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theoldguardkinkmeme) wrote2021-03-07 01:19 pm
theoldguardkinkmeme) wrote2021-03-07 01:19 pm
Fills Post #2
This is where your fills go!
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Start a new comment for each fill. Don't use threaded comments for new fills. Threaded comments are for fills that take up more than one comment field, or for feedback/squee/praise.
In your fill, please mention the prompt you are responding to, and provide a link to your prompt in the body of the text.
Please use a header with your character(s)/pairing and a title and/or keyword or short phrase. (For example: "Just you and me: Andy/Quynh, Make-up sex" or "Between a Rock and A Hard Place: Nicky/Joe/Booker, first time DP").
Please also comment with a link to your fill in the prompt post, under the prompt you are responding to. Your comment header should include the word "Fill" or "Filled", so that those checking out the thread can find your fic/art more easily (For example: "FILL: Re: Any/Quynh, Make-up sex").
If you end up cleaning up your fill and posting it elsewhere (AO3, your personal journal), feel free to link the posted fic/art here as well.
Fills can but don't need to be anonymous.
Start a new comment for each fill. Don't use threaded comments for new fills. Threaded comments are for fills that take up more than one comment field, or for feedback/squee/praise.
In your fill, please mention the prompt you are responding to, and provide a link to your prompt in the body of the text.
Please use a header with your character(s)/pairing and a title and/or keyword or short phrase. (For example: "Just you and me: Andy/Quynh, Make-up sex" or "Between a Rock and A Hard Place: Nicky/Joe/Booker, first time DP").
Please also comment with a link to your fill in the prompt post, under the prompt you are responding to. Your comment header should include the word "Fill" or "Filled", so that those checking out the thread can find your fic/art more easily (For example: "FILL: Re: Any/Quynh, Make-up sex").
If you end up cleaning up your fill and posting it elsewhere (AO3, your personal journal), feel free to link the posted fic/art here as well.
Fills on Pinboard: For a list of filled prompts on Pinboard, go here.
FILL: Joe/Nicky, Joe/Other - arranged marriage V. marriage for love (4/5)
(Anonymous) 2020-11-10 07:48 am (UTC)(link)“So,” he says to Tayyib. “What will you do now?”
“I think I am going to have to return to my family,” Tayyib says, rubbing his beard, “and accept the consequences.”
“Are you not afraid they will push the marriage regardless? I do not think he is like to die at this stage, although things could still turn sour.”
Aziz is feverish but not fading. Tayyib had confided, just before they docked in Malta, that he is a minor noble of the Fatimid court. Nicolò can probably ransom him back there without too much loss of face for anybody involved. He could just send him, but he is not inclined to be that generous about it. He supposes Tayyib must be from there as well, and is probably reluctant to say so unless Nicolò decides to ransom him as well. Marco had mused it would be fair recompense for their troubles, but he was joking. Mostly.
“I...may have given you the wrong impression,” says Tayyib, studying Nicolò as if looking for something he is not finding. “My family did not support the marriage; it was my idea. I thought he was a better person than he turned out to be. He wanted – his family and mine have differences, and he thought I would support him against them, since I was willing to disregard them in the matter of my marriage. I hoped that maybe I could reason with him, but what happened when he found us at sea...no. It was treacherous, and there is no reasoning with him. I feel like a fool.”
“Well, we were lying to him,” Nicolò points out. “You were very much aboard the ship.”
“Because I asked you to.”
“I don’t think that was the wrong decision, not that that is any comfort, I am sure.” Nicolò is remembering Aziz referring to Tayyib as 'something that belonged to him'.
“Do not mistake me,” Tayyib says. “I am not grieving him, exactly, though I do not hope for his death. I am grieving what I believed was between us.”
“I understand,” Nicolò says, and pats him comfortingly on the arm; Tayyib smiles hesitantly. Then his smile fades.
“I think you sympathise with him more than you let on. You have a reluctant husband-to-be of your own.”
“I do not fault him for chasing after you,” Nicolò says, slowly, “but some of what he said, and of course attacking us; I do fault that. And in the end, I have never laid eyes on my prince. If he was willing to risk death to avoid me, having had the opportunity to reject me as I am and not the idea of me, I would hope his family and mine could come to some other agreement.”
“You sound upset, but if it was the idea of you only, it cannot have been personal.”
“You speak sense,” Nicolò sighs, “but, I will confess, that does not stop it feeling personal. A little.”
“No, I do see that,” Tayyib says, but the corners of his eyes are crinkling; Nicolò decides to let himself see the funny side.
“Yes, I am more sorely done by than anyone else on the shores of this sea, I am sure you agree,” he says, grinning. “In the mean time, let us see if we can set you on your course home. Ships are in and out of this harbour all the time; it should be no trouble.”
But the skies darken that afternoon; a series of summer storms is coming through.
“You will stay with us, of course,” Nicolò says. “Until the weather clears and a ship going to the correct destination arrives. The portmaster will tell us as soon as that happens, Nile has already spoken with him.”
“You know what’s going to happen,” says Marco, later. “Your prince is going to sail in, and the first thing he will see is that you’ve installed this man in the very castle you and he are supposed to rule from – ”
“His life has been turned upside down in the space of a week, Marco!” says Nicolò. “There is nothing of that sort between us.”
It’s absolutely true. It remains true up until three days later, when word comes via Nile that a ship from Tunis, which will be returning to its port after this, is expected in the next day.
“That will do,” Tayyib says, when Nicolò tells him of the ship. “I can make my way from there.”
“Are you sure?” Nicolò asks him. “You are welcome to stay until there is something direct –”
“Are you trying to keep me here?”
“No, no,” Nicolò laughs. “But your company has been – enjoyable.”
“Aside from when it almost got you killed.”
Nicolò looks into Tayyib’s kind brown eyes and says “Worth it all the same,” instead of literally any of the other things he could have said, and has to follow it up hastily with “But – I have other obligations – as I know you are aware. So I would not wish to – it is only that I would have liked to know you better.”
“Your reluctant prince,” says Tayyib. “I am aware.”
“He probably does think I’m going to try the same sort of thing,” Nicolò grouses. “He could have at least deigned -” He shakes his head. “And I am complaining again, and should not be. Please ignore me.”
“Nicolò,” Tayyib says, in a strangled voice, and kisses him.
Nicolò is not at all expecting this, as welcome as it is. Tayyib kisses him at first gently, and then when Nicolò leans into it, cups the back of his head with one hand and pulls Nicolò to him with the other on the curve of his lower back. Nicolò hasn’t kissed someone like this for months. Possibly years. Possibly ever.
“I don’t have to leave until tomorrow,” Tayyib whispers against his mouth. “And I will leave. But first, can I –”
“Yes,” Nicolò says at once. “Whatever you’re about to say. Yes.”
“That’s a very dangerous offer.”
Nicolò kisses him this time, letting his hands roam. “A risk I am willing to take.”
He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, but – this once, he wants something for himself, a good memory to take into whatever this dutiful marriage is going to give him, if it happens.
He isn’t under any false impression that Tayyib is doing this purely for the sake of attraction to him, either. He has been through a great deal recently, and this is certainly one way to be distracted from your thoughts for a time. Nicolò is happy to take this for what it is, in the moment it is possible.
Tayyib sucks bruises along his collarbone, holds Nicolò down with the weight of his body while he teases Nicolò with his hand, laughing when Nicolò swears. It’s the kind of bedding that makes Nicolò laugh, too, when Tayyib finally brings him over the edge. He gets his revenge with his mouth and his hands and a great deal of patience. There are probably a dozen better things he could have spent the afternoon doing, but looking at Tayyib after, his brow smooth and a small smile on his lips as he half-dozes, Nicolò can’t think of any of them. He will hold this memory to himself for as long as he can.
Re: FILL: Joe/Nicky, Joe/Other - arranged marriage V. marriage for love (4/5)
(Anonymous) 2020-11-10 11:01 am (UTC)(link)The last paragraphs - Nicolò taking one thing for himself and planning to cherish the memory, thinking that "Tayyib"is using him as a rebound and being fine with that- were heart wrenching. I'm all teary eyed.
I feel I'm missing a couple of steps in between, but it's probably just me. Great work!
Re: FILL: Joe/Nicky, Joe/Other - arranged marriage V. marriage for love (4/5)
(Anonymous) 2020-11-10 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)They have been really discreet with their courtship (? and I really want to know how it ends, thanks for such an amazing work!