Nicolo hesitated, one knee pulled up to lift him out of the pool.
Yusuf savored the scene before him: the droplets of water trickling down Nicolo’s back and over the dark swirl of his taint still pink from the first bath. Nicolo gave him such an eyebrow when Yusuf suggested they bathe when they woke up.
Nicolo caught the dreamy look Yusuf suspected was on his face. He rolled his eyes, hauled himself out of the water...
And kicked a wave of water onto Yusuf’s face.
Yusuf sputtered, torn between indignant and elation when Nicolo laughed. Oh, such a deep chested and free sound from his Nicolo—
Another splash.
“Did that not rouse you out of your daze?” Nicolo asked innocently. He did not look as chaste sitting nude at the edge of their small bathing hole, his bare feet idly kicking the water, his cock a soft pink temptation between his spread legs.
“Most unkind,” Yusuf pretended to grumble. He wiped the water from his beard, using the moment to grin behind his hand. He will strive to make Nicolo laugh like that at least once every day. Perhaps twice. Yes, that is a plan.
“I am sorry,” Nicolo apologized, but the brightness of his grin and his eyes contradicted his sincerity. “Please tell me. What would you like me to wait for?"
Yusuf gestured towards Nicolo. "I wish to have a moment to appreciate what is before me."
Nicolo scoffed. "That is what you said before the first time. You said you wish to draw a picture."
"I did!"
Nicolo's eyes narrowed. "And yet your paper and charcoal sits on our table."
Oh. Yusuf scratched his beard. He waggled his eyebrows. Nicolo splashed him again.
"Are you trying to yet again delay feeding our chickens?”
It was Yusuf’s turn to roll his eyes. “That mangy beast has been stealing the bucket and tossing feed into the pen. Our birds did not starve all this week. In fact, I think we should stop feeding them. They are starting to look like their feathers weigh them down. I think one poor hen is having trouble walking now.”
Nicolo squinted at Yusuf. “I found feed stuck on their feathers. Your horse tossed feed more on them than in the pen.”
“It is a horse,” Yusuf said grandly. “That it did not eat the feed itself and knew to take the bucket off its peg is a miracle itself.”
Nicolo glanced over his shoulder towards the direction of their home.
“It should not be doing that,” Nicolo fretted. “It is still limping.” His brow furrowed.
“If that ungrateful beast would stop chewing off the bandages and allow the pumice to work, it would be prancing around like the fool it is!” Still, Yusuf made a note to check the wound. The idiot might have reopened the slash trying to feed the chickens on its own.
“We should not stay inside so much,” Nicolo said. He flushed, his mouth twisting. “This much time spent in bed can not be good.”
Yusuf scooped water with his hands and flung it towards Nicolo.
“Lies! What horrible untruths have you heard?” Yusuf splashed Nicolo again. Nicolo scoffed, kicking water back towards him.
“Those who say that have not have the taste of your coc—“ Yusuf chortled when Nicolo jumped back into the pool with a growl.
“And we are not always in bed!” Yusuf pointed out. “We are also taking baths before we go back to bed!” He snickered when Nicolo pushed him. He pushed back. Suddenly, water filled his view as they splashed.
“All right, all right,” Yusuf murmured as he captured Nicolo’s wrists. He pulled Nicolo in for a kiss. “Perhaps four days spent in such wanton behavior was a bit much, but do not tell me you did not enjoy it.”
Nicolo sighed into the kiss. His mouth parted, his body swaying into Yusuf, his hands trapped between their bodies.
“Yes,” Nicolo admitted when they parted, but did not stray too far from each other. “These four days...” He leaned in and brushed his mouth over Yusuf’s. “But we should not spend eternity like that. I will bore you quickly.”
“Never,” Yusuf declared. He drew Nicolo’s hands to his stirring sex. “Even now, I yearn for you. I would gladly have you here or...” Yusuf hesitated before finishing, “Or you have me.”
And as before, Nicolo flinched. He did not try to hide it. Not now, not when they could now read each other’s bodies so intimately.
Yusuf sighed. He was not offended. Merely heartbroken and oddly touched.
“You would not hurt me,” Yusuf murmured. He pulled Nicolo’s hands up to his mouth. “I know you fear that. I am grateful for your concern, but saddened you still hold such worry in your heart.”
Nicolo exhaled. He rested his forehead against Yusuf’s.
They stayed like this, their breathing easily falling into a matched pace.
“Have patience,” Nicolo said, echoing Yusuf from days before. “There is still a part of me that fears hurting you like that.”
Yusuf grimaced.
Nicolo kissed Yusuf’s nose and swept his lips over Yusuf’s beard.
“You did not hurt me.” Nicolo nuzzled a spot under Yusuf’s jaw, where his beard was sparse, where Nicolo somehow knew was his most sensitive spot.
“You were so careful with me. I wish to be like you, take you with the same ease and pleasure you gave me.” Nicolo huffed when Yusuf tipped his head back, baring the vulnerable side of his jaw.
“You did not hurt me,” Nicolo repeated as he brushed his mouth over the spot again. “You completed me in a way I did not know I was lacking.”
Yusuf kissed their clasped hands.
“You lack nothing,” Yusuf said with feeling. “You are everything to me, more than I even knew I wanted.”
Yusuf bumped his nose to Nicolo’s.
“I will wait,” Yusuf said hoarsely. “Forever if I must. When you no longer fear yourself, for I hold no fear towards you. I will wait. Because I know it will be perfect, because it would be with you.”
Nicolo smiled, that small mysterious smile Yusuf adored. It was a gentle curl of Nicolo’s mouth, small yet so full of promise.
Yusuf reluctantly released Nicolo’s hands so he could brush a knuckle over the upturned corner of Nicolo’s mouth. Those lips ticked up higher under Yusuf’s touch.
“Hobi,” Yusuf murmured. “Let us go to bed. Hm?”
Nicolo pulled back and considered Yusuf.
“No,” Nicolo chuckled warmly. Yusuf could not feel rejected as he basked under such a sound.
“There are things we should do.” Nicolo paused, his eyes dimming. “I...We should see how the village fare.”
Yusuf grew somber. “Of course.”
Nicolo's eyes slid away. "I know you wish to stay here. I admit, the fight was vicious and troubles me as well...but I can not help but worry..."
“Most of the fishermen would have returned from Alexandria by now,” Yusuf calculated. Yusuf rubbed Nicolo’s shoulders. Nicolo’s shoulders tensed under Yusuf’s palms. "I do not imagine their return home was a joyous one."
“The dead has been buried, but grief lives on.” Nicolo sighed. “We were only able to help build temporary shelters, but winter will be upon us. You and I have been cold before, even froze to death once, but they? Those are poor dwellings. They will not provide much warmth.”
Yusuf's sigh pulled something inside.
"But what else aid can we provide besides building houses? We can not bring back the dead or heal the wounded."
The shadows that hung back for days advanced in Yusuf's mind.
"We can not do nothing," Nicolo said. He leaned in, stopped and peered up at Yusuf. "The loss is troubling, but there is still the living we can help. Yusuf--"
“We will help them,” Yusuf assured him. He kneaded Nicolo’s shoulders. "There is time before the cold. And there will be time for us later. I understand and I agree. I am sorry. Of course we shall go after we break fast and see what aid we can offer."
“We can help,” Nicolo agreed. He smoothed his hand over Yusuf's chest, over and over Yusuf's heart. His eyes lingered on the pendant hung around Yusuf's neck.
“It may seem so little, but we can do some good.”
Yusuf wished he believed the same. For now, he will rely on Nicolo to believe it for them both.
He was about to yell at the beast for standing in the way, until Nicolo shook his head. At a closer look, Yusuf realized the horse stood by a burnt cart that was once the fruit cart for—Oh.
Yusuf turned away from the sight of the horse pawing a spot by the cart, looking forlorn, nickering softly.
Nicolo glanced over to Yusuf, his mouth twisting as Yusuf shrugged. Yusuf went back to scooping the muddy material into the molds laid out on the ground.
They were startled by the noise and activity that greeted them upon arrival at the village. The market space was cleared of the destroyed stalls and wagons. Rows of molds lay across the grounds to dry into mud bricks under the sun. By the mill, a narrow furrow was dug out of the stream and routed towards the center of the village where some were mixing sand and various materials to make the mud.
Life, as short as it were for the villagers, went on. It was humbling to see. Yusuf and Nicolo exchanged a look, both thinking of the four days they spent with each other. A look, nothing more, and then they went to see where they could offer help.
It was messy work. Yusuf was glad he folded up his cloak and tucked it in the bags with the horse. He folded up his sleeves and proceeded to shovel mud into hollow shells. Nicolo and a few others smoothed the surfaces and set them out to dry.
Yusuf found himself smiling to himself from time to time. Izem and the mill owner were seen going back and forth, helping and directing others. Izem, once soft spoken and hunched, was a different boy—no, a man—now.
A glance over to Nicolo, Yusuf saw Nicolo was smiling to himself as well.
There was something reassuring seeing Izem as he is now. If any good was to come from this violence, it was Izem.
Yusuf’s smile dimmed though when he spotted the weaver’s daughter, red-eyed and sniffling, as she worked her plank over to smooth the mud. Nicolo told him about her mother, how he could not find her in time, how another tried to shield the weaver.
“Do you regret helping?”
Yusuf blinked. He looked up to find Izem next to him, a shovel now in his own thin-boned grip.
“No,” Nicolo answered for him, for them both. “We do not. We only wished it was more.”
Yusuf, a lump in his throat, nodded.
Izem appeared thoughtful and he once again looked like the youth struggling with the basic Arabic Yusuf tried to teach him. Has it really been two months ago?
"Were you not here," Izem replied. "I fear our fate would be worse. It is terrible, yes, but many of us survived as well."
Izem bit his lower lip.
“I had wondered,” Izem said quietly, “When I fled Hedi’s crew, if I should have come home, to here.”
The youth frowned. Yusuf was struck by how much older he appeared. It was like Nicolo, who was often so solemn yet his youth broke through with each smile. But unlike him and Nicolo, Izem was not graced with the ability to tuck the years away under a youthful mien. Izem would grow old, lined with this sorrowful experience, his back bowed with sorrow. What befallen the village will haunt Izem for as long as he lived.
Yusuf cleared his throat. “Do you regret coming home, Izem?”
Izem appeared startled at the question. His brow furrowed, an aged expression that was ill-suited for his smooth face.
“I should,” Izem finally said. His voice lifted it as a question, but Yusuf was not sure if it is for them or for himself.
“You believe you have brought this to your home.” Nicolo’s expression held a sad understanding that made Yusuf’s stomach clench.
Izem nodded then shook his head soon after.
“No, they would have come anyway.” Izem appeared thoughtful again. “I think I was meant to be here.”
Nicolo blinked. He exchanged a look with Yusuf.
“There is a reason why I left Hedi’s crew, why I chose that moment to find the courage to leave. And there was a reason why I decided to come home instead of hiding.”
Izem tightened his grip on the shovel. The muddy mixture slurped as he scooped it up to fill a mold by his feet.
“It is the same reason,” Izem went on, “why you two chose to stay near the village, yes? It is fate that we were to meet here and help.”
“Things happen for a reason,” Yusuf said, almost to himself. Like two souls lowering swords on a battlefield. Something warm settled in his chest. “You have sound reasoning, Izem.”
“It was like destiny,” Nicolo murmured. His eyes lingered on Yusuf.
Yusuf smiled back.
----------------------- Found out canonically, Quynh and Andromache actually didn't meet Yusuf and Nicolo for another two hundred years, which totally screwed up my ending so bear with me as I change stuff around.
NEW HERE: Needs of the Other 20B/21
———————————————-
Part 20B
———————————————-
(Yusuf)
Somewhere outside of Alexandria, 12th century
“Wait.”
Nicolo hesitated, one knee pulled up to lift him out of the pool.
Yusuf savored the scene before him: the droplets of water trickling down Nicolo’s back and over the dark swirl of his taint still pink from the first bath. Nicolo gave him such an eyebrow when Yusuf suggested they bathe when they woke up.
Nicolo caught the dreamy look Yusuf suspected was on his face. He rolled his eyes, hauled himself out of the water...
And kicked a wave of water onto Yusuf’s face.
Yusuf sputtered, torn between indignant and elation when Nicolo laughed. Oh, such a deep chested and free sound from his Nicolo—
Another splash.
“Did that not rouse you out of your daze?” Nicolo asked innocently. He did not look as chaste sitting nude at the edge of their small bathing hole, his bare feet idly kicking the water, his cock a soft pink temptation between his spread legs.
“Most unkind,” Yusuf pretended to grumble. He wiped the water from his beard, using the moment to grin behind his hand. He will strive to make Nicolo laugh like that at least once every day. Perhaps twice. Yes, that is a plan.
“I am sorry,” Nicolo apologized, but the brightness of his grin and his eyes contradicted his sincerity. “Please tell me. What would you like me to wait for?"
Yusuf gestured towards Nicolo. "I wish to have a moment to appreciate what is before me."
Nicolo scoffed. "That is what you said before the first time. You said you wish to draw a picture."
"I did!"
Nicolo's eyes narrowed. "And yet your paper and charcoal sits on our table."
Oh. Yusuf scratched his beard. He waggled his eyebrows. Nicolo splashed him again.
"Are you trying to yet again delay feeding our chickens?”
It was Yusuf’s turn to roll his eyes. “That mangy beast has been stealing the bucket and tossing feed into the pen. Our birds did not starve all this week. In fact, I think we should stop feeding them. They are starting to look like their feathers weigh them down. I think one poor hen is having trouble walking now.”
Nicolo squinted at Yusuf. “I found feed stuck on their feathers. Your horse tossed feed more on them than in the pen.”
“It is a horse,” Yusuf said grandly. “That it did not eat the feed itself and knew to take the bucket off its peg is a miracle itself.”
Nicolo glanced over his shoulder towards the direction of their home.
“It should not be doing that,” Nicolo fretted. “It is still limping.” His brow furrowed.
“If that ungrateful beast would stop chewing off the bandages and allow the pumice to work, it would be prancing around like the fool it is!” Still, Yusuf made a note to check the wound. The idiot might have reopened the slash trying to feed the chickens on its own.
“We should not stay inside so much,” Nicolo said. He flushed, his mouth twisting. “This much time spent in bed can not be good.”
Yusuf scooped water with his hands and flung it towards Nicolo.
“Lies! What horrible untruths have you heard?” Yusuf splashed Nicolo again. Nicolo scoffed, kicking water back towards him.
“Those who say that have not have the taste of your coc—“ Yusuf chortled when Nicolo jumped back into the pool with a growl.
“And we are not always in bed!” Yusuf pointed out. “We are also taking baths before we go back to bed!” He snickered when Nicolo pushed him. He pushed back. Suddenly, water filled his view as they splashed.
“All right, all right,” Yusuf murmured as he captured Nicolo’s wrists. He pulled Nicolo in for a kiss. “Perhaps four days spent in such wanton behavior was a bit much, but do not tell me you did not enjoy it.”
Nicolo sighed into the kiss. His mouth parted, his body swaying into Yusuf, his hands trapped between their bodies.
“Yes,” Nicolo admitted when they parted, but did not stray too far from each other. “These four days...” He leaned in and brushed his mouth over Yusuf’s. “But we should not spend eternity like that. I will bore you quickly.”
“Never,” Yusuf declared. He drew Nicolo’s hands to his stirring sex. “Even now, I yearn for you. I would gladly have you here or...” Yusuf hesitated before finishing, “Or you have me.”
And as before, Nicolo flinched. He did not try to hide it. Not now, not when they could now read each other’s bodies so intimately.
Yusuf sighed. He was not offended. Merely heartbroken and oddly touched.
“You would not hurt me,” Yusuf murmured. He pulled Nicolo’s hands up to his mouth. “I know you fear that. I am grateful for your concern, but saddened you still hold such worry in your heart.”
Nicolo exhaled. He rested his forehead against Yusuf’s.
They stayed like this, their breathing easily falling into a matched pace.
“Have patience,” Nicolo said, echoing Yusuf from days before. “There is still a part of me that fears hurting you like that.”
Yusuf grimaced.
Nicolo kissed Yusuf’s nose and swept his lips over Yusuf’s beard.
“You did not hurt me.” Nicolo nuzzled a spot under Yusuf’s jaw, where his beard was sparse, where Nicolo somehow knew was his most sensitive spot.
“You were so careful with me. I wish to be like you, take you with the same ease and pleasure you gave me.” Nicolo huffed when Yusuf tipped his head back, baring the vulnerable side of his jaw.
“You did not hurt me,” Nicolo repeated as he brushed his mouth over the spot again. “You completed me in a way I did not know I was lacking.”
Yusuf kissed their clasped hands.
“You lack nothing,” Yusuf said with feeling. “You are everything to me, more than I even knew I wanted.”
Yusuf bumped his nose to Nicolo’s.
“I will wait,” Yusuf said hoarsely. “Forever if I must. When you no longer fear yourself, for I hold no fear towards you. I will wait. Because I know it will be perfect, because it would be with you.”
Nicolo smiled, that small mysterious smile Yusuf adored. It was a gentle curl of Nicolo’s mouth, small yet so full of promise.
Yusuf reluctantly released Nicolo’s hands so he could brush a knuckle over the upturned corner of Nicolo’s mouth. Those lips ticked up higher under Yusuf’s touch.
“Hobi,” Yusuf murmured. “Let us go to bed. Hm?”
Nicolo pulled back and considered Yusuf.
“No,” Nicolo chuckled warmly. Yusuf could not feel rejected as he basked under such a sound.
“There are things we should do.” Nicolo paused, his eyes dimming. “I...We should see how the village fare.”
Yusuf grew somber. “Of course.”
Nicolo's eyes slid away. "I know you wish to stay here. I admit, the fight was vicious and troubles me as well...but I can not help but worry..."
“Most of the fishermen would have returned from Alexandria by now,” Yusuf calculated. Yusuf rubbed Nicolo’s shoulders. Nicolo’s shoulders tensed under Yusuf’s palms. "I do not imagine their return home was a joyous one."
“The dead has been buried, but grief lives on.” Nicolo sighed. “We were only able to help build temporary shelters, but winter will be upon us. You and I have been cold before, even froze to death once, but they? Those are poor dwellings. They will not provide much warmth.”
Yusuf's sigh pulled something inside.
"But what else aid can we provide besides building houses? We can not bring back the dead or heal the wounded."
The shadows that hung back for days advanced in Yusuf's mind.
"We can not do nothing," Nicolo said. He leaned in, stopped and peered up at Yusuf. "The loss is troubling, but there is still the living we can help. Yusuf--"
“We will help them,” Yusuf assured him. He kneaded Nicolo’s shoulders. "There is time before the cold. And there will be time for us later. I understand and I agree. I am sorry. Of course we shall go after we break fast and see what aid we can offer."
“We can help,” Nicolo agreed. He smoothed his hand over Yusuf's chest, over and over Yusuf's heart. His eyes lingered on the pendant hung around Yusuf's neck.
“It may seem so little, but we can do some good.”
Yusuf wished he believed the same. For now, he will rely on Nicolo to believe it for them both.
He was about to yell at the beast for standing in the way, until Nicolo shook his head. At a closer look, Yusuf realized the horse stood by a burnt cart that was once the fruit cart for—Oh.
Yusuf turned away from the sight of the horse pawing a spot by the cart, looking forlorn, nickering softly.
Nicolo glanced over to Yusuf, his mouth twisting as Yusuf shrugged. Yusuf went back to scooping the muddy material into the molds laid out on the ground.
They were startled by the noise and activity that greeted them upon arrival at the village. The market space was cleared of the destroyed stalls and wagons. Rows of molds lay across the grounds to dry into mud bricks under the sun. By the mill, a narrow furrow was dug out of the stream and routed towards the center of the village where some were mixing sand and various materials to make the mud.
Life, as short as it were for the villagers, went on. It was humbling to see. Yusuf and Nicolo exchanged a look, both thinking of the four days they spent with each other. A look, nothing more, and then they went to see where they could offer help.
It was messy work. Yusuf was glad he folded up his cloak and tucked it in the bags with the horse. He folded up his sleeves and proceeded to shovel mud into hollow shells. Nicolo and a few others smoothed the surfaces and set them out to dry.
Yusuf found himself smiling to himself from time to time. Izem and the mill owner were seen going back and forth, helping and directing others. Izem, once soft spoken and hunched, was a different boy—no, a man—now.
A glance over to Nicolo, Yusuf saw Nicolo was smiling to himself as well.
There was something reassuring seeing Izem as he is now. If any good was to come from this violence, it was Izem.
Yusuf’s smile dimmed though when he spotted the weaver’s daughter, red-eyed and sniffling, as she worked her plank over to smooth the mud. Nicolo told him about her mother, how he could not find her in time, how another tried to shield the weaver.
“Do you regret helping?”
Yusuf blinked. He looked up to find Izem next to him, a shovel now in his own thin-boned grip.
“No,” Nicolo answered for him, for them both. “We do not. We only wished it was more.”
Yusuf, a lump in his throat, nodded.
Izem appeared thoughtful and he once again looked like the youth struggling with the basic Arabic Yusuf tried to teach him. Has it really been two months ago?
"Were you not here," Izem replied. "I fear our fate would be worse. It is terrible, yes, but many of us survived as well."
Izem bit his lower lip.
“I had wondered,” Izem said quietly, “When I fled Hedi’s crew, if I should have come home, to here.”
The youth frowned. Yusuf was struck by how much older he appeared. It was like Nicolo, who was often so solemn yet his youth broke through with each smile. But unlike him and Nicolo, Izem was not graced with the ability to tuck the years away under a youthful mien. Izem would grow old, lined with this sorrowful experience, his back bowed with sorrow. What befallen the village will haunt Izem for as long as he lived.
Yusuf cleared his throat. “Do you regret coming home, Izem?”
Izem appeared startled at the question. His brow furrowed, an aged expression that was ill-suited for his smooth face.
“I should,” Izem finally said. His voice lifted it as a question, but Yusuf was not sure if it is for them or for himself.
“You believe you have brought this to your home.” Nicolo’s expression held a sad understanding that made Yusuf’s stomach clench.
Izem nodded then shook his head soon after.
“No, they would have come anyway.” Izem appeared thoughtful again. “I think I was meant to be here.”
Nicolo blinked. He exchanged a look with Yusuf.
“There is a reason why I left Hedi’s crew, why I chose that moment to find the courage to leave. And there was a reason why I decided to come home instead of hiding.”
Izem tightened his grip on the shovel. The muddy mixture slurped as he scooped it up to fill a mold by his feet.
“It is the same reason,” Izem went on, “why you two chose to stay near the village, yes? It is fate that we were to meet here and help.”
“Things happen for a reason,” Yusuf said, almost to himself. Like two souls lowering swords on a battlefield. Something warm settled in his chest. “You have sound reasoning, Izem.”
“It was like destiny,” Nicolo murmured. His eyes lingered on Yusuf.
Yusuf smiled back.
-----------------------
Found out canonically, Quynh and Andromache actually didn't meet Yusuf and Nicolo for another two hundred years, which totally screwed up my ending so bear with me as I change stuff around.
More Friday. Quiz tomorrow. Eek.