#tuseremmaa

“Nicolo?” Joe’s voice breaks and with it so does Nicky’s will to stay upright. He stumbles and Joe catches him, lowering the pair of them to the floor. “Shit Nicky what-” 

Joe’s hands find the worst of his wound and Nicky groans, pain flaring through his side and making his vision blur. There’s blood on Joe’s hands now, his blood, and he hopes that he doesn’t stain Joe’s carpet too badly. He already shouldn’t be here, he doesn’t need to add property damage to his long list of crimes towards the other man. 

“Nicky what -” Joe’s struggling for words, and Nicky frowns. Joe was always the more articulate of the two, a poet to his very soul. “I can’t-”

Joe stands and Nicky mourns the loss of the warmth of his hands. His whole body feels cold, in the back of his mind he realizes that it’s because he’s lost too much blood, that his body is shutting down, but the sentimental part of him, the one he’s been ignoring for years connects the lack of warmth from Joe moving away. He’s cold now from his injuries, but he’s been numb for years. 

Selfish, his mind supplies, hissing at him with a spiteful anger that Nicky was very familiar with. He was being selfish for coming back, for returning to Joe one last time. He’s not going to survive this, and Joe deserves better. It’s the reason why Nicky had left in the first place. He’s a stain on Joe’s life, like the blood on the walls and floor of the apartment that he could have had a life in.

A warm hand touches his face, and Nicky blinks his eyes open, wincing at the light. He hadn’t even realized Joe had returned, let alone had turned on the lights to his living room. Nicky was losing what little time he had left, the adrenaline leaving his body, his mind finally relaxing because he’s always felt safest with Joe.

“Don’t you dare fucking come here only to die on me,” Joe tells him, his hand tilting Nicky’s chin ‘til he was looking directly into Joe’s warm eyes. Nicky had missed those eyes, missed how they were never ending in their depth, and so expressive that Nicky felt as if he could spend a thousand years with Joe and still not know every emotion they shared. The crinkles around them are stressed and Nicky returns Joe’s own gesture, his hand shaky and cold against Joe’s warm face. His thumb rubs at the creases of Joe’s eyes and frowns at the blood he leaves behind, it shouldn’t be there, he shouldn’t be here. 

If Nicky could move he would leave, but he can’t feel his legs, and his raised hand falls to his side. He doesn’t have the strength anymore.

“- should call a hospital.” Joe is saying, and Nicky’s lost some time again. Everything is hazy, like he’s not really there. He hears himself telling Joe that a hospital would be no good, that he can’t go anywhere with as wanted as he is. He’s unaware that his speech is slurring, that Joe’s hands are shaking as they try and stop the bleeding. 

“Thank you, Yusuf,” Nicky manages to get out. He’s speaking in his native Italian now, but Joe understands his words, he’s the only man who could understand any of him. In a better situation, he wouldn’t be dying at Joe’s side, he would be apologizing and begging Joe to take him back. Joe would have every right to say no, and Nicky would never come back. At his loneliest and most desperate he imagines the life he could have had with Joe, the one he threw away, the one Joe had asked him to stay for. 

Nicky had run instead. 

He’d run and he hadn’t come back, wouldn’t come back until he knew Joe was safe

Nicky blinks and looks at Joe again, only he’s crying. Why is Joe crying? Joe shouldn’t be crying, he’s safe, he’s finally safe.

“-safe now,” Nicky manages, smiling despite the pain, and Joe lurches forward, dropping the bloody rag to take Nicky’s face in his hands. His hands are shaking, and Nicolo sees the red and tries to imagine other colors there instead. Joe’s hands should only have paint on them, not blood. Nicky’s hands had enough for the both of them. 

“You’re a damn fool, Nicolo,” Joe’s voice is a broken whisper, voice filled with anger and desperation and something that Nicky’s muddled thoughts can’t process. Years ago he would have called it love.

“I love you,” Nicky says with as much conviction as he can, all of his strength going to making his voice as clear and steady as possible. He can’t leave without letting Joe know the truth.

If these are to be his final words, may they be ones of love.

Six years ago.

Joe sits restlessly in his wheelchair next to his hospital bed. He had been admitted for eight days and Nicky had been with him the entire time. A solid presence at his side, silent but helpful, but something in Nicky had cracked when he had found Joe half dead, what felt like a long time ago, and he had been barely holding the pieces together. They had both been on edge, and their fight the night before had sent Nicky running. 

Foolishly Joe had hoped that Nicky would be there in the morning, that he wouldn’t have taken Joe telling him to leave seriously, that he would come back.

“You promised me you quit this life.” Joe’s words echo in his head, purposely cruel. He was in so much pain, and he was so tired, an exhaustion that made him lash out. 

Nicky had apologized, had explained that he was doing his best to put it behind him. The organization he worked for hadn’t accepted his retirement, and Joe had paid the price for it. He had almost died and the realization of his own mortality had terrified him.

Nicky had held his hand, had kissed his knuckles gently and promised him that he was going to take care of things, that he would make sure Joe was safe, that no one would ever hurt him again. 

“The thought of you going out for revenge hurts me, Nicolo,” Joe closes his eyes, remembering Nicky’s pained expression. “Leave it all behind, I don’t want more bloodshed. We can start over.” 

Nicky had frowned, and told him that it was impossible.

“Stay please.” 

Nicky had left that night, and when the nurse came to wheel him out to the lobby Andy had been waiting for him instead of Nicky.

Joe had come back to an empty apartment, Nicky’s only remaining belonging being a gun. There was a note saying that his bills had been paid for and that he was to move as soon as he could, that the apartment had been paid off for the rest of the year. Joe did as instructed, he wasn’t foolish enough to stay where he could almost get killed again. He was furious, but that fury had numbed down to a resignation that made him almost spiteful. 

He moved to an apartment that Nicky would have loved, had painted the walls a shade of blue that reminded him of their vacation in Malta. 

Joe waited. 

A week turned into a month, and months to years and three years later Nicky still hadn’t returned.

Joe moved on. 

Three more years passed and he had settled into his new life. He had dated others, but Nicky’s ghost haunted his relationships, and Joe wouldn’t let his relationships suffer from that. He wasn’t really alone anyways, Joe still had his friends, his family, and he always ignored the small part of him that knew Nicky had no one.

He sleeps alone. 

He sleeps alone, he lives alone, so when he hears someone in his apartment he grabs the gun Nicky had left for him and turns off the safety. He’ll never be as good with it as the man who had left it for him was, but he isn’t going to be left alone to die again. 

“Don’t move-” He tells the intruder, assessing the situation the best he can in the dark of his apartment. The intruder is slouched over, his left arm shaking as he tries to steady himself against the wall. Joe blinks, he knows the slope of those shoulders and- 

“I can’t move much anyways,” says a voice he hasn’t heard in six years, and Joe almost drops the gun he’s holding. The man before him isn’t a ghost, he isn’t some dream that Joe’s lonely mind had conjured, he’s real and there is something very wrong with the way he’s holding himself.

“Nicolo?” Joe asks finally, his voice catching on a name he didn’t ever think he would speak again. Nicky stumbles, and Joe rushes to catch him, lowering him to the floor and discarding the gun in as smooth of motion he can. His hands touch Nicky’s sides and they come away warm and slick with blood. Joe tries finding his words, tries to ask Nicky what the hell happened. 

He shakes as he stands, turning on the light and wincing at the bloody handprints on his walls. For a moment he feels frozen in time, but Nicky groans in pain and Joe is moving. He rushes towards his bathroom, taking out the first aid kit he keeps stored under his sink and makes his way over to Nicky, kneeling at the other man’s side and trying desperately to stop the bleeding. 

Joe suggests a hospital, and Nicky turns him down, but he’s not surprised. Nicky’s wounds are an echo of the life the other man lives. He wouldn’t find help there, and Joe isn’t even sure if Nicky would make it to the hospital in time, not with all the blood he’s lost. The blood that’s all over his apartment, Nicky’s blood. 

“Don’t you dare fucking come here only to die on me,” Joe repeats what he said earlier, but his statement doesn’t seem to reach the other man. Nicky keeps fighting consciousness, and Joe is helpless to it. Nicky’s running out of time, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. 

Nicky thanks him for some odd reason. Thank you Yusuf. It has been years since he’s heard his full name said in Nicky’s beautiful tenor and Joe hates that he’s hearing it again like this. Hearing it as Joe tries to stop Nicky from bleeding out, from dying. 

Joe’s aware he’s crying, but he can’t stop. The tears fall freely and his throat aches, but he can’t look away from Nicky. He can’t miss a moment of what little time Nicky has left. He holds back a sob and listens as Nicky tells him that he’s safe now, smiling because Nicky has always been kind even when he didn’t believe it himself. 

“You’re a damn fool, Nicolo.” Joe’s hands cradle Nicky’s face gently, holding onto what little life Nicky had left to offer. He thinks of all the times he had ached to do this before, and curses his cruel reality of having those wishes come true only to end in such a way. 

“I love you,” Nicky tells him, his words steady, a conviction to his voice that felt like something final. His breathing stops, like speaking those last three words had taken up all of what little energy he had left, what little life he had left. 

Nicky’s eyes are open, blue and unseeing. 

“Wake up!” Joe shouts, shaking Nicky’s body, but he gets no response. “Come back to me. Stay. Please,” Joe begs, but Nicky can’t answer him, not anymore.

Finally he breaks and he pulls Nicky’s unmoving body to his chest, holding him tightly. Later he will get up and he will wrap Nicky in a blanket and close his beautiful eyes. He’ll scrub the blood off his walls until he strips the paint and he will call Andy and figure out what the hell they were going to do now. Later, he will go into the part of Nicky’s life that he had always tried to protect Joe from. Later, later, later. 

Now he pulls Nick’s still body to his chest as he weeps, gasping for breath between pained sobs. Now he mourns over a man that had his full heart and soul. Now he will whisper the words he wished he could have said one last time.