#tusermj

Kylo Ren in STAR WARS

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I AM SO READY FOR THE NEXT GREAT MAGICAL GAY ADVENTURE 

Making a goofy face until they notice and laugh.

The very nature of their lifestyle meant that on occasion they would piss off the wrong people, that paired with how unnaturally longed they lived meant that capture would be inevitable. Neither of them enjoyed it - especially after Quynh - but they could survive it as long as they had each other. 

Joe was thankful that their captors hadn’t thought to separate the two of them. This would just make the rescue easier for Andy and Booker. They could handle the pain, and both men were very patient. 

They were going to get so much shit for being captured whilst in bed. Joe had enough blackmail on Booker to quiet any teasing he would have, very little shamed Andy however so Joe and Nicky would just have to deal with her inevitable ribbing. 

Seeing their two family members smiling, even at their own misfortune of being caught with their pants around their ankles, literally. 

“Kind of them to allow us our pants,” Joe says casually, switching to dutch so their captors couldn’t understand what they were saying. Joe wasn’t completely sure what their end-goal was - most likely money as history has so typically proved over and over again - but so far the two of them have been left to their own devices. 

Half naked and chained up to the ceiling but still left alone - together. 

“We should send them a fruit basket,” Nicky replies dryly, rolling his head to look at Joe, trying to smile but wincing at the tight pull of his shoulders. Joe frowns, his eyebrows furrowing together as he watches his husband try and hide the shivers racking his body. Nicky ended up being chained underneath the down vent of the building, and the air hitting Nicky’s shirtless body could be nothing but uncomfortable at the height of winter. 

If Joe wasn’t in chains, he would wrap Nicky up in his arms and as many blankets, he could find. They’d drink warm tea - Nicky would tease him about the “obscene” amount of honey Joe would use - and Joe would press lazy kisses against the underside of Nicky’s sharp jaw as they watched whatever telenovela was on at the time. 

Joe made plans to do just that when they got out. 

“Hey-” Joe says sometime later when Nicky’s eyes had slipped shut, exhaustion painted on every line of his body. Occasionally his body would spasm from a mixture of pain and cold and Joe winced in sympathy. His own arms ached and the light directly above his head was proving to give Joe one hell of a migraine. He was tired and annoyed and his husband was in pain, and Joe could not get out of his cuffs. 

He needed a distraction. 

Nicky was Joe’s favorite distraction. 

“Yo Adrian -” Joe tilts his voice in the best Rocky impersonation he could muster, his face contorted into his best Sylvester Stallon expression. Nicky opens his eyes, looking entirely unimpressed, and raises an eyebrow. 

He’s heard Joe’s Rocky Balboa of plenty of times, this wasn’t going to break Nicky’s resolve to look as bored as possible. Joe would have to try a bit harder. 

“I’ll be back-” 

Nothing. 

“Say ‘ello to my little friend.” 

Not even a snort. 

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” 

Joe at least got a small twitch of the lips at that one. 

He’s about to break out his best Bill Murray impersonation when a very familiar axe breaks through the door of the room they were being kept in. 

“Here’s Andy!” Joe takes advantage of the situation, lowering his voice and shouting into the room, with an impersonation that he thinks would make Jack Nicholson proud. The men who captured them scramble into action but they’re easily taken out by the combined efforts of Andy and Booker. Not being able to do anything because again, he’s chained up at the moment, he turns to check on his husband. 

Nicky is still shaking, but instead of pain or cold, it's from suppressed laughter. 

asdgdsadsga I literally know nothing about chess btw

...

Joe watches from the other mood, amused, as he takes in the sight of his husband biting his lower lip in concentration. There’s a furrow in his brow that shadows his bright eyes slightly and a slight downturn to his lips. He’s not angry or frustrated, Joe would know those emotions better than anyone else, but he was very determined to win his game of chess against the newest addition to their family. 

Too bad he was clearly losing. 

Nile moves her knight, trapping Nicky’s king and essentially winning the game. She smiles up brightly at him, a little smug, but very relaxed compared to how she used to be with them their first few months together. Nile is finding her place in their family and the realization that she’s opening up to them so easily makes Joe smile warmly. He loved his new sister with his whole being, a feeling he knows Nicky shares equally.

Nicky moves one of his few pieces, being too stubborn to admit defeat early, and only snorts out a laugh at Nile’s proudly exclaimed “checkmate.” 

Joe catches Nicky’s eye as Nile talks about the food Nicky will have to make her as the result of him losing yet another bet, and winks at his husband knowingly. Nicky narrows his eyes in return, a mock scowl graces his features and Joe laughs loudly from where he’s standing in the doorway. 

“I should be fortunate that you didn’t bet away all our money again,” Joe says as he crosses the room, putting a hand on Nicky’s shoulder as he inspects the finished game board. “You keep him humble Nile, thank you.” 

“If it means I get to pick out dinner I will gladly beat Nicky at any game.” Nile’s smile is radiating, bright in a way that makes everyone want to smile as well. Nicky and Joe share in her contagious happiness, feeling a little bit lighter in her presence, feeling a little bit more hopeful. 

Andy is still mortal, Booker is still gone, and the memories of Merrick's lab still haunts their dreams. Their trauma isn’t going to go away soon, and their problems are still very much real, but they have each other. 

They can take moments like these and remember to breathe, to be human, to be a family. 

Nile helps them remember why they do what they do and Joe and the rest of his family will never stop being grateful that the universe gifted them with such a sister as loving and good as Nile.

“I will make your dinner as agreed, but I refuse to call it pizza.” Nicky exclaims over his shoulder as he makes his way to the kitchen, pausing to give Joe a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

Cobwebs hang from the ceiling, the glow in the dark kind that had gotten stuck in the fake snakes of her tiara, but had been worth the pain it was cleaning the mess up from her costume. The hotel room she had checked out for the week was a little more luxurious than their usual accommodations, Nile wanting to spare no expense as a thank you to her new family, her new whole family. 

One thing she had learned of her older companions is that despite their claims of being reserved, all of them had told her stories of the parties they would attend on vacation, and while most had been for business over pleasure, all of them had been increasingly wild. In long terms, they were well-lived individuals with unique lifestyles that had given them opportunities in which to have grandeur adventures. 

In short terms?

They loved to fucking party. 

While Nile had been to some great Halloween parties in the States, she had to make do with the fact that she knew her family couldn’t completely relax around strangers and that meant her party would be toned down to the six of them. There wouldn’t be questionable liquor in odd colors but there would be some decent pizza, or however decent pizza could be from Germany - it certainly couldn’t beat the deep dish back in Chicago - and of course good company. 

The decorations she ordered had come the night before, and she had spent most of the day alternating between tracking when the rest of her family would get there and preparing the room for a spooky night in. The idea was a surprise, a fun night in while they enjoy the rest of their short downtime between missions. Nile had been put in charge of going ahead and finding a hotel for the rest of them. The others all had rooms on the same floor and seeing that they had been separated for a few weeks it was tradition to have dinner together when they reunited. 

When they got there, Nile predicted she would get some raised eyebrows at her being in a costume, but she hasn’t gotten to properly dress up for Halloween in years and she’s heard enough stories of various undercover shenanigans that they probably wouldn’t mind, they might actually give her some pointers and that was a conversation Nile was looking forward to having. 

There’s a knock at the door, Joe’s specific knock that she found both silly and endearing, and she adjusts her dress before crossing the room and opening the door. 

Nile is greeted by a whole lot of chest and she has to blink because is that glitter?

“Surprise!” Joe says cheerfully, roller skating - yeah roller skating - into the room with an equally glittery Nicky in tow who is also rocking a pair of roller skates. The rest of their family falls behind the skating pair and Nile closes the door and blinks her surprise away.

All of them were wearing costumes. 

“What-”

“We wanted to celebrate Halloween with you properly,” Nicky explains, his sparkling fringed arms opened wide, showing off the expanse of his costume. He and Joe are in coordinating ABBA inspired roller disco getup. Joe is rocking a plunging yellow and white sleeveless jumpsuit. The sequences catch the light and the fringe on his pants moves slightly as he adjusts his balance on his roller skates. There’s body glitter on his chest and Nile’s eyes would keep staying on Joe if it weren’t for Nicky’s equally loud costume. Where Joe was showing off his chest with his legs covered, Nicky was the opposite. His own jumpsuit ended in a pair of shorts, stopping midthigh in a sparkling tight dark blue color and went up stopped all the way to his collar bone, his sleeves fringed like Joe’s pants. The two were sparkly and loud and casually rolling through the hotel room with an ease that spoke of many hours roller skating. 

The others were more subdued. Quynh was wearing a long red dress, a dramatic slit up one side revealing a fishnet lined leg in a pair of black heels. Her long hair was pulled and curled to one side, the other side revealing two fake puncture wounds. She made a good vampire, and Andy was the handsome pirate paired with her. Her own costume all separate pieces that Nile had seen Andy wear before but when paired with what she suspected was one of Joe’s shirts opened wide she looked like a dashing deadly lady of the sea. A sword - Nile hoped was fake - finished her look and Quynh and Andy, while not as eye-catching as Joe and Nicky, were breathtaking as a pair. 

Booker on the other hand?

“What are you dressed up as again?” Nile asks, raising a brow at Booker’s usual appearance. 

“I kind of forgot so I picked this up at the gas station on the way here-” Booker pulls a cowboy hat from the plastic bag in his arms and puts it on. “Howdy.” 

Joe snorts and the two start bickering, Quynh adding in her own commentary as Andy watches on fondly. Nicky skates to be by her side, pulling out a fake cobweb from her hair with a fond smile. 

“Remind me not to look at you directly in your eyes,” Nicky remarks on Nile’s own Medusa costume. The deep green of her Grecian dress was interwoven with gold threads that shimmered as she moved. Her own neckline wasn’t as plunging as Joe’s but Nile’s smooth skin was on display. A gold snake was around her neck and another was banded on her bicep. Her look was finished with a snake tiara and dramatic green and gold makeup, scales painted on her face carefully around her hairline. 

“I thought I was going to actually surprise you guys this time,” Nile admits, smiling softly. “Though I suppose it's hard to surprise people that are centuries older than I.”

They quickly eat dinner, their topics going back and forth from what made good pizza and their plans to hit a very exclusive Halloween masquerade that Booker of all people had gotten them into. Andy had a bag of masks for all of them to wear and it was agreed that as long as they didn’t make too much of a scene - this was followed with a fond smile in Quynh’s direction, and if they agreed to keep their masks on they could let loose for a night. 

Nicolo watches. 

Nicolo watches as his beloved goes through his nightly routine. Picking out his clothing for the next day, brushing his teeth, changing into the soft pajama pants Nicolo had gotten for him years ago as a gift during a particularly cold week. 

Nicolo watches as Yusuf crawls into bed, the left side - Nicolo’s side, and hold his arms tightly around himself. Nicolo watches as Yusuf stares blankly across their dark bedroom, fighting off tears that eventually come every night since the accident.

Nicolo watches Yusuf with a broken heart because it’s the only thing he can do. 

Ghosts, if that what he was now, couldn’t touch the living, couldn’t comfort when their loved ones needed it most. It was frustrating in a way that makes Nicolo angry, but his strength was limited, so he buries it. When he’s too emotional he’ll lose time, and that means he loses time with Yusuf and he can’t stand the thought of leaving his beloved alone. 

There were no rules for his new state of existence, no amount of books or movies could have prepared him for life after death. Nicolo isn’t quite sure if he’s a ghost of himself or a ghost of Yusuf’s memory. He’s anchored to his husband in an unknown way, being only able to go where Yusuf is. Nicolo had tried to leave but found that he couldn’t. If he left Yusuf’s side he would lose himself only to blink into awareness hours later.

He’s tied to Yusuf but he can’t communicate with him, can’t make him see that Nicolo is right there. 

When Nicolo isn’t there? He’s somewhere else. Somewhere else that frightens him. It’s cold in this other place, cold and foggy and he feels as if he’s drowning in something thicker than water. The other place feels final, feels like death, so he avoids going there as much as he can. Yusuf was always his whole life, his reason for living when things were at it’s darkest. 

Lately, Nicolo has been to the other place more and more, and he fears that perhaps being with Yusuf is a dream and that his nightmare is actually his reality. 

Yusuf’s breathing hitches and Nicolo is drawn from his dark thoughts to see tears fall from Yusuf’s tired eyes in the moonlight streaming from their bedroom window. Even in his sadness, Yusuf remains beautiful and Nicolo’s heartaches. 

“Please,” Yusuf cries quietly into the dark, unaware that Nicolo can hear him. His voice is rough, thick with emotions that threaten to break him with their weight. Exhaustion paints Yusuf’s features and Nicolo is angry with himself for being the cause. 

“Come back to me.” Yusuf’s words are like a prayer, and Nicolo comes closer, no longer wanting to be apart even if his heart can not see him any longer. Nicolo could never deny Yusuf anything, even in death. 

“I miss being in your arms,” Nicolo confesses, wishing that Yusuf could hear his voice, longing for the touch of his husband’s gentle warmth once more. He’s so tired of being cold - 

“Nicolo?” Yusuf sits up suddenly and Nicolo can only stare as Yusuf’s eyes fall to his own. Staring directly at him and not through him as he has done before. “Habibi are you-”

“You can see me truly?” Nicolo whispers and steps forward, leaving no space between them. Nicolo is aware that he is crying now, matching Yusuf’s tears in full. He dares to reach out, and a sob escapes him as his fingers meet warm skin. 

He’s so cold.

“You’re-” Yusuf starts but stops, leaning in towards Nicolo’s touch, trying to calm his breathing. Finally he opens his eyes, his dark beautiful eyes that always seem to take Nicolo’s breath away, and continues. “You’re a beautiful nightmare.” 

“I fear so yes,” Nicolo whispers. His vision is getting hazy again, a warning sign that he’s about to find himself in the other place, that his time in heaven will be ripped away from him once more, because he wasn’t sure of anything of his strange death but he was sure that being with Yusuf was his paradise. 

“You need to let me go,” Nicolo says firmly when he can no longer feel Yusuf’s warmth. He’s quickly fading away and he fears that this time it might be final. “It will be okay-” 

“Never,” Yusuf answers, grabbing at Nicolo’s hand and his face falling when his hand goes straight through. Their brief moment of being able to touch is gone, and he’s fading from Nicolo’s vision. “I’ll find you Nicolo, I’m going to bring you back to me.” 

Nicolo’s final thoughts are how its strange to say that a dead man was lost. 

...

Warmth floods his body and Nicolo blinks awake to lights that are too bright and the beeping of a monitor that’s too loud. There’s something in his throat and his eyes widen in panic. 

He can’t breathe, he can’t move, it’s too bright - 

Suddenly a mop of familiar curly hair blocks the harsh lighting and a gentle touch pulls him away from his thoughts. Dark beautiful eyes stare into his own and Nicolo’s body relaxes.

He’s with Yusuf, he’s safe. 

“You’re okay,” His husband reassures, brushing a stray hair from Nicolo’s face. Nicolo leans into the warmth of Yusuf’s palm, the cold being chased away by Yusuf’s very touch. “You’re safe now.” 

Nicolo can’t speak with the tube around his throat, but the two of them never needed words to communicate. Yusuf understands his expression becasue Yusuf’s own softens, and he leans down to kiss Nicolo gently on the forehead, avoiding the deep bruises and cuts from the crash.

“I love you too.” Yusuf says, and Nicolo closes his eyes, exhaustian  taking him as he falls gently into sleep once more. Before he can slip away fully, he hears Yusuf’s voice once more. “I’ve missed having my arms around you.”