topino | (no subject)

[ Nicky turns to look at Joe, holding his gaze for a long moment, considering him, considering what lies ahead of them, and this is the awful part he is about to confess, to only Joe. ]

If I knew there was a way for them to take samples, to give her back her immortality if she wanted it, I think I would give it to them.

[ He's sorry for it, and he thinks he's been feeling guilty about it ever since Merrick. He wants to never see Joe hurt again, but he also wants to defend Andy, a woman he's known almost as long as he's known Joe and loved in a very different way. ]

If it were you, I would give every organ and limb to keep you.

Oh. Nicolo.

[ He leans forward and rests his forehead against Nicky's as he lets the pain of those words roll through him. Just the thought of Nicky going through that again hurts. ]

You know none of us can fight this. It is her time. [ He cups his cheek and gently brushes his thumb across his cheek. ] Our time will be together. We found immortality together. We'll leave it together.

[ He has to wonder how much of his own words about it being their time had been posturing. Facing down reality and thinking he could do anything about it has left him struggling to accept what even he said.

Nicky breathes out and holds onto him, knowing that he would not do it, not actually. He would never do anything that would hurt Joe. ]

It is her time. [ He echoes, saying the words again. His fingers keep tracing words, letters, spelling out 'I love you' in a foreign language on Joe's back. ]

Hopefully not for at least another thousand years. I am just beginning to like you. [ Said with a smirk. ]

[ The words don't help too much right now but Joe hopes in the future they will ease the twist of worry and sadness in his gut.

Nicky writing calligraphy across his back does a lot more. ]

I think we have a few more thousand, at least. [ After all, Andy was six thousand. Quyhn roughly the same. Surely they would get that much. ] By then I hope you'll tolerate me.

[ He kisses him slowly and deeply. ] I love you, Nicolo di Genova and I will love you until the stars burn out.

[ Nicky snorts his laughter into Joe's neck, thinking about how nice it would be to tolerate him for another thousand years, two thousand, and more. There are the usual fears, of course, of separation, but Nicky knows they would not do anything to prompt that.

They have been more careful, since Quynh. ]

I love you too, Yusuf Al-Kaysani. Until the Earth is dust. [ He cups his cheek and holds him there, pressing their foreheads together. ] Will you talk to me now? About the lab? About Booker?

[ And how he's feeling. ]

[ Joe sighs heavily and rolls to his side next to Nicky. ]

I hate being powerless to stop people from hurting you. [ He tenderly strokes his fingers down Nicky's cheek. ] Watching that doctor with her self-righteous bullshit hurt while I could do nothing will haunt me.

[ Booker is harder to talk about. He is furious. He is hurting. ] He is my brother. I never thought he would ever betray us. It hurts, Nicky and I don't know how to stop it.

[ Nicky adjusts so he can chase after him, rolling onto his side. He keeps drawing on Joe, but this time on his hip, tender and soft as he crooks his fingers. ] I am right here. Yes? Alive. Healthy. In love.

[ He understands, though. They thought they knew best, these modern scientists. No different than others who have tried before, all to no avail. Nicky is glad that Joe had been unconscious for much of his own testing, because it's not something he wants him to have witnessed. ]

What he did was wrong. He chose very poorly. And he will pay for it.

[ A hundred years, isolation, and they will not have to look at his face. ]

What I cannot shake is that he never apologized. He was only sorry because Andy was not healing. If she was still immortal...

[ Nicky is not sure that Booker would have even said a word. ]

And I'm still afraid to lose you. [ He curls towards Nicky seeking the physical reassurance of his presence. ] The idea of it rips my heart out.

[ This is why he doesn't want to talk about it. It hurts. All of it hurts. He hasn't hurt this much since they lost Quynh and couldn't find her. ]

Would you believe an apology from him right now? Would it ring true? One hundred years from now I'll believe he's sorry.

[ He kisses Nicky's temple. ]

But then I think about what he said. How much I gained by finding you. How much he lost. Could we have ever been enough to replace that?

[ Nicky understands that fear. He is awash with it constantly. They have been pressed together for nearly twenty-four hours and he is only now beginning to calm. HE cannot imagine truly losing him, or even if they had been parted in that lab. ]

I would not believe him. I do not think he is sorry. I do not think he thought about what we would endure, to be caught together, to be forced to watch the other suffer.

[ And that is why Nicky is filled with cold fury. Only Booker's plight had mattered. He had sold them out, for his own grief. ]

We could never be enough. We are not his children.

[ He tangles one hand in Joe's hair, the other gripping his hip tightly. ]

I'm very glad, now, that I took vows and there were no children of my own.

[ Joe's temper is the opposite. It burns hot and furious but burns itself out very quickly. His heart is soft for his family. ]

He wanted to die. I cannot imagine this feeling. That... hopelessness. Life is sacred.

[ It hurts to think that they didn't know it was that bad. That he missed it. But still, Nicky is right. It was a very selfish action. ]

Knowing my nieces and nephews would die was hard enough.

[ Nicky has only ever wanted to live from the moment Yusuf ensnared him and tempted him with his smile, his eyes, his steady hands, and even the way he pursued him so fiendishly on the battlefield. He'd been connected with his enemy, and then had fallen in love with him.

Death, for Nicky, had given him a soulmate. For Booker, it had taken one away. ]

We should have stopped him drinking, maybe. Sent him to grief counselling.

[ In as much as they could, with their immortality putting limits on them.

He soothes Joe with kisses all over his face, to his temples and his forehead and then his lips. ]

I know. I feel the same. It is good knowing that we have family out there, though. Their great-great-endlessly-great uncles still love them very much, of course.

[ They really did have everything one could want. A lifetime with the person they loved. Joe is deeply, endlessly, grateful every single day he wakes up with Nicky in his arms. ]

We can only hope he'll find it on his own now.

[ He presses into the kiss, soaking in the reassurance and love. ]

Perhaps when we go back to Jerusalem we might cross paths with them. I could claim I am tracing my family tree? Or no, that might risk too much.

[ Nicky drags one leg over Joe's hips to pull him in towards his body, wanting them flush together, even if he doesn't want to lose sight of that beautiful face in front of him. ]

Maybe this is what we should have done. After Jean-Pierre died, maybe he needed time, and not a team.

[ Nicky starts to push stands of hair from Joe's forehead back, leaning in to softly kiss. ] I did not keep track of my nieces and nephews. It would be a good project to undertake, maybe while we are here? It could be for a research paper on families in the Crusades?

We can't go back and change it. Neither can he. [ He slides his hand down Nicky's back and pulls their bodies flush together. ] We can only live with the consequences.

[ His hair has curled tightly from sweat. He closes his eyes and enjoys the sensation. ] It would be a more productive use of our time besides sex and napping.

[ He opens his eyes and gazes softly at Nicky. ] How are you so beautiful? It takes my breath every time I look at you.

[ Nicky wriggles a little to make sure that he's as close as possible, not wanting to be even an inch further from Joe than he has to be right now. The consequences are what's hurting them both, knowing their family is going to be changed for a hundred years.

He snorts at the compliment. ]

I am so beautiful because you are so romantic. To anyone else, I would not be so stunning, because they do not have your heart for romance or your poetry for words.

[ He's still smiling, softly, for the compliment, and his cheeks have a slight flush to them. ]

I would like to have a family tree, a proper one. You and me at the top, all our branches below.

Oh, you've had many admires over the years. I'm fairly certain Shakespeare would've kept you if he could.

[ What an amusing time that had been. Joe still can't hear any Shakespeare without exchanging a look with Nicky, sometimes amused and sometimes not. ]

The tree should go the other way around. We are the roots and they grow from us.

[ Almost like Copley's board showing the good they had done. The family that had kept going after they were 'gone'. It worked in Joe's mind. ]

[ Nicky turns those big eyes on Joe, sighing as he reminds him. ] Your poetry has always been better, though, I think that maybe we are also more star-crossed than Romeo and Juliet.

[ He brushes Joe's hair back to press a kiss, and slides his knee in between Joe's legs, slotting their bodies together comfortably, letting his eyes become half-lidded as he holds him tight. ]

We are the roots. [ He hums softly, nodding. ] I like that. I like that very much. And what happens when we discover there are distant nieces and nephews? I will want to spoil them from afar, you know.

He stole that one from an older play, you know. [ He was an interesting play write, certainly, but Joe had some grudges. ]

[ Now he traces Arabic calligraphy against Nicky's back between his shoulder blades writing some of his best lines. ]

Perhaps Copley can help us think of a way to support them. Maybe some money now and then.

[ It would be very complicated but he liked the idea of helping. ]

[ Nicky hushes Joe with a kiss, trying to soothe that old issue, knowing that Joe can hold a grudge, and that this one is hardly needed, because Nicky prefers Joe's poetry and Joe's art. ]

I liked some of the Renaissance artists better than Shakespeare, but I know that is also a tender topic at times. [ He leans back, laughing in a breathless huff at what Joe is tracing. ] That line? That line made me take off my pants, Joe.

I could also go into my savings. Find the investments I made. With interest rates, I think by now we should have a little money.

[ Which is an understatement. He just gets tired of having to file death certificates and wills to pass along the assets. ]

And look it still works. [ Because Nicky has no pants on right now. He very deliberately rubs their hips together. ] It's a very good line.

Whatever you want to do for them, my love. I'll help you as best I can. [ Joe has never tried to support anyone while pretending to die every fifty years or so. He has no idea how to do this. ]

We should find them first. Maybe they are rich assholes. We don't know.

[ Nicky is still softly laughing and he nods, resting his forehead to Joe's, conceding that. ] It's a very good line. You knew how to get me out of my clothes with little more than a sentence of my beauty.

[ The sketches he had done were also immensely flattering too, he cannot forget those. ]

We will find them, and see if any of them have retained your handsome face or your beauty. They do not need to know who we are, but I want to see what they are like.

[ He cups Joe's hip, sliding his fingers around to grope his ass, seeing as it's helpfully right there. ] How is your honeymoon experience so far, Mr. Jones?

Those early days all I wanted was to get you out of your clothes. [ He leans in and kisses him. ] It was all I could think about once I claimed you.

[ Joe thought he was going mad with how much he wanted Nicky. The lust was still there but he was much better at controlling it now and waiting for the right moment. ]

I would give it five stars. [ He rolls Nicky under him again to more firmly be pressed against each other. ] Would you like to get married again in say ten years? Have another honeymoon?

It was a very pervasive thought.

[ Nicky remembers night after night spent with an aching hard-on, trying to hide it from Yusuf, not wanting him to think of him as even more of an uncouth barbarian. He had longed and pined and been desperate, and once Yusuf had claimed him, he had been so hungry for it. ]

I don't think we went further than five kilometres once you talked me out of my tunic. I would go ten steps and be consumed with lust.

[ Nicky lets Joe roll him with ease, offering no protest as he stretches out. ] I would very much like to marry you as often as I can. Next time, your home?

We had a great deal of want to get out of our system.

[ Joe grins wickedly as he ruts his hips against Nicky's. The hunger is still there, of course. ]

And what a time we had once we found a place to stay. [ He sucks a mark on Nicky's neck and watches it fade almost immediately. ] The things I taught you those nights.

Yes. We'll go to my home. [ Already planning a new wedding. Joe loves this man to the point of madness. ]

[ Honestly, Nicky is fairly sure they spent several days without clothes on, endlessly fucking. There had been a lot of possessive jealousy to work through, at least on Nicky's end. And now, even now, hundreds and hundreds of years later, he still feels the need.

It is more a candle than a raging bonfire, but it is there, and always burning. ]

You taught me everything I know. You were a very clever tutor and a thorough education.

[ He'd loved every second of it. Including the thought of marrying in Joe's home. ] Maybe, we'll even buy a house there? Have a honeymoon and a home?