Work Text:
Joe and Nicky decide to go to Corfu after the lab. They won’t go for long; being apart from Andy now is out of the question. But they need time. They need to be just them, at least for a little while. They need to wash out the memories of that lab, to focus only on their own nightmares.
And Joe needs sun. They’re sticking around England, hidden by Copley, just until Nile gets a bit better grasp of a few other languages so she won’t stand out as an obvious American wherever else they go. If Joe has to stay in England for months, he needs sun to fortify him first.
“Don’t stay gone too long,” Andy says. From her, that’s begging. Joe meets Nicky’s eyes and sees his own feelings reflected—desperation, worry, fear, heartache. Both their resolves are dipping. But then Andy snorts and says, “You’re being ridiculous. It’ll be fine. I’ve got Nile here to babysit me.”
Nile has been rather dogged in her protection of Andy. Joe only vaguely remembers the feeling; finding someone who has the answers, what answers there may be. Someone who’s done this for much, much longer than you. He doesn’t think he felt it as strongly as Nile must be, because he had Nicky. Booker was right about that, even if his interpretations of everything else were distorted and selfish.
“Keeping you from cutting your own arm off is way more than babysitting!” Nile calls as she comes into the room from the kitchen, because Andy had threatened to do that yesterday.
“That was a joke,” Andy says. She tips her head in a way that means it hadn’t been until she’d remembered her arm wouldn’t grow back this time. It makes Joe laugh, even though his chest hurts. He wraps Andy in his arms and pulls her close, and then Nicky comes around on the other side and they sandwich her between them.
It makes her shriek with laughter like the little girl none of them are sure she ever was. She’s started laughing a bit more lately, even despite it all. She’s trying to live better.
She’d told Joe that, putting her hands on either side of his face to make sure he was looking into her eyes, the same way she does in battle when he loses sight of Nicky and goes wild. She told him he and Nicky were right, and she and Booker were wrong, and they’d never done anything to deserve Booker’s ire that way.
Joe had already known that. But he appreciates that Andy wanted to make sure to tell him.
“You guys should come join us in a week or so,” Joe says spontaneously, but Nicky doesn’t protest. They’ve always been good at shoring up their moments alone, and Nicky is never short of love to give.
“We can take Nile to see the statues of you,” Nicky teases.
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Nile says.
“He’s not,” Joe tells her.
“No one ever confirmed those were me,” Andy says.
“Oh my God,” Nile mutters. It makes them all laugh.
“Sun will do you some good, too, Andy,” Nicky says.
Andy doesn’t agree to anything concrete, but she doesn’t say no. That’s a good sign. Joe and Nicky hug Nile before they go, too. Nile accepts their hugs easily. Booker’s always had a hard time doing that, even after all this time.
Joe doesn’t want to think about Booker. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make a 200-year hole in his thoughts.
Figuring out where to stay is a headache now in this modern age. They used to get into a village, offer to slaughter someone’s chickens, and get a room and food for their troubles. Now they have to use credit cards and ID. Booker was mostly in charge of the aliases, but Copley seems to be filling that role now. Joe refuses to let himself dwell on it.
They rent what calls itself a cottage, which Nile informs them means it’s “small and probably gross.”
Nicky, leaning over Joe’s shoulder to look at the photos, turns to Nile and says, “In the 60s, we slept in a barn for a year with four sheep.”
“The 60s?” she asks, confused. “You couldn’t use all that free love stuff to get inside the house?”
“The 1760s,” Joe clarifies. He’d liked those sheep, thank you very much, and Nicky’s exaggerating. It was only eight months.
“Ugh,” Nile says succinctly. “Use centuries, please. Enjoy your cottage.”
They intend to. They get to Corfu and find the cottage is on the small side but far from gross. And they don’t need space. The point of this trip, in fact, is to have as little space between the two of them as possible. They can see the water from the window in the bedroom and they’re surrounded by olive trees.
“Oh,” Nicky says, looking around when he gets out of the car they rented.
“Yeah,” Joe agrees. It’s perfect.
Nicky kisses him in the shade of the olive trees. Some of these trees could’ve been here the last time they came, when the English had just arrived in the 19th century. Some of these trees could be older than they are. It’s a nice thought. They don’t see much of that anymore.
They don’t leave the cottage for the first two days. It isn’t just that they want to spend all their time making love—though they do, bountifully—but they want to be alone, just the two of them. They want to remember that they’re alive, they’re still here, they’re free.
They stay in bed as long as they want, sleeping and making love and reading and singing and laughing. Even aside from being in love as they are, Nicky is Joe’s very favorite person. They have traveled the world together many times over. They have spent the last nine centuries together. There is no one who could ever even hope to understand Joe as Nicky does, and vice versa.
The words best friend or boyfriend or even soulmate hardly seem adequate to describe what Nicky is to Joe. No language holds a word strong enough. Joe has mourned this fact over and over throughout their lifetime. Joe meant it when he called Nicky his moon. Nicky keeps his world on its axis. Nicky is his world. And someday, if Nicky goes first, Joe will finally know true death.
But they do go outside eventually. They eat on the patio as the sun dips toward the sea and Joe sketches Nicky 100 times each day. They’ve spent years and decades like this, between wars and heartache at the way humans are so inventive with ways to hurt one another.
This, Joe thinks, is how he loves the world and humanity, despite it all. He has a well inside of him that Nicky fills with love, and it overflows to include everyone else, too. They need these times on their own to fill that well.
In the afternoon on their fourth day, Joe leaves Nicky reading in the garden so he can go into the city and try to find some colored pencils. He didn’t bring any, but the sunsets are so beautiful he wants to capture them in color instead of just charcoal. He’s not sure he’ll be able to find anything high quality, since the shops he’s seen run more toward tourism than anything else, but he’ll take children’s coloring pencils at this point.
He does find an art supply store, though, so he’s happy. He gets chatting with the woman working behind the counter, Petra, who thinks he’s American and compliments his Greek, and they talk about art for nearly an hour. He has to catch himself a few times—lately, he’s been talking to Nile about art, and he doesn’t have to censor himself with her. He can tell Nile he met Claude Monet, but he can’t tell this woman in the art supply shop.
Eventually, Petra’s husband Theo comes over, and he seems to decide very quickly Joe isn’t some kind of threat. He’s an artist, too, and the three of them spend some more time talking, and then Theo’s pulling out a bottle and asking Joe if he wants a drink.
Joe doesn’t often drink, and he doesn’t often drink anything more than beer or wine with Nicky and Andy and Booker. (Not Booker. Not anymore.) But it’s been a very nice day, and these new friends are offering him kumquat, so he has a few drinks. They’re not strong drinks, and his body clears out a lot of the alcohol anyway, so he ends up with just that warm, pleasant feeling without the danger of falling over or getting lost on his walk home.
He wants to hurry home. Now that he’s feeling happy and relaxed, he wants Nicky. In fairness, there’s not a time he doesn’t want Nicky, but this is a yearning that’s easily remedied and thus enjoyable.
“Thank you for this wonderful discussion,” he says. “Now I must get back to my love.”
“Oh, you have a woman?” Petra asks.
“No,” Joe says with a laugh, always happy to talk about Nicky. “I have a man. The kindest, most incredible man to walk this Earth.”
Theo nods to himself, like Joe just proved him right. Joe doesn’t care. It doesn’t feel malicious, anyway. Now Joe’s thinking about Nicky and the sunset. He wants to pull Nicky in close to him and slow dance across the kitchen together.
He sets out, walking along the seaside for a time. It only adds to his happiness. Their long life can be grueling and painful and outright horrifying. But today he’s had drinks and good conversation. He’s listening to the sea and feeling the salty air on his face and he’s going home to Nicky. It’s the best kind of day he knows.
“I’m back!” he calls out toward the open window as soon as he gets into the yard.
“Good, I’ve been waiting!” Nicky answers from inside.
Joe’s just getting to the front door when a flash of white in the corner of his eye stops him, and then there’s a thin cat winding around his ankles.
“Oh, dear,” Joe says as the thing lets out a pathetic little noise. “What a piteous creature you are.”
Nicky pokes his head out the window. “Are you talking to me?”
Joe snorts. “No, of course not, ya amar. I have no pity for you or for myself. Only pity for all the other poor bastards who don’t get to feel your love and your touch.”
“Okay,” Nicky says, unconcerned, before going back inside.
Joe’s not offended. Nicky can be as effusive as he can, but he can tell Nicky was engrossed in something just now. He hopes Nicky’s reading, not waging war on the Wikipedia edits again. That always makes him cranky, because he has to hunt down a source that’s actually true to how they remember whatever happened and not simply the prevailing theory that went down in history. Honestly, it’s very charming that Nicky pulled himself away to make sure he wasn’t ignoring Joe.
Joe had quite a charming day, but he doesn’t think that’s making him biased toward being charmed by Nicky. Or maybe it is, but he doesn’t care. It’s never taken much for him to be charmed by Nicky, anyway.
“He really is quite romantic,” Joe promises the cat. “You may not believe me now, but you’ll see.” The cat has nothing to add to this conversation, but that’s alright. It looks very skinny, and Joe knows it’s hard to think on an empty stomach. “Come on, then, little one,” he says. “Let’s find you something to eat.”
It will delay him from getting to Nicky, but only by a few minutes, and he can’t leave the poor thing hungry. But the cat doesn’t follow him. It runs off to a little brush of fig trees and comes back with a dog trotting at its side.
“Oh, you have a friend,” Joe says. Cats and dogs, he thinks. They shouldn’t be friends, not according to common knowledge. But here they are. He’s still feeling charmed by everything, chest still warm from the drinks, and he thinks of himself and Nicky.
Okay, maybe the day he had is influencing some of this.
He’s getting a bit emotional. He would’ve fed the dog anyway, of course, but now he’s thinking about the flash of Nicky’s sword as he threw it down, thinking of the two of them painstakingly making their way toward trust, inching their way closer as they sat around a fire together.
“This is wonderful,” he informs the animals. “I hope you’re very happy together.”
They don’t answer him. He feeds them anyway.
When he does get inside, Nicky has stopped whatever he was doing and started chopping vegetables for their dinner.
“What were you doing out there?” Nicky asks curiously.
“There was a cat,” Joe tells him. “And he wanted some food.”
“Is that where the rest of my fish went?” Nicky asks, smiling at him now.
“Yes, but the cat had a friend,” Joe explains, putting his hands on Nicky’s chest. He wants Nicky to understand. “His friend was a dog. A cat and a dog, as friends. Traveling partners, maybe.”
Nicky laughs out loud. “I see,” he says, because of course he does. “Am I the dog?”
“If you don’t mind,” Joe says. “I’d rather be a cat.”
“Okay, you can be the cat,” Nicky says. “That fits, anyway. I will always have a dog’s faithfulness for you, vita mia.”
Joe presses his face into Nicky’s neck, overwhelmed and realizing the drinks affected him more than he thought. “Nicolò,” he says, feeling almost choked up now. “I’m a little bit tipsy.”
“I noticed,” Nicky says, amused, as he strokes the back of Joe’s neck. Joe’s always ready to bathe Nicky in compliments and love, but this is, admittedly, a bit ridiculous and over the top. Neither of them have even died for two whole weeks. Nicky pushes Joe back a little and puts his hands on Joe’s cheeks. “Would you like to save dinner for later and come to bed now, my little kitty cat?”
It makes Joe laugh. Nicky said kitty cat in English specifically to be extra funny. “Yes,” he says. “I would like that very much.”
Joe wakes up early, as the sun’s still contemplating coming up, and decides he wants to pray. He tries to untangle himself from Nicky carefully, but of course Nicky stirs. He blinks at Joe and Joe kisses his forehead. “Fajr,” he whispers.
Both of them go through ebbs and flows with their faith. In the last 900 years, Joe has learned to take what gives him comfort and leave behind anything that doesn’t, and he knows Nicky is the same. Today, well-rested and happy, with beauty everywhere he looks and Nicky beside him, Joe wants to pray.
“Good idea,” Nicky says, sitting up now. “It has been a long time since I’ve done Matins and Prime.”
“You’ve already missed Matins,” Joe points out.
“I will worship how I choose,” Nicky says, on the edge of teasing and grousing. Joe laughs and kisses him, first on the forehead again and then on his lips.
They get out of bed and Joe goes to wash. When he comes back, Nicky has pulled the duvet off the bed and folded it on the ground. Joe trusts that he’s pointing in the right direction, so they each take an end and pray together.
Joe knows a lot of people don’t understand this. Andy has never understood their desire to hold onto these beliefs. And Joe knows it doesn’t make much sense, logically, not when so much of their lives flies in the face of teachings from both their religions.
He can’t really explain it, and he’s never cared much if other people understand. There is so much about him and Nicky that other people can’t understand. All Joe knows is that praying next to Nicky as the sun climbs its way up the hills leaves him feeling settled in a way few other things can.
Their prayers are different, and Nicky spends much of the time Joe’s praying just meditating instead of praying, but it doesn’t matter. Moving through the rakat lifts Joe’s heart. That’s why he prays. That’s the only reason he needs.
They have a quiet morning. They eat in the garden and both slip bits of egg to their new dog and cat friends. Nicky feeds Joe grapes and they both laugh over a half-remembered time in Bordeaux sometime in the 14th century. At this point, they can really only remember that Nicky was on his back and Joe was feeding him grapes when they were discovered by a chamberlain.
“What do you say to a walk?” Joe asks.
“I say you have wonderful ideas,” Nicky says, coming around the table to kiss the top of Joe’s head and take his plate.
They walk by the water, hand-in-hand, and Joe marvels at the sea. In all his life, this has remained the same. The name has changed, who claims control has changed, the buildings cropping up and the people splashing around have changed, but the waves break just the same. The gulls call to one another and this could be any time in his life, any century he’s been alive. This is a reason he and Nicky like to be in the world, in nature. There are still things unchanged.
“Are you going to draw?” Nicky asks when they get back. “You have the look in your eyes.”
Joe pulls Nicky in close. “I want to draw you by the sea,” he confirms. “Two great beauties of this world.”
Nicky laughs and kisses him. “Your flattery is working very well.”
“I thought it might.”
He draws Nicky, and then he draws last night’s sunset with the colored pencils he picked out. Nicky looks over from his book and smiles at it. “And let me guess, that’s a gift for the shop owners?”
“Nicky, mon cœur,” Joe says very seriously. “You know me inside and out.”
“That’s very true,” Nicky says, raising his eyebrows and giving Joe a salacious up-and-down look to make him laugh.
“I won’t be long,” Joe promises as he sets off to the art supply shop.
“Buy more of that bread!” Nicky requests to his retreating back. Joe waves over his shoulder so Nicky knows he heard.
Petra and Theo are almost too appreciative when Joe brings them the portrait. He does his best not to be arrogant, but he knows he’s skilled. He’s had quite some time to practice. But sometimes he underestimates how much people will enjoy his work. Now he’s drawn a bit too much attention to himself.
“Have you shown your work in a gallery?” Petra asks.
“Oh, no,” Joe tries. “I’m not an artist professionally.”
“This is better than half the modern shit they show over there,” Theo says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the local gallery.
Joe would maybe like to get into a discussion with him about modern art, but he can sense he took too big a leap. Now they’re going to try to find out more about him, try to see if he’s known elsewhere. This sort of thing got him into a lot of trouble for a large part of the 18th century. At least back then no one had Google. He could go to a new continent with a new name and be done with it.
He makes his excuses and is halfway back to the cottage when he remembers Nicky’s bread. Nicky wouldn’t be too upset if Joe came back without it, but there’s no reason he can’t go back. They’re on vacation, really. They have no schedule, no impending mission. If Nicky wants something, Joe can get it for him.
Joe waxes philosophical about providing for his love all through his jaunt into the bakery, and he almost runs into a kid outside the shop. He’s not actually a child, but he’s probably still in his teens or only barely out of them. Most adults would still call him a kid, and to Joe, he seems impossibly young. He’s even younger than Nile, and Joe can already tell without even talking to him that he’s not nearly as capable as she is.
The kid has the vague air of desperation that marks him as a tourist. A tourist in some kind of distress. He looks down at his phone and looks worried. “Hello there,” Joe says, not even bothering to try using Greek.
He has a hunch this boy is English. He can’t explain it, but there’s a different feeling to the English tourists than the Europeans or the North Americans. Joe’s been well-traveled for long enough to know it instinctively. That doesn’t even take being a 954-year-old immortal.
“Hi,” the kid says back, all mournful eyes. Joe almost wants to laugh. He can imagine this boy setting off for his trip, telling his parents he was old enough to take care of himself, feeling that rush of pride and bravery that comes with setting out alone for the first time.
“Do you need some help?” Joe asks.
“Oh, um…” He bites his lip, obviously warring with himself over his need for help and his fledgling self-sufficiency. “Well, I just—I—” He sighs. “I came here with my mate, and he’s only gone and left me here! He got invited on a boat tour of the islands with a girl.”
“Oh, no,” Joe says sympathetically.
In all honesty, Joe doesn’t remember his teen years, and being a teenager was very different in his day. But he does, of course, remember being lovesick. He still feels lovesick a minimum of once per week. Joe would probably have been the one to take the boat tour. In fact, he and Nicky have taken probably the exact boat tour this boy’s friend is on.
“He had all the bookings!” the boy says, voice sounding a bit wobbly now. He clamps his mouth shut, looking miserable.
“I’m Joe,” Joe tells him. “What’s your name?”
“Edward,” he says.
“Edward, do you like ratatouille?” Joe asks.
“The movie?” he asks earnestly. Joe feels like he should pinch Edward’s cheeks and send him off with some sweets.
It takes no effort at all to convince Edward to follow him, which Joe thinks isn’t great. He and Nicky should teach this kid to be smarter. Maybe they’ll give him a knife or two when he leaves. He reminds Joe a bit of a viscount’s son he was hired to tutor sometime in the 1590s. For all Joe knows, they could be related.
“My husband and I are here on vacation,” Joe says. Calling Nicky his husband always rolls off his tongue easily, despite his woes about the lack of a proper term for Nicky.
Edward looks over at him so quickly he almost stumbles. “Husband?” he echoes.
Joe has to fight a snort. He thought so. Edward is not asking this in disgust. Joe’s heard the term gaydar become popular. It always makes him laugh—such a silly word. But the concept has been around at least as long as he has. It comes very well in handy in times and places where people could be put to death for guessing wrong.
“Yes, my husband,” Joe says. “We’ve been together since we were young.”
“Oh,” Edward says. He looks at Joe and then away and then at Joe again.
“We’ve been coming here for years,” Joe says. It’s technically not a lie. The number of years is just many, many more than anyone would guess.
“This is my first time here,” Edward says. “It’s my first holiday without my parents.”
Joe doesn’t know this boy enough to tease him, so he keeps his sarcastic you don’t say to himself. They get into the garden of the cottage and the cat gives Joe a little meow of greeting. Joe stoops to scratch at his ears for a second before leading Edward inside.
“Nico,” Joe calls. “We have a guest.”
Nicky looks curious as he walks out of the kitchen. He looks between Joe and Edward and then nods. “I see,” he says in Arabic. “You’ve found a new Christian to replace me with.”
Joe shrugs. “I did not ask his religion.” He shoots Nicky a smirk and then tells him in English, “This is my new friend Edward. He’s visiting Corfu for the first time from England.”
“Hello,” Nicky says, switching to English. “I’m Nicky.”
“Edward,” he offers. “You’re his husband? I mean…I’m—I didn’t—”
Nicky just blinks at him for a second, but then he catches the way Edward’s starting to blush, glancing between Joe and Nicky. Nicky smothers a smile and nods. “Well, Edward, come in.”
“I remembered your bread,” Joe says, holding it up.
“You are my hero,” Nicky says. He presses his forehead against Joe’s for a second as he takes the loaf of bread. “How was your gift received?”
“Ah, well,” Joe hedges, remembering the way Theo looked from the drawing to Joe and back again. Nicky raises his eyebrows and Joe tips his head. Nicky nods. He’s seen this happen enough that he knows what Joe means without Joe having to say anything. One of the benefits of spending centuries with your soulmate.
Edward seems like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, so Joe takes him into the dining room and then goes into the kitchen to help Nicky grab the food. He gives Nicky a kiss while he’s in there, just because he wants to. He and Nicky would prefer to eat outside, but Edward’s already sunburned, so they stay in.
“So how old are you, Edward?” Joe asks while they eat.
“I’m nearly 18,” he says, and Joe has to fight from echoing 18 because it’s so young. “I’m starting university in the fall.”
“Do you know what you will study?” Nicky asks.
“Law, I guess,” Edward says, not sounding very enthusiastic. “My father’s a barrister.”
“My father was a—businessman,” Joe amends quickly. “It wasn’t really what I wanted to do.”
Edward looks up at him now. “Are you a businessman?”
“I’m not,” Joe says. He’s not going to mention that he’s essentially a mercenary. Instead, he says, “I’m an artist.”
“And a poet,” Nicky adds.
“What about you?” Edward asks. Nicky opens and then closes his mouth.
“Nicky is my muse,” Joe says, smiling over at him. “I have never struggled to write or draw with him nearby.”
Nicky gives him an unimpressed look, because that’s a lie, and Joe just laughs. “What would you like to do?” Nicky asks Edward.
Edward studies a piece of zucchini on his plate for a moment. “I always thought designing clothes would be nice,” he says shyly. He looks at them quickly. “Not that I—I mean, I’m a lad. I like football. No one can say I don’t.”
“We certainly won’t try,” Joe reassures him gently. It would be funny how worried he is about his masculinity, considering how little Joe and Nicky care and how much they’ve seen the concept of masculinity change through the centuries, except Joe has seen how much it matters to others these days. “I enjoy football, too. Who’s your side?”
That gets Edward excited. He talks enthusiastically about Tottenham and Joe sees Nicky’s attention drifting. Nicky doesn’t care about football. He doesn’t mind it, and he watched a game with Joe last week so Joe wouldn’t have to watch alone without Booker, but he’s never going to be enthralled.
“Anyway, sorry,” Edward says after a few minutes. He’s blushing again. “I guess I talk a lot.”
He’s so young. Even before his first death, Joe was getting to the point where he could hardly remember being so young. And now, well, of course not. Edward might as well be a toddler to Joe and Nicky.
“That’s alright,” Nicky says. “I don’t talk much, so you can take my talking. It’s good for Joe to have someone to talk to.”
Joe hooks his ankle around Nicky’s under the table. Nicky talks plenty, especially to Joe. Joe never feels bereft of someone to talk to if Nicky’s with him. But Nicky’s being kind now. He’s fine joking about himself to make this child more comfortable. Joe loves him so much it’s making his chest ache.
Edward’s mother calls before long; he’d sent her a text about his friend and she’d booked him somewhere to sleep. “We’re leaving in the morning,” he explains to Joe and Nicky. “Or at least I am. I don’t know what Tom’s doing since he’s got that girl.”
Joe and Nicky exchange a look. Joe has a feeling Edward’s upset about more than just Tom leaving him stranded. Joe remembers watching a market vendor make Nicky laugh and burning with jealousy. That period had lasted about a month, until Nicky had told him, quietly, looking right into his eyes, that he’d rather talk to Joe than anyone else alive.
“Why don’t we go with you,” Nicky suggests as Edward’s getting ready to leave. “To make sure you get there.”
Edward doesn’t have any problem with that. Joe takes Nicky’s hand while they walk. It’s dark now, but the moon is beautiful and bright. Edward glances at their joined hands and ducks his head, biting down on a smile.
They get him to the hotel his mother booked. “Thank you,” he says, a touch awkwardly. “My mum was real glad when I told her some adults were helping me.”
“We’re glad to help,” Joe says. “But just so you know, walking off with strange men is probably not a good idea in the future.”
“Oh, I know,” Edward promises. “But…” He shrugs. “I dunno. I just felt like I’d be okay with you.”
Joe doesn’t fight the smile that brings out in him. He likes knowing he felt safe to some scared kid. They don’t often get to be this kind of safety for strangers; usually they’re more of the avenging type, and some children seem able to sense that there’s something different about them. If Joe made someone feel safe, he’s glad.
Nicky smiles at Joe. “He’s a good man to follow.”
“And you’re a good man to come home to,” Joe says.
They leave Edward in the safety of the hotel and head back. Nicky squeezes Joe’s hand and says, “You know, we may not have dreamed him, but I think it was some kind of destiny for you to find him, too.”
“I think you’re right,” Joe says. “At the very least, to keep him from getting robbed.”
Nicky gives him a dirty look. “I was being profound, thank you. I think it was good for him to see us happy together.”
“Look at us,” Joe says. “An inspiration to boys in love with their friends in every century.”
Nicky laughs at him. “Who did we inspire in our first century?”
“Ourselves,” Joe says. “That counts, too, you know. These modern times have taught me a lot about self-love.”
“I don’t think you needed a lesson on that,” Nicky says. “I heard you many nights before we started sleeping closer together.”
Joe tips his head back and laughs. “Well, because it was such a sweet torture to be so close to you day in and day out.”
He pulls Nicky to a stop and kisses him under the light of the moon. He loves kissing Nicky under the moon. And under the sun. Or clouds, or rain, or snow. They’d read that silly Green Eggs and Ham book once, at an airport or something like that, and Joe had promised Nicky he’d love him in a house and with a mouse and all the rest of it. He’d meant every word.
The cat and the dog are lying in the garden when they get back, and Nicky brings them both a piece of chicken before Joe even says anything. Joe’s heart is feeling very full. His well is overflowing, like he was thinking about before.
“You know, I wouldn’t have made that joke about you replacing me with him if I’d known he was that young,” Nicky says as they clear the table and take everything into the kitchen.
“Don’t worry, I’ve decided I won’t go any younger than a 934-year age difference,” Joe says, making Nicky snort and roll his eyes. Joe tugs at the belt loop on Nicky’s jeans to bring him closer. “I have very strict rules for who I’ll fall in love with, actually.”
“Do you?” Nicky asks. He turns on the tap and fills the dirty dishes with water to soak.
“Yes, I’m incredibly picky,” Joe says. “A three-year age difference. He must be Genoese and both a fierce warrior and a gentle, kind-hearted lover.”
“Is that so?” Nicky asks, leaning into Joe’s body now.
“With eyes that can see into your soul,” Joe says. “That’s a man I could spend a few millennia with.”
That makes Nicky laugh. “Well, what a coincidence, that works out perfectly for me,” Nicky says. He scratches a hand through Joe’s beard and smiles fondly at him. “You love to bring home strays.”
“What strays?” Joe asks. He’s just teasing; Nicky’s pointed this out many times over the last millennium.
“Your cats and your hungry children you find in town everywhere we go,” Nicky says. “Remember the goats you made us drag halfway across the world to find Andy and Quýnh?”
“I miss those goats,” Joe says absentmindedly. “My first strays.”
Nicky smiles at him and shakes his head. “Those were not your first, Joe,” he corrects gently, face so close to Joe’s their lips brush with each word.
“No?” Joe asks, trying to think. “I can’t remember any before that.”
“Really?” Nicky asks, smile growing. “I think there was one earlier.”
“Who?” Joe asks. He’s sure the goats were the first. Maybe there were a few cats or birds when he was a child, but Nicky seems to have something specific in mind.
“I remember a very dirty thing following you around for quite some time,” Nicky says. “Dirty and mean and very, very ignorant.”
Joe’s starting to catch on now. “Oh,” he says, dropping his hands to rest on Nicky’s hips. “Hmm. Dirty? I left this poor creature dirty for a long time? That doesn’t sound very kind of me.”
“That poor creature resisted your best efforts to bathe it for quite some time,” Nicky says ruefully.
Joe can’t help but laugh a little. “Not my best efforts,” he points out, quirking an eyebrow. “I remember some better efforts that ended up being very effective.”
There’s still no faster way to get Nicky into a bath than for Joe to get in first. If Joe had known that, he would’ve started inviting Nicky in with him the first day they met. Nicky isn’t exaggerating—he was filthy when they met. It wasn’t just fleas and parasites, though he had plenty of those. He was caked with blood and sweat and mud and probably piss and shit, human and animal. Joe swears he can still remember the smell, nearly 1000 years later.
Nicky laughs, too. “Well, okay, yes, eventually,” he agrees. He shakes his head, face pinching up now. “That murderous thing did not deserve your best efforts yet.”
“Well, now, if that thing grew to deserve them, then perhaps he deserved them all along and didn’t know it,” Joe says softly, raising a hand to brush Nicky’s hair back.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” Nicky says.
“As long as we agree,” Joe says, hoping to bring Nicky’s smile back. “I would hate to disagree with you.”
“That’s news to me,” Nicky says. Joe nips lightly at the tip of his nose in payback. “You’re biased now because of your love and your good heart,” Nicky says.
“I’m okay with that,” Joe decides. “I’ll always be biased for you.”
“I think I need some of your best efforts now,” Nicky says. He kisses Joe. “I probably smell quite bad.”
“No, you don’t,” Joe promises. Nicky is very clean now, when their life allows them to be.
“Then come make me smell bad and then take a bath with me,” Nicky says, exasperated. “I would think after nine centuries you’d learn to take a hint.”
“I learned to take your hints the first day we met, my love,” Joe says. “You ran me through with your sword and I knew it was a hint you wanted to run me through with something else.”
Nicky laughs hard at that, even as he turns and walks out of the room, tugging on Joe’s hand to make him follow. “And I thought I was being subtle,” he says. “I guess I can’t hide it.”
“Not from me,” Joe confirms.
“And I wouldn’t want to anyway,” Nicky says. He pushes Joe into the bedroom and follows him inside. “Give me some not-subtle hints now.”
Joe remembers earlier, how he’d thought about giving Nicky what he wants. He’d gotten very poetic about it in his thoughts. He thinks he’d better put all that poetry in motion now.
They spend another two days lazing around, though they spend more time outside now. They spend almost an entire day on the shoreline, dozing in the sand and pressing on each other’s sunburns before they disappear.
Joe thinks, not for the first time, that he could pass a century or two like this. Just lying in the sunshine with Nicky, pressing kisses to his forehead and his chin and his chest while Nicky pretends to sleep through it even though he can’t stop himself from laughing. No killing or dying, no blood, no betrayal.
It’s only a wistful feeling, one he’ll never bother to even voice. They both think it from time to time, but they have a higher purpose. Joe likes feeling fulfilled, likes knowing that they can put some good into a world that needs it so badly. It’s just nice to get a break, too.
Andy and Nile come for their own break. Joe and Nicky go to the airport to meet them, excited to see them and not wanting to waste an extra minute.
“Here are more of your strays,” Nicky teases when they catch sight of Andy and Nile.
“I think actually we’re Andy’s strays,” Joe points out.
“That’s true,” Nicky agrees. “She definitely likes strays, too. Remember when she tried to let a horse in our tent?”
Joe laughs, though it puts a little barb in his chest. Andy’s habit of picking up strays came from a need for companionship, any companionship. Andy was alone in a way no living being could ever understand.
Joe knows he can’t; his sense of otherness, dying and waking back up and knowing he was something else, something alone, only lasted a few months until he found Nicky. Even as they killed each other, they knew they were the same. They had each other before they even wanted each other.
Booker thinks he can understand Andy’s solitude, but he can’t. They found him after just two years. Two years that surely felt endless to him at the time, but the blink of an eye in their lifetime.
Andy was alone for thousands of years, watching civilizations die around her as she walked through. She spent whole years at a time without so much as seeing another human being, let alone an immortal. She had no way of knowing if she would ever find anyone like her.
She’s admitted she thought she was simply losing her mind when the dreams of Quýnh started, and finding her felt like a revelation, like there was reason to this undying madness. Quýnh was the closest to understanding Andy, wandering for as long as she did. And then Andy lost her, too.
So Joe is happy to call himself one of Andy’s strays. He’ll stay as close to her now as she’ll let him, and he knows Nicky feels it, too. Besides, Nicky teases Joe about his strays like he doesn’t do the same thing. Nicky is just about physically incapable of seeing someone in need and not helping. It’s one of Joe’s favorite things about him.
“You came!” Joe calls out happily as Nile and Andy get closer. Every time he sees Andy now, it strikes him that he can lose her. He will lose her. They always knew, because of Lykon, that it could happen. He is always afraid when Nicky takes a beat too long to wake up after a death.
But knowing it concretely now instead of just as a possibility feels incomprehensible. He needs to start making the most of the time they have left with her. And they need to get to know Nile, too. They need to make sure she feels loved and accepted.
He blinks away the thought that wants to form in his mind, the concern that they didn’t do enough for Booker. He’s not thinking about that. They tried. They loved him. Booker had his own demons he decided not to fight. And decided not to ask them for help fighting.
“Well, I realized I can get a tan now,” Andy says. She holds out an arm, like the sun will work faster if she asks. It might; Joe thinks the sun probably regards Andy as a friend by now, as long as they’ve known each other.
“You can also get a sunburn,” Nile points out. “A sunburn that doesn’t go away in ten seconds anymore. Look how white you are. You’re gonna fry.” She doesn’t sound particularly worried for Andy; on the contrary, she sounds downright smug. It makes Joe laugh.
They get back to the cottage, and Nile doesn’t even look surprised when Joe and Nicky lead her and Andy into the one bedroom. They’re used to piling together. For most of their lives, being separated meant it could be days or weeks, at least, to find each other again, no GPS and location sharing and cars and airplanes to speed up the process.
They’ve shared tents and caves and boarding rooms and hotels, across centuries and all around the world. They used to make do with rooms near one another occasionally, especially in times when propriety dictated it.
Since losing Quýnh, they’ve stopped sleeping out of sight from each other when they’re together, no matter how big a safehouse is, no matter how long they’re staying.
Now, with Andy’s mortality, Joe wants to make sure she can sleep without being worried she’s vulnerable to attack. And maybe there’s a small part of Joe that wants that reassurance, too. Andy is the fiercest warrior the world’s ever known. After those soldiers gassed them and took him and Nicky, he might need a little extra security.
They take Nile to the tourist’s favorite monastery, and she whispers to Nicky, “Is this where you lived back in the day?”
“I am from Genoa, and older than this,” he says, confused, and then Nile laughs because she was teasing him. Nicky huffs.
Joe laughs, too. Nile is young, but she feels young in an important way. She’s idealistic and impatient, and she’s grounded and enthusiastic and fun. She’s bringing parts of them back to life they hadn’t realized they’d lost.
They take her to see all the statues, and Nicky immediately leads her to Andy’s statue. Andy rolls her eyes. “This could be anyone,” she says.
Nile gives her a look. “That’s you,” she says. “Like, you shouldn’t stand next to it because some tourist is going to take a picture of you and make you go viral on Reddit.”
“I don’t know what a Reddit is,” Andy says.
“You probably don’t want to know,” Nile admits.
“I know what Reddit is,” Joe says proudly. He likes proving he’s kept up with modernity. “I have art friends on there. And Nicky likes to argue with the white supremacists who use the sign of the cross.”
Nicky nods. “And there is a lot of pornography.”
“A lot,” Joe agrees.
Almost a distressing amount. They’re not opposed to pornography, per se, but it’s clear not all of it was done or shared willingly. Booker’s never really been enough of a computer expert to track those kinds of people just from a video online. But Joe makes a note to ask Copley about it. Surely an ex-CIA agent can figure it out.
“Why didn’t you start with that?” Andy asks. “Now I’m interested.”
“I don’t like hearing you guys talk about porn,” Nile says, nose wrinkled. “It’s like hearing my grandma’s sex stories.”
“I’m sure it’s an honor to be compared to your grandmother,” Joe says. He presses a hand to his heart and adds a little bow for maximum sarcasm.
Nile snorts and rolls her eyes. “Alright, suck-up. She’s not here.” Her face only drops for a second, but she powers through it. Nicky and Andy both sling an arm around her shoulders as they walk out, and Joe takes Andy’s other side so they’re all connected, four points across the line, together.
Joe goes out in the morning to feed the cat and the dog while Nicky and Andy make a mess of the kitchen. Nicky’s insisting he’s giving Andy a cooking lesson, but she’s actually just eating the ingredients and they’re both laughing. Joe wishes he could bottle the sound of it, the feeling in his chest as he hears them. It’s been so long since Andy’s laughed like that.
Nile’s outside when he goes. She’s lying in the garden, resting a hand on the dog’s side, the cat curled up on her chest. She squints up at Joe and he obligingly moves to block the sun from her eyes. But the cat and dog have both already scrambled up, knowing he’s bringing them food.
“What’s going to happen to them when we leave?” she asks while they watch the animals eat.
Joe shrugs, rubbing a hand down the cat’s back. “They’ll scavenge from someone new,” he says. The island is overrun with strays. These two were surviving, mostly, before Joe and Nicky got here.
Nile frowns. “I know we can’t take them with us.” She doesn’t say it as a question, but Joe can tell she wants to be contradicted.
He smiles at her gently. “We can’t,” he agrees. Pets would be nice sometimes. But they never know when they’re going to leave somewhere suddenly. They never know when they’ll have to burn a safehouse. Someone who comes after them could lie in wait at a safehouse and hurt an animal inside. It isn’t practical or safe.
Nile sits up, and Joe sits down beside her. “It’s really beautiful here,” she sighs. “I guess I’ll get to see tons of beautiful places now.”
Joe nods, then he shrugs. “Well, with the way humanity’s going, at least some of the beautiful places might burn out before you can see them.”
“Wow,” she says flatly. “Thanks.”
Joe laughs. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“Do you think we’ll still survive if the sun blows up or something?” she asks, pulling up a few blades of grass.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly.
He and Nicky talked about that quite a bit, after Hiroshima. Would they survive even that? They know they can survive chemical agents and gas, but what about if the air itself becomes unbreathable? What if the planet becomes uninhabitable? They’d decided it was likely they would survive, but they would die and heal over and over from suffocation or starvation or radiation poisoning. A torture akin to Quýnh’s.
Joe decides not to share that thought with Nile. She’ll realize on her own time; she’s certainly smart enough. But he doesn’t need to be the one to point it out. She has enough existential crises going on at the moment.
Nile’s phone buzzes. She glances at it but doesn’t pick it up. Unless she has some kind of alert set up, there are only two people Joe can think of she’d be talking to. If it was Copley, it seems like that would be important and she’d need to respond. Which leaves one option.
“Do you talk to Booker?” Joe asks. She looks guilty and wary, but she nods.
Joe appreciates that about her. She doesn’t know him well, and, to his chagrin, she’s already seen a lot of his anger. She’s probably unsure how he’ll react. But she’s not going to lie or dance around the answer. He asked, and she told him.
“I thought the whole banishment thing was just physical,” she says. “I sort of wanted to make sure he doesn’t blow his own head off.”
“He will,” Joe says. Booker’s self-destructive streak has never been even half a secret. “Maybe this time it’ll just be his own and not ours.”
He doesn’t hide his bitterness at those words. Joe has seen Nicky die in pretty much every way there is for a person to die, but that shot through the mouth by Keane felt particularly bad. Nicky’s head had been slick with blood the rest of the day, making Joe feel queasy every time he saw it.
“Sorry,” Nile says. She winces, and Joe feels bad if she’s worried he’s angry with her.
He knows he will forgive Booker. Probably even before the 100 year sentence is up, though he doesn’t know if he’ll talk to Booker before his banishment ends. There’s a good chance he will; if nothing else, they’ll allow him to come to Andy’s funeral, when that time comes.
Nile and Andy don’t know that. Nicky may not have even thought about that, though Joe would be surprised if he hadn’t. But Joe has thought about it a lot. And no matter how deep his hurt is from Booker’s betrayal, Joe will not keep him from sending Andy on. He doesn’t have it in him, and he knows Nicky doesn’t either.
But for now, for—hopefully—a few decades, Booker is on his own. Like he apparently thought he’s been all along. The grief of it, of Booker rejecting the love and companionship and family they tried to extend to him, twists at Joe’s stomach.
And yet the thought of Booker alone does that, too. Booker may have rejected all of that, but Joe and Nicky still felt it. Joe has loved Booker as his brother for two centuries. He can’t just turn it off.
Joe sighs. He’s tired of thinking about Booker, or trying to hold himself back from thinking about Booker, and he’s even more tired of feeling this way, all mixed up and hurt and heartbroken.
“I’m glad,” he decides, even if he isn’t entirely sure he is.
Nile looks at him, surprised. “Really?”
“I don’t know if I’m glad of it for Booker just yet,” Joe admits. “But I’m at least glad for you. He remembers better than we do. The beginning of it all.”
“Yeah,” Nile says. Then she says quietly, “I’m not going to be like Booker, Joe.”
“I know,” Joe promises. He can already tell that.
She came back and helped them when she had no reason to, no tie to them, really, except their shared inability to die. She would never betray anyone. And she’s not going to get wrapped up in her grief and anger. She’s already learned to move past grief, from her first life.
She leans a little closer and bumps her shoulder into his. “So,” she says, voice lighter now. “What’s the grossest way you’ve ever died?”
“Dysentery,” he says immediately, shuddering. “We didn’t call it that back then, but that’s what it was. And it kept killing us when we did start calling it that.”
“Oh, my God, that killed me so many times in Oregon Trail,” she says.
“What?” Joe asks, baffled. Nile wasn’t alive to travel the Oregon Trail.
“It was a computer game,” she says. “Or is, I guess. You can still play it online, I think. You buy supplies and travel the Oregon Trail.”
That, of course, leads them to dig out Andy’s laptop that she brought and find the game. Andy frowns while they get started. “I did this in real life,” she says. “Why would I want to play a game of it?” But, Joe notes, she gets engrossed along with the rest of them. She especially likes the hunting.
“No!” Nicky cries when the text tells them they died of dysentery. “Not again!” He’s died from intestinal issues more times than Joe has, though luckily they don’t have that problem much anymore.
They’re all laughing wildly, leaning on each other, crowded around the computer, and Joe thinks of that well inside of him again. Right now, he feels like he has enough love to cover the world.
Joe wakes up in the middle of the night to Nicky trying to slip out of his arms. When he sees Joe’s awake, he mimes drinking. Joe follows him out, tiptoeing around Andy and Nile on the floor. He keeps himself comfortably pressed to Nicky’s back while Nicky gets his glass of water.
“You weren’t sleeping,” Joe whispers into Nicky’s hair. Nicky only ever needs a drink in the middle of the night if he’s been lying awake.
Nicky sighs and leans back against him. “No.”
“Booker,” Joe says. He can tell from Nicky’s reluctance to talk about it that Booker’s the culprit.
“Yes,” Nicky agrees. “It was a very good day today. We were all together. And I thought of him.”
“Me, too,” Joe says.
“I try not to,” Nicky says. “But it doesn’t work.” He’s done with his water, so Joe gently turns him around so they’re facing each other.
Apparently they’re going to talk about it now. They haven’t yet, since the lab, since they left Booker by the river. They both needed to think it through first, and they needed some distance from the lab and some time together to fortify themselves. But if it’s keeping Nicky awake at night, it’s time to air it out.
“I miss him,” Joe admits softly. “And it makes me angry.”
“I know,” Nicky says. “I miss him, too. It would be easier if he’d just died. We could mourn him without the complicated parts.”
That shocks Joe, a little. It’s not that he hasn’t thought it, but he’s been afraid to say it, for fear of some kind of jinx on Booker. He betrayed them, but Joe doesn’t want him dead. Not permanently. Still, he knows what Nicky means. Losing someone to death is painful and heartbreaking, but at least you get to keep the memories. Now Joe wants to catalogue every conversation he’s ever had with Booker, imagine a secret rage Booker was hiding from him all this time.
But Booker didn’t seem to be hiding his rage. He was very open with it. Joe just never realized it had been directed at them. Though perhaps rage isn’t the right emotion. Exhaustion, certainly. Heartache. Things that Joe thought they were helping with.
“I knew he was still grieving his wife and children,” Joe says. “I knew he was bitter about this life. But I didn’t realize…”
“He didn’t even try to talk to us about it,” Nicky says, voice small and bruised. “He knew we would never agree to letting Merrick have us. So he went straight to taking us by force. He knew he was betraying us.”
They just hold onto each other for a moment, not speaking. Talking this out doesn’t actually mean they can solve anything. They can’t; there’s no solving what happened. But talking about anything with Nicky makes Joe feel better. And it puts puzzle pieces in place in his mind, helps him get his thoughts in order enough to make sense.
“I’m going to have to keep loving him,” Joe whispers. He needs to do that, to be someone who can forgive. He can’t succumb to bitterness and anger. He can’t let himself, even if right now it seems like it would feel good to do so.
“Of course you are,” Nicky says. He tightens his arms around Joe. “You burn through anger fast, hayati. It always gives way to what you really feel.”
“What do I really feel?” Joe asks. He wants Nicky to figure it all out for him. Figure out how he feels and figure out how to fix it. It’s a lot to put on Nicky, too much in a situation that doesn’t have a solution, but he knows Nicky will do all he can.
Nicky sighs. He strokes his fingers over the back of Joe’s neck, just into his hair. “Hurt,” he says. “The kind of hurt that doesn’t heal right away, not even for us. It takes time.”
“Well, we’ve got 100 years,” Joe says hollowly.
“And you feel guilty,” Nicky goes on. Tears spring into Joe’s eyes, because Nicky’s right. He’s tearing up because of the feelings and because Nicky knows him so well. And he’s tearing up because he knows Nicky’s feeling all of this, too. “You feel guilty that you miss him. And you feel guilty that it could be our own fault.”
“Mine, maybe,” Joe says, voice barely above a whisper. Andy’s assurances and Joe’s own insistence that he knew he did nothing wrong don’t come into play here, in the middle of the night, telling truths with Nicky. “Never yours.”
Nicky rests their foreheads together. “If it’s your fault, it’s mine,” he says. “We share this.”
Joe shakes his head, taking Nicky’s with him. “No, Nicky, it’s me,” he argues. “I’m the one who always talks so much. I always get so…so…”
“Poetic,” Nicky says. “And romantic. And heartfelt.”
“Maybe I should save it for when we’re alone,” Joe says.
“It should not be your responsibility to hide your love from your own family,” Nicky says. “And I talk about you, too. Remember, I told Nile you’re the love of my life immediately when we met her.”
”Maybe we did it wrong,” Joe insists. “Maybe we need to do better. Be less obvious about it.” Joe hates to even say it. He can’t imagine not telling Nicky how he feels when he feels it.
Sure, they’ve had to be more discreet at times; on missions, and in public in times when they couldn’t be open. They’ve never been the kind of people who kiss passionately in front of other people, unless there’s some other circumstances going on.
But being with Andy and Quýnh and Booker never counted as in public before. They were always free when it was just them, their family. He’s never held himself back with them. Nicky, too—he talks more and laughs more when it’s just them.
“I never want that to be you,” Nicky says. “For you to try to bury your passion and your heart.” He kisses Joe and looks into his eyes. “That’s who you are. Your love is loud. That is a good thing. And you loved him, too. That’s why it hurts so much. It is not your fault if he refused to listen.”
It makes Joe feel better, even if Nicky’s not exactly an unbiased source. Nicky is biased, but his opinion is still the one Joe values most.
“I think that’s why I have to keep loving him,” Joe says. “I have to stay me.”
“You will,” Nicky says, not a hint of hesitation or question in his voice. “We can miss him. And we will. But that’s how we’ll forgive him, too. Someday we will miss him without being angry or guilty.”
“What if that’s before the 100 years are up?” Joe asks.
Nicky shakes his head. “Yusuf, he must pay his penance.”
Penance is very important to Nicky. Nearly a year after they stopped killing each other and agreed to travel together, Nicky had set off into the desert and spent the spring and summer alone, atoning for his place in the siege of Jerusalem. He’d realized he was wrong, and he had to repent. It’s what he knows.
And he’s right about time being key to forgiveness—Nicky’s time away then gave Joe time and space to be ready to see him changed, to believe Nicky when he said he wanted to fight for the innocent from then on. If Joe hadn’t seen his shame, he would’ve had a harder time believing in Nicky’s heart.
“You’re right,” Joe says. “As always.”
Nicky doesn’t laugh. He’s tired, Joe can tell, and he’s sad and hurt, too. He leans heavier against Joe. “I’m afraid he won’t survive the 100 years,” he confesses in a whisper. “And then I will never forgive myself.”
Joe sighs. He squeezes Nicky tighter. He’s thought the same thing. “Nile talks to him,” he says.
“I thought she might.” Nicky doesn’t sound angry. Joe’s sure he’s glad about it, too, at least a little.
“Maybe…” Joe sighs again. “Maybe she can tell us. If there’s a reason to be concerned. And maybe…well, maybe we can go from there.”
Nicky thinks that over, his sense of justice warring with his compassion. Then he nods. “That’s a good plan,” he says. He kisses Joe and then pulls back to look into his eyes. “Your heart is soft, Joe. It always has been. I want it to always stay that way.”
“You keep it that way,” Joe tells him.
Nicky smiles, but he shakes his head. “I help,” he says, because there’s no way around that. “But you keep it that way. It’s who you are. It’s who I love. You find ways to give out your love.” He gives Joe another kiss. “Don't ever stop, okay?”
“Okay,” Joe promises. “So more strays.”
Nicky laughs, quiet but sweet. “More strays.”
“Has our emotional conversation worn you out enough to sleep?” Joe asks, running a hand through Nicky’s hair.
“I think so,” Nicky says. “And if not, your heartbeat will be my lullaby.”
“Why is it everyone thinks I’m the poet?” Joe asks as they head back to the bedroom. “Tesoro, you are positively lyrical.”
Nicky’s pleased with that. One of the reasons Joe gets so flowery in his compliments is because Nicky loves it so much. The other reason, of course, is because Joe really can’t help himself. Honestly, Nicky doesn’t need to worry about Joe holding back his love; Joe’s not sure he’d have any idea how.
They stop short when they get back to the bedroom. Andy and Nile have taken their bed, leaving their nest of cushions and blankets on the ground.
“You left,” Andy murmurs, more asleep than awake.
“It’s fine,” Joe says. “I guess if we were better gentlemen we would’ve given you the bed from the start.”
“Thought you were supposed to be all chivalrous,” Nile says, voice slow with sleep.
“We’re letting you have it now,” Nicky points out, pulling Joe down with him. If the bed was bigger, they could all squeeze in together, but it’s not. They’ve had many worse places to sleep than cushions on the floor. They’re together, and that’s what matters. Nicky is in his arms and he can hear Andy and Nile breathing across the room.
Someday, they’ll be ready to trust Booker again, to let him back into this family, to have more moments like this with him, too. They’re nomads, really, by necessity if not by desire, but they’ve all made a home in each other.
They are strays, all of them, together. Lost to their first families by death, or rather lack thereof, and lost to mortality as a whole, at least for the time they have. But they’ve found each other. That still includes Booker, whether he accepts it or not.
Joe needs to stay the kind of person who extends that love and that camaraderie. He needs to do that for himself. He doesn’t know any other way to survive this unnaturally long life. He has to believe that all of their acts of kindness and protection add up, even if it’s only to one person.
He liked seeing Copley mapping all that out, even if it was overwhelming to see the detail. He liked seeing the ripple effects. But he doesn’t necessarily care if someone they helped had a child who did some big, amazing thing for the world. He does care, but it isn’t the most important aspect of what they do. For Joe, it’s enough if someone they helped had a child they loved. The small acts have to count as well as the big.
So he’ll keep bringing home strays, whatever form they take. They all will. They’ll do as much good as they can, whether that’s through battle or through love. And someday, when Joe’s immortality runs out and he has a final death, he’ll look back at that love. He’ll look at how he loved Nicky, and his family, and people he never knew longer than to help them.
He will see blood and battle and death when he looks back at his life, yes. But he will see love and laughter and happiness, too, and he will be proud of what he did with his extra time here. He lets go of some of his hurt and his anger, at least just for tonight, and he lets that love settle his heart into lightness.