topino | For Ahn

For Ahn

Each week after the farmer's market, Nicky feels much more confident about cooking for his friends in Darrow. While Rowan has a standing invitation to wander over, the others are more of a challenge that brings Nicky back to cooking in different countries, learning about the local cuisine, and then trying to impress. Tonight, he's brought Ahn over to show off his bibimbap, which he's been working on perfecting for over seventy years.

Yes, it's been a while, but he thinks it will do the trick.

Before Ahn comes over, Nicky makes sure that anything private (or, rather, concerning) is hidden away. That means the sword, Joe's journal, but also the sniper rifle he's building all go in a locked dresser in the bedroom. With that no longer needing to be worried about, Nicky returns to the kitchen, with the door unlocked, eager to have the house smelling of a homecooked meal by the time Ahn arrives.

He knows there's plenty to learn and improve on, and he's hoping that Ahn won't be stingy with any of his feedback when it comes to the meal.

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Nicky's voice cuts through Ahn's shock, his breath coming hard even though the pain is just about gone. He shifts to sit on the floor, staring at Nicky with wide eyes as he tries to process exactly what he's just seen.

"I saw you," he explains, wincing as he thinks about the pain again. That's truly a first for him, feeling it that way, and he has to touch his own side again, just to make sure it doesn't hurt.

Ahn closes his eyes against the onset of tears and leans back against the cabinets, wondering if his life is always going to be like this; fits of normal living until he's reminded that he can be anything but. "I should have told you before but we're friends and I didn't want it to be strange. When I touch people, I can see their memories. I saw yours. When you were in...a hospital? Someone was hurting you. And I saw your husband, he was lying there too."

There is a change that goes over Nicky. He's not expressive or emotive like some others. Definitely not like Joe. Still, he eases back to his heels as he tips his head to study Ahn, not blinking as he processes what it is that he's seen.

He can see memories, he says, and while he's been in many hospitals and labs, there are few that he and Joe have been in together. He thins his lips as he presses them together, wondering how much he should give in return. On his feet, he fetches a glass of water and sets it on the ground beside Ahn, careful not to touch him. Who knows what else he will see, and Nicky is still debating how much to tell him.

"You are doing more than seeing them," he says, his voice calm and even. "You're feeling it," he quietly points out.

Nicky is taking the admission in a much calmer manner than Ahn expected. He knows things are different here in Darrow and that he's not necessarily as strange or as singular as he used to be, but Ahn has spent most of his life feeling like a monster for what he can do. It's hard to shake.

Ahn sniffs and pulls the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his hands before wiping tears out of his eyes. "I did feel it," he agrees, and is grateful to see that Nicky has no only brought him water, but is taking care to keep his distance.

"I don't normally feel things, I only see them," he explains, voice small, "but that was a lot of pain, hyung." Ahn thinks, maybe, that he hasn't felt that much pain since he was a child and fell seven stories in Sungmo's arms. "What happened to you?"

Nicky cannot comfort him in the way he might with others, because it would mean touching him again. It breaks his heart to see him so distraught, especially when it is because of him. This is because of his memories, of Merrick, he's sure.

The question is there, hanging in the air. Now it matters what he decides -- whether it will be the truth or a lie. He is stuck in Darrow, but others know his secret. Klaus and Rowan, but none else. Ahn has his own gifts, one he has kept silent, though. "I was taken, with Joe, and we were experimented on," he explains carefully, turning back to the food so it doesn't burn.

He suspects they will need sustenance soon.

"Tortured," he says, a better word for what happened.

Ahn moves to the table to sit in his previous chair, and takes a long drink of water as he watches Nicky and takes in what he's just said. He has the memory of Nicky's pain now, and though he knows it will fade in time just like any other, Ahn has unlocked something Nicky may not want to talk about. He cannot blame him for that, either.

Torture. Ahn has seen a lot of terrible things, glimpses of the absolute worst of what humans can do to each other. To think Nicky has suffered so makes the idea harder to face, and he can't help but want to know more even though he's unsure how to ask.

"Was it because...it felt like--like--" Flustered and rapidly losing his control over his English, Ahn pauses and forces himself to try again. "You were getting better, very fast."

Nicky breathes in deeply and sits on the opposite side of the table, but not before he digs into his cupboards for a big bottle of red wine. He puts it down on the table with a glass to start drinking, but on the other side is the paring knife he had been using.

Without saying anything, he drinks back half his glass, and then slices into the meat of his forearm until it opens and bleeds, right into the palm cupping his arm. It's not a deep wound and Nicky is old, very old, so it heals quickly.

"You have a special talent. So do I."

Ahn waits, and watches Nicky, thinking he will get an answer in time. However, it's a very different way of answering the question that Nicky provides him with, and Ahn is startled into a few choices curses that Jisoo would smack him for if she ever heard them coming out of his mouth.

"Are you crazy? You didn't have to do that!" Ahn protests, half standing and leaning over the table to take a look at Nicky's arm to make sure it's okay.

Knowing Nicky can heal and actually seeing it right in front of him are two entirely different things, but the proof of it strips away Ahn's power of speech as he watches the skin simply...not be cut any more.

"That was disgusting," Ahn says, and while he's grimacing thanks to what he's just witnessed -- and the blood left behind -- there is a touch of awe in his voice along with it. "But amazing."

Nicky smooths his palm over the skin, which is fully healed now. He runs a napkin over it to dab up any of the blood that's left over. "I don't know how you feel about your ability, but mine is something I keep very quiet," he says, which is a confession as much as it is a warning that he doesn't want it getting out.

He trusts Ahn, of course, but it bears saying.

"I will die one day. One day, this will not work, but until then, if you hurt me or kill me, I will heal. It's how I have lived, for over nine hundred years."

"I won't tell," Ahn murmurs, a promise he knows he can keep as much as he now knows Nicky won't tell about his own power.

Ahn looks back up at Nicky when he says how old he is, and frowns. "No wonder you act like an old man all the time. And--wow," Ahn lets the syllable trail and he sits back as he comes to a realization. "That sword, that wasn't your family sword, was it? That was yours. Hyung, you're so old."

Nicky refills the wine, because he heals everything, including any damage done by alcohol, so if he doesn't do this quickly, then it's not going to have much of an impact at all. He snorts mildly at Ahn's accusation that he is an old man. "I'm 951," he says, "born in 1069. Of course I'm an old man. At home, I was the second oldest man in the world," he informs him.

He isn't just a grandfather, but one multiple times over.

His smile turns wry, overshadowed by some regret. "It is mine, yes. From when I fought in the Crusades." Then, a thought occurs to him. "If you can see memories, then you are lucky all you saw was Merrick."

Those are numbers much beyond Ahn's comprehension; knowing Aggie is about three hundred years old is hard enough to understand, but Nicky eclipses that.

Ahn makes a pained face at the mention of the memory again, and wonders how it might work with someone of his age. Surely with nearly a thousand years, there's more pain and hurt to be had? But why had he seen only that?

"Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe...was it your most recent bad memory? When I touch people, I always see the worst thing they've been through, or the worst thing they remember. If I read any objects it can be random, but people..."

Ahn shakes his head. "People can do a lot of terrible things to each other. It always imprints on your soul."

Nicky raises a brow, because fighting Keane with Joe and being shot in the mouth might contend for a worse memory, but it's really splitting hairs at that point, to a level that he doesn't think he needs to clarify. "It was a recent very bad memory, but not the only one," he says. "Every death hurts," he confesses. "Just because I heal, does not mean the pain vanishes."

"How long have you had this gift?" he asks, pouring a new glass of wine, tipping it to Ahn. "Do you drink? Does it help or hurt?"

Because if they're going to talk about terrible things, he needs the booze. "I've done many awful things," he says. "I killed my husband. Many times."

Ahn stares, then takes the glass and drinks down a good helping of wine. He's more used to soju and rice wines, but this will do. Eventually he'll get drunk enough to try to comprehend Nicky dying a lot and killing his husband a lot, too.

"I discovered it when I was five," he answers, "I'm not sure how I got it, but my guardian hyung thinks it was because he and I got hurt really badly the same night our parents died." Ahn grimaces at the memory, and takes another sip of wine. "There was a fire in our apartment building, and my parents died. Hyung was a neighbor, and he...he grabbed me and jumped off the seventh floor to save us. When I woke up, I had this power."

He stares at the table for a long moment, allowing the press of the panic and pain from that night weigh him down as it always does. Trying to ignore it never works, and now there's the added bonus of thoroughly missing Sungmo.

When Ahn looks at up at Nicky again, he purses his lips. "Why did you kill your husband? That's not very romantic."

The way it sounds, it's almost as if the universe had wanted to protect Ahn, or give him the ability to prevent it. Or, maybe, it's about the aftercare, dealing with the emotional burden of such tragedies. Either way, it is a lot to put on a single five year old.

He'll ask Ahn about protocol soon, how he wants to be touched or approached, but first, he has to explain him and Joe. He's smiling, ruefully, fondly. "I went to war, the Crusades, because I was taught to hate a certain group of people. Joe, Yusuf," he clarifies, "he was one of them. The love of my life, on that battlefield. I was unwashed, unlearned, and unsympathetic. I killed him. He killed me. Three times, at least," he says fondly, as if telling a story about a meetcute.

"It was destiny that we both died and resurrected together. We've been together ever since." His smile turns pained, though, because, "Well, until here."

Ahn is slightly horrified at the very notion of Nicky and his husband killing each other over and over, but fascinated all the same. He thinks he should know what the Crusades are - the term is familiar but Ahn had never been the best at paying attention in school. He does know enough to find the idea of Nicky being older than the entire Joseon dynasty crazy.

"That's a long time to be together," Ahn says. "Was he the other man with you, in that lab? I think I saw him."

Nicky is so far removed that he smiles fondly every time he thinks about 1099 and his first death, and he doesn't think about the fact that most people don't find it romantic. "It is," he agrees, "but not long enough," he vows.

"Joe was with me in the lab, yes," he agrees, voice rough. "He was with me before I was shot, but when I woke up in Darrow, non è qui, he wasn't here."

Edited 2021-02-19 19:38 (UTC)

"I think we all come here alone." It's what Ahn has noticed so far, and noticed of all his friends as well. "But maybe he will come one day? My friends, they knew each other from their home but now they are here together."

Ahn dearly hopes that is the case if he does end up stuck here for a long time like Aggie has been. He misses Sungmo like he would miss his own arm, and he needs to see Jaein again.

Nicky's smile is a burdened thing, heavy and sad, but also understanding. "I have had nine hundred and fifty one years with Joe, without us ever being apart more than a few days. If this is a test for my love, I won't fail," he guarantees, "and it will make our reunion so much sweeter."

He tries not to think about one of them becoming mortal, or Andy's dwindling years. He thinks he cannot be alone that long, that he will go back to them. "Besides, how are we to know when we return, if we do? It might be the same moment? It might even be earlier? Maybe we're here to learn something and return home."

Ahn thinks it would be nice to have something like that. Though he would never voice it out loud, he'd waited for Jaein for two years, hoped he would see her again, and he had. It was like they were destined to be together, especially with their shared pasts.

Of course, if he is meant to learn a lesson of any sort here, Ahn has an inkling of what that might be.

"You think so? Maybe I'm supposed to learn more about my powers here, if I can? I've met more people with other sorts of powers than I ever even dreamed out before."

"Maybe," he says, because he doesn't have the answers, if he's honest. "I don't know what I am supposed to be learning, but maybe it's not about me. Maybe it's to learn about others and support them, like you," he says, his eyes fixed on Ahn.

Maybe it's about teaching him how to use his powers. "I think, maybe, that if you needed a test, then I could be that person for you. You saw a terrible moment, but I can tell you, assure you, that it was far from the worst," he says, soberly. "I could be your test."

Ahn's hands curl into loose fists, withdrawing into the sleeves of sweatshirt as he considers Nicky's proposal. He can tell that Nicky is serious simply from the way he is looking at Ahn, and he gives it the same weight.

Sungmo's goal had always been to hopefully strengthen Ahn's power and control it by using it more. Having Jaein help train him in any way they could figure out, the blind leading the blind, had been in service of that. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian think the same.

For all the help he is getting, Ahn is scared, and always has been. He alone knows what it means to touch someone and see what they do, experience what they do. It's frightening. But being scared makes him feel like a coward, like he's still that five year old boy who knows nothing.

"Maybe we can try," Ahn finally says, looking down at Nicky's arm where he'd cut himself. There's no evidence the cut was ever there, the blood neatly wiped away. There's a lot to Nicky's past, he's said so himself, and that alone is a scary. "My hyung always thought trying more was the way to help control it and get better."

"Is there something that the person you're touching can do?" Nicky wonders, because he's beginning to let his mind work the problem. What if the issue is not just with Ahn, but with the person he's contacting? Nicky, of course, has been thinking about the lab often because he misses Joe desperately, and it's the most recent memory.

There's also the part where he still longs to go to Malta, as they'd talked about.

"If I focus on something, would you see that instead?" he wonders. "Maybe it doesn't have to be a terrible memory, when you're training. Maybe it could be something good. I do have many of those, too, and I promise to keep them decent," he teases.

The line of questioning stuns Ahn, and he stares at Nicky, mouth dropped open for a long moment. He's never thought of it that way. They had always tried to reach for answers to why he had this power, and had come up with some decent theories. Still, they're only theories, and Ahn is often reminded of just how little he actually knows.

"I have never tried it," he says slowly, starting to think. "If someone imprints a memory on an object I can see those too, but they are not always bad. I never thought about doing it for a person."

Sungmo allowed Ahn to touch him, but only because he knew Ahn could never read him. Jisoo and Daebong, however, were more reluctant; touching always happened, it was simply the nature of being so close to them. But they never willingly let Ahn touch them, and he rarely wanted to.

"I wouldn't ask you to do it when you're not ready, but I have lots of good memories that we could use. Maybe I can think about the first time I was in what's known as Korea today?" he suggests. "It was Goryeo, when I was there."

They hadn't spent too much time there, given that travel was so long and laborious and they had been heading back to Alexandria, but Quynh and Andy had been there at the time. It had been a good trip, before they made their way back West.

"Goryeo?" Ahn brings his hands up to the side of his face, pressing his fingers to rub his temples as he processes that. "You're giving me a headache, hyung. I barely even remember learning about that era of history in school."

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