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Joe loved each and every one of Nicky’s smiles. There were the small ones, barely a flattening of his lips—arched, the lips of an archer, the lips of he who arched wood and Joe to his will, the lips of the arch—and the broader ones, a helping hand for those who would not understand his true smiles. There were the grins, broad and beaming and rare, taking Nicky himself by surprise, but rarely Joe, who had made it his explicit goal some seven hundred years ago to draw those grins from him as often as he was humanly able.
And then there was this: his lips stretched taut, a grimace in all but name, a baring of teeth, a statement of purpose that brought its greatest discomfort because, not in spite of, being presented as a gesture of joy.
A threat.
When the doors to the van were thrown open, Nicky turned away from where he was using his beautiful mouth to suck stains into Joe’s throat, and smiled at their captors like this.
One of the first team of fools who had thought that they would be no threat with their hands and feet locked fell to the ground.
His Nicolò had beautiful eyes, too—a gift to any artist, yes, for they changed under the sun and the moon, in fluorescence and in shadow, every time a colour so different he could spend his own not-inconsiderate lifetime painting them, and never capture their every colour—but a weapon also. A sniper’s gaze was not unlike a raptor’s. When Nicky stared at you, you saw every one of his nine hundred and fifty years concentrated.
The doors opened; the man propped against them tumbled out with a thud; and Nicky pulled away from Joe’s throat to stare down at their captors, smiling, not even attempting to feign surprise.
Joe felt his arousal grow at the unmitigated horror on all of their faces. He said, “You couldn’t have waited five minutes?”
One of the grunts fumbled his gun, and received a glare from their leader for it. Joe pressed the back of his palm into Nicky’s side, feeling for the subtle give there. Nicky turned to give him a quick fond grin—the difference was in the crow’s feet—before rising to his feet. “Come, Joe. We shouldn’t keep the gentlemen waiting.” He turned a scathing glance towards them as he was dragged from the van by one of the grunts, ignoring the gun pointed at him. Joe followed, ignoring the hand knuckling into the shirt at his back—he would pay for that later.
“Where are the gentlemen?” he asked, and Nicky chuckled. The leader of this little team—bodyguard? Gun for hire? Hitman?—looked very insulted about it all, but did not stop to check on his men on the off chance that one of them was alive. He was carrying only two guns, the line of his jacket unbroken by further weaponry, and Joe was willing to bet that he—like all of the fools who had been inside the van with them—wouldn’t even have considered carrying a knife. A poor choice; one should never underestimate their targets, immortal or not, and a spare knife or three never hurt. His and Nicky’s things, unfortunately, remained at the safehouse—an explosion in the middle of the night was a coward’s move, but it was efficient.
“I hope the deposit on the van wasn’t too high,” Nicky said, gesturing backward. One of the men twisted his grip on Nicky’s neck roughly, and Joe eyed him carefully. “You won’t be getting it back.”
“I don’t think it’ll matter to his employer,” Joe said, looking over at the private plane looming over them. It wouldn’t take a lot of money to buy a CIA agent, he supposed, but it couldn’t hurt. The name of their captor, presumably, was plastered across it, a neon sign with directions. There was something to be said about the pride and egotism of men with more money than intelligence.
“Take us to your leader,” he announced, looking Copley in the eye, then turned to grin at Nicky’s back. “I’ve always wanted to say that.” To his credit, the man did not squirm, watching them with worried eyes as they were shuffled onto the plane.
The inside was all luxury; leather seats, a large TV, accents in polished walnut. It was almost a pity.
He looked over at Nicky as he was shoved unceremoniously into a seat, which would have had greater effect if it was not unlike sinking into a cloud. The blood was beginning to dry on his face. Joe wanted to wipe it off, but he knew he would enjoy it later, when they were alone and ensconced in a private shower. He could book them a nice hotel, with the aesthetics of a turn of the (last) century mansion and the water pressure of a small geyser. There, he’d wash the red off him and leave kisses on all the skin revealed, luxuriate in the heat and scent of him, watch as the fire in his eyes turned to two points of light.
They waited, quiet, for the plane to lift off; it was easier that way, when those who had everything to lose in falling would be afraid. Nicky began to hum under his breath, ignoring their rather helpless guards as they threatened him further. At the front of the plane, Copley and the team leader—Keane—got into an argument that only got worse when they looked his way and Joe winked at them. Copley, for his part, was attempting to have a perfectly civil, if somewhat exasperated conversation, though Keane didn’t seem to have received the memo. The details disappeared somewhere between the beginning and end of phrases, as they remembered they were in the presence of their hostages.
“I told you, they aren’t—”
“The plan was for—”
“We won’t underestimate them again.” Joe looked over at Nicky, one eyebrow raised, and Nicky slowly began to twist his wrist within the bindings of his zip tie. His humming rose in volume, now growing further away from the serenade that it had begun as, and into the theme of an amusement park ride that had haunted Joe’s nightmares for the first month he had heard it. Many of his waking hours, too. Nicky grinned at him.
“Your methods haven’t been ideal. We hadn’t discussed the explosives,” Copley said.
“We use whatever methods we have to to—someone keep him quiet!" Keane snapped, finally.
Joe rose to his feet. “Or what?” he asked. The guard keeping an eye on him rose with him, pointing a gun towards him. Slower than they ought to be in their line of work, the others raised their weapons as well, though he could see the obvious hesitation in their eyes. What can they do on a plane, airborne?
They had been skydiving once, when it had newly emerged as an extreme sport for the mortal soul. There was something to be said about adrenaline; there was very little like the experience of flying past the world, Nicky at his side, the rush of air and the thrill of the fall. But it was not, all told, their preferred brand of adventure. Nothing could be more thrilling, after all, than watching the burn of heat in his lover’s eyes, than the pressure of his mouth or the blood-slick of his hands (strong and sure, scarred from wounds forgotten and unmarked by wounds remembered, cast with the imprint of Joe’s lips) along Joe’s side or legs or face.
Come it to that—here was to two highs in one night.
Nicky twisted his wrist one final time. The sound went unnoticed between his humming, between all the eyes in the room, pinned on—Joe. So much for not underestimating them twice.
Many things happened in the next moment. Nicky twisted his freshly healed hands from the zip ties, and grabbed the elbow of the man closest to him, firing through his arm two of those furthest away from him. Joe trapped the neck of the man closest to him, turning (too slowly) towards Nicky, in his own bound arms, and twisted. That man became a shield for Keane’s guns. It was almost a pity that he didn’t get a single hit in—nothing enraged Nicolò like the sight of Joe, hurt, and though it would not last, the blackening of fabric with blood was enough.
He shouldered the fourth thug, now out of bullets and with no knife to protect himself, into the plane wall, his head twisting back obscenely. Nicky grabbed the gun off another man he had dispatched, and tossed it in Joe’s direction. Joe shot a grunt attempting to attack Nicky with the butt of an expended pistol—he liked the innovation; he wouldn’t have expected it from men of his calibre.
When Joe turned around, Keane was being garrotted with Nicky’s snapped zip tie.
“I don’t suppose you have the keys for these anklets?” he asked. Keane’s eyes rolled back into his head in the second before he sprayed blood upon the beige seats. It would need a thorough reupholstering, at the very least. If he was—whoever it was that would inherit Merrick’s plane—he would probably have it taken apart. Joe glanced around the plane once, quickly. With the exception of Copley, who was kneeling by the ground, his own gun pointed at them but not firing, none remained to watch them—only the aftermath of their attempt at capture. Nicky’s bloody handiwork painted the interior red, a stark contrast to the robin’s egg of the Merrick logo stamped across the interior.
He turned around, closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead against Nicky’s. A rough exhale met him; Nicky’s hands came to rest upon his side, pressing ten claims forged in death to his shirt.
“I like this shirt,” Joe murmured, and Nicky laughed; the real thing, now, unpracticed, with no hint of threat, only the purest expression of joy. Joe pressed his thumb to the crow’s feet—then rushed to wipe away the blood that followed.
What he wouldn’t do for that laugh.
From the left, Copley made a noise, and found himself facing two barrels. He raised his hands, slowly. “Please,” he said. “Think of all the good that you can do. I understand how this looks, but once you see what Merrick can do, what you—all of you—could give to humanity… You could end disease. End suffering.”
End suffering.
Andromache and Sébastien had brought back a small sheaf of papers with the information about the girls they had intended to rescue in South Sudan. It was not difficult information to fake; the school, after all, had been there, and the presence of heat signatures on a scope did not require real hostages, only warm bodies. It was precisely the sort of mission Andy and Booker took, and someone who had worked with them before would know that.
But he and Nicky? They had been there on a personal favour. To help Andy, Booker had said. She wasn’t doing well.
Nicky kept his gun pointed at Copley; Joe raised an eyebrow and dropped his. “Do you have a phone?” he asked.
Copley fumbled in his pocket. He was a lucky man, all considered. Nicky, unlike their hosts, was not trigger-happy; a sniper, an archer, a raptor, could never afford to be. He kept his weapon trained steadily on Copley as Copley handed him a small burner phone. Joe dialled Andy’s number from memory.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Andy?” he asked. Her exhale came low and relieved, and he could almost see it, the greatest of the tension leaving her shoulders. At least she had picked up; he didn’t know quite what he and Nicky would have done if she and Nile had been captured already.
“Joe,” she said, voice tight with emotion, bubbling from her like breath underwater. Joe swore, privately, to see her more often. “What happened? Where are you and Nicky?”
“We’re fine,” he said. “You three?”
“The mine. Booker’s trying to track whoever took you.”
Joe whistled, and thought of an explosion, injuring only one of three men in a room enough to leave him for dead. “Don’t bother.”
“Where’s Copley?” she asked.
Joe looked over at the man. “Copley’s dead.” It would be true soon enough. The man’s eyes widened in panic, but he did not attempt to shoot them in some misguided attempt to get out alive. Smart man. “Or he will be. Come to—where’s this plane going, anyway?” he asked Copley.
He cleared his throat. “England. Surrey.”
“Come to Surrey,” he said into the phone. “I’ll text you the address later. And Andy—” he paused. The worst part, perhaps, was that Booker had been correct; she wasn’t doing well. It was a shame that his intentions had not been to help; or perhaps, not to help in any way that mattered. He was not alone in this; Joe had hurt her, too. The blood dripped from Joe’s hands, and he bit his tongue before he spoke, but said, “Don’t tell Booker.”
They were, the two of them, much more effective and thorough captors. After leaving Copley, sedated with the contents of needles presumably intended for the two of them, helpfully stripped of his phone, weapons, and tied up for good measure, they decided to explore his house.
His living room was a nightmare made real; a selective spotlight on history cast by a man desperate to feel its light turned upon him, a mutilation after the theme and trend of textbooks across the world, a statistical misreading of correlation and causation. Andy might like it, to see the effect of her life on others—she always had carried the weight of the world on her shoulders—Joe did not. He tore the prints of photographs of him and Nicky as he went, and made a mental note to tell Nicky to dump Copley’s hard drives in some acid before they were done with this sodden island for good.
His wardrobe was stylish, yet tasteful—a little bland for Joe, but beggars could only afford to be choosers when they had a multitude of houses to rob. His water pressure was excellent.
The glass was cool against his back as Nicky pressed him into the shower wall. The world reduced, like this, to the steam filling the air, and Nicky’s aqueous eyes pinning him in place. He was deluged, awash, and struggling to hold onto the only sign of land in the breadth of Nicky’s shoulders. Blood scraped from Nicky’s neck, painting the floor red as they kissed. Here, Nicky’s heated mouth played distraction, dragging his attention away from the world without and into their own misty ecosystem as only he could.
His teeth captured the soft flesh of Joe’s lower lip, and tugged, breaking skin.
As the tang of iron met him, Nicky pulled away, sliding a hand to Joe’s face to slip his thumb into the corner of his mouth. Joe felt the cut heal in Nicky’s fervent recapture, in the iron and salt in their kiss, in the desperate groping for his side. He could feel the impact from hours ago still: ten perfect circles pressed into his side, tattooed upon his skin, as immortal as he was.
Wounds did not last, not on their bodies. Blood was viscous and skin porous; water alone was never enough to wash red from it, but Joe did his best. With time, even that faded. But this was what lasted: the sense-memory of touch, of Nicky’s touch. scathing gentle and feather sharp, the edge of his smiles and the yield of his knives.
Joe pulled himself from the wall and turned them, grinning at Nicky as his back met the wall. Nicky bared his neck, turning his head upward, and Joe mouthed at the prominence, feeling Nicky’s rough exhale more than hearing it when he bit down. He scraped the blunt of his fingernails against the side, feeling the give of dried and dead vitality. Joe mouthed at every inch of cleared skin, rubbing as he went so he would taste only Nicky, only the sweat of his skin. He didn’t object—quite the opposite—to feeling his lover’s handiwork, but today he wanted him, uninterrupted, unimpeded, alive.
“Joe,” Nicky murmured after a moment, and Joe raised his head. Nicky smirked. “Do you think Copley has lube?”
Joe snorted into his neck. “Do you want to wake him up and ask him?”
Nicky’s fingertips glided around his stomach, tickling. “Maybe you should go look.”
“You have the worst sense of timing, Nicky,” Joe said, sliding to his knees and wrapping his hands around Nicky’s thighs, peppering kisses along his stomach as he went. “But I can go look, if you really want.” Nicky grinned and let his head fall back against the wall.
“Perhaps later,” he said. Joe rolled his eyes, and bit at the yielding skin of his inner thigh. Nicky let out a low groan, the sound curling through the air and winding around Joe’s cock, stroking it alive. Joe spread his knees further upon the hard ground, felt the tug of his own arousal press against his belly, and took Nicky into his mouth.
Nicky grasped the back of Joe’s neck, tightening his grip almost to the point of pain. Joe slid his slick mouth around the length of him, hands digging into the backs of his thighs. Nicky, cruel as he was wonderful, began to hum. Joe pulled away from his cock to gasp—
“You’re killing me, Nico.”
Nicky’s smile came broad and fond, and when his fingers dug into Joe’s trapezius, Joe went where he led, saturated with love—but, more importantly for the moment, lust. It was a pity that Joe had left their guns outside the shower cubicle. To open it now and let the steam escape would break the cocoon. Next time, he decided; he only had to remember before Nicky sent him reeling past thought or consciousness.
Joe bit the inside of his thigh again, grinning as Nicky pinched his ear, before swallowing him once more. This time, Nicky leaned his head back—from this angle he was glorious, stretched above him, an angel of destruction. Every plane of him was a sword, and every day he cleaved Joe in two.
Joe kept going until he choked, and then he went deeper.
Nicky groaned, low but loud, and said, “You should have seen yourself today, Joe.” His words came punctuated with low groans as Joe worked around him. “You were beautiful. I could watch you like that forever. When you took out that idiot in the van—I don’t know how he did not collapse under the weight of your words first.” Nicky laughed, a sound corrugated from the angle of his neck, and all the better for it. “If it weren’t for the others coming there, I would have taken you there in the van.”
The words went straight to Joe’s cock. He shuffled, pulling his mouth from Nicky for a moment to recover his breath. “I wanted you to. Fuck, Nicky, you were incredible today. I wanted to draw you in the plane—with the blood on your face, your smile, your hands…”
Nicky groaned his name and dragged him to his feet. Joe dug his fingers into the cleft of Nicky’s perfect ass as Nicky took them both in hand. He could not last, not after the building tension of the evening, not after Nicky had sounded like that just now. Nicky called him the poet, but Joe always, always melted in the face of his prose. Joe pressed his forehead into Nicky’s shoulder, submerged, with Nicky’s arm pressed warm around his back, and Nicky’s hand on him, and Nicky’s breath hot against his neck. His legs shook, but his lover was built of the steadiness of mountains, and held him, unerring, as they came—together, as in all things.
Maybe he was an incurable romantic.
Nicky pressed a kiss to his shoulder. Joe opened his eyes to blink at him, glazed. He smiled—this, private, intimate, and impossible to read for any that did not know him. “You are the only light I have ever found in the world,” he said, serious. Joe kissed him, warm and easy, before pulling away. The floor was doused in red and white.
He leaned back to turn the water back on; he hadn’t even realised when Nicky turned it off. Copley’s soap smelled like coconuts, which was something Joe didn’t want to know about the man—but it wasn’t anything to complain about. Nicky lathered the soap onto him, rubbing his arms down, and Joe took his own turn with their torsos, until both were scraped clean of any possible remnants of gore.
“Hey Nicky?” he asked, as they began to rinse. Nicky hummed in response, distracted now. Joe grinned. “There is just one moon and one golden sun—”