Chapter Text
They go back to Malta.
It seems only right; Nile, sweet Nile who Nicky already loves so much, disappears into the world with Andy, the oldest and the newest of them striking out to find dark corners and secrets. Joe gets tense when Andy says she’s leaving, but Nile swears solemnly to protect her with her life - “all of the ones I can give,” she jokes, “so I’ll be going for a while” -- and Nicky likes to think he finds a way to distract his beloved.
Malta.
They don’t move from bed for a week, and he’s sure the locals whisper about the men who only emerge to collect food from their doorstep. Nicky doesn’t care. They’ve been dragged apart before, violently and otherwise, by whispers and rumors, but here a millenia away from the gates of Jerusalem, they’re less likely to be killed for loving each other.
(It still happens, of course. Nicky’s personally killed those who’d harmed men and women like him and Joe. He’d felt no remorse for those deaths -- homophobia is, as his beloved would say, infantile. He will not let it fester where he can stop it.)
They spend the first week in bed, and Nicky comes on Joe’s cock more times than he can count, gets Joe to come on his cock, too, and they’re a mess, sticky and sweaty and laughing as they whisper endearments into collarbones and kiss away bruises and cuts that had healed weeks ago.
“I would burn them all,” Joe admits once as he rocks his hips shallowly into Nicky from behind; his tongue laves at Nicky’s earlobe, and he moans weakly in response. “I’d burn down the world for you, my love, my eternal, my-”
“You talk too much,” Nicky gasps, resting his head backwards onto Joe’s shoulder. “I’m clearly not doing my job”
Joe shushes him before bringing his lips to the tender skin that connects neck to shoulder, his lips and then his teeth which draws a keen from Nicky’s throat; his hand loosely fists around Nicky’s cock, and he comes with a shout that’s more whisper than noise. “Beautiful,” Joe praises, “Carino.”
He’s always close behind Nicky after he finishes. Says the way he trembles for him, fucked open and hazy-eyed, makes him hot all over. Nicky doesn’t mind; he loves the feeling of him coming undone inside him, on him. He’d wear it outside if he thought it wouldn’t draw too much attention to them.
Nicky traces mindless patterns to Joe’s chest while they hold each other, no words needed after almost a thousand years. Where Joe loves loudly, each act a declaration of his love, Nicky knows his love is quiet. Private. Just as intense. He’d been shy before Yusuf; he’d taken his vows seriously, and when he’d met his beloved in battle, his love for him became new vows.
They create a sacrament in their bed. Nicky knows no other worship than this altar; he would not have it any other way.
“You have found an excellent way to distract me,” Joe comments idly after Nicky has sucked him off, his cheek now resting on his glowing, brown skin. Joe’s fingers tangle in Nicky’s short hair and tug a little so his scalp stings. “Do not think I am not aware of what you are doing.”
“Hmm?” Nicky kisses the inside of Joe’s thigh, a lazy movement as he sucks his lips together and draws skin into his mouth until Joe hisses and tugs at his hair again.
“You are trying to distract me from the memory of you hurt,” Joe says, his voice too close to grief for Nicky to continue teasing. He rests his cheek on Joe’s leg once more and stares up at him, wondering if this was how Moses felt when receiving his Commandments. “It will not work.”
“I thought I was doing a good job.”
“You are.” Joe’s thumb traces his cheekbone, and Nicky closes his eyes and lets himself drift a little in the favor of his beloved. “You are so precious to me, amore mio. I will never be able to forget how they hurt you. I have not forgotten any of your deaths; I will not forget this one so quickly.”
“And yet I live,” Nicky points out, kissing Joe’s hipbone and drawing himself up and closer to him so he can kiss his mouth gently. “I live for you.”
“I will die for you,” Joe murmurs. “I would want to die before you, habibi, I could not bear to live a moment without you-”
“It’s the same for me,” Nicky assures him. He pulls back and studies Joe’s face, sees the agony written there. “Caro mio. We are much younger than-”
“Don’t say it.” Joe kisses him urgently, a hand pressed firmly to the back of his neck. “Nicolo, please, do not say it.”
“I will come back to you,” Nicky whispers. “Always. This is not our time. We have more time still.”
It was Yusuf’s eyes that captivated him first on the battlefield; dark, beautiful, expressive. Nicky wished for Joe’s talents more than once so he could try and capture the lightness in the dark brown, the kindness and fortitude and passion there. He cannot draw, so he looks as often as he can, takes his fill at the chalice of Joe’s beauty.
Yusuf’s eyes spill over with sadness now, and it erodes at Nicky’s heart.
“How can you be so sure?”
Before answering, Nicky takes Joe’s hand and kisses each knuckle, his lips molding and remolding to the fingers he’s loved for centuries.
“Because,” he answers simply, still holding Joe’s hand, “I have too much love in my heart for you. It cannot be our time; I have not shown you how much I love you yet.”
Joe kisses him so fiercely, Nicky thinks to their first wedding ceremony in 1142 and how he’d officiated for them, barely getting the words out before Joe kissed him so passionately they fell off the platform they were kneeling on in a burned down church.
They’d made love there, slowly but fiercely, still awkward at it, still messy, biting and bruising and loving endlessly.
“And you say I’m the incurable romantic.” Joe whispers when they pull away from each other.
“After nine hundred years, amore mio, it would have to rub off on me at some point.”
Joe’s next smile is wicked, and Nicky smiles joyously to see it. “I rub off on you plenty, habibi.”
Nicky’s laughter is lost in their kiss.
They drive to meet Nile and Andy, renting a car with tinted windows and excellent air conditioning. Nicky sits in the passenger seat, drowsily watching the desert sun warm the air of the car, casting Joe in a glorious light.
He looks like the angels set in stained glass; he looks like salvation, damnation, temptation -- he looks like absolution, and Nicky loves him for it.
“You stare at me so much, I worry that you will correct my driving,” Joe jokes, taking his hand from the armest and bringing to his mouth for a kiss.
“You drive wonderfully,” Nicky says sleepily. They trade an easy smile as they curve along the empty highway. “You do everything wonderfully.”
Joe waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Everything?”
“You had me twice before breakfast.” Nicky closes his eyes with a smile, ignoring the gleeful pride emanating off of his beloved. “I’d think you’d have sated your appetite by now.”
“My appetite for you is endless,” Joe says huskily, his hand gripping Nicky’s thigh, fingers rubbing into muscle deliciously. “Shall I pull off the side of this road and prove it to you?”
“Prove it to me when we have a bed,” Nicky says, letting a bit of petulance creep into it. “I swear my ass is still sore-”
Joe laughs sweetly. “I’ll be good,” He promises. “I’ll be gentle.”
“Mhm.” Nicky cracks open an eye to smirk at him. “You say that, but what if I ask for more?”
“Then I will have to do my husbandly duties and obey you, habibi.” Joe takes his eyes off the road to smile at him. “I love you.”
Nicky opens his mouth to say the words back, because how could he not when Joe smiles so beautifully, but he’s interrupted in the worst way.
An armored car comes out of nowhere, barreling up and out of a ditch; Joe shouts in alarm, but it’s too late. It slams into the passenger side of the car, and Nicky feels himself dying immediately, bones shattering, head slamming into the airbag. He can hear Joe screaming curses as their car flies through the air, hears him begging Nicky to hold on, but darkness rolls over him.
“Destati,” calls him back from the ether. “Destati, Nicolo, per favore, don’t leave me-”
“I’m here,” Nicky answers weakly, patting Joe’s arm as he shudders, bones reorienting themselves. “Head injury. I’ll be good in a -” he groans as pressure explodes in his ear, whatever was ruptured sluicing back together. “Okay.” He nods and grabs his gun that’s tucked inside his jacket.
At some point, Joe had pulled him from the wreckage of their car; they’re kneeling at the edge of a massive ravine. It’s a hundred foot drop at least, and Nicky has a feeling Joe’s already considered jumping into it. He hopes it doesn’t come to that.
“A dozen hostiles, maybe more,” Joe reports, his own gun already in his hand. Nicky sits up slowly from where he’s reclined in Joe’s lap, and holds his gun out.
A head pops up from behind what’s left of their rental, and Nicky doesn’t even think. He pulls the trigger and the man’s brains join Nicky’s blood on the desert sand.
“Good shot.” Joe kisses his shoulder and they both stagger to their feet. “One less.”
A few more armed men try the same, and a couple lucky shots find their way into Joe and Nicky’s body, distracting them long enough that a formation of men emerges from behind the car and walks towards them slowly. They’re trained, Nicky thinks distantly. Unmarked, well-armed. Great.
“Our employers have been looking for you since the Merrick incident,” the man in front says. The leader, perhaps.
Nicky groans as Joe curses loudly. “You work for Merrick?”
“No. Their competitors though are very interested in whatever secret you’re hiding.”
Joe and Nicky trade a look; they don’t know they’re immortal then.
“Let me guess,” Joe says dryly. “You intend to bring us to your leader.”
Nicky checks his pocket and realizes that he’s out of cartridges. Fuck.
“That’s our goal, yes.” The man pretends to put his gun down, but Nicky can count the weapons on his person; he can feel blood dripping down his knuckles from an already healed bullet wound on his shoulder. “We’ve been told that you two are … more civilized than some of your counterparts.”
“You’ve never pissed off Nicolo then,” Joe says, still amiable.
Nicky begins to run calculations in his head; they’re about to be captured. They have almost no chance of escape. They can jump down the ravine, but they’ll follow them.
As though reading Nicky’s thoughts, the leader clears his throat. “If you manage to escape, we will find you again. We only need one of you,” he warns, and Nicky’s blood runs cold. “The instructions were at least one alive.”
“Sorry,” Joe says breezily, like he doesn’t care that they’re between a rock and a hard place, if a rock were a hundred foot drop and a hard place were a dozen assault rifles. “Didn’t they tell you? We-” he points back and forth between himself and Nicky, who eyes the drop behind them thoughtfully, “are a package deal. Two for one, I’m afraid.”
“Fine. Surrender your weapons and come peacefully.”
“Ah.” Joe lifts a shoulder, and Nicky lets himself watch him for a moment, his glorious, wonderful Yusuf. “That will also be a problem.”
He’s still running calculations; he has a sniper’s mind, after all. Best marksman in history. Nicky’s fought more wars than most historians can remember. He’s died hundreds of times, but he remembers the knife entering Joe’s body more than all of those deaths. He remembers the needle in Joe’s body more than any death. He remembers Joe, trapped.
The calculations are leading him to an obvious conclusion.
His heart hurts. Dear God in Heaven, it hurts. A man should not be able to love this much - Nicky loves him, and he already feels guilt for what must be done. His beautiful, strong Yusuf. Forgive me.
The hired men creep forward, fingers on triggers, and Nicky’s finger itches too.
“Joe,” Nicky murmurs, unable to hold off any longer. “Yusuf.”
That gets his beloved’s attention; Joe takes his eyes off of the men holding guns on them and smiles at Nicky.
It’s as breathtaking as the first time, back on the battlefield when they were giving up on cutting each other down, when Yusuf Al-Kaysani smiled at Nicky as they both reared back to consciousness, blood staining his teeth. Nicky had fallen in love with him right before he’d slashed his scimitar through his ribs, and he’d died the fifteenth time thinking only of Yusuf and his beatific smile.
Sometimes he thinks it was serving a vengeful God that made him love Yusuf so quickly. Catholics in those days accepted that their God would kill them with slight provocation - when Yusuf drove the blade in, with every thrust, Nicky could only think my destroyer is beautiful, and I love him as much as I fear him.
He doesn’t fear Yusuf now, of course. Doesn’t fear much of anything. He only has one, primal fear. He won’t let it happen.
“Yusuf,” Nicky says softly, forming his real name carefully. “I love you more than God. Have for centuries.”
Joe’s eyebrows lift, surprised. “Blasphemy and poetry,” he praises. “Didn’t know you had that in you, Nicolo.”
“If you are my God,” Nicky continues, tightening his grip on his gun. “Will you forgive me?”
“I will always forgive you, habibi.”
He smiles at that, and they embrace each other, even with a dozen guns pointed at them, and Nicky relaxes into Joe’s touch, lets himself be wrapped in it for three seconds they can’t afford.
“Yusuf,” he murmurs as they pull away, Joe’s hand soft on his face. “I only have one bullet left.”
“Make it count, amore mio.”
Nicky’s lips twitch humorlessly, and he turns his head to face the armed men; Joe’s hand lingers on the side of his face, warm contact. Nicky closes his eyes and barely lifts his gun. His aim is perfect; Joe’s hand leaves his face, and Nicky feels colder than he ever has at the loss of his touch.
Joe shouts in pain and betrayal and shock as Nicky’s bullet shoots through his foot. The armed men all startle, and as their leader gestures them to run forward, Nicky plants his hand on his beloved’s chest and pushes viciously.
Nicky’s shot in the calves twice, three times, four, and he slams into the dirt and catches a bullet in the hip as a cruel echo of his beloved’s pain. Nicky doesn’t even feel the bite and burn of the metal ripping through his body; he slumps forward and watches Joe tumble down the ravine, his bones breaking in a way that has acid burning in Nicky’s throat.
“Forgive me,” he moans as the men seize him and drag him away from the edge, clearly fearing that he’ll follow Yusuf (and he would, he’d follow his darling Joe to the gates of Hell and back). “Forgive me!” He screams in Arabic as they haul him backwards, forcing him to step down on broken legs. “Forgive me,” he whispers one last time in Italian as he stares up at a pale blue sky, right before the butt of a gun meets his forehead and all he knows is darkness.
Yusuf comes back to life messily; his bones groan and pop as he screams for his Nicolo.
He’s gone.
Even as he screams and screams Nicky’s name, all iterations of it, Joe knows that the worst has happened: they’ve taken him, and he’s been left for dead.
Hauling himself out of the shallow stream at the base of the ravine, Joe forces himself to start climbing, his ribs still knotting together. He moans in pain, but it’s not of his body. It’s of his heart as fear makes it hard to clench his hands into shapes to fit the crags of rock. He stumbles and falls back a dozen times, thinking of that ludicrous story about Sisyphus in Hades that Andy was always so keen on, but at last he makes it to the top of the cliff once more.
He staggers to the place he’d lost Nicky, but all he finds is dark brown stains bleeding into dust. “Nicky,” Joe mutters, his jaw trembling as he falls to his knees and pats at the still drying spots. “Nicky, no, no, no-”
He gives himself ten precious seconds to scream into the desert, rage and fear and grief stirred together in a sound that barely counts as human. It’s more than human, just as Nicky was more than love to him - after ten horrible seconds, Joe stands up and begins to walk. It’s a long way out of the desert, and he expects to die of exposure more than once.
He’ll die a thousand times before resting. He won’t know rest until he sees Nicky’s eyes one last time.