So I realized that in between the unfinished draft of my first TOG fic and starting this one, I was writing something involving other accented letters, and as a result the first symbol in the insert box changed, and because I was basically going on muscle memory, the accent on Nicky’s name has been the wrong way around this entire fic. I have fixed it now. *facepalm*
This bit is, sadly, largely SFW. Sorry.
Part four, in which Nicky uses his mouth words (kind of)
*
Nicolò rarely tarries in bed after he wakes, but today he’s been staring at the roof of the cave for several minutes. When he rises, he’ll have to deal with unpleasant realities, like how the rain he can still hear will mean very little to burn if they stay and a wet, miserable journey if they leave, or how they’re running precariously low on food that isn’t dried meat and hard bread, or how he needs to do something about this new development with Yusuf.
It is roaringly stupid to avoid this by instead choosing to lie staring at featureless grey rocks and gloomily contemplating it, of course, so he is going to get up in just a moment. Just one moment.
Finally he does, because the predawn air is chilly, his clothes are by the dwindling fire, and his blankets have gotten so disarranged that he cannot keep himself entirely warm where he is without getting up to disentangle them. And if he’s going to do that, he may as well dress and build up the fire and prepare breakfast.
He doesn’t mind the chore ordinarily – it’s quiet and peaceful and he likes doing something useful with his hands – but the plain fact is that if the crackle of the fire doesn’t wake him (again), the smell of food will absolutely rouse Yusuf, and by then Nicolò needs to know what he’s going to say. (Not that he intends to open with it before breakfast – but he is not confident of knowing what, if anything, Yusuf might say, or when.)
The problem is, he thinks, rationing out their dried fruit and deciding he can afford to put berries into the cakes, that anything beyond… well, anything beyond the powers of reasonable denial in the morning, comes with complications. The idea of trying to negotiate an entirely physical arrangement makes him wince. That has never gone anything but badly in the past, the more so when he values the relationship. At best it fizzles out, often unevenly, and given their extremely permanent partnership, that could present a serious problem itself. Besides, such things inevitably escalate, and that will lead either to arguments, or to someone’s capitulation. The only thing worse than snapping resentfully at each other over the way they fuck would be seeing Lazzaro’s disdain on Yusuf’s face. Worse yet, feeling it on his own.
The idea of anything else… Nicolò’s heart turns over painfully in his chest, and he puts that thought aside quickly. No. That would possess the same complications, and its own unique ones besides. And regardless of whether he might be able to feel it, the idea of suggesting some sort of romantic passion to Yusuf in particular is inherently humiliating. The reality of their miraculous friendship is one thing, and Nicolò is not falsely humble in comparing who he is now to who he was some decades ago, but surely that is a bridge too far for anyone. It would be an arrogant assurance in his redemption to expect that sort of love from someone who has seen him at his truly execrable worst, one that he does not possess, and which is loathsome to him.
(And… he is beginning to think that if Yusuf said no, it would hurt. Not enough to estrange them, not so badly he wouldn’t be able to get over it in a year or two – but enough that he doesn’t like to contemplate it.)
As expected, the smell of the hotcakes cooking wakes Yusuf before Nicolò can examine the matter any further. Whether this is a difficulty or a blessing is uncertain.
“Mmph. Good morning.”
“The food will be ready soon,” Nicolò says lightly, testing its consistency so he doesn’t have to turn around.
“I need to wash first.”
Ah. Of course.
“You can go stand out there.” Nicolò tips his head to indicate the mouth of the cave. “That should more than suffice. Check on the horses while you’re at it.”
Yusuf grumbles good-naturedly about it, but he’s smiling as he drags himself to his feet. Nicolò looks away before he can get distracted, but he can’t resist one last glance before the other man steps into the rain.
“Yusuf.”
“Hmm?” The man in question glances back over his shoulder.
“Your hair is sticking up.”
This is greeted with laughter, which makes Nicolò smile. This isn’t a life he ever could have imagined appreciating, let alone choosing, but he’s glad of it. He can’t imagine risking this for some unknown reward made up largely of a repackaging of things he already has.
Neither is he coward or fool enough to let things lie and simply hope that they come good. He lets Yusuf dress and break his fast and wake up properly first, but they still have half a hotcake each when Nicolò takes a breath he really wishes were deeper and says, “There are some logistics we need to discuss.”
“Logistics?” Yusuf nibbles cheerfully at his remaining breakfast.
“I’d like to turn north before we’re entirely reduced to dried meat. You said there are cities…” He’s much less confident of the geography of… anywhere they’ve ever been together, compared to Yusuf, and he can’t recall the specifics of what was actually said a few weeks ago, before they crossed the river, so he lets the thought trail off.
“It’s a bit of a journey,” Yusuf says, frowning in thought. “Even chance we’ll find a village of some sort sooner than that, in that direction.”
“I’m not particular,” Nicolò says. He lets that lie a moment or two. “As well.”
“Hmm?”
Tipping his head gently to the side, Nicolò says, “Regarding last night.”
Yusuf flushes, a little, but he also looks pleased. “You didn’t seem to have any objections.”
Nicolò can do nothing but put his face in his hands and laugh a little, helplessly. “No,” he says, when he can manage it. “No. But leaving such things undiscussed can cause… problems, down the road.”
“Such things.” Yusuf squints at the fire, one eye squeezed shut in that way he has. “I confess to being unclear on exactly what is meant by such things.” He shrugs. “Perhaps it is a gap in my own experience.”
“In other words, you are too diplomatic to accuse me of being deliberately vague.” Nicolò smiles crookedly. “To be entirely honest, my vocabulary is lacking. I have no Arabic for this subject, and anything I know in Sabir is… vulgar.”
“Inconveniently, you have not properly taught me any relevant terms in Zeneize.”
“A grave and unintentional error.”
“Hah!”
“If I can convince you to make an attempt at the conversation despite this…”
They’ve relaxed a little, looking at each other again, but Yusuf turns his gaze back to the fire now. Nicolò breaks a small piece off his remaining breakfast and carefully eats it.
“Nevertheless,” Yusuf says slowly, “I would still like to be sure. This is… not quite a situation I have found myself in before.”
This could mean any of several things. Nicolò runs through them in his mind, knowing now is not the time for wry comments on immortality and former enmity.
“With another man?” he asks cautiously. Bless him, Yusuf actually laughs at that.
“It’s not a situation I’ve found myself in with a woman, either. But no – that is not… hm… not some sort of revelation to me, if that is what you mean.” He glances over, and Nicolò nods encouragingly. “But, ah… I was always meant to marry, which was not disagreeable to me, and I thought it best to wait until then for any…” he waves his hand to cover their lack of words, “such things. But the poor girl died of an illness, and nothing after that ever came to anything, and while I eventually stopped looking at it as a given future and holding quite such rigid standards for myself, I don’t believe I have the experience to know… what this,” another brief gesture, “encompasses. It’s not something I had ever imagined, but perhaps… mutual pleasant eavesdropping?” he raises an eyebrow, “is a common thing, in your experience?”
“I would not say so,” Nicolò says. Then, driven purely by impolite curiosity (and perhaps a vague sense of guilt), “So you have never…?”
“I have little enough knowledge of what two men may do together, beyond the obvious, though I know they kiss the same as women do,” Yusuf says bluntly. “It never occurred to me to consider they might… do things together without doing anything together. I know a little more of what it is to go to bed with a woman.”
That’s clearer. Clarity is something to strive for here.
“You know more than I about that, then,” Nicolò says, hoping it will lighten the mood a little. Yusuf does smile, but it seems less effortless than usual. “I’ve… more of the other sort of knowledge, enough to tell me it’s an easy thing to ruin friendships with.”
“Ah,” Yusuf says, nodding as if he understands the situation properly now. “So this isn’t about…”
“About?”
“Your church?” Yusuf suggests, shrugging. “Jerusalem, somehow? A cultural taboo of your people?”
Nicolò laughs, briefly. “There are any number of things the church would not approve of. I cannot say it stopped me even when I still… trusted them.” He doesn’t say believed, even though… What he believes about God is not so very much changed, but what he once believed about the church – it’s not necessary to explain every painful detail. “One is expected to be fallible, you know.” He frowns. “I don’t know that word. Taboo.”
“Forbidden,” Yusuf suggests. “Haram. Not just forbidden, but… horrifying? Adultery is forbidden, taboo is…” He tries a word in Arabic. Nicolò shakes his head. “With your sister?” Yusuf says, gesturing in the way that he is using to cover all their gaps in vocabulary.
“Oh,” Nicolò says, grimacing in involuntary disgust. “Incest. Yes. We have that too. A taboo against…” He pulls a face in lieu of finishing the sentence. “But for this… it depends where you are and who you associate with, I suppose. And which… which acts you’ve chosen.” He doesn’t say that consorting with a Muslim would be far more disgusting to his people than lying down with a man.
“This is your delicate way of informing me there are things you won’t do?” Yusuf grins a little, seemingly mostly out of habit.
“I think not setting boundaries is dangerous,” Nicolò says baldly. “None of this happened deliberately, and that concerns me.” He’d like to say there are things he won’t do, in this context, but he already knows he can be talked into them. Even knowing that the other man would look at him differently afterwards, he thinks Yusuf could still do it even more easily than Lazzaro. He would want to do it, and that would make everything worse.
“That is fair,” Yusuf acknowledges with a dip of his head. “I should probably have been concerned as well, but…” He shrugs. “I was enjoying myself.”
That surprises a laugh from Nicolò, a real one this time. “That is the problem, isn’t it?” They grin at each other for a moment.
“The truth is,” he says more seriously, “is that I never parted on good terms from any man I had as a… as a serious lover, and when I tried that sort of things with friends, it… was worse. And I could never be reckless with our friendship.”
“It would be awkward to hate one another,” Yusuf agrees, and then he winks.
Nicolò flushes, because Yusuf is unreasonably handsome and because he hates to be reminded of those early days on such casual terms and because what can he possibly say to that?
“No, no, you’re not wrong, my friend,” Yusuf says, after a moment of silently laughing at him. He leans back on his arms, watching the rain fall. “But would you call us lovers, then, O wise and experienced one? I thought we were only…”
“Enjoying ourselves?” Nicolò suggests. Yusuf jerks with surprised mirth and almost falls over; he straightens up, rubbing his shoulder.
“A hit,” he says. “You will teach me to make sport of you.”
“Regardless, I do not think two people can be considered lovers if they have not actually touched each other. And if we agree to stay on the other side of that line… there will be less risk of,” Nicolò shrugs one shoulder, “conflict.” Resentment. Guilt. Contempt.
“No more acting on impulse,” Yusuf agrees. “It is a wise decision.” He hesitates, his voice less sure when he speaks again. “But you do not wish to stop.”
Nicolò bites his cheek to prevent from answering too quickly, too eagerly. “No,” he says, quite calmly. “No, I don’t.”
Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (4/?)
This bit is, sadly, largely SFW. Sorry.
Part four, in which Nicky uses his mouth words (kind of)
*
Nicolò rarely tarries in bed after he wakes, but today he’s been staring at the roof of the cave for several minutes. When he rises, he’ll have to deal with unpleasant realities, like how the rain he can still hear will mean very little to burn if they stay and a wet, miserable journey if they leave, or how they’re running precariously low on food that isn’t dried meat and hard bread, or how he needs to do something about this new development with Yusuf.
It is roaringly stupid to avoid this by instead choosing to lie staring at featureless grey rocks and gloomily contemplating it, of course, so he is going to get up in just a moment. Just one moment.
Finally he does, because the predawn air is chilly, his clothes are by the dwindling fire, and his blankets have gotten so disarranged that he cannot keep himself entirely warm where he is without getting up to disentangle them. And if he’s going to do that, he may as well dress and build up the fire and prepare breakfast.
He doesn’t mind the chore ordinarily – it’s quiet and peaceful and he likes doing something useful with his hands – but the plain fact is that if the crackle of the fire doesn’t wake him (again), the smell of food will absolutely rouse Yusuf, and by then Nicolò needs to know what he’s going to say. (Not that he intends to open with it before breakfast – but he is not confident of knowing what, if anything, Yusuf might say, or when.)
The problem is, he thinks, rationing out their dried fruit and deciding he can afford to put berries into the cakes, that anything beyond… well, anything beyond the powers of reasonable denial in the morning, comes with complications. The idea of trying to negotiate an entirely physical arrangement makes him wince. That has never gone anything but badly in the past, the more so when he values the relationship. At best it fizzles out, often unevenly, and given their extremely permanent partnership, that could present a serious problem itself. Besides, such things inevitably escalate, and that will lead either to arguments, or to someone’s capitulation. The only thing worse than snapping resentfully at each other over the way they fuck would be seeing Lazzaro’s disdain on Yusuf’s face. Worse yet, feeling it on his own.
The idea of anything else… Nicolò’s heart turns over painfully in his chest, and he puts that thought aside quickly. No. That would possess the same complications, and its own unique ones besides. And regardless of whether he might be able to feel it, the idea of suggesting some sort of romantic passion to Yusuf in particular is inherently humiliating. The reality of their miraculous friendship is one thing, and Nicolò is not falsely humble in comparing who he is now to who he was some decades ago, but surely that is a bridge too far for anyone. It would be an arrogant assurance in his redemption to expect that sort of love from someone who has seen him at his truly execrable worst, one that he does not possess, and which is loathsome to him.
(And… he is beginning to think that if Yusuf said no, it would hurt. Not enough to estrange them, not so badly he wouldn’t be able to get over it in a year or two – but enough that he doesn’t like to contemplate it.)
As expected, the smell of the hotcakes cooking wakes Yusuf before Nicolò can examine the matter any further. Whether this is a difficulty or a blessing is uncertain.
“Mmph. Good morning.”
“The food will be ready soon,” Nicolò says lightly, testing its consistency so he doesn’t have to turn around.
“I need to wash first.”
Ah. Of course.
“You can go stand out there.” Nicolò tips his head to indicate the mouth of the cave. “That should more than suffice. Check on the horses while you’re at it.”
Yusuf grumbles good-naturedly about it, but he’s smiling as he drags himself to his feet. Nicolò looks away before he can get distracted, but he can’t resist one last glance before the other man steps into the rain.
“Yusuf.”
“Hmm?” The man in question glances back over his shoulder.
“Your hair is sticking up.”
This is greeted with laughter, which makes Nicolò smile. This isn’t a life he ever could have imagined appreciating, let alone choosing, but he’s glad of it. He can’t imagine risking this for some unknown reward made up largely of a repackaging of things he already has.
Neither is he coward or fool enough to let things lie and simply hope that they come good. He lets Yusuf dress and break his fast and wake up properly first, but they still have half a hotcake each when Nicolò takes a breath he really wishes were deeper and says, “There are some logistics we need to discuss.”
“Logistics?” Yusuf nibbles cheerfully at his remaining breakfast.
“I’d like to turn north before we’re entirely reduced to dried meat. You said there are cities…” He’s much less confident of the geography of… anywhere they’ve ever been together, compared to Yusuf, and he can’t recall the specifics of what was actually said a few weeks ago, before they crossed the river, so he lets the thought trail off.
“It’s a bit of a journey,” Yusuf says, frowning in thought. “Even chance we’ll find a village of some sort sooner than that, in that direction.”
“I’m not particular,” Nicolò says. He lets that lie a moment or two. “As well.”
“Hmm?”
Tipping his head gently to the side, Nicolò says, “Regarding last night.”
Yusuf flushes, a little, but he also looks pleased. “You didn’t seem to have any objections.”
Nicolò can do nothing but put his face in his hands and laugh a little, helplessly. “No,” he says, when he can manage it. “No. But leaving such things undiscussed can cause… problems, down the road.”
“Such things.” Yusuf squints at the fire, one eye squeezed shut in that way he has. “I confess to being unclear on exactly what is meant by such things.” He shrugs. “Perhaps it is a gap in my own experience.”
“In other words, you are too diplomatic to accuse me of being deliberately vague.” Nicolò smiles crookedly. “To be entirely honest, my vocabulary is lacking. I have no Arabic for this subject, and anything I know in Sabir is… vulgar.”
“Inconveniently, you have not properly taught me any relevant terms in Zeneize.”
“A grave and unintentional error.”
“Hah!”
“If I can convince you to make an attempt at the conversation despite this…”
They’ve relaxed a little, looking at each other again, but Yusuf turns his gaze back to the fire now. Nicolò breaks a small piece off his remaining breakfast and carefully eats it.
“Nevertheless,” Yusuf says slowly, “I would still like to be sure. This is… not quite a situation I have found myself in before.”
This could mean any of several things. Nicolò runs through them in his mind, knowing now is not the time for wry comments on immortality and former enmity.
“With another man?” he asks cautiously. Bless him, Yusuf actually laughs at that.
“It’s not a situation I’ve found myself in with a woman, either. But no – that is not… hm… not some sort of revelation to me, if that is what you mean.” He glances over, and Nicolò nods encouragingly. “But, ah… I was always meant to marry, which was not disagreeable to me, and I thought it best to wait until then for any…” he waves his hand to cover their lack of words, “such things. But the poor girl died of an illness, and nothing after that ever came to anything, and while I eventually stopped looking at it as a given future and holding quite such rigid standards for myself, I don’t believe I have the experience to know… what this,” another brief gesture, “encompasses. It’s not something I had ever imagined, but perhaps… mutual pleasant eavesdropping?” he raises an eyebrow, “is a common thing, in your experience?”
“I would not say so,” Nicolò says. Then, driven purely by impolite curiosity (and perhaps a vague sense of guilt), “So you have never…?”
“I have little enough knowledge of what two men may do together, beyond the obvious, though I know they kiss the same as women do,” Yusuf says bluntly. “It never occurred to me to consider they might… do things together without doing anything together. I know a little more of what it is to go to bed with a woman.”
That’s clearer. Clarity is something to strive for here.
“You know more than I about that, then,” Nicolò says, hoping it will lighten the mood a little. Yusuf does smile, but it seems less effortless than usual. “I’ve… more of the other sort of knowledge, enough to tell me it’s an easy thing to ruin friendships with.”
“Ah,” Yusuf says, nodding as if he understands the situation properly now. “So this isn’t about…”
“About?”
“Your church?” Yusuf suggests, shrugging. “Jerusalem, somehow? A cultural taboo of your people?”
Nicolò laughs, briefly. “There are any number of things the church would not approve of. I cannot say it stopped me even when I still… trusted them.” He doesn’t say believed, even though… What he believes about God is not so very much changed, but what he once believed about the church – it’s not necessary to explain every painful detail. “One is expected to be fallible, you know.” He frowns. “I don’t know that word. Taboo.”
“Forbidden,” Yusuf suggests. “Haram. Not just forbidden, but… horrifying? Adultery is forbidden, taboo is…” He tries a word in Arabic. Nicolò shakes his head. “With your sister?” Yusuf says, gesturing in the way that he is using to cover all their gaps in vocabulary.
“Oh,” Nicolò says, grimacing in involuntary disgust. “Incest. Yes. We have that too. A taboo against…” He pulls a face in lieu of finishing the sentence. “But for this… it depends where you are and who you associate with, I suppose. And which… which acts you’ve chosen.” He doesn’t say that consorting with a Muslim would be far more disgusting to his people than lying down with a man.
“This is your delicate way of informing me there are things you won’t do?” Yusuf grins a little, seemingly mostly out of habit.
“I think not setting boundaries is dangerous,” Nicolò says baldly. “None of this happened deliberately, and that concerns me.” He’d like to say there are things he won’t do, in this context, but he already knows he can be talked into them. Even knowing that the other man would look at him differently afterwards, he thinks Yusuf could still do it even more easily than Lazzaro. He would want to do it, and that would make everything worse.
“That is fair,” Yusuf acknowledges with a dip of his head. “I should probably have been concerned as well, but…” He shrugs. “I was enjoying myself.”
That surprises a laugh from Nicolò, a real one this time. “That is the problem, isn’t it?” They grin at each other for a moment.
“The truth is,” he says more seriously, “is that I never parted on good terms from any man I had as a… as a serious lover, and when I tried that sort of things with friends, it… was worse. And I could never be reckless with our friendship.”
“It would be awkward to hate one another,” Yusuf agrees, and then he winks.
Nicolò flushes, because Yusuf is unreasonably handsome and because he hates to be reminded of those early days on such casual terms and because what can he possibly say to that?
“No, no, you’re not wrong, my friend,” Yusuf says, after a moment of silently laughing at him. He leans back on his arms, watching the rain fall. “But would you call us lovers, then, O wise and experienced one? I thought we were only…”
“Enjoying ourselves?” Nicolò suggests. Yusuf jerks with surprised mirth and almost falls over; he straightens up, rubbing his shoulder.
“A hit,” he says. “You will teach me to make sport of you.”
“Regardless, I do not think two people can be considered lovers if they have not actually touched each other. And if we agree to stay on the other side of that line… there will be less risk of,” Nicolò shrugs one shoulder, “conflict.” Resentment. Guilt. Contempt.
“No more acting on impulse,” Yusuf agrees. “It is a wise decision.” He hesitates, his voice less sure when he speaks again. “But you do not wish to stop.”
Nicolò bites his cheek to prevent from answering too quickly, too eagerly. “No,” he says, quite calmly. “No, I don’t.”