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peri-helia · 2 months

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If I can’t dance (I don’t want any part of your revolution)

I hope the song choice isn't ooc for Nile but I was re-watching St. Trinian’s and this happened.

“Are you sure she’s ready for this?”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that” Nicky retorted serenely, not even bothering to look at Copley, as they both watch over the railing as Nile maneuvers herself through the tangle of red wool threads that was doubling for the lasers she would navigate.

Copley sighed, privately wondering if there would ever be a day he didn’t put his foot in his mouth around these people. Probably not in his lifetime.

“I only meant she doesn’t seem happy with the arrangement. I know she’s fully capable, believe me. When –“ he swallowed, unsure of how much Nile had told them of the events preceding their rescue from Merrick Industries, “Nile tracked me down, I offered to come with her. What happened to you was my fault and I was determined to put things right. She just looked at me and said that out of the two of us, she would be the one to walk out of there again”

Out of the corner of his eye, he’s sure he sees the corner of Nicky’s mouth tick upward infinitesimally.

“Technically she jumped out the window” Joe says as he appears behind Nicky, taking a mug of coffee from the tray to offer it to Nicky. Copley’s eyebrows hit his hairline and as he turns to look at the other two men they are both definitely grinning in a mixture of pride and bemusement.

“Faster than the elevator” Nicky quips and it must already be some private joke from the way Joe snorts into his coffee mug.

“Before I forget, Copley, Booker wants you to go over the IDs” Joe tells him

“Again?!” he doesn’t know if it’s the forger critiquing his work or perhaps wanting to be seen as making as much effort as possible as part of re-earning everyone’s trust. Still, given the sharp looks he’s receiving from both Nicky and Joe, Copley decides its probably a smart move. Besides which, it doesn’t look like Joe’s asking.

---

“Thank you, habibi” Nicky sighs as soon as Copley is out of earshot. He takes a grateful sip of his coffee, naturally brewed to perfection. Joe gently presses his hand to the small of Nicky’s back in comfort.

“I don’t like him watching us training any more than you do. Especially when we’re still working through the logistics”

As they watch, Nile’s foot catches in some of the wool for the umpteenth time and Andy stops counting the seconds. Nile gives a shout of frustration and pulls her way free of the strands.

“That’s enough for today” they hear Andy say, passing Nile a bottle of water and patting her on the shoulder for an effort well made.

Copley’s a double-crossing bastard, but he’s not stupid. This way isn’t working for Nile. But she’s so determined to do this part of the job and none of them want to dissuade her. Retrieving the stolen artwork has been her gig from the start, she was the one who brought it to Copley. If she triggers the lasers, it’s nothing they can’t handle but it’s a challenge she hasn’t had before and Nile is determined as ever to rise to it.

Sure enough, the next thing is Nile saying “I can do this” as much to herself as to Andy.

“We know you can” Quynh unfurls herself from where she’s been watching, “But a break might help. Try again later and it will go smoother for the rest.”

---

About an hour later, the pedestrian access door into the warehouse bangs open and Nile shouts, “ANDY! Andy, I’ve got it!”

Looking up from the mess of schematics, tea things and poker chips, they see Nile striding triumphantly into the space. She hits the loading bay door control panel. There’s a bit of banging of something that sounds heavy and likely expensive, when Booker appears on the other side with a flatbed trolley; two massive loudspeakers precariously loaded atop it.

Nicky wonders briefly what they’ve done with Copley. He’s probably weeping over the budget somewhere, because they definitely didn’t own these speakers this morning.

Something he’s grown to love about Nile, something they all love her for truly, is her innovation. It’s similar to Andy in a way, and maybe in a thousand years they’ll get to know Nile’s way of thinking well enough that they can see her logic but the thrill of the surprise is a treat in itself for the time being.

Once they get the speakers unloaded and set up, Nile walks towards the red string maze again like a gymnast taking first position. She nods at Booker and at her cue, he hits play on her iPod.

A pop song with a heavy beat starts thudding through the warehouse, filling the space so that the room itself thrums with sound. Casting a quick glance at each other, they watch as Nile starts working through the crisscross of threads. It’s…transformative. She’s clearly focused; her jaw set determinedly as she moves through the set-up. But her moves are more sinuous than they had been earlier. The air of distraction is gone and it is like watching a dance; the way she twists and slips through. The threads don’t touch her. Before they know it she’s made it through to the other side of the mats. She’s giving a victory bow as the song fades out.

“Nearly three minutes exactly” Booker announces, pausing the music having evidently been timing her.

Nile beams at them, hands on her hips. “I realized that the counting was putting me off. Sorry, Andy. I train better when I’ve got my music blasting and I suddenly thought what if I can time myself to a song roughly the same time as the we’ve got before the timer on the laser resets. What d’you think?”

It’s clear from Andy’s face that she’s thinking, the world’s best strategist, assessing what she’s just seen. The smile that breaks over her face is like the sun coming up; intrigued and pleased all at once. Something she appreciates probably most of all of them is someone realizing their potential.

“I think we’ll walk it”

---

“The Storm on the Sea of Gallilee by Rembrandt has been returned to the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, having been deemed lost after a burglary more than thirty years ago. It was discovered this morning by a cleaner, along with a note that read ‘Thought you should have this back. Thief’s details with Interpol. Love your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman’. More on this story at-“

That piece had been one of his bloody favourites and now all he’s got is a bleached spot on the wall and probably about twenty minutes before the cops show up. What he’d dearly like to know is how they even got in and why his Spotify has a Sophie Ellis-Bextor song in his recently liked that wasn’t there before.

#the old guard #my writing #tog drabbles #its 2am help #tog fanfic #tog fanfiction #I couldn’t think what to call the bad guy so I didn’t oops

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youssefguedira · 1 year

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iron maiden joe prequel snippet for you all happy sunday (this takes place the morning immediately after nicky, andy and quynh find yusuf in the main fic)

At six twenty-five am – according to his watch, which runs two minutes slow, so it's probably more like six twenty-seven – Nicky gives up on the idea of trying to get more sleep. Yusuf has not stirred all night; or if he has, Nicky has not heard it. He's briefly worried about going too far, even though he knows, logically, there is no need for him to keep watch like this. But the kitchen is close enough to Yusuf's bedroom that Nicky will be able to hear it if he cries out, and if he is to get through today, he'll need something to eat, and probably coffee too. So it is with that in mind that he gets up and goes into the kitchen.

Nobody else is awake yet, and it is late enough in the year that the sun isn't quite up either, but the sky is beginning to grow light in anticipation of it. This safehouse is far enough from any other major settlement that the only sound outside is the wind, which hasn't let up all night, and the birds. Nicky turns the lights on and gets to work.

At seven thirty, Nile joins him in the kitchen. She doesn't ask how long he's been awake, and he doesn't volunteer the information. He offers her a cup of coffee, and she takes it, settling herself at the kitchen table.

At eight twenty-two, according to the clock above the kitchen counter, which is seemingly more reliable than Nicky's old watch, there are the first sounds of movement from Yusuf's bedroom. If Nile notices the way Nicky immediately looks up towards the sound, she doesn't say a word about it, nor does she give him the knowing look Andy or Quynh would have. There has been no sign of the two of them, yet.

To keep himself from straining to hear every single tiny sound coming from behind Yusuf's door, Nicky sets about making breakfast. There's not much in this safehouse – they'd come here in a rush after Copley had called – so he just makes oatmeal, adding sugar to Nile's and nothing to his own. Nile, normally, would make fun of him for this, but today she says nothing.

He reaches for the honey and cinnamon, setting it down on the counter next to the third bowl, but then pauses. He thinks that Yusuf has, or at least used to have, a sweet tooth to rival Andy's. He thinks that this is the way he would have made it a long time ago, when they had the luxury of being able to get the ingredients they needed. He thinks that he would not have thought twice before.

He does not remember any of this for certain. This is precious information that he has kept guarded in his memory for centuries, and yet at some point in the last four hundred and eighty two years, he has let it fade, and now he does not remember. He'd sworn to himself not to forget these things, small as they may be, out of desperate hope, and now he does not remember. It is such a tiny thing to forget. It feels like a monumental loss.

And who is he now to assume that things have not changed, when he knows that the man he'd found in that alleyway is not the same as the one they'd taken from him? How can anything be the same as it was, after so long? Nicky loves him still, so much he aches with it, but what if they are both too different, now? What if there is nothing left to repair?

He does not realise, until he goes to pass Nile her bowl, that his hands are trembling.

"Nicky," she says, but whatever would have followed is interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

Yusuf stands just in the doorway of the kitchen, not quite in, not quite out. This safehouse is not all that large; the distance between them is barely two meters, if that. It feels insurmountable.

"Are you-" Nicky begins and then reconsiders, clears his throat. "Will you eat something?" He'd barely eaten a thing at dinner last night, and Nicky is worried for him, though perhaps he'd just been too tired.

Yusuf doesn't say a word, just lingers there, lips slightly parted as if he'd wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. It does something funny to Nicky's brain, seeing him there in a hoodie and sweatpants that are just a little loose in the shoulders and thighs, a far cry from the clothes Nicky had last seen him in. His hair is shorter, too, though the cut isn't exactly neat. Nicky had done his best, but he'd gotten the sense Yusuf wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Finally, after an eternity, Yusuf nods, shuffling forwards to sit at the table. His shoulders are hunched underneath the grey fabric of the hoodie. He looks – Nicky doesn't know. He looks tired.

Nicky offers him the bowl, and the honey and cinnamon with it, just in case. Yusuf doesn't look at him, or at Nile, while he eats, and that doesn't hurt. It doesn't.

It's slow, but at least he's eating something, even if he takes small bites and only finishes half the bowl. Nicky will take it.

Only when Yusuf finishes does he look at Nicky. "Thank you," he says quietly, still speaking the Arabic of his childhood, the version he'd taught Nicky painfully slowly, a hand offered in peace across the barrier between them, over the course of countless nights in the desert. This, at least, Nicky has not forgotten, making sure he spoke it at least with Andromache and Quynh, and with himself, too.

"Of course," Nicky responds, offering him a soft smile that he hopes looks more convincing than it feels. Yusuf doesn't quite smile back, but his eyes soften, and – it is small, perhaps.

It is enough to give Nicky hope, nonetheless.

#neon writes #iron maiden joe #the old guard #kaysanova #welcome back to: nicky scenes that plagued me until i wrote them. ignore any glaring inaccuracies historically speaking #this was written for the Vibes and the Angst.#userlinax #userlyde #lazynbored #cielo di cobalto

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the73rdpostscript · 10 months

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The Low of Your Life Will be Art Soon

Un-beta'd and unresearched.

(No. Seriously. I cannot emphasize enough how much I did not research the 1100s for this.)

Nicky sits at the table, staring blankly at the loaf of bread he meant to cut. Its a picturesque thing - a perfect shade of honey-brown with a sheen on top. They did well making it, but then again they've have years to get it right. And there are even more years ahead; more than he can comprehend at the ripe old age of 80.

He is not looking at the floor, keeping his eyes studiously trained on the bread and not the knife. Anyone walking in might think he doesnt know where the knife fell, but he does. It's all he can think about.

Nicky couldnt forget the knife anymore than he can forget the blood on the dirt or the way the little child had looked - pale and still.

Andromache had handled most of the social easing. She had spoken to the mother and offered comfort while Joe and Nicky had done the burying, and Quynh had asked the men of the village about housing.

So now they stay in this home - bartered for them and safe for the next season of labor.

They come and go from this place of safety while the child's body lays in the ground. And Nicky is here at the table, alive and unable to feed himself or his family because he cannot hold a knife.

They're on a self-imposed break from aiding armies. Andromache and Quynh spoke of building their trust and teamwork. But that is easier said than done now that chores have all been taken and evenly spread.

With four people and one home the work is lessened considerably. Before, Nicky could have spent the whole afternoon making enough bread for him and Joe to split, but instead they are already stocked for the next few days and he is here - staring at it instead of preparing it to be eaten. Which makes him both dangerous and useless.

"Nicky. Why is our knife on the floor?" Andys voice interrupts the wave of rising guilt and Nicky swallows.

"I'm punishing it." He tries, affecting humor where he feels none.

"What did it do?" Andy asks holding his gaze with her own and giving no quarter when he tries on a smile.

When he opens his mouth, no response comes out.

"Okay." She says, stepping forward and pulling him up gently by rhe arm.

"Andromache-"

"You're not doing yourself any good sitting here."

Leading him from the house, she shouts something unintelligible at Quynh where the other woman is sparring with Joe. Joe spares Nicky a questioning look, and Nicky tries to shrug but the gesture looks half insane as the yank of Andys hand throws his shoulders up without his permission. As they storm towards the village, Nicky sees Joe still watching him from the yard - clearly trying to talk to Quynh while he watches the two of them storm off.

"Andromache we have to eat soon," Nicky argues, walking along to keep up with her regardless of the protests hes making. He learned long ago that when Andy is moving you follow her and argue on the way.

"There will be food where we're going."

"Joe-"

"Is fine without you," She retorts, and the words shut him up immediately. She is right, after all.

So they march down the road for the mile or so it takes to get to town, where she directs him to a house hes never seen before.

A woman he recognizes answers the door and greets them both, welcoming them inside after Andy explains that they're here to help with the [bread making]

The woman - who kindly reminds Nicolo that her name is Anna - leads them inside and takes over where Andromache started, directing Nicky to sit in the open space on the floor. There, the two women on either side of him make tittering comments to themselves in the local dialect, too fast for him to catch. They show him what they're doing, and Anna occasionally calls out clearer instructions from somewhere else in the room.

It takes a full hour for him to feel comfortable with the motions, and another hour before they finish making enough. His arms feel well worked - the muscles unfamiliar with the small changes in an otherwise familiar pattern of motion.

Around him, the women talk and laugh. Every so often one of them will aks him a question, and they will all laugh or murmur at his awkward attempts to respond clearly. When the subject of his relationship status comes up, he thinks of sleeping beside Yusuf under the stars - traveling side by side. And he thinks of the disgust in Joe's eyes the first time they argued over the fire, the way his lip had curled at Nicky's defensiveness of his people - his fellow murderers.

He says none of this. He says he is still waiting for the right one, and the responding choke he hears from farther into the room alerts him to Andromache's presence. She's been settled into a chair by the window - working on something he cannot see with Anna. The look on her face is at once smug and indifferent - an expression Nicky has many times considered to be not dissimilar to how God might look at him if he could ever reach the afterlife.

The woman to his left - Elsa - pats his arm and finishes saying something about her very single daughter. Nicky feels himself struggling for an appropriate tone to respond with. But before he can try another woman in the group interrupts and he stays silent as the chaos rises and falls again like a wave - his own part in the process lost to the personal gripes of the community.

Its well past dark when they leave. Andy is quiet beside nicky in a way he has learned to interpret as content. It often baffles him, how easily she slips into comfort or ease - even in the midst of horrors or boredom. In some ways she reminds him of priests and Fathers. But then she speaks and he can't see any similarities at all.

"Thank you. For bringing me there."

"You're welcome."

They walk farther towards home before he asks "When did you set that up?"

"We always ask what may need to be done when we bargain."

And that stops him in his tracks.

Andy walks on a little farther, before pausing and turning to look back at him. One of her feet is still turned forward - pointing towards their temporary home.

"I have stopped asking," Nicky observes, feeling numb with the disgust for himself.

For the first few months that Andy and Quynh traveled with them, he asked incessantly about how he could help. It seems that somewhere in the past few weeks, he stopped.

Andy hasnt said anything since he stopped, so he clears his throat. "I've stopped asking how I can be helpful."

With a shrug, Andy says, "I hadn't noticed." And that revelation alone feels like a slap to the face.

He wants to argue - wants to ask how she didn't see his uselessness, his selfishness. But her face is serene in the moonlight, and it occurs to him that nothing he can say right now will matter much to her in the long run. These are only thoughts, only words and observations. Andromache values what she sees - what he does.

He can't say anything now to change his lack of action over the past few weeks. And even if he could it would only assuage his own guilt.

With a sigh, he begins walking again, and as she walks alongside him once more, he swallows the bitter taste in his mouth.

#yall shojld prove Rae wrong and totally ignore this #im kidding: yall know i lose my mind when you like what I do.#but also no pressure #do whatever gets you closer to Being happy #its a week #happy fucking pride to you all my beautiful tog people #mine #(this will probably become a larger fic later. but for now it is this and i love and accept for it itself)

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non-un-topo · 1 year

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Top 5 tog characters :>

Ooohohoho this is hard actually, but I'm ready to get emotional. 🙏

1. Has to be Andy, for me. She's just so rich with history, so old, so powerful. A queer and at times lonely ancient god. A warrior, a leader, a friend, a guardian. She's virtually perfect. I wouldn't change a thing about her, except for the fact that she shaves her armpits (fake).

2. Close second for me is Joe! Specifically Marwan's portrayal of him. Absolutely beautiful character, positive and non-toxic masculine figure, proud gay MENA representation which is so rare to see I can't think of a single other example, a poet, a warrior of love. AOUGH. Thank you, Marwan. Really.

3. Nile, lovely Nile. More beautiful representation, the intersection of femaleness, Blackness, and working class. Has a backstory much like an ordinary person (much like the audience), keeps her faith when Andy loses hers, is caught up in a complicated relationship with American imperialism (Marines) and clearly struggles with violence and killing. There's so much to her, I love her to death. A rare type of character for sure, esp in action movies.

4. Nicky. Another beautiful example of positive masculinity and historic gay love. Also has that ruthless sort of kindness and deeply philosophical thinking, not necessarily always morally 'right' but usually tries to do good. A poet alongside Joe, in his own way.

5. I have, have, have to go with Quynh (sorry Booker). There’s so little we know about her in canon, but that only makes her more intriguing to me. Was she an ancient god, like Andy? She's another warrior woman, a guard, also a lost soul but still fighting every day to free herself after hundreds of years. I'm excited to see what they do with her character in the sequel.

#ty this was fun!!!!!#and i got real emotional gjsgksk

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lady-of-the-spirit · 10 months

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Fandom + Joan for the meta ask game!

JOAN!!!! ❤❤❤ thank you for asking! I love talking about her.

For the sake of not conflicting timelines or universes, I stuck with my oc canon where Booker doesn't betray the Guard and things happen normally up until the point where Merrick's men ruin everything and kidnap Joe and Nicky. None of that shit happens. Just some weird new team dynamics forming since they've got TWO new immortals hanging out with them. (I also feel the need to share this ask about Copley for info on that situation and my oc canon.)

Put this whole thing under a read more because it got LONG.

What do you think the fandom for your character would be like? Are they a fan favorite, a love to hate villain, derided for whatever reason, or something else?

Honestly I don't know! I think Joan is a pretty harmless character, she's just chilling and doing her own thing, so she wouldn't be hated. The Old Guard fandom is pretty good about loving all the characters, so she's gonna be fine. I think she'll be especially loved by the people who like characters who just want to do their own thing without getting dragged into plot shenanigans lmao. Hopefully Joan would be to the aroace fans what Nicky and Joe and Andy and Quynh are to the gay fans - the rep they're looking for in action movies. But more critically, because this fandom gives unequal attention to the women vs the guys, I think Joan would unfortunately fall into a similar category as Niles, which is often "the side character who's there to be the best friend supporting the main ship/the newbie to the experienced older ones" if not ignored completely. But for the ones who don't do this, I think she'd be the cool character who just does her own thing, who has a journey of her own that's fun to analyze and talk about! And a long, kinda sad history that would have a lot of potential for fics!

What feelings does your character most often instill in their fans? Affection? A desire to protect? Open lust? A love/hate dynamic? Why do you think their fans feel this way?

Definitely a desire to protect! Girl has been on her own FOREVER! she has anxiety! But also I can see people wanting to be her lmao she lives on her own, pretty securely I might add, she's got a cat, she's best friends with the crows, she's living that Ursula from Kiki's Delivery Service life. Joan's just a normal person, living her life, she just has had a long time to figure out what she wants her life to look like and make it happen, and I can see fans finding wish fulfillment in her.

By contrast, what would their haters dislike about your character? Is it a petty complaint? A mischaracterization of the character or their intentions? Are they just a woman in a largely male-centric series?

I can see common complaints being that she's "boring". Which honestly is fair. She's meant to be boring - or at least have a boring life. She's not an action hero, she's not a warrior, she's a civilian. She wants a normal life, or as normal a life as she can have.

Joan also has issues with how she deals with her frustration over the whole "I wasn't alone but I thought I was" situation. She tries really hard not to take it out on the old guard, but sometimes it slips out without her meaning to even though she knows it wasn't anyone's fault and it was just shitty luck. When it does slip out, it ends up directed at Andy as the leader of the group. I can see some fans having issues with that, since people have similar issues with how Booker felt alone in his grief despite having his friends.

What controversies/drama would your character incite in fandom?

She's pretty low-drama, but since fandoms can be pretty casually or not so casually aphobic, her being aroace could be an issue. I feel like the old guard fandom is better than other fandoms, but I haven't seen all corners of the fandom and ngl I don't want to.

Joan's attitude towards her immortality and how she lives her life is in conflict with Andy's attitude, and that causes some conflict between them, so I can see the fandom getting into discourse over their respective philosophies. But since the movie takes the philosophy that nihilism isn't the answer, or at least that trying to make things better isn't meaningless, I can't see this being a huge controversial topic. maybe in smaller corners of the fandom.

What fan-material would exist for your character in fandom?

There'd probably be angsty artwork of her being alone and feeling lonely lmao. I can see a lot of fics analyzing her loneliness and anxiety through the centuries. Fics that explore how she navigated the centuries alone, as well as lots of fics where she almost meets the guard but just misses them, or aus where she did find them. Fics where she and the guard are just hanging out and being a found family together. I can see some angsty aus where she ends up captured before canon and Nile dreams of her and they're like "Wait there's another one of us out there BEING TORTURED???" and they go save her.

Is your character the subject of ‘imagines’ or ‘x reader’ style blogs?

Well, I haven't seen many imagines for The Old Guard in the first place, but since Joan's aroace, I sure hope not!

Are there any tropes fandom would put upon your character, for better or for worse?

"Hates romance." She hates it in regards to herself, but otherwise she just doesn't care about it. (You react with digust at the idea of dating your friend one time and you get labelled for life...)

I think people would also try to make her a woobie but like, even though she has had a rough time of it she's not miserable. She's learned to live her life as it comes, and yeah, she's lonely, she has her traumas, but she's still enjoying her life.

People might also assign her as a character who simply has the worst luck or the worst timing and. Honestly I think that would be kinda funny so I don't mind it.

What would be the ‘incorrect but wildly popular’ interpretation of your character in fandom?

The fandom would try and make Joan and Andy have conflict all the time and that's simply not true. Their philosophies clash. They have some beef, but that's mostly to do with their own issues and how it connects to the other. They themselves actually get along and respect each other a lot. They do have some conflict, but they still get along outside of that.

also I feel like people would make Joan a little "too anxious"? She does have anxiety but I feel like they would overdo it somehow, I don't know.

What corners of fandom would consider your character blorbo material?

I feel like The Old Guard fandom blorbo-fies all of the characters pretty well. But I really hope that the aroace members of the fandom would like her and make her their blorbo! Like that's the dream for me.

oc meta ask list!

#thank you again for asking!#love her #my ocs #joan #ask #goldheartedchaoticdisaster

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eiirisworkshop · 5 months

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Momento Ipsum: Remember Yourself

An Old Guard fanfiction Complete fic available to read on Ao3 here.

Chapter 1

It was a lovely, calm morning between missions. Breakfast had been leisurely and delicious. The back door was open to just the screen, left that way even after Joe and Andy had come in from puttering around the garden, smelling like sunshine and good dirt. Breeze and birdsong filled the main room where everyone was sprawled in the most comfortable, least ergonomic ways they could find across various chairs, the couch, the floor, and the one table capable of bearing human weight.

Nicky was twiddling a pair of knitting needles while perusing a book of jumper patterns Andy had definitely shoplifted, one of his feet shoved under Joe’s thigh, the other foot braced against Joe’s shoulder while Joe beat Booker at Mariokart again . Nile seemed to be rotating further in her chair with every ding from her Duolingo, had already achieved “sideways,” and was approaching “upside down.” Andy had a gun fully disassembled on the floor in front of her to give it a desperately needed and thorough cleaning. Quynh was lying on the table, her hair and the hood of her red sweatshirt dangling off the edge, reading an edition of Shakespeare with a side-by-side modern English translation for exactly the opposite reason as most people.

It was lovely.

Then there was a loud crack , more like a lightning strike than a gunshot, and there were suddenly twice as many people in the room—the six new arrivals falling directly into the laps of those already present.

Several things happened very quickly. The table broke. There was a lot of swearing in an assortment of languages. The man in Joe’s lap lunged at the one in Nicky’s—the couch was vacated as swords, knitting needles, book, and Wii remote hit the floor. Nile tumbled out of her chair, pinning the sudden invader of her space to the floor at more or less the same moment that Andy and Booker did more or less the same thing, and found herself looking down at—herself, in a hospital gown, staring back up at her with a heartwrenching mix of bewilderment and terror.

“What the fuck?” the Nile who had been doing Duolingo said at the same time the Nile in a hospital gown demanded, “Where the fuck am I?”

“Europe. Among friends,” the other Nile assured. “Mostly,” she amended, at the swearing and snarling from elsewhere in the room. “Uh.”

She glanced around surveyingly. Nicky was bodily hauling a dead-eyed, stringy-haired, scruffy-faced crusader with a real familiar mole out the garden door—took an elbow to the face in the process. Joe had blocked his double into the foyer and had his hands up steadyingly, speaking quickly but softly. In the wreckage of the table, Quynh and her white-clad doppelganger were touching each other’s fingertips and faces with the wary curiosity of a cat encountering a mirror for the first time. Booker was cautiously loosening his grip around the throat of his own mud-stained double. Andy was astride her long-braided many-necklaced self, trying with some difficulty to get control of the ochre-darkened hands scrabbling at her face.

“‘Scuse me just a second.” Nile got to her feet, kicked the knitting needles under the couch, picked up the swords to get them safely out of reach of the Andies, and set them in the corner. “We’re just gonna leave those there.”

“What is going on?” the hospital-gowned Nile asked, also on her feet.

“That’s a great question,” Nile sighed. “Uh, you’re me, apparently. And it looks like they’re them . Best I can tell, you all fell from the sky and, yeah, I got nothin’ on that but it sure seems to be happening so I’m just gonna roll with it. The ones in tshirts are my friends, my team—family, really. At a guess, you were already having a weird day before all this?”

“Well, yeah,” Nile agreed, gesturing down at the hospital gown. “Don’t really end up in a field hospital on a calm day.”

“You died.”

“No, I—”

“Got your throat slit, bled out, then woke up in hospital without so much as a scar?”

“...yeah.”

“Girl, you died.”

“Yeah….”

“Yeah. They all do that, too. We’re immortal—we die and we come right back. I don’t have any answers about that, either, and neither do they. It’s been, uh, several years; I’m kinda used to it. Which is definitely part of why I’m just rolling with whatever the hell’s happening right now. You want some coffee? And pants?”

“Yes please.”

Booker sat back on his heels, mentally half tracking Nile and, apparently, Nile leaving to the kitchen, while Book let, well, himself sit halfway up, one lank dirty curl falling in his face. “Is this Hell?” he asked.

“Ahh,” Booker half shrugged, “not literally.” He glanced over at Andy. “Boss,” he asked, switching to English, “you alright there?”

“Fine,” Andy snarled. “Just—having a language barrier issue.” She managed to pin her double’s hands, leaned down to press their foreheads together, got headbutted for her trouble, swore, did it again, and started to make a shushing chuffing sound Booker had heard her make to horses.

“Shit, I thought you were at least half joking about that,” Booker mumbled, stood, then hauled Recrue le Livre to his feet as well. “I need a drink before I deal with this,” he said, steering himself after Nile toward the kitchen. “And I suspect you need at least two.”

Recrue le Livre nodded.

Outside, Nicky let the screen door bang shut, spat out a mouthful of blood, and slammed Nicolo up against the wall of the house. “ Mother of God , you are a mean stubborn bastard. Stop that. Enough, enough! Look at me; I do not want to fight you. Do you really not have a more pressing concern right now?”

“I am going to drag that heathen pig with me to hell,” Nicolo spat.

“Yeah, has it occurred to you that if you were meant to do that you'd be there by now? How many times have you died today? Three? Six?”

Nicolo glared without answering.

“Lost count already?” Nicky half mocked. “Take a breath, calm down , and let’s not die any more today. Agreed?”

Nicolo huffed.

Inside there was at least less blood, if not less tension.

“Why stop me?” Yusuf demanded.

“Because I don’t want you to kill him.” Joe resisted the urge to tack an “ obviously ” onto that thought.

“He he is an invader and a murder! He and his people came and attacked us without provocation because they think they have more of a right to our home. They rape, and burn, and destroy. He killed me! Several times!”

“Yeah,” Joe sighed. “I know. Nonetheless, I have to ask you not to kill him. Or anyone else for that matter.”

“I don’t want to kill anyone else.”

“Good.”

“You’re me,” the Quynh in white observed, letting a lock of the Quynh in red’s hair slip through her fingers. “How?”

Quynh pushed her hair behind her ear, letting the movement cover the moment it took her to both find a response and the right words in the right language. “The same way you aren’t dead, I think.”

“I don’t know how I’m not dead.”

“Neither do I.” Quynh looked over her shoulder to Andy and her double uneasily sitting up from the floor, bits of gun—tiny springs and screws—sticking to the back of the double’s bare, tattooed shoulder. “None of us do.”

“I’ll get you some clothes in a second,” Nile said, turning away from the coffee pot just as Booker walked in, guiding the other, dirtier, skinnier Booker in front of him.

The Booker she knew left his double in the middle of the room, snagged a bottle of brandy from the top of the fridge, then opened a cabinet for a glass.

Nile crossed her arms. “Book, it’s not even noon yet.”

“Yeah—too damn early for this bullshit.” He finished pouring himself a drink, handed the bottle to the other him who took a swig immediately, then he pointed at the other Nile and asked in French, “You speak French, right?”

“Uh, I, uh,” the other Nile began, very stiltedly in the same language, “study— studied French.”

“Thought so. Good enough.”

That Nile took a breath and looked to the one who hadn’t died today. “This is now, officially, my worst nightmare.”

“Let me go get you some pants.”

Nicky watched as Nicolo went to crouch surlily next to the large flowerpot of mint, careful to keep himself between the crusader and the door. From inside, through the screen, he could just make out what sounded like French from the kitchen, then closer Quynh’s voice back and forth in a language he had heard her speak before with Andy, then Andy herself—herselves?—fumbling frustratedly through something that didn’t deserve to be called a conversation half in what sounded a bit like Latvian, and finally Joe’s voice—or rather Yusuf ’s voice—arguing. Joe ’s side of that conversation was just too soft for Nicky to parse.

If there was a God, this was a terribly meanspirited joke.

Nicky ran a hand over his face and took a breath. “Do you plan on sulking amongst the herbs all day?”

Nicolo half shrugged.

“Where do you think you are?”

“The Holy Land.”

“Does this look like the Holy Land to you?”

“...no.”

Nicky nodded, decidedly ignored the crashing sound immediately followed by Andy swearing from inside, and chose his words carefully. “Do not ask me how, I do not know, but you are now a thousand years from when you were, give or take, in a land whose language you do not speak. The world beyond this house would not be a friendly one to you. You can be safe here but you have to realize this house is not a battlefield.”

For a long tense moment Nicolo didn’t respond, then, “Why are you me?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Nicky sighed. “How about we get you cleaned up. There’s water inside and you have a beach worth of sand in your hair.”

With a bit of coaxing, and a couple of appeals to the cleanliness standards of both his grandmother and the abbot he’d studied under, Nicolo left his boots and outermost layers of clothing in a heap on the patio. Nicky guided him inside, one hand firmly on his shoulder, up the stairs, past today’s Nile on her way back down with a set of clothes in hand. She and Nicky exchanged a look as they passed. He quickly explained the workings of the bathroom to Nicolo, offered to help with his hair, was soundly and unsurprisingly told no , fetched the least confusing change of clothes he could come up with, leaned against the wall in the hallway next to the shut bathroom door, and let himself slide down to the floor, arms on his knees. He looked up at a creak on the stairs—Joe paused on the top step, nodded to the bathroom, and asked in German, “Is he going to be a minute?”

Nicky nodded. Joe came and sat next to him.

“Where’s Yusuf ?” Nicky asked, also in German.

“I left him in the kitchen with the Bookers and the Niles. Relatively calm in there. Are you okay?”

Nicky glanced down at the blood spattered on his shirt. “Ah, fine, I just have pointy elbows. You know.” He playfully elbowed Joe in the ribs.

Joe chuckled and nodded, then sobered. “Not really what I meant.”

Nicky let out a breath and shrugged. “I’m fine.” He leaned over to press his forehead to Joe’s shoulder. “But I take back every objection and disagreement I have ever uttered or thought about how badly I stank back then. My God, I was filthy.”

With a laugh, Joe kissed the top of his head. “You smell much better now, my heart. You should change your shirt, though.”

Nick hummed an agreement and sat back. “Do you still have that green henley?”

“The one we have two of?” Joe levered himself to his feet.

“Yeah.”

“You’re an asshole,” Joe said fondly, ducking into their room. He tossed Nicky the shirt, caught the bloodied one tossed back to him, then headed down stairs with a pointed glance at the bathroom door.

A couple moments later, Nicolo emerged from the bathroom, hair damp, wearing sweatpants and the exact same green henley.

“Much better,” Nicky assessed, standing up from the floor.

Nicolo frowned at him. “You changed your shirt.”

“I do generally prefer to not walk around covered in blood, yes.” He gestured for Nicolo to follow him downstairs. One corner of the main room was now taken up by the broken remains of the table, and the TV, which had clearly hit the floor—that must have been the crash earlier. The two of Quynh had each taken up opposite ends of the couch, the one in red, today’s Quynh, making her way through some story or explanation, careful and slow but still fluent, every fifth or seventh word recognizable enough as Vietnamese. Andy was cross-legged on the floor, facing her other self, gesturing, saying one or two words at a time, repeating themselves and each other, shaking their heads in frustration and dismay, staring at each other with such intensity as to—they surely hoped—bring on telepathy.

Everyone else seemed to be in the kitchen.

“Nile,” today’s Quynh called, breaking off her narration. “The Nickies are back.”

“Great,” came Nile’s voice from the kitchen, followed by Nile herself, and the other Nile now in actual clothes, then the Bookers with drinks and snacks. Joe leaned in the kitchen doorway with faux casualness, one shoulder and the opposite hand braced as a barricade, leaving Yusuf behind him to look over his arm.

“So quick practical concern,” today’s Nile said, clapping her hands together. “Since there’s two of everybody in this house—oh, for fucks sake, are you wearing the same shirt? No. Nevermind. Point is, there’s two of everybody in this house and that’s gonna get real confusing real quick so I think we need to agree on what we’re all gonna call each other for however long we’re in this situation.”

There was a pause while everyone who could and needed to translated for their other selves, then Joe said, “Some of that’s easy. Joe, Yusuf.” He indicated himself and the man behind him. “Nicky, Nicolo.”

Nicolo bristled and Nicky quickly muttered, “You do not get to be angry about him calling you by your name.”

Meanwhile, Book gave an agreeable shrug and added, “Booker, Sebastian.”

“Booker?” Sebastian asked through a bite of apple.

He shrugged again. “‘Book’ is le livre in English and ‘Booker’ is a pretty common nickname for someone who works with documents, put that with the whole forger thing, and yeah. Booker. Or Book.”

“One of us could go by our last name,” the other Nile suggested while the Quynhs seemed to negotiate something. “We’ll respond to it.”

“Yeah, but we’ll both respond to it,” today’s Nile pointed out.

“We both respond to both our names.” Nicky gestured between himself and Joe. “And fairly frequently meet people with the same names; they’re not uncommon. You might look up every time, but if you know that name doesn’t mean you right now, you’ll ignore it quickly.”

The Niles looked at each other.

“You been outa the military a while, right?”

“Yeah.”

“As of this morning, I’m still a marine. Figure I’m more used to being called Freeman than you are at this point—I’ll go by it.”

“Okay,” Nile agreed. “That works.”

“I can be Mbay,” today’s Quynh said. “Big sister. And she can be Heyem, little sister.”

“So that just leaves…,” Nile and several of the others all looked to Andy.

Andy shook her head and took a breath. “I don’t remember her name,” she said quietly, “and I don’t know how to ask her.”

“This is not the first time you’ve run into someone with whom you don’t share a language.” Big Sister Quynh slid from the couch down to the floor in front of the many-necklaced warrior watching her cannily. Quynh met her gaze, pressed a hand to her own chest, and said clearly, “Mbay Quynh.” She pointed to Little Sister. “Heyem Quynh.” She continued, pointing around the room. “Nicky. Nicolo. Nile. Freeman. Sebastian. Booker. Yusuf. Joe. Andy.” She held a hand out to the warrior expectantly.

She responded with what sounded like a question.

“Andy,” Andy said, mimicking the hand-to-chest motion, then gesturing to her other self.

The other woman lit up and pressed one ochre-painted hand to her bare breast and gave her name.

Andy smiled warmly and repeated the name softly to herself. She looked around at the others. “Now can any of you pronounce that?”

“Uh, what was that second consonant…?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Andy muttered, then turned back to her double. “Andy,” she said, pointing to herself, then held her hands up, palms facing each other a few inches apart. She moved her hands farther from each other. “Andromache.” Closer together. “Andy.” Farther apart. “Andromache.”

The other her hummed an understanding, pointed to Andy, and repeated the two names with the associated hand distances.

Andy grinned, gestured to her double, said her name with her hands the farther distance, then moved her hands closer together with a questioning look.

After a moment, the double mirrored the movement—hands apart she repeated her name, then hands together she said, “Änjha.”

Andy grabbed Änjha’s hands excitedly, kissed her knuckles, and got an affectionate head bonk in return. “I trust,” Andy tossed over her shoulder, “that you can all manage to only halfway butcher that one.”

“We’ll do our best,” Nicky assured.

“Now that’s worked out,” Joe said with an air of authority, “Booker—whose bedraggled past self is getting washed next, you or me?”

"Yours,” Book said easily. “It’ll be a bit before mine can be voluntarily parted from food.”

“Starving to death is one of the worst,” Big Sister Quynh agreed sagely before launching back into her conversation with Little Sister.

“I have so many questions,” Freeman muttered.

Nile clapped her on the shoulder. “I can help with that.”

They retreated back to the kitchen while Joe herded Yusuf upstairs and Andy and Änjha resumed attempting to deconstruct the Tower of Babel.

“So, we can’t die?” Freeman asked.

“Generally speaking, yes,” Nile confirmed. She glanced between the coffee pot and the cache of booze on top of the fridge, then went to pour herself another mug of coffee.

“Generally speaking?” Freeman’s eyebrows went for her hairline.

“Yeah. Hand me your mug.”

“It can go away,” Booker said in French, coming in with Sebastian. “The immortality.”

Sebastian half choked on a swig of brandy. “What?”

“Did he just say what I think he just said?” Freeman asked.

“Yeah.” Nile handed Freeman her refilled mug of coffee. “It can go away, and we don’t know why.”

“Sounds like you don’t know anything,” Freeman challenged.

“Who really knows why anything happens in life?” Booker countered, still in French. He looked to Sebastian. “You’re too new for yours to falter, and mine never has—even when I’ve wished it would.”

“I know most of those words,” Freeman shook her head, “have no idea what he just said. I’m still in medical, aren’t I? Conked my head or have some anesthesia allergy or some shit and this really is a nightmare, right? There’s two of me and I’m reliving parts of my French Two final—I’m tellin’ you, this has to be a nightmare.”

Nile chuckled and responded in French, “This is not a nightmare.” She switched to English and stepped towards the kitchen table. “Here, sit. The multilingualism is actually harder to adjust to than the immortality—ridiculous, maybe, but true. He was saying that when you’re new, you’re safe. It’s not something that happens once then never again. A couple times, though, after a long time, it’s stopped. There was one we never met,” she gestured to encompass herself and Booker, who was translating to Sebastian while raiding the fridge. “He died after a thousand-odd years and stayed dead. Quynh and Andy don’t talk about him much.”

Freeman almost spat her coffee. “A thousand ?”

“When you don’t die,” Booker said, “you get old fast.”

Freeman rubbed her forehead, processing the language, then the meaning. “How old are you?”

“He died for the first time in 1812, fighting with Napoleon,” Nile provided. She waved at hand at Sebastian. “See uniform.”

“To be fair,” Freeman said slowly, “weren’t French uniforms kinda ridiculous and blue until, like, World War Two?”

Nile cocked her head. “Good point.”

Joe left Yusuf to shower and went to dig through his own clothes. He pondered a pair of trousers a moment. “Am I about to test the line between masochism and schadenfreude?” he mused aloud. “Yeah.” He tossed the trousers over his shoulder. “Yeah I am.”

Freshly showered, Yusuf looked dubiously down at the clothes being presented to him, then back up to Joe.

“They’re very fashionable,” Joe assured. “Among my favorites.”

“They seem uncomfortable.” Even so, Yusuf set about dressing.

Joe waved a hand dismissively. “Only when they’re new. I’ve had these for ages, they’re broken in.” He bit back his amusement watching Yusuf wriggle uncertainly into a pair of faded black jeans that weren't strictly skinny jeans—certainly not by the standards of the year Joe had bought them—but were far from loose and, most importantly, had an absolutely ridiculous fly with two zippers and a total of four buttons.

“You have to undo all this every time you take a piss?” Yusuf grumbled, figuring out how to work the various fastenings.

“Nah, usually only one set.” Joe clapped his shoulder jovially. “They’re good for riding.” Motorcycles , not horses, but now was not the time for that distinction. Joe went to call down the stairs in French that it was Sebastian’s turn to bathe, then prodded Yusuf into his and Nicky’s room, saying, “Dhuhr.”

Had Joe been keeping prayer times recently? Decidedly not, but ritual and structure were powerful tools in tempering chaos.

When they came back downstairs, only Nicky and Nicolo were in the living room, bottle of wine and an old National Geographic open to a world map between them, everyone else either in the kitchen or the back garden—or still upstairs showering. Joe yanked Yusuf along before he could successfully take a swipe at either or both of the Italians as they passed. Nicolo spat a slur after them that needed no translation.

“You know,” Nicky said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, “he’s really not that bad once you stop trying to kill each other and talk .”

“I can’t talk to him,” Nicolo pointed out. “And I wouldn’t want to if I could.”

“Greek,” Joe said firmly, in Greek, turning back to address the crusader, one hand still fisted in the back of Yusuf’s shirt to keep him leashed. “You both speak Greek . Yours is unnaturally formal,” he told Nicolo, “and,” he turned to Yusuf, “your grammar is very bad. But you both speak Greek.”

Nicolo and Yusuf both crossed their arms and glared at opposite corners of the room. Joe and Nicky met each other’s gaze.

“This feels like divine punishment,” Nicky said flatly, in German.

“This feels,” Joe countered in Greek, “like Andy’s idea of entertainment, if she weren’t so preoccupied.”

Nicky snorted and waved off a questioning, almost accusatory look from Nicolo while Joe tugged Yusuf into the kitchen.

Outside, Andy was occupied re-braiding Änjha’s long hair, contemplating growing her own out for the first time in more than a century, listening to Big Sister reminisce with Little Sister, and wishing she could do the same. Änjha started humming to herself and Andy began humming absently along before the tune hit her like a shot and her hands stilled. After a moment, Änjha turned over her shoulder, frowning, to ask in so many words, “Are you okay?”

Andy shook herself, hummed an affirmative, poked Änjha to face forward, and quickly finished up the braid and tied it. Änjha turned fully then to face her, ruffled the short fringe that kept threatening to fall into Andy’s eyes, and began to sing an old story Andy had forgotten the words to long before she’d forgotten the plot, but had never quite lost the melody. She nodded along in time with the tune, half laughing, tears in her eyes, keenly aware that both of Quynh had stopped their conversation to listen.

End of chapter! Read the rest on Ao3 here.

#eiiri made this #fanfiction #the old guard #the old guard fic

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raedear · 1 year

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Nicky never thought he’d be this desperate, but it turned out that with Joe gone he truly had nothing left to lose.

'We were supposed to go together,' Nicky whispered to the flowers sprouting from Joe's grave.

They hadn't even been able to give him a proper burial. It had all been too sudden; too dangerous. The most they'd been able to do was bury him on a beautiful hillside, where he could always see the sunset.

The wrongness of it all echoed in Nicky's bones every second Yusuf was out of his reach. He could feel it. Something was desperately wrong with a world that could include him, but not Joe.

'Come back to me, my love,' Nicky begged, far from the first time. He'd soaked the earth that covered his love in tears and blood, pleading every day for weeks.

His family had long since ceased to accompany him when they could no longer bear to witness his pain, or the sight of him testing his gift over and over, praying for an end to it, or the return of his love to him.

'Please-'

Nicky hadn't prayed on his own desires in centuries, but he begged God with every breath he drew now.

'Be careful what you wish for,' murmured a voice from over his shoulder.

In a thousand years of turmoil, Nicky had never been so beaten or broken down. He didn't even flinch to hear a voice unexpectedly. Didn't reach for a weapon, didn't even look. It would only be Andy or Quynh, trying again to reach him.

'He is worth anything,' said Nicky, eyes fixed on the tiny white starburst flowers that covered his beloved.

'You say that now,' said the voice. 'We'll see, in a year and a day.'

Irritated at last, Nicky looked viciously over his shoulder, ready to tear a strip from whoever thought his pain could pass so quickly.

There was no one there. Just the creaky oak tree, almost as old as them.

Him. Almost as old as him.

A fresh wave of devastation rose in Nicky's heart, and he turned back to the grave to face it. He ignored the tears that dripped down his cheeks. Who knew if they were new or old.

The flowers danced before his eyes, swaying in the wind and grief both. Nicky watched them, and found himself wondering precisely what kind of flowers they were.

Joe had always been better at remembering that sort of thing.

Nicky watched them closer when they began to shake, softly at first and then violently, like the ground beneath them was churning.

He watched, till a familiar and dear and precious hang broke through the earth, catching a handful of the delicate blossoms as it clawed its way out.

Life came back to Nicolò di Genova the moment Joe crawled from his grave, gasping and coughing and heaving for breath.

A sound came from Nicky's throat, entirely unlike anything he'd ever have dreamed himself capable of making, but it was lost to him in his frantic rush to seize Joe by the shoulders and tear him from the ground.

'Don't cry, my love,' rasped Joe, grave dirt falling from his lips. 'I'm here.'

Part one

Part two

Send me first line prompts here

#ask me anything my dudes #mcd #self harm #came back wrong #horror #look i actually can't promise a happy ending to this one #think it wants to be a tragedy #it'll be happy in a way i guess

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yuliares · 2 years

Text

Earlier this month I got ~ambitious~ and decided to draw Joe and Quynh being Chaos Buddies. They didn’t need to be naked, but I figured it was a good artsy challenge before I did outfits, so I went all-in. I tried/included a lot of new/challenging/awful things for me, such as:

New brushes! (Paint brushes from HABOOK - very soft and lovely)

New technique! (Gradient mapping tutorial from Deb JJ Lee - 10/10 blowing my mind)

Shading!

FEET

HANDS

Naked bits (but I can’t show you those here)

Anyways I’m tired now and I don’t want to finish the clothes part.

Draw/imagine the mission wardrobe!

What are Joe and Quynh wearing that have Andy and Nicky so distracted? You are invited to use your imagination or, if you like, you can draw on top of them! You can download a layered file here!

Here are some MS Paint ideas:

[Art description: A title says “Old Guard: Mission Distractions”. Joe and Quynh take center-stage, holding champagne and smiling at each other. Joe has his arm around Quynh’s waist, which Quynh is leaning back into, her own arm around his neck. The artist didn’t draw clothes because she got tired. To their left, a cartoon Nicky (with heart eyes, in an apron) and Andy (in sunglasses and drooling) are peeking around the corner at Joe and Quynh. Booker, dressed as a waiter with a bowtie and tray of champagne, is giving them a side-eye. Above them, an amused Nile is speaking into her headset, saying “Can everyone please get back into their undercover position? Andy you’re supposed to be a bodyguard. Nicky go back to the kitchen.”]

#the old guard #fanart #comic #quynh the old guard #yusuf al kaysani #nile freeman #andy andromache of scythia #nicolo di genova #nicky x joe #joe x nicky #immortal husbands #andy x quynh #immortal wives

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scorchedhearth · 1 year

Text

Day. 26 NO ONE LEFT BEHIND

Separated | Rope Burns | “Why did you save me?”

this one screaming nile to me, i had to. set in some imaginary sequel to the movie

“Come on, let’s go!” Joe yells from somewhere behind the rumbles. Nile barely hears him through the ringing in her ears. “Let’s go, now! This isn’t gonna hold forever.” He insists, picking up his sword and gun from where they’ve fallen. Nicky is right behind him, gripping his own sword in his hand while Booker is still on the ground, coughing and hacking dust out of his lungs.

Nile takes a moment to let the world stop spinning around her before she pulls herself straight and picks up the axe from the ground. There’s now the ruins of a wall between them and where Quynh stood mere seconds ago, the result of a cleverly planted bomb. The detonation seems to have shaken the entire building, a house left to ruin with more holes than walls, it’s no surprise to see the rest of the structure giving out.

“Nile!” Booker calls, he’s on his feet and retreating where Joe and Nicky are but she can’t follow them.

“No. You go.”

“Nile,” Nicky says softly, and he and Joe got what she wants to do.

“I’ll get to her, and I’ll talk to her. You go, we’ll find you.”

“Are you sure?” Joe asks, although there’s little doubt in his voice.

“She deserves to have a hand offered to her.” She stares at the three of them, leaving no room for discussion. There’s another crack resounding above them, and before any more words can be exchanged, they all head toward the closest door, following her words as if it was always nature, while Nile spots an opening near the wall and slips through.

It’s easy to find Quynh. The house is small, a few rooms and no second floor, and Quynh wants to be found. She’s standing in the garden behind the house, straight and hands lax beside her legs, her sword a sharp line in the evening light. She’s expecting her, with the grin pulling at her lips is anything to go by. Probably is, since she’s showing it.

“Nile. Twice aren’t enough, you need to lose a third time?”

“I’m not here to fight you, Quynh.” She says and slides the shaft of the axe back into the loops she wears on her belt now. The weight feels foreign, too heavy and too unyielding, the prospect of many long years to come bearing it weighting just as heavy.

Quynh’s eyes are drawn to the movement, she follows as the metal slides against metal, stares for a second too long before looking at her, her gaze unreadable.

“Come with us.” Nile continues. “You don’t have to stay, but come with me. We can talk, help you, if you’d let us. You have a place with us, you know you do.”

“I don’t,” Quynh snaps and squeezes the sword in her hand. Behind her in the trees, Nile makes out the form of two persons, the new immortals accompanying her. She doesn’t even know their names. “Not anymore.”

“You do, Quynh.”

“The axe.” She says slowly, as if the words were lead. “Did Andy gave it to you.”

“They did.” Nile answers honestly. “Told me to take it, and use it.” Andy sitting on some cliff, holding their axe on their laps, passing it unto Nile, offering a smile and all their trust. “It has their blessing.”

“Andy had no blessings to give, neither curses.” Quynh snorts, almost a laugh, closer to a cry. “They only had their hands.”

“All we have is our hands. It’s what we do with them that matters.” Nile speaks the words with all the strength she can.

“Why are you offering such a thing?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Nile says, lets the truth out. She doesn’t want to play games, she doesn’t want to lie. Not now, not after everything.

“The right thing to do.” Quynh sneers, disdain filling her words.

“No man left behind.” She bites back. “That’s how it’s always been. No man left behind, no matter what. You included.”

Quynh is silent for a moment, looking at Nile as if she’s seeing into her, taking apart her thought. Nile holds her gaze, stands straight and strong. There’s anger on her face, but not only, barely discernable in the night, but there’s melancholy at the edge of a feature, and the pull of sadness on her eyebrows.

“You carry great hope in your heart, Nile,” she says after long minutes. “But hope isn’t enough in this life. There are bridges that are never to be mended. Wounds too great to heal.” She sheathes her sword in one broad arc of her hand, rests her palm on the shaft, gives Nile one last look. “An abundance of time does not give you an abundance of chances. Nor does it give you do over. Time doesn’t change what has been done.”

“Time gives you the opportunity to try again, do things differently. Time gives you possibility.” Quynh doesn’t answer, doesn’t acknowledge her words, only stares at her for a few more seconds. She then turns around and joins the two waiting for her, and Nile watches her leave, watches the three figures disappear in the woods as the house behind her collapses on itself, leaving her alone to stand in the noise and dust.

#wt22 #tog #quynh & nile #nile freeman

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soleadita · 1 year

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YOU FINALLY WATCHED TOG i'm thrilled <3 what did u think

(@scattered-winter combining these <333)

skdkdjs i tried to answer this as soon as you guys sent them, but i legitimately had to, like, decompress afterwards (and then yesterday i was in hyperfocus mode on a Project). like, picture me laid out on the couch in a cocoon of my heaviest blankets clutching my little kobo e-reader and medicating my elevated heart rate with comfort fics. i still don’t totally have fully formed thoughts (and i might never), but the closest i can think of is to compare it to how i felt watching the bear, because i LOVED the bear but it was also SO tense and made me very anxious.

the problem was that, for most of the time, i was totally expecting someone to die **permanently** (i don't know why i thought that?), so i was just wildly on edge. like, during that whole fight sequence at the end, i felt like i was barely breathing. (LITERALLY EVERY TIME ANDY DID SOMETHING i’d be like, “oh shit this is it. andy’s gonna die. oh no, she’s fine. ok ok.” when she went off on her own?? to take down that dude on the glass bridge thing? OH i thought she was done for real.)

(i don't mean this to be criticism of the movie in any way; this was all on me, because i am such an anxious bitch (affectionate) and i know this about myself, and yet. i was like, "hey, wouldn't it be so fun if you watched this movie without knowing how it ends?")

anyway, because of *gestures* all that, i feel like i didn't absorb too much of the softer emotional stuff but here are some quick very unrefined thoughts:

charlize theron <33333 (i have no opinions about her in literally anything else but as andy? oh. <333)

i love nile <3

I WAS SOOOOO EXCITED about joe and nicky actually being, like, soulmates. i've seen things on tumblr, but i'm just...never sure, you know? but i LOVE THEM!!! and that they met in the crusades!? as opposing soldiers/crusaders/whatever idk what the correct terminology is??? killed each other multiple times?? are in love now and live and die and live and die and live by each other’s sides??? as @stardustsea said, “they’re the loves of each other’s lives. and deaths.” AND YEAH.

the way joe and nicky sleep. i sob. that is all. (they are also SO FUNNY. snarky battle husbands yes.)

in the flashback with andy and quynh i was literally weeeeeping.

the fight choreography, especially in the last scene where they're human shield-ing andy - cannot believe HOW good that was

the SOUNDTRACK

MARJAN MARWANI??? MADE AN APPEARANCE??? <3

why does military propaganda mixed with found family and traumatized characters slap so fucking hard?

booker broke my fucking heart, but also for some reason he reminded me so viscerally of charlie day and i couldn't look at him without thinking of that.

also i don't have any coherent thoughts on this, necessarily, but something about the whole...found family, immortal beings, living and dying and living and dying and living, and not knowing when you might die for the last time? watching everything and everyone you know age and die and change? the grand potential for loneliness and pain, but also the grand potential for love and ~humanity~?

idk. i'm kinda fucked up about it.

<3333

#HI I LOVE YOU GUYS ITS SO CUTE THAT YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE MOVIE #(spoilers under the cut in case anyone cares)#xjustonemoremiraclex #winter❄️#the old guard #leo’s asks

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peri-helia · 1 year

Text

Men of principle

Also on Ao3 here

Joe had always known that sometimes he really was too much of a soft touch and that being said, sometimes it got him into trouble. Like that time in Bucharest when Booker had bet that they definitely, have their cake and eat it too, walk in the park, piece of piss, give Houdini a run for his money.

…It didn’t end well.

And tonight’s not going so swimmingly either.

He’d done the last sweep before everyone hunkered down for the night – they’re stopping over in the tiny Foxtrot safehouse in Napoli – when he comes back to their bedroom to find Nicky spread out like a starfish over the entirety of their bed, face down in the mattress in his t-shirt and shorts.

Shit.

“Habibi?”

“No,” Nicky replies, not even bothering to open his eyes.

This is what he gets for being nice. Exhaling with a fond smile at his stubborn husband, Joe quietly shuts the door and wanders towards the bed. For a moment he simply watches Nicky’s chest rise and fall and thanks the universe for the gift of his man and this long life to share it with him. Then he ducks down, gets his hands under Nicky’s ribs and left thigh and shoves.

Nicky’s hands and feet twist into the bedding, anchoring him in place, not giving an inch. Joe could tickle him, but he is an honourable man. So Joe gives in, straightening, hands falling to his hips.

“Cuore mio, you cannot banish me from the bed,” he huffs, fighting back a smile and losing. Nile had once asked what there was even left to fight about after centuries together. Andy had laughed and Quynh had hidden her face in her wife’s shoulder as the women had cryptically answered that even between them there were some molehills still seemed like mountains.

“Evidently I can, babe” Nicky retorts, as concise as his blade.

“I only agreed with Nile to make her feel welcome here with us” he explains, trying not to sound as amused as he is. Nico and the hills he chooses to die on. Nicky turns his head towards him, eyes open and full of reproach. The tiny curl at the corner of his lips gives him away.

“There are other ways to make Nile feel at home without sacrificing principle”

Normally when a disagreement arises in this manner, when its one of the lesser ones and not tied to a job and a needless death, being reckless with their immortality in the way they haven’t been since they were young and thought forever meant forever, they just climb over each other in the bed. Work through it or agree to disagree. Or turn the disagreement into something they can agree on, like falling asleep in each other’s arms, kissing or who can be the most poetic in their sentiments. Nicky will say its always Joe who sees the inner meaning in the world and speaks it into being, and Joe will say Nicky’s poetry comes from the way he expresses his heart.

But when you’ve been together as long as they have, sometimes its good to spice things up every so often.

“What a thing, that my heart should be so capricious to me!” Joe sighs dramatically, clutching at his chest. “Very well. If my destiny is to spend tonight away from you then I shall only beg to kiss you goodnight before I go”

Nicky’s head rises off the pillows, looking at Joe curiously. He’s obviously trying to anticipate what this change to their habits means. He gives that small curved smile that means he is quite happy to see where Joe is going with this.

Joe’s own smile grows as sharp as his scimitar. He leans over his love and grazes his lips over Nicky’s cheekbone, warmth blooming in his chest at the way Nicky’s eyes flutter shut. Those long eyelashes dark against his skin. So he moves on, upward to gentle kisses on Nicky’s eyelids, that tempting scar between his eyebrows and the broad expanse of his forehead. Then he starts working down the other side of his face, lingering on his mole.

“Joe-“ Nicky’s fingers graze Joe’s beard, the edge of his hairline at the base of his neck where Nicky loves to kiss, loosely trying to cup Joe’s face and guide their mouths together but Joe purposefully evades him. The game’s not over yet.

Instead he kisses along Nicky’s neck, knee coming up to press onto the mattress, focusing on the moles dotted across the skin, suckling kisses and huffing in a mix of frustration and satisfaction as they quickly fade. Nicky moans and presses himself upwards, arching off the bed to fit the lines of their bodies together. As Joe continues his communing with the canvas of Nicky’s skin he can feel Nicky growing to hardness against his hip.

“Yusuf-“

“Mmph, Nicolo” Joe teases around his mouthful, hands trailing down Nicky’s ribs as Nicky moves from neck to shoulders, squeezing and scrambling. Right, then. He lifts free entirely.

“Yusuf?” Nicky’s eyes are hazy with want, wide with confusion at Joe’s removal. “Babe, is something wrong?”

Joe cannot help the way his heart twinges at the worry on his beloved’s face, and he almost feels bad for what he’s about to do. Almost. But for all the ways they’ve made love over their long lives, that delicious spark that comes from something new always reminds him of their youth. The beginning of it all, the intensity and passion. While he loves the devotion of their more languid lovemaking, that he can feel their devotion to each other in ever touch as ever, Nicky stoked to blazing is equally delicious.

“Nothing, hayati. I’ve had goodnight kisses aplenty to tide me over and now I’ll take my banishment. Thank god Andy insists on decent couches.”

Nicky blinks.

Once.

Twice.

“Habibi?” he sits up slowly in the bed, a tiny furrow appearing on that marble brow. He bites that lovely lower lip the way Joe is going to when the joke is over.

Nicky reaches out a hand, a feather light touch encircling Joe’s wrist. “Yusuf, I – I don’t understand. You aren’t – you are truly going to sleep on the sofa? Over this? I –“

Joe watches with burgeoning horror as Nicky’s ocean-like eyes become wet with tears. He made his Nicolo, his moon, the warmth of his heart cry. He is never going to spice anything up again. They will be as bland as bland and traditional as traditional can be after this.

He drops to his knees, bracketed by Nicky’s and clasps Nicky’s hands. “No, no sweetheart, I was only kidding. The nights I get to curl around you are the sweetest dreams this life could give me, ya amar and-“ he presses a kiss to Nicky’s hand, penitently and then he looks up –

Nicky is smiling. Scratch that, Nicolo is full on grinning. Face wiped clean of grief. What in the world –

“Got you”

“Oh you bastard! Crocodile tears?!” Nicky bursts out laughing, ugly snorting and it’s the sweetest music of Joe’s life and fucking hell but his husband is an ass.

“I’m going to throttle you, you –“ he hisses, a threat he hasn’t made since they were young and shy and dying of unresolved sexual tension, along with everything else.

“Oh, Yusuf. You know I love it when you talk like that”

He grabs at Joe’s hands and they fall back onto the bed, but rather than a kiss, they grapple, tussling for the upper hand . But they’re so old now, with more days spent together than apart and are too evenly versed in each other to outmatch the other. Eventually, they lie on their sides, facing each other, chests heaving.

Joe guides Nicky’s hand under his shirt, to rest over his thudding heart.

Nicky gives his pectoral an affectionate, appreciative squeeze. “Later,” Joe laughs. Then, “Where did you learn to cry on cue?”

“Nile. We were bored out of skulls on the Nairobi job and she taught me how”

Fucking hell. He knew Nile was lethal, but this is a new level. He must learn immediately.

“I still disagree with you.”

“I know, love. And I with you”

“Joe?”

“Yes, Nicky?”

“I love you more than I know how to ever explain, tesoro”

Joe squishes closer, pressing his face into Nicky’s neck, “There are not enough stars in all the galaxies in all the heavens to encompass how much I love you, habibi”

Nicky just huffs something almost inaudible about fights and finishing them but he presses back into Joe, interlacing their fingers tightly.

Some things never change.

#this has been languishing in my wips forever #tog drabble #joe x nicky #the old guard #my writing

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