theoldguardkinkmeme

This Fills Post is now closed to new fills. New fills should go in Fills Post #2. For those of you who are in the process of posting multi-chapter WIPs, please post subsequent chapters in the new Fills Post but include a link to the previous chapters so that those who haven't been following the story from the beginning can easily find the first part(s).

Remember:

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dr_libra_phd

Argh, you guys still with me? I'm hoping I led enough bread crumbs back to the new location. Again, very very sorry for the confusion!

———————————————-
Part 16D
———————————————-

(Yusuf)

Somewhere outside of Alexandria, 12th century

Yusuf shooed the chicken who tried to peck at his foot. It tottered under the table and decided Yusuf’s big toe peering out of his sandals was food.

“He already fed you,” Yusuf chided the brown and black speckled bird. He waved a hand, blinking when it squawked back before doing a little hop and waddle out of the house. It was rather indignant for a hen.

Another tried to totter in, shrieking when Yusuf shouted at it. It flapped away and left a few gray feathers fluttering to the doorway.

“A door is a definite must,” Yusuf muttered as he begrudgingly rose to his feet from the table to collect the feathers to be washed and dried later. Nicolo was bemused Yusuf wanted to make a new sleeping mattress stuffed with feathers. The villagers often traded a modest sack of the fluffy trinkets for a chore or two. Hopefully, Nicolo will have a small sack today.

Outside, the afternoon sun has kept the day warm and the dwelling comfortable. Nicolo has ventured into the village again, riding the horse without quarrel, much to Yusuf’s annoyance. The beast had tossed its head as Nicolo climbed on it after Yusuf’s many dire warnings about its temperament.

It is good, Yusuf thought, that Nicolo was comfortable going out to the village. It is good Yusuf’s chest did not seize when he turns around and not find Nicolo right there.

It was impractical, Yusuf reasoned, to always go to the village together. The horse tolerated Nicolo, it seemed to find snapping teeth towards Yusuf appealing. Many baskets tipped over this way. Yusuf heals, of course, but it was still irritating.

Nicolo left in the morning with fish they have dried and a few melons they could not eat themselves. Hopefully it was enough to barter for some wood. Enough for a door.

Nicolo woke up shouting last week. And then picked up the intruding hen off his head and tossed it towards Yusuf who was slow to wake. Nicolo wore him out the night before. Yusuf returned the favor that morning and repaid Nicolo for the rude clucking awakening that evening. Nicolo unintentionally exacted revenge. He slept through the rooster’s shrill crowing that next morning. Yusuf had to chase the wretched bird away from their door for once.

Yusuf scoffed as he continued with his task of pulling out their packs to determine what, if any, needed repair. The women they dreamed about now appeared to be in a colder climate. Their provisions needed to be adjusted.

Unless the women refused to accept Nicolo, then the packing is for naught.

The small smile on Yusuf’s face faded.

No, Yusuf thought fiercely, they would accept Nicolo. Of course they will, how would they not? They would have seen everything Nicolo had done and know the torment in each of his actions.

If it was anyone they would not accept, it should be Yusuf.

Yusuf breathed out as he examined the bottom of his sack, frowning at a stitch that was unraveling.

It would not matter, Yusuf told himself, if the women reject either one of them, they, in turn, would reject the women if they do. Who are they to judge their actions? Nicolo was his own harshest judge and Yusuf has judged and already determined his own crimes.

“Naïveté,” Yusuf condemned himself. He assumed the best and ignored the worse. He thought moving from city to city was a good life. He thought they would be happy wherever they settle next and free to indulge on things they could not afford to do in their early years. Youth flows into maturity and with it, the unwieldy weight of responsibility hung over their necks, bowing their backs.

Immortality meant embracing what they could not dare to in their youth, when they thought time was limited.

Yusuf welcomed the chance to coax beauty out of dull paper, tease ink into life and watch the fruits of his labor marveled by others. Nicolo, as if fearing the audacity of saying such things, had once whispered across a campfire that he would like to read everything out there, without fear of consequences.

So Yusuf steered them to each city, to visit every library it has to offer to also search for any knowledge about their conditions. He enjoyed how Nicolo flushed with disbelieving joy at how books were readily shared. Yusuf took guilty pleasure at teaching Nicolo what words he could that puzzled Nicolo. Nicolo always sought for Yusuf to translate even if it was a language they both did not know.

A small leather wrap unfurled, revealing the thin tools Nicolo traded with a carpenter after they left Trunsa. Too many years without a single gray hair or weary wrinkle had started to earn them looks from their neighbors.

Nicolo had mentioned he helped the monastery craft simple furniture, often traded or sold for funds. Yusuf was appalled at the thought of an undernourished child handling sharp tools for food, never rewarded for the craft itself. He expressed a wish to do more. However, Nicolo only bought the tools after Yusuf pestered him for days.

The tools were only used once, in a town a few weeks from Damascus. Nicolo carved little desert animals for children. Yusuf and Nicolo found their uncle’s dried up carcass in the sand, his coin still clutched in his hands. The poor soul died of thirst, not of bandits. They detoured to the town to return the man to family who would miss him.

While Yusuf helped the parents with matters children should not understand yet, Nicolo kept the young ones distracted.

Nicolo carved tiny desert rabbits, birds with giant wings and owls with large eyes out of the piece of wood they saved in case they needed kindling. But Yusuf did not mind. He was rewarded Nicolo's rare laugh as a child pointed out the owl’s beak looked like his nose.

When it was time to depart, Nicolo tossed over a piece with an embarrassed smile. It was a desert rabbit curled up in sleep. It was the size of a quail egg and had a crack that ran down its back because Nicolo cut too deep. The tail was broken off and one of the ears were longer than the other.

Yusuf kept the small imperfect rabbit in his pockets. He took it out every night to stroke its head and eventually, the surface of that spot gleamed like polished stone.

Yusuf could not retrieve it when they were forced to flee Damascus. As they wearily made camp and discussed wherever to go next, Yusuf remembered it was next to a block of driftwood someone sold him for a fair price.

The loss of the rabbit hurt more than the arrow that slowly pushed out of his back that night.

Nicolo has not touch the tools since. Nor did he ask for books when Yusuf went to the libraries in Cairo. Or asked they spend coin to purchase a new wrap for his sword's grip. He did not ask for anything. He worked, he toiled, he granted every wish Yusuf muttered unthinkingly for, he—

Yusuf scrubbed his face wearily. When he glanced over their bed, he saw Nicolo again, a pale defeated soul kneeling whipped before Dirar.

With a growl, Yusuf slapped his own cheeks. He needed to focus. He promised Nicolo he would check on the nets as well.

There were a few daggers buried at the bottom of Nicolo's sack. They were confiscated over bandits they encountered, spoils from jobs guarding caravans over the years.

Yusuf turned the blades in his hands, his throat working. Some had the gems picked out of the sleeves, valuable metals pried off hilts, leather salvaged for repairs. The blades were portable currency. Most were gone.

Eyes stinging, Yusuf studied the daggers. He did not realize they were this dire in funds. While he drew, painted and talked about all the techniques he envisioned for one scroll, silver dyes for a manuscript, Nicolo must have been harvesting the daggers for extra coin.

And when that ran out...

Yusuf set the daggers aside to be sharpened. He roughly scrubbed his eyes with a fist.

There was also a tightly bound bundle in Nicolo’s sack. Yusuf frowned when he heft it in his hands. It was tied with three thick straps and a roll as thick as his arm.

When Yusuf loosened the ties, the burlap unfurled.

“Oh hobi,” Yusuf choked out as he gazed down at a short stack of papyrus.

The paper was dusty, curled into pale golden tubes of semi-translucent paper. They were tied too tight within the bundle. Yusuf would have to soak each sheet in the stream and dry them flat before they can be used.

Yusuf rubbed a corner between two fingers. It was quality paper from a box Nicolo purchased in Cairo. It was the day they went to the market together. The day Yusuf saw Dirar slip a sliver of apricot between Nicolo’s lips.

The stack of paper shivered when Yusuf’s fist thumped the table. He exhaled slowly.

The paper made a hushed sound as Yusuf thumbed through the sheets. Part of him wanted to burn them all in a merry fire, but he could not bring himself to so callously lay waste to what Nicolo suffered to get.

As Yusuf counted each sheet, his chest squeezed. More and more until he was gasping, his breath ragged when he found a scroll carefully covered between two pieces of Nicolo's tunic. Yusuf remembered it was torn beyond repair and assumed it was made into rags.

Nicolo had cut two pieces in the exact size of the scroll and tucked the scroll between the layers. It was preserved surprisingly well, the scroll work still crisp and vivid.

It was the tale of the boy and the falcon that Yusuf started to draw while Nicolo slept. Nicolo curled against his hip and had watched Yusuf craft a tale. He never completed it.

"Does this story have a joyous ending?"

"It will."

And suddenly Yusuf found himself weeping, the torn shirt pressed into his mouth. He pushed the scroll and the papers away. He heard the constellation scroll fall, the beautiful pen Nicolo was determined to get, rolling to Yusuf's feet.

Fat tear drops splattered the table. He felt his sorrow hot and bitter wetting his beard. Nicolo's torn shirt, carefully trimmed and pressed, was now damp.

But Yusuf could not stop. Silent grief and sorrow welled up the more he stared at the incomplete scroll, the art he filled, the promise left empty at the bottom.

Quiet footsteps heralded the slip of Nicolo's thin arms from behind. Nicolo stooped over, his mouth pressed to Yusuf's curls, his arms over Yusuf's shoulders and wrapped around his neck like a warm scarf.

Nicolo did not speak. He did not shush Yusuf. He simply stood there, hunched over Yusuf, offering oasis, offering Yusuf the option to cry.

So Yusuf did.

He sniffled, wept, quiet choked off noises within the haven of Nicolo's embrace. Nicolo's breathing was slow, calm, accepting as Yusuf yielded to his sorrow and wetly raged about his guilt.

The tears eventually dried. Yusuf felt his eyes were scrubbed with boiling sand, his throat clogged up with smoke. His face felt too hot.

Nicolo made to kneel on the floor by Yusuf to speak.

"No," Yusuf croaked. "Not that."

Nicolo's eyes widened lightly. He nodded and surprised Yusuf once again by straddling Yusuf's lap.

Yusuf exhaled. He buried his damp eyes into the crook of Nicolo's left shoulder.

"Hello," Nicolo murmured. He carded hands into Yusuf's hair.

"I had promised you a joyous ending," Yusuf mumbled into the smooth skin of Nicolo's neck.

Nicolo seemed to understand what Yusuf referred to. "I have learned happy endings must be written together."

Yusuf snorted. "And you say I have pretty words."

Nicolo kissed Yusuf's hair.

"I have two sacks of feathers," Nicolo murmured. "For your strange idea."

Yusuf chuckled, thick with unshed tears. "You will not mock after you have slept on it."

"Will I wake up hungry for eggs?" Nicolo mused out loud. "Or will I find another hen trying to make nest in my hair?"

Yusuf choked. He hugged Nicolo to him.

"Hobi," Yusuf whispered. "No more broken promises. I swear."

"You have never broken a promise to me that truly mattered," Nicolo returned easily, in that deep yet soft tone that said he truly believed it as a fact.

"And I never will," Yusuf murmured. "I will not forsake you. I will not leave you. And I will weep no more. It will blind me to your presence and that is a fate I can not bear."

Nicolo wrapped his arms around Yusuf tightly.

"The same," Nicolo whispered. "The same."

Yusuf breathed deep the sweat and faint almonds on Nicolo's neck.

"Let us find this joyous ending together," Nicolo murmured.

Yusuf simply nodded and held on. Until...

"...My heart. My Nicolo, I have a question."

"Anything," Nicolo murmured as he rolled his shoulders to curl closer.

"...Why is the horse in the house?"

At the doorway, halfway inside, the horse neighed.

-------------------------------
Hee. Might be a smaller part tomorrow, but yes, Nicolo's turn as we nudge aside the soft for some action! (I hope, lol)

From: (Anonymous)

Nicolo and Yusuf are so gentle and sweet I can hardly stand it sometimes, but I might also be here for the adventures of the nameless horse. 🙂

From: (Anonymous)

I love your writing so much. It is hot and so beautiful.

From:

eternalfangirl

My babies... My children. My darling boys. I love them so much!

From: (Anonymous)

I DO NOT understand this site. I don't. That said, I wanted to keep reading and honestly devouring this story so I had to make do. I got too used to AO3 I suppose. Oh, Yusuf's grief was so palpable. It hurt. And their heart to heart at the end was just lovely. And actual ending with the fucking horse lmao I called.