Continued from here: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/694.html?thread=2122422&posted=1#cmt2190262
Sorry about the delay! The actual writing was easier this time, which means hopefully no more tomatoey mishaps, but Life is in overdrive rn. I'm doing the bulk of the moving on the 19th, so I don't want to make any promises for before then, though I will be working on the next part, but after that I should be all clear for writing.
Heads up that there’s some reference to serious injury in mild-moderate detail here – nothing too bad in the grand scale of ‘many times’ but let’s call it upsetting detail referenced with all the (lack of) delicacy merited when you’ve been murdered like sixty times. Or, you know, canon-typical body horror. (Also, I had to split this in the middle of a section break because it didn't work any other way; sorry about the five-second cliffhanger. :) ) * Yusuf isn’t sure how long they intend to stay in Baghdad. At first he didn’t ask because it wasn’t especially important, and then he didn’t raise the subject because he was enjoying the city and didn’t particularly want to think of leaving, and now he’s left it too long, so that it’s just a giant, needless millstone of dread sitting in his stomach.
Growing older makes one aware of one’s poor habits, he reflects wryly, but this does not guarantee anything will change.
Nevertheless, he’s well aware that simply… remaining, until some too-closely witnessed accident or suspicion about the too-kind march of years means they will have to depart, whether quietly or quickly. He is also aware, even more keenly than he was at thirty (or sixty) that ignoring something he doesn’t want to think about will only make it a larger, more daunting problem, when most likely dealing with it head on would be either an entirely unremarkable task in reality, or at worst an unpleasant but brief one.
And yet… “We are fallible creatures,” he sighs, earning a strange look from a donkey. “We know ourselves to be fallible, and so we watch ourselves fail and say, ‘Ah, yes, how ridiculous human nature,’ and we do it again.”
The donkey fails to acknowledge his truly profound piece of philosophy. It brays loudly, which Yusuf refuses to acknowledge as commentary.
But of course Yusuf is not a foolish young man any longer; nor is he thirty (nor sixty), and therefore he commits (for perhaps the second or third time, but never mind about that) to bring up the subject with Nicolò in the evening – with the casualness it deserves, rather than the weight it has accumulated.
“And I am uninterested in what you have to say about it,” he observes to the donkey, which seems on the point of making a quip.
“I apologize,” Kazem says from behind him, utterly taken aback, and Yusuf whirls to realize he has distracted himself from his client’s arrival.
“No, no,” he protests. “I was speaking to – ah–” But no. There is absolutely no way to salvage his dignity without giving grievous offense. Yusuf sighs, slumps a little, and points helplessly at the donkey.
“Oh?” Kazem is attempting to make it a polite enquiry, but his voice goes high with stifled amusement.
Since Yusuf is surely old enough to be beyond such foolish things as ego, he sighs internally and only offers Kazem a slightly abashed smile. “Shall we find a place to sit?”
“Please.” Kazem gestures to the nearest building but one. “That is the eating-house I recommended. I always find such things are best discussed over a meal.”
“You are a wise man.”
If the donkey makes remark as they leave the street, Yusuf is far too enlightened to notice.
*
He’s in a good mood when he returns home, not least because he’s been commissioned for three separate translations at more than half again his usual rate. If Kazem has a new story to make the rounds with among his business acquaintances, this time about the eccentricities of his translator, well, Yusuf has decided he deserves it. Perhaps he’ll spin the tale to Nicolò that he furnished one apurpose, for that reason. Nicolò will never believe it, but his brow will furrow in doubt and disbelief, which makes him look endearing.
Yusuf’s heart quivers, and his stomach lurches in response. As he always does when those feelings arise (more and more often lately, but no good thinking about that now), he pushes both aside and determinedly turns his thoughts elsewhere.
Today especially he is determined not to lose his good mood. He has managed to find some quality persimmons at the market, and at a bargain as well (and as pleased as he is by that, he really only bought them because Nicolò is exceptionally fond of date-plums, and there it is again, better move on); he learned on his way home, from her husband, that Ruqayyah is nearly recovered from her fall and her fever is gone, and since she has a taste for it and is well enough now to eat but not cook, would he bring some of his strange and excellent Frankish cooking once again, some night (and if there’s a slight pang at that, it’s only because he knows he can draw much better metaphors than a parallel between a friendship and a slightly altered dish); and the half-vicious cat that always skulks around their street took a scrap of meat from his hand that morning without even clawing him (Yusuf has tamed far worse than a cat in his lifetime, but sadly Nicolò was not with him to be teased about it, so he has saved that one up for tonight).
Nicolò is not there when he arrives home, which is to be expected; the other man has been finding casual work as a labourer quite often these days. He enjoys it, he says, and it gives him the chance to learn how to speak the language like a real person, rather than a scroll. (Yusuf had strongly protested any idea that he had not taught Nicolò to speak like a real person, but it is true that his own Persian is deliberately empty of more colourful colloquial turns of phrase. It is not a particularly good trading strategy to cast strongly-worded aspersions on your supplier’s parentage, for instance.) Yusuf hums under his breath as he reorganizes the persimmons in a dish until he’s found an arrangement that meets with his aesthetic satisfaction. He’ll cook tonight, he thinks, if Nicolò hasn’t returned by the time he’s finished at the bathhouse. If he makes extra, he can bring it over to Ruqayyah and Hossein early. Mostly for his own amusement, he considers what in his repertoire might be considered suitably Frankish – although of course most of the dishes are really just Maghrebi fare with this or that substitution or alteration courtesy of Genoa (or of necessity), and unrecognizable to an actual Frank.
He’s still thinking idly on that, among other things, when he returns from the bathhouse, wondering if there is any eggplant left or if Nicolò used it all the night before, since it is too late to be worth traipsing all the way to the market for more. The sound of someone running pulls him from his thoughts barely ten steps from his door, and he turns sharply more from habit than real alarm – he is not armed, in any event, not for so short an excursion so near his home.
A moment later, the man skids to a stop in front of him, and in the moment where he desperately tries to catch his breath, Yusuf recognizes him as one of the young men Nicolò has brought back for dinner. “They need feeding,” he always says. This one is Ali, or Ammar, Yusuf isn’t sure.
“Master Yusuf,” he gasps out, still bracing his hands on his thighs. “I’m so sorry – your friend–”
Yusuf’s stomach doesn’t move, but something icy breaks free from high in his chest and plunges endlessly downward. He thinks it might be his soul. “What happened?”
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (7a/?)
Sorry about the delay! The actual writing was easier this time, which means hopefully no more tomatoey mishaps, but Life is in overdrive rn. I'm doing the bulk of the moving on the 19th, so I don't want to make any promises for before then, though I will be working on the next part, but after that I should be all clear for writing.
Heads up that there’s some reference to serious injury in mild-moderate detail here – nothing too bad in the grand scale of ‘many times’ but let’s call it upsetting detail referenced with all the (lack of) delicacy merited when you’ve been murdered like sixty times. Or, you know, canon-typical body horror. (Also, I had to split this in the middle of a section break because it didn't work any other way; sorry about the five-second cliffhanger. :) )
*
Yusuf isn’t sure how long they intend to stay in Baghdad. At first he didn’t ask because it wasn’t especially important, and then he didn’t raise the subject because he was enjoying the city and didn’t particularly want to think of leaving, and now he’s left it too long, so that it’s just a giant, needless millstone of dread sitting in his stomach.
Growing older makes one aware of one’s poor habits, he reflects wryly, but this does not guarantee anything will change.
Nevertheless, he’s well aware that simply… remaining, until some too-closely witnessed accident or suspicion about the too-kind march of years means they will have to depart, whether quietly or quickly. He is also aware, even more keenly than he was at thirty (or sixty) that ignoring something he doesn’t want to think about will only make it a larger, more daunting problem, when most likely dealing with it head on would be either an entirely unremarkable task in reality, or at worst an unpleasant but brief one.
And yet… “We are fallible creatures,” he sighs, earning a strange look from a donkey. “We know ourselves to be fallible, and so we watch ourselves fail and say, ‘Ah, yes, how ridiculous human nature,’ and we do it again.”
The donkey fails to acknowledge his truly profound piece of philosophy. It brays loudly, which Yusuf refuses to acknowledge as commentary.
But of course Yusuf is not a foolish young man any longer; nor is he thirty (nor sixty), and therefore he commits (for perhaps the second or third time, but never mind about that) to bring up the subject with Nicolò in the evening – with the casualness it deserves, rather than the weight it has accumulated.
“And I am uninterested in what you have to say about it,” he observes to the donkey, which seems on the point of making a quip.
“I apologize,” Kazem says from behind him, utterly taken aback, and Yusuf whirls to realize he has distracted himself from his client’s arrival.
“No, no,” he protests. “I was speaking to – ah–” But no. There is absolutely no way to salvage his dignity without giving grievous offense. Yusuf sighs, slumps a little, and points helplessly at the donkey.
“Oh?” Kazem is attempting to make it a polite enquiry, but his voice goes high with stifled amusement.
Since Yusuf is surely old enough to be beyond such foolish things as ego, he sighs internally and only offers Kazem a slightly abashed smile. “Shall we find a place to sit?”
“Please.” Kazem gestures to the nearest building but one. “That is the eating-house I recommended. I always find such things are best discussed over a meal.”
“You are a wise man.”
If the donkey makes remark as they leave the street, Yusuf is far too enlightened to notice.
*
He’s in a good mood when he returns home, not least because he’s been commissioned for three separate translations at more than half again his usual rate. If Kazem has a new story to make the rounds with among his business acquaintances, this time about the eccentricities of his translator, well, Yusuf has decided he deserves it. Perhaps he’ll spin the tale to Nicolò that he furnished one apurpose, for that reason. Nicolò will never believe it, but his brow will furrow in doubt and disbelief, which makes him look endearing.
Yusuf’s heart quivers, and his stomach lurches in response. As he always does when those feelings arise (more and more often lately, but no good thinking about that now), he pushes both aside and determinedly turns his thoughts elsewhere.
Today especially he is determined not to lose his good mood. He has managed to find some quality persimmons at the market, and at a bargain as well (and as pleased as he is by that, he really only bought them because Nicolò is exceptionally fond of date-plums, and there it is again, better move on); he learned on his way home, from her husband, that Ruqayyah is nearly recovered from her fall and her fever is gone, and since she has a taste for it and is well enough now to eat but not cook, would he bring some of his strange and excellent Frankish cooking once again, some night (and if there’s a slight pang at that, it’s only because he knows he can draw much better metaphors than a parallel between a friendship and a slightly altered dish); and the half-vicious cat that always skulks around their street took a scrap of meat from his hand that morning without even clawing him (Yusuf has tamed far worse than a cat in his lifetime, but sadly Nicolò was not with him to be teased about it, so he has saved that one up for tonight).
Nicolò is not there when he arrives home, which is to be expected; the other man has been finding casual work as a labourer quite often these days. He enjoys it, he says, and it gives him the chance to learn how to speak the language like a real person, rather than a scroll. (Yusuf had strongly protested any idea that he had not taught Nicolò to speak like a real person, but it is true that his own Persian is deliberately empty of more colourful colloquial turns of phrase. It is not a particularly good trading strategy to cast strongly-worded aspersions on your supplier’s parentage, for instance.) Yusuf hums under his breath as he reorganizes the persimmons in a dish until he’s found an arrangement that meets with his aesthetic satisfaction. He’ll cook tonight, he thinks, if Nicolò hasn’t returned by the time he’s finished at the bathhouse. If he makes extra, he can bring it over to Ruqayyah and Hossein early. Mostly for his own amusement, he considers what in his repertoire might be considered suitably Frankish – although of course most of the dishes are really just Maghrebi fare with this or that substitution or alteration courtesy of Genoa (or of necessity), and unrecognizable to an actual Frank.
He’s still thinking idly on that, among other things, when he returns from the bathhouse, wondering if there is any eggplant left or if Nicolò used it all the night before, since it is too late to be worth traipsing all the way to the market for more. The sound of someone running pulls him from his thoughts barely ten steps from his door, and he turns sharply more from habit than real alarm – he is not armed, in any event, not for so short an excursion so near his home.
A moment later, the man skids to a stop in front of him, and in the moment where he desperately tries to catch his breath, Yusuf recognizes him as one of the young men Nicolò has brought back for dinner. “They need feeding,” he always says. This one is Ali, or Ammar, Yusuf isn’t sure.
“Master Yusuf,” he gasps out, still bracing his hands on his thighs. “I’m so sorry – your friend–”
Yusuf’s stomach doesn’t move, but something icy breaks free from high in his chest and plunges endlessly downward. He thinks it might be his soul. “What happened?”