It kills me how dead the Old Guard fandom it =(

SCREAMS yea, its gotten harder to find content- its been so long since we got any canon content (and itll probably be several months before we start hearing news abt the sequel and/or the third comic) so its such a painful Fandom Drought™ once hype for the sequel starts up the fandom will bounce back but until then, ,. rghghgh

Merry Christmas ❄🎄❤

an awkward conversation after Merrick's. Joe and Nicky can’t read each other’s minds anymore. It’s been a week – a mere seven days – since Merrick’s yet to them it feels like a lifetime. They found an old safehouse they haven’t used in years, down in South Wales, a cottage in the middle of nowhere with separate bedrooms for all of them. Andy took the master bedroom with the Queen bed all to herself. Nile, bless her heart, in stark contrast with the other woman, went straight for the box room at the end of the hallway as to not disturb the team she was still a little new to. Joe and Nicky took the last room left, letting everyone pick before them, not needing much space for them to curl up together like they always did. Despite that, something feels… off. Joe and Nicky can’t read each other’s minds anymore.

For any other couple, any other people for that matter, that wouldn’t sound so bad. But not every couple met on opposite sides of the Crusades in 1099, killed each other many times, struggled with the guilt of being in love with another man and of the people you’ve been taught to hate no less. Not every couple can say they’ve been together for over 900 years, a relationship lasting across a millennium, to the point where they’re so perfectly in tune to every aspect of the other. Now, once you’ve been in love for someone you develop certain habits that perhaps you didn’t have before. Sharing a single look speaks a million words to you but means nothing to anybody else. A small brush to the shoulder to remind the other that you’re there. Ankles tangled under the table. A tired head-bonk when you don’t have the energy for anything more. Nile hasn’t known them for long; she never got the chance to get to know them as their usual selves. Already she feels a connection to them though, the passionate and talkative lines of Joe and the sweet, kind lines of Nicky. And already she can see just how much they mean to each other, yet it was only expressed in few words. That made it all the more beautiful to watch though, how after all these years they didn’t need a lot to let each other know that they loved each other. “Is everything alright with you and Joe?” Nile asks one morning. Nicky is leaning over a frying pan, making everyone a breakfast to wake up to. He was thoughtful like that, though perhaps to him it was only out of necessity. He hums and asks her to elaborate. “I don’t mean to intrude or anything,” Nile says quickly. “I just… I just noticed that you haven’t really talked as much. Or touched.” Nicky doesn’t take his eyes off the food as he answers, “Trust me, we’ve touched.” She frowns, “What? I- Oh - No! That wasn’t supposed to be a sex thing, Nicky! I don’t want to know about you’re sex lives-” “I apologise, Nile,” Nicky laughs. It’s light and breezy and carefree in its cadence, and Nile can only smile sheepishly. “I couldn’t resist. Joe is usually worse with the innuendos though.” “I see,” Nile trails off. “Maybe I shouldn’t have even been worried.” Nicky looks up at her then, one hand still stirring the ingredients of the pan. “No, no, its sweet. Truth be told, I think things have been different since Merrick’s.” “Do you want to talk about it?” Nile asks. “There’s not too much to say. Joe is angry, that’s most likely obvious. At Booker, at Merrick, at Kozak and Keane, at Andy’s mortality. I don’t think I’ve seen him this angry in a long time,” Nicky says. It’s tinted with a little bit of emotion, though what it was, Nile can’t tell. Sadness, maybe, regret, guilt, anger of his own: the weight of it sounds foreign in his voice. She decided immediately that she hates it. “The experiments in the lab were just awful,” Nicky explains lightly, sensitively. “I can tell he’s shaken up by that too. I don’t like seeing him like this.” “Where is he now?” Nile says. While she was speaking, Nicky had transferred the contents of the pan onto a plate. Nile looks down and sees the delicious-looking omelette, complimenting him on his culinary skills. He looks sheepishly pleased at that, accepting his own seat at the table opposite her. “I think he left for a walk to clear his head,” Nicky informs her. “You think?” The corners of his lips turn down, “He was gone when I woke up.” “I’m sorry,” Nile says sincerely. “Nothing to be sorry for,” He replies with the same lightness as before, despite his words. “He gets like this, sometimes. It’s nothing we haven’t worked through before.” “You two are lucky,” She says before she can stop herself. “To have someone who loves you as much as you two love each other. It’s cute.” Nicky smiles up at her, “I’ll be sure to tell Joe you think that way. It might make him smile.” Nicky would do anything to make Joe smile, Nile realises.

for the promts thingy "i miss being in your arms" + yusufnicolo 💀

Nicolo watches. 

Nicolo watches as his beloved goes through his nightly routine. Picking out his clothing for the next day, brushing his teeth, changing into the soft pajama pants Nicolo had gotten for him years ago as a gift during a particularly cold week. 

Nicolo watches as Yusuf crawls into bed, the left side - Nicolo’s side, and hold his arms tightly around himself. Nicolo watches as Yusuf stares blankly across their dark bedroom, fighting off tears that eventually come every night since the accident.

Nicolo watches Yusuf with a broken heart because it’s the only thing he can do. 

Ghosts, if that what he was now, couldn’t touch the living, couldn’t comfort when their loved ones needed it most. It was frustrating in a way that makes Nicolo angry, but his strength was limited, so he buries it. When he’s too emotional he’ll lose time, and that means he loses time with Yusuf and he can’t stand the thought of leaving his beloved alone. 

There were no rules for his new state of existence, no amount of books or movies could have prepared him for life after death. Nicolo isn’t quite sure if he’s a ghost of himself or a ghost of Yusuf’s memory. He’s anchored to his husband in an unknown way, being only able to go where Yusuf is. Nicolo had tried to leave but found that he couldn’t. If he left Yusuf’s side he would lose himself only to blink into awareness hours later.

He’s tied to Yusuf but he can’t communicate with him, can’t make him see that Nicolo is right there. 

When Nicolo isn’t there? He’s somewhere else. Somewhere else that frightens him. It’s cold in this other place, cold and foggy and he feels as if he’s drowning in something thicker than water. The other place feels final, feels like death, so he avoids going there as much as he can. Yusuf was always his whole life, his reason for living when things were at it’s darkest. 

Lately, Nicolo has been to the other place more and more, and he fears that perhaps being with Yusuf is a dream and that his nightmare is actually his reality. 

Yusuf’s breathing hitches and Nicolo is drawn from his dark thoughts to see tears fall from Yusuf’s tired eyes in the moonlight streaming from their bedroom window. Even in his sadness, Yusuf remains beautiful and Nicolo’s heartaches. 

“Please,” Yusuf cries quietly into the dark, unaware that Nicolo can hear him. His voice is rough, thick with emotions that threaten to break him with their weight. Exhaustion paints Yusuf’s features and Nicolo is angry with himself for being the cause. 

“Come back to me.” Yusuf’s words are like a prayer, and Nicolo comes closer, no longer wanting to be apart even if his heart can not see him any longer. Nicolo could never deny Yusuf anything, even in death. 

“I miss being in your arms,” Nicolo confesses, wishing that Yusuf could hear his voice, longing for the touch of his husband’s gentle warmth once more. He’s so tired of being cold - 

“Nicolo?” Yusuf sits up suddenly and Nicolo can only stare as Yusuf’s eyes fall to his own. Staring directly at him and not through him as he has done before. “Habibi are you-”

“You can see me truly?” Nicolo whispers and steps forward, leaving no space between them. Nicolo is aware that he is crying now, matching Yusuf’s tears in full. He dares to reach out, and a sob escapes him as his fingers meet warm skin. 

He’s so cold.

“You’re-” Yusuf starts but stops, leaning in towards Nicolo’s touch, trying to calm his breathing. Finally he opens his eyes, his dark beautiful eyes that always seem to take Nicolo’s breath away, and continues. “You’re a beautiful nightmare.” 

“I fear so yes,” Nicolo whispers. His vision is getting hazy again, a warning sign that he’s about to find himself in the other place, that his time in heaven will be ripped away from him once more, because he wasn’t sure of anything of his strange death but he was sure that being with Yusuf was his paradise. 

“You need to let me go,” Nicolo says firmly when he can no longer feel Yusuf’s warmth. He’s quickly fading away and he fears that this time it might be final. “It will be okay-” 

“Never,” Yusuf answers, grabbing at Nicolo’s hand and his face falling when his hand goes straight through. Their brief moment of being able to touch is gone, and he’s fading from Nicolo’s vision. “I’ll find you Nicolo, I’m going to bring you back to me.” 

Nicolo’s final thoughts are how its strange to say that a dead man was lost. 

...

Warmth floods his body and Nicolo blinks awake to lights that are too bright and the beeping of a monitor that’s too loud. There’s something in his throat and his eyes widen in panic. 

He can’t breathe, he can’t move, it’s too bright - 

Suddenly a mop of familiar curly hair blocks the harsh lighting and a gentle touch pulls him away from his thoughts. Dark beautiful eyes stare into his own and Nicolo’s body relaxes.

He’s with Yusuf, he’s safe. 

“You’re okay,” His husband reassures, brushing a stray hair from Nicolo’s face. Nicolo leans into the warmth of Yusuf’s palm, the cold being chased away by Yusuf’s very touch. “You’re safe now.” 

Nicolo can’t speak with the tube around his throat, but the two of them never needed words to communicate. Yusuf understands his expression becasue Yusuf’s own softens, and he leans down to kiss Nicolo gently on the forehead, avoiding the deep bruises and cuts from the crash.

“I love you too.” Yusuf says, and Nicolo closes his eyes, exhaustian  taking him as he falls gently into sleep once more. Before he can slip away fully, he hears Yusuf’s voice once more. “I’ve missed having my arms around you.” 

Nicolo drifts as Yusuf watches this time. For the first time in days he doesn’t feel cold. 

I genuinely wish to understand the interest and appeal of Book of Nile, and you seem like the right person to ask, so could you please enlighten me? (i promise this isn't meant to be rude, i'm just really curious)

oh my gosh, Well I certainly LOVE this ship and I’d be happy to brainwash convince you of it’s merits! But first of all do not EVER feel pressured to ship anything. I certainly don’t care if you ship or don’t ship what I ship. I try to tag anything I post with “Book of Nile” so you should be able to avoid it should you so choose. 💜

First The Book of Nile Manifesto

This honestly describes it better than I could, it’s super well written and has been basically this entire rare-pair ship’s intro into the fandom lol (the rest of this post just vaguely summarizes the manifesto sooo yeah, read it)

Alright! That out of the way, I LOVE THIS SHIP SO MUCH! And here are the 3 main reasons I love it 

1. Nile and Booker have so many parallels!! Strong ties to family that they were separated (in one way or another) from due to their immortality, youngest members of the team, sarcastic AF, relatively modern military ties, similar deaths (neck related lol), I could go on.

2. THEY HAVE CHEMISTRY! They get along fairly quickly and make each other laugh, Booker seems extremely intimidated by her in their first scene, and then Nile wants to just let him off with an apology. Booker grabs clothes for Nile, Nile won’t leave Booker behind in the lab. Booker is the first person Nile sees come back to life. They work together really well in the fight when they’re protecting Andy, taking over for each other when Booker gets shot and then Nile’s gun gets jammed.... they just vibe and I’m here for it.

3. Nile is the main character. She deserves to be LOVED!

Ok. So the main hurdle that I think most people have with the ship is the “age difference” which is fair enough and again if the actors’ ages squick you out you don’t need to ship this, I won’t judge. BUT if you can get past that then I need to introduce you to probably the most important piece of fanon regarding this ship: 

BOOKER NEEDS TO FUCKING WORK FOR THIS AND IT’S GONNA TAKE AWHILEEEEEE 

Most of this fics for Book of Nile revolve around them VERY SLOWLY figuring out their attraction for each other, right along side everyone’s fav Booker ship: Booker x Therapy.  A lot of fics take place at the end of or along side the 100 year exile. That or they take place in the future, beyond the exile. That’s not to say they ALL do, but it’s many of them. At a certain point age probably doesn’t matter. Like yeah 26/250 is a weird dynamic, but is 126/350?? Idk that’s up to you, but I think those lines start to blur the longer they’re alive. The literal thousands of years between Andy and Quynh don’t seem to matter soooo??? Also we all love to joke about Andy Joe and Nicky getting it on with famous people.... those age difference would have been WAYYYY bigger (ok sorry /salt) Obviously that doesn’t account for AUs.... but it’s an AU... you can do whatever you want lol age them however you’d like...

I also really love that we as a fandom of collectively written Booker as A: A house husband and B: Worshiping the ground Nile walks on. 

Anyway *I* have a lot of fun shipping them!

I hope that helped explain the appeal??? idk lol Obligatory “I hate it here and this was forced on me”

(thank you @poe39 and @bookernile for helping me sort through my thoughts lol)

There was a time Joe used to wonder, ‘does his Nicky have a thing for being rescued?’

Okay, yes. He must admit, it’s not like he didn’t enjoy playing strangers with his thousand-year-lover occasionally. And no. It wasn’t the way it sounds. They said it already. There’s no fun or excitement about being spies.

The thing is, sometimes Joe just needs to say it, Nicky truly has a power to be the moon in the darkest nights.

The first time thing went wrong, they were so close to shooting Nicky. One morning Mr. Joseph Jones was informed that the order to execute Nicholas Smith had been carried out by their top sniper at a certain discreet meeting. And Joe just lost his mind. It’s part of the game, they’re aware. The fact that they couldn’t die made the whole incident sound even sillier. Nicky knew how to deal with these kinds of complication. There’s no need for Joe to go in gun blazing and blow up both of their covers like an idiot. Still... Nobody needed a reminder of how terrible things could turn if somebody discovered that they cannot die. 

Everyone was quiet that one time. The mission took a lot more effort than they had planned. But there’s no harsh words from Andy. Even drunk Booker let them be after they’d reached the safehouse. Joe and Nicky didn’t exactly talk about it. Then the change creeped up before he could realize...

“It’s about a façade and gaining trust”, or so they’d reasoned for each other. Joe wouldn’t say he minded him slitting the assassin’s throat before they’d had the chance to put poison in Nicky’s coffee, or Nicky pulling off the blindfold over Joe’s eyes, revealing a bunch of dead soldiers around them, whom had tied Joe up and were about to turn him into Swiss cheese. 

The bodies they’d sent after Smith vanished into thin air and Jones made sure nobody else but him got the trigger. They coincidentally crossed path so he pulled his gun out on Nicky. Joseph Jones would always be the one that killed Mr. Smith. And Nicholas Smith was the one to kill Mr. Jones. Sometimes, they set up the scene as if Jones and Smith had killed each other, or they’d died in a bizarre accident trying to do so. Sometimes, Joe had to shoot Nicky in front of people. Reminded him of the past, Joe had thought. It’s part of their game now. Nicky knew.

Doesn’t matter if Nicky has a thing for being rescued. Joe is the only one that gets to kill Nicky. 

 So one of these days, either Mr. Smith was getting sloppy or too dangerous, an explanation wouldn’t be needed when Joe swooped in like a white knight, to kill the one that’d threatened Nicky, only then to paint the wall with his lover’s blood, Nicky would just whispered to him in an ancient language: 

“Take me home, my darling. Bring me back in time to when we buried daggers in each other’s heart. Remind me of the time, when you fell in love with me.”

Oh! And he calls Joe the incurable romantic.

Can we please talk about how wonderful Freddy Carter was as Kaz?

yes LETS talk about freddy as kaz. i won’t lie, when i first found out he’d be playing kaz i was very very skeptical because i just couldn’t see it. now having watched him... man oh man was i wrong about him. he embodied kaz so well, and not just physically. the attention to minute little details to convey hints of kaz’s trauma without uttering a word of it was so genius and every time i’ve heard him speak about kaz, i can just tell how much he cares about this character. freddy understands kaz so intimately, understands how his brain works and how his feelings conflict and how he’s warring with himself all the time. one of my absolute favorite scenes is when kaz sees inej is hurt; you can see how badly he wants to help her but he can’t, he physically cannot bring himself to touch her and help her the way he wishes he could and it’s written very plainly on his face. and yeah. people who havent read the books won’t know why he acts that way but they’ll pick up that there’s Something there, he’s fighting some inner fight in that moment and freddy captured it so stunningly. a big kiss for freddy carter as kaz brekker 

Totally random but wouldn't it be funny if Good Omens had a crossover with The old Guard? Or maybe I'm just obsessed with immortal gay men crossing each other's paths over time.

Hey, um...can you explain something to me? I've never seen a single episode of 911 but I just saw a gifset of TK and Carlos getting hot and heavy only to be interrupted...by their house literally going up into flames??? I'm very confused, can you please help me out.

there was a serial arsonist who set up little triggers in their house that started igniting little fires on the first floor and spread throughout the place as they were getting down with each other and they didn’t realize until they smelled the smoke 😩

Hello dear Vanessa. Do you ever think about how Jamie used to have a very blase perspective on death? How she thought when it's your time, it's your time and there's no controlling who lives or dies? And how that completely conflicts with how she felt about Dani towards the end of Dani's days? And does that ever make you cry??

She took care of Dani, calmed Dani down when she was so scared, stayed with Dani even when she was slowly slipping away all because she loved her so much and wanted them to be together for as long as they possibly could 💔

Hey Crim! What's on your 2 Old 2 Guard wishlist?

a lot of the time when ppl write nile post-tog shes often already A Member Of The Family and falls into the group with ease (which IS what you kind of see in the merrick fight scene admittedly) but i would like to see nile struggling a little to find her place in this group of people who are so infinitely strange and old to her. as much as shes struck up such a close bond w/ andy, andy is difficult to *know* and *understand*. and she barely knows joe and nicky. and booker, who was the guy who had the most similar life experience to her, is gone. i think theres a lot there, nile struggling to find her Place in her new family while struggling with her decision to 'leave' her old one; while also trying to find her place in the world, especially regarding the fact that it seems like so much of her life pre-death seemed to be about following in her father's footsteps. how can she still do that in the situation shes in? does she want to still do that?

as i understand it joe and nicky may or may not kidnap copley in FM. in the comicsverse copley isnt recruited to the team at the end of the first installment and kozak is dead. at the end of the first installment in the movieverse, copley is recruited and kozak is alive. i dunno have them go fuck up kozak or something

joenicky.. . . . . .. .. .. snuggles. . . ... . .

i Would Like To See Flashbacks, tho i get they may or may not happen if theyre not Necessary™. (joenicky, booker, andy, quynh, whatever. i would like to se my old people)

canon queer andy & canon queer quynh. do it cowards make them canon

i still rlly Do Not Want to know how the immortality works

what is quynh *like*? how does she behave? noriko seems sort of.. carefree, fun-loving, etc (when she's not recovering from being tossed in the ocean for hundreds of years that is). is quynh like that? what 'role' does/did she take in the group? what did the squad love about her, what was her relationship with the boys?

sexy character arc for quynh ofc

joe and book kiss and make up

sweet action scenes

quynh kicks everyone's asses and its really cool

Immortal love ❤

I’ve a very important question for you darling...if you had to rank the Hargreeves sibilings from favorite to least favorite, how would that ranking look? 😘

maya you really came in with the impossible questions i’ll never be able to answer properly uhu! i don’t think i can do a real ranking because i’m not kidding when i tell you they all mean so much to me, on their own and as a group, it’s the reason i get so sad/mad (smad lmao) when the writing or the fandom try to make any of them look like a caricature of themselves. they all have a very complex potential that until now has mostly gone to waste.

as a general indication i can just give you this: i know klaus is my absolute favorite, always has been, followed closely by five that i really grew to love more and more in the last six months or so (i did love him before too but now i feel a new connection, like i understand him better in a sense or like i see more clearly all the things he has been and could be if the writers let him). these two are the ones that inspire me the most too, also thanks to all the lovely conversations i had with lizzie aka @number5theboy ♡ i just adore listening to what people who are drawn to different characters have to say about them because it can help see everything in a new light and in this case just reaffirm how much i actually like those characters too. both klaus and five have a quality about them, a hidden dimension of sort that make them very complex people, for better or worse. they both have aspects of their life and their identity that the others don’t know about, partly because they won’t let them and that always compels me to pay attention to them the most, it’s easy for me to feel empathy but i also love how multifaceted their narratives are.

then i’ll say i have diego, ben and allison all together. they’re very “strong” characters, in the loose sense of the term. they’re still changing and evolving (here too, for better or worse because that’s the whole point of this family) but they all have very strong ideals and morals and beliefs. they are the ones that engage the most with the others, they play a very active role in the relationships they build and that’s so important to me. they’re interesting because they have their fears and their insecurities and their ugly sides but they’re also unrelenting and they never give up.

last but not least, we have vanya and luther. despite whatever the fuck this fandom always has to say about them, i find them very similar and very compelling too. the only reason they’re not in a higher position is because i believe they’re both just at the beginning of their narrative path. i hope in s3 we’ll get to see more of vanya being herself and coming to terms with everything that happened without the amnesia plot conveniently making everything easier. they can offer much more and i think they will provide, it’s almost poetic if you think about it 1 and 7, first and last! i loved luther’s apology, one of the few things done right by the second season in my opinion, and i can’t honestly wait to see him be more involved in the sibs dynamics because it’s clear as day how much he loves them ALL and now that they’re a real united front face to everything and everyone else, i’m sure shenanigans will swiftly follow.

prompt: nile the vampire slayer

The cool temperature of the brick wall against her back is a small moment of relief from the heat of her body and Nile closes her eyes and just takes a moment to breathe.

Nile can feel the long fight start to take a toll on her body despite her enhanced strength and stamina.

Take a moment when you can, Andy’s voice echoes in her head, and Nile follows that advice. She can hear Joe’s calm voice chanting in a language that Nile doesn’t understand, the spell creating a forcefield temporarily holding back the seemingly endless horde of demons that were trying to break their way into the compound. 

They were faceless monsters, vaguely humanoid in a way that was terrifyingly familiar. Nile had seen Nicky’s spellbooks, knew that at some point these monsters had been breathing and living just like she had, but their humanity had been twisted and transformed into mindless creatures that would not stop until their master’s objective was made. 

The compound was fairly new, an abandoned military structure built in the second world war. It was an armory, meant to store weapons and other supplies, history books will mention that its location had been misplaced so it was abandoned, but the truth was much more insidious. The men who had built the armory had just been following orders, they had no idea that a lesser Hellmouth lay beneath the surface. Soldiers would disappear completely, others had been driven mad, and so they left. 

Their orders, Booker had told her, came from a group of extremists who followed the First Evil, who had been taken down by a Slayer a generation before Andy. They left behind artifacts that could only be evil in nature, and their objective today was to get in and grab what they could before it fell into the wrong hands. 

Nile tightened the grip on her sword and opened her eyes. Joe’s forcefield was weakening, shimmering around the edges and cracking at the unwavering force of the relentless creatures sent to stop them. He staggers slightly, and a quick shout from Joe is all the warning Nile gets before the barrier breaks, and Nile is thrown into action once more. 

She swings her sword in an arch, the blessed blade carving through the creatures with ease. The runes across the blade glowed slightly, the magic deep within making sure that any of these monsters Nile killed would stay down. Nile moves gracefully with the weapon, sweeping arches on quick feet, making her way towards Joe to check to see if the older man needed help. 

“I found the book,” Nicky’s accented voice comes into the comm at her ear, and Nile’s strategy changes with the confirmation that they found what they were looking for, switching from distracting the creatures long enough for Andy, Nicky, and Quynh to accomplish their objective to clearing a path for all of them to get the hell out of there. 

She turns to check Booker’s location, and he catches her eye, nodding in confirmation as he sets the timer on the final bomb he had put together. A creative blend of modern explosives and magic, completely destructive to both the natural and supernatural. 

“We’ve got seven minutes,” Booker informs the rest of the group. It was a short amount of time, but the group had agreed on the time before they had entered this mess, and they were all damn good at what they did. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” 

Nile’s mental clock goes down as she makes her way to Joe’s side. Joe is clearly exhausted, his magical stores almost spent as he switched to physical fighting, using his own sword to cut through the creatures. He stumbles briefly, but Nile is there to steady him, a hand on his elbow and a smile on her face. Joe smiles back in thanks, and together they make their way through the creatures, following Booker as they make their way towards safety. 

They get out, and then they wait. 

Booker is looking down at his watch, his brows furrowed together. He’s worried, they all are. Nile would love to run back in and try and find the others, but she didn’t know where they were and she could easily get lost and get caught in the blast.

What is only a minute feels impossibly longer and finally she sees three familiar forms make their way towards the safety point. Quynh has one of Andy’s arms slung awkwardly over her shoulder, helping her limp forward. Nicky is a little back behind them, his tattoos glowing as he creates his own barrier similar to the one Joe had made earlier. 

The timer on Booker’s watch goes off, and Nile turns, covering her eyes. She can feel the heat from the blast, feel how the air goes heavy with the magic, but Nicky’s barrier stands strong and the flames never reach them. 

As the flames die down the six of them all collectively relax. The building in all its entirety is gone, and there’s no evidence of the long fight that had just happened. Beside her Nile can see Booker move to help Quynh lower Andy to the ground so he can check her wounds. Andy swears at him and Quynh tries to fight off a grin as Booker and Andy argue. 

Joe and Nicky are farther off, but Nile can see them leaning into each other, their foreheads touching in a moment of affirmation. She looks away, allowing them their privacy.

Take a moment when you can. 

Nile takes a moment to look at her new family, safe and together. She didn’t choose this life, but Nile wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Alex, I have a very important question for you... who is the superior character...Yusuf or Nicolo? 🤔😈

Yusuf it’s not even a question.... and Nicky would agree w me

“Some day I wake up, seeing you in the morning sunlight and I wonder... Did I die a thousand deaths so I can have you? In another world, where I only die once, could I have even found you?”

     21st December, Joe was hiding in a small shop, watching their target when he heard the news.

    It’s silly. He knows. There’s no need for a ring in his pocket. And there’s no need to bury it under layers of clothes, just for Nicky to find it out so Joe couldn’t stop saying sorry.

    “Nicky... my Moon!“

    “I don’t understand. What on earth are you even hesitating about, amor mio?”

    “I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to look like myself. Not like this, not while we’re hunting down some human trafficker and spending days at an abandoned building.“ At least to grow his hair and beard out, because he heard how much Nicky complained.

    It’s silly. He knew. Joe just couldn’t help but wanting the world for Nicky.

    Why was he waiting for the perfect moment that would never be more perfect than their first one? Joe hadn’t even got a clue. They’d been each other’s for hundreds of years. He and Nicky had done countless romantic things. The definition of romantic for him had changed from candle lit dinner, long walk on the beach with the night sky pouring silver, to washing blood away from each other’s hair and sleepless night holding his lover. 

    2001 wasn’t even the first attempt for marriage like theirs. Spain, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Norway... Some didn’t succeed. Some with compromises. But every time, Nicky danced with him, humming an ancient song to his ear. His voice was like velvet. They’d never had a wedding. 

    “It’s sure nice to not having fear of being stoned to death for the way I might be looking at you in public sometimes.”

    Still... Joe needs every chance to belong to Nicky more than he can fathom, more than they can imagine, more than the world sees them.

    But perhaps, there’s no another perfect moment for him. Because nothing can be more perfect than what Nicky had given him, when Joe couldn’t even cry the death of the last one in his family. Yusuf and Nicolò, they forgot them all and were forgotten. 

    “I can be your family. I can belong to you.“

    Joe can’t remember much. Other than a cold night. And the way wine glistening on Nicky’s lips. Oh! His sweet, innocent and drunk-on-love Nicolò...

    “You know some narrative taught that the Prophet said whoever calls himself by other than his father’s name or attributes himself to someone other than his father, is guilty.”

    “Yes, and my religion said it’s wrong for me to love you. So I don’t care about being cursed or going to hell.”

    It’s not just a name. It’s not about being attached to a man.

    You are all. And you are more.