Fills Post
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Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6a/?)
Date: 2020-10-27 06:26 am (UTC)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.
Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6b/?)
Date: 2020-10-27 06:28 am (UTC)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.
Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-27 06:28 am (UTC)“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.
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-27 08:05 am (UTC)Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-27 10:18 am (UTC)> the chapter where Nicky tries to keep his heart in his pants' (or maybe out of his pants, whichever)
Can this please be the official chapter title/chapter summary? Because it's absolutely perfect.
I loved Nicolò getting lost in his own head - it's very him. Berating himself for his own greed? Beautiful. I really appreciate his view on temptation (i.e. if you decide to do it after all don't moan and groan about it after) and the "running down a hill" metaphor, especially how you reprised it later.
I just love the way you write them, I hope you won't mind hearing it for every single chapter.
Also, we got more bantering! I may be low key envious of your ability to write bantering. It's absolutely awesome!
Question: is Leandro the same guys as Lazzaro from the previous chapters?
I do like the glimpses into Nicolò's past and that his story with Leandro was complex. Loved that Leandro got dunked in the water, too!
Oooh, the sex part was just... *fans self*. Look at Yusuf rules lawyer-ing again! The two of them getting tying themselves in knots!!! Oh wow, the yearning!
> With an act of will to anchor earthquakes, he does not.
This sentence was my absolute favorite. Also "desperate devotion to Yusuf" from the line before, it's just too beautiful.
Loved the post-coital cuddling and confidences and Nicolò's lines about Yusuf's experience with a woman (both "your great experience was only once?!" and "Thank God I know nothing of that") .
I wasn't expecting the kissing! And of course Nicolò put a stop to that - you're so going to regret it, Nico. I'm calling it now.
Thank you so much for this beautiful chapter!
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-31 07:53 am (UTC)Ahaha, no, Leandro and Lazzaro are totally different, so one might expect them not to have confusingly similar names, huh? But it's too late now, so that will have to wait for the AO3 edit. *facepalm* (Leandro is in fact only guilty of being kind of a moron about relationships, which is forgivable for reasons that should show up in the next part. (We can't really blame him for falling for Nicky, I guess.) Lazzaro on the other hand was just a fucking douche.)
Thank you so much, I'm very proud of that earthquake line tbh.
I wasn't actually expecting to put the kissing in - there was that line in the prompt about maybe it's The Last Thing, but then I was writing it, and was like '...all of Joe's previous sexual experience involved kissing, like, heavily', it's kind of just what you do, for him? And it moved the scene where I wanted it. But I touched on the bonus part! :)
(So much to regret, when you live forever. Just imagine being married to someone who NEVER LETS YOU HEAR THE end of your dumbass relationship decisions for, like eight hundred years! For instance.)
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-31 09:54 am (UTC)Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-27 03:30 pm (UTC)Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-27 08:03 pm (UTC)This is becoming my favourite fic here! It's beautifully written.
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-28 08:18 pm (UTC)Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-29 04:43 am (UTC)Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-29 10:30 am (UTC)Please feel free to ignore this if you're not super concerned about historical a accuracy regarding food. But you mentioned being unsure about it and wanting to fix any mistskes for the AO3 version, so I hope this comes across as helpful and not unwelcome.
Tomatoes are native to Central and South America, and seem to have been introduced to Europe sometime after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521. I'm not entirely sure when this fic is set, but I assume 12th-13th century? If so, they wouldn't have access to tomatoes yet. My first thought was to suggest having them chop onions instead, but idk if you'd want to have to write in the usual side effects of chopping onions. That said, it does give Nicky the opportunity to blame the onions for any unduly sad or pained facial expressions.
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-29 10:32 am (UTC)Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-10-31 08:00 am (UTC)I definitely care and I will definitely fix it for the later version. It is super sweet of you to suggest an actual fix, which I will jump on with hands (or something? it's late here). You totally did not have to do that (or provide such a detailed fact-check, thank you) and I appreciate the absolute heck out of it. <3
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-11-01 08:39 am (UTC)Good luck with moving 🤗
*new commenter on this fic*
Re: Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6c/?)
Date: 2020-11-12 02:44 am (UTC)Fic is continued in fill post 2, and future installments will be there as well:
https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/6665.html?thread=2447881#cmt2447881
(I kind of messed up the formatting on the new update, though, so if you want you can just skip straight to the full chapter here.)
https://salazar-quinn.dreamwidth.org/271.html