Work Text:
“Wait for the signal, yeah?”
“You have got to start telling me these ahead of time.” Nile gets no response - Andy has winked and turned the corner already, leaving Nile alone crouched in the shadows, perched along a steel catwalk with a duffel bag full of dynamite in hand, 30 feet above the slick warehouse floor.
Infiltration missions like this should be no different from the dozens they had done before. Copley had debriefed the team earlier that morning, and he was insistent on every detail. This particular Paris warehouse housed one of the largest black market art thief collections he had ever seen, with multiple stolen artifacts that held cultural significance to regions all over the globe. These weren’t trusted to be seen by any of the low-level guards - instead, a false wall had been rigged, all the priceless items stashed behind layers of insulation and carbon-layered fiber. Protective from the elements, yes, but easily demolished, if you knew how.
It was timing on their end, mostly, that would keep everything running smoothly. Nile was given demolition duty, Andy and Booker were tracking down the kingpin, and Joe and Nicky would clear the way, taking the fight to melee if things went south. This job required Nile to stay patient and stay hidden. She was not to move until the signal was given - something Andy had rigged up to explode outside, from what she gathered - and then she would light the dynamite fuse, drop the bag over the railing, and run. The duffel would land on the floor, conveniently positioned by the wall. When it blew, Nile, Nicky, and Joe should already be at the getaway van around back, ready to grab Andy and Booker. Copley planned to follow their tracks once the dust settled, conveniently arriving when the wall was down, artifacts exposed.
From her perch above, Nile could watch almost all of the warehouse through the grating in the catwalk. Crates and wrapped packages, filed tightly in industrial shelves, made up most of the floor space. Plenty of blind spots, but also plenty of places to conveniently vanish when necessary. Up along the level where she sat, there were a few private rooms and narrow corridors, only accessible through the maze of steel and stairwells. Andy and Booker would be in one of them by now, zeroing in on the ringleader of the art operation.
Below, she could see the shapes of Joe and Nicky, moving in tandem through the shadowed shelves. It was like a string was tied between them - when one moved ahead a few feet out of arm’s reach, the other would inevitably move closer, no matter who was in front. She doubted it was even conscious anymore. It happened every time Joe and Nicky were tasked to scout out a space together, but from Nile’s view above, it was starkly obvious, almost comical, how in sync the couple was. After a few more steps, they quickly rounded a corner, out of Nile’s line of sight.
Several minutes passed. She counted them on her watch. Ten minutes tops, that’s what Andy had said before they left the safehouse. Any longer, and the security would likely catch on to the lack of presence from their boss.
On minute number six, something rocked the warehouse from the outside, a shock wave of explosive. That’s it. Nile quickly gripped the duffel bag with both hands, popped up over the railing, and dumped it over the side, poised to run. There was a glint of silver metal from under her feet, through the grating. She spared a quick glance.
A sword was raised - a familiar one. Nicky was using it to block blows from a tall, bulky guard. They had presumably run out of ammo, and were instead using the full force of their semi-automatic like a baseball bat, slamming it towards Nicky’s head again and again. She hadn’t heard either of them coming.
He was supposed to be outside with the van by now.
“Nicky!”
There was no quicker way to warn him. Even her scream wouldn’t be fast enough. He had been cornered too close to where the bag would land, and there was nothing slowing its descent.
Nile didn’t register the sound of the explosion. It should have been deafening, but she felt it more than heard it. It was like someone had compressed her body against the steel railing, merging her skin with the hard metal. There was an uncomfortable flash of heat, a bright light. Force flung her hair and arms back, and a swarm of dust flew up to greet her. She shut her eyes tight just in time before pinpricks of shrapnel showered her face, a quiet finale to the detonation.
Nile sat still. Took a shuddering breath. She would be okay.
Nicky.
She took the stairwell two steps at a time, emerging on the ground floor crowded with thick dusty air. There was no sign of anyone else on the team nearby. There was a small relief - the wall had been demolished successfully, the insulation casing behind the façade now visible, with a faint fluorescent glow shining from behind. Scattered segments of drywall and metal plating littered the ground, along with the dead - or maybe just knocked out? - forms of several guards. The hope of a fully successful mission faded quickly, though. Getting closer, there was the glint of silver again on the floor.
“Oh God.”
Seeing one of them end up like this was not the plan.
She stumbled over the bits of the target wall to reach Nicky, and luckily, none of the rubble had landed directly on top of him. However, a crater-like hole in his torso left quite a scarring image, with gored tissue splashed all over his front as he lay sprawled on his back, certainly not breathing. Parts of his skin had been singed so that it fell away, deep and ashen, and some of the burns reached up to his face, leaving a smattering of swollen, bubbling flesh behind along his jaw. A piece of debris from the blast must have hit him directly in the chest. The guard Nicky had been fighting was sprawled across the floor at his feet, skeletal framework clearly broken and scattered.
Heavy steps came from behind Nile. Almost instantly, Joe was kneeling beside Nicky’s body with her, not meeting his lover’s empty eyes, expression pained.
Another set of footsteps ran up. Lighter. “Booker’s pulling up the van. We have to move.”
“Wake up, Nicoló.” All three of them know it’s futile - they’ll have to carry him out. It’s too deep of a wound to heal instantly.
Andy says it first. “Joe. He’ll heal on the way to Goussainville.”
Joe looked close to protesting, but was interrupted by another guard, stumbling towards them through the dust and coughing. Joe’s scimitar is in the figure’s broad chest before they can even catch their breath. They land with a reverberating thud next to Nicky, fresh blood pooling on the both of them.
Another shadow moves in the dust. Any guard who wasn’t incapacitated would certainly be drawing toward the group by now, lured by their sound. Without further argument, Andy moves to guard Nile and Joe, nodding at them to get Nicky and leave. The tattered wreck of his vest sticks to both of them when they reach under his arms. There’s a horrible bout of blood that spills out of Nicky’s wound when they go to lift him, and Nile recoils, but doesn’t drop his weight as they shuffle to the back emergency exit, Andy close behind.
The van screeched to a halt, nearly losing traction, right as the exit door swung open. The emergency alarm goes off promptly.
“Copely’s en route. He’ll be here in 5.” Booker steps out and rounds the van, takes Andy’s labrys from her hand and Nicky’s longsword from Joe’s, and deposits them in the trunk. He does a double take at Nicky. “Is he healing?”
“He'd better be. And we should tell Copley there are a few stragglers in the warehouse - the boss is taken care of, though.” Andy moves to take Booker’s spot in the driver’s seat. “And Book. Maybe next time, something with a little more leg room?”
“At least we brought the van and not the bikes.” Booker mutters to himself, throwing the keys to Andy.
By the time Joe and Nile have Nicky propped up between them in the cramped backseat, the gaping hole in his chest has lessened, but only barely. Nile can see, rather uncomfortably, where the base of his lungs had been blown out, and the awkward protrusion of his upper ribs where the bones had shifted out of place. Layers of tissue were splaying out from under them like fraying fabric. Joe positioned his husband’s body at an angle, with Nicky’s shoulders up against his chest, leaning back as to prevent further blood from spilling out of the front of the wound. Andy waited until Joe locked eyes with her in the rearview mirror before she changed gears and started up the road sharply, gravel flying in the van’s wake.
“Joe, I -” Nile had to look away as Joe reached for Nicky’s wrist, anxiously waiting for the pulse to return. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize -”
“They stole my stupid signal, that’s what happened.” growled Andy from the front seat.
Next to her, Booker flashed a sad smile that was almost amused. Almost. “Happens on occasion, kid. Bad luck Nicky had to be right there, though.” As though in response, the edge of Nicky’s lungs sealed with a harrowing, arid pop, and Nile watched as the life slowly came back to his face, features twitching. It was uncanny, seeing Nicky’s heart start to beat again without the skin on top having fully hidden it away. Joe grabbed his hand as he grimaced, bones and tissue still writhing like worms. “Damn, that can’t feel good,” Booker adds, watching Nicky slowly stir.
“I just heard the explosive signal we rigged, and figured that was it. It must have been accidentally triggered by someone else outside.” Nile continued. She didn’t want to look at Nicky, and the way that his burnt skin bubbled up slightly when it healed, so she stared at the back of Andy’s head. “Then I didn’t see him until after the bag had already left my hand, and -”
“Shhh, Nicoló. Amore mio. It’s me.” Nicky’s eyes had opened, and something in his sternum had crunched loudly as it reset itself, causing him to fully wake and cry out. He instinctively grabbed for his sword at his side, but found both the action painful and the weapon gone. “Don’t try to sit up. We’re safe.”
Nicky stayed still, yet glanced around, worried. His gaze floated around the van, to everyone inside, and then to his wounded chest, eyes wide. When he looked back at Joe, only then did his fear visibly lessen. He closed his eyes, lying back against Joe with a pained but thankful smile. “Thank you, caro.” His words were barely there.
Joe held Nicky steady as the van rocked down a dirt road, hand still in his. Of course, my love.
The rest of the group went quiet as Nicky continued to heal, barring the low, wet stitching of the wound, the staccato resetting of the ribs, and Joe’s soft reassurance. Joe kept his breathing deep and slow, wanting Nicky to subconsciously mirror the same. Once his pain seemed to subside, Joe motioned to Nile to help sit Nicky upright. What little had remained of his vest and undershirt sloughed off his back and into the seat.
“I’m so sorry.” Nile tried again. Joe nodded this time, but Nicky answered before he could, voice soft but steady.
“There is no set amount of chances we get, Nile. It’s okay.” He watched as the final cells of his skin meshed back together, then rubbed a hesitant hand over it. His torso would be perfectly intact again and his skin perfectly smooth, if you ignored the dried blood. His heart underneath was fully repaired, his lungs returned to their healthy state. “I’ve been hurt much worse.”
“By those in this van, might I add.” Andy waved a hand, gesturing generally around the group. “All in good fun, of course.” She was looking pointedly at Joe, who looked back almost sheepishly.
“It’s true,” said Nicky, turning to Nile without moving away from Joe. “Yusuf did hurt me the worst.” Booker and Andy both chuckled. They’d heard this story before, probably multiple times.
Nile felt better, now that Nicky did. She looked back at him, and his eyes were clearer, wider. “What happened?”
“It was… a while after we first met in Jerusalem, after the first times we would kill each other.” Nicky started. Joe smiled and murmured something in Italian that Nile didn’t catch, and Nicky ran a hand over his chest again. Double checking. “We fought in Damascus. I recognized him immediately, and we fought for so long that everyone in the city streets near us had long fallen. I remember being so mad, convinced he had cursed me.”
“I thought the same as well.” It was Joe’s turn to laugh, amused at the memory.
As Nicky narrated his story to Nile, he painted a picture of the events of that day clearly. The baking sands of Syria had made him hot to the point of near nausea, and yet, locking eyes with Joe across a courtyard had sent an icy chill to fester in his spine. Nearly fifty years had passed since that dreadful First Crusade, but the other immortal’s face had burned into his memory easily. Seeing Joe again, living and breathing, seemed as infuriating as it was appallingly relieving.
“How did you die?”
“Well, for starters, we had pissed each other off beyond reason. We eventually were arguing back and forth more than actual fighting, running circles around and around in argument. Curses and slanders on each other’s beliefs, our people, all of it. Our reasons to defend our faith were both stubbornly held, but we could feel the faults in our divisiveness. What would it matter to me if the Christians succeeded or not, when all I could focus on was the man in front of me? I wanted him gone, but also, it was intriguing to have someone else share in that curse. After all, I had learned a bit of Arabic during my years away, and he had clearly learned some Genoese.”
“How poetic,” Andy chimed in, teasing. “You’d been cursed to spend eternity together. How absolutely awful that turned out to be.” Joe playfully kicked the back of her seat.
Nicky continued the story. It had seemed, maybe, that they had reached a stalemate - neither warrior willing to lay down his weapon or take back his words, but neither one wanting to land another blow. Nile thought for a moment that he must be paraphrasing the conversation, recalled from centuries ago, but Nicky said the words with such purpose that no substitution could have fit the same.
I’m done playing this twisted game of God’s. If you didn’t curse me, why did He? And choose you of all people to resurrect along with me?
You think me a demon. Someone to accompany you into the hell you think you’re headed to.
I’m a demon? You are the one who has followed me, who has come to take my life again.
And you have come to take mine, along with the lives of hundreds of innocents in the city. If anyone will be judged harshly, it will be you, and I will not feel regret when I can finally see you fall.
Nicky was relaxed in his seat now, his recounting of the past proving to be a successful distraction from any lingering pains. Even as the van hit potholes and rocks, his story never faltered.
Joe was watching with a wistfulness in his eyes, like 1148 was just yesterday. He, too, sounded more composed when he began to narrate his piece. “We were the only ones of our kind that we knew of, so I regretted it the moment I did it… I wasn’t thinking clearly. There was too much confusion, and too much rage, and I… well, I buried him alive.”
Here Joe stopped. Whether for dramatic effect or for his own mental sake, Nile couldn’t tell, but she was in awe all the same. She looked back and forth between the team’s faces. How had he survived?
“You buried - ? Wouldn’t that work, since he would’ve - you know. Come back and suffocated again?”
Joe laughed. Nicky looked amused. “It did work. Yusuf just felt too guilty to let me die that way.”
“Curious! I was too curious. There were so many questions I needed answers to, like if he could recover from missing limbs like I could, or had tried to end the immortality by his own hand, as I had tried.” Joe stilled. Nile sensed there was another story there, but didn’t press. “The true guilt wouldn’t set in until later. But yes, I did save him.”
It turns out, Nile learned, that it is immensely brutal to die over and over, alive under the soil. Joe had uncharacteristically snapped, fed up with the endless argument. He hit Nicky over the head until he passed out, bleeding, and dragged him a small way to a partially dug-out field, the beginnings of a mass grave made by the Crusaders for their fallen comrades. Joe had set him atop the bodies, took a shovel that had been laid aside, and began to fill back in the earth. Sand was light when the wind took it and blew it in the men’s faces, but when placed in heaps atop your weight, it turns out it is heavy and unrelenting. It only took a few moments to seep into Nicky’s lungs, and he had woken up abruptly, choking on sand and surrounded by the swollen, clammy figures of the dead. Soon, he would join them, albeit not forever.
Fermati, demone! Per favore - fermati.
(Stop, you demon! Please, stop.)
Joe had grit his teeth, avoided Nicky’s panicked gaze, and kept shoveling sand. It would fill Nicky’s airway and coat his throat until his words were grated, his repetition of one phrase - aiutami - fading out with his breath. Sand would keep pouring in like an hourglass, replacing the space where oxygen should go, until he shook and spasmed, acute respiratory failure slowly claiming him.
(Help me.)
From above, Joe had kept piling on sand until Nicky’s screams faded. However, he didn’t walk away. He sat next to the fresh grave, eyes on the place where his enemy’s face had just sank out of sight.
Below, Nicky had died and regenerated close to six times before he felt a hand grip his tunic and pull him to safety. It felt akin to being dragged ashore after being pulled under by an aggressive wave. They had sat there in the empty field, sun long gone below the horizon, both taking heaving breaths; Joe, trying to grapple with what he had done, and Nicky, desperately grasping for air. Sand and spit dribbled off his lips.
I’m sorry you’re stuck with this, Joe had said to him. I’m sorry you’re stuck with me.
Nicky smiled again. “I was mad, but somehow, I couldn’t blame him. For a moment I wanted to strangle him, but I didn’t. I think deep down, we knew it would get old and painful and pointless, to constantly try something that fate clearly wouldn’t allow. I had never died and come back on an endless loop like that, so it felt like we had crossed a line. We would still hurt each other for years longer, of course, but some level of hatred had worn away. I wouldn't instantly draw my weapon when I saw him anymore.
After I could breathe again, I remember Yusuf then reaching down, meeting my eyes, and brushing some sand off of my chest. Then he turned and walked back into the city. I saw his silhouette leave into the dark, and wouldn’t see him again until… well. Decades later, in person. But fairly often in my dreams.”
“Somehow you find a way to make this story more romantic every time you tell it.” A sentiment from Joe, met with laughter from the rest. All the tension from before at the warehouse had slowly left during the tale. Booker had stopped taking nervous sips from his flask, and Joe had moved his hand from its sweaty grip around Nicky’s shoulders to rest on his husband’s knee, mindlessly tracing circles with his thumb. Nicky would remember what it felt like to take dynamite to the chest, but at least the entire mission wouldn’t feel as emotionally tainted as it could have otherwise. Hopefully.
“Don’t make fun, Yusuf.” Nicky was smiling. “It’s good for team camaraderie to share stories.”
Andy jumped in. “We’ve still got a few more miles, if anyone else wants to give it a shot.” With the energy still high, they all started to reply at once.
Nile laughed, looking around the van as each voice interrupted the other. “Whoa, whoa. Just one story for now, and maybe something not so… dramatic? There’s only so much sappiness I can take in one day.” She teased.
“Andy, then.”
Booker guffawed at Nicky’s suggestion. “Andy? Least dramatic? And I’m -”
“So what will it be, boss? Maybe we finally tell Nile about São Paulo?”
“1834? Or the other time?”
“There was another time?”
Andy locks eyes with Nile in the rearview mirror with a brief smile. “Welcome to the team, kid. It’s about time we fully catch you up.”
Nile is still processing what it means to live eternally. Each of the Old Guard could look back on their mistakes, and learn from them for years and years. They could look back on the moments that changed the trajectory of their minds’ framework, and in turn, the lives of countless people over time. Each domino had so many ways to fall, but somehow, after what had to be millions of choices and events and mistakes, she was here among them. Her family. She would be joining in these stories, and the comfort of that thought over anything else makes her finally sit back in her seat, fully relax, and listen.