He loathes them.

Then, there are the ones who do not know what they want, only that his shop has an excellent reputation and they want to waste their coins on kitchen wares, personal weapons, or intricate broaches, necklaces, and decorative pieces. He tolerates them because they do not insult him and pay adequately for his time.

And then, there is the last category -- his favourite.

“Lucia,” he greets the woman entering, who belongs securely in this group. She has interrupted his inventory, but he is happy to allow her to distract him from his plans to travel north soon to pick up the marble he needs for his upcoming jobs.

Lucia does not hesitate, sweeping behind the counter to kiss Nicolò’s cheek.

“You are being suspiciously warm and friendly today,” Nicolò observes as he sets his notebook aside.

Perhaps he is being overly judgmental. She is a lovely woman, Lucia, but not prone to physical affections, especially not with men. For her to suddenly dole such tenderness upon Nicolò implies that she needs something.

“Do I need to chase someone away from you?”

“No, not today, but I thank you for your brutish protectiveness,” she teases. “I am here for a favour.”

He smiles, knowingly. “And you say that I don’t know you,” he teases warmly, reaching for his book to take notes for the job. “What is it you need?”

Lucia sighs as she flutters a hand over her heart. “I am trying to mend my broken heart, you see,” she begins, as dramatic as ever. If there had been anyone besides Nicolò in the shop, he thinks she might have even swooned. “My Giulia, she is not speaking to me.” She sniffs, as if she’s going to cry, though no tears come.

It is very performative, which is enough for Nicolò to sense it is not all truth. “What did you do?”

Lucia rolls her eyes, all signs of distress and despair gone. “It doesn’t matter, it only matters that she’s not speaking to me and I haven’t known her kiss for two weeks now,” she huffs. “I said a very stupid thing about her family and was very rude. I thought she would laugh!”

“She did not,” Nicolò guesses.

“Now she is cross with me, and I am ready to plead my forgiveness,” she says, digging into her pocket to find coins. “I want you to make a locket for me. I’ll come to carve the likeness in clay, but the other side should be a fine jewel.” She keeps counting, adding coin upon coin.

This is a very expensive apology.

“Have you not tried apologizing with words first? It would be cheaper.”

“Sometimes, words are not enough,” Lucia says, shaking her head with despair. “I’ve tried to apologize for what I did, what I said, but she doesn’t think I’m serious. This,” she insists with a nod of her head, “this will be what I need to show her that I am truly serious. If I put coin behind it, then she knows it is not simply an afterthought.”

Nicolò is not sure he sees the logic of her intentions. How can a person buy the goodwill of another? Surely they make up their mind about you and that is the end of the story. They decide and you must learn to live with it.

“Lucia,” he sighs, not wishing to crush her dreams, but feeling like he has no other option. “Are you sure it will be enough?”

“No,” is her blunt answer. “But I am sure that if I do nothing at all, then it certainly will never even merit her attention. I must try,” she says passionately, setting the coins in Nicolò’s palm where she can squeeze them in. “I’ll return later this week to help you craft the likeness. I mean it, Nicolò. I want the very best.”

“For you, I will only seek the finest materials,” Nicolò vows, feeling envious that Lucia can be so sure of what it is she must do.

She presses a kiss to his cheek once she’s sure that he will accept the coins, making an appointment to return on Tuesday. With great fondness, Nicolò sees her off before returning to his other projects, fetching himself a glass of strong wine and his notebook to begin making his plans for the week.

The shop is properly his now, which means that he answers to no one.

It also means that he must keep his own schedule, something that Nicolò has struggled to do when he knows he puts priority on the orders that do not involve weapons at all. In a city that is oft-dominated by skirmishes and fighting, it is a losing proposition for his business.

Or, it would be, if Nicolò weren’t immortal and had no need of riches.

He tries, as best as he can, to focus on making notes on his other projects, but he finds that he is distracted. There is no way he can rein in his focus, which usually only happens when lunchtime approaches and Nicolò is starving.

Today, it is not food that his mind stops on. It lingers on the planned locket and on Lucia’s determination.

Sometimes, words are not enough.

Nicolò has spent decades wondering what it is that he could say to Yusuf to apologize for his actions, and those of his people. Nothing has seemed to measure up to what he feels and Nicolò’s own opinion, that there is nothing he can do, has always stopped him.

Maybe he is simply not going about it the right way. Maybe what he needs is to show Yusuf that he is serious by investing his time and his funds into something he sends.

He drags his notebook back to add in another line for new supplies. Silver, he thinks. Perhaps the intent behind the gift means more than its value, but given what Nicolò must beg forgiveness for, a cheap gift will do him no good.

Now that he’s made the first step, the plan begins to coalesce with frightening speed.

He will need books of poetry, as many as he can get.

And, he suspects, he will need some lessons in Arabic.

He had better hurry if he wants to get this gift to Yusuf soon. It has already been a century and Nicolò fears that with every passing day, he loses the chance to atone for his sins. There’s no time to lose.

So, Nicolò gets to work.

Chapter Text

1651

Nicolò --

I thought you would want to know that it may be some time before Quỳnh and Andromache visit you once more. We nearly lost Quỳnh to the tides, but with luck, she only washed up on the Tunisian shores like a glass bottle. Andromache reunited with her some weeks ago, but I suspect they will be spending time reflecting on how close they came to losing it all.

They are happy and in love. I find myself glad for them, yet struggle sometimes to understand how they make it look so simple.

I’ve sent you three new books with this letter. Don’t let the sailors bringing you this letter trick you into thinking that there are any less. I know how easily fooled you can be. The first is an early copy of Dante’s Fiore and the Detto d’Amore, and I found a book on crafting aquamaniles from bronze, as you mentioned you had hoped to make an attempt in your last letter. The last book is yet another on etiquette and manners, to continue your education.

Did you know that we are their ports in a storm? Malta is the dividing line between whether they reunite in Tunis or Genoa. I wonder if we are perfectly measured as if by a string, destined to be apart.

Do they ask you if you are lonely? I wonder -- what do you tell them?

I wonder if I ask you that same question, would you tell me the truth?

Enjoy the books. Stop sending me knives. I’ve run out of room to store them.

- Yusuf

1678

“Nico-co! The ship is back and I think there’s something on it you’ll want to see!”

Nicolò nearly hits his head as he sits up from where he’s putting the finishing touches on a shield. He’d paid one of the local children to alert him to the privateer ship’s return, but now he has to move swiftly if he wants to meet the sailors as they first embark. Lorenzo is a young child, but there is no mistaking his pleasure in delivering a message that has rattled Nicolò so.

Brushing back his chin-length hair, he reaches for a silk ribbon to tie it back, checking his reflection frantically. He knows it is vanity, but he is powerless to it. He takes one last look before locking up and hurrying along to the port to see the ship from Algiers arrive.

He knows he will not have long before the merchants swarm the sailors to barter and ask what they’ve brought in, but Nicolò is hopeful that his quick pace will get him there first.

“Nico,” Lorenzo whines, having tailed him all this way, “You said you would pay me if I told you when the ship came in.”

Did he? He must have. “What payment did I promise?”

Lorenzo’s eyes narrow in the scheming look of an infant. “Whatever I want from the market,” he announces.

Nicolò keeps moving, digging through his purse to find several coins. He doesn’t spend much time counting their value, because money means little to him these days. He has been alive long enough and the shop is paid off. He has treasure troves of money.

“Here, you brat,” he says fondly, ruffling Lorenzo’s hair. “Learn to barter better at the market, or they’ll take you for everything I’ve given you.”

It looks like it must have been a lot, given the awe on Lorenzo’s face. He lets out a piercing screech of excitement, calling for his friends as he bolts in the other direction. Good. It means Nicolò will have some privacy.

He lingers in the shadows at the port, watching casks of alcohol and food stores unloaded from the ship. None of these are what he hopes to see. He does make a note that he should stock up on wine, especially if he means to entertain soon, but food and wine are a poor substitute for his heart’s desire.

Luckily for Nicolò, what he wants appears only moments later.

Whistling, he catches the attention of the man he’s so eager to see, nodding towards the nearest alley. It takes a second whistle before he catches sight of Nicolò. The sea-air pushes through his dark curls and his smile nearly knocks Nicolò off his feet. He’s quick to hide it, and Nicolò understands why.

They must remain a secret. It cannot come to the attention of anyone what they are doing.

What would they say, to know a merchant sailor and a Genoan smith are stealing time together?

Nicolò trusts that he will be followed, casually ambling down to the nearest alley. His heart pounds in his chest frantically, adrenaline combining with excitement. He can feel the prickle of it and it makes him lighter than air, as if he could float away.

“Nicolò.”

Nicolò shakes his head and keeps walking. “Not yet,” he calls over his shoulder, walking forward like Orpheus guiding his Eurydice, refusing to look back.

It reminds him of the book sitting open on his nightstand.

Suddenly, the adrenaline swoops. It’s replaced with a desperate ache and fierce longing. Nicolò despises it and needs it to stop. He turns, betraying Eurydice, but it’s worth it to see his lover standing there in the alley, gazing upon Nicolò as if he were prey.

“Sami,” Nicolò greets him breathlessly, grasping him by his sea-salt-soaked collar to haul him back against the stones of the alley wall, treating himself to a kiss he’s been longing for.

It does not replace all his longing, but he never thought it could. He will never get the kiss he truly longs for, so he has been replacing it with adequate substitutions. Nicolò’s desperation is tantamount, given that Sami has been at sea for months. Before that, in the weeks he and Sami spent together, Nicolò had rediscovered what it’s like to have even a shred of intimacy to tide him through the cold nights.

Actual intimacy and not only the echoes of his dreams.

It is a good enough kiss and that’s all that matters.

“Do you still keep that excellent bed at the back of your shop?” Sami murmurs against Nicolò’s lips, once their aggressively desperate kisses have eased and they’re both left catching their breath, a bead of sweat pooling in Sami’s collarbone, as if to match the one trickling down Nicolò’s temple.

Nicolò’s grin is a slow thing, but soon it blooms on his lips like a burst of spring.

“How many weeks have you spent at sea, and my bed is the only thing you think of?”

“Not only your bed,” Sami vows, winking at Nicolò. “There is an excellent feature that your bed has. Every so often,” he muses as he allows his fingertips to spider walk across the breadth of Nicolò’s shoulders, “there is a very handsome naked man in it.”

Nicolò’s breath catches as he takes in the hungry look in Sami’s eyes. He thinks of the open book from Tunis on the nightstand and the man who sent it. He stares at this handsome man before him, a facsimile of Yusuf down to his very smile and his kind eyes.

Close enough, he decides. He can continue this charade, if only a little longer.

“In that case, I do keep it in my shop. Would you like to see it? Evaluate the merchandise?” he offers calmly.

The slow drag of Sami’s eyes over Nicolò’s body is utterly inappropriate and brings a flush to Nicolò’s skin. He exhales shakily and tangles his ring and pinky finger with Sami’s to slowly tug him along.

They do not speak as they go. They do not have to, as they’re both aware of what it is they want from each other. Both are aware of the prying eyes, so they keep their touches to the warm and brief contact of their hands as they walk, which is enough of a touch to set Nicolò’s heart afire.

That, or perhaps it is simply his loneliness crying out with relief that it is finding some respite.

Sami nudges Nicolò up against the door of the unmarked smithy, eyes roaming over his face. “Have you anything new to show me, Nicolò?”

“I will let you be the judge of that.”

Nicolò knows his shop expertly, able to open the door without breaking his gaze with Sami, pulling him in and locking up behind them. There is only one thing he wants right now, which is being tantalizingly teased as Sami strips his weather-worn linen shirt off, his broad shoulders catching Nicolò’s breath.

Maybe this is not new, but it certainly has not lost its beauty.

Nicolò follows him into the bedroom, closing the door behind them, and begins to take his time showing Sami exactly how much he’s missed him (or, in truth, how much Nicolò has missed the basic intimacy of another person in his bed, but he is too lonely and touch-starved to acknowledge that anyone would do).

Later, when the sweat from their bodies cools in the evening chill, Sami turns on his side to drag his fingers over Nicolò’s side. “I found a small sloop that I can afford with my earnings.”

Nicolò’s eyes are still closed, still thinking about the pleasant scrape of Sami’s beard against his thighs, ignoring how his mind had thought about another man, another beard, and other pleasurable aches that could be had.

“You’ll want a sextant then,” Nicolò mumbles. “I think I have one from a recent trade. Do you want me to go fetch it…?” He’s already twisting to grasp the sheets, ready to investigate his inventory.

He doesn’t get that far before Sami grasps him by the hips and hauls him back to bed, laughing as he does.

“Nicolò,” he murmurs, bestowing a soft kiss to his neck. “I don’t need a sextant.”

“Of course you need one,” Nicolò huffs. “You’ll be lost at sea without it, you’re terrible without the help.”

“Yes, fine, I need a sextant. What I mean to say is that I don’t want a sextant for my journey from you. I want you there, with me. Leave your shop behind, Nicolò, come and explore the world with me,” he entreats, gripping at Nicolò’s hips as he straddles him. He is full of passion in his pleas, eyes bright. It makes his handsome face even more comely. “There is a whole world out there. Won’t you come and discover it with me?”

He thinks of the last man he had travelled with, of the world out there he has been ignoring, but for the letters from another land in his drawers to go with the books. He thinks of Quỳnh and Andromache’s prodding that he stop hiding behind a counter and discover what’s waiting for him out there.

He does as much good as he can in Genoa and knows that he could do more outside its boundaries, but it has become home.

Nicolò also knows that if he were to leave, the temptation to sail to Tunis would be undeniable and irrefutable. It would break the truce, and while Nicolò suspects he and Yusuf are both straining at the edges of it, it still holds in place for good reason. Their journeys home had been fraught with tension, as if any moment it might break.

It’s safer for them to be apart.

This means that it’s safer for Nicolò to be here.

“Sami,” Nicolò exhales, sitting up and collecting the sheets around his waist.

Does he want to travel the world with this man? Is he willing to put the comfort of his life behind him and strike out anew with him?

“You’re not coming with me, are you?”

Nicolò bows his head, grateful that Sami already knows his answer. It still pains him to hear the grief in Sami’s words, but it’s better that he knows. Nicolò cares for him too much to lie to him.

“Why?” Sami sounds heartbroken and Nicolò wishes that he felt the same. Perhaps that is his sign. He does not feel sadness, but rather relief that he will not have to hide from Sami to conceal the fact that he isn’t ageing. “I think I’m owed this much. Is it because you do not love me?”

He does not. He has never hinted that he might. Nicolò feels a sharp and bitter pang in his heart that he will have to part with Sami like this.

“Sami…”

Nicolò isn’t sure what there is to say. He is not ready to reveal his secret to Sami. He’s not sure he ever will be, partially because he likes Sami, but he doesn’t think it’s anything more than that.

No other words come. Nicolò knows that nothing he could say would be enough.

The dearth of words certainly doesn’t help Sami’s mood.

“I should have known that you weren’t capable of love,” Sami says with a bitter huff, grasping at his trousers to yank them back on in a hurry. When Nicolò reaches out to try and soothe him with a hand on his shoulder, Sami is quick to shove it away. “Don’t,” he bites out. “I should have listened to the women in town who speak of Nicolò di Genova’s inability to love. He never takes a lover. He never seeks a mistress. He has a heart of hate and ice.”

Nicolò understands that Sami is hurt, but the words sting as if barbed.

Sami cannot know the sins Nicolò atones for, nor the person he is trying to mend his reputation with. He cannot, yet if those who live with him believe Nicolò to be incapable of love, then how is it that Nicolò will ever prove otherwise to Yusuf?

Oh. Is that it, then? Is that his proof that he is not heartless?

“I can love,” Nicolò says with a firm and calm confidence.

It is not merely a protest. It is a fact.

He knows that he can love because he does not want to go with Sami, yet he knows that if it were Yusuf in his bed asking if Nicolò would sail the world with him, there would be no hesitation before he said yes.

He knows that if he is heartless, it is only because he has given it away to a man across the sea -- the very same man that Nicolò sends his most sincere words and his dearest gifts to.

“You simply do not love me,” Sami counters. There is an ache in his expression and a wounded look in his eye that Nicolò has never seen before.

It reminds him of Yusuf and those early days, when his rage and his grief and his hurt had seemingly guided their interactions. Nicolò regrets defending his ability to love, at least in this moment, because now he has the choice to be honest or to hide.

Worse, in truth and honesty, he will be admitting to much more than simply not feeling this way for Sami. If he ignores the truth, he is ignoring that his days are brightest when he receives a letter from Tunis. He would be ignoring the way he is stirred to passion when he wakes from a dream about Yusuf.

It would be admitting that sometimes he stares at the harbour and thinks of sailing to Tunis, if only to beg Yusuf for a new truce.

Still, he has only now realized that maybe it is love that he feels and Nicolò has just broken another man’s heart. “Sami,” he exhales, and accepts that a lie will do no good. “I cannot go with you,” he says, “because I do not love you the way that I should.”

Centuries ago, Nicolò had wielded a longsword with expert ease and deadly accuracy.

Now, he stumbles over painful words that cause just as much damage.

“Heartless,” Sami spits out, yanking his shirt back on. “Don’t worry about seeing me in the harbour. I’ll take my business to Pisa,” he spits out, followed by a number of unpleasant and profane names for Nicolò.

He swipes his satchel and casts one last invective at Nicolò with a furious glare, slamming the door behind him as he vanishes from Nicolò’s life.

There have been so many that have simply drifted past him as they aged and died. Nicolò has gone into hiding to allow the decades to pass without someone noticing that each owner of his shop looks so similar to the last.

He has not made anyone so angry that they storm out of his presence with such a fuss, not since…

Nicolò exhales slowly and grips the edge of his bed. Twice, now. It has happened twice. For all that he has been trying to be better, he still is not good enough. For all that he is more aware of his heart’s desire, he knows he cannot go to Yusuf. Not now. Not yet.

He must become better so that when he does, they will not simply repeat history.

Perhaps, Nicolò thinks, it is time for another letter.

If nothing else, it would soothe his heart, knowing that there is something he can do to prove that he very much has a heart -- it’s simply in Tunis, across the sea.

1813

He is surrounded by the French. He has been surrounded by them for almost a decade, since Napoleon and his forces annexed Genoa into a French protectorate. Since then, Nicolò’s own private business of providing arms to those who cannot afford them otherwise is sidelined so he can become an armoury for the growing resistance brewing in the streets. If there is something he can do, then Nicolò will do it.

The French, he is sick of, which is why he feels additionally insulted when Andromache arrives at his modest storefront with one in tow.

“No,” he says firmly.

“Nicolò,” Andy says calmly.

“I don’t want one of them inside my shop,” he continues, turning up his nose at the man. Never mind that he’s been in his dreams, he has no place inside Nicolò’s place of business, not when his people are out there suppressing Genoa’s freedom. He’s even wearing one of the uniforms of Napoleon’s men.

“I still don’t understand why we’re here,” the Frenchman says.

“Two reasons,” Andromache says, her eyes fixed on Nicolò, unflinching. “Three,” she amends. “First, so you won’t dream of him. Second, because I need a new sword.”

She trails off, and Nicolò knows it’s because she wants him to ask. Unfortunately, his curiosity wins out. “Third?”

She digs into her bag for something wrapped carefully in linens, setting it on the counter before Nicolò. “Third, I come bearing gifts.” Nicolò approaches carefully, reverent as he begins to unearth the gift. His fingers are delicate on the linen, and he nearly reveals the title when Andromache continues. “It’s from Tunis.”

Nicolò’s fingers jump from the cover, as if burned. He pushes it away, mindful of his audience and how little he trusts the new one. “I don’t want it.”

Andromache clearly doesn’t believe him. She knows better despite Nicolò never having admitted to anything, but maybe one of her skills over thousands of years is the ability to read the minds of men trying their best to suppress the things they should not be feeling.

“I’m not taking it back,” Andromache says mildly. “Quỳnh’s always complaining about how heavy my bag is. It stays.”

Dutifully, Nicolò nods, aware that she will not be changing her mind. He reaches for the book to slide it away, but not before he notices there’s a bookmark of a sort sticking out. While Andromache shows Sébastien around the store, pointing out weapons that might work for him, he slides out what appears to be a letter.

The gift is something he will enjoy, but then put away to be forgotten. The letters are to be cherished.

He’ll read it later, mindful of the prying eyes on him at the moment. He takes great care to tuck the letter in with his personal belongings before returning his attention to Andromache and their new immortal ally.

“Does it have a name?” he calls over to Andromache, as he fetches his materials to begin work for her sword.

The Frenchman bristles, but Andromache’s cool smile is worth it. “Sébastien,” she says. “Or…?”

“No,” Sébastien grunts. “That’s fine.”

“I’ll be in the back of the shop,” he says. “Call me when you want to leave and I’ll lock up after you.”

He works with a frantic fervour, as if the presence of Sébastien and his uniform sparks the fierce desire to pour his frustration into something productive. When he is through with Andromache’s sword, he knows that he will return to the resistance’s weapons. The reminder of what they’re fighting in the form of Sébastien’s uniform only spurs him to work harder, longer, to do whatever he must.

Someone clears their throat while Nicolò is finishing up with the measurements for Andromache’s weapon, wondering what terrible villain will be on the dangerous end. He looks up to find Sébastien is still lingering. “Did Andromache leave?”

“No, she’s bickering with one of your customers about the axe you have on the wall,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder.

Nicolò waits for something more that never comes.

God save him from Napoleon’s army and its infuriating soldiers.

“What do you want?” he asks brusquely, because he doesn’t have time for this. He has a book from Tunis to think about and the desperate desire to read Yusuf’s letter. He knows that he will read it once, twice, and then a third time. He knows that he will dream of Yusuf. It is something he has been longing for, if only to have a glimpse at Yusuf’s face once more.

Sébastien’s eyes widen sharply, surprised by Nicolò’s tone.

“I thought maybe you might have more answers. Why we are the way we are. If there’s an end to this,” he mutters. Nicolò recognizes his tone.

It’s a similar frustration that he felt for hundreds of years. It’s the neverending question of why that doesn’t leave you alone at night. It’s wondering when it will all end, because it will end. He trusts Quỳnh and Andromache when they say that this isn’t permanent, that nothing in life is.

One day, they will die.

It’s just curious why Sébastien already sounds like he’s hoping for that to be soon. “What I know of this life is what Andromache would have already told you,” he says, smoothing his tone just a little when he thinks back to those early days and how he would have reacted if someone offered no sympathy or kindness. “We are what we are. One day, we will die when it is our time. None of us know when that is, and none of us can hasten it along.”

Sébastien looks displeased with the answer, his eyes dull as he slumps forward on the front counter of Nicolò’s little shop.

“What about the other one?” Sébastien asks roughly. “Yusuf? Does he know more than you do?”

Nicolò lifts one of the letter openers he has been working on to package it in its case. It is his excuse to look away from Sébastien, sure that his expression will give away his feelings at the mere mention of the other man otherwise.

“I wouldn’t know,” he says, working to keep his voice steady. “I haven’t seen him since we parted ways.”

“And when was that?”

“The early twelfth century,” he admits, feeling a keening ache in his chest. It is the one he feels at night when he thinks about Yusuf and wonders if they made a severe mistake and knowing that without true change, it had been the only way. Nicolò had been the one in the wrong and he had reparations to make in order to become a better man.

Now, so many years later, he thinks he’s a better man, but how would he know? Only Yusuf can truly be the judge and after so long, Nicolò does not know when he will be ready or how to approach him.

The thought moves him to think of the treasure he has been working on for Yusuf.

He had originally intended to send a new knife, until Yusuf’s protests changed his mind. Just because he cannot send a new knife does not mean he is useless. For years, he has been collecting the tools to send Yusuf a beautifully handmade book binding set, contained in an engraved wood box of heavy oak.

He has finally had it stained and protected and when Andromache leaves here with Sébastien, she will also leave with this next gift. Perhaps Yusuf will use the kit to bind new books.

Perhaps, in the future, one of the books he sends to Nicolò will be personally made by Yusuf himself. If he is that lucky to receive a book prepared with Yusuf’s beautiful hands, then he will know he has done an excellent job.

“You’re not much use, are you,” Sébastien comments, heavy with bitterness and grief.

“You have a long life ahead of you,” Nicolò snipes back. “Why waste it seeking answers instead of living it?”

That sharp retort stems the tide of more stupid questions, thankfully. Nicolò returns to his work, wondering in the back of his mind if he’s the problem because this makes a second immortal that he’s stepped onto the wrong foot with.

Or, maybe, it’s just that Sébastien hardly has a winning personality. He likes Andromache and Quỳnh plenty. He’s certainly come around to Yusuf, even if only in his mind and through their letters (even if he stubbornly changes the subject if the topic arises in mixed company).

Maybe Nicolò is simply tired of the French and it has nothing to do with Sébastien at all.

Whatever it is, his mood is darker than it had been before Andromache arrived in his shop.

Before their animosity can become something worse, Andromache arrives to take Sébastien with her, noting that she’ll be back to visit Nicolò soon before they sail for Tunis.

He knows, even if she does not say, that when they go, they will be taking any gifts and letters with them. For that, Nicolò is grateful. He is desperate for the book binding box to depart and make its way to its intended recipient.

“It was interesting meeting you,” Sébastien says in parting, his voice painted with mild indifference bordering on disdain.

Nicolò doesn’t bother offering him words, only a grunt of acknowledgement for both him and for Andromache.

Good riddance, thinks Nicolò, when Andromache cuffs Sébastien by the back of his head and pulls him from Nicolò’s shop.

It might be his existing prejudice against his countrymen and Sébastien never stood a chance, or maybe it’s just this particular one. Either way, it reinforces Nicolò’s decision to stay in his little shop in Genoa, making his wares to help the locals with their cause, keeping his head down so he can work and make a difference.

He can do plenty of good from here.

In the short term, that good begins and ends with creating something beautiful and useful for Yusuf for Andromache to pick up when she returns.

1610

Nicolò.

The knife you sent is, unfortunately, a very useful one. It seems as though you have learned sensible gift-giving in the last few centuries and it is truly appreciated. In return, I’m sending this gift with Andromache in hopes she will bring it to you on her next visit. Being that my shop is so near to the harbour, the sailors from Genoa often bring new tomes to barter with.

I was left Sir Orfeo by one of your countrymen. I have no need for a sixth copy of the same book to live in my shop and it reminded me of you. More specifically, of the day we made our truce and parted, though Orfeo could learn from you.

You never looked back.

Take it. Enjoy it, even. You will do me a service to not have it cluttering up my shelves when I already have so many copies.

Nicolò’s heart races in his chest, though he knows the book’s subject does not thrill him to excitement, but rather its sender. He thinks of that day, so long ago, and what might have happened if he had been like Orfeo. If he had looked back, would Yusuf have changed his mind? Would they have fought again and made things worse?

Or would their truce have turned into something else -- something deeper?

He lifts the book to his nose and inhales deeply, the scent of Tunisian spices rich and tempting and forever connected with Yusuf. He knows he will treasure this book and read it cover to cover, careful not to damage the spine as he treats it reverently for what it is -- a gift from Yusuf.

He knows he cannot change the past.

Perhaps he can influence the future.

Yusuf had appreciated the knife, but Nicolò’s mind now turns to the drawer of jewels he keeps, trinkets with no home. Perhaps Yusuf would appreciate one of the smaller emeralds set in a signet ring. He can only vaguely recall the family sigil of Yusuf’s shield, but he suspects that between his memory and whatever information he can dig up, he will be able to make a stalwart attempt.

Then, Andromache will have something more to take back -- another token of Nicolò’s deep desire to apologize and prove that he can be a better man. He must hope that one day, they will number enough that Yusuf thinks to give him one more chance and that he sees that Nicolò is not destined to live forever as his villain.

He can be so much more and he is working towards that future. Until then, he must continue to show Yusuf how much he cares for him and how deeply he thinks of him.

So long as Yusuf’s letters continue to arrive, Nicolò will continue his mission to improve himself for his own sake, in the hopes that one day, he will be the kind of man that deserves to ask for a second chance.

1818

“Yusuf, is it?”

He’s read Nicolò’s most recent letter three times. He’s on his fourth reading when Sébastien’s voice interrupts him. He glances up from Nicolò’s words, straining to imagine that he can hear his voice despite his worries that he no longer knows what Nicolò sounds like. His mind has to adjust for Sébastien’s French, a struggle given that he’s only learned from the travelers who come through his shop.

There have been more of them lately, their numbers increasing in a way he supposes might alarm him soon.

Andromache and Quỳnh are “searching” for new books, which he understands means that they are nestled together in one of the dark corners of his shop and trading kisses. Yusuf is to distract Sébastien, but Nicolò’s letter has proven a great distraction.

“My apologies,” he says, pressing the letter reverently in a drawer with the others. “I’m a terribly rude host. Tell me,” he says, rounding the other side of the counter to press a hand to Sébastien’s back, eager to guide him through the safe parts of the Library, “what are your favourite books?”

Sébastien looks wary of the kindness, which makes Yusuf wonder what it is this man has been through. “I didn’t read much before for the sake of reading.” There’s a trepidation in his words, as if he’s tiptoeing around a confession. The truth is that Yusuf can’t tell what he means, but he calmly raises a brow and waits. “Lately, it’s been all army manuals.”

“And before?”

“Andromache didn’t tell you about my situation?”

Yusuf shakes his head, glancing through the aisles to see if either of the women are lingering. They’re not, which means they already know and are leaving Yusuf to discover it for himself.

“I was in prison for forgery. Mostly art, some money, but also, some books,” he says, prying a copy of King Lear from Yusuf’s shelves to flip through it, thumb dragging over the spine. “Any first edition that might go for a fair bit of money. That’s the kind of book I enjoyed.”

“Clearly, it just means you didn’t have enough recommendations,” is Yusuf’s swift response, careful not to let any awkward silence drag out..

He heads to the shelf of his favourites, but his hand stills as a thought occurs to him.

“Are you the chicken or the egg?”

“What?” Sébastien asks sharply, alarmed.

“Sébastien le Livre,” Yusuf says.

Sébastien stares at him, clearly not seeing the obvious in front of him. “...Yes?”

“You’re a man who forges books, but your last name is…” Yusuf dismisses it with a shake of his head, piling a few books on top of one another, handing them over to the man. “Start with these. See if you like them without the intent of copying them to sell to the highest bidder.”

Sébastien salutes Yusuf with the books, glancing over his shoulder. Yusuf does not need to ask, but he suspects he is trying to see if Andromache and Quỳnh are within earshot. “What do you make of them?”

“That, my friend, is a losing proposition,” Yusuf warns, snapping his fingers in front of Sébastien’s eyes to get his focus. “You may be new to this, so allow me to offer some advice. There are only a few dangerous times to interrupt them. When they are deep in the aisles of this shop? That’s one of those times.”

He ducks behind the counter to grasp the next pile of books he needs to inventory and shelve, mindful of Sébastien watching him every step of the way..

“You’ve known them for a long while, then? Quỳnh mentioned that you are over seven hundred years old.”

“She did?” Yusuf knows them to be talkative. Perhaps too talkative, but at least he won’t have to exchange minutia with Sébastien. “I see them when they deign to spend their time here. Here, or the other place,” he notes, and it’s habit that has him pulling a face.

Sébastien is still watching him keenly. Yusuf wonders what he has been told of Nicolò and Yusuf’s relationship. Sometimes, he wonders what it is that Andromache and Quỳnh know. He knows they are playful and pushy, but he thinks he has not given them anything to suspect his deeper feelings.

He is a talented man when it comes to keeping his secrets locked tight.

“Nicolò,” Sébastien fills in with a grunt.

“The very one.”

“I didn’t like the man,” Sébastien says evenly. “I found him off putting.”

Yusuf snorts with amusement. “You are not wrong about that. Has he learned to blink or does he still stare at you with those cold eyes?”

It feels wrong to speak in such a way about Nicolò when his letters are the only thing that reliably brighten Yusuf's day, but he is expected to hate Nicolò. Yusuf knows how to play that part. Besides, there is still a small part of his mind that recalls Nicolò’s sins and is willing to punish him for them, if only in confidence with Sébastien.

“I thought he might freeze me with them,” Sébastien murmurs, flipping through the book. “Stone-hearted, too.”

On this point, Yusuf cannot agree.

He has learned that Nicolò’s heart overflows with kindness. He knows that he truly feels terrible for what he has done and seeks reparations. He knows this because Yusuf can see the devotion and care in Nicolò’s letters and his gifts. He knows that Nicolò is not stone-hearted, and if he ever was, then those pieces of stone have cracked away so that he can bleed out soft and sweet words on a page to Yusuf.

He hasn’t been paying attention to Sébastien’s conversation, but it hasn’t stopped the man from continuing.

“...and absolutely no answers about why we’re like this, or sympathy for the condition,” he mutters, staring at the books.

He doesn’t seem to find anything interesting, but Yusuf notes the way his attention keeps being pulled away to the children’s literature section.

On a hunch, Yusuf steps around to pry a few books of fairytales off the shelf, including several from a few hundred years ago with beautifully etched page edges. “Not all of them are in French,” he warns, “but if you’re thinking about pictures only, you might like these a little better than your first editions.”

He hears Sébastien’s words in his head again. Sympathy for the condition, all while Sébastien grunts his thanks.

“You don’t consider this a gift?” Yusuf wonders, as Sébastien cautiously begins to turn the pages of the fairytale book.

There is naught but misery in Sébastien’s eyes as he stares at the drawings meant for children. Suddenly, Yusuf experiences a strike of lightning, knowledge that hits him with certainty and he knows.

He does not ask to confirm, he simply waits to see if Sébastien wishes to talk about it.

“I have three sons, one is barely more than an infant,” he says roughly. “And my wife. My wife will age and I will not. My boys, my little boys, they will grow old and they will die, and I will not.” He grips the edge of the book a little harder, his jaw tight and his eyes wet. “This is not a gift. It would have been better for me to have died on the rope.”

With no children in his past, Yusuf only has the passing of his family to relate to, but he suspects that his grief will do nothing to tide over Sébastien’s worries for the days to come.

“Are you going back to them?”

“Andromache thinks it a bad idea, but I don’t care. I know that I will have to live without them, so I want to spend the time I can with them.” Sébastien closes the book and salutes Yusuf with it. “I will take this, if you’ll allow me.”

“Of course, consider it a …” He nearly says ‘gift’, but stops himself. “This one’s free, but the next time, you have to bring something in trade.”

“Noted,” Sébastien confirms with a nod. “What about you? Did you have someone you loved and lost?”

Yusuf opens his mouth to say that he’s never loved anyone, not like that, but stops when he realizes that it’s not true. He has lost someone that he loved, he just didn’t think that he loved him at the time.

Brow furrowed, he sinks down into his chair, struck by the weight of the epiphany.

“There was someone.” The words feel drawn out of Yusuf as if being extracted. His own voice sounds foreign, as if he isn’t ready to admit to this. “I let them go. I thought it was the right idea at the time, but I see now that I was wrong to do so, when my stubborn head blinded me from what my heart knew was possible. I was, I am, in love with them, even now.”

It seems so clear to him now. He thinks of the way he yearns for Nicolò’s letters. He thinks of how Nicolò haunts his dreams more often than not. He seeks stories from Quỳnh and Andromache of Genoa, but he also goes to the port to ask sailors for any news of the blacksmith shop and its mysterious owner.

Sébastien offers a sympathetic smile. “You lost them a long time ago?”

“Centuries ago,” Yusuf murmurs numbly. “We made a mistake.”

“You understand my grief, then.”

Not exactly. Yusuf’s grief is a different thing. He and Nicolò had allowed each other to part ways thinking that their truce mattered most, but now Yusuf knows that if they had given each other more time, then they might have created a new way of being, together.

The letters tell him that Nicolò feels deeply about Yusuf, but the simple fact remains that Nicolò di Genova has yet to grace the doors of his shop. If he truly wanted Yusuf, wouldn’t he be here? Wouldn’t he come for him? It leaves him battling with the belief that as pretty as Nicolò’s words are, they are simply words.

Maybe Nicolò worries that their connection only works when there is distance to protect them.

Or maybe, they have fooled themselves into feeling such things because they have been so far apart. Yusuf opens his mouth to tell Sébastien that the pain will heal, but he never gets the chance.

“Good, he hasn’t run away.”

Quỳnh is adjusting her shirt and Andromache is missing her belt, which means Yusuf will find himself some lost articles of clothing soon. “Your earring is missing,” Yusuf tells Quỳnh, before studying Andromache’s sex-mussed hair. “And you…” He flicks a few fingers her way, as if she’s utterly hopeless. “Tell me you didn’t scare away any of my customers?”

“With the way you keep expanding, this is more labyrinth than library these days,” Andromache huffs, sliding her blunt nails through her wavy hair to attempt to tame it, while Quỳnh tucks a lock behind Andromache’s ear.

Sébastien is even more intently focused on the book, as if he can somehow drown this out.

“She means that the virtue of your customers remains intact,” Quỳnh says, even as she pats her collar and the folds of her linen shirt for her earring. “Mine is not.”

“It hasn’t been for thousands of years, you won’t repair it now,” Yusuf jokes, happy to be speaking of such light-hearted things instead of thinking of how he’s lost his chance with Nicolò and how neither of them have the courage to change that.

The warrior that once fought in Jerusalem howls inside him for giving up so easily, but isn’t that what led them to parting in the first place?

It’s time for new tactics and perhaps patience is chief among them.

“Now, come,” Yusuf beckons, “I know you didn’t drag poor Sébastien all the way to Tunis to allow him to leave without trying some of my food. I have houria and brik prepared and, just for you Andromache, some samsa and bambalouni.”

The sound of a grumbling stomach catches them all off guard, three surprised glances suddenly snapping to Sébastien.

He closes the book with care and eyes them dubiously. “You dragged me across the sea. Of course I’m hungry,” he scoffs. “I hope there’s some wine to go with all that?”

“Bottles of it,” Yusuf guarantees. One of the perks of being immortal means that the wines he has been accepting as barter over the years has led to a very enviable (and, depending on those in power, very illegal) wine cellar. “Come, my friend, we’ll set the table and feed you until you forget your troubles.”

“I don’t think there’s enough food in the world for that,” warns Sébastien.

Andromache snorts. “I wouldn’t test him.”

Yusuf says nothing else, because Andromache is right. On the matter of hospitality and hosting, Yusuf will not let anyone leave his shop without feeling that they are home, even if they are depressed men bemoaning their new existence.

Enough samsa and even Sébastien will forget his troubles.

More realistically, enough wine and that ought to do the trick, but Yusuf doesn’t care what works, so long as something manages to quiet him, if only for a few moments.

1820

Nicolò -

What do you think of our newest ally? It has been so long since there has been anyone like us, but I’m not entirely sure what to think. Andromache and Quỳnh have always felt like family to me because of what they are. They heal as I heal. They die and come back to life as I will, our Lazarus talents shared amongst us. Even you, across the sea, are still like me.

With time, I have come to learn that they are like me in other ways. Their passion, their curiosity, their love, and their joy. I see myself in them, and it makes it easy to see them as allies.

Sébastien seems full of grief and confusion. I don’t remember ever being quite like that, even in my darkest moments. Perhaps you can tell me otherwise, but I suspect all you will say is that I was angry and cruel. I will, of course, remind you that it was justified.

He certainly has opinions about you. It took all my patience and acting to not burst into laughter to hear judgment of the stony-hearted Genoan from someone’s lips other than my own.

Tell me -- will you begin to send him gifts as well? Or am I simply special?

Or maybe do not tell me. I would hate to learn that I am not unique in your heart when it comes to tokens of apology. Allow me to think that I am the only one who has made a home there.

1921

There are some years that Nicolò suspects he would like to erase from his memory. These are the years when the world around him makes him regret that his chosen business can so quickly shift to require weapons. In the last few centuries, he has reluctantly allowed his business to deal in firearms, and the last few years, he has been busy.

Then again, the business had kept him from being shipped out to the front, where he is sure he would have died in the Alps with his countrymen, only to awake and freeze to death again and again.

On the heels of that war came the sickness, and Nicolò had shifted from arms dealer to nurse, helping wherever he could, but knowing that the flu could not be fought off once it had a stronghold in the city. At least it was not like the plague and Milan, where the smoke from the fires they’d set had rendered the skies dark in Genoa for weeks.

He is thinking, regularly these days, of taking a break from his shop when the bell on the door signals a new customer at the door.

“One moment,” he calls out, checking the peephole to see who it is. The security is a new addition, added in the last century when it became clear that leaving jewels and weapons alike unprotected might attract all the wrong people.

“You should just give me a key and then I’ll need no moments.”

Nicolò beams as he draws open the door to find Quỳnh standing at his stoop. Immediately, he pulls her in for an embrace, kissing her temple. “If I give you a key, I fear all my prize possessions will suddenly vanish. I see the way you look at the yew longbow hanging in the back of my shop.”

Quỳnh sulks as she pushes inside. “You keep her a prisoner, she deserves to be out in the world.”

Nicolò does not follow, yet. He peers out into the street, frowning when Quỳnh’s shadow does not appear.

“Where is Andromache?”

“Andy, now,” Quỳnh reminds him with a pointed brow.

Right. Yes. Nicolò knows that she’s changed her name, but it’s difficult for him to keep up sometimes. Besides, it doesn’t answer his question. “Where is Andy?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Quỳnh admits as she drifts into Nicolò’s workspace, her fingers absently running over the weapons half-finished and Nicolò’s open books before she crouches to dig into his cupboards for the food she knows he keeps.

Nicolò, however, is frozen in place. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Quỳnh is acting as if this is normal, but he is horrified. In the time he’s known them, they never part. Quỳnh seems carefree and easy, which is not the mark of a woman who is mourning her love. And yet, Andromache is not here.

None of this makes sense to Nicolò.

Finally, Quỳnh notices his distress, tipping her head to the side as she studies him without a word. He hates it when she does this. He always feels like an open book, no matter how often people tell him that he is made of stone and steel. Perhaps he is to everyone else in the world, but to Quỳnh, he suspects that he will raise the corner of his lips and she will instantly know every complicated emotion he is feeling.

“It’s been some time since we did this, I didn’t realize that you didn’t know,” she says, patting the cushions in the area Nicolò keeps for reading. “Come.”

He follows, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Is this some kind of break? Have you tired of one another? Do you not love her anymore?” Nicolò can feel his panic rising with each question.

He’s not sure if his distress is entirely to do with Quỳnh and Andromache, but rather on the fear that an immortal might simply stop loving someone. He’s spent centuries coming to terms with how he feels about Yusuf, and Yusuf doesn’t even know how Nicolò feels.

What happens if one day, the spark diminishes? What if Nicolò doesn’t get the chance to tell Yusuf before the feelings are gone?

He settles in, grasping a cushion to hug it tightly, also worried that his dear friends are experiencing hardship.

“Nicolò, breathe,” Quỳnh advises. “Sometimes, Andromache and I decide that we want to take a few years and travel the world on our own. We love each other deeply, we still do, but I am my own person and she is hers. I am more than just the other half of her. I am a whole person myself,” she says, squeezing Nicolò’s hand. “It changes nothing of how I feel.”

“This must be the first time you’ve done this in…” He drifts off, letting his mind do the math.

“The last time was in the 1300’s,” Quỳnh admits. “Before that, there was a long time between, because we had just lost Lykon. I don’t think either of us was willing to part for a very long time after that. It scared us. Andromache more than me, but it did.”

Sensing the building tension, Nicolò gives her a nudge with his shoulder. “Andy, now,” he echoes her words from earlier.

Quỳnh levels him with a disbelieving look, but he can tell she’s fighting a smile, which means he’s been successful.

“It’s very sweet for you to worry about us,” she says.

“It’s not all for you.” Nicolò has the good grace to know he should be honest with her. “Sometimes, I worry that our long lives mean that everything I feel will one day diminish and extinguish. I don’t want to believe that one day, I will have lived for so long that I forget how to love.”

“Nicolò,” Quỳnh murmurs tenderly, cupping his cheek with her hand. “Do you truly fear that you will lose the ability to love?”

“Sometimes, I question whether I have even possessed it to begin with.”

He knows what he feels for Yusuf, but sometimes he wonders if even this is true. After all, with so much distance between them, perhaps Nicolò has invented such emotions.

“Do you not operate your shop with a rule that you will not charge certain customers for their work?” she asks him. “Do you not open your doors wherever Andy and I ask for shelter? Even when you must tolerate Booker, do you not do so?”

He does, but he is not sure what she means.

“You are kind, Nicolò. You have a heart. You can love,” she promises, squeezing his hand. “Has someone made you think otherwise?”

“Only myself,” he admits, which is the pathetic truth of the matter.

“Is there someone?” Quỳnh asks, squeezing Nicolò’s hand much harder than he’d like. The bones will heal, but his pride may not. “The last suitor you had was...Sami, yes?”

“Yes, who did not help in convincing me that I am in possession of an abundance of love,” Nicolò notes wryly. “There is not anyone new in my life,” he tells Quỳnh honestly, “but I find that I cannot stop thinking of a man.”

“Tell me about him?” she encourages.

This is the last thing Nicolò wants to do. He knows there is no chance she will not spot the truth for what it is -- that the man Nicolò spends his days pining for is Yusuf Al-Kaysani. Luckily, he thinks he has a way out.

“You are here in my shop on your own for the first time in centuries,” he says. “Perhaps it is time that I finally consent to making you a longbow of your own.”

Quỳnh’s eyes light up. “From yew?”

“There was a new shipment that arrived at the docks and wouldn’t you know it, but I have quite the windfall of jewels with which to trade for it. Plenty enough to make at least half a dozen yew longbows.”

“Don’t think I can’t tell that you’re trying to distract from talking about your love life.”

Nicolò arches a brow. “Would you rather I keep asking questions about you and Andy and why you’ve decided that now is the time to split up?”

This, he knows, is a stalemate. Quỳnh holds his gaze and Nicolò is steely in turn, refusing to yield. If she is going to pry the intimate details of the man he loves from him, then Nicolò will demand answers about why she and Andy have chosen now to part.

“You drive a hard bargain, Nicolò di Genova. What you can do is send me away with a new bow and at least a new knife.”

He will never turn her away. He also has been working on weapons for her and Andromache (Andy, he knows, Andy) throughout the centuries, but it’s always more fun to see what she will try and negotiate with to earn them.

“Deal,” he accepts, pleased that he has put off any questions about the man he’s fallen head over heels in love with. Maybe one day, his tricks will no longer work, but it’s not today and that is truly all that matters to him.

Chapter Text

2020

“Pack your shit,” Andromache says, storming into Yusuf’s shop and startling his customers. “We need to go.”

Yusuf’s smile is strained as he tries to repair whatever harm might be done by Andromache’s sudden outburst. His customers reading in the large cozy chairs look alarmed, and justifiably so. Andromache is hardly what Yusuf would call her calmest. “Andromache.”

“Andy,” she corrects him. “Some of us have kept up with modern times, Yusuf.”

“Andy,” Yusuf replies. “It’s the middle of the day, my customers are settling in, and I’m just about to feed the cat. Why would I be packing my bags to go anywhere?” It seems she’s not in the mood for negotiation, seeing as she grabs him by the arm and forces him into the back of his shop, despite his loud protests. “What are you doing, you insane woman? Are you mad?”

“I’m trying to save your life. We’ve all been compromised.”

Yusuf finds that hard to believe. “How?” he demands. “I haven’t left Tunis in nearly a thousand years.” That’s not entirely true. Still, as far as Andy knows, it is. He’s certainly not left recently enough to be compromised.

Sometimes, he had to lay low and pass ownership of the shop to someone else until he could resurface as a new relative in the will of the previous version of himself, but he had covered his tracks. He used false names, he avoided records of his presence, he made sure no one saw him.

He’d been careful -- or so he’d thought.

“We did a job with a man named Copley,” Andy says, dragging Yusuf’s possessions off the shelves and out of his drawers, shoving them at him. “Pack,” she says sharply. “I don’t know how, but somehow, he found out our secret, that we can’t die. Booker found a wall of information that had me, Quỳnh, and Booker on it. It also had you on it.”

“That’s impossible,” Yusuf replies lightly, but his voice is strained, wondering where he went wrong.

“Is it? You didn’t save those orphans from a fire? You haven’t owned this shop for nine centuries quite famously, enough that people talk about its owner and what he looks like? He’s ex-CIA, Yusuf. I know you think you’re clever, but you’re not that wily. He knows enough to know that you’re involved in this, somehow.”

“So take care of him.” It’s not that difficult, Yusuf thinks. True, it’s not his ideal scenario, but he can’t imagine why this is so hard for Andromache. “Take care of him, find his information, and we move on.”

“If only it were that easy,” she scoffs. “Haven’t you been dreaming?”

Yusuf freezes, in the midst of putting his possessions back from the places Andy had taken them from. He hadn’t expected her to bring up those dreams, of a woman in the desert, blood in the sand, betrayal in her eyes.

Yes. Yes, he has been dreaming.

“The new one,” he says, his mind quickly tumbling through the various possibilities. “Does Copley have her? Is she safe?” He recalls feeling her die, the blood she’d choked on, and the fear that swarmed her every moment.

He can’t remember his dreams from last night. Did Andy and her people work that quickly? Has she already been secured?

“Come on,” Andy says, stealing him from his reverie. “Pack your shit. We’re going to ground in Malta at the Delta safehouse.”

Yusuf pauses, pulling his shirts from Andy’s hands. “We,” he echoes, beginning to feel a dreadful stone sinking in his stomach. He is packing, though. He knows that even if he doesn’t believe Copley knows about him, Yusuf has not dreamed of a new immortal since Sébastien and he wants to help, especially if she’s in danger.

“Booker, Quỳnh, the new girl,” Andy says, but she turns away as she speaks.

Yusuf seeks the lie in her tone, but can’t find it. If she is hiding something from him, given her suspicious turn, he’s not able to sense it.

He wonders if Nicolò has left Genoa enough to be a presence on Copley’s board or performed feats of heroism as Yusuf had. He doesn’t want to ask, because he knows it will only lead to more questions.

“You’re still not packing,” Andy says, her tone icy and cutting.

He’s not, because Yusuf is taking out his phone to send out a few texts to some of the women in the neighbourhood. “Let me make arrangements, you impatient cad,” he hisses at her. “Pack for me while I find someone to watch the shop and the cat.”

Andy raises a brow, clearly wanting to say something.

“What?” he sighs.

“Nothing. I thought maybe you’d bring the cat.”

Yusuf doesn’t say that he’s already going to be dealing with at least one prickly person in the next few weeks by virtue of being around Booker again and there’s no telling how freaked out the new girl will be. He ignores Andy, though he interferes when she finds the drawer where he keeps his personal items -- he doesn’t need her going through his speedos and sex toys, after all -- and gestures to the closet to guide her hand.

Soon, he’s arranged for Hana to look after the cat, and Ella and Zahra will look after the shop in turns. He finds the spare key and heads to the back alley to hide it in a small lockbox, feeling a prickling dread washing over him as he looks at his wonderful shop.

It’s been so long since he’s left it, and he never has without knowing exactly when he intends to come back.

When he heads back inside, Andy shoves his duffel bag at him, followed by his scimitar. “I need more weapons,” he warns her, “if the situation is as dangerous as it is.”

“Have you used one in the last nine hundred years?”

Yusuf grimaces, because she knows the answer is no. Despite Nicolò’s frequent habit of giving him weapons, he’s done little more than use them in daily meditative training. He hasn’t drawn blood in hundreds of years, and he definitely hasn’t killed anyone.

Still, he’s not walking into this situation unarmed.

He sets down the duffel and the scimitar to return to the chest that contains the books from Nicolò and the weapons. Sorting through them, he reaches in to fetch a velvet roll to begin sliding knives in, staring at the ornate history laid out before him.

He should ask whether Nicolò will be there in Malta.

It would be so easy. It would be so simple to say: What about Nicolò, is he on Copley’s board?

Yet, doing so is a confession. It’s an admission that this truce folded years ago and now, neither of them is willing to be the less stubborn man to admit that they want it to be something else.

“How long will we be gone?” he asks.

Her silence is a telling and ominous portent that Yusuf doesn’t like. This woman has been alive for thousands of years. She knows more than Yusuf could ever hope to learn, even though he is centuries old.

She doesn’t know.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks instead, because there have been threats before. They have been on the brink of discovery in other centuries and at other times and she has never appeared to him so ashen or desperate.

“We had to go to Germany.” Andy is standing at attention as Yusuf digs through his drawers for his travel documents. “We found her in a lab. We were lucky that we got to her the day she arrived. She was strapped down and they had every last awful thing you can imagine laid out to use on her. Isn’t that enough to bring in everyone from the storm? Even if the two of you have been so stubborn about burying your heads in the sand.”

Andy breathes out shakily, which is a terrifying thing. Yusuf is so used to seeing Andy be a beacon of strength that to see her like this unnerves him in every way. In her haste to complain, she has also shown her hand.

Nicolò. He will be there.

“It’s okay,” Yusuf insists, tucking his documents away and hurriedly grasping Andy’s hands to squeeze them. If he doesn’t focus on soothing her, then he suspects he will spiral into his own panic about what awaits them at the end of this journey. “I’m coming with you, and we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

If he has to be the rock, he will. For Andy, he will do anything that’s needed.

“I’ll come with you to stay safe until we figure this out,” he promises. “You won’t have to worry about me.”

It seems to diffuse some of the tension Andy is carrying in her shoulders. He understands it. If he could get away with it, he would bring them all here to Tunis, if not for the danger inherent because somehow his charitable acts over the last few centuries have marked him as a person of interest.

“Wait outside,” Yusuf instructs. “I just have a few more things to set up and I’ll meet you there.”

Andy nods, grabbing her bag and vanishing into the shadows of the Library as if she belongs within them. The silence of his shop is overwhelming. He can’t say for certain that Andy has done something about the rest of his customers, but he wouldn’t put it past her.

With bags nearly packed, there’s no reason for him to linger.

Other than fear, of course, which strikes Yusuf as he digs out the spare keys for Hana, gripping them so tightly in his palm that their imprint digs into his skin (only to heal seconds later).

It is not fear for his life.

It is fear of what he has been both hoping for and avoiding in turns for several hundred years now.

He will be seeing Nicolò. He and Nicolò will be in the same room again, for the first time since they parted ways nearly a thousand years ago. There is a desperate need that seizes him that demands he bring better clothing or some of Nicolò’s gifts to show that his centuries of groveling has not been for naught.

He suspects he does not own enough fine things to peacock in front of Nicolò as he would like, but the deep desire to impress him remains.

It has been so long since they shared a room, a meal, even a look. Unbidden, Yusuf’s mind drifts back centuries and he thinks, once more, of the mango in Nicolò’s hands, so tenderly cared for.

What version of Nicolò will he find in Malta?

If it is a version that Yusuf has dreamed of, hoped for, longed for, wanted -- then what will he do with him?

1943

At last, Kasserine Pass is behind him.

Ahead lies Nicolò’s next challenge -- seeking a way back to Genoa while attempting to blend in with the Allies.

In nearly a thousand years, Nicolò can count the number of times he’s left Genoa on one hand. He hadn’t even meant to come here, but Booker had showed up in his shop with a letter in hand from Andromache asking for him to go with Booker and the Allies. He hadn’t intended to go, at which point Booker handed him a second letter containing cash and a firmly worded ‘you owe us’ from Quỳnh.

It’s unfortunate that he does, given how many presents they’ve ferried to Tunis for him.

Many weeks of bloodshed, bickering, and hunger later, it is over. He and Booker have parted ways and Nicolò is finally able to breathe relief that with the battle over, his immortal secret is safe again.

With Kasserine Pass behind, Nicolò allows himself to think of what lies ahead and the gnawing homesickness he feels.

He hasn’t fought a battle like this in centuries. It’s not that he hasn’t done anything, though he knows that he has not done as much as he should. He’s still left Genoa to help the other republics and city-states, but he is a medic then, or a financier for a cause. When he does fight, he is an angel of death from afar -- bows in the times before and sniper rifles in the more modern age.

This is the first battle where he’s drawn blood at close range in centuries and it leaves Nicolò feeling ill and regretful.

It is no mystery why his mind lies with Yusuf. He is the last person Nicolò killed in such a fashion, and it leaves him wondering whether his enemies this time had deserved it, or if he would have discovered them to be good and kind men, like Yusuf, if only Nicolò had more time to know them

It’s impossible to keep Yusuf from his mind at the best of times. Now, in Tunis, bartering for passage at the port, it is near impossible.

Nicolò knows that Yusuf is here, somewhere, and it haunts him. He keeps his eyes open for Yusuf in the market, in the shops, at the pier, and down every alley and around every corner. He never finds him, though, but he does find a merchant ship bound for Genoa later that evening. He corrals the woman booking passage, spinning a fine tale of his determination to return to his countrymen on the battlefields of France.

“How much?” he asks the woman, careful to speak only French. It would be a shame to survive the campaign only to be accused of being an enemy on the last day in port.

She names her price, which is exorbitant, but fair given the danger. She hints that he is taking his life into his own hands, traversing the Mediterranean these days.

With a wry note in his voice, Nicolò is quick to assure her. “Worry for the lives of others, not mine.”

She clucks her tongue at him, clearly disappointed, but accepts his payment. As she counts, she nods towards the small row of buildings near the port, facing the sea. “Will you be stopping at the Library before you return to the front?” asks the woman, with an eye on Nicolò’s satchel, slung at his side in place of his longsword.

He wishes that he could have his weapon with him, but he knows it would only draw attention.

“What’s the library?” he asks.

“The Library,” she echoes, with more meaning, passing him a wrapped linen of delget nour dates along with his papers for the ship. He thanks her for her kindness, and she in turn rests her hand on his elbow to direct him to look at a shop down the road.

It faces the harbour, with bright stained glass windows adorning the front, boarded up. It has a nondescript sign (ah, yes, The Library, he sees it now) and looks out of place -- old fashioned amidst modernity. Nicolò is shocked it hasn’t been sacked yet.

Could it possibly be that this home of books might be one and the same as the one Yusuf owns? All this time, Nicolò has been seeking him in public places, never once thinking to venture to the shops.

It can’t be, can it?

Has fate brought them together again?

He’s walking towards the shop before he’s even made a decision. His mind (and heart) urge him onward, bringing him in with a handful of other locals. Inside there is a bookshop, yes, but it is so much more than that. There are men ladling soup and handing out bread, an area where people are sleeping, and a small corner where a medic is helping injured civilians.

In awe, Nicolò finds himself frozen amidst the hurricane of good circling him.

“Karim, bring the bandages over here! Cyrine, have you got any of the bread left? The children in the back are starving, the damn Italians have left nothing for them.”

This is a storm unlike any he has seen before and it batters away at Nicolò, making him feel unsteady on solid ground. It is the first time that he has seen Yusuf in nearly nine hundred years and he is paralyzed with possibility. Nicolò is not sure what he’d expected to feel, but the punch to his gut is not the one he’d expected.

He even checks to see that he hasn’t been slugged with a bullet when he’s not looking.

Yusuf is a vision before him. He is bright and brilliant, even covered in the blood of his patients. His beard is trimmed neatly, and his hair shorter than it had been when they’d parted ways. Wearing a set of trousers with many pockets and a linen shirt with its sleeves rolled up and a medic’s belt slung around his torso, he looks like an angel.

It makes Nicolò wonder why he has not ventured to Tunisia before, even at risk of the truce falling apart.

He drags himself away from staring at Yusuf, because that level of attention will not do good things for him, and he’s trying very hard not to be caught as an interloper -- even if Yusuf is not the enemy any longer.

Unfortunately, a strange white man lingering in a bookshop turned field hospital is noticeable.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t realize, at first, that Yusuf is speaking to him. He must look out of place, perusing books while people are being tended to.

When he turns, the fiery burn of Yusuf’s eyes is a familiar thing and Nicolò nearly drops the book he’s holding. Nicolò knows he looks very different from how he did before. He also knows the fall of his long hair obscures his eyes and he has shaved his beard off. If Yusuf is not expecting him, there is no reason for him to recognize Nicolò.

“I said,” Yusuf repeats, ice invading the fire, “can I help you? If you’re not here to purchase or help, I’ll ask you to leave. We’re busy, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Nicolò grips the book tighter to avoid dropping it. It’s been so long since he’s seen this face, but in the absence of Yusuf’s presence, he has had his words and his gifts. The kind words (and often lonely) that Yusuf pens stand in stark contrast with this vision of a man before him, afire with determination and purpose.

Carefully, he smooths his words, speaks them in French. “I’m waiting for a ship at port, I don’t mean to intrude. Please,” he entreats, “I have some medical training, or I can be a helpful set of hands ladelling stew. While I wait, can I help?”

Yusuf hadn’t been expecting that.

He takes a small step back and his lush lips part, drawing Nicolò’s attention to them.

With a war on, this is not what he should be focused on, but it has been so long since he’s seen his fellow immortal and so much has changed between them since. Tell him, says his mind, tell him who you are, screams his heart.

He listens to neither.

“Here,” Yusuf says, shoving bandages into Nicolò’s hands, gesturing to the front of the shop. “Those two women at the front, they have minor wounds. Help stop the bleeding, stitch them up if you can. What’s your name?”

He freezes, not wanting to tell the truth and not wanting to lie. Caught between a rock and a hard place, he is rescued in the nick of time.

“Yusuf!” comes an urgent call. “Come back, we need you!”

He longingly watches Yusuf go while Nicolò thanks God for the lucky timing. When Yusuf has fully gone and Nicolò cannot see him, he turns to his Yusuf-given task. His ship won’t be coming in for another few hours and there are many in need in Yusuf’s shop.

He must do the most good that he can, before he leaves.

Maybe Yusuf will never know that it was Nicolò who did it, but he likes to think the universe will know and he will undo some of the damage he wrought upon Yusuf’s life, so many centuries ago.

It is a small pittance he is depositing today with his acts, but it is better than nothing.

2020

Upon their arrival in Malta, Andy takes them straight to a central property surrounded by buildings on either side. Yusuf supposes it’s a little like hiding in plain sight, but it still feels dangerous. He enters, finding Quỳnh sitting with Booker, and the woman from his dreams with them.

There’s another man in the kitchen that Yusuf swears looks familiar, though he can’t place him. “I thought you said this was only us,” he hisses at Andy. “Who is he?”

Yusuf has seen him before, but when? Perhaps in the store? He has a vivid memory of a man with a mole just like that perusing books in his shop, but that must have been eighty years ago, which means…

No.

Yusuf’s muscles tense before he breathes out and relaxes them, suddenly all too aware that the handsome man he’s looking at is, “Nicolò,” he greets evenly. The last time he’d seen him, Nicolò had been an unwashed invader, with a messy beard and long hair. He’d been covered in dirt and blood, wearing stolen clothes.

This is not that man.

This man has handsome wind-swept brown hair, just long enough to fall over his forehead and curl behind his ears. He’s clean-shaven, and it is the mole on his face that places him in a new year in their history.

He’s seen this man before, in his shop. He hadn’t admitted to Yusuf who he’d been, then, which only annoys him more.

Pushing past that irritation and the striking good looks, one thing sits with Yusuf and refuses to leave him -- it is his eyes.

There have been times, over the last few centuries, that Yusuf has wished to never have met Nicolò the way he had. Wouldn’t it have been better to dream of those eyes and this man, instead of knowing what he was? His enemy. This is also the same man who has written Yusuf such beautiful letters, his soul and heart on a sleeve and wrapped them tenderly with gifts of apology.

In Yusuf’s mind, the invader has long been erased and only Nicolò from the market remains, but irritation climbs above all the other feelings, thanks to Nicolò’s lie in the 1940’s.

Why hadn’t he simply told Yusuf who he was? Why couldn’t they have had a moment to themselves?

“Yusuf,” Nicolò greets him, his expression calmly muted. “I made tagine, I left you some,” he says, gesturing to the table.

Yusuf bristles at Nicolò’s care. They’ve been in the same room for minutes and already he feels as if Nicolò is insinuating he cannot look after himself. Their truce was built upon distance, but this new crisis has forcibly removed that option. Yusuf would like to believe that there is no ill will left between them, because of what Nicolò has written to him over the years.

Yet a persistent doubt remains in his mind, which makes him irritable and moody -- why hadn’t Nicolò been honest? Why had he hidden himself?

The woman from Yusuf’s dreams gestures between them while she looks at Quỳnh and Booker. “Is this what you meant?”

“You’ve been talking about us?” Yusuf snaps, offended that his personal business is gossip.

Andromache settles at the table with a plate, a napkin, and some cutlery. “Is there baklava?” she asks Nicolò, as though Yusuf hasn’t been interrogating her.

That gets a derisive snort from Yusuf, an old habit rearing its head. “Why would he know how to make that?”

He regrets the words the moment they pass his lips. He knows better. Even if he weren’t trying to be civil, he knows better, because Nicolò has taken great pains over the years to learn Arabic to read the poetry of Yusuf’s countrymen and Yusuf in turn has sent him recipes and updates from Tunis in the language.

Not only does Nicolò know how to make baklava, chances are this is Yusuf’s family recipe.

Sébastien eyes the exchange warily, hawk-like in his attention. Yusuf intends to swat him off, but the new immortal demands priority.

He sits at the table, though he does not accept the tagine yet. “Perhaps we should start over,” Nicolò admits haltingly. “Yusuf, I’m very glad to see you here.” Given the look on his face, Yusuf suspects that these words hide depths and volumes. There is a look in his eye that says he wishes to say much more to Yusuf, but he does not.

Instead, all he offers are platitudes and politeness.

Yusuf supposes he understands.

The depth and breadth of the emotions in their letters is not a conversation to be had with an audience. Worse, it is not the time to have them when Yusuf is overwhelmed with a dozen emotions, feeling as if no time has passed at all and Nicolò has made him feel as complicated as ever.

He is talented like that.

“Please, you must be hungry from your trip,” Nicolò says, as if insisting that Yusuf requires care is somehow starting over and not repeating his same mistakes. “Eat.”

Yusuf’s jaw sets as his impulses kick in, telling him that the best thing to do is refuse. “I’m not hungry,” he says evenly with a sharp look at Andy (who cares little for Yusuf’s ire, occupied with her food). “I’ve been fed enough lies of omission about who would be here today to require another meal.”

The disappointment in Nicolò’s eyes stings Yusuf and he is desperate to immediately beg for forgiveness, but at the same time, their audience gives him pause. How can he fall to his knees and plead to have a moment with Nicolò alone when there are so many other important tasks at hand.

Belatedly, he recalls his manners. “It smells wonderful, though,” he says, heart pounding in his chest as he hopes to catch Nicolò’s eye once more. When Nicolò lifts his gaze, there is a tenderness there, a hope that has Yusuf thinking all is not lost.

You look wonderful, he wants to say. You infuriate me, is also on the tip of his tongue, eager to demand why Nicolò had been in his shop and hadn’t bothered to tell Yusuf who he was. I am not helpless, is on the tip of his tongue, along with, but I appreciate that you think of me.

None of these things matter, though.

The past is the past, and the present should not be consumed with history. Obsessing over missed opportunities has become a hobby for Yusuf and hardly a fruitful one.

He is on his feet to take Nicolò aside, but before he can, Quỳnh wraps a hand around Yusuf’s wrist and pulls him towards the new immortal.

“Yusuf, this is Nile.”

Yusuf isn’t sure how he feels about the distraction. Relief, to be sure, because he doesn’t know why he lets Nicolò rile him like this, especially when he knows it isn’t anger driving his emotions. It still must come off that way, given the tension in Booker’s shoulders, the accusatory glare in Andy’s eyes, and Quỳnh’s need for mediation.

And yet, the distraction means that he cannot pull Nicolò aside and speak to him privately the way he has been longing to for centuries.

Yusuf also doesn’t want to burden Nile with such a complicated history or simply ignore him before they’ve even officially met, so the intervention is likely a blessed one. “Nile,” he says warmly, taking her palm to press a kiss to her knuckles. “Derived from the river,” he says, “or, more accurately for you, I think the meaning is better suited to call you a champion, if we ignore the pesky gender assignment behind the etymology of girl and boy names.”

Nile looks wary, though Yusuf isn’t sure if it’s his attempt at charm or the general situation. “So how old are you?”

That earns a surprised laugh. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s rude to ask someone that?”

“Yeah.” Nile glances back to where the others are sitting, trying their best not to look like they’re eavesdropping, even though they’re sipping coffee in silence and clearly listening in. “That one did,” she says, pointing at Nicolò. “Then he told me that he’s thirty.”

Had Nicolò smiled when he made his joke? Had the corners of his lips curved up playfully? Had it reached his eyes? When will Yusuf tease such smiles out of Nicolò and why can’t it be now?

“In that case, I’m thirty-three,” he tells her, refusing to comment on Nicolò’s age or how handsome he looks for his thirty years (many times over). “I am also almost a thousand, which is a drop in a pond compared to our lovely hosts.”

He hears Quỳnh’s derisive snort, but he sees her smiling. At least someone is pleased right now. Yusuf’s heart is pounding because at any given moment, Nicolò might be looking his way, and he doesn’t know how to cope with that.

“You must be very scared.” Yusuf decides that his own personal romantic drama can wait. Nile is the focus. She’s the one they’ve rescued and the one they have to keep safe. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“Honestly?” Nile gives Yusuf a shaky smile. “If I never talk about it, it would still be too soon.” He watches the way she fidgets with her fingers, how she taps the ground with the toe of her boot. “I thought that I could trust those people. My friends, my superiors, the ones I stood shoulder to shoulder with. I trusted them and they tied me to a gurney and they were going to cut me open, if not for Andy.”

“I’m only sorry Andy couldn’t get there sooner,” Yusuf says, ignoring the pang in his heart when he thinks about how he’s actively chosen to be alone for years and years.

When he looks up, his heart slams into overdrive. Nicolò is looking at him with so tender an expression that Yusuf fears he might break apart. Instinctively, Yusuf reaches out to hold onto Nile’s hand, squeezing it firmly.

She squeezes back, as if she senses that he needs the support as much as she does.

“How did you die? The first time?” she asks. “I feel like I’m never gonna stop reliving mine.”

Yusuf is stuck in place. Ah. So, they haven’t told her. Isn’t it kind that they’ve waited for Yusuf so that he has the difficult task of being honest. He looks up and meets Nicolò’s eyes, “Nicolò and I met in the Crusades.”

“The Crusades?” He can see Nile doing the math in her head.

“Yes,” Nicolò says, a dark look in his eyes as he perches on the back of the couch behind Nile. “We killed each other.”

“Many times,” Yusuf finishes with a hollow ring to his voice.

He knows the others are watching them. He knows that they are on their toes, determined to pull them apart if they break into a fight, but Yusuf is not in a fighting mood. He is in a desperate mood and there are far too many people here. It’s the worst possible situation when he wants to pull Nicolò aside and tell him that he knows things have changed, that their letters have shown Yusuf that Nicolò can be more.

“Awkward,” Nile scoffs, breaking the long silence.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Quỳnh agrees. “This is the first time we’ve pried them away from their respective holes in the ground. You should feel honoured.”

Given the uncertain look on Nile’s face, Yusuf doesn’t blame her for feeling out of sorts. She’s been kidnapped, rescued, and all the while has been processing her newfound immortality amongst ancient strangers.

Here Yusuf thought that he’d had a difficult go of it trying to foster a truce with a man he’d thought he hated.

He takes the opportunity to drift away when Quỳnh pulls Nile aside, tucking her hair behind her ear -- equal parts maternal and familiar, soothing her with promises that she’ll be there in the event of a nightmare, but that she should get some rest.

Speaking of sleeping, it raises a very important question.

“What’s the sleeping situation like?” Yusuf asks Booker, stepping away from Quỳnh and Nile’s deeply personal conversation. He’s trying to pass this off as casual, curious if they will all have to bunk in the same room, or whether he will get the privacy he so desires with Nicolò.

Booker glances to the kitchen (where Nicolò is cleaning up while Andy brews a new pot of coffee) and then claps Yusuf on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, mon ami, I’ve already set your things in the spare room with me. You won’t need to tolerate the storm.”

He doesn’t even give Yusuf a chance to protest. He simply walks off, leaving Yusuf longing to be battered with wind, rain, and whatever else Nicolò di Genova might have in store for him.

Across the room, he catches Nicolò’s eye. Desperate to have a moment with him, but knowing privacy will not be afforded to him, all he can manage is the briefest of messages. He could tell him ‘you are more handsome than all the most beautiful paintings in the world’, or perhaps ‘I have missed you more than riches, food, or water’.

He offers none of those things.

Instead, he simply mouths, ‘Hello’.

Perhaps Yusuf deserves the perplexed look on Nicolò’s face, but it’s worse that Andy suddenly blocks his view and robs him of whatever awkward response Nicolò might give to him.

Sighing heavily, he slumps down in the large armchair, while Booker pours a large glass of wine for himself. “Easy now,” he warns, “One more day. We’ll get through this.”

Will he, though? Because if Yusuf goes one more day with Nicolò so close, then he fears that there will not be a storm. There will only be the wreckage and what’s left of him because he has been battered and beaten to pieces by a longing growing too strong for words.

2085

My heart,

Do you remember when we met again in Malta? Properly, of course, because your secrecy allowed you to be a mouse in my shop without my knowing of your presence, or I would have thought to trap you.

I know you are in the next room and you give me such trouble for spending all my time writing to you when I could be doing much more important things, but old habits die hard. I think about those moments with you because even with a thousand years between them, I do not regret the time apart.

If anything, it taught me to appreciate you better.

Not to mention, if we had travelled together from the start, how would I have the very best block of knives in the world? Not everyone can boast rubies and emeralds and filigree silver in their blades.

I think about that meeting so often. All I longed to do was to whisk you away from the noise and the judging eyes of the others. All I wanted was to tell you that you had my forgiveness, my heart, my soul, and my body.

Perhaps if I had, we could have spared ourselves so much pain.

I hear you clanging the plates together loudly. I know this is how you like to summon me to dinner, so I’ll finish with a thought and a promise. I think that if I could go back in time, I would not let Nile think for a moment that I held anything but the highest of respect for you.

And now, a promise: I will make sure that I show you those depths of respect at least five times tonight.

- Yours forever, Yusuf

2020

Seeing Yusuf has put Nicolò in a mood so complex and tangled that he fears he will not be able to sort through it easily. Nile is new to him and doesn’t know him well enough to know that he is out of sorts. The others are far more perplexed about Nicolò’s mood. He understands. He doesn’t have a good explanation for his behaviour either.

It’s been a constant battle between appearing calm and collected and falling to his knees to simply beg.

How can he not feel this way, when Nicolò had spent all of dinner staring at Yusuf’s mouth. not immune to the way Yusuf’s tongue darted out to wet his lips in between bites of dinner.

He had been flustered, snappish, and moody, mainly because Yusuf’s hands and lips and eyes had driven him to mad distraction and reminded him of a letter from Yusuf, received hundreds of years ago, yet never far from his thoughts.

N -

Have you taken many lovers? Do you bring them into your life for what fleeting time we have with them, as mere mortals in our long shadows? It is a lonely life without them, but I cannot bring myself to allow them into my bed for longer than a few months for fear of what will happen if I grow too attached.

My sheets are cold and my body often untouched, but I wonder if this is the price of our gift and our truce. Tell me, do you feel the same? Do you have a wife in Genoa to warm you, to keep you content? Andromache tells me you are always alone.

He had spent countless nights dreaming of Yusuf’s warm body after that letter. It had been centuries since he thought of killing him, but he still remembers the way his broad hands pressed against Yusuf’s torso when driving in his sword. He still remembers the heat of his body when they were so intimately close.

Has he taken many lovers?

One or two, but Yusuf had been right. Their long lives stretched too far beyond what one person could offer. It’s only another immortal that could truly understand. For centuries (perhaps even longer than Nicolò wishes to admit), there has been a thought in his mind, a teasing fantasy he has tried to keep at bay, but tonight it’s been summoned again on the heels of Yusuf’s wet lips.

What if the lover he took was another immortal?

Even that is a lie. That is not the whole thought.

No, the thought in its entirety is: What if you took Yusuf as a lover? In the last two hundred years, that has merged even more. Now, it is: What if you took Yusuf as your soulmate for the rest of your life?

Here, Yusuf is so close. Booker sleeps like the dead, snoring loudly enough to cover up the sound of a military parade. If Nicolò times it properly and makes sure that they are both off watch and have the time for it, he is sure that he can find a private moment with Yusuf and finally give him the answer to his question.

He has taken very few lovers, but none of them have given him what he wants or needs.

None of them have been Yusuf. This is the man who has ensnared Nicolò’s heart and soul with his kind words and the memory of his kinder eyes. This is the man that Nicolò wishes for a moment with.

The trouble is that the safehouse in Malta is so crowded that he cannot get Yusuf alone. Their mission of keeping Nile safe supersedes any of Nicolò’s personal missions. More than that, there is a tiny voice in his head that will not shut up. Despite the longing looks he swears he is not making up, Yusuf has not come to fetch Nicolò.

Have the letters all been a lie? Has Nicolò read too much into them? Or is it his move to make, because he had been the one to err all those years ago?

It drives him mad.

He is insane with love and Yusuf’s proximity only makes it worse.

The question begs itself: Will Nicolò succumb to the madness and finally allow himself to tell Yusuf that the only lover he wants is him or are they doomed to another thousand years of a truce that has given him a life, but no great love?

Itchy and unable to bear it, Nicolò decides he cannot bear the safehouse a moment longer.

He must get out to properly think.

2020

“Andy, I can’t take it anymore, I’m going out.”

Yusuf glances up from his sketchbook, curious who will win this battle between them. Andy is no wilting flower and Nicolò’s determined stare is met by a fierce expression. The man seems impervious to her glare, his icy eyes meeting hers, and whatever silent battle of wills they are waging, they keep it telepathic.

“Nicolò,” she warns.

“Don’t,” he snaps. “I’m not on that board, you know that. I know that. I’m here to help because I owe you a favour. Right now, the cupboards are nearly bare and I want to get some fruit before you all die of scurvy for the first time in centuries.”

Andy opens her mouth to argue, but Yusuf beats her to the punch.

“I’ll go with him.”

It must be the housebound cage he feels imprisoned in. Why else would he volunteer to go out alone with Nicolò when they have not even had a moment to talk? Does he really think going out with him in public is the best place to escape their audience?

Andy crosses her arms over her chest, glaring at him. “You are on the board,” she feels compelled to remind him.

He is, but the version of Yusuf Al-Kaysani they’re looking for is a scholar and a shop owner. Yusuf casts about the apartment for some of the clothes left here during one of its rental periods over the last few decades (a front, to ensure it stays clean and there is an exchange of money to make it seem legitimate). He yanks a leopard-print tank top, a bright green baseball cap, and a pair of cargo shorts from the mess.

He’s half expecting them to burn his fingertips. He thinks it’s a miracle they don’t.

“This version of me isn’t,” he guarantees. “I’ll keep an eye on Nicolò.”

“Make sure he doesn’t die where anyone could see it,” Quỳnh warns. “Which means you don’t get to kill him either.”

Yusuf would protest that he would never, but there are three prior examples that go against that vow. Still, he is offended that she could think this of him now, with the centuries of her playful ribbing and nudging Yusuf towards trying to find someone to fill the missing piece.

Has he truly been that convincing when it comes to his projected disdain of Nicolò? Is it such a secret that even his dearest family cannot tell?

Or are tensions simply running high enough that they don’t trust their tempers?

“I’m not a child,” Yusuf says as calmly as possible, before he vanishes into the bedroom to change into clothes that make him look like an immature man without any fashion taste whatsoever.

He knows the dissonance is clear, but his warning look staves off any comments from Andy and Quỳnh. Booker is busy on his computer, typing frantically (probably searching for Copley), and poor Nile still looks overwhelmed by the whole thing.

The only person he can’t understand is Nicolò, staring at him with a pinched expression as if Yusuf has done something cruel to him.

“What?” Yusuf asks.

Nicolò’s nostrils flare sharply. “Nothing,” is his curt response, grabbing several bills from Andy. “We’ll be back in less than an hour.”

Nicolò leads them out the door with Yusuf in his shadow. It is an inverse of how they travelled from Jerusalem to the port all those years ago, but the prospect of just the two of them striking out on their own punches Yusuf with a familiarity that he finds achingly and desperately needed.

They walk in silence through the market, with Yusuf casting through his mind for the right words to begin with. Should he begin with pleasantries? Apology for his behaviour? Demands for apology for Nicolò’s presence in Tunis last century? Does he bring up the gifts? Does he bring up the letters?

Or, shall he simply lay his heart bare and tell Nicolò how he aches for him? He could simply tell him that he is desperately in love with the man that Nicolò has proven himself to be.

Instead of any of this, Yusuf allows Nicolò to control this very awkward outing.

“Has Nile said much to you at all?”

“We shouldn’t talk about them in public,” Nicolò says curtly, giving Yusuf a warning look. It’s frustrating, especially because he’s right. It’s not like they know who might be around and who might be listening for specific names.

Still, it’s very annoying that Yusuf’s attempt to start a conversation has fallen flat on its face, leaving them once again in silence. Nicolò keeps wandering away from Yusuf to purchase new items. Searching his mind for a proper lead in, he hurries to his side and extends a hand.

“Here, I can take that.”

“It’s fine,” Nicolò dismisses, adjusting his bags so that he can take the fourth bag from the vendor. “Really. I don’t need to burden you.”

Yusuf wants to beg for his burdens, but he inhales deeply to steady himself. He follows after Nicolò, pointedly not commenting every time it seems that Nicolò struggles with his load. There are several more times that Yusuf thinks to start a new conversation, but Nicolò looks like he’s seconds away from a dual heart attack and aneurysm and Yusuf cannot, for the life of him, figure out why.

Finally, Yusuf decides that he will try once more.

“I heard Andy mention that we’re running low on that juice Booker likes,” Yusuf says absently. “Do you think you can fetch some of that? I want to make sure we keep our boss happy.”

With the thought of juice and the fresh fruits the market will have on offer comes his oft-visited memory of Nicolò in the market with the children, so long ago. Yusuf wets his lower lip as he thinks for the thousandth time of Nicolò’s strong hands, and how he wishes for them on his body.

He expects Nicolò to simply obey or perhaps tell him that they are out of money.

He is not expecting the sharp reply.

“That’s what you want. That? To keep Andy happy?” Nicolò mutters, the bitter sarcasm rounding each syllable and filled out with a hollow frustration. “At least you have finally told me what you want, though I did not want the first thing you asked of me to be juice for Andy.”

Something is clearly wrong with him, but this is not the reaction Yusuf had expected.

“Nicolò, what on earth? You’re acting like a child for no reason. What do you want me to say?” Yusuf demands sharply, grabbing Nicolò by the bicep and forcibly hauling him around a corner so he can confront him with some degree of privacy. “Come here,” he snaps. “Stop acting like this and talk to me!”

He’s heated and flush with fury, tired of this game and Nicolò behaving like Yusuf’s presence is a problem.

He hadn’t even been like this when they’d parted, so what Yusuf needs to understand is what is making him act like this now? Stranger still is the fact that his words don’t match with his expression.

“Please, won’t you talk to me,” Yusuf exhales, staring at the man that he finally has alone. He might expect him to be uncertain or wary. The Nicolò from 1099 would be. This Nicolò is not him -- he has a confidence in his stride and a sureness in the way he speaks. In his interactions with Andy and Quỳnh, he is charismatic and joyful. It is an echo of the man who writes to him with sweet and lovely letters.

“I did not want to do this in an alleyway in public, when we are all being hunted.”

“Would you rather do this in front of Booker?” Yusuf quips.

That earns a soft huff of laughter from Nicolò, who has yet to take his eyes off Yusuf. In that look, there is intent and something burning furiously that Yusuf recognizes despite the lack of it in his life. He’s an accomplished artist and a poet, and he has seen a thousand paintings and read a thousand poems that encapsulate this one look.

It is, plainly, desire.

“Nicolò,” Yusuf murmurs, voice hoarse as he begins to think that they finally might have arrived on the same page.

The world has shrunk to this alleyway and the sea-green eyes before him. His heart races in his chest as he debates his next move. Nicolò looks at Yusuf as if he is a wondrous thing, miraculous and new.

“Why do you look at me like that?” he asks, because he wants to hear the words and not merely read them from a letter.

Nicolò smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. It seems grief or something similar has weighed it down from ascending to the highest heights. “Because I would have if we had stayed together, but I also know I was not good enough for you then. I was a wretched man and I had to learn and grow, though my heart never changed, only my mind. Because when I saw you after so very long apart, I was torn to indecisive pieces not knowing what to say or do. Because when I saw you here in Malta, I felt the same and I know that I want you, but I do not know if I should wait for you to come to me or if it is right that I lay myself at your feet, for you to accept or reject me. I do not know what to do, Yusuf, and it is killing me. Given our talent, you must know that I am doomed to die and die again from this indecision, like Sisyphus.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell Nicolò his own truth: I wanted you too, I’ve wanted this for centuries, but the stubborn part of him wants Nicolò to go first.

“Tell me what you would have of me,” Yusuf coaxes, willing to give him an opening and a hint that he wants to hear it.

Nicolò steps maddeningly closer, his stormy eyes fixed on his lips. “Isn’t it obvious, Yusuf?”

It is. It very much is, especially with the fixed point of Nicolò’s gaze, but Yusuf still wants to hear it.

Nicolò does not disappoint, stepping ever closer and cupping Yusuf’s cheek with his strong hand, those incredible fingers gentle as he slides the calloused pad of his thumb along Yusuf’s bearded jaw. “I have wanted it for hundreds of years. I cannot sleep without thinking of you. I cannot put pen to paper without imagining your eyes and smile. It is the life that we gave up when we parted that I want. I want to bestow you with a thousand kisses, then a thousand more. I want to show you that I am a better man than I once was. Yusuf, with my heart and my soul, I lo…”

The word Yusuf longs to hear is ripped from him by a sudden flash and bang. The force knocks him back against the wall, slamming there and breaking something with an awful cracking sound. Stunned, Yusuf fights to compose himself.

Smoke grenade, he thinks, as he doubles over, hacking and coughing. His body heals, but not quickly enough, and he is blind as he reaches out desperately. “Nicolò,” he pleads, voice rough. He cannot see a thing and the pain sears through his lungs, but still the only thing that matters is Nicolò. Casting out frantically, his fingers brush the cuff of Nicolò’s button-down shirt, but before he can seize hold of him, someone else drags Nicolò away.

Through the smoke, Yusuf sees large men in gas masks.

“This one,” the largest says, hauling up a barely-conscious Nicolò. Yusuf wheezes frantically, choking and hurting for breath. He’s dying and he knows that Nicolò must be too. “This is the description we got. Nicolò di Genova,” comes the tinny voice.

“What about the other one?”

“Our orders say to leave him.”

“Nicolò!” Yusuf gasps out, coughing and choking and ineffectively scrambling to grab at the legs and ankles of Nicolò’s captors. “Nicolò, destati, Nicolò, please!”

Nicolò is motionless. Worse, Yusuf suspects that he is dead.

“Our orders tell us to leave you alone,” the large man in a mask says, gripping Yusuf by the throat as he lifts him up. Yusuf wheezes, struggling as his legs thrash in a desperate attempt to free himself. He is too weak. Breathing is the only thing he can think about. “But if you fight us, our orders don’t tell me that I can’t put you down in self-defense.”

The warning means nothing to Yusuf, because he does not care if he dies.

“Nicolò,” he gets out past the tightening grip on his throat.

“Let’s move,” the large man orders, dropping Yusuf in a heap on the alley floor. The smoke is already dissipating into the atmosphere, but Yusuf has taken so much of it into his lungs that there will be no way for him to chase after them.

The absence of a furious fight from Yusuf is not by choice.

He is without a weapon and without centuries of training. He is not Andy or Quỳnh. He is a bookshop owner and an artist who has made a life of peace for himself. Now, he is paying for it and the price is Nicolò’s life.

They leave through the haze, as if apparitions vanishing back to where they came.

Yusuf watches them carry Nicolò away, taking his love before they could even be truly honest with each other. Staggering to his knees, Yusuf squints through the smoke, his eyes bloodshot and his lungs burning.

“I’m coming, Nicolò,” he promises, staggering to his feet only to collapse again. This cannot be happening to him. It has been so long since he’s been a warrior and he is fiercely outmatched unless he goes for reinforcements. The terrible choice before him is one of the worst he has ever had to make.

Going back to the safehouse means losing the trail, but what other option does he have?

Eyes stinging with tears brought on by both smoke and gutting grief, Yusuf staggers to his feet to begin his journey back to the safehouse to gather reinforcements.

He is going to get his man back, no matter what it takes.

Once, in the 1700’s, Yusuf left Tunis.

His leaving hadn’t been a unique incident, as he’d left the city before. He left to visit the descendants of his siblings and to check on the family’s properties. If there was strife or distress nearby, he would go to help. His feet did not put down anchoring roots into his bookshop, no matter what Quỳnh and Andromache believed.

The secret that no one knows is that in the 1700’s, Yusuf left Tunis and sailed to Genoa.

He still remembers the letter from Nicolò that had sparked such a journey.

In it, Nicolò updated him on the happenings in Genoa, told tales of Andromache and Quỳnh, but what made Yusuf leave had been more intimate lines at the bottom of the letter:

I wonder sometimes if we parted ways too early. I’d like to think that I am not the man I used to be. It has not been easy. Too many here would have me slip into old habits, but there is a surefire way to improve myself.

I ask myself, what would Yusuf want of me? I ask myself what you would do in my shoes.

You are the best man I have ever met. I’m sorry that you met the worst version of myself. Sometimes, I wish that we had stayed together, but it would have taken years for me to show you that I can be someone else. Maybe we wouldn’t have lasted even that long without the truce turning sour.

I will allow myself to wonder about this possible life while I seek to improve.

Yours.

He’d signed it as yours.

Bursting with the need to see Nicolò, Yusuf departs on the first ship he finds before he loses his nerve. The journey is long, but not arduous, but when he arrives, his courage has dissipated nearly completely. On foreign soil for the first time in centuries and faced with the hope of seeing Nicolò leaves him scared.

Now that he is here, what is his plan?

Will he burst through the doors of his shop and announce that Yusuf belongs to Nicolò as well? Will he be accepted with open arms? Perhaps accepted straight into Nicolò’s bed?

He takes a turn of the city once, but finds no sign of a smithy. He does it again, and still nothing. It is not until he asks a local if they know of a blacksmith named Nicolò that he learns of a secret alley entrance.

“But,” the merchant speaks, peering at the titles of the books Yusuf has used for payment for this information, “you mean Nico, yes?”

Yusuf does not trust his words. Instead, he merely nods.

“Ah, well, then it is easy.” The directions are, in fact, simple.

What is not so simple is the worry Yusuf faces as he follows them, knowing that every additional step brings him closer to Nicolò. He makes the last turn and faces a decision.

Turn back now and give into his fear or face the hopeful possibility that he and Nicolò might form a future borne of a new truce. Despite Quỳnh’s judgment of his peaceful life, Yusuf is no coward. He continues forward with determination and a firm belief in his heart that if he can simply knock on Nicolò’s door, then they will be able to start again.

Ahead of him lies Nicolò’s shop.

For all that he’s believed the Library to be non-descript, it is practically a chaotic den of noise and light compared to this. The heavy iron door in the alley is dark and unmarked. If Yusuf hadn’t been looking for it, he would pass it by. There is no sign, no marker that he has found what he’s looking for.

He knows very well that after so many years, money is no longer an object, but Yusuf has to wonder how Nicolò can operate like this and still earn any coin.

Standing before this dark and ominous door, Yusuf feels as if he shrinks in its presence.

Even when he knocks, the sound of it echoes heavily in the alley. In Yusuf’s shop, he welcomes people in easily and encourages them to stay. This great big door warns people to stay away.

For the first time, he regrets making this trip.

“Wait! Wait a moment,” calls a woman’s voice in a Genovese dialect that Yusuf barely knows. He has been trying to learn from the sailors in port, always keeping Nicolò in mind, but she speaks rapidly and he strains to keep up.

Perhaps he is also alarmed because Nicolò has never mentioned a woman.

“Yes?” she asks, when she draws open the door a few inches.

She is absolutely beautiful. Yusuf musters up a warm smile, hoping to hide the pain in his eyes. “Good day,” he greets her. He knows his appearance will give him away as a traveller, but hopes that she will still be happy to give him information. “I was looking for the owner of the establishment. Nico?”

She rolls her pretty green eyes, shaking her head. “You’re two days late. The idiot had to go to Venezia for a client,” she sighs. “I told him that he shouldn’t have shipped the doors without accompanying them and now he’s going to have to return to the client to do work and we won’t get paid.”

“We?” Yusuf echoes, hearing his heart thumping in his chest with harrowing and haunting doom. “Are you his wife, then?”

She’s very pretty when she laughs, too, though Yusuf fears that the answer will not be what he wants to hear. “Nicolò? With a woman?” She shakes her head. “He is married to his anvil, that is what the town says.” She brushes her palms on her skirts, extending a hand. “I’m Teresa,” she introduces herself. “I owed Nico a favour for the help in replacing a dear piece of jewellery that I broke. Now, I watch the shop until he returns. Would you like to come in?”

Yusuf is not sure. The truth is that he has come all this way for Nicolò and his absence makes Yusuf feel like an intruder.

He seeks for signs of the man he’d once known in this shop, as if that will tell him whether he should venture further into the lion’s den. Perhaps it is there in the weapons hanging like trophies on the walls, but even these seem to be prized more as art than weaponry. He clearly has learned to make friends, if Teresa feels indebted enough to owe Nicolò a favour.

Yet, without venturing deeper into the shop, he will never know if Yusuf’s books are on his kitchen table. He will never know what Nicolò smells of these days. He will not see the rumpled state of his sheets.

That is for the best.

Without Nicolò here, Yusuf suspects that seeing such things will only torment him for decades to come.

“Ah,” he says haltingly. “No, I shouldn’t. I’m only in Genoa for a brief time. I thought maybe to spend it…” With him. With Nicolò. And yet, he is not here and Yusuf does not mean to wait and appear desperate. “I’ll be heading off soon, I’m afraid.”

“Would you like me to tell him that you came to visit?” Teresa asks.

Yusuf could ask her to tell Nicolò that he has come. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea to remain until Nicolò returns, but Teresa’s words sit in the back of his mind. He is married to his work -- it is above all. If Nicolò truly felt for Yusuf as his letters have implied, wouldn’t he have crossed the sea and come to Yusuf?

It is not anger that overwhelms him, but a terrible feeling of self-pity that Yusuf has come all this way for nothing, and now he has reminded himself that Nicolò cannot want him that much if he has not done the same.

“No,” Yusuf exhales, because this is not something he wishes Nicolò to hear from the words of another. “No, I don’t think so.”

She regards him with sharp eyes, but doesn’t argue with him. Given that the other two constant companions in his life are both women who would refuse to let go of the point, Yusuf finds it a refreshing thing.

He allows the complacency to usher him out of the shop, but hesitates at the door.

“I suppose there is something you could do,” says Yusuf, so close to leaving.

Teresa raises a brow, her lips curving up with amusement. “Yes?”

She must think that he is interested in her. Perhaps she thinks that a handsome man hesitates because of her beauty. Instead, he digs out the folded letter from his coat pocket and presses it on the table, seal and all.

“Will you please make sure that he receives that?”

The disappointment on Teresa’s face is clear when she understands that Yusuf does not want some secret tryst in her friend’s shop. Still, she takes the letter. He must hope that she will deliver it to Nicolò.

He cannot do more, not unless he is ready to sit and wait for Nicolò. Despite his beautiful words and his even lovelier gifts, Yusuf is too scared to do so, on the off chance that he is remaining for nothing.

That night, Yusuf returns to Tunis, heart aching and determined that if something is to change between them, it must be Nicolò who comes to him. He cannot bear another voyage like this one, going so far only to come up empty handed.

When Nicolò finally comes to him (if he ever does), Yusuf knows that there will not be any leaving. When they manage to figure this out, Yusuf isn’t going to let Nicolò walk away.

No, when he finds him again, Yusuf is going to hold onto Nicolò as tightly as he can and never let him go.

Chapter Text

2020

Before this, Yusuf had died a total of thirteen times.

Today, he has to add another to the count, despite his frantic attempts to stave off his death during his flight from the market. Death number fourteen had come to him slumped against a bin in an alleyway, but when he awoke, no one had been pursuing him. The soldiers’ words rattle through his head again. They’d known they were there, but more than that, they’d only taken Nicolò.

Why? Why him?

Why leave Yusuf, when he’s the one on the board and Nicolò isn’t? None of it makes any sense.

The confusion and panic gives Yusuf speed like he’s never felt before. He hasn’t stopped since he staggered, healed, out of the alleyway. It’s a desperate journey to get back to the safehouse to find out if it’s been compromised too.

Even though every part of his being shouts to go straight back, he’s careful to take an indirect path on the off chance he’s being followed. Yusuf refuses to be the one who leads them to their door, if they haven’t yet found it.

Inside the halls of the apartment, he ducks in through a connecting door, stumbling inside and seeking out signs of life.

“Anyone! Fuck!”

There’s no one in the kitchen or the first bathroom. He can’t find any of the women and no sign of Booker. Worse, there’s no fucking note or clue about where they’ve gone. Booker’s phone is still on the table, so he picks it up to search for Andy’s number. That’s when he hears the shuffle of shoes against the wooden floors in the bedroom.

Someone is still here. Relief flooding Yusuf, he keeps scrolling through Booker’s phone, knowing the man won’t mind if he uses it to text Andy (seeing as his own cracked in the assault at the market).

At the very least, he’s got someone here to help him with the rescue mission.

“We have to hurry,” Yusuf calls over to whoever it is, sliding through the contacts. “I don’t know if I was followed, but I…”

He trails off when a text comes in from ‘Unknown’, a startling message showing up on the screen that has Yusuf feeling as if he’s been submerged in ice.

first target acquired. did not harm the civilian as promised. turn yourself in @ 1600 hours per the deal

Yusuf stares at the text, dread beginning to crystallize as his mind puts together the pieces laid out before him.

“Yusuf.”

He turns, muscles taut and tense as he feels his body sink into fight or flight mode. “Booker,” Yusuf says calmly. “You got a text.” Civilian, rattles around in his brain. Civilian, target, acquired, turn yourself in. “What the hell did you get yourself into?”

“Nothing you need to care about, I made sure of it.”

“What does that mean?” Yusuf asks, his stomach twisting up in knots.

Booker looks exhausted. Have the bags under his eyes always been so dark and deep? Has he always looked so pathetic and worn?

“I know how you feel about Nicolò.”

Alarm bells sound in Yusuf’s mind. His eyes widen as he stares at Booker, heart sinking in his chest. He’s no good at hiding his emotions. In this moment, it is fear that dominates his countenance. He’s sure he must look consumed with fear, his mouth parted and his eyes wide with horror.

“I know you can’t stand him. I’ve seen it in the way you speak to him. I heard it in the way Andy and Quỳnh spoke about the two of you. I saw how he stared at you, as if you were a dirty thing.”

No. No, this isn’t right. Booker thinks that Yusuf still loathes Nicolò.

He must be in a waking nightmare, there is no other explanation. “Booker, what have you done?”

“I volunteered myself. I wanted to keep you out of it, all of you, but they wouldn’t accept it. I thought, maybe, that if they wouldn’t take just me, then I could convince them to take a second and be done with it. They agreed. I convinced them to take Nicolò and myself, I know how you feel about him and I knew that Andy and Quỳnh could recover from it.”

“You did this for me,” Yusuf says, the creeping horror chilling him to the bone. “Nicolò died in that alley. He was taken by those thugs,” he says sharply. “How could you do this to him? How could you assign yourself judge, jury, and executioner?”

He feels volcanic with his fury, exploding without a care for his destruction.

“He died, Booker! Nicolò died! They took him and for what? So you could go and sacrifice yourself to the same goons? You’re supposed to be one of us,” he snaps. “How could you betray any of us like this?” His eyes cast quickly around the room, needing to find something with which to threaten Booker with.

This is the problem, knowing they're both immortal. It’s never going to be enough.

The best he manages is the chef’s knife as he stumbles sideways to grasp the hilt desperately, managing to get the point across to Booker that this is not the time to lie. Exhausted as Booker looks, Yusuf is not sure he’d try, but he still doesn’t appreciate it when Booker raises a gun to Yusuf’s knife.

“Asshole,” Yusuf snaps.

“I need them to find a way to let us die,” Booker says wearily, responding to Yusuf’s insult with grief. “My contact, Copley, he works for the CIA. He found out what we are, but I managed to convince him to only take two of us as samples. He’s going to bring us to Merrick, who can find a way to let it all stop.”

“You shouldn’t have let them take anyone! Don’t get us involved, don’t get Nicolò involved!” Yusuf wants to pull his hair out, but that would require lowering the knife. “Nile, too? Were you the one who helped get her to Germany?”

“No, I swear…” Booker insists hurriedly, but Yusuf sees the doubt in his eyes.

He’s not sure that his hands are clean.

“You’re an idiot, Book,” Yusuf scoffs, his grip on the knife tightening. “You know that? You are the stupidest son of a bitch that I have ever met! I can’t believe you could sell out Nicolò like this!” It’s been centuries since Yusuf has been this angry, but today he had to watch the man he loves dragged away from him in smoke.

He’d just gotten back to him. They’d barely even connected and now he’s gone.

“You can’t tell me you actually like the man. I’ve seen the way you are when we talk about him.”

It’s wrong. It’s all wrong, and Yusuf wants to weep at what his behaviour and Booker’s erroneous judgment has wrought. There is no time, though, because their duel gains more company with a turn of the key in the door.

“We saw a commotion at the market, what’s…”

Andy’s voice trails off when she walks in to find Booker with his gun aimed at Yusuf, and Yusuf with only a knife to defend himself.

“He betrayed us all,” Yusuf says icily. “He gave Nicolò to our enemies.”

“I told you, the deal is for Nicolò and myself, because of the way you hate him.”

“I never wanted you to do anything to him!” Yusuf erupts, feeling more like the man he’d been in 1099 than any version of him since. “Don’t you understand, Sébastien? I don’t hate him, I love him!” His outburst is centuries coming, but with Nile and Quỳnh walking into the safehouse, it feels like the most inopportune time.

No, that’s not true.

The most inopportune time had been in the alley in the marketplace, when he hadn’t said it to Nicolò. Now, he’s been taken by gun-happy mercenaries working for a CIA spook, who are tied to some terrible medical dickbag and he doesn’t even know what he truly means to Yusuf.

His chest heaves with grief and he drops the knife to the ground, the sound of it clattering on the tiles nearly making him jump.

“I love him,” he admits aloud.

He wishes he had said it to Nicolò first. Wistfully, truly disappointed, he is still at least glad he has said it out loud.

Horror dawns on Booker’s face and though Yusuf is glad that he feels like the shitheel he is, it’s not enough. He’s still given Nicolò to their enemy. He’s still delivered him to people that would tear him apart for their own gain.

“Yusuf, I swear, I…”

“Maybe save the groveling for later, Book,” Andy cuts in. She’s been alive for so long, perhaps it’s experience that has allowed her to drain all the emotion from her voice. She is not furious or upset. She gets right to the point. Perhaps one day, that will be Yusuf, but at the moment, he is consumed with a fury and a fire so thick he thinks he might choke on it.

“What do we do?” Nile asks instantly.

It is the exact detente Yusuf needs. “Nile, you sweet girl,” he exhales. We, she’d said. We, as if she hadn’t been captured recently. As if she isn’t new to this and still debating whether she will even stay. “You know this isn’t your fight.”

Yet, there is a fierceness in the way she holds herself. “They took me too. I know what it was like and no one deserves that. We have to help him. We have to prevent him from falling into their hands,” Nile says sharply, gesturing to Booker.

Ah, so perhaps she and Quỳnh had been lingering and eavesdropping longer than Yusuf had known about.

“You don’t understand,” Booker says roughly. “I want them to take me.”

“Well, tough shit,” Quỳnh replies with a sharply sweet smile. “You don’t always get what you want.”

It is lucky that no one is armed when Booker mutters, “I never do,” because Yusuf suspects that he might have earned himself a bullet for that.

“Andy,” Nile says, turning to the woman in charge. “What do we do?”

“We get Nicolò back.” She turns to look at Booker, holding his gaze. “We make sure they can’t come after you. We take every single piece of research they have.” Booker looks strung together with tight, tense cords. He could snap at any moment. Yusuf wants him to, he deserves to. “Yusuf…”

“Don’t you dare bench me,” he cuts her off. “I may not be a warrior like the rest of you, but I will fight like the one I was for him.”

He can see the approval on Quỳnh’s face, the relief on Nile’s, and the fiercely determined curve of Andy’s lips say that she’d been hoping for Yusuf’s system to trigger fight and not flight.

“Then let’s go get our man back.”

1108

“Ammi,” says Yusuf’s young nephew from where he is nestled snugly under the covers, “will you tell me a story?”

He is so young and so small. Yusuf has been careful not to think too long about how these children of his sister’s will grow old and that he will outlive them. If he could wrap himself up in this moment where they are young and precious and know him only as their uncle, he would.

For them, he would give anything in the world.

“Dragons and beasts?” Yusuf suggests, sitting down at Hakan’s side. Given his nephew’s sleepy eyes and his yawns, Yusuf knows he will not need to read a very long story.

Hakan squirms as he wriggles his way into Yusuf’s side. “I heard my sister talking today about a boy she is in love with.” He crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue. “Ammi, how do you know when you fall in love?”

Is this truly the bedtime story his nephew wants?

Huffing out a soft laugh, Yusuf runs his fingers through Hakan’s hair, tapping his nose. “Your face will turn to stone if you keep doing that,” he warns.

Love. What does Yusuf know of love?

There are no pages for Yusuf to rest his hands on, so Yusuf seeks his history and his heart to tell him what it truly feels about love.

“I don’t think you do know when you fall in love,” he admits, furrowing his brow as he thinks of those who came before him and how they spoke of it. They always spoke of it as though it had simply happened as if by nature -- one moment they had been happy alone and the next, they knew that they could never live that way again without their other half.

Yet, how that happens is beyond him.

“I think,” Yusuf continues slowly, “that when you truly fall in love, it will be by surprise. It will hit you as if you are walking in the orchard and a pomegranate hits you from the tree. Only then will you feel the ache and only then will you know that it is real. That you have been blessed by love.”

“And by fruit!”

“Yes,” agrees Yusuf with a hearty laugh. “And also, with fruit that you can eat.”

“Have you ever been in love, Ammi?”

Yusuf curls his nephew in close, ignoring the question. It will lead him to think about the times he has exposed his heart and allowed himself to be vulnerable enough to let anyone close. He does not think he has been in love and it is a depressing thing to realize that all his life, he has lacked that romantic connection.

Perhaps, though, he is not devoid of it.

“What do I need love for, when I have you?” he asks, tapping Hakan’s nose gently. “You fill up my heart plenty and are a blessing to your dear Ammi. You will always be so, even if I have not yet been hit by a pomegranate of love.”

“If you do fall in love, will you bring her to us?”

If. If. Yusuf does not think he will be able to visit in several years’ time. Hakan will grow and his family will age, but he will not. Never mind that there is no one he wants to bring to them, it is too dangerous to do so.

“Yes,” he lies. “Of course. When I meet someone that I feel deeply for, I will bring them to you and tell you of what it truly feels to fall in love.”

“You will tell me if it hurts as much as being struck by a…” Hakan yawns deeply, clearly too tired to speak much more. “...love pomegra-gran-grani…”

“Sleep now,” Yusuf coaxes, bringing the blanket up to cover his nephew, but not leaving just yet. These times with him are limited in supply and Yusuf must enjoy every one of them as much as he can.

In sleep, Hakan’s face is slack with peace. Yusuf knows that he does not have anyone to share his life with, but he knows that his heart overflows with love because of him. He wishes with all his heart that he could bring someone to them, if only so they would know that he is cared for.

Until there is someone else who will have Yusuf’s love, he has them.

2020

For nearly a thousand years, Nicolò has done his best to keep out of trouble. Every time things seem to turn towards him becoming known or his shop becoming the target of those in power, he goes up to a villa in the mountainside and lives off the land for a decade or two. He has been Nicolò the Blacksmith for so long, but there is also a part of him that enjoyed the peace and quiet of a farming life.

It has been so long since he has been a warrior, avoiding it as often as he could.

Now, he finds himself a prisoner of a war he hadn’t even realized he’d been fighting.

“Tighter, please,” the doctor instructs the men that had kidnapped him.

Nicolò winces sharply as the straps dig into his skin, nearly cutting off circulation at his wrist. “You know, if you wanted to see if my hand would grow back, it would be quicker for you to chop it off.”

The doctor -- a blonde woman lacking a sense of humour -- simply arches a brow. “Maybe in time.”

“I look forward to it,” Nicolò deadpans, squirming to test the bonds securing both his wrists and his ankles to the gurney. There is another bed beside him. He must keep his panic to a minimum, telling himself that if they had Yusuf, he would be here now.

Still, it cannot hurt to get the definitive answer.

“I’ll be lonely if I’m here by myself,” he says pointedly. “Why not bring me some company?”

“Oh,” the doctor says as she loads a syringe with some unknown viscous substance, “Your friend will be along soon. By this evening, he’ll have turned himself in.”

Nicolò cannot imagine Yusuf ever doing such a thing. Unfortunately, he can imagine who would. It does not take long for his mind to walk down the road to inevitable conclusions. He presses his lips together tightly and thinks that of course a Frenchman would betray him like this.

He never thought he and Booker were close, but he also didn’t think the man would ever do this to Nicolò.

“What are you even trying to find?”

“Within your genes lies the secret of immortality.” She eyes the syringe before injecting it into Nicolò’s veins, with little care to the gentleness of the motion. “I will be famous for discovering it. I will save millions of lives.”

There is an uneasy feeling pulsing through him and Nicolò suspects it is not only because of the drug in his veins. Sedative, he thinks, given the way his reactions seem to have turned sluggish and slow.

“And who are you? Since you will be famous so soon, who is it that will take me apart like a cadaver to glorify her work?”

“My name is Meta Kozak,” she says, unamused by his theatrics. “You are nothing more than a laboratory rat. If you truly cannot die, then I will harvest your cells and together, you and I and Sébastien will unlock cures untold. When Merrick joins us in a few days, you’ll understand the vision he has and the role you’ll play.”

It is a pretty fairytale, but even Nicolò knows it will not work.

Andy and Quỳnh have told him tales of the scientists they’ve encountered through the years. Some, they worked with willingly. Others had been like this. Each time yielded the same answer -- whatever tests they ran, nothing ever came of it.

“You speak of a fantasy.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you are not the first. You will not be the last,” he says, finding it harder to fight against the restraints. His eyelids feel heavy and his limbs are like concrete. Soon, she would not even need to keep him bound to keep safe. Nicolò does not think he will be able to speak soon. He will heal from this, of course, but if she continues to drug him, he will remain useless.

“And yet, none of those past or future scientists are me.”

Nicolò has met many men and women over the years that he has despised. So often, they are the people who have been shown the hatred in their hearts and the mistake of their ways and have simply ignored it. Those are the people he loathes the most, who have been given a chance and still choose to embrace their wrong actions.

Those who are prideful and vengeful and stupidly wrong, like Dr. Kozak, are not much better. He bucks against the straps once more, but nothing happens.

Luckily, she has not given him another dose of sedative and his body has healed.

“Interesting,” she notes, checking his vitals on the system he’s hooked up to. “Heart rate, blood pressure, even your eye movement are back to normal, all within…” She consults her watch. “Twenty-five seconds. Impressive.”

“Your praise means nothing,” he mutters.

“Wouldn’t you rather be a willing accomplice? Think of the lives you will save being here. From what your colleague has told me, you’ve been hiding away, burying your head in the sand for hundreds of years. You owe the world, don’t you?”

“One man cannot be expected to save humanity.”

“But he should strive to make it better.”

Nicolò suspects he hates her a little more because there is a valid point in her words. It is something he has thought about so many times. To ensure his safety, he has stayed away from choosing sides, not knowing if he will pick the wrong one. He has done his best to be kind to the people of Genoa and do what he can, but has it ever been enough?

She has struck a nerve and even his regenerative talents are not doing a very good job of healing from it.

“You will keep me here forever, then, to atone for my missed opportunities?” he challenges, voice slightly duller as he fights to unearth his warrior heart, so long dormant after switching from the life of a crusader to one of a man trying his best to atone for his sins.

“Your colleague seemed to think that you had nothing waiting for you back home.” She is not even looking at Nicolò as she insults him, preparing something new.

He does not want to think about what is in the next syringe. She has made her notes that his body healed him from the first dose without him passing out. He doesn’t think that she will simply try and sedate him again. She has the look of a woman who escalates quickly.

“What does he know?” Nicolò says calmly. “He and I don’t spend much time together.”

“Is he wrong, then?” She eyes him over the syringe. “Do you have something to live for?”

He does and they’ve taken him away from the very man that Nicolò lives and dies for, breathes and atones for. For the rest of his life, he will fight to get back to Yusuf now that he has shared the same air as him, seen the pleasure in his smile as he tasted Nicolò’s food, and now that he has felt the warmth of his touch.

They cannot have him. They cannot have even the knowledge of him.

“Even if I did not have something to live for, you are not worth dying for -- not over and over again.”

She cocks her head to the side. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?” She steps closer and Nicolò begins to buck against the restraints once more, fighting to escape. He does not think that this time, he will survive what she injects him with. “Shh,” she soothes, as though she can calm him. “Close your eyes and think of the good you are doing.”

It is very much not a sedative this time. Nicolò bucks against the restraints as the drug courses through his veins, lighting his blood on fire and bringing with it immense pain.

He has never made a hobby of dying. The pain is torment, wracking him as his muscles seize up and his heart arrests. Death is coming, brought on by a viciously egotistical doctor’s needle and Nicolò cannot do anything to stop it.

“Yusuf,” he breathes out, when he finds he cannot control himself. It is the last thing he sees in the darkness as death approaches. His beautiful face and the panic in his eyes as they had been separated are a balm to him as the darkness closes in.

They have been apart for nearly a thousand years. He can wait just a little longer until Yusuf comes to him, as Nicolò knows he will deep in his heart.

2020

“There’s good news and bad news.”

Yusuf has only ever been on the periphery of these plans in the past. Sometimes, Andy and Quỳnh would set up shop and talk strategy while he worked on his books. He thinks that they’d done it to try and lure him via his curiosity. Unfortunately, Yusuf’s determination to keep his head down and focus on his work meant they failed, every time.

Now, he can’t help but feel the sharp pang of regret that he hadn’t taken them up on it. If he had, perhaps he would be better suited to the siege they’re about to undertake.

“Good news?” Nile asks hopefully.

“Well, there’s two bits of good news. Malta is not their usual base of operations, which means they’re working out of a less secure building and with less staff than their main London office. Also? We’re fucking immortal.”

There’s a clear pleased smile on Quỳnh’s face at Andy’s declaration.

“Bad news,” Booker says evenly. He’s not being forced to sit here, but Yusuf won’t let that asshole out of his sight.

“For one, we have a traitor in our midst,” Quỳnh says sharply.

Andy stops her from continuing with an outstretched hand. “What she means is that while Booker has been working with the opposite side, they’ve kept him at arm’s length. We don’t have schematics or a count on how many security staff are actually there. We could wait and get that information, but…”

“No,” Yusuf cuts her off. The way she’d trailed off implies she’d expected it. “We’re not leaving Nicolò alone for a second more than he needs to be.”

“Right,” Andy agrees calmly. “What we have is a window of opportunity. They’re expecting Booker. We’re just going to add a few more guests to their party. We find Nicolò, we lay explosives, and we destroy the facility.”

Booker looks very unhappy with this plan.

It’s Yusuf’s favourite part of the plan, as a result.

“I’d say that I’ll retrieve Nicolò on my own, but given recent discoveries, I doubt Yusuf is going to let that happen.”

“I’ll be with you,” he says firmly. “You’ll need backup.”

“And I’ll stay with Booker to give you an exit,” Quỳnh says. Her smile is a promise for violence, and Yusuf would hate to find out what happens if she’s forced to keep said promise.

Andy checks her watch, nodding firmly. “Nile, you’ll be on lookout and getaway duty. Merrick’s had you once, we don’t want to give him a chance to snatch you up again. Are you good with that?”

“I am,” Nile promises. “We’re not…” She glances around the group, uncertain. “We’re not hurting anyone, are we? I know they took me and now they have Nicolò, but they’re people.”

“They are,” Yusuf agrees. “Which is why we’ll give them a choice. If they choose to fight us and hold Nicolò and resist, then they will have made their bed.”

Yusuf does not think they will let them waltz in and simply take Nicolò. It has been ages since he wielded his scimitar and he has not kept up with guns, but to free the man he is in love with, he will learn anything. He will do anything.

Perhaps now he begins to understand Nicolò better than ever before. Is this not a holy crusade? He does it for love, though, and not hatred. He wants to think that it makes him better, but he still fears that he will do things today that he may one day regret. There is no other choice, though, and he will not stay behind.

“Okay,” Nile says. She doesn’t look like she believes them, but she’s taking Yusuf at face value. “So, we’re doing this?”

Yusuf doesn’t wait for anyone else’s opinion. “Let’s go.”

Every moment they wait to rescue Nicolò is a moment too long. Anything that happens to him as a result of Booker’s erroneous beliefs will live on Yusuf’s conscience for years, because if not for Yusuf’s stubborn inability to show his true emotions, this never would have happened.

Between the five of them, they are loaded down with explosives, guns, grenades, and ancient weapons that would have a museum weep in envy. These weapons are a sixth passenger in their car, piled in together with Andy in the driver’s seat, Quỳnh beside her, and the rest elbow-to-elbow in the back.

It’s awkward enough, even before Booker begins to plead with him.

“Yusuf, mon ami, please…”

“Trust me, Booker, I am not a friend to you right now,” he says, refusing to engage with him. If he even looks at Booker, Yusuf might forget that their enemy is at their destination and not packed within this forty-year-old deathtrap. Leaning forward, he grips the headrest. “We had to have a car that’ll kill us with fumes?”

“My love appreciates a classic,” Quỳnh sighs. “Spend enough time with us and you’ll develop an appreciation for diesel.” She shakes her head, catching Yusuf’s eye in the rearview mirror. “The things we do for love.”

He isn’t sure if she’s teasing him kindly or if there is an edge to her words that point out that what Yusuf has done for love over the last few centuries, namely hiding it away, has led them to this situation. Either way, he chooses not to acknowledge it.

Lucky for him, he’s saved by the monotone instruction of their reluctant guide.

“Turn left here,” Booker directs, his gaze shadowed as he leans forward to indicate a three-story building in the midst of what looks like a warehouse and shipping district. There are several buildings on each side of it that look run-down and decrepit.

The one Booker points them to has high-tech security cameras, steel gates, and more guards than Yusuf has ever seen in one place. Whatever they are guarding, they think it is precious.

For once, Yusuf is on the same page as the kidnappers. After all, he also believes Nicolò to be the most treasured thing in the world.

“Do we need to review the plan again?” Andy asks, once she’s parked in the nearest alley that will give the car cover. So long as no one betrays them (again) and if they get out, they will have their escape route.

Yusuf doesn’t want to waste a single moment. He doesn’t even bother responding as he hauls the scimitar from the trunk and accepts a pistol from Quỳnh. He knows they won’t let him storm the castle on his own.

He’s proven right when he’s flanked by Quỳnh and Andy on opposite sides of him.

“This is quite the battle to be jumping back into,” Quỳnh says quietly. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“It cannot be my time,” Yusuf insists stubbornly as he keeps his eyes on the heavily guarded door ahead of them. It is the only true fear that he holds in his heart. If he is killed, then so be it. Let him be killed a thousand times in pursuit of freeing Nicolò. If he is captured, there is Nile and Andy and Quỳnh (and perhaps even Booker) to rescue him.

The only true unhappy ending he foresees is if he dies and he doesn’t heal, but he cannot imagine the universe has that in mind for them.

He cannot imagine fate or destiny would ever be so cruel.

“She wants to know if you’ll be able to live with yourself,” Andy interprets.

“I can speak for myself,” Quỳnh says snippily. “I want to know if he’s going to make me ruin my nice new jacket.”

It is a very nice green leather jacket. It would be a shame.

“You could always take it off,” Andy replies, their mild tones belying the fact that they continue to casually approach a heavily guarded security checkpoint as if they’re tourists and not laden with weapons, determination, and resolve.

From the looks of Nile’s expression, she’s also unnerved by the seeming lack of concern about the situation.

Yusuf has known both the women long enough to see the act for what it is. There is a pinched set to Quỳnh’s eyes and he sees the tightness in Andy’s lips. While they want to put on brave faces, they are wary about taking a civilian into battle, even if none of them can die. Perhaps it isn’t him. Perhaps they are worried Nile is new and they will scare her off. Or, perhaps, they are just worried Booker might betray them here.

There is much to occupy their minds and that’s without knowing what’s happening to Nicolò behind those doors.

“Let’s not get too lewd, now,” Yusuf decides to play along, even though his nerves betray him in the quiver of his voice. “There are children present.”

“I’m twenty-six, you know,” Nile deadpans.

“I meant Booker,” Yusuf jibes. “He’s a very young two hundred.”

Booker does not seem to be in the mood for jokes, but then, he lost his say in any of this when he betrayed them. Even without Booker’s joining in, it feels like something that might happen in Yusuf’s shop while they wait for the tea to steep and not on the final approach towards a man that looms above them in a way that seems oddly familiar. The breadth of his shoulders and the height of this man makes Yusuf think of the alley and the man who’d taken Nicolò.

“You. I thought we said if you fought, we’d put you down.”

How nice of him to confirm that Yusuf hadn’t been mistaken in his guessing.

Without his mask on, the brute is no less ugly. It has been decades since Yusuf experienced a livid fury like the one coursing through his veins and he tells himself that he cannot waste time here. If they sound the alarm, then there could be any number of guards flooding the halls.

“Where is Nicolò?”

“The doc has him,” the large man says, lifting his gun. “You want to join him? I killed him about three times, if you’re eager to even up the score, just say the…”

Earlier, the beast of a man interrupted Nicolò’s confession. Now, his taunting is stopped by a bullet through the man’s forehead. Caught off guard, Yusuf searches for the gun that fired it, finding it to be Quỳnh’s.

“What happened to killing only in self defense?” Nile mutters.

“Nicolò didn’t get a chance,” Quỳnh says coolly. “Booker and I will clear the halls. Nile, keep the door open. Andy?”

“Come on, Romeo,” Andy says, cuffing Yusuf by the shoulder. He’s still in shock, staring at the slumped form of the guard on the ground, trying to parse his emotions about it. The shock is clear, but beyond that, is he pleased? Is he gutted to think that this death is necessary?

Or is he simply jealous that he hadn’t been the one to have pulled the trigger?

“Yusuf!” Andy snaps. “Let’s move!”

There is no time for deep emotional quandaries in a rescue mission, it seems. Yusuf has always worked alone, so to have a team surrounding him is a strange affair. He’s not sure he trusts Booker, not with everything, but he trusts Quỳnh more than almost anyone else in the world and she will keep him in check.

Perhaps she will even manage to keep him from turning himself in, though at this exact moment, Yusuf’s generosity cannot bring himself to care whether Booker comes or stays.

They ascend through the floors of the building with Andy in the lead and Yusuf behind. He has not forgotten everything, but his warrior’s heart flinches in the face of those that try to stop them. With Andy in the lead, they never make it to him. She dispenses them with the quick cut of her axe, charging forward as if they had merely been paper for her to cut through.

They are two floors in and still, there is no sign of Nicolò.

“What if he’s not here?” Yusuf demands as they ascend the stairwell to the last floor. From here, he hears the echoes of gunfire from below. Quỳnh, he thinks, clearing the hired guns that had the ill luck of remaining at their posts and fighting.

Andy has a hand on the stairwell door, levelling Yusuf with one of her patented, ‘don’t sell me that bullshit’ looks. “Since when were you a pessimist?”

He doesn’t say it, but he thinks the pain in his eyes shows it. He is a pessimist because he worries he has missed his chance. He worries they will burst forth into the lab and Nicolò will not be there.

Yusuf fears another thousand years without Nicolò because he cannot do that. He is not made for such suffering. If Nicolò is not here, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, and so he must be here, and so, he fears that he is anywhere but.

“We clear this building and then we get the hell out,” she says firmly. “One more floor.”

One more floor, which seems to be less populated than the ones below. Either they’ve done an excellent job clearing the staff, or someone has deliberately asked not to be bothered. As they get closer, Yusuf notices that there are less file cabinets and computers and far more medical technology surrounding them.

They’re not breadcrumbs, but they’re close enough.

If there is someone performing morally corrupt experiments, it will be on this floor. Given the timing of Nicolò’s capture, the lack of options out of Malta on short notice, and the heavy guard protection, everything points to him being here, but it is not until Andy barrels her way through a double set of doors by hacking off the lock with her labrys that Yusuf discovers his treasure.

There. In this horrifying room of medical terrors, he is there.

“Andromache,” Nicolò says from a gurney, where he is strapped down and looking worse for the wear.

Andy’s fingers go white as she grips her weapon tightly, and Yusuf knows that the people in this room are having the worst day of their lives, even if they don’t know it yet. There is only a doctor and one last guard between them, yet Yusuf freezes with his hand on his scimitar.

Nicolò is sluggish as he attempts to sit up on the gurney, his stormy eyes muddled as if he doesn’t recognize Yusuf by the sight of him, or perhaps, he is merely awash in wonder that Yusuf is here at all.

“How many times, Nicolò? It’s Andy, now,” Andy retorts calmly, as she begins to advance. This time, though, she is not in the lead. This time, Yusuf steps forward because whatever is going to happen in this room, it will be at his hand.

The question is -- how far is Yusuf willing to go?

He would die for this man. Would he kill for him?

“You can’t have him,” the female doctor warns, staggering back and shoving a table at Yusuf as he advances. “He will be our salvation! He can save the world, you cannot take that purpose away from him.”

“I don’t want to be a saviour,” Nicolò mutters from where he lies. “I want only one thing. I want the forgiveness of Yusuf Al-Kaysani. That is the only salvation I want, the only salvation that deserves to be fought for.”

The declaration makes Yusuf’s heart skip a beat.

He is so rapt with Nicolò’s confession that he sees the guard reaching for his pistol too late, but Andy is there first. With two deliberate sweeps of the labrys, the guard loses first his wrist, then his head in quick succession. It’s a violent death that Yusuf thinks is on purpose.

It’s making the doctor a promise.

She is not going to get out of this alive and unscathed. It merely remains to be seen who will deliver that end to her.

“Don’t take him,” she pleads, grasping at Nicolò’s restraints, tightening them.

Yusuf sees the grimace on Nicolò’s face, the pain. He sees the way he flinches when the doctor nears, as if anticipating yet another horror. Even if he will heal from it, the thought of Nicolò suffering makes a white hot rage burn in Yusuf, until he is a phoenix rising from the ashes.

“You’re hurting him,” he says, his hand drawing his blade even as he speaks. “You shouldn’t do that.”

He’s moving before he even thinks about giving her a chance to let go. He doesn’t offer her mercy. The truth is, Yusuf isn’t sure that he could, not when she’s caused such pain for Nicolò. There is only one end for a woman like this. With one sharp, staccato thrust of his forearm, he slices through her torso with his scimitar, twisting it up as he guts this medical monster.

The last time he stood this closely when killing someone, it had been Nicolò.

He did not look so shocked or betrayed. He did not look so surprised. He holds her there, pinned on the sharp end until the last spark fades from her eyes. Lifeless, she sags forward. Yusuf waits, cautiously, wary that she may have stumbled on some secret to revive herself, but seconds stretch to minutes and she doesn’t revive.

“Yusuf,” Andy says quietly. “It’s done. Step back.”

He retracts his scimitar, wiping the blood on his cargo pants, the doctor’s body collapsing to the ground as blood begins to pool out from the torso wound. The blood is not only on the floor. It stains Yusuf’s scimitar, his trousers, and his shirt.

Staring at her body, he waits for regret, but it never comes. He has died for Nicolò and now he has killed for him and Yusuf does not feel any different.

He suspects that he is still in shock, because when he next looks up, Andy has freed Nicolò from his bonds and is walking him towards Yusuf. Has that much time passed? Perhaps his regret and guilt manifests like this, in the cold shock of knowing that he has become a killer again and a part of him believes it to be completely worthwhile.

“Go,” Andy insists. “I’ll stay with Booker and make sure this place gets levelled to the ground.”

Yusuf wraps his arm around Nicolò, pressing his splayed palm at his back to hold on tightly. Even here, he can feel that his heartbeat is still sluggish. Whatever the doctor had given to Nicolò is taking a disarmingly long time for his body to heal. It scares Yusuf, making him worry that this will be their time after all and they will never get a chance.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò murmurs, staring at him with half-lidded eyes. “Why do you look so fearful?”

“What if you’re dying, Nicolò? What if this is it?”

They are shuffling down the hall towards the elevators, lumbering in an uncoordinated dance that stops every few steps when Nicolò’s dead weight forces Yusuf to haul him back into his arms.

“It isn’t. I know that in my heart.”

“How can you?”

“Because I believe that it is our destiny to have found one another again. I believe that you and I will have thousands more years, now that we have learned who we are. I am me, and not me. You are you and not you. We are versions of men that we can no longer remember and we will become men that we cannot even dream of.”

Yusuf cannot help snorting with amusement as he gets them into the elevator. “You are poetic when you are drugged, my love.”

“I learned it from a very wise and romantic shop owner in Tunis.”

If Nicolò had not already won Yusuf’s heart, he thinks this would have been the moment he secured it forever. Yusuf shifts to press his other palm over Nicolò’s heart as the elevator descends, Nicolò’s colour improving slowly, though still too pale for Yusuf’s liking. With every passing floor, he looks better.

By the time the doors open to reveal Quỳnh and Nile, Nicolò is standing on his own two feet without wavering.

“Finally,” Nile breathes out, tossing the car keys to Quỳnh so she can advance on Nicolò. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Nile, please,” Nicolò protests. “I’m fine. Really, Yusuf, tell her!”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Yusuf says as Nile takes over for him, following as quickly as they can after Quỳnh gets into the car. “Who am I to deny someone else the right to fuss over you?”

Nicolò does not accept the help so easily. He keeps trying to push her off, insisting that he is fine. He may be physically healed since they began their descent in the elevator, but Yusuf can see the harrowed and shadowed look in his eyes. It takes everything not to climb into the backseat with Nicolò after Nile settles him there, but Nile is taking care of him and Yusuf believes she might need it as much as Nicolò does.

After all, of the four of them in this car, Nile is the only other one to be strapped down and experimented on by Merrick and his merry band of insane misfits.

So Yusuf lets it be. He sits in the front seat with Quỳnh and gazes longingly at Nicolò in the rearview mirror, wishing it were him touching his face reverently, that his fingers were steady above his breastbone to feel the persistent thrumming of his heartbeat.

He will get his turn.

It seems that it will not be when they arrive, though, as Nile whisks Nicolò away to clean him up and find him fresh clothes. The car is parked several alleys away from the safehouse just in case someone has tailed them and while Quỳnh has made it clear she’s eager to get back, Yusuf needs a few moments more.

“Are you sure?”

“I am,” Yusuf vows, handing her the scimitar and accepting the sweater she holds out to him. It won’t hide the stains on his trousers, but his goal is to stay out of sight. The sweater will hide the worst of it.

He does not know where he intends to go. Yusuf has stepped out onto the streets of Malta not knowing what to expect, with the memory of the doctor’s bloody body leaning onto his. It’s been so long since he watched the last sparks of life vanish from someone’s eyes, and yet, he’d seen that happen to Nicolò in the alley.

For that, they had to pay.

They all had to, and Yusuf knows in his heart that if he hadn’t driven his scimitar in, then he always would have wondered if he’d done enough.

And now, he is wandering foreign streets to the din of cars, tourists, locals, and more, all because he is scared. The fear he’d felt at not finding Nicolò has become a new fear -- one born of the knowledge that there will be no going back when he finds Nicolò and they talk.

It’s not that the future scares him; it’s accepting that their lives will change forever. When he tells Nicolò how much he loves him and wants to be with him, will he still be Yusuf Al-Kaysani, bookstore owner, artist, baklava connoisseur, and cat owner?

Yes. Perhaps, always. Yet, he also knows that he will become someone else all-together and that change scares him, if only a little, because he wants to make sure that he can still offer Nicolò the best of himself.

There is nothing to do but return and see.

After all, the only person who can control what he becomes is Yusuf, himself.

When he returns after another three laps of the block around the safehouse, Nile is asleep on the sofa and Quỳnh is the only one to be found. Andy and Booker haven’t made it back, though Yusuf suspects they will take their time. Whatever impetus drove Booker to this betrayal is not something Andy will accept lightly. They have much to discuss, but they are not Yusuf’s priority.

“Have you seen Nicolò?”

Quỳnh looks up from where she seems to be lamenting the holes in her jacket. It appears it didn’t survive the battle, then. “You mean this time, you don’t want to keep a sea between you?”

He hopes that she can see how little he appreciates the humour.

“He’s on the balcony,” Quỳnh says, muttering ‘love has robbed your sense of humour’ under her breath. She studies Yusuf, clearly debating whether she has room to speak. When Yusuf waits and gives her an expectant nod, she does. “You could have said something, you know.”

“I could have,” Yusuf agrees. “It would have made it real.”

“Is it not?”

“I feared it wouldn’t be.”

Quỳnh eyes the splatters of blood on his trousers, arching a brow. “And was your silence worth the price?”

No. Never. She knows that, though. She does not want him to answer, only to acknowledge what his silence and his fear has cost.

“Make sure no one disturbs us?” he requests, instead of answering her question. The last thing he wants is to lose his opportunity to finally have Nicolò alone. If anyone is going to guard that chance, it will be Quỳnh.

She gives him a swift nod and with that promise sewn away, Yusuf steps out to the balcony to find the love of his life.

Chapter Text

2020

The sun has just dipped beyond the horizon and Nicolò is painted by amber and red, the wind from the ocean brushing through the locks of his hair that fall over his forehead.

Yusuf clears his throat as he approaches to warn Nicolò before sliding his fingers over the shell of Nicolò’s ear to brush back the hair and tuck it behind his lobe, even as Nicolò stands facing the sea and not Yusuf. “I wonder,” he muses, “has it been like this for centuries?”

It aches furiously to know how much he has missed, but Yusuf also knows there are very few years that he would trade. Everything happens for a reason, even this.

“I did not recognize you in my shop,” Yusuf admits, the pain of it hitting him even now. “I don’t think I would have let you leave my sight if I’d realized it was you. I would have held tightly to you and prevented you from ever leaving me again.”

“I don’t want to move,” Nicolò murmurs. “If I turn and see you, then perhaps you will not be there. Maybe you will vanish into the air like the fantasy and dream I think you are.”

The fear is not isolated to Nicolò. Yusuf worries the same, and it makes him tighten his grip on Nicolò, as if his hold will guarantee that he will not go anywhere.

This man is real. This is Nicolò di Genova, who has spent nearly a thousand years wooing him with letters and apologies and gifts so thoughtful and sweet that Yusuf does not think anyone else could come close. He is his. Yusuf angles his head forward, the tip of his nose brushing against the warmth of Nicolò’s neck.

The strong, steady beat of his pulse is intoxicating, and so is the promise of him in Yusuf’s arms.

“You are real. I am real.”

“Am I?” Nicolò wonders. “Sometimes, I don’t know who I am anymore. I want to be the best version of myself for you.”

It has been extremely clear that Nicolò has been trying to be better, but Yusuf struggles to understand how he can still doubt that he already is.

“Do I have to say it? Must I forgive you?”

“I need to hear it, yes,” Nicolò confesses, turning in Yusuf’s arms.

He does not disappear, so he hopes that this works to allay some of Nicolò’s fears. It is a lucky thing that he can give Nicolò exactly as he desires.

“Nicolò di Genova, I forgive you for your sins.”

Now, Yusuf sees what relief looks like on Nicolò’s features. As an artist, Yusuf thinks he’s seen the world’s most beautiful things in paintings and sculptures, but now he knows they are nothing to the incandescent glory that is taking away Nicolò’s guilt.

“You do?”

“I do,” Yusuf vows. “I did a very long time ago and I was too stubborn to say. I hate that you thought you were not good enough for me. You are one of the finest men I have ever met, even if at one time, you were also one of the most vile.”

That is the quandary of the man before Yusuf.

In his memory, this man killed him three times in Jerusalem, espousing hatred and violence and fury. He had been a man of hate and destruction -- a villain. Yet, Yusuf lifts Nicolò’s palms and kisses each knuckle, knowing that these beautiful hands wrote him such treasured words and crafted thoughtful gifts decade after decade. His mind grew with knowledge as he learned Arabic and even Yusuf’s dialect. He curated recipes from Tunis which Yusuf sent, colouring his life.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò murmurs, knocked back by Yusuf’s tender words given the shocked parting of his lips. “Do you truly feel that of me?”

This is not the Nicolò of 1099. This man’s heart overflows with kindness and care for those he treasures and Yusuf is lucky enough to be counted as one of them. He is loved by this man and he knows now there is an abundance of it.

“I’m not a liar,” Yusuf says with a soft smile, nervous and still a little scared. “If I say that you are an excellent man, you would do well to believe me, or I’m not sure this relationship is going to work.”

There. He’s said it. He’s made it clear that what he wants with Nicolò is forever. It is not only heart and soul, but it is his time and his presence. He wants a partner, and that means being together, always.

“Relationship, is it?”

“Did Andy and Quỳnh get it wrong? Is there something that cannot heal, because I think maybe you are deaf.”

“You’re mocking my shock,” Nicolò scoffs, but he’s beaming. Yusuf never realized how stunning this man’s smile could be until now. He wants, impetuously and furiously, to kiss it off his face, but he also wants to soak in every moment of it. “You are giving me everything I ever wanted. Allow me a moment!”

Yusuf does. He counts to one, two, three, and then nods.

“And now?”

“Stubborn idiot, if we’re in a relationship, will you kiss me finally?” Nicolò complains, proving that while he may be kinder and gentler and thoughtful, he can still be the most annoying man that Yusuf has ever known. Look at him, now, ruining a nice moment.

“I should make you wait,” Yusuf counters. “Abandoning me like that in the alley.”

“Yes, next time, I’ll tell Booker to betray us later, so the smoke grenade doesn’t cut off my heartfelt confession…”

It’s a shame that Yusuf finds Nicolò just as attractive when he is being such a jackass, but perhaps that is how he knows it’s love. He loves the parts of Nicolò that are kind and good and thoughtful and sweet. He also loves the parts of him that are furiously annoying and ridiculous and make Yusuf want to hit him.

He does not hit him to cut off his sarcasm.

Instead, Yusuf does what he has been waiting almost a thousand years to do. He cups Nicolò’s face with both hands (shaking, trembling, quivering with anticipation) and kisses the man he is in love with.

It may be their first kiss, but Yusuf is determined not to let it be the last. He does not need breath, but he wishes to see him and reveal in his presence, so he eases back and rests their foreheads together to treasure the gift he has been given.

“I am terribly in love with you,” Nicolò murmurs, “in case my letters have not been clear. You are the only lover I wish to take. Yours is the only life I wish to share, if you will have me.” His stormy eyes are closed and there is peace on his face. “Will you have me?”

“Forever,” swears Yusuf, meaning it in a way that very few in this world can.

There is nothing on earth that can stop him from falling into Nicolò’s arms to kiss him again, intent on securing their second, third, fourth, and maybe even the next twenty kisses in the next few hours on this balcony overlooking Malta.

It may have taken them nearly a thousand years to find their way here, but Yusuf rests assured knowing that they will not be swayed from this bliss, no matter the enemies they face -- not even if those enemies are under their roof.

This is forever, after all, in a way that almost no one else in the world has.

They will not waste it.

1705

“Teresa, why are the women at the market ribbing me about my newest visitor?”

“Hmm? Oh, him. You had a visitor that came in on the last ship from Tunis in the form of a very handsome man. He came while you were in Venezia. He caused quite the stir.”

It’s a good thing Nicolò is only carrying scrolls from his trip, because he drops them in a heap the moment Teresa says the word ‘Tunis’. The fact that his visitor had been handsome only makes his heart pound harder in his chest. How can it be that after all these years, Nicolò has missed his opportunity?

“Did he have a name, this man?”

“Oh, Nico, you should have seen him! The kindest eyes I have ever seen, and such a wonderful smile. He never gave a name, though,” she admits, petulant as if that’s a slight against her.

“Describe him,” Nicolò insists. “Beyond his kind eyes and his lovely smile.”

Even if they had been enemies, Nicolò is intimately familiar with that smile, having caught glimpses of it when Yusuf had been speaking to his countrymen or to vendors at the markets. It had been a smile made of envy (at least for Nicolò), because it made him long for things he did not understand then.

He understands them now.

Teresa gives a brief, but pointed description, but what truly helps is when she digs out her sketchbook. “Here,” she says, turning a half-finished sketch towards him. “It’s not done, but I think I’ve captured his handsome looks.”

She has. She’s a talented artist who’s helped him with designs before, but even unfinished he suspects this is her greatest work -- helped, of course, by the subject.

It is Yusuf. Unmistakably, it is him, but how can that be?

“He came here? He was here?” Nicolò demands, voice strangled, as he hands the sketchbook back to Teresa. Suddenly, he is seized by a need to travel to Tunis and demand to know why Yusuf had come, but not stayed.

He searches in vain to see if there is anything else, but comes up empty handed. There is no trace of Yusuf in this shop.

“He did,” she calls out to him as he continues his hasty search. “He had a letter with him.”

“Teresa, give me the letter,” he pleads, extending his hand. He knows he is being sharp and perhaps a touch cruel, but there is a letter from Yusuf and he must have it. If he has left nothing else, then Nicolò must have this.

The look on her face is a terrible thing because Nicolò knows her too well.

“Teresa…”

“This is your fault, not mine! It was bundled with other papers and then I was cleaning because you always like to come home to a tidy shop and…”

She’s thrown it out.

Nicolò is not sure what the world’s longest bout of profanity is, but he is sure that his lengthy invectives must come close. He calls on the saints and Jesus and God and Mary and the prophets and then some of the local well-known prominent figures for patience. Through it all, Teresa is unmoved, like the horrible woman she is.

“Are you finished?”

He is. He does not like her to know that, so he glares at her.

“I’m sorry,” she does admit, at least. “Why don’t you go to him? You know him, clearly.”

Now he has no words. She has caught him in his cowardice, because while Nicolò knows very well that he could go after Yusuf, there is a fear in him that he knows will not allow him to make that journey. Perhaps a letter stating that Yusuf wanted him would have done it, but he left a letter that they cannot find and not himself.

If he’d wanted Nicolò, wouldn’t it be the other way around?

“Never mind,” he sighs, hoping that they can move on from this topic swiftly.

Teresa is not so easily swayed. “Nicolò,” she teases. “Has he captured your heart? I didn’t think that was possible.” She gives a tiny little harrumph as she scribbles in the sketchbook. Every part of him shouts internally that she should not ruin it and he steps forward to hold out his hand. “What?”

“If I don’t get a letter, I want your sketch.”

“Is that the trade I must consent to?” She snorts and gently tears out the page, holding it out for him.

She does not give it up so easily, though, forcing Nicolò to practically leap over the counter to nab it, but even then, she pulls it away at the last minute.

“Nicolò,” she says, eyes sparkling. “What is his name?”

So that is her price.

Sighing, he knows that he wants the sketch of Yusuf more than he values his privacy. For him, he will make such a trade. “Yusuf. His name is Yusuf Al-Kaysani.”

She hums thoughtfully as she brings the sketch down to the desk, writing his name in sloping cursive in the corner as a signature, instead of her own name. With that complete, she does not make Nicolò work for it a second longer. In fact, she is benevolent and kind as she graces him with such a gift.

It would be better, of course, to have his letter, but that is long gone.

In its place, he has this and he will treasure it until he finds the nerve to travel across the sea and see the man himself, not solely the version of him captured in charcoal on parchment.

2020

“This must be very strange for you.”

Yusuf says this to Nile, but he feels like it could apply to any of them. She has been kidnapped and nearly experimented on. Nicolò can join her club, because he is in a similar boat, the both of them betrayed by someone they thought an ally (perhaps even a friend).

He had something very dear taken from him just as they were embarking on the steps towards a journey that has been coming for centuries and so it is a very odd situation in which even the constancy of Nicolò’s eyes on him feels strange.

The weight of Andy and Quỳnh’s attention is less strange, because he knows they are waiting for his opinion on what to do with Booker.

“It’s a lot,” Nile agrees, staring around the table. “I kind of figured the immortality thing was going to be the hardest thing about this week, not sitting down and condemning a man to punishment because he just wants it to be over.”

“He sold out Nicolò and despite him not intending to, he also put you in harm’s way,” Quỳnh says calmly, hands folded on the table as if brokering a deal. “That cannot go unpunished.”

“What are you going to do?” Nile scoffs. “You cut off a hand, it grows back. You put him in a grave, he digs himself out. I feel like being immortal really reduces your options.”

“We are not that cruel,” Nicolò insists. His confidence evaporates slightly as he glances around the table, as if to check. “We are not, are we?”

“No, we’re not,” Andy agrees, and though her voice is commanding and firm, it doesn’t need to be. Yusuf does not want to harm Booker (even if he is furious with him) and he can see that Nicolò desires mercy (despite him being the one taken), and Nile is new.

Quỳnh may want something firmer, but she will bow to Andy’s leadership.

“Solitude is not something that man needs,” Andy says, her gaze fixed on where Booker stands on the balcony. “But Quỳnh’s right. He sold out all of us, but Nile and Nicolò, you two paid the price. We’ll follow your lead.”

Nile holds up both hands. “No way, uh uh. I’m new here, I am not starting my first week by condemning anyone to anything.”

Andy raises both brows, but Yusuf can see how impressed she is with the response.

“Nicolò?” she asks instead.

Yusuf turns to see what Nicolò has in mind. Is he still the same cruel man who fought a Crusade? Is he still petty and stubborn and vindictive, who will slow down when told to speed up? Or does he truly want mercy, as Yusuf suspects?

The surprise comes when he finds that Nicolò is looking at him. He lays a hand on Yusuf’s and squeezes gently. “I think that I could do with some advice from my smarter half.”

There are no words to describe how many ways that simple statement thrills Yusuf.

It is a claim, for one. He is claiming Yusuf as his. He is also admitting that Yusuf is clever and intelligent. Subtly, without calling much attention to it, he’s also conceding that while Nicolò had been taken, Yusuf had been wracked in torment trying to get him back. He wonders if Nicolò can tell he feels guilty for his part in Booker’s misinformation, but then, if anyone knows him, it is Nicolò.

Even if they have been apart, this man knows Yusuf in and out.

“I think we should give him what he wants,” Yusuf says, feeling kind and yet knowing that his punishment will not be quick.

“Cut off his head and keep it separate from his body?” Quỳnh asks cheerfully. “Yusuf, you clever man.”

He levels a glare her way, though Quỳnh only rolls her eyes. It is like water off a duck, she doesn’t give a damn whether they agree or not, so long as she makes it clear what punishment she would like.

Nicolò, Andy, and Nile all look uncertain, which means he hasn’t explained it well enough.

“He wants to die? He wants this to come to an end? Then that is his job. He will spend the years learning biology and chemistry. He will not go to any outside sources. That man will become the world’s foremost confidential expert on immortality. If we find that he has betrayed our trust, then perhaps…”

“Head in a box?” Quỳnh pipes up.

“Perhaps then, solitude may be his answer after all,” Yusuf says sternly. He squeezes Nicolò’s hand gently. “What do you think, my love?” he asks, and feels the rushing thrill that pulses through him of claiming Nicolò so publicly for all to see.

It is also a warning. There will be no more misunderstandings among them. Yusuf will make it clear that he loves Nicolò and there will be no mistaking that affection.

“I think it’s a suitable punishment.”

Yusuf might not know Nicolò as intimately as he’d like to, but he hears the underwhelmed approval in his voice. It’s not enough, but he also doesn’t want to push too far. If he does, he might risk becoming the man he used to be and not the one he is now.

Of course, this is all Yusuf guessing, but as he squeezes Nicolò’s hand tightly, he likes to think that if he does not know the man this well, he will happily spend decades learning him.

“Then we’re in agreement,” says Andy. She rolls her eyes as she endures Quỳnh’s pokes and shoves. “We’re close enough to being in agreement,” she deadpans soon after. “I’ll break the news.”

She’s the best emissary of the group of them, and she instantly pushes away from the table to do the task at hand. There’s no ignoring the urgency, which is a mercy for Booker, Yusuf is sure. Perhaps it would have been better to volunteer to break the news, if only to let him sweat it out a little longer.

With Andy gone, the rest of them return to their hobbies to pass the time in the safehouse until they part ways. Yusuf turns to his sketchbook and Nicolò finds solace in the kitchen.

Despite Nile offering to pick up takeout and Quỳnh and Yusuf insisting they can help, he bars them all from the kitchen while he begins to prepare dinner. Nile takes this rejection harder than the others, though Yusuf thinks he is closely behind in his worry.

“This is just Nicolò,” Quỳnh says dismissively. “He fusses when he loses control and wants to feel like he possesses it again. He will feed us furiously and feel better. Let him work.”

Jealousy stabs Yusuf as he thinks of how well Quỳnh knows him where Yusuf does not, but that is going to change. There will be no one in the world who knows him better than Yusuf, even if it takes centuries.

Exiled, Yusuf paces the flat for nearly a half an hour before he heads back to the balcony where he can relive the wonderful moment he and Nicolò had here, only a day ago. He does not remain alone for long.

“So,” Andy says, wandering out to meet him on the balcony overlooking the harbour, “Should I bother asking if you intend to see the world? Malta’s a good first step, but there’s so much out there beyond Tunis.”

Yusuf shifts slightly, resting his elbows on the railing, his back to the harbour so he can look at Andy.

“After what happened here in Malta, what makes you think the rest of the world has any appeal to me?” he asks, voice full of mirth. He may sound like he’s joking, but the truth is that this little jaunt has only reinforced his desire to go back to his bookshop with his cats and his portraits and his perfect little life. He knows that it is fear driving him to do so. He knows that it is not the right answer.

That life feels incomplete, a thought he keeps in mind as his gaze drifts to where Nicolò is with Nile, allowing her to test the sauce he’s making for dinner. Nearby, Quỳnh is keeping an eye on Booker, who won’t be let to leave, but is brooding with a bottle of wine, sore from Andy’s news by the looks of it.

“Maybe I’m asking the wrong question,” she agrees. “Are you taking any souvenirs back to Tunis with you?”

As if he knows he’s being spoken of, Nicolò turns his head and catches them looking, a serene smile on his lips. He waves at them, and Yusuf finds himself flushing against his will, a reaction he thought he’d trained out of himself centuries ago.

“I really did think you hated him,” Andy admits. “You are full of surprises.”

“I thought it would be easier to pretend that I still did,” Yusuf murmurs. “Or maybe I just wanted to think that. It was always easier to put on a show for the rest of you, but the truth is that I stopped hating him centuries ago. I forgot to let the rest of the world in on the secret.”

He had nearly paid for that secrecy.

“He spent centuries showing how deeply he regretted his actions with his letters and his gifts. I thought, maybe, that because Nicolò himself never arrived with them that he didn’t want me. All this time, it was him being unsure that he was good enough.”

“You are both ridiculous men,” Andy points out, with a terribly annoyed roll of her eyes.

“And you? What are you going to do?” Yusuf asks, wondering what they will do now that they have been released from their duties ferrying messages across a sea.

“There’s a lot to do with Nile to make sure she feels safe with us,” Andy admits, leaning her forearms over the railing, angled towards the horizon. “The first stop is London. We don’t know how much information Merrick has and we don’t know how much Copley knows and who he’s willing to talk to. We deal with them first and make sure no one is coming after us, or you.”

“Or Booker,” Yusuf provides.

“They can go after him a little,” she quips, but Yusuf can see that she’s only joking and that anyone who does will regret it, even with his betrayal. “I have to keep Quỳnh somewhat content, don’t I?”

“If you don’t, she might sneak out in the middle of the night and murder Booker at least until she’s processed some of her anger.”

“Would you be so upset?”

Yusuf thinks of the way Nicolò had been strapped to that gurney, drugged to high heaven with unknown quantities of insidious drugs.

“No comment,” he lands on.

“Dinner is ready!” Quỳnh calls from inside. “Hurry! Or Nicolò is going to become grumpier than that cat Andy likes.”

Yusuf gives Andy an amused look, relieved at the timing of the interruption.

“What? I understand its soul,” she says defensively, squeezing his shoulder gently to steer him inside. “Come on, you don’t want to keep Nicolò waiting, do you? I think the both of you have done enough of that.”

The twisting maelstrom in Yusuf’s stomach is embarrassing, as if a cyclone of butterflies has been unleashed. In combination, his heart thumps painfully in his chest, practically screaming ‘I’m in love with him’ with every beat. “You’re never going to let us live this down, are you?”

“Honestly? I don’t think I should.”

Yusuf sighs, but follows Andy inside. His wounded pride is healed as quickly as their bodies when Nicolò steps towards him with the wooden spoon.

“Here, taste this,” he encourages, and doesn’t wait before allowing Yusuf to taste a pesto dish so flavourful and bright and wonderful that it’s a miracle he doesn’t moan. He catches Andy’s knowing look out of the corner of his eye, but she can keep her opinions to herself. “Good? Does it need more basil? Olive oil?”

Yusuf’s opinion is king and it makes the butterflies in his stomach stir again, threatening a reprise of their assault.

“If you continue to cook like this, you will fatten me up,” he warns, kissing Nicolò’s cheek once he’s dabbed his lips with a napkin. “It’s perfect.” You’re perfect, he wants to say, but hopes that the way his eyes shine with adoration will communicate it for him.

Nicolò’s gaze drops to Yusuf’s lips, still shiny from the way Yusuf has licked them clean. He must know what he’s doing, yet he continues to torment Yusuf by staring.

“Yours is the only opinion that matters,” he vows. “Which means,” he calls to the rest of them. “It’s time we eat!”

2020

Booker is set to leave for France -- “to think for a while”, he’d said. Nicolò hadn’t given much care and thought to his plight, not when he wanted to put as much room between them as he could. If Booker was in France, then they would be secure in Tunis, given that the Library would have a very pointed ‘do not serve this man’ photo up for a while.

The others also leave today on a flight to London. They’d stayed in Malta to listen for chatter, but soon, Andy had confirmation that Merrick was in London and was furious with the Malta office for losing his assets.

(“Asset,” Yusuf scoffs with derision. “Do you hear that, Nicolò? He thinks you’re nothing more than a stock to be traded.”

“I hope it’s at least gold,” Nicolò notes mildly.

“The shiniest and brightest of all the metals. What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on all that gold.”

“Please, get a room, you two.”)

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Nicolò has already asked this four times, and each time has been met with a progressively more irritated look from Andy and Quỳnh. He’s fairly sure that if he tries one more time, Nile will join in.

Andy passes her duffel to Quỳnh so they can keep loading the car. “Think, very carefully, about what would happen if you say yes.” This is capped with a pointed look in Yusuf’s direction.

He does think about it. He thinks about sharing yet another safehouse. He thinks of the lack of privacy they will get with the beds shoved together. He thinks of not having any alone time with Yusuf and if he does get it, he thinks of the endless teasing they will endure.

He really should stop asking.

“You should say yes,” Quỳnh pipes up, closing the trunk, “Just so he can get what he wishes for.”

“We’re that cruel,” she promises, bringing Yusuf in for a tight embrace. She whispers something into his ear that Nicolò cannot hear, but when she brings Nicolò in for his own tight embrace, he gets advice of his own. “If you fuck this up, it’s not his scimitar you’ll need to worry about.”

He’s not entirely sure Yusuf received the same threat, but he’s taking his very seriously.

Stepping back once he’s had a good long hug with Andy, he nods. “I promise I won’t,” he vows. He casts a look to the side to find Yusuf already staring at him fondly. Nicolò doubts he’s been threatened, but whatever Andy’s said has led to a look that makes Nicolò feel more loved than any other point in his life, so he’s really not going to complain.

It’s a strange thing to be seeing them off, knowing that when they go, they will be on their own. Nile is already in the driver’s seat of the car, having already learned that trusting Andy or Quỳnh in the driver’s seat of the car is a losing proposition. Nicolò could have told her that. He still has nightmares about some of the driving they’d done the last time they’d visited him in Genoa.

Quỳnh finishes with the bags in the trunk, brushing her hands on her high-waisted jeans before demanding hugs of her own.

“I’d tell the both of you not to do anything I wouldn’t do, but…” She gives them a sly grin. “I think maybe you’re owed a little fun, after being such wet rags for nine hundred years. Just remember to clean any surface you have extra fun on.”

Blushing furiously, Nicolò coughs at the sudden image of the types of fun she might mean, which is only made worse by Quỳnh’s innocent look.

“We will,” Yusuf promises in Nicolò’s stead when he’s working to get a hold of himself.

Quỳnh leans in to press a kiss to Nicolò’s cheek and one to Yusuf’s for good measure, and then they’re off with Nile onto a new adventure. Part of Nicolò is envious. He trusts them more than he trusts anyone, but there is a part of him that wants to be the one to make sure Merrick and his men never come anywhere near them.

They will make sure they never do, and in the process, they are giving Nicolò and Yusuf time to focus on what is truly important.

With their car vanishing over the horizon, it sinks in that they are finally alone and together.

They have time and privacy. They could do absolutely anything in the world. Nicolò has at least a dozen ideas of where he would like to start, but a thought strikes him out of nowhere.

“Yusuf?”

“Hmm?” By the way he looks at Nicolò, he’s also been having some of those intimate thoughts. It is a mystery how they have not yet succumbed to their desires, but that is not the mystery that he is fixated on.

“What did you say in that letter?”

Yusuf looks flummoxed that Nicolò is bringing up letters now, of all times. “Which one?”

Of course he needs to clarify. Over the last nine hundred years, there have been so many that Nicolò has lost count. He’s had to buy special chests to store them in, given their volume and frequency.

“My assistant, she lost the letter you gave to her. I think it couldn’t have been later than 1715,” Nicolò admits, “The years are bleeding together, but it’s the one you brought to me when you visited and left so suddenly. What did it say?”

Yusuf blinks as he draws back, puzzled by the question. “You know, I honestly can’t remember. Is this really what you want to talk about? We’re alone, Nicolò, for the first time and there is no immediate threat looming over our heads.”

Yes. Yes, that is very true.

“I think we should stop wasting time,” Nicolò says, which is a sentence that has been a long time coming. “Even if we have to do a lot of deep cleaning later.”

Yusuf lifts Nicolò’s palm to his lips to begin pressing kisses down the palm, over the wrist, and up his forearm as he guides them back inside. “In that case, let’s go make sure that every single second is worth it.”

In nearly a thousand years, Nicolò has not heard a better suggestion.

2205

The dream is like countless others that Yusuf has had over the last hundred years.

It starts innocently enough. Perhaps he and Nicolò are exploring a city. Maybe in the dream, they are canoodling on the sofa. It always starts happily and degrades from there, because this dream always becomes a nightmare when suddenly Nicolò is taken from his arms.

No matter how safe they are in the dream, Nicolò is always taken from him. From there, the dream quickly becomes the chaotic and discordant nightmare that always ends the same. There is blood, there is screaming, and there is a dead woman on the end of Yusuf’s scimitar.

A century later, almost, and Yusuf has lost a clear picture of what actually happened that day. He’s had this nightmare so many times, he can’t remember whether she screamed or pleaded or begged for her life. He doesn’t know, because he’s imagined the worst so often.

Tonight, he wakes with a start, sweating and nauseous.

“Nicolò,” Yusuf gasps, straining to reach for him on the other side of the bed.

He doesn’t have to go far. This night, like every other night, Nicolò is secure in his arms. Yusuf clings to him as if a limpet, burying his face in his neck. He breathes in the scent of him raggedly and holds a little tighter.

It is so tight that Nicolò stirs.

“Yusuf?”

His sleepy tone is adorable and makes Yusuf love him all the more. “It’s fine. It’s nothing, my love, go back to sleep.”

Nicolò groans and turns, clearly not listening to him. His ability to be a stubborn bastard hasn’t changed. “Your voice doesn’t sound like it’s nothing.”

“I’m fine,” he tries again. “Nile is coming in the morning and you need your rest. Go back to sleep, please.”

“I won’t, not until you tell me about the nightmare.”

It had taken Nicolò an incredibly short time to be able to read Yusuf so easily, but perhaps it had been a result of their long correspondence. Their exchanges had allowed them to learn every piece of the other and now they spend every day together, giving them the ability to know from the hitch of a breath what their mood is.

Yusuf sighs and eases his hold on Nicolò, shifting onto his back. “I had the nightmare again.”

He knows he will not have to elucidate. There has only ever been one nightmare that recurs and haunts Yusuf’s sleep. It is the one plagued with guilt and self-loathing that leads Yusuf to question his actions. It is the weight of taking a woman’s life, even if that woman had tortured and hurt Nicolò.

Nicolò sighs and shifts so that he rests his chin on Yusuf’s stomach, resting his cheek on splayed hands so he can stare balefully up at him.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” Yusuf warns. “That you are still here, that you are immortal, that they could not have kept us apart because destiny did not want that.”

“You know my words so well, I don’t have to say a thing.”

“It doesn’t change that for a terrifying moment in that nightmare, I feel as if I’ve lost you, and then all I remember is the blood and the life going out of her eyes. The weight of that life on my shoulders becomes heavier every year, I swear,” Yusuf says quietly, brows knit together.

Nicolò reaches up to brush at the furrow with the pad of his thumb. “If you could wrinkle, you would have deep worry lines for all the burdens your soul bears.”

Yusuf hums in agreement, stroking his fingers through Nicolò’s hair (growing by the year and now long enough that he torments Yusuf by knotting it back messily when he wishes to focus).

“I think that I would have killed every soul in that building to free you and that scares me,” Yusuf admits. “I don’t want to be a killer.”

“The fact that it is nearly a century later and you still worry about this proves that you are not.”

His is the one opinion that Yusuf truly values and it is the one he needs to hear to settle his heart. He will still feel guilty. He will still have the nightmare. Yet, he feels just a bit better. Leaning his body forward, he presses a kiss to Nicolò’s head and murmurs a soft, ‘thank you’ that he knows Nicolò hears, given the way he smiles, knowingly and with a hint of smug appreciation.

Settled, Yusuf turns to his other favourite hobby -- fussing.

“Now, would you please go back to sleep?” Yusuf pleads. “I know how cross you get when Nile jokes about the bags under your eyes and they’re always worse when you haven’t rested.”

“Our bodies should heal that too,” Nicolò grumbles, settling in a new position with his cheek on Yusuf’s chest, ear pressed above his heart. “I will sleep when you do.”

“Then lucky for us, I’m about to.”

His warnings of Nile’s early arrival turn out to be incredibly accurate. Nile is punctual as ever. They’ve told her to come by at ten and she is ringing their bell at ten on the dot, loaded down with an umbrella, a bag, and wearing a light dress over her swimsuit. “I’m ready for the Malta beaches,” she announces cheerfully.

Since the incident all those years back, Yusuf and Nicolò have tried their best to return and make new memories in Malta. Nile has joined them on a few infrequent occasions and she is always welcomed. She comes more often now that Yusuf and Nicolò have invested in an actual apartment and they’ve stopped using the safehouse.

“Nicolò! Hurry up and take your shirt off so we can go, please!”

“I will not,” he calls back from the bedroom. “I burn!”

“You heal,” Yusuf retorts. “And I will kiss it better.” Nicolò arrives in the front hall dressed in cargo shorts and a terribly floral shirt that is buttoned to the collar. Sighing, Yusuf shakes his head, dabbing a touch of sunscreen on Nicolò’s nose. “You great big baby,” he chides.

“It itches, even if only for a few seconds,” Nicolò mutters, swiping at the sunscreen to rub it in. He turns to Nile for sympathy, but Yusuf already knows he will find none.

It’s very satisfying for him to confirm and find her hiding her smirk behind a paper fan. “Beach! Drinks! Let’s go!”

Who are they to deny her?

Their little apartment is only two blocks from the beach, which means they are able to fulfill Nile’s wish with ease, settling their umbrellas near the surf so Nile can soak up the sun, read her thrillers, and swim with Yusuf when Nicolò grumpily allows him to venture out shirtless.

The heat of the day is baked into them and by mid-afternoon, swimming and cavorting through the sand are long-forgotten, replaced by lounging in the shade. Even though they heal, the sun has made them languid. Nicolò seeks through their bags to find Yusuf’s sketchbook, making a noise of discovery when his fingers brush the letter.

Ah, yes, he’d nearly forgotten.

“When you do leave us,” Yusuf says, “there is something for you to take.” He leans over to pluck the ready envelope from Nicolò’s hand, stretching all the way over to press a kiss to his lips. “Thank you, my love.”

“You’re always welcome.”

The mock-gagging noises from Nile are far from appreciated. Yusuf misses when she’d given them respect as the elders they are.

“You know, the two of you could deliver this yourselves.”

“We could,” agrees Yusuf, blissfully accepting Nicolò’s ministrations as he massages his shoulders, while Nicolò continues to offend at least half the beach with his garish Hawaiian print shirt that has not come off.

Yusuf is, of course, not in that half. He thinks his love looks fantastic, even if far too clothed.

“It’s tradition, by now,” Nicolò protests. “Besides, Andy and Quỳnh have ferried more letters than we can count. It’s your turn.”

“We should have made this Booker’s punishment,” she mutters absolutely not at all quietly enough to be secretive. “Seriously, guys. Texting. Email! Tik Tok!”

“I don’t understand, how would a clock help?” asks Nicolò and bless his beautiful heart, he is absolutely serious.

Yusuf adores him.

“Deliver the letter, and let them feed you with whatever local delicacy Andy has sniffed out,” Yusuf insists, squeezing Nile’s hand. “Maybe, in a few hundred years, I’ll consider teaching Nicolò how to text.”

She shakes her head, but takes the letter into her bag. “I’ll bring it, but I expect a full dinner tonight, and every night that I’m here,” she says, as if Nicolò hadn’t already been planning all the stops.

“Deal,” Nicolò insists, turning over to return to his book (one of the first edition copies of poetry that Yusuf had brought for him). As he does, Yusuf takes time to make sure he has sunscreen even on the tips of his ears so he will not burn and itch, grateful for every moment they have like this.

While Nile is here, their days will all look like this and when she goes, she will bring the letter with her to Andy and Quỳnh with its news and its warnings and its offers.

He and Nicolò still write to one another (though in recent days, Yusuf’s ‘letters’ have been nothing but nudes he’s drawn of Nicolò while sleeping), but Yusuf finds it nostalgic to send off letters, not knowing how long it will be before they are read. Because Quỳnh and Andy have given in to technology, they will call as soon as it arrives, but Yusuf still enjoys the charm of writing and watching Nicolò apply a seal with wax. He loves the simplicity of the communication form and is grateful to still have the option.

Some things might be old and antiquated, but they’re still the best version they could be. If Yusuf and Nicolò themselves are not proof, then he is sure that letter-writing can take up the mantle for them.

To the two most beautiful women in the world:

You will be glad to know that we are fresh off a campaign to help the local workers eke out a fair wage. With our success behind us, we have taken to becoming denizens of the beach. Nicolò burns like the pale beauty he is, and endures being called my lovely aragosta.

Booker came to visit us before we left, seeking vials of our blood. We wanted to warn you, on the off chance he convinced you that we gave him samples. We did not. Do not let him lie to you. Maybe in another hundred years, we might agree, but not yet. Our charity is not that strong.

Nile will, of course, complain that she has been made into a middleman for these letters. Perhaps it would do well for you to remind her how many of these you brought across the sea. Perhaps we will show her the deep chests of written affection we have exchanged.

Now, to the future.

Tunis? 2210? Nicolò says he will cook a spread the likes of which you have never seen. He even vows to design brand new weapons, even if I’ve already told him that the bribery is unnecessary. We know how you must miss both of our charms. We are furiously handsome and I would miss us if we went away for even a millisecond. I know I do this with Nicolò.

We will see you in Tunis soon. It has been some time since you have visited and we have a surprise. It is no longer the Library, but I will not spoil the name for you. If you want to know what Tunis’ best bookshop is now named, you must visit us.

I’ve intrigued you now, I’m sure.

Be safe, always.

We will see you soon.

2049

It’s been nearly a thousand years since Yusuf first settled in his small shop near the water.

Only a sea away, Nicolò had done the same. He hadn’t bothered to give a name to his shop, and had been happy to close down operations after they finished travelling the world for a few decades. “Why do I need a storefront? The customers can come to me,” Nicolò had insisted, citing the internet as a perfect alternative for his operations. “That is, if you’re willing to take me in and give me some space to work.”

Yusuf’s heartbeat had quickened to imagine spending so long discovering that Nicolò is the other half of his heart and then losing him because he won’t give him an office.

“A back office and we’ll find space for you to smith,” he’d guaranteed and made good on that promise.

Nicolò had settled with ease, taking on new clients and creating a new reputation both as a craftsman, but also as Yusuf’s handsome boy toy that he had been hiding away for years. Given that they have been in Tunis for nearly a decade, they are likely about to start setting off alarm bells, but that’s not a worry for much longer with their plan to depart to take after Andy and Quỳnh’s example of working to make the world better.

Before they can set off, though, Yusuf is keen to boast about one of the newest features of his little (not really so little anymore) shop.

“Are you ready to see the new name of the shop?”

“You act as though I don’t already know it.”

“It’s different, Nicolò! Brainstorming the name and seeing it engraved on a sign are two very different things!”

“You act as though I didn’t make that sign.”

Yusuf huffs out a breath and hooks an arm around Nicolò’s waist to yank him onwards. “Pedant,” he accuses.

“As if you don’t love it,” Nicolò says with the smug smirk Yusuf hates to love so much. He does love it. He loves that Nicolò is still a stubborn arse and that he is nitpicky. He has had a thousand years to learn all of Nicolò’s terrible traits and decided to love him for them anyway.

So yes, he does love it.

He will, of course, not be telling him that.

“Well, I haven’t seen it installed because you wouldn’t let me,” Yusuf says and brings him out front. “So you will endure seeing it again so you can see the wonder on my face.”

The heavy sigh from Nicolò is put-upon, but Yusuf spies the bemusement on his lips, as well as the loving look he is bestowed. “I will endure seeing the most beautiful man in the world revel in my work. I suppose I will survive.”

They’ve lived here long enough that Yusuf feels no guilt about pinning Nicolò to the front door of the store to kiss him until his knees falter. Their neighbours know what they’re like and Nicolò can’t expect to go around saying such things and not expect retribution.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò mumbles against his lips, his fingers slipping under Yusuf’s linen shirt to stroke up and down his back.

“Hmm?”

“The sign.”

Right. The sign that they are out here to see. Yusuf sighs and steps back to tug Nicolò with him, casting his eyes upwards to see the beautifully engraved sign for the very first time.

Nicolò has outdone himself. The shadow work on the wood is masterful and something that ought to be spotlighted in a museum. It isn’t in one, though, because it’s here where it belongs.

“It’s perfect,” Yusuf announces with delight.

“Even with the name?”

“What’s wrong with the name!”

“I know that your letters have proved you a creative genius who can bend words to his will, but Smith and Page?” Nicolò reads, amused. “It’s a bit...on the nose, isn’t it?”

“It spent a thousand years as The Library. My love, please, some tenderness for my creativity, it is already a step up,” Yusuf pleads, wrapping his arms around Nicolò’s waist a little tighter, sliding his lips over his neck to press a kiss to the strong pulse in his neck. “You, Genoa’s famous blacksmith. Me, Tunis’ favourite bookshop owner.”

“Andy and Quỳnh will complain about it,” Nicolò warns.

“Let them. We won’t be here to care.”

“You’re still sure you want to go?”

Yusuf studies the sign of the shop and knows that their home will always be here waiting for them. It is one of many places they will have, but after so long burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the world, it’s time to step out and do something else. It is especially time when they consider that their time in Tunis is drawing to a close and they must hide for their own protection.

What better opportunity than now to do some good?

“I believe this gift of ours gave me two treasures,” Yusuf says as he thinks of the road ahead of them and the path that led them here. “It gave me you and it gave me the opportunity to help those who cannot help themselves. I have not been as generous with the second as I could be.”

“Some would say, also not the first,” Nicolò mutters under his breath.

Yusuf pinches the inside of his upper arm, taking delight in the way Nicolò yelps and jumps, cursing in Zeneize under his breath. It devolves into a huff of appreciative laughter as he cups Yusuf’s cheek to bring him in for a kiss.

“Don’t worry, I will make sure you are as generous as possible with me,” he vows. “Do you want to go find Andy and Quỳnh to let them know about the change in name?”

Yusuf takes a moment to consider the sign above them. He thinks of what it represents. He thinks of how it frames the new stage of his life -- him and Nicolò together, working as partners who are honest, open, and maybe still a little mysterious.

He thinks about how insufferable they will be, insisting that it is as boring as ever.

“Not yet,” says Yusuf, tucking the keys into his pocket so they can deliver them to the shop’s minders as one of their errands before they depart. “Centuries of us not modernizing has likely left them more than a little petty and they won’t let us live it down. We’ll tell them, but one day. Eventually.”

“And what about you? Are you intending to change your name anytime soon?”

Yusuf has considered it, but then Nicolò will roll over in the middle of the night and breathe out his name in the softest exhalation of desire. He will be minding his own business in the day and Nicolò will sing out his name to call him to taste something. He will be reading or sketching and Nicolò will pass, sliding his fingers through his hair to be followed by a kiss and a pleased utterance of his name.

He needs at least a few hundred more years of “Yusuf” from Nicolò’s lips before he is willing to part with it.

“You haven’t worn this one out, yet.”

“I’m not sure I ever will,” warns Nicolò.

Yusuf can live with that. He slides his fingers through the hair at the nape of Nicolò’s neck to drag him in for a soft kiss to promise as much, his eyes soft with love as he eases back. “I look forward to hearing it for another thousand years in every pitch and tone you have,” he promises. “And it won’t matter where we are, so long as I am still Yusuf and you Nicolò.”

“You’re ready, then? To go?” Nicolò asks, mirroring some of Yusuf’s earlier doubts about going, despite knowing that it is the right thing.

Part of him wants to dig his heels into the ground where he’s made his home and stay here forever, but there is a world out there and so much good they can do with their gift. They have not wasted their years, but they have been learning and growing and what matters now is doing the best they can with those lessons.

Besides, even if he is not sure about his next step, he knows he will not do it alone.

“I am,” he vows, squeezing Nicolò’s hand and coaxing him along to begin the steps that will take them away from Tunis and onto the next part of their life.

“Then, let’s go.”

The two of them, together, always. Yusuf can think of no better arrangement.

And on...

The plan goes like this -- they will sail from Tunis to the nearest port and see who is in need of help. From there, the world awaits and they will do it all at one another’s side, because the only sure thing is that they are never to part again.

Yusuf will be Yusuf, because that is who Nicolò loves and wants. One day, he will consider changing his name to something new, but not without a great deal of bickering about tradition and nostalgia.

Nicolò remains Nicolò, though always vying to be the version of himself that Yusuf can be proud of and not the man he met in 1099. He is, always, successful in this because he knows there is no greater task.

Together, they make their home wherever they go. Sometimes, it will be Tunis and other times Genoa. They will make their home under Andy and Quỳnh’s roof, with Nile, with Booker, and with those who come next. They will make their home wherever there is a place to sleep and a task at hand.

And through it all, they will have one another.

Always.