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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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."

Nicky's smile isn't meant to be smug or teasing, but it's a little sympathetic as he settles in beside Ahn, not pressing a hand to his back to soothe him as he might have done with one of his other team.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm not sure I remember that much. There are some memories of the landscapes, the food, and a little of the fashion. Joe found some excellent pieces of eyewear both there and in China," he supplies.

He can't quite wrap his mind around how old Nicky truly is, so Ahn decides not to. He's simply going to accept it, and maybe in a little while he might be able to get used to the idea. Ahn feels much the same about Aggie, who may be much younger than Nicky, but still has a few hundred years on Ahn.

"So your husband is that old too?" The idea of it rocks Ahn a little. That long, with someone you love... "You've been with him for hundreds of years?"

And now Nicky is stuck here, like the rest of them, without him. He can't even begin to imagine how much it must hurt.

"Yusuf is three years older than me," Nicky says, as if this is a great and vast difference, "but we died at the same time, in the same moment," he says, even though it might have been seconds apart. For all that he cares, it had been the same time.

"We have been together nine hundred and twenty-one years," he says proudly, always wishing for more. "I will love him another nine centuries, another nine hundred, he is the love of my life," he says simply. "I thought he was my enemy, but we were given a gift, not of immortality, but of one another. He is my destiny and my gift."

Ahn watches with wide eyes as Nicky speaks, trying to imagine it; being with someone for so long and still loving them all along. That's what he thinks love should be, likes to think that's how his parents were, maybe hoped he'd have that with someone.

"Hyung," he says, voice wobbling as he tries not to tear up, "I didn't know you were so romantic."

Nicky gives a soft huff of laughter. "No," he says, and it's kind. "I am not a romantic. My husband, Yusuf, he is the romantic. I've just been exposed to it for so long that I've picked it up." That and he truly does think it was destiny that brought them together, and that this gift of immortality is only a gift because of him.

He misses him so much, more than he can say, but he doesn't want to show it. "I think you are distracting us from talking about your abilities," he points out.

"No I'm not," Ahn pouts, but only because Nicky isn't wrong. It's still strange to talk about his power openly, and not only because he's kept it to himself for so long. Some days Ahn feels like he doesn't know anything at all about the power he's lived with for fifteen years, and it makes him feel small and stupid.

"I truly don't know much about it," he admits. "I wanted to help people with it, but that's hard when I can't control it at all. My hyung always wanted me to practice more, and I've been trying it here. Just a little."

Nicky raises a brow like he might think about challenging him on it, but he doesn't. After all, he's much kinder than that. Or so he wants people to think, who haven't known him for most of his life and know how dry his humour can be.

"Then you have to practice," he says matter of factly. It's different than his ability, because there's no skill in it, but there is skill in the multitude of talents and skills he's picked up over the centuries. "It's like cooking, yes? If you want to get better, you have to practice."

"I know, I know," Ahn grumbles, but it's good-natured. Nicky sounds like Sungmo, always going on about how he had to keep practicing and figuring out his power, though Sungmo had no more idea of what to do or what they were dealing with than Ahn had.

He holds a hand out to Nicky, palm up and fingers steady despite the anxious energy starting to race through him. "Just a little bit. Maybe I can try to see something good...but you have to be okay if I see other bad things, hyung. About you."

Nicky focuses very hard on something simple. He thinks about Malta and the smell of the citrus trees wafting with the seabreeze. "If you see bad things, I will understand," he promises, "but I don't want to hurt you intentionally. If you see a bad thing, let go or tell me to pull away," he says very seriously.

Malta, he thinks. The villa, the trees, the sunset, the food.

And then he rests his palm on top of Ahn's and waits.

Nicky is so calm, and Ahn wishes he could be the same; as much as he learns from Lan Wangji about meditation and calm, it's hard to remember when faced with touching someone and knowing it's coming. It has gotten better and Ahn thinks he's learning, but the way the anxiety burns through his limbs is a feeling he's all too used.

Then Nicky touches him, and there's no more thinking. There's just blood and sweat and a flash of warm sky completely at odds with the heat and pain of battle and Ahn rips his hand away from Nicky's when a bright, searing flash of pain slips rips through him.

Ahn curls his hands against his chest and drops his head to the table, the surface cool against his cheek as he breathes through the memory of the adrenaline and the pain. He breathes the way Lan Wangji has taught him, yet still is impatient because he'd seen something.

"Hyung," Ahn gasps, "it was a battle, with swords. And I think...I think someone killed you. It hurt. But I saw something else for a moment. I saw a sky, and it was peaceful."

Nicky narrows his eyes in thought. He doesn't react poorly to the thought of being murdered, because he's been murdered many times before. "I think you have to be more specific," he confesses, seeing as it's not like he's been killed under a sky just once.

It's been peaceful a few times, honestly, but there, of course, are three times he was killed that mean more than the others. "Did you see another man?" he coaxes. "Feel it? Warm eyes, soft smile, the most handsome thing in the world?"

"Did you feel love?" he coaxes.

"The most handsome man in the world? You're greasy," Ahn says with a soft laugh, and he lifts his head again to rub at his face, digging his thumbs into his temples to relieve some of the lingering pain.

He hasn't felt pain like this before, though he wonders if that's because Nicky is much different from others he's touched before. Dead bodies in the morgue, those have almost always been accidents of sorts, a rush of adrenaline and an image to impart on Ahn when he reads them. Nicky has felt a lot of pain, and Ahn wonders if that is part of it. Maybe the more pain, the stronger the memory, and the stronger he will feel it.

"It felt nice," he says after a moment, not sure how to put it into words. Ahn isn't entirely sure he knows what love even feels like. "It was peaceful, and felt safe compared to...everything else."

Nicky feels terrible that he's caused Ahn any pain, but the smile on his face is one of longing and peace. "That would be my experience with Yusuf, then." He cannot imagine any other time he has died and then followed it up with such emotions.

"We killed each other. Many times," he says, taking a deep breath as he sighs and thinks of what Joe is doing now, at home. "I'm sorry you had to feel my death. I imagine they were my first deaths, in Jerusalem, at the wall. The time I found out I was immortal."

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