It happens in an instant and a long, agonising eternity, in which time sticks to everything like tar. It is mere minutes after take off, the small plane still banking to its cruising altitude, when it erupts, volcanic, into a hundred thousand pieces. There is a boom, smoke and flame, and what is left of the front end plummets to the jungle below.
Nicky feels as if his heart will explode like the plane, up and out of his throat, spraying blood all over his shirt. He lets out a sound – although he does not hear it himself – that makes Booker tear his eyes from the sky and stare at him in horror, and bolts into the vegetation.
“Nicky!”
He does not stop at the sound of his name, his mind now singularly focused on where the remnants of the plane might land.
Joe is on that plane. Was.
Nicky stumbles, his shoulders smacking into a tree, and he bends double, heaving out the debris of his last, meagre meal. His head spins.
There is something far more visceral about an explosion than death by bullet or blade. Losing a limb or an eye is tedious but straightforward. Those almost seem like trifles.
There is no way anything can be left. It is impossible. Whatever might be left will be burnt beyond recognition, and Nicky knows Joe was not in the cockpit. He was in the main body of the plane, next to the weapons, he remembers a final nod and grin before they shut the cargo door.
Nicky wipes his mouth, wipes his tears away roughly, and continues on.
“Nicky, wait!”
He does not turn at the sound of Booker’s voice, he pays no attention to anything around him, side-stepping trees, vaulting logs, striding stubbornly through ants’ nests with single-minded determination. There is nothing in his mind but static as he hacks at the greenery with his machete.
“We’re going to get lost!”
They will not, or at least that is what Nicky tells himself. He is usually the level-headed one, the pragmatic one, the one who almost seems cold.
But how could he be pragmatic, sensible, when he just saw that? When he has no idea if Joe can even come back to him?
Night falls. The jungle screeches with the sounds of its ritual darkness, and there are no crackling flames to join the cacophony. Nicky, in the end, has no choice but to stop. There is the sound of running water, it sloshes against his boots, and the river stretches sluggishly ahead of him in the moonlight, too wide to wade.
He does not start at the hand on his shoulder.
“Christ, when you want to move, nothing can stop you,” Booker mutters, wiping his nose against the back of his hand and setting his hands on his hips. He too looks at the river, sighing. “We should stay here tonight.”
Nicky finally speaks. “There are caimans here,” he says.
Booker gives a very Gallic shrug. “If we get eaten by caimans, we get eaten by caimans,” he says. He slaps at his neck with a hiss. Nicky barely notices the mosquitoes, though they are undoubtedly eating him alive.
He does not sleep. He sits, his back against a tree, heedless of the horrid dampness of everything, his arms around his knees, and stares into the darkness, hoping for a glimpse of light, the flicker of flame.
He sees nothing.
---
There is still nothing when morning arrives. He feels hollowed out, broken open and his innards scooped out and tossed aside, space now only for cold terror to settle in. He drags his fingers through his hair.
What if he never comes back?
Booker groans when he awakens, rubbing the small of his back, and he follows Nicky’s gaze into the great green swallowing depths.
“We need to go somewhere he’ll think to go…” he suggests. “Maybe the camp?”
And how will he find it? No compass, no map, no guide, no trail or signs to follow. There is nothing but impenetrable vegetation and the damn river.
But Nicky also understands the futility of even attempting to search. The forest is vast, it is so very easy to get lost, they could walk in circles for months and never meet, or pass mere metres from each other and be none the wiser.
He is torn, his fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. He swallows.
“Camp,” he croaks. Booker pulls out his compass, frowning at it, and points the way they came. Nicky follows, hoping and praying for a single sound, any hint of someone walking, calling for help, for their names, but nothing comes.
They reach camp, and Andy is waiting. She eyes them hopefully, but it only lasts a moment. She strides over to Nicky, clamps his face between her palms, her eyes like steel.
“He will come back,” she says. The words mean nothing. Nicky merely slips her hands from him and walks past her, into one of the crude huts, and shuts the door behind him. In the quiet, wood-scented dark, he slides to the packed earth floor, sobbing.
---
He sits on a sawn log at the edge of camp, close to the trail that leads to the runway, and waits. He holds his vigil all day, the dog-ends slowly piling up around him, his M16 over his lap. He does not eat, but he drinks when Booker brings him coffee or boiled water and, once, a bottle of Coca-Cola. It is a testament to his focus that he does not even raise an eyebrow. He leaves only to relieve himself, and when evening falls and Andy demands he sleep. He barely does, a fitful hour and then he is back at his post, a still, silent sentinel.
Patrols walk past him, eye him suspiciously, nervously. He can hear intimidated whispers behind him, but he ignores them, does not bother catching the words. His stubble grows rough, slowly attempting to claim his moustache for a beard. He runs out of cigarettes, and resorts to an old habit he thought he broke many a century ago: biting his nails. The wounds heal too quickly now, but the pain is an anchor, the blood-taste grounding.
This happens for four days and three nights.
On the fourth night, he stands, ready to make his way to the hut for his customary hour of sleep, when he hears rustling.
His heart leaps. He stomps it down. He stands and aims his rifle at the undergrowth. On the outside he is still, aloof, alert, but on the inside his heart is hammering.
“¿Quién es?” he demands, firm, the picture of vigilance.
A man staggers from the jungle, filthy, naked, eyes wide and white in the quickly gathering darkness. They lock eyes. Nicky does not even need an answer to his question, he knows those eyes, mirrors to his soul.
The man’s arms widen, Nicky tosses his rifle aside and rushes into them.
“Nico…”
Nicky wraps his arms around him, holding him close, impossibly close, impossibly tight. He can feel Joe trembling, hear soft sobs. Nicky knows he is crying too, relief flooding him, rushing like gold through every vein, bubbling in every pore. The weight of four days of not knowing evaporates.
He pulls back, ignoring Joe’s hitched noise of protest, and cups his face.
“Yusuf,” he murmurs, his voice cracking, and nothing else matters in the world but setting his lips to Joe’s. Not the judgement of the rebels, not any potential attack, nothing at all.
Joe tastes vile, of unwashed teeth and dirty water. His lips are rough, his beard matted, his body is foul despite its newness. But that is also on the list of things that do not, could not possibly matter, not when Joe is here, in his arms.
He kisses him fiercely, urgently, madly, all clicking teeth and ravenous tongues, as if they are trying to climb into one another, to fuse, to devour each other’s souls.
“I was afraid—” Nicky attempts, in vain, between kisses “—afraid I’d lo—”
“I am here now,” Joe answers, breathless, plunging back into Nicky’s waiting mouth.
Nicky loses track of things, but eventually they crumple to the ground, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other in as if oxygen can only be taken from the other’s lungs. They do not hear the rushing footsteps, the twin relieved sighs, but they do feel Andy’s hands on their shoulders.
“C’mon, let’s get you dressed,” she says. “And fed.”
Within an hour, they are curled up in each other’s embrace, facing each other – a rarity, but a necessary one – and asleep.
My collaboration for the @theoldguardevents with the amazing @negotiumcrucis and her fantastic beta-readers @queen-of-badomens & @instantpeach is here 🥰
summoning the old guard enjoyers: i would love some inspiration for my current fic!
premise is your usual academics AU - nicky, joe, andy, nile, and quynh are university lecturers, (booker runs the library) - with a focus on nicky being autistic and how he handles (or doesn’t handle) it alongside his work
i’m going for quite a one-shot/slice of live vibe with lots of mini episodes in the one main work, so would love some suggestions for scenes!
as i said, quite nicky-centric (it’s me no one is surprised), so if anyone has any particular aspect of autism they’d like to see represented in him i’d love to hear it! equally if there’s anything else people would love for this AU relating to any character/dynamic that’d also be great, i’d love the chance to involve this community in my writing a bit more and i think having fresh prompts will inspire me to keep working on it
Joe’s body gives off warmth. Nicky prefers to have the comforter over him when he sleeps with someone because he's always cold, but with Joe he feels a blanket of warmth under his body, wrapping his arms around him, leaving little bonfires every time Joe kisses any part of his skin: on one shoulder, on his collarbone, on his neck, on the other side of his neck, on the other collarbone, on the other shoulder, on his chest. Nicky wants to capture that mouth, kiss it to his heart's content, so he does. He kisses Joe’s full lips, tastes Joe’s breath in his, their tongues playing, tangling, savoring. Joe parts his mouth in search of oxygen, rests his forehead on Nicky’s chin, pulls his body even closer to Nicky’s in a slow but intense rhythm. There is not much room to move but neither of them wants to separate, the feeling of both bodies dancing in unison in a rhythm created by and for them, is more than good, the friction of the skins, the sensation in the muscles, in the organs, on their brains is too much, it’s perfect. Joe declares the same thoughts and emotions that run through Nicky's ecstatic body and mind in a moan, quoting his name as if it were a prayer “Nicky, Nicky, Nicky”. And Nicky can only think that it’s the first time he’s ever slept with someone and not felt cold.
You’re a child. An infant. Your mocking is thus infantile. He’s not my boyfriend. This man is more to me than you can dream. He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold. And his kiss still thrills me, even after a millennia. His heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worthy of. I love this man beyond measure and reason. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s all and he’s more. - The Old Guard (2020)
Inktober Day 2 - Lovers
(Sidenote: Nicky my dude, WHY IS YOUR FACE SO GOSHDARN HARD TO DRAW?! I barely made the friggin deadline!)
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