#i probably could've kept writing tbh but its 2:15am

[moonlightperseus]

JoeNicky + "stay. please?"

okay uh, i know this was a prompt for fluff, but I wrote this instead. 

set pre-relationship & pre-canon, back in the early days, before they found Andy and Quynh, but after they had stopped killing each other. trigger warnings for topics of (canon-typical) death and poisoning. (its okay they’re immortal)

Nicolò was dying, there was nothing to be done. He would die, his heart would stop. And then, just as it had stopped, it would start again, and he would live. 

He had accepted this, all in all, this was one of his most peaceful deaths so far, they had just been able to make it back to the room they had rented at a local inn before the effects of the poison really kicked in, Yusuf still had insisted on practically carrying Nicolò despite his protests that his legs had not stopped working yet. 

His legs did give out, just after they had made it just past the door of their room. Yusuf said nothing, instead scooping Nicolò up in his arms and carried him the small distance across the room to where their two cots were. (Nicolò wasn’t sure he had ever been so close to Yusuf, not since they had stopped killing each other, and there was a difference between being close to a man as you bled out from the wounds you had inflicted upon each to that of being held in his arms as he watches you with such concern in his eyes, Nicolò decided with great certainty. It made his heart ache in a way no poison or otherwise injury could ever do.)

Yusuf set him down with a gentleness far more than that of what Nicolò deserved, least of all from the man he had spent so long killing. And more confusing yet was the look of concern upon Yusuf’s face, it almost seemed to Nicolò like that of despair.  

“You worry,” Nicolò said slowly, his Arabic was still poor at best, but it felt like the least he could give to Yusuf in this moment, “why?” 

Yusuf froze, he had turned to grab the pillow off of his own cot and his back was turned to Nicolò, but Nicolò did not need to see his face to know he was frowning, he could tell simply by the way his shoulders tensed together, by the way his grip on the pillow tightened ever so slightly.

And when Yusuf turned to look at Nicolò again, the frown seemed to take up his entire face. 

When he spoke he did so in Nicolò’s own tongue, “You are dying.” 

This only managed to confuse Nicolò more, he tried to find the right words in Arabic, but the poison had reached his bloodstream and functional thought was harder for him to manage, so he reverted to Italian as well. “Yes? But I will live- death does not find it’s home with us- you know this as well as I.”

“Death may not find its home with us,” Yusuf repeated after a moment of silence, pronouncing each word with a deliberation that would’ve made even the simplest of words sound poetic, “but that does not make its visits any less painful.”  

“It’s not that terrible,” Nicolò said almost instantaneously, it was not a whole truth, he could feel the burning of his very blood, but it was not a whole lie either. Nicolò could think of far worse ways to die, he could remember far worse ways to die. (Every death he had after he and Yusuf had called a truce hurt far less than the pain that had come with dying with his sword through Yusuf’s chest.)

Yusuf saw through his words, he always did. 

At first he said nothing, instead choosing to tuck the pillow in his hands beneath Nicolò’s head, the touch that came with Yusuf gently lifting his head to place the pillow burned hotter than any poison or fire. Nicolò could not think of any feeling better than it. 

Finally, after carefully pulling the thin fabric of blanket that was crumpled at the end of the cot over Nicolò, he spoke, “The pain may not ruin you, Nicolò, but there is no pain worse to me than watching you die.”

The words struck at Nicolò’s heart far faster than the poison did. Yusuf had turned his back to him again, and with the little strength he had left in his body, he reached for Yusuf, his hand catching on the other man’s wrist. 

“I’m sorry,” he started, his vision was starting to go blurry but he was just able to make out Yusuf’s face as he turned again to meet his eyes, “stay, please.” 

Nicolò let his eyelids fall shut as he felt Yusuf’s gentle touch caress his cheek.

“My dear, there is no force in the universe that could take me from your side.”

#the old guard #joe x nicky #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #immortal husbands #tog fic #abby writes #my fic #fanfic #poison mention / #death mention / #okay okay uhhh im sorry? #i probably could've kept writing tbh but its 2:15am #i truly did not expect to have so many thoughts on this #i really just... word vomited all of this #okay to make up for the sort of open ending that's a touch on the sad side #yes those are the last words nicky hears before he dies #but when he wakes it's to yusuf watching over him #his hand still on nicolo's cheek #there is relief in yusuf's eyes #but there's also something else that nicolo can't place #(it's love. but nicolo won't realize that for a while) #the two don't really... speak about what yusuf admitted #but nicolo is more careful in avoiding death from then on out #(though he will still always chose his own death over yusuf's) #also please do not @ me if this is an inaccurate portrayal of poisoning #i started to google how poisoning works but i ultimately gave up on that #so if there are inaccuracies... simply look away #nilefreemans