Work in progress: Together, in the same direction
A fic set in the same AU as All on my own, a TOG fic in which Nico and Yusuf deal with the ups and downs of parenting kid!Booker (with some help from aunties Quyhn and Andy). It is technically a sequel (there's a time gap of 33 years) but you shouldn't need to read AomO to understand the story.
In TitSD, Booker has been missing for eight years and suddenly comes back in Nile's life, his childhood best friend. The fic will be from Nile's POV with endgame Booker/Nile (though I want Nile and the sudden overhaul to her life to be the main focus) but this is perhaps one of the more Booker-focused scenes. Anyway, I just wrote this after eight months of being unable to write so you get the raw, unedited version as teaser :P
“Hi baba,” Basti says eventually.
“Where were you?” Yussuf demands, tears in his eyes. “What did you do? Why would you—do you have any idea how worried you were? The police asked if we wanted to declare you dead!”
Nile winces, rooted to the spot. she wants to interject, to say something in Basti’s defense…but she has thought all of this too. She wondered, and she asked, and as much as she empathizes with the way Basti hunches on himself she can’t make herself stop Yussuf, when he has even more of a right to know than she does.
“I’m sorry,” Basti sobs eventually, “Baba, I’m so sorry, I—”
“Oh,” Yussuf exclaims, anger and hurt vanishing from his voice entirely as he reaches up to pull Basti in a hug. “Oh, helwa, I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I was so scared and so sad for so long, and now you’re here and I’m yelling!”
“It’s okay,” Basti says while Nile breathes a sigh of relief. “It’s okay, I—”
“It’s not!” Yussuf cuts off.
Behind him, Nile can see Nico’s hand play with his collar, the way she’s always seen him do whenever Basti had an episode. It’s comforting and sad all at once, and when he catches her looking she can’t help but go to him and press their shoulders together.
“Baba,” Basti’s saying, it’s okay—”
“It isn’t, but thank you for pretending,” Yusuf says, shaking his head. Nile can’t see his face anymore from here, but it’s so easy to hear the smile in his voice. “Helwa—my son, my boy, I’m so happy you’re back.”
Yussuf pulls Basti in even tighter, burying his face in his shoulder, and then Basti does the same, and Nile watches them cry into each others’ neck. She feels Nico put his hand in hers at the same time she realizes she’s crying too, and when she turns to the side his cheeks are dry but his eyes are bright. Nile squeezes his hand, comforted when he squeezes back.
“'Ana jidun masrurun,” Yusuf says, muffled, and Basti sobs again and manages:
“Me too—aishtaqt lak kathiran ya 'abi.”
There is a long silence, broken only by Basti and Yusuf’s gentling sobs. In her hand, Nile can feel Nico’s fingers trembling. He’s quiet still, the same silence that made him seem so much more solemn than he truly is. It’s the same silence that used to scare Basti to death, convinced as he always was that one day it would break and give way to some great disappointment.
Even now, forty years old and a full head taller than his father, Basti can’t quite make himself look him in the eyes. Nile watches him extract himself from Yusuf’s embrace with slow movement, like he’d prefer to stay hidden in there forever. She tries to give him an encouraging smile, though she’s not sure he sees it, and then she steps away from Nico when he releases her hand.
She shuffles, awkward and raw from the tears that still linger in her eyes, and willingly goes into Yusuf’s arms when he opens them for her.
“Thank you for bringing him back,” he whispers in her ear.
Nile chuckles despite herself—wants to say she didn’t do anything, she just drove—but she lets Yusuf hug her and kiss her forehead, happy to soak in the comfort he’s always so willing to give. When she breaks the hug and turns to Basti again, she finds him standing with his face in Nico’s hands, the back of his ears crimson with emotion as he chokes:
“—but it wouldn’t have helped, papà. I was—I—” Basti sobs again, sounding almost like a little child, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his knuckles. “I wanted—I wanted—a way out. And there—there’s only two ways out; there’s—the slow one—or the fast one and I thought—I thought—”
“Oh, pìcolo,” Niccolò sighs, pulling Basti’s head down until their foreheads are touching, “sometimes you are like me in the ways I least wished you to be.”
Nile gasps and feels herself move to speak, but Yusuf’s hand on her shoulder roots her in place. In front of her, she sees Basti try to jerk away, but Niccolò holds him tight and sighs:
“That’s not what I meant.
“Papà—”
“I told you, didn’t I? That I didn’t choose to stop talking to my family.”
Nile has never heard this story. She winces, even as Basti nods, and tries to step back, but Yusuf catches her hand on his shoulder and holds on tight.
“You’re family,” he mouths when she looks at him. “You can stay.”
“I thought it would be fitting,” Nico is saying when Nile swallows and looks back at him. “To die in a place known for the very thing I didn’t want to be, when even Jerusalem had failed to change me.”
Twenty-six years earlier
“No but really,” Nile insisted, ignoring the way her mom tries to shush her, “how did you meet?”
“Nile,” Mom said on her right, Jordan snickering on her left, “if they don’t want to tell the story they don’t have to.”
“No,” Niccolò said eventually, “it’s alright.”
He had very, very blue eyes, the kind that made it easy to forget he and Seb weren’t related. He spoke quietly, seriously, like every answer to every question was important. Sometimes, it made him feel almost austere—that was a new word Nile had heard in school and it suited him—and it scared Seb, but it was also nice to be taken seriously.
“We met in Tel-Aviv. Yusuf was there on annual leave.”
“From Egypt,” Yusuf chimed in, smiling as he reached for his husband’s hand. “Homosexuality is illegal there, you know…so sometimes I gave myself a week to go be gay somewhere where it was okay.”
Nile nodded, trying to look a little like she understands the feeling, even though she didn’t really. She already knew about Egyptian law, because Seb had wanted to do a presentation about the history of marriage equality in their Civic Education class last year. Seb had even mentioned his parents had lived there for a while, despite the risks, so that part wasn’t surprising.
“And I was there because I was gay and didn’t want to be,” Niccolò said, sighing, something like a sad smile at the corner of his mouth. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could decide to be straight.”
“Fortunately, our love was meant to be,” Yusuf chimed in, smiling so bright even Seb—who had rolled his eyes when Niccolò started the story—couldn’t help but smile in answer. “We met, and we talked, and we parted ways—”
“You left,” Niccolò pointed out, quiet but smiling.
“I did, I did,” Yusuf admitted, nodding his head with his eyebrows raised high. “And that was almost the biggest mistake of my life—but! I came back!”
“You did,” Niccolò concedes in turn.
“I searched all the bars and all the restaurants I could think of to find the beautiful man who had stolen my heart and soul,” Yusuf continued, “but I couldn’t find a single trace of him! Even on my very last day—you should have seen me: I was trekking through the streets with my cabin luggage, staring at strangers like a possessed man—”
“You should have combed your hair,” Niccolò said, mock serious, and Nile heard Seb snort in laughter at the same time she did.
“Hayati, I am trying to be romantic,” Yusuf protested, making Seb scoff.
“That’s your default state, Baba.”
“Thank you,” Yusuf said, “I’m glad you noticed. Now, as I was saying—”
“He found me,” Niccolò said, finding Yusuf’s eyes and holding his gaze. “He saved me. I’ve never needed another altar since.”
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Melkio Newsletter August 2023
Le novità in arrivo a settembre
What's new coming in September
Ci sono tante novità che è facile perderne qualcuna. Ho creato quindi questa piccola newsletter online, utilizzando un blog tumblr.
Per rimanere aggiornato iscriviti al canale whatsapp!
Non ti preoccupare solo io posso Pubblicare :)
There's so much new stuff that it's easy to miss a few. So I created this little online newsletter, using a tumblr blog.
To stay updated subscribe to the whatsapp channel!
Don't worry only I can Publish :)
ISCRIVITI / SIGN IN
Convidivi il link con i tuoi amici /share the link with your friend :)
Mostre ed eventi /
Exhibitions and events
Due eventi speciali in italia /
Two special events in Italy.
Il primo, il 15 settembre, è una serata dedicata alle opere fisiche, digitali e phygital (ologrammi e progetto crasi) presso GALLERIA GALP in provincia di Como
Il secondo, il 29 Settembre, è l'apertura della galleria temporanea di Melkio a Piacenza in via Pietro Cella 9.
ARTeCORNICE di Michele Votto e KlcImmobilGest cureranno lo spazio che per 30 giorni diventerà una galleria completamente dedicate alle opere di Melkio.
The first, on 15 September, is an evening dedicated to physical, digital and phygital works (holograms and crasi project) at GALLERIA GALP in the province of Como
The second, on 29 September, is the opening of the Melkio temporary gallery in Piacenza in via Pietro Cella 9.
ARTeCORNICE by Michele Votto and KlcImmobilGest will take care of the space which for 30 days will become a gallery completely dedicated to the works of Melkio.
Digital art in Seoul
Dal 4 al 10 Settembre a Seul melkio sarà protagonista di una nuova mostra pubblica di arte digitale.
Per l'occasione sarà esibita e presentata su due grattacieli della città l'opera di Melkio che sarà esibita nello spazio nel primo quadrimestre del 2024.
From 4 to 10 September in Seoul, melkio will be the protagonist of a new public exhibition of digital art.
For the occasion, Melkio's work will be exhibited and presented on two skyscrapers in the city, which will be exhibited in the space in the first quarter of 2024.
The Podcast (only for Italian)
Donut podcast è un progetto laterale.
Melkio, insieme a Luca Barillà e Niccolo Francia saranno i conduttori di un podcast d'intrattenimento registrato e distribuito dal gruppo editoriale GOOD MORNING GENOVA.
Il podcast avrà una cadenza bisettimanale e sarà una rubrica di curiosità, fuori dal mondo dell'arte.
La prima puntata uscirà (solo in italia) il 6 Settembre, segui la pagina instagram per rimanere aggiornato, clicca sull'immagine qui sotto.
Thanks for your time ❤️
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Writing HAPPY FUN TIMES in this Book of Nile story!
I mean they are happy times but they're hardly fun x)
When the call finally connects, Nile is greeted by a long, animated sentence in Arabic that makes her smile through the buzz of her ears. She manages to keep her voice mostly collected as she says:
“Hi Joe.”
“Oh, Nile!” Joe exclaims, the same bright smile as ever shining in his voice. “I’m so sorry, I thought you were my cousin—we got disconnected.”
“No problem,” Nile says, hearing the way her voice starts to strain on the last word and wincing. “Listen, is Nico here?”
“He’s in the kitchen,” Joe says. “You know how he is.”
Nile smiles, briefly, and then says:
“Could you get him, please? And then sit down.”
Nile doesn’t realize how this sounds until Joe gasps, voice cracking when he asks:
“What happened? Is Damien—”
“He’s fine!” Nile promises, internally cursing at herself. “I’m sorry—he’s fine, I’m fine. He’s with Aimé right now I just—it’s nothing bad, I promise.”
“...but you need me to sit down.”
“And call Nico. Please.”
Joe’s voice sounds further away when he speaks again, calling for Nico to join him in Italian, followed by a short exchange about milk and cooking…it’s been a while since Nile actually practiced her Italian, so that’s as much as she gets before the sound of slippers hitting tiled floor grows closer and, with a ruffle and some more bickering—in Arabic this time—Nico’s voice says:
“Hi Nile. You’re on speaker now.”
Nile hesitates. Calling them was definitely not the best way to do this, she realizes now, but at the same time…she’d want to know as soon as possible. She’d be furious at anything but the briefest delay, if Damien were the one coming back after eight years of absence. She takes a deep breath and, unable to come up with a delicate way to share the news, she says:
“It’s about Basti.” Nico and Joe both gasp. “He’s here.”
Nile hears Joe let out a loud exclamation, and then the phone must fall to the ground because there’s a loud boom in her ear and Nico sounds very far when he calls Joe’s name. Nile hears the tension in his voice as he speaks, heart speeding up with each second without Joe’s voice until, finally, there’s a gasp and something that is unmistakably a sob.
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