Archive of Our Own ^beta

Joe wakes up uncomfortably hot. The cotton fabric of his shirt is plastered to his neck and chest.

The upper back of the wonderful and handsome and talented Nicolò di Genova is also plastered to Joe’s chest. He always is now. Joe thinks it’s a fair trade. There are unpleasant aspects to always having somebody in his space. Once in a blue moon, Joe misses being able to spread out in bed, to not have to share quite so much. It’s nice not worrying about where Nicky is at night, though, whether the other man is safe or not. He is, here in Joe’s arms.

Nicky actually is a light sleeper, Joe has learned. He can count the number of times he’s woken up before Nicky in the past nine months on one hand. Part of Nicky is always on alert, always ready to pick up a gun and go. Somebody could stab Joe in his sleep and Joe isn’t sure he would notice, so it’s all the better he has Nicky now, really.

It had made Joe sad to learn Nicky is naturally an early riser, too. He’s almost always the first one of them to wake, but he’s almost always in Joe’s arms when Joe gets around to getting up. He stays put. Nicky must have denied himself this small comfort for so long. Now he loves and trusts Joe enough to stay, to wait for Joe to wake up as well. Joe still isn’t sure what to do with the feeling that knowledge gives him.

Joe isn’t always sure what to do with Nicky always around, though. Besides “have sex with him,” obviously. That has been fun. Unless they’re on a mission, Joe and Nicky can pull each other away any time of day. Even in the worst of Andy’s hideouts where they all have to share a sleeping space, they have been fucking in closets or in the bathroom. Joe can tell Andy and Nile both already regret making them stick together, but not enough to keep his hands to himself.

Last month, the four of them went to Amsterdam. All four of them stayed in the same city, anyway, but Andy banished Joe and Nicky to a different hotel to get it out of their systems. That had been very fun. For two weeks, Joe and Nicky had sex for as long and as often as they wanted. Joe had a lot of fun seeing how many times and how many ways they could come together, how long they could make one round last and how long it took until they were ready to start again. Joe knew he loved Nicky already, but the ability to have Nicky and Nicky’s undivided attention made Joe really realize how much he loved being with the other man. He could never get enough of Nicky. Joe wants Nicky all day every day. The whole trip kind of exacerbated the situation, much to Andy and Nile’s dismay.

Learning new things about Nicky has been fun, too. There is so much more to Nicky than Joe had time to pick up on before, with their brief meetings scattered throughout the years. Nicky has these quirks and preferences Joe never stopped to consider before. Nicky has a favorite fabric softener for doing laundry, something that was produced in Italy and was discontinued in the 1980s. Nicky hates that Joe leaves his dirty clothes on the bedroom floor. He hassles Joe about it at the end of the day if Joe’s stuff isn’t in his duffel bag. Nicky says it’s because it’s a tripping hazard if they need to get up and go in the middle of the night, but he usually clams up when Joe teases him for being a neat freak.

Nicky is also a clothes thief. He is generally uninterested and unbothered by what he wears, and if he finds something of Joe’s lying around, he will throw it on. Joe isn’t sure, but he thinks this is unrelated to Nicky complaining about Joe leaving his clothes on the floor. Nicky just sees clothes and decides that’s good enough. It rankles Joe the tiniest amount. Joe actually does care about his appearance, as much as he can in their line of work. He likes looking put-together, and it throws off his plans if Nicky grabs something Joe wanted to wear before he can get to it. Joe can never be too upset by it, though. The sight of Nicky wearing his clothes always tugs at Joe’s heartstrings. It makes Joe feel embarrassingly proud and embarrassingly possessive, like anyone who looks at the two of them will know Nicky is with him and no one else.

Nicky cares a lot more about hygiene than he does about fashion. He has been shaving his face almost every single day for nine hundred years, which amuses Joe. Not that Joe can laugh too much considering he has been fastidiously trimming his own beard all these years. He likes having clean edges, which is much easier now than it was even one hundred years ago. Both he and Nicky still have a practiced hand with a straight razor, though, as some of their bedroom play in the past few months has shown.

Nicky has also been giving himself his own weird haircuts for centuries. He looked sincerely confused the first (and so far, only) time Joe offered to fix his sideburns up for him, and Joe decided this wasn’t a battle worth fighting.

And Nicky enjoys cooking. Nicky loves to cook. He said he didn’t have anything to keep him sane the way Joe’s paintings and drawings and sculptures did, but cooking is clearly an outlet for him. It’s good for him, Joe thinks. It gives Nicky time to decompress and let his mind wander while also allowing him to focus on one, specific task.

Joe is probably biased, though. He loves having Nicky cook for him. Nicky is ridiculously good at it, even better than Joe remembers. It’s nice having somebody make food for him, especially somebody who loves Joe.

Every once in a while, Joe likes to tease Nicky by telling him it’s alright to half-ass his meal-making efforts. Every time, Nicky staunchly refuses. Joe likes that maybe most of everything – he can tease Nicky now and not need to worry the other man might slit his throat. Joe can make jokes, and Nicky will joke back with him. There is a lightness to their interactions that Joe hadn’t anticipated. Everything feels so much lighter around them and their relationship.

Joe also has a lot of good options to entertain himself when Nicky is cooking. Sometimes Joe will stand behind Nicky, holding the other man and looking over his shoulder simply to be close. Sometimes Joe will be a more active participant in the process, getting ingredients out for Nicky and helping Nicky measure and cut things. They almost always talk, and sometimes Joe will stay out of Nicky’s way, sitting at the table and watching while carrying his half of the conversation.

Sometimes – like right now – Joe will sit at the table and draw Nicky while he cooks. It’s one of Joe’s favorite activities now. It’s so mundane that Joe feels a little ridiculous about how happy it makes him.

Joe always used to draw Nicky from memory, though. Joe always drew Nicky when they were separated, when Joe was alone and feeling maudlin about their lack of a future together. Joe would draw Nicky and think about all the things Joe thought he would never have.

Now he has Nicky. Now Nicky is here, every day. They still have their missions, still die and revive for a greater good, still travel by night all across the world. But Nicky is also here cooking and cleaning and running errands with Joe and watching TV with Joe or a million other tiny things. Now Joe can pull out a pencil and a sketchpad and draw Nicky in the moment whenever Joe so pleases. Joe can draw Nicky doing something as mundane as swearing at the chopped onions in his pan because they aren’t browning fast enough just because they’re both here and because Joe wants to. It’s lovely, and it’s amusing, and it makes Joe feel like his chest is a hearth full of glowing embers.

Having the live model is a lot nicer for Joe, too. Now Joe doesn’t need to worry about forgetting any details, the way he used to in the past. Now, in their rented apartment in the Eternal City of Rome, Joe can simply look up from his seat the table. He can look across the kitchen to where Nicky stands at the stove to double-check that he placed Nicky’s moles and freckles correctly, that he didn’t accidentally add a crease line or a wrinkle where there shouldn’t be one.

Joe can have this. Joe can keep this. He and Nicky have been talking through their problems, sometimes gracefully and sometimes clumsily but always together. Nicky will not be running off after a year like last time; Joe believes it.

Joe has been toying with the idea of asking Nicky for a commitment to stay. He isn’t afraid anymore; Joe trusts that Nicky will stay even without a ring binding him. Joe wonders if Nicky wants that, though, if Nicky would like a more tangible symbol of their commitment to each other.

The institution of marriage doesn’t mean much to Joe. It differs by society, by country, by culture, by year. It changes, who or what is acceptable in every era. Rings get lost. Pieces of paper burn or age until they fall apart. No, this would be more about him and Nicky, Joe thinks. It would be more about solidifying their arrangement to each other than anything else.

Joe feels somebody watching him. He looks up to find Nicky smiling across the kitchen at him. Joe realizes he hasn’t drawn anything in a few minutes, has only been looking down at his paper while lost in thought.

“You are thinking too much,” Nicky teases him. “I can hear you from over here.”

Joe smiles back but says nothing. Joe waits until Nicky turns back to the cutting board and is chopping up a tomato to clear his throat. Joe knows Nicky loves him, but he’s still a little nervous to start this conversation.

“Would you ever marry me?” Joe asks Nicky.

Nicky brings his knife down hard and crooked. Joe hears the blade go into the cutting board with a solid thunk. Joe wonders if Nicky cut into his own hand or fingers.

With a metallic clatter, Nicky flings the knife he had been using into the sink. He turns to face Joe and crosses the kitchen in a rush. Nicky climbs into Joe’s lap, his knees on either side of Joe’s legs. He grabs Joe’s face with wet hands – Is that juice or blood? flits through Joe’s brain – and brings their lips together. Joe kisses back readily, grabbing Nicky’s lower back to keep him there.

“You’ll consider it, then?” Joe asks breathlessly when Nicky finally pulls away.

“Guys, come on.”

Joe startles. He looks over his right shoulder to see Andy standing in the doorway, both hands on a gun she is now lowering to point at the floor. She looks mildly disgusted.

“I thought something might actually be wrong for once,” Andy complains as she tucks the gun back into the right side of her waistband. “But no. It’s you idiots making out for the third time today. What made that noise, though? Did you get burned and throw the pot in the sink or something?”

“We’re engaged,” Nicky replies.

Joe’s brain shorts out. He tightens his grip on Nicky’s lower back, afraid of dropping his partner… his fiancé, apparently. What?

Andy looks as surprised as Joe feels. She takes a couple steps closer to them; Nicky gets off of Joe’s lap and meets her halfway, pulling her into a hug. Joe stands as well. He approaches, and Andy and Nicky make room for him to wrap his arms around them as well.

Joe tries not to think about it a lot, but he and Nicky don’t have a lot of time left with Andromache. Several decades, certainly, but there is a deadline to their time that there wasn’t there before. The three of them have so much history. She has been there since the start of both their immortal days, even if it took a while for him and Nicky to meet her. Andy has been a constant in their lives. Joe will miss this. Joe will miss being them.

As they separate, Nile and Copley enter the kitchen. Nicky takes Joe’s left hand with his right, and Joe reaches over to put his right hand on top of their already-joined hands. It feels good, holding onto Nicky. He feels grounded.

Joe turns to look at his partner and finds Nicky already beaming over at him. Alright, Joe thinks, returning his attention to Nile and Copley. He can do this. It’s unexpected, but it will be alright. He and Nicky and everything will be alright.

Nile looks at Joe and Nicky, brows drawn together in concern. “What’s going on?” she asks. “Is everything okay?”

From the corner of his eye, Joe sees Andy turn her back on Nile and Copley to discretely wipe a couple tears away from her right eye.

Nicky turns his smile on Nile. “We are engaged,” he says. “Joe proposed.”

Copley shoots Joe a look Joe thinks is meant to be surprised, but his expression is too bright, his mouth too close to grinning to completely sell it.

“After nine months, man?” Copley jokes. “Are you sure you are not taking things too fast?”

“Hey, when you know, you know,” Nile deadpans back, causing Joe to laugh.

“This is true,” Nicky agrees. He sounds serious, but when Joe looks over, Nicky’s eyes are sparkling with either amusement or mischief. Joe isn’t sure which, but it’s a good look on him.

“Things do change when you meet the love of your life,” Nicky adds.

Joe nearly swallows his own tongue. He feels a stab in his chest, shorter and sharper than any knife could make. The love of his life. Nicky says it so easily now, so often, how much he loves Joe. Joe wonders how long Nicky lived with those words inside him, always threatening to burst out before Joe was ready to hear them.

Joe is pretty sure Nicky was working on something else before his ‘proposal,’ but afterward, Nicky gets it in his pretty head to make canapés, and he puts Joe to work in the kitchen, which Joe pretends to be offended by. For only five people, Joe, Nicky, Andy, Nile, and Copley make quite a flurry of activity that afternoon and evening. Andy keeps sneaking food before it’s ready. Nile is actually trying to help, but in the exact way Joe is trying to help, and he keeps bumping into her. He and Nile have taken to play-fighting and swatting each other with whichever utensils they have in hand. Joe loses track of Copley for several minutes before the other man returns with a bottle of champagne. Their rental place doesn’t have champagne flutes, of course, only has short, stemless tumblers. The beverage itself is room-temperature, but it’s perfect. Joe wouldn’t have things any other way.

As the sun sets, Joe finds his way to the sitting area across from the kitchen, the main room one big open space. Andy is sitting on the right side already, her legs tucked up underneath her. Joe takes the opposite end, settling his right hand and his cup of champagne on the arm.

The pair watch Nicky, Nile, and Copley; the three of them are making conversation and making even more food somehow. Joe will be curious to see what they come up with.

From the corner of his left eye, Joe sees movement. He turns to face Andy, who has leaned in closer.

“I’m surprised you beat Nicky to the punch,” Andy admits. “I’ve been trying to get him to propose for years.”

“We haven’t been together for years,” Joe points out.

Andy shrugs. “Not officially, but more or less. I’m sure you know by now that he’s been interested in you for ages. I told him to stop complaining and either get you a ring and a house, or shut up and keep letting you fuck him like a man.”

“That’s wonderful,” Joe tells her dryly. “Very touching stuff.”

“Thank you,” says Andy. “I’m using that in my reception speech for you two.”

She watches Joe in silence for another minute. The smirk on her lips softens a little, but it doesn’t fade entirely.

“You didn’t actually propose, did you?” Andy says quietly.

Joe raises his eyebrows at her in question.

Andy pokes at his left thigh with her toes. “You’re too quiet. I know you of all people would be rhapsodizing right now about how you did it. You probably would have filled the floor with rose petals and gotten down on one knee for your precious Nicky. You love a story almost as much as you love him.”

Joe runs his right hand over his mouth. He glances toward the kitchen, making sure Nicky is distracted before leaning in closer and pinning Andy with a fierce gaze.

“You tell him after everything is over,” Joe tells her.

A grin spreads across Andy’s face, slow and sharp. “You mean after the wedding?”

“Yes,” says Joe. It’s a scary thought, but less scary then it was even an hour ago. Joe can commit to this. He loves Nicky. Not to mention having a reason for all of them to celebrate after everything they went through last year could be fun. Joe is man enough to admit he is a big old romantic. He loves love, and being able to celebrate his love could be fun. Joe can celebrate Nicky and his continued future with Nicky. This will be fun, Joe thinks.

Andy’s smile softens. “ ‘til death do you part,” she reminds him. “And that’s going to be a while.”

“I know,” Joe says. “Which is why you can wait to tell him until later. You can tell Nicky afterwards, when this is all a funny story in our past.” He looks across the room, to where Nicky is still laughing and smiling along with Nile and Copley. “Let him have this for now.”

“You love him,” Andy says. When Joe returns his gaze to her face, she looks unusually serious, her head tilted in contemplation.

“I do,” Joe replies, nodding. “I am willing to commit to him. I just need some time to come around to the idea of being married.”

“I understand,” Andy says, and Joe knows that she does. “Try not to take too long, though. I want to be around for it.”

“Understood,” Joe replies.

Andy extends her glass toward Joe with her right hand. Joe switches his own drink to his left hand, then closes the distance between them with a clink.

*****

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

In some ways, the world has gotten bigger. There are new trades and new technologies. Everyone is more connected now, by phone or by plane or by the internet. Joe has visited countries and experienced wonders he never would have imagined possible even one hundred years ago.

People will always be people, however. Underneath the standard trades, all the new staples like gold and tin and tungsten, Andy and Copley have uncovered smugglers dealing in human stock. Copley is still in New York untangling the threads to find their source, but on Andy, Joe, Nicky, and Nile’s end, their research has led them to Berth 219, property of Yusen Terminals LLC at the Port of Los Angeles.

The port is a maze of intermodal containers, most of them three meters tall. There is, fortunately, an old, seldom-used watch tower on the dock that dwarfs them all. Nicky sets up shop there with a long-range rifle and a pair of binoculars, their team’s eyes for any outside dangers. Not that Security is giving them much trouble at four in the morning – anybody working this early has been at it for several hours now and is likely watching the clock more closely than their cameras.

Joe, Andy, and Nile move swiftly and silently on the ground. Nile has taken being second in command perhaps a little too literally in Joe’s opinion; as such, she always flanks Andy on Andy’s right-hand side. Joe thinks it’s funny. He doesn’t care either way, content to cover Andy’s left side.

The three of them make it to one of their crates, Nicky’s voice in Joe’s ear tells them. They find themselves standing in front of a large metal shipping container like any other. Joe’s heart races in fear at what they will find inside, though. He will have to worry about the horrors of human trafficking later, though. Right now, they need to act.

Joe stands back, shotgun at the ready as Nile and Andy move to open the container’s doors. Nile rotates the latch and pulls both handles up on the right side, and Andy does the same on the left door not a second after Nile has the right door open. Both of them step back to join Joe, weapons at the ready.

There is only one person in this crate, a woman wearing a zipped-up black leather jacket and black pants. Her hair is long and black as well. Joe looks at her face. Joe recognizes her face, the shape of her mouth, her nose, those eyes. The woman only has eyes for Andy, though.

“Hello, Andromache,” the phantom from their past says.

“Wallahi,” Joe swears. “Quynh? Is it you?”

The woman in question jumps a bit, as if Joe has startled her.

“Yusuf,” Quynh says. She turns her smile on him, but there’s no light at all in her dark eyes. “You haven’t aged a day.”

She turns her shotgun on him as well.

“You and I will have to catch up later,” Quynh decides before shooting Joe in the chest. His Kevlar vest absorbs a lot of the damage, but she still shot him at close enough range and with a heavy enough round that it drops Joe to his knees. The impact must have broken a rib, as well; Joe struggles to catch his breath, his inability to breathe affecting him more than the injury.

Quynh’s eyes narrow, assessing the damage she’s done before she adjusts the barrel of her gun. Joe realizes she’s aiming directly at his face a second before she pulls the trigger.

“Fuck!” Joe hears Nile yell as he hits the ground.

“Quynh,” Andy whispers, so quiet Joe can hardly hear her above the ringing in his ears.

“It’s been a long time,” Quynh says, sounding all too amused. “Sorry I went for the dramatic entrance, but I couldn’t resist.”

Joe can’t see anything. He is, frankly, surprised he can still hear as much as he can. He figured that close of a shot would have blown clean through his skull and that he would wake up again later once everything was healed over. Not his luck, apparently.

At least what he can hear gives Joe some idea of what is happening above him. He doesn’t know what happens to lead to it, but Joe hears a scuffle, thick boot soles scraping the pavement near him. He hears a shouted “No!” from Nile, a noise of protest from Andy.

Joe hears another shotgun blast. He hears a grunt of pain he isn’t as familiar with; he’s spent enough centuries with Andy to know what she sounds like when she gets hurt, so that must have been Nile. Nile must have jumped in front of Andy to take the hit, and that must be Nile Joe hears hitting the ground to his right now.

“You’re the new one,” Quynh says. “Have you learned to embrace the pain ye—”

Quynh cuts off abruptly with a noise that’s half yelp, half gurgle. Nobody hits the ground next to Joe. Joe twitches through the discomfort of the front half of his skull rebuilding. He feels his left optic nerve knitting back together through the hole of his new eye socket. Joe hears someone struggling for breath, but it sounds wetter than his own attempts were a minute ago.

Joe hears something whizz through the air. He hears somebody stumble on the concrete, their feet closer to his head than Joe cares to consider.

There’s a spitting noise, a spluttering. It takes the person who got shot another minute to get it together.

“And your sniper on the roof must be Nicolò.” Quynh notes, her voice coming out clotted. “How precious. His aim could use a little work, though.”

Blotches of light and color dance in front of Joe’s eyes. It takes longer than he is comfortable with for his eyelids to regenerate, but once they do, Joe blinks, trying to clear his vision. There’s a strange pressure underneath and between them. Joe realizes it was his nose growing back once he’s suddenly able to breathe through it again.

“Quynh,” Andy says at last, sounding less stunned than before. “What are you doing here?”

“I missed you,” Quynh tells Andy. “Didn’t you miss me, Andromache?” The teasing drops out of her tone when she adds, “Did you look for me at all?”

“Quynh,” Andy starts. “I tried everything — ”

The sharp blare of sirens interrupts whatever Andy was about to confess. They sound further than a few meters away, but the sound of them is getting louder.

Joe doesn’t hear Quynh take off running, but she must have if Andy’s “Hey!” and the sound of her boots on the pavement is any indication. Joe still can’t see straight, but he gets his left elbow under himself. He props himself up toward a sitting position in time to see a blurry Nile-shaped blob getting to her feet. She takes off running before Joe can ask what’s going on.

Joe grunts and closes his eyes. He shifts his weight back onto his butt, but when he tries sitting up further, pain spears through his stomach. Joe sucks in a breath through his nose and gets another spear of pain in his sinuses for his trouble. He squeezes his eyes further shut and takes a few shallow breaths in and out through his mouth. His jaw itches, the skin prickling the way Joe thinks it felt on the two occasions he shaved his beard and his facial hair had grown back in, only more rapid.

A big hand claps down on Joe’s right shoulder. Somebody crouches down next to him, and even without most of his senses, Joe knows it’s Nicky. His hunch is confirmed when the hands roam over Joe’s chest and stomach and then along his back, sort of petting over Joe while also checking his nearly-healed injuries. Nicky’s right hand goes to Joe’s face, and Joe feels Nicky brushing the blood and gore away from his eyes and off of his cheeks.

Joe opens his eyes to find his vision restored. Nicky is kneeling on the ground next to Joe, his brows drawn together in concern. Nicky reaches up again to thumb something wet and gristly off Joe’s right cheek.

“I would have shot her sooner, but Andy was in the way,” Nicky says quietly. “I couldn’t get a clear shot for her head, either.”

“It’s okay,” Joe tells him. He moves to get to his feet, putting his right hand on Nicky’s left shoulder for leverage. His heart is still racing, but Joe feels energized. He feels ready to run back into the fray. “Did you see which way they went?”

The women have too much of a lead on them for Joe and Nicky to play fair. Both of them send up a variety of prayers and apologies before hotwiring a van together to finish the chase. After twenty-five minutes, they find Nile. She’s standing with her hands on her hips; her lower abdomen is soaked with blood, and there is a bloody bullet hole in the fabric of her pants above her right knee.

Nile is staring at Andy, who in turn is staring helplessly down an empty street, the first blushes of orange and pink on the skyline in front of her. There isn’t any sign of Quynh.

Joe glances over at Nicky. “Do you think we ask them which way she went?” he asks softly, even though the women can’t hear him through the glass.

Nicky shakes his head once. “I think we go home. Go back to ground for the day. Regroup for later.”

Joe nods in agreement, then gets out to get Andy and Nile.

*****

Nicky drives the four of them back to their van. They have been using a van vetted, scrubbed, and rented by Copley to get around since they arrived out west. They had hidden it in an alley a few streets away from the port. Fortunately, this means whoever owns the van Joe and Nicky had ‘borrowed’ won’t need to search too far to find it.

As they exit one vehicle and make for the other, Joe holds his right hand up, palm out. When Nicky glances over at him, Joe makes a grabbing motion, flexing his fingers in and out. Nicky frowns but tosses the keys to him anyway and makes for the passenger’s seat.

Joe drives the four of them back to their motel. He and Nile have been deemed too bloody to be seen in direct light, so the pair of them wait in the van as the sun rises higher in the sky and Andy and Nicky clear out their room. Joe stays behind the wheel while Nile climbs up front into the passenger’s seat. Another night of work, another covering of their tracks, and then it’s off to the next one. Joe wishes any other part of the mission felt this familiar.

“So,” Nile says after a few minutes. “That’s Quynh.”

“It is.” Joe checks the backseat in the rearview mirror, like saying her name might have made her appear. Stranger things have happened.

“Good to know,” says Nile.

Joe looks out the windshield in time to see Andy hustling out of their room with several bags in hand. They have duffel bags full of clothes and a couple canvas bags with groceries, but they all try to travel light.

Nicky is behind her with just as much luggage; he hikes on bag higher up onto his shoulder to lock the door. He sets the key on the sill of their room’s window before making his way back to the van.

Andy gets in the backseat behind Joe, and Nicky gets in behind Nile. Joe looks over his right shoulder at his partner.

“Got everything?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Nicky replies breathlessly. “Do you have a plan?” Andy says nothing.

“I do, actually,” Joe tells them. He isn’t thrilled about it, but he does know something they can do.

Andy isn’t the only immortal among them with connections. A week or two ago, Joe and Nicky had been out in WeHo and had – somewhat hilariously, Joe thinks – caught the attention of an elderly gay couple named Rob and Gary. Both men are in their seventies, if Joe remember right. They seem to think they are taking Joe and Nicky under their wings, which is cute.

Rob and Gary own a house on the beach, something they probably paid cents for compared to what the going rate on beachfront property is now. Joe and Nicky have been there a couple times in the past few weeks, for more drinks that night after they met at the bar and another time for dinner. Being worried as he was with technology, Joe happened to notice the guys don’t have any cameras on their property. Joe also happened to notice what their gate code was on the way in and that one of the rocks near their front door looked suspiciously plastic.

Joe also happens to know Rob and Gary are up in Palm Springs right now. They have Joe and Nicky’s phone numbers (for the phones they are using right now, anyway), and Joe and Nicky have theirs. They told Joe and Nicky to stop by anytime they were in town. Joe knows they didn’t mean it like this, and he feels bad taking advantage of their generosity. Joe can’t do a hotel or a motel or bunker today, though. It’s too much working, putting on the façade, finding the matching credit cards and drivers’ licenses and dealing with strangers and looking for cameras to avoid. He, Nicky, Andy, and Nile need to rest. They need to sleep. They are not at the top of their game, not right now. Joe is going to do first and ask Rob and Gary for forgiveness later if they find out.

Andy says nothing for the whole drive. She doesn’t offer any advice or join in the small talk Nicky and Nile attempt every so often. Joe can’t see her well with the angle he has the rearview mirror at, but he can sense her sitting behind him. She seems shell-shocked. Joe doesn’t know if he’s ever seen her at such a loss, for words or for actions.

Andy says nothing until the four of them are inside Robert and Gary’s house. She drops the bags she had carried in the front hall as Nicky shuts and locks the front door and Joe disarms the security system.

“I need a drink,” Andy announces to no one in particular. She stalks off through the entryway on their right, toward the kitchen Joe knows is on the back of the house on that side.

“You need a shower,” Nicky says quietly. Joe feels a hand clasp his left shoulder then trail down his bicep and his forearm. He looks over to see Nicky staring at his chest, at the tacky red mess of his shirt.

Joe turns to Nile. “Ladies first?”

“You go ahead,” Nile replies. Her gaze is fixed on Andy. “I think I need a minute.”

Joe turns back Nicky to give him a quick kiss. Nicky hands Joe a bag, hopefully containing clean clothes, before following Andy toward the kitchen. Joe leaves Nile standing in the entryway.

Joe spends the whole time he’s getting cleaned up hoping that Nicky will join him, but his partner never does. When Joe opens the door, Nile is standing there. Joe thinks she’s going to grill him, to hit him with at least a few of the questions he knows she has. Instead, Nile simply points to the bathroom behind him and says, “My turn.”

Nicky is alone in the kitchen. He has a pot of water boiling on the stove and is chopping pancetta on a cutting board on the counter next to it. Joe sees the spaghetti noodles he bought for Nicky a couple days ago set out on the counter, too, along with several other ingredients. A smart call – the four of them can’t risk taking much out of Robert and Gary’s pantry without raising suspicions, and they can take whatever waste they make with them when they leave.

Joe looks around the room, even glancing outside quick. He doesn’t see anybody on the beach, though.

“Where’s Andy?” Joe asks.

Nicky raises his eyebrows and points up at the ceiling with the knife he’s holding.

Joe sighs until he thinks his lungs will crumple in on themselves. He wonders if that’s possible for them and their physiology.

“Well, that could have gone better,” he remarks.

Nicky goes back to mincing the meat. He pauses after a few seconds, shooting Joe a look. Nicky’s expression doesn’t change, but somehow Joe knows exactly what Nicky is asking for.

Joe walks over to stand behind his partner. He wraps his arms around Nicky’s waist, then presses his left cheek to the nape of Nicky’s neck. Nicky keeps working on their food, but Joe can feel Nicky relaxing in his embrace.

“How did you imagine it would go?” Nicky asks him.

“I thought she would be happy to see us again, for one thing,” Joe grouses. “I was excited when I realized it was her, that she was finally back among the living. Before she took my head off, at least.”

Nicky’s spine stiffens underneath Joe.

“Oh, you weren’t a fan of that either?” Joe teases. “Are you having second thoughts, Nicolò? Not quite sure if I’m marriage material after seeing me without my face on?”

“Stop,” says Nicky.

Joe squeezes him tighter but obliges.

“I always thought of Quynh as resilient,” Joe muses after a few seconds. “Not in the way we all are. In the spirit, I mean. I always thought she could rise from the ashes the fastest. She had more of a lightness in dealing with immortality, more of a sense of humor about how absurd our gifts could be.”

“I suppose she stopped finding things funny a long time ago,” Nicky says quietly.

“Do you think she’s been back on land for long?” Joe asks.

“I don’t know,” Nicky says. “I hope so.”

“How long do you think she was looking for us?” Joe wonders if Nicky can tell what Joe wants to say, that the four of them would have looked for Quynh first if they knew she was back. They would have gone to her if they knew. Nicky is quiet in a way that Joe knows means he is thinking.

“I don’t know,” Nicky says again, “but I think she found us before all of this. Last night was her doing. She set everything up. I think that means on some level, she has been watching us for some time now.”

Joe really does not want to admit it, but Nicky is right. It was naïve of him, but Joe hoped once Quynh resurfaced, she would find Andy, Nicky, and him and the four of them (plus Nile) could go back to being a team. Joe liked Quynh. Joe loved her. Now he doesn’t know how to feel. Joe doesn’t know this version of Quynh, the one so seemingly twisted by hate and anger and indifference.

Of course she doesn’t know how much the three of them missed her. Of course Quynh doesn’t know how hard Andy and Nicky searched for her. Only Andy, Nicky, and Joe know that story. Joe wishes Quynh could hear it, hear exactly how much she was missed. Joe doesn’t think she would believe them now though, even if they could communicate it to her.

“You two are disgusting.”

Joe pulls his gaze up from the floor to find Nile standing in the doorway. She has changed into a sweatshirt and pajama pants; her nose has the slightest wrinkle of distaste to it.

“You’re just jealous,” Joe teases her.

“No, but I am hungry,” Nile admits.

Nicky says nothing, but he does turn the burner off. He moves the pot of water and pasta off the stove and to the adjacent sink. Joe finally untangles himself from his beloved to make himself useful, getting plates and silverware out.

The three of them eat standing up, leaning against the kitchen walls and counters. There is a table with four chairs across the room from them. The table is also next to a tall sliding glass door, making whoever sits near it an easy mark for snipers. Joe, Nicky, and Nile admire the sunlight sparkling on the ocean waves from a safe distance as they eat the spaghetti carbonara Nicky made.

Joe and Nicky do their best to answer Nile’s questions, keeping their voices low. Joe doesn’t know how sound carries in this house, and he doesn’t want Andy to overhear them. Not that there is much to talk about – Joe and Nicky don’t have much more information than Nile does. They don’t know how long Quynh has been here or how she returned. Joe is doing his best, but his best doesn’t feel anywhere close to good enough, not when they have so many questions and no good plan for answering them.

“I don’t want to say it,” Nicky starts after a few minutes of exhausted silence. Joe looks over to see Nicky staring down at his own plate, twirling noodles around his fork tines without picking any of them up.

“How much do we think of this was a setup?” Nicky asks. “I think we know Quynh had been watching us. She wanted us here… But Andy was the one who led this mission. She told us about it first, before Copley. She was the one who knew the name of the company and had the coordinates for the crate.”

“She didn’t know,” Nile says before Joe can answer.

Joe and Nicky both look at her. Nile looks deadly serious, like it’s imperative Joe and Nicky listen and believe what she says. She looks infinitely older than she is, Joe thinks.

“You didn’t see her face,” Nile explains. “The way she looked when she saw Quynh was there. She looked…”

“Haunted?” Joe supplies.

“I suppose she is,” Nicky adds, grimacing. He looks back down at his plate. “But that’s good, I suppose.”

“What, that she looked like she had seen a ghost?” Joe jokes. Nicky glowers down at his pasta; he doesn’t laugh or joke back.

“She looked scared,” Nile continues. “But almost kind of hopeful. Like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing for a minute.”

“Like it was too good to be true?” Joe offers.

“And it was,” Nicky says.

“Yeah,” Nile agrees. “It usually is.”

Joe looks out at the beach, at the glossy blue waves lapping at the shore. A chill runs down his spine despite how picturesque the scene is.

“Alright,” Joe concedes. He turns to Nile. “I have a question for you. Are you washing or drying?”

Nile thinks for a minute before replying, “I’ll wash.”

Joe puts the stopper in the sink drain, then sets his plate and silverware in the basin. Nicky and Nile follow his lead while Joe rounds up the pot, pan, and cutting board Nicky used earlier. Washing and drying their stuff by hand isn’t fun, but it is faster than waiting for the dishwasher to run. They can’t risk leaving too many loose ends here. The sooner they can erase all the signs they were here, the better.

As they get set up, Joe feels Nicky pat him on the back.

“I’m going to bed,” Nicky tells Joe and Nile. He keeps his left hand on Joe’s back as he walks behind Joe, dragging his palm from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. Joe leans into it, then leans back, turning his face to Nicky. Nicky stops and kisses Joe before taking his leave.

Nile stops for a minute to watch Nicky leave, to listen for his footsteps on the stairs. Once the house is quiet again, she looks back in the sink. Nile pulls out a plate, gives it a quick pass with the sponge, then rinses it off. As she hands it over to Joe, she sighs.

“I feel like I should have seen this coming,” Nile says.

Joe chuckles, taking the plate from her. “You, of all people? You can’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve never even met Quynh before.”

“No, I mean I literally should have seen this coming,” Nile clarifies.

Joe stares at Nile in confusion for a long moment before he remembers her gift, this prophetic dreaming that allows her to see other immortals she hasn’t met yet.

“Ah,” he says helpfully. “Did you ever see her?”

“A few times,” says Nile. “Not as often as the rest of you, and it was mostly… you know.” She bobs her head back and forth, like she doesn’t want to say what she means.

Joe doesn’t know. He waits for Nile to continue.

Nile locks eyes with Joe before she does. “Water.”

Joe winces. That’s on him. Obvious answer – he really should have known better.

Nile sighs. “I didn’t know she was back on land, or how she got back on land, or when she could have got back on land. I don’t know. I feel like I should have done more.”

“Nile, there are a great many things that are outside of your control,” Joe reminds her gently. “So much of the world is outside of any of our control. You aren’t weak for having a blind spot or two. You did the best you could, especially last night, protecting Andy and tracking Quynh. You did better than I did, certainly.”

Nile smiles a little at Joe’s self-jab, but it doesn’t last long. Joe feels the dread creeping back in the space between them.

“I had a dream about Booker the other night,” Nile starts slowly, staring down into the sink full of dirty dishwater. “He was being tortured. His arms and legs were tied up, and somebody was holding him under water. He kept moving like he was trying to fight it. And every once in a while, there would be hands pulling him up back to the surface but I never saw their faces. He kept drowning over and over again like…” Like her, Joe hears, even though Nile doesn’t say it.

“I thought it was a nightmare,” Nile continues, looking contemplative. “My brain putting things together like that, but now…” Her expression shifts into something more horrified before she asks, “Do you think she might have him?”

That, Joe thinks, is a fear he did not know he could have. He definitely has it now, though.

“I can’t answer that,” Joe says as evenly as possible. “But we’ll figure it out. All of us together.” He nods toward the entryway, toward the hall where the stairs are before adding, “In the morning. When we have our wits back in working order.”

Nile doesn’t seem happy with that decision, but she nods at Joe and walks off. Joe hears the door to the half-bathroom under the stairs open; he doesn’t hear it shut. Joe hears running water and then after a few seconds what sounds like Nile brushing her teeth. She’s a good kid like that, Joe thinks.

Joe wipes out the sink, getting rid of any food debris left after the water drained. He double-checks that everything in the kitchen got returned to its right place, and then he turns off the lights and heads upstairs.

The door to the largest bedroom is closed. That’s probably Andy, Joe reasons. Nile has the couch in the downstairs living room (and is guarding the front door by proxy), and there is only one other bedroom in this house, a small guest bedroom. If Joe’s process of elimination wasn’t enough to narrow down where Nicky is, the door to said guest room being half open is a dead giveaway.

Nicky is still awake when Joe gets there. He lies on his right side, facing Joe and watching in silence as Joe shuts the door and undresses. Joe leaves the lights off; the curtains are heavy enough that the room stays mostly dark, but a few stray rays of sunlight leak in around their edges.

Joe leaves his clothes in a pile on the bedroom floor, then kicks the pile into the nearest corner. They can bicker about it come morning. Right now, though, Nicky says nothing.

Joe crawls under the covers on his side of the bed, facing Nicky. “Are you going to sleep at some point?” he asks his partner.

“I don’t know,” Nicky says, and Joe can tell he means it.

Joe reaches over to put his hand between Nicky’s pillow and Nicky’s head. Joe cradles the right side of Nicky’s face, brushing his thumb over Nicky’s mole in a way he hopes comes across as affectionate.

Nicky’s expression falls, just a bit. “I said I would keep you from getting hurt,” he tells Joe.

Joe chuckles softly. “And I said that was a losing game, given what we do for a living.”

In the dark, Nicky’s expression darkens.

“That’s not… That isn’t what I meant here,” Joe tries. “I’m not teasing you for trying. I’m saying I understand. I’m saying I don’t blame you or resent you for not protecting me. These things happen. You can’t predict everything.”

“No,” Nicky agrees. He sighs heavily, sinking in the mattress a bit. “No, I certainly can’t. I still worry for you, though.”

“Why?” Joe asks, feeling his brow knit together in confusion. “I told you – ”

“Because I love you,” Nicky interrupts. “And that’s what I do when I love you. I know you can handle yourself in a fight. I’ve seen you in action more times than maybe anyone else on this earth. I know you’ll be fine, but still. I worry. I don’t like seeing you get hurt.”

Joe doesn’t know what to say to that. He isn’t sure he likes being fretted over. He isn’t used to it, anyway. He doesn’t know what to do with what it’s making him feel.

“What do you need?” Joe asks Nicky. He needs to turn the feeling outward, to turn it into doing something instead of letting it sit like a stone in his chest.

Nicky prefers actions to words too. Joe knows that by now and isn’t offended when his partner doesn’t answer right away. Instead, Nicky reaches out, first with his right hand and then with his left. Joe knows it’s easier for Nicky to put Joe’s hands where he wants them. It’s easier for him to pull Joe on top of him and, eventually, after some mutual work, inside of him.

Ever since agreeing to start a relationship together, Joe and Nicky have both been making an effort to check in with each other during sex. “Does this feel good?” “Do you like it when I do this?” “Is this painful for you?” Simple yes-or-no questions they rarely bothered asking before. It’s a bit awkward, Joe thinks. After nine hundred-some years, Joe thinks he knows what Nicky does and doesn’t like in bed by now. He wants to be sure, though. Nicky is trusting Joe to not break him. Joe wants to be worthy of that trust.

Nicky makes more noise than usual, but he says he’s good every time Joe asks. Joe wonders if he’s been holding back in that respect too, trying to be quieter in case he said something in the throes of passion that scared Joe away.

Nicky is as quiet as ever when orgasm steals over him, though. His eyes widen and his muscles tense up. His mouth forms a perfect “O” shape. He’s everything Joe has ever wanted.

For the longest time, this way the only way Joe knew Nicky, seeing him in bed like this. It’s incredible to have him now as a partner and a friend and have this too, this small constant one of many in Joe’s life with Nicky now.

Joe curls in on himself as he follows Nicky, bowing to press his forehead to Nicky’s as he comes. Nicky reaches up to hold Joe’s head there, their breath mingling in that space between them as they both come down from their highs.

They clean up after, vowing to wash and replace the sheets in the morning. Nicky will remember to if Joe forgets, he knows. Nicky is already back in bed when Joe returns. His partner looks up at the ceiling. Nicky still looks concerned, his eyes still pensive, his brow still furrowed.

Joe climbs into bed and under the covers. He turns onto his left side and curls into Nicky’s right side, wrapping his right arm across Nicky’s stomach. Nicky relaxes underneath him. Nicky snakes his right arm underneath Joe’s shoulders, then draws Joe even closer.

“What are you thinking about?” Joe mumbles into Nicky’s chest. He was ready to fall asleep hours ago. He really should get it out of Nicky now, though, before anything in Nicky’s head or in the world outside changes or gets worse.

“Andy,” Nicky replies after a moment.

“Oh, this should be interesting,” Joe mutters.

“And you.” Joe feels Nicky turn his head to tuck his face into Joe’s hair. “You too. I’m just remembering what it was like when we lost Quynh, when Andy and I were looking for her.”

“Oh,” Joe says. Joe remembers too. He wasn’t there, but Nicky has mentioned it a lot over the years. Andy never speaks about it, but Joe knows some of what she said. Andy asked Nicky what he would do he was in her position, if Joe was in Quynh’s position.

Joe’s eyes suddenly sting. It hurts a little that any small part of Nicky would think Joe could turn as far into darkness as it seems Quynh did. Joe’s moods may change, but his values don’t. Time hasn’t changed what Joe finds important. And of course Nicky would be thinking about the absolute worst-case scenario after what they went through a few hours ago. It makes sense. Joe understands. It still hurts, though.

“I never thought about what would happen now, in what would be the future,” Nicky continues. “But this is… I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to know,” Joe tells him.

 “I know,” Nicky whispers against the top of Joe’s head. “But it’s us. I can’t not know.”

Joe feels like falling apart. He feels like falling asleep. He knows he would never do the things Quynh did tonight, but what if? Joe knows Nicky would never turn that way either, but what if? There are too many questions to consider, and Joe can’t even be happy one of his oldest friends is back, is still alive after all these years. He doesn’t know why Quynh is doing what she is doing now. He doesn’t know what changed. He doesn’t know why he asked Nicky to marry him when Joe doubts himself and his motives so much. He doesn’t know why Nicky said ‘yes’ when apparently Nicky is doubting Joe to some degree as well.

However much Joe feels hurt that Nicky doesn’t trust him, though, a voice in Joe’s head reminds him that things could be worse. He thinks about Quynh’s cold, emotionless eyes. He thinks about Andy frozen to the spot, even with Quynh’s gun trained on her. It could be so much worse.

A few tears fall from Joe’s eyes onto Nicky’s chest. Nicky says nothing, but Joe knows his partner must have felt it. It doesn’t matter. Both of them have exhausted their words for the day. Nothing else can be said. Not here. Not right now.

Joe closes his eyes and feels immediate relief. He feels like a weight has been lifted, his world narrowing to blackness and the rhythm of Nicky’s chest rising and falling. Joe falls asleep listening to the beat of Nicky’s heart, eternal and steady as it has always been.

*****

“I really liked that shirt,” Joe complains as he approaches Andy, giving her time to react to his presence.

“Shouldn’t have worn it on a mission, then,” Andy replies, her voice too flat for it to be truly teasing.

After sleeping through the first morning and afternoon, Joe, Nicky, and Nile had woken up to eat around 6:00 at night. There had been no sign of Andy then, but the door to her bedroom was still shut. The next morning, the three of them found a note in the kitchen from Andy saying she had gone for a walk. After some debate, Joe sent Nicky and Nile out to get supplies for the next stop. Joe had then chosen a direction and started walking.

He hadn’t seen any footprints on the beach behind Rob and Gary’s house, so Joe assumed Andy took the paved road out front. Joe hadn’t timed how long it took him to find her, Andy’s dark hair and clothes a stark contrast to the blue skies around her. It had been quite a hike, though, uphill along the twisting coastline. The bag Joe had slung across his back only made the trek more strenuous.

Laundry detergent has come a long way since the Late Middle Ages. It’s easier than ever to get bodily fluids out of cloth, to keep clothes looking and feeling like new. Unfortunately, forensic science has evolved just as proficiently. Time giveth and time taketh away. Joe and the other immortals can’t risk keeping anything too heavily-stained around, lest it get stolen or left behind for somebody other than James Copley to piece together its owner’s history. Allah alone knows where exactly Joe has left blood trailed behind him around the world.

While Joe is tasked with getting rid of this round of evidence, Nicky and Nile are out thrifting for replacement clothes. Joe is disappointed to be missing out – Nicky and Nile love each other, but there is sure to be a battle of wills in that Goodwill. Selfishly, Joe hopes Nile can convince the light of his life to buy some nicer clothes. Something from this decade, maybe. Something more form-fitting wouldn’t kill Nicky. Not permanently, at least.

Joe still has his standard snapback and sunglasses on. He also comes bearing a duffel bag containing everything the four of them wore the other night along with six bricks, a gift for the sea. Joe sends a silent apology out toward the universe and the environment before throwing the bag down into the water. The oldest methods for hiding evidence still work best for a reason.

Joe feels it when Andy finally looks over at him. He feels her eyes on him even before she lets out a snort of laughter.

“You haven’t died wearing it enough times to let go of the hat, though?” she asks

Joe grins at her, grateful that he hadn’t been wearing it on their last job. “Not until I get blood on it.”

Andy shakes her head, then looks back out at the water. The waves are big and choppy today, creating large sprays of foam as they crash down into one another.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Joe says after a minute.

“With me or with her?” Andy asks him.

Joe shrugs. “Whichever is easiest.”

“She’s got Booker,” Andy says without preamble.

Joe shuts his eyes. Khara. Nile was right. He has no idea how he’s going to break that to her.

“Quynh said I’d abandoned him,” Andy continues when Joe opens his eyes. “The way I’d abandoned her.”

“You didn’t,” Joe says reflexively.

“You weren’t there,” Andy rebuts.

“I know,” Joe replies. “But I know what Nicolò told me, and I believe him. You didn’t. You tried, both of you.”

Andy shakes her head, still looking out at the sea. “Not hard enough. Not for long enough.” She shuts her eyes. “Quynh and I walked the world together for almost two millennia. I loved her. I should have tried harder.”

“How?” Joe asks her. “What else could you have possibly done, Andromache?”

“What would you, have done, Yusuf?” Andy counters. “If it was Nicolò we lost? How far would you have gone to save him? How long would you have looked for if it was him?”

Joe hesitates. Joe doesn’t know what his answer is, because he didn’t always love Nicky, did he? Sometimes Joe thinks he absolutely would have hunted the other man down and locked him up forever and never felt any remorse for it. Joe adores Nicky now. Joe loves Nicky to the ends of the earth and back. He would do anything for Nicky now. But that hasn’t always been the case.

That might not always be the case, either. During the years they spent dancing around one another, Nicky kept to himself because he feared Joe would tire of his company and leave him. Joe gets the feeling Joe has been all in all the time. That had been shocking. That had been daunting. Joe had been hot and cold, loving and loathing him. What if Nicky had been right, Joe wonders. Joe adores Nicky now, but what if something changes between them? What if Joe’s fickle feelings and fleeting passions someday leave him and leave the man Joe has loved for centuries out in the cold?

“Andy,” Joe starts. “I don’t know if I…”

“You did,” Andy interjects. “I saw it. We all saw it. Even when you and Nicky were too stubborn to realize it yourselves.”

Joe blows out a breath. He ducks his head to look at the waves directly below them. “Thank you,” he tells her. It’s nice that Andy trusts Joe, but he still isn’t sure that he trusts himself that much.

“I need to talk to her again,” Andy says. “I need to know more about who she is and what she’s doing now before we decide what to do about anything.”

“Great,” Joe replies. “How are we going to find her?”

“We aren’t,” Andy tells him. “We have to wait for her to find us.”

Joe huffs. Of course now is the time Andy chooses not to go at the problem hard and fast. “And is there anything in particular you want us to be doing when she finds us?” he asks.

“Not especially,” Andy replies. She finally moves, turning toward Joe. She walks past him, swinging a leg over the chain of the barrier before starting back toward the parking lot. “You got a hot date planned with Nicky tonight or something?”

“‘Planned’ is a strong word,” Joe says as he trails after her. “But yes. I did want to take him out tonight.”

“What, you can’t go one night without the wine and roses?” Andy jokes, and Joe can tell from the tone of her voice that she feels better this time.

“I got my head blown in last night,” Joe points out as he catches up and falls into step with her. “I think I’m due for some slightly less dangerous evening plans with my fiancé. Besides, I have nearly a millennium of romance to catch up on. It’s a miracle he’s agreed to marry me now considering how I’ve treated him in the past.”

“Stop that,” Andy says. “You were young and stupid. Both of you were stupid,” she adds before Joe can cut in with a rejoinder. “You can only do as well as you know how to at any given time.”

“That’s very wise of you,” Joe says. “Although I can’t say that it’s fair. Everyone is young and stupid to you.”

“Speaking of ‘young and stupid,’” Andy counters. “I think Nile has a drop tonight with that fed she thinks we don’t know she’s been flirting with.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Joe asks. Andy has made her distrust of Agent Mustafa known several times over, but Joe likes him. Joe likes how happy he makes Nile. Their little cat-and-mouse game is cute, and Nile always returns to them with flushed cheeks and a grin she can’t get rid of for hours.

“You think maybe I can get Copley to come out here and play cards with me at the motel?” Andy says.

“That might not be your worst idea,” Joe replies. They haven’t seen Copley in person since they arrived out west. Joe thinks the other man is in the area, but he isn’t sure. The four of them have filled Copley in on Quynh and the false flag operation. Joe wonders what kind of information Copley has unearthed about her, what blanks he could fill in for their team with his connections.

“I’ll see if I can’t do something to make it happen, then,” Andy decides. “What time are you going out?”

“Seven?” Joe replies. “Nothing is set in stone.”

“Great,” says Andy. “Your marching orders are to have a good time, then, and don’t let Nicky put a dent in the door frame with your big head when you come ‘home’.”

It takes Joe a second to remember what Andy is talking about; when he does, he laughs out loud. Joe and Nicky have been taking turns carrying each other over the threshold every time they enter a new safe house. The last time it was Joe’s turn to be carried, Nicky misjudged the width of the door and cracked Joe’s head on the frame. It’s hard to believe that was only one week ago.

“Worth it,” Joe tells her. “Did you know that your right eye twitches when you’re annoyed with us? It’s your left eye when it’s just Nile challenging your authority, but when it’s Nicky and I fooling around, it changes sides. It’s interesting.”

“I take it back,” Andy says. “I liked the two of you better back when you were too busy fucking each other to be a nuisance. Now you’ve combined your forces for evil. Break up.”

“Nope,” says Joe. “What kind of ring do you think Nicky will want? Something with gems or no?”

Joe knows it’s a silly question as soon as he asks it. Apart from Joe’s own art, Nicky has never shown much interest in decorations or adornments. Maybe it’s lingering Catholic self-denial. Maybe Nicky feels guilty or like he doesn’t deserve nice things.

Apart from his feelings for Joe, though, Nicky has always been rather straightforward. He seems to be exactly who he is, and who he is is somewhat reserved. Joe feels certain a plain band would suit Nicky’s taste best.

Andy groans and leans against Joe’s right side. “Put me out of my misery.”

Joe has a joke ready before the truth spears through him. He stops smiling.

“Bit more of a permanent solution for your problems than it used to be,” he tells Andy quietly instead.

Andy inhales then sighs deeply. “I have no choice but to endure it, then,” she says. She bumps her left elbow into Joe’s right forearm; when Joe looks over at Andy, a small smile is gracing her lips.

Joe knocks her arm with his right elbow in return. “Good,” he says. “You have a lot of practice at that.”

“Years and years and years,” Andy replies. “Just don’t make me go ring shopping with you. I think I can live without that experience.”

*****

“You have to understand, habibi,” Joe begins outside the restaurant. “For centuries I have lived a life of subterfuge. I have taken on many aliases, running from shadow to shadow to stay out of sight. I have taken great pains to be untraceable, and that includes letting as few people as possible know my true name. That information can be dangerous in the wrong hands. It isn’t safe to wield freely in our line of work.”

“This is you telling me you didn’t make a reservation, isn’t it?” Nicky asks.

“I did not,” Joe replies.

Joe scoped this restaurant out months ago, when Andy first mentioned a trafficking case that could take them to L.A. “More More Mrouzia” is not the most elegant name, Joe thinks, but there had been a whole page on their website about the family who ran it, how they had immigrated there from Morocco, and Joe wanted to know. Joe wanted see what their food was like and to see how much it reminded him of home. It’s something Joe likes to do sometimes, whenever he finds places touting ‘authentic’ North African cuisine. Nicky is always game for it, too. Nicky will complain all day and night if they’re eating Western-style Italian food, but he’s less discerning when it comes to other cultures’ cuisines.

Joe is pretty sure he has more criticisms than Nicky so far tonight. Nicky’s company is not one of his complaints. The two of them chat at the bar while waiting for a table to open up. Even something as mundane as that is fun with Nicky by his side, Joe thinks. There is nobody else Joe would rather be shooting the breeze with.

Something is off with the boukha they’ve been drinking, though. Joe doesn’t drink alcohol much, and whatever gifted him his immortality also tends to sober him up faster than average when he does. However, Joe has done four shots, and he doesn’t even feel a buzz.

“Does this taste weak, or is it just me?” Joe asks as Nicky sets his now-empty glass on the bar.

“This is weak,” Nicky says without hesitation.

Joe beams back at him. Joe loves Nicky. Joe loves Nicky so much, it seems impossible. It seems bigger than them both, like Joe chest can’t contain the swell of affection he feels in that moment.

Nicky smiles back at him, looking confused but amused. “What? What is it?”

“Nothing,” Joe tells him. “I love you.”

Nicky’s smile widens. “I love… ”

Nicky’s expression changes as quick as the crack of a whip. Joe sees as his eyes catch something behind Joe. His beautiful blue-green gaze turns flinty. The smile falls from his lips. His shoulders stiffen like steel.

At the same time, Joe can feel a presence, somebody coming to stand behind him. Joe isn’t fond of having a stranger at his back, but he doesn’t turn to look yet. He knows if he was truly in danger, Nicky would have acted by now. Nicky has him covered.

“James,” Nicky addresses the person behind Joe.

Joe straightens up and turns around. Sure enough, James Copley is standing there. He looks serious, like this is business as usual and not a friendly check-in.

“Joe,” Copley says. “Nicky. May speak with the two of you in private for a moment?”

“Can it wait?” Joe asks with a sinking feeling.

Copley shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. I am sorry. I tried finding Andy first, but she wasn’t at the motel, and she isn’t answering my calls and texts.”

Joe turns to Nicky to see his partner frowning at him.

“Maybe Quynh found her?” Nicky asks.

“Oh, that isn’t good,” says Copley.

“Why not?” Joe asks, turning to look at him again. He might be impervious to most injuries, but he’s going to get whiplash going on like this. “What did you find?”

Copley shakes his head. “Too much. More than I expected, certainly.”

He pulls out the barstool to Joe’s right. Joe scoots his own seat back to make a sort of triangle, giving Nicky and Copley sight of one another.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Nicky asks Copley as he sits.

Copley thinks about it. “Water, I suppose?” he ventures.

“Three waters, please,” Nicky says to the bartender who had been approaching their trio. Turning back to Joe and Copley, he adds, “Andromache wanted Quynh to find her.”

“That was before we learned what your old friend has been up to since her reappearance,” Copley says, pulling a tablet out of his inner jacket pocket. The marvels of modern technology, Joe muses.

Copley taps on the screen for a second. Then he sets the tablet on the bar in front of Joe. With his right hand, Joe carefully moves the tablet closer, tilting it a bit to his left so Nicky can see better.

The first thing Joe notices on the screen is a grainy, black-and-white photo, the kind that was captured with a security camera. It’s Quynh, without a doubt. Her dark eyes look even colder and darker with this resolution. Underneath her picture, Joe sees a document he assumes he and Nicky were not meant to see. He can’t focus on the words, but the page underneath the text is watermarked in a way he knows means it’s classified.

“How long has she been back?” Nicky asks.

Copley shakes his head. “That, I couldn’t tell you. It took me many days and hours to figure out what was her. She doesn’t have a signature, a trademark that she leaves or a souvenir that she takes. She’s business. She moves fast and silent. And deadly.”

“Pit viper,” Nicky notes under his breath. Joe chuckles in spite of himself. He throws a small smile Nicky’s way before returning his attention to Copley.

“Anyway, once you know what to look for, it… Well, it doesn’t ever become easy, but it becomes easier,” Copley continues. "The more that I looked, the more there was to find. Many threads that were connected began to unravel.”

He looks at the screen, tapping his right index finger on the bar in silence for a moment. A slight frown flickers across his face, but it’s gone before Joe can ask what has the agent worried.

“She isn’t like you anymore,” Copley says eventually.

“What does that mean?” Joe asks.

Copley shakes his head again, but Joe can tell this time it has less to do with him not knowing and more to do with Copley not enjoying the answer.

“Simply put,” Copley starts. “You help people. She hurts them. I was able to tie Quynh’s activities to criminal organizations around the globe. She’s in drugs, weapons, trafficking...”

“That explains how she found us,” Nicky says.

Joe nods in agreement. “We do tend to get in the way of that.”

“And I think she intends to prevent you from doing that,” Copley says. He waits until both Joe and Nicky are looking at him before he explains. “She has Booker.”

“That’s what Andy said, too,” Joe tells him.

“What do you mean ‘That’s what Andy said, too’?” Nicky asks Joe. His tone of voice doesn’t change, but Joe can feel the temperature in the room drop by a few degrees.

“I know where,” Copley adds.

“Show us,” Joe tells him, hoping to get away from his lie by omission as quickly as possible.

“That’s going to be a bit difficult,” Copley says. He takes the tablet from Joe and clicks around on it. Joe sees him open a new app, and a map of Greece appears on the screen. Copley uses two fingers to zoom in on a specific location before setting the tablet on the bar in front of Joe.

Nicky cocks his head to look at the screen. “Why?”

“It’s somewhere in here,” Copley continues. He draws a line back-and-forth above the surface of the tablet so as not to move the image on the screen. “Somewhere. I have it narrowed down to this strip of coast, but I don’t know where for certain yet. There is criminal activity in this area with Quynh’s fingerprints on it, and suspicious harbor activity that makes me think a boat is involved on a regular basis.”

Nicky sighs deeply. “We were just in the Mediterranean. She sent us to the States because we were too close to finding him.”

“Or finding something else,” Joe muses. Turning to Copley, he asks, “Did you find out what type of business she was doing there?”

“Drug running,” Copley replies. “Nothing legal, obviously, but not the worst activity I have found. I wouldn’t think it was serious enough that her entire empire would fall if you ran into it and stopped those trades. Booker aside, I don’t know why she would send you all the way to North America.

“She did say she wanted a dramatic entrance,” Joe points out.

“She probably wanted the advantage,” Nicky deduces. “She wanted to attack us from the head on, catch all of us off balance.”

Joe’s head spins. All this back-and-forth, this cat-and-mouse game hardly matters when they have a snake ready to strike those same mice from a different angle. Joe wonders if he knows where everyone stands now, if they really are the prey or if a predator lurks among them.

He turns to look at Copley.

“How do we know you’re telling us the truth?” Joe asks. “You helped trap us once before. How do Nicky and I know you’re not doing it again? You may be pulling the strings right in front of us this time, spinning lies about Quynh to shepherd us into a different cage.”

“I wouldn’t,” Copley vows, his dark eyes turning somber. “You have to believe me, Yusuf, after all the work we have done together over this past year.”

Joe takes a drink and says nothing in response. As the silence grows, Copley’s brow knits together in frustration. Copley turns his gaze on Nicky. From the corner of his eye, Joe sees his partner staring back at the agent, stony-faced and silent. It’s a little bit silly, but Joe feels a swell of pride at having Nicky on his side.

“Gentlemen?”

Joe, Nicky, and Copley turn to see a confused-looking maître d' standing between them and the rest of the restaurant.

“Your table is ready,” the fourth man says. He glances at Copley, his brow furrowing even further. “Your table for two.”

Joe sighs. “For the next happy couple, I’m afraid,” he tells the server. Joe stands, and on either side of him, Nicky and Copley follow suit.

Joe turns to lock eyes with Copley. After a tense moment, Joe nods his head at the other man.

“We’re following you,” Joe tells him. Copley nods in acknowledgment.

As Copley leads the way out, Joe starts to follow him. Joe doesn’t feel Nicky following them, however. Joe stops and turns to see his partner a few feet back, searching his pockets for something. Before Joe can ask, Nicky produces a few American bills. Joe can’t tell what denomination they are, but he doubts it’s pocket change.

“For the next couple as well,” Nicky tells the maître d' as he hands the money over. Joe loves him so much.

Nicky finally makes to leave, walking to where Joe is waiting for him. Joe reaches back with his right hand, and Nicky takes it with his left. They fall into step side-by-side as they head out, their joined hands swinging between them.

The three men are in the parking lot nearing Joe and Nicky’s van when Nicky’s cell phone rings. As Joe and Copley watch him, Nicky takes his phone out and frowns down at the screen. He swipes to answer it.

“Where are you?” Nicky asks without introduction. After a moment’s pause he tells whoever is on the other end, “Stay there. We’re coming to get you.”

“Nile?” Joe asks as Nicky presses the button to hang up.

“Andy,” Nicky replies, his mouth a grim line.

“Where is she?” Copley asks.

“Out for a walk, apparently,” Nicky answers as the three of them resume walking.

“Alone?” says Joe, already guessing the answer.

“I suppose that is what we’re going to find out,” Nicky tells him.

Joe doesn’t know where they’re going, but it feels like it takes forever to find Andy. Everything is spread so far apart in L.A., and where there isn’t traffic, there are drivers ignoring stop signs and lights and pedestrians. The three men drive in silence. Joe notices Copley holds tight to the handle of his door for the whole ride, right up until Nicky pulls up in front of the bench Andy is waiting on. Joe thinks this might be Venice Beach, but Andy isn’t directly on the boardwalk; nobody else is loitering near her.

“You fit right in here,” Copley quips as he exits the van. Nicky doesn’t laugh, and Joe feels offended on his partner’s behalf.

Andy doesn’t look over as the three men approach her. She stares at the sea. She looks five seconds away from throwing up.

Before Joe, Nicky, or Copley can speak, Andy opens her mouth.

“That isn’t Quynh.”

Joe turns to look at Nicky. He finds Nicky already looking at him, and the two of them share a worried glance.

Nicky turns his attention back to Andy. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“That isn’t her,” Andy repeats. She isn’t looking at any of them, her gaze fixed somewhere past the three men.

“The woman that I loved is gone. Whoever this is here and now?” She shakes her head, then looks at Copley. “That is not her, and we need to stop her.”

“Andy,” Joe says, his heart breaking for the hundredth time for everything the four of them used to be. He reaches for her, but Andy ignores him. She storms past him and past Nicky around the front of the van, then gets in the front passenger’s side. Joe and Nicky share another concerned look before Nicky returns to the driver’s seat. Copley glances at Joe before walking around the van as well. He gets in the rear passenger’s side as Joe gets in behind Nicky, and Nicky gets the four of them back on the street.

“Where are we heading?” Joe asks Nicky.

“Back to the restaurant, I think,” Nicky replies. “Didn’t you leave your car there, James?”

“I did,” Copley replies before turning his attention on Andy. “I need you to tell us exactly what Quynh said. What did she tell you about her life now? Is there anything we can use to stop her from doing… anything? Any of the things she is doing?”

“She said that humans are vermin, which makes us immortals exterminators,” Andy says without preamble.

Joe feels his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “And what does she think we’re going to do with the world when we have it to ourselves?” he wonders.

“I don’t know,” Andy snaps back. “I wasn’t really in the mood to humor her.”

“Did you try telling her it doesn’t need to be that way?” Copley asks. “Not that I don’t have a bias considering I would be one of said ‘vermin,’ but I know those are not your beliefs, Andy.”

“She said we didn’t have a choice in the matter,” Andy continues. “She said if I denied it, I would suffer the way she did.”

“I am guessing you did not ask about her business here, what she wants with us in L.A. for.,” Nicky says.

Andy sighs.

“She wanted us out of her way, I know that much,” Andy replies. “She obviously has something much bigger going on over there in Europe, or North Africa, maybe.”

“Try Greece,” Joe offers.

Andy turns to look over her left shoulder at him and Copley. “What makes you say that?”

“I found out where Booker is,” Copley tells her.

Andy’s gaze grows distant. Her face grows pinched. She looks uneasy, and probably not only because of Nicky’s driving.

“Quynh said she wanted us here because she has a lot of people working for her in L.A.,” Andy starts slowly. Her gaze drifts toward Copley. “She said she has agents at every level of every organization in her pocket.”

Joe doesn’t think, he just does. Joe lashes out to close the already-short distance between himself and James Copley. He grabs a fistful of Copley’s jacket with his right hand.

From the corner of his left eye, Joe sees a flash of movement. Something solid strikes back and out. It hits between him and Copley. A pale hand gets in between their bodies, followed by an arm. An elbow jabs itself into Joe’s chest; Joe is shoved back, letting go of Copley and hitting his door with a thump.

The arm stays stretched out into the backseat, in between them, warning them to stay apart. It’s Nicolò’s right arm, Joe realizes, the traitorous bastard.

Andy starts what Joe couldn’t finish. Despite Nicky’s shout of protest, Andy twists in her seat to grab a fistful of Copley’s jacket with her right hand. She pulls him closer, bringing them face to face.

“Tell us the truth, James,” Andy demands. “Now.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Copley asks. “I work for no one! I am loyal to you and you alone. You must know that, Andy. It’s been almost a year.”

“A year is nothing to us!” Andy snarls.

“Both of you stop it!” Nicky interjects, his arm still blocking Joe from crossing the backseat.

Joe watches as Copley’s expression hardens.

“Kill me then,” Copley says. He says it sadly, like it’s something they might do. He says it calmly, like it’s something he has accepted they might do. “If nothing I say or do can convince you to trust me, the what use am I to you? What point is there in my help if my sins are too great to atone for? Why are you waiting to cast me out, Andromache, when you have already passed my judgement?”

Andy’s face falls. She releases Copley’s jacket. Copley slumps back into his seat. Andy says a word in a language Joe doesn’t recognize, and then she turns to face forward again. Nicky retracts his right arm, returning both hands to the steering wheel.

Andy looks out the front windshield in silence for a long time. The patterns of light shift and change around them as the four of them find their way around the city.

Finally, she says, “I’m acting just like her. Playing god.”

“Playing at god,” Joe repeats, “but you aren’t one, and neither is Quynh.”

“Joe is right,” says Nicky. “She can’t be that indomitable.”

“No, but we need all the help we can get,” Andy says. “James, I hope you can forgive me.”

“Consider it done,” Copley replies. He avoids Joe’s glare, staring at the back of the seat in front of him instead.

“There has to be something we can do,” Andy continues, starting to strategize out loud. “But how? There are only five of us, and only three of you are immortal now. Six and four if we can rescue Book, but even then…”

Joe sighs. He leans over and puts his left temple against the window. This is stupid. They are all so stupid, every last one of them. Cat-and-mouse is a child’s game, and yet they still never manage to escape the maze.

The vibrations from the car into the glass have something rattling loose in Joe’s head. A chase, Joe thinks. An agent, Joe thinks, but not Copley. The way children play, and the members of their party they can’t account for right now.

Joe sits up straight.

“So, Quynh left you alone,” Joe starts. “She left you.”

“Yes, Yusuf,” Andy snaps. “You can’t be that dense after all this time.”

“Do we know where Nile is?” Joe asks the group.

Silence reigns in the van.

“Shit,” says Andy finally. Nicky speeds up as much as he can, given the city traffic limits.

“Two and two,” Copley says, pointing up to the front passenger’s seat. “Andy, you come with me. We’ll start at the Field Office on Wilshire and then circle out and check all the bars in the area. Joe and Nicky, head back to the motel and see if she’s there.”

“Can you trace her phone?” Nicky asks.

Copley shakes his head. “I disabled any GPS I could and added in junk data to throw off what I couldn’t. It’s not worth it, anyone being able to track any of you more regularly.”

“Sure would be useful now,” Andy grumbles under her breath. If Copley hears her slight, he does not acknowledge it.

Nicky pulls over to a stop across the street from More More Mrouzia. The other three occupants get out of the car, Andy and Copley to head in their own direction and Joe to take the now-empty passenger’s seat.

Nicky rolls his window down in time for him and Joe to hear Andy ask Copley, “So what were you doing with Joe and Nicky on their date night, anyway? Are they auditioning for a third already?”

“In your dreams,” Nicky yells out the window. The smile Andy throws back at him and Joe sends Joe reeling back through the past nine hundred years of his life. Everything is terrible and urgent and awful right now, but fuck is he going to miss this when it’s – when she’s – gone.

Joe waits until they’re back on Sepulveda Boulevard, once he’s sure Andy and Copley are in their rearview mirror, before he turns on his partner.

“What was that?” Joe snaps.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Nicky says, not taking his eyes off the road.

Joe scoffs. “Like it makes a difference.”

“No,” Nicky concedes, “but I don’t want us to get pulled over.”

Joe huffs, irritated that Nicky wasn’t more concerned with his safety, but he reaches up and pulls on his seatbelt anyway.

“What did you think you were doing back there?” Joe asks, trying to get back on track. “Do you really think I would do anything to hurt Copley?”

“I thought you were Copley,” Nicky counters. “I thought I was stopping him taking a swing at you.”

“Oh, so you think I need protecting from Copley?” Joe says. “I have had my own back for centuries. I know how to handle myself in a fight.”

“I know that too,” Nicky snaps. “Why are you angry about this?”

“I don’t want… I don’t like you thinking that I’m weak,” Joe tells Nicky, his voice sounding petulant to his own ears.

“I don’t think you’re weak,” Nicky snaps. “I don’t like watching you get hurt! What is so hard about this to understand?”

Joe could hit back below the belt. He could say it’s because out of all his time on Earth, Nicky is the person who has hurt him the most. Physically or emotionally, it is no contest. Nicky is the winner several centuries over. Joe could call him a hypocrite. Joe could call Nicky’s current feelings into question. He knows Nicky loves him and it’s only his bruised and confused ego wanting to push Nicky down, but the thought is still there.

Joe deflates instead, sliding down in his seat. He tips his head back.

“It isn’t something we used to talk about,” Joe begins. “I don’t know how long you have felt this way, but the past has been one or both of us rushing into danger and not caring about the consequences. That’s what I do. I don’t know how to be somebody in need of protection. That isn’t in my nature by now.”

“And you think I do need protecting?” Nicky fires back. “You said in the restaurant that Andy said Quynh had Booker. You knew, so why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” Joe replies. It’s only half of the truth. The other half is that Joe had forgotten they need to be equals now. Joe loves and trusts Nicky, but for nearly a millennium, Joe had to guard his own interests. Joe took in the information he needed and used it for himself. Joe forgot for a minute that he and Nicky are a team now. Nicky needs to know these things as well so they can stay in step.

“Then,” Nicky corrects. “You didn’t want me to worry then. Because I am definitely worried now.”

“Maybe I didn’t know if it was worth it,” Joe admits. “Going out of our way to save Book. I love Booker. You love Booker. And I miss him. He is our friend. But it’s a lot of effort for all of us, especially for you and I, after everything he had Merrick put us through.”

“Oh, you and I owe him the least, is it?” Nicky spits.

Joe pauses. He takes a second to take in Nicky’s expression, the tension in his face and shoulders and upper arms.

“Yes?” Joe replies. “It’s Booker’s fault you and I were captured and tortured by those scientists. Are you forgetting that?”

“No,” says Nicky.

“Then what are you saying?” Joe asks him.

Joe can see a tendon in the right side of Nicky’s jaw twitch.

“Forget it,” Nicky says after an agonizing minute. “Forget it, it’s nothing.”

“No, what is it?” Joe presses. “Say what it is you have to say, Nicolò.”

Nicky’s lips thin. He keeps staring straight ahead, not giving Joe so much as a glance. Joe can wait for Nicky to say what he means, though. Joe will wait for him. He wants to know what it is that has his partner this upset.

“You and I wouldn’t be together now if not for the torture,” Nicky says. “If not for Booker.”

Joe stares at Nicky’s profile, at the ever-changing lights and shadows cascading over him.

“Oh,” Joe says after a minute. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“I know it’s silly,” Nicky adds. “It wasn’t pleasant. And I don’t believe it’s really what you mean. But when you talk of how things were for us then, in the lab, it makes me wonder if… if you could do it all over again, you wouldn’t…”

“If I could do it all over again,” Joe interjects. “I would like to have chosen you in a better place, in a better time. I regret not choosing you sooner.”

“I know,” says Nicky. “That didn’t happen, though.”

Joe stares at Nicky; his chest hurts.

That’s the thing about living through nine hundred years of history — Joe knows he can’t go back. What has happened is in the past, irrevocable. Joe is acutely aware of that fact. Joe has to accept his losses and atone for his actions and keep marching forward like anybody else on this earth. He wishes things were different, but they weren’t. Now he and Nicky have to deal with that.

“Nicky, I am sorry that I would make you doubt what we have,” Joe starts. “I love you. And I know how we started was not the best way we could have come to be in this relationship. And I know you have some fears now about how I could change on you in the future. But I – ”

“Fear about how you might change?” Nicky parrots, sounding genuinely confused. “When did I say I was afraid of you?”

“You haven’t had to,” Joe replies. “I know you. I know your silences, what you say in place of other things.” He sighs. “The other morning when we were in bed talking about when Quynh was… when Quynh went missing. You said you were thinking about what happened back then. And I remember one of the things you said last year, about how Andy asked if it had been me in Quynh’s place. I know you have this fear now that I might turn out the way she did, and maybe I would, but I know you would stop me, Nicolò. What I would be doing in the world, it wouldn’t be right.”

“What?” Nicky’s frown deepens. He steals a glance at Joe, taking his eyes off the road for a second. “I wasn’t thinking you could end up like Quynh. I was worrying about myself.”

“What?” Joe’s head spins, even though he hasn’t moved. He wants to reach over and take the wheel, to pull them over to a stop. “Nicky, you’re incredible. You… You’re kind and generous and — ”

“Now,” Nicky interrupts. It’s one word, but there isn’t any emotion in it; the skin on the back of Joe’s neck prickles.

“I am now, Joe,” Nicky continues firmly. “But you and I both know what I am capable of doing in the name of a higher power, when I’m thinking what I believe is right and truer than another people’s beliefs. How many times did I kill you for that, Yusuf?”

Joe opens his mouth to respond, then realizes he doesn’t know how.

“I don’t know,” Joe answers after an uncomfortable silence.

“How did you forgive me for it?” Nicky asks.

“I don’t know,” Joe replies. “But I did. I do, whether you believe you deserve it or not.”

“I invaded your homeland, and I murdered you,” Nicky says.

“I killed you too,” Joe reminds him.

“You would not have had to had I not started it,” Nicky counters.

Joe turns a stunned look on his partner. “You were one of the envoys who asked Pope Urban for aid with their ‘invaders’ at the Council of Piacenza?”

Nicky sighs in frustration. “Joe.”

“Nicky,” Joe retorts.

They lapse into silence, idling at an intersection with a red light. Joe rubs his left thumbnail with the pad of his right thumb as he ponders a new angle of attack, choosing his next words with the utmost of care.

“How many languages do you think you’ve learned in your lifetime?” Joe asks.

Nicky eyes Joe without fully taking his eyes off the road. “I lost count,” he replies.

“And how many countries would you say you lived in?” Joe continues. “How many visas have you held?”

“Legally?” Nicky jokes back.

Joe tilts his head and graces his fiancé with a soft smile. “How much of the world have you seen since then, Nicolò of Genova?”

The slightest of smiles graces Nicky’s lips in response. “What are you getting at, Yusuf?”

“I’m saying, you had a very limited view of the world back then,” Joe explains gently. “We both did. I’m saying I think you’ve changed for the better. You’ve seen too much to go back to that version of yourself.”

The smile fades. Nicky shakes his head. “You know that isn’t true. You remember when you asked me about 1975? Why James had those articles on his board for me?”

Joe remembers, the tension of terror emanating from the back of Joe’s head like a crack splintering outward in ice. Nicky was here in 1975, or three hundred eighty-two miles north of here, anyway.

The evidence board Copley made for Nicky contained several newspaper clippings from San Francisco in the 1970s. Strung together, they told a sordid tale. Five men found murdered in the Golden Gate Park area, numerous more assaulted in the Castro district, all of them white and all of them homosexual.

That particular story seemed to end June 30, 1975, when somebody named John Holland Phelps was found dead in the same park. He was found with – ostensibly – a suicide note confessing to the murders and expressing remorse. It was a strange move, but the letter matched Phelps’ handwriting. A police search of his apartment later uncovered drawings of all five murder victims and a knife that matched stab wounds on all five of them as well.

In July and August of ’75, four police officers went missing. Nobody writing those articles seemed to connect the dots, but Copley did. Copley had done enough research to find all four of them had received different tips about Phelps, different reports from the community about Phelps assaulting them, and had chosen not to follow through on any of those leads.

The community had then found Nicky, and Nicky found Phelps. It hadn’t been hard – everybody running in that scene knew what was happening. Phelps was an artist. He would pick a table, pick a guy to sketch, then use his drawing as his pickup line. Nicky went to the Cinch Saloon one night, got himself picked up, and Phelps never hurt anybody ever again.

It wasn’t the first time Nicky had done that, he told Joe, and it wasn’t the last time either. Not by a long shot.

Joe didn’t really care about Phelps. That he understood. Joe has killed his fair share of rapists and predators. Joe understood Nicky’s anger with the people who didn’t care to help the people like him and like Joe. He didn’t like that Nicky would go to the lengths of tracking people down and killing them much later for that justice, though.

(“And where do we draw the line, Nicky?” Joe had asked him. “How big is the circle? Do you blame the people who saw them leave the bar together and didn’t stop them? Why not go after the people who heard the victims calling for help and kept walking, or the people who might have encouraged Phelps to hate in the way that he did?”

(“Because I don’t have enough information to find those people,” Nicky had replied like that was the problem.)

In the here and now, Joe sighs. “Do we need to talk about it again?” he asks. The conversation had been rough, and they still hadn’t seen eye-to-eye at the end of it. Joe hesitates to call it an argument, though. They were still in the honeymoon phase and had agreed to disagree on it. It wasn’t something Joe found unforgivable. Now might not be a good time to reignite that debate, but Joe thinks he can at least hear Nicky out. Nicky seems to be seeing the situation from a different angle now, and Joe can grant him some grace.

“I was convinced that I was right,” Nicky says. “I thought if I could get rid of as many people who were doing evil or allowing evil to happen, I could change things for the better. I could make a difference that way. And then Andromache says Quynh sees us as exterminators. That she believes we need to wipe out everyone no matter how big or small or slight their sins are. They’re all equal in her eyes, every one of them, and I… “

Nicky releases a shaky breath. When Joe tears his eyes away from Nicky’s face, he sees his partner has a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

“You were right,” Nicky tells him quietly. “The line needs to be drawn somewhere, and I am not the one to judge that. There has to be a better way. Better than Quynh or I see it, or else there is no stopping or turning back to the light.”

“I thank you, Nicky,” Joe tells his beloved. “For seeing my point now. But I don’t know what’s right and what is wrong either. I think there is quite a difference between killing people who prey on the weak or people who knew about it and let it happen anyway versus drug running and arms dealing and human trafficking. Quynh doesn’t care about what she unleashed on the world. It’s a directionless evil, harming people and encouraging humans to harm one another because she doesn’t think their lives matter. I think you were misguided, maybe, but you cared. You cared so deeply about those humans who lost their lives and about getting justice for them. Humanity matters too. And I know you know that. I believe you can see it.”

“Oh, now you’re on my side of this argument?” Nicky says. His delivery of it is more deadpan than frustrated, though, and Joe sees the slightest upturn of his lips and the corners of his eyes.

“Of course,” Joe replies. “When it’s you versus me, I’m on my side of this argument. When it’s you versus anybody else, though, I’m on your side of the argument. Including you versus yourself.”

Nicky cracks up, shaking his head a little as he laughs. “Oh, of course.”

“And I would say you have a better outlet for that passion now,” Joe continues.

“Our missions?” Nicky’s brow furrows. “I suppose. I do enjoy the work we do, and doing this more frequently than in the past.”

Joe tilts his head so his left temple touches his headrest and does his best to look cute. “I was talking about me,” he jokes.

Nicky doesn’t lighten up like Joe had hoped. “Quynh had Andy,” he points. “That doesn’t seem like it made much of a difference to her, not in the grand scheme of things.”

“Ah, but Andy says she sees immortality as a punishment.” Joe points out.

“I could see it that way too,” Nicky says evenly. The pit of Joe’s stomach drops.

“I don’t always see the beauty in things the way you do, Yusuf,” he continues. “I look too much at the darkness sometimes. I think I understand where Quynh might be coming from, how she would be more likely to see it as a curse.”

“Do you?” Joe asks, afraid of what Nicky’s answer might be.

“I would if I lost you,” Nicky says. “What would eternity without you be but suffering? I would be in torment if we were separated now, if I was taken from you or you from me.”

“Don’t lose me then,” Joe tells him.

Nicky slants Joe a perplexed look.

“I am not leaving you, Nicolò,” Joe promises. “Not ever. I will be here, holding you back by the hood if I really have to keep you in check. Just don’t leave me behind, either. Stay by my side, and I will stay by yours. I think that plan is pretty straightforward.”

Nicky nods slightly but says nothing. They roll to a stop at another red light. Joe takes the opportunity to duck his head, tilting it to the right to get Nicky to meet his eyes before continuing.

“Do you trust me?” he asks.

“I do,” Nicky replies instantly.

“You wouldn’t do this, even if you were the one who spent all these years drowning,” Joe tells Nicky as Nicky returns his attention to driving. “You fixate on one thing, and you stay the course. I know you thought you had a clarity of purpose, for many, many of the years I first knew you.”

Joe sees Nicky tense up. His shoulders climb the slightest bit toward his ears, but he says nothing and keeps his eyes on the road.

“I also know how hard you worked to accept that what the church taught you wasn’t law,” Joe continues. “You don’t believe in much of their doctrine anymore. You haven’t for a while now. Even if you were drowning like Quynh and thinking you achieved clarity, would that be the clarity you achieved? Why would you turn backwards? I think you would find a new answer, Nicolò. You know yourself better than that now.”

Nicky blows out a breath. “I hope you are right.”

Joe shrugs in mock modesty. “I usually am.”

Nicky removes his right hand from the steering wheel. Joe extends his left hand, allowing Nicky to grab it.

“Thank you,” Nicky says, clutching at Joe’s hand. “For staying by my side long enough to know who I am now.”

Joe squeezes his hand in return. “Of course, hayati.”

It’s hardly the first time he’s thought about it, but Joe muses on how fitting “Nicky” is as a nickname for his beloved Nicolò now. The way it ends with a long “ee” or “ii” sound, like so many other possessive Arabic words. Galbi, mazili, zawji, mine and belonging to me.

A flash of light draws Joe’s attention down to their entwined fingers. The lights of the city speeding around them are dancing off of his rings. The metal bands glint silver and white along the back of his hand, against Nicky’s pale hand. It should be the least of his concerns right now with everything that needs to be done tonight, but Joe’s chest tightens yet again at the realization he has yet to get Nicky a ring. Some kind of signifier, some proof that he intends to keep his word and marry Nicolò.

Joe sighs. At the rate things are going here in L.A., he will have to wait until their actual wedding to get that taken care of. He and Nicky have enough to deal with at the moment without Joe fussing over some silly tradition.

Lost in thought, it takes Joe a moment to realize they are pulling into a spot in their motel’s parking lot. Nicky gives Joe’s hand a squeeze then lets him go to shift the van into “park.”

Nicky kills the engine. He shifts in his seat, finally able to meet Joe’s eyes directly without any distractions.

“I could,” Nicky says after a minute. “I could still turn out that way, I think. Even after everything.”

“Surprise me, then,” Joe tells him. “You’re good, Nicolò. Even when everything you see is ugly, you still believe in the good too much. Even when it is not easy for you.

“I try,” Nicky says.

“You do,” Joe replies.

Nicky leans forward into the space between them. He doesn’t make it far before getting stopped by the seatbelt strap across his chest. Nicky barks out a laugh. He turns to unfasten the clasp, and Joe takes the opportunity to do the same with his so when Nicky is free, Joe can meet Nicky’s lips in the middle. Nicky brings both hands up to cradle Joe’s face.

“So,” Nicky says once they separate. “Is there anything else you and I need to talk about before we return to the task at hand?”

Joe draws back, something sinking in the pit of his stomach. Nicky was honest with him. Nicky bared an ugly part of his soul for Joe, and Joe loves him all the more for it. Nicky trusts Joe, and Joe can’t say he’s excited for this conversation, but he needs to repay Nicky in kind.

“Nicolò,” Joe starts as gently as possible. He takes Nicky’s right hand once more. “I feel I should tell you… I was not proposing to you back in Rome. That was only me intending to bring up the possibility of marriage, to discuss what you would think about it for the future.”

All the color drains from Nicky’s face.

“Oh,” Nicky says. He sits back as well. Nicky looks down at their joined hands. Joe feels a slight tug as Nicky starts to pull free from Joe’s grasp; Joe holds onto him firmly. Nicky turns away from Joe to stares straight ahead out the front windshield, but he doesn’t try removing his hand again. He allows himself to be held for now.

“You were in favor of it, obviously,” Joe points out after a few seconds.

“I was,” Nicky concedes.

“Right,” says Joe. “And so, I don’t see any reason to take it back, as it were. I would still have us engaged, if you’d like.”

Joe turns Nicky’s hand in his slightly, angling it so his own hand is lower and Nicky’s hand is over it. Joe uses his left hand to bring Nicky’s right hand to his lips. He brushes a kiss to Nicky’s knuckles.

“I would still like to have you as my partner,” Joe says. “Now and forever.”

Nicky’s next exhale is shaky. Joe looks up to find Nicky watching him, watching their hands. Joe watches as the surprise in Nicky’s beautiful eyes changes into something like his usual determination.

“Good,” Nicky says. “I… yes. I would still like to be with you. No matter what or how.”

Joe beams up at him. “Alright.” He gives Nicky’s knuckles another quick peck before finally letting go of Nicky’s hand. With his right hand, Joe reaches over to open the passenger’s side door.

“Then lead the way, fiancé,” Joe jokes as he gets out of the car. A smile flickers back onto Nicky’s face, and he huffs a quiet laugh as he gets out of the van as well. Nicky fishes their room key out of his back left jeans pocket. To Joe’s delight, this frees up space for Joe to put his right hand in said pocket during their walk back ‘home.’

Joe and Nicky open the door to their motel room to find six men inside. All six are wearing expensive-looking, black suits. Two of them are going through Joe, Nicky, Andy, and Nile’s duffel bags. Three of them are chatting amongst themselves, and one of them is sitting on the edge of the nearest bed seemingly scrolling on his phone. He looks up from the screen at Joe and Nicky’s entrance.

“Took you long enough,” says the goon, pocketing his cell phone.

Joe shuts the door behind himself, then puts his right hand on the small of Nicky’s back. Joe used to find it strange how Nicky tended to put himself in front of Joe, between Joe and any obvious threats, back before they confessed their feelings. Now Joe’s heart swells with affection and only a trace of fear.

Joe glances down at the right time to see a tendon in the back of Nicky’s left hand jump. Nicky leaves his arms at his sides. He doesn’t cross his arms over his chest in or put his hands in his pockets to feign indifference. Nicky doesn’t posture. He cares more about being ready and able to fight than about appearances.

Joe doesn’t mind doing the dance, though. He leans forward, getting his lips closer to Nicky’s left ear to stage-whisper, “Is it too much to hope they’re friendly, do you think?”

Another smile flits onto Nicky’s face. It stays put but loses all trace of good humor as Nicky addresses their guests. “Gentlemen.”

“The boss sends her congratulations,” says the guy sitting on the foot of the bed. Joe notices the guard farthest away from them take half a step forward.

“We thank her,” Nicky says flatly.

“She’s also willing to offer you both positions in her organization,” the guy continues. He throws a disdainful look around the room. “Handsomely-paid. Maybe a little more glamorous than you’re currently used to.”

“Never,” Joe says, the words tearing up out from the depths of his soul. “Quynh can move her merchandise through a hundred black markets. She can employ every last mortal on Earth, and still Nicolò and I would not waver. He and I will be fighting for what is good and what is right, even if we are the sole people on Earth who still believe in it.”

Quynh’s spokesman scoffs, then turns his attention on Nicky. “And you?”

“A package deal, I'm afraid,” Nicky replies, still smiling wryly. He shifts so that Joe’s hand brushes against something hard. Nicky has a handgun tucked into the back waistband of his jeans, Joe realizes. A little concerning that he brought that along on date night, but at least it means he’s prepared now, unlike Joe.

The guy sighs. “Have it your way, then,” he says before getting to his feet. The sound of six guns having their safeties removed fills the room.

Joe skims his hand up Nicky’s back. He pats his partner between the shoulder blades.

“You keep that,” he murmurs. “I can improvise.”

Joe pulls away from Nicky, moving to his left. With his left hand, Joe grabs the lamp off the nearby table, then lunges forward to smash it into the nearest guard’s head.

Fights don’t always go the way they do in the movies, Joe thinks. They aren’t choreographed like a dance. Especially fighting in close quarters, things get animalistic and ugly. Brawling as he is without any real weapon, Joe takes a lot of damage quickly. He stops counting after he takes three or four bullets to the chest and two to the stomach. He’s pretty sure one of Nicky’s bullets clips his right bicep at one point, but Joe doesn’t care. He knows it wasn’t anything personal, just an accident in the chaos Joe is making throwing these mooks around. Besides, getting a surface-level shot is like scraping his knee at this point in his life.

By the time one of the goons tackles Joe to his back and winds him, Joe and Nicky have killed four of the six guys. Joe struggles to catch his breath as the other man stands up and over him. Joe shuts his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain radiating from everywhere. He’s still trying to get the air back in his lungs when Joe feels the barrel of a gun press against the middle of his forehead.

“What are you doing?” asks an annoyed-sounding voice.

“She wants them grounded for as long as possible,” says another voice from directly above Joe.

“Yeah, for as long as possible,” the first guy parrots back. “You know how long they take to come back from that?”

“No?” the second man answers.

“Yeah,” replies the first goon. “And do you know how long it takes to bleed out?”

A long pause that Joe really doesn’t like follows. The gun leaves Joe’s head.

Two shots ring out. Joe yells at the new bursts of pain searing through his left thigh. The sound of two more shots follows; Joe feels nothing, but he hears a grunt that he recognizes. It’s a noise Joe has heard Nicky make before. Joe doesn’t know if Nicky being alive is a relief or not.

“That should do it,” says one of the men. Joe can’t tell which and he cannot find it in himself to care right now. “Come on, before any of the neighbors decide to stick their noses in here.”

Joe writhes in pain. His instinct is to draw his freshly-injured leg up closer to his torso. Doing that makes the muscles in his stomach burn, though. Joe can also feel fresh blood gush from the wounds in his abdomen. He squeezes his eyes shut hard, light bursting behind his eyelids.

Joe can’t count the number of times he’s bled out. Fighting it is pointless. Surviving a massive blood loss results in him needing to be patched up and sometimes even needing a blood transfusion like anyone mortal to regain his full health. Dying and resetting from the ground up is less work. The fear never goes away, though. They are only human in the end.

The usual signs that the end is near are impossible for Joe to ignore. He can feel his heart slowing despite Joe not feeling any less anxious. No matter how much he tells himself to relax, his breathing stays fast and shallow. His body feels cold and heavy.

“Nicky…”

Panic flares up in what remains of Joe’s consciousness. Where is Nicky? Is he alright? Is he still alive? Is he already dead? Is he dying alongside Joe? The death or destruction of another is infinitely more real and unbearable than one's own, Joe knows. He knows it all too well by now.

With great effort, Joe turns his head to his left. He has to see Nicky one last time. He needs to see Nicky as he dies. They will both be fine, but Joe is only human in this moment. What he wants more than anything is to see the man that he loves before he dies.

Nicky is alive. Nicky’s brows are drawn together, but he meets Joe’s gaze all the same. Joe fights down the primal panic of seeing red, of seeing all the blood staining his beloved’s body and the bullet holes along his back.

It looks to Joe like Nicky is lying on top of his own right arm, like his forearm is underneath his stomach. Nicky’s left arm is stretched out on the floor, his left hand reaching toward Joe.

Both of Joe’s hands are on his own stomach. He had been attempting to staunch the flow of blood, but that is a lost cause by now. Joe has to concentrate to make his limbs cooperate, but he gets his left arm to raise. It flops to the floor between himself and Nicky, landing palm-up. He isn’t close enough to reach Nicky, Joe realizes mournfully. His hand lies on the floor between them, red and glistening under the cheap motel lights.

Nicky hisses. Joe watches as he pushes down with his left forearm. Nicky gets himself propped up with his left elbow. His face screws up in pain as he drags the rest of his limp body across the carpet. Joe watches Nicky do it again, ever so slowly moving closer.

With the last of his energy, Nicky groans and drops to the ground on his right side. He grabs Joe’s left hand with his own left hand.

Joe clutches onto Nicky with what remains of his strength. You, Joe thinks as he stares into Nicky’s eyes. You, Joe thinks with every beat of his heart as it fades away. I want to marry you. I don’t want to live or to die without you here by my side.

It’s the last thing Joe thinks before he dies.

Joe inhales sharply, the back of his nose and throat burning. He can feel Nicky’s hand still in his. Joe squeezes his partner hard; Nicky squeezes back immediately, and Joe feels like he can truly breathe again.

Nicky keeps ahold of Joe’s hand, but he pushes himself up with his right palm, then pushes himself up to his knees. Joe sits up at the same time, and the two of them stand together.

Joe pulls him in for a kiss before Nicky can protest, his right arm wrapping around Nicky’s waist. There is work to be done. Somebody surely heard and reported those gunshots. There are four dead bodies, and those take time and planning to move. The amount of blood currently staining the carpet won’t ever come out. There is always work to be done, but right now, Joe needs this. He needs Nicky to know how much he means to Joe.

Nicky lets go of Joe’s hand. He uses both hands to hold Joe’s face as he kisses Joe back. Joe can feel the blood from them transferring onto his cheeks, staining into his beard. Joe doesn’t care.

Nicky breaks away first. “We have time,” he pants, pressing his forehead against Joe’s.

“Always,” Joe agrees. Then the pair of them get to work.

By the time Andy and Nile burst in, Joe has everything packed up and ready to go. He and Nicky pulled the sheets and covers off the room’s two beds and rolled the dead assailants up in the bedding, more to contaminate any DNA left on the blankets than out of respect for the mortals. Joe added the gun Nicky had used to his latest bag of evidence to toss, then set to rounding up everyone’s belongings – his, Nicky’s, Andy’s, Nile’s. When he remembered to, Joe wiped off any knobs or handles that they might have left prints on, any flat surfaces that could have collected evidence.

Meanwhile, Nicky flagged which IDs the four of them used to rent this room so they would know not to use them in the future. He canceled the credit card they used and set up a new account to preemptively pay for the damages here. Joe didn’t hear Nicky call Copley, but he’s sure Nicky texted or otherwise alerted the agent that they needed his help as soon as possible. Whether Copley drove them there or not, the women arrive at their motel room not long after.

“We need to leave,” Andy snaps. Joe throws Andy her bag, which she catches deftly.

Joe holds off on throwing Nile’s bag to her when he takes in Nile’s appearance. She’s soaking wet head-to-toe, and her jacket and shoes are missing.

Joe raises his eyebrows at her. “Romantic stroll on the beach went a little sideways?”

Nile scowls at him, looking the angriest Joe has ever seen her. “Bitch put me in the trunk of a car in the ocean to drown me.”

“What?” Joe feels his eyebrows go even higher.

“Let’s keep it moving, guys,” Andy says through a clenched jaw.

“I have it,” Nicky says gently, grabbing Nile’s bag out of Joe’s left hand. He gives Joe’s wrist a fleeting squeeze and brushes his hand up the back of Joe’s forearm as he does so. Joe claps Nicky on the back as his partner passes him to head out the door. Joe turns around clockwise, doing one final scan of the room to make sure they aren’t missing anything major before heading out after Nicky and the women.

Copley is waiting outside behind the wheel of a black SUV. Joe wonders fleetingly when the other man sleeps. The four immortals pile in, no questions asked, Andy riding shotgun with Joe, Nicky, and Nile taking the backseat.

The five of them ride in silence as the sky above them lightens. Copley drives for what seems like ages, up along the coast, farther and farther out of the city.

At last, Copley parks them by what looks like a field with only a few metal chains looped around wooden posts outlining the property. After a few seconds, Joe sees sunlight glinting off a metal hatch in the ground.

It turns out Copley’s plan to get them underground is literal – the five of them find their way down into a concrete bunker. Joe has no idea what it is doing here, outside of Los Angeles, and he is not interested in finding out why it is here. He wants Nicky and he wants to go to sleep.

Joe gets the first shower again at their new safehouse. The stall is barely big enough for him, let alone for two people, so he doesn’t entertain any ideas about Nicky joining him this time. The water never warms up, either. Joe grimaces through a quick wash, then gets out so Nicky and Nile both have time to clean up before they crash.

For better or worse, that leaves Joe alone with his thoughts once he’s done. He sits on the edge of their bed as he waits for Nicky to be done. Calling it a ‘bed’ is generous – it’s a twin-sized mattress on a metal frame. There are four cots like it in the windowless room, and of course Joe and Nicky are going to cram in on cot together. They will sleep on the floor if they have to to be together.

The floor might actually be preferable since the cots don’t even have sheets. Copley is looking for blankets, and Joe wishes the agent luck but he isn’t holding his breath.

For now, though, Joe sits alone, shivering. His shirt is sticking to the middle of his back, and once in a while, a bit of water drips from his hair into his eyes. Joe is wet and cold, but worse, the adrenaline from earlier is wearing off. He and Nicky and Andy can’t fight the way they used to. Andy can die now, permanently. And what if he or Nicky dies for good before they get married?

Joe doesn’t know what the future will hold. Maybe a year from now, Joe and Nicky will be sick of one another. Or maybe they won’t be. Or maybe they will both reach their limits and die tomorrow. There is only so much worrying Joe can do about the future. He doesn’t know. He can never be sure that he is doing everything ‘right.’ Joe simply has to have faith. And he does.

Joe used to worry he would grow tired of Nicky and leave his partner. Joe has been returning to Nicky for hundreds of years now, though. Time and again, Joe found his way back to Nicky. Joe never lost interest in doing whatever it was they were doing. Nicky has never once bored him. Nicky has also stuck with Joe. Whatever phase they are in now, it certainly isn’t the honeymoon one. Still, they are here. Still, they want to be together.

Something smooth slips under the pad of Joe’s right thumb. He glances down at his own hands, surprised to find he unconsciously took off one of his rings. Joe turns it over a few times between his fingers, looking at the worn, silver band.

Joe doesn’t believe in fate or destiny or a higher power, not much anymore anyway. His and Nicky’s relationship transcends time and space, transcends countries and cultures religions. No gods could ever love Nicky the way Joe does.

Their relationship transcends the institution of marriage, Joe knows. That doesn’t mean it can’t include marriage, though. Why not? Why not participate in the tradition? They are human, after all this time. Their relationship has all the meaning the two of them have given it, and being married will only add more meaning. They adjust and find new ways to fit together, on and on and on without end.

Joe senses movement and looks up to see Nicky standing in the doorway. Nicky stops when their eyes meet.

“I haven’t gotten you a ring yet,” Joe says.

Nicky lowers his gaze to the ring currently in Joe’s hands. Joe looks at it too, and then back up to Nicky’s face.

“Is this alright?” he asks softly.

“I would be honored,” Nicky replies, sounding as serious as he looks. He steps closer, coming to a stop standing between Joe’s parted thighs. Joe reaches up with both hands at the same time Nicky offers Joe his left hand.

Joe slides his ring onto Nicky’s third finger as has always been tradition, even before the pair of them were born. Nicky laughs a small laugh at the sight, like he’s shocked. He shouldn’t be, Joe thinks, stroking the side of Nicky’s thumb with his own left thumb. It seems like the most natural thing in the world. This is how it was always meant to happen, no other way.

Nicky laughs again, then pulls his hands away. “Un momento,” he says. He slides the ring off; before Joe can panic, Nicky is putting it onto his left index finger. He frowns down at it.

“It’s a little big,” Nicky notes. He slides it off again. He switches to holding it with his left fingers, and then he’s putting it onto his right index finger, his trigger finger, Joe notices.

Joe watches Nicky flex his hand once, light dancing on the silver band. Joe looks up at Nicky’s face. “Better?” he asks.

“Perfect,” Nicky replies. He takes Joe’s face in hands. Joe can feel the metal of the ring against his left cheek and beard. It isn’t cold, just unnaturally smooth.

Nicky bends down to bring their lips together. Joe puts his hands on Nicky’s hips. After several seconds of kissing, Nicky moves his hands to Joe’s shoulders. He pushes gently, and Joe takes the hint to lie down on the bed. Nicky puts a knee on either side of Joe’s hips on the mattress. Joe switches his grip to the backs of Nicky’s thighs, keeping Nicky steady above him.

Joe breaks away from their kiss. “I’ll get you a better one for the ceremony,” he offers.

Nicky pants a little, then gives his head half a shake. “I’ll have whatever you give me,” he says. “As long as it comes from you.”

Joe pulls Nicky’s thighs forward the slightest bit. Nicky takes the hint and leans back down to kiss Joe. Nicky places his forearms down on either side of Joe’s head, or attempts to, at least. The cot is pressed up against the wall, and the top of Joe’s head is touching it as well. After a few seconds, Nicky snakes his right forearm under the back of Joe’s head, deepening their kiss and bringing their bodies even closer together. Joe moans into his mouth.

As Nicky moves on top of him, Joe imagines for a moment that they’re human. That he and Nicky are two men in their bed in their house, making out in their sweatpants or pajamas after a shower. What if they were married the way real people are? What if they could have that for a hundred years, and a hundred years more after that, a millennium or more of domesticity?

Then again, the reality is so much better than the fantasy, Joe thinks. Their lives are rough, but they are theirs. Their difficulties have made them, Joe thinks. So what if they’ll never have a house in the suburbs or licenses under their birth names or clothes they didn’t buy secondhand? They are them. They are wild and unbroken. They are still together, after a thousand moments that could have ruined them. Joe and Nicky have made it through some hard times, not only the honeymoon phase. Joe gets to spend every day forever fighting evil with Nicky, and he gets to spend every night with Nicky in his arms.

Joe doesn’t need to imagine anymore. He doesn’t need the fantasy. A life with Nicky is real, and Joe can have it. Every night being like this is a dream come true for many past versions of Yusuf. If the man he used to be ten decades or even ten years ago could see him now, he might weep. Presently, Joe feels so excited, he could cry. He has Nicky. All day every day, he has Nicky.

“Get a room, you two.”

Joe pauses. He cranes his neck so he can see around Nicky. Nile is now lying face-down on the cot opposite of them, her right leg hanging off the side.

“I could have sworn we did,” Joe tells her.

Nile groans. She doesn’t move to look at Joe and Nicky, keeping her face buried in her pillow.

Nicky graces Joe with another long kiss before climbing off of him. Joe pulls his legs up onto the bed and shifts to lay straight on the bed instead of perpendicular to the head and foot of it. He moves so his back is against the wall. Nicky turns around, then climbs in beside Joe, his back to Joe’s chest.

“You have a gun somewhere in case we have to move during the night?” Nicky asks as Joe pulls Nicky closer with his left arm.

Joe reaches under his pillow with his right hand to touch the handgun he stashed there earlier. “I do,” he confirms.

“Okay,” Nicky says. After a few seconds of silence, Joe feels Nicky’s breathing start to even out in a way Joe knows means Nicky is falling asleep.

Joe snorts. “Such romance.”

“Do…” Nicky shifts in Joe’s grasp. He puts more weight on his right hip, then turns to glance over his left shoulder, brows drawn together. “Do you want me to do more?”

Joe leans forward to slot his chin between Nicky’s neck and left shoulder. It makes for an awkward angle, but it allows him to kiss Nicky all the same.

“No,” he says as he pulls away. “You’re perfect.”

*****

Joe doesn’t have any pretty or poetic words for how he feels after everything settles. He’s just really fucking tired. Joe lost more pieces of himself than he can count, but he came back mostly unscathed. Most importantly, he still has Nicky.

Joe has no idea what day it is. He only knows it’s evening time because he’s watching the sun set, the orange and pink light doubled by the ocean below its reflection. He’s surprised nobody else is out on the beach right now. It’s windy, but Joe doesn’t think it’s that bad. He isn’t getting sand blown in his face or anything. Joe’s eyesight isn’t perfect – he isn’t part hawk like Nicky – but he’s convinced he can see Valletta from here.

They’re in Pozzallo, Joe and Nicky and Nile and James. Sebastien, too. They got Booker back. Joe is glad for that, at least. Selfishly, Joe thinks they’re a little even now that Book has had a taste of the torture Joe and Nicky went through. He’s glad his friend is safe, though.

He expected more of a fight. There was a fight, one Joe isn’t sure their team could have won had Quynh not shown a sliver of remorse. At the last minute, with the point of her arrow digging into the hollow of Andy’s throat, Quynh folded. She called off her guards and called off the fight, leaving the other six in shock. The woman she used to be is still somewhere beneath that avenging angel exterior, Joe thinks. Convincing her to come back to them and start anew would be a fool’s errand, though.

Of course Andy went after her. She left a note for Nicky this time. Since losing her immortality, since meeting Nile and James, Andy has learned some things about herself. Andy knows now that she has done good in the world over the past six thousand-odd years. Andy has made a positive difference in the world with her actions. She needs to prove the same to Quynh. She wants to show her old partner that immortality isn’t a curse, that they aren’t given the years they have solely to suffer. Andy wants to give Quynh one more chance before Andy dies. She doesn’t know how long it will take or if she will ever see the boys and Nile again.

The five remaining members of their team traveled from the coast of Greece to the coast of Italy. That’s all they have managed to do so far. Book is recovering, James is investigating, Nile is strategizing, and Joe? Joe has no idea what he’s doing.

Joe doesn’t need to look to know the person walking on the beach behind him is Nicky. Joe entertains the idea of asking Nicky to run away with him, to leave all of this hurt behind them for a year or two. That amount of time won’t matter so much in the grand scheme of things. They have the time. They can wait awhile to resolve this, to process everything that has happened over the past two weeks.

He won’t, though. Joe and Nicky were meant to keep fighting. This is a battle they need to see through, for all of their friends’ sakes.

To Joe’s right, Nicky drops to his knees, then moves to sit on his butt in the sand, legs bent up in front of him. Joe glances over at him and snorts. Joe found exactly one pair of linen pants at the thrift shop that he’s wearing now, and he took his shoes off before he ventured out this far. Nicky still has jeans, socks, and sneakers on.

“I’m not helping you get sand out of those later,” Joe tells him.

“Yes, you will,” Nicky counters

Joe shrugs. He will.

They sit in silence for a minute, listening to the waves lapping at the shore and gulls circling the air above them. It’s beautiful here, like a scene out of a movie. Joe feels like he’s going to cry.

“Andy doesn’t have any of us to take a bullet for her,” Joe says after a while. His throat feels like it’s closing up, his voice thick. “If Quynh kills her, she isn’t coming back.”

“I know,” Nicky replies calmly. “But I have faith that things will work out.”

Joe forces out a mirthless laugh. “How?” he asks. “Because of how well things have worked in our favor in the past?”

“Of course not,” Nicky says. “The past is a monster. The past has us fearing and doubting each other even now. The future is different, though. It will be, if we work toward it together.”

Nicky looks at Joe in silence for a minute, like he’s appraising the situation. Joe can tell Nicky is thinking hard about what it is he wants to say and how to say it.

“What do you really think about getting married?” Nicky asks.

“To you or in general?” Joe jokes.

“To me,” Nicky replies. He’s smiling now. He doesn’t look sad or upset or judgmental, or like he pities Joe in any way.

Joe opens his mouth. He doesn’t know what to say. Joe closes his mouth. After a moment of thought, he tries again. “I want to. I am for it. I am sorry I was not thinking more… considerately when I brought it up before. That I didn’t tell you right away what it was that I meant. I had my doubts when I first mentioned it, and I still don’t believe a piece of paper can hold much weight to you and me personally. But I want you. I want to be with you in every way, shape, and form, in every country and every language that we can make that promise in.”

“I think you wanted to lock me down,” Nicky says.

Joe feels the guilt at the accuracy of Nicky’s statement like a knife to the gut. He feels overexposed like this, but he won’t fight it. If Joe is going to be honest with anyone, it is going to be Nicky.

“You were worried about me running off again,” Nicky continues.

Joe feels the metaphorical knife twist a bit. “You’re not wrong,” he admits.

Nicky nods. “I ran in the past because I was afraid,” he says. “Part of me thought you wanted me gone. I know now that you don’t. Even before you proposed, I knew you wanted me to stay. I want to stay. I won’t be leaving you anymore. Because I know you want me around forever. Mood or no mood. Wedding or no wedding.”

“Face or no face,” Joe adds.

Nicky laughs. “That too.”

Joe smiles back at him. “I do.”

Nicky looks at Joe like Joe hung the stars in the sky. Given how often Joe finds himself thinking of Nicky as the moon, as the brightest guiding light in the dark, Nicky might be onto something. Joe would fix all the stars in their places if it meant being closer to where Nicky was.

“You are good enough, too,” Nicky tells Joe softly. “You don’t need to be anyone else for me to stay. And you changing won’t scare me off either. I know you now. You are all I need as you are.”

A few tears trail down Joe’s cheeks and into his beard. He isn’t sure when he started crying.

Nicky scoots closer on the beach, then reaches up with his left hand. His attempt to brush the tears from Joe’s right cheek result in many, many grains of sand sticking to Joe’s skin instead. Joe snorts and then bursts out laughing, causing more tears to fall. Nicky starts laughing too; he gives up on wiping Joe’s face off, instead curling his left hand around the nape of Joe’s neck. Joe leans forward at the same time Nicky does, their foreheads bumping in the middle.

“So,” Nicky starts once they have calmed down. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

Joe lets out a long exhale. “Nothing,” he says before adding, “I hope. Hard to say for sure given the past month. Why do you ask?” He tilts his head to better look into Nicky’s eyes. “Do you have plans for me?”

“If you’ll have me,” Nicky says. “Marry me.”

Joe huffs a laugh; he can feel his own forehead crinkle against Nicky’s. “Tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Nicky says. “I think now is the time. Unless you wanted to wait for Andy, which I would understand.”

Joe feels a twist of regret. Andy did say she wanted to be there for their wedding. And she has been such a large, uniting part of their lives these past several centuries. Joe is sad to think Andy won’t be there. That said, what is one wedding to him and Nicky? They have already promised to stay together through thickness and thin, and the past month alone has forced them to live up to those vows. Joe and Nicky can have another ceremony someday, one with Andy and possibly maybe even Quynh. Hope springs eternal, just like them.

“I want you,” Joe tells him. “I want whoever we can get as witnesses. Nile, Booker, James. Whoever wants to attend as long as you’re there and you’re the one I’m marrying.”

“Good,” Nicky says, nodding forehead against Joe’s. “We agree.”

“It could even be you, me, and the priest, if you want,” Joe jokes.

Nicky shakes his head, once again brushing against Joe’s forehead. “No. No priest. Not for my sake, you don’t need to.”

“I know,” Joe tells him. Joe reaches up with his left hand to cradle the back of Nicky’s head, bringing them even closer together. “For you, though, I would. If that’s something you want. But that’s a ‘no’ for this time, then.”

Nicky laughs, sharp and sunny. “Oh, this time? There will be more times?”

“Well, I can’t risk letting you get away,” Joe teases. “I’ll marry you. You’ll marry me. And on and on and on until the end of time, I think.”

“I thought you would never ask,” Nicky grins.

“Ah, well ‘never’ is a long time, eayni,” Joe says. “And we have the time. You and I, we are only getting started.”

“Lo penso anch'io,” Nicky murmurs before pressing his lips to Joe’s. Joe closes his eyes and lets everything apart from the love he has for this man wash away with the tide. Joe lets his worries about the future set with the sun. He has Nicky, and he has tomorrow. For the first time in ages, Joe feels happy. He has everything that he needs and ever will need right here beside him.