theoldguardkinkmeme | Fills Post

Fills Post

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The drive to the safehouse is conducted in absolute silence. Sebastien can hear every breath Andrea takes and the unsteadiness of his own breathing. The traffic slows them and he notices a woman in a small silver car double-take at him. He looks down at himself and grimaces. His blood is all over his shirt and there's dried blood all down his face. Sebastien curses himself and twists in his seat.

There are water bottles, wipes and fresh shirts in the back of the car. It's always better to be prepared. Sebastien has to pause, hands shaking when he pulls out the bag because...well, because Nicky packed it. He breathes deep, closes his eyes against the tears and swallows his burning need for a drink. Andrea. No. Andromache is watching him as he sits back into his seat. He thinks idly of what he had told Nile but he has not been afraid to die since he walked out of that infirmary with rags in place of his heart.

If Andromache wishes to kill him again, he will not resist. Nor will he fight when Joe kills him. He does not think that Quỳnh will give him the chance to fight. Nile is still reluctant to kill but probably she will make an exception.

Nicky will not kill him.

Nicky will not kill him unless Sebastien begs for it and Sebastien has no right to ask anything of Nicky. Not ever again.

He scrubs roughly at his face to keep the tears from spilling over. He has not finished weeping. It feels like he will be weeping for the rest of this damned life but he will not burden Nicky with his tears. He is not the drunken, morbid fool who forgot how deeply his brother feels. This guilt is Sebastien's alone. He snaps down the sun-visor to use the small mirror, carefully erasing the signs of the violence done to him. His punishment was and will be justice. He will not allow it to become another cudgel for Nicky to beat himself with.

Andromache is still watching him sidelong as Sebastien rolls up his ruined shirt and stuffs it into the bag that he returns to the back. His eyes are still red, the obvious signs of his grief still obvious and he thinks that Joe could make poetry of that; how their grief lasts longer than mortal wounds. He forces himself not to look away. Andromache says nothing but the silence feels less strained.

Sebastien has to steel his nerves, fingers itching for the flask he'd left in the public bin outside Copley's office, before he can follow Andromache to the door of the safehouse. He feels like he is walking to his wife's deathbed again. He swallows and lets Andromache enter first. He doesn't see Nicky but he does see the others clustered together. He breathes in.

Nile and Quỳnh yield before Andromache. Joe does not. He stays crowded up against Nicky's back while Andromache embraces him. Booker feels the thump of his heart against his ribs. Nicky is still too pale, his cheekbones sharper than they have been for nearly a century and the red, wet skin around his eyes is a searing reproach. Sebastien reaches for words but he cannot find them. He sways, stumbles forward on legs that no longer want to hold him and Andy releases Nicky. She keeps hold of his hand, turns to put herself beside him with Quỳnh on her other side.

The symbolism is not subtle but Sebastien does not care. His focus is on Nicky. He manages another step before he falls to his knees.

"Nicky, Nicky, désolé," he's crying again. "Nicoló, mon frère...je regrette! Desolé, Nicky, désolé!"

Nicky reaches for him at once. Sebastien did not expect anything less because Nicky is the kindest of them, the sweetest and it is not in him to refuse comfort to one in need. Even if it is Sebastien. The guilt strangles him. He thinks for a moment that he will choke on it. Another useless death. Instead he swallows the weight of his shame and tries to find something other than apologies.

The hand that touches his head is shaking. Nicky's shaking. Two hundred years and Sebastien's seen his hands shake less than a handful of times. He's the sniper. The steady hands in the worst of the fighting. The tears that pour down his face burn against the raw skin on his cheeks.

"Désolé," he sobs. "Nicky, je regrette tout!"

He looks up, past the arm that Joe has anchored around Nicky's waist, to meet Nicky's red eyes. Nicky is trying to smile, Sebastien thinks and it makes his heart ache. Even now, Nicky reaches out to him. It is hard to believe that he ever forgot how much he was loved. His guilt gnaws at him like the empty hunger of the Russian winter. It is easy to think of Nicky as soft. It is hard to remember that Nicky is soft and kind because he chooses to be soft and kind rather than allow the world to harden his heart. Sebastien has spent too much time with the thugs and brutes of this modern world. He sees with their eyes. He should know better.

Nicky stares at him and the breath he draws sounds painful. His voice is only audible because there is no sound but Sebastien's snivelling. "Why?"

"I was drunk," Booker says. No excuse. "I listened to Copley talk about the wonderful gift we would make to humanity."

Nicky shakes his head. The hand on Booker's shoulders falls away and he feels adrift without it. "Not that. You wished for death. Death before your time. I understand that."

His tone suggests he doesn't. Nicky puts their immortality in the same place he puts his faith in God or Destiny; an ineffable mystery that cannot be understood, only accepted. Nicky's soft heart means the years can be cruel and still, he sees it as an act of Grace. Sebastien still does not understand."

"You had that," Nicky rasps. "For the price of your betrayal, you had that hope. I know this. That is forgiven."

How very like Nicky, Sebastien thinks, to forgive him so easily and offhandedly. None of the others have forgiven him for that. Not completely. Not yet. Maybe not ever after this afternoon's exposé. Joe still watches him when he thinks Booker isn't looking. Andy hesitates before she exposes her back to him. Nicky...well, Sebastien had utterly misunderstood his shyness.

"Why?" Nicky's voice wavers and the arm around his waist visibly tightens. The hand that was on Sebastien's shoulder comes up to entwine their fingers. Their hands fit together as perfectly as the rest of them. "Why tell them that?"

Sebastien swallows. He holds his hands up slowly. "Because I was a fool. Because I was angry and bitter that they saw only a miracle where I saw a pain that I could not end."

He inhales shakily. His damnable pride chokes him for a second but Sebastien will never be worthy of forgiveness if he does not confess it all. "And because, because Copley saw you, you two in particular and he did not think that you would be willing. He was right. I knew that you would never want to be seperated. Andy was weary. I was, feh, maudlin and stupid. You and Joe? You still love your lives. He could see that."

Another swallow. He has to close his eyes, tastes blood and salt on his lips when he licks them. He hates himself for this. How can Nicky not? "But mostly, because I had to convince them that immortality was shit, Nicky. They understood why I wanted an end. They believed Andy wanted an end. You and Joe? It had to be all of us. That man, that connard Keane, he kept pressing about you two and I..."

Sebastien's words fail him. There aren't words for his cowardice and the petty spite that made him keep talking, long after he should have shut his mouth and walked away. He crumples to the floor, sobbing in ugly gulps and it might be a hundred years later before he looks up again.

Nicky looks exhausted but less brittle when Sebastien can focus on him at last.

"I did not let myself think of it," he concludes. "Not once everything else had happened. I told myself that you did not know. How could you stay if they had told you? You would not stay if you knew, I thought.."

"Spiacente, Book," Nicky whispers and Sebastien swallows again, shaking his head.

"You don't have anything to apologise for, Nicky!"

"I do," Nicky says simply. Sebastien closes his eyes. He knows that tone. Nicky doesn't have Joe's knack for poetry. Just a gift for devastating sincerity. "You said, in the lab, that Joe and I did not know what it was to be alone."

Nicky half-turns his head, looking back at Joe. "You said it like it was a blessing. It is but that is not the whole story. My heart does not live in my chest. There is no me without Joe."

Joe kisses his neck and the brief glance he spares for Sebastien is seething with rage and hate.

"You and Andy can stand alone," Nicky says. "Joe is not merely my joy. He is my life. I am sorry that we did not explain this and that all you saw of us was our happiness when you were in pain."

Joe would just have stabbed him. And everyone they meet thinks Nicky is the merciful one.

"I cannot forgive you for this," Nicky says bluntly. "Not yet."

Sebastien nods. Nicky reaches out, other hand still clinging to Joe. Sebastien sniffles, eyes raw and his whole face stinging.

"You are still my brother," Nicky tells him. "That does not change."

"Merci, Nicky," Sebastien manages something like a smile.

Joe draws Nicky back, eyes flat and furious and Andy steps between them and Sebastien. Nile is watching him with her arms folded tightly across her chest, disappointment in the crimp of her lips. Quỳnh watches him like a cat watching a mouse it’s toying with. Sebastien forces himself up on wobbling legs and staggers back outside. The tears blind him almost immediately but, for the first time in nearly a century, it feels like relief. He will be apologizing for the next two hundred years but he has hope.

He'd forgotten how that felt.

Joe would just have stabbed him. And everyone they meet thinks Nicky is the merciful one.

Woooowwww. I’m so happy to see more of this and Booker’s POV. He has such a complicated messy relationship with grief and to try not to burden Nicky with it is its own fascinating struggle.

Woooow, I'm heartbroken, but this is amazing <3
Can you please post it on AO3? I want to bookmark and subscribe go get updates :,(
I don't know how this works here :,(

Aaaaaaah this story is just pure gold <3 I love Quyns character here, I want to know why they didn't tell nocky about her, I want her to help him (because she has no "fault", the others should have guessed that something was wrong, so maybe Nicky needs her to get a little peace and friendship without sadness?)

I'm so sad that Joe didn't notice nicky's pain...... why, Joe?! This hurts so much, but in a good way, I love the angst <3

Not the Author but they did post it on AO3! Here’s the link

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263248?show_comments=true&view_full_work=true#comments

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Fills Post

So it is Below, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,

Re: So it is Below, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,

Re: So it is Below, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,

AO3 link