theoldguardkinkmeme | Fills Post #2

Fills Post #2

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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?”

“They’re bringing him now,” the young man pants, straightening. He doesn’t answer directly. “Farhad went for a physician, but… sir…”

It doesn’t matter, Yusuf reminds himself. As long as Nicolò hasn’t been discovered, nothing can really hurt him. Even if he does die, it will only mean they will have to leave Baghdad; he has more than enough wit to feign mortality until he’s not watched.

“Thank you,” he manages to say. “A…mmar…” There’s no correction, so that must be right. “Go – go in and sit down, I will meet them…”

He brushes aside Ammar’s protest without really hearing it, saying something to him about wedging the door open, and sets off down the street, in the direction of the boy’s haphazard wave. He has, of course, no way to know where he is going beyond the first few minutes, but the multiple layers of deception and performance he will need in front of Ammar are utterly beyond him – pretending to restrain a terror and grief he doesn’t possess, while disguising both his real fears and this nonsensical pit in his stomach – and he would be a failure at consoling him, which is unfair to the boy. He’s hardly more than twenty, such a child; it’s not his place to have to comfort Yusuf.

Fortunately he runs up against the party before he has to make a guess at his direction – two men carrying an improvised stretcher with a body on it, another hovering close to them – and although he knows there can be no real damage, no real danger, the sight punches the air from Yusuf’s lungs so abruptly that he stops where he is.

A moment later he forces himself forward again, hails them in what he hopes is an approximation of the appropriate tone – whatever that may be. Three steps forward is enough to let him see that Nicolò is covered with dust and dirt, and his left side is soaked with blood from ankle to high on the torso, clothing rent by jagged holes. It’s smeared across his face as well, and his hands are clenched on the sides of the stretcher, but when he looks up and sees Yusuf, his grimace melts away in surprise.

He’s healed already – of course. A tangled knot somewhere in the pit of Yusuf’s stomach eases.

“What happened?” he asks the men, keeping his voice tight with concern despite his relief.

It’s Nicolò who answers. “The wall collapsed,” he says in Sabir, voice strained with a creditable approximation of pain. “It’s fine, Yusuf, don’t worry.” He flicks his eyes at the others to make it clear it’s fine means no one saw. “I made them bring me home.”

“An accident,” the man who isn’t carrying the stretcher says hurriedly. Yusuf doesn’t know if they’ve met; certainly he doesn’t recognize him with dirt smeared across his face as it is now. “We sent Farhad–”

“I know,” Yusuf says. He wants to take one end of the stretcher very badly, but it won’t accomplish anything. The best thing, he thinks, is to get Nicolò safely inside the house and send the others away – then they can figure out what they’re going to do about the physician. If only his heart would stop this ridiculous pounding!

He ushers them towards the house as quickly as possible, feeling it somehow very wrong to be so clean in the face of this much dirt and blood. Ammar has, in fact, wedged the door open, and he jumps to his feet from where he’s slumped on the nearest chair as soon as he sees them.

Yusuf directs them to the bedroom, trying and failing to close his ears to Nicolò’s grunts as they lift him over the threshold and turn to navigate the doorway. It’s an admirable attention to detail, but somehow even his entirely dishonest distress burns in Yusuf’s ears like hot wire.

“Thank you,” he says, when they finally set the stretcher down on the bed, after Yusuf hastily bade them not try to move Nicolò off it, making some excuse of the supposed severity of his injuries. “I cannot tell you – you have my gratitude.” It comes out rushed, rather than heartfelt, but with luck they will attribute that general distress, rather than a specific wish to get rid of them. “I know you have sent for a physician – my endless thanks, and I shall make sure you hear what he has to say. Just now…” He trails off, as if lost for a way to ask them to leave. Or maybe he actually is, it’s hard to say, but it should serve the purpose regardless.

One of them – young and twitchy-eyed and vaguely familiar; Esmail is his name, perhaps – nods and says, voice choking slightly, “Of course, sir. I hope – it would have been me, sir, and so I… if there is anything…”

One of the older men puts a hand on Esmail’s shoulder, and Yusuf manages to pull himself together enough to say reassuringly, “I am sure that Nikos would not have had it the other way. Nor I,” he adds, with a heavy breath, and though he cannot feel it just now, it is of course true.

They trail out, shoulders slumped with exhaustion or with resignation, leaving only clumps of dirt and Ammar in their wake. He fidgets, unwilling to leave.

“I thank you,” Yusuf says again, at a loss for how to get rid of him. After a moment’s silence he adds abruptly, “I am going to see if there is anything I can do for him.” It is foolish, perhaps, to risk exposing their secret, but he cannot think what else to do, and the idea of standing out here staring down a worried child instead of proving to himself that Nicolò is indeed unharmed is truly unendurable in the worst, dullest sense.

He’s never been hurt away from me, he thinks desperately, although why it should matter, what he should be desperate about, he doesn’t know. He’s seen Nicolò stabbed, shot, carved up in ugly ways, with bones protruding from the skin, with half his head missing – to say nothing of what they did to each other, in the beginning. It’s never pleasant, always somewhat upsetting, but it’s been a long time since he worried.

It always heals. They always come back.

In the interest of looking both sane and mortal, he collects a basin of water and a cloth; Nicoló can use it, regardless, although he might need rather more than this to clean up properly. Ammar is still hesitating in the doorway.

“I knew I had to come for you,” he blurts out. “To find you. I’m glad he could – can speak to you still. I hope he lives, sir, I –”

“Yes, thank you,” Yusuf says severely. He lets his mouth tremble a little and hates himself for it.

Ammar flinches, of course. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry… but I wanted…” He swallows and steels himself. “I wanted someone to say it who knows.”

Yusuf stares at him, unblinking. His first thought is that Ammar knows, that he saw something – but if he did, he wouldn’t be giving best wishes for Nicoló’s obviously-assured survival.

“I am sorry this happened.” Ammar is all trembling composure. “Nikos does not deserve it and you do not deserve it. If he lives, I pray for his recovery.” It sounds as if he thinks it unlikely. If all that blood was from a crush injury… he’s not wrong. “If not, then… there is at least someone who knows the true nature of your grief. I had thought that might be… comforting.”

Oh. Oh, no.

Yusuf cannot possibly deal with this now, with three or four parts to play at once and a physician to wrangle and the constant looming threat of discovery.

Besides, what is he supposed to say? ‘Oh, no, you’re mistaken, it’s not like that. We just fuck.’

Finally, he manages, “You are very young, and you do not understand, but your feelings do you credit.”

Ammar bows his head, murmurs something respectful, and then finally he’s leaving. Just as Yusuf turns to take the basin and cloth to Nicoló, he hears the boy’s last words – “He spoke only of you, after. ‘Take me to Yusuf. Yusuf will know what to do.’”

This was, of course, entirely practical, only about their shared immortality, and no reason for Yusuf’s stomach to be clenching in on itself. He keeps his back to the outer door as he enters the bedroom, unsure of what his face might say.

On the bed, Nicoló has his head titled back and his body limp; feigning unconsciousness is likely less tiring than feigning agony, but Yusuf’s heart still quickens a little with unmerited anxiety. When he sets down the basin beside the bed and begins dabbing at the drying blood under Nicoló’s shirt, however, the other man’s eyes open.

“The door,” he says quietly in Zeneize.

“Closed,” Yusuf answers in the same language. There’s no one to overhear, but it’s still safer. Either his heart or his stomach has risen into his throat, and he can’t precisely say why. It’s not the blood; heaven only knows how much of Nicoló’s blood he has seen in their lives. The blood is meaningless.

It’s the dust, he thinks, the particles of stone and brick caught in Nicolós clothes, the evidence of how foolish and accidental and mundane this incident is, which would have taken any other man’s life. Instantly, maybe, or devastatingly slowly; by the look of things it likely crushed a lung. They do something to him that blood and gore and even exposed organs cannot, at least not any longer, not for Nicoló. Why it should be so he cannot say, and the idea of looking directly at it is in itself nearly as unthinkable.

“They’re gone now,” Nicolò says, making an inconvenient attempt to sit up. “Aren’t they? You can let me do that–”

“No, no,” Yusuf protests, his tongue feeling like cotton in his mouth. He can’t say why it is important he do this; of course the blood is just blood; of course Nicolò cannot sustain any lasting wound any more than he himself can; of course there was never any danger, any risk of loss. The rushing noise that has not quite left his ears still demands this, as if the wound may spring back into existence if he doesn’t spend sufficient care in tending it.

“Yusuf–”

The clattering of the door to the street interrupts; Farhad, surely, with the physician. Yusuf pushes Nicolò gently back to the bed. “Don’t move. They might see.”

“Yusuf…”

“I have to go bribe the doctor,” he says hastily, and drops the cloth back into the basin.

*

Farhad, it turns out, is easy enough to dispatch; the way he hovers by the door, looking both guilty and sick, makes it clear he was sent for help because he couldn’t stomach the sight of Nicolò’s injuries.

The physician is harder to dismiss, particularly because Yusuf would like to avoid seeming like either a madman or a murderer, but he manages to piece together a plausible enough excuse of Nicolò’s strange and particular brand of Christianity not permitting medical assistance by a non-believer, which is enough of a piece with how many European Christians behave that the man is not difficult to convince. With some less convincing but nonetheless adequate words about his wish not to offend the kind friends who took such pains to bring the doctor here, and a perhaps more compelling offer to pay half again his usual fee, Yusuf manages to extract a promise that the man will remain in the house long enough to seem reasonable, and put about that he did his best, and Nicolò’s prognosis is hopeful.

The physician tuts at this last, but accepts it, and Yusuf pays him and offers him tea and waits the interminable minutes until the man decides he may as well leave.

When he returns, Nicolò sits up immediately. He’s already dispensed with the board used to carry him here. “Safe?” he inquires.

“Yes…” Yusuf admits reluctantly, wishing it didn’t mean Nicolò would get up and sort himself out, which of course he does. He wants suddenly, very badly, to push Nicolò back down on the bed, brush the hair gently out of his face, and sponge tenderly at the vanished wound as he would a real one. His entire chest aches with it, and he wonders vaguely if he is going mad.

Nicolò strips his clothes off entirely, and Yusuf looks away. There are smears of blood on his chest which strongly suggest shattered ribs breaking the skin open.

“It’s not so bad.” Nicolò’s voice is firm, and he doesn’t sound like a man who was on the verge of death perhaps twenty minutes earlier. “No one saw anything serious – they were all too squeamish, I think. And I didn’t actually die, which is better. I suppose I’ll have to pretend to lie in bed for a month or two, now.” Yusuf glances up to see the other man’s lips pinched in distaste. He’s made quick work of most of the blood on him, but he’s still dusty.

“We could leave,” he says quietly. Nicolò looks at him sharply.

“Leave Baghdad, you mean?” He frowns. “No. That is… Unless you would prefer…?”

“I do not wish to leave.” Yusuf’s lips feel strangely numb. “But it is hardly fair to force you to lie abed for months to maintain our… our ruse.”

“And they’ll think I’ve died,” Nicolò mutters. “No, that’s cruel.”

Of course that’s his first thought. Of course it is. Yusuf is drowning, in what he doesn’t know, but he cannot breathe and his chest is closing in on itself. Nicolò. So kind, always.

“I can suffer a few months, I suppose.” Nicolò smiles a little, but it falls away when Yusuf is unable to return it. “For myself I would prefer to stay.”

Yusuf nods. This is not, he thinks distantly, how he intended to broach the subject.

Nicolò frowns at him, worried, takes a step forward and reaches out only to pull back, wincing at the dust and blood covering his hand. “I’ll wash.”

“You can’t–”

“I’m not going anywhere, Yusuf! I’ll just dump some water over my head in the garden. The wall is high enough, no one will see.” He sighs. “And I won’t have a decent bath for at least a month either, of course.” Nicolò leaves the room, and Yusuf lets him. He takes the time to scrub Nicolò’s blood from his own hands, change the water in the basin for fresh, just in case.

The other man is back shortly after, wet and unhappy but resigned. “I’m sorry,” he begins, which makes Yusuf start. “I’m not upset with you.” Before Yusuf can formulate a response, Nicolò reaches out and touches his hair lightly, letting a curl run through his fingers; it’s still slightly damp. “Had you just washed, then?” When Yusuf nods, he winces in sympathy and says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” It’s not as if he can reasonably wish this accident on someone who would not have recovered. He knows that. To be angry with Nicolò for saving Esmail is an injustice to all three of them.

“It was your leg as well,” Yusuf says finally, as a distraction. It is a poorly-chosen one, but he is not at his best.

Nicolò nods. “I wasn’t buried completely, at least. I would have had a great deal more trouble explaining that.”

Yusuf’s hand hovers indecisively in the air near the limb in question, without his clear consent. If he’s going to behave strangely, he had better explain himself; if only he knew what he was explaining.

“It shook me,” he says, apologetically. “I know you cannot die, but – it has always been violence, before, for us, or almost. This feels different.”

“Does it?” Nicolò frowns, considering. “It certainly didn’t hurt any less.”

I wasn’t with you, Yusuf thinks. It has no bearing on their recovery, he knows that well enough; he died at least four times during the sack of Jerusalem before Nicolò had ever entered the city, and healed just the same.

“People die for such insultingly foolish reasons,” he says instead, trying to sound like himself. “I suppose I can still find some poetry in violence. There’s none in horrible accidents.”

He realizes his hand his hovering near Nicolò’s chest, near those points of blood around the places his ribs had broken the skin, his no-longer-crushed lung. Yusuf forces himself to pull it back.

“I don’t know if that’s poignant, or foolish itself,” Nicolò tells him. “Both, perhaps? But you seem as if you need a distraction. And I am not dead, so if you want to touch me that badly…”

It isn’t what Yusuf wants, but he doesn’t know what he does want, and maybe, maybe, this is close enough that he won’t feel so desperate and hollow.

“All right,” he says, and pauses only to strip the soiled topcover from the bed.

A moment later he has Nicolò down on the bed in almost the same position as before, with such speed the other man huffs out a surprised laugh. He presses his mouth to Nicolò’s chest, initially as another distraction, as a way to stop himself doing anything stupid with his mouth, like speaking, or kissing him, and then because he can’t do anything else but press his lips to the unblemished skin, let his tongue search, gloriously fruitless, for the seam of a scar or a scab, slide his fingers across Nicolò’s sturdy, undamaged thigh, feel it straight and strong under his fingers.

“Oh,” Nicolò sighs beneath him, and his hands flutter slightly as Yusuf drags him closer to the center of the bed. “Yes, that’s… that feels good. Ah.”
His skin is cool under Yusuf’s hand, from the water, but heat is rising in it already. Yusuf smooths his fingers over a section of Nicolò’s thigh, over and over, until it’s hot under his fingertips, then another, then another. Nicolò’s hand is on his shoulder, but he seems to keep forgetting to do anything with it. That suits Yusuf perfectly well; he doesn’t need any distractions now.

With an effort of will, he pulls his mouth away to tease at Nicolò’s nipples, trying to seem less urgently preoccupied by those vanished injuries than he really is.

“It’s all right,” Nicolò murmurs, hand brushing lightly over Yusuf’s upper back. “It was… very unpleasant, you know, being crushed. It’s nice to have, to be… it’s nice. You can… oh, don’t stop that, though.”

Yusuf scrapes his teeth gently across one sensitive brown nub, then the other, soothing over them with his tongue afterwards as Nicolò shudders and sighs beneath him. He pulls back a fraction of an inch to say, voice rasping in his throat, “You were saying something?”

They aren’t the words he wants, but he doesn’t know which ones are, just that he wants to keep hearing Nicolò’s voice.

Nicolò laughs, his chest rumbling with it under Yusuf’s face, his head tipped back. The sound shakes something loose in Yusuf’s chest, soothing the rough edges of his soul. “I,” he says, “mm, I was saying – it’s nice, to have pleasure there in – mmh – stead. Better than I thought, ah, better than I would have thought. Yusuf, yes, like that.”

By now Yusuf can feel arousal tingling faintly across his own skin, pulsing more insistently in his groin and curling hot and restless in his stomach, but it doesn’t seem very important. This is what’s important, Nicolò’s body under his hands, his voice in Yusuf’s ears, his gratification the only goal. Maybe this is what he wanted, then, he thinks distantly, after all.

Then Nicolò’s hands are on his shoulders, pushing him away, and that hits Yusuf so hard in the gut that he feels helpless tears start in his eyes.

“Just a minute,” Nicolò says, breathless and almost-but-not-quite-laughing. “Let me sit up, or else you’ll be doing all the work. That’s hardly fair.” He wriggles his way up the pillows, and Yusuf, who doesn’t really know what he’s feeling or what he’s doing, sits up as well for the sole purpose of being able to hide his face in Nicolò’s neck.

He makes excuse of nipping and sucking at the skin there, which has Nicolò squirming against him, gasping his name enthusiastically as he tries his best to get Yusuf’s clothing mostly out of the way. They haven’t done this before; Yusuf has always associated it too closely with kissing to feel it was entirely allowed, but it is not, after all, the same. He runs his hand up and down Nicolò’s side, his torso, his back, all the places his clothing was stained with blood, Nicolò gasp and sigh and half-heartedly try to get a hand between them to pay Yusuf in kind. Instead his hands stroke and toy with Yusuf’s sides until he becomes distracted, absently caress his back as Yusuf uses his free hand to nudge Nicolò’s legs further apart so that he can tease softly at every hidden sensitive bit of skin on the insides of the other man’s thighs without being at risk of violating their rules.

He keeps them like that as long as he can, pushing Nicolò back against the pillows every time he makes an desultory attempt to sit up properly and participate, until Nicolò’s half-laughing exasperation is drowned in trembling moans and his hands skim across Yusuf’s skin without real purpose. This is what he needs, how it should be: Nicolò beneath his hands, his mouth, with nothing in the world mattering but his pleasure.

Not past pain, not future trials, not Yusuf’s own considerable arousal – those are unimportant. The only things he cares about are Nicolò’s skin under his fingers and the way the other man moans when Yusuf bites at his collarbone. “Please,” he’s gasping, and nothing else. “Please, please – please –”

Yusuf ghosts his fingertips along the skin at the very top of Nicolò’s inner thigh, and the other man makes a noise like he’s been gutted, and then his hands are pushing Yusuf back again, because he was always strong enough to do it, but he didn’t, and both of those things make the still-ignored fire in Yusuf’s gut to blaze higher, until it’s all but consuming him.

Nicolò leans forward, his hand clamping down on top of Yusuf’s, their faces so very, very close. For a brief moment – a moment which makes his heart lurch violently sideways – he thinks Nicolò means to kiss him.

“Please,” Nicolò rasps, resting his forehead against Yusuf’s. “Please, Yusuf – please, just –”

If he’s so desperate, Yusuf wonders hazily, why doesn’t he touch himself – but he’s too preoccupied with not burning up entirely to care; the longer Nicolò goes without touching himself, the longer this will last, and he wants it to last forever.

He wonders if Nicolò wants that, also; if he moved them into this position so that he could reach himself but now he can’t bear for it to be over. Yusuf’s heart seizes at the idea, juddering with something that feels like hope or pleasure, only painful.

“Please,” Nicolò gasps, his hand tightening on Yusuf’s. “Please, I need–”

Yusuf lets his other hand trail down Nicolò’s side and Nicolò gasps as if he’s been punched. “Yusuf, please!”

“Anything,” Yusuf pants, heedless of the danger. He would say worse, but he can’t think and he can’t find the air in his lungs.

Nicolò whines, his breath brushing at Yusuf’s lips like a kiss. His hand slips higher, to Yusuf’s wrist, and he drags at it. “Please…”

“We agreed,” Yusuf manages. “We agreed – you wanted – it’s not allowed.” He slides his free hand down to Nicolò’s other thigh and runs his thumb over the seam where his leg meets his body. It’s not intentionally torturous, not meant to undermine his words; he can’t help himself.

“I don’t–” Nicolò pants with immense effort, “care – I – touch me–”

Yusuf’s hand is on him before either of them realize he’s moved it.

Nicolò groans in his throat, jerking, higher pitched than Yusuf has ever heard him. He’s silky under Yusuf’s fingers, harder than should be possible and wet from his own arousal. Yusuf feels fevered, his skin too tight, even as he wraps his fingers carefully around Nicolò’s cock. His breath sticks in his throat, rasping loud enough he can hear it even through his near-delirious haze of lust.

He’s never touched anyone but himself this way, and it’s different and the same, but he’s seen many times now just how Nicolò handles his foreskin, he knows well enough, in principle, what to do. If he can do it. It’s hard to move, because he wants to live here in this moment forever almost more then he wants to feel Nicolò come apart under his hand.

He tightens his hand just a little, slides it up and then down once, and then it doesn’t matter anymore whether Yusuf knows what to do, because Nicolò makes a desperate, wounded noise and surges forward against him. His hand is still on Yusuf’s wrist, and he holds it almost bruisingly still as he fucks forward into Yusuf’s fist. Yusuf lets him, his mind empty, all the space that might once have held thought filled with the feeling of Nicolò moving under his hand, Nicolò’s hip tensing and relaxing under his grip, Nicolò’s breath hot on his face, escaping as endless tiny cries – “ah!” he gasps as Yusuf slides his thumb higher, “ah, ah, nnn, ah–!”

“Yes,” Yusuf tells him, not even really knowing he’s doing it. “Yes, like that, yes…” Nicolò eyes catch his, incredulous and ablaze, and Yusuf says “Yes, yes,” and watches him stiffen and arch, mouth locked silently open, as he spills convulsively between them, his body shuddering almost endlessly through it. Yusuf wants to devour him with his eyes, imprint every moment, every movement, every sound in his mind for the rest of their lives, but he has Nicolò’s spend striping his chest and Nicolò’s cock twitching weakly in his hand, and only desperate powers of will and closed eyes keep him from getting a frantic hand on himself and coming in three strokes.

He sits there for minutes, maybe, or hours, miserably aroused and not caring, unwilling to move, still breathing Nicolò’s air. He can’t bring himself to release Nicolò’s cock or even his hip, or maybe he doesn’t trust himself if he has his hands free. Perhaps it’s both those things. His skin is singing and his heart is aching but the warm heavy weight of Nicolò’s forehead against his is the only thing that matters.

Finally Nicolò twitches a little, sighs, tugs on Yusuf’s wrist. Reluctantly, he uncurls his fingers, and then, because it feels suddenly necessary, moves away half a foot and lies back against the pillows, feeling weak all over.

Okay, I was trying to get this up before work and splitting it up was such a pain that I kept messing up the html and stuff and didn't have time to try and fix it, so to hell with it. I've never used this account for anything anyway, so ignore the overitalicized parts b/c (mods feel free to delete) and just go read the whole thing deanoned here: https://salazar-quinn.dreamwidth.org/271.html

Hope that's okay. :)

Edited 2020-11-12 02:41 (UTC)

Ahhhhhh! So good! I loved the interaction with the neighbors/friends. Being stuck in bed for months will suck, hopefully Yusuf can help keep him entertained. And I'm super excited to see how long the new "no fucking" rule actually ends up lasting.

Thank you so much!

It is going to suck probably more than anticipated, both metaphorically and literally. :)

I think this boundary might last longer than the other ones, but I do want to point out that technically the line is drawn at NICKY getting fucked, not at ANYONE. ;P

This is excellent! I can't wait for next installment. Will you post on ao3 at some point?

That's the plan! (This is my first fill, so there's a bunch of stuff I'm going to correct - like formatting, and tomatoes. XD)

Hi!
Is there any way to read the whole thing? I’m really curious and couldn’t find the thread that the first part was posted in!

Thanks!

*facepalm* That would be because I linked to Part 6 by accident, instead of the whole thread.

The whole thing is here:
https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/694.html?thread=1488054#cmt1488054

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

(Anonymous) - 2020-11-15 16:48 (UTC) - Expand

so so so so excited that you updated and fuck was it worth the wait that was ridiculously hot.

also like...life-affirming you-almost-died sex in a friend way, because you're such good friends and nothing more? boys.

I'm so excited that Joe is starting to get with the program of being stupid in love with Nicky, and I'm also v excited that Nicky's ultimatum is a) nothing to do with whether or not Joe gets fucked and b) can easily be rules-lawyered into getting fucked by anything but Joe's dick.

Ah, thank you so much!

JUST DUDES BEING DUDES, BROS BEING BROS AMIRITE??? (Joe says 'yes of course' because denial? Who's that, won't meet her for another eight hundred years.)

Rules-lawyering is the best lawyering.

OP here - sorry it took me so long to reply, I needed some time to do it properly.

For what's worth, I thought the body horror wasn't bad, and I'm squeamish as Hell.

Oh. My. God. This chapter killed me. Caused me to spontaneously combust.

> “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.”

I loved this sentence. Loved Yusuf talking to the donkey and getting caught, it was so fun!

Great use of accidents - another thing that must have happened a lot to the Guard.

The way you wrote Yusuf was just... amazing. So many complex feelings, the way he's caught between what he feels, what he ought to feel and how to act, his very real worry about Nicolò, the fact that he's stressing over Nicolò possibly not healing, the way he compartimentalizes his feelings and stubbornly refuses to figure out what all those signals means... it was all amazing, plus the contrast between Nicolò who is "eh, sucks, but could have been worse" and Yusuf completely spiralling!

Also, Yusuf unintentionally driving Nicolò crazy just by touching him and kissing him? (I did love his attempt to rules-lawyer it but that's kissing, that's absolutely what you are doing, Yusuf.) Wow. I have no words.

Also, Nicolò being desperate to be touched but unable to ask for it? *chef's kiss*
Nicolò blowing Yusuf? Forget running down a hill, Nicolò went and jumped down a freaking ravine here! I love that it's not a perfectly linear progression, it feels so natural.

Hottest thing ever. Hit me like a ton of bricks.

> “But I am not,” Nicolò say[...] “going to let you fuck me.”

Why do I have a feeling Lazzaro is responsible for this one last line in the sand?
I definitely noticed that says nothing about fucking Yusuf...

I loved learning more about Nicolò's past, the way they talk and howthey actually dig themselves deeper in a way that totally makes sense.

This was absolutely beautiful. Amazing. Stupendous. Wonderful. I may need a thesaurus because I feel I'm not praising it enough. You are so talented!

Thank you AGAIN for your freaking amazing comments. <3 Sorry about the response time - I didn't want to get caught up answering comments when I was trying to make myself work on the next part. But it's done now, so!

Yay, I'm glad the progression worked for you here! Once I had it figured out it seemed like it worked really well but I'm always super glad to get confirmation. :)

Lazzaro is 100% responsible for that. On the one hand it's not as bad as you think, but on the other hand it is... probably worse than you think. (And he does not have being a dumbass 19-year-old for an excuse.)

(Seriously, I love your comments so much, I hoard them like a dragon.)

i love this story immensely ♥♥♥

This is a week later than I planned and I am sorry for that, but moving (+related interpersonal angst) wrung me out more than I thought it would. It’s also shorter than recent installments but the ratio of plot:sex has gone back to, like, 1:5 instead of 1:2. (Plus angst.) Anyway, I’m crossing my fingers but updates should be a bit faster now.

Part eight is here: https://salazar-quinn.dreamwidth.org/738.html

(Also I finally figured out how to do links properly, yaaaay. I'm a Certified Adult and it only took me like two months.)

!!!! your updates are, as always, a very welcome surprise. Thank you for the realism of Joe not getting immediately hard from giving head. Also I really enjoy how kind of irritated at himself Nicky is that even a bad blowjob from Joe does it for him so hard.

I feel like Nicky hasn't entirely thought through that like...if he lets Joe fuck his thighs they'll still for all intents and purposes be entirely bodily pressed up together

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

salazar_quinn - 2020-12-01 23:43 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-01 23:04 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

salazar_quinn - 2020-12-01 23:54 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

(Anonymous) - 2020-12-22 14:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

salazar_quinn - 2021-01-12 05:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

(Anonymous) - 2021-01-15 17:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

salazar_quinn - 2021-01-17 02:06 (UTC) - Expand

Haha, remember when I was shooting for daily updates.? *facepalm*

I'm really sorry it took this long; I plead mental health stuff (not of the dramatic variety, just the annoying variety) and, uh... too many 5 AM shifts? *winning smile*

I totally plan to have the next one up SOONER, but I make no promises just to be safe. Chapter 9 is here, and it is at least longer than the last one. :)

Oh my goodness I love your updates so much I just...I am suffering and dying here. Poor Joe, wanting so desperately to be held and to hold Nicky. I hope he gets his wish to cuddle.

Also this feels like the wrong phrase for such a beautiful fic but Joe kinda seems like an incredible pillow princess here like pls nicky, introduce him to the wonders of getting fucked he was clearly made to just lie there and take it.

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

salazar_quinn - 2021-03-28 07:15 (UTC) - Expand

I keep coming back here, just to check. I hope you're doing okay! Selfishly I of course also hope for more of this wonderful fic, because every time you post I just know it's going to be amazing

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

salazar_quinn - 2021-03-16 06:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-16 16:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-16 23:47 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-18 15:22 (UTC) - Expand

Ahhhhh, you are all so wonderful and kind, thank you everyone for your patience and kind words!! <3 I FNISHED CHAPTER TEN AND IT IS GLORIOUS, I FEEL ACCOMPLISHED AGAIN.

!!!!!!! SO EXCITING

OMG Nicky "never been a conscious hypocrite" well you've sure been an unconscious one given how badly you want everything Joe is doing to you.

Also loving the recurrence of Joe who wants more full-body contact all of the time but especially during sex.

Also also very excited there is a number of parts now which fills me with hope that they will talk about their feeling soon

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (10/~16)

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-29 17:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (10/~16)

salazar_quinn - 2021-08-15 10:53 (UTC) - Expand

oh nicolò, sweetheart.

just here to say I reread this fic regularly and dream of them telling each other how in love they are

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (10/~16)

salazar_quinn - 2021-08-15 10:54 (UTC) - Expand

This took a very long time - at least 40% of that time was me trying to edit it and being repeatedly beaten into submission by the chapter (not how it's supposed to go!) but I *HAVE* finished chapter eleven and I *HAVE* decided that any issues remaining are Future Me's problem to fix in the mythical future time when this goes up on AO3.

So here it is!

Edited 2021-08-15 10:58 (UTC)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (7a/?)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (7a/?)

Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (7c/?)

Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts PART SEVEN LINK

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Part 8/?

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (9/?)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (10/~16)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (10/~16)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (10/~16)

Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (10/~16)

UPDATE - Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (11/~16)