Fills Post
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Sequel - As it is in Heaven, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-01 09:52 pm (UTC)She doesn't feel like the baby of the group very often these days. Everyone has been so careful to include her. Especially Nicky.
Nile has to swallow the lump in her throat. She peers around the kitchen door. Joe's moved to the sofa, all of his attention on Nicky. He's talking softly, petting Nicky's hair while Quynh watches him through narrowed eyes. Nile cranes her neck to see but Nicky doesn't seem to have woken up. She turns away, paces across the worn tiles as she tries to think what to do.
She keeps seeing Nicky's face when Copley had him backed into the corner. She's never seen him look like that and she hadn't wanted to leave him alone but Copley didn't want her to stay. It's such a small thing to feel so shitty over and Christ knows, Nile's going to be feeling shitty about what she's done to Nicky for a long time. She sighs shakily and turns to the cupboards. Nicky likes tea, she thinks. She knows how to make tea for Nicky. She's going to do that.
She checks her phone again. Looks out into the other room. Quynh is staring at Nicky. Nile feels the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She sends a quick message to Andy, saying Nicky is still out. She's seen him recover from being blown to pieces faster than this. Is there something else wrong? Nicky is the one who endures. He recovers faster, brushes aside any concern and takes care of the rest of him. Nile doesn't know what to think now.
Nile gets the teapot out of the cupboard and takes four cups from the dishwasher. She takes Nicky and Joe's cups from the tea cupboard and takes the tin of green tea down. She nearly drops it when she turns to find Quynh standing right behind her. The other woman moves like a cat. Nile jerks back, hits the counter and has to grab to catch the tin before it hits the floor. Quynh doesn't even look at her, all her attention on the teapot. She runs light fingers along the glazed patterns and Nile has to hold onto the tin of tea very tightly until the urge to smack her hands away subsides.
Quynh notices. Of course she notices. She glances up at Nile and Nile is viscerally reminded that Quynh is not the young woman she appears to be. "This is Nicolò's. Nicky's. This is his."
"Yeah," Nile says tightly. Quynh smiles. It isn't the tight, vicious smile that Nile's familiar with it. It's softer, fond almost?
"Wǒ de dìdì," Quynh says. "I taught him that. Yusuf and Andromache always preferred coffee."
"Nicky always makes tea," Nile says. "When we're coming home from a job. When it's been a bad day."
"He is kind," Quynh says. "Gentle in a way most of us never were. We used to be better about protecting him."
Nile swallows. She still doesn't know what Copley was talking about. Doesn't know. But Joe had gone paler than Nicky and Andy had looked stricken, then murderous in a way that Nile hasn't seen since the church. Nile doesn't need to know the details. She saw Nicky screaming, hurting in a way not even Joe could reach him and she'd wanted to hit Copley. Then she'd wanted to hit Booker, break her knuckles on his face and scream herself hoarse.
"We should have done better," she says because she's still wondering what if. What if she had gone with them to meet Copley? What if she had checked the gun sooner, seen the betrayal before it happened instead of after?
"Yes," Quynh says simply and the silence hangs between them.
"He missed you," Nile says impulsively. "Nicky. Andy couldn't talk about you. Joe was...he and Booker were dealing with different things."
Quynh stares at her and Nile looks down at the tin in her hands. Then Quynh's entire focus snaps to the door to the other room and Nile hears Joe's voice change. Nicky's awake. She chases Quynh back into the other room. The other woman falters, slows and Nile can just see Joe's head bent over Nicky. She can't hear what he's saying but the tone is loving. Nicky's reply is quieter and he shifts. Joe lifts his head and Nicky sees Quynh.
Nile sees Quynh's spine straighten, like a Marine in front of the General but her focus is on Nicky's face. He stares, mouth falling open and Nile has to look away from the wonder dawning in his eyes. "Quynh?"
"Nicolò," Quynh breathes and Nile isn't sure if she moves first or Nicky does but they're hugging and she can't understand Nicky's fervent whispered Italian. Joe's on his feet, one hand still on Nicky's back.
"I'll get the tea," Nile says and flees back to the kitchen. The water's still hot and she spills some of the tea because her hands won't stop shaking.
Stop it! she thinks sharply. This is Nicky! He's not going to hold any of that shit against you.
She pours the tea, looks for cookies in the empty cupboard to delay for another minute before she picks the cups up and goes out. Quynh is still hugging Nicky and Joe is still smiling at them. Nicky's voice isn't even a whisper and his eyes are red when he raises his head at Nile's stilted "I have ...tea?"
"Grazie, Nile," Nicky says and his smile is radiant. Nile swallows hard and tries to smile back but Nicky frowns. "Are you well?"
"Am I—?" Nile chokes on the words and it comes out in something that isn't a laugh or a sob but some fucked-up mix of both. "Am I well? Fuck, Nicky!"
Nicky lets go of Quynh and reaches for her. Nile puts the cups down. At least she thinks she does but then Nicky's right there and Nile hugs him like she can hide him away from all the things in the world that hurt him. She's crying; big ugly gulps of air and snot everywhere. Nicky's too thin in her arms. She can feel his ribs and the bumps of his spine instead of the solid muscle that should be there.
"I'm sorry," she cries against his neck. "I'm so fucking sorry. Nicky. I'm so so so sorry!"
"Shhh," Nicky lets her weep, soothes her in his broken, shredded voice and Nile hates herself for adding to this. She's so used to it; Nicky as the sure ground underfoot, the safe harbour, the one who always understands. She never even thought of it until today when she saw him break and her sure ground shattered under her feet.
"I'm sorry," Nile says again because she can't remember how to say anything else.
"You are forgiven," Nicky says, drawing back enough that she can see his eyes. Still red, still tired but serene underneath it all. "Always, Nile. You were right. I was not being Christian in blaming Booker for the actions of others."
He says it so matter-of-factly that Nile chokes on her outrage. "No!"
Nicky actually looks surprised. Nile lets go of him only so she can grab his face in her hands and make him look at her. "Nicky, I didn't know. I thought he'd made a mistake and he'd apologized. I thought it was Merrick—"
"It was Merrick," Nicky says. "He was a wicked man."
"I thought it was just signing you up for tests," Nile says. "I thought he fell for the 'gift to humanity' schtick like Copley did. That was still messed up, I'm not saying it wasn't but that was a mistake. That was Booker being a complete and total fucking idiot! But that...that was him being stupid. Telling Merrick..."
Nicky flinches, eyes closing and Nile's throat closes to keep the ugly tears at bay. She shakes Nicky lightly, waits for him to open his eyes before she continues because he has to hear this, has to understand.
"I didn't understand why you couldn't forgive him for being stupid," she tells him. "You're ...you're so kind, you know? So nice to everyone and I just couldn't see why you couldn't see that he'd been stupid. I didn't realize and that? That's on me. That is my fault."
"No!" Nicky tries to shake his head. "Booker made a mistake. I should not have blamed him for being in despair and trying to escape!"
"Because he wasn't stupid," Nile interrupts. "Well, not just stupid. He told them-" Nicky shudders and Nile shakes her head "-he told them what he told them. That wasn't just stupid. That was cruel."
"He did not mean it," Nicky protests and Nile hears a snort. She thinks it was Quynh but it might have been Joe.
"He still did it," Nile says and Nicky closes his eyes. "He still gave them those things and they used them to hurt you. That's not just a mistake. That's mean and it's spiteful and it's a whole lot of messed up shit and all of it is bad. That's not something you can just forgive, Nicky."
"I..." Nicky blinks and tears bead on his eyelashes.
"Maybe someday," Nile allows. "Because you're Nicky and you're too kind to everyone else. But he didn't apologise. He didn't try to make this right."
"He didn't know," Nicky argues and Nile takes a deep breath. She doesn't know why she's surprised that she's having to argue with Nicky about this.
"He knew he'd told them that stuff," she says gently. "Nicky, come on. You wouldn't be so quick to let him off if he'd done this to...to me. Would you really have let him off so easily if he'd done this to Joe?"
Nicky turns his face away and Nile catches a glimpse of Joe's agonized expression. Nile hugs Nicky because he looks so small. Quynh's hand brushes her arm as she joins the embrace and Joe chuckles, a strange strangled sound as he wraps his arms around all of them.
"You should listen to Nile, my beloved," he says and Nicky turns blindly towards him. "She is a very wise woman."
Nicky laughs or sobs, she can't tell and Joe presses a kiss against his forehead. His voice is soft when he speaks. "You can take all the time you need, my love. We were fools not to know better but we know now. We are here. I am here. You need not carry this pain alone."
Nicky shakes again but Nile just holds on tighter.
"I can kill him again," Quynh offers. She sounds entirely sincere but Nicky laughs. It sounds painful but it's laughter. Quynh says something that doesn't sound like any of the languages Nile's trying to learn and Nicky laughs again.
"I know you would, sorella."
The sound of a key in the door kills his laughter and Nile feels the way Nicky tries to curl in on himself but they all crowd in closer, hugging him tighter in unspoken unison.
"With you," Joe whispers as if it's only the two of them in the room. "Always, habibi."
Re: Sequel - As it is in Heaven, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-01 10:29 pm (UTC)My heart hurts for Nicky... and Quynh has my soul. I love the love between them.
Thank you for continuing this x
Re: Sequel - As it is in Heaven, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-02 03:26 am (UTC)Re: Sequel - As it is in Heaven, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-02 04:53 pm (UTC)Re: Sequel - As it is in Heaven, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-02 10:45 pm (UTC)Re: Sequel - As it is in Heaven, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-07 02:46 pm (UTC)I was just coming here to read this story again (50th time or so)... and then I find another chapter added to this wonderfully, tear jerking fic.
Will there be more? 😇
Re: Sequel - As it is in Heaven, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-26 06:12 am (UTC)So it is Below, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-29 12:25 am (UTC)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.
Re: So it is Below, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-10-29 04:02 am (UTC)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.
Re: So it is Below, Nicky/Joe, Nile, References to Non-con (non-explicit), violence,
Date: 2020-11-17 11:29 pm (UTC)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
AO3 link
Date: 2020-11-18 06:02 pm (UTC)https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263248?show_comments=true&view_full_work=true#comments