#to nicky like habibi.... do you remember that little house we had a few years ago..... we should go back there.....

[youssefguedira]

V, JoeNicky & Nile

V. An abandoned or empty place.

When Joe pulls the sheet off the couch it kicks up enough dust that it makes Nile sneeze. The couch underneath is old, wooden frame rotting, fabric stained and full of holes where moths have eaten away at it. 

“Sorry,” Joe says to Nile when she finally manages to get the sneezing under control. “Didn’t realise it was that bad.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at the couch. Nile looks it over.

“There’s no saving that,” she says, wiping at her eyes. She can heal from falling over ten stories, but she can’t get away from allergies.

Joe frowns. “I liked that couch.”

The house is older than anywhere else they’ve brought her, and has been abandoned for long enough that it’s falling apart. But through some trick of posing as their own sons, or something, Joe and Nicky still own it, even if there’s a giant hole in the roof and all the windows are broken. Why they’d decided to come back here, Nile doesn’t know, but it’s a nice enough area, and a good distraction from, well. Everything. Growing back a leg, she’s discovered, is not fun. 

From one of the other rooms – she thinks it’s the kitchen, she’s not actually sure where Nicky had wandered to – there’s the sound of something breaking and crashing to the ground, and a muffled curse. 

Joe makes a questioning noise in the vague direction of the kitchen. A few moments later, Nicky appears in the doorway, covered in dust. “I am okay,” he says. “But I think we will need to go out to eat tonight.”

“Nothing?” 

Nicky shakes his head. “Unless you want to start a fire and go hunt some rabbits.”

Joe grins. “Just like old times, right?”

Nile shakes her head firmly, which makes Nicky smile. She loves them, but there’s no way they’re doing that. 

“We can probably clear out enough space in here,” Joe says, gesturing to the floor. “Get the sleeping bags out of the car. Probably have to start a fire anyway, but…”

Nile looks around again while Joe says something to Nicky in Arabic that makes him laugh. The house is falling apart, sure, but it’s structurally stable, and the bones are all there. It could be something. They’ve got time to make it something. 

Nicky is the one who goes for pizza in the end – he doesn’t trust Nile and Joe to order it if left to their own devices – while they try to clear out a space in the living room. Eventually, though, after Nile has another sneezing fit, Joe suggests they just take the sleeping bags outside instead, which works out a lot better. He sets about starting a fire with practiced ease while Nile sets out the sleeping bags around it. They’re far enough away from civilisation that she can’t hear cars passing by, which is kind of surreal, and the stars are brighter than she’s ever seen them. 

When Nicky gets back, two boxes balanced on one arm and a bottle of wine in the other, he looks over their makeshift camp and laughs. “Just like old times, then?” he asks.

Joe grins. “Except we have pizza.”

“And actual sleeping bags,” Nile says.

“Ah, these modern inventions could never quite match the comfort of a pile of furs,” Joe says wistfully. Nile gives him a look. She’s ninety percent sure that one’s bullshit, but she can never quite tell with him. 

Nicky sets down the pizza boxes, and jogs back to the car to grab the pack of plastic wine glasses they’d bought before they got here. 

“We should’ve bought marshmallows,” Nile says. “Could have made s’mores.”

“Well, we’ll have to go to the hardware store tomorrow anyway,” Joe points out. “And I think it’ll be a little while before we can actually sleep in there.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” Nicky agrees.

[nemicoamatomio]

“Don’t Ask”

An Old Guard minific. Teen +

Nile asks questions. Nile gets answers she didn’t need.

I apologize if any of the Italian doesn’t make sense. I did my best with Google. Translations provided at the end for the words that aren’t explained.

“Um, hey Joe?” Nile said, knowing her tone screamed ‘curious puppy seeing snow for the first time,’ but unable to shape it into anything else.

“Don’t ask!” Andy yelled from the other room, and both Nile and Joe giggled.

“Questions are healthy, especially for someone so new. Ignore her. Ask away, kiddo,” Joe said, leaning past the stove to grab a clove of garlic.

Kiddo. Her dad used to call her that. She’d started bristling at it when she turned nine, arguing with him that “I’m not a kid anymore!” Which, who was she kidding, of course she was a kid. She was still a kid, especially now, surrounded by thousand-year-olds. And when her dad had passed, she’d been so angry at herself for denying the endearment, spent hours awake at night crying about how she should have let him call her shit-head if he’d wanted to. So she was definitely going to embrace it now, from a man she was quickly becoming deeply fond of.

“So, you know how I’ve been trying to learn Italian?” she asked, watching as Joe leaned over and popped a few cloves of garlic off the bunch and placed them on a cheap plastic cutting board.

It wasn’t going to be a Ritzy meal by any stretch of the imagination, but they’d all taken a group trip to a nearby farmer’s market a few days previous, and purchased the bare minimums for halfway-decent meals for the next two weeks while they prepared for the stake-out portion of their current job.

“Si,” Joe replied jovially, retrieving the meat cleaver, placing it broad-side atop the cloves, and pressing gently but firmly with a palm to crack the hard skin.

“Well, a lot of it overlaps other languages, so I’ve been able to glean from context and sound. Like... the word for heart is similar to French.”

Joe smiled without looking at her, clearly aware that she only knew this because of his use of cuore mio in reference to Nicky.

“Si,” Joe said again, peeling away the garlic skins and tossing them into the old grocery bag that stood in for a trash bin in their modest and very run-down Zurich safe house.

“And fuoco is pretty close to the Spanish word for fire, so I’ve obviously figured out that Nicky calls you fire of my heart.”

Joe grinned even wider, nodding as he flipped the cleaver upright and began staccato-slicing the cloves.

“So... the other day, he switched it up, and used a word I don’t know,” Nile continued.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Andy called from the other room, where she and Nicky were playing some kind of card game that seemed to predate cards.

Joe shook his head, affection clear in his features as he scooped up the neatly-diced garlic on the blade and swiped it into the pan of olive oil.

“Do you remember it? What did it sound like?” he asked, pausing to face her as he let the garlic brown.

She pursed her lips, recalling the phonetics.

“Pall-ey? Pall-ay? Something along those lines?” she said.

Joe stilled, eyes going minutely wider and his mouth falling open. From the other room, Andy snorted. Nicky was suspiciously quiet.

“What, uh... what was the context of this?” Joe asked, eyes leaving her and narrowing suspiciously in the direction of the other room.

“It was when we were at the farmer’s market, getting all of this,” she continued, motioning to the box of pasta and tomatoes, which shined like new pennies. “You had disappeared for a minute, and came back with those espresso-chocolate covered figs for him. He said it under his breath afterward, I don’t think you heard.”

“You did not?!” Andy said from the other room, exasperation clear on her tone.

“I didn’t think she heard,” Nicky’s voice said flatly, and Nile could practically picture the accompanying shrug.

“Fuoco del palle mio? Was that it?” Joe asked, a little color rising on his cheeks and mingling with the line of his well-kept beard.

“Yeah! That’s it! What does it mean?” she asked excitedly.

Joe pinched the bridge of his nose, shook his head and, in a slightly raised tone, yelled, “you wanna take this one, Nicolo?”

Nile noted the use of Nicky’s full name as something playfully scolding, and Nicky called back,

“All you, amore!”

Joe sighed again, letting his hand fall to slap against his thigh.

“Merdino, always making messes you won’t clean up,” he groaned, but it was painfully fond, with hardly any dedication to the words.

Finally, his eyes rose to meet Nile’s, an apology seemingly written in their dark, cavelike depths.

“Balls,” he said, his cheeks coloring even more. “It means balls.”

“Fire of... oh...” Nile slapped a hand to her face, covering her own embarrassment. “Yep, you were right Andy, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Told you!” Andy called out happily, and Nicky could be heard exclaiming “scusa!”

Everyone laughed hard, and it echoed around the small, intimate space, and leapt out the open doors and windows to frolic through the foothills.

“You’re burning the garlic, habibi!” Nicky eventually yelled from the other room, and Joe spun back to the pan with a muttered “cazzo!”

“What does that one mean?!” Nile asked, and Andy tossed a throw pillow at her.

Merdino— little shit

Scusa— sorry

Cazzo— fuck

[andtheywerecocaptains]

8 for the ways to say i love you prompts? ✨

HEGEL i did it finally. This came out sappy, unnecessarily long but hey ho. I was also slightly inspired by that one hc about Nicky keeping track of their songs during the centuries but i cannot find the actual post to save my life. 

I hope you enjoy it! I tweaked it a little bit and maybe the “unrequested” bit got lost... or did it?

send me kaysanova prompts from this list!

8. Buying them something unrequested because it made you think of them.

***********

Nile had made a huge mistake by showing Joe how to operate Tik Tok. No one other than Yusuf himself would’ve had the mental space to actually get sucked into it and enjoy every single stupid video he came across. Nicky observed from outside, as usual, a smile on his face, as usual. The enthusiasm Joe showed for the effort some of those people put in their videos was always refreshing. He used to force Nicky to watch some of them together and Nicky could not help but think that he had no idea as to what he was looking at.

Nile had taught Joe words like trends, transitions, twerk, dab, woah - and Nicky had always found himself thinking  that he could not keep up with one more language.

This is why his eyebrows were lifted up to his hairline that day when Joe asked him to try one of those trends with him. What on God’s green Earth-

“Come on love, it will be fun! We don’t have to film it, we just have to do it.”

“Amore, you know I have no idea what it is that you are talking about.”

“I will explain! Look.”

Joe had handed him a list he’d written on a piece of paper that Nicky recognised as coming from his sketch book. Not that the list had made it any easier for Nicky to understand what Joe was on about.

“I don’t understand. What am I looking at?”

“It’s a shopping list. We go out separately, we buy something for every item on the list, we come back home, we show each other what we got.”

“My favourite colour” Nicky read out, from the first item on the list “Your favourite colour?”

“Exactly! You get it. Buy something that has my favourite colour in it.”

Nicky sighed, still looking at the list like it had his death date written on it. He had to admit, though, it was a cute idea. And Joe was so excited, his eyes were literally glittering, so how could he say no to him?

***

They got back hours later within a few minutes of each other, each of them carrying a few shopping bags. Nicky observed that Joe had been way smarter than him and had chosen a shopping mall, whilst Nicky had preferred visiting smaller shops and had way more bags in comparison.

They sat at the table, on opposite sides and Joe whipped out his list, with a smile that went from ear to ear. He was way too excited. Nicky’s lips perked up in a softer smile, his chest warm with all the affection he could feel for his husband. His joy was always contagious and Nicky almost forgot how ridiculous he was feeling because of what he was doing.

This, until Joe started to read out the list.

“Okay, number one, My Favourite Colour.”

Nicky dug in one of the bags he had positioned at his feet and pulled out an incense holder, with intricate decorations that were of the exact same colour as his own eyes.

Joe’s favourite colour.

Joe, on the other hand, had chosen a very comfy-looking sweater, and Nicky couldn’t help but notice that the colour matched that of Joe’s freckles to perfection.

“Habibi, that’s perfect.” Joe commented, taking a few seconds to look at Nicky’s incense holder and then putting it on one side gently. It looked like he just could not stop smiling and Nicky wished for a second to have Joe’s ability to capture it on paper.

“Number two, My Favourite Snack.”

This had been way too easy for Nicky. Joe had tasted taralli long ago, but he hadn’t stopped asking Nicky to make them ever since. He obviously hadn’t had time to make some from scratch, but he knew a small Italian shop just a few doors down from their house and he trusted the owner enough to know that he could buy some quality food.

“Taralli! God, I love you!” Joe shouted, grabbing a hold of the box way too quickly and Nicky let out a small laugh.

It was only after having had a bite that Joe gave Nicky his favourite snack: baghrir. Obviously. Nicky’s sweet tooth was well known, especially by his husband, and Joe had been reminded about their days in Morocco and that plate of baghrir for possibly centuries. How Joe had managed to find them and purchase them – that remained a mistery.

“Number three, Something We Need in the House.”

A tricky one. For someone that moved houses so often like them, they never had managed to actually settle down and think about decorating the place. The closest they’d ever come to doing this was Malta, but it had been a few years since they’d last been.

“I had to think long and hard about this one but I think I got it.” Nicky prefaced, and took out a lava lamp from one of the bags.

Joe’s laughter exploded in the room and Nicky’s smile widened in response. He still remembered the first time Joe had seen one of those and how much time he had spent just looking at them. Nicky imagined that, scientifically speaking, they must’ve been quite the shock at the time and he was sure that he would have to stop Joe from wanting to open one up to see how it worked.

Joe stood up and reached for Nicky from the other side of the table to kiss him on the forehead. “That’s great. I love it.” he whispered, then sat back down.

Joe’s item had been a way more practical electrical razor. They had struggled quite a lot to move away from the cut-throats, especially because shaving each other using one of those was always a great experience. But finding good ones was getting harder and harder, so they’d agreed to finally get on with it and try and stay a bit more modern.

“Number four, Something I Need in My Wardrobe.”

The leather trousers landed on the table in front of Nicky even before he’d managed to register which item Joe was reading out.

“Yusuf!” Nicky exclaimed, a bit alarmed as well, but his complaints got lost in Joe’s laughter.

“Come on hayati, you’d look sublime in them and you know it.”

Joe was looking at him from across the table as if he was ready to jump up, grab him by his waist and carry him to bed that very moment. Nicky’s eyes kept going from Joe’s face to the trousers and then back up on Joe. A millennium spent alive and together meant that all the issues about themselves and their bodies had been washed away, but Joe always made sure to never stop reminding Nicky how beautiful he was and, in this very instance, how good his butt looked all the time.

Nicky gave Joe one last look, the corner of his own lips slightly lifted in an expression that clearly said “alright, fine” and put the trousers away.

“I cheated on this one.” Nicky announced and left the room for a second, coming back with a long blue scarf.

“I’ve been knitting this for a while now. Was about to let you have it, but then I thought I could use it as my item.” he explained, then sat back down and passed the scarf to Joe.

Joe buried his face in it, felt the softness against his skin and closed his eyes in bliss for a few seconds. Nicky loved absolutely every single thing Joe did, but that expression was definitely in the top ten list. Especially as a reaction to one of his gifts.

“I love it. Sorry, I keep saying ‘I love it’ to every single item you’ve brought, but I actually do.” Joe laughed again and Nicky shook his head gently, still smiling.

“Okay, last one. Something I Need.”

This was the one that had taken Nicky the longest out of all the items. What does someone who’s lived forever need? They had bought and tried everything in their lifetimes. Plus, if anything came up that one of them thought the other needed, they just bought it for each other. They had stopped birthdays a long time ago – there was no need for immortal beings to celebrate their life for just one day. They already did that, together, constantly.

“I think you need me in those trousers.” Nicky said and Joe nodded his head animatedly “But I also think you need this.” He put a CD in front of Joe, causing him to look at it with a huge question mark written on his face.

“Turn it around.” Nicky encouraged him, and Joe did so, in order to be able to read the list of songs Nicky had burned into it – with Nile’s help, obviously.

“Are these-”

“All our songs, yes. The ones I could find.”

Joe had the lovely habit to point out songs every once in a while, and say “Listen, Nicky! It’s our song!” with a huge smile on his face. This had happened numerous times during the centuries and the list had been growing and growing. The lyrics and the music had changed with time, but the sentiment was always the same and it had warmed Nicky’s heart every single time.

What Joe didn’t know, though, is that Nicky had kept track of all the songs he had marked as “our song”.

“Nicolò…”

Nicky could tell Joe’s voice had cracked a little bit when saying his name and couldn’t help but smile.

“It’s nothing major.”

“Are you joking?” Joe had complained, looking at him with a frown, lifting the CD as if he was showing him how important that gift actually was. It was then that Nicky could see that his eyes has filled up with tears as well.

“Oh, amore.” Nicky whispered and got up. He was still smiling, and walked around the table in order to reach Joe, who in the meantime had got up so that he could meet him and hug him, burrowing his face against Nicky’s neck.

Nicky tangled his fingers in Joe’s curls, kissing him just above his ear.

“I still need my gift, you know.” he whispered again so that Joe could hear him.

“I think-” Joe answered after a few seconds, reaching for his back pocket and pulling out a small velvety box, bringing it up in between the two of them without letting go of Nicky with his other arm. He opened by pushing down on one side, revealing a ring, very similar to the ones Joe was already wearing.

“I think you need to marry me again.”

[nkp1981]

A conversation that makes Nile understand Joe and Nicky's relationship a little bit better.

Nile and Nicky opted to seek shelter from the rain in a café, while waiting for Andy and Joe to return from finding a car.

Nicky: “Tea?”

Nile: “No thanks, I prefer coffee with ten spoonfuls of sugar.”

Nicky: “So, coffee before sucker or the other way around?”

Nile: “The first.”

Nicky: “Take the corner over there.” And pointed behind her, before he went over to the counter to order their beverages.

At that bar a woman started to flirt with Nicky, who first tried to ignore her, but when she tried to take his hand, that was resting at the counter, he pulled it away and told her, he was married, and she should respect it, which resulted in she poured her drink over him, before storming out of the café, while Nicky took the beverages and went over to Nile.

Waiter: “Here!” And gave Nicky a towel before returning to working.

Nicky: “Thanks.” And gave him a smile, before he started to dry his pants. “Don’t look so worried, Nile. I’ve tried worse.” When he saw the look on her face and sat down.

Nile: “I don’t get it.”

Nicky: “Listen, me and Joe’s love has lasted over 900 years, but it has never been an easy love, since it always has been a love, that had to survive in a world with animosity and lack of understanding.”

Nile: “I still don’t get it, because the world has moved on during those 900 years.”

Nicky: “To use one of Joe’s old phrases, whenever he comes along someone, who doesn’t understand our love: you’re a child, Nile in your views on the world. You need to understand that, when we fell in love it was socially unacceptable in the most of the world for two men or women to love each other, and that if they got caught, they could end up with being whipped or executed and the penalty was even worse if a Christian and a Muslim loved each other. There are still places in the world, where they still think like they did over a millennia ago.”

Nile: “So, how did you two have date nights back then and have you ever been caught?”

Nicky: “Date nights weren't invented back then, Nile, but we have always kept our love under the open sky, because it will never judge us, or when we found an abandoned place, we made it into our home for a time until we ran out of supplies. And whenever we were in a town and had a meal at an inn, we stuck to two basic rules: get a corner and talk Arabic or Italic depending on where we were in the world. It gave us a certain security, but we never let down our guard at any time. Things got a bit easier for us, when we were with Andy and Quynh, because people assumed that we were two couples eating out, but when we’re alone and turned down women by saying, that we’re married and it had no interest, we sometimes ended up with food or wine in the lap or the floor and sometimes we got kicked out of the inn for saying no. And yes, we have been caught a few times over the years and yes, we also got punished for loving each other.” And looked out of the window because it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about.

Nile: “When did you two get married? I mean, you couldn’t just walk up to a priest and ask him to ‘say the words’ so to speak.” And couldn’t understand why Nicky was smiling,

Nicky: “That was exactly what we did.”

Nile confused: “How did you do that?”

Nicky: “Call it my last act as a priest.” Which made Nile choke on her coffee. “Are you ok?”

Nile: “Just fine, so that explains those two rings Joe wears all the time.”

Nicky: “Another one our safety precautions and most of all, because Joe got tired of me forgetting my ring everywhere.” And started to touch his finger absent minded.

Nile: “You’re pretty easy to distract especially, when Joe walks past you.”

Nicky with a laughter in his voice: “Hey!”

Nile: “But it’s a clever idea that only one of you has the rings. Do you ever wear yours?”

Nicky: “Yes, but I won't tell you when.”

Nile: “I’ll respect that, and I promise not to share your secrets with others.”

Nicky: “Thanks, but when you have been around as long as we have, you also will see that some things move to the better while other things won’t. it’s in that schism you need to maneuver between, and you’ll also have days, where it will seem like you aren’t moving at all. It’s there you call us, and we will be there for you.”

Nile: “It’s nice to have a brother again. it’s still ok, that I call you that?” She had asked Nicky yesterday if it was ok to consider him as a brother, since she was closest to him of them all.

Nicky with a smirk: “Off course, just remember that your new brother has a husband with a preference for long monologues. Just so you know what you’re in for.” And looked over at the door at Andy and Joe, who looked around the room to locate them.

Nile: “I can live with that.”

Joe: “Let me guess: an angry woman?” When he saw that Nicky’s pants were wet.

Nicky: “We have tried worse over the years. Remember that time a woman almost burned down the inn, because you rejected her?”

Andy: “Enough you two. Nicky, get some dry pants on and be ready to leave in four hours. We'll meet back here. Nile you’re with me.” And stood up with Nile after her.

Joe with a smirk: “So, since Andy didn’t give me any orders, do you need any help with changing your pants, Habibi?” And moved even closer to Nicky.

Nicky: “Only if I can have my ring back.” And Joe took the ring he had on his left index finger and took Nicky’s right hand, where he put the ring on his ring finger. “Thanks love.” He then gave Joe a kiss.

Joe: “I want it back before we go on the mission.” And Nicky nodded.

Nicky: “I promise you that.”

At that moment confetti started to fall down at them, and they saw the waiter with a big smile.

Waiter: “Congratulation. Wait here a sec and I’ll get you a bottle of champagne on the house. Do you want to drink it here or to go?”

Nicky: “To go, thanks.” And gave the waiter the towel back, before he went out to the back to find a bottle.

Joe: “Did he just think, I asked you to marry me?”

Nicky laughing: “Yeah but we didn’t get any champagne the first time, you asked.”

Joe: “No it was after right after a fight, which wasn’t the most romantic circumstances now I think about it.”

Nicky: “And that’s why I said no.”

Joe: “Which only made me even more determined.” And took Nicky’s hand, so they could merge their fingers together. “I’m just glad you said yes the fifth time, because I was running out of ideas!”

Nicky: “Actually I did say yes the third time.” Which made Joe think like a mad because he couldn’t remember it. “You got so drunk at the inn in Cairo, that when I wanted to put you to bed, you grabbed my face and asked again, but when I said yes, you had fallen asleep.”

Joe: “You cheeky little bastard, that’s why you rebuffed me the fourth time.”

Nicky: “All things come to those who wait. Thanks.” And took the bottle from the waiter.

Waiter: “Don’t mention it and congratulations once again.”

Nicky reached out his hand towards Joe: “Are you coming?” and Joe took it.

Joe: “We are far from finished with this conversation, Nicolo.”

Nicky: “I know, but you get a choice now: do you want to have the conversation now, or help me with changing pants and drink champagne, the last couple of hours we have left before the mission, because who knows, when we will get another moment alone?”

Joe: “When you put it like that, I’ll take the last option.”

my creation

[scythian-andromache]

homeward bound

a The Old Guard fic Relationship: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Rating: T (referenced canon-typical violence) Summary: Nicolò di Genova came from Genova before Italy even existed, but it's been a long time since Nicky went home. (AKA: the immortals have a complicated relationship with memory and nostalgia, but sometimes home is intangible.)

also on [AO3]

***

Places, they hold memories in them. Make them tangible again, like a smell that transports you back to your childhood classroom, or a song that sends shivers up your spine and makes you feel just as you did when you first heard it in a café twenty years ago. Places are vessels for the past, even as physical landscapes shape the future. They hold the imprints of the things that happened there, for better or worse; places have power.

*

"Joe, Nicky, I need you to meet this contact." Andy's voice is crisp and collected as she details the next mission, passing Joe a scrap of paper with an address. "They have a dossier we need, and we can't leave an electronic trail. In person only, this time."

Even with Copley covering their asses, erasing any digital footprint he finds, Andy's been extra careful of late, making sure there's no chance that anyone learns who they are again, and honestly, Nicky appreciates it. He doesn't need anyone else experimenting on Joe. It's not the first time they've been captured and it probably won't be the last, but being used as lab rats has left a certain bitter pang of fear in the back of Nicky's brain.

"Nile will go with me," Andy continues, unaware of the little detour his brain took him on. "We'll rendezvous in three days, at the safe house outside of Marseille." She pauses. "You get out clean, you hear me? I'd better see both your ugly mugs in front of me on Thursday."  

"Yes, boss," says Joe, and Nicky manages a small smile, because this is one of the little ways Andy says I love you.

"Right, let's move out."

It's only a matter of grabbing their go-bags, really, but Nicky takes a moment to pull Nile aside and give her a quick hug.

"You take care of yourself, cucciola," he whispers. "Look out for Andy, but look out for yourself too, capisci?"

Nile hugs him fiercely, tightly, and then lets go quickly, straightening back into the stiff military stance that seems to be her fallback in situations like these when she's tamping down her emotions. "See you in three days, and not a second later."

He nods, and then they're going their separate ways, Andy and Nile screeching away in Andy's beat up Citroën.

"You want to do the honors, Habibi?" Joe asks, sliding into the driver's seat and passing the little scrap of neatly folded paper that contains their mission to Nicky.

Of course, Joe immediately complicates Nicky's efforts by reaching out to lace their fingers together over the gear shift, distracting him so that he fumbles with the paper. Nicky laughs, his task all the more difficult now with just one hand, and Joe lifts their twined hands to give Nicky's a kiss. Nicky shakes his head fondly at Joe's antics—he starts every road trip this way—and finally looks down to read who they're headed to meet.

The corners of Nicky's vision blur a little, and he feels himself go lightheaded. He squeezes Joe's hand tightly—too tightly—as he stares uncomprehendingly at what's inked there. Even though there is a name and the street number of a residence off of a piazza, all he can see is the last line, written in Copley's tight script: Genoa, Italy.

"Yusuf," he breathes. "Yusuf, look."

*

Genova, once upon a time, was home. Long before "Italy" existed, long before he became an immortal, the bustling streets of the merchant city were as familiar to Nicky as the freckle on his wrist or the soft way his mother smiled at her children when they did something clever. There was the market, where people shouted over each other about wares and prices, and the fountain where, at age nine, he'd tested his balance walking the lip of it and failed miserably, falling and scraping his knee, and the little twisting alley behind his home where, at thirteen on a dare, he'd chastely kissed Francesca, the baker's daughter, and hated it. He knew to always walk on the left side of the street that passed along his house, because the right side had loose cobblestones that were liable to trip you, and he knew that on Fridays, the shipbuilders took to the taverns, filling them with spirited—if drunken—singing. He fit there, and life was uncomplicated, or at least as uncomplicated as life ever gets.

*

Nicky hasn't been to Genova in more than nine hundred years.

They're immortals with adequate resources and his name is literally di Genova, so it might seem strange. Such a tangible connection to a location, one that was so close to his heart, and he hasn't gone in centuries, not even when he and Joe lived in Venitzia during the Renaissance, and not when they went to Firenze for the weekend a few years ago.

Because sometimes you can't go back.

He tried, once, in the early years after he first became immortal. He thought it might be a balm, a comfort. Something familiar to ease the profound sense of loss that had opened a cavern in his chest. A touchstone to who he'd been before the world turned upside down.

Instead, it felt like walking through a ghost town. It felt like existing within a refracted re-creation of his memories. Everything so hauntingly familiar, and yet slightly out of place. The city had grown, re-bricked, a new plaza where there should have been a house, and rows of shops and residences that hadn't existed before. The market went on cheerfully in the same spot, but the vendors were new, the wares organized differently. He'd walked past his childhood home to find the street busier, the stucco faded and cracked.

On his walk through the city, he'd sworn he saw his sister at the market, her face staring back at him, and then the woman had cursed him out for looking at her too long, and he'd realized the pitch of her voice was wrong, the curve of her eyebrow not quite right. Maybe, possibly, the old woman she was with when she left the market—hair greying and hunched figure and deep wrinkles around her dark eyes—had been his sister, or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Maybe she'd already been dead a generation. Maybe Nicky didn't actually remember her face, already so faded in his memory, and was so desperate to remember that he'd opened himself up to the power of suggestion.

It was only after the incident in the market that he realized: time had been grinding away at this once-familiar place, leaving no comfort to be had.

Nicky left the next morning, and never tried to return to Genova again.

*

It wasn't that he'd avoided it specifically; there'd just never been a reason to go before, and even though they'd visited Joe's hometown once, he'd never pushed to see Nicky's, sensing his reluctance.

After all, Genova isn't the only place Nicky or Joe have a difficult relationship with; perhaps it's the most salient, but they're immortal, and places tend to carry tangible reminders of the lives they've led, and the people they'll never get back.

Memories weigh down other cities too. Constantinople—er, Istanbul now, Nicky supposes—is another one, the streets somehow both foreign and nostalgic after the ten years they lived there. Echoes of friends' laughs ring out in quiet corners of the city, and the fragrant odor of spices—the bite of cumin and the wafting caress of mint—in the grand bazaar smells like hot nights drinking coffee with excitable scholars, passionately discussing philosophy until all hours, when their eyelids got leaden but their hearts were full. And strolling along the picturesque canals in Bruges never fails to turn up pangs of the indescribable loss of Quỳnh, and the memory of a broken Andy, sobbing that she'd lost her. (It's the only time Nicky can remember seeing Andy cry in the thousand years since they'd met.)

It happens with every place they've ever lived to some degree, wholly unavoidable, but Genova holds a strange and intimate attachment—something intrinsic—that these other places do not have.

It's true that sometimes you can never go back, but it's also true that you cannot escape your past entirely, either.

And now they have a mission there.

*

They pull into Genova in the late afternoon, as the golden hour rays are illuminating the city. (There's really nothing quite like the Italian sun, especially as it sets the port and the seaside on fire.) It's more colorful than he remembers, except for the water: that's as vibrant as it's always been.

They're making contact with their source in the morning, which means that tonight is mostly about laying low and not getting killed, two things that they should frankly be better at than they are.

Joe finds them an unremarkable pensione on a quiet side street, and books them a room for the night, paid in cash and using aliases. Untraceable.

Their route to finding a place to eat takes them past a view of the ocean and Nicky has to pause. Everything else has changed, but the ocean hasn't, not really. It's from a slightly different angle, but the same view he grew up with, familiar in a reflexive way, like muscle memory, something he'd forgotten he knew.

Over dinner, they talk about the mission, and speculate about how Nile and Andy are doing ("I bet you Andy's already done something stupid and Nile's had to take a bullet for her," Joe says, and Nicky replies, "Do you think I'm stupid? I know Andy too well; there's no way I'm taking that bet.") and revisit their long-standing debate about whether exiling Booker when his betrayal was borne of loneliness and isolation is really the right move.

The beautiful thing about being with someone so very long is that they know you, inside and out. Joe doesn't need to ask about how Nicky's dealing with being back in Genova, because he can see it written out across his face, detailed in the tension in his shoulders. (They'd talked a little bit about it in the car, and will probably talk about it some more later, but for now Joe won't press, and Nicky loves him all the more for it.)

On the way back to the pensione they take a different route, and stumble across a little plaza that Nicky recognizes. He squeezes Joe's hand and they continue, but if he looks hard enough, he fancies he can see the shade of his younger self scampering across the cobblestones.

How foolish, really.

*

In the deepest depths of the night, Nicky, restless, slips out of bed, sneaks out of the pensione.

The city has been painted over, rebuilt a dozen different times and pieced together like a patchwork quilt, but underneath it all are the bones of the city Nicky once knew. His feet carry him through the warren of streets, and he finds himself, suddenly, standing in front of his childhood home.

He stares at the building where he was born. Where he begrudgingly learned his first shaky letters. Where he sliced open his palm, trying to whittle a bit of wood like his older brother. Where he and his sister Catalina, closest in age of all of them, swapped whispered secrets and fantastical stories of their own creation. Where he dreamed of changing the world with the misguided vision of an insulated youth. Where he ate, slept, and laughed for the first fourteen years of his very long life.

It's a drop in the bucket, now, and looking at it this time doesn't produce the same emotions as it did so long ago. Instead, he just feels an emptiness, a sense of detachment. It is someone else's home now. It has not been his in any meaningful way for a long time, a transfer of ownership occurring with every brick that was replaced, every layer of paint splattered on. A blessing and a curse in equal measure, he supposes, to feel this way.

He's been there a few minutes—reality almost lost to him as he tries to remember exactly how his mother used to quirk her eyebrows at them and finds he can't—when he suddenly realizes that he's not alone, a thousand years of dangerous situations training him to notice and believe the prickling feeling on the back of his neck.

But when he turns, he just sees Joe, hands in his pockets, watching him intently. His face is thrown half in relief by a nearby streetlamp, and he blinks for a moment, marveling at how beautiful his Yusuf is, how entirely dear.

Joe doesn't ask what Nicky is doing here, or why he's not getting the sleep they need before the drop tomorrow. He simply joins him, and they stand there in quiet contemplation for a few moments, just being together in front of this unspectacular building.

Finally, "Is this where Nicolotto grew up?"

Nicky finds himself nodding. "It was not much back then, either. Less, even."

Joe studies the place again in the flickering light of the streetlamps.

"It should be a museum," he declares, and Nicky scoffs.

"Every house in Italy could be in a museum if you think having old bones warrants a spot there."

"Ah, but not every house was your house," says Joe.

"The person who came from here was no good," mutters Nicky. For all the shiny, fleeting memories of childhood, he wasn't: he was prejudiced, closed minded, convinced of his own superiority, taught to hate instead of love. It took dying several times—several dozen—to figure that out.

"None of that, ya Habib albi. That person needed to live," says Joe, fiercely, "needed to die, needed to be, so that I could meet you." Nicky ducks his head, but Joe's only just beginning, and he continues emphatically, "His existence is a miracle I praise every day, because every moment in time had to happen exactly as it did so that I would meet you, so that we might exist together. If this is the house where you grew up, I praise the blocks that made it stand, so that you might sleep each night within it; I praise the stones on the ground that absorbed your footfalls; I praise the herbs that grew on the windowsill and sweetened the air of each breath you drew in. This place, flawed though it may be, brought me you."

Yusuf's poeticism is nothing new, but it still sneaks up on him every time. "Elegant bastard," Nicky curses, several tears tracking down his cheeks, and reaches out, cups Joe's face tenderly and pulls him in for a desperate kiss.

A millennia and his lips are still tingling, a millennia and Joe's kiss is still tender, life-affirming, a question and an answer and a beautiful, delicate promise all at once.

Even when they break apart, they remain in each other's space, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling, hands resting on cheeks.

It's not as though they've been apart for any vast stretch of time recently, but Nicky still takes a moment to relish in Joe's presence, ground himself in the warmth of Joe's skin under his fingertips. It's on a deep inhale as he clears his mind that the idea comes to him, and he flicks his eyes open to meet Joe's.

"Yallah ya hayati."

"Ila al-funduq?"

"Not yet," Nicky says. He links his arm through Joe's. "I want to show you something else, first."

Nicky lets his feet guide them, and together they walk the remnants of the neighborhood of Nicky's youth, as he tells Joe about the merchant who lived in that house, and the shop on this street that sometimes gave the neighborhood children sweets when the owner was in a good mood. He allows himself to reminisce, finally stops holding back the wave of wistfulness and sadness and displacement and fondness—complicated and messy—as he narrates these long gone trivial bits of his childhood to Joe. The eastern sky is smudged with a little pink by the time the arrive back at the pensione for a few quick hours of sleep.  

*

It is easier the next morning, a weight off his chest, the itchy eyes that come with a lack of sleep a small price to pay. When they go to collect the dossier, they trod part of a route he thinks that he used to take to go to the butcher's shop for his mother.

"I got into a fight in that alley," he says aloud, as the memory springs to life for the first time in centuries, triggered by the curve of the stone at the corner of the building.

"My Nicolò?" asks Joe dramatically, pretending to be shocked. "In a fight?"

"It wasn't much of one," says Nicky, the ghost of a smile on his face. He can't remember what the fight was about, anymore, or the name of the boy he got in a scuffle with. Dario? Dante? It doesn't come to him. Just the kiss of pain that came with his split lip and bruised cheekbone.

"Of course it wasn't," says Joe. "You had not yet met me."

Nicky snorts, but Joe isn't wrong. To this day, and even counting the many missions Andy has sent them on, some of his most intense fights were against Joe, before they realized they were far better suited as lovers than enemies.

"I have a secret," he says in a low voice, and when Joe turns to look at him, he continues, "I do not even think I won."

Joe's laugh rings out along the cobblestone street.  

*

Genova, once upon a time, was home, but that was a long time ago. Places are vessels for memory and nostalgia, reminders of the people we have known and the people we have been. Places have power, but something you learn with time is that, powerful as they may be, home is not always a place.  

As they pull out of the city with the dossier tucked in his bag, Joe at the wheel and hands laced together over the gear shift, Nicky feels something within himself quiet. Genova still means something to him and probably always will, but it is softer now, more approachable, a collection of memories he is reconciling with and not a cavernous hole to be avoided. He is content with filing it away as home, once instead of the dour no longer home he's thought of it as for so long.

After all, it is Yusuf, dear Yusuf, who is home, who has been for nearly a millennia now. His eyes are vessels for memory—their brightest, happiest moments, and also the tragedy and hardships they have faced together—and his soft smile carries its own nostalgia, even as it is his beacon of hope. Home is a patchwork of days and nights and soft whispers traded between them, a constellation of moments traced across his skin, the invisible story of their love etched within their souls.

Nicky lifts up their intertwined fingers and kisses Joe's hand, and when Joe glances over at him, he smiles softly, a thousand beautiful memories refracted in Joe's eyes. Home, indeed.

***