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Vigil - Chapter 2

Summary: Using the genetic material extracted from Yusuf al-Kaysani and Nicolò di Genova, Dr. Metak Kozak initiates Project Eos as an attempt to artificially replicate immortality through forced human trials. Nine embryos are created, implanted, and birthed under controlled conditions. The experiments she conducts represent a grotesque evolution of Steven Merrick’s work.

When Copley first uncovers the program, Kozak’s records declare total failure. "Group Gamma yielded no viable candidates. All subjects compromised beyond analytical utility." But six weeks later, an anonymous lab technician leaks damning footage. There is a single surviving child, a three year-old male designated "IL-9" with confirmed cellular regeneration and disease resistance.

The team must address the danger this discovery represents. Nicky and Joe are confronted with a child created from their stolen blood.

A/N: A post-cannon story imagining the concept of a lab-generated immortal and how it affects the Guard. Could also be seen as an examination of parenthood. Mostly that, actually. Medical torture. Dr. Kozak is her own warning tbh. Child Abuse. Nicky is a doctor. Death. Immortal Parents. Hurt/Comfort. Illness. Blood. Angst.

Masterlist

05:02 AM. 01 Feb. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

The back guest bedroom quickly became their entire world. Behind the closed door, time moved differently. It was measured in the rustle of sheets each time Nicky checked over Ilyas, the creak of floorboards as Joe traveled between the ensuite bathroom and the bed, bringing a cool washcloth or a glass of water. Copley had prepared the space into a makeshift medical suite before their arrival: the small adjustable bed stood opposite Joe and Nicky’s shared bed, flanked by an IV stand and a glowing vitals monitor. They moved like synchronized ghosts, one always lingering near the bedside while the other stepped away to take moments to breathe: gulping frigid air in the garden, choking down meals at the kitchen sink, scrubbing themselves red under the shower as if they could wash away the memory of the hell they left behind.

Stripped of his medical gown and dressed in soft, green and white cotton pajamas, Ilyas almost looked like any sleeping child—if not for the pulse oximeter clipped to his finger and the IV line taped to the inside of his elbow. Nicky had silenced the beeps of the vitals monitor to make the room feel less clinical, routing all alerts to his phone instead. It was doubtful that Ilyas was ever allowed much quality rest at the lab. With the heavy schedule of monitoring and testing, someone would have been coming into his room throughout all hours of the night. He fell into a heavy sleep the moment they got him settled in bed, his body in dire need of recuperation.

While Ilyas slept, Nicky was able to perform additional tests. He fastened an elastic tourniquet around the arm not containing an IV. The boy didn’t stir once while he located a suitable vein and filled three small glass vials. The dark blood seeped out sluggishly, but he drew enough for a complete blood count, a metabolic panel, and a culture, neatly labeling each tube before setting them aside. Copley had a trusted contact who could analyze them and produce results in the same day.

When Nicky withdrew the needle, he pressed a cotton ball to the small puncture wound in the crook of Ilyas' elbow. He held it there for only a handful of seconds before peeling it away to check the site. A bead of blood welled up, dark against the boy’s pale skin, but the tiny wound closed before his eyes. It wasn't instantaneous like his or Joe’s healing, but it was still too fast for any mortal. The skin smoothed over completely within seconds, leaving no trace of the needle’s entry. There was no bruise, net leftover mark.

Nicky's thumb brushed over the spot. This confirmed what the lab reports described, but it was something he felt the need to see for himself. Perfect, unbroken skin.

He exhaled slowly, carefully packing away his supplies. The quiet of the bedroom felt suddenly stiff, the weight of this discovery pressed down on his shoulders. Beyond these walls, life continued. He could hear the muffled sounds of movement down the hall, the creaking footsteps as the others moved through Copley's house.

The team had respected the unspoken boundary surrounding the back room. No one approached unless summoned, wanting to provide Nicky and Joe space to tend to their fragile new reality. But just outside, the rest of the house hummed with activity.

Booker set up camp in the living room, his face hidden behind his laptop screen as he scrolled through the new trove of files. They now had ten times the intel they had gathered before, each document more disturbing than the last. There were things he read in the first few hours that brought on a sharp wave of sickness, one he wouldn't be able to fully shake for days. He tried to set aside the worst of it, leaving the video files and clinical reports in a separate folder for Nicky and Joe. That information belonged to them first, and they should be the only ones with the power to decide if anyone else ever saw. Instead, he focused on combing through for names. This included every researcher, every access badge logged at the facility, and every pdf of signatures for financial contributions. He was scrupulous in the way he compiled the information, forming what would soon become a master list. All staff tied to the facility would need to be traced. There could be no exceptions.

Copley worked methodically in the study, covering any lingering footprints from the raid, creating new false trails where he could. A cup of untouched tea sat perpetually beside him.

Andy cleaned and sharpened her axe by the window, preparing the few tools she would need for the next job. She didn't pace, didn't open her mouth to speak. Because these were the moments when her stillness was far more dangerous than anything. She would leave for Kozak before the next day, and she would do so alone.

Only Nile moved freely between these separate worlds. She stocked the fridge with meals that could be reheated with one hand and stacked clean clothes outside the back bedroom's door. Once, after catching Joe’s empty stare in the kitchen, she risked taking a train to the city to buy books in Italian, Arabic, and English, even a few children's stories. With a limited selection of foreign language titles, she was unsure if her choices were even to their taste, but she felt better knowing that they would at least have options while they sat back there. The very next morning, if she happened to find Alif Laila and Il Piccolo Principe missing from the small pile, she didn’t mention it.

Nicky passed the hours by monitoring Ilyas' ragged breathing. The first night bled into a grey, sluggish morning, but by then, the IV fluids and several hours of rest had begun to take effect. The boy’s pulse felt steadier under Nicky’s fingertips and read better on the monitor, the rhythm no longer frantic or racing. Pressing on his nail beds revealed quicker capillary refill, the pink color returning in two seconds instead of six. His fever stubbornly remained at a low simmer, but thankfully didn't climb any higher. The waxy pallor of his cheeks had softened into something closer to life. Even his eyes seemed less sunken, the dark shadows beneath them visibly lighter.

Satisfied but cautious, Nicky adjusted the IV flow to a slower drip, then pressed a fresh cool cloth to the back of his neck.

It was near noon when Ilyas finally stirred. His feet rustled beneath the blankets. Nicky and Joe were both there, hovering nearby.

His long lashes fluttered before he immediately screwed his eyes shut again. Even the weak sunlight diffused through a layer of grey clouds proved to be too much for him. He turned into the pillow with a whimper, his body curling inward like a creature retreating.

"Troppa luce." Nicky remarked, already reaching for the remote to close the automatic shades on the windows. There was the gentle whir as the blinds slid down over the expansive glass, casting the room in only the dim glow of a solitary lamp in the corner. (Too much light.)

Joe lowered himself onto the side of the bed. He didn’t rush, allowing the boy several moments to adjust to his presence before he lifted the washcloth from the back of his neck. He pressed his palm to his fevered skin, only switching to then check his forehead. Immediately, Ilyas stiffened at the touch, not entirely in fear, but as if he found the gesture strange. Joe wondered if anyone had ever done this for him.

He gazed blearily at the man sitting near him. Watching. Unsure.

Joe’s hand smoothed down his back, leaning forward to try and better peer at his face. "Does your head hurt?"

A pause. A slow exhale. Then his lips parted—

"Yes."

It was just loud enough to be audible, his voice raspy from disuse. Even this small effort seemed to greatly tax his strength, as he now struggled to lift his eyelids with each slow blink.

Joe's breath caught, his mouth opened in hushed surprise. The word was hoarse but unmistakable. He glanced at Nicky, just for a second, and saw the same stunned realization in his eyes. They never imagined to hear him speak this soon. It was an outright revelation to their ears. Language meant comprehension. It meant that Ilyas could hear them—their reassurances, their apologies, their quiet debates over his care. It meant that he wasn’t lost.

“Yeah?” Joe replied in a soft breath, managing the faintest smile. His hand moved to wrap around Ilyas’ fingers, his thumb smoothing over his knuckles. “Okay, let us fix that."

He turned to look at Nicky, who was already administering another dose of fentanyl through the IV bag's medication port.

"Thank you for telling us.” Joe continued, watching the boy try to follow Nicky's movements with his eyes.

He didn't seem alarmed for the moment to be in this strange place, surrounded by two men he didn't know. Fatigue looked to be winning out against any fear or uncertainty he might have felt. His eyelids were loosing the battle to remain open.

"Sleep a little more. It's alright." Joe encouraged him, squeezing his hand one last time before letting go.

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01:57 AM. 02 Feb. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

The kitchen was quiet, lit only by the washed out glow of the stove's range hood light. The clock on the wall ticked past midnight, but Joe was still awake, moving on autopilot as he rummaged through the fridge for something—anything, really—to eat. He couldn't remember having any appetite since before they were gathered into Copley's study two days ago, but his body was now stubbornly demanding fuel. His limbs trembled with each movement, the acid in his stomach burned for something to consume. He grabbed the first edible thing within reach, cold fried chicken left forgotten on a chipped plate, quickly tearing into it with his teeth. The grease smeared across his fingers, but to him it tasted of nothing. He felt too tired to sit, too wired to sleep. The last forty-eight hours had been a blur of violence and terror and that small, fragile body carried in his arms.

Over the course of nine centuries, he had seen many dying children, in plague houses, in famine ravaged villages, in the ruins of bombed out cities. But he had never held someone whose suffering had been so carefully designed. Joe knew now that this what disturbed him the most in this entire ordeal. Even if he refused to ever read the lab's reports, he knew they explained how each action was meticulously measured and plotted. How nine engineered human lives were reduced to mere data points, made to be harvested until they broke.

And so Joe forced himself to think of any other distraction—about what else he could find to eat, if maybe there was something sweet he could take back to Nicky, if the broth simmering on the stove for Ilyas needed checking.

Ilyas.

In such a short amount of time, the name had managed to settle naturally into their life. Joe couldn't imagine the child being called anything else now, so much the soft syllables suited him. Earlier that day, while he and Nicky bathed him with a sponge at the sink, Joe had repeated it aloud more than once, making sure the exhausted boy met his eyes each time. It might have seemed foolish to an outsider, this insistence, but Joe needed him to understand that this name was his. Because he still feared, deep down, that it might be the only thing they would ever be able to give him.

Just as he lifted the lid of the stock pot, there were footsteps.

Andy stood in the doorway, dressed to leave—black jacket half-zipped, unlaced boots shoved onto her feet. Joe spotted her axe tucked into the sitar case by the door. The incongruity of it was almost comical, one of their oldest tricks, the kind of thing that would have made him smirk under different circumstances. A packed bag was slung over one of Andy's shoulders. She froze when she saw him, her expression flickering. There was brief surprise, then resignation. She hadn’t anticipated anyone to still be awake.

For a moment, they just looked at each other. Of everyone in the house that could have walked in, Joe was glad it was her. Andy wouldn’t hover with pity or prod him with gentle, suffocating questions.

She crossed to the table and dropped into a chair, yanking the laces of her boots tight with sharp, practiced tugs.

Joe leaned against the counter, arms folded. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, though they both knew that it wasn't really a question.

Andy’s fingers paused. “You neither, apparently.”

He sighed, short nails scraping through his beard. “Nicky’s with him. I just…needed air.”

She nodded, like that made perfect sense. Then, after a beat, “How is he?”

No one had asked yet. No one had dared, but this was Andy. In her six millennia of life, she had burned every bush anyone ever tried to beat around.

Joe’s shoulders drooped. He rubbed at the back of his neck, the muscles there stiff and begging for him to go lie down.

“Thankfully, he's still sleeping." The words came out clipped, factual, like if he said them fast enough, they couldn't possibly harm him on the way out. "He’s sick. We don’t know with what. He will need fluids for the next day or so. He’s—" His throat tightened, "—too thin. Can't grip my hand. Can't lift his head. We know that he's in pain, but he can't tell us much.”

To his absolute relief, Andy didn't press. She just listened, her silence ever a solid thing.

“We named him." Joe added quietly. "Ilyas.”

That made her glance up. “Yeah?” A faint crease formed between her brows. It wasn't disapproval, but rather something like recognition.

“Yeah.” He let his hand hover only a few centimeters from the top of the stock pot, the steam warming his palm and fingers. “Nicky chose. Said he should have something symbolic.”

Andy’s mouth twitched. Knowing, almost fond. “Sounds like him.”

Joe nodded. He didn’t feel like mentioning the second name, how Nicolò had spilled from his lips in the van without hardly any thought or pause. Because there simply were no words for the why of it, for what exactly compelled him to make sure Ilyas carried something from the man he loved. Some blessings required no explanation, because some intentions were too sacred to put into words.

He watched her finish fastening the laces on each boot, then the familiar way she tested both heels against the kitchen tile.

“Where are you going, boss?”

She let one hand rest flat on the kitchen table as she looked at him.

"To handle something that can’t wait.”

He knew. Of course he knew. But his breath still caught, just for a second.

Kozak.

The name idled there in the silence, sharp and acrid.

Joe's rings bit into the flesh of his fingers as his hands flexed. Every cell in his body screamed—fuck, needed—for him to suit up and follow her. To hunt, to carve his own hurt into that woman's throat and see for himself when she took her last breath. Because he knew the restlessness he felt would only ease once she was erased from the earth for what she had done. Not just to him, but to Nicky, to a child who flinched at every touch and didn't understand being held.

But he couldn't.

And Joe knew with devout certainty that Nicky would want to do the same for his own reasons, but he couldn't either.

Their place was here, in this house, watching over that little boy in the back bedroom who didn't yet know who they were to him.

Andy rose. For a moment, she adjusted the strap of the bag slung over her shoulder. He caught a gleam of something unspoken in her eyes before she was quickly bridging the space between them. Her gaze held Joe's as she reached up to cup his face. He blinked and she was suddenly pulling him against her. The stiffness in his body temporarily gave way. He allowed himself to hide down against her shoulder, relishing the contact. Andy's hand found the back of his head, smoothing up his nape and tangling briefly into his curls before she pulled away, brushing a chaste kiss to his cheek.

She saw him and she knew.

He didn't beg. Didn't bargain. Just let the weight of his own debt press his feet deeper into the floor. Joe owed Andy so much, and for not the first time, he felt painfully young under her gaze. Helpless before her in the same way he and Nicky were nearly nine hundred years ago, stumbling together for days through the Cherkasy forest until they found her, Quynh, and Lykon. Desperate for direction and answers about this impossible existence forced upon them, most of which she could not give.

Andy could read all of this in him. The same way now as she could back then, understanding all too well the need and weariness in his eyes.

“I’ll see you when I get back.”

Joe didn't ask her to wait. Didn't say let me come. Though God knew how he wanted to. He gave the barest nod, the line of his jaw trembling with everything it cost him.

The sitar case clicked open then shut. Andy didn't say anything more. She stalked out of the kitchen in the direction of Copley's entryway. The front door sighed on its hinges. She was gone.

Alone now with the refrigerator's mechanical hum, Joe's shoulders dropped.

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01:42 PM. 02 Feb. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

The morning had been quiet, the kind of stillness that settles after several days of non-stop rain. Ilyas had slept through most of the first day, only briefly waking the times they changed his clothes and bathed him at the sink.

Now, on the second day, Nicky was determined to get some kind of real food into him. He read in the files from the lab that there had been problems with feeding Ilyas even before the testing required to purposefully starve him. Ilyas often refused meals, with some notes describing him as disinterested and exhibiting a failure to thrive. Nicky balked at the very wording, as if his refusal to eat were due to some shortcoming and not a rational human response to a world that did not encourage him to live. On multiple occasions he was fitted with a feeding tube, and the reports mentioned four separate times where Ilyas ripped the tube out in frustration during the middle of the night.

Nicky could have almost smiled at the idea of him causing trouble, but this was food, something essential and meant to be comforting. He could easily picture those small fingers clawing at the invasive thing in his nose, the silent rebellion of a body that refused to be force-fed. Any notions of pride he might have felt were chased away by his guilt, because he knew that defiance shouldn't have to be an act of desperation.

He didn't want to entertain the idea of feeding Ilyas sludge through a tube. His short life had been clinical and joyless for long enough. The boy deserved to taste good things and experience flavor, even if they needed to start with options that were light and mild.

Nicky had been up before dawn, simmering bones in Copley’s too-pristine kitchen, filling the house with the rich, earthy scent of home-made chicken broth. It was the kind of thing mothers and grandmothers had prepared in the same manner for all of history—something meant to knit strength back into fragile bones. With all of the offerings in the modern age, this recipe had scarcely ever changed.

By afternoon, the painkillers had softened the sharp edges of Ilyas’s discomfort, leaving him drowsy but lucid enough to try. Nicky knelt beside the the small bed they’d set up for him, his voice a steady murmur.

"Vuoi mangiare? Hai fame?" He repeated the question in English, softer this time. "Are you hungry?"

Ilyas blinked up at him, his gaze slow and unfocussed, as if the question itself was a foreign concept.

Joe stepped in without hesitation, hands slipping beneath the boy’s body. "Come here, it's okay." he murmured, using great care to not lift his slight frame too quickly. It would have been an easy mistake, with how little he weighed. Nicky followed, attentively guiding the IV line, making sure nothing pulled or snagged.

Ilyas made a sudden, uncertain whine at the movement, his fingers twitching against Joe’s sleeve. He was alert enough to register that he was being transported somewhere for something, and this seemed to ignite his concern. His eyes struggled to follow the movement, to place where exactly he was being taken.

Joe stilled at once, cradling him close. "Hey," He whispered, tipping his head downward so the boy could see his face. "Just moving you to the big bed for a little while. Nothing bad, I promise."

Nicky watched, struck silent, as Ilyas settled almost instantly at the sound of Joe's voice. Whether it was simply tone or the words themselves that reached him was unclear, but the tension bled from his small body before he could grow too upset.

Carefully, slowly, Joe settled down onto the large mattress. He shifted to sit against the headboard, positioning Ilyas on his lap, letting him lean back into the solid warmth of his chest. His arms loosely bracketed him on either side, not to restrain, just to make sure he wouldn't fall.

Nicky perched on the edge of the bed and took the steaming mug of broth from the nightstand. He cradled it between his palms, testing the heat, then dipped the spoon and lifted it toward Ilyas' mouth. The boy's head lolled away abruptly, his lips pressed together in protest.

Undeterred, Nicky bent closer, trying to catch his eye. "Dai, solo un poccino." he coaxed. (C'mon, just a little bit.)

Joe’s thumb brushed the curve of Ilyas’ cheek. He spoke near the crown of his head, his voice easy and warm. "Nicky made this for you, habibi. Not for anyone else."

The endearment gave Nicky pause. He had watched Joe comfort enough frightened children and animals to fill several lifetimes, but something in the way he spoke to this one was different, and he couldn't quite name why. This seemed to come from a different part of him, born from a deeper emotion that neither of them would have been able to explain.

Ilyas remained unconvinced. He eyed the mug with open suspicion, small hands flexing restlessly against Joe's arms. He would have pushed them away if he possessed the necessary strength.

This was going to be slow work.

They would never dream of force feeding him, so they temporarily retreated. The spoon rested untouched against the side of the ceramic mug as their conversation drifted to unimportant things. They would needed to do more laundry soon. Someone should ask Booker or Nile to go buy proper bread from a bakery, because Joe wanted good toast. The rain would return by nightfall.

Ilyas remained nestled against Joe's chest, listening to the sound of their voices over his head, no longer looking at the mug.

Seizing the moment, Nicky coated only the back of the spoon, continuing to talk about the coming rain as he smoothly dabbed a single drop onto the boy’s lower lip. Ilyas blinked in temporary surprise, but the tip of his tongue instinctively darted forward. He immediately frowned once the taste registered, which was followed by a tiny, almost comical furrow of his brow.

They both pretended not to watch him too closely. He seemed to be pondering, taking a moment to examine this new flavor.

After a moment, Nicky tried again, this time with half a spoonful. "Ancora?" (Again?)

A pause. Then, the faintest hum, something close to yes.

"Bravo, piccolo." Nicky breathed, praising him as he eagerly took the bite offered.

There was the soft thud of Joe's head tilting back against the padded headboard. He directed a blinding grin at the ceiling when the boy opened his mouth for a second spoonful. His laughter was gentle.

"Another victory for Italian penicillin."

Nicky huffed, but his lips flicked upward into a faint smirk as he dipped the spoon once more.

Twelve.

They managed to feed him twelve mouthfuls of broth before fatigue set in. It wasn’t enough, not nearly, but this wasn’t about volume. It was the way Ilyas leaned forward when Nicky lifted the next bite to his mouth. It was about seeing him actually want for something.

By the end, Ilyas was already fading, his breaths deepening against Joe’s chest. Exhausted just by the simple act of eating.

Carefully, Joe took him back into his arms and carried him over to his small bed. He settled him down before tugging the blankets up to his thin shoulders. He lingered for a moment longer, smoothing a hand over the newly healed skin where the lab’s electrodes had left his scalp raw. The oatmeal shampoo Nicky had insisted on must have helped. The irritation was gone, now leaving only stubbly regrowth.

When he straightened, Nicky was watching him. No words passed between them, but none were needed. The glance alone transmitted the weight of their shared determination.

Later. They would try again later.

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05:45 PM. 02 Feb. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

The doorframe was as far as Booker let himself go without permission.

He had timed this carefully, watching through the kitchen window as Joe's silhouette finally disappeared down the garden path with Nile and Copley. Their muffled voices faded into the early evening air, leaving only the faint click of the sliding glass door behind them. Nile had expertly finessed the situation, somehow convincing Joe to take his first proper break in nearly forty-eight hours. Booker owed her more than he could say.

The transformation in both men since they returned from the raid with the boy had been alarming. They had been holed up in that back bedroom for nearly two days now, only ever leaving to quickly grab food. Each time, their appearances gave everyone reason for concern. Both looked like phantoms of themselves, dark smudges beneath their eyes, beards growing unkempt, skin gone sallow from too many hours under artificial light.

Booker knew his role in all of this, and had no intention of ever forgetting his place in the chain of events. Even now, years after the betrayal, the weight of Merrick’s lab still pressed between his ribs like a malignant growth. Nicolò had forgiven him, yes, but forgiveness wasn’t the same as trust. And Yusuf's wounds ran undeniably deeper, the scars left behind still more visible.

Booker's knuckles hovered an inch from the wood. He tapped softly.

“C’est moi.”

He kept his tone low, instinctively softening the words.

A pause. Then, Nicky responded, his voice rough with exhaustion. “Entra.”

He pushed the door open to a scene that wrung physical pangs from his heart.

The room was dark, save for a dim lamp illuminated in the far corner. Nicky sat slouched in an armchair, sock-covered feet propped on the edge of a narrow bed, laptop casting a pale blue glow over his unshaved face. But it was the small figure on the bed that made Booker's chest ache—a child sized mound beneath a knitted blue blanket, so still he might have been carved from stone. Clear plastic lines snaked from his arm to a gleaming metal IV stand. Two bags hung suspended, one clear, one amber-tinted, their fluids dripping in silent tandem.

Christ.

Booker knew this tableau too well, the stoic watch over a child's sickbed. The paper thin skin. The shallow breaths. The way Nicky hovered nearby, standing guard against a threat that had already breached the door. He had lived this before. He had been in this exact position, years ago, watching his own son war through the rise and fall of his chest. Being in this room suddenly felt wrong for a myriad of reasons, but he couldn't back away, couldn't bring himself to leave just yet.

"How's he doing?" Booker kept his voice hushed, nodding toward the small shape swallowed by blankets.

"Stable." Nicky didn’t glance up as he spoke. “He's fighting a bacterial infection, but it's taking Copley's biologist contacts some time to identify the strain. He's on antibiotics for now.” He tapped the laptop's trackpad, scrolling through files labeled with the lab's insignia. “I've been looking through the last two months of reports to try and understand what they did. But there are gaps in the files...”

Booker watched him rub at the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezing shut for a beat.

“Come in properly, libretto.”

The door clicked shut behind him after he crossed the threshold. He moved further into the room, keeping a respectful distance from the bed, choosing to stand near the armchair where Nicky sat.

"What have you been reading?" He gently demanded, eyes glancing at the screen of Nicky's laptop. "The logs some of the resident physicians kept aren't the most consistent."

Kozak had implemented a certain turnover schedule amongst staff, partially to protect the core of her findings and to assure that no single individual held a complete picture, but this was also to prevent anyone from developing empathy or attachment towards the subjects. She was a sadist by every clinical definition, but no fool. She understood the risks of using young children, the emotional element that this could raise for others wasn't one she felt personally, but she knew it could be dangerous to her work.

Nicky nodded admittingly. "No. So I've been looking elsewhere, but now that we have so much information, it's slower work."

Booker's hand came to rest on the winged back of the chair, he shifted his weight, the floor creaking beneath him. He gestured to the laptop, his voice carefully neutral. "There’s another folder you should see. With video files—hundreds of them."

Nicky’s fingers stilled on the trackpad. "Of what specifically?"

"Every test, every procedure, starting from the beginning all the way to this past month." Booker swallowed. "I didn’t watch. But the filenames are timestamped. I think they started to use video more than written logs towards the end. They're less subject to individual interpretation."

"Video is fact." A muscle jumped in Nicky’s jaw as he spoke. Booker recognized the look on his face—knew all too well his silent brand of anger.

"Nico..." He hesitated. The question 'how are you holding up?' died on his tongue. He knew the answer. Knew the way days bled together at a sickbed, the way food lost taste, the way the world narrowed to medication schedules and sponging fevered foreheads. He had sat exactly where Nicky sat now. The experience gutted him from the inside out.

"You should eat first." He insisted. "Sleep maybe, too. Even if just for an hour."

Nicky’s gaze flicked to Ilyas, to the slow rise and fall of the blanket. "After."

His voice wasn’t sharp, just final. He double clicked a file labeled: IL9_CoreStressTest_12.01.25.mov.

The screen filled with sterile white tiles. A metal table. Small limbs strapped down with nylon cuffs.

Booker turned away before the muted video played. He didn’t need to see to know what came next. The silence between them thickened, broken only by the hum of the laptop fan.

Then—

"Thank you." Nicky said quietly. "For finding all of this."

Booker nodded, his throat tight. He knew what the gratitude would cost him. He knew that Nicky would torture himself by watching every second of footage. He wished with everything that he could stop him.

A thin, pierced sound interrupted the quiet of the bedroom. Not quite a cry, but the vulnerable whimper of a child hovering just between sleep and wakefulness. The small bundle in the bed shifted restlessly. Dark eyes struggled to blink the dimly lit room into focus. The boy looked to be searching for something, for some sort of anchor.

Nicky sat up, setting the laptop aside. He left the chair, moving to crouch down by the small bed. The child shifted against the blankets, this time followed by a whine.

Pain. Booker could tell from the pitch alone.

"Shh, è tutto a posto..." The soothing words spilled automatically as Nicky reached out, his knuckles brushing down the boy's flushed cheek. (Shh, everything's okay...)

The heat radiating from the small body was alarming even before he covered the child's forehead with his palm. His mouth tightened into a grim line as he grabbed the thermometer from the nightstand, gently inserting the sensor into one tiny ear.

Nicky frowned at the reading. The fever had spiked again. Worse.

He asked the boy if he wanted to drink. He brought a straw to his lips, patiently waited, but the child only turned his face away, a weak "no..." leaving him.

Nicky glanced over his shoulder. “A cloth. Cold.”

Booker moved to the ensuite, wetting a washcloth under the tap. When he returned, Nicky took it without a word, folding the material around the back of the the boy's neck.

"Sono qui, Ilyas." Nicky murmured to him. "Close your eyes now. I'll stay with you.” (I'm here, Ilyas.)

His eyelashes fluttered momentarily before shutting. He remained curled on his side, toward the man continuing to speak quiet comforts, who continued to watch patiently until sleep took him under once more.

Booker’s gaze lingered on the child, even after Nicky stood and returned to the armchair. He caught the name that had gently floated out—one he had never read anywhere in the files.

“Ilyas?”

“Yes, that's his name.” Nicky's voice softened, just for a moment. If he hadn’t been so drained, he might've worn the ghost of a smile.

“Elijah.” Booker repeated the Hebrew equivalent, approving.

Now that the boy, Ilyas, was asleep once more, his features were slack and calm, granting a clear view of his face. The resemblance was undeniable. Those were Joe's eyebrows, the same expressive arches that could convey entire conversations without words. The shape of his nostrils, the curve of his cheekbones, it was surprising to see how much of him was derived from their Yusuf.

"Kid looks like Joe." Booker observed aloud before he could stop himself.

This drew a hum of agreement from Nicky, who was settling the laptop back on his thighs.

"Lucky for him."

Booker's eye caught a colorful book settled on the corner of the nightstand. Even in the soft light of the bedroom, he could make out the title—Il Piccolo Principe, it must have been one of the titles Nile picked up in London. Under lighter circumstances, he would have launched into playful banter about the merits of reading Le Petit Prince in the original language, continuing their two hundred year-old rivalry of France vs. Italy, but he knew his brother was not in the spirit. The fatigue weighing down his frame, the darkening of his pale green eyes, both robbed Booker of any desire to tease.

"Have you been reading to him?" He nodded to the volume on the nightstand.

Nicky blinked momentarily before understanding. "Oh, yes." His hand smoothed through his own hair, pushing the unwashed strands back from his forehead. "We don't know if he likes it, but it's the only thing we can do other than let him lay there. Feeding him, bathing him—it all hurts and leaves him exhausted."

Booker had already stepped towards the door, but didn't yet reach for the knob.

"You should. It's good for him." he offered, his voice rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat. "Even when you think he can't hear you. Especially then."

Nicky turned to look at him, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten.

"There was a scarlet fever outbreak when my oldest boy was about his age—" He paused, the old ache flaring momentarily in his chest. He could still recite much of Les Aventures de Télémaque from memory, just from how often he read the text to Philippe."—when they have fever like this, even when they're too sick to open their eyes, they still know your voice."

Booker met Nicky's gaze, willing him to understand. "It's not about the words right now. It's about him knowing you're both there."

Somewhere from the front of the house, out near the living room, Joe's voice could be heard. Booker only nodded once more at Nicky before his hand found the door handle. He quietly let himself out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

06:33 PM. 02 Feb. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

Nicky had spent the evening combing through the videos, forcing himself to witness a cruelty that might not match the scale of Jerusalem's massacres or Warsaw's ghettos, but still revealed the same fundamental truths. These were people who woke each morning, drank their coffee, and came to work specifically to torture a child. Who watched his body jerk in pain and noted it down with academic interest. Who looked past his abject terror so they could move on to the next test.

He had read the dry reports, studied the sterile photographs, but nothing could have compared to watching it unfold in real time. Nicky was once again confronted with how easily human beings could do deplorable things when convinced it was for science.

He wouldn’t be able to eat that evening.

In one video, Ilyas appeared smaller. He was dressed in a pair of shorts, shivering beyond his control, being held down in a metal tub of ice water, his lips already tinged blue. A nurse strapped his wrists to the sides, while weights around his thighs and ankles worked to keep him submerged. Kozak’s voice, crisp and detached, narrated in the background, "Subject IL-9, hypothermia trial seven. Begin timer."

Nicky’s chin rested in his hand, his fingers pressed hard against his closed mouth. His eyes burned, but he didn’t blink.

He forced himself to click the next file.

The same room. Ilyas strapped to a chair, blindfolded, this time his tiny body looked rigid with fear. There was no IV attached to him, no visible form of sedation or anesthesia. His small voice piped up once, asking why he couldn't see, but no one answered him. A gloved hand forced his jaw apart, shoving in a plastic device to keep his mouth propped open. A scalpel flashed, then slowly approached the back of his throat—

Nicky slammed the laptop shut. He folded forward, buried his face in his hands like in prayer. He didn't move from that position. Not when the bedroom door creaked open. Not when Joe’s footsteps crossed the floor.

"Nicolò?" His voice was too soft, too careful.

Joe lowered himself before the upholstered armchair, his hands sliding up the backs of Nicky's calves, stopping to rest on his knees.

He couldn't lift his eyes to meet him. Everything about his touch was warm and meant to comfort, but he only found it too cautious, too unbearably gentle.

"What's wrong?" Joe searched, his fingers moving to guide his hands away.

Nicky only shook his head. There were no more words in him, nothing more to say that they hadn't shared between each other already. What was he to do? Allow Joe to watch the same inhuman filth? To what end? So they could both feel the same devastation?

"Non è niente." He muttered dismissively, straightening with mechanical effort. "È solo la stanchezza." He shifted to the edge of the armchair, shoving the laptop behind him. (It's nothing. Just the fatigue.)

Joe's dark eyes gleamed as they took him in, assessing. He sat back on his heels, letting his hands fall away in surrender.

“You should go out to the garden.” He urged, long fingers resting down at Nicky's ankles. "Five minutes, love. Just to breathe.”

"No." He shook his head with no small amount of finality, his voice thin and tired. He nodded towards Ilyas' resting form. "Not while his fever's still climbing. I'll just shower."

Joe nodded in concession, moving back so Nicky could stand.

He relieved Nicky from watch duty long enough for him to bathe and force down a glass of water. During the time Nicky was away under the spray of the shower, Joe's gaze drifted over to where Ilyas lay in the bed. He looked undeniably worse than he had that morning. Now even in sleep, his face was drawn taut, his small brow pinched with discomfort. He lay curled on his side like a shrimp, his posture unnaturally stiff and protective. It was true that the heat rolling off of his body was palpable, thickening the air in the room. Joe didn’t need to touch him to know that Nicky had been right, it was burning worse.

He positioned more cold washcloths on Ilyas' neck, chest, and forehead. Anything to help the IV cocktail of cefotaxime and acetaminophen coax his fever down.

Nicky re-emerged from the shower not long after, his wet hair dampening the collar of his t-shirt.

That evening, they remained together in the back bedroom.

Joe sat with one of the books Nile had graciously bought for them when she snuck away to London, Pirandello's Uno, nessuno e centomila. Joe had only wanted to briefly thank their little sister that afternoon for her thoughtfulness, but she ended up dragging him outside by the hand into the garden. Much like Nicky, he initially tried to refuse the break, but the forced reprieve had helped to clear his head. The cool air in his lungs made him feel more awake, the fallen wet leaves on the ground reminded him of walking through maple orchards in Canada. The positive memory had soothed his mind some, and Nile's grip on his hand had worked to ground him.

He cracked open the paperback and began to softly read aloud in Italian, the melodic sound of his husband's language forming a small bridge in the isolated bedroom.

Nicky allowed Joe's voice to wash over him, if only to seek a moment's worth of calm for himself. Fresh from his shower, with his thoughts now feeling slightly more coherent, he sank back into the armchair beside the bed and resumed his grim task. The laptop was balanced once more on his knees, the screen purposefully titled away from Joe, the volume muted. There were only a few files from the last month, so he reasoned that he wouldn't have much to work through.

He selected the most recent of the videos, timestamped only one day before the raid.

Nicky watched, motionless, as the screen showed a bird's eye view of Ilyas. He was lying naked on an exam table, curled tightly in the fetal position. He was strapped down with thick nylon restraints. A gloved hand poured red-brown antiseptic along the delicate curve of his spine. The boy didn’t struggle. Didn’t cry. Just stared blankly ahead, breathing in and out, as if he had long since learned that resistance was pointless.

With the volume cut, there wasn’t the background noise of Kozak’s voice narrating the procedure. The needle went in. Nicky’s own spine burned in phantom sympathy while he watched the plunger depress, some clear solution vanished into the space between Ilyas’ lower vertebrae.

He minimized the video, clicking back into the maze of folders to pull up the corresponding chief resident’s notes. The files weren’t just organized by date. Kozak’s work was also segmented into the four project phases, cataloguing the perceived milestones in her research.

Nicky’s eyes narrowed as he skimmed through the report.

Subject IL-9, Trial Sequence 01 (Project Phase IV). Intrathecal administration of enhanced neisseria meningitidis, Strain version S-29. Expected symptom onset within 24 hours (fever, photophobia, muscular rigidity). Objectives are to (a) measure regenerative response while under septic duress and (b) observe if fatal pathogen exposure induces permanent death. Vitals stable at point of commencement. Observational period set to begin-

He didn’t finish reading.

In one fluid movement he was already on his feet, the chair’s legs scraping the floor. Ilyas lay curled on his side, the same position he had favored ever since they brought him home. The same position he had been forced into on that table.

Aversion to light. Headaches. Curled position. Fevers that spiked but never broke.

Nicky knelt beside the bed, his hands steady despite the unease he felt. Carefully, he began to remove the washcloths Joe strategically placed over his body to help soothe his fever. He pressed two fingers to his pulse point, while simultaneously regarding the vitals monitor. Too fast. The skin beneath his touch still burned.

“Ilyas,” he murmured, shaking him gently. “Svegliati un momento.” (Ilyas, wake up for a moment.)

Ilyas stirred with a whimper, his lashes fluttering. It took three tries before his eyes opened, glassy with sleep and pain.

"It's okay, piccolo. I've got you." Nicky coaxed, helping the boy shift onto his back. Ilyas went rigid, a wounded noise catching in his throat as the movement pulled at tight muscles.

Joe’s book snapped shut. He sat forward, now watching them. "What is it?"

Nicky didn’t answer.

He cupped either side of Ilyas’ face, his thumbs tracing circles into his temples. “Shh, let me see,” he whispered, before slowly, cautiously, attempting to guide the boy’s chin toward his chest.

Ilyas only screamed, his muscles too stiff to cooperate.

It was a raw, shattered sound, one that likely traveled to the far ends of Copley's home. His small hands flexed at his sides before clawing at the sheets. His legs lifted off the mattress in a futile attempt to curl once more.

Nicky released him immediately. Ilyas turned away, gasping, trembling.

Nuchal rigidity.

Joe was on the floor beside them in an instant, his hand gripping Nicky’s elbow. “Nicky—” His voice was clipped and strained, torn between trust and protest.

How he didn't see the signs sooner would haunt Nicky for days to come. His attention remained fixed on Ilyas. He stooped, now curling over the whimpering boy.

“Shh, mi dispiace tanto, Ilyas." He murmured softly to him, just able to meet his glassy brown eyes as his hand cupped over his sweat damp nape. "Te lo prometto, è finito ora, niente più male.” (Shh, I’m so sorry, Ilyas. I promise you, it's over now, no more pain.)

“Nicky.” Joe tried again. His name clearly meant as a plea.

"I know what this is." Nicky responded, never looking over his shoulder as he moved toward his supplies. He dug out an intranasal syringe prefilled with fentanyl, then shifted back over to Ilyas. With one hand he braced the boy's head and quickly fitted the nozzle of the syringe to his nostril, shushing him once more as he administered the two necessary doses.

He paused to watch for a moment, verifying when Ilyas' pupils dilated in response.

Finally, Nicky turned, meeting Joe's face that barely contained the silent demand of what are you doing.

He reached for him with a trembling hand, claiming his palm against his own. "Come with me." He stood, drawing them both upward, his grip insistent.

Joe, confused and concerned, could only follow, because there was never any other option. He no longer remembered a time when his trust in this man didn't feel calcified into his very bones. His faith in Nicky had guided him safely to shelter underneath countless dark skies. Even now, with fear coursing through him, he let himself be led, because to question his love now would be like doubting the very laws that governed the earth.

The bathroom's stone tile was cool under their feet, the air still thick with the damp heat of Nicky's shower. Joe positioned himself in the open doorway, body angled to keep Ilyas in sight while they spoke.

Nicky swallowed hard. “They infected him.” he began, the words like ash in his mouth. “This is a strain of meningitis that they engineered. It’s—it’s meant to be resistant. Meant to kill him.”

Joe’s face remained a colorless mask as he nodded. His free hand rose, pressing to the column of his throat, rubbing as if something invisible constricted the area.

“I need to perform a lumbar puncture tonight, so I can collect a sample of fluid from his spine.” Nicky continued, his voice numb. “I will need you to hold him.”

For a long moment, Joe didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

"Will it—" His voice cracked, but he caught himself. His teeth bit down on the inside of his cheek before he tried again. Slower. "How much will this hurt him?"

He glanced over to where the boy was resting. Even in the dim light, he could see how his gaunt face gleamed from perspiration.

Nicky's expression softened, the underlying trepidation in the question pushing him to want to blurt reassurances, to say whatever he could to fix the insurmountable hurt in this situation for the both of them. But he would never insult Yusuf with empty comforts. He would never ask him to cross any sea without letting him plainly see the swell of the waves for himself.

"I can sedate him enough so he stays calm. He'll be conscious, but he won't remember much after." He took a step toward Joe, watching how his eyes moved from Ilyas to meet his own. He was a man torn, wanting to simultaneously trust and protect, to question and defend. "I will numb the injection site completely. After that, he won't feel anything."

Joe's hand dropped from his throat. He sagged against the doorframe, nodding down towards the tiles beneath them. He knew Nicky would never let this child suffer. He knew this implicitly. Yet the idea of using sedation and restraint gave him pause. After two fragile days of coaxing trust from Ilyas, would this feel like a betrayal to him?

"I'll start the more aggressive course of antibiotics now, regardless." Nicky interjected. "But I have to do this, Joe. I need to know how far the infection has progressed."

There was a moment of reflection that passed over them. Joe's gaze was fixed in the direction of where Ilyas slept

"Okay, yeah." The answer was quick, spoken softly but unwavering. "We'll do it tonight."

Nicky's lips met his temple.

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07:17 PM. 02 Feb. 2025, Sheldwich, Kent County, United Kingdom.

The work to prepare the bedroom for the procedure was hurried, but everything felt to Nicky like they were moving through water. Each step made him more aware of his fatigue, each time he remembered another item he needed, requiring another search around the poorly lit bedroom, his head seemed more disorganized. He set out what he would need, sterile blue drapes placed over their bed, another over the nightstand to act as a work table for his tools. He lined up the sealed spinal needle, iodine, vial of lidocaine, syringes and collection tubes. He stared at each item a dozen times, wanting to make sure there was nothing forgotten.

He had already administered low-doses of midazolam and ketamine through Ilyas' IV port. Joe remained seated near the bed, watching over him as the medication took effect, as his small body went lax with the sensation of floating. They had removed most of his clothing, leaving him in just a pair of shorts.

Nicky went into the ensuite to thoroughly cleanse his hands. Before he began, he leaned over the sink, firmly splashing several handfuls of cold water onto his face. The brisk liquid worked to shock him back to the land of the living, back to the present. The act of meticulously cleansing his hands helped to re-center him. He remembered sitting side-by-side with Joe, centuries ago, in the courtyard of a mosque in what was then Constantinople. They were together at the ablution fountain to perform the purification before prayers. Nicky had begun to occasionally accompany Joe for this, at his gentle insistence. His sleep had been so disturbed during this period of their life, and Joe was convinced that performing the motions of prayer, of kneeling and opening one's self to the divine through perfected repetition would maybe help free him from his own mind. Find peace with me, Nicolò—he had urged him, many, many times. Ultimately, it hadn't been the communication with God that finally soothed him enough to rest again. It had been Yusuf's constant warmth, his infinite patience with an angry and disillusioned Catholic who wrongly believed that relief only came through penance and self flagellation.

It made him think what a merciful thing it was, that harm was able to be unlearned.

Nicky stepped out of the bathroom donning blue surgical gloves, not the usual bare hands he normally prioritized when treating Ilyas. The boy had known so little touch that didn't come from sterile latex. They didn't want that to be his life anymore, but the procedure necessitated proper sanitization.

He nodded once, signaling that he was ready. "You can move him over."

Joe turned from where he sat on the small bed's edge. Carefully, he peeled the blankets back, crouching to scoop Ilyas up from the mattress. The movement drew the first hushed noise from him. His head lolled against Joe's shoulder, his eyes dull and half-lidded.

Joe's hand found the back of his nape, supporting him, assuring that he wasn't jostled. He took the time to speak to him, mouth positioned near the shell of his ear. "Easy, small man."

Mindful of the IV tubing, he took the three short steps over to the larger bed and gently settled Ilyas onto the blue drape. The moment he made contact with the new surface, a fragmented mumble escaped him, not any sort of intelligible word, but a blend of protest and confusion. Joe let Nicky instruct him on how to position his body, tucking his knees up, bringing his thighs to meet his chest.

The boy blinked drowsily, struggling to sharpen his surroundings, to make sense of how he was newly oriented.

Without hesitation, Joe moved around the bed, climbing on from the opposite side so he could stretch out on his stomach. His head was now near Ilyas, his arms reaching out to hold him steady in the curled position. He cupped one palm around the back of Ilyas' shorn head, his blunt nails scratching at his scalp.

“Relax." He murmured. "I’m right here.”

Behind Ilyas, Nicky settled in, his face unreadable as he began to swab his back with a muddy orange iodine solution. He set the sponge aside and carefully drew a dose of lidocaine into a small syringe.

Ilyas' eyes tried to search the corner of his field of vision. Joe could feel the minute twitch of his head, instinct making him wish to turn. His hand held him in place, keeping him still.

"Hey." He dipped his chin, forcing the boy's bleary eyes to meet his, their faces only a few inches apart. "Look at me, okay? Only me."

Ilyas grimaced momentarily. Beneath the haze, there was a flash of fear that surfaced. Joe knew that he must be feeling the faint sting of the needle. His fingers spasmed against the drape before a soft gasp slipped free.

“You know,” Joe began, his thumb sweeping over the boy's brow, “when I was little, a few years older than you, but still little, I was locked outside my house when I wasn’t supposed to be.” His lips quirked, pleased to see the boy's eyes on him. “It was late at night. I thought I could climb up a tree along the side wall like a thief in the stories. There was an open window that I thought maybe I could reach if I jumped, but my shirt caught on one of the tree branches. I was stuck hanging in the air like laundry.”

Ilyas exhaled, the breath leaving him unsteadily. His gaze continued to cling to Joe's, even through the labored blinks of his eyelids.

"I was with my cousin, Bilal. He tried to help, but he just threw rocks at me. I don't know whose foolish idea it was, his or mine, but I guess we thought it would knock me loose.” The memory forced a hushed laugh from him. “Of course it didn’t work. Just made me swing and one of the rocks nearly caught me in the eye. My uncle who lived next door woke up from all the noise. He came outside in his night clothes and found me up in the tree. Bilal ran away down the street to hide, leaving me there alone. My uncle found a ladder from one of the neighbors. And then—” His hand smoothed down Ilyas’ short hairs again, noting the velvet like texture. “Then I was in so much trouble. I think the entire village woke from my uncle's yelling, but I didn't care. I was just happy to be down from the blasted tree.”

"Almost done." Nicky's voice spoke from behind.

"The next day," Joe continued, knowing they needed Ilyas' attention focused in the right direction until the end. "I found Bilal washing in the stream. For leaving me up in the tree, I stole his clothes and ran away as fast as I could. He had to walk home naked, and everyone was awake to see him. I mean everyone, habibi. The entire village."

There was a quiet disapproving hum from Nicky.

"—That wasn't very kind, Yusuf."

Joe chuckled, the sound airy and warm from his chest. "No, it wasn't." He admitted, his grip on Ilyas readjusting, his chin still pressed against the mattress. "And I got in trouble yet again, but it was very funny."

Ilyas gave no reaction to his anecdote, but this scarcely mattered. His brown eyes never strayed from his face, fixed there with a drowsy intensity. Even through the drug-addled haze, he was listening, or at least trying to listen. Maybe it was due to the sedation, but he seemed captivated just to have someone speak at length directly to him. They had little idea of his language level, but Joe couldn't help but wonder how much of the story he understood. If all he knew before was the inside of the laboratory, did he know what a ladder was? Or a stream? He made a note to tell him more stories, next time with some quickly drawn illustrations to help.

"It's done." Nicky announced, shifting on his seat to back away, a collection vial held in one hand.

Joe pushed up onto his elbows, his chest hovering over Ilyas so he could look. Other than the large iodine stain on the boy's lower back, there was nothing to see. His skin was left unmarked from the puncture, perfectly healed over. The needle had already been properly disposed of into the makeshift sharps receptacle Nicky made. A labeled glass tube containing cloudy liquid rested in his husband's gloved hand. From the set of his jaw, from the dip in his posture, Joe could see that whatever he found had already given him reason for concern.

"Can I—" He cleared his throat, nodding to the curled boy between them. "—It's okay now if I pick him up?"

The question pulled Nicky from his thoughts. His pale eyes lifted to settle on Joe's face. "Hm? Oh—sì, certo."

He didn't hesitate. Slowly, he coaxed Ilyas to uncurl from the tight fetal position, guiding his thighs away from his chest. Thankfully, the heavy medications used to sedate him kept most of the discomfort at bay, allowing them to move him more freely. Joe worked his hands underneath him, bending down to lift his body back into his arms.

Ilyas made a confused sort of gasp at the movement. His mouth parted to voice some sort of protest, but he fell silent the moment Joe shushed him.

He stood cradling the boy beside the bed, watching as Nicky removed his gloves, then lifted away the blue drape to crumple it into a ball.

"You did well, Ilyas. So well." Joe whispered down to him, swaying slightly on his feet.

The bedroom door opened, and Nicky quietly disappeared down the dark hallway with the spinal fluid sample. He was off to deliver it to Copley, who would undoubtedly still be awake at this hour. It would be rushed out in the middle of the night to be anonymously analyzed by one of his contacts. They would have the results back before morning.

Carefully, Joe settled himself onto the large bed, resting back against the headboard. He kept Ilyas in his arms, tucked against his chest. The boy's ear was pressed near his heartbeat, his eyes still open as he listened. The world likely felt strangely in motion for him, like the room was in permanent tilt while his body freely floated. His features twisted into a frown before he hid his face away, a shuddering sigh seeping from his lungs.

Softly, Joe hummed a made up tune. The pad of his thumb traced lazily over the back of one of Ilyas' hands. Nicky returned not long after, joining him in their bed, their sides touching.

"Dorme?" Nicky murmured in the dark, his large hand found the boy's slender ankle. No gloves now, just the skin of his bare palm, warm and slightly callused. (Is he sleeping?)

Joe glanced down, tilting his head to peer at the face smushed against his chest. "Almost."

They waited in the dark together for a stretch, knowing it wouldn't be long until Ilyas was properly out. The only sounds filling the room were the low, steady hum of Joe's voice and Ilyas' even breathing. With gentle encouragement, the boy finally managed to drift off. His slight weight went entirely slack.

“Tell me,” Joe said in a hushed whisper, switching purposefully to Arabic, a language he slipped into whenever he founds things too heavy.

Nicky understood him. He knew that he would demand to know the truth of things, to know exactly what kind of fate lay stretched before them. He was a poet, a romantic, an optimist, yes, but above all, he was someone who refused to look away.

He lifted his gaze, turning to fix his sights on Joe's face. His fingertips brushed his elbow just underneath Ilyas' still form.

“This will only get worse before it gets better.” If it ever gets better. Nicky wanted to add, but he was patient. This conversation had only just begun. It would not be brief, nor would it be only a singular discussion.

Joe exhaled through his nose. “How much worse?”

"—mettilo a letto." (Put him to bed.)

It was a command, softened by the hand he brushed down the small leg draped over Joe's arm. They both needed to be entirely present for this, and the message passed clearly between them—first, set him down, then we talk.

The bed hardly moved as Joe delicately extracted himself. He carried Ilyas over to the small bed against the far wall, Nicky helping him cross over with the IV tubing. Gently, he deposited the boy back onto the soft mattress, only letting go when he was sure that Ilyas remained perfectly asleep.

Once the blanket was smoothed back over his bare legs, Joe straightened and returned to their bed. Nicky remained motionless while he settled in beside him. His body's exhaustion was so pronounced, but sleep felt as if it would be impossible that evening. "Meningitis moves quickly." He began slowly. "With his biology, I can't know exactly how it will be for him. Given the date of infection, any normal child would be much worse by now." His legs shifted, his knee bumping Joe's thigh. "But as this progresses, there will be constant fever, delirium, neurological decline—it will be ugly. And even if his body fights…” His throat tightened before he forced out the hardest truth. "I cannot guarantee how it will end for him."

A pause. The wind outside rattled the trees. Somewhere in the house, they could hear water running from a different bathroom.

"I'll do everything to help him, but-"

Joe found his hand in the dark, their fingers deliberately intertwined. “-this might come down to just keeping him comfortable." He finished.

“Yes.”

"Then that's what we do." Joe answered, pulling Nicky's hand to rest on his thigh. "We give him dignity."

Nicky’s hand curled firmly around his in need, so overwhelmed by his own fears and the desire to address this guilt that neither of them knew how to correct. His head dipped, his shoulders curled inward against a hurt that threatened to choke him. “I can’t do this here any longer, Joe. I won’t.” The confession fell from him like a severed limb.

Joe understood immediately. Copley’s house felt all wrong, too full of ghosts. His wife had passed within these walls, Booker's betrayal had taken root here. It was a museum to a life that had fractured, to a life that wasn't theirs. The high ceilings echoed. The floors were always too cold.

“Genoa, then.”

Nicky nodded. Their home by the sea, with its sun-warmed tiles and the golden walls of their back spare bedroom. The bed was quite new, but the room itself had held numerous transient souls over the past century—refugees, allies, once even a wounded enemy soldier that Nicky had nursed back to health. It smelled of salt and rosemary and the lemon tree just outside the window.

“We’ll need supplies,” Nicky murmured. “Everything we have here and more. Stronger medications—”

“Copley can arrange this.” Joe reminded him. He was already pulling out his phone, reverifying the travel time by plane. “He can set us up with a private flight. No customs, no headaches.”

Nicky’s gaze flicked to Ilyas, he watched the way his eyelids fluttered. “It's important to do it soon. He'll be uncomfortable during the journey, but if we wait too long, it will only be more painful for him.”

Joe's voice was absolute. "Nico, you would never allow him to suffer. Know that I know this, please."

Nicky's body leaned over in his direction, his head finding rest on his solid shoulder. Joe shifted beneath him, positioning their bodies so they were more reclined, lifting his arm so Nicky would fit against his side. They didn’t speak for a long moment, listening together to the rasp of Ilyas’ quiet breathing.

It was decided. They would tell Copley that evening.

“We’ve done this before.” Joe whispered. Not as a question or a reminder. Just a bare acknowledgement of the history they shared.

A shadow passed over Nicky, he stared blankly at the space just beyond the foot of the bed. It was true that they had both waited at various bedsides, had both held onto stiff hands while watching light drain away from unseeing eyes.

“Yes. But never like this. Never for a child.”

Never for a child that is from you and me.

There lied the simple truth of it, the horrid core sitting firm and unmoving at the heart of everything. This could break them differently, potentially introducing one of those hurts that would once more rewrite them as people, changing the way they related to the world and the humanity inhabiting it.

Just as all the other times before, neither one knew what to say when faced with that.

#the old guard #fanfic

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ammitroesis · 3 months ago

Text

When the Moment Comes

Born from this post where @frizox and I were chatting about feral!Nicky. This was supposed to be one scene, but somehow I ended up with a load of Nile stuff and it got Very Serious. But that's ok!

Unbeta'ed, for once. TW for gore.

------

It’s not a thought Nile ever shares, because it’s probably rude, or at the very least insensitive, and she’s sure Joe and Nicky know their own story better than she ever could, but… sometimes she doubts very much that Nicky was ever the Crusader he claims he was.

It just doesn’t seem like something he could be capable of. Sure, they’re all eternal warriors who take lives on the regular and are proficient in more ways to kill than Nile can possibly list yet, but still… it’s Nicky. Mild-mannered, soft-spoken, quiet, compassionate, gentle beyond measure outside of battle (and even in the thick of it, he’s efficient and clean with how he kills, crisp and no-nonsense). He cooks them all dinner. He feeds birds and stray cats. He plays cat’s cradle with the war-lost children they find. He patches up Andy with supreme delicacy and care. He makes Nile coffee and goes to see musicals with her. And with Joe… well, she’s never seen two people more in love, so enraptured with each other.

Nicky is kind. The idea that he could have been some bloodthirsty holy warrior, taking his sword to the innocent, simply cannot compute in her mind.

She doesn’t scoff when it’s mentioned. Doesn’t roll her eyes or snort into her wine glass. She keeps it very much to herself, the idea that they might be ever-so-slightly exaggerating.

Nile knows she’s good. They never treat her as if she isn’t, they respect her skills and absolutely view her as an equal. Which makes rookie mistakes all the more annoying.

So now here they are, her and Nicky (N&N, she thinks with what might be a slightly hysterical private giggle), tied to a pair of cheap metal chairs in a room that’s little more than a concrete box with a door and a boarded-up window, lit by a single, sickly bare lightbulb. There is a table in the corner, covered with a cloth that outlines just enough of what is underneath it to make Nile turn cold with fear, and a single other free chair, set facing them. There is no one else in the room with them, but the room is still crowded, thick with ghosts in the dark corners and the traces of old blood on the floor.

When Nile looks at Nicky, he doesn’t seem worried, but he doesn’t seem calm either. He is staring at the closed door, his expression not angry or full of loathing, just… intense. His eyes, which unnerved her at first, before she saw the warmth in them, are icy cold.

The door opens.

A tall, broad man walks in, sweat glistening on his dark brow, wearing a cheap-ass military uniform, and she recognises him from Copley’s brief. He’s the very warlord they’ve been after, absolute scum, a rapist, a child murderer. He grins at them, all white teeth, and Nile hates him more than anyone she’s ever hated before. She does try to not hate, but to be honest one of the lessons she’s learnt in this job is that some people really do deserve it.

Nile knows he can speak flawless English – he was educated at Princeton, from what she read in his file – but he chooses not to, directing only a sneer at her. He sits, and speaks to Nicky in the local language.

Nicky says nothing. He merely stares. The warlord says something else.

Still no answer.

Nile can feel the tension mounting, as the man’s affable smile disappears in the face of Nicky’s stony silence. He asks another question, more roughly.

Nicky still doesn’t speak.

The man is ruffled now. He isn’t a man used to being ignored, and it shows in the way he shouts at Nicky, right in his face, now out of his chair.

Nicky remains completely unfazed, still staring with those frozen eyes, utterly still, as if he were made of stone.

The man lets out a string of swear words and stomps over to the table, throwing back the cloth and revealing exactly what Nile had been dreading: an array of dirty-looking tools. Pincers, pliers, knives, a cordless drill, a clawed hammer. She swallows down a whimper.

The warlord studies the selection, and Nile is weirdly reminded of the old women they’ve seen at the Mediterranean fish markets, choosing what to get for dinner. He picks up one thing, looks at it, discards it. He makes it very obvious he is showing them what is in store for them, taking his time to play with them and build up the fear, letting out a breathy chuckle that makes Nile’s skin crawl.

That is when Nicky finally moves. He rolls his shoulders, and it makes Nile think of mountains moving, something old and solid shifting after aeons of stillness.

“I think it would be best if you looked away, Nile,” he says, the first sound he’s uttered in a long while. He touches her knee with his, some small, sweet comfort.

Nile frowns.

The warlord immediately turns around at the sound of Nicky’s voice, striding back over to stand in front of him. He opens his mouth to speak again, something most likely derisive, and Nile doesn’t have the time to look away. It happens too fast for her to even fathom it.

Nicky launches himself forward, and fastens his teeth onto the man’s bare throat like a savage beast. The man doesn’t even manage to scream, caught unawares, until Nicky’s jaw clenches shut, deep in his flesh.

They really made a mistake not tying his legs as well as his arms, she distantly thinks, but it’s a subconscious thought. She cannot actually think. She can only stare.

He holds on like a fucking pitbull, ignoring the punches and kicks and howls the man is emitting, calling him a beast, a savage, a white demon, in four different languages. He tries to shove Nicky off, but when he does, his eyes go round and white.

Nicky wrenches back, teeth still locked in flesh, and he takes the man’s throat with him.

It’s a fucking mess, tatters of meat left behind as blood spurts everywhere like a fountain. Nicky steps back, sets the chair legs back on the floor with a ringing clatter, and spits a chunk of flesh onto the floor. Blood drips down his chin, onto his shirt, smeared around his mouth. He reminds Nile, in her shrieking mind, of predators in nature documentaries, freshly painted with their kill.

The warlord collapses to the floor, opening his mouth but unable to scream anymore. He pats helplessly at his open gullet. There’s blood everywhere, the floor, his chest, his hands and arms, everything is red, slick with it.

All Nile can do is stare.

Nicky’s eyes are icy when they stare at the dying warlord. No… not icy. Ice feels cold. Those eyes feel absolutely nothing, a pale, terrifying void in a half-mask of gore. Utterly empty.

All of a sudden she understands how this man could have done what he did. How this man could have traversed the sea to try and wipe out a whole religion, take a sword to a whole city that had committed no crime except worship the same god a different way. She can see flames and maille and a blood-drenched sword, and she’s never been more afraid of someone in her life.

The door blasts in, kicked off its hinges, but she doesn’t see Andy and Joe until they’re actually in her line of sight, lowering their weapons. And all of a sudden, there’s Nicky again, blinking up at Joe as if he hung the moon. Joe cradles his blood-splattered face, tilts it up, and kisses him on the forehead.

Nile feels like she might be sick.

Andy nudges the warlord’s body with her boot, sighing.

“They wanted him alive,” she says, though she doesn’t sound particularly sorry about it.

“Accidents happen,” Nicky says, through blood.

And then Nile is sick.

She manages to tear her eyes away, turns to the side, and pukes. They haven’t eaten much in a while, which means it’s mostly bile. When she’s finished, her insides aching with the movement, she realises she’s trembling, and there are tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Here,” Andy says. Nile looks up at her, and she’s holding out a bottle of water. Nile realises her hands have been freed, and she tries to take the bottle, but has no grip. She is shaking far too much. She drops it, it spills everywhere, diluting the blood at their feet.

She doesn’t look at Joe. At Nicky. She daren’t.

“Let’s get out of here,” Joe says. Nile doesn’t know if she can even stand. She feels bad, leaning on Andy, but her legs wobble like a fawn’s when she tries to walk, and when Nicky steps forward to help, she flinches away from him, bodily, backing into Andy.

There is a long moment of very pregnant quiet.

She’s seen some pretty awful things, by now, things she doesn’t even want to contemplate anymore, things she refuses to describe. But the image seared behind her eyelids is Nicky with another man’s torn-out throat between his teeth.

She chooses the seat farthest away from Nicky as she can. She still hasn’t looked at him yet. She can hear Joe quietly talking, understanding one Arabic word every ten, but Nicky rarely answers.

She saw him, from the corner of her eye, swill out his mouth multiple times, and pull off his overshirt, wiping his face with it. She’d gotten into the van and squashed herself into the farthest corner as they drove away.

She dares to look up from where her eyes have been fixed on the floor of the vehicle, just enough to see the bottom halves of Nicky and Joe’s bodies. Joe has a hand firmly on Nicky’s thigh, completely sexless, more like it’s there to ground him. Nicky’s hands are in his lap, his fingers twisted together, his knuckles white, and she blinks at that. His forearms are taut to the point veins are standing proud, and she suddenly realises he is fighting, with everything he has, to not tremble.

She risks raising her gaze further.

Joe’s head is tilted towards Nicky’s, his mouth almost at Nicky’s ear. Nicky, for his part, is staring pointedly down, between his knees, his mouth a thin line and his eyes… not empty, now, but hollow. Almost unseeing. He looks lost.

Nile doesn’t know what to say, and even if she did, she isn’t sure she would be able to say it anyway. How do you even respond to seeing such a thing? She stays quiet, her toes curling and uncurling inside her boots, her fists clenching and unclenching. She goes back to looking at the floor, and tries to fit all the different pieces of Nicolò di Genova together in her head to make a coherent vision of the man.

She fails miserably.

When they reach the safehouse the next day – a comfortably upper middle class, old colonial affair, with a bathroom and hot water – Nicky goes immediately to the shower. Joe follows him, exchanging a look with Andy that Nile has no hope of reading, and leaving the two women alone. Andy takes a deep breath and lets it out, hands on her hips. Nile merely stands there, unsure of what to do with herself.

“You’re going to have to talk about it,” Andy says. It takes a few seconds for it to sink in, as if there’s a delay between Nile’s ears and her comprehension.

She stares at Andy.

“What do I even say?” she asks, and her voice is hoarse. Andy shrugs, but it’s not dismissive, it’s sort of helpless, as if even at her fathomless age there are still things she doesn’t know. And that must be the case, after all – she’s only human.

“I can’t help you there,” she says. “But letting it lie as it is won’t help.”

Nile inhales, holding the breath for a few moments before letting it out, slow, through pursed lips.

“I’ll figure it out,” she mutters, although the pit in her stomach says otherwise.

She doesn’t see Nicky for the rest of the day. Andy and Joe disappear in search of food, and bring back things that smell divine but turn Nile’s stomach, because the thought of meat makes her then think of blood, and then of Nicky. Not-Nicky. Nicky-but-also-Not-Nicky. How many of him are there?

She rubs at her eyes and watches Joe take some containers off with him, towards the bedroom he shares with Nicky. As if her gaze is a physical thing, he turns back to her, meets her eyes head on. Not a challenge, she thinks, but she isn’t sure what until he offers her a wan smile, his eyes crinkling as they always do, though, for once, they don’t sparkle.

She tries to smile back, but it’s just not possible – she only gets the slightest twitch out of herself. That seems to be enough, however, to satisfy Joe, and he vanishes again, into the dimly lit bedroom, nudging the door closed behind him with his hip. Andy sits at the table, digging into a chunky soup that she says is called miyan kuka. Nile looks at it, frowning, and Andy offers her a spoonful, her palm cupped beneath it.

Nile hopes she can keep it down.

It’s spicy, warming her immediately and making her tongue burn, and if she were hungrier she’d ask for more. She nods, blowing out a breath around the heat. Andy grins. It would feel like the normality Nile has settled into, if it weren’t for the gapingly empty seats at the rest of the table. The primal fear is in conflict with the need for routine, for familiarity. They always eat together, that’s how it is, but she doesn’t think she could stomach sitting next to Nicky eating.

Andy takes the couch, folding her arms across her chest and sleeping like someone’s dad (someone’s dad who happens to keep a gun on hand), but Nile can’t rest. She’s keeping watch, she lies to herself for all of five seconds, before she knows it’s just fear of sleep. Sleep brings dreams. She has her fair share of familiar nightmares – Quynh still torments her down in the depths, and there are a thousand other things now, a holiday slideshow of fucked up shit – but this… she doesn’t want to go back to that concrete room.

She realises it’s because she hates this version of Nicky she’s seen. This feral, savage beast, a man she’d been coming to love like an older brother (something she’s never had before and yet has found two of, all of a sudden) reduced to something animalistic and vicious. She doesn’t like it. It’s at war in her mind with the soft smiles and crossword puzzles and Italian lessons and church visits. It’s even at war with the warrior himself, the capable swordsman, the protector, the shield, the still and patient sniper.

She probably shouldn’t, but she sits on the balcony, huddled in one of the chairs with a blanket around her shoulders, staring out into the night and the lights of the small city. It’s mostly quiet, but bars are open, she can hear music drifting towards her, and she thinks how funny it is that wherever they’ve gone, no matter the horrors, people are still partying. Humans are strange.

She hears the sound of the French window opening – Andy and Nicky both like doors that creak, Nile’s noticed – and she half turns. It’s not entirely who she expected.

She blinks up at Nicky, shrouded in moonlight, his hands in the pockets of the soft tracksuit bottoms he’s wearing, together with a very baggy t-shirt, like a US quadruple-XL. She cannot help the flash before her eyes of the sight of him bloody and empty-eyed and it makes her face crumple. She looks away.

“May I sit?” he asks, very softly, almost hopeful. He knows he’s terrified her, and she knows he hates it. Nile doesn’t want him to go, though, so she nods quickly, gesturing with a blanket paw at the chair beside her. He takes it, but only after moving it away to give her a hand’s worth of space.

She knows he would never hurt her, but she also knows that killing someone like that is a thing he can do. Knowing is supposedly half the battle, but it doesn’t really help right now. How can she even come back from that?

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says. He is picking at the rattan of the armrest, nail’s digging into the slight fraying, intent on making it worse. “I did not mean…”

He trails off, voice faltering, and that makes Nile look at him. He is usually so sure, so steadfast. Most everything he says is a statement, something she can put her trust in. To hear him sound so uncertain leaves her lost at sea herself. He is staring down again, like he did in the van, his jaw tight, his anxious frown deep.

She still doesn’t know what to say, so she simply speaks without knowing what she will say.

“It was terrifying,” she admits. “I didn’t think anyone was capable of that.”

He lets out a small, distraught noise, dragging his hands down his face. She can see the fingers settled on the arch of his nose are trembling again. She hates to see that.

She reaches out a hand, very slowly, and rests two of her fingers at the crook of his elbow, between fabric and goose-pimpled skin. His breath hitches, but he does settle, somewhat.

“He was talking about hurting you,” Nicky says. “I could not let that happen.”

Nile swallows, blinking back tears. “I think it’ll happen someday,” she croaks, even though the thought is agonising. There is a constant underlying sense of dread, in their lives, a little prickle at the back of the neck that says not if, but when. The knowledge that each death might be her last. The knowledge that one day she will most certainly be tortured. And the choice she has made to walk headfirst into that. She must be insane. They must all be insane.

“If I can prevent it, I will,” Nicky says firmly, and that’s more like him. Something sure, something he believes in completely.

“I know,” she replies. “I guess… I guess what scared me the most was… seeing the old Nicky.”

He turns just enough to look at her, slightly puzzled, all in the eyes.

“You know, like… Crusader Nicky.”

All of a sudden she’s worried she’s said something terrible, something she can never walk back, something unforgiveable. She’s afraid she’s ruptured something that should have been good and strong between them. But then his face softens, and he finally lowers his hands.

“I am still that man, in truth,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “He will always be me. I have changed, yes, but I could still become him again. He is a constant reminder of what I have done, and how I choose not to be like that every day. But also… You will not like to hear this, Nile, but everyone can become like that. Everyone is capable of terrible things, savage things. Even Joe. Even you. You hear a lot about the banality of evil, but you do not hear nearly enough about the simplicity of it.”

She is quiet as Nicky’s words percolate. Her first instinct to balk, be offended at the very idea. Not her, she is better than that. But is she? Is anyone? This is a broader subject than she has the scope for tonight, and Nicky seems to sense it.

“There is a difference, to me, between what I did at Jerusalem and what I did yesterday. I do not like what I did, I hate it, but I will never apologise for protecting you, or the rest of our family.”

She nods. Slowly, hesitantly, he turns his arm and opens his palm in offering. She looks at it, at its breadth, the length of his fingers, the calluses that must be from before he died, and sets her own hand in it. It’s warm, and it feels safe when his fingers close around hers. She expected the frightened rabbit part of her mind to see it like a bear trap. It feels more like an embrace, and she is relieved. Something dislodges in her chest, melts away from her, and she gently tilts towards him, resting her head on his broad shoulder.

What would she do to protect? She has no clue yet. She can only know when the moment comes.

They stay like that for a long while, until the chill starts to seep in too much, and she shivers despite the blanket.

“Time for bed, I think,” Nicky says softly, and she nods sleepily. They hold hands all the way inside, past Andy on the couch (and Nile is sure she sees her crack an eye open, and then close it again, smiling slightly), until they reach the bedrooms.

“Grazie,” Nile says. Nicky looks at her with those pale eyes, and she is relieved he stays as he is, no flash of blood, no emptiness. There is only warmth and affection, and one of those small smiles that seem to hold the world.

“Buonanotte,” he replies, squeezing her hand before letting it go. She watches him open the door and step inside, hears Joe’s sleepy voice say something unintelligible, and Nicky tell him to go back to sleep in English, before she heads to the other room.

She crawls under the covers, sets her head on the pillow, and sinks into a rare dreamless sleep.

#the old guard #fanfic

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