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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.”

It's me, the mouth words commenter! I love every second of this. I love how honest they are with each other and how they're still negotiating the culture clash along with all the rest.

Also you fucking idiot Nicky you're so obviously desperately in love with him how could you not know it?? You literally just said you would let him talk you into anything and then you're like haha as long as we don't touch each other it doesn't count oh my god I feel like the sexual frustration will kill me

Um, excuse me, he just means Joe is a very convincing negotiator?

No, I couldn't even keep a straight face while typing that.

Like, Nicky is at least AWARE that there is Feelings Stuff Going On here for him (he has, uh, reasons to have developed his self-reflection skills), but he's all tied up in how all his past breakups were contentious (and look, I don't know yet how much detail I'm going to be able to work into the fic itself yet, but he's definitely over-representing his relationship experience, because he thinks it amounts to more than it does). He's like 'I am being a realist, reality is difficult sometimes' and I'm over here just 'Dude, that's logical fallacy and your subconscious self-sabotage talking, have you considered that your terrible ex was just a jerk and not an example of how every relationship fails'. (He has not, in fact, considered that.)

Compare Joe, who's just cheerfully going with the flow, like, 'hey this is neat, I like it, hope we don't have to stop', no further analysis. It has its own pitfalls but he is so much less stressed out.

Anyway, I'm glad you like it! I got attacked with nerves after I posted, so your comment made me super happy. :)

you have so little need to be nervous my friend. I know that doesn't undo nervousness but I have rarely read fic I have been so deeply deeply invested in right from the get-go, the emotions and the dialogue and of course the sex are so spot-on it's unreal.

subconscious self-sabotage is SO REAL omg he's making his own life so hard. Also I really dig inexperienced Joe just being super into it it seems very very true to character

having been in nicky's position...he does know. but he's not letting himself think on it or act on it because joe hasn't give him any indication and it's unfair to lay all the emotional work on nicky.

OP here

I was unreasonably happy Nicky's name had an accent at all, so no worries!

So, you know what's a trope I detest? People not talking to each other - I know, I know, considering what I prompted, it sounds unbelievable, but it's true.
The point I am trying to make: I love that they talked. Absolutely adore it. Even more because they are actually digging themselves deeper, but in a way that makes perfect sense! It's perfectly in-character, too!
Also, with the way you write their dialogue, I could read 20 chapters of them just talking (though I immensely appreciate the NSFW parts, too!). The moments where they were at loss for the right terms was beautiful!

Loved Nicky's POV and what we could see of Yusuf - loved that he's rather casual about the whole situation in spite of having less general experience.

Loved Nicky's reflections and the glimpses of his backstory we got. Why do I have a feeling we'll be itching to break Lazzaro's nose, eventually? Scratch that, I'm itching about that already.

There are simply too many wonderful sentences for me to point out a favorite, I'd just end up copying and pasting the whole chapter. Wonderful work!

I mean, you specifically mentioned 'they talk about what counts/doesn't count but then whoops it's too sexy' as a thing, and that's WHY I included it, because it just... is better that way. You are a smart person.

Fun fact: I went to pick a random Italian name off behindthename, because I need to stop naming some random Genovese backstory character Francisco in every fic/story idea all the time (Nicky's dad? Nicky's first boyfriend? Nicky's squash-loving parishioner? They're all named Francisco. Why? I don't know.), but I wanted something less familiar to a modern-day English speaker than, like, Angelo or Roberto, and as I scrolled idly by, I saw that 'Lazzaro' used to be used in Ye Olden Dayes as a word meaning 'leper'. So I picked it, because he's a dick. Sorry not sorry?

Thank you again for your comments, I am 1.5K+ into the next bit (and, uh... a third of the way done? maybe?) so I promise it's coming. <3

Aw yessssss. More cake!!!

OP - point, but I never specified *when* they'd talk (at least I don't think I did), so the fact that it happened quickly? Awesome.

"His name was Lazzaro and he definitely deserved it" (mangled quote).

Thank you for all your hard work!

This is such a great fic, I love how they inch closer to each other continuously. So sensual and such fun to read their banter!

I'm really enjoying this fic! I hope you post on AO3 when you're done.

So I'd apologize for taking almost a week, but this ended up being much longer than expected so here it is. :) Thanks so much for all your kind words. (And yes, when it's done I will put it up on AO3.)

**

It’s nice to be in a city again.

It’s been a while – several years, perhaps? – since they visited one large enough to really feel like a city to Yusuf, who is perhaps biased as a dyed-in-the-wool son of merchants. It’s been even longer since it was this large without causing some kind of worry or other to twist through his spine and intestines and make the press of humanity or the noise and bustle of the market or the hundreds of people one passed on the street into a threat instead of something purely to be enjoyed. Was it in al-Qahirah, where he was finally less worried Nicolò would start murdering people or knife him for his possessions and disappear into a crowd before he revived, and more worried he would just… disappear into a crowd, never to be seen again?

That was years ago now, but it’s strange to think about.

Somehow, it is less strange to think that he used to be afraid one of them would have a public accident, be run down by a horse or fall off some height, and be seen reviving by a large group of people who would do miscellaneous terrible things in reaction. Of course, that in itself makes him feel strange. How many times can it be strange that something is not strange, he considers, until it ceases to mean anything but that you have crawled up your own ass? Probably at least two or three more levels.

Nicolò is, in fact, lagging behind again, but Yusuf is not really even concerned they will be inadvertently separated. They have been recommended an inn, and even if they did somehow lose track of each other, they could meet there. Still.

“Nicolino, anyone would think you object to bathhouses and real beds,” he turns to say, but trails off, because Nicolò isn’t just walking too slowly – he has stopped at least ten meters back and set down his pack. It looks as if he was going through it, but he’s not doing anything now, just staring at it, or maybe at his feet. Yusuf retraces his steps partway, but stops when Nicolò raises his head. There is pure agony in his face that hasn’t been there in years. Yusuf wants to go to him, to help him, but it brings so much memory of pain and resentment and anger rushing back that he cannot even move.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says miserably. “I have been robbed.”

For a moment, Yusuf just blinks. “You have been… what?”

“It must have happened in the market,” Nicolò continues, forcing the words out almost reluctantly. “I had my purse on me and… I must – I must not have noticed –”

“You were robbed?” Yusuf repeats.

Nicolò’s eyes flash for a moment, but apparently he is too guilty and dejected to bother getting annoyed.

“Why were you going through your pack, if you were carrying your purse?” And why were you carrying it on you as you travel through a city full of cutpurses and thieves? he wants to ask, but doesn’t. (It’s possible it’s not entirely fair; Yusuf himself had stopped to buy tangerines.)

Nicolò sighs, shoulders slumping. “I hoped I had… remembered wrongly. That perhaps it was still in my pack.” He shrugs. “It was foolish.”

“I cannot believe you were robbed.”

“Yusuf…”

“How?” Yusuf inquires of a pedestrian. The man widens his eyes as if to say oh, a lunatic and continues walking. “Nicolò is careful with money. He is cautious in strange places. He is calm and watchful and not easily rattled –”

“Yusuf.”

“How,” Yusuf rounds on him once more, “were you possibly robbed? I cannot filch candied dates out of my own saddlebags at night without you having opinions at me.”

“Since you’re acknowledging it to be filching–” Nicolò takes a breath. “I don’t know. I’m not used to... cities like this.”

Yusuf frowns at him. They’ve been in any number of cities. He himself has never been to Genoa, but it is certainly… a city. “What in God’s name are you talking about? You never got robbed in Tarabulus or al-Qahirah.”

“I speak Arabic. My Persian isn’t any good. It’s… distracting.”

“What do you mean, distracting?”

“I don’t know! If I’d been paying proper attention, the money wouldn’t be gone now, and it is, so clearly I wasn’t. I’m sorry, Yusuf. I’m not used to being surrounded by people I can’t understand. It must have… taken up more of my attention than I realized.”

Something about this is still not quite right, but they’re perilously close to a quarrel, so Yusuf consciously relaxes, and says loftily, “An old man like you, one would think you’d had more diverse experiences.”

Nicolò does not look cheered, and the wide web of implications which Yusuf had been annoyed at individually come together suddenly and knock him firmly on his metaphorical rear like a complete and utter fool.

“The money,” he says. Nicolò nods, his face a picture of defeat.

“Yusuf…”

“Did you separate–”

“No,” Nicolò says.

No. Of course not. Why would anyone keep their savings somewhere safer than where they kept their spending money? What earthly reason would any sane adult have to take such ludicrous precautions with their money? It’s not as if it would prevent an enterprising thief from making a beggar out of them instead of merely embarrassing them when they try to buy baklava.

He’s about to say as much, but if the other man’s expressions are anything to go by, he can read it all on Yusuf’s face already. He doesn’t argue, just purses his lips bitterly and sighs.

Ordinarily, this would be a foolish mistake that Nicolò would be hearing about for months; Yusuf would pay for anything needed with his portion of their money, and maybe lord it a bit over his friend’s head that he was graciously providing dinner and lodgings and whatever else.

Ordinarily, Yusuf has not spent almost all of what they had left after travel expenses to buy anyone from slavery and set them up with a new life, necessitating the sale of his and his companion’s horses to keep them in funds. Funds which Nicolò has been carrying, because the disagreeable but not particularly hard-trading Pisan they’d sold them too had insisted on dealing with only him.

(Yusuf remembers being reluctant to cede the actual bargaining, but impressed by how much Nicolò had managed to get. That part seems like a particularly cruel joke.)

“The inn,” he says, trying almost as hard as he can not to sound mournful, and not really succeeding.

“I’m sorry, Yusuf,” Nicolò says, voice laden with regretful sincerity. “I know how much…”

He’s made no secret of how much he was looking forward to a few nights in a proper bed, so there’s no point in pretending this doesn’t hit hard. He has enough to ensure they won’t starve or have to sleep on the streets, but it’s ‘clean and the food is edible’ money, not ‘highly recommended khan in the middle of the city’ money.

“We can always stay here a little longer and work for our keep,” he says as cheerfully as possible. “And maybe on the way to Baghdad we’ll be attacked by bandits again.”

That makes the corner of Nicolò’s mouth twist, finally. It’s no compensation for this drastic change in their plans, but it’s something.

“Let’s hope they’re rich bandits.”

*

The room is smaller than anticipated.

The bed…

They went into this with the tacit understanding that Yusuf would get the bed, unless it was unexpectedly large, since he isn’t the one who lost all of their money, but now – he doesn’t know if he can fit on that bed. He doesn’t even know if he wants to.

Yusuf and Nicolò exchange a speaking look.

Finally, Nicolò sighs and steps properly into the room. “We did pay for it.”

“I paid for it.”

“And I will be paying for that for the rest of eternity,” Nicolò mutters. He sits cautiously on the bed. “Maybe…” When he relaxes, insofar as no longer holding himself rigidly upright, it begins to make alarming noises, and he stands up hurriedly.

“Maybe not,” Yusuf says.

Nicolò considers the bed for some time. Then he removes the mattress and lays it on the floor, before pushing the bedframe (rather too easily) into a corner.

“It’s clean,” he offers.

Everything in this place is, although it’s maybe the best that can be said for it.

Yusuf eyes the mattress distrustfully. It’s thin, but serviceable. Probably.

“I’ll bring up some water.” Nicolò pauses at the door. “Yusuf, you do know I am wretchedly sorry.”

Yusuf is too dispirited to be encouraging, but a lackluster reassurance feels harsher than anger. He shrugs and raises his eyebrows, what can you do, and tries not to look too devastated. In a few years, he knows, this will be an amusing anecdote. In four or five decades, it will probably be hilarious, joining incidents like the time Nicolò had tried to stab him and instead fallen directly into a river, the death caused by a horse lying down on him (all right, maybe he’s still a little sore over that, but it’s been forty years and Nicolò finds it very amusing), and the camel that wouldn’t stop eating Nicolò’s hair.

If only that made him feel better now.

Lording it over Nicolò won’t help matters. He could leverage the other man’s guilt, but he’ll only feel worse. When they reach Baghdad, he can enjoy a wealth of sly digs and lofty insistences that he carry the money, but at present he’d rather they make the best of a bad situation together.

To that end, Yusuf attempts to make them a more welcoming place to rest. The mattress is certainly not big enough to share, but it is at least long enough to make a head-rest they can both make use of. He spreads out their usual bedrolls out of a sense of finality, even though it’s early in the day yet, and feels almost pleased with the result. It’s a depressing makeshift bed when compared to a proper caravanserai, but contrasted with sleeping on bare rock in the wind, or, for that matter, with two lonely, distrustful pallets meant for lying half-awake on while still clutching your sword-hilt, it’s not so bad.

*

It’s been a long time since Yusuf shared a bed with a comrade. In fact, as he thinks back, it might be decades, not only years. He doesn’t know what to think about that. It feels lonely, but he doesn’t know if it’s the solitary nights or the weight of his true age and what that means that causes this ache in his chest.

(There have been inns, of course, where he shared with Nicolò, but often they would be put in with others, cramped together with strangers in a way that is not the same at all as the comfortable way he used to share a pallet with a friend, or with one of his brothers.)

The two of them have always had their own space – first from abhorrence of any other prospect, then because their wary truce would not have survived the shock of too much intimacy, later still because one of them would always be on guard, and now… well, now it’s probably nothing but habit.

It would make putting on a show without touching each other rather difficult, he supposes, determinedly pushing away any bittersweet memories of curling up next to Faruq as a boy after whispering together half the night, or sharing a bedroll with Omran against the chill while travelling. That life isn’t his anymore, and if he’s going to reflect on it, better during the day, with distractions around him and the sun shining, than in the dark in a strange room with nothing to stop his mind from spiraling bleakly into eternity.

He rolls over onto his back, from which position he can view enough of Nicolò’s face that he sees the sigh before he hears it.

“Are you going to stop fidgeting at any time tonight?”

“Yes,” Yusuf answers, feigning affront.

“Good,” Nicolò says, throwing his arm across Yusuf as if to hold him still. It’s comfortable, so Yusuf doesn’t complain. He’s missed this, the warmth and companionship of lying close with another person. They shared a bed for the first time in, what was it, al-Qahirah? No, Tarabulus. It’s such a contrast to what came before that he can’t help smiling.

It’s then, at that thought, that something which has been niggling at the back of Yusuf’s mind all day comes clear. Staring into the dark, he says, “You told me you hated Tarabulus because you could barely understand the Arabic people spoke there.”

“What about it?”

“Why is this different from that? You know some Persian.”

“I do not have your facility with languages, Yusuf.” There’s a smile in Nicolò’s voice. “My ability after a set amount of time and teaching – patient though it may be – is not equal to what yours would be after the same.”

This is, perhaps, fair.

“But surely the streets of Tarabulus would have been just as distracting to you, and you were not robbed there.”

Nicolò sighs. “Perhaps I was lucky, Yusuf.”

“Nicolò…”

After a moment, he says very quietly, “It was different in Tarabulus because I was not the outsider.”

There is absolutely no way for Yusuf to parse this absurd statement, but Nicolò doesn’t make him ask. He draws a shuddering breath and continues, “When you’re stupid enough and arrogant enough to think the world is made for people like you, you can go anywhere in the world and the people around you will still be the foreigners, not you yourself.

“By the time I was no longer so young and so… foolish, I was quite used to Ifriqiya. I didn’t feel a stranger there.”

The word foolish has never encompassed so much quiet and unremarkable condemnation.

“Such things are not best contemplated in the dark,” Yusuf responds, more gently than he had anticipated.

Nicolò takes a breath that might be a poor attempt at a laugh, or might be him biting back tears. He rests his chin on Yusuf’s shoulder. “My world is much less dark with you in it.”

Nicolò has worked ferociously on his Persian since the robbery. Yusuf is not sure exactly what this is meant to prove, but he’s not going to discourage it.

When the other man insists on being the one to handle taking lodgings in Baghdad, Yusuf shrugs and lets him. If Nicolò wants to practice his Persian by being taken advantage of in a deal, that’s his prerogative. Besides, Yusuf wants to see how much the city has changed since he was last here, and he’s made sure he is the one carrying the bulk of their money, this time.

The house is small, but pleasant. Nicolò refuses to say exactly what he’s paying for it, but he seems pleased – which either means he struck a better bargain than Yusuf anticipated, or he was utterly bilked and doesn’t realize it.

Nothing about the house is ostentatious, Yusuf thinks (Nicolò is rarely ostentatious in anything) – until he sees the bed in the back room.

He’s seen larger, he’s sure, but he can’t quite call anything to mind just now.

“Consider it an apology,” Nicolò says from behind him, leaning on the wall and continuing to look pleased with himself. “The sound of the street doesn’t reach this far. And there is also a bathhouse two minutes’ walk from here.”

“Well.” Yusuf clears his throat, still boggling. “Apology accepted.” He manages a little archness. “And where will you be sleeping?”

Nicolò laughs and pats his shoulder. “If you want to eat tonight, you might go and purchase some food, since you are the newly appointed keeper of our finances.”

“Mm.” Yusuf pretends to consider this. “An interesting proposition. One might argue that since I will be cooking tonight, you should go to the market.”

“Oh, you will, will you?” Nicolò considers this. “I suppose that is reasonable, then. I am sure that when I return, all of our possessions will be properly unpacked.”

It does not escape Yusuf’s notice that he secures his purse unobtrusively inside his shirt before leaving.

*

They have few enough belongings that Yusuf has ample time to pray al-‘asr at a mosque for the first time in a long while, as well as visit the nearby bathhouse before the afternoon grows too late. The food Nicolò returns with is fresh, the kitchen well-organized, the meal itself more than satisfying (even if he does praise it himself).

He falls into bed feeling truly happy in all things. Clean, warm, well-fed, spiritually fulfilled, comfortable, settled, possessed of good company.

Perhaps comfortable most of all. This is no straw mattress, and certainly no makeshift camp at the side of the road. The pillows are soft, the sheets cool against his skin, the length sufficient that he can nestle in as extensively as he likes without a foot falling off the end.

The bed is also big enough – likely enough by design – that they can lie there together and still be a creditable distance apart.

“I hope you’re not too tired tonight,” Yusuf murmurs, hearing Nicolò undressing on the other side of the room. He’s rewarded with a chuckle.

“For what?” Nicolò asks, innocent. “I did spend all morning making all sorts of arrangements, and then the afternoon at the market, and I am tired, but I suppose a little conversation would not be too strenuous, if you feel in the mood.”

“What else could I have meant?” Yusuf asks genially, stretching until his toes point. “Tell me your thoughts on tomorrow’s weather.”

“It might snow.” The bed moves slightly as Nicolò lies down. Yusuf glances over at him.

“Really?”

“It might.”

Nicolò hasn’t bothered with the blankets. Yusuf pushes back his own covers. “It’s too hot for snow,” he says, as if that has anything to do with it.

“It might rain.” Nicolò runs his fingers down the side of his thigh, raising his eyebrows at Yusuf.

“It might,” Yusuf concedes. “It might not.”

“There’s no pleasing you, is there?”

“I think it is conceivable that I might be pleased, on occasion.” Yusuf wraps a hand around his length with a sigh, and Nicolò laughs. The sound is always pleasing; now, it gets tangled up with the other pleasure and shocks Yusuf’s heart in a way that would almost be painful, if it didn’t send lightning-strikes of arousal rippling through his blood. He groans, and arches his back in the way Nicolò likes. “But I am – very particular about… atmospheric predictions.”

“I wonder that you chose the subject, in that case.” Nicolò voice is more even, but desperately strained. His eyes devour Yusuf as he finally gets a hand around his own cock. “You might – uhh – have landed on something less likely to start a quarrel. Oh.”

“If it does, snow tomorrow,” Yusuf offers, panting, “we may be, trapped here, all day.” He rubs the heel of his free hand across that sensitive spot on his side and moans with the movement.

“Are you accusing me of ill-wishing you?” Nicolò is so intense it sounds as if he’s actually angry about it, but Yusuf knows very well the fire in his eyes if of a different variety. Between sharing the floor so closely for a month and then camping by well-travelled roads, it’s been far too long for both of them. “I said – it might snow. Mmff, Yusuf. Not blizzard.”

The last word is a Zeneize one Yusuf isn’t familiar with, which shouldn’t be important, but Nicolò is normally so conscious of such things that it gives him a perverse thrill to know the other man is sufficiently impassioned that he doesn’t even notice.

“I wouldn’t say it’s an ill wish,” he manages to get out in response, rotating his hand on the upstroke the way he’s picked up from watching Nicolò do it to himself. “Ahhh. At least, not if – not as–” Nicolò is running his thumb over the head of his cock, over and over again, hips jerking up minutely as his breath escapes in tiny pants, and Yusuf drops into Arabic in desperation. “That is to, to say… I will not hold, ah, hold you accountable… for… it…” He shuts his eyes, trying to remember what he was saying, why he was saying it. “Always provided, mmmmh, always provided you keep me – entertained. While we’re…”

“Yes,” Nicolò gasps. “Yes.” It’s not clear if it’s in answer or simply in pleasure, but either way Yusuf has reached the end of his ability to pretend to conversation. He largely abandons finesse and bucks into his hand, fondling his balls with the other, watching the flush rise higher across Nicolò’s chest.

“Ah,” he hears Nicolò groan – a moment later? a minute? longer? – dragging Yusuf from his half-hypnotized fascination. “Fuck. Fuck.”

Nicolò slides one finger smoothly in and then out of his mouth in a way which makes Yusuf whine in his throat at the sight, his own cock drooling. He waits for Nicolò to slip his finger down to his nipples, but the other man barely touches them, as if he means to tease himself. Yusuf’s breath hitches at the thought, blood pounding in his ears–

And then it’s gone entirely, because Nicolò bends one knee, widening his legs, and reaches down between them instead.

Yusuf doesn’t have a good angle to see exactly what Nicolò’s doing, but he’s no fool; he knows. He still hasn’t drawn breath and he might die and Nicolò’s mouth is open, the muscle shifts under his skin and his arm is moving enough that it’s not hard to tell he’s rubbing circles with his finger around –

Yusuf’s spare hand has slipped from his sac to rub deep circles on his thigh, and if he could think at all he would be grateful for that, because when he comes he clutches involuntarily the flesh under his fingers so hard he nearly draws blood. As it is, he barely notices, so swamped with pleasure that he feels almost outside of his body, the sheer force of his climax pressing in on him so heavily he can’t even cry out his release.

When he swims back to the surface, gasping because his body forgot to breathe properly without Yusuf fully occupying it, Nicolò is still stroking himself, more furiously now, groaning in his throat as if he’s close, but not quite there, and it seems both unfair and impossible not to help him, but Yusuf can’t speak, can barely do anything but breathe, so instead he reaches over and strokes a hand down his friend’s side.

Nicolò lets out a gasping moan, shuddering into the touch, and it’s so wonderful, the skin under his fingertips and the joy exploding in his heart, that Yusuf knows instantly he’s not going to be able to stop. He caresses Nicolò’s side again, this time slowly, deliberately, and the other man gasps out blasphemies in Zeneize at his touch.

Feeling half-drunk, Yusuf trails his fingers further, watching Nicolò’s rhythm devolve as Yusuf soothes his hand over the other man’s side, his upper thigh, his hip. He spreads his fingers so his smallest finger is aligned with Nicolò’s hipbone, his thumb pressing into a shapely buttock. Every thrust vibrates through his hand, Nicolò’s passion echoing through his body, threatening to reignite his own.

“Nicolò,” he manages, almost clearly. Nicolò cries out – “Please, please –” and then he’s arching his back and spending so violently that Yusuf leans back in surprise, pulling his hand away as an afterthought. Nicolò judders when Yusuf’s fingers brush across his hip, hissing as he works himself loosely through the aftershocks.

Yusuf leans back against the pillows, shaking more with the unexpectedness of how much he feels about this than with the pleasant remnants of his own climax. He watches as Nicolò lets his hand fall, collapses back into the mattress, chest heaving, eyes closed. There’s a quiet beauty in the slack, blissful line of his body that Yusuf wants to write poetry about. Later, when his mind is less afire, when he’s not already hardening again.

He wonders, after a minute or so has gone by, if Nicolò has fallen asleep, if he should cover him up or let him lie there, whether or not it would be kind to wake him to wash (it is a necessary distraction from the other things he cannot help wondering) – but then Nicolò takes a breath, laughs a little, and says, voice only slightly wobbly, “I need to wash.”

Yusuf laughs in agreement, not because it’s funny but because his blood is fizzing strangely in his veins and he cannot do anything else. At least Nicolò is not angry he has violated their arrangement.

“I’ll get some water,” he offers, but Nicolò shakes his head against the pillow.

“You filled that whole barrel from the well, earlier. I’ll go.” He gives that half-laugh breath. “As soon as my legs will hold me.”

I feel as if I should apologize, Yusuf almost says, but he can’t bear to quite yet. It’s not quite right, regardless. Rationally, he knows he should apologize – that doesn’t mean he’s able to feel it. Right now, all he can feel is confused surprise, continued arousal, and a horrible, wonderful tugging in his chest.

Eventually, Nicolò levers himself to his feet, and Yusuf tries not to stare unguardedly at his ass as he leaves.

It’s not as if he didn’t know it was something men got up to between themselves. Yusuf himself has never really gotten further in bed (or out of it, more often) than rubbing off on each other through their clothes, not with anyone but Nicolò – and Saima – but he knew perfectly well how one might use another man, if he was willing. (Although, oddly, he supposes he has done less with Nicolò than his other encounters. It doesn’t seem so, thinking of it.)

But he’s never really thought of it as an activity involving himself. There were doubts as to whether it was really pleasant, and he could never contemplate allowing or asking for such a thing himself – although of course back then his hypotheticals had been vague and without a specific man in mind, on either end. Perhaps it would have been different if he had.

Perhaps not, Yusuf thinks, realizing vaguely that he has begun grinding the heel of his hand into his groin. Perhaps the act itself would be painful, or awkward, or unsatisfying, but still the thought of it fires his blood in a wholly unexpected way, and he’s already more than half hard again.

It’s not fair to put all this lust on poor Nicolò, who maybe was just intending to touch himself, and what does it matter where, but the memory of his hand between his legs, his arm moving, has Yusuf groaning as he tips his head back against the pillows. Why wet his finger if he hadn’t intended to do more with it than caress himself?

This is foolish, because Nicolò will be back any minute, and what will Yusuf say then, but he doesn’t want to stop. He thinks about how he couldn’t see properly, it was no kind of show for him, meaning Nicolò must like it for its own sake, must truly enjoy–

Heat races over his skin and he shudders. Maybe it would be worth it to try, to see if, just by himself, it explains the dazed way Nicolò’s mouth had hung open, the way he’d cursed like he couldn’t help himself, sucked his finger wet in a moment as if he had practice… “Ahhhh,” he groans, letting one hand flutter at his thighs while he pumps himself slowly.

It feels so good, not frantic this time, just leisurely, almost decadent, that maybe he’ll just do this, just sit here and think about it and let his mind go hazy with pleasure, no hurry…

“Oh.”

Yusuf pries his eyes open to see Nicolò in the doorway, still naked, basin in his hands. He’s surprised, but not shocked. Yusuf ogles him shamelessly, but still feels himself flush. “Uh. Sorry?”

“Are you?” Nicolò asks, not without humour. He sets the basin down carefully.

“No,” Yusuf admits. “Sorry.”

Nicolò laughs at that, and it chases itself up and down Yusuf’s spine and makes him shiver. “I thought you had finished.”

“So did I.” He groans, running his free hand restlessly up and down his thigh. “I… in a minute.”

“Don’t hurry on my account.” Nicolò sits on the bed once more, and Yusuf moans, because if they get really started again, it might kill him.

Instead, Nicolò moves closer, kneels next to him. Their skin is almost, almost touching, not quite, Yusuf can feel the heat of him. “You look like you want to do something with your hand,” he murmurs, touching Yusuf’s unoccupied wrist with one finger. It feels like a lightning-rod for desire. Yusuf pants open-mouthed.

“Yes, maybe, yes, something,” he chokes out eventually, words coming slow as molasses.

“Give it to me, then,” Nicolò tells him softly, pulling gently at Yusuf’s hand. Yusuf lets him have it, lets him curl his fingers around the fleshy part of Yusuf’s palm, stroke the back of his own free hand against Yusuf’s fingers, whisper meaningless encouragements so close to his ear. The pleasure builds and builds until finally he’s spilling over the edge, not a thundering rush of fulfilled desire but a gentle release so sweet he almost cries out.

After a moment, Nicolò lets go of his hand and shifts away, and Yusuf blinks himself back to coherent thought.

“Are you – do you need–?” He reaches out, hands shaking a little.

Nicolò isn’t completely soft himself, anymore, but he says “No,” and gets up to fetch the basin and cloth. Yusuf allows him to wring it out, but insists on cleaning himself up, even if he’s lost a little of his dexterity for the moment.

Finally he says, “I know we agreed…”

Nicolò’s mouth twitches with what Yusuf suspects is chagrin. “Yes.”

Emboldened by what’s just happened, Yusuf suggests, “There’s touching and then there’s touching.”

Nicolò raises an eyebrow. Go on, his face says.

“We agreed no… touching. If I remember properly.”

“Oh, of course.”

“It would be impractical never to touch each other, when we live so closely. In fact, I believe there have been many instances–”

“Yusuf.”

“Hm?”

“You’ve won the debate.” Nicolò’s smile somewhat belies the sternness in his voice. “Stop talking.”

“Yes if we hold hands or pet each others hips while masturbating it’s totally platonic”. GUYS

(I love this so much I can’t articulate it)

Oooh Yusuf slowly realizing he has all of the feelings I love it. And yeah. Platonic touching while masturbating. Definitely a thing.

Also just to add, Yusuf arching his back the way Nicolò likes on purpose and using Nicky's masturbation tricks on himseld..so fucking erotic oh my god.

This, a thousand percent this. They're not just masturbating, they're not just putting on a show, Yusuf is doing this so much for and about Nicolo, I cannot even begin to handle that. Oh my god.

OP here - I'm having a very difficult day, so expect no complaints from me on principle alone. Selfishly speaking, it's great timing for me.

I loved the start with the loss of money (Sorry, Nico): it's a fantastic detail! First because the number of mundane problems and annoyances the Old Guard must have encountered in their lives is just... staggering. Second because it just fits perfectly, it's a thing that happens. Third because relationships are that, too - everyday annoyances that sometimes lead to fights.

I loved Yusuf's disappointment, the fact that there are still flares of resentment, Nicolò's acknowledgment...

And the second part, ooh, the second part! I love their teasing and dancing around the subject.
I may have facepalmed a little at the "talking about the weather" bit because honestly, who exactly are they trying to fool here? Also, hyper competitive idiots. Don't let them think I don't know exactly what they are doing.

Loved that they couldn't keep their hands off each other, Yusuf trying to breach the subject tactfully (I'd say "taking the long way around" but I'm not sure it translates accurately) and Nicolò just agrees given a quarter of excuse.

You are an amazing writer!

Thank you so much! <3 I'm sorry things are rough, I hope they improve and I'm glad anything I did could help. That is definitely lighting a fire under me to get more written. :)

(Can you imagine how much time they've all cumulatively spent waiting in lines? HOLY FUCK. Several lifetimes, AT LEAST.)

It definitely translates, that's actually an idiom in English as well and totally applicable, although I think 'dancing around the subject' is more common.(Sorry, I just really like Language Stuff. XD) It's like, A-Plus Boundary Drawing, well done, great job, excellent example. D- in Sticking To Them. (And only because Joe successfully (?) revised history and rules-lawyered them out of an F.)

Yes I loved the rules lawyering of “we said no touching and that was just touching. It was great.

OP - it definitely helped (and I'm glad my comments help, too)

They either wouldn't want to be reminded or be all "meh, it's just a line. Nobody is getting killed, I can put my brain on standby"

Dancing around the subject, that's the phrase I was looking for! Thanks! Also, no need to apologize, languages are fascinating and this fandom is just the perfect place to play with them.

> A-Plus Boundary Drawing, well done, great job, excellent example. D- in Sticking To Them. (And only because Joe successfully (?) revised history and rules-lawyered them out of an F.)

ROTFL!

How the fuck are they so innocent in sliding ever closer to ending up with each other? How?
This whole fic is so sexy, I love it and I keep coming back for more.

Argh, I am sorry this took so long, but in my defence I had to redo a chunk of it and I spent most of last week trying to lock down a new place to live, so. I hope updates will come quickly(er) now, but I have to spend November moving, so no promises. (On the other hand, writing is an A+ way to procrastinate packing, so who knows?) Also, I did so much research on Italian/Tunisian/Iraqi food I would never ever eat or cook for this chapter (I hate eggplant and tomatoes and cheese and, like, most sauces, so that eliminates a lot of food all the time, also I can’t cook :P), so I hope it holds water and if not – idk, yell at me about it and I’ll fix it for the AO3 version. :)

In honour of a line I got distracted while writing and nearly butchered to all hell, this is officially 'the chapter where Nicky tries to keep his heart in his pants' (or maybe out of his pants, whichever)

***

This is a mistake.

The thought has been in Nicolò’s mind, been curled, sickly, in his gut, for days now, about very nearly everything.

It is a mistake to put so much work into making their new house suit Yusuf perfectly – not because doing something for Yusuf’s benefit could be wrong, not because he is not owed at least that much of an apology, but because Nicolò’s heart takes an unacceptable kind of pleasure in it.

It is a mistake to let Yusuf touch him, to let himself thrill under that unexpectedly gentle hand, more than a mistake to let it be what fills his mind as he falls away into bliss.

It is a mistake to reciprocate, to let everything in his heart spill over into his hands, the more so for being no longer mad with lust when he does it.

It is, clearly and obviously, a mistake to accept Yusuf’s patent revisionism and push the careful boundaries they’ve drawn this much farther.

Nicolò has always been strong-willed – not only in defiance of others, but in his governance of himself as well. He does not succumb to temptation weakly and reluctantly; always he has either weathered it, or chosen to indulge of his own consideration. In truth (and he confessed it time and again as a young man) he’d always felt a hint of contempt for men who bewailed their weakness even as they sinned. If you wish to avoid a headache, he’d said rather sharply to Ugo once, simply do not drink so much wine!

This… inability to hold himself to what he knows he should do, this constant slipping, like a child who begins to run down a hill, only to find he cannot keep from running faster and faster – it is not anything he is accustomed to, and it is alien and terrifying.

It is a mistake, to embrace this new and flimsy limit rather than trying to hew closer to the old one, and it is one he already knows he is going to make.

“You seem very solemn today,” Yusuf remarks, and Nicolò starts, unaware until this moment that he was not alone.

“I’ve just been thinking,” he says, trying to reorient himself. The light in the sky is weaker than it should be. How long has he been staring into the garden?

“Of?” Yusuf prods. He’s smiling to cover it, but there’s concern in the line of his shoulders.

“Nothing important,” Nicolò tells him, making an effort to shake off his gravity. “Any number of things. I didn’t mean to woolgather so long.”

“Since there is no supper, I shall make some, I suppose.” Yusuf sighs. “May God grant me a travelling companion who pulls his weight in the kitchen!”

“Inshallah,” Nicolò says, dry as a bone, and finds a guilty delight in Yusuf’s laughter.

He rises slowly to follow Yusuf into the kitchen, with the intention of (admittedly) undermining himself by perhaps lending a hand with some of the preparation. The matter occupying his mind follows him, though, haunting his thoughts and leaving him frustratingly aroused. He can break it down into analysis and recrimination all he wishes, but underneath will always be the idea of his hands on Yusuf’s chest, his fingers tracing the curve of Yusuf’s thighs, his lips on the back of Yusuf’s neck –

No, Nicolò tells himself firmly. No, not that.

He pulls his chair more closely to the table to continue slicing eggplant and tomatoes for the giambotta, or rather his own near equivalent. “Did you find that translation you wanted?”

“I did.” Yusuf frowns at the chickpeas. “I thought we had more of these.”

Nicolò makes a sympathetic noise and slices through another eggplant. He’s not really watching what he’s doing, but he’s made so many meals that it doesn’t really matter. (And the worst he can do is bleed on the food; any wound he could inflict this way will close in seconds.)

“It’s not as faithful as I expected,” Yusuf goes on. “Although I suppose he was trying to make it equally relevant to the original, when it was written? But some of the comparisons are awkward, and they’re not nearly as relevant now as they were fifty years ago, so it was a very fleeting accomplishment.”

Nicolò listens to him discuss the merits and pitfalls of trying to translate philosophical concepts in understandable versus technically correct language, feeling his heart swell in a very disconcerting way. It’s not, entirely, new, nor unexpected, but it is no longer possible to push the feeling aside and disguise it in the same trappings his innocent friendly affection used to wear.

It’s possible, he thinks, that he was doing that for longer than even he realized.

“That’s maybe a little more than necessary.”

Nicolò blinks, refocussing on his pile of eggplant to see that it is, in fact, larger than it should be by a noticeable margin.

“If I bore you…” Yusuf says, and Nicolò isn’t sure whether or not there’s hurt behind the teasing tone in his voice.

“You don’t think the philosophical terms were translated accurately, because the translator privileged ease of understanding over accuracy,” he says. “It was the task I was inattentive to.”

“Well, cut up some more tomatoes, I suppose,” Yusuf says easily. “And I’ll cook enough so we can make friends of our neighbours. If they complain for want of chickpeas I will tell them it is in the Genovese fashion.” He grins.

“I’m not sure it’s properly giambotta or moussaka anymore,” Nicolò observes, setting aside his excess of eggplant and returning to the tomatoes. “But I cannot imagine anyone complaining.”

“Such flattery.” Yusuf points a knife at him. “I see through your cunning plan.”

“If you want to be dramatic, you’re going to have to do better than that.” Nicolò considers the size of the knife. “That is much smaller than blades you’ve menaced me with in the past, and not small enough to be pitiful and provoke my sympathy. And if you wanted to be ridiculous about it, you should have used a spoon.”

“You’re trying to change the subject.”

“Ah, from my cunning plan. If hearing yourself named a competent cook is enough to ensnare you into making an effort more often, you have no one to blame but yourself. Be less praisehungry.”

“I never said what your plan was. Clearly, you have revealed yourself.”

Nicolò huffs a laugh. “Perhaps you are simply predictable, my friend.”

Yusuf feigns affront for a moment, but his smile is breaking through too much for it to be convincing.

For a moment, Nicolò’s world splits in two, so disparate are the emotions he’s experiencing. It’s as if half of him is still charmed and pleased by their nonsense, the easy comradery easing the sharp tension in his stomach – and the other half of him has blazed up in disgusted rage.

How could you be unsatisfied with this? it demands, throwing up a copy of the scene in front of him with everything in sharper relief: Yusuf’s smile, the cozy light of the kitchen, Nicolò’s own happiness. What kind of man sighs over a ruby because it is not a diamond? After everything, he is not enough? This is not enough?

You would risk it just in order to go to bed with him and then even that is not enough?

Yusuf has responded in kind to Nicolò’s teasing, so he raises his eyebrows and observes that plans are unnecessary when all he has to do to avoid cooking it to put it off until his companion is impatient for food, and when Yusuf is busy laughing, he lays his knife down carefully and pushes away the tomatoes.

“You’re distracted again,” Yusuf observes shrewdly. “If something is wrong –”

“No,” Nicolò answers swiftly. “No.” Leaving it at that would put a cowardly distance between them; worse, would be hurtful. He sighs. “I have been… thinking about old friends, lately. I cannot say why.” It’s true and it’s false.

“One never knows what will be a reminder.” Yusuf gazes thoughtfully out of the doorway, not really seeing. “I spent a week after we tangled with those horse thieves weeping for the sake of my mother in the night.”

This jars Nicolò severely. “You never told me that.” By the grace of God, it comes out more concerned than accusatory.

Yusuf shrugs. “We were not so close then.” He makes a gesture of concession, wearing the expression of an old man exasperated by his younger self. “And I suppose I did not wish to admit to it, for foolish reasons.”

“It’s nothing so poignant,” Nicolò tells him. “Only… it has been a long time since I thought of any of them. We parted ways, for various reasons, long before…” A short sweep of his hand glosses over those particular evils.

Of course, regardless of what he can or cannot say, he certainly knows why some of these people are on his mind: Ugo and Gianni have turned up in his thoughts lately because they are, like Leandro, former friends he no longer knew by the time he died.

And Leandro is on his mind because Nicolò is, in part, afraid of becoming him.

“Such things will come to mind,” Yusuf says sympathetically. “A bad parting?”

“Some of them.” Ugo had simply gotten married and slowly stopped coming by. “Some were… necessarily bad.” He grimaces, but leaves Gianni for another time. “I think sometimes… there are many things I should have done differently.”

Yusuf laughs a little. “That is the fate of the old, is it not?” He nudges Nicolò, to remind him more tomatoes are needed. “We look back on our youth and think Ah, what a fool I was. We look back on our middle years and think How obvious the mistake I was making, why did I not see it. You get older, you learn better.” He shrugs. “Besides, these things are easy to see looking back – not so when you are looking forward.”

Nicolò opens his mouth to say that in the grand scheme of their lives, he is sure they have not yet reached their middle years, but he stops himself. The thought of eternity is strange, and if he looks too closely at it, it grows so large as to nearly panic him – but after this much time, he can interact with it in passing untroubled. But Nicolò’s mother died in childbed, and his father before Nicolò was twenty; he was in truth never very fond of his brother, and his trade was only ever a way to make a living. For Yusuf, who had family yet living when he was forced into immortality, a life to return to, it is a different matter.

Instead, he says, “One of them cheated my brother in a deal, so I pushed him into the harbour. I can’t say I’m sorry for that, even if I would do things differently now.”

That provokes honest laughter. “It’s hard to imagine you doing something like that.” Yusuf grins. “I never thought you were so close to Pietro.”

“It was the principle of the thing.” Nicolò raises his eyebrows at the tomatoes, and when Yusuf nods he puts the knife down and sets the vegetables aside. “I went to get the money from him and he made me angry.”

“Ah.” Yusuf considers this a moment; he has, after all, seen Nicolò get truly angry. “And did you get it?”

“I had his purse in my hand when I pushed him in. The force was sufficient for it to part ways with his belt. But he was less inclined to be bosom companions afterwards.”

Yusuf chuckles again, but he regards Nicolò with an expression of mixed understanding and fondness that makes Nicolò’s heart beat with an alarming arrhythmia. “Neither were you, I suppose. I hope your brother appreciated it.”

“He did not.”

The side of Yusuf’s mouth ticks upward wryly, as if to say Of course. Somewhere, underneath the aching softness filling his chest, Nicolò can feel the same easy-going fondness he’s always felt in the face of such expressions – but it is so difficult to unearth, now, beneath what feels like an ocean of ferocious adoration. With an immense effort, he keeps his expression as it is, rather than revealing himself by schooling all emotion from his face, and makes a reasonable excuse about washing before dinner.

This is a mistake.

The last time Nicolò was part of an arrangement after this fashion, something intended to be a comfortable, pleasant outlet between friends, it ended badly, and though the other man is surely long dead by now, he can recall that entire chapter of his life very clearly.

He remembers just how difficult things became, before the end, his own baffled hurt in the face of the jealousy Leandro vehemently denied. He remembers the uncomfortable hot humiliation curling in his belly the afternoon on the pier when Leandro had taken his hand with uncomfortable softness and taken him off-guard with sentiments he did not return. He remembers when discomfort and confusion had changed into that horrible sickening feeling in the face of Leandro’s poorly-hidden resentment – this isn’t enough, what I am not is enough, it must be my fault somehow.

He spent weeks after it finally ended wondering if Leandro had been somehow taking something he wasn’t giving every time they laughed together, and feeling vaguely ill about it.

The thought of doing the same thing to Yusuf is abhorrent, and the idea of losing Yusuf altogether the way he eventually lost Leandro – the way Leandro lost him – fills him with inescapable horror.

Rationally, the worst that might happen is separating for a decade or two, and then living for a while with Yusuf’s careful sympathy – something his mind rebels from, but which is not, in the end, so very terrible. Nicolò has no intention of resenting anyone, and Yusuf has already forgiven him far worse than unreciprocated feelings.

Nevertheless, this is a mistake, and he should have known better. Whether escalating their physical relationship opened the way for far stronger emotions, or simply allowed something that already existed to rise to the surface, he cannot be sure. In the latter case, it might even be that it would have happened regardless.

For a moment, Nicolò is distracted by the thought of Yusuf’s selflessness, his easy smile and kind eyes, the softness of his touch and his endless grace. Given that they have eternity… yes.

It is a mistake to allow this, a mistake to treasure it, a mistake to yield to his lusts and a weakness to indulge his affections – but he has made it, likely irrevocably, and fighting a doomed battle is useless. If he commits to holding the new line… he is less certain of his ability to stand fast than he would have been only a few months ago, but at least it is a more sensible option than bewailing his failures.

If he is going to careen wildly down this particular metaphorical hill, it is useless to deny himself enjoyment of the wind on his face.

Nicolò puts out the last of the candles before he slips quietly into the bedroom. The lamp is already extinguished, but he has no trouble preparing for bed without it. As appealing as a reprise of the night before had seemed already, it now carries the double gift of sparing him from being alone in the dark with his thoughts – a prospect somehow less bearable than the unpleasant experience of being alone with them in the afternoon light.

“Yusuf,” he says, quietly.

“Mm?”

“Are you asleep?”

“No,” Yusuf says, amusement in his voice. “Would you like something?”

Nicolò lets the silence answer that question.

“Oh.” The other man sounds mildly surprised. It is relatively uncommon for them to do such things two nights in a row. If Nicolò wanted to defend the idea, he would point out that it has been nearly two months since they had the opportunity at all, but he has no intention of doing so. For one thing, it is not as if he had to spend that time as celibate as he did; there is certainly nothing in their arrangement which precludes finding pleasure privately.

More saliently, he has no intention of arguing about it. If Yusuf is not inclined, Nicolò will bid him a cheerful goodnight, and feign sleep until he achieves it – or until Yusuf does.

“All right,” Yusuf says instead, agreeably, and Nicolò hears him resettle himself on the bed.

It’s too dark to see much, and they’re still too far apart to touch, so for a moment it is reminiscent of before they’d ever openly spoken of this, lying apart under the stars with only sounds to fire their blood. After months of watching each other, after feeling Yusuf’s hands on him while he climaxed, it shouldn’t be so erotic just to hear him again, but something about the fact that they are indoors, on an actual bed, on the same bed, makes Nicolò’s skin tingle sharply and his pulse pound.

His heart aches suddenly at the domesticity of it all, lying in this bed he purchased with another person, in this house he rented for the two of them to live in, after cooking together and eating together and knowing he can just reach over and touch because they’ve both agreed to it, before and just now, everything building up in his heart until he’s near to weeping with it.

He sighs, heavily and involuntarily, one last concession to the emotion before he pushes it away, rolls closer, and runs a hand down Yusuf’s chest, hearing the other man’s breath hitch. Nicolò rubs a thumb across his nipples, smiling a little at the sharp in-drawn breath it prompts. His other hand flutters at Yusuf’s shoulder, fighting the urge to run fingers over his hair.

His sight is a little better accustomed to the night now, Yusuf’s face almost visible in the darkness, lips parted and eyes open as he coaxes himself to full hardness. A moment later he reaches out, hand brushing against Nicolò’s knee.

“Don’t you…”

“Not yet.” Nicolò’s voice comes out hoarse, maybe from desire and maybe from emotion. He ruthlessly ascribes it to the former and clears his throat as silently as he can. “I’ll let you… catch up.”

There’s a breathy laugh and Yusuf lets his hand fall away, which shouldn’t leave Nicolò bereft so he decides that it doesn’t. Instead, he rubs circles around the sensitive places on the other man’s torso with one hand, stroking the other down Yusuf’s side in an echo of their positions last night.

Yusuf groans in a way that always goes straight to Nicolò’s prick, leaves him gasping just a little as he props himself on one elbow for a better reach. He takes his time teasing at the edges of Yusuf’s nipples, which seem unusually sensitive – or perhaps it’s just that no one has ever touched him like this.

Nicolò has never thought of himself as the sort of man to take dubious pleasure in another’s inexperience, but that thought sets an unexpected fever in his blood that almost swamps him entirely. I have little enough knowledge… Every brush of his fingers becomes a potential new source of pleasure, something Yusuf may never have felt at another’s hands before, until somehow Nicolò is the one drunk on it, his own aching arousal entirely disregarded as he maps Yusuf’s body with his hands, glorying every time his name slips from the other man’s lips.

Finally Yusuf gasps “Ahh,” and arches less into his own hand than Nicolò’s, and that dissolves the last of whatever restraint existed. Nicolò leans over to press his mouth to that one area on Yusuf’s side more sensitive than the rest of his skin, the one he always gives special attention to, the one Nicolò has wanted to stroke and suck and bite since he first noticed it.

For a brief moment he savours the salt on Yusuf’s skin, the shocked, ecstatic moan in his ears – and then a instant later there are warm hands on his shoulders and Nicolò is on his back with his head deep in the pillows before he can even properly register what’s happening, Yusuf’s lips hot and insistent on his own. Nicolò clutches at him desperately, unable to do anything but kiss him back, lets Yusuf lick his way into his mouth and take him apart with only lips and tongue.

He did say he knows how to kiss, Nicolò thinks dizzily, knowing there’s some part of this he’s meant to avoid but not quite what it is or how to want to do anything about it. Yusuf’s beard is soft against his face, his hand gentle and firm in Nicolò’s hair, his body hot and heavy and wonderful pressing Nicolò down into the bed. Everything in Nicolò wants to rebel against whatever’s holding them back, drag a hand up to tangle in Yusuf’s lovely curls, pull the other man more completely on top of him so that they can rut against each other, give himself up entirely to his lust and his passion and his desperate devotion to Yusuf.

With an act of will to anchor earthquakes, he does not.

Instead he tightens his fingers where they press into Yusuf’s shoulders and kisses him back, kisses him deeply, moaning into the heat of his mouth as the fire of Yusuf’s touch slides down Nicolò’s body to his hip and spreads with Yusuf’s fingers over his hipbone in a mirror of the way they’d been touching the night before.

Maybe it is seconds later, maybe minutes, maybe hours – all Nicolò knows is that by the time he realizes what he can do with his hands, the world has long dissolved into ever-rising heat and soft darkness, all Yusuf’s warm, wet mouth and Yusuf’s hand still so softly unyielding in his hair and the weight and heat of him, the touch of their skin along what feels like every inch of Nicolò’s chest so good it can’t possibly be real, can’t possibly continue to exist. Yusuf has them angled just right to obey the letter of the law, one leg brushing against another but no other contact below the waist. Nicolò can feel the sensation of Yusuf’s body near his cock, so close, but no matter how he desperately tries to find it there’s no relief to be found, only empty air. It doesn’t stop him from moaning desperately into Yusuf’s mouth, thrusting his hips upward as if this time, this time, there might be something to touch him, something to tip him finally over that last edge. Yusuf is still pressing him down, groaning into his mouth as he tries to grind down against the bed, but the angle is wrong and it seems to frustrate him more than anything by the plaintive way he gasps against Nicolò’s mouth.

It might be (tempting, wonderful) torture, but it gives an opportunity he’s never had before and finally Nicolò scrapes together enough wit to realize it. At this angle he can run his hands over the plane of Yusuf’s back. It makes the other man shiver, and that’s enough of a distraction that he keeps doing it, over and over again, dragging his palms from Yusuf’s shoulders down to the small of his back and feeling him shudder with it, intoxicated on Yusuf’s slow kisses as he matches them to the movements of Nicolò’s hands, murmuring, “Yes, yes, ahhh,” into his mouth.

Finally, finally, Nicolò remembers his original purpose, and keeps his hand moving, sliding it down further still until he has Yusuf’s ass under his hand, and before the other man can react beyond a startled intake of breath, squeezes slow and gentle.

Nicolò isn’t entirely sure any longer what he expected – smooth, wondrous skin under his palm, yes, the tensing of Yusuf’s muscles beneath his fingers, yes, perhaps he anticipated a return to the urgent pace of a moment or an hour before, instead of this slow and desperate drowning; he thinks maybe he expected Yusuf to lever himself more upright, let him get a better grip, and stroke himself to completion with Nicolò’s hands on his ass.

He did not expect the heaving gasp that shakes both their bodies, for Yusuf to buck so hard at the touch of his hand that his cock actually brushes Nicolò’s thigh, but the fire it stokes in his chest, in his blood, in his very skin, is so instant and overwhelming that anything else ceases to matter. He gets a hand on Yusuf’s arm, somehow, and uses both arms to drag him clumsily upward until Yusuf cooperates enough that Nicolò can get an arm between them and close his hand around his cock with a desperate sob.

Yusuf moans into his mouth, the sound broken and raw, and fumbles his knees properly under him so he can prop himself above Nicolò and reach his own prick. His arm brushes against Nicolò’s and both of them gasp at it, breathing each other’s air, bodies shaking almost in unison. Yusuf’s throat tightens with effort, his jaw clenching as he holds back a little longer. They’re not, by the narrowest, most disingenuous definition, touching, but it doesn’t matter; the distinction is utterly meaningless with their foreheads pressed together this way – Nicolò can feel Yusuf’s breath on his nose and cheek, Yusuf’s arm, the back of his hand, brushing against his own, rhythm matching so closely it could just as well be Yusuf’s cock in Nicolò’s hand, Yusuf’s fingers sliding precome down his shaft, easily, easily –

Nicolò groans as he comes, so loudly he can hear himself even over the roaring in his ears as his climax pulses through him and leaves him utterly spent, his very soul wrung out and squeezed empty by the force of it. Yusuf’s breath comes harsher and harsher, until it’s sobbing out of his chest, and when Nicolò musters enough strength to run a hand lightly over his back, he collapses, burying his face in the juncture of Nicolò’s shoulder and neck as he spends between them.

The world goes away, or perhaps they fall asleep like that, or maybe even it is simply not as long as it seems as if it must be, until Nicolò has thoughts in his mind again. Even so, he doesn’t move until Yusuf does, doesn’t jar him whether he’s asleep or lost in the languor that followed his pleasure or simply unwilling to shift yet. It seems cruel.

“Sorry,” he finally murmurs into the web of Nicolò’s neck, in Arabic. “I’m heavy.”

“It’s not so bad,” Nicolò says, but he’s slightly breathless, and Yusuf laughs and lifts himself off Nicolò’s chest.

As erotic as the idea of his spend mixing with Yusuf’s might be, of having marked each other in this way and combined their essences by the sheer headiness of their passion – and the thought does send a tiny jolt through his blood, though his prick protests at the very idea of renewed arousal – now that they’ve moved apart the reality is largely just cold and uncomfortable.

“I’ll get a cloth,” Nicolò begins, but Yusuf cuts him off.

“No, no. I was the one crushing you.” He nudges playfully at Nicolò shoulder, so Nicolò dutifully responds “As if you could,” and allows him to go.

He comes back with two and lets Nicolò attend to himself, which is of course only practical and should have no reason to sting.

When he’s clean, Yusuf lets out an “Oof,” collapsing back onto the pillows in a vaguely dramatic fashion. Nicolò smiles at him.

“I wasn’t expecting any of that,” Yusuf says. His voice is casual, but there’s a mild edge to it. He’s not disturbed, exactly, but that tone means he’s been disconcerted, and he’s not sure if there’s cause for concern.

“If anything distressed you,” Nicolò offers, but Yusuf is already shaking his head.

“No, no, certainly not.” He laughs, a little helplessly, and runs his hands over his face and through his hair. “No. I would… have no objection to repeating any of it.” Strangely, it sounds almost reluctant – but sincere.

Nicolò hesitates to say anything else. Perhaps he is a coward after all, coward enough to just let it lie – but then he thinks of trying to bear it and he knows speaking is the only option. He is still grasping for a way to begin when his very hesitation opens the way.

“Is there… something that distressed you?” Yusuf asks carefully. His posture is different; Nicolò can see through the darkness that he’s shifted towards him, more alert. He can’t see Yusuf’s face well enough, but he knows him, and he knows that the skin between Yusuf’s eyebrows is lined in concern. His heart wells with emotion, and he wants to lean over and kiss that crease.

“Not exactly,” Nicolò said. “But I… the fault is mine–” He keeps his tone casual, but Yusuf sits up immediately, mouth already open in protest.

“No, no,” Nicolò protests, “relax.” He pauses, but Yusuf doesn’t, so he waits, and eventually Yusuf sinks back reluctantly against the pillows, though he doesn’t lie down again.

“There were things I forgot to say, I suppose,” Nicolò clarifies. “That I didn’t think to, really. And it’s…” He thinks better of trying for a laugh. He does make some effort to sound amused, but his voice just comes out matter-of-fact when he says, “It’s really a pity, because you are… very skilled at it, but I’ve found in the past that kissing… confuses matters.”

“Ah,” Yusuf says.

He says nothing else, and for a wild moment Nicolò panics that he’s hurt by it. He isn’t even being entirely truthful – perhaps that is true, perhaps it is wise to avoid such things, but Nicolò is not being wise about it; he just knows if he goes on allowing Yusuf to kiss him, his heart will break open and bleed, and eventually it will not be something he can hide.

“I suppose that makes sense,” Yusuf says, quieting the buzz in Nicolò’s ears. “I’ve never really… both times I got anywhere near this with another man, you understand, it involved kissing, but also it wasn’t… I cared for him.” After a moment, he adds hastily, “Not that I don’t also care for you, but – you know,” and laughs.

“Yes, of course.”

“It was nice,” Yusuf says wistfully, “to actually know what to do. I’m very good at guessing, of course,” he interrupts himself, grinning so wide Nicolò can see it easily even in the darkness. “But of course you’re right.”

“I’m not the only one who can have a say,” Nicolò tells him, feeling wretchedly guilty and selfish. He’d made all of these rules himself, hadn’t he? Bad enough to be complaining about them, let alone imposing more on Yusuf just because Nicolò underestimated his own susceptibility. “If you want to discuss–”

“No, no,” Yusuf says, though his voice has a sigh in it. “You’re probably right. And I knew what you meant before, about it ruining friendships.” He breathes out deliberately. “Her name was Saima.”

Nicolò cannot think of anything helpful to say to that, but a response is surely called for. He says “I’m sorry,” and cringes at the inadequacy.

Yusuf shrugs, although his easiness is clearly much less natural than usual. If such a façade makes this easier for him, Nicolò is hardly going to pick at it. “I don’t think it would have helped anything if we hadn’t kissed each other,” he says with forced amusement. It comes out sad anyway. “And it was mostly my fault. But I regret it – especially now.” His voice wavers. “I’m sure she’s been dead some time by now.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicolò says again, softly. He touches Yusuf’s shoulder, gently – not tenderly.

“At least if I ruin things with you, you won’t die thinking I abandoned you,” Yusuf says with a horribly strained cheerfulness that is far worse than tears. Oh, no, Nicolò thinks.

He rubs Yusuf’s shoulder a little, and tries to find a thread to pick up the topic. It cannot be pushed aside, no matter how much Yusuf might wish to do so, that much is clear. “So she… that is, you were… involved, and she did not remain… disinterested?”
There’s a moment where Yusuf tries to parse that from Sabir – Nicolò thinks he may have borrowed the euphemism from Zeneize, and it sounds strange outside that language – and then he laughs. It’s a little wet, and more surprised than amused, but it’s a balm after seeing him in pain. “No, we never… it was nothing like that.” He takes a deep breath, clearly bracing himself, and says, without the pretense at humour, “No. Her husband died, and I was unmarried, and we had never… cared for each other in the way that they did, but I found her handsome and she… found me… handsome,” he waves a hand idly in the general direction of his body in a gesture somehow both self-deprecating and arrogant, made even more ridiculous by his nakedness, “and there was no reason…” He shrugs a little. “But I felt strange about it afterwards, and guilty, because she was a woman and… it felt like taking advantage, somehow, although it was her idea. So I made my excuses and left, like a coward, and then I ran off to al-Quds and died without ever making things right between us again.”

That is not what Nicolò expected. He means to say something comforting or insightful, perhaps both, but when he opens his mouth what comes out, for some Godforsaken reason, is, “So when you told me you knew what it was to lie with a woman, you meant you’d done it once?”

“By which token, I know a great deal more than you,” Yusuf shoots back loftily, without so much as a pause.

There is a moment of silence, and then they both start laughing. “By the grace of God,” Nicolò agrees, chortling, once he can speak again, “I have not been blessed with such knowledge. I thank him for that.”

Yusuf snorts loudly, which sets Nicolò off again until he thinks it wise to muffle himself with a pillow.

“I see how it is,” Yusuf proclaims once Nicolò removes his face from the fabric. He is clearly aiming for an tone of overblown solemnity, but his voice wobbles with amusement and makes him sound ridiculous. “I speak more languages than you, I can write more alphabets than you, I have more useful skills, more swordsmanship, more artistry – you want the expertise for once. In this one thing. I will give it to you.”

“Very generous,” Nicolò agrees. “I am humbled by you.”

“You should be.”

“Be quiet,” Nicolò instructs, “and go to sleep, or I will smother you with a pillow.”

“You don’t sound very humbled,” Yusuf observes, but he hastily turns his back and settles down before Nicolò can retaliate.

Against all odds, Nicolò sleeps exceptionally well.

Fills Post

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