Fills Post
Jul. 22nd, 2020 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theoldguardkinkmemeThis Fills Post is now closed to new fills. New fills should go in Fills Post #2.
Fills can but don't need to be anonymous.
Start a new comment for each fill. Don't use threaded comments for new fills. Threaded comments are for fills that take up more than one comment field, or for feedback/squee/praise.
In your fill, please mention the prompt you are responding to, and provide a link to the prompt in the body of the text.
Please use a header with your character(s)/pairing and a title and/or keyword or short phrase. (For example: "Just you and me: Andy/Quynh, Make-up sex" or "Between a Rock and A Hard Place: Nicky/Joe/Booker, first time DP").
Please also comment with a link to your fill in the prompt post, under the prompt you are responding to. Your comment header should include the word "Fill" or "Filled", so that those checking out the thread can find your fic/art more easily (For example: "FILL: Re: Any/Quynh, Make-up sex").
If you end up cleaning up your fill and posting it elsewhere (AO3, your personal journal), feel free to link the posted fic/art here as well.
Fills on Pinboard: For a list of filled prompts on Pinboard, go here.
Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-10 06:04 pm (UTC)(A second fill for this prompt since I glossed over the fact that it already had one while browsing prompts on the pinboard >.> Also this got a little angstier than I meant it to, whoops.)
Yusuf has seen Nicolo die and revive—has, in fact, been the cause of it—enough times to not worry overmuch about it. But when he falls to a blow that nearly severs his head from his shoulders Yusuf’s heart jumps into his throat nonetheless.
He dispatches their last opponent and races to Nicolo, kneeling at his lover’s side as blood continues to spurt from the wound. The blow wasn’t enough to sever his spine, which seems to be the only thing keeping his head on. Yusuf can see the severed flesh and muscle twitching grotesquely, as if trying to knit back together, but the wound gapes too far apart for them to do so.
Gingerly, but emboldened by the idea that he probably can't make this worse, Yusuf slides his hands under Nicolo's head and lifts it just enough to press the ragged edges of the wound together. Heedless of the blood that stains his hands, he holds Nico's head in place, closes his eyes, and prays.
Please, not yet. Not when we've had so little time together. Please, don't take him from me.
Nicolo lurches in his grip, a ragged gasp tearing itself from a still-healing throat, and Yusuf sags in relief. "I'm here," he says when Nicolo tries to say his name. "I've got you, hayati.”
Nicolo asks about it later, while Yusuf is carefully washing the blood from his hair. "You called me something in Arabic earlier. Not habibi like you have before, but--"
Yusuf feels an absurd urge to blush, as if he were a boy trying to work up the nerve to court a sweetheart and not a man speaking to his lover of over a year. "Hayati. It means 'my life'."
Nico ducks his head, his ears tinged pink, and Yusuf can see a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Hayati,” he repeats, copying Yusuf’s pronunciation as much as his accent allows for. “That’s lovely.”
Yusuf kisses the crown of his head, fingers gently tracing the line where Nicolo’s body put itself back together. “It’s also true.”
***
A bowstring snapping in the heat of battle is not really a laughing matter, but the look of utter betrayal Quynh gives the broken weapon in her hand is so funny that Yusuf can’t help but let out a short bark of laughter. It earns him a brief, fierce glare from before she pulls the short sword from her belt and fights on.
The incident seems forgotten by the time they make camp that night, but Yusuf still makes a point of being the one to repair Quynh’s bow. He presents it to her with great ceremony, dropping to one knee with the bow laid across his open palms. “Here you are, my lady.”
Quynh gives him a fond smile as she takes it from him. “My thanks, kind sir.”
Afterward, they call each other by those names in the sort of private joke you could never explain to anyone else because of how little there is to it.
Centuries later, on the anniversary of no day in particular, Joe stands on a seaside cliff and tosses a wreath of white flowers into the stormy Atlantic.
“We miss you, my lady,” he says quietly, watching the delicate flowers disappear among the waves.
***
They spend weeks on a mission that allows them no time or privacy for more than a quick tumble in the dark. When it’s finally over and they have a room to themselves and a door that locks, they spend days in bed to make up for it, days of bare skin and tangled limbs and endearments sighed and whispered and screamed in Arabic and Zeneize and Greek and Latin and every other tongue they know.
“My beloved,” Nico murmurs, carding his hands through his lover’s curls as Yusuf swallows his cock to the root. “My sweetheart, my light, my soul.”
“My darling,” Yusuf gasps out later as Nicolo rides him, both of them trembling and sore and filthy but still hungry for each other’s bodies. “My treasure, my only one.”
***
After another attempt to find Quynh yields only bitter disappointment, after they've returned to the little seaside cottage they've taken in Gibraltar, Andromache goes straight to her bedroom and shuts the door, leaving Yusuf and Nicolo to hold each other and talk in murmurs to soft to reach even her keen ears.
The next day, her door is unbarred, so they enter the room to find her sitting by the window, dressed in the same clothes and looking for all the world like she may turn to stone that way, unmoving, gazing out at the sea.
Nico settles on the floor by her feet and touches her knee gently; Yusuf stands behind them and puts a hand on Andromache’s shoulder. She shows no reaction to their touch, neither leaning into it nor pushing them away.
They sit in silence for a while, and then Nico asks, “Can we do anything for you, dear heart?”
“No,” Andromache replies, her voice rough, and then her hand settles on his hair, stroking gently. “But thank you for wanting to.”
***
The first time they go back to Genoa and hear more standard Italian than Zeneize spoken in the streets, Nicky sulks about it for days.
“I’m not sulking,” he insists, in the midst of cooking an aggressively Ligurian dinner, and Joe replies “Of course you aren’t, habibi,” because you don’t argue with the man preparing your food.
Later, as they’re washing up, Joe wraps his arms around Nicky from behind and cuddles up close, kisses the side of his neck and the shell of his ear and whispers amore, cuore mio, luce dei miei occhi until he teases a soft huff of laughter out of him, and then keeps going, carino, la vita mia, anima gemella until Nicky abruptly turns to cup his face in soapy hands and kiss him, leaving the remaining dishes abandoned in the sink.
***
The hotel room is the kind of luxury they only spring for on special occasions, with rose petals scattered across the bedspread and champagne chilling in an ice bucket nearby.
The certificate is just paper, signed with aliases they’ll abandon in a decade or so. The simple silver rings they exchanged will be worn on cords around necks more often than on fingers, if they’re worn at all after tonight, and the vows are nothing they haven’t said thousands of times before, often when there was no one but the two of them to bear witness.
They’re here partly to revel in the world’s progress, the wonderful newness of a union like this being not only legal but celebrated, and partly because even if they’ve said the words a thousand times before, neither of them will ever refuse the opportunity to say them again.
They stand on the balcony drinking champagne from delicate crystal flutes, and Nicky leans his head against Joe’s shoulder with a contented sigh.
“Husband,” he says, because he can, and thrills when Joe says it back to him.
***
“Baby, can you get me a—“ Joe says, and before he can finish the sentence Nicky’s there with the thing he needs—a hairbrush, a bookmark, a freshly sharpened pencil, a cup of tea.
Watching this happen for the fifth time in as many hours, Nile asks, "Okay, you guys would tell me if you had telepathy, right?"
Joe curls up under the blanket Nicky just brought him with a smug look. "Only the sort that comes from loving each other for so long."
***
Nicky peers at the recipe book open on the counter, and then at the spice rack. “Are we out of tarragon?”
“Hang on, I think there’s some—“ Nile goes over to the pantry, rummaging through it for a few moments and emerging with a jar in her hand and a triumphant “Aha!”
“Thank you, topolina,” Nicky says as she places it on the counter in front of him.
Nile looks at him with a raised eyebrow. “Okay, I know you just called me a little something, but…?”
“Ah, ‘little mouse’,” Nicky clarifies, turning sheepish. “It’s just an expression, Nile, I don’t mean anything by it.”
“No, it’s fine,” she replies, smiling. “That’s...actually really adorable.”
“Yes, well, so are you,” Nicky says matter-of-factly as he measures out seasonings and adds them to the saucepan.
“Shut up,” Nile tells him, scrunching up her face.
“I rest my case,” Nicky says with a cheeky smile, and goes back to stirring.
***
Booker's booted foot slips on a patch of ice, and without even thinking about it Joe catches his elbow to steady him.
"Careful, brother," he says, and then when the other man halts and stares at him, "What?"
Booker averts his eyes quickly. "Nothing, it's just--that's the first time you've called me that. Since."
He doesn't need to say since what, and Joe's jaw tightens at the memory, but-- "You never stopped being my brother, Sebastien."
Booker still won't meet his eyes, but he mutters, "Thank you, mon frere," before he clears his throat and turns his attention back to the mission.
***
The time Andy has left is long and good and lived to the fullest, and at the same time it’s not enough, her death (natural, peaceful, surrounded by those who love her) comes too soon, they’re not ready for it.
Quynh is the one it’s most bitterly unfair to—so much of the time they should have had together was stolen from them—but Nicky’s thoughts turn selfishly to himself and Joe. To the possibility, rarely spoken of but always lurking in the backs of their minds, that the universe won’t grant their prayer to go together when it’s time, that one of them will have to leave the other bereft.
There’s nothing they can do, no way to prepare for that, so they leave Quynh in Nile and Booker’s care and slip away for a while, stepping outside to hold each other tight under the stars.
“Tesoro,” Nicky whispers as he buries his face in Joe’s neck, clinging to him.
“Ya amar,” Joe replies softly, and Nicky feels the dampness of tears on his shoulder. “No matter what happens, I will love you until the stars burn out.”
Nicky nods against him, both I know and me too. “Always, hayati.”
Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-10 06:15 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-10 06:28 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-10 06:33 pm (UTC)Also the “husband” bit, beautiful.
Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-15 03:31 pm (UTC)At least he has the sweetest husband in the world, omg.
Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-10 08:32 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-10 10:18 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-13 03:01 am (UTC)Re: Fill: Nicky/Joe, terms of endearment
Date: 2020-10-18 12:19 pm (UTC)