#teamsuke

[captainsuke]

[captainsuke]

A Zemo character introspection piece, set post Civil War Pre FATWS

an out of sequence train of thoughts set in a nebulous time around his presumed trial.

[captainsuke]

Yusuf should be asleep, he should be wrapped around his husband's body, taking strength from the warmth he's never quite felt anywhere else.

Instead he's in the kitchen, the cool metal grip on his pistol warmed by his hand wrapped white knuckled around it.

He'd heard a noise.

He'd dreamed he'd heard a noise.

It doesn't matter. It's late and the little cottage they are currently calling home is empty, except for his sleeping husband, and Joe, standing vigil in the dark.

(rest of fic under the cut for all you ao3 haters)

There's a small gap between window and wall, and the wind flows through it with a whispering wail. Once all houses creaked and swayed and whistled with the wind, little leaks with pots that were emptied in the morning, a row of fine dust along the window sills and under the doors gifted from a night of wild wind. Now these things are considered nuisances, problems to be torn down and rebuilt new and unremarkable. His heart feels heavy tonight, the feeling of long years catching up on him and curling it's fingers around his soul.

Joe looks out the window of his and Nicky's little Maltese cottage, the moon shines bright enough behind shifting clouds that even the slivers of light allow Joe to see the branches of the apple tree in the front garden sway with the cool night's breeze. Many summers ago they'd laid in the shade of that tree, eating the sweetly tart fruit until they'd made themselves sick. He has a sketch - or eight - of the passing shadows dappling Nicky's face as he'd laid back, full and content.

A memory stacked upon another memory from the days they'd done the same with Andromache, years and years ago, four, five hundred years ago, filling their bellies with overripe apricots after several long hard years of fighting and barely being able to tell if they had even made a difference, let alone actually helped anyone. Even now Joe can close his eyes and see Qýuhn's hair blowing free in the cooling winds coming up along the Peloponnese peninsula. Andromache's fingers sticky with pasteli, her cheeks rosy where she laid them on Qýuhn's thigh. Nicolò, sunbleached and glowing in the golden of light of a Mediterranean sunset.

He remembers retelling the apple story when they'd all met up again, Booker with his ever present flask, Andy sharing long drinks from it, all them tired but smiling, leaning heavily of the heavenly taste of crisp apples and the folly of gorging on enough fresh fruit to upset their stomachs. Because it made Booker laugh. Because it gave them all something to laugh about, to distract themselves from the weather turning and Sèbastien's eyes growing cagey as the winter's teeth started to bite.

Nicky had stoked the cottage's fire til they'd been sweating in front of the tiny hearth, toasty and ridiculous in their undergarments, with thick woolen socks on their feet in respect for the wild weather that battered at the windows. He'd felt happy that they'd managed to turn that haunted look to smiling eyes that crinkled at the edges. Had that moment meant something? Anything? Nothing? Was the glow in his eyes merely momentary? A trick of light and the gleam of drunken eyes?

Would this be the rest of his days? Questioning every moment, desperately searching for where he went wrong, where he should have noticed Booker's pain. Looking for the moment that had been Sèbastien's last straw.

It's funny, Joe can joke, he can laugh, he can make vague reference and yell angry accusing words, he can recite a bit of original poem he's writing as he speaks, but he can't work out how to open his mouth and say the words why did you hurt me?

He's always horribly envied Nicky's ability to put his hurt away, to shelve it for later, or never if he feels it best. Even as he's pulled his hair out in frustration as his other half willfully tears himself to pieces in an effort to find a way to please everyone.

Oh, he knows they're both different shades of Not Dealing Well, both of them like a purpose to distract themselves.

Foolishly, stupidly, for a wild moment Joe wishes for someone else to try for them, to attack them, just so he can slip back into the head space of being a unit, a simple moving part in a machine much larger than himself, Nicky and him working hand in hand, two halves of a whole.

He desperately wishes for that feeling, for anything other than devastated, tearing, hating hurt that sits on his lungs like peine forte et dure, each time he feels like the worst of the pain has occurred he remembers some other occasion, some other memory now colored by betrayal.

He can forgive, he can sympathize, he can hold his brother close and cry for the losses he's suffered.

But anger stabs through at the thought of him not returning that empathy. Like he and all the kin before Booker haven't suffered days of death and nights of death. Day after day, month after month of unimaginable loss, not knowing how to stop it, how to help it, just enduring as time pass uncaring of the pain felt.

He's held Nicky as he begged for the end, for them to finally (please, please, please) be released from the unrelenting years of horrors, just as Nicky has pulled him close while he cried, screamed, wailed for even the slightest chance of reprieve. From the widow with dead eyes and fevered blush, burying her last child and going back to work at the sick houses, for the children with nothing – nothing - yet who could still muster a smile, for Nicky spitting blood, choking, drowning, dying, then coming back to do it all over again. Never ending and relentless.

This is stupid.

He is being stupid.

Awake in the middle of the night, stalking around their Malta house gun in hand, the most unnatural state of himself, but unable to rest, convinced that if he relaxed, if his guard dropped for a moment, he would lose it all.

He places the gun on the table, sits down, there's no peace or answers to be found in an old cottage kitchen by the sea at midnight.

All there is, is the long shadows of moonlight between furniture, the evening dishes neatly washed and drying on the sink, a glass full of pens on the table, Joe's gun now sitting atop Nicky's latest writing attempt. Never long, never complicated, Joe found himself devastated by each small letter his husband left for him, even the three thousand that merely read I love you ♥♥♥♥, he held each one to equal esteem, though Nicky barely seemed to remember writing them, he would just smile and say I was thinking of you.

you unmake me.

you remake me.

everyday

Doodled across cheap lined notepaper, tucked under his dinner plate. They'd shared that meal just a few hours ago, Nicky's eyes had been tired but he'd kissed Joe's curls with a soft smile as he'd served dinner.

A meal that had taken more than half the day to create because if Nicky had the time he found peace in simmering oil and tomatoes, in adding all the extra ingredients that might make an Italian swear but had delighted them so when they'd first tasted them, that now they'd add them to whatever meal they could.

It'd been less than a week and Nicky was already on first name basis with the halal butcher a few blocks away, and many a day they stroll the streets, collecting fresh produce from the little garden markets, stopping by Zakaria's so he could wrap the evening meal with a only my finest cut for my favorite customers and a wink, despite having claimed the same to the little Italian grandmother before them, blushing and waving her hands in a flustered, delighted stop motion.

Joe closes his eyes, feeling suddenly overwhelmed, like his heart would be beat out of his chest, fall out onto the floorboards that they'd sanded and placed lovingly when they'd first started rebuilding this little cottage. Nicky could live his life with just Yusuf and the sea and be happy, but Joe needed people, needed to see people living their lives no matter how mundane. No matter how out of sorts he's been since they arrived, exhausted and devastated from London, Nicky hadn't forgotten that.

And so Nicolò knows the butcher by name, and, in turn, Zakaria's fisherman boyfriend, who stocks the butcher shop with the freshest of catches and shies away from company, with deep sad eyes and ankle bones that jut out like he needs a Nonna to fuss over him.

And so he's befriended the old ladies from the markets who give him unsolicited advice on his roses, on his apple tree, on the lush green vine that flowers bright bursts of color, on how to keep That Nice Young Man He's Always With happy.

And so each of these people is a friend of Joe's as well.

Joe takes one last long look out the window. Daring anyone who might be out there to take the moment. To give him a reprieve from his thoughts.

But the apple trees branches are the only thing moving. Wind rustling leaves the only sounds to be heard over the soft ebbing crash of waves in the distance.

There's no respite to be found tonight, he thinks as he put his pistol away. Part of him aches to remain armed, to keep vigilant, because last time, last time, but he won't walk into their bedroom with a loaded gun in hand. Not tonight when he feels like his very soul has been twisted, not when he still feels as if unseen eyes are watching him.

As Joe closes the bedroom door behind him, eyes open slow but sharp, immediately awake, perhaps awake before Joe came in. His Nicky is a light sleeper, more prone to 3 or 4 hours sleep before waking alert and ready to face the living hours,.

Nicky's eyes go soft, the faintest of gentle smiles curling his lips as he focuses on Yusuf.

“Where are you, my love?” he asks with quiet rasping voice of someone newly woken.

He doesn't know, he feels adrift, but Nicky's hand moves, reaches out and Joe crosses the room to take it as the lifeline he needs.

“What do you need?” His voice is steady and calm and ready to promise anything in his power to Joe.

And Joe feels his heart constrict, he can't live without this man, he thinks wildly

(a flash, a dagger in the dark, Nicolò on the ground, a halo of his blood, his beautiful skull, his precious brains scattered across the floor without second thought)

he wants to know Andy's okay, he wants her and Nile here immediately so he can see for himself that they're safe, he wants Qýuhn in his arms so much it physically aches. He wants her dark humor and her sharp eyes. He wants to hear her screech like stepped on cat whenever something delighted her. He wants Booker snorting into his wine at some stupid joke, he wants to know he's alive, that he hasn't thrown himself into another stupid situation.

In the morning, he thinks, in the morning he'll speak to Nile, her occasional furtive texting isn't quite as secretive as she perhaps thinks but none of them had felt the need to tell her to stop.

In the morning, he can wait til morning to soothe the lies and worries that his anxiety haunts him with. Til then, he threads his hands tighter with Nicky's, lets him pull Joe to bed, lets him rearrange them til he's flat on his back with Joe's head is resting on his chest, Nicolò's heartbeat in his ear.

He keeps a hold of Joe's hand, brings it up to his lips, presses a kiss to where they're joined, then curls it close to Joe and his chest, as if shielding it against the rest of the world.

“You, just you.” Joe tells the darkness.

“You have me,” Nicolò says, his breath, his lips, his jaw moving against Joe's curls.

“What do you need?” He asks again, free hand coming to rest, cradling Joe's head, gently gently he feels fingers move lightly in tiny soft circles.

“Tell me something.”

Joe pulls their joined hands close, presses his own kiss against Nicky's long fingers, holds it close enough for his breath to warm skin “Please. Tell me something good.”

It's a hard ask, he knows, he knows, every good moment of their lives can be tied to a bad one, the past could be a minefield with no directions or signs. But Nicolò rarely shied from a challenge.

“Did I ever tell you of the time Qýuhn demanded to know my intentions with you?”

“But she loved you!” He mumbles against their joined hands.

“Yes she did, but she loved your heart just as fiercely.” Nicky's chest moves against Joe's cheek as he snorts, amused, “We'd had to have been intimate for almost a year by this time, but she had me feeling like a sham of a man standing before the most beautiful man's guardian, offering a pauper's dowery.”

Joe starts shifting to argue but the hand on his head keeps him still, gentle but firm.

“It was good. To be reminded that you had someone else who would fight for your happiness, that my love for you was visible enough to be challenged, a reminder that we both still had family even if it looked very different to what we'd been born with. It'd been nice to know no matter how much I felt I didn't deserve, I'd been ready to fight for the right to let that be your decision.”

“You do deserve me,” the gentle circles on his scalp are making him sleepy but he puts a token argument, the principle of no one was allowed talk shit about Nicky, not even Nicky, one he was always ready to defend.

“Hush, you asked for a story, this is my story.”

“Scusi, scusi,” he kisses Nicky's hand again, “tell your story, tell me how you convinced me that Qýuhn you were worthy of my hand in marriage.”

He swears he can hear Nicky smile in the dark.

“I didn't, Andromache came in and declared they should leave us to make our mistakes and then stab which ever of us was most in the wrong.”

Joe can't help but laugh. “Qýuhn like that?”

He feels Nicky's soft laughter vibrate through his skin, he wants to die like this, in a moment like this, just the two of them entwined.

“No, she called Andy soulless and unromantic, they went outside to spar. We didn't see them again til morning, and Qýuhn never mentioned it again, so maybe Andy had a little romance in her.”

“How have I never head of this story?”

Nicky's answering chuckle is a delight.

“You came back and we had the house to ourselves for the entire night.” The hand on Joe's head flexes, like he wants to hold Joe as tight as he is can but its as much as their position allows. “It was a good day. We were loved, we are loved.”

He wants to crawl inside Nicolò, live forever embraced by his heart, to feel every lung full of breath press against him

“Sleep my love,” Nicky says leaning low to press his cheek against Joe's curls, to place an unaimed kiss to his forehead.

Sleep.

Nicky’s heartbeat is a sure and steady thing against his ear

(a monitor screaming as his lives hand falls limp against restraints)

Joe squeezes his eyes tightly shut then forces himself to relax, to hear the beat that's been by his side for a thousand years. He thinks of crinkles at the sides of Qýuhn's eyes when she grinned, the way she'd look to Joe when she found something fun to share.

He thinks of the way Booker's face grew soft in the late of the night when the game had long ended and everyone had gone to sleep and it was just the two of them, keeping the sleepless night company.

He thinks of the glow of Nile's face when they walked the halls of the National Museum, her excited but obviously knowledgeable commentary, how he itches to draw the lines of her joy over and over til he gets it just right.

He thinks of Andy in Marrakesh, the feel of her ribs reverberating with the force of her laugh as he swung her around. She's mother, weird aunt, odd stranger, honored elder, pain in the ass know-it-all older sister and so many more things he can not think to name, but she's theirs, and it's going to take a lot more than mortality to take her from them.

He swears it.

Finally he thinks of Nicky.

Nicky with long hair in his face, of the ever changing color his eyes across the firelight, of the weight of his body passed out, sated atop Yusuf, of the weight of his body lifeless as Joe pulled him somewhere to revive safely. The heaviness of his gaze and the weightlessness of even his smallest smile. Of his hands as they held Joe together, the gentleness of his touch as he put him back together. Of the unique light in his eyes, the fire that burns brightest when his sword is out. He thinks of words freely given when speech was hardest, he thinks of the uncountable I love you's, the innumerable languages he's learnt just to speak them and hear them back.

He thinks of hot blood spattered across his face and the way Nicolòs eyes would fight to meet his own when the end was coming. He thinks of the tightening of hands before they became unbearably limp. He thinks of the bad deaths, of eyelashes glued together with tears as hes gasped alive and the watery smile that followed. He thinks of Nicky moving, his sword swinging, on broken ankle, spitting blood and still moving.

His head, his heart, his life is full, and sometimes it feels like he'll drown with all that's in it.

Nicky's hand moves from his head, moves to stroke down his spine, long and slow in repetition.

Sleep he says again, his own voice thick at the edge of sleep himself.

Joe hugs a small breath, then slows his breathing to match the deep level breathing of Nicolò asleep. He thinks about the first time they slept like this, arms around each other, tangled and holding tight. He thinks of the countless times he's rubbed his nose against the back of Nicky's neck as he tried to catch just a little more sleep time.

There's a heaviness growing in his limbs as he half dreams of Nicky as he wraps himself around and burrows himself closer to Nicky. Slowly, steadily and then suddenly all at once, the sense memory of nine hundred years in this man's arms lulls him into sleep.

[captainsuke]

In Cleveland, Zemo dreams of how he got there

(another weird introspective fic about Zemo set during Captain America Civil War)

[captainsuke]

Nicky's thoughts during the keane fight

(because I'm a simple bitch and I love this movie still)

[captainsuke]

like holding onto burning coal

(ao3 link in the reblog)

Joe can still taste the same awful aftertaste in his throat that he'd had in the van, his head feels a familiar foggy, somewhere he hears the grunt and oh, oh, whatever concussive damage veils his mind lifts with the recognition of Nicolò's pained noises.

He's up before he even realises it, barely registers what he's seeing (Keane standing above, advancing on Nicky, Nicky whose on the ground, curled around broken ribs),

Joe's up, fists swinging, he likes to think catching the asshole by surprise, gets a good hit, the edge of Keane's mask catches on his fingertips as he pulls it from his face, sends the flimsy piece of plastic and metal flying. See how he likes fighting with eyes burning half blind and lungs screaming for air.

He swings again, Nicky's getting up again, has there ever been a moment in the last 900 years Joe wasn't completely attuned to his love?

He feels desperation clawing up his throat, in his head images rising up quickly, Nicky laying still, so, so still, on the van's hard metal floor (feet shackled, hands cuffed cruelly tight, like they hadn't been fully unconscious), the moment everything went black at the safe house, he can see in his mind's eye Nicky's head whipping up as the door blasts in, the grenade going off, the shot that burst through his chest, Nicky's face, oh sweet, sweet Nicolò's lip curling in anger even as the gas started choking him, desperate to get to his side even as the strength from his legs from his body was robbed, death taking him as Nicky coughed and choked just out of reach.

The still open raw wound of being strapped to a gurney, forever out of touching distance, the pain of having to listen, having to watch Nicolò tortured, the agony of having to see the anguish in his eyes when it was Joe's turn.

He feels like all he can hear is his heartbeat roaring in his ears and swings his fist again, Keane dodges, off balance Joe doesn't have time to block. Already too tired, exhausted, already too late, the first punch comes quickly but, the second one lands while he's still trying to recover from the first. And he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he chokes. Worse than gas, worse than the concussion grenade, Joe falls to his knees, hands around a ruined throat, he can't do anything but desperately will it to heal.

Nicky's stumbling back upright, moving so slowly and, oh, how his heart hurts to know how hard it is to be knocked down and still get back up, but he can't breathe, he's on the ground trying to drag breath through ruined airways, his eyesight blurring as his body, while the wondrous, monstrous mystery that's brought him back to life for a millennia triages and attempts to heal up his most important functions. Joe's dimly aware of the shape of Keane, the angry line of his shoulders as he advances on Joe, the sharp movement as he goes for his belt, oh he isn't going for the capture anymore, smart, he's finally learning, Joe thinks inanely as he blinks blurred eyes.

Is this how it ends?

Will he wake tied down again?

Where was Andy?

Nile?

Booker?

He's never felt so alone, just him and Nicky after so long with a family to fall back on. He doesn't understand.

His throat rattles with a truly terrible noise, and he pleads to Allah that he heals, that he doesn't die and wake up in this place again, that he heals quickly enough to get back up and in the game. Keane above him and he doesn't have any strength to do anything but watch as he pulls his gun.

But then Nicky's there.

There's something of the half feral crusader Joe had faced a millenia ago in his movements, no co-ordination, none of the grace that Yusuf so loves to watch. Instead Nicky's face is all desperation as he latches onto Keane's arm, pulls the gun away from where it had been aiming for Joe, pulls Keane's attention from where Joe is choking on the ground. He draws a breath, feels something crunch in his throat, the pain of the healing floors him almost as much as the original wounding and his vision goes a perfect black for a moment too long. Nicky grunts beside him, a sharp inhale then a very loud gunshot.

Footsteps stumble away, getting quieter and quieter but Joe can't hear it, can't hear anything but the shocked ringing in his ears and the deathly silent room. He takes his first full breath and suddenly it feels like he can't find any air again.

On the ground,

Nicky,

he skids across the rubble strewn floor,

Nicky,

he goes to reach out, to touch, to reassure and suddenly his hand freeze, suddenly he's terrified

(Andy bleeding - bleeding - the bruises on her skin where he's never seen anything but unblemished flesh)

This can not be the end.

How long has it been? Too long, Nicky's so still, worse than the van, he can see all the brilliant parts of Nicky's beautiful brain spilling out in a grotesque halo around his ruined skull.

Why are his eyes still unseeing and glassed over? Its been too long. Is this the end? Was Andy just a herald? Was Booker? Had that doctor done something?

Nicky's not moving and Joe's reaches out, his hands moving automatically, a thousand years of habit, a thousand years of cradling Nicky's face in the palm of his hands. And he stalls. Can't bring himself to touch, to feel cold clammy skin, to feel the heat drain away as his blood pools on the floor.

He can't.

He can't do this alone. He's not going to survive this, Nicky promised, he promised, they'd go together, in that tone of his, that steadfast, impossibly sure tone that demanded no argument, they'd go as they'd been born into this life.

Together, always together,

So why won't he wake up? It's been too long.

(it's been seconds, a moment)

He can't look at Nicky, but looking away feels worse, like a betrayal and as he looks back,

a gasp.

And Joe's almost collapsing with relief, he's never going to breathe again.

Hands lift, reaching out before thought and Joe's moving before he realises it, hands gripping and grounding as Nicky's hands wrap around his arms. his eyes are open, blinking as he comes back, as he slowly comes back to Joe.

Joe wants to collapse into him, wants to lay down on the ground and wrap himself so tightly around Nicky that they're one person.

Nicky blinks, coming fully awake and his grip is loosening and Joe, oh, his heart breaks.

Andy, Nicky says. He's letting Joe go and Joe has to let him go.

Joe's hands squeeze once more without his permission, Nicky's right, they have to keep moving, his sleeve tugs as Nicky's hands spasm as he pulls away, the tiniest of movement that tells him the Nicky is also fighting the need to touch, to hold, to reassure, to just keep contact. Joe's heart swells even as he groans as he collects a gun from the rubble.

They can't leave a mortal Andy to fight with a newby (no matter how much marine experience Nile might have had, it's probably not storming office buildings in the heart of London) or Booker, possibly still looking to die.

Nicky gets up quick enough but his feet are unsteady in their steps, slower than usual and stumbling, his shoulders hunched over as the back of his head remains a glistening mess of blood and viscera. Joe pats at him, a moment of touch, as he skips ahead, takes the lead. He keeps an eye on the way Nicky sways for a moment before shoring himself up, but there's nothing he can do for it now, they can only keep moving forward.

Joe checks his magazine, pausing at the door and taking a steadying breath as Nicky presses up against the other side of the doorway. Their eyes meet and - oh – a thousand years will never be enough to describe - to appreciate - every steadfast emotion in Nicky's eyes.

He nods, is rewarded when Nicky nods back in turn with the slightest uptick of his mouth. The smallest idea of a smile, brighter than a thousand suns. Yusuf can survive this, can survive the changes, the upheaval to their family that is surely coming. As long as the two of them remain together.

As long as it's Joe and Nicky,

Yusuf and Nicolò.

Together, always together.

(ao3 link in the reblog)

[captainsuke]

Stealing from @itzaimster

Top ten ladies from ten fandoms

In no particular order~ (and also me just scrolling through shows I watch trying to remember liking anything ever)

1. Donna Hascum (supernatural)

2. Quýhn (The Old Guard)

3. Inej Ghafa (six of crows)

4.Henrietta Wilson (911)

5.Toph Bei Fong (avatar the last airbender)

6.Abby (Primeval)

7.Nico Robin (one piece)

8. Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag/Tuon (the wheel of time)

9. Aisha al-Fadhil (The Losers)

10. Sister Michael (derry girls)

[captainsuke]

set in some random time, at the beginning

The look of longing, wistfulness, on Nicolò's face catches Yusuf's attention almost immediately. His companion tends to be more stoic in nature, so to see him staring at the handful of books for sale in the marketplace with such open emotion, Yusuf finds himself suddenly very intrigued.

“We could find some in Latin, when we get to Cairo?” Yusuf suggests.

Nicolò looks at him as if he'd spoken in Tamazight, wide uncomprehending eyes before looking down, a flush of pink spreading across his face.

“No,” he says to the ground, “it would be a waste of coin.”

Joe starts to protest, saying that it was perhaps a frivolous purchase, but if it would please Nicolò, it would please him too.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says, a gentle arm on his hand, his jaw moving in the way it did when he had thoughts he had trouble putting into words. Or words he feared to say out loud. “It would be a waste, I can not read.”

Yusuf chokes. “But- I don't – You? How-?” He swallows his words, rearranges his thoughts to the sight of Nicolò's reddening face; embarrassment.

“Perhaps,” he says lightly, feeling Nicolò's eyes upon him as his fingers skim lightly across the book's leather cover, across to the other wares. “perhaps, I should teach you to read Arabic first, before your mind is ruined by Latin.”

“You don't have to. You shouldn't have to.” Nicolò whispers, eyes on Yusuf's hand trailing across the seller's items.

“We have nothing but time,” Yusuf smiles, hopes it takes the bite out of his words, turns them into gentle teasing. “Perhaps it would be good for you to read your bible for yourself.”

It's a barb, but a soft, worn one.

Nicolò's eyes widen, wonder filled, as if he'd never thought the idea possible.

“Perhaps I shall teach you to read Arabic from the Qu'ran first,” Joe half jests with a smile to soften the blow. “Teach you the real word of God.”

Sometimes Yusuf smiles just to see the crinkles beside Nicolò's eyes appear, as if Nicolò was helpless to do nought but return the expression, no matter how muted.

“I would like that.” Nicolò replies quietly, that barely there smile still upon his face.

[captainsuke]

This jacket is so comfortable??? It fits my fucking shoulders????? I'm going to have to wear it everywhere???

[captainsuke]

[captainsuke]

Broome, Australia

[captainsuke]

WiP meme

Tagged by @missjmelville

fanfic: featuring animal kingdom, xmen, walking dead, fargo fic I actually want to finish, the nice guys fic that I definitely should finish and old guard fic that I may actually finish

Original: sea sand sun sky is probably the only one I will write tbh lol, jars is 2nd

[captainsuke]

Nicolò does not often get the chance to go to the markets alone, Yusuf says he does not take the buying of supplies and food that seriously, but he also likes to lament, Habibi, how can you be so bad with money?

But Nicolò's husband also rolls his sleeves up as though about to wade into a fight before leaving for the markets. Nicolò loves his enthusiasm even as he does not get how he can be so excited to simply go shopping.

“Habibi,” Yusuf says and Nicolò knows that word can mean my love, my darling, my dear.

Habibi, my dear, my love, my darling he says like Nicolò doesn't remember traveling as caravan guards and Yusuf's sweetly sarcastic voice, upon waking one morning to no camels and the teenage Cameleer with sleepy eyes and soft honey ringlets looking sheepishly across the dunes at the fading camel tracks, Habibi, where are the camels?

My dear, my love, my darling indeed.

“Habibi, please come back with change,” he says as if it truly pains him not go instead.

Nicolò takes the offered coins, cups his hands around Yusuf's, runs a thumb across the thin skin that protects his knuckles, he loves this man he thinks, but all he says is Inshallah.

Yusuf's hands twitch in his.

When Yusuf smiles - when Yusuf laughs, when he's joyous and amused - his eyes sparkle as if lit from within from a light much stronger than the sun.

Yusuf looks at Nicolò and his eyes sparkle, his hands twist so they're holding Nicolò's just as tightly.

“Have a good day,” he says his eyes still sparkling with mirth, “I will see you in a few hours”

Nicolò leans forward, presses his lips to Yusuf's because he can, because Yusuf presses back just as firmly.

He untangles their hands while Yusuf's distracted, before he ends up just deciding they can starve for the next day and instead drags Yusuf back to their bed chambers.

He presses a soft parting kiss against Yusuf's bearded cheek, an apology for freeing his hands.

“A few hours.”

[captainsuke]

finally finished thisssssss

[captainsuke]