#while i do think the situation with copley is different than with booker

[wingodex]

a lot of people write about joe's anger being bright and intense but short lived, and there are lots of reasons for that. joe's very expressive, and you get to see his emotions and the change in his emotions fairly frequently throughout the movie. it's easy to imagine him getting angry and then moving on to something else once that anger has run its course. this kind of anger is easier to write too, because anger is a complicated emotion and it often feels like characters cant move forward until theyre done being angry. it might also be a way to avoid portraying joe as being angrier than everyone else so one doesnt feed into negative stereotypes and that's legit!! all of these are valid reasons! i think this interpretation of joe is fine, i just don't love it and i especially don't love it when it has to do with booker's betrayal. even if joe's anger is typically gone quickly, i don't think it would be in this particular case because the fear that sparked that anger in the first place isn't going to go away.

i really like this post which talks about how joe's anger is always in response to fear, and a lot of my thoughts about this have to do with the way that those two emotions are clearly linked. fear is another difficult emotion, because fear lingers. just because the immediate danger is gone, that doesn't necessarily get rid of the fear. it can be really hard to stop being afraid, even when you know it's an illogical response. it's especially hard to stop being afraid when the situation warrants that fear. so when all of his hopes for escape are dashed, and andy's mortal and also andy just got shot and is maybe dying, of course joe's terrified. that fear isn't suddenly going to go away. joe's not suddenly going to stop being afraid of andy dying now that she's mortal just because they're not in immediate danger. he's not going to stop being afraid of being captured and imprisoned for an eternity. he's not going to stop being afraid about being separated from nicky or worrying about nicky dying. of course joe's pissed off and he has the right to be. and i think he'll be angry at booker for a really long time. he loves booker, and i think he'll miss him, but i don't think he'll stop being angry or stop being afraid to be around him. obviously i think that at some point joe will forgive booker, because joe is kind and forgiving, and he loves booker, and they will be able to move past this, but i also think that will be a long process for him and i think it will be really hard for both of them. because how do you stop being afraid to be around someone who has shown to you that they do not care about the safety and comfort of the people you love most? how do you stop being afraid when you know someone's capacity for harm because you have directly suffered as a result of it? booker can apologize, he can feel remorse, he can even feel horrified by his own actions (as shown with andy), and he can try to repent, but how does that stop joe from being afraid when booker knows where he is, where andy is, and where nicky is because he's set them up before, he can do it again, right? even if he knows, knows for certain that booker won't do that again, it'll be hard to shake the fear completely. building back trust is hard, and it's a process. you can see the two of them taking those first few steps when booker accepts his punishment at the end. they're going to be okay, eventually. joe knows this and believes this. that doesn't mean he has to stop being angry. that's okay too

#tog blogging #mehhhh i dont really wanna put this in any of the main tags #obviously i think joe will go through the whole range of emotions wrt booker #he'll pity him he'll wonder if there was something more he could have done he'll sympathize #but he doesnt have to stop being angry to do those things you know? #i also think joe will never really warm up to copley and i think that's fine too! #while i do think the situation with copley is different than with booker #copley still hurt the people joe loves and that's not just gonna go away #anyway i love joe so much he's just so loving and devoted and everything he does is motivated by love #and that's why i think he's gonna to put in the effort into overcoming his fear and anger towards booker #because he loves him you know? and it'll be worth it even if it is hard #joe contains multitudes!!!! he deserves it!!!!!

[paradisetemporarilymisplaced]

So I was being a basic bitch the other day and listening to my true crime podcasts when it occurred to me just how suspicious Nile’s “death” would look to everyone not in the Guard, leading me to a train of thought that, 2200 words later, absolutely got away from me but I can’t let go so I’m inflicting it on all of you!

To set the stage, we know the movie takes place over approximately a week. Here’s what happens to Nile from the military’s point of view:

She dies is very seriously injured

She heals without a scratch

Just before she’s supposed to be shipped out to Germany, she vanishes, leaving two men concussed (and presumably reporting being knocked out by a woman with short hair wearing civilian clothes)

She goes AWOL for several days

They get word from the CIA that she is to be reported killed in action (details unclear)

So, at the beginning of this very weird week, the USMC has to tell Nile’s family of her death critical injury. What her family was told depends on how long she was dead – a Google search tells me that family will be notified in person within 8 hours of a soldier’s death, but we don’t know how long her first death lasted. For an injury, however, they’d get a phone call to notify them and the unit would arrange for them to visit as soon as the soldier is transferred out of a combat zone. Like I remember when I was in high school, a guy from my church who was a Marine was really seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Iraq and from what I could tell, his parents were told immediately and were flown out to Germany to see him, so it stands to reason that Nile’s family would have been informed relatively quickly after her throat was slashed, one way or another.

And then, she goes AWOL. Her family would be notified while the USMC tried to figure out where she went, not least because the military would want to know if she’s contacted them. (And it’s possible that her family may have been on the way to Germany to see her since we know that’s where she was supposed to go!) So for several days:

Nile’s mom and brother have no idea where she is

They know she was seriously injured and most certainly should not have been moving around on her own

They can’t get a hold of her

The military can’t tell them anything

And the next thing they know for sure is that she was “killed in action.” After being injured and vanishing into thin air. And they presumably cannot produce her body or any concrete evidence of her death. In any case, something sketchy is going on, so they’re like. SMELLS LIKE A MILITARY COVERUP.

In a surprise to probably no one, there is a well-documented legacy of mysterious US military deaths, particularly of women of color (TW for sexual assault in these links). The cases of LaVena Johnson and Vanessa Guillenin particular have made national news because of their families’ persistence in seeking justice. Likewise, Nile is a Black woman, and her mom and brother are most certainly hypercognizant of (a) state violence against Black people and (b) these high-profile cases of suspicious military deaths. So her family are seriously side-eyeing the situation, knowing that (a) the military has a serious incentive (and a documented history) of covering up things that make them look bad and (b) nothing about Nile’s disappearance and supposed death are adding up.

And Andy’s right. Nile does come from warriors. And you know who else does? Her brother.

Don’t get me wrong. Nile’s mom would absolutely not back down. She’d know something was up and want to get to the bottom of it. But based on what I know about Gen X parents (mine), they’re not the most technologically savvy. Like they can use the internet, but they didn’t grow up with it the way we young millennials and Gen Z did. So Nile’s brother takes the lead. And what do zillennials do best?

Social media.

Nile’s brother starts going hard on any site he can, trying to get the word out to see if anyone knows what happened to his sister. He starts a Reddit thread. He starts a Facebook group. He reaches out to the media and true crime bloggers and podcasters à la Sarah Turney, getting loud and being a general nuisance in hopes of getting some answers. He gets his friends and Nile’s friends involved. Maybe eventually Dizzy, Jay, and others from Nile’s unit hear about it and reach out, telling him what they saw and how weird it all was. He’s drumming up interest, and soon “Nile Freeman” becomes a household name (at least among the true crime fans).

Copley is, of course, trying his best, but at this point there is just so much that it’s impossible for him to scrub everything. Sure, he can erase new footage of Nile and the Guard, but what can he do about Reddit threads and podcast episodes that are speculating something weird has happened? Maybe he could hack the sites and shut those things down, but honestly, that’s the last thing he’d want to do, because that only adds weight to the theory that Nile’s disappearance is a military coverup. So eventually he has to tell Andy what’s going on.

Andy, obviously, does not take the news well. However, she is also completely computer illiterate, because that’s Booker’s job and he’s the only one who ever bothered to learn what the internet is in any meaningful way. (She probably calls Booker for advice, and for the record, I think Booker would have no qualms about shutting down conspiracy threads, tinhats be damned, but Copley is too concerned about the consequences. He’s ex-CIA for crying out loud, he knows how it’ll look if they scrub every mention of Nile’s name from the internet.) Maybe she confers with Joe and Nicky but, let’s be honest, they’d be equally unhelpful. So at this point, she knows they have to bring in Nile.

But the thing about Nile is that she, too, knows how to use the internet (duh). Aside from her being a young millennial/digital native, we know from the cave scene where she’s giving Booker suggestions on how to track Copley that she clearly is even more computer savvy than the average person. And for that reason she almost definitely took over the day-to-day tech stuff after Booker’s exile. So I think it would be foolish to expect her to be unaware of what’s happening. She’s not contacting her family or posting on the message boards or anything, but she knows what’s up. So Copley and the team probably sit her down to “break the news,” but we know the girl does not have a poker face (see: literally shooting herself in the foot and not being able to play it cool whatsoever) and cracks immediately, telling them she’s seen everything about her case – she’s not interacting with any of it, she certainly didn’t instigate anything, but she knows. (And she is so goddamn proud of her brother.)

At this point, I’d like to pause and consider Nile’s role in the overall narrative of this movie. She’s set up as a foil to Andy, obviously, but she’s also a foil to Booker. Booker, who, like Andy, is a serious pessimist, but who, unlike Andy, still has very fresh memories and trauma associated with being the new kid, which have destroyed him. In his mind (and Andy’s), if Nile communicates with her family, she’ll become just like him in a century or two – bitter, alone, and stuck with her grief and memories of watching her family die and knowing they died resenting her. It’s a small sample size, but this is the only experience they have to go off of.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

There’s been a lot of discussion of TOG being a fundamentally queer movie – a group of people brought together because of something inherent about themselves that is different, that must be hidden, that causes others to hate, fear, and reject them. Booker’s backstory is the archetypal traumatic “coming out” story – his family learns who he is, hate him for it, and attempt to cast him out of their lives. He’s stuck with his trauma, his pain, his loss, and it consumes him.

But what if Nile’s family would be the opposite? What if her “coming out” to them as immortal is met with acceptance, love, celebration? What if her family is just overjoyed to have her back, and they don’t care what the circumstances are? I'm reminded of this incredible post from @shitty-old-guard-deaths a while back, where Nile’s mother hits Booker with a frying pan because “my baby let me believe she was dead for FIVE YEARS based on your bad advice???” (which may or may not have inspired this whole tangent). Nile takes the advice of someone who did the same thing she wants to do because she doesn’t want to risk her family’s rejection. She wants the good memories with her family and is afraid that showing them her true self will bring her unbearable pain, forever replacing those memories. But, with high risk comes high reward.

Anyway. Nile and the team are trying to come up with a plan for how to handle this whole thing, but she’s not really participating because she’s too afraid to hope. Until finally, quickly, so she doesn’t lose her nerve, she suggests she reach out to them, knowing that, realistically, that’s the only solution before things snowball even further out of control. The team is shocked, but realize that she has a point. They decide that Copley should actually be the first point of contact, posing as a US government official to talk with them and test the waters.

So Copley goes to Nile’s family’s house to talk with her mom and brother. They’re probably distrustful and apprehensive, but nonetheless secretly ecstatic that their work has paid off. They talk and review all of the information that they’ve collected, including testimonials from the people on Nile’s base and recent sightings (along with photos) of Nile (with the same three people) over the last few years that people have sent them but they haven’t posted publicly. At this point, Copley’s like, yeah this is about to blow up, we gotta put our cards on the table. He convinces them to come with him to some safe house/black site/whatever he can get that is technologically impenetrable (I’m picturing them in like, an interrogation room at a police station kind of deal), takes their phones, locks the doors, and brings in Nile.

What follows is the most delightful reunion scene of all time, bringing Joe, Nicky, and even Andy to tears as they watch and listen from outside the room. With Copley’s help, Nile tells her mom and brother about her immortality and what’s been going on since she died (within reason, of course), and they are thrilled. They don’t understand why (because no one does) but they don’t question it and they see it as a gift from God – she’s been resurrected, she will live, and she has a purpose. Her mother and brother are so happy to see her again and are willing to agree with pretty much anything to stay in her life as long as they can.

So. They set up some complicated agreement (they bring in the other three for support/intimidation as needed) setting the terms of their relationship. They swear Nile’s family to secrecy, maybe bringing up the lab to show how high the stakes are, and they readily agree. They come up with some cover story for Nile’s brother to share on the message boards (maybe that the government has opened an investigation but because it’s an open case he has to shut it all down? Tells people to direct their tips somewhere else? Something to that effect). There’s still speculation, of course, but without Nile’s brother at the helm providing the energy, the hype dies down as news stories are wont to do without any movement. And Nile’s family goes to work for the team. The experience has taught them that Copley can’t possibly do everything himself, especially when it comes to social media, so Nile’s brother takes the lead on the day-to-day tracking/social media while Copley and her mom focus on finding jobs and scrubbing their traces afterward.

So there you have it: Nile gets to integrate her biological family into her found family and spend the rest of their lives with them as it should be, Copley gets some badly needed help managing the reality of social media, the team finally has a positive narrative surrounding outsiders Knowing About Them AND about interacting with people from their previous life, and the audience gets the happy ending to this very lovely and very queer story to counteract the pain associated with Booker’s family.

Plus, you know, I’m a sucker for both a good government conspiracy theory and for Nile getting every good thing she deserves.

#the old guard #tog #tog fanfiction #tog meta #immortal family #nile freeman #mine #damn look at me contributing to a fandom! that’s new #pls reblog if you like this my self esteem could really use it #I just love nile so much and I’m being the nile-centric content I want to see in the world #it is just genuinely nuts to think abt how this situation would be perceived by anyone outside the narrative #she just mysteriously heals from a fatal injury and then VANISHES!!! this should be national fuckin news #also I do think there’s a major hole in the story when you think abt social media #like the only time it’s even hinted at is right at the very beginning when Andy erases that girl’s selfie #and the concept of fuckin Reddit is not even brought up despite Copley’s stalker board being analog Reddit #there’s just a lot of places one could go with this which is very much what we got here #1k

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

#nile freeman #linguistics #TOG POC Love Fest #nileweek2021 #tog meta #tog #long post #mine #antiblackness #jewish things #hi i'm an antizionist jew no i don't really want to talk about it

[oranges8hands]

It's Not Your Life to Give: Booker Edition

I'm assuming somewhere out there is already meta for why the exile wasn’t wrong, but fuck if you can find shit on tumblr anymore, so here's mine:

I'm not denying Booker needs help; he's suicidal, he's depressed, he's tangled in his own grief and loneliness, he’s got survivor’s guilt, he's likely got complex-ptsd along with his alcoholism and probably some other stuff. I admit, the shorthand of "fuck Booker" is not nuanced to that. That said, I am really not a fan of this fandom narrative that his depression, grief, etc, is a good reason for his actions [1], that his victims owe him enough immediate forgiveness to continue to help him in the aftermath of his actions, that he is the only hurting person in this situation, or that his (self)-destruction - obviously a common symptom - didn't blow up a very basic foundation between him and the others that doesn't just get waived away by an apology. (Which... he never actually offers?  Fandom posits he apologizes and feels bad for what he does in the aftermath, but that's one interpretation, and canon can just as easily be read that he gets a little bit of a rude awakening when Andy is mortal, but frankly he comes across as someone who is sorry it didn't work out and he ended up in a worse place, not for what he did.) 

  Plus, I think a lot of fandom mindset works under what happened [2] and not on what he either planned or did not see the obvious pathway was going to happen [3], as well as ignoring some of the context he put into the situation (his resentment of Joe and Nicky didn't just magically disappear after they escaped), and are looking at his end result (even less familial support than before, in the apartment getting drunk - and shit knows loneliness/isolation is an esp hot button for people right now) and not on the fact he just sold out his family to experience their worst nightmares (a fact he's reminded of again in the middle of his betrayal) and that they can't trust him.

THEY CAN'T TRUST HIM. They had no way to see this coming because it would never have occurred to them, but that barn door is open now. What keeps him from calling in their new safe house? maybe finding a different kind of partner, leading them to another trap on a job? hell, maybe contact Kozak again [4] and see if she made any progress. share their secrets with someone new. do they have to hope Andy's mortality (which is the only thing that made him pause) will reach him enough when apparently their love and affection didn't before? what happens when she dies? what sign are they supposed to somehow intuit if he tips from bad mental health to making actionable decisions to try to die and dragging everyone else into it with him again? if someone picks up this trail of breadcrumbs Copley and Merrick left, is he going to help clean up or go with it? Basically, what stops him from doing this to them again?  Like, I can arguably make a list for reasons I don't think they should have 100 year exiled him (though again, time works on a different scale for them [5]), but at this point I am definitely pushing back on the dominant fandom idea that the exile in and of itself was wrong [6], or that it was only a punishment.     They are going to feel guilty for what they did/didn't do to help him, for not seeing how bad it got [7], (in Andy's case esp) for helping him lean into the bad coping mechanisms, and yeah some of that does need to be owned, but they should not feel guilty for him betraying them or needing time away to deal with that betrayal.  It's funny, cause my immediate response after seeing the movie was that the betrayal story line did not work for me, but it's canon and the response that they should put aside their reaction to help him definitely feels like it ignores the severity of what he actually did to them and how long it could take to (emotionally, mentally) recover from it. That they owe Booker to put it aside to help him. That the others are wrong for the choice they made because of a situation he put them in. [8]  He didn't mind them being tortured, being separated, or being dead; if they want a 100 years to figure out how to continue to love and welcome someone who would do that to them, how to trust someone like that again, they get a 100 years.  And at the end of the day, even Booker understood that.

____________ [1] mental illness does not cause you to try to murder someone (and it is very clear that even if he thinks Andy wanted to die, he knows Joe and Nicky do not, not to mention Nile), and that's frankly a very harmful myth used to dismiss larger violent patterns irl

[2] 2 days of medical experiments, Andy being (luckily!) non-lethally shot, I'd add Nile's general mental well-being but lbr that doesn't tend to factor into it for fandom

[3] Joe, Nicky, Andy, and later Nile be taken and medically experimented on/tortured until... well, forever, cause honestly it's a big assumption they'd let them go or kill them even if they discovered the secret to their death; earlier on, Nile either being left alone - yanno, the thing he said was his reason for doing this (even if it's obviously just a part of the tangled reaction for why he did it) with no answers and forever dreaming about their torture and/or more specifically Nile being left at the mercy of the us military/govt with no answers and forever dreaming about their torture while experiencing her own. 

[4] them not killing Kozak or destroying the lab was hollywood-sloppy - even though I totally love the hc that either a) their spilled body parts disintegrate after a bit or b) there is absolutely nothing in their system that shows their immortality - but it does mean there's a little more clean-up needed than Copley erasing some tapes. 

[5] which is not an excuse to infantilize him? he's a grown man. he may be young compared to the others, but he's not actually a "teenager" and he's esp not too young to realize the ramifications of his actions (aka that his family won’t react well to him selling them out)

[6] maybe not the smartest choice in terms of safety since they'd have even less ability to see if he betrays them or himself again, and being split up makes them more vulnerable, but also not wrong; it's basically a load of shitty choices and that's the one they picked. cause like he said, what else can they do? frankly, now or in a 100 years, Booker is the one that needs to rebuild trust, but at least 100 years gives the rest of them some time to deal with their own trauma before having to deal with him either trying (or not) to fix what he broke, leaves them possibly more open and receptive to changes he’s made.

[7] though as someone whose been on both sides of it, the idea you should be able to just tell how bad it actually is for someone (or even tell that it is bad) is frankly not actually that realistic or fair; people are very often good at hiding and/or downgrading how bad it is 

[8] and specifically that Joe is wrong for the choice they made. like the fact Andy and Nicky both want to get him out the building or that Nicky isn't vocal in his reaction means they didn't reach this decision together, that Joe is the only angry one, that Joe is the only one to aggressively pursue this course of action. like, come on, the pattern of this definitely comes from fandom's racism

#this is both a) a response to a comment of a comment on someone's fic and b) something I've been thinking about for awhile #I feel like this is less anti-Booker and more anti-fandom's prioritization of Booker's pain (which is what I am) but ymmv #I am back on my footnote bs #haha just kidding I never left it #cross the street #fandom repeat fight #in a very real way they kind of have to forgive him #or at least learn to live with it #a kind of preordained forgiveness #how fucking galling is that #to not get to decide forgiveness #to not get to decide how to *give* that forgiveness #and he knows it too #what are they gonna do kill me?

[lovelikedestiny]

2. Nile: But I've lost your war

Two mirrors deep as sky and sea,

can see your bare soul, always testing.

Humming an indefinite melody, Nile pours the boiling water into the waiting cup and notes with subliminal amusement that Copley has a small sieve for loose tea in his household because his British-American heart would probably come to a standstill if he were to use bagged tea.

Exactly this sieve, together with the loose fruit tea that she found in a cupboard, is now in the cup that she intended for Nicky and she watches for a few seconds, lost in thought, how the water turns red. Involuntarily, the memory of Nicky's bloody hands and Joe's face contorted with panic rises in her and Nile blinks frantically, clears her throat and turns to the coffee pot.

The freshly brewed coffee gives off a strong, familiar smell as she pours it into the other cups and after she has placed all the filled cups on a tray, she carefully carries it into the living room. Just because she's suddenly immortal and injuries heal in seconds, doesn't mean Nile is particularly keen on scalding herself on spilling fluids.

When she enters, Copley looks up from his laptop, almost relieved, and Nile strongly suspects that this is not only because he is longingly waiting for the caffeine in the coffee, but also because he is still a long way from warming up with the other immortals . Nile doesn't have particularly friendly feelings towards him either, but at least she behaves normally in his presence and doesn't announce in every word that she will kill him should he make a serious mistake and betray their trust.

Quite different from Joe, who is as open with his feelings as always and rubs his skepticism and distrust at every opportunity in Copley's face. And to be honest, Nile can't blame him in the slightest. After all, it was partly Copley's fault that he and Nicky were tortured in the lab. What brings her to the problem child in their group.

Nicky.

A protector, Joe called him affectionately when he went shopping with Nile and Nicky and Nicky seemed content to stroll after them, eyes on their surroundings. The soul, Andy said with the rare look of tenderness on her face as Nicky kept an eye on the pan in the kitchen, singing softly. And even Booker said to Nile in the cave when he told her a little about Joe and Nicky: Joe wears his heart on his sleeve and manages to cast a spell over everyone with his charm and his radiant smile, his passion. And Nicky...Nicky is the guardian.

At the time, Nile didn't know what he meant by that. Now the meaning becomes more and more clear to her. And she just doesn't think it's fair. Doesn't think it's fair that Nicky is sitting next to Joe on the sofa with pale cheeks and a thick blanket around his shoulders, and that not only Joe is deeply worried by his deteriorating condition, but also Andy.

And for some reason, Nile didn't expect this situation to throw Andy, the ever steadfast, ancient warrior who stoically accepted her sudden mortality, off too. It reminds her how long Andy, Nicky and Joe have known each other and how deep their family bond goes and although Nile has only been part of this team for a few weeks, she doesn't feel excluded but strangely welcome in any way.

The cups clink softly as she sets the tray down on the living room table and she places the teacup with a small saucer for the tee strainer in front of Nicky. “Here Nicky, I made you tea. Really classy with Copley's little tea strainer.” It still hurts her heart to speak about her family, but she does it anyway. "My mom always said that tea makes everything better."

"Your mother passed her wisdom on to her daughter," Nicky says with a smile and pulls the cup closer to him to put his hands around the warm vessel with a barely audible sigh. "Thank you, Nile."

“Thank you, Nile. Coffee is exactly what I need now.” Joe leans forward with a dramatic groan and skillfully fishes for one of the other cups. He inhales the scent deeply, but immediately leans back into his previous position, balancing the mug on one knee and casually wrapping his arm around Nicky.

"No problem, I like to shine with my ability to operate the kettle,” Nile replies with a grin and threatens to raise a finger in front of Nicky. "And don't you dare to not finish the tea. Then I'll force you to do it with my puppy eyes and it won't be pleasant.”

"Oh, habibi, I would listen to her." Joe chuckles gently into his cup. "We don't want you to be the focus of their puppy eyes."

Nicky's mouth twists into the barely noticeable smile, which Nile has come to appreciate very much. “Very well, Nile. I will follow your instructions nicely.”

She winks at the couple and then continues her round, pushes a cup into Andy 's hand, who is standing by the window and stares out, and then she hands one to Copley before she takes the last one. After blowing softly, she takes a sip of the bitter brew.

Nobody complains that it's just plain coffee, which is partly due to the fact that Nile still doesn't know exactly how her team members prefer coffee and partly because she didn't feel like turning Copley's kitchen upside down. He offered to help her make the coffee, but Nile politely declined - the more he sits at his laptop, the sooner he will hopefully find an answer to Nicky's inexplicable condition.

Copley didn't seem offended by her refusal and thanks her for the coffee with a small smile and a nod, doesn't make a face as he takes a sip and looks at his screen again.

The only approach they have right now is the laboratory, because everything that has happened in that context was their last mission. And while they'd been under the radar to get used to the new situation, nothing suspicious had happened. They'd always been together, so it's impossible that just Nicky caught anything, especially since their immortality should have cured that certain something long ago.

“In all of the material I've found on Merrick's servers and in his building, I couldn't find anything that would explain why Nicky is in his current state,” Copley informs them, without taking his attention off his laptop. “I deleted everything to erase your traces and destroyed any samples from the lab. There is no evidence of your existence or any connection to what happened at Merrick's."

"And the bitch of a doctor?" Andy still has his back to them, but it's more than obvious that she asked Copley.

Continue reading on AO3 ;)

#the old guard #fanfiction #tears on marble face #chapter two #Nile #Andy #Joe #Nicky #Copley

[saras-almanac]

writers month #11: the sun and moon - joe/nicky, nile [the old guard]

writers’ month prompt 11: light

summary: Nile tries to figure out how Joe and Nicky are as a couple. Nile POV

Notes: I have no idea what this is or why it came out this way, but here were are. I expected this to be different as I started it but then this fic came out and that was that. 

Nile wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when she settled down with Joe, Nicky, and Andy after their ordeal with Merrick and Booker. Training with Andy was obvious and actually something Nile was hesitantly looking forward to. As much as she was still getting used to, well, everything, the training would be something slightly familiar.

But maybe what she really didn’t know what to expect was Joe and Nicky. Nile hadn’t really lived with any couples—apart from her parents before her dad died—but she had been around them enough to know that they usually fell into two camps: constantly all over each other and loved up or sniping and bickering over every little thing. Knowing that Joe and Nicky had been together for almost—or maybe over?—900 years made Nile sure it was going to be the latter. You couldn’t live with the same person for that long and not know every way to irritate them.

Though perhaps if they were constantly all over each other, it’d actually be more difficult to manage because it would be a constant and never-ending reminder that they had each other and she had no one.

It shocked her that neither of those were the case with Joe and Nicky.

They definitely were together more often than not, but it usually didn’t feel like they were trying to block anyone out. It was like… they orbited each other in a way. They were always aware of where the other one was and didn’t need to constantly search him out. The only time she’d even seen anything close to need from them was the other day when Joe had fallen asleep on the sofa as he watched a movie with Nile. He blinked awake and immediately sat up and looked around, his eyes wide and frowning.

“Joe?” Nile asked.

And then Nicky was walking into the living room. He set the cup of tea he was carrying on the table by the sofa before bending down to kiss Joe’s forehead. They whispered something back and forth and Nile tried to keep her gaze focused on the movie. After a minute, Nicky handed Joe the cup of tea and went back to the kitchen to continue whatever he had been doing.

It sat with Nile for a while, wondering exactly what had happened. It was like Joe had woken up from a nightmare but he hadn’t shouted or startled awake. He just sort of got up and seemed confused. But Nicky had seemed to just know that without even being in the room. She’d awkwardly asked Nicky about it later that night while Joe showered. Nicky had smiled softly and said, “Joe is like the sun. He’s bright and warm, but it’s noticeable when clouds dampen out his light.”

Nile had nodded and left it at that because, as poetic as it was, it still made sense. Joe was like the sun. He was kind and thoughtful, full of life and excitement. He was always going on about some new television show or movie or book coming out, or desperately dragging Nile and Nicky sightseeing even if he’d seen these places numerous times.

But if Joe was the sun, then Nicky had to be the shadow, right? The silent guard, the other part that’s always present. Nicky didn’t need the spotlight or attention. He preferred to stand aside and simply watch those he cared about enjoying themselves.

It wasn’t until a mission she went on a few months later that she got a fuller picture.

It hadn’t been a large mission, nothing worrying or troublesome. Just a simple staged assassination attempt. Copley set up the details and said they needed a sniper to take a few shots at the mark in order to try and get him to begin to comply with the security measures. Something that Nile figured they’d never do, but Andy thought it’d be good for Nile to get some more mundane—if that’s possible in this situation—practice in, so she’d sent Nile and Nicky alone.

Nile expected Joe to put up a fight, if Nile was honest, but he didn’t. He’d squeezed her shoulder and wished her luck.

“No, ‘You better watch his back’ threatening speech to give me?” Nile asked as she threw a few more things in backpack.

Joe had laughed. “You’re not planning on betraying him, are you?”

“Of course not,” Nile said. “I just figured, you know, you two have been a team for centuries. You might feel weird about me being in your place, watching his back and stuff.”

Joe hummed and glanced to the door to his and Nicky’s room. “I’d prefer to be there, but really only for my peace of mind. But Nicky is an excellent sniper and is more than capable of taking care of himself.”

Nile had nodded and then a few minutes later her and Nicky were out the door and on their way to their meeting location. Once they were at the location, it was quiet between them. Nicky preparing himself and his gun, while Nile stood next to him, scanning out the window for any sign of people paying attention to them.

“Something on your mind, Nile?” Nicky asked her.

She hesitated before just giving in to her curiosity. “Doesn’t it bother you to be here without Joe?”

“Do you mean do I miss him? Yes. I miss him any time he’s not beside me,” Nicky said.

“No, that I’m here in his place,” Nile said.

“We’re all a team, Nile,” Nicky said gently. “You’re not in his place any more than I am.”

“You’re the only sniper.”

Nicky smiled at that. “I’m the best, but not the only one capable. Do you feel uncomfortable being here with me?”

“No,” Nile assured him. “I just… I know that you two like to be together that’s all.”

“We do,” Nicky agreed. “But it doesn’t mean we’re incapable of being parted.”

“But you’re his shadow,” Nile said.

Nicky furrowed his brow. “His what?”

It was ridiculous, to get into this while they’re setting up camp in a sniper’s nest. But it was out there now and Nile was nothing if not extremely blunt when she wanted to be. “You called Joe your sun. And he is. I get why you call him that or think of him that way. But that makes you his shadow, always there to tether him to earth, ground him, and just… you know, be together.”

“Ah,” Nicky said, as if anything Nile said made any sense. “You think that because I follow him I shadow him? That I exist only in relation to him?”

“Well, not like in a bad way,” Nile said. “But sort of. I’ve just not seen you guys apart before.”

“You remember why Yusuf is my sun,” Nicky said, turning his attention back to his preparation work. “And you think that my world revolves around him. You’re correct, in many ways, but I’m not his shadow, though I do agree that I can act like that occasionally. I just, like making sure he’s safe and happy. But he does the same for me. I like to think that because we are together, we are better than we are apart.”

“So not like a shadow,” Nile said.

Nicky laughed. “Not quite.”

She let it drop, but felt like she had a cleared picture. Joe was the sun, there’s no doubt about that. Almost everyone who looked at him could see that. But Nicky, Nicky was like the moon. Quiet in his brilliance, even now, but no less present.

#joe x nicky #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #nile freeman #the old guard #old guard fic #writers month 2020 #my writing

[sophiamcdougall]

I keep thinking that the immortals give Nile a lot of authoritative-sounding information about how being immortal works, and yet their sample size is never more than six and frequently it’s one.  Including Nile, there have only ever been seven of them ... that they know of. Obviously, there might have been near-immortals who lived and eventually died before Andy was even born, but also, until encountering Quynh, Andy had no way of knowing that new immortals inspire clairvoyant dreams in each other. Even after the dreams and meeting Quynh in real life ... if I were in her shoes I think I might have read the situation as “destined to find my soulmate” more than “all immortals come with a sort of built-in homing beacon which broadcasts equally to all other immortals.” Not for centuries would either encounter any further evidence either way. And even now -- having dreamed of, and then found, Lykon, Joe, Nicky and Nile, how do you know you’re dreaming of the world’s entire population of immortals, rather than a random selection? Or those Destiny or whatever particularly wants you to meet? Nicky and Joe can only ever have had this experience once before, relatively recently, and Booker can never have had it at all. I guess it doesn’t matter, as acknowledging the possibility that there might be others out there wouldn’t practically change very much, but it’s part of a pattern of jumping to conclusions.  

“Eventually you stop healing.” This has only happened once (that they know of, see above) and only one member of the current team was there to see it. “Immortality has limits and in time, this will happen to all of us” is a good theory, but it should only be a theory. How do they know that something hadn’t happened to Lykon, and only Lykon, to rob him of his immortality? What if he got a defective dose of immortality in the first place? Or, given that their own existence proves the existence of the supernatural, is it out of bounds to think that he might have pissed off some other form of supernatural being? Now, I don’t exactly mind them jumping to conclusions on this one, because they all have good reason, actually, to want this to be true -- Booker and Andy because depression and grief and burnout, Nicky and Joe because wonderful as it is to share centuries with your true love, you’d probably rather not stick around for the sun boiling away the oceans. And in fact bearing in mind that they couldn’t truly have known this was coming adds tension and urgency to the scenes after the revelation of Andy’s mortality. But I kind of wish it had been expressed, because it makes the possibility that this might be happening to all of them now - when they’re surrounded by enemies -- even more compelling. It’s somewhat implicit in the acting choices but imagine if they were explicitly grappling with the possibility that Lykon was an outlier in a different way - the rest of them were always supposed to run out of immortality juice now, today.  “Your family will reject you.” This is the one that actually bothers me,  because Christ, NILE’S POOR MUM. And this isn’t a statement about how immortality works anyway, it’s a statement about anyone who happens to be related to an immortal. The whole team seem to offhandedly agree that Nile is better off not going back to her family, but the only person who actually explains why is Booker, and ... why is anyone accepting Booker’s experiences as representative of anything? Especially after discovering the betrayal! Booker is suicidally depressed! Obviously he thinks the world is terrible, interpersonal problems are insurmountable and every bad thing that’s happened to him is a universal law of nature! You don’t have to believe him! Especially since his situation, as described, has pretty much fuck all in common with Nile’s and there’s little reason to think it has anything much in common with the others, either. And yet even when Nile has her “refusal of the call” moment, she doesn’t say argue with Booker’s predictions, she merely says that she can defer the moment she must vanish from her family’s lives until her immortality becomes impossible to hide. But why? Booker does not mention parents, only his children. There’s no indication any of the others had offspring, but even if they did, it’s largely irrelevant to Nile who clearly doesn’t. She’s concerned about her mother and brother. Nile discovers her immortality a lot younger than the rest of the team, in a period with a much longer average life expectancy. All the rest appear to be in their mid thirties to mid forties. Given how far back in time their origins are, it’s unlikely that all of them had living parents when they discovered their immortality, and any that  they did have would have been decidedly elderly by the standards of the time. So how plausible is it that any of the others experienced any version of what Booker describes? I’d say not very, and it’s downright implausible that they experienced it with a parent. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. Booker’s situation was agonising specifically because it was a tragic inversion of that rule. Booker’s son had to die in pain while his father now looked younger than he did. But Andy, Joe or Nicky’s parents, even if they were around to witness anything, would have seen ... what? Their 45-year-old son still passing for 35?  Even if they knew about the immortality ... how exactly would they have wanted/expected their child to pass it on? Wouldn’t an 11th century parent have been far more likely to take up the unequal distribution of miracles with God rather than their kid? So why should Nile accept that her mother will behave like Booker’s son? Isn’t it enormously more likely that a woman who, like every mother, has always wanted and expected to be outlived by her daughter, and yet has been living with the daily terror of losing her in combat, will be enormously relieved to know that she’s not going to die prematurely? Is it even vaguely likely that the pain of not benefiting directly from your daughter’s magical healing powers, decades from now, is worse than the pain of losing her at 20? OK, so then there’s the brother. Outliving a brother isn’t like outliving a child either, but it’s at least somewhat easier to believe there could be jealousy and conflict there eventually. But is that possibility of pain worth inflicting absolutely certain agony now? Is it impossible to talk through potential issues now just because it didn’t work out that way for Booker? OK, but for argument’s sake, let’s accept your family will inevitably ask you to share your immortality with them. Booker says that of course you can’t pass it on, yet his entire freaking arc is predicated on the possibility that maybe you can. (Which is cool, actually! But it has unexplored implications!) One thing that I actually really liked about film is it made “getting kidnapped and vivisected” a convincing threat, whereas many sci-fi shows vaguely invoke it as a reason that superpowered characters must keep their abilities secret, without ever bothering to show how that would play out in practice. I mean, people with unusual abilities exist! Michael Phelps produces less than half the usual amount of lactic acid! And has twice the normal lung capacity! Which we know, because researchers have studied him! Yet nobody has ever carted Michael Phelps off to a secret laboratory and if they did he would have various legal options!  It works here, but part of the reason it works is that Copley raises the obvious objection - why should being a subject of medical research mean anything more than donating some blood, a cheek swab and maybe at absolute worst some bone marrow? That would be enough to map their entire genome ... what else does even the maddest scientist even want? The Old Guard is the first show I can think of which actually had a decent answer, and it’s that Merrick is a greedy hypercapitalist psychopath who doesn’t want to share. Which is brilliant, but acknowledges it isn’t actually the science that’s the problem. But none of that was available in Booker’s time! He not only had to deal with an apparently unique situation among the immortals, he also was caught at a unique moment in history: far enough advanced that his family was less likely to accept “miraculously chosen by god/gods/fate” as an answer, far enough advanced to contemplate the possibility that medical science could replicate his immortality, but nowhere near advanced enough to meaningfully try. But if you’re immortal now and your dying relative is freaking out ... wouldn’t you at least agree to giving them a blood transfusion? They’d know you tried. It’d probably calm them down. It might even work!  What is the wider significance of this? Basically fuck all, but it feels like it’s been years since I got to nitpick something that I genuinely enjoyed for the sheer, innocent love of being an insufferable killjoy rather than because I thought it was Problematic.  

#The Old Guard

[fangirlshrewt97]

The Old Guard Fanfic - A Game of Strategy and Heart

Author(s): Fangirlshrewt97

Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)

Pairing: Joe & Nile, Joe/Nicky, Joe & Nicky & Nile

Characters: Nile Freeman, Joe|Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky|Nicolo Di Genova, Andy|Andromache the Scynthian

Rating: General

Warnings: None

Additional Tags:  Family Bonding, Soft, Family Bonding, Team as Family, Soft, Fluff, Brother-Sister Relationships, Chess history lesson, Attempt at Humor, Mild Language, Teasing, Teaching Joe gets to share and teach his favorite game to his newest sister!

Summary:

“I’m fine Joe.” she said, emphasizing the words to make sure they got through. Joe’s lips quirked up as he entered the room further, till he was leaning against the edge of the bed. “Sure?” “Well, I am contemplating experimenting with different ways to die just to test them out you know. Was thinking of writing a list I could work down.” Joe laughed. “If you want to be creative about it, I think there is a phone game called Dumb Ways to Die?” Nile huffed a laugh. “I’ll check it out.” “Hmm.” Joe said, crossing his arms. “Bored, are you?” “Out of my mind.” Nile admitted. Joe seemed to think for a moment before nodding. “Right. Come on, I think I have a cure for your boredom.”

Basically, while waiting at Copley's house for a mission, Nile gets bored, and Joe invites her to play his favorite game.

Link to A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25786423

                                                         ///

Nile was bored. There was really no other word to describe how she was feeling. A little restless, unable to sit still, a little distracted, unable to focus. But mostly bored. She had been with her new family for five months now, and they had settled into a pattern of sorts with her training, trying to integrate her better into the team. And she loved the lessons, both the fighting lessons and the more practical stuff.

But at the moment, Copley had said he had a mission in mind but he needed some more time to get a full debrief of the situation, so he had told them to stay close until he was done. The beds in his two guest rooms were luckily big enough to accommodate the four of them, and they had been crashing here for the past week.

A week where Andy had disappeared with or without Copley and turned back up around dinner time, never explaining what she did while away. A week with Joe and Nicky being obnoxiously cute in the ‘adorable, totally makes you believe true love is out there and as good as the books say it’ way, but also ‘so sweet you get a mouthful of cavities just watching them’.

Nile loved her new family, loved them dearly and embraced them as quickly as they embraced her. Even as the pain of leaving her real family behind became a dull ache rather than a sharp pain. Even as there was an undeniable missing Booker-shaped hole.

Andy was scary, and terrifying, but also smart, and brave, and beautiful, and kind. She was what Nile wanted to become, but she also saw the chips in Andy’s soul, the sadness weighing her down even as she passed each day with her held high.

Nicky was disconcerting, and cold, but also sweet, and honest, and big-hearted. He was always at her side when she woke from another nightmare, correcting her posture during her sword lessons and correcting her pronunciation during language lessons. He reminded her of her brother in the most unexpected of ways, making a bitter nostalgia rest on her tongue even as she sought the happiness that came from the small piece of familiarity.

Booker had been scared, and dying, drowning, but also perceptive, and sympathetic, loyal. Nile had argued for a lighter sentence because she had heard the sadness in his voice as he spoke of his family and been reminded of so many others who went to war and died there, even if their bodies came back to continue living. She had known him for three days, nothing at all for immortals who live centuries and millennia.

Joe was comforting, and warm, but also ruthless, and avenging, and protective. Joe had died at the hands of a man and decided to love that man for eternity. Nile did not understand Joe, couldn’t find a connection like with the others.

Andy and her still novel fear of dying, Nicky and his faith, Booker and his ‘youth’.

All of which brought her to her present conundrum. She was laying in her bed at Copley’s while Nicky was cooking downstairs and Andy had gone off to God only knew where. And she was bored because they had told her to enjoy two days without lessons. So here she was, laying on the bed with a tennis ball in her hands she was tossing up and down. (which had definitely not accidentally fallen on her face even once).

Just as she was contemplating getting up to search for a basketball or just go for a run, there was a knock at the door before it cracked open.

“Nile?” Joe asked, still standing at the door, unable to see her.

“Hey Joe. Come on in.” Nile said as she sat up in bed. The man entered the room, one of his bright smiles lighting up his face, and the room by extension. Nile automatically smiled back. “What’s up?”

“Oh nothing. I just realized we hadn’t seen you all day and thought to check up on you.”

Right. There may have been an incident or two of a panic attack she had had over being immortal and not adjusting fully to the situation. It was almost funny in hindsight, how much more panicked Andy had looked trying to calm her down than in a room with twenty guns pointed at her very mortal body. Since then, the three had been very sweet but unsubtle in their efforts to make sure she didn’t have another breakdown.

“I’m fine Joe.” she said, emphasizing the words to make sure they got through.

Joe’s lips quirked up as he entered the room further, till he was leaning against the edge of the bed.

“Sure?”

“Well, I am contemplating experimenting with different ways to die just to test them out you know. Was thinking of writing a list I could work down.”

Joe laughed. “If you want to be creative about it, I think there is a phone game called Dumb Ways to Die?”

Nile huffed a laugh. “I’ll check it out.”

“Hmm.” Joe said, crossing his arms. “Bored, are you?”

“Out of my mind.” Nile admitted.

Joe seemed to think for a moment before nodding. “Right. Come on, I think I have a cure for your boredom.”

He headed for the door, leaving behind a Nile who blinked at his retreating back before scrambling to follow him, leaving the tennis ball on the bedside drawer.

She followed him down the stairs, past the kitchen where Nicky waved at her as she passed and into the living room. Joe smiled at her.

“Wait here a minute, I’ll be right back.” he said cryptically before disappearing behind his and Nicky’s bedroom door.

Nile sat on the sofa, placing her hands under her thighs to resist the urge to fidget with them. As promised, Joe appeared a moment latter, carrying a square case under his arm. He came to sit on the opposite end of the couch, playing the case between them.

The case was made of solid wood, with a small silver-coloured latch on the side.

“This is just my travel set, I have beautiful sets in our safe houses, but this one is sturdy enough to withstand some wear.”

“It’s a chess set.” Nile remarked as Joe open the latch, turning it over to dump the pieces on the sofa.

He righted the board before holding up a white and black piece. “You’ve played, I hope?”

Nile nodded. “I’m not very good though.”

Joe smiled. “Good. That means there is a lot I can teach you. So, black or white?”

Nile debated for a second before grabbing the black pawn.

“Ok, I start then.” Joe said as he picked out the white pieces and arranged them on the board, Nile copying him with her own black pieces.

Once the board was set, Joe pulled out the pawn in front of his king two places.

Nile brought her corresponding pawn two places forward, placing it directly in front of Joe’s.

Joe moved his queen to the edge of the board, placing it on the same line as her pawn.

Nile thought for a moment before moving her king one step forward.

Joe smirked and cut her pawn. “Checkmate.”

“Wait, what?” Nile said. But Joe was right, there was no piece she could place in front of the king, and no where she could move him without being cut.

“This isn’t fair Joe.”

Joe laughed and reset his pieces before resetting Nile’s. “No it isn’t azizati, I have been playing this game for a very long time you know.”

“I’m not playing with you again.” Nile said.

Joe just continued to laugh. “Come, Chess is the greatest game humanity ever invented.”

“Games are mostly fun because of the possibility of winning Joe.” Nile argued.

Joe conceded with a bow of his head. “True. I will go easy on you. You can also be white this time.”

He turned the board so she had the white pieces. She squinted at him, but when he just kept smiling, she sighed and moved her pawn in front.

Joe smiled and mirrored her.

This time, she moved her horse out.

Joe was quiet as he moved his own horse out. He copied her moves for a couple more steps before changing the pattern. Ten minutes into the game, Nile had, with great difficulty managed to capture two of Joe’s pawns and one of his bishops. Joe had gotten three of her pawns, one of her horses, one of her bishops, and one of her rooks.

Nile did not pout because she was a grown woman, thank you very much. But it was a near thing. “This supposed to be you going easy on me?”

“You will not learn if you do not face struggle azizati.” Joe said gravely before cracking up.

“What does that mean?” Nile asked as she moved her remaining horse to cut another of Joe’s pawns.

“What?” Joe asked with a small furrow in his brow as he moved one of his pawns forward.

“The Arabic word. Azizati.” Nile said. She brought her horse to Joe’s last line.

“Oh, it’s just a term of affection. It translates to ‘my dear’ roughly. Do you not want me to use it?” Joe asked, looking at her.

Nile blushed before shaking her head. “No…no it’s fine. Was just curious.”

Joe shot her such a charming smile, Nile’s shoulders shook with a laugh. How could this 900+ year old man be so boyishly charming. It was annoying as hell.

“Tell me Nile, what do you know about chess?” Joe asked as he moved his remaining bishop to a square. “Check.”

“What do you mean?” Nile asked as she responded by blocking the way with a pawn.

“The history of the game. Its origins. The story of chess.” Joe elaborated. He moved his rook ahead. He looked at the game board and then at her, shit-eating grin in place. “Checkmate.”

Nile looked at the board, then at him. “Fuck off Joe.”

Joe burst out laughing, so loud and boisterous it brought Nicky to the room.

“What’s going on here?” Nicky asked as he looked at the scene they made with a look that was equal parts amused and fond.

“Your husband is a little shit.” Nile said.

Nicky joined into Joe’s laughter. “Ah, yes. Yes he is Nile.”

Joe made an amused sound of offense. “Nicolo, hayati, how can you injure me so?”

“I feel no regrets, amore, same as you not feeling an ounce of remorse for crushing our baby mercilessly.”

To add salt to the wound, he high-fived Nile. Joe pouted.

“Serves you right Joe.”

“Nile,” he did not quite whine, but…

Nicky took pity on him. “Nile, how about one more game?”

“Against you?” Nile asked, even as Joe sat up straighter and reminded her of a dog excitedly wagging his tail.

“No.” Nicky said firmly, before winking at her. “You and me against Joe.”

Joe’s mouth opened in shock, making Nile cackle. “You know what, that’s an acceptable deal. Let’s play Joe!”

“You’re cooking dinner! You can’t play!”

“Dinner is practically done, I kept a lasagna in the oven which should take at least another 25 minutes to cook. I am confident we can trounce you by then.”

Nile took great pleasure in arranging the pieces even as Joe continued to pout. Nicky merely grabbed a chair from the dining room and brought it to sit next to Nile.

The game was fun, Nicky pointing out all the possible moves she had open but letting her make the choice. Joe kept complaining the whole time, but it was good natured ribbing.

“You do realize hayati, your track record of winning at chess against me is not that great either?”

“Don’t listen to him Nile, let’s just try our best.”

In the end though, Joe managed to pull a win with the skin of his teeth, using a single rook and pawn-turned-Queen.

He was very obnoxious in his victory. Nile felt a small spike of vindication when she threw her King at him and it hit him between the eyes. Nicky snorted before getting up. “That was fun. I am going to check on dinner. Nile, do try not to destroy the pieces though, he is very fond of that board.”

Nile nodded before curling into the couch, leaning her body sideways with her feet tucked under her. She opened the board and returned the nearby pieces inside the case, and Joe joined her, doing the same. She leaned back as he finished arranging the pieces.

“I don’t know anything about it.” she said.

Joe looked at her, raising an eyebrow at the seeming non-sequitar.

“Chess. You asked me if I know its history. Before Nicky joined. I don’t know, I didn’t really play it all that much growing up. Chess was my dad’s game, so we didn’t play it that much when he wasn’t home.”

Joe smiled. “Chess is a beautiful game Nile, it has gone through so many changes, evolving with the time. So many meaning and symbolisms. Do you want to hear about it?”

Nile nodded, settling in more deeply into the couch.

“Chess evolved from a game played in Northern India tracing back almost 1500 years ago called Chaturanga,” Joe started. “There is a myth with a cruel king, but I can’t remember it right now. The game was brought from India to Arabia in the 6th century, and then to southern Europe by the expanding Islamic empire. In Europe, the church tried to ban chess multiple times, and the pieces evolved too, both their names and their moving capabilities.”

“Hold on, why would the Church ban chess?” Nile asked.

Joe shrugged. “The usual reasons, they felt like the people who would play it would develop ideas against the church or the Powers that Were.”

Nile’s mouth twisted in a frown on dissatisfaction.

“It wasn’t just the church, there was a time in the 9th century when chess was banned in some Islamic states too.”

Nile hummed. “So what were the changes to chess?”

“Well, this piece for example,” Joe said, holding up a rook, “is called an elephant in the Middle east and India even today. But Europeans did not fight wars with elephants, so the name was modified to what did exist there. It is the piece who’s name has changed the most. It can be called rook or tower.”

He pulled out a Queen. “In the original game, this piece was called Vizir, or minister, but then was changed to Queen.”

“How come?”

“Ah, a fun story.” Joe said, spinning the piece in his hands. “The Queen used to be one of the weakest pieces. They played chess in the Royal Court of Spain in the 15th century. Queen Isabella was offended. She asked her advisers if they thought her that feeble. Their response was to make her the most powerful piece in the game.”

“Badass Queen.” Nile said.

“Hmm.” Joe agreed.

He replaced the Queen with a Horse. “This piece is called a horse in Arabic and Persian, but some English countries call them knights.”

“Cool.” Nile said as she took the piece from his hand, running her finger over the horse head. “So you have been playing for how long now?”

“My father taught me.” Joe said, eyes going distant, probably recalling a long forgotten memory. “So, about 950 years?”

Nile hit him in the face with a pillow. “A cheater on top of being an ass!”

Joe laughed as he grabbed the pillow from her. “I surrender, I surrender.” he said as he held up his arms to cover his face, a wide smile splitting his face.

Nile relinquished the pillow to him. “I know there are chess competitions. Have you ever participated in one?”

If possible, Joe’s grin became even more shit-eating. Nile looked at him warily. “What?”

“I participated in the first ever world Chess competition in 1886.”

Nile’s jaw dropped. “You did not.”

“I did. Got third place too.” He sounded smug, but Nile laughed in his face, making him confused. “What?”

“You would have been playing the game for 700 years by that point and you still couldn’t defeat someone who had been playing for how long, 30-40 years?”

“Steinitz was 49.” Joe grumbled, making Nile laugh harder. This time he threw the pillow at her.

“You know what Joe, I changed my mind. Teach me this game. I’m sure I’ll be able to beat you after another 40 years.” Nile said, smile wolf-sharp.

Joe gave her the stink eye. “Arrogance will be your downfall Freeman.”

“We will see about that. Show me your moves!” Nile crowed.

The two set up the pieces again, Nile sitting back and watching as Joe walked her through different strategies to finish games quickly.

After five possible strategies though, Joe reset the games and proposed a rematch.

“Hold on, this is too much.” Nile said.

“I thought you wanted me to teach you how to play.” Joe said.

“I do, but this is a lot. It feels like, like,” Nile waved her hands, “there’s so many ways to start, I don’t know where to start.

Joe sighed. “Nile, I am going to give you the advice I remember my dad giving me. But bear in mind, it has been several centuries so I am going to paraphrase it ok?”

Nile nodded.

“Chess is first and foremost a game of adaptability, even more than one of strategy. Because to win, you need to be able to predict, or at least make a good guess about your opponent’s moves, and choose the option that maximizes the benefits for you, which minimizing them for your opponent. Each possible move represents a different game. A different universe in which you make a better move. By the second move, there are 72,084 possible games. By the third, 9 million. By the fourth there are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe. Which means that that first move can be terrifying.”

“So how do you make the first move?”

“The first move is the furthest point from the end of the game, there's a virtually infinite sea of possibilities between you and the other side. But it also means that if you make a mistake, there's a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax and play.” Joe finished.

Nile’s shoulders slumped as she considered the board, her fingers hovering over the pieces.

Finally, she moved her pawn ahead.

Joe smiled. “Chess is also a game of heart as much as of brain Nile. The way you play reveals a lot about you. You are so cautious about your pieces, you are more concerned about making sure your pieces don’t get cut than using them in the best possible way to finish the game quickly.”

Nile looked at him. “How do you play?”

Joe’s lips quirked. He moved his horse forward. “ My King is my most important piece, and I will do whatever it takes to protect him. And my Queen is his best protector, so she is the one I will use at every chance if safe.”

Nile felt like there was a deeper meaning that she wasn’t grasping right then, but she didn’t want to ask right then, so she moved her own horse out.

The game continued at a sedate pace, Joe letting her think as long as needed. In the end, Joe won, but Nile had managed to get him down to just his queen and his rook again, probably because he let her, but she would count it.

A slow clap startled the pair, who turned to see Andy leaning against the doorway watching them. “Good job Nile.”

“I didn’t win Andy.”

“On the contrary, you actually played through a game with him. I lost the patience for it many centuries ago.”

“Oh come now boss, I think you have played a grand total of three games straight through with me.” Joe teased.

Andy shrugged her devil-may-care shrug. “Nicky was calling for you.”

“Ah, Nile, azizati, would you mind putting the board away?”

“No problem.”

“Thank you sweet girl.” Joe said, kissing her on the top of the head before leaving. Nile heard him greet Nicky with a “Re del mio cuore!”

Nile squinted at the doorway. “Andy?”

The eldest immortal hummed as she also looked at the kitchen.

“What does Re mean in Italian?”

Andy smirked. “King.”

Fucking incurable romantic, chess cheating, asshole.

#the old guard #the old guard fanfic #tog #tog fanfic #my fic #my writing #nile freeman #nile freeman fanfic #nicky x joe #joe x nicky #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #andromache the scythian #yusuf al kaysani fanfic #let me know what you think!

[iam93percentstardust]

More Important Things

I! Am Apparently writing Old Guard fic now! (don’t worry, I’ll be back to the regularly scheduled Marvel soon enough) So if you’re interested in soft Immortal Husbands who are too busy being in love to get themselves out of trouble, please go check it out on ao3 (or give it a reblog here)

~

Kidnappings, Nile comes to learn, are a simple fact of life when you’re part an immortal band of warriors dedicated to upholding all that is right and good in the world.

Wow, there’s a sentence she never thought she’d say.

It’s never again like how it was with Merrick Pharmaceuticals. No one is ever looking for them because of their immortality, especially not now with Copley covering their tracks. But when you’re part of an immortal band of warriors dedicated to upholding all that is right and good in the world, you tend to make a few enemies and, try as you might, you can’t always get everyone involved in a drug trafficking ring or a warlord’s band. Hence, the kidnapping.

She’s been kidnapped twice now: once with Andy and once on her own. When it was with Andy, they’d used gas and Nile suspects that’s the only reason they were kidnapped in the first place because she doubts Andy would have gone quietly the way Nile had when it had been just her facing off against ten armed men. Sure she could have eventually beaten them but they had been standing in a crowded marketplace—she hadn’t wanted anyone innocent to get hurt and she really hadn’t wanted any of the bystanders to notice her immortality.

This is the first time though that she’s ever been kidnapped with Joe and Nicky. It had been gas again, something potent and strong that made her wonder if they’d accidentally gotten the dosage wrong since she’s pretty sure she died at least once before waking up for good in an abandoned warehouse. She says accidentally because in another room, she can hear some of their captors talking and she’s pretty sure they’re not smart enough to have actually figured out their secret.

Nile wasn’t there when Joe and Nicky had been taken by Merrick Pharmaceuticals but she can’t help but imagine that it had probably looked something like this, with Joe hunched over Nicky, muttering at him in Italian though she has no idea what.

She likes the way Italian sounds, especially the way it just rolls off of Joe and Nicky’s tongues. She’d asked Nicky once if he would teach her, seeing as how Andy is already working on teaching her several other languages—Mandarin and Greek and Swahili among others—and Booker’s supposedly going to teach her French once his banishment is over. Nicky had just looked at her and simply told her, “No.”

It had been Joe who had told her that Italian and an ancient dialect of Arabic that no one else speaks anymore are their languages. Andy had told her later, “Don’t be offended. I don’t speak them either.” At the time, Nile, only a few weeks into her immortality, hadn’t understood but by this point, she understands it perfectly.

Joe and Nicky, Nicky and Joe, two suns that orbit each other, are terribly soft, even when they’re speaking in English. She can only imagine what it must be like when they’re speaking a language no one else understands.

Nicky coughs, says something in Arabic, and rolls over so he can sit up. Joe is right there to help him even though it’s obvious that Nicky doesn’t actually need any help. Soft, Nile thinks again. Soft with each other, with the members of their little band, with random people that they pass on the street. She doesn’t know how they’ve lived so many years and stayed soft but she suspects it’s for the same reason that all of their other traits are different than Andy and Booker—they’re Joe-and-Nicky.

“An abandoned warehouse,” Joe replies, switching to English.

“We got kidnapped by the most incompetent people imaginable,” Nile tells them.

“Did we?” Joe asks.

“You didn’t notice?” Nicky chides.

“I was a little wrapped up in you, habibi,” Joe murmurs and Nicky’s eyes go soft.

Nile makes a gagging noise. There is a time and place for their antics but this is definitely not it. They can be disgustingly romantic once they’re back at the safehouse.

Nicky glares at her but there’s no heat behind it. “One day, you will no longer be surprised by us.”

“I’m not surprised now. I’m trying to focus on how we’re going to get out of here.”

“You said they’re incompetent,” Joe says, switching into his professional mode. “How sure are you?”

“Pretty sure. I’ve been listening to them while you two napped—”

“—Ouch,” Joe mutters.

“—and I don’t think they gave us the wrong dosage on purpose.”

“So the question remains, did they figure out they killed us?” Nicky asks. He rolls his head to look at Joe. “Amore mio, I’m sorry but your dinner is going to have to wait. We need to know what they know.”

Joe swears in a language that doesn’t exist anymore, gloomily saying, “I was looking forward to that chicken. Nile, you would have loved it. He makes this lemon and white wine sauce, the recipe is from the 1500s, nearly perfected—”

“Nearly?” Nicky asks. He sounds almost offended, which is every bit as hilarious as the situation they’ve ended up in.

“Habibi, it’s so good, you know it is, but you know I’ve always thought it needed mushrooms and—

“Mushrooms would ruin it. How many times do I have to tell you—”

“—but if you just tried—”

“—I don’t have to try to know—”

“Quiet!” someone shouts from the other room.

As one, Joe and Nicky turn to glare at the door and then continue squabbling, this time in Italian. Nile can’t help but laugh. This is nothing like her kidnapping with Andy, which had felt more like an action movie (or a horror one depending on the viewpoint), or even like her own, which had mostly been a lot of waiting until the team had shown up (could she have broken herself out? Sure but that would have involved breaking her own wrist and she hadn’t wanted to do that).

As they bicker, she works on loosening the ropes around her wrists—further proof of their kidnappers incompetency because she twists her wrists the right way and the ropes just fall off—and then crawls over to Joe and Nicky to start working on theirs, who barely even bother stopping their argument to acknowledge her.

“Chi è il cuoco—thank you, Nile,” Nicky says, “in questa famiglia?”

Joe groans. “Non questo di nuovo—thank you, Nile.”

They suddenly stop as they hear footsteps coming from the other room. Nile glances at the two, they look back at her, and she’s suddenly glad that Andy insists on so much training because she knows exactly what it is they want her to do. She creeps to the door, stationing herself on one side of it, as Nicky positions himself on the other side. Joe stays in the center of the room, whistling to himself and generally looking as innocent as he can.

Again, she thanks whoever might be listening for the stupidity of their kidnappers as none of them even seem to think it’s suspicious that Joe and Nicky have stopped arguing. Instead, one of them steps right through the doorway, gun trained on Joe, wondering, “Hey, where are the other—”

He doesn’t even finish his sentence as Nicky sweeps his feet out from under him, neatly catching his gun and tossing it to Joe. The other two kidnappers shout and rush through the door, tripping over the first. Nile snatches the gun from one of them and Nicky takes the other. It’s over in moments, the kidnappers prone on the floor, no one else coming through the door, and their team with all the weapons.

Nicky trains his on the leader. “You were going to shoot Joe,” he says coldly. Nile shivers, remembering what Joe had once told her—that Nicky was the kind one. And for the most part he is: if they’re short on food, he always makes sure Nile ate first; he rescues baby birds; gives the local children in the village they’re hiding in candy. But when it comes to Joe, even when they’re immortal and it doesn’t matter if Joe gets hurt, he’s always hard. “You were going to hurt him and so you are the one who will answer my questions.”

“And if I don’t?” the kidnapper sneers.

Stupid, Nile thinks.

Nicky adjusts his aim and fires. The kidnapper screams, left hand going for his right shoulder, now a bloody mess. “Who do you work for?”

~

They’re leaving the warehouse, Joe and Nicky fussing over each other even though neither got shot, when Andy pulls up in their car, remarkable only because it’s practically falling apart. No one would look twice if they saw that on the road and that’s just how Andy likes it.

“I take it dinner is off, then?” she calls through the window.

“Sadly, yes,” Joe says mournfully, climbing into the backseat next to Nicky. “Nile, it’s such a shame. You really would have liked it.”

“Amore mio,” Nicky murmurs. “I’ll make you something else.”

“Nothing else could be as wonderful as the chicken you were going to make unless it is your smile, which warms even the coldest winter.”

Andy rolls her eyes and Nicky laughs.

“There it is. There’s that smile I love,” Joe murmurs, thumb gently touching the corner of his mouth.

“What about if I make you—” He slides into Arabic and Joe hums thoughtfully before responding in another language that Nile doesn’t know yet though she doesn’t think that it’s Italian.

“How was it?” Andy asks her as they drive off.

“Honestly?” She thinks about it for a moment and then says, “Best kidnapping yet.”

#the old guard #joenicky #nile #alle writes #if you like please consider reblogging

[elfwriter1088]

Old Guard (Chapter 1)

A/n: 2 chapters in one day! This is all that I got for now. Again, I blame @badassbaker for getting me to post my story up. Go check out their blog! (They’re so AMAZING! I can’t stress them enough).

Disclaimer: Again, I don’t own any of the Old Guard characters: they belong to their respectful owners. I only own those that you would not recognize from the comics (i.e. Nyx, Erik, etc)

---(chapter 1)---

Upon setting foot on Moroccan soil, Nyx was quick to get directions to the hotel that the others were going to gather. Preferring to walk to the destination, Nyx was treated to the luxury of sightseeing of a whole new different world far from what the woman was used to seeing. Merchants trying to sell their goods to those that passed by their stalls; children laughing and running around while playing with each other. Nyx smiled at the sight while making sure to keep her old military scarf covering her hair from falling out of place. Armed only with an old army issued pack slung over her shoulder while a small duffel bag held her xyili, a couple of SOG tactical knives and her ‘hidden blades’, she ventured her way to the meeting place.

Once checked into the hotel, she made her way to where she was sure to meet with the others. At the door, she raised her hand to knock but paused. She hesitated in knocking right away...why? She was going to be amongst her friends, her team...her family. Releasing a soft sigh, she then proceeded to knock three times. She eagerly awaited as to whom would answer the door. Biting at her lower lip, she didn’t have to wait long before the door opened up and…

“Hi…” she greeted the person on the other side of the door.

Nicky grinned as he leaned in to kiss at her cheek before giving her a big hug. He was pretty fond of the petite woman ever since he met her and Andy all those years ago and has never once been at more ease than with Nyx and Joe. He had wondered if she was going to show up at all, given that Book had to call all of them to meet here; Joe and himself had arrived first before Booker and Andy came to the room not even a half hour ago.

“È bello vederti, Nyx. Com'è stato il viaggio qui??” he asked once they pulled away.

*It is good to see you, Nyx. How was the trip out here?*

“Lungamente ... ricordami di sculacciare Book per avermi fatto usare la scusa dell '"emergenza familiare" per l'altro lavoro. Spero che valga la pena usarlo per fare questo lavoro..”

*Long...remind me to spank Book for making me use the 'family emergency' excuse for the other job. I hope it was worth using that to do this job*

Nicky laughed at the comment as he led Nyx to where the others were sitting around and awaiting her arrival. Joe was the first to spot her and rushed over to bear hug the other brunette.

“آه ، نيكس الصغير. فاتنا وجودك معنا في المنزل. آمل أنك لست غريب الأطوار على بعض الحلوى ، عزيزي” Joe said as he lifted the newly-arrived woman up in the air a couple of inches.

*Ah, little Nyx. We missed having you stay with us at the house. I hope you're not too cranky for some sweets, dear one*

“You’re too kind, sir. I’m sure that you saved whatever delicious treat you have from Andy eating it,” Nyx replied back, surprised that everyone wanted to test out how fluent Nyx could get with it.

Once Joe pulled away from her arms, she glanced over to see the woman in question clearly enjoying some baklava.

“Ελπίζω πραγματικά αυτό που νομίζω ότι είναι, Andromache.” she glanced at the other woman with a soft smile.

*I really hope that's what I think it is, Andromache*

“You know I can’t speak our native tongue for shit nowadays, Nyx. Stop showing off and get some of this,” Andy replied back, making sure to not choke on the flavorful treat she had in her hands while passing one to her oldest friend and comrade.

Nyx took the piece offered to her and took a small bite. She closed her eyes to pinpoint what she thought was in the dessert.

“East Turkey...however...there’s anise in this. There’s only one place that makes it...and she has Persian roots,” Nyx remarked as she opened her eyes and saw Booker looking at her with a soft glance in his eyes.

“Pay up. Nyx always seems to find that one detail that everyone misses,” the Frenchman replied with a chuckle.

“What was the bet? Andy guessing where it’s from? How much?” Nyx asked, one eyebrow quirked up in piqued interest.

“Cinq cents ... et tu viens de me rendre riche à nouveau, ma chérie” he simply replied back with a smirk only reserved for her.

*Five hundred...and you just made me rich again, sweetheart*

“Oh per favore. Nyx, ha bisogno di scopare. Sono sicuro che voi due potete trovare Booker una donna che gli farà una bella scopata”

*Oh please. Nyx, he needs to get laid. I'm sure that you two can find Booker a woman to give him a good fuck*

Nicky’s comment had Nyx laughing her butt off as she felt tears forming at the corners of her eyes. This was one thing she missed being in Nicky’s presence--the Italian knew how to get her to laugh off a bad situation with a joke or two.

“Sai ... potrebbe non aver bisogno di trovare una donna della notte se continua a essere tutto scontroso intorno a noi mentre parliamo nella tua lingua madre, amore mio” Joe replied as he came to hug Nicky from behind the Italian.

*You know...he might not need to find a woman of the night if he continues to be all grumpy around us while we speak in your native tongue, my love*

Nyx, unlady-like, snorted at Joe’s remark; her sides were starting to ache from the constant laughter she was experiencing at the moment. Booker gave a dirty look to the other two men before he rose to his feet and went to give the newly arrival a hug of his own.

“Si seulement ils savaient ...” he whispered in her ear.

*If only they knew...*

“Je ne le passerais pas devant eux pour savoir ... Andy ... peut-être pas.”

*Would not put it past them to know...Andy...maybe not.*

“Ok, enough with the teasing. So...how do we meet Copley?” the leader announced, breaking up anymore time for testing out Nyx’s vast knowledge of languages and getting to the reason they all assembled.

After the meetup with Copley, the group was getting ready for the assignment. Most of the small details were taken care of and now was time for catching up on some needed sleep before diving right into the mission. Nyx was sitting on the railing in the balcony, sipping on a cup of tea that was made by Nicky prior to him going to bed a couple hours ago. Dressed in a pair of shorts and a baggy sweater that allowed one shoulder to peek out, Nyx’s eyes were hidden behind a pair of big framed glasses while her hair was piled up in a topknot that looked messy, but intentional. In her hand was a SMOK RPM 40 vape mod--yeah, she had her vices, like the others have theirs; however, one of hers was smoking. She gave up on cigarettes, which was the hardest vice to give up after having smoked them for over a hundred years and forty years. Drinking...Nyx knew that both Andy and Booker drink to forget of their ‘lonely’ states of mindset of being without their families. Nyx would know better, she had to watch her kids and grandkids and their kids grow old and die. Raphael and Erik, although young in her eyes, were just among one of the last remaining descendents still alive and in somewhat good health.

Taking a puff and blowing a smoke ring into the somewhat stifling night air, Nyx’s eyes closed to take in the sensation and breathe in the calmness of the night before a big assignment. Although, this is how Nyx always would do prior to one of the ‘big ones’, as she would call assignments that would take a lot out of her emotionally and mentally. She was so engrossed in the serenity that she wasn’t paying attention to movement behind her until a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist, making sure to keep her on the railing and not have her fall and hurt herself. Nyx literally jumped in the air a bit, grabbing at the arms and holding onto dear life.

“Détends-toi, chérie. Je ne voulais pas te faire peur, ma reine.” His husky voice caused  echoes of a shiver to run down her spine, sparking desire and lust throughout her entire body. *Relax, sweetheart. Did not mean to scare you, my queen.*

“You know I wasn’t a queen, Book…” she replied back as she turned her head to the side, seeing hazel-muted green eyes looking at her with a soft side that was only for her.

“You are to me, Alexina.”

The petite woman slowly maneuvered her body around so that she was facing Booker. Her topknot flopped to the side as Nyx tilted her head a little bit while she looked to the Frenchman.

"And what is that you see in me that justifies you calling me such a title, Sebastian?" Nyx asked; her voice gave away hints of insecurity and low esteem to being called a queen when Nyx knew that she was not one.

Booker was a little taken back of her using his given name from birth, but once again: this was Nyx. She usually fell back to using anyone's given name once in a while. Here, she was using it as a way to show her true colors with him. After all, she found him and mentored him when the group all dreamt of him. One of his hands reached up to where the hair tie held her hair and took it out, allowing her dark brown hair tumble down to her shoulders in loose waves. He carded his fingers through her hair, causing her to close her eyes and lean her head towards his hand.

"Is mian liom go bhfeicfeá cé chomh hálainn atá tú faoi láthair, a ghrá. le gruaig seo silky agus lush, déanann tú gach scéal faoi mhná de do chuid ama cuma plain i gcomparáid leatsa ag an nóiméad seo." He simply stated as he stared at her. *I wish you could see how beautiful you are right now, my love. With hair this silky and lush, you make all stories of women of your time look plain compared to you at this moment.*

Nyx opened her eyes, confusion on her face at his words. Ah, there was a language she never learned, Booker mused to himself as he took in the newly found knowledge. He smirked as he brushed her cheek with his other hand.

"Ní bhfuair tú aon smaoineamh cad atá á rá agam anois, an bhfuil? Bhuel, is faoiseamh é sin. Ba mhaith liom a bheith trína chéile dá dtuigfeá cad é a dhéanann tú domsa, Sparta beag." *You got no idea what I'm saying right now, do you? Well, that's a relief. I would be upset if you understood what it is that you do to me, little Sparta.*

"Ω, ξέρω τι είπες, Σεμπάστιαν. Αυτά είναι εύκολα χρήματα εκεί. Αλλά, και πάλι, τα ελληνικά είναι τόσο ξένα για σας που είναι σαν να οδηγώ ένα ποδήλατο μετά από τόσο καιρό για μένα. Αν μόνο ήξερες πόσο μεγάλο μέρος της καρδιάς μου ανήκει σε εσένα, πώς όλα περιστρέφονται γύρω σου και ότι θα πεθάνω αν με πάρεις τόσο ξαφνικά." Nyx said as she raised her hands to cup his face. *Oh I know what you said, Sebastian. That's easy money right there. But, then again, Greek is so foreign to you that it's like riding a bicycle after so long for me. If only YOU knew how much of my heart belongs to you, how everything revolves around you and that I'd die if you were taken from me so sudden.*

Booker leaned his head forward, closing his eyes as he felt her forehead against his and let out a sigh of content. He could feel her breath mix with his as his other hand grasped at her hip gently.

"Coming to bed?" He asked softly.

"I'll be there in a bit. Unless you can convince me otherwise," she replied back, her voice hoarse from holding back all the emotions she was feeling at that moment.

Booker only smirked before closing the gap, ghosting his lips against her before pulling back slowly. Opening his eyes, he could see Nyx staring at him with a sense of admiration and tenderness only reserved for him. He then grabbed at the back of her thighs, lifting her up from the railing; this caused Nyx to scramble to wrap her arms around his neck and shoulders to prevent falling out of his arms. He chuckled as he walked them back inside the room, closing the door with his foot behind them.

#old guard #fanfic

[astyle-alex]

[FanFic] Start with Why | the Old Guard

Another chapter goes live!

Start With Why

Fandom: the Old Guard Pairings: Background Nicky x Joe Characters / Focus: OT5 + Copley, reacting to Booker's betrayal Rating: Gen Audiences Warnings: None (well, language, because the team are all quite colorful) Total Word Count: 10,288 Chapter Word Count: 2,761

Summary:

The thing about betrayal is that it hurts. Sometimes it hurts too much to see the broader situation clearly. But after Booker's betrayal, the team has to look at themselves and see how every one of them is culpable. Booker may have done the deed, but his measly 200 years makes him a child to the others, especially Andy, and like babysitters are to blame when their charge sets the curtains on fire, the Family needs to ask themselves WHY and accept the honest answers. Why Copley, Why Merrick, and Why something made Booker believe that his choice was the right one for his Family...

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Part II  ::  BOOKER

           Booker is not a good person, not really.

           He was a decent man before he died; a faithful, loving husband and a doting, embarrassingly indulgent father, a reliable and responsible (albeit criminal) businessman, and just altogether decent.

           But he was never good.

           Not like Andy.

           Andy was a beacon for him, a light in the dark in the horror that he felt after Russia.

           She knew what pain was. She knew grief with the same intimate ache of guilt and loneliness and longing that drove him to drink, and yet she was still so good.

           So good, and so driven.

           She made him good— or, at least, she made him better, made sure that even if he wasn’t really a good person, he could damn well do some good for others.

           Nicky and Joe were good too; a different kind of good, but better than Booker could ever hope to be. They believed in Andy like the Grace of Fate she had to be, and they believed in him with the very same kind of ferocious Faith.

           Booker knew he didn’t deserve it, that he’d never deserved it.

           And as he sank into his grief, into his loneliness and loss, and as the world burned down around them ever-more efficiently, Booker knew he deserved their Faith less and less.

           As Andy began to indulge his benders more and more frequently, as she began to forget how much good she really did for the world, Booker knew he deserved their love even less.

           Andy wanted to die.

           She wanted all of it to just be over.

           Booker did too, more than anything. He fed her worst impulses and couldn’t make himself stop even when he knew it was hurting her… when he knew it was ruining her.

           Wallowing with her in the guilt and the loss and anguish… it hurt Booker far less than it did trying not to burst with the force of self-loathing he experienced while drowning his sorrows in alcohol around Joe and Nicky— hobbling their bliss with his how his demons ran unleashed.

           They’ve always thought he was jealous.

           They still do, Booker knows, they think he was so jealous of their happiness that he was willing to sell them out to Merrick because he hated how he could not have a share of their joy enough to let his selfish desire to end things overshadow any sort of more-than-Family bond they had… Than the unbreakable bond they were supposed to share implicitly after 200 years of fighting at each other’s backs and standing at each other’s sides.

           But Booker had never been jealous, not really.

           He’d been happy for them, painfully happy. He loved them. Still loves them.

           He loves them with the fierce passion of a man granted salvation by their hand— because he had been, in no uncertain terms.

           Nicky and Joe are his brothers.

           He wants them to be happy. He wants nothing more fervently, not even his own escape.

           Booker knows the true depth of love that finding a perfect compliment to your soul can create. And he knows the even deeper love of having experienced fatherhood.

           He knows what love is, what it could be, and he knows they have a true one.

           And he knows how much it would hurt when something makes it break.

           Booker might not be a good person, but he could never wish the pain he felt at losing his family on anyone— especially not on Joe and Nicky. They are his brothers and he loves them enough to want to help ensure that they would never have to face the horror of a life alone.

           To ensure that none of them did.

           After escaping Merrick, after getting cleaned up and getting alcohol acquired, and after imposing his own self-banishment to the balcony, Booker thought he’d have nothing but his own regrets for company until his Fate and punishment had been decided.

           And then he’d probably have nothing left at all.

           But that wasn’t how it turned out.

           Andy had come out to question him on Copley.

           He’d tried to answer her questions, but he knew he didn’t do it justice.

           Copley was… Copley understood. He knew the pain Booker was facing, understood the depths of his despair— not entirely, but enough to make it matter.

           And more than that, he understood Andy… He understood the good she did for the world, understood how to help her do even more good while simultaneously giving her the option of that final release which she’d been craving acutely for the last 100 years, at least.

           Copley… Copley was good, and he wanted to do good— wanted to help them do good. It would be a gift given directly to the world; one Andy could see impacting people’s lives.

           And it would be a gift to them, giving them the out they’d been both dreading and hoping for in a desperate, wavering ache of woefully undecided.

           Booker had never given Andy anything but a reflection of her grief. He’d hoped this was a way to give her something more.

           And give Joe and Nicky something, too.

           All while giving the world something greater than the good any of them had dared to hope they could ever manage to affect.

           Booker doesn’t convey it right. He knows that when Andy goes more and more rigid beside him as he speaks— knows it when she turns her back on him and rejoins the others.

           But still, if he at least managed to tell her proper that it wasn’t Merrick he’d sold them out too… Maybe Copley’s goodness wouldn’t be too overshadowed by his own mistake.

           Because even now, even after everything and all the horror of what Merrick and Kozak had planned to wreck— of all the terror that they had wrought— Booker still thinks of Copley’s goodness and does not regret getting close to him.

           He still does not regret letting him get close to them.

           Andy needs Copley. She needs to see what he can see, or else she’ll turn into something too much like the drunken, useless mess that Booker has become.

           Now, with her new mortality, she might just kill herself and finally be done with it.

           It’s a thing that Booker finds himself… actively dreading.

           She wants to die, he knows this, but… he doesn’t want her to take on that bounty of her newfound mortality just yet. He doesn’t want her to die without seeing what he always has, without seeing what he hadn’t… what he hadn’t even guessed but Copley found.

           Andy is good and deserves to know it, to feel it… and he believes Copley will help her.

           If she does die soon, Booker wants her to at least die happy— to die feeling a little bit like she can revel in what her long life has accomplished.

           “You really thought it would help.”

           Nile’s statement startles Booker, but he’s too exhausted with the effort of just existing to jump. And it takes all of his cognition to parse her words and tone together. Her eyebrow’s raised like the statement was supposed to be framed as a question, and her lip is curled with a tinge of incredulous disgust like it’s really meant to be an accusation, but her voice and shoulders and eyes are soft… like she truly wants to try to understand his side of it.

           “I was wrong,” Booker admits. “I was blind.”

           “But you really thought it would help,” Nile repeats, not taking his bullshit.

           “Yeah. I did,” Booker confesses, hanging his head until his neck screams at the strain.

           Nile doesn’t say anything more. She doesn’t have to. She just stands there and shifts her weight to the opposite heel and crosses her arms with that eyebrow still cocked as she waits for the explanation they both know she’s due.

           “Living like this, like Andy and I… it’s not okay,” Booker tells her. “I thought that if we could so some good and find a way to let this end… I thought it would be worth it.”

           Nile absorbs that, sits with it a minute to really let it process.

           Book side-eyes her and counts her steady breaths.

           “What about Joe and Nicky,” Nile asks, again in that way she has for giving a sort-of statement in an accusation but still with open room for questions to be answered.

           “They weren’t supposed to be taken,” Booker promises. “No one was. The footage was supposed to be enough to get Merrick interested, and the samples he needed were supposed to come from me, alone. Copley didn’t think we’d even need to go to Merrick’s lab directly, we thought that I could just stay with Copley for a few weeks collecting whatever samples Merrick said he needed there and just letting Copley pass them on…”

           Nile’s head cants sharply as she huffs an incredulous breath.

           “I knew pieces of me would be taken, I knew they would be studied,” Booker admitted wholly. “But I didn’t… didn’t recognize, I guess, how depraved science had gotten to be… I’d lived through witnessing Mengele’s atrocities and I thought… I thought it was a rarity, an aberration of the norm. I didn’t realize it was an infection he’d contracted that others could be infected by as well. I thought enlightened ethics would’ve bettered people smart enough to learn them in becoming doctors…”

           “But what about Joe and Nicky,” Nile presses after letting the weight Booker’s latest confession dissipate. “You said it was a gift for all of us. That’s what you told Andy, all of us.”

           “They wouldn’t have needed to use it now,” Booker told her, looking at her head on for the first time since leaving her alone at the table with the others’ waiting drinks.

           Nile waits for more and Booker can’t find the words to give her.

           “You’re so young, now, sweet girl,” Booker says, heart-breaking as it swells with the odd feeling of thinking her both a little sister and an adoptive daughter all at once. “So young.”

           She bristles, but she doesn’t bite his head off at the comment she clearly knows he doesn’t mean as an insult.

           “You don’t know what it’s like to love as they do, you cannot even fathom it,” he confides.

           She’s still stiff with a pinch of indignation, but she is mature enough to recognize that four days of being an Immortal is not enough to have the proper grasp of scale for this. She cannot truly fathom what it means to have been so in love as Joe and Nicky, to have been so in love for over 900 years. If pressed, Booker would confidently bet that she hasn’t even quite wrapped her head around what it means to live 900 years— and he can already guess that she’s stunningly self-aware of her lack in that comprehension.

           But the duration of Joe and Nicky’s love is not the only piece of it that makes it special.

           They love with a passion that ascribes their whole being— they’ve found a compliment to their very souls. Most would envy them, would do anything to feel even a fraction of it.

           But not Booker.

           Because he had it.

           And he lost it.

           And he could never wish that pain on Joe and Nicky.

           “It just stops,” Booker says suddenly in the quiet of a silence stretched too long. “We don’t know when and we don’t know why, but one day, it just stops.”

           Nile shifts closer, listening.

           “One of them will go first.”

           There’s a soft gurgle that speaks of strangled breath in Nile’s throat.

           Booker almost hates to go on, but he owes it to Nile to explain himself fully— owes it to all of them, honestly. He owes it to them to try.

           “They died together the first time, but we can’t assume they’ll die together for the last time,” Booker rambles on. “We can’t know which one will stop first, or guess by how long one will outlive the other, but there’s far too much of a risk in it to pretend we’re safe in thinking that they’ll manage to truly leave this world together.”

           Nile remains quiet as Booker looks at his hands, clasped together with white-knuckled grit that has already broken at least one finger.

           “You’re so young, Nile. You’ve lost your father and your world ended, I’m sure,” he tells her, trying to show that he truly does sympathize— trying to show that what he’s about to say is not meant to diminish her loss, but to contextualize his own.

           “But to lose a parent, even to lose one as a child,” Booker sighs, “Is to be a neighbor with a dead pet in the face of your loss in terms of you trying to understand the despair of at the heart of losing love like mine, like theirs. You simply cannot comprehend the weight of it.”

           “You don’t think they could face it,” she accuses, steady this time in her statement, making it almost purely an indictment.

           Booker hangs his head again. “I wouldn’t wish for them to ever need to…”

           “But what if they aren’t like you, aren’t doomed like you think they are? What if they could grow from the loss,” Nile presses, thinking— Booker’s certain— of how her own mother had managed to carry on fighting. “They’d know that the other would want them to keep fighting the good fight. They’ve probably had words on it directly, made each other promise not to let a loss destroy the work of the man they love.”

           She thinks he’s underestimated them, and perhaps he has.

           Nile’s right that they aren’t like him, they aren’t weak or cowardly like him.

           But still…

           “Andromache was once ‘not like me’,” Booker tells her. “Even after Quynh… Eventually, the weight of it all will change them, like it changed her… and while I know they’re strong and fierce and fearless, I also know they don’t love like her, reserved and distant and calmly comfortable. They love like me; they love in a way that consumes them, they love like they believe it can truly save the god damned world.”

           “Maybe it can,” Nile retorts, digging in. “Maybe it’s the only thing that can.”

           She leaves him there with that statement hanging in the air above his weary shoulders.

           It’s such a simple idea, and yet, it fits itself to all his jagged pieces like a balm with the pure grace of the Divine that he’s forgotten how to let himself believe in.

           When Joe or Nicky go down in combat, the other is rendered an avenger— Joe becomes a monster of fiery ferocity; Nicky, an avenging angel with the cold calculation of unyielding stone.

           But… but if one went down and stayed down…

           Maybe that focus wouldn’t stay destructive forever.

           Maybe Nile has a point, maybe the love they have for each other could change things...

           Maybe it would be enough to make itself into another miracle… Maybe it would be the inspiration needed for them to truly change the world for the better.

           Maybe love shouldn’t be what ruins him, but what saves him instead.

           His wife and children would be ashamed of who he has become.

           How they were at the end… how they’d hated him, how they’d only seen the selfish coward who wouldn’t help them when they needed it most… They wasn’t how he wanted to remember them, and it wasn’t how he would’ve wanted to let himself be remembered.

           Booker wasn’t ever a good person.

           But he hadn’t always been this bad.

           Perhaps it was time to let go of the time between when he died in Russia and when he’d died again as the one he loved had. Perhaps it was time to live as if he’d truly died the first time.

           And been reborn entirely new.

           He still had a Family after all, and he loved him every bit as fiercely as if they had truly been born his brothers and sister— he loved them far more fiercely than any of his fellows from the war where he’d felt the fraternal camaraderie of being ‘brothers at arms’…

           Maybe it was time to be the man he could have been if his wife had ever known what could happen to him in despair and had then asked him directly to be better than to let himself succumb to such a fall.

          Perhaps in another version of reality she had.

          Perhaps even in this version, he could start living up to what she would've hoped for if things had turned out differently...

           If she had ever asked him to live on and be better… maybe he would have found within him a bit more strength to do so.

          Maybe he still could...

- - - - -

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#the old guard #Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova #nicky x joe #yusuf x nicolo #nicolo di genova #yusuf al kaysani #Booker #sebastian le livre #andy | andromache of scythia #nile freeman #fanfic

[lovelikedestiny]

5. Andy: Your heart which was mine

I promise to give you love and more,

to worship this present of the divine.

Though Andy has been waiting for it ever since they knew what fucking Kozak did to Nicky, she doesn't feel armed in the slightest when Joe opens his mouth. She has sent Nile to get them coffee at the airport while they wait for their flight to be called. Next to her, only Joe, her right hand, her brother, her support, is leaning against the hood of the car. His presence is infinitely familiar to her and yet this familiarity is now frayed at the edges and peppered with splinters that don't let her forget what is at stake.

Everything.

More than Andy ever hoped. More than she ever wanted.

Even though she has to maintain her composure as their leader because her team is relying on Andy to lead them out of it, she feels nothing but fear as soon as Joe starts talking.

It is not the fear that sharpens the senses through adrenaline and enables you to do things that you wouldn't have expected of yourself before. That fear is on the other end of the spectrum. It is dull and hidden, digs deep into her guts, paralyzes her, weakens her. And Andy can't be weak.

Not now.

Not now, when it is more important than ever to keep her family together, with all her strength. It is almost the bitter irony of fate that Joe and Nicky, her oldest friends and companions, are now threatened with the same loss they helped her get through back then. When the ocean took her Quynh.

Quynh in exchange for Nicky.

The passionate flame for the soothing moonlight.

Her love for her baby brother.

Andy has never in her life hated fate as much as at this moment, because it is not fair that Nicky of all people - who always insists on destiny and their doing good - shall be so disappointed by his belief. And that she should lose him and Joe in exchange for Quynh.

She resigned herself to never seeing Quynh again, hoping that Quynh was dead because the idea was easier to bear than that of Quynh suffering never-ending agony in her wet grave. There is not a moment in her life when her heart did not bleed from loss and the painful lack of love. Quynh's necklace on her neck is a constant reminder of her failure. And now Quynh is out and it seems that Andy is not only on the verge of losing her forever, but also losing her hold on Joe and Nicky.

Andy can't stand the thought that her Quynh, the sharp-tongued, stubborn, bright, cheerful woman who fought at her side for centuries, was distorted by the salt and drowned by the dark water. That the person she fell in love with has changed so much through her terrible fate that they are even told to stay away from Quynh. Have to stay away. To protect their family.

But precisely because of the deep affection, the love for a person does not just disappear and is not tied to a single character trait, Andy finds it infinitely difficult not to look for Quynh. Even if Quynh is no longer who she once was, Andy has never stopped loving her and abandoning her soulmate after she is finally free, is like a splinter in a wound that could finally heal but is prevented by it.

I'll find you, Quynh, Andy has promised herself in her head every night since that discussion, swallowing the lump in her throat, blinking away the burning tears and continuing to do what she does best: survive.

Wait for me, my lost love.

But Andy knows Quynh's wild, unbridled temperament and even if she refuses to believe Nile's and Booker's words that Quynh could direct this anger against her family, Nicky's condition prevents her from taking that risk.

Nile, Booker and Copley would have no chance against Quynh. Nicky and Joe together for sure, but Nicky is so sick it's scary and Joe is just eager to protect him. The truth is that Andy could never forgive herself if Nicky was seriously hurt because Andy let her feelings blind her and misjudged the situation. Just as Joe would not forgive her if her wrong decision caused Nicky damage that could not be undone.

Usually, Joe is quick to forgive and cannot hold a grudge for long. There is not the slightest bit of this kind of forgiveness in Joe left, however, if anyone intentionally harms Nicky in any way, or if it could have been avoided.

Especially with this serum that makes Nicky's immortality go crazy and takes him in front of their eyes, Joe is more than ever like a wild animal that has been pushed into a corner and still wants to defend its partner at all costs.

And fuck, Andy herself is no different. She hardly dares to take her eyes off Nicky and thus also Joe and this fear, this restlessness when she cannot see or hear Nicky and Joe, is more than atypical for her.

She wants to take Nicky, sweet, kind Nicky, in her arms and protect him from all bad things, which chose Nicky to be its victim. She wants to elicit rumbling laughs from Joe and reassure Booker that his family is there for him. She wants to be a role model for Nile, and more than anything, she wants to taste Quynh's lips again.

Still, all she sees when she closes her eyes is the blood Nicky vomited in Copley's sink the first time, and Joe's panic when he begged her to tell him what to do. The same helplessness she felt then just leaves a bitter, gall-like taste in her mouth.

"If...If...If...” Joe starts several times, his tongue clumsily stumbling over the sounds to be formed and Andy feels every single letter like a small but no less painful cut in her skin. Joe never has any problems finding the right words and Andy wants to strangle the life out of Kozak's body with her bare hands. For giving her boys so much pain and letting them become ghosts of themselves.

"If it goes wrong and we can't find a cure and Kozak still has more of the serum, I'll take it too." His eyes are fixed on the small sketchbook in his hands, in which he is scribbling senselessly. In contrast to his uncertain looks, his voice sounds steady and Andy knows that Joe has already made this decision for himself. Just like Nicky knows.

Take care of him, Andy. A cold hand in hers, fingers that use bows and sniper rifles, wrapped around her wrist, weak as blades of grass. I know him. He will find a way to follow me should all hopes be lost. I want you to take care of him.

But how is she supposed to do that if she can't take care of Nicky too?

The premonition that the two of them could someday be doomed by their close bond was always there, and yet they continued to fight at Andy's side. For the good in the world, to do something good. Using their immortality to help others. Andy is not ready to let it end this way and let Kozak win. To let her take her boys because they only come in two.

“I know,” she says, suddenly feeling so tired. Tired of the constant struggle they wage because no one else can and the weight on their shoulders with everyone they cannot save. Tired of the pain and exertions to which they expose themselves to contribute a drop in the ocean and with which they burden their souls. Tired of getting nothing repaid except the greedy, profit-oriented intentions of selfish people who got them into this situation. Kozak should burn in hell with Merrick and Keane and all the other assholes in the world. And she will.

Andy herself will make sure of that.

"You're not going to talk me out of it?" Joe continues to look at his hands and suddenly Andy wants him to look at her with his soft, warm, deep eyes. Because she wants to make sure that he is still with her, in flesh and blood, no matter how much pain his gaze will show her.

"I doubt I could," she replies quietly, shifting her weight so that their arms touch. The cold morning air is crystal clear and makes her shiver, but Andy welcomes the cold, as well as the numbness it brings and dampens her emotions. "And I would never ask it of you." Never ask of you to fight without a heart.

She remembers the tearing feeling inside her when Quynh was dragged out of her cell very well. As if her heart had been torn from her chest and her voice, which was broken with screaming and screeching. If she had had the chance then to end her life without Quynh, she might even have done it. Who can say that now? It is not in her power to deny Joe what she longed for in the days after Quynh's disappearance. Not when the worst should happen.

She owes it to Joe and Nicky that she is where she is today. Her brothers helped her search for Quynh to the point of exhaustion, shared her torment, reminded her of the good in the world that is worth fighting for. However, the fact is that Andy cannot cope with such a loss again.

Lykon's death was a severe blow, the loss of Quynh brought her to her knees, but Nicky's death...no, Andy wouldn't be able to give Joe enough comfort and support, and she doubts that Booker's and Nile's would be enough.

Because Nicky and Joe have never been alone, have never known anything other than the presence of the other. I can't separate them.

"All I can think about is that when we found you after they got Quynh, there was a spark of relief in all the shock and horror. Because...Because it wasn't him. And I know it's unfair and selfish. But I was so grateful it wasn't Nicky. Because it was clear to me deep down that I couldn't live in any world in which he did not walk the earth.”

The feelings of guilt that she reads in his mirrors of soul are more cruel than any pain and she grips his neck and pulls him to her. She feels no judgment within herself, no anger at Joe's words, just deep understanding and sadness.

Joe lets himself be guided without resistance and puts his arms around her, his face safely hidden at the crook of her neck. His strong shoulders, which have to carry so much, tremble, but Andy knows that Joe doesn't cry.

That's why she took Joe with her and not Booker. Booker is without a doubt an extremely capable fighter alongside his gadgets and explosives skills. However, there is one thing he lacks: the firm, wild determination to win, evoked by the prospect of losing Nicky forever. Andy needs this ferocity, this frenzied strength of a desperate man, because they only have one try and cannot fail. She will do by any means to guarantee that.

"I know," she says again, closing her eyes and breathing with Joe. “And you don't have to feel guilty about it. If it had been the other way around, I would have felt the same way."

Joe clings to her and Andy makes no move to break the hug that is supposed to give both of them strength. "I don't want to let you down, but if Nicky d-dies..." The word sounds choked and rough. “...Booker will mourn, and Nile too, and you...too. But you will be able to cope with it and carry on and that is impossible for me.”

You're wrong, Andy wants to tell him. I can't. Not again.

But she swallows what is on her tongue and does what is expected of a leader. She keeps going even when she loses soldiers. “You won't let us down. You two don't, Joe. Neither will we let you down. Never.” She's glad Joe can't see her face. The tears in her eyes would have given her away.

“Whatever happens, we are with you. Until the end,” she assures him and briefly increases her grip. Maybe that's her punishment. Because she has stopped looking for Quynh and could finally get her back, Nicky slips through her fingers. She could never have made such an exchange.

"Until the end," Joe repeats and Andy releases him. It's the crooked little grin, painstakingly maintained, that almost breaks her. “Who would have thought you could give speeches like that, boss? I should make you emotional more often.”

"Don't you dare, idiot!" She punches him on the shoulders and sees Nile approaching them with three coffee cups.

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#the old guard #fanfiction #tears on marble face #chapter five #Andy #Joe #Nile #Booker #Copley