#kaysonova

[will2150]

The fact that Joe calls Nicky Niccolò when he's scared/panicked.

And the fact that Nicky calls Joe Yusuf when he's mad.

[mprosperossprite]

Old Guard fandom, I would like to submit to you that a Crusades flashback in 2 Old 2 Guard, would be bad, actually.

1. It doesn’t further the likely story of the sequel.

The Old Guard is Nile and Andy’s story, remember?

The teaser scene at the end of the first film suggests that the major conflict of the sequel will be Andy and Quynh’s relationship and further complicating the narratives of betrayal, forgiveness, and redemption that the first film initiates. What is Joe and Nicky’s role in all of that? Though not a comic reader myself, many fans have pointed out that pretty much everything Joe and Nicky do in the second comic was used in the first movie. So we don’t know what new objectives Joe and Nicky will be given in 2 Old 2 Guard, but, frankly, they are secondary characters in the first film and are going to remain so in the sequel.

Joe and Nicky’s function in the narrative is to be a foil to all of the other immortals: they found love and happiness and contentment, despite the odds, with each other. They are supposed to be static and boring so that the narrative can have all the other characters wrestle with “how do I get what Joe and Nicky have when the universe seems to have fucked me over?” We already know they “killed each other – many times” and then figured their shit out and fell in love. Showing information that we already know about their backstory doesn’t add anything. It doesn’t further the primary story of 2 Old 2 Guard, which, again, is about Nile and Andy and Quynh.

It would be, at best, a distraction and, at worse, actively harmful.

2. It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know, or give the necessary opportunity to unpack nuance and character growth

Joe and Nicky discuss their meeting in the first film in an incredibly light-hearted way, which is fitting for people who have had 900 years to come to terms with the horrors in their past.

The crusades were publicly justified as a religious endeavor by pious Christians to “take back” the holy land. Of course, history is more complicated than that. Of course, not every person who took up arms with the European forces believed in the religiosity of the purported mission. But the fact remains that the public mission and justification of the crusades was based upon the notion that white, European Christians were inherently better and more worthy of the Levant than the people who actually lived there.

Nicky participated in this racist, genocidal campaign. To depict Nicky in the crusades is to depict him, not as the thoughtful and good and caring, but also righteous and deadly character he is in the 21st century, but as someone who is complicit in a racist, misogynist system.

Joe, too, does not escape the 1100’s unscathed. Joe, as a defender of Jerusalem, might be on the “right side of history,” but that does not mean he or his fellow men-at-arms did not feel just as hatefully towards the invaders as the invaders felt towards them. Joe in the first film is depicted as a skilled and scrappy fighter with big emotions and a sense of humor. But no one is their best self when their very existence is under attack.

The real problem here is not that the crusades, and Joe and Nicky’s role in them, is complicated, but rather that a simple flashback, doesn’t allow room for the narrative to unpack HOW Joe and Nicky went from being hate-filled victims of religious and geo-political institutions attempting to annihilate one another, to the characters we know in the first film. A flashback doesn’t allow for the space and time for Joe and Nicky to question and reckon with their actions, to get over their hate for each other, to grapple with the continued hate present in the world today. The crusades themselves are not actually important to what makes Joe and Nicky, Joe and Nicky. What’s important is all the unsexy work that they did, together and separately, to realize that they loved each other and to determine how they were going to live their immortal lives together.

A crusades flashback doesn’t give us any new information. A crusades flashback doesn’t allow for nuance and complication. A crusades flashback doesn’t give us the character development from Joe and Nicky that might actually be relevant to the overall narrative to 2 Old 2 Guard.

3. Holy batman white supremacist dog whistles

We live in a moment in which fascism and white supremacy is on the rise globally. The symbols of Medieval Europe and the crusades are often used (and misinterpreted) by white supremacist groups.

There’s a huge difference between talking about Nicky being part of the crusades and actually having the actors embody it. Even if the film later indicates that Nicky repudiates what he did as part of the crusades, the images themselves can’t portray that. Even if Nicky does not don any of the religious insignia of the era, there would still be images of a medieval white man slaughtering a medieval Brown man and those images can and would spread across the internet stripped of their context by people whose worldview is actively opposed to the values of the story of The Old Guard.

A Crusades flashback in 2 Old 2 Guard would be bad, actually.

And I trust in Gina Prince-Bythewood and Victoria Mahoney to know that.

[lisagarlandd]

[userilyarozanov]

- Nick A West

[eiseul]

Cooking as a love language is absolutely beautiful and we should discuss more about how Nicky shows love by cooking and caring for his loved ones this way? (had few discussions about how my roommate counts her love language as cooking? and thought yeah it’s definitely a love language!) I also like to HC Nicky spending years to replicate and perfect Joe’s favorite childhood dishes? Nicky keeping in mind everyone’s favorite food to cook for them when they seem down? Just very soft thoughts.... 

((speed painting after finishing up important final presentation todaay as treat for myself....))

[dobadobayo]

joe

nicky

dance

[headcanonthings]

Joe: So… I’ve seen you’ve been spending a lot of time with Copley recently.

Booker: No, Joe, it's not what it looks like, I swear.

Joe: Oh really? So no reason for me to be jealous?

Booker: No! You’re the only one for me.

Joe: Is that so?

Booker: I promise! James and I are just dating, okay? He's my boyfriend.

Joe: So there are no best-friends-feelings involved?

Booker: You are still my one and only best friend! He's just the love of my life, nothing more!

Joe: But I’m still the platonic love of your life, right?

Booker: Of course bro!

Joe: Bro...

Copley: What the-

Nicky: You will get used to it.

[monicashipsnickyjoe]

Joe has been waiting in this coffee shop line for no less than ten minutes, but he doesn’t mind because he’s spent that long looking at the man in front of him. The line of those shoulders and the curve of that long neck reminds Joe of someone he can’t place. Still, he’s almost positive that he knows this man. A memory, somewhere, sits in the back of his mind, itchy.

When the man turns, chin to shoulder, and gifts Joe his profile, the sight of a prominent nose is enough.

“Nicolò!”

It’s been years, but Joe would never forget his childhood friend. As neighbors who went to different schools, they were inseparable in the evenings. For summers, they were practically attached at the hip.

Nicky has grown since then, filling out his lean frame. Lanky limbs are now solid mass. And those shoulders. Shoulders that tense up as Joe watches, until Nicky looks like a rubber band pulled too tightly, ready to snap.

Sighing, he half-turns toward Joe, though his gaze remains elsewhere. “Did you want a selfie together? Or an autograph?”

Joe frowns. He’s heard from his mother that Nicky is doing well for himself - she’s seen him on television. But Joe doesn’t watch television. Maybe he’s been afraid to. Maybe he wants the past ten years back, to stand once more under that tree in Nicky’s backyard where they said goodbye, and actually kiss him this time.

Joe said Nicky’s name on reflex. Perhaps he should have let the past live in the past.

“No,” Joe says. “Sorry.”

Joe ducks his head, but he still feels the moment Nicky sets his eyes on him. He hears the soft intake of breath. He watches Nicky’s shoes as those feet twist further until Nicky is entirely facing him.

“Yusuf?”

Joe tries for a smile. “It’s me.” He looks up and finds himself in a blue-green ocean. Nicky’s face does not so much as twitch, but those eyes always give him away. “Hello, Nicky.”

Nicky steps toward him. “Joe, I -”

“It’s okay,” Joe says.

“No, I -”

“You don’t have to -”

A stranger’s voice calls out, from further down the line. “Is that Nicolò di Genova?”

Nicky’s mouth snaps closed. His back straightens.

“It is!” says someone else. In a matter of moments, Nicky is swarmed with fans. He’s patient with them, taking pictures and signing autographs, but Joe can see the tense line of his body and the tightness in his smile.

Ahead of Nicky, the line has dwindled. The cashier calls out for the next customer, but Nicky is buried in fans. Joe steps around the crowd and takes Nicky’s place. He has no idea what Nicky is drinking but he guesses a coffee and orders another for himself.

Drinks in hand, Joe turns to find fresh faces surrounding Nicky, and decides to step in. “Okay! Alright! Thank you all, but Mr. di Genova must be moving on now. He’s on a tight schedule, you know.” He passes the coffee to Nicky, then places his free hand on the small of Nicky’s back. “Please excuse us.” Cutting through the crowd, he leads Nicky toward the exit and around the building toward the back parking lot.

Once they are out of sight, Nicky slumps against the wall. “Thank you.”

“It was my fault for calling you out.” Joe hums. “You must be very famous.”

“You haven’t seen the show?”

Joe doesn’t want to hurt him, but he doesn’t want to lie, either. “No.” Even thinking of Nicky, of what could of been, has been so painful. How could Joe bear to see him? To know how beautiful he’s become? To know all that he’s missing?

“Good,” Nicky says, kicking off the wall. “It’s terrible.”

Startled, Joe laughs.

Nicky looks at him again, and his eyes sparkle in the same mischievous kind of way they used to before he suggested something that always got them both in trouble.

“Joe,” Nicky says. “If I asked you to take a ride with me, would you?”

Joe wonders, even with ten years separating their last day together and today, how Nicky could ever think the answer might be no. “Nicky, I’d follow you anywhere.”

Nicky dips his head, and his lips curl up into a gentle, easy smile. Softly, he says, “I missed you.”

Joe forgets how to breathe.

“Come on.” Nicky walks past him and into the parking lot. Without a word, Joe follows. Ten years wasted. Ten years too long.

Nicky stops at the side of a red Ferrari. Joe finds his breath again just to laugh. For such an unassuming man - even now he wears jeans and a t-shirt - he would have the flashiest car in the lot.

Joe has learned long ago to never place presumptions on Nicolò di Genova.

“You don’t like it?” Nicky asks. He’s still smiling, there’s no hurt in it.

“It’s perfect, Nicky.” Just like you.

Joe opens the passenger side door and slides inside, as Nicky does the same behind the wheel. Nicky turns the key and the Ferrari roars to life. That look of mischief returns to Nicky’s face.

Joe’s heart flip-flops in his chest.

Without another word, Nicky touches the gas pedal and they jolt forward. He veers around the corner, then onto the road, the highway, and out to the country. He drives fast, but danger never registers for Joe. Nicky’s eyes do not  leave the road. His hands stay fixed on the wheel at ten and two.

Only when he drives to the edge of an orchard, on the side of a tall, grassy hill, and stops, does Nicky lower his hands. With the car in park, he turns off the ignition and gets out. Joe follows, walking behind him to the edge of the treeline. They’re fruit-bearing trees, not unlike the one in Nicky’s backyard all those years ago. The one they climbed. And fell from. The one they used as protection for water balloon fights, and home base for games of tag. The one Joe leaned on when he told Nicky his family was moving. The one Nicky hid his face against when Joe walked away for the last time.

“Nicolò.” Joe wants to fix it. They tried to stay in touch for a while. But days turned to weeks turned to months, and before long, Joe’s best friend and secret crush was someone he hadn’t talked to in years. He had no idea how to bridge that gap then.

But now, with Nicky right here.

“Nicky, I -”

In the shadow of a tree, Nicky cups Joe’s face in his hands and kisses him quiet. It’s soft and sweet and world shattering. Joe grabs at Nicky’s wide shoulders and holds on for dear life, else he might fling straight into the sun.

When it’s over, Nicky presses his forehead to Joe’s.

Joe’s hands shake. His breath is uneven.

“Ten years,” Nicky says, closing his eyes. “Every day for ten years, I regretted not doing that.”

One hand still clawing at Nicky’s shoulder, Joe lifts his other to brush the line of Nicky’s jaw and bury his fingertips into the short hairs at the back of Nicky’s neck.

“Yusuf,” Nicky says, a plea in his voice. “I have thought of you so many times. Please. Tell me I was not alone.”

A warmth rushes through Joe’s body, starting from deep in his chest. For a moment he thinks he has never been this happy before in his whole life, but then he realizes he is mistaken. It’s just been ten years.

“We said goodbye ten years ago,” Joe says, “But my heart has never strayed from your side.”

Nicky’s eyes snap open. How can he possibly be surprised?

“Kiss me again, Nicky,” Joe says. “We have ten years to make up for.”

And Nicky wastes no more time.